The Ben Shapiro Show - Pelosi’s Out | Ep. 1614

00:00:00.000 Nancy Pelosi says she will not run for House Minority Leader and leaves the playing field to the younger Democrats.

00:00:05.000 House Republicans prepare to take the majority and Elon Musk's Twitter enters into its most perilous period yet.

00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:11.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:13.000 This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

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00:02:33.000 Well, we bid a fond farewell to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

00:02:38.000 In the next term of Congress, she will not be standing for House Minority Leader, which makes sense.

00:02:42.000 She is the only octogenarian to actually be leaving her job at this point in time.

00:02:45.000 And for that, she gets credit.

00:02:47.000 She's not getting a lot of credit for being A good force in American public life. 0.53

00:02:51.000 She was good at vote counting. 0.99

00:02:52.000 I will say that for Nancy Pelosi.

00:02:54.000 She was very good at keeping her caucus in line. 1.00

00:02:57.000 And if you look at sort of the periods of Nancy Pelosi's leadership, what you see is that there are a few sort of distinct periods in Nancy Pelosi's leadership.

00:03:05.000 First, she became a member of the DNC in 1976 and became chair of the California Democratic Party in 1981.

00:03:10.000 She joined Congress in 1987.

00:03:13.000 It wasn't until 2002 that she became House Whip and then Minority Leader in 2003, while George W. Bush was President of the United States.

00:03:19.000 She was Speaker twice, from 2007 to 2011, and then again from 2018 to 2022.

00:03:23.000 Now, folks who are saying that she's the most impactful Speaker in American history are missing out on Sam Rayburn, they're missing out on Newt Gingrich, they're missing out on a bunch of folks who are far more impactful than Nancy Pelosi.

00:03:34.000 But, what Nancy Pelosi was really good at was, during the brief periods of time when she actually ran the Congress, she was able to shove through extraordinarily large spending bills. 1.00

00:03:43.000 This was the thing that she was able to do.

00:03:46.000 And she was able to move her entire caucus to the left. 1.00

00:03:48.000 When she joined Congress, she was largely considered one of the most left-wing members of Congress.

00:03:52.000 Now, of course, she's been completely outflanked by the progressives, which in some ways is a sign of failure for her that she's not remained at the vanguard of her own movement, but in other ways is a demonstration of just how far left she's moved America.

00:04:04.000 When there's an entire left-wing movement that is now to her left and that is constantly critical of her, I will say that her handling of the progressive squad, just in terms of pure tactics, has been quite smart.

00:04:14.000 She's allowed them a lot of rope.

00:04:16.000 She's allowed them to go out there publicly and say stuff. 0.82

00:04:19.000 And then, behind closed doors, she beats them about the ears and forces them to vote for the things that she wants them to vote for. 0.99

00:04:25.000 Now, what are the things that Nancy Pelosi is going to be remembered for?

00:04:27.000 Well, first, she's going to be remembered for the fact that she has essentially tripled or quadrupled her net wealth while she was in Congress. 0.96

00:04:32.000 I mean, that's a thing that people are going to go back to, is the simple fact that she is now extraordinarily wealthy, like a lot more wealthy than she was when she entered Congress, because her husband, Paul, is apparently amazing at picking stocks.

00:04:43.000 just in coordination with political movements.

00:04:45.000 And it's not suspicious at all.

00:04:47.000 It's just that, it's good.

00:04:49.000 It's probably clean and good.

00:04:50.000 Everything is probably fine.

00:04:52.000 In fact, you'll remember that just last year, there was a bill that was put up to ban members of the House from owning stock so that it prevents any conflict of interest.

00:05:00.000 And she's like, no, no, no, I like when members own, yeah, I would imagine you do like when members own stock since you have radically increased your personal wealth.

00:05:06.000 Because this is a free market and people, we have a free market economy.

00:05:12.000 They should be able to participate in that.

00:05:14.000 We have a responsibility to report in the stock.

00:05:17.000 But if the people aren't reporting, they should be.

00:05:20.000 OK, but when you report, you know, three months in arrears of actually picking the stocks and you're picking the stocks while you're regulating exactly the companies that you're picking, that's a little bit suspicious.

00:05:30.000 The actual accomplishments of Nancy Pelosi, first of all, it is worthwhile noting here that the topsy turviness of who holds Congress has been very, very high since about 1994.

00:05:40.000 So between essentially 1930 and 1994, the Democrats just dominated the House of Representatives.

00:05:46.000 I mean, really, really dominated it.

00:05:48.000 And then Nancy Pelosi took over in Congress in 2006. 1.00

00:05:51.000 And within four years, she'd run herself out of power.

00:05:55.000 And now she was speaker again for four years and she ran herself out of power. 0.94

00:06:00.000 Which suggests that she has been too radical for the American people in terms of the policies that she's been promoting. 1.00

00:06:04.000 But she has no regerts because the way that she governed was always, OK, so I'm going to pass this giant, giant bill that restructures large parts of the American economy. 0.99

00:06:11.000 And then if they throw me out of office, it's too late.

00:06:13.000 I already did it.

00:06:14.000 And so her big accomplishments basically are when she was an opponent.

00:06:17.000 of George W. Bush.

00:06:19.000 She was largely elected on the basis of opposing the Iraq war in 2003.

00:06:24.000 And on the basis of Mark Foley, a Republican congressperson, who was apparently going after the male aides.

00:06:30.000 And so in 2006, you'll recall the Republicans lost the Congress in a massive sweep, where Democrats won 60 votes in the House of Representatives.

00:06:38.000 Her big move at that point was basically to block privatization of social security by George W. Bush and to yell about the Iraq war. 1.00

00:06:45.000 And then after Barack Obama was elected president, she ran through with essentially no bipartisan support a bevy of bills. 0.78

00:06:52.000 And this is what she is most famous for, is keeping her caucus in line. 0.99

00:06:55.000 If you're going to talk about the polarization in American politics, Nancy Pelosi is a key figure in that.

