The Ben Shapiro Show - Homeland Security Secretary IMPEACHED

00:00:00.000 So yesterday, the Republicans voted incredibly narrowly to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

00:00:07.000 It was very narrow because a few Republicans defected, like three Republicans defected, and Republicans, as we'll discuss in just a little while, have a shrinking House majority.

00:00:16.000 But they were able, on a 214 to 213 party line vote, impeach the Homeland Security Secretary.

00:00:23.000 So what exactly does that mean?

00:00:26.000 First answer is, in practical terms, it means nothing.

00:00:28.000 He's not going to be actually convicted in the Senate.

00:00:30.000 There is no shot that he is going to be convicted in the Senate.

00:00:34.000 It was an optical impeachment in the same way that it was an optical impeachment both times Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives.

00:00:42.000 But that does not mean that it was worthless.

00:00:44.000 It was worthwhile for a couple of reasons.

00:00:46.000 One, It is imperative that the Republicans in the House continue to highlight Joe Biden's administration's refusal to enforce America's southern border.

00:00:55.000 So just on a pure policy matter, this administration has kept the southern border wide open.

00:01:00.000 They've completely restructured American immigration law so as to facilitate the mass migration of people up through America's southern border.

00:01:07.000 You're talking about anywhere from 6 to 10 million people who have entered the country illegally since Joe Biden took office.

00:01:12.000 People who are claiming asylum, waving their arms, getting picked up by border patrol, And then being released on parole into the country never to show up again.

00:01:20.000 That is a deliberate policy decision made by this administration, effectuated by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

00:01:25.000 To be totally fair to Alejandro Mayorkas, he works for Joe Biden.

00:01:28.000 So, here is the other side of the impeachment.

00:01:31.000 Because there's really two questions.

00:01:33.000 One is, is the border policy horrific and should it be highlighted?

00:01:36.000 Yes, it's horrific.

00:01:36.000 Yes, it should be highlighted.

00:01:38.000 Then there's the second question, whether that merits impeachment.

00:01:41.000 So on the merits of impeachment, this depends on what you think impeachment is for.

00:01:45.000 So for nearly all of American history, people thought that what impeachment was actually for was, you know, high crimes and misdemeanors, which is why it was barely ever used.

00:01:53.000 It was used in cases of bribery a couple of times.

00:01:57.000 It was being threatened against Richard Nixon before he resigned.

00:02:00.000 But the reality is that the impeachment cat was never taken out of the bag unless you actually had high crimes and misdemeanors to allege.

00:02:07.000 And then Democrats two times alleged no crime by Donald Trump and then impeached him twice.

00:02:13.000 And I said in both of those cases that impeachment was not merited because even if I wildly disagreed with Donald Trump's actions between the election in November of 2020 and January 6th of 2021, there was no actual crime that took place.

00:02:27.000 Bad behavior is not impeachable.

00:02:29.000 Crime is impeachable.

00:02:30.000 And when it came to his conversations with Vladimir Zelensky, the suggestion was that he had a conversation with Vladimir Zelensky back in 2019 in which he essentially threatened the suspension of American aid to Ukraine In the lead up to the war in Ukraine, specifically because he wanted the Ukrainian government to go and investigate Hunter Biden and Burisma.

00:02:49.000 And the suggestion was that this was him essentially militarizing American military aid in order to pursue a political goal on his own behalf.

00:03:00.000 And that was the impeachable offense.

00:03:01.000 But there was no actual crime that was alleged in the impeachment documents.

00:03:05.000 It was all, again, bad behavior.

00:03:06.000 And so I said both times, even if you don't like Donald Trump's behavior, that's not impeachable.

00:03:10.000 Democrats disagreed.

00:03:11.000 They impeached him twice.

00:03:12.000 So, why impeach Alejandro Mayorkas without actual high crimes or misdemeanors?

00:03:18.000 The reason is because if these are the new rules they apply to everyone evenly, and we should all recognize that if we want to go back to status quo ante, if we want to put the cat back in the bag, then we cannot have a situation in which Democrats get to impeach Republican officials for not high crimes and misdemeanors, and then Republicans will only impeach for high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:03:36.000 So the impeachment serves two purposes. 0.93

00:03:37.000 One is an obviously political and I think well-merited purpose, which is go after this administration on their crap border policy.

00:03:44.000 And two is to re-establish a mutually assured destruction with regard to impeachment so that if both parties wish to restore what impeachment was for before, which is just high crimes and misdemeanors, let's go back to that.

00:03:55.000 Otherwise, it's just going to be everyone can basically assume that if an opposing party takes control of Congress, a party that is not The same party running the presidency.

00:04:04.000 That somebody in the White House is going to get impeached.

00:04:06.000 That's just the way this is going to work.

00:04:08.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, with the 214 to 213 vote, Mayorkas became the first sitting cabinet official in history to be impeached.

00:04:15.000 The GOP has been pursuing the impeachment for more than a year, alleging that Mayorkas has willfully refused to enforce the nation's immigration laws, pointing to the record number of illegal crossings at the southern border.

00:04:24.000 Mayorkas has called those allegations false.

00:04:26.000 And of course, it's not going anywhere in the Senate of the United States.

00:04:30.000 Now again, this doesn't mean that Alejandro Mayorkas isn't doing a horrifying job.

00:04:33.000 He is doing a truly horrifying job.

00:04:35.000 But it is also true that there are no crimes that are actually alleged in the impeachment documents.

00:04:39.000 I'm looking at the impeachment documents right now.

00:04:42.000 And again, the political case for impeaching Mayorkas or hell, impeaching Joe Biden is very strong if by that you just mean this person is doing a really bad job and betraying their public oath of office and should not be in that job.

00:04:54.000 So, for example, the impeachment documents say that Alejandro Mayorkas has demonstrated he will remain a threat to national and border security, the safety of the U.S.

00:05:01.000 people, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with his duties in the rule of law.

00:05:06.000 And I totally agree with all of that.

00:05:08.000 Again, is that a high crime or misdemeanor?

00:05:10.000 No, I mean, I think Joe Biden does that pretty much every day, and that doesn't mean he has committed a high crime or misdemeanor.

00:05:14.000 But, again, this is about two things.

00:05:17.000 One is reestablishing a level of deterrence with regard to what used to be a nuclear option in American politics, impeachment.

00:05:23.000 Even when Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, Bill Clinton had committed a crime.

00:05:30.000 Bill Clinton committed obstruction of justice.

00:05:31.000 That was alleged in the impeachment charging documents.

00:05:34.000 That's what was there.

00:05:36.000 It was Democrats who broke this glass, and now it's Democrats who are going to have to put them back together.

00:05:41.000 That's all.

00:05:42.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:06:44.000 So what are the consequences for all this?

00:06:46.000 Well, obviously it keeps front and center all of the border failures of this administration.

