Colorado's Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump is not eligible to be on the primary ballot in that state, a ruling that is sure to spark a wave of lawsuits across the country. Meanwhile, other states are now considering similar actions, including California, which is considering banning Trump from its primary in 2024, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is running a campaign simply to throw dirt in Trump's eye, says, "I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court. I think he should be barred from being President by the voters of this country." Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris join forces to argue that Trump is an insurrectionist and should be banned from running for president in the 2020 election, and that the Supreme Court should concur with this ruling. In other words, it's a complete sh-show, folks. And we can be sure this insanity will be repeated anywhere there is a Democratic Supreme Court, legislature, or governor, and governor, who believe that it's morally justifiable to use literally any means necessary to keep Trump off the ballot, and keep him out of the race at all. This is not an election anyone should vote for, and it's not a presidential election. It's a Shonda Rhimes show, folks, not a referendum on who should be allowed to run for president, and who should and should not vote for who they choose to be the next president. And it's definitely not a Democratic primary, and we're all about who's better than who's going to vote for the other person. and who s going to get the most votes in the next election in 2020, right or not who s running for the most likely to vote the most presidential candidate not who has the most in the most important election in the first place the one with the most money, the one who s the least likely to win it? or who s most likely and which is going to win the most primary who s gonna win it which is not the most popular vote is the most electable candidate . that s the most elected person in America s at least the most authentic and most authentic, and the most qualified to vote in 2020 no matter who s not running the most of them all of them but who s also the least racist, and which s the most .
00:00:14.000I have been fortunate and blessed to, during the course of being vice president, have many situations where it becomes clear to me that there are, you know, people of every age and gender, by the way, who see something about being the first that lets them know they don't need to be limited by other people's limited Um, understanding of who can do what.
00:00:54.000While America awaits the Supreme Court ruling on whether or not Colorado can bar Donald Trump from the ballot, other states are now considering how they can follow Colorado's suit and bar the leading Republican candidate in America, the likely nominee, For the presidency, from the ballot entirely.
00:01:08.000According to the New York Times, there are at least 15 other states besides Colorado considering barring Trump from the ballot, including four state lawsuits in Michigan, Oregon, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, and 11 federal lawsuits in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, New York, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
00:01:25.000Right now, the cases in Arizona and Michigan have already been dismissed in Trump's favor, but they have now been appealed.
00:01:31.000If the Supreme Court doesn't take up the Colorado case, if they just leave it there, then Trump will remain off the ballot in Colorado.
00:01:37.000And we can be sure this insanity will be repeated anywhere there is a Democratic Supreme Court or legislature and governor.
00:01:43.000In fact, just yesterday, the California Lieutenant Governor Alina Koulanakis wrote a letter to the California Secretary of State begging for her to, quote, explore every legal option to remove President Donald Trump from California's 2024 presidential primary ballot.
00:01:58.000Hilariously, Kounalakis is apparently illiterate.
00:02:01.000She writes in her letter, quote, Actually, you have to be 35, but same difference.
00:02:10.000Now, it's clear the Colorado Supreme Court is legally in the wrong.
00:02:13.000Even Trump's biggest detractors say so.
00:02:15.000Here is Trump's former Attorney General, Bill Barr, who has hardly been a Trump ally in the days since the 2020 election.
00:02:22.000As you know, I strongly oppose Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
00:02:26.000But I think that this case is legally wrong and untenable.
00:02:32.000And I think this kind of action of stretching the law, taking these hyper aggressive positions to try to knock Trump out of the race are counterproductive.
00:03:14.000Those who hate Trump believe that it is morally justifiable to use literally any means necessary to keep him from the White House.
00:03:20.000According to a brand new poll from YouGov, 54% of Americans approve of the Colorado State Supreme Court's decision to boot Trump from the ballot, including 84% of Democrats.
00:03:30.000So a majority of Americans, according to this poll, believe that the Colorado State Supreme Court should boot Trump from the ballot.
00:03:36.000Doesn't bode particularly well for the actual election cycle.
00:03:39.000That's not because these people believe the legal theory behind what the Colorado Supreme Court just did.
00:03:43.000It's because they believe that any club available to slam Trump in the skull must be used.
00:03:48.000They're in the same camp as Mary Trump, Trump's niece, who no one had ever heard of five years ago, but who has now made a nice career for herself bashing her uncle.
00:03:56.000Fabulous news today from the Colorado Supreme Court, who ruled that Donald Trump Yes, Donald Trump, the insurrectionist, anti-American, anti-Democratic fascist who, for some bizarre reason, is leading the Republican nominating contest by 50 points or something, is not eligible to be on the ballot for the Republican
00:05:21.000If Democrats are going to claim that the law can be used as a club, and simultaneously that they are law-abiding citizens merely following the law, Trump fans are similarly going to pick up any club at hand.
