The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump & Vance WRECK Europe

00:00:00.000 Well, folks, it was a very busy President's Day weekend.

00:00:03.000 In the news, we're going to get to all of it.

00:00:05.000 Ongoing negotiations over Ukraine between the United States and Russia in Saudi Arabia.

00:00:09.000 President Trump at the Daytona 500. J.D. Vance giving off some pretty strong, aggressive vibes in Germany.

00:00:16.000 Lots of stuff happening.

00:00:18.000 We begin today with the latest on this insane situation up in Toronto where a Delta plane landed and then flipped over onto its roof.

00:00:26.000 Here's a video that is just breaking.

00:00:28.000 As of this morning.

00:00:33.000 You can see, this plane is completely on its roof.

00:00:41.000 Apparently, everybody's alive.

00:00:44.000 As you can see, the plane ended up upside down and the wings were sheared off.

00:00:50.000 80 people were on board the flight.

00:00:52.000 No one was killed.

00:00:54.000 Good evening.

00:00:54.000 The crash occurred around 2.30 this afternoon.

00:00:57.000 According to Peel Paramedics, 15 people were injured, two of them critically.

00:01:01.000 One child was also transported to SickKids Hospital.

00:01:06.000 Okay, so we do actually have some video of the moment of impact.

00:01:09.000 This looks like pilot error.

00:01:11.000 I mean, there really is no other way to read this.

00:01:13.000 This is an insane crash landing.

00:01:16.000 Basically, the plane comes down so hard that it rips off part of the landing gear.

00:01:20.000 And flips the plane completely over.

00:01:22.000 One of the wings comes off the plane.

00:01:24.000 So it is not as though it flipped around in the air or anything like that.

00:01:27.000 This is not an FAA issue.

00:01:29.000 This is not a coordination issue between various planes.

00:01:32.000 This is a pilot who's going to have some splaining to do.

00:01:34.000 Here is the video.

00:01:35.000 Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

00:01:46.000 That is not good.

00:01:49.000 Thank you.

00:01:50.000 Miracle that nobody was killed in this.

00:01:53.000 Again, there are 15 people who have been injured.

00:01:55.000 Now, 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.

00:02:07.000 This is the inciting event.

00:02:08.000 But 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.

00:02:19.000 This is going to yet again raise the concern about FAA staffing, air traffic control staffing.

00:02:28.000 Now, this is a Canadian air traffic control tower, and this is under Canadian authority once it crosses the border.

00:02:34.000 And 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.

00:02:44.000 And yet, as you also know, the FAA has been complaining for years that they are understaffed in critical job positions, especially air traffic control.

00:02:52.000 There is zero evidence that had anything to do with the FAA or firings at the FAA or anything remotely like that.

00:03:01.000 In 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.

00:03:10.000 When 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.

00:03:21.000 Do you feel safe?

00:03:22.000 Now, when you're trying to make that decision, do I feel safe flying?

00:03:25.000 And I do, very much so.

00:03:28.000 There's no trend.

00:03:29.000 There's nothing that ties these accidents together.

00:03:31.000 So using critical thinking, you can say for yourself, Do all of these things indicate some kind of trend in aircraft accidents?

00:03:38.000 And 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.

00:03:47.000 I don't see anything tying these together that says, oh, the FAA is bad or the system is a problem.

00:03:53.000 There are incidents that are a problem.

00:03:57.000 Now, 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.

00:04:11.000 It's going to be difficult to link the incident to the cuts, but that's going to have to be the argument.

00:04:15.000 Because in reality, when bad things happen, somebody has failed.

00:04:20.000 And that somebody is usually a person who's there, not a person who's not there.

00:04:23.000 So it is much harder, generally, to blame something on...

00:04:26.000 Quote, unquote, understaffing than on the people who are there failing to do their jobs.

00:04:29.000 It's not as though there's nobody at the controls of this plane, for example.

00:04:32.000 But that is going to be the case that the left makes.

00:04:34.000 In any case, thank God everybody is alive.

00:04:37.000 We'll find out how injured everybody was, I'm sure, as time goes on.

00:04:41.000 Meanwhile, one of the big controversies of the weekend was Bill Burr.

00:04:46.000 So I've spoken about Bill Burr on the program.

00:04:48.000 And as I've said before, Bill Burr has completely lost the thread.

00:04:51.000 Absolutely lost the thread.

00:04:53.000 So Bill Burr.

00:04:59.000 And again, this is coming from somebody who really enjoyed, for example, his Red Rock special.

00:05:03.000 I think that he's done some really funny stuff in the past.

00:05:06.000 And then he decided that he was going to go not just woke, but the wokest of the woke, on everything from race to economics.

00:05:13.000 So, on his Monday morning podcast, he decided that he was going to sound off about billionaires again.

00:05:19.000 Now, again, this is not his first rodeo on this particular topic.

00:05:22.000 We talked about this a few weeks ago.

00:05:24.000 That 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.

00:05:38.000 Well, now Bill Burr has expanded his critique out to all billionaires.

00:05:41.000 Apparently, according to Bill Burr, simply earning a lot of money in the United States or anywhere else means that you should be murdered.

00:05:49.000 This means that Bill Burr is both a moral and an economic idiot.

00:05:52.000 This is not actually how economics works.

00:05:55.000 The 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.

00:06:05.000 That is how you make a lot of money.

00:06:08.000 Back in the old days of feudalism, the way that you made a lot of money is by robbing poor people and taking all their stuff.

00:06:13.000 And you had to do that to a lot of poor people because they didn't have a lot of stuff.

00:06:16.000 And it turns out the people in those days who were rich actually weren't all that rich.

00:06:19.000 By modern standards.

00:06:20.000 They didn't have any modern conveniences.

00:06:21.000 There was no innovation or anything like that.

00:06:24.000 Okay, but billionaires of today, generally speaking, are billionaires because they created something that's awesome for everybody.

00:06:30.000 But Bill Burr obviously doesn't understand economics.

00:06:33.000 He doesn't understand morality either because his suggestion is that if you, apparently, if you are worth $999 million, you're good to go.

00:06:42.000 If you make a billion dollars, you should be murdered on the streets, according to Bill Burr.

00:06:45.000 The amount of people that are struggling out there because of these Billionaires.

00:06:50.000 And they got us all arguing liberal and conservative.

00:06:55.000 We've got to stop doing that.

00:06:56.000 If you work a full week at a job, you should be able to pay your rent.

00:07:03.000 You shouldn't have to go out and get another job and still be struggling.

00:07:08.000 It's bad for the country.

00:07:10.000 These billionaires, they need to be put down.

00:07:17.000 Rabid dogs.

00:07:21.000 And then he added, they are rabid with effing greed and they're going out and dividing everybody.

00:07:24.000 Well, 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.

00:07:36.000 It's this sort of terrible economic analysis that leads to Bernie Sanders-dom.

00:07:40.000 You just say, you know, in a free country, nobody should have to live on more than one salary.

00:07:46.000 Okay, well.

00:07:47.000 Thanks for your statement about realities that you wish didn't exist.

00:07:51.000 Now, what is your alternative?

00:07:52.000 Because it turns out that government ownership and redistribution of resources makes everyone extremely poor.

00:07:57.000 It turns out that massive tax rates, confiscatory tax rates, kill the very businesses that people need to work for.

00:08:03.000 It 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.

00:08:12.000 That's what rent control does, for example. 0.99

00:08:16.000 Developers who are quote-unquote billionaires by controlling the rents.

00:08:20.000 And what you end up with is less production of buildings.

00:08:23.000 The economy is dynamic.

00:08:26.000 People like Bill Burr believe that the economy is static.

