Merrick Garland reportedly looks at criminally charging Donald Trump. Kamala Harris announces her pronouns. And the IMF predicts a global recession as the Chinese signal more aggression on Taiwan. All that and more on today's show with Ben Shapiro! Subscribe to my new podcast, "The Ben Shapiro Show," wherever you get your podcasts. It's not too late for you to take action right now. Text Ben to 989898 to receive a FREE, no-obligation information kit on diversifying your savings into physical gold today. That's right, you can get a FREE information kit from Birchgold on how to protect your savings from a highly turbulent economy by diversifying that 401k or IRA into gold and silver today. That's Birchgold! Get real advice from a trusted expert on gold and precious metals today! Use the promo code: "ELISSA" for 20% off your first month with discount code "WAKEUP" at checkout. You'll get 10% off the entire month, plus an additional 3% off her next month when you sign up at Birchgold when you place an order through the Birchgold website! You won't want to miss it! Subscribe, rate, and review the show! It'll help spread the word to your friends and family about what's going on in the financial world. Ben Shapiro's new podcast! FREE PRICING HERE! The Ben Shapiro show is now available on all major podcast directories and social medias including Apple Podcasts, CBS Radio, Vimeo, and The Huffington Post. Subscribe and subscribe to The Daily Mail? and The Hill? Learn more about your ad choices! Connect with me on Podcharts? Subscribe & comment on the Podchronicity? If you're looking for a chance to win a discount on the best listening experience? I'll be featured on the show on the next episode of The Hill's newest episode on The FiveThirtyEight podcast, The Six Sigma podcast? Connected by Ben Shapiro? and more! I'm listening to Ben Shapiro on The Six Saje and other places to watch Ben Shapiro s newest podcast on the latest podcast on his podcast on this podcast on The Hill and other things going on the rest of the world? , And more like that's going to send me an ad on the air on the pod? He'll be giving it out on the road?
00:00:31.000We're setting all sorts of new records, thanks to the massive genius of Joe Biden and people like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who openly admitted last month to have completely missed all the flashing red lights on the inflation issue.
00:00:50.000You have to have a diversified portfolio.
00:00:52.000And one of the excellent parts of a diversified portfolio, I know because I do this, is you have to have some precious metals as part of that portfolio.
00:00:59.000That's why you should invest at least some of your money in gold and silver with Birch Gold Group.
00:01:03.000Protect your savings from a highly turbulent economy by diversifying that 401k or IRA into physical gold today.
00:01:08.000It's not too late for you to take action right now.
00:01:28.000Claim your free, no-obligation information kit on protecting your savings with gold today.
00:01:32.000That's Birchgold by texting Ben to 989898 to get started.
00:01:36.000Well, the Democrats basically have no choice at this point.
00:01:39.000Merrick Garland has to do the bidding of his political masters, and that means that the DOJ is now looking seriously into charging Donald Trump, apparently, according to the Washington Post.
00:01:49.000Carol Lennig, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dowsey, Spencer Hsu, like the entire staff of the Washington Post reporting, quote, the Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump's actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.
00:02:04.000Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury, including two top aides, two VP Mike Pence, have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won.
00:02:17.000According to two people familiar with the matter, both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
00:02:22.000The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021.
00:02:28.000His pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisors about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, according to these anonymous sources.
00:02:38.000Some of the questions focus directly on the extent of Trump's involvement in the fake elector effort, led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani.
00:02:45.000In addition, DOJ investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to a couple of people familiar with the matter.
00:02:55.000This entire story, of course, is anonymously sourced, which is what you would expect from the Merrick Garland DOJ.
00:03:00.000The January 6th Committee has been extraordinarily leaky, and they've been leaky in one particular direction.
00:03:06.000Obviously, it is not a shock to see Merrick Garland sending out these sorts of signals, given the amount of pressure that the DOJ is now under.
00:03:12.000See, I've said for a while here that the serious threat of the January 6th Committee really is not directed at Donald Trump, because most people think of Trump what they already think of Trump.
00:03:21.000The real threat here is for the Biden administration, because the entire predicate For the January 6th Committee is that criminal action occurred here.
00:03:28.000And as I've asked from the beginning, if criminal action occurred, the January 6th Committee has no criminal investigative power.
00:03:38.000Normally, when you have an investigative committee, it is designed for oversight, meaning like how is our money being spent, or it's meant to establish new regulatory or legislative standards.
00:03:48.000Neither one of those seems to be upheld.
00:03:50.000And yet the January 6th committee was directed largely at the idea that a criminal prosecution was imminent.
00:03:54.000So I kept saying, okay, so where's the DOJ?
00:03:56.000And over time, that became the drumbeat.
00:03:58.000It wasn't just from people like me, it was people on the left.
00:04:00.000People on the left were saying, if all this is so criminal, where is Merrick Garland?
00:04:22.000And so it's not a shock to see Merrick Garland and the DOJ leaking this stuff out.
00:04:25.000Now remember, five seconds ago they were talking about how they have to keep all of their investigation secret.
00:04:29.000This is literally the line they were using yesterday in the mainstream press.
00:04:32.000And one day later we have leaks, presumably from inside the DOJ, on their investigative intent with regard to Donald Trump.
00:04:40.000The Washington Post and other news organizations, according to the Post, have previously written that the DOJ is examining the conduct of John Eastman, Giuliani, and others in Trump's orbit.
00:04:47.000But the degree of prosecutors' interest in Trump's actions has not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides' phone records.
00:04:53.000A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
00:04:57.000A Justice Department spokesperson and lawyer for Meadows both declined to comment.
