Plane crash in Toronto leaves 15 people injured, including a child, but no one was killed. Some blame the FAA and others blame Elon Musk and Donald Trump for the crash, but there is no evidence to suggest this is the case.
00:01:50.000Miracle that nobody was killed in this.
00:01:53.000Again, there are 15 people who have been injured.
00:01:55.000Now, this has not stopped anybody on the left or in the media from immediately blaming the Trump administration for a plane crash that happened in Canada, which maybe this is the start of our invasion of Canada, actually.
00:02:08.000But in any case, here was NBC News trying to blame Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Doge for a plane crash in which it is pretty obvious that the pilot screwed something up here.
00:02:19.000This is going to yet again raise the concern about FAA staffing, air traffic control staffing.
00:02:28.000Now, this is a Canadian air traffic control tower, and this is under Canadian authority once it crosses the border.
00:02:34.000And yet, as you know, there has been this talk about maybe staff cuts at the FAA as a part of President Trump's effort to trim down the federal workforce.
00:02:44.000And yet, as you also know, the FAA has been complaining for years that they are understaffed in critical job positions, especially air traffic control.
00:02:52.000There is zero evidence that had anything to do with the FAA or firings at the FAA or anything remotely like that.
00:03:01.000In fact, a CNN safety analyst named David Soucy admitted as much, said, yeah, we've had a bunch of plane incidents lately, but there's not really one factor tying them together or anything.
00:03:10.000When we look at a short period of time in aviation, you have to understand that the litmus test here is a personal decision on your part.
00:03:29.000There's nothing that ties these accidents together.
00:03:31.000So using critical thinking, you can say for yourself, Do all of these things indicate some kind of trend in aircraft accidents?
00:03:38.000And to me, as an experienced investigator and being involved in aviation as a mechanic and as a safety inspector for the FAA, I feel perfectly safe doing this.
00:03:47.000I don't see anything tying these together that says, oh, the FAA is bad or the system is a problem.
00:03:53.000There are incidents that are a problem.
00:03:57.000Now, the way that the media are attempting to spin this, as a problem with Elon Musk or Doge, the reason they're doing this is, and this is going to be the approach for the next several years, is that every time there is an incident, it is going to be tied to some sort of broader spate of cuts.
00:04:11.000It's going to be difficult to link the incident to the cuts, but that's going to have to be the argument.
00:04:15.000Because in reality, when bad things happen, somebody has failed.
00:04:20.000And that somebody is usually a person who's there, not a person who's not there.
00:04:23.000So it is much harder, generally, to blame something on...
00:04:26.000Quote, unquote, understaffing than on the people who are there failing to do their jobs.
00:04:29.000It's not as though there's nobody at the controls of this plane, for example.
00:04:32.000But that is going to be the case that the left makes.
00:04:34.000In any case, thank God everybody is alive.
00:04:37.000We'll find out how injured everybody was, I'm sure, as time goes on.
00:04:41.000Meanwhile, one of the big controversies of the weekend was Bill Burr.
00:04:46.000So I've spoken about Bill Burr on the program.
00:04:48.000And as I've said before, Bill Burr has completely lost the thread.
00:05:24.000That Luigi Mangione, who is the shooter of Brian Thompson, who is the head of UnitedHealthcare, he's the CEO over there, the murder of that guy on the street, Bill Burr had suggested that he basically had it coming because he ran a health insurance company.
00:05:38.000Well, now Bill Burr has expanded his critique out to all billionaires.
00:05:41.000Apparently, according to Bill Burr, simply earning a lot of money in the United States or anywhere else means that you should be murdered.
00:05:49.000This means that Bill Burr is both a moral and an economic idiot.
00:05:52.000This is not actually how economics works.
00:05:55.000The way that you become a billionaire in a free market capitalist system is by generating new goods, products, and services at a price enough affordable that people want to get it.
00:07:21.000And then he added, they are rabid with effing greed and they're going out and dividing everybody.
00:07:24.000Well, there's certainly no divisiveness I'm sensing from Bill Burr there talking about how people should be, you know, legitimately murdered for earning too much money in the United States.
00:07:36.000It's this sort of terrible economic analysis that leads to Bernie Sanders-dom.
00:07:40.000You just say, you know, in a free country, nobody should have to live on more than one salary.
00:07:52.000Because it turns out that government ownership and redistribution of resources makes everyone extremely poor.
00:07:57.000It turns out that massive tax rates, confiscatory tax rates, kill the very businesses that people need to work for.
00:08:03.000It turns out that high levels of government regulation and intervention in the real estate market tend to generate higher prices in real estate, including in rent.
00:08:12.000That's what rent control does, for example.
00:08:16.000Developers who are quote-unquote billionaires by controlling the rents.
00:08:20.000And what you end up with is less production of buildings.
00:09:14.000I mean, there are a lot of working people who really like Bill Burr, and they now have to choose between paying their rent and getting a Bill Burr ticket.
00:09:21.000So, you know, maybe he should give away all of his product for free.
00:09:26.000Maybe Bill Burr should do all of his comedy shows for free.
00:09:28.000Maybe we should have the government force him to do those things in the name of economic justice, you know, when they're not killing the billionaires.
00:09:34.000Or maybe we should do none of those things because this country was founded on freedom.
00:09:37.000Freedom from a country that forced us to buy their overpriced tea and then tried blockading us when we dumped their tea into the ocean.
00:09:41.000How'd that work out for you, Great Britain?
00:10:40.000The first time I put on my Tecovas boots, it was like they were already broken in, which makes sense because every single pair goes through over 200 meticulous steps of handcrafting.
00:10:48.000With every stitch on point, Tecovis boots are made for a good time and a long time.
00:11:47.000The American body politic tends to pendulum from side to side.
