The Ben Shapiro Show - The Left’s ASSAULT On Musk Continues…

00:00:00.000 Folks, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer just went on national TV bragging that he has put hundreds of progressive judges on the bench and said he's proud they are ruling against Trump time after time.

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00:00:28.000 Well, speaking of the left wing assault on basic human values, the assault on Elon Musk's Tesla continues.

00:00:35.000 Now, I will say, it's pretty incredible what we're watching right now.

00:00:38.000 There have been, across American history, a number of very large industrialists, bankers, innovators.

00:00:44.000 Who have worked hand-in-glove with the American government when called upon to do so.

00:00:48.000 In the early 20th century, there were bankers who worked with the federal government in order to essentially bail the United States government out of serious debt problems.

00:00:56.000 During World War II, obviously, industrialists worked with the FDR administration in order to rev up the American war machine.

00:01:05.000 Nothing about what Elon Musk is doing is particularly unprecedented.

00:01:09.000 What is unprecedented?

00:01:11.000 is the idea that it's good for the country if his company is taken down.

00:01:15.000 The hatred of President Trump is so strong and President Trump has been so invulnerable to that hatred that pretty much all the hatred of the left has now turned to Musk.

00:01:23.000 It's kind of a fascinating thing.

00:01:24.000 When you talk to people on the left right now, sure, they hate Trump, but they're kind of tired of hating Trump.

00:01:28.000 They got bored with it.

00:01:29.000 The fact is that they hated Trump 10 years ago.

00:01:30.000 They hate Trump today.

00:01:31.000 Elon Musk is the new hot thing to hate.

00:01:33.000 And because Elon Musk has dedicated himself to Doge, to the Department of Governmental Efficiency, because he is going through department by department and looking for possible waste, fraud, and abuse, because he's so valuable on X, because he's so rich, specifically because of all that, he has become persona non grata, enemy number one.

00:01:51.000 And that means that the left is now excusing actual acts of violence against, for example, Tesla dealerships.

00:01:57.000 There are entire sites that have been set up to dox Tesla owners, according to the UK Independent.

00:02:02.000 As protests against Doge head Elon Musk spread across the country, a website called DogeQuest has reportedly published the personal details of Tesla owners leading to concerns about privacy and safety.

00:02:11.000 The site reveals the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Tesla owners on an interactive map and uses an image of a Molotov cocktail as a cursor.

00:02:18.000 The operators of the site have said that they will only remove the information of Tesla owners who prove they've sold their cars, according to 404 Media, which is full-scale insane.

00:02:26.000 There are legitimately hundreds of thousands of people who own Teslas.

00:02:29.000 The new site comes amid a number of attacks on Tesla properties, such as arsenic showrooms and service centers, seemingly in protest of Musk and his role in the administration of President Trump.

00:02:38.000 That map also includes locations of Tesla dealerships and superchargers.

00:02:41.000 So I'm old enough to remember when Sarah Palin was blamed for putting up a map of targeted districts that she was hoping Republicans could flip. 0.99

00:02:49.000 And then a nutjob, who had nothing to do with that map, went and shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. 0.98

00:02:54.000 And Sarah Palin was blamed for that.

00:02:56.000 Here you have people who are putting up an actual map.

00:02:58.000 With the icon of a Molotov cocktail and individual private people who own Teslas.

00:03:04.000 And somehow this isn't a national scandal in any way.

00:03:07.000 It should be.

00:03:08.000 It should be.

00:03:09.000 I mean, this is incitement to violence, certainly.

00:03:12.000 The site says DogeQuest is the ultimate hub for enthusiasts of the Department of Government Efficiency.

00:03:16.000 Our innovative platform allows users to explore an interactive map of Doge landmarks.

00:03:19.000 Leveraging our cutting-edge artificial intelligence algorithms, DogeQuest goes a step further by connecting like-minded Tesla owners with one another, facilitating a vibrant community through shared contact information.

00:03:30.000 So obviously it's cynical and ironical.

00:03:34.000 All of this comes after a bunch of high-profile attacks on Tesla vehicles, including setting Tesla vehicles on fire at a Las Vegas dealership.

00:03:42.000 The vandalism against Tesla has absolutely surged, not just in the United States, but apparently also in Canada.

00:03:49.000 According to the New York Times, people in Canada have done real damage to vehicles at Tesla dealerships in Canada.

00:03:55.000 More than 80 Teslas had their tires punctured and bodies scratched at a lot in Hamilton, Ontario.

00:04:00.000 Police said on Thursday several acts of vandalism against Tesla property have also been committed in the United States.

00:04:05.000 Apparently all in retaliation for President Trump being mean to the Canadians and Elon Musk being friendly with President Trump.

00:04:12.000 I mean, it has not exactly been sort of top of mind for Musk what is going on with the Canadians and the tariff war.

00:04:17.000 That's really outside his purview.

00:04:20.000 Meanwhile, again, the left is celebrating this sort of stuff.

00:04:24.000 The Daily Show audience literally cheered Tesla's being burned.

00:04:28.000 This is on Jordan Klepper's Daily Show.

00:04:32.000 Tonight, the FBI and ATF now investigating multiple cases of possible arson.

00:04:38.000 Targeting Teslas and Cybertrucks.

00:04:40.000 This dramatic video shows multiple cars in flames.

00:04:43.000 Police say the attacker used Molotov cocktails.

00:04:46.000 It's the latest in more than a dozen instances of arson and vandalism targeting Tesla.

00:04:51.000 The same suspect shot more Teslas with a gun.

00:04:54.000 Tesla Cybertrucks were set on fire in Kansas City, and earlier this month, shots fired at a Tesla dealership in Oregon.

00:05:00.000 Cybertrucks on fire in Seattle.

00:05:02.000 Wow, you guys like petty acts of domestic terrorism, huh?

00:05:09.000 And the audience is cheering.

00:05:10.000 They're cheering.

00:05:11.000 Now, I'd like you to imagine for just a second that there is a company associated with the Biden administration wherein right-wingers literally went to the factories where that company manufactured its products and started burning up the factories.

00:05:23.000 And not the kind of stuff where you buy Bud Light and then you break a Bud Light to demonstrate you don't like Bud Light.

00:05:29.000 What we are talking about, people vandalizing other people's property, burning cars.

00:05:34.000 And this stuff is really ugly.

00:05:36.000 And of course, it shades over into violence because many of the same people cheering this are also cheering the murderer, Luigi, the alleged murderer, Luigi Mangione, who's the person who shot the head of UnitedHealthcare.

00:05:46.000 The escalation of rage against the right into actual acts of violence is truly astonishing and also predictable. 0.96

00:05:54.000 And it's being fomented by some of the most voluble people in American culture, including, of course, the schmuck Bill Burr. 0.78

00:06:02.000 Who used to be interesting, used to be funny, and then decided that he was going to go full woke, and he's angry at me for saying that. 0.93

00:06:07.000 But that's your fault, Bill.

00:06:09.000 It's not mine.

00:06:10.000 You're the one who decided to make the call that you were going to become Michael Moore with less hair.

00:06:15.000 So here is Bill Burr on The View, what a constellation of intellect, saying that he's very angry about who's running the country. 0.60

00:06:23.000 They're a bunch of nerds who don't know how to talk to girls. 0.95

00:06:25.000 I mean, Elon Musk is definitely a nerd. 0.96

00:06:29.000 Also, Elon Musk has like, A thousand children.

00:06:33.000 So I'm pretty sure he knows how to at least talk to girls.

