The Ben Shapiro Show


Robinhood Becomes The Sheriff Of Nottingham | Ep. 1184


Summary

The GameStop nightmare continues, as Robinhood shuts down small traders, AOC rejects cooperation with Ted Cruz, while accusing him of attempted murder, and the Biden economic cramdown is coming. This is the Ben Shapiro Show, and it's sponsored by ExpressVPN. It's time to stand up to big tech and protect your data. Protect your data at expressvpn.co/ProtectYourData and spread the word to your friends and family about what's going on in the world. Ben Shapiro's new book, "The Dark Side of Wall Street" is out now, and is available for pre-order on Amazon Prime and Vimeo worldwide. It's also available for Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio Book, and Audio only version of the Kindle format. If you don't have a Kindle device, you can get a free eReader app from Amazon so you can read, write, and subscribe to my book on any laptop, desktop, smartphone, or tablet device. I'm giving away a Kindle eReader edition for free! Kindle $9.99, $16, $24,99, or $99, and shipping is free for Prime membership starting January 1st, 2020. Kindle Freebie $99.99. Audio Book is also available on Audible $19.95, and Audible is Free! Audible Free, $49, $99 or Audible 49,99 or GOOGLE Free, Free, and G&G is Free, too! All other options are available for purchase at=1.99/month, and $99/year, plus shipping & shipping at +$99/Vimeo Free, shipping is also workspace is also included in the deal. Free shipping policy is available. . Free Training is also being offered at==1p&mt=1s=3p&qid=3s=4s=2s=1f&q&qref=3a&q=3c=3f=1P&q? Thank you for listening to this podcast? You'll get a discount code for this episode? Subscribe to my new book and other links are also available in Kindle $1p=2c=1a=1m & other I'll send you a $5 discount code: 3s=8p=1c=4c=2f=3g=3m=3S=3M=1g=1S=1M=3C=3R=3F=1R=1C=1AQ&3C&c=5S=4M=2C=2S=2M=4S=5C=4C=AQQ&f=4Q&Q&c?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Wall Street's GameStop nightmare continues as Robinhood shuts down small traders, AOC rejects cooperation with Ted Cruz while accusing him of attempted murder, and the Biden economic cramdown is coming.
00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:10.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:17.000 This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
00:00:19.000 It's time to stand up to big tech.
00:00:20.000 Protect your data at expressvpn.com.
00:00:23.000 Slash, Ben, well, there are a lot of reasons why you would want to save money this year, but where could you save money?
00:00:28.000 I'll tell you where, on your cell phone bill.
00:00:30.000 That is why you should be checking out Pure Talk USA.
00:00:32.000 Many Americans say their top New Year's resolution is to save money in the next year.
00:00:36.000 Well, check that box right now.
00:00:37.000 When your family switches to Pure Talk from AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, you could save over $800 a year.
00:00:42.000 That's real money every single month, right back in your pocket.
00:00:45.000 You don't have to sacrifice coverage.
00:00:46.000 Pure Talk is on the same network as one of the big carriers, but they charge you half.
00:00:49.000 That's right, no gimmicks, no fluff added to the bills, which is why Pure Talk is the top rated wireless company by Consumer Affairs.
00:00:55.000 How about this offer right now?
00:00:56.000 Get unlimited talk, text, and six gigs of data for just 30 bucks a month.
00:01:00.000 If you go over on data usage, they're not gonna charge you for it.
00:01:03.000 So, grab your mobile phone, dial pound 250, say Ben Shabiro.
00:01:07.000 Here's the thing, a lot of these other big cell coverage providers, what they're actually doing is charging you for unlimited data.
00:01:11.000 You're not using unlimited data.
00:01:12.000 What you actually need is unlimited talk, text, and six gigs of data for 30 bucks a month and...
00:01:17.000 You go over, Pure Talk USA will not charge you for it.
00:01:20.000 When you do, when you dial pound 250 and say Ben Shapiro, you save 50% off that first month.
00:01:24.000 Dial pound 250, say keyword Ben Shapiro, Pure Talk USA.
00:01:27.000 Simply.
00:01:28.000 Wireless.
00:01:28.000 Smarter.
00:01:29.000 Alrighty, so the big story of the day continues to be GameStop.
00:01:34.000 So, if you want to see a YouTube video where I actually explain what the hell just happened with GameStop, we put one up last night where I actually take out the Glenn Beck whiteboard, and I explain to you step-by-step exactly how a bunch of folks on Reddit basically blew out the hedge fund managers by artificially boosting the price of the GameStop stock in order to short squeeze all of these hedge fund guys.
00:01:55.000 Basically, all those hedge fund guys, they had short sold the stock, which means that they had borrowed the stock, believing that the price would drop.
00:02:01.000 They borrowed the stock, they sold the stock, and then they were hoping that when they had to pay that stock back, they were going to be able essentially to buy the stock at a lower price and then they would pocket the difference.
00:02:12.000 Well, instead, what the Reddit guys did is they saw that people were sort of overbought into the short sales.
00:02:18.000 In fact, 140% of all of the stock, 140% of the float is what they call it, of GameStop had actually been short sold, which yes, is actually possible.
00:02:26.000 And so they started buying up the stock like nobody's business.
00:02:30.000 And this forced all of these hedge fund guys to buy stock at exorbitant prices in order to pay back the short sales.
00:02:36.000 And this, of course, drove the market up even higher.
00:02:38.000 And so now the line from the Reddit guys is, hold the line.
00:02:41.000 Just keep holding it.
00:02:42.000 Because the longer you hold it, the more you're hurting the hedge fund guys.
00:02:44.000 Now, as I mentioned yesterday, it's really, really funny.
00:02:47.000 And again, there's a whole video where I explain exactly how this went down.
00:02:50.000 It's really, really funny.
00:02:52.000 Is it something that is particularly good?
00:02:53.000 Is it like a moral good, what they are doing?
00:02:55.000 Not unless you think that short-selling is, in and of itself, immoral.
00:02:58.000 Or if you think that the stock market is basically just a casino.
00:03:02.000 I don't think either of those things.
00:03:03.000 I don't think that short-selling is immoral.
00:03:04.000 I also don't think that what the guys did yesterday really is, per se, immoral.
00:03:09.000 I think that they are doing something that is disconnected from market fundamentals in a way that usually people in the market are not.
00:03:15.000 But is it something that should and could happen in a free society?
00:03:18.000 Of course.
00:03:19.000 And all this means is that now the hedge fund managers are going to create a whole new risk assessment category.
00:03:24.000 They're going to start taking out derivatives and insurance, essentially, for the possibility that basically a roving mob of Redditors decide that they're going to blow out a bunch of hedge fund managers.
00:03:33.000 So capitalism always wins, and people are going to find ways to mitigate their risk on this stuff.
00:03:39.000 So was it like a massive overall threat to the market, what happened with GameStop?
00:03:43.000 No, it wasn't.
00:03:44.000 It was not a long-term threat to the market.
00:03:44.000 It wasn't.
00:03:46.000 It was some folks who saw a vulnerability in the market and they exploited that vulnerability in the market.
00:03:51.000 That does not make them heroes.
00:03:52.000 It makes them people who exploited a vulnerability in the market by playing a pretty cynical game.
00:03:57.000 It also happens to be damn funny.
00:03:58.000 Okay, it is just very funny that Thick Dad 69 was blowing out the hedge fund guy with the slick back hair and the Lamborghini.
00:04:05.000 Like that's really, really funny.
00:04:07.000 It's funny that a bunch of people on Reddit who are like taking a break from playing Call of Duty just decided to band together to take down these major institutional investors.
00:04:17.000 In and of itself, the sort of little guy versus big guy nature of it is funny.
00:04:20.000 It doesn't mean it's moral.
00:04:21.000 It doesn't mean they did something that's like unbelievably great and they've changed the world.
00:04:25.000 But here's the thing.
00:04:27.000 What they did should obviously be legal, right?
00:04:29.000 It is a legal thing.
00:04:30.000 They did not do anything illegal.
00:04:31.000 They weren't lying to people about the value of the stock.
00:04:33.000 They were officially saying the stock is overvalued, right?
00:04:37.000 We are purposefully overvaluing the stocks.
00:04:39.000 If you want to buy into that...