00:05:31.000That's why Trump fans are increasingly cheering his applause line about temporary dictatorship.
00:05:35.000Here are some of those fans, for example.
00:05:37.000They can't say that he's... Well, I mean, they are saying that he's coming after his political opponents, but literally, that's exactly... Everything they're accusing this man of doing is literally what has been going on for the last... That's why I have no problem with Day One Dictator.
00:05:50.000If a dictator means he's going to drill, baby, drill, sign me up for that dictatorship anyway.
00:05:57.000Okay, so, again, the idea is that Trump's language about dictatorship and all the rest of it, by which he really means just using executive authority in the same ways that Biden and Obama used executive authority, When people say this sort of thing, the reason they're saying it is specifically because Democrats claim that they are pro-democracy at the same time they seek to thwart it in a variety of ways.
00:06:15.000And if Democrats truly seek to bar Trump from the ballot across the country, Republicans will presumably do the same thing to Democrats.
00:06:21.000Here's Texas's Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
00:06:24.000Arizona tried this about 10 years ago, but our law is different.
00:06:28.000It simply says that our law enforcement can arrest anyone, take them in, do a background check, photograph, do fingerprints.
00:06:38.000If they saw them cross the border illegally, we can do that.
00:06:42.000Or if they happen to reveal in the arrest stop that they crossed illegally, and then the magistrate will send them back and will escort them to the border.
00:06:56.000And if they go back and try to come back again and we arrest them again, the penalty gets even higher.
00:07:01.000In fact, seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, Laura, it makes me think, except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he's been president.
00:07:16.000Again, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does suggest that if you take sides against America, if you take sides with America's enemies, if you undermine the Constitution, maybe that acts as cause to remove somebody from the ballot.
00:07:28.000America is indeed on the precipice of something truly dangerous.
00:07:32.000Question, are there now any conditions under which Republicans will accept a Biden victory?
00:07:36.000At this point, if Joe Biden wins the 2024 election, how many Republicans are going to simply say, okay, done here, and elections an election?
00:07:44.000On the other side, are there any conditions under which Democrats will accept a Trump victory?
00:08:13.000Whether you're making calls on a beach in the Bahamas, on the steps of Buckingham Palace, or at your villa in Santorini, you can dial away.
00:09:00.000Pure Talk is simply Okay, so looking at the national polls, Donald Trump is experiencing, unsurprisingly, a fairly significant bump after the Colorado Supreme Court just did what it did.
00:09:17.000According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Trump is up nationally 67% to 11% for DeSantis and 11% for Haley.
00:09:24.000So two-thirds of the national vote behind Donald Trump.
00:09:27.000In the various states, You can see Trump continuing to lead fairly significantly.
00:09:33.000So in Iowa, the latest Fox Business poll has Trump up at 52%, DeSantis at 18, and Nikki Haley at 16.
00:09:39.000So even if you combined both of their percentages, they would be at 34%, 18% behind Donald Trump.
00:09:44.000So he has a significant lead over in Iowa.
00:09:47.000New Hampshire is a bit of a different story.
00:09:49.000According to a new CBS poll, New Hampshire, Trump is at 44, but Nikki Haley is at 30%.
00:09:59.000So if you added together Chris Christie's support and Nikki Haley's support, if Christie were to get out of the race, as he should, that would look like a competitive state.
00:10:06.000Then he'd move down south to South Carolina and things could theoretically get a little interesting because, of course, Nikki Haley is the former governor of South Carolina.
00:10:13.000Nationally speaking, the Trump versus Biden polls, they are tightening a little bit.
00:10:19.000Quinnipiac has Biden up one, 47 to 46.
00:10:30.000As Trump gets back in the headlines, the polls tend to tighten between Trump and Biden.
00:10:33.000This is why anybody who is suggesting that it's gonna be a runaway for Trump, I don't see the evidence for that.
00:10:37.000Anybody who's suggesting that it's gonna be a runaway for Biden, I don't see the evidence of that either.
00:10:41.000This thing could seriously go either way, and a lot is dependent on the candidate's strategy.
00:10:46.000So Joe Biden is going to try to run a basement strategy, and it's not going to work because he's the current president of the United States.
00:10:51.000Donald Trump should be running a basement strategy.
00:10:53.000If Donald Trump runs a basement strategy in 2024, if he does exactly what Joe Biden did in 2020, if he just goes down to his basement and watches Shark Week from now until the election, very solid shot that he becomes president again.
00:11:06.000But one of the big problems that the RNC is having is this is a big election year, not just for Donald Trump, but for the Republican Senate, for example.
00:11:13.000So Republicans have the upper hand in a bunch of Senate races that they need in order to regain the majority in the Senate.