00:06:38.000 Nerds who don't know how to talk to. 1.00

00:06:40.000 I'm getting lectured by Bill Burr on this.

00:06:42.000 Okay, here we go.

00:06:44.000 The nerds that own the politician.

00:06:46.000 All these tech nerds that want to build robots because they don't know how to talk to hot women. 1.00

00:06:50.000 Yeah. They're going to take over the world.

00:06:55.000 They are literally going to replace us. 0.88

00:06:57.000 We're like beta right now, and they're coming out with the VCR.

00:07:01.000 And I think Elon has got the rockets going because they realize there's other Earths out there, and they're going to trash this one because they don't have any concern for it, and they're going to move on to the next Earth.

00:07:14.000 Just psychotic.

00:07:15.000 Just psychotic stuff.

00:07:16.000 And again, I point out Bill Burhert because he's the same person who literally cheers Luigi Mangione.

00:07:22.000 Which is an act of evil.

00:07:23.000 Cheering on murder is a bad thing to do.

00:07:26.000 Cold-blooded murder.

00:07:28.000 I mean, he is called, essentially, for the murder of billionaires, Bill Burr.

00:07:31.000 A man who makes his living by saying marginally funny things in front of crowds.

00:07:36.000 And again, I say marginally funny because I watched him perform live and he wasn't even funny enough to keep the crowd in their seats.

00:07:42.000 It is truly amazing to watch how the left is swinging even further left.

00:07:46.000 The far left has decided that resistance must eventually shade into Beider-Meinhof.

00:07:52.000 Excuses for domestic terrorism and violence.

00:07:55.000 It really is an amazing, amazing thing.

00:07:57.000 And again, Hollywood leads the way in all this.

00:08:00.000 John Cusack, who again is particularly irrelevant at this point, except that he appears on sort of active phone calls.

00:08:07.000 Apparently there was something called a Tesla takedown mass call.

00:08:11.000 It is amazing.

00:08:12.000 They don't have the ability to win electorally.

00:08:14.000 So they are going to wreck the largest electric vehicle company on planet Earth, all of these environmental...

00:08:20.000 Not jobs.

00:08:21.000 I get the impression that their priority is not the environment, that it actually is something far grimmer.

00:08:26.000 Here is John Cusack, who was last relevant 15 years ago. 0.96

00:08:32.000 Musk is kind of this arch villain of late-stage capitalism, and he seems like this clown and this buffoon.

00:08:38.000 But like Alex said, you know, this is a man who made a Sigh Heil Nazi salute, not only in public, but at a presidential victory party. 0.94

00:08:51.000 It's good to remember that these are unprecedented times of mass criminality going on in the United States right now. 0.99

00:08:59.000 And that, like Trump, Musk is a pathological liar. 1.00

00:09:04.000 He's a criminal. 1.00

00:09:06.000 He's a sociopath and a ghoul. 1.00

00:09:09.000 And I mean those terms very precisely, because who else would use his own child as a sympathy prop? 0.99

00:09:18.000 While literally taking starving aid away from people all over the world.

00:09:24.000 I'm glad that he was using the term ghoul so precisely. 1.00

00:09:29.000 If he had not been using it with exactitude, I would have been a little bit upset.

00:09:32.000 Also, I love him calling out Elon Musk as some sort of anti-Semite, throwing up Hitler salutes.

00:09:37.000 John Cusack is pretty famously totally fine with anti-Semitism. 0.77

00:09:40.000 So much so that the ADL, which is the left-wing organization, slaps John Cusack.

00:09:44.000 Fairly regularly for it.

00:09:46.000 John Cusack hasn't excited anybody in a movie for years, but starting a business is exciting.

00:09:51.000 The financial chaos that comes with it, not so much.

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00:11:00.000 Terms and conditions apply.

00:11:02.000 Meanwhile, Jasmine Crockett, who's attempting to drink Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's milkshake as the most viral left-wing congressional star. 0.99

00:11:11.000 She was also on this Tesla takedown mask.

00:11:13.000 Notice where they are directing their energies.

00:11:16.000 Notice where they're directing.

00:11:17.000 They're not directing their energies toward the actual elected officials.

00:11:20.000 There's a congressional election next year.

00:11:22.000 They could be directing their energies at Congress, but they're losing because it turns out the Democratic Party is deeply unpopular.

00:11:28.000 They could be directing all of their energies at President Trump, but they know they're getting nowhere with that.

00:11:32.000 So instead, they've decided they're going to attack the private company of a private individual.

00:11:39.000 Obviously, I don't mean that.

00:11:40.000 Musk isn't a public figure.

00:11:41.000 He certainly is.

00:11:43.000 And Tesla is publicly traded.

00:11:44.000 But none of this has to do with government interventionism.

00:11:47.000 Typically, in a republic, the way that you change policy is through your vote.

00:11:52.000 Even when you're lobbying, the threat is to change votes.

00:11:55.000 The threat is that you're going to do something that is going to change the nature of the electorate, which will then change the nature of the people who are governing you.

00:12:02.000 But that's not what these people are doing.

00:12:03.000 They're literally attempting to pressure a private company so as to pressure the owner of that private company into doing something they don't.

00:12:09.000 That they would prefer he not do.

00:12:11.000 It's an amazing thing.

00:12:13.000 Here's Jasmine Crockett, U.S. Representative. 0.81

00:12:15.000 I mean, again, these are members of Congress who are actively attempting to foment some of the worst action against an electric vehicle company.

00:12:26.000 I'm gonna keep screaming in the halls of Congress.

00:12:29.000 I just need y'all to make sure that y'all keep screaming in the streets.

00:12:33.000 I am truly here for very selfish reasons.

00:12:37.000 Starting with, on March 29th, it's my birthday.

00:12:40.000 And all I want to see happen on my birthday is for Elon to be taken down.

00:12:45.000 Yes! That's all she wants on her birthday, to see Elon taken down.

00:12:50.000 These people are, there's something sick about this. 0.98

00:12:52.000 Truly, truly sick.

00:12:54.000 You know, Chuck Schumer is admitting that all these activists who you're seeing showing up at Republican town halls and screaming at Republican congresspeople, basically Democrats are astroturfing this.

00:13:02.000 This is not a natural thing.

00:13:04.000 That when you're having Harriet Hageman, who is a congresswoman from Wyoming, Wyoming is like 110% Republican, being berated at a congressional town hall. 1.00

00:13:16.000 That is not the natural state of things.

00:13:20.000 We are mobilizing in New York.

00:13:23.000 We have people going to the Republican districts and going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to either change their vote or face the consequences.

00:13:38.000 I mean, at least you know what they're doing and who's astrodurfing it.

00:13:41.000 Meanwhile, again, this is spreading beyond its kind of normal boundaries into the realm of attacks by private citizens on other private citizens.

00:13:49.000 According to Breitbart, a series of swatting incidents targeting conservative commentators and journalists have transpired nearly every evening since March 11th, according to ExPost, in which victims shared video surveillance footage and photos of the events, sparking questions as to who is engaging what Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee called domestic terrorism and attempted murder.

00:14:05.000 FBI Director Cash Patel, Attorney General Pambani, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, have also reacted to the wave of dangerous crime.

00:14:11.000 Swatting is where an anonymous person will call the cops and claim that there is a dangerous crime going on.

00:14:17.000 At some conservative's house, the police arrive ready to engage in some sort of battle with the person inside.

00:14:23.000 They'll say that a murder or a hostage event is taking place at the home.

