The Ben Shapiro Show - Mamdani’s Last Stand?!

00:00:00.000 Tons coming up on today's show.

00:00:01.000 The final New York mayoral debate between Zoran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa.

00:00:06.000 Go through it in detail.

00:00:07.000 Plus, we discussed the latest on the government shutdown and that Senate Democrat from Maine, the candidate who, you know, has the Nazi tattoo.

00:00:15.000 Well, now he's covered it up.

00:00:16.000 Wait until you see the cover-up of the tattoo.

00:00:18.000 It's quite terrible.

00:00:19.000 You know what isn't terrible?

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00:00:54.000 Well, last night was the second big New York mayoral debate. 0.96

00:00:58.000 It involved, of course, the frontrunner, Zoran Mamdani, the pro-Islamist, pro-jihadist, Marxist frontrunner who won the Democratic nomination versus Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, who had to resign office after, you know, getting a bunch of old people killed with his bad COVID policy and also grabbing ass. 0.96

00:01:15.000 And he ran out of old people. 0.77

00:01:16.000 And then he was ousted from office, which is why Kathy Hochul is now governor of New York.

00:01:20.000 He's running for mayor as well.

00:01:21.000 He lost the Democratic nomination to Mom Dani and has been trailing him in the polls ever since, largely because there's a third candidate in the race, Curtis Sliwa, a radio host from New York, longtime New York kind of mainstay.

00:01:34.000 He's the head of an organization called the Guardian Angels, which back in the 1970s and 1980s did a bunch of work where they'd walk around with red berets on the subway, making the city safer for people who are living there by intimidating would-be criminals.

00:01:47.000 And of course, he's become a pretty popular radio host, has been a big sort of iconic figure in New York's right-wing politics for half a century at this point.

00:01:57.000 Well, the polls right now have Mom Dani ahead, and it is unclear whether if Sliwa dropped out, the consolidated support between Cuomo and Sliwa would be enough to overcome Mom Dani.

00:02:06.000 What is amazing is Momdani's base of support.

00:02:09.000 According to a brand new poll out from the Patriot Polling Survey, Mom Dani has 62% of the foreign-born vote in New York City.

00:02:18.000 For those who seem to believe that it makes no difference when you import a bunch of people to the United States who have different views of the United States, shall we say, than the sort of mainline, mainstream, average American view, yeah, it makes a very, very big difference.

00:02:32.000 In New York City, 62% of the foreign-born vote is moving toward Momdani, Cuomo at 24%, Sliwa at 12%.

00:02:41.000 Among American-born New Yorkers, Cuomo leads at 40%.

00:02:45.000 Mom Dani has only 32%.

00:02:46.000 Sliwa has 25%.

00:02:48.000 So Mamdani's almost running in third among native-born New Yorkers, which says something about the importation of people, again, from places that do not share basic American values and are significantly warmer to Islamism and to Marxism.

00:03:02.000 Now, this poll does show Momdani at the top of the pack overall.

00:03:07.000 He has 43% of the overall vote.

00:03:09.000 Cuomo is at apparently 34% of that vote, and Sliwa at 19%.

00:03:13.000 But if that were true, then that would mean that Sliwa dropping out would mean that Zoran Mamdani likely loses.

00:03:20.000 It also appears that TikTok has been putting its thumb on the scale in favor of Zorin Mamdani.

00:03:25.000 The amount of online manipulation that is now just a part of our daily culture is astonishing, truly astonishing.

00:03:31.000 We saw it during BLM.

00:03:33.000 We saw it during COVID.

00:03:34.000 We've seen it most recently during the Israel-Hamas war, in which extraordinary amounts of propaganda were put out by foreign actors on TikTok and on X, deliberately designed to split the American body politic over that particular issue.

00:03:48.000 And apparently now, TikTok has been heavily, heavily promoting Zoran Mamdani, according to a brand new report from the New York Post.

00:03:59.000 TikTok is allegedly putting its thumb on the scale to help Zorin Mamdani win the New York City mayoralty.

00:04:03.000 According to a new report, the Chinese-owned app's algorithm is distorting the playing field in New York City's mayoral race by amplifying pro-Mamdani content while suppressing videos backing his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, according to a Tel Aviv-based tech insider who cited a key leaked document from the social media company.

00:04:19.000 Early evidence points to algorithmic influence that may be shaping voter perception in the New York City elections, according to this tech insider, Johonatan Dodelis.

00:04:27.000 He wrote that in a medium post published on Thursday.

00:04:30.000 He noted TikTok's algorithm doesn't just determine which videos go viral.

00:04:33.000 It's shaping what millions of people understand to be true about the world.

00:04:36.000 And this, of course, has been true about TikTok for a very long time.

00:04:38.000 It is not a shock that a Chinese-based app would prefer a Marxist Islamist as the mayor of New York. 0.89

00:04:44.000 Okay, well, last night featured the second debate and the last debate before the election between Momdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa.

00:04:53.000 And it did not go amazing for Zoran Mamdani.

00:04:55.000 Turns out that when questioned in any serious fashion about his views, dude has nothing.

00:05:00.000 He's got that phony, smarmy, pasted on smile that sends a chill up the spine of everyone who can identify basic authenticity, but seems to charm the pants off a bunch of wild left progressives who see Mom Dani smiling and somehow think that's that's genuine.

00:05:16.000 Cuomo and Sleewa went on the attack, according to the New York Post.

00:05:22.000 The candidates sparred over President Trump, anti-Semitism and Mamdani's anti-Israel stance, mayoral control over the city's public schools, and much more with plenty of mudslinging.

00:05:31.000 And it was, in fact, hot.

00:05:34.000 The reality is that on the debate stage, Slee was the best.

00:05:36.000 There's no question that Curtis is the best person on the debate stage.

00:05:39.000 The problem, of course, is that Curtis is a Republican.

00:05:41.000 He's never going to break 25% of the vote, not for love or money.

00:05:44.000 And he really should drop out.

00:05:46.000 Now, this has been a major issue, at least for the last several weeks, where it's been clear the only way to beat Mom Dani would be for there to be a consolidation of the vote.

00:05:55.000 Curtis was asked about this by Sid Rosenberg, who's another host, sort of an iconic host in New York City.

00:06:01.000 And Curtis basically melted down because Sid asked him, you know, you should really spend your time attacking Mom Dani and you should get out of the race because you're not going to be the next New York mayor.

00:06:10.000 And Curtis was having none of it.

00:06:13.000 I have armed security guards now protecting my life and Nancy's life.

00:06:18.000 I've been bribed by the billionaires to drop out of here.

00:06:22.000 If anything happens to me or anything happens to my wife because of this frenzy that I hear constantly coming from some of your colleagues here at WABC, it's on you guys and you gals.

00:06:37.000 My life, my life is on the line here, Sid.

00:06:40.000 My wife, Nancy, who has never harmed anybody who only cares about people and animals, is under threat now.

00:06:48.000 Even when the Gottis and Gambinos put a hit on me, five Hollow Point bullets, I never had armed security. 1.00

00:06:56.000 The frenzy that is coming out of people's mouths.

00:07:02.000 I mean, again, that is not an excuse for why you're staying in the race, Madute.

00:07:05.000 I mean, like, many of us have armed security at all times.

00:07:08.000 Unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast right now.

00:07:11.000 It is just an unfortunate point in American politics.

00:07:14.000 There's a report yesterday that Barry Weiss, the new CBS news editor, has to have six armed security guards.

00:07:19.000 And I will tell you that our team is very, very large when it comes to security.

00:07:23.000 And that is an unfortunate result of the fact that there are so many political actors these days who use unhinged rhetoric about their opponents and include in that unhinged rhetoric insane conspiracism that leads unhinged people to believe that prominent political commentators and politicians are controlling their lives and making their lives worse in such a way they can only be removed by force.

00:07:46.000 But that's not a reason why Curtis should stay in the race.

00:07:49.000 Putting all of that aside, the debate last night was not good for Mom Dani.

00:07:53.000 If that matters, it was not good.

00:07:54.000 Again, Curtis needs to drop out to give Cuomo a shot.

00:07:56.000 Cuom has run a particularly terrible race.

00:07:58.000 He has basically been somnambulant throughout this race, meaning a sleepwalker throughout the race.

00:08:04.000 He has not run an energetic campaign.

00:08:07.000 He seems to believe that the mayoralty should simply fall in his lap.

00:08:11.000 But last night, he was definitely more lively than usual.

00:08:13.000 Here was Andrew Cuomo's opening statement: New York is the greatest city on the globe, but we are at a pivotal moment.

00:08:23.000 And the voters are going to have to decide in this election what candidate has the plan to save this city and what candidate can get it done, not just talk about it.

00:08:35.000 My main opponent has no new ideas.

00:08:38.000 He has no new plan.

00:08:39.000 It's built a blasio rehash.

00:08:40.000 And we know how that turned out.

00:08:42.000 He's never run anything, managed anything.

00:08:44.000 He's never had a real job.

00:08:46.000 I will hire 5,000 new police, build 500,000 new units.

00:08:50.000 I will cut taxes.

00:08:51.000 I will grow jobs.

00:08:53.000 And I will end, end this hate-mongering and division that is tearing this city apart because that's not who we are as a New Yorker, as New Yorkers.

