Biden's allies come out of the woodwork to stop Bernie, Trump fulminates over the anti-Biden coup, and Chris Matthews is gone. Ben Shapiro breaks it all down and explains why he thinks Joe Biden is going to win tonight's Super Tuesday contest against Bernie Sanders. Plus, why Bloomberg is not a threat to Biden and why he should have stayed in the race. The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to expressvpn.co/OurAdvertisers. Use the promo code: PODCAST to receive 10% off your first month with discount code PODCODE10 at checkout. It helps get the show out there and find more divers. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your fellow podcasters! The opinions expressed in this podcast are our own, not those of our corporate and trade partners, and we do not endorse any of our products, services or campaigns. We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in the podcast. This podcast is for non-commercial use, unless otherwise specified. Thank you for supporting the podcast or sponsoring it directly or indirectly through our sponsorships. . We make no claim of any product or service related to this podcast or product related to the podcast, other than that of our work. We do not sponsored or promoted by our products or services. I amisservices. You are not required to pay for this podcast, we are not compensated or compensated in any way in any of these products or other than for any other product or services provided by our parent company, except as a third party or service, other third party entity. except that which is being compensated for the podcast is not promoted or sponsored by the podcasting company does not receive any other person s use of this podcasting service, except in any other entity other than except this podcast is said to be compensated for such services, other such thing. in any such service. , unless stated or other such consideration is said in this publication or such thing by the third party is not being compensated in such thing, including any such thing that is not represented in this material being offered in any third party service,
00:01:59.000My prediction for tonight, tonight is Super Tuesday.
00:02:01.000My prediction for tonight, Biden overperforms the polls.
00:02:03.000Bloomberg wildly underperforms the polls because, as I said yesterday, my going theory about Michael Bloomberg is that he was a placeholder for the anti-Bernie sentiment.
00:02:10.000That if you felt that Biden was not a durable candidate, you said in polls that you were going to vote for Bloomberg.
00:02:15.000But now that Biden looks more durable, a lot of those votes are going to fall away from Bloomberg and back toward Biden.
00:02:20.000Now that it's become a two-person race, basically.
00:02:22.000That means that Bloomberg is not going to cross that 15% threshold that you are required to pass in order to receive delegates in all of these states.
00:02:29.000And that means that those delegates instead are going to be split among the other candidates, which means more victories for Joe Biden.
00:02:34.000So I think that Biden is going to overperform tonight.
00:02:36.000It would actually not be the world's largest shock if Joe Biden were to end up outperforming Bernie Sanders tonight.
00:02:42.000And the betting markets are reflecting this.
00:02:43.000The betting markets are now reflecting that at the very least, what you're going to see on Super Tuesday is a delegate split.
00:02:47.000That it's not going to be a Bernie runaway.
00:02:49.000That Bernie made you real well in California.
00:02:51.000But that as long as Joe Biden passes 15% in California and splits the vote at all, he is likely to emerge within 100 delegates of Bernie Sanders.
00:03:00.000And if that happens, and if it's a neck and neck race, there are a lot of big states coming up, like Florida, like Georgia, where Biden can really run up the score on Bernie, make up that deficit, and end up in a position to win a plurality of the votes.
00:03:12.000Now, that doesn't mean that Biden is gonna end up winning the Democratic nomination outright on the first ballot.
00:03:18.000Right now, 538, has rejiggered all of their calculations.
00:03:25.00061% chance that nobody has a majority of the delegates.
00:03:28.000That nobody has, so a two and three, three and five chance that nobody is gonna have a majority of the delegates, which technically is not an open convention, but it's a contested convention because nobody wins outright.
00:03:52.000And if you look at the number of delegates they are forecasting for Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, they've got Bloomberg dropping and they've got Biden precipitously rising to 1,738 delegates.
00:04:03.000He needs 2,000 to just win this thing.
00:04:05.000But 1,738 delegate Sanders all the way down at 1,363.
00:04:08.000So that consolidation of the field is happening at exactly the right time for Joe Biden.
00:04:13.000And again, this shows discipline within the party.
00:04:15.000I mean, you do have to admire it as a Republican, the discipline within the party.
00:04:18.000Now, part of that has to do with the fact that there is more time in the Democratic calendar to mobilize that opposition.
00:04:23.000The Republican Party doesn't have as much time.
00:04:25.000If somebody starts running up victories very early on in Republican primaries because they are winner-take-all, it is difficult to stop them.
00:04:31.000Imagine that Iowa had been winner-take-all, and let's assume that Bernie had won Iowa.
