Ben Shapiro reacts to the news that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan. He also talks about how the Chinese are getting closer to our borders, and why Beyonc should have changed her lyrics to protest the political correctness of some lyrics. Ben Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show on Fox News Radio and host of the conservative podcast The Weekly Standard and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, CBS, NBC, and other media outlets. He is also a frequent contributor to The Daily Wire and the Weekly Standard, and is one of the most influential people in the conservative media. Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's new book, "The Devil Next Door," out now. It's available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover, and Audio Book format. If you don't already have a Kindle device, you can get a free eReader edition of the book for free on amazon.co.uk for just $19.99. Kindle $9.99, or buy it for 99.99 at amazon for $99.99 for a year, including shipping and handling fees, free shipping, and a limited edition hardcover edition for $29.99 plus shipping at $99, plus free shipping on most other third-party shipping worldwide, including Apple and Vimeo worldwide. The Kindle Fire, Audible, and Audible.com for Kindle Fire HDX, Firesticks, Firecracker, Firestone, and Kindle, for which you get an additional 49 pages for free. .99, and also includes an Audible Firesticks and iBook for 49 bucks. $99 gets you an extra copy of the Firestone Firestone 49ers 4GBs, $49.99 and Kindle 49ers for 49ers 49ers and Kindle Fire 4,99, $99 Plusons 4 GBs, and $49 Plusons 3, plus Audible 4GB for 4GB, and the Audible 3R3 Pro, 4GB 4GBR4 Pro, and 4Q Pro, for $49, and Caffiano 4S3 Prostor 4S4S3S3R4S4R3R3S4C3S2S3C3R2R3C1A3S1A, and Aptiv 4S2C1B3R1S3A3A, for shipping and P&S 3S4A, plus shipping & P&R for shipping & shipping.
00:02:31.000He was his number two man and his deputy at the time the terrorists attacked 9-11.
00:02:34.000He was deeply involved in the planning of 9-11.
00:02:40.000Well, Joe Biden is very reliant on this particular story to shield him from criticism over Afghanistan.
00:02:53.000You'll notice that one of the things that he is focused very in on is the idea that No matter that the United States actually does not have assets on the ground in Afghanistan, somehow we'll still be able to combat the terror threat in Afghanistan.
00:03:03.000According to the New York Times, American intelligence agencies tracked down al-Zawahiri in Kabul earlier this year and spent months determining it really was him hiding out in a house in a crowded section of the Afghan capital.
00:03:13.000By hiding out, we mean kinda living in the open, apparently.
00:03:17.000A reminder, by the way, that the American military is unbelievably good at its job.
00:03:20.000to help fire missiles and killed Oswald Wachry on a balcony of the house without killing anyone else, including members of his family or any nearby civilians, according to American officials.
00:03:27.000A reminder, by the way, that the American military is unbelievably good at its job.
00:03:31.000That when the American military decides to take you out, they will take you out without killing anyone else while you stand on a balcony at 618 in the morning.
00:03:39.000That is pretty impressive stuff there from the American military.
00:03:41.000It's also a reminder that when you watch the sort of carnage that you're seeing in Ukraine, for example, the reason is that the Russian military is supremely unsophisticated by American military standards.
00:03:50.000America's wars are, by contrast to wars by less sophisticated military nations like Russia, extraordinarily clean.
00:03:57.000The death of one of America's most vocal enemies, according to the New York Times, after a long and maddening search, was a major victory for Biden at a time of domestic political trouble.
00:04:06.000But, and here's the big but, it raised an immediate question about the terrorist leader's presence in Afghanistan a year after Biden withdrew all American forces, clearing the way for the Taliban to recapture control of the country.
00:04:16.000Al-Zawahiri moved back to Afghanistan earlier this year, evidently believing that he would be safe there, according to officials.
00:04:22.000So one of the premises of America moving out of Afghanistan was one, the Afghan military would not actually collapse, which of course it promptly did.
00:04:30.000And two, Joe Biden said repeatedly that al Qaeda had been routed from Afghanistan and would not come back.
00:04:35.000This was always extraordinarily doubtful, given the fact that I believe the second-ranking member of the Taliban was a man who is responsible for the so-called Haqqani Network, which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.
00:04:45.000The Taliban is, in fact, a terror-associated radical Muslim extremist group.
00:04:50.000And Joe Biden handed over control of the country to these 8th century barbarians for no reason other than his own arrogance and stupidity.
00:04:57.000At the time, Joe Biden said, as he withdrew, as the United States withdrew in ignominious defeat in Afghanistan, as Joe Biden suggested that the Afghan military would not collapse, as he suggested that there would be no evacuation from the top of the U.S.
00:05:15.000Where 13 American service members were murdered by terrorists in an attack that may have well been coordinated with the Taliban in advance.
00:05:27.000At the time, Joe Biden came out and he said, well, the reason we're doing this is because we achieved our objectives in Afghanistan.
00:05:32.000One, we got bin Laden, and two, we were able to root out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and so the terror threat is done.
00:05:38.000Well, if the terror threat is done, then why is the active leader of al-Qaeda living directly in the capital of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?
