The Ben Shapiro Show - Diddy ACQUITTED On Major Charges…PLUS Will The Big Beautiful Bill Pass?!

00:00:00.000 Alrighty, folks, tons coming up on today's show.

00:00:02.000 The Big Beautiful Bill.

00:00:03.000 What exactly is going on?

00:00:04.000 Did he?

00:00:05.000 Is he going to jail?

00:00:06.000 And for how long?

00:00:07.000 And why?

00:00:08.000 Plus, we'll get to the latest on foreign policy, the latest immigration, and the Democratic Party falling apart first.

00:00:13.000 We have so much to catch you up on today.

00:00:15.000 Let's start with this.

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00:01:21.000 Alrighty, folks, the big news of the day is that Sean Diddy Combs was acquitted on many of the major charges in his trial.

00:01:28.000 And this is, of course, a very large story.

00:01:31.000 So there are a number of charges that have been put up against Sean Diddy Combs.

00:01:34.000 There was count one, racketeering, conspiracy, a RICO charge.

00:01:38.000 He was found not guilty on that charge.

00:01:40.000 I'll explain the charges and why in a moment.

00:01:42.000 Count two, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

00:01:46.000 This had to do with Cassie Ventura, his former girlfriend.

00:01:48.000 Not guilty.

00:01:49.000 Count three, Cassie Ventura, transportation to engage in prostitution. 1.00

00:01:53.000 Guilty.

00:01:54.000 This was him trafficking prostitutes across state lines, paying for them to be brought across the state lines in violation of the Man Act, for example.

00:02:00.000 Count four, sex trafficking by force, coercion, or fraud.

00:02:05.000 Not guilty.

00:02:06.000 This had to do with an anonymous alleged victim named Jane.

00:02:09.000 And count five, transportation to engage in prostitution, guilty.

00:02:12.000 So basically, the charges upon which he was found guilty all had to do with transportation to engage in prostitution.

00:02:18.000 And those he was pretty much dead to rights because the reality is that there were people who were stated prostitutes who were transported to him for pay for use in his so-called freak offs.

00:02:29.000 The other charges fell apart.

00:02:31.000 And this was one of my questions that I had for a while on this trial.

00:02:34.000 I've talked to Megan Kelly about it, of course, was how exactly do you prove racketeering conspiracy, which requires a criminal conspiracy, meaning a conspiracy to do criminal act, when the alleged victim is a girlfriend who continued to come back and send you messages about how excited she was to participate in activities like this one?

00:02:56.000 How can you claim sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion with regard to Cassie Ventura when, again, she was his 10-year girlfriend?

00:03:02.000 It makes it extremely difficult for a jury to come to the conclusion that beyond a reasonable doubt, he was guilty of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion with regard to Cassie Ventura or this other anonymous woman, Jane.

00:03:14.000 Again, they had apparently some communications suggesting that all of it was consensual, or at least part of it was consensual.

00:03:21.000 And video of him beating up Cassie Ventura in a hallway.

00:03:24.000 Well, that may be a case for state assault and battery, but that isn't necessarily a case for sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

00:03:32.000 So bottom line is that all the charges originally against Sean Ziddey Combs would have added up to life in prison.

00:03:39.000 So again, when it comes to the sentencing, transportation to engage in prostitution carries up to 10 years.

00:03:44.000 However, however, the likelihood is that he will serve certainly less than two years in prison.

00:03:51.000 The jury's liberated 13 hours across three days.

00:03:54.000 There were eight men and four women on the jury.

00:03:56.000 The age range was 30 to 74, racially diverse, many jurors of color, as they say.

00:04:02.000 On July 2nd, the jury returned for less than an hour before reaching a verdict on the RICO count.

00:04:07.000 So again, when it comes to RICO, RICO, of course, the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organization Act, which was designed to go after the mafia, in order to actually establish that RICO has been violated, you don't just have to show that people are combining to do a thing.

00:04:20.000 You have to show that they have a criminal conspiracy, meaning a conspiracy that is deliberately organized in order to do criminal acts.

00:04:28.000 And so the evidence on this particular charge that was brought by the prosecution is that his business empire, Sean Diddy Combs, security, personal assistants, supervisors functioned as a sort of criminal enterprise, not a business enterprise in which certain people may have engaged in criminal acts.

00:04:43.000 The whole thing was set up in order to do crime.

00:04:46.000 The Predicate Act, the criminal acts supporting RICO, include allegations that the Combs Enterprise carried out, facilitated, and covered up sex trafficking, forced labor, transportation for prostitution, narcotics distribution, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.

00:05:01.000 Now, the case against that is that there was no actual criminal enterprise, that Combs acted independently, that all his expenses were personal, that the Combs enterprise was in fact a business enterprise, and that on a one-off basis, he would go to various people around him and ask them to do a criminal thing.

00:05:17.000 And they may not have fully known what those criminal things were, or he may have known, and they may not have known, or whatever.

00:05:22.000 But bottom line is the jury found there wasn't enough evidence there.

00:05:25.000 As far as sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, Cassie Ventura testified. 0.99

00:05:32.000 His anonymous woman Jane also testified.

00:05:34.000 And they had text messages with Combs about participation in freak offs.

00:05:38.000 And they suggested they had done all of this due to fear of violent retaliation, shared opiate dependency, and financial retaliation.

00:05:45.000 And there are 30 witnesses who testified to Combs' abuse of his business empire to facilitate and conceal coercive sexual acts and testified to seeing Combs physically abuse Cassie Ventura.

00:05:55.000 The defense says, well, hold up a second.

00:05:58.000 They say that the witnesses and victims may have been motivated by money because Cassie Ventura receives a $20 million settlement here.

00:06:06.000 So maybe she stayed in because she wanted the settlement money, for example. 0.68

00:06:11.000 They also claim that one of the more spectacular claims is that Kid Cuddy's vehicle was blown up by allies of Sean Ziddee Combs or by Combs himself.

00:06:19.000 And the defense claimed that those arson kidnapping charges cannot be linked to Combs.

00:06:26.000 And that the reason that he paid off hotel staff to get rid of a variety of tapes Was to avoid bad publicity, not to obstruct justice.

00:06:34.000 And one of the claims the defense made was: if Combs have criminal co-conspirators, if this is in fact a racketeering conspiracy, where is the rest of the conspiracy?

00:06:42.000 Why wasn't anybody else prosecuted?

00:06:45.000 These were the charges.

00:06:47.000 And this is why the jury came to the conclusion that it did.

00:06:51.000 Now, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clinton, and the special agent in charge of the New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations, Ricky Patel, put out a statement, quote, sex crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing reality is that sex crimes are all too present in many aspects of our society.

00:07:05.000 Victims endure gut-wrenching physical and mental abuse, leading to lasting trauma.

00:07:08.000 New Yorkers and all Americans want the scourge stopped and perpetrators brought to justice.

00:07:12.000 Prosecuting sex crimes requires brave victims to come forward and tell their harrowing stories.

00:07:16.000 We and our law enforcement partners recognize the hardships victims endure and have prioritized a victim-centered approach to investigating and prosecuting these cases.

00:07:24.000 And then they say thank you to everybody at NYPD, as well as to the witnesses and everybody else.

00:07:28.000 Cassie Vincenter's attorney Doug Wigdore also spoke to the press.

00:07:32.000 He said, we're happy he's been held responsible.

00:07:34.000 Obviously, they're not that happy considering that, again, he may do no jail time at all when all is said and done.

00:07:39.000 We would have liked to have seen a conviction on the sex crimes in Rico counts.

00:07:45.000 But we're pleased that he's been held responsible for something, which is something that hasn't happened in his lifetime.

00:07:51.000 And, you know, we're hopeful that ultimately he receives a substantial sentence for what he's done.

00:07:57.000 We're pleased that Cassie's brought to light everything that has happened in this trial.

00:08:03.000 I just spoke with her and with the U.S. Attorney's Office team.

00:08:08.000 And she's in a good place.

00:08:11.000 She's pleased that, again, that the jury has found him liable, or guilty of two federal crimes.

00:08:18.000 Now, again, the case that was made by Diddy, as well as his team, his legal team, is that the women consented to these encounters and that the feds criminalized his lifestyle and he was guilty of domestic abuse, right?

00:08:30.000 He admits that, but not the sex crimes with which he was charged.