00:05:38.000HR can absolutely kill you if you don't have proper compliance, if you have not actually done all you can to make sure that your HR department is excellent.
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00:06:41.000You get it wrong, it can cost you literally millions of dollars.
00:06:44.000Go to Bambi.com slash Shapiro right now to schedule your free HR audit.
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00:06:56.000Make sure that you're in compliance and that you're doing all the right things to make sure your business is on solid footing.
00:07:01.000OK, so the New York Times reports late last year, a group of first term House Democrats anxious over the party's fractious presidential race can mean a series of discussions intended to spur party unity.
00:07:10.000Led by Representatives Colin Allred of Texas and Haley Stevens of Michigan, they considered issuing a collective endorsement of one moderate candidate.
00:07:16.000The group held phone calls with Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg, but the lawmakers could not agree.
00:07:22.000Others worried about alienating voters at home, who backed other contenders like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
00:07:27.000A few issued solo endorsements of Biden, but the grander plan disintegrated.
00:07:31.000There wasn't time to reach consensus over one candidate, said Ms.
00:07:34.000Stevens, who eventually endorsed Bloomberg.
00:07:36.000That effort was just one in a series of abandoned or ineffective plans to rally the moderate wing of the Democratic Party behind a single contender.
00:07:42.000But now, on the eve of Super Tuesday, when Democrats across 15 states and territories will hand out more than a third of the delegates required to claim the nomination, Sanders is within reach of a clear national lead, and Biden is racing to catch up.
00:07:54.000In the last few days, moderate Democrats acting with a new sense of urgency have begun a large-scale effort to coalesce around Joe Biden.
00:08:00.000And this is the big story, the coalescing around Joe Biden, the consolidation around Joe Biden.
00:08:04.000So Pete Buttigieg, who's had some fairly harsh words for Joe Biden, not as harsh as the other candidates on the stage with regard to Joe Biden.
00:08:10.000He dropped out of the race yesterday and then he flew to Dallas to do a rally with Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke for some odd reason.
00:08:18.000And Pete Buttigieg basically, here's the thing with Buttigieg.
00:08:22.000Booty Judge is smart enough to recognize that he has no political future in the state of Indiana.
00:08:25.000So after he dropped out, there were a lot of talk.
00:08:28.000Well, he can come back next time and he can run.
00:08:54.000He gets appointed Secretary of Defense because of his military background by Joe Biden or something.
00:08:58.000And the second is that Pete Buttigieg ends up carpetbagging it.
00:09:01.000That he leaves the state of Indiana and he ends up going to the state of New York or the state of Massachusetts.
00:09:05.000He pulls a Robert Kennedy or a Hillary Clinton and moves from a state where he is unlikely to win to a state where he is much more likely to win.
00:09:11.000Because, remember, the one time he ran statewide in Indiana, he got his butt kicked.
00:09:14.000I mean, just got destroyed by Richard Murdoch, of all people.
00:09:17.000So he doesn't have a future outside of endorsing Biden.
00:09:21.000So Buttigieg comes out yesterday and he endorses Biden.
00:09:24.000Here is Mayor Pete dropping out of the race and endorsing a guy who, until five minutes ago, had not won a single primary.
00:09:30.000We made it clear that the whole idea was about rallying the country together to defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for the values that we share.
00:09:40.000And that was always a goal that was much bigger than me becoming president.
00:09:45.000And it is in the name of that very same goal that I'm delighted to endorse and support Joe Biden for president.
00:09:53.000We need a politics that's about decency.
00:10:27.000Sanders is so off-putting and Sanders is so insular in the group of people he trusts, because they are a bunch of socialists who are radicals, that he doesn't have the opportunity to offer patronage.
00:10:37.000He doesn't have the opportunity to basically bribe these people to join his campaign.
00:11:19.000And Joe's like, well, Pete, I don't say this to a lot of people, Pete is not, Pete reminds me of my son, Bo, and hunters out there like snorting coke and doing hookers and everybody's, and it's like, why doesn't my father love me?
00:11:34.000And Joe's like, well, I have another hunter, yeah, I don't want to talk about, he's in Ukraine, we don't understand, go.
00:11:42.000I don't think I've ever done this before, but he reminds me of my son, Bo.
00:11:49.000And I know that may not mean much to most people, but to me it's the highest compliment I could give any man or woman.
00:12:29.000Speak to Pete Buttigieg a couple days ago to encourage him to stay engaged because he has enormous talent.
00:12:37.000And I indicated to him that if I became the nominee, I'd come and ask him to be part of an administration, to be engaged in moving things forward.
00:12:45.000He could be Secretary of Transportation or something.