00:05:01.000And as the Washington Post acknowledges, federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets over at the Justice Department, many end without criminal charges.
00:05:13.000Apparently, according to another anonymous source familiar with the probe, investigators want to understand at a minimum what Trump told his lawyers and senior officials to do.
00:05:19.000So again, the argument that they are making, as we'll get to in just a second, that Trump was attempting to initiate a coup is a very difficult one.
00:05:24.000Amendment protected political activity or when or whether a person's speech could become part of an alleged conspiracy in support of a coup. So again the argument that they are making, as we'll get to in just a second, that Trump was attempting to initiate a coup is a very difficult one because let's say that again I think this is the most plausible scenario.
00:05:41.000Trump convinced himself that he had won because Trump has never believed that he has ever lost on any subject, ever.
00:05:46.000And so, he has a unique capacity to convince himself of nearly anything, including the idea that he won.
00:05:51.000Let's say that that's just what he does.
00:05:53.000And this is an intent crime, for the most part.
00:05:55.000So, how do you distinguish First Amendment protected speech, like, I won the election, from, I won the election, subvert it.
00:06:01.000How do you distinguish those two things, except by getting in the head of Donald Trump?
00:06:09.000So, as I've said before, intent crime is very difficult to charge with regard to President Trump.
00:06:13.000Now, the January 6th committee, they keep ratcheting up the pressure, and whether it's intentional or unintentional, all that pressure is falling on Merrick Garland.
00:06:19.000So, Jamie Raskin, the congressman from Maryland, who ironically voted against the certification of the 2016 election before determining that voting against certifications of elections without basis was a form of insurrection.
00:06:31.000Now, he says that con man Trump has met his match with the committee.
00:06:35.000Okay, well, again, not with the committee, More with the DOJ if the DOJ decides to go forward on this thing.
00:06:42.000And that's if the DOJ can actually substantiate a prosecution.
00:06:46.000Why do you think it is so hard to hold this one obviously guilty man accountable, given that you are also an impeachment leader of the second impeachment?
00:06:59.000Did the founders shank it in how they set up the checks and balances?
00:07:03.000Or are the other branches shanking it right now out of fear?
00:07:07.000No, I think he's good at what he does.
00:07:13.000And he's been a con man and an operator for a long time.
00:07:18.000And he operates like the best of the crime bosses, which is he always insulates himself with several layers of lawyers and money and flunkies between himself and that which he orders to be done.
00:07:30.000By the way, I do love that Stephen Colbert has basically just become a late night news host on CNN.
00:07:37.000That was Stephen Colbert doing that interview.
00:07:58.000In any case, the pressure that is being put on Merrick Garland is extraordinary, which is why you're seeing these leaks right now.
00:08:04.000Now, the question really is whether they can charge Donald Trump.
00:08:08.000So Steve Riley over at The Grid has a good rundown on the possibility of which charges could theoretically be brought against Trump.
00:08:14.000And you can see the weakness of the charges here.
00:08:17.000Which is why, as we'll discuss in a moment, this really is sort of a last-ditch political play by Democrats to distract from the 2020 elections and maybe get rid of Trump ahead of 2024.
00:08:27.000So what exactly are the charges that they're considering?
00:08:32.000Now, in order to do that, you actually have to demonstrate incitement.
00:08:35.000Incitement is a very, very difficult crime to prove because incitement means that you actually have to tell people to go commit the crime.
00:08:40.000And I'm sorry, march to the Capitol building and protest peacefully is not incitement.
00:08:45.000You'd have to demonstrate that he actually was coordinating with people in advance, that his words were designed to incite imminent lawless action.
00:09:35.000The intent here is the part that's hard to prove.
00:09:37.000If it were just, Donald Trump worked with other people to try to overturn the results of the election, well, then, Pretty obvious that that is true.
00:09:46.000I mean, he was clearly trying to do that.
00:09:48.000The question is whether he knew that he had lost the election, not should have known, knew that he lost the election, and whether he was overtly attempting to overthrow the results of the election, knowing that the election had come out against him.
00:10:00.000And the answer there is unclear, because again, Donald Trump and intent, not the best of friends.
00:10:06.000Donald Trump probably believes that, like, don't you believe?
00:10:09.000I believe that Donald Trump thinks today that he won the election.
00:10:12.000I don't think Donald Trump is sitting in a backroom somewhere at Mar-a-Lago going, man, I really lost that election, but I'm enjoying all the chaos.
00:10:17.000Like, I don't think that's what Donald Trump thinks.
00:10:19.000I think he's sitting in the backroom of Mar-a-Lago right now saying, I won the election and no one believes me.
00:10:31.000There is no brain to mouth filter in that guy.
00:10:33.000And so his capacity to say, dissemble, that he actually knows that he lost the election, but now he's trying to Trump it.
00:10:41.000He's trying to Trump the election, no pun intended, with fraudulent activity.
00:10:45.000That's gonna be very difficult to prove as well.
00:10:48.000McQuaid says, quote, if he knew he was lying about election fraud and nonetheless sought to disrupt the transfer of power, that crime theoretically could be established.
00:10:54.000This is what the January 6th committee is trying to show.
00:10:57.000I've been playing a bunch of clips of people saying that they went to Trump and told him he lost, but that's assuming that Trump has ears that listen.
00:11:03.000And again, these are very questionable propositions.
00:11:06.000I mean, Donald Trump is not famous for listening to advice.
00:12:34.000Okay, how about conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding?
00:12:37.000According to The Grid, evidence presented at the committee's hearings show that Trump was informed he lost the election but whipped an armed crowd into a frenzy.
00:12:44.000So, a charge that could stem from Trump's efforts that culminated in the disruption would be put in a civil legal filing.
