The New York Times admits in paragraph 24 of a story about Hunter Biden that his laptop was not Russian disinformation. Tensions continue to ratchet up in Ukraine as the Biden administration tries to pressure China, and the Biden Administration prepares for a mass migration event on the southern border. Ben Shapiro's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Do you like your web history being seen and sold to advertisers? No? Get ExpressVPN right now at ExpressVpn.me/BenShapiroShow and use the promo code "ExpressVPN" to receive 10% off your first month with discount code: ExpressVPN at checkout. You'll get access to all of the features mentioned in the show, plus an ad-free version of The Ben Shapiro Show wherever you get your e-mail and voice mail. Thanks to ExpressVPN for sponsoring the show. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and enter promo code: "WEBSITE" at checkout to receive $10 off your purchase when you enter the offer. We'll be giving out $10 or more when you sign up for VIP access to our VIP membership. This offer expires on November 1st, 2020, so make sure to check it out before then! Thanks for listening and share the show with your friends and family! and don't forget to tell us what you thought of the show! and share it on your social media accounts! It'll help us spread the word to your friends about it! . Tweet us your thoughts and spread it around the world! Timestamps! Subscribe to our amazing stories about Ben Shapiro and Ben Shapiro & Ben Shapiro on all of our social media platforms! linktr.ee/Ben Shapiro's newest podcast episode Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to let us know what you're listening to Ben Shapiro is listening to the truth. and we'll be hearing about it on the show and what he's listening to on the podcast! Thank you for listening to it on social media! - Timestories? - Ben Shapiro, the truth check you're getting a chance to know more about the truth, not the truth about it's better than the truth? - The truth is out there! Tweet me on Insta: or your truth is more important than the story you're hearing it?
00:00:32.000Alrighty, so, you'll recall that just before the 2020 election, October 2020, the New York Post broke a story.
00:00:38.000It was about how Hunter Biden, who is a formerly drug-addicted derelict, now he may not be a drug addict, he's still a derelict, Hunter Biden, now an artist, derelict.
00:00:47.000But at that time, a drug-addicted derelict, he left his laptop at a Delaware repair shop and just left it there.
00:00:53.000Because this is what drug-addicted derelicts do.
00:00:56.000And it turns out that that laptop was filled with all sorts of good stuff about Hunter Biden, including pictures of him with prostitutes and smoking crack, and there were text messages between him and his dad and him and his business partners about his dad and all of this stuff.
00:01:28.000Because the notion that it was completely unthinkable that a doof like Hunter Biden would have just left a laptop at a Delaware repair shop That's not particularly unthinkable.
00:01:39.000But the entire media instead swiveled into action to declare that this was, in fact, Russian disinformation, because everything I don't like is Russian disinformation.
00:02:10.000It was suspended based on an overtly true story where there was no one even rebutting it.
00:02:15.000The Biden administration, the Biden campaign, Hunter, none of them actually even denied that the story was true.
00:02:21.000They just kind of pretended that it was Russian disinformation.
00:02:25.000And the entire media swiveled into place because it was very, very important that Joe Biden win the election.
00:02:29.000And you wouldn't want one month out people to be talking about how Hunter Biden was stripping prostitutes and picking up giant bags of cash based on the fact that his last name was Biden.
00:02:37.000And you certainly wouldn't want anybody talking about the fact that Hunter Biden was chatting with his friends over in China about who the big guy was and the big guy was going to have reserve capital and reserve percentage points in businesses.
00:02:47.000You wouldn't want anybody talking about that.
00:03:00.000MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin, who is a wild leftist, he tweeted that Trump campaign claims Facebook is censoring journalism because Facebook plans to limit the spread of the New York Post report.
00:03:10.000Facebook is under no obligation to allow a disputed report that appears to contain disinformation to spread on their platform.
00:03:16.000Now remember, This entire media apparatus has spent four years promoting the lie that Donald Trump was in fact a tool of the Russians and that the Steele dossier, which it turns out was just a bevy of garbage, was actually maybe true.
00:03:33.000The managing editor of TruthOrFiction.com, some of our trusted fact checkers, tweeting out, the great thing about this is that it's very easy to see who's committed to pushing known Kremlin disinformation.
00:03:43.000You had Ben Rhodes, former Obama official, tweeting out, the right to spread false Russian disinformation about American political leaders on social media platforms is not the hill I would choose to die on.
00:03:53.000You had Brian Stelter putting out entire stories about how this was all Russian disinformation targeting Biden.
00:04:01.000You had CNN's Wolf Blitzer tweeting out, we do know it's a very active Russian campaign, and that's according to the US intelligence community.
00:04:09.000Jim Sciutto of CNN, he said, this is most likely Russian propaganda.
00:04:15.000You'll recall that there was an entire letter in Politico from 50 former intelligence officials, which, by the way, tells you why we don't trust our intelligence apparatus anymore.
00:04:24.000Because it turns out that all of the people in our intelligence apparatus, or at least a huge chunk of them, are just mental, mental idiots.
00:04:34.000According to Politico, more than 50 former senior officials, intelligence officials, signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's sons has, quote, all the classic hallmarks of a Russian disinformation operation.
00:04:49.000The letter, signed on Monday, centers around a batch of documents released by the New York Post last week that purport to tie the Democratic nominee to his son Hunter's business dealings.
00:04:57.000The letter's signatories presented no new evidence, but they said their national security experience had made them, quote, deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.
00:05:11.000And on the basis of these brilliant intelligence officials who had their thumb on the pulse of the intelligence flow, they knew this was Russian disinformation, despite the fact that they had no evidence it was Russian disinformation.
00:05:24.000And no less than Joe Biden came out and said over and over and over that this was all nonsense.
