Ep. 2117 - WAR FIGHTER: Hegseth Stuns Democrats At Confirmation Hearing

Summary

Episode Summary: Ep. 2117 - WAR FIGHTER: Hegseth Stuns Democrats At Confirmation Hearing

Release Date: January 15, 2025
Podcast: The Ben Shapiro Show
Host: Ben Shapiro, with Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles
Platform: The Daily Wire

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1. Introduction

The episode kicks off with the hosts Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Michael Knowles setting the stage for a day filled with significant political events, including key Senate confirmation hearings and the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump for his historic second term.

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2. Pete Hegseth's Confirmation Hearing

The primary focus of this episode centers on Pete Hegseth's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing for the position of Secretary of Defense. Hegseth, a former National Guard officer with combat experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, faced intense scrutiny from Democratic senators aiming to undermine his nomination.

a. Democrats' Attacks on Hegseth

Democratic senators launched personal and professional attacks against Hegseth, questioning his qualifications and character. Senator Gary Peters accused him of being "unqualified," while Senator Mazie Hirono labeled him a "sloppy drunk" based on unfounded allegations.

Matt Walsh [12:24]: "Someone who has never managed an organization."
Ben Shapiro [16:04]: "I'm not scared of anything, Senator."

b. Hegseth's Responses

Hegseth adeptly countered the attacks by reaffirming his commitment to military excellence and adherence to the rule of law. He emphasized the importance of meritocracy and eliminating political interference in defense matters.

Pete Hegseth [02:35]: "We are a country that fights by the rule of law, and our men and women always do."

c. Key Topics Discussed

• Military Standards and Readiness: Hegseth stressed the necessity of maintaining high standards in the military, opposing the lowering of criteria for diversity quotas.

  Ben Shapiro [03:29]: "In those ground combat roles... they have to meet the same high standards."

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): He criticized the current focus on DEI, arguing it detracts from military lethality and effectiveness.

  Michael Knowles [04:08]: "Hegseth talked about diversity, equity and inclusion... these are basic notions."

• Foreign Policy and Israel: Hegseth expressed strong support for Israel's defense, unequivocally backing aggressive measures against Hamas.

  Ben Shapiro [08:35]: "I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas."

d. Republican Support

Republican senators, including Senator Joni Ernst, endorsed Hegseth, highlighting his military background and principled stance on defense matters.

Michael Knowles [06:25]: "Senator Joni Ernst... endorsed Hegseth for Secretary of Defense."

e. Controversies Addressed

Democrats attempted to tarnish Hegseth's reputation by alleging past alcohol-related incidents and extramarital affairs. Hegseth vehemently denied these claims, pointing out the hypocrisy of Democrats who have their own members with questionable histories.

Ben Shapiro [15:01]: "I'm not scared of anything, Senator."
Matt Walsh [19:06]: "You recently promised some of my Republican colleagues that you stopped drinking and won't drink if confirmed."

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3. Other Defense Nominees

Beyond Hegseth, the episode touches upon other key nominees facing Senate hearings.

a. Marco Rubio - Secretary of State Nominee

Marco Rubio emphasized a foreign policy centered on U.S. national interests, rejecting the notion of isolationism. He critiqued the existing liberal world order, advocating for policies that prioritize American sovereignty.

Marco Rubio [46:00]: "Placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism."

b. Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.

• Tulsi Gabbard: Despite Democratic focus on Hegseth, Gabbard's nomination gains traction as Democrats expend their resources elsewhere. She pledges to maintain crucial intelligence operations like Section 702.

• RFK Jr.: The Trump team works to mitigate his vaccine skepticism by sidelining anti-vaccine advisers, aiming to smooth his nomination process.

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4. House Legislation on Women's Sports

The House of Representatives passed a bill banning men who identify as women from participating in women's sports, reflecting a significant stance against "woke" policies.

Ben Shapiro [35:04]: "Protecting women in sports is commonsensical."
Michael Knowles [35:22]: "This idea comports with common sense."

The bill passed with overwhelming Republican support, signaling a shift in legislative priorities and highlighting cultural battles over gender identity in sports.

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5. California Wildfires and Governor Gavin Newsom's Response

The hosts discuss the ongoing wildfires in California, criticizing Governor Gavin Newsom's handling of the crisis. Newsom's executive order aimed at preventing land developers from making unsolicited offers to affected homeowners was portrayed as anti-free-market and obstructive.

Ben Shapiro [38:31]: "Predatory behavior is disgusting."
Michael Knowles [38:41]: "Somebody comes to you and they offer you money and Gavin Newsom's response is, I'm going to prosecute that money."

The episode underscores the administration's left-leaning policies as hindrances to effective disaster recovery and economic freedom.

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6. Other News Highlights

While the core discussion revolves around defense and political nominations, the episode briefly touches upon other contemporary issues:

• Technology and Innovation: An interview with the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir discusses modernizing defense through innovation and addressing bureaucratic inefficiencies.

• Identity Protection and AI: Advertisements for LifeLock, Helix Sleep, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are interspersed, promoting services related to identity security, sleep enhancement, and cloud computing, respectively.

• Media and Public Figures: Criticism of figures like Jimmy Kimmel for shifting from entertainment to political commentary reinforces the show's stance on cultural issues.

• Biden Administration's Final Moves: The hosts critique President Biden's decision to remove Cuba from the terrorism sponsor list, labeling it as a "parting gift" that benefits corrupt regimes.

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7. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode presents Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing as a pivotal moment where conservative principles triumphed over Democratic attacks. Hegseth's firm stance on military readiness, meritocracy, and foreign policy aligns with the show's conservative ethos. Additionally, the House's move on women's sports and critiques of liberal policies in disaster management underscore the broader cultural and political battles shaping the current American landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• Pete Hegseth [02:35]: "We are a country that fights by the rule of law, and our men and women always do."
• Ben Shapiro [08:35]: "I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas."
• Matt Walsh [55:24]: "We have grossly under-resourced the lines of production and exercising those lines of production."

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This episode serves as a comprehensive analysis of current political dynamics, focusing on defense, legislative actions, and cultural conflicts, all framed through a conservative lens aimed at promoting principled truth over partisan spin.

Transcript

[Ben Shapiro]

Inauguration day, January 20th.

[Matt Walsh]

Watch it with us. Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, Andrew.

[Michael Knowles]

Clavin and Jeremy BOREN Live from D.C. donald Trump's historic second term officially begins.

[Ben Shapiro]

Coverage starts at 8:30am Eastern. Watch live on Daily Wire.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, folks, a lot is going on. Senator Marco Rubio, who is the nominee for secretary of state, he is having his hearing today. Pam Bondi, the attorney general nominee, she's having her hearing today. Today. But the big story of the day is what Pete Hegseth did as secretary of defense nominee in front of a Senate committee yesterday during his Senate hearing. We'll get to all that in a moment. First, remember, history is happening. You can watch it live with us here at the Daily Wire. We will be Live in Washington, D.C. for Donald Trump's inauguration as the 47th president of the United States. Do not miss a second of it. Plus, celebrate with 47% off your Daily Wire plus annual membership. Join [e-mail] subscribe using code 47. So Democrats thought that they were going to be able to get Pete Hegseth in the crosshairs and then they were going to be able to do serious damage to Pete Hegseth and to Republicans for having nominated Pete Hegseth. Boy, were they wrong. The Wall Street Journal writes during a Senate hearing, Hegseth pledged to restore the US Military's warrior culture, declaring his service as a National Guard junior officer in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US Military prison at Gitmo would bring a needed refocus to a Pentagon he claimed was concerned more with diversity and equity than then lethality and readiness. And Hegseth was great. Yes. Like not just good great. Iconically great. Yesterday, in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat after Democrat lined up to attack him, particularly on his personal life. And Hegseth weathered it like a champ. He came back at them where they said particularly stupid things and he said some things that need to be said. This is a very different secretary of defense nominee. Not only is he a person who actually served in the infantry, not only is he a person who's quite bright, obviously has degrees from both Harvard and Princeton, but Hegseth also has the perspective of the guy on the ground who actually has to do the fighting. He is not a political general who is elevated through the ranks for being able to get along with his superiors. That's not who Pete Hegseth is. He's an outsider who's being brought in to shake things up because guess what? The Department of Defense needs a good shaking up. He said a lot of things Yesterday many of them were quite wonderful. Here, for example, is Pete Hegseth yesterday who's being questioned about his adherence to things like the Geneva Conventions and his comments that American war fighters have to be given the ability to actually win. The answer to that, by the way, is absolutely yes. Here was Hegseth yesterday talking about the difference between the guys in the air conditioned offices and the guys with their boots on the ground.

