The Ben Shapiro Show - February 13, 2025


Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL


Episode Stats


Length

48 minutes

Words per minute

189.85136

Word count

9,154

Sentence count

646

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the response by the United States, Europe, and the Ukraine's government. I also discuss the potential off-ramp that President Trump and Vladimir Putin have proposed to end the Ukraine conflict.

Transcript

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Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, President Trump promised that when he entered office, he was going to look at the Russia-Ukraine situation and try to facilitate an actual end to the war.
00:00:08.000 People who have been watching this war very closely understand that Russia's original goal, which was to take Kiev to completely ingest and then digest all of Ukraine, turn it into a functioning part of the new Russian empire, that that failed.
00:00:23.000 And that failed very early on in the war.
00:00:25.000 But very quickly, the war then transmuted into something else, and that was...
00:00:29.000 A Ukrainian attempt backed by Europe, backed by the Biden administration, to take back portions of the country that had essentially been conquered by Russia in 2014 after the Euromaidan revolution.
00:00:41.000 The attempt to take the Donbass and Crimea back from Russian forces, that was largely doomed to failure because the only way to do that would have been to arm up the Ukrainians to the extent... 0.95
00:00:54.000 That it might have prompted a larger Russian intervention using perhaps things like tactical nuclear weapons.
00:00:59.000 That is the only way that could have been done.
00:01:01.000 Or to allow the Ukrainians to attack inside Russia in such a way that could have provoked a larger war.
00:01:07.000 Now, it may be that those concerns over a larger war were exaggerated.
00:01:11.000 However, the risk-reward relationship there was out of balance.
00:01:15.000 The reality was that the West had very little interest in Ukraine.
00:01:20.000 Fighting a large-scale war to take back Donbass and Crimea, areas that are predominantly, by virtually all polling data even before the fake Russian democratic takeover, those areas were very pro-Russian, historically.
00:01:35.000 And so Russia taking over those areas, while it is devastating to the economy of Ukraine, much of the oil-rich area of Ukraine is in its east in the Donbass region.
00:01:43.000 Crimea, of course, is on the Black Sea, and so much of the warm-water ports available to the Ukrainians were via Crimea.
00:01:50.000 The reality was that barring some sort of massive war effort, much larger than anything that Ukraine was actually given, those areas were not going to be retaken by Ukraine.
00:01:59.000 And so this conflict had settled into a stalemate for almost three years at this point because the original invasion took place at the end of February 2022. And for a very long time, the Biden administration had a conflicting strategy, a mutually exclusive strategy.
00:02:14.000 On the one hand, the Biden administration suggested that they would continue to provide endless aid.
00:02:19.000 Until, quote-unquote, victory was achieved.
00:02:21.000 But they refused to either provide the necessary aid to achieve full-scale victory or to define victory as something other than full-scale victory.
00:02:28.000 These were mutually exclusive tactics.
00:02:31.000 If they were defining victory as Ukraine takes back Donbass and takes back Crimea, then you have to give Ukraine the weaponry necessary in order to accomplish that.
00:02:39.000 Anything less than that is going to lead to stalemate and loss.
00:02:43.000 Or, theoretically, you redefine victory to survival, meaning Russia already controlled Donbass and Crimea.
00:02:48.000 Before the 2022 invasion.
00:02:51.000 And so Russia's goal had already been defeated, at which point victory could have been achieved by any sort of rational stretch of the imagination, simply by fending off further Russian territorial aggression.
00:03:02.000 And by that measure, the war should have come to an end a couple of years ago, because basically the battle lines in Ukraine have been fairly solidified for two years, two and a half years at this point.
00:03:17.000 Henry Kissinger, the late Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, among other titles, he had proposed that this off-ramp essentially be offered way back in May of 2022. And frankly, I thought that that was the correct approach because there was no actual end goal that was achievable.
00:03:35.000 And the Biden administration was openly admitting this.
00:03:37.000 They were saying, we are going to provide weaponry up until victory is achieved.
00:03:41.000 How is victory defined?
00:03:42.000 They said, we don't know.
00:03:43.000 Well, you cannot win a war if you refuse to define victory.
00:03:46.000 And again, Either victory is going to be the taking back of all Ukrainian territory, which would have required the Biden administration to send F-16s to Ukraine, among other things.
00:03:55.000 Or victory had to be defined in some other way, in which case an off-ramp should have been sought.
00:04:01.000 Trump is taking a much more concerted view at reality.
00:04:06.000 And so he has now opened negotiations with the Russian regime.
00:04:13.000 He has put forward a proposal.
00:04:16.000 That he meet with Vladimir Putin directly?
00:04:19.000 He revealed on Wednesday, according to the New York Post, that he and Russian President Putin had agreed to start talks immediately to end Moscow's war on Ukraine.
00:04:25.000 He said we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Ukraine-Russia.
00:04:30.000 He said that this war would not have happened if I were president, but it did happen, so it must end.
00:04:34.000 No more lives should be lost.
00:04:36.000 He said that he and his Russian counterpart expressed openness to visiting each other's nations while letting slip to reporters in the Oval Office Wednesday.
00:04:41.000 We expect that he'll come here and I'll go there and we're also probably going to meet in Saudi Arabia.
00:04:46.000 Trump added on Truth Social, the negotiation process will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now.
00:04:55.000 And then he revealed that any American delegation to the peace talks would be led by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Mike Walz, and Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
00:05:05.000 Zelensky then confirmed in a Facebook statement, That he and Donald Trump had a meaningful conversation about opportunities to achieve peace and discussed our readiness to work together at a team level and Ukraine's technological capabilities, including drones and other advanced industries.
00:05:17.000 In other words, he was making an argument to Trump that the United States should provide Ukraine with enough weaponry to fend off any future Russian attack.
00:05:25.000 Now, in reality, Zelensky is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the deal, at least publicly.
00:05:31.000 Why?
00:05:32.000 Well, because let's assume you're a Ukrainian citizen and you've watched your brothers and sisters get murdered by the Russians.
