The Ben Shapiro Show - February 24, 2025


More Trump WINS: Joy Reid GONE!


Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

191.81032

Word count

10,719

Sentence count

737

Harmful content

Misogyny

15

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

MSNBC announces that Joy Reid is leaving the network, and her show The Reid Report will no longer air on weeknights, and she will be replaced by two other hosts, Simone Sanders Townsend and Alyssa Menendez.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, folks, nature is healing, and nowhere is it healing more, apparently, than at MSNBC. Now, I have to say, I have mixed feelings about this news.
00:00:08.000 Joy Reid is apparently losing her show at MSNBC, and that is a loss for, I think, all of us, considering that approximately 11% of the content of the show was simply provided by Joy Reid in her asinine commentary on politics.
00:00:20.000 On Sunday, Variety and the New York Times reported that Reid's 7 p.m.
00:00:23.000 weeknight show The Readout is being canceled and will air its final episode this week.
00:00:27.000 Apparently, she is leaving the network completely as a result, which, of course, is not a shock.
00:00:31.000 She's not going to want to stick around and play second fiddle. 0.99
00:00:34.000 Perhaps she will join Jim Acosta at a brand new network.
00:00:36.000 Ooh, maybe Jen Rubin. 1.00
00:00:38.000 There's a lot of options out there for Joy Reid, who is the kind of psychotic leftist who helped run the Democratic Party directly into a ditch. 1.00
00:00:47.000 MSNBC, by the way, insists that they are going to continue with their progressive move.
00:00:50.000 They are not, in fact, going to move toward the center, which, again, genius-level stuff from the leadership over at MSNBC, apparently.
00:00:57.000 They're going to move Jen Psaki, who is the former White House press secretary under Joe Biden, they're going to move her to anchor one of the primetime hours during the week.
00:01:07.000 She could be named anchor of MSNBC's 9pm hour, where Rachel Maddow currently is. 0.98
00:01:11.000 Maddow might be moved as well.
00:01:14.000 Alex Wagner will remain with the network as a correspondent.
00:01:17.000 So, the people who are apparently going to replace Joy Reid in that 7pm slot are Simone Sanders Townsend, who of course...
00:01:24.000 was a press secretary originally for Bernie Sanders before becoming a press secretary for Kamala Harris.
00:01:28.000 Michael Steele, the former RNC chairman who has moved far to the left, and Alicia Menendez.
00:01:33.000 They are currently the co-hosts of MSNBC's weekend program called The Weekend.
00:01:38.000 So they are moving into the 7 p.m.
00:01:40.000 hour.
00:01:41.000 According to MSN.com, Sanders Townsend, formerly a spokesperson for Harris, was hired by MSNBC in 2022. Meanwhile, the leadership over at MSNBC. Suggest that they are going to add Politico's Eugene Daniels and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray to the network's lineup as well.
00:01:59.000 So they are continuing to move over to the left.
00:02:02.000 And this reflects a serious problem for the Democratic Party.
00:02:04.000 They do not know which way to move.
00:02:07.000 They are stuck because of identity politics and largely because of immigration.
00:02:11.000 They are now stuck in a rut of their own making.
00:02:14.000 And it is very difficult to break out of that rut.
00:02:16.000 And so you're seeing Democrats struggle against the box, thrash against the box of reality.
00:02:22.000 Former Bill Clinton pollster Mark Penn points out the Democratic Party is more popular than they've been any time in his lifetime.
00:02:28.000 Here he is running down the polling data.
00:02:31.000 Frankly, the Democratic Party is falling off a cliff.
00:02:34.000 The ratings which were in the high 40s are going to be like 35 percent.
00:02:39.000 And I think the basic question, who's doing a better job as president, Biden or Trump, Trump is winning that with 57 percent.
00:02:48.000 I think you're seeing a retrospective assessment of Biden and the direction the Democratic Party was going, really a lot more negative than it was on Election Day.
00:02:58.000 And they're looking at the contrast on immigration, on economic policy, on some of the social policies.
00:03:05.000 And boy, they're reevaluating.
00:03:07.000 And the Democratic Party, I have never seen anything like this.
00:03:10.000 This is a record low for the Democratic Party in terms of favorability.
00:03:16.000 So Democrats are trying to figure out exactly to whom they turn in the wake of Donald Trump's victory and the fact that he's now steamrolling through his agenda.
00:03:24.000 So, do they turn back to the supposedly moderate types, the Joe Biden types?
00:03:28.000 Biden advisor Tom Donilon says they should never have gotten rid of Joe Biden.
00:03:31.000 They shouldn't have moved over to the identity politics brand of Kamala Harris.
00:03:35.000 Lots of people have terrible debates.
00:03:38.000 Trump had a terrible debate against Harris, right?
00:03:42.000 Reagan had a terrible debate.
00:03:43.000 Obama had a terrible debate.
00:03:44.000 Lots of people have terrible debates.
00:03:46.000 Usually, the party doesn't lose its mind.
00:03:49.000 But that's what happened here.
00:03:52.000 It just melted down.
00:03:56.000 Okay, so should they turn back to a sort of more moderate type in Joe Biden who turned out not to be moderate?
00:04:01.000 Or should they double down on Kamala?
00:04:03.000 Kamala is still wandering the landscape.
00:04:04.000 And remember, she has a couple of assets.
00:04:06.000 One, she's black. 1.00
00:04:07.000 And two, she's a woman. 0.91
00:04:08.000 And the Democratic Party.
00:04:09.000 These are the things that apparently still matter most.
00:04:12.000 Here was Kamala Harris back in the headlines over the weekend. 0.72
00:04:15.000 I know you forgot about her, right?
00:04:16.000 You didn't even remember she ran for president at one point, but she did and she lost. 0.99
00:04:18.000 And here she is receiving an award from the NAACP. Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy.
00:04:36.000 And ask, what do we do now?
00:04:40.000 But we know exactly what to do.
00:04:44.000 Because we have done it before.
00:04:47.000 And we will do it again.
00:04:50.000 We use our power.
00:04:53.000 We organize, mobilize, we educate, and we advocate.
00:05:02.000 Wow.
00:05:03.000 Remember that sort of...
00:05:04.000 Beat poetry that she used to do on the campaign trail.
00:05:06.000 Well, if you want more of that, Democrats might do it.
00:05:08.000 She might run for governor of California. 1.00
00:05:11.000 Democrats themselves are sort of torn between how to approach the Trump administration.
00:05:15.000 On the one hand, they want to go back to resistance-style anger.
00:05:17.000 They really want to just scream at the wind a lot.
00:05:20.000 The problem for them is that they can't find a point of consolidation because many of the things that Donald Trump is doing right now are actually quite popular.
00:05:28.000 And so they're stuck in a weird in-between.
00:05:30.000 On the one hand, they want to preach that Donald Trump is non-empathetic.
00:05:33.000 That what you really need is more empathy.
00:05:35.000 But people don't see the Democrats as particularly empathetic.
00:05:38.000 Jane Fonda tried to make this case over the weekend. 1.00
00:05:41.000 It is amazing that they are now having to trot out 70-odd-year-old people who once rallied for the Viet Cong as their sort of ideological thought leaders.
