Ben Shapiro is back on The Ben Shapiro Show! This week, he's covering all the latest in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, including the Democratic response to the disaster, the latest on Putin's incursion into Ukraine, and more. Plus, a special offer from PureTalk that could save you a bunch of money on your first month of service. Subscribe to the show today using the promo code SHAPIRO for 50% off your very first month! Want more Shapiro? Check out our newsletter! To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and enter the offer code SHOP to receive $5 off your first purchase when you enter the discount code: SHOPSHOP at checkout. It's time to stand up against big tech and protect your data at ExpressVPN. Protect your data, not your data. Shutterfly is making it easier for you to do your online banking online banking and make sure you re not just online banking, but your financial transactions are secure, secure, and up to date. They make it easy and affordable for you, the consumer, the employer, the worker, the customer, the lawyer, the investor, the accountant, the technician, the banker, and the lawyer. all in one easy and convenient place to access your most important banking and financial services. And you get 100% of the fees you need to pay for your banking, free of late fees, free, on-site, 24/7. and on-time. This is a deal that doesn't last longer than usual. The average customer gets 10% off of the bill they get from their bill, plus an additional 15% off, plus they get to keep their money back after the bill is paid over the next three months, plus free shipping throughout the rest of the world, plus a free two weeks, plus the option to get an extra $5, plus you get an ad discount when they sign up for their first month, and they get 20% off the entire bill is billed over $50,000 in the second month, plus another $5 gets an additional $5 or they get $10,000 gets $25,000, plus she gets a discount, they get a discount on the first month and gets an ad-free version of the deal starts after they get the bill in the bill goes through in the third month.
00:02:54.000You would assume these are disproportionately elderly citizens who either couldn't leave the house or didn't leave the house and then were unable to escape when the floodwaters rose.
00:03:00.000According to the Washington Post, Florida residents are grappling with widespread destruction and flooding after Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the United States, amid ongoing search efforts and a death toll that has risen to at least 62.
00:03:12.000Across the most affected parts of the state, local and federal rescue crews continue to scour neighborhoods for survivors.
00:03:16.000We're not in recovery phase, said Chase Fabrizio, the leader of Maryland Task Force 1, a search and rescue crew of FEMA.
00:03:23.000Across the southwest and central regions of the state, about 800,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Sunday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us.
00:03:30.000In North Carolina, there were still 16,000 customers without power.
00:03:32.000By the way, that 800,000 homes and businesses remaining without power, that is down from well north of 2 million in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane.
00:03:40.000Meanwhile, several bridges were destroyed, complicating rescue efforts.
00:03:42.000The causeway to Sanibel Island, a 12-mile barrier island, was rendered impassable, cutting off the island from the mainland.
00:03:50.000President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are planning to travel to Puerto Rico on Monday and Florida on Wednesday to survey the hurricane damage.
00:03:55.000Again, this is one of my least favorite things in American politics is when people from the White House feel the necessity to jet set to disaster areas to gaze out across the wreckage and be like, ah, well, now that I'm here, I guess everything is OK.
00:04:18.000According to the Florida Medical Examiner's Commission, they said the hurricane had caused at least 58 deaths in the state, most of them from drowning.
00:04:23.000That tally did not include Charlotte County, where local officials have also confirmed multiple deaths.
00:04:27.000As I said, many of the victims were older than age 60.
00:04:30.000Bodies were found inside flooded cars, floating in water, and on the beach.
00:04:33.000There were four storm-related deaths in North Carolina as well.
00:04:35.000Now naturally, because this is the United States, everything turns political pretty quickly.
00:04:40.000Ron DeSantis, by all available metrics, has been doing a pretty good job of handling all of this.
00:04:44.000He announced that all the ports in Florida would be open by Saturday.
00:04:49.000The ports, Tampa Bay, Miami, Everglades, they are reopened for fueling.
00:04:54.000And I think between today and tomorrow, all the ports in the state of Florida, up and down both coasts will be operational.
00:05:02.000Many in the media are looking for an excuse to blame.
00:05:03.000DeSantis for some things. So the thing that they have come up with so far is DeSantis defending his Lee County late evacuation order. By late evacuation order we mean it was still 21 hours before the Cat 4 superstorm had landfall on North Captiva Island. And again, that was a mandatory evacuation order that only went out 21 hours beforehand, specifically because the storm took a really, really late turn. It was expected, of course, to move north into the Panhandle, and then it took this very late breaking turn.
00:05:29.000Again, that's still almost a day to get out, if you need to get out.
00:05:32.000So, the fact that a lot of people didn't leave, a lot of people were told to leave, and they didn't.
00:05:35.000Some local officials said the county was lulled into a sense of false complacency in the lead-up to the cataclysmic event.