00:07:14.000And he's not doing that because Hunter has some sort of corrupt history of, you know, going around and just picking up grift from a bunch of foreign countries like China and Ukraine.
00:08:04.000Well, as Charles Cook over at National Review points out, Joe Biden is Hunter Biden's father.
00:08:10.000He must have known full well this story wasn't a bunch of garbage.
00:08:12.000He must have known full well it wasn't Russian plans.
00:08:14.000He must have known full well Rudy Giuliani wasn't the only one who believed it.
00:08:17.000Hell, he knew full well Hunter Biden himself hadn't denied the accounts, and instead had said that the laptop absolutely could have been his.
00:08:22.000But Biden said otherwise, because he assumed that the press in Silicon Valley would back him up in the lie, which, of course, they did.
00:08:28.000And Joe Biden literally said this, quote, That was Joe Biden lying because he knew all of it was true.
00:08:31.000folks who said that what he's accusing me of is a Russian plant. Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage.
00:08:38.000No one believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani. That was Joe Biden lying because he knew all of it was true.
00:08:43.000Now you recall that Jen Psaki was working on the Biden campaign during this time.
00:08:49.000She came out at the time and called it Russian disinformation.
00:08:53.000She shared that political article on Twitter, the one that had all these former intelligence officials who are so in the know, and we should definitely trust them, saying, quote, Hunter Biden's story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.
00:09:23.000Finally, it is admitted that this was not, in fact, Russian disinformation, that it was, in fact, real, that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden, and that he did, in fact, leave it at this Delaware repair shop.
00:09:34.000Quote, people familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity.
00:09:41.000Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop.
00:09:47.000The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.
00:09:53.000Yeah, so there it is, just buried in paragraph 24.
00:09:56.000Now normally what you would assume is that the top headline here would be, New York Times confirms laptop was not Russian disinformation.
00:10:03.000Instead, the headline from the New York Times was, Hunter Biden paid tax bill, but broad federal investigation continues.
00:10:19.000New York Times covering its butt all the time.
00:10:22.000Jen Psaki was asked about the fact that she had said it was Russian disinformation, and she started spinning so fast that she actually dug a hole directly through the center of the Earth, discovering a renewable source of energy in the heat in the Earth's core.
00:10:34.000You asked about Hunter Biden's laptop.
00:10:35.000You also, in October 2020, dismissed it as Russian disinformation.
00:10:55.000Isn't it fun that we are supposed to believe that all of the mechanisms of electoral integrity are on the up and up when it comes to the information that we are passed?
00:11:04.000It's always seemed to me that the argument that the 2020 election was rigged by voting fraud, for example, is overrated.
00:11:09.000That the evidence that this election was shifted by somebody stuffing the ballot box was not true.
00:11:14.000However, if you're going to say the election was rigged, it was rigged by a media that deliberately Obfuscated and openly lied in order to suppress information about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, for example, that deliberately refused to ask Joe Biden any tough questions and allowed him to hide in the basement for months at a time.
00:11:30.000And then are we really surprised that this administration is a bleep show?
00:11:37.000People in the media tend to think that when they go soft on their own candidates, this is good for their candidates.
00:11:42.000In reality, all that ends up happening is that reality clocks the administration directly in the face.
00:11:47.000So instead of asking Joe Biden any tough questions about his foreign policy or his ideas or his background or his relationships or anything, they hated Trump so much that they just decided to basically lie about everything and cover everything up.
00:11:59.000And the case of social media basically banned true stories in order to get Joe Biden elected.
00:12:03.000Then he got elected and it turns out he's an unbelievably crappy president.
00:12:06.000So when you seek help from somebody like Jen Psaki, you're not always gonna get the best service or the best answers.
00:12:11.000This also happens to be true at the auto parts store.
00:12:14.000You'll wait in line to finally get to the front of the line And the dude behind the counter is gonna be like, Gonna have to order that part.
00:12:20.000Because here's the thing, there are a lot of kinds of cars.
00:12:22.000And they're not gonna have the kind of part that you are looking for.
00:12:25.000This is why you should just go straight to the internet.
00:12:27.000Because they're just gonna upcharge you at the auto parts store.
00:12:28.000Not so with rockauto.com at home and in your pocket.
00:12:32.000Why would you choose to spend 30%, 50%, 100% more for the exact same auto parts at a chain store or a new car dealership?
00:13:13.000low prices all the parts your car will ever need. Rockauto.com.
00:13:17.000Head on over to rockauto.com right now. See all the parts available for that car or truck and write Shapiro in there. How did you hear about us box? So they know that we sent you. So here's the latest from Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal, rescuers dug through the debris of a bombed theater in Mariupol, where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians had sought shelter as Russian forces continued to shell the southern port city and other urban areas across the country. The entrance to a bomb shelter under the theater in Mariupol was blocked when the building partially collapsed from a Russian airstrike late on Wednesday night said Pavlo Kerlenko, the head of military administration in the eastern
00:13:48.000Former Governor Sergei Taruta said on Thursday the shelter had remained intact and there were, in fact, survivors.
00:13:53.000Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in an overnight speech accused Russia of deliberately attacking the theater, adding that the death toll is still unknown.
00:14:00.000Russia's defense ministry denied its forces conducted an airstrike on the theater at all.
00:14:04.000Zelensky spoke to Germany's parliament on Thursday.
00:14:06.000That is his latest in a string of appeals to Western governments for more support.
00:14:10.000Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin feeling increasingly boxed in.
00:14:13.000So Putin gave a speech yesterday in which he railed against the so-called traitors inside of his government.
00:14:19.000Basically, he's just angry that his military infrastructure has completely collapsed around him.
00:14:23.000This invasion was supposed to be a cakewalk.
00:14:25.000Instead, you probably have, at minimum, 7,000 dead Russian troops over the course of three weeks, which makes this particular battle more deadly than the Battle of Iwo Jima was for the United States during World War II, when we did not have complete military superiority over our enemy.
