The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump RETURNS In 3…2…1…

00:00:00.000 Inauguration Day, January 20th.

00:00:02.000 Watch it with us.

00:00:03.000 Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, and Jeremy Boring.

00:00:07.000 Live from D.C. Donald Trump's historic second term officially begins.

00:00:11.000 Coverage starts at 8.30 a.m.

00:00:13.000 Eastern.

00:00:14.000 Watch live on Daily Wire+.

00:00:15.000 Folks, Monday, history is in the making.

00:00:20.000 The Daily Wire will be live from D.C. as Donald Trump takes his oath of office.

00:00:24.000 Watch it all live and celebrate the 47th president with 47% off your membership.

00:00:28.000 Use code 47 at dailywire.com slash subscribe and join us live.

00:00:33.000 Well, nature is healing.

00:00:35.000 Things are beginning to change.

00:00:37.000 Donald Trump will be taking, as we mentioned, his oath of office in just days.

00:00:41.000 In order for Donald Trump to take office first, Joe Biden has to go.

00:00:45.000 On his way out, Joe Biden is attempting to constrain President Trump.

00:00:49.000 As he comes in, according to the New York Times, in the final days of his term, President Biden has issued a series of policy decisions intended to cement his agenda and in some cases make it harder for President-elect Donald J. Trump to put in place his own.

00:01:01.000 And this is always the danger of an outgoing administration, particularly one as venal and corrupt and terrible as Joe Biden's administration.

00:01:07.000 Joe Biden is going to end up as a footnote in history.

00:01:09.000 The guy who ushered Donald Trump back into...

00:01:12.000 The White House, the 11th hour decisions, many of them executive actions, according to the New York Times, include measures on environmental justice, which is to say banning fracking and limiting drilling off the coast, prison reform, meaning jailbreak, immigration, foreign relations.

00:01:26.000 Some are intended to preserve Biden's legacy.

00:01:28.000 Others are last-ditch efforts to expand his approach.

00:01:31.000 What does that mean?

00:01:32.000 Well, he's attempted to announce a ban on new oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters.

00:01:39.000 President Trump has promised to reverse all of that.

00:01:41.000 Biden is creating two national monuments in California that are not really about creating national monuments.

00:01:46.000 They're intended to prevent mining and drilling that would cover 848,000 acres of desert and mountainous land in the state that no human will ever visit unless they were actually going to, you know, increase the energy production of the United States.

00:01:58.000 The Biden administration announced that they would remove Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism in an attempt to box Donald Trump in.

00:02:05.000 Of course, President Biden commuted the sentences of pretty much everybody on federal death row unless they killed particular protected classes of people, which apparently does not include small children.

00:02:15.000 The president also issued sweeping rules earlier this week to govern how AI chips and models can be shared with foreign countries.

00:02:22.000 The president said that he would cancel student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, which is a thing that he doesn't actually have the ability to do, and the Supreme Court said he could not, in fact, do.

00:02:32.000 The administration issued sweeping extensions of deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of people to prevent President Trump from actually moving those people out of the country.

00:02:41.000 And, of course, President Biden signed a piece of legislation that gives full Social Security benefits to some public sector retirees who are currently receiving them at reduced level.

00:02:50.000 And he's attempting to shield people from being fired by the incoming President Trump.

00:02:55.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden is desperately attempting to shore up his legacy by crapping all over Kamala Harris, his vice president.

00:03:02.000 They're very mad at one another.

00:03:04.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Vice President Kamala Harris has told close allies and family members she's disappointed in President Biden's recent contention he would have won the 2024 election.

00:03:14.000 So it wasn't enough for him to be pushed aside.

00:03:16.000 Now she wants him to admit that he would have lost anyway and that it was a good move for him to be pushed aside, which is pretty amazing considering that, again, he was shivved directly in the guts by everybody around him. 0.89

00:03:28.000 It was a true Julius Caesar.

00:03:31.000 Assassination moment in American politics that we all got to watch as it unfolded.

00:03:35.000 And Kamala Harris wants Joe Biden to acquiesce in his political euthanasia.

00:03:40.000 Harris, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been reluctant to distance herself from Biden or criticize him throughout her vice presidency.

00:03:45.000 Even as several top Democrats pushed her to break from the unpopular president, Harris refused.

00:03:49.000 Yes, it was all about her support for the man that she had just destroyed.

00:03:54.000 Asked if he thought he could have defeated Trump earlier this month.

00:03:57.000 Biden said, quote, it's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling.

00:04:00.000 Now, in reality, that's not true.

00:04:02.000 But of course, this infighting was bound to break out.

00:04:05.000 Of course, that was going to happen.

00:04:07.000 Nothing new there.

00:04:08.000 Meanwhile, Karine Jean-Pierre, world's worst press secretary, we are seeing the last of her. 0.96

00:04:13.000 Thank God.

00:04:14.000 Well, she says, don't worry, guys.

00:04:16.000 It'll take time to see Joe Biden's impact.

00:04:17.000 I mean, that's true.

00:04:19.000 The garbage policies that he planted in the heart of American democracy are going to take a while to come to fruition, and they're going to be completely damaging.

00:04:25.000 The vast overspending, the changes to procurement systems, the way that environmental regulations have been done.

00:04:33.000 All those things will take time to fully materialize.

00:04:36.000 Donald Trump is going to try to reverse as many of those as possible.

00:04:38.000 But Corrine Jean-Pierre, she's out there saying, don't worry, Joe Biden will be seen as a historic president.

00:04:43.000 How does he reconcile this gap between what he views as achievements, infrastructure investments, job growth, climate initiatives, and the perception that he's failed to deliver?

00:04:54.000 The American people have gone through a lot in these four years.

00:04:57.000 And so we understand that it's going to take a little bit of time for them, for folks to see the impact that this administration has had.

00:05:06.000 But there are facts.

00:05:07.000 There's data out there to show that the work that this president has done building an economy from the bottom out, middle out, has mattered.

00:05:16.000 Yeah, not so much.

00:05:18.000 Not so much.

00:05:19.000 It'll be great to see the end of her because she is just absolutely...

00:05:23.000 Awful.

00:05:24.000 And here's the thing.

00:05:24.000 By the time Joe Biden left office, people don't like him across the spectrum.

00:05:28.000 Moderates don't like him because he wasn't moderate.

00:05:30.000 The left doesn't like him because they are nuts.

00:05:32.000 Just absolutely nuts.

00:05:33.000 Antony Blinken, the outgoing Secretary of State, was giving his outgoing statement.

00:05:38.000 His sort of denouement.

00:05:39.000 And a bunch of far-left pro-Hamas reporters showed up to harass Tony Blinken as though Tony Blinken had been some sort of stalwart pro-Israel ally throughout the current Gaza war.

00:05:51.000 In our democracy.

00:05:54.000 So, I'm happy to address questions.

00:06:02.000 I'm happy to address questions when we get a chance.

00:06:04.000 Thank you.

00:06:08.000 You know, he richly deserves it.

00:06:09.000 It's his own fault.

00:06:10.000 It was this administration that decided to allow pro-Hamas propagandists into the press room.

00:06:15.000 It was their decision to do that.

00:06:16.000 And they receive the outcome that they so richly deserve, which is to be booted out of office and be hated by the very people that they were attempting to parlay with.

00:06:24.000 Meanwhile, President Trump is entering the White House with more positive sentiment than he has ever had in his entire political career, including his first term.

00:06:32.000 According to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, Trump continues to see majority approval for his handling of the transition, 55% approval, which is a very, very high percent.

00:06:42.000 56% expect President Trump to do a good job in his second term.

00:06:46.000 Which, by the way, is an amazing number.

00:06:48.000 Almost 6 in 10 Americans expect Donald Trump to do a good job in his second term.

00:06:53.000 That's including moderates and Democrats and everybody else.

00:06:56.000 Why?

00:06:57.000 Because as it turns out, Donald Trump is a pragmatist.

00:06:59.000 He's utilitarian.

00:07:00.000 All he cares about is the winning.

00:07:02.000 And so even people who may not agree with many of his conservative policies are interested in a country that actually functions again.

00:07:09.000 A country that actually has a booming economy and a strong foreign policy.

00:07:14.000 Opinions of Trump personally.

00:07:16.000 Are closely split between favorable 46% and unfavorable 48%.

00:07:20.000 Those are his best numbers since just after the 2016 election.

00:07:24.000 However, the numbers on personal approval matter a lot less than the number on do you think he will be a successful president.

00:07:30.000 That is a big number, 56%.

00:07:33.000 56% say they believe economic conditions in the country will be very or somewhat good a year from now.

00:07:39.000 52% say the country more generally will be better off four years from now.

00:07:43.000 By the way, 31% of Democrats believe the economy is going to be somewhat or very good a year from now.

00:07:50.000 And so do 54% of independents.

00:07:52.000 That is an amazing increase for President Trump.