00:11:51.000This is how you end up with Trump, and then Biden, and then Trump again.
00:11:54.000But I think that the next pendulum swing, and there will always be another pendulum swing, is going to be to the far left, to the economic populist far left, to people who agree with Bill Burr.
00:12:05.000If there is an economic downturn in any way, shape, or form, because the American people have not been made aware of the realities of how economics works, because our education system has failed them completely, On all of this.
00:12:17.000This sort of zero-sum ugly thinking is going to eventually gain victory in the United States at some point.
00:12:27.000Because of all of the broken systems of education that have been put in place in this country.
00:12:33.000Because people have become so comfortable with the bizarre idea that rich people are stealing from poor people.
00:12:39.000Now, for the moment, it's really unpopular and it should remain really unpopular.
00:12:42.000Because it is a stupid, terrible idea.
00:12:44.000And the same thing happens to be true in terms of the sort of zero-sum thinking that some people have on race in this country.
00:12:50.000It turns out that in a free country, people of all races should do better.
00:12:54.000But there are some people who don't believe that.
00:12:56.000People like, for example, Trevor Noah and Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin, who have now basically come all the way, they've horseshoed around to the racist right, and they are now arguing in favor of segregation because the races can't get along with one another, according to these geniuses on the left.
00:13:52.000But again, when you're being integrated into institutions, into a culture that's a supremacist culture, that's a culture that feeds off of hierarchy, that feeds off of insecurity, anxiety, why are we being integrated into that?
00:14:07.000I mean, this is how pathetic the left has become.
00:14:09.000So they're arguing in favor of fixed pie economics, which has been debunked.
00:14:13.000By literally all of human history in every country.
00:14:16.000And they are arguing in favor of sort of a fixed pie with regard to racial reconciliation.
00:14:30.000Because if these are the two sides, and only one side can win, if the left continues to follow the Bilbo economic populist path and the Trevor Noah, Ruha Benjamin racial path, And if that pendulum tends to swing, it is very important that President Trump continue to be successful.
00:14:48.000It is really, really, really important because if he is not successful, if he does not succeed, the alternative is this trash.
00:16:13.000President Trump at the Super Bowl getting big ovations.
00:16:14.000President Trump at the Daytona 500 getting big ovations.
00:16:17.000All of that is quite good because, again, the alternative is really, really bad.
00:16:21.000And meanwhile, the administration is making some fairly serious moves, and one of those moves involves pushing Europe to actually, for the first time in nearly a century, stand up on its own two feet.
00:16:31.000So since the end of World War II, the United States has essentially been the bank roller.
00:16:37.000Europe had basically destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn't become a communist-ridden hellhole.
00:16:46.000And then Europe became essentially a sick man, reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union.
00:17:05.000And meanwhile, they themselves got more and more robust in their stupidity.
00:17:10.000They decided that they could basically play with house money.
00:17:13.000And by playing with house money, I mean they could be as left-wing as they wanted to be, while knowing that the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee to them.
00:17:21.000And so they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea.
00:17:27.000Essentially forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post-colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that it had once colonized.
00:17:39.000They were going to take those policies, put them in place, and there would be no negative side effects.
00:17:43.000Well, over the weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke in Munich, and the Europeans were very angry at him.
00:17:51.000He spoke at the Munich Security Conference.
00:18:37.000And what I worry about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
00:18:50.000And again, this should be combined in how it's viewed with his speech at the Paris AI Action Summit where he chided the European Union for being so risk averse that they were basically cracking down on their own ability to innovate in the AI space.
00:19:04.000There's a very good piece of the Wall Street Journal by a person named Dominic Green, who's a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, talking about these speeches.
00:19:10.000He says, combine those two speeches, you have the classic American one too.
00:19:13.000Economic and individual freedoms support each other.
00:19:15.000Innovation, competitiveness, and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech, and democracy.
00:19:20.000Europe should be the natural partner of the United States and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment.
00:19:28.000And so one of the policies, it seems, of the Trump administration is to force the Europeans to actually own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past.
00:19:37.000And that stupidity is very, very real.
00:19:39.000And by the way, there's a threat that that stupidity starts to cross the water.
00:19:42.000So, for example, 60 Minutes did an entire piece over the weekend about Germany and about free speech law in Germany in which German officials openly acknowledge that they will criminally prosecute people for insulting other people in public, for example.
00:19:56.000It's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, or deny the Holocaust.
00:20:40.000Because this is the overall view of the legacy media.
00:20:42.000The overall view of the legacy media is that only things legacy media likes being said should actually be said.
00:20:48.000Margaret Brennan, who recently off being face-planted by J.D. Vance on the news, she's on CBS News and Face the Nation, and she's interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
00:20:59.000And she was chiding J.D. Vance for going to Europe and saying that Europe might want to value free speech a little bit more.
00:21:05.000Right now, again, in Europe, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham.
00:21:16.000Depends on what kind of prosecutor you get from the Crown Prosecution Service in Great Britain.
00:21:21.000But here's Margaret Brennan saying that the real problem is this whole free speech thing.
00:21:25.000He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.
00:21:32.000And he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups.
00:21:42.000The context of that was changing the tone of it.
00:21:48.000And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right.
00:21:55.000Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.
00:21:58.000The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those.
00:22:05.000They had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews.
00:22:08.000There was no free speech in Nazi Germany.
00:22:13.000Okay, and by the way, there actually was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany.
00:22:17.000The Weimar Republic actually had many, many laws on the books that restricted speech.
00:22:21.000In fact, Hitler ended up spending some time in jail.
00:22:24.000Not because of his speech, but because he tried to lead a revolt.
00:22:28.000And then afterward, he wasn't allowed to speak for several years publicly.
00:22:32.000Goebbels was actually forced to not speak publicly.
