The Ben Shapiro Show - Hegseth Bombing Leaks REVEALED

00:00:00.000 Democrats claiming that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth committed a war crime.

00:00:03.000 What's their strategy?

00:00:04.000 What are they doing?

00:00:05.000 And is Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona going to be the Democratic nominee for president?

00:00:09.000 He sure seems to be trying it.

00:00:10.000 Plus, a gigantic special election in Tennessee's congressional district 7.

00:00:14.000 Why is that one even close?

00:00:15.000 We'll get to all of it first.

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00:00:23.000 Well, folks, Democrats have hit upon a two-pronged strategy for 2028.

00:00:28.000 One of them is to make members of the military very uncomfortable about following their orders.

00:00:33.000 Apparently, they believe that this will somehow create unrest, chaos.

00:00:38.000 I don't know how else to explain why Democrats are now suddenly coming out of the woodwork to suggest that a bunch of illegal orders are being issued from the Trump administration that members of the military must now consider.

00:00:50.000 Remember, when Democrats, people like Senator Mark Kelly or Senator Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan, when they come out and they say to soldiers, to airmen, to members of the Navy, when they say to these people, if you guys follow an illegal order, you will be punished.

00:01:04.000 But then they don't define illegal order.

00:01:06.000 What they are doing is creating a catch-22, because if people follow their orders, well, then they're protected in the moment.

00:01:13.000 But down the road, some Democrat may be elected and declare that actually retroactively, those orders were illegal and members of the military should not have obeyed them.

00:01:22.000 And if right now they decide, you know what, I think that order is illegal, I'm not following it, they could end up court-martialed.

00:01:27.000 So it's a catch-22 for members of the military.

00:01:29.000 That is why it is so negative what Democrats are doing without specifying the actual orders they believe are illegal and that ought to be disobeyed.

00:01:37.000 So that is prong one in the Democratic strategy is a sort of chaos strategy with regards to military orders.

00:01:43.000 Prong number two is setting up an entire slate of possible Democratic nominees who appear to be moderate.

00:01:50.000 And this is really interesting.

00:01:52.000 So one of the big questions in the aftermath of President Trump winning his second term was, will Democrats shift over to the Zorhan Mamdani left or are they going to move toward a more moderate middle?

00:02:03.000 Are they going to jettison much of their culture war baggage?

00:02:06.000 Are they going to start talking about trans or are they going to stop talking about trans?

00:02:09.000 Are they going to up the ante on DEI or are they going to move away from DEI?

00:02:14.000 And by all indicators, it appears the Democrats are not being morons.

00:02:17.000 It appears that while people like Zorhan Mamdani may be winning in places like New York, deep blue areas, it appears that what they are actually attempting to do is play moderate, which of course is smart.

00:02:28.000 It seems that more and more often they're playing dead on the trans issue.

00:02:31.000 This is what happened with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who seems to want it every single way on the trans issue.

00:02:36.000 Sure, it's unfair for boys to compete against girls, but also maybe transing is fine. 1.00

00:02:42.000 When it comes to issues like DEI, it's kind of disappeared from the Democratic lexicon.

00:02:46.000 You don't hear Democrats talking about equity in the same way that they were even a year and a half ago when this was the be-all end-all of American politics.

00:02:55.000 Apparently, they no longer want to talk about that.

00:02:57.000 Even on immigration, Democrats have taken a more moderate middle line.

00:03:01.000 They're no longer arguing along with AOC that ICE ought to be disbanded.

00:03:04.000 They're not arguing anymore that the police ought to be defunded.

00:03:07.000 Instead, what they seem to be doing is arguing that President Trump is largely right on the southern border.

00:03:12.000 They just don't like that he's being overzealous in the prosecution of illegal immigrants who they say have not committed crimes.

00:03:19.000 So Democrats seem to actually be at least in image turning toward the middle.

00:03:23.000 And I think that's part of what is going on with regard to this big controversy now swirling around the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

00:03:30.000 So to recap, last week there was a report from the Washington Post.

00:03:34.000 It argued that the White House had, via Pete Hegseth, given a direct order to basically blow away members of narco-trafficking cartels in the water after they were already put out of commission.

00:03:46.000 So basically, there was a strike on a narco-trafficking boat from Venezuela.

00:03:51.000 And supposedly, Pete Hegseth ordered everyone to be killed, up to and including survivors who were in the water clinging to bits of wreckage, to the wreckage of the burning boat.

00:04:01.000 And this raised some fairly significant legal issues.

00:04:05.000 Because as it turns out, under the laws of war, under the Geneva Conventions, for example, and under American law, you are really not supposed to kill people who are no longer in the fight.

00:04:16.000 As Andrew McCarthy at National Review pointed out, the 1949 Geneva Conventions were ratified by the United States.

00:04:22.000 Common Article 3 of the Convention binds our government and prohibits, quote, violence to life and person, in particular, murder of all kinds of persons taking no active part in hostilities.

00:04:31.000 And that includes people placed what's called or to combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.

00:04:36.000 In other words, you can't take somebody as a POW and just shoot them.

00:04:39.000 Or if you wound somebody on the battlefield, under the Geneva Conventions, there is no policy of we take no prisoners.

00:04:46.000 Everyone gets killed on the battlefield.

00:04:48.000 Jack Goldsmith, who headed the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush 43 administration, notes that the Department of Defense Law of War manual defines or to combat to include persons, quote, otherwise incapacitated by shipwreck.

00:05:01.000 And apparently Congress has incorporated grave breaches of CA3 in the Penal Code's War Crimes Statute that Section 2441, when committed in the context of and in association with an armed conflict, not of an international character, which is how the administration currently describes its operations blowing up these narco-trafficking boats in the Caribbean.

00:05:19.000 And those grave breaches include murder defined, quote, the act of a person who intentionally kills or conspires or attempts to kill or kills, whether intentionally or unintentionally, in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.

00:05:40.000 So, obviously, if the post report were accurate, this would at least be a serious legal question.

00:05:46.000 Now, we discussed yesterday on the program the possibility that actually these people would not be considered or to combat depending on the condition of the boat.

00:05:52.000 That maybe the boat is still floating.

