In this episode, I talk about the problem with foreign aid and why it's a waste of money, and why we should be focusing on domestic priorities, like Social Security and Medicare, instead of foreign aid. I also talk about some of the reasons why foreign aid is a bad idea, and how we should focus on other areas of the federal government, like taxes, Social Security, and the defense budget, and not foreign aid, which is a good thing. I don't think you're going to get a better use for your money than that, and it's time to cut back on the amount of money wasted on foreign aid in order to make sure our allies are able to do what they need to do to keep us safe and secure, and that we have strong allies who eventually will be able to take care of themselves. I think you'll agree that this's a good idea, but I think there's a lot of people in the Republican Party who are taking the view that foreign aid should be left to the shoulders of the taxpayers, and I think that's wrongheaded and shortsighted, especially if you're a fiscal hawk like myself, who doesn't like spending money on things like welfare and other things that aren't going to help people get off their feet in the long-term, like social security and Medicare and Social Security. I think we're all going to have to start to get back on track with our spending on things that actually helps us get people off our feet and get them off their welfare and off our backs. Tweet me with your thoughts on this week's episode! to let me know what you think of it! and what you would like to see in the future of our foreign aid budget! Timestamps: Tim talks about foreign aid? and how much money we should we be spending on it or should we spend on it? and why you should be spending it on other things, and what it should be prioritized? Tim tries to explain why this should be better, not less of it. Thanks for listening, Tim breaks down the pros and cons of what we should and shouldn't be spent on it, and gives his thoughts on what we can do to make it less of a goodie bag of goodie bags in the first place Tweet us your thoughts about it and gives you the chance to help us all a chance to have a say in the next episode
00:00:00.000Being Speaker of the House with an extraordinarily slim majority is a really tough job.
00:00:05.000What it means is that you have to cut deals because you literally have no other ability to get anything done.
00:00:11.000Because given the fact that right now there is what is called a one-vote motion to vacate rule that is in place in the House of Representatives, that means any one member of the Republican caucus can challenge the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson's job, at literally any given time.
00:00:26.000It also means that if you have a bunch of headline-grabbing people in the Republican caucus who are more interested in going on TV than in actually governing or in maintaining a majority or in growing that majority to actually get big things done, well, that can hold up the works.
00:00:39.000All this is coming to a head because Speaker Mike Johnson has now put forward a series of bills related to foreign aid.
00:00:46.000Now, let me talk about foreign aid for just a second.
00:00:49.000Foreign aid is not the United States being wildly charitable.
00:00:51.000It is not the United States randomly deciding to drop goodie bags in poor parts of the world.
00:00:57.000We're not talking about simply sending food to Somalia or something.
00:01:01.000When it comes to foreign aid, there are always strings attached.
00:01:04.000That's what makes it in America's interest to do these things in the same way that if you are attempting to sponsor a friend in order to accomplish a particular goal, you might lend that friend money or you might give that friend money just to get back on their feet.
00:01:19.000In order to make sure that person remains a friend, an ally, is able to be strong, that is what American foreign aid does.
00:01:25.000And this has historically been the role of American foreign aid.
00:01:27.000Obviously, in the aftermath of World War II, the United States effectively single-handedly rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan.
00:01:33.000Now, one of the things that's been said by a lot of people on the Republican side of the aisle about foreign aid is that all foreign aid is somehow bad.
00:01:39.000All foreign aid is somehow terrible and useless and worse than useless counterproductive because if we're not spending it at home, we shouldn't be spending it at all.
00:01:47.000This is insanely short-sighted because there are two ways in reality that we spend our defense money.
00:01:53.000One is on actual defense, meaning like creating F-35s and F-22s and creating aircraft carriers and submarines.
00:02:00.000The other way that we provide for our national defense is by strengthening our allies.
00:02:04.000And when our allies are not strong, we have to step in and we have to take the lead.
00:02:08.000It turns out that is a lot more expensive.
00:02:10.000Allies who are unable to defend themselves lead to enemies who are able to take advantage of that, thus threatening American interests and forcing American involvement.
00:02:18.000This has happened over and over and over in American history.
00:02:21.000When our allies are not strong enough, the United States ends up Taking a lead role in areas we have no interest in being.
00:02:27.000This is why it is worthwhile for the United States to provide a pittance to many countries.
00:02:31.000And when I say a pittance, I'm not talking in raw terms.
00:02:33.000Yes, some of this is a lot of money in raw terms.
00:02:35.000When you're talking about the federal budget of the United States, let us be clear, foreign aid represents well under 1% of the federal budget nearly every year.