00:14:39.000Here's Vladimir Putin trying to claim that it's all traitors, traitors inside the administration.
00:14:46.000Because if but any people, and even more so the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that actually accidentally flew into the mouth.
00:15:01.000I'm convinced that such a natural and necessary cleansing of society will only strengthen our country.
00:15:08.000I mean, this is like echoes of Stalin right here.
00:15:10.000I gotta purge everybody who has led us to this grave impasse.
00:15:15.000Meanwhile, according to the UK Daily Mail, Vladimir Putin will edge closer to deploying a nuclear attack if Ukraine continues its valiant pushback against the invasion of Russian troops, a top U.S.
00:15:25.000Lieutenant General Scott Barrier, director of the U.S.
00:15:27.000Defense Intelligence Agency, detailed the grim concerns in a new 67-page summary of global threats on Thursday.
00:15:34.000It raises the specter of a possible nuclear attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital which has so far resisted Russian advances, and said a desperate Putin posed a threat to the entire world.
00:15:44.000His report notes that Russia claims to be developing missiles that are capable of circumventing Western defenses in order to ensure that Russia can credibly inflict unacceptable damage on the West.
00:15:53.000Russia recently deployed non-nuclear missiles that come equipped with decoy projectiles, a feature that hadn't previously been seen by Western defense bosses, giving a possible glimpse of the type of feature that could be fitted to the most devastating bombs in Now, as I mentioned yesterday, the reality here is that if Putin decided to deploy a nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon, inside Ukraine, the chance that the West responds with anything remotely like boots on the ground or weapons of mass destruction in response is nil.
00:16:19.000He still has this particular card to play.
00:16:22.000And what exactly is the downside for him once he's been completely removed from the world economy?
00:16:26.000I mean, right now his economy is effectively dead.
00:16:29.000He's made a backdoor deal with the Chinese, which we'll get to in just one moment, to continue selling oil to the Chinese.
00:16:33.000He's still selling oil to the Indian government.
00:16:37.000Meanwhile, as the Biden administration continues to alienate independent countries by demonstrating weakness vis-a-vis our enemies, these independent countries are drawn closer to China and by proxy also with Russia.
00:16:48.000Because it turns out that a West that does not understand that hard power, meaning military power, is the essence of foreign policy.
00:16:57.000Everything else can be built up on top of a basis of hard power and willingness to use hard power.
00:17:01.000But if you're unwilling to use your hard power, the guy who is willing to use the hard power tends to make the territorial gains and scare the living daylights out of everybody else.
00:17:08.000People in general are much more scared of bombs falling on them than they are of even economic downturns, even being cut off from the world economic system the way that Russia is.
00:17:17.000And if the West is unwilling to leverage that kind of military threat, and Putin is, guess who's going to be making inroads with independent countries?
00:17:24.000Okay, all of that said, Putin still has that particular card to play.
00:17:29.000And the West does not seem to have an off-road here.
00:17:33.000In fact, it seems as though there is this bizarre feeling that has set in among members of both parties that what's going to happen here is that Putin will be deposed inside of Russia.
00:17:44.000Now, I don't know what evidence they have that this is going to be the case.
00:17:47.000Dictators generally have a long history of being able to suppress revolts in their own country.
00:17:54.000And Putin's been arresting thousands of people, like, en masse.
00:17:57.000Nonetheless, the Washington Post has an entire editorial dedicated to the proposition that Russia's population is going to rise up against Vladimir Putin.
00:18:05.000They say thousands of Russian scientists, journalists, and scholars have also signed protest letters.
00:18:09.000One open letter from scientists and science journalists has nearly 8,000 signatures.
00:18:14.000War with Ukraine is a step to nowhere, they declared.
00:18:17.000Russia has doomed itself to international isolation and has developed into a pariah country.
00:18:20.000Now listen, I'm not mocking or making light of the people who are attempting to publicly resist Putin.
00:18:25.000That is a risky proposition and the people who are doing that are brave.
00:18:27.000But the basic idea that they are about to overthrow Putin, or that if we put enough pressure on Putin at this point, after deterrence has failed, that suddenly his regime is going to be overthrown?
00:18:37.000What is the evidence that that is the case?
00:18:39.000The Washington Post is sort of hoping here.
00:18:42.000Opposition leader Alexei Navalny unjustly imprisoned last year, was put on trial again Tuesday at Correctional Colony No.
00:18:47.0002 in the town of Pokrov in Russia's Vladimir region.
00:18:50.000In oral arguments and closing statements, he delivered defiant statements.
00:18:54.000The results of the war, he said, will be a breakdown, the collapse of our country.
00:18:56.000He said, Mr. Putin and his cronies are just a group of sick, crazy old men.
00:18:59.000They don't have sympathy for anyone or anything.
00:19:01.000Our country is the very last thing they care about.
00:19:03.000Their only motherland is their Swiss bank accounts.
00:19:05.000Whatever they say about patriotism is a myth.
00:19:06.000Listen, all of these are heroic words and Navalny is being imprisoned for those heroic words.
00:19:12.000When it comes to the West and what we do about Putin, we should not bet on the idea that Putin is about to fall.
00:19:18.000Because the thing that he will do to prevent himself from falling is fire a nuke at Kiev.
00:19:22.000And we are not going to respond with global thermonuclear war.
00:19:24.000That is not what is going to happen here.
00:19:27.000In fact, Putin's probably best defense, just on a tactical level here, is to unleash something like a nuclear weapon and scare the living daylights out of everybody, as opposed to a chemical or biological weapon.
00:19:36.000Because we've already seen Assad unleash, for example, a chemical weapon and get away with it.