00:05:50.000 This is a lady who literally went to North Vietnam and declared that the Viet Cong were the victims of the Vietnamese War and was posing next to an anti-aircraft battery.
00:06:02.000 With the Viet Cong. 0.99
00:06:03.000 And now they're trotting her out as some sort of moral voice talking about empathy.
00:06:07.000 Here was Jane Fonda over the weekend. 1.00
00:06:09.000 Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke.
00:06:13.000 And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.
00:06:16.000 Back to empathy.
00:06:27.000 A whole lot of people.
00:06:30.000 Are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way.
00:06:35.000 And even if they're of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent.
00:06:50.000 Because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what's coming at us.
00:06:56.000 Jane Fonda is not a particularly smart person, but you are a smart person, and smart investors prepare ahead of time, just like keeping a life jacket handy before you set sail.
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00:08:01.000 Also, with almost two entire months of the new year already behind us, Wow.
00:08:04.000 I need to make sure that I'm maintaining my health, hitting the gym, spending time with my family.
00:08:08.000 There's a lot going on.
00:08:09.000 When I was younger, I used to think I could just power through on pure conservative willpower and caffeine.
00:08:13.000 I learned pretty quickly.
00:08:14.000 Peak performance requires peak nutrition, and that means eating enough veggies.
00:08:17.000 That's why I'm so thankful to have balance of nature, which fits right into even the busiest of days.
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00:08:37.000 You take your fruit and veggie capsules every day, and then your body knows precisely what to do with them.
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00:08:52.000 That's balanceofnature.com, promo code SHAPIRO. And meanwhile, Democrats are touting an anti-Trump rant.
00:09:07.000 They got a standing ovation in a rather blue area of a red state.
00:09:11.000 This happened over the course of the last weekend or so.
00:09:15.000 This is in Roswell, Georgia.
00:09:17.000 But the people who are attending this particular town hall event in Roswell, Georgia are largely Democrats.
00:09:22.000 Here is a town hall rant that was getting a lot of attention from the left over the weekend.
00:09:27.000 It's clear from all the writings of our founding fathers that our great republic was never...
00:09:36.000 So you can imagine my shock and pure horror when I woke up to find that our president had given himself unprecedented executive powers and then within a few days named himself king to his followers.
00:09:53.000 Tyranny is rising in the White House and a man has declared himself our king.
00:09:58.000 So I would like to know...
00:10:00.000 Rather, the people would like to know what you, congressman, and your fellow congressman are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.
00:10:11.000 Now, here's the thing.
00:10:19.000 All this rings rather hollow.
00:10:21.000 It does.
00:10:22.000 It is a sound and fury signifying almost nothing at this point because the Democratic Party does not know for what it stands.
00:10:28.000 On the one hand...
00:10:29.000 They want to say that they are for everyone.
00:10:31.000 On the other hand, they want to push woke identity politics.
00:10:33.000 On the one hand, they want to talk about no dictatorship.
00:10:36.000 On the other hand, they want government to control every part of your life.
00:10:40.000 On the one hand, they want to talk about Donald Trump is breaking down foreign policy.
00:10:43.000 On the other hand, they want to surrender pretty much everywhere.
00:10:45.000 So which is it?
00:10:46.000 The answer in the end for Democrats is going to rest on Donald Trump's failure.
00:10:50.000 If Donald Trump fails, they win.
00:10:52.000 It's that simple.
00:10:53.000 They don't have anything else.
00:10:54.000 The only point of consolidation is if Donald Trump and his administration What I've said very publicly is that Democrats need to play possum.
00:11:13.000 This whole thing is collapsing.
00:11:15.000 It doesn't need Elizabeth Warren and somebody screaming to... 0.98
00:11:21.000 Pacify some progressive advocacy groups in Washington, which, by the way, I wish these people were just useless.
00:11:27.000 They're actually worse than useless, that they're detrimental.
00:11:31.000 And they never, ever learn to shut up.
00:11:34.000 And so, Dan, this is what I believe.
00:11:37.000 I believe that this administration, in less than 30 days, in the midst of a massive collapse, and particularly a collapse in public opinion.
00:11:51.000 Okay, so, again, Democrats are betting that it's all going to fall apart for President Trump.
00:11:57.000 And Carville's suggestion is rooted in the fact that President Trump's approval ratings have slid from the mid-50s in some of the polls down to the mid-40s in some of the polls.
00:12:04.000 That was always likely to happen because, again, the country is indeed quite polarized.
00:12:08.000 But massive collapse doesn't appear to be on the horizon unless, unless there is some sort of serious economic problem.
00:12:14.000 And that is why the central focus of the Trump administration right now must be on bringing down inflation.
00:12:18.000 It must be on economic growth.
00:12:21.000 That's what the central focus has to be on.
00:12:22.000 Yes, we want to see President Trump keep all of his promises, and he will, with regard to immigration.
00:12:27.000 Sure, we would like to see President Trump bring an end to the war in Ukraine in a reasonable fashion.
00:12:31.000 But the thing that Americans care most about, this is true of the election, it's true of nearly every election, is their economic well-being.
00:12:39.000 And there are some blinking red lights that are on the horizon here.
00:12:42.000 One of those blinking red lights comes courtesy of Warren Buffett.
00:12:46.000 So Warren Buffett is now holding an extraordinary amount of cash.
00:12:50.000 Warren Buffett, his Berkshire Hathaway, is holding $320 billion in cash and treasury bills.
00:12:58.000 And the reason for that is he's looking at all the various areas of possible investment, and he's saying they're already overvalued.
00:13:05.000 Essentially, what he's saying is that we are in a bubble right now.
00:13:07.000 And it is hard to look at, for example, the stock market, where the price-earnings ratio is way out of whack.
00:13:12.000 The price-earnings ratio just means the price of the stock as opposed to the earnings of companies.
00:13:18.000 Right now, the average in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 26 times.
00:13:21.000 The price of stocks are 26 times the annual earnings of those companies.
00:13:27.000 A normal distribution would be like 16, 18. 26 is way out of whack.
00:13:32.000 And at the very top end of the spectrum, those top seven companies that everybody talks about, those companies are at a P-E ratio of something like 46. So those are overvalued.
00:13:42.000 So Berkshire Hathaway is saying, we're not going to sink more money into that.
00:13:45.000 At the same time, the real estate market is also inflated because the interest rates have been high for a while and there are a bunch of people who are holding on to their houses because they don't want to sell them and then get into a higher interest rate mortgage.
00:13:57.000 And so what that means is a sort of artificially limited supply while demand remains at sort of even keel.
00:14:03.000 And when that happens, you end up with a real estate bubble because fewer people are selling their homes and the demand has remained the same.
00:14:10.000 So you have a bit of a real estate bubble, which is likely to break at some point.
00:14:13.000 You have a stock market bubble.
00:14:14.000 Which is likely to break at some point.
00:14:16.000 These are the worries the Trump administration has on its mind.
00:14:19.000 And beyond all that, inflation is driving both of those things.
00:14:22.000 Because the currency was inflated so much over the course of Joe Biden's tenure.
00:14:27.000 Because of the velocity of the money that was injected into the economy under Joe Biden.
00:14:31.000 And in the latter days of the Trump administration, because of that, there's so much money chasing goods.