00:12:50.000So, theoretically, they would argue that Trump violated a statute, federal section 1512c2, which criminalizes obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding.
00:12:59.000But in order to do that, you again have to show that Donald Trump coordinated with people to officially obstruct the joint session of Congress to certify the election on January 6th.
00:13:11.000You would have to show that he was actually conspiring to stop the counting of the votes on January 6th by sending armed people into the Capitol building.
00:13:19.000We're unarmed people in the Capitol building, or whatever.
00:13:22.000But that has not been proved yet, right?
00:13:23.000Those dots have never been shown by the January 6th committee.
00:13:26.000Okay, so the final ditch attempt here is going to be state election law.
00:13:29.000And this is the one where, theoretically, they have the most evidence, right?
00:13:33.000State election law could theoretically fall under certain sections of, say, Georgia law, where you're attempting to subvert election law in the state of Florida by soliciting election fraud.
00:13:47.000So the idea here would be the phone call, the famous phone call that he had with the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which he said, I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.
00:13:58.000Now, again, the problem with this is that it's sort of an intent crime, meaning that there are two ways to read that conversation.
00:14:22.000And it's First Amendment protected activity.
00:14:24.000So all of these charges are extraordinarily dicey.
00:14:26.000And then, of course, there's the one that the left loves the most, which is seditious conspiracy.
00:14:29.000The idea that he was working to overthrow the United States.
00:14:33.000Or prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.
00:14:36.000And there, you would actually have to show that he was coordinating with, say, the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers to invade the building.
00:14:42.000And now, again, you can see how weak these charges are.
00:14:44.000You can see how difficult it's going to be for Mayor Garland to prove these charges at all.
00:14:50.000And you can see how much of a problem this is, which suggests that this is far less about charging Donald Trump criminally for stuff for which he is criminally liable, and far more about the electioneering of it.
00:15:00.000That if Merrick Garland brings charges, Democrats are hopeful that that will impact election 22, election 2024, in the same way that, for example, James Comey announcing that he had reopened the investigation to Hillary's laptop may have cost her the election in 2016.
00:15:12.000So they're hoping for a sort of reversal of fortune here, whereby if Merrick Garland announces that he's criminally investigating Trump, That somehow it will drive people away from Trump's camp.
00:15:23.000Or if he actually criminally investigates Trump and criminally charges Trump, that will take Trump off the board for 2024, particularly.
00:15:30.000Or at the very least, it'll make it center of everybody's attention in 2022.
00:15:33.000That if we are focused in on January 6th, then we're not going to be focused in on the fact that we are currently in a recession by the usual metrics.
00:15:43.000And this ties into the broader Democratic argument they've been making for a while here, which is that Republicans are a threat to democracy.
00:15:48.000So Eddie Glaude, who teaches over at Georgetown, he says, you know, I'm worried that people won't be able to vote at all if Republicans, if Republicans win.
00:15:54.000Now, this line of attack has been completely unsuccessful for Democrats.
00:15:57.000If you look at the polling data, a vast minority of Americans, I'm talking like single digit Americans, like six, seven, 5%, are people who believe that election fraud and subversion of democracy are the chief issues on the ballot in the election.
00:16:10.000And many of those people, by the way, are Republican.
00:16:12.000A bunch of Republicans who think that election fraud and subversion of democracy are happening from the left.
00:16:17.000So the idea that this is going to be the tip of the spear in 2022 for Democratic hopes?
00:16:56.000I mean, first of all, they have no basis for believing this.
00:16:58.000I very rarely charge that people aren't sincere in their beliefs, but the vast majority of Democrats who actually are in the know Do not believe that voting is going to be shut down by Republicans.
00:17:07.000If they did, they wouldn't, for example, be going out of their way to fund exactly the Republican candidates they think are a threat to democracy.
00:17:14.000So even the New York Times is now reporting that House Democrats are stepping into a Western Michigan Republican primary to elevate a candidate endorsed by former President Trump against one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.
00:17:29.000It's the latest in a slew of Democratic efforts to draw attention to far-right candidates, hoping they'll be easier to beat in November than more mainstream Republicans.
00:17:35.000In this case, it could also be seen as a slap to Representative Peter Mayer, the incumbent in the Grand Rapids area district who braved blowback from his own party over his vote to impeach Trump and is now fighting skullduggery from the right and the left.
00:17:45.000The ad, which is going to start airing on Tuesday and was openly cut and funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, proclaims that John Gibbs, who is challenging Mayer, is too conservative for West Michigan.
00:17:54.000But in tone and content, it's clearly meant to appeal to the pro-Trump voters in the August 2nd Republican primary, hailing Gibbs as, quote, hand-picked by Trump to run for Congress, buffing his bona fides as an aide in the Trump administration, promising that he would push that same conservative agenda in Congress, including a hard line against illegal immigration and a stand for, quote-unquote, patriotic education.
00:18:11.000So they ran a hit ad that is not actually a hit ad.
00:18:14.000They're running an ad against Gibbs saying, he's too conservative for Republicans.
00:18:31.000All right, this is the case that I made in 2020.
00:18:33.000It was Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden.
00:18:36.000Now, there's a solid case we made that Bernie Sanders was much more beatable in a general election than Joe Biden.
00:18:41.000But as I said, multiple times during that race, I would rather have Joe Biden with a 50% shot at the presidency than Bernie Sanders with a 40% shot at the presidency.
00:18:51.000Because if Bernie Sanders actually becomes president, the country may be finished.
00:18:54.000And that's how radical Bernie Sanders is.
