The Ben Shapiro Show - Hegseth KICKS ASS: Confirm Him Now

00:00:00.000 Already, folks.

00:00:01.000 So Pete Hegseth has begun his hearings for Secretary of Defense.

00:00:04.000 He needs to be confirmed because, let's face it, Pete is awesome.

00:00:08.000 Reminder, The Daily Wire will be live as DW goes to DC for the inauguration of President Trump.

00:00:13.000 Watch live.

00:00:13.000 Join the fight at dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:00:16.000 So Pete Hegseth, who Democrats are determined that they are going to club his nomination.

00:00:21.000 None of that's going to happen.

00:00:22.000 Hegseth is going to be confirmed.

00:00:24.000 He's a military colonel who went to Princeton.

00:00:26.000 The attempt to...

00:00:27.000 Well, he's just a fox host.

00:00:28.000 That's not true.

00:00:30.000 Obviously, Hegseth has all the right principles for DOD. He wants to come in.

00:00:34.000 He wants to clean house.

00:00:35.000 And he also happens to have all the right enemies.

00:00:38.000 The people who despise Hegseth the most are members of the far left.

00:00:42.000 People who want to woke the military.

00:00:44.000 People who want to weaken the military.

00:00:46.000 The people who seem very happy with, for example, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

00:00:50.000 Well, the hearings began at 9.30 a.m.

00:00:53.000 Eastern.

00:00:53.000 They began with a lot of fireworks because...

00:00:55.000 Some of the Code Pink protesters showed up.

00:00:57.000 They literally have nothing better to do.

00:00:58.000 They go to every single hearing.

00:01:00.000 When I did a congressional hearing last year, they showed up and harassed me there.

00:01:03.000 They all showed up.

00:01:04.000 They lined up.

00:01:05.000 They were all wearing idiotic uniforms and carrying signs that said things like, no Hegseth, no Crusade, and no Hegseth, no Christian Jihad. 0.67

00:01:14.000 Just absolute ridiculous people.

00:01:16.000 Stop, guys.

00:01:17.000 I already support him.

00:01:18.000 You can't do anything to make me support him anymore, but you're doing your best.

00:01:22.000 Here was one woman being removed from the hearing after beginning to scream in the middle of the hearing. 0.70

00:01:27.000 readiness well we can only hope that the Life staffers at the DOD are removed with the same alacrity as the protesters. 0.77

00:01:55.000 And then another man decided he was going to get up and start shouting.

00:01:58.000 Again, you can't make me support Pete Hegseth more than I already do, guys.

00:02:02.000 I mean, I appreciate the effort, but you cannot.

00:02:05.000 Here was this.

00:02:06.000 Thank you for figuratively and literally having my back.

00:02:10.000 You are a misogynist.

00:02:15.000 Not only that, you are a crazy man.

00:02:19.000 Crazy old man with ponytail. 0.96

00:02:22.000 See you later, my dude.

00:02:23.000 Well, I'll catch you later.

00:02:31.000 Well, and if you thought that was it wrong, there was a third lib who was removed from the hearing as well.

00:02:36.000 To the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force.

00:02:39.000 In doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military.

00:02:43.000 Addressing the recruiting crisis, the retention crisis, and readiness crisis in our ranks.

00:02:52.000 Members of the security force will remove members.

00:03:00.000 No, bye.

00:03:02.000 Getting carried out like the babies they are.

00:03:04.000 I haven't seen a person carried like that since I had to schlep my four-year-old into her room last night for screaming during dinner a lot.

00:03:11.000 In any case, Pete Hegseth's opening statement was exactly what you'd expect from Pete Hegseth, which is to say it was excellent, it was articulate, and it had all the right principles.

00:03:18.000 Here was Hegseth praising the Lord for his nomination.

00:03:21.000 As Jenny and I pray together every morning, all glory, regardless of the outcome, belongs to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

00:03:31.000 His grace and mercy abounds each day.

00:03:35.000 May his will be done.

00:03:38.000 You can see Democrats' heads exploding because he mentioned Jesus.

00:03:41.000 Oh no, this is good.

00:03:42.000 This is a good thing.

00:03:43.000 You have a man of faith who is actually leading the Department of Defense.

00:03:47.000 I think that's a very good thing.

00:03:48.000 Here was Hegseth getting choked up about his nomination.

00:03:51.000 Of respecting people, being professional.

00:03:54.000 That is the balance of mind.

00:03:56.000 I'm not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged.

00:03:59.000 Saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny.

00:04:04.000 I'm not a perfect person, but redemption is real.

00:04:08.000 And God forged me in ways that I know I'm prepared for.

00:04:12.000 And I'm honored by the people standing and sitting behind me.

00:04:16.000 I look forward to leading this Pentagon on behalf of the warfighters.

00:04:19.000 And then Hegseth proceeded to talk about some of his policy prescriptions.

00:04:22.000 Here was Pete Hegseth, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, blasting the Afghanistan withdrawal and saying, hey, listen, if you're involved, you need to lose your job.

00:04:31.000 There's been no accountability for the disaster of the withdrawal in Afghanistan.

00:04:35.000 And that's precisely why we're here today, is that leadership...

00:04:40.000 It's been unwilling to take accountability.

00:04:42.000 It's the time to restore that to our most senior ranks.

00:04:45.000 You can hear some of the senators on the Democrat.

00:04:47.000 No, no, no, we didn't agree.

00:04:48.000 No, you didn't do a great job and all those people should be fired.

00:04:51.000 Hegseth also talked about getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a priority at the DOD. It needs to be a lethal warfighting machine, not an initiative for making people feel better about their woke HR choices.

00:05:02.000 Here was the nominee, Pete Hegseth.

00:05:05.000 Our standards will be high and they will be equal.

00:05:09.000 Not equitable.

00:05:11.000 That's a very different word.

00:05:14.000 We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapons system, every pilot's fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying, and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership or promotion purely based on performance, readiness, and merit.

00:05:34.000 Leaders at all levels will be held accountable.

00:05:38.000 And warfighting and lethality and the readiness of the troops and their families will be our only focus.

00:05:46.000 Again, all this should be non-controversial, but the left has made it somehow controversial.

00:05:50.000 Other things that Hegseth suggested, he said, our top priority is avoiding nuclear war.

00:05:54.000 Again, pretty obvious.

00:05:55.000 Also, he said, quote, I support Israel killing every last member of Hamas.

00:05:59.000 Sounds good to me and should sound good to civilized people everywhere.