[Ben Shapiro]

We are a country that fights by the rule of law, and our men and women always do. And yet we have too many people here in air conditioned, conditioned offices that like to point fingers at the guys in dark and dangerous places, the gals in helicopters in enemy territory who are doing things that people in Washington D.C. would never dare to do.

[Michael Knowles]

That is exactly right. That is exactly right. The Department of Defense should be about destroying the enemy. And the attempts of so many on the left to hamstring our ability to actually win wars using every tool at their disposal, including lawfare, is awful. And Hegseth is going to put an end to it. Hegseth talked about diversity, equity and inclusion, about the lowering of standards in order to, quote, unquote, diversify the American military. Here he was saying, you know what should matter? Skill. Being good at your job. These are basic notions. The fact the Democratic Party abandons in all of this is why they just got shellacked in the elections.

[Ben Shapiro]

Because in those ground combat roles, what is true is that the weight of the ruck on your back doesn't change the weight of the 155 round that you have to carry, doesn't change the weight of the 240 Bravo machine gun you might have to carry doesn't change. And so whether it's a man or a woman, they have to meet the same high standards. And Senator, in any place where those things have been eroded or in courses, criteria have been changed in order to meet quotas, racial quotas or gender quotas. That is putting a focus on something other than readiness standards, meritocracy, and lethality.

[Michael Knowles]

Again, this is such common sense. This is why he's going to make an excellent Secretary of Defense. We are no longer going to have General Mark Milley talking about the problems of white rage and how diversity is our greatest strength. It turns out the greatest strength of the military is effectiveness and lethality, its ability to kill the bad guys and pursue American interests. That also means thinning out the ranks of the political generals at the top. Here's Hexath saying, listening, you know, we used to win wars when you had fewer generals is something I noticed. Our staff numbers are exploding. What are you going to do about that, Senator?

[Ben Shapiro]

We're going to address that. We won World War II with seven four star generals. Today we have 44 four star generals. There's an inverse relationship between the size of staffs and victory on the battlefield. We don't need more bureaucracy at the top. We need more war fighters empowered at the bottom. So it's going to be my job working with those that we hire and those inside the administration to identify those places where fat can be cut so it can go toward lethality.

[Michael Knowles]

Of course. That's right. He also said, you know what that encompasses? That encompasses us firing the bad generals. You don't get to lose wars and keep your job. And perfectly obvious stuff that was apparently unsayable for decades.

[Ben Shapiro]

Everybody in this room knows if you're a rifleman and you lose your rifle, they're throwing the book at you. But if you're a general who loses a war, you get a promotion. That's not going to happen. In Donald Trump's Pentagon, there will be real standards for success. Everyone from the top, from the most senior general to the most lowly private will ensure that they're treated fairly. Men and women inside that system.

[Michael Knowles]

Again, that is totally correct. So Hegseth was asked about his perspective on women in combat. He had expressed his objections in the past to women in frontline combat roles. And what he says is, listen, if women can fulfill the standard, sure. The question is whether they can. And that is in fact an open don't change the standards for diversity's sake. Here with Senator Joni Ernst, who is considered someone who's sort of on the fence about Hegseth after these hearings, she came out and said that she endorsed Hegseth for secretary of Defense. He's going to sail through. He's going to get 51, 52, maybe even 53 votes. Here was Hegseth with Joni Ernst.

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator, first of all, thank you for your service. As we discussed extensively as well, it's my privilege and my answer is yes, exactly the way that you caveat it. Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, combat rows, given the standards remain high and will have a review to ensure the standards have not been eroded in any one of these cases. That'll be part of one of the first things we do at the Pentagon is reviewing that in a gender neutral way. The standards ensuring readiness and meritocracy is front and center. But absolutely, it would be the privilege of a lifetime if confirmed to be the Secretary of Defense for all men and women in uniform who fight so heroic, they have so many other options, they decide to put their right hand up for our country.

[Michael Knowles]

I mean, one of the things that Hegseth has going for him is not only his background, his military background, the fact that he's very bright. He also happens to be incredibly telegenic. Right. He was a TV star, which means that he is great on TV and knows how to speak in front of a crowd. He also suggested, you know, as part of the extension of what he was talking about, women in combat roles. Politics should not play a part in how the military is run. And this all should be perfectly obvious. And as you will see, saying perfectly obvious things in front of Democrats like a red flag in front of a bull. It's insane how Democrats went after Hegseth yesterday. So here's Hegseth saying, politics should not play a part in how the military is run.

[Ben Shapiro]

Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans. We are not Democrats. We are American warriors. Our standards will be high and they will be equal, not equitable. That's a very different word.

[Michael Knowles]

Again, this is all great. This is all great. And then he was asked about foreign policy. And Hegseth said, my policy with regards to, for example, the Middle east is Israel should kill every member of Hamas. This seems like a very good policy to me. I have a generalized policy that western powers should kill as many terrorists as humanly possible. This is my generalized military and foreign policy. Here's Senator Tom Cotton asking Hegseth about this.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist, Senator? I support. I'm a Christian, and I robustly support the state of Israel and its existential defense. And the way America comes alongside them is a great.

[Michael Knowles]

Thank you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Because another one, another protester, and I think this one was a member of.

[Michael Knowles]

Code Pink, which by the way, is a Chinese communist front group these days, said that you support Israel's war in Gaza. I support Israel's existential war in Gaza.

[Ben Shapiro]

I assume, like me and President Trump, you support that war as well, don't you, Senator? I do. I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.

[Michael Knowles]