00:05:53.000Well, if they are our new friends, then why exactly is it that this guy was droned in a house that was likely owned by a senior person in the Taliban government?
00:06:02.000It turns out that everything that Biden's critics said was correct, and the fact that our military is really good at what it does is not a justification for really bad international policy.
00:06:12.000Droning an Al Qaeda leader every once in a while is not going to be the end of the story with regard to terrorism.
00:06:17.000And the notion that it takes us six months to figure out that Zawahiri is actually in Kabul when five minutes ago Kabul was controlled by an allied to America government is pretty astonishing.
00:06:32.000Here is Biden circa July of 2021 talking about how Al Qaeda had been routed from Afghanistan.
00:06:40.000The United States did what we want to do in Afghanistan, to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 and deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States.
00:07:14.000An American official, according to the New York Times, called al-Zawahiri's presence a clear violation of the agreement with the Taliban, but it was not evident what action, if any, Biden would take against the Taliban as a result.
00:07:23.000Biden is just going to declare victory, and then he is going to continue to ignore the fact that the Taliban run the country as al-Qaeda grows in power.
00:07:29.000In his short address delivered on a White House balcony with monuments behind him, the president vowed not to permit another sanctuary for terrorism.
00:07:36.000And here he is talking about how he's not going to allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven.
00:07:41.000And I made a promise to the American people that we continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond.
00:07:52.000In February, our forces conducted a daring mission in Syria that eliminated the Emir of ISIS.
00:07:58.000Last month, We took out another key ISIS leader.
00:08:02.000Now we have eliminated the Emir of Al-Qaeda.
00:08:06.000He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we're gonna make sure that nothing else happens.
00:08:20.000Not only have you allowed this to become a terrorist safe haven, an occasional drone strike does not alleviate the problem.
00:08:27.000Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on the House Foreign Affairs Committee correctly said that the strike serves as a reminder to the American people that they were lied to by President Biden.
00:08:34.000Al Qaeda's not gone from Afghanistan, as Biden falsely claimed a year ago.
00:08:40.000Often seen sitting by bin Laden's side with his gray beard and fierce skeleton, Al-Zarraqi, 71, never achieved the same global notoriety as the terrorist mastermind, but was widely considered the intellectual force behind Al Qaeda.
00:08:51.000The CIA missiles hit the house in Kabul's Sherpur area, a wealthy downtown enclave within what is considered the city's diplomatic quarters, which once housed dozens of Western embassies and now is home to some high-ranking Taliban officials.
00:09:01.000So basically, this guy was just hanging out with, like, the top leaders of the Taliban government, and it took us six months to find out and to drone him.
00:09:07.000So clearly things are going incredibly well.
00:09:10.000on Saturday East Coast time, or 6.18 on Sunday in Kabul time.
00:09:15.000After the strike, members of the Haqqani Network, a terrorist group that is part of the Taliban government, tried to conceal that Zawahiri had ever been at the house and restrict access to the site, according to a senior administration official.
00:09:25.000had multiple intelligence threads confirming that Zawahiri was killed in the strike.
00:09:29.000The Taliban repeatedly have said that they are adhering to the Doha Agreement, not allowing Afghanistan to become a base for attacks on other countries.
00:09:34.000But analysts and experts have warned that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Tariq-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, have found refuge in the country since the takeover.
00:09:43.000That, of course, is absolutely obvious.
00:09:45.000I mean, this is the equivalent for these purposes.
00:09:50.000Osama bin Laden shows up not in some backward part of Afghanistan, but Osama bin Laden shows up directly in Kabul, okay?
00:09:58.000Because, effectively, this guy was bin Laden.
00:10:01.000So, showing up directly in Kabul would be a pretty good indicator that maybe al-Qaida's back in the country now.
00:10:06.000Pakistani officials have warned that cross-border attacks launched by the Pakistani Taliban from Afghanistan surged after the Western-backed government in Afghanistan collapsed.
00:10:14.000Between last August and the end of April, the Pakistani Taliban carried out 82 attacks in Pakistan, more than double the number over the same period the previous year.
00:10:21.000And this spring, a UN report warned al-Qaeda had found increased freedom of action in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power.
00:10:26.000Again, you have to be willfully blind to pretend that the United States, with no boots on the ground in Afghanistan, is going to have similar control over terrorist areas in Afghanistan As we did a year and a half ago.
00:10:39.000That UN report noted a number of al-Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul, and the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahiri suggested he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.
00:10:49.000Al-Zawahiri was thought to have been living in Pakistan for long periods of time.
00:10:53.000But again, apparently, earlier this year, American intelligence sources learned that al-Zawahiri's wife, daughter, and grandchildren had relocated to a house directly in Kabul.
00:11:01.000A senior administration official told reporters the official said the family had exercised long-standing terrorist tradecraft that was intended to prevent anyone from following them.
00:11:08.000Still, American intelligence agencies grew increasingly confident al-Zawahiri was at the house as well.
00:11:13.000Intelligence officials used different sources and methods to build a so-called pattern of life that confirmed his presence.