00:08:28.000 And so billionaires are just taking a bigger chunk of a fixed pie.

00:08:31.000 But that is not how the economy works.

00:08:33.000 But where that shades over into truly evil thinking is when you start translating that into violence.

00:08:40.000 That billionaires, because you misunderstand economics, need to be killed because they're suddenly centralizing all the resources.

00:08:45.000 Please, name me the person from whom Elon Musk has stolen money.

00:08:49.000 Seriously, I'd like to hear the name of that person so Elon Musk can repay that money.

00:08:53.000 For that matter, I would love to know from whom Bill Burr has stolen his money.

00:08:59.000 Bill Burr has a net worth, apparently, around $20 million.

00:09:03.000 From whom did he steal that money?

00:09:05.000 What's the cutoff for being a bad person?

00:09:07.000 Is it like $21 million or something?

00:09:10.000 It turns out that Bill Burr charges a lot of money for his comedy special.

00:09:13.000 Shouldn't he give it out for free?

00:09:14.000 I 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.

00:09:21.000 So, you know, maybe he should give away all of his product for free.

00:09:26.000 Maybe Bill Burr should do all of his comedy shows for free.

00:09:28.000 Maybe 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.

00:09:34.000 Or maybe we should do none of those things because this country was founded on freedom.

00:09:37.000 Freedom from a country that forced us to buy their overpriced tea and then tried blockading us when we dumped their tea into the ocean. 0.70

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00:11:41.000 The reason this matters is because I have a fear.

00:11:45.000 Here is my fear.

00:11:47.000 The American body politic tends to pendulum from side to side.

00:11:51.000 This is how you end up with Trump, and then Biden, and then Trump again.

00:11:54.000 But 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.

00:12:05.000 If 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.

00:12:17.000 This sort of zero-sum ugly thinking is going to eventually gain victory in the United States at some point.

00:12:24.000 Not permanently, but at some point.

00:12:27.000 Because of all of the broken systems of education that have been put in place in this country.

00:12:33.000 Because people have become so comfortable with the bizarre idea that rich people are stealing from poor people.

00:12:39.000 Now, for the moment, it's really unpopular and it should remain really unpopular.

00:12:42.000 Because it is a stupid, terrible idea.

00:12:44.000 And 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.

00:12:50.000 It turns out that in a free country, people of all races should do better.

00:12:54.000 But there are some people who don't believe that.

00:12:56.000 People 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.

00:13:14.000 I know what your shout means.

00:13:15.000 The same way an Italian knows what an Italian shout means.

00:13:18.000 Yeah.

00:13:18.000 Right?

00:13:19.000 I'm prefacing it with a lot because it's a loaded question.

00:13:23.000 Yes.

00:13:23.000 But I would love to know if you think integration was the right solution, maybe, on the other side of, you know, of civil rights.

00:13:33.000 Yeah.

00:13:33.000 No, I don't.

00:13:34.000 And I don't think it's actually that controversial if you understand that segregation and integration...

00:13:43.000 Weren't the only options.

00:13:45.000 Within those two options, it may seem like integration is the more progressive.

00:13:50.000 Of course, we don't want segregation.

00:13:52.000 But 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?

00:14:07.000 I mean, this is how pathetic the left has become.

00:14:09.000 So they're arguing in favor of fixed pie economics, which has been debunked.

00:14:13.000 By literally all of human history in every country.

00:14:16.000 And they are arguing in favor of sort of a fixed pie with regard to racial reconciliation.

00:14:22.000 That the races can't get along.

00:14:24.000 It's a white supremacist system.

00:14:26.000 This is why it is so important that President Trump succeed.

00:14:29.000 Truly.

00:14:30.000 Because 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.

00:14:48.000 It is really, really, really important because if he is not successful, if he does not succeed, the alternative is this trash.

00:14:55.000 This ugly, immoral trash.

00:14:59.000 And, you know, I'm obviously hopeful that President Trump continues to succeed for precisely that reason.

00:15:05.000 That's why it's important that he do smart things, which, thank God, so far he is.

00:15:09.000 President Trump's popularity remains at all-time highs for him.

00:15:12.000 The latest public opinion poll has President Trump riding at a 51% approval rating compared to 45% disapproval rating.

00:15:21.000 In fact, the politician that Americans like the least right now is Chuck Schumer.

00:15:25.000 Chuck Schumer is stuck at a minus 10. Only 32% of Americans actually like Chuck Schumer at this point.

00:15:32.000 This is according to the new SurveyUSA poll.

00:15:35.000 President Trump is also making himself culturally ubiquitous.

00:15:39.000 So he went to the Daytona 500 over the weekend and actually used the Beast as the pace car.

00:15:44.000 And here is some of the radio traffic that was happening while he was pacing the field.

00:15:51.000 This is your favorite president.

00:15:53.000 I'm a big fan.

00:15:54.000 I am a really big fan of you people that you do this.

00:15:57.000 I don't know, but I just want you to be safe.

00:16:00.000 You're talented people and you're great people and great Americans.

00:16:03.000 Have a good day.

00:16:04.000 Have a lot of fun.

00:16:09.000 Again, this is kind of awesome.

00:16:10.000 This kind of stuff is cool and good.

00:16:13.000 President Trump at the Super Bowl getting big ovations.

00:16:14.000 President Trump at the Daytona 500 getting big ovations.

00:16:17.000 All of that is quite good because, again, the alternative is really, really bad.

00:16:21.000 And 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.

00:16:31.000 So since the end of World War II, the United States has essentially been the bank roller.

00:16:35.000 For European security.

00:16:36.000 And you understand why that is.

00:16:37.000 Europe 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.

00:16:46.000 And 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. 0.55

00:16:55.000 And then the Soviet Union fell.

00:16:56.000 And instead of Europe actually getting its act together, Europe just continued to live on the largest of the United States.

00:17:01.000 We helped prop up all of their security arrangements.

00:17:03.000 We helped prop up NATO, for example.

00:17:05.000 And meanwhile, they themselves got more and more robust in their stupidity.

00:17:10.000 They decided that they could basically play with house money.

00:17:13.000 And 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.

00:17:21.000 And so they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea. 1.00

00:17:25.000 They decided to actually pass.

00:17:27.000 Essentially 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.

00:17:39.000 They were going to take those policies, put them in place, and there would be no negative side effects.

00:17:43.000 Well, over the weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke in Munich, and the Europeans were very angry at him.

00:17:51.000 He spoke at the Munich Security Conference.

00:17:52.000 He gave a very important speech.

00:17:54.000 And at the speech, he said, listen.

00:17:56.000 There are some problems in Europe.

00:17:58.000 Those problems include things like China and Russia.

00:18:00.000 But the biggest problem in Europe is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about.

00:18:03.000 Now, the Europeans don't like being told this.

00:18:05.000 The Europeans like to believe that they are the sophisticates on the block. 0.99

00:18:08.000 They like to believe that they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than these brash, annoying Americans. 0.76

00:18:13.000 But what J.D. Vance says here is 100% true.

00:18:17.000 He says, you guys decided to let terrorists into your own borders.

00:18:20.000 You guys decided to crack down on free speech.

00:18:22.000 You guys decided to crack down on free market economics.

00:18:25.000 That was your choice.

00:18:26.000 Why should we have to pay for it precisely?

00:18:28.000 The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia.

00:18:33.000 It's not China. 0.85

00:18:34.000 It's not any other external actor.

00:18:37.000 And 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.

00:18:50.000 And 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.

00:19:04.000 There'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.

00:19:10.000 He says, combine those two speeches, you have the classic American one too.

00:19:13.000 Economic and individual freedoms support each other.