00:07:55.000 He is coming in with a honeymoon.

00:07:57.000 And if Congress does the things it is supposed to do, then we are going to see this boomlet turn into an actual boom on behalf of President Trump.

00:08:06.000 And you can feel, you can feel the mood changing in the country.

00:08:11.000 Now, the addition of Elon Musk.

00:08:13.000 Sort of the Republican side of the aisle has been an imagistic boon in extraordinary ways.

00:08:18.000 Yesterday, for example, the super heavy booster was caught again by the so-called chopsticks.

00:08:25.000 So Musk is doing things with technology.

00:08:27.000 They're just cool.

00:08:28.000 You know, it's cool to be American.

00:08:30.000 It's cool to live in a country that makes this sort of thing possible.

00:08:33.000 It's cool to live in a country where a guy who comes to America with pretty much no money can build himself into the richest person on Earth.

00:08:41.000 Making companies that create electric cars and rockets that are reusable and can be caught from midair that are 20 stories high.

00:08:50.000 Here's some of the footage yesterday.

00:08:51.000 I mean, again, maybe I'm like a little kid with this stuff.

00:08:54.000 That's fine.

00:08:54.000 I think most people are.

00:08:56.000 It's just cool.

00:08:57.000 It's just cool.

00:08:58.000 And it gives you a feeling of optimism about the country to see this sort of thing.

00:09:01.000 And know, by the way, that Elon Musk is going to be participating in trying to move toward governmental efficiency.

00:09:07.000 That is a very, very good thing.

00:09:08.000 Here's some of the video from yesterday.

00:09:09.000 Booster now hovering as it aligns with the tower for catch.

00:09:15.000 Booster coming in.

00:09:18.000 Get ready for that boom, Kate.

00:09:20.000 Down to three edges.

00:09:21.000 And here come the chopsticks, and they are going to catch the booster in midair.

00:09:25.000 Booster running for chopper.

00:09:28.000 And you can hear everybody cheering.

00:09:30.000 I mean, that's super cool.

00:09:32.000 It's really cool.

00:09:33.000 Now, 30 years from now, people will pretend that it never happened and that it was all a conspiracy theory, but it is, in fact, really, really, really cool.

00:09:39.000 And again, you can feel nature.

00:09:41.000 Beginning to heal.

00:09:42.000 The FBI, in December, closed their DEI office.

00:09:46.000 That is in anticipation of President Trump doing the same.

00:09:48.000 According to Fox News, the agency told Fox News Digital, quote, in recent weeks, the FBI took steps to close the Office of Diversity and Inclusion effective by December 2024. The agency did not specify why it had closed the office, but the obvious answer is President Trump was going to come in and close it anyway.

00:10:05.000 DEI practices are on their way out the door as well.

00:10:08.000 They should be.

00:10:09.000 You're feeling it.

00:10:10.000 As DOGE moves toward cutting all sorts of DEI programs, according to the Washington Post, DOGE is going to be identifying hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion that they are going to identify as possibilities for cuts.

00:10:29.000 Again, according to the Washington Post, they're considering a 19-page report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

00:10:35.000 That identified more than $120 billion annually in what it said was diversity, equity, and inclusion spending.

00:10:42.000 And Doge is going to target that for cutting.

00:10:44.000 And that is going to be excellent as well.

00:10:46.000 Well, it's a brand new beginning.

00:10:48.000 And you know what I love about New Year's and new beginnings?

00:10:50.000 It's not just about watching the ball drop or making resolutions we all forget by February.

00:10:53.000 It's about the feeling of possibility, the fresh start we all crave.

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00:12:58.000 Corporate America is beginning to conform to the new reality, as well it should.

00:13:04.000 Google, for example, is not going to be doing what the EU wants it to do and adding fact checks to YouTube videos.

00:13:11.000 Well, that's because the EU wishes to crack down on free speech.

00:13:14.000 The EU is not a friend to free dissemination of opinion.

00:13:18.000 Google has never included fact-checking as part of its content moderation practices, but the EU was pushing super hard.

00:13:23.000 If Joe Biden had been re-elected, you can guarantee that Google would have moved in that direction because Biden was very friendly toward the EU policy.

00:13:29.000 But now, in a letter written to Renate Nicolet, the Deputy Director General under Content and Technology Arm at the European Commission, Google's global affairs president, Kent Walker, said the fact-checking integration required by the commission's new disinformation code of practice, quote, simply isn't appropriate or effective for our services, and said Google will not commit to it.

00:13:46.000 That matters because all of the fact-checkers have been historically far-left-wing propaganda outfits that are designed to quash the speech of people who disagree.

00:13:56.000 Instead, Walker is moving toward, he says Google is moving toward a sort of community notes program, just like X, which is correct.

00:14:03.000 That is the way it ought to be done.

00:14:05.000 Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg over at Meta is not just changing policy with regard to opening up a free speech, allowing people to say things, allowing people to see things.

00:14:14.000 He is also apparently going to start actually operating Meta like the business it originally was.

00:14:19.000 He's going to cut low performers faster.

00:14:21.000 According to the Washington Post, it's a move that will lead to thousands of job cuts in a layoff that could affect 5% of the company.

00:14:27.000 He's decided to raise the bar on performance management.

00:14:31.000 Zuckerberg said, this is going to be an intense year.

00:14:32.000 I want to make sure we have the best people on our team.

00:14:35.000 I'm going to confirm these policies will lead to a dramatic staff cut.

00:14:39.000 Again, one of the reasons for that is because they're going to cut a lot of the DEI dead weight.

00:14:44.000 Watch, that's what's going to happen.

00:14:45.000 Meanwhile, even companies like Starbucks are feeling the ability to actually do business again.

00:14:51.000 Starbucks is now going to require people visiting its coffee shops to buy something in order to stay or use its bathrooms.

00:14:56.000 That sounds like a small change.

00:14:57.000 But the reality is Starbucks tried this a few years ago.

00:15:00.000 The left-wing blowback was so strong, they then said that homeless people could basically walk into their bathrooms and shower.

00:15:05.000 And now they realize, hey, wait a second, maybe the cultural tides have turned and we don't actually have to allow people to loiter in our stores.

00:15:13.000 Business is very often led by culture.

00:15:16.000 And culture leads politics as well.

00:15:18.000 All of this is very good.

00:15:19.000 You could feel a lot of this optimism yesterday in the hearing for Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary nominee for President Trump.

00:15:27.000 Scott Besson suggested it's time to change our attitude about the economy.

00:15:31.000 It's time for a pro-growth attitude.

00:15:34.000 Productive investment that grows the economy must be prioritized over wasteful spending that drives inflation.

00:15:42.000 As we begin 2025, Americans are barreling towards an economic crisis at year-end.

00:15:49.000 If Congress fails to act, Americans will face the largest tax increase in history, a crushing $4 trillion tax hike.

00:15:58.000 We must make permanent the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implement new pro-growth policies to reduce the tax burden on American manufacturers, service workers, and seniors.

00:16:14.000 So, again, all of this is good, and you can feel the optimism in the business community, by the way.

00:16:18.000 Again, I'm the co-owner of a fairly large business in the United States.

00:16:22.000 I know business owners ranging from the right to the left.

00:16:24.000 Everybody, even the people who didn't vote for Trump, are very optimistic about the state of the economy, about the realization that this government is not going to be attempting to quash American innovation.

00:16:33.000 That was always the feeling under Joe Biden.

00:16:35.000 Joe Biden's closing message was, innovators in our economy are forming an oligarchy to control you, says the man who spent 50 years in American politics at the top of a governmental oligarchy designed to control you.

00:16:47.000 And now business owners are saying, you know what?

00:16:49.000 No.

00:16:49.000 The answer is no.

00:16:51.000 Scott Bessant actually had a fascinating exchange with the execrable, evil Bernie Sanders.

00:16:56.000 And Bernie Sanders truly, like, his perspectives are evil.

00:16:58.000 He's a bad person, Bernie Sanders.

00:17:00.000 He is a total leech.

00:17:02.000 He has been a leech for his entire adult life.

00:17:05.000 This is a man so ridiculous that he was effectively kicked out of a commune for failing to do work back in his 20s.

00:17:10.000 He's a deadbeat who failed to pay child support for his own child back when he was in Vermont.

00:17:15.000 Bernie Sanders is a scuzz bucket.

00:17:17.000 He is awful.

00:17:19.000 And he happens to be a pathetically rich socialist with his own lake house dasha.

00:17:24.000 In any case, he decided that he was going to go after Scott Bessent and ask about the so-called oligarchy by citing people like Elon Musk.

00:17:33.000 And listen to Bessent's answer here.

00:17:35.000 Do you think that when so few people have so much wealth and so much economic and political power that that is an oligarchic form of society?

00:17:44.000 Well, I would note that President Biden gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two people who I think would qualify for his oligarchs.

00:17:55.000 This is not a condemnation of any one individual.