00:11:18.000Once al-Zawahiri arrived at the location, American officials were never aware of him leaving.
00:11:22.000He was observed for sustained periods on the balcony where he was ultimately struck.
00:11:26.000So Joe Biden is being very triumphal about all of this, but what it actually demonstrates is that everything he said about the pullout from Afghanistan was a lie.
00:11:35.000It is not that the United States can strike whenever and wherever it pleases.
00:11:38.000It means that we can pull off a sort of spectacular one-off strike like this.
00:11:42.000But it does not mean that the United States has any sort of control over this territory in terms of Al Qaeda.
00:11:47.000When the leader of Al Qaeda shows up directly in the place Joe Biden said he would not be, because remember, the Afghan military was never supposed to collapse.
00:11:53.000And number two, when it did collapse, the Taliban were supposed to be our friends working with us.
00:11:56.000And now it turns out this guy was basically hobnobbing with the leaders of the Taliban government Joe Biden surrendered to.
00:12:02.000The fact that we killed Osama bin Laden is a wonderful thing for the United States.
00:12:05.000It also happens to be a band-aid over a gaping flesh wound that exists in Afghanistan at this point.
00:12:10.000And that is entirely the fault of Joe Biden, the President of the United States.
00:12:14.000So the media are going to try and again, paint this as some sort of major victory for Joe Biden.
00:12:22.000I've always been very skeptical of the idea that, for example, the killing of Osama bin Laden was a quote-unquote gutsy call.
00:12:27.000It is maybe the most obvious call in American foreign policy history.
00:12:30.000You have the guy who literally murdered 3,000 American citizens on 9-11.
00:12:34.000You have to send in some SEALs to kill him.
00:12:36.000And Barack Obama delayed for four days about making the call, but...
00:12:40.000The people who really deserve the credit here, not Joe Biden, the people who deserve the credit are the CIA, the American military, the people doing the on-the-ground work to make sure that we can take out terrorists like this, but to pretend that this is a justification of America's quote-unquote over-the-horizon capacity, which is what Joe Biden and company always talked about, Ben Rhodes always talked about, the former national security advisor for Barack Obama, that suddenly we can strike anywhere at any time.
00:13:01.000Well, it took us six months to find this guy, and he was living directly in the middle of Kabul.
00:13:07.000And his allies are in the Taliban government, like, right now.
00:13:11.000So just another... It's a victory for the United States that underscores a major loss for the United States.
00:13:17.000It is, shall we say, a temporary reprieve from the realities of everyday foreign policy in which this administration routinely surrenders to America's enemies.
00:13:25.000Well, it is certainly good news that Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead.
00:13:29.000I have some other good news for you on the more personal front.
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00:14:06.000So you should do it, not only because you're doing a good thing, but also because the meat is unbelievably good.
00:14:44.000Now, meanwhile, chaos is breaking out over Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
00:14:48.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Nancy Pelosi says that she is going to visit Taiwan and meet with government officials this week to find warnings from Beijing not to do so and setting up the potential for increased tensions between the United States and China.
00:15:00.000People that Pelosi is planning to see in Taiwan have been informed of her imminent arrival.
00:15:03.000A person familiar with the matter said, though some details remain in flux, some meetings are scheduled for Tuesday evening, most are set for Wednesday, the person said, indicating they include Taiwanese government officials.
00:15:12.000She's definitely coming, the person said.
00:15:14.000The only variable is whether she spends the night in Taipei.
00:15:17.000A visit by Pelosi would make her the first House speaker to do so in 25 years and put her in the center of a long-standing flashpoint in U.S.-China relations, U.S.
00:15:26.000A now democratically governed island, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory.
00:15:29.000Joe Biden has, I believe twice already during his presidency, suggested that he supports an independent Taiwan and his defense department and state department had to rush out and say, Hey, no, no, no, no, guys, guys, no, no, no.
00:15:39.000We still hold by the one China policy.
00:15:41.000Taiwan is still theoretically a part of China, but it's two different governances.
00:15:46.000So Joe Biden has been muddying the waters.
00:15:48.000One of the things you cannot do in international relations is muddy the waters.
00:15:50.000You have to have some very clear lines about what it is you believe and what you are willing to do because nearly all serious conflict begins with a misperception of strength or weakness on the other side.
00:16:00.000Virtually all this is true of Ukraine.
00:16:02.000It is true of what's happening right now in China.
00:16:11.000The Cold War had an extraordinary amount of clarity between the United States and the USSR, which meant that you could be in a Cold War for literally half a century.
00:16:18.000Because both sides knew, if you violate this line, there will be a nuclear exchange and we both will be gone.
00:16:23.000Well, the truth is that the United States is being extraordinarily unclear about what exactly it believes about Taiwan.
00:16:29.000Joe Biden says things that I think are correct about Taiwanese independence, but he doesn't actually have the stones to back it up in terms of strengthening America's economy, strengthening our military.
00:16:37.000He's not willing to do any of those things.
00:16:39.000And so you almost have the worst of both scenarios.