00:19:15.000 Innovation, competitiveness, and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech, and democracy.

00:19:20.000 Europe should be the natural partner of the United States and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment.

00:19:24.000 But Europe is divorced from reality.

00:19:27.000 And this is right.

00:19:28.000 And 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.

00:19:37.000 And that stupidity is very, very real.

00:19:39.000 And by the way, there's a threat that that stupidity starts to cross the water.

00:19:42.000 So, 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.

00:19:56.000 It's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, or deny the Holocaust.

00:20:02.000 That's clear.

00:20:03.000 Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?

00:20:07.000 Yes.

00:20:07.000 Yes, it is.

00:20:08.000 And it's a crime to insult them online as well?

00:20:11.000 Yes.

00:20:12.000 The fine could be even higher.

00:20:15.000 If you insult someone in the internet.

00:20:17.000 Why?

00:20:18.000 Because in internet, it stays there.

00:20:21.000 If we are talking face to face, you insult me, I insult you, okay, finish.

00:20:25.000 But if you're in the internet, if I insult you or a politician...

00:20:28.000 That sticks around forever.

00:20:30.000 Yeah.

00:20:33.000 Again, this is not just 60 Minutes interviewing people in Germany about what hate speech looks like in Germany.

00:20:37.000 This is 60 Minutes pushing for this kind of stuff.

00:20:40.000 How do we know?

00:20:40.000 Because this is the overall view of the legacy media.

00:20:42.000 The overall view of the legacy media is that only things legacy media likes being said should actually be said.

00:20:48.000 Margaret 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.

00:20:59.000 And she was chiding J.D. Vance for going to Europe and saying that Europe might want to value free speech a little bit more.

00:21:05.000 Right 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.

00:21:16.000 Depends on what kind of prosecutor you get from the Crown Prosecution Service in Great Britain.

00:21:21.000 But here's Margaret Brennan saying that the real problem is this whole free speech thing.

00:21:25.000 He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.

00:21:32.000 And he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups.

00:21:42.000 The context of that was changing the tone of it.

00:21:48.000 And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right.

00:21:53.000 I have to disagree with you.

00:21:55.000 Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.

00:21:58.000 The 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.

00:22:05.000 They had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews.

00:22:08.000 There was no free speech in Nazi Germany.

00:22:10.000 There was none.

00:22:13.000 Okay, and by the way, there actually was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany.

00:22:17.000 The Weimar Republic actually had many, many laws on the books that restricted speech.

00:22:21.000 In fact, Hitler ended up spending some time in jail.

00:22:24.000 Not because of his speech, but because he tried to lead a revolt.

00:22:28.000 And then afterward, he wasn't allowed to speak for several years publicly.

00:22:32.000 Goebbels was actually forced to not speak publicly.

00:22:37.000 There were like 40 lawsuits against Joseph Goebbels, who was the publicist for Adolf Hitler.

00:22:42.000 In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis.

00:22:45.000 In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people felt like, hey, maybe they have something to say. 0.67

00:22:50.000 Maybe these people are being silenced because they have something to say.

00:22:52.000 sort 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.

00:23:00.000 But 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.

00:23:08.000 So what J.D. Vance was saying in Europe is, guys, you've given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.

00:23:13.000 I will say I took some personal enjoyment in J.D. Vance just slamming the door on the fingers of Mehdi Hassan. 1.00

00:23:21.000 Mehdi Hassan, of course, is the front man for very often Qatari opinions.

00:23:29.000 He tweeted out, quote, Hey J.D. Vance, I know you're busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this?

00:23:33.000 He 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.

00:23:42.000 And J.D. Vance wrote back, Yes, dummy.

00:23:44.000 The thing about J.D. is that J.D. is an online troll, so J.D. definitely uses the online troll language.

00:23:48.000 Yes, dummy.

00:23:48.000 I 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.

00:23:53.000 The latter is a threat to free speech.

00:23:55.000 The former is not.

00:23:56.000 Hope that helps.

00:23:57.000 So, again, JD, very good at this.

00:24:02.000 But 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.

00:24:08.000 And that is taking particular front row when it comes to Ukraine.

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00:26:33.000 So when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine, you may have noticed on a map, is very, very close to the rest of Europe.

00:26:37.000 In fact, Ukraine is right in the middle of Europe, just spatially speaking.

00:26:41.000 Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others.

00:26:48.000 And it turns out that the Europeans, while they've increased their defense spending, have been rather hesitant to actually Take further actions.

00:26:57.000 They want the United States to foot the bill.

00:26:59.000 And the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, listen, we're tired of footing the bill.

00:27:03.000 This is on your continent.

00:27:05.000 Why don't you take a leading role here?

00:27:06.000 And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending.

00:27:12.000 Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security.

00:27:19.000 Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles? 0.82

00:27:23.000 Why is that precisely?

00:27:25.000 Now again, this is not a case that the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin.

00:27:30.000 It is a case that cudgelling the Europeans to actually, you know, do what they're supposed to do is not a stupid tactic.

00:27:36.000 In fact, it is very often a smart tactic.

00:27:38.000 So, 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.

00:27:47.000 Talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Trump.

00:27:51.000 No 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.

00:28:00.000 President Zelensky has said his country will not accept any outcome from this week's talks if Kiev doesn't take part.

00:28:05.000 European allies have also expressed concerns that they are being sidelined as well.

00:28:09.000 According 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.

00:28:18.000 To support Ukrainian peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

00:28:23.000 So what is this really about?

00:28:25.000 So if you just read this on the surface, maybe this is about the United States cutting Ukraine out of the loop.

00:28:29.000 Or 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.

00:28:37.000 Because remember, Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, can't go back to his own people and say, I gave up Donbass and Crimea.

00:28:43.000 Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and I gave up Donbass and Crimea.

00:28:46.000 He 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.

00:28:54.000 And 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.

00:29:02.000 Because both sides need an off-ramp here.

00:29:03.000 Putin needs an off-ramp that allows him to go back to his people and say that they won something for this enormous cost.

00:29:10.000 And Zelensky needs an off-ramp, said he can say to his people, listen.

00:29:13.000 I didn't want to go along with the deal.

00:29:14.000 The deal was forced upon me.

00:29:15.000 I've been saying this for literally three years.

00:29:19.000 For three years, I've been saying this.

00:29:21.000 Okay, meanwhile, this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table. 0.81

00:29:25.000 They say we want to slap, and the United States is saying, fine.

00:29:27.000 You want to come to the table?

00:29:28.000 Why don't you bring a purse? 0.98

00:29:30.000 Seriously, you want to come to the table?

00:29:31.000 What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?

00:29:34.000 According 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.

00:29:45.000 Kiev's absence at Tuesday's talks has rankled many Ukrainians.

00:29:47.000 France called an emergency meeting of EU countries and the UK on Monday to discuss the war.

00:29:53.000 And again, forcing the EU to actually come together to prove that they ought to be part of the conversation is not a terrible idea.

00:30:01.000 Again, 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.

00:30:07.000 But this is also one way of getting the Europeans to actually step up and do what they are supposed to do.

00:30:13.000 According 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.

00:30:19.000 European 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.

00:30:27.000 Now the snub from Washington has raised pressure.

00:30:30.000 And 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.

00:30:37.000 In 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.

00:30:49.000 The leaders must also discuss how to increase European military spending and fund longer-term assistance for Kyiv.

00:30:54.000 And again, all of this makes perfect sense.

00:30:58.000 Saying to the Europeans, listen, you want a slot at the table, you don't get to free ride anymore. 0.87

00:31:03.000 It doesn't get to be like the UN, where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.

00:31:08.000 If you want part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.