00:13:03.000Quid pro quo go Buttigieg just went out and said something And probably they'll say Hey look, if I win, I'll put you in the administrations That's called quid pro quo, right?
00:13:47.000So Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota who Again, had outperformed Joe Biden in two of the three states that had that had taken place before South Carolina.
00:13:55.000Klobuchar dropped out and then she flew down to Dallas and she endorsed Joe Biden.
00:13:59.000So this is the first time that Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have agreed on anything.
00:14:03.000Then they went in the back room and for some reason just attacked Pete Buttigieg's jugular with a comb.
00:14:41.000And that is why today I am ending my campaign and endorsing Joe Biden for president.
00:14:49.000So these other Democrats are smarter than the Republicans were in 2016 because they recognize that their pathway to glory is getting behind somebody who is not Bernie Sanders.
00:14:57.000The entire Democratic Party establishment is now moving against Bernie Sanders, like all of them.
00:15:02.000So you've got Harry Reid, who came out yesterday in a very non-shocking move and endorsed Joe Biden.
00:15:08.000So Reid, who's the former Senate majority and minority leader, he came out and endorsed Biden, so did former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.
00:15:16.000Here is Terry McAuliffe endorsing Joe Biden.
00:15:17.000By the way, on his way to endorse Joe Biden, he was doing some sort of presser yesterday.
00:15:21.000Apparently, his elevator got stuck with like 10 people in it.
00:15:24.000I cannot think of much of a worse fate than being stuck in an elevator for two hours with Terry McAuliffe.
00:15:28.000That sounds like almost the definition of hell.
00:15:30.000In any case, here is Terry McAuliffe, former DNC head and former Virginia governor, explaining why he was endorsing Joe Biden on CNN.
00:16:02.000Harry Reid's statement was, President Donald Trump has done unspeakable damage to our country, our institutions, and the rule of law.
00:16:07.000Democrats need a candidate who can assemble the largest, most diverse coalition possible to defeat Trump and lead our country following the trauma of Trump's presidency.
00:16:47.000She tweeted, I'm proud to endorse Joe Biden for president.
00:16:49.000Here he is comforting me on January 4th, 2017, just after my mother passed away.
00:16:53.000There is no one kinder, more empathetic and caring than Joe Biden.
00:16:56.000He will lead America with the same deep compassion and decency.
00:17:00.000Okay, this has been the pitch for Biden is that Biden is a nice guy, whereas Bernie is a very, very mean guy.
00:17:05.000We'll get to one more major endorser of Joe Biden in just one second.
00:17:09.000First, let's talk about replacing employees.
00:17:12.000So let's say that you have an employee who is just the star of your company's softball team.
00:17:15.000And let's say that this, we'll call him Matt, we'll call him Matt.
00:17:18.000And let's say that this particular employee, I mean, he's just a stun on your softball team and you take real pride in your company's softball team.
00:17:25.000In hitting a double, he just blows out his hamstring so he can't go to work anymore.
00:17:29.000And he's just sitting at home, icing that hammy, and thinking about how we could have won the softball game last night if only, if only, he had not made that wrong turn at first base.
00:17:38.000Well, you know, at that point you might be thinking about replacing Matt.
00:17:53.000You'd go to ZipRecruiter because ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire allows you to try it for free.
00:17:57.000ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 top job sites with their powerful matching technology.
00:18:02.000ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right skills and experience for your job and then actively invites them to apply.
00:18:08.000You can even add screening questions to your job listing so you can filter candidates and focus on the best ones.
00:18:13.000ZipRecruiter is so effective that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the very first day.
00:18:20.000As much as I rip on a different employee every time we do a ZipRecruiter ad, the truth is we do take hiring extremely seriously here at DailyWire, and that is why we use ZipRecruiter.
00:19:22.000And that shirt has gone through a beating, man, from the cover of Vanity Fair to like being very rich in his mansion paid for by his in-laws to like, you know, being useless.
00:20:21.000And I'll be honest with you, bro, not only do we need Joe Biden, we need a president who's not going to ban all the deodorant, because let me tell you, my pit stains are horrendous in this particular video, bro.
00:20:30.000Now, here's what's scary is that Joe Biden did make a promise apparently to Beto as well, because this is what again, no corruption.
00:20:44.000Beto's great, and he's Beto, and O'Rourke, and he... You know, he said he's gonna ban all the guns, and I don't hate guns, but I'm gonna put Beto in charge of the guns.
00:22:21.000You had a million candidates, and the one you chose is this one.
00:22:25.000Of all the humans on the earth, this human with the head in which the hair plugs have grown deeply into the synapses, into the neural firing mechanisms.