00:06:51.000 And those border failures are myriad and super problematic. 0.69

00:06:56.000 Democrats are claiming, of course, that this is all ridiculous and there's nothing to it.

00:07:03.000 And it's the same people who are claiming that it was perfectly fine to impeach Donald Trump.

00:07:07.000 Over not high crimes and misdemeanors now saying that it's really bad to impeach Mayorkas over not high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:07:12.000 So, for example, Representative Dan Goldman, who actually led the impeachment effort against Trump, he says that going after Mayorkas, that's just about taking a scalp.

00:07:19.000 Well, I mean, that's true.

00:07:20.000 What do you think going after Trump was as well?

00:07:23.000 The President and Secretary Mayorkas spent months negotiating a bipartisan deal to address the situation at the border, which goes further than any Democrat has ever gone before.

00:07:35.000 And all of a sudden, after claiming that the administration needs to address the border, the Republicans and Donald Trump decide, no, no, no, no, we don't really want to solve the problems.

00:07:47.000 We want the problems so that we can run against the problems.

00:07:52.000 And that is incredibly cynical, and that's what this is all about.

00:07:56.000 It is taking a scalp for Secretary Mariorkas, for the MAGA base, and trying to lay the blame at his feet for a situation at the border that needs to be addressed, but can only be addressed by legislation, not by executive action.

00:08:13.000 And of course, that's a lie, right?

00:08:15.000 What the impeachment is about is saying that Mayorkas has every legal tool at his disposal to shut the border.

00:08:19.000 Democrats are, of course, claiming that you need some sort of bipartisan piece of enabling legislation in order to close the border, which is not true.

00:08:26.000 And then you hear, by the way, some Republicans buying into this rhetoric By suggesting that there needs to be additional funding at the border.

00:08:31.000 There actually does not.

00:08:31.000 Again, I was down at the border.

00:08:33.000 I talked to the head of the Border Patrol Union.

00:08:35.000 You can watch that documentary that we made about it.

00:08:37.000 The first episode of Divided States of Biden.

00:08:39.000 You can check that out over at Daily Wire.

00:08:40.000 We discuss all of this in depth.

00:08:42.000 This is not a resource problem.

00:08:43.000 This is a resource allocation problem.

00:08:45.000 And that is, in fact, about Alejandro Mayorkas.

00:08:47.000 Which is why, for political purposes, it is necessary to remind everyone that this is solely on the Biden administration.

00:08:54.000 That this really is about the Biden administration.

00:08:57.000 And let's be real about this.

00:08:58.000 Democrats have taken the open borders position.

00:09:00.000 Hakeem Jeffries, who is the minority leader of the Democratic Party in the House, he says that Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, is the real problem because Greg Abbott is, you know, taking illegal immigrants and telling them that they can get on a bus to New York or Chicago.

00:09:13.000 He suggests that he's responsible for human trafficking, for telling people that they can go to major American sanctuary cities.

00:09:20.000 But Joe Biden is not responsible for human trafficking for literally facilitating the entry of maybe 10 million people into the country.

00:09:28.000 Do you not see that the move by Governor Abbott of Texas to bus migrants to Democratic-leaning cities such as New York or Chicago or Denver, that while you might think it's cruel, it has been effective at demonstrating how this influx of migrants has sapped social service resources and demonstrated that this is a real crisis. 0.81

00:09:52.000 Do you agree with that? 0.95

00:09:57.000 Well, Governor, Abbott is an embarrassment and a human trafficker. 0.98

00:10:02.000 They want to keep the border open. 0.99

00:10:04.000 When you suggest that Abbott is the embarrassment and the human trafficker, it's pretty obvious what you want.

00:10:08.000 All of this obviously plays into broader concerns about Joe Biden's presidency.

00:10:14.000 The reason the Democrats are very upset about the impeachment of Mayorkas is because obviously it suggests to the American people that Joe Biden is truly a bad president, because Joe Biden is truly a bad president, and all of the factors.

00:10:24.000 that are militating against his reelection are now coming into play.

00:10:27.000 According to Breitbart.com, President Joe Biden maintained a plausible deniability while his family business raked in millions from several foreign entities, including CEFC China Energy Company, which compromised the president.

00:10:37.000 According to former Biden family business partner Tony Bobulinski, he was talking to the House impeachment inquiry.

00:10:42.000 There's an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden himself.

00:10:45.000 His testimony is significant because, of course, you will remember that he actually did meet Joe Biden in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in May 2017 to discuss business with CEFC and he's also the whistleblower who mentioned, Bobulinski is, that the infamous email about a stake of 10% held by H4, the big guy, the big guy was Joe Biden.

00:11:04.000 There was a carve-out for Joe Biden.

00:11:08.000 According to Bob Molenski, he said the only reason any of these international business transactions took place with tens of millions of dollars flung directly to the Biden family was because Joe Biden was in high office.

00:11:17.000 The Biden family business was Joe Biden, period.

00:11:19.000 Other players have made this point very clear as well.

00:11:21.000 Hunter Biden himself has adamantly stated it in a variety of communications, as did another Biden family business associate, Devin Archer, in his testimony last year.

00:11:28.000 And the perception of Joe Biden as some Clean politician who has never been involved in corruption is obviously not true.

00:11:37.000 So you add together his political incompetence, his accusations of corruption that are still swirling around him, those have sort of taken a backseat to the biggest issue surrounding him right now, which is his obvious senility.

00:11:47.000 I mean, he is obviously losing it on a mental level.

00:11:50.000 86% of Americans, by the latest polling data, think he is too old to be president of the United States.

00:11:54.000 And meanwhile, Democrats have no alternatives.

00:11:56.000 There's no way out but through for them.

00:11:58.000 And their defenses are getting more and more strained.

00:12:02.000 Karine Jean-Pierre, yesterday, White House Press Secretary, incompetent, terrible at her job, she suggested that, you remember that horrible press conference that Joe Biden did on Thursday night?

00:12:11.000 It was the worst press conference I've ever seen from a President of the United States. 0.51

00:12:14.000 It was specifically designed to assuage American concerns about his mental state, and so he went out there and started spewing cream of wheat.

00:12:22.000 And then jabbering nonsensically about how the president of Egypt was the president of Mexico and such.

00:12:27.000 Whose idea was that?

00:12:28.000 I said at the time, it was clearly Joe Biden's idea.

00:12:30.000 Because no political consultant in their right mind would put applesauce for brains out there in the middle of a controversy about whether he had applesauce for brains.

00:12:38.000 It had to be Joe Biden being a stubborn old dude, and he was like, I sound great, don't I, Joe?

00:12:44.000 And Joe's like, Joe?

00:12:45.000 And he's like, And then he went out there and sounded like that.

00:12:49.000 Well, here's Kareem Jean-Pierre confirming the obvious.

00:12:51.000 It was Joe Biden's idea to get out there in front of the cameras

00:12:54.000 and demonstrate that his brain has turned to mush.

