The Ben Shapiro Show - The Democrat-MS-13 Love Match

00:00:00.000 Well, folks, Democrats have what seems to be a somewhat target-rich environment, and they are blowing it yet again.

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00:00:27.000 I have to say, I am amazed that the Democrats are this bad at this.

00:00:32.000 It's just almost unbelievable how terrible Democrats are in this political moment.

00:00:37.000 So, let's say that you're a Democrat, and you are given a story where the Trump administration, its own DOJ, had admitted to making a mistake by deporting a man who had a withholding order on him, that he shouldn't be deported to that place.

00:00:51.000 And the administration looks like they just sort of ignored the withholding order, and then they were told by a court that they needed to facilitate this person's return, and then they didn't do much to facilitate the return, and then they got slapped down by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in some pretty brutal language.

00:01:03.000 That'd be a big win for you, right?

00:01:05.000 That's where you would jump on the due process is being denied, bad and wag.

00:01:09.000 And if it can happen to this guy, we don't even like this guy, but if it can happen to this deportee, then it can happen to anyone, because once due process is denied to anybody, it can be denied to everyone. 0.98

00:01:19.000 That would be the tactic that you use if you are a Democrat, unless you are these Democrats, in which case you apparently have your head so far up your own butt that you can actually spot polyps in your own colon.

00:01:31.000 That is the only explanation that I have here for why Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled down to El Salvador to try and broker a meeting with Kilmer Abrego Garcia. 0.96

00:01:42.000 Dilma Abrego Garcia is an illegal immigrant into the United States. 1.00

00:01:47.000 He had been found to be a proper target of deportation all the way back in 2019, but there was a withholding order placed on him because he claimed that if he were returned to El Salvador, he might be killed.

00:01:57.000 The federal government suspected back in 2019 that he was, in fact, a member of MS-13.

00:02:03.000 It turns out that in 2021, his wife filed charges against him.

00:02:07.000 She filed a police report, at the very least, claiming that he had engaged in serious domestic abuse.

00:02:12.000 The Trump administration then deported him despite.

00:02:15.000 But there's no doubt.

00:02:17.000 That this particular human being is no saint.

00:02:21.000 There are a wide variety of police reports that have him being brought up on charges on a wide variety of topics that would lead to his deportation.

00:02:31.000 There are accusations of everything ranging from human trafficking to drug trafficking to association with MS-13.

00:02:38.000 In short, Kilma Abrego Garcia is not a person who is a particularly sympathetic victim.

00:02:43.000 So, if you're trying to separate off the victim from the actual activity of the Trump administration, what you do is you ignore the victim and you focus in on the activity of the Trump administration.

00:02:51.000 That's the smart play.

00:02:52.000 The smart play is to say that the Trump administration is violating the law and that's a threat to the Constitution.

00:02:57.000 That would be the smart play here.

00:02:58.000 And it's not as though Democrats can't do it.

00:03:01.000 They can.

00:03:03.000 Literally yesterday, the federal appeals panel for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released an opinion from Judge Harvey Wilkinson.

00:03:12.000 Who is a pretty conservative judge.

00:03:14.000 This is not some sort of far-left Obama appointee judge.

00:03:17.000 He was appointed by Ronald Reagan.

00:03:18.000 At one point, he was considered a possibility to be on the Supreme Court during the Bush administration.

00:03:24.000 Wilkinson released an order yesterday that is absolutely brutal with regard to the government's treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

00:03:32.000 According to the order, quote, the government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13.

00:03:37.000 Perhaps, but perhaps not.

00:03:39.000 Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.

00:03:41.000 If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order.

00:03:47.000 Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or mistakenly deported.

00:03:51.000 Why should it not make what was wrong right?

00:03:54.000 And then this particular panel, again the opinion by Judge Harvey Wilkinson, says, It requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador.

00:04:08.000 Facilitation does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country's prisons that the withholding order forbids and further to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns.

00:04:20.000 Facilitation does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here.

00:04:27.000 Allowing all of this would facilitate foreign detention more than it would domestic return.

00:04:31.000 It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans with diverse views and persuasions have always stood.

00:04:39.000 And the order goes on from there, blasting the Trump administration, talking about how the executive branch seemed to be violating respect for the judiciary.

00:04:49.000 Quote, the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against each other in a conflict that promises to diminish both.

00:04:54.000 This is a losing proposition all around.

00:04:56.000 The judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy.

00:05:00.000 To which, by dint of custom and detachment, we can only sparingly reply.

00:05:03.000 The executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions, right?

00:05:07.000 So Democrats should be jumping all over this. 0.99

00:05:09.000 This would be the way to do it.

00:05:12.000 And in fact, President Trump himself knows that this is a vulnerability, which is why President Trump yesterday was asked in the Oval Office, he was doing a meeting with the Italian Prime Minister, George Maloney, and he was asked by the press about Obrego Garcia.

00:05:25.000 He said, listen, I'm not any part of this Obrego Garcia imprisonment story.

00:05:27.000 I really have nothing to do with it.

00:05:30.000 Well, I'm not involved in it.

00:05:31.000 I'm going to respond by saying you'll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ.

00:05:37.000 I've heard many things about him, and we'll have to find out what the truth is.

00:05:46.000 Okay, so the problem here is that Democrats aren't exactly focusing on that.

00:05:52.000 Instead of focusing on the rule of law questions, Chris Van Hollen, the senator from Maryland, He decided that actually the smart move would be to fly down to El Salvador and do a photo op with the suspected MS-13 member.

00:06:08.000 This was the bright move.

00:06:09.000 This was the thing that definitely had to happen.

00:06:12.000 So, Van Hollen shared a photo of himself with Abrego Garcia on X on Thursday.

00:06:17.000 He flew to El Salvador earlier this week to seek a meeting with Abrego Garcia.

00:06:21.000 He said, quote, I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar.

00:06:24.000 Tonight I had that chance.

00:06:25.000 He said he would carry a message back to his wife.

00:06:28.000 Nayeb Bukele, who is the president of El Salvador, then tweeted out photos of the senator with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

00:06:38.000 Again, a suspected MS-13 member who at the very least has a police record, accusations of wife beating and all the rest.

00:06:45.000 Bukele tweeted out, Kilmar Abrego Garcia miraculously risen from the death camps and torture, now sipping margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador.

00:06:56.000 Well. Bukele then indicated that nothing had changed.

00:06:59.000 Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody.

00:07:03.000 So this, of course, is a ridiculous own goal by the Democrats. 0.99

00:07:08.000 Taking pictures with the least sympathetic victims in the world, rather than focusing on the rule of law questions, is the biggest stupid own goal I have seen this week from the Democrats. 0.99

00:07:19.000 I say this week because they're doing it all the time. 0.99

00:07:21.000 And the White House immediately jumped on this.