00:05:36.000 Which is what has happened over the course of this war.
00:05:38.000 You're talking about hundreds of thousands of people, if you combine both sides, dead and wounded.
00:05:43.000 So, let's say you're a Ukrainian citizen, and you've been told by Zelensky that you're going to not just win the war, you're going to push the Russians off of every inch of Ukrainian land.
00:05:51.000 And now you're going to get less than that.
00:05:54.000 Zelensky is going to have to take the political hit, unless the United States is willing to take the political hit.
00:05:58.000 Biden never was.
00:05:59.000 Biden always was cowardly, pusillanimous, when it came to the idea that he would take the hit.
00:06:06.000 For anything less than a full Ukrainian victory.
00:06:08.000 He did not want to be blamed for Ukraine not being able to push Russia off that land.
00:06:14.000 So instead, he decided to let the war percolate and simmer on.
00:06:20.000 And he was willing to allow his poll numbers to be boosted by Russian and Ukrainian debt.
00:06:26.000 Why?
00:06:27.000 Because he was unwilling to do the thing that actually had to be done, which was in public.
00:06:31.000 Biden would need to have negotiated a deal with Putin.
00:06:34.000 Over Zelensky's head and then crammed down the deal on Zelensky.
00:06:37.000 And that would have made him a bad guy in the eyes of many members of the left in the United States who, for some odd reason, decided that the Ukrainian flag was going to go in their profile.
00:06:47.000 Now, again, that's fine with me.
00:06:48.000 You want to put the Ukrainian flag in your Twitter profile or whatever.
00:06:50.000 But the reality is that if that's the only flag in your profile, it's kind of strange.
00:06:56.000 And not only that, putting the Ukrainian flag in your profile seems less...
00:07:00.000 Like, objection to Russian intervention.
00:07:02.000 I don't remember a Georgian flag in any of these people's profile.
00:07:04.000 Or even a Ukrainian flag back in 2014 in their profile.
00:07:07.000 I just remember it in 2022. And that was largely because it was tied to the idea that Russia was a pro-Trump force.
00:07:13.000 There's a lot of domestic politics tied up in all of this.
00:07:16.000 But, if Joe Biden had been a brave and capable leader, what he would have done is he would have negotiated the off-ramp that everyone saw coming.
00:07:23.000 The off-ramp looks something like this.
00:07:25.000 Ukraine does not become a part of NATO because, again, one of the reasons that Russia says that it invaded Ukraine is because it didn't want to be bordered by NATO nations, even though it already has a bunch of borders with NATO nations.
00:07:35.000 Instead, there would have been effectively a mutual defense guarantee between the United States and Europe and Ukraine to prevent a further act of Russian aggression that was not exactly NATO.
00:07:44.000 There wouldn't have been an entry by Ukraine into the EU, which has always been a sort of hot button issue in Ukraine.
00:07:53.000 In fact, Vladimir Zelensky, when he was first elected, was not somebody who was considered...
00:07:58.000 It's supremely pro-entering the EU. Believe it or not.
00:08:02.000 It's only after the Russian invasion that he seemed to turn wildly in that direction.
00:08:07.000 And what the deal looks like is Ukraine is armed up to prevent a further Russian invasion.
00:08:11.000 Russia gets to claim sovereignty over these areas, which, by the way, it already has.
00:08:15.000 In its own Duma, they've already voted to claim sovereignty over Donbass and Crimea.
00:08:20.000 The international community probably half accepts it.
00:08:24.000 They don't say, yeah, this is now sovereign Russian territory.
00:08:26.000 But they say, That we are not going to foment war over the retaking of that territory.
00:08:33.000 And then everybody sort of goes weapons down for the moment.
00:08:36.000 That doesn't end the conflict.
00:08:37.000 It's more like the Korean War.
00:08:39.000 There's an armistice line.
00:08:40.000 There was never any peace agreement signed at the end of the Korean War.
00:08:42.000 It just ended up that there was a North Korea and a South Korea.
00:08:45.000 And that armistice line has been holding since 1953. Probably the best case scenario is something like that in this particular situation. 0.55
00:08:53.000 Well, President Trump said that.
00:08:55.000 And by the way, President Trump is not willing.
00:08:57.000 To allow Vladimir Putin to sort of slow play this, to wait for Trump to withdraw aid and then invade the rest of Ukraine.
00:09:04.000 I said this all during the campaign.
00:09:05.000 There was all of this talk, loose talk, by both isolationists on the right and nutjobs on the left, that Trump was going to walk into office, immediately pull all aid from Ukraine, and allow Vladimir Putin to stroll down the streets of Kiev.
00:09:16.000 I said that was not something that Trump was willing to do.
00:09:19.000 Why?
00:09:19.000 Because Trump doesn't want the bad headline.
00:09:21.000 Trump does not want a headline in which he surrenders Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
00:09:25.000 If there's one thing that President Trump cares about on a personal level, it is not being made to look weak and feckless.
00:09:31.000 And so he was always going to provide continued aid to the point where some sort of offering could be reached.
00:09:35.000 He said that yesterday in a presser.
00:09:38.000 President Trump is a strong president, and he wishes to actually give off the image of a strong president, which is why he's not going to cut off the aid.
00:09:45.000 See, here's the thing.
00:09:46.000 President Trump is deeply American, and this country was founded on strength and on freedom.
00:09:50.000 Freedom from a country that forced us to buy overpriced tea and then tried to blockade us when we dumped their tea into the ocean. 0.93
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00:11:46.000 Again, Donald Trump speaks to the press every single day.
00:11:48.000 Here he was in the Oval yesterday talking about this.
00:11:51.000 Does that mean you are not sending any more aid to Ukraine?
00:11:54.000 No, we are, but we want it secured.
00:11:56.000 And the money is going to be secured.
00:11:58.000 When will the U.S. stop sending funding?
00:12:01.000 When will the U.S. stop sending funding?
00:12:02.000 Because if we didn't do that, then Putin would say he won.
00:12:06.000 We're the thing that's holding it back.