00:12:58.000 Kareem, earlier you mentioned that the president of the White House

00:13:01.000 thought it was a good idea for him to come out last Thursday.

00:13:04.000 Just want to clear it up.

00:13:05.000 Was it the President's idea to come over?

00:13:06.000 It was the President's idea, yes.

00:13:08.000 It was his idea?

00:13:09.000 It was his idea.

00:13:10.000 And how forceful was he when he came out and said he wanted to do it that time?

00:13:16.000 I mean, you saw the President out do this, make a statement, take questions from all of you because he wanted to do it.

00:13:23.000 Did anyone advise him against it?

00:13:25.000 I'm not going to get into private conversations that the President has.

00:13:27.000 The President is the President of the United States.

00:13:29.000 If he says he wants to speak directly to the American people, he's going to do that.

00:13:34.000 Yeah, well, he decided that, and then he did it, and it didn't go amazing.

00:13:36.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:14:40.000 Shapiro. She was asked by the way, if Joe Biden should actually make his transcripts of his

00:14:45.000 conversations with the special counsel public because one of the cases the Democrats have been

00:14:49.000 making, as we'll see in a moment, is that the special counsel who totally sank Joe Biden's

00:14:53.000 boat here is the problem.

00:14:55.000 So the special counsel had on his plate a real issue, which was that Joe Biden clearly mishandled classified documents, knowingly.

00:15:02.000 Obviously, he was on tape.

00:15:04.000 Again, it is amazing how many of our politicians do the crime on tape.

00:15:07.000 It's the first rule of criming, as I've said a thousand times, don't do crime on tape, folks.

00:15:12.000 Hey, watch the wire.

00:15:13.000 Don't do crime on tape.

00:15:14.000 But apparently all of our politicians break that rule.

00:15:17.000 So Joe Biden was on tape with his ghostwriter saying, which means he knew they were classified and that they were at his house, which is a violation of the law.

00:15:23.000 classified materials.

00:15:25.000 Which means he knew they were classified and that they were at his house, which is a violation

00:15:28.000 of the law.

00:15:30.000 In any case, the way that the special counsel got out of that was by saying, yeah, I mean,

00:15:35.000 it's true that he said all that, but also we all know that his brain is no longer functional.

00:15:40.000 That he's in the clutches of encroaching senility.

00:15:43.000 And then Democrats are like, how dare he say that?

00:15:46.000 And so people like me are like, okay, well, if you say that he's not senile, then maybe you should release the transcript.

00:15:52.000 So Kareem Jean-Pierre was asked, are they going to release the transcript?

00:15:54.000 He's like, nah.

00:15:55.000 Uh, committee chairs have sent a letter to the Attorney General asking for the release of the transcripts and recordings related to her investigation.

00:16:02.000 Given your insistence that the Special Counsel's characterizations of the President's demeanor were inaccurate, are you eager for this material to be made public?

00:16:10.000 Do you support their release?

00:16:12.000 And I just want to be really clear.

00:16:13.000 It's not just us.

00:16:14.000 There was also bipartisan voices and illegal experts who have said it was flatly wrong, right?

00:16:21.000 It was gratuitous.

00:16:22.000 It was inappropriate how that was characterized in the special counsel's report.

00:16:27.000 For any other specific on the transcript or anything related to that, the letter, I would certainly refer you to my colleagues.

00:16:35.000 So you won't say, given that you think the report is flatly wrong and gratuitous, you can't say you want the material to be made public?

00:16:43.000 No, what I can say is they're discussing it, they're looking at it, there's a process that's involved, and so the White House Counsel obviously has taken these questions from all of you, and so they're looking into it.

00:16:53.000 I just don't have anything further to say about that.

00:16:56.000 Yeah, so they're not going to release those transcripts because it's going to demonstrate what everybody already knows.

00:17:00.000 And by the way, we don't need the transcripts.

00:17:01.000 We can see him. 0.83

00:17:03.000 This is my favorite part of this whole controversy of whether Joe Biden has a mental problem at this point.

00:17:08.000 We have eyes, folks.

00:17:10.000 He's the president.

00:17:12.000 Every time he talks, it feels like he's about to keel over physically.

00:17:16.000 Am I going to be surprised by anything in the transcript?

00:17:20.000 I'll be surprised to be shockingly articulate.

00:17:22.000 That's what will surprise me.

00:17:23.000 Meanwhile, the Democrats, again, they keep trying to push through.

00:17:26.000 So Nancy Pelosi, who is 83 years old, legitimately 83, because the entire leadership class of our country has been dead for 20 years.

00:17:35.000 Nancy Pelosi, they're trotting her out to say that Joe Biden is sharp, which is an amazing... They have to trot out the lady who's two years older than Joe Biden to explain why old age and sharpness are not affecting Joe Biden.

00:17:50.000 Amazing stuff here.

00:17:52.000 Do you think that is the avenue that President Biden should go down on this?

00:17:57.000 Sort of poking fun at, I mean, his age is his age.

00:18:03.000 His age is his age, yes.

00:18:04.000 I'll tell you this, though.

00:18:05.000 I've worked with the President for a long time, especially closely as Speaker when he was President, and now since then.

00:18:13.000 And he knows.

00:18:14.000 I mean, he's always on the ball.

00:18:17.000 He knows these issues.

00:18:19.000 He knows the legislation.

00:18:20.000 He helped write some of it.

00:18:21.000 He campaigned on it.

00:18:23.000 He remembers it.

00:18:24.000 Anyone who would think that they're at some advantage because of his age Uh, thinks that at their peril because he's very sharp.

00:18:37.000 Ventures are clacking.

00:18:38.000 Yes, this is our country now.

00:18:40.000 Meanwhile, Jen Psaki, the former press secretary for Joe Biden, she says that maybe we should actually investigate Robert Hurd, the special counsel.

00:18:47.000 Yes, we should.

00:18:47.000 We should not talk about the 25th Amendment for our fading president.

00:18:51.000 Instead, we should talk about whether the special counsel is a bad, bad man for noting the thing that everyone can see, because again, we all have eyeballs.

00:18:59.000 His reporting and who he talked to went outside of what would be normal, even for a special counsel.

00:19:05.000 Do you think that should be investigated or looked into?

00:19:08.000 Because the judicial system, the judiciary is kind of not a positive view necessarily by the American public at this point.

00:19:18.000 Well, in the role that I have, all I can do is point it out, which is you had an investigation that ran for 15 months, which could have been concluded in just a few months.

00:19:29.000 There was never any question that the president had not engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

00:19:33.000 He was the self-reporting party here.

00:19:36.000 He had turned the documents over upon discovery, cooperated in every respect, and yet somehow in this report, the special counsel felt compelled to engage in this Irrelevant, unfounded, and often pejorative commentary.

00:19:49.000 And I think it's clear that that commentary is inconsistent with department norms.