00:05:54.000 It's kind of dead in the water, but at the same time, they can call their narco-trafficking friends. 0.99

00:05:58.000 They can be picked up.

00:05:59.000 They can be back in the narco-trafficking fight momentarily.

00:06:03.000 Now, that is one possible defense.

00:06:06.000 But it's also unclear what exactly happened here.

00:06:08.000 Now, the White House is defending Pete Hegseth.

00:06:10.000 The White House said on Monday that the U.S. military conducted two alleged strikes on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, deepening questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's role in an operation that led to the killing of two survivors.

00:06:22.000 Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, the head of Special Operations Command, was acting legally under authority to use lethal force granted by Hegseth in conducting the attacks on the boat.

00:06:30.000 Already coming up, was there actually a second strike that was authorized by Hegseth at people in the water?

00:06:36.000 We'll get to all of that first.

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00:08:58.000 President Trump, for his part, actually did say on Sunday that he did not want a second strike.

00:09:03.000 In other words, he was fine with the original strike on the boat, but if there was somebody who's floating around in the water on the wreckage, no, you're not supposed to fire a hellfire missile at that person and blow them apart.

00:09:11.000 Here's President Trump on Sunday.

00:09:13.000 On the Venezuela boat strike, if there were a second strike that killed wounded people wounded in the first strike, are you thinking that would be legal?

00:09:24.000 I don't know that that happened.

00:09:26.000 And Pete said he did not want them.

00:09:29.000 He didn't even know what people were talking about.

00:09:32.000 So we'll look into it.

00:09:34.000 But no, I wouldn't have wanted that, not a second strike.

00:09:38.000 The first strike was very lethal.

00:09:40.000 It was fine.

00:09:41.000 And if there were two people around, but Pete said that didn't happen.

00:09:44.000 Does that make you feel better?

00:09:45.000 I have great confidence.

00:09:46.000 You're saying there's no second strike.

00:09:48.000 I don't know.

00:09:48.000 I'm going to find out about it, but Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.

00:09:55.000 Okay, so President Trump says that Pete Hegseth did not order the death of the people in the water.

00:09:59.000 And this is the real question here: whether the second strike was authorized by Pete Hegseth, knowing that people were actually in the water and drowning or that they were clinging to life and basically they were killed while wounded.

00:10:12.000 Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, came out yesterday and read a statement at the White House.

00:10:18.000 President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war.

00:10:29.000 With respect to the strikes in question, on September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes.

00:10:37.000 Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.

00:10:49.000 Okay, so again, the contention here is actually that there was a general order given to take out the boat and that maybe Admiral Bradley is the person who actually gave the order to conduct a second strike if in fact a second strike was conducted.

00:11:03.000 Caroline Levitt did say that Pete Hegseth did not order that everyone be killed because again, that would possibly violate war crime statutes.

00:11:13.000 Thank you, Caroline.

00:11:14.000 So just to be clear, to clarify on Jackie and Gabe, did Admiral Bradley order that second strike because there were still survivors after the initial strike?

00:11:25.000 Again, as I read for you, Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law.

00:11:29.000 He directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat of narco-terrorists to the United States was completely eliminated.

00:11:37.000 Was the initial order from Secretary Hagseth everyone be killed?

00:11:42.000 And did that come from President Trump?

00:11:44.000 I saw that quoted in a Washington Post story.

00:11:46.000 I would reject that the Secretary of War ever said that.

00:11:50.000 However, the president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists, again, are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them.

00:12:00.000 And that's what this administration is doing.

00:12:03.000 Okay, so there actually doesn't seem to be a legal dispute nearly as much as a factual dispute about what actually happened.

00:12:08.000 Secretary Hegseth for his part put out a statement, quote, let's make one thing crystal clear.

00:12:12.000 Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support.

00:12:16.000 I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made on the September 2nd mission and all other sins.

00:12:21.000 America is fortunate to have such men protecting us.

00:12:23.000 When this Department of War says we have the back of our warriors, we mean it.

00:12:26.000 Now, the New York Times did have a follow-up piece that came out late yesterday in which they seemed to admit that Hegseth did not give a general kill order, especially for people who are already ordered to combat.

00:12:39.000 According to the New York Times, the Trump administration on Monday defended the legality of that September 2nd attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea as calls grew in Congress to examine whether a follow-up missile strike that killed survivors amounted to a crime.

00:12:50.000 According to five U.S. officials who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the September 2nd attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs.

00:13:03.000 But each official said Mr. Hegseth's directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things.

00:13:11.000 And the official said his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.

00:13:16.000 So according to every single source, it doesn't sound like Hegseth did anything wrong.

00:13:20.000 It sounds like Hegseth said, kill the people on the boat.

00:13:23.000 So they tried to.

00:13:24.000 They fired some sort of hellfire missile at the people on the boat.

00:13:27.000 They blew up the boat.

00:13:28.000 And then there were survivors.

00:13:30.000 And if there was a second strike, he did not come back in and say, kill those people.

00:13:34.000 It was not in response to surveillance footage showing survivors.

00:13:38.000 And he didn't actually say in the original order, oh, yeah, by the way, if they're wounded and ordered to combat, you should kill them anyway.

00:13:43.000 Apparently, Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat.

00:13:50.000 As the operation unfolded, according to these sources, Hegseth did not give any further orders to him.

00:13:55.000 They were clarifying these officials the sequence of events.

00:13:58.000 Again, that is different from the original report in the Washington Post, which said that Bradley ordered the second strike to fulfill a directive by Hegseth to kill everyone.

00:14:07.000 So that does sound as though it was bad reporting from the Washington Post.

00:14:11.000 And if there's a question, the question now falls on Admiral Bradley as to why he ordered follow-up strikes if people were in fact ordered to combat, or maybe they weren't ordered to combat in the first place.

00:14:20.000 All of this seems like a convenient way of simply providing support to the Democrats doing what was quite a bad thing a couple of weeks ago when they released that video telling members of the military not to obey orders.

00:14:30.000 It feels ginned up.

