The Ben Shapiro Show - No More TRANSING The Military!

00:00:00.000 Well, folks, it turns out that when it comes to getting things done, the image of the thing matters an awful, awful lot.

00:00:06.000 And this is something Democrats have understood for a very long time, that the image that any particular department gives off has a cultural impact.

00:00:13.000 There are people like me who learned from Andrew Breitbart who said that politics is downstream from culture.

00:00:19.000 But the truth is, it's more of a cycle.

00:00:22.000 It's more that politics is downstream of culture, which is downstream of politics, which is downstream of culture.

00:00:26.000 What I mean by this...

00:00:27.000 Is that politics, the power of government, can in fact shape culture to its own whims.

00:00:33.000 And so, if you give off an image of DEI or ESG from the government, you create an unofficial sanction against people who disagree.

00:00:43.000 Sometimes you have actual formal strictures against people who disagree.

00:00:47.000 In other words, the government does an awful lot to shape culture in this country.

00:00:50.000 This is something the left has understood for a very long time in a way that the right traditionally has not.

00:00:54.000 And that includes people like me.

00:00:57.000 Should have a set of delegated powers, and the government performs those delegated powers, and we elect that government.

00:01:03.000 So really, culture should shape, our politics should shape our governance.

00:01:06.000 But the truth is, it works the other way too.

00:01:08.000 And this is a point that many people on the MAGA right have been making for a long time, is that when you have, for example, a defense department that decides that it's going to put out ads that feature lesbian families finding themselves, that this actually has an impact on the kind of people who are recruited into the military.

00:01:23.000 And that, in turn, has an impact on how people think.

00:01:26.000 And that, in turn, has an impact on how people around the world think of the United States.

00:01:30.000 And they're not wrong about this.

00:01:31.000 That's obviously true.

00:01:33.000 The reason I say this is because now nature is healing and things are going back to normal, and it's starting with governmental action.

00:01:40.000 Now, you can say that culture led to that governmental action.

00:01:43.000 You can say that the culture in the United States changed.

00:01:45.000 There was a backlash against the insane, radical, left-wing woke-ism of the last decade and a half.

00:01:51.000 And that is why President Trump was re-elected.

00:01:54.000 It's why he has a conservative Supreme Court. 0.68

00:01:56.000 It is why he has a Republican-led Senate and a Republican-led House.

00:01:59.000 And all of that is true.

00:02:01.000 But it is also true that now that the cycle has begun, now that culture has shaped politics, politics is shaping culture again, perhaps the tip of the spear in this battle is the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

00:02:12.000 So, again, remember, the Defense Department, when we were growing up, when I was a mere child, the Defense Department was all about the idea that America was Winning wars.

00:02:22.000 A battle machine made up of strong, particularly men, who are going to go into difficult places and do things that no one wanted to see them do in order to keep America safe.

00:02:32.000 That was always the image of the military.

00:02:34.000 And the movies and TV shows that many of us grew up on were rooted in that image of the United States military.

00:02:40.000 And the other day, I was looking for a movie to watch with my eight-year-old son, and I brought up one of my favorites from when I was a kid.

00:02:46.000 I tended to watch old movies when I was a kid, meaning movies from the 50s and 60s.

00:02:49.000 And so I brought up a favorite to show him.

00:02:51.000 The old Gregory Peck, David Niven film, The Guns of Navarro, which is a classic.

00:02:56.000 Terrific, terrific film if you have kids, teenagers.

00:02:59.000 It's a wonderful film.

00:03:00.000 It's about a secret mission by a group of essentially American and British commandos to blow up a Nazi-held stronghold.

00:03:07.000 And it's a really, really good movie.

00:03:09.000 But the entire basis of the movie is that sometimes...

00:03:12.000 Men have to do violent, nasty things in order to fight the bad guys. 0.96

00:03:16.000 And this was always the idea of the American military.

00:03:18.000 And then somehow it shifted.

00:03:19.000 Somehow the American military became a tool of social engineering.

00:03:23.000 And the glorious points of America's history were not America's military-winning wars, but how the military was to be used as a sort of microcosmic stand-in for the diversity, equity, and inclusion regime.

00:03:35.000 So instead of the glorious moments of diversity in the military being linked with victory, so for example, the Tuskegee Airmen.

00:03:42.000 Being helpful in winning World War II because we needed more people and we needed to get rid of the evils of segregation in order to have a better fighting machine.

00:03:49.000 Instead, that was seen itself, whether it was useful or not useful, as the high point of the military.

00:03:56.000 And thus was born the idea that what the military really needs to do is draw from every segment of society.

00:04:03.000 The military is not supposed to be a battle-hardened machine designed toward winning and breaking things and killing bad guys.

00:04:08.000 Instead, the military was supposed to be a commercial for United Colors of Benetton.

00:04:13.000 That was the basic idea of the military.

00:04:15.000 And that's why we needed Admiral Rachel.

00:04:17.000 That's why we needed members of the military who were carrying pride progress flags.

00:04:23.000 That is why every recruitment video needed to be about finding yourself as opposed to what the military has always been about, which is defending the country and defending the guy next to you.

00:04:32.000 Well, all that is changing.

00:04:33.000 Secretary of Defense Hegseth, who we on the show pushed very hard for, specifically for this reason, is changing the culture and the nature of the American military and how it is perceived almost single-handedly.

00:04:44.000 Not because he's the only one in the military who is saying this stuff, but because the leadership of the military absolutely matters.

00:04:50.000 Politically correct generals atop a structure filled with wonderful men and women who are fighting for the country is not good enough.

00:04:56.000 You need people at the top of the military who actually reflect.

00:05:00.000 The priorities and the image of the grunts on the ground, the guys who are actually doing the fighting and wounding and dying on behalf of the country.

00:05:09.000 So Pete Hegseth did a couple of things yesterday that re-enshrined again this notion that America's military is back.

00:05:15.000 And by the way, you can see it in the numbers, as we talked about on the show a couple of days ago.

00:05:19.000 Pete Hegseth announced that recruitment hit record highs, like 12-year highs in December, and hit 15-year highs in January.

00:05:25.000 And recruitment is going to keep going up.

00:05:27.000 Why?

00:05:27.000 Because it turns out that young men want to join.

00:05:29.000 This kind of military.

00:05:31.000 If young men wanted to join the world's most diverse workforce, and that was like the top priority, they'd be going to Wellesley or they'd be looking for a job at Starbucks.

00:05:40.000 But if what they actually wish to do is join a fighting machine, which is what the American war machine is supposed to be, then they're going to want to go into Donald Trump's military, but not, for example, Barack Obama or Joe Biden's military.

00:05:54.000 You know how many questions I fielded over the course of the Obama and Biden administrations from young men?

00:05:59.000 17, 18-year-old men who said, listen, I have a long family history of going into the military.