00:19:56.000 Yeah, investigate the special counsel.

00:19:57.000 That's the ticket.

00:19:58.000 You guys are doing great.

00:19:59.000 Chuck Schumer, also an old man.

00:20:01.000 He's out there defending Joe Biden.

00:20:03.000 I am amused by the fact that legitimately every person in these conversations is an elderly person.

00:20:10.000 Chuck Schumer is 73 years old.

00:20:13.000 Here's Chuck Schumer, he's the spring chicken of the group, talking about how with it Joe Biden is.

00:20:18.000 I talk to President Biden, you know, regularly, or sometimes several times in a week, or usually several times in a week.

00:20:27.000 His mental acuity is great.

00:20:29.000 It's fine.

00:20:30.000 It's as good as it's been over the years.

00:20:32.000 I've been speaking to him for 30 years since we worked on the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban when I was a young congressman uh... and uh... he's he's he's fine all this right wing propaganda that he's mental acuity is declined is wrong

00:20:49.000 Oh, it's all wrong, is it?

00:20:52.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:22:01.000 Well, the funny thing about all of this is, again, because everyone has eyeballs, even Jon Stewart, who has now returned to Comedy Central to take over his old slot on The Daily Show.

00:22:09.000 He's now doing that, I suppose, every Monday.

00:22:12.000 He opened with a bit about how not with it Joe Biden is.

00:22:17.000 And again, this is a format that always suited Jon Stewart best.

00:22:20.000 No one ever said he was untalented.

00:22:21.000 I said he was bad for the country, but no one ever said he was untalented.

00:22:24.000 Here was Jon Stewart opening up his guns on Joe Biden's mental acuity.

00:22:29.000 These two candidates, they are both similarly challenged.

00:22:31.000 And it is not crazy to think that the oldest people in the history of the country to ever run for president might have some of these challenges.

00:22:39.000 Now, Democrats will say that any criticism like this, especially of Biden, is unfair because you just don't know Biden like they know Biden.

00:22:48.000 If you're telling us behind the scenes he is sharp and full of energy and on top of it and really in control and leading, you should film that.

00:22:56.000 That would be good to show to people instead of a TikTok where he goes, One thing we know for certain is this.

00:23:07.000 We have two candidates who are chronologically outside the norm of anyone who has run for the presidency in this country, in the history of this country.

00:23:16.000 They are the oldest people ever to run for president, breaking by only four years the record that they set!

00:23:26.000 The stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny.

00:23:32.000 It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny.

00:23:35.000 If the barbarians are at the gate, you want Conan standing on the ramparts, not Suffice it to say, Joe Biden has a bunch of problems in his re-elect effort, including the fact, by the way, that inflation continues to truck along.

00:23:51.000 The Consumer Price Index came out yesterday, and what it found is that consumer prices rose 3.1% in January 2024 from a year before.

00:23:59.000 Remember, they are shooting for 2%.

00:24:01.000 This is 50% off.

00:24:03.000 Prices rose the fastest for a wide variety of groups.

00:24:06.000 For frozen non-carbonated juices and drinks, 29% up.

00:24:10.000 There are a bunch of products that are significantly more expensive now than they were before.

00:24:15.000 Over the course of the last few years, obviously, everything is more expensive than it was before, which is why the stock market took a dump yesterday.

00:24:21.000 It dropped 500 points because the market is realizing that it's not time for loose monetary policy again.

00:24:28.000 CNBC's Steve Leesman, he says, listen, it was a lousy month for inflation.

00:24:31.000 Well, yeah, it's been a lousy tenure by Joe Biden for inflation, as it turns out.

00:24:36.000 This issue we talked about at the beginning of the year, price increases, is something that drove inflation this time around.

00:24:46.000 A lot of big increases in medical costs, you had medical care up 0.7, motor vehicle insurance up 1.4, hospitals Up as well.

00:24:56.000 You didn't get much.

00:24:58.000 You got a little relief from the used car world.

00:25:00.000 You had food prices up.

00:25:02.000 It was just a lousy month when it came to inflation.

00:25:05.000 Of course, real earnings also declined in the month.

00:25:10.000 Worth pointing out.

00:25:12.000 Okay, so, yes, things are bad for Joe Biden.

00:25:15.000 Now, does that mean that Joe Biden is going to lose in 2024?

00:25:20.000 So, we have some early indicators, and they're not amazing for Republicans.

00:25:23.000 So, last night, there was an election in the House seat to succeed George Santos.

00:25:29.000 You remember George Santos?

00:25:30.000 He was the weirdo who was fibbing about his name and his sexuality and pretty much everything else.

00:25:36.000 George Santos, you remember this? 0.99

00:25:37.000 Like, con artist, huckster.

00:25:41.000 Maybe liable for criminal charges?

00:25:42.000 Anyway, he got tossed out of his seat by the Congress, and that left his seat vacant.

00:25:47.000 That seat was a Democrat district.

00:25:50.000 It had been rated a toss-up by Cook Political Report.

00:25:54.000 So it was a pretty hotly fought race between a Democrat named Tom Suozzi.

00:25:59.000 Tom Suozzi had had that seat for a couple of terms before Santos took it in 2022, and he was running against a Republican named Mazzi Pillup, who's a really sort of fascinating character, Ethiopian Jew, Who was pro-Trump, but didn't run her campaign on the basis of Trump, because if she had, it would have been bad.

00:26:18.000 That is not exactly a Trump-rich neighborhood.

00:26:22.000 Joe Biden won that district.

00:26:25.000 In any case, Mazie Pilip lost last night. 0.91

00:26:29.000 She lost because, again, there's a lot of money that was tossed in.

00:26:32.000 Tom Suozzi has a very strong ground game.

00:26:34.000 It was very snowy outside and all the rest.

00:26:37.000 But special elections in this election cycle have not been going well for Republicans overall.

00:26:41.000 That does not mean that they're not always about leather.

00:26:44.000 It doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to go amazing for Democrats in 2024.

00:26:48.000 With that said, these special elections, if they were going for Republicans, would probably be an indicator that 2024 could theoretically be a Republican wave year in the face of Democratic failures.

00:26:58.000 The problem is Democrats right now are only losing the House by like a couple of votes.

00:27:03.000 With the loss of this seat, the Republican House majority is down to three or four total votes, and some of those seats are currently being occupied by people who aren't showing up for Congress.

00:27:14.000 So that means that in the upcoming 2024 elections, there is a very not insignificant likelihood that Democrats end up taking the House.

00:27:22.000 And for all the talk about Republicans taking the Senate, those Senate races are very close.

00:27:27.000 So one of the things Republicans should keep in mind is that they're running against a dead person.

00:27:31.000 86% of the American public thinks that Joe Biden is dead.

00:27:34.000 They hate him on every issue, and Republicans are running dead even in pretty much every poll.

