The Ben Shapiro Show - Jesus Christ Erivo vs. MAGA Sweeney!

00:00:00.000 All righty, folks, tons coming up on today's show.

00:00:02.000 Cynthia Arrivo, bisexual, queer black woman playing Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ superstar versus Sidney Sweeney, registered Republican.

00:00:11.000 Is this our culture war?

00:00:12.000 Plus, the economy, what's going on there, and Texas Democrats continue to flee and then claim heroism.

00:00:18.000 But first, there's a lot coming to Dailywire Plus, and it's not inclusive, safe, or moderated by NPR.

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00:00:49.000 You know, a lot of folks have tried to figure out exactly why the Donald Trump phenomenon happened.

00:00:54.000 Donald Trump has been the most transformative political figure of the 21st century, without a doubt.

00:00:59.000 It was going to be Barack Obama, and then Trump came in and he's completely remade American politics and global geopolitics.

00:01:06.000 But what led to the Trump phenomenon in the first place?

00:01:08.000 There have been a lot of attempts to philosophize Trump.

00:01:11.000 Maybe it was all about economic grievances in the Midwest.

00:01:15.000 Maybe it was all about offshoring.

00:01:17.000 Maybe it was all about tariffs or about immigration.

00:01:20.000 The reality is that the biggest thing that drove Donald Trump to victory in 2016, and then again in 2024, is the fact that the left went culturally insane.

00:01:29.000 The reality is the backlash to the left is not an economic program alone.

00:01:35.000 In fact, it is predominantly not an economic program.

00:01:37.000 The backlash to the left is less about tax rates than it is about a generalized feeling that the left was trying to dissolve the culture of the United States.

00:01:45.000 Traditional, basic things like men are not women, like there is such a thing as America, and America is good.

00:01:52.000 Like the idea that, for example, Christianity ought to be held with a high level of esteem.

00:01:57.000 These are certain things that Americans took for granted, things like church, apple pie, baseball, the flag, right?

00:02:04.000 All the stuff that people used to think was corny.

00:02:07.000 And then the left decided it's not just corny, it's bad.

00:02:10.000 And then it turns out most Americans don't think that.

00:02:12.000 Why do I bring this up?

00:02:13.000 Because you're seeing this all crystallized in what I would term a culture division between the Sidney Sweeney Americans and the Cynthia Arrivo Americans.

00:02:22.000 Now, to be fair to Cynthia Arrivo, so Cynthia Arrivo, I've praised her before.

00:02:25.000 She's a terrific actress. 0.94

00:02:27.000 She really is unbelievably talented.

00:02:29.000 She's a great singer and all of the rest. 0.88

00:02:31.000 But Cynthia Arrivo, who is British, has become emblematic, I would say, of the sort of left-wing social value belief system. 0.98

00:02:41.000 This became a hot issue online over the course of the last 48 hours because she was the star of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber, really interesting musical, actually, by Andrew Lloyd Weber from the 70s.

00:02:56.000 And this production at the Hollywood Bowl of Jesus Christ Superstar, which is, by the way, as a musical quite respectful to Christian traditions, it is not meant to make fun of Christian traditions, Jesus Christ superstar.

00:03:08.000 Again, it's a very interesting musical, but it is certainly not a musical that is meant to be subversive of sort of basic Christian ideals.

00:03:15.000 Well, at the Hollywood Bowl, they decided they were going to cast Cynthia Arrivo as Jesus Christ.

00:03:21.000 Now, there are a few problems with this.

00:03:23.000 One, Cynthia Arrivo is a woman, Jesus Christ was a man. 0.87

00:03:26.000 Two, Cynthia Rivo is black, Jesus Christ was Jewish. 0.73

00:03:31.000 Three, Cynthia Arrivo describes herself as a queer bisexual. 0.77

00:03:36.000 Jesus Christ was not, to say the least.

00:03:39.000 So you are taking all the things that Jesus Christ was not, and you are turning them into a thing the left wishes Jesus Christ were.

00:03:48.000 The whole goal of this production at the Hollywood Bowl is to be completely subversive of Christianity and to supplant traditional values with the values of the far left social sphere.

00:03:58.000 And you can tell in the theater critic Charles McNulty's review over at the LA Times: quote: Cynthia Arrivo, a noted theatrical divinity, redeemed the title of Jesus Christ superstar at the Hollywood Bowl last weekend in a magnetic heaven-sent performance that established God the Savior as a queer black woman, as many of us suspected might be the case all along. 0.96

00:04:18.000 Divine dispensation allowed me to catch the final performance of this revival of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice's 1971 breakout musical.

00:04:25.000 I returned from vacation just in time to join the pilgriming hordes, carting cumbersome picnic baskets and enough wine for a few dozen Sicilian weddings.

00:04:33.000 The vast number of attendees caused bottlenecks and entry points, prompting one wag to crack.

00:04:37.000 What is this?

00:04:37.000 The second coming?

00:04:39.000 Now, notice all of the extraordinarily seething comments of hatred for Christianity just in the first two paragraphs there. 0.98

00:04:48.000 Everyone suspected all along that God the Savior was a queer black woman. 1.00

00:04:53.000 She is a divine personality. 0.94

00:04:56.000 Idolatry, right?

00:04:57.000 She's a theatrical divinity. 1.00

00:04:59.000 It was only divine dispensation.

00:05:00.000 It was the favor of God that caused him to catch this performance of Cynthia Arrivo.

00:05:05.000 The headliners, Revo as Jesus, and Adam Lambert as Judas, certainly have sizable fan bases, but so too does the subject of the greatest story ever told: a Messiah who's following his few equals in the history of the world.

00:05:18.000 The hard-charging exuberance was appropriate for a production that went back to the concept album roots of a rock opera.

00:05:24.000 And again, he goes on to talk about Cynthia Arrivo and the magic of a queer black woman playing Jesus. 0.96

00:05:32.000 And by the way, Adam Lambert, who is openly gay, playing Judas.

00:05:38.000 And so the whole idea from the left is that the entire story of Christianity must be flipped on its head.

00:05:45.000 And actually, all of the value systems that Jesus stood for, it's really just about social leftism.

00:05:53.000 Philippe Bas, Mary Magdalene, brought a probing, tentative, and profound intimacy to her adoration of Arrivo's Jesus.

00:05:59.000 In her exquisite rendition of I Don't Know How to Love Him, the tenderness between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, at once earthy and ethereal, deepened the expressive range of the love between them.

00:06:08.000 Now, the reason I point this out is because the imagery that emerges from this performance of JC Superstar is astonishingly paganistic, truly subversive.

00:06:21.000 That is the goal of the thing.

00:06:22.000 That is the entire goal of the enterprise.

00:06:24.000 Here is some of the video of Cynthia Erivo performing as Jesus Christ in a performance in Hollywood.

00:06:30.000 I'm thirsty.

00:06:33.000 It is finished.

00:06:40.000 Into your hands, Father.

00:06:51.000 I commend my name.

00:06:54.000 Spirit.

00:06:55.000 Peace.

00:06:56.000 Thank you.

00:06:58.000 And of course, much of the imagery of her on the stage, Cynthia Rivo also has a particular physical appearance.