00:14:32.000 It feels as though the Washington Post went ahead and reported a story on extraordinarily thin sourcing to create the possibility of an illegal order that it turns out may not have been illegal at all in order to provide support for the Democratic narrative that this administration is lawless and that only a moderate military veteran who might be running in 2028 can step into the breach.

00:14:56.000 And again, it'll be interesting to see what happens here, but this does feel like the predicate for a move by the Democratic Party to elevate somebody like a Senator Mark Kelly, for example.

00:15:05.000 So if you check the Calci market right now, Calci is one of our sponsors, what you will see is that Gavin Newsom is far and away the leader right now in terms of who is most likely to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

00:15:16.000 He's about 37% on the Calci markets.

00:15:21.000 Alexander Ocasio-Cortez at 10%, and then you've got Josh Shapiro at six, Pete Budice at six, Kamala Harris at five.

00:15:26.000 Mark Kelly is all the way down at 2%.

00:15:29.000 But again, it is extremely early right now, like really, really early.

00:15:35.000 And so it is quite possible that you could see somebody like Amark Kelly make some sort of fairly strong move.

00:15:42.000 Mark Kelly did win a narrow election originally in the Senate in 2020 over Martha McSally.

00:15:47.000 He won 51 to 48.

00:15:49.000 And then he won again over Blake Masters, 51 to 46.

00:15:53.000 A couple of years later, when the special election was over, it's still a two-year term.

00:15:57.000 And then he has a full term that goes until 2028.

00:16:00.000 Kelly, of course, is a military veteran.

00:16:03.000 He is an astronaut.

00:16:05.000 He tends to portray himself as a moderate, even though he voted with Joe Biden in the Senate something like 95% of the time.

00:16:13.000 He tries to portray himself as a middle-of-the-road moderate.

00:16:15.000 Kirsten Sinema, who was, of course, the other Democrat senator who then turned independent and now is no longer in the Senate, Ruben Gallego, has filled that seat.

00:16:24.000 She was an actual moderate.

00:16:25.000 Like she stood up against Democratic predations with regard to the filibuster.

00:16:29.000 Kelly is a down the line Democrat, but he wants to present as a moderate.

00:16:33.000 And this is why I say it seems to me the Democrats are trying to elevate some of their more moderate voices, at least the ones who are not talking openly about DEI, trans, and the rest of their sort of radical issue set.

00:16:44.000 All righty, coming up, Senator Mark Kelly, does that guy have presidential aspirations?

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00:19:12.000 So Kelly is obviously taking advantage of this situation to promote his own profile.

00:19:17.000 Here he was yesterday sounding the alarm on Pete Hagsev.

00:19:23.000 I was talking about this from the beginning of this operation, that the thing that I am most concerned about is the very difficult situations that this Secretary of Defense is going to put service members into.

00:19:39.000 And it's because this guy is so unqualified for the job.

00:19:43.000 I mean, think about this.

00:19:45.000 He runs around on a stage talking about lethality and warrior ethos and killing people.

00:19:54.000 We have the most competent, capable military this planet has ever seen by far.

00:20:03.000 That's not the message that needs to come from the Secretary of Defense.

00:20:10.000 Okay, so again, Kelly is, by the way, promoting himself.

00:20:14.000 In the middle of this little address about Pete Hegseth, he talked about his own record and all of the fighting that he'd done and the fact that he was a braver man than President Trump and all of the rest of it.

00:20:23.000 And Kelly then went on CNN to double down on this.

00:20:28.000 I mean, the Washington Post says they were clinging to the wreckage, but whatever.

00:20:31.000 There are survivors.

00:20:32.000 We know there were survivors.

00:20:34.000 Are you allowed to then attack the survivors?

00:20:37.000 Absolutely not.

00:20:38.000 I sunk a OSA II missile patrol boat.

00:20:40.000 It was in the middle of the night, like 3 a.m. with two cluster munitions in Kuwait Harbor.

00:20:45.000 And then we left.

00:20:46.000 We were, you know, out a Pelnaki troop carry on the Persian Gulf during the day, getting shot at by, there were two ships.

00:20:52.000 One of them was shooting at us.

00:20:54.000 No, you don't do that.

00:20:55.000 Everybody knows that.

00:20:56.000 You know, that is against the Geneva Conventions.

00:20:59.000 That's against the laws of war, which we should always be abiding by.

00:21:05.000 We're the United States of America.

00:21:06.000 We are not Russia.

00:21:07.000 We're not Iraq. 0.95

00:21:08.000 We're not Iran. 0.90

00:21:10.000 We have to hold our people to a higher standard.

00:21:12.000 This is really serious.

00:21:13.000 So the White House.

00:21:15.000 Okay.

00:21:16.000 Again, I think this is all part of an attempt by Democrats to sort of push themselves toward a moderate middle by suggesting that war crimes have been committed here.

00:21:23.000 Hakeem Jeffries over in the House, the House, minority leader, who, if Trent hold, could soon be the Speaker of the House.

00:21:29.000 He was raging about this yesterday.

00:21:33.000 Everybody on Capitol Hill knows he should have never been confirmed.

00:21:36.000 It's a shame.

00:21:38.000 It's because these Senate Republicans, just like House Republicans, are nothing more than puppets for Donald Trump's extreme policies.

00:21:46.000 That's why they put Pete Heckseth into that position when they knew he was woefully unqualified.

00:21:53.000 And now we have real evidence that extrajudicial killings are taking place.

00:21:59.000 That's the stain on America's leadership in the free world, which is why our international standing is plummeting.

00:22:09.000 And of course, the standing of the Republican Party is a complete and total disaster here in the United States of America.

00:22:18.000 Again, I will give credit to the Democrats for being clever right here.

00:22:21.000 And it appears that this may be bearing some fruit.

00:22:23.000 So today there's a special election in Tennessee's 7th congressional district.

00:22:26.000 That district should be a cakewalk for Republicans. 0.96

00:22:28.000 It should be.

00:22:29.000 That is a district.

00:22:30.000 And Mark Green, who was the incumbent in the last 2024 congressional election cycle, he won that seat by 70,000 votes.

00:22:37.000 He won by a 20-point margin, the Tennessee Sevenths.

00:22:40.000 This is a heavy red district.

