The Ben Shapiro Show - My Debate With Destiny

00:00:00.000 Well, folks, last night was the New Hampshire primary, and as expected, Donald Trump blew away the field.

00:00:05.000 This, of course, was not a giant shock.

00:00:07.000 The polling just before this particular primary had Donald Trump up 20-plus points in many of the polls.

00:00:12.000 Donald Trump actually went and visited a bunch of these sites.

00:00:15.000 Big crowds there, and he was very Trumpy.

00:00:18.000 Here's what it sounded like.

00:00:19.000 You have a big crowd here.

00:00:20.000 Are you pretty confident here?

00:00:21.000 I'm very confident.

00:00:22.000 I mean, this is it.

00:00:23.000 Look, we just stopped here.

00:00:25.000 We stopped at a polling site.

00:00:26.000 We picked it at random.

00:00:28.000 We may stop at one more.

00:00:30.000 And nobody knew we were coming.

00:00:31.000 This is pretty amazing.

00:00:33.000 Mr. President, is she staying in through Super Tuesday?

00:00:36.000 Is she a threat to you?

00:00:37.000 No, no.

00:00:38.000 And I don't care if she stays in.

00:00:40.000 Let her do whatever she wants.

00:00:41.000 It doesn't matter.

00:00:42.000 I can just say that There's never been a movement like this, Make America Great Again, in the history of our country.

00:00:48.000 I just stopped here and I figured I'd see three or four people and maybe walk inside and you see a crowd like this and this is, this is organic.

00:00:57.000 So, he wins.

00:00:59.000 The primaries are over.

00:01:00.000 They're over after Iowa.

00:01:02.000 I'm not sure what else there is to say about that.

00:01:04.000 It does raise the question of just why Nikki Haley failed to resonate as sort of the anti-Trump candidate.

00:01:10.000 Now part of it is that there just isn't an anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party sufficient to actually overcome the pro-Trump wing of the Republican Party.

00:01:19.000 When Donald Trump became the nominee in 2016, Everybody came home, and then everybody came home again in 2020, and everybody's coming home again in 2024.

00:01:26.000 That is not a giant shock.

00:01:27.000 That is, in fact, the way politics works.

00:01:28.000 And so people who are looking at his results in, say, New Hampshire in 2016, and saying he was going to replicate his 35% in New Hampshire in 2024, are ignoring the fact that in the intervening period, he became the President of the United States, and then ran another election cycle, and now is running yet a third election cycle.

00:01:47.000 But the outsized animus for Nikki Haley that you see on some parts of the right, and I do think it's outsized.

00:01:53.000 Part of that is because if you oppose Trump, there's a part of the base that just is angry at you for having opposed Trump.

00:01:59.000 And a lot of it has to do with that.

00:02:00.000 I mean, Nikki Haley, again, was his UN ambassador.

00:02:03.000 She was somebody who worked for him.

00:02:04.000 She's somebody who's praised his presidency.

00:02:06.000 And so the idea that she's some sort of wild anti-Trump force, I think, is wrong.

00:02:10.000 But what Nikki Haley does have is an affect problem that is out of, I would say, pattern with the modern Republican Party. 1.00

00:02:18.000 The Republican Party at this point is, in fact, a party that is angry.

00:02:23.000 And I think justifiably angry on a number of scores.

00:02:26.000 One of the things the Republican Party is angry about, the base particularly, they're very angry about hearing about racial divisions.

00:02:34.000 They've been lectured since 2008, since Barack Obama ran for president in 2007, they've been lectured that America was coming close to racial unity only to have that ripped away from them.

00:02:45.000 And to watch as everybody sort of retreated back into tribalistic corners.

00:02:50.000 And this is how you end up with critical race theory and DEI and equity throughout the Biden administration.

00:02:55.000 So when they hear from members of the Republican Party about how America is a place that was replete with discrimination even 20 years ago or 30 years ago, They tend to think, I'm not sure that the person who's saying that is the person that I want fighting this fight today.

00:03:10.000 Not that people are lying about their experiences of 20 or 30 years ago, but to point out that your experience of 20 or 30 years ago, does that make you the person who is best suited to fight against the DEI culture today?

00:03:25.000 The reason that's coming up is because there's a clip of Nikki Haley that went viral just before the primaries, in which she was talking about her childhood.

00:03:32.000 And again, what she says here I don't think is actually wildly controversial, except that it is very much at odds with the attitude of many members of the Republican base, which is to say, are you going to stand up against the predations of the D.E.I.C.R.T.

00:03:46.000 culture?

00:03:46.000 Are you going to stand up against the idea that America is a place of racial division with sufficient alacrity, or are you going to try to play a little bit of identity politics for gain?

00:03:55.000 Here's the clip of Nikki Haley that went totally viral.

00:03:58.000 We were the only Indian family in our small southern town.

00:04:04.000 I was teased every day for being brown.

00:04:08.000 So anyone that wants to question it can go back and look at what I've said on how hard it was to grow up in the deep south as a brown girl.

00:04:17.000 What I will tell you is, saying that I had black friends is a source of pride.

00:04:22.000 Saying that I had white friends is a source of pride. 0.53

00:04:25.000 If you want to know what it was like growing up, I was disqualified from a beauty pageant because I wasn't white or black.

00:04:32.000 Because they didn't know where to put me.

00:04:34.000 So look, I know the hardships, the pain that come with racism.

00:04:41.000 It's the reason that I fight bullies every day when it comes to racism, anti-semitism, or hate.

00:04:47.000 And I always will. 0.59

00:04:49.000 So, the reason that clip went viral on the right is because, again, the question is, is she saying that sort of stuff to pander to legacy media, or is she doing what Tim Scott sort of did during the campaign, where he says, look how far we've come, I've suffered from racism, I know what that's like, but America is a place of opportunity, and to pretend that America today is what America was yesterday is foolish.

00:05:08.000 Or is this a, I'm a diverse candidate, vote for me, kind of play?

00:05:12.000 I think a lot of Republicans took away the latter message from clips like that one and it obviously did not help Nikki Haley.

00:05:17.000 Now again, I think that's combined with a lot of people who are very pro-Trump and very angry that anybody would deign to run against Trump.

00:05:23.000 Whatever the result, it didn't end up well for Nikki Haley in New Hampshire overall.

00:05:27.000 Now she says that she is not going to drop out of the race just yet.

00:05:31.000 She said yesterday that she was not going to talk political obituaries.

00:05:35.000 I didn't get here because of luck.

00:05:37.000 I got here because I outworked and outsmarted all the rest of those fellas.

00:05:42.000 So I'm running against Donald Trump.

00:05:44.000 And I'm not going to talk about an obituary just because y'all think we have to talk about it.

00:05:50.000 I'm going to talk about running the tape and saving this country.

00:05:52.000 I think we have to do it.

00:05:54.000 I'm a fighter.

00:05:55.000 I work hard.

00:05:56.000 And I do it because I love this country.

00:05:58.000 And we're going to go and fight until the very last poll closes, and then we're headed to my sweet state of South Carolina, and we're going to make the case there as well.

00:06:06.000 Now, it's a couple of weeks until South Carolina.