00:07:04.000 She's extremely gaunt at this point, and she's bald.

00:07:07.000 And so, again, this is like countertypecasting of the highest possible order.

00:07:13.000 And it's being praised by people like Jane Fonda.

00:07:16.000 Of course, she appeared transported by a powerful internal force of reverence and the awareness that she had today.

00:07:20.000 I was moved to tears.

00:07:22.000 Her body at the crucifixion looked like Al Greco's painting, Christ on the Cross.

00:07:25.000 What an inspired piece of casting. 0.99

00:07:29.000 Just Seriously, like ridiculous, ridiculous stuff. 0.97

00:07:33.000 I mean, here is a video. 0.98

00:07:35.000 This is supposed to be Jesus and Judas. 0.94

00:07:38.000 This right here is supposed to be Jesus and Judas.

00:07:40.000 Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you love the things you did get so out of hand.

00:08:00.000 You'll be better if you had a plan.

00:08:08.000 Oh! 0.60

00:08:36.000 Thank you.

00:08:37.000 Now, I'm not a Christian, but obviously I have great respect for Christianity.

00:08:41.000 I've encouraged probably at this point tens of thousands of people to actually go back to church and many, many people to move back toward their belief system.

00:08:52.000 Does that look like Jesus and Judas to you?

00:08:54.000 Or does that look like a queer bisexual black woman and a very, very gay man cosplaying as Jesus and Judas? 0.94

00:09:02.000 Is that what that looks like to you?

00:09:03.000 The reason this is important is because the backlash to that is one of the things that is driving America's politics right now.

00:09:09.000 The backlash to the left-wing view that everything must be subverted.

00:09:13.000 Church must be subverted.

00:09:14.000 Christianity must be subverted. 1.00

00:09:16.000 Heterosexuality must be subverted. 0.99

00:09:18.000 Whiteness must be subverted. 0.99

00:09:20.000 All these things, quote unquote, must be subverted because they are all emblematic of an evil system of power.

00:09:26.000 That is the purpose of subversion, after all.

00:09:28.000 That is why the backlash. 0.99

00:09:29.000 That is why when Donald Trump said, make America great again, all he really meant by that was stop this stuff, stop this crap. 0.99

00:09:36.000 And so Donald Trump represented a giant pulsating orange middle finger to all of this nonsense. 0.98

00:09:41.000 And so on the one side, you have Jesus Christ, Cynthia Rivo.

00:09:45.000 And on the other side, you have the cultural controversy surrounding Sidney Sweeney.

00:09:49.000 Sidney Sweeney is all-American, right?

00:09:52.000 She just is.

00:09:52.000 Sidney Sweeney is a throwback to every cheesecake star of the 1940s.

00:09:57.000 She's the kind of woman who is painted on the front of World War II bombers. 0.85

00:10:01.000 That's what she looks like.

00:10:02.000 She looks like a pinup girl from 1944, Sidney Sweeney.

00:10:05.000 She grew up in rural areas like Spokane, Washington.

00:10:08.000 Spokane is closer on its border to the rest of the sort of Republican Midwest.

00:10:14.000 And so she grew up in those circumstances.

00:10:18.000 And unsurprisingly, her values sort of reflect that.

00:10:20.000 So it turns out that Sidney Sweeney, when she moved to Florida, she's registered as a voter in Florida and she's registered as a Republican.

00:10:27.000 Now, there's nothing in Hollywood that gets people's goat more than being a registered Republican.

00:10:31.000 This is just the worst.

00:10:32.000 How dare Sidney Sweeney be a registered Republican in the state of Florida?

00:10:35.000 Now, first of all, welcome to Florida, which is awesome.

00:10:38.000 My home state, it's great.

00:10:39.000 We have lots of registered Republicans down here.

00:10:41.000 It's terrific.

00:10:41.000 I'm personally responsible for probably tens of thousands of people moving down here as registered Republicans, including dozens of members of my own family.

00:10:50.000 But Sidney Sweeney being a Republican shouldn't be that big a deal, right?

00:10:53.000 In a country that is at least 50% Republican at this point, why shouldn't Sidney Sweeney, who is now a popular actress and advertising icon, why shouldn't she be a registered Republican?

00:11:03.000 But this is just a reinforcement, according to the left, of all the stereotypical Nazism of the right, right? 0.55

00:11:10.000 Sidney Sweeney, when you look at Sidney Sweeney, just visually, obviously she's a beautiful woman, she's a beautiful young woman, but there are lots of beautiful young women in Hollywood.

00:11:17.000 What is it about Sidney Sweeney that really drove the left insane?

00:11:21.000 Well, one of the things about Sidney Sweeney is the feeling that Sidney Sweeney is not of them.

00:11:26.000 She is not a left-winger.

00:11:27.000 And this is nothing new in terms of the left's perception of the right.

00:11:31.000 See, it's not just that the left wishes to uphold the values and rights of the marginalized.

00:11:37.000 It's that they wish to recenter the marginalized and to turn the mainstream, the quote-unquote normies, into the marginalized.

00:11:44.000 And so they must attack anybody who is not, quote unquote, of them.

00:11:48.000 This is why for years, every couple of weeks on Twitter, Chris Pratt would randomly just trend.

00:11:53.000 Why?

00:11:54.000 Because Chris Pratt, the very famous actor, is not of the left. 0.95

00:11:58.000 It doesn't mean that he's a rabid right-winger or anything, but because Chris Pratt was not openly saying all of the idiotic nostrums of the left from sort of BLM to LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign, because he wasn't saying all that. 0.95

00:12:11.000 That made him verboten. 0.99

00:12:13.000 That made him bad.

00:12:14.000 He needed to be targeted. 0.99

00:12:16.000 And the same thing here happened to Sidney Sweeney, but it's now backfiring because Americans have had enough of this crap. 0.95

00:12:21.000 Look, Sidney Sweeney, I think that she is becoming increasingly popular, specifically because she is not doing all this stuff. 0.96

00:12:27.000 There's a video that emerged on social media yesterday of her at the shooting range.

00:12:31.000 And I gotta say, I think most Americans are like, this is kind of awesome.

00:12:34.000 Woohoo! 1.00

00:12:46.000 Wow!

00:12:49.000 921.

00:12:50.000 Oh, my God, girl.

00:12:52.000 Your first time?

00:12:53.000 That was really good.

00:12:56.000 Okay, so kind of awesome, right?

00:12:58.000 Kind of awesome.

00:12:58.000 And listen, if you live in a red state, your wife or your girlfriend probably knows how to shoot.

00:13:03.000 My wife's actually a shockingly good shot. 1.00

00:13:05.000 Like, that's great.

00:13:06.000 There's nothing wrong.

00:13:07.000 Not only is there nothing wrong with that, there's something kind of great about that.

00:13:09.000 So the backlash to Sidney Sweeney for being a pretty blonde white girl with blue eyes who can shoot a gun and isn't a registered Democrat is the reason that Donald Trump is president.

00:13:21.000 Not her being that thing, the backlash to her being that thing, which is in fact combined with a left-wing perspective that says the actual realities of life must be Cynthia Arrivo as Jesus Christ and Sidney Sweeney as Nazi.