00:07:23.000 They put out a tweet. 0.94

00:07:26.000 It's a picture of President Trump with Patty Morin, who is the mother of Rachel Morin, a woman who's a mother of five, who was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant.

00:07:34.000 It's a picture of Trump with her mother in the Oval Office, treating her sympathetically.

00:07:39.000 Next to a picture of Chris Van Hollen leaning forward and treating sympathetically the likely MS-13 member.

00:07:48.000 Genius level stuff here from Democrats.

00:07:50.000 And it just shows you the reactivity of our politics, the reactionary nature of our politics.

00:07:54.000 It is simply not possible any longer for people to hold two thoughts at the same time.

00:07:58.000 That maybe Kilmer Abrego Garcia is a bad guy who shouldn't be in the United States, and also due process should be accorded, and that law should be followed.

00:08:07.000 Democrats can't handle that, and so they have to valorize the bad guy.

00:08:11.000 They have to valorize Kilmer Abrego Garcia in order to somehow tar President Trump as the bad guy in this particular story.

00:08:17.000 It is political malpractice of the highest order.

00:08:21.000 Republicans are, of course, going to seize on this.

00:08:23.000 Now, again, the proper solution to this from a legal perspective is likely that if the United States could, if one senator could go down to El Salvador and basically pressure Bukele into allowing an MS-13 suspect to have lunch with the senator at a restaurant,

00:08:40.000 it seems to me that probably the administration can do more to facilitate the release of Abrego Garcia so he can return, get his day in court, and then be deported again.

00:08:50.000 Right? That is with no sympathy for Kilmar, Rodrigo Garcia, who should not be in our country, clearly.

00:08:55.000 The fact that Democrats cannot square that circle, the fact that they cannot and apparently have no capacity to simply put aside sympathy for some of the worst people in the world is a pretty amazing fail, like a giant fail.

00:09:09.000 Truly incredible stuff there from the Democrats.

00:09:11.000 And again, they're in an environment where they should be making hay while the sun shines with regards to the Trump administration because there are a bunch of issues where the Trump administration is particularly vulnerable.

00:09:20.000 One of those issues obviously remains with regard to the economy.

00:09:23.000 Democrats, you know, I'm not sure exactly what they are doing, but then again, I rarely know what Democrats are doing because they love big government, and I dislike big government.

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00:10:28.000 Also, tax season is now upon us.

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00:11:36.000 Terms apply.

00:11:37.000 So thanks to the tariff war particularly.

00:11:39.000 The economy is, in fact, slowing.

00:11:42.000 According to the New York Fed President John Williams, on Fox Business, they are expecting significant economic slowing this year over last year.

00:11:49.000 I definitely have a view that growth this year is going to be significantly slower than last year, probably somewhat below 1% GDP growth for the year, and unemployment will come up to about 4.5% to 5%.

00:12:03.000 So there's a slower economic outlook.

00:12:05.000 That's not a recession.

00:12:07.000 Okay, so...

00:12:08.000 Slower economic outlook, it may not be a recession, but it's not going to be great.

00:12:12.000 And that, of course, would be a positive view of the economy.

00:12:15.000 Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, one of Wall Street's most consistent profit engines is close to breaking down.

00:12:21.000 Even before President Trump's tariff chaos, buyout firms had been struggling to sell their portfolio companies and return money to anxious investors.

00:12:27.000 Now, recession fears and market turmoil have brought dealmaking to a near standstill.

00:12:31.000 Shares of Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, KKR, and other private equity fund managers are down 20% or more this year, far worse than the S&P 500s.

00:12:39.000 The longer that deal logjam lasts, the harder it will be for firms to hand money back to clients like pensions and endowments.

00:12:46.000 So basically, private equity funds are getting absolutely hammered by the uncertainty in the markets.

00:12:52.000 And right now, the only reason that the markets seem to be sort of roiling but not significantly dropping at this point, the real reason for that is because of uncertainty about what President Trump is going to do next.

00:13:03.000 The uncertainty inside the Trump administration's economic agenda means that there's still great hope on Wall Street that President Trump is going to drop the China tariffs, that he's going to blow giant holes through them, for example, that a bunch of trade deals are going to come down the pike.

00:13:15.000 And President Trump is feeding those hopes.

00:13:17.000 Yesterday, for example, he said that we are going to make a great deal with China.

00:13:20.000 Now, are there any ongoing conversations between the United States and China about the tariffs?

00:13:25.000 What does a great deal look like?

00:13:27.000 What exactly would China do to assure us that they're not going to steal $600 billion of IP every single year and spread their tentacles throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East? 0.56

00:13:36.000 Here's President Trump saying that a great deal is coming.

00:13:39.000 We're going to be a good deal.

00:13:42.000 We'll have a deal.

00:13:42.000 I think we're going to make a very good deal with China.

00:13:46.000 I think that you will see we'll make a very good deal with China.

00:13:51.000 Thank you.

00:13:53.000 Okay, so the markets, because President Trump is saying this sort of stuff, they're sort of waiting and hoping.

00:13:57.000 There's a lot of hope in the markets these days.

00:13:59.000 The same thing is true with regard to the EU.

00:14:01.000 So President Trump was asked yesterday, About making a deal with the European Union and European countries with regard to tariffs.

00:14:07.000 The United States was ripped off and taken advantage of by every country in the world, practically.

00:14:14.000 I mean, they have to say practically, but just about everyone.

00:14:17.000 That's not going to happen anymore, but we're going to make fair deals.

00:14:21.000 Okay, so what do those fair deals look like?

00:14:22.000 Nobody really knows at this point.

00:14:24.000 And the pain is going to start to be felt fairly quickly.

00:14:27.000 I'm talking to manufacturers in the United States, distributors in the United States.

00:14:30.000 The tariff cost is quite real.

00:14:32.000 And it's particularly real for businesses that are at the margin.

00:14:35.000 Giant businesses might be able to shift their shipping facilities and their manufacturing facilities to other countries that aren't getting hammered with the China tariffs.

00:14:43.000 But small guys are not going to be able to do that same sort of thing.

00:14:47.000 So Tim Cook can broker a deal with the White House to get Apple out of the tariff storm.

00:14:53.000 This is the problem with tariff regimes, that very often the way...

00:14:57.000 To avoid the real downside cost of the tariff regimes is the biggest companies pay their lobbyists to go into Washington, D.C. and exempt them from the exact regime that's supposed to punish the Chinese.

00:15:07.000 The reality is if you actually want to punish the Chinese, then you do have to hit Apple because Apple manufactures an enormous amount of product over in China.

00:15:15.000 But Cook was able to broker a sort of detente with the Trump administration, according to the Washington Post.

00:15:22.000 Cook spoke to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last week about the potential impact of the tariffs on iPhone prices.

00:15:27.000 Cook spoke to other senior officials in the White House as well.

