Friendly Fireļ¼ Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
221.4788
Summary
The Daily Wire's very own Ben Shapiro sits down with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to discuss the possibility of him becoming the next president of the United States. Plus, a look at the latest in the war on Greenland, and a new documentary about the slave trade by Matt Walsh.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.
00:00:08.020
I have also been lusting after Greenland my whole life.
00:00:12.700
I know it's uncouth to say it, but like, am I wrong?
00:00:25.820
Matt, first time that Matt wants to talk foreign policy, so I'm like,
00:00:35.780
Normally we mention any place that is outside the United States,
00:00:42.440
Greenland is the only country outside the U.S. that I care about.
00:00:48.700
I just love that we have as a listed topic the slave trade.
00:00:53.600
Matt is going to take the Aristotelian pro position.
00:01:06.220
Daily Wire's very own Ben Shapiro just became Paul Allen sitting down with the Patrick Bateman of California.
00:01:13.340
Then Matt, I believe, is calling for a civil rights movement for white people
00:01:16.960
as he releases his new mini documentary on the slave trade.
00:01:23.940
Anyway, he's going to be giving the history on that.
00:01:26.020
And then we will be going all the way into Greenland.
00:01:31.160
Denmark has said that they will not sell Greenland to the United States.
00:01:34.940
Then France came out and they said the French military will defend you.
00:01:38.400
And then immediately Denmark said, okay, listen, we'll make a deal.
00:01:41.280
So we will get into all of those things on Friendly Fire.
00:01:49.360
Christmas is still on until February 2nd as far as I'm concerned.
00:01:58.340
I actually, I count Christmas as lasting through until the next Advent.
00:02:02.200
So I've still got all the decorations up in my set.
00:02:07.500
And Ben, you were just over with Mr. Slimy himself.
00:02:10.800
I was with Gavin Newsom at the governor's mansion in California, which, by the way, is very tiny.
00:02:17.740
It is a very, very small building in Sacramento.
00:02:19.780
You have to brush thousands of homeless people out of your way just to get to it.
00:02:25.040
But, you know, it was definitely an interesting experience.
00:02:28.460
I had a little bit of time off camera with Gavin Newsom.
00:02:33.620
And like most politicians, he's very good in person.
00:02:35.620
I will say that just as a class of people, politicians in person, way better than politicians on camera, just generally speaking.
00:02:44.380
And I think that this is the general rule about literally all of them.
00:02:51.220
He will kind of get a little more honest with you than he might in terms of his positions on camera.
00:02:56.200
And then I was out there because he had invited me to come on his podcast.
00:03:00.140
That's a podcast where he has, I guess, once every couple of weeks, I believe.
00:03:16.320
Before I get to your epic sit down with him, because I want to know if he's going to be the next president.
00:03:21.940
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.
00:03:30.780
This is the latest reason that you have to subscribe.
00:03:36.100
This just amazing, elaborate, multi-continental journey.
00:03:41.220
If only we had waited a little longer to make it, we could have shot it in Greenland.
00:03:46.820
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.
00:03:56.400
Which is very, very cool, depending on how long this goes.
00:04:04.580
This is looking, I don't know, we spent some money on this.
00:04:14.640
And then possibly in January of 2029, our whole country falls apart if Gavin Newsom becomes president.
00:04:21.400
It turns out that series is the only thing more ambitious than Gavin Newsom.
00:04:28.780
What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God?
00:04:50.580
The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin, a seven-part series.
00:04:54.820
Premieres January 22nd, only on Daily Wire Plus.
00:04:59.100
I mean, it is as good or better than anything that you will see on HBO.
00:05:03.360
And you won't get the gratuitous sex and the insane nihilism.
00:05:15.420
Because they said we're going to play the Pendragon trailer.
00:05:22.500
So this is a bit where I'm supposed to pull the...
00:05:24.540
I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this, but it's...
00:05:26.820
They gave me the sword and said, well, you could do a bit where you have a sword.
00:05:34.580
It's the police show up looking for the lady in the lake.
00:05:36.700
Does anyone in my ear want to tell me what the bit is with the sword?
00:05:39.420
Is there a thing I'm supposed to be doing with it?
00:05:43.580
I think I'm supposed to just have the sword and you guys are supposed to laugh hysterically
00:05:48.780
You could use it to smash in the windows of illegals in Minneapolis or something.
00:05:52.480
You could use it for a very practical political purpose.
00:05:57.300
If you wish to buy Matt a real sword, then you can get a subscription to Daily Wire and
00:06:02.340
And then we can pay for actual metal swords that Matt can use to go and, I don't know,
00:06:06.620
chop down trees in whatever part of rural America he is in right at this very moment.
00:06:13.260
So Newsom, I will say that he is good on his feet.
00:06:18.560
He's squirrely enough that he knows his talking points well enough that if you hit him on California
00:06:23.340
policy, he's able to sort of shift responsibility.
00:06:27.320
His big moves, he likes to shift responsibility onto local officials for failures and then take
00:06:32.340
Or he likes to make sort of grandiose claims about the robustness of California.
00:06:37.560
And if you point out it is not as robust as he has said that it would be, then he'll
00:06:44.220
So, for example, I was dinging him on California's income tax policy because it's driving business
00:06:49.140
And his immediate response was, well, yeah, but we're fairer than, say, Louisiana.
00:06:55.820
Luckily, lowering the income tax rates in the state.
00:07:05.140
They tax their low-wage earners more than California taxes its high-wage earners.
00:07:09.140
Let's talk about lowering those tax rates in those 16 states.
00:07:13.060
So, again, notice what he tends to do is he will misdirect away from the actual topic.
00:07:17.360
And even when it comes to the topic of taxes, he'll misdirect.
00:07:20.140
Because the point I'm making is not a fairness point.
00:07:23.320
It is an efficacy point, meaning you're driving every taxpayer out of your state, which is
00:07:28.980
He'll shift it over to Louisiana, and then he will have his online minions talk about how
00:07:32.740
he owned everybody by showing that you pay a lot of tax in Louisiana as a poor person
00:07:38.740
So that's kind of one of his squirrely strategies.
00:07:40.420
There are certain places where he is less squirrely, and that's kind of what's interesting.
00:07:44.240
I will say, the thing that I found interesting is his overt attempt to moderate his sort of
00:07:50.060
So there are a couple of points where he did this.
00:07:54.240
So his crazy social media account, his press office account, which has been dedicated to
00:08:00.060
trolling President Trump for a while, had tweeted out that they'd engaged in ICE, had
00:08:07.380
And I asked him straight up about it and really pushed him on it.
00:08:09.440
One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of
00:08:15.400
Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, that she was a domestic terrorist who was attempting to
00:08:18.400
run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying, not just this officer, but multiple
00:08:23.940
That was the original statement I said at the time.
00:08:27.200
And then your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism, which, I mean,
00:08:39.440
I mean, our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists.
00:08:42.360
A tragic situation is not state-sponsored terrorism.
00:08:46.300
OK, so again, you can see him trying to, like, take his own press office and just chuck it
00:08:50.860
One is he will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base.
00:08:54.280
And then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it because
00:08:59.860
By the way, our sponsor, Kalshi, in the prediction markets, shows that he is right now the leader
00:09:04.060
in the clubhouse among Democrats for the 2028 nomination.
00:09:09.840
Before, I want to hear, because you saw him actually personally, I want to hear what you
00:09:15.520
But before you sully the opinions of the, you know, you sway our fellow DW guys here, do you
00:09:23.600
think, Drew and Matt, do you think that Newsom's the guy for 2028?