00:02:44.000One of the things that I've been noticing is a lot of the people who I see screaming to the heavens about the cost of foreign aid.
00:02:49.000Oh my God, I can't believe how much this is costing.
00:02:52.000I get the feeling that you have a different set of priorities for many of you.
00:02:55.000There are some people who are consistent libertarians.
00:02:56.000There are some people who say the government shouldn't be spending on social security, and the government shouldn't be spending on disability, and the government shouldn't be spending on welfare, and the government should not be spending on foreign aid.
00:03:05.000That is at least a consistent position.
00:03:07.000I think it's wrongheaded because again, I think that America's foreign policy interests require
00:03:11.000that we have strong allies who eventually will be able to take care of themselves.
00:03:15.000The goal of foreign aid, by the way, should be eventually to get other countries
00:03:18.000off our foreign aid in the same way that the goal of welfare should presumably
00:03:21.000to get people off welfare at a certain point.
00:03:24.000I'm fully in favor of that sort of planning.
00:03:26.000When it comes to emergency foreign aid, that is a bit of a different story.
00:03:28.000However, there are a group of people in the Republican Party
00:03:32.000who are basically taking the view that foreign aid is uniquely a bad spend,
00:03:37.000that that is really where we're wasting taxpayer dollars.
00:03:40.000I don't believe you that this is about fiscal responsibility.
00:03:44.000When you continue to vote in favor of five, six, seven trillion dollar budgets every single year, but here is where you start to pinch the pennies, I start to get a little suspicious.
00:03:54.000It's the equivalent of the husband who goes on a gambling spree, who takes all the money from the savings and blows it on random lotto tickets.
00:04:01.000And then when the wife says, you know, honey, can we go out to dinner tonight?
00:04:06.000And here's where we really got to cut back.
00:04:08.000Well, maybe the reality is that we're spending too much money in many of the wrong places.
00:04:14.000Again, if you're going to break down the federal budget, we currently spend about 22% of our federal budget every year on Social Security, which I've discussed before, is a giant Ponzi scheme.
00:04:23.000It is a Ponzi scheme because it is a defined benefits plan, not a defined contribution plan.
00:04:28.000What you pay in is not, in fact, what you get out.
00:04:30.000For most people, you get out way more from Social Security than you ever paid in.
00:04:34.000Healthcare, which is Medicare, Medicaid, that represents about 26% of the federal budget.
00:04:40.000National defense represents only 13% of the federal budget.
00:04:43.000Net interest on the debt alone, this is according to the Treasury Department, net interest on the debt, right, how much money we're just paying other countries or paying institutions that have bought bonds, represents 11% of our budget every single year.
00:04:55.000So when you tell me that you are deeply worried about the less than 1% that we are talking about spending on foreign aid to allies in wartime, I think that maybe you have a different set of priorities.
00:05:05.000And I've been struggling to figure out exactly what that set of priorities is.
00:05:14.000But there are a lot of people who are perfectly fine with spending literally trillions of dollars on wasteful nonsense.
00:05:20.000Borrowing on the backs of our children and grandchildren on wasteful, counterproductive, economically illiterate nonsense.
00:05:26.000But suddenly, when it comes time to provide the aid necessary to, say, Ukraine so that it doesn't get completely overrun by Russia, Or provide the aid necessary to Israel so as to deter a world war in the Middle East.
00:05:43.000I don't really understand what the motivation is for those who seem to suggest that Russia taking Ukraine is of zero interest to the United States.
00:05:51.000Russia taking Ukraine would be of rather major interest to the United States, not only because Ukraine is the third largest producer of wheat on planet Earth, but also because Ukraine is strategically placed directly on the border between Russia and Europe, which is presumably the reason why Vladimir Putin wants it.
00:06:07.000We'll get to more on this in just one moment.
00:06:08.000First, $20 barely gets you anything these days.
00:06:10.000You can't even fill your gas tank for less than $20.
00:06:14.000Well, from the cell phone company I use, PureTalk, you can get unlimited talk, text, and plenty of 5G data for just $20 a month.
00:06:19.000PureTalk gives you the same quality of service as your current cell phone provider, but for about half the cost.
00:06:24.000The average family saves almost $1,000 a year, all with no contracts and no activation fees.
00:06:28.000You can switch on over to PeerTalk, keep that phone and phone number you currently use, or you can take advantage of their great deals on the latest iPhones and Androids.
00:06:36.000customer service team can help you join PeerTalk in as little as 10 minutes.