00:22:36.000Here is Joe Biden trying to recite the Declaration of Independence.
00:22:40.000And Thomas Jefferson just spun so hard in his grave, he dug a hole directly to China and acquired a coronavirus.
00:23:55.000So I made fun of Beto a moment ago because Beto O'Rourke started his little endorsement of Joe Biden by explaining that today he said tomorrow because yesterday he said today is Tuesday.
00:24:08.000Well, I mean, I made fun of him for saying that, but maybe he was just trying to tell Joe Biden, because Joe Biden actually said yesterday that tomorrow is Super Thursday, which doesn't exist.
00:24:16.000I don't know what Super Thursday is or where he's getting this, but, um, here's Joe Biden.
00:24:20.000He's jumping in a super into the Wednesday.
00:24:22.000Look, tomorrow is Super Thursday, and I want to thank you all.
00:24:30.000Even everybody else is laughing at him.
00:24:41.000I mean, I hope all the candidates should live long and be well.
00:24:45.000All I'm going to say is that I feel like the country is in severe danger because coronavirus is only killing people above 65 and we only nominate people above 65.
00:24:51.000So that's all I'm going to say about that.
00:24:54.000Meanwhile, meanwhile, Bernie is feeling a little bit left out in the cold.
00:25:02.000We're gonna get to that in just one second.
00:25:03.000First, have you ever been in that weird situation where a part in your car breaks down and now you gotta take an Uber over to the auto parts store?
00:25:09.000You go there, they don't have the part.
00:25:11.000Or you go there, they have a generic part, it costs too much money.
00:27:13.000All the heads of the party do not want to see Bernie as the nominee.
00:27:16.000And again, I think it shows impressive discipline.
00:27:18.000To be honest with you, it is a disciplined party.
00:27:21.000It's one of the reasons why the Democratic Party typically Has been more popular with its own constituents than the Republican Party.
00:27:26.000The party apparatus among Democrats is still very much operational.
00:27:29.000It's completely dysfunctional with Republicans.
00:27:31.000The Republican Party apparatus does not exist, which is why Trump was able to run in and just take over the entire party.
00:27:36.000Well, Bernie tried it, and now the establishment is kicking back, and they are saying no.
00:27:40.000Sanders was asked directly by Anderson Cooper last night on CNN if the Democrats are stealing the nomination from him again, and Bernie's like, I'm not going to answer that question.
00:28:01.000Again, we'll get to the implications of the Bernie versus Biden showdown and the fact that no one's going to have a majority of delegates going in in just one second.
00:28:08.000But here is Bernie refusing to answer if the Democrats are stealing the nomination from him.
00:28:13.000President Trump questioned last night the timing of Buttigieg's withdrawal, tweeting in part, this is the real beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play.
00:29:17.000What he's actually doing there is trying to stoke the flames of division inside the Democratic Party.
00:29:22.000Sanders yesterday, he's getting more and more ticked off.
00:29:24.000As he is the frontrunner, he has never felt actual scrutiny.
00:29:26.000Bernie, when you get to when you're the outsider and you get to aim fire at everybody else, you're not the one who faces the scrutiny.
00:29:31.000And so Bernie went through an entire election cycle where he was the outsider and Hillary was the insider.
00:29:35.000And up until this point, he was able to play that card because Biden was the guy who was going to win the nomination and Bernie was just going to be outside sniping at him.
00:29:45.000All the all the spotlights swiveled and hit him like the end of Stalag 17.
00:29:49.000All the spotlights in the place went and just hit him.
00:29:51.000And all of a sudden, the machine guns are aimed at him, and Bernie starts to lose it.
00:29:55.000So Bernie's getting more and more angry on the campaign trail, which is not his best look, honestly.
00:29:59.000Sort of avuncular honest guy was always his best look, but angry communist is, it turns out, not supremely popular.
00:30:05.000So he was asked yesterday whether he was, you know, why he keeps campaigning as a socialist, why people keep calling him a socialist, and Bernie Sanders answered with the Popeye answer, I am what I am, and that's all that I am, and then he downed a can of spinach.
00:30:20.000Congressman Ro Khanna told the Wall Street Journal that he's been trying to convince you to portray yourself differently as a successor of Franklin Roosevelt and as a new dealer.
00:30:28.000Do you ever regret labeling yourself a democratic socialist?
00:31:13.000But Michael Moore, you know, obviously already in preemptive mourning for Bernie Sanders's campaign.
00:31:18.000Here he is explaining that people should stop thinking about Bernie.
00:31:20.000Instead, they should think about Trump.