00:07:00.000 Because when she took office in 2002-2003, when she took a leadership position, there was still some crossover between the parties.

00:07:06.000 There were still blue dog Democrats who were sitting in the Democratic Party caucus. 0.57

00:07:09.000 And now there aren't.

00:07:10.000 There are no blue dog Democrats in the Democratic Party caucus, certainly in 1987 when she was elected to Congress.

00:07:15.000 There's a wide variety of opinion inside the Democratic Party.

00:07:18.000 Nancy Pelosi's leadership has been extremely polarizing.

00:07:21.000 That doesn't mean she hasn't been successful in ramming through a bunch of stuff, mainly these giant spending plans we're talking about under Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act, where she said one of the most famous things ever said by a speaker, we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.

00:07:32.000 Which is a hell of a statement, considering that when you are completely restructuring one-fifth of the American economy, you should probably know what you're doing before you pass the thing, but here's Nancy Pelosi saying just that.

00:07:44.000 You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one of the items.

00:07:50.000 But I don't know if you have heard that it is a legislation for the future.

00:07:57.000 Not just about healthcare for America, but about a healthier America.

00:08:01.000 Where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.

00:08:09.000 Prevention, prevention, prevention.

00:08:10.000 It's about diet, not diabetes.

00:08:14.000 It's going to be very, very exciting.

00:08:17.000 But we have to pass the bill so that you can I mean, it's such an astonishing statement.

00:08:23.000 We're going to have to pass the bill so we can find out just how amazing it's going to be.

00:08:26.000 As it turns out, what it's going to do is complicate the healthcare system in the United States even more and not lower costs.

00:08:31.000 So that's going to be just awesome.

00:08:33.000 She also helped to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

00:08:37.000 She passed the giant stimulus package that did absolutely nothing for the economy and led to the slowest economic recovery since World War II under Barack Obama.

00:08:44.000 Those were big accomplishments while Barack Obama was president.

00:08:46.000 That was with a D plus 40.

00:08:48.000 Majority in the in the House of Representatives has a huge majority.

00:08:52.000 So she's able to get a lot of that stuff done specifically because she had a huge majority. 0.75

00:08:55.000 But the truth is that the stuff that really is impressive in terms of what she's been able to get done is all in the last two years.

00:09:02.000 Because all the other stuff you would assume that any House speaker who has a 40 seat majority in the House of Representatives is going to be able to do whatever is necessary.

00:09:08.000 I mean, she had not only that majority in the House while Barack Obama was president, at least from 2008 to 2010.

00:09:14.000 She also was gifted 60 seats in the Senate for the Democrats and a Democratic president. 0.95

00:09:21.000 So you can pretty much do whatever you want at that point.

00:09:23.000 I don't think that takes a lot of tactical maneuvering.

00:09:25.000 And people say she's a great tactician.

00:09:26.000 No, her real great tactics stuff actually was in the last couple of years, not while Donald Trump was president.

00:09:31.000 While Donald Trump was president, her basic Again, her basic function was more political polarization. 0.98

00:09:37.000 You'll remember her saying, you'll remember during Donald Trump's State of the Union address, her literally getting up and ripping the State of the Union address in half and everybody cheering and clapping.

00:09:45.000 Oh, it's just amazing.

00:09:46.000 And then complaining about partisan politics and polarization in American politics.

00:09:50.000 Nancy Pelosi is a great force here.

00:09:51.000 Pretending that she is not is ignoring history.

00:09:54.000 And my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come.

00:09:59.000 Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

00:10:04.000 Thank you very much.

00:10:05.000 And there she is, posing for the cameras, ripping up the speech. 1.00

00:10:09.000 Not once, but twice.

00:10:14.000 What a heroine. 1.00

00:10:15.000 She ripped up the speech.

00:10:18.000 And of course, this is what the Democratic Party base, love the batters that choose ripping up speech. 1.00

00:10:21.000 It's all performative.

00:10:21.000 You know, if you want to know how Congress became a performative area in American politics, Nancy Pelosi is a major figure in the performative politics of Congress and how it became less of an institution designed to actually bring together people to pass public policy and more of a place where people get famous for slay queen kind of antics like this.

00:10:41.000 And then Joe Biden became president and her legacy has essentially been to ram through the most spending in human history.

00:10:48.000 And here she did so with a D plus five majority.

00:10:51.000 So this is really where you have to keep things together.

00:10:53.000 This is where you have to be able to go to Pramila Jayapal and say to the progressive caucus, listen, I know you don't like this thing, but you're going to have to vote for it anyway, because it's increased spending.

00:11:00.000 And so her big legacy in the end is going to be this.

00:11:03.000 It's going to be that she helped bankrupt the United States of America. 0.83

00:11:05.000 So you can call her a great leader.

00:11:06.000 You just have to ignore the fact that what she did actually was not very good.

00:11:09.000 Under Joe Biden, obviously, passing the American Rescue Plan, the so-called American Rescue Plan, $2 trillion unnecessary inflation causing bill.

00:11:16.000 The Infrastructure Act, completely unnecessary, $1.2 trillion.

00:11:19.000 The Inflation Reduction Act, another trillion dollars.

00:11:23.000 All this sort of stuff, this huge spending agenda that Nancy Pelosi rammed through a Congress that was fairly narrowly divided.

00:11:29.000 Again, admire the tactical ability of Nancy Pelosi while also recognizing that her main legacy is going to be corruption in Congress. 0.53

00:11:40.000 Again, getting very personally rich off her position. 0.92

00:11:43.000 It's going to be massive partisan polarization because I'm not aware that she has ever passed a serious piece of legislation with actual Republican support ever.