00:31:13.000 After 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.

00:31:21.000 Now, 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.

00:31:28.000 So we're going to find out very quickly who's willing to put their money where their mouth is.

00:31:32.000 Meanwhile, President Trump is putting severe pressure on the Europeans to step in.

00:31:37.000 How?

00:31:37.000 Well, 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.

00:31:48.000 Essentially, 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.

00:32:01.000 The agreement covers the economic value associated with the resources of Ukraine, including mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, and other infrastructure as agreed.

00:32:09.000 The U.S. would take 50% of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources.

00:32:14.000 50% of the financial value of all new licenses issued to third parties for the future monetization of resources.

00:32:19.000 There would be a lien on such revenues in favor of the United States.

00:32:23.000 It says, for all future licenses, the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for purchase of exportable minerals.

00:32:29.000 So basically, the United States is saying, listen, you want us to support you?

00:32:33.000 What you need back is you need to give us a giant chunk of your future revenues, essentially.

00:32:39.000 Now, the United States, cumulatively, has given about 120 billion euros.

00:32:44.000 So this is much larger than the amount that the United States has actually put in.

00:32:49.000 However, 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.

00:32:59.000 Once 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.

00:33:09.000 So, are the Europeans going to offer you a better deal?

00:33:13.000 And if the Europeans are willing to offer you a better deal, great! 0.66

00:33:15.000 That means the United States is not on the hook for nearly as much.

00:33:19.000 This is the game, I think, that the Trump administration is playing.

00:33:22.000 It's not a game where the United States abandons Ukraine.

00:33:24.000 It's not even a game where the United States impoverishes Ukraine.

00:33:27.000 This 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.

00:33:44.000 Here he was explaining.

00:33:47.000 When you meet with your Russian counterpart, whoever that is, are you gonna be sitting there arguing Ukraine's position?

00:33:55.000 Well, first of all, I think the way we have to understand is right now there is no process.

00:33:59.000 What we have right now is a call between Putin and President Trump in which both sides expressed an interest in ending this conflict.

00:34:06.000 I imagine there will be follow-up conversations to figure out what a process to talk about that would look like.

00:34:11.000 And then at that point, perhaps we can begin to share more details.

00:34:14.000 So it's a bit premature.

00:34:16.000 I know there's been a lot of reaction to it because there's been no conversation about it, any serious conversation.

00:34:23.000 Okay, so we'll find out where exactly this goes.

00:34:26.000 Meanwhile, President Zelensky is attempting to butter up President Trump.

00:34:29.000 He says, listen, I trust President Trump.

00:34:31.000 Obviously, he was voted in.

00:34:32.000 He's the person we're dealing with.

00:34:34.000 I trust President Trump because he's the president of the United States.

00:34:40.000 Because your people, your people voted for him.

00:34:43.000 And I respect their choice.

00:34:48.000 And I will work with President Trump with trust, which I have.

00:34:52.000 To the United States.

00:34:54.000 But, 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. 0.59

00:35:19.000 By the way, meanwhile, the United States in our own hemisphere is getting significantly more aggressive.

00:35:23.000 In just a moment, we're going to get to that.

00:35:24.000 We're going to get to Elon Musk's latest child and the controversy surrounding all of that.

00:35:28.000 First, if you were with us for election night or the inauguration, you already know the Daily Wire doesn't just show up.

00:35:33.000 We take over.

00:35:33.000 And now we are headed back to Washington, D.C. to do just that.

00:35:36.000 At CPAC, join me along with Matt Walsh, Michael Moles, Andrew Klavan, and Jeremy Boring all on stage live Thursday night, February 20th.

00:35:42.000 No scripted talking points, no corporate approved narratives.

00:35:45.000 Just real conversations that actually matter, streaming live on Daily Wire Plus.

00:35:48.000 And we are taking your questions as well.

00:35:50.000 Don't just watch CPAC. Be a part of it.

00:35:52.000 Live, Thursday night, February 20th on Daily Wire Plus.

00:35:54.000 Joining me on the line is Senator Tom Cotton.

00:35:56.000 He is, of course, Senator from Arkansas and best-selling author of Sacred Duty and Only the Strong.

00:36:00.000 He has a brand-new book out titled Seven Things You Can't Say About China.

00:36:04.000 It is out today, available everywhere.

00:36:06.000 Books are sold.

00:36:06.000 Senator Cotton, thanks so much for the time.

00:36:08.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:36:11.000 So let's talk about the situation with China right now.

00:36:14.000 Despite 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.

00:36:21.000 There's almost this sort of soft belief that China isn't going to take aggressive action against Taiwan.

00:36:26.000 They won't do anything that really damages world trade in the South China Sea.

00:36:31.000 There'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.

00:36:36.000 First of all, what is China's strategic vision?

00:36:38.000 What are they attempting to do?

00:36:40.000 Ben, 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. 0.93

00:36:49.000 They'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.

00:37:04.000 And that's why you've seen...

00:37:06.000 They undertake this breathtaking military buildup over the last 25 years.

00:37:10.000 So they now have the world's largest military by far and the second most technologically capable military after ours.

00:37:16.000 That's why they take such aggressive economic actions to try to benefit their companies and try to harm our companies.

00:37:22.000 And why they're so aggressive towards Taiwan, which is really the linchpin of China's strategy.

00:37:26.000 They know that they can't achieve their goals without taking Taiwan. 0.98

00:37:30.000 But if they take Taiwan, they're on the precipice of achieving those goals.

00:37:35.000 So, Senator Cotton, let's talk about Taiwan because obviously that's a hot-button issue.

00:37:40.000 They have projective power certainly across the Taiwan Strait, which is incredibly narrow.

00:37:44.000 So 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.

00:38:00.000 If that were to be taken by China, it would be a serious danger to the world economy. 1.00

00:38:03.000 How seriously should we take what China is attempting to do with Taiwan?

00:38:07.000 What is their goal?

00:38:08.000 Are you more worried about an invasion or a blockade? - Both would be very worrisome.

00:38:12.000 Any kind of conflict over Taiwan would be devastating, Ben.

00:38:15.000 It 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.

00:38:25.000 Of American stores.

00:38:27.000 And 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.

00:38:38.000 It's also that you could expect a complete breakdown of economic ties between China and the United States and the West.

00:38:43.000 Unfortunately, we've allowed those ties to grow very deep and therefore very dependent on China.

00:38:48.000 So 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.

00:38:59.000 That's why the only way to prevail...

00:39:02.000 In 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.

00:39:21.000 Senator Cotton, one of the things that you say in the book is that China could actually win.

00:39:25.000 And I know there's been a lot of skepticism.

00:39:26.000 I'm one of the skeptics of China's sort of...

00:39:29.000 Generalized ability to project power.

00:39:31.000 I look at their demographics.

00:39:32.000 Their demographics are upside down. 0.86

00:39:33.000 I look at their economy.

00:39:34.000 It's incredibly debt-laden.

00:39:36.000 They've been building empty cities to the loss of billions and trillions of dollars for years now.

00:39:42.000 So 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?

00:39:49.000 How would they achieve victory?

00:39:50.000 Or would it mainly be that they just burn everything down and what happens next?

00:39:54.000 You know, who knows?

00:39:56.000 Well, it does get back to Taiwan.

00:39:58.000 I 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.

00:40:08.000 Partly it's because of their centrality in the global semiconductor manufacturing chain, but also it's because of their strategic position.

00:40:17.000 It's not Hong Kong, it's not Tibet, places where China has also committed egregious crimes. 0.88

00:40:22.000 By 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.

00:40:31.000 They would have what MacArthur called the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender.

00:40:35.000 That would also lead a lot of our friends in the region to start seeking accommodations with.