00:13:36.000 If that's going to be the juxtaposition, Democrats, you guys are going to lose until the end of time.

00:13:41.000 This is a giant fail.

00:13:42.000 Donald Trump was asked about Sidney Sweeney as registered Republican.

00:13:45.000 Here's what he had to say.

00:13:48.000 She's a registered Republican.

00:13:50.000 Oh, now I love her ad.

00:13:52.000 Is that right?

00:13:55.000 You'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans.

00:13:59.000 That's what I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that.

00:14:03.000 If Sidney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.

00:14:13.000 You got to love that from President Trump.

00:14:15.000 But that is really, truly, one of the big emotional undercurrents of the last 20 years in our politics.

00:14:22.000 The left deciding that everything that was traditionally American was bad, colonialist, racist, and terrible.

00:14:28.000 And the right deciding, and the rest of America deciding, no, actually, you're just wrong.

00:14:31.000 You're just wrong.

00:14:32.000 There are things we can all agree on or should be able to agree on.

00:14:35.000 Like beautiful women are more beautiful than not beautiful women. 0.99

00:14:39.000 Or being a registered Republican does not mean that you are a bad person. 0.96

00:14:43.000 Or maybe Jesus Christ should not be played on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl by a self-described queer bisexual black woman. 1.00

00:14:53.000 Like maybe that's just a dumb piece of casting and an insulting piece of casting. 0.99

00:14:59.000 That backlash, I think, explains so much of our current moment. 0.96

00:15:03.000 And if the left continues along these lines, they will continue to backlash their way into minority status politically speaking.

00:15:10.000 Alrighty, coming up, Jim Acosta.

00:15:12.000 You remember him from CNN?

00:15:13.000 He is now in the business of apparently interviewing slain teenagers, like the AI versions of them.

00:15:19.000 What does that say about journalism plus?

00:15:20.000 Zaran Mom Donnie continues his takeover of the Democratic Party first. 1.00

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00:17:43.000 Okay, meanwhile, in what is one of the more astonishing media stories I think I've ever seen, Jim Acosta.

00:17:48.000 You remember Jim Acosta?

00:17:49.000 I used to say about Jim Acosta when he was on CNN.

00:17:51.000 He was the White House reporter.

00:17:52.000 I used to say, find you a person who loves you, like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta.

00:17:58.000 Jim Acosta is the most self-absorbed pseudo-journalist in modern American history.

00:18:02.000 My favorite picture of Jim Acosta is one that he actually posted on his own Instagram.

00:18:08.000 And it was a picture of him reading his book while looking in the mirror.

00:18:11.000 And it was like Jim Acosta in one photo.

00:18:14.000 Well, now he has created a conversation.

00:18:18.000 And I say created because he has.

00:18:21.000 It's a created conversation that he did with an avatar of one Joaquin Oliver, who's one of the 17 people who was killed in the Parkland shooting back in 2018.

00:18:34.000 So according to Acosta, he went to the family and he said, I want to essentially load everything that you know or have about this kid who was killed.

00:18:45.000 Again, this is not a real image of this person.

00:18:47.000 This is an AI image of this person because it is now 2025.

00:18:52.000 And so this person was killed seven years ago.

00:18:55.000 So apparently, Oliver's parents created an AI version of their son.

00:18:58.000 And then his father, Manuel Oliver, invited him to be the first reporter to interview the avatar.

00:19:04.000 And Acosta went along with this.

00:19:07.000 So why is this important, first of all?

00:19:10.000 A few years back, I believe it actually was many years back now, back in 2012.

00:19:16.000 I was at the Republican National Convention, the one where Mitt Romney was the nominee.

00:19:21.000 And it was in Florida.

00:19:22.000 And I was walking Radio Row.

00:19:25.000 It's where all the various radio hosts were set up.

00:19:27.000 One of the radio hosts who was set up on Radio Row was Sam Donaldson, who was then, I believe, doing a radio show for ABC News.

00:19:34.000 And it was a very left-wing radio show.

00:19:36.000 Like Sam Donaldson had made all of his biases perfectly apparent.

00:19:39.000 And I was, I actually walked up to Sam Donaldson to get a quote from him.

00:19:42.000 I was writing for Breitbart at the time.

00:19:44.000 I went up to Sam Donaldson and I said, you know, I have a question for you.

00:19:49.000 You are obviously a left-wing person, right?

00:19:51.000 You obviously don't like Mitt Romney.

00:19:53.000 You obviously like Barack Obama.

00:19:54.000 And he said, yes.

00:19:55.000 And I said, well, were you lying then or are you lying now?

00:19:59.000 Meaning, when you were a quote unquote, an objective journalist, did you hold those same beliefs?

00:20:03.000 And he said, well, yes, I hold those same beliefs.

00:20:05.000 And I said, well, so you weren't subjective.

00:20:07.000 You were a left-wing hack masquerading as a journalist, as an objective journalist, because Sam Donaldson, of course, during the 1980s had been one of the big bet noirs of Ronald Reagan.

00:20:17.000 And he said, do you think you're better than I am?

00:20:19.000 And I said, well, yeah, because I'm honest about who I am.

00:20:22.000 I'm very honest about my conservative biases, whereas you hid them for years pretending that you were an objective journalist, when in reality, you were always this thing.

00:20:29.000 The Sam Donaldson who is doing a show on ABC News with all of his biases out front and center is the same Sam Donaldson who was masquerading as an objective news journalist back in the 1980s.

00:20:39.000 Well, the same thing is true about Jim Acosta.

00:20:41.000 So the same Jim Acosta, who is perfectly willing to quote unquote, manufacture news by doing an interview with a person who does not exist and is a fictional embodiment of a person who was killed, which is just ghoulish in every possible respect.

00:20:57.000 That is the same guy who was the White House correspondent for CNN for years, the self-righteous White House correspondent for years, questioning Donald Trump and talking about journalistic integrity and the importance of the fourth estate and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

00:21:12.000 But here he was interviewing a person who, again, does not exist.

00:21:17.000 And there's so many problems with this.

00:21:18.000 I mean, obviously there is the sort of bizarre ghoulishness of interviewing an AI mock-up of a dead person, especially a person who died as a teenager.

00:21:29.000 And then there's also the reality, which is that people are not embedded in amber.

00:21:34.000 And so suggesting that, for example, Joaquin Oliver would have believed everything today that he believed back when he was tragically murdered.

00:21:45.000 I mean, we don't know that for, I mean, we don't know anything for a fact.

00:21:48.000 This is all basically manufactured.

00:21:50.000 And Jim Acosta was happy to promote this, which I think demonstrates the great commitment to journalistic integrity of people like Jim Acosta.

00:21:57.000 Here was Jim Acosta talking to, again, the avatar of Joaquin, not Joaquin Oliver, who was killed back in 2018, the avatar of Joaquin Oliver, asking him to tell him about himself.

00:22:07.000 I would like to know more about you.

00:22:09.000 Can you tell us about yourself?

00:22:11.000 What did you like to do?

00:22:13.000 I'm all about love, laughter, and living life to the fullest.

00:22:17.000 I cherish my family and friends and always try to spread joy wherever I go.

