Ben Shapiro (27:19)
Okay, that is absolutely true. Now, again, when it comes to the corruption of our institutions, that continues apace, and it really is crisis point in America with regard to the corruption of these institutions. See, as a conservative, I think that institutions are really crucial. They shape the people who go into them. There's a reliance for our liberty on functional institutions. And as those institutions are hollowed out and become corrupt, it makes it very, very difficult for liberty to become the baseline that we all live with. So, for example, when it comes to free markets, you require a couple of things for free markets to function. One, private property, obviously, and two, consistent rule of law. If there's no consistent rule of law and anybody can grab anybody else's property at any time, or the government can come in and seize your property at any time, there is no way for markets to function because you have no incentive to invest. You know that the money can get stolen at any time. You need workable, consistent rules with institutions that act in unbiased fashion. Well, all of this is now going by the wayside throughout our institutions. This is the corruption of the left. The left has unfortunately always been a sort of post modernist institution in the sense that it's all about power, going all the way back to Karl Marx. The argument is that pretty much all human relations are power dynamics and power relations, and thus you are justified in using any means necessary to accomplish your goals. That was only made clear, obviously. Over the course of the 20th century by people on the left. But it's now become part and parcel of pretty much every institution. As the left enters institutions, it corrupts them and destroys them, whether we were talking about the doj, whether we were talking about the FBI, or whether we were talking about the courts. So Elon Musk has now been hit with an insane judgment. It really is quite insane. So this insane judgment comes courtesy of a chancellor in Delaware named Kathleen McCormick who voided a pay plan for Elon Musk. Now, if Elon Musk were not named Elon Musk, if Elon Musk weren't in fact an apolitical, totally Benign, absolutely anodyne CEO of a company, would he be having $56 billion in values revoked from him? This is actually a major story because it is a confiscation of private property and an invasion of freedom of contract. So for those who don't know this story, the basic story goes like this. Back in 2018, Elon Musk took control of Tesla. And one of the things that he put in place was zero compensation for himself. Zero. Okay. There was only one proviso, which is that if he achieved returns on the stock price of Tesla at an extraordinary rate, then he would get a big payday. So, as Nelly Bowles has pointed out at the Free Press, when Elon Musk announced he didn't need a salary from Tesla, but wanted instead to make a bet that if the company grew to a market cap of $650 billion, you get an enormous payout, just about everybody laughed. That figure was more than 10 times the value of Tesla at the time. In fact, the New York Times, his top business writer, Andrew Ross Sorkin, said it was the, quote, most radical compensation plan in corporate history. Sorkin said, quote, he gets no salary, cash bonus, equity. He gets only equity that vests over time, but only if he reaches these hurdle rates, which are, I dare I say crazy. The Washington Post's own business writer said that the deal was, quote, the Elon Musk of corporate pay deals. A cocksure all or nothing moonshot into history. Nobody suggested this was a deal that was designed to bankrupt Tesla, or that the deal was an insider deal or anything. The hot take, according to Nellie Bowles, was that the deal was technically kosher, but that Elon Musk must be an idiot. The board unanimously approved the compensation plan. Tesla shareholders then approved the grant with 73% voting in his favor. And then it turns out that Tesla became the largest, most high value market cap car company on planet Earth. And he hit the mark. And then he got the payday. Except now this Chancellor is attempting to claw it back. According to CNBC, the package, worth about $56 billion, was the largest compensation plan in U.S. history for a public company executive. Tesla said in a post on social media, which Musk owns, that it plans to appeal the ruling. Musk called the ruling absolute corruption. In January, The Chancellor, Kathleen McCormack, voided the pay plan, ruling that Musk had individually controlled Tesla and dictated the terms of his own compensation to a board that didn't fairly negotiate. So Tesla then went back in June at its annual meeting in Texas and asked investors to ratify the 2018 CEO pay plan. And they did. Okay. And then the Chancellor still avoided the pay plan. McCormick wrote, quote, even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here. Were the courts condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable. That is the stupidest argument in human history. So if there is a trial and then after the trial, you and I decide that we are going to have a settlement, does the judge suddenly declare, or in the middle of the trial, we decide that we're going to go outside and have a settlement, does the judge declare that settlement talks are bad because the settlement talks would somehow preclude a judgment from being found? That is not how that works. No one believes that's how the judicial system works. Who actually got paid? Well, somebody did. As it turns out, money did change hands. McCormick ended up approving a $345 million attorney fee award for the lawyers who successfully sued on behalf of a minority of Tesla shareholders in order to void Musk's pay plans. Lawyers got super rich, as always. Musk, for his part, suggests that this is corruption. He is right about that. It is ridiculous. It is a taking in violation of the Constitution of the United States. And you would imagine that Musk is going to appeal here. But you wonder why. These institutions are widely perceived as corrupt. This is why they are widely perceived as corrupt. The system on every level is now widely perceived as corrupt. And that is a problem. It is a real problem. It is a problem from the DOJ to the FBI to the Delaware Chancellory of Law. It is a massive issue in American public life. Well, folks, let's talk about something that actually works. Efficient business finance management. 