00:22:37.000There were like 40 lawsuits against Joseph Goebbels, who was the publicist for Adolf Hitler.
00:22:42.000In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis.
00:22:45.000In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people felt like, hey, maybe they have something to say.
00:22:50.000Maybe these people are being silenced because they have something to say.
00:22:52.000sort of normal human tendency to buck against censorship by trying to suggest that there is something to the thing that the person is trying to say.
00:23:00.000But again, this is all about this sort of left-wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don't like, and this will magically protect you from the impact of those opinions.
00:23:08.000So what J.D. Vance was saying in Europe is, guys, you've given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.
00:23:13.000I will say I took some personal enjoyment in J.D. Vance just slamming the door on the fingers of Mehdi Hassan.
00:23:21.000Mehdi Hassan, of course, is the front man for very often Qatari opinions.
00:23:29.000He tweeted out, quote, Hey J.D. Vance, I know you're busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this?
00:23:33.000He was referring to President Trump's decision to limit AP reporters' access to White House press briefings because they refused to use Gulf of America.
00:23:42.000And J.D. Vance wrote back, Yes, dummy.
00:23:44.000The thing about J.D. is that J.D. is an online troll, so J.D. definitely uses the online troll language.
00:23:48.000I think there's a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the White House press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views.
00:23:53.000The latter is a threat to free speech.
00:24:02.000But all of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet.
00:24:08.000And that is taking particular front row when it comes to Ukraine.
00:24:13.000They don't have American values, but you should have American values.
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00:26:33.000So when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine, you may have noticed on a map, is very, very close to the rest of Europe.
00:26:37.000In fact, Ukraine is right in the middle of Europe, just spatially speaking.
00:26:41.000Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others.
00:26:48.000And it turns out that the Europeans, while they've increased their defense spending, have been rather hesitant to actually Take further actions.
00:26:57.000They want the United States to foot the bill.
00:26:59.000And the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, listen, we're tired of footing the bill.
00:27:05.000Why don't you take a leading role here?
00:27:06.000And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending.
00:27:12.000Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security.
00:27:19.000Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles?
00:27:25.000Now again, this is not a case that the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin.
00:27:30.000It is a case that cudgelling the Europeans to actually, you know, do what they're supposed to do is not a stupid tactic.
00:27:36.000In fact, it is very often a smart tactic.
00:27:38.000So, top diplomats, according to the Associated Press from Russia and the United States, met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
00:27:47.000Talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Trump.
00:27:51.000No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago.
00:28:00.000President Zelensky has said his country will not accept any outcome from this week's talks if Kiev doesn't take part.
00:28:05.000European allies have also expressed concerns that they are being sidelined as well.
00:28:09.000According to Secretary of State Rubio, he said the two sides agreed to pursue three goals, quote, to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team.
00:28:18.000To support Ukrainian peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.
00:28:25.000So if you just read this on the surface, maybe this is about the United States cutting Ukraine out of the loop.
00:28:29.000Or perhaps what the United States is doing here is what the United States might have had to do all along, which is make a deal that they then cram down on Zelensky.
00:28:37.000Because remember, Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, can't go back to his own people and say, I gave up Donbass and Crimea.
00:28:43.000Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and I gave up Donbass and Crimea.
00:28:46.000He has to make the case to his people that they're going to win back these areas that pretty much everybody, including the Biden administration, recognized they were not going to win back.
00:28:54.000And so the idea of the United States cramming down the deal and playing bad guy in this particular scenario might actually be an off-ramp for Zelensky.
00:29:02.000Because both sides need an off-ramp here.
00:29:03.000Putin needs an off-ramp that allows him to go back to his people and say that they won something for this enormous cost.
00:29:10.000And Zelensky needs an off-ramp, said he can say to his people, listen.
00:29:13.000I didn't want to go along with the deal.
00:29:30.000Seriously, you want to come to the table?
00:29:31.000What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?
00:29:34.000According to the Associated Press, the recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won't be favorable to them.
00:29:45.000Kiev's absence at Tuesday's talks has rankled many Ukrainians.
00:29:47.000France called an emergency meeting of EU countries and the UK on Monday to discuss the war.
00:29:53.000And again, forcing the EU to actually come together to prove that they ought to be part of the conversation is not a terrible idea.
00:30:01.000Again, there's this attempt to sort of play it as though what the United States is doing is cutting some sort of soft deal for Putin.
00:30:07.000But this is also one way of getting the Europeans to actually step up and do what they are supposed to do.
00:30:13.000According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea that the fate of Europe might be decided without direct European participation has alarmed the continent's capitals.
00:30:19.000European governments weaned their economies off Russian fuel exports and poured billions of military aid into Ukraine as part of the war effort they regard as crucial to the region's security.
00:30:27.000Now the snub from Washington has raised pressure.
00:30:30.000And Emmanuel Macron of France, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other leaders to define how they plan to contribute to any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
00:30:37.000In recent days, the Trump administration has asked European governments to fill out a questionnaire clarifying whether they are willing to send troops into Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force and what other capabilities they can provide as part of a security guarantee for Ukraine.
00:30:49.000The leaders must also discuss how to increase European military spending and fund longer-term assistance for Kyiv.
00:30:54.000And again, all of this makes perfect sense.
00:30:58.000Saying to the Europeans, listen, you want a slot at the table, you don't get to free ride anymore.
00:31:03.000It doesn't get to be like the UN, where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.
00:31:08.000If you want part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.
00:31:13.000After Monday's meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rudy said Europe was, quote, ready and willing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and to invest a lot more in our security.
00:31:21.000Now, with that said, it is also true that Poland has said they don't want to actually put their own people on the ground as a security guarantee for Ukraine.
00:31:28.000So we're going to find out very quickly who's willing to put their money where their mouth is.
