The Ben Shapiro Show - “Rabbis For Mamdani” And Other Idiotic Ideas

00:00:00.000 A ton coming up on today's show.

00:00:01.000 New polls showing that Andrew Cuomo is closing the gap on Zorn Mamdani.

00:00:05.000 What does that mean?

00:00:06.000 Plus, we examine one of the more bizarre videos of the campaign season, Rabbis for Mamdani.

00:00:10.000 Is that a real thing?

00:00:11.000 Spoiler alert, not so much.

00:00:13.000 Plus, we're joined by the speaker of the House of Representatives about the government shutdown.

00:00:17.000 First, less than two weeks ago, we launched our new flagship show, Friendly Fire, right here on Daily Wire Plus.

00:00:21.000 It's me, Matt Walsh, Michael Moles, Andrew Clavin, coming together live to debate, discussing, yes, disagree on the biggest stories, making headlines.

00:00:27.000 In our very first episode, we dropped two massive announcements: the all-new Daily Wire lifetime membership, and the first look at our upcoming epic, the Penn Dragon Cycle.

00:00:35.000 Tomorrow night, we're back with an all-new live episode and more big announcements you're not going to want to miss.

00:00:39.000 Plus, our deal of the decade is happening right now.

00:00:41.000 Join Daily Wire Plus for as little as $7 a month at dailywire.com.

00:00:45.000 Watch Friendly Fire Live tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Eastern on Daily Wire Plus.

00:00:49.000 Well, folks, there is some good news out of New York.

00:00:52.000 Now, it's not enough good news out of New York, but it's some good news.

00:00:55.000 Apparently, there's a brand new poll in New York that shows that Cuomo is actually catching up to Zoran Mamdani Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York, who is really the only hope at stopping Zorin Mamdani in the New York mayoral race.

00:01:06.000 Curtis Lewa sticking around for reasons unknown to anyone but himself and his family.

00:01:10.000 Apparently, this brand new poll that is out from Suffolk University shows that Mamdani no longer leads Cuomo by 20 points or 15 points.

00:01:19.000 That lead is down to 10, and Mamdani is stuck at 44%.

00:01:22.000 Now, typically, when somebody wins that New York mayoral race, they win well over a majority.

00:01:26.000 Here, you have Mamdani at 44, you have Cuomo at 34, and you have Sliwa at 11%.

00:01:33.000 And so, again, there's going to be a lot of talk if Mamdani ends up mayor about why Curtis Liwa stayed in the race.

00:01:38.000 And this is not an anti-Curtis point, this is just a reality point.

00:01:40.000 Curtis Lewa is not going to be the next mayor of New York.

00:01:43.000 And if his vote share is larger than the margin of victory for Momdani, there are going to be a lot of questions to be asked.

00:01:48.000 And again, the main question is going to be asked of Andrew Cuomo, why is he such a terrible candidate?

00:01:52.000 And there'll be big questions with the New York population: why are you all insipid?

00:01:56.000 But the real question for Sliwa is going to be why you didn't drop out.

00:02:00.000 As David Paliologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, says, there's one person in New York City whose voters could have an outsized impact on the outcome, and it's Sliwa.

00:02:11.000 So, this is the first poll since Mayor Adams, Eric Adams, dropped out of the race.

00:02:15.000 Most of his support bled on over to Andrew Cuomo.

00:02:19.000 It is also the second poll to show Cuomo narrowing the gap with Mamdani since Adams dropped out of the race.

00:02:27.000 A lot of the opposition to Momdani is materializing his support for Cuomo, which is precisely what you would expect.

00:02:33.000 Because, again, it's not like Andrew Cuomo has any great shakes.

00:02:36.000 Momdani is running a terrible final week of this campaign.

00:02:39.000 Truly an awful, awful final week of this campaign.

00:02:42.000 He has decided that his closing message is going to be that New York City is famous for Islamophobia.

00:02:47.000 And if you don't elect him, it's because you don't like Muslims, which is a wild statement in a city that suffered 9-11, where apparently the only victim of 9-11, according to Zorin Mamdani, was his not aunt.

00:02:59.000 And I say not aunt advisedly, because as it turns out, it was not, in fact, his aunt who was wearing some sort of hijab on the subway and somebody gave him a mean look.

00:03:09.000 According to the New York Post, the aunt who Zoran Mamdani said was too afraid to wear her hijab on the subways after 9-11 is actually his father's cousin, a distant relative.

00:03:19.000 In other words, how many of your father's cousins do you know?

00:03:23.000 Like a lot of them.

00:03:25.000 My parents have cousins, and we know like maybe one, maybe like that.

00:03:31.000 Kind of strange.

00:03:32.000 The socialist mayoral frontrunner made the revelation during a press conference Monday after critics pointed out that his actual aunt doesn't have a hijab and was in Tanzania during the time period he was talking about.

00:03:42.000 So instead, he said, I was speaking about Zara Fuhi, my father's cousin, who passed away a few years ago.

00:03:49.000 That relative he affectionately called his aunt.

00:03:52.000 Mamdani's campaign, however, did not provide the cousin's full name when asked.

00:03:56.000 Because if they did, then there might be some fact-checking as to whether this person was in New York City at the time and whether this person was, in fact, subject to the predations of evil New Yorkers looking askance at hijab wearers on the New York subway system.

00:04:11.000 And Zorn Mamdani, who has spent his entire life being useless, and now his final closing pitch is, why won't you give me the mayoralty?

00:04:17.000 And if you don't, it's because you're mean to Muslims. 0.98

00:04:19.000 That's the closing pitch.

00:04:22.000 I mean, that is the mark of a person who truly feels entitled to everything.

00:04:26.000 Is that if you won't give him the mayoralty of the financial center of planet Earth, it must be not because he's a bad candidate, not because he's an out-and-out communist, not because he is a sympathizer with jihadists, but because you are mean to Muslims.

00:04:42.000 So here is Zorn Mamdani doubling, tripling down on this yesterday.

00:04:47.000 I was speaking about my aunt.

00:04:49.000 I was speaking about Zaya Fui, my father's cousin, who sadly passed away a few years ago.

00:04:58.000 And for the takeaway from my more than 10-minute address about Islamophobia in this race and in this city, to be the question of my aunt, tells you everything about Andrew Cuomo and his inability to reckon with a crisis.

00:05:14.000 Okay, so it's a crisis of Islamophobia is what's happening here.

00:05:17.000 And you're even asking questions about the identity of his aunt, his father's cousin, who he won't even name.

00:05:24.000 If you ask that question, it's because you must hate Muslims.

00:05:27.000 It can't be because you doubt his honesty because he is, in fact, a manufactured candidate who is smarmy and fake and smug in every single video of him.

00:05:37.000 But the bizarrely conjured emotional moments with the strange smile that breaks out creepily on his face like an outtake from get out.

00:05:50.000 It is a very, he is a strange candidate, but if you ask questions, it's because you're being mean to him.

00:05:54.000 And that's really the story, isn't it?

00:05:56.000 The real story is that if you don't vote for Zora Mamdani, it's because you're a big meanie who doesn't like Muslims.

00:06:01.000 You mean, mean person, you meany, mean, McMean, mean person who you are in your Islamophobia, not voting for the guy who wants to nationalize resources, not voting for the guy who wants to spread every idiotic third-grade secretary idea he ever had across America's most populous city.

00:06:18.000 It's because you're mean.

00:06:19.000 Why don't you just give it to him?

00:06:20.000 Just give it to him.

00:06:21.000 I mean, he's diverse.

00:06:23.000 Give it to him.

00:06:24.000 And if you won't, it's probably because you're like a white supremacist or Nazi or something.

00:06:28.000 Here's Zoram Amdani.

00:06:31.000 This tells you everything you need to know about the Republican Party.

00:06:35.000 At a time when 4 million Americans are in danger of losing their health care, when the federal government is choosing to price hungry Americans across this country out of their very groceries, their focus is to take on the Muslim guy who won the Democratic primary by 13 points. 0.82

00:06:55.000 This is a moment where active duty military families are lining up for food pantries across this entire country.

00:07:01.000 And for congresspeople in the Republican Party to see that and say that their answer to it is to try and nullify the results of an election, it tells you everything that you have to know.

00:07:15.000 You're so mean.

00:07:16.000 It's so mean.

00:07:17.000 I mean, yes, he volunteered to run.

00:07:19.000 Yes, he won the Democratic primary.

00:07:20.000 Yes, he's very likely to be the next mayor of New York.

00:07:22.000 But if you pay attention to that, what you should be paying attention to is all these other issues he wasn't talking about until five seconds ago.

00:07:30.000 Look, Squirrel, seriously, what a sad, sad candidate he is.

00:07:34.000 And it is a real statement about what a terrible candidate Andrew Cuomo is that he lost to the schmuck in a primary. 0.90

00:07:39.000 Truly.

00:07:40.000 Coming up, we're going to be joined by Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to talk about this continuing government shutdown.