00:09:28.000
No, I think he's the I think he's the Jeb Bush of the Democrats.
00:09:31.820
I think, you know, one of this one of the continual arguments we have had on this show
00:09:36.700
and when it was backstage is, you know, Ben and Jeremy would always say that Michelle
00:09:43.980
And I think I don't think it's underestimating the American public.
00:09:47.380
I think it's misunderstanding the American public.
00:09:50.220
The American public actually is keyed into issues more than the media wants them to be more.
00:09:55.240
The media wants them to look at people, what they look like and how they behave and whether
00:10:00.680
But the people actually do care about topics and issues, especially when they affect them.
00:10:11.780
I think the fact that they, anybody who runs against them is going to bring up the fact that
00:10:15.420
they have spent $40 billion, uh, almost on fixing the homeless issue and their homelessness
00:10:23.420
Where's the money for the, the, uh, bullet train?
00:10:26.580
Where the hell did that, those billions of dollars go?
00:10:28.980
Money disappears in California because like any one state, uh, one party state, it's full
00:10:36.480
But wouldn't you also say that Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were greasy haircuts?
00:10:40.420
Bill, Bill Clinton was one of the great and Barack Obama.
00:10:44.020
This is the other thing about Democrats, by the way, we've had, we've had three Democrat
00:10:47.000
presidents over the last, you know, several decades.
00:10:50.020
Obama and Clinton were two of the greatest politicians of my lifetime.
00:10:53.580
They were fantastic, uh, wholesale politicians and Joe Biden won under very suspicious circumstances.
00:11:02.280
So, so I, I don't know the drift, the drift in this country is to the right.
00:11:07.900
And in Europe, they're basically stamping it down, but we don't have the capability
00:11:12.300
And I think Gavin Newsom is toast the minute his record comes up and, and the social stuff,
00:11:18.600
the, the way he handled COVID, the way he had everybody, he shut down John MacArthur's
00:11:22.260
church and her, or tried to, and harass them while he was dining out at a French restaurant
00:11:28.160
I mean, the guy is just, he's too easy a target to really make it, uh, went, once the national,
00:11:35.240
And I just don't think he's, look, I understand he's ahead in the polls.
00:11:42.860
I'm not making a prediction, but I, he's just not the guy I'm looking at.
00:11:47.380
Is the question, uh, whether he's going to win the presidency in 2028 or whether he's the
00:11:53.720
Even just the, even start with just the nomination.
00:11:56.320
Because, well, among Democrats, uh, Gavin, I guess I could put this sword on Gavin Newsom
00:12:02.760
among Democrats has a, has something that no other Democrat has that I'm aware of on the
00:12:09.600
entire national stage, which is that he can actually talk to people.
00:12:15.920
He can go on any podcast and have a conversation.
00:12:18.700
And yeah, he's lying the entire time, but, but he's, he's willing to do that.
00:12:23.600
There's, I, I mean, can you name any other Democrat at any level who could even potentially
00:12:28.840
run for the presidency in 2028 who would, who could go on, say, Joe Rogan and have a
00:12:40.020
And again, although what he's saying is off is almost always false, everything he believes
00:12:45.620
is wrong and he's lying almost always, uh, he's at least able to go do that in that environment.
00:12:51.000
And he's the only Democrat, not only the only Democrat in the field right now who could
00:12:55.040
He's the only Democrat in the last like 20 years who has that kind of ability.
00:12:59.160
Uh, I think what, so that's an argument for why all things being equal, he has a good
00:13:05.160
chance of being the, you know, the nominee for the Democrats in 2028.
00:13:08.660
I don't think he's going to win the presidency for a lot of the reasons that, uh, that Drew
00:13:12.860
You think that J.D. Vans, assuming that J.D. is the presumptive nominee, you think J.D.
00:13:21.480
But, but then, uh, not that I know what mog means, but I think he would.
00:13:25.860
But the, the problem for Gavin Newsom is that like the obvious thing in the, for a Democrat
00:13:32.600
Well, and in a primary, like, is, would the Democrat voters be willing to say, hey, we
00:13:46.240
So now we're just going to go back to a white guy because they're the only ones who can win.
00:13:50.600
Uh, I, I don't know that the Democrat voters be willing to say that.
00:13:53.960
Maybe he should move to the next like a black woman midget or something like that.
00:13:56.080
He is, he is smoother on his feet than virtually any of the Democrats that I've talked to.
00:14:02.220
Uh, he is also, I think that there's a, a more than decent likelihood he's the nominee
00:14:08.200
in, in 2028 because his chief rival is AOC, meaning that AOC is not a black woman.
00:14:17.300
And as if you, if you look at the Democratic voting base, particularly in the South, that
00:14:23.700
Uh, there's no evidence that that crosses over to quote unquote, the people of color
00:14:26.760
category, a category that has never existed nor will ever exist in real life.
00:14:30.420
Uh, and, and you, you've already seen cases, uh, in which the black vote has mobilized
00:14:35.320
behind a white person to stop another white person or a Hispanic.
00:14:38.200
So I, I would not be surprised if he's able to pull out the nomination.
00:14:41.860
I will say that again, the game that he's playing, which is a smart game is he's usually
00:14:45.640
rhetorically radical with regard to president Trump personally.
00:14:48.900
And with regard to Trump, you know, that, that makes you real popular inside the Democratic
00:14:51.920
party, but he's trying to moderate on a lot of the issues where he actually is most radical.
00:14:55.680
Like in that interview, he suggested that he's cooperating with ICE, which I find, you
00:15:01.200
Um, in that interview, he tried to pretend sort of moderation on the trans issue.
00:15:04.800
His state is not moderate on that issue at all.
00:15:07.100
And that brings up sort of the second question that you're, you're raising Michael, which
00:15:10.300
is how does he do in a general election if it's JD Vance?
00:15:12.800
So, you know, obviously the number one question there is going to be, how's the U S doing
00:15:18.920
Uh, and I think everybody acknowledges that circumstantially, that's just the reality.
00:15:22.240
Um, as far as sort of head to head as candidates, uh, yeah, I, I will say that I look that my
00:15:27.660
biggest question mark for JD is, can he grow any part of Trump's coalition?
00:15:33.800
I look at Trump's coalition and I think to myself, Trump has maxed out in many ways, many
00:15:40.160
What is the part that JD grows that Trump was unable to grow?
00:15:45.340
If you look, it was a couple of hundred thousand votes in a couple of different places and
00:15:48.760
very, very high turnout because again, people really, really love Trump in a way that, you
00:15:53.240
know, again, that's not a rip on JD, that's just a reality.
00:15:56.000
But you've been saying for a while, Ben, and this is something I totally agree with that
00:15:58.880
almost all of this is going to depend on the economy, which I think is getting better.
00:16:02.760
I mean, even the wall street journal, which has been hysterically depressed ever since
00:16:06.100
the tariff thing comes out, is admitting that the economy is actually turning around
00:16:10.580
And the other thing is also, you know, again, I don't think we talk too much and the media
00:16:16.460
They want to talk about everything as people's faces and their style and the way they talk.
00:16:21.420
And I admit all that is important, but people actually do pay attention to certain things.
00:16:25.640
Like for instance, the parade of U-Hauls leaving California looks like a Howard Hawks cattle
00:16:31.720
I mean, people are just like deserting the state and the state, as we all know, is paradise.
00:16:36.640
If you left it alone, if you took the people out, it would be, it would be paradise.
00:16:40.140
And I, it's just, he's ruined everything that he touches.