00:12:08.000 And frankly, we'll go...
00:12:10.000 As long as we have to go, because we're not going to let the other happen.
00:12:13.000 But President Putin wants to have peace now, and that's good.
00:12:18.000 And he didn't want to have peace with Biden.
00:12:21.000 This is a pragmatic, utilitarian approach to the situation.
00:12:25.000 It has been the correct approach for several years.
00:12:28.000 Joe Biden just was unwilling to do it because Trump will be seen by many people on the left particularly as a bad guy for having sold out Ukraine.
00:12:36.000 But the reality is Ukraine was never going to be able to retake this territory.
00:12:39.000 This is something the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said yesterday.
00:12:42.000 He said, listen, trying to go back to the pre-2014 borders, namely Donbass and Crimea becoming an integral part of Ukraine again, that is not realistic at this time.
00:12:51.000 And trying to pretend that it is is foolishness that leads to death.
00:12:55.000 We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.
00:13:08.000 We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.
00:13:14.000 But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.
00:13:24.000 Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.
00:13:30.000 He is correct about this.
00:13:32.000 Again, this has always been the correct position.
00:13:34.000 I've been advocating for this position since a couple of months into the war.
00:13:38.000 So Trump had a conversation with Zelensky, and then he put out a statement, quote, And again, Trump is trying to warm relations with Russia, given the fact that...
00:14:06.000 The cold relationship with Russia has not been particularly productive at this point in time.
00:14:11.000 Does that mean that he trusts the Russians? 1.00
00:14:12.000 Absolutely not.
00:14:13.000 Trump is not a fool.
00:14:14.000 He's not going to trust Vladimir Putin, who's a deeply untrustworthy, evil dictator.
00:14:19.000 That's what he is.
00:14:20.000 He throws people off third stories of buildings if they happen to cross his regime.
00:14:23.000 But Trump understands power politics.
00:14:26.000 It's something he innately understands in his bones.
00:14:28.000 The president goes on, quote, We both reflected on the great history of our nations.
00:14:31.000 He's talking about his discussion with Putin and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people and we likewise lost so many.
00:14:38.000 We each talked about the strengths of our respective nations and the great benefit we will someday have in working together.
00:14:43.000 President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of common sense.
00:14:46.000 We both believe very strongly in it.
00:14:49.000 And now, again, Trump likes to use warm words as sort of the carrot.
00:14:52.000 But then the stick still exists.
00:14:54.000 As he said, the aid is going to continue flowing to Ukraine, sufficient to deter the Russians from continuing this invasion. 0.75
00:15:02.000 In fact, Trump actually said in the Oval Office, he thinks that some of the pre-2014 territory will, in fact, end up in Ukrainian hands.
00:15:09.000 That presumably is because Ukraine, basically ignoring Joe Biden, made territorial incursions directly into Russia, and now they're looking for land swaps, Russian territory for Ukrainian territory.
00:15:20.000 Do you see any future in which Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 orders?
00:15:24.000 Well, I think Pete said today that that's unlikely, right?
00:15:28.000 It certainly would seem to be unlikely.
00:15:30.000 They took a lot of land, and they fought for that land, and they lost a lot of soldiers.
00:15:37.000 But it would just seem to me, and I'm not making an opinion on it, but I've read a lot on it, and a lot of people think that that's unlikely.
00:15:44.000 Some of it will come back.
00:15:45.000 I think some of it will come back, yeah.
00:15:47.000 Some of that land will come back.
00:15:51.000 Okay, so, again, does this sound like Donald Trump is surrendering to Vladimir Putin?
00:15:56.000 If so, you are reading him completely wrong.
00:15:59.000 Now, Hegseth is, again, being practical about this.
00:16:01.000 He says, this is not the moment for Ukraine to join NATO because that presumably would be provocative.
00:16:07.000 But we can make many of the same security guarantees without actually them formally joining NATO. Here was Pete Hegseth.
00:16:13.000 The United States does not.
00:16:17.000 Believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
00:16:23.000 Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.
00:16:32.000 If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5. Okay, so again, one of the reasons not to cover Ukraine under Article 5 is presumably, let's say, that Ukraine gets into another shooting conflict over Donbass or Crimea.
00:16:53.000 That would now obligate all Article 5 members of NATO to actually get directly involved in the war.
00:16:58.000 But he's saying we're still going to make the security guarantees.
00:17:00.000 There may even, in fact, be European troops on the ground to guarantee the peace.
00:17:04.000 This always was the pragmatic solution.
00:17:06.000 Always, always.
00:17:07.000 And Trump's position had to be caricatured by the media as some sort of surrender to Putin.
00:17:13.000 But, again, Common sense is the watchword.
00:17:16.000 It is the byword.
00:17:17.000 And Trump, by the way, his successes are happening on a daily basis.
00:17:20.000 Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as the intelligence chief, which is an amazing switch in the nature of the Directorate of National Intelligence.
00:17:27.000 Remember, Tulsi Gabbard was actually put on a no-fly list at one point.
00:17:31.000 She was targeted by the intelligence community because of her past contacts with Bashar Assad in Syria and her supposed past contacts with the Russians.
00:17:38.000 Gabbard, according to the Wall Street Journal, a combat veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, was confirmed by a vote of 52-48 in the GOP-controlled Senate.
00:17:45.000 Senator Mitch McConnell, the former GOP leader, broke with his party to side with Democrats in voting no.
00:17:49.000 McConnell, again, is continuing to make a sort of traditionally conservative case that anybody who is heterodox should not be confirmed.
00:17:57.000 However, that is not going to cut a lot of ice because, again, Trump is the one who's in charge of his administration.
00:18:01.000 The truth is most Republicans probably feel...
00:18:04.000 The same way that Bill Cassidy, the senator, feels, which is Trump wants Gabbert, Trump gets Gabbert.
00:18:09.000 I mean, that seems to be the going methodology in the Senate.
00:18:12.000 And frankly, that seems right if you're talking about many of the top-level cabinet secretaries who are answerable directly to the president.