00:11:19.000But the RNC has no cash because all the money is getting sucked up into Trump world.
00:11:22.000And Trump doesn't spend the cash on Republican candidates in these various areas.
00:11:26.000According to Rob Pryors, who is a political junkie research director for the California Target Book, He has statistics on RNC cash on hand at the end of November by year.
00:11:38.000In 2016, the RNC had $21 million on hand.
00:11:55.000That's a real problem if you're looking at a bunch of competitive congressional races and Senate races where Donald Trump is not going to spend one iota of his time.
00:12:05.000And so, again, the idea that Trump's just going to walk away with this thing, I understand that Trump doesn't like strategy and Trump really does not like planning.
00:12:12.000His on-the-ground game is not really existent.
00:12:15.000He sort of throws it out there and then hopes and prays that victory will emerge.
00:12:22.000I'm just saying that right now the RNC is short on cash.
00:12:24.000Trump has no ground game and no actual strategy in a lot of these states.
00:12:28.000The best thing he could do right now is get some pros on board to actually run the on-the-ground get-out-the-vote campaign if he wins the primaries, which presumably he will.
00:12:37.000And then he needs to go to the basement and shut up and watch Joe Biden be a bad president.
00:12:40.000Speaking of which, Joe Biden's presidency, it continues to be a mess.
00:12:44.000He cannot take clear political positions on nearly anything.
00:12:47.000So on the one hand, you have the State Department for the United States saying that Israel should basically be allowed to defend itself by taking out Hamas, which is good.
00:12:57.000Your Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, saying that yesterday.
00:13:00.000What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas.
00:13:18.000That it stopped hiding behind civilians, that it laid down its arms, that it surrendered.
00:13:24.000This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that.
00:13:27.000This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that.
00:13:32.000And how could it be that there are no demands Made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim.
00:13:44.000So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what's necessary to end this.
00:13:55.000Hey, obviously that's good, but at the same exact time, the United States is now negotiating with the most eyesleeve international politics, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the United Nations, in order to facilitate the passage of some sort of UN Security Council resolution about ceasefires and humanitarian aid and all the rest.
00:14:12.000It's just a mess of policy inside the Biden administration because apparently they lack the courage of their own convictions.
00:14:21.000The holidays are here, the last thing you need during this busy time of yours to miss out on a great night's sleep.
00:14:25.000That is why my team uses Beams Dream Powder.
00:14:27.000Beams Dream Powder contains a powerful, all-natural blend of ingredients, including magnesium l-theanine.
00:14:32.000It's not just your run-of-the-mill sleep aid.
00:14:34.000It's a concoction carefully crafted to help you slip into the sweet embrace of rest without the grogginess that often accompanies other sleep remedies.
00:14:40.000Sleep is the foundation of our mental and physical health.
00:14:42.000You must have a consistent nighttime routine to function at your best.
00:14:44.000Today, my listeners get a special discount on Beams Dream Powder.
00:14:47.000It's their best-selling hot cocoa for sleep with no added sugar.
00:14:50.000Now available in delicious flavors like cinnamon, cocoa, chocolate, peanut butter, and mint chip, Better Sleep has never tasted better.
00:14:56.000Just mix Beam Dream into hot water or milk, stir or froth, and enjoy before bedtime.
00:15:00.000If you find yourself battling those bedtime blues, give it a shot.
00:15:21.000So, the reason that you have this mass confusion inside the White House is because they can't take a moral stand.
00:15:27.000Too many of their supporters are either radical leftists or weak liberals.
00:15:31.000When I say weak liberals, I mean people who are willing to cave to radical leftists if they believe the situation so requires.
00:15:36.000So, speaking of the radical leftists, the other night, and this is just an amazing video and it shows you how insane some of the Democratic support base is.
00:15:45.000Protesters in New York City were screaming shame on you at an event, outside an event that was being held, a charity event in New York City.
00:15:53.000So the woman who's actually leaving here is a woman named Ayelet Levy.
00:15:57.000Ayelet's daughter is Naama, who happens to be one of the hostages who was raped and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.
00:16:03.000And here are the protesters screaming at her.
00:16:27.000You remember the daughter as the woman from the photograph where her pants are covered in blood and her Achilles heels were cut so she could not run away.
00:16:35.000She was hobbled so she couldn't run away.
00:16:38.000So those are the radical leftists who are part of Joe Biden's base.
00:16:40.000Meanwhile, you have the so-called soft liberals inside Biden's congressional caucus.
00:16:45.000Those would be people like Jason Crow and Chrissy Houlihan, unfortunately Seth Moulton, Alyssa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger.
00:16:50.000These are the supposed moderates in the Democratic caucus.