00:16:47.580
We all left his state because again, I don't think that his state was well run, but there
00:16:51.420
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Drew, I agree with you, obviously, about all of Gavin Newsom's policy failures.
00:18:27.580
The real question to him, and I even agree with you, obviously, about the economy.
00:18:30.700
It's hard to disagree with a 5.3% GDP growth in Q4 following a 4.5% GDP growth in Q3.
00:18:39.800
Here is the problem, and I go back to it, just coalitionally speaking.
00:18:42.480
You look at Trump's coalition, it's a very weird coalition, right?
00:18:44.460
It's a different coalition than the sort of historic Republican coalition.
00:18:47.480
It's blue-collar voters, his heavy share of Hispanics, slightly outsized portion of black
00:18:52.680
males, particularly, and skewing younger than traditionally.
00:18:57.780
It's hard for me to see exactly where J.D. grows any part of that coalition.
00:19:02.640
He's going to win fewer Hispanics than President Trump did.
00:19:04.940
Trump has a sort of weird capacity to move beyond his own person.
00:19:09.100
He's kind of everybody's idea of a rich person in their various ethnic group.
00:19:14.280
If you talk to my people, you talk to the Jews, he's like, oh, yeah, he's like every
00:19:21.260
He's like, yeah, he's just like the rich Italian guys I know.
00:19:25.720
He's bizarrely every person and no person at the same time, Donald Trump, in a weird way.
00:19:30.160
That's not true of J.D. Vance, who is a very talented politician, but clearly a politician.
00:19:34.680
And so you take sort of Trump's comments about ICE, and he's not going toāit doesn't come
00:19:41.440
My chief critique of J.D. in this way is that I think J.D. is too online, and he needs to
00:19:45.400
This is also my chief critique of everyone, because I think X rots your brain.
00:19:48.620
And if you're a politician and you're using that as your echo chamber telling you which
00:19:52.160
direction to row, I think you're going to end up rowing in the wrong direction.
00:19:54.600
But hold on, Ben, doesn't that undercut your point on Trump, who is the tweeter-in-chief?
00:20:03.000
Trump, literally, they print out things for him and put them in front of him.
00:20:07.740
They were literally, he doesn't, like, Trump does not spend any time at all on CNN.com
00:20:12.900
They literally print out, if there's a tweet that he has seen, it's because his staff literally
00:20:16.280
prints out the tweet on physical paper and puts it in front of him.
00:20:19.580
Okay, but how does Gavin Newsom grow the coalition?
00:20:23.320
Because isn't this conversation, Gavin Newsom hypothetically versus J.D. Vance?
00:20:28.480
So, again, when it's two choices, then shrinking your coalition is growing the other guy's coalition.
00:20:34.480
So, if you have a Hispanic voter, he's only going to go in one of two directions.
00:20:37.500
If that guy does not vote for J.D. Vance and now he votes in the election and doesn't just
00:20:43.640
So, I think that Gavin Newsom does win a larger share of Hispanic voters than Kamala Harris
00:20:53.020
One is a lot of people were predicting that Trump had maxed out his coalition the first time
00:20:57.220
and, you know, people were upset, they weren't getting exactly what they wanted, you know,
00:21:02.700
He goes on to win the popular vote the second time.
00:21:04.740
So, if J.D. were able to maintain Trump's coalition, that alone, he'd be great.
00:21:09.040
And let's say that things change because, obviously, in 2024, almost half the voters were
00:21:13.300
millennials and Zoomers, skewed a little younger.
00:21:15.780
In my meanderings through the young right, I think the young right does like the vice president
00:21:21.060
But the other thing, so, you know, to me that's a bonus.
00:21:23.960
I do think this guy is very, very talented in that he came up as this, you know, Ohio
00:21:30.200
guy, this guy who wrote a very famous memoir about his lower class upbringing and he goes
00:21:39.380
He plays well with rural people who want industrial policy.
00:21:43.120
He plays well, you know, I think he's got a lot of talent.
00:21:45.860
But this actually gets to my point vis-a-vis Newsom, which is Newsom is overestimated.
00:21:54.340
The thing he's most famous for in politics is just being really deceitful.
00:21:57.720
You know, and he's, and Nicki Minaj had that whole line.
00:22:03.140
So I think he's being overestimated in the ways that people overestimated guys like Beto
00:22:11.360
I don't think it's always great to be the top guy in the race a year or a year and a
00:22:15.640
But second of all, there was a great interview once between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
00:22:20.880
And Clinton said, he goes, you know, George and I have benefited from the same thing, which
00:22:26.980
Me, because I'm a nice guy, and they thought I was all nice, and they thought he was kind
00:22:32.160
And you think about the winning presidential candidates.
00:22:47.400
On that subject, though, I have to say, last time we were here, which is not that long ago,
00:22:51.740
I would have bet money, and I'm not a betting man, but I would have bet money on J.D.
00:22:56.780
Right this minute, I'm a little uncertain if we're actually talking about the next nominee,
00:23:01.360
because he's not, you know, every time, I mean, Trump has been going very hard on foreign
00:23:05.420
policy, and he has people around him in the press conferences, mostly Rubio, and Vance
00:23:11.160
is nowhere to be seen, because Vance is one of these guys who's trying to take MAGA and
00:23:25.180
I don't know if you guys caught this interview with Sourabh Amari right after the Venezuela
00:23:29.600
Sourabh posted it again, and he said, wow, these comments the vice president made a couple
00:23:33.480
weeks ago really hit differently now, and he was being asked, you know, his involvement
00:23:37.920
in the admin, and he said, I'm getting it a little off.
00:23:41.660
It's not verbatim, but this is the thrust of it.
00:23:43.820
He said, look, let's say, hypothetically, there were an action to be taken by the administration
00:23:49.560
that would look really good for Marco that I would not be all that publicly involved in,
00:23:55.020
in part because you don't have the president and vice president in the same place, often
00:23:57.920
outside of the White House, where, you know, Marco would be center stage, and I would seem
00:24:03.520
If I were optimizing for 2028, I would try to kill that action.
00:24:07.200
But if I were optimizing for the good of the country, and just to be a good person, I
00:24:13.740
And, you know, it's kind of unclear what he was talking about there.
00:24:16.000
After the Venezuela strike, it seems clear as day to me.
00:24:19.860
I think the idea that J.D. is some isolationist, I don't buy it.
00:24:25.880
He's been very close with Tucker Carlson, who, I don't know if Tucker Carlson believes
00:24:31.300
But I mean, he's actually kind of on the phone, remember, on that signal call that was bugged.
00:24:38.720
You know, he's not always like, it doesn't seem to be online with the president's foreign
00:24:43.080
policy, which frankly, I think is working out great right now.
00:24:49.320
I'm not saying, look, I'm not counting him out by any stretch of the imagination.
00:24:53.140
I'm just saying the guy who looks great is Marco Rubio.
00:24:57.560
I think Marco has basically already said that he is not going to run if J.D. runs.
00:25:03.480
And I think that right now, if you're looking at the vice president, obviously, his benefit
00:25:09.620
No one's no one's underestimating that he's incredibly talented.
00:25:13.160
I think that there are a couple of systemic factors that are running against him because
00:25:19.260
I mean, the reality, he's the vice president who currently has a 40 percent approval rating.
00:25:23.120
Vice presidents who have a 40 percent approval rating running after presidents who have a
00:25:26.700
40 percent approval rating don't typically do amazing in general elections.
00:25:33.440
But I think that the sort of core assumption that a lot of Republicans are making, that
00:25:36.400
there's sort of a cakewalk into the presidency for the vice president, that I don't see.