00:18:19.000 I'm not sure that that is directly right about many of the people who are being nominated for, say, undersecretary positions.
00:18:24.000 There, the Senate is going to be able to kind of flex its muscle a little bit more in terms of a check and balance on the direction of those departments from underneath.
00:18:33.000 President Trump in an Oval Office swearing in called Gabbard, quote, an American of extraordinary courage and exceptional patriotism.
00:18:38.000 He said she would have the responsibility of overseeing urgently needed reforms in the intelligence community.
00:18:43.000 Again, the DNI is sort of a paper position.
00:18:47.000 It's a position that sits on top of the CIA and the FBI and coordinates the two agencies.
00:18:51.000 It was originally put into law as a way of breaking down the Chinese firewall that separates intelligence from CIA and FBI. That firewall had led.
00:19:00.000 to 9-11 because the CIA had information about the hijackers and wasn't passing it along to the FBI because they were afraid that that would have compromised the FBI's domestic terrorism investigations and prevented prosecutions.
00:19:10.000 The DNI was supposed to sit above both of those agencies and help coordinate the intelligence from both.
00:19:14.000 That's essentially what Gabbard will be doing.
00:19:17.000 But one of the things Gabbard presumably will be doing is also looking into and investigating many of the malfeasances by the FBI and the CIA over the course of the last 10, 15, 20 years.
00:19:30.000 McConnell, in explaining his vote, said the nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the president receives are tainted by a director of national intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment.
00:19:38.000 But again, I seriously doubt that Tulsi Gabbard is going to be sitting there and just blacklining, redlining, and blacking out portions of reports that don't meet with her political priors. 1.00
00:19:49.000 That doesn't seem correct.
00:19:51.000 So, Gabbard has been confirmed.
00:19:54.000 Meanwhile...
00:19:54.000 Over at Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy looks like he is ready to be confirmed.
00:19:58.000 The Senate voted 53-47 to end debate on RFK Jr.'s nomination, following public statements of support from some GOP senators who'd been on the fence about Trump's pick.
00:20:07.000 In the betting markets, it's like 99% that RFK Jr. ends up being confirmed.
00:20:12.000 Cash Patel will also end up being confirmed as head of the FBI. So President Trump's selections for his cabinet, he's going to get his cabinet.
00:20:17.000 Again, there are some other members of the cabinet who, frankly, I think are so far outside of what even what Trump would like to do.
00:20:24.000 That it is worthwhile talking about shooting them down.
00:20:28.000 That would include Representative Lori Chavez-Dremer, former representative of Oregon, who has been extraordinarily anti-free markets, extraordinarily pro-unions.
00:20:38.000 Putting her at the head of the Labor Department would be kind of a disaster. 1.00
00:20:41.000 So I could see Republicans opposing her.
00:20:43.000 But they weren't going to, I think, waste their fire on Tulsi Gabbard or Kash Patel or on RFK Jr. And I think they are right not to do so.
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00:23:11.000 Meanwhile.
00:23:12.000 Controversy continues over the cuts that are being made to the federal government under the Trump-Musk revolution in government spending.
00:23:22.000 What's amazing about this is, again, how many people on the left seem to think it's a winning argument to argue in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:23:30.000 Poll data show that Americans do not like waste in government.
00:23:34.000 The latest polling that I saw from Gallup about these broad issues shows 56% of Americans Believe that a huge percentage of government spending is in fact waste and abuse.
00:23:48.000 In fact, according to the Gallup poll from this November, just after the election, 55% of Americans believe the government is doing too much.
00:23:58.000 Only 41% believe the government needs to do more.
00:24:02.000 When it comes to the waste inherent in government, Most Americans, in fact the vast majority of Americans, want government made more efficient.
00:24:13.000 Americans' views of the federal government, 26% positive, 58% negative, are second from the bottom of all 25 industries tested.
00:24:22.000 The only industry that is less popular than the federal government is the pharmaceutical industry.
00:24:29.000 A Pew Research poll in April showed that 56% of U.S. adults, this would be April 2024, agreed the government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.
00:24:37.000 58% of Americans were dissatisfied with the size and power of the federal government.
00:24:41.000 And so what Trump is doing here, and it's quite smart, is he's singling out bad, wasteful, abusive projects, and he's making those the tip of the spear in a broader attack on the size and scope of the federal government.
00:24:55.000 And what's amazing is the Democrats are falling right into it.
00:24:57.000 They're claiming there is no waste, fraud, or abuse.
00:24:59.000 So, for example, yesterday, a Democratic witness named Dylan Hetler Gaudet testified before Congress, suggesting...
00:25:06.000 That he could not see widespread abuse or fraud in the government.
00:25:10.000 He's the director of government affairs at an NGO called the Project on Government Oversight, which again is another one of these ridiculous left-wing front groups funded by George Soros.
00:25:19.000 Project on Government Oversight, but they don't do any government oversight, and apparently the government's doing an amazing job, according to Mr. Hedler Gaudet.
00:25:26.000 Waste is different from fraud.
00:25:28.000 Fraud is different from abuse, and abuse is different from both.
00:25:32.000 When we talk about improper payments, they are a subset of those other three categories.
00:25:36.000 But that doesn't tell us the whole picture either.
00:25:39.000 Sometimes improper payments are a function of bad record keeping.
00:25:42.000 Sometimes they are a function of outdated information technology systems.
00:25:46.000 Sometimes they come about through human error and sometimes they come about through negligence.
00:25:50.000 There are a variety of reasons why improper payments happen.
00:25:54.000 It just simply is not the case that improper payments are only a function of bad people Well, I mean, it's not a matter of bad people doing bad things with bad intent.
00:26:07.000 Whether you intend to waste our money or whether you're just wasting our money is irrelevant to the taxpayer whose money is wasted.
00:26:13.000 President Trump, for his part, again, this is going to be a popular case with the American people.
00:26:16.000 He says, of course there's lots of fraud.
00:26:18.000 Have you seen the size of our federal government?
00:26:21.000 We should talk about widespread fraud and abuse.