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There's never been a better time to join. Head on over to dailywireplus.com cyberweek right now. No code necessary, just 50% off. But hurry this deal and soon. Don't wait. Join the fight today. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, has fallen under significant fire, particularly from the press. So there's another hit piece from the New Yorker that came out on Monday making a wide variety of wild claims about Pete Hegseth. That piece suggests that Hegseth was, quote, forced to step down as president of the advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America amid, quote, serious allegations of misconduct. So what exactly are those allegations? Well, some of those allegations are manhandling of strippers. For example, the allegation that he went to some sort of club and was shouting about killing Muslims or something. Okay. The. The. The. The allegations are quite wild. Now, according to Compact magazine, it is clear that they are probably untrue. Sour Bamari writes, quote, in interviews with me, two former senior leaders of CVA have denied the whistleblower allegations against Tegseth. They insisted he left the organization voluntarily without any pressure bearing down on him from its funders. Unlike the New Yorker sources, one of Hegseth's CVA defenders spoke on the record. Sean Parnell, former US Army Airborne Ranger who retired as a captain with a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars and served as senior advisor at CVA during Hegseth's tenure, said, quote, I was just there for most of these alleged incidents, and this stuff is complete fabrication. Parnell asserted the whistleblower claims had come from people who were let go as the organization was growing, who weren't fulfilling their duties. They just weren't. Another veteran of the war on terror said, quote, all false. These were false allegations made by a group of disgruntled employees fired by Pete. In some cases, according to this veteran, the complainants attributed their own carousing to Hegseth Parnell. And the second CBA veteran also rejected the New Yorker's claim that Hegseth was forced out of his position at the organization because of personal misconduct. Parnell says, quote, that couldn't be further from the truth. This is right before President Trump began his first term. Pete and I were on media all the time, talking about national security and foreign policy. He and I became big believers in Trump's vision of foreign policy. The funders of that organization didn't necessarily believe that because of that policy difference over what America's foreign policy and national security policy should be, Pete parted ways. It was 100% professional political differences. Parnell says he was already a Fox News contributor. ABC was interested in him. He didn't leave for no reason at all. But again, the smears are going to keep on coming for Pete Hegseth, largely because so many people see Pete Hegseth as a. As a threat to the system. Meanwhile, Hegseth apparently had a bit of a tete a tete with a Fox News reporter. According to Fox News reporter Chad Pergram, he was reporting that Pam Bondi might be easier to confirm than Matt Gaetz, but Pete Hegseth could be a problem. And then, apparently, Hegseth addressed a press gaggle in the halls of the Capitol building. At which point, on tape, CBS News's Nicole Killian asked Hegseth, quote, when you were at concern veterans of America, were you ever drunk while traveling on the job. And Hegseth said, I won't dignify that with a response. Okay. Which again, I think is the proper response from Pete Hegseth at this point. There's a reason why the media are out to get Hegseth in a way that they weren't even out to get. I think Matt Gates, these sort of organic objections to Hegseth do not exist in the same way that they did with regard to Matt Gaetz. And meanwhile, it is clear that the Trump foreign policy is going to be very different from the Joe Biden foreign policy. Yesterday, Trump issued an amazing statement with regard to the hostages currently being held by Hamas. Here is the statement, quote, everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire world in the Middle East. But it's all talk and no action. Please let this truth serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as President of the United States, there will be all hell to pay. That's all caps in the Middle East. And for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity, those responsible will be hit harder than anyone has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America. Release the hostages now. And now, just imagine if Joe Biden had taken that position from the very beginning of this war. This war had been over six months ago. Okay, but Donald Trump is doing that. So what exactly is that going to look like for President Trump? Well, there are a wide variety of things that President Trump could do. So, for example, he could put heavy pressure on both Qatar and Turkey. Qatar has serious connections with Hamas. That is why the Hamas leadership was, until very recently, staying in Qatar. Qatar plays all sides of every field. They pour money into American universities. They pour money into soccer teams. They host the Olympics. They host the World Cup. They do all of these things in order to shield themselves from criticism, but they effectively are an Iranian Katzpah. The United States could easily say that we are going to remove our airbase from Qatar if Qatar doesn't pressure Hamas to release the hostages. The United States could also take measures against Turkey. The government of Turkey, which is an Islamist government currently supporting Sunni ISIS members in Syria, among others, and currently playing host to wounded Hamas members and Hamas leadership. We could simply say to them, listen, whatever membership in NATO you have is going to be immediately revoked unless you guys get on board, expel Hamas and force Hamas to release the hostages. That could Certainly be something in terms of on the ground action. Let's say that there is no incentive structure from outside the Gaza Strip that could actually be brought to bear on members of Hamas inside the Gaza Strip. There are still things that the United States could do. Number one, the United States could theoretically relieve pressure on the Israelis to perform humanitarian aid functions that Hamas is stealing. One of the things that Hamas has been doing, one of the things