00:25:40.860
And I will say that I do think that the memery, if you do care about the very online, every
00:25:44.600
meme of Marco Rubio, the big meme of Marco Rubio, obviously, is Marco having a different
00:25:52.300
Now it's just him in that pose being annoyed that he's been given a new job as king of
00:25:56.840
Venezuela or now the new governor of Greenland or whatever it's going to be today.
00:26:01.280
And then all the memes of J.D. are that J.D. is fat with weird hair.
00:26:04.800
And like that's not kind of where you want to be, just in sort of meme land.
00:26:13.060
Like your guest clavicular would agree with me, which is hilarious.
00:26:16.020
I don't think the looks maxing, you know, meth addicted 19 year old is representative
00:26:24.640
And it gets to my point on Newsom, is I think it was so smart of the VP to lean into the
00:26:31.200
And the reason I think it was so smart is you want to be underestimated so that the reality
00:26:37.740
So even down to the physicality, the fact that the meme is he's like this big fat guy.
00:26:50.720
So I think all of those things play really well, even to the point ideologically, some
00:26:54.240
people tried to pin him down on he's an isolationist or he's this or he's that.
00:26:57.400
But he's defended the administration's actions in Iran, in Venezuela, quite vociferously.
00:27:03.400
To me, like if I were in this position, I would not want the memes to be making me out
00:27:10.400
Frankly, you even saw this with Trump in 2015, 2016.
00:27:13.220
All the memery was that he was like a big dumb idiot.
00:27:15.280
And I think to be underestimated actually puts you in a better position.
00:27:18.320
And he doesn't and he's not any and he's not taking himself too seriously.
00:27:21.040
So that's that's which is a rare quality for politicians.
00:27:24.260
But the question is for Republicans, what other Republican?
00:27:27.080
I mean, to go to Ben's point about Trump's coalition, what other Republican has a better
00:27:31.560
chance of at least maintaining most of Trump's coalition, if not expanding it?
00:27:37.180
I mean, there are others who might have a shot.
00:27:38.760
There are others who I could like in that spot.
00:27:41.140
But I think J.D. Vance certainly would have the best shot of that.
00:27:43.680
And as far as as far as approval ratings go, it's like every president and vice president
00:27:48.080
my whole life has had terrible approval ratings, it feels like.
00:27:53.920
It's just it's just it's part of the reality, the political reality we live in that you just
00:27:57.620
hate whoever's in there and they get bad approval ratings.
00:27:59.780
And it still just goes to I don't see anyone else in the and this could change.
00:28:04.020
Obviously, we're still a couple of years out, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican
00:28:06.600
field who I'd look at them and say, well, you know, we know what Trump's coalition
00:28:09.880
is and that guy over there really is going to resonate with that coalition more than
00:28:16.240
And I have to say, by the way, I wasn't suggesting he won't be the nominee or the next president
00:28:21.680
I'm just saying that my certainty is a little less certain nowadays.
00:28:26.740
Well, just just what Matt was saying, I agree with this.
00:28:31.960
And think about having Donald Trump's policies without Donald Trump, you know, the Trumpian
00:28:38.540
A lot of people don't like his brashness and his big mouth and all that stuff.
00:28:42.340
And if you if we thought we could get MAGA without Trump, I think a lot of people would
00:28:50.960
I think that MAGA without Trump is boring and stupid in many ways, because I just don't
00:28:57.000
There's no everyone keeps trying to say, what is MAGA?
00:28:59.620
And so you have the isolation of saying MAGA is America first, meaning America alone.
00:29:03.060
And then you have people who are saying, no, no, no.
00:29:04.620
What MAGA really means is X, Y, MAGA means whatever Donald Trump says MAGA means.
00:29:09.160
And trying to take away the sizzle from the steak and then say, yes, but now it's very
00:29:15.640
And if I were going to look at here's what I've said about J.D., I'll say about Rubio
00:29:19.960
Every politician must form their own coalition.
00:29:22.320
Anybody who thinks they're just going to pick up the last guy's coalition, they're wrong.
00:29:29.960
But in what way, in what way did Biden do that?
00:29:32.860
He was just running on Obama's third term, basically, in strange circumstances.
00:29:37.220
OK, the 2020 election, as I think we will all acknowledge, those of us who think that
00:29:41.020
he won and those who bizarrely think that he lost are the are the we will acknowledge
00:29:46.160
that was the weirdest election of our lifetime and that that those circumstances are not
00:29:51.800
Absent some sort of massive pandemic that shuts down the entire world.
00:29:56.420
Unless we just unless we do it again, I mean, which could.
00:29:59.280
But but the biggest problem is that if you look at here's the thing, I look at J.D.
00:30:03.440
and I look at J.D.'s coalition and it looks like Trump's coalition, but smaller.
00:30:07.980
And if I were going to build a coalition as a Marco Rubio, it would not actually be Trump's
00:30:11.960
coalition would be Rubio's coalition, meaning more college educated white people, more
00:30:18.340
I mean, that's actually what his coalition would look like.
00:30:23.620
And when we dismiss that kind of thing, it ignores the fact that that's actually what
00:30:27.920
He didn't just replicate George W. Bush's coalition.
00:30:30.640
He built an entirely new coalition where he went to low propensity voters who weren't
00:30:35.660
My guess is somebody like Marco Rubio dropped some low propensity voters and maybe convinces
00:30:39.900
some more higher propensity voters who voted for Mitt Romney, but not for Donald Trump
00:30:43.860
Now, again, I'm not saying that means that Rubio wins or the J.D.
00:30:48.260
Vance, I cannot see how if Donald Trump got 77 million votes in the last election cycle,
00:30:53.800
Vance gets to 79 million votes in the next election cycle.
00:31:02.980
So when I'm saying Gavin could be the next president, I'm not talking about Gavin because
00:31:06.640
he's so intellectually superior and such an amazing candidate.
00:31:09.880
I'm saying we have now had a series of binary elections in which everyone was kind of squirrelly
00:31:14.980
about all the candidates that we came down to the final two.
00:31:17.520
And there were a couple of, you know, core bases were like, yeah, I love it.
00:31:20.780
And then a huge swath of the middle was like, man, this is man, this kind of sucks.
00:31:25.440
And if you look at the Gallup poll right now, more than 45 percent of Americans are now
00:31:29.500
identifying as politically independent, not because they actually are, but because they
00:31:32.940
don't want to be identified as either member of either party.
00:31:39.080
I mean, as you pointed out, Ben, Trump's policies, you know, eliminate Trump, their policies
00:31:45.880
I mean, I think some things he's more right and some things he's more left, but he's not
00:31:52.400
It's just that our politics has been so radicalized that he sometimes looks like it.
00:31:56.680
And I can't help feeling that you could pick up the Trump MAGA and present it in a somewhat
00:32:03.520
And, you know, I always feel that what the people are asking for is normalcy.
00:32:08.100
They're asking to kind of get back to the way we're supposed to be.
00:32:11.020
And I could see Vance selling that really easily.
00:32:15.840
The other issue, I see your point, Ben, that I agree with it, that MAGA is what Trump says
00:32:21.020
But I think where I disagree is, I think that Trump actually has a pretty coherent policy
00:32:25.380
vision, though it's often called incoherent or capricious.
00:32:27.960
And you see this especially with foreign policy.
00:32:31.560
I was just debating some guys on this the other day on Piers Morgan's show.
00:32:34.360
And there's some people who insist America First means conservative or libertarian isolationism.
