The Ben Shapiro Show - Is Affordability a “Democrat Hoax”?!

00:00:00.000 Democrats win the mayoralty in Miami, which has been a Republican stronghold for 30 years.

00:00:04.000 What does that mean for Republicans?

00:00:06.000 Plus, we get into the affordability debate first.

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00:00:44.000 All righty, folks.

00:00:45.000 So, some flags are going up.

00:00:47.000 Some red warning sirens are beginning to sound about Republican hopes in 2026, and yes, in 2028, because American politics is like a pendulum.

00:00:56.000 If it swings one direction one moment, then wait a minute, it'll probably swing back the other direction naturally.

00:01:01.000 Right now, Miami has been Republican for decades.

00:01:04.000 It's been Republican for decades, specifically because there's a large Cuban Republican population, very anti-communist.

00:01:10.000 Well, for the first time in 30 years, Democrats have now taken control of Miami.

00:01:15.000 That's after candidate Eileen Higgins clinched the city's mayoral election.

00:01:19.000 Higgins beat out Trump-backed Republican Emilio Gonzalez in the Florida City's runoff Tuesday night.

00:01:24.000 She becomes the first Democratic mayor in the city since 1998, according to the New York Post.

00:01:29.000 The victory is an upset for GOP lawmakers around the country who rallied behind Gonzalez because, of course, South Florida has turned into a very red area over the course of the last 10 years or so.

00:01:41.000 Florida itself was a very competitive area for Democrats up until about 2018 when Governor Ron DeSantis won an extremely narrow election against a man, Andrew Gillum, who would later be caught up in flagrante de lite with some awkward situations involving drugs in a hotel room, male prostitutes, perhaps.

00:02:01.000 Anyway, that was relevant.

00:02:02.000 That happened after the election.

00:02:03.000 That was a narrow election in 2018.

00:02:05.000 In 2022, DeSantis blew out his political opposition.

00:02:09.000 And in 2024, Florida went to President Trump by a very heavy margin.

00:02:13.000 Well, Miami has been Republican for a very long time.

00:02:15.000 Apparently, now it has turned blue, despite the fact that Republicans rallied in favor of the Republican candidate.

00:02:21.000 President Trump threw his weight behind the Republican candidate.

00:02:24.000 He was joined by Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Governor DeSantis, but it didn't matter very much.

00:02:29.000 Apparently, Higgins, the Democrat, had led Gonzalez 36 to 19 during the first round of voting amid a crowded field in November.

00:02:35.000 She was the favorite to win this time.

00:02:39.000 But this is a ding in the Republican armor for sure.

00:02:42.000 Again, some of the early bellwethers are not moving in Republican directions right now.

00:02:46.000 It is also a warning bell for Republicans with regard to the Hispanic vote in the United States.

00:02:50.000 President Trump won an outsized share of Hispanics in the last election cycle.

00:02:54.000 The polling shows that many, many Hispanics are falling off the Republican bandwagon right now because Trump solved some of the big issues like closing the southern border, but he has alienated an awful lot of Hispanic Republicans with some of the, shall we say, more public-facing ICE actions.

00:03:14.000 He has also alienated some Hispanic Republicans because a lot of Hispanic Republicans were driven away from the Democratic Party by their social radicalism and DEI. 0.63

00:03:22.000 Democrats have been smartly on a national level, sort of moving away from those discussions and back toward wait for it, affordability.

00:03:28.000 So this is the issue of the day, affordability.

00:03:30.000 Now, President Trump has labeled affordability a Democratic hoax.

00:03:34.000 And I totally understand where he is coming from because affordability is a broad buzzword that encompasses many things.

00:03:42.000 Does it encompass the inflation rate?

00:03:43.000 If we're talking inflation rate, Trump has brought down inflation to manageable levels.

00:03:47.000 It's still higher than it should be, but it's not riding at 9, 10, 11% like it was under Joe Biden.

00:03:52.000 If we're talking about energy prices, energy prices actually are norming out under President Trump.

00:03:58.000 When people say affordability, it is fair to say that very few people ever think that things are quote unquote affordable.

00:04:04.000 Nothing is affordable, right?

00:04:06.000 If you are struggling economically at any time in your life, this means inherently you're going to think things are unaffordable.

00:04:11.000 But really, when people talk about affordability, what do they mean?

00:04:14.000 They mean that things are less affordable for them now than they were back in 2019.

00:04:19.000 And that is what the polling data shows.

00:04:22.000 That is what Americans think today.

00:04:24.000 A new poll from Politico shows that nearly half of Americans said they find groceries, utility bills, healthcare, housing, and transportation difficult to afford.

00:04:32.000 More than a quarter, 27%, said they have skipped a medical checkup because of costs within the last two years.

00:04:37.000 23% said they've skipped a prescription dose for the same reason.

00:04:42.000 More than a third of Americans say they could not afford to attend a professional sporting event with family or friends.

00:04:47.000 46% said they could not pay for a vacation that involves air travel.

00:04:50.000 Now, it is worthwhile noting, all of those numbers are minority numbers.

00:04:53.000 Those are not broad majority numbers.

00:04:55.000 A quarter of Americans saying that they have to skip a medical appointment or less than half of Americans saying they can't pay for a vacation involving air travel.

00:05:03.000 With that said, overall, Americans are dissatisfied with how far their money is going right now.

00:05:10.000 According to Politico, only 22% of voters who cast their ballots for President Trump in 2024 said that tariffs are helping the U.S. economy both now and in the long term.

00:05:21.000 Meanwhile, when it comes to things like college costs, 62% of Americans say college isn't worth it because it costs too much or doesn't provide enough benefits.

00:05:30.000 When it comes to food prices, half of those surveyed say they find it difficult to pay for food.

00:05:35.000 A majority, 55%, blame the Trump administration for the high prices.

00:05:39.000 Again, some of that is based on tariff concerns.

00:05:41.000 When it comes to housing costs, a huge percentage of Americans are worried about housing costs and home buying.

00:05:49.000 Only 10% of those who identify as MAGA Republicans believe the Trump administration is responsible for housing costs they see as unfavorable, but that figure is three times higher for non-MAGA Republican respondents.

00:06:00.000 Nearly half of Americans find it difficult to afford health care, according to that Politico poll as well.

00:06:06.000 And this isn't rooted in nothing.

00:06:09.000 I asked our friends and sponsors over at Comet, a project of perplexity, how much have rental costs escalated since 2019 in the United States?

00:06:16.000 Health insurance costs, food prices, college costs.

00:06:20.000 And here is what Comet says.

00:06:23.000 Rental, housing, health insurance, food, college have all risen substantially since 2019, with food and rent up roughly 20 to 25% or more, health insurance premiums up about 25%, average college tuition up around 8% to 12%, depending on the sector.

