In anticipation of a second quarter of negative growth, the Biden administration redefines recession. Meanwhile, the collapse of New York City continues apace and we explore two very different stories about racism. This is the Ben Shapiro Show, and today s show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Do you like your web history being seen and sold to advertisers? Get ExpressVPN right now at Expressvpn.com/BenShapiro and get 3 months free with my exclusive link to get 3 extra months FREE with my premium rate of $99.99 a year! That s E-XP-R-E-S-V-P-N-D-O-T-C-E N.E.N.A.R.I.T. Well, it s amazing how the first recession wasn t a recession because we were still in the first quarter. Now, as we re nearing the end of the second quarter, and it s pretty clear that we re in a recession, they re attempting to redefine recession, and they re redefining the term to make sense of what a recession is. Ben Shapiro: What is a recession? The answer is that it s not what economists have been telling us for a long time. The recession is not about two quarters of negative GDP growth. It s about more than two years of falling real GDP. And it s about how bad things are going to get worse, not better, and how bad it is going to be, and why it s so important to have a holistic approach to the economic cycle. It s not about whether or not it s a recession or not its a recession it s just a question of when it s going to happen, not how bad, not whether it will be bad, or whether it s bad or good, or if it will get better, or how bad or not, or better than it is better than we think it s good or it s better than that, or it's a good or not a good thing, or a bad or it is a bad thing, right or it isn t a bad problem, or they are a bad one, or that it's not a bad than it's good or they have a good problem or they don't have a problem, they're not a problem or a good, they say that they are not a real problem, it's going to have it or they're in a good one, they are in a problem?
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00:01:33.000Well, the White House is expecting some bad economic news this week.
00:01:36.000We're expecting the second quarter GDP report.
00:01:39.000And most people believe that there will be negative GDP growth for the second consecutive quarter, all of which has led the Council of Economic Advisers to literally redefine what a recession has meant for quite a while here.
00:01:50.000Typically, when you are talking about recession, people mean two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
00:01:54.000But the reality is that it's always been a little bit tricky.
00:01:58.000to define what a recession is you know it when you're in it and you don't know it when you're not in it it's kind of it's kind of a pornography as defined by the supreme court thing you know it when you see it you feel like you're in a recession when things are getting more expensive when you're worried about your job when you're concerned about the future of the economy and when the stock market starts to go down but combinations of those factors could lead you to think that you're in a recession also however the sort of technical definition that has been consistently used for years and years is two quarters of negative GDP growth so
00:02:24.000The Council of Economic Advisors under Joe Biden, fearing that we're about to get a stat that drops this week that says that we are in a recession, and then it becomes Biden's recession, they're simply redefining the term.
00:02:34.000So now, according to WhiteHouse.gov, what is a recession?
00:02:37.000While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.
00:02:50.000Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists' assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data.
00:02:56.000Based on these data, it is unlikely the decline in GDP in the fourth quarter of this year, even if it is followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter, indicates a recession.
00:03:09.000Then the second quarter started and we were told by the Biden administration that if we were worried about being in a recession, the stats weren't available yet to say that we were in a recession because we were still in the second quarter.
00:03:18.000Now, as we end the second quarter, and it's pretty clear that we are in a recession, they're attempting to redefine away the first quarter.
00:03:24.000They're now saying, well, you know, before we were worried that the second and the second quarter really wasn't the recession.
00:03:28.000Well, now that we know the second quarter was recessionary, the first quarter is not recessionary because that was other factors.
00:03:35.000Amazing how they are just redefining this thing away.
00:03:38.000And this has become the typical Biden administration line.
00:03:41.000It is amazing that instead of simply recognizing that the economy is significantly weaker than it should be at this point, that inflation has taken a massive toll on Americans, that Americans are worried about the earnings that are coming out of the companies in which they are invested, that Americans are worried in the future about the stability of the markets.
00:03:58.000And that Americans are worried rightly about all of these things, instead of just acknowledging that and then saying, here is our plan to quash that.
00:04:05.000And the plan can't involve more spending, guys.
00:04:06.000The plan can't just involve throwing money at the wall.
00:04:09.000Instead of acknowledging that, which would require them to change course, they're going to say it's all in your head.
00:04:12.000They're going to be the world's worst psychologists, and they're going to say that it's all because you're crazy.
00:04:16.000If you're worried about recession, it's because you're crazy.
00:04:18.000And if you point to the objective, verifiable data that we've had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, if that's what ends up being released on Thursday, If you point to that, they say even that is in your head because now we're going to redefine away what a recession means.
00:04:32.000So Joe Biden yesterday was on Fox News and he was asked, are we in a recession?