00:18:56.000Now, it turns out Joe Biden may finish the country off all on his own, but The idea here is that if you are in the game of politics, you don't want to elevate the opponents who are the most dangerous to the republic, because there's always the off chance that they win.
00:19:15.000Right now, Democrats, they tried to push Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.
00:19:19.000And Doug Mastroianno might actually win his race.
00:19:21.000He might become the governor of Pennsylvania.
00:19:23.000Because right now he's running like within single percentage points of Josh Shapiro, the attorney general in the state of Pennsylvania.
00:19:32.000So Democrats, you can't have both ways.
00:19:34.000Either these people are so dangerous they can't see the light of day, or they're the most beautiful candidates and we should fund them because even if they win, is it really that bad?
00:20:03.000He came into office, as I've said one million times, he came into office riding a wave of elements that should have made his presidency inherently successful.
00:20:11.000All he had to do was the thing he is best at, become unconscious.
00:20:15.000All he had to do was enter office, go back to the basement where he spent the entire campaign, go to sleep, wake up intermittently, watch Matlock, sign a bill, go back to sleep.
00:20:31.000He had the fact that COVID was going to end and everybody was going to go back to work.
00:20:34.000He had an economy that had been put into an artificial coma, but was the strongest it had ever been in my lifetime before it went into the artificial coma.
00:20:40.000All he had to do was go hands off and he couldn't do it.
00:20:43.000So that means that he has to redirect to Trump.
00:20:45.000And so that's why you're seeing Joe Biden being wheeled out in front of the cameras and staring glassy-eyed into the camera and talking about how Trump is a threat to democracy.
00:20:53.000Trump hasn't been president of the United States since January of 2021.
00:21:41.000Donald Trump is a grizzled police veteran who's been on the force for too long and has seen too many things and smoked too many cigarettes.
00:21:49.000You see an ashtray filled with smoked cigarettes over here and a glass of whiskey over here.
00:21:54.000Let me tell you something about Donald Trump.
00:23:28.000100% American meat and Good Ranchers has the meat.
00:23:32.000Good Ranchers, only sources from farms and ranches here in the United States.
00:23:35.000Maybe you thought a steak cooking over a fire couldn't get more American.
00:23:37.000It can, with any box of Good Ranchers.
00:23:40.000I'm told the iron levels of Daily Wire employees are at an all-time high due to just how good their stuff really is.
00:23:45.000I've noticed that all the dudes in the office, they're growing their beards faster.
00:23:49.000I mean, it's just, it's that much manliness when you order from Good Ranchers.
00:23:53.000Use my code BEN to get 30 bucks off your box of steakhouse-quality cuts, plus free shipping.
00:23:57.000Change the way you think about meat and the way you buy it.
00:23:59.000Your purchase not only strengthens America's farms, but also supports what we do here at the Daily Wire, because Good Ranchers, these are great people.
00:24:05.000There is a reason why a poll shows that 75% of Democratic voters want somebody other than Joe Biden in 2024.
00:24:18.000That's always great for you when you're the incumbent president of the United States and you won a fairly sweeping popular vote victory over your opponent and three-quarters of your party wants you to go away.
00:24:27.000According to CNN, 75% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters want the party to nominate someone other than President Biden in the 2024 election, a sharp increase from earlier this year.
00:24:37.000The poll comes as Biden's approval ratings remain low.
00:24:40.000Most Americans are disconcerted with the state of the country and the economy.
00:25:37.000If you're under 45, only 18% want Joe Biden to be the 2024 nominee.
00:25:42.000Which, by the way, suggests somebody should primary him.
00:25:44.000I mean, really, it suggests that while the Democratic Party is declaring that he is the shoe-in nominee, I'm not so sure.
00:25:52.000I mean, if you've got an insurrection candidate like AOC running against Joe Biden in a primary, I'm not sure that goes great for Joe Biden.
00:26:00.000I mean, AOC is obviously not brokering for power inside the mainstream Democratic Party.
00:26:04.000She's not making nice of Nancy Pelosi.
00:26:06.000She's not doing her committee assignments.
00:26:08.000She's not particularly worried about making friends.
00:26:10.000She's more interested in the Instagram of it all.
00:26:12.000And what that means is you could easily see a very young, fresh-faced, so-fresh-so-faced AOC primarying Joe Biden, even if Joe Biden were to run in 2024.
00:26:22.000The big problem for Democrats, of course, is that if Joe Biden isn't there, he is masking the internal rot of a party that has no one backing him up.
00:26:29.000And the people who are supposedly going to back him up here are people like Pete Buttigieg.
00:26:33.000There is a new poll out showing that Pete Buttigieg, in a primary in New Hampshire, would actually edge out Joe Biden right now.
00:26:39.000The incumbent president, among New Hampshire Democrats, they say 17% would choose Buttigieg among a list of Democrats or those who caucus with Democrats.
00:26:50.000He received 16% support, followed by Elizabeth Warren and Gavin Newsom, who each came in at 10%.
00:26:55.000A handful of other Democrats, in addition to Bernie Sanders, received less than 10%.
00:27:00.000The polling further demonstrates Democrats are not wedded to the idea of choosing Biden as their nominee in the next presidential cycle.
00:27:07.000Now, Buttigieg is not going to—he's enough of a party man, and he knows that it's not his time yet unless Biden steps aside.
00:27:12.000So the chances that he is actually going to jump in against Joe Biden are extraordinarily low.
00:27:18.000But it also demonstrates, once again, the divides inside the Democratic Party.
00:28:11.000So, for example, Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire right now, he has a net negative 8% rating in that same poll that shows that he is more popular than Biden.
00:28:18.000Among all New Hampshire voters, he's 8 points underwater.