00:22:42.000 And yet, right now, if you look at the polling, this district is incredibly, incredibly close.

00:22:48.000 According to the Daily Wire, the reputation of our state is on the line, said Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, as he addressed several hundred Republican voters gathered Monday morning to rally support for congressional candidate Matt Van Epps one day before the special election that is taking place today.

00:23:03.000 The temperatures outside were chilly.

00:23:04.000 The mood of Republican officials inside the rally was confident but urgent.

00:23:07.000 Most said they believe Van Epps will win the race for Tennessee's 7th congressional district.

00:23:11.000 The margins could be closer than what would typically be expected in the Republican favorable district.

00:23:15.000 He is facing off Van Eps against a state Democratic representative named Afton Bain, who's a far-left candidate who supports trans procedures on kids and wants to roll back Tennessee's pro-life protections.

00:23:26.000 Democrats have been pouring millions and millions of dollars into the race.

00:23:29.000 Hagerty said it's going to come down to numbers.

00:23:31.000 The Democrats have seen an opportunity.

00:23:32.000 They're counting on us to slide into December 2nd, having enjoyed Thanksgiving and not thinking the seat is at risk.

00:23:38.000 The fact that this seat is even close speaks to a real problem for Republicans.

00:23:43.000 Republican officials say they believe Van Eps will win by 7 to 10 percent.

00:23:48.000 But again, remember, in the last election cycle, this was a 20-point margin, like a 20-point margin.

00:23:53.000 And the Democrat in this race, again, she is trying to elide some of the more controversial issues, but she herself is pretty radical. 0.50

00:24:01.000 So, here, for example, is these Tennessee Democrat Afton Bain being asked about whether there ought to be more policing or defunding of the police.

00:24:12.000 Crime is, of course, also was a major issue in the presidential election.

00:24:16.000 And I know there are some old posts.

00:24:17.000 You've been asked about those old posts a number of times.

00:24:19.000 My question for you today is whether more money for cops on the streets in the district you hope to represent would help fight crime.

00:24:28.000 Would you like more money for more cops on the streets in your district?

00:24:33.000 So, those past comments were at a time when I was a private citizen as an activist and organizer.

00:24:39.000 And now, as a Tennessee lawmaker, I represent 40,000 individual opinions and political thoughts.

00:24:47.000 What do you think now?

00:24:48.000 Would more money for cops be good or bad?

00:24:51.000 I think it depends on what the community wants.

00:24:54.000 And so, I've worked with communities, at least my constituents, want to ensure that there is investment in their community for community safety, community protection, mental health services.

00:25:06.000 And that's what I'm hearing from at least my constituents.

00:25:09.000 All right, fair enough.

00:25:12.000 Okay, so it's not fair enough because, again, she's not actually giving an answer there.

00:25:16.000 She's a radical who is posing as a quasi-moderate, like a little bit. 0.98

00:25:20.000 She's been called the AOC of Tennessee for a reason.

00:25:24.000 Here is CNN's Casey Hunt asking her about it.

00:25:27.000 Where would you place yourself when you think about all of the other Democrats on the national stage?

00:25:34.000 And you are taking a turn on the national stage because of the way this race has been going. 0.95

00:25:39.000 The president's labeled you the AOC of Tennessee.

00:25:42.000 Are you the AOC of Tennessee?

00:25:46.000 I resonate with Democrats who have been trying to lower costs for working families and those that don't take corporate PAC money.

00:25:52.000 Tennessee is a state that has been bought and sold to the highest bidder.

00:25:56.000 And the reason this race is so close is because voters in the 7th district want someone who is not going to sell out to special interests, but will represent the people.

00:26:04.000 And that's why I hope we will be able to pull out this win tomorrow.

00:26:10.000 Now, again, that is a great way of avoiding the answer, which is that she very much is of the AOC wing of the Democratic Party.

00:26:16.000 She is expected to lose.

00:26:17.000 The margin of her loss is going to matter an awful lot looking forward to the midterms.

00:26:22.000 According to our sponsors over at Comet, a project of perplexity, I asked, how many seats should Republicans be expected to lose in 2026 if they lose the Tennessee 7th congressional district in a special election?

00:26:33.000 And according to Comet, if Republicans lose that district, it would be a major upset.

00:26:37.000 The district is historically very conservative.

00:26:39.000 It previously gave Trump and Republicans 60% of the vote.

00:26:44.000 If there were a loss in Tennessee 7 to a Democrat, that would suggest that Republicans could lose above average numbers, possibly anywhere from 20 to 40 seats, depending on national mood and turnout.

00:26:54.000 Coming up, we'll be joined by the Republican congressional candidate in that Tennessee 7th district.

00:26:59.000 First, this episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature.

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00:28:36.000 Goodbye.

00:28:36.000 Well, joining us on the line is the man standing in the breach, Matt Van Epps.

00:28:41.000 Matt, of course, is a West Point grad.

00:28:43.000 He has a long and outstanding career, and now he's running in what is a shockingly tight race in the Tennessee 7th.

00:28:49.000 Matt, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:28:51.000 Ben, thank you so much.

00:28:52.000 Honored to be on with you.

00:28:54.000 So, why don't we talk about the state of the race?

00:28:56.000 Tell us about your opponent and tell us about yourself.

00:28:59.000 Absolutely.

00:29:00.000 Well, first and foremost, the distinction here between the two of us could not be more clear.

00:29:04.000 I'm a Christian, a husband, a father, an America First Conservative, and a combat veteran.

00:29:10.000 I'm a West Point graduate.

00:29:11.000 I served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot to include service with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers, with real-world boots on the ground leadership experience.

00:29:23.000 And you contrast that with my opponent, who is a socialist, has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, who wants new and higher taxes to fund her socialist agenda that will skyrocket our cost of living.

00:29:36.000 We are going to work to decrease cost of living, to drive America first forward.

00:29:41.000 My opponent wants to defund the police.

00:29:43.000 She wants to abolish prisons. 1.00

00:29:45.000 She is a crazy far-left radical, and we've got to stand against that.

00:29:49.000 And that's what we're going to do when we win decisively today.