00:06:03.000 I'm not sure I want to go into the military if the commander-in-chief is Joe Biden or Barack Obama.

00:06:09.000 Because, number one, I don't trust their foreign policy instincts, and I'm not sure I want to fight in a place that is far-flung, having no impact on American interests.

00:06:17.000 But more importantly, I'm not sure I want to go into a military where people like me are scorned and looked down upon, historic military families.

00:06:24.000 We're not members of the sort of diversity coalition that's going to be on the brochure cover for the Biden or Obama military.

00:06:31.000 All of that is changing.

00:06:33.000 So Pete Hegseth yesterday, he went and he trained with a bunch of members of the military.

00:06:36.000 Of course, he himself has a military background.

00:06:39.000 Here's some of the video of him greeting members of the military.

00:06:51.000 They're all eager to meet Hegseth because Hegseth is one of them, right?

00:06:55.000 Hegseth served in the exact same kind of combat roles that they did.

00:07:00.000 The image of that, as opposed to Lloyd Austin strolling down lines of men and women wearing like a face mask is very different.

00:07:10.000 And then, of course, Hegseth went out and he was pumping iron.

00:07:12.000 Now again, people on love say, oh, this is so stereotypical.

00:07:15.000 This is so, what does it matter?

00:07:17.000 I mean, isn't this kind of just garish and boorish?

00:07:20.000 Well, the answer is sure and awesome. 1.00

00:07:24.000 Because the image that you want to give off to the world is one where if you screw with us, we will kick your ass. 0.99

00:07:28.000 That is the image that the American military should in fact be purveying to the rest of the world. 0.99

00:07:33.000 And Hegseth is a key part of that.

00:07:34.000 So he made a couple of announcements yesterday that go to this.

00:07:36.000 So, number one, Hegseth issued an immediate pause on gender affirming medical care procedures for all active duty service members in a memo addressed to senior Pentagon leadership and military command, according to ABC News.

00:07:46.000 It also ordered an immediate pause on all new promotions in the military for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria.

00:07:53.000 In other words, this is not a diversity machine.

00:07:55.000 This is a battle machine.

00:07:57.000 Now, none of this should be surprising.

00:07:59.000 Gender dysphoria is a very serious condition.

00:08:01.000 If you have depression, you are not allowed to be recruited into the military.

00:08:04.000 If you have clinical obesity, you're not allowed to be recruited into the military.

00:08:08.000 Anything.

00:08:08.000 That is supposed to inhibit your function as a member of the military is supposed to bar you from entering the military.

00:08:13.000 There's a wide variety of mental health conditions that bar you from joining the military. 0.76

00:08:18.000 If it doesn't bar you from joining the military that you're a man who wants to cut off your junk and have hormone treatment, I'm not sure exactly what should precisely.

00:08:26.000 And again, that's not a question of the patriotism of people who want to join the military in this condition. 0.67

00:08:30.000 It's a matter of what the military wants and what the military needs.

00:08:34.000 The memo says, quote, Again, the executive order that President Trump signed,

00:09:02.000 Not long ago, directed the DOD to revise the Pentagon's policy on transgender service members and stated that expressing a false gender identity divergent from individual sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.

00:09:14.000 And this would appear to be perfectly obvious.

00:09:16.000 This would appear to be perfectly obvious.

00:09:17.000 If you are body dysmorphic, if you have anorexia, if you think that actually you're a fat person and you're a deathly skinny person, you shouldn't be in the military.

00:09:24.000 If you're a person who believes that you're a one armed person in a two armed person's body, you shouldn't be in the military.

00:09:31.000 The order continues, quote, consistent with the military mission and longstanding DOD policy, expressing a false gender identity divergent from an individual sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.

00:09:42.000 And Hegseth echoed this.

00:09:43.000 He said, quote, efforts to split our troops along lines of identity, weaken our force and make us vulnerable.

00:09:47.000 Such efforts must not be tolerated or accommodated.

00:09:51.000 And this is correct.

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00:12:06.000 So what exactly is happening?

00:12:08.000 Well, of course, the left immediately sued because the idea here is not that the military must be strong.

00:12:13.000 The military must, in fact, be a diversity organization.

00:12:18.000 Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal then filed a federal lawsuit.

00:12:21.000 The lawsuit says, quote, by categorically excluding transgender people, the 2025 military ban and related federal policy and directives violate the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment and the free speech guarantee of the First Amendment.

00:12:33.000 They lack any legitimate or rational justification.

00:12:36.000 Well, actually, there's a pretty easy legitimate or rational justification.

00:12:40.000 If you join the military and demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in services to cut off your...

00:12:44.000 It seems that that might be an inhibiting factor in your military service.

00:12:49.000 And first of all, terming a transgender category, suggesting that transgender people are their own category, as opposed to human beings who have gender dysphoria and who are categorizing themselves wrongly.

00:13:07.000 I'm wondering exactly what the limiting principle there is.

00:13:09.000 If you're somebody, for example, with a criminal history, you can't join the military.

00:13:13.000 Is that a ban on categories of people?

00:13:17.000 Because they've acted in a particular way?

00:13:20.000 Or they believe certain things about themselves?

00:13:24.000 Good for Hegseth.

00:13:25.000 And again, the image of the American military is going to be stronger because of all this.

00:13:29.000 That was only one of two things that Hegseth did yesterday.

00:13:32.000 He also renamed Fort Liberty to Fort Roland L. Bragg.

00:13:36.000 So he is renaming Fort Bragg back from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.

00:13:41.000 There's a twist, and this is really smart.

00:13:43.000 Okay, so what Hegseth is doing, what the Trump administration is doing.

00:13:46.000 So originally, Fort Bragg was named Camp Bragg, and it was named after a person named Braxton Bragg, who was a former U.S. Army artillery commander and a West Point graduate who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

00:13:57.000 And by the way, one of the reasons that many of the forts in the United States were named for Confederate generals, Fort Hood, for example, one of the reasons for that was not because...

00:14:07.000 There was a great love for the Confederacy in the United States.

00:14:09.000 It was because the way that you bring a country back together after the most bloody civil war in American history and possibly world history is that you actually express conciliation by recognizing that the Confederacy existed and now they have been subsumed into the broader Union.

00:14:26.000 But the Biden administration decided to rename Fort Bragg because the idea was that presumably Black soldiers would go to Fort Bragg, and suddenly they would think of Braxton Bragg, and they would think of the racism of America.

00:14:38.000 Now, again, I'm wondering what the evidence was to that effect, that black soldiers who were at Fort Bragg spent every waking moment thinking about the name of Fort Bragg.

00:14:47.000 I've heard Fort Bragg thousands of times.

00:14:49.000 It had never occurred to me to even look up who Fort Bragg was named after, let alone to look into the deep history of Braxton Bragg.

00:14:58.000 But...