00:06:04.000 There were some other interesting moments.

00:06:06.000 One of the interesting moments in the early going was Senator Jack Reed questioning Pete Hegseth.

00:06:11.000 Pete Hegseth at one point referred to someone as a jag-off, and apparently Senator Reed was confused by this particular nomenclature.

00:06:19.000 Well, by the way, would you explain what a jag-off is?

00:06:24.000 I don't think I need to, sir.

00:06:27.000 Why not?

00:06:28.000 Because the men and women watching understand.

00:06:31.000 Well, perhaps my colleagues don't understand.

00:06:34.000 It would be a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the warfighters.

00:06:40.000 Their promotions, their medals, in front of having the backs of those who are making the tough calls on the front lines.

00:06:46.000 I love that Reid thought that was like a killer question.

00:06:49.000 Oh my god, I'm going to catch him on this one.

00:06:51.000 Nope!

00:06:52.000 And by the way, great answer, because guess what?

00:06:56.000 Pete Hegseth was an infantry officer.

00:06:57.000 We need people who are actually in front line warfighting positions at DOD. Not these career political bureaucrats who somehow made their way up the ranks by pleasing all of the right politically correct folks.

00:07:09.000 That is the difference.

00:07:10.000 Hegseth needs to be confirmed.

00:07:11.000 He needs to be confirmed yesterday.

00:07:12.000 We have serious issues on the table.

00:07:15.000 We have a continued war in Ukraine.

00:07:16.000 We have Iran that is still making moves in the Middle East. 0.78

00:07:19.000 We have Turkey that is now incursioning into Syria.

00:07:22.000 But we also have possibilities.

00:07:24.000 We have the possibility of protecting Taiwan from Chinese predations and containing Chinese predations. 1.00

00:07:29.000 We have the possibility.

00:07:31.000 Of standing up to the Iranian terror-fighting nexus and to Turkish predations. 0.81

00:07:37.000 This is a moment of opportunity for the United States military, if we can seize it, if we can change our procurement processes, if we can change how we actually recruit, if we can change how the American war machine works, which I think Pete Hexth, I think he's going to go in there with a chainsaw, Javier Mille style.

00:07:52.000 I think he's going to cut a lot of the dead wood, and I think that he is going to change how things are done at DOD. I think that's why he's a threat to the system, which is precisely...

00:07:59.000 Why he deserves the support.

00:08:02.000 And Pete Hegseth, if you think you're going to get the best of him in this hearing, you are out of your damned mind.

00:08:08.000 And meanwhile, again, those nomination hearings have begun.

00:08:12.000 It is absolutely necessary that we get the precise reverse of what Joe Biden did.

00:08:17.000 So Joe Biden gave a press conference yesterday that was sort of bizarre retrospective, an attempt to rewrite his own history yesterday at the White House.

00:08:24.000 And it was just lie after lie after lie after lie.

00:08:28.000 If people wonder how Donald Trump became president again, the answer is Joseph R. Biden.

00:08:32.000 The worst president of the modern era.

00:08:35.000 The only possible challenger to his terrible presidency would be Jimmy Carter.

00:08:40.000 And it was just lie after lie.

00:08:43.000 Here was, for example, Joe Biden suggesting that illegal crossings went way down under his presidency, which is a lie.

00:08:51.000 We let in somewhere between 8 and 10 million illegal immigrants while he was president of the United States.

00:08:55.000 Let's get something in mind about the border.

00:08:58.000 When I became president, the numbers came way down, number one.

00:09:02.000 Number two, we had a circumstance where I pushed very hard for a bipartisan agreement to put more people on the border, more secret services.

00:09:13.000 And guess what?

00:09:14.000 He's on the phone saying, don't do it.

00:09:17.000 What in the world is he talking about?

00:09:19.000 He's just babbling nonsensically because this is what Joe Biden is and was.

00:09:25.000 He wanted more Secret Service agents?

00:09:28.000 That's not even what the Secret Service does.

00:09:30.000 He want more Secret Service agents on the American border?

00:09:33.000 You ran a senile left winger, and then you lost.

00:09:36.000 This is why Trump, guys.

00:09:38.000 Give the man his nominees.

00:09:40.000 Joe Biden says illegal crossings went way down, but the truth is he let criminality flourish.

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00:12:05.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden was actually taunting Putin about saying that he would visit Kiev in a matter of days.

00:12:09.000 We should note at this point that Joe Biden's initial response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was to offer a plane ride out of Ukraine to Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.

00:12:20.000 Just consider Russia.

00:12:22.000 When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he'd conquer Kiev in a matter of days.

00:12:27.000 The truth is, since that war began, I'm the only one that stood in the center of Kiev, not him.

00:12:34.000 Putin never had.

00:12:36.000 Think about it.

00:12:38.000 It was a long train ride, but I'm the only commander-in-chief to visit a war zone not controlled by U.S. forces.

00:12:51.000 Wow, what a hero.

00:12:52.000 We helped Ukrainians stop Putin.

00:12:55.000 And now, nearly three years later, Putin has failed to achieve any of his strategic objectives.

00:13:01.000 He has failed thus far to subjugate Ukraine, failed to break the unity of NATO, and failed to make large territorial gains.

00:13:11.000 Okay, except for the reality, which is that...

00:13:14.000 Your failures of policy in Ukraine have led to an interminably long war that has not moved the borders for three years.

00:13:22.000 A deal was available in August of 2022. You did not take it.

00:13:27.000 And not only that, you stopped pushing for a deal.

00:13:29.000 You stopped attempting to even be in line with reality on any of this stuff.

00:13:33.000 I do love it when Joe Biden and the rest of the Democrats sort of tout their travel history as a reason why they were good.

00:13:38.000 I took a long train ride to Ukraine and then...

00:13:41.000 Visited a war zone where we weren't actually...

00:13:43.000 Who gives it?

00:13:44.000 The American people certainly didn't.

00:13:46.000 But the rewriting of history continued to pace.

00:13:48.000 Here was Joe Biden yesterday talking about what an amazing job we did in Afghanistan, which is incredible because there are 13 dead American service people thanks to his botched pullout from Afghanistan.

00:13:55.000 The Taliban took over.

00:13:57.000 The Taliban are running it with an iron fist.

00:13:59.000 They have subjugated everyone in the country back to primitive caveman rule.

00:14:04.000 And here's Joe Biden touting it.

00:14:06.000 I saw no reason to keep thousands of servicemen in Afghanistan.