00:29:52.000 And we're up right now and we're driving a whole lot of folks out to the polls today.

00:29:58.000 Yeah.

00:29:59.000 So, Matt, obviously, Democrats have been pouring money into this race.

00:30:02.000 They've had a bunch of big names who have shown up in the district, including Kamala Harris, who made her first post-election surrogate speech for your opponent, as well as AOC, who showed up at a virtual rally alongside Al Gore.

00:30:15.000 There's been an attempt by Democrats to at least drive the margin down.

00:30:18.000 So even if she loses, she doesn't lose by that much because, of course, this is a historically very conservative district.

00:30:23.000 How much does margin of victory matter tonight as opposed to just victory?

00:30:27.000 Well, we want to win.

00:30:28.000 We want to win by as much as possible.

00:30:30.000 But here, I think it's a win.

00:30:32.000 This is with special election dynamics.

00:30:35.000 It's a time of year where folks are not used to going to the polls right after Thanksgiving.

00:30:41.000 We've done a whole lot of work to show just who our opponent is.

00:30:44.000 They're not attack ads.

00:30:45.000 It's just showing her public statements and what she believes in, which is the polar opposite of us.

00:30:50.000 We stand with law enforcement.

00:30:51.000 We back the blue.

00:30:52.000 We're going to drive down taxes, cut red tape.

00:30:56.000 And as we've, we've also worked to get out the vote, and we're seeing that right now.

00:31:00.000 We've got reports coming back in from polling locations across the district that are very favorable to us.

00:31:06.000 We want early voting, and we want to keep pushing forward to get the biggest margin possible.

00:31:11.000 And, Ben, I'll tell you, we've built a coalition in this since the primary.

00:31:15.000 Honored to be endorsed by the president.

00:31:17.000 Speaker Johnson was with me campaigning all day yesterday.

00:31:20.000 We went to probably 10 events yesterday.

00:31:23.000 And I've got over 50 local endorsements from leaders across the 14 counties, business leaders, farmers, you name it.

00:31:31.000 And we've got the coalition, and I'm so proud of that.

00:31:34.000 And that's what's going to take us to victory today.

00:31:38.000 So, Matt, I think the big question, obviously, on everybody's mind is: aside from the special election dynamics, the fact that it's held in an off year at a time of the year when people aren't used to voting, as you say, this isn't a district that should be heavily Republican.

00:31:50.000 So, what do you think are sort of the national dynamics that Republicans should worry about come 2026, the issues they should be focusing on come 2026, given the fact that this district is obviously looking more competitive than otherwise anyone would suspect?

00:32:03.000 Well, we're talking a lot about affordability, about housing, health care, childcare, energy, keeping taxes low, cutting red tape, keeping our borders secure, keeping men out of women's sports, getting really good jobs.

00:32:18.000 And so, we've focused a lot on that.

00:32:19.000 We've heard about that.

00:32:20.000 We've got a significant rural population, too, a lot of farmers.

00:32:24.000 And so, I stand with our farmers.

00:32:26.000 I did not grow up on a farm, but I met with Farm Bureau a number of times, met with farmers across the district, been endorsed by farmers.

00:32:34.000 And we're going to fight hard for them.

00:32:36.000 Fort Campbell is in district where I serve with the 160th in Montgomery County and Clarksville.

00:32:41.000 So, military and veterans, very important.

00:32:44.000 And we'll be fighting hard for them from day one.

00:32:49.000 Well, that is Matt Van Epps.

00:32:50.000 He is running in the Tennessee 7th congressional district.

00:32:52.000 It is the biggest race of the year so far.

00:32:55.000 And we hope that he not only wins the race, but that he blows out his socialistic opponent.

00:33:00.000 Matt Van Epps, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:33:01.000 Good luck in the race today.

00:33:02.000 And thank you, sir.

00:33:04.000 Really appreciate it.

00:33:05.000 Well, meanwhile, the president of the United States, while we are fighting an actual war on narco-terrorists in the Caribbean, and while we're putting pressure on Venezuela militarily not to ship fentanyl up to the United States, up to and including, by the way, pressure for possible regime change in Venezuela, the president made a very odd move over the course of the last few days.

00:33:24.000 He is apparently now considering the pardon of the ex-president of Honduras who flooded America with drugs. 0.90

00:33:31.000 And I honestly cannot explain this.

00:33:33.000 I have long been an advocate of getting rid of the pardon power.

00:33:36.000 I think the pardon power is generally a disaster area.

00:33:38.000 I think it's bad for governors.

00:33:39.000 I think it's bad for presidents.

00:33:40.000 It seems to me that having one person with the ability to simply pardon people is a bizarre holdover from monarchy.

00:33:49.000 If you actually want the criminal justice system to mean anything, it means that the consequences have to attend to the crimes.

00:33:55.000 And we've had too many situations dating all the way back to Bill Clinton of corruption being implicit in the pardon power.

00:34:01.000 You think of Denise Rich and Mark Rich and the sort of money that was changing hands during the Hillary Clinton, New York senatorial race back in 2000 while Bill Clinton was pardoning Mark Rich.

00:34:12.000 I mean, this has been a longtime problem in the United States.

00:34:14.000 I do not like that power.

00:34:15.000 The conservative solution, by the way, typically to abuse of power is to take away power from the government.

00:34:21.000 The left-wing solution, typically, is to maintain the power and then use it themselves.

00:34:26.000 Not always true, but largely true.

00:34:28.000 In this case, I just don't understand the president's logic here.

00:34:30.000 According to the New York Times, he once boasted he would, quote, stuff the drugs up the gringos' noses.

00:34:35.000 He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras.

00:34:40.000 A man was killed in prison to protect him.

00:34:41.000 At the federal trial of Juan Orlando Hernandez in New York, testimony and evidence showed how the former president maintained Honduras as a bastion of the global drug trade.

00:34:49.000 He orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy that prosecutors said raped in millions for cartels while keeping Honduras one of Central America's poorest, most violent, and most corrupt countries.

00:34:57.000 Last year, Hernandez was convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

00:35:03.000 It was one of the most sweeping drug trafficking cases to come before a U.S. court since the trial of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega three decades before.