00:09:06.000 You know, I can make change.

00:09:07.000 You know, I can make government work.

00:09:09.000 I've done it before.

00:09:10.000 I'll be right here on day one.

00:09:13.000 Now, again, not very good.

00:09:15.000 I mean, like, yes, he's saying he's ready.

00:09:16.000 He's right, but he can't even get through the statement without kind of stammering his way through the statement.

00:09:20.000 It's not particularly, I'd say, exciting.

00:09:23.000 All righty, coming up more on the Momdani debate.

00:09:25.000 He did not do amazing.

00:09:27.000 We'll see if it matters.

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00:11:24.000 Curtis Sleewa's opening remarks were better than Cuomo's for sure.

00:11:27.000 Here was Curtis.

00:11:30.000 It's us versus them. 0.99

00:11:33.000 It's us versus the insiders and the billionaires.

00:11:36.000 It's us versus Cuomo.

00:11:38.000 It's us versus Zorhan.

00:11:41.000 This is a campaign not about power.

00:11:43.000 This is a campaign about you, the people.

00:11:46.000 And I know many of you hardworking New Yorkers, you tell me you've been pushed aside, you've been silenced.

00:11:52.000 These are the people that have all the money, all the connections.

00:11:56.000 They've made their backroom deals, but we have something more important.

00:12:00.000 We have you, the people.

00:12:02.000 And we're not going to be silenced anymore.

00:12:04.000 We're going to fight.

00:12:06.000 Tonight, I want you to look at the content of my policies, to know that I've served this city for more than 50 years, the city that I love.

00:12:14.000 And I'm going to share with you my vision to make New York City safer again, to make New York City more affordable again, and where everybody once again can live the American dream.

00:12:28.000 Now, again, if Sleeve were not a Republican, you might have a shot at the Mayor Royalty.

00:12:31.000 He is a Republican, so he doesn't.

00:12:32.000 Zor Mamdani, all he could talk about, Zor Mamdani has a couple of shticks.

00:12:37.000 Again, I cannot even deal with a smile.

00:12:39.000 I can't.

00:12:40.000 It's just, it's so, it is just so creepy and weird.

00:12:45.000 Like the fakeness, the inauthenticity of this phony, phony human being is sinister.

00:12:51.000 I mean, it's like a sinister inauthenticity for Zor Mamdani. 0.99

00:12:55.000 No normal human being smiles this much.

00:12:58.000 It is not a natural thing for humans to do.

00:13:01.000 Okay, like I know a lot of smiley people.

00:13:02.000 Zor Mamdani, like, you've got to be kidding me. 0.95

00:13:06.000 You've got to be kidding me.

00:13:08.000 It's, it's so, but the things that he campaigns on are, he just says affordability and the future a lot.

00:13:13.000 And what does he mean by affordability?

00:13:15.000 He means that he is going to promise a bunch of things he can't actually fulfill because he doesn't have the ability to raise state taxes, as the Wall Street Journal points out.

00:13:23.000 Quote, Mamdani has said he wants to generate $9 billion in new tax revenue by raising taxes on New York City's wealthiest residents and businesses.

00:13:29.000 He's calling for a 2% tax income on incomes over a million bucks, which would produce $4 billion in tax revenue.

00:13:35.000 He wants to increase the state's corporate tax rate to 11.5%, generating $5 billion annually.

00:13:41.000 There's only one problem.

00:13:42.000 He doesn't actually control the state legislature, right?

00:13:45.000 He is a mayor if he wins, not the speaker and not the governor.

00:13:51.000 He wants to spend $6 billion annually on free childcare.

00:13:57.000 He wants to spend $800 million annually on no fair bus service.

00:14:04.000 He wants a complete rent freeze, which, again, I'm not even sure how he would effectuate that.

00:14:09.000 He wants city-owned grocery stores and a $30 minimum wage. 0.98

00:14:12.000 I mean, this is crazy crap. 0.95

00:14:14.000 Zora Mamdani is a weirdo creep Marxist who seems to believe that he can run a junior high presidential campaign in which you promise no homework and free candy every day and people will vote for it. 0.99

00:14:30.000 Maybe it'll work.

00:14:30.000 Apparently, it's going to work, which is a testament to how bad a candidate Andrew Cuomo is and how out of touch New Yorkers are, apparently.

00:14:38.000 Here is Mamdani's opening statement in which he said affordability in the future 2,619 times.

00:14:45.000 While there are three candidates on this stage, you will hear only two messages.

00:14:49.000 My opponents who spend more time trying to convince the other to drop out than actually proposing their own policies will speak only of the past because that's all that they know.

00:14:59.000 I am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city.

00:15:05.000 By the way, his vision for the future very much approximates Vladimir Lenin's vision for the future circa 1917.

00:15:11.000 So, no.

00:15:13.000 Well, he was battered about Zor Mamdani.

00:15:16.000 He didn't get out of this debate scot-free.

00:15:18.000 Andrew Cuomo in particular was on attack against Mamdani. 0.99

00:15:21.000 He pointed out quite correctly that Zor Mamdani is a leech on the ass of society, that he has never held a job, that he has been a completely useless person his entire life, which is absolutely true. 1.00

00:15:30.000 He is a trust fund baby who tried to make a career as a bad rapper before getting elected to the assembly, where he has ditched pretty much every major vote. 0.99

00:15:39.000 He is 33 years old and is yet to hold a real job.

00:15:41.000 And he's running for mayor of the financial capital of planet Earth.

00:15:45.000 Here's Andrew Cuomo smacking him around.

00:15:48.000 You have never had a job.

00:15:50.000 You've never accomplished anything.

00:15:53.000 There's no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for 8.5 million lives.

00:15:59.000 You don't know how to run a government.

00:16:01.000 You don't know how to handle an emergency.

00:16:03.000 And you've literally never proposed a bill on anything that you're not talking about in your campaign.

00:16:10.000 You had the worst attendance record in the assembly, and you gave yourselves the highest raise in the United States of America.

00:16:20.000 You went from $110,000 to $140,000, and then you never showed up for work and you missed 80% of the votes.

00:16:29.000 Shame on you.

00:16:32.000 Well, I mean, all of that is true.

00:16:33.000 And Mamdani is trying to smile his way through it.

00:16:36.000 Como also slammed Mamdani on his anti-Semitism, which is clear and obvious to anybody who's been watching this race for more than two seconds.

00:16:43.000 Mamdani is globalized the intifadashtik.

00:16:46.000 His unwillingness to say that Hamas should disarm, his statements that he will arrest the sitting prime minister of the state of Israel, despite the fact he has no authority to do so.

00:16:54.000 The fact that in his past he's made excuses for the Holy Land Five, people who are literally linked by law enforcement to terrorism and are in jail for those links.

00:17:02.000 The fact that Zorin Mamdani has campaigned alongside and taken pictures alongside people involved as unindited co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

00:17:10.000 Like, that's just the beginning of the list of his pro-jihadism, Mamdani. 0.63

00:17:15.000 Here is Andrew Cuomo smacking him over it.

00:17:19.000 You know, not everything is a TikTok video.

00:17:22.000 You're the savior of the Jewish people. 0.99

00:17:24.000 You won't denounce globalize the Intifada, which means kill Jews. 0.98

00:17:28.000 There's unprecedented fear in New York.

00:17:31.000 It was not several rabbis errors.

00:17:34.000 It was 650 rabbis who signed the letter, not several.

00:17:41.000 And he then went on to go after Mamdani over LGBTQ issues, because one of the weird things about Mamdani is that Mamdani is the scavenger coalition, all in one human. 0.84

00:17:52.000 I talk in my book, Lines and Scavengers, about the scavenger coalition, which would be the leeches, the lechers, and the barbarians.

00:17:58.000 He's trying to appeal to all three.

00:18:00.000 He really is more in the barbarian line, meaning he is somebody who is not originally from the United States, who does not believe in the basic ideals of the United States, but is using the free speech and freedom of thought and free politics in the United States to make his way to destroy the civilization from the inside.

00:18:16.000 That's what Zor Mamdani is. 0.65

00:18:18.000 But Zor Mamdani, of course, holds a lot in common with the jihadis, as we just mentioned.

00:18:23.000 Zarmam Dani holds an enormous amount in common with the Marxists.

00:18:27.000 He is, in fact, a democratic socialist.

00:18:29.000 He's called himself this. 0.90

00:18:30.000 He is a Marxist who does not believe in capitalism, so he's a leech.

00:18:33.000 And he's made common cause with the Lechers, meaning radical LGBTQ activists. 0.93

00:18:37.000 Now, the problem is that you can't hold all three of those things in one person.

00:18:41.000 You can have a movement that contains voters from all three of those things.

00:18:44.000 That's his movement.

00:18:45.000 But he's tried to be all of those things.

00:18:47.000 How can you be a pro-Islamist and also a pro-LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign human? 0.83

00:18:54.000 And this is the point that Andrew Cuomo is making at the same time you're trying to appeal to LGBTQ plus divided by sign voters.

00:19:00.000 You are posing in pictures alongside people who would literally kill those people.

00:19:07.000 You take a picture with Rebecca Kadaga, deputy prime minister of Uganda.

00:19:13.000 You take a picture with your father.