00:26:24.000 Oh, yeah.
00:26:25.000 Tremendous fraud.
00:26:26.000 There's tremendous fraud.
00:26:28.000 It's hard to believe that you can have that kind of fraud.
00:26:31.000 You're talking about like...
00:26:33.000 Are you talking about what?
00:26:35.000 Wait, wait, wait.
00:26:37.000 Which are you talking about?
00:26:37.000 You're talking about with regard to all of the investigations that are going on about this stupidity.
00:26:42.000 What we're going to do is tomorrow I'm having a news conference.
00:26:45.000 I'm going to read to you some of the names that hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars have been given to.
00:26:52.000 And if you tell me that we should be giving money to those things, those entities, I think you'll probably have to leave as a reporter because you're not very talented.
00:27:01.000 When you look at the kind of money, billions and billions of dollars being thrown away illegally, and there's no chance.
00:27:09.000 I mean, I say it in front of our...
00:27:11.000 Our Attorney General, there's no chance that there's not kickbacks or something going on.
00:27:16.000 When you give millions and millions of dollars to somebody that stands to look at something for 15 minutes and walks away with millions of dollars, that money's coming back in some form.
00:27:28.000 And that's only one form of corruption.
00:27:32.000 Now, what is different about what Trump is doing than what Republicans have historically done is that by unleashing Elon Musk, who's an outsider.
00:27:39.000 And aiming at the technological systems that actually generate the payments by aiming at the actual machinery of government rather than sort of overall policy.
00:27:48.000 And those are two separate things.
00:27:49.000 When it comes to the bureaucracy, there's the overall policy.
00:27:52.000 Very, very difficult to shape the overall policy without touching the machinery.
00:27:56.000 The machinery is the thing that keeps printing the money and sending the money, and it keeps going no matter what.
00:28:01.000 And you can question the policy, but if you don't actually change the machinery underneath the hood of the car, you're just changing the paint of the car.
00:28:07.000 And the machine continues to move in the same direction.
00:28:09.000 The engine continues to turn.
00:28:11.000 Trump, by unleashing Musk, because the systems guy, is looking into the technological systems of distribution.
00:28:16.000 He's looking into the employment systems.
00:28:18.000 He's actually looking under the hood of the car of the federal government.
00:28:21.000 And it's ugly what he is finding.
00:28:22.000 Joe Lonsdale, who's an expert at this, he's the founding partner of 8VC, which is a major venture capital firm, one of the founding partners of Palantir.
00:28:30.000 He talked on CNBC about what is different that Elon is doing from historically what Republicans have done.
00:28:37.000 I have mentors in the Reagan administration who came in looking for these things, and those people were not technical.
00:28:43.000 And so when they went to the bureaucracy and they asked questions, there's so many ways of obscuring and blocking and deterring.
00:28:49.000 And so what Elon did is he got root access and he went to the tech systems themselves.
00:28:53.000 No one has done this ever.
00:28:54.000 No president ever has had tech people around him.
00:28:56.000 And they went to the systems and they started finding things like, oh my goodness.
00:29:00.000 And these people who work for the agencies try to confront them and say, no, you can't look at the systems.
00:29:04.000 You're getting around all of our ability to block all this stuff.
00:29:07.000 We thought you'd never actually get to see any of this.
00:29:08.000 And they're freaking out because they're looking.
00:29:10.000 And so it's very transparent.
00:29:11.000 They went to the systems.
00:29:12.000 They actually saw the payments.
00:29:13.000 And the payments were going out to crazy.
00:29:15.000 I mean, this is the point.
00:29:19.000 And this is why everybody in Democrat land is so panicked.
00:29:22.000 Because nobody's actually taken a look at the systems before.
00:29:25.000 Republicans have pledged they're going to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:29:27.000 But Trump is just unleashing people into departments that he is the head of, right?
00:29:31.000 He's the president.
00:29:32.000 They all work under him.
00:29:33.000 And he is saying, I want you to go and screw with the system.
00:29:36.000 If you have to break the system, break it.
00:29:37.000 And then we'll fix the parts that we need to fix.
00:29:39.000 But put sand in the gear.
00:29:41.000 Stop the machine. 0.86
00:29:42.000 Stop the machine dead.
00:29:44.000 And that is what Elon has been doing.
00:29:46.000 And it's now pervading throughout every branch of government.
00:29:49.000 Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, who was a guest on our program just last week, he said, listen, I've been trying to identify waste, fraud, and abuse with the help of Doge, and we're finding it.
00:30:00.000 Shockingly, Roughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.
00:30:19.000 EPA needs to reassume responsibility for all of these funds.
00:30:24.000 We will review every penny that has gone out the door.
00:30:28.000 I will be referring this matter to the Inspector General's office and will work with the Justice Department as well.
00:30:35.000 Again, is this stuff going to be unpopular with Americans?
00:30:38.000 I'm hard-pressed to see precisely how.
00:30:40.000 Mike Lawler, a representative from New York, he was talking about USAID, which of course has had its funding dramatically slashed by Musk and by Doge.
00:30:48.000 And he says, you want to talk about a waste of money?
00:30:51.000 And here's an example of a waste of money by USAID. You look at some of the expenditures by USAID. For instance, I uncovered over $3 million to a rap artist in Gaza producing anti-Israel, anti-Semitic songs.
00:31:11.000 Is that the best use of American taxpayer dollars?
00:31:14.000 I would venture not.
00:31:16.000 And so one of the things that we're going to do in this hearing tomorrow, obviously, is go through what actually is the role of USAID, what should they be focused on, and frankly, what have they been focused on?
00:31:32.000 Well, again, he is right about all this.
00:31:34.000 It's not going to be hard to find examples of bad spending, and that is a great way of approaching these issues.
00:31:39.000 From a public relations perspective, it's a great way of approaching these issues because it puts Americans in mind of how much money is being wasted.
00:31:45.000 Now, Democrats are trying to do the opposite.
00:31:47.000 They're trying to find examples of things being cut that are just so devastating.