00:06:37.000 I also asked Comet, how much have incomes risen in that same period non-inflation adjusted?

00:06:43.000 And the reason that I'm not adjusting for inflation there is if you're talking about the increase in food prices, some of that is the inflationary increase in food prices brought about by the Biden administration.

00:06:52.000 So you have to use the same ruler.

00:06:55.000 According to Comet, non-inflation adjusted nominal household incomes are up by roughly 10 to 15% since 2019, which is less than the increase in rents, food, and health insurance costs over the same period.

00:07:07.000 So yes, you're making more dollars than you were in 2019, but those dollars aren't going quite as far.

00:07:12.000 So both things can be true.

00:07:14.000 Things are less affordable than they were five years ago, six years ago.

00:07:18.000 And also, when Democrats talk about the problems of affordability, they're neglecting the fact that most of those problems emerged under Joe Biden.

00:07:26.000 That is what Trump means when he says that the affordability argument is a hoax.

00:07:30.000 He means they created an inflationary spiral that jacked up prices, and then they handed him a bad situation.

00:07:37.000 And then he has brought inflation down to manageable levels, and now they're shouting about affordability.

00:07:42.000 They can't shout about inflation because if they say inflation, everyone's going to look at Joe Biden and look at Trump and realize Trump brought the inflation rates down.

00:07:49.000 So if they talk about affordability as a catch-all basket, that is a much more lucrative political line for them to pursue.

00:07:56.000 All right, coming up, we'll get to President Trump talking about affordability.

00:07:59.000 Is this narrative going to play first?

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00:10:22.000 Here was President Trump yesterday in Pennsylvania.

00:10:25.000 They have a new word.

00:10:26.000 You know, there was ever hoax.

00:10:27.000 The new word is affordability.

00:10:30.000 So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability.

00:10:38.000 So again, the reason he is doing that is because he is looking at the stats and he is saying, I did a better job than Biden.

00:10:44.000 He is doing a better job than Joe Biden.

00:10:44.000 And he is right.

00:10:47.000 But Democrats are smart.

00:10:48.000 If they just say affordability over and over, then they never have to come up with a solution, even if they created the problem in the first place.

00:10:54.000 That is true with regard to healthcare, for example, where they keep talking about unaffordability in healthcare.

00:11:00.000 And you and I may say to ourselves, wait, hold up.

00:11:02.000 You're talking about unaffordability in healthcare.

00:11:04.000 I thought Obamacare was supposed to solve all of this.

00:11:07.000 Wasn't that your program?

00:11:09.000 And the answer is yes.

00:11:10.000 But if they talk about healthcare unaffordability, then they get to blame Republicans for the fact that they made it unaffordable in the first place.

00:11:17.000 Because affordability is a present tense question.

00:11:20.000 Are things affordable?

00:11:21.000 Inflation looks back at history and says, are things going up, going down, or pretty steady?

00:11:28.000 Affordability is not comparative.

00:11:30.000 Affordability is just about what you feel in the moment.

00:11:34.000 This is why Democrats right now are getting away with the fact that they radically expanded Obamacare subsidies under Joe Biden during COVID, generating artificial funding for a program that is non-feasible on a monetary level.

00:11:47.000 And now they're leaving Republicans holding the bag, trying to say Republicans need to fill in the gap.

00:11:52.000 This is the game that Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, is playing.

00:11:57.000 He's railing at Republicans for not expanding health care subsidies back to the sort of Joe Biden levels.

00:12:03.000 Time has run out.

00:12:05.000 Democrats have been pressing our Republican colleagues for months to deal with the health care crisis that they have created.

00:12:16.000 And in a matter of just a few weeks, tens of millions of Americans who live in every single state across this country are about to experience dramatically increased health care costs.

00:12:33.000 In some instances, premiums are going to increase by $1,000 or $2,000 per month.

00:12:38.000 How is that acceptable?

00:12:41.000 So, again, the game that he is playing here is they make it unaffordable.

00:12:45.000 They destroy the mechanism for funding health insurance programs.

00:12:49.000 And then they ask you to fill in the gap based on the current unaffordability.

00:12:52.000 This is the beauty of being a Democrat.

00:12:54.000 You can run a program into the ground, cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars with these welfare programs.

00:13:00.000 And then, because people are dependent on them, you have to give them their fix or they blame you for their current suffering.

00:13:06.000 The Senate is about to propose a bill put forward by the Republicans that would allow those ACA tax credits, which are just Obamacare subsidies.

00:13:15.000 Again, tax credits really are just checks because it's not as though it's credited against taxes you are paying.

00:13:20.000 They're just subsidies.

00:13:21.000 They would allow the ACA tax credits to expire and instead approve new funds to boost health savings accounts or HSAs, which Americans up to 700% of the poverty level can use to buy bronze or catastrophic plans, the lowest tiers of insurance available under the ACA.

00:13:34.000 It would also create the option for more people to buy those cheaper and less comprehensive plans.

00:13:38.000 It would fund cost-sharing reduction payments under the Senate plan put forward by Republicans.

00:13:43.000 Eligible adults under 50 years old would get $1,000 per year deposited into that HSA.

00:13:48.000 Those 50 to 64 would get $1,500 per year.

00:13:52.000 That legislation would block using the money for abortion or gender transition procedures.

00:13:56.000 Democrats are saying it's not enough.

00:13:59.000 That if the Congress allows the ACA subsidies to expire, premiums will double for more than 20 million Americans who use them.

00:14:05.000 So the $1,000 is not going to pay for the subsidies that Democrats have put into place when those subsidies expire.

00:14:13.000 Sabrina Corlette points out the finances here. 0.98

00:14:16.000 She says the average deductible for a bronze plan is $7,500, double that for a family plan.

00:14:20.000 The HSA contribution doesn't extend to kids under 18.

00:14:23.000 It's only $1,000 for an adult under 50.

00:14:25.000 There's no adjustment for income, meaning that the proposal favors people who are wealthier and healthier.

00:14:31.000 Senator Chuck Schumer is angry at the bill.

00:14:33.000 He just wants more funding for Obamacare, which again, this was supposed to solve the problem of Obamacare.

00:14:38.000 It obviously didn't.

00:14:38.000 Here's Schumer ripping Republicans.

00:14:41.000 The bill not only fails to extend the tax credits, it increases costs, adds tons of new abortion restrictions for women, expands junk fees, and permanently funds cost-sharing reductions.

00:14:59.000 Their bill is junk insurance.

00:15:02.000 It's been repudiated in the past.

00:15:04.000 The American people will repudiate it once again because it is junk insurance that puts the burden on people.