00:06:40.000Choose to spend your hard-earned money with a wireless company that actually, you know, shares your values and supports our military and veterans and creates American jobs.
00:07:05.000Here are a couple of maps from the Wall Street Journal, and it shows the danger, the additional danger to Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltic States, if, for example, Russia were to take Ukraine.
00:07:13.000So this first map, is a map by Mitchell Belcher and Noel Mickelson and Thomas Bergeron and a bunch of other people from the Institute for the Study of War.
00:07:21.000And what it shows, for those who can't see, is the placement, the forward placement, of units, Allied units, in places like Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and how those could be redeployed in the case of a Russian invasion along the border of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, From Belarus, from Russia itself.
00:07:40.000And what you see is that because Ukraine's border is far from the borders of, for example, Lithuania and Latvia, it creates a massive problem for the Russian military.
00:07:51.000They would have to worry very deeply about NATO forces being deployed against Russia via Ukraine.
00:07:59.000They would, they would, it would free up American forces and NATO forces and in general allied forces to fight an invasion of NATO allies like Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
00:08:12.000Now, here's what the map looks like if Russia actually takes Ukraine.
00:08:16.000If Russia actually takes Ukraine, suddenly, in order to, for example, defend the borders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, you would have to basically lower the ability to defend places like Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia.
00:08:30.000In other words, Ukraine right now is in fact fighting NATO's war.
00:08:48.000I still am waiting to hear an argument.
00:08:50.000Why is it in America's interest for Russia to take Ukraine?
00:08:54.000I understand the argument that it's in America's interest to be realistic about the end of war goals.
00:08:59.000I've been making that case since basically two months into the war.
00:09:02.000The Henry Kissinger case that is in the interest of the United States to provide enough materiel to Ukraine to realistically defend territory they currently hold And to look for an off-ramp.
00:09:12.000But if that off-ramp is not available, you have to continue funding Ukraine because if there ain't no off-ramp, there ain't no off-ramp.
00:09:18.000Vladimir Putin is recognizing that the West basically does not have the cojones to continue to even sign checks.
00:09:25.000We are not talking about Vietnam levels of commitment of American troops.
00:09:28.000We're talking about a place where America has lost zero troops.
00:09:31.000We don't even have troops on the ground in fighting position in Ukraine.
00:09:36.000And yet somehow people have heartburn about the sending of the money because this is where they choose to cut.
00:09:42.000By the way, I'm noticing a heavy crossover, again, between people who want to spend vast oodles of money on subsidies for various enterprises in the United States and people who are very shy about providing aid to Ukraine.
00:09:53.000So this has all come to a head because, according to the Wall Street Journal, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday he would plunge ahead with a high-stakes vote to move long-stalled funding for Ukraine, Israel, and other overseas allies, elbowing aside criticism from his conservative flank.
00:10:06.000The move sets up an unpredictable weekend showdown that could determine both the fate of the foreign aid package and Johnson's political career.
00:10:12.000Democrats will line up likely behind the aid effort.
00:10:16.000So basically, Johnson's plan is he's going to bring each one of these subjects, Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.
00:10:23.000He's going to bring all of these and a TikTok ban.
00:10:25.000He's going to bring all of these as separate bills, and then he's going to package all of them together because the reality is all of them are going to pass, by the way, with a majority of both parties voting in favor.
00:10:36.000Yes, Johnson will require Democratic support in order to pass that bill.
00:10:40.000Also, a majority of Republicans in the House will vote for that bill.
00:10:44.000Also, there is a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President, which means that if it is a priority, for example, for Ukraine not to simply fall by running out of ammo to the Russians, then you gotta make the deal that you can make.
00:10:57.000This is the point that Johnson has been making.
00:11:01.000He says, we're the greatest nation on earth.
00:11:02.000It's time to act like this is basic Reagan Republicanism.
00:11:04.000I know that Reagan has become a dirty word for some reason, despite the fact that Reagan won the Cold War and led to the greatest peacetime economic expansion in American history.
00:11:11.000Somehow we're supposed to believe that a bunch of clowns riding the back seats of the House of Representatives who have not accomplished anything, literally anything in their entire political career.
00:11:21.000Those people have some really mean words about Ronald Reagan's foreign policy.
00:12:03.000That's true on the Israel aid bill, which includes $9 billion in American taxpayer dollars for the rebuilding of Gaza.
00:12:08.000I have no idea how that's going to get parceled out, considering that the real problem in the Gaza Strip is not really that Hamas is like an ISIS outside party that has hijacked the mechanisms of government.
00:12:19.000It is, in fact, a popular front in the Gaza Strip, and the civilian population largely supports terrorism.