00:19:14.000 You're smiling.

00:19:15.000 He's smiling.

00:19:16.000 She's known as Rebecca Gay Killer Kadaga. 0.99

00:19:20.000 You're a citizen of Uganda.

00:19:22.000 You took the picture.

00:19:23.000 You said you didn't know who she was.

00:19:24.000 It turns out you did.

00:19:25.000 How do you not renounce your citizenship or demand BDS against Uganda for imprisoning people who are gay just by their sexual orientation?

00:19:41.000 Isn't that a basic violation of human rights?

00:19:46.000 And again, he is right about that because Cuomo is sort of a traditional left-wing Democrat.

00:19:52.000 Mamdani is something very, very different.

00:19:54.000 Alrighty, coming up more from that debate between Zara Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Lewon in New York.

00:19:59.000 Plus, Bran Plattner is the bizarre world main Senate Democratic candidate.

00:20:04.000 He's still leading in the polls, by the way.

00:20:06.000 And yeah, dude, just got a cover up of a Nazi tattoo.

00:20:08.000 We'll explore how well that went for him.

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00:21:43.000 If I'm in the car between interviews, I can chew them.

00:21:45.000 Sometimes I'll even open the capsules and mix the powder into my smoothies.

00:21:48.000 However, my day is going, they go with me.

00:21:50.000 Balance of Nature delivers the natural goodness of fruits, veggies, spices, and fibers just as nature intended, which means even when I'm 2,000 miles from home, I'm still taking care of myself the way my family needs me to.

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00:22:16.000 Cuomo also went out of his way to slam Momdani on his economic proposals, which are totally crazy.

00:22:21.000 He slams him over freezing rent.

00:22:23.000 He says, there's not even a way for you to do this.

00:22:24.000 What are you even talking about?

00:22:25.000 What does that mean?

00:22:27.000 I'm going to freeze the rent.

00:22:30.000 People think it applies to all of them.

00:22:32.000 No, just the 25% of the units that are rent stabilized.

00:22:35.000 And by the way, it's all BS because the mayor doesn't have the power to do it anyway.

00:22:41.000 The rent guidelines board does.

00:22:43.000 And he doesn't control the rent guidelines board.

00:22:46.000 So nothing is going to happen.

00:22:50.000 And of course, Cuomo is right about that.

00:22:51.000 Mamdani is making promises he has no intention of keeping.

00:22:54.000 As I say, this is a junior high school presidential campaign in which he promises free cookies and milk, endless candy, and no homework.

00:23:01.000 And if New Yorkers buy this, well, they're going to get to take the ride after they buy the ticket.

00:23:06.000 Cuomo points out that Momdani is a great actor who missed his calling, which I mean, honestly, I think that's a little too complimentary to Mamtani.

00:23:13.000 I'm not sure he had a calling.

00:23:14.000 He's been useless up until his mid-30s. 0.96

00:23:17.000 So at that point, you start to wonder if your calling is just being useless. 0.98

00:23:21.000 Here we go.

00:23:23.000 I am going to increase that pilot program to more than 200 schools, and we're going to do it because we have to deliver for these children.

00:23:34.000 Zoron is a great actor.

00:23:36.000 He missed his calling.

00:23:38.000 Okay, well, I mean, again, not wrong.

00:23:41.000 I will say that, again, Sliwa had the best insult of the night. 1.00

00:23:44.000 He said that Momdani's resume could fill a cocktail napkin.

00:23:48.000 He said, Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.

00:23:50.000 And I mean, that's true.

00:23:53.000 That's true.

00:23:54.000 I just don't understand why Curtis is still in the race.

00:23:58.000 Now, Cuomo and Sliwa both went after Mamdani.

00:24:00.000 Again, Mamdani has been avoiding making any specific policy recommendations beyond these very broad and borderline unachievable promises.

00:24:11.000 And so he was asked about three specific referenda that are on the New York ballot.

00:24:15.000 And Mamdani tried to smile his way through it without giving an answer, which is his way.

00:24:21.000 What is your opinion, Zoron?

00:24:23.000 Come on.

00:24:24.000 Yes, Orton.

00:24:26.000 What is your opinion?

00:24:27.000 Yes or no, Zora.

00:24:29.000 True.

00:24:30.000 Better be a politician.

00:24:31.000 I got it.

00:24:32.000 I got it.

00:24:34.000 They're pointing out what I was about to say.

00:24:38.000 I think on the stage, you can see two people appealing for the Republican Party's vote.

00:24:43.000 Answer the question.

00:24:44.000 Hold on.

00:24:45.000 Answer the question for once.

00:24:47.000 Mike, my question to you was: Do you support the three ballot amendment questions?

00:24:52.000 I have not yet taken a position on those ballot remote questions.

00:24:55.000 What a shocker.

00:24:57.000 What a shocker.

00:25:00.000 You have to sort of enjoy the New York of all of this with the crowd going crazy and Mom Dani trying to smile his way through it.

00:25:05.000 Again, Mom Dani is not great at this. 0.99

00:25:06.000 He's great in TikTok videos, and that's kind of it.

00:25:09.000 He's great in TikTok videos.

00:25:10.000 He has a bunch of positions that are absolutely between incoherent and insane.

00:25:15.000 And he has a population in New York City that is delusional enough to believe that they can endure another horrific mayoralty along the lines of Bill de Blasio and everything will suddenly be okay.

00:25:26.000 What kind of stuff is Mom Dani proposing? 1.00

00:25:28.000 Well, just to take from his apple tree of stupidity, one apple. 1.00

00:25:33.000 At one point last night, he was asked about the police, and he said that dispatchers should decide whether it's appropriate to even send the police. 1.00

00:25:42.000 Maybe they should instead send mental health professionals and the dispatcher should decide.

00:25:49.000 What I am proposing is something that will address the needs of New Yorkers in the present.

00:25:54.000 We speak and hear from New Yorkers across the five boroughs who outline how the mental health crisis is one of the major challenges in this city.

00:26:02.000 And yet what we have in our city is asking those same police officers who are being asked to respond to shootings, respond to murders, to also respond to these calls.

00:26:10.000 I trust the dispatchers who would be receiving these calls to make the determination as to whether there was any indication of violence.

00:26:17.000 If there is no indication of a threat of violence, then we would set the mental health experts and providers to respond to those same incidents.

00:26:28.000 So, no.

00:26:31.000 I mean, the answer is no.

00:26:32.000 So, you want the 911 dispatchers to be the people who are now determining whether to send a cop or whether to send a social worker.

00:26:41.000 So, I asked our friends over at Comet, which is a project of perplexity: what are the qualifications for a 911 dispatcher in New York City?

00:26:48.000 Since apparently, Zorn Momdani now wants them to make judgment calls on the spur of the moment, whether to send a social worker or a cop.

00:26:55.000 Apparently, according to comments, it qualifies a 911 dispatcher in New York City.

00:26:59.000 Applicants must meet strict educational, experiential, and training standards set by the NYPD in New York State.

00:27:04.000 So, what are they?

00:27:05.000 Well, first, you have to be a U.S. citizen and have a high school diploma or a GED.

00:27:10.000 Wow.

00:27:12.000 Also, you have to have one year of full-time paid clerical or customer service experience involving public contacts.

00:27:18.000 So, if you worked as like a customer service person at Walmart, cool.

00:27:22.000 Civil service and assessments.

00:27:24.000 You have to pass the New York City Civil Service Examination for a police communications technician administered by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

00:27:31.000 I'm sure that is an extraordinarily challenging task, I'm sure.

00:27:35.000 And then you have to complete 200 hours of training under the Emergency Services Dispatch Training Evaluation Program, which I assume is like a month of training or so, and includes courses in communications, radio operations, stress management, and legal aspects.

00:27:50.000 You have 18 months to complete that.

00:27:53.000 So, that is okay.

00:27:57.000 And then you have to have emergency medical dispatcher certification and also emergency fire certification and CPR certification.

00:28:07.000 So, I don't know where in there that qualifies you to make a judgment call based on a loose set of facts about whether to send a cop or not.

00:28:14.000 I'm not super comfortable with people with a high school GED and 200 hours of some form of training and a couple of state certifications, being a person who decides whether or not a cop shows up with a gun or a social worker shows up with a pencil and a clipboard when a nut is trying to push somebody in front of a train on a subway platform.

00:28:37.000 How could it go wrong?

00:28:38.000 Well, Mom Dani's one bright shining moment is, of course, when he slapped at Andrew Cuomo over Cuomo's harassment allegations.

00:28:44.000 This, of course, is the thing that got Cuomo booted from higher office.

00:28:48.000 Mom Dani pulled to Trump.

00:28:50.000 He said that some of the accusers were in the audience, and then Cuomo responded: here was Mom Dani's accusation: Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment.

00:29:08.000 Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself, all while describing these allegations as entirely political.

00:29:21.000 You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. 0.86

00:29:25.000 One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. 0.99

00:29:31.000 You sought to access her private gynecological records.

00:29:36.000 She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her.

00:29:41.000 I, however, can speak.

00:29:44.000 What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?

00:29:48.000 Okay, so Cuomo then responded to those claims.

00:29:51.000 One of the big problems for Cuomo here is that the guy still hasn't come up with a great answer on this.