00:15:16.000 Now, what's hilarious about him saying that it's junk insurance is that he's talking about bronze plans available under Obamacare.

00:15:21.000 You created that program.

00:15:23.000 You created those catastrophic plans for people to purchase, right?

00:15:28.000 This was your program, purely Democrat lines, not a bipartisan proposal.

00:15:28.000 It was you guys.

00:15:33.000 And now you're calling it junk insurance.

00:15:35.000 Okay, so again, the goal for Democrats when it comes to affordability is to create subsidization schemes that make things unaffordable and then deceive the American people that subsidies are going to make them cheaper.

00:15:44.000 And then when Republicans say no, blame the Republicans for it.

00:15:47.000 Now, this does put Republicans in purple states in a difficult position.

00:15:51.000 Senator Josh Halley of Missouri is warning that Americans will blame Republicans if their premiums do skyrocket at the end of the month.

00:15:56.000 He says, I just don't know how Republicans would explain that to 24 million Americans whose premiums are going to double.

00:16:01.000 People at home are going to say, you're hurting me.

00:16:02.000 You're making my premiums go up.

00:16:03.000 You're not helping me.

00:16:04.000 Why are you doing that to me?

00:16:05.000 Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina, who is stepping down from his seat, he said that people are currently paying $800 a month for health insurance.

00:16:15.000 For a couple and three kids, they just communicated to me.

00:16:17.000 It's going to be twice.

00:16:18.000 It'll be $1,600 a month.

00:16:20.000 So $1,000 is not going to make up for that, obviously.

00:16:23.000 You're talking about a $7,200 increase over the course of the year.

00:16:28.000 The reality is that Republicans have never had a comprehensive plan to replace Obamacare because every time we get into a comprehensive plan, the devil is in the details.

00:16:38.000 And the attempt politically to avoid blowback by providing very small HSA boosts, that is not going to work.

00:16:47.000 Politically speaking, listen, on an ideological level, I believe that the federal government should get entirely out of the business of funding health insurance.

00:16:55.000 This should be a state and local governmental issue.

00:16:58.000 It should be the social networks that we all exist in that help all of our friends who are sick and elderly pay for the health insurance bills.

00:17:05.000 Like, I think, I don't know why the federal government is involved in this sort of stuff in the first place.

00:17:08.000 None of this is in the Constitution.

00:17:10.000 With that said, on a political level, if Republicans are going to try to do a solve, what they actually should do is they should probably boost those ACA subsidies for another couple of years, but include a bunch of riders that transition it out and make way for larger HSAs.

00:17:29.000 In other words, provide people some sort of glide path toward a new future as opposed to a hard stop.

00:17:35.000 Hard stops in American politics typically create massive political blowback, and 2026 looks like it's going to be pretty ugly for Republicans anyway.

00:17:42.000 So on a principle level, I totally understand why Republicans are saying don't continue the ACA subsidies.

00:17:47.000 But I also understand that the political blowback is going to lead to Democrats in power in 2028.

00:17:53.000 And Republicans who are pretending away the vulnerability that they have electorally here are missing the point.

00:18:00.000 All right, coming up, President Trump continues to push his tariff policy.

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00:20:25.000 By the way, the same thing is true on tariff policy.

00:20:28.000 The reality is that the president's tariff policy is widely unpopular.

00:20:32.000 The argument that President Trump has been making with regards to tariffs is not a particularly successful one.

00:20:38.000 So, yesterday, he was speaking in Pennsylvania, for example, and he was again repeating this line: that you don't need $37 for your daughter, you need steel.

00:20:48.000 Okay, let's just be clear: there are a lot of Americans who would like to buy toys for their kids.

00:20:53.000 And also, it turns out that tariffs on steel make steel more expensive.

00:20:58.000 That is literally the purpose of a tariff on steel.

00:21:02.000 Also, we do not actually have steel shortages from foundries in the United States.

00:21:07.000 The reality is that steel is no longer a sort of core American industry the way that it was in 1955.

00:21:13.000 Here's the president: The one thing you need, you need steel.

00:21:17.000 You know, you can give up certain products, you can give up pencils because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils, they only need one or two.

00:21:29.000 You know, they don't need that many, but you always need, you always need steel.

00:21:35.000 You don't need 37 dollars for your daughter, two or three is nice.

00:21:41.000 Okay, I mean, we should point out at this point that again, according to our sponsors over at Comet Project of Perplexity, the United States currently produces 90 million metric tons of crude raw steel per year and consumes on the order of 92, 95 million tons of steel per year.

00:21:55.000 Any gap is covered by small amounts of net imports.

00:22:00.000 But I don't understand why these are mutually exclusive.

00:22:03.000 It turns out that we can have both steel and also dolls for our kids.

00:22:07.000 Americans being told they need to make trade-offs have to have it explained to them why it is that you are asking for the trade-off.

00:22:14.000 And if China, by the way, is a geopolitical enemy, then maybe we ought to treat it as such and not allow NVIDIA to ship its chips over there.

00:22:22.000 All this is discombobulated and feels discombobulated to people.

00:22:25.000 The same thing is true when it comes to President Trump's tariffs on the farmers.

00:22:28.000 So, the truth is, American farmers are suffering right now because many of the export markets to which we ship are goods from the agricultural industry.

00:22:37.000 Those export markets have had tariff rates increased.

00:22:41.000 Here, for example, is the head of the American Soybean Association slamming President Trump's tariffs.

00:22:47.000 Well, this is a band-aid on an open wound.

00:22:49.000 And again, we're thankful that there's something that this will help keep some farms in business.

00:22:55.000 But what we truly need are market-based solutions, those are sustainable long-term.

00:23:00.000 Here domestically, we have opportunities for the administration to finalize the renewable volume obligations for biofuels here before the end of the year, the 45Z tax credit.

00:23:11.000 We have numerous opportunities to expand markets worldwide, and we truly need demand because without demand, we're not able to receive a price that is economically sustainable for our crop.

00:23:25.000 So, again, farmers are not feeling great about all of this, but President Trump is saying the tariffs are making them rich.

00:23:31.000 One of the rules of politics is that when people are feeling bad about their own personal economic situation, you can't tell them that they are actually doing great.

00:23:40.000 Now, again, it may be true that they are doing better than they would have been under an alternative system.

00:23:45.000 But just as an elected politician, right, the idea here is that you have to provide them some answer as to why things are worse or what you're going to do to make them better.

00:23:54.000 Here's President Trump saying the tariffs are making farmers rich.

00:23:56.000 Farmers don't really believe this, by the way.

00:23:59.000 And we just gave them right out of a tariff money, cost us nothing, right out of the billion, hundreds of billions that we've taken in, we gave the farmers a little help, $12 billion, and they are so happy.