00:15:30.000 He refrained from publicly criticizing the president or his policies on national TV, as many other executives have over the past several weeks.

00:15:36.000 And by the end of the week, the Trump administration agreed to exempt from import duties electronic products Apple produces in China.

00:15:42.000 That also granted reprieve to other firms like HP and Dell.

00:15:47.000 Trump did so despite the recommendations of senior White House aide Peter Navarro, who wanted all of those tariffs to remain in place.

00:15:52.000 And so Apple stock was sort of held up by all of that.

00:15:56.000 The problem is that these tariffs are going to bite.

00:16:00.000 So you either have to be willing to take the pain or you have to be willing to blow giant holes in it.

00:16:04.000 There really is no third choice.

00:16:07.000 China, for its part, by the way, continues to take a very strong stance against the United States.

00:16:13.000 President Xi Jinping, the dictator of China, he has spent the last week visiting various countries in Southeast Asia in an attempt to draw them closer to him.

00:16:21.000 One of the things that President Trump would have to do if he wished to actually win a trade war with China is not just cut China off.

00:16:26.000 From U.S. markets, but get other countries to make common cause with the United States in cutting China off from their markets.

00:16:32.000 You actually have to isolate China. 0.77

00:16:33.000 Otherwise, if you have countries that are triangulating with China, well, then China is hurt and the United States is hurt, but neither is sort of crippled in a serious enough fashion to stop Chinese growth and Chinese ambition.

00:16:46.000 So Xi has now visited Vietnam, visited Malaysia, visited Cambodia, and all of these are also manufacturing hubs and distribution hubs.

00:16:56.000 So what you easily could have is a situation which China draws closer to these countries, manufacturers, sends to Vietnam, Vietnam slaps a Vietnam label on it, comes to the United States anyway.

00:17:04.000 And thus sanctions are avoided.

00:17:06.000 This has always been a very real problem with international trade schemes and tariffs placed on one country.

00:17:11.000 How do you stop that sort of stuff from happening, especially because China is willing to cheat on all of these sorts of matters? 0.92

00:17:17.000 So what would we actually need to do to reshore?

00:17:20.000 Well, the answer is we would need time and we need to do it gradually.

00:17:23.000 And most of all.

00:17:24.000 What we really need to do is get rid of the regulatory schemes in the United States that make it difficult for people to build in the United States.

00:17:30.000 Now, all this talk about tariffs, how other countries have treated us unfairly.

00:17:33.000 We have treated ourselves unfairly.

00:17:35.000 We have treated our own manufacturers unfairly.

00:17:37.000 We have made it very difficult for people to do business in the manufacturing sector in the United States.

00:17:42.000 Good piece in the Wall Street Journal today by Sham Sankar and Julia Diamond.

00:17:47.000 Sham Sankar, of course, has been a guest on this program.

00:17:50.000 He's chief technology officer of Palantir Technologies.

00:17:52.000 Diamond is a partner at Allen& Company.

00:17:54.000 And they point out that nearly half of generic active pharmaceutical ingredients consumed in the United States originate in China.

00:18:02.000 In the past decade, the number of U.S. factories producing active pharmaceutical ingredients has fallen by more than 60%, largely because of state-subsidized foreign competition in China, which means America relies on drug source primarily or even exclusively from overseas.

00:18:16.000 More than 90% of antibiotics and antivirals have no U.S. producers.

00:18:21.000 Nearly half of all generic active pharmaceutical ingredients consumed in the United States originate in China.

00:18:26.000 More than 100 are only sourced in China.

00:18:29.000 So what exactly should be done?

00:18:32.000 According to Sankar and Diamond, the government can build incentive structures that make it financially attractive and fast to make pharmaceuticals in America.

00:18:39.000 No single incentive, tariffs included, is powerful enough on its own to onshore production.

00:18:45.000 Instead, policymakers have to use a lot of tools to stimulate greater investment in U.S. production.

00:18:51.000 There's plenty they could do.

00:18:52.000 Most of it has to do with tax benefits as well as deregulation.

00:18:57.000 Serious investment paired with technology and policy can catalyze a health reformation, they say.

00:19:01.000 But that sort of stuff takes time.

00:19:03.000 The problem is there ain't no time.

00:19:05.000 Meanwhile, the polling shows that while Americans are very hard on China, as they should be, and believe that China has screwed the United States on trade, as they have, Most Americans also understand that if these tariffs go forward, as they are currently constructed, Americans are going to get absolutely hammered in terms of their ability to buy,

00:19:25.000 in terms of their own businesses.

00:19:26.000 Brand new pullout from Pew Research Center.

00:19:29.000 And what they find is that in total, a significant majority of Americans, or plurality of Americans rather, believe that China mostly benefits from trade with the United States.

00:19:42.000 Some 25% who believe that both benefit.

00:19:46.000 Bottom line is that even Democrats are split on that particular question, where Americans are not split on whether the tariffs will have a bad effect or a good effect on them.

00:19:58.000 According to this poll, 52% of Americans believe that the tariffs will have a bad effect on the United States.

00:20:04.000 53% believe that they will have a bad effect on them personally.

00:20:09.000 Only 24% say...

00:20:12.000 That the tariffs will have a good effect on the United States.

00:20:14.000 Only 10% believe the tariffs will have a positive effect for them personally.

00:20:19.000 Those are not the kind of numbers that you need to sustain a trade war that has not been properly explained.

00:20:25.000 If you're going to say that there is no cost, then you have to demonstrate how the cost will not materialize.

00:20:29.000 If you are saying that there is cost, you have to explain what the cost is likely to be to get people to buy into this sort of stuff.

00:20:35.000 Instead, the Trump administration Is now focusing on Jerome Powell as though Jerome Powell can bail the Trump administration out of its tariff policy by essentially inflating the currency through lower interest rates.

00:20:45.000 So yesterday, President Trump threatened Jerome Powell again.

00:20:48.000 Now, Jerome Powell got it totally wrong during the Biden administration.

00:20:51.000 Why? Because he thought that inflation would be transitory.

00:20:54.000 And so he failed to raise the interest rates until it was too late.

00:20:58.000 And by the time he raised the interest rates, inflation was a permanent feature of the American financial landscape.

00:21:04.000 President Trump is basically asking him to do that again.

00:21:06.000 He's basically asking him to lower interest rates in the face of inflationary tariff regimes that are weakening the American dollar and making it more likely that Americans have to pay more for the goods and services they consume.

00:21:18.000 So here's President Trump basically trying to get Jerome Powell to bail him out here.

00:21:23.000 Oh, he'll leave.

00:21:24.000 If I ask him to, he'll be out of there.

00:21:26.000 But I don't think he's doing the job.

00:21:31.000 He's too late, always too late, a little slow.

00:21:35.000 And I'm not happy with him.

00:21:38.000 I let him know it.