00:06:08.000 Do I think that Nikki Haley is going to stay in all the way until South Carolina?

00:06:11.000 I'm not sure exactly why she would.

00:06:13.000 Maybe she wants to rack up some delegates in case there's an act of God and something happens to Trump and they go to the convention and she says, I'm the person with the second most delegates and make her case there.

00:06:20.000 Maybe she wants to trade her delegates for some sort of slot in the administration. 1.00

00:06:24.000 That's quite possible too.

00:06:26.000 Whatever it is, the primaries are over.

00:06:27.000 They've been over since Iowa.

00:06:29.000 Everything else is merely a sort of waste of time and effort, I think, spending more time on it.

00:06:36.000 Now with all that said...

00:06:38.000 If you're a Democrat, you sort of feel like the trap may have just snapped closed on your opponents.

00:06:43.000 For a long time, Democrats, particularly in the legacy media, have been saying that all of Donald Trump's opponents, they're terrible, they're awful, they're no good, they're very bad, except for Nikki Haley, who is kind of okay.

00:06:51.000 And the reason you say she was kind of okay is because, again, of that sort of softer affect that she has.

00:06:56.000 But don't worry, if Nikki Haley had actually become the Republican nominee, she would have been just as bad as Trump, worse than Trump, because she's more seductive in terms of her politics and in terms of her mean than Trump is. 1.00

00:07:07.000 That would have been the play.

00:07:09.000 But now that Trump is the nominee, you're starting to see polls that are emerging in the swing states.

00:07:13.000 A poll from Pennsylvania with Trump down 8 to Joe Biden.

00:07:16.000 The attempt to move from Donald Trump is the scariest person in the world.

00:07:21.000 You can't nominate him.

00:07:23.000 Plus, all of Donald Trump's opponents are even worse than Donald Trump.

00:07:25.000 Rip on DeSantis.

00:07:26.000 Rip on Haley. 1.00

00:07:27.000 Rip on everybody else in the media.

00:07:28.000 Buy the media.

00:07:29.000 And then Trump gets the nomination.

00:07:30.000 All of a sudden, it's like, oh, look at that.

00:07:32.000 He's losing in the swing states.

00:07:33.000 Watch for that move from the legacy media.

00:07:35.000 And of course, it is way too early to tell who's going to win this election and who's going to lose this election.

00:07:40.000 So just keep your eye on that polling data.

00:07:43.000 Just a second, I want to talk about a fascinating discussion slash debate that I did with a liberal streamer who calls himself Destiny.

00:07:50.000 Actual name Stephen Bunnell.

00:07:51.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:08:57.000 Okay, so about a week ago, week and a half ago, I sat down with a liberal streamer named Stephen Bunnell.

00:09:04.000 He calls himself Destiny Online.

00:09:05.000 He got a big following online.

00:09:07.000 And frankly, I really hadn't heard much about him or viewed his videos much until I agreed to debate him On Lex Friedman's show.

00:09:16.000 And you can listen to the entire debate over at Lex's YouTube channel.

00:09:18.000 And it's really, I think, worth the listen.

00:09:20.000 It's a couple of hours long.

00:09:22.000 The reason it's sort of fascinating is because we covered a lot of ground.

00:09:26.000 And one of the biggest pieces of ground we covered is the debate between Biden and Trump.

00:09:30.000 And so I want to play a little bit of that for you right here, because I think that this is going to be the debate, obviously, going into the 2024 election, is this debate between Biden and Trump.

00:09:40.000 The debate did not center particularly much on Joe Biden's record because the truth is that Joe Biden's record is deeply flawed.

00:09:46.000 And we're going to get to more of that in just one second.

00:09:49.000 Instead, it centered on the central contention that is being made by people who are voting for Biden, which is that Donald Trump ought to be ruled out just right away.

00:09:57.000 Just right off the bat, Donald Trump cannot be president of the United States because he's just too scary.

00:10:03.000 He's too divisive. 0.95

00:10:04.000 He's too tyrannical.

00:10:05.000 So what Destiny said was that Donald Trump is the most divisive political figure in American history.

00:10:13.000 And what I pointed out to Stephen is that Joe Biden is in many ways more divisive.

00:10:16.000 Why?

00:10:16.000 Because when Donald Trump came into office, Donald Trump was expected to be divisive.

00:10:20.000 There weren't any secrets about Donald Trump being a divisive character.

00:10:23.000 He came into office, he did not have a positive approval rating for but maybe two days of his entire presidency.

00:10:30.000 Joe Biden was expected to be a person who united the country, and then he completely failed.

00:10:34.000 Here's what I had to say.

00:10:36.000 Can I ask you, like, for our head of state, our chief executive, shouldn't rhetoric be arguably one of the most important things that he does?

00:10:44.000 I mean, the answer would be yes.

00:10:45.000 And now I've been given a choice between a person who I think in calibrated ways says things that are divisive and a person who in uncalibrated ways says things that are divisive.

00:10:54.000 And so the evidence that Joe Biden is divisive is every poll taken.

00:10:59.000 since essentially August of 2021.

00:11:02.000 He is, by all available metrics, incredibly divisive.

00:11:06.000 A huge percentage of Americans are deeply unhappy, not only with his performance, but don't believe he's a uniter.

00:11:12.000 And this is one of the things that I think that Democrats ought to keep in mind, is that Democrats are thinking, just right off the bat, that Donald Trump is so divisive because of his rhetoric and all the things he says.

00:11:22.000 But are people disappointed with Trump?

00:11:25.000 Or is Trump kind of what he always was?

00:11:28.000 Because one of the feelings I get is that people are deeply disappointed in Joe Biden.

00:11:31.000 That's a very difficult feeling to shake.

00:11:33.000 If you're disappointed in a political candidate, you tend to turn away from that political candidate.

00:11:41.000 That was actually the story of the 2012 election.

00:11:43.000 Between 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama actually lost votes.

00:11:46.000 He's the first incumbent president to lose votes and somehow retain the presidency.

00:11:51.000 Now, why did that happen?

00:11:52.000 How could he retain the presidency?

00:11:53.000 And the answer is he got people who were largely unenthusiastic about voting to vote.

00:11:57.000 And that was particularly true for black voters in swing states.

00:12:01.000 A performance that has not yet been replicated by any Democrat, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

00:12:05.000 When it comes to presidents who are expected to unite and then divide, the American people don't like that.

00:12:10.000 They kind of would rather know what they're getting than be disappointed in a promise that is unfulfilled.

00:12:15.000 There is no promise that Trump has made that is unfulfilled.

00:12:18.000 Good and bad.

00:12:19.000 But Joe Biden came into office on the wings of eagles.

00:12:21.000 Joe Biden came into office pledging that he was going to unite the country.

00:12:24.000 He was going to bring honor and the adults back to the White House.

00:12:26.000 And instead, he has provided terrible leadership and divisive rhetoric and speeches in which he labels half the country terrible and awful and threats to democracy.

00:12:36.000 We also talked about the idea of tyranny.

00:12:38.000 So Stephen focused a lot on January 6th.