00:24:13.000 And all they want is a level playing field.

00:24:16.000 And now it's happening.

00:24:17.000 And the tariffs are making them rich.

00:24:19.000 It's going to be, you're going to see, you're going to see what happens over the next two years.

00:24:24.000 Again, according to the Joyer Institute, one analysis of the prior trade war that the Trump administration engaged in between 2018 and 2024 estimated U.S. farm export losses of about $27 billion.

00:24:35.000 So it turns out the government interventionism is actually not a great plan when it comes to a lot of this sort of stuff.

00:24:41.000 What you actually need, as always, is more deregulation, lower taxes, better incentive structures for businesses to create new goods, product, and services.

00:24:51.000 And this is why the American economy, it feels discombobulated.

00:24:54.000 It feels sort of schizophrenic.

00:24:56.000 It feels on the upper hand on AI, like we're doing just amazing business.

00:25:01.000 And it feels everywhere else like we're sort of hovering around.

00:25:04.000 We don't know quite what is going on.

00:25:04.000 It's a little turbulent.

00:25:07.000 And that's fine.

00:25:08.000 AI is going to pay off.

00:25:09.000 AI will be great.

00:25:10.000 I'm a big AI guy.

00:25:11.000 I think AI is incredible.

00:25:13.000 I think attempts to restrict the development of AI are likely to fail.

00:25:18.000 I think that there will be transitional jobs.

00:25:20.000 I think there will be temporary job dislocations and then new industries will be founded.

00:25:24.000 Life will actually get better.

00:25:26.000 I think that case needs to be made by many of the AI tech bros who seem to sort of assume that people are fine with AI when in a time of transition, people are doubtful.

00:25:35.000 But the reality is that there probably will be some winnowing in the AI field.

00:25:41.000 That is very likely to happen.

00:25:43.000 But I don't think that that winnowing is necessarily going to be as egregious as, for example, the dot-com bust of late 1990s.

00:25:49.000 There's a sort of robust debate happening in the tech and economics field about whether there will be a bust up.

00:25:55.000 And if so, how deep is it?

00:25:57.000 According to the New York Times, the dot-com boom, a period of wild exuberance and extreme hype that began in the mid-90s, built the foundations for the contemporary wired world.

00:26:05.000 When the internet media turned to bust in March 2000, it made a bit of a mess.

00:26:09.000 The trouble spread from Silicon Valley to the larger economy, which went into recession.

00:26:13.000 More than $5 trillion in stock market value was destroyed.

00:26:16.000 The unemployment rate rose to 6% from 4%.

00:26:19.000 Well, now Silicon Valley is in the middle of an artificial intelligence boom that bears some obvious resemblances to the dot-com boom.

00:26:25.000 For all the similarities, though, there are differences that could lead to distinctly different outcomes.

00:26:29.000 The main one is that AI is being financed and controlled by multi-trillion dollar companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta that are not in danger of going bust, right?

00:26:36.000 It's not pets.com.

00:26:39.000 Amazon is not selling less toothpaste while it shells out billions on AI data center.

00:26:43.000 Google is still profitable while it is developing foundational AI models.

00:26:48.000 Another difference, there are not very many regulatory barriers standing in the way of AI.

00:26:54.000 Also, if people are already sort of hedging their bets and the economy on the AI level continues to grow, well, that suggests, again, that there's some underlying productivity increase.

00:27:04.000 The New York Times reports that the dot-com boom and the AI boom were both narrowly focused.

00:27:08.000 80% of venture investments in 2000 went to internet companies.

00:27:11.000 This year, 64% went to AI startups.

00:27:15.000 But otherwise, the two booms have diverged in scale.

00:27:18.000 The three most highly valued companies of the dot-com era were Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel, all of which supplied the technology that made internet startups possible.

00:27:26.000 Each was valued around $500 billion at its peak.

00:27:28.000 Today, NVIDIA is valued at $4.5 trillion.

00:27:33.000 It and the other AI companies, Google, Meta, Amazon, and privately held OpenAI, probably worth $17 trillion in capitalization.

00:27:42.000 So there is some insularity to the industry, and it means that probably these companies will not go bankrupt, or if one does, the others will pick up the sort of pieces.

00:27:53.000 So maybe we're protected from the severe downsides of an AI bus stop.

00:27:58.000 With that said, will there likely be some winnowing?

00:28:00.000 There will likely be some winnowing that happens here.

00:28:02.000 Right now, OpenAI is in a massive battle with Google.

00:28:06.000 Gemini 3, which is the latest Google model, is incredible.

00:28:10.000 It really is great.

00:28:11.000 If you spend a lot of time with it, it far outpaces ChatGPT 5.1.

00:28:16.000 I've spent time with both of them.

00:28:18.000 Frankly, I think that Gemini is really outpacing its competition in a lot of these areas.

00:28:24.000 Well, now Sam Altman over at OpenAI has made the dramatic call for a code red to beat back a rising threat from Google, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:28:32.000 The world's most valuable startup should pause its side projects like its Sora video generator for eight weeks and focus on improving chat GPT, according to Sam Altman.

00:28:41.000 In doing so, Altman was making a major strategic course correction and taking sides in a broader philosophical divide inside the company between its pursuit of popularity among everyday consumers and its quest for research greatness.

00:28:53.000 OpenAI was founded to pursue artificial generative intelligence, but for the company to survive, Altman says it may have to pause that quest and give the people what they want, which is fascinating.

00:29:05.000 So, again, this competition is going to have some winners.

00:29:07.000 It's going to have some losers, but a lot of chips are in that AI basket.

00:29:11.000 Maybe it works out fine.

00:29:12.000 But this is why people are feeling a disconnect.

00:29:15.000 They're looking at the debt-fueled deals that are generating these outsized returns on AI companies that are publicly traded right now.

00:29:22.000 And they're feeling a little skittish at the same time that they're having affordability issues in their daily life that have, again, emerged over the course of the last five or six years.

00:29:31.000 So you can see why people are feeling a little bit schizophrenic.

00:29:35.000 So later today, the Federal Reserve is going to announce whether it is dropping the interest rates again.

00:29:39.000 The high likelihood, of course, is that it probably will drop those interest rates.

00:29:44.000 When you take a look at the Calci markets, Calci is one of our sponsors.

00:29:48.000 When you look at the Calci markets, what you see is a 98% shot, apparently, that there is a 25-basis point cut.

00:29:58.000 So it's very, very likely, in other words, that you're going to get that interest rate cut.

00:30:01.000 But with that said, is there a lot more room to cut?

00:30:05.000 Who knows?

00:30:06.000 And this brings up the question of what happens in the future with the Federal Reserve.

00:30:10.000 Because Jerome Powell will be gone.