00:32:41.660
Some people that say the alternative is a liberal internationalism, whether we're, you know,
00:32:46.220
talking about, I don't know, like George W. Bush or something, spread liberalism and
00:32:50.560
I think Trump's is this third option, which is a conservative imperialism.
00:33:00.240
That obviously doesn't mean you're just going to only focus within your borders.
00:33:02.880
But when he does intervene, it seems to be in this way that's a little bit more restrained.
00:33:07.080
We're going to have these real tactical, you know, in and out kind of hits in the Middle
00:33:11.380
And then we're going to focus a little more in the Western Hemisphere.
00:33:13.940
But in the Western Hemisphere, that's going to have cascading effects that do affect Iran,
00:33:19.580
And so to me, it's a third option that is kind of coherent and that therefore could be
00:33:28.220
He's always setting us up to fight the Cold War with China.
00:33:31.780
You know, when you look at Venezuela, the Chinese ran for their lives, like a lot of
00:33:36.020
running Chinese after they took Maduro out of there.
00:33:42.720
You know, now they're sort of thinking, well, maybe we can use this as an excuse to go into
00:33:49.580
And I think Trump is thinking about that all the time.
00:33:51.520
I think if you explain everything he does in terms of China.
00:33:55.060
I think that the danger in trying to intellectualize MAGA is that I think that when you abstract
00:34:00.200
into sort of absolute terms what his foreign policy is, then when you zoom back in into
00:34:05.940
what the specific decisions that are made are by somebody who's not Trump, they don't
00:34:11.340
I think that, for example, you could make easily the case right now.
00:34:16.000
One is that President Trump is what I think he is, which is sort of a hawkish realist, which
00:34:20.320
is that he only wants to get involved in the most minimal possible way to achieve the maximum
00:34:23.600
impossible effect on behalf of American interests abroad.
00:34:26.320
And that's not restricted to the Western Hemisphere, right?
00:34:28.380
That he will he will bomb the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran if he feels that that's necessary.
00:34:33.100
Maybe he'll go ahead and he'll take a military action in Iran if he believes it'll be necessary
00:34:36.140
right now, but only if it achieves his desired effect.
00:34:38.500
He's not going to just do something like fire a missile at a camel and hit him in the ass
00:34:44.640
And then there's an equally coherent version that I find really off-putting and I think would
00:34:49.420
be wrong in policy, which is this sort of multipolar hemispherism.
00:34:53.740
This idea that what Trump's actually trying to do is create a Western Hemisphere free
00:34:57.820
But he's totally fine with Russia dominating both the Near East and Eastern Europe and maybe
00:35:02.980
And he's fine with China dominating Taiwan and the Far East, right?
00:35:06.640
That vision has actually been put forward by people who consider themselves in sort of
00:35:10.360
And because Trump is not, I would say, rhetorically coherent in the way that he approaches these
00:35:14.800
issues, even though I think you can read the policy line in the ways that I've presented.
00:35:18.820
And I think the first one is much more accurate than the second.
00:35:20.600
I think that's why you're seeing concerns about, you know, when people say, well, what
00:35:25.480
Those are real open questions because, again, ideology does sort of matter.
00:35:30.700
And so he's the best pragmatist you'll ever find without a root idea.
00:35:34.300
But what that means is very difficult to have an ideological air.
00:35:37.020
How do you have an ideological air without an idea?
00:35:39.700
And we're the only one who listens to the MAGA people talk and think, thank God somebody's
00:35:43.100
finally talking about America's benefits again.
00:35:45.660
And I think the person who hears that, like these guys come out and they say, you know,
00:35:49.360
we want this to be good for America because that's who we work for.
00:35:54.720
You know, like you suddenly remembered that all this stuff that we hear, like, you know,
00:35:58.780
you're a racist if you don't open your borders.
00:36:09.060
And I just, I think this is the first time I don't hear us being accused of anything.
00:36:12.640
They remember that we actually pay their salaries.
00:36:15.380
There's something kind of funny about when Trump goes in and he says, we're going to Venezuela
00:36:21.980
I mean, like we would be justified in part, but it actually does have a lot more to it
00:36:27.500
And Ben, I think you make a great point, which is you can't quite tell exactly what this is,
00:36:31.920
or you could read in two things because there is a retrenchment that's going on.
00:36:37.380
That's what the assertion of the Don Rowe doctrine is about.
00:36:40.480
And the question is, is the retrenchment a way that we can make sure that we're strong,
00:36:46.500
we're, you know, we're not spread too thin so that we can preserve American strength around
00:36:51.480
Or is the retrenchment this kind of surrender that says we just don't want to be involved
00:36:55.880
And I agree, it's kind of ambiguous right now, but I just don't see any real American politician
00:37:01.120
on the right running to say, I want to make America weaker.
00:37:04.000
You know, that's the opposite of what MAGA literally...
00:37:12.880
Sorry, Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.
00:37:17.940
He tweeted out, like, here's what Ben Shapiro is hiding.
00:37:21.920
Gavin Newsom gets Ben to criticize Trump's tariffs.
00:37:28.500
Gets Ben Shapiro to oppose the invasion of Greenland.
00:37:32.760
Gets Ben Shapiro to say that Republicans are going to have a hard time in the midterms.
00:37:43.380
Speaking of a very hard right turn, Matt, you, I think, are...
00:38:16.840
We have a series coming out starting on Monday, Real History.
00:38:19.780
And there are shorter, you know, shorter documentaries on various topics, various historical topics
00:38:28.300
that have so often been lied about, misrepresented.
00:38:34.000
And these are generally going to be topics that are talked about a lot.
00:38:36.660
I mean, people talk about slavery all the time.
00:38:38.980
But I think the average American doesn't... understands the topic very little because schools lie about it,
00:38:47.780
media misrepresents it, Hollywood, and there are all kinds of realities around these topics that are never talked about at all.
00:38:57.960
And it's very interesting because although slavery comes up a lot in our political debates,
00:39:05.820
like I said, I think, you know, the average person knows almost nothing about it because we're not taught about it in schools.
00:39:11.540
And that's because the history that we've been taught, and this isn't just something that started five years ago in the age of wokeness or whatever.
00:39:23.200
I mean, I can remember being in public school, you know, 30-plus years ago, and it was the same thing.
00:39:29.780
And that's because the education about American history that we get in the mainstream is designed to make us hate ourselves,
00:39:44.000
So in the series, we're going to begin with a look at the... you know, a global look at slavery.
00:39:49.860
Slavery existed as an institution across the entire world for thousands of years.
00:39:54.740
If it's possible to carry the guilt of slavery in your blood somehow, as we're told white Americans do,
00:40:02.020
if that's possible, then every single person who exists on the planet carries that guilt
00:40:07.660
because slavery existed everywhere on the planet.
00:40:10.800
And then we kind of narrow it in to slavery in America because even if everybody will acknowledge,
00:40:17.680
of course, slavery existed everywhere, then they move to, yeah, but slavery here was more brutal and it was worse.
00:40:27.020
And we get into some of the facts about, you know, where did these slaves come from?
00:40:32.940
How did the slave traders, the European and American slave traders, get their hands on those slaves to begin with?
00:40:40.140
Well, it turns out that there were entire African empires who... this is what they did.
00:40:45.800
I mean, this is how they became empires, is that they enslaved other African tribes and sold them.
00:40:51.160
And not only that, but if you were captured by one of these African tribes to be sold as a slave,
00:40:59.720
the best case scenario for you is that you'd be put on a ship and shipped specifically to North America.