00:11:50.000 I'm not going to count infrastructure because infrastructure is basically just like, can you get a few Republicans to sign onto roads?

00:11:58.000 And the answer is maybe a couple.

00:12:01.000 Her biggest thing was, I polarized Congress, I took majorities for brief periods of time, and I ran through world-beating change that actually didn't benefit the American people.

00:12:09.000 And of course, she is very politically radical.

00:12:11.000 The main contribution, the thing for which she is, in the overall span of time, going to be remembered, is forcing the country dramatically to the left.

00:12:19.000 She is a radical politician, Nancy Pelosi.

00:12:20.000 I know we've all forgotten this.

00:12:21.000 She's a San Francisco radical. 0.97

00:12:23.000 Everyone used to understand this.

00:12:25.000 Now again, because she's been outflanked by the AOC crowd, everybody sort of thinks of her as moderate, which is bizarre.

00:12:29.000 She's not a moderate in any way, shape, or form.

00:12:31.000 It was just last year that she was talking about abortion and said it was sinful.

00:12:34.000 She used the word sinful to describe restrictions on abortion, which is a hell of a thing coming from a woman who calls herself a devout Catholic.

00:12:41.000 I may not be a Catholic, but I do understand that Catholicism does not see restrictions on abortion as sinful. 0.58

00:12:46.000 In fact, Catholicism has some things to say about sucking babies into things. 0.85

00:12:50.000 Here is Nancy Pelosi turning religion on its head as a devout Catholic. 1.00

00:12:56.000 The fact that this is such an assault on women of color and women of lower income families is just sinful.

00:13:07.000 It's sinful.

00:13:08.000 It's wrong that they would be able to say to women what they think women should be doing with their lives and their bodies. 1.00

00:13:15.000 But it's sinful, the injustice of it all.

00:13:17.000 So thank you for making that central.

00:13:20.000 And you did too, Dr. Hugo.

00:13:21.000 Thank you so much for making that so important.

00:13:24.000 It's sinful.

00:13:25.000 So sinful.

00:13:26.000 Sinful.

00:13:27.000 Sinful.

00:13:28.000 Yeah, but don't worry, guys.

00:13:29.000 She is the moderate.

00:13:30.000 So, she gave a speech yesterday with a bunch of teary-eyed congresspeople there, just all tearing up, pretending that partisan politics doesn't matter. 0.99

00:13:42.000 Again, this sort of pomp and circumstance of American politics annoys me beyond all measure because we basically build golden calves, and these are our politicians, and then we worship them.

00:13:51.000 This is not a person worthy of worship.

00:13:52.000 In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a single politician who's ever been worthy of anything remotely approaching worship.

00:13:57.000 Certainly not Nancy Pelosi.

00:13:58.000 But again, credit to her for at least being the first member of the baby boober generation to step down out of politics, since we now have an entire oxygenarian generation running everything. 1.00

00:14:09.000 Here's Nancy Pelosi yesterday.

00:14:12.000 I was riding in the car with my brothers, and they were thrilled and jumping up and down and saying to me, Nancy, look, there's the capital.

00:14:20.000 And every time I'd say, I don't see any capital.

00:14:24.000 Is it a capital A, a capital B, or a capital C?

00:14:28.000 These elections, the people stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy.

00:14:33.000 They resoundingly rejected violence and insurrection, and in doing so, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

00:14:43.000 There is no greater official honor for me than to stand on this floor and to speak for the people of San Francisco.

00:14:51.000 This I will continue to do as a member of the House, speaking for the people of San Francisco, serving the great state of California, and defending our Constitution.

00:15:03.000 And with great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek re-election through Democratic leadership in the next Congress.

00:15:12.000 She's going to represent San Francisco. 0.60

00:15:13.000 By the way, remember that time when San Francisco was a nice city?

00:15:16.000 And she's been there for the entire downfall of the city of San Francisco, but she receives no blame for that whatsoever.

00:15:21.000 The person who is going to replace her as the House Minority Leader is, of course, going to be Hakeem Jeffries.

00:15:27.000 He is a congressperson from New York.

00:15:29.000 He is considered a sort of progressive centrist, I would say, which means slightly to the right of AOC.

00:15:38.000 Slightly to the right of the squad.

00:15:42.000 He's a self-described far-left Democrat.

00:15:44.000 He first assumed office in 2013.

00:15:45.000 According to Breitbart, he's served as chair of the House Democrat Caucus since 2019.

00:15:50.000 Now, he also happens to be an election denier.

00:15:53.000 He literally tweeted out in November 24th of 2020 about Donald Trump, quote, history will never accept you as a legitimate president, which I was informed is akin to treason if you say that elections are not to be accepted.

00:16:07.000 And then he suggested again, same time 2020, that his buddies in the Kremlin had gotten Donald Trump elected.

00:16:16.000 He tweeted out in 2018, the more we learn about the 2016 election, the more illegitimate it becomes.

00:16:20.000 America deserves to know whether we have a fake president in the Oval Office. 0.99

00:16:23.000 Hashtag Russian interference.

00:16:26.000 He is going to be a radical in the mold of Nancy Pelosi, but again, the Democratic Party has been pulled so far to the left that Hakeem Jeffries is now perceived as not nearly as radical as he actually is.

00:16:37.000 Meanwhile, the House Republicans are about to take over the majority.

00:16:40.000 Kevin McCarthy, I think not incorrectly, says one of the reasons that Nancy Pelosi is announcing that she's not running for leadership is because she doesn't want a picture of handing me the gavel because it's embarrassing to her. 0.70

00:16:49.000 There's probably some truth to this.

00:16:50.000 Here's Kevin McCarthy last night.

00:16:53.000 Alright, Nancy Pelosi is retired from the leadership.

00:16:56.000 Steny Hoyer is retired from the leadership.

00:16:58.000 They're going to have to have somebody hand the gavel over to you. 1.00

00:17:02.000 That's the ultimate change in power.