00:04:41.000 User beware.
00:04:42.000 So they weren't lying to anybody.
00:04:43.000 There's no fraud here.
00:04:45.000 It also happens to be the case that small investors should be able to get into the game because there are people in the markets right now, institutional investors, who do play with the markets and do game the markets and do treat the markets like a casino.
00:04:55.000 That does not mean that the market is a casino.
00:04:57.000 It means that there are bad players who do that on the institutional side.
00:05:01.000 And so if people decide that they want to do that on the individual side, It's a free country.
00:05:05.000 You should be able to do that.
00:05:06.000 Well, here is where things get actually dangerous.
00:05:08.000 So I think that it is fair to say that there's some moral ambiguity to what happened with these folks driving up the price of GameStop in order to hurt the hedge fund managers.
00:05:15.000 There is no moral ambiguity to what Robinhood just did.
00:05:18.000 So Robinhood...
00:05:19.000 Robinhood is an app.
00:05:20.000 It is a no-commission app.
00:05:21.000 It is designed so that you or I, non-institutional investors, can trade.
00:05:26.000 The difference between Robinhood and places like E-Trade is that E-Trade will charge you for each trade, which makes you think twice about whether you actually want to make the trade.
00:05:33.000 If you don't think that the value of the trade is going to rise above the margin of the charge that you're going to pay for just making the trade, then you don't make the trade.
00:05:41.000 That is not the case with Robinhood.
00:05:42.000 Robinhood is a zero-commission service.
00:05:44.000 It makes its money in a variety of other ways.
00:05:47.000 But what Robinhood did yesterday is absolutely insane, and we are going to have to get to the bottom of this.
00:05:53.000 We're going to have to find out why Robinhood did this, whether it was an inside job, whether members of the government were calling up Robinhood to help up their hedge fund buddies because the hedge funds were losing hand over fist yesterday.
00:06:05.000 So what exactly did Robinhood do?
00:06:06.000 Well, Robinhood decided that it was going to simply cut off trading on GameStop and a variety of other stocks that the Reddit guys were going after.
00:06:13.000 They just decided we're not going to allow you to participate in buying of that stock.
00:06:17.000 Then apparently, they also engaged in forced sale of some of the stock.
00:06:21.000 So they were saying to people, okay, we know you don't want to sell the stock.
00:06:23.000 We know you want to hold the stock because you want to burn these hedge fund guys.
00:06:25.000 We're not going to let you do that.
00:06:26.000 We're going to sell the stock for you.
00:06:27.000 And those were the allegations that were flying around yesterday.
00:06:29.000 That's nuts.
00:06:30.000 It's probably illegal.
00:06:31.000 If it is not illegal, it should be illegal.
00:06:33.000 The basic idea that you can essentially sell people's stock without their permission is crazy.
00:06:40.000 It's just as crazy to say that small stock players don't get to be involved in the market in the same way that the hedge fund guys are, and that Robinhood is just going to cut it off if they don't like what they are seeing.
00:06:52.000 That's nuts.
00:06:54.000 That's wild.
00:06:54.000 Now, I will say this.
00:06:56.000 Alexander Ocasio-Cortez was very upset about this yesterday.
00:06:58.000 She said, this is unacceptable.
00:06:59.000 This is unacceptable.
00:07:00.000 We now need to know more about Robinhood App's decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.
00:07:07.000 As a member of the Financial Services Committee, I'd support a hearing if necessary.
00:07:13.000 This is what she tweeted yesterday.
00:07:15.000 Ted Cruz agreed.
00:07:16.000 Now, I understand why Ted Cruz would be in favor of folks freely trading in the free market on a free app.
00:07:22.000 Like, I get it.
00:07:23.000 I don't understand why AOC would be.
00:07:24.000 AOC is a socialist, so I literally do not understand why she wants more access by small investors to free markets.
00:07:30.000 The real answer is that she doesn't, right?
00:07:31.000 She doesn't want you to have access to free markets, and she doesn't want hedge funds to have access to free markets.
00:07:35.000 And she's using a convenient club to beat up the markets, essentially.
00:07:40.000 But that is, in and of itself, a little bit funny.
00:07:43.000 So Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she's not wrong on this.
00:07:46.000 It is, in fact, unacceptable.
00:07:47.000 I don't know what her motivation is.
00:07:49.000 I don't know why she's all of a sudden... I guess it's the double standard that is her motivation.
00:07:52.000 In reality, her preferred cure would not be that you, the small investor, get to play in the markets.
00:07:57.000 Her preferred cure would be to shut down the markets altogether, presumably.
00:08:00.000 She's not wrong that what Robinhood did yesterday is truly egregious.
00:08:05.000 The New York State Attorney General said that her office was actively reviewing concerns about activity on the Robinhood app, including trading related to GameStop stock.
00:08:12.000 Unclear whether she is investigating the Reddit folks or whether she's actually investigating Robinhood.
00:08:18.000 Now again, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with shorting.
00:08:20.000 I think that shorting is just a way of repricing the market.
00:08:22.000 A lot of that GameStop trading happened on Robinhood, a free app that allows people to trade small amounts of stocks.
00:08:26.000 with the explicit aim of hurting hedge funds that profit off shorting the typically falling stock.
00:08:31.000 Now again, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with shorting.
00:08:33.000 I think that shorting is just a way of repricing the market.
00:08:35.000 A lot of that GameStop trading happened on Robinhood, a free app that allows people to trade small amounts of stocks.
00:08:41.000 But on Thursday, Robinhood decided to betray its name and halt purchases of GameStop stock, as well as stock from other nostalgic companies.
00:08:48.000 Now that is a far bigger problem than anything that the Redditors decided to do.
00:08:52.000 I mean, that is a way bigger problem.
00:08:54.000 When you are saying a particular class of people are not allowed to trade in the stock market because we don't like what they are doing, that is elitism at its finest.
00:09:01.000 It is market manipulation.
00:09:03.000 If you think that the Reddit guys were manipulating the market by banding together and buying GameStop stock in order to shoot up the price artificially and thus to squeeze all the hedge fund guys, if you think that was artificially playing with the markets and manipulating the markets, it is way worse for the app itself, not individuals, to collude together.
00:09:18.000 The app itself and the big hedge fund guys to collude to basically stop small investors from trading in the markets.
00:09:25.000 That's nuts.
00:09:26.000 It's absolutely tyrannical in the colloquial sense.
00:09:30.000 Robinhood said in a Thursday blog post that after the recent volatility, it wasn't allowing the purchase of new stock from GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, Bed Bath & Beyond, Koss Headphones, and Nokia, as well as naked brands, which may have gotten caught up in the shutdown after a Wednesday direct offering campaign.
00:09:44.000 Robinhood also raised the margin requirements for some securities, meaning users have to now front more of their own money to buy the securities, ostensibly benefiting those with more cash.
00:09:52.000 So now, instead of you being able to borrow money in order to buy the stock, now they're gonna make you put up your own money in order to buy the stock.
00:09:59.000 TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab also increased margin requirements for GameStop stock on Wednesday.
00:10:05.000 Robinhood put out a statement.
00:10:07.000 The statement is ridiculous on its face.
00:10:09.000 The Robinhood statement says that they are trying to protect their users.
00:10:12.000 What, from their users?
00:10:14.000 Like that's their statement?
00:10:17.000 They said that they were trying to help their customers navigate this uncertainty.
00:10:21.000 Okay, everybody who's buying in knows exactly what the game is.
00:10:23.000 If you don't know what the game is, you shouldn't be buying in.
00:10:26.000 Everybody knows that this is basically a giant-ass prank in which a bunch of people who got in early on the action are gonna make a lot of money, and the hedge fund guys are gonna pay through the nose.
00:10:34.000 The Verge noted that one hedge fund suffering amid the GameStop surge was Melvin Capital Management, and this is where things get really ugly.
00:10:41.000 So one of the things that is suspected here is that Robinhood basically stopped trading on GameStop because one of the big Institutional investors that had shorted GameStop was Melvin Capital Management.
00:10:59.000 It incurred like $2 billion of losses over the past 48 hours.
00:11:03.000 It also happens that they are a borrower, apparently, from another hedge fund called Citadel.
00:11:09.000 So Citadel has a big share of Melvin Capital Management or some assets under management.