00:31:21.000But of course, neglecting the fact the reason that people don't want Bernie to be the nominee is specifically because they think that Bernie can't beat Trump.
00:31:43.000If you're afraid of Trump now, if that's what really is behind this, Well, you might lose to Trump if you try to elect a communist.
00:32:01.000I mean, that's what most of the Democrats are thinking.
00:32:03.000In just a second, I'm going to give you the breakdown of what could happen going forward, and none of these scenarios are good for the Democrats.
00:32:13.000An octogenarian communist is in the lead to face off against President Trump.
00:32:16.000But Joe Biden, an actual dead person, is now gaining on him quickly.
00:32:21.000Now, if Bernie Sanders were to run this company, everything here would be free.
00:32:23.000Free memberships, free advertising, free pudding cups, and kill the Kulaks to pay for it.
00:32:27.000But in reality, that would make us go bankrupt very quickly unless we killed the Kulaks to pay for it.
00:32:31.000Nevertheless, We still have some great savings in store for you.
00:32:34.000Right now, you can become a Daily Wire member for 25% off on any plan using coupon code NEVERSOCIALIST.
00:32:39.000I don't know about you guys, but savings like these always make my Tumblr overflow with leftist tears.
00:32:44.000Daily Wire members get an ad-free website experience, access to all of our live broadcasts and show library, the full three hours of The Ben Shapiro Show, access to the mailbag, and now exclusive Election Insight op-eds from yours truly.
00:32:54.000Join us for special events like the Super Tuesday episode of Daily Wire Backstage, where we'll be breaking down and covering all of the Super Tuesday election updates in real time.
00:34:52.000I will be surprised if Bloomberg wins more than about 40 delegates tonight.
00:34:56.000Seriously, I think that Bloomberg is not going to cross 15% in nearly any state.
00:34:59.000I think he is going to completely collapse once the voters have a chance to actually vote for Biden or Bloomberg.
00:35:03.000I think people are going to vote for Biden.
00:35:05.000So I think that Biden significantly overperforms.
00:35:07.000I think Bernie performs exactly in line with expectations.
00:35:09.000And I think Bloomberg's votes all go to Biden, basically.
00:35:11.000Also, Klobuchar and Buttigieg endorsed Biden.
00:35:14.000So I would assume that most of those voters, not all of them, but most of them, end up moving over to Joe Biden as well.
00:35:19.000This leads to the possibility of three scenarios.
00:35:22.000The worst-case scenario is the scenario in which Sanders cleans up tonight, but Biden gains, and by the time of the convention, Sanders ends up with slightly more delegates than Biden, and Bloomberg ends up with like 500, 600 delegates, right?
00:37:16.000She had the majority of the delegates.
00:37:17.000She won more votes than Bernie Sanders, but people were still claiming that Bernie got screwed out of it because the DNC was interfering.
00:37:23.000He can make the same case right now, given the fact that there is this obvious mobilization on behalf of Biden, this obvious consolidation of the field on behalf of Biden.
00:37:30.000So even if Biden were to walk into the convention with a plurality of delegates, Bernie is still going to claim that he got screwed out of it.
00:37:37.000And that's a real problem for the Democrats.
00:37:39.000Even if Bernie gives a sort of lackluster, half-hearted endorsement of Joe Biden, that's going to have exactly the same impact as Bernie doing that in 2016 with Hillary Clinton.
00:37:50.000Namely, a bunch of Bernie supporters are going to be like, I don't care about this.
00:38:07.000Okay, so here is the problem for the Democrats.
00:38:09.000There were three things that the Democratic Party did wrong.
00:38:13.000I mean, really, like three serious things.
00:38:15.000One, they rejiggered the primary process to help popular but non-majoritarian candidates like Bernie at Bernie's behest.
00:38:20.000So Bernie claimed last time around he was screwed.
00:38:22.000So the Democratic Party responded by releasing raw vote totals in places like Iowa.
00:38:26.000They responded by getting rid of the impact of superdelegates, making it appear that Bernie had more of a shot at bucking the party infrastructure.
00:39:07.000Because he opened the door wide to Sanders, which ends up allowing the Sanders supporters to feel jobbed by Biden winning the nomination.
00:39:14.000Imagine if Biden had not run a crappy campaign.
00:39:15.000Imagine if Biden had raised money and spent in Iowa and spent in New Hampshire and he'd won the first couple of contests.
00:39:20.000There wouldn't have been a split in the party.
00:39:22.000But now that Bernie actually was for a short time the delegate leader and may still be the delegate leader after Super Tuesday, given California.