00:28:51.000Speaking of which, Kamala Harris continues to demonstrate how terrible she is at this.
00:28:54.000By the way, that would not prohibit Kamala Harris from being the nominee.
00:28:56.000I think everybody is looking past the point that Jim Clyburn, who basically decides the Democratic Party nominee in places like South Carolina, because that's exactly what happened with Joe Biden, right?
00:29:06.000He tried to get the states that have more of a black Democratic base to vote for Joe Biden.
00:29:11.000You think he's going to get behind Pete Buttigieg, the whitest person ever to white?
00:29:15.000The small-town Indiana mayor who couldn't fill potholes but also is gay?
00:29:19.000You really think that Jim Clyburn is going to be backing Pete Buttigieg in a primary against Kamala Harris?
00:29:24.000So you've got an infight between Pete Buttigieg, whose most notable achievement as Secretary of Transportation is not solving any of the supply chain issues, but also taking paternity leave and talking about why the Bible says gay marriage is okay.
00:29:35.000Major accomplishments there from your Secretary of Transportation.
00:29:38.000Versus Kamala Harris, maybe the most unpopular and untalented politician ever to walk this earth.
00:30:49.000In any case, she is very, very bad at this and way too far left for the American people.
00:30:55.000So this is why they have to keep trotting out the corpse of Joe Biden.
00:30:58.000Prop L sit on that horse and just run him out there and hope nobody notices that he died a couple of years ago and that he's beginning to...
00:31:07.000In any case, Joe Biden's press secretary, in other news, is now leaving the White House.
00:31:11.000First of all, I don't know why Joe Biden has a press secretary.
00:31:15.000I don't know why the First Lady has an official position at all.
00:31:17.000If you go back to the foundations of the country, the job of the First Lady was basically to throw parties because she wasn't elected to do anything.
00:31:23.000By the way, it would be the reverse if it were first gentlemen.
00:31:25.000If they're a female president and the husband were out there making political speeches, I'd be like, no one elected you.
00:32:00.000The first lady told CNN for nearly three years from the campaign to the White House, Michael has brought an encyclopedic knowledge of politics and media to my team as my spokesperson and advisor. On a small team, loyalty and friendship are lifelong.
00:32:10.000We'll miss Michael. However, we are excited for him to begin a new chapter in his career as a manager at Chipotle. She didn't say the last part.
00:32:18.000La Rosa actually is joining the public affairs from Hamilton Place Strategies.
00:32:22.000So that that revolving door continues to move forward.
00:32:26.000La Rosa actually had to apologize on behalf of the First Lady after she compared Latinos to breakfast tacos, which I don't even know, did she mean breakfast burritos?
00:32:39.000I'm almost certainly ignorant, but at least I'm not ignorant enough to call people of Latino heritage by foods that I associate with them.
00:32:46.000But we bid a fond farewell to Michael LaRosa, the Press Secretary for the First Lady of the United States, who is, in fact, the world's greatest doctor.
00:32:53.000And meanwhile, the economy continues to be in the dollar's arms.
00:32:57.000The IMF is now warning that a global recession is at hand.
00:33:00.000Again, this is the reason why Joe Biden is focusing in with his glassy-eyed stare, thousand-yard stare on Donald Trump, laser-like.
00:33:07.000I mean, sure, the eyes are going in different directions at this point, but, you know, he's still focusing in on Donald Trump because what else is he gonna talk about?
00:33:14.000According to the IMF, the world could soon be on the brink of a global recession as the economies of the United States, China, and Europe slow more sharply than anticipated amid a collision of crises, the IMF warned on Tuesday, as according to the New York Times.
00:33:25.000In an update of the World Economic Outlook, the IMF said economic prospects had darkened significantly in recent months as war in Ukraine, inflation, and a resurgent pandemic inflicted pain on every continent.
00:33:35.000If the thicket of threats continues to intensify, the world economy faces one of its weakest years since 1970, a period of intense stagflation around the globe.
00:33:43.000Remember that time, like, six weeks ago, when the economic experts said, no, we'll probably avoid a recession?
00:33:53.000Pierre-Olivier Gorinchas, the IMF's chief economist, said, the world may soon be teetering on the edge of a global recession only two years after the last one.
00:34:00.000He said the outlook for the global economy is quote increasingly gloomy.
00:34:04.000The IMF downgraded its global growth forecast from its April projections expecting output will fall to 3.2% in 2022 from 6.1% last year.
00:34:12.000Growth is expected to slow even further next year as central banks around the world raise interest rates in an effort to tame inflation by cooling their economies.
00:34:20.000Inflation is rising more rapidly and broadly than the IMF anticipated earlier this year and now expects prices to rise 6.6% in rich countries and 9.5% in emerging markets and developing countries.
00:34:31.000By the way, huge companies are taking a massive hit.
00:34:33.000Alphabet's profit, which is the owner company for Google, it dropped 14% in Q2, which is a disastrous drop.
00:34:41.000That is a massive dump in terms of profitability.
00:34:44.000Microsoft is reporting earnings that fall short of already reduced expectations.
00:34:48.000The tech giant said that it had $51.9 billion in sales in the quarter ending June 30th.
00:35:10.000The good news is that the Biden administration, you know, being on top of things, they've sent out all of their advisors to whistle past the graveyard here and say, everything is fine.
00:35:17.000Biden's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Cecilia Rouse, she says, you know what?
00:36:48.000We're in a transition and it feels unique because it is unique.
00:36:51.000We have never come out of a global pandemic while dealing with the economic impacts of a land war in Europe.