00:11:14.000 Citadel's founder is Ken Griffin, who founded Citadel Securities.
00:11:18.000 Citadel Securities is a giant investor in Robinhood.
00:11:20.000 They also work with TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab.
00:11:23.000 So what it looks like to the suspicious eye is like Citadel was losing money via Melvin Capital because they had to keep bailing out Melvin Capital.
00:11:33.000 And so they went to this other app that they essentially own or are heavy investors in.
00:11:39.000 And they said, you know what would be great is if you guys could stop, if you could stop the bleeding, that'd be amazing.
00:11:42.000 And then Robinhood, because they know that they're chief investors, Okay, that is really, really bad stuff.
00:11:46.000 And probably illegal stuff.
00:11:47.000 cut their central mission and just stop low-level traders from engaging in these sorts of plays.
00:11:53.000 That is really, really bad stuff.
00:11:56.000 And probably illegal stuff.
00:11:58.000 Okay, it is ugly all the way through.
00:12:01.000 Now, as of this morning, several retailers, stockbrokers, including Robinhood, said they would allow trades of GameStop again and other volatile companies after restricting customer ability to purchase securities earlier in the day.
00:12:11.000 Starting tomorrow, they said, we plan to allow limited buys of these securities, only limited though, right?
00:12:16.000 So they're not gonna allow you to run up the stock price again.
00:12:17.000 We'll continue to monitor the situation and may make adjustments as needed.
00:12:22.000 Robinhood said Thursday morning it would limit buying of the kinds of securities that have sparked an enormous rally in shares of GameStop, the video game retailer at the heart of the frenzy, and AMC Entertainment Holdings, the movie theater chain, and a number of other companies.
00:12:33.000 The decision, of course, drew fire.
00:12:35.000 As I mentioned, AOC didn't like it.
00:12:36.000 Senator Ted Cruz agreed.
00:12:38.000 Again, I don't really understand why AOC doesn't like it, other than she doesn't like Wall Street and sees an opportunity to bash Wall Street.
00:12:44.000 The reality is she doesn't want you to be able to trade in the markets.
00:12:46.000 She doesn't like the markets, period.
00:12:48.000 I'm seeing a lot of folks on the left being like, yeah, Robinhood needs to allow everybody to trade in the markets.
00:12:54.000 What they're really interested in is the fact that these guys hurt the hedge funds.
00:12:56.000 They're not interested in people being able to trade in the markets.
00:13:00.000 If Robinhood had decided to restrict its users to fewer trades overall, without any of the attempts to take down the hedge funds, I don't think anybody on the left would be complaining about that.
00:13:11.000 They're looking for heavy regulation.
00:13:12.000 They're looking for more regulation of the markets, not less regulation of the markets.
00:13:16.000 But welcome to the Libertarian Party, comrades.
00:13:18.000 I mean, seriously, come on in.
00:13:20.000 Join the fun.
00:13:22.000 Robinhood said that it was not favoring big traders.
00:13:25.000 They said that they did all of this because of financial requirements, including SEC net capital obligations and clearinghouse deposits.
00:13:31.000 They say it was a risk management decision was not made on the direction of the market makers we route to.
00:13:37.000 Webull, another trading app, said customers would only be able to liquidate positions they had in GameStop, AMC, and Kaas before they lifted restrictions in the afternoon.
00:13:45.000 So it looked like all of a sudden, all of these apps decided all at once that they were going to restrict people from doing what they were doing, which is wild and crazy and dangerous and obviously requires investigation.
00:13:55.000 Senator Mike Lee has pledged that he would like to launch an investigation into all of this.
00:14:01.000 Ugly, ugly stuff.
00:14:02.000 Meanwhile, Google is salvaging Robinhood's one-star rating by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviews.
00:14:06.000 So people went on to Robinhood and they were like, okay, this app sucks because I can't do what I want to do.
00:14:11.000 Google then deleted all of that, which is just another way of rigging the market, right?
00:14:16.000 This falls into the broader category of the big tech bros.
00:14:19.000 They have too much power to shut things down.
00:14:21.000 They do.
00:14:22.000 It is a problem.
00:14:22.000 It is a real problem.
00:14:23.000 That does not mean that government regulation is per se the answer to this.
00:14:28.000 It does mean that if all of these apps can be leveraged into shutting down the common man, then these apps have way too much power.
00:14:36.000 And unfortunately, as we have seen with Parler, when you start building alternatives, the new move is shut down the alternatives by big tech and by government.
00:14:43.000 So we are living in an authoritarian moment.
00:14:46.000 It is an authoritarian moment and it's coming very often from the people who said at the beginning that they were going to be the democratizers.
00:14:52.000 Remember Robinhood's thing was let everyone trade.
00:14:55.000 Well, everyone with a little asterisk.
00:14:57.000 Yeah, the Everons does not include you, so long as you're hurting hedge fund guys.
00:15:00.000 We'll get to more of this in just one moment.
00:15:02.000 First, let's talk about big tech.
00:15:04.000 So big tech companies, they have too much power, like way too much power.
00:15:07.000 As private entities, they can operate pretty much as they choose.
00:15:10.000 Well, that means that you should not be giving them your data because they're using your data and they're monetizing your data.
00:15:14.000 Protect your personal data from big tech with the VPN I trust for my online protection, ExpressVPN.
00:15:19.000 When I use ExpressVPN, my connection gets rerouted through their secure encrypted servers so these companies cannot see my IP address at all.
00:15:26.000 My internet activity becomes anonymized, my network data is encrypted, I recommend ExpressVPN to anyone who uses the internet, so pretty much everyone.
00:15:32.000 The best part is, you don't need to be tech-savvy at all to use ExpressVPN.
00:15:36.000 Just download the app on your phone or computer, tap one button, and you are now protected.
00:15:39.000 Protect your internet activity with the VPN I use every single day.
00:15:43.000 Visit expressvpn.com.
00:15:45.000 To get three extra months free on a one-year package, that's ExpressVPN.com slash Ben to get three extra months for free.
00:15:51.000 ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.
00:15:53.000 Go check them out right now.
00:15:54.000 E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash Ben.
00:15:58.000 That is ExpressVPN.com slash Ben to get three extra months for free on a one-year package.
00:16:04.000 Right now, protect your data from prying eyes over at Big Tech.
00:16:07.000 Now I will say, as far as the left, Suddenly, being upset about the rigging of markets.
00:16:12.000 As far as the left, again, being very, very upset that small players are not allowed to trade in the markets.
00:16:17.000 The reason they are upset is because they see this as a sort of French Revolution class-conscious moment.
00:16:22.000 That is what they see this as, right?
00:16:23.000 The hedge fund guys being taken down by the little guys, and that's good, and we don't want the little guys taken down that way.
00:16:28.000 I have a broader point.
00:16:29.000 I don't really like that kind of stuff.
00:16:31.000 What I do like is the idea that people can trade as they see fit.
00:16:34.000 So I have a broader principle to protect.
00:16:36.000 Which is, hedge fund guys are allowed to short, and you should be allowed to short.
00:16:39.000 Hedge fund guys are allowed to engage in short squeezes, you should be allowed to engage in short squeezes.
00:16:45.000 It is that simple.
00:16:46.000 It is the neutral principle.
00:16:47.000 I do not think the neutral principle applies to people who are conveniently joining this cause from the left.
00:16:52.000 I think that a lot of people conveniently joining the free market cause from the left are doing so specifically because they like that in this instance, this is targeted at hurting Wall Street generally.
00:17:02.000 Now, that was my sort of objection yesterday, is I was pointing out that what this really does is it undermines confidence in markets generally.
00:17:08.000 But that said, it is not criminal.
00:17:10.000 They're allowed to do it, and the market's gonna make up for that because that's what markets do.
00:17:13.000 They adjust.
00:17:15.000 So the alliance of convenience remains an alliance of convenience, but better than not having an alliance of convenience, I suppose.
00:17:20.000 CNN's Poppy Harlow, again, not somebody who I would generally think of as a free marketeer, was asking, how is it not rigging the game?
00:17:28.000 If you can just cut off Reddit investors anytime you don't like what they're doing.
00:17:31.000 These folks feel like this whole thing is rigged against them and this is their chance, with social media, their chance to actually have a voice.