00:29:55.000 Now, first of all, if you lodge a defamation claim against somebody because what you're saying is that they said something that is absolutely false, that I know that Mamdani is trying to claim that that's a form of silencing.

00:30:06.000 That is a legal procedure because you are claiming the person lied about you.

00:30:09.000 I'm not sure exactly what the alternative would be.

00:30:11.000 Now, again, that's not a defense of Andrew Cuomo and his behavior with women.

00:30:13.000 I just think that it's kind of legally pernicious to suggest that if there is, for example, an NDA, which is a normal employment thing, or if there is a defamation case that you lodge against someone you say is lying, and somehow this in and of itself amounts to an act of silencing.

00:30:29.000 It can be used that way, but not necessarily.

00:30:32.000 Anyway, here's Andrew Cuomo.

00:30:35.000 If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature.

00:30:41.000 There were allegations of sexual harassment.

00:30:45.000 They were then went to five district attorneys, fully litigated for four years.

00:30:50.000 The cases were dropped, right?

00:30:52.000 You know that as a fact.

00:30:54.000 So everything you just stated, you just said was a misstatement, which we're accustomed to.

00:30:58.000 You say it was a misstatement because the cases, the cases were dropped.

00:31:06.000 Okay, now, again, that's not a horrible answer, but it's not a great answer.

00:31:09.000 And herein lies the problem.

00:31:11.000 The reason that Mamdani is winning is not just because, obviously, he's a TikTok hot thing. 0.99

00:31:16.000 It's also because Andrew Cuomo is a crappy candidate. 0.59

00:31:18.000 Andrew Cuomo has never been a wonderful candidate in the state of New York. 0.97

00:31:22.000 And he's run a really lackluster race.

00:31:24.000 If Mamdani ends up as the actual mayor of New York, yes, part of the blame goes to Curtis for not dropping out of the race, but a huge part of the blame goes to Andrew Cuomo, who should have been able to defeat Zorin Mamdani in a Democratic primary.

00:31:36.000 Bottom line here is this.

00:31:38.000 If you want an honest assessment of where New Yorkers stand, Curtis should drop out of the race.

00:31:42.000 I've said it 10 times.

00:31:43.000 I'll say it again.

00:31:44.000 He should drop out of the race.

00:31:45.000 He does not have a path to victory.

00:31:46.000 About one-fifth of New York City residents who are eligible for the election are registered Republicans.

00:31:53.000 Most of the rest are registered Democrats.

00:31:56.000 If Sleewa continues to pick off 15, 20% of the vote, there is no shot for Cuomo.

00:32:02.000 Cuomo, he's a bad candidate.

00:32:04.000 But if you are hopeful at all for the future of New York, Zora Mamdani as mayor is a bad idea.

00:32:09.000 Now, again, I'm of divided mind about this because to my mind, I still have the H.L. Mankin phraseology.

00:32:15.000 And that is that democracy is the theory that people get what they vote for good and hard.

00:32:20.000 And so if New Yorkers really, really want Zora Mamdani, they can have him. 0.98

00:32:23.000 And then the prices in Palm Beach will go up.

00:32:27.000 But as somebody who would actually like to see New York not become even more of a bleep poll than it has become recently, I'm obviously rooting very hard for the defeat of this Marxist Islamist as mayor of New York. 1.00

00:32:38.000 It says an awful lot about the state of the country, the state of Gen X and millennials, that this is even a close race, and that Mamdani certainly is likely to win, which is wild. 0.54

00:32:47.000 Already coming up, we have the Senate Majority Leader.

00:32:50.000 We have the EPA administrator, plus our own White House reporter, Mary Margaret Olihan, stops by to talk about this White House reconstruction project. 0.90

00:32:56.000 First, folks, the response has been huge.

00:32:59.000 I did a signing on All Access Live with some of you a little bit earlier this week.

00:33:02.000 Since then, Lions and Scavengers have been flying off the shelves faster than we can even restock the book.

00:33:06.000 And get this.

00:33:07.000 It is a New York Times bestseller.

00:33:09.000 It's not just another book.

00:33:10.000 It's a very, very important book.

00:33:12.000 It's a rallying cry against the cultural rot poisoning our society.

00:33:15.000 Lions and scavengers tells the truth that people refuse to confront with the holidays right around the corner.

00:33:20.000 It makes a perfect gift for the real lions in your life, the people who still believe in courage, strength, and truth.

00:33:25.000 You need to move fast.

00:33:26.000 The signed copies are disappearing very quickly.

00:33:27.000 Go to dailywire.com slash shop right now.

00:33:30.000 Grab your signed copy of the New York Times bestseller, Lions and Scavengers, before they're gone for good.

00:33:34.000 Again, that's dailywire.com slash shop.

00:33:37.000 Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has its continued struggles with people who seem pretty warm toward both the sort of new Nazism in Hamas and also sometimes, I guess, the old Nazism. 0.60

00:33:48.000 Graham Plattner continues to be a controversial figure.

00:33:51.000 He, of course, is Bernie Sanders, endorsed candidate in that Maine Senate race.

00:33:56.000 And he got caught on tape.

00:33:58.000 He actually released the tape because he knew it was going to break.

00:34:00.000 He was caught on tape shirtless at a wedding a few years back.

00:34:03.000 And the problem with that is not that he's shirtless at a wedding, although, you know, just as a general rule, dudes, keep your shirts on at weddings.

00:34:09.000 But particularly, keep your shirt on at a wedding if you have a giant death's head tattoo, like a Nazi death's head tattoo.

00:34:15.000 And for those who don't believe that that's what that is, I'm just going to point out that if you watch Schindler's list, okay, Ralph finds his character, literally wears it on his collar as a member of the SS.

00:34:24.000 This is not like an obscure symbol here.

00:34:28.000 So now Graham Plattner is trying to buy it back.

00:34:30.000 He says, no, I never knew that.

00:34:31.000 I didn't know it was a Nazi thing.

00:34:33.000 I just thought it was like a cool pirate thing or something.

00:34:35.000 And now he says that he is going to have a tattoo redesign.

00:34:41.000 This, by the way, is not like a tiny tattoo.

00:34:42.000 A very large tattoo on his chest.

00:34:44.000 He had a tattoo redesign.

00:34:46.000 The only thing worse than the media cover-up is the actual tattoo redesign, which is horrendous.

00:34:51.000 I don't know who his tattoo artist is.

00:34:53.000 Apparently, they just got released from Rikers and they were using needle and ink that they swirled up in a toilet or something.

00:35:01.000 I don't know who the tattoo artist here was.

00:35:03.000 Let's just say not very good.

00:35:05.000 And also, nobody needed to see Graham Plattner shirtless.

00:35:07.000 My God. 0.99

00:35:09.000 So he went for the fat, pregnant wolf cockroach. 0.97

00:35:16.000 That's what he went for there.

00:35:19.000 That's not ideal. 0.85

00:35:22.000 Like this person's judgment, I think we've seen enough of Graham Plattner's chest and nipple there.

00:35:26.000 I think we can move on with our lives.

00:35:27.000 But this is the person who you want to be, the next senator from Maine. 0.95

00:35:31.000 Idiocracy is here, folks. 0.93

00:35:32.000 Idiocracy is real.

00:35:34.000 Mike Judge's movie was a documentary. 1.00

00:35:36.000 Here's Bernie Sanders, another complete dunder-headed moron, defending Graham Plattner, of course. 0.99

00:35:43.000 You said yesterday you're still supporting him. 0.99

00:35:46.000 I'm not overly impressed by the squad of media running around saying, What do you think about the tattoo on Grand Plattner's chest?

00:35:46.000 Why?

00:35:57.000 He went into a dark period in his life.

00:36:02.000 I suspect that Graham Plattner is not the only American to have gone through a dark period.

00:36:07.000 But what he did was he has expressed his darkness on the internet.

00:36:12.000 Probably not a brilliant thing to do.

00:36:13.000 All right.

00:36:15.000 And I think as a nation, especially given the fact that we have a president who is convicted of 34 felonies, maybe we have to do a little bit of forgiveness.

00:36:28.000 Oh, my God.

00:36:30.000 Really, Bernie?

00:36:31.000 Really?

00:36:33.000 Seriously?

00:36:33.000 You?

00:36:35.000 Well, I guess that the red-brown alliance rides in tandem as per the usual arrangement. 0.98

00:36:41.000 Meanwhile, the government shutdown continues apace.

00:36:43.000 Doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon.

00:36:45.000 Democrats seem to think that this is a winning issue for them, despite the polling that doesn't demonstrate that in any way, shape, or form.

00:36:51.000 Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, he is trying to blame this on President Trump, which is wild because literally Trump's position is: what if we just keep funding the government at the current rates we are funding the government?

00:37:00.000 Here's Hakeem Jeffries.

00:37:02.000 I love that Democrats are now saying that we have to save health care.

00:37:04.000 Wait, wait, why is it in danger?

00:37:06.000 Why is it in danger?

00:37:07.000 I thought that Obamacare saved healthcare.

00:37:09.000 I was alive for Obamacare.

00:37:10.000 I remember it because I'm more than like 13 years old.

00:37:14.000 So I remember when Obamacare became a thing.