00:40:40.000 China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia.

00:40:44.000 You'd probably see widespread nuclear proliferation as countries like Japan and South Korea and others start getting nuclear weapons as well, destabilizing the world.

00:40:52.000 And you'd see China trying to undermine American influence everywhere, showing other countries that they can walk in and take over. 0.69

00:41:00.000 A 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.

00:41:13.000 So a place where...

00:41:15.000 And here in the new world, we are limited.

00:41:18.000 We're not allowed to trade with China's partners.

00:41:20.000 We're not allowed to invest or get investment from them.

00:41:22.000 And that China really would call the shots. 0.99

00:41:25.000 So it does get back to Taiwan and the central strategic place that Taiwan plays, not just for China, but for the entire world.

00:41:33.000 Senator 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.

00:41:41.000 So even if they are weaker than popularly perceived.

00:41:44.000 That 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.

00:41:59.000 Yeah, 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.

00:42:08.000 Has turned their demographics upside down.

00:42:10.000 They have a lot of economic problems.

00:42:12.000 But 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.

00:42:19.000 And 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.

00:42:27.000 But 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.

00:42:44.000 So, Senator Cotton, it's not just that China is a threat exclusively.

00:42:48.000 Externally, China also has obviously been infiltrating our government. 0.66

00:42:52.000 They have been stealing our IP. And, of course, they've been deploying apps like TikTok.

00:43:01.000 Yeah, 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. 0.87

00:43:14.000 I write in the book that you haven't seen a movie with a Chinese villain in a very long time.

00:43:20.000 That's because all those movie studios depend on access to the Chinese movie market.

00:43:25.000 Also, every major news network besides Fox News is owned or affiliated with one of those movie studios.

00:43:31.000 And is it any surprise that Fox News is the toughest network on China that does the most hard-hitting reporting about China?

00:43:37.000 I don't think so.

00:43:38.000 Consider what happened in the NBA. China is their biggest overseas market.

00:43:42.000 You had the general manager of the Houston Rockets merely posting a symbol on social media saying he supported Hong Kongers fighting for their freedom.

00:43:49.000 And China took Houston Rockets games off their streaming services, took their merchandise out of stores.

00:43:56.000 You had NBA players like LeBron James and Stephen Kerr cracking down on the GM of the Rockets.

00:44:03.000 Or 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. 0.55

00:44:13.000 I 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.

00:44:24.000 So 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.

00:44:34.000 It's not just traditional spies and espionage.

00:44:37.000 It's this massive degree of influence they have in every corner of American society.

00:44:43.000 So, Senator Cotton, given the threats, what are the best ways for the United States to counter those threats, particularly militarily?

00:44:50.000 I 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?

00:44:59.000 How well-armed is Taiwan?

00:45:00.000 What are the steps we need to take there?

00:45:01.000 And what sort of steps ought we be taking domestically in order to prevent Chinese influence operations? 0.55

00:45:09.000 Taiwan has been increasing its spending on its military, not fast enough, in my opinion, and not necessarily on the right things.

00:45:15.000 They 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. 0.61

00:45:25.000 What are the things that we can do?

00:45:27.000 We need to make sure that we significantly increased our munitions manufacturing capability.

00:45:31.000 We've seen in Ukraine and in the war in Gaza against Hamas.

00:45:37.000 That we're strained in what we can provide to our allies.

00:45:40.000 We need that capability to build up here in America so we can support our allies and defend our interest in the Western Pacific.

00:45:46.000 We need to invest in shipbuilding so we have a navy that can actually deter Chinese aggression.

00:45:51.000 We need to be buying more stealth bombers and stealth fighters to do the same.

00:45:55.000 Our army needs more air and missile defenses and long-range strike capabilities so they can defend our positions in the Western Pacific.

00:46:01.000 One 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.

00:46:07.000 Most 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.

00:46:15.000 But I wanted to ring the alarm to make it clear the extent of Chinese influence in this country. 0.96

00:46:20.000 So I'd encourage...

00:46:21.000 All 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.

00:46:30.000 Tell your friends, tell your kids about things like TikTok or the curriculum they may have in schools.

00:46:35.000 Do everything you can to hold China accountable. 0.97

00:46:39.000 That's what I'm going to do as a senator, but you can do a lot too as a normal American citizen.

00:46:45.000 That's Senator Tom Cotton, his new book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China.

00:46:48.000 Senator Cotton, really appreciate the time.

00:46:49.000 The book is a must-read, and thanks so much for your efforts on behalf of this cause.

00:46:53.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:46:55.000 Meanwhile, the United States is taking a much harsher look at Mexico.

00:46:58.000 Apparently, 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.

00:47:14.000 With the matter, which, yes, yes, there are like 100,000 Americans who are dying every year from fentanyl poisoning.

00:47:20.000 So, yes, it makes sense to maybe go after the drug cartels that have been single-handedly responsible for the death of those American citizens.

00:47:27.000 By the way, illegal immigration is down to some of the lowest levels ever recorded.

00:47:32.000 We are down to less than 200 border encounters a day across the entire southwestern border of the United States.

00:47:39.000 That's crazy.

00:47:40.000 These numbers are insanely low.

00:47:42.000 Why?

00:47:42.000 Because everybody understands if you come right now, you're getting turned away, or you're going to end up being arrested and deported.

00:47:49.000 I mean, that's what's going to happen.

00:47:52.000 According 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.

00:48:04.000 Why is that risky?

00:48:05.000 Presumably.

00:48:05.000 I mean, it seems like that's actually the thing that the CIA should be doing.

00:48:09.000 The emphasis will be on increased U.S. support to anti-drug forces within Mexico and elsewhere inside the hemisphere.

00:48:15.000 And again, this makes perfect sense.

00:48:18.000 This is our southwestern border.

00:48:19.000 The attempt to pretend that that didn't exist for years got a lot of Americans killed.

00:48:23.000 So good for the administration for taking that seriously.

00:48:26.000 Speaking 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.

00:48:36.000 He says, I don't have a time frame on it.

00:48:38.000 I don't want to wait any longer, but I always want to get it right.

00:48:41.000 So there will be a full investigation now into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

00:48:47.000 Presumably, some people are going to lose their jobs for the decision-making process all along the way.

00:48:51.000 And all of that is, of course, quite good.

00:48:54.000 Meanwhile, Doge continues to make significant inroads into the federal government.

00:48:58.000 According 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.

00:49:06.000 Over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said on Monday.

00:49:12.000 Michelle King, who spent a bunch of decades at the agency, left her position Sunday after the disagreement.

00:49:17.000 Now 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.

00:49:24.000 Or your social security number.

00:49:26.000 It's really, really dumb.

00:49:27.000 The White House has now nominated a person named Frank Bisignio to lead the Social Security Administration.

00:49:33.000 In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.

00:49:40.000 Martin 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.

00:49:49.000 That is the last thing that's going to happen here.

00:49:52.000 Doge is not going to interrupt Social Security benefits.

00:49:54.000 Of all Republican administrations, this administration understands, do not touch the entitlement third rail.

00:50:00.000 Do not do it.

00:50:01.000 Meanwhile, Doge is seeking access to IRS systems.

00:50:05.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, an agreement with the IRS could give the team access to the integrated data retrieval system.

00:50:11.000 That system allows anyone with access the ability to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts.

00:50:19.000 Democrats are warning about the risks to taxpayers if Doge is allowed to access those sensitive taxpayer information without legal guardrails.

00:50:26.000 I have a question.

00:50:27.000 Didn't you guys leak Donald Trump's tax returns?

00:50:31.000 I noticed.

00:50:31.000 I'm sorry.