00:17:59.000 I'm just asking you, when so few people have so much wealth and power, do you think that that is an oligarchic form of society?

00:18:09.000 Senator, I think it depends on the...

00:18:13.000 The ability to move up and down the...

00:18:16.000 No, that's not really the answer.

00:18:18.000 I mean, even if you had that mobility, no matter who those individuals might be.

00:18:22.000 Okay, that's an insane perspective from Bernie Sanders.

00:18:24.000 It doesn't matter if you can become a billionaire.

00:18:26.000 It's an oligarchy if billionaires exist.

00:18:28.000 That's asinine.

00:18:29.000 And Besson was like, no, that's ridiculous.

00:18:31.000 That's ridiculous.

00:18:32.000 Because, of course, it is ridiculous.

00:18:34.000 It is a scavenger mentality.

00:18:36.000 Bernie Sanders has never produced a damn thing one day in his entire life.

00:18:39.000 life.

00:18:40.000 He is a career loser.

00:18:41.000 He is a loser who has been made into a famous person by a bunch of people who have a zero-sum mentality when it comes to how the economy ought to work and how human life ought to work.

00:18:50.000 Bernie Sanders has never hired a human.

00:18:53.000 He has never run a business.

00:18:54.000 Bernie Sanders has never been a person who has developed any sense of personal success.

00:18:58.000 He's never produced anything for anyone except for himself and the people who he supposedly gets to vote for him.

00:19:05.000 And there he is declaring that any form of society in which some people are able to get rich is an oligarchy.

00:19:10.000 Well, he himself has a lake house.

00:19:13.000 What a pathetic...

00:19:14.000 And you know what?

00:19:14.000 We're done with that.

00:19:15.000 We're done with that as a country.

00:19:16.000 I hope permanently.

00:19:17.000 I doubt it.

00:19:17.000 But at least for the moment, we are very much done with that.

00:19:20.000 Besant wasn't done roasting senators, by the way, yesterday.

00:19:22.000 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has just made an ass of himself in every one of these hearings, he decided to ask Scott Besant about an article in The Economist and suggest that Besant hadn't read it.

00:19:31.000 It didn't go well for him.

00:19:33.000 I would actually ask you personally to read this.

00:19:38.000 I don't think it's complicated.

00:19:40.000 Senator Whitehouse, you gave it to me in your office and I did read it.

00:19:43.000 Good.

00:19:44.000 All right.

00:19:45.000 So we're ahead of you.

00:19:45.000 So I just want to make sure.

00:19:47.000 I will point out to my children behind me, doing your homework is important.

00:19:50.000 It is important.

00:19:51.000 And thank you for doing that.

00:19:53.000 I think you're the first person in a nominations here who's actually done the reading that has been proposed.

00:19:57.000 Oh, Whitehouse. 0.95

00:19:58.000 What a clown he is.

00:19:59.000 Now, there are some problems on the horizon.

00:20:03.000 Those problems are things that, unfortunately, both parties are going to ignore.

00:20:07.000 So there are some problems that are handleable.

00:20:08.000 One of those problems is the extension of the Trump tax cuts.

00:20:10.000 If the Trump tax cuts were to expire this year, that would be awful for business.

00:20:14.000 It would be a radical increase in taxation that would lead to job loss, to lack of innovation, to lack of productivity.

00:20:20.000 Here is Besant talking about that yesterday in front of his confirmation hearing.

00:20:25.000 As we begin 2025, Americans are barreling towards an economic crisis at year end.

00:20:31.000 If Congress fails to act, Americans will face the largest tax increase in history, a crushing $4 trillion tax hike.

00:20:41.000 But that is actually solvable.

00:20:43.000 That is something that actually can be solved for by a Republican Congress extending the tax cuts.

00:20:47.000 That is going to happen.

00:20:48.000 That is the number one priority for the Trump administration.

00:20:51.000 But there are other problems that are on the horizon.

00:20:54.000 And here is where, again, I have a problem with both parties.

00:20:56.000 This is not a single-party problem, and that is the spending.

00:20:59.000 So Besant says, listen, we don't have a revenue problem in this country.

00:21:01.000 We have a spending problem in this country.

00:21:03.000 That is obviously, obviously true.

00:21:06.000 We do not have a revenue problem in the United States of America.

00:21:09.000 We have a spending problem.

00:21:11.000 That historically, for the past 40 or 50 years, revenues, federal government revenues, have averaged about 17 to 17.5% of GDP. And spending...

00:21:26.000 has been slightly over that leading us to a three and a half percent budget deficit which is manageable because we have roughly 3.8 percent nominal growth 1.8 percent real growth 2 percent inflation today as you stated and to be clear this is one of the things that got me out from behind my desk and my quiet life in this campaign was the thought Okay,

00:22:11.000 so here is the big problem, however.

00:22:13.000 If you think that spending levels are about to drop dramatically, I don't think that's the case.

00:22:18.000 Because the American people don't want the spending to drop dramatically.

00:22:21.000 We, like every other developed Western country, are going to spend our way into some form of actual economic problem.

00:22:30.000 We are going to spend our way into austerity measures eventually because we refuse to take the measures that would actually be necessary.

00:22:36.000 And when it comes to the economy, we ought to have a long-term vision, but we also ought to have a long-term vision when it comes to your educational future.

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00:23:35.000 Again, that's gcu.edu.

00:23:36.000 I visited their campuses.

00:23:37.000 A lot of great people over there.

00:23:39.000 Check them out.

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00:24:45.000 Point your toes west.

00:24:46.000 So at the same time, Besant is saying we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

00:24:49.000 He's also saying we're not going to touch Social Security and Medicare.

00:24:52.000 Listen, I get it.

00:24:52.000 it.

00:24:52.000 I get that that is the actual politically viable thing to say about entitlement programs.

00:24:57.000 The reality, of course, is that entitlement programs are going to get solved by neither party because any time anybody tries to do something about it, that person ends up on the wrong side of the American people.

00:25:06.000 I'm old enough to remember when George W. Bush, in the aftermath of his reelection, proposed Social Security, quote unquote, privatization, which just would have meant that you would have been taxed for Social Security and would have gone into a savings account that would actually have been invested in the stock market.

00:25:21.000 Okay, if that had happened...

00:25:23.000 If you had taken that money and invested it in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2005, the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2005, just to be clear about why George W. Bush was right on this, but nobody will do it again.

00:25:35.000 The Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2005 was 10,600.

00:25:39.000 Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 43,000.

00:25:43.000 43,000.

00:25:44.000 You would have quadrupled the amount of money in those Social Security savings account if you had just put it in the Dow Jones Industrial Average when George W. Bush wanted to do so, but nobody was willing to touch it because everyone's afraid of the issue.

00:25:55.000 That includes Republicans and Democrats.

00:25:57.000 Here's Besson saying we're not going to touch Social Security or Medicare.

00:25:59.000 I want to emphasize that President Trump has said that Social Security and Medicare, they will not be touched.

00:26:08.000 And I believe...

00:26:10.000 But I'm saying touch in a positive way.

00:26:12.000 Not cut benefits, not raise taxes, indeed increase benefits, and take that 25% cut off the table, just to make that clear.

00:26:19.000 No, I understand.

00:26:22.000 And those would not be touched.

00:26:26.000 Again, I think that Trump knows politically what is palatable and what is not, but let's be real about this.

00:26:32.000 Spending levels of ink can radically decrease any time.

00:26:39.000 I'm not in favor of eliminating the debt limit.

00:26:41.000 I think that it is very good that Congress actually has to consider raising the debt limit so there can be an actual negotiation over not increasing spending in particular areas.

00:26:50.000 Although I will say that Congress always goes to the easiest area to cut, which is the area they shouldn't cut, which is defense.

00:26:55.000 They always go to defense and pretend it's easier to cut defense than it is to restructure some of the entitlement programs, which is a mistake.

00:27:02.000 However, President Trump is calling for an increase in the debt limit.

00:27:05.000 My guess is that he will get it.

00:27:08.000 Once President Trump takes office, and if I'm confirmed, if he wants to eliminate the debt limit, I will work with him and you on that.

00:27:17.000 Like, this is really, you know, again, I don't think great policy, but the reality is that we are about to enter a boom time because taxes are going to remain low, regulation is going to be reduced, innovators and businesses know what is coming, predictable.

00:27:31.000 Low-regulation societies are the ones that actually have extraordinary economic growth, and we're about to see that in the United States.

00:27:39.000 Other nominees for President Trump had their hearings yesterday.

00:27:42.000 That included Doug Burgum over at the Department of the Interior, who's made himself sort of a cult figure after running a Quixada campaign for president.

00:27:48.000 Here is the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, who is going to be the new Secretary of the Interior.

00:27:55.000 I do want to begin with gratitude, as I always do, with a special thank you to my friends, Senator Hoven, Senator Kramer, not just for their kind words this morning, but their incredible service to the country and to North Dakota over their lifetimes.