00:05:39.000The barrier islands first hit by Ian were all part of the projected models of the storm paths 72 hours before it slammed into the United States, but Fort Myers was not.
00:05:48.000And Fort Myers is, of course, the place where he did not say mandatory evacuation until about 21 hours before.
00:05:52.000So again, following the map meant That DeSantis did what he did, but they're going to try to pretend now that somehow this was an act of incompetence and that if he had just come out and said, everybody in Florida, I guess, should have evacuated the state, that would have fixed it.
00:06:05.000People knew if they were in the storm path, they had to get out of the way.
00:06:07.000Again, if you have a full day to get out of the way of a Cat 4 and you don't get out of the way of a Cat 4, generally that is by choice.
00:06:12.000There's not a lot of information that people 20 hours beforehand We're basically stuck in traffic trying to get out of that particular area.
00:06:19.000If we find out differently, obviously, then maybe the math changes a little bit, but that is not what we know thus far.
00:06:24.000The other area where the media are jumping all over DeSantis is that DeSantis talked about the fact that in the aftermath of, for example, Hurricane Katrina, you saw widespread looting.
00:06:33.000You saw people who were stealing things.
00:06:49.000Don't even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation.
00:06:54.000And so, local law enforcement is involved in monitoring that.
00:06:58.000I told Kevin if the state needs to help as well, because you can have people bringing boats into some of these islands and trying to ransack people's homes.
00:07:07.000I can tell you, in the state of Florida, You never know what may be lurking behind somebody's home.
00:07:13.000And I would not want to chance that if I were you, given that we're a Second Amendment state.
00:07:17.000Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody seconded that.
00:07:20.000She said, looting is not going to be tolerated in the state of Florida, which obviously differentiates it from the place where I came from, California, where looting was tolerated in widespread fashion without a natural disaster, just because, hell, why not?
00:07:33.000In no way, shape, or form do we want Floridians to feel when we ask them to evacuate that they can't do so and leave their property securely.
00:07:43.000And yes, we have seen instances of folks going into homes trying to burglarize them.
00:07:48.000And we don't want that to be any reason for folks to be hesitant to leave in the future or even now.
00:07:54.000So we've issued those strong warnings and certainly Florida Governor DeSantis has been strong and made sure that everyone knows Florida is a law and order state.
00:08:04.000Now, this is a completely racially neutral standard.
00:08:06.000Don't loot things and you won't get shot.
00:08:08.000This seems pretty obvious, except to the folks over at MSNBC.
00:08:11.000Joy Reid tweeted out, when the looting starts, the shooting starts, segregationists, Miami Sheriff Walter Headley, 1967, didn't take DeSantis.
00:08:18.000Long to return to form, ah, he's a segregationist now.
00:08:21.000So when he says that you shouldn't loot in the middle of a hurricane aftermath recovery, And that there are a lot of people in Florida who own guns.
00:08:28.000That's obviously a form of segregation.
00:08:30.000By the way, you talk about the low bigotry, the soft bigotry of low expectations.
00:08:34.000That's pretty hard bigotry right there because apparently Joy Reid is now assuming that everybody who would be looting in the state of Florida is black, which is why Ron DeSantis would be saying that.
00:08:41.000An insane proposition given the fact a lot of not black people live in Florida and presumably many criminals who are not black live in Florida and would be engaging in looting if that were to happen.
00:08:51.000Again, this is a dog that's not going to hunt so far.
00:08:54.000There's a struggle to come up with some sort of narrative as to how DeSantis is blowing this because what Democrats are really afraid of is that DeSantis will respond to this in actually mature, responsible fashion.
00:09:04.000And if that happens, it boosts his chances at 2024 even more.
00:09:08.000Meanwhile, Kamala Harris continuing to do what she does worst, which is be vice president.
00:09:12.000So the vice president of the United States actually said out loud that hurricane and disaster relief should be Allotted and allocated based on race, which is crazy.
00:09:23.000You should actually give people who need the money and the resources, the money and resources they need, not based on their skin color, but again, because this entire administration has been pervaded by equity considerations.
00:09:33.000This is how you end up with Kamala Harris saying this sort of nonsense.
00:09:36.000It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.
00:09:54.000And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place.
00:10:08.000And if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities.
00:10:15.000So just to get this straight, we're not going to pay attention to which communities need it most.
00:10:20.000We're going to pay attention to which communities are apparently most stacked with people of color in the name of equity, according to Kamala Harris.
00:10:27.000This, of course, prompted the state of Florida to be like, no, that's not the way this is working.
00:10:35.000The fact that the vice president of the United States keeps saying stuff like this is, once again, demonstrative of the worldview that is incredibly perverse.
00:10:42.000The idea being, again, the old New York Times headline, World to End Tomorrow, Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.