00:41:09.760
These are basic facts that I think most people don't know.
00:41:12.920
As you mentioned, or as you maybe intended to mention, this is coming out once a month on Daily Wire Plus.
00:41:20.740
Can I just sound like a little bit of a lib, though, for a second?
00:41:22.920
This is one of my most lib opinions, but it's correct.
00:41:25.240
You know, when they talk about the legacy of slavery and the enduring, you know, challenges that come
00:41:32.780
because their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa was brought on a slave ship,
00:41:42.180
Like, look, I'm smoking a Mayflower cigar, a brand new blend that's extremely exquisite
00:41:47.960
But I love the fact that some, a very small number of my ancestors, came here on the Mayflower.
00:41:56.080
It makes me view the country in a certain way, makes me feel a kind of pride and ownership in the country.
00:42:00.840
If my ancestors had come on a slave ship, even if I were rich, I were a rapper, I had, you know,
00:42:06.520
gold teeth and everything, and I was materially really well off, I would view the country differently.
00:42:13.360
And I think, as conservatives, we say that heritage matters and tradition matters and all that.
00:42:20.520
And if I were a black guy in America, that would color my view.
00:42:27.000
Matt, I completely agree with the history you're saying.
00:42:29.320
I know that history, and you're absolutely right about it.
00:42:31.800
But I also think it's important while we're saying this that we should put out the idea
00:42:41.160
I think an official Daily Wire, you know, our co-founder is a Jew.
00:42:45.840
Let's take the Moses idea here, like, let the people go, you know?
00:42:49.620
Like, I always, you know, you read Aristotle, and he says, well, some people are born slaves.
00:42:57.500
Also, Aristotle means, like, different things by that, yes, yeah.
00:43:01.620
And I just think that, you know, of course it's true that, you know, it actually is true.
00:43:06.680
I mean, I live in the South, and people come up to me, and they say, well, you know, slavery
00:43:13.960
You know, can we begin with, like, don't hold people slaves.
00:43:17.100
And I think we could put that on our masthead, maybe.
00:43:20.120
But other than that, it is true that it was, you know, I won't say it was better here.
00:43:30.440
We bought people who had already been enslaved.
00:43:33.260
And if you read, I think at one point, Matt, I sent you the memoir of Mungo, the guy who
00:43:38.580
made it into, I believe it was in Nigeria, the explorer.
00:43:41.900
And he just described a world of slavery when he got to Africa.
00:43:45.760
I mean, he had some, I can't even, I can't remember the number, but he said like something
00:43:51.920
And of course, if you got caught by the Arabs, they also castrated you, which was like an
00:43:56.840
unpleasant thing in and of itself, because you couldn't just then claim you were a woman
00:44:00.980
and play soccer for the team you could beat, you know, it was really bad.
00:44:04.300
So, so, I mean, I think, you know, I agree with, with Knowles as well.
00:44:08.340
I think I do understand the guy who sold me my gun was a black guy.
00:44:11.620
And he said, he said, believe me, I believe in gun rights.
00:44:14.880
Because if I had gun rights, I wouldn't be here.
00:44:17.920
So I actually disagree with, with, with Knowles on this.
00:44:20.840
And I'm with Walsh, I think on, on the question of, you know, this kind of generational,
00:44:25.160
I would feel differently about, about things, I think that the, the history of black Americans
00:44:30.580
is one of the most glorious things, meaning like moving from slavery to freedom, moving
00:44:37.100
from, you know, abject slavery to participating in the building of the greatest country in
00:44:43.180
the history of the world and becoming leaders in a wide variety of fields in that space is
00:44:49.800
And, you know, the, and, and the idea that you should carry with you some sort of generational
00:44:53.100
stigma or shame, or that you should feel internally as though that, that is like, obviously, you
00:44:58.640
know, the history has consequences and you feel those consequences over the course of
00:45:03.940
But, you know, I, I, I'm, I, I'm not willing to sort of grant the premise that a history
00:45:08.740
of slavery is so deep that it ought to make you think that today's America is the problem.
00:45:14.080
This is also the America that fought a civil war to abolish slavery.
00:45:17.060
This is also the America that did the civil rights movement.
00:45:22.060
Yeah, that's, I, I, can I just, can I say one, can I say one thing here?
00:45:26.700
First of all, to Drew's point that slavery is bad, uh, that's debatable.
00:45:30.500
No, it's, no, it's, it's actually, slavery, slavery, no, no.
00:45:37.160
No, obviously slavery is bad, but I do think that assessing that there is, there is a,
00:45:41.980
that there's an important point in, in bringing up that it was a, it was a global institution,
00:45:46.900
which is that it was bad, but when you're assessing the individual moral guilt of people
00:45:52.720
who were involved in slavery, say 500 years ago or 600 years ago, their individual moral
00:45:57.620
guilt is severely mitigated because it was a global institution.
00:46:03.020
And at this time in history, they just didn't have concepts like universal human equality,
00:46:08.960
just simply did not exist for the majority of human history.
00:46:11.980
And, and that means that slavery was bad, but it also means that to kind of look at it
00:46:17.000
through a modern lens and assess the kind of moral guilt on those people that we would
00:46:23.260
But secondly, to, to the black Americans today, I agree that the fact that they, that, you know,
00:46:28.380
if this is your, actually your heritage, of course, there's plenty of black Americans
00:46:30.860
who came here afterwards and so that's not their heritage.
00:46:36.160
So if, if that is your heritage, then that's relevant.
00:46:39.240
It's like your, your heritage is very, is very relevant, of course.
00:46:46.100
To be mad today that slavery that, you know, that your ancestors were enslaved is completely
00:46:53.400
I mean, there is that it happened a long time ago.
00:46:56.600
So to be mad about a thing that didn't happen to you doesn't make a lot of sense.
00:46:59.620
But also there's the other part of this, which nobody really wants to say.
00:47:02.780
And every time I say it, I get in a lot of trouble, but I'll say it again, which is that,
00:47:09.340
If, if you're a black person in America today and your ancestors were enslaved, you are better
00:47:16.260
off today because of that than you likely would be if your ancestors had not been enslaved.
00:47:23.900
If you had, if your ancestors had not been enslaved, then guess what?
00:47:26.680
Either you would not exist, most likely, or if you do exist, you'd exist in Africa.
00:47:31.960
And it is better to be in America than to be in Africa.
00:47:36.880
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making an end justify that means argument.
00:47:39.300
I'm only saying that to be mad about a thing that ultimately has actually benefited you today
00:47:47.260
What would you prefer that you're in Africa right now or that you don't exist?
00:47:52.800
Nose is actually, I mean, look, Nose has actually said something that makes sense and is almost
00:47:56.060
profound, which I think we should all stop for a minute and just understand that a miracle
00:48:03.780
I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's rational or not.
00:48:06.580
And Ben, I completely agree that even though you have these feelings, you should be able
00:48:10.320
to overcome them and understand that you've been given the gift of being born in America.
00:48:15.440
And I agree with that, but, but, you know, heritage does matter and it doesn't fuse you
00:48:20.800
And you hear the name of the famous black comedian who went up against the trans people.
00:48:27.680
You know, I'll hear him say like, it was really the black people who freed themselves.
00:48:32.840
It was people from, you know, Maine and Vermont coming down and fighting for liberation.
00:48:41.380
You know, there's a sense of shame that goes with this.
00:48:45.760
You know, when I was growing up, I think Jews had a sense of shame that stemmed out of
00:48:51.780
Which is a complete, obviously a complete false understanding of what happened in that
00:48:56.160
country and what it was like to live through it.