00:14:58.000 What Hegseth is doing is smart.

00:14:59.000 They found another American hero named Bragg so they could go back to Fort Bragg.

00:15:03.000 That way, when veterans say, I served at Fort Bragg, everybody knows what they're talking about because there's still a fort named Fort Bragg, a U.S. base named Fort Bragg.

00:15:11.000 So according to the Defense Department, while flying aboard a C-17 from Joint Base Andrews to Stuttgart on February 10, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Liberty in North Carolina to Fort Roland L. Bragg.

00:15:24.000 The new name pays tribute to private first class Roland Elbreg, a World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.

00:15:32.000 This change underscores the installation's legacy of recognizing those who have demonstrated extraordinary service and sacrifice for the nation.

00:15:38.000 So apparently Roland Elbreg was, again, another American hero, but he was an American hero circa World War II.

00:15:47.000 And he had effectively, apparently hijacked during World War II, a German ambulance to get a wounded soldier to an allied hospital in Belgium.

00:15:56.000 He drove like 20 miles.

00:15:57.000 And so what they're doing is they're restoring the legacy of Fort Bragg without paying homage to a Confederate soldier.

00:16:04.000 Which is a pretty good way of squaring the circle here.

00:16:06.000 Pretty smart.

00:16:07.000 And all the people who would normally be protesting against the renaming of Fort Bragg are going to have trouble protesting the naming of Fort Bragg for a World War II Battle of the Bulge hero.

00:16:16.000 And all this goes to these sort of...

00:16:18.000 The broader thing that Trump is doing is very much image-driven.

00:16:22.000 And this is something that Trump understands better than literally anyone alive.

00:16:26.000 He is the best marketer in the history of the American Republic, bar none.

00:16:29.000 I mean, who else would be up for the job?

00:16:31.000 Like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Donald Trump, just in terms of branding genius.

00:16:37.000 The people who did Coca-Cola.

00:16:39.000 Donald Trump is amazing at branding, and he understands the power of imagery.

00:16:44.000 And the left is panicking.

00:16:45.000 Because for a very, very long time, the right never understood the power of imagery.

00:16:48.000 The power never understood the power of culture in general.

00:16:51.000 And when you say that, again, there's that cycle, culture being upstream of politics, and then culture also being downstream of politics, it's the cycle that one pushes the other.

00:16:59.000 Remember, Donald Trump was a cultural figure in Home Alone 2 and in every rap song from about 1988 to 1997, long before he was president of the United States twice.

00:17:08.000 And now he's using the power of culture in order to push his particular brand of politics.

00:17:13.000 This is one of the things about Doge.

00:17:15.000 So, the Department of Governmental Efficiency.

00:17:17.000 Remember the history of Doge.

00:17:19.000 So, Doge was originally suggested as a sort of advisory council led by Elon Musk that would exist outside the federal government.

00:17:27.000 And Trump talked about it and the entire left scoffed.

00:17:29.000 The media scoffed too.

00:17:30.000 They said, well, this is just a way for him to sort of throw a sop to Elon Musk.

00:17:34.000 They're not really going to do anything.

00:17:36.000 They'll make a few recommendations.

00:17:37.000 It'll be like a task force and nothing will happen.

00:17:40.000 And then it turns out that Trump just outsourced a bunch.

00:17:43.000 of the hard-nosed federal cuts to Elon Musk.

00:17:45.000 Why?

00:17:46.000 Because Musk is, number one, incredibly famous for going into companies and clearing out Deadwood.

00:17:50.000 When he went into X, he fired 80% of the staff day one.

00:17:55.000 It broke a lot of the systems.

00:17:56.000 And then he had to rebuild a bunch of those systems.

00:17:58.000 This is something that Musk is famous for, too.

00:18:00.000 Musk is famously volatile in the sense that he comes in and he breaks things and he does it fast.

00:18:06.000 And if he makes mistakes, he'd rather break things and then fix them than not break anything and leave bad systems in place.

00:18:11.000 This is what Musk does.

00:18:12.000 And three, Musk happens to be the richest and one of the most famous people on Earth, which means that he can draw the fire.

00:18:19.000 It's not about Trump.

00:18:20.000 Now it's about Musk.

00:18:21.000 So again, this is very smart strategically.

00:18:23.000 And targeting these sort of waste, fraud, and abuse that Musk is targeting is also very smart PR. Now, as I've discussed before, the only way to solve the systemic debt problems of the United States, it's not going to happen through kind of cutting around the edges at the Department of the Treasury.

00:18:37.000 It's only going to happen when you restructure the major entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

00:18:42.000 None of that's going to happen anytime in the near future because both parties are deathly afraid of touching those third rails of American politics.

00:18:49.000 And so what Trump is doing right now is he's allowing Musk imagistically to carve away at the image of an efficient government that has never been true.

00:18:59.000 Musk tweeted this morning that the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in America's governmental systems put to shame any private waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of the American Republic.

00:19:09.000 And that, of course, is wildly true because the size of the American government, is so huge, so exorbitant, that it is not hard to throw a dart and you will hit waste, fraud, and abuse almost anywhere in the federal government.

00:19:21.000 In the private sector, you see, you're responsive to things like return on investment.

00:19:25.000 You're responsive to the profit motive.

00:19:27.000 You're responsive to your shareholders.

00:19:29.000 In the government, if you waste money, well, there's always more money where that came from.

00:19:33.000 You can either print it or you can steal it from the American taxpayer.

00:19:37.000 So that is what Musk is doing, and he is putting Democrats on the wrong side of the issue, because who exactly is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse?

00:19:45.000 What exactly is the objection to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse?

00:19:49.000 So, what Democrats are doing instead is they are pretending that this is an assault on, quote-unquote, the system.

00:19:55.000 That it's a constitutional threat.

00:19:57.000 Here's the thing.

00:19:58.000 Democrats, over the course of the last century and a half, have hollowed out the Constitution and worn around its face, like Hannibal Lecter.

00:20:05.000 That is what Democrats have done.

00:20:06.000 They created an entire administrative bureaucratic executive branch filled with 2 million people to make all the rules that govern your life.

00:20:14.000 They've turned the legislature into a vestigial organ of American government.

00:20:18.000 And now Trump is coming in and he's the head of the executive branch and he's deploying people in the executive branch to make cuts within the executive branch.

00:20:24.000 And they say this is a constitutional threat to the country.

00:20:27.000 They want some separation of powers now.

00:20:29.000 Well, welcome to the party, pal.

00:20:31.000 But here's the thing.

00:20:32.000 You created these rules and now you are going to have to live by them.

00:20:36.000 F-A-F-O. Well, five former Treasury secretaries, all Democrats, of course, have now written an op-ed for the New York Times saying, quote, our democracy is under siege.

00:20:47.000 Now, what they can't say is our bureaucracy is under siege, which is the reality.

