The Matt Walsh Show - Friendly Fire： Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale

00:00:00.000 From Amazon, MGM Studios comes Melania. 0.75

00:00:02.780 Every protocol, every precaution, every move coordinated.

00:00:06.400 This new film takes you inside the 20 days leading up to the 2025 presidential inauguration

00:00:11.480 through the eyes of the first lady herself.

00:00:14.140 The briefings, the planning, the private conversations.

00:00:16.820 Witness what it takes to secure her return to one of the world's most powerful roles.

00:00:20.440 Melania only in theaters January 30th.

00:00:23.740 Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.

00:00:25.940 Really?

00:00:26.420 You think JD would mog Gavin Newsom?

00:00:28.620 Yes, I do think he would mog him.

00:00:30.000 I'm really enjoying Neocon Matt Long.

00:00:31.700 I have also been lusting after Greenland my whole life.

00:00:34.860 I don't buy that.

00:00:35.640 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:00:36.380 I know it's uncouth to say it, but like, am I wrong?

00:00:38.220 For Media Matters, he's joking. It's not true.

00:00:41.180 He's not joking.

00:00:42.700 Friends are these.

00:00:44.040 Who needs enemies?

00:00:45.700 Friends are these.

00:00:47.240 Who needs enemies?

00:00:49.500 Matt, first time that Matt wants to talk foreign policy.

00:00:52.020 So I'm like, I'm all ears, man.

00:00:54.260 Let's do it.

00:00:55.500 I mean, no, don't put it all on me.

00:00:56.880 Yeah, that's just more for you guys to talk about.

00:00:59.020 I know, I know, but normally we mention any place that is outside the United States, and

00:01:02.880 I can see Matt's eyes glaze over.

00:01:06.120 Greenland is the only country outside the U.S. that I care about.

00:01:09.720 And it's meant to be inside the U.S. 0.58

00:01:11.220 Yeah, exactly.

00:01:12.340 I just love that we have as a listed topic the slave trade.

00:01:14.900 Matt is going to take the Aristotelian pro position.

00:01:21.300 That's funny because you said that.

00:01:22.540 I was thinking about Aristotle, too.

00:01:26.360 Will Gavin Newsom be the next president?

00:01:30.040 Daily Wire's very own Ben Shapiro just became Paul Allen sitting down with the Patrick Bateman of California.

00:01:34.800 We will hear all of the juicy details.

00:01:37.020 Then Matt, I believe, is calling for a civil rights movement for white people as he releases his new mini documentary on the slave trade.

00:01:45.940 What is a slave?

00:01:46.860 No, I don't think it's called that.

00:01:47.780 Anyway, he's going to be giving the history on that.

00:01:49.420 And then we will be going all the way into Greenland.

00:01:53.480 I don't think it's coincidental.

00:01:54.820 Denmark has said that they will not sell Greenland to the United States.

00:01:58.600 Then France came out and they said the French military will defend you.

00:02:02.060 And then immediately Denmark said, okay, listen, we'll make a deal.

00:02:04.940 So we will get into all of those things on Friendly Fire.

00:02:09.380 Gentlemen, wonderful to be with all of you.

00:02:11.140 Happy New Year and Merry Christmas.

00:02:13.020 Christmas is still on until February 2nd as far as I'm concerned.

00:02:16.480 Wow.

00:02:17.200 I didn't realize it lasts that long, Michael.

00:02:19.000 Why?

00:02:19.420 Yeah, I go right through to Lent myself.

00:02:21.400 Yeah, I actually, I count Christmas as lasting through until the next Advent.

00:02:25.860 So I've still got all the decorations up in my set.

00:02:28.840 It's amazing.

00:02:29.480 I haven't seen you guys in a little while.

00:02:31.160 And Ben, you were just over with Mr. Slimy himself.

00:02:34.980 I was with Gavin Newsom at the Governor's Mansion in California, which, by the way, is very tiny.

00:02:39.780 It is the tiniest Governor's Mansion.

00:02:41.380 It is a very, very small building in Sacramento.

00:02:43.440 You have to brush thousands of homeless people out of your way just to get to it.

00:02:48.340 But, you know, it was definitely an interesting experience.

00:02:52.120 I had a little bit of time off camera with Gavin Newsom.

00:02:55.860 I'd met him briefly before.

00:02:57.340 And like most politicians, he's very good in person.

00:02:59.540 I will say that just as a class of people, politicians in person way better than politicians on camera, just generally speaking.

00:03:05.940 And we all know a bunch of politicians.

00:03:08.060 And I think that this is the general rule about literally all of them.

00:03:11.520 So off camera, he's very friendly.

00:03:13.520 He's very garrulous.

00:03:14.900 He will kind of get a little more honest with you than he might in terms of his positions on camera.

00:03:19.900 And then I was out there because he had invited me to come on his podcast.

00:03:23.820 That's a podcast where he has, I guess, once every couple of weeks, I believe.

00:03:27.480 Usually it's somebody of the left.

00:03:28.760 Occasionally he'll have somebody of the right.

00:03:30.280 Famously, he had Charlie Kirk on the show.

00:03:33.180 This is back during last summer.

00:03:35.040 And it was about a two-hour show.

00:03:37.220 It was a little bit under two hours.

00:03:38.420 We covered a lot of ground.

00:03:39.980 Before I get to your epic sit down with him, because I want to know if he's going to be the next president.

00:03:44.740 I really hope he's not.

00:03:45.360 I want to get to an even more epic topic, which is, of course, the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, which is coming out.

00:03:53.400 It's coming to Daily Wire+.

00:03:54.440 This is the latest reason that you have to subscribe.

00:03:57.740 Become a Daily Wire Plus member right now.

00:03:59.540 This just amazing, elaborate, multi-continental journey.

00:04:05.000 If only we had waited a little longer to make it.

00:04:06.900 We could have shot it in Greenland.

00:04:08.480 Just a beautiful, beautiful series.

00:04:10.520 And, by the way, if you go check it out right now, you can go to dailywire.com slash shop and get the Pendragon cycle Rise of the Merlin board game.

00:04:20.240 I want one of those.

00:04:20.820 Which is very, very cool.

00:04:21.900 Depending on how long this goes, maybe we can all play it together, guys.

00:04:25.000 I love board games.

00:04:26.080 Send me one of those.

00:04:27.060 Yeah, it's good.

00:04:28.240 This is looking, I don't know, we spent some money on this.

00:04:30.560 This is a nice looking board game.

00:04:31.640 Anyway, go check it out right now.

00:04:33.540 Become a Daily Wire Plus member.

00:04:35.640 January 22nd, it all happens.

00:04:38.200 And then possibly in January of 2029, our whole country falls apart if Gavin Newsom becomes president.

00:04:45.060 It turns out that that series is the only thing more ambitious than Gavin Newsom.

00:04:49.460 We have a trailer, right?

00:04:51.020 Play the trailer.

00:04:51.440 What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God?

00:04:57.380 Is that who you think I was alone with?

00:04:59.680 There is a new power at work in the world.

00:05:01.580 I've seen it.

00:05:02.240 A God who sacrifices what he loves for us.

00:05:04.420 I learned of Yazoo the Christ. 0.81

00:05:06.020 And I have become his follower.

00:05:07.560 Trust in Yazoo.

00:05:08.600 Great light.

00:05:09.460 Great darkness.

00:05:10.640 Such things mattered to me then. 0.70

00:05:12.380 What matters to you now, mistress of lies?

00:05:14.220 The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin, a seven-part series.

00:05:18.480 Premieres January 22nd, only on Daily Wire Plus.

00:05:22.760 I mean, it is as good or better than anything that you will see on HBO.

00:05:27.020 And you won't get the gratuitous sex and the insane nihilism.

00:05:32.060 Oh, then I'm out. 0.96

00:05:33.080 Guys, guys.

00:05:33.740 I'm sorry.

00:05:34.420 I know.

00:05:34.660 It's a massive disincentive for...

00:05:36.300 Oh, wow.

00:05:37.820 Well, no.

00:05:38.440 Because they said we're going to play the Pendragon trailer, and they came in and gave me this fake sword.

00:05:44.240 They said, what is this for?

00:05:46.000 So this is a bit where I'm supposed to pull the...

00:05:48.200 I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this, but they gave me the sword and said,

00:05:51.500 well, you could do a bit where you have a sword.

00:05:54.580 What's the bit?

00:05:55.440 Like, I have a sword.

00:05:56.860 What am I supposed to do?

00:05:57.700 I don't know.

00:05:58.120 It's a police sword looking for the lady in the lake.

00:05:59.300 That'll be...

00:06:00.380 Does anyone in my ear want to tell me what the bit is with the sword?

00:06:03.420 Is there a thing I'm supposed to be doing with it?

00:06:05.800 Just don't hurt yourself.

00:06:07.060 I think I'm supposed to just have the sword, and you guys are supposed to laugh hysterically

00:06:09.880 because Matt Walsh is holding a sword. 0.99

00:06:12.460 You could use it to smash in the windows of illegals in Minneapolis or something. 0.83

00:06:16.180 You could use it for, like, a very practical political purpose. 0.70

00:06:18.200 It's plastic.

00:06:18.820 It's not even a real...

00:06:19.860 It's plastic.

00:06:20.960 If you wish to buy Matt a real sword, then you can get a subscription to Daily Wire,

00:06:24.920 and you can watch Pendragon, and then we can pay for actual metal swords that Matt can use

00:06:29.200 to go and, I don't know, chop down trees in whatever part of rural America he is in right at this very moment.

00:06:35.340 Anyway, back to Gavin.

00:06:37.340 So, Newsom, I will say that he is good on his feet.

00:06:42.220 He's squirrely enough that he knows his talking points well enough that if you hit him on California policy,

00:06:47.400 he is able to sort of shift responsibility, his big moves, he likes to shift responsibility onto local officials for failures

00:06:54.000 and then take credit for any state successes, or he likes to make sort of grandiose claims about the robustness of California,

00:07:01.220 and if you point out it is not as robust as he has said that it would be, then he'll start talking about Louisiana.

00:07:06.100 So, you see that sort of stuff happen a lot.

00:07:07.880 So, for example, I was dinging him on California's income tax policy because it's driving business out of the state,

00:07:12.800 and his immediate response was, well, yeah, but we're fairer than, say, Louisiana, and here's how that kind of went.

00:07:18.440 I think we have the clip.

00:07:19.520 Luckily, lowering the income tax rates in the state.

00:07:21.140 Well, California has taxed...

00:07:24.140 I mean, there's 16 states right now.

00:07:25.560 Let's talk about those 16 states.

00:07:26.960 Why don't we talk about California?

00:07:28.020 Well, I'm going to.

00:07:28.900 They tax their low-wage earners more than California taxes its high-wage earners.

00:07:32.740 Let's talk about lowering those tax rates in those 16 states.

00:07:36.560 Okay, so, again, notice what he tends to do is he will misdirect away from the actual topic,

00:07:40.880 and even when it comes to the topic of taxes, he'll misdirect, because the point I'm making is not a fairness point.

00:07:46.780 It is an efficacy point, meaning you're driving every taxpayer out of your state, which is what's happened in California.

00:07:52.800 He'll shift it over to Louisiana, and then he will have his online minions talk about how he owned everybody

00:07:57.420 by showing that you pay a lot of tax in Louisiana as a poor person based on excise taxes and such.