00:37:18.000 So why didn't it save healthcare?

00:37:20.000 Why aren't we done already?

00:37:21.000 Wait, wait, are you saying Obamacare has been generally a fail?

00:37:25.000 Anyway, Hakeem Jeffery says we have to save Obamacare by shutting down the government.

00:37:31.000 Donald Trump has spent more time on the golf course than he has in talking to Democrats on Capitol Hill to reopen the government to enact a spending agreement that's bipartisan and to address the Republican health care crisis.

00:37:46.000 His behavior, unpresidential, unhinged, unpatriotic, un-American, throughout this process, speaks for itself.

00:37:58.000 Now, I think that actually what speaks for itself is the bizarre Democratic insistence that we shut down the government so they can undo a bill they were unable to stop a few months back.

00:38:11.000 Joining me on the line is the Republican Senate Majority Leader, John Thune.

00:38:14.000 Senator Thun, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:38:16.000 Really appreciate it.

00:38:17.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:38:17.000 Always good to be with you.

00:38:18.000 So let's talk about the latest on the government shutdown.

00:38:21.000 Democrats seem to have shown very little sign that they are interested in caving.

00:38:24.000 You have a few Democrats who are sort of moderates on the other side who have talked about the necessity to get past the government shutdown, Senator Fetterman being the most obvious.

00:38:32.000 Where do you think we are at this point?

00:38:34.000 Well, we'll find out.

00:38:35.000 I mean, I think right now we've got to vote later this evening to open up the government again.

00:38:38.000 This will be the 12th.

00:38:40.000 The Democrats will vote it down again.

00:38:42.000 Tomorrow, we're going to give them a different something else to vote on.

00:38:45.000 We gave them a defense appropriations bill to vote on last week, which would have funded the troops, and they block voted against that.

00:38:52.000 This one tomorrow is a Ron Johnson bill, which essentially what it does, Ben, is it basically just pays everybody who's working.

00:38:59.000 So anybody in the federal workforce, you know, furloughed employees will obviously get back pay, but anybody today who is working in any government agency would get paid.

00:39:07.000 And I don't know what they're going to do, but as you suggest right now, it looks like they're sort of digging in.

00:39:13.000 And I'm not sure why.

00:39:14.000 I think this is a real losing hand for them to play.

00:39:17.000 It's certainly costing people all over the country big time, particularly federal employees.

00:39:23.000 And the longer this thing drags on, the worse it gets.

00:39:25.000 But they, at this point, at least right now, don't seem prepared to want to come to their senses and actually do the right thing for the American people, which is to keep the government open.

00:39:36.000 And Senator Thun, they've talked a lot about the idea that what they're trying to do here is lower the cost curve on health care, that premiums are too high.

00:39:42.000 What they really mean by that, I assume, is that they want to continue to subsidize Obamacare at essentially pandemic levels, despite the fact that the pandemic has been over for several years at this point.

00:39:52.000 Isn't this also sort of a tacit admission that Obamacare didn't do its job?

00:39:56.000 We were told that Obamacare was going to radically bend the cost curve and bring down the cost of premiums.

00:39:59.000 And here you have Democrats openly acknowledging that absent a gigantic infusion of more government subsidy from the federal level, the premiums are too high.

00:40:07.000 And they created this crisis, this COVID cliff, if you will, and these enhanced subsidies, which did go into effect, as you point out, during the pandemic.

00:40:07.000 Right.

00:40:16.000 It was supposed to be a response to that.

00:40:18.000 The pandemic's long over.

00:40:19.000 They created the expiration date.

00:40:21.000 So this is really a problem of their own making.

00:40:23.000 But the broader point is the right one, and that is that everything that Obamacare has done, including these enhanced subsidies, has added to the cost of insurance policies.

00:40:32.000 In fact, if you look from 2013 to 2025 to where we are today, insurance rates and the exchanges, the Obamacare exchanges, have gone up about 221%, if you can believe that.

00:40:44.000 And so it's done nothing but inflate the cost that people are paying for health insurance across this country.

00:40:50.000 And that's because the fundamental program is flawed.

00:40:53.000 And then the enhanced subsidies were flawed, too.

00:40:55.000 They didn't have an income limit.

00:40:57.000 So you've got people who are making $5,000, $600,000 a year who qualified.

00:41:00.000 They have zero premium policy, so people don't even know they're covered.

00:41:03.000 Insurance companies are incentivized to auto-enroll people.

00:41:07.000 And so it's become a money maker, you know, just a factory for insurance companies to make money because there are a lot of people out there that they enroll who don't even know they have coverage.

00:41:15.000 And so you've got this flawed structure with no incentive to constrain costs.

00:41:21.000 And as a consequence, you've got just the costs going up at astronomical rates every year.

00:41:26.000 So it's their problem.

00:41:28.000 They created it.

00:41:29.000 Now they're expecting Republicans to try and solve it for them.

00:41:32.000 And that's their price for opening up the federal government.

00:41:34.000 And it's a price that is a very stiff one because you're looking at to do it the way they want to do it.

00:41:39.000 It's about $400 billion.

00:41:41.000 Now, Senator Thun, Senator Fenderman has suggested that actually the filibuster ought to be nuked, which is, I think, unique.

00:41:47.000 I've never seen a situation in which a member of the opposition party calls for the majority party to nuke the filibuster in order to get something done.

00:41:54.000 Obviously, you have reservations about doing that.

00:41:56.000 Every time the filibuster has been nuked in the past, it has led to a new precedent, which is that it no longer exists for those types of scenarios.

00:42:04.000 That's obviously been true when Democrats nuked the filibuster for judicial nominees.

00:42:07.000 That led to the Republicans being able to actually get onto the Supreme Court a bunch of nominees they otherwise might not have been able to get through.

00:42:14.000 Why do you think it's important to maintain the filibuster in cases like this?

00:42:18.000 Well, I think that legislative, and by the way, the executive calendar, which is different, so that's judges, all the executive branch nominees are on the executive calendar.

00:42:25.000 And we did change the rules.

00:42:26.000 We changed the rules most recently here, just about six weeks ago, on nominees, Trump executive branch nominees, the Democrats had just completely filibustered and shut that process down.

00:42:37.000 So we opened it up.

00:42:38.000 The legislative filibuster is designed to protect the voice of the minority in this country, and it's been used effectively for a long time to do just that.

00:42:44.000 And it's prevented a lot of bad things from happening.

00:42:47.000 Republicans have used it in the past.

00:42:49.000 And most recently, the Democrats tried to get rid of the filibuster for what they called their elections reform bill, which basically was consolidating all of elections in Washington, D.C. It would have taken power to regulate elections away from the states, would have done away with voter ID.

00:43:05.000 And had it not been for Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, they would have succeeded in doing it at that time.

00:43:11.000 They voted against it.

00:43:12.000 But the Democrats have made it clear they would love to get rid of the filibuster to enact their agenda, which includes statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., an expanded Supreme Court up to 15 seats there, abortion on demand.

00:43:25.000 As I said, federalizing our election system.

00:43:28.000 Those are just a few of the list of horrible bowls that they put out there. 0.96

00:43:30.000 And they all campaigned on that.

00:43:33.000 But if we tried to do it now, all 47 of them, I can guarantee you, would block vote against it.

00:43:38.000 So it's just situational for them.

00:43:40.000 It's all about political power.

00:43:42.000 And now that they are on the outside, they're going to use this to their advantage.

00:43:47.000 I just think that we ought to be able to do this the old-fashioned way, and that is open up the government by just having five more Democrats vote with us.

00:43:54.000 And that's all it's going to take.

00:43:55.000 So we shouldn't be in this.

00:43:57.000 Everything is harder than it should be right now because of Trump derangement syndrome.

00:44:02.000 But I still think at some point there are going to be some rank-and-file Democrats who break with their leadership and do the right thing for the country, and that is open up the government.

00:44:10.000 Senator, one of the other things is that you've been busy actually getting President Trump's nominees through.

00:44:14.000 There is a lot of heartburn about the inability to get nominees through.

00:44:18.000 You have been getting an enormous number of executive branch nominees through judicial nominees.

00:44:22.000 You've been getting through.

00:44:23.000 Can you give us an update on the nomination schedule?

00:44:25.000 What's been going on there?

00:44:26.000 We cleared the backlog.

00:44:26.000 Right.

00:44:28.000 The Democrats have completely shut it down.

00:44:31.000 I mean, we were forced to be here.

00:44:32.000 We've been here more days, more hours, cast more votes than any Senate in history, at least in the last 40 years, as a result of the Democrats' obstruction.

00:44:40.000 And so we did make a change in the rules that enables us to start processing some of the executive branch nominations in batches, and that's enabled us to catch up.

00:44:50.000 But there are more coming.

00:44:52.000 And on the judiciary side, we're doing some this week.

00:44:54.000 We're going to do a circuit court at the end of the week.

00:44:56.000 Now, we're doing district court judges this.

00:44:59.000 We had about 50 of those that were in the backlog.

00:45:02.000 And we still have to do those the old-fashioned way.

00:45:04.000 We can't do those in batches.

00:45:06.000 But as you know, the judiciary is an enormously important part of what we do here.

00:45:10.000 And we want to make sure that we are filling those positions with people who are constitutionalists, who understand that the role of a judge is not to write the laws, but to interpret and apply them.