00:16:52.000They issued a letter yesterday to Biden saying, quote, We are deeply concerned by Prime Minister Netanyahu's current military strategy in Gaza.
00:16:58.000The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with
00:17:02.000American interests, nor do they advance the cause of security for our ally Israel.
00:17:05.000We also believe it jeopardizes efforts to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas and
00:18:58.000Okay, that's Hamas literally thanking Western governments.
00:19:02.000Again, when a terrorist group thanks you, you are doing it wrong.
00:19:05.000Meanwhile, Hamas is rejecting Israel's offer to stop fighting for a week for a hostage deal to go forward.
00:19:11.000They say, no, no, no, you have to stop firing on us before we are going to offer you anything.
00:19:15.000Meanwhile, as of this morning, Hamas was firing its largest barrage of rockets into Tel Aviv that it has for a couple of weeks, like 30 rockets falling toward Tel Aviv.
00:19:37.000First, this season, why not give the gift of comfort to everybody on your list, including yourself, with new Tommy John underwear to loungewear and PJs.
00:19:44.000Right now, Tommy John has their huge end of the year sale with up to 75% off.
00:19:48.000Make giving Tommy John a holiday tradition for all the men and women in your family.
00:19:52.000With over 20 million pairs sold and thousands of five-star reviews, Tommy John doesn't have customers, they have fanatics.
00:19:57.000One Tommy John fanatic raves, quote, fantastic Christmas gift that went so right, she loves the pajamas.
00:20:02.000By the way, Tommy John stuff, again, I have Tommy John, my wife has all sorts of Tommy John stuff, it is phenomenal stuff.
00:20:07.000Tommy John loungewear is cozy enough to use as sleepwear, stylish enough to wear for a quick stroll to the coffee shop, you won't look like you rolled out of bed.
00:20:15.000Tommy John's loungewear is guaranteed to fit perfectly, comfy, non-pilling, micro-modal fabric, no lint balls or fuzz, luxuriously soft, tri-blend fabrics with flexible four-way stretch.
00:20:41.000Weakness breeds failure, and that's what we are seeing in the Red Sea.
00:20:45.000So, according to the Wall Street Journal, as a U.S.-led multinational task force steamed toward the Middle East to protect one of the world's vital shipping lanes, the Houthi rebels vowed to retaliate if attacked.
00:20:55.000Yet despite rising tensions in the Red Sea on Wednesday, traders reacted with relative calm, even as shipping companies diverted more cargoes to alternative routes.
00:21:02.000While the threat of more severe disruption persists, the response of energy markets has been muted compared with dramatic moves in prices sparked by some other past outbreaks of violence in the Middle East.
00:21:10.000Well, yeah, I mean, if you compare, it's like 1973, of course, because there's a giant oil embargo from, like, Saudi Arabia.
00:21:15.000But the reality of the situation is that when you have, again, ragtag Houthi pirates in inflatables with drones who are holding up One of the key choke points for global trade that is a serious problem.
00:21:26.000And it's not just a serious problem because of what's happening in the Red Sea.
00:21:30.000It's a serious problem because once States that hate the United States, ones countries that have interests adverse to our own, realize that they can drive America off the ball in the area of freedom of the seas.
00:21:44.000They can really affect the global economy in significant and severe ways.
00:21:49.000This is a map of maritime choke points across the world.
00:21:52.000And a lot of people don't think about exactly how the stuff that you want gets to you.
00:21:56.000But the reality is that there are these choke points, you know, places where a huge percentage of trade actually moves.
00:22:02.000So if you can't see the map, there are, again, a bunch of things labeled on this map I'll try to describe for you.
00:22:08.000Places that trade moves, and these are bottlenecks, like places that very often are close to nations that are adversarial to the United States.
00:22:16.000So, the number one choke point, the primary choke point for Asia, is a place called the Strait of Malacca.
00:22:23.000It is very close to China and has the ability, if you close it, to really affect China's economy.
00:22:28.000Alternatively, because it's very close to China, you could see China attempt to make aggressive moves in the Strait of Malacca.
00:22:34.000It accounts for about 25% of all traded goods and a third of all seaborne oil.
00:22:41.000Another choke point, the Taiwan Straits.
00:22:43.000So when China is threatening Taiwan, they are also threatening the Taiwan Straits, which is a place where a lot of trade moves.
00:22:51.000If you look at, for example, the Strait of Hormuz, this is one of the areas that Iran is currently threatening.
00:22:57.00030% of all oil traded on the world's oceans passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:23:01.000These are moves from the Middle East and down through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which is another place where a lot of oil moves.
00:23:07.000And then up through the Suez Canal, again, all these places threatened by Iran and Iranian proxies.
00:23:13.000So you have China, which is threatening like the Taiwan Straits and the Strait of Malacca.