00:08:33.000 Combs' lead attorney, Mark Agnafilo, said in his closing statement, he did what he did, but he's going to fight to the death to defend himself from what he didn't do.

00:08:42.000 CNN's Eli Hoenig, he came out, he said, listen, Cassie Ventura, basically this came down to the jury did not see Cassie Ventura as a victim.

00:08:48.000 They saw her as a person who was willfully involved with Sean Diddy Combs for a decade.

00:08:54.000 Sex trafficking of Cassie Ventura, not guilty.

00:08:56.000 Not guilty sex trafficking of Cassidy Ventura.

00:08:58.000 So that is obviously an enormous win for the defense.

00:09:02.000 It means the jury did not credit Cassie Ventura's testimony.

00:09:06.000 That's a huge blow to the prosecution.

00:09:09.000 And that, of course, is exactly right.

00:09:12.000 Meanwhile, ABC News analyst Bernarda Villalona, she similarly pointed out this is a slap in the face to the alleged victims.

00:09:21.000 For the victims, I think this is a slap in the face for the victims.

00:09:24.000 I think this is going to deter victims from coming forward and telling their story and being the voice for the voiceless in the sense of representing other victims that are not willing to come forward.

00:09:35.000 I know that for a fact.

00:09:36.000 I'm sure that the prosecution right now is very upset with this verdict because they definitely put a lot of time into this prosecution, into this investigation.

00:09:45.000 And they also did a lot of comforting of try to give strength to these women, to Jane and to Cassie, to come forward, to show their face, to share their story.

00:09:55.000 Now, again, this is the way it's going to be interpreted by some in the press.

00:09:59.000 He said this is a slap in the face to all women and all victims.

00:10:02.000 But one of the major issues in the case is whether if you are in a relationship for 10 years with somebody, it is going to be easy to establish that that person was an abuser.

00:10:11.000 Even if they abused you, if you stayed in, it makes it very difficult legally to make claims against that person.

00:10:17.000 That's just the reality of the world.

00:10:18.000 It's just the reality of the world, particularly in the post-MeToo era.

00:10:21.000 During the MeToo era, you could claim that you just had a bad feeling after having an encounter with a man and everybody would rush to your defense.

00:10:27.000 In the post-MeToo era, people want to know that if you get the bleep kicked out of you in a hallway, for example, that you go to the cops because otherwise they're going to assume that you are consenting not to that act, but to the relationship in general.

00:10:42.000 And that's particularly true if there are texts suggesting that you're eager to engage in some of the activities in which you have engaged.

00:10:49.000 And beyond a reasonable doubt is a criminal standard.

00:10:51.000 I'm not sure that the jury got it wrong here.

00:10:52.000 I know there are a lot of people out here who are suggesting that the jury got this totally wrong.

00:10:55.000 It seemed to me, you know, in my sort of familiarity with the case, as it grew over time through Diddy Watch and other sort of coverage of the case, that the prosecution was overreaching, that the prosecution was trying to make a case against Diddy that the evidence didn't quite sustain.

00:11:11.000 Now, there are some people who are trying to make this into a racial issue.

00:11:13.000 That includes MSNBC legal commentator Lisa Rubin.

00:11:16.000 She says, well, one of the problems is that the prosecutors here were white women, and there were a bunch of people on the jury who were not white. 0.60

00:11:22.000 Well, and also there are some racial dynamics here, Ana, that were at play.

00:11:25.000 And I think both the gender and the racial dynamics are worth talking about.

00:11:29.000 Earlier this spring, I went to cover an unrelated event down near the federal courthouses, and I was there on May 1st when I saw all six of the prosecutors on this team walk from their office, which is now at the Court of International Trade, to the courtroom itself.

00:11:46.000 And they filed in a single file line, and they are all white women to a person, six of them, and they almost look like lawyer Barbies proceeding as they were walking to the court.

00:11:57.000 It's not lost on me that particularly given who the defendant was and in a jury that not only was mixed by gender, but had from my count, at least seven people of color on it, that that dynamic may not have gone over particularly well with them.

00:12:15.000 Okay, but you know, the alleged victims in this case, I mean, Cassie Ventura is not a white person.

00:12:21.000 Cassie Ventura's mom is of African descent and her dad is Filipino.

00:12:25.000 So again, it shouldn't have to do with the prosecutors in this particular case.

00:12:28.000 Trying to turn this into a sort of weird jury nullification on the basis of race case is definitely strange.

00:12:34.000 What this does go to is that we now live in a time where people are very skeptical of claims being made about sexual abuse in which some of the claimed victims, again, are engaged in long-term relationships with the alleged perpetrators in these particular cases.

00:12:52.000 So again, a bit of a shocking result here.

00:12:55.000 But just to sum up, I'm not sure the jury got this one wrong.

00:12:59.000 I really am not. 0.99

00:13:00.000 I think that by all available evidence, Sean C. D. Combs is an absolute piece of human trash. 0.99

00:13:05.000 But that was true when he was just engaging in consensual freak offs. 0.94

00:13:08.000 And one of the big problems that we have in our country and in our civilization as a whole is that when you use consent as the only standard for morality or even legality, when that is the only standard, you are going to end up with some of the most disreputable people being quote unquote innocent.

00:13:23.000 You will end up with the biggest people in Hollywood hobnobbing with Diddy at these freak offs and everybody looking the other way.

00:13:29.000 And it's going to be hard to sort of backfill the rage that society feels at these sorts of activities through the criminal law.

00:13:37.000 The criminal law probably was not the solution here.

00:13:39.000 Societal ostracization was the solution long ago.

00:13:43.000 The criminal law is the solution when he's beating the hell out of Cass Ventur in a hallway.

00:13:46.000 The criminal law may be a solution when he is trafficking in prostitutes.

00:13:49.000 Although increasingly, the left is very much in favor of sex workers.

00:13:52.000 So I'm not sure even what the left would say about all of this.

00:13:56.000 But bottom line is that a society in which the only value is consent is going to end up in some pretty dark places.

00:14:03.000 And the criminal law cannot fill in for a society that lacks all morality.

00:14:07.000 Okay, we'll get to the latest on the big beautiful bill in a moment.

00:14:10.000 First, it's pretty ironic when you think about it.

00:14:11.000 Millions of military members have fought for our freedom, but we lose more of our privacy every day.

00:14:15.000 Our phones are listening.

00:14:16.000 Tech companies are tracking everything we do online.

00:14:18.000 It's all completely legal.

00:14:19.000 Fighting for freedom isn't just the military's job anymore.

00:14:22.000 We need to do our part as well.

00:14:23.000 That's why I use ExpressVPN.

00:14:25.000 It's basically like a shield for your internet activity.

00:14:27.000 Everything gets sent through encrypted servers so nobody can see what you're doing online.

00:14:30.000 Not your internet provider, not data brokers, not government agencies.

00:14:33.000 And here's what really impressed me.

00:14:35.000 Last year, ExpressVPN got over 400,000 requests for customer data from tech companies and government agencies.

00:14:40.000 You know how many times they actually handed over that data?

00:14:42.000 Zero, because they actually can't, because they don't have the data because of their zero logs policy.

00:14:47.000 The best part, it's stupidly easy to use.

00:14:49.000 Just one click and you're protected. 0.50

00:14:50.000 Works on everything too.

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00:14:58.000 I'm traveling right now.

00:14:58.000 That means ExpressVPN.

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00:15:15.000 Also, my work schedule has been incredibly busy as of late, as you know, especially because of the extended show.

00:15:20.000 I still need to make sure I'm maintaining my health, hitting the gym, spending time with family, even with the crazy schedule.

00:15:26.000 I've learned pretty quickly peak performance requires peak nutrition, not just caffeine.

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00:16:13.000 Okay, meanwhile, negotiations continue over the so-called big, beautiful bill.

00:16:16.000 The Senate bill is very different from the House bill.

00:16:20.000 According to Axios, Majority Leader John Thune pressed Senate Republicans over the last 48 hours to go big or go home on that big, beautiful bill.

00:16:27.000 But over the next 24 hours, he'll learn if he broke the House's spirit in the process.

00:16:31.000 The Senate's spending cuts are deeper.

00:16:32.000 The tax cuts are longer.

00:16:34.000 The debt ceiling is steeper.

00:16:35.000 Thune lost three of his own members on the way to that 51-50 win.

00:16:38.000 That, of course, was a tie that had to be broken by the Vice President J.D. Vance.