00:19:40.000So if Putin were to up the ante here, he would end up taking Ukraine.
00:19:44.000I mean, there's pretty much no question that if he fired a nuclear weapon into the middle of Kiev, he takes out Zelensky and the entire administration.
00:19:52.000And the Russians end up just waltzing through a lot of the rest of the country.
00:19:55.000Even if there's heavy resistance at that point, is the West going to step in, put boots on the ground, establish a no-fly zone?
00:20:01.000Like, what are they going to do with a dictator who then has demonstrated the willingness to not only create, but use nuclear weapons?
00:20:07.000This is why I said yesterday, I think we are in an extraordinarily perilous moment with regard to Vladimir Putin.
00:20:11.000And that's why all the sort of happy talk that you are seeing from Nancy Pelosi and company is, I think, really ill-advised.
00:20:17.000Yesterday, for example, Nancy Pelosi got up and she read a Bono poem about Vladimir Zelensky.
00:20:27.000And the evil from, risen from friends, from the darkness that lives in some men, but in sorrow and fear, that's when saints can appear, to drive out those old snakes once again.
00:20:40.000And they struggle for us to be free from the psycho in this human family.
00:20:47.000Ireland's sorrow and pain is now the Ukraine, and St.
00:21:22.000The world is obviously a rather unsafe place at the moment, and so this may put you in mind with the fact that you actually need to protect your home.
00:21:28.000Now, you've heard me talk about the Ring Video Doorbell before, but you need more than that.
00:21:31.000You need an award-winning home security system, Ring Alarm.
00:21:34.000They come with available professional monitoring when you subscribe.
00:21:37.000Best of all, You can easily install it yourself, which is why I've teamed up with Ring.
00:21:41.000You've probably heard me talk about how I use Ring Alarm to protect my home.
00:22:43.000Speaking of which, the Chinese know this, and so the Chinese have been pushing where there is mush, because this is what they do.
00:22:49.000Xi and the Chinese have been triangulating.
00:22:51.000On the one hand, they're buying up Russian assets at pennies on the dollar.
00:22:55.000They recognize that Russia's at low up economically, so now they can turn Russia into their gas station.
00:22:59.000Russia has a lot of rare earth minerals that China wants control of.
00:23:05.000And so basically, Russia, instead of being a great power that has its own proxy states, China wants to use Russia as its own proxy state at this point, and then Russia by proxy will have Iran as its proxy state, and China will be at the top of the heap.
00:23:27.000Everybody seems to be working under the assumption that China is still somehow moderate here, and I don't know where they're getting any of this.
00:23:34.000They're literally probing officials who have respect for religion.
00:23:38.000Pieced by Josh Chin in the Wall Street Journal today, China's Communist Party has now authorized a corruption inquiry into a senior official who was previously an influential advocate of Muslim culture, according to people familiar with the matter, and a signal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's resolve to push ahead with the country's aggressive ethnic assimilation efforts.
00:23:53.000Wang Zhengwei, a member of China's Muslim Hui minority and currently vice chairman of China's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, is under investigation by the party's internal disciplinary watchdogs for abuse of power and corruption.
00:24:08.000The investigation was prompted by concerns Wang had promoted, quote, unrestrained Muslim culture and encouraged religious extremism.
00:24:13.000Now, who thinks that that is actually what happened here?
00:24:16.000Is it much more likely that this particular figure dissented from the regime in some sort of way and now Xi is cracking down?
00:24:22.000See, I think people are misreading Xi.
00:24:24.000Xi has very much the same sensibility about his legacy that Putin does about his, which is, I don't care so much about economic development.
00:24:31.000I care about the broadening of China's base.
00:24:33.000I care about the broadening of China's territorial holdings.
00:24:36.000I care about Chinese greatness and return to Chinese greatness and that is not defined as world economic power because the risk of world economic power is that it moderates us or that we have dissenters or we have a rich oligarchy here who might eventually ask for some sort of real rights to match the quasi property rights we have granted.
00:24:52.000And so instead, he's like, no, we're shutting all of that off.
00:24:55.000The sort of great opening that was pursued by his predecessors in China is now over.
00:25:00.000And now Xi has to get more territorially ambitious and he needs to make alliances with other states that are in his sphere of influence.
00:25:07.000And so Joe Biden is now reaching out to Xi Jinping.
00:25:11.000They plan to confer, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the U.S.
00:25:13.000works to deter China from deeper involvement with Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
00:25:16.000The call, scheduled for Friday, comes as Beijing is trying to prevent itself as eager to help prevent the Ukraine crisis from worsening further without abandoning its alignment with Moscow.
00:25:25.000Biden is preparing to deliver a message to Xi that there would be consequences should Beijing's support move beyond words to actions, according to administration officials.
00:25:32.000What exactly is the Biden administration willing to do?
00:25:35.000They're already facing an inflationary cycle with severe supply chain shortages.
00:25:39.000Are they really willing to go to some sort of economic warfare with China?
00:27:21.000We continue to call on all nations, especially those with direct influence with Russia, to use whatever leverage they have to compel Moscow to end this war of choice.
00:27:33.000We believe China in particular has a responsibility to use its influence with President Putin and to defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support.
00:28:22.000If you know that A will inevitably be followed by B and B is a very clear and serious consequence, maybe you won't do A. It works this way with even your own children.
00:28:32.000If you say to your kids, if you do that, something bad is going to happen.
00:28:50.000And meanwhile, she is looking at the fact that Tony Blinken is simultaneously negotiating with the Russians to relieve economic sanctions on the building of nuclear power plants in Iran because they're so desperate to make a crappy nuclear deal with Iran that they're even willing to allow the Russians to backdoor, use their economy.
00:29:07.000And he's like, yeah, what are you going to do?
00:29:10.000Here's Tony Blinken threatening without much threat.