Again, that is exactly right. A little bit later on in the show, we're actually going to sit down with the chief technology officer of Palantir, which is one of the new defense firms, not one of the kind of old dinosaurs that is trying to think differently about how defense policy should be done. I want to get into the specifics of. Of what needs to happen at the DOD While Joe Biden is handing off to Pete Hegseth and team an uncertain world with an uncertain economic landscape, smart investors are paying attention to the signs. With increased tariffs reshaping our trade relationships and sweeping changes to taxes and regulations, one investment vehicle stands the test of time. Gold. That's why I'm excited to tell you about a groundbreaking resource for my trusted partner, Birch Gold Group. They've just released the Ultimate Guide for Gold in the Trump Era featuring an exclusive forward by Donald Trump Jr. The numbers don't lie. Our national debt keeps climbing and with it the interest payment that burdens our economy. In these challenging times, Gold is still your hedge against a weakened dollar and Birch Gold is still the company I trust to help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered IRA and gold textbends in 989898 for your free copy of the Ultimate Guide for Gold in the Trump Era. There's no obligation, only information with an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. Countless five star reviews, thousands of happy customers. You too can trust Birch Gold. Text my name BEN to the number 9,898. Today again, text my name BEN to the number 9898 98. My friends over at Birch Gold will help you out, ask all of your questions and then think about diversifying just a little bit in precious metals with my friends over at birchgold. Also, I used to think restless nights were just part of life. Tossing and turning and waking up with the sore back. I figured that's just how sleep was. And then I discovered Helix Sleep and it is a game changer. What makes Helix different is they don't just sell you some sort of random mattress. You don't go to a store and lie down on the mattress for five seconds and then you're sleeping on a lumpy mattress for the next 10 years. They they actually match you with the perfect one for your body and sleep style. Whether you're a side sleeper, back sleeper, or somewhere in between, they've got you covered. And trust me, when you find the right match, you'll wonder how you ever slept on anything else. If you've got the right mattress, it means that everybody's sleeping soundly, which means that you're not waking up your spouse in the middle of the night. By tossing and turning, it means temperature regulation. It means that you don't have a bad back in the morning. Right now is actually the perfect time to upgrade your sleep because Helix is offering an incredible deal. Go to helixsleep.comBen Get 20% off site wide plus two free dream pillows with any mattress purchase. That's helixsleep.comBen For 20% off site wide plus two Free dream pillows with any mattress purchase. Helix sleep.comBen Go check them out. Helixleep.comBen okay, so as we'll see, Democrats lost their minds over all of this. They could not believe that Pete Hagseth was the nominee. So Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, he ripped in Tegses saying you are unqualified. Now again, all the Democrat qualifications in the world, they don't seem to matter because for Democrats, the qualification is not how you will actually run the Defense Department or whether your ideology on defense is correct. It's apparently whether you ran a big business beforehand or whether you spent 30 years climbing the ranks of the military by kissing enough ass. These are apparently the things that make you qualified to run the Department of Defense as opposed to what you are going to do, of course. So here is Senator Gary Peters getting very miffed, incredibly miffed that Pete Hegseth is going to be Secretary of Defense. Do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of the people.

[Ben Shapiro]

Who serve us is to lower the.

[Michael Knowles]

Standards for the Secretary of Defense that we have? Someone who has never managed an organization.

[Ben Shapiro]

More than 100 people is going to come in and manage this incredibly important.

[Michael Knowles]

Organization and do it with a professionalism.

[Ben Shapiro]

And has no experience that they can tell us that they have actually done that. I have real problems with that.

[Michael Knowles]

Wow. I mean, well, if he hasn't run a giant organization, then how can he possibly run the Department of Defense? Well, maybe by making it a smaller organization might be one answer. And then you have Senator Jack Reid who dropped the laugh out loud funny line that we are a more lethal military thanks to diversity. I'm sorry, I don't see the correlation. It doesn't seem to me that if you were just recruiting a military from scratch, your first question would be how many black, Hispanic, Jewish and Asian people are there in this military? That shouldn't be your first line of demarcation in terms of an effective fighting force. But according to Jack Reed, this is the thing that makes the American military deadly is that we have more minority lesbians or something. Here is this asinine senator from Rhode Island.

[Matt Walsh]

Our military is more diverse than it has ever been, but more importantly, it is more lethal. Leonard Zebra Ben, this is not a coincidence. Mr. Hegstead, I hope you'll explain why you believe such diversity is making the military weak and how you propose to undo that without undermining military leadership and harming readiness, recruitment, and retention?

[Michael Knowles]

Harming recruitment? We can't recruit or retain anyone right now. Everybody who's showing up to the office is too fat. It's really a massive problem. They've massive recruitment shortages. And Jack Reed's like, well, I mean, what are we gonna do if we don't have enough overweight, transgender people in the military? How are we gonna solve our recruitment crisis without those people? Hmm. Well, maybe the answer to solving the recruitment crisis is making it appear to be badass to be in the military. Every single member of the military I've ever met, and I've met many, many, many members of the military, they all joined up because they thought that it was an awesome thing to do. They all joined up because they wanted to be part of the defense of the country. And yes, because the vast majority of people join the military are men, and there is a masculine energy to the military. This is just the way it works. Restoring that is not a bad thing. It's a very good thing. But, you know, the Democratic objections continued. Senator Elise Slotkin of Michigan. She suggested that Hegseth is going to follow illegal orders given by President Trump. And Hegseth just wasn't even buying the premise. What are you scared of? Did he do the right thing by apologizing?

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm not scared of anything, Senator. And say yes or no.

[Michael Knowles]

You can say no.

[Ben Shapiro]

The laws in the Constitution in any particular.

[Michael Knowles]

Donald Trump asked for the active duty 82nd Airborne to be deployed during that same time. Secretary Esper has written that he convinced him against that decision. If Donald Trump asked you to use the 82nd Airborne in law enforcement roles in Washington, D.C. would you also convince him otherwise?

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm not going to get ahead of conversations I would have with the President. However, there are laws and processes inside our Constitution that would be foul.

[Michael Knowles]

Follow again, that is the basic answer. How is he supposed to evaluate whether something's legal or not before the situation arises? But Mazie Hirono, who's legitimately the stupidest person in the Senate, I mean, Mazie Hirono, the senator from Hawaii, who is a full scale moron. I mean, this lady, if she's got a triple digit iq, I would be absolutely astonished. So she suggested that Hegseth was going to shoot protesters, and there's a reason they couldn't lay a glove on Hegseth yesterday.

[Ben Shapiro]

In June of 2020, then President Trump.

[Michael Knowles]

Directed former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

[Matt Walsh]

To shoot protesters in the legs in.

[Ben Shapiro]

Downtown D.C. an order secretary Esper refused to comply with.

[Matt Walsh]

Would you carry out such an order from President Trump?

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator, I was in the Washington D.C. national Guard unit that was in Lafayette Square during those. Would you carry out an order to protest my country?

[Matt Walsh]

In the legs, I saw 50 service.

[Ben Shapiro]

Agents get injured by rioters trying to jump over the fence, set the church on fire and destroy. That sounds to me that you will comply with such an order.

[Matt Walsh]

You will shoot protesters in the. In the leg.

[Michael Knowles]

You will shoot protest. What is she talking about? He says he's gonna abide by the law, and then she refuses to hear his answer. But this is the way they work. Mazie Hirona, by the way, then decided to go even further. Said, will you resign if you drink on the job? It is all based on these anonymous smears that Hegseth is a heavy drinker. Despite the fact that everybody at Fox has said that that is not true. Despite the fact that pretty much all of his former colleagues say that's not true. Here is Hirono claiming that Hegseth is a sloppy drunk.

[Matt Walsh]

You recently promised some of my Republican colleagues that you stopped drinking and won't drink if confirmed. Correct?

[Ben Shapiro]

Absolutely. Will you resign as Secretary of Defense if you drink on the job, which is a 24.

[Michael Knowles]

7 position?

[Ben Shapiro]

I've made this commitment on behalf of.

[Matt Walsh]

Will you resign?

[Ben Shapiro]

The Secretary of Defense? I've made this commitment on behalf of the men and women I'm serving. I'm not, because it's the most important deployment.

[Matt Walsh]

I'm not hearing an answer to my.

[Ben Shapiro]

Question, so I'm going move on.

[Michael Knowles]

He literally answered the question. I don't even know what she's talking about. But again, this is how the Democrats decided to go after him. Same thing with Mark Kelly, the secretary, the senator from Arizona. He also tried to get Hegseth on the you're a heavy drinker routine.

[Ben Shapiro]

On Memorial Day 2014 at a CVA event in Virginia.

[Michael Knowles]

You needed to be carried out of.

[Ben Shapiro]

The event for being intoxicated, Senator. Anonymous smears. Just true or false?

[Michael Knowles]

Very simple.

[Ben Shapiro]

Summer of 2014, in Cleveland, drunk in public with the CVA team. Anonymous smears. I'm just asking for true or false questions. True or false answers.

[Michael Knowles]

An event in North Carolina, drunk in.

[Ben Shapiro]

Front of three young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it.

[Michael Knowles]

True or false?

[Ben Shapiro]

Anonymous smears.