00:08:02.260 So that's kind of one of his squirrely strategies.

00:08:04.080 There are certain places where he is less squirrely, and that's kind of what's interesting.

00:08:08.100 I will say, the thing that I found interesting is his overt attempt to moderate his sort of online persona.

00:08:13.700 So there are a couple of points where he did this.

00:08:16.060 One of them, most obviously, was on ICE.

00:08:17.660 So his crazy social media account, his press office account, which has been dedicated to trolling President Trump for a while,

00:08:25.540 had tweeted out that they'd engaged in ICE, had engaged in state-sponsored terrorism.

00:08:31.080 And I asked him straight up about it and really pushed him on it.

00:08:33.100 One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of Homeland Security, Christine Noem,

00:08:40.080 that she was a domestic terrorist who was attempting to run over officers with her car

00:08:43.880 and was legitimately trying, not just this officer, but multiple officers.

00:08:47.600 That was the original statement I said at the time.

00:08:49.680 I thought that was untrue.

00:08:50.880 And then your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism,

00:08:54.940 which, I mean, Governor, I have to ask you about that.

00:08:58.560 That sort of thing makes our politics worse.

00:09:01.940 Yeah.

00:09:02.440 And it does.

00:09:03.120 I mean, our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists.

00:09:05.980 Yeah.

00:09:06.200 A tragic situation is not state-sponsored terrorism.

00:09:08.800 Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:09:09.960 Okay, so again, you can see him trying to, like, take his own press office and just chuck it under the bus.

00:09:13.400 He's doing a couple of things.

00:09:14.460 One is he will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base.

00:09:17.940 And then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it

00:09:21.400 because he still wants to win moderates for 2028.

00:09:23.460 By the way, our sponsor, Kalshi, in the prediction markets,

00:09:26.180 shows that he is right now the leader in the clubhouse among Democrats for the 2028 nomination.

00:09:32.820 All right, hold on.

00:09:33.480 Before, I want to hear, because you saw him actually personally,

00:09:37.020 I want to hear what you think about him for 2028.

00:09:39.180 But before you sully the opinions of the, you know, you sway our fellow DW guys here,

00:09:46.780 do you think, Drew and Matt, do you think that Newsom's the guy for 2028?

00:09:51.660 No, I think he's the Jeb Bush of the Democrats.

00:09:55.660 I think, you know, one of the continual arguments we have had on this show and when it was backstage

00:10:01.180 is, you know, Ben and Jeremy would always say that if Michelle Obama runs, she'd win against anybody.

00:10:07.940 And I think, I don't think it's underestimating the American public.

00:10:11.080 I think it's misunderstanding the American public.

00:10:12.780 They actually are.

00:10:13.820 The American public actually is keyed into issues more than the media wants them to be.

00:10:18.320 The media wants them to look at people, what they look like and how they behave and whether

00:10:22.200 they do this or that and what words they use.

00:10:24.400 But the people actually do care about topics and issues, especially when they affect them.

00:10:30.500 I think Newsom is a haircut, a sleazy haircut.

00:10:33.280 And I think that that doesn't play.

00:10:35.460 I think the fact that they, anybody who runs against them is going to bring up the fact that

00:10:39.100 they have spent $40 billion almost on fixing the homeless issue and their homelessness has

00:10:46.200 gone up 30%.

00:10:47.060 Where's the money for the bullet train?

00:10:50.260 Where the hell did that, those billions of dollars go?

00:10:52.640 Money disappears in California because like any one state, one party state, it's full of

00:10:58.340 graft. 0.78

00:10:58.720 It's just a completely corrupt state.

00:11:00.160 But Drew, wouldn't you also say that Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were greasy haircuts?

00:11:03.180 I mean, sleazy haircuts?

00:11:04.080 Bill Clinton was one of the great, and Barack Obama.

00:11:07.660 This is the other thing about Democrats, by the way.

00:11:09.420 We've had three Democrat presidents over the last, you know, several decades.

00:11:13.680 Obama and Clinton were two of the greatest politicians of my lifetime.

00:11:17.380 They were fantastic wholesale politicians.

00:11:20.220 And Joe Biden won under very suspicious circumstances.

00:11:23.400 Let's face it.

00:11:24.020 I mean, very, you know, weird circumstances.

00:11:25.980 So I don't know.

00:11:27.960 The drift in this country is to the right.

00:11:29.860 The drift in the West is to the right.

00:11:31.560 And in Europe, they're basically stamping it down, but we don't have the capability of

00:11:35.320 stamping it down.

00:11:36.220 And I think Gavin Newsom is toast the minute his record comes up.

00:11:39.900 And the social stuff, the way he handled COVID, the way he had everybody, he shut down

00:11:45.100 John MacArthur's church and tried to and harass them while he was dining out at a French

00:11:49.720 restaurant with his friends without a mask.

00:11:51.920 I mean, the guy is just, he's too easy a target to really make it whence the national

00:11:57.040 attention is on him.

00:11:58.920 And I just don't think he's, look, I understand he's ahead in the polls.

00:12:02.720 Anything can happen.

00:12:03.760 It's way too far away to actually predict it.

00:12:06.540 I'm not making a prediction, but he's just not the guy I'm looking at.

00:12:09.400 It's AOC who kicks me up at night.

00:12:11.040 Is the question whether he's going to win the presidency in 2028 or whether he's the

00:12:16.120 Democrats guy in 2028?

00:12:17.380 Even just the, even start with just the nomination.

00:12:19.460 Yeah, because, well, among Democrats, uh, Gavin, I guess I could put this sword on Gavin Newsom

00:12:26.420 among Democrats has a, has something that no other Democrat has that I'm aware of on the

00:12:33.260 entire national stage, which is that he can actually talk to people.

00:12:37.460 Like he could sit down and talk to Ben.

00:12:39.320 He can go on any podcast and have a conversation and yeah, he's lying the entire time, but, but

00:12:46.040 he's, he's willing to do that.

00:12:47.260 There's, I mean, can you name any other Democrat at any level who could even potentially run for

00:12:53.300 the presidency in 2028 who would, who could go on, say Joe Rogan and have a conversation

00:13:00.180 for two and a half hours?

00:13:01.480 Uh, Gavin Newsom could easily do that.

00:13:03.740 And again, although what he's saying is off is almost always false, everything he believes

00:13:09.280 is wrong and he's lying almost always.

00:13:11.600 Uh, he's at least able to go do that in that environment.

00:13:14.660 And he's the only Democrat, not only the only Democrat in the field right now who could do

00:13:18.560 that.

00:13:18.720 He's the only Democrat in the last like 20 years who has that kind of ability.

00:13:22.440 Uh, I think what, so that's an argument for why all things being equal, he has a good

00:13:28.840 chance of being the, you know, the nominee for the Democrats in 2028.

00:13:32.420 I don't think he's going to win the presidency for a lot of the reasons that, uh, that Drew

00:13:35.740 just articulated.

00:13:36.960 You think that J.D. vans, assuming that J.D. is the presumptive nominee, you think J.D.

00:13:41.560 would mog Gavin Newsom?

00:13:43.060 Yes, I do think he would mog him.

00:13:44.160 I agree.

00:13:44.780 I do.

00:13:45.120 But, but then, uh, not that I know what mog means, but I think he would.

00:13:48.700 No one knows.

00:13:49.420 But the problem for Gavin Newsom is that, like, the obvious thing in the, for a Democrat

00:13:54.660 is that he's a white male.

00:13:56.760 And in a primary, like, is, would the Democrat voters be willing to say, hey, we tried a

00:14:05.220 woman and she failed. 1.00

00:14:07.440 We tried a black woman, she failed even worse. 1.00

00:14:09.800 So now we're just going to go back to a white guy because they're the only ones who can 0.99

00:14:13.820 win.

00:14:14.760 Uh, I, I don't know that the Democrat voters be willing to say that. 0.89

00:14:17.580 Like a black woman midget or something like that. 1.00

00:14:18.360 So I, so I'll say this. 0.98

00:14:19.740 He is, he is smoother on his feet than virtually any of the Democrats that I've talked to.

00:14:24.180 Uh, and I've talked to a fair number of them.

00:14:25.480 Uh, he is also, I think that there's a, a more than decent likelihood he's the nominee

00:14:31.860 in, in 2028 because his chief rival is AOC, meaning that AOC is not a black woman. 1.00

00:14:39.000 She's a Hispanic woman, actually. 1.00

00:14:40.860 And as if you, if you look at the Democratic voting base, particularly in the South, that

00:14:46.000 is a heavily black voting base.

00:14:47.380 Uh, there's no evidence that that crosses over to quote unquote, the people of color

00:14:50.440 category, a category that has never existed nor will ever exist in real life.

00:14:53.800 Uh, and, and you, you've already seen cases, uh, in which the black vote has mobilized behind

00:14:59.220 a white person to stop another white person or a Hispanic.

00:15:01.640 So I, I would not be surprised if he's able to pull out the nomination.

00:15:05.340 I will say that again, the game that he's playing, which is a smart game is he's usually

00:15:09.300 rhetorically radical with regard to president Trump personally.

00:15:12.500 And with regard to Trump, you know, that, that makes you real popular inside the Democratic

00:15:15.580 party, but he's trying to moderate on a lot of the issues where he actually is most

00:15:18.960 radical.

00:15:19.340 Like in that interview, he suggested that he's cooperating with ICE, which I find, you know,

00:15:23.080 very difficult to believe, shall we say.

00:15:24.880 Um, in that interview, he tried to pretend sort of moderation on the trans issue.

00:15:28.620 His state is not moderate on that issue at all.

00:15:31.060 And that brings up sort of the second question that you're, you're raising Michael, which

00:15:33.980 is how does he do in a general election if it's JD Vance?

00:15:36.440 So, you know, obviously the number one question there is going to be, how's the U S doing,

00:15:40.480 right?

00:15:40.580 If the economy sucks, JD's got a real problem.

00:15:42.540 Uh, and I think everybody acknowledges that circumstantially, that's just the reality.

00:15:45.900 Um, as far as sort of head to head as candidates, uh, yeah, I, I will say that I look

00:15:50.800 that my biggest question mark for JD is, can he grow any part of Trump's coalition?

00:15:57.520 I look at Trump's coalition and I think to myself, Trump has maxed out in many ways,

00:16:02.440 many parts of that coalition.

00:16:04.060 What is the part that JD grows that Trump was unable to grow?

00:16:06.940 Because this was a fairly narrow election.

00:16:09.000 If you look, it was a couple hundred thousand votes in a couple of different places and very,

00:16:12.900 very high turnout.

00:16:13.400 Because again, people really, really love Trump in a way that, you know, again, that's not

00:16:17.600 a rip on JD, that's just a reality.

00:16:19.680 But you've been saying for a while, Ben, and this is something I totally agree with 0.94

00:16:22.440 that almost all of this is going to depend on the economy, which I think is getting better.

00:16:26.420 I mean, even the wall street journal, which has been hysterically depressed ever since

00:16:29.760 the tariff thing comes up, is admitting that the economy is actually turning around and

00:16:33.140 doing pretty well.

00:16:34.000 And the other thing is also, you know, again, I don't think we talk too much and the media

00:16:39.380 likes this.

00:16:40.100 They want to talk about everything, uh, as, as people's faces and their style and the way

00:16:44.400 they talk.