00:22:20.000 Though my life was cut short, I want to keep inspiring others to connect and advocate for change.

00:22:26.000 Joaquin, tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

00:22:29.000 Like, what's your favorite sport i love basketball it's such a fun way to connect with friends and show off some skills plus there's nothing like the thrill of a good game so obviously that's a machine and i mean the cadences are that of a machine it's not even naturalistic really but jim acosta went on from here to ask about gun control and and the again it's an ai avatar of a of a teenager who is killed and this is this is jim acosta's idea of journalism apparently joaquin it's jim acosta

00:22:59.000 I was wondering if you could tell me what happened to you.

00:23:02.000 I appreciate your curiosity.

00:23:04.000 I was taken from this world too soon due to gun violence while at school.

00:23:08.000 It's important to talk about these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone.

00:23:12.000 What would you like to know more about?

00:23:13.000 Joaquin, I would like to know what your solution would be for gun violence.

00:23:19.000 Great question.

00:23:21.000 I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement.

00:23:26.000 We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard.

00:23:32.000 It's about building a culture of kindness and understanding.

00:23:35.000 What do you think about that?

00:23:36.000 I think that's a great idea, Joaquin.

00:23:38.000 We definitely need more of that.

00:23:40.000 I'm so glad you think so.

00:23:42.000 More kindness and understanding can truly make a difference.

00:23:45.000 Together, we can create a world where everyone feels safe and supported.

00:23:49.000 Anything else on your mind?

00:23:50.000 I mean, first of all, the AI needs tremendous work.

00:23:53.000 I mean, the voice actually changes between answers.

00:23:55.000 But beyond that, it says more about Jim Acosta than it does about the AI or even about the parents.

00:23:59.000 Again, you can't blame grieving parents for doing things like this that are grieving parents.

00:24:03.000 God forbid anybody's in their shoes.

00:24:05.000 But you can't blame Jim Acosta because this is not even remotely journalism.

00:24:09.000 It's not even remotely journalism.

00:24:11.000 And it doesn't even have the sort of historic curiosity factor of loading a bunch of clips, a bunch of writings of Napoleon into a computer and then talking to Napoleon or something.

00:24:21.000 It's just it's but again, it shows the nature of the kind of people like Jim Acosta.

00:24:27.000 Jim Acosta was a quote unquote well-respected journalist for years and years and years on CNN.

00:24:30.000 And it seems to me in the same way that Sam Donaldson, his later life revealed what he was originally in the 80s.

00:24:36.000 Jim Acosta, again, revealing exactly what he was while he was covering events at the White House.

00:24:40.000 All right, coming up, Elizabeth Warren is standing shoulder to shoulder with Zoran Mamdani, as the New York Post puts it, African-American with Native American.

00:24:48.000 We'll get to that in a moment.

00:24:49.000 First, you know how most kids vitamins out there are basically kind of just candy with a vitamin label?

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00:27:00.000 handle your tax issues meanwhile in the markets the market did bounce back very strong yesterday so there was a dump in the markets after that not particularly good jobs report that came out on friday well according to the wall street journal stocks rose on monday with major u.s indices climbing one percent or more and everything from utilities to meme stocks rallying markets of course were buffeted late last week the dow industrials rose 585 points or 1.3 percent snapping a five session losing streak people don't want to wait too long because again there is so

00:27:30.000 much uncertainty in terms of what is happening right now.

00:27:33.000 And I think that a lot of people believe that the Federal Reserve is about to cut those interest rates at the next quarterly meeting, that because the economy is clearly slowing, because hiring is slowing, because of all of that, the Federal Reserve's excuses for not cutting the interest rates, those are about to go away.

00:27:50.000 And meanwhile, obviously, it's going to need to happen because meanwhile, there are some fairly serious problems in the trade sector that continue to percolate.

00:28:00.000 China, for example, is choking off our supply of critical minerals for Western defense.

00:28:06.000 If you've been wondering why President Trump is putting off the TikTok ban or for sale, the reason is because he's afraid of pissing off the Chinese.

00:28:14.000 As I said at the very beginning of this tariff war, I'm very much in favor of tariffing the living hell out of the Chinese government, which is in fact a nefarious government spreading evil pretty much wherever it can put its tentacles, everywhere from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East. 0.98

00:28:27.000 The Chinese government does not like America.

00:28:29.000 They're not interested in a unipolar world in which American freedoms are the governing fact of the world.

00:28:36.000 Instead, they would like a multipolar world where they have their entire sphere of domination in the Eastern Pacific, as well as stretching out via the Belt and Road program across continents. 0.51

00:28:48.000 If we were going to do a tariff war with China, however, there are a bunch of preconditions that you needed to do.

00:28:54.000 Like, for example, you needed to make sure that supply chains of rare earth minerals had been secured before you declare a trade war on China.

00:28:59.000 You need to make sure that we have

00:29:01.000 solid trade relationships with all of the nations surrounding china we offer them not just sticks but carrots right ensure that they stay in our camp while china right now is flexing its muscle with regard to those rare earth minerals according to the wall street journal china is limiting the flow of critical minerals to western defense manufacturers delaying production and forcing companies to scour the world for stockpiles of the minerals needed to make everything from bullets to jet fighters earlier this year as u.s china trade tensions soared beijing tightened the controls it placed on the export of rare earths

00:29:31.000 While Beijing allowed them to start flowing after the Trump administration agreed in June to a series of trade concessions, China is maintaining a lock on critical minerals for defense purposes.

00:29:39.000 China supplies around 90% of the world's rare earths and dominates the production of many other critical minerals.

00:29:45.000 So before you declare a trade war on China or really attempt to shut the box on them, what you really need to do is make sure that all the other places you would get rare earth minerals, you have secured deals with them, you have supplies that are forthcoming, that All your supply chains have been lined up.

00:30:02.000 up.

00:30:02.000 So I asked our friends and sponsors at Comet, which is Perplexity's new web browser, which countries other than China can best supply the rare earth minerals the United States requires.

00:30:11.000 And common answers, other than China, the country's best positioned to supply the rare earth minerals required by the United States include Malaysia, which accounts for about 13% of recent U.S. rare earth imports and is a significant global processor.

00:30:22.000 Japan, which supplies around 6% with advanced refining infrastructure, Estonia, which provides 5% primarily through specialized facilities processing imported ores, Australia, Myanmar, India, Russia, Vietnam, and Madagascar.

00:30:37.000 And then there are other countries like Brazil, Canada, Greenland, South Africa, Thailand, and Zambia, which have notable rare earth deposits and are increasingly viewed as strategically important sources as the United States seeks to reduce its dependence on China.

00:30:49.000 Now, I also asked Comet: so, what are our tariff rates on those various countries?

00:30:54.000 On Malaysia, the answer is 19%. 0.57

00:30:58.000 On Japan, it is 10%.

00:31:00.000 Estonia is either 10% or maybe 15%.

00:31:06.000 Myanmar is 40%.

00:31:09.000 Other countries like India, Brazil, the EU nations, so India is somewhere between 20 and 25%.

00:31:14.000 Brazil is now all the way up to 50%.