00:17:38.000 But how is it fair for them then?
00:17:40.000 I mean, I read it as saying, look, we want to protect our investors.
00:17:43.000 But by the way, if you cut them off from making the moves that they want to make with their own money, for whatever reason they want to make it, and you don't cut off the hedge funds, and you don't cut out Wall Street, how is that not rigging the game?
00:17:55.000 That's exactly, exactly what people are complaining about this morning.
00:17:58.000 Okay, and that complaint is, it happens to be exactly right.
00:18:00.000 This is not Robin Hood anymore.
00:18:02.000 Now it's just the Sheriff of Nottingham, right?
00:18:03.000 It is just taking money.
00:18:05.000 from the common man and making sure that the hedge funds get what they need.
00:18:08.000 Now, what Robinhood is gonna say is, right, we're forcibly selling your stocks at a massive profit.
00:18:12.000 How is that a loss to you?
00:18:13.000 And the answer is, the real reason that many of these people are doing this is not because they wanna make a massive profit, it's because they wanna screw the hedge fund guys.
00:18:19.000 I mean, that's really what this is about.
00:18:20.000 And they have every right to do that.
00:18:22.000 I may not agree with their motivation.
00:18:23.000 I may think that it's wrongheaded.
00:18:24.000 They have every right to do it.
00:18:25.000 It's a free country.
00:18:26.000 I have the same standards when it comes to free markets as I do when it comes to free speech.
00:18:29.000 I may not like what you say, but you have the right to say it.
00:18:32.000 I may not like how you trade, but you do in fact have the right to trade.
00:18:36.000 Okay, so a little bit of a neutral principle I think would go a long way here.
00:18:39.000 There will be an investigation into, like, I want to know, did anybody in the Biden White House, there were rumors flying around yesterday from insiders at Robinhood that people in the White House had called up Robinhood and tried to exert pressure.
00:18:50.000 If that's true, that should be a massive scandal.
00:18:53.000 If it's true that there are folks in the government who are calling up a private company like Robinhood and telling Robinhood to essentially cut off its own users, That's crazy, okay?
00:19:04.000 And that needs to be fully investigated.
00:19:06.000 I would expect a congressional investigation on that.
00:19:10.000 By the way, if it turns out that Citadel decided that they were going to go to Robinhood and pressure Robinhood into cutting off their own users, that seems like market manipulation at a fairly high level and probably violates the law.
00:19:20.000 So, the really bad thing that happened over the past 48 hours is not these jokers burning the money, right?
00:19:27.000 The really bad thing that happened over the past 48 hours is the reaction to that.
00:19:31.000 As always in America, or as usual in America, even when something happens that a lot of people don't like, the reaction tends to be significantly worse than the original action.
00:19:40.000 Even if you didn't like the original, actually, I know there are a lot of people who did.
00:19:42.000 I got a lot of feedback on yesterday's show.
00:19:44.000 People were very angry that I wasn't fully on board with the giant attempt to take down the hedge fund, guys.
00:19:50.000 I get it.
00:19:50.000 I get where you're coming from.
00:19:52.000 We can disagree on that.
00:19:52.000 What I think we all agree on is that it is deeply wrong, deeply wrong for Robinhood or any other app to deplatform its own users because they don't like how the users are engaging in free market transactions.
00:20:05.000 That's wild.
00:20:06.000 Okay, meanwhile, Janet Yellen, who's the Treasury Secretary, it turns out that she received around $810,000 in speaking fees from the hedge fund that bailed out one of the primary losers in the recent GameStop frenzy, according to Fox News.
00:20:16.000 Janet Yellen's financial disclosure shows her making $337,500 for multiple days in October 2020 from Citadel.
00:20:19.000 $2,500 for multiple days in October 2020 from Citadel.
00:20:23.000 She banked $292,500 in October 2019, $180,000 in December of that year.
00:20:30.000 The Senate confirmed Yellen on Monday.
00:20:31.000 Now the good news is, we were informed by Jen Psaki yesterday that Janet Yellen has a vagina, so we really have nothing to worry about.
00:20:36.000 She said that we have the first female Treasury Secretary, so that's really exciting stuff.
00:20:40.000 Now, is she actually going to recuse herself when it comes time to look at the regulations here?
00:20:45.000 So Jen Psaki was asked about this yesterday.
00:20:48.000 Are there any plans to have her recuse herself from advising the President on GameStop and the whole Robin Hood situation?
00:20:56.000 Well, just to be clear, what I said was that the Treasury Secretary is now confirmed.
00:21:01.000 Obviously, we have a broad economic team.
00:21:04.000 The SEC put out a statement yesterday that I referred to, but I don't think I have anything more for you on it, other than to say, separate from the GameStop issue, The Secretary of Treasury is one of the world-renowned experts on markets, on the economy.
00:21:20.000 It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice before she came into office.
00:21:27.000 Okay, that does not answer the question as to whether she will recuse herself.
00:21:30.000 The reports are this morning that she will, in fact, recuse herself as well.
00:21:33.000 She should, considering that she has a stake in this one.
00:21:36.000 Okay, in just a second, we are going to get to more of this.
00:21:39.000 We're also going to talk about the brand new unity breaking out on Capitol Hill.
00:21:42.000 Spoiler alert, no unity happening.
00:21:44.000 We'll get to that in a moment.
00:21:45.000 First, let us talk about life insurance.
00:21:47.000 So, if you are a rational, reasonable human being, you wanna make sure that God forbid something happens to you, your family is taken care of, right?
00:21:54.000 They don't just lose you if you die.
00:21:55.000 They also lose your stream of income.
00:21:56.000 This is why you need life insurance.
00:21:57.000 Well, Policy Genius can help you make that happen in 2021.
00:22:01.000 Policy Genius makes it easy for you to compare more than 30 top insurers at once and save over 50% in the process.
00:22:06.000 Plus, there's no hassle because they're licensed experts work for you, not the insurance companies.
00:22:10.000 Here's how it works.
00:22:11.000 Head on over to PolicyGenius.com.
00:22:13.000 In minutes, you can work out how much coverage you need, and you can compare quotes from top insurers to find your best price.
00:22:18.000 PolicyGenius will compare policies starting at as little as a buck a day.
00:22:21.000 You might even be eligible to skip that in-person medical exam.
00:22:24.000 Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team will handle all the paperwork and the red tape.
00:22:27.000 If you hit any speed bumps during the application process, they'll take care of everything for you.
00:22:31.000 That kind of service has earned Policy Genius a five-star rating across over 1,600 reviews on Trustpilot and Google.
00:22:37.000 So, make this the year you finally cross life insurance off that to-do list.
00:22:40.000 Get protection for your loved ones.
00:22:41.000 Go to policygenius.com and get started.
00:22:44.000 You could say 50% or more by comparing, quotes, start the new year with one less thing to worry about, policy genius, when it comes to insurance.
00:22:51.000 It's nice and quite important to get it right.
00:22:54.000 Okay, so the Winklevoss twins, right, who are a couple of the founding members of the Facebook company, obviously they know something about investment and they were pointing out that this is a lockout of regular people.
00:23:05.000 That's what's going on here.
00:23:08.000 I think this is a much larger issue and the threat of our country and its fragility and what's happening in the inequality.
00:23:16.000 And frankly, the hypocrisy of the political leaders who say you can't open your business and run your business and make a living during the pandemic.
00:23:23.000 We won't pass a stimulus bill in time.
00:23:27.000 And oh, by the way, now you can't trade.
00:23:29.000 You know, what's the next thing they're going to control and say you can't do?
00:23:34.000 That is 100 percent correct.
00:23:36.000 That is 100% correct.
00:23:38.000 Okay, the levels of control that are now being exerted by institutions inside and outside the government should terrify everybody who believes in individual freedom.
00:23:44.000 Okay, freedom is not only dependent on government non-regulation, freedom is also dependent on a culture of freedom.
00:23:51.000 A culture of freedom where people tolerate other people's activities even if they disagree with those activities.
00:23:55.000 This holds true in freedom of religion, it holds true in freedom of association, it holds true in freedom of speech, and it holds true in freedom of contract in free markets.
00:24:03.000 The fact that there are so many people who seem willing to throw that out depending on where their interest lies on a daily basis is pretty ugly stuff.