[Michael Knowles]

Again, you actually have to evidence the smear in order for you to move forward those accusations. But apparently not according to the Democrats. Then Tim Kaine joined the fun senator from Virginia and long forgotten vice presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton. He went after Hegseth for his extramarital affairs, which again, I'm sorry, you're the party of Bill Clinton, guys. You are. That's what you are. You're the party of Ted Kennedy. Like, give it a rest. Here's Tim Kaine.

[Ben Shapiro]

I want to return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California in October 2017. At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct? I believe so. And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct? Senator, I was falsely charged, fully investigated, and completely cleared. So you think you are completely cleared because you committed no crime. That's your definition of cleared.

[Matt Walsh]

You had just fathered a child two.

[Ben Shapiro]

Months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you're completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before and you tell us you are completely cleared. How is that a complete clearance, Senator? Her child's name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth and she's a child of God, and she's seven years old. And she was. And you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born, didn't you? Those were false charges.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, no.

[Ben Shapiro]

Fully investigated. And I was completely cleared. And I am so grateful for the marriage I have to this. No, you remind me, okay?

[Michael Knowles]

That last line is the key. He's still married to that woman. And by the way, he's experienced conversion. He's become a very religious Christian. So Senator Mark Wade Mullen eventually had had enough of this, the senator from Oklahoma. And he had what I think is one of the great moments in modern Senate history where he effectively stood up on his hind legs and he said, listen, all you drunken leches in the Senate. And there are a lot of them. The amount of drinking that goes on in the Senate, the Senate could provide the entire market for grain alcohol in the United States. There are so many drunks, so many cheaters on their wives in the Senate. It is not a place filled with virtuous men. It really is not. And Mark Wayne Mullen makes this point. He's like, so you're going after Hegseth for something that he's lived through and apologized for in a way that, by the way, Bill Clinton never did. Tim Kaine, ripping into Hegseth. He ran with the wife of the person who is the biggest cheater as president exposed before the American public. And the woman he ran with literally threatened alleged rape victims. I mean, that is who. Tim Kaine. And then he sits there judging Pete Hegseth, who again has repented of the sin. Here's Mark Wayne Mullen going after his fellow senators.

[Ben Shapiro]

And then Senator Kaine, or I guess I better use the senator from Virginia.

[Michael Knowles]

Starts bringing up the fact that what.

[Ben Shapiro]

If you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign for their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it, because I know you have. And then how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No.

[Michael Knowles]

But it's for show. Correct? It's for a show. But the show continued. Again, I don't know what Democrats thought they were doing here, but it absolutely backfired. It did not look good in any way, shape or form. The Democrats continued. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. She tried to mock Hegseth for not knowing off his, off the top of his head, the countries in ASEAN, which is a compendium of 11 countries in Southeast Asia. And somehow this was supposed to be disqualifying, which again is unbelievably stupid, because if somebody refers to that and you don't know, you ask your phone and it tells you in legitimately 0.0 seconds. Here is Tammy Duckworth going after Hegseth.

[Matt Walsh]

How many nations are in asean, by the way?

[Ben Shapiro]

I couldn't tell you the exact nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and in Aukus with Australia trying to work on submarines with them. None of those countries are allies across. None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in asean. I suggest you do a little homework.

[Matt Walsh]

Before you prepare for these types of negotiations.

[Michael Knowles]

Okay? You literally put on the Supreme Court a woman who doesn't know what a woman is. I think we all know what a woman is. It might take a few of us, you know, like a quick check of the Internet to figure out which countries are in asean. But like, that's the disqualifier. That one is the disqualifier. Well, in this year, Pete Hegseth is going to become Secretary of Defense. But you've got goals for the New Year as well. Not just for your body, but for your financial well being too. Here's something important to consider. Your financial health is directly connected to protecting your identity. That's where Lifelock comes in, providing the protection you need in today's digital world, your personal information exists in countless places beyond your control. Unfortunately, it only takes one security breach, whether it's your mistake or someone else's, to make you vulnerable to identity theft and financial loss. LifeLock works around the clock, monitoring hundreds of millions of data points every second to alert you to threats you might miss, giving you peace of mind while you focus on what matters most. If identity theft occurs, LifeLock's US based restoration specialists will work tirelessly to resolve the issue, backed by the comprehensive million dollar protection package. They're so confident in their service, they guarantee complete restoration or your money back. This level of protection is essential in today's world, where identity theft continues to rise. Don't risk facing drained accounts or fraudulent loans that could damage your financial future. Make identity protection part of your New Year's goals with LifeLock. Visit lifelock.com Ben Save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% [e-mail] Ben that's 40% [e-mail] Ben Terms apply. Also, even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere. From self driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it is coming and fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power, so how do you compete without costs spiraling out of control? Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking, so you are saving tons of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to oci including Vodafone, Thomson Reuters and Suno AI. Right now Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move on over to oci for new US customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this special [e-mail] Shapiro Again, that's oracle.com Shapiro Even if your company isn't using AI right now, they soon will be. That's the way the world works. Head on over to oracle.comshapiro and see what they can do for you. Well, the Democrats were particularly mad about Hegseth's comments previously on Women in the Military. Kirsten Gillibrand, who's the long forgotten senator from New York. At one point she ran for President of the United States. I know you forgot about that, too. Time has not treated Kristen Gilliband particularly well, and here she was absolutely melting down on Pete Hegseth yesterday. So, women, you have denigrated, you have also denigrated members of the LGBTQ community. Did you know that when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was in place, we lost so many crucial personnel, over a thousand in mission critical areas. We lost 10% of all our foreign language speakers because of a political policy. You said in your statement you don't want politics in the DoD. Everything you've said in these public statements is politics. I don't want women. I don't want moms. What's wrong with a mom, by the way? Once you have babies, you therefore are no longer able to be lethal. I mean, you're basically saying women, after they have children, can't ever serve in the military in a combat role. It's a silly thing to say. It's a silly thing to say. Beneath the position that you are aspiring to, to denigrate LGBTQ service members is a mistake. If you are a sharpshooter, you're as lethal, regardless of what your gender identity is, regardless of who you love. So please know this to be a true statement. Oh, I. Oh, wow. Wow. Do you feel it in the heart? You don't because it's stupid. Yeah. That would be Kristen Gillibrand, the useless senator from New York. But don't worry, there are more useless senators. Jeanne Shaheen. She continued along these lines, grilling Hegseth on women in the military. Mr. Hegseth, do you know what percentage of our military is comprised of women?

[Ben Shapiro]

I believe it's 18 to 20%, Senator.

[Michael Knowles]

It's almost 18%. And in fact, DoD's 2023 demographic report indicated that there are more women serving now and there are fewer separations. So they make up a critical part of our military. Wouldn't you agree?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, ma'am. Women in our military, as I have said publicly, have and continue to make amazing contributions across all aspects of our battlefield.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, you also write in your book the War on Warriors with the chapter the Deadly Obsession with Women warriors, that, quote, not only are women comparatively less effective than men in combat roles, but they are more likely to be objectified by the enemy and their own nation in the moral realms of war. Mr. Hegseth, should we take it to believe that you believe that the two women on this committee who have served honorably and with distinction made our military.

[Ben Shapiro]

Less effective and less capable? I'm incredibly grateful for the. For the two women who've served our military in uniform.

[Michael Knowles]

Okay, but the whole point he's making is if you lower the standards to get more women into the military, it makes it weaker, which of course is not true. Probably the senator who humiliated herself the worst towards Elizabeth Warren, or Chief Elizabeth, as we like to call her. She asked Pete Hegseth about his status as a general, which didn't go amazing, since he's not one.

[Ben Shapiro]

Will you put your money where your mouth is and agree that when you leave this job, you will not work.

[Michael Knowles]

For the defense industry for 10 years?

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator, it's not even a question I've thought about because it's about it right now. It's not one my motivation for this job. I understand. Yes or no. Time is short. I just need a yes or no. I would consult with the President about.