00:16:44.940 And I admit all that is important, but people actually do pay attention to certain things.

00:16:49.320 Like for instance, the parade of U-Hauls leaving California looks like a Howard Hawks cattle

00:16:54.940 drive.

00:16:55.300 I mean, people are just like deserting the state and the state, as we all know, is paradise.

00:17:00.320 If you left it alone, if you took the people out, it would be, it would be paradise.

00:17:03.740 And I, it's just, he's ruined everything that he touches.

00:17:06.480 And I just, I mean, listen, I left his state, we all left his state.

00:17:11.120 We all left his state because again, I don't think that his state was well run, but there

00:17:15.100 is one thing that I do know.

00:17:16.100 And that's that you need life insurance.

00:17:17.520 You do.

00:17:18.000 That's just the reality.

00:17:19.200 You need to start the new year with clarity and security.

00:17:21.800 You need to lock in your life insurance today because let's face it, you, and I specifically

00:17:26.020 mean Andrew Klavan might die this year.

00:17:27.700 Policy genius is an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some

00:17:31.760 of America's top insurers side-by-side for free.

00:17:34.160 Their licensed team helps you get what you need fast so you can get on with your life.

00:17:37.340 You can easily find what you need.

00:17:38.380 Coverage amounts, prices, terms, no guesswork, just clarity.

00:17:41.560 And policy genius will help you find your most affordable policy that meets your needs.

00:17:45.280 They'll answer your questions, handle the paperwork, advocate for you throughout the

00:17:48.200 process.

00:17:48.600 Policy genius has thousands of five-star reviews on Google and Trustpilot from customers who

00:17:52.160 found the best policy fit for their needs.

00:17:56.020 Drew, tell me about what you're going to do to protect your family should you die this

00:18:00.000 year.

00:18:00.320 Actually, you know, I don't like to bring this up because it violates my contract, but I actually

00:18:03.820 died last year and the payout from my life insurance was so good that my wife was

00:18:07.720 able to, you know, marry her tennis instructor and, you know, live a really the way she had 0.60

00:18:12.120 wanted to for the last 45 years.

00:18:13.840 So I think it's really, it is important.

00:18:15.500 Look, you disappear, your money, your earnings go with you and that leaves your family on the

00:18:21.040 large.

00:18:21.240 So yeah, it's important, especially for people like me or people like you, Ben, who might

00:18:25.600 finally, they might finally catch up with you and just carry you away.

00:18:28.520 Well, that's a dark thought for me this year.

00:18:32.120 With policy genius, real users have gotten 20-year, $2 million policies for just 53

00:18:36.340 bucks a month, ease the way to protecting a wonderful life.

00:18:38.620 Head on over to policygenius.com slash fire to compare life insurance quotes from top

00:18:42.960 companies, see how much you could save.

00:18:44.240 That's policygenius.com slash fire.

00:18:46.800 So here's my question.

00:18:48.080 Drew, I agree with you, obviously, about all of Gavin Newsom's policy failures.

00:18:51.440 The real question to him, and I even agree with you, obviously, about the economy.

00:18:54.260 It's hard to disagree with a 5.3% GDP growth in Q4, following a 4.5% GDP growth in Q3.

00:19:01.300 I mean, those are really, really good numbers.

00:19:03.460 Here is the problem, and I go back to it, just coalitionally speaking.

00:19:06.000 You look at Trump's coalition, it's a very weird coalition, right?

00:19:08.120 It's a different coalition than the sort of historic Republican coalition.

00:19:11.300 It's blue-collar voters, his heavy share of Hispanics, slightly outsized portion of

00:19:15.540 black males, particularly, and skewing younger than traditionally.

00:19:20.840 It's hard for me to see exactly where JD grows any part of that coalition.

00:19:26.300 He's going to win fewer Hispanics than President Trump did.

00:19:28.600 Trump has a sort of weird capacity to move beyond his own person.

00:19:32.760 He's kind of everybody's idea of a rich person in their various ethnic group.

00:19:36.860 It's really, really funny.

00:19:38.040 Like, if you talk to, you know, if you talk to my people, you talk to the Jews, he's

00:19:41.700 like, oh, yeah, he's like every rich Jew that I know. 0.98

00:19:43.500 And then you talk to, like, a white Italian guy.

00:19:44.920 He's like, yeah, he's just like the rich Italian guys.

00:19:46.640 He's like, no, he talked to a Syrian person, he's bizarrely every person and no person at 1.00

00:19:51.820 the same time, Donald Trump, in a weird way.

00:19:53.820 That's not true of JD Vance, who is a very talented politician, but clearly a politician.

00:19:58.340 And so you take sort of Trump's comments about ICE, and he's not going to, it doesn't come

00:20:03.200 across the same way as JD Vance online.

00:20:05.480 My chief critique of JD in this way is that I think JD is too online, and he needs to get

00:20:08.660 off X. 0.54

00:20:09.060 This is also my chief critique of everyone, because I think X rots your brain.

00:20:12.180 And if you're a politician and you're using that as your echo chamber, telling you which

00:20:15.820 direction to row, I think you're going to end up rowing in the wrong direction.

00:20:18.080 But hold on, Ben, doesn't that undercut your point on Trump, who is the tweeter in chief?

00:20:21.780 No, no, no, Trump is not on X.

00:20:22.980 That's not true.

00:20:23.580 Trump tweets, but he does not read X.

00:20:25.700 Trump is not online.

00:20:26.680 Trump, literally, they print out things for him and put them in front of him.

00:20:29.320 You know this.

00:20:29.900 This is a factual truth, right?

00:20:31.440 They were literally, he doesn't, like, Trump does not spend any time at all on CNN.com or

00:20:35.820 NewYorkTimes.com.

00:20:36.560 They literally print out, if there's a tweet that he has seen, it's because his staff literally

00:20:39.960 prints out the tweet on physical paper and puts it in front of him.

00:20:43.120 Okay, but how does Gavin Newsom grow the coalition?

00:20:47.020 Because isn't this conversation, Gavin Newsom hypothetically versus J.D. Vance?

00:20:50.900 How does Gavin Newsom grow it?

00:20:52.300 So the way that, so again, when it's two choices, then shrinking your coalition is growing the

00:20:56.960 other guy's coalition.

00:20:58.140 So if you have a Hispanic voter, he's only going to go in one of two directions. 0.78

00:21:01.140 If that guy does not vote for J.D. Vance and now he votes in the election and doesn't

00:21:05.300 just go home, he's going to vote for Gavin Newsom.

00:21:07.240 So I think that Gavin Newsom does win a larger share of Hispanic voters than Kamala Harris

00:21:13.440 won in the last election cycle, for example.

00:21:14.800 Listen, I don't know.

00:21:15.200 I think there's a counter-argument here.

00:21:16.780 One is a lot of people were predicting that Trump had maxed out his coalition the first

00:21:20.540 time and, you know, people were upset.

00:21:22.740 They weren't getting exactly what they wanted, you know, all these disappointments.

00:21:25.740 And then what happened?

00:21:26.360 He goes on to win the popular vote the second time.

00:21:28.420 So if J.D. were able to maintain Trump's coalition, that alone, he'd be great.

00:21:32.380 And let's say that things change because, obviously, in 2024, almost half the voters

00:21:36.760 were millennials and Zoomers, skewed a little younger.

00:21:39.440 In my meanderings through the young right, I think the young right does like the vice

00:21:43.700 president a lot.

00:21:44.500 For sure.

00:21:45.000 But the other thing, so, you know, to me, that's a bonus.

00:21:47.580 I do think this guy is very, very talented in that he came up as this, you know, Ohio guy,

00:21:54.340 this guy who wrote a very famous memoir about his lower class upbringing.

00:21:58.800 And he goes on, succeeds at very high levels.

00:22:01.140 He plays well in Silicon Valley.

00:22:02.920 He plays well with rural people who want industrial policy.

00:22:06.740 He plays well, you know, he's, I think he's got a lot of talent.

00:22:09.540 But this actually gets to my point vis-a-vis Newsom, which is Newsom is overestimated.

00:22:16.440 We're all talking about how slick he is.

00:22:18.020 The thing he's most famous for in politics is just being really deceitful.

00:22:21.400 You know, and he's, and Nicki Minaj had that whole line.

00:22:23.820 He goes, oh, he's so sexy.

00:22:25.440 He's so slick.

00:22:26.360 He's so this.

00:22:26.820 So he, I think he's being overestimated in the ways that people overestimated guys like

00:22:31.760 Beto O'Rourke, these also-rans who fell away. 1.00

00:22:35.020 I don't think it's always great to be the top guy in the race a year or a year and a

00:22:38.740 half out.

00:22:39.300 But second of all, there was a great interview once between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

00:22:44.560 And Clinton said, he goes, you know, George and I have benefited from the same thing, which

00:22:48.900 is we've both been underestimated.

00:22:50.960 Me, because I'm a nice guy.

00:22:52.480 And they thought I was all nice. 1.00

00:22:54.160 And they thought he was kind of dumb. 0.97

00:22:55.480 And you think about the winning presidential candidates, they tend to be very underestimated. 0.99

00:23:00.900 Trump doesn't know anything. 1.00

00:23:02.180 He's totally ignorant. 1.00

00:23:03.360 Go ahead and run, Donald. 1.00

00:23:04.480 Yeah.

00:23:04.600 Right.

00:23:05.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:23:05.340 Barack Obama, he's black in a racist country. 1.00

00:23:07.780 Bill Clinton, he's Bubba. 1.00

00:23:08.880 Bush is stupid. 1.00

00:23:09.740 You know, Ronald Reagan's a cowboy. 1.00

00:23:11.060 On that subject, though, I have to say, last time we were here, which is not that long ago,

00:23:15.420 I would have bet money.

00:23:16.940 And I'm not a betting man, but I would have bet money on J.D. Vance being the nominee right

00:23:20.600 this minute.

00:23:21.200 I'm a little uncertain if that's if we're actually talking about the next nominee, because he's

00:23:25.700 not, you know, every time.

00:23:27.100 I mean, Trump has been very going very hard on foreign policy and he has people around

00:23:31.900 him in the press conferences, mostly Rubio.

00:23:34.340 And Vance is nowhere to be seen because Vance is one of these guys who's trying to take

00:23:38.200 MAGA and turn it into isolationism, which it never was.

00:23:41.560 I don't buy that.

00:23:42.860 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:23:43.840 I don't.

00:23:44.120 Where is he?

00:23:44.520 I don't think so.

00:23:45.240 Why isn't he in these meetings?

00:23:46.420 Well, I'll give you an example.

00:23:47.660 So this was very interesting.

00:23:48.960 I don't know if you guys caught this interview with Saurabh Amari right after the Venezuela

00:23:52.580 strike.

00:23:53.240 Saurabh posted it again.

00:23:54.860 And he said, wow, these comments the vice president made a couple of weeks ago really hit differently

00:23:58.860 now.

00:23:59.380 And he was being asked, you know, his involvement in the admin.

00:24:02.400 And he said, I'm getting it a little off.

00:24:05.300 It's not verbatim, but this is the thrust of it.

00:24:07.480 He said, look, if let's say hypothetically there were an action to be taken by the administration

00:24:13.060 that would look really good for Marco that I would not be all that publicly involved in,

00:24:18.700 in part because you don't have the president and vice president in the same place, often

00:24:21.580 outside of the White House, where, you know, Marco would be center stage and I would seem

00:24:25.940 to be more in the background.