00:14:11.000 I think I have my schedule with me, and I keep on my—I don't here.

00:14:15.000 But I keep on the back of my card the actual number of dead and wounded that occurred in our longest war, to remind myself.

00:14:24.000 Keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day.

00:14:28.000 We're no longer doing that.

00:14:29.000 In my view, it was time to end the war and bring our troops home. 0.85

00:14:34.000 And we did.

00:14:35.000 Okay, and it went amazing, as it turns out.

00:14:39.000 That went absolutely, incredibly well.

00:14:42.000 The fact is, the pullout from Afghanistan was the single worst botched American moment in military foreign policy history, perhaps.

00:14:50.000 Turning over that country back to the Taliban, the full-scale collapse of our allies in Afghanistan due to Joe Biden deliberately pulling back air support for any of our allies in Afghanistan.

00:15:01.000 By the way, no one, no American troops were dying in Afghanistan at the time.

00:15:04.000 Zero.

00:15:05.000 Zero.

00:15:06.000 And Joe Biden somehow managed the signal feed of turning the entire country back over.

00:15:11.000 To people who harbor al-Qaeda and getting American troops killed in the process.

00:15:14.000 And he's touting it like the genius that he is.

00:15:17.000 And then he takes credit for stuff that Donald Trump did during his first term.

00:15:21.000 Here he was taking credit for NATO allies spending 2% on defense.

00:15:24.000 It was Donald Trump who leveraged our NATO allies into spending 2% on defense.

00:15:28.000 Not Joe Biden.

00:15:30.000 Our alliances are stronger than they've been in decades.

00:15:35.000 NATO is more capable than it's ever been.

00:15:39.000 And many more of our allies are paying their fair share.

00:15:43.000 Before I took office, nine NATO allies were spending 2% of their GDP on defense.

00:15:49.000 Now 23 are spending 2%.

00:15:53.000 That is because of the Ukraine war and because they knew that Donald Trump wanted them to pay their fair share.

00:15:58.000 And Joe Biden is there taking credit for it.

00:16:00.000 He didn't stop with the lies.

00:16:01.000 He said that we reinvigorated faith in America as a reliable ally.

00:16:06.000 Are you kidding me?

00:16:07.000 Not to the Israelis, not to the Saudis, and not to the Ukrainians, not to the Kurds.

00:16:11.000 Please, name an American ally that feels stronger because of Joe Biden today.

00:16:17.000 And we have strengthened partnerships all across the Americas, defending democracy, targeting corruption, addressing migration, increasing prosperity, and protecting Amazon rainforest, which captures billions of tons, billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year.

00:16:37.000 Overall, we've reinvigorated people's faith in the United States as a true, true partner.

00:16:43.000 By the way, the allies that he supposedly supported in South America are people like Lula da Silva in Brazil, who's basically a left-wing authoritarian.

00:16:53.000 The guy is off his rocker.

00:16:55.000 He's just off his rocker.

00:16:56.000 I can't imagine why you get Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.

00:16:59.000 This is why.

00:17:00.000 This is the exact reason.

00:17:01.000 The outgoing National Security Advisor, thank God, Jake Sullivan.

00:17:05.000 Who's an Obama holdover?

00:17:06.000 I mean, this is a guy who thinks that some of the main concerns for the United States would be like AI misidentifying people of color as a national security concern.

00:17:14.000 What in the world?

00:17:16.000 That's who this administration was.

00:17:18.000 And this is why you get walloped with Donald Trump.

00:17:21.000 Is there a concern about how AI, on the national security point, is not accurately depicting or scanning people of color?

00:17:32.000 Because we are understanding civil rights groups are very upset about that, how it's misidentifying.

00:17:37.000 Is that a concern with national security as well?

00:17:41.000 Yes, it is, of course.

00:17:42.000 If you think about...

00:17:44.000 The series of concerns that are raised by the advent of artificial intelligence, they range across economic, military, and social risks.

00:17:55.000 One of those is bias.

00:17:57.000 And there have been a lot of studies to show that bias is a genuine challenge when it comes to artificial intelligence and the ways in which that could undermine social cohesion in the United States and globally has national security implications.

00:18:13.000 And terrorism has national security implications.

00:18:16.000 You know what actually has some pretty significant national security implications?

00:18:21.000 You guys surrendering to terrorists and handing them billions of dollars in American military equipment.

00:18:24.000 That seems like a lot worse.

00:18:26.000 But you know what Jake Sullivan characterizes that at?

00:18:28.000 Challenges and difficulties.

00:18:29.000 He says, you know, when it comes to that Afghanistan pullout, which, by the way, was the turning point of the Biden presidency, he says that, yeah, we had some challenges, a few difficulties.

00:18:37.000 You mean how you abjectly surrendered to some of the worst people on planet Earth and got American troops killed?

00:18:42.000 In the process?

00:18:43.000 Would those be the challenges and difficulties, Jake?

00:18:48.000 America's better off today that we are not entering now our 25th year of war of Americans fighting and dying of billions and billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan.

00:18:57.000 And what we have been able to do instead is refocus that effort and energy and attention on the challenges of the future.

00:19:05.000 Now, when you end a war after 20 years, with all of the decisions that have piled up over that time.

00:19:11.000 There are going to be challenges and difficulties, and there were challenges and difficulties in the period of the drawdown.

00:19:17.000 But people predicted once we left Afghanistan, it would harm our alliances.

00:19:23.000 Our alliances are at historic highs.

00:19:25.000 They predicted that we would have a safe haven in Afghanistan for plotting terrorist attacks against the American homeland. 0.83

00:19:34.000 Terrorism remains a very real concern, but President Biden pointed out before he pulled out that it's a more diffuse and metastasized threat, including the kind of homegrown violent extremism that we saw on display in New Orleans in January.

00:19:49.000 In fact, over the course of these four years, we have seen President Biden, that was the first terrorist attack that has happened on American soil.

00:19:58.000 It was not connected to Afghanistan as far as we know.

00:20:00.000 It was connected to inspiration from ISIS. 0.83

00:20:03.000 And so President Biden believes that the decision he took has left America in a profoundly stronger position.

00:20:11.000 Totally insane.

00:20:12.000 Totally insane.

00:20:12.000 By the way, the withdrawal from Afghanistan led to two obviously predictable responses.

00:20:16.000 One, Russia thinking that America was weak and thus invading Ukraine.