[Michael Knowles]

What the policy should be and words.

[Ben Shapiro]

You're quite sure that every general who serves should not go directly into the defense industry for 10 years. You're not willing to make that same pledge? I'm not a general, Senator.

[Michael Knowles]

You'll be the one.

[Ben Shapiro]

Let us just be clear. In charge of the generals.

[Michael Knowles]

They're also awful. They're also awful. In the end, it was Tim Sheehy again, another member of the military who was questioning Hegseth. In what was, I think, probably the best exchange of the day, Sheehy said to Hegseth, listen, this is all very basic. How many genders are there? Let's start with, like, that baseline question, which is something that apparently Mark Milley, that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, can't answer.

[Ben Shapiro]

How many genders are there? Tough one, Senator. There are two genders. I know that well. I'm a Sheehy, so I'm on board.

[Michael Knowles]

Senator Sheehy is awesome. I campaigned with him up in Montana. He is a fantastic new addition to the Senate. In the end, as Mark Wynne Mullen says, Hexath is going to get 5,152 votes in the Senate minimum. And he should. He will be your new Secretary of Defense. And that is going to happen this week. Meanwhile, other nominees are having their hearings as well. Apparently, Marco Rubio is having his hearing today. In that hearing, he said in his opener speech, he said, placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism. It is the common sense realization that a foreign policy centered on our national interests is not some outdated relic. The post war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us. That is absolutely correct. That is absolutely correct. This idea that there is a quote unquote liberal world order that requires us to pre clear our actions with the United nations, that international law from the ICJ and ICC is something that is worth our respect, or that the most important thing to the United States should be upholding some vague standard of Wilsonian international justice. It's nonsense. Rubio knows that Rubio will be confirmed as well. The two other controversial nominees are going to have their hearings in very short order. Those two most controversial nominees are, of course, RFK Jr. And Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard has been making significant inroads with the Senate. She's been vowing, for example, that she is going to, as Director of National Intelligence, not get rid of Section 702, which is the way that the US intelligence community actually can monitor the communications of foreign entities. Also, because Democrats are going so hard at Hegseth, they're actually expending all their ammo that they theoretically could have aimed at Tulsi Gabbard. There's a point being made by Jonathan Martin over at Politico. He says the disproportionate attention to Hegseth's nomination by the press and senators in both parties has been a gift to Gabbard. Since Hegseth's November nomination, Democrats have focused the bulk of their attention on the former Fox and Friends weekend host, effectively taking their cues from the extensive press coverage. However, they have not actually turned their fire to Tulsi Gabbard at this point. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. The Trump team is working to sort of smooth off the rough edges of the RFK junior Nomination. According to the Wall Street Journal, two vaccine skeptics who'd been advising RFK Jr have been sidelined by the Trump transition officials. Adviser Stephanie Spear and lawyer Aaron Seri had asked prospective administration hires about their beliefs around vaccines. Even if they were interviewing for posts that had little to do with immunizations, the questions were different from those asked in separate meetings with President Trump's staff. According to some of the people Trump's team asked about topics traditionally important to conservatives, like the size of government and deregulation. Syria is no longer advising the presidential transition. Spear was passed over for the post of chief of staff in favor of a veteran of the first Trump administration. And again, one of the reasons for that is because RFK Jr. S opposition to vaccines is not relegated to his opposition to, for example, the MRNA vaccines, treatment of COVID and all the rest of that, which again has become highly controversial and the data of which was skewed when it was first released, it extends to many other vaccines. He's made statements in the past that broad writ applied to lots of vaccines. And so one of the things that the Trump team is attempting to do in getting RK Jr's nomination shepherded through Congress is ensure that he doesn't have people around him who can be characterized as totally anti vax in general, which, again, is a smart move by Team Trump. Well, meanwhile, the House of Representatives is already getting active. Yesterday, they passed a ban on men who say they are women from participating in women's sports. The bill passed 218 to 206. All Republicans present voted yes. Only two Democrats. Only two Democrats voted yes. And Democrats cannot shake the woke. They cannot. It is amazing. Okay, this is a. This is a death knell for Democratic electoral prospects. Their continued maintenance of the idea that boys can be girls, girls can be boys, and men should compete against women while pretending to be women is a horrifyingly bad political decision. And yet they still continue to trot out absolute imbeciles like Alexander Ocasio Cortez to make the case. Here yesterday was Alexander Ocasio Cortez explaining that it's terribly sexist not to allow boys to compete with girls. I know who loves this bill. Yes, bigoted folks love this bill. Assaulters love this bill. Assaulters love this bill. But also CEOs love this bill. Because Los Angeles is on fire right now. And this is the number one priority this majority has. Thank you. And I yield back. CEOs love this bill because of the fire. Like, well, what is she even jabbering about? But they are so attached to their WOKE principles, they cannot let it go. Meanwhile, Speaker Johnson again passed his first test with flying colors, somehow cobbling together enough of the House Republican majority to be re enshrined as speaker of the House with the very important support of President Trump. He said, listen, this is pretty obvious. Protecting women in sports is commonsensical.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's an executive branch function.

[Michael Knowles]

I mean, it is a big issue. I mean, probably the most famous ad of the campaign cycle was the one that the Trump administration ran on this issue.

[Matt Walsh]

And it resonates with the American people.

[Michael Knowles]

Congressman Stubby mention it's in the opinion polls.

[Matt Walsh]

This is a 80, 90% issue or.

[Michael Knowles]

More, depending on which poll you look at. Because again, it comports with common sense.

[Ben Shapiro]

It should not be a partisan issue.

[Michael Knowles]

We should have every single member of Congress united on this. And I would challenge all of you to go ask the questions of the Democrats who voted against it.

[Matt Walsh]

How in the world.

[Michael Knowles]

They can justify that because I don't understand the argument at all. And that, of course, is exactly correct. But common sense left the Democratic Party long ago. Speaking of which, we'll get into the latest from California, which continues to be just insane in one second. First, you tired of winning yet? Well, I'm not. The Daily Wire will be live from D.C. for the inauguration of President Elect Donald J. Trump as he has sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. We're not just going to watch history. We're gonna bring it to you live and uncensored. To celebrate the 47th president, we are giving you 47% off new DailyWire plus annual memberships. Clever, right? Plus, we're including a free $20 gift as a thank you for joining the fight, which is pretty awesome. Remember, DailyWire plus is the only place where, where you get our daily shows ad free and uncensored. Plus unlimited access to premium entertainment, hit movies, groundbreaking documentaries. Join the celebration. Use code [e-mail] subscribe for 47% off your membership today. Meanwhile, the situation in California continues to be quite dire. It is not as though these fires are under control. The fires are still raging out of control. The winds are picking up once again. The wildfire map continues to be extraordinarily large. The Palisades fire has been burning for eight days. It is still only 18% contained. It has burned almost 24,000 acres and the winds are expected to pick up today as well. The Eaton fire, which has burned 14,000 acres, is only 35% contained as well. It seems as though the most populated areas have basically been prevented from being eaten by the fire, particularly the Palisades fire. And it looks like the map is moving more out to the west than it is to the east at this point. So the map has not moved more toward Bel Air or Brentwood, for example, but it is moving out more toward the Ventura area, toward Malibu west and such. Meanwhile, the person with the priorities is Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. It is truly incredible how unbelievably incompetent they are and how wedded they are to their left wing ideals. So let's say that your house burned down in this fire, God forbid. It's really terrible. Let's say that your house burned down in the fire and you are left with the charred remnants of your old family home in an area that's not gonna be livable for a while because after a wildfire hits an urban area, after it burns down a bunch of homes it's not as though the rebuilding takes place immediately. There's toxic waste there. There's serious problems in these areas. And let's say a developer comes to you and says, listen, you didn't have fire insurance cuz the state of California made it nearly impossible for you to buy affordable fire insurance. It's gonna be a long time till you see a check. I'll give you $2 million today for your property. According to Gavin Newsom, that developer is a leech, cruel and must be stopped. That sort of free market activity, that can't be allowed. They're bringing you an unsolicited. Now listen, you could say no to that offer, but the fact that they are even making an offer shows how greedy and terrible they are. Here is Gavin Newsom speaking up against free markets after his complete botchery of this fire.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm here in Altadena. I just signed an executive order with community leaders to deal with the issue that is becoming a bigger and bigger issue every day. And that's land developers that are engaging.