00:35:11.000 But on Friday, President Trump announced he would pardon Hernandez, who he said was a victim of political persecution.

00:35:16.000 It is not clear why he believes that is the case.

00:35:21.000 Apparently, Hernandez's two-week trial in Manhattan offered a glimpse into a world of corruption and drug running spanning several countries.

00:35:27.000 Bags of cash, a machine gun with his name emblazoned on it, bribed from El Chapo, featured heavily.

00:35:33.000 Prosecutors said that Hernandez was key to a scheme that lasted more than 20 years and brought more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States.

00:35:42.000 Honduras, of course, has long had ties with the United States, and drug trafficking has been a major problem.

00:35:48.000 So, if we are fighting a war on narco-terrorism, it seems to me that pardoning people who were engaged in what was apparently narco-terrorism, I do not understand that in the slightest.

00:35:57.000 Certain traffickers testified that they had bribed Hernandez.

00:36:01.000 He was convicted of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy.

00:36:05.000 Apparently, a letter behind the pardon has now been released.

00:36:10.000 Axios says that this letter was apparently penned from Hernandez, and it was part of a longtime lobbying campaign by Roger Stone, one of the scummiest people in American politics historically.

00:36:25.000 Apparently, Roger Stone cast Hernandez as a victim of leftist lawfare in Honduras and President Biden's administration.

00:36:32.000 He told Axios he reached out to Trump Roger Stone and reiterated those points.

00:36:36.000 Stone claimed a pardon announcement would energize the National Party in Honduras and called Trump's attention to Hernandez's four-page letter begging for clemency.

00:36:44.000 In his letter to Trump, Hernandez praised President Trump, quote, I found strength from you, sir, your resilience to get back to that great office, notwithstanding the persecution and prosecution you faced.

00:36:54.000 And he talks about working closely with President Trump during his first term.

00:36:57.000 And then he blamed Biden-Harris and their DOJ.

00:37:01.000 Okay, now, again, a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking up to and including taking bribes from El Chapo.

00:37:07.000 That is not a false prosecution based on mortgage statements or inflation of real estate assets.

00:37:15.000 That's not what this is.

00:37:18.000 So it's bizarre.

00:37:20.000 Caroline Levitt over at the White House claimed that Hernandez was set up, which again, no evidence has been provided to that idea.

00:37:28.000 Cherry-picking the president's statement a little bit yesterday, as he also said yesterday, the people of Honduras have highlighted to him how the former president Hernandez was set up.

00:37:38.000 This was a clear Biden over prosecution.

00:37:41.000 He was the president of this country.

00:37:43.000 He was in the opposition party.

00:37:44.000 He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras.

00:37:52.000 There were some other egregious facts that came out during this trial, and I would encourage you to report on them.

00:37:58.000 Now, the president himself put out a statement saying that Hernandez was treated, quote, very harshly and unfairly in his conviction, while also praising Nasri Asfura, who's a candidate for the Honduran presidency and leader of the National Party.

00:38:10.000 Maybe this is played as a way to sort of boost that party.

00:38:14.000 But again, I see just because Joe Biden presided over a thing, and believe me, I mean, you don't have to look very far to find my critiques of Joe Biden, who I think is perhaps the worst president in modern American history.

00:38:26.000 I don't see the evidence that this person was, quote unquote, set up.

00:38:29.000 Many things can be true at once.

00:38:30.000 A person can be a political opponent of an administration and also guilty of crimes with which he was charged.

00:38:37.000 So this is a strange move at the very least.

00:38:40.000 And again, you know, there are people like Roger Stone that exist in both parties.

00:38:45.000 Using them as sources for your information, I think, is a dicey move at best.

00:38:49.000 Now, speaking of criminality, like actual criminality, according to the New York Post, a powerful U.S. House committee and the Treasury Department have now both launched investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's role in that massive fraud scheme in the Somali community that we talked about just yesterday on the program.

00:39:05.000 James Comer, the House Oversight Committee Chairman, told the New York Post his panel will, quote, conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walls' failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars as a result.

00:39:14.000 He said that Walls was warned about massive fraud in that pandemic food aid program, but he failed to act, even though whistleblowers were whistleblowing and they raised concerns.

00:39:22.000 He says, Comer, that they face retaliation.

00:39:26.000 So it'll be interesting to see if a criminal indictment is in fact brought against Walls for some sort of corruption.

00:39:33.000 Presumably, it can't just be bad politicking.

00:39:36.000 It can't just be he was bad at his job.

00:39:38.000 You'd actually have to show money changed cans or he was doing it for corrupt political purposes or something like that.

00:39:44.000 Last year, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee issued a subpoena to Walls for records.

00:39:49.000 It's unclear what information his office provided at this point.

00:39:54.000 And again, some of the money that was being defrauded from the federal government ended up being sent to terrorists at al-Shabaab in Somalia, like remitted over to Somalia.

00:40:07.000 Full disaster area for Tim Walz.

00:40:08.000 Remember, that person was almost vice president of the United States, which is really quite shocking.

00:40:14.000 Meanwhile, hubbub continues over the National Guard shooting, the murder of one National Guard member, and the critical wounding of another by an Afghan refugee.

00:40:24.000 Caroline Levitt at the White House, she says that the National Guard shooting shows that the mass deportations that President Trump has talked about must proceed.

00:40:34.000 According to a new bombshell report from the New York Times, Somalian migrants in Minnesota have defrauded nearly $1 billion in taxpayer-funded benefits under Democrat Governor Waltz's leadership.

00:40:47.000 President Trump is putting an end to this dangerous America-last approach.

00:40:51.000 His position is rooted in common sense.

00:40:54.000 In the wake of last week's atrocity, it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the president's mass deportation operation.

00:41:02.000 America cannot allow millions upon millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be rewarded with amnesty after they broke our nation's laws to come here. 1.00

00:41:11.000 They must go back to their home countries. 1.00

00:41:14.000 Okay, so again, this is a very strong case being made by the Trump administration.

00:41:18.000 And of course, it is not wrong.