00:30:12.000 Jerome Powell, his term is to end in very short order.

00:30:17.000 The question is who replaces him?

00:30:18.000 The frontrunner right now is Kevin Hassett, who's a loyalist to the president for sure.

00:30:23.000 Here is Kevin Hassett talking about rate cuts, interest rate cuts, and he's saying that there's more room for interest rate cuts.

00:30:30.000 If you do become the Fed chair, Kevin, and he pressures you both privately but publicly on true social or says it, and your economic judgment is rates should not be cut now.

00:30:43.000 What do you do?

00:30:44.000 Dude, you just do the right thing.

00:30:46.000 Well, the right thing is if you think, like, what is the judgment?

00:30:46.000 What's the right thing?

00:30:50.000 So suppose that inflation has gone from, say, two and a half to four.

00:30:55.000 You can't cut rates then.

00:30:57.000 Okay, so it'll be interesting to see whether he holds to that.

00:31:02.000 You want an economy that is not fueled by just injecting liquidity from the Federal Reserve every five seconds, that for sure.

00:31:08.000 And it'll be interesting to see how the AI investment bubble goes.

00:31:12.000 If there's a winnowing, when will it happen?

00:31:14.000 Right now, it seems as though that market is going to remain fairly hot for the foreseeable future.

00:31:18.000 The next move by the Trump administration, if it worked for AI, it should work for everything else.

00:31:22.000 Deregulate, get out of the way, let the markets generate more productivity.

00:31:26.000 That's true everywhere from agriculture to heavy industry.

00:31:30.000 Let them do their work.

00:31:30.000 And the president has done a lot of this already, right?

00:31:32.000 Did this with regard to deregulating the car industry, getting rid of those CAFE standards that were forcing everybody toward electric vehicles?

00:31:39.000 He has done this with regard to government regulations on the environment, which has prevented businesses from being able to pursue efficiencies that really don't damage the economy very much.

00:31:50.000 So he's gotten rid of a lot of those regulations.

00:31:52.000 We need more of that and less of the interventionism.

00:31:55.000 All righty, coming up, we'll be joined by Senator Joni Ernst, as well as our own investigative reporter, Luke Roziak, talking about the problems of fraud in the U.S. government first.

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00:32:33.000 Well, something else that President Trump can do is crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:32:37.000 That's something that he tried to do with Doge, but it's going to require more than that for the future.

00:32:41.000 It requires some legislative fixes.

00:32:43.000 Joining us online is Senator Joni Ernst, as well as Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak to discuss.

00:32:48.000 Senator Ernst, why don't we start with you?

00:32:50.000 You are holding a Senate hearing on a massive DEI scheme that has been created by the federal government, apparently small business administration program expanded under Joe Biden.

00:33:01.000 Why don't you explain what exactly is going on?

00:33:03.000 Absolutely.

00:33:03.000 And thanks so much for having us on today, Ben.

00:33:06.000 This afternoon, I will be chairing the Small Business Committee hearing on various types of fraud through small business programs and the Small Business Administration.

00:33:18.000 And the one in particular, and we're so glad to have Luke Roziak joining us as a witness today, the one that we will focus on is the 8A program, which was meant to assist small businesses that were supposedly socially and economically disadvantaged.

00:33:37.000 But we have found a boatload of fraud in this program.

00:33:44.000 So typically we will find when fraud is associated with this program, you may have a minority business owner who will then get these contracts and then subcontract out that work to a small business or even a large business that's not really socially or economically disabled.

00:34:06.000 So that's just one example.

00:34:08.000 But we're exposing the 8A program fraud.

00:34:13.000 We're exposing COVID fraud that has happened.

00:34:16.000 Look at Minnesota.

00:34:17.000 And we will also be exposing fraud that happened in the USAID program as well.

00:34:23.000 So again, it's going to be a great hearing this afternoon talking about the failures of these programs in safeguarding taxpayer dollars.

00:34:32.000 So Luke, obviously, you've been covering a lot of this for Daily Wire.

00:34:35.000 What are some of the issues you're going to be talking about at this hearing?

00:34:38.000 So I'm so glad they're having a hearing about 8A contracting.

00:34:42.000 I've been saying for many years it's the most corrupt program in Washington.

00:34:47.000 And if you do think about the Somali fraud in Minneapolis, think that times a thousand and then just repeat that for half a century. 0.93

00:34:57.000 That's what it is.

00:34:58.000 Because it's giving benefits oftentimes to non-Americans over Americans.

00:35:03.000 This was a program that gives preference and government contracting to minorities.

00:35:07.000 And it was created in 1978 mostly to help black people.

00:35:11.000 But now we have this whole mix of different ethnicities in the country.

00:35:14.000 So you could be fresh off the boat from India and they'll give you preference on an IT contract for the U.S. government over an American. 0.54

00:35:22.000 Even though you were born here and an Indian person is there, that's actually a member of the most wealthy ethnicity in America. 0.99

00:35:29.000 And obviously, Indians are not underrepresented in IT.

00:35:33.000 And then the other element that reminds me of Minnesota is the widespread fraud that everybody kind of knew about, but nobody was willing to say anything.

00:35:41.000 And so we're all pretending that they're actually doing this work and not subcontracting it out to other people.

00:35:47.000 And you have these defense contractors that are getting contracts and they don't actually have to bid them out.

00:35:53.000 They don't have to compete them.

00:35:54.000 They can just get a contract, like to build a tank.

00:35:56.000 And the reason they have that exemption to do something so corrupt and give a contract directly to one company instead of competing it is because we pretend that they're native Alaskans.

00:36:07.000 And I think it's time now to kind of drain the swamp and be honest.

00:36:11.000 We all know, we all always knew there weren't Eskimos working at these defense contractors. 0.59

00:36:16.000 The whole thing has been sort of a fraud that skims off about 5% of all federal contracting dollars for this fake DEI scheme that actually doesn't do anything to help anybody.

00:36:27.000 So Senator Ernst, obviously you are the chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and you've introduced the Stop 8A Contracting Fraud Act.

00:36:35.000 How much of this fraud could be undone by better action through the actual small business administration?

00:36:41.000 Obviously, the Trump administration is in charge of the executive branch.

00:36:44.000 And how much are you just trying to kill these programs now?

00:36:46.000 Because there will be a Democrat at some point in the future, you have to assume, who's going to use the legislative capacity here in order to expand these programs.

00:36:54.000 Exactly, Ben.

00:36:54.000 Right.

00:36:55.000 And actually, there is a lawsuit that is ongoing right now, which kind of undercuts the premise of the 8A program.

00:37:04.000 And Luke is absolutely right.

00:37:06.000 We have all kinds of minorities that will qualify for the program.

