Dems in DC, Tren De Aragua, or Houthi Pirates: Who had the Worst Weekend?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Dems in DC, Tren De Aragua, or Houthi Pirates: Who had the Worst Weekend?"

Podcast: 10 Minute Drill
Host: Matt Whitlock
Release Date: March 18, 2025

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Introduction

In the March 18, 2025 episode of 10 Minute Drill, host Matt Whitlock delves into the tumultuous weekend in Washington D.C., dissecting the Democrats' maneuvers in the face of a government funding crisis, the controversial deportations linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua, and the aggressive actions against Houthi pirates in Yemen. Whitlock, alongside guests Ben Shapiro and snippets of Donald Trump's commentary, provides a comprehensive analysis of the current political climate, public opinion polls, and the strategic missteps of the Democratic Party.

Government Shutdown and Democratic Strategy

The episode opens with Ben Shapiro summarizing the recent legislative battle over government funding. House Republicans had passed a funding bill, prompting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to threaten a government shutdown—a move that ultimately backfired.

Ben Shapiro [00:32]: "House Republicans had just passed a bill to fund the government. Soon after, Leader Schumer in the Senate announced that Democrats were going to be shutting down the government."

Donald Trump echoes the Republican perspective, highlighting the lack of support in the Senate:

Donald Trump [00:41]: "Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House cr."

Shapiro critiques the Democrats' strategy, pointing out two major mistakes: misrepresenting the continuing resolution to their base and overestimating their actual power, leading to unprecedented frustration and low approval ratings.

Polling Data on Democratic Approval

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the latest CNN polls, revealing a dramatic decline in public support for the Democratic Party.

Ben Shapiro [02:00]: "Americans favorable views of the Democratic Party brand are at a record low, just 29%."

The polls also highlight the confusion within the Democratic base regarding party leadership, with only 10% endorsing figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders.

Democratic Leadership and Public Perception

Shapiro emphasizes the lack of effective leadership within the Democratic Party, citing Chuck Schumer's postponement of his book tour due to safety concerns:

Ben Shapiro [04:06]: "Chuck Schumer wrote a book about needing to fight against antisemitism. So he's postponing a book tour about stopping antisemitism because of threats and concerns about his own safety after voting to fund the government."

This postponement underscores the internal struggles and declining morale among Democrats, further eroding public trust.

President Trump's Positive Polling Surge

Contrasting the Democrats' struggles, President Trump is experiencing a notable uptick in approval ratings. Shapiro references exclusive CNN polls indicating Trump's approval has risen to levels not seen since 2004.

Donald Trump [04:35]: "If that doesn't seem like a lot, the last time it cracked 40%, you gotta go back to 2012."

Shapiro interprets these numbers as evidence that many Americans are satisfied with Trump's handling of key issues, from the economy to foreign policy.

Criticism of President Biden's Administration

The episode also critiques President Biden's administration, particularly spotlighting questionable actions and executive decisions allegedly made without his direct oversight.

Ben Shapiro [05:30]: "President Biden said, I didn't do that. And it was clear to Speaker Johnson that he had no idea that staffers using his name had signed an executive order pausing liquid natural G exports."

Shapiro argues that these missteps have led to a lack of coherent policy direction, fueling public skepticism about the true leadership behind the Biden administration.

Deportations and Action Against Foreign Terrorists

A major news story covered is President Trump's recent deportation of illegal immigrants linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua, notorious for criminal activities in the U.S.

Ben Shapiro [07:15]: "President Trump announced over the weekend that they had sent a plane full of illegal immigrants connected to the Venezuelan gang Trende Aragua."

Shapiro cites New York Times polling data showing overwhelming public support for deporting criminal and violent illegal immigrants, with approval rates reaching up to 87%.

New Segment: "You Can't Make It Up"

Introducing a new segment, Whitlock discusses the emergence of the group Families Over Billionaires, which has gained attention for organizing protests against high-profile billionaires like Elon Musk and President Trump.

Ben Shapiro [09:00]: "Families Over Billionaires is actually funded by foreign billionaire Hans Jorg Wiess, who has gotten a lot of attention for funding just about every negative political activity in the country through the Arabella Advisors Network."

This revelation points to significant foreign influence in domestic political activism, raising questions about the authenticity and motives behind such movements.

Conclusion

In this episode of 10 Minute Drill, Matt Whitlock, alongside Ben Shapiro and insights from Donald Trump, paints a vivid picture of a Democratic Party in disarray, grappling with low approval ratings and ineffective leadership. Concurrently, President Trump capitalizes on this weakness, bolstering his own standing through decisive actions and favorable public perception. The episode underscores the shifting dynamics in American politics, highlighting the challenges and strategies shaping the ongoing political landscape.

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Note: This summary is based on the provided transcript and includes attributed quotes with timestamps for clarity and reference.

Transcript

[Ben Shapiro]

Democrats shut down chaos and knee jerk opposition has led them to all time polling lows as President Trump fights foreign terrorists and deports dangerous criminal illegal aliens. All of that and more today on 10 Minute Drill.

[Donald Trump]

Everybody get up. Get up. The story of America is the story of an adventure. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God and I believe God intended for us to be free.

[Ben Shapiro]

When we last spoke, House Republicans had just passed a bill to fund the government. Soon after, Leader Schumer in the Senate announced that Democrats were going to be shutting down the government.

[Donald Trump]

Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House cr.

[Ben Shapiro]

That led to a flurry of activity. Republicans launching a Schumer shutdown campaign and a lot of coverage of Leader Schumer not really having any cards to play. But he had riled up the base, they had sharpened their pitchforks and lit their torches and they were ready to shut down the government within about 24 hours. Schumer seemed to look around and see he didn't really have a path out of this. They could try and delay, they could shut down the government, but in the end, their best case scenario was going to be to pass the government funding bill that had just passed over from the House. So he voted to fund the government and they went into the weekend. But the flurry of rage that came after that, all the way up to his own House counterpart, Hakeem Jeffries, was incredibly telling.

[Chuck Schumer]

Senator Chuck Schumer is from your state. He clearly has a different view of this than you. He is not saying let's go back to the negotiating table. He's saying let's take this vote. So do you. Have you lost confidence in him? The fact that you guys see this so differently.

[Donald Trump]

Next question.

[Ben Shapiro]

Now, Chuck Schumer made the right move here. Shutting down the government would have taken their incredibly low approval rating, likely even lower because nobody likes a government shutdown. And it also would have validated so much of President Trump and Doge's arguments about so much of the government not being necessary. They would make that case for them. Two big mistakes the Democrats made in this fight. First, they convinced their base that this continuing resolution was something it wasn't. They convinced their base that by stopping this continuing resolution, they could somehow stop Trump and Elon. That's not what it was. This was, was a clean continuing resolution that was continuing spending policy passed from under President Biden. Republicans wanted to simply pass this to keep the government funding so they could live to fight another day. The second big mistake the Democrats made was convincing their base that they had power to do something about it that they didn't have. Brendan Buck wrote a really smart piece about this in the New York Times. He worked for two Republican speakers and constantly saw this dynamic. If you convince your activist base that you have powers that you don't have, they're going to perpetually be angry. And that anger and rage led us into a weekend where we got a ton of new polling that showed how people feel about Democrats right now. Brand new exclusive CNN poll that paints a brutal reality for Democrats as they struggle to mount a unified opposition to President Trump. Americans favorable views of the Democratic Party brand are at a record low, just 29%. These all time low numbers come at the same time as Democrats are really struggling without a leader. Another CNN poll question asked Democrats who they think best represents their party with 10% was AOC, who we talked about just last week, used taxpayer funds to pay for dance classes. But rounding out that top five, you also had Bernie Sanders, asocialist and Jasmine Crockett, who has been on TV quite a bit saying a whole lot of nothing. And if you go way down that list at 2%, you have Gavin Newsom, who despite a fascinating new podcast, is not seeming to break through. But then also Tim Waltz, who was the Democrats VP nominee just a few months ago, who with 1% clearly isn't really winning anybody over. But that's not stopping him from going on a new tour.

[Donald Trump]

Can you imagine if President Barack Obama had brought his unelected African friend to cut. You know what I mean?

[Ben Shapiro]

One of the toughest visuals of this current meltdown for Democrats is that Chuck Schumer just announced yesterday that he is postponing his book tour. Chuck Schumer wrote a book about needing to fight against antisemitism. So he's postponing a book tour about stopping antisemitism because of threats and concerns about his own safety after voting to fund the government. I think that's quite a tough look for Democrats right now. At the same time, President Trump is getting some pretty positive news about his.

[Donald Trump]

Polling that's up since November. And if that doesn't seem like a lot, the last time it cracked 40%, you gotta go back to 2012. The last time it actually hit 44 or higher, January of 2004.

[Ben Shapiro]

So not only do a lot of Americans believe the country's moving in the right direction, but NBC also looked very closely at how people feel about the changes that President Trump is making on specific issues, everything from immigration to the economy to the fight between Israel and Hamas to the fight with Russia and Ukraine. I think that as you look at this, it's surprising because if you've watched a lot of mainstream media, if you've watched an evening newscast or seen how people in Washington are talking about things, you'd think that there was a lot more fury and consternation at everything President Trump does. But these numbers show us it's a big country and there are a lot of people who actually feel pretty good about how things are going right now. It might be that they've seen egg prices start to drop. It might be the gradual tick down of gas prices. I think that there are a lot of things that the Trump team would point to as positive now. There might be some numbers, particularly with independent vot, that are showing a little bit of softness, and I think those will shift again as the economy sorts itself out, but also as President Trump tries to make big strides on things like, you know, the war in Russia. There was another story last week about President Biden's use of an auto pen. I worked in two Senate offices that both had auto pens, but they were used primarily for ceremonial things and occasionally signing constituent letters, signing on bills that the member had already spoken publicly about, things that nobody would question if they were actually supportive of or not. With President Biden, the reason that this is getting some extra attention is over the last few months of his presidency, there were a number of actions taken that people did not necessarily believe were at his own behest or with President Biden's buy in. One story about this came from Speaker Johnson, who told the Free Press that he was in a meeting with President Biden, a one on one meeting. And he asked President Biden, why did you pause liquid natural gas exports to Europe? This is something that climate groups had really, really pushed for and was a huge boon to Putin in Russia because President Putin had funded most of his war by selling oil and natural gas to Europe. And by cutting off American exports to Europe, they had to go to Russia to buy more of their liquid natural gas. So when Speaker Johnson asked President Biden, why did you cut this off? President Biden said, I didn't do that. And it was clear to Speaker Johnson that he had no idea that staffers using his name had signed an executive order pausing liquid natural G exports. And when we heard about gold bars flying off the Titanic and we saw all of these last minute pardons that were incredibly controversial, even things like tweeting a Constitutional amendment into ratification. None of this felt like President Biden. And I think now people are going to ask a lot of questions about who's been running the country for the last four years. And as Democrats try to attack Elon Musk by calling him an unelected president, they have a big challenge landing that attack. When you consider how much of President Biden's administration was run by unelected officials who had an auto pan, President Trump announced over the weekend that they had sent a plane full of illegal immigrants connected to the Venezuelan gang Trende Aragua. This gang has been seen and tracked terrorizing American neighborhoods, particularly a viral story in Colorado where they had taken over an apartment building. New York times polling showed 87% of people support deporting criminal illegal immigrants. And that gets even higher when you ask about violent criminal illegal immigrants. But it was interesting to watch Democrats react to this. Now, I won't pretend to be a lawyer here. I'll leave the discussion about court orders and things like that to other much smarter people. But the politics of this are very interesting because the next day we saw Democrats like Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Jasmine Crockett go on TV and argue against this. It's a tough position to be in, but it does help explain why their approval rating is so low. When your knee jerk reaction to anything President Trump does, whether it's deporting members of Trend Aragua or President Trump unbanning plastic straws, you're going to find yourself in a lot of uncomfortable territory. And that's what we continue to see with Democrats. Another thing President Trump announced over the weekend is they were taking decisive action to bomb the Houthi terrorists out of Yemen, who we know are backed by Iran. President Biden, when he came into Office back in 2021, announced they would be taking the Houthi terrorists off the foreign terrorist designation list, which really surprised a lot of people. And within a fairly short time, they began bombing American allies again, particularly after October 7th when started going after Israel. That escalated to shooting at American personnel and American craft in the Red Sea. And President Biden was criticized quite a bit for never taking any action. In response to that. President Trump decided, we're not gonna take that anymore, and he began a campaign against them. And we're going to see how that carries out. This week we have a new segment called you can't make it up. Over the last few weeks, there's been news stories about a group called Families Over Billionaires. Now, we've talked a lot here about the dark money groups that are behind a lot of these protest. One of the groups that has gotten a lot of attention is called Families Over Billionaires. They've organized protests against Doge, against Elon Musk, and against President Trump. What was revealed was Families Over Billionaires is actually funded by foreign billionaire Hans Jorg Wiess, who has gotten a lot of attention for funding just about every negative political activity in the country through the Arabella Advisors Network. So Democrats have a foreign billionaire funding their group that is intended to attack billionaires on behalf of families. Families Over Billionaires brought to you by foreign billionaires. Thank you so much for joining us today on 10 Minute Drill. Please be sure to subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, social media, tell your friends. Thanks so much for joining us.