00:28:09.000 And Senator Lee, as you acknowledged, I'm deeply grateful for the support of all of my friends, my family, especially our three kids, and my amazing and courageous former First Lady and my wife, Catherine Burgum, who's joining me here today.

00:28:24.000 It's certainly an honor to have been nominated by President Trump to serve as the 55th.

00:28:31.000 Meanwhile, Lee Zeldin, the former congressperson from New York who ran for governor of New York, that may have saved Republican Congress a couple of years back because he outperformed against Kathy Hochul.

00:28:40.000 He was asked by the execrable Senator Sanders about China and our perspective on China.

00:28:45.000 He's going to be the head of the EPA. And he says, listen, China's an adversary. 0.98

00:28:48.000 Why are we pretending they're our friends?

00:28:51.000 Are you and hopefully your colleagues, if you are confirmed, prepared to work with China to try to lower carbon emissions?

00:28:58.000 Senator, on many different issues, it is important not just to be working with nations that we are the strongest aligned with, but to also be in communication and engaged in dialogue with countries that might be considered competitors and also our greatest adversaries.

00:29:17.000 And right now China is an adversary in many respects.

00:29:21.000 He is right about that.

00:29:22.000 And this is why I'm very confused about the varying perspectives on the right about TikTok.

00:29:26.000 TikTok is a Chinese app.

00:29:28.000 It is run by ByteDance.

00:29:29.000 ByteDance is a subsidiary of the Chinese government.

00:29:31.000 They are gathering data on Americans.

00:29:33.000 They are spreading via social media algorithm mental poison to Americans.

00:29:38.000 And the way that you can tell this is that the version of TikTok that Chinese people see is totally different.

00:29:43.000 You're not going to see attempts at transgendering the children in China.

00:29:48.000 You're going to see that all over TikTok today.

00:29:50.000 Chinese government propaganda is going out on TikTok at an alarming rate on every issue, from economics to foreign policy.

00:29:57.000 Okay, China runs the...

00:29:59.000 Listen, I'm speaking as somebody who has 3 million followers, almost 3 million followers over at TikTok, and something like 60 million likes over at TikTok.

00:30:09.000 So this is not coming from a small account at TikTok.

00:30:11.000 TikTok is a Chinese-owned app that is designed as a psy-op on the American people.

00:30:16.000 And yet somehow, there's been this attempt, whether through solidarity with many of China's actual policies, or out of a misguided belief.

00:30:25.000 That somehow, if the American government doesn't like Chinese ownership of TikTok, that means the American government is attempting to censor information to the idea that TikTok ought to be banned unless it divests of its Chinese ownership.

00:30:37.000 Again, no one is suggesting that TikTok, if it were not owned by the Chinese, ought to be banned. 0.91

00:30:42.000 No one is suggesting that, right, left, or center, so far as I'm aware.

00:30:46.000 I'm not calling for any of the other social media mechanisms to be shuttered.

00:30:49.000 In fact, I want them to broaden the amount of speech they allow.

00:30:52.000 I've been fighting for that literally my entire career.

00:30:54.000 And it's been a major issue for my company, The Daily Wire.

00:30:58.000 TikTok, however, is a Chinese app.

00:31:00.000 It is Chinese-owned.

00:31:01.000 It is a Chinese propaganda tool. 0.91

00:31:03.000 This is perfectly clear from all available data.

00:31:07.000 And yet you're seeing some bizarre folks on the right now saying that if TikTok is shut down, they're going to go and join other Chinese apps.

00:31:14.000 Okay, geniuses.

00:31:16.000 I mean, I suppose if you would like the Chinese to, you know, actually be able to face-track you, which is apparently one of the things. 0.98

00:31:24.000 That these apps are doing.

00:31:25.000 They're not just tracking your data.

00:31:28.000 They're tracking literally everything about you.

00:31:30.000 This is crazy towns.

00:31:33.000 What is the possible logic?

00:31:35.000 So one bizarrely awful account, a person named Kim Iverson, who had just downloaded the Xiaohongshu app, banning TikTok is going to completely, massively backfire.

00:31:45.000 This app is showing Americans a completely different view of China.

00:31:47.000 It's obvious China is the new world. 0.99

00:31:50.000 Well, I guess you guys aren't being hijacked or anything by the Chinese.

00:31:53.000 I guess that's not happening.

00:31:55.000 What would possess you?

00:31:57.000 This is legitimately like you read a bunch of Walter Durante propaganda about the Soviet Union in 1932. And then it turns out that Walter Durante is basically having his prostitutes and booze paid for by the Soviet government.

00:32:09.000 And that comes out and you're like, you know what?

00:32:11.000 In retaliation for that coming out, I am now going to subscribe to Pravda and give them all my personal information.

00:32:18.000 What the hell?

00:32:19.000 Like, seriously, what?

00:32:21.000 The Chinese, by the way, this is hilarious.

00:32:24.000 The Chinese are actively attempting to ban American users from being able to reach the Chinese on their new Chinese apps.

00:32:32.000 So Beijing censors are getting very upset.

00:32:35.000 They're getting very upset because, as it turns out, the Americans who are joining all these apps, they don't want the Americans to actually be able to access Chinese viewers via these new apps.

00:32:46.000 They want to ban them.

00:32:47.000 They don't want anything American in their country. 0.99

00:32:49.000 They don't want any of our culture in their country. 1.00

00:32:52.000 What they do want to do is track everything you are doing.

00:32:57.000 I failed to understand.

00:32:59.000 Maybe there is no logic.

00:33:00.000 Maybe it's all just reactionary nonsense.

00:33:03.000 Red Note, which is one of these apps, is, again, doing extraordinary technological tracking of all of its users on behalf of the Chinese government.

00:33:10.000 So, I mean, I guess if you want to give them your data, that's your problem.

00:33:13.000 Just understand, the Chinese government is going to have all of the data that is on your phone if you give it to them.

00:33:18.000 According to the New York Times, Manimatana Lee spent the past five years building one of the hottest commodities on the internet, a group of people who reliably watch her videos on TikTok.

00:33:27.000 She built an audience of nearly 10,000 followers with videos of herself vacuuming her house in Wisconsin while her youngest daughter napped in a carrier on her back.

00:33:34.000 A video of Ms. Lee dancing and doing the dishes has been watched more than one million times since November.

00:33:39.000 Now, with the Supreme Court soon to rule on a case that could determine whether TikTok could be banned in the United States over national security concerns, Ms. Lee and other Americans looking for alternatives are downloading...

00:33:47.000 Xiao Hongshu, a social media app popular in China and little known outside the country.

00:33:51.000 How funny would it be if they banned TikTok and we all just move over to this Chinese app? 0.95

00:33:55.000 She wrote on Monday on TikTok encouraging her followers to join her.

00:33:59.000 Oh, goodness gracious, people.

00:34:01.000 Seriously.

00:34:02.000 I'm not getting it.

00:34:03.000 Why do you want the Chinese to have your information? 1.00

00:34:05.000 Why?

00:34:06.000 You should be pushing for the actual bill that Congress pushed through to be implemented so that TikTok remains a feature of American life but is not owned and run.

00:34:17.000 By the way, this is not just a critique of the left.

00:34:20.000 This is a critique of pretty much everybody who is pushing this nonsense.

00:34:24.000 So Dave Portnoy, who generally I enjoy, the owner of Barstool Sports, he does a lot of great things, Dave Portnoy, when he's doing his...

00:34:30.000 The other day, he did something awesome.

00:34:32.000 He walked into a pizza shop, and the pizza shop needed like 60 grand to keep operating.

00:34:35.000 He liked the pizza.

00:34:36.000 They were very nice to him, so he gave him 60 grand.

00:34:37.000 Dave does some really great stuff.

00:34:38.000 I don't know what he's talking about here via TikTok.

00:34:41.000 The TikTok thing, I've already talked about this, the ban.

00:34:45.000 I don't think there's any way we lose TikTok.

00:34:47.000 If we lose TikTok, first of all, I don't even think they can really ban TikTok.

00:34:51.000 Like, I think it'll still work from what I've seen.

00:34:53.000 You just can't, like, new people can't find it.

00:34:55.000 Maybe I'm wrong.

00:34:55.000 Whatever.

00:34:57.000 If the U.S. government bans TikTok, it's just more proof they can go f*** about the American people at all.

00:35:02.000 Like, they have no clue what's going on.

00:35:04.000 They're detached from reality.

00:35:06.000 The amount of people...

00:35:08.000 Businesses, creators, whatever you want to say who earn a living through TikTok, they have no clue.

00:35:14.000 So just to strip these people of their livelihoods overnight, because why?

00:35:18.000 The only thing I can come up with, you're afraid China could use it for like disinformation, control the algorithm, show people what they see.

00:35:25.000 Listen, again, if people are too dumb to check where they're getting information that is important in the first place, like...