00:04:38.000And here was President Biden's answer.
00:04:40.000And Mr. President, we're getting GDP numbers on Thursday.
00:04:43.000How worried should Americans be that we could be in a recession?
00:04:49.000We're not going to be in a recession in my view.
00:04:53.000We're not in a recession according to Joe Biden.
00:04:54.000So how exactly does he get out of the statement that we are in a recession based on the GDP stats?
00:05:00.000Well, they're just going to redefine it away.
00:05:02.000So Corinne Jean-Pierre was specifically asked about the redefinition of the word recession, and she just went right along with the idea that recession now means something different than it meant five minutes ago.
00:05:11.000Is the White House trying to change the common definition of a recession because next Thursday the GDP numbers coming out are going to show that we've been in a recession?
00:05:18.000So let me say this, you know, the strength of our labor market along with the other economic factors is what we generally see in a recession or even a pre...
00:05:29.000It's not what we generally see in a recession, or even a pre-recession, because we're seeing the strength of the economy and the labor market.
00:05:36.000So that's really important to note there, because those are key elements as we talk about that, as folks keep asking us about that.
00:05:45.000So what you can say is, we are in a recession.
00:05:47.000We think it's going to be a shallow recession because the job market is still very strong.
00:05:50.000We're going to have to slam on the brakes.
00:05:52.000It's going to enter the economy into a period of negative growth, but then we believe it's going to recover fairly quickly because we are doing the right things, right?
00:05:57.000That's what a smart political White House would say.
00:06:16.000And certainly in terms of the technical definition, it's not a recession.
00:06:19.000The technical definition considers a much broader spectrum of data points.
00:06:24.000But in practical terms, what matters to the American people is whether they have a little economic breathing room, they have more job opportunities, their wages are going up.
00:06:33.000That has been Joe Biden's focus since coming into office.
00:06:36.000He has had a view of the economy that we need to look to build from the bottom up and middle out.
00:06:40.000And what that means is that typical Working class people in this country have had trouble affording things for years.
00:06:47.000He is focused on building a strong, durable economic recovery here.
00:06:51.000We have real global challenges here in the short term.
00:06:53.000We've got to navigate our way through them, but we have to do so without giving up all our economic gains.
00:07:01.000Like, I'd like to hear the economic gains.
00:07:03.000We've had net wage loss over the course of the Biden administration.
00:07:06.000amounting to thousands and thousands of dollars per family, thanks to the massive inflation that has taken place here. And if you're going to attribute the rebound in job growth to job...
00:07:19.000Truly, considering that a huge percentage of those job gains are concentrated in states that Joe Biden spends his days ripping.
00:07:26.000He's going to have to explain why it is that red states have done significantly better under Joe Biden than the blue states have.
00:07:31.000Is that because he's just so kind and generous to the red states?
00:07:33.000Or is it because they've been running their states the way he does not run the federal government, and they have been reaping the benefit of all of that?
00:07:39.000When Brian Deese says what Americans, you know, when you're worried about recession, Americans are really worried about whether they have a little breathing room.
00:07:44.000Do you feel like you have breathing room today?
00:07:46.000By polling data, something like 85% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction economically.
00:07:52.000Do they feel like they have breathing room here?
00:07:54.000The attempt to just Raising this thing out.
00:08:00.000I mean, again, you got to give them credit for intestinal fortitude because Americans are looking them straight in the eye and saying, we don't like the way you are running this economy.
00:08:07.000They're saying, nope, it's because you're crazy.
00:08:09.000This has never worked under any circumstances, politically, personally, in any circumstance in your life.
00:08:14.000When somebody says, I have a serious problem and you say, no, you don't, things are fine.
00:08:19.000That has never worked out particularly well, at least when you are answerable to that person.
00:08:23.000So here's Brian Deese then explaining that the slowing economy is necessary for a transition.
00:08:28.000Again, this sort of rhetoric is not helpful to people.
00:08:30.000They're not interested in the quote-unquote transition.
00:08:33.000They're interested in what are you going to do to fix things.
00:08:35.000But here's Brian Deese trying again to pretend that there's a silver lining to all of this.
00:08:42.000That is not only expected but necessary as we operate through this transition.
00:08:46.000So that's where our focus is in terms of diagnosing the economy.
00:08:50.000They just keep saying transition over and over and over again.
00:08:55.000They say we're transitioning to a green economy, so you're going to have to pay higher oil prices.
00:08:58.000We're transitioning to a build-back-better economy, so you're going to have to deal with the economic fallout.
00:09:02.000Well, what if we don't like the thing that you're trying to transition to enough to undergo the pain of the quote-unquote transition you're trying to force upon us?