00:10:46.000Now it's hurricane hits, women and minorities hit hardest, even if we have, by the way, we have no evidence that that's the case.
00:10:52.000Many of the areas that were absolutely destroyed here, like Sanibel Island, that is a very wealthy area.
00:10:56.000You're talking about some of the wealthiest areas of Florida, like vacation islands with a lot of white people who are very, very rich.
00:11:02.000And apparently, those people don't get any aid because, what, equity?
00:11:06.000Meanwhile, in another ironic headline, according to the Daily Wire, a Coast Guard hero who was praised by Joe Biden for saving lives after Hurricane Ian is now facing discharge because he didn't get the COVID jab.
00:11:16.000Apparently, Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch Earned praise on a Friday phone call from the commander-in-chief for kicking in a wall to save a trapped wheelchair-bound woman and her husband.
00:11:25.000The guardsman hoisted the woman in her wheelchair to a waiting helicopter, according to Breitbart, which interviewed him.
00:11:29.000Biden said in a press release, And he personally thanked Loesch and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hooper for the heroic work they and their Coast Guard colleagues have performed during search and rescue operations in response to Hurricane Ian.
00:11:44.000Apparently, Biden said that Hooper's team also saved a one-month-old baby.
00:11:46.000It was not clear where the rescues occurred.
00:11:49.000There's only one problem, according to the Daily Wire.
00:11:51.000The next time Loesch hears from a federal official, it could be to warn that his career is over because he told Breitbart that he had applied for a religious exemption to avoid taking the COVID vax, but doesn't expect to have it honored.
00:12:01.000He said if I'd asked any of the people I saved yesterday if they wanted to come with me, even though I'm un-vaxxed, every single one of them would have said yes, he said.
00:12:07.000And all of this is madness, and again, demonstrative of the silliness of this administration, which has very screwed up priorities, shall we say.
00:12:14.000Meanwhile, the left is trying to take advantage of Hurricane Ian, not just to bag on Ron DeSantis for no discernible reason, but also to push the idea that this is climate change.
00:12:23.000So they had on the Noted scientific expert, Bill Nye, who's mostly a noted scientific expert because he spoke to us about basic, basic science, like how to make a potato battery when we were all eight.
00:12:36.000But apparently Bill Nye is like the best climate scientist they could come up with over at CNN.
00:12:40.000So the very, very well versed in all climatology, Bill Nye, and Jim Acosta, who's very well versed in how mirrors work, they really went at it here.
00:12:50.000If we don't acknowledge there's a problem, We're not going to get it done.
00:12:55.000And so I just, I just want to ask conservative lawmakers to cut it out.
00:13:02.000I understand that you want to get reelected.
00:13:04.000I understand that you have this primary system, which motivates you to get these, these hardcore conservative voters engaged.
00:13:14.000But look, you've just, just cut it out.
00:13:17.000We've got hundreds of thousands of people Suffering tremendously.
00:13:26.000Come on, let's be world leaders, for crying out loud.
00:13:29.000And Bill, I mean, when we talk to people out here on the ground, you know, I talked to several folks this morning who were saying this, you know, we just need to come together as a country.
00:13:39.000I'm sorry, listening to Bill Nye lecture you about climate change.
00:13:45.000If only we could all wear weird bow ties and still live off the legacy of making a show that we used to put on our VHS tapes in 1997.
00:13:51.000And then you got Jim Acosta being like, I too am a climate change expert because I'm standing in Florida wearing a polo shirt that's unbuttoned.
00:14:00.000The data demonstrate hurricanes are not more common and they're not more severe.
00:14:03.000This is one of the areas where the link between climate change and weather events is actually the weakest by all available data.
00:14:10.000It is interesting to note that Bill Gates was a big proponent of the idea that we have to do world-beating change in order to prevent climate change.
00:14:16.000Even Bill Gates came out yesterday and he said, I don't think it's realistic to say that people are utterly going to change their lifestyle because of concerns about climate.
00:14:22.000You can have a cultural revolution where you're trying to throw everything up.
00:14:25.000You can create a North Korean type situation where the state is in control.
00:14:27.000Other than immense central authority to have people just obey, I think the collective action problem is just completely not solvable.
00:14:33.000Anyone who says that we will tell people to stop eating meat or stop wanting to have a nice house and we'll just basically change human desires, I think that's too difficult.
00:14:38.000You make a case for it, but I don't think it's realistic for that to play an absolutely central role.
00:14:45.000I mean, shock of shocks, it turns out that apparently Bill Gates is now living in the world of reality.