00:20:50.000 Our bureaucracy is under siege, and it should be.

00:20:53.000 The thing that they cannot say is that our waste, fraud, and abuse-ridden system is under siege.

00:20:58.000 That's what's under siege.

00:20:59.000 Instead, it's our democracy.

00:21:02.000 Now, you may have gotten used to during the Biden administration or the Obama administration.

00:21:06.000 Hearing the word democracy thrown around a lot.

00:21:09.000 All Democrats mean when they say democracy is stuff they like.

00:21:12.000 If they do something totally undemocratic and you say no, they say you're a threat to the democracy.

00:21:16.000 If they say that the Equal Rights Amendment is now law even though it totally isn't and you say no, they say you're a threat to American democracy.

00:21:24.000 If you cut the bureaucracy, they call you a fascist.

00:21:27.000 I mean, if what we are watching right now is fascism, which is severing the bond between government sponsorship and blue constituencies.

00:21:35.000 If that's fascism, I feel like your definitions are wrong.

00:21:39.000 Folks, what we are watching at work here is not fascism.

00:21:42.000 I've never seen a fascist cut the government before.

00:21:45.000 However, Democrats are banking on future uncertainty.

00:21:47.000 In fact, they're trying to foster future uncertainty.

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00:23:52.000 So anyway, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, and Janet Yellen, all again, former Democrat Treasury secretaries, have this piece in The New York Times, freaking out about all of this.

00:24:04.000 Quote, when we had the honor of being sworn in as the 70th, 71st, 75th, 76th, and 78th secretaries of the Treasury, we took an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution.

00:24:13.000 Our roles were multifaceted.

00:24:15.000 We sought to develop sound policy to advance the president's agenda and represent the economic interests of the United States on the world stage.

00:24:21.000 But in doing that, we recognize that our most fundamental responsibility was a faithful execution of the laws and the Constitution of the United States.

00:24:28.000 We are fortunate that during our 10 years in office, no effort was made to unlawfully undermine the nation's financial commitments.

00:24:34.000 Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that such efforts are underway today.

00:24:38.000 The nation's payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants.

00:24:43.000 Okay, now the first time you hear that phrase, nonpartisan career civil servants, it sounds kind of nice.

00:24:47.000 These are just people who serve you.

00:24:50.000 It's like a waiter at a restaurant.

00:24:51.000 They're nonpartisan and they're serving you in the civil service, of course.

00:24:55.000 Well, here is the thing.

00:24:57.000 Wrong.

00:24:57.000 The nonpartisan civil service has become quite partisan because their patrons are all Democrats.

00:25:03.000 Who continue to expand their agencies, their scope of authority, and their budgets.

00:25:07.000 These are not non-partisans.

00:25:10.000 Very often, they're deeply partisan.

00:25:12.000 But, again, you have to wear around the face of objectivity while enacting highly partisan agendas.

00:25:21.000 These five former secretaries of the Treasury write, in recent days, that norm has been upended.

00:25:25.000 The roles of these non-partisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

00:25:31.000 One has been appointed fiscal assistant secretary, a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.

00:25:41.000 Here's the question.

00:25:41.000 How'd they do on that?

00:25:42.000 Seriously, how'd they do on that?

00:25:43.000 If these are such amazing nonpartisan civil servants, why are billions of dollars going out the door to some of the worst people on earth?

00:25:52.000 I mean, again, look at USAID, where billions of dollars were going directly to line the pockets of Hamas as they built terror tunnels.

00:25:57.000 Explain yourselves, gang, nonpartisan civil servants.

00:26:01.000 These political actors, say the former Treasury Secretaries, have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants.

00:26:07.000 One has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest.

00:26:12.000 They lack training and experience to handle private personal data, like social security numbers and bank account information.

00:26:17.000 Yeah, I'm yes.

00:26:18.000 I'm sure that the federal government run by career bureaucrats and lackeys has been so secure in its handling of our private information, which is how Donald Trump's IRS tax returns ended up leaked to The New York Times just a few years ago.

00:26:30.000 Their power subjects America's payment systems and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure potentially to our adversaries.

00:26:37.000 Man, wait until you hear about a secretary of state named Hillary Clinton, who literally stored classified information on a private server and then was found by the FBI to have probably exposed it to foreign sources. 0.99

00:26:47.000 Wow, that I mean, that would be terrible if that happened.

00:26:50.000 Thank you.

00:26:51.000 A key component of the rule of law, say these secretaries of the Treasury, is the executive branch's commitment to respect Congress's power of the purse.

00:26:58.000 The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.

00:27:03.000 The role of the Treasury Department is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep and which it will not.

00:27:10.000 Well, we're about to find out.

00:27:11.000 Because the reality is that withholding payment actually was something that the federal executive branch did since the time of Thomas Jefferson.

00:27:20.000 Democrats, some have to make this a threat to the system, as opposed to the reality, which is it is a threat to the bureaucracy.

00:27:26.000 They have to turn it into a threat to democracy.

00:27:29.000 And again, in the words of the Democrats, everything turns into a threat to democracy.

00:27:32.000 I think the most ironic instance of this is Democrats screeching and crying to the heavens, sackcloth and ashes, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. 0.58

00:27:42.000 For those who don't recall, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is one of the most ridiculous institutions of American government.

00:27:49.000 It was created by Elizabeth Warren before she was a senator.

00:27:52.000 It was pushed by the Obama administration, and it was directly made unaccountable to the American people, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

00:28:00.000 As the Wall Street Journal reports, before Ms. Warren became a senator, she persuaded Congress and then President Barack Obama to create a strange creature called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.

00:28:12.000 The Bureau would duplicate, replace, or expand on the efforts of existing financial regulators, but with a few dangerous twists.

00:28:17.000 It would have no mandate to protect the safety and soundness of the financial institutions it regulates.

00:28:21.000 It would not rely on Congress for funding.

00:28:23.000 Instead, the Bureau would have the ability to draw funding directly from the Federal Reserve, ensuring it wouldn't have to pay much attention to legislators.

00:28:30.000 Then Representative Randy Neugebauer of Texas wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2012, quote, My House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has tried unsuccessfully to gain greater visibility into the Bureau's budgetary planning process.

00:28:41.000 Those requests were denied.

00:28:43.000 Once the director has decided a money draw is necessary, there's nobody with authority to prevent those funds from being paid out.

00:28:48.000 Not congressional appropriators, not the Fed, not even the President's Office of Management and Budget.

00:28:54.000 Well, the problem is that this totally unaccountable bureaucracy has now been taken over by Russ Vaught, who is Trump's Office of Management and Budget Director.

00:29:02.000 Vought posted on X, quote, Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not reasonably necessary to carry out its duties.

00:29:13.000 The Bureau's current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment.

00:29:19.000 This spigot, long contributing to CFPB's unaccountability, is now being turned off.