00:09:09.000And then in the end, of course, Brian Deese is forced to blame Vladimir Putin, which is what they always do.
00:09:13.000It's amazing how it's sort of Putin knows on, Putin knows off with this crew.
00:09:17.000So when the gas prices go down, then it's not because of Putin allowing Nord Stream to flow.
00:09:25.000It's Putin's price hike when the gas goes up.
00:09:27.000When the gas goes down, that's because Joe Biden's really good at his job.
00:09:30.000When inflation is up, well, you know, that's probably the result of corporate greed.
00:09:34.000When inflation goes down, that's because Joe Biden is really good at his job.
00:09:37.000It's a completely unfalsifiable thesis, because everything good that happens is attributable to the doddering geriatric in the White House, and everything bad that happens is attributable to everyone else, according to this White House.
00:09:46.000Here's Brian Zies blaming Vladimir Putin, again.
00:09:51.000Putin's invasion of Ukraine has taken a lot of the store of commodities that go into food off the market.
00:09:59.000Wheat, other grains, because Ukraine and Russia are both big global suppliers.
00:10:03.000So we're doing what we can to grow more here in the United States, which will help our economy, people here in our country, but also the world.
00:10:11.000Well, the entire Biden administration is united in their notion that if they just fib to you about a recession is you won't notice that we are in one.
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00:11:48.000Meanwhile, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary who fully admitted that she did not see this inflation coming, which means that she's really bad at her job.
00:11:54.000Because again, the definition of inflation is too much money following too few goods.
00:11:58.000So when you have a supply chain problem, and then you blow trillions of dollars into the economy, as your economic and fiscal policy, it turns out you might get inflation.
00:12:07.000Well, Janet Yellen, who is supposed to be good at this but is not, she also says we are not headed for a recession.
00:13:57.000But look, if I had said that a year ago, you know, assuming another war doesn't break out, assuming we don't have another COVID, you know, there's so much Out of our control.
00:14:31.000You should have some idea as to whether inflation has peaked or not.
00:14:34.000But since I get it, you're not going to make predictions because you've gotten every prediction wrong so far.
00:14:38.000Meanwhile, by the way, Walmart is cutting its profit outlook as it lowers prices to move goods, according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:14:43.000Walmart is warning that higher prices for food and fuel were causing consumers to pull back, an ominous sign for the U.S.
00:14:49.000economy that has relied on resilient household spending power through rising inflation.
00:14:53.000The country's largest retailer, which warned in May it was stuck with too much unsold goods, said on Monday it was having to cut prices to reduce merchandise levels at its flagship chain and Sam's Club warehouse chain.
00:15:01.000The markdowns will cause the company's profits to fall in the second quarter and fiscal year.
00:15:05.000Again, none of this is a particular shock because As the Federal Reserve raises the interest rates, as inflation eats up too much of people's money, people are going to spend less.
00:15:14.000This is how you enter into a period of stagflation, which is what we are about to enter into.
00:15:18.000And again, even if the inflation rate lowers to 7%, remember the inflation rate that we are typically looking for is like 2%, not 7%.
00:15:26.000The Biden administration was promising when it came into office like 1.5% inflation annually.
00:15:31.000We're now looking at something like five times that rate.
00:15:34.000So no, that is not anything remotely worth bragging about.
00:15:37.000And the notion that we are going to be able to enter some sort of soft landing here where we don't enter recession by jacking up the interest rates.
00:15:44.000And while inflation is this high, that was always, that was always fabulism.
00:15:50.000Mohamed El-Erian of Allianz, he has suggested for a while that essentially the way that you were supposed to get out of inflation is by gradually slowing the amount of money you were dumping into the economy.
00:16:01.000And pulling back on those interest rates, on those 0% interest rates.
00:16:05.000And you could have done that gradually, but you could have done that at the beginning gradually.
00:16:08.000You can't do that when your car's about to hit the embankment.
00:16:11.000Well, the car's about to hit the embankment.
00:16:12.000That means you've got to slam the brakes on, and there's no way for you not to get some form of whiplash when you slam the brakes on.
00:16:16.000That's what's going to happen to the economy right now.
00:16:18.000The announcement sent Walmart's shares down nearly 10% in after-hours trading on Monday and pressured other stocks, with Amazon falling about 4% as well.
00:16:26.000The warning cast a cloud over a week in which a raft of global brands and multinational companies from McDonald's and Procter & Gamble to Visa and General Motors are slated to update investors on their latest quarterly results and the outlook for the rest of the year.
00:16:36.000Inflation has been running near the highest levels in decades.
00:16:39.000The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates this week as it seeks to fight higher prices.
00:16:43.000Several high-tech companies have warned in recent days of slowing growth.