00:45:22.000 And so those are the kinds of judges that we're looking for.

00:45:25.000 And it's going to be really important for us to continue to fill the judiciary and the executive branch.

00:45:31.000 President Trump's nominees, the executive branch, to be able to implement the agenda that he ran on and that the American people voted for.

00:45:37.000 And Senator Thun, meanwhile, the Trump administration, obviously very active on the foreign policy front over the course of the last couple of weeks, the Trump administration has made some extraordinary moves in the Middle East, particularly with regard to Israel and freeing Israeli hostages from the tender mercies of Hamas, trying to unite the rest of the world around extirpating Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

00:45:56.000 I had the privilege of actually being in the Knesset when President Trump made his speech at the invitation of Ambassador Huckabee.

00:46:02.000 What do you make of what the Trump administration has been doing in the Middle East?

00:46:04.000 What do you think is the future of the Gaza Strip right now?

00:46:08.000 Right.

00:46:08.000 Well, and I saw some of your coverage from over there, which I thought was great, Ben.

00:46:11.000 And I just think that it is remarkable what the president has accomplished here and what his team has accomplished.

00:46:17.000 And it builds on the success of the Abraham Accords. 0.97

00:46:20.000 Obviously, we're far from being in a state where we can declare total victory because Hamas is still active.

00:46:26.000 And in my view, they need to be completely obliterated or at least disarmed so that they are not a factor in governing the Gaza Strip. 1.00

00:46:34.000 So there's still work to be done.

00:46:37.000 But the way in which this administration has worked with the Israelis, with our Arab allies in the region, to bring about an outcome that I think nobody thought achievable just a few weeks ago, and that is getting these hostages released.

00:46:51.000 And then, you know, now, obviously, the hard part begins and trying to come up with a security force to maintain security there and figure out what the next step is in order to make that a place in the world that people want to visit that enjoys some of the success and prosperity that folks in the neighborhood have.

00:47:07.000 I think there is some tremendous opportunities there.

00:47:10.000 It wouldn't have been possible had it not been for President Trump and his leadership.

00:47:14.000 And so congratulations to him.

00:47:16.000 But we still have a lot of work to do.

00:47:18.000 And Prime Minister Netanyahu and our president working together with our allies in the region, hopefully will continue to stabilize that area and make it a place that's attractive for people to live and work and invest.

00:47:29.000 And Senator Thun, once the government shutdown ends, and I have to assume that at some point in the future it will end.

00:47:34.000 We won't be here a year from now with the government shutdown continuing, I would assume.

00:47:37.000 Once it ends, what are the legislative priorities for you and for the rest of the Republican caucus?

00:47:42.000 Well, obviously, you know, funding the government the old-fashioned way through the appropriations process.

00:47:46.000 This is a short-term funding resolution that buys us some time, but we need to do the full year.

00:47:52.000 But I think there are a lot of opportunities out there.

00:47:55.000 There are things like permitting reform.

00:47:57.000 There are things like AI, which has become a very, very big issue in our lives.

00:48:03.000 There are, we've got to do a farm bill.

00:48:05.000 We've got to do a highway, a transportation bill.

00:48:07.000 There's a lot of work for Congress to do that has been put on the, you know, kind of on the back burner while the government's been shut down.

00:48:14.000 But, you know, the most important thing that we do is take care and make sure that we protect the country.

00:48:19.000 I always tell people, if you don't get national security right, the rest is conversation.

00:48:23.000 So we did get the defense authorization bill across the finish line in the Senate.

00:48:26.000 We tried, as I said earlier, to put the defense appropriations bill on the floor, which funds all those priorities, and the Democrats blocked it.

00:48:34.000 But taking care of America's national security interests in what is a very dangerous world is going to continue to be a big priority for us.

00:48:41.000 And then, like I said, there are lots of other legislative priorities that I think, and there are some areas where we can work together.

00:48:48.000 There's some things that we can do in a bipartisan way with Democrats, but we've got to get past this government shutdown and the Democrats holding the federal employees hostage, basically, if you will, to try and get a bunch of unrelated policy things that they want to get done.

00:49:05.000 And I've said I'm perfectly happy to have the conversation and talk with them about some of those things.

00:49:09.000 But we can't do that while the government's being held hostage.

00:49:13.000 Well, Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

00:49:14.000 Senator, really appreciate your time and your hard work on all of the aforementioned topics.

00:49:19.000 Thanks so much for your time.

00:49:20.000 Good to be with you.

00:49:21.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:49:21.000 Talk to you soon.

00:49:22.000 Meanwhile, the Trump administration, they're actually doing their best to actually not make the American people feel the pain of the government shutdown.

00:49:28.000 That is a different thing that has happened in the past.

00:49:30.000 Typically, if it's a Republican Congress that shuts down the government because they want changes and a Democrat in the White House who's attempting to fight back against that, for example, usually Democrats try to maximize the pain to bring pressure on Congress.

00:49:43.000 Republicans are not doing that this time.

00:49:44.000 They're actually running the government in a responsible fashion.

00:49:47.000 One of the people doing that is the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldon.

00:49:51.000 He joins us on the line right now.

00:49:52.000 Lee, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:49:53.000 I really appreciate it.

00:49:54.000 Oh, it's good to be with you, Ben.

00:49:57.000 So why don't you tell me about sort of what the impacts are of the government shutdown?

00:50:00.000 I know that for most Americans, this has become kind of a rote thing, actually.

00:50:04.000 I think that if you went back 10 years, this would have been the top headline every day for the last several weeks.

00:50:09.000 Now, because we've gone through it a few times, I think most Americans just figure it'll eventually peter out, but it is having real impacts.

00:50:14.000 How are you seeing it?

00:50:14.000 What are those impacts?

00:50:16.000 Well, one, as you saw with Congresswoman Clark over the course of these last couple of days, talking about how they acknowledge congressional Democrats that this is causing American families to suffer.

00:50:28.000 And she refers to it as leverage that needs to be used in this negotiation.

00:50:33.000 So there is an acknowledgement that this does cause suffering.

00:50:36.000 And as time goes by and snap payments start to be missed, paychecks start to be missed.

00:50:42.000 I think more Americans will be feeling it in the days and the weeks to come.

00:50:47.000 The other thing, too, is that this is a shutdown where the Republicans keep voting to have the government open and it's the Democrats voting no.

00:50:56.000 I think if it was reversed, some of these outlets like New York Times, it might be above the fold front page every single day that the Democrats are having votes to have the government open and the Republicans would be voting no.

00:51:09.000 So I think that the issue is on the other foot.

00:51:11.000 We'd see different media coverage.

00:51:13.000 For us here at the EPA, we operate off of a lot of carryover funding.

00:51:17.000 It's not necessarily a fiscal year that ends on September 30th.

00:51:21.000 We have funding that's multiple, that multiple years.

00:51:24.000 We had a furlough that kicked in, a little over 4,000 people this past Monday.

00:51:29.000 As we move forward in coming weeks, that will go up.

00:51:32.000 If we had a total lapse of funding, that would be about an 89% furlough here at the agency.

00:51:38.000 And the more you furlough this agency, the more that we are unable to fulfill our statutory obligations and work to implement the people's agenda of ensuring clean air, land and water for all Americans, which gets to our core mission.

00:51:55.000 Minister Zeldon, one of the things that the Trump administration has done differently during this government shutdown than the Obama administration did during government shutdowns that happened under their watch, the Obama administration really attempted to maximize pain.

00:52:06.000 And I'm old enough to remember when they attempted, for example, to shut down open-air World War II memorials and not let anybody into national parks and all the rest of it.

00:52:14.000 You and the Trump administration, by contrast, have been attempting to minimize the impact on Americans' lives.

00:52:20.000 You have a contingency plan for a shutdown that still allows your agency to continue functioning, even under these circumstances.

00:52:27.000 Yeah, that's such a great point, Ben.

00:52:29.000 We're trying to minimize, mitigate the impact of the shutdown as much as possible.

00:52:36.000 When I said that we just had this furlough kick in of about 4,000 employees, this isn't something that we enthusiastically did on October 1st.

00:52:45.000 We prevented it as long as we possibly could, as long as there was funding that was available.

00:52:51.000 A total lapse of funding, as I pointed out, would be an 89% reduction in the services that we provide.

00:52:58.000 I mean, listen, we could attempt to do that right now, but we're trying to mitigate the damage of the shutdown on the American people.

00:53:06.000 That's an example of one agency looking to do its part.

00:53:09.000 We're hearing the same thing from other agencies trying to accomplish the same.

00:53:13.000 We want to mitigate impacts as much as we can and hope that congressional Democrats decide to vote yes on what is a clean CR.

00:53:21.000 This is not something that is filled with a partisan wish list of conservatives.

00:53:27.000 This is just a funding bill to keep the government open.

00:53:31.000 And Minister Zeldon, I also want to talk to you about the fact that the EPA has done extraordinary work under your auspices in making sure that the economy functions.

00:53:39.000 One of the things that's been kind of amazing to watch over the course of President Trump's second term, there have been a lot of crosswinds.

00:53:44.000 I mean, obviously, the tariffs have roiled a lot of people.

00:53:46.000 People have been worried about those.