00:31:32.000Meanwhile, President Trump is putting severe pressure on the Europeans to step in.
00:31:37.000Well, apparently, he has now made a very controversial demand, this is according to the UK Telegraph, a demand for $500 billion in payback from Ukraine.
00:31:48.000Essentially, The Telegraph obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract marked Privileged and Confidential dated February 7, 2025. It says the U.S. and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.
00:32:01.000The agreement covers the economic value associated with the resources of Ukraine, including mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, and other infrastructure as agreed.
00:32:09.000The U.S. would take 50% of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources.
00:32:14.00050% of the financial value of all new licenses issued to third parties for the future monetization of resources.
00:32:19.000There would be a lien on such revenues in favor of the United States.
00:32:23.000It says, for all future licenses, the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for purchase of exportable minerals.
00:32:29.000So basically, the United States is saying, listen, you want us to support you?
00:32:33.000What you need back is you need to give us a giant chunk of your future revenues, essentially.
00:32:39.000Now, the United States, cumulatively, has given about 120 billion euros.
00:32:44.000So this is much larger than the amount that the United States has actually put in.
00:32:49.000However, one of the things the United States is saying is, if you drag us into an economic relationship here, if we go into an economic relationship, it better be worth our while because essentially it's a security relationship.
00:32:59.000Once the United States is tied in terms of economics to rare earths minerals coming from Ukraine, well, we're going to have a pretty good incentive to actually come to the defense of Ukraine if Russia gets in.
00:33:09.000So, are the Europeans going to offer you a better deal?
00:33:13.000And if the Europeans are willing to offer you a better deal, great!
00:33:15.000That means the United States is not on the hook for nearly as much.
00:33:19.000This is the game, I think, that the Trump administration is playing.
00:33:22.000It's not a game where the United States abandons Ukraine.
00:33:24.000It's not even a game where the United States impoverishes Ukraine.
00:33:27.000This is all a negotiating tactic to get the Europeans to step up and do the thing they always should have done, which is take the lead on all of this, rather than simply waiting for the United States to do the dirty work as they have been doing since essentially 1945. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was asked what the process is moving forward.
00:34:54.000But, of course, I want to have real meeting, productive, without just words, with the concrete steps, and to hear us, to hear President Trump, to make common plan, and to share it with allies than with Russians, and stop this war.
00:35:19.000By the way, meanwhile, the United States in our own hemisphere is getting significantly more aggressive.
00:35:23.000In just a moment, we're going to get to that.
00:35:24.000We're going to get to Elon Musk's latest child and the controversy surrounding all of that.
00:35:28.000First, if you were with us for election night or the inauguration, you already know the Daily Wire doesn't just show up.
00:36:11.000So let's talk about the situation with China right now.
00:36:14.000Despite the fact there's been a ton of talk about China, it still seems as though we are actually underestimating what China is doing in the world.
00:36:21.000There's almost this sort of soft belief that China isn't going to take aggressive action against Taiwan.
00:36:26.000They won't do anything that really damages world trade in the South China Sea.
00:36:31.000There's even a sense by some on the right that if we sort of abandon the world in terms of foreign policy, that China won't attempt to fill the gap.
00:36:36.000First of all, what is China's strategic vision?
00:36:40.000Ben, China's ultimate goal is to replace America as the world's dominant economic and military superpower and to call the shots in the world, make everyone dance to their tune.
00:36:49.000They've been open about this at times, like during President Trump's first term on a state visit, telling his senior aides that they view a future in which America is basically a low-cost commodity exporter to China, that we'll provide them cheap oil and cheap agricultural products, and that's about it.
00:37:06.000They undertake this breathtaking military buildup over the last 25 years.
00:37:10.000So they now have the world's largest military by far and the second most technologically capable military after ours.
00:37:16.000That's why they take such aggressive economic actions to try to benefit their companies and try to harm our companies.
00:37:22.000And why they're so aggressive towards Taiwan, which is really the linchpin of China's strategy.
00:37:26.000They know that they can't achieve their goals without taking Taiwan.
00:37:30.000But if they take Taiwan, they're on the precipice of achieving those goals.
00:37:35.000So, Senator Cotton, let's talk about Taiwan because obviously that's a hot-button issue.
00:37:40.000They have projective power certainly across the Taiwan Strait, which is incredibly narrow.
00:37:44.000So the big issue with Taiwan, not just in terms of the fact that it's a democratic country that essentially constitutes its own polity, but also TSMC, which is the world's leading manufacturer of superconductors, sophisticated superconductors, microchips, is located there.
00:38:00.000If that were to be taken by China, it would be a serious danger to the world economy.
00:38:03.000How seriously should we take what China is attempting to do with Taiwan?
00:38:08.000Are you more worried about an invasion or a blockade? - Both would be very worrisome.
00:38:12.000Any kind of conflict over Taiwan would be devastating, Ben.
00:38:15.000It would probably lead to an immediate global depression that would wipe out the life savings of many Americans in the stock market, lead to mass unemployment, shortages on the shelves.
00:38:27.000And part of that reason, as you say, is that Taiwan is the source of more than 60% of all global semiconductor manufacturing, more than 90% of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
00:38:38.000It's also that you could expect a complete breakdown of economic ties between China and the United States and the West.
00:38:43.000Unfortunately, we've allowed those ties to grow very deep and therefore very dependent on China.
00:38:48.000So even if there were a conflict that were inconclusive, that reached a stalemate, you would still see, again, an almost immediate global depression that would be devastating for Americans.
00:39:02.000In a conflict with Taiwan is to prevent it from happening in the first place, to be strong and confident in the defense of a democratic partner and make it clear to communist China, as we have for a long time, that we will not tolerate any unilateral attempts to invade and annex Taiwan to the mainland.