00:20:19.000 And two, Iran thinking that America and its allies were weak and thus prompting Hamas to invade Israel on October 7th, 2023. These people cannot go soon enough and they need to be replaced by people who are going to clean house. 0.98

00:20:31.000 Clean house.

00:20:32.000 In 60 Minutes over the weekend, did an awful interview with a former State Department staffer who quit the Biden administration because the Biden administration, according to this crazed pro-terrorist former State Department staffer for like 20 years, was too pro-Israel, which is a wild misapprehension of exactly what Joe Biden had been doing with the Israel situation since like late 2023. That department needs to be cleansed.

00:20:55.000 So does with fire.

00:20:56.000 Okay, so too does the Department of Defense.

00:20:58.000 There are too many people in careerist positions at these departments who need to be cleaned out.

00:21:02.000 That is precisely why Donald Trump is nominating outsiders for all of these positions.

00:21:06.000 And whoever ends up running these departments, and I think Pete Hegseth will be confirmed.

00:21:10.000 I think Rubio will be confirmed.

00:21:11.000 I think Tulsi Gabbard will be confirmed.

00:21:13.000 I think all these people will be confirmed and should be.

00:21:15.000 They need to go into their various departments with a chainsaw like Javier Mille and start cutting staff immediately and replacing them with people who are not...

00:21:25.000 Actual globalists, people who believe that American priorities come first.

00:21:29.000 That would be the key.

00:21:31.000 So Trump deserves his nominees.

00:21:33.000 Well, folks, the federal government is filled with people who are absolutely useless.

00:21:36.000 It needs to get its fiscal house in order.

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00:23:00.000 Also, We all take supplements, or at least we probably know we should.

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00:24:05.000 Meanwhile, the media is evolving to meet the threat of Trump.

00:24:08.000 Rachel Maddow announced yesterday that she would be returning to her full-time show.

00:24:13.000 You excited?

00:24:13.000 All three of you viewers over at MSNBC? Apparently, according to Mediaite, MSNBC will bring Rachel Maddow back five nights a week to cover the first 100 days of Donald Trump's second term.

00:24:23.000 She's literally the only host on that network who really has any draw at all.

00:24:28.000 In 2024, Maddow raked in 2.5 million average viewers, which quadrupled her CNN competition at 9 p.m. 0.99

00:24:35.000 Sean Hannity led the time slot, as always, at Fox News with 2.8 million average viewers.

00:24:41.000 Alex Wagner, who hosts Maddow's hour the other four nights a week right now, will be hitting the road for the network.

00:24:45.000 Maddow's taking the helm starting on January 20th.

00:24:48.000 Maddow is making $30 million a year over at MSNBC, which may in fact be their entire gross receipts at MSNBC at this point, given their low viewership.

00:24:59.000 But I think the big media move of the moment, the one that matters most to me because it's the most hilarious.

00:25:03.000 is Jennifer Rubin.

00:25:05.000 So Jennifer Rubin is a former pseudo-conservative columnist for The Washington Post.

00:25:08.000 She's not been a conservative for, I don't know, 15 years at this point, but they kept calling her the conservative columnist for The Washington Post.

00:25:14.000 She could be reliably counted upon to write the dumbest tripe available. 0.98

00:25:18.000 She quit The Washington Post yesterday and slammed Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post.

00:25:24.000 She is now launching a brand new subscription outlet called The Contrarian.

00:25:31.000 The Contrarian. 0.54

00:25:33.000 I am sure that all two of her readers will be absolutely energized by this new announcement.

00:25:40.000 She'll be joined in this prospect by a person named Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and CNN legal analyst.

00:25:49.000 Wow, a constellation of stars happening right here.

00:25:52.000 So both of them looked into a camera and then talked and it was terrible for everyone.

00:25:58.000 Hi, I'm Jen Rubin.

00:25:59.000 And I'm Norm Eisen.

00:26:00.000 I am here to announce I am leaving The Washington Post in order to co-found with Norm an exciting new online platform, The Contrarian.

00:26:10.000 We are going to bring you written material, podcasts, interviews, social media, all in defense of democracy.

00:26:18.000 Our intent is to combat the authoritarian force that we all face.

00:26:23.000 Okay, nervous-looking woman on the left with the beaded necklace and dorky lawyer. 0.99

00:26:29.000 Who couldn't even hack it on CNN, the same network that hires Jeffrey Toobin.

00:26:33.000 Really, congrats to both of you on your brand new venture that I'm sure will earn you dozens of dollars.

00:26:38.000 Really well done.

00:26:39.000 You'll bring your vast audience of anti-authoritarian subscribers over to Substack, and we wish you nothing but the best.

00:26:47.000 Speaking of people who have some regerts, Jack Smith, who quit his job after it turns out that the person he was attempting to prosecute was elected president of the United States and was sentenced to four years in the White House.

00:26:57.000 Special Counsel Jack Smith, according to the Wall Street Journal, has defended his decision to bring charges against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election laws.

00:27:05.000 He wrote in a report made public early Tuesday, prosecutors believe they had enough evidence to convict Trump had they not been forced to drop the case after his re-election in November.

00:27:13.000 Well, I'm sure he did believe that, considering that he could have gotten a Washington, D.C. jury to convict Donald Trump on pretty much anything.

00:27:18.000 I think it's important for Americans to note what a bullet we all dodged by Donald Trump actually being re-elected.

00:27:24.000 Because the prospect of Donald Trump facing down actual prison time thanks to an out-of-control DOJ presided over by Democrats would have broken so many more institutions in the country than have already been broken.

00:27:36.000 Jack Smith's prosecution was a joke.

00:27:38.000 These prosecutions that Smith brought went so far beyond the statutory requirements that they were not just bending the law, they were effectively breaking the law.

00:27:48.000 So, of course, Smith is now going to claim that if it hadn't been for those darn kids, then he definitely would have gotten away with it.

00:27:54.000 If it hadn't been for those darn American people electing Donald Trump to a second term, then he definitely would have gotten Donald Trump.

00:27:59.000 It's like the end of every Scooby-Doo episode.

00:28:02.000 But you can expect that from Jack Smith, who went after Donald Trump with a blowtorch and ended up coming away with, what, a contract at MSNBC or CNN? And meanwhile, the wildfires in California are still raging.

00:28:15.000 Joe Biden has now pledged a massive, a massive federal subsidy to each resident affected by the LA wildfires.

00:28:22.000 Get ready for it.

00:28:23.000 You ready?

00:28:24.000 $770 to every resident affected by LA wildfires.