00:16:43.000 And according to Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, he left House Speaker Mike Johnson with a non-starter.

00:16:48.000 Now, again, there will be negotiations between the House and the Senate.

00:16:51.000 The version that will be eventually passed in the House, and I believe it will be passed, is not going to be the same as the version that was passed by the Senate.

00:16:57.000 There will be further negotiations that take place.

00:17:00.000 And again, reconciliation bills always turn into, as Axios points out, a power struggle between the House and the Senate.

00:17:07.000 But if the current Senate bill prevails, Thune will end up winning on three much more consequential issues, baseline policy, permanence for business tax cuts, and the scope of entitlement reform.

00:17:18.000 According to Axios, for months, Thune and Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo of Idaho insisted the Senate parliamentarians should use baseline policy to determine how much tax proposals will cost.

00:17:28.000 That would have implications for future Congresses.

00:17:31.000 Now, again, that would be a good thing because using baseline policies means, for example, that instead of assuming that a policy is going to sunset and then if a tax cut remains, right, nothing changes, then we count that as a deficit increaser.

00:17:47.000 Instead, we basically just look at the rate of taxes now and we say, okay, if that's continued out into the future, then that doesn't increase the deficit.

00:17:53.000 That's just what it is.

00:17:54.000 The law is what the law is.

00:17:57.000 Senate Republicans are convinced this will spur the kind of investment the economy will need to achieve 3% growth.

00:18:04.000 The trickiest part of the Senate debate was lowering the threshold for the Medicare provider tax.

00:18:08.000 He said, this is the first time we've done anything meaningful on entitlement reform.

00:18:12.000 Democrats, of course, are freaking out about all of this.

00:18:15.000 President Trump, for his part, is intervening.

00:18:19.000 He is urging House Republicans to get behind the bill.

00:18:21.000 He put out a statement earlier yesterday saying, quote, almost all of our great Republicans in the United States Senate have passed our one big, beautiful bill.

00:18:28.000 It is no longer a House bill or a Senate bill.

00:18:29.000 It is everyone's bill.

00:18:30.000 There is so much to be proud of, and everyone got a major policy win.

00:18:33.000 But the biggest winner of them all will be the American people who have permanently lower taxes, higher wages, take-home pay, secure borders, and a stronger and more powerful military.

00:18:41.000 Additionally, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security benefits are not being cut.

00:18:44.000 They are being strengthened and protected from radical and destructive Democrats by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse from those programs.

00:18:50.000 So the president of the United States spent all of yesterday basically lobbying various members of the House to get on board.

00:18:57.000 Trump said in this statement on Truth Social, we can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP Unites ignores its occasional grand standards, you know who you are, and does the right thing, which is sending the bill to my desk.

00:19:07.000 We are on schedule.

00:19:08.000 Let's keep it going and be done before you and your family go on July 4th vacation.

00:19:12.000 The American people need and deserve it.

00:19:13.000 They sent us here to get it done.

00:19:16.000 And then he says the country is going to explode with massive growth, even more than it already has since I was reelected.

00:19:21.000 And of course, he is not wrong that the country does need a shot in the arm.

00:19:26.000 According to a new report out of payroll processing from ADP as Of Wednesday, private payrolls actually lost 33,000 jobs in June.

00:19:35.000 Economists had expected an increase of 100,000 private payroll jobs for the month.

00:19:39.000 And the May job growth figure was revised to 29,000 from 37,000.

00:19:45.000 So, again, there are concerns about the rate of hiring.

00:19:50.000 People are sort of holding their money back, waiting to see what's going to happen.

00:19:53.000 And of course, there's still a weight on with regard to Jerome Powell and whether he's going to lower those interest rates and provide some liquidity in the economy.

00:20:00.000 The question is whether House Republicans are somehow going to sink the mega bill.

00:20:05.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, some House Republicans are already lining up to oppose President Trump's big, beautiful bill.

00:20:10.000 The number of House Republicans vowing to oppose the Senate version is enough to block the bill's passage, but past standoffs have been resolved after successful pressure campaigns by the president and party leaders.

00:20:19.000 Given the Republicans 220 to 212 majority, the bill would fail if more than three House Republicans joined House Democrats in opposing it.

00:20:28.000 So it's a very slim margin.

00:20:30.000 It is worth noting here that slim margins sometimes make it easier to get bills passed.

00:20:33.000 Why?

00:20:34.000 Because then every single person who falls off the bill is on the firing line and they know it.

00:20:38.000 If Republicans had a 15-vote majority, then it might be easier to get together a block to vote against the bill.

00:20:44.000 And then there's sort of safety in numbers.

00:20:45.000 But if there's only three or four people who drop off, every one of those people is going to be on the chopping block for President Trump and for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

00:20:55.000 Representative Ralph Norman, member of the House Freedom Caucus, voted early Wednesday morning against moving the president's tax bill out of the House Rules Committee.

00:21:01.000 He was joined by Representative Chip Roy of Texas.

00:21:04.000 The panel debated and then narrowly advanced the bill to the House floor.

00:21:08.000 Norman said, our bill has been completely changed from IRA credits to the deficit.

00:21:11.000 The bill is a non-starter.

00:21:13.000 We want to do this.

00:21:13.000 The bill doesn't do what the president wants it to do.

00:21:17.000 Now, again, I think that Speaker Johnson has done a fabulous job thus far of working with an incredibly fractious Congress.

00:21:24.000 I have faith that he's going to get this thing rammed through.

00:21:29.000 And there's a lot of negotiation that was taking place.

00:21:33.000 Animated conversations between the House Budget Chair, Jody Arrington, and Speaker Mike Johnson.

00:21:37.000 Animated conversations between the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris, and a bunch of other Freedom Caucus members.

00:21:44.000 A lot of talk going on right now.

00:21:48.000 And President Trump is weighing in.

00:21:50.000 Multiple groups of House Republicans were ushered to the White House to speak with President Trump.

00:21:55.000 Some of the supposed holdouts, like Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who announced his retirement already, said, in the end, it's hard to vote against making tax cuts permanent and fixing defense.

00:22:04.000 Then some members of the House Freedom Caucus.

00:22:07.000 Then you have a few like the perennial no, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, who basically exists just to say no to things and hate Israel.

00:22:14.000 Those are his big things.

00:22:17.000 There are a few.

00:22:19.000 Will there be enough steam to actually stop the bill?

00:22:21.000 In the end, I doubt it.

00:22:22.000 Because as the Wall Street Journal points out in a piece titled The ME tax bill that has to pass, the bill's best news is the economic certainty it will provide to businesses.

00:22:32.000 Although largely extending the tax cut status quo, the bill could boost growth at the margin by giving businesses confidence they need to make long-term investments.

00:22:39.000 The bill also ends the Inflation Reduction Act's tax credits for wind and solar projects that begin construction later than a year from now and eliminates EV credits.

00:22:48.000 In return, Republicans from windy Great Plains states extracted a two-year extension of the IRA's biofuels tax credit.

00:22:54.000 That's the Hawkeye heist, as they call it.

00:22:56.000 They're saying basically there are a few groups of people who are getting giveaways here.

00:23:00.000 There's some bad things in the bill.

00:23:01.000 There's some good things in the bill.

00:23:03.000 The bottom line is it needs to pass.

00:23:05.000 That is a point made by Speaker Mike Johnson.

00:23:07.000 Here he was yesterday.

00:23:09.000 85 to 90 percent of this bill is the House generated product.

00:23:13.000 The Senate made some modifications to it.

00:23:15.000 They made it more conservative in some places and moderated it a little bit in others.

00:23:20.000 But I tell you what, as the President said so well today, this is no longer just a House bill.

00:23:24.000 It's not a Senate bill.

00:23:25.000 It's the bill of the people, of the hardworking American people.

00:23:28.000 And we are going to deliver it, as you said, Sean, by July 4th.

00:23:31.000 It is so critically important.

00:23:33.000 Remember, we got a clear mandate from the people in November to do this.

00:23:36.000 President Trump ran on a clear set of priorities and promises, and we did as well.

00:23:41.000 And this is the vehicle to deliver it.

00:23:43.000 We're almost there at that finish line.

00:23:45.000 Okay.

00:23:46.000 And again, it appears to me that the bill will, in fact, pass.

00:23:49.000 Some of the holdouts, like Representative Chip Roy, listen, I really like Chip.