00:17:04.000 The symbolism is huge.

00:17:06.000 Are they going to put somebody up there to do it?

00:17:08.000 Yeah, it has to be the minority leader, which I believe they'll be Hakeem Jeffries, but it's interesting.

00:17:13.000 I had a friend text me.

00:17:14.000 So I just saw Nancy Pelosi's finally been fired, but I think she's leaving because she's still staying in Congress. 0.91

00:17:20.000 She just doesn't want to have to hand me the gavel. 0.99

00:17:22.000 Probably that's the reason.

00:17:24.000 I mean, maybe, maybe not.

00:17:26.000 But the bottom line is that she is definitely She's definitely out. 0.84

00:17:29.000 So the question becomes, okay, now the Republicans have a shot at it.

00:17:32.000 What can they learn?

00:17:33.000 Because you want to learn something from everybody.

00:17:35.000 This is what the wise of the world do.

00:17:36.000 They learn from everybody.

00:17:37.000 What do you learn from Nancy Pelosi?

00:17:39.000 And number one, keep your caucus in line.

00:17:41.000 Keep your caucus in line.

00:17:43.000 Every Republican speaker of the past 20 years Has made the signal error of thinking that if you do debt ceiling fights or government shutdowns, it's going to redound to your benefit.

00:17:53.000 This has not worked well at all.

00:17:55.000 That performative politics is somehow going to achieve what you want it to achieve.

00:17:58.000 And politics was nationalized by Newt Gingrich.

00:18:01.000 There's a point that my friend John Podhoris makes at the New York Post today.

00:18:04.000 Politics was nationalized in Congress by Newt Gingrich.

00:18:06.000 Before that, everybody was sort of representative of your district and the way this was supposed to work is everybody came to Congress.

00:18:11.000 They brought their priorities to Congress.

00:18:12.000 They sort of backscratched each other.

00:18:14.000 You ended up with these bills that were overall fairly moderate, but also included a bunch of pork for like a post office named after you in your hometown.

00:18:21.000 And then in 1994, Gingrich ran on this nationalized platform in which all the Republican Congress people basically ran on the contract with America, and he won a sweeping victory.

00:18:30.000 And this nationalized politics.

00:18:31.000 And Gingrich was able to get a few things done, right?

00:18:33.000 Like welfare reform, he was able to get done, which is a pretty major thing.

00:18:36.000 He was able to work with Clinton to lower taxes in certain areas.

00:18:38.000 And then Nancy Pelosi really took it to a tight. 1.00

00:18:41.000 She nationalized every election.

00:18:42.000 Every election under Nancy Pelosi was nationalized.

00:18:45.000 While Republicans, they can nationalize things, If you're going to nationalize the elections, if every election is going to be about national issues and not about what's happening in your local district, then you're also going to have to run your congressional caucus the way Nancy Pelosi did with an iron rod.

00:18:59.000 You're going to have to make sure that everybody is on board and that when you bring up a bill, you don't get all of the public fighting and arguing.

00:19:07.000 You have to be good at vote counting.

00:19:08.000 You have to be good at whipping your vote.

00:19:09.000 You have to make sure that everybody's on the same page and you have to pick fights that you know you can win.

00:19:14.000 So take some actual tactical Ability here.

00:19:18.000 We'll see whether Kevin McCarthy has any of that tactical ability.

00:19:22.000 The first people out of the gate, unfortunately for the House Republicans, the first people out of the gate are people who are announcing investigations.

00:19:27.000 Now, I'm not anti-investigations.

00:19:29.000 I think investigations are perfectly fine and in many cases legitimate.

00:19:32.000 In fact, some of the investigations that members of the House are announcing I think are worthwhile.

00:19:35.000 But there's no question that this is crowd-pleasing, base-pleasing stuff because congressional investigations overall are generally useless.

00:19:42.000 When is the last time you had a congressional investigation that actually ended with any sort of congressional activity that was worth its salt?

00:19:47.000 The answer is it almost never happens.

00:19:49.000 It's a posturing exercise.

00:19:51.000 Now, sometimes that posturing is necessary for political gain.

00:19:55.000 Sometimes the posturing is useful for the American public.

00:19:58.000 Most of the time, it's just a way for people to get on TV.

00:20:01.000 And when it comes to getting reelected, when it comes to your caucus actually being successful in getting things done, it's a lot less about the posturing and a lot more about what it is that you want to get done.

00:20:10.000 We'll get to more on this in just one moment.

00:20:12.000 First, let's talk about a simple fact.

00:20:13.000 You got a home?

00:20:14.000 You need home insurance.

00:20:14.000 Just that simple.

00:20:15.000 I mean, by law, in many states, you have to have home insurance.

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00:21:15.000 Also, it can be pretty tough to maintain a healthy lifestyle when you got a lot of stuff going on.

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00:22:17.000 So let's talk about what it is that the House is going to try to get done.

00:22:22.000 The Wall Street Journal has a good rundown on what exactly Republicans are looking to do.

00:22:26.000 They say the end of the unified democratic government will prevent Biden from following through on key 2020 campaign goals, including raising taxes on corporations and high income households.

00:22:34.000 Some tax legislation is still possible, thanks to bipartisan momentum for expanding tax breaks for retirement savings.

00:22:39.000 There could be a deal to extend expired tax breaks and prevent some business tax increases scheduled to take effect under a law passed in 2017.

00:22:47.000 There are some provisions of the 2017 law that are scheduled to expire after 2025.

00:22:51.000 Democrats are probably not going to push forward any sort of Extension of that, but Republicans are going to obstruct the Democratic attempts to raise taxes, which is definitely a positive for the American people.

00:23:03.000 There's gonna be talk about, for example, debt limits.

00:23:06.000 And raising spending.