00:21:40.000 And if I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast.

00:21:44.000 Believe me.

00:21:46.000 OK, so those sorts of threats are not going to make the market sanguine because what it sounds like there is forget about Powell.

00:21:51.000 What it sounds like is that President Trump does not want to move off of his tariff stance, which is, in fact, inflationary, and that he actually wants to sort of backfill that by firing the chair of the Federal Reserve and putting in somebody friendlier to his agenda.

00:22:03.000 Who will lower the interest rates despite the fact that inflation is actually likely going to move the wrong way in the aftermath of the supply chain disruptions that are going to occur because of these tariff regimes?

00:22:14.000 Apparently, President Trump has been thinking about firing Jerome Powell for some time, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:22:19.000 President Trump has for months privately discussed firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, but he hasn't made a final decision about whether to try to oust him before his term ends next year.

00:22:27.000 Apparently, Trump has spoken with Kevin Walsh, a former Fed governor, about potentially firing Powell before that term ends and possibly selecting Walsh to be his replacement.

00:22:34.000 Walsh himself says, no, don't do that.

00:22:36.000 He says he should let the Fed chair complete his term without interference, especially because if you want to really roil the markets and freak them out, fire Jerome Powell and then substitute somebody else who's just going to, quote unquote, do the bidding of the Trump administration.

00:22:49.000 Make monetary policy subject to the whims of Peter Navarro and the Trump trade team.

00:22:54.000 You want to freak the markets out?

00:22:56.000 That is one amazing way to do that.

00:22:58.000 President Trump accuses Jerome Powell of playing politics.

00:23:02.000 The only thing that's gone up actually is interest rates because we have a Federal Reserve Chairman that is playing politics.

00:23:10.000 Somebody that I've never been very fond of actually.

00:23:13.000 But he's playing politics.

00:23:16.000 Interest rates should be down now.

00:23:17.000 They should be coming down.

00:23:19.000 In Europe, as you know, they reduced them.

00:23:22.000 I guess seven times.

00:23:24.000 It looks like they're going to reduce them again and again and again.

00:23:26.000 But our guy wants to play cute.

00:23:30.000 Well, I mean, one of the reasons also that the Europeans are doing that is because they wish to, for example, expend much more money on things like Ukraine, whereas we are not doing that sort of stuff.

00:23:39.000 Scott Bessent, who again is the voice of reason inside the administration on these issues, apparently has been repeatedly cautioning the White House not to attempt to fire.

00:23:46.000 Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, he said that would risk destabilizing financial markets, which of course is absolutely true.

00:23:52.000 That of course is true. 0.66

00:23:54.000 So, by the way, could Trump even fire Jerome Powell?

00:23:57.000 I asked our friends and sponsors over at Perplexity, which is, by the way, the best AI search service just is, does the president have the power to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve?

00:24:06.000 And here's what they say.

00:24:07.000 The president does not have the unilateral power to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve simply because of the policy disagreements or dissatisfaction with monetary decisions.

00:24:14.000 The Federal Reserve Act specifies that members of the Fed's Board of Governors, including the chair, can only be removed for cause.

00:24:20.000 This phrase has consistently been interpreted to mean reasons such as misconduct, neglect of duty, or malfeasance not for differences over policy or performance.

00:24:28.000 In 1935, the Supreme Court set a key precedent ruling that members of independent regulatory commissions like the Federal Reserve can't be dismissed by the president at will, but only for cause.

00:24:38.000 However, it'll be interesting to see.

00:24:39.000 The Supreme Court is considering a lot of cases right now about...

00:24:42.000 The president's power to fire people at independent agencies.

00:24:45.000 However, can Congress be overruled in this fashion?

00:24:51.000 Unlikely. Unlikely.

00:24:53.000 So, it'll be fascinating to see how that plays out in the courts.

00:24:56.000 In the markets, it will not play out well at all.

00:24:58.000 Meanwhile, the instability globally is not relegated to the financial markets.

00:25:02.000 It is also true in terms of foreign policy.

00:25:05.000 So, the Ukrainians seem to be doing their best at this point to try and give President Trump what he wants.

00:25:11.000 So there was a lot of talk a few weeks ago about Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, visiting the United States and signing a rare earth mineral deal.

00:25:17.000 You remember, that's why he was there in late February.

00:25:19.000 And then it turned into this face-off between President Trump, J.D. Vance, and Zelensky in the Oval that got really ugly.

00:25:26.000 And Zelensky ended up being ejected from the White House and all the rest.

00:25:30.000 You remember all of that.

00:25:31.000 That was all originally over this rare earth minerals deal.

00:25:34.000 And right now, the United States is desperate for a new supply of rare earth minerals because China is cutting off the supply is one of the main spigots that China has to control the United States economy and harm the US economy.

00:25:45.000 Well, yesterday, President Trump.

00:25:46.000 Well, we have a minerals deal, which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday, Scott, next Thursday.

00:25:59.000 Soon. And I assume they're going to live up to the deal.

00:26:03.000 So we'll see.

00:26:03.000 But we have a deal on that.

00:26:07.000 Now, that's that's great.

00:26:09.000 The only way the benefits of that deal materialize is if Ukraine survives.

00:26:14.000 A deal with a country that no longer exists because Russia has walked all the way through it is not a deal at all. 0.56

00:26:21.000 And ain't going to be no drilling for rare earth minerals in a war zone.

00:26:24.000 That's just not something that's going to happen.

00:26:26.000 And so the precondition to the United States seeing the benefit of the bargain would be some sort of peace or at least a ceasefire brokered between Ukraine and Vladimir Putin.

00:26:35.000 The problem, of course, is that Vladimir Putin has shown zero willingness to this point to come to the table.

00:26:40.000 This is just a fact.

00:26:42.000 Vladimir Putin is lying.

00:26:44.000 When he says that he wants peace or that he wants a ceasefire, there has been literally zero evidence that this is the case.

00:26:49.000 And I understand that Steve Witkoff, the supposedly amazing negotiator, is brokering something in Ukraine.

00:26:54.000 I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that Steve Witkoff can negotiate his way on foreign policy out of a paper bag.

00:27:01.000 Seriously, what is he doing?

00:27:04.000 It's got to be humiliating to the White House.

00:27:06.000 President Trump came into office saying that within 24 hours, he was going to broker a peace treaty or some sort of ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.

00:27:13.000 And no one believed that that was a literal thing, but they thought that it was achievable fairly quickly, especially because President Trump himself had laid out how he was going to do it in broad strokes.

00:27:23.000 And the answer was going to be, get the Ukrainians to the table by saying that our support does not last forever. 0.72

00:27:28.000 We're not going to do this interminably.

00:27:31.000 And at the same time, go to the Russians and say, listen, You guys should come to the table, because if you don't come to the table, we're going to clock you into next week. 0.66

00:27:38.000 That is the way you actually get both sides, and you have to provide incentives for both sides to get to the table.

