The Ben Shapiro Show - Will The DOJ Criminally Charge Donald Trump? | Ep. 1543

00:00:00.000 Merrick Garland reportedly looks at criminally charging Donald Trump.

00:00:03.000 Kamala Harris announces her pronouns.

00:00:05.000 And the IMF predicts global recession as the Chinese signal more aggression on Taiwan. 0.99

00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

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00:00:24.000 Now, here is the thing.

00:00:25.000 Inflation taking a terrible toll on Americans.

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00:00:30.000 We hit it every month.

00:00:31.000 We'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.

00:00:31.000 It's great.

00:00:42.000 She said, there's a direct quote from her, quote, I was wrong about the path inflation would take.

00:00:46.000 I didn't fully understand.

00:00:47.000 Yeah, we get it.

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00:01:36.000 Well, the Democrats basically have no choice at this point.

00:01:39.000 Merrick 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.

00:01:49.000 Carol 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.

00:02:04.000 Prosecutors 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.

00:02:17.000 According to two people familiar with the matter, both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

00:02:22.000 The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021.

00:02:28.000 His 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.

00:02:38.000 Some 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.

00:02:45.000 In 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.

00:02:55.000 This entire story, of course, is anonymously sourced, which is what you would expect from the Merrick Garland DOJ.

00:03:00.000 The January 6th Committee has been extraordinarily leaky, and they've been leaky in one particular direction.

00:03:06.000 Obviously, 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.

00:03:12.000 See, 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.

00:03:21.000 The real threat here is for the Biden administration, because the entire predicate For the January 6th Committee is that criminal action occurred here.

00:03:28.000 And as I've asked from the beginning, if criminal action occurred, the January 6th Committee has no criminal investigative power.

00:03:34.000 They have no power to indict.

00:03:36.000 So what exactly are we doing here?

00:03:38.000 Normally, 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.

00:03:48.000 Neither one of those seems to be upheld.

00:03:50.000 And yet the January 6th committee was directed largely at the idea that a criminal prosecution was imminent.

00:03:54.000 So I kept saying, okay, so where's the DOJ?

00:03:56.000 And over time, that became the drumbeat.

00:03:58.000 It wasn't just from people like me, it was people on the left.

00:04:00.000 People on the left were saying, if all this is so criminal, where is Merrick Garland?

00:04:04.000 Where is Joe Biden?

00:04:05.000 Where is the evidence of his fealty to the cause in throwing over established law and going after Donald Trump?

00:04:12.000 Where can we grab a hook to hang our hat on when it comes to Donald Trump is a criminal?

00:04:17.000 After all, you're in charge of all of the criminal investigative offices of the federal government.

00:04:21.000 At this point.

00:04:22.000 And so it's not a shock to see Merrick Garland and the DOJ leaking this stuff out.

00:04:25.000 Now remember, five seconds ago they were talking about how they have to keep all of their investigation secret.

00:04:29.000 This is literally the line they were using yesterday in the mainstream press.

00:04:32.000 And one day later we have leaks, presumably from inside the DOJ, on their investigative intent with regard to Donald Trump.

00:04:40.000 The 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.

00:04:47.000 But the degree of prosecutors' interest in Trump's actions has not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides' phone records.

00:04:53.000 A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

00:04:57.000 A Justice Department spokesperson and lawyer for Meadows both declined to comment.

00:05:01.000 And 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.

00:05:13.000 Apparently, 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.

00:05:19.000 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.

00:05:24.000 Amendment 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.

00:05:41.000 Trump convinced himself that he had won because Trump has never believed that he has ever lost on any subject, ever.

00:05:46.000 And so, he has a unique capacity to convince himself of nearly anything, including the idea that he won.

00:05:51.000 Let's say that that's just what he does.

00:05:53.000 And this is an intent crime, for the most part.

00:05:55.000 So, how do you distinguish First Amendment protected speech, like, I won the election, from, I won the election, subvert it.

00:06:01.000 How do you distinguish those two things, except by getting in the head of Donald Trump?

00:06:06.000 Which has always been questionable.

00:06:09.000 So, as I've said before, intent crime is very difficult to charge with regard to President Trump.

00:06:13.000 Now, 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.

00:06:19.000 So, 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.

00:06:31.000 Now, he says that con man Trump has met his match with the committee.

00:06:35.000 Okay, well, again, not with the committee, More with the DOJ if the DOJ decides to go forward on this thing.

00:06:42.000 And that's if the DOJ can actually substantiate a prosecution.

00:06:44.000 Here's Jamie Raskin.

00:06:46.000 Why 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?

00:06:59.000 Did the founders shank it in how they set up the checks and balances?

00:07:03.000 Or are the other branches shanking it right now out of fear?

00:07:07.000 No, I think he's good at what he does.

00:07:09.000 I mean, he's from this city.

00:07:10.000 He's from New York.

00:07:13.000 And he's been a con man and an operator for a long time.

00:07:18.000 And 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.

00:07:30.000 By the way, I do love that Stephen Colbert has basically just become a late night news host on CNN.

00:07:37.000 That was Stephen Colbert doing that interview.

00:07:38.000 There's so much comedying happening.

00:07:40.000 I mean, he is just one of our great comedians right there. 0.98

00:07:43.000 And I also enjoy the soft implication by Jamie Raskin that everyone in New York is a con man and a liar. 0.94

00:07:49.000 Well, he is from New York. 0.90

00:07:50.000 You know, like every con man is from New York.

00:07:52.000 OK, I mean, fact check.

00:07:54.000 Kind of true.

00:07:55.000 Anyway, he said it.

00:07:57.000 I didn't say it.

00:07:58.000 In any case, the pressure that is being put on Merrick Garland is extraordinary, which is why you're seeing these leaks right now.

00:08:04.000 Now, the question really is whether they can charge Donald Trump.

00:08:08.000 So Steve Riley over at The Grid has a good rundown on the possibility of which charges could theoretically be brought against Trump.

00:08:14.000 And you can see the weakness of the charges here.

00:08:17.000 Which 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.

00:08:27.000 So what exactly are the charges that they're considering?

00:08:29.000 Well, theoretically, inciting insurrection.

00:08:32.000 Now, in order to do that, you actually have to demonstrate incitement.

00:08:35.000 Incitement is a very, very difficult crime to prove because incitement means that you actually have to tell people to go commit the crime.

00:08:40.000 And I'm sorry, march to the Capitol building and protest peacefully is not incitement.

00:08:45.000 You'd have to demonstrate that he actually was coordinating with people in advance, that his words were designed to incite imminent lawless action.

00:08:54.000 That's very difficult to prove.