00:14:37.000 And inflation remains at 3% right now, which is 50% higher than the Federal Reserve generally seeks.
00:14:43.000 And that means that the interest rates are unlikely to come down, which means that it's tougher to get a loan.
00:14:48.000 At the same time, even if you got a loan, you wouldn't actually want to spend your money on inflated assets.
00:14:53.000 And so you have a bit of a sticky patch here for the American economy.
00:14:56.000 And the only way to truly unstick it is with productivity gains.
00:15:00.000 That is the only way to truly unstick this.
00:15:02.000 Is more competition, less regulation, more investment in newer things.
00:15:09.000 The productivity gains of AI. Have not actually made themselves manifest in the generalized market as of yet.
00:15:15.000 There are tens of billions of dollars chasing AI. The problem, of course, is that aside from using AI for kind of everyday searches on the internet, most people aren't using AI yet to make their businesses more efficient and more effective.
00:15:29.000 There's a sort of gap between the quality of the technology and the adaptivity of that technology to your normal everyday business working.
00:15:37.000 Most people aren't using it in their businesses as of yet in a major way.
00:15:40.000 So productivity gains have not matched the investment.
00:15:43.000 It's one of the reasons, for example, why companies like NVIDIA have a massive valuation right now because people are pouring tons of money into the semiconductors produced by NVIDIA in order to build up AI. But again, the productivity gains from AI in the general workplace are not apparent as of yet.
00:15:57.000 If they make themselves apparent, then we can outgrow all of this, or at least a large part of this.
00:16:02.000 But in the meantime, what can the Trump administration do?
00:16:05.000 They need to take a hammer to the regulations. 0.99
00:16:06.000 And this is where we need to talk a little bit.
00:16:09.000 So what Doge is doing right now is wonderful in a large number of ways.
00:16:12.000 You all know I'm a big fan of the Department of Governmental Efficiency, as well as what Elon Musk is attempting to do.
00:16:18.000 And one of the things Elon Musk is attempting to do is he's really targeting personnel in a very serious way inside the executive branch.
00:16:24.000 So over the weekend, Elon Musk's Doge sent out an email to 2.3 million government workers asking that they justify their work.
00:16:32.000 He basically said, give us five things you did over the course of the last week, and if you can't, then we may fire you.
00:16:39.000 A bunch of the various agencies, again, run by Trump appointees, are saying, you know, you really don't have to do that.
00:16:45.000 Some of these departments probably have to do it, but other departments not.
00:16:48.000 So, for example, in HHS, RFK Jr. has instructed his people that they probably should, in fact, respond to Elon's email.
00:16:55.000 They put out an email suggesting, quote, this is a legitimate email.
00:16:58.000 Please read and respond per the instructions by Monday.
00:17:00.000 And again, HHS is the largest single department inside the federal government.
00:17:04.000 But there are other parts of the federal government.
00:17:06.000 Particularly in the intelligence community or the defense community, where it's not clear they're going to answer those emails.
00:17:11.000 Why?
00:17:11.000 Because it turns out that if you have a bunch of sort of long-term projects in the intelligence community, you can't just write that in an email and send it to Elon's team.
00:17:18.000 This is why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has instructed personnel in U.S. spy agencies not to respond, according to the text of an email she sent to the workforce on Sunday, citing the agency's sensitive and classified work.
00:17:30.000 Defense Department employees were given similar instructions not to respond.
00:17:36.000 And again, what Elon is focusing on is breaking the pipeline of money that moves between the federal government and a bunch of sort of blue areas of the economy.
00:17:47.000 But it is very important at this point to recognize that when it comes to Doge, Doge alone is not going to solve the fiscal problems.
00:17:55.000 Doge is not changing the regulations.
00:17:57.000 That's not what Doge is doing.
00:17:59.000 Doge is going in and finding waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:18:01.000 But as I've been saying for literally months, waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:18:05.000 Amount to a negligible, a very small percentage of actual federal spending.
00:18:10.000 Unless you're talking about the giant wasteful programs that are, for example, means-tested welfare programs, and you're talking about absolutely restructuring those programs in a more beneficial way, you are just cutting around the edges.
00:18:20.000 And even the sorts of things that we like to see, even those sorts of things are not, in fact, going to materialize into gigantic cuts.
00:18:30.000 The Wall Street Journal did an investigation.
00:18:33.000 Doge has actually cut at this point.
00:18:35.000 And again, there's been a lot of talk about what Doge has cut, how much they've cut.
00:18:38.000 Doge has suggested that they've cut $55 billion in federal spending, citing canceled DEI and climate contracts.
00:18:44.000 And again, all of that is good.
00:18:46.000 First of all, $55 billion as a percentage of the American national budget every year is a very, very small percentage of America's budget every year.
00:18:59.000 Like in the last year of the Biden administration, we spent approximately $7 trillion.
00:19:03.000 $55 billion would represent one 127th of that.
00:19:08.000 It's a very, very small percentage of the federal budget.
00:19:11.000 But beyond that, it hasn't actually cut all of that.
00:19:15.000 So the Wall Street Journal looked at what the contracts actually are cutting.
00:19:20.000 And what they found is that the savings from contracts amounted to about $7 billion.
00:19:25.000 And the journal...
00:19:26.000 Projects the actual savings could be closer to $2.6 billion over the next year if the spending levels remain consistent.
00:19:32.000 Only about 2% of those funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI. So you're talking, again, about very small amounts in the end.
00:19:38.000 Now, it's very good to talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:19:40.000 It's good to change in sort of public perception the meaning of what government spending is.
00:19:45.000 But the really big things that need to happen if you actually want to unshackle the economy, if you actually want to see productivity gains, if you want to see business growth, if you want to see the economy.
00:19:55.000 Boom.
00:19:56.000 What you actually need to do is target precisely the kinds of programs that no one is politically willing to target.
00:20:01.000 Now listen, in this informational environment, there is a lot of information floating around.
00:20:04.000 Some of it's true, some of it's not so true.
00:20:06.000 How many times have you heard somebody spout off opinions as if those were cold, hard facts?
00:20:10.000 The media tend to spin, politicians distort, social media amplifies, and somehow the truth just gets lost somewhere.
00:20:15.000 It's pretty frustrating.
00:20:16.000 We live in a world where narratives often matter more than reality, but here's the thing.
00:20:20.000 The data don't lie.
00:20:21.000 And if you want the data, you need USAFacts.org.
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00:20:36.000 Go to USAFacts.org, sign up for their free weekly email that you can rely on to get the data behind the news.
00:20:41.000 It's like a personal briefing on the state of the nation, delivered directly to your inbox.
00:20:44.000 No spin.
00:20:45.000 No bias, just the facts.
00:20:46.000 Look, you care about how our government money is being spent, where taxes are going?
00:20:50.000 This is for you.
00:20:51.000 Go to usafacts.org right now and get clear, contextualized facts on the issues that matter.
00:20:55.000 It's time to know the facts because data don't lie.
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00:22:02.000 The single most important op-ed of the last five years was penned By House Budget Committee Chairman Jody Arrington and former U.S. Senator Phil Graham back in September of last year.
00:22:13.000 And it talked about what is actually driving America's systemic national debt.
00:22:17.000 What is driving our national deficit?