00:39:27.000Now, no matter what happens, because Biden ran the world's crappiest campaign, it ends up that you have a major split inside the party.
00:39:35.000So this is almost best case scenario for President Trump.
00:39:38.000Trump is just overjoyed about all of this, and he should be.
00:39:41.000Now, meanwhile, Bernie is sort of praying that Michael Bloomberg does better than expected in these various Super Tuesday states.
00:39:48.000There's only one problem, which is that Bloomberg is awful at this.
00:39:52.000Yesterday, Bloomberg did another one of these CNN town halls, and he was confronted on gun control.
00:40:03.000when you have an armed security detail that is likely equipped with the same firearms and magazines that you seek to ban the common citizen from owning.
00:40:10.000Does your life matter more than mine or my family's or these people's?
00:40:13.000I probably get 40 or 50 threats every week, okay?
00:40:20.000That just happens when you're the mayor of New York City or you're very wealthy and if you're campaigning for President of the United States, you get lots of threats.
00:40:30.000Basically, I deserve it because I can afford it, and also I get lots of threats, so I should be able to protect myself, but you should not be able to protect yourself.
00:44:13.000One of them was where he suggested that the Democratic Party was waking up like the Allies in 1940 and realizing that the Germans had taken over the beaches, basically.
00:44:22.000He was not comparing Bernie Sanders to a Nazi, and you have to be a moron to believe that he was doing that.
00:44:34.000Chris Matthews is moderate enough to understand that nationalization of industry is a stupid idea.
00:44:39.000So the Bernie bros got very mad, and then they played this idiotic game where they suggested that Chris Matthews was anti-Semitic.
00:44:45.000Meanwhile, their candidate is out campaigning with actual people who want to wipe the state of Israel off the map.
00:44:49.000I mean, it was really cynical and really gross, and I mentioned it at the time, right?
00:44:52.000In the last month, I've become a Chris Matthews defender, not just because I like my impression, but also because the attacks on him are really unfair.
00:44:57.000Then there was this interview he did with Elizabeth Warren, where Elizabeth Warren was cynically going after Michael Bloomberg and suggesting that Michael Bloomberg was lying about his confrontations with the series of women in his office.
00:45:09.000And Bloomberg had said, I'm not lying about that.
00:45:11.000There are NDAs in place, but I'm not lying about that.
00:45:14.000And obviously, people have a rather large incentive to say I say things that I didn't say because I'm extremely wealthy.
00:46:10.000How could he ask Elizabeth Warren if a woman lied about Bloomberg?
00:46:13.000Well, she's accusing a man of lying, so, like, why would you believe the woman as opposed to believing the man in this particular scenario?
00:46:19.000As far as why would she lie, the answer is she was filing a lawsuit against Bloomberg against the time, who happens to be extremely wealthy.
00:46:24.000So, yeah, that might be a good reason.
00:46:26.000I mean, that doesn't mean that she's not telling.
00:46:36.000Over at the Washington Examiner has a good piece on this.
00:46:39.000She says, the host's departure, which she said resulted after a conversation with MSNBC, hardly came out of the blue.
00:46:44.000For months, Matthews and other hosts challenging 2020 frontrunner Bernie Sanders have faced the ire of the Socialist Senators fans, as well as those of Elizabeth Warren, and only now did the network apparently care that for years, rumors of inappropriate behavior have swirled around Matthews.
00:46:56.000So people are saying, OK, well, it's just because of all the stuff that he said back in 2000 to women.
00:47:00.000OK, well, you know what year it is? 2020.
00:47:02.000You know, that stuff has been around for quite a while.
00:47:04.000Right at the onset of the MeToo movement in late 2017, The Daily Caller uncovered a settlement paid out by NBC to assuage a former employee of Matthews who alleged sexual harassment.
00:47:12.000Shortly thereafter, multiple sources alleged that Matthews created an abusive work environment, other reporters corroborated the payout, and additional details.
00:47:20.000But despite other serial sexual harassers facing punishment, Matthews continued on as usual until he got under the skin of Warren fans and Bernie bros.
00:47:27.000Just days after he likened Sanders' victory in Nevada to the fall of France to the Nazis, he pressed Warren on her invoking the allegation that Bloomberg told a female employee to have an abortion, angering Sanders and Warren fans as a good way to alienate a substantial portion of the MSNBC audience.
00:47:41.000Warren defender Laura Bassett compared his aggressive questioning of the Massachusetts senator to the objectifying comments she faced from Matthews three years ago.
00:47:49.000That MSNBC decided to take action against a credible accusation isn't the problem, that they waited this long is.
00:47:54.000And that, of course, is exactly right.