00:14:27.000 It's designed to prompt SWAT teams to arrive at the targeted home and then possibly do violence to the people inside.

00:14:33.000 As Breitbart reports, at least 15 figures in conservative politics and media have reportedly been SWATed within the course of one week.

00:14:40.000 The string of swatting incidents seemingly began on the evening of March 11th with Infowars reporters Chase Geiser revealing in an early morning March 12th ex-post that six to eight police officers used a PA system to call me by name and order me to walk out of my house.

00:14:52.000 And he is not, of course, the only one.

00:14:56.000 Nick Sorter announced that his family was swatted.

00:14:59.000 We have also seen Gunther Eagleman, who has 1.3 million followers on X, who is swatted.

00:15:07.000 This sort of stuff is really dangerous.

00:15:09.000 And the fact that it is becoming more and more popular with the left to do this is a very bad sign for the country.

00:15:16.000 Now, meanwhile, the media are trying to target Musk with anything they can.

00:15:20.000 There's a story that the Trump administration is calling fake news about Elon Musk having a briefing at the Department of Defense today.

00:15:28.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times also reported this.

00:15:31.000 Musk was scheduled to receive a briefing Friday on the U.S. military's top-secret war plans for China, according to two U.S. officials, giving the wealthy businessman and presidential advisor insight into one of the Pentagon's most closely guarded operational blueprints.

00:15:42.000 Now, the reality is that Elon should not be in on that.

00:15:45.000 He does not, in fact, have security clearance.

00:15:46.000 Elon does enormous amounts of business with China.

00:15:49.000 Tesla does enormous business in China.

00:15:51.000 And so the idea that America's confidential war plan should be put in front of a civilian without proper security clearance, that is a bad idea.

00:15:59.000 Well, fortunately, according to the Trump administration, that was never going to happen.

00:16:03.000 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Musk was going to visit the Pentagon, but he disputed that he would receive a sensitive China briefing saying, quote, it's an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies, and smarter production.

00:16:13.000 President Trump put up a post on Truth Social Thursday evening saying China will not even be mentioned or discussed.

00:16:20.000 So, you now have a conflict between a media that has two confidential sources that they are not revealing and openly...

00:16:27.000 Now, it is quite possible...

00:16:56.000 That what this is actually about has nothing to do with confidential war plans.

00:16:59.000 It's about weapon systems.

00:17:00.000 There's been a lot of controversy surrounding, for example, the F-35, which is incredibly expensive to maintain.

00:17:05.000 And there's great and open debate within the defense community about the efficacy of the F-35 for the future.

00:17:11.000 Because as drone warfare becomes more and more plausible, should the United States be shifting its production into drones?

00:17:17.000 This is something that Elon Musk has suggested.

00:17:20.000 Musk recently made an unannounced visit to the NSA.

00:17:23.000 Which, of course, focuses on communication intercepts to discuss operations and staff reductions.

00:17:27.000 But I think the idea that they were going to bring him in and then show him the actual set of war plans, it seems like that is not true at all.

00:17:34.000 But the media are jumping on anything involving Musk right now.

00:17:37.000 Which does show that they are very deeply afraid of what Musk is doing.

00:17:40.000 And what is Musk doing at this point?

00:17:42.000 What Musk is doing is firing a lot of people.

00:17:44.000 And he's not actually doing the firing.

00:17:45.000 He's advising the Trump administration whom to fire.

00:17:48.000 He's also acting as a sort of public relations shield for the Trump administration because everybody can hate on Musk, but he's an unelected official.

00:17:54.000 So there's nothing for them to really do about it.

00:17:57.000 In reality, if you're mad at Trump, you should be mad at Trump.

00:18:00.000 If you don't like that Musk is doing what he's doing, you should be angry at Trump if you're on the left, not at Musk.

00:18:04.000 Musk is just the messenger.

00:18:06.000 He's the outside consultant who's been called in.

00:18:08.000 If you don't like the firings, that responsibility does not lie directly with Elon Musk.

00:18:13.000 responsibility lies elsewhere.

00:18:15.000 But, for the left, It is indicative of where the left mindset is.

00:18:19.000 The problem, shockingly, is never the government.

00:18:21.000 It really is an amazing thing.

00:18:22.000 I'm old enough to remember the Occupy Wall Street movement.

00:18:25.000 So back during the recession of 2007, stretching all the way through 2009, during that recession, two sort of groups sprang up.

00:18:36.000 And they were making similar cases from different angles.

00:18:38.000 One was the Tea Party.

00:18:39.000 I was a charter member of the Tea Party.

00:18:41.000 You didn't actually have a membership card or anything, but basically the Tea Party was about reducing government spending.

00:18:45.000 The idea was that the government's intervention in the economy had led to the real estate recession and general recession in the United States.

00:18:52.000 And so the Tea Party focused its efforts on lobbying the government, on saying the government should cut.

00:18:57.000 The government should restructure itself.

00:18:59.000 The government should get less involved in the markets, which makes sense because if you're going to lobby somebody, lobby the government.

00:19:04.000 Occupy Wall Street.

00:19:05.000 As the name would suggest, did not occupy Washington, D.C. They occupied Wall Street, which was not answerable to them in any way.

00:19:11.000 And it basically ended up being a bunch of anarchists and fellow travelers who pitched tents, not near houses of government, but near great centers of finance and industry.

00:19:22.000 Because the private sector had to be to blame.

00:19:24.000 The public sector was never to blame.

00:19:25.000 And you can see that in the hatred of Tesla.

00:19:27.000 Tesla has literally nothing to do with what Elon Musk is doing at Doge.

00:19:31.000 Joining us online is Mary Margaret Olihan, Daily Wire, White House correspondent.

00:19:34.000 A lot going on at the White House.

00:19:36.000 Mary Margaret had the opportunity to ask questions again this week of Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, particularly with regard to Doge.

00:19:43.000 Mary Margaret, let me ask you about that.

00:19:45.000 You had a report earlier this week about a bizarre standoff at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

00:19:49.000 What exactly happened?

00:19:50.000 What did the White House have to say about it?

00:19:53.000 Well, good morning, Ben from the White House.

00:19:55.000 It's great to be here.

00:19:56.000 This was an extraordinary story that we reported on.

00:19:58.000 I'm not sure if I've seen something like this before.

00:20:01.000 So, the United States Institute of Peace, it's down on the other side of Washington, D.C. It's a massive institution, which is congressionally funded.

00:20:09.000 But unfortunately, when Doge went in and told them that they needed to allow the new president or the organization to take over, they would not, in fact, do this.

00:20:19.000 And so what sources have told us and what we reported on and the White House has also further clarified on...

00:20:24.000 Is that when the new president of USIP, the United States Institute of Peace, went to take over and to enter the building, the old president, George Moose, would not, in fact, let him in.

00:20:35.000 And this turned into a kind of bizarre standoff, not something you see in D.C. every day, where security, the Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, were all involved in trying to let the new leader of this organization into the building.

00:20:49.000 Well, the old leader had himself barricaded upstairs in his office.

00:20:52.000 And it was more than that, Ben, actually.

00:20:54.000 They were distributing pictures of the Doge employees, of the new leader of USIP, to show the people inside the building who not to allow into the building.

00:21:04.000 They were also, when the new leadership was finally able to enter the building on Monday evening, they found that the elevators were not working, the internet was down, the telephones were not working, there was white noise on on the top floor where the executive suite was.

00:21:18.000 And they found that all the shades were drawn.

00:21:20.000 So just lots of confusingly suspicious behavior.

00:21:24.000 And I'm told that there's investigations into what was going on there.

00:21:27.000 But the old leadership of USIP filed a lawsuit trying to say that Doge should not have been able to enter, that Doge illegally entered.

00:21:35.000 And a judge ruled earlier this week that no, Doge could enter because the old leadership had been removed and the new leadership should have been allowed into the building.

00:21:44.000 However, that judge did say that he was...

00:21:46.000 She was confused by why Doge had behaved in this manner and kind of rebuked Doge for going into the building in this way.

00:21:54.000 Now, the White House is saying they should have been able to do this because the old president had been removed.

00:21:59.000 And when I asked Caroline Levitt about this during the briefing, she...

00:22:03.000 Suggested that this was just an example of how bureaucrats are resisting change to the Trump administration and why this is one of the reasons that the Trump administration is so excited about Doge coming in and effectively cleaning house, removing bureaucrats who don't want to serve the American people.

00:22:19.000 Now, Mary Margaret, one of the things that's become quite apparent is that the hatred for The Trump administration is now being telescoped into hatred for Elon Musk personally.

00:22:27.000 It's pretty clear it's a public relations ploy that's being done by the Democratic Party and members of the media.

00:22:31.000 They can't actually challenge many of the things that Doge is doing on a sort of populist basis because most people actually want waste, fraud, and abuse cut.

00:22:37.000 And so they've decided they're going to go after Elon personally.

00:22:40.000 What's the feeling in sort of the White House about Elon at this moment?

00:22:45.000 Well, what you're hearing from most sides is that the White House is really excited by what Doge has been doing, by what Elon Musk has been doing.

00:22:51.000 They want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:22:54.000 And they're both horrified by the attacks on Tesla owners or by the attacks on Elon Musk, and I would say a little amused by the outrage that Elon is drawing.

00:23:04.000 You know, for years, Trump and his campaign are used to the outrage that they're...

00:23:09.000 Efforts to change the United States have caused, you know, Trump has really drawn a lot of outrage since he first came down that escalator many years ago.

00:23:17.000 But now a lot of that ire is being directed at Elon.

00:23:20.000 And that's very interesting because Trump's support from the American people is just only rising right now.

00:23:26.000 You know, more and more we're finding that most Americans are supporting Trump's efforts.

00:23:30.000 Most Americans do support Elon as well, but I think a lot of Democrats are really focusing their ire on Elon rather than Trump, understanding that the president is very popular right now.

00:23:39.000 Well, it's Mary Margaret Olehan.

00:23:46.000 She, of course, is our White House senior correspondent.

00:23:48.000 Mary Margaret, thanks so much for covering it, and good to see you again.

00:23:53.000 Thank you so much, Ben.

00:23:53.000 Tesla, again, is a private company.

00:23:57.000 Tesla is a company that sells cars and develops AI technology.

00:24:01.000 What does protesting Tesla have to do?

00:24:05.000 With protesting what the federal government is doing in terms of cuts, even if you don't like Musk, shouldn't you be going after Musk in his pseudo-governmental capacity as opposed to in his private capacity as an owner of a business?

00:24:15.000 Why does hitting the business matter?

00:24:18.000 Why is that?

00:24:19.000 And the answer is because for the left, the government is never to blame.

00:24:22.000 You just switch to the people at the top of the government.

00:24:23.000 The government must be maintained at all costs, even if that means you focus your ire on Tesla and not on the actual people in the government who are actively currently doing the kinds of firings that you're very angry about.

00:24:34.000 Speaking of which, President Trump is moving forward to try and dismantle the Department of Education.

00:24:38.000 This is a four-decade-long promise from Republicans that they are going to dismantle the Department of Education, which of course performs functions that should be performed not at the federal governmental level, but should be performed at the state level.

00:24:49.000 Here is President Trump signing an executive order directed at abolishing the Department of Education yesterday.

00:25:01.000 There is President Trump.

00:25:04.000 Signing the actual document with the marker.

00:25:07.000 Okay. The president then made remarks about all of this.

00:25:12.000 He was talking about Linda McMahon, who is his secretary of education.

00:25:16.000 And he says that he is interested in her being the last secretary of education.

00:25:22.000 And we're pleased to be joined today by the woman who I chose because she's an extraordinary person.

00:25:30.000 And hopefully she will be our last Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon. 0.89

00:25:36.000 Linda. Thank you.

00:25:39.000 Thank you very much.

00:25:43.000 By the way, worth noting here that everybody is yelling at Trump about that.

00:25:47.000 How could they're going to dismantle the Department of Education?

00:25:50.000 They can't do that.

00:25:51.000 It is an established department by Congress.

00:25:53.000 He's not going to dismantle the Department of Education outright.

00:25:57.000 He's going to reduce the size and the scope of it, and then he's going to wait for Congress to do it.

00:26:00.000 This was made clear by Caroline Levitt over at the White House yesterday.

00:26:03.000 So the Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today.

00:26:07.000 As you know, the president's executive order directed Linda McMahon to greatly minimize the agency. 0.91

00:26:13.000 So when it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.

00:26:17.000 But we don't need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that's clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students.

00:26:29.000 By the way, that's inarguable.

00:26:30.000 Educational performance in the United States has sunk over the course of the existence of the Department of Education.

00:26:35.000 And when it comes to American educational performance, sort of like America's performance in the war on poverty, the question isn't, did America get worse at education over the past few decades?

00:26:43.000 The question is whether we got better after injecting trillions of dollars into the system.

00:26:47.000 So if the war on poverty took $22 trillion to reach the same point that we had before, that would be a failure.

00:26:53.000 And if you have a Department of Education that spends trillions of dollars and achieves basically nothing, that would also be a failure.

00:26:59.000 Perplexity, one of our sponsors, quote, has American educational performance versus the rest of the world declined since the creation of the Department of Education?

00:27:06.000 And Perplexity answered, American educational performance relative to other countries has not significantly declined since the creation of the Department of Education in 1979.

00:27:15.000 While the U.S. does face challenges in some areas, particularly in mathematics, the overall trend shows mixed results rather than a clear decline.

00:27:21.000 But what does that actually mean?

00:27:22.000 When it comes to the program for international student assessment, in 2022, U.S. students ranked 21st in math.

00:27:28.000 Fifth in reading and tied for tenth in science among OECD countries.

00:27:31.000 When it comes to the trends in international mathematics and science study, in 2019, the U.S. had higher average scores than most participating countries in both math and science at fourth and eighth grade levels, but higher than most.

00:27:41.000 We also spend virtually more than anybody.

00:27:43.000 The U.S. ranked eighth out of 41 countries in educational attainment, with 92% of adults aged 25 to 64 holding at least a high school diploma.

00:27:51.000 But that particular measure is also not a great measure because...

00:27:54.000 A lot of people in the United States are elevated through high school without ever learning anything, which is why you have to have remedial courses in college.

00:28:00.000 One of the things that tends to happen when it comes to analyzing educational performance is people saying, look how many people have college degrees, rather than have the degrees been watered down such that a college degree is now worth what a high school degree used to be worth or a high school degree is now worth what a junior high degree used to be worth.

00:28:16.000 The bottom line is we have expended trillions of dollars over time via the federal government and very little to show for it.

00:28:21.000 Meanwhile, after more than a year of war, terror, and pain in Israel, the need for security essentials and support for first responders remains critical.

00:28:28.000 Even during periods of supposed ceasefire, Israel must maintain constant vigilance and preparedness for potential threats that could emerge from literally any direction.

00:28:35.000 Throughout this challenging time, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has stood firmly alongside the people of Israel, providing essential security resources that save lives.

00:28:42.000 We remain committed to this vital mission.

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00:29:01.000 By making a generous donation today, you're helping ensure that Israel's communities remain safe and secure during these uncertain times, allowing families to live with greater peace of mind in the days ahead.

00:29:09.000 Make your life-saving gift to bless Israel and her people by visiting benforthefellowship.org.

00:29:14.000 Again, that's benforthefellowship.org.

00:29:15.000 They're doing amazing work on the ground in the Holy Land.

00:29:18.000 Go check them out right now, benforthefellowship.org.

00:29:20.000 Thank you, and Also, to help us feel energized and balanced, my team and I, we've been partnering with LiveGood.

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00:30:26.000 The actual executive order, by the way, does not actually close the Department of Education.

00:30:30.000 It says that it should close, but it doesn't close it because Trump doesn't have the power to do that.

00:30:34.000 The actual text of the executive order says, quote, closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.

00:30:42.000 Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows.

00:30:45.000 This year's national assessment of educational progress showed that 70 percent of eighth graders were below proficient in reading and 72 percent were below proficient in math.

00:30:52.000 The federal education bureaucracy is not working.

00:30:54.000 Closure of the Department of Education would drastically improve program implementation in higher education.

00:31:00.000 The Department of Education currently manages a student loan debt portfolio of more than one point six trillion dollars.

00:31:05.000 This means the federal student aid program is roughly the size of one of the nation's largest banks, Wells Fargo.

00:31:09.000 But although Wells Fargo has more than two hundred thousand.

00:31:11.000 The Department of Education is not a bank.

00:31:17.000 It must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America's students.

00:31:21.000 Ultimately, the Department of Education's main functions can and should be returned to the state.

00:31:26.000 And then the actual executive order says, quote, the Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the states.

00:31:38.000 Now, again, consistent with the provisions of law.

00:31:42.000 And that's all.

00:31:43.000 So he's saying we should move toward that.

00:31:44.000 We can't actually do it without some sort of congressional intervention, but we are going to move toward that.

00:31:49.000 And this, by the way, is a broad spectrum popular conservative policy.

00:31:52.000 Chris Sununu, who is the former governor of New Hampshire, And very popular in the state, and certainly not a radically conservative Republican, talked on CNN about why conservatives have been focused on closing the DOE.

00:32:06.000 What value add does the Federal Department of Education bring when you return power to states?

00:32:11.000 And as a governor, I can tell you that's very important.

00:32:13.000 And it's not just the money.

00:32:15.000 It's the control, how those dollars are spent.

00:32:18.000 All the red tape that comes with the Federal Department of Education when it comes to special ed, school choice, homeschooling, charter schools, whatever it might be, let states have those options.

00:32:27.000 Look, I might disagree.

00:32:28.000 I'll use an extreme example.

00:32:30.000 I might disagree with Gavin Newsom in California on a lot of things.

00:32:32.000 What? But believe me.

00:32:34.000 California knows what their students need a heck of a lot better than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington.

00:32:38.000 And this isn't just a MAGA idea, guys.

00:32:41.000 This is empowering parents, teachers, that better communication at the local level, driving curriculum at a localized level for the needs of that community.

00:32:51.000 He is right about all of that.

00:32:52.000 And again, what President Trump is doing here, this is the thing the left cannot deal with, is actually popular.

00:32:57.000 Many of the things he's doing, these cuts, examining for ways to run, Doge remains a popular idea.

00:33:03.000 Which is why the left is fulminating against Musk.

00:33:05.000 They're trying to personalize the politics here.

00:33:07.000 It's about Musk.

00:33:08.000 It's not about what he's trying to do.

00:33:09.000 Which, of course, is doomed to failure.

00:33:11.000 But the good news is that Democrats do have a bunch of federal judges on their side.

00:33:15.000 According to Politico, yesterday, a federal judge barred Elon Musk's doge from accessing sensitive information at the Social Security Administration, saying the group appears to be on a fishing expedition that could jeopardize the data of millions of people.

00:33:26.000 The doge team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA in search of a fraud epidemic based on little more than suspicion.

00:33:32.000 Said U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in a 137-page ruling and has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.

00:33:42.000 That is a terrible analogy.

00:33:45.000 Truly a terrible analogy.

00:33:46.000 First of all, we know that there are people who are using false social security numbers in the United States.

00:33:49.000 That is a very real thing.

00:33:51.000 Illegal immigrants in particular have spent decades obtaining false social security numbers and then receiving aid or employment based on those false social security numbers. 1.00

00:33:59.000 But beyond that, That is really stupid. 0.99

00:34:02.000 If you're auditing a government department and the argument is you can't audit the government department because you don't know if there's anything wrong, that's literally the purpose of an audit. 0.99

00:34:11.000 That's why an audit exists, is to determine if there is something wrong.

00:34:15.000 Honest to God, that's like suggesting that police should never ever be able to serve a search warrant because they don't know for sure what's inside the house before they actually search the house.

00:34:22.000 Yeah, that's the point of the search warrant.

00:34:24.000 That's the whole idea.

00:34:26.000 Hollander, of course, a Barack Obama appointee, said the group's broad access likely violated privacy laws and then ordered an immediate halt to the Doge social security team's access to any systems that contain sensitive data of social security recipients.

00:34:39.000 The judge wrote, Ironically, the identity of these Doge affiliates has been concealed because defendants are concerned the disclosure of viewing their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy.

00:34:47.000 The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to Doge affiliates without their consent.

00:34:54.000 Well, hold up.

00:34:55.000 That is not the same thing at all.

00:34:56.000 The people who are working for Doge are properly concerned based on the fact that, you know, the left is burning cars and doxing people and swatting their homes.

00:35:05.000 That may be the revelation of their names would be a problem for their safety.

00:35:08.000 Who thinks it's a problem for their safety if the Doge team looks at a list of social security numbers and tries to match it up with, say, birth records?

00:35:17.000 And what exactly is...

00:35:18.000 What is the problem here?

00:35:21.000 But this is...

00:35:22.000 Part and parcel of a broader judicial attempt by Barack Obama appointees, in large part Clinton appointees too, Biden appointees, to undercut the functioning of the executive branch, the judiciary, saying that basically Trump can't do what he needs to do because the judiciary says no. 0.89

00:35:40.000 And it's all exaggerated and ridiculous.

00:35:42.000 Vice President Vance is correct on this. 0.63

00:35:44.000 He was talking about judicial overage yesterday.

00:35:46.000 Here's what he had to say.

00:35:47.000 You can't have a judge...

00:35:51.000 You can't have a judge who's controlling how we enforce our immigration laws.

00:35:56.000 You know, the American people actually invested the president of the United States with some of these core law enforcement authorities, and the president has to be able to do the job the American people elected him to do.

00:36:08.000 I think what you're seeing really is judicial overreach on a scale we've never seen in the history of this country, and I think the Supreme Court has got to put a stop to it.

00:36:19.000 I mean, he's right about that.

00:36:20.000 By the way, J.D. went to Yale Law School, so it's not like J.D. has no background in any of this sort of stuff.

00:36:25.000 Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer, who was perfectly willing to buck the Constitution on behalf of both Barack Obama and Joe Biden routinely, he says that the United States is now in a constitutional crisis.

00:36:36.000 Now, why?

00:36:37.000 Seriously, why?

00:36:38.000 What is the constitutional crisis that he mentions?

00:36:41.000 The administration has no intention of bucking Supreme Court orders the way, say, Joe Biden did.

00:36:45.000 They have no intention of doing that.

00:36:47.000 What they are saying is, A district court judge should not have the ability to issue nationwide injunctions on national policy before the Supreme Court is weighed in.

00:36:56.000 And again, the Supreme Court needs to take this up. 0.84

00:36:58.000 They do.

00:36:59.000 The Supreme Court rejected taking this up just a few months ago and reverted it back to district court level.

00:37:04.000 They need to take up the question of what exactly is the jurisdiction of a temporary restraining order issued by a district court judge?

00:37:10.000 Because it is wrecking the system.

00:37:11.000 It is a real problem.

00:37:13.000 Overreaching judges can, in fact, wreck systems.

00:37:15.000 By the way, you see this abroad all the time.

00:37:16.000 You see it in Brazil.

00:37:17.000 You're seeing it in Israel right now.

00:37:18.000 You see it in South Korea.

00:37:20.000 The overreach by a judiciary into the realm of what the legislature or what the executive does is just as much of a damage as the executive branch reaching into the functions of the judiciary or the legislature or a legislative branch reaching into the functions of the executive or the judiciary.

00:37:35.000 This kind of notion of a completely unfettered judiciary that can simply encroach upon the prerogatives of the other branch.

00:37:41.000 is a complete violation of what the founders meant to do.

00:37:44.000 That's the constitutional crisis.

00:37:46.000 And here's Chuck Schumer making the case that the Trump administration, not waiting around on every district court judge in America to sign off on their action, but instead wanting the Supreme Court to sign off on it, is somehow a violation of the Constitution.

00:38:00.000 Democracy is at risk.

00:38:02.000 Look, Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man.

00:38:07.000 He thinks he should be king.

00:38:09.000 He thinks he should do whatever he wants, regardless of the law.

00:38:13.000 And he thinks judges should just listen to him.

00:38:18.000 He thinks judges should just...

00:38:19.000 I mean, so did Barack Obama.

00:38:21.000 Barack Obama so much thought that judges should listen to him that he literally ripped the Supreme Court in front of the Supreme Court, leading Justice Samuel Alito to shake his head mildly and create an entire news cycle about how the Supreme Court justice had been disrespectful to Barack Obama.

00:38:34.000 Again, remember, for the press, if...

00:38:36.000 The Supreme Court does not rule the way Democrats like.

00:38:38.000 The Supreme Court is the threat to the Republic.

00:38:40.000 If the Supreme Court rules against a Republican and the Republican says, I don't like it, that's a threat to the Republic.

00:38:46.000 It's all about power.

00:38:47.000 It is never, ever about principle. 0.97

00:38:49.000 Now, again, I don't think that the Trump administration is dumb enough to start defying Supreme Court orders. 0.90

00:38:53.000 And in fact, they've said repeatedly they are not. 0.97

00:38:54.000 It would, in fact, be a foolish move to start defying Supreme Court orders.

00:38:58.000 This is what every poll finds.

00:39:00.000 Here's Harry Enten explaining.

00:39:02.000 The American people do not. 0.71

00:39:05.000 Do not want Trump to defy court rulings, all right?

00:39:09.000 You rarely see numbers like this.

00:39:10.000 Should Trump follow court rulings?

00:39:12.000 Look at this.

00:39:12.000 84% of all adults, that's near uniformity in this day and age.

00:39:16.000 You rarely ever see 92% of Democrats, 82% of independents, 79% of Republicans agree on anything.

00:39:24.000 But they do agree on this.

00:39:26.000 They may disagree over Donald Trump, but they all agree that he must.

00:39:30.000 Follow court rulings.

00:39:32.000 To cross that Rubicon is a big no-no in the eyes of the American public.

00:39:38.000 Okay, but the American public is not really talking there about, like, a lower district court judge who puts a temporary restraining order and then that temporary restraining order doesn't hold.

00:39:48.000 They're talking about, the Supreme Court says, for example, that student loans cannot simply be relieved by dint of executive action.

00:39:54.000 And then Joe Biden does that.

00:39:57.000 That's what the American public mean.

00:39:59.000 Meanwhile... The leftist agenda here suggests, of course, that everything is a danger to the republic, including, by the way, the idea that if you deport Hamas supporters, somehow this is a danger to American citizens.

00:40:09.000 So Mehdi Hassan, who is an American—I mean, I understand why he's upset.

00:40:12.000 Mehdi Hassan is pretty warm toward terrorism and also became an American citizen in 2020.

00:40:17.000 But no one can deport Mehdi Hassan, and no one's calling for the deportation of Mehdi Hassan.

00:40:22.000 But here he was claiming that the threat is to American citizens if— You know, a person on a student visa or a work visa goes to a Hezbollah funeral.

00:40:31.000 Here's Mehdi Hassan being Mehdi Hassan.

00:40:32.000 Again, the horseshoe theory here is so strong.

00:40:34.000 Here he is with Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project.

00:40:37.000 Mehdi Hassan crossing streams of Tucker Carlson these days.

00:40:40.000 The horseshoe theory of politics is quite a real thing.

00:40:43.000 We are in a very dark place because if you accept the argument from the Trump administration that there's no due process for people, then what is to stop them from going after citizens and green card holders and political enemies?

00:40:54.000 Because by definition, all we have is their say-so.

00:40:57.000 And the United States of America's entire constitutional system was built on the basis that you don't just take the president's say-so for something.

00:41:03.000 Correct. So I'm just wondering, what is the due process that has been denied to citizens and political enemies?

00:41:11.000 Can he name it?

00:41:13.000 Truly, can you name it?

00:41:14.000 And the answer is no.

00:41:15.000 That is a large jump.

00:41:17.000 That is a very, very large-scale jump.

00:41:19.000 Even the people that he's talking about, for example, this green card holder who is going to be deported for being a Hamasnik, that guy's getting due process. 0.95

00:41:28.000 Literally, his case is in the process of appeal right now in front of the judiciary.

00:41:32.000 And meanwhile, the battle on the left continues between the kind of insane and the people who are more moderate.

00:41:37.000 The insane are likely to win that battle. 0.91

00:41:40.000 On the side of the more moderate are people like James Carville, who keeps pointing out, why is it that the Democratic Party has abandoned the traditional sort of Clintonian blue dog Democrat audience? 0.99

00:41:51.000 You know, the stupidity of we ought to be the most progressive, self-righteous, moralistic people in the world. 1.00

00:42:00.000 You know, people who live in rural America just, you know, fat, lazy, and stupid, which is decidedly not true. 1.00

00:42:08.000 But that's the way that some of the urbanist elements of our party have tried to come across. 0.99

00:42:18.000 And again, Carville is not wrong about this sort of stuff.

00:42:26.000 But Democrats are not going to listen to him.

00:42:28.000 And the reason they're not going to listen to him is because they actually do not like non-college educated white men.

00:42:32.000 This is a very big problem for the Democrats.

00:42:33.000 They do not like a constituency that they actually need to win a larger share of.

00:42:38.000 And you can see it in the polling.

00:42:40.000 Right now, the Democratic Party is run almost entirely by college-educated white ladies. 1.00

00:42:44.000 That is what the Democratic Party is.

00:42:46.000 It is run by college-educated white ladies who are disproportionately unmarried. 0.99

00:42:50.000 This is evident from the polling from NBC News earlier this week, for example.