00:12:38.000But the bottom line is that the deal that's on the table is the deal that's on the table.
00:12:42.000You're either up or you're down on it.
00:12:45.000President Joe Biden has now suggested that he would back a package of bills along these lines.
00:12:51.000Now, I know that for a lot of people on the right, that's enough to say no.
00:12:53.000That anything Joe Biden says yes to, that's enough to say no.
00:12:57.000But in reality, doing nothing can sometimes be a worse solution than doing the bipartisan thing.
00:13:03.000There are a few people in politics more partisan than I, but the reality is that there are still commonalities of interest.
00:13:09.000So, for example, When it came to banning the use of TikTok in the United States so long as ByteDance was not sold to an American company, a lot of Democrats supported that.
00:13:19.000Just because Democrats supported that didn't mean that it was a bad bill.
00:13:21.000It was, in fact, a good bill, and I am glad Republicans voted in favor of it.
00:13:37.000And that is why Johnson is right to move the bill again.
00:13:40.000A majority of Republicans are going to vote for this.
00:13:43.000In the swing districts, if you want Republicans to win a broader majority and then actually make the serious kinds of cuts to government that are necessary, you need to win Congress by more than like three votes.
00:13:52.000In order for that to happen, you have to win purple districts.
00:13:54.000You know what's relatively popular in purple districts?
00:13:57.000This foreign aid bill by every available polling metric.
00:14:00.000We'll get to more on this in a moment.
00:14:01.000First, I gotta tell you guys about an incredible invention.
00:14:03.000So, my team recently introduced me to the PodCover by 8sleep.
00:14:06.000It's a super high-tech solution to managing your temperature while you sleep.
00:14:42.000I'm telling you guys, it's the future of sleep.
00:14:44.000Gone are the nights of tossing and turning, or getting up in the middle of the night to adjust the thermostat, which was a regular feature of my evenings.
00:14:49.000Reclaim your sleep by going to 8sleep.com slash Shapiro.
00:14:52.000Get 200 bucks off, plus free shipping on the pod cover.
00:15:40.000According to Biden, if Congress passes military aid for Ukraine and Israel, we won't write blank checks.
00:15:44.000We'd send military equipment from our own stockpiles, then use money authorized by Congress to replenish those stockpiles by buying from American suppliers.
00:15:51.000That includes Patriot missiles made in Arizona, Javelin missiles made in Alabama, artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas.
00:15:58.000When it comes to this foreign aid, it is not as though the United States simply signs a check to Ukraine or Israel and the money just disappears.
00:16:04.000Usually, it is given in the form of a usable credit against America's defense industry.
00:16:09.000It means that the United States tends to sell its older tech to these various countries and then replenish its stockpiles with newer tech.
00:16:44.000What's the actual argument against this?
00:16:46.000Not against the supposed perfection of the bills.
00:16:49.000Again, I can name half a dozen problems with each one of these aid bills.
00:16:54.000Again, with regard to the Israel bill, the big problem, obviously, is slating out $9 billion for quote-unquote humanitarian aid in Gaza when billions of dollars in humanitarian aid have historically gone to build terror tunnels and rockets.
00:17:05.000When it comes to the Ukraine bill, Making sure there is full transparency on the spending of that aid so that it doesn't go into some corrupt oligarch's pocket.
00:17:14.000I'm not sure what kind of guarantees are in the bills.
00:17:17.000There are serious problems with these bills.
00:17:19.000But the argument against these bills has typically not been on the margins.
00:17:22.000It hasn't been, let's make an amendment that actually ensures that these things don't happen.
00:17:29.000What's the I'm against all of it argument?
00:17:31.000The only argument that I've heard, the I'm against all of it, is either totally clownish, or as I say, the libertarian argument, which does not obtain for the vast majority of people in Congress who are voting for budget bills every single day.
00:17:45.000For example, when you talk about the clownish, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she is one of the people, she's the one who launched this supposed motion to vacate, and I say supposed because it hasn't really materialized yet, this motion to vacate against Speaker Johnson.
00:17:58.000Marjorie Taylor Greene put forward an amendment to the Ukraine aid bill.
00:18:04.000When I say this is clowns who are attempting to gain attention, Marjorie Taylor Greene is like Exhibit A in this particular category.
00:18:11.000The Congresswoman from Georgia proposed amendments to the foreign aid bills for Ukraine and Israel.
00:18:18.000One of the amendments says that quote, any member of Congress who votes in favor of this act shall be required to conscript in the Ukrainian military.