00:23:52.000 I think Chip is an excellent Congressperson.

00:23:54.000 My guess is that he is using what leverage he has to make the bill better on the margins.

00:23:57.000 I mean, that's what this is going to come down to.

00:23:59.000 Here's Representative Chip Roy talking about Republican credits of the big, beautiful bill in the House.

00:24:07.000 This is where the crux of the problem is.

00:24:10.000 There are those of us in the House that are reviewing the bill after it came through the Senate, and we believe it falls short.

00:24:16.000 We believe that it will create too much spending, and that is too much in the way of deficits over the next four or five years in particular, with backloaded savings and more deficits up front.

00:24:28.000 We believe that it gutted our changes to the Green New Scam subsidies such that there won't be an effective termination of the Green New Scam.

00:24:38.000 We believe that it continues to allow, for example, illegals to be able to get Medicaid.

00:24:44.000 Now, again, he's right about all of those things.

00:24:47.000 The question is going to be how many Republicans oppose and for how long and what they get in return.

00:24:52.000 Because remember, this thing has to go back to the Senate and then it has to earn for a second time the vote of Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. 1.00

00:24:58.000 Meanwhile, Democrats are going nuts over this thing, particularly Elizabeth Warren.

00:25:01.000 She says the bill is morally bad.

00:25:03.000 Why?

00:25:03.000 Well, because the bill does a few things that she doesn't like.

00:25:06.000 One, it puts work requirements on Medicaid and food stamps.

00:25:09.000 And two, it actually shifts some of the costs from the federal government back to the state level.

00:25:13.000 And she doesn't like any of those things.

00:25:14.000 She wants the federal government to pay for everything. 1.00

00:25:17.000 That's because she believes in modern monetary theory and the basic idea that essentially the federal government should just endlessly deficit spend forever and it will have no consequences.

00:25:25.000 Here's the senator from Massachusetts.

00:25:28.000 Leaving the Senate now, at the end of the vote, when the Republicans won, they cheered.

00:25:35.000 They cheered over taking away health care from around 17 million people.

00:25:42.000 They cheered over giving huge tax breaks to a handful of billionaires.

00:25:48.000 They cheered over running up the national debt by another $3.5 trillion.

00:25:53.000 You know, this bill, it's bad.

00:25:56.000 It's bad economically.

00:25:58.000 It's bad morally.

00:26:01.000 This bill is just wrong.

00:26:03.000 Okay, well, whether she believes the bill is wrong or not, if taxes go up, it will be a death knell for the Republican Party come 2026.

00:26:12.000 Now, there is another point to be made here, and that is that, yeah, we're not solving our deficit problem.

00:26:16.000 Like, we are not.

00:26:17.000 And you can see what's going to happen to the United States down the line because no one takes this problem seriously.

00:26:22.000 Most Republicans don't.

00:26:23.000 Most Democrats don't.

00:26:24.000 The American people certainly do not.

00:26:26.000 And all you have to do is take a look across the pond over at Great Britain.

00:26:30.000 So there's a shocking and fraught moment that happened in Great Britain yesterday when investors, according to the Wall Street Journal, sold off British government bonds and the pound fell sharply on Wednesday after the Labor government abandoned plans to cut ballooning welfare costs and the country's chancellor of the exchequer was seen crying in parliament.

00:26:46.000 The sell-off came hours after the government of Prime Minister Kier Starmer shelved a plan to cut disability payments following a rebellion by Labor's own lawmakers.

00:26:54.000 The U-turn raised the prospect of the government hiking taxes or issuing even more debt to fund its welfare system.

00:26:59.000 It also cast doubt over the future of Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor, who took the job just over a year ago, promising a return to economic stability by sticking to strict spending rules.

00:27:08.000 The pound sank in value.

00:27:09.000 It lost more than 1% trading at $1.36.

00:27:11.000 UK government bonds also tumbled in price.

00:27:14.000 Markets have latched on to the idea that Reeves' departure might be much more imminent, said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer for fixed income at RBC, Blue Bay Asset Management.

00:27:22.000 That is unsettling to investors in terms of what that means of the Labor government's commitment to the fiscal framework.

00:27:27.000 And of course, Labor didn't have any commitment to the fiscal framework.

00:27:30.000 Of course, they didn't.

00:27:31.000 It's a far left-wing party.

00:27:32.000 They were never going to be fiscally responsible.

00:27:35.000 And this is just demonstrative of a crisis that is going to face every Western government, including the government of the United States, eventually.

00:27:42.000 As the Wall Street Journal points out, the government's climb down points to a broader truth for governments across Western Europe, but it's also for the United States, where weak economic growth means countries are struggling to raise enough revenue to pay for rising costs from an aging population.

00:27:53.000 With voters largely wary of spending cuts, that leaves higher taxes, which could hurt growth further as the most likely outcome.

00:28:00.000 Britain is already on course to register the highest tax burden since World War II, thanks to big spending during the pandemic and paying out for energy subsidies after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

00:28:09.000 Its growth prospects remain meager.

00:28:12.000 Now, if you looked into the future for the United States, this sort of thing could happen here too.

00:28:15.000 The United States is demographically growing only because of immigration.

00:28:19.000 The reality is that the fertility rate in the United States is actually below replacement levels.

00:28:25.000 It is at 1.66 births per woman.

00:28:29.000 The United States is not replacing its own population.

00:28:31.000 The only way we're able to do that is through large-scale immigration, which we have stopped, which means that we have a shrinking tax base, an aging population, just like Western Europe, slower, but similar. 0.63

00:28:42.000 And we also have the possibility of serious economic stagnation absent a massive breakthrough in AI that suddenly translates into higher productivity.

00:28:51.000 If all that materializes and we don't cut any of the massive welfare state that we have built, we are going to end up inflating our way out of this.

00:28:58.000 That's just the reality.

00:29:00.000 Because as I've said a thousand times, there are only three solutions to massive debt.

00:29:04.000 One, inflation.

00:29:05.000 Two, massive tax increases.

00:29:07.000 Three, austerity.

00:29:08.000 And the population is so used to its benefits, they do not want austerity.

00:29:12.000 They don't.

00:29:14.000 Well, eventually, the West is going to have to grow up and recognize the welfare state has costs attendant upon it.

00:29:21.000 And those costs are going to have to be paid for by someone.

00:29:23.000 They can't be kicked down the road indefinitely.

00:29:25.000 You can't just magically manufacture money and hope the economy is going to continue to sail forward.

00:29:30.000 And so what does the United States need?

00:29:32.000 It needs massive economic growth.

00:29:34.000 And eventually, it's going to need some actual real cuts to the size and scope of government.

00:29:38.000 It is.

00:29:39.000 And the kind of stuff that's being done in the Big Beautiful Bill is not going to do it.

00:29:42.000 It's going to need to be a lot larger than that.

00:29:44.000 I know that's an unpopular view.

00:29:46.000 It also happens to be an economically sane view that very few people are willing to take in politics because, again, most people don't want to hear it.

00:29:53.000 Coming up, President Trump, it looks like the tariff war may be slowing down in certain places, but heating up with regard to Japan.

00:29:59.000 And we'll bring you the latest first.

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00:31:08.000 Now, meanwhile, speaking of the state of the economy and economic growth, there are some nice spring signs that perhaps the tariff war is coming to a bit of an end here.

00:31:20.000 One of those is that President Trump has apparently now come to an agreement with Vietnam.

00:31:25.000 In return for the U.S. and Vietnam striking a tariff deal that sees American goods enter the country completely duty-free, the U.S. will charge 20% tariffs on Vietnamese goods instead of the 46% tariffs he had announced in April before putting the duties on pause to allow foreign negotiations.

00:31:40.000 Additionally, goods from other countries that pass through Vietnam on their way to the United States will be charged a higher 40% tariff, according to President Trump.

00:31:48.000 Those would presumably be Chinese goods that get shipped through Vietnam.

00:31:52.000 Those sorts of trans shipments will still be taxed at 40%.

00:31:56.000 Now, again, you'll notice that those tariff rates are not reciprocal.

00:31:59.000 And that is still increasing prices on the American consumer.

00:32:02.000 This is the reason why Jerome Powell is holding off on lowering those interest rates is because if you have a 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods, and if you have a 10% tariff on UK goods, and a 30% tariff on Canadian goods, and all the rest, eventually that is going to make its way into the markets.