00:37:10.000 There is no rhyme or reason.

00:37:11.000 There's no data behind this.

00:37:13.000 There's no science behind this.

00:37:16.000 They, being the federal government and small business administration, have through the years just continually added different ethnic groups to be considered racial minorities.

00:37:27.000 And again, no rhyme or reason.

00:37:30.000 We have Pakistanis that will fall into this program and yet Afghans won't. 1.00

00:37:37.000 And nobody knows why or how that happened.

00:37:41.000 But again, the lawsuit is out there.

00:37:43.000 We think it'll undercut a lot of these programs already, making these programs unconstitutional for the federal government to engage in.

00:37:52.000 But what I want to do, though, is uncover the fraud and make sure that, yes, we are putting appropriate measures into place to audit programs, whether it's the 8A program, whether it was the money that went out the door during COVID, any of our federal government programs.

00:38:09.000 I have purview and oversight of small business by virtue of being the small business committee chair.

00:38:17.000 And so that's what I'm focusing on today with this hearing.

00:38:21.000 There is so much fraud, waste, and abuse out there just in that 8A program.

00:38:25.000 There was one case that was $550 million of bribery that went into moving some of these contracts around, getting contracts, subcontracting them.

00:38:39.000 It's just egregious the dollars that are pouring out that my folks in Iowa have had to work really hard in their jobs to pay taxes that then get handed out to these fraudsters.

00:38:55.000 Minnesota, that's a billion dollars worth of fraud that happened.

00:39:00.000 And Luke has uncovered so much of this in his investigative journalism.

00:39:05.000 We could go on and on and on for days on the fraud that has occurred.

00:39:10.000 Well, the hearing this afternoon, very important hearing.

00:39:12.000 Senator Ernst, Luke, great to see both of you.

00:39:15.000 And thanks so much for the hard work you're doing to ferret out this sort of fraud.

00:39:19.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:39:20.000 All right.

00:39:21.000 Meanwhile, I think that Republicans, you know, we noted at the top of the show, Republicans did not do well in Miami in this mayoral election, and that comes on the heels of Zorn Mamdani winning in New York and Abigail Spanberger winning in Virginia and the loss of a few special elections around the country.

00:39:36.000 When a party wins a national election as Republicans did in 2024, the general tendency is to believe that now you have a mandate and that you are in the ascendancy.

00:39:45.000 That may not, in fact, be true.

00:39:47.000 It may be. that a lot of people voted for you just because they didn't like the other guy.

00:39:51.000 When we live in a binary election system, in fact, that is the most common answer as to why people vote.

00:39:55.000 They're not necessarily voting for a thing.

00:39:57.000 They're voting against a thing.

00:39:59.000 And this is where I think that Republicans have to be very careful because Republicans can tell themselves a story where we are now in the ascendancy culturally.

00:40:07.000 We are in the ascendancy religiously.

00:40:10.000 But what may actually be happening is that the most visible anecdotal evidence is in our favor, but the general statistical trend is not in our favor.

00:40:17.000 And that's something we need to keep an eye on if we want to be accurate about the solutions that we actually posit.

00:40:22.000 So there's a fascinating article in the Washington Post about religious practice in the United States.

00:40:26.000 And what it finds is two things.

00:40:27.000 One, general religious practice among young people is actually in the decline.

00:40:31.000 It is not on the incline.

00:40:32.000 It's on the decline.

00:40:33.000 It's been on the decline for a long time.

00:40:35.000 But the people who are religious are getting more religious.

00:40:38.000 If you misread those trends, you tend to think either that all Americans are going secularist or that Americans, broadly speaking, are becoming more religious.

00:40:47.000 The first trend is being noted by Democrats who are ignoring a growing number of young people who are becoming more religious.

00:40:54.000 But that growing number of young people who are becoming more religious does exist in a context in which fewer young people, generally speaking, are becoming religious.

00:41:02.000 So in other words, if seven out of 10 young people used to consider themselves religious and now it's five out of 10, but of those five, three are now very, very, very religious.

00:41:13.000 Republicans are reading those three who are now very, very religious as bigger than they are.

00:41:18.000 And Democrats are pretending they don't exist.

00:41:20.000 And that is the divide.

00:41:21.000 But on an electoral statistical level, Democrats may be more likely to be right than Republicans are.

00:41:28.000 This is a very important divide because if you're trying to game for the future, what the Republican Party looks like, who the Republican Party is appealing to, how you build a coalition, you do need to be accurate about the state of play.

00:41:40.000 So according to the Washington Post, even as fewer and fewer young people consider themselves religious, a small percentage of young adults are practicing their faiths with unusual avidity.

00:41:49.000 This cohort of people in their early 20s are rejecting both religion by habit, just doing whatever your parents did, as well as secularism, skepticism, and agnosticism that grew among their parents' generations, religious experts say.

00:42:00.000 And the examples of this surge, albeit anecdotal, are visible across faiths, including traditional brick-and-mortar worship of Catholicism, more Jewish students attending the growing number of Chabad centers, and more esoteric spiritual practices, even including Wicca-based full moon rituals and the West African system of divination called Ifa.

00:42:16.000 So in other words, in a time of chaos, people are looking for something to belong to.

00:42:21.000 And that can be something great, like engaging more deeply in biblical faith, or it can mean that you're going to go out and howl at the moon.

00:42:31.000 According to a campus chaplain, he said, in the past, it was more that you went to mass out of obligation.

00:42:38.000 But despite the religious indifference of parents, there's now a line at the campus center because more and more people are interested in engaging more deeply.

00:42:47.000 But that, again, comes amid a climate of less religious practice over time.

00:42:50.000 According to an analysis of 2023-2024 Pew data released on Monday, 56% of 18 to 24-year-olds identified with any religion.

00:42:58.000 That is down from 74% in 2007.

00:43:02.000 So if you're somebody who believes in the importance of religious practice and adherence in America, that is a terrible statistic.

00:43:08.000 It means, again, that just more than a bare majority of 18 to 24-year-olds even identify with a religion.

00:43:17.000 Also, among 18 to 24-year-olds, a separate Pew survey finds about five times as many people have left Christianity since childhood as have converted to the faith.

00:43:26.000 However, Gallup polls find worship attendance among adults under 30 is up from 19% in 2020 to 25% this year.

00:43:34.000 And anecdotes abound that a subset of young people is collectively pursuing spirituality in a highly individualistic era.

00:43:41.000 So looking at those countervailing trends is really important and noticing what's actually happening is important because what it means is that you will get a rise in radical socialistic atheism.