00:18:30.000Required to conscript in the Ukrainian military.
00:18:33.000First of all, one of the arguments that I keep hearing that is just nonsensical is this idea that how can we sponsor Ukraine in conscripting people and sending them to the front lines as battle fodder?
00:18:45.000I mean, Vladimir Putin is doing that right now with his own people and it turns out that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly in favor of defending their country by every available metric.
00:18:55.000But Marjorie Taylor Greene doing this ridiculous, you have to join the Ukrainian military in order to want Ukraine to stand up to Russia.
00:19:06.000It's an emotional appeal of absolute stupidity.
00:19:09.000By the way, Two other amendments introduced by agreeing to the Ukraine bill are to force Ukraine to close all of its bio-laboratories before it receives any more money.
00:19:18.000Okay, there's been this myth that's going around that somehow Ukraine has a series of bio-laboratories that are creating bio-weapons for unleashing in Russia.
00:19:26.000The evidence to this has been scanty at best.
00:19:29.000And for a report to be carried out before any more funding is sent to prove that, quote, Christian churches in Ukraine are able to operate free from government interference.
00:19:36.000Okay, this particular line of nonsense has been that because Ukraine has cracked down on the Russian Orthodox Church, which is a tool of the Russian state inside Ukraine, that somehow this amounts to cracking down on Christians more broadly.
00:19:50.000Russia cracks down on Seventh-day Adventists.
00:19:54.000There's a bunch of specious arguments masquerading as a policy, and it's not a policy.
00:20:01.000It's basically just oppositionality for cliques.
00:20:04.000Here are some of the Republicans who said that they will not support the aid bills.
00:20:06.000Again, some of the reasons may be good, like we spend too much money on everything, including this.
00:20:11.000And some of the reasons are just garbage.
00:20:14.000Bet for hours last night and proposed different paths for the speaker that would have avoided the abject surrender represented by his strategic choice here.
00:20:37.000I think the strategy is to fall on a sword.
00:20:41.000Now, the reality is that what you hear one of those Congress people from Arizona saying, that the base doesn't like the Ukraine aid, that's true.
00:20:47.000By polling statistics, Republicans right now, about 57% of Republicans, according to Gallup, say that the United States is doing too much for Ukraine.
00:20:55.000However, that is because of the drumbeat that suggests that there will be no ill consequences if the United States does not actually provide additional aid to Ukraine.
00:23:47.000But Massey says that he should announce his resignation and that will give people time to find a replacement.
00:23:51.000Or maybe he doesn't have to because you know what you're going to do the next time you don't like something that the Speaker does, which you will because your name is Thomas Massey and you oppose all these things.
00:23:58.000Again, Thomas Massey, I will say this for Massey, Massey is a consistent libertarian.
00:24:49.000Number one, he's just not equipped for this job.
00:24:53.000Every negotiation he's gone into with Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, he's received nothing in exchange.
00:25:00.000He's either not good at negotiating or he's negotiating for their side.
00:25:06.000He's done an omnibus that broke Nancy Pelosi's spending records.
00:25:10.000He reauthorized FISA without warrants.
00:25:13.000Now he's going for the trifecta to pass the Ukraine spending without doing anything to enforce our border.
00:25:22.000That will be three strikes in addition to just the poor management of the House here, the House of Representatives.
00:25:29.000Okay, the Republicans, by the way, it should be mentioned here, on the border security part of the foreign aid package, they had additional border security in a Senate bill.
00:25:41.000And so Republicans stripped that out, saying that Joe Biden already has the authority to take many of the actions necessary to secure the border.
00:26:04.000One of the signal errors that people make when it comes to politics is the assumption that people who oppose you have no agency.
00:26:10.000That people on the other side of the aisle somehow don't exist.
00:26:13.000It's a wild assumption when it comes to politics, both foreign and domestic.
00:26:17.000On the foreign policy level, you'll see people when it comes to foreign policy, well, America didn't do that, then the other side wouldn't act like they are.
00:26:25.000Maybe they have their own independent interests.
00:26:27.000Maybe it turns out that Vladimir Putin had an interest in taking the Donbass and Crimea, regardless as to what sort of confusing things were being said about NATO.
00:26:38.000Maybe it turns out, for example, that Iran wants to destroy Israel regardless as to whether Israel goes into Rafah or not.
00:26:44.000Maybe it turns out that there are plenty of people on Earth who all have free will and all have their own interests, including Democrats, who are going to be on the other side of the table of a negotiation in which they hold the Senate and the presidency.