00:29:25.000 So, effectively, Vought shut down the funding.

00:29:29.000 He could transfer the amount back to the Federal Reserve.

00:29:31.000 What's the problem?

00:29:33.000 What's the problem?

00:29:35.000 And it was made unaccountable to the legislature.

00:29:37.000 So now Democrats, having designed the instrument, are now upset that it's being used in the reverse way.

00:29:43.000 Because this is how Democrats operate.

00:29:45.000 There is no consistent rule of law.

00:29:47.000 There is no actual consistent objective regulatory agency established.

00:29:52.000 That cuts in all directions.

00:29:54.000 Instead, the CFPB is a left-wing tool created by Elizabeth Warren, independent of the legislative branch.

00:30:00.000 And when Trump takes it over and puts Russ Vaught in charge, and Russ Vaught immediately shuts down the funding, she screams and cries that somehow the legislature is being ignored.

00:30:09.000 Here she was yesterday, freaking out over the death.

00:30:13.000 If you have a bank account or a credit card or a mortgage or a student loan, this is code red.

00:30:20.000 I am ringing the alarm bell.

00:30:21.000 Elon Musk and the guy who wrote Project 2025, Russ Vogt, are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

00:30:30.000 If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trick, trap, and cheat you.

00:30:38.000 So why are these two guys trying to gut the CFPB? Not rocket science.

00:30:43.000 Trump campaigned on helping working people.

00:30:45.000 But now that he's in charge, this is the payoff to the rich guys who invested in his campaign and who want to cheat families and not have anybody around to stop them.

00:30:57.000 Yeah, it's another scam.

00:31:00.000 It's a scam.

00:31:01.000 Okay, so the CFPB was put in place by Democrats in order to regulate the living hell out of businesses, unless those businesses did the bidding of the federal government.

00:31:07.000 That's what the CFPB was for.

00:31:09.000 And now Trump is zeroing it out.

00:31:11.000 Now, Roosevelt is coming in, and he's basically cutting the funding and pausing all operations.

00:31:15.000 And they're freaking out.

00:31:16.000 It's a threat to democracy.

00:31:17.000 It was never a democratic institution.

00:31:19.000 It was an explicitly anti-democratic institution.

00:31:21.000 If you want to pass a regulation against business, do it through the legislature.

00:31:24.000 But I noticed you didn't want to do that.

00:31:26.000 I noticed that instead, you wanted to set up an agency that passes thousands of pages of regulations and goes after banks without any sort of reference to the underlying issue of how banks operate. 0.97

00:31:37.000 And Democrats are so ridiculous on this stuff. 0.96

00:31:39.000 Representative Maxine Waters. 0.99

00:31:40.000 Who has routinely been considered one of the most corrupt members, if not the most corrupt member of Congress.

00:31:45.000 This is a person who, according to the LA Times in 2014, had shuffled a million bucks in the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates, and causes that Maxine Waters helped.

00:31:57.000 And she literally oversaw the banking committee and her husband was being regulated by the banking committee at the time.

00:32:04.000 Like, Maxine Waters is super duper, here she is outside the CFPB saying, This is an assault on democracy to, you know, have an executive branch agency run by the executive branch.

00:32:16.000 Wow, wow, wow!

00:32:18.000 Look at this crowd!

00:32:20.000 Elon Musk, where are you? 0.99

00:32:24.000 Bring your ass over here so you can see who's here and what we're doing. 1.00

00:32:31.000 We're not afraid of you. 0.99

00:32:32.000 We know that you are the co-president now of the United States of America. 1.00

00:32:38.000 He's a thief. 1.00

00:32:39.000 He's a gangster. 1.00

00:32:42.000 He brings his billionaire friends along with him because they think that they can take over this country. 0.73

00:32:50.000 And Trump has said, you give me enough money, you can have it.

00:32:55.000 Ma'am, this is Denny's, and they're not yet open for the early bird dinner.

00:33:00.000 Maxine Waters.

00:33:01.000 Wow.

00:33:03.000 This person has been a sitting congressperson for, I believe, longer than I've been alive or close to it. 0.94

00:33:07.000 And is deeply corrupt.

00:33:09.000 You want to talk about people who have enriched friends and family?

00:33:12.000 Maxine Waters is at the top of that list. 0.99

00:33:14.000 And yet, there she is, yelling at Elon Musk, get your ass out! 0.99

00:33:17.000 Yeah, I'm sure Elon Musk lives in fear of Maxine Waters. 0.99

00:33:21.000 And it's not just Maxine Waters.

00:33:22.000 Ayanna Pressley, the Ringo star of the squad.

00:33:25.000 She's kind of been forgotten because there were some new hot squad members and then they ended up being defeated in primaries, the Jamal Bowmans or the Cori Bushes.

00:33:32.000 But Ayanna Pressley is out there too, shouting about the evils of Elon Musk.

00:33:37.000 Last week I saw a sign in the crowd that said DOGE stands for Dangerous Oligarchs Grab at Everything.

00:33:47.000 And I said then, and I'll say it again, that Elon Musk needs to keep his grubby hands, his greedy grubby hands off of our government.

00:33:59.000 Okay, I do love the idea that it is greedy and grubby to go into government and cut it.

00:34:04.000 That's what he's doing.

00:34:05.000 He's going in and he's making cuts.

00:34:06.000 And they're saying, oh, that's so greedy of Musk.

00:34:08.000 I mean, look at him being all greedy.

00:34:09.000 By cutting?

00:34:10.000 I'm going to need an explanation for how him cutting the federal spending initiatives, cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, is somehow an element of greed.

00:34:19.000 I'm going to need an explanation.

00:34:20.000 Democrats are barking up the wrong tree, but this is desperation.

00:34:23.000 Because, again, they're losing control over the institutions they themselves built.

00:34:27.000 Representative Kwaise Mfume of Maryland, they keep looking for good acronyms for what DOGE is supposed to be, and they keep failing.

00:34:36.000 Something about, you know, grabbing everything.

00:34:40.000 And now, here's another version.

00:34:42.000 They're going to need to come up with something about it.

00:34:44.000 It's not good.

00:34:46.000 Every time you hear Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, you just remember, it is the Department of Government Evil.

00:34:59.000 Government Evil?

00:35:00.000 They're literally cutting the government.

00:35:02.000 It seems to me the Department of Government Evil is very often just called the government.

00:35:07.000 In just a moment, we'll get to Democrats and their continued attempt to foster a constitutional crisis, largely through judges.

00:35:15.000 I mean, they're actually doing some pretty incredible things via the judiciary that are totally unconstitutional.

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00:35:58.000 So the Democrats, again, they're declaring that a constitutional crisis is taking place.

00:36:02.000 Why?

00:36:02.000 Because the executive branch is being cut by?

00:36:04.000 The executive branch.