00:39:21.000Senator Cotton, one of the things that you say in the book is that China could actually win.
00:39:25.000And I know there's been a lot of skepticism.
00:39:26.000I'm one of the skeptics of China's sort of...
00:39:36.000They've been building empty cities to the loss of billions and trillions of dollars for years now.
00:39:42.000So for people like me who are skeptical that China is as powerful as it sort of seems on the world stage, what's the case that China could actually win?
00:39:58.000I mean, Douglas MacArthur said in 1950 that if Taiwan were to fall in the hands of a hostile power, it would be a disaster of utmost importance for the United States.
00:40:08.000Partly it's because of their centrality in the global semiconductor manufacturing chain, but also it's because of their strategic position.
00:40:17.000It's not Hong Kong, it's not Tibet, places where China has also committed egregious crimes.
00:40:22.000By taking Taiwan, it would turn the so-called first island chain, which goes from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines, from an obstacle to Chinese ambitions to a springboard.
00:40:31.000They would have what MacArthur called the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender.
00:40:35.000That would also lead a lot of our friends in the region to start seeking accommodations with.
00:40:40.000China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia.
00:40:44.000You'd probably see widespread nuclear proliferation as countries like Japan and South Korea and others start getting nuclear weapons as well, destabilizing the world.
00:40:52.000And you'd see China trying to undermine American influence everywhere, showing other countries that they can walk in and take over.
00:41:00.000A democratic land like Taiwan, and that all countries everywhere should start seeking those kind of accommodations with China, and that ultimately China would achieve its goal, again, of making us kind of an island on the edge of the world, as Henry Kissinger warned about.
00:41:15.000And here in the new world, we are limited.
00:41:18.000We're not allowed to trade with China's partners.
00:41:20.000We're not allowed to invest or get investment from them.
00:41:22.000And that China really would call the shots.
00:41:25.000So it does get back to Taiwan and the central strategic place that Taiwan plays, not just for China, but for the entire world.
00:41:33.000Senator Cotton, one of the things that actually kind of meets between what you're talking about and what I'm talking about is it could be that they feel like their window is closing.
00:41:41.000So even if they are weaker than popularly perceived.
00:41:44.000That weakness could, in fact, be a spur to action, because if the idea is that their window is closing, they need to move fast, their demographics are upside down, their economy is going to collapse, then that does give them added incentive to get incredibly aggressive right now, because the situation is going to be better for them three years from now.
00:41:59.000Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Ben, is that China does have a lot of domestic internal problems, like the one-child policy, which resulted in more than 300 million forced abortions.
00:42:08.000Has turned their demographics upside down.
00:42:12.000But at the moment, they probably close the gap as much as they're going to or close to as much as they are with the United States.
00:42:19.000And you can kind of look out at projected investments in our military, for instance, or economic growth, and maybe see that gap widening again in another 10, 15, 20 years.
00:42:27.000But in the moment, China may perceive itself as both best positioned in terms of its own power and its future relative power to the United States to actually go for the jugular in Taiwan, try to create a fait accompli, and then use that success if we allow it to address some of the problems that they have internally.
00:42:44.000So, Senator Cotton, it's not just that China is a threat exclusively.
00:42:48.000Externally, China also has obviously been infiltrating our government.
00:42:52.000They have been stealing our IP. And, of course, they've been deploying apps like TikTok.
00:43:01.000Yeah, because China has waged this economic world war, and especially against the United States, and stole so much of our wealth and built up their economy, it gives them tremendous influence in the United States.
00:43:14.000I write in the book that you haven't seen a movie with a Chinese villain in a very long time.
00:43:20.000That's because all those movie studios depend on access to the Chinese movie market.
00:43:25.000Also, every major news network besides Fox News is owned or affiliated with one of those movie studios.
00:43:31.000And is it any surprise that Fox News is the toughest network on China that does the most hard-hitting reporting about China?
00:43:38.000Consider what happened in the NBA. China is their biggest overseas market.
00:43:42.000You had the general manager of the Houston Rockets merely posting a symbol on social media saying he supported Hong Kongers fighting for their freedom.
00:43:49.000And China took Houston Rockets games off their streaming services, took their merchandise out of stores.
00:43:56.000You had NBA players like LeBron James and Stephen Kerr cracking down on the GM of the Rockets.
00:44:03.000Or just look at what happened to me five years ago when I first said this week five years ago that the coronavirus pandemic might have come from that lab, not from a food market.
00:44:13.000I expected Chinese communist officials to criticize me, but I also had American elites coming down on me, calling me a conspiracy theorist at the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and so forth.
00:44:24.000So China has built up a large influence network throughout our society and our government of people who are ready to man the ramparts and defend China.
00:44:34.000It's not just traditional spies and espionage.
00:44:37.000It's this massive degree of influence they have in every corner of American society.
00:44:43.000So, Senator Cotton, given the threats, what are the best ways for the United States to counter those threats, particularly militarily?
00:44:50.000I mean, when we talk about being able to deter China from taking Taiwan, what sort of projective power do we have that's capable of deterring that sort of action?
00:45:00.000What are the steps we need to take there?
00:45:01.000And what sort of steps ought we be taking domestically in order to prevent Chinese influence operations?
00:45:09.000Taiwan has been increasing its spending on its military, not fast enough, in my opinion, and not necessarily on the right things.
00:45:15.000They need to be singularly focused on adding more and more time to the amount of time it would take communist China to subdue the island so other friendly nations can come to its aid.
00:45:27.000We need to make sure that we significantly increased our munitions manufacturing capability.
00:45:31.000We've seen in Ukraine and in the war in Gaza against Hamas.
00:45:37.000That we're strained in what we can provide to our allies.