00:24:27.180 If I were optimizing for 2028, I would try to kill that action.

00:24:30.880 But if I were optimizing for the good of the country and just to be a good person, I would

00:24:36.180 encourage that action.

00:24:37.400 And, you know, it's kind of unclear what he was talking about there.

00:24:39.680 After the Venezuela strike, it seems clear as day to me.

00:24:42.320 That's what he's talking about.

00:24:43.540 I think the idea that J.D. is some isolationist, I don't buy it.

00:24:48.020 He's positioning himself that way.

00:24:49.540 He's been very close with Tucker Carlson, who I don't know if Tucker Carlson believes

00:24:52.880 anything at this point.

00:24:54.140 I have no idea.

00:24:54.840 But I mean, he's actually kind of on the phone, remember, on that signal call that

00:24:59.320 was bugged.

00:24:59.720 He was the guy who was calling for restraint.

00:25:02.380 You know, he's not always like, it doesn't seem to be online with the president's foreign

00:25:06.760 policy, which frankly, I think is working out great right now.

00:25:10.520 You know, I think it's going very well.

00:25:11.900 So I don't know.

00:25:12.980 I'm not saying, look, I'm not counting him out by any stretch of the imagination.

00:25:16.560 I'm just saying the guy who looks great is Marco Rubio.

00:25:19.300 Here's the thing.

00:25:21.220 I think Marco has basically already said that he is not going to run if J.D. runs.

00:25:25.640 And I think that that's probably true.

00:25:27.340 And I think that right now, if you're looking at the vice president, obviously, his benefit

00:25:31.340 is that he is the vice president.

00:25:33.280 No one's underestimating that he's incredibly talented.

00:25:35.840 He for sure is.

00:25:36.820 I think that there are a couple of systemic factors that are running against him, because

00:25:41.020 I sort of did a bit of a deep dive into this.

00:25:42.920 I mean, the reality, he's the vice president who currently has a 40 percent approval rating.

00:25:46.840 Vice presidents who have a 40 percent approval rating running after presidents who have a

00:25:50.360 40 percent approval rating don't typically do amazing in general elections.

00:25:54.080 And so, you know, maybe that changes.

00:25:55.820 Maybe that changes radically.

00:25:57.120 But I think that the sort of core assumption that a lot of Republicans are making, that

00:26:00.080 there is sort of a cakewalk into the presidency for the vice president, that I don't see.

00:26:04.300 And I will say that I do think that the memery, if you do care about the very online, every

00:26:08.260 meme of Marco Rubio, the big meme of Marco Rubio, obviously, is Marco having a different job

00:26:12.100 every day, right?

00:26:12.920 Is the secretary of state.

00:26:14.460 Now he's like a gladiator.

00:26:15.960 Now it's just him in that pose being like annoyed that he's been given a new job as

00:26:20.240 king of Venezuela or now the new governor of Greenland or whatever it's going to be

00:26:24.220 today.

00:26:24.940 And then all the memes of JD or that JD is fat with weird hair.

00:26:28.460 And like that's not kind of where you want to be, just in sort of meme land.

00:26:32.700 I disagree.

00:26:34.560 You should talk to your guest clavicular, OK?

00:26:36.740 Like your guest clavicular will now agree with me, which is hilarious.

00:26:39.680 I don't think the looks maxing, you know, meth addicted 19 year old is representative of

00:26:44.660 the American voter.

00:26:45.760 I certainly hope not.

00:26:46.780 This is why I disagree, though.

00:26:48.300 And it gets to my point on Newsom, is I think it was so smart of the VP to lean into the

00:26:54.080 goofy meme.

00:26:55.060 And the reason I think it was so smart is you want to be underestimated so that the reality

00:26:59.960 can surpass expectations.

00:27:01.400 So even down to the physicality, the fact that the meme is he's like this big fat guy.

00:27:04.900 But then you see him.

00:27:05.900 He's not a big fat guy.

00:27:06.620 He's actually a relatively thin guy.

00:27:08.600 The meme is that he's kind of like short.

00:27:10.240 He's actually very tall. 1.00

00:27:11.360 The meme is that he's kind of dumb. 0.99

00:27:12.760 He's extremely intelligent. 0.99

00:27:14.420 So I think all of those things play really well, even to the point ideologically, some

00:27:17.900 people tried to pin him down on he's an isolationist or he's this or he's that.

00:27:21.060 But he's defended the administration's actions in Iran, in Venezuela, quite vociferously.

00:27:26.420 And so I don't know.

00:27:27.060 To me, like if I were in this position, I would not want the memes to be making me out to be

00:27:32.140 the really cool guy.

00:27:34.060 Frankly, you even saw this with Trump in 2015, 2016. 1.00

00:27:36.880 All the memery was that he was like a big, dumb idiot. 1.00

00:27:38.960 And I think to be underestimated actually puts you in a better position. 1.00

00:27:41.980 And he's not taking himself too seriously, which is a rare quality for politicians.

00:27:47.260 People appreciate it.

00:27:47.920 But the question is, for Republicans, what other Republican, I mean, to go to Ben's point

00:27:51.540 about Trump's coalition, what other Republican has a better chance of at least maintaining

00:27:57.180 most of Trump's coalition, if not expanding it?

00:27:59.360 And I don't see anybody outside.

00:28:00.840 I mean, there are others who might have a shot.

00:28:02.420 There are others who I could like in that spot, but I think J.D. Vance certainly would

00:28:06.440 have the best shot at that.

00:28:07.340 And as far as approval ratings go, it's like every president and vice president my whole

00:28:12.340 life has had terrible approval ratings, it feels like.

00:28:14.960 I don't think it means anything.

00:28:18.260 It's part of the political reality we live in, that you just hate whoever's in there

00:28:22.100 and they get bad approval ratings.

00:28:23.740 And it still just goes to, I don't see anyone else in the, and this could change, obviously.

00:28:27.940 We're still a couple years out, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican

00:28:30.260 field who I'd look at them and say, well, you know, we know what Trump's coalition is

00:28:34.020 and that guy over there really is going to resonate with that coalition more than J.D.

00:28:39.500 Vance would.

00:28:39.840 And I have to say, by the way, I wasn't suggesting he won't be the nominee or the next president

00:28:43.800 because that has been my certainty.

00:28:45.340 I'm just saying that my certainty is a little less certain nowadays.

00:28:48.920 But I think-

00:28:49.540 I'm sorry, go ahead.

00:28:50.400 Go ahead.

00:28:50.580 Well, just what Matt was saying, I agree with this.

00:28:53.720 I think, you know, the incombancy is a big deal.

00:28:55.460 And think about having Donald Trump's policies without Donald Trump, you know, the Trumpian

00:29:00.700 of Trump that people don't like.

00:29:02.280 A lot of people don't like his brashness and his big mouth and all that stuff.

00:29:06.000 And if you, if we thought we could get MAGA without Trump, I think a lot of people would

00:29:09.900 turn up to him.

00:29:10.180 Oh, see, I totally agree.

00:29:10.880 I disagree with this, actually.

00:29:12.040 I've completely flipped on this.

00:29:13.100 I think that, I think that MAGA is Trump. 1.00

00:29:14.620 I think that MAGA without Trump is boring and stupid in many ways, because I just don't 0.99

00:29:19.320 think it's a concept that holds together. 0.99

00:29:20.680 There's no, everyone keeps trying to say, what is MAGA?

00:29:23.140 And so you have the isolation of saying MAGA is America first, meaning America alone.

00:29:26.740 And then you have people who are saying, no, no, no, what MAGA really means is X, Y, MAGA

00:29:30.420 means whatever Donald Trump says MAGA means.

00:29:32.060 That's the reality.

00:29:32.840 And trying to take away the sizzle from the steak and then say, yes, but now it's very

00:29:36.600 nutritious.

00:29:37.200 Like, that's, that's not the thing.

00:29:39.240 And if I were going to look at, here's what I've said about JD, I'll say about Rubio

00:29:43.220 too.

00:29:43.640 Every politician must form their own coalition.

00:29:45.960 Anybody who thinks they're just going to pick up the last guy's coalition, they're wrong.

00:29:49.220 It never, ever, ever works.

00:29:50.480 That's what Biden did in weird circumstances.

00:29:52.520 But Biden did that, didn't he?

00:29:53.880 But in what way, in what way did Biden do that?

00:29:56.540 He was just running on Obama's third term, basically, in strange circumstances.

00:30:00.880 Okay.

00:30:01.180 The 2020 election, as I think we will all acknowledge, those of us who think that he won and those

00:30:05.360 who bizarrely think that he lost, are the, are the, we will acknowledge that was the weirdest

00:30:10.440 election of our lifetime and that, that those circumstances are, are not replicable.

00:30:15.160 Yeah.

00:30:15.320 Um, absent some sort of massive pandemic that shuts down the entire world.

00:30:18.480 Unless the Democrats act.

00:30:19.420 Right.

00:30:19.740 Unless, unless, unless we just, unless, unless we do it again, I mean, which could, but it's,

00:30:23.360 but the biggest problem is that if you look at, here's the thing, I look at JD and I look

00:30:27.440 at JD's coalition and it looks like Trump's coalition, but smaller.

00:30:30.320 I look at Rubio's coalition.

00:30:31.640 And if I were going to build a coalition as a Marco Rubio, it would not actually be Trump's

00:30:35.640 coalition.

00:30:36.040 It would be Rubio's coalition, meaning more college educated white people, more Hispanics,

00:30:40.560 fewer blue collar white voters.

00:30:41.800 Right.

00:30:42.020 I mean, that that's actually what his coalition would look like.

00:30:44.180 Probably more women, right? 1.00

00:30:45.540 Like his coalition just looks different.

00:30:47.300 And when we dismiss that kind of thing, it ignores the fact that that's actually what

00:30:51.060 Trump did.

00:30:51.580 He didn't just replicate George W. Bush's coalition.

00:30:54.300 He built an entirely new coalition where he went to low propensity voters who weren't

00:30:58.020 voting and got them in his camp.

00:30:59.320 My guess is somebody like Marco Rubio dropped some low propensity voters and maybe convinces

00:31:03.580 some more higher propensity voters who voted for Mitt Romney, but not for Donald Trump

00:31:06.720 to come back.

00:31:07.520 Now, again, I'm not saying that means that Rubio wins or that JD loses.

00:31:10.000 I'm just saying that when I look at JD Vance, I cannot see how if Donald Trump got 77 million

00:31:15.420 votes in the last election cycle, how JD Vance gets to 79 million votes in the next election

00:31:20.240 cycle.

00:31:20.780 Very difficult for me to see that.

00:31:22.220 And that's a problem for Republicans.

00:31:23.280 That's not a question just for JD.

00:31:24.560 That's a problem for Republicans.

00:31:25.740 They should keep that in mind.

00:31:26.640 So when I'm saying Gavin could be the next president, I'm not talking about Gavin because

00:31:30.300 he's so intellectually superior and such an amazing candidate.

00:31:33.540 I'm saying we have now had a series of binary elections in which everyone was kind of squirrelly

00:31:38.640 about all the candidates.