00:23:17.000And you have Middle Eastern countries adversarial to America, like Iran, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the Suez Canal, forcing people to travel all the way around the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, which is a much longer trip.
00:23:36.000What this really means is that, again, if America does not guarantee freedom of the seas, then what you're going to end up with is a cratered global economy at the behest of countries that hate the United States and seek to curb our power.
00:23:48.000And the Chinese are seeing the weakness.
00:23:50.000Apparently, according to ABC News last night, Chinese President Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden directly at their recent summit that China will reunify with Taiwan.
00:23:59.000It was unclear whether Beijing plans to use force in its efforts to reunify with Taiwan, but Xi indicated they will try at first to do so peacefully.
00:24:08.000Xi has said as much publicly what is noteworthy is that he said this so bluntly to the president at a summit intended to thaw their relations.
00:24:15.000And John Kirby told reporters, quote, I'm not going to get into specifics of the discussion between the two leaders.
00:24:18.000I think you can understand I'm not going to read out that private conversation.
00:24:21.000He said, President Xi has been public and clear about his desires for reunification.
00:24:24.000That's not something different or new.
00:24:26.000We have been clear and the president was clear with you guys and with President Xi, we still adhere to the one China policy.
00:24:30.000We don't support independence for Taiwan.
00:24:32.000We also don't support a change in the status quo unilaterally and certainly not one by force.
00:24:36.000And as the president has said, there's no reason for this to come to blows.
00:24:41.000involvement in two other global conflicts, Ukraine and Gaza, alters its previous commitment to defend Taiwan from any Chinese military action, Biden reiterated in November the U.S.
00:24:50.000position in favor of the one-China policy, which is basically just, let's not talk about this.
00:24:54.000The one-China policy is like, sure, Taiwan is part of the one-China policy, and also if you attack Taiwan, we'll defend it probably.
00:25:03.000Biden said, look, I reiterate what I've said since I've become president and what every previous president of late has said, that we maintain an agreement.
00:25:11.000And so that's about the extent to which we discussed it.
00:25:14.000Apparently, in a readout of the summit, China said, quote, Xi Jinping elaborated on his principled position on the Taiwan issue and pointed out the Taiwan issue has always been the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S.
00:25:40.000That obviously is a timeline that could be moved up pretty dramatically if Xi senses global weakness by the West, an unwillingness to use, for example, naval power in pursuit of the freedom of the seas.
00:25:56.000That could continue to be a serious problem.
00:25:58.000And it goes also to a general belief in the United States that we can randomly sort of cut off our own military without real consequence to the American people.
00:26:08.000We spend too much money, we should be more isolationist, and all of the rest.
00:26:12.000That is, in fact, also a massive problem.
00:26:15.000When it comes to American underinvestment, that is particularly true with regard to the Navy.
00:26:20.000The Navy does the biggest share of the lifting when it comes to war-making, ensuring freedom of trade.
00:26:24.000I did a recent Facts episode all about this.
00:27:02.000You need lots of ships in the water to challenge the Chinese, who have 355 ships.
00:27:06.000Now they do have what they call a grey water navy, meaning that they are really relegated to coastal areas to do serious battle, but the thing is the Taiwan Straits for them, that's basically a coastal battle.
00:27:17.000Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S.
00:27:18.000U.S. Strategic Command said in 2022, as I assess our level of deterrence against China,
00:27:36.000Undersea capabilities is still the one true asymmetric advantage we have against our opponents, but unless we pick up pace in terms of getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going, if we can't figure that out, we're not going to put ourselves in a good position to maintain strategic deterrence and national defense."
00:27:51.000So, again, when Xi is threatening Taiwan, the reason he is doing that is because if the United States and its allies can't even deter the Houthis, then how are you going to deter a massive military power like the Chinese?
00:28:02.000And that does have serious spillover effects.
00:28:05.000I know everybody likes to pretend that war-making and economics are completely disconnected from each other, that isolationism has no actual consequences.
00:28:27.000It's the only thing maybe keeping me alive at this point because I'm not a great sleeper, but Helix Sleep allows me to sleep.
00:28:32.000Helix is now introducing their newest, most high-end collection, the Helix Elite Collection.
00:28:35.000Helix Elite harnesses years of extensive mattress expertise to offer a truly elevated sleep experience.
00:28:41.000That Helix Elite collection includes six different mattress models, each tailored for a specific sleep position and firmness preference.
00:28:46.000Go to helixsleep.com slash Ben, check out the brand new collection today.
00:28:50.000If you're nervous about buying a mattress online, you don't have to be because they've got a sleep quiz, matches the mattress to your body type.
00:29:20.000Well, all this foreign policy isolationism and vacillation is connected to a deeper view of the American economy that I think is totally and deeply flawed.