[Matt Walsh]

In predatory efforts to make unsolicited offers.

[Ben Shapiro]

For properties at significantly below market value. This predatory behavior is disgusting. In the best of times, times. And of course here in the midst of this tragedy at scale, it's disgraceful. So we're going to hold those folks accountable. I'm very grateful for the leadership here in the community that promoted this approach. And this executive order is a reflection of their direction and their commitment to preserving the unique character of this community for generations to come.

[Michael Knowles]

Totally psychotic. I'm sorry, Totally psychotic. So somebody comes to you and they offer you money and Gavin Newsom's response is, I'm going to prosecute that money. You could just say no. What he's really attempting to do is stop people from selling. He's not stopping people from buying, he's stopping people from selling. You know what stops people from buying? A seller saying no. You know what stops a seller from selling? Only the government. Unbelievable. But you know they have your best interests at heart. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles mayor, embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, she was asked why she was in Africa in the first place. She'd actually pledged earlier in her term that she would not do any foreign travel. Of course that wasn't true. So here she was ignoring that question.

[Matt Walsh]

Looking back, would you have taken that trip overseas?

[Ben Shapiro]

You know, I am going to focus today, but please, what we know.

[Michael Knowles]

Wow. Well, I mean, I'm convinced, well, it wouldn't be a full scale tragedy without Jimmy Kimmel tearing up on air because this is what you want from your late night comedians is lectures about politics and tearing up, which is what Jimmy Kimmel has become famous for. He's no longer famous for making jokes. It is truly impressive how in our culture centric universe, people like Jimmy Kimmel, who was once famous for doing a show with Adam Carolla in which women bounced up and down on trampolines so that their breasts would jiggle, how he has now become the moral clarion for the left on late night television. Here you go, Jimmy Kimmel. I think I speak for all of.

[Matt Walsh]

Us when I say it has been.

[Michael Knowles]

Sickening, shocking, awful experience, but has also been in a lot of ways a beautiful experience because once again we, we see our fellow men and women coming together to support each other. People who lost their own homes were volunteering in parking lots, helping others who lost theirs.

[Matt Walsh]

And tonight, you know, I don't want.

[Michael Knowles]

To get into all the vile and irresponsible and stupid things our alleged future president and his scumbags chose to say during our darkest and most terrifying hour. The fact that they chose to attack our firefighters who apparently aren't white enough to be out there risking their lives on our behalf is, it's disgusting. But it's not surprising. They weren't attacking the firefighters. They were attacking the entire system that allowed this to happen, including the underfunding of the fire department for paying gigantic pensions and salaries negotiated by unions which prevented the staffing up of the fire department. Also, yeah, it seems to me that if your top priority is hiring people who literally say that it's not their job to pull men out of burning buildings cuz the men shouldn't have been there in the first place. That seems like that should be a question that should be asked. I mean, anytime, let alone in the middle of the most devastating wildfire in American history. So thanks to Jimmy Kimmel for, as always, his moral clarity. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is expected to make his valedictory address tonight. He's going to explain why he was such a wonderful president. And honestly, I'm grateful to Joe Biden for ripping the lid off the incompetence of the Democrats for bringing us a second Donald Trump term. That is what he's mostly going to be remembered for. On his way out, he's doing everything he can to screw things up. According to the Wall Street Journal, days before President Biden's term ends, his administration said it would remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of a deal worked out with the help from the Catholic Church to to free political prisoners on the island. U.S. officials said the decision, which comes less than a week before President elect Trump's inauguration for a second term, would lead to the release of many dozens of Cuban political prisoners. The Cuban Foreign Ministry said it would free 553 prisoners. But what exactly does this do? Well, it actually just frees up banking for Cuba. That's actually what it does. It gives the Cuban dictatorship access to cash. According to the Wall Street Journal, banks almost universally shunned Cuba because of the terrorism listing. The decision to take it off the list, if it stands, could be the first step in helping Havana obtain some financial relief. Biden officials described the action as a gesture of goodwill after US Review found, quote, no credible evidence at this time of ongoing support by Cuba for international terrorism. Well, suffice to say, I do not trust the Biden administration in their assessment. Senator Rick Scott of Flora slammed the move as a parting gift to dictators and terrorists around the world. Florida Democrats, too condemned it. They said what we condemn in the strongest terms, Cuba's removal from this list. That seems exactly correct. But again, they're going to do as much damage as they can on the way out the door. That's also true of the securities and Exchange Commission just days before Donald Trump is set to take office, just days before Doge is set to get to work. That is the Elon Musk Vivek Ramaswamy led agency that is focused in on governmental efficiency. U.S. securities regulators, according to the New York Times, have now sued Elon Musk in federal court in Washington on Tuesday in an enforcement action arising from his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now called X. The SEC contends that in buying Twitter in 2022, Musk violated securities laws by amassing a large stock position in the social media company without filing proper notification. The complaint said he waited 11 days before filing the required disclosure with the SEC. Well, he ended up taking Twitter private at a price of 44 billion. According to the SEC. Because Musk didn't disclose his position, he was able to continue buying Twitter stock at an artificially low price. The move allowed him to underpay by at least $150 million for the additional shares. Before disclosing his stake, he paid $44 billion for a social media service that at this point, I have no idea what it's worth. They name $44 billion. So in other words, here's how the process went. He, he offered that he was going to buy the place at like $44 billion and he was starting to buy up shares, and everybody was like, okay, that's sure. Twitter's like, okay, we'll take it. And then he was like, okay, hold up a second. It seems as though there's a lot of bots on the service and a lot of fake numbers around the service, and I don't want to pay that 44 billion. And the government stepped in and sued. And he was like, okay, fine, I, I, I guess you've got, Fine, sure, I'll buy it for 44 billion. Now the government's like, well, you're not, you know, you paid, you paid too much money. And he's like, I know I paid too much. They're like, but you didn't pay enough. Like, what in the world? What in the world? His lawyer, Alex Spiro, denounced the filing. Quote, today's action is an admission by the sec they can't bring an actual case because Musk has done nothing wrong. And everyone sees the sham for what it is. This is the third time the SEC has gone to court with Musk. The first was when they went to court claiming that he'd made an inappropriate market moving post on social media, talking about taking Tesla up private. Gary Gensler, who's been just an awful SEC commissioner, is leading the way. All these agencies are staffed up by some of the worst people in America, truthfully, and they need to go. Alrighty, folks. So because we are going to have a new Secretary of Defense, I wanted to discuss in depth what a better defense policy would look like. And so I sat down just a couple of days ago with the chief technology officer of Palantir, which is one of the new defense firms that is doing significant work in modernizing the military, taking creative approaches to the military. It is not one of the dinosaurs, one of the old dinosaurs that are getting paid billions of dollars to generate parts for the F35. They are thinking differently. Here's what our interview sounded like. I think it's fascinating and really important listening for people who want to see changes in, in policy direction at the Defense Department. Sham. Thanks so much for stopping by. I wanted to have you stop by and talk to us about defense policy. What should that look like? So, obviously the first question that people are gonna ask is, you're in the defense industry. That just means that you're a warmonger who wants more wars and wants to spend more on defense. Like, that's like, your top priority. I'm sure you get that a lot. What's your sort of response to that?