00:36:58.000So we are in unique territory, but I think where we are now is coming through a transition from what has been a truly historically fast period of economic growth and job growth, transitioning to something that we certainly hope and our aim is to be more stable growth.
00:37:15.000But the key thing right now is that as we are in this transition, the choices we make now, the policy choices we make now, whether we actually take more action to lower prices and make things more affordable for families, these will help determine how successful we are at actually making that transition to a place where we are in more stable growth without giving up all of those economic gains that we've made.
00:37:38.000There's so much transitioning happening here.
00:37:41.000The only way to address a depressed and upset economy is by suggesting economic-affirming healthcare.
00:38:06.000Waiting in line for 20 minutes to get to the front, there's some guy who doesn't know more about cars than you do, and then he looks up the part that you need on his computer, and then he orders it and upcharges you.
00:38:13.000Or, you could just go to the experts at rockauto.com.
00:38:16.000They know auto parts, and all they sell is auto parts and related tools.
00:38:19.000Rock Auto is a family business founded by automotive engineers over 20 years ago.
00:38:22.000Their original goal was, and still is, to make auto parts available and affordable, so customers can keep their daily drivers and classics safely on the road.
00:38:29.000RockAuto.com's online parts catalog is uniquely easy to use.
00:38:32.000You quickly see all the parts available for your specific car, SUV, or truck.
00:38:35.000There are photos, specs, and installation tips to help you pick the best parts to meet your vehicle's needs.
00:38:39.000RockAuto.com will not only have the part, but usually will give you several trusted brands to choose from.
00:38:44.000RockAuto's kits are also popular because they bundle together all the parts necessary for a successful repair.
00:38:48.000You don't get halfway through installing a timing belt and then discover you need another pulley.
00:38:52.000Professional mechanics and do-it-yourselfers always pay the same at reliably low prices.
00:39:46.000You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:39:51.000While the Biden administration keeps saying transition over and over and over again, like it's an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, it turns out that people don't care about the They are just getting hammered by inflation, according to Joe Kroll, writing for Daily Wire.
00:40:08.000Inflation in big cities is crushing residents right now.
00:41:55.000According to the Washington Post, The first major prescription drug legislation in 20 years.
00:42:00.000More than $50 billion to subsidize computer chip manufacturing and research.
00:42:03.000A bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.
00:42:06.000After a turbulent stretch in which much of President Biden's legislative agenda seemed to be foundering, the president and his party may be on the cusp of significant wins in Congress.
00:42:14.000The White House hopes will provide at least a modest political boost.
00:42:17.000Most resonant is the bill to let Medicare negotiate drug prices, a hugely popular idea Democrats have been pursuing for more than 20 years.
00:42:23.000It would let Medicare negotiate prices for 10 drugs in 2026 and 10 more in 2029, forbid drug companies from raising prices faster than inflation, and cap Medicare recipients' out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs at $2,000 a year.
00:42:34.000All of which sounds fantastic until you realize that subsidy is going to be ongoing.
00:42:38.000It's going to cost a ton of money because you'll have to subsidize this in order so that drug companies continue to actually provide new drugs.
00:42:44.000It turns out when they cut the profitability of the drug companies, which is not massive, by the way, the profit margin is not enormous.
00:42:50.000And when you do that, what you end up doing is cutting down on the R&D that actually allows for better drugs to be provided to market.
00:42:57.000Meanwhile, these others were, quote unquote, big winners.
00:42:59.000Like, for example, a bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.
00:43:04.000That's a big political winner for you?
00:43:10.000Democrats thought abortion was going to be a big winner.
00:43:12.000They think they want an even bigger winner?
00:43:14.000Try the idea that you're going to run on same-sex marriage.
00:43:17.000I'm sure that's going to be a huge political winner for you while the economy is in the tank.
00:43:22.000Democrats hope these measures earn a bigger political payoff than, say, Biden's infrastructure law, which seemed to make little impression on voters.
00:43:29.000Probably passing a same-sex marriage bill is going to have more impact on voters in your direction than passing, like, a $1 trillion bill on infrastructure.
00:43:39.000In fact, more cowbell always seems to be the solution from the Democrats.
00:43:42.000But none of this is going to help the economy.
00:43:44.000Because if you actually wanted to help the economy, what you would do is you would, yes, raise the interest rates to cut off inflation.
00:44:06.000That's what would get people back into investing in the economy.
00:44:10.000Get people hiring, get people spending.
00:44:11.000The way that that happens is by providing a baseline level of economic security for people who make good decisions with their money.
00:44:18.000But that's precisely the opposite of what they are doing.
00:44:21.000The Wall Street Journal editorial board gets this right.
00:44:22.000They say, considering the mess we're in, an economic paradigm shift is in order.
00:44:26.000The democratic economic strategy of vast government spending and easy money has failed.
00:44:29.000A better agenda would let the Fed target stable prices, while policymakers on Capitol Hill and the White House Target incentives for growth to counter the tighter money that will be required to reduce inflation.
00:45:07.000Because again, the media are pushing him toward more radicalism because they are utterly disconnected from the experiences of everyday Americans.
00:45:13.000When members of the Biden team say transition, members of the media say how high.
00:45:19.000The Biden administration declared that recession is no longer two quarters of negative growth.
00:45:22.000The AP immediately ran a piece suggesting that recession is not two quarters of negative growth.
00:45:28.000The media are not actually providing a service to Democrats.
00:45:30.000When you bubble people off from the outside world, it actually makes them more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of politics when the real world clocks them directly in the face.
00:46:05.000I mean, there's no question that China, if they could get away with it, would invade right now.
00:46:11.000And China is preparing to subject the American economy to a massive gut punch should we actually try to fight this Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
00:46:20.000Now Taiwan, for its own part, is holding drills amid concerns about Nancy Pelosi visiting.
00:46:26.000According to the Associated Press, Taiwan's capital staged air raid drills on Monday, its military mobilized for routine defense exercises coinciding with concerns over a forceful Chinese response to a possible visit to the island by the U.S.
00:46:38.000While there is no direct link between China's renewed threats and Taiwan's defensive moves, they underscore the possibility of a renewed crisis in the Taiwan Strait.
00:46:46.000Taiwan Mayor Ko Wen-je told reporters, quote, in recent years, Chinese military planes have frequently harassed Taiwan.
00:46:52.000The war between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February this year.
00:46:55.000All these things make us understand the importance of being vigilant in times of peace.
00:46:58.000We need to be prepared if there is war.
00:47:01.000Pelosi has not confirmed when or if she's going to visit, but the Chinese government is screaming about this, suggesting that the United States has to prepare a military response if Pelosi should visit.
00:47:10.000Joe Biden said last week that military officials believed such a trip was, quote, unquote, not a good idea, which is always a great move.
00:47:16.000And undercutting the picture of American strength in the face of Chinese aggression is always a good move if you are the President of the United States.
00:47:23.000law requires Washington to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and treat all threats to the island as matters of grave concern that remains ambiguous on what exactly we would do in case of an attack from China.
00:47:40.000Now, ships are significantly more powerful, but the projective power of the United States Navy has been massively reduced under consecutive presidents.
00:47:50.000He succeeded a little bit, but particularly, Barack Obama had radically sliced the U.S.
00:47:56.000Navy, which means that the Navy doesn't have the power, really, to fight the Chinese in the waters near China.
00:48:04.000During a visit to Indonesia on Sunday, U.S.
00:48:06.000General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the Chinese military has become significantly more aggressive and dangerous over the past five years.
00:48:12.000Milley's Chinese counterpart, General Li Xiuquan, told him in a call earlier this month Beijing had no room for compromise on issues like Taiwan.
00:48:19.000On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Beijing had repeatedly expressed its solemn position over a potential visit by Pelosi, Zhao said, we are fully prepared.
00:48:28.000is bent on going its own way, China will take firm and strong measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
00:48:33.000What they mean by that is they'll invade Taiwan because they believe that Taiwan is part of China, despite the fact that Taiwan has effectively been an independent polity since Mao Zedong took over mainland China.
00:48:45.000China has not said what specific actions it would take.
00:48:47.000Speculation is centered on a new round of threatening military exercises or even an attempt to prevent Pelosi's plane from landing by declaring a no-fly zone over Taiwan.
00:48:57.000This is probably some huffing and puffing economic punishment of Taiwan, according to Michael Mazza, defense and China expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
00:49:04.000But you can see that the China, which has to strengthen itself, it has to, because here's the thing, time does not bode well for China.
00:49:12.000China actually does not have time on its side.
00:49:14.000It's still reliant on a communist infrastructure that undercuts its economic growth.
00:49:18.000China is relying on basically old school mercantilist principles in order to strengthen itself, but they are basing themselves on debt.
00:49:25.000They are attempting to overcome a massive demographic problem they created with their one-child policy.
00:49:30.000China is completely demographically upside down.
00:49:32.000They have an extraordinarily old population and not enough young people to actually pay the bills on this sort of stuff.
00:49:37.000And what this means is that Xi, who has gotten more militant with the outside world, not less, that he has to get more aggressive.
00:49:44.000Because the only way that he's going to be able to maintain his power inside the Communist Party there is to demonstrate his Mao Zedong-like territorially aggressive instincts.
00:49:51.000In the same way that Vladimir Putin, in order to uphold his rule, is very territorially aggressive, right?
00:49:55.000He has not actually opened up his economy or made life better for Russians.
00:49:58.000So what that means is national greatness is now on the table.
00:50:08.000The reason that you can tell that they are prepping for a war is because of what they are doing with semiconductors.
00:50:12.000So right now, the Chinese have been, as we've talked about, attempting to generate extraordinary semiconductor capacity inside their own country.
00:50:24.000China apparently is going to lead global semiconductor growth by 2030, according to Investment Monitor.
00:50:31.000They say that China is going to Lead the global semiconductor industry by 2030 due to its growing market size and domestic production capacity.
00:50:38.000So there's two aspects of semiconductors.
00:50:46.000You know, for all the talk about China creating 77,000 or 7700, for all the talk about China creating tons and tons of STEM graduates, we're going to go into the hard sciences.
00:50:57.000The truth is that China is not good at innovation.
00:50:59.000China is very good at copying and manufacture.
00:51:01.000That is why products that you get are cheap manufacturers from China, generally.
00:51:06.000And so when it comes to semiconductors, China is creating very, very basic semiconductors, not the advanced semiconductors that are produced particularly in Taiwan and South Korea.
00:51:15.000Now, there's only one problem with this.
00:51:17.000If they're produced in Taiwan and South Korea, and China were to invade Taiwan, one of two things happens.
00:51:21.000Either China takes over Taiwan's semiconductor capacity, which means suddenly China is the global leader in semiconductors, which is a disaster for the United States and for its allies.
00:51:32.000Because semiconductors are in everything.
00:51:33.000They're in your cell phone, they're in your computer, they're in your car.
00:51:36.000Every sophisticated piece of technology you have is rooted in semiconductors.
00:51:40.000And those are being produced right now.
00:51:42.000Really, the advanced ones, like the really good ones, are being produced in Taiwan and South Korea.
00:51:46.000If China were to invade Taiwan, Taiwan has two choices.
00:51:49.000One, all those resources fall into the hands of China.
00:51:52.000Two, they fry all the semiconductors in an attempt to avoid giving them to the Chinese.
00:51:57.000If that happens, you know who else doesn't have the semiconductors?
00:52:00.000Then China is still the producer of kind of the next best thing and lots of them.
00:52:04.000And so this has led the United States to finally belatedly realize that it needs to reshore all of its options.
00:52:10.000If it's not going to defend Taiwan properly, it's not going to build up militarily, it's not going to build up its own economy, then the United States had damn well better get into the business of manufacturing It's own semiconductors, which is why you are seeing Congress, I would say belatedly, attempting to reshore chip manufacturing in the United States.
00:52:26.000Now, I know this is actually a controversial area on the right.
00:52:28.000There's some people like the Wall Street Journal is very much against the idea of subsidizing the domestic manufacture of chips inside the United States.
00:52:35.000This is an actual national security issue in the same way that it is a national security issue for the United States to be energy independent.
00:52:41.000It is a national security situation for the United States not to be dependent on China and places that are really on the brink of falling to China in terms of semiconductors.
00:52:51.000Because if we lose our access to semiconductors, we're toast.
00:52:54.000We have a serious international relations and military prowess problem.
00:52:58.000There's a piece by Farrah Stockman, member of the editorial board over the New York Times, talking about this.
00:53:02.000She says semiconductors, the tiny computer chips that run everything from smartphones to satellites to missile defense systems, are often called the oil of the 21st century. Maintaining U.S. economic and military might depends on a reliable supply. Semiconductor shortages during the pandemic brought some car assembly lines to a halt, left showrooms of home appliances barren, providing a glimpse of what would happen to the American economy if those chips ever ran out.
00:53:21.000Semiconductor industry is so important it factors into decisions about war and peace.
00:53:26.00092% of the world's most advanced chips are made in Taiwan.
00:53:30.000Repeated warnings by President Xi Jinping of China that he's willing to use force to reassert control over Taiwan have forced U.S.
00:53:35.000policymakers to contemplate what would happen if the U.S.
00:53:37.000military was ever cut off from the chips that it needs.
00:53:41.000Since the Trump administration cut off certain chips from going to China, chips have become fodder for public debate.
00:53:45.000Now Americans are worried about their own chip supply.
00:53:48.000The CHIPS Act would give $39 billion to subsidize the construction of semiconductor factories in the United States, plus $11 billion for research and development initiatives into chip innovation.
00:53:57.000That is the centerpiece of a bill to increase U.S.
00:53:59.000competitiveness expected to move forward in Congress this summer.
00:54:01.000There's a reason why this is going to receive some bipartisan support.
00:54:06.000But the places that make chips, including Taiwan, South Korea, India, Germany, and China, offset the enormous capital costs with gobs of public money.
00:54:13.000Reasonable people can disagree about whether that's a good thing, but if the U.S.
00:54:16.000wants to compete, subsidies are the price of admission.
00:54:19.000But paying off companies isn't going to get us very far.
00:54:21.000We actually have to build a pipeline for talent on these particular issues.
00:54:25.000We don't have enough experienced workers when it comes to chip manufacture.
00:54:29.000The Trump administration has been pressuring the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to build a fab on U.S.
00:54:34.000soil capable of mass-producing advanced chips.
00:54:36.000Finding people in Arizona with the same skills and work ethic as exist right now in Taiwan has been a challenge, according to the company's founder, Morris Chang.
00:54:44.000Attracting highly skilled foreign workers is essential, at least in the short term.
00:54:49.000The bottom line here is that the The Chinese have a geographic advantage on this particular issue.
00:54:56.000And so we are going to need to make some aggressive moves in terms of ensuring our own semiconductor industry if we actually are going to challenge China and prevent China from invading Taiwan.
00:55:09.000The United States having a weakened economy is going to be a very, very serious problem.
00:55:14.000And this administration, you know, they can talk about semiconductor spending, that's all fine and good.
00:55:18.000And I think there's a very good case for it.
00:55:20.000Right now, for example, GM is absolutely getting smoked because of their loss of semiconductors from China.
00:55:25.000According to the Wall Street Journal, GM's net profit tumbled 40% in the second quarter, hurt by a loss in China and supply chain troubles that left the company with tens of thousands of unfinished vehicles it could not sell during the period because of the computer chip shortage.
00:55:38.000That just is sort of a taste of what's to come if China were to gain control over the global semiconductor supply.
00:55:43.000So we have to do something there, but it's more than that.
00:55:47.000And yes, we also have to start redirecting our energies from beating each other up over pronouns and toward the fact that we have a global power in China which is not rising but is increasingly aggressive over time.
00:55:58.000And if we don't do that, then Cold War II is not likely to go in the same direction as Cold War I.
00:56:03.000And China, if given enough time, will collapse in on itself like a dying star because their economy does not work, their demographics do not work.
00:56:10.000And failure to contain is going to lead China to more and more aggression and more and more longevity on the world stage in its current form.
00:56:18.000Alrighty, we will be back here later today with additional content.
00:56:20.000In the meantime, go check out one of our newest podcasts, Morning Wire.
00:56:22.000Today's episode is available right now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Daily Wire+, or wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure to tune in.
00:56:29.000The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Bradford Carrington, Executive Producer Jeremy Boren, Supervising Producer Mathis Glover, Production Manager Pavel Lydowsky, Associate Producer Savannah Dominguez-Morris, Editor Adam Sajevitz, Audio Mixer Mike Coromina, Hair and Makeup Artist in Wardrobe Fabiola Christina, Production Coordinator Jessica Grand.
00:56:53.000The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.