00:22:19.000 And the answer, believe it or not, is not even Social Security and Medicare alone because the vast majority of Social Security and Medicare are actually paid for by payroll taxes.
00:22:27.000 Doesn't mean that they're not a huge drain on our economy.
00:22:30.000 They are because taxes are a giant drain on our economy and Social Security and Medicare in and of themselves.
00:22:35.000 Are wildly inefficient.
00:22:37.000 If we took the money that people are putting into payroll taxes and instead put it into the Dow Jones back in 2006 when George W. Bush was suggesting, the stock market has risen times four since then.
00:22:48.000 But the actual systemic drivers of the debt, as Arrington and Phil Graham pointed out back in September, are actually the means-tested social welfare spending programs.
00:22:59.000 Precisely the things that neither party actually wants to touch.
00:23:02.000 Things like Medicaid.
00:23:03.000 Food stamps, refundable tax credits, supplemental security income, temporary assistance for needy families, federal housing subsidies, and almost 100 other programs whose eligibility is limited to those below an income threshold.
00:23:14.000 And one of the points that Graham and Arrington make in this op-ed is that since 1967, defense spending has fallen from 68% of unobligated general revenue to 37.2% in 2023. So we're spending way more on these means-tested welfare programs.
00:23:31.000 As defense spending plummeted, they write, swords were not beaten into plowshares, which would increase economic growth and wages, but instead were used to fund welfare payments.
00:23:39.000 Today, the United States redistributes a larger share of its GDP, 29.4%, through transfers and taxes than any other developed country on planet Earth except France, at 30.1%.
00:23:50.000 And in fact, this is an unbelievable statistic.
00:23:54.000 After counting all transfer payments as income to the recipients, and taxes as income lost by taxpayers and adjusting for household size, The average households in the bottom, second, and middle quintiles all have the same income.
00:24:05.000 And so we are such a redistributionist country that if you're in the bottom 60% of income earners, you're all basically making the same income because so much money has been redistributed from the top 40% to the bottom 60%.
00:24:19.000 And if you're in the bottom 20%, you're actually making the same amount of money as a guy who's in like the middle quintile of income because of all the transfer payments.
00:24:30.000 It's driving people out of work.
00:24:32.000 It's ensuring that the massive national debt gets larger.
00:24:37.000 We are now paying more interest on our national debt than we are paying for our actual defense budget every single year, something that Neil Ferguson has pointed out is a mark of a declining empire.
00:24:48.000 These things cost things, but these are the hard things.
00:24:52.000 What's actually going to bring long-lasting success is not going to be cutting around the edges.
00:24:56.000 It's not going to be posturing.
00:24:57.000 What's actually going to bring long-lasting success Is the politically difficult thing.
00:25:01.000 And if nobody's willing to do it, then basically we're just going to end up in this sort of progressive, this progressive populist horseshoe.
00:25:08.000 Where despite all the talk about innovation, government just continues to grow and eat up an increasing portion of Americans' earnings and savings.
00:25:15.000 Where a smaller and smaller percentage of the population is actually working while the government continues to spiral out of control in terms of growth.
00:25:22.000 And where productivity does not actually outpace all of the spending of government and the taxation of government.
00:25:29.000 That is the problem that is faced by President Trump.
00:25:31.000 Now, the easy thing for Democrats is that when things fall down because of all these giant programs that they themselves have enshrined, they just claim capitalism failed.
00:25:38.000 This is the magic of being a Democrat.
00:25:40.000 The magic of being on the side of the blue is that when government screws up the economy to the point where there's a collapse, they immediately turn around and blame capitalism.
00:25:47.000 This is exactly what happened in 2007-2008 during the real estate crisis.
00:25:52.000 Bill Clinton and the Democrats rammed through particular government mortgage programs that were designed.
00:25:58.000 To allow people with bad credit or no credit to get into homes at subprime rates in order to make home ownership more equitable.
00:26:09.000 And in the end, all of that went bust and then capitalism got blamed.
00:26:13.000 Well, the same thing could easily happen right here and it could take free markets right along with it.
00:26:18.000 That is the big danger.
00:26:19.000 And so at some point, Congress particularly is going to have to pick up the bag here.
00:26:23.000 And President Trump is going to have to start pushing.
00:26:26.000 For some real systemic change on the regulatory side, he's going to have to push for some real systemic change when it comes to these means-tested welfare programs.
00:26:34.000 Again, the kind of stuff that populists like, but that actually is eating up a giant chunk of the American budget every single year.
00:26:42.000 If the premise of the current American political moment is that we are in a moment of scarcity, which is true, that we have scarce resources, that we are in danger of being outproduced by countries like China, That the American budget is too large.
00:26:56.000 That our tax burden is too high.
00:26:57.000 That we're spending too much money.
00:26:59.000 You have to look at the right places.
00:27:00.000 Because if you look at the wrong places, you're not going to solve the problem.
00:27:02.000 And then things will go bad.
00:27:03.000 And then James Carville's predictions will start to come true.
00:27:08.000 Now, meanwhile, over in Germany.
00:27:12.000 Fascinating election.
00:27:13.000 And this seems to be the pattern all across Europe.
00:27:15.000 Is that the center-right party wins and then refuses to make common cause with the actual right-wing party in...
00:27:21.000 It's respective country.
00:27:23.000 You see this over and over and over.
00:27:24.000 That fear of the quote-unquote far-right is leading center-right parties to join with center-left parties and then undermine their own credibility, which leads concomitantly to the rise of that supposed far-right.
00:27:35.000 So right now in Germany, the results are pretty fascinating.
00:27:39.000 Friedrich Merz is the clear winner of the German election, according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:27:42.000 The question for the conservative leader is how fast and with whom he can cobble together a government and whether the United States will seek to influence the process.
00:27:49.000 Despite a historically strong showing by anti-establishment nationalists in a ballot that extended Europe's recent lurch to the right, MERS's Christian Democratic Union scored a comfortable victory once all ballots had been counted.
00:27:59.000 This means that MERS this week will start talks on forming a government, at the end of which he's likely to become Germany's next chancellor, but the way there could be really, really rocky, because basically the breakdown was this.
00:28:08.000 The CDU and its CSU sister party in Bavaria obtained 28.5% of the vote.
00:28:14.000 Coming in second was the alternative for Germany. 0.92
00:28:17.000 This is the party.
00:28:18.000 That Elon Musk has been pushing, among others.
00:28:20.000 AFD came in at 20.8%.
00:28:23.000 And actually, if you look at an electoral map of Germany, it's absolutely fascinating.
00:28:27.000 Basically, every province that was a part of East Germany voted for AFD because they hate the communists so much.
00:28:32.000 And every province that was in West Germany voted for the CDU because they're sort of moderate right.
00:28:39.000 Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party absolutely collapsed.
00:28:42.000 They scored 16.4%.
00:28:44.000 That's the worst score since the late 19th century.
00:28:46.000 The question for MERS, It's how he's going to put together a coalition.
00:28:50.000 Because MERS originally said he didn't want to side with the AFD. The AFD has been slandered, in my opinion, as a quote-unquote neo-Nazi party.
00:28:56.000 I see no evidence that the party itself is a neo-Nazi party.
00:29:00.000 Its platform looks very much like the platform of the Republican Party in the United States, although more populist on economics and probably less free market oriented.