00:12:42.000 He focused a lot on the idea that Trump would, if he could, be a tyrant.

00:12:45.000 And the point that I made is that Donald Trump Would he exercise power, if he could exercise power, in ways that I would not like?

00:12:54.000 Sure.

00:12:55.000 He has said that he would.

00:12:56.000 I mean, he recently went on a Twitter spree, or a truth social spree, in which he claimed that the president has what he called absolute immunity, like for any crime ever.

00:13:05.000 So do I think that he would effectuate that if he could?

00:13:07.000 Sure.

00:13:07.000 Is he going to do any of that?

00:13:09.000 No, he's not.

00:13:10.000 Here's how I explained it to Steven when we were talking about which character is more tyrannical.

00:13:17.000 Joe Biden has used executive power in ways that far outstrip anything that Trump has done.

00:13:20.000 Every president has been stretching and stretching and stretching executive power.

00:13:23.000 Joe Biden is going, like, Joe Biden has gone well beyond anything Trump even remotely attempted to maintain via just pure executive power.

00:13:31.000 I mean, Joe Biden literally used the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration to try to cram down VAX mandates on 80 million Americans.

00:13:38.000 That's insane.

00:13:39.000 He literally said, I cannot relieve student loan debt and then tried to relieve hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

00:13:45.000 Yeah, but what happened to that?

00:13:47.000 It got struck down by the Supreme Court, and then they still did it!

00:13:49.000 They still did it!

00:13:50.000 Biden bragged about it!

00:13:52.000 So again, I think that a lot of the points that are being used against Trump are not actually dispositive.

00:13:58.000 And I think that really is the name of the game for Democrats.

00:14:00.000 If they cannot kill Trump right off the bat, if they can't kill his candidacy right off the bat, they got a problem.

00:14:05.000 Because what exactly is the fuel they are going to add to the fire between now and November? 0.61

00:14:09.000 What exactly is the information that's going to come out about Trump that's going to change anything?

00:14:14.000 I don't really see it.

00:14:15.000 And the biggest problem of all for Joe Biden is not just that he is bad on policy, which again, we'll get to in a moment.

00:14:20.000 The biggest problem for Joe Biden is that there is a conflict of visions between Joe Biden's view of the world and what the American people think.

00:14:26.000 He is guided by an upper crust liberal elite, a coterie that does not think like the rest of the United States thinks.

00:14:34.000 And that refuses to kind of engage in the conversations that the rest of Americans are engaged in.

00:14:41.000 There's a poll that I want to get to in just one second that explains where a lot of the Democratic Party agenda is coming from.

00:14:47.000 And it is not coming from the same place that most Americans are coming from.

00:14:50.000 We'll get to that momentarily first.

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00:15:55.000 Okay, so the conflict of visions may be the story of not only this election, but the election of 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

00:16:04.000 So there is a person named Yuval Noah Harari.

00:16:08.000 Yuval Noah Harari is an author, and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

00:16:15.000 But don't let that title fool you.

00:16:17.000 He is sort of a pop sociologist, to a certain extent, a pop anthropologist.

00:16:22.000 And he happens to be a militant atheist.

00:16:25.000 And here is his view on life.

00:16:26.000 And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think this is actually the view of a huge number of liberal-minded elites in the United States.

00:16:33.000 And it is completely at odds with the way that most people, I think, think.

00:16:37.000 Here is Yuval Noah Harari.

00:16:39.000 He's giving a TED Talk.

00:16:40.000 Here's what it sounded like.

00:16:42.000 Many, maybe most, legal systems are based on this idea, this belief in human rights.

00:16:49.000 But human rights are just like heaven and like God.

00:16:53.000 It's just a fictional story that we've invented and spread around.

00:16:58.000 States and nations are also like human rights and like God and like heaven.

00:17:04.000 They too They're realities.

00:17:05.000 are just stories. Israel or the United States, they are just stories, very powerful stories,

00:17:12.000 stories we might want to believe very much, but still they are just stories. You can't really see

00:17:18.000 the United States. You cannot touch it. You cannot smell it.

00:17:21.000 Okay, the reality. Once you create this fact-value disconnect, once you get rid of

00:17:28.000 the divine or any rational basis at all, or faith basis for fundamental first principles,

00:17:33.000 then you fall very quickly into moral relativism.

00:17:35.000 And once you're in moral relativism, it is very hard to escape it.

00:17:39.000 And that's why there's a really fascinating poll that came out recently from Rasmussen.

00:17:45.000 And it looked at the people who are sort of that we describe as the elites.

00:17:51.000 Here's how the Rasmussen polling group describes it.

00:17:53.000 They say, the people who run America, or at least think they do, live in a bubble of their own construction.

00:17:57.000 They've isolated themselves from everyday American realities.

00:17:59.000 To such a degree, their views about what is and what should be happening in this country differ widely from the average Americans.

00:18:05.000 An analysis of their thinking, conducted for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, finds that on a variety of economic, social, and political issues, there exists a wide gap between how the top 1%, the elites, think things should be and how the rest of America looks to them.

00:18:18.000 So, how do they define the elites?

00:18:20.000 These would be defined as people having at least one post-grad degree.

00:18:24.000 Okay, so these are people, they just graduated college, they have a JD, an MBA, an MD, earning at least 150 grand annually, living in a high population density area.

00:18:34.000 So that'd be like a New York lawyer who graduated from NYU or something.

00:18:38.000 And then it compares what these elites think to what the rest of America thinks.

00:18:41.000 And what they find is this vast disconnect, a serious and vast disconnect.

00:18:46.000 So, for example, in a time when most Americans have suffered a loss of real take-home pay, 74% of elites say they are financially better off today than in the past, versus 20% of all Americans.

00:18:57.000 And that disconnect makes sense.

00:18:58.000 A lot of these people sat home during COVID, and they did just fine.

00:19:02.000 And they don't really understand why other people don't feel that way.

00:19:06.000 I get that.

00:19:07.000 I have a lot of friends who made money over the last several years.

00:19:12.000 But that's not the experience of most Americans.

00:19:14.000 That is really not the experience.

00:19:15.000 And if you don't understand that, then you have a disconnect.

00:19:18.000 You don't have to experience what other people experience to understand that what they're saying is correct.

00:19:22.000 When most Americans say, the economy is not good for me, they are right.

00:19:25.000 The economy is not good for them.

00:19:28.000 Nearly 6 in 10 of these elites say there is too much individual freedom in America, double the rate of all Americans.

00:19:33.000 So how do they get to that?

00:19:34.000 These are people who are experiencing the highest levels of freedom of any subgroup in the United States.

00:19:38.000 They have more monetary freedom.

00:19:40.000 Many of them, they have more educational freedom.

00:19:43.000 They have more freedom to move about.

00:19:44.000 They have more choices in life, presumably.

00:19:46.000 But they say there's too much individual freedom in America.

00:19:49.000 Why?

00:19:49.000 Because like Yuval Noah Harari, they don't believe that freedom is an inherent right.

00:19:54.000 Because rights are social constructions.

00:19:56.000 They're stories that we make up to tell ourselves at night.