00:42:55.000 Steve Kornacki says, when it comes to positive or negative views of Trump, among all voters, 46% positive, 49% negative.

00:43:02.000 Among white voters, Trump is 52-45, 52% positive.

00:43:06.000 69% of white men without degrees view Trump positively.

00:43:09.000 Only 28% see him negatively.

00:43:11.000 Among white women with degrees, it is 29% positive and 67% negative. 0.64

00:43:16.000 That is a net negative of 38 points.

00:43:19.000 That is a 79-point net rating gap between the two groups.

00:43:23.000 Those splits are absolutely enormous.

00:43:26.000 And by the way, it does not include white non-college educated women.

00:43:30.000 White women with no degree, for example, are plus 14 on Donald Trump. 1.00

00:43:33.000 They are negative 38. On Donald Trump, if you're a white college-educated woman. 1.00

00:43:39.000 If you're a white college-educated man, you're plus one on Trump.

00:43:41.000 If you're a white man with no degree, you're plus 41 on Donald Trump.

00:43:45.000 The gigantic outlier is not educational. 0.91

00:43:47.000 It is educational and also sex-based.

00:43:50.000 White college-educated women are enormously woke. 1.00

00:43:55.000 Take, for example, the issue of DEI.

00:43:57.000 So in this NBC News poll, what it shows is that on DEI, white men with no college degree, negative 40 on DEI.

00:44:04.000 White men with a college degree, negative 17 on DEI.

00:44:08.000 White women, no degree, negative 1 on DEI. 1.00

00:44:11.000 White women, college degree, plus 31 on DEI. 0.51

00:44:14.000 Plus 31. It is a, truly, what a complete disaster area for the Democratic Party.

00:44:23.000 They are holding to a one slice of the electorate and they're holding on to it tighter and tighter and letting it define them.

00:44:29.000 This is why you end up with the popularity of people.

00:44:32.000 Like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

00:44:35.000 Because Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is appealing to one group of women, white college-educated ladies overall. 0.99

00:44:40.000 That is really her subgroup.

00:44:41.000 Those are the people who want these sort of resistance nonsense.

00:44:45.000 Here she was, just a couple of days ago, saying that Americans, the Republicans, have disdain for working people because they make fun of her being a bartender.

00:44:53.000 Well, yeah, we make fun of you being a bartender because you have not shown that you are qualified to be a useful person in the halls of Congress.

00:44:59.000 And by the way, cosplaying as a blue collar working woman while earning a pretty good salary to live in a really nice Georgetown apartment, it doesn't play anymore. 1.00

00:45:08.000 But I want you to understand that she isn't just talking about me here.

00:45:14.000 She's talking about you.

00:45:17.000 She's talking about all of us.

00:45:21.000 Because the entire job of the president's lawyer is to speak for him.

00:45:27.000 Trump hired her to speak for him.

00:45:31.000 So imagine what it means for our country that the president's own lawyer cannot even conceive of a working class person being intelligent simply because of the job that they have. 0.97

00:45:49.000 Ridiculous. Let's be clear. 0.95

00:45:53.000 Trump voters are much warmer toward your normal bartender than Democrats.

00:45:57.000 Truly. Like across the country.

00:46:00.000 Democrats? Are exactly the sort of people who believe that a degree in gender studies from Wellesley qualifies you for higher office.

00:46:08.000 Alyssa Slotkin, who is the senator from Michigan, who's attempting to do the James Carville routine, she actually spent yesterday slamming AOC and Bernie Sanders and said, what the hell do you guys do for a living? 1.00

00:46:16.000 You're useless. 0.76

00:46:17.000 All of those things require me to be more than just an AOC. 0.98

00:46:23.000 I can't do what she does because we live in a purple state and I'm a pragmatist.

00:46:29.000 Everyone you mentioned has a lot of words for what have they actually done to change the situation with Donald Trump.

00:46:38.000 And Senator Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan, and she of course is right, ripping on Bernie and ripping on AOC, they haven't done anything.

00:46:43.000 But that is going to be their entire pitch going forward for the Democratic Party.

00:46:46.000 We weren't involved in the system.

00:46:48.000 They are a danger to the Democratic Party.

00:46:50.000 Now, the real danger is...

00:46:51.000 That God forbid Bernie Sanders and AOC start to gain credibility if there's an economic downturn.

00:46:57.000 I've said this a thousand times.

00:46:58.000 I will continue to say it.

00:46:59.000 Bad economic policy is the greatest threat to the Trump administration.

00:47:02.000 There's a bunch of good economic policy that they are currently doing, ranging from deregulation to presumably enshrining tax cuts permanently.

00:47:09.000 The current tax rates should be maintained.

00:47:12.000 All of that would be really, really good.

00:47:13.000 But the markets are still quite nervous about the possibility of a major hike in tariffs come April 2nd.

00:47:20.000 The Dow Jones is bouncing around a lot.

00:47:22.000 It was up yesterday.

00:47:22.000 It's down today.

00:47:23.000 There's just a lot of turmoil in markets and a lot of lack of faith right now in what the markets are going to do.

00:47:28.000 There's a reason for that.

00:47:29.000 The Federal Reserve set out its projection yesterday.

00:47:33.000 And what they suggested is that the president's tariff plans are likely to subdue the strength of the economy.

00:47:40.000 Policymakers had presumed that they would spend 2025 gradually cutting rates to keep inflation heading down without a big rise in joblessness, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:47:47.000 The latest projections point to the prospect that tariffs covering a swath of goods and materials will actually send prices up, while sapping investment, sentiment, and growth in the short term.

00:47:56.000 Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, we now have inflation coming in from an exogenous source.

00:48:00.000 The underlying inflationary picture before that was basically 2.5% inflation, 2% growth, and 4% unemployment.

00:48:06.000 Now, officials are projecting weaker growth, higher unemployment, and higher inflation.

00:48:11.000 President Trump continues to push forward with the idea that there should be both tariffs and rate cuts, which is not a thing that's going to happen.

00:48:17.000 He put out a statement on Wednesday saying, quote, the Fed would be much better off cutting rates as U.S. tariffs start to transition and ease their ways into the economy, do the right thing.

00:48:26.000 But cutting rates in the middle of inflation that is still 50% too high, while tariffs are increasing prices, would actually not be the world's best move.

00:48:36.000 The truth is that if you want to wipe inflation completely out, the Fed made a mistake last year by artificially lowering those interest rates.

00:48:42.000 They should have actually kept the interest rates where they were and let the inflation peter out in the economy.

00:48:46.000 Now, there is some good news.

00:48:47.000 Again, the economy is ready to go in a lot of ways.

00:48:50.000 For example, existing home sales rose 4.2% in February from the month prior to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million, according to the National Association of Realtors, which was far better than expectations.

00:49:02.000 I think one of the reasons for that, probably, is that There are a lot of people who are now running out of cash, and now they are going to have to try and sell their houses, and they figure that the interest rates on mortgages are not going to drop dramatically any time in the near future.

00:49:16.000 And so they're basically giving up, and now they're selling their houses.

00:49:18.000 There's more inventory, so people are buying those houses.

00:49:20.000 However, there are people who are, in fact, capable of buying those houses, so you are seeing some action in the real estate markets.

00:49:25.000 Weirdly enough, that action in the real estate markets might actually lead to prices going down as supply increases to meet demand.

00:49:32.000 The Trump administration's number one goal at this point has to be a booming economy.