00:32:22.000 The agreements do mark the second trade pact that Trump has struck under the threat of his so-called reciprocal tariffs.

00:32:27.000 Now, again, they were put on pause in early April for 90 Days.

00:32:30.000 We are reaching the end of that time period.

00:32:32.000 I would assume that President Trump is going to delay that still further.

00:32:35.000 There are some countries that are slow to come to the table, including Japan.

00:32:38.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, after failing to cut a trade deal with Japan following weeks of talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer decided to turn up the pressure.

00:32:48.000 When Japanese officials arrived in Washington in late May, Luttnick and Greer warned them if the two sides couldn't work out an agreement soon, the conversations might start shifting from easing the tariffs Trump had recently imposed toward additional punitive measures.

00:32:59.000 The Japanese stood their ground.

00:33:01.000 They told the Americans they would not agree to any deal that preserves President Trump's 25% automotive tariff.

00:33:06.000 That impasse continues.

00:33:08.000 And on Monday, President Trump appeared to cut off talks with Tokyo.

00:33:11.000 He said Japan won't take our rice, but they have a massive rice shortage.

00:33:16.000 Japan imports hundreds of thousands of tons of U.S. rice annually under a WTO agreement, by the way.

00:33:23.000 President Trump suggested what a letter to Japan might say, dear Mr. Japan, here's the story.

00:33:27.000 You're going to pay a 25% tariff on your cars.

00:33:30.000 So we give Japan no cars.

00:33:31.000 They won't take our cars.

00:33:33.000 So I asked our friends and sponsors over at Perplexity about American-Japanese trade.

00:33:38.000 And what Perplexity says is that in 2022, U.S. exports to Japan totaled approximately $80 billion.

00:33:43.000 Imports from Japan were about $150 billion.

00:33:48.000 More recently, in April 2025, U.S. exports to Japan reached $6.83 billion.

00:33:53.000 That is an increase from April 2024.

00:33:56.000 We have a persistent trade deficit with Japan.

00:33:58.000 In 2022, that trade deficit was $68 billion.

00:34:01.000 In 2024, it was again about $68 billion.

00:34:06.000 Monthly data for early 2025 indicate the U.S. trade deficit on goods with Japan fluctuating between $6 billion and $7 billion per month.

00:34:15.000 So again, they are a major trade partner of the United States.

00:34:17.000 Is this good for American consumers?

00:34:20.000 Probably not.

00:34:21.000 We can hope for more trade agreements because, again, if you want a robust American economy, you do need export markets.

00:34:26.000 And again, when people buy American goods or when we buy Japanese goods, American dollars go to Japan and then they use those dollars to invest in American products, including on our stock market.

00:34:37.000 Trade deficits usually mean capital surpluses.

00:34:41.000 So again, the trade war is not going to be particularly good for the American economy.

00:34:46.000 Sure, we're picking up some tariff income from American consumers because, of course, we're the ones who end up paying the bill for that.

00:34:52.000 But with that said, hopefully we come to the end, something like a reasonable trade policy.

00:34:58.000 That is presumably what Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has been pursuing, as I've said from the beginning.

00:35:02.000 Listen to the Treasury Secretary on this stuff.

00:35:05.000 He's the one who knows what he's doing.

00:35:06.000 Now, meanwhile, a couple more victories for President Trump.

00:35:09.000 So Paramount has now agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit from President Trump.

00:35:14.000 That lawsuit was based on Trump suing 60 Minutes for basically cutting apart a Kamala Harris interview during the last election cycle in order to make her look better. 0.56

00:35:23.000 The settlement does not include an apology from 60 Minutes, but it comprises payments made to the president's future presidential library and legal fees.

00:35:30.000 Paramount also agreed that 60 Minutes would release transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates in the future after they had aired.

00:35:38.000 Again, the goal of this particular settlement was to get more transparency from CBS and Paramount.

00:35:44.000 CBS News settled.

00:35:46.000 CBS said the broadcast was not doctored or deceitful.

00:35:50.000 Now, there are a bunch of members of CBS News who have left in the interim during all of this because many Paramount leaders were concerned that that might expose directors and officers to liability and potential future shareholder litigation or even to criminal charges for bribing a public official.

00:36:05.000 But there was also concern that if the Trump administration didn't get what it wanted here, there might be an attempt by the FCC to block some sort of merger between Paramount and Skydance.

00:36:14.000 Again, I don't like the government being used this way, frankly.

00:36:17.000 With that said, was the 60-minute attempt to make Connell Harris look better absolutely corrupt?

00:36:23.000 It absolutely was.

00:36:24.000 I'm not sure there's a legal remedy for that.

00:36:26.000 That's appropriate.

00:36:27.000 But CBS News settling is, just as a descriptive matter, a victory for President Trump.

00:36:33.000 Meanwhile, another victory for President Trump.

00:36:36.000 Apparently, University of Pennsylvania has now stripped swimmer Leah Thomas of his titles.

00:36:43.000 So you'll recall that Leah Thomas was a man who raced against a bunch of women and set a bunch of records.

00:36:50.000 Well, now the University of Pennsylvania is going to strip Leah Thomas of his swimming titles because they're pointing out, along with the Trump administration, that dudes racing against ladies don't win titles. 1.00

00:37:02.000 The university will issue formal apologies to every biological female competitor who lost out to a transgender competitor, according to the New York Post, following an investigation by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

00:37:12.000 That probe found that UPenn violated Title IX by allowing a male to compete in female athletic programs and occupy female-only intimate facilities. 0.93

00:37:19.000 And of course, we've talked with Riley Gaines on the program before.

00:37:23.000 We've also talked about UPenn swimmer Paula Scanlon.

00:37:26.000 She, of course, first appeared anonymously in What is a Woman to discuss what it was like having to be in a locker room with a full-grown male with full twig and berries, Leah Thomas.

00:37:39.000 And then we actually talked about who Paula Scanlon was, right?

00:37:46.000 Daily Wire allowed her to publicly come out as the person who was talking in the video.

00:37:51.000 She became a very public advocate for female sports. 0.94

00:37:55.000 This is a big win for Paula Scanlon, big win for Riley. 1.00

00:37:58.000 Here is Paula Scanlon describing.

00:38:01.000 You know, this announcement has actually come at a really interesting time for me because it was July two years ago that I quit my full-time corporate America job to enter the political world, to focus on lobbying for legislation to keep men out of women's sports, to posting on X that many people have probably seen me do.

00:38:17.000 And it really shows how far we've come.

00:38:19.000 I think we forget what the climate was actually like back in 2021 when I was going through it.

00:38:23.000 What the climate was like when I was anonymous in the What is a Woman documentary because I feared the University of Pennsylvania was going to revoke my diploma if they figured out that it was me in that film.

00:38:32.000 I mean, it shows how much we've really won on the culture here.

00:38:35.000 And I'm so grateful to be part of that, but I'm really grateful for all the wonderful people that have been part of this process.

00:38:40.000 And I think for me, this entire outcome is really just reflecting on that and reflecting on all the friendships I've made along the way and all the wonderful creators that have worked on bringing awareness to this.

00:38:50.000 And really, I'm so appreciative for you guys at the Daily Wire for being part of this and for highlighting my story back then two years ago when I came public for the first time or even making the What is a Woman documentary all together back when it was in Joe Biden's America and no one wanted to talk about this issue.

00:39:07.000 And I think more than anything else, this is just the beginning.

00:39:10.000 I want to see more wins and I'm grateful to the Trump administration for really taking leadership on this and getting this done.

00:39:15.000 And I can't wait to see more of these Ivy League institutions bend the knee to this administration because that is exactly what I'm looking for.

00:39:23.000 And it really makes me so happy as a female athlete.

00:39:27.000 And the last thing I'll end with is I really want no female athlete to go through what I did. 1.00

00:39:31.000 And that's exactly why we fought so hard for this.

00:39:33.000 Again, good for Paulo Scanling, good for Riley Gaines.

00:39:35.000 And of course, Daly Ware was very involved in this particular victory.

00:39:38.000 Meanwhile, the university has completely exposed themselves, the university system, they've completely exposed themselves.

00:39:43.000 A shocking story from the Washington Free Beacon about Columbia president Claire Shipman.

00:39:49.000 Apparently, before she became acting president of Columbia University, Shipman argued that Columbia needed to get, quote, an Arab on our board and suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy, according to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

00:40:04.000 She wrote on January 17, 2024, we need to get somebody from the Middle East or who is Arab on our board quickly, I think, somehow.