00:48:57.700
But people feel these things and they affect the way you see the place that you're living.
00:49:01.920
And I think that's basically what Knowles is saying.
00:49:03.780
And feelings, you know, I hate to, I hate to break this to you, Ben, but feelings matter.
00:49:07.380
You know, the way people feel affects their lives.
00:49:09.340
And so when you see things like, when you hear the word pride, you immediately know you're
00:49:13.500
When you hear black pride, gay pride, you immediately know somebody feels ashamed.
00:49:17.000
And I think that you can't make it go away the way the left wants to make it go away
00:49:26.800
No, you're, you're not wrong that, that the, you know, I have had black people say to me
00:49:35.380
I have had black people say that to me and I understand it, but you know, still the history
00:49:39.860
And I think we, we can have some kind of compassion for that and understanding for it.
00:49:43.260
I mean, on a practical level, obviously, Matt, your history is all contingent.
00:49:49.200
So if X had not happened, then Y would not happen.
00:49:51.280
But that doesn't mean that you have to be super happy that X happened, you know, in
00:49:55.960
So I, so that, of course, I'm not saying you should be happy.
00:50:00.360
I'm not justifying it or saying you should be happy about it.
00:50:02.300
What I'm saying is that to be, to, to now in your life today, to be angry about it,
00:50:07.920
um, it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense because if the thing hadn't happened, then
00:50:16.800
And, or you would exist probably in a worse situation than you do.
00:50:19.960
I mean, I think that, I think that what we need is more specificity.
00:50:22.460
Actually, what is it that, what is it that you're angry about that a bad thing happened
00:50:25.420
in history or at the concept that may still be walking around of say black inferiority,
00:50:30.920
That there are still some people who think that, and that's what leads to slavery.
00:50:36.200
You know, you're, you're right in the sense that like anything that happened historically,
00:50:40.160
you can be angry at the, if you had been then there, would you have been happy?
00:50:47.220
And I think we all agree with that, but I think we should be more specific about what
00:50:52.920
I guess one way to think about it is just because we're conservatives, we're not libs ideologues
00:50:57.560
who think that, you know, one action of politics can just erase the totality of human experience.
00:51:02.780
You would say, well, look, the 13th amendment was great, but it doesn't, it's not a magic
00:51:07.220
wand, you know, the 14th amendment or all the way up to, I don't know, the Civil Rights
00:51:10.180
Act of 1964 or whatever, all sorts of bungled policies that have actually made things worse
00:51:15.420
But, but in any case, those are just magic wands that are, that erase a human identity or
00:51:21.200
heritage or a feeling of tradition or place in a society.
00:51:23.980
And so I guess my, my point is, my point is basically boiling down to, I kind of get it,
00:51:31.580
And the libs are totally wrong about their conclusions from that.
00:51:34.620
But it's, it's not to say that that isn't a real problem or a real phenomenon.
00:51:37.820
They're also wrong about what identity is, but, but I, but I take your point.
00:51:41.120
I think that one of the things that's actually quite important also is that if slavery was
00:51:45.500
a human universal, then the people who abolished it ought to get outsized credit.
00:51:53.140
But, but, but the truth is that, I mean, slavery existed in legal form in Saudi Arabia into
00:51:57.800
the sixties and the, and there is still slavery that is happening on a pretty wide scale, particularly
00:52:04.100
And, and very often it's people who are being brought there as, as wage laborers.
00:52:07.640
And then they're being basically, their, their passports are taken away.
00:52:12.120
I mean, that sort of stuff is happening like right now on the ground in a lot of places
00:52:16.540
So, you know, the stuff that we take for granted is not easily taken for granted.
00:52:20.660
Well, it's controversial stuff and you can only make controversial stuff if you have
00:52:23.460
subscribers like ours, which is why you should head on over to dailywire.com and go check
00:52:27.380
out Matt's brand new series where he will be offending, I assume a wide variety of people
00:52:32.020
over the course of the next year with a, with actual historical takes.
00:52:37.940
Speaking of taking stuff, are we going to take Greenland?
00:52:41.580
This is by my count, the first foreign policy intervention in American history, at least since
00:52:50.120
Matt, you are pro just F-35, like, like, you know, Don Rumsfeld flying over nuke and
00:53:01.580
I've been, I have been, I have also been lusting after Greenland my, my whole life and we just
00:53:08.800
No, look, I, I, I am often labeled an isolationist and depending on how you define that, maybe I
00:53:15.940
fit the bill, but my, my, my actual, uh, very simple foreign policy view has always been,
00:53:21.640
I've said forever, is, uh, I'm in favor of anything that America does that actually advance
00:53:28.920
And I think that very often, uh, we do things, especially in faraway places that supposedly
00:53:34.580
are to advance the interests of Americans, but actually aren't doing that and aren't really
00:53:39.200
But if, if that's, if that's the goal is to help Americans make America's life, make a,
00:53:44.000
make the lives of Americans better, then at least it's, it's, it's potentially in the
00:53:49.780
And with Greenland, I mean, I can easily see, uh, the advantages.
00:53:54.320
I mean, there's of course what, what Trump always talks about the national security advantages.
00:53:57.760
Uh, there's also, you know, there's the, the resources that are, that are there.
00:54:02.740
Uh, it's a resource rich, uh, country, you know, only like 12 people live there anyway.
00:54:08.860
I will say that, you know, I think there are actually, you know, in actually militarily
00:54:14.600
invading Greenland, well, probably wouldn't be necessary.
00:54:17.120
First of all, I mean, you just send in one team of Navy SEALs, you topple the whole country
00:54:27.220
Uh, so that, you know, but, but, but, but doing that, I think it would, it wouldn't come
00:54:34.800
Uh, I will just say though, that, uh, it, it's interesting to me when people today get
00:54:41.320
so offended by the very notion that we would try to acquire land, that we would try to grow
00:54:50.140
And, and in particular that we would try to do it by force.
00:54:52.620
It's interesting when people are so offended by that, because how do you think America right
00:54:56.820
now, as it's currently constituted, came to be?
00:54:59.540
You know, America became what it is today, the continental United States plus Hawaii and
00:55:04.100
Alaska, that happened through purchasing land in some cases, going to war, taking it by
00:55:11.460
force, displacing people, kicking them out and taking the land for ourselves.
00:55:18.800
We conquered this land and we did it because we believed, um, that, you know, manifest destiny.
00:55:25.400
We knew that, you know, the American empire should, should reign and, um, and we had leaders
00:55:31.720
who were looking out for the interests of our people.
00:55:34.340
And that's, that's how the entire world has taken the shape that it's taken.
00:55:39.620
So that doesn't mean that I'm going to support any, uh, effort to just go and conquer land,
00:55:46.580
but it does mean that I'm not going to automatically rule it out because that's, that's the only way
00:55:59.000
This is like my favorite version of Matt Walsh.
00:56:07.120
Of all the things to call me, that's, I'm looking forward to war with Denmark.
00:56:17.120
Matt makes a really, Matt makes an interesting point though, which is like, we're supposed to be growing
00:56:20.900
and strong and it occurs to me, the last time we seriously added territory was 1959, which
00:56:27.600
coincidentally is the last time we were like really strong and growing.
00:56:31.640
You know, it seems like since the 60s, everything's been kind of going downhill.
00:56:34.800
And, you know, if we did acquire Greenland in a serious way, that would expand the size
00:56:41.600
That would be, not by, in terms of people, obviously, but in terms of land, that would
00:56:45.200
And just think of the shrimp, the amount of shrimp we'd have.