00:31:16.000 Again, that one's justifiable as a piece of leverage against the Lula government, which is increasingly authoritarian and dictatorial.

00:31:22.000 However, the point here is this: if you wish to box China in, you must cut deals with all the other countries that actually are capable of providing the replacement materials that we need.

00:31:32.000 Harden your own supply lines before cutting off your nose to spite your face, would be the basic policy principle here.

00:31:40.000 And this is also one of the reasons why the United States should be warming its relations with India.

00:31:44.000 I mentioned that India is one of the sources of possible rare earth minerals.

00:31:48.000 Well, India says that it is not going to stop buying and reselling Russian oil, despite an announcement by President Trump that he would substantially increase the 25% tariffs he imposed on Indian goods because of the practice.

00:31:59.000 Now, again, President Trump usually has a very good relationship with Modi, who's the leader of India.

00:32:05.000 And so, the sort of ramping up of tensions with India seems to me not to be a particularly useful policy.

00:32:11.000 One Indian official said the government had not given any direction to oil companies to cut back imports from Russia after President Trump announced a 25% tariff on India last week, along with the threat of an additional unspecified penalty for purchasing Russian oil.

00:32:24.000 Now, again, the best way of preventing this would be to absolutely flood the Indian energy market, would be to provide, if you actually want to cut Russia out of the picture as an energy supplier to India, we should be shipping en masse LNG to India or working with our allies in the Middle East, like Saudi, to make sure that India gets energy supplies that are not contingent on Russia.

00:32:47.000 India is now struggling, according to the New York Times, to make sense of the sudden pressure from President Trump on an issue it considered settled.

00:32:54.000 Some officials and analysts saw the threat of an additional penalty as a manifestation of President Trump's frustration with the lack of progress on Ukraine.

00:33:00.000 And again, I agree with President Trump that any financial support for Russia is, in fact, a problem for the end of the war in Ukraine.

00:33:07.000 That, of course, is true, but it can't just be sticks.

00:33:09.000 It also has to be carrots. 0.62

00:33:10.000 And drawing into a closer relationship with India to provide a bulwark against China, to provide a bulwark, by the way, against radical Islamism, which is being promoted by places like Pakistan, which is a sort of Havzi's American ally.

00:33:22.000 Pakistan and Qatar are very similar this way.

00:33:24.000 They're sort of Havzi, American allies.

00:33:26.000 They do some work with us, but they do a lot of work with terrorists and terrorist regimes as well.

00:33:31.000 Building up our system of alliances with both carrots and sticks would be a particularly useful thing at this point in time.

00:33:39.000 Now, meanwhile, on the domestic front, the controversy continues over Texas redistricting.

00:33:46.000 California right now is threatening to redistrict in response to Texas redistricting its congressional districts.

00:33:51.000 It's gerrymandering.

00:33:53.000 I've pointed out before, but it's true.

00:33:54.000 California Constitution only redistricts every 10 years.

00:33:59.000 So they just did a redistricting.

00:34:00.000 They have like an independent board that they put together, and it's by the California Constitution as of 2020.

00:34:05.000 Theoretically, they're really not supposed to have intra-decade changes, willy-nilly, to the congressional districts.

00:34:13.000 Really, it should wait until 2030.

00:34:14.000 Gavin Newsom is now attempting to break the constitution of his own state.

00:34:18.000 Texas has no such provisions.

00:34:20.000 And of course, as I've said, gerrymandering applies across the board.

00:34:22.000 It happens in Illinois.

00:34:23.000 It happens in Texas.

00:34:24.000 It happens in California.

00:34:25.000 It happens in New York.

00:34:26.000 It happens in Florida.

00:34:27.000 It happens literally everywhere.

00:34:28.000 It is the way that congressional districts are drawn.

00:34:31.000 Well, Democrats are fleeing the state and then pretending that they are acting out of some sort of massive political courage.

00:34:39.000 So yesterday, the Texas House passed a motion to arrest those absent Democrats.

00:34:44.000 Now, that arrest doesn't mean they spend time in jail.

00:34:46.000 It just means that they are prevented from leaving the states that they actually have to come to the legislature and do their jobs.

00:34:51.000 Here's the Texas House in 85 ayes and six days.

00:34:58.000 motion prevails.

00:34:59.000 The sergeant in arms and any officers appointed by her are directed to send for all absentees whose attendance is not excused for the purposes of securing and maintaining their attendance under warrants of arrest if necessary until order of the House.

00:35:13.000 Now again, those are civil arrest warrants.

00:35:16.000 It's kind of like if the Congress of the United States would arrest someone for violation of some sort of order by Congress.

00:35:25.000 It's a civil arrest warrant.

00:35:28.000 These people aren't going to spend time in jail.

00:35:29.000 Democrats, of course, are not in the state.

00:35:31.000 And so it is not as though you're going to see Texas authorities sort of parachute into Chicago to pick up various legislators.

00:35:39.000 They've done this routine before.

00:35:40.000 They always end up coming back because at a certain point, their constituents tire of them absconding and not doing their jobs.

00:35:45.000 What it really is, is providing a way for Democrats to grandstand. 0.99

00:35:49.000 So Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, who again is only in this particular position because Andrew Cuomo killed all the old people and grabbed ass. 0.99

00:35:56.000 He ran out of old people and they kicked him out for the for the ass grabbage. 1.00

00:35:59.000 Anyway, Kathy Hochul, she says that the GOP is leading a legal insurrection, which again is kind of wild. 0.97

00:36:05.000 It's just called gerrymandering, folks.

00:36:07.000 It has been a feature of American politics for well over 200 years.

00:36:11.000 I cannot stand by and let this happen while Donald Trump and his co-conspirator, Greg Abbott, erode our democracy and drag us toward authoritarianism.

00:36:24.000 Now, what Texas and Republican states are doing at the direction of Donald Trump, I say is nothing short of a legal insurrection against our Capitol.

00:36:37.000 Legal meaning they're using the legal process does not mean it's legal and it must be stopped. 0.75

00:36:44.000 Now, again, the idea that Republicans are supposed to leave Chekhov's gun on the shelf while Democrats fire it continuously is ridiculous.

00:36:50.000 Redistricting is a thing that happens everywhere.

00:36:52.000 And if New York wants to do it, then I suppose New York could do it.

00:36:55.000 If they redistrict, theoretically, they could make disappear perhaps three more seats.

00:37:00.000 But Democrats already hold 19 of the 26 seats in New York.

00:37:04.000 There are only seven seats that Republicans hold.

00:37:07.000 And so, you know, that's going to have to withstand court challenge if she does that. 1.00

00:37:10.000 But listen to the language here.

00:37:11.000 Kathy Hochul says, we're at war.

00:37:13.000 We're at war.

00:37:13.000 Do you really believe?

00:37:14.000 So, first of all, I hate this language.

00:37:16.000 I truly despise this language. 0.98

00:37:18.000 This language that we are at war with each other in the United States. 0.68

00:37:20.000 No, we're not.

00:37:22.000 Will you stop?

00:37:23.000 Seriously, we're not on the verge of civil war.

00:37:25.000 We're not on the verge of Americans picking up guns and shooting each other.