00:40:12.000 Then she told a colleague that Shoshana Schendelman, who is one of the board members who doesn't like campus anti-Semitism, which was rife at Columbia University, had been, quote, extraordinarily unhelpful, adding, I just don't think she should be on the board.

00:40:26.000 Amazing, amazing stuff.

00:40:29.000 Well, those messages were included in a letter sent to Columbia on Tuesday by committee chair Representative Tim Wahlberg of Michigan, as well as Representative Elise Stefanik.

00:40:37.000 Addressing Shipman by name, the committee requested clarifications on the attached correspondence.

00:40:43.000 The remark about needing an Arab board member, quote, raises troubling questions regarding Columbia's priorities just months after the October 7th attack, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

00:40:51.000 Were Columbia to appoint someone to the board specifically because of their national origin, it would implicate Title VI concerns.

00:40:58.000 The exchanges about gendelmen, they say, quote, raised the question of why you appear to be in favor of removing one of the board's most outspoken Jewish advocates at a time when Columbia students were facing a shocking level of fear and hostility.

00:41:09.000 Well, the answer, of course, is because the left is always going to side with the scavengers in any battle between lions and scavengers, always and forever.

00:41:17.000 And the Democratic Party is now the party of the scavengers.

00:41:19.000 CNN's Harry Enton did a report just yesterday about the shift in the Democratic Party on the question of Israel versus the Palestinians.

00:41:26.000 Now, remember, Israel is a multi-ethnic, multiracial, and yes, multi-religious democracy.

00:41:33.000 The Palestinians are governed by a terrorist group, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, another terrorist group, the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.

00:41:42.000 By every polling statistic, they supported October 7th.

00:41:46.000 They support high levels of terrorism.

00:41:47.000 They hate America by all available polling.

00:41:49.000 And yet somehow Democrats are more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, according to Harry Enton.

00:41:55.000 In 2017, the Democratic Party was a pro-Israeli party.

00:41:58.000 Look at this.

00:41:58.000 They sympathized with the Israelis by 13 points, more with the Israelis than the Palestinians.

00:42:02.000 But look at this sea change.

00:42:04.000 Now Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians by 43 points.

00:42:09.000 Oh my God, that is a change in the margin of 56 points over the course of just eight years.

00:42:16.000 So all of a sudden, it's the pro-Palestinian position that actually reigns supreme in Democratic politics, not the Israeli position.

00:42:23.000 And that is part of the reason why Mandani was able to do so well in this primary because those attacks over Israel simply put did not ring true for Democrats.

00:42:31.000 They're now on the side of the Palestinians, not the Israelis. 0.61

00:42:34.000 Well, again, I do not think that that is a coincidence.

00:42:36.000 I do not find that shocking in the slightest, like at all.

00:42:39.000 The same party, only 36% of whom say they are proud to be Americans, is the party that likes the Palestinians because it's all the same thing. 0.98

00:42:48.000 It is all a hatred of a generalized Western civilization they feel victimizes them and all the marginalized people who comprise their coalition.

00:42:55.000 This is why they like Zoran Mamdani.

00:42:57.000 Again, people who are analyzing Zoran Mamdani's win in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary and saying that they can't understand how he overcame his hatred for Israel and his obvious dislike for Jews.

00:43:07.000 Those same people, those same exact people are getting it totally wrong.

00:43:13.000 That was a feature, not a bug.

00:43:15.000 He was running for the heart of the Democratic Party.

00:43:18.000 Democrats are fighting a rearguard losing battle against their radical base. 0.64

00:43:22.000 And they're radical on every score.

00:43:24.000 I mean, here's Zoran Mamdani saying that his plan is to buy up private housing in New York and convert it into communes.

00:43:32.000 Further toward the Vienna model, we'll have to go beyond the market.

00:43:35.000 We can establish community land trusts to gradually buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership.

00:43:41.000 We can give tenants a right of first refusal to buy out their landlords when buildings go up for sale.

00:43:46.000 And we can fully commit to a new era of social housing, ending subsidies for luxury housing development and using our wealth to build beautiful, high-quality social housing projects that offer good homes and strong communities to everyone.

00:43:59.000 We won't decommodify housing overnight, but we know what we have to do and we have history to guide us.

00:44:06.000 I'm just going to point out that we do have history to guide us.

00:44:08.000 Public housing is one of the worst boondoggles in the history of the American Republic.

00:44:13.000 Public housing has been a full-scale disaster.

00:44:15.000 Public housing developments in places like, for example, St. Louis turned into absolute hellholes because publicly funded areas like this end up being mistreated very often by their tenants.

00:44:26.000 They do not have a profit motive, which means that there is no rationale for keeping them in good shape.

00:44:31.000 They turn into slums.

00:44:33.000 That is very often what happens in a lot of these areas.

00:44:36.000 And that's exactly what he wants to replicate.

00:44:38.000 And yet, at the same exact time, Hakeem Jeffries, again, this is the Democratic minority leader who will take over the House if Republicans somehow lose in 2026, put out a tweet, quote, stop lying about Assemblyman at Mom Donnie.

00:44:51.000 He is neither a communist nor a lunatic.

00:44:53.000 And New York City doesn't need to be saved by a wannabe king.

00:44:55.000 He's referring to President Trump.

00:44:56.000 Besides, you are too busy destroying America with your one big ugly bill to do anything else. 0.98

00:45:01.000 So first of all, he is a communist.

00:45:03.000 He has called himself, he's a Democratic socialist of America.

00:45:07.000 He full-scale stands with the Marxists.

00:45:09.000 He is not a lunatic.

00:45:10.000 I agree with that.

00:45:11.000 He's perfectly rational.

00:45:12.000 He is running directly for the heart of the Democratic Party.

00:45:15.000 His radicalism is thought out.

00:45:17.000 It's why he's so smarmy.

00:45:18.000 It's why he's got this pasted on, overwrought grin that he just brings out at every available opportunity in the most obnoxious and cloying way, because it's all thought out.

00:45:30.000 It's all thought out.

00:45:31.000 Because as CNN's Audi Cornish says, calling him a Muslim socialist isn't going to hurt him with his base because they know he is one.

00:45:39.000 It's one of those things where it's one thing to call someone a Muslim socialist who is not.

00:45:44.000 It's another thing when someone is basically like, you can't hurt me with those words, right?

00:45:49.000 Like these are the things that he stands for.

00:45:52.000 And it's a new sort of position in the Democratic Party of strength, Democratic socialist.

00:45:59.000 Now, the reality is you can call him Muslim socialist all you want. 0.72

00:46:02.000 He openly embraces that label, by the way.

00:46:04.000 Like so many other Muslim socialists, he's very much in favor of trans pride progress stuff that he wouldn't be if he were, you know, in the third world that he purports to love so much. 0.66

00:46:12.000 But the coalition of scavengers must come together under all circumstances.

00:46:17.000 And this, by the way, is a point that President Trump is making. 0.90

00:46:20.000 President Trump has pledged to stop Zoran Mamdani, calling him a communist lunatic, as we've already mentioned, and suggesting that he wants to save New York, quote, as president of the United States, I'm not going to let this communist lunatic destroy New York. 0.66

00:46:32.000 Rest assured, I hold all the levers and of all the cards.

00:46:35.000 I'll save New York City and make it hot and great again, just like I did with the good old USA. 0.95

00:46:40.000 Now, the reality is that that actually helps Mamdani in his race for mayor, because New Yorkers, bipolar data, are not hugely fond of the president of the United States.

00:46:48.000 Probably Eric Adams would prefer if the president stayed out of this particular race, but it doesn't matter. 0.74

00:46:52.000 It's not going to happen.

00:46:52.000 Meanwhile, Representative Brandon Gill says he's fetishizing the third world, and that's a weird thing to do, considering the third world is specifically what it is, because it is not a great place to be, live, grow up, or emulate.

00:47:04.000 This is a guy who wants to defund the police, who wants to get rid of billionaires, doesn't believe they should exist, who said that his end goal is to seize the means of production.

00:47:13.000 I mean, that makes Bernie Sanders sound like a moderate.

00:47:16.000 And then turns around and defends the phrase, globalize into fata.

00:47:20.000 And he puts these videos out online of him eating rice with his hands, which by the way is not something that Americans do.