00:19:59.000 And these are the sophisticates.

00:20:00.000 And these sophisticates are interested in building a system of their own making for you.

00:20:06.000 More than two-thirds of these people favor rationing of vital energy and food sources to combat the threat of climate change.

00:20:11.000 Now again, that's because they can avoid all of this.

00:20:14.000 They don't believe that they should go back to living in a nature preserve or a log cabin.

00:20:19.000 They may say they do because they don't actually have to live like that right now.

00:20:22.000 And that seems very far away from them, so easy for them to say.

00:20:25.000 But they say that sort of stuff.

00:20:26.000 Again, why?

00:20:26.000 Because to them, property rights are kind of irrelevant because they already own the things.

00:20:32.000 In fact, the people who need property rights the most typically are not the people who already own, but the people who are going to need to own in order to get out of the situation in which they currently live.

00:20:41.000 I'll get to more of this polling in just one second.

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00:21:46.000 Okay, back to this fascinating poll of the elites from Rasmussen.

00:21:51.000 Apparently, somewhere between half and two thirds of these elites favor banning things like SUVs,

00:21:56.000 gas stoves, air conditioning, and non-essential air travel to protect the environment.

00:21:59.000 About six of these ten elites have a favorable opinion of the so-called talking professions to be lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, and journalists.

00:22:06.000 Now, again, I think normies in America look at that and they're like, lawyers?

00:22:10.000 Those are people who make things more complicated and cost me money.

00:22:12.000 Lobbyists?

00:22:13.000 Those are people who work for industry and then engage in regulatory capture.

00:22:16.000 Politicians?

00:22:17.000 Those are people who stand in the way of my prosperity.

00:22:20.000 Journalists are people who lie to me.

00:22:21.000 I think it's how many Americans feel about our institutions right now.

00:22:23.000 But the elites, because these are the circles in which they walk, have a lot of faith in institutions that the rest of America has been disabused about.

00:22:32.000 Well, here is the key stat here.

00:22:34.000 President Biden has an 84% job approval rating from this group.

00:22:38.000 That is roughly twice as high as the general public.

00:22:41.000 That is a massive gap.

00:22:44.000 A massive gap.

00:22:46.000 Again, when it says, does the United States provide too much individual freedom, too much government control, or is the balance about right?

00:22:54.000 57% of Americans say about too much control.

00:22:58.000 Ivy League graduates, 55% say too much freedom.

00:23:02.000 That gap defines the Biden administration.

00:23:05.000 The Biden administration is defined by this gap.

00:23:07.000 Now again, I think that normal people are not thinking like this.

00:23:10.000 I don't think normal people think that things like country and borders are artificial abstractions created out of thin air.

00:23:17.000 They're stories that we just tell ourselves.

00:23:19.000 Arbitrary stories that we can change at any time.

00:23:22.000 And in fact, I think that the stories that replace those stories, even if you buy Yuval Noah Harari's framework here, the stories that replace those stories are much worse than the stories that have historically been accepted by human beings.

00:23:37.000 The replacement for stories about church, for example, has not been a better story that we tell ourselves.

00:23:43.000 It's been a much worse story.

00:23:46.000 This is why it was fascinating.

00:23:47.000 During that debate with Destiny, the liberal streamer, the question of low birth rates came up.

00:23:54.000 And you all know Harari might say, well, that's because of a story that we tell ourselves about human freedom and contraceptive freedom. 0.65

00:24:01.000 Okay, fine.

00:24:03.000 But the answer to that story is a better story.

00:24:06.000 And that story could be answered not with puzzlement and bewilderment, But with a simple three-word answer, here's what that sounded like.

00:24:15.000 The one kind of weird thing that we're coming up against, that we have been coming up against now for some number of decades and will continue to, is as societies progress, seems like people are having less children.

00:24:27.000 And I actually don't know 100% what the answer is to that question.

00:24:31.000 I do.

00:24:32.000 I'm sure you do, yeah.

00:24:33.000 I mean, an implementable answer that works, that we know we can get everybody on board with.

00:24:37.000 And the answer, my answer was, go to church.

00:24:39.000 Religion, yeah. 0.89

00:24:41.000 Yes, actually, yes.

00:24:43.000 Now, there's two ways for people who are liberal to get out of that.

00:24:45.000 One is to say, well, that's a story you tell yourself.

00:24:47.000 It's a false story.

00:24:48.000 And so we're just not going to do it.

00:24:50.000 The other way is to say, well, maybe if the thing has worked over time, it is worth actually examining whether it is a true story.

00:24:57.000 Maybe there is some truth to that story.

00:24:59.000 But that's the thing that the elites can't abide.

00:25:01.000 Because if there's truth to many of the narratives that pre-exist them, Then they got a problem.

00:25:06.000 Because these are the intellectuals.

00:25:07.000 These are the post-grads.

00:25:08.000 These are the people who are the successful elite in our society.

00:25:10.000 They want to restructure society according to their own story.

00:25:13.000 But what if the story that pre-existed them was not an arbitrary story?

00:25:16.000 Maybe that story was there for a reason.

00:25:20.000 Actually, of all people, Dean Phillips, the Democratic Minnesota Congressperson, I think, kind of stumbled upon this.

00:25:26.000 He was jousting with the media.

00:25:28.000 He's running against Joe Biden in an exotic campaign in New Hampshire against the current president.

00:25:33.000 But he went off on the media because they're asking a bunch of questions.

00:25:36.000 And he said, listen, you're not even asking the questions Americans care about.

00:25:39.000 And that makes perfect sense because journalists, many of them are part of this elite coterie who have a different value system from the rest of America.

00:25:46.000 I've said this 18,000 times.

00:25:49.000 I'm only doing this to defeat Donald Trump.

00:25:51.000 Nobody seems to want to do that in the Democratic Party right now, other than me, because Joe Biden can't, is my proposition, because the data says he can't.

00:25:59.000 No one in the country right now cares.

00:26:00.000 In fact, most of the people in the country are going to the Trump rally right now, because he's listening to them.

00:26:05.000 No one's asking about this stuff.

00:26:07.000 I'm just frustrated.

00:26:08.000 I hope you understand why.

00:26:09.000 I'm getting tired of it. 0.98

00:26:10.000 You're doing your jobs, but you're not asking the questions that Americans give a shit about. 0.99

00:26:16.000 He happens to be correct. 0.98

00:26:17.000 He happens to be correct. 0.97

00:26:18.000 Democrats are not giving answers to the questions that Americans care about, and journalists aren't even asking the questions that Americans give a crap about.

00:26:24.000 In fact, their definition of freedom is so wildly different from the definition that most Americans hold that it's gonna get them in an awful lot of trouble.

00:26:30.000 So for example, Senator Tammy Duckworth was asked what 2024 was about, and she said freedom.

00:26:36.000 And so the question is, what do you mean by freedom?

00:26:38.000 Listen to her answer.

00:26:40.000 Well, I think that it's about Freedom, right?

00:26:43.000 It's about protecting democracy, but protecting freedoms.

00:26:45.000 And 1 of our freedoms is the right to control our bodies and control our reproductive cycles.