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00:10:04.000 Exclusions apply.

00:10:05.000 And just lest you, lest you truly believe that Mom Dani is some sort of soft-hearted, wonderful person.

00:10:12.000 I'd just like to point out a clip of him from 2023.

00:10:14.000 You want to know where his ideology comes from.

00:10:16.000 His ideology is deeply, deeply ensconced in the red-green alliance that has characterized the wild left, the alliance between communists and radical jihadists that has characterized so much of the left these days.

00:10:29.000 This is a clip from him in September 2023, explaining that basically his hatred for capitalism springs from his dislike of the quote-unquote Zionists.

00:10:38.000 Here we go.

00:10:39.000 The importance for me of international solidarity is that it takes me out of the American political landscape and reminds me of just how tame some of the things are that I'm actually calling for.

00:10:53.000 And it reminds me of the necessity of grounding ourselves in the struggles as opposed to the fights around the starts.

00:11:00.000 For anyone to care about these issues, we have to make them hyper-limitable.

00:11:07.000 We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF. 0.87

00:11:16.000 We are in a country where those connections abound, especially in New York City, you have so many opportunities to make clear the ways in which that struggle over there is tied to capitalist interests over here.

00:11:32.000 So you see, it's really the Jews in Israel who are tied to the capitalist interests in New York City. 0.68

00:11:38.000 And capitalism, of course, is bad.

00:11:40.000 And if you missed it, he said, when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF. 0.56

00:11:44.000 This is not 15 years ago, gang.

00:11:47.000 This is two years ago.

00:11:49.000 He was a full-grown ass man when he said this sort of stuff.

00:11:52.000 And they're going to elect this guy mayor.

00:11:53.000 But if you point this out, it's because you're mean.

00:11:54.000 It's because you're Islamophobic in some way.

00:11:57.000 Don't point that out.

00:11:58.000 He's a nice man who only cares about affordability.

00:12:00.000 In fact, he said yesterday he's going to deliver affordability.

00:12:03.000 How is he going to deliver affordability?

00:12:04.000 No one knows.

00:12:05.000 But if he just says affordability over and over and over, then affordability will magically appear in New York City.

00:12:10.000 It's like Betelgeuse.

00:12:11.000 If you say affordability three times, then magically all of the rents go down.

00:12:16.000 Why?

00:12:16.000 It's amazing.

00:12:17.000 It's like magic.

00:12:18.000 He's a conjurer of affordability.

00:12:22.000 And I was proud to be on that stage alongside Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Governor Kathy Hochul, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Hasty.

00:12:34.000 And what I asked of those more than 10,000 New Yorkers yesterday was more.

00:12:40.000 More door knocking, more phone banking, more commitment to this campaign that has already transformed our city and is on the verge of actually delivering affordability.

00:12:49.000 And that is our message to New Yorkers with these final eight days.

00:12:54.000 They're on the verge of delivering affordability.

00:12:56.000 You know, just by just by electing him, everything will become more affordable.

00:13:00.000 Now, maybe that's true because so many people will move out of the city to avoid his horrific tenure.

00:13:05.000 That's possible.

00:13:06.000 Maybe the real estate prices drop, specifically because he's such a crap mayor that everybody who can afford to get out gets out.

00:13:11.000 And now there's some vacancy.

00:13:13.000 Maybe.

00:13:14.000 Or maybe he's making promises he can't actually cash.

00:13:17.000 But that doesn't matter because understand, Mom Dani is a mood. 0.98

00:13:21.000 Mom Dani is not an actual basket of policy priorities.

00:13:24.000 Nobody knows what the hell he's talking about when he talks about he's going to free freeze housing.

00:13:29.000 He has no idea how he's going to actually be able to do that.

00:13:33.000 He was quizzed by reporters over how he would specifically outmaneuver Mayor Eric Adams' latest plan to stack the rent guidelines board with members who will tank his rent freeze proposal.

00:13:45.000 And he said, we would use the full extent of powers that we would have as mayor with the rent guidelines board.

00:13:50.000 And when asked about how he would do that, he said, I continue to be confident of our ability to deliver a rent freeze.

00:13:55.000 And I continue to be confident that we will be able to match whatever last-minute betrayal Eric Adams tries to concoct.

00:14:01.000 Because we've seen, it's not just that he's actively looking to betray New Yorkers.

00:14:06.000 So the answer is he has no idea how he's going to do any of this because it doesn't matter.

00:14:10.000 It doesn't matter.

00:14:11.000 The reason people support Mom Dani is because he's fetch and he's a brat. 1.00

00:14:15.000 And apparently there are a lot of idiots in New York.

00:14:18.000 And those idiots in New York are fully on board with the idea that if you don't vote for Zoran Mamdani, it must be because you're some sort of racist or because you hate gay people or because you hate black people or because you are one of those capitalist tools.

00:14:31.000 And this is why you have people.

00:14:36.000 I can't even really describe them how they would like to be described.

00:14:39.000 There's a video going around of people who call themselves rabbis supporting Mom Dani.

00:14:46.000 Now, I'm just going to point out here that not a single person here knows more about basic Jewish law or Jewish philosophy than my five-year-old.

00:14:55.000 These people are a joke.

00:14:56.000 Not one of these people is a rabbi in any real sense.

00:14:59.000 Rabbi means teacher.

00:15:01.000 The history of the rabbinate goes back thousands of years, and you have to have like a baseline level of high learning in order to become a rabbi, or at least you're supposed to.

00:15:11.000 That's the basic idea.

00:15:12.000 Also, in traditional Judaism, men are rabbis.

00:15:14.000 Women can't become rabbis. 1.00

00:15:16.000 There are other roles that women can fulfill. 1.00

00:15:19.000 But putting aside the sex problem here, these women know less about Judaism than my five-year-old by leaps and bounds. 0.98

00:15:26.000 There is no question this is the case.

00:15:28.000 And so trotting out your Jewish identity and wearing it around as a costume. 0.98

00:15:32.000 My identity is not your costume, ladies. 0.99

00:15:35.000 Trotting around, pretending that you are a rabbi in favor of Zoran Mamdani, a pro-jihadi, pro-Marxist radical, betrays whatever supposed religion you profess to believe.

00:15:47.000 These people are a joke.

00:15:49.000 They are a joke.

00:15:50.000 And the joke, by the way, becomes inherently funny because at the very end, it turns out that the only male rabbi in this particular video is a trans female at the very end popping his head up to explain that as a trans female rabbi, who, by the way, openly says does not believe in God, is speaking on behalf of the Jews. 0.57

00:16:10.000 The reason I point this out is because there are many idiots and crazy people all across the land, and many of them reside in New York.

00:16:15.000 I'm also pointing this out because if somebody like this ever says, as a Jew, if the only time you, as a Jew, is when you're supporting someone who legitimately hates Jews, then I don't believe you.

00:16:29.000 I don't believe you.

00:16:31.000 I think that what you are actually doing is just trying to claim minority status because you don't want to be labeled a liberal white lady, which is really what you are unless you're a liberal white man pretending to be a liberal white lady.

00:16:41.000 So this video is going viral yesterday for good reason because it's nuts or lack thereof or maybe including nuts, depending on where you are in the video.

00:16:48.000 Here we go.

00:16:50.000 Hi, Rabbi.

00:16:55.000 I'm not rabbis.

00:16:56.000 Hi.

00:16:57.000 Not among the thousands of Jewish New Yorkers who've been out door knocking and phone banking to elect Zoran Mamdani.

00:17:03.000 We're also rabbis.

00:17:04.000 We know Zoran will fight to make our city affordable and safe for our families.

00:17:10.000 And for our neighbors.

00:17:11.000 We know that.

00:17:13.000 As New Yorkers, we're also just people who live here, who don't want to get priced out of this incredible city that we call home.

00:17:20.000 We know fellow Jews want to be able to afford housing, transportation, and child care for their families too.

00:17:27.000 As Jews, as rabbis, as New Yorkers, we believe that all people deserve to thrive.

00:17:35.000 Zoran agrees.

00:17:37.000 But let's get real.

00:17:38.000 This isn't only about belief.

00:17:40.000 It's about action.

00:17:41.000 So let's build a flourishing city together.

00:17:44.000 Let's elect Zoran.

00:17:47.000 Oh, Zoran.

00:17:50.000 My favorite thing about that is that they come out and they're like, hi, Rabbi.

00:17:53.000 Hi, Rabbi.

00:17:53.000 Oh, look, we're all not rabbis.

00:17:55.000 We're all rabbis.

00:17:56.000 And then the thing that they cite as the rationale for supporting Zoran Mamdani is not anything to do with Jewishness.

00:18:02.000 It's because we want lower rent.

00:18:04.000 First of all, you ain't going to get lower rent.

00:18:05.000 Second of all, I mean, if you're going to do the identity politics things here, ladies, if this is your thing, if you're going to like do the as a Jew thing, you might want to make a reference to anything remotely relating to Jewishness as opposed to, as a generic human, I want lower rent.