00:27:42.000 You can't just incentivize one side to come to the table and hope for the beneficence of Vladimir Putin, who is in fact a brutal dictator, who throws people off the third story of buildings.

00:27:51.000 Like, you can't do that, and then somehow assume that Vladimir, what would Putin's interest be in coming to the table, seeing the aid from the United States to Ukraine going away, regardless of whether he comes to the table?

00:28:02.000 He may as well just stick it out.

00:28:04.000 Meanwhile, conflict is still continuing around the world.

00:28:06.000 Israel is still under attack.

00:28:07.000 Missile fire has resumed on multiple fronts.

00:28:09.000 Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza.

00:28:12.000 All enemies openly seeking Israel's destruction.

00:28:14.000 Here in the United States, we don't really imagine what it would be like living under the constant threat of terrorism and rocket attacks day after day.

00:28:20.000 But that is the harsh reality in Israel today.

00:28:23.000 Parents taking their children to school suddenly having to fall to the ground and lie on top of their small kids, desperately trying to comfort them as sirens blare throughout neighborhoods.

00:28:30.000 The horrific events of October 7th made painfully clear the next attack against Israel is not theoretical.

00:28:34.000 It is happening right now.

00:28:36.000 We may have precious little time to prepare for what comes next.

00:28:38.000 We must act now before it's too late.

00:28:40.000 That's precisely why I partner with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to help provide immediate life-saving aid and essential security measures.

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00:29:02.000 Head on over to benforthefellowship.org today.

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00:30:09.000 The approach of the Trump administration on this has been to be very soft on Russia publicly, has been to be really hard on Ukraine, both publicly and privately.

00:30:19.000 And that is not bearing the kinds of fruit that President Trump is obviously hoping for.

00:30:25.000 So yesterday, for example, President Trump was asked about reports that China was sending weaponry to Russia, which clearly is happening. 0.98

00:30:32.000 China, of course, is backing Russia in this war.

00:30:33.000 China has basically made Russia its oil supplier and proxy state in this war in Ukraine.

00:30:39.000 The same thing is true with regard to North Korea, which has been sending actual honest-to-God soldiers to Russia to fight in Ukraine.

00:30:45.000 The same thing is true of Iran, which has been sending drone technology to Russia to fight in Ukraine.

00:30:50.000 And all the bad guys are unified on this one.

00:30:53.000 It's the good guys, the people on the other side of the aisle, who can't figure it out.

00:30:56.000 In any case, President Trump was asked about China sending weaponry to Russia, and he basically pooh-poohed it.

00:31:01.000 He basically said, well, we don't know that it's happening.

00:31:05.000 On Ukraine, sir, President Zelensky has said he has evidence that China is supplying weaponry or ammunition to Russia.

00:31:13.000 Do you have any evidence on those lines?

00:31:15.000 And also, he said we could see a minerals deal signed this week.

00:31:18.000 Well, we have a minerals deal, which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday, Scott, next Thursday.

00:31:24.000 Soon. And I assume they're going to live up to the deal, so we'll see.

00:31:28.000 But we have a deal on that.

00:31:32.000 No, I have no comment on that.

00:31:33.000 I have no idea.

00:31:34.000 That's his statement, not mine.

00:31:38.000 Okay, so, again, the sort of downplaying of Russian activity, that problem continued at the UN, where the United States voted against a UN General Assembly resolution on cooperation with the Council of Europe, not because the United States doesn't want to cooperate with the Council of Europe, but because it included language condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

00:31:58.000 Jonathan Schreier, the acting U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said, quote, So what exactly did the resolution say that was so objectionable?

00:32:13.000 quote, recognizing also that the unprecedented challenges now facing Europe following the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and against Georgia prior to that, and the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation and the Council of Europe

00:32:23.000 Quote, That is the chief thing that is being objected to, is that it blames Russia for invading surrounding nations, which Russia has repeatedly done for a couple of decades here,

00:32:39.000 and mentions multiple times the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

00:32:43.000 Okay, so I have a question.

00:32:45.000 Has that softer approach to Russia been met with a softer approach by Vladimir Putin, or is he pushing where he believes there is mush?

00:32:51.000 Well, the answer, pretty obviously, is the latter, which led to a breakdown in negotiations yesterday.

00:32:57.000 Secretary of State Marco Rubio was attempting to broker some sort of rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine.

00:33:06.000 He said yesterday that if there is no peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in the short term, then the United States will walk away from the table.

00:33:15.000 Which, again, Russia's like, okay. 0.81

00:33:18.000 Don't threaten Russia with a good time.

00:33:20.000 The whole idea here of the United States playing quote-unquote honest broker is that it is going to hold both sides to account.

00:33:25.000 If the United States walks away, Russia is going to really feel its own. 0.87

00:33:29.000 Russia is going to believe that the United States is not only cutting off aid, they're cutting off diplomatic pressure on Russia.

00:33:35.000 Like, where's the threat here?

00:33:36.000 Here's the Secretary of State yesterday.

00:33:39.000 I think it's important to remind everybody that the Ukraine war is a terrible thing, but it's not our war.

00:33:44.000 We didn't start it.

00:33:45.000 The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years, and we want it to end. 1.00

00:33:50.000 But it's not our war.

00:33:51.000 I want everyone to understand that.

00:33:53.000 And the reason why I make that point is the president has spent 87 days at the highest level of his government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to an end.

00:34:01.000 We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we're engaging both sides.

00:34:11.000 Okay, well, if it's not possible and we walk away, that is in fact enabling the Russians. 0.96

00:34:16.000 Let's just be clear about that.

00:34:17.000 If the United States walks totally away from both negotiations and any sort of military support for Ukraine, which side does that help?

00:34:25.000 We're not helping the Russians, so we're not sending them military aid.

00:34:30.000 What exactly is the threat to get the Russians to the table? 0.65

00:34:32.000 Peace through strength requires the credible threat of use of economic force, military force, or any other sort of diplomatic action.

00:34:41.000 If you just walk away, who does that benefit?

00:34:44.000 Russia's sitting there going, this is great. 0.99

00:34:46.000 Like, we've been intransigent, and then the threat from the United States is, well, if you don't make a deal, if you, Russia, if you won't make a deal, then we are walking away from the deal-making table.

00:34:55.000 Russia doesn't want to make a deal.

00:34:56.000 What do they care?

00:34:57.000 That makes them happier than anything.

00:35:00.000 And the Europeans aren't going to step into the breach. 0.73

00:35:03.000 I mean, you can't trust the Europeans to do anything right. 1.00

00:35:06.000 So, listen, maybe the Europeans do.

00:35:08.000 Maybe that's the end product here, is that the United States walks away, and the Europeans have to step up, and maybe they should. 0.58

00:35:15.000 Maybe they should.