00:29:12.000President Biden will be speaking to President Xi tomorrow and will make clear that China will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia's aggression.
00:29:20.000And we will not hesitate to impose costs.
00:29:24.000They just would not make that clear in any way, shape or form.
00:29:28.000Again, if you don't make the cost clear, China is likely to be like, well, you know, we could just hang out here and just, you know, low level fund the Russians the same way that you guys are high level funding Ukraine.
00:29:39.000White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, this is an opportunity for President Biden to assess where President Xi stands.
00:29:44.000The fact that China has not denounced what Russia is doing in and of itself speaks volumes.
00:29:48.000Meanwhile, the Chinese leader likely will call on Biden to honor a commitment Chinese officials say he made during the leader's last phone conversation in November to not seek to change China's system.
00:29:58.000As Washington continues to build up alliances to pressure China, that assurance is seen by Beijing as crucial to preventing an outright conflict between the two superpowers.
00:30:05.000We are at a delicate moment in China-U.S.
00:30:06.000relations, said Evan Medeiros, a former national security official in the Obama administration.
00:30:12.000He said the Biden administration is likely laying out alternative pathways for relations, including some dark ones, if Beijing intensifies its support for Moscow or a more moderate course in which the two powers manage tensions.
00:30:23.000After having been caught off guard during the early days of the Russian aggression, foreign policy experts close to the Chinese government say that Beijing has now settled on a clearer strategy.
00:30:49.000President Xi Jinping, in one of his boldest strategic moves, cast his lot with Russian President Vladimir Putin before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:30:55.000Xi now finds himself embroiled in a global uproar that will be neither easy nor cheap for China.
00:30:59.000It deserves the global scorn it is receiving.
00:31:02.000Xi must view the West's closure to Russia as a boon for China, which stands ready to buy as much energy and other resources as Putin is willing to sell.
00:31:08.000It's a bonus that China might be able to pay for them with Chinese yuan, which Beijing has long wanted to make a global trade currency.
00:31:15.000Above all, this conflict gives Beijing a new opportunity to put itself forward as the leader of a global faction hostile to democracy, economic freedom, and U.S.
00:31:22.000China's economic heft now means that it gives it the means to try this gambit.
00:31:26.000Xi's desire to block any breeze of freedom within his own country is motive enough.
00:31:30.000Beijing may calculate it can win in Ukraine no matter what happens.
00:31:32.000If Putin conquers the country, Xi will have picked the winning horse.
00:31:35.000If the invasion fails, the West and American-Asian allies may still be demoralized by a partition of Ukraine, and Russia will be a reliable supporter of natural resources to China for as long as the Western sanctions persist.
00:31:45.000Now, the Wall Street Journal is a little less sanguine than I think the Chinese government is.
00:31:49.000They say, the nature of great power politics is that none of this will be cost free for Beijing.
00:31:52.000By picking a side, China, by definition, antagonizes those on the other side, including its own neighbors and economic partners.
00:31:58.000Japan is already renewing a debate about nuclear sharing with the United States.
00:32:01.000South Korea has elected a more pro-American president.
00:32:03.000Several traditionally neutral Asian countries joined Western sanctions on Russia in a signal to Beijing.
00:32:09.000China's new friends could also prove to be a headache because Russia is, in fact, a headache.
00:32:13.000However, if Russia is able to carve off a sphere, if China is able to create a sphere of influence here that includes things like India, Saudi Arabia, if you see a reshuffling of the world deck here, that's a big win for China.
00:32:28.000And again, this was all created by Western weakness in the first place.
00:32:31.000When deterrence fails, bad things happen.
00:32:35.000India right now continues to turn to Russia, according to the Washington Post today.
00:32:39.000When Russia faced internal condemnation and sanctions after Vladimir Putin launched his February 24th invasion of Ukraine, India stayed on the diplomatic sidelines.
00:32:47.000Now, as the economic sanctions begin to bite, Moscow is again turning to India.
00:32:50.000India is the world's biggest oil importer behind China and the United States, and they have agreed to purchase 3 million barrels of Russian oil at a heavy discount, an Indian official said on Thursday.
00:32:59.000That purchase is relatively small given Russia's production and Indian demand, but the volume could increase over the coming months.
00:33:05.000and reinforce a growing perception India is determined to preserve its extensive trade and military ties with Moscow.
00:33:10.000Now imagine that India starts using Chinese Yuan as the currency to trade with Russians for their oil and Saudi Arabia starts using Chinese Yuan and allowing all of these countries to buy gas in Chinese Yuan.
00:33:22.000Suddenly, America's status as the world currency starts to fade because a lot of these major countries hold tremendous amounts of American dollars.
00:33:30.000They do that because they believe that those are solid and fungible Well, as the United States has blown out its national debt, and as we rely on raising more national debt by selling more bonds over the course of time, what exactly are we going to do when all of these markets that have been buying that stuff up for solidity purposes disappear because they hate the United States?
00:33:47.000The United Arab Emirates, by the way, is now reaching out to Russia.
00:33:50.000And the reason, again, that the UAE and Saudi are doing this is not because the UAE and Saudi are naturally warm toward Russia right now.
00:33:57.000It's because the United States is backing Iran.
00:34:00.000If Joe Biden had not been attempting to cut a nuclear deal with Iran right now, you think the UAE and Saudi would be drawing close to the Chinese and the Russians?
00:34:07.000According to Breitbart, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said during a visit to Moscow on Thursday that his government looks forward to working with Russia on improving global energy security.
00:34:17.000Sheikh Abdullah said it is important to maintain the stability of energy and food markets.
00:34:21.000We welcome all mediation efforts in the Ukraine crisis.
00:34:23.000The UAE is ready to engage with the parties to strengthen opposition for a peaceful resolution.