00:23:10.000 That is going to have to be discussed.

00:23:12.000 The reality is that there is very little appetite inside the Republican caucus or by the American people more broadly.

00:23:17.000 I mean, I wish there were, but politics is a game of reality.

00:23:20.000 It's not a game of I wish.

00:23:21.000 And the American public, I've yet to see a situation in which there's a government shutdown and the American public is super happy about it, even though I may be totally sanguine about it.

00:23:30.000 When it comes to foreign policy, there are going to be some battles over the war in Ukraine.

00:23:33.000 Presumably, Kevin McCarthy is going to be shepherding Congress into continuing funding, but I would assume with more oversight.

00:23:40.000 That's going to be important.

00:23:43.000 There will be attempts to block Democrats from enshrining abortion in federal law.

00:23:49.000 Most of what's going to happen for the next couple of years is going to be obstruction.

00:23:53.000 And there, I think that McCarthy actually has a fairly easy road.

00:23:56.000 He's just going to be able to look at Joe Biden and say, no.

00:23:59.000 The question is going to be, what happens when Republicans actually take power?

00:24:02.000 What sort of legislation are they going to be able to push forward?

00:24:05.000 And more than anything, for the next couple of years, can you project A feeling of sobriety in your caucus.

00:24:11.000 Because that's what this midterm election was really about.

00:24:13.000 The reason the Republicans won a handful of seats instead of a wave of seats in a year in which Republicans across the country were plus four.

00:24:19.000 That usually says wave.

00:24:21.000 There was no wave.

00:24:23.000 One of the reasons is because many Republican candidates, in particular congressional districts, did not feel sober to the public.

00:24:30.000 What you need is a feeling of calm and sobriety.

00:24:32.000 Can Republicans get their act together enough to actually project this?

00:24:35.000 This is my concern about some of the focus on the investigations.

00:24:38.000 Again, not that there shouldn't be investigations, but that they're actually done in a sober and Thought out manner as opposed to let me just go and shout in front of the cameras.

00:24:50.000 So yesterday there was an announcement by Representative James Comer that there will be an investigation to Hunter Biden.

00:24:55.000 Again, this is sort of promises made, promises kept sort of stuff for Republicans.

00:24:58.000 They said they would investigate Hunter Biden.

00:24:59.000 That's all fine.

00:25:01.000 I'm not sure that I would make that like the first thing that you say you are going to do after being elected to the majority simply for political expediency.

00:25:08.000 Like if you're going to do it, do it.

00:25:10.000 But don't make it like we're taking power, we're going after the current president of the United States' son.

00:25:16.000 That's like our top priority.

00:25:18.000 I don't think it should be Republicans' top.

00:25:19.000 It should be a priority, sure, to investigate any sort of corrupt foreign affairs that are happening here.

00:25:24.000 But is this what is meant to project a sense of sort of calm and stability to the American people going into 2024?

00:25:32.000 I'm not sure that it is.

00:25:33.000 Anyway, here is Representative James Comer of Kentucky.

00:25:36.000 We are releasing a report today that details what we have uncovered.

00:25:39.000 We're also sending letters to the Biden administration officials and Biden family associates renewing our request for voluntary production of documents relevant to this investigation.

00:25:48.000 This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the President of the United States, and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family's international business schemes.

00:25:59.000 Committee Republicans have uncovered evidence of federal crimes committed by, and to the benefit of, members of the President's family.

00:26:06.000 These include conspiracy or defrauding the United States.

00:26:10.000 Wire fraud.

00:26:12.000 Conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

00:26:14.000 Violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

00:26:18.000 Violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

00:26:20.000 Violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

00:26:24.000 Tax evasion.

00:26:25.000 Money laundering.

00:26:26.000 And conspiracy to commit money laundering.

00:26:30.000 The Biden family's business dealings implicate a wide range of criminality from human trafficking to potential violations of the Constitution.

00:26:38.000 Yeah, I just have a question.

00:26:39.000 Why is this your lead?

00:26:40.000 Why is this what you're leading with?

00:26:41.000 Like day one, you announce you have a majority.

00:26:43.000 You're like, we're going after Hunter.

00:26:44.000 Is that the priority of the American people?

00:26:46.000 Maybe the priority of the base.

00:26:48.000 Again, I'm happy to see an investigation.

00:26:49.000 This is your lead?

00:26:51.000 Republicans performed poorly in the general election because 13% of Republican voters in key states defected over to the other side.

00:26:58.000 And also because independents voted for the Democrats in the last election cycle.

00:27:03.000 And so your first move is let's do this thing that appears to be super partisan to everybody.

00:27:07.000 I just don't understand the tactical.

00:27:09.000 Where's the tactics here?

00:27:10.000 Where's the tactical brilliance?

00:27:12.000 And if you have a bunch of members who are going to use Congress, see, here's what Nancy Pelosi basically did. 1.00

00:27:17.000 What Nancy Pelosi basically did is she let AOC and Ilhan Omar and all these people go out there and shout about anything, but they had no power inside the caucus. 1.00

00:27:23.000 They didn't do anything.

00:27:25.000 They got and did two interviews, or Instagram stories, or be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

00:27:28.000 But they didn't actually have any power.

00:27:30.000 And so if McCarthy's gonna run his caucus well, what he's gonna have to do is say, okay, you wanna go out, you wanna sound off to the press, you wanna do it?

00:27:37.000 Fine.

00:27:37.000 But the way this place is gonna run is it's gonna run like a smoothly oiled machine in which we pursue actual real issues the American people care about as a first priority.

00:27:46.000 And we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but the walking is much more important than the chewing of the gum.

00:27:51.000 At least in the public mind.

00:27:54.000 I just don't understand why you would lead with this day one.

00:27:55.000 It doesn't make any sense to me and it doesn't bode well for the tactical brilliance of Republican leadership at this point.