00:28:28.000 Now, far be it for me, a small government conservative, to think that the federal government ought to pass out checks in large numbers to people.

00:28:35.000 I actually don't think that they should.

00:28:37.000 I don't understand why taxpayers in Kentucky should be subsidizing people in California when California is a very large state with an incredibly large tax base.

00:28:45.000 That taxes its residents at exorbitantly high rates and then proceeds to mismanage fire management.

00:28:50.000 With that said, if Joe Biden is going to toss $7 trillion out the window every year, it seems to me he can do better than $770 to each resident affected by the LA wildfires, which is going to last under his inflation-ridden economy precisely two grocery cycles.

00:29:05.000 According to NewsNation, Biden announced Monday federal aid is flowing to LA as California battles its worst wildfires in state history.

00:29:13.000 Biden said, quote, we are not waiting until the fires are over to help victims.

00:29:15.000 We're helping them all right now.

00:29:17.000 People impacted by these fires are going to receive a one-time payment of $770.

00:29:21.000 Ooh, boy.

00:29:22.000 Boy, howdy.

00:29:23.000 I mean, that's certainly going to pay for, like, a bag of arugula at the Whole Foods.

00:29:28.000 So they can quickly purchase things like water baby formula and prescriptions.

00:29:33.000 The federal government will cover all firefighting costs for the next 180 days.

00:29:36.000 Nearly $5.1 million in immediate aid has been distributed with effective residents eligible for that one-time payment again of $770.

00:29:43.000 Wow, come on down. 0.77

00:29:45.000 Worst episode of The Price is Right literally ever.

00:29:48.000 As it turns out, the state of California really should be footing the bill considering how they botched this on behalf of all of their residents.

00:29:54.000 Good piece in the Wall Street Journal today by Alicia Finley talking about California's policy.

00:29:59.000 And here's what she says.

00:30:00.000 The L.A. Department of Water and Power in 2019 sought to widen a fire access road and replace old wooden utility poles in the Topanga Canyon, abutting the Palisades with steel ones to make power lines fire and wind resistant.

00:30:11.000 In the process, crews removed an estimated 182 Broughton milk vetch plants, an endangered species.

00:30:17.000 The utility then halted the project as state officials investigating the plant's destruction.

00:30:22.000 More than a year later, the California Coastal Commission issued a cease and desist order, fined the utility $2 million, and required mitigation for the project's impact on the species.

00:30:31.000 This involved replacing non-native vegetation with plants native to the state.

00:30:37.000 So, basically, to protect the milk vetch they let, all of the power lines remain vulnerable to fire.

00:30:45.000 Since the milk vetch requires wildfires to propagate, the only way to boost its numbers is to let the land burn.

00:30:51.000 Meanwhile, LA Fire Department Chief Kristen Crowley complains the city cut her budget by $17 million last spring, which she says reduced overtime comp and interfered with wildfire preparation.

00:31:00.000 But in truth, the fire budget didn't actually shrink because city leaders last autumn approved a new union contract that boosted pay and benefits by $76 million.

00:31:08.000 That's 20 grand per firefighter.

00:31:10.000 Before that raise, firefighters in LA, on average, earned $200,000 plus $90,000 in benefits.

00:31:17.000 Many retire at 55 with pensions equaling 90% of their final salaries.

00:31:22.000 So it turns out that maybe the spending wasn't the problem with the firefighters, except for the fact that these public sector unions are able to pry gigantic contracts out of these cities, and then they're wildly understaffed.

00:31:34.000 LA spent $350 million this year on firefighter pensions and benefits alone.

00:31:38.000 It feels like that money could have been better used on fire prevention, which made up 5% of the fire department's budget.

00:31:45.000 Bloated union contracts and DEI may not have directly hampered the fire response.

00:31:49.000 They illustrate the government's wrong-headed priorities.

00:31:51.000 It's the same with water.

00:31:54.000 According to Alicia Finley, President Trump blamed dry fire hydrants in LA on protections for the Delta smelt.

00:31:58.000 The real culprit was an overwhelmed water system, but both reflect government mismanagement.

00:32:03.000 Those smelt protections don't allow water to flow from north to south, which means billions of gallons of water being flushed out to the Pacific Ocean every year.

00:32:13.000 Meanwhile, the state has decided that basically crime and homelessness are now legal.

00:32:17.000 And so we still don't know how these fires started.

00:32:19.000 There is a very good shot.

00:32:20.000 Because many of the wildfires in California have started this way.

00:32:23.000 That you basically had homeless people living in the woods and burning things, and that starts wildfires.

00:32:28.000 Good Samaritans on Thursday actually detained a homeless man, an illegal immigrant, as it turns out, who they said used a flamethrower to incinerate Christmas trees and garbage cans around the same time as a major fire erupted.

00:32:39.000 Meanwhile, when it comes to insurance...

00:32:41.000 The insurance commissioners keep attempting to quash the fire insurance business in the state of California.

00:32:46.000 They say, we want the prices low and won't allow you to raise the prices.

00:32:49.000 So insurance companies are like, well, then we can't make money, so we're not going to do it, which means everybody just falls back on the state insurance plan, which means that now all the taxpayers get to pay for all of this.

00:32:58.000 It is no wonder that you have Speaker Johnson saying, listen, if we're going to give aid on a federal level to California, they're going to need to restructure some of their fire policies because otherwise you're just flushing money down the toilet.

00:33:07.000 Here's Speaker Johnson yesterday.

00:33:10.000 Obviously, there's been water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems.

00:33:18.000 And it does come down to leadership.

00:33:20.000 And it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects.

00:33:26.000 So that's something that has to be factored in.

00:33:29.000 I think there should probably be conditions on that date.

00:33:31.000 That's my personal view.

00:33:33.000 We'll see what the consensus is.

00:33:34.000 And again, that ain't wrong.

00:33:36.000 If the federal taxpayer is going to be subsidizing California, perhaps California should actually, you know, pursue the measures that might mitigate wildfires like this one.

00:33:44.000 The good news is that, as always, Governor Gavin Newsom right on top of it.

00:33:48.000 He says one of his top priorities, he doesn't want land speculators buying a property in the Palisades or Malibu.

00:33:53.000 That's not what he wants.

00:33:54.000 Just like in Hawaii, after the big fires, they were afraid that speculators would buy up the land.

00:33:57.000 Here's the thing.

00:33:58.000 If you're a person who just had your house burned down, maybe you need some quick access to capital.