00:26:50.000 Also talking about the right to the freedom from student loans, the freedom to walk down the streets and not have to worry about being target of.

00:27:01.000 That's amazing.

00:27:10.000 How does she describe freedom?

00:27:11.000 She names three things.

00:27:12.000 Freedom to do abortion. 0.94

00:27:14.000 Which, again, I think there are a lot of Americans who are not on board with the idea that freedom is abortion.

00:27:21.000 Most shockingly, she says freedom is freedom from student loans.

00:27:24.000 That's an amazing statement.

00:27:25.000 So freedom is other people pay your bills.

00:27:28.000 That's true freedom.

00:27:30.000 And that's the elite version of freedom.

00:27:32.000 That's the society they want to structure.

00:27:33.000 Freedom from responsibility, say the elites.

00:27:36.000 That's all most Americans are talking about.

00:27:39.000 If that's the democratic proposition for 2024, I think that that is a vast gap from what most Americans feel.

00:27:45.000 Remember a few months back, there was this song that went absolutely viral.

00:27:52.000 And that song, it was Oliver Anthony, and the song was called Rich Men North of Richmond, you'll recall.

00:28:00.000 And the lyrics of Rich Men North of Richmond absolutely puzzled many members of the left.

00:28:03.000 They literally did not know what he was talking about.

00:28:06.000 Because in the song, he talked about people basically taxing too much, and also spending too much money.

00:28:15.000 He talks about the abuse of welfare, for example.

00:28:17.000 And people who are in this elite coterie, they're like, why is he whining about?

00:28:20.000 He's a blue-collar guy.

00:28:21.000 Shouldn't he be in favor of that?

00:28:23.000 Shouldn't he want a restructured way of life?

00:28:27.000 And what he's talking about is the things that most Americans actually care about.

00:28:31.000 The things that are, the stories that have always worked.

00:28:33.000 The stories about family and freedom and the ability to use your merit to rise to the top.

00:28:41.000 And one of the things that he's saying about He said, if you're 5'3 and you're 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds. 0.98

00:28:49.000 Young men are putting themselves six feet in the ground because all this damn country does is keep kicking them down. 0.91

00:28:54.000 And people are like, why is he doing the welfare queen routine? 0.93

00:28:56.000 Well, it turns out that most Americans actually are not in favor of the basic proposition that freedom means freedom from student loans, for example.

00:29:05.000 And this is Joe Biden's core problem.

00:29:06.000 Joe Biden is not speaking a language the American people recognize. 0.93

00:29:10.000 And that's going to come back to bite him in the butt, along with his policy failures, which we'll get to momentarily. 0.72

00:29:13.000 First, let's talk about staying healthy on the road. 0.77

00:29:16.000 So we're on the road.

00:29:17.000 We're in Poland.

00:29:18.000 We just went to Auschwitz with Elon Musk.

00:29:20.000 We spent a day filming.

00:29:22.000 And producer Zach, he keeps healthy.

00:29:24.000 How?

00:29:24.000 Well, he uses his balance of nature, fruit and veggie capsules.

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00:30:17.000 Okay, so speaking of Joe Biden's policy, you know, the most undercovered story of this of this cycle, this new cycle so far, is the fact that we have two dead Navy SEALs.

00:30:29.000 I mean, like, how is this not the biggest story in America?

00:30:33.000 So these two Navy SEALs actually died.

00:30:35.000 They were lost at sea during an operation attempting to seize Iranian-made missile parts that were bound for Houthi rebels in Yemen.

00:30:42.000 All of this, by the way, an outgrowth of the gigantically weak foreign policy of this administration with regard to Iran.

00:30:49.000 CENTCOM said in a statement the military had declared the two deal seals dead.

00:30:52.000 It was now conducting recovery operations following a 10-day exhaustive search.

00:30:57.000 The search covered 21,000 square miles, apparently.

00:31:01.000 The seals were reported lost earlier this month when they took part in a nighttime operation to board a boat in the international waters of the Arabian Sea, according to the U.S.

00:31:08.000 military.

00:31:08.000 That is an attempt to ensure freedom of shipping, which has been completely obstructed under Joe Biden through the Red Sea.

00:31:16.000 Joe Biden's attempts to fire missiles that hit camels in the ass has so far had very little effect on the actual prevention of who the terror attacks on ship and which continue unabated. 0.92

00:31:27.000 Meanwhile, We have two Americans dead in an attempt to stop the Houthis. 0.97

00:31:31.000 We have other Americans who have been severely wounded, including one with apparently brain injuries, thanks to Iranian attacks on American bases in Iraq.

00:31:39.000 And Joe Biden is just trying to walk through this thing.

00:31:41.000 Here is Joe Biden literally just trying to stumble across grass and avoiding questions about these two dead Navy SEALs.

00:31:50.000 Mr. President!

00:31:51.000 Two Navy SEALs are dead!

00:31:53.000 What's your response?

00:31:56.000 There he is walking, as Donald Trump likes to say, looking like he's trying to walk on toothpicks.

00:32:01.000 And again, it's not just these two dead Navy SEALs.

00:32:04.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian-backed militias launched another missile and rocket barrage at U.S.

00:32:09.000 forces in Iraq on Saturday.

00:32:10.000 Several Americans may have been injured.

00:32:12.000 Will Iran pay any price for this latest assault? 1.00

00:32:14.000 CENTCOM said in a statement most of the missiles were intercepted by the al-Assad airbase air defense systems while others impacted the base.

00:32:20.000 Damage assessments are ongoing and added a number of U.S.

00:32:22.000 personnel are undergoing evaluation for traumatic brain injury.

00:32:26.000 At least one Iraqi service member was wounded.

00:32:29.000 This is one of the largest of the 140 or so attacks by Iranian-backed militias since October 7th against the United States in Iraq and Syria.

00:32:35.000 And all of that is designed to put pressure on the United States, to put pressure on Israel to stop and leave Hamas in place in the Gaza Strip after the worst terror attack on Jews since World War II.

00:32:45.000 Now, why is all that happening?

00:32:46.000 The reason Iran is doing this is because Iran believes that in an election year, Joe Biden is so all-fired frightened of getting into a war with Iran that they can push the United States around to their heart's content.

00:32:56.000 They can shut down shipping in the Red Sea.

00:32:57.000 They can continue to have Hezbollah fire missiles into northern Israel and kill Jews. 0.90

00:33:01.000 They can continue to fire directly at American bases.

00:33:05.000 They can have their proxy forces fire directly at American air bases in Iraq, and Joe Biden will run away.

00:33:11.000 In fact, that is not a bad analysis by the Iranians because that's how weak Joe Biden is. 0.96

00:33:14.000 Peter Baker at the New York Times reports as much.

00:33:16.000 He says, Another day, another barrage of rockets and another spark that American officials fear could set off a wildfire of violence across the Middle East.

00:33:23.000 The assault on American troops based at Al Asad Air Base in Western Iraq Saturday night was by one measure the most successful bleed to be carried out by a militia sponsored by Iran since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th.

00:33:35.000 Two out of an estimated 17 rockets and short-range ballistic missiles fired at the base made it through air defense systems.