00:29:08.000 Which is weird, because when it was founded, it was founded as a libertarian party.
00:29:12.000 The AFD, of course, has people who are hangers-on and associates and people who are involved with the party.
00:29:17.000 Who have expressed neo-Nazi tendencies, but those people are both rare and not in positions of high leadership inside the AFD. The AFD's success is being driven in large part by opposition to immigration, which originally was led by the CDU. Originally, that was Angela Merkel's proposal to let in millions of Syrian refugees into the country, and it completely wrecked the entire body politic in Europe.
00:29:43.000 Well, the CDU has now turned on immigration.
00:29:45.000 Not in the same way as the AFD. The AFD has turned on immigration in a much more public way.
00:29:49.000 So the question is going to be whether the CDU will sit with the AFD or whether they're going to turn back to Olaf Scholz and try to get together with Olaf Scholz.
00:29:58.000 So if the CDU decides to try and side with the center-left, this will be very much reminiscent of what has been happening in France, where Emmanuel Macron's party refused to form a coalition with the Marine Le Pen National Rally.
00:30:14.000 The supposed far-right party in France, which again has a program very similar to AFD. And instead they decided they were going to try and side with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who's a nutcase socialist crazy person.
00:30:24.000 And Macron has destroyed his own popularity in the process and the right is rising again.
00:30:29.000 Here is the reality.
00:30:30.000 If, in a coalitional system in Europe, your party, your center-right party, sides with the left, it will not be perceived by the public as a move toward right-wing moderation.
00:30:39.000 It will be perceived as a move.
00:30:42.000 toward the left and away from the actual principles for which people voted.
00:30:46.000 The truth is that the mandate in Germany is for there to be a right-wing government in which the AFD is a partner.
00:30:55.000 AFD co-leader Alice Fidel said, quote, Our hand is extended to implement the will of the people.
00:30:59.000 Again, very hard to imagine a Nazi party led by a lesbian who's in a relationship with a Sri Lankan woman.
00:31:05.000 That's who Alice Fidel is.
00:31:07.000 She said the CDU just needs to take it.
00:31:09.000 Otherwise, a change in policy in Germany won't be possible.
00:31:13.000 Merz has already said he would, under no circumstances, form a ruling union with the AFD. Suda David Wilp, the vice president of external affairs at the German Marshall Fund in the United States, said, quote, Friedrich Merz would be loath to work with the AFD. Pressure from the United States is unlikely to sway him.
00:31:29.000 The problem, of course, is that the Olaf Scholz party is now saying they don't want to side with CDU. So it may be that if Olaf Scholz rejects it, then that will give Merz the possibility of opening up again.
00:31:42.000 Back to AFD. It'll be fascinating to see, because here's the thing.
00:31:45.000 If there is no immigration crackdown in Germany, AFD will continue to gain ground, and they should. 0.99
00:31:49.000 Meanwhile, in other international news, obviously, tragic things happening with regard to Pope Francis.
00:31:55.000 Pope Francis has been in the hospital for several days at this point.
00:31:57.000 As you know, I'm not a fan of the Pope, but everybody should pray for his health nonetheless.
00:32:01.000 Pope Francis remained in critical condition on Sunday.
00:32:03.000 Blood tests showed early kidney failure.
00:32:04.000 He remains alert, responsive, and attended Mass, according to the Vatican.
00:32:08.000 The 88-year-old Ponce is battling pneumonia and a complex lung infection.
00:32:11.000 Of course, he is quite ill and he is quite old.
00:32:15.000 And everybody in the Catholic Church is aware that these are probably the last days of Pope Francis.
00:32:21.000 Unclear exactly who is going to take over.
00:32:24.000 Obviously, there will be a conclave.
00:32:26.000 I assume it will not be, spoiler alert, an intersex person like in the idiotic movie Conclave. 1.00
00:32:31.000 But it will be fascinating to see which direction the Catholic Church swerves toward.
00:32:36.000 Pope Francis has led the Catholic Church in a very left-wing liberation theology direction.
00:32:40.000 I think it has been not beneficial for the Catholic Church.
00:32:43.000 I think it has undermined its raise on debt.
00:32:45.000 I think that he has sidelined many of the key causes of the Catholic Church in a modernizing left-wing world in favor of conciliatory positions on some of the most controversial issues in the international community.
00:32:58.000 And that has been an idiotic move, I think.
00:33:00.000 The Catholic Church, if it's going to represent anything, ought to represent the eternal values upon which it was based, and those are largely social values, and they have a lot less to do with, say, redistributionism and environmentalism and putting kathias on baby Jesus, all things that apparently Pope Francis was in favor of.
00:33:17.000 So, obviously, prayers for his health, despite our disagreements, but we will see, in very short order, in which direction the Catholic Church wishes to move.
00:33:26.000 Joining us now on the show to discuss is the host of The Michael Knowles Show, And, you know, a Catholic, I know, Michael Knowles.
00:33:31.000 So let's start with, you know, what actually happens if Pope Francis should pass?
00:33:38.000 And despite all of my disagreements with Pope Francis, obviously all our prayers are with him in a time of travail.
00:33:44.000 If he should pass, then the conclave begins.
00:33:46.000 I assume, according to the movies, we select an intersex pope, is my understanding.
00:33:50.000 But what is the actual sort of process?
00:33:54.000 Who's making up the College of Cardinals at this point?
00:33:57.000 Who are sort of the likely frontrunners for the possible papacy?
00:34:00.000 I think some people are a little mixed up on this because we're trying to map left and right in the American context perfectly onto the College of Cardinals.
00:34:08.000 And that doesn't really work.
00:34:10.000 There are some cardinals who are hard leftists, who...
00:34:15.000 Probably want to change doctrine, who want to do things that faithful Catholics would probably say it is not possible to do, actually.
00:34:23.000 You know, doctrine can develop, but you can't change doctrine.
00:34:25.000 The Pope is not permitted to just, like, make stuff up.
00:34:28.000 You know, that's not how infallibility works.
00:34:31.000 So there are some who are legitimately leftist.
00:34:34.000 Likewise, there are cardinals who are traditionalists.
00:34:39.000 They're real conservative, and they love the traditional Latin Mass, and they enjoy pre-conciliar rites and liturgies and all that sort of stuff.
00:34:47.000 I myself am an attendee of the traditional Latin Mass, and so these are really wonderful cardinals, but they don't have huge numbers.
00:34:55.000 And then there are all the cardinals in the middle, who are kind of conservative.
00:35:00.000 Even with some of the news reports out of this pontificate, the Catholic Church remains.
00:35:05.000 A rather conservative institution.
00:35:07.000 For all that's been said about Pope Francis being a leftist and soft on LGBT issues and whatever, Pope Francis also said that gay marriage is no mere political issue, but rather a machination of the father of lies that seeks to deceive and confuse the children of God. 0.87
00:35:22.000 When he was asked about gay marriage, he said, God can't bless sin.
00:35:26.000 The most famous phrase he used last year was this phrase, I actually can't even say it probably on the air, but there's too much homosexuality. 1.00
00:35:38.000 It's a slur for homosexuality.
00:35:39.000 So, you know, don't believe everything you read in the newspapers.