00:29:29.000And the reality is, freedom of the seas has allowed you to live a better lifestyle.
00:29:34.000Freedom of the seas, the spread of democracy, the spread of liberalism, the possibility of free trade, all of these things have a real world impact on you.
00:29:43.000Autarky in the United States is possible, but super duper expensive.
00:29:49.000You can go down to the local McDonald's, you can pick up a hamburger for a couple of bucks.
00:29:55.000Do you know how much it would take to produce that hamburger in your backyard?
00:29:58.000To like go and buy a cow, to then slaughter the cow, process the cow, to grow the wheat, to grow all the ingredients, to do all this stuff?
00:32:11.000The reason this comes to mind is because I've had sort of this long-standing debate with Tucker Carlson about the nature of economics in the United States and what we should be pursuing.
00:32:22.000So Tucker and I did this really interesting interview a couple years ago now, probably longer than that, maybe five years ago now, where we talked about the role of the government in the economy.
00:32:30.000And Tucker has a significantly more socialistic view of the economy than I do, just blatantly.
00:32:35.000I mean, he has endorsed, for example, many of the plans of Senator Elizabeth Warren.
00:32:57.000I think it's really damaging to the future of American prosperity.
00:33:02.000And it relies on a bunch of Falsehoods with regard to how the world works.
00:33:09.000Now, I want to listen to this because, again, I think this has spillover effects for foreign policy.
00:33:12.000It assumes that the best policy is going to be protectionist.
00:33:16.000That high tariffs around America's borders are what's going to make American people wealthier and better off.
00:33:21.000It assumes that an uninvolved America in the world's fear is somehow going to make American citizens better off.
00:33:27.000It's all predicated on this notion of economics that ignores the importance of comparative advantage and price structure and all the rest in favor of vaguer concepts like beauty.
00:33:38.000Now again, I'm not anti-beauty, but when I need a hamburger, I'm more interested in the hamburger than I am in, you know, the Venus de Milo.
00:33:45.000In any case, here is Tucker, and then I want to break this down a little bit because it's interesting.
00:33:49.000I think a lot of people have awakened to the now demonstrable fact that libertarian economics was a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system that they were defending.
00:34:00.000So they created this whole intellectual framework.
00:34:04.000So I don't like this conspiracy theorizing about the nature of libertarian economics.
00:34:08.000Libertarian economics says the government should not control the free flow of goods and services.
00:34:13.000That's all libertarian economics says.
00:34:15.000A free market has property rights for you and the government can't get involved.
00:34:18.000That is the opposite of a conspiracy theory.
00:34:21.000A conspiracy is when a group of powerful people restructure an entire economy around particular interests.
00:34:27.000So for example, if you were to push forward a protectionist policy, that is a policy designed to protect specific people in your country in a particular industry from competition from other people in the country and also elsewhere.
00:35:03.000I'm confused as to how that would be a conspiracy by me.
00:35:06.000Now, it may not end to the benefit of people who are less competitive in a particular industry.
00:35:10.000And there may be very good reasons to protect certain industries.
00:35:12.000For example, for national security reasons.
00:35:14.000I think that we should be cutting down on trade from China because I don't think we should be enriching our enemies.
00:35:18.000That's a different thing from saying that economically speaking, there's this group, this secret group of libertarian economists Who for their own benefit, like Milton Friedman was sitting in the back room and he's like, I need to be rich.
00:35:29.000And the only way I'm going to be rich is if there's free market economics.
00:36:49.000I think you need to ask, does this economic system produce a lot of dollar stores?
00:36:54.000And if it does, it's not a system that you want because it degrades people and it makes their lives worse and it increases exponentially the amount of ugliness in your society.
00:37:05.000And anything that increases ugliness is evil.
00:37:17.000Why exactly are dollar stores the root of all evil?
00:37:19.000So first of all, I should point out at this point that according to Consumer Reports, 88% of Americans shop at dollar stores at least occasionally.
00:37:26.000My family shops at the dollar store at least occasionally.
00:37:28.000Almost a third of respondents in the 2021 Consumer Reports survey said they shop at dollar stores more than once a month.
00:37:34.000This seems like a really elitist attitude.
00:38:32.000Also, that's one of the reasons that you can get the product for cheap at the dollar store.
00:38:35.000Because if they look like gothic cathedrals, they'd have to upcharge you on the product in order to pay for the gothic cathedral looking place where you're buying your tomatoes.
00:38:46.000There's this kind of break that's happening here, where from an elite perspective, they don't like that it looks bad, that there's like an ugly store at the corner of town that makes it possible for you to feed your family.
00:38:58.000It also seems to be disconnected from history.