00:33:41.000 American forces have at times mounted retaliations, but in limited fashion to avoid instigating a full-fledged conflict.

00:33:47.000 Biden administration officials have regularly debated the proper strategy.

00:33:50.000 They don't want to let such attacks go without a response.

00:33:52.000 But on the other hand, They don't want to go so far, the conflict would escalate into a full-fledged war, particularly by striking Iran directly.

00:33:58.000 They privately say they may not have no choice if American troops are killed.

00:34:01.000 That's a red line that has not been crossed, but if Iranian-backed militias ever have a day of better aim or better luck, it easily could be. 0.56

00:34:07.000 What do you call it when you have two dead Navy SEALs in an attempt to stop the Houthis from shipping a bunch of missiles into their territory?

00:34:15.000 Again, the fear of Iran is dictating this administration's foreign policy and it's dictating Iran's aggression. 0.91

00:34:21.000 Now, the reality is that Iran really, really does not want to direct war with the United States.

00:34:26.000 What they do want to do is humiliate the United States and pressure the United States into pressuring Israel to leaving their proxy force in Hamas in place. 0.61

00:34:32.000 That is their goal.

00:34:33.000 But there's an entire article in the New York Times by rule Mark Garrett and Ray Take talking about exactly what Iran wants.

00:34:41.000 And what they say, correctly, is while Iran is clearly asserting its military strength amid the widening regional turmoil, that doesn't mean its leaders want to be drawn into a wider war.

00:34:49.000 They've said as much publicly.

00:34:51.000 Perhaps more important, they've meticulously avoided taking direct military action against either Israel or the United States.

00:34:56.000 The regime appears to be content for now to lean into its longtime strategy of proxy warfare.

00:35:00.000 The groups they back are fighting Iran's foes.

00:35:02.000 So far, neither Israel nor the United States has signaled any interest in retaliating directly.

00:35:07.000 Why?

00:35:07.000 Well, because they're afraid that if they go to war, if they get in like a direct firing war with the United States or Israel, they're afraid their regime is over.

00:35:13.000 The elderly supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is seeking to secure his legacy.

00:35:17.000 That means not getting dragged into a wider war.

00:35:20.000 They're busily rounding up protesters and executing them right now.

00:35:25.000 So, you know, Iran doesn't want the war, certainly more than the West doesn't want the war.

00:35:29.000 But Joe Biden is making clear, just like Barack Obama did in 2012 to the Russians, if you guys want to get aggressive, like now would probably be your best move.

00:35:37.000 Because if you like, please, please, please don't make me get aggressive with you because I want to get reelected.

00:35:42.000 And Joe Biden is basically saying that to the Iranians.

00:35:44.000 And the Iranians are like, well, that gives us a window of opportunity.

00:35:49.000 Now, there could be a miscalculation here.

00:35:50.000 Iran could go too far and the United States might be forced, even under Joe Biden, to do something. 0.90

00:35:54.000 But the best way to do this would be to be predictably unpredictable.

00:35:58.000 The reason they never did this under Trump is that they didn't know what the hell Trump was going to do.

00:36:01.000 Trump might have fired a missile and taken out the Ayatollahs. 0.52

00:36:04.000 He might have done that.

00:36:05.000 Nobody believes that Biden is going to do that.

00:36:06.000 Instead, Joe Biden continues to signal to the Iranians and their proxies that he will, in fact, do their work. 0.69

00:36:13.000 That he will, in fact, attempt to leverage down a bad deal on Israel after the Hamas attack.

00:36:20.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, a proposal submitted to Israel via the United States suggests a post-war Gaza that would create a pathway toward a Palestinian state in exchange for Saudi recognition of Israel.

00:36:31.000 Now, the reason that's totally insane is because if Israel grants a pathway to a Palestinian state on the heels of the worst terror attack in Israeli history, you are simply saying to people that if they attack you and kill lots of your citizens, you will give them stuff.

00:36:44.000 That is what you are doing.

00:36:45.000 By the way, Hamas, for its part, doesn't even want a ceasefire.

00:36:49.000 According to the Associated Press, Hamas was offered a two-month full ceasefire in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages and some Palestinian security prisoners being released as well, and allowing Hamas leaders to relocate to other countries to get out.

00:37:03.000 Hamas rejected that.

00:37:05.000 So for all the, we need a ceasefire now crowd, Hamas rejected a ceasefire again.

00:37:11.000 Biden's weakness on foreign policy is radically increasing the risk of actual serious war in the Middle East.

00:37:17.000 Moving beyond what's already going on over there.

00:37:19.000 And it's not just obviously the Middle East.

00:37:21.000 There's also continued chaos on our southern border.

00:37:23.000 We'll get to that momentarily.

00:37:24.000 First, Lady Ballers is the hilarious story of how a group of male losers who can't win against other men decide to identify as women and join a women's basketball league. 0.85

00:37:31.000 Yes, it's absurd. 0.99

00:37:32.000 It's ridiculous and laughable. 0.97

00:37:34.000 And also it's kind of happening like right now. 0.84

00:37:37.000 Here's a quick look at what is being called the most triggering movie of the decade.

00:37:40.000 Leftists are losing it over Lady Ballers. 1.00

00:37:43.000 Nothing's changed. 0.88

00:37:44.000 This movie is a straight-up and intentional transphobic hate crime.

00:37:49.000 What?

00:37:50.000 I see you.

00:37:51.000 The Lady Ballers movie needs to be banned.

00:37:54.000 I'll cancel you.

00:37:55.000 Can I get the blinds, please?

00:37:56.000 Go to 11.

00:37:58.000 The most toxic BS you've ever seen. 1.00

00:38:01.000 You're a monster. 1.00

00:38:02.000 Yeah! 1.00

00:38:03.000 Next-level hate speech propaganda.

00:38:05.000 That's it?

00:38:05.000 That's the pitch?

00:38:06.000 Watch the most triggering comedy of the decade.

00:38:12.000 Lady Ballers, streaming exclusively on DeliWire Plus.

00:38:16.000 Don't wait, watch Lady Ballers, the movie Hollywood didn't make. 1.00

00:38:19.000 So we did, exclusively at Daily Wire Plus, right now.

00:38:21.000 Meanwhile, again, Democrats are not connecting with the American people, and so they're trying to walk their way past the issues.

00:38:26.000 The latest example comes courtesy of the New York Times.

00:38:28.000 So this is an insane thing.

00:38:30.000 The New York Times printed a piece in which they claimed that there's bipartisan polarization around immigration.

00:38:35.000 So the New York Times runs this headline, Things Fall Apart, How the Middle Ground on Immigration Collapsed.

00:38:40.000 And what they show is Pew Research Center polling with regard to feelings about illegal immigration and open borders.

00:38:47.000 And for those who can't actually see the graphic that we're showing right now, this is why you should subscribe so you can actually see it because it's hysterically funny.

00:38:53.000 Basically what it shows is that the American right has had perfectly consistent feelings on immigration since 1994.

00:39:01.000 Like with very little play in the joints.

00:39:04.000 And when asked whether they support broader and looser immigration, only about 30% of Republicans said yes back in 1994.