00:35:33.000 What, the U.S. government doesn't do disinformation?

00:35:36.000 It's not on that?

00:35:37.000 There's fake shit everywhere you go.

00:35:40.000 If you have half a noodle up here, you gotta check what you're doing, do your research.

00:35:44.000 If you're just getting on a random TikTok dance, then you're a moron and whatever.

00:35:49.000 I don't care about you.

00:35:50.000 So, again, I don't think there's any shot.

00:35:52.000 I think the backlash will be too huge.

00:35:54.000 Too many people losing their livelihoods.

00:35:56.000 Too many people, companies losing marketing.

00:35:59.000 I just don't see any way.

00:36:00.000 Why are you blaming America for that?

00:36:02.000 America offered TikTok an alternative.

00:36:04.000 Sell.

00:36:04.000 Sell your algorithm.

00:36:06.000 Just divest of your Chinese ownership. 0.71

00:36:07.000 That's it.

00:36:08.000 Instead, apparently, the Trump administration is having the head of TikTok, a person named Xiao Chu, to sit among the president-elect's high-profile guests during the inaugural.

00:36:18.000 Now, listen, I understand there are a lot of TikTok stars who are fans of President Trump.

00:36:22.000 Again, I have a lot of followers on TikTok.

00:36:23.000 I'm a big backer of President Trump, and I think that this administration is going to be great.

00:36:27.000 But the reason people are animated about TikTok has nothing to do...

00:36:31.000 With quote-unquote censorship.

00:36:32.000 It has to do with the Chinese government running the thing.

00:36:35.000 It's pretty wild.

00:36:37.000 Okay, in a moment we'll get to some better news and some worse news.

00:36:41.000 First, Monday is the big day.

00:36:42.000 The Daily Wire will be live from D.C. to bring you every moment as Donald Trump is sworn as the 47th president of the United States.

00:36:48.000 We're not just covering history.

00:36:49.000 We're delivering it straight to you live and uncensored.

00:36:51.000 Because 47 is the magic number, we're celebrating with 47% off new Daily Wire plus annual memberships.

00:36:56.000 We're tossing in a free $20 gift for joining the fight.

00:36:59.000 With Daily Wire Plus, you get all our shows uncensored and ad-free, along with unlimited access to exclusive movies, documentaries, and series that are literally reshaping the culture.

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00:37:13.000 Okay, meanwhile, some good news for Republicans in the Senate.

00:37:16.000 Brian Kemp is apparently looking at running for Senate against John Ossoff.

00:37:20.000 John Ossoff will lose that race.

00:37:21.000 The polls right now show Kemp up 46 to 40. Right now, Ossoff is leading some of the other Republicans who are being nominated.

00:37:30.000 I think that that is just because of the amount of notoriety that Ossoff has had in the state of Georgia.

00:37:36.000 I think that those races would not be 10-point races in favor of John Ossoff.

00:37:39.000 Kemp should run, and he should win.

00:37:41.000 Meanwhile, Marco Rubio's Senate replacement has been named in the state of Florida.

00:37:45.000 That would be the Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who was named by Governor Ron DeSantis, to replace Rubio, who's going to be the Secretary of State.

00:37:52.000 Moody is an excellent pick.

00:37:54.000 She's been an excellent Attorney General.

00:37:55.000 In the state of Florida, to replace her, Governor DeSantis named his chief of staff, James Uthmeyer, who will also be an excellent AG. So, again, the Republican Party is pretty stacked top to bottom, and the Senate constituency has a chance of getting bigger, because there are a bunch of Democrats who are in red states, and if Republicans actually run people who are good, they are going to win those particular states.

00:38:19.000 Meanwhile, the UK has now announced a rapid review into the scale of the child...

00:38:24.000 Abuse grooming gangs in an attempt to avoid the blowback from Elon Musk naming and shaming members of the UK government.

00:38:30.000 Britain's government on Thursday, according to the New York Times, bowed to pressure and announced new investigations into child exploitation and abuse.

00:38:36.000 Speaking in Parliament, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said she commissioned a rapid three-month audit into the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country that would examine data on the ethnicity of perpetrators.

00:38:47.000 She also said the government would support and help fund up to five local inquiries into the issue of so-called grooming gangs.

00:38:52.000 Apparently, there's going to be...

00:38:53.000 I've heard a sort of grooming gang lottery in which they determine almost by lottery which cities are audited for grooming gangs.

00:38:59.000 So it will not, in fact, be a nationwide audit of the grooming gang scandal, which is one of the great cover-ups in all of Western history.

00:39:06.000 Grooming gangs represent a fraction of the total number of recorded cases of child abuse in England and Wales, says the New York Times, attempting to cover for the fact that, yes, child abuse exists in pretty much every race, in pretty much every culture.

00:39:18.000 But when you have organized gangs of men, of one particular...

00:39:22.000 Race and culture are engaged in a thing that is a different thing.

00:39:26.000 They are organized.

00:39:27.000 They are gangs.

00:39:28.000 It is a different thing.

00:39:30.000 Well, the London mayor, Sidhi Khan, was actually asked about grooming gangs in London.

00:39:34.000 He pretended he never heard of the issue.

00:39:35.000 I asked you this question last week and you found every which way but not to answer it.

00:39:41.000 Just how many grooming gangs have we got in London?

00:39:45.000 Avoid a misunderstanding.

00:39:46.000 Can she define what she means by that?

00:39:48.000 Yes.

00:39:49.000 If you look at what's gone on in Rotherham, where there are people taking young girls, grooming them for sex, that is what I'm talking about.

00:39:59.000 Well, we know in London there are issues about exploitation of young people, but they're not as defined by the member in her definition of what those types of gangs are.

00:40:10.000 So are you saying we haven't got the same sort of gangs that are in Rotherham, Bradford, and lots of other places in the country?

00:40:19.000 What does she mean by that?

00:40:21.000 You know full well what I mean by that.

00:40:23.000 It's all over the television.

00:40:24.000 You know exactly what I mean by that.

00:40:26.000 What he's trying to do is bait her into saying these are Pakistani men who are gathering together to exploit white girls, which is the actual truth. 0.98

00:40:33.000 And then, if she says that, he's going to call her an Islamophobe.

00:40:36.000 That is the stupid game that Sadiq Khan is playing.

00:40:39.000 I think those days are over, and if the government insists, like Sadiq Khan, on insisting that these gangs don't exist for purposes of political correctness and promoting the lie that multiculturalism is the strength of a country rather than assimilation into Western values, then I think the Labour Party is doomed for failure in Britain, and that will be quite well deserved. 0.60

00:40:58.000 Joining us online is Senator Tim Sheehy.

00:41:00.000 He's a brand new senator, one of the excellent senators added to the Republican roster.

00:41:04.000 I had the privilege of campaigning with Senator Sheehy in Montana during the last election cycle.

00:41:08.000 I wanted to have him on to talk about what's going on in D.C. plus what's going on in California because he founded Bridger Aerospace, which was an aerial firefighting and wildfire management company.

00:41:17.000 Senator Sheehy, great to see you on the program as an actual sworn in senator.

00:41:21.000 Yeah, it's great to be here.

00:41:22.000 Thanks for all your support.

00:41:22.000 So let's talk about what you are expecting next week, the inauguration.

00:41:26.000 What is the first job of the Senate as the new administration begins?

00:41:30.000 Well, the first job is really what we're already doing, which is pretty incredible that Leader Thune's got us on an aggressive schedule, which is get Trump's nominees confirmed, get them in place so we can be operational moving forward on the agenda.

00:41:42.000 And I think we've got 12. We've already had 12 hearings and appointments go through this week alone through committee.

00:41:48.000 And that's fantastic.

00:41:50.000 That's an awesome pace.

00:41:50.000 I mean, the president's not even sworn in yet, and we're already making incredible progress towards getting his cabinet confirmed and in place.

00:41:56.000 So that's the top priority.

00:41:58.000 That's what we have to focus on because...

00:41:59.000 To get all the trickle-down effects of the America First agenda, which won decisively in November, we have to get the executive agencies turned over and ready to execute on that day one.

00:42:10.000 So that's what we're doing.

00:42:10.000 So obviously you were on the panel that was questioning Pete Hegseth as the possible Secretary of Defense.

00:42:15.000 I think that he's going to fly through with flying colors given his performance, which I think was excellent.

00:42:20.000 I wanted to get your opinion.

00:42:21.000 You had a pretty colorful exchange with Pete about the number of genders, about the sort of...

00:42:32.000 He did a fantastic job.

00:42:35.000 He really did.

00:42:38.000 The confirmation here is the advising and sent role is very important.

00:42:41.000 So I don't think any of us expect this to be easy.

00:42:43.000 No one expects these hearings to, hey, we just walk on through it.

00:42:46.000 But they're supposed to be tough.

00:42:47.000 We've got to ask tough questions.