00:31:50.000 That's every day in the New York Times.
00:31:52.000 Somebody who's been deprived of their government paycheck, and oh, how sad.
00:31:55.000 Somebody who's in Thailand who's been deprived of a medical appointment because USAID is no longer paying for it.
00:32:01.000 Oh, how sad.
00:32:02.000 But the truth is, in a time when Americans feel that America has been overstretched, that our economy is basically stretched beyond its capacity, that we are paying too much money for everything, there's not a lot of sympathy for the Democrat position, that we need endless largesse and waste of taxpayer money in order so that one government employee that we need endless largesse and waste of taxpayer money in order so that one government employee can get her retirement That is not going to be a popular position.
00:32:25.000 At the same time, and the Trump government is being very careful and meticulous, actually, and how they are presenting this publicly, one of the things that they are saying is, when it comes to things that are really important, government benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, we're not touching those things.
00:32:38.000 Again, that's not something that I want.
00:32:40.000 I, as a fiscal conservative, would love to see a restructuring of many of these gigantic entitlement programs, which are, in fact, the systemic drivers of our debt.
00:32:48.000 However, when it comes to those programs, Trump is being very clear we're not touching those.
00:32:53.000 Again, he's just going to say waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:32:55.000 We're not going to touch the third rails.
00:32:57.000 Here was the VA Secretary, Doug Collins, saying, you know, you're hearing that veterans' benefits are being cut.
00:33:01.000 That's not true.
00:33:03.000 There's one that's going around in the media right now about veterans' benefits being cut.
00:33:07.000 I'm the Secretary of VA. I'm going to tell you right now.
00:33:09.000 That's not happening.
00:33:10.000 They can do hypotheticals all they want.
00:33:12.000 I'm telling you about reality.
00:33:13.000 Reality is veterans' benefits aren't getting cut.
00:33:15.000 In fact, we're actually giving and improving services in our Veteran Benefits Administration.
00:33:19.000 They're actually clearing cases quicker.
00:33:21.000 We're doing what we're supposed to be doing.
00:33:25.000 And so, and this is all very smart PR. Kristi Noem, who's the head of the Department of Homeland Security, yesterday she announced that she was clawing back payments that FEMA had given. 0.96
00:33:38.000 She wrote, Mark my words, there will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people.
00:33:55.000 And the entire government is being brought to bear behind the idea that they're going to cut the size and scope of the government.
00:33:59.000 All this talk about Musk being a fascist, Trump being a fascist, they're all Nazis.
00:34:03.000 When was the last time you saw a fascist movement that was cutting the size and scope of government?
00:34:07.000 Please name it.
00:34:08.000 Seriously, name it.
00:34:10.000 Attorney General Pam Bondi, fresh off of her confirmation, she says we will use every aspect of law to back what Elon Musk is doing.
00:34:18.000 I haven't seen Elon Musk tweet.
00:34:21.000 He is a friend of mine.
00:34:22.000 He is a great man.
00:34:24.000 I think he's very frustrated with what's happening in our federal government.
00:34:28.000 You know, at USAID. They're giving out billions of dollars, billions of dollars, that should not be distributed.
00:34:38.000 We're going to back him up.
00:34:40.000 You know, we work our whole lives in this country, and we all pay taxes in this country.
00:34:46.000 And for people to find out that $2 million is going to Guatemala for sex changes is outrageous.
00:34:52.000 And we're going to back up Elon Musk every way we can.
00:34:56.000 That includes lawsuits against these people who are doing that, and we will be successful.
00:35:03.000 I mean, again, this is a very aggressive approach, and it's going to be very popular.
00:35:07.000 Americans are going to like this.
00:35:09.000 Democrats are going to cry chaos.
00:35:10.000 We'll get to Democratic reaction in just a minute.
00:35:11.000 But what they are saying when they say that the judges are being overridden and all the rest of this, Americans are not in the business of listening to district court judges who say we have to keep spending wasteful dollars because they say so.
00:35:23.000 This is another point that Pam Bondi was making yesterday. 0.98
00:35:26.000 We have so many unelected judges who are trying to control government spending, and there is a clear separation of powers.
00:35:36.000 You know, they're doing it to Elon Musk, who is a great man and a good friend at Doge.
00:35:41.000 What they're doing to him, to our country, is outrageous.
00:35:47.000 She is right about all of that.
00:35:49.000 By the way, a judge yesterday did, in fact, lift the ban on Trump's buyout offer to federal employees.
00:35:56.000 According to the Washington Post, a judge on Wednesday lifted his pause on the federal government's deferred resignation program, prompting the Trump administration to swiftly declare victory as it closed the offer to any more workers who might still have been mulling it.
00:36:06.000 That program had been halted since last Thursday.
00:36:09.000 But now, the judge said, that the union's lawsuit could not succeed because they lacked standing to sue and because his court lacked jurisdiction.
00:36:16.000 Well, good.
00:36:17.000 So, I mean, I thought that it was evil for Trump to do something.
00:36:20.000 I mean, Trump didn't even, like, continue doing the thing.
00:36:23.000 But...
00:36:23.000 And all these things are going to go to the Supreme Court.
00:36:25.000 And what's amazing is that the left keeps taking legal positions that are pretty much unsustainable on executive power.
00:36:31.000 If Trump were designing in a laboratory some methodology for legally giving the go-ahead and giving the imprimatur of Supreme Court legitimacy to his actions, he's basically doing it.
00:36:42.000 He's doing things that are pretty uncontroversial, actually, under the Constitution.
00:36:46.000 He's being sued.
00:36:47.000 District court judges are ruling against him with these nationwide temporary restraining orders.
00:36:52.000 All that's going to get elevated to the Supreme Court, and in all likelihood, Trump's actions are going to get upheld.
00:36:56.000 That is where we currently stand.
00:36:57.000 In just a second, we'll get to the leftist resistance.
00:36:59.000 They are searching for a methodology of resistance.
00:37:03.000 Singing is one of those methodologies.
00:37:05.000 I'm not even joking with you.