00:43:51.000 You will, because that is the natural outgrowth of fewer and fewer people who are even culturally Christian. 0.97

00:43:58.000 But at the same time, you're going to get a very right-wing traditionalist response that is convinced that because the church pews are swelling in those churches, that that is a majoritarian movement, when in fact it may not be.

00:44:11.000 And that's really important to keep in mind as we consider electoral blocks and how things are going.

00:44:16.000 Now, of course, this season, Christmas season, is a time when many Christians engage with their religious faith.

00:44:21.000 Joining us on the line to discuss is Matt Fratt of Pines with Aquinas.

00:44:24.000 And so Matt knows much more about this than I do.

00:44:26.000 So Matt, tell me about why this season is so important.

00:44:30.000 First of all, I need to say I'm so thrilled that I'm gradually edging Michael Knowles out of the Daily Wire in regards to his Catholic commentary.

00:44:37.000 That's something we can do.

00:44:38.000 Oh, it took five seconds.

00:44:38.000 The minute that that option was available, Matt, you were there.

00:44:42.000 You were on the spot.

00:44:44.000 We may have hired you in order to edge Knowles out of this particular spot.

00:44:47.000 That is definitely a reality.

00:44:49.000 Yeah, well, I'm really pumped to be here.

00:44:51.000 First of all, I'm just thrilled about everything.

00:44:53.000 And on Saturday, I sat down with Dr. Scott Hahn, who's a biblical scholar, convert from Presbyterianism.

00:45:00.000 And we recorded a beautiful Christmas episode for Daily Wire that comes out today on Daily Wire Plus.

00:45:08.000 And then next week, we'll go out to the public.

00:45:10.000 And so we talked about Christ as the long-awaited Messiah and even just this like bizarre idea that Christians have, hey, like in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, St. Paul talks about the scandal of the cross. 0.59

00:45:22.000 I mean, it's such a scandal that the Mohammedans reject it outright.

00:45:27.000 And I kind of get it superficially.

00:45:29.000 I see why you would do that.

00:45:30.000 We talked about the scandal of the manger.

00:45:33.000 This idea that God became a zygote.

00:45:37.000 It's pretty wild.

00:45:39.000 It's ridiculous.

00:45:41.000 Becomes a fetus, like breastfed. 0.92

00:45:44.000 That's bananas.

00:45:46.000 But we think it's true.

00:45:47.000 And so we spent a good deal of time talking about that.

00:45:49.000 And it was a great time.

00:45:51.000 So one of the things that is worth noting is that this week was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

00:45:56.000 So tell me about that, because honestly, I think that people have the wrong idea of what exactly that means.

00:46:01.000 What does that mean, actually?

00:46:03.000 First of all, the very fact that you think that a lot of people get it wrong shows that you know more than most Catholics who are convinced that it has to do with Christ's conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

00:46:16.000 It doesn't.

00:46:18.000 The idea is that we would say that we have been redeemed by Christ medicinally, you might say, after the fact.

00:46:26.000 But the Blessed Virgin Mary, because of her special role in being the mother of God, was preserved free from original sin and actual sin from the moment of her conception.

00:46:36.000 This is the idea.

00:46:37.000 So it doesn't mean that Christians don't believe that Christ could not have been born of a sinful woman, say. 0.97

00:46:44.000 He could have.

00:46:45.000 He's God and could have been born of a prostitute and it wouldn't have affected his dignity at all. 0.94

00:46:50.000 The idea is that it was so fitting that, again, the mother of God, because of her role, would be preserved from all sin.

00:46:58.000 There's a lovely line from St. Augustine that really drives this home.

00:47:03.000 He says, no, let's start again.

00:47:08.000 He whom the heavens cannot contain the womb of one woman bore. 1.00

00:47:11.000 She ruled our ruler. 0.94

00:47:12.000 She carried him in whom we are.

00:47:14.000 She gave milk to our bread.

00:47:16.000 And so from the earliest days of the church, you have people talking about the Blessed Virgin Mary as being sinless, spotless, without stain.

00:47:25.000 And so on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we celebrate that.

00:47:30.000 So obviously, Christmas is coming up.

00:47:31.000 There's always a big debate every single year in conservative communities about the commercialization of Christmas, the turning of Christmas into a sort of season.

00:47:41.000 And listen, as a Jew, I really enjoy it.

00:47:42.000 Obviously, I love the lights.

00:47:44.000 Half the Christmas music that's great was written by Jews. 1.00

00:47:46.000 But what should Christians be thinking about as Christmas approaches to get more out of the holiday spiritually and out of the season spiritually? 0.50

00:47:55.000 Yeah, it's a good question.

00:47:56.000 I think when I was a younger man early on in marriage, I tended to be like really legalistic and upset about the fact that people were celebrating Christmas too early.

00:48:03.000 I've kind of chilled out a little bit and I really enjoy watching Christmas movies with my kids and drinking eggnog and all of that.

00:48:09.000 But I do think it's probably important to distinguish between the Advent season and the season of Christmas.

00:48:14.000 And so Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas.

00:48:17.000 It's kind of like a mini Lent in which we maybe fast, pray more, go to confession if we can as Catholics, and then just prepare our hearts for the Christmas season, which actually hasn't begun yet, right?

00:48:30.000 So according to the Catholic Church, the Christmas season will begin on Christmas Day.

00:48:34.000 So it's nice to keep those in mind.

00:48:36.000 But now I'm like you.

00:48:38.000 I'm thrilled about watching ELF with my kids and drinking eggnog and enjoying the lights.

00:48:43.000 I mean, we can all just kind of calm down and not everything has to be a war.

00:48:47.000 And even if it is a war, sometimes there's some benefits from the commercialization of it.

00:48:51.000 I don't know.

00:48:51.000 I kind of like it.

00:48:52.000 Hey, listen, it's a Wonderful Life is one of the great movies ever made.

00:48:55.000 And so if you have a chance, you absolutely should watch.

00:48:57.000 It's a Wonderful Life in this Christmas season.

00:49:00.000 So go check out Matt's brand new episode with Dr. Scott Hahn.

00:49:03.000 It's a DW Christmas episode.

00:49:04.000 It comes out this afternoon on DW as well as locals.

00:49:07.000 It's out to the public December 15th.

00:49:09.000 Matt, it's great to see you.

00:49:11.000 And Merry Christmas, man.

00:49:12.000 Thank you.

00:49:13.000 All righty.

00:49:14.000 Meanwhile, Democrats are also misinterpreting the movement.

00:49:17.000 They are seeing that they are winning elections in some interesting places, and they have decided apparently to go whole hog.

00:49:24.000 The kind of brain capture that happens in victory is quite real.

00:49:28.000 Mayor-elect Zorn Mamdani, apparently, according to the New York Post, has now picked a controversial rapper who did seven years in state prison for armed robbery to advise him on the criminal justice system.