[Matt Walsh]

Well, I mean, the Goal of defense is to deter conflict. And actually, I think in many ways the budget should be much less. I think a lot of what we're spending on defense right now ends up being effectively a jobs program. And the part that we're spending on actually deterring our adversaries, actually scaring XI is insufficient. Now, I think there's a lot of ways that we can do that well within our fiscal means and constraints. And that's really what I argue for in the defense reformation.

[Michael Knowles]

So one of the things that you talk about in the defense reformation is something you call monopsony. You say this is the way that defense budgeting has been practiced. Why don't you define that and what exactly is the problem?

[Matt Walsh]

Yeah, so people are very familiar with the term monopoly, and we look at monopolies with great skepticism. Where there's a single seller of a product in the market. Well, monopsony is the mirror image of that. Where there's a single buyer for a thing. And as, you know, free market patriots in America, you know, we believe in the value of the free market. So when you have a monopsony, when you have a single buyer, when there's only one person who's interested in buying an aircraft carrier, you lose all of the benefit of the free market, all the benefit of a million individual voices trying to decide what a good product is and the signal that comes from that. So the monopsonist accrues a lot of power in deciding what it is that they should have. And it deprives power from the entrepreneurs, from the engineers, the innovators on what they could do to solve your problems. And so this dynamic that kind of leans into the fetishization of control of like, no, I'm telling you, this is what the plane needs to do. That's how you end up with programs like the F35, where that project was conceived of in the middle 90s. And we are just now really getting to the point where we're fielding it 30 plus years later.

[Michael Knowles]

So how do you solve that problem? Because obviously the United States is in fact the single buyer of these technologies. How do you solve for that?

[Matt Walsh]

Yeah, that's right. So I think monopsony is the root of what ails us. But you try to. You do your best to approximate free market forces. And this is not some pie in the sky fantasy. If we look at when we used to do projects where they really worked, like how did we build the intercontinental ballistic missile back in the 50s and 60s, well, we actually had all the services competing against Each other, the army, the Navy, the Air Force. There was no monopoly. There was no one who was saying like, well, this is obviously the Air Force. Today we think about it as the Minuteman. That's who won. But that was not a foregone conclusion. When you think about submarine launched ballistic missiles, Admiral Rayborn actually had four competing programs within the Navy to produce those things. The challenge that we have with that is really an aesthetic challenge where we look at it today with almost a Soviet aesthetic, where we say that sounds duplicative, that sounds wasteful. Shouldn't we just have one effort where we put all of our energy and resources behind it and we lose out on the magic, the American magic of competition and the idea that actually there are lots of competing ideas and we're all going to do better because there are four competing programs instead of a single unitary effort where there's no innovation, there's no incentive to actually disrupt yourself in order to win.

[Michael Knowles]

I mean, that's really fascinating because it's so counterintuitive. The way that most people tend to think of bureaucracy is, well, as the bureaucracy multiplies, then you get more confusion and more cost and more waste. And what you're suggesting is actually when you have a monopoly of demand inside, say, the Defense Department, it's one guy deciding, here's the things I want, that's when you get the most waste.

[Matt Walsh]

I think that's right, because there's just no check and balance, right? Like, how do you know this zombie program? Is it a zombie program? Or is it the definitive program that's gonna deliver deterrence or not? And so you need some of that pressure. I think one of the great advantages that we really have, if you think about how the department is structured, is we have what we call the combatant commands, right? So we have these 13 different places, like the Indo Pacific as one example, or centcom, where the geographic combatant commanders, they actually fight the war. And to use it in business parlance, they're responsible for responding to real world demand. The services, the army, the Air Force and Navy, they're responsible for the supply side, for presenting forces, for building the equipment and the material and training the soldiers and providing that to the combatant commanders. But we have 13 of them. We can actually use this to approximate a market. And why should we presuppose that what Admiral Pepparo needs in the Pacific is going to be exactly the same thing as what General Kurilla needs in the Middle East? That doesn't really make sense. So we need to create Mechanisms for each of these combatant commanders to express their demand. This is what I need from the services and the forces be able to control some of that budget, which today we don't let them do, so they can match their own in supply and demand.

[Michael Knowles]

So how does defense lobbying play into all of this? Because obviously you see some, some real dinosaurs in the defense industry that are wildly inefficient and that are charging up the wazoo. And we've tried to control that with, with something called Cost plus, which is essentially, okay, what's your cost? And then we'll add a percentage on top of it. The same way that you might see a contractor do that under certain circumstances. What's the problem with that system? Why are we still contracting with so many dinosaurs?

[Matt Walsh]

Well, the other, the other industry that loves Cost plus is general contracting. And I don't know if anyone's gone through a home remodel who's listening to this, but most people are not pretty happy with how that's gone. You know, somehow, you know, for the contractor to get more plus, the cost has to go up. And that's what seems to happen. And it lacks the natural incentive to figure out how to manage this within your own means or to drive innovation against that cost base. So Cost plus, where did this really come from? It came from the era of mobilization around World War II, where it makes a lot of sense. We took a bunch of auto companies and other parts of the American industry and this was complete mobilization of our economy. You're going to have to build things you never built before. You don't know what it's going to cost you to build it. I'm going to just tell you, build it. The nation needs it. And here's some baked in profit. So that was the right model for the moment. It's not the right model anymore. If you look at what SpaceX has been able to do with space launch. You know, I grew up in the shadow of the Space Coast. I used to love watching the shuttle launch. It, the shuttle, it was $50,000 a kilogram to get to orbit with starship heavy reuse that's imminently coming. Elon has made that 10 bucks. 10 bucks. And so if you were doing this under a Cost plus regime, he would have reduced his profit a huge amount there because the cost just went down a huge amount. That doesn't make sense. Elon should be rewarded for the massive innovation. That means that our nation has the most assured access to space and that is both delivering untold national security and Prosperity for us. And I think a big part of what mobilized Elon to do that is not national security, it's getting to Mars. He needs that price performance in order to get to Mars and the whole of nation benefits. So I think the cost plus locks you into basically very linear outcomes that don't allow you to have transformational defense capabilities at all. And what we really want to move to is a world that has powered all of America's prosperity, which is an entrepreneur founder driven innovation economy where people actually invest their own capital. You know, America's capital markets are the deepest and richest in the world. Let's invest American capital, build things then and show them to the department and let the department decide if they want to buy it or not. They can buy it as a commercial product, you know, not having sunk US taxpayer R& D into developing these things, but rather putting that risk on private capital and deciding what works for them.

[Michael Knowles]

So one of the things that you've talked about is the fact that there were so many companies that were providing for defense years and years and years ago. And now it's basically been whittled down to kind of the specialist companies because all the other companies used to be dual use companies. They used to actually have a bunch of products that went into sort of the regular market and that everyday people were able to use.

[Matt Walsh]

And this is, this is probably the most important point which is, and dual use and I'd say dual purpose. So we forget that the industrial base, we call it today the defense industrial base, but the industrial base that won World War II and the early Cold War was an American industrial base. Chrysler built cars and missiles. Ford built satellites until 1990. General Mills, the serial company, made torpedoes and artillery. So the entire structure of the US economy, we were all invested as corporations in both national security and prosperity. And I think we've lost a lot by how it's rotated. And if we look at the fall of the Berlin Wall, at that moment in 89, only 6% of major weapons system spending went to defense specialists, the so called primes. Most of the spending went to these dual purpose companies like a Chrysler. Now if you look at that figure, it's 86% goes to defense specialists. So we've lost quite a bit. And that's a consequence of the luxury of having quote, unquote, you know, having won the Cold War, you know, without a near peer or a peer threat and kind of the, the, the, the lack of a pace that we needed to follow, you know, we, we got to kind of lean into the monopsonous preferences for control and then the fetishization of, of how they were going to go about doing this rather than leveraging the breadth of the American economy to deliver national security and prosperity for its people.