00:50:32.000 All 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.

00:50:41.000 Okay, so, so many important things happening.

00:50:44.000 So many important things happening.

00:50:45.000 And I think that it is very important, as I said earlier, for the Trump team to continue to be successful.

00:50:50.000 And they are doing so many things that are necessary.

00:50:53.000 Delving into the waste, fraud, and abuse of government agencies.

00:50:56.000 Finding improper payments.

00:50:58.000 Finding...

00:50:58.000 Thousands of people who are dead still receiving social security benefits.

00:51:02.000 Digging up USAID fraud and mismanagement.

00:51:07.000 Telling the Europeans where to get off and how to restructure. 1.00

00:51:10.000 These are all deeply important things.

00:51:13.000 Looking at peace in the Middle East.

00:51:14.000 So what that means is no distractions.

00:51:17.000 No distractions.

00:51:18.000 Distractions are the killer here.

00:51:20.000 Getting involved, getting high on your own supply to the point where you do things that end up clawing away your popularity rating.

00:51:28.000 In very kind of slow but telling ways, that is not what you want to be doing here.

00:51:34.000 Politics, as I was saying to one of the producers earlier, politics is like a marriage.

00:51:38.000 The public marries the politician.

00:51:40.000 And like a marriage.

00:51:42.000 Marriages go bad over a course of time and then all at once.

00:51:45.000 So if you ever meet a couple that gets divorced, even before they get divorced, they're kind of picking at each other.

00:51:50.000 And they kind of pick at each other and they kind of say nasty things.

00:51:52.000 They're kind of small.

00:51:54.000 And you're like, ah, that's not great.

00:51:55.000 But, you know, maybe they just let it go.

00:51:57.000 And 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.

00:52:06.000 All 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.

00:52:15.000 It's like that with public approval and presidents as well.

00:52:18.000 Joe Biden, he had an approval rating that was high 50s, mid to high 50s when he took office.

00:52:26.000 He then proceeded to do an awful lot of things that people didn't like.

00:52:29.000 He did these vast spending programs.

00:52:31.000 He started to put equity in all of his programming.

00:52:34.000 He started appointing people who were incompetent to positions of high office.

00:52:38.000 He was pushing for the transing of the kids. 0.88

00:52:40.000 And all this had sort of an incremental effect on his popularity rating.

00:52:44.000 If you take a look at his popularity rating.

00:52:46.000 It 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.

00:52:57.000 Okay, why?

00:52:58.000 Because 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.

00:53:11.000 Every president encounters a big thing, a big bad thing that happens during their presidency.

00:53:15.000 During 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.

00:53:23.000 And 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?

00:53:34.000 And the bottom went out.

00:53:36.000 That's the stuff you want to avoid.

00:53:37.000 You want to avoid that stuff because...

00:53:38.000 Those are unforced errors.

00:53:40.000 In tennis, it's an unforced error.

00:53:42.000 You weren't forced to do the thing.

00:53:43.000 You just decided that you wanted to go for a risky play and you did the thing.

00:53:47.000 I bring this up because there are some indicators that these sorts of things are being put out there and it's a warning sign.

00:53:52.000 It shouldn't be done.

00:53:53.000 Because we need Trump to...

00:53:55.000 The alternative is so bad.

00:53:57.000 The alternative is Bill Burr on economics and Trevor Noah on race.

00:54:02.000 And Randy Weingarten on gender.

00:54:04.000 I mean, these are the alternatives.

00:54:06.000 And everybody on the right who's very confident that the country will never swing the other way.

00:54:10.000 That sort of confidence never pans out.

00:54:13.000 Democrats have been confident before and they got hit with Trump twice.

00:54:15.000 Republicans, I remember, were very confident after 2004. And by 2006, Democrats had taken over Congress.

00:54:21.000 Okay, so when President Trump, for example, tweets out things like, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law.

00:54:28.000 I understand he's trolling.

00:54:29.000 I understand.

00:54:30.000 The phrase was apocryphally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.

00:54:36.000 This is a dumb thing to tweet.

00:54:37.000 It just is.

00:54:38.000 There's no reason to tweet that.

00:54:40.000 Because, again, it's not true.

00:54:44.000 He who saves his country does not violate any law.

00:54:47.000 Well, who defines saving the country and in what way?

00:54:50.000 The whole purpose of the rule of law is that it's supposed to apply equally to everybody.

00:54:54.000 And 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.

00:55:06.000 And then everyone blames him for having killed American democracy.

00:55:09.000 That's not right.

00:55:10.000 Now, Trump is using executive authority in vast ways.

00:55:13.000 Why?

00:55:14.000 Because those executive authorities had already been established.

00:55:16.000 He came upon them and he said, hey, look, giant executive authorities here.

00:55:19.000 I can use these things.

00:55:21.000 Okay, this attitude, he who saves the country does not violate any law.

00:55:24.000 That was precisely the attitude of Barack Obama.

00:55:26.000 It was precisely the attitude.

00:55:28.000 Of Joe Biden as well.

00:55:29.000 So he's not saying anything that Democrats haven't already said.

00:55:31.000 But it's the kind of statement that comes back to bite you if, for example, the economy takes a tank.

00:55:38.000 That is a problem.

00:55:40.000 Why waste?

00:55:42.000 Really, why waste any level of sort of public scrutiny on that sort of stuff?

00:55:47.000 Why, for example, deploy people to Romania to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate, who is an admitted...

00:55:57.000 An alleged pimp.

00:55:59.000 What exactly is the purpose of that?

00:56:01.000 According 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.

00:56:13.000 He's currently under house arrest in Romania.

00:56:17.000 Now, is there an accusation that his rights as an American are being abused?

00:56:22.000 Is that the accusation?

00:56:23.000 If so, what's the substantiation?

00:56:26.000 And 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.

00:56:38.000 He also happens to be a complete derelict of a human being.

00:56:42.000 The kind of person who tweeted out over the weekend that if you only have children by one woman, then you are not a conqueror.

00:56:48.000 Quote, if all your children come from one woman, you are not a conqueror.

00:56:52.000 I 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.

00:57:06.000 Rick Grinnell, who again, I like Rick generally, but he came out and he said, I support the tape.

00:57:11.000 What do you think most Americans do?

00:57:14.000 Really?

00:57:15.000 Like, is this something you wish to expend political capital on?

00:57:18.000 Truly.

00:57:18.000 Or is it a principled stand about the abuse of power by the Romanian government?

00:57:22.000 And if so, can you substantiate that?

00:57:24.000 Same thing with Eric Adams.

00:57:25.000 So Eric Adams, mayor of New York, and he was put under indictment for apparently taking bribes from Turkey.

00:57:33.000 Eric Adams then attempted to turn that into a referendum on his illegal immigration policy.

00:57:39.000 He 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.

00:57:47.000 The reality, of course, is that a year prior to his shift on illegal immigration, the investigation started into his sort of penny-ante crimes.

00:57:57.000 Okay, so, the Trump administration dismissed his case, the DOJ. Now, the problem with that, you want to dismiss it, fine.

00:58:06.000 You want to dismiss it and say that it was a political prosecution.

00:58:09.000 I'm not sure that I see the evidence for that.

00:58:11.000 I also don't think that the case itself was a big deal in the first place.

00:58:14.000 As Andrew McCarthy over at National Review says, I wasn't blown away by the case against Adams.

00:58:19.000 That's mainly because Adams appears to be a bumbling small-timer, an often incoherent loose cannon.

00:58:23.000 Okay, but, One of the things that they are doing here is they are dismissing without prejudice.

00:58:32.000 If you're going to dismiss the case and say that it's a corrupt political case, then you really should dismiss with prejudice.