00:53:48.000 You've had the concerns over the government shutdown.

00:53:51.000 You've had the one big beautiful bill.

00:53:52.000 It has not been, shall we say, like the smoothest economic road for people who are looking for consistent policy.

00:53:58.000 But one of the areas that has really spurred the economy and ensured that the economy continues to grow, investment continues, has been the EPA's approach to the economy.

00:54:06.000 The attempts to streamline and cut regulation is a massive thing you've been doing over at the EPA.

00:54:11.000 Yes, sir.

00:54:12.000 We choose to both protect the environment and grow the economy.

00:54:15.000 It's not a binary choice.

00:54:17.000 There was this belief that in order to protect the environment, you had to strangulate entire sectors of the economy.

00:54:24.000 We this year at the Trump EPA reject that notion.

00:54:27.000 We are going through an amount of deregulation that, when finalized in one year, would be more deregulation than entire federal governments have done in the past across all federal agencies across entire presidencies.

00:54:41.000 That's just that one agency here at the EPA.

00:54:45.000 One proposal alone, a proposed rescission of the 2009 Obama endangerment finding, if finalized, would be the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States.

00:54:56.000 We are not just imposing our will on the American public and saying this is what we believe to be right.

00:55:02.000 This is our final decision and we implement it.

00:55:05.000 We have a proposal that goes out to the public.

00:55:08.000 There's a public comment period.

00:55:09.000 We respond to those comments and then we meet our final decision.

00:55:13.000 Ben, you're somebody who follows Supreme Court decisions.

00:55:18.000 You're well read in our law and our Constitution.

00:55:21.000 The Supreme Court in recent years, they issued a decision in the Loperbright case overturning the Chevron Doctrine, saying essentially that agencies like the EPA can't use vague language in getting creative and giving themselves more power.

00:55:37.000 If there's an absence inside of statute, it doesn't say that the agency can't.

00:55:40.000 Well, I guess that means we can.

00:55:42.000 That was an interpretation of the past.

00:55:45.000 Now that the Chevron Doctrine is overturned, we at the EPA will follow the plain language of the law.

00:55:51.000 We will follow the law and we will not take creative liberty in giving ourselves more power because of it.

00:55:57.000 That was one of the ironies, by the way, of this no kings protest that just took place.

00:56:02.000 The president's directive to me at the agency is that every single day we should be reducing our powers, that we should be empowering states, empowering the people to be in charge of their own lives and to help the economy flourish.

00:56:17.000 One other quick point I wanted to mention: you know, we've gone through substantial efficiencies over the course of this year to save tax dollars.

00:56:25.000 The annual operating budget of EPA is about $10 billion.

00:56:29.000 I've canceled over $29 billion worth of grants, $750 million annually in staffing reductions, money saved in media consolidations, real estate consolidations.

00:56:41.000 I'm sorry, media cancellations of subscriptions, real estate consolidations, closed an EPA museum that no one knew about or even visited.

00:56:50.000 And the savings just keep getting racked up on behalf of the American taxpayer.

00:56:55.000 Another important thing to fight for Americans, American families, and also the American economy.

00:57:02.000 Well, that is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldon.

00:57:05.000 Lee, thanks so much for your hard work and thanks for joining us on the show.

00:57:08.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:57:08.000 Really appreciate the time.

00:57:09.000 Meanwhile, Democrats are complaining ad nauseum about the White House redesign.

00:57:15.000 Politico's coverage is typically over the top.

00:57:18.000 Quote, it's your house and he's destroying it.

00:57:20.000 Trump demolishes White House East Wing.

00:57:22.000 I'm just telling you, I've been to the East Wing.

00:57:24.000 It's not iconic.

00:57:25.000 It's a bunch of office spaces.

00:57:27.000 It is not the West Wing.

00:57:28.000 It's not what the Oval is.

00:57:30.000 It's not literally none of the rooms that you care about are in the East Wing of the White House.

00:57:33.000 Let me just tell you that.

00:57:35.000 Because I've been there.

00:57:36.000 In fact, in order to get into the East Wing of the White House, they usually have to set up these giant tents outside if it's raining or snowing or something.

00:57:43.000 And then the room where they hold these sort of events with foreign dignitaries hold like 200 people.

00:57:49.000 It's tiny.

00:57:50.000 These are tiny rooms.

00:57:51.000 Putting in a ballroom is not only not a bad idea, it's quite a good idea.

00:57:55.000 And yet, Democrats are freaking out over it.

00:57:57.000 Images of a partially destroyed East Wing, according to Politico, first published by the Washington Post on Monday, sparked an outcry online and a quick defense from the White House.

00:58:05.000 The National Trust for Historic Preservation added to criticism of the administration in a letter to the National Park Service and other organizations Tuesday, warning the current redesign of the ballroom threatens to overwhelm the White House and requesting a freeze on further construction until a commission that oversees the iconic urban landscape of the nation's capital is consulted.

00:58:22.000 Hillary Clinton said it's not his house, it's your house, and he's destroying it.

00:58:26.000 Madam, may I recommend that you sit down on this one? 0.94

00:58:29.000 Your husband literally had oral with an intern in the Oval Office.

00:58:33.000 We're talking about degrading the spaces of the White House.

00:58:36.000 I think you are not the person.

00:58:38.000 You stole like the silverware from the White House when you guys left.

00:58:43.000 You are not a good person to talk about this, like not a good person to talk about this at all.

00:58:47.000 Meanwhile, President Trump was showing photos and plans of the future ballroom.

00:58:50.000 And frankly, it looks kind of nice.

00:58:53.000 Nobody's actually seen anything quite like it.

00:58:56.000 I think it'll be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world.

00:59:00.000 It's about $300 million.

00:59:02.000 It's set to do many, many things, including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders.

00:59:08.000 You can see this.

00:59:10.000 This is a plan.

00:59:12.000 If it's got tables so that you honor a foreign leader, we have a proper space.

00:59:18.000 Right now, we have a space that with tables holds about 79 people.

00:59:22.000 And this is a proper kind of a thing.

00:59:24.000 Now, what the White House was doing, as you know, is they were putting tents out on the lawn.

00:59:29.000 This is an interior shot of the ballroom.

00:59:33.000 I think there'll be nothing like it.

00:59:37.000 So, again, I don't see anything wrong with this ballroom design, like, at all.

00:59:40.000 And this idea that something historic is being destroyed.

00:59:43.000 It was built in 1942 by FDR.

00:59:45.000 Again, it's a bunch of small offices. 0.99

00:59:47.000 Very silly. 0.98

00:59:47.000 A reporter went after Trump over it. 0.98

00:59:49.000 Trump then promptly body slammed the reporter, as is his wont.

00:59:54.000 I just want a quick follow-up on that question.

00:59:56.000 You're responding to people who say that you haven't been translating it on the subroutines.

01:00:00.000 I haven't been translating.

01:00:02.000 That's some of your earnings feelings.

01:00:04.000 I've shown this to everybody that would listen.

01:00:06.000 Third grade reporters didn't see it because they did, look, you're a third-grade reporter.

01:00:11.000 Always have been.

01:00:12.000 So third-grade reporters didn't look.

01:00:17.000 Well, again, the fact that Democrats think this is a winning issue, they are so starved for a winning issue at this point.

01:00:23.000 It really is amazing.

01:00:24.000 Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said the obvious.

01:00:27.000 Well, you know, you're going to be able to use it as well, actually.

01:00:32.000 President Trump's going to add the greatest improvement to the White House in the history of the building since it was originally constructed in 1800.

01:00:39.000 The ballroom is going to be glorious.

01:00:41.000 It's going to be used for everybody.

01:00:43.000 And by the way, hey, Democrats, if you win the White House back, you get to use it too.

01:00:47.000 This is for the American people, and he's using private funds to do it.

01:00:52.000 Yeah, well, again, utterly uncontroversial.

01:00:54.000 Joining us on the line to discuss is our own White House reporter, Mary Margaret Olihan.

01:00:57.000 Mary Margaret, thanks so much for taking this time.

01:00:59.000 I appreciate it.

01:01:01.000 Good morning, Ben.

01:01:02.000 Thanks for having me.

01:01:04.000 So as always, it's been a busy week at the White House.

01:01:07.000 You're on the White House grounds.

01:01:08.000 You've obviously seen the construction that's going on over on the East Wing.

01:01:12.000 Apparently, this is one of the great disasters of the modern era.

01:01:15.000 It's equivalent to tearing down the Washington Monument or burning down the Statue of Liberty or something.

01:01:20.000 Why don't you explain what exactly is going on over there?

01:01:22.000 What is the White House saying about it?

01:01:25.000 Yeah, so I don't know if you can see behind me over my shoulder, there is smoke, kind of a cloudy look coming from the demolition of the East Wing, which the president is removing, changing to make room for the ballroom that he and his donors are funding.

01:01:40.000 So this is a huge, costly endeavor, but the American taxpayer is not paying for it.

01:01:44.000 The president is, and donors that he calls great American patriots.

01:01:48.000 There has been a lot of hubbub about this around here, a lot of backlash.

01:01:53.000 As I was coming in this morning, a lot of the photographers and videographers were getting footage of the smoke back there.