00:08:55.000 And that's not proved by his actions after the violence begins.

00:08:58.000 That's no longer incitement.

00:09:01.000 That's a form of negligence, but it may not be criminal negligence.

00:09:04.000 So it's going to be very difficult to prove incitement.

00:09:07.000 That's not according to me.

00:09:08.000 That's according to Barbara McQuaid, former U.S.

00:09:09.000 attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and a current professor at University of Michigan Law School.

00:09:15.000 Especially because, again, this is First Amendment-protected activity.

00:09:18.000 Saying, I want you to go march over to the Capitol building and peacefully protest, that's clearly First Amendment-protected activity.

00:09:23.000 Okay, so what are the other possibilities here?

00:09:25.000 Well, theoretically, conspiracy to defraud the United States.

00:09:27.000 So, the basic definition of that crime would be two or more people working to undermine a core function of government.

00:09:33.000 It requires proving fraudulent intent, right?

00:09:35.000 The intent here is the part that's hard to prove.

00:09:37.000 If 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.

00:09:46.000 I mean, he was clearly trying to do that.

00:09:47.000 He was doing that publicly.

00:09:48.000 The 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.

00:10:00.000 And the answer there is unclear, because again, Donald Trump and intent, not the best of friends.

00:10:06.000 Donald Trump probably believes that, like, don't you believe?

00:10:09.000 I believe that Donald Trump thinks today that he won the election.

00:10:12.000 I 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.

00:10:17.000 Like, I don't think that's what Donald Trump thinks.

00:10:19.000 I think he's sitting in the backroom of Mar-a-Lago right now saying, I won the election and no one believes me.

00:10:22.000 It was stolen.

00:10:23.000 It was fraud.

00:10:25.000 I think that he believes what he says.

00:10:27.000 Like, this is one of the key things about Trump.

00:10:29.000 He mostly says what he thinks.

00:10:31.000 There is no brain to mouth filter in that guy.

00:10:33.000 And so his capacity to say, dissemble, that he actually knows that he lost the election, but now he's trying to Trump it.

00:10:41.000 He's trying to Trump the election, no pun intended, with fraudulent activity.

00:10:45.000 That's gonna be very difficult to prove as well.

00:10:48.000 McQuaid 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.

00:10:54.000 This is what the January 6th committee is trying to show.

00:10:57.000 I'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.

00:11:03.000 And again, these are very questionable propositions.

00:11:06.000 I mean, Donald Trump is not famous for listening to advice.

00:11:09.000 That is not his thing.

00:11:10.000 It is both his charm and his drawback.

00:11:12.000 He is not somebody who is open-minded about receiving criticism.

00:11:16.000 Anybody who criticizes Donald Trump generally finds themselves directly in Donald Trump's crosshairs.

00:11:20.000 So, when it comes to criminal charges against President Trump, intent crimes are particularly hard to prove.

00:11:24.000 But here's a thing that I don't have to prove to you. 0.99

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00:12:32.000 It's the responsible thing to do.

00:12:34.000 Okay, how about conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding?

00:12:37.000 According 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.

00:12:44.000 So, a charge that could stem from Trump's efforts that culminated in the disruption would be put in a civil legal filing.

00:12:50.000 So, theoretically, they would argue that Trump violated a statute, federal section 1512c2, which criminalizes obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding.

00:12:59.000 But 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.

00:13:08.000 And there's no evidence of that yet.

00:13:11.000 You 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.

00:13:19.000 We're unarmed people in the Capitol building, or whatever.

00:13:22.000 But that has not been proved yet, right?

00:13:23.000 Those dots have never been shown by the January 6th committee.

00:13:26.000 Okay, so the final ditch attempt here is going to be state election law.

00:13:29.000 And this is the one where, theoretically, they have the most evidence, right?

00:13:33.000 State 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.

00:13:47.000 So 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.

00:13:58.000 Now, again, the problem with this is that it's sort of an intent crime, meaning that there are two ways to read that conversation.

00:14:04.000 One is, I know I lost.

00:14:05.000 Go find the votes somewhere.

00:14:07.000 Go find them in a box.

00:14:08.000 Go get them.

00:14:09.000 That's one way to read it.

00:14:09.000 The other is, I know I won the state, and you guys are just not doing your job.

00:14:13.000 And if you actually did your job, you'd know I won.

00:14:15.000 So find me the votes, the show that I won, because I know I won.

00:14:18.000 Which is not actually election fraud.

00:14:20.000 That's just him being wrong.

00:14:22.000 And it's First Amendment protected activity.

00:14:24.000 So all of these charges are extraordinarily dicey.

00:14:26.000 And then, of course, there's the one that the left loves the most, which is seditious conspiracy.

00:14:29.000 The idea that he was working to overthrow the United States.

00:14:33.000 Or prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.

00:14:36.000 And there, you would actually have to show that he was coordinating with, say, the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers to invade the building.

00:14:42.000 And now, again, you can see how weak these charges are.

00:14:44.000 You can see how difficult it's going to be for Mayor Garland to prove these charges at all.

00:14:50.000 And 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.

00:15:00.000 That 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.

00:15:12.000 So 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.

00:15:23.000 Or if he actually criminally investigates Trump and criminally charges Trump, that will take Trump off the board for 2024, particularly.

00:15:30.000 Or at the very least, it'll make it center of everybody's attention in 2022.

00:15:33.000 That 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.

00:15:43.000 And this ties into the broader Democratic argument they've been making for a while here, which is that Republicans are a threat to democracy.

00:15:48.000 So 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.

00:15:54.000 Now, this line of attack has been completely unsuccessful for Democrats.

00:15:57.000 If 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.

00:16:10.000 And many of those people, by the way, are Republican.

00:16:12.000 A bunch of Republicans who think that election fraud and subversion of democracy are happening from the left.

00:16:17.000 So the idea that this is going to be the tip of the spear in 2022 for Democratic hopes?

00:16:21.000 Very, very unlikely.

00:16:22.000 But Democrats are pushing it anyway.

00:16:23.000 Here's Eddie Glaude doing just that on MSNBC.

00:16:26.000 How worried are you about the ability for Americans to cast their ballots this fall and beyond?

00:16:33.000 Oh, I'm extraordinarily worried.

00:16:35.000 The assault on voting impacts our democracy.

00:16:38.000 It's not enough to just simply declare that we must vote more Democrats into office.

00:16:42.000 Wherever you are on the ideological spectrum in this regard.

00:16:45.000 To understand how this has impacted the landscape of how people vote and how votes are counted is really important.

00:16:52.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:16:53.000 Democrats don't actually believe this.