00:18:20.000 As a rabbi, as a rabbi.

00:18:22.000 Like people are deservedly making fun of these people and they should.

00:18:27.000 But I suppose that this is the new core of the Democrat coalition.

00:18:31.000 The new core of the Democrat coalition is liberal white ladies and people who are angry about minority status in the United States in some way or have grievances against the majority culture, I suppose. 0.93

00:18:45.000 I mean, that's what the polls show because it turns out the native-born New Yorkers are voting for Cuomo and the people who are voting for Mamdani tend to be immigrants, young, and liberal white ladies who proclaim that they're rabbis.

00:18:58.000 And again, in order for me to actually take seriously your claims of Jewishness, you have to show me a scintilla of Jewishness other than you claiming it. 0.92

00:19:06.000 Like, I need to know what would make you in the same way that if you claim, as a Catholic, I love abortion, I'd be like, well, you know, I'm going to need to see your credentials on that one.

00:19:16.000 Just pathetic and deservedly being mocked.

00:19:19.000 It's a Saturday Night Live skit.

00:19:21.000 All right, coming up, AOC and Riley Gaines, they're going at it.

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00:21:42.000 Producer Justin, he basically is chilling down on these all the time because you know we're constantly on the go.

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00:21:47.000 If you want to try the cleanest protein bar on the market that already sold out once, go to equippedfoods.com/slash Ben Shapiro.

00:21:52.000 Use code Ben Shapiro at checkout to get 25% off one-time purchases or 40% off your first subscription order for a limited time.

00:21:59.000 That's equipfoods.com/slash Ben Shapiro.

00:22:02.000 Use code Ben Shapiro at checkout.

00:22:04.000 Speaking of Saturday Night Live skits, Kathy Hochul, who you remember, replaced Andrew Cuomo.

00:22:09.000 She should be backing Andrew Cuomo because if it weren't for Andrew Cuomo, she wouldn't be governor of New York.

00:22:12.000 Kathy Hochul ended up as governor of New York because Andrew Cuomo couldn't stop grabbing ass or killing old people and he ran out of old people.

00:22:18.000 And she ended up becoming the governor of New York.

00:22:21.000 Well, now she's endorsing Zoran Momdani.

00:22:24.000 And everyone booed her in the crowd, which is hilarious.

00:22:27.000 And then she tried to interpret that as a chant in favor of the Buffalo Bills, which was awkward.

00:22:31.000 Here's what it sounded like.

00:22:44.000 I thought they were saying, let's go, Bills.

00:22:46.000 I wasn't sure.

00:22:47.000 I wasn't sure.

00:22:48.000 When you're up there, I heard some noise.

00:22:50.000 I heard a lot of cheers.

00:22:52.000 But later on, it became clear to me that there is a, I know there's a passion for that.

00:22:57.000 So they booed her, and then they started chanting tax the rich. 1.00

00:23:00.000 That's what they're actually taxing.

00:23:01.000 That's what they're actually chanting.

00:23:03.000 And then Mom Donnie came out, grabbed her hand, raised it, and walked her out because everyone hates Kathy Hochul. 1.00

00:23:08.000 But this is the nature of the Democratic Party.

00:23:11.000 The Democratic Party is made up of a bunch of more traditional, they're still very, very left-wing, more traditional liberals who are making way for the Marxists because every revolutionary movement is willing to break the movement in order to take over the movement.

00:23:25.000 That's always the threat: Mom Dani and the rest of his Marxist, pro-jihadi crowd is going to break the movement in order to take over the movement, that they'll sit it out, that they won't get involved in politics anymore. 0.98

00:23:36.000 And so, constantly, because they're willing to make those sort of extreme threats about their own side, the liberals, the good little liberals, are willing to pat them on the head and give them a hug and talk about how, really, yeah, we don't agree with them, but really, their great sin, if they have any sin, is that they're just too passionate.

00:23:51.000 They're just too passionate.

00:23:52.000 And this is why Democrats continue to maintain this ridiculous government shutdown.

00:23:57.000 Truly ridiculous.

00:23:59.000 It is old school, mainstream left-wingers who are doing the work of the radicals in their party because they're afraid that if they don't, then they'll get eaten.

00:24:09.000 Led by Chuck Schumer.

00:24:11.000 Now, again, Chuck Schumer has no interest in a government shutdown.

00:24:13.000 Chuck Schumer knows this is dumb politics.

00:24:15.000 We're about to hit the snap cutoff end of this week.

00:24:18.000 And when that happens, 42 million Americans are going to be short on their food stamps.

00:24:21.000 Now, again, it is insane that there are 42 million Americans on food stamps.

00:24:25.000 That is a wild statistic.

00:24:27.000 And the amount of government dependency in this country is just way too high, period.

00:24:30.000 But they are, in fact, dependent on food stamps.

00:24:33.000 And when those cut off, there's going to be hell to pay for Democrats who won't just vote for a continuing resolution.

00:24:38.000 And yet, Chuck Schumer continues to do the bidding of the AOC, Zoran Mamdani wing of his party.

00:24:42.000 Here was Chuck Schumer yesterday, the Senate minority leader.

00:24:46.000 Donald Trump says there's no money to pay hungry kids workers, but he's spending $40 billion to bail out Argentina, $300 billion on his vanity ballroom, $172 million on two luxury jets for Christy Noam, hundreds of millions for outfitting his foreign jet, but nothing, nothing, nothing to help hungry kids.

00:25:09.000 What war priorities?

00:25:12.000 What a bubble this president lives in, apart, away, and not caring about the trauma the American people are facing when it comes to health care.

00:25:25.000 So this is his pitch, his final pitch is Trump is doing a ballroom.

00:25:29.000 Really?

00:25:30.000 Like that's going to explain why you're doing what you're doing.

00:25:32.000 And then, hilariously, Chuck Schumer's like, why does the president keep going on foreign trips?

00:25:37.000 Maybe because he's doing things on those foreign trips.

00:25:39.000 Like, for example, finalizing a peace deal in Gaza and maybe in the region or going over to Malaysia to broker a peace deal over there.

00:25:47.000 Like he's bit, he's supposed to, what, sit home and stare at you, Chuck Schumer?

00:25:52.000 All right, here we go.

00:25:55.000 Starting this Saturday, tens of millions of Americans face the specter of financial crisis, all while Donald Trump is dancing on the tarmac in Malaysia.

00:26:08.000 Donald Trump may be having a nice time abroad, but people here at home are dreading, dreading open enrollment.

00:26:18.000 Oh, boy.

00:26:19.000 Okay, good luck with this.

00:26:20.000 President Trump for his party says, listen, you guys want to keep going with this?

00:26:23.000 Sure, but what you really want is just us to spend a bunch of money on illegal immigrants. 0.99

00:26:28.000 The Democrats should just do a simple extension.

00:26:31.000 That's the best way.

00:26:32.000 The Democrats are holding it up.

00:26:34.000 They want $1.5 trillion for people that came out of prisons for illegal aliens that come into our country.

00:26:41.000 We don't want to do that because that will help really hurt the health care that we have in our country.

00:26:48.000 Well, again, this seems like a bad move for Democrats.

00:26:51.000 And in fact, according to Politico, the Democratic shutdown movement is fraying.

00:26:55.000 According to Politico, Democrats grappled Monday with the first major fraying of their coalition amid the government shutdown with a federal employee union calling for them to stand down four weeks into the standoff.

00:27:04.000 There was no immediate surrender from party leaders, but the union's plea forced many Democratic lawmakers into a defensive crouch.

00:27:10.000 Their number two Senate leader said it would be subject of internal conversations this week, with bipartisan talks all but ground to a halt.

00:27:16.000 Senator Dick Durbin said it has a lot of impact.

00:27:19.000 They've been our friends.

00:27:20.000 And he says Democrats take them seriously.

00:27:21.000 The push by the American Federation of Government Employees for Congress to immediately pass a clean stopgap funding bill, which is exactly what Republicans are offering, is among a long drealist of pressure points that are bearing down on lawmakers.

00:27:33.000 By the end of the week, SNAP runs out, and Americans who get health insurance through Obamacare will confront premium spikes as open enrollment starts without a deal on how to extend soon-to-expire subsidies.

00:27:45.000 Senator Mark Warner is showing some signs of caving.

00:27:48.000 He is from Virginia.

00:27:49.000 He says, I think we can still deal with health care and SNAP, but shutdown is a real challenge.

00:27:53.000 Federal employees feel like they've been abused and it's going now weeks without pay.

00:27:57.000 Asked whether the American Federation of Government Employees statement would change his position, he said, let's see.

00:28:02.000 So the pressure is building on Democrats.

00:28:04.000 It is quite possible that they fold this week, which again, they should.

00:28:08.000 This is a really stupid hill for them to die upon.