00:49:38.000 Slow clap for New Yorkers, guys.

00:49:40.000 You really outdate yourselves this time.

00:49:41.000 Myson Linen, 49, a Bronx convict turned activist who was found guilty of two felony heists in the late 90s, was appointed by the Democratic Socialists to sit on his mayoral transitions criminal legal system committee.

00:49:53.000 That's just one of many questionable picks for Zorhan Mamdani.

00:49:57.000 This person obviously has something important to contribute.

00:50:00.000 He had been part of a crew that robbed two cab drivers in the Bronx.

00:50:05.000 Apparently, they pulled off a robbery of a taxi driver in 1997 and then a gunpoint theft from another cabby in 1998.

00:50:13.000 And so it's great.

00:50:14.000 We've got criminals in New York trying to make jail policy.

00:50:17.000 Meanwhile, Mamdani is apparently telling illegal immigrants how to avoid ICE, which is a fascinating move for someone who supposedly wants to bring law and order to the streets in New York.

00:50:17.000 That would be great.

00:50:29.000 Last weekend, ICE attempted to raid Canal Street and detain our immigrant neighbors.

00:50:34.000 As mayor, I'll protect the rights of every single New Yorker, and that includes the more than 3 million immigrants who call this city their home.

00:50:40.000 But we can all stand up to ICE if you know your rights.

00:50:44.000 If you encounter ICE, these are the things that every New Yorker should know.

00:50:47.000 First, ICE cannot enter into private spaces like your home, school, or a private area of your workplace without a judicial warrant signed by a judge.

00:50:55.000 That looks like this.

00:51:01.000 If ICE does not have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, you have the right to say, I do not consent to entry, and the right to keep your door closed.

00:51:09.000 Sometimes ICE will show you paperwork that looks like this And tell you that they have the right to arrest you.

00:51:17.000 That is false.

00:51:19.000 ICE is legally allowed to lie to you, but you have the right to remain silent.

00:51:22.000 If you're being detained, you may always ask, Am I free to go? repeatedly until they answer you.

00:51:27.000 I mean, he's just a community organizer, and you guys elected this to your mayoralty.

00:51:30.000 Like genius level stuff there, New Yorkers.

00:51:32.000 And we'll see how this plays for New Yorkers as life gets markedly worse.

00:51:36.000 Okay, meanwhile, big controversy continues to swirl around the attempt to buy Warner Brothers.

00:51:41.000 So Netflix struck a deal to buy Warner Brothers.

00:51:45.000 Paramount is now launching a $77.9 billion hostile takeover offer for Warner Brothers Discovery.

00:51:51.000 Paramount, which is run by David Ellison, is arguing its all-cash 30 bucks a share offer for all of Warner, owner of networks like CNN, TBS, and HGTV, as well as HBO Max, is a better deal for shareholders and more likely to also pass regulatory muster.

00:52:04.000 Netflix had agreed to pay $72 billion or $27.75 a share from Warner's studio and the HBO Max streaming business after the company splits itself in two.

00:52:15.000 So this could set up a very fascinating public battle for the future of Warner's assets.

00:52:20.000 Paramount said that its offer is backstopped by the Ellison family and Redbird Capital, as well as $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America City and Apollo Global Management.

00:52:29.000 Paramount also says it has commitments from sovereign wealth funds of Saudi, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, as well as Affinity Partners, the private equity firm of Jared Kushner.

00:52:37.000 And all those groups are agreeing to forego any voting rights, which could ease the deal's path in Washington.

00:52:45.000 Apparently, Netflix's CEO said that actually they're very happy with the offer that they made to Warner Brothers and they expect to consummate that offer.

00:52:54.000 The involvement of the government has been one of the questions here.

00:52:58.000 President Trump suggested over the weekend that Netflix's deal could be a problem and that he would be involved in deciding whether to bless that deal.

00:53:06.000 You know, this seems to me problematic.

00:53:07.000 I'd not like the government involved in private business transactions.

00:53:10.000 This is not a monopoly concern, frankly.

00:53:14.000 With that said, obviously, this is one of the biggest business transactions in the history of business transactions.

00:53:21.000 And it'll be interesting to see whether Paramount's gigantic offer, I mean, they're going right over the top of Netflix here, whether that gigantic offer is successful in court, because there are regulatory burdens that have to be overcome.

00:53:35.000 There are, in fact, questions about whether the shareholders can overcome the leadership of the Warner Brothers board.

00:53:44.000 Interesting stuff.

00:53:45.000 Alrighty, coming up, we'll get into the latest over Venezuela.

00:53:49.000 Some Republicans like Rand Paul, very, very critical of the presidents of the United States.

00:53:53.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

00:53:54.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:53:56.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:53:59.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

00:54:03.000 Oh, this is an illusion.

00:54:05.000 An echo of a voice that has died.

00:54:10.000 And soon that echo will cease.

00:54:22.000 They say that Merlin is mad.

00:54:30.000 They say he was a king in David.

00:54:33.000 The son of a princess of lost Atlantis.

00:54:36.000 They say the future and the past are unknown to him.

00:54:41.000 But the fire and the wind tell him their secrets.

00:54:45.000 Let the magic of the hill folk and druids come forth at his easy command.

00:54:51.000 They say he slew hundreds.

00:54:55.000 Hundreds, do you hear?

00:54:57.000 That the world burned and trembled at his wrath.

00:55:03.000 The Merlin died long before you and I were born.

00:55:09.000 Merlin Emirus has returned to the land of the living.

00:55:15.000 Vortigen is gone.

00:55:16.000 Rome is gone.

00:55:18.000 The Saxon is here. 0.76

00:55:21.000 Saxon Hengist has assembled the greatest war host ever seen in the Island of the Mighty. 0.99

00:55:26.000 And before the summer is through, he means to take the throne.

00:55:31.000 And he will have it.

00:55:32.000 If we are too busy squabbling amongst ourselves to take up arms against him, here is your hope: a king will arise to hold all Britain in his hand.

00:55:42.000 A high king who will be the wonder of the world.

00:55:46.000 You to a future of peace.

00:55:53.000 There'll be no peace in these lands till we are all dust.

00:55:57.000 Men of the island of the mighty!

00:56:00.000 You stand together!

00:56:02.000 You stand as Britons!

00:56:05.000 You stand as one.

00:56:09.000 Great darkness is falling upon this land.

00:56:14.000 These brothers are our only hope to stand against it.

00:56:18.000 Not our only hope.

00:56:20.000 Esay Merthyn slew 70 men with his own hands.

00:56:24.000 At Cathay, he slew 500.

00:56:29.000 No man is capable of such a thing.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 10, 2025

Is Affordability a “Democrat Hoax”?!

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