00:35:16.000 But if that's the case, we should just recognize this war is going to last a much longer time.

00:35:20.000 If the goal is to get to the end of the war, if that's the actual goal, less killing, end of the war, if you want the rare earth minerals deal to actually materialize into, you know, rare earth minerals, then what you would want is the United States applying our unique capacity in the world to get Russia to the table.

00:35:35.000 That's what you would want.

00:35:37.000 And I'm waiting to see the incredible diplomatic leisure domain of Steve Woodcoff and team in this particular area because I have yet to see it.

00:35:46.000 Meanwhile, our White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan had an opportunity to actually go visit the unveiling of the RFK files with Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI.

00:35:55.000 Today's a big day.

00:35:58.000 We are releasing the documents that have been sitting here at the National Archives Records Agency around the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

00:36:09.000 Just the other day we discovered and found another 50,000 pages specifically related to the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

00:36:17.000 There are more questions than answers.

00:36:19.000 These are files that have been in boxes, in storage, never scanned before, never reviewed by the public before.

00:36:27.000 And thanks to President Trump's leadership and his executive order, we have had well over 100 people going page by page, scanning them in.

00:36:37.000 All to lead us to this day, where the 10,000 pages that have been sitting here are now going to be available online at archives.gov.

00:36:47.000 You mentioned that you spoke with RFK Jr. about the release of these files.

00:36:51.000 Is he aware of the developments with these and has interest in looking into these questions as well?

00:36:56.000 His words were,"You have to get it all out there." We got to also go into the vault here at the National Archives and see artifacts that many people don't get the opportunity to see related to the death of JFK and also of RFK.

00:37:14.000 So a really fascinating day, and we're excited to share this interview with you.

00:37:21.000 Joining us on the line to discuss is Mary Margaret Olehan.

00:37:24.000 Welcome to the show.

00:37:25.000 How was that experience?

00:37:26.000 What was that like?

00:37:27.000 Well, good morning, Ben.

00:37:28.000 It was very, very cool.

00:37:30.000 I was not expecting this at all.

00:37:32.000 You know, during Easter week, I was thinking we were winding down, getting ready to go home and see my family.

00:37:36.000 And then I got a call.

00:37:38.000 The director of national intelligence was open to doing an interview with us with the Daily Wire in the National Archives about the release of the RFK files, which no other reporters had seen yet.

00:37:49.000 And so what an honor to be in there with her and to thumb through these files with her and to look at them, to see these photographs.

00:37:56.000 And to hear about what she has found already from these files.

00:38:00.000 She told us that there was no smoking gun in there, but there are some things that are going to leave people wondering whether we have an accurate understanding of that assassination as it has been told to us.

00:38:12.000 So this is huge.

00:38:14.000 The files are now live on the National Archives, and we released our videos and our story this morning, and it's just a very...

00:38:22.000 Very cool thing to be a part of.

00:38:24.000 And to get to see these files myself and some of these artifacts that are in the National Archives was just so cool.

00:38:32.000 So what were some of the artifacts that you saw in the National Archives?

00:38:35.000 And also, why are those not public at this point?

00:38:37.000 That's a great question, Ben.

00:38:38.000 And actually, as we were walking through the National Archives, Director Gabbard said that to one of the staff that was walking with us.

00:38:45.000 His name was Jim.

00:38:46.000 And she said...

00:38:46.000 Why are these artifacts not open to the public?

00:38:49.000 And he said, I don't really know.

00:38:50.000 That's a good question.

00:38:52.000 And right then and there, she said, why don't we open it up to the public?

00:38:55.000 And I kind of laughed and said, oh, is this how it works?

00:38:58.000 And she said, yes, that's how this administration works.

00:39:01.000 They move really quickly and they're all about transparency.

00:39:04.000 So some of these artifacts that we saw included the shirt that Lee Harvey Oswald was wearing when he was shot and killed.

00:39:11.000 That shirt has a bullet hole in it.

00:39:14.000 You can see.

00:39:15.000 Where the bullet entered the shirt and ultimately killed him.

00:39:18.000 But we also saw some really, really, I would say, unique and exclusive items that are Buried down in the National Archives there, such as some of the bullet casings related to the RFK or the JFK assassinations.

00:39:31.000 We saw the camera that was used to record the JFK assassination.

00:39:37.000 And actually, Ben, I got to hold it.

00:39:39.000 So this was just, I'm a little bit of a history nerd.

00:39:41.000 I was nerding out and trying to be professional in this interview.

00:39:45.000 And I told her, she was laughing.

00:39:47.000 I said, I'm trying to be a really good reporter here, but I'm so excited that this is all happening.

00:39:52.000 And I got to see some of these files laying out on the table.

00:39:55.000 I also saw a whole stack of boxes that said MLK files.

00:40:00.000 So I have a feeling that those are about to emerge very soon as well.

00:40:04.000 Okay.

00:40:06.000 So, obviously, that's huge news.

00:40:08.000 We're going to go through all of that.

00:40:09.000 I'm sure the internet will tear all of this apart.

00:40:11.000 And, you know, the Director of National Intelligence has said it'll ask more questions than it will answer, which, of course, you know...

00:40:18.000 These questions are likely to remain unanswered for people who don't feel the answers are sufficient for the rest of time.

00:40:23.000 Meanwhile, the Vice President of the United States is heading over to the Vatican this weekend.

00:40:28.000 That was also another story that you were working on.

00:40:31.000 Yes, so Vice President J.D. Vance is headed to the Vatican today.

00:40:36.000 Actually, I believe he's there.

00:40:37.000 They're a little behind us time-wise, but he'll be attending a Good Friday service at St. Peter's Basilica, this beautiful historic basilica in Rome.

00:40:46.000 And his family will be there throughout the Holy Week weekend into Easter Sunday, I believe.

00:40:51.000 And then they'll be heading to India, I was told, for some meetings that they'll engage in with officials out there before they travel back to the United States.

00:40:59.000 So a jam-packed week.

00:41:01.000 We also know that the Italian Prime Minister was at the White House yesterday, and I was just reading some of the pool reports from my colleague White House reporters.

00:41:11.000 Who said that when J.D. Vance arrived to meet with Giorgia Malani in Italy today, she said to him, I missed you because she hadn't seen him for about maybe 24 hours.

00:41:22.000 So that's a cute little back and forth between them in Italy only this morning.

00:41:27.000 So I'm excited to see how these visits go.

00:41:29.000 And, you know, I'm a Catholic and I'm interested to see and to watch the vice president's visit in Italy and in Rome as he gets to partake in some of these really special ceremonies.

00:41:41.000 For many Catholics, that's a dream to be able to attend these services and masses in Italy, in Rome itself.

00:41:49.000 That's our senior White House reporter, Mary Margaret Olihan.