01:01:59.000 I myself took videos of it because it's interesting.

01:02:02.000 This is newsy, but what we're hearing from everyone is that how could the president do this?

01:02:06.000 How could the president remove the east wing?

01:02:09.000 And, you know, there's a lot of history, Ben, of different presidents making renovations to the White House, from Teddy Roosevelt to Harry Truman.

01:02:17.000 All of these presidents have made changes to the White House, but this one in particular seems to have raised the ire of a lot of the reporters around here, a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill who do not want the president to do this.

01:02:28.000 Now, Trump himself is saying that this is a gift to the American people.

01:02:32.000 He's saying this is something that will be long-lasting and that many generations of Americans and American presidents and their families and their guests can enjoy.

01:02:40.000 And it does look beautiful.

01:02:41.000 I was in the Oval Office last night.

01:02:43.000 He had a mock presentation of this new renovation out on the table that all the reporters could look at.

01:02:51.000 And he had all the plans with him.

01:02:52.000 So he kind of whipped them out and showed them to us and said, well, I've been talking about this the whole time.

01:02:56.000 I wanted to show this to anybody who would listen.

01:02:59.000 And he showed us these pictures of what he wants the new ballroom to look like.

01:03:03.000 You know, Alex Pfeiffer, one of the president's former staffers, I saw him tweeting about this last night, how the president has always been putting these pictures out there.

01:03:11.000 It's very clear that the East Wing wasn't there in the photos.

01:03:14.000 In fact, the ballroom was.

01:03:15.000 So a lot of the hubbub around here seems more noise than actual concerns for reality.

01:03:21.000 And I think as Josh Hawley said last night, the senator from Missouri, there's a lot of people who are upset about this that had no problem with pulling down monuments to history over the past several years.

01:03:30.000 So another ruckus news cycle at the White House.

01:03:33.000 There's a press briefing later today, and I'm sure we will hear about it there.

01:03:37.000 But in the meantime, it's an interesting news cycle to follow.

01:03:40.000 And I think we'll soon have a beautiful ballroom here on the White House grounds.

01:03:45.000 You know, Mary Margaret, I think that most Americans, they don't understand kind of how the White House is laid out.

01:03:49.000 They see these rooms, the interior of the rooms.

01:03:51.000 They don't understand where they are in the building.

01:03:53.000 So you've spent time in the East Wing.

01:03:55.000 You actually typically have to walk through the East Wing in order to get into sort of the main part of the building to get to the West Wing and all the rest of it.

01:04:00.000 What is actually in the East Wing?

01:04:01.000 Because I think people think that the Oval Office and some of the more famous rooms in the White House are in the East Wing of the White House.

01:04:10.000 No, no, they're not.

01:04:11.000 In fact, you know, I'm standing right now on Petwell Beach, which is right outside the White House.

01:04:15.000 The West Wing is where a lot of the offices of the comms team are.

01:04:19.000 The main section of the White House is where a lot of these other important offices are, including the Oval Office, which is kind of, you know, we go back to, it's a little hard to explain a lot, but you go through the White House and it's on the back on the right.

01:04:32.000 So it's not on the East Wing side of things.

01:04:35.000 And a lot of the ruckus that's been raised about this has been suggesting that there's some kind of historical significance that's being destroyed with this.

01:04:42.000 But again, there's been renovations.

01:04:43.000 throughout the history of the White House for years.

01:04:46.000 There have been many presidents who have made changes or modifications, you know, updating the White House for modern appliances, modern security endeavors.

01:04:55.000 I mean, one thing that I found really interesting about the ballroom is that the president said it's going to have, I believe, a steel-proof ceiling.

01:05:02.000 So a lot of different security measures that are being put in that he said the Army and the military is involved with.

01:05:07.000 So it's really interesting on many levels.

01:05:09.000 One thing that I find really interesting is that the man who is designing the ballroom is actually someone that I know that I've spent some time with, James McCrury, who's an architect.

01:05:18.000 He's a Catholic architect.

01:05:19.000 He's built some really beautiful churches around the country.

01:05:22.000 So I think that's, you know, if anything, very encouraging to know that we have a traditional classical architecturist who is taking this plan into his hands and making a beautiful historic ballroom.

01:05:34.000 And I, for one, hope that, you know, if there is a White House Christmas party for the media this year, it would be really cool if it was in there and I would love to see it.

01:05:42.000 So Mary Margaret, obviously a lot of drama also over the course of the last weekend over this No Kings protest movement.

01:05:48.000 Some 7 million people apparently showed up to these protests around the country.

01:05:52.000 What has been the mood in the White House about all of that?

01:05:56.000 Yeah, this is interesting because on the one hand, these No Kings protests were largely full of, I would say, elderly Americans who are very left-leaning Democrats protesting things that they did not really understand.

01:06:08.000 So for example, our colleagues Amber Joe and Brecca did a phenomenal job this weekend covering the No Kings protests in D.C. And they asked people, why are you protesting No Kings if President Trump is not a king?

01:06:20.000 It was a really great video.

01:06:21.000 And if anyone hasn't seen it, you should check it out.

01:06:23.000 But at the same time, there was a very radical element of these protests.

01:06:27.000 And if you look at some of the footage in Denver, in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in even in Washington, D.C., there were individuals that came to these protests specifically to advocate for violence.

01:06:40.000 One person that I noticed besides President Trump that was receiving a lot of these very violent, explicit calls to violence was Stephen Miller.

01:06:47.000 So he is Trump's deputy chief of staff.

01:06:50.000 He received a lot of hate, I would say, in D.C., I saw, but then also in different cities around the country, people explicitly calling for acts of violence against him.

01:06:58.000 We just covered a story for this that's live on the Daily Wire site about how I talked to the FBI about whether they're investigating any of these specific calls for violence, explicit, I would say, calls for violence.

01:07:09.000 And, you know, I was told the FBI can't confirm active investigations.

01:07:13.000 They don't traditionally do that.

01:07:14.000 But I was told they are aware of very specific instances and that they are keeping an eye on them.

01:07:21.000 So, you know, I think this is the closest we can get to confirming without actually confirming that there's investigations into these people.

01:07:27.000 One that I found really disturbing and I just wanted to flag was this couple that were photographed in Denver.

01:07:33.000 They're part of the Denver communist group.

01:07:35.000 And this couple, each of them were wearing a different shirt calling for violence against individuals, specifically Republicans, conservatives, and they kind of harkened back to the death of Charlie Kirk.

01:07:46.000 One of the shirts said make assassinations great again.

01:07:49.000 And the other one said that not enough politicians are being killed nowadays.

01:07:52.000 And that one I found particularly disturbing because on the graphic of the shirt, there's a little sign that says live indicating that the person who was being killed on the shirt was being filmed as it happened live.

01:08:04.000 So this is really sickening, disturbing kinds of content.

01:08:08.000 And I think that, you know, our story is evidence that the FBI is looking into this.

01:08:11.000 DHS may also be looking into this and we're trying to get more answers from them on who exactly they're examining and when those people will be arrested or at least investigated at the bare minimum.

01:08:25.000 Well, that's Mary Margaret Ohan.

01:08:26.000 She's our White House press correspondent.

01:08:28.000 Mary Margaret, really appreciate your time.

01:08:30.000 Thanks so much for the insight as always.

01:08:33.000 Thanks, Ben.

01:08:34.000 All righty, folks, the show is continuing for our members right now.

01:08:37.000 We'll get to President Trump blowing more ships out of the water, drug boats coming from Venezuela. 0.90

01:08:42.000 Plus, President Trump has now canceled a planned meeting between Russia and Ukraine.

01:08:46.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

01:08:48.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:08:49.000 Use code Shapiro.

01:08:50.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

01:08:51.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

01:08:53.000 Nat, say something that'll get us canceled if you really want me to.

01:08:56.000 Friendly fire is back.

01:08:58.000 Should we ever do this again?

01:09:00.000 No.

01:09:00.000 No safe zones.

01:09:01.000 Do not unify around your crazies. 0.82

01:09:03.000 I don't want your olive branch. 1.00

01:09:05.000 Screw you. 1.00

01:09:05.000 It's absolutely despicable. 1.00

01:09:07.000 Nothing off limits. 0.98

01:09:08.000 You will get to sound off on whether or not black people are disabled as the Supreme Court reliable. 0.95

01:09:15.000 Huge announcements.

01:09:17.000 Brand new, massive, incredible series, the Pendragon Cycle.

01:09:21.000 Ambitious and big and beautiful.

01:09:24.000 And this is the thing that sets us apart.

01:09:26.000 More revelations on the way.

01:09:28.000 I just want to make one more point here, and then you can say whatever you want.

01:09:30.000 I'm not going to play that game with you.

01:09:31.000 What makes you a conservative?

01:09:33.000 No, I don't think that's right.

01:09:34.000 Well, hold on.

01:09:36.000 I just want to say I agree with that.

01:09:37.000 I totally disagree with it.

01:09:38.000 I have to say that.

01:09:39.000 Friendly Fire, October 29th, 7 p.m.

01:09:42.000 Eastern.

01:09:43.000 The Friendly Fire should stop across the board.

01:09:45.000 You mean the show?

The Ben Shapiro Show - October 23, 2025

Mamdani’s Last Stand?!

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