00:31:39.960 Then we came down to the final two and there were a couple of core bases who were like,

00:31:43.600 yeah, I love it. 0.93

00:31:44.520 And then a huge swath of the middle was like, man, this kind of sucks.

00:31:49.200 And if you look at the Gallup poll right now, more than 45% of Americans are now identifying

00:31:53.600 as politically independent, not because they actually are, but because they don't want

00:31:57.200 to be identified as either member of either party.

00:31:59.920 That's right, yeah.

00:32:01.380 But see, this is the thing.

00:32:02.780 I mean, as you pointed out, Ben, Trump's policies, you know, eliminate Trump, his policies are

00:32:08.300 fairly middle of the road.

00:32:09.540 I mean, I think some things he's more right and some things he's more left, but he's not

00:32:12.940 a radical in any shape or form.

00:32:16.060 It's just that our politics has been so radicalized that he sometimes looks like it.

00:32:20.340 And I can't help feeling that you could pick up the Trump MAGA and present it in a somewhat

00:32:25.920 more statesman-like way.

00:32:27.500 And, you know, I always feel that what the people are asking for is normalcy.

00:32:31.760 They're asking to kind of get back to the way we're supposed to be.

00:32:35.080 And I could see Vance selling that really easily.

00:32:37.560 You know, I don't see why he can't do that.

00:32:39.480 The other issue, I see your point, Ben, that I agree with it, that MAGA is what Trump says

00:32:44.220 it is.

00:32:44.680 But I think where I disagree is, I think that Trump actually has a pretty coherent policy

00:32:49.040 vision, though it's often called incoherent or capricious.

00:32:51.640 And you see this especially with foreign policy.

00:32:53.660 Like, what does America first mean?

00:32:55.200 I was just debating some guys on this the other day on Piers Morgan's show.

00:32:58.080 And there's some people who insist America first means conservative or libertarian isolationism.

00:33:04.000 I don't think that's what Trump ever meant.

00:33:05.320 Some people that say the alternative is a liberal internationalism, whether we're, you

00:33:09.740 know, talking about, I don't know, like George W. Bush or something, spread liberalism

00:33:13.120 and democracy overseas.

00:33:14.240 I think Trump's is this third option, which is a conservative imperialism.

00:33:18.780 I think he's been consistent about it.

00:33:20.340 He ran in the first term on destroying ISIS.

00:33:23.720 That obviously doesn't mean you're just going to only focus within your borders.

00:33:26.600 But when he does intervene, it seems to be in this way that's a little bit more restrained.

00:33:30.900 We're going to have these real tactical, you know, in and out kind of hits in the Middle

00:33:34.680 East.

00:33:35.000 And then we're going to focus a little more in the Western Hemisphere.

00:33:37.620 But in the Western Hemisphere, that's going to have cascading effects that do affect Iran,

00:33:42.060 Russia, China.

00:33:43.060 And so to me, it's a third option that is kind of coherent and that therefore could

00:33:48.360 be replicated by whoever succeeds.

00:33:50.240 He's also always thinking about China.

00:33:51.900 He's always setting us up to fight the Cold War with China.

00:33:54.580 I mean, everything he does.

00:33:55.660 You know, when you look at Venezuela, the Chinese ran for their lives, like a lot of running 1.00

00:33:59.940 Chinese after they took Maduro out of there.

00:34:02.160 They were setting up shop in Venezuela and now they're not so much.

00:34:06.380 You know, now they're sort of thinking, well, maybe we can use this as an excuse to go into

00:34:09.420 Taiwan, which eventually they'll do.

00:34:11.220 But they're not in Venezuela anymore.

00:34:13.300 And I think Trump is thinking about that all the time.

00:34:15.200 I think if you explain everything he does in terms of China.

00:34:17.860 I mean, I totally agree with that.

00:34:18.740 I think that the danger in trying to intellectualize MAGA is that I think that when you abstract

00:34:23.860 into sort of absolute terms what his foreign policy is, then when you zoom back in into

00:34:29.600 what the specific decisions that are made are by somebody who's not Trump, they don't

00:34:33.340 necessarily match up.

00:34:35.000 I think that, for example, you could make easily the case right now, and I'll make two

00:34:38.860 varying cases.

00:34:39.680 One is that President Trump is what I think he is, which is sort of a hawkish realist, which

00:34:44.000 is that he only wants to get involved in the most minimal possible way to achieve the

00:34:46.980 maximum possible effect on behalf of American interests abroad.

00:34:49.960 And that's not restricted to the Western Hemisphere, right?

00:34:52.040 That he will bomb the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran if he feels that that's necessary.

00:34:56.760 Maybe he'll go ahead and he'll take a military action in Iran if he believes it'll be necessary 0.94

00:34:59.800 right now, but only if it achieves his desired effect. 1.00

00:35:02.180 He's not going to just do something like fire a missile at a camel and hit him in the ass 0.99

00:35:05.120 sort of for show, right? 1.00

00:35:06.420 So that's sort of one version.

00:35:08.600 And then there's an equally coherent version that I find really off-putting and I think would

00:35:13.080 be wrong in policy, which is this sort of multipolar hemispherism.

00:35:17.260 Right?

00:35:17.420 This idea that what Trump's actually trying to do is create a Western Hemisphere free

00:35:20.780 of foreign intervention, but he's totally fine with Russia dominating both the Near 0.80

00:35:24.360 East and Eastern Europe and maybe a little bit Western Europe.

00:35:26.760 And he's fine with China dominating Taiwan and the Far East, right? 0.69

00:35:30.300 That vision has actually been put forward by people who consider themselves in sort of

00:35:33.400 the MAGA camp.

00:35:34.020 And because Trump is not, I would say, rhetorically coherent in the way that he approaches these

00:35:38.460 issues, even though I think you can read the policy line in the ways that I've presented.

00:35:42.480 And I think the first one is much more accurate than the second.

00:35:44.280 I think that's why you're seeing concerns about, you know, when people say, well, what

00:35:48.100 is MAGA?

00:35:49.160 Those are real open questions because again, ideology does sort of matter and President

00:35:52.860 Trump doesn't really have one.

00:35:54.360 And so he's the best pragmatist you'll ever find without a root idea.

00:35:57.980 But what that means is very difficult to have an ideological air.

00:36:00.700 How do you have an ideological air without an idea?

00:36:02.540 It's a good point, Ben.

00:36:02.800 Am I the only one who listens to the MAGA people talk and think, thank God, somebody's

00:36:06.760 finally talking about America's benefits again?

00:36:09.600 Yeah, of course.

00:36:11.200 Who hears that?

00:36:11.760 Like these guys come out and they say, you know, we want this to be good for America because

00:36:14.500 that's who we work for.

00:36:15.620 I think it was Rubio who said that.

00:36:17.340 And I thought, thank you.

00:36:18.380 You know, like you suddenly remembered that all this stuff that we hear, like, you know,

00:36:22.460 you're a racist if you don't open your borders. 1.00

00:36:24.380 It's like, screw you. 1.00

00:36:26.220 This is my country. 1.00

00:36:27.280 I want to defend my country.

00:36:28.460 It's a multi-ethnic country.

00:36:29.500 It's got everybody here.

00:36:30.240 I don't want to let in foreigners. 1.00

00:36:31.480 That doesn't make me a racist.

00:36:32.720 And I just, I think this is the first time I don't hear us being accused of anything.

00:36:36.460 They remember that we actually pay their salaries.

00:36:38.820 Yeah, there's something kind of funny about when Trump goes in and he says, we're going

00:36:42.000 to Venezuela for the oil, which is not even exactly true.

00:36:45.640 I mean, like we would be justified in part, but it actually does have a lot more to it

00:36:49.800 and a lot more principle and everything.

00:36:51.180 And Ben, I think you make a great point, which is you can't quite tell exactly what this

00:36:55.340 is, or you could read in two things because there is a retrenchment that's going on.

00:37:00.060 There's no question about that.

00:37:01.060 That's what the assertion of the Don Rowe Doctrine is about.

00:37:03.300 That's what Greenland is about.

00:37:04.420 And the question is, is the retrenchment a way that we can make sure that we're strong,

00:37:10.160 we're, you know, we're not spread too thin so that we can preserve American strength around

00:37:14.700 the world?

00:37:15.180 Or is the retrenchment this kind of surrender that says we just don't want to be involved

00:37:18.740 anywhere else?

00:37:19.400 And I agree, it's kind of ambiguous right now, but I just don't see any real American

00:37:24.400 politician on the right running to say, I want to make America weaker. 0.96

00:37:27.660 You know, that's the, that's the opposite of what, of what MAGA literally.

00:37:30.940 And then you'd have to become a Democrat.

00:37:32.460 That's right.

00:37:33.460 That's their actual platform.

00:37:35.140 I mean, Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me.

00:37:38.720 That's hilarious.

00:37:39.280 Okay.

00:37:39.680 Really?

00:37:40.680 Yeah.

00:37:41.000 Yeah.

00:37:41.600 He, he tweeted out like, here's what Ben Shapiro is hiding.

00:37:44.020 And it's like, gets president, it gets, Gavin Newsom gets Ben to criticize Trump's tariffs.

00:37:49.140 What?

00:37:50.680 What?

00:37:52.160 Gets, gets Ben Shapiro to oppose the invasion of Greenland.

00:37:54.480 Stop the presses.

00:37:55.080 What?

00:37:56.400 Gets Ben Shapiro to say that Republicans are going to have a hard time in the midterms.

00:37:59.180 Man.

00:38:00.020 Well, with that kind of, wow.

00:38:02.240 Wow.

00:38:03.000 They nailed you.

00:38:03.840 You got mobbed. 0.89

00:38:04.740 Brutal.

00:38:05.160 I got mobbed.

00:38:05.540 You got news.

00:38:06.020 Okay.

00:38:06.240 Brutal.

00:38:06.780 All right.

00:38:07.020 Speaking of a very hard right turn, Matt, you, I think are what you're defending

00:38:11.120 slavery now.

00:38:12.380 You want, you want to bring slavery back. 0.93

00:38:14.380 Do I understand that?

00:38:15.340 Yeah.

00:38:16.420 Very pro.

00:38:17.620 Well, it's a, look, it's a, it's a controversial issue with slavery.

00:38:20.580 Are we for it?

00:38:21.380 Are we against it?

00:38:22.480 There are arguments.

00:38:23.380 There are arguments on both sides, guys.

00:38:25.280 Of course.

00:38:25.400 Okay.

00:38:25.860 Both sides make interesting arguments.

00:38:27.520 Of course.

00:38:27.860 Look at the house down.

00:38:29.040 Could you get me off the shelf, please?

00:38:30.620 For media matters, he's joking.

00:38:32.600 It's not true.

00:38:33.540 It's, uh, well.

00:38:34.760 He's not joking.

00:38:35.940 Sorry.

00:38:36.440 Go on.

00:38:36.800 Go on.

00:38:36.960 So we, you know, I've got a, this little, uh, this, this, not little, but a serious

00:38:41.060 coming out starting on a Monday, real history.

00:38:43.520 And they're shorter, you know, shorter documentaries on, um, on various topics, very historical topics

00:38:52.060 that have so often been, uh, lied about, misrepresented.

00:38:57.440 And these are generally going to be topics that are talked about a lot.

00:39:00.320 I mean, people talk about slavery all the time, but, um, I think the average American

00:39:05.860 doesn't, uh, understands the topic very little because schools lie about it.