00:48:03.000And the reason that it's a problem is because Chris Matthews is cutting against the grain at MSNBC by pissing off all of the Warren and Sanders supporters.
00:49:05.000The exit polls in Israel are a little bit ahead of the actual voting results.
00:49:08.000So, late yesterday, it appeared that Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc had an actual outright majority.
00:49:13.000Instead, the exit polls now suggest that Netanyahu is on track to win 59 seats for his bloc of right-wing and religious parties in Monday's election, down by one from the 60 predicted by initial exit polls.
00:49:22.000That prediction leaves him two seats short of majority in the Knesset.
00:49:26.000The first polls indicated that Netanyahu's Likud won 36 to 37 seats.
00:49:30.000Its allies in Shas, UTJ, and Yamina won 9, 7 to 8, and 6 to 7.
00:49:34.000The polls showed that Blue and White only won 33 seats.
00:49:37.000That Labor, which is the left-wing party in Israel, won 6 to 7.
00:49:40.000The Joint List, which is the Arab parties who, by the way, overtly call for the abolition of the State of Israel, sit at 14 to 15.
00:49:46.000And Yisrael Beiteinu, which is sort of the swing voting bloc, 6 to 8 seats.
00:49:51.000The numbers are expected to continue to change.
00:49:52.000The votes of soldiers have not yet been counted.
00:49:54.000The joint list tends to lose a seat when the soldiers' votes are added.
00:49:56.000If the right doesn't obtain its 61st seat, it could end up being because the far-right Otzma Yehudit party refused Netanyahu's repeated request to quit the race.
00:50:06.000So now the only question is whether they can peel off one or two votes, whether the blue and white Constituency, which is basically just an anti-Netanyahu party, whether a few of them say, listen, we're done with this.
00:50:20.000Bottom line is that Netanyahu has basically given up for dead after the last election.
00:50:24.000The conventional wisdom suggested that with the indictment coming down for corruption against Netanyahu, that people were going to abandon Likud in droves.
00:50:30.000This was what people in blue and white were saying.
00:51:03.000If he's tried in Austin, he's going to jail for life.
00:51:05.000The same thing is true of Bibi Netanyahu.
00:51:07.000If he were not Prime Minister, he would be tried in Tel Aviv, which is a city that hates Benjamin Netanyahu.
00:51:11.000If he is tried in Jerusalem, he probably gets a slap on the wrist, which is basically A more appropriate response to all of this, and then continues as Prime Minister, all of this is over and Blue and White liquidates.
00:51:21.000Blue and White made a serious strategic error.
00:51:23.000Okay, they made a serious strategic error.
00:51:41.000They were simply not going to continue giving blue and white their votes in the same numbers they had been before, simply because they don't like Netanyahu.
00:51:47.000So, another stunning political victory for Netanyahu.
00:51:49.000At the very least, he remains in power for the foreseeable future, even if there's another election.
00:51:53.000That means that that election is not going to happen until summer.
00:53:15.000It is not going to stop being right so long as they are faced with the prospect of a terrorist group in charge of the people right next door and an Iranian regime that is threatening them from abroad.
00:53:24.000So that is the thing that I like today.
00:53:31.000He's like Trump in the sense that he drives enormous loyalty.
00:53:35.000He also is unlike Trump in that he is strategically very clever.
00:53:38.000He is much more focused in his sort of attack than Trump.
00:53:41.000It's one of the great elements I have about Trump is that if Trump were a little bit more strategically focused, he would be at 55% in all of the polls going into 2020.
00:54:03.000OK, we did not lose the war in Afghanistan.
00:54:05.000It's just that there is no victory that is attainable in the sense of establishing a stable democracy in Afghanistan anytime soon.
00:54:11.000The question is whether to keep what is effectively a skeleton force in Afghanistan or whether to pull out precipitously and hand the keys to the car back to the Taliban, which is, of course, a terrorist group.
00:54:23.000So, Taliban supposedly had pledged that they weren't going to attack Afghan targets, they weren't going to attack the Americans, they had pledged that they weren't going to work with Al-Qaeda.
00:54:30.000They are Islamic fundamentalist radicals who engage in terrorism.
00:54:34.000The Trump administration had been engaged in exactly the same sort of wish-casting that the Obama administration was, that maybe a deal would be able to be cut with the Taliban.
00:54:42.000It turns out that that has fallen apart almost immediately.
00:54:45.000So the Trump administration had sent out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make the rounds suggesting that the Taliban had committed to not working with al-Qaeda.
00:54:52.000There's nothing in the deal about that, that they had committed to ending terrorism.