00:28:03.000 By the way, there are certain things that you could say that would please the bays and would still be things that are worthwhile doing.

00:28:07.000 So for example, Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio, he says, one of the things we're going to be doing is we're going to be overseeing Joe Biden's DOJ.

00:28:13.000 Like this is an actual thing that seems worthwhile to me.

00:28:15.000 Because again, this is a function of Congress is to oversee the executive branch and make sure that it doesn't overstep its boundaries.

00:28:22.000 Here's Jim Jordan yesterday.

00:28:24.000 Is the FBI going to quit interfering with elections?

00:28:28.000 2016, they spied on President Trump's campaign.

00:28:30.000 2018, it was the Mueller investigation.

00:28:31.000 2020, they suppressed information about the Hunter Biden story.

00:28:34.000 2022, they raided the President's home 91 days before an election.

00:28:38.000 Maybe it'd be nice...

00:28:40.000 If the FBI and the Justice Department just stayed out of it and let we the people decide who we think should represent us, who we think should lead us, that's supposed to be how America works.

00:28:48.000 So this is the focus on the Judiciary Committee, the political nature of the Justice Department, and the linkage now to what was happening with the Hunter Biden story.

00:28:56.000 Again, just 15 days before we have a presidential election.

00:29:01.000 Okay, again, I just have a question.

00:29:02.000 Why couldn't you just say, listen, the DOJ, one of our first tasks over the Judiciary Committee is to oversee the DOJ, which has been targeting parents.

00:29:11.000 Why wouldn't that be the lead?

00:29:12.000 Why is Hunter Biden the lead?

00:29:14.000 Why is the 2016 election the lead?

00:29:15.000 This is all the stuff the American people in 2022 were like, eh.

00:29:19.000 But it turns out there is stuff the DOJ is doing that pisses off the American people.

00:29:23.000 And those things include going after parents.

00:29:26.000 And going after people who are critical of school boards.

00:29:30.000 Tactical competence, guys, is going to be a necessity here.

00:29:33.000 I don't know how many times Republicans can pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, but they seem to be up to the challenge.

00:29:40.000 It's an amazing, amazing thing.

00:29:41.000 Again, McCarthy better get this thing in order or he's not going to be worth his salt as Speaker.

00:29:47.000 It's that simple.

00:29:47.000 The one thing that you can say for Kevin McCarthy is that when you climb the greasy pole and you make it to the top, this means, theoretically, that you're supposed to be tactically smart.

00:29:55.000 Again, Paul Ryan was sort of thrust into this position when he was made Speaker of the House, simply because he was famous and he'd run for Vice President under Mitt Romney, and because he had these ideas about restructuring entitlements.

00:30:07.000 But it wasn't as though Paul Ryan was known as a tactician in Congress.

00:30:09.000 That wasn't his thing.

00:30:10.000 He was an idea guy in Congress.

00:30:12.000 Kevin McCarthy, theoretically, should be known as a tactician.

00:30:15.000 He's the only young gun left.

00:30:17.000 I remember when there was a triumvirate of the young guns.

00:30:18.000 It was Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor.

00:30:20.000 The only one who's left is Kevin McCarthy.

00:30:22.000 And now he's gonna be Speaker of the House.

00:30:24.000 So, show the tactical maneuvering capacity of a Mitch McConnell or a Nancy Pelosi and you'll be successful.

00:30:31.000 That's your job.

00:30:32.000 Your job is not going to be to allow your caucus to run free and wild, shouting about things the base loves, but the American people are not particularly entranced with.

00:30:41.000 Okay, meanwhile, over at Twitter, complete mayhem.

00:30:45.000 According to the media, people are freaking out over the current activities over at Twitter.

00:30:50.000 So what exactly is happening over at Twitter?

00:30:51.000 Well, CNN's Oliver Darcy has now branded it Twitter's last gasp.

00:30:56.000 Which is a radical overstatement of the case.

00:30:59.000 Basically what happened is that Elon Musk put out an ultimatum that all of his employees should come to work extremely hardcore.

00:31:09.000 Basically he said we are not going to be doing this routine where employees get to run the place.

00:31:15.000 You need to commit to working long hours and working hard and fixing this or leave.

00:31:19.000 This is a couple days ago.

00:31:21.000 He issued an ultimatum to Twitter employees.

00:31:24.000 He said, commit to a new hardcore Twitter or leave the company with severance pay.

00:31:28.000 Twitter is shifting to an engineer-driven operation, one that will need to be extremely hardcore going forward, according to the midnight email obtained by the Washington Post.

00:31:35.000 Employees were asked to click an icon and respond by Thursday if they wanted to stay.

00:31:38.000 He said, this will mean working long hours at high intensity.

00:31:41.000 Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.

00:31:45.000 By mid-Wednesday, members of Twitter's trust and safety team Which of course is the most ideologically driven part of the Twitter company.

00:31:51.000 They were discussing a mass resignation and then apparently they engaged in a mass resignation.

00:31:56.000 According to the Washington Post, hundreds of people working at Twitter said that they were going to leave.

00:32:01.000 They refused to sign a pledge to work longer hours.

00:32:05.000 According to the Washington Post, the number of engineers tending to multiple critical systems had been reduced to 2, 1, or even 0.

00:32:10.000 So it went from like 20 in a particular department to 2 people in a particular department.

00:32:14.000 Now, people on Twitter who don't understand how Twitter works, they think what this means is that basically engineers are in the back room, and every time you tweet, What happens is that they take your tweet, they retype it onto a floppy disk, they take the floppy disk, they upload it into like a computer from 1950 that fills a room, and then that's how your tweet goes up.

00:32:32.000 And so if you don't have people, a thousand Twitter employees, who every day are just re-inputting the tweets, the thing's just going to break down.

00:32:37.000 In 24 hours, it's going to shut down.