00:35:43.000 But that means that in the middle, you've got the people who are kind of a little bit conservative or kind of want to maintain the status quo of Francis, which is a bit more liberal, or even just cardinals who...
00:35:53.000 Want to be left alone and want to be able to control their own areas and, you know, just not have to deal with interference from Rome so much.
00:36:02.000 So the top candidates right now, and who knows, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, he is a progressive.
00:36:11.000 So he would be in the Francis Lane or further than the Francis Lane.
00:36:16.000 You've got Cardinal Peter...
00:36:19.000 Erdo in Hungary, he's viewed as much more of a conservative.
00:36:23.000 I was just with the Hungarians the other night at CPAC in D.C. Great, wonderful conservative country and could be a real good choice.
00:36:30.000 Cardinal Pietro Perolin, he is the Vatican Secretary of State.
00:36:34.000 He would probably be a continuation of Francis, so definitely a little bit more on the liberal side of things.
00:36:41.000 Some that the conservatives are hoping for would be like Cardinal Burke, who is an amazing, wonderful...
00:36:47.000 Faithful cardinal, very orthodox, has raised certain questions about Francis' pontificate from the more traditional side of things.
00:36:56.000 Cardinal Sarah is a big favorite of conservatives.
00:36:59.000 He would be the first black pope, and it's kind of funny because the progressives would all hate the first black pope, and the conservatives would all love the first black pope, which just goes to show you how the Catholic Church...
00:37:11.000 Continues to mystify, you know, many people around the world.
00:37:14.000 But probably Cardinal Serra is a little bit too old.
00:37:18.000 He's 79 years old now.
00:37:19.000 It seems unlikely.
00:37:21.000 And then one candidate who is really interesting, he's been talked about, and he comes from a really hot part of the world that's been important to the church from the very beginning and certainly today, is Cardinal.
00:37:32.000 Pierre Battista Pizzabala, who has a delightful and whimsical last name, Pizzabala.
00:37:38.000 Also, he is the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and he is considered more conservative.
00:37:44.000 He seems to be open to the traditional Latin mass, which is so important, especially to many young people in the West.
00:37:51.000 But...
00:37:51.000 He's dealing with the most difficult, complex area in the entire world.
00:37:56.000 So he also has great skills at diplomacy, and he could be a really interesting choice.
00:38:02.000 Those seem to be the candidates right now, but then, of course, who knows?
00:38:06.000 The Holy Spirit might surprise us.
00:38:09.000 So how does the process actually take place?
00:38:12.000 Because, obviously, we all know about sort of the black smoke that's rising from the conclave and then the white smoke when they finally figure out who exactly is going to be the next pope.
00:38:19.000 But how does it actually take place on sort of a day-to-day level?
00:38:22.000 And actually, sometimes, Ben, as you saw after the conclave that followed the death of Pope Pius XII, sometimes you get the white smoke, but then the black smoke comes up again, and it's kind of unclear.
00:38:33.000 Do we have a pope?
00:38:34.000 Do we not have a pope?
00:38:35.000 So it's all very confusing.
00:38:38.000 If this is the end of Pope Francis' earthly sojourn, and we're getting reports, you know, he has bronchitis, he only has one full lung, he has reportedly received a blood transfusion, at least one, he's been on oxygen, seems to have mild kidney failure.
00:38:54.000 You know, the man is 88 years old in ill health.
00:38:58.000 We all shuffle off our mortal coil at some point.
00:39:01.000 If that happens, the conclave will kick off.
00:39:03.000 So, a lot of people...
00:39:05.000 Especially who are hoping that the papacy might move in a new direction.
00:39:09.000 They notice that Pope Francis has appointed the majority of the cardinals.
00:39:14.000 He's been a pope since 2013, so that's a really long time.
00:39:17.000 However, a lot of the places that Pope Francis has appointed cardinals are the New World.
00:39:24.000 And these New World cardinals...
00:39:26.000 They ain't leftists.
00:39:27.000 You know, the German cardinals at this point are so far left, it's hard to recognize them as Catholic.
00:39:32.000 But in the new world, these are pretty hardcore, orthodox, traditional people in many ways.
00:39:38.000 So the conclave will kick off, and all the people in the red hats will go into the room, and there's no politicking officially, no campaigning officially, but I've never been inside one of these rooms, so, you know, who knows?
00:39:49.000 I'm a little skeptical.
00:39:50.000 And this could go on for days.
00:39:53.000 It could go on for weeks.
00:39:54.000 You just don't know.
00:39:56.000 At that point, obviously, the funeral for Pope Francis, those rights have already been put into place.
00:40:05.000 They've been planning this for some long time.
00:40:08.000 I'm seeing mixed reports that the Pope has received last rights, so even that is a little bit unclear.
00:40:15.000 But if I were a gambling man, if it be not now, it will come.
00:40:21.000 It seems that Pope Francis has He's lived a good long life, and so whether this is tomorrow or weeks from now or even months from now, this is probably happening soon.
00:40:32.000 Well, Michael, I really appreciate the insight into all of this.
00:40:35.000 I now know more than I did at the beginning of this conversation, a rarity in our conversations.
00:40:39.000 Really appreciate it.
00:40:40.000 Good to talk to you.
00:40:41.000 Good to see you, Ben.
00:40:41.000 See you next time.
00:40:42.000 Coming up on the show, continued controversy over the Trump administration's approach in Ukraine.
00:40:46.000 Plus, President Trump fires a bunch of top military brass.
00:40:50.000 First, Daily Wire Plus members are getting the news today.
00:40:52.000 There will be headlines everywhere else tomorrow.
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00:41:16.000 Meanwhile, controversy continues over President Trump's approach.
00:41:19.000 In Ukraine, it is unclear exactly what the vast gap is actually between what Trump wants and what is likely to be achieved at this point.
00:41:28.000 President Trump has made very clear that what he would like is presumably for Russia to retain control of the Donbass and Crimea and for the Ukrainians to be given security guarantees but not NATO membership.
00:41:39.000 He's been ripping on Vladimir Zelensky.
00:41:41.000 It is very unclear at this point why he has been ripping on Vladimir Zelensky.
00:41:44.000 I understand there are a lot of people who believe false things about Zelensky, such as that he is a dictator.
00:41:48.000 He is not, in fact, a dictator.
00:41:50.000 He is the legally elected president of Ukraine during times of martial law, when like half your country is occupied by another country.
00:41:56.000 Many of your people have actually run to other countries as refugees, and many of your people are actually, you know, on the front lines fighting.
00:42:06.000 It turns out very difficult to hold an election.
00:42:09.000 Zelensky has been...
00:42:10.000 Called that.
00:42:11.000 President Trump suggested there needs to be a new election before some sort of peace deal is held.
00:42:14.000 That doesn't seem to make a whole hell of a lot of sense.
00:42:16.000 For his part, Zelensky came out over the weekend and said, listen, if me resigning would create peace, I'd be happy to do it.
00:42:21.000 Or give me security guarantees, NATO members, like do something, and then I'll resign.
00:42:25.000 Happy to leave as soon as the war has basically come to some sort of conclusion that actually guarantees Ukraine safety and security for the foreseeable future.
00:42:34.000 If you really need me to leave for the sake of peace, I'm ready to do so.
00:42:39.000 I am focused on security for Ukraine today, not in 20 years' time, and I'm not going to hang around in power for decades.