00:14:49.000Well, there is one piece of news with regard to climate change that seems relevant here, and that is that the UN is now basically admitting that they are working with the world search engines to shut down all available information that rebutts the common narrative on the left, right, which is that climate change is entirely man-made, not mostly, entirely, and also that we can prevent all climate change in the future if only you stop eating meat and only if you get a smaller house and And you just get rid of that gas powered vehicle and if you have fewer kids and all the rest of it.
00:15:18.000This is why you had a UN official, Melissa Fleming, at the World Economic Forum explaining that because the UN is in charge of the science, they now get to hang out with the folks over at Google and determine exactly what sort of stuff you get to see on this topic.
00:15:32.000You know, we partnered with Google, for example, if you Google climate change, you will at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources.
00:15:42.000We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we Googled climate change, we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top.
00:15:52.000So we're becoming much more proactive.
00:15:56.000We own the science, and we think that the world should know it.
00:16:03.000But again, it's a huge, huge challenge that I think All sectors of society need to be very active in.
00:16:14.000In the words of tyranny right there, we own the science.
00:16:17.000We are the same thing you heard from Anthony Fauci.
00:16:19.000He was the science, therefore you had to listen to him no matter how wrong he was.
00:16:22.000And now you have this UN official saying we own the science, therefore we are working with search engines to prevent you from seeing information that rebuts some of the things that we are saying.
00:16:30.000And the informational environment is just going to get worse here because there are so many people at the very top who are fully, full-on convinced that they know better than you and therefore they get to dictate terms to you and prevent you from seeing any sort of dissenting information.
00:16:43.000Meanwhile, the White House is attempting to use Hurricanians to blame gas companies, again, for rising gas prices.
00:16:48.000So here is Karine Jean-Pierre, the wildly untalented press secretary to the President of the United States, explaining that the White House is going to make sure that gas companies don't take advantage of hurricanes.
00:16:56.000Again, this is one of the dumbest talking points for the White House.
00:17:19.000What we're saying is we're just making sure that while people are dealing, while we are all dealing with a hurricane, that gas and oil companies don't take advantage of it.
00:17:28.000It's just a little bit of a, hey, we want to make sure in this time When people are losing their homes, when people are dealing with an incredibly difficult time, that we shouldn't take advantage of it.
00:17:41.000It is just coming from the President, and we feel that coming from the President is a powerful voice.
00:17:48.000And so, look, we know that disruptions from hurricanes can pose challenges to markets, but the latest projections show that major refineries should not be impacted.
00:17:58.000One of the most irritating aspects of the modern day left, and I would say the left for the past several decades, is something that has been termed emotivism by a wide variety of philosophers.
00:18:06.000real companies. So there's nothing more to it than just being just vigilant about that.
00:18:11.000One of the most irritating aspects of the modern day left, and I would say the left for the past several decades, is something that has been termed emotivism by a wide variety of philosophers. Emotivism is the attribution of an emotional, a sort of motive, an emotional motive to what your opponent is doing.
00:18:28.000Your opponent isn't doing something because they, in good faith, have the wrong ideas.
00:18:31.000Your opponent is doing it because they're mean or greedy or terrible.
00:18:34.000You saw this with regard to Bill Nye and Jim Acosta, right?
00:18:36.000The reason that people are not saying that hurricanes are linked to climate change is not because maybe they have differing data or maybe they actually look at the data, unlike Bill Nye and Jim Acosta.
00:18:43.000It's because they're mean and they're cruel and they need to get elected in Republican primaries.
00:18:46.000Now you have Corine Jean-Pierre suggesting that the reason the oil prices are going up is not because of market conditions.
00:18:51.000It's because of the cruelty and evil of the oil companies.
00:18:53.000This does allow you to avoid the consequence of your own bad policy.
00:18:57.000You just get to claim that the real reason that your policies are failing is because everyone is mean.
00:19:01.000The real reason that your policies just are having precisely the opposite of their intended consequence is because everybody around you is cruel and vicious.
00:19:59.000Their record profits are coming at your expense.
00:20:02.000And that's why today I'm calling for a windfall tax to ensure these profits go directly back to help millions of Californians who are paying for this oil company extortion.
00:20:13.000In addition, earlier today I directed the Air Resources Board to make an early transition to our winter blend gasoline.
00:20:21.000This should immediately increase supply and result in savings.
00:20:24.000Savings of up to 25 cents per gallon within the next...
00:20:31.000We are going to do this thing and it's going to reduce gas prices by 25 cents per gallon, which will bring us to just about $6 per gallon, which is still like more than $2 more than any place else in the country.
00:20:40.000We'll get to more on this in just one moment.
00:20:41.000First, we all hope that we'll never need life insurance, but the reality is we will all need life insurance because again, sad story, everyone is going to die.
00:20:49.000But here's the thing, the life insurance you have through your workplace, it may not offer enough protection for your family needs.
00:20:53.000And it won't follow you if you leave your job.