00:58:37.000 With prejudice means you can't bring the case back.

00:58:39.000 That's what that means.

00:58:40.000 If 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.

00:58:49.000 That's the accusation that Democrats are making.

00:58:50.000 Now, even if that accusation is false.

00:58:53.000 Even if the accusation is not true, why allow that accusation to live out there just to what?

00:59:00.000 Dismiss the case without prejudice?

00:59:01.000 Dismiss it with prejudice if you're going to do it.

00:59:03.000 Doesn't make any sense.

00:59:05.000 Maybe 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.

00:59:12.000 Maybe the idea is to pressure Eric Adams politically.

00:59:15.000 Either way, that's not stuff the DOJ should be doing.

00:59:17.000 The DOJ should only be dismissing cases if they believe that the case is in fact political.

00:59:22.000 And if it's political and based in reality, you should dismiss it with prejudice.

00:59:26.000 Again, 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.

00:59:33.000 Is this something that the Trump administration should be distracting itself with?

00:59:36.000 On 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?

00:59:42.000 It seems to me the answer is no.

00:59:44.000 And again, these are the kinds of little things that don't matter in the moment.

00:59:47.000 But, are they going to be brought up again?

00:59:49.000 You're not going to have heard the last of these.

00:59:50.000 Political scandals and accusations don't just die.

00:59:53.000 They go underground until they're brought out.

00:59:55.000 Once the sort of popularity rating has been eaten away enough, you can break the now hollowed out shell.

01:00:02.000 That is the thing that I am concerned about here.

01:00:05.000 Okay, meanwhile, other scandals broke over the weekend.

01:00:09.000 So, the big sort of buzzy scandal of the weekend is that Elon Musk has another baby.

01:00:15.000 Alright, well, you know.

01:00:17.000 It's another weekend, another Elon Musk baby.

01:00:19.000 Elon has now 13 children by a wide variety of other women.

01:00:24.000 And it's not as though he's hiding the ball here.

01:00:28.000 Elon has been doing this with many women for a long time.

01:00:31.000 He's artificially inseminated, I believe.

01:00:34.000 The former CEO or currency of Neuralink.

01:00:37.000 He has a bunch of kids by a bunch of different baby mamas, ranging from Grimes to his first wife.

01:00:42.000 Apparently he has a new baby mama.

01:00:44.000 Her name is Ashley Sinclair.

01:00:46.000 She is an online conservative influencer.

01:00:49.000 According to the UK Daily Mail, she went public about their child over the weekend.

01:00:53.000 Why?

01:00:54.000 Well, because he ghosted her on Valentine's Day, according to her acquaintances.

01:00:58.000 So, she put Musk on blast on Friday.

01:01:00.000 She publicly posted at him on X, saying she'd been trying to communicate for the past several days, and you have not responded.

01:01:06.000 While 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.

01:01:15.000 Narendra Modi.

01:01:17.000 Sinclair 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.

01:01:27.000 But 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.

01:01:34.000 Trump 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.

01:01:46.000 Well, that seems not particularly good.

01:01:50.000 Sinclair'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.

01:01:59.000 And he rubbished those claims as ridiculous and wrong.

01:02:02.000 Her statement, Ashley Sinclair's, was, quote, five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world.

01:02:07.000 Elon Musk is the father.

01:02:08.000 I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child's privacy and safety.

01:02:10.000 In recent days, it has become clear tabloid media intends to do so regardless of the harm it will cause.

01:02:15.000 I intend to allow our child to grow in a normal and safe environment.

01:02:17.000 For that reason, I ask that the media honor our child's privacy and refrain from invasive reporting.

01:02:22.000 And then the plot thickened because Milo Yiannopoulos, who is a.

01:02:28.000 A muckraker extraordinaire, shall we say.

01:02:31.000 He dug up a tweet from Ashley Sinclair.

01:02:35.000 Thank you.

01:02:37.000 It 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.

01:02:43.000 And she wrote back, well, he actually has seven kids and goes through women pretty fast. 0.69

01:02:48.000 So that's what turned into this bizarre online conversation.

01:02:53.000 She was apparently receiving a $15,000 a month apartment that she clearly was affording, presumably because Elon was paying for it.

01:03:02.000 And she also, apparently over the weekend, had been doing a photo shoot, I believe.

01:03:07.000 So 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.

01:03:21.000 So, how do we analyze all of this?

01:03:24.000 Well, let us begin with this.

01:03:28.000 No one in this situation is a victim other than the child.

01:03:30.000 First of all, It is always good when a child is born and children are good.

01:03:34.000 We'll start with that.

01:03:35.000 So I saw a lot of online influencers congratulating Ashley Sinclair and Elon on the kid.

01:03:39.000 Fine.

01:03:40.000 Whenever a kid is born, that is a good thing.

01:03:42.000 Better that a kid is born than that a kid is not born.

01:03:44.000 That's good.

01:03:45.000 Also, everyone else in this situation is acting badly and no one is a victim.

01:03:49.000 How about that?

01:03:51.000 It 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.

01:03:57.000 Period.

01:03:58.000 My principles have not changed on this.

01:03:59.000 Ever.

01:04:00.000 It turns out traditional conservative principles on this.

01:04:02.000 Super clear and have been for several thousand years at this point.

01:04:05.000 Man, woman, child. 0.93

01:04:06.000 That's the thing that you want.

01:04:08.000 Anything that gets in the way of that is bad for the child.

01:04:12.000 So, 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.

01:04:21.000 This is all very simple stuff, but I feel like it's bizarre that people apparently need to be reminded of this.

01:04:27.000 But 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.

01:04:36.000 I 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.

01:04:41.000 But it's not great when Antonio Cromartie has a thousand kids by a billion different women.

01:04:45.000 And even if a person I like does it, it's still not great.

01:04:49.000 Okay, so there's that.

01:04:51.000 So principle number one, children, good.

01:04:54.000 Principle number two.

01:04:55.000 The best situation for a child is mom and dad are married.

01:04:58.000 And now, is anyone a victim here?

01:05:00.000 The answer here is no.

01:05:01.000 Presumably Elon, when he was sleeping with Ashley Sinclair, knew that she was not on birth control.

01:05:07.000 In fact, there are some indicators that he knew that she was not on birth control, and he was paying her bills.

01:05:10.000 So obviously he doesn't feel like he was taken for some sort of long rift here or something.

01:05:18.000 So Elon apparently went in knowing full well what the situation was, and that's on Elon.

01:05:23.000 He's not a victim.

01:05:24.000 Ashley Sinclair is not a victim either.

01:05:25.000 Anyone trying to portray her as a victim, I'm sorry, that's nonsense.

01:05:28.000 She's a grown-ass woman. 1.00

01:05:30.000 She's a grown-ass woman who knew exactly who Elon Musk was.

01:05:33.000 She knows he's the richest man on Earth.

01:05:34.000 He is in his 50s.

01:05:36.000 She is in her 20s.

01:05:37.000 This did not appear to be a love match that was likely to end in marriage, folks.

01:05:40.000 That is not Elon's way.

01:05:42.000 Okay, so, she knew.

01:05:44.000 This is a caveat emptor situation.

01:05:46.000 He's not a victim.

01:05:47.000 You know what he was getting in for?

01:05:48.000 And she is not a victim either.

01:05:49.000 And her attempt to portray herself as some sort of victim in this scenario is ridiculous on its face.

01:05:54.000 It's silly on its face.

01:05:58.000 Like, you are not a victim.

01:05:59.000 You 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.

01:06:08.000 And now you're acting as though you are some sort of victim in this situation.