00:26:56.000But, you know, it's fun to pretend that you're the only person on Earth, and especially when you're on an island like some of these legislators, meaning just doing what you want to do without any real impact on the world.
00:27:12.000The problem is when you're holding up another 210 members of Congress out of some sort of peculiar ire against Mike Johnson, the most conservative Speaker of the House by every available metric in the history of the United States, somehow it just doesn't wash.
00:27:29.000All the incentive structures for Congress are off.
00:27:32.000The only way to rectify this problem is for Mike Johnson to stop giving in to the people on the fringe, which is what he is doing by pushing forward these bills, all of which will pass with a majority of Republican support, including the Ukraine aid bill in the House.
00:27:46.000My prediction is the Ukraine aid bill in the House will pass with a majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans.
00:27:51.000The Israel aid bill will pass with a majority of Republicans and, I would think, a majority of Democrats.
00:27:57.000The Taiwan aid bill will pass with a majority of both parties.
00:28:02.000When you're talking about a bipartisan bill and it gets a majority of both parties, that's kind of the definition of the thing.
00:28:07.000And again, I know bipartisanship has become a dirty word because anything the other side likes must be terrible.
00:28:11.000That also happens to be the nature of any negotiated settlement.
00:28:14.000Everyone walks away from the table unhappy.
00:28:17.000That's just the way negotiations happen.
00:28:19.000There's never been a negotiation that was successful in which both parties walk away happier than they were with their original positions.
00:28:31.000With BetOnline, it can be a lot of fun.
00:28:32.000You can wager on real-world political events, like the outcome of the presidential election, or whether Hunter Biden is actually going to serve jail time before 2025, or will Joe Biden complete his first term in office.
00:29:28.000Place your bets today and use promo code Ben for a 50% instant deposit bonus of up to $1,000.
00:29:33.000Again, this is all about making the House unworkable, which means, again, there are a lot of Republicans who like being in the minority.
00:29:37.000They want Hakeem Jeffries to be Speaker.
00:29:39.000That's really what they want at this point.
00:29:40.000I don't see any other logic to challenging Johnson.
00:29:43.000Which is why, after these foreign aid bills are done, Johnson needs to nuke this idiotic rule.
00:29:47.000I've been urging him to do it for weeks on the air.
00:29:50.000He needs to nuke this idiotic rule that one member of Congress can hold up the entire works of government.
00:29:56.000Out of some peculiar ire at the Speaker of the House.
00:29:59.000Here is GOP Representative Kelly Armstrong correctly summing up who the hell wants this job.
00:30:05.000Well, I'm standing with the Speaker because I actually consider him a friend, and I think he is trying to do the toughest job in politics, and I think, given all the circumstances, he's doing it very admirably.
00:30:16.000My recommendation to any of my colleagues that are thinking about doing this is go back to October, where we have 13 weeks, where we go through all of this.
00:30:24.000Now we're walking into an election cycle.
00:30:26.000We have tremendous things that we can campaign on.
00:30:45.000Maybe the idea is only Democrats want the job.
00:30:46.000So, if that's the case, pack up your bags and go home.
00:30:49.000Because you screaming from the opposition benches does nothing to actually advance the agenda.
00:30:54.000And meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to dotter around saying idiotic things.
00:30:59.000So Iran is threatening more retaliation against Israel should Israel take action after it openly declared war on Israel.
00:31:05.000Iran literally fired 350 drones, missiles against Israel, and Israel has not yet responded.
00:31:11.000Not only that, over the course of the last 48 hours, Hezbollah, which is an Iranian proxy, fired a suicide drone into an area of Northern Israel, wounding 14 people and killing four.
00:31:29.000One of the reasons they've not done this is because it seems that there's been a deal with the United States to postpone any sort of strike against Iran directly, at the behest of the United States and the EU, so long as Israel gets to clean up in Rafah and finish the job in Rafah.
00:31:42.000Now, Joe Biden is not going to say that out loud, because Joe Biden still wants to cater to the anti-Semites in his base, the pro-Hamasniks in his base.
00:32:51.000Just another reason, by the way, why the United States should actually signal its support for its allies with things like foreign aid.
00:32:56.000It's the only thing the legislature can do.
00:32:58.000The president has plenary power over foreign policy, but the legislature does get to declare what its priorities are in terms of, say, funding American allies so that those allies are strong.
00:33:10.000Once the aid goes through to Israel, Israel will have the wherewithal to take action independent of Joe Biden, which will be good for the United States because Joe Biden's foreign policy is trash.