00:39:11.500 Media represent, misrepresents it, Hollywood, um, and there are all kinds of realities around

00:39:16.260 these topics that are never, never talked about at all.

00:39:18.560 And we're going to start with, uh, with slavery.

00:39:21.320 And, uh, it's, it's like, it's very interesting because although slavery comes up a lot in our

00:39:27.960 political debates, uh, like I said, I think, you know, the average person knows almost nothing

00:39:33.240 about it because we're not taught about it in schools.

00:39:35.640 And, uh, and that's because the, the history that we've been taught, and this isn't, this

00:39:41.520 isn't just something that started five years ago and in the age of wokeness or whatever,

00:39:45.120 this is something that goes back generations.

00:39:46.700 I mean, I can remember being in public school, uh, you know, 30 plus years ago and it was the

00:39:52.880 same thing.

00:39:53.440 And that's because the, the education about American history that we get in the mainstream

00:39:58.660 is designed to make us hate ourselves, uh, hate this country and feel guilty about it.

00:40:06.000 And that starts with slavery. 0.78

00:40:07.460 So in the series, we're going to begin with, uh, a look at the, uh, you know, a global look

00:40:12.820 at slavery.

00:40:13.520 Slavery existed as an institution across the entire world for thousands of years.

00:40:18.540 If it's possible to carry the guilt of slavery in your blood somehow, as we're told white Americans

00:40:25.160 do, if that's possible, then every single person who exists on the planet carries that guilt

00:40:31.340 because slavery existed everywhere on the planet.

00:40:34.260 And then we kind of narrow it in to slavery in America, because even if everybody will 0.98

00:40:40.820 acknowledge that of course slavery existed everywhere, uh, then they moved to, yeah, but

00:40:44.900 slavery here was more brutal and it was worse.

00:40:47.540 And that is also, that is also not true.

00:40:50.500 And we get into some of the facts about, you know, where, where did these slaves come from?

00:40:55.200 Well, they came from Africa. 0.93

00:40:56.420 Uh, how did the slave traders, the European and American slave traders get their hands on

00:41:02.420 those slaves to begin with?

00:41:03.680 Well, it turns out that there were entire African empires, uh, who, this is what they did.

00:41:09.440 I mean, this, this, this is how they became empires is that they enslaved other African tribes 1.00

00:41:13.660 and sold them.

00:41:14.840 And, and not only that, but if you were captured by one of these, um, African tribes to be sold 1.00

00:41:21.960 as a slave, the, the best case scenario for you is that you'd be put on a ship and shipped

00:41:28.760 specifically to North America.

00:41:31.280 That would be the best case scenario.

00:41:33.420 These are basic facts that I think, uh, most people don't know.

00:41:36.860 As you mentioned, or as you maybe, uh, intended to mention, this is coming out once a month

00:41:41.200 on Daily Wire Plus.

00:41:42.220 It's awesome.

00:41:42.720 Obviously we all agree with all of that.

00:41:43.980 I, can I just sound like a little bit of a lib though for a second?

00:41:46.600 This is one of my most lib opinions, but it's correct.

00:41:49.940 Uh, you know, when they talk about the legacy of slavery and the enduring, you know, challenges

00:41:55.780 that come because their great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa was brought

00:41:59.020 on a slave ship.

00:42:00.120 I don't think they're totally wrong.

00:42:03.060 I don't think that comes from, I don't, you know, in the sense that like, look, I'm smoking

00:42:06.660 a Mayflower cigar, a brand new blend that's extremely exquisite that I'm not yet going to debut

00:42:11.080 for you all.

00:42:12.080 But I, I love the fact that some, a very small number of my ancestors came here on the Mayflower.

00:42:17.120 That makes me feel good about the country.

00:42:19.620 It makes me view the country in a certain way, makes me feel a kind of pride and ownership

00:42:23.320 in the country.

00:42:24.340 If my ancestors had come on a slave ship, even if I were rich, I were a rapper, I had, you

00:42:30.040 know, gold teeth and everything, and I was materially really well off, I would view the

00:42:34.460 country differently.

00:42:35.300 I would have a different relationship to it.

00:42:37.060 And I think as conservatives, we say that heritage matters and tradition matters and all that.

00:42:41.420 I, all I'm saying is I kind of get it.

00:42:44.220 And if I were a black guy in America, it would, that would color my view.

00:42:47.040 Well, you get what though?

00:42:47.680 I think that's true.

00:42:47.920 I think that's true.

00:42:48.660 I also think it's important.

00:42:50.660 Matt, I completely agree with the history you're saying.

00:42:52.980 I know that history and you're absolutely right about it.

00:42:55.460 But I also think it's important while we're saying this, that we should put out the idea

00:42:59.000 that slavery is bad.

00:43:00.240 You know, we think it was bad there.

00:43:01.540 It's bad here.

00:43:02.300 We're against it.

00:43:03.040 I think, you know, this is the Daily Wire, I think an official, official Daily Wire,

00:43:06.720 you know, our, our co-founder is, is a Jew.

00:43:09.520 Let's take the Moses idea here.

00:43:11.420 Like, let the people go, you know, like I always, you know, you read Aristotle and he

00:43:15.800 says, well, some people are born slaves. 0.98

00:43:16.900 You just want to slap them. 0.65

00:43:17.960 And it's like, Aristotle, stop that. 0.98

00:43:19.900 You know, it's bad.

00:43:21.600 Aristotle means like different things by that.

00:43:23.220 Yes.

00:43:23.560 But people should not own other people.

00:43:25.280 And I just, I just think that, you know, of course it's true that, you know, it actually

00:43:29.480 is true.

00:43:29.960 I mean, I live in the, in the South and I, people come up to me and they say, well, you

00:43:33.760 know, slavery wasn't so bad. 0.87

00:43:34.680 And I think, okay, but can we begin with no, you know, like don't hold people's slaves.

00:43:40.780 And I think we, we could put that on our, our masthead maybe.

00:43:43.540 But I, but other than that, it is true that it was, you know, I won't say it was better

00:43:48.760 here.

00:43:49.000 It's just, it's just an, an evil, but it is, it is true that we didn't start, start

00:43:53.920 it.

00:43:54.100 We bought people from, we bought people who had already been enslaved.

00:43:56.920 And if you read, I think at one point, Matt, I sent you the, the memoir of Mungo, the guy

00:44:02.020 who made it into, I believe it was Nigeria, the explorer.

00:44:05.560 And he just described a world of slavery when he got to Africa.

00:44:09.280 I mean, he, he had some, I can't even, I can't remember the number, but he said like

00:44:13.120 something like 40% of the people were slaves.

00:44:15.460 And of course, if you got caught by the Arabs, they also castrated you, which was like an 1.00

00:44:20.480 unpleasant thing in and of itself, because you couldn't just then claim you were a woman

00:44:24.640 and play soccer for the team you could beat, you know, it was really bad.

00:44:28.160 So, so, I mean, I think, you know, I, I agree with, with Knowles as well.

00:44:32.000 I think I do understand the guy who sold me, my gun was a black guy. 0.93

00:44:35.280 And he said, he said, believe me, I believe in gun rights because if I had gun rights, I 0.57

00:44:40.880 wouldn't be here.

00:44:41.580 So I actually disagree with, with, with Knowles on this and I'm, I'm with Walsh.

00:44:45.300 I think on, on the question of, you know, this kind of generational, I would feel differently

00:44:49.980 about, about things.

00:44:51.080 I think that the, the history of black Americans is one of the most glorious things, meaning

00:44:57.560 like moving from slavery to freedom, moving from, you know, abject slavery to participating

00:45:04.360 in the building of the greatest country in the history of the world and becoming leaders

00:45:09.060 in a wide variety of fields in that space is an amazing history.

00:45:13.140 And, you know, the, and, and the idea that you should carry with you some sort of generational

00:45:16.760 stigma or shame, or that you should feel internally as though that, that is like, obviously, you

00:45:22.300 know, the history has consequences and you feel those consequences over the course of

00:45:26.800 time.

00:45:27.660 But, you know, I, I, I, I'm not willing to sort of grant the premise that a history of

00:45:32.680 slavery is so deep that it ought to make you think that today's America is the problem.

00:45:37.760 This is also the America that fought a civil war to abolish slavery.

00:45:40.740 This is also the America that did the civil rights movement.

00:45:43.240 That's a different issue, Ben.

00:45:44.480 That's not what Noles was saying, though.

00:45:45.860 Yeah.

00:45:46.080 Well, that's, I, I, I, can I just, can I say one thing here?

00:45:48.640 Thank you, Bruce.

00:45:48.920 Yeah.

00:45:49.200 So, well, actually two things.

00:45:50.360 First of all, to Drew's point that slavery is bad, uh, that's debatable.

00:45:54.160 No, it's, no, it's, slavery, no, it's, no, it's, no, it's, no, it's, no, it's, no.

00:45:58.080 Walsh's job is just to give me a heart attack.

00:45:59.660 Yeah.

00:45:59.920 This is like, this is great.

00:46:00.860 No, obviously slavery is bad, but I do think that assessing that there is, there is a, that there's

00:46:06.400 an important point in, in bringing up that it was a, it was a global institution, which

00:46:11.220 is that it was bad, but when you're assessing the individual moral guilt of people who were

00:46:16.700 involved in slavery, say 500 years ago or 600 years ago, their individual moral guilt is

00:46:21.840 severely mitigated because it was a global institution.

00:46:26.140 And at this time in history, they just didn't have concepts like universal human equality

00:46:32.620 just simply did not exist for the majority of human history.

00:46:36.240 And, and that means that slavery was bad, but it also means that to kind of look at it

00:46:40.680 through a modern lens and assess the kind of moral guilt on those people that we would

00:46:45.000 on a slave owner today is incoherent.

00:46:46.820 But secondly, to, to the black Americans today, I agree that the fact that they, that, you know,

00:46:52.040 if this is your, actually your heritage, of course, there's plenty of black Americans who

00:46:54.820 came here afterwards. And so that's not their heritage, but if that is your heritage.

00:46:58.140 Like all of Minnesota, you mean?

00:46:58.700 Right.

00:46:58.880 You mean like, exactly.

00:46:59.680 Yes. So if, if that is your heritage, then that's relevant. It's like your, your heritage

00:47:04.260 is very, is very relevant, of course. Uh, but what is incoherent is to be mad about it,

00:47:09.760 to be mad today that slavery that, you know, that your ancestors were enslaved is completely

00:47:14.600 incoherent, not only because it happened a long time ago. I mean, there is that it happened

00:47:18.020 a long time ago. It didn't happen to you. So to be mad about a thing that didn't happen

00:47:22.060 to you doesn't make a lot of sense, but also there's the other part

00:47:24.780 of this, which nobody really wants to say. And every time I say it, I get in a lot of

00:47:27.900 trouble, but I'll say it again, which is that, okay, let's just be real about it. If, if you're

00:47:34.220 a black person in America today and your ancestors were enslaved, you are better off today because 0.97

00:47:42.080 of that than you likely would be if your ancestors had not been enslaved. That's the reality. 0.79

00:47:47.460 If you had, if your ancestors had not been enslaved, then guess what? Either you would not 0.84

00:47:51.620 exist most likely, or if you do exist, you'd exist in Africa and it is better to be in America than 0.99

00:47:57.640 to be in Africa. That is not an argument that slavery is okay. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making

00:48:01.520 an end justify that means argument. I'm only saying that to be mad about a thing that ultimately has

00:48:06.680 actually benefited you today makes no sense. What would you prefer that you're in Africa 0.95

00:48:13.300 right now or that you don't exist?