00:27:40.000 Donald Trump's running dead even with Joe Biden.

00:27:43.000 One of the ways that you can militate against that, that you can fight against that, is to use every voting tool at your disposal.

00:27:49.000 One of the big problems in New York is that Republicans did not vote early.

00:27:53.000 They did not use mail-in ballots.

00:27:54.000 You know who did?

00:27:56.000 The Democrats.

00:27:56.000 The Democrats used the mail-in ballots.

00:27:58.000 Now, who in the Republican Party, who would have suggested that mail-in ballots are stupid and you shouldn't use them? 1.00

00:28:05.000 Who would have proposed such a foolish proposition? 0.99

00:28:07.000 That you should, you know, never- that it's somehow morally bad to vote early if you're a Republican. 0.83

00:28:13.000 Thus losing two Senate seats in Georgia.

00:28:15.000 And maybe his own presidential election.

00:28:17.000 Donald Trump better flip on that, like, right fast.

00:28:19.000 Because use every method at your disposal to win!

00:28:22.000 It's legal!

00:28:23.000 Why would you not encourage Republicans to vote early?

00:28:27.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Suozzi will succeed George Santos.

00:28:31.000 He cuts into an already narrow GOP majority in the chamber.

00:28:34.000 The party breakdown is currently 219 to 212.

00:28:37.000 Suozzi beat back criticism from Pillup over the Biden administration's stewardship of the southern border, as well as the handling of Eric Adams of the migrant crisis in New York City.

00:28:47.000 Swazi said the race was centered on immigration and the economy, much like the issues all across our country.

00:28:51.000 We, you, won this race because we addressed the issues and found a way to bind our division.

00:28:54.000 Swazi is more of a moderate Democrat in some respect.

00:28:58.000 In fact, as soon as his election was announced, a bunch of pro-Hamas protesters showed up and started yelling at him.

00:29:03.000 him. That's what this looked like. With that said, this was a pretty solid victory by Swazi. 0.98

00:29:28.000 It was not a particularly close election.

00:29:29.000 He ended up winning about 54 to 46 in this election.

00:29:34.000 Again, if Democrats had lost this seat, it would have been a red blinking light right in their face, but they didn't.

00:29:39.000 The Republican math is still rough.

00:29:42.000 Immigration is not going to be enough. 1.00

00:29:43.000 It's not going to be the only issue for Republicans in the 2024 election.

00:29:47.000 This now makes the second major congressional election in which Republicans have tried to make immigration centerpiece and it didn't quite work.

00:29:55.000 Donald Trump tried to do it in 2018 and it really did not redounce for the Republican benefit.

00:30:00.000 Democrats had pretty high turnout because they wanted to show up and take back the district.

00:30:04.000 And once again, that mail-in voting problem is a problem for Republicans.

00:30:08.000 Disappointing GOP turnout on the day of could cripple Trump.

00:30:12.000 And this is now a pattern for Republicans across the country.

00:30:15.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

00:30:18.000 First, let us say that you needed to upgrade your employment base.

00:30:21.000 Let's say that you had a producer and he's really good.

00:30:24.000 He's solid.

00:30:24.000 Dude just is on the ball, gets the right clips every time.

00:30:27.000 But one day, one day he gets the wrong clips and you decide it's time to open up the resumes.

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00:31:28.000 Greg Price on Twitter, he points out that there was also a special election yesterday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to determine control of the state House of Representatives.

00:31:37.000 It was a Biden plus 10 district.

00:31:38.000 It's a solidly Biden district.

00:31:40.000 The race was called for the Democrats over the Republicans, with only 43% of the vote counted.

00:31:46.000 Why?

00:31:47.000 Well, because the Democrat won the mail-in vote 86 to 14.

00:31:51.000 86 to 14.

00:31:51.000 Why?

00:31:52.000 Because Republicans keep saying stupid things like, don't vote by mail. 1.00

00:31:55.000 Dumb, dumb, dumb. 1.00

00:31:56.000 Don't do that. 1.00

00:31:58.000 The other thing that you shouldn't do is probably you should not run every congressional or Senate race on the basis of, does Donald Trump love the candidate personally?

00:32:08.000 So, the candidate in that race, again, Mazzi Pillup, was not an anti-Trump candidate, just wasn't a person who made Trump the centerpiece of her campaign.

00:32:16.000 And Donald Trump has a very bad habit, which is crap on candidates, some of whom he endorses, by the way, who then go on to lose by suggesting that if they tied themselves more closely to him, they would have won.

00:32:25.000 So he put out a statement saying, quote, I have an almost 99% endorsement success rate in primaries, and a very good number in the general elections as well. 0.98

00:32:32.000 But just watch this very foolish woman, Mazzie Pillup, running in a race where she didn't endorse me, and tried to quote-unquote straddle the fence when she could have easily won if she understood anything about modern-day politics in America. 1.00

00:32:43.000 MAGA, which is most of the Republican Party, stayed home, and it always will, unless it is treated with the respect that it deserves. 0.96

00:32:48.000 I stayed out of the race.

00:32:49.000 I want to be loved.

00:32:50.000 Give us a real candidate in the district for November.

00:32:52.000 Swazi, I know him well, can be easily beaten. 1.00

00:32:54.000 Okay, so, um, I mean, no. 0.80

00:32:59.000 I mean, no.

00:33:00.000 It turns out that running races in Congress specifically about Trump is not a recipe for electoral victory.

00:33:06.000 It's just not.

00:33:07.000 There are a lot of purple districts where people don't particularly love Trump.

00:33:09.000 There are some districts, red districts, where you can love Trump as much as you want.

00:33:13.000 It'll be good for you.

00:33:14.000 During a heavy red district, those districts tend to love Donald Trump.

00:33:17.000 This district went for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

00:33:20.000 Running on the basis of I love Trump in a Biden plus 8 or Biden plus 10 district would not exactly be smart politics.

00:33:26.000 If Republicans continue to follow that road in elections, that is not going to end particularly well for them.

00:33:31.000 It just isn't.

00:33:33.000 So again, the factors against Joe Biden's reelect are very solid.

00:33:37.000 But can Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? 0.98

00:33:40.000 You bet your ass they can. 0.99

00:33:41.000 They're really good at it. 0.99

00:33:42.000 They spent the last few years doing it.

00:33:45.000 Joe Biden was a weak candidate in 2022, and somehow he won.

00:33:48.000 So, again, Republicans better get smart about all of this.

00:33:51.000 Okay, meanwhile, the Congress continues to debate this massive foreign policy aid bill.

00:33:57.000 It has now moved to the House a $95 billion aid package, about $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

00:34:02.000 At this point, we should be clear that the $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, a large part of that is to restock the American military buildup that has already gone to Ukraine.

00:34:10.000 So we sent weapons to Ukraine.

00:34:12.000 That was military aid.

00:34:13.000 And now we have to restock all of that for our own purposes.