00:33:21.000And the same thing is true in Ukraine, where Joe Biden slow walks the aid to Ukraine such that all of the battle lines got frozen.
00:33:27.000One of the ways of ending around Joe Biden's foreign policy is by making sure that America's allies have weaponry so that they can act on their own.
00:33:34.000Because Joe Biden is such a bad foreign policy president that it turns out that America's allies are doing a better job of assuring American interests than Joe Biden is.
00:34:17.000It's been completely transformed with a precision trimmer and enhanced comfort thanks to the improved lubrication strip.
00:34:22.000Experience an exceptionally smooth and close shave with added durability to withstand those accidental drops.
00:34:27.000If shaving feels more like a chore, meet the brand new Sprint 3 with open blade geometry for a swift clean shave, allowing you to get back to your manly pursuits in no time at all.
00:34:44.000Now, progressive antisemitism is built on a conspiracy theory, as all antisemitism is.
00:34:49.000Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory about Jews.
00:34:52.000It's different from other forms of racism because of the way in which it manifests.
00:34:56.000So because Jews are both an ethnicity as well as a religion, antisemitism is a theory about those who hold the religion and people of Jewish ethnicity, depending on the manifestation.
00:35:07.000And it basically says, unlike other forms of racism, which declare that a group of people is lesser, If you are racist against blacks, it's because you believe they are inferior.
00:35:15.000Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory about Jews that they are coordinating in control of power in various industries and thus in charge of systems.
00:35:24.000And because they're in charge of those systems, those systems are designed for their own benefit and they're harming other people.
00:35:28.000It's why antisemitism is incredibly virulent because, as it turns out, people who are powerless very frequently hate the system.
00:35:35.000And if they see a disproportionate number of Jews who are doing well in the system.
00:35:39.000They then blame the Jews, and they claim that the Jews have rigged the system for their own benefit.
00:35:44.000Also, it's really virulent because if you believe that people are actually controlling the system that harms you, that justifies violence against them.
00:35:51.000Which is why anti-Semitism has tended to be incredibly violent over the long history of anti-Semitism.
00:35:57.000So when it comes to progressive antisemitism, it does cross paths with the DEI mentality.
00:36:02.000The DEI mentality is that if there is inequality in group outcome, it must be because of injustice in the system.
00:36:08.000Therefore, groups that are disproportionately successful in the system are beneficiaries of the system and The designers of the system.
00:36:16.000That is the case for progressive anti-Semitism.
00:36:18.000And it's why you see people like Queers for Palestine, people who hate the system.
00:36:42.000That is where progressive antisemitism comes from.
00:36:45.000It drinks from the same exact well as the sort of Marxist conspiracy theory about power, which is why Karl Marx was the world's most notorious example of a self-hating Jew.
00:36:54.000He was ethnically Jewish, but really, really hated Jews, like a lot, and wrote full essays on it.
00:37:00.000And so progressive antisemitism has come to the forefront.
00:37:04.000A protest in New York City on April 15th, just a few days ago.
00:38:15.000So we're wearing a keffiyeh and a Hamas headband.
00:38:16.000Again, I'm not sure where you get the shahada, which is the Hamas headband, which pledges martyrdom, or why you would be in the United States wearing it, but it seems to me that that's kind of a threat to the United States.
00:39:51.000I don't condemn how people choose to express their rage verbally.
00:39:55.000I don't condemn that because at the end of the day, the reason they're saying that is because the US is sending the tax dollars and the weapons that are actually creating death to Gaza.
00:40:03.000So do you support them chanting death to America?
00:40:06.000I don't chant that myself, so I don't know why you're trying to trap me in this type of argument.
00:40:10.000I'm asking you to condemn it, you don't want to.
00:40:15.000Okay, well there's a reason she doesn't condemn it, because she's fine with it.
00:40:18.000It's just a phrase people use, you know, because they're mad.
00:41:16.000By the way, it should be in every Republican campaign ad against these people.
00:41:19.000And if Republicans had their heads out of their asses and weren't too busy shooting each other, they might, you know, direct their fire at the progressives in the Democratic caucus who are well respected and treated with the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
00:41:32.000Who literally cannot condemn people burning the American flag.
00:41:35.000It turns out the American people don't like that very much.
00:41:37.000Meanwhile, the Columbia president was at a hearing on the Hill.
00:42:46.000Okay, so the Columbia president is trying to wiggle out of the fact that Columbia has been extraordinarily tolerant toward anti-Semitism, but it seems like maybe the worm is beginning to turn a little bit here.
00:42:54.000It turns out that even mainstream leftists are beginning to realize that the pro-Hamas people may be not their best political friends.