00:39:11.000 And that number is like 38% today.

00:39:16.000 And it's always been between those two numbers.

00:39:18.000 It's like just a straight line between 1994 and 2019.

00:39:22.000 For Democrats, the number went from 32% pro more open borders to 83% today.

00:39:29.000 But what the New York Times did is they drew fake trend lines suggesting that there was a radical decrease for Republican support for borders, for open borders, and a radical increase for Democrats.

00:39:41.000 That's not true.

00:39:41.000 Republicans have been perfectly consistent for 30 years on this question.

00:39:46.000 Democrats have been utterly inconsistent.

00:39:48.000 They've moved from 32% support for open borders to 83% support for more open borders.

00:39:55.000 So what is the New York Times trying to do?

00:39:56.000 They're trying to pretend that there's been bipartisan polarization when in fact there has not.

00:40:03.000 When in fact, the reality is that Democrats are the ones who have gotten more radical. 1.00

00:40:06.000 You can try whistling your way past this graveyard, but man, it is a stupid political move. 0.98

00:40:11.000 In fact, fascinating piece over at Barry Weiss's Free Press today by a reporter, Olivia Reingold, talking about black Democrats suing Chicago over migrants. 0.99

00:40:20.000 According to the Free Press, Black residents said that Chicago, which calls itself a welcoming city, has been very welcoming, just not to them.

00:40:28.000 Since October 2022, Chicago has greeted nearly 35,000 new arrivals with resources like laundry services, mental health screenings, and $15,000 in rental support per person.

00:40:37.000 All funds that could have gone a long way in Amundsen Park in Chicago's Austin district, where nearly 28% of residents live below the poverty line.

00:40:45.000 So, last October, a day before the Fieldhouse was set to become a migrant shelter, A Black Democrat rushed to the local courthouse along with three of her neighbors plus the head of the local NAACP chapter for moral support and then drafted a lawsuit in a notebook, ripped out the pages, and handed them to a clerk.

00:40:58.000 So now Black Democrats are suing over this.

00:41:01.000 And when we say there's a disconnect between the elites that run the Democratic Party and the rest of the country, we mean, like, the rest of the country.

00:41:08.000 That disconnect extends throughout American policy.

00:41:13.000 And things are only going to get worse, by the way.

00:41:15.000 Because again, weakness on a foreign policy level is likely to make things really bad economically speaking.

00:41:21.000 Like right now, for example, China could effectively quarantine or blockade Taiwan.

00:41:29.000 There's a poll from Axios, an expert opinion poll on whether Beijing could effectively quarantine, blockade, or invade Taiwan.

00:41:38.000 According to these quote-unquote experts, a law enforcement-led quarantine of Taiwan, almost 90% of American experts strongly agree or somewhat agree that there could be a law enforcement-led quarantine of Taiwan.

00:41:55.000 How about a Chinese army-led blockade of Taiwan?

00:41:58.000 Well over 80% of U.S.

00:42:00.000 experts believe there could be an effective Chinese-led blockade of Taiwan.

00:42:05.000 How about an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?

00:42:07.000 Well, that's less likely because that would involve mass death, but they don't need to do that.

00:42:12.000 A blockade would do it.

00:42:13.000 A blockade of Taiwan, in which the Taiwan Straits are effectively closed to all trade, in which microchips just stop being shipped all over the world because China looks at what's going on in the Red Sea and they say, hell, if a bunch of ragtag pirates can do that in the Red Sea, why can't we, with a very, very large greywater navy, And a huge army. 0.84

00:42:30.000 Why can't we do the same thing?

00:42:32.000 Blockade Taiwan until they cry uncle and give us some more sophisticated military microchips. 0.99

00:42:37.000 Why can't we actually do this?

00:42:39.000 Now again, that blockade...

00:42:41.000 Would involve both commercial and military activity.

00:42:44.000 That would be a disaster area for the world economy, and it is becoming more and more likely.

00:42:49.000 Because again, imagine this.

00:42:51.000 The Chinese government right now, maybe they're holding out for a Biden victory because they think, okay, if they get a full second term of Joe Biden, they can push him around as much as they want.

00:42:58.000 But what if Donald Trump is leading in a couple of months?

00:43:00.000 Do they just say, you know what, forget it, let's go for broke at this point?

00:43:04.000 Interesting article over at the Wall Street Journal from a couple of years ago talking about what exactly a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would mean for global business.

00:43:12.000 And the answer is a gigantic disaster.

00:43:15.000 Taiwan accounts for roughly 70% of the world's microchip supply.

00:43:19.000 It sits next to Pacific shipping lanes that channel trillions of dollars worth of trade flowing in and out of East Asia.

00:43:26.000 A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would result in chip shortages for cars and electronics to drive up inflationary pressures as well.

00:43:34.000 Pretty much every major industry would be radically changed by such a blockade.

00:43:38.000 And that's becoming more likely every day because Joe Biden is a weakling. 0.98

00:43:41.000 Because he is a weakling. 0.92

00:43:42.000 And he's busy with the priorities of these elites.

00:43:46.000 whose value system is unlike yours, and who are much more concerned about, say, global warming than they are about, say, global trade.

00:43:53.000 Okay, meanwhile, I know what you're waiting for, and that is my analysis of the Oscar nominations.

00:43:59.000 I know you weren't waiting for that because, after all, who watches the Oscars anymore?

00:44:02.000 But still, I feel like it's worthwhile to go through some of these Oscar nominations because it's fun to see where, you know, people who disagree with you culturally are sitting today.

00:44:11.000 So, in easily the funniest story of the day, Barbie, which as you know I loved.

00:44:18.000 I thought it was an amazing film. 0.97

00:44:20.000 By which I think it was absolute overrated trash. 0.92

00:44:22.000 I think it was unwatchable. 0.98

00:44:24.000 I think that people who say they like it are lying.

00:44:27.000 I think, Michael Moulse, I think that this movie makes no sense.

00:44:31.000 It has plot holes.

00:44:32.000 It's badly written.

00:44:34.000 All of those things.

00:44:35.000 Also, this is hilarious.

00:44:36.000 So, it was nominated for Best Picture, which is like, okay, I know what you guys are doing.

00:44:40.000 Yes, it made a ton of money, and all the critics pretended they loved it because they had to, because they had a gun to their head.

00:44:46.000 But, it was nominated for Best Picture. 1.00

00:44:47.000 Okay, fine, that's stupid. 0.97

00:44:48.000 But, the funniest thing, by far the funniest thing, is that the only, is that the acting nominees for Barbie are Ryan Gosling, who plays Ken, America Ferreira is nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her garbage speech about how women have it so tough, and oh my god, it's so hard to be a woman. 0.99

00:45:12.000 So she was nominated.

00:45:12.000 But you know who wasn't nominated?

00:45:14.000 So Ken was nominated.

00:45:15.000 You know who was not nominated?

00:45:17.000 Barbie.

00:45:19.000 Margot Robbie, not nominated.

00:45:21.000 You know who else not nominated?

00:45:22.000 The greatest director of all time, Greta Gerwig, who's the greatest.