00:42:48.000 But, you know, there's tough questions and there's just smear crap.

00:42:51.000 And that's what we saw with Pete.

00:42:53.000 Same thing we saw with Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas a long time ago.

00:42:55.000 I mean, this is the Democrats' tactic is if they don't want someone to get the job, they just smear them.

00:43:00.000 You know, they did my campaign.

00:43:01.000 They do it to these nominees.

00:43:02.000 And we don't need that.

00:43:04.000 I have no problem with them asking tough, pointed questions about the ability of them.

00:43:09.000 You know, what they're doing is just trying to smear his character and make him look bad.

00:43:12.000 But he held up fantastically well.

00:43:15.000 He did a great job pairing these ridiculous attacks away and staying focused on his message, which he did.

00:43:20.000 And I agree with you.

00:43:21.000 I think he's going to be just fine.

00:43:22.000 So, Senator Sheehy, one of the big questions going forward is going to be sort of the strategy of the Senate in terms of getting President Trump's agenda through.

00:43:29.000 Obviously, while we won a big victory, we meaning conservatives, won a big victory over the course of the election cycle, that only resulted in a 53-seat majority in the Senate, which means you really can't lose a lot of votes on any sort of bill, which means also that the filibuster comes into play.

00:43:43.000 Reconciliation means probably there's only one or two big bills that get passed this year.

00:43:47.000 How do you think that plays out?

00:43:49.000 No, I think you're right.

00:43:50.000 I mean, it's obviously not a 60 seat majority.

00:43:52.000 We always knew we were not going to have that.

00:43:54.000 I mean, we're going to have to compromise.

00:43:56.000 The Senate's built that way. 0.98

00:43:57.000 So I think we all wish we could just say, damn, the torpedoes do what we want.

00:44:01.000 That's just not the way it works.

00:44:03.000 And for good reason.

00:44:04.000 The framers designed it that way.

00:44:05.000 And I'm a constitutionalist and respect that deeply.

00:44:08.000 So, you know, there's certain things we're going to be able to get done through reconciliation and hopefully make the tax cuts and job deck permanent.

00:44:14.000 A handful of other things, obviously, border legislation.

00:44:17.000 The good news about border legislation is it's been such an abject disaster.

00:44:22.000 That, like you saw with the Lake and Rally Act, I mean, there's been a lot of Democrats realizing, you know, I need to be behind this.

00:44:27.000 Not only do I need to be, I should be, because this is a crisis we have to fix.

00:44:31.000 So I think that really the key things that folks are going to be focused on, like the border, like getting the economy sorted out, I think we can actually probably pass those with Democrat support.

00:44:40.000 But you're right, you know, after that, it's going to get a lot tougher.

00:44:43.000 Senator Sheehy, I also wanted to ask you about the California wildfires, given your history in aerial firefighting, wildfire management.

00:44:49.000 You've been watching this disaster unfolding in California.

00:44:52.000 You know, being on the inside of the industry, having founded a very successful company in that industry, what is the thing that Americans don't know about firefighting that maybe they need to know to understand what policy scripts were made in California?

00:45:04.000 Well, there's no national standard for wildfire response time or ability.

00:45:09.000 You know, if you dial 911 where you're sitting right now, NFPA, the National Fire Protection Association, mandates that there'll be a fire truck and a fire crew at your house in about five minutes.

00:45:18.000 That's a national standard.

00:45:20.000 And that was founded after the great fires of the 19th century, the great Chicago fire, Kansas City.

00:45:25.000 When entire cities would burn down on these firestorms, folks came out of the ashes of those and realized we can't keep letting our cities burn to the ground.

00:45:33.000 We need to come up with a way, with a code to build buildings, to respond to fires.

00:45:37.000 And to create fire departments that can promptly respond to fires.

00:45:40.000 And as a result of that adoption of those codes, you know, structure firefighter and civilian deaths have dropped over 80% in the last few decades because we focus on response time and having firefighters and aircraft ready to go.

00:45:53.000 You go to wildfire, there is no requirement nationally to respond to a wildfire in a certain amount of time.

00:45:59.000 None.

00:45:59.000 And what happens is, you know, imagine in your community there, if there hadn't been a fire in a week.

00:46:05.000 And the mayor said, you know what?

00:46:06.000 We haven't had a house fire in a week.

00:46:08.000 We're going to fire the firefighters, sell the fire engines, and rent out the fire station because obviously there hasn't been a fire.

00:46:13.000 We don't need them.

00:46:14.000 That's what we do with our wildland firefighting community.

00:46:16.000 We lay off our firefighters.

00:46:17.000 We don't pay them like the professionals they are.

00:46:19.000 We send the airplanes and the helicopters home.

00:46:22.000 And then when a fire starts, like in L.A., like in Texas last spring, like in New Jersey in November, We are not ready to launch on these incidents in the same fashion that we would for structure fire.

00:46:33.000 So we need to adopt far more aggressive national codes.

00:46:36.000 And of course, as we're seeing in California, environmental policies, as well-intentioned as they may be, have consequences.

00:46:44.000 And when you decide that you're going to prioritize an endangered species, spotted owl, you know, the smelt fish, the Eurasian snailfish, whatever the hell you want to list today, when you prioritize that over the safety of your communities, There are impacts, and now we're seeing what those impacts are.

00:46:59.000 So I think it's a wake-up call.

00:47:00.000 I wrote an op-ed in December, and I hate to be right on something like this, but I wrote an op-ed in December that literally, and many of us have been, I wrote a book called Mudslingers, where all the proceeds go to wildline firefighters.

00:47:11.000 But it talked about this exact scenario, that we are not ready for the big one.

00:47:15.000 It's coming, and America's going to have a very rough wake-up call when they realize we cannot fight wildfire at the level we need to.

00:47:22.000 Lahaina Maui was...

00:47:23.000 Burned off the map.

00:47:24.000 100 people killed a year and a half ago.

00:47:26.000 You know, obviously, we're watching L.A. burn today.

00:47:29.000 Texas had the largest fire in their history last year.

00:47:32.000 We're not ready for this.

00:47:33.000 And, you know, this is America First, Ben.

00:47:35.000 It's when people say, well, you know, America First is machismo, nationalist isolation.

00:47:41.000 It's like, no, not at all.

00:47:42.000 What America First means is it's not too much for our people to ask that our government will put their interests first.

00:47:49.000 America First means common sense.

00:47:52.000 The first role of government is to keep their people safe.

00:47:55.000 Safety.

00:47:55.000 That's it.

00:47:56.000 And when you can't protect people from fire and the whole city's engulfed in a firestorm, something's got to change.

00:48:02.000 Well, that's Senator Tim Sheehy.

00:48:03.000 Again, amazing addition to the United States Senate.

00:48:05.000 Senator, congratulations on becoming a sworn senator.

00:48:08.000 And we're looking forward to seeing what you do in D.C. All right.

00:48:12.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:48:12.000 Keep going.

00:48:12.000 Appreciate it.

00:48:14.000 Well, meanwhile, the world of Hollywood has been rift, torn apart by a brand new controversy.

00:48:21.000 Named Justin Baldoni and another human named Blake Lively.

00:48:24.000 Now, you've probably heard of Blake Lively because she's an actress who's married to Ryan Reynolds. 0.99

00:48:27.000 Justin Baldoni is significantly less famous, but they did make a movie together called It Ends With Us.

00:48:33.000 The long line for that film is, quote, when a woman's first love suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with a charming but abusive neurosurgeon is upended, and she realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.

00:48:45.000 So it sounds totally awful.

00:48:46.000 I, of course, have not seen a film like that because...

00:48:48.000 I have testicles.

00:48:49.000 So that's not a man movie.

00:48:51.000 That is a movie that is made for...

00:48:53.000 In any case, this film became the subject of a thousand think pieces and two massive lawsuits because, as it turns out, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were the stars of the film and Baldoni directed it.

00:49:05.000 They didn't get along.

00:49:06.000 Apparently, rumors of a feud began during their promotional tour in August 2024.

00:49:11.000 There was speculation that Blake Lively had actually brought in her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to help take over creative control of the film, and Baldoni wasn't showing up at press events.

00:49:20.000 And then Baldoni hired Johnny Depp's crisis management and PR professional, a person named Melissa Nathan, to represent him.

00:49:26.000 Lively herself was doing some kind of strange things during her press tour tour.

00:49:33.000 She was criticized for her tone-deaf approach to the movie, which is supposedly a fairly serious movie about abuse and all the rest.

00:49:39.000 Here, for example, she was doing a strange interview.

00:49:43.000 But for people who see this movie, who relate to the topics of this movie, On a deeply personal level, they're really going to want to talk to you.

00:49:50.000 This movie is going to affect people and they're going to want to tell you about their lives.

00:49:54.000 So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public, and they want to really talk to you, what's the best way for them to be able to talk to you about this?