00:39:00.000If you go to Hungary, which is a country that a lot of people love and has a lot of history to it, and a lot of the architecture there is spectacular.
00:39:08.000I mean, Budapest is an incredibly beautiful city.
00:39:11.000I can tell you, because this is the way that it worked in Hungary for hundreds of years.
00:39:16.000Nobody was running the farmer's market from the church.
00:39:22.000The equivalent of the dollar store in Hungary is not a gothic cathedral.
00:39:26.000A gothic cathedral is a gothic cathedral.
00:39:28.000The equivalent of a dollar store in Hungary for hundreds of years was like an outdoor stall in the market that was significantly worse for produce than, for example, a dollar store.
00:39:41.000America As always, this is one of the beauties of America.
00:39:43.000It's the reason why we're a world power.
00:39:45.000This is one of the reasons we have always been a nascent and then obviously dominant world power.
00:39:50.000It is because in America, function frequently defeats beauty as a priority.
00:39:55.000Because Americans are a pragmatic and practical people who are seeking to better the lives of their citizens through things like economic opportunity, which means more dollar stores, not fewer dollar stores.
00:40:06.000Not only do you shop at them, tons of people work at them.
00:40:09.000Go back to Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in 1831.
00:40:18.000The vast majority of early American history was filled with abandoned log cabins.
00:40:22.000Here's what Alexis de Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America, quote, Thus, the European quits his cottage to go to inhabit transatlantic shores, and the American who is born on the same coast plunges in turn into the solitudes of the center of America.
00:40:34.000This double movement of emigration never stops.
00:40:49.000They were told that fortune is to be found somewhere toward the west and they go off in haste to meet it.
00:40:53.000Sometimes man advances so quickly the wilderness reappears behind him.
00:40:56.000The forest is only bent underneath his feet.
00:40:57.000As soon as he has passed, it recovers.
00:40:59.000It is not rare when passing through the new states of the west to encounter abandoned dwellings in the middle of the woods.
00:41:04.000Often one discovers the debris of a hut in the deepest solitude and one is astonished to come across partial clearings which attest at once to human power and human inconstancy.
00:41:14.000In Europe, we habitually regard restiveness of mind, immoderate desire for wealth, extreme love of independence as great social dangers.
00:41:20.000It is precisely all these things that guarantee a long and peaceful future to the American republics.
00:41:25.000This is Alexis de Tocqueville writing in 1831, two centuries ago.
00:41:28.000Without these restive passions, the population would be concentrated around certain places and would, as among us, soon feel needs difficult to satisfy.
00:41:36.000What a happy country is the new world, where man's vices are almost as useful to society as his virtues.
00:41:41.000The American republics in our day I like companies of merchants formed to exploit income in the wilderness lands of the new world and busy in a commerce that is prospering.
00:41:49.000And then he talks about what exactly log cabins look like in America.
00:41:54.000He says, quote, At the extreme limits of the Confederated States, on the boundaries of society and wilderness, stands a population of hardy adventurers who, in order to flee the poverty ready to afflict them under their father's roofs, have no fear of plunging into the solitudes of America and seeking a new native country there.
00:42:07.000Scarcely arrived at a place that will serve as a refuge for him, the pioneer hastily fells some trees and raises a cabin under the leaves.
00:42:15.000Nothing offers a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings.
00:42:18.000The traveler who approaches them toward evening perceives from afar the flame of the hearth glittering through the walls, and at night, if the wind comes up, he hears the roof of foliage rustling in the midst of the trees of the forest.
00:42:27.000Who could not believe that this poor cottage serves as a refuge for coarseness and ignorance?
00:42:31.000Yet, one must not establish any relation between the pioneer and the place that serves as his refuge.
00:42:36.000All is primitive and savage around him.
00:42:38.000But he is, so to speak, the result of 18 centuries of work and experience.
00:42:43.000He knows the past, is curious about the future, argues about the present.
00:42:46.000He's a very civilized man who, for a time, submits to living in the middle of the woods, who plunges into the wilderness of the new world with a Bible, a hatchet, and newspapers.
00:42:54.000It is difficult to imagine how incredibly rapidly thought circulates within this wilderness.
00:42:58.000There is scarcely a pioneer's cabin where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.
00:43:02.000I recall having read the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log house.
00:43:07.000And the sort of scorn that's being poured on people who shop at the dollar store in the name of the people is very weird to me.
00:43:16.000What makes lives better for middle class and lower income Americans is freedom of the seas, trade, better products at a cheaper price.
00:43:27.000And their lives, contrary to public opinion, are getting better.
00:43:29.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:43:31.000First, The Ben Shapiro Show is supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university with a vibrant campus in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.
00:43:38.000Ranked top 20 in the country by Niche.com, GCU is a missional, Christ-centered university that strives to foster a culture of community, giving, and impact.