00:16:56.000 I mean, first of all, they have no basis for believing this.

00:16:58.000 I 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.

00:17:07.000 If 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.

00:17:14.000 So 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.

00:17:26.000 They actually ran a $425,000 ad run.

00:17:29.000 It'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.

00:17:35.000 In 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.

00:17:45.000 The 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.

00:17:54.000 But 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.

00:18:11.000 So they ran a hit ad that is not actually a hit ad.

00:18:14.000 They're running an ad against Gibbs saying, he's too conservative for Republicans.

00:18:17.000 He's just too awesome.

00:18:19.000 Don't vote for him.

00:18:21.000 Right, which is clearly an ad meant to get people to vote for John Gibbs because they think that Gibbs is more beatable in general.

00:18:25.000 Well, here is the problem.

00:18:26.000 If you guys keep saying that people are a threat to democracy, why are you elevating them?

00:18:30.000 Why are you elevating them?

00:18:31.000 All right, this is the case that I made in 2020.

00:18:33.000 It was Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden.

00:18:36.000 Now, there's a solid case we made that Bernie Sanders was much more beatable in a general election than Joe Biden.

00:18:41.000 But 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.

00:18:51.000 Because if Bernie Sanders actually becomes president, the country may be finished.

00:18:54.000 And that's how radical Bernie Sanders is.

00:18:56.000 Now, 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.

00:19:07.000 Democrats did this in 2016.

00:19:09.000 They tried to elevate Donald Trump, thinking he'd be quite beatable for Hillary Clinton, and then he ended up winning.

00:19:13.000 This has happened multiple times.

00:19:15.000 Right now, Democrats, they tried to push Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.

00:19:19.000 And Doug Mastroianno might actually win his race.

00:19:21.000 He might become the governor of Pennsylvania.

00:19:23.000 Because right now he's running like within single percentage points of Josh Shapiro, the attorney general in the state of Pennsylvania.

00:19:32.000 So Democrats, you can't have both ways.

00:19:34.000 Either 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?

00:19:40.000 But you can't have it both ways.

00:19:43.000 So Democrats obviously don't believe that this is a threat to democracy.

00:19:46.000 What this is all about, always and forever, is just the politicking.

00:19:50.000 And for Joe Biden particularly, it's about the politicking.

00:19:53.000 Because Joe Biden understands one thing and one thing only.

00:19:56.000 He wants to make Trump the opponent, right?

00:19:58.000 He needs people to talk about Trump.

00:19:59.000 If people talk about Joe Biden, Joe Biden is in serious, serious trouble.

00:20:02.000 He's been a terrible president.

00:20:03.000 He 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.

00:20:11.000 All he had to do was the thing he is best at, become unconscious.

00:20:13.000 That's all he had to do.

00:20:15.000 All 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.

00:20:23.000 That's it.

00:20:24.000 And he didn't do that.

00:20:25.000 And so you ended up with this disastrous presidency.

00:20:27.000 But when he entered office, obviously he had all these tailwinds, right?

00:20:30.000 He had a vaccine that was working.

00:20:31.000 He had the fact that COVID was going to end and everybody was going to go back to work.

00:20:34.000 He 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.

00:20:40.000 All he had to do was go hands off and he couldn't do it.

00:20:43.000 So that means that he has to redirect to Trump.

00:20:45.000 And 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.

00:20:53.000 Trump hasn't been president of the United States since January of 2021.

00:20:57.000 It's been a while here, gang.

00:20:58.000 It's now July of 2022.

00:20:59.000 So why is Joe Biden still talking about January 6th?

00:21:04.000 The answer is he needs you to think about January 6th so you don't think about him.

00:21:08.000 So here is Joe Biden.

00:21:10.000 I mean, this is a really weird clip.

00:21:11.000 Here's Joe Biden talking about Donald Trump yesterday.

00:21:15.000 You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-cop.

00:21:18.000 You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy.

00:21:21.000 You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-American.

00:21:24.000 Donald Trump lacked the courage to act.

00:21:26.000 The brave women and men in blue all across this nation should never forget that.

00:21:33.000 Lifeless eyes.

00:21:35.000 Black eyes.

00:21:36.000 Like a doll's eyes.

00:21:38.000 I also love the vocal fry there.

00:21:39.000 He's so clearly not well.

00:21:41.000 Donald 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.

00:21:49.000 You see an ashtray filled with smoked cigarettes over here and a glass of whiskey over here.

00:21:54.000 Let me tell you something about Donald Trump.

00:21:56.000 You can't be pro-police.

00:22:00.000 He is not with us, gang.

00:22:03.000 That dude is not with us.

00:22:04.000 This is the big problem for Joe Biden.

00:22:05.000 Every time he tries to make a case, he just underscores the case of why he shouldn't be president.

00:22:08.000 Every time he is on camera, it is a case against why he should be president of the United States.

00:22:12.000 He can talk all he wants about Donald Trump, and it ain't gonna help him.

00:22:15.000 It also ain't gonna help him when he says he's pro-police.

00:22:17.000 His entire party, five minutes ago, was pushing defund the police.

00:22:20.000 His vice president tried to bail out rioters in the middle of the Black Lives Matter riots in Minneapolis.

00:22:25.000 So, uh, no.

00:22:26.000 I don't believe you, that you are now pro-police and you are the moderate.

00:22:30.000 I also don't believe you're alive.

00:22:31.000 And they keep, they keep wheeling this guy out, and he's pretty obviously an ambulatory corpse.

00:22:37.000 I mean, they're pretty obviously taking him in the back room, and they're using galvanic electricity to like...

00:22:42.000 Like they would on a frog leg.

00:22:44.000 Get him out there.

00:22:45.000 I'm telling you.

00:22:47.000 Then runs out of electricity and they have to cut like they did in the middle of that particular clip.

00:22:51.000 And they have to hit him again with electricity and wake him up.

00:22:54.000 It's it's real bad.

00:22:55.000 Well, there's very little in life that could reinvigorate Joe Biden, but perhaps a good steak.

00:23:00.000 Could do it, because steak is the best thing that ever was.

00:23:02.000 Let me tell you about one of the best steaks I ever had.

00:23:03.000 It was a Good Rancher steak.

00:23:05.000 They got me a kosher steak.

00:23:06.000 They grilled it for me on a kosher barbecue.

00:23:07.000 It was unbelievable, the steak.

00:23:09.000 It was so good.

00:23:10.000 Well, Good Ranchers can make that magic happen for you.

00:23:13.000 Grocery stores and leftists will tell you to buy Grass-Fed Super Omega Morally superior, equity bringing, live your truth beef.