00:50:03.000 How would you recommend they go about it?

00:50:04.000 Like asking for my address or my phone number or my location share.

00:50:09.000 I could just location share you and then we could...

00:50:14.000 That's weird.

00:50:15.000 He's literally asking, what would you say to somebody who was talking about abuse?

00:50:18.000 And she's like, you want my phone number?

00:50:19.000 Like, what is happening right now?

00:50:22.000 And then, apparently, an interview with a journalist named Kirstie Fla resurfaced from 2016, in which she was being very, very weird with her co-star from a movie called Cafe Society, which was a Woody Allen film.

00:50:35.000 First of all, congrats on your little bump.

00:50:38.000 Congrats on your little bump. 0.99

00:50:40.000 What about my bump?

00:50:43.000 We've got two nice ones.

00:50:45.000 And these, they are kind of bumps, aren't they?

00:50:48.000 No, not bumps.

00:50:50.000 The lovely lady lumps. 1.00

00:50:51.000 Check it out.

00:50:52.000 Thank you, thank you.

00:50:53.000 You like the movie?

00:50:55.000 Are you a Woody Allen fan?

00:50:56.000 I love most of his movies, and this one was so, like, visually amazing.

00:51:00.000 Yeah, it's gorgeous.

00:51:01.000 Did you guys love wearing those kind of clothes that you...

00:51:05.000 Yeah.

00:51:06.000 And, you know, working in digital...

00:51:07.000 Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.

00:51:10.000 I would.

00:51:12.000 I love Jesse's suits.

00:51:14.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:51:15.000 His wardrobe was beautiful.

00:51:17.000 Corey's wardrobe was gorgeous.

00:51:19.000 Those high-waisted pants.

00:51:21.000 He's so great.

00:51:21.000 I would wish men wore high-waisted pants like that still.

00:51:25.000 Me too.

00:51:25.000 Or the father with his tank top in bed.

00:51:28.000 It's so good.

00:51:29.000 Did you catch the tablecloth?

00:51:32.000 Look at the interview.

00:51:32.000 The interview's like, what's happening right now?

00:51:34.000 I didn't notice that.

00:51:36.000 There's so much warmth of everything.

00:51:39.000 Yeah, it's not just the women that have the clothes. 1.00

00:51:42.000 It's a period piece.

00:51:45.000 Every detail with everybody.

00:51:47.000 It was amazing to look at.

00:51:49.000 First rule of Hollywood, actresses are very largely weird. 1.00

00:51:52.000 I'm just going to put that out there.

00:51:54.000 Also, I didn't realize that Parker Posey had done a movie since Coyote Ugly.

00:51:57.000 I didn't realize that she was still a working actress.

00:51:58.000 In any case, in December, Blake Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni's Wayfarer studio.

00:52:05.000 She claims harassment, retaliation, failure to investigate or prevent harassment, aiding and abetting harassment, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, false light, invasion of privacy, interference with prospective economic advantage.

00:52:17.000 And Lively had set forth a list of 30 HR-related demands to meet Baldoni and his production company.

00:52:22.000 Those demands included no more showing nude videos and images to Lively or her employees, no mentions of Baldoni's addiction or discussions of personal encounters, no more inquiries about Lively's religious beliefs or weight, and all intimate scenes to be highly choreographed.

00:52:36.000 Well, as we will explore in a moment, many of these accusations are taken wildly out of context.

00:52:43.000 And because you hear that, initially you're going to be sympathetic to the actress who's accusing and director of that sort of activity.

00:52:48.000 But it turns out not so much.

00:52:50.000 Well, she then apparently went to the New York Times.

00:52:53.000 And the New York Times did a giant propaganda piece on her behalf, talking about how dare Justin Baldoni defend himself with the PR campaign.

00:53:02.000 The New York Times says, quote, She claimed Baldoni had improvised, unwanted kissing, and discussed his sex life, including encounters in which he said he may not have received consent.

00:53:10.000 Mr. Heath, the producer Jamie Heath, had shown her a video of his wife naked, she said, and he had watched Miss Lively in her trailer when she was topless and having body makeup removed, despite her asking him to look away.

00:53:20.000 She said both men repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.

00:53:26.000 And then the hit piece had a bunch of text messages and emails between Baldoni and his PR team.

00:53:32.000 Baldoni ended up being dropped from William Morris Agency, which is one of the biggest agencies in the world.

00:53:38.000 Lively claimed that she missed hosting SNL because of the Baldoni smear campaign. 0.99

00:53:44.000 And then Baldoni is now counter-suing.

00:53:47.000 He sued the New York Times for $250 million.

00:53:49.000 He claims that Ryan Reynolds aggressively berated him.

00:53:53.000 Lively then sued Baldoni, officially.

00:53:56.000 And yesterday, Baldoni sued Lively and Reynolds for $400 million.

00:54:02.000 Well, joining us online to discuss the details of this salacious story is my friend Megan Kelly, journalist and host of The Megan Kelly Show.

00:54:09.000 Okay, Megan, so I need you to walk me through the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni scandal here because I will be frank with you.

00:54:14.000 Until my producers put this on my agenda, I literally had no idea this was happening because I've not seen a movie with either of these people I think maybe ever.

00:54:22.000 So explain.

00:54:23.000 Okay, here's the top line.

00:54:25.000 It's a dispute between two Hollywood actors that's on every one of the tabloid magazines, etc.

00:54:31.000 And effectively, what I think has happened here, and the reason I think people are interested in this, is because she has made herself into the new Amber Heard.

00:54:39.000 And he is the new Johnny Depp.

00:54:41.000 That's what's caught people's attention.

00:54:44.000 She had a round of negative publicity when this movie she did, It Ends With Us, about domestic violence, across from which she starred.

00:54:52.000 From Justin Baldoni, who was the male actor lead and was also the director and producer of the movie.

00:54:57.000 So they starred in it, came out.

00:54:59.000 She suffered through a round of somewhat negative press because, as often happens when these stars drop a movie, people start digging around for other interviews of them, etc.

00:55:07.000 And it was just sort of a course of, well, she seems like kind of a jerk. 0.97

00:55:11.000 Wow, she's kind of a bully. 0.97

00:55:12.000 She's rather mean.

00:55:14.000 And to people who are less powerful than she is, less well-known than she is, and so on.

00:55:19.000 Let's not forget she's married to Ryan Reynolds, who's one of the biggest stars in the world.

00:55:23.000 His famed dwarfs her. 0.91

00:55:24.000 But the point is, she's part of a power couple. 0.88

00:55:27.000 And whatever, it kind of passed.

00:55:30.000 It was over.

00:55:31.000 But like a lot of thin-skinned Hollywood types, she couldn't stand the fact that it was still lingering in any way out there.

00:55:39.000 And she decided to file a complaint with the California Human Rights Division.

00:55:44.000 But that was really, I believe, and it is alleged by Justin's lawyers now, just to set up so that she could give the New York Times cover to do a huge hit piece on him and attempted rehab of her.

00:55:56.000 Saying, oh, that wasn't an organic round of bad press.

00:55:59.000 Really, it was Justin Baldoni and his PR team trying to hurt her.

00:56:03.000 And the reason he allegedly did this is because she'd accused him during the filming of the movie of sexual harassment.

00:56:09.000 So she's a Me Too victim.

00:56:11.000 He's a villain.

00:56:13.000 All the negative press you saw about her was astroturfed. 0.99

00:56:17.000 Okay, that was her opening shot.

00:56:19.000 Well, Justin Baldoni did a very smart thing, and he hired Brian Friedman, my lawyer who represented me, in my fight with NBC. And let me tell you, you could ask for no better.

00:56:28.000 He knows how to fight, and he will find where all your bodies are buried, you know, on the other side.

00:56:33.000 And there are a lot of bodies for Blake Lively.

00:56:36.000 So he's first filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for their totally irresponsible report about this matter.

00:56:42.000 In which they made mistakes, so egregious mistakes, intentional errors, you could argue, about this case that showed, for example, a text showing how Justin and his PR team were out to smear poor, innocent Blake, conspiring, saying, look, look at this article in the Daily Mail saying she's terrible and she's about to be canceled.

00:57:03.000 And the other PR hack writes back, you're that good.

00:57:07.000 And the first PR hack writes, yeah, can you believe me?

00:57:10.000 This is part of their evidence against the evil Justin team.

00:57:13.000 And then Brian Friedman and his lawyer and his legal complaint against the Times shows you the whole text exchange, which the Times had, we presume, in which they use a sarcasm emoji and the woman saying, I did it, explicitly says, except I didn't do it.

00:57:29.000 And they're lamenting that they, you know, they didn't do it, but everybody's going to think that they did do it, but they didn't.

00:57:35.000 That's one piece of it.

00:57:36.000 Now in this lawsuit, That he just filed again.

00:57:40.000 This is a second lawsuit by Brian Friedman on behalf of Justin.