00:47:28.000 That is third world behavior.

00:47:30.000 And that is connected to his policies.

00:47:32.000 You know, the goal here is to undermine Western civilization, to fetishize the third world, which is what he's doing, that video, to look other, to look unique, to look interesting, so that he can then push in these policies. 0.64

00:47:46.000 You know, the next step after that is he's going to make another video in a couple of years, but instead of having a bowl of rice, it's going to be an empty bowl because that's where his policies are going to get us.

00:47:55.000 He is not wrong about that.

00:47:57.000 He's not wrong. 0.53

00:47:58.000 And everyone's going to call him racist for pointing this out, but he happens to be correct about it.

00:48:02.000 Meanwhile, the NYPD chief of the department office, John Chell, points out that it's insane what Mamdani's proposing.

00:48:11.000 He's actually seeking to destroy the strategic response group, which actually prevents violence in the city of New York.

00:48:19.000 So look, since October 7th, we have over 6,000 protests.

00:48:22.000 We had our No Kings protests a couple of weeks ago with 75,000 protesters.

00:48:27.000 Our strategic response group, as known as SRG, are highly trained, highly professional men and women who hold the line.

00:48:35.000 In the last two years of protests, we've had no major incidents in this city.

00:48:39.000 The No Kings protests, about 500 out of 50,000 thought they were going to tear our city apart, and our SRG stopped them. 0.97

00:48:47.000 So for anyone to say they're going to disband that kind of success and unit, quite frankly, is foolish and doesn't know what they're doing. 0.94

00:48:55.000 He is right about all of that.

00:48:56.000 But again, whether it works or not is not the point.

00:48:59.000 The point is what it stands against, and that is the American system.

00:49:03.000 That's the American system.

00:49:04.000 That is the thing that they are looking to tear down.

00:49:08.000 And meanwhile, President Trump actually attempting to bring people together in the Middle East.

00:49:13.000 So President Trump is desperately attempting to broker a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

00:49:17.000 The goal would be to free all of the hostages Hamas is currently holding.

00:49:20.000 Hamas's last leg of support, Iran, is down and out for the count. 0.75

00:49:24.000 Iran has been destroyed in terms of its nuclear program.

00:49:26.000 It's effectively isolated.

00:49:28.000 It has no allies on the world stage of any real measure at this point.

00:49:32.000 China is not interested.

00:49:33.000 Russia is not interested.

00:49:34.000 And so now, hostage negotiations, end of war negotiations have been taking place between Egypt, Qatar, Hamas, and Israel.

00:49:44.000 The Saudis are also putting a ward in.

00:49:46.000 Now, the question here is what Qatar is going to do, because Qatar could end this today.

00:49:50.000 All Qatar would have to say is to Hamas, free all the hostages, all you guys go into exile, and then there will be an Arab administration of the Gaza Strip that would include presumably the Egyptians, the Saudis, UAE, Qatar, and all the rest. 0.66

00:50:03.000 The question is whether Qatar is actually willing to do that.

00:50:05.000 So far, the only offer on the table has been freeing 10 hostages now for a 60-day ceasefire.

00:50:11.000 And there would still be 10 hostages held for another two months.

00:50:14.000 These are the live hostages.

00:50:15.000 There'd be some bodies that were released as well.

00:50:19.000 Hamas appeared to have sort of accepted the deal a couple of days ago, and then they reversed themselves and suggested that actually they still want to run the Gaza Strip, which, of course, is a total non-starter for the Israelis.

00:50:28.000 They're not going to allow the terrorist group that perpetrated October 7th and that has left its own population as victims of its disgusting, horrifying evils in charge of the Gaza Strip. 0.96

00:50:40.000 It's not going to happen.

00:50:40.000 President Trump said on his truth social media that Israel and American representatives had discussed his conditions.

00:50:46.000 Quote, Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60-day ceasefire, during which time we will work with all parties to end the war.

00:50:53.000 He said the mediators and Qatar in Egypt were set to deliver a final proposal to Hamas.

00:50:57.000 He said, I hope for the good of the Middle East, Hamas takes the deal because it's not getting better.

00:51:01.000 It will only get worse.

00:51:03.000 Meanwhile, according to I-24, an Israeli news outlet, apparently the Saudis are saying that the only way that normalization is back on the table is if Israel ends Hamas' rule.

00:51:14.000 So this is like a precondition for everyone, is that Hamas can no longer be involved in ruling the Gaza Strip.

00:51:19.000 Saudi wants Israel to involve the Palestinian Authority instead.

00:51:23.000 Now, again, the Palestinian Authority does not even have the capacity to rule the Judea and Samaria areas it currently controls.

00:51:29.000 However, the basic idea here from the Saudis presumably would be, as long as Israel doesn't administer and run the Gaza Strip, like formally, and as long as they don't annex it, and as long as Hamas doesn't run it, they'll probably settle for anything else that's on the table.

00:51:43.000 The source stressed that as long as Hamas is involved in managing Gaza, quote, the job isn't done.

00:51:47.000 Without removing Hamas, there will be no peace. 0.96

00:51:50.000 Again, that's coming from the Saudis. 0.96

00:51:51.000 That's not even coming from the Israelis.

00:51:54.000 Hamas should accept the deal because things are going to get harder, not easier from there. 0.99

00:52:00.000 Here's President Trump talking about potential Gaza ceasefire before next week.

00:52:03.000 What's that?

00:52:05.000 The ceasefire in Gaza to be a drinker. 0.97

00:52:07.000 The storm is going to prevent the storm is going to be a drinker.

00:52:10.000 We hope it's going to happen and we're looking for it to happen sometime next week.

00:52:15.000 You know, his mouth to God's ears.

00:52:16.000 That would be obvious.

00:52:17.000 Everyone wants this, except for presumably Hamas. 0.95

00:52:20.000 Israel has accepted all the preconditions at this point.

00:52:22.000 Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araki, is now admitting that Fordo, which of course is that nuclear facility that so many people on the left and on that horseshoe theory right were interested in pretending was fine, that actually it was seriously and heavily damaged.

00:52:35.000 Here he was.

00:52:37.000 What is the status at Fordo?

00:52:42.000 No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordo.

00:52:46.000 That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged.

00:52:56.000 The Atomic Energy Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran is currently undertaking evaluation and assessment, the report of which will be submitted to the government.

00:53:07.000 Okay, so in other words, yeah, Fordo is not in great shape.

00:53:10.000 Shocker, that's what happens when you drop bunker busters of 30,000 pounds apiece from a B-2 on top of those nuclear facilities, and you probably hit an airshaft at the same time.

00:53:20.000 Like that, that's probably what ends up happening.

00:53:22.000 Meanwhile, it is worth noting that there is a report from Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism reported in Israel, Hayom earlier this week showing at least 100 fabricated accounts on X systematically promoted Tehran's strategic messaging during the recent war.

00:53:36.000 Researchers examined approximately 100 X accounts exhibiting clear signs of automated rather than human operation.

00:53:42.000 Those accounts maintained continuous activity across all hours without typical human patterns of rest.

00:53:47.000 That network ultimately distributed 241,000 posts reaching millions of users worldwide.

00:53:54.000 Now, that doesn't mean that those Iranian bots directly coordinated with actual American opposition voices.

00:53:59.000 But what it does mean is that if you are looking for traffic, if you are looking for bot-driven upvotes, a good way of doing that is to program directly into the center of sort of the bot storm that is created by America's enemies.

00:54:10.000 X does not represent real life.

00:54:12.000 This is why you will see people who cover X believing there was a serious split in the Republican Party over President Trump's action against Iran when the polls suggest precisely the opposite.

00:54:20.000 Now, in a piece of news that I don't particularly like, the Trump administration is apparently halting certain U.S. weapons supplies for Ukraine.

00:54:29.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is withholding critical Patriot interceptor missiles and other weapons from Ukraine.

00:54:35.000 The Wall Street Journal calls this a body blow to the embattled country's efforts to withstand Russia's mounting and increasingly deadly aerial assaults.

00:54:42.000 Even before that decision, Kyiv was struggling to counter Russian technology tactics and troop numbers.

00:54:46.000 Russia is already deploying maneuverable ballistic missiles, able to avoid the vaunted Patriot air defense systems radar and launching record numbers of drones to bombard Ukraine every two or three nights.

00:54:56.000 A halt in the interceptors will keep further pressure on Ukraine.