00:16:45.000Leaders of some of the biggest banking companies have cautioned they see a high risk of recession now.
00:16:49.000Walmart, according to the Wall Street Journal, said higher prices for food and fuel have hurt sales of general merchandise, especially apparel.
00:16:58.000Right now, you can't afford new clothing.
00:17:00.000Those generate higher profit margins for the company's clothing.
00:17:03.000Overall, the company expects comparable store sales, excluding fuel, to rise 6% in the second quarter from a year ago, but the growth is now coming from the less profitable items because, again, people are looking for ways to save a little bit at this point.
00:17:15.000unemployment remains near its lowest levels in decades, consumer sentiment fell in June to its lowest point on record, a sign of concern because household spending accounts for about 70% of U.S.
00:17:25.000Some shoppers, especially from lower-income households, are trading down to economy beer and discount cigarettes as they feel more pressure on their pocketbooks.
00:17:31.000Neil Saunders, the Managing Director of Global Data, says most retailers are not struggling to grow their top lines.
00:17:36.000They are struggling to maintain high levels of profitability that were commonplace over the past few years.
00:17:40.000Target also issued a profit warning in June, three weeks after it reported quarterly results, which, like Walmart, showed a surge in inventory levels.
00:17:47.000The big box retailers were caught off guard this spring as shoppers shifted their spending away from items that had been in high demand during the pandemic.
00:17:54.000The abrupt shift left many retailers with a glut of peak pandemic favorites, like casual clothing and home products that need to be marked down.
00:18:00.000Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, they recently issued profit warnings and replaced their leadership as well.
00:18:04.000Walmart in May reported that inventories were up about 33% in the first quarter, in part because it misjudged all those shifts in consumer spending.
00:18:12.000And presumably, that is because of all of the continued talk about lockdowns and the fact people were never going to go back to work and we weren't going to get back to regular life that you kept hearing over and over from the administration and from the media.
00:18:23.000Now, Walmart and other retailers are trying to unload those items at a time when rising prices for gas and groceries have made some people rethink their spending.
00:18:30.000So, as we predicted, you're starting to see the earnings go down.
00:18:32.000That means the stock market is likely to drop some as well.
00:18:35.000Plus, the Fed is set to inflict more pain on the economy as it readies a big rate hike, according to Rich Miller over at Yahoo Finance in Bloomberg.
00:18:41.000The Federal Reserve will probably have to inflict much more pain on the economy to get inflation under control.
00:18:45.000Growth is already slowing in response to the Fed's repeated interest rate increases.
00:18:49.000With the housing market softening, technology companies curbing hiring and unemployment claims edging up.
00:18:53.000But with inflation proving persistent at a four-decade high, a growing number of analysts say it will take a full recession and markedly higher joblessness to ease price pressures significantly.
00:19:02.000Remember, the Biden administration right now, they keep claiming that the job numbers are really, really good, which they are.
00:19:07.000That's because jobs are a lagging indicator of economic health.
00:19:11.000The job market didn't really start to take a dump, even in the 2007-2008 recession, until well after the recession was underway.
00:19:40.000economist Michael Gapin is forecasting a mild recession starting in the second half of 2022.
00:19:44.000He said we have to curb things domestically to help us get where we want to go on inflation.
00:19:50.000Fed officials continue to maintain they can avoid a recession and instead engineer a soft landing.
00:19:54.000That looks not particularly promising at this point.
00:19:58.000And again, the investors are betting that the Fed is going to need to cut interest rates next year to bolster the economy.
00:20:02.000So what's weird is that the investment class is now suggesting that the Federal Reserve is going to have to jack up the interest rates and then because the economy is weak next year, it's going to have to jack down the interest rates again, which I guess the idea here is that you give a shock cure to the economy to cure the inflation and then you go back to loose monetary policy?
00:20:21.000I'm not sure how that is going to work particularly well, again, in an economy that has been jacked around so many times in the past couple of years.
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00:21:41.000As the Wall Street Journal is reporting, as the Federal Reserve prepares to meet this week, Wall Street investors are betting that officials will raise interest rates aggressively through the end of the year and then turn around and start cutting them about six months later.
00:21:52.000The unusual wager reflects investors' growing sense the Fed is driving the economy into a recession as it tries to fight inflation, according to analysts.
00:21:58.000At the same time, by constraining longer-term borrowing costs, it makes a recession slightly less likely to happen soon.
00:22:03.000That's a boost to riskier assets like stocks compared with a more traditional bet that rates wouldn't boomerang so quickly.
00:22:09.000Again, the idea here is they want to lower the interest rates again, because if they keep those interest rates high, they're actually raising the price of the national debt.