00:34:27.000Basically, again, these are all independent countries that once were considered quite friendly to America.
00:34:31.000Whether you're talking about India, I mean, when I say recently, I mean like in the last two years.
00:34:35.000Whether you're talking about Saudi, whether you're talking about UAE, whether you're talking about India, or even whether you're talking about Israel, which has had to triangulate here by attempting to stave off Russia on its northern border.
00:34:56.000The reason Israel has to worry about that in the first place is because Obama turned over Syria to the Russians.
00:35:01.000Western weakness breeds chaos, and that is what we are seeing right now.
00:35:06.000Now, what's fun is that, of course, the New York Times is blaming this all on Republicans, which is weird because Republicans have no power in Washington right now.
00:35:11.000They have an entire piece titled, Republicans once silent on Russia, ratchet up attacks on Biden.
00:35:16.000Yeah, the story is not how Biden has botched this thing six ways from Sunday.
00:35:20.000And even now, his sort of hesitancy and unwillingness to draw clear lines is leading to more miscalculation, not just from Russia, but also from China.
00:35:28.000No, now the problem is that Republicans are sounding off about it.
00:35:30.000The answer, always and forever, for the New York Times, from fools like Jonathan Weisman, the answer, always and forever, is that if Democrats do something bad, the story is that Republicans notice it, not that Democrats are doing anything bad.
00:35:43.000Speaking of which, we have another crisis on America's southern border.
00:35:46.000I know we're supposed to pretend that that crisis ended because Kamala Harris was put in charge, but it turns out that crisis on our southern border is getting worse and worse and worse day by day because this administration is just a disaster area.
00:36:36.000You can earn up to 30% cash back at grocery stores, restaurants, and food delivery too.
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00:37:03.000Alrighty, so if you missed my latest book in the Third Thursday Book Club last night, I took members through my analysis of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
00:37:11.000You can watch that analysis right now at dailywire.com slash watch.
00:37:15.000Remember, Third Thursday Book Club is a live experience.
00:37:18.000You get to engage with me like never before.
00:37:20.000People are phoning in, they're sending me videos.
00:37:22.000Here's the thing, even if you haven't read the book we discussed, you will feel well-read by the time we are done.
00:37:52.000One of my favorite books, The Once and Future King by T.H.
00:37:55.000Sign up for the Third Thursday Book Club at thirdthursdaybookclub.com to get my notes sent straight to your inbox next week for The Once and Future King by T.H.
00:38:04.000Also, as you know, the situation in Ukraine is dire.
00:38:06.000That is why we are releasing a special episode of Morning Wire this Sunday, featuring our correspondent Cassie Dillon.
00:38:12.000She recently returned from the conflict.
00:38:13.000She is joining John and Georgia to discuss the humanitarian effort on the ground and the people she met who are risking their lives to make a difference.
00:38:20.000Make sure you tune in to Morning Wire this Sunday.
00:38:22.000Not only is an incredibly important episode, It's the only daily podcast that values your time and the truth.
00:38:27.000And while we are working overtime to bring you the news you need to know, we need your help to keep the facts trending toward number one.
00:39:07.000He's the highest paid employee in our federal government.
00:39:10.000And beginning in the spring of 2020, Dr. Fauci began to set national policy that affected the way the 330 million Americans lived their lives.
00:39:20.000For goodness sakes, I'm telling you wear a mask, keep social distancing.
00:40:29.000intelligence officials are privately bracing for a massive influx of more than 170,000 migrants at the Mexico border if COVID-era policies that allow instant expulsions during the public health emergency are ended, sources with direct knowledge of the discussions tell Axios.
00:40:44.000The response underway includes a newly created And previously unreported, Southwest Border Coordination Center, SBCC, essentially a war room to coordinate an interagency response.
00:40:55.000Well, border officials have used Title 42 more than 1 million times to rapidly expel migrants at the southern border without hearing asylum claims.
00:41:02.000But that Trump-era order was not set up to be permanent.
00:41:05.000Senior Biden officials are preparing for its end as the virus is brought under control.
00:41:09.000DHS intelligence estimates that perhaps 25,000 migrants are already waiting in Mexican shelters just south of the border for Title 42 to end.
00:41:18.000On Wednesday, DHS Deputy Secretary John Thien asked employees to consider stepping forward to support the DHS Volunteer Force, citing large numbers of migrants at the southwest border.
00:41:28.000Sources spoke to Axios on condition of anonymity.
00:41:30.000White House spokesperson Vedant Patel did not confirm or dispute specifics of Axios' reporting but said quote, of course the administration is doing our due diligence to prepare for potential changes at the border. This is good government in action.
00:41:42.000As always is the case this administration is working every day to provide relief to immigrants, restore order, fairness, and humanity to our immigration system and bring it into the 21st century.
00:41:52.000Well, actually, they're just going to start allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants across the border, and then they're going to release them into the interior pending an asylum claim.
00:41:59.000The remain in Mexico policy is opposed by this administration.
00:42:02.000Title 42 was their backdoor way of allowing themselves to deport people.
00:42:07.000They were like, well, you might be COVID positive.
00:42:37.000And those people are for every two million people who are turned away, there are a bunch of people who are entering the country.
00:42:45.000Apparently, the SBCC will physically operate out of the DHS headquarters at St.
00:42:50.000Elizabeth's in case of a border emergency.
00:42:53.000DHS's modeling would trigger some extreme measures, many of which have been taken during past border surges like in 2021 and 2019.
00:42:58.000The department could surge hundreds or thousands of additional personnel from Customs and Border Protection, ICE, the Transportation Security Administration, Citizen and Immigration Services, Border resources are already strained with an unusually high number of people attempting to cross every month for a year straight.
00:43:14.000Officials expect those numbers to climb even higher in coming months due to both seasonal trends and the expected end of Title 42.