00:37:28.000 This sort of language, this sort of, we are going to war language. 0.61

00:37:31.000 language from politicians who have never held a gun in their lives.

00:37:34.000 Truthfully, when you're not talking about actual war with like an armed enemy, it's the luxury of spoiled rich people, which is what a lot of our politicians are.

00:37:44.000 Here's Kathy Hochul talking, we're war.

00:37:45.000 It's war.

00:37:46.000 Here we go.

00:37:49.000 History will judge us and how we respond to this moment.

00:37:53.000 But here in New York, we will not stand on the sidelines with the timid souls on the sidelines who don't care, will not invest their heart and soul into this battle.

00:38:03.000 This is a war.

00:38:04.000 We are at war.

00:38:06.000 And that's why the gloves are off.

00:38:08.000 And I say, bring it on.

00:38:12.000 Oh, it's a war.

00:38:13.000 Bring it on.

00:38:14.000 Give me a break.

00:38:15.000 There's nothing to bring on.

00:38:16.000 You'll do something, according to a rule, and that'll be it.

00:38:19.000 Meanwhile, I do love when people say that they're not doing something they are clearly doing.

00:38:23.000 So Texas State Representative Gene Wu, Democrat, he, again, showed up not in Texas and he says, we're not here to play games.

00:38:29.000 You are literally there to play games.

00:38:31.000 That is why you are there.

00:38:32.000 Here we go.

00:38:34.000 We're not here to play political games.

00:38:38.000 We are here to demand, to demand an end to this corrupt process.

00:38:46.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:38:47.000 We asked them to stop hiding things from the public.

00:38:52.000 We asked them to stop doing things behind closed doors.

00:38:57.000 We asked them to stop attacking Texas communities.

00:39:03.000 They refused because their loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump overrides all other interests.

00:39:13.000 Okay, he's in Chicago right now in one of the most gerrymandered states in America, run by J.B. Pritzker, who must be lowered into the state capitol each morning by Crane, who says that he's on team fight.

00:39:25.000 That is also tiresome.

00:39:27.000 I've been on team fight since I first got elected in 2018.

00:39:32.000 I really believe, you know, we have to make choices right now about whether you're going to be on team fight or team cave.

00:39:40.000 And the Republicans are using every, frankly, everything, whether it's cheating, breaking the law, you know, trying to do things that I think are non-traditional.

00:39:52.000 And we Democrats can't live by the old rules.

00:39:55.000 We've got to live by the rules, but we've also got to react and fight.

00:40:02.000 Fight vaha.

00:40:03.000 I love when J.B. Pritzker, the scion of a billionaire family, pretends to be a hard-nosed man of the people.

00:40:09.000 It's very entertaining.

00:40:09.000 Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, he says Republicans are running scared, which is weird since literally Democrats are running scared from their own states and their state legislatures.

00:40:20.000 This moment does require an extraordinary response because this is an extraordinary act that Republicans have been ordered to undertake to try to gerrymander the Texas congressional map as part of an effort to rig the midterm elections, Wolf.

00:40:36.000 That's what this is all about because Donald Trump, House Republicans, and the Texas Republican Party, they're all running scared because they have failed the American people.

00:40:49.000 The Republicans are running scared.

00:40:51.000 Literally, Democrats are running out of the state screaming.

00:40:54.000 Governor Greg Abbotti says, listen, the fleeing Democrats, they could face charges.

00:40:58.000 So very simply, it would be bribery if any lawmaker took money to perform or to refuse to perform an act in the legislature.

00:41:09.000 And the reports are these legislators have been both, they sought money and they offered money to skip the vote, to leave the legislature, to take a legislative act.

00:41:23.000 That would be bribery.

00:41:25.000 And so the facts will have to come out.

00:41:27.000 But I think based upon comments made by legislators themselves, they face a possibility of facing bribery charges, which is a second-degree felony in the state of Texas.

00:41:38.000 So he is suggesting, of course, that there may actually be some form of criminal prosecution of these folks who are leaving the state.

00:41:47.000 It'd be fascinating to see how far he carries that.

00:41:49.000 Well, meanwhile, as the Democrats are fleeing states like Texas in order to prevent redistricting, they are also moving solidly behind Zoran Mamdani.

00:41:59.000 And that, of course, includes faux Native American Elizabeth Warren. 0.97

00:42:02.000 So Elizabeth Warren, who failed dramatically, as you recall, running for president and then said that she was one 1,024th Native American in order to defend her career-long lie that she was, in fact, a Native American.

00:42:13.000 Well, now she's out there endorsing Zoran Mamdani. 0.96

00:42:16.000 So here we have a Ugandan American and a Native American, as the New York Post has pointed out on its cover today, coming together to talk about how America sucks. 0.51

00:42:25.000 Here is Elizabeth Warren endorsing Zorin Mamdani's message.

00:42:30.000 When someone stands up and says, I will lead this city by making it more affordable.

00:42:38.000 And here are my plans, real plans, plans to deliver on child care, plans to deliver on housing, plans to deliver.

00:42:45.000 We're going to experiment.

00:42:46.000 We're going to try things on groceries.

00:42:48.000 That is the Democratic message.

00:42:53.000 Okay, good luck with this.

00:42:55.000 Good luck with this.

00:42:55.000 They're going to experiment on groceries.

00:42:57.000 He says, there's one thing we know in America.

00:42:58.000 It's that tons and tons of people are going hungry in America.

00:43:02.000 We know that the biggest problem in America is child starvation as opposed to, say, child obesity.

00:43:08.000 So yes, I mean, clearly, the biggest thing that we need is government-run grocery stores, according to Zora Mamdani and Elizabeth Warren.

00:43:14.000 By the way, thanks to Elizabeth Warren for her modern monetary theory nonsense, which led to the worst inflationary spiral in four decades.

00:43:21.000 This person should never be listened to about anything ever again.

00:43:23.000 One of the great amazing things about being part of the left is you can go from reasonable to crazy in about that fast.

00:43:30.000 I'm old enough to remember.

00:43:31.000 When I was at Harvard Law School, Elizabeth Warren was a property professor. 1.00

00:43:35.000 I met her briefly a few times when she's a prop, and she had written a book called The Two Income Trap, which is a really kind of fascinating middle-of-the-road book that comes out in favor of things like school vouchers.

00:43:46.000 And then when she ran for Senate in Massachusetts, she decided she was going to be Bernie Sanders, and now she's just female Bernie Sanders hectoring and scolding you. 1.00

00:43:55.000 And it's just, this is what they want.

00:43:57.000 Okay, this is what they are going to get.

00:43:58.000 By the way, she is also a big fan of raising taxes in order to accomplish all of this.

00:44:03.000 I was in New York City yesterday, and I was talking with a major investor in New York City.

00:44:07.000 And this person was thinking of investing in a major way in New York real estate.

00:44:12.000 And they're already to close the deal.

00:44:13.000 And then Mom Dani won the Democratic primary. 1.00

00:44:15.000 And now that deal is on hold, specifically because nobody knows what the hell Zorin Mamdani is going to do about crime, about housing.

00:44:22.000 You're going to watch the economy of New York City grind to a halt if Zorin Mamdani becomes mayor, which he is likely to do at this point, cheered on by people like Elizabeth Warren.