00:41:20.000 And one of the complicating factors, as we discussed yesterday about this particular terrorist who, again, shot two members of the National Guard, is that this person was, in fact, part of a CIA program and should have been vetted when he came into the country and then was granted full asylum by the Trump administration in 2025.

00:41:36.000 The story isn't quite as clear-cut as I think the White House is trying to make it out to be.

00:41:39.000 Here, here's Caroline Levitt talking about the background of the shooter.

00:41:44.000 A foreign terrorist that the Biden administration failed to properly vet ambushed two members of the West Virginia National Guard who were honorably serving here to keep their residents and visitors of Washington, D.C. safe.

00:41:59.000 U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf was severely wounded in the attack and remains hospitalized while he continues to fight for his life.

00:42:08.000 Tragically, U.S. Army specialist Sarah Beckstrom died of her wounds.

00:42:13.000 She was just 20 years old.

00:42:16.000 President Trump and the entire White House are praying for Andrew's full recovery at the request of his parents and their personal phone call with the president over the weekend.

00:42:25.000 And we are keeping Sarah's family and friends in our prayers during this unimaginably difficult time.

00:42:33.000 As I said on Friendly Fire yesterday, you can watch our brand new episode.

00:42:35.000 It's me, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles talking about these issues.

00:42:38.000 There are really two issues here that need to be contemplated.

00:42:40.000 One is, of course, the mass migration issue.

00:42:42.000 And the Trump administration is right.

00:42:43.000 Importing tens of thousands of people from places like Somalia or Afghanistan into the United States is a crazy idea.

00:42:50.000 You can't vet all those people.

00:42:50.000 It's crazy.

00:42:52.000 Even if you do vet them for terror ties, for example, that doesn't mean that they are going to be ripe candidates for assimilation into American values.

00:43:00.000 And so the Trump administration is totally right about that.

00:43:02.000 The other question, of course, is that this particular person was, in fact, apparently radicalized while in the United States.

00:43:09.000 Supposedly, he showed up being relatively pro-America and then was radicalized into radical Islam.

00:43:14.000 And this has been a long-standing problem, as we mentioned yesterday on the show.

00:43:17.000 That is going to require actual significant resources deployed by the FBI and DOJ to investigate domestic constituencies here in the United States and organizations that actually spread Islamic radicalism.

00:43:28.000 That is a very real thing happening in the United States.

00:43:31.000 I will say that on immigration, there's no question the Republicans have an advantage.

00:43:36.000 They particularly have an advantage when the left continues to maintain that mass migration itself is some sort of inherent good.

00:43:42.000 So yesterday, for example, Caroline Lovitt was asked by a reporter if refugees add to our national identity, which is kind of a bizarre framing of the question.

00:43:52.000 Can you explain what you mean by our nation's national identity and integrity and character?

00:44:00.000 And how would refugees, people coming from fortune places who are seeking a safe haven in America, like many of our forebears in this room, not add to our nation's integrity and character, our national identity?

00:44:16.000 I'll tell you what does not add to our nation's character and integrity is refugees who come here under the alleged plight of asylum and fleeing persecution and then come to the United States to abuse our system and rip off American taxpayers. 1.00

00:44:32.000 And as I pointed out, the New York Times, to their credit, it was about six months too late, but they did write about how Somali immigrants in Minnesota have been ripping off American taxpayers.

00:44:43.000 Now, the reality is the immigration perspective of the Trump administration is not only popular broad scale with Americans, the idea that, no, we should not be importing tens of thousands of people from third world countries.

00:44:53.000 It may be the most popular element among fellow Republicans.

00:44:56.000 It may be the glue that binds together the Republican coalition.

00:44:59.000 One of the big questions that's happening inside sort of Republican dumb right now is what is the future of the Republican coalition beyond President Trump?

00:45:06.000 Because obviously he's turned out in 2028.

00:45:09.000 Fascinating study by Manhattan Institute looking at what Republicans believe about a wide variety of issues.

00:45:15.000 It's a new national survey.

00:45:17.000 It's 3,000 voters, including large oversamples of black and Hispanic Republicans and 2024 Trump voters who were asked about a wide range of policy issues.

00:45:27.000 And sort of fascinating.

00:45:29.000 So they broke down the Republican Party into a couple of categories.

00:45:32.000 Core Republicans, these would be long-standing GOP voters who consistently back Republican presidential nominees since 2016 or earlier.

00:45:39.000 And new entrant Republicans.

00:45:40.000 These would be people who are recent first-time GOP presidential voters, including people who supported Democrats in 2016 or 2020.

00:45:51.000 And it's sort of fascinating to look at where people are on the issues in the Republican Party.

00:45:57.000 So for example, on taxes and spending, by a two-to-one margin, every broad spectrum GOP, meaning everyone who voted for Trump basically in 2024, believe that nobody should pay higher taxes.

00:46:08.000 We should cut spending because government is ineffective at spending money.

00:46:11.000 It's 63% of current GOP voters.

00:46:15.000 Core Republicans, backspending cuts 71 to 26.

00:46:18.000 But new entrant Republicans, these are people who voted Trump for the first time in 2024, for example, actually favor higher taxes.

00:46:26.000 This is a major gap in the Republican Party, is the gap between sort of core Republican beliefs and the people who are now joining the Republican Party and disagree on, for example, taxes.

00:46:37.000 When it comes to social issues, there is very little disagreement, actually, on some of these social issues.

00:46:45.000 The current GOP coalition is a little split, according to the Manhattan Institute.

00:46:49.000 A plurality, 42%, say the party should fight for traditional values across the board.

00:46:53.000 One in four believes the party should push back on super woke stuff, but accepted some debates like total abortion bans or reversing same-sex marriage are no longer on the table.

00:47:01.000 So at the very least, this would be moderate to very conservative GOP people on conservative issues.

00:47:07.000 That represents a vast majority of the party.

00:47:10.000 But only 25% of the current GOP under the age of 50 believe the party should fight for traditional values across the board, which is, again, quite fascinating.

00:47:22.000 It's illegal immigration that really puts everything together. 0.94

00:47:25.000 On illegal migration, the current GOP coalition is totally unified.

00:47:28.000 Only 3% say illegal immigrants should not be deported at all.