keeping Hamas alive is the massive amounts of humanitarian aid that are being shipped into the Gaza Strip and that are subsequently being stolen by Hamas. Now, Hamas doesn't care if its own people starve. Hamas does not care if Palestinians die en masse. In fact, that was the entire purpose of the war. Their goal was to kill enough Israelis to prompt a serious military response in the hopes that Israel would end up mass killing civilians. That Hamas could claim that it was the victim and then get the world on board for actions against Israel. That was their pretty open goal. So they don't care if Hamas affiliated civilians or non affiliated civilians die in the Gaza Strip. However, it is true that Hamas has been making its money by stealing humanitarian aid at point of gun and then reselling it to people in the Gaza Strip or seizing the aid and using it for themselves. If the United States were to say, listen, no more humanitarian aid until the hostages are given up, at the very least, Hamas would be deprived of its lifeline and its monetary supply. And then there's a proposal that's been put forward by Eugene Kontorovich, who is a legal scholar from Israel. This is a proposal that I think would probably be the most successful proposal. This is a proposal that suggests that the thing that Hamas and terrorists in the Palestinian Authority and the rest care about most is grabbing more and more and more territory. If, however, that were to reverse, if holding the hostages were to result in more territory being annexed by Israel with the permission and acquiescence of the United States, then that would actually reverse the polarity. See, the thing is that if you're going to exert pressure on Hamas, you have to find something they care about. They don't care about dead civilians. They don't seem to care about money very much, obviously, because the Israeli government has been offering a reward of $5 million for any person who frees a hostage and instant transport out of the Gaza Strip. But Kantarovich points out that one of the things that the United States could do, he says for every day Hamas does not give up the hostages, America could recognize 100 square dunam of Gaza as a permanent Israeli Buffer zone for every murdered hostage, 1000 square Adunam and then do it. The war would be over in days. A dunam is approximately a quarter of an acre. So basically his suggestion is that for every single day that Hamas doesn't give up the hostages, America recognizes that 25 square acres of Gaza disappear. They just said they become part of a buffer zone in which nobody lives in the Gaza Strip and the territory just keeps shrinking. So Hamas would have achieved the reverse of its supposed goals in this war, which was to extirpate the state of Israel. Instead, they would be extirpating their own territory. This is easily the best suggestion by Kantarovich. The bottom line is that the entire orientation of the Trump administration is very different from the Biden administration when it comes to this conflict. The Biden administration keeps trying to play halves with terrorists over and over and over. In fact, it was the Biden administration playing halves with terrorists that led to the breakdown of the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel yesterday. So basically, that ceasefire, which was signed just about a week ago, that ceasefire gave Israel the ability to continue to do anti terror operations if Hezbollah were to ship weaponry or personnel south of the Litany river in Lebanon. And the Biden administration has been yelling at Israel for enforcing that. So basically the Biden administration position is that actually Hezbollah can willy nilly violate the ceasefire by shipping both personnel and material south of Litany with the acquiescence or in spite of any resistance by the Lebanese Armed forces. And that Israel could do nothing. Well, the minute that the American government said that publicly, that now gave Hezbollah every ability to do exactly what it wanted to do and up the ante again and violate the ceasefire. Which is why yesterday Hezbollah fired at Israeli controlled territory for the first time since the ceasefire was reached last week, prompting Israel to launch a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon as each side blamed the other for violating the tenuous truce. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah projectiles fell in open areas without causing casualties. The Lebanese armed group said its launches had been prompted by, quote, repeated violations of the agreement by the Israeli enemy, describing it as, quote, an initial defensive response that serves as a warning. Now, again, the reason that they are doing that is because Hezbollah terrorists have been crossing the Litany and they've been shipping in materiel and they've been moving up on the Lebanese border once again. The only reason they think they can get away with that is because Joe Biden is a fool and a simpleton and so are the rest of the members of his foreign policy administration. They are jokes. And because they are jokes, Hezbollah is treating them as jokes. That is going to end the minute that Donald Trump enters office. In fact, if Hamas were to cut a deal today, one of the things that we very clear is that they are cutting a deal because they know that they better cut a deal now with Joe Biden, sop that he is in office rather than Donald Trump, because they're gonna get a much worse deal out of President Trump than they're gonna get out of the pathetic and weak spined Biden administration. Well, folks, meanwhile, over at the Supreme Court, there is a big case that is being heard all about, quote, unquote, transgender rights. What is it really about? Well, the case is called United States versus Script, and it's about whether a Tennessee law that bans gender transition sex change techniques used on minors violates the Constitution's equal protection guarantee. The basic idea here would somehow be that if you are a state that says that boys cannot become girls and girls cannot become boys, and you enshrine that in law, you are violating equal rights under the Constitution, which is an insane contention. Joining me on the line to discuss is Chloe Cole, detransitioner. So she had a double mastectomy at 15 and draws from her personal experiences to shed light on the distressing consequences of gender affirming care for adolescents. Chloe, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it.