00:36:06.000 Well, now the New York Times has an article titled, Trump's actions have created a constitutional crisis.

00:36:11.000 Scholars say.

00:36:12.000 My favorite type of news piece from the New York Times and like-minded institutions.

00:36:16.000 What they do is they have a premise.

00:36:18.000 The premise is Trump bad.

00:36:19.000 Then they go find an expert who says Trump bad.

00:36:21.000 And so they say, Trump bad, experts say.

00:36:24.000 You know pretty much anything.

00:36:25.000 I can just as easily have an article that says, Trump's constitutional expertise dominates America.

00:36:31.000 Experts say, and you just go find some people who agree with Donald Trump.

00:36:33.000 Like, this is the easiest game in the reporting world.

00:36:36.000 And so the New York Times is trying to now gin up the idea that a constitutional crisis is upon us.

00:36:40.000 It's not a constitutional crisis when the entire government shuts down people who refuse to get the facts.

00:36:46.000 That's not a constitutional crisis, apparently.

00:36:48.000 It is not a constitutional crisis when Joe Biden literally attempts to add constitutional amendments by tweet.

00:36:54.000 It's a constitutional crisis when members of the executive branch go in and root out Corruption, waste, fraud, abuse inside the executive branch.

00:37:03.000 According to the New York Times, there is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis.

00:37:07.000 But legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics.

00:37:10.000 It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings.

00:37:13.000 It is not binary.

00:37:14.000 It is a slope, not a switch.

00:37:15.000 It can be cumulative.

00:37:16.000 And once it starts, it can get much worse.

00:37:19.000 Erwin Chemerinsky, who's a very left-wing dean of the law school at Berkeley, says, quote, we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now.

00:37:25.000 There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency.

00:37:30.000 We have never seen anything like this.

00:37:31.000 He ticked off examples of what he called President Trump's lawless conduct.

00:37:35.000 Revoking birthright citizenship.

00:37:36.000 Again, all that's going to get adjudicated by the Supreme Court.

00:37:39.000 Freezing federal spending.

00:37:40.000 Not clear that that's unconstitutional, given the fact that, again, the executive branch is allowed to put a pause.

00:37:46.000 Everybody acknowledges this.

00:37:47.000 A pause on federal spending to align it with presidential authority.

00:37:51.000 They can't just...

00:37:52.000 Freeze it entirely, but they can certainly put a pause.

00:37:54.000 Shutting down an agency.

00:37:56.000 Okay, you can gut an agency.

00:37:59.000 You can shift its actual functions to other agencies, depending on how the law is written.

00:38:04.000 Removing leaders of other agencies.

00:38:06.000 Okay, all of those people work at the pleasure of the president.

00:38:08.000 So again, he's just naming a bunch of things that Trump probably can do and calling it a constitutional crisis.

00:38:13.000 He says, quote, systematic, unconstitutional, and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis.

00:38:18.000 Okay, but here is the problem.

00:38:20.000 Some of the people who are creating a constitutional crisis are in the judiciary.

00:38:24.000 So, for example, a federal judge has now determined that the Trump administration violated his order lifting the blanket spending freeze on federal grant programs.

00:38:32.000 He's ordering the administration to unfreeze funds, including for NIH and the IRA. They put together a TRO, a temporary restraining order nationally.

00:38:40.000 Now, here's the problem.

00:38:41.000 What in the Constitution?

00:38:43.000 What in the Constitution gives one federal judge?

00:38:47.000 At a district court level, the ability to shut down nationwide an act of Congress or the president.

00:38:55.000 Where does this nationwide injunctive power come from?

00:38:58.000 This is an open legal debate.

00:39:00.000 A seriously open legal debate.

00:39:02.000 Why should one judge in, say, the Ninth Circuit be able to simply put a nationwide stay for the whole country on an action by the White House?

00:39:14.000 There's a professor named Sam Bray over at Notre Dame Law School.

00:39:16.000 Back in 2017, he wrote a piece called Multiple Chancellors Reforming the National Injunction.

00:39:20.000 And what he points out is that the national injunction is a recent development in the history of equity.

00:39:26.000 There was a structural shift at the founding from a single chancellor model to a multiple chancellor model, but the vulnerabilities in the latter did not become visible until the mid to late 20th century, when there were changes in how judges thought about legal challenges and invalid laws.

00:39:37.000 Only with those changes in the second half of the 20th century did the national injunction emerge.

00:39:42.000 And Sam Bray points out that national injunctions, again, are new.

00:39:46.000 That what it leads to is a sort of tyrannical rule by one federal judge somewhere.

00:39:51.000 So Bray said history can be read in different ways.

00:39:53.000 In my view, national injunctions go back to 1963. They don't exist before then.

00:39:58.000 In fact, nobody even asks for a national injunction before 1963. Despite the thousands of lawsuits attacking New Deal legislation, there was never an attempt to get a federal judge in, say, California, to strike down New Deal legislation.

00:40:11.000 Such that a national injunction went into place.

00:40:15.000 He identifies, Bray does, the second term of Barack Obama as the opening of the floodgates.

00:40:21.000 He says, since then, almost every major presidential initiative by President Obama or Trump or Biden has been stopped with a nationwide injunction.

00:40:28.000 And that seems not particularly good.

00:40:32.000 According to another professor named Mila Sahony, who is the University of San Diego School of Law.

00:40:41.000 So Honey acknowledged that this type of relief has now been requested all the time.

00:40:44.000 Quote, what's being asserted is that those sources of law impose this crisp rule on federal courts under which federal courts can never grant relief to anybody that's not a plaintiff or a member of a certified class.

00:40:52.000 Okay, but what she is saying is the opposite of what Bray is saying.

00:40:55.000 What Bray is saying is the way that a federal court should take up a case is to put an injunction with regard to a specific plaintiff.

00:41:04.000 So if, let's say, you are a child of an illegal immigrant and you sue, Based on the birthright citizenship executive order put forward by the Trump administration, if the federal court is going to rule at the district level, they should put a stay on the injunction, they should put an injunction on the enforcement of that law with regard to just you, not to everyone similarly situated, because that is a question that belongs at the Supreme Court level.

00:41:30.000 Bray said, remedies need to be based in equity.

00:41:34.000 They need to have a traditional equitable basis unless they're authorized by statute.

00:41:38.000 So again, These universal injunctions are a problem because what you end up with is basically single judges now determining for the entire nation what policies should be.

00:41:49.000 And that's not right.

00:41:50.000 That is wrong.

00:41:51.000 It takes a long time for these cases to win themselves to the Supreme Court.

00:41:54.000 President Trump makes this point.

00:41:55.000 He says judges who are attempting to block Doge are a disgrace. 0.61

00:42:01.000 Tremendous fraud, tremendous waste and tremendous abuse and theft, by the way.