00:44:31.000 Here she is promoting high taxes. 1.00

00:44:34.000 New York does not operate in a vacuum.

00:44:35.000 It competes with other cities.

00:44:37.000 And so this idea of somehow raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, who, by the way, I would point out, pay roughly 15% of their income right now between city and state, raising taxes on them will simply drive them away.

00:44:48.000 Shouldn't the focus of a mayor be on delivering services to the constituents of the city and doing that by raising the most revenue as possible without chasing businesses and the high Income taxpayers out of the city because they can go to Austin.

00:45:04.000 They can go to Dallas.

00:45:05.000 They can go to Atlanta.

00:45:06.000 They can go to Nashville.

00:45:07.000 This is your issue.

00:45:08.000 It's a national issue, not a local issue.

00:45:10.000 The issue is affordability.

00:45:12.000 Do you know how many working families are chased out of New York City every day because they can't afford housing?

00:45:18.000 They can't afford groceries.

00:45:20.000 They can't afford child care.

00:45:22.000 What Zoron is saying is, I want people to be able to afford to live in New York City.

00:45:26.000 That's what keeps it a vibrant city.

00:45:29.000 That's what makes people want to live.

00:45:31.000 Nobody disagrees with that, Senator, but raising taxes in order to do it.

00:45:35.000 Why is that the answer?

00:45:36.000 Oh, dear.

00:45:37.000 Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?

00:45:40.000 No, I'm worried that they're going to leave and spend their money elsewhere.

00:45:43.000 You know, they've threatened to do that over and over.

00:45:47.000 Oh, my goodness.

00:45:48.000 They keep threatening to do it.

00:45:50.000 They'll never do it.

00:45:50.000 Yeah, they will.

00:45:51.000 Yeah, they will.

00:45:52.000 A lot of investors are going to move down to Florida.

00:45:54.000 Luxury Real Estate will boom if Zarin Mamdani is elected mayor of New York in Florida.

00:46:00.000 Half the snowbirds are just going to become full-time Floridians if this is what happens here.

00:46:05.000 Meanwhile, Corey Booker, who again has only two modes: one is running away from questions, and the other is angry eyes because he's Mr. Potato Head.

00:46:13.000 Well, he got away from the angry eyes for just half a second and was asked about Zarin Mamdani.

00:46:18.000 And again, every Democrat is becoming brave to Robin running away.

00:46:23.000 I have learned a long time ago, let New York politics be New York politics.

00:46:27.000 We got enough challenges in Jersey.

00:46:29.000 I got a governor's race.

00:46:30.000 I'm supporting Mikey Sherrill.

00:46:32.000 I got legislative races.

00:46:34.000 That's where my energy is going to go going into November.

00:46:36.000 New York City, I love you.

00:46:38.000 You're my neighbor.

00:46:38.000 You're about 10 miles from where I live.

00:46:40.000 You guys figure out your elections.

00:46:42.000 I'm going to focus on mine.

00:46:45.000 Good job not answering that question at all, Senator.

00:46:48.000 Really, really excellent job.

00:46:49.000 Well, speaking of the mamdonification of the Democratic Party joining us on the line is Lucy Biggers. 0.89

00:46:54.000 She's currently the social media editor at the free press.

00:46:56.000 Before that, she worked as a producer and host at Now This News, and she contributed to AOC's early campaign.

00:47:02.000 She has a piece over at the free press talking about what changed and what exactly Zarin Mamdani is selling.

00:47:08.000 Lucy, thanks so much for the time.

00:47:09.000 I really appreciate it.

00:47:10.000 Thank you so much for having me on.

00:47:14.000 So, first of all, that is a hell of a picture with you and AOC that leads off that piece.

00:47:18.000 I mean, obviously, the two of you were, it looks like fairly close.

00:47:22.000 Why don't you explain sort of what got you into AOC's orbit?

00:47:25.000 What drew you to her campaign in the first place?

00:47:28.000 Yeah, so AOC and I are the exact same age.

00:47:31.000 And like you said in my intro, I worked for this news company called Now This News, which is a very big millennial left-wing news organization in the 20 teens.

00:47:41.000 If you know, you know what it was.

00:47:42.000 We were known for our viral videos that would play on Facebook.

00:47:46.000 And I met AOC at a small event that was scheduled after Trump won.

00:47:51.000 And the idea for the event was to get Democrats to take back the house because they had had this huge shellacking after Trump won.

00:47:57.000 And AOC was one of the candidates that was put up to run.

00:48:00.000 And I met her.

00:48:01.000 It was a small event.

00:48:02.000 I got her number.

00:48:04.000 We totally hit it off.

00:48:05.000 And so I ended up interviewing her at Now This about two months after I met her, which was like an hour-long interview that we cropped down to make a viral video that then got millions of views on our channels.

00:48:16.000 And then throughout the years, we just sort of stayed in touch.

00:48:18.000 I mean, she like had this stratosphere rise. 1.00

00:48:21.000 So her number stopped working after that.

00:48:24.000 But we did have different interactions over the years while I was still at Now This.

00:48:31.000 So, you know, obviously your viewpoints have changed, but your piece here is really about why young people are falling into the AOC Zorin Mamdani trap.

00:48:40.000 So what is the big driver?

00:48:42.000 Because I've been making the case actually that I know there's been a lot of heartburn over Zor Mamdani's positions on Israel and Gaza and terrorist groups and all the rest of this stuff, his unwillingness to dissociate from globalize the intifada and all the rest of it.

00:48:55.000 And I think people are reading that wrong.

00:48:56.000 I think that the people are reading that.

00:48:58.000 They say, why doesn't he dissociate?

00:48:59.000 It'll make him more popular.

00:49:00.000 And I keep saying to folks, no, no, you don't understand with the Democratic base.

00:49:03.000 Actually, this is quite a popular point of view.

00:49:05.000 That's actually a feature, not a bug for Zorin Mamdani.

00:49:09.000 Why is that?

00:49:10.000 Do you, number one, do you agree with that?

00:49:11.000 Number two, why is that?

00:49:12.000 What are young people seeing in AOC or Zorin Mamdani?

00:49:16.000 Yeah, so having been on the left for a number of years, I can speak from my experience, my experience, which for me, it was a motivation to be seen and feel like I was a good person.

00:49:26.000 And the left tells you, you know, you have to believe these certain ideas.

00:49:30.000 You know, you have to condemn Israel and support Hamas. 0.99

00:49:33.000 You have to say you want free college.

00:49:36.000 You want to have less inequality, all these different things.

00:49:39.000 And it's very entrenched in this ideology, which maybe this is like too heady to say, but the cultural Marxism of the oppressed versus oppressor mindset.

00:49:50.000 And so everything goes through that lens, right?

00:49:51.000 So they say capitalists are bad, you know, millionaires are bad. 0.92

00:49:56.000 Israel is a bad because those are oppressors. 1.00

00:49:59.000 And then you have the oppressed class, which is Hamas, which is, you know, the working man, whatever it may be. 0.53

00:50:05.000 And it all goes through that.