00:23:19.000 Pushing the lie, those labels mean anything at all.

00:23:20.000 Actually, they don't mean anything.

00:23:22.000 They're just kind of slapped on products imported from overseas.

00:23:25.000 The meat has more frequent flyer miles than you do.

00:23:27.000 Here's the label that matters.

00:23:28.000 100% American meat and Good Ranchers has the meat.

00:23:32.000 Good Ranchers, only sources from farms and ranches here in the United States.

00:23:35.000 Maybe you thought a steak cooking over a fire couldn't get more American.

00:23:37.000 It can, with any box of Good Ranchers.

00:23:40.000 I'm told the iron levels of Daily Wire employees are at an all-time high due to just how good their stuff really is.

00:23:45.000 I've noticed that all the dudes in the office, they're growing their beards faster.

00:23:49.000 I mean, it's just, it's that much manliness when you order from Good Ranchers.

00:23:53.000 Use my code BEN to get 30 bucks off your box of steakhouse-quality cuts, plus free shipping.

00:23:57.000 Change the way you think about meat and the way you buy it.

00:23:59.000 Your 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.

00:24:05.000 There is a reason why a poll shows that 75% of Democratic voters want somebody other than Joe Biden in 2024.

00:24:16.000 That's always great.

00:24:18.000 That'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.

00:24:27.000 According 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.

00:24:37.000 The poll comes as Biden's approval ratings remain low.

00:24:40.000 Most Americans are disconcerted with the state of the country and the economy.

00:24:43.000 Inflation remains high.

00:24:44.000 A new report released Tuesday showed consumer confidence slipping for the third straight month.

00:24:48.000 24% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they want someone else because they don't think Biden can win in 2024.

00:24:52.000 That's up from 18%.

00:24:55.000 In a poll conducted in January and February, 32% feel that way because they don't want Biden to be reelected.

00:25:00.000 At all.

00:25:01.000 Which is, uh oh.

00:25:03.000 So you got 24% of Democrats who don't think he can win.

00:25:06.000 You have another 32% who don't want him to win.

00:25:10.000 Uh, whoa.

00:25:12.000 And 25% said they prefer Biden as the nominee.

00:25:14.000 That is a steep drop from 45% in January and February.

00:25:18.000 The poll shows a sharp downward turn in enthusiasm for a 2024 re-election bid by the president.

00:25:24.000 In January and February, 51% of Democrats said they wanted someone other than Biden.

00:25:27.000 Now 31% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters 45 years and older would prefer Biden to be the 2024 nominee.

00:25:34.000 So even old Democrats are like, no.

00:25:36.000 We want him to leave.

00:25:37.000 If you're under 45, only 18% want Joe Biden to be the 2024 nominee.

00:25:42.000 Which, by the way, suggests somebody should primary him.

00:25:44.000 I mean, really, it suggests that while the Democratic Party is declaring that he is the shoe-in nominee, I'm not so sure.

00:25:52.000 I 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.

00:25:57.000 And I don't see how it hurts AOC.

00:25:59.000 I would not be surprised whatsoever.

00:26:00.000 I mean, AOC is obviously not brokering for power inside the mainstream Democratic Party.

00:26:04.000 She's not making nice of Nancy Pelosi.

00:26:06.000 She's not doing her committee assignments.

00:26:08.000 She's not particularly worried about making friends.

00:26:10.000 She's more interested in the Instagram of it all.

00:26:12.000 And 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.

00:26:22.000 The 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.

00:26:29.000 And the people who are supposedly going to back him up here are people like Pete Buttigieg.

00:26:33.000 There is a new poll out showing that Pete Buttigieg, in a primary in New Hampshire, would actually edge out Joe Biden right now.

00:26:39.000 The incumbent president, among New Hampshire Democrats, they say 17% would choose Buttigieg among a list of Democrats or those who caucus with Democrats.

00:26:50.000 He received 16% support, followed by Elizabeth Warren and Gavin Newsom, who each came in at 10%.

00:26:55.000 A handful of other Democrats, in addition to Bernie Sanders, received less than 10%.

00:27:00.000 The polling further demonstrates Democrats are not wedded to the idea of choosing Biden as their nominee in the next presidential cycle.

00:27:07.000 Now, 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.

00:27:12.000 So the chances that he is actually going to jump in against Joe Biden are extraordinarily low.

00:27:18.000 But it also demonstrates, once again, the divides inside the Democratic Party.

00:27:20.000 New Hampshire is extremely white.

00:27:22.000 The base of the Democratic Party is very, very black by demographics.

00:27:25.000 And what that means, I mean, this is why Joe Biden ended up winning in the Democratic primaries.

00:27:29.000 Remember, Bernie Sanders won the first couple of Democrats, he won Iowa, and he won New Hampshire.

00:27:33.000 So it is not a shock that Joe Biden would lose to Pete Buttigieg inside New Hampshire.

00:27:38.000 Right now, by the way, only 31% of Democrats in New Hampshire want Joe Biden to run in 2024.

00:27:47.000 Only 20% overall in New Hampshire want Joe Biden to run in 2024.

00:27:51.000 Right now, Buttigieg edges out Biden 17 to 16 among those candidates.

00:27:58.000 Those are bad numbers.

00:28:01.000 It is also worth noting here that the general favorable and unfavorable ratings for every Democrat are really, really bad.

00:28:10.000 Really bad.

00:28:11.000 So, 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.

00:28:18.000 Among all New Hampshire voters, he's 8 points underwater.

00:28:22.000 Kamala Harris, by the way, is, um...

00:28:26.000 I believe 42 points underwater with New Hampshire voters, 63% disapprove, 21% approve.

00:28:32.000 Ooh, that is, yeah, that is a big owie.

00:28:37.000 Ouch.

00:28:38.000 Oh no.

00:28:39.000 By the way, you know who should be mentioned here?

00:28:41.000 The incomparable AOC in that poll of New Hampshire Democratic voters has 5%.

00:28:46.000 She's 1% below Kamala Harris. 1.00

00:28:49.000 In that Democratic poll.

00:28:51.000 Speaking of which, Kamala Harris continues to demonstrate how terrible she is at this. 0.93

00:28:54.000 By the way, that would not prohibit Kamala Harris from being the nominee.

00:28:56.000 I 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?

00:29:04.000 He intervened with Joe Biden.

00:29:06.000 He tried to get the states that have more of a black Democratic base to vote for Joe Biden.

00:29:11.000 You think he's going to get behind Pete Buttigieg, the whitest person ever to white? 0.98

00:29:15.000 The small-town Indiana mayor who couldn't fill potholes but also is gay? 0.98

00:29:19.000 You really think that Jim Clyburn is going to be backing Pete Buttigieg in a primary against Kamala Harris?