00:34:03.000 And maybe it might be a kind of godsend if somebody came in with a couple million bucks and paid you for your land.

00:34:08.000 But Gavin Newsom's like, no, no, there will be none of that.

00:34:11.000 No free market activity in my part of the globe.

00:34:15.000 I was just talking to Josh Green, the governor down in Hawaii.

00:34:20.000 You had some ideas about some land use concerns he has around speculators coming in, buying up properties and the like.

00:34:27.000 So we're already working with our legal teams to move those things forward.

00:34:31.000 And we'll be presenting those in a matter of days, not just weeks.

00:34:34.000 I mean, he's now just basically doing these memes, right?

00:34:36.000 What is he doing?

00:34:37.000 What is he doing?

00:34:38.000 How did they ever consider this person a presidential possibility?

00:34:42.000 How?

00:34:43.000 I think the big issue here, however, is the obvious racism against Karen Bass, the mayor of L.A., who has botched this thing beyond recognition. 0.99

00:34:50.000 The good news is actresses Yvette Nicole Brown and Kim Whitley are on the case, and they say they will hear no racism against the elected mayor of Los Angeles.

00:34:59.000 Let me tell you something.

00:35:00.000 She's got a spine of steel. 1.00

00:35:02.000 Yes.

00:35:02.000 And she's also been a black woman in America a very long time.

00:35:05.000 So none of this is new to her.

00:35:07.000 We're mad because we're tired of it.

00:35:09.000 We're mad for her.

00:35:10.000 We're mad for her.

00:35:11.000 And we're going to stand...

00:35:12.000 Listen, I don't know how you're here, but I'm happy you're here.

00:35:16.000 Because somebody needs to say...

00:35:18.000 To stand behind her and support her.

00:35:20.000 Because how is she handling the...

00:35:22.000 You can see it in her face.

00:35:23.000 She stays calm.

00:35:25.000 But think about this.

00:35:26.000 She has the city to take care of. 1.00

00:35:28.000 Got me upset.

00:35:28.000 So she's had a great response so far to the fires as well.

00:35:31.000 Absolutely.

00:35:32.000 She has done what she's had to do.

00:35:34.000 She's jumped in there.

00:35:36.000 And let me tell you this.

00:35:37.000 We have fires every year.

00:35:39.000 And I don't remember in the 30 years almost that I've lived in L.A., I've never seen everybody react like this to the mayor.

00:35:45.000 And blame one person for a natural disaster.

00:35:48.000 Yes.

00:35:49.000 I've never seen it.

00:35:50.000 Now, what's different this time?

00:35:52.000 Interesting, isn't it?

00:35:53.000 You said that.

00:35:53.000 Amen, sister.

00:35:54.000 I mean, the thing that's different this time is that you have a Palisades fire that has burned 23,000 acres, has been burning for seven days, and is 17% contained, and your mayor was out of town in Ghana.

00:36:07.000 I mean, I feel like there are a few distinctions.

00:36:09.000 By the way, the fire warnings are now extending pretty much all the way up the coast, through Malibu, all the way towards Santa Barbara at this point, because the winds are still picking up.

00:36:19.000 They're going to pick up again today, and there's a lot of dry tinder in those particular areas.

00:36:23.000 Mayor Bass, for her part, she issued an executive order Monday that seeks to expedite rebuilding efforts.

00:36:28.000 Executive Order 1 requires city departments to complete project reviews within 30 days from when a complete application is submitted.

00:36:34.000 It's hilarious how they all become Republicans when they actually want to build something.

00:36:37.000 Until then, however, they will continue to quash actual livability in the state of California on behalf of trees and the homeless.

00:36:44.000 All right, in just one second, we'll get to Israel and Hamas supposedly on the verge of a quote-unquote ceasefire deal.

00:36:50.000 First, history is about to be made.

00:36:51.000 The Daily Wire will be live from Washington, D.C. to bring you every moment as Donald Trump is sworn in as 47th President of the United States.

00:36:58.000 It's not just an event, it's a movement.

00:36:59.000 We're making sure you're front and center for all of it.

00:37:01.000 To celebrate, we're giving you 25% off new Daily Wire Plus annual memberships.

00:37:05.000 With your membership, you'll get exclusive access to our ad-free, uncensored shows, plus a growing library of hit movies, original series, and groundbreaking documentaries that are reshaping culture.

00:37:13.000 Join the fight today.

00:37:15.000 Use code DW25 at dailywire.com slash subscribe for 25% off right now.

00:37:20.000 Meanwhile, with President Trump entering the White House, it appears that Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that is currently holding 100 hostages, about 70 of those are supposedly alive and they're holding the bodies of 30 others.

00:37:31.000 There is a deal that is going to release hostages.

00:37:33.000 It's being characterized by some as a ceasefire deal.

00:37:35.000 It's being characterized by others as a hostage release deal.

00:37:38.000 There's no question that President Trump's threats of all hell breaking loose on Hamas are leading Hamas to try to make a deal before Trump enters office with the Biden administration acting as broker.

00:37:47.000 There's also no question.

00:37:48.000 That President Trump and his team would like a headline that says that hostages walk out of Gaza because of President Trump during the first week of his brand new administration.

00:37:56.000 And so pressure has been brought on Israel, without a doubt, to come to the table and make some sort of deal.

00:38:01.000 The way that this deal stacks up is not something that I particularly like.

00:38:05.000 I think the deal is not good.

00:38:06.000 But that is because my belief is that if Israel does not, in fact, make the Strip quiescent, if Israel does not retain control over the Gaza Strip...

00:38:15.000 Then they are setting themselves up for further failure.

00:38:18.000 I also think that the generalized math in which Israel has participated, and this is Israel's own fault, for decades, which basically says that they will trade terrorists, like living, actual, murderous terrorists, for innocent people who are taken hostage, leads Israel's enemies to take hostages. 0.66

00:38:32.000 That is just the logic of hostage deals.

00:38:34.000 So, with all of that said, the following premises lead to a deal.

00:38:37.000 One, Israel was always going to make some sort of deal to try and get its hostages out, because Israel sees it as paramount to get those hostages out alive.

00:38:44.000 Two, Hamas was never going to allow all the hostages out because if they do, they lose their leverage and they know it. 0.75

00:38:50.000 So essentially, by taking hostages, Hamas always, to a certain extent, had Israel over the barrel.

00:38:54.000 And the only question was going to be, how many terrorists did Israel have to give up to get some of its hostages back?