00:49:36.000 All the other stuff is secondary.

00:49:38.000 All right, folks, it is a Friday, so it's time for a cultural recommendation.

00:49:41.000 So I have recommended the show Severance on Apple TV before.

00:49:45.000 It is great.

00:49:46.000 It is a truly terrific show.

00:49:47.000 It's fascinating.

00:49:48.000 It's interesting.

00:49:49.000 It raises really interesting philosophical questions about identity, work-life balance, relationships.

00:49:55.000 It really is a fascinating show.

00:49:57.000 So the season finale is out on Friday.

00:50:00.000 I had a chance to watch it.

00:50:01.000 And I will say, again, really well-constructed show.

00:50:04.000 It is doing the thing that Lost never did, which is answer the questions that it actually poses, which is wonderful.

00:50:09.000 So I was a huge Lost fan. 0.99

00:50:11.000 For people who remember back to 2007, 2008, Lost was a huge show on ABC, a fascinating show that posited a bunch of mysteries and then refused to answer any of them and suggested you were an idiot if you wanted to know the answers, which is why Damon Lindelof, who wrote the show, is a schmuck. 0.99

00:50:24.000 I'm still angry at Damon Lindelof. 0.95

00:50:25.000 Here's an entire show filled with interesting mysteries, and you have faith in the writers that are going to solve them, and then he says at the end of the show, That if you want those mysteries answered, well, you're just not mature.

00:50:34.000 Well, then don't pose the mystery.

00:50:36.000 I get it.

00:50:36.000 Life is a mystery, but TV ought not be.

00:50:38.000 So Severance is doing the opposite.

00:50:40.000 Severance sets up a bunch of mysteries, and then it actually starts solving those mysteries.

00:50:43.000 So for those who haven't watched Severance, there will be spoilers.

00:50:46.000 The setup for Severance is essentially that there is a process that has been invented by a company called Lumen Industries.

00:50:54.000 And Lumen Industries has made it so that you can sever your brain in such a way...

00:51:00.000 That your work life is completely separate from the rest of your life.

00:51:04.000 So you lead your life and then you get in an elevator.

00:51:07.000 And as you go down the elevator, your brain actually changes.

00:51:10.000 When you get off the elevator in your workplace, you don't know who you are.

00:51:13.000 You don't know where you are.

00:51:14.000 You just have your work life.

00:51:15.000 And the purpose of this would be that when you get home, you're not thinking about work.

00:51:18.000 And when you're at work, you're not thinking about home.

00:51:20.000 And so it's for people who have trauma and they're trying to dissociate from that trauma and all of the rest.

00:51:26.000 And so immediately you set up.

00:51:29.000 Some interesting sort of spiritual and identity-based conundrums.

00:51:32.000 Like, for example, if you have a completely separate identity when you go to your work life, a completely separate love life, because you might fall in love with a co-worker because you don't even remember that you have a wife upstairs, for example.

00:51:42.000 If you do that, is that a separate human?

00:51:44.000 And if that person goes away, did you just kill a person?

00:51:47.000 It's these sorts of questions that Severance is asking.

00:51:49.000 What is the nature of identity?

00:51:52.000 Is there a common thread between the different parts of your identity that holds them together?

00:51:56.000 And it's wrapped into a really compelling plot with really likable and interesting characters and terrific writing.

00:52:01.000 It's super weird and super interesting.

00:52:03.000 So in the season 2 finale, the setup is that the main character, played by Adam Scott, is Mark Scout.

00:52:11.000 When he goes into his Innie world, which is sort of the employment world, then he's known as Mark S. And he falls in love in the Innie world with a woman who is not his wife.

00:52:20.000 His wife supposedly died, but actually has been taken prisoner by Lumen and is being used in experiments, as it turns out.

00:52:26.000 And he doesn't realize when he's in the Indy world that he actually has a wife.

00:52:30.000 So he falls in love with a co-worker who, it turns out, is working for the company in her Audi life.

00:52:35.000 The Audi life is what's happening outside the workplace. 0.95

00:52:37.000 The Indy life is what's happening inside the workplace.

00:52:39.000 And so Mark S. finally breaks the barrier.

00:52:43.000 The course of season two is about him sort of introducing his Indy to his Audi and trying to find what is the connection between them and what their various interests are.

00:52:52.000 Because it turns out that...

00:52:53.000 Mark Scout's wife is alive.

00:52:55.000 And so his interest is in getting his innie to go and free his wife.

00:52:59.000 And then for him to basically turn back into Mark Scout as opposed to his innie.

00:53:04.000 And then he and his wife can be together.

00:53:05.000 And meanwhile, the innie is saying, well, I have my own separate life down here.

00:53:08.000 And sure, it's kind of hellish because we live in this cubicle office space.

00:53:11.000 But I have a love life.

00:53:13.000 I have somebody I love.

00:53:13.000 I have friends.

00:53:15.000 So you're asking me to give up my life to you.

00:53:18.000 And so that's the central conflict of season two.

00:53:21.000 It's really well thought out.

00:53:23.000 The characters are really fascinating, all the way down to certain characters who are sort of the indoctrinated parts of the Egan Empire, which is Lumen Industries.

00:53:34.000 Particularly the guy who plays Mr. Milchick is really a terrific actor.

00:53:36.000 He's really great.

00:53:38.000 It's a really well thought out show.

00:53:40.000 The season finale really pays off.

00:53:43.000 And again, I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it because it's still pretty early.

00:53:46.000 It only came out...

00:53:47.000 Late Thursday night on Apple TV, so a lot of people are going to watch it tonight, presumably.

00:53:52.000 I will say that it pays off.

00:53:53.000 For those who've been watching, the show's great.

00:53:56.000 More of this, more creative shows.

00:53:58.000 There's so many paint-by-numbers pieces of content right now.

00:54:02.000 And good for Ben Stiller and for his team for putting together a piece of content that truly is interesting, asks cool questions, is well-plotted, is well-written, truly well-acted.

00:54:12.000 I think it's the best TV show of the last several years.

00:54:16.000 I mean, minimum.

00:54:17.000 By the time it's over, if it continues to operate at this level, it's going to be one of the top five TV shows of all time.

00:54:21.000 It really is that good.

00:54:22.000 Severance is terrific.

00:54:23.000 If you haven't seen it, you should get into it today.

00:54:25.000 I will admit that I watched the first season thinking my wife wouldn't like it. 0.64

00:54:28.000 And then, like, various travels last year.

00:54:31.000 And then this year, I said, you know, season two's coming out.

00:54:34.000 Maybe you should go back and watch season one.

00:54:35.000 And after watching it, she's very angry at me that I didn't wait for her to watch season one.

00:54:39.000 And so now she's all caught up.

00:54:41.000 It's great.

00:54:42.000 Can't wait for season three on it.

00:54:43.000 Alrighty, coming up, we'll get into some more cultural questions, including...

00:54:47.000 Apparently, LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign narratives on Assassin's Creed Shadows, a video game, and also images of the new Mattel doll have broken.

00:54:56.000 We'll get to that momentarily first.

00:54:58.000 You do have to become a member.

00:54:59.000 If you want to hear the rest of the show every single day, you do have to become...

00:55:07.000 You can hang out with me and Matt and Jordan and all the rest of the crew.

00:55:12.000 Michael Knowles, all the rest of the crew.

00:55:13.000 The only way you can watch all of this and the rest of my show is to join Daily Wire+.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - March 21, 2025

The Left’s ASSAULT On Musk Continues…

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