00:41:52.000 Mary Margaret, hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend and get some rest.

00:41:56.000 Thank you so much, Ben.

00:41:57.000 You too.

00:41:58.000 Meanwhile, the President of the United States made a very strong stand yesterday with regards to the Second Amendment.

00:42:04.000 So there was this horrible shooting that happened at Florida State University.

00:42:08.000 The gunman has been identified.

00:42:11.000 I don't do the names of mass shooters because it gives additional credibility to mass shooters who are interested in notoriety.

00:42:19.000 But this person was the son of a sheriff's deputy who apparently had access to one of her weapons.

00:42:24.000 Again, this appears to be somebody who snapped, was mentally ill, not a shock.

00:42:28.000 A spokesperson with the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital confirmed to CNN a local hospital received multiple patients with gunshot wounds.

00:42:34.000 At least six patients were transported to the hospital with those gunshot wounds.

00:42:37.000 One in critical condition, others in serious condition as well.

00:42:42.000 CNN did what it usually does.

00:42:43.000 They spoke with somebody who was sheltering at the time one of the students was on campus who immediately called for gun control.

00:42:50.000 Yeah, no, it's no situation that anyone should be dealing with, no matter what.

00:42:55.000 I mean, it's just, that's just, you shouldn't have to think about that when you're going to school trying to get your degree, because I'm graduating in two weeks.

00:43:04.000 And it's just, I mean, in general.

00:43:06.000 It should not happen to anyone, no matter what.

00:43:09.000 So that's the main takeaway, is that, you know, you go to school to get your degree, make friends, make memories.

00:43:16.000 You're not supposed to go to school to experience stuff like this.

00:43:21.000 Well, obviously, this would normally turn into a giant series of claims by Democrats about how they need gun control.

00:43:27.000 That's been a loser for them for well over a decade at this point.

00:43:31.000 Democrats claiming after every mass shooting that this requires some sort of quote-unquote assault weapons ban. 0.51

00:43:35.000 President Trump was having none of it.

00:43:36.000 Well, he said that what happened was absolutely horrible and he was horrified by it.

00:43:39.000 He said, you know, I'm the president of the United States and I do have to protect the Second Amendment.

00:43:44.000 Well, I'm going to have to.

00:43:45.000 Look, I'm a big advocate of the Second Amendment.

00:43:48.000 I have been from the beginning.

00:43:49.000 I protected it.

00:43:50.000 And these things are terrible.

00:43:53.000 But the gun doesn't do the shooting.

00:43:56.000 The people do.

00:43:57.000 It's, you know, a phrase that's used probably too often.

00:44:02.000 Okay, so.

00:44:03.000 Again, one of the things that President Trump is great for, honestly, is preventing the excesses of the left.

00:44:08.000 It's something that President Trump has two jobs.

00:44:10.000 One is to push the ball forward on a wide variety of measures that conservatives want and that Americans want.

00:44:15.000 The other is to stop the excesses of the left.

00:44:17.000 And normally, Democrats would use this, again, as a leaping off point for a call for gigantic, large-scale arms seizures or for bans on the sale of arms or all the rest.

00:44:28.000 The fact that's not even a discussion is definitely one of the benefits of the Trump administration.

00:44:33.000 Meanwhile, the Trump administration is still trying to figure out exactly what it wants to do about Iran.

00:44:38.000 And Steve Witkoff is leading many of the negotiations with regard to Ukraine, with regard to Iran.

00:44:43.000 There are supposed to be these indirect negotiations happening between the United States and Iran.

00:44:47.000 Iran obviously attempting to slow walk things, open up its economy. 0.95

00:44:50.000 What they're trying to do is get the Trump administration to re-embrace a deal that President Trump called the worst deal of all time when he ran for office the first time, which was, of course, the Iran nuclear weapons deal.

00:45:00.000 Cut. The bright red line is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

00:45:20.000 That is unacceptable.

00:45:22.000 That's been President Trump's statement from the start.

00:45:28.000 One could ask if you need enriched uranium at 60% for a peaceful program.

00:45:34.000 I'm not in those negotiations.

00:45:36.000 I don't know what questions will be asked.

00:45:39.000 But that is the bright red line.

00:45:43.000 Okay, so what happens in those negotiations and what exactly does that mean for practical negotiations?

00:45:50.000 Because again, the bright red line only gets crossed, you know, them getting nuclear weapons once they announce they have a nuclear weapon.

00:45:56.000 And so the question is how you forestall that in the first place.

00:45:58.000 There's a big New York Times article that we talked about yesterday on the show suggesting that Israel had considered a strike and that the United States had said it would not participate in that strike thanks to the intervention of figures in the administration ranging from J.D. Vance to Whitcoff.

00:46:12.000 In any case, President Trump was asked about that story yesterday.

00:46:16.000 He said, I didn't wave off the attack.

00:46:17.000 We just have to see how things play out.

00:46:20.000 I wouldn't say waved off.

00:46:21.000 I'm not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death.

00:46:31.000 And I'd like to see that.

00:46:32.000 That's my first option.

00:46:34.000 If there's a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran. 0.82

00:46:40.000 And I think Iran is wanting to talk.

00:46:45.000 So that's President Trump making clear that all options are on the table.

00:46:47.000 As far as whether Iran wants to talk, again, we keep hearing this, that China wants to talk about trade, or Iran wants to talk about nuclear weapons, or Russia wants to talk about peace.

00:46:54.000 When that stuff starts to materialize, I'll get excited.

00:46:57.000 Until that point, I'm going to assume the worst from geopolitical enemies of the United States, Russia, Iran, and China.

00:47:03.000 That seems like the intelligent way of dealing with their jabber.

00:47:09.000 Are they willing to actually put skin in the game?

00:47:11.000 If the answer is no, then options become significantly more limited.

00:47:16.000 All righty.

00:47:17.000 Meanwhile, on the cultural front, it's a Friday.

00:47:20.000 That means it's time to talk some culture.

00:47:21.000 And I've been made aware of an artist who calls herself Horse Girl.

00:47:27.000 Now, as with all types of this sort of nonsense, Horse Girl is not spelled like Horse Girl.

00:47:35.000 It's spelled horse, G-I-I-R, large L. Don't know why.

00:47:41.000 This person is also known as Stella Stallion.

00:47:45.000 Embodying, that's the character.

00:47:47.000 Half horse, half human.

00:47:49.000 Not like a centaur.

00:47:52.000 Not like one half is a horse and one half is a human.

00:47:54.000 Like Island of Dr. Moreau kind of stuff.

00:47:58.000 Like muzzle ears, heart-shaped spot on the face.

00:48:03.000 Horse Girl keeps her real identity secret.

00:48:05.000 She calls herself a simple human horse as opposed to a complex human horse.

00:48:09.000 Horse Girl first entered the spotlight. 1.00

00:48:11.000 Why is this relevant?