00:29:24.000 So 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.

00:29:35.000 Major accomplishments there from your Secretary of Transportation.

00:29:38.000 Versus Kamala Harris, maybe the most unpopular and untalented politician ever to walk this earth. 1.00

00:29:45.000 She makes Nero look like a populist.

00:29:49.000 Here is Kamala Harris yesterday explaining her pronouns to an assembled group at a meeting.

00:29:56.000 I want to welcome these leaders for coming in to have this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time.

00:29:56.000 Oh my goodness.

00:30:10.000 I am Kamala Harris.

00:30:11.000 My pronouns are she and her.

00:30:12.000 I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.

00:30:17.000 My goodness.

00:30:18.000 You know how fast that moved from faculty lounges to the White House?

00:30:21.000 That took about half a second.

00:30:23.000 First of all, her entire pitch for being on the ticket is that she is she-her. 1.00

00:30:27.000 If you don't know that Kamala Harris is a woman at this point, you're an idiot. 0.99

00:30:30.000 But apparently Kamala Harris has to announce it to the world again in fealty to gender ideology. 1.00

00:30:34.000 Supposedly the reason that she is talking about who she is in her blue suit is because she is speaking to the blind. 0.98

00:30:40.000 I look forward to her using American Sign Language to also explain to folks who are deaf there.

00:30:45.000 And she's doing it herself, right?

00:30:47.000 So why not?

00:30:48.000 Why not?

00:30:49.000 In any case, she is very, very bad at this and way too far left for the American people.

00:30:55.000 So this is why they have to keep trotting out the corpse of Joe Biden.

00:30:58.000 Prop 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...

00:31:06.000 Smell a little bit.

00:31:07.000 In any case, Joe Biden's press secretary, in other news, is now leaving the White House.

00:31:11.000 First of all, I don't know why Joe Biden has a press secretary.

00:31:15.000 I don't know why the First Lady has an official position at all. 1.00

00:31:17.000 If 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. 1.00

00:31:23.000 By the way, it would be the reverse if it were first gentlemen.

00:31:25.000 If they're a female president and the husband were out there making political speeches, I'd be like, no one elected you. 1.00

00:31:29.000 Why do we care what you have to say?

00:31:31.000 This nonsense where we pretend that the first lady actually has a political position is highly, highly irritating. 0.94

00:31:37.000 It's irritating because again, no one elected these people to do anything.

00:31:40.000 But Joe Biden apparently has a press secretary named Michael La Rosa and he's now being forced out of the White House.

00:31:44.000 So I do love the fact that Joe Biden will not fire any of his top advisors for running the worst presidency in my lifetime easily. 0.99

00:31:52.000 But Joe Biden will can... You write a speech where she calls Mexican people tacos and she will can your ass? 1.00

00:31:58.000 Man, you are dead in the water. 1.00

00:32:00.000 The 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.

00:32:10.000 We'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.

00:32:18.000 La Rosa actually is joining the public affairs from Hamilton Place Strategies.

00:32:22.000 So that that revolving door continues to move forward.

00:32:26.000 La 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? 1.00

00:32:37.000 Maybe I'm ignorant. 0.92

00:32:39.000 I'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. 0.97

00:32:46.000 But 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. 0.90

00:32:53.000 And meanwhile, the economy continues to be in the dollar's arms.

00:32:57.000 The IMF is now warning that a global recession is at hand.

00:33:00.000 Again, this is the reason why Joe Biden is focusing in with his glassy-eyed stare, thousand-yard stare on Donald Trump, laser-like.

00:33:07.000 I 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?

00:33:13.000 The economy?

00:33:14.000 According 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.

00:33:25.000 In 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.

00:33:35.000 If 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.

00:33:43.000 Remember that time, like, six weeks ago, when the economic experts said, no, we'll probably avoid a recession?

00:33:48.000 Oh, no, it'll probably be fine.

00:33:49.000 Now the IMF is like, doom!

00:33:51.000 Tsunami!

00:33:53.000 Pierre-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.

00:34:00.000 He said the outlook for the global economy is quote increasingly gloomy.

00:34:04.000 The IMF downgraded its global growth forecast from its April projections expecting output will fall to 3.2% in 2022 from 6.1% last year.

00:34:12.000 Growth 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.

00:34:20.000 Inflation 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.

00:34:31.000 By the way, huge companies are taking a massive hit.

00:34:33.000 Alphabet's profit, which is the owner company for Google, it dropped 14% in Q2, which is a disastrous drop.

00:34:41.000 That is a massive dump in terms of profitability.

00:34:44.000 Microsoft is reporting earnings that fall short of already reduced expectations.

00:34:48.000 The tech giant said that it had $51.9 billion in sales in the quarter ending June 30th.

00:34:52.000 That's up 12% from a year earlier.

00:34:58.000 But the results missed even Microsoft's own reduced expectations.

00:35:01.000 In early June, the company lowered its guidance for the quarter to account for the increasingly strong U.S.

00:35:05.000 dollar.

00:35:07.000 So, the economic fallout has begun.

00:35:10.000 The 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.

00:35:17.000 Biden's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Cecilia Rouse, she says, you know what?

00:35:21.000 It's probably okay.

00:35:22.000 And also, you know what this is about?

00:35:23.000 It's about Putin and COVID.

00:35:25.000 Weird, because it seemed like things were getting bad before Putin and well after we had a vaccine for COVID, but sure, why not?

00:35:30.000 Again, the rule in the Biden White House is if something bad is happening, it's Putin and COVID.

00:35:35.000 If those bad things reverse, it's because Joe Biden is amazing at things.

00:35:38.000 It's pretty incredible how that works.

00:35:40.000 Here's Biden's chair of the CEA.

00:35:43.000 There's no question that these are challenging economic times.

00:35:46.000 The president has acknowledged as such.

00:35:49.000 He recognizes that we're addressing high inflation, and he understands the cost that that has for families.

00:35:56.000 This economy that we are facing is the result of a pandemic, this pandemic that remains with us, as well as Russia's war on Ukraine.

00:36:05.000 We know that that has disrupted our economic system, that has disrupted global markets as well.

00:36:11.000 Yeah, it's all about everybody else.

00:36:12.000 It's not their policy at all.

00:36:14.000 Everything is fine.

00:36:15.000 Brian Deese, he says that the economy is transitioning.

00:36:20.000 They always have their new language, right? 0.88

00:36:22.000 Inflation is transitory, transitory, transitory, transitory, transitory.