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00:21:27.000Head on over to PolicyGenius.com slash Shapiro.
00:21:38.000Also, if you've been listening to this show for a long time, you've heard me talk about my Helix Sleep Mattress, basically the only thing that allows me to keep on doing my job since my kids keep me up at all hours of the night.
00:21:47.000That's not the only place I grab sleep.
00:21:49.000Okay, the reality is that it's the middle of the day, my kid's been wiping me out, it's on the show, I need to conk out for like 15 minutes.
00:22:49.000It's probably because oil companies in California are particularly mean.
00:22:51.000Like everywhere else, they're very altruistic, but in California, they're extraordinarily mean.
00:22:55.000Or, alternatively, California's energy policy is garbage.
00:22:58.000It's a really, really bad energy policy.
00:23:00.000That's precisely what the editorial board over at the Wall Street Journal is saying.
00:23:03.000Quote, California gas prices have long been higher than the national average, owing to hefty fuel taxes and climate regulations.
00:23:08.000But the difference now is the largest in at least two decades.
00:23:10.000Taxes add about 66 cents to the price of a gallon, about twice as much on average as other states.
00:23:16.000California's cap-and-trade program and low-carbon fuel standard add roughly another $0.46 a gallon.
00:23:21.000So just right off the bat, you're talking about the cap-and-trade program and the taxes.
00:23:24.000You're talking about $1.12 that is being added directly to the price of gas.
00:23:29.000Okay, so that's already explaining more than half of the discrepancy.
00:23:31.000Currently, between national gas prices and California gas prices, these climate regulations are causing refineries to shut down or convert to producing biofuels that are more profitable because of rich government subsidies.
00:23:41.000California lost 12% of refining capacity between 2017 and 2021 and is set to lose another 8% by the end of next year.
00:23:47.000Yet refineries outside of the state can't produce its supposedly greener fuel blend.
00:23:51.000Alright, so the reason he's going to the winter fuel blend, which is the less green version, is because there's such heavy restrictions on how you do the fuel blend in California that only California refineries can do it.
00:24:02.000But California refineries have been shuddering because they can't make enough of a profit by doing business in the state of California because of Gavin Newsom.
00:24:11.000It is such Common left-wing government status nonsense to create a vast regulatory scheme that drives up the cost of a product and then blame capitalism for the failure of the competitiveness of the product.
00:24:24.000As the Wall Street Journal points out, when California refineries experience problems, gasoline supply becomes tight and prices shoot up.
00:24:30.000A few refineries are experiencing scheduled maintenance after running all out over the summer.
00:24:41.000Because you have to stock up right now.
00:24:43.000Because when the pendulum swings the other way, you're going to get crushed.
00:24:47.000If you're a refiner on the Gulf Coast, your gross profit on gas is about $6.60 per barrel of oil.
00:24:52.000If you're in LA, it's about $101, according to Tom Cloza of the Oil Price Information Service.
00:24:58.000As much as progressives loathe big oil, their climate policies benefit large refiners and producers that can sustain the state's steep regulatory costs.
00:25:04.000They created basically a de facto monopoly for all the people they're now yelling at.
00:25:09.000So again, well done here from Gavin Newsom.
00:25:11.000This is why he desperately is attempting to backfill his own bad policy by allowing those refineries to produce winter blend, which again is the less clean version of fuel.
00:25:21.000Meanwhile, on an international level, the drop in oil prices is actually going to now lead to higher prices because OPEC does not like it when the gas prices drop this much.
00:25:31.000So according to the Wall Street Journal, OPEC Plus is now set to consider its most drastic reduction of production since the pandemic.
00:25:36.000In order to help prop up falling oil prices, a move that could pressure on global economic growth.
00:25:40.000OPEC and its Moscow-led allies, collectively known as OPEC+, is considering a cut of more than a million barrels a day, delegates in the group said.
00:25:48.000Concerns about a slowing global economy have dragged oil prices down at their fastest pace since the COVID-19 outbreak began in early 2020, prompting OPEC to consider ways to prop up the price of oil.
00:25:57.000Any move by OPEC to raise oil prices could put further pressure on Western consumers who are already hurting from high energy costs while also helping Russia, one of the biggest energy producers in the world, fill its state coffers as it wages war against Ukraine.
00:26:07.000So again, The inflationary policy that was pursued by central banks all over the West and the insane spending policies pursued by nearly every European country.
00:26:15.000Plus you get off the gas and it turns out that you're still getting the gas and natural gas from from Russia.
00:26:21.000Well, then when the prices drop because your economy sinks.
00:26:24.000All the places that produce gas restrict supply in order to drive up the price again.
00:26:29.000So the prices, which are already inflated because Russia is already taking a two by four to your energy markets, now those prices are set to jump even more.