00:24:09.000 Speaking of which, we should be able to unify around individual rights.
00:24:13.000 We should be able to unify around basic American principles.
00:24:17.000 Unfortunately, all that unity talk?
00:24:18.000 That unity talk was a bunch of crap.
00:24:20.000 That is not a thing that is real.
00:24:22.000 At all, from the Democratic Party.
00:24:23.000 At this point, Joe Biden was saying that he is very much in favor of unity, right?
00:24:27.000 Unity this and unity that.
00:24:28.000 So much unity happening everywhere.
00:24:30.000 So much unity.
00:24:31.000 There's only one problem.
00:24:32.000 By unity, it turns out, as I suggested, unity can be achieved one of two ways.
00:24:38.000 One is we sit down with each other, we agree to disagree, and then we leave each other alone.
00:24:41.000 That is a unity.
00:24:43.000 Or you could have unity in just the purge, in shut up and do what I want you to do.
00:24:47.000 Unity in obey.
00:24:48.000 I'm Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary.
00:24:51.000 She suggested yesterday that Joe Biden's massive executive orders, executive orders, by the way, that are so extensive and so numerous that the New York Times wrote an editorial yesterday asking Joe Biden to cut back on the executive orders.
00:25:03.000 The New York Times, because Joe Biden in his first week in office issued well over 30 executive orders compared to like five from Trump, four from Obama, zero from Clinton, I believe, one from George W. Bush.
00:25:17.000 Biden basically just threw them out there like candy.
00:25:20.000 Here's Jen Psaki saying that's all unifying.
00:25:21.000 It's unifying stuff as it turns out.
00:25:24.000 Part of unifying the country is addressing the problems that the American people are facing and working to reach out to Democrats and Republicans to do exactly that.
00:25:33.000 And that's exactly what he's doing.
00:25:35.000 In terms of executive actions, he also ran with a commitment to take steps immediately to address the pain and suffering that the American people were feeling.
00:25:45.000 And that includes overturning some of the detrimental, harmful, It's so unifying.
00:25:55.000 Don't you see how unifying it is to have a rotating dictator that we elect every four years who just puts forth a bunch of executive orders?
00:26:01.000 Super unifying stuff right there.
00:26:02.000 Speaking of some of that unity, so what was one of the executive orders?
00:26:05.000 Well, he signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday to reverse restrictions on abortion access domestically and abroad, imposed and expanded by the Trump administration.
00:26:12.000 Ooh, exciting stuff!
00:26:14.000 The memorandum will quote, reverse my predecessor's attack on women's health access.
00:26:17.000 Biden told reporters, now I was informed by Jen Psaki that he is a very good Catholic.
00:26:21.000 Remember, she was asked about this last week in terms of Biden on abortion.
00:26:24.000 She said, well, I would just remind you he's a very good Catholic.
00:26:27.000 Oh, a very good Catholic who wants taxpayer funding for foreign abortions.
00:26:30.000 Sounds super Catholic to me.
00:26:33.000 Oh, so many euphemisms there for killing babies.
00:26:35.000 So many euphemisms.
00:26:35.000 So that rescinds the so-called Mexico City policy.
00:26:37.000 states the changes made to Title X and other things making it harder for women to have access to affordable health care as it relates to their reproductive rights.
00:26:43.000 Oh, so many euphemisms there for killing babies.
00:26:45.000 So many euphemisms.
00:26:47.000 So that rescinds the so-called Mexico City policy.
00:26:49.000 Every four years it is reversed, essentially, depending on who is in office.
00:26:53.000 The memorandum also directs the Health and Human Services Department to immediately move to consider rescinding the Trump administration rule blocking health care providers in the federally funded Title IX family planning program from referring patients for abortions.
00:27:04.000 So that was meant to deprive Planned Parenthood of Title X funding.
00:27:07.000 Now Planned Parenthood will be given Title X funding again.
00:27:10.000 So that is all unifying stuff.
00:27:11.000 So much unity.
00:27:13.000 And the unity extends to Congress.
00:27:15.000 It extends to Congress.
00:27:16.000 So I mentioned a few moments ago That the honorable and venerable representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, again, we are not allowed to call her AOC because she has said that this is either sexist or derogatory in some way, even though it's literally her Twitter handle, but Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Representative D-Twitch.
00:27:35.000 She had tweeted out in favor of going after Robin Hood, and Ted Cruz said, fully agree.
00:27:39.000 She tweets this back.
00:27:41.000 So much unity happening.
00:27:42.000 I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there's common ground, but you almost had me murdered three weeks ago, so you can sit this one out.
00:27:49.000 Happy to work with almost any other GOP that aren't trying to get me killed.
00:27:53.000 In the meantime, if you want to help, you can resign.
00:27:56.000 And the entire Twitterverse is like, oh, clap back, clap back.
00:27:58.000 Oh, my God.
00:27:59.000 Slay queen.
00:28:01.000 Slay a queen, and then she continues.
00:28:02.000 Well, you conveniently talk about moving on.
00:28:04.000 A second Capitol police officer lost their life yesterday in the still-raging aftermath of the attacks you had a role in.
00:28:09.000 This isn't a joke.
00:28:10.000 We need accountability.
00:28:11.000 That includes a new senator from Texas.
00:28:14.000 Okay, so a couple things.
00:28:15.000 Typically, when you accuse somebody of complicity for murder, you should have some evidence.
00:28:19.000 And she continued along these lines.
00:28:20.000 She didn't stop.
00:28:21.000 You haven't even apologized for the serious physical and mental harm you contributed to from Capitol Police and custodial workers to your own fellow members of Congress.
00:28:28.000 In the meantime, you can get off my timeline and stop clout chasing.
00:28:32.000 Thanks, okay.
00:28:32.000 First of all, this lady talking about clout chasing, that's literally all she does.
00:28:35.000 It's like Instagram and Twitter, and that's clout chasing for her.
00:28:38.000 What's the last major piece of legislation that had any level of support in the Senate that she supported?
00:28:43.000 Like, what has she done?
00:28:45.000 Legislatively?
00:28:45.000 The answer is nothing, which is why all of the Democrats kept her off of the committees that mattered.
00:28:50.000 But she said, happy to work with other GOP on this.
00:28:52.000 Yeah, I'm sure you are.
00:28:53.000 I'm sure you are.
00:28:54.000 It's not clout-chasing, by the way, to accuse a fellow congressperson of murder.
00:28:58.000 Of attempted murder.
00:28:58.000 That's not clout-chasing.
00:28:59.000 That's just her being honest and clapping back and slaying Queen.
00:29:03.000 I wonder if Steve Scalise has anything to say about this, too.
00:29:05.000 Maybe, like, Bernie Sanders.
00:29:07.000 As long as we are going to just simply suggest that Congress people are responsible for the attempted murder of other Congress people.
00:29:14.000 How about like, Steve Scalise was almost shot to death by a guy who was a Bernie Sanders follower shouting, this is for healthcare.
00:29:22.000 Don't see Steve Scalise accusing Bernie Sanders of murder, but this is like, this is the new, this is the new unity.
00:29:27.000 The new unity is, if you disagreed with me, and then some people did a bad thing, And agreed with you?
00:29:34.000 Then that means that you are responsible for those bad people.
00:29:38.000 This is ugly.
00:29:39.000 She knows it's ugly.
00:29:39.000 She knows it's untrue.
00:29:42.000 Does anyone reasonably think, like on any reasonable, rational level, that Ted Cruz was complicit in the attempted murder of Alexander Ocasio-Cortez?
00:29:50.000 I understand the man's the Zodiac Killer, but put that aside.
00:29:53.000 Is there, like, any evidence of that at all?
00:29:56.000 You know that that tweet that she sent out that that one where she accused a senator, a sitting senator of murder has 739,000 likes as of this moment. 739,000.
00:30:07.000 Yeah, our country is coming together like nobody's business.
00:30:11.000 I can feel that unity breaking out all over.
00:30:14.000 There's plenty of reason that you can chide Ted Cruz for getting in on what I think was a cynical play to pretend that there was the ability to overthrow electors at the senatorial level during the vote verification.
00:30:27.000 I think that those are legit criticisms.