00:16:42.000And I'm actually very supportive of the idea that top American officials should be able to visit Taiwan whenever they want.
00:16:47.000China should not be dictating to the United States or any other democratic country their relations with a democratic country in Taiwan.
00:16:53.000Taiwan is de facto, and has been since 1949, an independent country.
00:16:58.000When Mao failed to take Taiwan and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, and Taiwan was governed as an independent country, it was an independent country.
00:17:05.000And the fact is that the West has made enormous mistakes over the course of the past 30 years in pretending that China has anything but predatory intentions with regard to surrounding enclaves of freedom.
00:17:16.000Hong Kong should be an excellent example of why you should not trust the Chinese to allow, quote unquote, two systems within it.
00:17:23.000And while China is sounding off a lot about this thing, China conducted live fire exercises in the South China Sea and off the coast of mainland opposite Taiwan in recent days, according to Chinese state media, A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman renewed a warning Monday that the People's Liberation Army will not sit idly by if Pelosi makes the visit.
00:17:41.000He didn't elaborate on what actions China might take.
00:17:44.000The chances, by the way, that China are gonna like actually shoot down Pelosi's plane or something and prompt an actual exchange of live fire with American military jets.
00:17:54.000Shall we say, extraordinarily overblown.
00:17:56.000I do not think that that is going to happen.
00:17:57.000I don't think the Chinese are stupid enough to provoke an actual live-fire confrontation with America's military power.
00:18:02.000It would just be too damaging for them.
00:18:04.000I think what instead you will see is increased actions directed against Taiwan, not particularly against Pelosi.
00:18:10.000The potential for trouble prompted the White House on Monday to try to reign in tensions, with officials reiterating a visit by Pelosi doesn't break precedent and that U.S.
00:18:19.000So the White House is sort of trying to downplay Pelosi's visit as though it is not particularly important.
00:18:26.000They're trotting out John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, to talk about this, saying, well, we don't even understand why this is a big deal.
00:18:34.000Here is John Kirby saying that, you know, maybe China should welcome this.
00:18:37.000Do you think it's an unnecessarily provocative move?
00:18:44.000I mean, if anything, and I heard what you were saying before here, Joe, if anything, you would think the Chinese would welcome it, because it shows consistency.
00:18:52.000It shows that nothing has changed about America's One China policy adherence.
00:18:58.000It shows that nothing has changed about our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to help with Taiwan's self-defense.
00:19:07.000We have had congressional leaders go in the past, including a Speaker of the House, There is nothing unusual about this and it's quite frankly disconcerting that the Chinese might use this as some sort of pretext to actually increase the tensions.
00:19:19.000Well, if you're losing sleep over the possibility of war with China over Taiwan, let me recommend at least one solution to your lack of sleep.
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00:21:38.000If you're going to talk big, you better have the stones to back it up and you better make it clear that you're going to back up that sort of action with serious ramifications if God forbid they were to shoot down a jet with Speaker of the House Pelosi on it, right?
00:21:49.000She's the third ranking official in the United States, not in terms of the executive branch, but third in line for the presidency and the most powerful person in the House of Representatives, which theoretically is supposed to be the most powerful branch of the United States government, not the executive.
00:22:02.000For Beijing, a visit by Pelosi is seen as a high profile instance of rising U.S. political and military support for Taiwan, contravening Washington's commitments to limit its ties to the island, allowing a Pelosi visit to go ahead without consequences, Chinese foreign affairs specialist said, would only invite more senior political officials from the U.S.
00:22:16.000and other countries, breaking Beijing's diplomatic blockade of Taiwan, which by the way, should happen.
00:22:23.000I mean, I'd like to see more ties between the United States and Taiwan, given the importance of Taiwan to global, forget about democracy for a second, just in terms of pure strategic Taiwan is the producer of virtually all of the world's sophisticated semiconductors and microchips.
00:22:40.000The notion that you made subject to Chinese predation is really, really risky on a global level for the economy and for the United States.
00:22:47.000Pelosi opened her trip to Asia on Monday in Singapore.
00:22:50.000She and four other Democratic members of Congress met with the Singaporean Prime Minister, who hailed the importance of stable U.S.-China relations for regional peace and security.
00:22:58.000Singapore is obviously geographically placed incredibly close to China, and so they have to be very careful about what they say to China.
00:23:04.000They do an enormous amount of trade with China.
00:23:06.000Pelosi attended a closed-door reception with the American business community after which she did not respond to questions outside at the venue.
00:23:12.000She then put out a statement saying, quote, As we continue our regional travel, we look forward to additional engagement with our partner nations to advance a free and flourishing Indo-Pacific.
00:23:20.000Taiwan's government has sidestepped questions about Pelosi.
00:23:23.000The White House is not confirming the Taiwan stop, but its possibility consumed a large portion of a two-plus hour phone call last week between the U.S.
00:23:33.000Xi Jinping told President Biden China would safeguard national sovereignty, describing it as the unbending will of 1.4 billion Chinese people.
00:23:39.000He said those who play with fire will perish by it.
00:23:42.000Biden told the Chinese leader that U.S.