00:36:25.000 Okay, and then it turns out inflation was not transitory.

00:36:27.000 And they're like, recession is not inevitable, not inevitable, not inevitable.

00:36:30.000 And now their new one is that the economy is transitioning, transitioning, transitioning.

00:36:34.000 They all have to say the same thing over and over and over in the hopes that you will start to believe it, but it's not believable.

00:36:39.000 So here's Brian Deese saying that the economy is merely transitioning, folks.

00:36:44.000 It used to be male, now it will be female. 0.97

00:36:46.000 Here's Brian Deese.

00:36:48.000 We're in a transition and it feels unique because it is unique.

00:36:51.000 We have never come out of a global pandemic while dealing with the economic impacts of a land war in Europe.

00:36:58.000 So 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.

00:37:15.000 But 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.

00:37:38.000 There's so much transitioning happening here.

00:37:41.000 The only way to address a depressed and upset economy is by suggesting economic-affirming healthcare.

00:37:48.000 That's the only way.

00:37:49.000 It's like gender-affirming care, but for the economy. 0.91

00:37:52.000 All you have to do is lop off a few economic parts here and there, and then magically it has transitioned into a brand new economy.

00:37:59.000 Does it look great and new to you?

00:38:01.000 Well, speaking of transition, it's time to transition away from auto parts stores.

00:38:04.000 You're going there.

00:38:06.000 Waiting 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.

00:38:13.000 Or, you could just go to the experts at rockauto.com.

00:38:16.000 They know auto parts, and all they sell is auto parts and related tools.

00:38:19.000 Rock Auto is a family business founded by automotive engineers over 20 years ago.

00:38:22.000 Their 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.

00:38:29.000 RockAuto.com's online parts catalog is uniquely easy to use.

00:38:32.000 You quickly see all the parts available for your specific car, SUV, or truck.

00:38:35.000 There are photos, specs, and installation tips to help you pick the best parts to meet your vehicle's needs.

00:38:39.000 RockAuto.com will not only have the part, but usually will give you several trusted brands to choose from.

00:38:44.000 RockAuto's kits are also popular because they bundle together all the parts necessary for a successful repair.

00:38:48.000 You don't get halfway through installing a timing belt and then discover you need another pulley.

00:38:52.000 Professional mechanics and do-it-yourselfers always pay the same at reliably low prices.

00:38:55.000 Go to rockauto.com.

00:38:57.000 Get the brakes, shocks, carpet, wipers, headlights, mirrors, mufflers, lug nuts, or any other part you need.

00:39:02.000 Be sure when you check out, right, Shapiro, in their How Did You Hear About Us box, so they know that I sent you.

00:39:06.000 Again, that is rockauto.com.

00:39:09.000 Go check them out right now.

00:39:10.000 Okay, folks.

00:39:11.000 Is it ironic to make an ad for an ad-free viewing experience?

00:39:14.000 Maybe it's a little ironic, but that's exactly what we're doing right now.

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00:39:51.000 While 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.

00:40:08.000 Inflation in big cities is crushing residents right now.

00:40:10.000 It's even worse in rural America.

00:40:12.000 Rural households are more vulnerable to inflation.

00:40:14.000 A report from Iowa State University shows.

00:40:16.000 In 2020, rural households' post-tax incomes stood at $58,000.

00:40:19.000 About 82% of rural incomes went toward expenses.

00:40:23.000 Leaving about $10,600 in discretionary income for savings and unanticipated expenses.

00:40:29.000 However, by 2022, expenses rose by 18.5% overall.

00:40:34.000 Earnings were not able to keep pace with inflation, rising only 6.1%.

00:40:37.000 The net effect cut rural discretionary incomes by 49% between June 2020 and June 2022, reducing the cushion to $5,000.

00:40:42.000 between June 2020 and June 2022, reducing the cushion to five grand.

00:40:46.000 Expenses now consume 91% of rural take-home pay.

00:40:51.000 So things are going amazing.

00:40:52.000 Those are precisely the areas where Joe Biden radically underperformed in 2020, and is unlikely to radically overperform come 2024.

00:41:00.000 And apparently, Democrats' answer is to fixing the economy.

00:41:03.000 Let's spend tons of money!

00:41:04.000 We're in an inflationary cycle, and the economy is already starting to enter the doldrums.

00:41:07.000 What if we tax people more, borrow more, and spend more?

00:41:11.000 Makes perfect sense.

00:41:12.000 And this will be treated as a victory by the media, which of course doesn't know anybody who lives in rural America.

00:41:17.000 It's always amusing when the media try to talk about what's happening in rural America.

00:41:20.000 It's like, what if we send, we gotta send Steve Irwin out there to go see what all the people in flyover country are doing.

00:41:26.000 Oh my god, there are people who still farm for a living.

00:41:28.000 What do we do?

00:41:28.000 Look at that man, he's milking a cow.

00:41:31.000 It's a strange, primitive practice by which people grow food from the ground.

00:41:35.000 That's how they see people in rural America.

00:41:37.000 They go to church.

00:41:38.000 It's a building with a big T on top.

00:41:41.000 We don't know why.

00:41:42.000 We'll have to investigate.

00:41:43.000 The media always treat it like people who are outside the big cities don't matter at all.

00:41:46.000 But those people vote. 0.96

00:41:48.000 And so they're calling it a big win in the media that Joe Biden is about to pass a bunch of garbage via Congress. 0.94

00:41:53.000 But here's the thing.

00:41:54.000 It ain't gonna be a big win.

00:41:55.000 According to the Washington Post, The first major prescription drug legislation in 20 years.

00:42:00.000 More than $50 billion to subsidize computer chip manufacturing and research.

00:42:03.000 A bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.

00:42:06.000 After 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.

00:42:14.000 The White House hopes will provide at least a modest political boost.

00:42:17.000 Most resonant is the bill to let Medicare negotiate drug prices, a hugely popular idea Democrats have been pursuing for more than 20 years.

00:42:23.000 It 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.

00:42:34.000 All of which sounds fantastic until you realize that subsidy is going to be ongoing.

00:42:38.000 It'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.

00:42:44.000 It turns out when they cut the profitability of the drug companies, which is not massive, by the way, the profit margin is not enormous.

00:42:50.000 And 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.

00:42:57.000 Meanwhile, these others were, quote unquote, big winners.

00:42:59.000 Like, for example, a bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.

00:43:04.000 That's a big political winner for you?

00:43:06.000 Really?

00:43:07.000 Is it?

00:43:07.000 To whom, precisely?

00:43:09.000 To whom?

00:43:10.000 Democrats thought abortion was going to be a big winner.