00:47:32.000 37% say as many as possible.

00:47:34.000 One in three support deportations, but say they should be doing it carefully.

00:47:38.000 And 22% say deportations focus mainly on criminals.

00:47:42.000 When it comes to legal immigration, there is pretty significant debate.

00:47:47.000 Only one in 10 current GOP believes high-skilled legal immigration should be decreased.

00:47:51.000 Nearly half say it should be kept at its current level.

00:47:53.000 35% say it should be increased, actually.

00:47:57.000 But 47% of new entrant Republicans support increasing high-skilled immigration versus just 31% of core Republicans.

00:48:05.000 So this is one of, again, several areas where these kind of new entrant Republicans are more progressive than the old guard Republicans.

00:48:11.000 These are very real gaps, and it's pretty fascinating to watch them play out in real time.

00:48:16.000 But immigration is the thing that is sort of binding everybody together.

00:48:19.000 Now, the problem for the Trump administration and probably for the Republican Party going forward is that Trump successfully shut the border.

00:48:25.000 And because he successfully shut the border, that issue has sort of disappeared as a glue binding together Republicans.

00:48:31.000 You can see why the Trump administration, politically speaking, and forget about the morality where I agree with them.

00:48:36.000 Politically speaking, they're focusing on immigration because it may be the sort of one area of broad agreement all the way across the Republican spectrum.

00:48:43.000 One of the big issues that's going to have to be dealt with with the Republican Party is whether it is the new entrant Republicans, the new entrant GOPs who occasionally vote for Republicans, who are going to be the ones who dictate the terms going forward for the Republican coalition, or whether it is the people who traditionally are the people who tend to vote Republican.

00:49:01.000 Because in the end, President Trump is able to sail over all of this.

00:49:04.000 He sort of signals and in affect is very much a new entrant GOP.

00:49:08.000 He used to be a Democrat, for example, but in his policy, he is a very traditional GOP.

00:49:14.000 President Trump is one of one.

00:49:15.000 I'm not sure there's a candidate out there on the Republican side.

00:49:18.000 And again, this is not a critique of any one candidate who's capable of holding all of that together without sounding as though they're promising everything to everyone all the time.

00:49:28.000 And a certain point, leadership is going to be required to define what the coalition looks like going forward.

00:49:32.000 And it can't just be, hey, coalition.

00:49:34.000 It's got to be actual values that define the coalition.

00:49:36.000 And again, the reason that I became a conservative when I was very, very young and I voted Republican in every single election in which I have ever voted.

00:49:44.000 The only election that I set out was 2016.

00:49:46.000 And I did so because I didn't know Trump was going to be a conservative.

00:49:48.000 And then, of course, he ended up being quite conservative.

00:49:51.000 And I was wearing a MAGA hat by January of 2017 when he appointed Neil Gorsuch to the bench.

00:49:56.000 Okay, so as a long time Republican, like my entire life, I can say that if the Republican Party shifts away from traditional values and starts catering to sort of the new entrant values, they're going to lose a lot of people who actually are not on that same side.

00:50:12.000 Now, again, when it comes to elections, coalitions have to be broad.

00:50:17.000 That obviously is true.

00:50:19.000 The problem that I see for Republicans going forward is that many of the issues that President Trump ran on are being solved.

00:50:24.000 The most unifying aspects of the coalition are immigration and trans.

00:50:27.000 Both of those issues have been largely dealt with by the Trump administration.

00:50:31.000 And Democrats are running headlong away from those issues.

00:50:33.000 So Republicans are going to have to define what it is they stand for going forward if they hope to win in 2028 or even in 2026.

00:50:41.000 Okay, meanwhile, the red flags are beginning to signal on the economy internationally, not just in the United States.

00:50:49.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. markets are facing a threat from across the Pacific.

00:50:53.000 Yields on government debt, which rises when the prices of those bonds fall, climbed across the world on Monday after the Bank of Japan governor hinted at a potential interest rate increase later this month, surprising investors who thought he might hold off under possible pressure from the country's new prime minister.

00:51:07.000 So the yield is dropping on the current government bonds in Japan.

00:51:12.000 So people are worried that those new bond yields are going to draw money from U.S. investments and then spark a climb in treasury yields.

00:51:19.000 So basically, the interest rates on the new bonds are going to be increased.

00:51:23.000 That means people are not buying the old bonds in Japan.

00:51:25.000 They're going to start buying, presumably, the new bonds in Japan.

00:51:28.000 They're going to move their money from American bonds over to Japanese higher interest bonds.

00:51:33.000 The world's third largest economy is the U.S. government's largest foreign creditor, according to the Treasury Department data, holding treasuries valued at about $1.2 trillion as of September.

00:51:43.000 Private Japanese investors poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. and other foreign bonds in recent years, seeking better returns than they could find at home.

00:51:50.000 For most of this year, that dynamic has not actually played out.

00:51:53.000 Japanese bond yields have climbed as investors there prepare for higher rates.

00:51:57.000 Yields on treasuries, meanwhile, have fallen as the Federal Reserve moves in the opposite direction.

00:52:03.000 So things are getting a little dicey.

00:52:05.000 U.S. stocks fell on Monday.

00:52:06.000 The SP 500 dropped 0.5%.

00:52:08.000 Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 427 points.

00:52:13.000 Again, I'm not sure that anyone has an excellent read on where the economy is going next.

00:52:17.000 For the last year, essentially, it feels as though the economy is sort of on a razor's edge and we're not sure exactly which direction it is moving.

00:52:26.000 What is very clear is that investors also don't know which direction the economy is moving.

00:52:29.000 They don't know whether to put money in Japan or in the United States, certainly not in Europe, which has a dying economy.

00:52:34.000 Europe destroyed its own economy on the shoals of green energy nonsense.

00:52:39.000 So, you know, where do you put your money?

00:52:41.000 That remains a very open question at this point.

00:52:44.000 All righty, folks, the show is continuing for our members right now.

00:52:47.000 We'll get into the latest in Ukraine talks.

00:52:49.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

00:52:50.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:52:52.000 Use code Shapiro check out for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 02, 2025

Hegseth Bombing Leaks REVEALED

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