00:48:12.000 Because this person performed at Coachella.

00:48:14.000 And it's apparently a thing now.

00:48:15.000 Horse Girl first entered the spotlight in 2022 with the hit song, My Barn, My Rules, which I got to admit is kind of hilarious.

00:48:22.000 Long made, big boots, shiny coat, what new?

00:48:26.000 Long ears, so cute, nine tails, good mood.

00:48:29.000 Good mood.

00:48:31.000 Good mood. 0.93

00:48:32.000 I'm not the f***ing flash on my face. 0.86

00:48:35.000 Long made, big boots, shiny coat, what new? 0.93

00:48:39.000 Long ears, so cute, nine tails, good mood.

00:48:43.000 So, this is creepy and horrifying.

00:48:45.000 Apparently, the lyrics to this are...

00:48:47.000 Okay. So,

00:49:06.000 yeah, it's basically Cole Porter.

00:49:08.000 You know, very solid stuff right there.

00:49:11.000 Her debut...

00:49:13.000 Album was called Very Important Pony.

00:49:16.000 And the original big song on it was called Material Horse, which I guess is a takeoff on Material Girl, like from Madonna, I suppose.

00:49:25.000 This person has 560,000 monthly Spotify listeners.

00:49:29.000 I will, so apparently her musical inspirations include Crazy Frog, Hampton the Hamster, Schnuffle the Bunny, and Whale Composers.

00:49:39.000 I have no idea what any of that means.

00:49:41.000 And thanks to producer Jess for compiling this nightmare.

00:49:46.000 She has performed at many major venues, including Coachella Weekend One.

00:49:51.000 Here's her song Eat, Sleep, Slay.

00:49:54.000 I heard you got some hate, got some hate in your sack.

00:49:57.000 I heard that once you tried it, you will never go back.

00:50:00.000 I wanna take a bite, take a bite if that's all right.

00:50:03.000 Cause he's what I like, yeah, he's on my mic.

00:50:05.000 I should eat.

00:50:07.000 Why? I don't know.

00:50:09.000 When does the asteroid come?

00:50:11.000 It's a big deal.

00:50:20.000 Okay, so it's a lady dressed up as a horse. 1.00

00:50:22.000 Cool. Cool, cool.

00:50:24.000 Everything is fine in Western civilization.

00:50:26.000 Things are going really, really well.

00:50:27.000 Probably we should take notes from the Gen Zers. 1.00

00:50:29.000 They seem well.

00:50:30.000 They seem very well.

00:50:31.000 She credits her musical passion, if you can call that music, to her upbringing and claims to have been discovered by Whitney Horstan, which is really funny, actually.

00:50:38.000 Quote, I got into it more professionally after we did an annual Harvest Feast Festival, and I was discovered by a really, really famous horse, also a singer, Whitney Horsten.

00:50:47.000 I don't...

00:50:47.000 Is that person really famous?

00:50:50.000 Whitney Horsten, had you ever heard of that until this moment?

00:50:52.000 Ever since then, I've been galloping around stages, and three years ago, I made the crossover into the human music space a bit little more.

00:50:57.000 It's been very fun.

00:51:01.000 Apparently, on tour, she requests kombucha, fresh veggies, dried fruits, and nuts.

00:51:06.000 But avoids hay.

00:51:08.000 Quote, the thing with hay is it's a very unhealthy snack.

00:51:10.000 I love hay, but it's like sugar.

00:51:11.000 Same thing.

00:51:12.000 When I'm touring, to just have the energy levels, I tend to try and just be a little more on the healthy food side.

00:51:16.000 The hay can come after the tour.

00:51:20.000 And she is apparently concerned about ketamine shortages affecting those who need it medically, including horses.

00:51:27.000 So she says that because the humans are using the ketamine, the horses don't have the ketamine.

00:51:32.000 Well, I feel like...

00:51:35.000 Nothing would be lost to human society if Coachella went away.

00:51:39.000 That's sort of my short take there.

00:51:40.000 I have no more on Horse Girl, and there's not much more I can say on this other than the sort of lack of spiritual humanity in all of this is quite evident.

00:51:50.000 When human beings want to be animals, that is never a good sign for a civilization.

00:51:54.000 Being human means to actually leave behind the aspects that make you an animal in many ways.

00:52:01.000 And to be a civilized human being is to leave behind the idea that you ought to be like the horses.

00:52:07.000 Obviously, humans are animals, but we are also ensouled animals with moral values and duties in the world.

00:52:12.000 And the more we embrace this idea that actually humans and horses are the same, the worse it is for humans.

00:52:17.000 Very, very bad.

00:52:19.000 Okay, in other news, other cultural news.

00:52:20.000 Apparently, a new movie has been announced, a new Star Wars film.

00:52:24.000 It's directed by Sean Levy, and it comes off...

00:52:28.000 The Rise of Skywalker and that entire series, the Force Awakens series, which was not good.

00:52:33.000 Ryan Gosling is going to be starring in it.

00:52:35.000 It's called Star Wars Starfighter, which, you know, I'm interested.

00:52:40.000 I will admit that sounds interesting to me.

00:52:42.000 It's a straight story of an X-Wing fighter, for example.

00:52:47.000 But you have to figure out exactly what the universe looks like post-Rise of Skywalker.

00:52:50.000 This has always been the problem in the Star Wars universe, that you know what things look like.

00:52:54.000 From basically the end of the Republic to the death of the Empire.

00:52:57.000 And that whole world is really interesting.

00:52:59.000 But post the death of the Empire and the New Republic, they've really never known quite where to go with that.

00:53:06.000 The Mandalorian kind of exists in that world a little bit.

00:53:10.000 But actually, no, Mandalorian is before that.

00:53:12.000 So there's actually not much that exists in the world after that that's interesting because they don't know what that world looks like.

00:53:17.000 As far as Sean Levy, his films, he was a producer on Arrival, which is a good film.

00:53:24.000 He's an executive producer on Stranger Things.

00:53:27.000 He was also a collaborator with Ryan Reynolds by directing Free Guy, The Atom Project, and Deadpool, and Wolverine, all of which are not good.

00:53:35.000 So, I don't know, man.

00:53:38.000 I don't know.

00:53:39.000 Torn. It can't be...

00:53:41.000 Did Kathleen Kennedy greenlight it?

00:53:43.000 That's going to be my...

00:53:44.000 If she greenlit it, then I'm skeptical.

00:53:46.000 If she did not greenlight it, then I'm optimistic.

00:53:48.000 Alrighty, folks.

00:53:48.000 Coming up, we're going to jump into the mailbag, but remember, you have to be a member to actually ask questions and to watch.

00:53:53.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:53:54.000 Use code SHAPIRA.

00:53:55.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 18, 2025

The Democrat-MS-13 Love Match

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