00:34:16.000 And that is considered military aid to Ukraine.

00:34:20.000 It's actually not a bad thing for America's military base to be built up.

00:34:25.000 That's actually quite a good thing.

00:34:28.000 Now, the question, as I've said, is, is all $60 billion of that necessary in order to prevent Russia from taking the country? 0.76

00:34:33.000 I laid all of this out yesterday.

00:34:35.000 Now, what's amazing about our foreign policy debates is no one is willing to clearly state what their end goal is on virtually any of this.

00:34:42.000 And because Republicans are not being clear about what their angles are, that allows Democrats not to be clear about their angles.

00:34:47.000 So if Republicans just said, listen, we would like to provide the amount of money to Ukraine necessary to prevent Russia from overrunning its current positions.

00:34:56.000 That's the amount of money we're willing to send.

00:34:58.000 And meanwhile, we want to aggressively have the President and the State Department negotiate an end to this conflict that looks like what everybody knows the end of the conflict is going to look like, which is a solidification of the current border situation, plus American security guarantees and European security guarantees to Ukraine.

00:35:14.000 That's effectively the outline of the deal.

00:35:17.000 If Republicans said that, it would be very hard for Joe Biden to come back with something different, because everybody knows that that is the logical solution.

00:35:25.000 But instead, Republicans seem to be implying, some Republicans seem to be implying, for example, that it would be totally fine, not just if Putin were to continue the war, but if Putin were to overrun Kiev.

00:35:37.000 And that allows Joe Biden to then go out there and suggest that this foreign aid bill is all about preventing Kiev from being overrun, which it's unclear to me that that's what it is about. 0.95

00:35:47.000 There's a bunch of other garbage in the bill as well.

00:35:49.000 In other words, there are many good principled grounds to oppose the foreign aid package. 0.94

00:35:52.000 You can say that it's too large.

00:35:53.000 You could even suggest I think a little bit less credibly, that it's a misprioritization because we need to spend that money on the border.

00:36:00.000 As I've said before, the problem at the border is not a money problem.

00:36:03.000 Plus, let's be real about this, the amount of money that we have currently granted to foreign aid, even in places like Ukraine, amounts to approximately a fraction, like a small tiny little fraction of what the American budget typically is.

00:36:16.000 If you're talking about the amount that has been provided to Ukraine over the course of this war,

00:36:21.000 which would amount to maybe $100 billion, it's like 1.4% of the American annual budget.

00:36:26.000 You're not talking about the kinds of money that bankrupt the economy.

00:36:29.000 The stuff that bankrupts the economy, by the way, is all the entitlement programs

00:36:31.000 that no one is willing to touch.

00:36:33.000 And that's why I always find it ironic.

00:36:35.000 There are some people who are like real spending hawks, like Rand Paul's a spending hawk.

00:36:37.000 There are certain people who are definitely not spending hawks,

00:36:40.000 and now they're bucking at the spending.

00:36:41.000 It's like, I feel like that's not what this is really about.

00:36:43.000 In any case, Joe Biden is using Republican lack of clarity on what they want in order to push the idea that Republicans want Putin to win, which again, I've talked to many of the senators who are voting against the foreign aid bill.

00:36:55.000 They don't want Putin to win.

00:36:56.000 They just think the foreign aid bill is too large.

00:36:58.000 But this is why it behooves you to be clear about your positions on these particular issues.

00:37:01.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:37:45.000 Okay, meanwhile, Joe Biden is now attempting to play Republican hesitance to pass this giant foreign aid package, which, again, has a bunch of bad elements.

00:37:53.000 Maybe too much aid for Ukraine, depending on what exactly is the end goal here.

00:37:57.000 Certainly too much aid for, quote-unquote, the Palestinians in Gaza, which, again, Unspecified how that money even gets into the Gaza Strip?

00:38:04.000 Who takes it?

00:38:05.000 The American taxpayer sponsored pretty much all of Hamas's weaponry, tunnel building, and all the rest over the course of the past 20 years. 0.51

00:38:13.000 So it seems to me the American taxpayer should stop subsidizing actual terrorist groups.

00:38:17.000 Those are all good reasons to oppose the foreign aid bill.

00:38:19.000 And in fact, I think it should be passed by the House in pieces.

00:38:21.000 I think that if you are Mike Johnson, the best path forward is put up a clean Israel aid bill separately.

00:38:28.000 Put up a clean Ukraine aid bill of the size that you think is necessary to prevent Vladimir Putin from overrunning Kiev.

00:38:34.000 Put that up separately.

00:38:35.000 Put up a clean Taiwan aid bill.

00:38:36.000 And force Democrats to vote on each one of those things.

00:38:38.000 And force Joe Biden to veto each one of those things.

00:38:41.000 That would be the smart politics here.

00:38:42.000 Because the truth is, That there is a majority proposition for foreign aid on each of these things.

00:38:47.000 Like, just as a political matter, it's like an 80-20 matter that most Americans believe that the amount of support that America has provided to Israel is either right or needs to be increased.

00:38:56.000 When it comes to the amount of foreign aid that has been provided to Ukraine, there still is a broad majority that believes that enough foreign aid should be provided to Ukraine so that Russia doesn't take it over.

00:39:06.000 If that's the proposition, then the question is how much aid that actually is.

00:39:10.000 You know, it depends, of course, on all these polls on how you ask the question.

00:39:13.000 When you say, should Ukraine get more aid?

00:39:15.000 Many Americans will say no.

00:39:16.000 If you say, if Vladimir Putin will take over Ukraine, if they don't get more aid, should Ukraine get more aid?

00:39:21.000 Most Americans will then say yes.

00:39:23.000 When it comes to Taiwan, that is a broad majority proposition.

00:39:26.000 Most Americans believe that Taiwan should be armed enough to repel a Chinese invasion or a Chinese blockade.

00:39:32.000 And so you can pass all those independently.

00:39:33.000 That would be the path forward for Mike Johnson.

00:39:36.000 Force the Democrats to the floor on this one.

00:39:40.000 Okay, but because no one's been clear about their position, that allows Joe Biden to get out there and slur his words about all of it.

00:39:45.000 So yesterday, Joe Biden does a press conference.

00:39:47.000 It was literally a five-minute press conference, took no questions.

00:39:50.000 He's doddering.

00:39:51.000 He is not solid.

00:39:52.000 Here he was yesterday.

00:39:53.000 And the way it works is we supply Ukraine with military equipment from our stockpiles.

00:39:59.000 And then we spend our money replenishing those stockpiles so our military has access to them.

00:40:05.000 Stockpiles that are made right here in America by American workers.

00:40:11.000 Okay, I don't know what he means by... He doesn't speak English anymore.

00:40:19.000 But, again, his entire schtick is, he believes that if he yells at Republicans about Putin, that's gonna have the same impact as Republicans yelling at him about immigration.