00:32:38.000 That's wrong.

00:32:40.000 What the engineers are there to do is they are there to stop an emergency meltdown.

00:32:44.000 So somebody hacks the system, for example, or there's a major bug that crashes the system.

00:32:49.000 Instead of having 20 guys, you now have two.

00:32:51.000 So that means that the critical systems, if they come under attack, that could be a problem.

00:32:55.000 But the way the media are treating it, it's like, oh my God, tomorrow it's going to go dark.

00:32:59.000 It's just going to wind down.

00:33:01.000 That is not right.

00:33:02.000 In an early sign, the number of those declining to sign was greater than anticipated.

00:33:05.000 Musk eased offer a turn to office mandate he'd issued a week ago, telling employees Thursday they'd be allowed to work remotely if their managers assert they are making an excellent contribution.

00:33:13.000 But apparently several workers are saying that the precarious position has been reached.

00:33:17.000 A former employee said, quote, I know of six critical systems, like serving tweets level of critical, which no longer have any engineers.

00:33:22.000 There's no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system.

00:33:24.000 It will continue to coast until it runs into something and then it will stop.

00:33:27.000 Okay, that would be an implication regarding the possibility of an emergency.

00:33:32.000 So how many people are still remaining?

00:33:34.000 Apparently, somewhere between 75 and 88% of all the people working at Twitter, when Musk took over, are basically gone at this point.

00:33:43.000 Musk eliminated roughly 50% of the 7,500 person workforce when he first took over.

00:33:49.000 A former Twitter executive told CNN that this was a mass exodus.

00:33:55.000 I asked about the situation.

00:33:56.000 A former executive said Elon is finding out he can't fully top senior talent.

00:33:58.000 They have lots of options and they won't put up with his antics.

00:34:00.000 They will struggle just to keep the lights on.

00:34:04.000 That assessment was universally shared by a half dozen current and former employees that spoke with Oliver Darcy on Thursday.

00:34:09.000 Now, you would imagine they would say that, right?

00:34:10.000 Everybody who leaves the company says about their old company, the place is going to fall down without me.

00:34:15.000 Darcy says Twitter management was in panic mode hours before the deadline passed.

00:34:18.000 People familiar with the matter said, explaining senior leaders were scrambling to convince talent to stay on at the company.

00:34:23.000 Now, while all of this is happening, Twitter is reaching new heights in users.

00:34:29.000 Twitter continues to have massive traffic.

00:34:32.000 They're gonna have to go out, they're gonna have to hire back some engineers.

00:34:35.000 What this is, is Twitter's most perilous moment in terms of how you actually rebuild Twitter.

00:34:40.000 There was gonna come a moment where everybody who's not ideologically aligned and enthusiastic about working for Trump was gonna have to leave.

00:34:46.000 That moment has just been accelerated.

00:34:47.000 So instead of sort of a slow walk, To this point, where a Twitter engineer that Musk didn't like was let go and a new one replaced him.

00:34:54.000 Instead of that, basically everybody who Musk would have fired anyway is leaving at the same time, which means they're short-staffed right now.

00:35:00.000 The question is going to be whether they can staff up quickly enough to prevent the ship from running into the iceberg.

00:35:05.000 That's essentially what's going on right now.

00:35:07.000 Jeff Siebert, a former head of consumer product at Twitter, said, according to the New York Times, that the company's situation was, quote, sad and disappointing, and that Mr. Musk's leadership had caused confusion for users, advertisers, and employees.

00:35:17.000 Of all the companies that don't need more drama, it's Twitter, said Siebert.

00:35:20.000 Now, the media are going nuts over this because the media spend literally all day on Twitter.

00:35:25.000 In which case, probably, you know, they also say learn to code.

00:35:28.000 Maybe they should learn to weld.

00:35:30.000 Maybe that's the thing that needs to happen right here.

00:35:33.000 But, you know, the notion that Twitter is about to go under forever, or that even if Twitter went under for 24 hours, you think that they wouldn't get it back up and running?

00:35:44.000 It'll become more buggy, it'll become worse for a moment, and then it'll get better.

00:35:48.000 Honestly, I think it will get better.

00:35:49.000 And the reason I think it will get better is because I do not actually, I actually believe that a lot of these tech companies are wildly overstaffed.

00:35:54.000 There's no way that Twitter needed 7,500 employees.

00:35:59.000 That is not a thing that was necessary in the first place.

00:36:02.000 And a lot of what's going on right now is also that members of the media, forget about the sort of chaos inside, members of the media are eager to see Twitter fail because they don't like Musk and they don't like what Musk has done to Twitter, which has opened the place up.

00:36:14.000 They're very angry.

00:36:15.000 In fact, they're rooting for Democratic lawmakers to restrict Twitter.

00:36:17.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

00:36:19.000 First, it feels like the country might be headed the wrong direction.

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00:38:18.000 Okay, so.

00:38:20.000 The celebration in the media, you can sense it, over Twitter's troubles.

00:38:24.000 It really is about Musk, right?

00:38:25.000 They hate Musk.

00:38:26.000 They don't like the fact that Musk disagrees with them politically.

00:38:28.000 And so they are fully excited about the fact that 90% of the workforce over at Twitter is gone.

00:38:33.000 Now, that excitement is going to turn to sheer rage and tears if it turns out that Musk has sufficiently cleared out the place that he's able to hire back new employees.

00:38:42.000 Twitter keeps running, except on a fraction of its old budget, and suddenly it looks profitable.

00:38:47.000 Because it turns out you didn't need 7,500 employees over at Twitter.

00:38:49.000 Maybe you only need 700 employees over at Twitter.

00:38:51.000 Or 1,000 employees over at Twitter.

00:38:53.000 It saves you a lot on the other end.

00:38:54.000 It also means that a lot of these tech companies are going to look at their own employee base and go, wait a second, do we need this many people working for us?