00:30:29.000 To suggest that he is responsible for attempted murder by nuts shouting QAnon slogans who broke into the Capitol building looking for blood is, honestly, it's sick.
00:30:38.000 I mean, you have to be kind of a sick puppy to say that sort of thing.
00:30:43.000 Really, that's pretty amazing stuff.
00:30:45.000 And I've been strict on this, on both sides, right?
00:30:48.000 I've done this for years.
00:30:50.000 I've said, you're not responsible for nuts, taking your words, twisting them, and then doing something bad about them.
00:30:55.000 Because human beings and adults have agency, but again, it's not about that.
00:30:58.000 It is about cloud chasing.
00:30:59.000 For Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the whole purpose for her is disunity.
00:31:03.000 Lack of unity is going to be the theme.
00:31:05.000 Because the less unity there is, the more people like Alexander Ocasio-Cortez get to claim that they are on the side of the angels, and they are the fully vested crusaders for truth, justice, and the American way.
00:31:21.000 Or the Soviet way, as the case may be.
00:31:23.000 In just a second, we'll get to more unity from our members of the House.
00:31:26.000 Lots of unity breaking out, I'm seeing.
00:31:29.000 It truly is amazing, because there could be, there was, I mean, I was there, I remember, right?
00:31:33.000 You were alive too.
00:31:34.000 We were all alive at this point.
00:31:36.000 If you're listening to the sound of my voice, the chances are you were alive when the January 6th riots happened.
00:31:40.000 And I seem to recall Vice President Mike Pence, the Vice President to Donald Trump, standing there and condemning that stuff, and Mitch McConnell, and every other Republican.
00:31:48.000 So...
00:31:49.000 The notion that they were complicit in the attempted murder.
00:31:51.000 Unless you have some hard evidence of that.
00:31:52.000 Democrats, by the way, have been saying this since January 6th.
00:31:55.000 I would love to see hard evidence of Congress people who are actively involved with the attempt to kill Congress people and cops at the Capitol.
00:32:04.000 Mainly because I want to see anybody who was go to jail.
00:32:07.000 And those people should go to jail.
00:32:09.000 There's a case that they would be involved in treason if they were.
00:32:11.000 How about like a shred of evidence for that?
00:32:13.000 Gross.
00:32:14.000 Okay, we'll get to more of this in just one second.
00:32:16.000 First, let us talk about how you improve your employment base.
00:32:20.000 So here at The Daily Wire, we are growing like nobody's business.
00:32:23.000 We are a fast-growing business.
00:32:24.000 That means we need new employees all the time.
00:32:26.000 Where do we turn?
00:32:27.000 We turn to ZipRecruiter.
00:32:29.000 Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
00:32:37.000 ZipRecruiter does all the work for you.
00:32:39.000 When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, it gets sent to over 100 top job sites with one click.
00:32:44.000 Then, ZipRecruiter's matching technology finds people with the right skills and experience for your job and actively invites them to apply and get qualified candidates fast.
00:32:51.000 So, while other services may overwhelm you with applications to sift through, ZipRecruiter finds what you are looking for, the needle in the haystack.
00:32:58.000 In fact, ZipRecruiter is so effective that 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the very first day.
00:33:05.000 Right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com dailywire.
00:33:10.000 That is ZipRecruiter.com slash D-A-I-L-Y-W-I-R-E.
00:33:14.000 Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
00:33:16.000 ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire.
00:33:19.000 Go check them out right now.
00:33:20.000 ZipRecruiter.com.
00:33:21.000 Alrighty, we're gonna get to more unity.
00:33:23.000 Unity, unity, unity in just one second.
00:33:25.000 First, it's that glorious time of the week when I give a shout out to a DailyWire member.
00:33:28.000 Today, it is HeartyKids2021 on Instagram, who sends the perfect zing to a group of full grown babies.
00:33:34.000 In the pic, four adorable kids, Sums it up nicely.
00:33:49.000 Really appreciate it.
00:33:50.000 Thank you for the fantastic pic, and thank you for being a Daily Wire member.
00:33:53.000 If you want to be the person featured in that pic next week, well, you should probably become a member.
00:33:56.000 Speaking of which, when you become a member, you get access to our very first film here at the Daily Wire.
00:34:01.000 We are entering the entertainment business.
00:34:03.000 Our first film is Run, Hide, Fight.
00:34:06.000 and is exclusively for Daily Wire members, you can catch it over at dailywire.com, on our mobile app, on our streaming apps at Apple TV and Roku.
00:34:12.000 If you're not a Daily Wire member yet, use promo code RHF for Run, Hide, Fight to get 25% off.
00:34:17.000 That is Run, Hide, Fight for 25% off right now.
00:34:20.000 If you check out Run, Hide, Fight on Rotten Tomatoes, the statistics will show you that the critics, not fans, Definitely fans.
00:34:27.000 25% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:34:30.000 93% from over 2,300 user ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:34:34.000 That's the kind of stuff we want to make.
00:34:35.000 The kind of stuff the critics are going to hate because it ain't woke.
00:34:37.000 The kind of stuff you love because it ain't woke.
00:34:39.000 Go check it out right now over at dailywire.com on our mobile app or on our streaming apps at Apple TV and Roku.
00:34:44.000 If you are not a Daily Wire member yet, use promo code RHF to get 25% off.
00:34:49.000 That is RHFRUNHIDEFIGHT for 25% off.
00:34:52.000 You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show All righty, so all that unity breaking out in the Capitol building, it's really exciting stuff.
00:35:05.000 That's the theme of the Biden administration, is unity.
00:35:07.000 So Nancy Pelosi says the enemy is in the House.
00:35:10.000 That's always good, when you say that there are lots of your actual enemies in the House.
00:35:15.000 So here's Nancy Pelosi talking about this.
00:35:17.000 I do believe, and I have said this all along, that we will probably need a supplemental for more security for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives.
00:35:30.000 What exactly did you mean when you said that the enemy is within?
00:35:32.000 What exactly did you mean by that?
00:35:34.000 It means that we have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress.
00:35:41.000 Oh, okay, well, how about some evidence of that?
00:35:43.000 Like, lots of evidence would be great there.
00:35:45.000 If you're literally accusing members of Congress of being complicit with people who are attempting to kill other Congress people, some evidence would be nice, because that's a criminal charge that you're throwing at somebody right there.
00:35:54.000 So feel the unity break out there.
00:35:56.000 By the way, there would be unity if you show evidence of that, and not only expelling those members of Congress, but having them prosecuted.
00:36:02.000 I mean, pretty obviously.
00:36:04.000 Any evidence forthcoming?
00:36:06.000 Any time in here would be really, really nice.
00:36:08.000 Meanwhile, speaking of, you know, lowering the temperature, so MSNBC had a guest.
00:36:12.000 That guest yesterday suggested that if a radical Muslim used Donald Trump's rhetoric, we would be talking about drone striking them.
00:36:19.000 That definitely is not threatening or violent language in any way.
00:36:23.000 You know, we had a period after 9-11 where we were trying to get left to boom, as they would say, you know, in counterterrorism, which is, can you get way up the stream of an attack and start to root out all of the confluences which bring about that attack?
00:36:37.000 So as Miles was talking about, it's exactly right.
00:36:40.000 If you took what President Trump said and you instead put it in Anwar al-Awlaki's mouth, we would be talking about a drone strike overseas.
00:36:48.000 So that's one aspect with our political leaders, you know, talking about this rhetoric.
00:36:54.000 Okay, so yeah, that's great.
00:36:55.000 We would definitely drone strike Trump if he were a radical Muslim, like an Islamist, which he is not.
00:37:03.000 So, sure.
00:37:05.000 Can you feel the temperature lowering, guys?
00:37:06.000 Can you feel things getting better?
00:37:08.000 Can you really feel it getting better?
00:37:09.000 Meanwhile, remember that time during the...
00:37:12.000 During the 2020 election, when all discussion of Joe Biden's family was off limits.
00:37:17.000 Remember that time?
00:37:18.000 Where if you said, Joe Biden seems like he kind of has a corrupt family that are happy to use his name in order to run around the world picking up bags of cash.
00:37:25.000 That was considered a faux pas.
00:37:26.000 It was considered unpleasant.
00:37:28.000 Remember that time?