00:45:40.000We need that capability to build up here in America so we can support our allies and defend our interest in the Western Pacific.
00:45:46.000We need to invest in shipbuilding so we have a navy that can actually deter Chinese aggression.
00:45:51.000We need to be buying more stealth bombers and stealth fighters to do the same.
00:45:55.000Our army needs more air and missile defenses and long-range strike capabilities so they can defend our positions in the Western Pacific.
00:46:01.000One reason, here what we can do domestically, one of the reasons I wrote seven things you can't say about China is I want to ring the alarm bell.
00:46:07.000Most Americans have a justly low opinion of communist China, but there's still a lot they don't know, in part because a lot of our elites don't want to say it.
00:46:15.000But I wanted to ring the alarm to make it clear the extent of Chinese influence in this country.
00:46:21.000All of your audience, not just to get the book, but stay informed after the book is published and you've read it about what's happening with China, what they're doing in America.
00:46:30.000Tell your friends, tell your kids about things like TikTok or the curriculum they may have in schools.
00:46:35.000Do everything you can to hold China accountable.
00:46:39.000That's what I'm going to do as a senator, but you can do a lot too as a normal American citizen.
00:46:45.000That's Senator Tom Cotton, his new book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China.
00:46:48.000Senator Cotton, really appreciate the time.
00:46:49.000The book is a must-read, and thanks so much for your efforts on behalf of this cause.
00:46:55.000Meanwhile, the United States is taking a much harsher look at Mexico.
00:46:58.000Apparently, according to the Washington Post, the CIA is poised to take a larger, more aggressive role under President Trump in the battle against the Mexican-based drug cartels devising and evaluating plans to share more intelligence with regional governments, train local counter-narcotics units, and possibly conduct covert actions, according to people familiar.
00:47:14.000With the matter, which, yes, yes, there are like 100,000 Americans who are dying every year from fentanyl poisoning.
00:47:20.000So, yes, it makes sense to maybe go after the drug cartels that have been single-handedly responsible for the death of those American citizens.
00:47:27.000By the way, illegal immigration is down to some of the lowest levels ever recorded.
00:47:32.000We are down to less than 200 border encounters a day across the entire southwestern border of the United States.
00:47:42.000Because everybody understands if you come right now, you're getting turned away, or you're going to end up being arrested and deported.
00:47:49.000I mean, that's what's going to happen.
00:47:52.000According to the Washington Post, the expanded focus on cartels represents a new and potentially risky priority for the spy agency, which in recent years has made espionage against China, counterterrorism operations in the Middle East and Africa, and support for Ukraine its main concerns.
00:48:19.000The attempt to pretend that that didn't exist for years got a lot of Americans killed.
00:48:23.000So good for the administration for taking that seriously.
00:48:26.000Speaking of taking important things seriously, apparently, according to Breitbart, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that he has already picked investigators who will look into the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
00:48:36.000He says, I don't have a time frame on it.
00:48:38.000I don't want to wait any longer, but I always want to get it right.
00:48:41.000So there will be a full investigation now into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:48:47.000Presumably, some people are going to lose their jobs for the decision-making process all along the way.
00:48:51.000And all of that is, of course, quite good.
00:48:54.000Meanwhile, Doge continues to make significant inroads into the federal government.
00:48:58.000According to the Washington Post, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with Elon Musk's U.S. Doge service.
00:49:06.000Over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said on Monday.
00:49:12.000Michelle King, who spent a bunch of decades at the agency, left her position Sunday after the disagreement.
00:49:17.000Now again, this bizarre idea that Elon Musk is like combing through individual data because he's desperate to see your credit card is just silly.
00:49:27.000The White House has now nominated a person named Frank Bisignio to lead the Social Security Administration.
00:49:33.000In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.
00:49:40.000Martin O'Malley, the Social Security Commissioner under the Biden administration and former Maryland governor, obviously a longtime Democrat, said at this rate they will break it and they will break it fast and there will be an interruption of benefits.
00:49:49.000That is the last thing that's going to happen here.
00:49:52.000Doge is not going to interrupt Social Security benefits.
00:49:54.000Of all Republican administrations, this administration understands, do not touch the entitlement third rail.
00:50:01.000Meanwhile, Doge is seeking access to IRS systems.
00:50:05.000According to the Wall Street Journal, an agreement with the IRS could give the team access to the integrated data retrieval system.
00:50:11.000That system allows anyone with access the ability to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts.
00:50:19.000Democrats are warning about the risks to taxpayers if Doge is allowed to access those sensitive taxpayer information without legal guardrails.
00:50:32.000All this craziness about how Doge is going to invade privacy after the massive invasions of privacy that took place under the Biden administration, they ring rather hollow.
00:50:41.000Okay, so, so many important things happening.
00:51:54.000And you're like, ah, that's not great.
00:51:55.000But, you know, maybe they just let it go.
00:51:57.000And then something big happens and all at once the bottom just falls out because all of the systemic supports for the marriage have already been ground away.
00:52:06.000All of the stability has been removed from the situation and all it takes is some sort of big fail for the entire system to collapse.
00:52:15.000It's like that with public approval and presidents as well.
00:52:18.000Joe Biden, he had an approval rating that was high 50s, mid to high 50s when he took office.
00:52:26.000He then proceeded to do an awful lot of things that people didn't like.
00:52:31.000He started to put equity in all of his programming.
00:52:34.000He started appointing people who were incompetent to positions of high office.
00:52:38.000He was pushing for the transing of the kids.
00:52:40.000And all this had sort of an incremental effect on his popularity rating.
00:52:44.000If you take a look at his popularity rating.
00:52:46.000It kind of hovered in the high, and then it started to decline, then it was in the low 50s, and it was like hovering right around 50, and then the Afghanistan debacle on the bottom falls out, and he spends the rest of his presidency at 40% in the approval ratings.