00:26:37.000So again, well done policymakers here.
00:26:39.000Oil prices had shot up over $100 a barrel and stayed there for months, but Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is now down 23% this quarter, following oil prices are often a pressure release valve for the global economy, reducing costs as demand falls in a cycle that repeats itself.
00:26:52.000OPEC Plus often holds itself out as a regulator of the oil market, aiming to keep supply and demand balanced, but a production cut would support prices at a time when they are at historically high levels.
00:27:00.000Because even though the oil prices have been coming down recently, like over the past month or so, they're still very, very high compared to where they were like a year ago.
00:27:07.000Adel Hamezia, a visiting fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, said the move could play a role in making recessions worse in some countries.
00:27:13.000He explained the production cut could push inflation higher and hurt oil demand further.
00:27:17.000The US has actually asked OPEC to pump more oil, but it turns out that Joe Biden's plan to yell at the Saudis because they're very, very mean and killed Jamal Khashoggi, it turns out that now the Saudis don't listen to him all that much.
00:27:28.000So all Joe Biden is doing is tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
00:27:33.000So again, bad policy stacked on top of bad policy.
00:27:36.000And I will say the one good piece of news here is it seems like the Federal Reserve is not going to be dissuaded from doing what it has to do on inflation.
00:27:43.000According to a senior Federal Reserve official, Lael Brainard, the Fed vice chairwoman, she said that the central bank continues to press up the interest rates in order to beat high inflation.
00:27:52.000She warned that additional unforeseen developments could drive prices higher, extending a pattern where inflation accelerates despite forecasts that has already peaked.
00:27:58.000So she's saying that we may get even more of this.
00:28:01.000So we are headed for stagflation is what it looks like.
00:28:04.000It looks like a solid period of continuing inflation over economic stagnation pressed forward by higher gas prices generated by lower supply.
00:28:15.000And the markets are taking this into account.
00:28:16.000According to the Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 has moved higher in the one-year period following every midterm election since 1942, but U.S.
00:28:25.000So after every midterm election, when there's a little bit of solidity, when people sort of understand which direction the country is going, the stock market tends to move up.
00:28:32.000Right now, people are so freaked out about the markets that they are betting that the market's going to go down next year.
00:28:37.000According to the Wall Street Journal, tightening monetary policy and worries about an economic slowdown are clouding the outlook.
00:28:42.000Market participants are still contending with the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate-raising campaign aimed at bringing down persistently hot inflation.
00:28:48.000Investors expect corporate earnings to weaken as the business environment gets tougher into the year-end.
00:28:52.000And recent wild swings in government bonds and currencies are threatening to further destabilize financial markets.
00:28:57.000So there's no faith that after this election, things are going to get better anytime soon.
00:29:02.000Well, maybe one of the reasons that there is very little faith that things are going to get better anytime soon is because the world draws closer, at least by one step, to the possibility of actual nuclear weapons use.
00:29:11.000Over the weekend, Russia annexed actual territories in Ukraine.
00:29:16.000The goal of this is to then say that when Ukraine moves into those territories, which are Ukrainian territory, that this is now an aggressive war, no longer a defensive war, and thus Russia can defend itself with any and all means at its disposal, whether we're talking about 300,000 call-up reservists, or a million call-up reservists, or the use of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons.
00:29:33.000According to the Washington Post, President Putin's declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.
00:29:49.000You keep caging the bobcat and eventually, if you let even like this much skin near the bobcat, the bobcat goes for it.
00:29:56.000Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia's goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted.
00:30:00.000The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, as he put it in his speech last week.
00:30:09.000He renewed that threat on Friday, made an ominous comment that the U.S.
00:30:12.000atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a precedent for the use of nuclear weapons, echoing references he has made in the past to the U.S.
00:30:18.000invasion of Iraq as setting a precedent for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:30:21.000And this is something that the Soviets used to do a lot.
00:30:24.000You see it in third world countries a lot.
00:30:25.000This idea that our predations, our evils are justified because the United States did this thing 70 years ago in a completely different context.
00:30:33.000and Western officials say they still think it's unlikely Putin will carry out his threats, but the truth is that in September-October of last year, nobody thought that Putin was actually going to invade Ukraine.
00:30:41.000Most probably, they say, he's hoping to deter the West from providing more sophisticated military assistance to Ukraine, while the mobilization of an additional 300,000 troops allows Russia to reverse or at least halt its military setbacks on the battlefield.
00:30:51.000But the threats appear to have only strengthened Western resolve to continue sending weapons to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military is continuing to advance into Russian-occupied territory NATO and the West are taking a very, very strong stand.
00:31:05.000It'll either pay off handsomely in that Vladimir Putin will be put back on his heels.