00:55:08.000The United States was negotiating with the Taliban without the direct involvement of the duly elected government of Afghanistan that is in place.
00:55:15.000That's a very weird thing And not only that, the United States was pledging to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners who are not being held by the Americans, they're being held by the Afghan government.
00:55:24.000So strengthening the opposition to the Afghan government in pulling out.
00:55:28.000According to the AFP, the Taliban called an abrupt end to a partial truce on Monday, just two days after signing a deal with the United States that was meant to bring peace at last to Afghanistan.
00:55:35.000In the southern province of Kandahar, considered the Taliban's heartland, fighting broke out in at least two districts.
00:55:40.000They started attacking five of our posts in Panwahi and Maiwand.
00:55:43.000Local police chief Sultan Mohammed Hakimi told AFP fighting is ongoing.
00:55:47.000The Taliban ordered its fighters to recommence attacks against Afghan army and police forces, apparently ending an official reduction in violence that had seen a dramatic drop in bloodshed and given Afghans a welcome taste of relative calm.
00:55:58.000The partial truce between the U.S., the insurgents and Afghan forces lasted for a week, running up to the signing of the U.S.-Taliban accord in Doha on Saturday and was extended over the weekend.
00:56:06.000The Taliban spokesman, Sabahullah Mujahid, told AFP the reduction in violence has ended now and our operations will continue as normal.
00:56:13.000So they bought basically like a week of a week of reduction in violence.
00:56:17.000As per the U.S.-Taliban agreement, our mujahideen will not attack foreign forces, but our operations will continue against the Kabul administration forces.
00:56:24.000In other words, there's no actual truce here.
00:56:27.000Basically, they're just saying if the Americans leave, we won't attack more Americans.
00:56:31.000Well, okay, if the Americans leave, there won't be any more Americans for you to attack.
00:56:38.000The answer is there is no negotiation.
00:56:39.000When one side is determined to withdraw and the other side is determined not to, one will withdraw, the other will not, and things will go back to the way that they were.
00:56:46.000And again, the question here is not endless war.
00:56:48.000Nobody wants tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan.
00:56:51.000The question is whether to keep a skeleton force in Afghanistan to tamp down the Taliban's ability to take over the government again, and then immediately provide a recruiting station for terrorism.
00:57:00.000Because that's what the Taliban did last time.
00:57:09.000And 9-11 was not something that I would like to see repeated because we withdraw precipitously from an area where Al-Qaeda is still active.
00:57:17.000The United States cautioned an immediate halt to violence had not been expected.
00:57:20.000General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Taliban is not a monolithic group.
00:57:26.000To think that violence is going to go to zero immediately, that's probably not going to be the case.
00:57:29.000So now, this is the problem with signing peace deals with terrorist groups.
00:57:32.000you end up becoming PR spokespeople for the terrorist groups.
00:57:35.000You saw this from the Obama administration too.
00:57:37.000The Obama administration kept saying things like, well, you know, if you look at Iran, Iran is not actually pursuing terrorism.
00:57:43.000They became a PR spokesperson because they were signing a deal with the Iranians.
00:57:45.000They became a PR spokes agency for the Iranian government.
00:57:48.000Now you have the United States downplaying Taliban violence against the legitimate government of Afghanistan in order to make an excuse for why we should withdraw.
00:57:55.000Now again, you want to withdraw, withdraw, but understand their costs.
00:57:57.000Understand their costs to withdrawing, and the costs to withdrawing do include the prospect of future violence down the road.
00:58:02.000The easy position in foreign policy, I've discussed this at length, the easy position in foreign policy is always bring the troops home.
00:58:12.000Okay, but the immediate benefits accrue immediately, and the long-term downsides accrue long-term.
00:58:18.000Okay, let's say that you pull out, and let's say ten years from now there's a terrorist attack in New York City by Taliban associates, by Al-Qaeda.
00:58:24.000Well, we'll look back and we'll say, well, that was a mistake, wasn't it?
00:58:27.000To minimize America's foreign military presence.
00:59:29.000And the fact that we're down to short-term benefit Again, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans criticized Barack Obama for precipitously withdrawing American troops from Iraq, resulting in the rise of ISIS.
00:59:39.000It would not be long before the same thing happened in Afghanistan.
00:59:41.000And by the way, when I mean not long, I mean like within 48 hours of signing a deal.
00:59:45.000So, let's not play defense on behalf of the Taliban, guys.
00:59:50.000But don't be dishonest about why we're withdrawing and suggest that a peaceful future is in the offing for the Taliban and the Afghan government.
00:59:55.000Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with much more Super Tuesday content as we approach the big day.