00:28:10.000 Joining us on the line to discuss is Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

00:28:12.000 Speaker Johnson, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:28:13.000 Really appreciate it.

00:28:14.000 Hey, my friend, great to be with you, as always.

00:28:18.000 So let's talk about the status on the shutdown.

00:28:20.000 Democrats seem continuously intransigent here.

00:28:23.000 We are now multiple weeks into the shutdown.

00:28:26.000 We're about to hit the snap cutoff in terms of funding for some 42 million Americans.

00:28:30.000 We're on SNAP, which is an insane number.

00:28:32.000 Where do we stand right now?

00:28:34.000 Well, we stand in the same place we've been for 28 days.

00:28:37.000 The Democrats are dug in in the Senate.

00:28:39.000 And I think it's really important for all of us to analyze the simple facts.

00:28:43.000 People forget the Democrats are out breathlessly stating that Republicans are in charge of government, so this must somehow be our fault.

00:28:51.000 That's partially true, but we're not in charge of the Senate.

00:28:53.000 You have to have 60 votes in the Senate.

00:28:55.000 We only have 53 Republicans.

00:28:57.000 So the simple, clear fact is we must have Democrats to reopen the government.

00:29:02.000 The other fact is they've now voted 13 times to keep it closed.

00:29:06.000 And the big question is why?

00:29:08.000 Why would they be doing this?

00:29:09.000 You know, Ben, I think the answer is very clear for anyone who's paying attention.

00:29:13.000 As exhibited most recently by Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat leader in the House's endorsement of Mondamia in New York on Friday.

00:29:20.000 They are motivated by fear.

00:29:23.000 They fear the radical left base, the Marxists in their party.

00:29:27.000 They know that they will be challenged for their own seats.

00:29:29.000 It is their own political survival they have put in front of the needs and the desperate demands of the country.

00:29:38.000 So they care more about the Marxists and the pain that they'll endure from them than the pain they're inflicting on the American people.

00:29:43.000 And that's clear for everyone to see.

00:29:46.000 Now, Speaker Johnson, one of the things that's really astonishing about all this is, of course, their list of demands basically just involves rolling back a bill that they lost.

00:29:54.000 I mean, the one big beautiful bill, which was a major legislative accomplishment by you and by Senate Majority Leader Thun and President Trump, they don't like it.

00:30:01.000 And so now I guess their goal is they want to roll back many provisions of the OBBB in order to, I suppose, achieve a victory they couldn't have achieved any other way.

00:30:09.000 And they are holding up the workings of government in order to do this.

00:30:13.000 I've never seen a shutdown where the side that was demanding change was not blamed for the shutdown.

00:30:19.000 Typically speaking, the side that is calling for a continuing resolution is usually considered properly, I think, by the American people to be the side that actually would like to keep the government open because it is just a continuation of government funding at current levels.

00:30:31.000 It's Democrats who are demanding major changes.

00:30:33.000 What are the major changes they're demanding here for those unfamiliar?

00:30:36.000 Yeah, you're right on both counts.

00:30:37.000 First of all, this is the first time in history that any party has had the audacity to shut the government down over a clean, continuing resolution, clean CR.

00:30:45.000 And that's really an important point.

00:30:47.000 The Republicans are not demanding anything, Ben.

00:30:49.000 This is Biden-era policies and spending that we were made to continue until now.

00:30:54.000 We're working through the appropriations process to change all those priorities, but we hadn't finished that process yet.

00:31:01.000 And so the Clean CR simply continues exactly what has been done, what the Democrats have already voted for.

00:31:06.000 They have no excuse.

00:31:07.000 So what they're doing, again, motivated out of fear by the far left base, they can't face the angry mobs and the crowds and all of that.

00:31:15.000 So they've decided to ask for the moon.

00:31:17.000 And I mean, it's wild partisan spending priorities.

00:31:19.000 Not only do they want us to restore free health care for illegal aliens paid for by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of almost $200 billion, they also want to give back money to the corporation for public broadcasting, for example.

00:31:33.000 They want a half a billion dollars to go to that cause.

00:31:38.000 They want to give money to all these boondoggle foreign spending priorities again.

00:31:43.000 I mean, it's crazy things.

00:31:44.000 They want, you know, $4 million, for example, one of the line items that would go to LGBTQ, whatever the acronym is, plus, okay, awareness campaigns in foreign countries.

00:31:55.000 They want to spend money in the Horn of Africa to promote feminist ideals. 0.81

00:31:59.000 I mean, all this kinds of stuff that the American people have had enough of.

00:32:02.000 During the Doge effort, early in this Congress and the administration, we recognized all the amazing abuses and fraud and waste that was being spent.

00:32:12.000 And we fixed all that.

00:32:13.000 They want to restore it.

00:32:15.000 And by the way, they want to cut the $50 billion that Republicans put in that big bill to prop up our rural hospitals.

00:32:21.000 They can't claim they're about health care.

00:32:23.000 They want to take that away from red states and rural areas.

00:32:26.000 So it's filled with all sorts of nonsense that they absolutely know, Ben, we could never go for.

00:32:32.000 And that is the point.

00:32:33.000 They want to shut the government down because they think it's going to hurt President Trump and the Republicans.

00:32:37.000 But the American people are smarter than they give them credit for.

00:32:41.000 Now, Speaker Johnson, one of the things about this shutdown that I find fascinating is the amount of attention that's paid to the shutdown outside of the beltway, outside of the media, seems to be fairly low for most Americans, at least comparatively with other government shutdowns.

00:32:55.000 I think part of that is because with Republicans in charge, there's been an attempt to mitigate the effects of the shutdown.

00:33:00.000 Usually when Democrats are in charge, if there is some sort of shutdown, Democrats in the White House, Barack Obama did this, Joe Biden did the same thing.

00:33:06.000 There is usually an attempt to maximize the amount of pain that Americans are suffering.

00:33:10.000 So I'm old enough to remember when Barack Obama literally shut down outdoor World War II memorials that required no actual staffing in order to sort of maximize the pain that Americans were feeling over a government shutdown.

00:33:22.000 Republicans seem to be trying to minimize that.

00:33:24.000 There have been several bills that have been promoted in the House and the Senate that would have continued to pay members of the military, for example, would have continued to pay certain tranches of federal employees, keep the FAA working and all the rest.

00:33:35.000 And Democrats keep shutting that down in an attempt to maximize the amount of pain.

00:33:39.000 So in this situation, it's not just the Democrats are calling for changes.

00:33:42.000 They are the ones who are attempting to maximize the pain from their own refusal to reopen the government.

00:33:46.000 Absolutely right.

00:33:48.000 I mean, think of it as a control panel of dials, you know, that is at the White House.

00:33:52.000 In a shutdown situation, the executive branch has all those dials.

00:33:55.000 And you're right.

00:33:56.000 Barack Obama turned them all up to level 10 immediately.

00:34:00.000 I mean, remember, they put yellow-red crime tape around the World War II memorial out on the National Mall.

00:34:06.000 They wouldn't even let veterans who traveled in Washington get close to the memorial because they wanted it to hurt so badly.

00:34:11.000 And unlike the Democrats, Republicans do not take pleasure in hurting the American people.

00:34:16.000 I mean, you've heard them in their own words say the quiet parts out loud.

00:34:19.000 Chuck Schumer literally said here six or seven days ago that every day of the shutdown gets better for us, meaning his party.

00:34:26.000 You had the number two ranked Democrat in the House just the other day say, yeah, we understand it's going to cause pain, but that's really the only time we have leverage.

00:34:34.000 They admit that they're doing this intentionally and that they want people to hurt.

00:34:38.000 Conversely, you've got the President Trump who doesn't want it.

00:34:42.000 He's moving money around trying to find unobligated funds to cover troop pay and to cover SNAP benefits and all these other things.

00:34:48.000 But we are running out of that money.

00:34:51.000 And this is a desperate, serious time, real Americans feeling real hardships because the Democrats are here playing politics and running away from the Marxists and their party.

00:35:00.000 That is just clearly and simply exactly what's going on.

00:35:03.000 And history will tell the story here of who imposed this pain.

00:35:06.000 I think people are waking up to it.

00:35:08.000 You know, Speaker Johnson, one of the things you've mentioned a couple of times here is the Democrats being hocked to their left wing.

00:35:13.000 It is very clear the Democratic Party, unfortunately, continues to move to the left and away from even the moderates in their own caucus.

00:35:19.000 There's been talk about attempts in the Senate to primary Senator John Fetterman, who remains a very popular senator in Pennsylvania.

00:35:25.000 He's a Democrat who votes almost all the time with the Democrats.

00:35:28.000 I think he's voted with President Trump some 6% of the time.

00:35:30.000 But because he opposes the government shutdown and likes Israel, this means that he is not in fine federal with the Democratic base.

00:35:36.000 Obviously, Zara Mandani and AOC are sort of leading a wing of the Democratic Party that seems to be trying to take control of the Democratic Party with very little objection from sort of the more mainstream Democratic Party.