00:43:12.000 They think they want an even bigger winner?

00:43:14.000 Try the idea that you're going to run on same-sex marriage.

00:43:17.000 I'm sure that's going to be a huge political winner for you while the economy is in the tank.

00:43:22.000 Democrats hope these measures earn a bigger political payoff than, say, Biden's infrastructure law, which seemed to make little impression on voters.

00:43:28.000 Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

00:43:29.000 Probably 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.

00:43:39.000 In fact, more cowbell always seems to be the solution from the Democrats.

00:43:42.000 But none of this is going to help the economy.

00:43:44.000 Because if you actually wanted to help the economy, what you would do is you would, yes, raise the interest rates to cut off inflation.

00:43:50.000 You would do so subtly. 0.96

00:43:52.000 But what you would also do is loosen up the damned economy. 0.62

00:43:54.000 You would make it easier for people to invest in oil and gas wells. 0.94

00:43:57.000 You would make it easier for people to invest their money in startup companies.

00:44:00.000 You would get rid of the highly burdensome regulatory structure that governs nearly every area of American life.

00:44:05.000 You would lower the tax rates.

00:44:06.000 That's what would get people back into investing in the economy.

00:44:10.000 Get people hiring, get people spending.

00:44:11.000 The way that that happens is by providing a baseline level of economic security for people who make good decisions with their money.

00:44:18.000 But that's precisely the opposite of what they are doing.

00:44:21.000 The Wall Street Journal editorial board gets this right.

00:44:22.000 They say, considering the mess we're in, an economic paradigm shift is in order.

00:44:26.000 The democratic economic strategy of vast government spending and easy money has failed.

00:44:29.000 A 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.

00:44:39.000 What would that mean?

00:44:40.000 Take all the tax increases and more government entitlements off the table.

00:44:44.000 Put a moratorium on new regulations.

00:44:45.000 Declare an end to the White House war on fossil fuels.

00:44:48.000 Cut trade deals with Britain, Japan, and others in the Asia-Pacific that want the U.S.

00:44:48.000 Reduce tariffs.

00:44:52.000 as a trading alternative to China.

00:44:54.000 Then make permanent the tax cuts in the 2017 reform that expire 2025.

00:44:59.000 Democrats obviously won't do any of this now.

00:45:00.000 If Republicans take over Congress, that would be the good move for Joe Biden going into 2024.

00:45:04.000 Is he going to do that?

00:45:06.000 Highly unlikely.

00:45:07.000 Because again, the media are pushing him toward more radicalism because they are utterly disconnected from the experiences of everyday Americans.

00:45:13.000 When members of the Biden team say transition, members of the media say how high.

00:45:18.000 That really is how this works.

00:45:19.000 The Biden administration declared that recession is no longer two quarters of negative growth.

00:45:22.000 The AP immediately ran a piece suggesting that recession is not two quarters of negative growth.

00:45:28.000 The media are not actually providing a service to Democrats.

00:45:30.000 When 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.

00:45:38.000 Now, meanwhile, here is the thing.

00:45:40.000 We are, right now, engaged in Cold War II.

00:45:44.000 And right now in the United States, we may not want to acknowledge it, what we have with China is Cold War II. 0.59

00:45:48.000 China is extraordinarily aggressive. 0.71

00:45:50.000 China is stealing intellectual property at an incredible rate.

00:45:53.000 China is solidifying its hold on the South China Sea.

00:45:55.000 China is cutting deals with places like the Solomon Islands, creating a barricade, a naval barricade effectively around Australia.

00:46:02.000 China is threatening Taiwan.

00:46:04.000 They're preparing the invasion.

00:46:05.000 I mean, there's no question that China, if they could get away with it, would invade right now. 0.92

00:46:11.000 And China is preparing to subject the American economy to a massive gut punch should we actually try to fight this Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

00:46:20.000 Now Taiwan, for its own part, is holding drills amid concerns about Nancy Pelosi visiting.

00:46:26.000 According 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.

00:46:36.000 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

00:46:38.000 While 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.

00:46:46.000 Taiwan Mayor Ko Wen-je told reporters, quote, in recent years, Chinese military planes have frequently harassed Taiwan.

00:46:52.000 The war between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February this year.

00:46:55.000 All these things make us understand the importance of being vigilant in times of peace.

00:46:58.000 We need to be prepared if there is war.

00:47:01.000 Pelosi 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.

00:47:10.000 Joe Biden said last week that military officials believed such a trip was, quote, unquote, not a good idea, which is always a great move.

00:47:16.000 And 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. 0.99

00:47:23.000 law 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.

00:47:23.000 U.S.

00:47:33.000 The big problem here is that the U.S.

00:47:34.000 has undercut its own naval power.

00:47:36.000 We have fewer ships on the water right now than we did in 1938.

00:47:39.000 Before World War II.

00:47:40.000 Now, ships are significantly more powerful, but the projective power of the United States Navy has been massively reduced under consecutive presidents.

00:47:48.000 Trump tried to build it up.

00:47:50.000 He succeeded a little bit, but particularly, Barack Obama had radically sliced the U.S.

00:47:56.000 Navy, which means that the Navy doesn't have the power, really, to fight the Chinese in the waters near China.

00:48:04.000 During a visit to Indonesia on Sunday, U.S.

00:48:06.000 General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the Chinese military has become significantly more aggressive and dangerous over the past five years.

00:48:12.000 Milley's Chinese counterpart, General Li Xiuquan, told him in a call earlier this month Beijing had no room for compromise on issues like Taiwan.

00:48:19.000 On 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.

00:48:27.000 If the U.S.

00:48:28.000 is bent on going its own way, China will take firm and strong measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

00:48:33.000 What 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.

00:48:45.000 China has not said what specific actions it would take.

00:48:47.000 Speculation 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.

00:48:57.000 This is probably some huffing and puffing economic punishment of Taiwan, according to Michael Mazza, defense and China expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

00:49:04.000 But 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.

00:49:12.000 China actually does not have time on its side.

00:49:14.000 It's still reliant on a communist infrastructure that undercuts its economic growth.

00:49:18.000 China is relying on basically old school mercantilist principles in order to strengthen itself, but they are basing themselves on debt.

00:49:25.000 They are attempting to overcome a massive demographic problem they created with their one-child policy.

00:49:30.000 China is completely demographically upside down.

00:49:32.000 They have an extraordinarily old population and not enough young people to actually pay the bills on this sort of stuff.

00:49:37.000 And what this means is that Xi, who has gotten more militant with the outside world, not less, that he has to get more aggressive.

00:49:44.000 Because 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.