00:22:16.000So they have to reduce the interest rates again.
00:22:19.000And when they reduce the interest rates again, presumably there'll be more money pouring back into stocks.
00:22:22.000Bets on the future course of short-term interest rates play a decisive role in determining yields on U.S.
00:22:27.000Those, in turn, set a floor on borrowing costs across the economy, with higher yields curbing growth and lower yields boosting it.
00:22:32.000On net, investors' current assumptions about the future are doing more to help the inflation fight than hurt it.
00:22:37.000Their belief the Fed will keep raising interest rates this year means the yields are roughly 3% on treasuries that mature in a year, even though the actual rate control by the Fed is currently set between 1.5% and 1.75%.
00:22:47.000In other words, they keep investing in the idea that the Fed is going to keep raising rates.
00:22:51.000Everybody expects the Fed to keep raising rates, but people are still...
00:22:55.000are attempting to move into the markets in a weird way.
00:23:01.000Interest rate derivatives, like overnight index swaps, reveal investors thinking in more granular detail.
00:23:05.000As of Friday, they showed investors expect the Fed to raise its benchmark federal funds rate by three quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday.
00:23:10.000The Fed is subsequently expected to lift the Fed funds rate to about 3.3% by the end of the year.
00:23:14.000Investors expect no further increases after that.
00:23:17.000They're betting the Fed is going to be cutting rates by June, bringing short-term rates to roughly 2.5% by the middle of 2024.
00:23:24.000Jim Caron, Senior Portfolio Manager, Chief Strategist of Global Fixed Income at Morgan Stanley says, from an expectation standpoint, it's not been at an extreme like this, this sort of anticipated policy turn.
00:23:35.000The Fed has cut rates within a year of raising them several times in the past, most recently in 2019.
00:23:38.000Investors, however, have been typically cautious about anticipating pivots like that.
00:23:44.000So, again, All of this suggests that the Fed has way too much power over the economy.
00:23:48.000If everybody is sort of betting at this point on whether the Fed is going to raise rates this month or next month or six months from now, we're going to reverse course.
00:23:55.000Economics is meant to be a predictable business.
00:23:57.000It's meant to be a business where you have low rates of static in the system, as George Gilder, the economist, has suggested.
00:24:05.000You know that the sun is going to rise in the East tomorrow, and that's why you invest in a particular way.
00:24:11.000If you don't know whether the sun is going to rise in the East, it might rise in the West tomorrow.
00:24:15.000It makes it very difficult to invest your money.
00:24:17.000And so the sort of vacillation and up and down that the Federal Reserve is promoting at this point, I don't think is quieting anyone.
00:24:24.000Well, the economy is really unpredictable right now, but here is the thing.
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00:25:30.000Meanwhile, the Democrats continue to push forward massive spending in the middle of an inflationary cycle.
00:25:35.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats are slowly reconciling themselves to the reality they may have to settle for passing a small partisan health care spending bill.
00:25:42.000Their definition of small has expanded like American clothing sizes.
00:25:44.000Their so-called skinny bill is an enormous expansion in the entitlement state.
00:25:49.000West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin says he's open to passing a bill that would impose drug price controls to supposedly pay for sweetened Obamacare insurance subsidies for two years.
00:25:56.000As with Obamacare, Americans will find out what's in the bill after they pass it.
00:26:00.000Democrats last March made the premium tax credits for buying insurance on the Obamacare exchanges far more generous.
00:26:06.000They removed the eligibility limit, which had been 400% of the poverty line, about 54 grand for an individual.
00:26:12.000Nearly 5 million enrollees with incomes below 150% of the poverty line paid no premiums for plan this year at all.
00:26:18.000The subsidies have reduced premiums for millions of Americans by thousands of dollars, but the sweetened subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year, setting up a subsidy cliff, we warned about last March, according to the editorial board.
00:26:28.000Democrats now want to extend the subsidies for two more years to delay the cliff they created in the first place.
00:26:32.000Two years from now, they'll do it again ad infinitum.
00:26:34.000The biggest beneficiaries are the insurers that pocketed the subsidies and then raised the premiums.
00:26:38.000The CBO raised its estimate for Obamacare exchange spending by $144 billion over the next decade from higher premiums and enrollment.
00:26:45.000It's laughable for Democrats to claim that extending the subsidies for two years will cost only $40 billion, and it gets worse.
00:26:51.000More than 20 million Americans now enrolled in Medicaid, It turns out that dumping more money into subsidization of mass public health care costs a lot of money.
00:26:56.000Most will qualify for the expanded Obamacare subsidies.
00:26:59.000The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates all of this would cost $45 billion next year and $495 billion over the next decade.