00:31:08.000He won't actually do the thing that he is threatening to do.
00:31:11.000Or it's going to pay off in the worst possible way in that Russia starts using tactical battlefield nuclear weapons.
00:31:17.000The West responds by putting NATO, for example, assets directly over Russian targets.
00:31:22.000And then you're really on the brink of full out nuclear warfare with the Russians.
00:31:27.000All of this is being pressed forward because the Ukrainians, ironically, have been so successful.
00:31:32.000According to the Wall Street Journal, residents of the war-wracked town of Lyman ventured onto the streets on Sunday morning, ensuring unusual quiet after months of fighting unsure about who was now in charge.
00:31:39.000The last Russian forces drove out of the city the previous night, trying to avoid getting encircled by the advancing Ukrainian troops.
00:31:53.000It's on the northern tip of the Donetsk region.
00:31:55.000That's one of the four areas that Russia just annexed over the weekend.
00:31:58.000Its loss is a major embarrassment for Putin.
00:31:59.000The first such retreat from a city he claims is officially part of Russia.
00:32:04.000So as I say, the West is talking a big game here.
00:32:07.000And thus far, it's been easy for them to talk a big game because the Ukrainians are fighting and doing all the dying.
00:32:12.000I mean, it's the Europeans who are undertaking economic Large assets, it's the Europeans, the Americans who are really undertaking the shipping of what are kind of second rate weapons to most of NATO and to the United States in particular.
00:32:25.000But they're taking a very strong rhetorical line with regard to Russia.
00:32:28.000Jan Stoltenberg, who is the head of NATO, he suggested that Ukraine might be able to join NATO like right now.
00:32:36.000NATO has an open door policy and every nation, including of course also Ukraine, has the right to choose its own path, including what kind of security arrangements it wants to be a part of.
00:32:48.000At the same time, any decision on membership has to be taken by consensus.
00:32:57.000Meanwhile, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor to the President, he said that the Russian annexation attempt is a fraudulent attempt, which it is.
00:33:15.000I mean, the Russian attempt to annex this as a historic part of Russia is silly, but it obviously is an attempt to set up the predicate for the possibility of pouring more troops into the region.
00:33:25.000President Biden issued a strong condemnation of Russia's fraudulent attempt to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory.
00:33:33.000This act is a flagrant violation of international law, and it has no legitimacy.
00:33:39.000Unfortunately, it's also not surprising.
00:33:42.000It's straight out of Putin's playbook of deceit, disinformation, and aggression, and we've been warning about it for months.
00:33:49.000In fact, I've stood at this podium and warned about it several times, including as recently as last week.
00:33:54.000By the way, the Ukrainian advances continue apace.
00:33:57.000According to certain Russian sources, they're saying the Ukrainian forces are trying to take over a place called Bereslov.
00:34:02.000If those claims are true, it would indicate Ukrainian soldiers have now breached around 72 kilometers into Russian lines in Kherson Oblast, which is, again, one of these regions that Russia is now claiming as its own.
00:34:11.000So the possibility of Putin actually doing something wild is growing by the day.
00:34:17.000This whole situation is very much reminiscent of the 1939-1940 so-called Winter War in Finland.
00:34:25.000At that time, it was right at the outset of World War II.
00:34:27.000The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed.
00:34:29.000There was an alliance between the USSR and Germany.
00:34:32.000And the USSR decided that while they were kind of gobbling up land that they had not actually expended any military resources for, they may as well go after Finland as well.
00:34:41.000They invaded Finland, a very, very tiny country.
00:34:43.000And Finland fought back and fought back incredibly hard and actually stalled the Russian advance almost completely.
00:34:49.000They were receiving some forms of support from the United States.
00:34:52.000They were receiving support from the outside, from a wide variety of nations, ranging from Actually, Italy, to Britain, to the United States, to Hungary.
00:35:02.000There's a lot of support against the U.S.S.R.
00:35:15.000cut a deal with Finland that prevented the rest of the world from going to war directly with Russia.
00:35:21.000That was at a time when there were no nuclear weapons.
00:35:24.000And so the idea there was that the West was sort of relieved in the sense they wouldn't have to go to war with this enormous country that was the USSR.
00:35:31.000They wouldn't have to go to direct war at a time when they were already at war with Hitler.
00:35:34.000And Stalin was relieved because he wouldn't have to go directly to war with one of these capitalist countries he thought was fighting another capitalist country in Germany.
00:35:40.000He saw the war between Germany and the West as a sort of internecine war in the West.
00:35:45.000The difference this time is that we're not talking about the possibility of having to go directly to war with a conventional army in Russia.
00:35:50.000That would actually not be all that intimidating for NATO.
00:35:52.000NATO has resources that vastly outpace that which Russia can bring to bear.