00:37:07.000 First, the best reason to become a Daily Wire Plus member?
00:37:09.000 You're directly supporting the fight.
00:37:10.000 Every dollar goes right back into building a real alternative to the mainstream.
00:37:13.000 More shows, more movies, more investigative journalism.
00:37:16.000 this is how we continue to reshape the culture but here's another reason if you like this show there's more of it waiting for you only daily wire plus members get exclusive content at the end of every episode the show after the show plus live chats and more don't just listen be a part of it download the daily wire plus app or go to dailywire.com slash subscribe and become a member today meanwhile democrats are looking for a way to resist the ongoing trump train it's not going amazing They're...
00:37:43.000 The tip of the spear, in terms of personalities, is, believe it or not, Bernie Sanders, who is 100,000 years old.
00:37:50.000 Bernie Sanders was a colleague of Eugene V. Debs.
00:37:52.000 Bernie Sanders may, in fact, have marched with the original Karl Marx, and yet he is being trotted out as the ideological thought leader of the Democratic Party, because always and forever, the Democrats continue to double down on stupid.
00:38:04.000 Instead of moderating and moving more toward common sense, they have decided that all of the juice is with the far left.
00:38:10.000 And listen, it could work out for them.
00:38:11.000 You could see a world where, for some exogenous reason, the economy goes through a really rough patch and suddenly the entire country swivels and the pendulum swings the other way and suddenly got AOC as president.
00:38:20.000 You could see that because, again, politics is unpredictable.
00:38:23.000 But is it a smart move to put Bernie Sanders at the head of your ideological party?
00:38:29.000 I don't see how.
00:38:30.000 It hasn't really borne tremendous fruit for them, but they continue to do it.
00:38:34.000 According to Politico, Bernie Sanders, the two-time presidential candidate, is barnstorming Iowa and Nebraska to rally voters against what he calls the oligarchy, the kind of high-profile offensive that typically signals a potential run for the White House.
00:38:45.000 In Sanders' case, he's more likely paving the way for someone to follow in his footsteps.
00:38:48.000 Well, is he, though?
00:38:49.000 Is he?
00:38:50.000 I mean, so Bernie Sanders right now is 83 years old.
00:38:54.000 Could he run for president in two years at 85?
00:38:57.000 I mean, be good.
00:38:59.000 Why not?
00:39:01.000 I mean, seriously.
00:39:03.000 He's probably looking at Joe Biden and thinking, I'm a spring chicken next to that guy, and that guy was president.
00:39:08.000 Sanders is supposedly not interested in mounting a third presidential campaign, but he's trying to figure out who would carry the torch in 2028. Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's fame, the ice cream shop, the socialist ice cream shop that is not, in fact, socialist.
00:39:24.000 He says, Elon
00:39:55.000 Musk.
00:39:55.000 When Elon Musk is cutting the size and scope of government, how do you make the case that an oligarchy is running the country on its own behalf when they are literally cutting the amount of funding available to other people?
00:40:07.000 And to themselves, by the way.
00:40:09.000 Elon is a contractor with the federal government.
00:40:11.000 All of his contracts are put under federal scrutiny.
00:40:14.000 He's going to get more scrutiny now than he would have if he'd never involved himself in politics.
00:40:17.000 For sure.
00:40:18.000 By far.
00:40:19.000 Not close.
00:40:21.000 Sanders, apparently, has a more immediate...
00:40:23.000 Target in mind.
00:40:24.000 He's looking to influence the budget fight ruling Congress by traveling to battleground districts as part of his upcoming tour.
00:40:29.000 It'll be fascinating to see who he attempts to tap as a sort of heir apparent.
00:40:33.000 There's been a lot of talk about AOC, which, again, we live in a very stupid timeline, so that is quite possible.
00:40:39.000 Meanwhile, speaking of a stupid timeline, Democrats yesterday came up with their piece de resistance.
00:40:45.000 And it was, in fact, a song.
00:40:47.000 A beautiful, beautiful song sung by members of Congress.
00:40:52.000 Here, yeah.
00:40:54.000 Somehow, somehow, this is worse than Sexy Red.
00:40:57.000 Which side are you on?
00:41:01.000 Which side are you on?
00:41:04.000 We'll fight against Doge.
00:41:07.000 We'll fight Elon Musk.
00:41:10.000 No we let scab within our walls.
00:41:14.000 We'll fight from dawn to dusk.
00:41:17.000 Oh, which side are you on?
00:41:20.000 Which side are you on?
00:41:30.000 Wow, that's beautiful.
00:41:33.000 That's just beautiful.
00:41:35.000 Apparently they were activists at a Save the Civil Service rally because there's nothing that unifies Americans like Save the Civil Service!
00:41:41.000 Save the government employees!
00:41:43.000 Save the people you are paying so they can do trash DEI jobs or file retirement paperwork.
00:41:50.000 In salt mines or something.
00:41:53.000 That is a classic protest song, by the way, which side are you on?
00:41:56.000 But it was adapted to be about Doge and Elon Musk.
00:42:02.000 Oh boy.
00:42:03.000 Oh boy.
00:42:05.000 Is this what you guys got?
00:42:06.000 Really?
00:42:07.000 And they're trotting out all their most popular faces.
00:42:10.000 They got Bernie, and then they've got Randy Weingarten, the super corrupt head of the American Federation of Teachers.
00:42:15.000 They're trying her out to say that she's going to sue everybody in sight because there's nothing Americans love more than career bureaucrats and union leaders who have miseducated our children trying to sue everyone into stopping the train for which they voted. 1.00
00:42:30.000 The irony here is at the same exact time as Elon Musk and his coders have information across basically that affects all Americans, he refuses.
00:42:44.000 To disclose his interests as someone who is a government contractor who gets probably millions if not billions of dollars in his own companies in terms of all of this.
00:42:58.000 So number one is to try to stop the data breach.
00:43:03.000 That's number one.
00:43:04.000 And number two is to try to actually get Congress to do the kind of accountability on all of this.