00:52:58.000Because all of those kind of small things that weren't so small, as it turns out, just like a divorced couple, all those things that people think that they've forgotten and dismissed, they all end up in the divorce papers when the big thing happens.
00:53:11.000Every president encounters a big thing, a big bad thing that happens during their presidency.
00:53:15.000During President Trump's first term, obviously, that was both the BLM riots and COVID. Those were huge things that happened in 2020, and the bottom sort of dropped out of the presidency.
00:53:23.000And all of the other things that had been niggling and annoying and everything from the false, fake nonsense of Russiagate to the dumb tweets, all that sort of stuff came back to haunt, right?
00:54:44.000He who saves his country does not violate any law.
00:54:47.000Well, who defines saving the country and in what way?
00:54:50.000The whole purpose of the rule of law is that it's supposed to apply equally to everybody.
00:54:54.000And I understand that, as always, and this is the consistent theme of President Trump, Trump 1 and Trump 2. He's almost always the coroner and never the murderer, meaning he comes upon the body of American democracy and he says that this body is dead.
00:55:06.000And then everyone blames him for having killed American democracy.
00:56:01.000According to the Financial Times, the Trump administration is urging Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate as they await trial on charges, including human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and money laundering.
00:56:13.000He's currently under house arrest in Romania.
00:56:17.000Now, is there an accusation that his rights as an American are being abused?
00:56:26.000And sure, he's a dual citizen, although I will say that he's a dual citizen who is currently, UK and US, who is currently seeking, by the way, to run for political office in the UK. So I'm not sure why this is, you know, like top priority for America.
00:56:38.000He also happens to be a complete derelict of a human being.
00:56:42.000The kind of person who tweeted out over the weekend that if you only have children by one woman, then you are not a conqueror.
00:56:48.000Quote, if all your children come from one woman, you are not a conqueror.
00:56:52.000I understand this kind of like pseudo macho nonsense from a complete grifter and con man like Andrew Tate has some level of popularity and it's found some level of popularity in circles surrounding President Trump apparently.
00:57:06.000Rick Grinnell, who again, I like Rick generally, but he came out and he said, I support the tape.
00:57:25.000So Eric Adams, mayor of New York, and he was put under indictment for apparently taking bribes from Turkey.
00:57:33.000Eric Adams then attempted to turn that into a referendum on his illegal immigration policy.
00:57:39.000He sort of changed after the indictment came down to suggest that it was because he was being harsh on illegal immigration in New York City that he was being targeted, that it was for political purposes.
00:57:47.000The reality, of course, is that a year prior to his shift on illegal immigration, the investigation started into his sort of penny-ante crimes.
00:57:57.000Okay, so, the Trump administration dismissed his case, the DOJ. Now, the problem with that, you want to dismiss it, fine.
00:58:06.000You want to dismiss it and say that it was a political prosecution.
00:58:09.000I'm not sure that I see the evidence for that.
00:58:11.000I also don't think that the case itself was a big deal in the first place.
00:58:14.000As Andrew McCarthy over at National Review says, I wasn't blown away by the case against Adams.
00:58:19.000That's mainly because Adams appears to be a bumbling small-timer, an often incoherent loose cannon.
00:58:23.000Okay, but, One of the things that they are doing here is they are dismissing without prejudice.
00:58:32.000If you're going to dismiss the case and say that it's a corrupt political case, then you really should dismiss with prejudice.
00:58:37.000With prejudice means you can't bring the case back.
00:58:40.000If you're saying the case could be brought back, the suggestion seems to be that if he goes the wrong way politically, then maybe the case comes back.
00:58:49.000That's the accusation that Democrats are making.
00:58:50.000Now, even if that accusation is false.
00:58:53.000Even if the accusation is not true, why allow that accusation to live out there just to what?
00:59:05.000Maybe the goal here is political in the sense that it puts pressure on Kathy Hochul to get rid of Eric Adams because she has the ability to do that as the governor of New York.
00:59:12.000Maybe the idea is to pressure Eric Adams politically.
00:59:15.000Either way, that's not stuff the DOJ should be doing.
00:59:17.000The DOJ should only be dismissing cases if they believe that the case is in fact political.
00:59:22.000And if it's political and based in reality, you should dismiss it with prejudice.
00:59:26.000Again, the DOJ assessed that the main justice had not even assessed the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which it was based.
00:59:33.000Is this something that the Trump administration should be distracting itself with?
00:59:36.000On a practical level, put aside the moral for a second, on a practical level, is this something that they should be spending time on or effort on?
01:01:00.000She publicly posted at him on X, saying she'd been trying to communicate for the past several days, and you have not responded.
01:01:06.000While ghosting Sinclair, Musk was pictured on Thursday with another woman, mother of his three children, Siobhan Zilis, who he brought with their offspring to a meeting with Indian Prime Minister.
01:01:17.000Sinclair told the world she had Musk's baby in a shock post the following day on the evening of Valentine's Day, claiming she'd been forced to reveal her secrets due to tabloid media probing her personal life.
01:01:27.000But an acquaintance says that the real reason that she came for, she has another kid, by the way, with another person, was a disagreement with the billionaire.
01:01:34.000Trump activist Kylie Kramer posted on X, quote, Seems like she wasn't getting what she wanted, was emotional and hurt on Valentine's Day, decided to parade her crazy on the front porch, thinking people would be sympathetic to her as a victim of a powerful, wealthy man.
01:01:46.000Well, that seems not particularly good.
01:01:50.000Sinclair's spokesperson named Brian Glicklich released a statement over the weekend saying Sinclair and Musk have, quote, been privately working toward the creation of an agreement about raising their child for some time.
01:01:59.000And he rubbished those claims as ridiculous and wrong.