00:35:56.000We're talking about a nuclear-armed country.
00:35:58.000And so, the real threat here is not that Russia is going to rush a bunch of troops into the region.
00:36:01.000The real threat is the possibility of use of nuclear weapons in the region, violating that precept.
00:36:07.000And nobody really knows what's going to happen next.
00:36:08.000If Russia were to use a nuclear weapon, nobody knows what the response looks like from the West.
00:36:12.000Do they put those NATO airplanes over Russian targets?
00:36:30.000And again, when I say it's a bluff, I hope it's a bluff.
00:36:31.000It may not be a bluff, which is why, as I've been saying all along, the best case scenario here is that Putin goes.
00:36:37.000But if we're just hoping to avoid the worst case scenario, which is the reinstitution of nuclear weapons, well, then at this point, you have to be talking to Putin about what an off ramp looks like.
00:36:47.000By the same token, if Putin can simply hold up the rest of the world by threatening to use a nuclear weapon, well, there's a reason why North Korea has a nuclear weapon.
00:36:54.000It's because they've been able to hold at bay the rest of the world despite being a horrific, tyrannical hellhole of a state.
00:36:59.000And this is why Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon as well.
00:37:02.000Alrighty, coming up, we'll get to Joe Biden, who unfortunately continues his descent into senility.
00:37:08.000The Daily Wire is hiring a senior front-end web developer to join our streaming platform and e-commerce team.
00:37:14.000You need at least three years of real-world software experience, but you don't need a college degree, just big league coding shops.
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00:37:30.000In any case, if front-end web development is your love language, apply to join us in Nashville, where you'll upgrade the user experience and beauty, not just of our streaming platform, but more importantly, of my sections of the website, which is the part that's important to me.
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00:37:51.000This is a high-profile executive role with paid relocation, To Nashville?
00:37:56.000I don't know what any of those things mean either.
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00:38:04.000From CRM platforms, to multi-touch attribution tools, to propensity targeting models.
00:38:09.000Again, don't know what Any of this means this leader will, for example, study which DailyWare shows and films most interest the fans and also which DailyWare host is most annoying.
00:38:21.000So if you understand what a full marketing and data and analytics stack is, you might want to head on over to DailyWare.com slash careers right now to apply.
00:38:29.000Well, speaking of someone who doesn't know what's going on around him most of the time, the president of the United States continues to gaffe apace.
00:38:34.000So repeatedly over the weekend, the president of the United States just Made clear that he should not be allowed out of the basement because every time he comes out of the basement He makes a boo-boo. So at one point during a speech over the weekend the president suggested that he was used to being banged up on by Republicans, but I Know I'm being banged up by the Republicans, but come bring it on Yeah, bring bring on a man Also, I don't know why he's on the set from a 1970s game show, but apparently he is.
00:39:05.000Also, Joe Biden told a reporter at one point not to look at the teleprompter, is the thing that he said in the middle of a press conference.
00:39:12.000America and its allies are not going, let me emphasize this, are not going to be intimidated, are not going to be intimidated by Putin and his reckless words and threats.
00:39:22.000He's not going to scare us and he doesn't, or intimidate us.
00:39:26.000Putin's actions are a sign he's struggling.
00:39:29.000The sham referenda he carried out and this routine he put on.
00:39:35.000Don't worry, it's not on there if you're looking, okay?
00:42:15.000It looks like Rubio is going to win his race.
00:42:16.000So what that really means is that Republicans will likely be able to pick up at least a couple more seats, which would put them in the driver's seat for the coming Congress.
00:42:25.000They would end up with a majority in both the Senate and in the House.
00:42:29.000Maybe that has to do with the quality of the leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle.
00:42:32.000Nancy Pelosi had a bit of a gaffe over the weekend.
00:42:36.000More and more, she's just Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development.
00:42:45.000Here's Nancy Pelosi, teeth a-clacking, explaining that Florida shouldn't be shipping illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, they need to stay down there in Florida and pick the fruit.
00:42:55.000Right now, the best thing that we can do for our economy is to have comprehensive immigration reform.
00:43:03.000We have a shortage of workers in our country, and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers saying, why are you shipping these immigrants up north, we need them to pick the crops down here.
00:43:18.000But that doesn't mean that we don't recognize our moral responsibility as well.
00:43:25.000So wait, our moral responsibility is to keep cheap illegal labor in Florida so they can Is that what she's suggesting a moral responsibility is?
00:43:33.000Man, with a leadership class like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, I can't imagine how things are going wrong for Democrats.
00:43:38.000Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing now, including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez writing letters to a bunch of rabbis about how she should be able to dictate their views on gay rights.
00:43:47.000Plus, the Supreme Court is coming back into session.
00:43:49.000They have a bunch of big decisions on the docket.