00:23:44.000policy on Taiwan has not changed and that Washington opposes unilateral changes to the status quo.
00:23:48.000So the question, as always in foreign policy, is what are you willing to do?
00:23:53.000It's the untouchables question by Sean Connery.
00:24:11.000Is the United States willing to up its amount of military support for Taiwan?
00:24:14.000What sort of rearmament are being provided right now to deter a Chinese invasion by making it incredibly costly to engage in such an invasion in the first place?
00:24:22.000Are you building up your naval superiority?
00:24:26.000If the Biden administration is just talking big but doesn't have the brass to back it up, then China is going to invade sooner rather than later.
00:24:34.000Also, again, Xi Jinping has a rather large interest in demonstrating aggressiveness with regard to Taiwan, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board Point out, Beijing is escalating its efforts to scuttle a Taiwan visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the coming days, and the threatening rhetoric from the Communist Party makes more sense when you consider the domestic backdrop.
00:24:50.000The Chinese economy looks increasingly brittle, so it'd be no surprise if Xi Jinping resorts to nationalist brinksmanship as a distraction.
00:24:55.000The basic story is slowing economic growth.
00:24:57.000Beijing has had a GDP growth target of 5.5% in 2022, which is modest by historical standards.
00:25:03.000Even the party now seems to admit the country is not going to hit that target.
00:25:06.000Growth was only 2.5% in the first half.
00:25:08.000For an economy of China's size, with hundreds of millions of citizens still in poverty, this is the functional equivalent of a recession.
00:25:15.000Well, China is struggling economically, but there's no reason for you not to financially plan the way that China has not financially planned.
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00:26:35.000The troubles that are being faced by the Chinese government on the economic front are very, very serious because it turns out communism is a garbage way to run a government.
00:26:41.000Even mercantilist communism is still a garbage way to run a government.
00:26:45.000So, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board continues, slowing growth is global, but Xi has added Chinese characteristics.
00:26:51.000A chronic problem is his dynamic zero-COVID policy, which Beijing shows no signs of easing.
00:26:56.000This imposes sudden lockdowns and stringent testing requirements anywhere COVID-19 is detected.
00:27:00.000The lockdowns are a severe strain for ordinary Chinese and a danger to global supply chains passing through China.
00:27:04.000Foreign companies are rethinking investments local firms suffer.
00:27:07.000Chinese properties, Property implosion also continues.
00:27:10.000A crackdown on property speculation that started in 2020 has now become a broader crisis.
00:27:14.000A growing list of private developers have defaulted on debt or come close, falling property values are hurting local governments that rely on land sales for revenue.
00:27:21.000Basically, China was borrowing extraordinary sums of money to build giant empty cities in the middle of nowhere that are completely abandoned.
00:27:27.000I mean, I'm talking about like tens of thousands of units that no one is living in, and they built these things as a make work project for Chinese citizens.
00:27:35.000Groups of would-be homebuyers recently staged a mortgage strike, refusing to repay loans for apartments that failing developers haven't even completed.
00:27:41.000Far more worrying is the plight of small business suppliers to failed developers.
00:27:44.000These creditors hold large quantities of commercial paper, representing money owed for goods and services.
00:27:49.000In China's Wild West financial system, these IOUs are frequently exchanged as a form of money.
00:27:53.000A collapse in confidence could do serious damage.
00:27:55.000Apparently, Beijing is now considering a property bailout that could reach $44 billion, the money would be funneled through state-owned banks to buy unfinished projects, and the government might then rent out some of the homes rather than selling them.
00:28:06.000So there's a consistent speculation that Xi continues to consolidate extraordinary economic power at the center of the Chinese economy.
00:28:12.000And they're talking about another public works spending blowout in up to $1 trillion, much of that financed with government debt.
00:28:21.000So, Xi Jinping is trying to redirect away from the failures of the Chinese economy.
00:28:26.000And so, he is trying to challenge the United States.
00:28:28.000Again, this looks very much like Vladimir Putin.
00:28:31.000And so the question is, what is the United States going to do?
00:28:33.000Is the United States willing to actually face up to the possibility of something quite serious?
00:28:47.000On the other hand, they want to appease Chinese needs.
00:28:51.000They want to make China feel better about things.
00:28:53.000You'll recall that this particular administration has undercut specific espionage proposals in the United States directed at Chinese targets.
00:29:01.000This administration has been softer on China, certainly, than the last administration was.
00:29:06.000Taiwan, for its part, is preparing the possibility of conflict.
00:29:09.000According to the Washington Examiner, Taiwanese defense officials have canceled the leave of some soldiers and officers to prepare for a chance of war.
00:29:15.000China warned early Monday its military would not sit idly by, of course.
00:29:19.000According to Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, he told reporters on Monday, her stature as the number three US official means her trip would be highly sensitive.
00:29:27.000As to what measures, let's wait and see whether she insists on the visit.
00:29:30.000She'd be the highest ranking US official to visit the island since Newt Gingrich went in 1997.
00:29:35.000Pelosi released an itinerary, but that itinerary did not include Taiwan in the first place, supposedly for reasons of national security, which makes a certain amount of sense.
00:29:47.000But again, it's the mixed signals that are being sent by this administration on nearly every front that create serious danger on foreign policy.
00:30:01.000On the one hand, we are sending Nancy Pelosi there in order to demonstrate our solidarity.
00:30:05.000On the other hand, we're not really doing much to build up the United States Navy.
00:30:08.000And we also seem to be going soft on China with regard to, for example, international investigations on COVID.
00:30:14.000Like the countermeasures that we are taking on trade in the Indo-Pacific region are not nearly up to snuff.
00:30:20.000We are not taking seriously the Chinese threat to the Solomon Islands, for example.
00:30:25.000And this is true for pretty much every threat on the world stage.
00:30:27.000We didn't take seriously the threat of Russia to Ukraine until it was too late and Russia had already invaded Ukraine and now we're spending tens of billions of dollars in order to protect Ukraine from a complete takeover by the Russian military forces.
00:30:39.000And all of that is going to get very hairy come winter when it turns out that Russian oil and natural gas, which aren't flowing to Eastern Europe, have some pretty dire consequences in terms of the number of people who might freeze to death.
00:30:49.000The same thing right now is holding true with regard to Iran.
00:30:51.000So tremendous mixed signals being sent from this administration with regard to Iran.
00:30:55.000Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State under Joe Biden, he is speaking internationally and saying we should get back to the Iran deal.
00:31:00.000Meanwhile, Iran is ratcheting up its terror support nearly everywhere.
00:31:04.000Here is Tony Blinken trying to convince himself more than anybody else that it was time to get back on board with an Iran deal.
00:31:10.000Iran remains on a path of nuclear escalation.
00:31:14.000Although it publicly claims to favor a return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, since March, Iran has been either unwilling or unable to accept a deal to achieve precisely that goal.
00:31:28.000Getting back to the JCPOA remains the best outcome for the United States, for Iran, for the world.
00:31:36.000Okay, so he can say that as much as he wants, but the simple fact is that Iran continues to thwart American sanctions and support terrorism all over the world at the exact same time Tony Blinken is calling for an Iranian nuclear deal.
00:31:48.000The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the United States is considering new sanctions that would target a United Arab Emirates-based businessman and a network of companies suspected of helping export Iran's oil, part of a broader effort to escalate diplomatic pressure on Tehran as U.S.
00:31:59.000officials push to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program.
00:32:02.000The firms and individuals under scrutiny have been using ship-to-ship transfers of oil and waters that lie between Iraq and Iran and forging documents to hide the origin of the cargo.
00:32:09.000By passing off the blended oil as Iraqi, those involved can avoid Western sanctions targeting Iranian oil.
00:32:15.000The administration continues to push sanctions at the same time that it's pushing talks with Iran.
00:32:20.000Meanwhile, it is pushing sanctions on Russia at the same time that it's using Russia as a broker for a deal with Iran.
00:32:25.000The reality is that there is no deal to be had with Iran that looks like anything remotely decent.
00:32:30.000And yet this administration continues to sort of push two policy proposals at the exact same time.
00:32:35.000Which is the nature of exactly how this administration works.
00:32:38.000Now, with all of this said, this is one of the better stretches, apparently, for the Biden administration.
00:32:42.000So Joe Biden is going to claim the killing of Al Zawahiri is a major victory.
00:32:45.000It's not going to have a major impact on American public opinion.
00:32:49.000In the same way that in February of 2020, when Donald Trump killed an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Qasim al-Rumi, it didn't really mean anything.
00:32:57.000When he talked about the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that had very little flavor for the American public.
00:33:03.000It really didn't do much for the American public.
00:33:05.000So the media is going to declare major victory there.
00:33:08.000Meanwhile, they're declaring major victory with regard to the economy.
00:33:11.000Because the media is under the wildest impression that when Joe Biden spends money, this makes him more popular.
00:33:14.000And I just don't know where they get this.
00:33:16.000I continue to doubt the giant narrative that is spun out by the media and Democrats that every single time they spend buckets of money, this has a major impact on American public opinion.
00:33:43.000But according to the media, who are always in the category of DO SOMETHING, this means that if Joe Biden does something, he is more successful than if he doesn't do anything.
00:33:59.000Americans do not follow the legislative ins and outs of the billions and billions and billions of dollars in pork that are spent by Congress.
00:34:05.000And in fact, It turns out that if you can't clearly define what you're doing with the money, Americans don't like you very much anyway.
00:34:10.000Americans will say they like spending on particular proposals, but if you ask them whether it is a good idea to just throw hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars at things, their general answer is going to be no.
00:34:19.000So this giant kind of boondoggle narrative that's being sold by the media that Joe Biden is suddenly going to be wildly successful because he gets Joe Manchin to sign on to a $433 billion spending package that includes $400 billion in new taxes in the middle of a recession, I have my doubts.
00:34:36.000Axios co-founder, Mike Allen, however, he says that Joe Biden is now on a winning streak.
00:34:42.000There's an America first populist streak to this, that is more oil drilling here, making more vaccines here.
00:34:52.000They point us to a poll in The Washington Post, August 1982, 40 years ago.
00:34:59.000This month, for the seasoned viewers out there, a Barry Sussman file on one of the classics.
00:35:05.000And this was a poll with 58% of people in August 1982 saying that first-term president Ronald Reagan shouldn't run again.
00:35:16.000And of course, there's a resonance to this.
00:35:18.000We've had a parade of polls, people saying that President Biden shouldn't run again.
00:35:22.000And of course, Jonathan, the punchline to this, less than two years after that poll, in 1984, Ronald Reagan won 49 states, the most electoral votes of any presidential candidate in history.
00:35:36.000Okay, yeah, the difference is that Ronald Reagan had a booming economy by the time 1984 came around.
00:35:40.000He had crushed a 10-year stagflationary cycle in the United States economy with interest rates of up to 20% under Paul Volcker, and he had passed tax cuts.
00:35:49.000So there are a few things that Ronald Reagan did that Joe Biden is doing the opposite of.
00:35:52.000Namely, Joe Biden created the inflation.
00:35:53.000The inflation did not exist before Joe Biden.
00:35:56.000Massive inflationary problems under Joe Biden are not the result of what happened before Joe Biden.
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00:37:36.000Meanwhile, the Democrats are still trying to convince Kyrsten Sinema to sign off on their giant climate and healthcare boondoggle.
00:37:42.000According to CNN, Democrats this week have the chance to validate their monopoly on political power in Washington, create a legacy of true significance for President Trump.
00:37:51.000And even boost their hopes in daunting midterm elections in three months.
00:37:54.000This is all according to the sycophants over at CNN.
00:37:58.000But first, they must push a back-from-the-dead climate and healthcare initiative through the Senate using their tiny majority, notably by locking in the crucial vote of moderate Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has yet to sign off on a bill that may not save Democrats in November, but may at least give them a big new win to run on.
00:39:04.000I mean, if you want to give Republicans talking points to run on, ram through on a party line vote a tax increase to pay for climate change subsidies in the middle of a recession.
00:39:24.000But you gotta, I think, I'm a little confused by that because this is a minimum tax, 15%.
00:39:29.000So these are large corporations make over a billion in revenue a year.
00:39:33.000They're not paying any or very little tax.
00:39:37.000And, you know, if you want to pay for climate risk, if you want to pay for health insurance and for prescription drugs, you need to raise revenue.
00:39:48.000OK, so they're talking about raising taxes.
00:39:50.000Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a brilliant electoral move, according to the media.
00:39:53.000It's also maybe the dumbest thing you could possibly do if you are Democrats right now.
00:40:11.000The payoff is that the energy sector in West Virginia is going to get some pork.
00:40:15.000But what interest does Kirsten Sinema have in signing off on this?
00:40:17.000She herself has explicitly said she's not in favor of raising taxes in the middle of a recession.
00:40:22.000According to CNN, the vote of Sinema is a question mark.
00:40:25.000Her support is just as critical as Manchin's.
00:40:27.000Like Manchin, she's opposed dismantling the Senate filibuster to pass other Democratic priority bills.
00:40:32.000She did help remodel Biden's larger Build Back Better bill before Manchin blocked it last year.
00:40:36.000Now there are questions over whether she'll back tax changes affecting private equity investors in the Manchin-Schumer compromise.
00:40:42.000Manchin suggested on State of the Union on Sunday he hadn't spoken to Sinema since he agreed on the package with Schumer, but he paid tribute to his Arizona colleague in her previous work on reducing prescription drugs.
00:40:53.000Manchin, of course, is wielding his power.
00:40:55.000The GOP is talking about putting a bunch of amendments on this bill, and Democrats are going to have to ram this through before that happens.
00:41:04.000One of the big problems here is that if a single Democrat gets COVID anywhere in this process, they're done.
00:41:10.000Which means that when they can't come in to vote, then they don't actually have a majority.
00:41:15.000Now Pat Toomey, the senator from Pennsylvania, he says, it looks to me like Joe Manchin has been taken to the cleaners.
00:41:20.000The corporate tax increase is going to slow down growth, probably exacerbate a recession we're already in.
00:41:26.000Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said another multi-billion dollar spending bill would inject an incredible amount of uncertainty into the economy just as it entered into a recession.
00:41:35.000So again, the Democrats are pursuing a bad, dumb policy and the media are cheering them on.
00:41:40.000And it's going to get more unpopular over the course of the current debate.
00:41:44.000Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post points out that one of the problems here is that Republicans can force votes on poison pill amendments to the package, particularly on immigration.
00:41:53.000One Democrat sounding this alarm is Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.
00:41:56.000He's urging Democrats to unite against all poison pill amendments, meaning like all amendments, no matter how politically difficult it could be for senators facing tough reelection campaigns.
00:42:04.000He said, I call on all Democrats to stand firm and united against Republican amendments that would hurt immigrant families.
00:42:09.000So what exactly is happening right here?