00:43:21.000And the administration is leaning toward ending Title 42 itself.
00:43:27.000Apparently, officials are planning with how to coordinate with Mexico and other Latin American nations.
00:43:31.000DHS is discussing with Mexico Title 42 ending as soon as April and what that could mean for migration flows.
00:43:38.000After declining in January, the number of encounters with migrants at the border ticked up in February to 165,000.
00:43:42.000That's still below last year's peak of 214,000 encounters in July, but it's higher than last February's.
00:43:51.000Border Patrol arrests reached an all-time high in fiscal year 2021 at nearly 1.7 million.
00:43:57.000So yeah, this is going to become a much, much worse problem for the United States.
00:44:01.000So, we have simultaneous foreign policy crises, which also creates economic crises.
00:44:05.000We have a massive immigration influx at our southern border we have no ability to handle because this administration does not want to handle it.
00:44:11.000And of course, we are starting to see the interest rates rise, which has some pretty significant downstream consequences.
00:44:17.000And all of that would have been unnecessary if the Federal Reserve hadn't blown easy money into the system for two years on end for no apparent reason.
00:44:23.000It was understandable at the very beginning of the pandemic.
00:44:25.000It was not understandable a year and they kept doing it over and over and inflation was the result.
00:44:29.000Now the era of ultra low mortgage rates is over.
00:44:31.000According to the Wall Street Journal, the average rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage topped 4% for the first time since May 2019.
00:44:39.000At the beginning of the year, the average rate on America's most popular home loan was 3.22%.
00:45:03.000I mean, the average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage, basically since like late 2021 or the very beginning of 2022, it's just spiking straight up.
00:45:11.000The line looks like this and then boom, straight up.
00:45:14.000Mortgages are the first place Americans are feeling the effects of the Fed's decision to start raising rates to curb inflation.
00:45:21.000You're going to see it on your credit card.
00:45:22.000You're going to see it in terms of your business loans.
00:45:26.000The monthly payment on a $375,000 home with an interest rate of 4% is $220 higher than the payment on a similarly priced home would have been in December 2020 when the rates were near record lows.
00:45:37.000So get ready, because all of these houses are already overpriced, so those prices are going to drop as people are unable to get the mortgages.
00:45:43.000The only people who are able to get the mortgages are going to be the people who Have the easiest time getting credit, meaning the richest people.
00:45:50.000So you're likely to see an exacerbation of a lot of the complaints about income inequality as a result of the Biden administration's activity, which was to delay the pain.
00:46:00.000Meanwhile, this administration is still not turning away from its utopian goals with regard to environmentalism.
00:46:06.000Jen Psaki yesterday was asked if Joe Biden would be declaring a climate emergency.
00:46:10.000Remember how much fun it was when the government for two years declared emergency powers because of a pandemic?
00:46:14.000And a lot of us were worried that declaring emergency powers would be the predicate to declaring emergencies based on things like the climate.
00:46:20.000Jen Psaki refused to rule it out because we now live in an elected dictatorship where every four years we change our dictator, apparently.
00:46:27.000The Congressional Progressive Caucus recommendations for executive action are out, and they're asking for a decision to declare a climate emergency and ban all U.S.
00:47:12.000We do have a lot of capacity in public transit, and that's something that I hope becomes a means of choice alongside driving, that people have good options and good affordable options to get to where they need to be.
00:47:26.000Look, we need to make sure that there is less pressure on family budgets from transportation, which is often the second biggest budget item after housing itself.
00:47:36.000One of the tools that we have in our toolkit to do that is to make sure there's access to excellent public transportation Yeah, it's gonna solve it in California.
00:48:08.000The Democratic Party is utterly disconnected from the American people at this point.
00:48:13.000I mean, not just because Joe Biden is not alive anymore.
00:48:15.000So Nancy Pelosi gave a toast to Joe Biden yesterday, and watching these geriatric dullards make toasts to one another is an astonishing sight.
00:50:11.000Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is telling us that amid a massive inflationary spiral, Build Back Better will help, because it is not inflationary.
00:50:18.000She's just going to keep saying this until you believe it.
00:50:20.000So, you're going to hear this a lot, gang.
00:50:25.000I think the most fascinating... As an eyebrow aficionado, as a person with rather famous eyebrows, let me just say, Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows are a source of astonishment, mainly because they... Have you ever seen the show Life in Pieces on Amazon?
00:50:41.000So, there's a character in Life in Pieces who has a puppet, and the puppet has Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows.
00:50:47.000Those eyebrows have not moved in 20 years.
00:50:51.000We still want to get some things done.
00:50:54.000In our other agenda, the Build Back Better legislation, I don't know what that will be, but what it will be will be paid for.
00:51:16.000People were asking her questions about COVID relief and sending more money to people because we're in an inflationary spiral and she people are tying in Ukraine. Well, then don't be speaker of the house lady. If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time, then please give up your job.
00:51:27.000I just want to dig into that a little bit more on the COVID relief.
00:51:44.000I don't want to answer your questions. I don't want to do that. So people are dying in Ukraine Live like you've never lived before like heaven is on earth dance like nobody is watching you Yep.
00:51:55.000By the way, good piece in Politico today.
00:51:56.000of the TV while drilling into your gruel, but also drink a can of Ensure every day to ensure that you don't lose too much weight and lose bone density.
00:52:19.000And the reason she is retiring is because she says the Democrats are totally out of touch.
00:52:22.000She says, quote, my first term, there was a lot more tolerance for do what you need to do to hold your seat.
00:52:27.000Come back because we're trying to build toward a majority.
00:52:29.000With us being in the majority, that tolerance eroded a bit.
00:52:31.000It's unfortunate, because I think in order for us as Democrats to hold the majority, you have to be able to win in seats like mine and in redder seats.