00:45:25.000 We all love all of her work because she's the greatest director who ever directed, and because everything she says is wise and brilliant, and she's so wise.

00:45:32.000 So, she was not nominated either.

00:45:33.000 So, Ken was the only major part nominated from the Barbie film.

00:45:38.000 Oh, the patriarchy!

00:45:40.000 The power of the patriarchy even overcoming Barbie itself.

00:45:46.000 And the patriarchy will rule supreme because I'm going to predict right here, right now that Oppenheimer wins Best Picture. 0.94

00:45:50.000 So in the Barbenheimer fight, Oppenheimer, which is like an all-time great movie, is going to defeat Barbie, which is trash. 0.91

00:45:56.000 And it should.

00:45:57.000 So the Best Picture nominees are American Fiction, which is apparently a kind of like weirdly anti-woke piece, is what I've heard, but I have not seen it yet.

00:46:05.000 Anatomy of a Fall, which is about a relationship, because there's always a relationship movie at the Oscars.

00:46:11.000 The Holdovers, which is, I guess, sideways in high school.

00:46:15.000 Killers of the Flower Moon, which is really overlong, but it's directed by Martin Scorsese.

00:46:20.000 And so we have to pretend that we all love Killers of the Flower Moon.

00:46:22.000 And again, I'm not like super anti-Scorsese.

00:46:24.000 I like some of his films, but Killers of the Flower Moon is a drag. 0.62

00:46:27.000 Maestro, which is about Leonard Bernstein being gay.

00:46:31.000 Oppenheimer, a movie called Past Lives, a movie called Poor Things, and a movie called The Zone of Interest.

00:46:37.000 Now, I will admit that I'm interested to see The Zone of Interest.

00:46:40.000 Mainly, it has amazing reviews, and also it covers ground that I literally just walked.

00:46:44.000 I mean, it is about Auschwitz.

00:46:46.000 So I'm kind of fascinated to see that movie, but...

00:46:49.000 Those are your Best Picture nominees.

00:46:50.000 In the Best Actor category, this is where somebody actually got robbed.

00:46:53.000 And it is not Margot Robbie, and it is not Greta Gerwig.

00:46:56.000 It's Glenn Howerton from Blackberry.

00:46:57.000 So if you haven't seen Blackberry yet, it's actually a lot of fun.

00:46:59.000 It's a terrific little film.

00:47:00.000 And Glenn Howerton is excellent in it.

00:47:03.000 He's like Best Performance of the Year.

00:47:04.000 Excellent.

00:47:05.000 Who got nominated?

00:47:06.000 Cillian Murphy from Oppenheimer.

00:47:08.000 And he's admittedly great.

00:47:09.000 Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.

00:47:10.000 I haven't seen American Fiction yet.

00:47:12.000 I want to see it.

00:47:13.000 But he is, he's a really good actor.

00:47:15.000 Paul Giamatti, who's not going to win for The Holdovers.

00:47:18.000 And, you know, I just gotta, I gotta put it out there.

00:47:21.000 Not a huge Paul Giamatti fan.

00:47:23.000 I feel like he's the same in every single part.

00:47:25.000 Coleman Domingo in a movie called Rustin, which I have not seen.

00:47:27.000 And Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein in Maestro and overplaying the part.

00:47:31.000 Chewing some scenery.

00:47:33.000 For Best Actress, you have Annette Bening in a movie called Neod, which nobody has ever seen and no one knows what it's about or what it is.

00:47:39.000 Or that Annette Bening was still alive.

00:47:40.000 Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon.

00:47:43.000 She's fine.

00:47:46.000 Sandra Huller in Anatomy of a Fall.

00:47:48.000 Carey Mulligan in Maestro and Emma Stone in Poor Things.

00:47:51.000 I'm gonna bet that it's Emma Stone in Poor Things because Poor Things is apparently like a feminist tract about how repressed Victorian women... Then there's Best Supporting Actor.

00:48:01.000 Robert De Niro got a nod for Killers of the Flower Moon, which is a late career nod to Robert De Niro playing a part that he is 40 years old to play.

00:48:08.000 Robert Downey Jr.

00:48:09.000 in Oppenheimer.

00:48:10.000 He is excellent in Oppenheimer.

00:48:11.000 Ryan Gosling.

00:48:12.000 I do think, by the way, Ryan Gosling is going to win here.

00:48:15.000 I think Ryan Gosling, I think he's going to be the honorary Barbie award because everybody loved him in Barbie.

00:48:19.000 Even I thought that he was the most amusing thing in Barbie.

00:48:22.000 And again, I think that that That movie is living death.

00:48:25.000 And I thought that Ryan Gosling was still funny in that film.

00:48:29.000 And Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things Who I Hope Loses because he is not a pro-Semitic person.

00:48:36.000 He's too busy standing for Hamas. 0.94

00:48:38.000 Best Supporting Actress. 0.99

00:48:40.000 Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple, America Ferreira in Barbie for that garbage speech.

00:48:44.000 Jodie Foster in Niad. 0.83

00:48:46.000 Again, don't know what it is.

00:48:48.000 And Divine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers. 0.98

00:48:50.000 Best Director.

00:48:51.000 Greta Gerwig got shut out.

00:48:52.000 I think this is Nolan's year.

00:48:53.000 I think Nolan is going to take home Best Picture and Best Director this year.

00:48:57.000 Those are the big awards.

00:48:59.000 So what is the takeaway?

00:49:02.000 The takeaway is that it wasn't like an amazing year for film, is the takeaway, which seems to be our usual takeaway.

00:49:06.000 Like, I don't see any films that I saw this year and I thought, man, that thing should have been nominated for Best Picture that wasn't.

00:49:13.000 Right?

00:49:13.000 Oppenheimer, I think, it has the most nominations.

00:49:15.000 It has 13 nominations.

00:49:16.000 It should have the most nominations.

00:49:17.000 It's a truly great film.

00:49:19.000 Barbie, again, is going to be the story because it's the only movie that, aside from Oppenheimer, anyone saw this year.

00:49:27.000 Yeah, bottom line, low ratings, but I'm rooting very, very hard for Ryan Gosling to win for Barbie because it's the funniest possible outcome.

00:49:34.000 The funniest possible outcome for the movie of Barbie is for Ken to win the only award.

00:49:38.000 I just, I'm there for it.

00:49:39.000 I love that the Academy accidentally did this, and more, I want Ken to win, and I want, I'm just Ken from the Barbie movie to win.

00:49:48.000 Those are my demands.

00:49:50.000 And I will hold someone hostage to make those demands happen.

00:49:54.000 I want us to lose costume design.

00:49:55.000 I want us to lose every other category, but only the men win.

00:50:01.000 Not even because I care, but because it's hilarious.

00:50:04.000 It'd be super hilarious if the patriarchy ends up winning in a movie made about how terrible the patriarchy supposedly is.

00:50:12.000 So, there's that.

00:50:13.000 All right, coming up, we'll jump into Yvonne's mailbag. 0.98

00:50:15.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:50:16.000 Use code Shapiro.

00:50:17.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 24, 2024

My Debate With Destiny

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