00:27:06.000It turns out that dumping more money into subsidization of mass public health care costs a lot of money.
00:27:15.000And so if you're worried about systemic drags on the American economy, spending is the biggest systemic drag on the American economy, followed closely by regulation.
00:27:22.000And it's going to be a drag for the rest of the decade.
00:27:24.000The Biden administration coming into office was predicting that two, three years from now, we were going to be at 1.6%, 1.7% GDP annualized growth rates.
00:27:32.000They don't even outpace the 2% expected inflation that you hope for from the Federal Reserve year on year.
00:27:38.000So, all of this bodes ill for the long-term, mid-term future of the United States unless the United States dramatically reverses course on the way that it does economics.
00:27:46.000Meanwhile, over in New York, it is amazing that there are so many badly governed areas of the United States that insist Again, just like the Biden administration insists we're not a recession, a lot of badly governed areas insist they're really well governed and they are encouraging people to come back.
00:27:59.000So you've got Gavin Newsom in California encouraging everybody to come back to California.
00:28:03.000Meanwhile, they're talking about locking down again.
00:28:06.000And by the way, the cities that have the highest numbers of people leaving are all in California.
00:28:12.000According to CNBC.com, from coast to coast, prospective homebuyers are on the hunt for affordability, even if it means leaving their city to find it.
00:29:01.000Miami, Tampa, Florida, Phoenix, Sacramento, which the reason people are moving to Sacramento is they're moving out of San Jose and they're moving out of San Francisco, Las Vegas, Cape Coral, Florida, San Diego, North Port, Florida, San Antonio, Dallas, Okay, so all these blue staters are talking about, come back to our city.
00:29:24.000I'm looking at, again, at those, the two worst cities in America for people leaving right now are both in California and the third is New York.
00:29:30.000And then you look at these cities that are seeing the influx of homeowners.
00:29:35.000You're talking about in the top 10, one, two, three, four in Florida.
00:30:28.000No one is interested in the slightest.
00:30:30.000The reason being, because it turns out that everything is out of control in New York City.
00:30:34.000Eric Adams came into office pledging that he was going to stop the crime.
00:30:37.000Well, so far, that is going extraordinarily poorly.
00:30:40.000So, for example, over the last couple of days, video emerged from New York of a pedestrian being struck by a car and then being robbed twice while he was laying on the ground.
00:30:52.000According to NBC New York, a jaw-dropping robbery was caught on camera in which police said the victim was stolen from twice by the people responsible for ramming him with a car in the Bronx.
00:31:00.000Dramatic video of Saturday morning's hit-and-run robbery shows a 39 year old man jogging the final steps of a crosswalk landing on the sidewalk when a black four-door sedan soars off the roadway directly into the victim this apparently happened along east 169th street around 6 40 a.m.
00:31:15.000the man flips over into the air i mean you can see the video it's totally insane and then you can see what happens next so there he is trying to avoid the car the car hits him he's lying on the pavement And then people get out of their car, and they run up to him, and they rob him.
00:32:57.000According to the New York Post, police said the bandits took $400,000 worth of jewelry from Whitehead, his wife, and possibly churchgoers.
00:33:03.000Whitehead, dressed in a maroon suit with a gold-trimmed collar and sleeve cuffs, was wearing a long gold chain and a large ring on each finger at the time.
00:33:09.000The robbers fled east on Avenue D after the crime.
00:33:13.000Again, the robbers are still at large, but we are not allowed to actually note any description of the robbers whatsoever, because to do so would be politically incorrect.
00:33:21.000That's the way that it works in the media.
00:33:24.000By the way, it is an incredible thing.
00:33:25.000You know that if these were white criminals who were robbing, for example, black pastors or hitting a black man with their car and then robbing him, it'd be a national news story.
00:33:32.000But black-on-black crime is never a national news story unless it is covered by the right.
00:33:37.000Because the victimization of black victims, we have to ignore that so long as the victimizer happens to be a person who is black.
00:33:44.000Meanwhile, Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, again, running his city beautifully.
00:33:50.000When they are forced to actually confront the impact of their own principles, things get pretty ugly pretty quickly.
00:33:55.000So Eric Adams, you'll remember that not all that long ago, he bragged about New York being a sanctuary city on Twitter.
00:34:02.000He was talking about how New York was a wonderful place to be for illegal immigrants and how they were going to welcome everybody.
00:34:08.000And it was just so terrible that these terrible, terrible right-wingers were anti-illegal immigration.
00:34:12.000And so he tweeted out, yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration.
00:34:17.000We should protect our immigrants, period.