00:35:46.000 What do you make of the future of a Democratic Party that continues to hand itself over to these people?

00:35:52.000 The party is committing suicide in a political sense.

00:35:56.000 They truly are.

00:35:56.000 And we're watching it develop day by day now.

00:35:59.000 This is not your father's Democratic Party.

00:36:01.000 I mean, my grandparents wouldn't recognize this party at all.

00:36:06.000 They have taken a hard turn to the left, and they have their pedal to the metal on that.

00:36:11.000 They're going all the way.

00:36:12.000 And you saw that they've endorsed Mondami for mayor in New York City.

00:36:16.000 I mean, you know what this guy is for.

00:36:17.000 He's a radical leftist, a true Marxist in his ideology and his belief.

00:36:22.000 And not only does he hate Israel and engage in anti-Semitism and endorse that kind of anti-Semitic speech, but I mean, he wants to defund the police and legalize prostitution and take over the means of production.

00:36:33.000 I mean, the guy is a true communist and they're supporting that.

00:36:36.000 They're cheering it along.

00:36:38.000 I saw his rally, a clip from his rally that he did with AOC and Bernie, where they stood up on the stage and literally promised everything for free to everyone.

00:36:46.000 That's never ended very well in history, but they're not students of history, but we are.

00:36:51.000 The point is that the chasm is so wide now between the two parties, you're actually seeing a split screen in American politics and society.

00:36:59.000 And on one side, you think of it, you know, in the last nine and a half months, this Congress and the second Trump administration, President Trump and Republicans are delivering for the people.

00:37:09.000 We have cut taxes, cut regulations, eliminated fraud, waste, and abuse on a massive scale.

00:37:14.000 We solved the border crisis.

00:37:15.000 We're solving the crime crisis around the country.

00:37:17.000 President Trump is literally resolving armed conflicts and wars around the globe.

00:37:23.000 That's just nine months.

00:37:24.000 And what have the Democrats done in that same time period?

00:37:26.000 They shut the government down.

00:37:28.000 And they've assaulted some ICE officers and they've encouraged violence in the political sphere.

00:37:34.000 The stark contrast is so clear.

00:37:36.000 And I think people see that.

00:37:37.000 And hardworking Americans understand who is here every day working for them, trying to make their lives better, and who is engaging in this political obstruction and hugging up to the communists.

00:37:47.000 I mean, when we get into this midterm election next year, we have quite a story to tell.

00:37:51.000 And I think the facts speak for themselves.

00:37:53.000 And it's a great time to be alive when you have the facts.

00:37:58.000 Speaker Johnson, when we look at the future of this shutdown, can you lay out for us sort of the calendar of the things that are slated to happen if the shutdown continues?

00:38:06.000 Because while the shutdown has not been, I think, at the forefront of most people's imagination right now, that's going to change very shortly as the calendar progresses.

00:38:13.000 It is really by the end of this week, because the heroic measures that we discuss that the president and the administration have taken to mitigate the pain, we're running out of those funding sources.

00:38:23.000 So there's a real question, as you and I speak right here, about whether the troops will get paid at the end of this month.

00:38:28.000 We got them paid mid-month.

00:38:30.000 We don't know if the next check is there.

00:38:33.000 We had some benevolent donor give everyone knows famously $130 million.

00:38:38.000 That's really a drop in the bucket when you have so many active duty military personnel, 1.4 million of them.

00:38:44.000 That's a lot of funds that are needed to make sure their families are paid. 0.81

00:38:46.000 And think of it.

00:38:47.000 These are young soldiers and airmen and sailors who are many of whom are deployed around the world defending American interest and our safety.

00:38:54.000 And they've left young families at home.

00:38:57.000 And for example, young moms, I know in my district, I have a big military district, two major bases there.

00:39:02.000 And we've got young families, young moms with two or three kids, and they live paycheck to paycheck. 0.71

00:39:07.000 And they're not going to get that paycheck because the Democrats are playing games.

00:39:10.000 You have TSA agents and Border Patrol agents and air traffic controllers.

00:39:15.000 Guess what?

00:39:15.000 If you have plans to travel in the coming weeks, you better factor in delays and maybe cancel flights because as Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said here in a press conference a couple of days ago with me, he's going to, he doesn't want, he wants you to be on time, but he'd rather you be late than jeopardize your safety.

00:39:32.000 So, if we don't have people in the towers because they're not getting paid and the stress level is too high, they're going to cancel the flights.

00:39:37.000 They have no choice.

00:39:38.000 So, it's just going to reverberate all the way through the economy and to every community around the country.

00:39:43.000 Snap benefits are going to dry up November 1.

00:39:46.000 We have 42 million Americans who depend upon that for food, literally.

00:39:50.000 It's food stamps as we used to know it.

00:39:52.000 That funding is no longer going to be available.

00:39:55.000 We had the small business administrator, Kelly Loeffler, with us at our press conference yesterday, and she explained how small businesses, which provide like 99% of the jobs in America, are really struggling because so many of them have government contracts that have been delayed.

00:40:08.000 And it just goes on and on throughout the society.

00:40:11.000 You have veterans' services, health services for the elderly and disabled.

00:40:15.000 All the things that the federal government provides have been turned off by the Democrats.

00:40:19.000 And it cannot be emphasized enough, Ben.

00:40:21.000 We have voted 13 times to open the government.

00:40:24.000 They have voted 13 times to shut it down.

00:40:26.000 And they have no way out of it.

00:40:28.000 They have painted themselves into a corner.

00:40:30.000 Everything they're asking for cannot be delivered, and they know that.

00:40:33.000 And so it seems they're taking great pleasure in causing all this chaos around the country.

00:40:38.000 And it's just disgusting to us.

00:40:41.000 Well, Speaker Johnson, obviously, we'll keep an eye on everything that's happening.

00:40:44.000 We appreciate your salwartness and your leadership in the House of Representatives.

00:40:47.000 You have a very rough job, and you've done an amazing job with that very, very difficult job.

00:40:50.000 As we've discussed many times before, thanks so much for your time.

00:40:53.000 Thanks for stopping by.

00:40:54.000 Great to be with you, my friend.

00:40:55.000 Keep up the great work.

00:40:57.000 We'll get to some more on the foreign front in a moment.

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00:42:41.000 Alrighty, it's time for some fast facts.

00:42:47.000 We begin with Joe Biden.

00:42:48.000 So Joe Biden is back out there talking.

00:42:50.000 And honestly, it's a miracle of modern medicine that he is because clearly the former president is ailing.

00:42:56.000 Never forget, they tried to run this person for president of the United States, telling you that he was healthy and fine and everything was going to be fine if you made him president again.

00:43:05.000 It is currently what would have been 10 months into his second term, and the man does not look great.

00:43:13.000 Here was Joe Biden yesterday.

00:43:15.000 Folks, we can't kid ourselves.

00:43:20.000 We are in one of those moments right now.

00:43:23.000 From over 50 years of elected public life, this is the worst I've seen it.

00:43:29.000 If Ted were here today, he'd still be fighting like hell.

00:43:33.000 But his optimism would be surely tested.

00:43:36.000 Because truth be told, our very democracy is at stake, in my view.

00:43:42.000 We'll leave aside all the jokes about Ted Kennedy and Chapaquitik right here, but I'm just going to point out that Joe Biden does not look great.

00:43:47.000 Corrine Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, his former press secretary, the worst press secretary in American history, by far, no close competitors.

00:43:54.000 She has a brand new book out titled Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House Outside the Party Lines.

00:43:59.000 She's left the Democratic Party.

00:44:00.000 She has a hilarious interview over at the New Yorker with one Isaac Chottner, who's a pretty terrible columnist over there.

00:44:07.000 And it's really, really, really funny.

00:44:09.000 Like it's really funny because Chotner does not understand for the life of him what she objects to about Democrats now criticizing Joe Biden's health.

00:44:17.000 So he says, you feel like you had to leave the Democratic Party because of the way it treated Joe Biden.

00:44:21.000 How did it treat Joe Biden?

00:44:22.000 And she says, I call it a betrayal.

00:44:24.000 And the reason I say this, and I really want people to understand my perspective and where I come from and the role that I played in those three weeks from the debates, the president deciding that he was no longer going to be at the top of the ticket and handing over the baton is that I was the person who was standing on that podium behind that lectern, having to take in all the hard questions on this.

00:44:40.000 Rightfully so.

00:44:41.000 And I was watching what Democratic leadership was doing.

00:44:43.000 It was an all-out, full-on campaign to embarrass him, to push him out.

00:44:46.000 And I just thought to myself, wow, you don't have that much time left this election year.

00:44:49.000 And I thought to myself, this man is one of the most decent people that I know.

00:44:52.000 And objectively, objectively, it was a good presidency.

00:44:55.000 Some have even said he did more in one term than most presidents do in two.

00:44:58.000 So I just didn't understand why this was happening.

00:45:01.000 And Chotner says, you said that the party was trying to undermine Biden.