00:48:14.700 No, this is wrong, Ben. Yeah, no, it's just, no, it's right. No, it's actually, I mean, look,

00:48:17.580 no, it's actually said something that makes sense and is almost profound, which I think we should all

00:48:20.960 stop for a minute and just understand that a miracle has taken place in front of us.

00:48:24.500 I finally did it.

00:48:26.940 No, I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's rational or not.

00:48:30.260 And Ben, I completely agree that even though you have these feelings, you should be able to overcome them and understand that you've been given the gift of being born in America.

00:48:38.020 And that's a beautiful thing.

00:48:39.120 And I agree with that.

00:48:40.600 But, you know, heritage does matter and it doesn't fuse you with a certain feeling.

00:48:44.720 And you hear the name of the famous black comedian who went up against the trans people. 0.96

00:48:50.300 Chappelle.

00:48:50.780 Chappelle.

00:48:51.060 Chappelle.

00:48:51.360 You know, I'll hear him say, like, it was really the black people who freed themselves.

00:48:54.080 And you think, like, no, it wasn't.

00:48:55.280 It was white soldiers fighting.

00:48:56.500 It was people from, you know, Maine and Vermont coming down and fighting for liberation.

00:49:02.360 It was not black people who freed themselves. 1.00

00:49:05.060 You know, there's a sense of shame that goes with this.

00:49:08.400 There's a sense of shame.

00:49:09.420 You know, when I was growing up, I think Jews had a sense of shame that stemmed out of the Holocaust.

00:49:13.520 You know, why didn't you fight back?

00:49:14.640 Why didn't you stop them?

00:49:15.460 Which is a complete, obviously a complete false understanding of what happened in that country and what it was like to live through it.

00:49:21.280 But people feel these things and they affect the way you see the place that you're living in.

00:49:25.680 I think that's basically what Knowles is saying.

00:49:27.460 And feelings, you know, I hate to break this to you, Ben, but feelings matter.

00:49:31.060 You know, the way people feel affects their lives.

00:49:33.000 And so when you see things like, when you hear the word pride, you immediately know you're dealing with shame.

00:49:37.180 When you hear black pride, gay pride, you immediately know somebody feels ashamed.

00:49:40.660 And I think that you can't make it go away the way the left wants to make it go away by proclaiming that you're proud.

00:49:46.260 Okay. Am I wrong?

00:49:47.420 Am I wrong about what I just said, though?

00:49:49.160 Am I wrong?

00:49:50.460 No, you're not wrong that the, you know, I have had black people say to me, slavery was bad.

00:49:57.240 Slavery was bad, but I'm glad I'm here.

00:49:59.060 I have had black people say that to me and I understand it. 1.00

00:50:01.800 But, you know, still the history counts.

00:50:03.560 And I think we can have some kind of compassion for that and understanding for it.

00:50:06.800 I mean, on a practical level, obviously, Matt, your history is all contingent, right?

00:50:11.280 It's a bunch of if-then statements.

00:50:13.000 So if X had not happened, then Y would not happen.

00:50:15.000 But that doesn't mean that you have to be super happy that X happened, you know, in and of itself.

00:50:19.660 So that, of course.

00:50:21.540 I'm not saying you should be happy.

00:50:22.260 No, no, I'm not saying you should be happy.

00:50:23.200 I know you're not.

00:50:23.900 Yeah, I'm not justifying it or saying you should be happy about it.

00:50:25.960 What I'm saying is that to be, to now in your life today, to be angry about it,

00:50:31.620 it just doesn't make any sense because if the thing hadn't happened,

00:50:38.780 then you would not exist and or you would exist probably in a worse situation than you do today.

00:50:44.000 I mean, I think that what we need is more specificity, actually.

00:50:46.640 What is it that you're angry about?

00:50:48.300 That a bad thing happened in history or at the concept that may still be walking around of, say, black inferiority, right? 1.00

00:50:54.620 That there are still some people who think that and that's what leads to slavery.

00:50:57.120 And so that's what you're actually angry at.

00:50:58.720 That's justifiable.

00:50:59.900 You know, you're right in the sense that, like, anything that happened historically,

00:51:04.200 you can be angry at the—if you had been then, there, would you have been happy?

00:51:08.420 No, you would have been very angry.

00:51:09.860 You would have been upset, right?

00:51:10.900 And I think we all agree with that.

00:51:12.080 But I think we should be more specific about what it is we mean when we say angry at that.

00:51:15.220 What is the that that we're angry at?

00:51:16.580 I guess one way to think about it is just because we're conservatives, we're not libs, ideologues,

00:51:21.240 who think that, you know, one action of politics can just erase the totality of human experience.

00:51:26.440 You would say, well, look, the 13th Amendment was great, but it doesn't—it's not a magic wand.

00:51:31.360 You know, the 14th Amendment or all the way up to, I don't know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or whatever,

00:51:35.500 all sorts of bungled policies that have actually made things worse in many cases.

00:51:39.080 But in any case, those are just magic wands that erase a human identity or heritage

00:51:45.280 or a feeling of tradition or place in a society.

00:51:47.400 And so I guess my point is basically boiling down to I kind of get it.

00:51:52.980 You know, identity really, really does matter.

00:51:55.260 And the libs are totally wrong about their conclusions from that.

00:51:58.300 But it's not to say that that isn't a real problem or a real phenomenon.

00:52:01.480 They're also wrong about what identity is, but I take your point. 1.00

00:52:04.800 I think one of the things that's actually quite important also is that if slavery was a human universal,

00:52:10.120 then the people who abolished it ought to get outsized credit.

00:52:12.380 Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:13.060 Amen, amen.

00:52:14.140 Namely the British, right? 1.00

00:52:15.500 Yeah, no, I mean, really the British.

00:52:17.000 But the truth is that, I mean, slavery existed in legal form in Saudi Arabia into the 60s.

00:52:22.440 And there is still slavery that is happening on a pretty wide scale, particularly in the Middle East today.

00:52:27.860 And very often it's people who are being brought there as wage laborers,

00:52:31.340 and then they're being basically—their passports are taken away.

00:52:33.680 They're being held there.

00:52:34.700 They can't get out.

00:52:35.820 I mean, that sort of stuff is happening right now on the ground in a lot of places on Earth.

00:52:40.200 So, you know, the stuff that we take for granted is not easily taken for granted.

00:52:44.600 Well, it's controversial stuff, and you can only make controversial stuff if you have subscribers like ours,

00:52:48.020 which is why you should head on over to dailywire.com and go check out Matt's brand new series,

00:52:52.540 where he will be offending, I assume, a wide variety of people over the course of the next year

00:52:57.240 with actual historical takes.

00:53:00.140 So that's exciting stuff.

00:53:01.620 Speaking of taking stuff, are we going to take Greenland?

00:53:04.060 Should we take Greenland?

00:53:05.000 This is, by my count, the first foreign policy intervention in American history,

00:53:10.540 at least since the Louisiana Purchase, that Matt supports.

00:53:14.000 Matt, you are pro just F-35, like Don Rumsfeld flying over nuke and taking the ice?

00:53:22.280 I mean, I am.

00:53:24.060 I want Greenland.

00:53:25.120 I have also been lusting after Greenland my whole life, and we just need to go take it.

00:53:32.480 Look, I am often labeled an isolationist, and depending on how you define that, maybe I fit the bill.

00:53:40.520 But my actual very simple foreign policy view has always been, I've said forever,

00:53:46.640 is I'm in favor of anything that America does that actually advance the interests of Americans.

00:53:52.620 And I think that very often we do things, especially in faraway places,

00:53:57.540 that supposedly are to advance the interests of Americans,

00:53:59.600 but actually aren't doing that and aren't really intended to do that.

00:54:02.780 But if that's the goal, is to help Americans make America's life, make the lives of Americans better,

00:54:09.280 then at least it's potentially in the realm of something that I would support.

00:54:13.120 And with Greenland, I mean, I can easily see the advantages.

00:54:18.060 I mean, there's, of course, what Trump always talks about, the national security advantages.

00:54:22.080 There's also, you know, there's the resources that are there.

00:54:26.580 It's a resource-rich country.

00:54:29.160 You know, only like 12 people live there anyway.

00:54:31.420 They're not making use of it.

00:54:32.760 I will say that, you know, I think there are actually militarily invading Greenland

00:54:39.420 will probably wouldn't be necessary, first of all.

00:54:41.400 I mean, you just send in one team of Navy SEALs, you topple the whole country in about 12 minutes.

00:54:45.880 Just send in a SEAL.

00:54:47.240 You can send a SEAL.

00:54:48.120 One, like, actual SEAL.

00:54:49.260 An actual SEAL, yeah.

00:54:49.780 Yeah, one actual SEAL.

00:54:50.920 So that, you know, but doing that, I think it wouldn't come to that.

00:54:55.080 That's a different conversation.

00:54:57.100 Maybe they could work something else out.

00:54:58.480 I will just say, though, that it's interesting to me when people today get so offended by

00:55:06.120 the very notion that we would try to acquire land, that we would try to grow sort of the

00:55:13.120 empire, and in particular that we would try to do it by force.

00:55:16.280 It's interesting when people are so offended by that, because how do you think America

00:55:20.040 right now, as it's currently constituted, came to be?

00:55:23.680 You know, America became what it is today, the continental United States plus Hawaii and

00:55:27.840 Alaska.

00:55:28.460 That happened through purchasing land, in some cases, going to war, taking it by force, displacing

00:55:37.100 people, kicking them out, and taking the land for ourselves.

00:55:40.140 That is how this country came to be.

00:55:42.460 We conquered this land, and we did it because we believed that, you know, manifest destiny

00:55:47.940 is what God wanted us to do.

00:55:49.300 We knew that, you know, the American empire should reign.

00:55:53.060 And we had leaders who were looking out for the interests of our people, and that's how

00:55:58.860 the entire world has taken the shape that it's taken.

00:56:01.960 This is the way that it goes.

00:56:03.460 So that doesn't mean that I'm going to support any effort to just go and conquer land, but

00:56:10.400 it does mean that I'm not going to automatically rule it out, because that's the only way that

00:56:14.880 America exists in the first place.

00:56:16.740 So it's worth talking about.

00:56:18.680 I don't know what I'm going to do.

00:56:20.960 I'm really enjoying neocon Matt Walsh.

00:56:22.560 This is like my favorite version of Matt Walsh.

00:56:24.640 This is really exciting.

00:56:25.960 It's not neocon.

00:56:26.860 I know.

00:56:27.380 I'm joking, Matt.

00:56:28.180 I would never call you a neocon.

00:56:29.720 I know.

00:56:30.300 You're a paleo neocon.

00:56:30.820 Of all the things to call me. 0.66

00:56:32.800 I'm looking forward to war with Denmark. 0.99

00:56:34.640 I think that's going to be exciting.

00:56:35.860 Matt Walsh, they got him.

00:56:36.660 They finally got him.

00:56:38.040 They got Walsh.

00:56:39.600 They got to him.

00:56:39.840 Call me George Bush.

