The Ben Shapiro Show - THE DIRTY SECRET: Trump Is The 2024 Moderate

00:00:00.000 So before we get to the big news of the day, I wanted to give you a quick update on the story that we reported earlier this week about DEI in medicine and surgery and many of the tapes that we showed you on this show with regard to Duke Medical School and people working at Duke talking about how diversity, equity, and inclusion should be top priorities as opposed to, you know, the merit of particular surgeons.

00:00:22.000 Well, Duke still has not responded to any of this.

00:00:26.000 We have a still-awaiting comment from the Duke Medical School Dean.

00:00:28.000 We do know that some of the tapes were then removed, that some of the tapes that were up and had been put up, presumably by an associated student group, that those tapes were taken down.

00:00:38.000 But we have not heard anything, after many requests for comment, from the leadership of Duke.

00:00:44.000 Members of Congress are calling for an investigation into everything that's happening at these medical schools, what's happening with regard to surgery.

00:00:51.000 And we know this is just the tip of the iceberg, by the way.

00:00:54.000 The prevalence of diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of American life, including the most critical aspects, where the only thing you care about As you know, the competence of the person as opposed to their life experiences or the color of their skin.

00:01:06.000 We know that we've uncovered just the tip of the iceberg.

00:01:09.000 So, we now have a tip line.

00:01:10.000 If you have something we should look into, please send it our way ASAP.

00:01:14.000 Put my name in the subject line.

00:01:15.000 It'll get to my team immediately.

00:01:17.000 Tips.DailyWire.com.

00:01:19.000 We'll get our investigative team on that immediately.

00:01:21.000 Tips.DailyWire.com.

00:01:23.000 Okay, now on to the big news of the day.

00:01:25.000 So, the big news of the day is that Mitch McConnell has announced To serve Kentucky in the Senate has been the honor of my life.

00:01:30.000 To lead my Republican colleagues has been the highest privilege.

00:01:33.000 before the election. McConnell announced his decision in the well of the Senate,

00:01:38.000 and here's what he had to say.

00:01:39.000 To serve Kentucky in the Senate has been the honor of my life.

00:01:43.000 To lead my Republican colleagues has been the highest privilege.

00:01:50.000 But one of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter.

00:02:06.000 So I stand before you today, Mr. President, and my colleagues to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.

00:02:16.000 Okay, so the question, of course, is who replaces him, but the blowback on this has been kind of extraordinary on the right.

00:02:23.000 People who are shouting about the evils of Mitch McConnell.

00:02:25.000 Now, Mitch McConnell is one of the most effective Machiavellian political operators of my lifetime.

00:02:31.000 I don't like a lot of the things that he passed, but to pretend that Mitch McConnell was not an effective operator is just false.

00:02:37.000 The reason that there is a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court of the United States is Mitch McConnell.

00:02:43.000 It's not Donald Trump.

00:02:44.000 It's Mitch McConnell.

00:02:45.000 Because Mitch McConnell is the person who actively said, we will not allow Merrick Garland to be appointed to the court.

00:02:51.000 And then, of course, Trump got elected.

00:02:52.000 This isn't to deprive Trump of all the credit.

00:02:54.000 Trump gets a lot of the credit.

00:02:55.000 But it was Mitch McConnell who made the decision that he was going to hold open that seat until after the election.

00:03:03.000 And it was Mitch McConnell who made the decision that he was going to hold Democrats' feet to the fire to their own rules.

00:03:09.000 It was Democrats who in 2013 decided that they were going to use the nuclear option to ram through Barack Obama's judicial nominees.

00:03:18.000 And it was Mitch McConnell warning them in 2013, if you do this, it'll come right back around and it'll hit you.

00:03:24.000 He was right.

00:03:24.000 Here's a younger Mitch McConnell, 2013.

00:03:26.000 The majority leader promised.

00:03:30.000 He promised.

00:03:32.000 Over.

00:03:33.000 And over again, that he wouldn't break the rules of the Senate in order to change them.

00:03:39.000 If you want to play games, set yet another precedent that you'll no doubt come to regret.

00:03:47.000 Say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you'll regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.

00:03:53.000 Hey, so Mitch McConnell was incredibly competent at his job.

00:03:57.000 And again, this does go to what jobs are in the Senate, what they are in the House.

00:04:03.000 There has been this mistaken assumption that the Senate Majority Leader or the House Speaker is the person who sets the Republican agenda.

00:04:11.000 That that person is a spokesperson for conservatism and that if they don't hold true to conservative principle in every single thing that they do without compromise, then they are somehow betraying the cause.

00:04:21.000 That is not the job of the House Speaker or the Senate Majority Leader.

00:04:24.000 That is generally the job of a president.

00:04:27.000 Maybe the job of the head of the RNC, but the point of the House Majority Leader or the House Speaker or the Senate Majority Leader, anybody who's in a position to actually count votes, they actually have several jobs.

00:04:39.000 So Mitch McConnell's job that he was very competent at was actually trying to pick people running for the Senate because he controlled how monies were dispersed to various senatorial candidates.

00:04:49.000 And Mitch McConnell, it turns out, was much better at it than Donald Trump was.

00:04:53.000 I mean, just as a point of fact, Mitch McConnell led Republicans to a very, very sizable Senate majority.

00:04:59.000 And over the last couple of election cycles, selection of primary candidates that went against what Mitch McConnell was recommending did not end well for Republicans.

00:05:06.000 That was job one of the Senate Majority Leader.

00:05:09.000 Job two of the Senate Majority Leader is to raise a lot of money, which Mitch McConnell did.

00:05:13.000 And job three, which is really job one, is to decide the rules and procedures by which legislation moves through the Senate and pick exactly how that legislation gets made.

00:05:22.000 That means counting votes.

00:05:23.000 It means backscratching.

00:05:25.000 It means ugly politics.

00:05:26.000 Underside.

00:05:27.000 The seamy side of politics.

00:05:29.000 The stuff that nobody likes and nobody wants to see.

00:05:32.000 If you are a popular Senate Majority Leader, it is likely because you are bad at the job.

00:05:36.000 I mean with the general public.

00:05:37.000 Because popular Senate Majority Leaders are people who do have to make these Machiavellian decisions legitimately all the time.

00:05:43.000 And that's how the sausage gets made.

00:05:44.000 And the sausage getting made is really ugly.

00:05:47.000 But you have a choice.

00:05:48.000 Either the sausage gets made, or it doesn't get made.

00:05:50.000 And the reason that's relevant is because when it comes to replacing Mitch McConnell, the question becomes, who exactly is going to replace him?

00:05:57.000 Is it going to be somebody who considers himself a philosophical purist?

00:05:59.000 Or is it going to be somebody who wants to make the sausage?

00:06:02.000 Because the reality is that philosophical purism ends with minority status in the Senate of the United States.

00:06:08.000 Just as it is very likely at this point that philosophical purism in the House may lead to a Republican minority in the House.

00:06:17.000 It turns out that Americans just want the sausage.

00:06:19.000 They don't want to see how it gets made.

00:06:21.000 They're very not interested in the Machiavellian manipulations.

00:06:24.000 They just want the thing done.

00:06:27.000 And that's true of any job that we delegate power to in our lives.

00:06:30.000 You don't care how the plumber fixes the drain.

00:06:32.000 You just care that the drain gets fixed.

00:06:34.000 And if he comes to you and he's like, but I am, on a principled matter, I am not fixing the drain in this particular, I didn't hire you to do that.

00:06:41.000 I hired you to fix the drain.

00:06:42.000 And when it comes to what the Senate is there for, we can have arguments and we do all day long on this show about what legislation is good.

00:06:50.000 Should you vote for it?

00:06:51.000 Should you not?

00:06:52.000 But if you neglect the part of the job that is the core of the job, counting votes, Manipulations, backscratching the ugly part of politics.

00:07:00.000 And what you're going to end up with is somebody who says pretty words and does not achieve the things you need them to achieve and then get your party booted from majority status in the Senate of the United States.

00:07:09.000 Purism is a wonderfully easy way of appealing to the public without actually benefiting your party in any serious way long term.

00:07:19.000 Again, that's not to hold people's feet to the fire.

00:07:21.000 That's our job, right?

00:07:22.000 We're outside of government.

00:07:23.000 In the end, it's the voters who are going to vote these people in.

00:07:25.000 And it's the job of people like me to be purists in order to suggest what I think is the principle and then to explain how far our politicians are straying from the principle.

00:07:33.000 But it is in fact the job of people like Mitch McConnell to try to get the most of the loaf that they can.

00:07:39.000 And Mitch McConnell, I think overall, got a lot of that loaf.

00:07:43.000 And again, that is with me being very critical of his stances on things like immigration and the border.

00:07:49.000 If Mitch McConnell is replaced with somebody who is far less interested in making the sausage or who is going to refuse to make the sausage at all in the name of political purism, then Republicans will just end up with no power.

00:08:02.000 That's the reality.

00:08:04.000 You can like it, you can dislike it, but that happens to be the reality.

00:08:07.000 It's more on this in just one moment.

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00:09:17.000 So, there are three candidates who are largely seen as the possible leaders right now to replace McConnell.

00:09:25.000 One is the Senate Minority Whip, John Thune.

00:09:27.000 Who is from South Dakota.

00:09:30.000 He is sort of on the the center left of the Republican caucus, John Thune.

00:09:36.000 If you look at, for example, his heritage action score, so heritage action scores are sort of a decent proxy measure for how conservative a member votes.

00:09:47.000 So, for example, the most conservative members of the Senate.

00:09:51.000 People who get very high heritage scores would be people like Senator Cruz, right?

00:09:55.000 Senator Cruz has an 89% heritage action score.

00:10:00.000 Senator Rand Paul has a 96% heritage action score.

00:10:05.000 However, if you look at like Susan Collins, Susan Collins has a heritage action score of 10%.

00:10:12.000 Which makes sense, right?

00:10:12.000 They're trying to grade people on that spectrum.

00:10:17.000 So Mitch McConnell, for what it is worth, had a heritage action score about 43%.

00:10:20.000 It's about kind of like halfway in the middle of the Republican caucus.

00:10:24.000 And the reality is, that's not like the worst place for the Senate Majority Leader to be because you do have to unify your caucus.

00:10:31.000 I know it's an uncomfortable political truth that every party is a spectrum of views and that it is the job of the Majority Leader in the Senate and the House Speaker to actually cobble together that coalition in order to move things that you want moved and get most of the loaf.

00:10:45.000 Or again, you can sit there and do nothing.

00:10:47.000 McConnell sat kind of dead center of the Republican Party, positionally speaking.

00:10:52.000 So he has like a 43% heritage action score.

00:10:54.000 McConnell's heritage action score over his lifetime is 59%.

00:10:57.000 The average Senate Republican has a heritage action score of 65%.

00:11:00.000 So he's really dead center of the Republican caucus.

00:11:02.000 The people who would theoretically replace him, and this is the problem with somebody that Rand Paul has been suggested, for example, as a possible Senate Majority Leader.

00:11:10.000 Almost impossible to see how he gets the job.

00:11:12.000 Also impossible to see how he cobbles together a coalition.

00:11:15.000 Now, it may be that Senator Paul says, I don't want to make the sausage.

00:11:18.000 There is a principled argument for not making the sausage.

00:11:20.000 It just ends with Republicans and minority status.

00:11:23.000 Again, I tend to agree with a lot of that from Rand Paul or from Senator Cruz.

00:11:28.000 That the job of the Senate is not to pass legislation.

00:11:31.000 The American public tend to disagree with that overall.

00:11:34.000 And they don't tend to like Congresses where the sausage doesn't get made.

00:11:37.000 In any case, the three candidates who are up for the job are Senator Thune.

00:11:44.000 Senator Thune has a Heritage Lifetime Action score of like 62%.

00:11:48.000 Again, the average Senate Republican is about 65%.

00:11:50.000 So again, he's sort of dead center of the Republican caucus.

00:11:55.000 He's being portrayed as a wild leftist, Senator Thune, which of course is not true.

00:12:00.000 That's because he's at odds with Donald Trump.

00:12:02.000 Trump took a swipe at him in 2022, suggesting he was going to try to primary Thune because Thune wasn't sufficiently supportive of him in 2020 and didn't go along with the election stolen kind of stuff.

00:12:11.000 And then Trump got half-hearted about it.

00:12:14.000 And Thune won his reelect in a walk.

00:12:19.000 So there are a lot of people on sort of the right side of the Republican Party who don't like Dune because they think he's too moderate, that he follows directly in the path of McConnell.

00:12:27.000 The thing about Thune is that he does have a lot of training.

00:12:29.000 I mean, he worked under McConnell for years in how to make the sausage.

00:12:33.000 John Barrasso is another possible candidate.

00:12:36.000 He's significantly older than John Thune.

00:12:38.000 He is the Senate GOP conference chair from Wyoming.

00:12:41.000 He has a strong relationship with Trump.

00:12:43.000 He was actually the second senator in America to endorse Trump.

00:12:47.000 He has a Heritage Lifetime Action Score of 72%, so he's slightly more conservative.

00:12:52.000 than the overall Republican in the Senate.

00:12:55.000 So from a conservative perspective, Barrasso might be your guy.

00:12:58.000 Barrasso seems like somebody who knows how the sausage is made, and also happens to be more conservative overall than McConnell, and has a warm relationship with Trump.

00:13:06.000 So he seems like the obvious pick.

00:13:07.000 The only downside is he's 71 years old.

00:13:09.000 Now, I understand that in modern American politics, that makes you a spring chicken, but still, he's 71 years old.

00:13:15.000 Senator John Cornyn has been suggested from Texas, Again, he's not quite as much at odds with Trump as, say, John Thune is.

00:13:25.000 There's been discontent with Cornyn because Cornyn has supported some of the more bipartisan packages in the past.

00:13:31.000 He has a Heritage Action Lifetime score of 64%.

00:13:34.000 Again, most of these people are pretty close to the Senate Republican average.

00:13:39.000 The calls for, you know, the suggestion.

00:13:41.000 So Matt Gaetz says, oh, we want a big victory because McConnell is stepping up.

00:13:44.000 McConnell's 82 years old and he's having freezes.

00:13:47.000 And we played it on the show.

00:13:48.000 He literally frees up for minutes at a time.

00:13:51.000 I mean, it is kind of amazing when you think about the fact that Nancy Pelosi is 82 years old and she said, I don't want to be House Minority Leader anymore.

00:13:58.000 I'm too old.

00:13:59.000 And then you have Mitch McConnell, who's 82 years old.

00:14:02.000 He's like, I don't want to be the Senate GOP leader anymore.

00:14:05.000 I'm too old.

00:14:06.000 And then you have Joe Biden who's like, I'm doing just fine.

00:14:10.000 He's going to be 82 years old when he is inaugurated, if he wins, next January.

00:14:15.000 And he'll be starting his second term, which means four more years of that.

00:14:19.000 That shows how out of touch he is.

00:14:21.000 Is this likely to be a transformative moment for the Republican Party?

00:14:23.000 Well, it depends on who is picked.

00:14:25.000 The Republican Party does have a choice.

00:14:27.000 They can pick somebody who is competent at the job of Senate Majority Leader and gets most of the loaf when Republicans have a majority and make smart decisions.

00:14:35.000 And does the job.

00:14:36.000 And again, the job is not to be a person who just says things.

00:14:38.000 It's to actually get things done, pick good Senate candidates.

00:14:41.000 That means picking purple candidates in purple states, by the way.

00:14:44.000 Which again, doesn't please the base all the time.

00:14:46.000 Or you can pick somebody who's a purist, gets very little done, and you end up in the minority.

00:14:50.000 Those are the choices before Republicans.

00:14:51.000 It'll be interesting to see which way Republicans go.

00:14:53.000 We'll get to more on this in just one moment.

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00:15:59.000 Okay, all of this is sort of fascinating with the backdrop of Trump.

00:16:03.000 So one of the things that's been happening with regard to the Senate race to replace McConnell is that Trump has been invoked a lot.

00:16:09.000 And what you see from people is like, oh, we're so glad we got rid of McConnell because now we can put somebody who's more Trumpy in place.

00:16:16.000 And one of the big mysteries about Donald Trump is what is more Trumpy?

00:16:20.000 What does that what does that even mean?

00:16:21.000 This has been a question about Donald Trump since 2015.

00:16:23.000 What does it mean to be more Trumpy?

00:16:25.000 So I've always suggested that there are sort of two sides of Trump that we have to assess and we have to assess them separately because they actually do not correlate.

00:16:32.000 One is rhetorical Trump and one is policy Trump.

00:16:37.000 And what you see with regard to policy, Trump, is a bunch of people who try to craft a Trumpism around what is actually just a set of political impulses by Trump that are generally moderated by his staff.

00:16:48.000 So what you saw is, for example, you'll see isolationists claim that Trump is an isolationist.

00:16:52.000 He is not.

00:16:52.000 There is not much to suggest in his actual policy record.

00:16:56.000 That he is an isolationist, for example.

00:16:57.000 There are people who suggest that Donald Trump is super socially conservative.

00:17:01.000 There's nothing in his policy record to suggest that Donald Trump is super socially conservative.

00:17:06.000 And so when people say, oh, we got rid of McConnell, that cuck, moderate, and now we're gonna go more Trump.

00:17:11.000 It's like, okay, but what are we talking about in terms of policy?

00:17:14.000 Rhetorical Trump, the difference between McConnell and Trump is much more rhetorical than it is policy-oriented.

00:17:20.000 And this is true for Trump and literally everybody else.

00:17:22.000 Trump's rhetoric is completely out of the box.

00:17:24.000 He's a stand-up comedian who ran for the presidency and won.

00:17:28.000 And he's great at it, right?

00:17:29.000 I mean, he's hilarious, he's entertaining, right?

00:17:32.000 All those things are true.

00:17:33.000 Rhetorical Trump is not policy Trump, which is actually one of the reasons, folks, why Donald Trump has a really good shot of winning re-elect.

00:17:41.000 Why?

00:17:42.000 Because if you look at where Donald Trump is positionally, if you put aside the rhetoric, if you put aside the crazy, if you look at where Donald Trump is positionally, he is significantly closer to the middle of American politics than Joe Biden is.

00:17:55.000 If American politics, traditionally speaking, has been run to the extremes during the primary, run to the center during the general, Donald Trump almost perfectly fulfills that.

00:18:05.000 Except he actually hasn't even been running to the right in the primary.

00:18:08.000 He just ran as himself because he has so much faith among the Republican electorate that he's been able to say heretical things that no other candidate would be able to get away with.

00:18:16.000 So going into the general, as Joe Biden moves to his extreme left in this benighted attempt to garner the love of his radical base as we talked about yesterday, he's abandoning the middle of the playing field.

00:18:28.000 The reality is that in terms of policy, Aside from border policy, which is a major distinction, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell look very, very similar.

00:18:35.000 And in fact, there are areas where Donald Trump is to the left of Mitch McConnell, particularly on pro-life issues.

00:18:40.000 The reason that matters is if you're looking electorally, the reason, again, Donald Trump has a very good shot of winning a reelect is because he does not follow the Republican Party orthodoxy.

00:18:50.000 One of the great ironies is the people who are claiming we need uncut, pure 100% grade A Trump.

00:18:57.000 And what they mean by that is that we want to go like full pro-life, full SOCON, full isolationist.

00:19:04.000 That's not actually what he does.

00:19:06.000 What he actually is, is the moderate in this race.

00:19:08.000 This is a dirty secret.

00:19:09.000 Dirty secret is when it comes to independence, Donald Trump is much closer positionally to independence than Joe Biden is.

00:19:17.000 And it's all affect.

00:19:18.000 So much of this is affect.

00:19:19.000 It's that Donald Trump is very militant in his affect.

00:19:22.000 But in terms of where he is on the positions, that dude is a middle-of-the-road Republican.

00:19:27.000 When I say middle-of-the-road, I would say that on policy.

00:19:30.000 Again, leaving aside the border where he is quite conservative.

00:19:33.000 Donald Trump, in many ways, is closer to Susan Collins than he is to Rand Paul.

00:19:38.000 And that is not a rip on him, that's just an observation about reality.

00:19:42.000 It's one of the reasons, again, why I think that as a general-elect candidate, he's appearing much stronger than I think people thought he would.

00:19:49.000 Let's put it this way, if he had Ron DeSantis' position and his own disposition, if he mirrored Ron DeSantis on abortion, pro-life all the way to birth, and from inception, if he mirrored that position and he had the affect, he would not be a viable general elect candidate.

00:20:08.000 But he doesn't.

00:20:08.000 So right now I want to go through the positions of Donald Trump.

00:20:11.000 Because what I want to show you is that because Joe Biden abandoned the middle, Donald Trump is about to seize it.

00:20:15.000 This is the biggest story in presidential politics that no one is covering.

00:20:19.000 Is that positionally speaking, Joe Biden abandoning independence has led to a huge swath of people in the middle taking a look at Donald Trump.

00:20:26.000 By the way, you can see this happening broadly writ in sort of more celebrity circles.

00:20:32.000 A bunch of people who certainly are not on the right suddenly taking a second look at Trump and going, I'd vote for that guy.

00:20:37.000 Joe Rogan is not a right winger.

00:20:39.000 Joe Rogan will likely vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden.

00:20:43.000 That's just a reality.

00:20:44.000 I know Joe.

00:20:44.000 That's very likely to happen.

00:20:46.000 And I think he said it publicly.

00:20:48.000 Elon Musk will vote for Trump over Joe Biden.

00:20:50.000 Elon Musk is not a right winger.

00:20:53.000 I know Elon Musk, okay?

00:20:55.000 This is true for a huge swath of people who consider themselves moderate left.

00:21:00.000 Elon once tweeted out this very famous meme.

00:21:03.000 of the political spectrum and what it shows is that the person on the basically is an x

00:21:09.000 it's an x-axis and originally the x-axis shows the person on the right here and the person on

00:21:14.000 the left here and the person in the middle here and then it shows the person on the left moving

00:21:19.000 way the hell out here which means that the person in the middle is now closer to the person on the

00:21:23.000 right relatively speaking okay that's what's happened in American politics.

00:21:27.000 Donald Trump's positions right now are almost identical with the positions of Bill Clinton in 1992.

00:21:34.000 Donald Trump, ironically, looks more like a New Deal Democrat circa 1940 than Joe Biden does.

00:21:40.000 Joe Biden looks like a wokester who goes to Colombia.

00:21:43.000 It's amazing.

00:21:43.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

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00:22:45.000 Okay, so let's go through some of these numbers.

00:22:48.000 So, I took a look at the latest Harvard-Harris poll, which examined What were the biggest issues that Americans think are facing them?

00:22:57.000 The number one issue is inflation.

00:22:59.000 Joe Biden is underwater by 18 points on inflation.

00:23:02.000 He has 37% approval and 55% disapproval.

00:23:05.000 And there is a reason for that.

00:23:07.000 That is because Joe Biden's position on inflation has been, I'm going to spend more money and more money and more money.

00:23:12.000 And don't worry about the inflation, it's fine.

00:23:14.000 And Donald Trump's position has been, you shouldn't spend that much money, it's bad to spend that much money, and you shouldn't inflate the currency.

00:23:21.000 So, for example, here was Joe Biden, this is early on in his administration, this is July of 2021, saying that inflation is transitory.

00:23:29.000 We also know that as our economy has come roaring back, we've seen some price increases.

00:23:35.000 Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation.

00:23:40.000 But that's not our view.

00:23:42.000 Our experts believe, and the data shows, that most of the price increases we've seen were expected and expected to be temporary.

00:23:51.000 Reality is, you can't flip the global economic light back on and not expect this to happen.

00:23:59.000 That was Joe Biden's perspective on inflation.

00:24:01.000 Does that sound close to the middle to you?

00:24:03.000 Or does Donald Trump sound closer to the middle?

00:24:04.000 This is from December of last year.

00:24:08.000 Under my leadership, inflation was non-existent.

00:24:11.000 we had gasoline at $1.87 a gallon.

00:24:19.000 After three years of Bidenomics, they call it Bidenomics from hell,

00:24:24.000 the average monthly mortgage payment has gone from $1,700.

00:24:29.000 But you can't get the money, so it doesn't matter.

00:24:31.000 under my administration to three thousand three hundred and twenty two dollars today.

00:24:37.000 But you can't get the money.

00:24:38.000 So it doesn't matter.

00:24:39.000 It doesn't matter.

00:24:41.000 Again, what he's saying here is quite moderate.

00:24:45.000 It's particularly moderate because he says, I won't create mass inflation.

00:24:48.000 Also, I'm not going to cut your entitlements.

00:24:50.000 Trump has taken the moderate position on entitlements.

00:24:53.000 So who's closer to the middle there?

00:24:54.000 Joe Biden or Donald Trump?

00:24:56.000 Take immigration.

00:24:58.000 Joe Biden is currently 23 points underwater on immigration.

00:25:01.000 34% approval, 57% disapproval.

00:25:04.000 And 12% of Americans say this is their top issue, by the way, making it the third biggest issue after the economy and inflation, right?

00:25:12.000 Those are kind of the same issue.

00:25:14.000 So, here is Alejandro Mayorkas, February 11th, saying that the Biden administration bears no responsibility for the border and it's all Republicans' fault.

00:25:22.000 Does this seem like a moderate position to you?

00:25:25.000 Or does it seem like a very left-wing position to you?

00:25:28.000 No doubt there is gridlock on Congress, but do you bear responsibility for what is happening at the border, what the president himself has called a crisis?

00:25:36.000 It certainly is a crisis, and we don't bear responsibility for a broken system, and we're doing a tremendous amount within that broken system.

00:25:44.000 But fundamentally, fundamentally, Congress is the only one who can fix it.

00:25:50.000 Okay, no one believes that.

00:25:52.000 No one believes that.

00:25:52.000 That is a very left-wing position.

00:25:55.000 And by the way, the left-wing position on immigration is being articulated all the time.

00:25:58.000 Obviously, when it comes to presidential politics, what happens with other politicians impacts how people think of the presidential candidate.

00:26:04.000 And you can have a random Senate candidate in Missouri affect the presidential election depending on what he says.

00:26:09.000 Yesterday, the mayor of Athens, Georgia was asked about the murder of a young woman at the University of Georgia campus in Athens.

00:26:17.000 And instead of blaming the open border because an illegal immigrant killed this woman, The mayor of Athens tried to blame Trump.

00:26:22.000 This is not going to hunt.

00:26:24.000 While 2019 was not that long ago, you might remember the dynamic we were living in, in the late teens in this country, where you had the president of the United States speaking in the most vile terms about people who were foreign born.

00:26:40.000 And you had that notion metastasizing in places like Charlottesville.

00:26:44.000 This is an invasion!

00:26:47.000 Okay, um, that's insane.

00:26:48.000 So it's Charlottesville was responsible for an illegal immigrant killing an American woman?

00:26:54.000 No.

00:26:54.000 But people broadly perceive this to be the position of the Democratic Party.

00:26:57.000 Does that seem more moderate?

00:26:58.000 Or does Trump seem more moderate?

00:27:00.000 This is January of this year talking about the open border.

00:27:04.000 And victory cannot come soon enough.

00:27:07.000 Under crooked Joe Biden, our country is dying.

00:27:10.000 Our country is dying.

00:27:13.000 Our borders open and gushing, it's a big gushing wound, letting drugs, crime, and millions upon millions of illegal aliens pour into our country like we've never seen before.

00:27:24.000 Nothing like this has ever happened to our country before.

00:27:30.000 Leftists perceive this as extreme rhetoric because, again, of Trump's affect.

00:27:33.000 He is much closer to the median position on immigration than Joe Biden is.

00:27:37.000 Or say, jobs and the economy.

00:27:39.000 We'll get to more on this in just a moment.

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00:28:40.000 So Joe Biden's approval on jobs and the economy is five points underwater.

00:28:43.000 43% approve, 48% disapprove.

00:28:46.000 As of October 2023, Gallup did a poll.

00:28:49.000 They found 54% of Americans believe the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.

00:28:54.000 Just 43% believe the government should do more to solve our country's problems, which means Donald Trump is closer to the median voter than Joe Biden is.

00:29:03.000 We're going to play two clips here.

00:29:05.000 One is of Joe Biden touting Bidenomics, and one is of Donald Trump talking about Bidenomics.

00:29:10.000 Which one sounds closer to the median here?

00:29:13.000 So I came into office determined to change the economic direction of this country.

00:29:18.000 To move from trickle-down economics to what everyone on Wall Street Journal and Financial Times began to call Bidenomics.

00:29:25.000 I didn't come up with a name.

00:29:28.000 I really didn't.

00:29:29.000 I now claim it, but they're the ones who used it first.

00:29:31.000 But I think it's a plan that I'm happy to call Bidenomics.

00:29:37.000 And guess what?

00:29:38.000 Bidenomics is working.

00:29:42.000 Bidenomics is about the future.

00:29:44.000 Bidenomics is just another way of saying, restore the American dream.

00:29:49.000 Because it worked before.

00:29:51.000 It's rooted in what we've always worked best at in this country.

00:29:55.000 Investing in America.

00:29:56.000 Investing in Americans.

00:29:58.000 Because when we invest in our people, we strengthen the middle class.

00:30:02.000 We see the economy grow.

00:30:04.000 That benefits all Americans.

00:30:06.000 That's the American dream.

00:30:08.000 Okay.

00:30:09.000 Does anyone... Okay, here is Donald Trump ripping into Bidenomics.

00:30:12.000 Again, which one sounds more like the median voter here?

00:30:15.000 During this holiday season, families all across America are struggling under the brutal weight of Bidenomics.

00:30:21.000 You know, Bidenomics means a lot of bad things.

00:30:24.000 This year alone, The typical American family is $7,500 poorer because Crooked Joe's lobalist blunders and greedy betrayals have really hurt us badly.

00:30:35.000 Today, a $2,000 monthly mortgage payment gets you a house worth less than $295,000.

00:30:40.000 Under the Trump administration, the same number would get you a house that today would be worth $460,000.

00:30:49.000 That's a big difference.

00:30:51.000 As long as Crooked Joe Biden is in the White House, The American dream is dead.

00:30:57.000 It's dead.

00:30:57.000 You don't hear about the American dream anymore.

00:31:00.000 People want to survive.

00:31:02.000 Again, which one sounds closer to the middle?

00:31:04.000 How about climate change?

00:31:06.000 So according to Pew Research, from August 2023, only 31% of Americans are interested in phasing out fossil fuels.

00:31:11.000 That is the stated position of the Biden administration.

00:31:14.000 They took a 31% position.

00:31:16.000 Every single issue, Joe Biden and his team have decided to take the 30% position, which is insane.

00:31:22.000 That is insane politics.

00:31:23.000 Here, December 2023, John Kerry, climate envoy John Kerry, saying that we have to phase out fossil fuels.

00:31:32.000 Good luck with that, dude.

00:31:34.000 Now, remember what I just said.

00:31:37.000 The science says we have to reduce the emissions.

00:31:42.000 It doesn't prescribe some particular discipline that has to be done.

00:31:45.000 It says reduce the emissions.

00:31:48.000 And so we believe that that means if you're going to reduce the emissions and you're actually going to hit the target of net zero by 2050, you have to do some phasing out.

00:31:58.000 There's no other way to get to that target.

00:32:01.000 So we have said very clearly that you've got to have largely a phase-out of fossil fuels in our energy systems by 2050, focusing carbon capture technologies on the hardest to evade sectors

00:32:17.000 like steel and cement and aluminum and concrete and so forth.

00:32:20.000 Now it's going to be a mix folks of things that get us to success here.

00:32:25.000 31% of Americans agree with John Kerry and want to phase out fossil fuels. Meanwhile, Donald Trump January 22nd,

00:32:32.000 he's like, you know what we're gonna drill. You know what Americans like? Cheap gas, it turns out.

00:32:36.000 So we're to come together we're going to

00:32:41.000 Drill baby drill right away Drill baby drill.

00:32:48.000 Okay, again, that is the moderate position.

00:32:50.000 How about national security?

00:32:51.000 Joe Biden, six points underwater, 42 to 48.

00:32:53.000 Now the left will suggest the reason that Joe Biden is underwater is because he's not left-wing enough.

00:32:57.000 That is actually not true.

00:32:58.000 The reason that Joe Biden is underwater is because he has a vague concept of how foreign policy ought to work.

00:33:03.000 He speaks in platitudes with no actual end points, and then he commits American resources to those platitudes.

00:33:09.000 So for example, you remember October, 2023, Joe Biden made a speech about, it was supposed to be about Israel, which had just been hit with the worst terror attack in its existence.

00:33:17.000 And instead, he decided to link that together with Ukraine and then talk about democracy more broadly being at war.

00:33:22.000 When you start to talk platitudes in foreign policy, you get yourself into trouble real fast.

00:33:27.000 It turns out the American people, they're not real fond of the platitudes.

00:33:30.000 You know what they like?

00:33:30.000 They like winning and they like not being bothered.

00:33:33.000 That's what Americans mostly like.

00:33:35.000 They like when our allies win and when they are not bothered.

00:33:37.000 These are the things that Americans like.

00:33:39.000 Joe Biden doesn't understand that.

00:33:40.000 So he bothers them and doesn't win.

00:33:42.000 You know, the assault on Israel echoes nearly 20 months of war, tragedy, and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine, people that were very badly hurt since Putin launched his all-out invasion.

00:33:56.000 We've not forgotten the mass graves, the bodies found bearing signs of torture, rape used as a weapon by the Russians, and thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken into Russia, stolen from their parents.

00:34:11.000 It's sick.

00:34:13.000 Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common.

00:34:17.000 They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.

00:34:20.000 Completely annihilate it.

00:34:22.000 Meanwhile, here's Donald Trump ripping on Joe Biden's foreign policy and saying, like, none of this would happen if you actually had a clear and coherent foreign policy, which is don't screw with America or our allies or we'll bust you in the mouth and then we'll win and then we'll be left alone.

00:34:36.000 Here is Donald Trump.

00:34:37.000 Again, this is much more akin to how most Americans feel about foreign policy.

00:34:41.000 October 2023.

00:34:44.000 Making America great again will begin with making America strong again and making America safe again.

00:34:51.000 Under my leadership, the world was peaceful and calm because America was respected.

00:34:57.000 The President was respected.

00:34:58.000 I dealt with the strongest people in the world.

00:35:01.000 They were smart.

00:35:02.000 They were streetwise.

00:35:03.000 They respected me.

00:35:04.000 I respected them.

00:35:05.000 They had different viewpoints.

00:35:07.000 That's certainly true.

00:35:08.000 But they were Afraid of America.

00:35:12.000 Today, they laugh at our country.

00:35:13.000 They laugh with crooked Joe Biden.

00:35:16.000 You have chaos, bloodshed, war, terror and death.

00:35:19.000 Look what's happening today.

00:35:21.000 Because the occupant of the White House is a laughingstock.

00:35:25.000 All over the world, America's enemies cannot believe how lucky they got.

00:35:31.000 They got real lucky.

00:35:32.000 Every monster, villain, dictator and terrorist.

00:35:35.000 And there are plenty of them.

00:35:36.000 I know most of them.

00:35:38.000 I got to know a lot of them.

00:35:40.000 He's not wrong.

00:35:41.000 He's not wrong.

00:35:42.000 That's how most Americans think about foreign policy.

00:35:44.000 never have it better than they do with Crooked Joe, who in many cases receive money from

00:35:49.000 those countries.

00:35:50.000 I wonder what that's all about.

00:35:53.000 He's not wrong.

00:35:55.000 He's not wrong that most Americans think about foreign policy.

00:35:58.000 American foreign policy is a weird mix of Wilsonian idealism and some classical Teddy

00:36:03.000 Roosevelt speak softly and carry a big stick, real politic.

00:36:09.000 And Americans tend to like the latter more than the former in this area.

00:36:12.000 And they they should.

00:36:14.000 And in second, I'm going to get you more of the fact.

00:36:17.000 It's just a fact that in this race, Donald Trump is the moderate and Joe Biden is the

00:36:21.000 We'll get to that momentarily first.

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00:36:54.000 Okay.

00:36:54.000 Meanwhile, when it comes to every issue, we're going through all of them.

00:36:58.000 Joe Biden is on the left.

00:36:59.000 Donald Trump is in the center.

00:37:00.000 He's not on the right.

00:37:01.000 That is because the left went crazy.

00:37:03.000 On education, Joe Biden has an approval rating that is plus two, but that's because he's 43-41.

00:37:07.000 That is a very low approval rating on education for Democrats.

00:37:11.000 Typically, the way that you gauge educational approval is how much money you're willing to spend.

00:37:15.000 Joe Biden spends a lot of money on this stuff.

00:37:17.000 The problem is, he is also a wokester.

00:37:19.000 So for example, here was Joe Biden talking about the evil book bans in the state of Florida.

00:37:24.000 Those book bans, by the way, most Americans understand, are things like genderqueer, being left in school libraries for eight-year-olds to find and look at the porn inside.

00:37:32.000 Joe Biden defending this sort of stuff is not a good look in the educational sphere.

00:37:38.000 We can't fully prevent people from being radicalized to hate and violence, but we must address the relentless exploitation of the Internet to recruit and mobilize violent extremists.

00:37:49.000 And that's going to be hard.

00:37:50.000 It conflicts, in many cases, with the First Amendment.

00:37:53.000 We've got a lot to do.

00:37:54.000 That's why I issued the country's first-ever national strategy on countering domestic terrorism, and I signed landmark hate crime legislation that we passed.

00:38:05.000 And we have to continue to act, though.

00:38:07.000 Now is the time for all Americans to speak up when history is being erased, books are being banned.

00:38:14.000 Did you ever think we'd have this conversation here at this time?

00:38:17.000 Diversity is being attacked.

00:38:20.000 As I said earlier, we're one of the most diverse countries in the history of the world.

00:38:25.000 Diversity is a strength of our nation, a cornerstone of our democracy.

00:38:31.000 Most people see right through that platitude, and what they see is Joe Biden backing critical race theory and gender theory in the classroom.

00:38:38.000 Which is why, when Donald Trump says in May 2023 that he's going to cut funds for schools teaching CRT, most Americans agree with this.

00:38:44.000 This is a middle-of-the-road position.

00:38:46.000 Contrary to what the legacy media would tell you, this is a middle-of-the-road position.

00:38:49.000 No one wants their kids going to school where they learn that they are inferior because they are white, for example.

00:38:54.000 That they bear historic guilt because of their race.

00:38:58.000 I will immediately sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school that's pushing critical race theory, transgenderism, and any other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children, their children.

00:39:21.000 Meanwhile, by the way, on crime, again, this is a major issue for most Americans.

00:39:26.000 Joe Biden has an approval rating of 37%.

00:39:27.000 50% disapprove.

00:39:29.000 Why?

00:39:30.000 Because Joe Biden's perspective on crime has been deeply embedded in this critical race theory equity nonsense.

00:39:37.000 The idea being that if a disproportionate number of black people end up in prison for crime, that is not because a disproportionate number of black people are committing crimes, it's because the system is systemically racist.

00:39:46.000 Which means you have to crack down on police departments for their supposedly systemic racism.

00:39:50.000 Here was Joe Biden, right off the bat, January 2021, signing an order on racial equity to fight systemic racism.

00:39:58.000 And the simple truth is our soul will be troubled as long as systemic racism is allowed to persist.

00:40:05.000 We can't eliminate it.

00:40:06.000 It's not going to be overnight.

00:40:07.000 We can't eliminate everything.

00:40:09.000 But it's corrosive.

00:40:10.000 It's destructive.

00:40:11.000 And it's costly.

00:40:13.000 It cost every American, not just who felt the sting of racial injustice, We aren't just a nation morally deprived because of systemic racism.

00:40:26.000 We're also less prosperous.

00:40:28.000 We're less successful.

00:40:29.000 We're less secure.

00:40:30.000 So we must change.

00:40:32.000 And I know it's going to take time.

00:40:35.000 But I know we can do it.

00:40:37.000 And I firmly believe the nation is ready to change.

00:40:41.000 But government has to change as well.

00:40:43.000 We need to make equity and justice part of what we do every day.

00:40:48.000 Today, tomorrow, and every day.

00:40:49.000 Okay, if that's... You know, this nonsense that he's speaking right here comes up directly against the fact that people want criminals in prison.

00:40:57.000 Donald Trump, November 2023, saying, here's what we should do.

00:41:00.000 We should execute drug dealers.

00:41:02.000 Now the legs of me are like, oh my god, that's terrible.

00:41:04.000 How could he say such a thing?

00:41:05.000 You know what most Americans are totally fine with?

00:41:06.000 Executing drug dealers.

00:41:07.000 You know why?

00:41:08.000 Because 100,000 people a year in this country are dying of fentanyl overdoses.

00:41:12.000 And a lot of that is because the fentanyl is poison.

00:41:15.000 We're making an episode of Divided States of Biden on this right now.

00:41:20.000 You know, the fact of the matter is that many of the people who are dying of fentanyl overdoses are not buying fentanyl and then injecting it into themselves.

00:41:27.000 They are buying other drugs, like Adderall pills that are laced with fentanyl.

00:41:32.000 When Trump says give dealers the death penalty, I'm on board.

00:41:35.000 Here was Trump November 2023.

00:41:38.000 You know, when I call these people smart, the press always says, he said he was smart.

00:41:43.000 I'm supposed to say they're not intelligent people.

00:41:46.000 President Xi in China controls 1.4 billion people with an iron hand.

00:41:52.000 No drug problems.

00:41:53.000 You know why they have no drug problems?

00:41:55.000 Death penalty for the drug dealers.

00:41:58.000 Death penalty, right?

00:42:02.000 You want to solve your drug problem?

00:42:04.000 You have to institute a meaningful death penalty for drug dealers.

00:42:08.000 Not wrong, on abortion, right?

00:42:10.000 All the positions that we've discussed so far are ones that I think most mainstream conservatives agree with, and they happen to be moderate positions.

00:42:15.000 On abortion, Donald Trump disagrees with mainstream conservatives on abortion.

00:42:21.000 And yet, he's able to get away with it.

00:42:22.000 This is like the best example of Donald Trump being the guy who's seizing the middle ground.

00:42:25.000 So, Joe Biden actually, believe it or not, on abortion, has an approval rating that is 5% underwater.

00:42:30.000 38 to 43.

00:42:35.000 What do the polls say about what Americans are fine with in terms of abortion restrictions?

00:42:39.000 48%, a plurality of Americans, support a 16-week ban on abortion.

00:42:43.000 Which, by the way, is super late.

00:42:45.000 And most European countries are at 12 weeks.

00:42:46.000 But, a 16-week ban on abortion.

00:42:49.000 Only 36% are opposed to a piece of legislation that would ban abortion 16 weeks and beyond.

00:42:56.000 That happens to be the position that Donald Trump is currently exploring.

00:43:00.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden has taken the position abortion until birth funded by taxpayers.

00:43:04.000 In 2019, you'll recall that Joe Biden reversed himself.

00:43:07.000 He had spent his entire career saying taxpayers should not have to fund abortion because you don't agree with somebody else getting an abortion.

00:43:11.000 Why are you paying for it?

00:43:13.000 Then in 2019, under pressure from his left flank, he denounced the Hyde Amendment.

00:43:18.000 We now see so many Republican governors denying health care to millions of the most poorest and most vulnerable Americans by refusing even Medicaid expansion.

00:43:29.000 I can't justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right.

00:43:39.000 If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's zip code.

00:43:47.000 So taxpayer-funded abortion up until birth is the Democratic Party position under Joe Biden.

00:43:53.000 Meanwhile, the actual Donald Trump position on abortion does not match with my own.

00:43:57.000 You'll recall that in September 2023, Donald Trump ripped into Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida for a six-week abortion ban.

00:44:03.000 So he has taken the absolutely milquetoast, middle-of-the-road position on abortion.

00:44:07.000 People criticize Nikki Haley for being middle-of-the-road on abortion.

00:44:10.000 Trump is just as middle-of-the-road when it comes to public policy.

00:44:13.000 Here he was in 2023, ripping on an actual abortion ban in the state of Florida.

00:44:19.000 If a federal ban landed on your desk, if you were re-elected, would you sign it at 15 weeks?

00:44:25.000 Are you talking about a complete ban?

00:44:27.000 A ban at 15 weeks.

00:44:29.000 Well, people are starting to think of 15 weeks.

00:44:33.000 That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.

00:44:36.000 Would you sign that?

00:44:37.000 I would sit down with both sides, and I'd negotiate something, and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years.

00:44:46.000 I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't.

00:44:48.000 I mean, DeSantis is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.

00:44:52.000 Would you support that?

00:44:53.000 You think that goes too far?

00:44:54.000 I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.

00:44:57.000 But we'll come up with a number.

00:44:59.000 But at the same time, Democrats won't be able to go out in six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion.

00:45:05.000 So, again, how do you demonize that position as radically right-wing?

00:45:09.000 Trump is actually taking one of the Democrats' most potent issues in the aftermath of the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, or the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, he's actually taking it off the table for them because he's a moderate on the issue.

00:45:19.000 On foreign policy, by the way, I know there are a lot of people who are big Trump fans who think that he wants to cut off aid to Ukraine.

00:45:23.000 He has never said that.

00:45:25.000 He's never actually articulated that.

00:45:27.000 What he has said is that, in fact, he's actually said the opposite.

00:45:29.000 He said he would increase aid to Ukraine sufficient to pressure Putin to come to the table and make a deal.

00:45:35.000 The difference between him and Biden is that he wants Putin to make a deal, whereas Biden has provided no off-ramp in Ukraine.

00:45:40.000 And again, that is the middle-of-the-road position.

00:45:43.000 According to polling data from Harvard-Harris, 25% of Americans favor increasing military aid to Ukraine.

00:45:49.000 28% favor decreasing military aid.

00:45:51.000 29% favor maintaining military aid.

00:45:56.000 So the real question is whether you consider more military aid to Ukraine, maintaining military aid or increasing military aid.

00:46:03.000 But 53% of Americans are favorable on NATO as opposed to 22% unfavorable.

00:46:08.000 Now, again, many of the people who are trying to craft a sort of isolationist Trumpism are ignoring his actual positions that he's taken on these issues.

00:46:15.000 When Donald Trump says that he wants members of NATO to pay their fair share, he is not calling for the dissolution of NATO.

00:46:21.000 In many ways, he's calling for NATO to be strengthened.

00:46:25.000 I know that everyone's attempting to misread his joke about, I'm gonna invite everybody to invade NATO countries if they don't... That's a pressure tactic, folks.

00:46:33.000 It doesn't actually mean that he's going to tell Russia to go invade Moldova.

00:46:39.000 When Joe Biden says, again, vague words about Ukraine, people don't believe him.

00:46:43.000 Here was Joe Biden in June 2023 saying, we'll stay as long as it takes.

00:46:45.000 Most Americans are not into we'll stay as long as it takes because it doesn't mean anything and we know that they're lying.

00:46:52.000 On commitments to Ukraine, long-term security, long-term security to deter future aggression after this war ends is a goal.

00:47:02.000 And we're advancing this goal by providing them the support Ukraine needs now on the battlefield and helping them strengthen their military over the long term.

00:47:14.000 The fact of the matter is that I believe we'll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes.

00:47:22.000 And I believe that we're gonna that that support will be real, even though there are you hear some voices today on Capitol Hill about whether or not we should continue to support Ukraine and for how long we should support them.

00:47:38.000 The fact of the matter is, I asked people a picture.

00:47:40.000 What would happen if we were not supporting Ukraine?

00:47:45.000 Do we think Russia would stop and keep?

00:47:48.000 Do you think that's all there would be happening?

00:47:50.000 I think not.

00:47:51.000 And I think the vast majority of my colleagues, even the critics, think that would not be the case as well.

00:47:59.000 Trump's take is that this is platitudes and empty words and unclear policy.

00:48:02.000 Here was Trump.

00:48:03.000 This is like last week, folks.

00:48:04.000 This is not two years ago.

00:48:06.000 Here is Donald Trump last week talking about Ukraine and sounding fairly conservative on Ukraine.

00:48:13.000 So Putin is not A fan of mine, actually.

00:48:17.000 You remember when they used to say, oh, Trump, you know, they had a body language person on CNN fake news.

00:48:24.000 And they had me and Putin together.

00:48:25.000 And they said to the expert, well, who's the dominant force?

00:48:29.000 And the expert said, as you know, I've analyzed it.

00:48:31.000 I've spent a lot of time doing it.

00:48:33.000 And I don't think you're going to like the answer.

00:48:35.000 But President Trump is the dominant force said that.

00:48:39.000 I don't know if it's true.

00:48:40.000 I don't know.

00:48:40.000 Remember, we both walked on.

00:48:46.000 But I got along good with him, but he doesn't want to have me.

00:48:50.000 He wants to have Biden because he's going to be given everything he wants, including Ukraine.

00:48:56.000 That's a gift.

00:48:57.000 He's got a gift.

00:48:58.000 He's going to have his dream of getting Ukraine because of Biden.

00:49:01.000 The whole thing is just crazy.

00:49:04.000 Biden has given him the only president in the last five that hasn't given Russia anything is a president known as Donald J. Trump.

00:49:16.000 You know that.

00:49:18.000 I don't have to go over the list.

00:49:21.000 But Biden, Biden is going to give him Ukraine.

00:49:24.000 The way it's looking to me, it's terrible.

00:49:26.000 OK, that is Trump outflanking Biden from the right on Ukraine.

00:49:30.000 That's him being more hawkish than Biden on Ukraine.

00:49:33.000 When it comes to Israel, same sort of deal.

00:49:35.000 So Joe Biden right now is taking the minority position on Israel and Hamas.

00:49:40.000 The vast majority of Americans, like 82% of Americans, support Israel over Hamas.

00:49:43.000 And in fact, according to the latest Harvard-Harris poll, 67% of Americans believe that there should only be a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after the release of the hostages and Hamas is removed from power.

00:49:55.000 Biden is taking the position there should be an unconditional ceasefire, or at least that's what he is pushing right now.

00:50:01.000 And Biden is critiquing Israel.

00:50:03.000 That is not the mainstream, moderate, middle-of-the-road position in the United States.

00:50:06.000 It is not.

00:50:06.000 Thank God, this is a good country.

00:50:09.000 Okay, here is Joe Biden saying this weekend that Israel is risking its own legitimacy.

00:50:14.000 This is not the middle of the road.

00:50:16.000 Americans do not agree with this.

00:50:19.000 You believe maybe there's a future for a two-state solution, but from where I'm sitting, it does seem like there doesn't seem to be any appetite for that right now.

00:50:26.000 Do you see what is, because again, we see this horrible, every day we see this horrible images out of Gaza.

00:50:32.000 And is there a path forward?

00:50:34.000 Is there a safe future for the people who live there?

00:50:38.000 There is a path forward, with difficulty, but here's the path forward.

00:50:42.000 Look, first of all, there are, the hostages being held must be released.

00:50:47.000 And if we've got a, at least a principle agreement, there'll be a ceasefire while that takes place.

00:50:52.000 Ramadan's coming up and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out.

00:51:03.000 That gives us time to begin to move in directions that a lot of Arab countries are prepared to move in.

00:51:09.000 But it's a process.

00:51:10.000 And look, Israel has had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of nations.

00:51:16.000 If it keeps this up without this incredibly conservative government they have, and Ben-Gavir and others, I've known every major foreign policy leader in Israel since Golda Meir.

00:51:29.000 They're going to lose support from around the world.

00:51:32.000 And that is not an Israel- I mean, he's wrong on the merits, but this also happens to be a wild, left-wing, Dearborn, Michigan position.

00:51:39.000 That is not the middle-of-the-road position in the United States.

00:51:41.000 You know what sounds more reasonable?

00:51:42.000 Donald Trump saying that he will strip student visas from foreigners who come here and hate Jews.

00:51:47.000 That seems like a pretty- Like, most Americans kind of agree with that.

00:51:49.000 We don't want foreigners here who don't like Jews.

00:51:52.000 It's a pretty- Should that be controversial?

00:51:55.000 I'd be shocked if it is.

00:51:56.000 Here is Donald Trump.

00:51:58.000 Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners at our colleges and universities.

00:52:08.000 And we will send them straight back home.

00:52:12.000 They go back home.

00:52:13.000 Enjoy your life.

00:52:15.000 That is the middle of the road position.

00:52:16.000 OK, all of this is to say that the only argument that the Biden administration, the Biden campaign have left is that Donald Trump is a bad orange man.

00:52:23.000 That's it.

00:52:24.000 They don't have any positional strengths.

00:52:26.000 They don't.

00:52:27.000 Even on the traditional Democratic strengths, like abortion, which has benefited them since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, Donald Trump has taken the bat out of their hands because he is middle of the road on that issue.

00:52:38.000 Every other issue The Democrats have moved so far to the left that Donald Trump owns the middle of the playing field, which means that Donald Trump's strategy at this point should just be to say that over and over and over.

00:52:50.000 If he focuses in on his positions and Joe Biden's failures, he is going to be the president.

00:52:55.000 Ironically, not because Trumpism is some wild, extreme mega force, but because Donald Trump himself, politically, positionally, is a middle-to-left Republican.

00:53:06.000 That's the reality.

00:53:07.000 He wants to maintain entitlements.

00:53:10.000 He wants a 16-week abortion ban?

00:53:13.000 He is somewhat interventionist on foreign policy?

00:53:16.000 All of these positions are the mainstream American positions, which means that positionally, Joe Biden has boxed himself right out.

00:53:23.000 And there's another problem for Joe Biden too.

00:53:25.000 The other problem for Joe Biden is that people perceive Joe Biden as corrupt.

00:53:28.000 That same Harvard Harris Caps poll shows 50% of Americans thinks Joe Biden benefited from Hunter Biden's gallivanting around the world to pick up sacks of cash.

00:53:37.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.

00:53:39.000 We will be joined on the line by Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner.

00:53:44.000 He's uncovered A kind of shocking story about foreign aid in the United States and where it is going.

00:53:49.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:53:50.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 29, 2024

THE DIRTY SECRET: Trump Is The 2024 Moderate

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