00:38:59.000 Right now, the calculus seems to be 33 live hostages coming out over the course of the next six weeks, led by women and children.

00:39:06.000 Again, Hamas is perhaps the most evil terrorist group on the planet.

00:39:09.000 They're literally holding a one-year-old hostage.

00:39:11.000 This is what Hamas does. 0.93

00:39:12.000 And then the goal would be, if you're Hamas, to get to phase two, which would be a further negotiation that would allow for, quote unquote, the end of the war, which would mean Israel would withdraw most of its troops, if not all of its troops, from the Gaza Strip.

00:39:25.000 And Hamas would like to then reconstitute inside Gaza. 0.56

00:39:27.000 Israel is not going to allow that.

00:39:29.000 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he's not going to allow that.

00:39:32.000 From the Trump administration's point of view, what they want is the hostages out as soon as possible.

00:39:36.000 And so the question as to whether...

00:39:38.000 This deal is good, or whether it is bad, is really a question of what happens after phase one.

00:39:43.000 And this is very much like what happened very early on in the war.

00:39:46.000 There was a hostage deal that delayed further Israeli action by something like three weeks.

00:39:51.000 Before it broke down, Israel went back into the Gaza Strip to continue mopping up Hamas. 0.91

00:39:56.000 The same thing could happen right here.

00:39:58.000 Hostages could be released.

00:39:59.000 There are a bunch of things that Israel is called upon to do that are very negative militarily.

00:40:03.000 that include withdrawal from the so-called netzarim corridor which is a corridor a land corridor that goes basically bisects the gaza strip in an east-west direction and allows for israel to break up movement from terrorists from the south to the north where there are more weapons stockpiles this deal would also limit israel and their ability to police the so-called philadelphia corridor which is the smuggling corridor between egypt and the gaza strip which is how hamass got Terrorists would be released.

00:40:29.000 Those terrorists are supposedly going to be released to Qatar and Turkey, both of which hate Israel and are perfectly willing to allow those terrorists to Move back into the Gaza Strip at first available opportunity.

00:40:40.000 So there's a serious security danger to Israel.

00:40:42.000 If it weren't, Hamas wouldn't be doing the deal. 0.91

00:40:44.000 That is why Hamas is going to the table. 0.96

00:40:46.000 And yes, they're also going to the table because they fear that if they don't, they'll get a much worse deal under President Trump who will come in and then, quote unquote, unleash all hell, which would presumably mean allowing Israel to participate in much more severe fashion and mop up operations in the Gaza Strip. 0.54

00:41:00.000 According to Reuters, negotiators are meeting in Qatar, hoping to finalize details of a plan to end the war in Gaza.

00:41:05.000 Steve Witkoff is the Middle East envoy.

00:41:07.000 He seems to be working very closely with the Qataris.

00:41:10.000 That's not something I'm perfectly comfortable with, since Qatar has very often acted as a sort of cutout for Iran.

00:41:16.000 With that said, some sort of deal was probably going to get cut here.

00:41:18.000 The only question was just how bad for Israel.

00:41:21.000 There's been some talk about the possibility that the Netanyahu government is going to fall.

00:41:26.000 That appears very unlikely.

00:41:28.000 Netanyahu does have to get a majority of the Knesset to actually go along with the hostage deal.

00:41:34.000 That would include his own coalition.

00:41:36.000 If his own coalition drops off the hostage deal and decides to walk out of the government, then his government falls and new elections are called in Israel.

00:41:42.000 Netanyahu is betting that won't happen.

00:41:44.000 He appears to be correct in that bet.

00:41:47.000 So he has two parties that are to the right of him in his coalition in Israel.

00:41:52.000 One of them is the party Otzma Yehudit, which is led by Itzmar Ben-Kavir.

00:41:57.000 Who's probably the furthest right person in the Israeli government.

00:42:00.000 The other is led by Batal Smotrich.

00:42:02.000 Batal Smotrich has a smaller party than Ben Gavir.

00:42:06.000 Smotrich represents a lot of the so-called settlers, people who are living in Judea and Samaria, who really don't like the deal.

00:42:12.000 A disproportionate share of Israeli soldiers who've been killed in this war come from Judea and Samaria, are coming from the areas...

00:42:17.000 That have elected Patel Smotrich, so they don't like the deal.

00:42:20.000 Smotrich is hesitant to topple the government because he recognizes that if that happens, he's probably not likely to sit in the next coalition government in Israel.

00:42:27.000 Ben Gavir could single-handedly topple the government, but instead he seems to be demagoguing the issue.

00:42:31.000 He's basically saying, I'll only walk out if Smotrich walks out, which is a great way for him to avoid walking out of the government.

00:42:36.000 So it appears right now as though some sort of deal is going to go through before President Trump becomes president.

00:42:41.000 Trump will get the headline correctly that says that his presidency brought about the release.

00:42:46.000 And then the question is to whether this is a livable deal for Israel or whether it threatens Israel and other American allies because reconstitution of Hamas in the Gaza Strip would be quite bad.

00:42:55.000 That question is going to come down to further implementation of the deal.

00:42:59.000 Apparently, according to Reuters, Hamas is accepting verbal agreements to possibly talk to agree about a ceasefire nearing the end of the war.

00:43:09.000 And what that seems to me is Hamas operating from a position of absolute weakness.

00:43:14.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, both sides seem galvanized by the prospect of Trump's return to office.

00:43:18.000 The incoming president said a week ago a hell will break out in the Middle East if the hostages aren't released by the time he takes office on Monday, repeating a threat he had made earlier.

00:43:26.000 He hasn't explained what he means.

00:43:27.000 Last week he said it wouldn't be good for Hamas or, frankly, for anyone.

00:43:30.000 Trump said on Monday to Newsmax that his deal was very close to getting done.

00:43:34.000 He said there's been a handshake.

00:43:35.000 They're getting it finished maybe by the end of the week.

00:43:38.000 Asked what turned the tide in recent days, an Israeli official said, quote, the Trump effect.

00:43:42.000 And that official said Trump's going to get credit no matter what, if the deal actually gets done.

00:43:47.000 Now, again, the fact that the Biden administration is working well with Steve Whitcoff makes me think this is not a particularly amazing deal for the West or for Israel generally.

00:43:55.000 But once again, it was Israel that made a priority to get back its hostages and was willing to trade terrorists for those hostages. 0.64

00:44:02.000 If Israel had taken the position from the get-go that they were not going to sacrifice military priorities in favor of the hostages, that would have changed the math.