00:56:47.780
The delicious shrimp would be, there is a real question though.
00:56:51.060
Does this violate, you know, the NATO treaties or international law?
00:56:56.560
But I believe, I don't like to say this out loud because I know it's going to blow back
00:56:59.820
on me, but I believe that empire is a phase in the life of great nations and I don't think
00:57:07.480
I'm, I'm sort of hoping I'll be gone so you guys have to deal with it.
00:57:11.020
But still, I think ultimately that it, you're, there's just an amoral truth about the fact
00:57:18.560
And, uh, and I think, uh, you know, war with Denmark is going to be so much fun.
00:57:22.720
And I, you know, I love the foreign minister of Denmark.
00:57:24.840
He looks like a lawn troll, you know, and he's very civilized.
00:57:31.640
And he says, I agree with Trump in many ways that this, you know, but we can talk it out.
00:57:40.440
So as, as the, as the, apparently Abraham Lincoln's, all of your imperialist ambitions
00:57:45.120
to grab Texas and open it to slavery, apparently.
00:57:51.200
Um, I, I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.
00:57:57.160
I think it's great that you have to say it though.
00:58:00.980
I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland.
00:58:04.180
Listen, I'm, I'm fine with, with cutting whatever contract we want to cut with Greenland.
00:58:09.120
If we can pressure them into selling the thing, that's fine.
00:58:10.900
If we want to grab their mineral rights, that's cool too.
00:58:12.820
But like, I'm just, I'm, I'm wondering, I do love the fact that really all this has come
00:58:17.480
down to is that Donald Trump really wants to rename that place Trumpland and just increase
00:58:21.660
the map and be like, this is the thing that I got.
00:58:28.200
Like right now, if we just decided to put 20,000 troops in Greenland without invading,
00:58:33.040
we could just build a base and put our troops there.
00:58:37.580
So this idea that like the Chinese are about to grab Greenland.
00:58:41.640
The Russians are about to wade ashore in nuke and they're going to, they're going to start
00:58:49.700
I was hoping now that Trump took the Venezuela ladies Nobel prize.
00:59:00.480
The taking of the, the taking of the Nobel prize is so like, are you kidding me?
00:59:06.540
You know what it feels like to take in the Nobel prize?
00:59:08.500
You know, you know how on eBay, there'll be some guy who won an Oscar and then he goes
00:59:13.620
And so you're sitting there and you've got like Marlon Brando's second Oscar on your mantle.
00:59:20.620
You just walk around like, here's Maria Machado's Nobel prize.
00:59:23.380
I like the idea that she insisted, she insisted that he wade out.
00:59:26.480
She insisted he take, she's like this little piece of girl.
00:59:36.300
And I, and, and obviously when we build the, uh, the greenhouse in, in Greenland,
00:59:40.740
then president Trump will obviously put the Nobel prize in the greenhouse.
00:59:45.960
Well, I think, look, I think it's, it's a good, even if you disagree with, uh, with going
00:59:51.420
in and conquering Greenland and making them our, our slaves, because that's another part
00:59:58.660
But even if you disagree with that, the fact that Trump has that, the desire at all to
01:00:03.340
kind of like expand in this way is, is that's, that's what presidents, I like that.
01:00:09.520
I mean, that's, that's what, that's what our leaders should want to do.
01:00:13.940
It was the last time when it felt like, um, well, I would say it's actually 1969 to me.
01:00:19.580
1969 was the last time when it, when, when, you know, it felt like America was, was, was,
01:00:27.300
And that's when we, that's when we landed on the moon, of course, and we actually did land
01:00:32.180
Um, but I think there's also this kind of, and I know it's not the most compelling foreign
01:00:36.940
policy argument, but there's this kind of the spiritual truth, which is that, uh, if you're
01:00:41.920
a great country, then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore,
01:00:54.060
Well, when America has been truly great, it's, it's when it was driven by that desire, by
01:01:00.800
And then it's kind of like, well, we expanded, we took over, you know, the continental United
01:01:06.200
And then, and then we said, well, where, where's there left to go?
01:01:08.340
Then we started going up and, and we're not really doing that as much anymore.
01:01:11.220
At least that's now kind of in the private sector with Elon Musk.
01:01:14.020
And, uh, and so Trump is the first leader in a while who says, no, let's continue to try
01:01:20.860
And I think that that's, um, I think like you said, Drew, if you're not, if you're not
01:01:25.180
I think, I think there's like a real truth to that when it comes to nations.
01:01:28.640
There's a fact too, which is we had been, you know, since the middle of the 19th century,
01:01:32.460
the state department has been eyeing Greenland.
01:01:34.220
We've tried to buy it multiple times over the years, including the 20th century.
01:01:36.940
And it is kind of weird that Denmark controls Greenland in, in that, you know, Denmark has been
01:01:43.520
downhill ever since Claudius killed Hamlet's dad.
01:01:46.220
You know, like it has not been, it's not been a good few centuries.
01:01:49.860
And so you think it's bizarre that they're there.
01:01:53.140
When Trump was in the Oval Office, he said, Denmark said they're going to double up their
01:02:01.820
They have the serious dog sled Arctic defense, which I'm sure they're great people and great
01:02:06.000
dogs, but you know, that's not really going to cut it.
01:02:08.300
And so, you know, then there's this argument that, well, this violates the spirit of NATO or something.
01:02:15.700
It was developed in the Cold War to protect the American empire, you know, against the
01:02:21.560
And it doesn't mean exactly the same thing after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
01:02:25.360
And yeah, to your, to your, really, to all of your points, well, no, not as much to Ben's,
01:02:29.440
you know, because he doesn't want us to just gobble up the whole world.
01:02:31.680
But to Matt and Drew's point, you know, we're, we're great.
01:02:37.980
And you just look at the map and you say, this is kind of weird, especially with a more
01:02:41.220
aggressive China and Russia, whether or not they're actually going to land and put up
01:02:45.600
Like the fact that they're a little, a little more on the move now means that, yeah, I think
01:02:51.300
And, you know, Denmark, I think you're going to get on board.
01:02:55.080
By the way, Kalshi says, according to our sponsors, Kalshi, 42% shot or 42% of the people
01:02:59.480
who are betting on it say that, uh, that we're going to take Greenland.
01:03:03.560
And if that's, you know, you can, you might be able to tell.
01:03:05.980
We'll see if there's like an insider spike right before Trump declares that we, that
01:03:10.740
So, uh, honestly, my, my main objective, my main objection to taking Greenland is just,
01:03:20.240
Like Trump is like, we must, we must deter Russia.
01:03:22.620
We must deter Russia from, from going after Greenland.
01:03:24.620
Like, you know, what's a really great way to deter Russia?
01:03:26.880
To fight it, to, to have the Ukrainians fight them.
01:03:29.200
Like there's like engaging a gigantic ass land war in the middle of Eastern Europe.
01:03:37.140
Greenland, like, this is where we draw the line.
01:03:44.760
No, you're probably not in the minority, but you're wrong.
01:03:48.720
I think the shrimp is the one that turns me toward Greenland.
01:03:51.660
And as I keep kosher, so I don't care about the shrimp.
01:03:58.520
You know, and because, because we added Hawaii as a state in 1959, the vastness of the American
01:04:04.200
Empire, sea to sea, we can actually have coconut shrimp once we take Greenland.
01:04:12.200
There's two, we have to, we have to go and we need to go to Duke.
01:04:18.800
Go become a Daily Wire member right now, and you can hear Matt Walsh vigorously defend