00:37:29.000 Well, now it turns out that the media are allowed to report on it now.
00:37:32.000 So that's exciting.
00:37:33.000 Now the media have decided the election is safely over.
00:37:36.000 So we're allowed to report on the fact that Joe Biden's family is super duper duper corrupt.
00:37:40.000 Both the Daily Mail and Fox News reported in late December that Hunter Biden was in the process of offloading his stake in a Chinese private equity firm called BHR, according to the Daily Caller.
00:37:50.000 Only one problem, Hunter Biden still is holding a 10% stake in that Chinese private equity firm.
00:37:55.000 The Daily Mail and Fox News cited an unnamed source with Hunter Biden and his business dealings.
00:38:00.000 But Hunter Biden continues to hold that equity stake through his company, Skneedle's LLC, as of Wednesday, according to Cuisinbao and Baidu, two independent services that provide business records on Chinese corporations.
00:38:12.000 Hunter Biden is the sole beneficial owner of that LLC.
00:38:16.000 B.H.R.
00:38:17.000 manages the equivalent of $2.1 billion in assets and is co-owned by the Chinese state-controlled Bank of China.
00:38:22.000 So no possibility of a corruption here, given the fact that Hunter Biden owns a 10% stake in a Chinese government state-sponsored company.
00:38:30.000 Probably that's fine.
00:38:31.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden had to issue like an actual overt warning to other members of his family for using his name in their advertising.
00:38:38.000 According to Politico, in the midst of his campaign for president, Joe Biden took his younger brother, Frank, aside to issue a warning.
00:38:43.000 For Christ's sake, watch yourself, Biden said of his brother's potential business dealings.
00:38:47.000 According to a person with knowledge of the conversation, don't get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.
00:38:52.000 Yeah, I'm sure that that was what Joe was typically worried about.
00:38:55.000 Biden, whose tone was both jocular and serious, according to the person, seemed to know what is becoming plainly obvious now, his family's business ties threatened to undermine an administration whose messaging is centered on restoring integrity in the White House.
00:39:07.000 Oh, it's becoming plainly obvious now, you say?
00:39:10.000 Why, oh my, what, like now, in January of 2021?
00:39:16.000 Some of us had been pointing out that there were corrupt dealings inside the Biden family for years, but it only became relevant, and now, you know what, it's not threatening his campaign anymore, now it's only threatening his White House.
00:39:25.000 It's amazing how that happened.
00:39:27.000 I mean, imagine if we had had a copy of Hunter Biden's laptop that was publicly available as of October and being printed in the New York Post.
00:39:34.000 That seems like that might've been relevant.
00:39:36.000 Maybe there's some information on that laptop about corrupt business dealings between members of Joe Biden's family and foreign adversaries.
00:39:42.000 Maybe we should've reported on that at the time.
00:39:45.000 Oh, wait, you say that social media shut down all dissemination of that information and that the mainstream news media decided to essentially ignore it, calling it a right-wing plot?
00:39:53.000 Oh, that?
00:39:54.000 Yeah, well, look, it's safely over now.
00:39:56.000 Now we can talk about it.
00:39:57.000 Politico's talking about it now.
00:40:00.000 Relatives' money-making ventures, most prominently his son Hunter's overseas dealings, have long dogged Biden, but it's taking on a new dimension now that he's in the White House.
00:40:07.000 Only a week into his presidency, Biden already has had to answer for matters related to his family.
00:40:12.000 A law firm ad promoting Frank Biden's relationship with the president caused a stir when it ran on Inauguration Day.
00:40:17.000 A federal investigation into Biden's son Hunter has invited scrutiny of just how strict a firewall he'll keep between the White House and the Justice Department.
00:40:23.000 Another one of the president's brothers, James, has previously come under fire for his business dealings.
00:40:29.000 Florida Super Attorney and Democratic donor John Morgan said business sensitivities were coursing through Biden world this week after the report about Frank Biden's law firm.
00:40:36.000 What Frank told me is, my brother loves me dearly, but if I lobbied, he would cut my legs from underneath me.
00:40:41.000 Morgan said Frank Biden told him this week.
00:40:43.000 Oh yes, I'm sure.
00:40:44.000 I'm sure that that's perfectly accurate.
00:40:45.000 I'm sure that if Frank Biden lobbied Joe, Joe would just cut him off dead.
00:40:49.000 That's not stopping Frank from going around touting the fact that Joe's his brother, is it?
00:40:53.000 The intent of Joe Biden's initial conversation, according to the person with knowledge of the conversation, was to protect Frank from being hurt and vilified in the events his big brother, Joey, was elected to the most powerful position in the world.
00:41:04.000 Okay, I have a feeling that the person who reported this initial conversation might be connected with Joe Biden.
00:41:09.000 Just a thought.
00:41:10.000 It's an anonymous source who's privy to a conversation between Joe Biden and his brother.
00:41:14.000 I wonder who the source could be.
00:41:17.000 So many possibilities, considering there were two people in the conversation, and only one of them benefits from this conversation.
00:41:23.000 But I'm so glad that now we have decided that it's time to cover this stuff.
00:41:26.000 So, well done, everybody.
00:41:29.000 Speaking of which, the Biden administration agenda is already starting to make itself felt in terms of what people would call crony capitalism.
00:41:37.000 It is not, in fact, crony capitalism.
00:41:39.000 It is just called corporatism, where the federal government essentially subsidizes particular business lines that are in line with its thinking.
00:41:45.000 Okay, companies are already taking advantage of this.
00:41:47.000 It is super corrupt and it is really bad.
00:41:49.000 Typically, companies should serve the customer.
00:41:52.000 They should serve markets instead of serving government subsidies.
00:41:55.000 Unfortunately, now that you have a big government liberal in charge, this is exactly what you're going to get.
00:41:59.000 GM has now announced it will sell only zero emission vehicles by 2035.
00:42:04.000 Why, amazing that they waited until after Joe Biden took office to announce that they were shifting their entire production line.
00:42:09.000 Almost as though they know that if they do that, and then Joe Biden either forces all the other car companies to do it, or they fail, Joe Biden ends up paying them, that they're fine.
00:42:19.000 So it's a win-win for them.
00:42:20.000 They're a major car company.
00:42:22.000 They can get into this with all sorts of government subsidies.
00:42:25.000 They can know that other companies are going to have to do the same thing.
00:42:27.000 And then, if things go bad, they know that because they did their best for Uncle Joe, Joe is going to pay them.
00:42:32.000 I mean, it's fairly obvious that this is the case.
00:42:35.000 According to the New York Times, The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.
00:42:40.000 General Motors said on Thursday it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world's largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
00:42:54.000 The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments.
00:42:58.000 It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change.
00:43:03.000 Okay, what it's actually going to push for is Joe Biden to provide massive subsidies to GM.
00:43:08.000 If you think that major corporations don't know where their bread is buttered when a Democrat is in the White House, they know exactly where their bread is buttered when a Democrat is in the White House.
00:43:16.000 Leaders could point to GM's decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.
00:43:25.000 Love the way the New York Times is pitching this, as though GM doesn't see the writing on the wall.
00:43:29.000 As though GM, in a perfectly free market situation without government subsidies on the table or government compulsion on the other end, would be throwing away its most lucrative lines of business.
00:43:37.000 Nope, they just know, again, that if things go wrong, they get filled in by the feds, meaning you and by me, and that they can also leverage the government into essentially forcing smaller automakers or automakers who don't have the same sort of potential connections with the government into doing things that are costly for them and wiping them out.
00:43:56.000 According to the New York Times, Jim's move is sure to roil the auto industry, which between car and parts makers employed about 1 million people in the US in 2019, more than any other manufacturing sector by far.
00:44:05.000 It will also have huge ramifications for the oil and gas sector, whose fortunes are closely tied to the internal combustion engine.
00:44:12.000 Electric cars are the fastest growing segment of the auto industry.
00:44:15.000 They still make up a small proportion of new car sales, only about 3% of the global total.
00:44:20.000 Sales of such cars jumped last year in Europe and China.
00:44:22.000 They remain niche products in the United States.
00:44:24.000 They're bought primarily by affluent early adopters who are drawn to the luxury models made by Tesla, which dominates the business and by environmentally conscious consumers.