00:45:05.000 What do you think they were doing and why?

00:45:07.000 And she said, well, I mean, I just laid it out.

00:45:09.000 I said there was an obvious campaign.

00:45:10.000 You just had to watch.

00:45:11.000 And Chotner said, sure, but why were they doing that?

00:45:13.000 And she said, because they believed that he needed to step aside.

00:45:16.000 There's more to this than just that period of time.

00:45:18.000 This is very layered, right?

00:45:19.000 There's a period of time that I questioned what was happening and how do we treat our own?

00:45:23.000 How do we treat people who are decent people?

00:45:25.000 And then you also have to think about how I'm thinking about this as a black woman who is part of the LGBTQ community and living in this time where I also don't think Democrats right now, Democrats' leadership is protecting vulnerable people in the way that it should.

00:45:37.000 So she gets stuck in a question and she just starts babbling about how she's a gay black woman.

00:45:43.000 Yeah, she was a great presser. 1.00

00:45:44.000 Solid choice there by President Biden.

00:45:47.000 Really good thinking there by President Biden.

00:45:49.000 And then Chotner says, sorry, I'm not trying to be dense.

00:45:53.000 To be fair to Chotner, he can be dense by accident.

00:45:56.000 I mean, he's dense nearly all the time.

00:45:57.000 But he says, sorry, I'm not trying to be dense.

00:45:59.000 I'm a little unclear about what this has to do with Democratic leaders and many Democrats in the country thinking that Joe Biden was going to lose to Donald Trump, which is what all the polls showed, and therefore thinking he should be replaced.

00:46:09.000 And she said, okay, wait a minute.

00:46:11.000 Hold on a second.

00:46:12.000 Nobody knows anything.

00:46:12.000 Nobody knows what would have happened.

00:46:14.000 People also thought that if you replaced Joe Biden, we were going to win or have a better chance of winning.

00:46:18.000 Millions of people who showed up in 2020 didn't show up in 2024.

00:46:21.000 We can't forget there was an incumbency issue as well.

00:46:23.000 This is real.

00:46:24.000 There are like several G10 countries with incumbents who did not get reelected.

00:46:27.000 There was an incumbency issue as well.

00:46:28.000 And Chautner says, I'm not sure what you're saying.

00:46:31.000 And she says, no, no, no.

00:46:32.000 Wait a minute.

00:46:34.000 It's like an Aben-Costello routine.

00:46:36.000 It's like, who's on first?

00:46:37.000 Who's the White House press secretary?

00:46:39.000 Unbelievable.

00:46:39.000 She says, no, no, no, wait a minute.

00:46:41.000 You are saying that this was their thinking and they were kind of predicting, but nobody knew what was going to happen.

00:46:45.000 Nobody knew Joe Biden was going to win in 2020.

00:46:47.000 Nobody knew what was going to happen in 2024.

00:46:49.000 People believed in their hearts Kamala was going to win.

00:46:51.000 They believed it.

00:46:52.000 They saw the polling and they thought she was going to win looking at the polling. 0.74

00:46:54.000 Nobody knew anything.

00:46:55.000 I'm only bringing up polls because you brought up the polls to me.

00:46:58.000 And then Chautner says, you said you were speaking as a black woman who's part of the LGBTQ community.

00:47:03.000 And I think people were very, and she interrupts and she says, I'm talking about it in this moment too.

00:47:07.000 I do not feel seen in the party because I think they're throwing the LGBTQ community under the bus.

00:47:12.000 They're not fighting enough for migrants and immigrants. 1.00

00:47:14.000 You have to be a Big Ten party.

00:47:15.000 You have to fight for everyone.

00:47:16.000 And Shotner keeps saying this.

00:47:18.000 I just don't understand.

00:47:19.000 You argue Trump is a threat to democracy.

00:47:21.000 A lot of people thought Biden was not the best person to go up against Trump.

00:47:24.000 Shouldn't those people have tried to give Democrats the best chance to replace Trump?

00:47:27.000 You're talking about Biden like loyalty was owed to him.

00:47:29.000 Isn't loyalty owed to the country?

00:47:31.000 And she says, that's not what I'm saying.

00:47:32.000 I'm not talking about that.

00:47:33.000 I'm saying this is not how you treat somebody.

00:47:36.000 And Chotner says, is this a matter of how you treat someone or a matter of putting the country first?

00:47:40.000 And she says, wait a minute, wait a minute.

00:47:41.000 Treating somebody with dignity is not the same as loyalty.

00:47:43.000 I mean, the way he was treated, I had never.

00:47:45.000 If you had seen something like that in the Democratic Party, please, please point that out.

00:47:49.000 And he says, so what was an example of the way he was treated?

00:47:51.000 And she says, I mean, it was nasty articles that were coming out daily.

00:47:55.000 And he says, so you think asking him to step aside was okay, but there shouldn't have been nasty articles.

00:47:59.000 And she says, look, what I'm saying is it shouldn't have happened that way.

00:48:02.000 And Chotner says, so it should have happened or it shouldn't have happened.

00:48:06.000 And she says, wait, wait, wait.

00:48:07.000 Wait, wait.

00:48:08.000 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:48:11.000 I don't think it should have happened.

00:48:12.000 I believe that we should have done everything we could, regardless of who was at the top of the ticket and fought extremely hard.

00:48:18.000 And just goes on like this, like the remainder of the interview.

00:48:21.000 And this is the person that Joe Biden chose to be his press secretary.

00:48:25.000 Yes, he was not a good president.

00:48:26.000 Yes, he was denial.

00:48:28.000 Yes, it was all bad.

00:48:29.000 And congrats to the Democrats on elevating terrific, terrific employees like Karine Jean-Pierre.

00:48:36.000 Okay, meanwhile, what is the future of the Democratic Party?

00:48:39.000 Well, the future of the Democratic Party is very likely AOC. 0.90

00:48:42.000 I'm just pointing that out, that that is the future of the Democratic Party.

00:48:45.000 And AOC is a truly despicable human being.

00:48:50.000 So our friend Riley Gaines, of course, the NCAA champion swimmer.

00:48:55.000 She tweeted out a picture of Bernie, Zoran, and AOC at this rally.

00:48:59.000 And she said, we're being destroyed from within, which, I mean, true. 1.00

00:49:03.000 And AOC then promptly replied to Riley Gaines.

00:49:07.000 Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster, you wouldn't have come in fifth.

00:49:12.000 Okay.

00:49:14.000 Ookie.

00:49:14.000 So first of all, let's be clear.

00:49:16.000 AOC, the amount of work that AOC has put into her political career pales in comparison to the amount of work that people actually have to put into becoming NCAA competitive swimmers. 1.00

00:49:26.000 Riley was swimming hours a day from the time she was a small child in order to compete at that level.

00:49:31.000 AOC has never done anything remotely like that.

00:49:33.000 She was selected by the Justice Democrats to run in a primary where she won something like 17,000 votes, and then she was immediately elevated into stardom because she is a decent-looking person who is young and Latina.

00:49:46.000 That is the entire story of AOC.

00:49:48.000 And now, of course, Bernie is touting her because she's basically his meat puppet.

00:49:52.000 Second of all, Riley Gaines' entire complaint is not that she finished fifth.

00:49:58.000 Her complaint is that she was competing against a man, like an actual biological man, in Leah Thomas. 0.97

00:50:06.000 And the fact that AOC is perfectly willing to make fun of that, it's because she is rather a trash. 1.00

00:50:11.000 I mean, what happened to female solidarity? 1.00

00:50:12.000 What happened?

00:50:13.000 What happened?

00:50:14.000 So you're fine with men beating women in swimming, so long as the women being beaten disagree with you politically.

00:50:21.000 That's AOC's take.

00:50:22.000 So Riley quite properly called her out on Fox News last night.

00:50:26.000 And then AOC responded by attacking her again on Twitter, saying that she doesn't have to debate Riley Gaines because Riley suggested, hey, you know, you want to talk about this?

00:50:36.000 We can debate about all of this.

00:50:38.000 We can do that.

00:50:39.000 And then AOC was like, no, I will, you know, you're a loser.

00:50:44.000 I'm not going to debate.

00:50:46.000 That's the person Democrats are choosing going forward because progressivism and youth and energy and fresh-facedness and ethnic diversity and all the rest of this sort of stupidity. 1.00

00:50:57.000 Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom left out there in the cold by himself as a white lizard person, incapable of generating enough enthusiasm or heat. 0.99

00:51:07.000 Here was Gavin Newsom.

00:51:10.000 You can lose this country.

00:51:11.000 No, it's not the rule of law anymore.

00:51:13.000 It's the rule of Don.

00:51:15.000 He didn't give a shit about the law.

00:51:16.000 I mean, he's already taken Congress doesn't exist.

00:51:19.000 They're completely supine.

00:51:20.000 They're on their back.

00:51:23.000 Again, he's just, anybody who believes that Newsom is going to be the nominee, I have significant doubts.