00:43:46.000GCU's goal is to help you develop into a servant leader who makes a difference through finding your purpose.
00:43:50.000With 330 academic programs and over 270 online as of June 2023, GCU integrates the free market system with a welcoming Christian worldview into your bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree.
00:44:01.000You'll have support from your own university counselor who takes a personalized approach to helping you achieve your goals.
00:44:05.000Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University Private.
00:44:18.000Just this week, the New York Times attacked our bent-key kids' show, Chip-Chilla, for having, quote, a weirdly present father who teaches, quote, lessons about dead white people.
00:44:26.000Those dead white people, by the way, are like George Washington, Neil Armstrong, and Benjamin Franklin.
00:44:29.000Then, Cocomelon, literally the most-watched children's content in history, has 172 billion views on YouTube.
00:44:36.000It's the most popular kids' show on Netflix.
00:44:38.000They introduced two dads encouraging their son to choose a dress.
00:44:45.000Peppa Pig, Blue's Clues, Muppet Babies, more of these shows that are supposed to be for kids, they continue to push this radical left-wing agenda and propaganda to our kids.
00:44:52.000I mean, here's the stuff from Cocomelon.
00:44:56.000Those who can't see, this is two gay dads.
00:45:05.000And there is their little boy who is wearing a tiara and a skirt.
00:45:11.000Here at The Daily Wire, we don't just complain about the problem.
00:45:15.000This is why we've invested tens of millions of dollars into making BentKey, a platform for kids' entertainment that actually reinforces our values and protects kids from the most radical ideas of today.
00:45:49.000Give your kids content they'll love this holiday on a platform you can trust to give to you and a gift to your kids.
00:45:54.000Because you can actually leave your kids in front of the screen for more than five minutes without worrying that Disney's going to try to trans them or something.
00:45:59.000Join the BentKey family today, spread the word, start your free trial.
00:46:02.000Please encourage everyone else you know to do the same.
00:46:05.000Unlock the new adventure in kids' entertainment today at bentkey.com with code UNLOCK.
00:46:09.000Again, the code you need to start your 14-day free trial is UNLOCK.
00:46:13.000Okay, meanwhile, the same sort of critique that could be leveraged, that could be levied against the dollar store, because it's ugly, because it's put up in a big box, you know, steel frame building.
00:46:25.000That same critique could have been levied at tract housing across America.
00:46:30.000So in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, you know, the golden era, when everyone was seeking a house.
00:46:33.000By the way, our house is now much bigger.
00:46:35.000But these are like the golden era, according to many of the people who are now proclaiming that American economics has done us wrong.
00:47:20.000It turns out that more than 40 million housing units were built in the United States during the 30-year period following the end of World War II.
00:47:26.000At least 30 million of those were single-family homes.
00:47:29.000And a huge percentage of those were these tract houses.
00:48:12.000And anybody who denies that should take a trip back to 1980 and see how their Walkman is working.
00:48:18.000Let's talk about the cost of food, for example.
00:48:21.000According to Marion Toopey, writing over at Human Progress, they started with the 1919 nominal prices of 42 food items, ranging from a pound of sirloin steak to a dozen oranges.
00:48:31.000And they assessed how much time you would have to work in order to buy those things in 1919, and then forward to today.
00:48:37.000They say, quote, we find that the unweighted average time price of our 42 food items fell by 87% between 1919 and 2019.
00:48:49.000the nominal price divided by the nominal hourly wage of our basket of 42 food items fell from 27.3 hours of work in 1919 to 3.85 hours in 2019.
00:48:58.000By the way, this is an excellent way of measuring whether life has gotten easier or harder, not in terms of wage numbers or price numbers, because those are fungible.
00:49:05.000They're changeable due to inflation statistics and the value of the dollar and all the rest of it.
00:49:09.000The question is, how long you had to work in order to earn a particular good?
00:49:13.000Well, when it comes to food, you had to work 87% less today for the same basket of food for which you've had to work a century ago.
00:49:22.000Does that mean that libertarian economics betrayed everybody?
00:49:29.000And again, the problem with all of this is that when you throw that out, when you throw out that entire system, you fail to recognize the counter.
00:49:36.000Which is what happens afterward when you get rid of the freedom of the seas.
00:49:39.000When China does grab those choke points.
00:49:44.000When the United States retreats within our own borders, do you think life gets better for Americans or worse for Americans?
00:49:48.000Like, markedly, a lot worse for Americans.
00:49:51.000When all those dollar stores disappear because nothing costs a dollar anymore, do you think it's easier for Americans to live or harder for Americans to live?
00:49:57.000And by the way, you're going to have a lot of time left over and money left over to build those beautiful Gothic architecture pieces?