00:44:10.000 But as long as they need to get the hostages back, terrorists are going to go free, and Israel is going to have to make moves that compromise its own national security.

00:44:16.000 That's just sort of the reality of the situation.

00:44:19.000 Again, this had all been forecast a little bit earlier this week.

00:44:22.000 J.D. Vance on the Sunday shows had suggested that all hell means that basically Israel will be given a freer hand.

00:44:27.000 Hamas knows that's coming, and that's one of the reasons they're being pushed to the table.

00:44:30.000 They're getting a better deal under Biden than they would under Trump.

00:44:33.000 I think the president, if you talk to world leaders, it's very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there is going to be hell to pay is part of the reason why we've made progress on getting some hostages out. 0.67

00:44:46.000 We're hopeful there's going to be a deal that's struck towards the very end of Biden's administration, maybe the last day or two.

00:44:52.000 But regardless of when that deal is struck, it will be because people are terrified that there are going to be consequences for Hamas.

00:44:59.000 Now, what does that look like?

00:45:00.000 I think, number one, it means enabling the Israelis to knock out the final couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership.

00:45:07.000 It means very aggressive sanctions and financial penalties on those who are supporting terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

00:45:14.000 It means actually doing the job of American leadership.

00:45:17.000 And again, I think that Hamas sees that and they know that's coming. 0.55

00:45:21.000 Whether this deal ends up being catastrophically bad or just sort of as bad as it needs to be in order to get the hostages out, that's going to be up to the sort of next iteration of the deal.

00:45:31.000 Meaning, after Hamas violates the deal, which they absolutely will, I mean, they're currently holding hostages. 0.80

00:45:36.000 Once that happens, if Israel says, listen, we are not going to hand over the strip back to Hamas after the sacrifices in soldiers and materiel that we've made, if Israel says that and then goes back in, is the Trump administration going to object?

00:45:48.000 My guess is probably not very much, considering that the hostages will be out at that point.

00:45:53.000 Joining us online is Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies at Manhattan Institute.

00:45:58.000 He has a brand new book out today titled Lawless, the Miseducation of America's Elites.

00:46:02.000 Ilya, thanks so much for joining the show.

00:46:03.000 Really appreciate it.

00:46:04.000 Great to be back with you, Ben.

00:46:06.000 So let's talk about the situation in sort of legal academia right now.

00:46:10.000 First of all, why does this matter, given the fact that America probably has too many lawyers already?

00:46:16.000 Well, as we've learned, there's a crisis in higher education more broadly, which has certainly come to the fore since October 7th and revealed the pathologies of various kinds.

00:46:28.000 This is particularly dangerous for legal education because while it's sad for humanity if English and sociology departments go off the rails, law schools train the next generation of... 0.95

00:46:40.000 The gatekeepers of our legal and political institutions, our judges, disproportionately our politicians, other leaders of various kinds.

00:46:48.000 If the law is subverted, if the rules of the game, such basic values as due process, equality under the law, free speech, if these are thrown out the window, we're in big trouble.

00:47:00.000 So you obviously have some personal experiences with regard to the law schools and how they have treated.

00:47:07.000 People who differ in viewpoint, maybe you can talk a little bit about what it's like.

00:47:11.000 I mean, you've taught at some of these law schools.

00:47:13.000 Right.

00:47:14.000 Well, three years ago, I was about to start a job at Georgetown Law School, and I was commenting in the media about the Supreme Court.

00:47:22.000 That was the subject of my last book, Supreme Disorder, Judicial Politics.

00:47:26.000 And I tweeted, I inartfully phrased a criticism of Joe Biden for restricting his Supreme Court nominees by race and sex, a view I maintain to this day.

00:47:37.000 Overwhelming majority of Americans agree as well.

00:47:40.000 Anyway, this badly phrased tweet led to a four-month-long investigation by the DEI office at Georgetown as to whether I was discriminating against or harassing someone, at the end of which I was let off on the technicality that I wasn't employed when I tweeted, and so the rules didn't apply.

00:47:57.000 But I got this big, long report.

00:47:59.000 From the HR and DEI office, saying any time I offended someone, I would be back in the Star Chamber, would create a hostile educational environment.

00:48:07.000 So I quit.

00:48:08.000 I said I couldn't work under these conditions, and so I quit, and I've been using this platform to shine a light on the rot in academia, and especially in legal education.

00:48:18.000 So, Ilya, obviously the Trump administration is set to take over next week.

00:48:21.000 There are going to be some significant changes in places like the Department of Education.

00:48:24.000 Federal policy does have some impact on how these operations actually run.

00:48:29.000 Let's say that you were advising Linda McMahon over at the Department of Education.

00:48:31.000 What kind of stuff would you be telling her with regard to legal academia?

00:48:36.000 I'm for all of the above.

00:48:38.000 We're not going to have reforms internally.

00:48:41.000 The leaders of these institutions have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to do the right thing, not because it's the right thing, but because it's in their interests.

00:48:49.000 And that includes the shocks from federal and state governments.

00:48:52.000 The Office of Civil Rights at Education should investigate and in conjunction with the Justice Department withhold funds from schools that violate students' civil rights, whether in the context of free speech, anti-Semitism or so many other things that these schools are doing that are improper.

00:49:08.000 State attorneys general should investigate these places. 0.69

00:49:11.000 Private employers, as they did after October 7th, writing law school deans saying, why are you having a culture where Hamas supporters are flourishing?

00:49:21.000 All of these kinds of exogenous shocks, I think, are important.

00:49:24.000 And shining a light.

00:49:25.000 You know, just one op-ed.

00:49:27.000 And as we're seeing now with Texas A&M, for example, with their People of Color Only Conference or whatever it is that they're having, just shining a bit of a light makes it obvious that to mix metaphors, in some cases, these are Potemkin villages guarded by paper tigers.

00:49:44.000 Well, the book is Lawless, The Miseducation of America's Elites.

00:49:47.000 The author is Ilya Shapiro.

00:49:49.000 Go check out that book.

00:49:49.000 It is available today.

00:49:51.000 Ilya, really appreciate the time.

00:49:52.000 Good luck with the book.

00:49:53.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:49:54.000 Take care.

00:49:54.000 All right, coming up, we'll get to Joe Biden.

00:49:57.000 Who is spending his days now attacking all of his enemies.

00:50:00.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:50:01.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 14, 2025

Hegseth KICKS ASS: Confirm Him Now

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