00:43:11.000 But that's why we're going to the courts to try to get the courts to interpret the law and stop this invasion of privacy.
00:43:22.000 Invasion of privacy.
00:43:23.000 The American Federation of Teachers, which wants to remove your children from you and trans them, they are very deeply concerned about the invasion of privacy if Elon Musk might know your social security number while he's looking to possible cuts.
00:43:35.000 Well, they do have another strategy, which is to just call Elon Musk a dick over and over and over.
00:43:38.000 That's Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, who did that yesterday.
00:43:42.000 Again, Democrats are a little frustrated.
00:43:45.000 Now, I find it ironic, of course, that our chairwoman, Congresswoman Green, is in charge of running this committee.
00:43:50.000 Now, in the last Congress, Chairwoman Green literally showed a dick pic in our oversight congressional hearing. 1.00
00:43:57.000 So I thought I'd bring one as well.
00:44:02.000 Now, this, of course, we know is President Elon Musk.
00:44:06.000 He's also the world's richest man.
00:44:09.000 He was the biggest political donor in the last election.
00:44:12.000 He has billions of dollars in conflicts of interest.
00:44:16.000 Wow.
00:44:20.000 Notice what Democrats are trying to do, and it's not going to work.
00:44:22.000 They just keep saying President Elon Musk over and over and over, hoping that that will somehow see discontent between Trump and Musk.
00:44:28.000 That is not the way this is going.
00:44:30.000 But here's MSNBC trying to do the same thing.
00:44:32.000 They're so desperate to stop Musk that they're trying to...
00:44:34.000 Basically get Trump to fire Musk out of some sort of misplaced egotism.
00:44:38.000 It's not going to happen, guys.
00:44:39.000 That's not how this works.
00:44:41.000 Elon Musk and his co-president Donald Trump have spent the first three weeks of their presidency attempting a full assault on the separated powers of the Constitution.
00:44:50.000 He seems to be acting as Trump's co-commander-in-chief.
00:44:53.000 Elon Musk is acting like a co-president Trump's.
00:44:56.000 You know, billionaire co-president.
00:44:58.000 He's operating as a co-president.
00:45:00.000 He was elected by no one.
00:45:02.000 Elon Musk is his co-president, fielding questions alongside him in the Oval Office.
00:45:08.000 It was striking to see Musk standing, the attention of the room seemingly oriented around him.
00:45:17.000 This is not going to work.
00:45:18.000 Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary, here she was yesterday saying, you know, you guys are being ridiculous with your Musk has the power.
00:45:24.000 He works for the president.
00:45:26.000 Okay, this is somewhat like saying that my producer is the co-host of the Ben Shapiro show.
00:45:30.000 I love my producers, but I'm the host and they're the producer and they work for the show.
00:45:37.000 That's how that works.
00:45:38.000 I mean, I understand that Democrats have never worked in the private sector and so they don't actually understand, presumably, how this actually operates, but here we go.
00:45:48.000 Does Elon Musk have the power of the presidency?
00:45:51.000 Absolutely not.
00:45:52.000 That's a ridiculous question.
00:45:54.000 I asked that question because, you know, the Democrats have been hurling insults at Elon Musk, hurling attacks.
00:45:59.000 Calling him President Musk.
00:46:00.000 Most recently, Jamie Raskin, the congressman, took it a step further, calling for Musk's impeachment, saying that he somehow usurped the power of the presidency.
00:46:09.000 What's your response?
00:46:10.000 It's utterly ridiculous.
00:46:12.000 Elon Musk addressed this in the Oval Office yesterday.
00:46:15.000 The president addressed it as well.
00:46:17.000 Elon Musk is serving at the pleasure of the president.
00:46:20.000 Just like everybody else on this team, he takes directives directly from the president of the United States.
00:46:26.000 Yes, again.
00:46:27.000 If this is the best you guys got, It's going to be a long time in the wilderness for all of y'all.
00:46:31.000 Meanwhile, President Trump continues to move forward.
00:46:33.000 This administration is moving at the speed of light.
00:46:35.000 I mean, they're moving so fast.
00:46:36.000 Yesterday, President Trump vowed to shut down the Department of Education.
00:46:38.000 Again, that has been a promise that has been made since the Reagan administration.
00:46:41.000 As long as I'm alive, and Trump is actually going to do it.
00:46:44.000 He's going to outsource all of the functions of the Department of Education to other departments.
00:46:49.000 And if he doesn't fully shut down the Department of Education because he requires congressional approval to do it, he'll just gut it.
00:46:54.000 That's precisely what he should do.
00:46:56.000 The Department of Education is a giant subsidy machine.
00:46:58.000 For left-wing causes.
00:46:59.000 That's what it is.
00:47:00.000 Here is President Trump.
00:47:02.000 How soon do you want the Department of Education to be closed?
00:47:06.000 Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately.
00:47:08.000 Look, the Department of Education is a big con job.
00:47:12.000 So they rank the top 40 countries in the world.
00:47:14.000 We're ranked number 40th.
00:47:16.000 But we're ranked number one in one department, cost per pupil.
00:47:20.000 So we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world.
00:47:24.000 But we're ranked number 40. We've been between 38 and 40. The last time I looked, it was 38. And then I looked two days ago, it came out the new list.
00:47:32.000 It came out at number 40. So we're ranked 40. Okay, by the way, one of the things that Trump, it's so funny.
00:47:39.000 Democrats, you know, continue to claim that Trump is some sort of idiot.
00:47:44.000 I'd like some evidence of this proposition, please.
00:47:47.000 Really, he goes out there, he talks to the press every single day.
00:47:49.000 He has a fairly solid level of fluency with the issues about which he is speaking.
00:47:54.000 He's not afraid to take the questions.
00:47:55.000 He's not hiding behind his old age the same way that Joe Biden did.
00:48:00.000 You guys are getting run over, and you deserve it.
00:48:03.000 All right, coming up, speaking of getting run over, Pam Bondi is now suing, the Attorney General is now suing the state of New York over illegal immigration.
00:48:10.000 If you're not a member, become a member.
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