01:06:12.000 Again, the only victim in this situation is a child who is going to be deprived of a father in the home.

01:06:18.000 That is the actual victim in this situation.

01:06:20.000 It is much better for a child to be with a mother and a father.

01:06:25.000 It is quite frustrating, frankly, that we even have to have these sorts of conversations.

01:06:31.000 It'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.

01:06:43.000 But she's not a victim.

01:06:45.000 He's not a victim.

01:06:47.000 Kids deserve mom and dad.

01:06:49.000 That's all.

01:06:50.000 That's all.

01:06:51.000 And her going public, I gotta say, not in love with it.

01:06:55.000 Like, it's...

01:06:57.000 What is the purpose?

01:07:00.000 Is it good for the child?

01:07:01.000 See, this is my only standard here.

01:07:03.000 Now what's good for her? 0.59

01:07:03.000 Now what's good for Elon? 0.59

01:07:04.000 What's good for the baby?

01:07:06.000 What's good for the baby?

01:07:08.000 It's kind of bizarre to put out an entire statement to the world.

01:07:10.000 Have reporters over to your home.

01:07:12.000 And then be like, yeah, man, I just want to keep private.

01:07:15.000 She's arguing that, you know, that she had to release it preemptively because the tabloids were after.

01:07:21.000 Okay, fine.

01:07:21.000 If that's the case, that's also a bit of a different story.

01:07:23.000 Although, again, welcoming tabloids into your home doesn't tend to add credibility to that particular allegation.

01:07:29.000 But let's assume that's true.

01:07:31.000 You know what's still an amazing thing to do?

01:07:33.000 Be quiet.

01:07:34.000 You could still do that, actually, it turns out.

01:07:36.000 You could still say nothing.

01:07:38.000 And then it would be on the tabloids because you know how all of us, you know how I would react if the tabloids did that?

01:07:43.000 Not by bashing you.

01:07:44.000 I would then react by bashing the tabloids because I would say that's between mommy and daddy. 0.72

01:07:49.000 But you kind of lose my sympathy when you announce to the world and then start subtweeting Elon directly and he's tweeting you.

01:07:56.000 And again, is any of this, imagine this kid is 10 years old reading these exchanges, which is what's going to happen.

01:08:03.000 There's a kid in the picture.

01:08:05.000 Once the kid is in the picture, I no longer care about your wants, needs, or desires.

01:08:08.000 If 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.

01:08:19.000 Now listen, maybe she's having emotional issues. 0.97

01:08:22.000 Whatever.

01:08:23.000 And if that's the case, I hope she gets the help that she requires.

01:08:27.000 But 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.

01:08:35.000 Which 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.

01:08:42.000 Meanwhile, over the weekend, SNL did its 50th anniversary tribute and there was one moment that seemed to stand out.

01:08:48.000 That was a moment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler called out Ryan Reynolds in the audience and it was a little awkward.

01:08:58.000 This is supposed to be a joke about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

01:09:02.000 Now being widely derided as not particularly good or nice people because they, of course, have been attacking Justin Baldoni.

01:09:08.000 They accused him of sexual harassment.

01:09:10.000 She had basically attempted to take over his film and rewrite the script. 0.99

01:09:15.000 And she brought Taylor Swift in as support and Ryan Reynolds.

01:09:17.000 And they tried to bully Justin Baldoni.

01:09:18.000 And then Justin Baldoni basically ended up as a character, apparently, in the new Deadpool movie.

01:09:23.000 And so now Ryan Reynolds is going to try and joke his way out of it.

01:09:26.000 And it didn't go over amazing.

01:09:28.000 The 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.

01:09:36.000 I have a question.

01:09:38.000 Oh, hi, Ryan Reynolds.

01:09:39.000 Hi.

01:09:41.000 Ryan Reynolds, how's it going?

01:09:45.000 Great.

01:09:45.000 Some people in the background know what can happen.

01:09:52.000 Okay, so, you know, joking about how you and...

01:09:58.000 Your wife essentially tried to leverage a director by accusing him of sexual harassment is not amazing.

01:10:08.000 It's not an amazing look.

01:10:09.000 I think this is going to do serious career damage to Ryan Reynolds.

01:10:12.000 And by the evidence, it probably should.

01:10:15.000 If the entire shtick of Ryan Reynolds is garrulous, fun-loving, nice guy, what's his reputation after all of this?

01:10:24.000 Seriously, 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?

01:10:45.000 What does that say about you?

01:10:47.000 And Ryan Reynolds, his entire brand is rooted in this sort of...

01:10:51.000 Fun-loving dude that you'd want to have a beer with.

01:10:53.000 But 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?

01:11:03.000 And SNL, I mean, SNL trying to sort of whitewash Ryan Reynolds with that joke is not a particularly good look.

01:11:09.000 That wasn't the only not amazing look on SNL this weekend.

01:11:12.000 So SNL did an episode of Black Jeopardy.

01:11:15.000 This 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.

01:11:32.000 And the implication seemed to be that he's kind of a racist.

01:11:35.000 So here we go.

01:11:37.000 Speaking of church, can I say something?

01:11:39.000 If more folks went to church, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in now.

01:11:45.000 You know what?

01:11:45.000 I agree with you, Doug.

01:11:46.000 I'd like to shake your hand, sir.

01:11:47.000 Here we go.

01:11:49.000 Oh, no, no.

01:11:50.000 Oh, no, no.

01:11:50.000 It's just a handshake.

01:11:52.000 Yeah, it's just a handshake.

01:11:53.000 Yeah, all right.

01:11:53.000 You're welcome to Black Jeopardy anytime.

01:11:55.000 Oh, well, all right.

01:11:56.000 Well, thank you, my brother.

01:11:58.000 Now, maybe I'll start a show for you to come on, and we'll call it What Jeopardy?

01:12:04.000 No.

01:12:04.000 We don't need it.

01:12:05.000 We don't need it.

01:12:08.000 So that was a joke that didn't play at all.

01:12:11.000 So, again, he's playing Doug, sporting a MAGA hat.

01:12:14.000 That's Tom Hanks.

01:12:16.000 And 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. 0.69

01:12:24.000 So there are two ways to read that.

01:12:26.000 And 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.

01:12:34.000 The 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.

01:12:45.000 Either way, not a good joke.

01:12:47.000 And some people were offended by it.

01:12:48.000 Again, Hollywood basically insulting the MAGA supporters is not a great look, but to be fair, that's a pretty mild jab.

01:12:57.000 I think people may be overreacting to that particular one.

01:12:59.000 Honestly, the Ryan Reynolds thing is way worse.

01:13:01.000 The Ryan Reynolds thing, like bringing out Ryan Reynolds to joke about an ongoing controversy with Justin Baldoni.

01:13:06.000 Like, where's Justin Baldoni there?

01:13:07.000 Why didn't they bring Justin Baldoni and have him do a joke?

01:13:11.000 I feel like that's, you know, just another indicator of the power imbalance as...

01:13:15.000 The lefties among us like to say.

01:13:17.000 All right, guys, coming up, the United States versus Canada in hockey.

01:13:20.000 And yeah, we're taking it to the Canadians before we annex their country. 0.99

01:13:24.000 Also, horrible news from the Middle East, where Hamas is announcing who they are releasing dead this week.

01:13:29.000 Plus, Pope Francis is in the hospital.

01:13:30.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:13:32.000 Use Code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

01:13:35.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

01:13:36.000 We have tons behind the paywall for members, including Run, Hide, Fight.

01:13:41.000 We have tons of fantastic movies, great entertainment, stuff for your kids as well.

01:13:44.000 Go check it out right now.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - February 18, 2025

Trump & Vance WRECK Europe

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