00:56:40.800 Matt makes a really, Matt makes an interesting point, though, which is like, we're supposed

00:56:43.860 to be growing and strong.

00:56:45.160 And it occurs to me, the last time we seriously added territory was 1959, which coincidentally

00:56:51.940 is the last time we were like really strong and growing.

00:56:55.300 You know, it seems like since the 60s, everything's been kind of going downhill.

00:56:58.460 And, you know, if we did acquire Greenland in a serious way, that would expand the size

00:57:03.220 of the United States by 22%.

00:57:05.280 That would be, not by, in terms of people, obviously, but in terms of land, that would

00:57:08.140 be a huge acquisition.

00:57:08.940 And just think of the shrimp, the amount of shrimp we'd have.

00:57:11.440 The delicious shrimp would be, there is a real question, though.

00:57:14.180 Now, does this violate, you know, the NATO treaties or international law?

00:57:20.320 But I believe, I don't like to say this out loud because I know it's going to blow back

00:57:23.480 on me, but I believe that empire is a phase in the life of great nations, and I don't

00:57:27.660 think you can help it.

00:57:28.620 And I think it's coming our way.

00:57:31.540 I'm sort of hoping I'll be gone so you guys have to deal with it.

00:57:34.700 But still, I think ultimately that there's just an amoral truth about the fact that you

00:57:41.120 grow or you die.

00:57:42.600 And I think, you know, war with Denmark is going to be so much fun. 1.00

00:57:46.420 And, you know, I love the foreign minister of Denmark.

00:57:48.640 He looks like a lawn troll, you know, and he's very civilized. 0.84

00:57:51.040 Smoking cigs at the White House. 0.85

00:57:53.660 He's such a civilized little guy.

00:57:55.320 And he says, I agree with Trump in many ways that this, you know, but we can talk it out.

00:57:59.140 And I think, yeah, let's just invade.

00:58:00.520 Come on, let's go, you know.

00:58:02.960 Oh, my God.

00:58:03.640 Okay, so as the apparently Abraham Lincoln through all of your imperialist ambitions to grab Texas

00:58:09.940 and open it to slavery, apparently. 0.99

00:58:14.340 Yeah, I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.

00:58:18.000 I think it's great that you have to say it, though.

00:58:22.580 Media Matters, Ben Shapiro.

00:58:24.660 I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.

00:58:29.460 Listen, I'm fine with cutting whatever contract we want to cut with Greenland. 1.00

00:58:32.700 If we can pressure them into selling the thing, that's fine.

00:58:34.580 If we want to grab their mineral rights, that's cool, too.

00:58:36.400 But I'm wondering, I do love the fact that really all this has come down to is that Donald

00:58:42.060 Trump really wants to rename that place Trumpland and just increase the map and be like, this

00:58:46.320 is the thing that I got.

00:58:47.280 Because that's clearly what this is, right?

00:58:48.820 We have a military treaty with Denmark.

00:58:50.400 We can build whatever the hell we want there.

00:58:52.080 Like right now, if we just decided to put 20,000 troops in Greenland without invading,

00:58:56.740 we could just build a base and put our troops there.

00:58:58.920 We literally can do that under current treaty.

00:59:00.920 So this idea that like the Chinese are about to grab Greenland, the Russians are about 0.97

00:59:07.840 to wade ashore in nuke, and they're going to start shooting all the dogs from their dog

00:59:12.760 sleds.

00:59:13.360 I was hoping now that Trump took the Venezuela ladies Nobel Prize. 1.00

00:59:17.300 I was hoping that maybe he'd calm down.

00:59:19.060 I can't even with that.

00:59:21.260 That one also, I can't even.

00:59:22.740 Like, oh my gosh, the taking of the Nobel Prize is so, like, are you kidding me?

00:59:29.160 Like, what are we doing now?

00:59:30.240 You know what it feels like to take in the Nobel Prize?

00:59:32.260 You know how on eBay there'll be some guy who won an Oscar and then he goes bankrupt and

00:59:36.200 then he sells his Oscar?

00:59:37.300 And so you're sitting there and you've got like Marlon Brando's second Oscar on your

00:59:41.660 mantle.

00:59:43.080 What do you do if you're trying to walk around like, here's Maria Machado's Nobel Prize?

00:59:47.040 I like the idea that she insisted, she insisted the White House, she insisted he take, she's

00:59:51.380 like this little piece of girl, you know, it's like, I insist you take my Nobel Prize.

00:59:55.440 All right, all right.

00:59:56.280 I'm sure, yeah, and, oh my gosh, it's so good.

01:00:00.240 And obviously when we build the greenhouse in Greenland, then President Trump will obviously

01:00:06.040 put the Nobel Prize in the greenhouse.

01:00:09.600 Well, I think, look, I think it's a good, even if you disagree with going in and conquering

01:00:15.840 Greenland and making them our slaves.

01:00:18.960 Because that's another part of this we haven't talked about.

01:00:20.220 Yeah, yeah, we've got to say, you're absolutely up to the slave.

01:00:23.140 But even if you disagree with that, the fact that Trump has the desire at all to kind of

01:00:27.560 like expand in this way is, that's what presidents, I like that.

01:00:33.200 I mean, that's what our leaders should want to do.

01:00:35.440 I mean, like you said, 1959, right, was the last time when it felt like we were a country.

01:00:41.280 Well, I would say it's actually 1969.

01:00:42.860 To me, 1969 was the last time when it felt like America was like reaching for something.

01:00:51.000 And that's when we landed on the moon, of course.

01:00:53.120 And we actually did land on the moon, first of all.

01:00:56.500 But I think there's also this kind of, and I know it's not the most compelling foreign 1.00

01:01:00.600 policy argument, but there's this kind of spiritual truth, which is that if you're a great country,

01:01:06.420 then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore, go to unknown

01:01:13.800 places.

01:01:14.480 I mean, this is when America has been great.

01:01:16.600 We talk about make America great again.

01:01:17.720 Well, when America has been truly great, it's when it was driven by that desire, by manifest

01:01:23.800 destiny.

01:01:24.260 And then it's kind of like, well, we expanded, we took over the continental United States and

01:01:28.700 we had Hawaii and Alaska.

01:01:30.020 And then we said, well, where is there left to go?

01:01:32.020 Then we started going up and we're not really doing that as much anymore.

01:01:35.040 At least that's now kind of in the private sector with Elon Musk.

01:01:38.060 And so Trump is the first leader in a while who says, no, let's continue to try to expand

01:01:43.000 and grow this empire.

01:01:44.820 And I think that that's, like you said, Drew, if you're not growing, you're dying.

01:01:48.900 I think there's like a real truth to that when it comes to nations.

01:01:52.140 There's a fact, too, which is we had been, you know, since the middle of the 19th century,

01:01:56.220 the State Department has been eyeing Greenland.

01:01:57.900 We've tried to buy it multiple times over the years, including the 20th century.

01:02:00.800 And it is kind of weird that Denmark controls Greenland in that, you know, Denmark has been

01:02:07.180 downhill ever since Claudius killed Hamlet's dad.

01:02:10.040 You know, like it has not been, it's not been a good few centuries.

01:02:13.520 And so you think it's bizarre that they're there.

01:02:16.780 When Trump was in the Oval Office, he said, Denmark said they're going to double up their

01:02:19.920 defenses.

01:02:20.480 They added another dog sled.

01:02:21.760 That's real.

01:02:22.400 I thought that was a joke.

01:02:23.740 That's not a joke.

01:02:24.740 That's real.

01:02:25.500 They have the serious dog sled Arctic defense, which I'm sure they're great people and great

01:02:29.680 dogs, but, you know, that's not really going to cut it.

01:02:31.980 And so, you know, then there's this argument that, well, this violates the spirit of NATO

01:02:35.880 or something.

01:02:36.400 And I think NATO is a Cold War organization.

01:02:39.320 It was developed in the Cold War to protect the American empire, you know, against the Soviet

01:02:43.820 empire and the Warsaw Pact.

01:02:45.060 And it doesn't mean exactly the same thing after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

01:02:49.000 And yeah, to your, to your, really to all of your points, well, no, not as much to Ben's,

01:02:53.100 you know, because he doesn't want us to just gobble up the whole world.

01:02:55.280 But to Matt and Drew's point, you know, we're, we're great.

01:02:58.880 We grow, that's, we become empires.

01:03:00.960 That's what we do.

01:03:01.720 And you just look at the map and you say, this is kind of weird, especially with a more

01:03:04.880 aggressive China and Russia, whether or not they're actually going to land and put up 1.00

01:03:08.100 a P.F. Chang's and nuke.

01:03:09.280 Like the fact that they're a little, a little more on the move now means that, yeah, I think

01:03:13.540 we need to get a little more serious guys.

01:03:14.960 And, you know, Denmark, I think you're going to get on board.

01:03:17.400 I do think they're going to get on board.

01:03:18.720 By the way, Calci says, according to our sponsors, Calci, 42% shot or 42% of the people

01:03:23.160 who are betting on it say that we're going to take Greenland.

01:03:25.560 So, you know, we're going to find out.

01:03:27.160 And if that's, you know, you, you know, you might be able to tell, we'll see if there's

01:03:30.100 like an insider spike right before Trump declares that we, that we've taken Greenland.

01:03:34.420 So, you know, honestly, my, my main objective, my main objection to taking Greenland is just,

01:03:39.260 it's not even truly ideological.

01:03:41.120 It's more like, is it, why is this a priority?

01:03:43.920 Like Trump is like, we must, we must deter Russia. 0.97

01:03:46.280 We must deter Russia from, from going after Greenland.

01:03:48.280 Like, you know, it's a really great way to deter Russia to fight it, to, to have the Ukrainians

01:03:52.440 fight them.

01:03:52.860 Like there's like engaging a gigantic ass land war in the middle of Eastern 0.95

01:03:57.060 and Europe.

01:03:57.660 And it's like, no, no, no, no, they're not taking Greenland.

01:04:00.840 Greenland, like this is where we draw the line.

01:04:04.040 I care much more about Greenland than Ukraine.

01:04:06.200 I don't, am I in the minority here?

01:04:08.440 No, you're probably not in the minority, but you're wrong.

01:04:10.320 So those are not the same thing.

01:04:12.400 I think the shrimp is the one that turns me toward Greenland.

01:04:15.140 And as I, I keep kosher, so I don't care about the shrimp.

01:04:17.340 That's what's happening right here.

01:04:18.740 Let's see, that explains, it always comes down to that.

01:04:21.180 It always comes down to this.

01:04:22.260 You know, and because, because we added Hawaii as a state in 1959, the vastness of the American

01:04:27.860 empire sea to sea, we can actually have coconut shrimp once we take Greenland.

01:04:32.000 That's going to be so delicious.

01:04:33.160 Oh my God, this is great.

01:04:34.340 Guys, we, I, we have to go.

01:04:35.860 There's two, we have to, we have to go and we need to go to Duke.

01:04:38.140 What a shame.

01:04:38.600 Duke, wonderful to see all of you.

01:04:41.040 Wonderful to see all of you out there.

01:04:42.960 Go become a Daily Wire member right now and you can hear Matt Walsh vigorously defend slavery.

01:04:49.240 This is Friendly Fire.

01:04:50.520 You're killing me here.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 16, 2026

Friendly Fire： Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript