Joe Biden's poll numbers continue to plummet. Plus, members of the central left are beginning to wake up to the COVID control scam, but the public health bureaucracy can't let go. Plus, Joe Biden reportedly begins the evacuation of Ukraine, plus, a new poll shows that about 60% of Americans don t want him to run again, and a new NBC News poll suggests Mr. Biden does need a reset because he s no longer seen as competent and effective, or perhaps most damaging, as easy going and likable. And the media is beginning to catch on to this. Meanwhile, CBS News' Chuck Todd says that Joe Biden is not the same thing as being seen as "clinically competent or effective." Meanwhile, a CBS group asks whether they think that America is better off for the last year under Joe Biden. During the focus group, a group of six people were asked, "How do you feel about how the government is handling the economy and how the economy is handling Joe Biden?" On Friday, we checked back in with them to get their thoughts on how they feel about the government's handling of the economy, and how it feels like it feels in a place where they've been in a pandemic of them feels like they are better off than they were a year ago. Ben Shapiro's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN, and you can get 50% off your first month with discount code BENSHAPIRO. That's right, you'll save 50% on your very first month of the bill you get when you use promo code BenShapiro. and get $50 off your FIRST MONTH! and you'll get 20% off the entire month! plus free shipping and free shipping throughout the rest of the month, plus an additional $5 off your entire month. You'll get an extra $5 when you sign up for an ad-free version of The Ben Shapiro Show trial when you shop at ExpressVPN is available. Subscribe to the show and get an ad discount when you become a supporter of the show, and get 10% off my service, plus I'll get a FREE shipping on my first month, and I'll give you an additional 5% discount on my next month, when you enter promo code benshapiro is available to you get $5 and get a discount of $50 or $10 gets $25 or $25 gets you a maximum discount, plus a FREE FASTEST PRICING?
00:00:38.000See, Pure Talk uses the exact same towers as one of the big guys, same 5G network as one of those companies, but with the peace of mind that you are supporting a veteran-run business.
00:00:53.000A business whose employees are right here in the United States.
00:00:55.000So yes, this is one monthly bill that you can be proud to pay and you will be saving about half of what your current cell phone bill currently is, because the average family saves over $800 a year.
00:01:05.000So, head on over to puretalk.com, find the plan that's right for you.
00:01:09.000Find the phone that's right for you, or just bring your own, and then, because they love The Ben Shapiro Show listeners, enter promo code BENSHAPIRO and you will save 50% off your very first month.
00:01:17.000That is puretalk.com, promo code BENSHAPIRO.
00:01:21.000Again, puretalk.com, promo code BENSHAPIRO, and save 50% off your first month and save hundreds of dollars.
00:01:27.000So Joe Biden's poll numbers are just absolutely abysmal.
00:02:20.000And right now, the survey asks about generic congressional ballot, if the election for Congress were held today, who they would vote for.
00:02:26.000Republicans narrowly edge out the Democrats 44 to 43.
00:02:29.000What that really means, because people don't like saying that they are going to vote for the Republican Party, is that Republicans in a wipeout.
00:02:36.000This poll, by the way, is actually one of the stronger polls for Joe Biden of recent measure.
00:02:40.000A lot of the other polls have him down in the mid to low 30s.
00:02:43.000And the media are beginning to catch on to this.
00:02:45.000Chuck Todd over at NBC News, he says that Joe Biden is no longer seen as competent or effective.
00:02:51.000President Biden's news conference on Wednesday was designed to kick off a second-year reset of his presidency.
00:02:59.000Cap recaptures political identity, if you will, but our new NBC News poll suggests Mr. Biden does need a reset because he's lost his identity a bit.
00:03:07.000He's no longer seen as competent and effective.
00:03:10.000He's no longer seen as a good commander-in-chief or perhaps most damaging as easygoing and likable.
00:03:15.000In fact, just 5% of adults say Mr. Biden has performed better than expected as president.
00:03:21.000Okay, when Chuck Todd is off the Biden train, that train is just derailed.
00:03:49.000Participants were asked whether they think that America is better off for the last year under Joe Biden.
00:03:54.000It went very, very poorly, again, for Joe Biden in this CBS focus group.
00:03:59.000During the course of the pandemic, we've been listening to Americans through Zoom to get their thoughts on COVID, the economy, and how the government is handling it all.
00:04:08.000On Friday, we checked back in with six of them.
00:04:12.000Who feels like we are in a better place now than we were a year ago?
00:04:57.000When Joe Biden has a bad day, which these days is every single day, Ron Klain has to tweet his way through it.
00:05:02.000He just has to spend his days trying to get through that.
00:05:05.000Well, Howie Kurtz reported over on Fox News that Joe Biden is now offering to do interviews on behalf of Ron Klain.
00:05:11.000That is always a very bad sign for you.
00:05:13.000When things are going so badly that your boss is having to come out and say that he has your back, and your boss is the President of the United States, that means you are doing a terrible job.
00:05:23.000So here's Howie Kurtz reporting this one.
00:05:26.000Ron Klain knew, based on my reporting, when he took this job that this day would come, that he knew that the low poll numbers and the voting rights defeat would make him a target.
00:05:34.000He kind of looks at it as like being an NFL coach, where you turn on talk radio, everyone's talking about all the stupid things that you did.
00:05:41.000And he's consulted with former chiefs of staff.
00:05:43.000I can report that President Biden has seen this coverage, that he's backing his top aide, and that he's offered to do interviews on Klain's behalf.
00:05:55.000If one of your advisors has become the face of your failure, and you have the ability as President of the United States to take that person out of the rotation, and then to say, listen, we'll keep Ron around because we still think he has valuable advice to offer, but we've decided to shift directions.
00:06:08.000I mean, if Joe Biden wishes to save his presidency, he needs to make moves, like actually moving Ron Klain out of a position of influence.
00:06:15.000Instead, Ron Klain is still online tweeting, like right now.
00:06:18.000He just retweeted, for example, Benji Sarlin.
00:06:20.000Benji Sarlin is a reporter over at NBC News, of course.
00:07:23.000My advice to everyone out there who's frustrated, sad, angry, pissed off, feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend, and then wake up on Monday morning, we gotta keep fighting.
00:07:36.000Okay, I'm just gonna point out that the vast majority of people who follow politics in the United States are not single women who live on the set of Sex and the City.
00:07:50.000When it comes to domestic policy, the President of the United States does not have plenary authority.
00:07:54.000Joe Biden has been stifled in his attempts to pass, for example, Build Back Better because Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin aren't willing to kill the filibuster.
00:08:01.000He's been stifled in his attempt to rejigger the entire American voting system because, again, he can't kill the filibuster.
00:08:09.000The President of the United States is checked by the Supreme Court.
00:08:12.000So the VAX mandate gets struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States.
00:08:16.000If they decide not to fund him, he can't do the things he wants to do.
00:08:19.000There's one area where the President of the United States does have extraordinary authority, which means You really can't judge the success of a presidency by the stuff that he can do.
00:08:28.000It's very difficult to judge a president by the stuff he can't do.
00:08:32.000The stuff that Joe Biden has already done on domestic policy has been a disaster area.
00:08:35.000And whether it is inflating the currency via his massive spending binges, or whether it is his failed attempts to crack down on COVID by essentially restricting blue states while red states go about their business.
00:08:49.000But, again, not all domestic failure can be based on the President of the United States, because the President of the United States is not the only player in this space.
00:08:56.000However, on foreign policy, he basically is.
00:08:58.000The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces has almost unlimited authority on foreign policy.
00:09:03.000Especially because the legislature has, over the course of the last several generations, completely abdicated its own authority.
00:09:09.000If you read the Constitution of the United States, it says that you are supposed to go to Congress for a declaration of war.
00:09:14.000We have not actually had a declaration of war in this country, like a full-scale declaration of war since World War II.
00:09:20.000There was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave the President of the United States the authority to do certain military actions.
00:09:25.000There was the AUMF, the Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2002 with regard to Afghanistan, which was not a full-scale declaration of war.
00:09:34.000We do not have declarations of war in this country to the point where in the early 1970s, The Congress of the United States passed something called the War Powers Act, which said that the President of the United States, because he needs to sometimes get involved in foreign conflicts, he has to come inform us within 60 days and we have to decide whether we wish to continue greenlighting this thing.
00:09:51.000But the reality is that over the course of the last half century or three quarters of a century, nearly all foreign policy power has moved over from the legislative branch to the executive branch.
00:10:01.000It is no longer split, which means that what happens on foreign policy is 100% squarely in the lap of the president of the United States.
00:10:08.000And this is the part of Trump's record that never gets commented upon because this part of his record was actually quite good.
00:10:13.000If you look at Donald Trump's record with regard to the Middle East, he actually had breakthrough peace agreements for the first time in a generation and a half.
00:10:20.000Donald Trump's record on China was much stronger than his predecessor, Barack Obama's.
00:10:25.000Donald Trump's record on Russia, by the way, was much stronger than Barack Obama's record on Russia.
00:10:30.000All the media could say is that Donald Trump was a tool of Vladimir Putin, which made it very weird that Vladimir Putin did not invade surrounding areas during Trump's presidency.
00:10:41.000Remember that he invaded Crimea while Barack Obama was President of the United States.
00:10:45.000And he invaded Georgia while George W. Bush was President of the United States.
00:10:48.000And he didn't really invade anywhere, so far as I can recall, while Donald Trump was President of the United States.
00:10:53.000So the supposed Kremlin tool was actually not that good of a Kremlin tool.
00:10:59.000But Joe Biden has been an excellent Kremlin tool, and a tool of the Chinese.
00:11:02.000Here's the thing about foreign policy.
00:11:04.000Very often people think on foreign policy that it basically comes down to where are we willing to put American troops, and we shouldn't be willing to put American troops anywhere that is not basically American territory.
00:11:15.000That if anywhere on earth gets attacked, and the United States is not directly implicated, this means we have no interest.
00:11:21.000The reason foreign policy does not work this way is because foreign policy is largely a game of trying to look five, ten years down the road and see who your enemies are and to thwart their ambitions because you don't want to fight them when they're big, you want to fight them when they're small.
00:11:36.000This has always been a part of American foreign policy and if you look at the history of American foreign policy, when the United States goes to sleep, bad things happen.
00:11:42.000We'll get to more of this in just one second.
00:11:45.000First, let us talk about the fact that you already have your Helix Sleep Mattress, right?
00:11:49.000I know you do, because I've been talking about it for a very, very long time.
00:11:51.000But you don't just need a mattress, you need couches in your home.
00:11:55.000And this is why I am pumped that Helix has now gone beyond the bedroom and started making sofas.
00:12:13.000It is spill, stain, scratch resistant.
00:12:15.000The sofa color, the color of the legs, sofa size and shape.
00:12:18.000Make sure it is perfect for you and your home.
00:12:20.000They have armchairs and loveseats all the way up to an eight-seat sectional, so there is something for everyone.
00:12:24.000And you can always start small and buy more seats later on if you want your all-form sofa to grow and change with you when you move.
00:12:29.000All-form sofas are also delivered directly to your door.
00:12:31.000In the past, if you wanted to order a sofa, you would need to hire someone to come and assemble it in your home or break your back trying to put it together yourself.
00:12:38.000Allform has simple quick assembly, no tools necessary.
00:12:55.000If you don't love it, they'll pick it up for free and give you a full refund.
00:12:58.000They also have a forever warranty, literally for all time.
00:13:01.000Allform is offering 20% off all orders for our listeners at allform.com.
00:13:06.000Okay, so, when it comes to American foreign policy, if you look at the history of American foreign policy, whenever we go to sleep, something really bad happens.
00:13:16.000So, at the very end of World War I, for example, a fight broke out, you'll recall, in Russia between the Reds and the Whites, and the United States and Britain actually put a very small contingent of troops In northern Russia, in order to help the white Russians, who were sort of the less communist Russians, led by a man named Alexander Kerensky, they were trying to help the white Russians fight back against the predations of the Bolsheviks.
00:13:40.000And there was very little domestic support in either the United States or Britain for this.
00:13:43.000And so the West essentially abandoned Russia to its fate.
00:13:46.000And for the next 70 years, Russia was the scourge of the West.
00:13:52.000The Soviet Union basically Lead to the creation of World War II.
00:13:58.000There's a very good book out right now called Stalin's War talking about how World War II was, it's largely perceived as only Hitler's war.
00:14:07.000And bottom line is this, preventative action is a lot cheaper than fighting giant world wars.
00:14:11.000The United States slashed its military between World War I and World War II to the point where by World War II, the United States' military ranked 19th in the world in military strength, just below that of the Philippines.
00:14:23.000It turns out that that was an invitation to aggression by the Japanese in the east and by the Germans in the west.
00:14:29.000Right, the same thing happens over and over and over.
00:14:30.000Whenever the United States cuts its defense, America's enemies take advantage of this.
00:14:35.000When the United States cut its defenses, believing that the Cold War was over and it was time to retrench, Al Qaeda got very strong and started striking out at American targets, culminating in 9-11.
00:15:18.000And he says to, he finally does execute one of the hostages.
00:15:20.000And then he says to John McClain, eventually I will get to somebody you do care about.
00:15:26.000And this is true with America's enemies.
00:15:27.000Eventually they will get to something we care about.
00:15:29.000They already moved on Hong Kong a couple of years ago and nobody in the West batted an eye because the United States and Britain, they basically surrendered Hong Kong the minute in the late nineties, they decided to transition power over to the Chinese.
00:15:41.000Hong Kong was eventually going to become an Essentially just a pawn of the Chinese government at that point.
00:15:47.000Everybody knew it, but they wanted to pretend that the Chinese government was somehow trustworthy, which is insane.
00:15:52.000And now you have the Chinese who are threatening the Australians in the South and they're threatening Taiwan.
00:15:57.000And in fact, there's a story out today.
00:16:00.000that the Chinese just flew another 39 warplanes toward Taiwan in their largest display of power in the new year, continuing a pattern that caused the island to scramble its own jets in response.
00:16:09.000The formation of 39 jets on Sunday night, according to Sky News, included 24 J-16 fighter jets and 10 J-10 jets, among other support and electronic warfare aircraft, according to Taiwan's defense ministry.
00:16:21.000Taiwan's Air Force tracked the People's Liberation Army planes on its air defense radar systems It added, Chinese pilots have been flying toward Taiwan on a near-daily basis during the past year and a half since Taiwan's government started publishing the data.
00:16:32.000The largest sortie was 56 warplanes on a single day last October.
00:16:37.000The activity has generally been in the airspace southwest of Taiwan.
00:16:40.000This is the Air Defense Identification Zone or airspace it monitors out of national security considerations.
00:16:46.000And this particular action came a day after the United States and Japanese navies put on a show of force in the Philippine Sea.
00:17:00.000And the reason the tensions have been ratcheting up pretty obviously is because Joe Biden is an idiot and decided to, with no reason whatsoever, pull out of Afghanistan, leaving the entire country to the rotations of the Taliban.
00:17:10.000By the way, there's still Americans who are stuck behind enemy lines over there.
00:17:14.000The State Department has been happy talking this thing and pretending that everybody who wanted to get out got out.
00:17:27.000The Taliban is in control of the country.
00:17:30.00019 million people are probably Well, 19 million women are living under the absolute sex slavery of the Taliban regime, and millions of people will probably die over the course of this winter.
00:17:41.000And this is the talk from the United Nations.
00:17:43.000Remember, Joe Biden has plenary authority over foreign policy.
00:17:47.000Pulling out of Afghanistan, surrendering in Afghanistan to the Taliban directly, and you can get a delay.
00:17:52.000By the way, there are new documents demonstrating that Joe Biden was warned months in advance that this is precisely what was going to happen if we completely undercut the air support that we were providing for the Afghan national government.
00:18:35.000So here is Joe Biden trying to happy talk his way through the disaster in Ukraine.
00:18:38.000He says, we are now positioned better globally than we have been in a very long time.
00:18:42.000If by better he means significantly worse, then I suppose that's true.
00:18:47.000As a result of the progress we've made, record economic growth, record job growth, faster economic recovery than any other nation on earth, we are better positioned globally than we have been in a long, long time.
00:19:00.000No, we definitely, definitely, definitely are not.
00:19:12.000Every few months here, under this administration, we can have a Fall of Saigon moment in which a helicopter takes off from the top of an embassy.
00:19:19.000According to the Associated Press, the State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S.
00:19:24.000Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.
00:19:28.000The department told the dependents of staffers at the U.S.
00:19:30.000Embassy in Kiev that they must leave the country.
00:19:33.000It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense.
00:19:36.000The move came amid rising tensions about Russia's military buildup on the Ukraine border that were not eased during talks on Friday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.
00:19:47.000State Department officials stressed the Kiev embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation.
00:19:53.000The move had been under consideration for some time.
00:19:56.000support for Ukraine, said the official.
00:19:57.000That's weird, because Joe Biden said literally last week that if Vladimir Putin walks across the border and starts to carve out minor incursions, he won't do anything, prompting Vladimir Zelensky, the current president of Ukraine, to say there's no such thing as a minor incursion into the sovereign territory of a nation, which, of course, is true.
00:20:15.000By the way, the State Department announcing this doesn't constitute an evacuation does not mean it's not an evacuation.
00:20:19.000Why are people leaving if it's not an evacuation?
00:20:21.000Do you normally just leave your place of work?
00:20:24.000Is that a thing you typically do in the absence of any danger?
00:20:27.000If your boss says, I need you to leave your workplace right now.
00:20:55.000Nobody actually wants some sort of conflict with Russia.
00:20:59.000The Russians use disinformation as a regular tool of what they do when it comes to foreign policy.
00:21:05.000The State Department added, quote, "...the security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders in Russia-occupied Crimea and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.
00:21:14.000Demonstrations which have turned violent at times regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kiev." Also, the department issued a travel advisory.
00:21:22.000They said, "...do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threat of Russian military action and COVID-19." And COVID-19!
00:21:42.000The travel advisory for Russia was also changed, and they also blamed the situation in Ukraine plus COVID-19, the all-purpose cover for we suck at our jobs.
00:21:51.000By the way, the State Department is now openly advising people, quote, Given that the president has said military action by Russia could come at any time, the U.S.
00:21:58.000government will not be in a position to evacuate U.S.
00:22:39.000You don't know when it's going to go up.
00:22:40.000You don't know when it's going to go down.
00:22:41.000One thing I think is going to happen, everybody knows is going to happen because the Federal Reserve has already announced it, they're going to start tapering.
00:22:46.000When that happens, mortgage rates are very, very likely to rise.
00:22:49.000The latest forecast project a few interest rate hikes this year alone.
00:22:53.000The first increase could come in the next month.
00:22:55.000Which means now is a great time to call American Financing.
00:22:58.000Take advantage of a free, no-obligation mortgage review where you'll learn about custom loan options that can save you up to $1,000 a month.
00:23:04.000From lower rates to shorter terms, even debt consolidation, they can do it all.
00:23:08.000And they never charge upfront or hidden fees.
00:23:09.000So why not see what they can do for you?
00:23:11.000If you like what you hear, you can pre-qualify for free and possibly skip two mortgage payments.
00:23:15.000Plus, you may close in as fast as 10 days.
00:23:18.000Just call 866-721-3300 That is 866-721-3300, or visit AmericanFinancing.net.
00:24:19.000We have American troops directly in harm's way.
00:24:22.000So if they do that, If they cross that border, Americans will die, and the United States President and Congress will basically be obligated to get involved.
00:24:31.000You can do that, the tripwire system, or you have to have a president who is so intimidating that everyone just knows that if you cross him, he will break you.
00:24:40.000Does Joe Biden sound like that kind of president?
00:24:42.000So we didn't have the tripwires, and we also have a weakling for a president.
00:24:47.000So, too little too late, the United States is trying to pour resources into the region as a deterrent.
00:24:52.000Again, the goal of putting troops in Eastern Europe is not because you want to go to war with Russia, it's because you don't want to go to war with Russia.
00:25:00.000It turns out a great strategy for getting yourself into a war in Europe, an excellent strategy for getting yourself into a war, is to keep surrendering chunks of land to an autocratic regime.
00:25:12.000We have a fairly long history of this in Europe, and as it turns out, all over the globe.
00:25:19.000Surrender is a strategy for emboldening your enemies so they move on to the next thing that they want.
00:25:24.000Deterrence is an excellent strategy for getting people to back off.
00:25:27.000And the way you get them to back off is either you are very intimidating as a human, or two, you have put a bunch of tripwires all over the place.
00:25:35.000So he's simultaneously weak By evacuating all the embassies in Ukraine, and by getting Americans out, and then by telling everybody, hey, find yourself a commercial flight.
00:25:43.000And at the same time, I'm going to backfill sanctions, I'm going to backfill putting troops in Eastern Europe.
00:25:49.000If you're Vladimir Putin, now the ante has been up to the point where you almost can't afford, for domestic political reasons, not to cross that border.
00:25:56.000If Putin doesn't do it now, now it looks like he's been backed down by Biden.
00:26:00.000So, this is why the Biden administration pretty openly thinks that Putin's going to cross that border at some point in the very near future.
00:26:09.000According to the New York Times, President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S.
00:26:12.000troops, as well as warships and aircraft to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
00:26:16.000An expansion of American military involvement had been mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.
00:26:22.000The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine out of fear of provoking Russia into invading.
00:26:29.000But as President Putin has been ramping up his threatening actions towards Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.
00:26:39.000In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Biden with many options that would shift America's military assets much closer to Putin's doorstep.
00:26:49.000The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
00:26:57.000Officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about internal deliberations.
00:27:03.000Biden is expected to make a decision as early as this week, they said.
00:27:06.000He is weighing the buildup as Russia has escalated its menacing posture against Ukraine, including amassing more than 100,000 troops and weaponry on the border and stationing Russian forces in Belarus.
00:27:15.000On Saturday, Britain accused Moscow of developing plans to install a pro-Russia leader in Ukraine.
00:27:21.000So Anthony Blinken talked about this over the weekend.
00:27:23.000He said there are two paths for Russia diplomacy or massive consequences.
00:28:01.000The member countries include places like all the places that we're talking about Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, right?
00:28:14.000So Putin Wanted to guarantee that they would never become a member of NATO because Ukraine had been making pro-Western moves over the course of the last couple of decades to separate itself from Russia.
00:28:25.000Russia doesn't want that to happen, and so they've been trying to dissuade the West from allowing those sorts of moves.
00:28:29.000Now, there really isn't an active NATO application on the board from Ukraine, so really what this is is just an empty threat so that Vladimir Putin has a pretext to invade the country and just claw it back.
00:28:40.000When you have a failing regime internally, which is what Russia is, Russia is not even a second rate power, it really is a third rate power at this point in time.
00:28:47.000It's only major resource is natural gas that it's exporting out to Europe, but other than that it has a completely failed economy run by oligarchs.
00:28:55.000So, what do you do if you're Vladimir Putin?
00:28:56.000You have to get aggressive on your borders.
00:29:41.000It's a bunch of military posturing in countries that are not Ukraine while we surrender Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, who will consolidate the territory, and then he will bide his time.
00:30:08.000You have like a million more men than women in China.
00:30:11.000You have an extraordinarily powerful military.
00:30:14.000You know that there will be heavy costs to invading Taiwan, but you also know that the United States is not going to allow itself to be drawn directly into a conflict over Taiwan.
00:30:21.000So if you're looking at Joe Biden, who is a weakling, what stops you exactly?
00:30:26.000And this is the thing about foreign policy.
00:30:28.000Again, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not about Ukraine.
00:30:31.000It's about what they take next, because eventually they will be consolidating power and they will come after something you do care about.
00:30:36.000By the way, we should care about Taiwan, considering that semiconductors are largely produced in Taiwan.
00:30:42.000That if you actually want the stuff in your home to work, you actually need those semiconductors.
00:30:48.000Like, there's a point that the historian Neil Ferguson has made.
00:30:51.000He said the next war, you know, resources in the past, resource wars have been fought over things like oil and fought over coal, if you go back historically.
00:30:59.000But the new resource war is technology.
00:31:02.000And a lot of that technology is centered in border areas where our enemies are very, very aggressive.
00:31:08.000Now, again, the Biden administration trying to happy talk its way through this.
00:31:12.000John Kirby of the Pentagon, he says, well, you know, if Russia does invade Ukraine, it won't have many friends.
00:31:16.000Well, I'm sure that's going to scare the living tar out of Vladimir Putin.
00:31:20.000I'm sure he's just up nights about his friendship circle.
00:31:24.000If in fact they commit another incursion into Ukrainian territory, they're just going to set themselves up for even more isolation from the rest of the international community.
00:31:33.000This is not a country that has a whole lot of friends.
00:31:35.000This is not a country that has allies and partners to lean on the way we do, the way the West does.
00:31:43.000Okay, so we will see if there is any strength enough to dissuade Putin from walking across the border.
00:31:49.000In the meantime, it is being reported that Vladimir Putin's actual plan here is to keep taking pieces and pieces and pieces and then trying to install a pro-Russia leader in Ukraine.
00:32:00.000So this is what the UK has been reporting.
00:32:02.000Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, echoed that message over the weekend.
00:32:05.000Let's start with that new British intelligence that the Russian government is planning to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine.
00:32:15.000Well, Dan, I can't comment on specific pieces of intelligence, but you know, we've been warning about just this kind of tactic for weeks, and we've spoken to that publicly.
00:32:23.000And just last week, we sanctioned four agents of Russia, Ukrainians, in Ukraine, seeking to destabilize the government.
00:32:30.000So this is very much part of the Russian toolkit.
00:32:32.000It runs the gamut from a large conventional incursion or invasion of Ukraine to these kind of destabilizing activities in an attempt to topple the government.
00:32:43.000Now again, all of this coming from Russia is a direct result of perceived weakness in the West.
00:32:58.000If you're Ukraine and you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying Hunter Biden and all you got was this crappy Russian t-shirt, you should be pissed as well.
00:33:05.000If you drop bags of cash with the Biden family and all you get for your trouble is Vladimir Putin on your doorstep knocking and Joe Biden evacuating personnel while putting troops in Belarus, yeah man, that is a raw deal for you if you are Ukraine.
00:33:19.000Again, if you're Taiwan, see this is the thing.
00:33:21.000The more of these sorts of incursions that happen, the more of this that happens, the more you will get a better chance of pro-America's enemies regimes being installed in these places.
00:33:30.000Because let's say you're Taiwan, and you know that if it really comes down to it, the West is not going to help you.
00:33:35.000The West is rearming you to the extent that they can raise the cost for China incrementally, but they're really not going to do anything.
00:33:40.000In the end, if China wishes to take Taiwan, China will take Taiwan, and the West has made it clear they will do nothing.
00:33:46.000I mean, that's what happened over Hong Kong.
00:33:48.000If you know that, and at a certain point the population is going to say, is it really worth it?
00:33:52.000What if we just became friendly with Chinese?
00:33:54.000This is precisely what happened in Hong Kong.
00:33:56.000I mean, they actually did a Reagan election.
00:33:59.000Why wouldn't the same thing happen in Ukraine?
00:34:01.000Why wouldn't you have some of the bad old guys come back in, the Yanukovychs of the world, come back in at the behest of Vladimir Putin and take over the country again?
00:34:10.000The problem is that now we are at the point Where we are close to put up or shut up time.
00:34:15.000So, it never should have gotten to this point.
00:34:17.000It never should have gotten to this point.
00:34:19.000This is the outgrowth of the grand strategy of the Biden administration, which is to retrench on foreign policy.
00:34:23.000That strategy has been a massive failure and we are just a year into this garbage administration.
00:34:28.000Alrighty, in just one second, we'll get to the latest on COVID.
00:34:36.000The WHO literally put out a report in the New York Times today saying that Omicron, because it has hit a huge number of people and is killing very few of those people on an infection fatality rate basis, that the pandemic is coming to an end.
00:34:47.000Our public health bureaucracy cannot, will not let it go.
00:35:55.000So, if you haven't already, go check out our new comedy series, Truth Yeller.
00:35:59.000It's hosted by comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla over at dailywire.com slash watch.
00:36:04.000The next episode airs this Thursday and Adam gets controversial.
00:36:07.000He goes after Hunter Biden and the way our overlords are attempting to crate train your kids.
00:36:12.000TJ Miller of Silicon Valley, Deadpool, Big Hero 6 and more joins Adam to drop some comedy gold and proves he knows how to identify a grandma killer.
00:36:19.000So head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:36:22.000Use code Miller for 25% off your membership.
00:36:25.000Look out for the new episode with TJ Miller dropping this Thursday.
00:36:28.000You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:36:32.000So meanwhile, Joe Biden's handling of the pandemic has been disastrous, mainly because they just refuse to acknowledge the reality, which is that the pandemic for the vast majority of people is over.
00:36:47.000And when I say it is over, I don't mean that Omicron isn't killing people.
00:36:56.000What I mean is that how you choose to react to Omicron is up to you, and it is up to your local politicians, and your state politicians, and your federal politicians.
00:37:03.000So, Barry Weiss, of former New York Times fame and Substack fame.
00:37:08.000Barry Weiss was on Bill Maher's show over the weekend.
00:37:10.000And Barry made the perfectly obvious point that she hangs out with liberals all day, which she does.
00:37:19.000She is an anti-radical left liberal, sort of Andrew Sullivan mode, sort of in the mode of some of the members of the intellectual dark web.
00:37:28.000And Barry Weiss, she came out and she said, this pandemic policy will be remembered as a catastrophic moral failure.
00:37:35.000You will realize, most importantly, that this is going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.
00:37:43.000The city of Flint, Michigan, which is 80%, I think, minority students, has just announced indefinite virtual schooling.
00:37:51.000In the past two years, we've seen, among young girls, a 51% increase in self-harm.
00:38:22.000People who were left at the beginning of the pandemic and were suggesting that we needed to lock down interminably, and then particularly people who were left after the vaccines were available, who've been following the fauci's of the world, got it wrong nearly the entire time they got it wrong.
00:38:34.000Okay, but Now that the worm is turning, don't start saying that it's bad for people to join the club.
00:38:40.000It is good for people to join the club.
00:38:41.000Of course this policy has been massively destructive and must never be allowed to happen again.
00:39:07.000The first three weeks you were freaked out, and then you realized it was hitting a bunch of old people, and you were like, okay, if I don't hang out with old people and I hang out with my friends, I'm fine.
00:39:13.000Okay, that was the mentality in Florida.
00:39:15.000And then once the vaccines were available, the mentality was, I'm done.
00:39:19.000I remember last Passover, there was basically a fairly open, unmasked party.
00:39:25.000You know, that was like March of last year because the vaccines were now widely available to everyone and everyone felt safe because they should feel safe because the vaccines were effective in preventing hospitalization and death.
00:39:35.000We are now like almost a year past that.
00:39:44.000I told you last week about a Paul Krugman column in the New York Times, in which he was talking about how, you know, it's because of red state failures to abide by our strictures that Omicron continues.
00:39:53.000And it's like, dude, what's slowing down the country is you.
00:39:57.000What is slowing down the country is COVID paranoia.
00:39:59.000According to the Wall Street Journal, quote, schools may be open, but they're struggling.
00:40:03.000But here's the thing, I kind of noticed that this is relegated mostly to blue areas.
00:40:08.000Schools should be open, pandemic or not, much of the public says.
00:40:11.000If only they all had what they need to function.
00:40:13.000Students at New York City's elite Brooklyn Technical High School played hangman in psychology class recently while a substitute sat behind the teacher's desk.
00:40:19.000They were eager to prepare for a coming midterm exam, but their usual instructor was out sick again.
00:40:26.000Everyone's kind of freaking out, said DeliaMarcus17.
00:40:29.000The fast-spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19 has dealt a fresh pandemic blow to Brooklyn Tech, one of the nation's largest high schools, with more than 5,800 students and among the most competitive, with an admission rate under 10%.
00:40:41.000The problem there, and in many other schools, boils down to a mismatch between demand and supply.
00:40:45.000While many officials and parents nationwide push to keep kids in schools and away from remote learning, Omicron has left many schools short of the essentials needed to operate like teachers, substitutes, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and sometimes students themselves.
00:40:58.000Teachers say they struggle to teach in classrooms while also delivering remote lessons to students who can't attend because they tested positive or were near someone who did.
00:41:40.000Kids do not adjust better than adults do to things like wearing masks.
00:41:44.000And if they do, it is because they have now imbibed the insanity from their parents and their grandparents.
00:41:49.000I don't know what kind of society sacrifices the future and the current welfare of their children on behalf of the 80-year-olds.
00:41:55.000I don't know what kind of society does that to prevent, to pretend that it is the kids who are the danger to a society where everyone is now having Omicron unmasked and the kids are the least vulnerable is totally crazy.
00:42:06.000But again, the public health bureaucracy can't let go because to let go would be to acknowledge that they got it wrong in the first place.
00:42:11.000So you still have Anthony Fauci out there.
00:42:12.000I don't know why he's still out there.
00:42:13.000He's still saying, don't get overconfident.
00:42:15.000Why is anyone listening to this dunderhead?
00:42:21.000Ultimately, they're all going to go in the same direction.
00:42:23.000There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalizations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosters.
00:42:34.000But we do know, and these are the recent data that have come out from the CDC, that even with Omicron, boosting makes a major, major difference in protecting you from hospitalization and severe outcomes.
00:43:39.000We really want to make sure people are up-to-date.
00:43:41.000That means if you recently got your second dose, you're not eligible for a booster, you're up-to-date.
00:43:46.000If you are eligible for a booster and you haven't gotten it, you're not up-to-date and you need to get your booster in order to be up-to-date.
00:43:57.000Meanwhile, they're doing nothing, by the way, to actually get the COVID pills that people need in place.
00:44:03.000How is it that we've known for several months at this point that there are therapeutics available that lower the rate of hospitalization and death by like 90 to 100 percent?
00:44:19.000Again, the failures on the governmental level are astonishing and continuing, but we are supposed to believe them, even though everyone has basically gone back to normal in their daily lives in the same areas of the country.
00:44:29.000So again, the left should—they can get as pissed at Barry Weiss and Bill Maher as they want, but the reality is that Barry and Bill have it right, because we had it right before Barry and Bill did.
00:44:38.000Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
00:44:42.000In the meantime, go check out The Michael Moore Show, that is available right now.
00:44:44.000Now I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:45:02.000Editing is by Adam Sajovic, audio is mixed by Mike Koromina, hair and makeup is by Fabiola Cristina, production assistant Jessica Crand.
00:45:10.000The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2022.
00:45:15.000A Democrat politician pulls his own bill to help pregnant women after accidentally admitting that pro-lifers are right.
00:45:22.000The CDC changes the meaning of fully vaccinated.
00:45:25.000And a government meeting in Alaska begins with an invocation by a Satanist.