00:43:08.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has now fired 28 employees who protested this week against the tech giant's cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.
00:43:15.000In a company-wide email, Vice President for Global Security Chris Rackow said that Google dismissed the employees after an investigation found they were involved in the protests at the company's offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.
00:43:25.000The protests were unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened, Rackow said.
00:43:29.000The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing.
00:43:31.000If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again.
00:43:36.000Well, good for Google, because this is the way companies ought to work.
00:45:48.000We're following breaking news in the Senate where the Senators are just wrapping up their vote to end the impeachment trial of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
00:46:00.000Democrats voted against both measures and they are moving on to new business.
00:46:07.000Okay, so they voted it down with only Democratic votes.
00:46:10.000There were no Republicans who voted in favor of getting rid of the impeachment without even so much as a hearing.
00:46:16.000Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, he said what he has said before about Democrats violating precedent, which is this is going to come back and bite you.
00:46:25.000Madam President, we've set a very unfortunate precedent here.
00:46:28.000This means that the Senate can ignore, in effect, the House's impeachment.
00:46:37.000It doesn't make any difference whether our friends on the other side thought he should have been impeached or not.
00:47:09.000As long as the party of the president and of the Senate majority are the same, every single impeachment that is brought by the opposition party in the House, for example, or brought even by a bipartisan majority in the House, will immediately be summarily rejected.
00:47:24.000Without any necessity for actually hearing evidence or doing a trial or anything remotely like that.
00:47:29.000So, once again, Democrats, they're taking the short-term win at the expense of what is going to be a long-term failure on their part.
00:47:36.000If Donald Trump is elected again, Democrats will try to bring an impeachment forthwith, and he'll just get killed in the Senate, like, immediately.
00:47:42.000Without any sort of serious consideration at all, no matter what Donald Trump does at this point.
00:47:47.000That is the way impeachment is likely going to work from here on out.
00:47:49.000Meanwhile, Joe Biden focusing in on the issues that really matter.
00:47:53.000So yesterday, Joe Biden has a habit of telling weird stories.
00:47:57.000So here was a weird story that Joe Biden told.
00:48:16.000He'll be talking about, I remember one time I was hunting in the woods and I saw a wascally rabbit and I tried to hunt that wascally rabbit but suddenly the wascally rabbit was dressed as a very attractive female and I wanted to marry but it was all a trick.
00:48:36.000And so he told a weird story about his uncle.
00:48:38.000Ambrose Finnegan, we called him Uncle Bozy, he was shot down.
00:48:44.000He was in the Army Air Corps before there was an Air Force.
00:48:48.000He flew single-engine planes, reconnaissance flights over New Guinea.
00:48:53.000He volunteered because someone couldn't make it.
00:48:56.000He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals.
00:49:03.000So there he was, telling a story about his uncle getting eaten by cannibals or something.
00:49:23.000By the way, how did he tie that into what's happening?
00:49:25.000He then said, what I was thinking about when I was standing there was when Trump refused to go up to the memorial for veterans in Paris and he said there were a bunch of suckers and losers.
00:49:32.000Okay, again, that is a completely unsubstantiated story from Democratic Party stenographer Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic.
00:49:38.000But I love that he somehow is able always to tie it into a family story that is usually false.
00:49:44.000Right, usually it's like somebody dies in a terrible incident in Afghanistan.
00:50:33.000This is a thing that Donald Trump is very good at.
00:50:35.000Many of his best moves, politically, lately, have been going to places and then just meeting with regular people, which is a thing that Joe Biden looks really awkward with because, like every other octogenarian who is losing it, he doesn't know where he is.
00:50:50.000And he goes to eat ice cream and they're like, and he doesn't even know where he is or what's happening.
00:51:03.000Of course, the former president, unable to hit the campaign trail because of that trial, go to key battleground states, so he's using what's available right here in Manhattan.
00:51:15.000This is the moment Mr. Trump arrived tonight.
00:51:17.000People lined up along 139th and Broadway, some of them cheering, others heckling the former president as he made his way inside the Hamilton Heights bodega to meet with Jose Alba.
00:51:28.000Alba is the bodega worker who fatally stabbed the man in July of 2022 in a case of self-defense.
00:51:34.000I think it's good for the community to see that he's showing up, you know, and I've never seen Trump come to like a community like this, so it shows a lot and I appreciate him doing that and showing the community that he's there to make things better.
00:51:49.000He's only here for the campaign and everything else.
00:51:52.000When the incident actually happened, he was nowhere to be found.