00:42:48.000 It's important, I think, to put some context around Zelensky's remarks about him resigning.
00:42:52.000 He said that if it brought peace to Ukraine or gave Ukraine NATO membership, he'd be willing to step aside.
00:43:01.000 Now, the truth is, if Zelensky himself stepped down today, presumably the person who picked up the baton, because there wouldn't be an election, would be somebody who very largely agrees with Vladimir Zelensky's approach.
00:43:10.000 The Ukrainians have lost hundreds of thousands of people dead or wounded.
00:43:14.000 They're not simply going to allow a situation in which Russia can walk through the front door and into Kiev in the very, very near future.
00:43:21.000 And here's the thing.
00:43:22.000 I don't think the Trump administration wants that either.
00:43:24.000 I think a lot of this is a distraction.
00:43:26.000 I think a lot of the talk about the controversy between Trump and Zelensky has nothing to do with sort of the on-the-ground reality, and you keep seeing that from various members of the Trump administration.
00:43:34.000 So, for example, Pete Hegseth, who is the defense secretary, he says, listen, President Trump, you know, he's made comments about this sort of stuff, but we know who invaded whom, and we're not interested in watching Ukraine just turn into effectively a Russian territory.
00:43:50.000 We know who invaded who.
00:43:52.000 We understand the stakes of this game.
00:43:54.000 America, more than any other country in the world, has invested in helping Ukraine defend itself.
00:43:58.000 Now it's time for peace.
00:43:59.000 And that's what the president is dedicated to.
00:44:01.000 So standing here and saying, you're good, you're bad, you're a dictator, you're not a dictator, you invaded, you didn't, it's not useful.
00:44:07.000 It's not productive.
00:44:08.000 And so President Trump isn't getting drawn into that in unnecessary ways.
00:44:12.000 And as a result, we're closer to peace today than ever before.
00:44:17.000 Okay, and he's right about all of that.
00:44:19.000 This is a line that was repeated.
00:44:21.000 By Mike Walz, the National Security Advisor, he said, listen, President Trump has said that Russia invaded Ukraine under Obama, Russia invaded Ukraine under Biden, Russia did not invade Ukraine under Trump.
00:44:32.000 So, I mean, it's a tacit acknowledgement that Russia invaded Ukraine under Joe Biden, obviously.
00:44:36.000 So here is Mike Walz saying that.
00:44:38.000 Who would you rather have and go toe-to-toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi, or anyone else?
00:44:46.000 Joe Biden?
00:44:47.000 Or Donald Trump.
00:44:48.000 He's the dealmaker in chief.
00:44:50.000 He's the commander in chief.
00:44:52.000 And it's only because of his strength that we're even in this position.
00:44:57.000 And President Trump's own words have been that Russia invaded a neighbor under Bush, under Obama, under Biden, but not him.
00:45:05.000 It didn't happen his first term, and he's going to bring it to an end his second term.
00:45:11.000 Now, again, does this sound like surrender to you?
00:45:14.000 It doesn't sound like surrender to me.
00:45:15.000 There's a lot of controversy, again, over sort of the verbiage surrounding the Ukraine war.
00:45:19.000 But is this like a total shift in American policy?
00:45:21.000 It doesn't really feel like that.
00:45:23.000 Democrats are trying to make it that way. 0.87
00:45:24.000 And this is where, again, I start to get a little bit annoyed.
00:45:27.000 You guys had your shot.
00:45:29.000 This conflict should have come to its terminus back in 2022. And then you had three subsequent years to do something about it.
00:45:36.000 And you did nothing.
00:45:37.000 Instead, you slow walked into Ukraine so that they couldn't actually go into Donbass and Crimea.
00:45:41.000 And at the same time declared that the war should continue.
00:45:44.000 You wanted it both ways, and now you're stuck.
00:45:47.000 So when I hear you guys talk about how Donald Trump is surrendering to the Russians, you guys, what was your plan?
00:45:53.000 Do you have an alternative?
00:45:54.000 This is the thing about Democrats.
00:45:55.000 What's the alternative?
00:45:56.000 They do the same thing with Gaza. 0.79
00:45:58.000 Trump provides an alternative plan for Gaza, the only realistic plan I've ever heard about Gaza that actually accords with, you know, actual factual on-the-ground reality, and they start screaming about it.
00:46:07.000 Same thing with regard to Ukraine.
00:46:08.000 Here is Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
00:46:12.000 Essentially, this is President Trump surrendering to the Russians. 0.56
00:46:16.000 No surprise.
00:46:18.000 In Afghanistan, he sat down with the Taliban, excluded the government of Afghanistan in Doha through his emissaries.
00:46:28.000 And they essentially said, listen, don't bother us for a year and we'll be out.
00:46:32.000 And now he's trying the same thing, which is basically...
00:46:36.000 We're going to undercut the Ukrainians. 1.00
00:46:38.000 Oh, and by the way, we're going to get their precious minerals at bargain-rate prices as a threat to do even worse.
00:46:47.000 This is not a statesman or a diplomat.
00:46:51.000 This is just someone who admires Putin, does not believe in the struggle of the Ukrainians, and is committed to cozying up to an autocrat.
00:47:03.000 Jack Reed right there, he mentions these mineral contracts the United States has actually suggested to the Ukrainians.
00:47:08.000 And Zelensky's pushing back.
00:47:09.000 He's saying, you guys want too much from me.
00:47:11.000 Let's make a different deal.
00:47:12.000 All of that is perfectly rational and within the realm of reality.
00:47:15.000 If Zelensky can negotiate a better deal with the Europeans or with the United States for those rare earth minerals, great for him, good for him.
00:47:22.000 And that would be good for both the United States and Ukraine because, as the Trump administration has openly suggested, an economic relationship with Ukraine enshrines American security interests.
00:47:31.000 In Ukraine, much the way the United States has security interests in Taiwan, for example.
00:47:36.000 None of that is out of the box.
00:47:37.000 None of that is crazy.
00:47:39.000 And listening to Democrats who blew up the world suddenly complain about Donald Trump coming in and trying to fix things is really bizarre.
00:47:45.000 It's hard for me to think of anyone who is a worse advocate in favor of the United States than the former Obama-U.N. ambassador and then policy advisor to Joe Biden, Susan Rice.
00:47:56.000 She says that Trump on Ukraine is going to embolden China to invade Taiwan.
00:48:00.000 What was it exactly when Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan utterly and left it to the tender predations of the Taliban?
00:48:06.000 But what was that exactly?
00:48:08.000 What message does it send to Xi Jinping when Donald Trump says to Ukraine that they are the aggressor, they who are in fact the victims of an invasion, are somehow the ones who started the war and that the price for ending the war ought to be that Ukraine gives are somehow the ones who started the war and that the price for ending the war And oh, by the way, give over five hundred billion dollars to Donald Trump in the United States for nothing in return.
00:48:36.000 If I'm Xi Jinping, I'm looking at that going great.
00:48:39.000 Now's my time to invade Taiwan. 0.98
00:48:42.000 Well, I mean, again, you guys set up the predicate for all this.
00:48:48.000 Now, I don't want China to invade Taiwan.
00:48:50.000 And one of the things that I hope the Trump administration is pursuing, and they've talked openly about this, I assume they are, is a pivot from places like Europe, where Europe should be able to take care of its own business.