00:34:19.000Well, now he's having some second thoughts because it turns out that Texas and Arizona and other states along the Mexican border Those states are saying, well, you know, we're not all that hot on illegal immigration, but you guys up there, you seem real hot on illegal immigration, so how about you take care of it?
00:34:35.000And so they've been busing illegal immigrants up to Washington, D.C.
00:34:37.000and New York, and this has led Eric Adams to whine about the fact that some 5,000 people have now been bused into New York City, and how's he gonna take care of all these people?
00:34:47.000You guys say that it's racist when the city of Laredo, Texas, which has a population of 35,000, is forced to take in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants every year by the border patrol and by the terrible Biden administration.
00:34:58.0005,000 illegal immigrants arrive in your city of 10 million people and you're already whining about it.
00:36:04.000We're going to nail you with our own policy, and then the boomerang comes back, smacks them in the head, and they have no idea what to do about it.
00:36:09.000It's also amusing to watch as Democrats start to infight over the fact that the radicals in their own caucus are really bad for them.
00:36:14.000According to Daily Wire, New York State Senator Jessica Ramos, who is no right-winger, slammed Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Sunday afternoon on Twitter for allegedly never being present in the community she's supposed to be serving.
00:36:24.000Well, that's because she serves the community of Instagram, right?
00:36:27.000I mean, she's not actually a congressperson.
00:36:30.000She goes on Instagram and she talks about things while sticking her face in bowls of ice, then the media cover her as though she's actually promoted a single piece of meaningful legislation her entire career, which she's not.
00:36:39.000The remarks from Ramos, chair of the New York Senate Committee on Labor, came in response to an exchange that Ocasio-Cortez had online regarding healthcare.
00:36:46.000A tweet from a random Twitter account said, quote, A couple of the most highly respected health policy academics recently set up a meeting with AOC's office to discuss NHS-style healthcare reform.
00:36:55.000They were told bluntly by AOC's staff, we're not doing healthcare right now.
00:37:17.000Ramos responding to criticism of her calling out Ocasio-Cortez by explaining that AOC's officers are on the same floor as hers and she's never there.
00:37:24.000Ramos said, our district officers are on the same floor in the same building.
00:37:26.000She's barely ever present in the community.
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00:40:02.000You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:40:05.000And meanwhile, let's talk about racism in this here United States.
00:40:14.000We can talk about it because there's a story that has captured the top of the news, and that is that apparently, supposedly, a mascot at Sesame Place is racist.
00:40:26.000I continue to fail to see how the tape that we have been shown is racist, but here is the story.
00:40:34.000Apparently, a video shared by a person named Jodi on social media shows her two daughters excitedly greeting characters as they parade through the popular theme park in Philadelphia.
00:40:42.000Now again, Philadelphia is A largely minority city.
00:40:46.000So the idea that Sesame Place is racist, that it'd be a bizarre place to put a racist theme park.
00:40:54.000It'd be a strange place to put a racist theme park.
00:40:56.000When the two girls see the character of Rosita walking by, they step forward for a hug or a high five.
00:41:01.000And then the mascot appears not to see them and then walks past them.
00:41:07.000This turned into a national news story because the two little girls are black.
00:41:12.000And we can't just attribute this action by the person inside the mascot to the fact that it seems rather uncomfortable to be inside the mascot.
00:41:19.000I don't know what the visibility is like because I've not worn a giant Sesame Street head.
00:41:23.000But it does not appear that this is a perfect example of brutal systemic American racism.
00:41:29.000But the mom posted on Instagram, quote, I'm going to keep posting this because this had me hot.
00:41:33.000We were on our way out of Sesame Place and the kids wanted to stop to see the characters.
00:41:36.000This disgusting person blatantly told our kids no, then proceeded to hug the little white girl next to us.
00:41:41.000Then when I went to complain about it, they kept looking at me like I'm crazy.
00:41:44.000Well, I mean, I asked the lady who the character was, and I wanted to see a supervisor.
00:41:54.000It feels like you kind of want the attention.
00:41:56.000Okay, now this woman's name, it turns out, was Jodi Brown, and she then decided that she might sue Sesame Place over this incident, for which there is no verified actual racism.
00:43:04.000We've said from the very beginning that all options will always remain on the table.
00:43:07.000I mean, we don't want to have these two children engaged in litigation, but if that's what we need to do to effectuate change in this country, that's what we have to do.
00:43:15.000Oh, there's so much civil rights in here.
00:43:17.000That's B. Ivory Lamar, who is the lawyer for the mom.
00:43:21.000They've suffered immense harm, have they?
00:43:23.000It seems like the harm that they suffered was mostly because mom decided to post the video and turn this into a racial issue without any actual evidence that it wasn't just a guy in a giant character suit who didn't see the kids properly and was addressing people behind them.