00:42:07.000 And the day you're not allowed to look for theft and fraud, et cetera, then we don't have much of a country.

00:42:14.000 So no judge should be no judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision.

00:42:19.000 It's a disgrace.

00:42:20.000 And again, he is not wrong about this.

00:42:25.000 This is a very hotly contested issue by Democrats and Republicans.

00:42:29.000 If it's a constitutional crisis for Trump to ignore one federal judge, Not the Supreme Court.

00:42:35.000 One federal judge in, say, Oregon, striking down a nationwide act of Congress or a presidential action.

00:42:43.000 Who's creating the federal crisis?

00:42:45.000 It would be that judge and people who are interpreting the law that way.

00:42:48.000 Meanwhile, the American Bar Association, which is just a left-wing interest group, released a statement slamming Trump and Elon Musk.

00:42:56.000 William Arbae, president of the ABA. Remember, the ABA is such a corrupt institution, they actually signed on to Joe Biden by fiat declaring a constitutional amendment.

00:43:05.000 Bay said, quote, it's been three weeks since Inauguration Day.

00:43:08.000 Most Americans recognize that newly elected leaders bring change.

00:43:10.000 That is expected.

00:43:11.000 But most Americans also expect changes will take place in accordance with the rule of law and in an orderly manner that respects the lives of affected individuals and the work they've been asked to perform.

00:43:19.000 We have seen attempts at wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law.

00:43:26.000 There are efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit.

00:43:29.000 Social media announcements that disparage and appear to be motivated by a desire to inflame without any stated factual basis.

00:43:35.000 This is chaotic, but it is wrong.

00:43:37.000 And most Americans recognize it is wrong.

00:43:39.000 It is contrary to the rule of law.

00:43:41.000 Okay, listening to the ABA about what's contrary to the rule of law at this point is like listening to the American Psychological Association talk about what's contrary to common sense when it comes to transgender care.

00:43:50.000 Like, you are an institution that has been thoroughly corrupted in the name of left-wing politics, and we can all see it.

00:43:57.000 It is perfectly obvious.

00:44:00.000 In reality, Democrats are just upset because they do not like the fact that they are losing.

00:44:06.000 Donald Trump picked an 80% issue when he said, let's cut waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:44:09.000 Democrats are taking the 20% and then trying to swivel it into another argument about democracy and the Constitution that, again, avails you little when you guys are seen as a threat to democracy and the Constitution yourselves.

00:44:20.000 And the desperation is clear and obvious.

00:44:22.000 is Eddie Glaude is a commentator over at MSNBC.

00:44:25.000 Again, he is suggesting that it's all unconstitutional.

00:44:28.000 Again, it's funny how Democrats suddenly like the Constitution the minute that Republicans are in power and they invoke it all the time.

00:44:34.000 You know, when they're not declaring that the Constitution is itself racist.

00:44:38.000 Here's Eddie Glaude saying that the actual quiet part out loud, that Democrats actually believe the Constitution itself is bad.

00:44:43.000 The same Constitution they are currently invoking to try and yell at Trump.

00:44:47.000 There is this sense in which Donald Trump is harkening back to a period Where the United States imagined itself as an imperial kind of force kind of informed by its democratic principles.

00:45:02.000 An ironic and contradictory sort of position.

00:45:05.000 And it's also the case, I want to say this, that there's always been this tension between America as an idea and America as blood and soil.

00:45:14.000 This is the distinction between good nationalisms and bad nationalisms, right?

00:45:18.000 We think we're driven by the Constitution, but there's been an idea underneath it that this country must be and must always be a white nation. 0.98

00:45:27.000 And that ideology has driven policy decisions.

00:45:32.000 So, Democrats are going to have to make up their mind.

00:45:34.000 Is the Constitution good?

00:45:35.000 Or is the Constitution actually a tool of white supremacy?

00:45:38.000 Because they can't make up their mind, it...

00:45:40.000 It shows what Democrats actually think about all these things, which is just a power game.

00:45:44.000 It's just a power game.

00:45:45.000 If the Constitution is their enemy, the Constitution is a tool of white supremacy. 0.82

00:45:48.000 If the Constitution is their friend, then violating the Constitution creates a constitutional crisis.

00:45:54.000 Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, he of the bad unpublished novels from Brooklyn, who was suddenly made into a national security advisor based on the fact that his brother was in charge of CBS News at the time, under Barack Obama.

00:46:05.000 Now he is complaining about Donald Trump.

00:46:09.000 He's very, very—he says Donald Trump is just like Vladimir Putin.

00:46:12.000 And the histrionics from these folks, man, there's not enough room in this Leftist Tears Tumblr.

00:46:18.000 We need a bigger Leftist Tears Tumblr.

00:46:20.000 We need like a gallon-sized Leftist Tears Tumblr for all the tears from people like Ben Rhodes.

00:46:24.000 If you look at other autocrats around the world throughout all of human history, including in recent years, when you look at, say, Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, or how Xi Jinping is eyeing Taiwan ever more closely as he ages a bit, you know, there's this idea that a real legacy comes with more territory.

00:46:42.000 That's not a new concept.

00:46:43.000 It both helps you consolidate power at home.

00:46:46.000 It serves up nationalism.

00:46:47.000 You get a bit of a sugar high.

00:46:49.000 And it also is something that, you know, you can associate yourself with going forward.

00:46:54.000 And when I listen to Ben Rose talk about America's national interest, all I can think is that he was actually nicknamed in the White House, in the Obama White House.

00:47:02.000 His nickname was, I'm not even kidding, Hamas. 0.99

00:47:05.000 That was his nickname in the White House because he was so anti-American.

00:47:09.000 This guy.

00:47:10.000 And now they're bringing him forth to talk about Donald Trump being anti-American.

00:47:13.000 No one's buying it.

00:47:14.000 No one's buying it.

00:47:15.000 The Trump rebranding of America is going exceedingly well.

00:47:19.000 And that, by the way, includes...

00:47:21.000 President Trump's rebranding of America against things like Hamas, against evil actors like, for example, Hamas. 0.87

00:47:27.000 So yesterday, Hamas canceled all hostage releases until further notice.

00:47:30.000 They did so basically because they made themselves look even more evil than they normally are.

00:47:37.000 So over last weekend, they released three Israeli hostages.

00:47:41.000 These Israeli hostages had clearly been starved.

00:47:44.000 They were emaciated.

00:47:45.000 Apparently, one of those Israeli hostages, when released, weighed 39 kilograms.

00:47:51.000 Which, by the way, is 86 pounds.

00:47:54.000 That is insane, obviously.

00:47:58.000 Not only were these hostages emaciated, starved, turns out the true starvation in Gaza, the true starvation crisis was applied basically only to the hostages in Gaza.

00:48:08.000 Not only that, this particular hostage, who'd been held in a tunnel for some 440 days, had not been told that his wife and children had been murdered.