01:02:02.000Her statement, Ashley Sinclair's, was, quote, five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world.
01:02:37.000It was in reply to a person named Greg Price who said, he's got a kid with a woman already, seems unlikely to work out.
01:02:43.000And she wrote back, well, he actually has seven kids and goes through women pretty fast.
01:02:48.000So that's what turned into this bizarre online conversation.
01:02:53.000She was apparently receiving a $15,000 a month apartment that she clearly was affording, presumably because Elon was paying for it.
01:03:02.000And she also, apparently over the weekend, had been doing a photo shoot, I believe.
01:03:07.000So she invited the New York Post into her house the next day to do a full spread, which is typically not what you do when you are attempting to avoid all sorts of public scrutiny.
01:03:51.000It is bad to impregnate women to whom you are not married because it is bad for the child not to grow up with a father and a mother in the home.
01:04:08.000Anything that gets in the way of that is bad for the child.
01:04:12.000So, when a man has a child with a woman and is not there living in the house with mother, does not love mother, mother and dad do not love each other, they do not take care of the kid together, that is bad for the child.
01:04:21.000This is all very simple stuff, but I feel like it's bizarre that people apparently need to be reminded of this.
01:04:27.000But yeah, that's actually the way that, you know, those of us who have been part of the biblical virtue system have been on board with this for like a super duper long time.
01:04:36.000I feel like the fact that I even have to say this demonstrates the sickness at the root of many of the things in our society.
01:04:41.000But it's not great when Antonio Cromartie has a thousand kids by a billion different women.
01:04:45.000And even if a person I like does it, it's still not great.
01:05:59.000You literally went and slept with a man who is twice your age and extraordinarily wealthy and took an apartment from him worth tens of thousands of dollars a month.
01:06:08.000And now you're acting as though you are some sort of victim in this situation.
01:06:12.000Again, the only victim in this situation is a child who is going to be deprived of a father in the home.
01:06:18.000That is the actual victim in this situation.
01:06:20.000It is much better for a child to be with a mother and a father.
01:06:25.000It is quite frustrating, frankly, that we even have to have these sorts of conversations.
01:06:31.000It's bizarre to me that we now live in such a post-morality era that saying the perfectly obvious is somehow considered controversial or an insult to the people involved.
01:08:05.000Once the kid is in the picture, I no longer care about your wants, needs, or desires.
01:08:08.000If you didn't want the world to know about it, you know it's an amazing way for the world not to know about it, to not talk about it on Twitter while actually tweeting the father of your child and then inviting reporters to your home for a photo shoot.
01:08:19.000Now listen, maybe she's having emotional issues.
01:08:23.000And if that's the case, I hope she gets the help that she requires.
01:08:27.000But it is amazing to me that we'll have conversations about her and we'll have conversations about him and no one seems to have conversations about what is good for the kid.
01:08:35.000Which to me is like the main issue here and maybe the only issue here because once you're an adult, whatever happens next is on you.
01:08:42.000Meanwhile, over the weekend, SNL did its 50th anniversary tribute and there was one moment that seemed to stand out.
01:08:48.000That was a moment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler called out Ryan Reynolds in the audience and it was a little awkward.
01:08:58.000This is supposed to be a joke about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
01:09:02.000Now being widely derided as not particularly good or nice people because they, of course, have been attacking Justin Baldoni.
01:09:08.000They accused him of sexual harassment.
01:09:10.000She had basically attempted to take over his film and rewrite the script.
01:09:15.000And she brought Taylor Swift in as support and Ryan Reynolds.
01:09:17.000And they tried to bully Justin Baldoni.
01:09:18.000And then Justin Baldoni basically ended up as a character, apparently, in the new Deadpool movie.
01:09:23.000And so now Ryan Reynolds is going to try and joke his way out of it.
01:09:28.000The audience that's seated around Ryan Reynolds looks awkward, particularly keep your eye on Kevin Costner, who kind of looks like he wants to crawl through the floor during this one.
01:10:09.000I think this is going to do serious career damage to Ryan Reynolds.
01:10:12.000And by the evidence, it probably should.
01:10:15.000If the entire shtick of Ryan Reynolds is garrulous, fun-loving, nice guy, what's his reputation after all of this?
01:10:24.000Seriously, well, what is the reputation after you and your wife basically attempt together to take over a movie where she was simply hired as an actress and then put together a spate of allegedly defamatory accusations against that same guy because you didn't like the publicity that was being spread about you?
01:10:47.000And Ryan Reynolds, his entire brand is rooted in this sort of...
01:10:51.000Fun-loving dude that you'd want to have a beer with.
01:10:53.000But what if that fun-loving dude is actually just acting as a tool of his wife as she attempts to take over random movies in which she appears, even though she's really not that big of a star?
01:11:03.000And SNL, I mean, SNL trying to sort of whitewash Ryan Reynolds with that joke is not a particularly good look.
01:11:09.000That wasn't the only not amazing look on SNL this weekend.
01:11:12.000So SNL did an episode of Black Jeopardy.
01:11:15.000This was a very funny sketch when it first appeared, Black Jeopardy, on SNL. And this version, they had Tom Hanks appear as a white contestant on Black Jeopardy wearing a MAGA hat.
01:11:32.000And the implication seemed to be that he's kind of a racist.
01:12:16.000And apparently they had a bunch of shared sentiments about distrust of government and other issues, but then was thrown by having to shake the hand of a black man.
01:12:26.000And one way to read that would be to suggest that Tom Hanks is playing the MAGA guy as an overt racist who doesn't want to shake the hand of a black man.
01:12:34.000The other way to read that is maybe as a joke about his sort of perception of black criminality, which is still calling him kind of racist, but not quite as sort of terrible, I guess.