00:54:59.000 Now, again, Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, have done what President Trump has asked.

00:55:04.000 They've said they will do a ceasefire today.

00:55:06.000 No preconditions except for it just being a ceasefire.

00:55:09.000 They have said that they want an end to the war.

00:55:12.000 I mean, Vladimir Zelensky even wore a suit to the last meeting he had with President Trump.

00:55:16.000 They clearly know where the power lies.

00:55:19.000 For Ukraine, there are not a lot of alternatives because European allies do not have the capacity to increase their own missile production at this point.

00:55:27.000 Now, is this because the United States is really cutting off Ukraine?

00:55:31.000 Well, according to Douglas Berry, a specialist in military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, he said that the U.S. reducing that supply of interceptors was inevitable given their scarcity.

00:55:41.000 He said Western defense ministries and governments are having to talk about resilience, and part of that is manufacturing depth in terms of what they can produce.

00:55:49.000 On Tuesday, U.S. shipments that were already in Poland were halted, including more than two dozen of the Patriots' PAC-3 missiles, more than two dozen Stinger air defense system, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, and more than 90 AIM air-to-air missiles, among other systems.

00:56:03.000 Right now, Russia has been trying to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defenses.

00:56:07.000 There was just that kind of bombardment last weekend involving 477 drones, 46 crews, and 11 ballistic missiles in a barrage targeting Ukraine's western region.

00:56:15.000 Actually, when I visited Ukraine and interviewed President Zelensky, the night after I left was, at that time, the biggest barrage of the war.

00:56:21.000 Now, there have been several barrages that are larger.

00:56:23.000 So far, Russia has launched over 20,000 drones this year, trying to overcome the Patriot missile defense system.

00:56:32.000 So what is going to happen here?

00:56:35.000 Unclear.

00:56:37.000 Ukrainian interceptions of Russian ballistic missiles aren't markedly down yet, but they do have a lack of missiles the other way.

00:56:44.000 Those Patriot interceptors, again, the United States, we have to ramp up our military capacity.

00:56:49.000 The Big Beautiful Bill will help us do those sorts of things.

00:56:52.000 The hope from the United States is that our allies are going to pick up the slack.

00:56:57.000 The U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, he says, listen, NATO's job is to pick up that slack.

00:57:03.000 You know, the great thing that came out of the NATO summit with President Trump's leadership and the 5% commitment is that now our allies are going to be equally capable.

00:57:11.000 They're going to live up to their targets and what they should deliver if somehow peace is broken by an adversary, but they're going to be strong.

00:57:20.000 And that strength is what's going to secure the peace, Maria.

00:57:24.000 Okay, so hopefully that is right.

00:57:26.000 Hopefully NATO is able to fill that gap.

00:57:27.000 But this is the sort of biggest issue with American withdrawal of support.

00:57:31.000 Can the Europeans fill the gap fast enough to prevent the Russians from being able to do what they want in Ukraine? 0.87

00:57:38.000 Okay, meanwhile, random judges still doing random things all across the country.

00:57:44.000 The Wisconsin Supreme Court, remember, there was a big Supreme Court election in Wisconsin a little bit earlier this year.

00:57:48.000 The left took over.

00:57:49.000 Well, now the liberal majority has struck down a 176-year-old abortion ban in the state.

00:57:54.000 When Roe versus Wade was overturned, the abortion ban that had been on the books in Wisconsin went back into place.

00:57:59.000 Well, now the Liberal Supreme Court has decided to strike it down, according to the Associated Press.

00:58:03.000 The Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority struck down that abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3.

00:58:08.000 It was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure, including statutes that criminalize abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.

00:58:17.000 There was a ban in effect until 1973, and legislators never officially repealed it.

00:58:22.000 Conservatives argued that the Supreme Court's 2022 decision reactivated it.

00:58:27.000 Then, Democrat Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Call filed a lawsuit, arguing abortion restrictions Republican legislators enacted during the nearly half century rose in effect, trumped the ban, which is a weird argument.

00:58:40.000 Again, because the Supreme Court changed the law.

00:58:43.000 And so there are responses to that to try to restrict abortion within Roe versus Wade.

00:58:47.000 When Roe versus Wade went away, if he didn't explicitly overrule the legislation from before, that's still in place.

00:58:53.000 It wasn't just replaced.

00:58:57.000 This is what the liberal justices were going to do always.

00:59:00.000 Justice Janet Pertosiewicz stated on the campaign trail she supports abortion rights.

00:59:05.000 During oral argument, she declared the ban was authored by white men who held all the power in the 19th century.

00:59:11.000 And Justice Jill Korofsky likened the ban to a death warrant for women and children who need medical care.

00:59:15.000 So again, not a shock.

00:59:17.000 This is what happens when Republicans lose elections, radical left-wingers take over.

00:59:21.000 Meanwhile, another judge has now ruled that the Trump administration cannot cut short TPS temporary protected status for migrants from Haiti, which has been under a state of emergency since March 2024.

00:59:32.000 The New York Eastern District Judge, Brian Kogan, a Bush appointee, ruled that Christy Noam's decision was unlawful, ordered the designation must remain in place until its scheduled end date of February 3rd.

00:59:42.000 Noam had moved to shorten the designation period in February.

00:59:45.000 Right now, there are over half a million people from Haiti living in the United States eligible for TPS.

00:59:50.000 About 350,000 have been granted it according to the DHS.

00:59:56.000 So, again, the DHS sought to end this designation during Trump's first term.

01:00:00.000 It was most recently granted for Haiti in July of last year for an 18-month period by the Biden administration.

01:00:07.000 The government has to comply with the timelines dictated by legislation governing the designation according to the judge.

01:00:13.000 He said when the government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period.

01:00:20.000 But that's a weird statement considering that, again, it was put in place by the Biden administration.

01:00:26.000 It was not really put in place by a piece of legislation.

01:00:29.000 Presumably that will be elevated to the Supreme Court as well.

01:00:32.000 Meanwhile, Democrats are freaking out over so-called Alligator Alcatraz, and the Trump administration is sort of marketing it, strangely.

01:00:39.000 Like they're selling hats to Alligator Alcatraz and all the rest.

01:00:43.000 Democrats, of course, are treating this as though this is Auschwitz, literally.

01:00:46.000 Joy Reid, who used to be on MSNBC and now haunts the cable news airwaves late at night when no one is watching, the ghost of cable news past.

01:00:55.000 She says that President Trump is building a concentration camp for brown people.

01:00:59.000 Oh, good Lord, learn some history, lady.

01:01:02.000 And I will note that, you know, we tried to forget about him, but Ron DeSantis is still governor of Florida.

01:01:08.000 He took the comfy couch hosts on a tour of the concentration camp that he's building in Florida in order to round up people, brown people, and throw them in a camp because he doesn't want them in Florida. 0.99

01:01:22.000 Surprise, surprise, the economy of Florida is going to be severely harmed by rounding up brown people who, by the way, all over this country, Latinos are afraid to go to work. 1.00

01:01:35.000 It's a concentration camp for brown people. 1.00

01:01:37.000 Learn something about actual concentration camps before you declare that people who are not in the country legally being put in air-conditioned trailers in Florida.

01:01:46.000 By the way, I live in Florida.

01:01:47.000 I understand it's hot.

01:01:48.000 And also what air conditioning is.

01:01:50.000 That is not the same thing as concentration camps like Nazi concentration camps or something. 0.98

01:01:56.000 Meanwhile, again, newfound Democrats are even more crazy than the old Democrats.

01:02:01.000 Bill Kristol, who of course flipped from Republican to Democrat because of President Trump, he now says he just wants to defund the DHS completely.

01:02:09.000 I sort of come around to defunding ICE about a month or two ago, but now I'm just on the defund DHS thing.

01:02:14.000 Would this country ultimately be safer if there were no DHS?

01:02:19.000 Would it?

01:02:20.000 I'm going to, it's weird that you would say that only once the DHS actually starts enforcing the law, but you didn't care at all when it was Alejandro Mayorcas allowing the border to remain totally open.

01:02:30.000 Alrighty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.

01:02:34.000 We'll be getting into the latest in the Elon versus Trump fight.

01:02:37.000 Plus, we'll check the mailbag.

01:02:38.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

01:02:40.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - July 03, 2025

Diddy ACQUITTED On Major Charges…PLUS Will The Big Beautiful Bill Pass?!

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