00:40:27.000 I really don't think that's the case.

00:40:28.000 Here he was yesterday, suggesting that Republicans have turned pro-Putin.

00:40:32.000 And I say to the House members, House Republicans, you gotta decide.

00:40:37.000 Are you gonna stand up for freedom?

00:40:39.000 Or are you going to side with terror and tyranny?

00:40:44.000 You're going to stand with Ukraine? 0.58

00:40:45.000 You're going to stand with Putin?

00:40:48.000 Will you stand with America or Trump?

00:40:51.000 Republicans and Democrats in the Senate came together to send a message of unity to the world.

00:40:57.000 It's time for the House Republicans to do the same thing.

00:41:00.000 To pass this bill immediately.

00:41:03.000 To stand for decency.

00:41:05.000 Stand for democracy.

00:41:07.000 to stand up to a so-called leader hell-bent on weakening American security.

00:41:11.000 Okay, these sorts of truisms where he says, stand up for freedom, stand up for democracy,

00:41:18.000 I don't like that sort of stuff when you talk foreign policy.

00:41:20.000 Foreign policy is about hard-headed American interests.

00:41:22.000 That doesn't mean that we shouldn't back countries that are more pro-American over countries

00:41:28.000 that are more anti-American.

00:41:29.000 We should, generally speaking.

00:41:30.000 It doesn't mean we shouldn't back Liberty when we have the ability to do so.

00:41:33.000 That's true also.

00:41:34.000 But let's be real about this.

00:41:35.000 The reason that we are backing Ukraine in the fight against Putin is for very strong geopolitical reasons.

00:41:40.000 You want to throw China off the ball with regard to invading Taiwan. 0.94

00:41:43.000 You want to weaken the Russian military so they provide less of an ally to the Chinese.

00:41:47.000 You want to make sure that Russia can't spread its tentacles into Africa and the Middle East.

00:41:51.000 You want to make sure that Russia doesn't have its eyes on Poland or on Lithuania or Latvia or Estonia.

00:41:56.000 And these are all good geopolitical reasons.

00:41:58.000 Very few of them have to do with this kind of broad democracy.

00:42:03.000 I don't like that sort of stuff because, again, those are arguments that, as we used to say in law school, prove too much.

00:42:07.000 There are many democracies that are under threat in the world.

00:42:10.000 Doesn't mean that necessarily the United States has a role in all of that.

00:42:13.000 There are lots of places where bad stuff is happening.

00:42:15.000 Doesn't mean the United States has a role in all of that either.

00:42:17.000 This happens to be a place where the United States can sign a reasonable check.

00:42:20.000 I don't know if 60 billion is the size of that reasonable check, but in any case, Republican lack of clarity opens the door to Biden being able to do this sort of propagandizing.

00:42:30.000 And you can see that.

00:42:32.000 Chuck Schumer was out there yesterday promoting the idea that this is one of the most consequential bills in American history, which I have some questions.

00:42:40.000 A long night, a long weekend, and a long few months.

00:42:45.000 But a new day is here, and our efforts have been more than worth it.

00:42:51.000 Today, we witnessed one of the most historic and consequential bills to have ever passed the Senate.

00:43:00.000 It's certainly been years, perhaps decades, since the Senate passed a bill that so greatly impacts not just our national security, not just the security of our allies, but the security of Western democracy. 0.99

00:43:17.000 Okay, so again, the sort of game that he's playing here where it's either this bill or nothing, this sort of binary stupidity has always been particularly dumb. 0.97

00:43:25.000 Now, what's going to happen in the House? 0.96

00:43:26.000 So Mike Johnson has said that he has no intention of bringing the bill as it currently stands up for a vote on the floor.

00:43:31.000 And as I say, I think that he should just carve it up and provide piecemeal bills for each one of these priorities.

00:43:36.000 First of all, I tend to like that anyway. 0.98

00:43:37.000 I don't like omnibus packages because omnibus packages tend to be crap sandwiches.

00:43:41.000 So I'd be much happier with single-issue bills that people get to vote up or down on. 0.69

00:43:45.000 You don't want aid for Israel?

00:43:45.000 Fine, vote on it.

00:43:46.000 You don't want aid for Ukraine?

00:43:47.000 Fine, vote on it.

00:43:48.000 Like, just do it that way.

00:43:50.000 But there is another way that the House could theoretically go around Mike Johnson.

00:43:53.000 It's something worth considering.

00:43:55.000 As just a possibility.

00:43:56.000 And that is a discharge petition.

00:43:58.000 So get ready, because I think Democrats actually will probably try to pursue this.

00:44:01.000 A discharge petition would require about 218 members of the House, a majority, to force consideration of a piece of legislation on the floor.

00:44:09.000 So essentially, you get a piece of paper, everybody signs it, You get 200 Democrats and, say, 20 Republicans in the House to sign this piece of paper, and then it moves forward through this arduous process, and the majority effectively loses control of the floor.

00:44:24.000 Unlikely it moves forward that way because, again, I don't think Democrats actually want this thing passed.

00:44:28.000 I think Democrats would prefer to use it as something to run on.

00:44:30.000 Democrats were accusing Republicans of that with regard to an immigration bill.

00:44:34.000 There was, I think, a grain of some truth to that.

00:44:38.000 I think it's also true for Democrats.

00:44:39.000 I think Democrats right now would prefer to see Republicans kill this thing in the House so they can then run on the idea that Americans are weak on national security.

00:44:46.000 Which is why it behooves Republicans to be clear about what they want and what they do not want.

00:44:50.000 And right now you have a fractured narrative from Republicans over the foreign aid.

00:44:53.000 Are they doing it because they actually don't mind Putin running over Ukraine?

00:44:56.000 Are they doing it because they don't So, we mentioned yesterday that Donald Trump would like to see Lara Trump become co-chair of the RNC.

00:45:01.000 Are they saying we're spending too much money and they're spending hawks like a Thomas Massey

00:45:04.000 or like a Rand Paul, or are they saying that they want to grant four-day, 0.97

00:45:08.000 they just don't want all the crap in the bill.

00:45:09.000 They've been totally unclear about which of these paths they're choosing. 0.98

00:45:12.000 That's allowing Democrats to spin this thing. 1.00

00:45:15.000 Okay, meanwhile, speaking of Republicans not handling politics competently.

00:45:20.000 So we mentioned yesterday that Donald Trump would like to see Lara Trump become co-chair of the RNC.

00:45:25.000 And as I mentioned yesterday, I don't really know Lara Trump.

00:45:29.000 Like, I've never met her, I don't believe.

00:45:30.000 I don't have anything against Lara Trump.

00:45:32.000 I'm not a big fan of dynastic politics.

00:45:34.000 I just think it's wrong and bad.

00:45:36.000 I didn't like it when it was Clinton, I didn't like it when it was Bush, and I don't like it when it's Trump either.