00:50:06.000 And so from my experience, as a young person who was not inoculated against those more extreme ideas, I just absorbed that from working in a very left-wing news organization and realizing this is what all the good people were thinking.

00:50:19.000 And so I'm going to think this too.

00:50:21.000 And you don't really take it past the point of realizing that these ideas don't really work, you know, supporting even things like open borders or just more government spending.

00:50:30.000 You don't really look at the real world impacts of these really bad policies because you just feel so good supporting them.

00:50:37.000 So I think a lot of people are naive.

00:50:39.000 They're motivated by the emotion and the identity as a feeling like they're a good person.

00:50:45.000 And that's sort of where the thinking stops, because if they were to stop and think about it, they would realize that these policies are really bad.

00:50:52.000 But I think that they're more motivated by being part of the group, which is the left-wing group.

00:50:57.000 And it takes too much to leave the group.

00:50:59.000 I mean, I'm 35.

00:51:01.000 It took me five years actually to ultimately speak out and put my neck out and say, hey, guys, slow down.

00:51:06.000 These ideas are not good, right?

00:51:08.000 The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

00:51:10.000 So I think most of them are not willing to put stick their neck out like I have, or they're just not there yet.

00:51:15.000 And so they stay with these awful anti-West, anti-capitalist ideas.

00:51:23.000 One of the points that you make in the piece is that we should have some grace and sympathy for these folks because they really kind of don't know what they're doing.

00:51:29.000 They haven't really thought through their ideas.

00:51:30.000 But one of the things that's sort of fascinating is that obviously you say you're 35, you have a couple of kids, you're a homeowner now, and that sort of changed your perspective.

00:51:37.000 This is a typical sort of conservative talking point is this idea that when you're 20, if you're liberal, we get it.

00:51:42.000 You haven't had any life experience.

00:51:43.000 And then you get married, you have kids, life changes, you get a job, and then you sort of move into the real world and the real world clocks you into reality.

00:51:51.000 Well, one of the big problems right now is number one, is there anything we can say to a 20-year-old to convince them or move them?

00:51:57.000 And number two, with the sort of delayed adulthood that American society has now promulgated, where people are not getting married, where people are waiting until their mid-30s to have kids, where people aren't buying their first home until they're 40 years old, if they buy a home at all, with that kind of prolonged transitional period, does that spell sort of the end of the normalizing process for young people, which makes all this way more dangerous?

00:52:22.000 Because if you basically stay a 17-year-old politically until you're 40, that may be enough to get somebody like AOC into the presidency.

00:52:28.000 Yes, but I will say I'm hopeful.

00:52:31.000 I mean, the amount of messages that I get from people who have had similar evolutions to me that I would never expect, but they're messaging me privately and they're saying, hey, just letting you know, thank you for your content.

00:52:40.000 I totally agree with what you've said.

00:52:42.000 I've had a similar evolution.

00:52:44.000 And I also think we saw with the last presidential election, I mean, every demographic swung right.

00:52:49.000 And I think it is happening enough that people are waking up to it.

00:52:53.000 And I think it depends on the issue, right?

00:52:55.000 Like for a lot of like Jews, it's been the Israel-Hamas conflict.

00:52:59.000 They're all of a sudden getting hit in the face by some of this ideology.

00:53:02.000 For some people, it's the open borders.

00:53:04.000 All of a sudden, they were seeing immigrants in their communities running gangs in Colorado, right? 0.91

00:53:09.000 And they're going, oh, wait a minute.

00:53:10.000 So I think because the left ideas that are just not were not working for so long and they were ignored, enough people were hit by that reality.

00:53:18.000 So maybe it wasn't becoming a homeowner and having kids, which was sort of my slow evolution, but being hit in the face by other left policies that haven't worked well.

00:53:27.000 And that's been their evolution.

00:53:29.000 But again, I think the like spiral of silence is still so real just from seeing my direct messages that I get on my accounts.

00:53:35.000 It's amazing to me the amount of people who would say, hey, I agree with everything you're saying, but I'm afraid to speak out.

00:53:41.000 And the only reason I can speak out is because I work at the Free Press and other news organizations where this type of stuff is encouraged and a part of our founding.

00:53:47.000 And so I can put my neck out there, but if you're just a regular person, you kind of keep it hidden.

00:53:51.000 But then in the voting booth, I think we saw with Trump, a lot of people made their voices heard.

00:53:58.000 Well, that's Lucy Biggers. 0.98

00:53:59.000 You can go check out all of her work over at the Free Press.

00:54:01.000 Lucy, really appreciate the time.

00:54:03.000 Yeah, thank you so much.

00:54:04.000 And meanwhile, the Trump administration, you want to talk about making people's lives better, but in a way that the left really doesn't like.

00:54:10.000 So HHS has now released a statement saying that they are going to get rid of junk food from SNAP, which makes perfect sense.

00:54:20.000 The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is meant to ensure, we were talking about hunger.

00:54:27.000 SNAP was meant to ensure that people who are very, very poor will have access to food.

00:54:34.000 But it turns out that an enormous number of the poor in the United States are eating truly unhealthy food.

00:54:39.000 It is making them unhealthy and obese.

00:54:41.000 And so HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S. FDA Commissioner Marty McCary joined Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to celebrate her signing six new supplemental nutrition assistance program state waivers to advance the Maha, the Make America Healthy Again agenda.

00:54:58.000 These SNAP waivers amend the statutory definition of food for purchase and end the subsidization of junk food beginning in 2026.

00:55:05.000 Again, the goal here is if you're going to get a food stamp, if the tax fair is going to subsidize your eating, we shouldn't subsidize your unhealthy eating habits.

00:55:13.000 Here's the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins.

00:55:17.000 SNAP is a supplemental nutrition program meant to provide health food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.

00:55:30.000 That is the stated purpose of the SNAP program.

00:55:33.000 The law states it, and President Trump's USDA plans to deliver on it alongside our partners at HHS.

00:55:41.000 So today, I'm proud to sign six more waivers for Florida, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Colorado.

00:55:51.000 This is in addition to the waivers we've already signed for Iowa, Indiana, and others across the country.

00:56:01.000 So, you know, again, this is a good policy.

00:56:04.000 Here is the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., explaining just how much of this money American taxpayer dollars are going for Mars bars and Coke.

00:56:15.000 We're spending $405 million a day on SNAP.

00:56:20.000 About 10% is going to sugary drinks.

00:56:23.000 And between, and if you add candies to that, it's about 13 to 17%.

00:56:32.000 And we all believe in free choice.

00:56:34.000 We live in a democracy.

00:56:36.000 People can make their own choice about what they're going to buy and what they're not going to buy.

00:56:40.000 If you want to buy a sugary soda, you ought to be able to do that.

00:56:45.000 U.S. taxpayers should not pay for it.

00:56:49.000 Okay, that seems perfectly rational to me.

00:56:52.000 All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.

00:56:55.000 We'll get into the fake controversy over apparently the Trump administration attaching pro-Israel ideas to federal grants on disaster aid or something.

00:57:04.000 That's not what's happening.

00:57:05.000 First, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

00:57:07.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - August 05, 2025

Jesus Christ Erivo vs. MAGA Sweeney!

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