00:49:51.000 In the same way that Vladimir Putin, in order to uphold his rule, is very territorially aggressive, right?

00:49:55.000 He has not actually opened up his economy or made life better for Russians.

00:49:58.000 So what that means is national greatness is now on the table.

00:50:01.000 Same thing for Xi Jinping.

00:50:03.000 And so they're prepping.

00:50:04.000 I mean, it's very clear what they are doing here.

00:50:06.000 They are clearly prepping for a war. 0.56

00:50:08.000 The reason that you can tell that they are prepping for a war is because of what they are doing with semiconductors.

00:50:12.000 So right now, the Chinese have been, as we've talked about, attempting to generate extraordinary semiconductor capacity inside their own country.

00:50:24.000 China apparently is going to lead global semiconductor growth by 2030, according to Investment Monitor.

00:50:31.000 They say that China is going to Lead the global semiconductor industry by 2030 due to its growing market size and domestic production capacity.

00:50:38.000 So there's two aspects of semiconductors.

00:50:41.000 One is semiconductor design.

00:50:42.000 China really lags there.

00:50:43.000 They don't make advanced semiconductors.

00:50:44.000 They're not capable of innovating.

00:50:46.000 You 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.

00:50:57.000 The truth is that China is not good at innovation. 0.81

00:50:59.000 China is very good at copying and manufacture. 0.99

00:51:01.000 That is why products that you get are cheap manufacturers from China, generally.

00:51:06.000 And 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.

00:51:15.000 Now, there's only one problem with this.

00:51:17.000 If they're produced in Taiwan and South Korea, and China were to invade Taiwan, one of two things happens.

00:51:21.000 Either 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.

00:51:32.000 Because semiconductors are in everything.

00:51:33.000 They're in your cell phone, they're in your computer, they're in your car.

00:51:36.000 Every sophisticated piece of technology you have is rooted in semiconductors.

00:51:40.000 And those are being produced right now.

00:51:42.000 Really, the advanced ones, like the really good ones, are being produced in Taiwan and South Korea.

00:51:46.000 If China were to invade Taiwan, Taiwan has two choices.

00:51:49.000 One, all those resources fall into the hands of China.

00:51:52.000 Two, they fry all the semiconductors in an attempt to avoid giving them to the Chinese. 1.00

00:51:57.000 If that happens, you know who else doesn't have the semiconductors?

00:51:59.000 We don't.

00:52:00.000 Then China is still the producer of kind of the next best thing and lots of them. 0.98

00:52:04.000 And so this has led the United States to finally belatedly realize that it needs to reshore all of its options.

00:52:10.000 If 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.

00:52:26.000 Now, I know this is actually a controversial area on the right.

00:52:28.000 There'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.

00:52:35.000 But here's the problem.

00:52:35.000 This 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.

00:52:41.000 It 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.

00:52:51.000 Because if we lose our access to semiconductors, we're toast.

00:52:54.000 We have a serious international relations and military prowess problem.

00:52:58.000 There's a piece by Farrah Stockman, member of the editorial board over the New York Times, talking about this.

00:53:02.000 She 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.

00:53:21.000 Semiconductor industry is so important it factors into decisions about war and peace.

00:53:26.000 92% of the world's most advanced chips are made in Taiwan.

00:53:28.000 The rest come from South Korea.

00:53:30.000 Repeated warnings by President Xi Jinping of China that he's willing to use force to reassert control over Taiwan have forced U.S.

00:53:35.000 policymakers to contemplate what would happen if the U.S.

00:53:37.000 military was ever cut off from the chips that it needs.

00:53:41.000 Since the Trump administration cut off certain chips from going to China, chips have become fodder for public debate.

00:53:45.000 Now Americans are worried about their own chip supply.

00:53:48.000 The 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.

00:53:57.000 That is the centerpiece of a bill to increase U.S.

00:53:59.000 competitiveness expected to move forward in Congress this summer.

00:54:01.000 There's a reason why this is going to receive some bipartisan support.

00:54:05.000 Is it corporate welfare?

00:54:06.000 Of course.

00:54:06.000 But the places that make chips, including Taiwan, South Korea, India, Germany, and China, offset the enormous capital costs with gobs of public money.

00:54:13.000 Reasonable people can disagree about whether that's a good thing, but if the U.S.

00:54:16.000 wants to compete, subsidies are the price of admission.

00:54:19.000 But paying off companies isn't going to get us very far.

00:54:21.000 We actually have to build a pipeline for talent on these particular issues.

00:54:25.000 We don't have enough experienced workers when it comes to chip manufacture.

00:54:29.000 The Trump administration has been pressuring the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to build a fab on U.S.

00:54:34.000 soil capable of mass-producing advanced chips.

00:54:36.000 Finding 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.

00:54:44.000 Attracting highly skilled foreign workers is essential, at least in the short term.

00:54:49.000 The bottom line here is that the The Chinese have a geographic advantage on this particular issue. 0.77

00:54:56.000 And 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.

00:55:07.000 The best defense is a good offense.

00:55:09.000 The United States having a weakened economy is going to be a very, very serious problem.

00:55:14.000 And this administration, you know, they can talk about semiconductor spending, that's all fine and good.

00:55:18.000 And I think there's a very good case for it.

00:55:20.000 Right now, for example, GM is absolutely getting smoked because of their loss of semiconductors from China.

00:55:25.000 According 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.

00:55:38.000 That just is sort of a taste of what's to come if China were to gain control over the global semiconductor supply.

00:55:43.000 So we have to do something there, but it's more than that.

00:55:45.000 We have to strengthen our economy.

00:55:47.000 And 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. 0.71

00:55:58.000 And if we don't do that, then Cold War II is not likely to go in the same direction as Cold War I.

00:56:03.000 And 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. 0.91

00:56:09.000 But you have to contain them.

00:56:10.000 And 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. 0.97

00:56:18.000 Alrighty, we will be back here later today with additional content.

00:56:20.000 In the meantime, go check out one of our newest podcasts, Morning Wire.

00:56:22.000 Today's episode is available right now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Daily Wire+, or wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure to tune in.

00:56:27.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:56:28.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:56:29.000 The 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.

00:56:53.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:56:55.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2022.

00:56:58.000 Hey there, this is John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief and co-host of Morning Wire.

00:57:02.000 On today's episode, whistleblowers come forward alleging a scheme at the FBI to downplay derogatory information on Hunter Biden.

00:57:10.000 Concern over monkeypox continues to grow, and the Senate advances a semiconductor chip bill amid a technology race with China.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 27, 2022

Will The DOJ Criminally Charge Donald Trump? | Ep. 1543

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