00:45:39.000 I particularly don't like it when entire Republican apparatuses are mobilized in favor of one man at the expense of, you know, conservative victory across the country.

00:45:49.000 The RNC is not just supposed to be about the presidential race.

00:45:52.000 That's why the president has his own super PACs. 0.97

00:45:54.000 That's why the president has his own campaign fundraising apparatus.

00:45:57.000 The RNC is supposed to be about congressional races, you know, because Congress matters.

00:46:01.000 And Senate races, because, you know, the Senate matters.

00:46:04.000 But Lara Trump, she is out there... If the Republican Party is basically just pledge fealty and allegiance to Donald Trump, that's not a party anymore.

00:46:14.000 It isn't.

00:46:15.000 And it's certainly not a vehicle for victory because Donald Trump is not popular enough to do that.

00:46:20.000 Democrats, by the way, tried the same thing with Barack Obama and it failed.

00:46:23.000 Parties do not succeed when they are not coalitional.

00:46:26.000 Parties must be coalitional.

00:46:27.000 They must include people who are lukewarm on Trump or even cold on Trump, but will vote with Trump 85 to 90% of the time.

00:46:34.000 So taking all of your campaign resources and directing them toward a presidential and forgetting about, you know, the legislative body where all legislation commences, That's a mistake.

00:46:44.000 But that's what Lara Trump was saying.

00:46:45.000 She was literally out there yesterday as the possible co-chair of the RNC, suggesting that every dime raised by the RNC should go into the presidential race, which is wild. 0.56

00:46:53.000 That is not how the RNC is supposed to work. 0.98

00:46:55.000 And by the way, if it does work that way, Republicans will get their asses kicked up and down the ballot. 0.99

00:47:00.000 Here's what I can tell you. 0.96

00:47:02.000 The RNC needs to be the leanest, most lethal political fighting machine we've ever seen in American history.

00:47:10.000 That is the goal over the next nine and a half months.

00:47:13.000 If I am elected to this position, I can assure you there will not be any more $70,000 or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was spent on flowers.

00:47:22.000 Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC.

00:47:26.000 That is electing Donald J. Trump as President of the United States and saving this country.

00:47:33.000 Okay, so, um, that's not what the RNC is for.

00:47:37.000 The RNC is not just for getting Trump elected president, it's about other candidates as well.

00:47:41.000 And the problem with this mentality is that what it means, having seen how Donald Trump responded to the loss of Massey Pillup in the New York 3 race, If it turns into the only people that Donald Trump endorses are the people the RNC backs, and the only people who pledge total fealty to Donald Trump are the people that the RNC backs, that is not a recipe for success.

00:48:00.000 Again, what I would like to see, just politically, 2025, January 2025, I want to see Donald Trump as president with a solid House majority and a Republican majority in the Senate as well.

00:48:11.000 That is my top priority.

00:48:14.000 Just politically speaking, I want to see Republican unified electoral command of the legislative branches of government as well as the executive branch of government. 1.00

00:48:23.000 Anything that is an obstacle to that, up to and including declarations of fealty directly to Donald Trump, is stupid. 0.99

00:48:30.000 If the RNC is going to run itself this way, this is not the way to win. 0.97

00:48:33.000 As proof of this proposition, I have 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 2023.

00:48:39.000 I'm not sure how many more elections we have to run in order to understand that Donald Trump is not, in fact, and should not be, the center of every congressional race, every Senate race, that is not a good strategy for victory in an incredibly diverse country with a lot of congressional districts and Senate seats that do not share all the same priorities.

00:48:57.000 Okay, I'd be remiss if I did not comment on a clip that has been making the rounds today.

00:49:01.000 It is a clip of Tucker Carlson.

00:49:04.000 I'm not sure when this is from, but Russell Brand started putting this out.

00:49:07.000 As you know, I like Russell.

00:49:09.000 I've had Russell on the show multiple times.

00:49:11.000 We've had many conversations with Russell.

00:49:13.000 In any case, Tucker once again went after me rather personally.

00:49:17.000 Here he was.

00:49:19.000 We have a right to be mad, at least, and let me just again speak for Americans, middle-aged Americans, which is what I am.

00:49:27.000 You know, I've got four draft-age children, so if you're playing recklessly fast and loose with their lives, then I have a right to despise you, and I do. 0.86

00:49:36.000 So if you're Nikki Haley who's running for president, or Ben Shapiro, or half the people I see on television casually mentioning the possibility of nuclear war, or sending Americans to fight in the Middle East, or in any way involving us in a war that has nothing to do with Prosperity and peace at home, nothing in other words to do with us, Americans, then I have a right to call you out and be really offended because it's my family.

00:50:01.000 They live here.

00:50:02.000 It's not a joke to me.

00:50:03.000 There's nothing abstract about it.

00:50:05.000 And that is the difference between what's happening in the Middle East from what's happening in Ukraine, about which I had very strong feelings, but I didn't think there was a realistic possibility that my kids could be enmeshed in it. 0.85

00:50:15.000 Now there is.

00:50:16.000 And the only people who claim it's divisive to pull people's attention back to their own families, their own communities, are the people profiting from your attention being 5,000 miles away.

00:50:26.000 That's just true.

00:50:28.000 And you know it's true because they don't even debate you, they just name-call.

00:50:31.000 You're pro-terror, you're whatever. 1.00

00:50:34.000 Oh, shut up. 1.00

00:50:35.000 So, let's be clear about this. 0.99

00:50:37.000 One, Tucker is just lying about my positions here.

00:50:40.000 I've never called for boots on the ground in Ukraine.

00:50:41.000 You listen to the show, you know that's the case.

00:50:43.000 I've never called for American boots on the ground in Israel, by the way.

00:50:47.000 Do I think it is good for America that there are a bunch of pro-Hamas people running around tearing down posters of kidnapped people, including Americans?

00:50:54.000 No, I don't think that's very good for America, and I actually do see a fairly significant problem in the West if you do have hundreds of thousands of people marching in support of a terrorist group.

00:51:02.000 That seems like a fairly pro-America position to me.

00:51:07.000 But, you know, Tucker has been spending months mischaracterizing my positions, lying about my positions.

00:51:14.000 As you know from listening to the show, I've offered many times to sit down with Tucker He has said he's willing.

00:51:20.000 His team has said that he's busy for months because of foreign travel.

00:51:23.000 That offer remains open.

00:51:24.000 Alrighty folks, the rest of the show continues right now.

00:51:26.000 We'll be joined by Anthony Rubin.

00:51:28.000 He's the founder of muckraker.com.

00:51:29.000 He's a leading expert on the U.S.

00:51:31.000 border crisis.

00:51:32.000 One of the only journalists to have ever traveled and documented the entire mass migration route from Quito, Ecuador to the U.S.

00:51:37.000 border.

00:51:38.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - February 14, 2024

Homeland Security Secretary IMPEACHED

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