00:44:33.000 And there have been a lot of studies on this, and it turns out a lot of the folks who buy electric cars do so because they sort of want respect from their neighbors.
00:44:39.000 It really isn't about the wonders of the electric car.
00:44:42.000 Tesla makes a really good product, but they did a study, I believe it was in San Francisco, where they examined how many people were buying Priuses, which look all weird, and so you know they're electric, and how many people bought the Honda Hybrid, which looks the same as the Honda non-hybrid.
00:44:55.000 Very few people bought the Honda hybrid.
00:44:56.000 So it wasn't about the environmentalism.
00:44:58.000 It was about the virtue signaling to your friends and neighbors.
00:45:00.000 All that's fine.
00:45:01.000 But the idea that you're gonna replace 90% of the American auto market with electric vehicles, which are significantly more expensive and generally require government subsidies.
00:45:08.000 The reason GM is doing this is they know that there is taxpayer money on the table for them.
00:45:12.000 That's why they're doing this.
00:45:12.000 And now, the game begins.
00:45:14.000 Because now government says, even GM is doing it.
00:45:16.000 Look at that, let's regulate and provide subsidies.
00:45:18.000 Everybody knows the game.
00:45:19.000 Everybody knows the game.
00:45:20.000 This is not a, this is not, Okay.
00:45:22.000 for GM about sudden altruism.
00:45:25.000 All this is for GM is about market capture.
00:45:28.000 And that's what happens when you have somebody with a giant bag of taxpayer cash in the White House waiting to blow it, which is exactly what we have right now.
00:45:35.000 Okay, meanwhile, we are now learning shock of shocks that Andrew Cuomo is in fact a garbage heap.
00:45:43.000 So when it comes to COVID policy, Andrew Cuomo has obviously been horrible all the way through.
00:45:49.000 Some of us were mentioning the fact that Andrew Cuomo was wildly, wildly undercounting deaths inside his own state for a long time.
00:45:57.000 He had been suggesting for a long time to Andrew Cuomo that not that many people We've known this for months.
00:46:01.000 And there are reports for months that Andrew Cuomo was deliberately undercounting deaths in nursing homes by gaming the system.
00:46:07.000 What he was saying is, if you were diagnosed with COVID and you lived in a nursing home, and then you went to a hospital and you died there, not in the nursing home, he counted that as not a death in a nursing home.
00:46:16.000 What does this mean?
00:46:17.000 It means he was undercounting deaths in nursing homes by about 50%.
00:46:20.000 We've known this for months.
00:46:21.000 Now, the mainstream media have decided to catch up on all of this.
00:46:24.000 According to Mediaite, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has accused Andrew Cuomo and his administration of drastically undercounting COVID-related deaths Citing a 76-page report released on Tuesday, New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley revealed the administration may have cut the death rate in nursing homes by up to 50%.
00:46:40.000 Remember that time when Andrew Cuomo was the most honest of all governors and Ron DeSantis was gaming the stats?
00:46:45.000 And it turns out Ron DeSantis has been way more transparent with the stats than virtually anybody in American government.
00:46:50.000 And Andrew Cuomo is just a damned liar who writes books for profit about how he overcame the COVID crisis by killing all the olds.
00:46:56.000 Preliminary data obtained by OAG suggests that many nursing home residents died from COVID-19 in hospitals after being transferred from their nursing homes, which is not reflected in the Department of Health's published total nursing home death data.
00:47:07.000 Read the summary of the report's findings.
00:47:09.000 The Attorney General's office began receiving complaints regarding COVID-related neglect at nursing as early as March 2020.
00:47:16.000 The office has received more than 770 complaints through August 3rd, another 179 complaints through November 16th, His administration has been accused of hiding the accurate estimate of nursing home deaths as they only counted deaths in the actual homes.
00:47:29.000 One specific facility, for example, reported 11 deaths to the health department, for example.
00:47:33.000 James' survey of the same facility found 29 unrecorded deaths, noting 27 died while at the home, 13 died after being transferred to a hospital.
00:47:42.000 So truly, well done there, Andrew Cuomo.
00:47:44.000 Just a quick flashback.
00:47:45.000 You're trustworthy and reliable media.
00:47:47.000 Here's what they had to say about Andrew Cuomo for literally months.
00:47:49.000 He was the greatest of all governors.
00:47:52.000 I heard, though, that you had a crush on our boyfriend, Andrew Cuomo.
00:47:55.000 Dude, everyone does, right?
00:47:57.000 I think he's fantastic.
00:47:59.000 You know Cuomo.
00:48:00.000 He even had a 70% approval rating in April with Republicans.
00:48:06.000 Why?
00:48:07.000 Because he was leading.
00:48:09.000 Even lifelong Republicans tell me they look at Cuomo and they're like, God, there's a leader.
00:48:14.000 Governor Cuomo, who has been a leader in calling for science-based ways to fight this coronavirus.
00:48:22.000 The Academy says that he's being recognized for, quote, his leadership during the COVID pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around this world.
00:48:32.000 Oh, goodie goodie gumdrops.
00:48:33.000 So that guy, that was the one you guys gave him an Emmy.
00:48:36.000 You said he was the best governor in America.
00:48:38.000 Really well done across the board.
00:48:39.000 And I trust all of you in the media to tell me the truth about COVID and everything else, because you were so accurate on this one.
00:48:45.000 I also trust Anthony Fauci, right?
00:48:47.000 Anthony Fauci said that Governor Cuomo was amazing.
00:48:49.000 He did an amazing job in New York.
00:48:51.000 Anthony Fauci said.
00:48:52.000 By the way, Fauci is now apparently at odds with other members of the Biden administration.
00:48:57.000 The world's greatest doctor.
00:48:58.000 I can't believe it.
00:48:59.000 I can't believe the Biden administration is sending out people to contradict the world's greatest doctor.
00:49:02.000 Don't they know that the world's greatest doctor is the master of science?
00:49:05.000 Don't they know this?
00:49:06.000 Don't they know that Anthony Fauci has a monopoly on the science?
00:49:10.000 Well, here is a Biden COVID advisor rebutting Fauci and saying that double masking makes no sense at all, actually.
00:49:16.000 In terms of using the face cloth coverings, doubling them, actually we need to be very careful about that.
00:49:21.000 That may actually be counterproductive, not helpful.
00:49:24.000 We know, and I'm not an aerobiologist, but we know that in fact they may actually impede the movement of air in and out, causing it to actually escape in the big crevices between the cloth and your face.
00:49:36.000 That's a bigger problem, not a lesser problem, than one.
00:49:40.000 Whoops!
00:49:41.000 Whoopsie-doodle.
00:49:41.000 Well, Anthony Fauci being contradicted again.
00:49:43.000 I can't believe that the Biden administration would shut him down this way.
00:49:46.000 How cruel.
00:49:47.000 How wrong.
00:49:48.000 How vile.
00:49:49.000 Alrighty.
00:49:50.000 Well, you know what?
00:49:52.000 We've hit the weekend.
00:49:53.000 I hope that you have a safe and secure weekend.
00:49:56.000 And I hope that you don't burn things down over the weekend.
00:49:58.000 I keep saying this weekend after weekend.
00:49:59.000 Every weekend we come back and something new is burned.
00:50:01.000 So please don't do that.
00:50:02.000 We'll be back here later today with an additional hour of The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:50:05.000 First, you cannot forget to end your week by watching The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:50:08.000 Drew is officially back every Friday for an extended show.
00:50:10.000 He's got an exciting show planned for you tonight.
00:50:12.000 Head on over to dailywire.com this evening and tune in.
00:50:15.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:50:15.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:50:16.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.
00:50:24.000 Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.
00:50:26.000 Our Supervising Producers are Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
00:50:29.000 Production Manager, Paweł Lajdowski.
00:50:31.000 Our Associate Producers are Rebecca Doyle and Savannah Dominguez.
00:50:34.000 The show is edited by Adam Ciejewicz.
00:50:36.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
00:50:38.000 Hair and Makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.
00:50:40.000 Production Assistant, Jessica Kranz.
00:50:42.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
00:50:44.000 Copyright 2021.
00:50:46.000 Hey everybody, this is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:50:49.000 You know, some people are depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moon's turned to blood.
00:50:55.000 But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.