00:51:28.000 I have very, very significant doubts.

00:51:30.000 Democrats are having to come up with new strategies for freaking out their base.

00:51:34.000 So they are trotting out the idea that Donald Trump is going to run for a third term.

00:51:39.000 Now, let me be clear: the only person on the right who is talking about this is Steve Bannon.

00:51:44.000 Steve Bannon is a grifter.

00:51:46.000 Steve Bannon has always been a grifter.

00:51:48.000 It is what he does.

00:51:49.000 Steve Bannon is an attention.

00:51:51.000 He is the entire Amsterdam red light district of attention, Steve Bannon.

00:51:55.000 He will say anything in order to maintain street cred with President Trump and in order to maintain himself at the center of American politics, despite the fact that he was kicked out the door by the president last term and named sloppy Steve as a result.

00:52:09.000 And so Steve Bannon out there retailing the bizarre and stupid idea that Donald Trump is going to run for a third term, presumably so that Bannon can, I don't know, have an iron in the fire in 2028 himself, perhaps.

00:52:20.000 It's really dumb.

00:52:21.000 The media, of course, are grabbing that and paying attention to it as though it's a real strategy in order to try and alarm Democratic voters.

00:52:28.000 And so this is the new shtick: Democrats claiming that Trump isn't going to leave the White House.

00:52:33.000 Yes, he will.

00:52:35.000 Yes, he will.

00:52:35.000 He served two terms.

00:52:36.000 He's happy with having served two terms.

00:52:38.000 There is no constitutional provision that allows for a third term for President Trump.

00:52:42.000 This is really stupid.

00:52:43.000 But I guess Democrats got to do something to jazz up their base.

00:52:47.000 Nobody's going to succeed him.

00:52:48.000 He's going to succeed himself.

00:52:50.000 Let's just be real.

00:52:50.000 He's not building that ballroom because he's planning on leaving.

00:52:53.000 He's not going anywhere and nobody's going to get him out of there.

00:52:56.000 And by the way, the Supreme Court says you can't run again.

00:52:59.000 He will just ignore the courts.

00:53:01.000 And I'm happy to see Mark Orubio without Steve Wickhoff as our Secretary of State.

00:53:04.000 So I'm happy to see that he's appeared and popped up somewhere, but he's not going to be the nominee.

00:53:08.000 J.D. Vance is not going to be the nominee because Donald Trump is not going anywhere.

00:53:15.000 That's Julie Roginsky.

00:53:16.000 No, that's just wrong.

00:53:17.000 Meanwhile, we'll be Goldberg doing the same thing.

00:53:19.000 This is slop for the masses.

00:53:21.000 Whether you're doing it on the right or on the left, Donald Trump ain't going to be president in 2029.

00:53:24.000 This is silly.

00:53:26.000 So just so we're clear, you have nothing to say about any of this.

00:53:32.000 Just understand that.

00:53:34.000 Okay.

00:53:35.000 Republicans have pretty much given him free reign up till now.

00:53:39.000 Are they going to let this happen?

00:53:42.000 Are y'all going to let it happen?

00:53:45.000 Just ask him.

00:53:48.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:49.000 We will unite to stop a third term that can't possibly happen legally.

00:53:53.000 Just to clarify that Steve Bannon and all the rest of the left-wing crew claiming Trump's going to run in 2028, that they're grifters, I decided that I was going to ask Comet, my sponsors, a new web browser by Perplexity, about this very question.

00:54:05.000 Are there any plausible legal strategies by which a two-term president could run for a third term under the Constitution?

00:54:10.000 Answer, no.

00:54:11.000 There are no plausible legal strategies by which a two-term president could run for a third term under the current U.S. Constitution.

00:54:17.000 The 22nd Amendment explicitly states that no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.

00:54:22.000 And constitutional scholars widely agree the prohibition is clear and comprehensive.

00:54:27.000 The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, restricts any individual from being elected president more than twice.

00:54:33.000 Suggestions, such as running as VP and ascending to the presidency after resignation, are barred by the 12th Amendment, which states that no person ineligible for the presidency may serve as vice president.

00:54:43.000 Some academic discussions have considered rare technical scenarios related to succession and eligibility.

00:54:48.000 None are viewed as feasible.

00:54:49.000 Any attempts would almost certainly be challenged and blocked legally.

00:54:52.000 In other words, the people who are telling you this kind of stuff, you shouldn't listen to them because they're lying to you for clicks or for power or for whatever, and they're making you actively stupider.

00:55:02.000 This is your campaign.

00:55:03.000 Good luck to all of you.

00:55:05.000 Now, meanwhile, the only thing that theoretically could, as I've said many times, actually push AOC or the Democrats back into office would be economic downturn.

00:55:15.000 That does not seem to be in the offing, at least in the immediate future, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:55:19.000 From trade deals and foreign elections to merger announcements to corporate earnings, investors are finding plenty of reasons to be happy.

00:55:25.000 Stocks hit fresh records on Monday, marking a significant pickup in momentum after a bumpy stretch in which tariff fears and worries about loan losses at regional banks weighed on major indices.

00:55:34.000 The optimism is not limited to U.S. markets.

00:55:36.000 Benchmarks in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan notched new records on Monday, while the Shanghai Composite closed at its highest level in more than 10 years.

00:55:43.000 Argentine stocks rocketed 22% higher, powered by a decisive win for President Javier Millay in the country's midterm elections.

00:55:50.000 Jed Ellerbrook, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management, said there's a lot of stuff in the good column and not a lot in the bad column.

00:55:56.000 Stocks were lifted by hopes for improving trade relations between the United States and China.

00:56:02.000 Worries ease stock indices have recovered since concerns just a few weeks ago over trade imbalances.

00:56:11.000 Ellerbrook said investors have had no choice but to get comfortable with President Trump's negotiating style and his preference for doing trade deals publicly.

00:56:17.000 And there's been a strong start to earnings season.

00:56:20.000 There are some economic data releases like the October Jobs Report that have been delayed due to the government shutdown, but there are better than expected profits at major companies.

00:56:29.000 So, again, the economy looks to be chugging along in the very near future.

00:56:33.000 The Federal Reserve is going to lower those interest rates again, which will create more liquidity in the economy.

00:56:38.000 Meanwhile, companies are, in fact, reporting larger profits because of technology, because of robots, because of AI.

00:56:46.000 Amazon has announced job cuts of 14,000 workers on Tuesday.

00:56:49.000 That's a first move in layoffs that are expected to affect as many as 30,000 corporate jobs, according to people familiar with the matter.

00:56:56.000 The thousands of corporate ping slips going out on Tuesday, according to the journal, cut across the organization, hitting human resources, cloud computing, advertising, and a number of other business units.

00:57:07.000 And again, the goal here, presumably, is for Amazon to repurpose some of those people.

00:57:12.000 So apparently, Amazon offers most employees 90 days to look for a new role internally.

00:57:18.000 And it won't be a surprise actually to see the economy continue to go up while unemployment numbers also go up thanks to transitions in the job market, thanks to AI and technology.

00:57:29.000 And that's sort of natural.

00:57:30.000 When you have tech transitions, people in some of the old industries are going to lose their jobs and then they will find new industries.

00:57:36.000 That does not mean that AI kills the market.

00:57:38.000 It doesn't mean that AI kills the entire jobs market.

00:57:40.000 It does mean that there are going to be some bumpy points here along the road.

00:57:44.000 Okay, meanwhile, on the foreign front, Javier Millay's big win, that shocking win, spells a new future for Argentina.

00:57:52.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, for decades, the poor suburbs that ring Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, powered the leftist Peronese movement on Sunday.

00:57:59.000 They made a historic shift against Peronism that propelled President Javier Millé to a surprise victory in midterm congressional elections.

00:58:05.000 The Argentine poor, whom Eva Perón lionized as the country's heart and soul, largely stayed home in a stinging rebuke to the Peronist movement that has dominated politics here for 80 years.

00:58:13.000 At the same time, middle-class voters mobilized to rescue Millay and his free market revolt.

00:58:18.000 Millay gave voters a choice: stick with his brand of self-described shock therapy for Argentina's ills or face the familiar economic ruin seen under the Peronists in the past. 0.98

00:58:26.000 And good for Argentine voters.

00:58:28.000 Truly an amazing, amazing result for Javier Millay.

00:58:34.000 He won 41% to 32% for the opposition.

00:58:38.000 An unexpectedly strong mandate overhauling an ailing economy with the financial firepower of the Trump administration.

00:58:44.000 So, again, that was a strong move by the Trump administration to basically say to the Argentine voting population: listen, folks, you want money and liquidity in your country.

00:58:52.000 You're going to need a solid economic plan going forward.

00:58:54.000 That does not happen if Millay is not the man in charge.

00:58:57.000 That isn't leveraging Argentina.

00:58:59.000 That is just reality.

00:59:00.000 Good for Javier Millay, good for the world.