00:48:15.000 So in a speech that they forced him to do before being released, He said he was looking forward to seeing his wife and children, who are dead.

00:48:22.000 They had not told him that.

00:48:23.000 So this, of course, made Hamas look even more evil than they already looked, which is hard to do, considering they're a mass murder-genocidal organization.

00:48:35.000 And Hamas then basically said, we're not going to release any more hostages.

00:48:40.000 Now, the reason for that is probably because all the other hostages are either dead or in this kind of condition.

00:48:44.000 And so the more hostages they release in this kind of condition, the worse it gets for them, imagistically, across the world.

00:48:49.000 By the way, it is, in my opinion, almost certain that the Bibas family, who many people have been praying for, I would be shocked if the Bibas family is not dead. 0.99

00:48:57.000 The father, I believe, has been released.

00:48:59.000 But the mother and two babies, you know, those redheaded kids, almost certainly dead. 0.83

00:49:04.000 The fact that Hamas committed those acts is the reason why they're not releasing the bodies.

00:49:11.000 Because if they do that, then the ceasefire is basically over.

00:49:14.000 So they announced they're not going to release any more.

00:49:19.000 Now, realistically, it's not about that.

00:49:25.000 It's just an outright violation of the ceasefire.

00:49:27.000 So Israel is arming up at this point.

00:49:30.000 President Trump then made a public comment about all this.

00:49:34.000 And he said, listen, if these folks are not back, all of them, not some of them, all of them, by noon on Saturday, Israel has the green light to do whatever the hell it wants. 0.69

00:49:43.000 Well, I would say this, and I'm going to let that because that's Israel's decision, but as far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time. 1.00

00:49:56.000 I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out.

00:50:03.000 I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o'clock on Saturday.

00:50:06.000 And if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two.

00:50:16.000 Saturday at 12 o'clock.

00:50:19.000 And after that, I would say all hell is going to break out.

00:50:27.000 Good for President Trump.

00:50:29.000 Imagine this has been the world's reaction October 8th, 2023. And President Trump, this is what strong American leadership looks like, is F around, find out.

00:50:37.000 This has always been the way of President Trump, and he is right, obviously, about all of this.

00:50:43.000 And the image of America and the world is changing. 0.97

00:50:45.000 President Trump understands the Middle East better than any of his moronic predecessors. 0.99

00:50:48.000 By far, it is not close, which is the reason he's actually achieved things in the Middle East that none of his idiot predecessors have been able to do. 0.99

00:50:55.000 All righty, meanwhile, fallout from the Super Bowl. 0.96

00:50:59.000 So apparently people are very upset that Taylor Swift, Well, I mean, I'm sure it's more chilling than I think because I didn't find it chilling.

00:51:14.000 I thought it was hilarious.

00:51:15.000 Taylor Swift is one of the more obnoxious members of the celebrity culture. 1.00

00:51:18.000 Whether it is Taylor Swift sitting in on Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively bullying Justin Baldoni, or whether it is Taylor Swift recording the warbling three-note songs of 15-year-old girls while being...

00:51:30.000 The same age as my wife, who is a doctor and has four children, in which she talks about her horrific breakups and how she's a victim of the patriarchy and all of this while being a billionaire.

00:51:40.000 She's a very annoying human, and that is why people booed her. 1.00

00:51:43.000 But apparently, it is chilling. 0.83

00:51:45.000 According to Glamour, quote, Since Donald Trump took office, there have been several times I felt chilled by the rapid increase in misogyny seeping in our culture.

00:51:52.000 But watching Taylor Swift at Super Bowl, booed by a crowd of thousands on Sunday night, was a new low.

00:51:58.000 It was just a football game, people might say.

00:52:00.000 Or Swift.

00:52:00.000 Got heckled by some Rowdy Eagles fans, excited to be at the biggest sporting event of the year.

00:52:03.000 So, don't take it so seriously, but I was there at that game.

00:52:06.000 When Swift's face appeared on the Jumbotron, an almost instant and distinctly male descent erupted from around me.

00:52:12.000 Swift, of course, was there to support her boyfriend.

00:52:14.000 I was far from the only celebrity in attendance.

00:52:16.000 In fact, the screen showed a few famous people, from Paul McCartney to Anne Hathaway and Lady Gaga.

00:52:21.000 Swift was different.

00:52:22.000 As soon as she appeared on screen, the crowd seemed to delight in jeering and heckling her, and the mood shift was palpable.

00:52:26.000 I watched in real time as Swift, alongside her friend Ice Spice, took in the response.

00:52:30.000 Taylor Swift has earned the enmity of a lot of football fans.

00:52:44.000 Why?

00:52:44.000 Because we believe that she got into football approximately seven seconds ago when it became convenient for her to celebrity date Travis Kelsey.

00:52:52.000 And people who like sports are kind of annoyed that they're watching a sporting event and then the celebrity girlfriend gets cut to every seven seconds by the NFL. And also, they think that she is one of the most manipulative public figures in recent history. 0.99

00:53:05.000 I mean, even that sentence, Swift alongside her friend Ice Spice.

00:53:08.000 Yes, I'm sure they are deep and abiding friends who hang out daily.

00:53:12.000 I mean, come on.

00:53:14.000 Perhaps the moment would have felt less visceral if not for the fact that less than an hour earlier, the crowd had exploded this time with applause to see Trump on that same screen.

00:53:21.000 As an image of the president stone-faced and standing in a salute was shown to the crowd during John Batiste's national anthem performance, the roar of approval and cheers was deafening.

00:53:28.000 Well, Yeah, because it turns out that Trump got elected.

00:53:31.000 And not only did Trump get elected, he is, again, putting forward a face of America that is simultaneously old and new, in which patriotism is glorified once again.

00:53:43.000 Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is doing anthems to the matriarchy and her supposed victim status. 1.00

00:53:50.000 Yeah, people are annoyed by her. 0.99

00:53:52.000 To me, that disparate reaction felt like a message, says the Glamour columnist, that the Super Bowl, one of the biggest cultural events in the country, has been reclaimed by Trump.

00:54:02.000 Again, if it were really just toxic masculinity, then literally every woman would have been booed. 1.00

00:54:11.000 But that's the point.

00:54:12.000 It was just Taylor Swift.

00:54:14.000 And the reason it's Taylor Swift is for all the reasons just mentioned. 0.89

00:54:18.000 She is deeply fake. 0.97

00:54:19.000 She is deeply artificial, deeply annoying. 1.00

00:54:22.000 And yeah, she deserves it.

00:54:24.000 Alrighty, folks, coming up, more commentary on the Super Bowl.

00:54:28.000 Some people suggesting there is some coded messaging in Kendrick Lamar's halftime show we'll discuss.

00:54:33.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:54:34.000 Use code Shapiro.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - February 11, 2025

No More TRANSING The Military!

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