00:52:38.000That means you have to cut your members a little bit of leeway to vote their district.
00:52:41.000This march toward party unity is going to be detrimental to our ability to lead.
00:52:46.000She said that Democratic leaders are encouraging outside group attacks on vulnerable members like her for wanting to separate Build Back Better agenda from infrastructure.
00:52:55.000She said a lot of those outside groups that purport to represent a specific interest are just an extension of leadership.
00:53:00.000Instead of focusing purely on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants.
00:53:06.000She fumed that the entire idea of allies going after Democrats ahead of a tough year election was mind-boggling.
00:53:11.000She said, I told those groups, for every dollar that you spend against me, it's going to take 10 to repair that.
00:53:15.000Why, as Democrats, we would take money we need to reserve for the on-year to help win and grow the majority?
00:53:21.000Why we'd spend that money against our own members is really baffling.
00:53:24.000She says the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is out of touch with reality and needs major reform.
00:53:29.000She says, I'm surprised at how short the memory is.
00:53:31.000It's as short as being celebrated for having flipped a seat and then excoriated for taking votes that help you keep that seat.
00:53:37.000I think about people like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, like some of these other members who were in 18, they were celebrities for helping us win the majority.
00:53:44.000And as soon as they went about taking the votes that would help them keep and represent the seat they had won, they drew the ire of Democrats.
00:54:10.000With leadership like Joe Biden, who does not know where he is at any given time of the day, and Nancy Pelosi, who is reading toast from her grandchildren and poetry involving Vladimir Zelensky, yeah, these people have completely lost the thread.
00:54:23.000One of the reasons they've lost the thread, by the way, I have to say this, is because the media echo chamber is just so amazing for them.
00:54:46.000As long as you are on the left, the media will cover for you, and they will cheer you, and you can be the worst person, and they will just continue to massage you.
00:54:54.000Best example maybe I've ever seen comes courtesy of Star Trek.
00:54:58.000So the new Star Trek show, They had a cameo by Stacey Abrams.
00:55:05.000Now, why Stacey Abrams has become an icon in the Democratic Party is quite beyond me, considering that she overtly denies the election results that made her not governor of Georgia.
00:55:13.000And I think she's likely going to lose to Brian Kemp again this year.
00:55:16.000But nonetheless, the media holds her in great esteem.
00:56:32.000Can you imagine Hollywood having like a Ron DeSantis cameo where he's President of Earth?
00:56:37.000I mean, Ron DeSantis is the legit governor of a state.
00:56:40.000Can you imagine them having a cameo in which the failed Republican candidate for governor, like the guy who no one's ever heard of in New Jersey, who nearly beat Phil Murphy, where he was like, I mean, who's the best person we can cast as president of Earth?
00:56:54.000This is not the first kind of Hollywood worshiping Stacey Abrams cameo.
00:56:57.000Apparently, there was like a giant picture of Stacey Abrams in the last season of Billions.
00:57:02.000Like, Hollywood is just But here's the thing.
00:57:05.000All the Democrats watch this stuff and they love this stuff.
00:57:07.000And so they are like, wow, this is reality.
00:57:11.000And this is why you see Democrats taking unpopular positions that Americans hate.
00:57:14.000So, for example, the entire media started calling this Florida bill, which protects youngsters from the predations of teachers teaching them about sexual orientation and gender identity at age seven.
00:57:25.000The entire Democratic Party, including the White House, came out against this bill.
00:57:28.000Now, this, among parents, forget among the general population, among parents, this is like an 80-20 divide.
00:57:35.000Parents do not want their kids indoctrinated in this stuff.
00:57:37.000And frankly, I'm kind of surprised that of all the polls that have been taken about this issue, they don't actually have a poll that breaks it down into parents versus non-parents.
00:57:44.000Because frankly, I don't care what single people think about how my kids should be educated.
00:57:48.000They don't have kids, so I don't really care.
00:57:51.000I care about what parents think about these issues.
00:57:53.000Those are the ones for whom this is a top issue.
00:57:55.000For single people who don't have kids, what kids are educated about in kindergarten is of very little consequence to them.
00:58:00.000For parents who have kids, that's like number one priority issue.
00:58:04.000But even among general Americans, a vast majority of Americans do not like kids being indoctrinated into this crap.
00:58:10.000But the entire media termed this bill the Don't Say Gay Bill.
00:58:43.000So, Leah Thomas just blew away all the actual women in the NCAA Women's Swimming Championship 500-yard freestyle.
00:58:52.000Like, the clip of it is just astonishing.
00:58:56.000Leah Thomas, who is a dude, clocked in at 4'33", 24.
00:59:02.000Okay, the person who came in second, University of Virginia's Emma Wyans, an actual woman, a freshman, finished second at 4.3499 milliseconds, dropping two seconds and 26 milliseconds behind her previous time.
00:59:15.000Erica Sullivan, a freshman from the University of Texas, finished third at 4.3592.
00:59:20.000Okay, for folks who don't watch swimming closely, that's a large gap.
00:59:24.000Okay, losing a race by like a second and a half is a fairly large gap.
00:59:29.000And if you watch the video, you can see how big the gap is.
00:59:32.000You can also see the physical gap between Leah Thomas and the people that this dude is competing against.
01:02:30.000And then, the Democrats just mirror all this garbage, and then it gets enacted in real-world policy, and it hurts people.
01:02:35.000That disconnect, by the way, is going to be punished at the polls like nobody's business, and it should be.
01:02:40.000These are a lot of 70-30, 80-20, 90-10 issues against Democrats and they've been so completely taken in by a media that makes Stacey Abrams president of earth that they forget that Stacey Abrams still has yet to win an actual statewide election.
01:02:55.000And they are about to get crushed in November, and they should, man.