00:59:03.000 Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, even while the president is trying to negotiate a trade deal with China, China is trying to up the ante on pressuring the United States over Taiwan.

00:59:12.000 That is because China is, in fact, a geopolitical enemy of the United States, not merely an opponent.

00:59:17.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend that Americans shouldn't worry that the administration is going to get favorable treatment or trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan.

00:59:26.000 No one is contemplating that.

00:59:28.000 But Xi's big ask has been that the United States formally oppose independence for Taiwan.

00:59:33.000 Right now, there's a policy of what we call strategic ambiguity, where the United States does not actually say what it thinks on the issue of Taiwan.

00:59:42.000 Acknowledging China's position that Taiwan is part of China would mean that if China were to invade Taiwan, it would be very difficult to make the case that that invasion should be resisted.

00:59:52.000 The United States, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, does not need to clarify its policy on whether it would defend Taiwan in a crisis.

00:59:58.000 But a concession to Xi on independence would be self-defeating for Trump's goals.

01:00:02.000 Trump wants the island to spend more on defense, but endorsing Xi's view would undermine morale and tell the Taiwanese that attempting to defend itself is futile, which is exactly what Beijing wants.

01:00:11.000 The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 says, quote, any effort to undermine, to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, would be of grave concern to the United States.

01:00:23.000 Right now, the Chinese are trying to intimidate the Taiwan Strait, not Taiwan directly.

01:00:28.000 It'll be interesting to see what happens going forward.

01:00:31.000 I believe the president will, in fact, stand up against Chinese predations here. 0.99

01:00:38.000 Artie joining us on the line to discuss what is, I think, the major issue in American life.

01:00:42.000 Right now, we are seeing history wiped away.

01:00:45.000 We are seeing an American populace that doesn't know its own traditions.

01:00:48.000 And that is how you end up with a Zaran Mamdani in office or an AOC as a presidential frontrunner.

01:00:54.000 Joining us on the line to discuss all this is the author of a brand new book called The Golden Thread.

01:00:57.000 It's a phenomenal book.

01:00:58.000 Professor Hankins, thanks so much for taking the time.

01:00:59.000 I really appreciate it.

01:01:01.000 Oh, it's a great pleasure to join you, Deben.

01:01:03.000 I'm an original member of the Daily Wire.

01:01:06.000 I just wanted you to know that I was the founding member.

01:01:10.000 Wow, I mean, that says a lot considering there are not a lot of, I would assume, faculty members at Harvard University who are founding members of the Daily Wires.

01:01:18.000 That is deeply appreciated.

01:01:21.000 So let's talk about your book, A Golden Thread, A History of the Western Tradition that you joined with Alan Guelzo in writing.

01:01:28.000 It is a phenomenal piece of work.

01:01:30.000 I mean, first of all, it's just beautiful.

01:01:31.000 The thing is large, is filled with imagery, just gorgeous imagery.

01:01:35.000 It's in full color.

01:01:36.000 It's wonderful.

01:01:37.000 But why don't we begin with what drove it?

01:01:39.000 Because there has been a loss of history, not just on the left, but also on the right, a willingness to sort of wipe away history, pretend that it doesn't exist, or at least ignore it, pretend that it doesn't matter.

01:01:48.000 What drove you to write a golden thread?

01:01:51.000 Well, basically, my motivation was that we're losing our civilization.

01:01:57.000 We're declining into this state of techno-barbarism.

01:02:01.000 And in this state of cultural Alzheimer's that we're in, we've got a series of very serious civilizational problems, starting with the fact that we can't talk to each other anymore.

01:02:17.000 We don't have any common historical vocabulary to do that.

01:02:21.000 You know, I teach what are supposed to be the best students in the country, and I constantly meet up with the fact that they don't know things that one would have taken for granted at a high school education two generations ago.

01:02:36.000 So they don't know what the Reformation is.

01:02:38.000 They don't know what the Renaissance is.

01:02:40.000 They don't know anything about Greece or Rome.

01:02:44.000 I mean, some of them know some things, but the idea that they don't have a connected sense of what the West is because they teach global history in high school and they just teach a piece of this, piece of that, go into the next 10 years, teach a big of this, then that.

01:02:56.000 They never get a connected sense or narrative about the West.

01:03:00.000 They don't know, you can't refer to anything.

01:03:03.000 You can't refer to the Bible or to Shakespeare or to Michelangelo or to what democracy is.

01:03:10.000 They have all different ideas about what democracy is.

01:03:13.000 It's not grounded in any sort of historical sense of historical democracies in ancient Greece or republics in ancient Rome.

01:03:21.000 So you're basically teaching students who are mature but have infant minds.

01:03:31.000 They don't know anything.

01:03:32.000 So you can't do anything advanced if you're constantly filling people in on basic facts of history.

01:03:39.000 And they have to assimilate what the Renaissance is in the 10 seconds that you have to explain it.

01:03:46.000 And then you have to use that concept.

01:03:48.000 It just doesn't work.

01:03:49.000 And this is with the best students in the country.

01:03:51.000 I mean, theoretically, the best students in the country.

01:03:55.000 You know, Professor Hankins, I think that the project is summed up in the title of the book, A Golden Thread, because in order for people to have a holistic view of Western history, you do have to understand, number one, that actually there is a thread that runs throughout Western history.

01:04:09.000 And number two, that actually the West is good.

01:04:11.000 Because if you believe the West is bad, then you have to throw out all the good parts and focus in only on the bad parts or treat history as non-contingent, as sort of bizarrely fragmentary, sort of a mosaic of things that happened.

01:04:24.000 And if you also think that the West is bad, then you have to basically discard the idea of history as a whole.

01:04:30.000 And so re-establishing the idea that there is, in fact, a through line through history, and sure, that through line isn't always a direct line.

01:04:36.000 It's more of a thread than it is a direct line between point A and point B. But following that thread is really, really important.

01:04:44.000 When did we, do you think, start to lose that thread?

01:04:47.000 When is it that we decided that the thread no longer existed so that we end up with a brand of student who really doesn't understand any of this?

01:04:54.000 Well, we stopped teaching Western civilization two generations ago, basically late 80s, early 90s.

01:05:00.000 And the educational establishment got together and said, well, we don't need to teach Western Civ anymore.

01:05:05.000 We want to teach global history.

01:05:07.000 We don't want to reinforce militarism.

01:05:10.000 This is the Vietnam generation. 1.00

01:05:12.000 So they think of Western civilization as a fiction of the 20th century created to increase military enthusiasm, which is completely wrong.

01:05:23.000 It's totally ignorant.

01:05:25.000 But what happens when you don't teach any history, bad actors step in and activists step in and they poison people's minds.

01:05:36.000 So our students, many of them anyway, not all of them, but many of them believe that the West is simply bad.

01:05:43.000 And many teachers think the West is so bad, you shouldn't teach it because you'll infect people's minds with racism and white supremacy and colonialism and sexism and you name it.

01:05:58.000 I mean, it's become the whipping boy of the left, the Western tradition.

01:06:02.000 So you have to teach it or other people will start teaching it for you.

01:06:08.000 And students now get most of their information from social media.

01:06:12.000 And that's the worst place to get.

01:06:14.000 You need something between your ears if you want to stop all the garbage that's being poured in.

01:06:21.000 And the other thing I would mention is that we are unfortunately in a clash of civilizations.

01:06:28.000 So I assure you, I've been to China many times.

01:06:31.000 The Chinese know about their civilization.

01:06:34.000 The Muslims know about their civilization.

01:06:37.000 We are unilaterally disarming because our students know nothing about Western civilization.

01:06:43.000 And how are you supposed to love and defend something that you know nothing about?

01:06:49.000 Well, the book is really fabulous.

01:06:51.000 A Golden Thread, a History of the Western Tradition.

01:06:53.000 The first volume came out August 26th.

01:06:56.000 The next volume is shortly to come out, I believe.

01:06:59.000 It is really magnificent.

01:07:00.000 Honestly, everybody should have a copy of it in the same way that everybody used to have a copy of the Durant books on civilization.

01:07:06.000 And then people read, you know, small segments of them.

01:07:09.000 The truth is that what's great about this book, The Golden Thread, is that you can pick up the book and you can open it up.

01:07:14.000 You can read a couple of pages.

01:07:15.000 You can put it back down and you can get an overall sense of the glory that is the Western tradition.

01:07:20.000 Professor Hankins, really appreciate the time.

01:07:22.000 Congrats on the book.

01:07:22.000 It is a masterwork.

01:07:23.000 Everybody should go get a copy.

01:07:25.000 Thank you very much for having me on.

01:07:27.000 I really appreciate it.

01:07:29.000 All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.

01:07:31.000 We have some breaking news out of CBS news, kind of fascinating stuff.

01:07:34.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

01:07:35.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

The Ben Shapiro Show - October 28, 2025

“Rabbis For Mamdani” And Other Idiotic Ideas

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