00:42:10.000Well, immigration amendments are unrelated to this climate package, which by the way, the fact that reconciliation is now being used on climate packages is insane.
00:42:19.000Reconciliation was meant for budgetary measures.
00:42:28.000Immigration amendments might be added by the Republicans.
00:42:31.000Even if Democrats secure 50 votes to pass the package via simple majority reconciliation, Republicans could have a chance to force some tough votes.
00:42:37.000Take, for example, one scenario feared by Democrats.
00:42:40.000In it, Republicans would offer an amendment codifying in federal law Title 42.
00:42:43.000That is the rule expelling asylum-seeking migrants without any hearing.
00:43:14.000Manchin and Sinema might vote for that amendment.
00:43:16.000There could be a bunch of other so-called poison pill amendments that Republicans can add to the bill, including, for example, construction of the border wall.
00:43:26.000Well, at that point, if there's an amendment that, for example, funds the border wall or that extends Title 42, you might see some of the liberals, like Bernie Sanders, vote down the package.
00:43:35.000If the climate package passes with any such amendments, that would be a terrible outcome as well, says Greg Sargent.
00:43:40.000It would further weaken our already wavering commitment to asylum or worsen our immigration system in any ways.
00:43:45.000It's unclear how Democrats can prevent the tactics.
00:43:47.000Congressional scholar Sarah Binder says federal law governing the reconciliation process allows for a voterama on the minority's amendments with no majority imposed limit.
00:43:55.000Not much can prevent this aside from a deal between both party Senate leaders or mere exhaustions.
00:44:00.000But this could be really ugly for the Democrats.
00:44:02.000They could ram through an unpopular bill with a bunch of amendments that they had to vote against.
00:44:13.000By the way, the bill that they're calling the Inflation Reduction Act has nothing to do with reducing inflation.
00:44:19.000Hilariously, the Penn-Wharton Budget Model examined the details of this bill and found it doesn't contain any net deficit reduction until 2027.
00:44:26.000And then, through 2031, the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
00:44:33.000So there'll be no reduction of inflation at a minimum.
00:44:37.000Maybe there'll be an increase in inflation.
00:44:40.000The $327 billion in new taxes that they are seeking, according to the Wall Street Journal, could slow inflation if the economy falls into recession.
00:44:48.000The tax increases on business will discourage investment while the Federal Reserve is raising business costs with higher interest rates.
00:44:54.000But that's just asking for a recession at this point.
00:44:58.000The book income minimum tax would hit the accelerated depreciation in the tax code that lets business write off investment in, say, new factories.
00:45:04.000Wholesale trade, retail trade, and information companies would get off relatively easy by contrast, but the tax would really hit U.S.
00:45:12.000So precisely the people who support the blue-collar jobs that Joe Manchin is supposed to stand for, those are the people who are going to get hit by the new tax here.
00:45:22.000An analysis by the National Association of Manufacturers says the tax in 2023 alone would reduce real GDP by $68.5 billion and cut labor income by $17.1 billion as well.
00:45:55.000For most Americans, their wages are going up, but they're not going up as fast as inflation.
00:45:59.000So most Americans, real wages, real incomes are going down.
00:46:03.000That's why families are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet.
00:46:07.000When they go to the grocery store, when they buy necessities, they're not able to buy as much because they're getting a real wage cut because inflation is growing so quickly.
00:46:15.000I mean, typically we think about wage-driven inflation.
00:46:19.000Where wages grow quickly and then that leads to higher prices in a self-fulfilling spiral.
00:46:26.000High prices and wages are now trying to catch up to those high prices.
00:46:30.000Those high prices are being driven by supply chains and the war in Ukraine among other factors.
00:46:36.000Bottom line here is the American people are rightly extraordinarily skeptical of Joe Biden and his economic plans right now and all of the happy talk in the world about how we're not really in a recession.
00:46:47.000If we spend more money, if Joe Manchin signs up, we'll have something to run on.
00:46:52.000The simple fact of the matter is that Joe Biden already has run on what Joe Biden is.
00:46:56.000A big spending, high tax, Horrible foreign policy leader who has driven gas prices to extraordinary highs, who has driven your cost to extraordinary highs, who has lowered real wages in significant fashion, who has surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, who has weakened America on the world stage to the point that there was a full-scale European war in place because the Russians thought that the West was just weak because of Joe Biden.
00:48:20.000Okay, meanwhile, on the cultural front here in the United States, we have a very sad story.
00:48:25.000The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Bradford Carrington, executive producer Jeremy Boren, supervising producer Mathis Glover, production manager Pavel Wydowski, associate producer Savannah Dominguez-Morris, editor Adam Sajevitz, audio mixer Mike Coromina, hair and makeup artist in wardrobe Fabiola Christina, production coordinator Jessica Grand.
00:48:51.000The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
00:48:55.000Hey there, this is John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief and co-host of Morning Wire.
00:49:00.000On today's episode, farmers in several countries erupt in protest against climate policies, Senator Joe Manchin backs a new tax and spend bill that promises to reduce inflation, and a California judge says a lawsuit alleging Visa illegally profited from child pornography can go forward.