00:49:00.000 Again, Europe, the EU is much larger than Russia as a collective.
00:49:03.000 We can pivot from there to China and help protect Taiwan. 0.74
00:49:07.000 Because if Taiwan were to fall, that would have some grave consequences for Japan, for Australia, for the supply chain, for the future of pretty much all sophisticated manufactured goods.
00:49:16.000 Now, all that matters an awful lot.
00:49:18.000 So the pivot, I think, is something that the Trump administration has openly talked about.
00:49:23.000 It is amazing to watch Democrats and the left-wing media freak out about Trump's foreign policy.
00:49:28.000 And they're so delusional about what foreign policy even is.
00:49:30.000 So Michael Birnbaum at the Washington Post has a piece called, quote, In first month, Trump upends century-old approach to the world.
00:49:38.000 So what is the century-old approach to global affairs?
00:49:41.000 Quote, Trump has gone further than he did in his first term to redefine whom the United States embraces and whom it combats, surprising fellow world leaders who thought they knew Trump's playbook and had been working to please him.
00:49:50.000 Instead, the president is spurning a post-World War II international system built to block global aggressors, embracing far older ideas of allowing military powers to build regional spheres of influence and exert dominion over their neighbors.
00:50:02.000 Okay, let's just be clear about this.
00:50:03.000 That was also the system after World War II. The Soviet Union had a very, very, very large sphere after World War II. And President Trump is not interested in not allowing any blocking of global aggressors.
00:50:14.000 If that were the case, he would in fact just withdraw from Ukraine and not try to broker a peace deal at all.
00:50:19.000 This is my favorite sentence in the piece from the Washington Post.
00:50:21.000 Quote, Trump appears to be turning back the clock to a time in world history when countries with the biggest militaries constructed empires, demanded tribute from weaker nations, and expanded their territories through coercion.
00:50:33.000 Do you mean like all of human history?
00:50:35.000 Is that what we're talking about?
00:50:36.000 That the bizarre interregnum in which liberals thought that they could magic China into being nice to us, for example, or they could wheedle Russia into being kind, that that was always a facade and always a nonsense?
00:50:48.000 As Rosa Balfour, director of the Brussels office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says, quote, This is a classic geopolitics, actually.
00:50:54.000 Influence on the areas that are closest to you geographically.
00:50:57.000 Now, again, that doesn't mean the United States wants to abandon the Far East.
00:51:01.000 That would be a huge mistake.
00:51:03.000 Or the United States wants to abandon Eastern Europe.
00:51:05.000 That would also be a huge mistake.
00:51:07.000 But a reshifting and realignment of interests such that the people who are closest are spending the most on the thing makes an awful lot of sense.
00:51:15.000 And Democrats whining about it should have thought about that before they decided, to sink billions of dollars into a quagmire in Ukraine of their own making.
00:51:24.000 Meanwhile, President Trump is taking serious action inside the Pentagon.
00:51:27.000 He abruptly fired Air Force General C.Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday.
00:51:34.000 This is all part of his campaign to feature merit instead of diversity.
00:51:38.000 The ouster of Brown, only the second black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shockwaves through the Pentagon.
00:51:43.000 His 16 months in the job have been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East.
00:51:48.000 By the way, terrible job on both, sir.
00:51:50.000 So thanks for that.
00:51:51.000 If you wonder why exactly he's gone, the answer might be, you know, the quagmire in Ukraine and the fact that the Hooties now run the Red Sea. 1.00
00:51:58.000 That might be the thing.
00:52:00.000 According to the AP, Brown's public support of Black Lives Matter after the police killing of George Floyd had made him fodder for the administration's war against wokeism in the military.
00:52:09.000 Trump said he's nominating retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Raisin Cain to be the next chairman.
00:52:14.000 Kane is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard.
00:52:18.000 He was most recently the Associate Director for Military Affairs at the CIA. So, that seems like pretty well qualified, actually.
00:52:27.000 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced the firings of two additional senior officers, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.
00:52:37.000 Franchetti is the second top female officer to be fired by the Trump administration. 0.64
00:52:40.000 He also fired Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.
00:52:47.000 Now again, this is not just a quote-unquote purge of the diverse.
00:52:50.000 This is an attempt to reorient the Defense Department toward the priorities of the President of the United States.
00:52:56.000 This is the point that Hegseth is making.
00:52:57.000 Let's put in place people who actually listen to the President.
00:53:00.000 Here's the Defense Secretary.
00:53:02.000 I've got to ask you about this rumored list of people that you allegedly put together that were all going to be cleaned out.
00:53:08.000 Is there a list?
00:53:09.000 Is there anybody left on the list if it exists?
00:53:11.000 There's no list, Shannon.
00:53:12.000 I've heard that.
00:53:13.000 I've seen that very rumor.
00:53:14.000 Although we have a very keen eye toward military leadership and their willingness to follow lawful orders.
00:53:21.000 This is all about defending the Constitution.
00:53:23.000 Joe Biden gave lawful orders.
00:53:25.000 A lot of them are really bad.
00:53:27.000 Okay, and it's unfortunate how they eroded our military.
00:53:31.000 Ideological COVID mandates.
00:53:33.000 President Trump has given another set of lawful orders, and they will be followed.
00:53:36.000 If they're not followed, and all these orders are in keeping with the Constitution and norms inside the military, if they're not followed, then those officers will find the door.
00:53:46.000 Okay, so again, this seems like a perfectly plausible explanation for what's happening at the Pentagon.
00:53:51.000 One of the things that is hilarious about this is Democrats freaking out about this.
00:53:54.000 So, historically...
00:53:56.000 Presidents have always fired generals, like top generals.
00:53:59.000 Barack Obama famously fired Stanley McChrystal for the great sin of making comments in a magazine profile about Barack Obama and his handling of Afghanistan.
00:54:06.000 By the way, McChrystal was totally right about all of that.
00:54:09.000 Most famously, Harry Truman fired General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to move more harshly during the Korean War.
00:54:17.000 None of this is the end of the world, but...
00:54:20.000 Democrats keep claiming that everything is the end of the world.
00:54:22.000 So you have Susan Rice again saying that Donald Trump is putting politics in our military.
00:54:26.000 He did it?
00:54:26.000 I feel like you did it, madam.
00:54:29.000 We have always had an extraordinarily apolitical, professional military.
00:54:37.000 It's one of our greatest strengths as a democracy.
00:54:40.000 We have civilian control, but we have men and women in our military of all backgrounds who are super highly qualified.
00:54:49.000 And who serve with honor and serve with integrity and without politicization.
00:54:54.000 And now suddenly Donald Trump is bringing politics into the process of determining who should be our military leaders.
00:55:02.000 That is dangerous.
00:55:03.000 It's unprecedented.
00:55:05.000 And it does not bode well for our integrity as a democracy.
00:55:13.000 I was just hearing Democrats about the integrity of democracy after they centralize all power in the executive branch and then complain about it.
00:55:20.000 Again, all of this is within the realm of the perfectly normal, and everybody pretending that this is a threat to democracy is, you know, over their skis at the very least.
00:55:27.000 Alrighty, guys.
00:55:28.000 Coming up, we'll get to the trans story of the day.
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