00:43:56.000It's like January 6th what happened over here!
00:43:59.000Since the video made its way across social media, Sesame Place released a statement saying the performer didn't ignore the kids on purpose, and the nose gesture seen in the footage was not to the children specifically.
00:44:08.000They called the incident unacceptable.
00:44:13.000We understand why you would see it that way, but you're wrong.
00:44:16.000Instead, they quasi-apologize, and that's the worst thing you can do.
00:44:20.000Now the CBC wants an audience with the Sesame Place Park president and general manager to discuss.
00:44:27.000And then the CBC says, quote, over the past week, we've seen multiple glaring examples of racism coming from the park, including that viral video.
00:44:32.000Okay, so where are the other examples?
00:44:37.000She said, I thought it was excuses, the mom.
00:44:38.000She said, I also thought it was very disrespectful, like they were trying to brush me off.
00:44:41.000Well, I mean, they were trying to brush you off because you seem like kind of a crazy person, frankly.
00:44:45.000Like this is, this is the big, have you never been to a theme park where your kids have tried to get the attention of one of the characters and haven't gotten it?
00:44:52.000We used to go to Disneyland all the time.
00:44:54.000The characters are trying to like interact with hundreds of people at one time.
00:45:06.000And this is why, by the way, it's very important also that we had Benjamin Crump One of the great racial grifters of our time, sign on, sign in.
00:45:13.000Benjamin Crump is the lawyer who arrives anytime a black person gets shot by a cop who is not a black cop.
00:45:20.000Benjamin Crump shows up and claims that it's unjustified and unjustifiable, despite the fact that in at least half of the cases, that is not true.
00:45:26.000I would say significantly more than half of the cases, that's not true.
00:45:29.000So Benjamin Crump showed up as well to talk about this.
00:45:34.000He went to a protest and here is what Benjamin Crump had to say.
00:46:19.000Okay, so we have now learned that if a theme park character mistakenly does not take a picture with a couple of black kids, it's definitely because of racism.
00:46:27.000But for sure, what's not because of racism is this piece from Damon Young, a contributing columnist for the Washington Post.
00:46:33.000And this is literally in the Washington Post.
00:46:44.000Quote, we still don't know how it got into our house.
00:46:46.000Maybe it was a present from my mother-in-law.
00:46:48.000She regularly sneaks toys and snacks to our kids like they're prisoners and she does them phone card minutes.
00:46:53.000Maybe it was borrowed from a classmate or maybe it conjured itself into existence through alchemy and spells.
00:46:58.000Either way, two months ago, when my wife and I noticed our six-year-old daughter was playing with a white baby doll with long blonde hair, our immediate thought was, wait, where did that come from?
00:47:06.000And then after watching her dote on it for two days, our thoughts shifted.
00:47:19.000I love dancing in my chair while eating food by myself.
00:47:21.000Few things matter to us, however, more than our daughter loving her features, her hair, and her skin as much as we do.
00:47:26.000She's perceptive enough already to see and feel, even if she can't quite articulate it yet, how white beauty is considered the standard here in America.
00:47:33.000A status reinforced when she notices monochromatic magazine covers at a bookstore or watches advertisements during her favorite cartoons.
00:47:39.000Um, first of all, have you not been to a bookstore in like 30 years?
00:47:42.000Seriously, look at the magazine covers.
00:47:44.000Those are very diverse magazine covers.
00:47:46.000Are you talking about who's in commercials these days?
00:48:07.000The physiognomy of a baby doll represents what the person buying it considers to be precious.
00:48:11.000And a decision to gift a white doll to our daughter, who is already aware of the ceaseless cultural proselytization of Eurocentric beauty, could communicate to her that we value those features more than hers.
00:48:22.000So then the rest of the article is about how they are going to get rid of this doll that their daughter actually likes.
00:48:51.000But if neither of us ask, neither of us will know the truth.
00:48:54.000And if neither of us knows the truth, neither of us would have to perjure ourselves at a tribunal.
00:48:57.000Okay, I just, I question whether a piece about a white family saying, we took a black Barbie and we threw her in the river because we didn't want our daughter playing with black dolls was to believe that black dolls were beautiful.
00:49:35.000The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Bradford Carrington, Executive Producer Jeremy Boren, Supervising Producer Mathis Glover, Production Manager Pavel Lydowsky, Associate Producer Savannah Dominguez-Morris, Editor Adam Sajevitz, Audio Mixer Mike Coromino, Hair and Makeup Artist in Wardrobe Fabiola Christina, Production Coordinator Jessica Grant.
00:50:00.000The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.