00:57:42.000 This is against Blake, Ryan Reynolds, and their PR hack.

00:57:47.000 And what they're alleging is that they had nothing to do with that negative round of press that Blake suffered last summer, that it was organic, but that they did have internal PR meetings about what they might have to do because this woman, Leslie Sloan, who works for...

00:58:07.000 Ryan and Blake was dropping hit piece after hit piece on Justin.

00:58:11.000 And that Blake had spent the entire prior year trying to wrest control of this movie away from Justin Baldoni.

00:58:18.000 It was his film.

00:58:19.000 He was the director.

00:58:19.000 He's the producer.

00:58:20.000 He's the one who found the book and got the idea for it.

00:58:22.000 And she was such a brat that she wanted to control every scene, wanted to see all the dailies, wanted to do her own cut and did her own cut of the movie. 0.99

00:58:30.000 All this is very unusual for just an actress in the film, even if she's the lead.

00:58:34.000 And that she's now tried to turn this whole thing into a PR victory for her to get past what appears to be the fact that she is an egotistical bully. 0.99

00:58:44.000 So, what about the sexual harassment allegations?

00:58:46.000 When you first read those, I read that New York Times piece, and the allegations, just the way the Times reported them, seemed pretty bad.

00:58:52.000 It was like, oh, he's showing her, one of the producers is showing her naked pictures of his wife, he's talking about...

00:58:57.000 Now, they walked in on her while she was breastfeeding, even though she'd said not to.

00:59:00.000 But it turns out that on, like, any level of examination, a huge percentage of this seems to fall apart, correct?

00:59:06.000 Yes.

00:59:07.000 So Brian Friedman, in that first lawsuit against the Times, produced the text messages, and I've seen them all.

00:59:12.000 And it shows that, take the two that you alleged.

00:59:16.000 The alleged that they subjected poor Blake Lively to was by Justin's business partner, who is a producer of the film.

00:59:22.000 From Wayfair, that's the name of their company, who she has a birth scene in the movie, and he showed her a still shot from his wife's delivery of their child, which I've also seen.

00:59:34.000 You can't see any R-rated parts at all.

00:59:38.000 It's actually a really lovely artistic photo of a husband with his arms around his wife in a bathtub and the baby on top of the wife.

00:59:46.000 There's no vag. 0.59

00:59:47.000 There's nothing, right?

00:59:48.000 It's like, it's not...

00:59:50.000 By any stretch of the imagination.

00:59:52.000 But poor Blake was subjected to this picture, which is just an example of how she loves to play the victim. 0.98

00:59:58.000 And then the one about, oh, he burst in on me uninvited when I was breastfeeding my child.

01:00:05.000 She says we should run lines together.

01:00:07.000 He's like, anytime.

01:00:08.000 And she's like, come on over.

01:00:10.000 I'm breastfeeding the baby in the trailer, but come on over.

01:00:13.000 Like, it's written there, black and white.

01:00:15.000 She invited him in, and a lot of women are comfortable having someone around when they breastfeed, so it's not so weird, especially out in Hollywood, for him to assume, yeah, I guess she's fine with this, because she did let him in.

01:00:25.000 Ryan Reynolds comes off terribly.

01:00:28.000 He had them over to their penthouse in New York, and Taylor Swift was believed to be there, according to this latest complaint, who's Blake Lively's BFF. And what they allege is that they blacked out a lot of names, but we think it's Taylor.

01:00:43.000 That the three of them sat there and they berated Justin for, you know, things that were going on on the set that they didn't like.

01:00:50.000 They took control of the script.

01:00:52.000 Blake personally, with Ryan's help, rewrote scenes.

01:00:55.000 Again, not within the purview of an actress.

01:00:58.000 And then after that, they have text messages in which Blake tells Justin, this is in the latest lawsuit, you know, I know you've never watched Game of Thrones, but when you get around to watching it, you'll realize, I'm Khaleesi.

01:01:12.000 And these are my dragons.

01:01:14.000 And I have the best dragons in the business, right?

01:01:17.000 Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift.

01:01:19.000 And what they're alleging is that, let's face it, none of us has ever heard of Justin Baldoni before this whole thing.

01:01:24.000 I mean, who the hell is he?

01:01:25.000 I guess he's in some small thing I never saw.

01:01:27.000 But she's saying, F with me and we'll crush you.

01:01:32.000 My dragons and I. The biggest movie star, one of them in the planet.

01:01:37.000 The biggest pop star in the planet.

01:01:39.000 And I. We'll hurt you unless I get my way.

01:01:43.000 So her allegations have fallen apart.

01:01:46.000 And her, I was not really a bully.

01:01:48.000 I was just targeted.

01:01:49.000 Allegations have fallen apart.

01:01:50.000 And now he's going full Johnny Depp on her to show that she was the bully.

01:01:55.000 She was the one harassing him. 0.99

01:01:57.000 And this guy who had, you know, comparatively very little power was forced now to come out and tell the truth about Blake Lively.

01:02:04.000 So, I mean, this is all more fascinating than I thought it would be, to be honest with you.

01:02:07.000 And I have to say that the blowback to Ryan Reynolds, I think, is going to be pretty severe because his whole image is this cool guy who's very easy to get along with, friends with everybody, jokey-jokey.

01:02:18.000 But if it turns out that he's standing sort of in the wings of the shadows ready to go after anybody who crosses Blake Lively's bizarre machinations, that's not a great look for him.

01:02:27.000 No, and by the way, good look to Blake Lively in getting hired again because...

01:02:31.000 All of her diva antics are coming out, and the way she behaves behind the scenes, and now this with the lawsuit and the New York Times thing, because she's now filed against him as well.

01:02:40.000 So it's a terrible move by her and them, PR-wise.

01:02:44.000 But Ryan Reynolds, one of the things he allegedly exploded on Justin Baldoni over was alleged fat shaming of Blake, because I guess when she was shooting this movie, she was postpartum, and she was trying to get back into shape.

01:02:57.000 Well, now they've produced the text messages.

01:02:59.000 Baldoni and team in this latest lawsuit against her, showing Justin being like, don't worry about any of that.

01:03:05.000 We can shoot any scenes that require exposure toward the end of the movie when you feel better about things.

01:03:12.000 This is the last thing you should have to worry about.

01:03:14.000 I got you, right?

01:03:15.000 The alleged fat shaming that Ryan Reynolds went off on him over, that's all over her lawsuit that he's been excoriated for in the press, the left-wing press, was when he went to It was either his trainer or her trainer or the trainer on the set.

01:03:32.000 And he asked how much Blake weighs.

01:03:36.000 And it was like, how dare he, right?

01:03:39.000 Turns out Justin Baldoni, this has been documented, has serious disc issues and was actually in the hospital for like two months after this film wrapped because of his disc issues and was worried because he had to pick her up in a scene.

01:03:54.000 Like, you know, Officer in a Gentleman style.

01:03:57.000 And he was very concerned about his discs.

01:03:59.000 He didn't want to go to her and be like, hey, how much do you weigh?

01:04:02.000 Because no man wants to do that.

01:04:04.000 So he goes to the trainer to say, can you let me know?

01:04:06.000 You see the text with him and Blake being like, please don't worry about this at all.

01:04:11.000 I got you.

01:04:12.000 It's just the picture they're painting of him is so gross.

01:04:15.000 It's another Amber Johnny situation, in my opinion.

01:04:18.000 Wow.

01:04:19.000 That is a wild story.

01:04:20.000 And I appreciate you sharing all those details with me that I certainly would not have read on my own.

01:04:25.000 Did I get you?

01:04:26.000 You got me.

01:04:27.000 You got me.

01:04:27.000 I'm interested in this now, which is why you have to listen to the Megan Kelly show.

01:04:30.000 Everybody go tune over to Megan's show.

01:04:32.000 She does a great job with all the issues, including this one.

01:04:34.000 Megan, really appreciate the time.

01:04:35.000 And congratulations on next week.

01:04:37.000 Next week will be awesome.

01:04:38.000 Inauguration week.

01:04:39.000 You got big plans?

01:04:39.000 Oh, wow.

01:04:40.000 Congratulations to us all.

01:04:42.000 Yeah, really.

01:04:44.000 Yeah, I can't wait.

01:04:45.000 It's going to be a big one.

01:04:46.000 And God bless, because I think those executive orders we're going to get before he even finishes the inaugural ceremony are going to have us celebrating, cheering, and then going to start changing the country immediately.

01:04:56.000 Your mouth to God's ears.

01:04:57.000 Appreciate it, Megan.

01:04:58.000 Good to see you.

01:04:59.000 See you, my friend.

01:05:00.000 Alrighty, folks, coming up.

01:05:02.000 The Supreme Court has, in fact, upheld the ban on TikTok.

01:05:04.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:05:05.000 Use code Shapiro.

01:05:06.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 17, 2025

Trump RETURNS In 3…2…1…

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