00:39:00.000 We're already head into a tech recession.

00:39:02.000 Forget about whether there's a generalized recession.

00:39:04.000 Tech leads the way because so much of the extraordinary amount of money that was flowing through the economy was invested in tech that you created another tech bubble.

00:39:12.000 It's very reminiscent of like 1999-2000 when Pets.com was a massive, massive stock.

00:39:17.000 And you're seeing that now with Facebook.

00:39:19.000 I mean, Facebook's stock is down just meta.

00:39:21.000 Their stock is down unbelievably.

00:39:23.000 And they're laying off tens of thousands of workers.

00:39:25.000 And the same thing is happening even at Amazon, which is an actual profitable and solid company, one of the biggest companies in the country.

00:39:30.000 They're laying off tens of thousands of workers.

00:39:32.000 So if Musk is able to lay off this much of his workforce, you think other big tech companies aren't going to look at their own workforce and go, guys, we are way overstaffing and we got a lot of people learning to weld if that is the case, but a lot of people rooting against Moscow, obviously.

00:39:46.000 And that includes.

00:39:47.000 A bunch of people in the government.

00:39:49.000 The simple fact of the matter is that the members of the left would love to see Twitter go down.

00:39:55.000 They would love to see Musk go down.

00:39:56.000 This is why Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation of Elon Musk.

00:39:59.000 Now, I've yet to see them call for an investigation into, for example, Jeff Bezos, a billionaire, buying the Washington Post.

00:40:06.000 But it's really, really bad.

00:40:08.000 to allow Musk to basically run his company until you have Democrats like Ed Markey going after Elon Musk.

00:40:16.000 On Thursday, seven Democratic senators called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether the company had violated a consumer privacy agreement with the agency since Musk took it over.

00:40:25.000 The letter followed the resignations of Twitter security executives last week after Musk appeared to change some of the company's data security practices.

00:40:30.000 So now they're going to investigate him.

00:40:33.000 It's funny, they're perfectly happy, by the way, to work hand-in-glove with other big tech companies.

00:40:37.000 I mean, in fact, as we learned yesterday in a public hearing, Chris Wray, the head of the FBI, he says that the FBI might actually be gathering their actual private Facebook data without a warrant.

00:40:47.000 That apparently does not warrant any sort of congressional upset or investigation.

00:40:51.000 But must changing data practices internally at Twitter without government involvement, that's totally fine.

00:40:56.000 Here is Chris Wray admitting, basically, that Facebook is allowing backdoor data grabbing from the federal government.

00:41:04.000 Director Wray, is Facebook or any other social media company supplying private messages or data on American users that is not compelled by the government or the FBI?

00:41:20.000 Um, not compelled.

00:41:22.000 In other words, not in response to the legal process.

00:41:24.000 No warrant, no subpoena.

00:41:25.000 They're just supplying you information on their users.

00:41:29.000 Uh, I don't believe so.

00:41:31.000 But, uh, but I can't sit here and be sure of that as I, as I sit here.

00:41:35.000 Okay, so that's great.

00:41:36.000 That's great.

00:41:37.000 No congressional investigation there under the Democratic Senate.

00:41:40.000 But they are definitely going to go after Twitter.

00:41:42.000 Again, their hatred for Twitter knows no bounds.

00:41:44.000 A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

00:41:45.000 The agency previously said it was tracking recent developments on Twitter with deep concern.

00:41:50.000 Jeff Siebert, the former head of consumer product at Twitter and apparently full-time commentator for the New York Times.

00:41:54.000 He's like the only person who they talk to.

00:41:57.000 Called the company's situation sad and disappointing, of course.

00:41:59.000 So, those are his favorite words.

00:42:02.000 Meanwhile, I'll tell you where they're not having heartburn.

00:42:03.000 Where they're not having heartburn in the media is over the fact that CNN is preparing mass layoffs.

00:42:07.000 That apparently is totally fine.

00:42:09.000 So, mass layoffs at Twitter demonstrate that the company is on the ropes and might collapse.

00:42:12.000 Mass layoffs at CNN, that's just the way it goes over there.

00:42:15.000 According to Just the News, CNN chief executive Chris Licht announced this week Announced this week, layoffs at the news company as a cost-cutting measure amid the network's financial woes and unsuccessful foray into streaming.

00:42:26.000 Teams not essential to the network's core mission are likely to see their positions disappear, Lick said in a town hall with employees, according to the UK Daily Mail.

00:42:33.000 Lick did not detail which teams or how many jobs were on the chopping block.

00:42:36.000 The network's CEO has been tasked with cutting $100 million from the network's budget from superiors at Warner Bros.

00:42:41.000 Discovery, the outlet noted.

00:42:43.000 He previously claimed in June that layoffs were not on the table.

00:42:46.000 Well, so much for that.

00:42:47.000 Apparently, mass layoffs are now on the table, which is not a shock because CNN had sunk an awful lot of money into CNN+, which was a giant fail.

00:42:56.000 But this does not merit any sort of media freakout.

00:42:58.000 What merits a media freakout is an internal staffing issue over at Twitter that, by the way, is likely to be solved because most problems with staffing eventually can be solved with money and good job offers, which presumably is what they're doing over at Twitter headquarters today.

00:43:13.000 We'll find out whether Musk can pull a rabbit out of the hat this time.

00:43:16.000 Alrighty, guys, the rest of the show is continuing now.

00:43:18.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:43:19.000 We'll be getting into L.A. 1.00

00:43:20.000 doubling down on the stupid by electing a person who is not going to solve homelessness. 0.99

00:43:23.000 Plus, Arthur Brooks from the Harvard Kennedy School stops by to talk about happiness leading up to Thanksgiving. 1.00

The Ben Shapiro Show - November 18, 2022

Pelosi’s Out | Ep. 1614

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