[Michael Knowles]

So when we look at, you know, the big problems facing America, obviously, lack of innovation, cost problems, supply chain problems as well, what is the solution to many of the supply chain problems? And we're getting resources for our military from many countries that actually are our geopolitical opponents.

[Matt Walsh]

Yeah, I think re industrializing the nation is, you know, it's a complete clarion call. If you look at, you know, the amount of weapons that we have on hand to fight China, it's roughly war games. Put it at eight days, it should be closer to 800 days. And I think one of the things that we lost as a consequence of, you know, winning the Cold War, we got confused that the stockpile was going to be the deterrent. It's not the stockpile, it's the ability to make the stockpile. So if it takes you eight years to make a Patriot battery or two years to make a long range anti ship missile and you're only making them in quantities of tens or hundreds, that's not going to provide deterrence. And I think Ukraine was a painful lesson to that. Regardless of how you feel about our support for Ukraine, if you realize that they went through 10 years of our production in 10 weeks of fighting, you realize you have a problem. And we have grossly under resourced the lines of production and exercising those lines of production, we have this fantasy that it'll be just like World War II where we just quote, unquote, flip a switch and you know, we can just go back to making these things. But that's not even what happened in World War II. We started, you know, it took 18 months to mobilize it, you know, 12 months to build factories, six months to retool them. And so there's, there's a certain sort of seriousness that we need to have to this if we want to deter conflict here.

[Michael Knowles]

Okay, so let's say that you were called by the Secretary of Defense and he says, sham. Lay out for me exactly the 10 steps, the five steps I need to take. First, what were the big key things that the Defense Department needs to do going forward immediately?

[Matt Walsh]

Well, I think there are probably like four or five priority areas, including counter UAs. The things that right now we have real issues with the how our level of deterrence and overmatch against the threat is not high enough. And those Areas is where we need to have more multiple competing programs and efforts, less unitary efforts and we need to bring the breadth of the American industrial base. You could ask yourself the question counterfactually, how bad would the world have to be before you wanted to bring Tesla into munitions productions using DPA authorities? Because if you. It's not true that we're not good at making things in this country, it's just that the ability to do that in a modern way is asymmetrically distributed. You know, SpaceX makes so much of what they do vertically integrated internally and they do it at a price that is eye watering. Tesla, it's really a software defined production line. You know how they do it and how they version it, it's quite exquisite. So and then you have all these founders now who have grown up in the school of Elon, who are building their own companies in El Segundo, who are bringing modern manufacturing techniques back to America. I think we need to invest in that and really in harness that now. I think a lot of this has been hollowed out through the kind of MBification MBA ification of how we run our companies here. We've traded real engineering for financial engineering. When I interact with 50% of what we do is actually commercial working, building Airbuses and Chryslers and hundreds of thousands of users on the factory floor using the software. When I interact with these companies, their understanding of their supply chain is very shallow. They treat it as a black box where I have these suppliers, I buy these things. They don't know how to make those things, they don't understand how far down it goes. That couldn't be any more different than how Elon and SpaceX view the world and the deep control. So I think the future of American manufacturing looks much more like that. Getting to a place where we, you know, David's slingshot, so to speak, now is both software defined and we're competing differently than China. So unfortunately, you know, at the dawn of World War II we were the best at mass production. Today our adversary is. So we shouldn't compete symmetrically in re industrializing. We're going to have to use a different approach to doing it. And I think we've already seen that that approach can work in America. We need to give American workers superpowers with the technology that we have a unique advantage in and we need to use the techniques that Elon and others have shown can really work to bring that work back.

[Michael Knowles]

So there's going to be obviously a lot of systemic resistance to this sort of stuff inside DoD and the new Secretary of Defense is going to face down people who have been in these jobs for decades. I mean, this is true throughout all of the agencies, but it's particularly true at DoD, which of course, we're spending trillions of dollars on every year. What exactly needs to happen in terms of staffing? Because we can have these ideas, but it's the implementation that's really gonna matter.

[Matt Walsh]

Well, I think that the person is the program is what I like to say. We call it the Apollo Program, but maybe more accurately we should call it Gene Kranz's program. Is the F16 the F16 or is it John Boyd's plane? We have the nuclear Navy because Admiral Rickover worked on it for 30 years and he had to be protected by Congress. Today, having an admiral in place for 30 years, we couldn't even imagine that. And these person, Edward hall built the Minuteman. Kelly Johnson built 41 airframes in his career. He built the U2 in 13 months. So there is something profoundly valuable about these founder personalities. And I think of all nations in the world, we understand that. There's a reason we call them the Founding Fathers, right? And I think what we've kind of lost is like we've built a military cadre where they need to rotate every two to three years, that it's about collecting experiences, about filling out a bingo card, rather than the deep work of actually delivering capabilities for the nations focusing on the output here. So I think by recognizing that first and then putting the right people in place for the duration that's required against the capabilities we need, that's a precondition. The second one is let's not grant monopolies on these efforts. We're going to have to have multiple players on the field, multiple competing efforts that enable us to focus on winning. We can't be so focused on the inputs on is this efficient, is it not? It's very hard. You know, innovation is messy and chaotic. And the reason we have this weird sclerotic system is because every time something went wrong in this messy and authentically chaotic process, we try to come up with a rule to make it less messy and less chaotic. And what you're really doing is if you're chopping off all of the tail of bad outcomes, you can't do that without chopping off all the tail of good outcomes. So it locks you into this really mediocrity.

[Michael Knowles]

So when you look at sort of the weapon systems from a layman's perspective, when I think of military equipment, I'm thinking of aircraft carriers. I'm thinking of F35s. How much of that is a waste? What are the things that we should be looking at as the American public? The sort of technologies of the future, in your opinion? Obviously, people have talked about drones, people are talking about automation. Where do you think the future lies?

[Matt Walsh]

I think the future requires both of these. So I think there's almost like a false choice presented in Is it gonna be all unmanned autonomous systems or are we committed to the big legacy platforms? Really the question is, what is the force employment concept? How are we going to use these things to drive effects on the battlefield that deter our adversaries from creating problems in the world? I think we need a lot more experimentation on that right now. This stuff has been pretty siloed. And what we see with the Ukrainians, I think one of the lessons there is really how fast you can go when you have the right sort of effort. So one of the conclusions people have that I think might be slightly wrong is like, isn't it amazing that even though they didn't have a navy, they were able to sink half the Black Sea fleet, the Russian Black Sea fleet. I think, no, no, no. It's because they didn't have a navy. Right. They were not constrained by the legacy platforms and ideas here so they could come up with entirely new force employment construct. So that may seem like a contradiction, which. But what I'm really saying is you need these platforms, but maybe the folks who are in charge of using these platforms today are going to be the slowest to develop the new force employment constructs. And that's where you could kind of, you can think of this as a thought exercise as opposed to literal, but maybe you need a Navy 2. And Navy 2 is entirely focused on unmanned approaches to delivering this. And we figure out how to bring these things together here.

[Michael Knowles]

So when you look at the Trump administration, you look forward to the next four years. The orientation has changed. Obviously, this administration that is stacked with people who are from the outside of many of these agencies, it's creative and it's innovative. It's interesting. What are your kind of hopes for what the administration looks like over the course of the next four years?

[Matt Walsh]

A real focus on winning. I think there's been too much of a focus on process. How did these things happen? My core critique is everyone, including the Russians and the Chinese, have given up on communism, except for Cuba and the DoD. Somehow the DoD uses five year plans. It's essentially centrally planned, or at worst, centrally unplanned process. It takes two years to program for money for a new start. Can you imagine going to an American commercial company, you have the greatest mousetrap in the world. And they say, oh, this is amazing. I can't wait to go get the money to start experimenting with this two years from now. You know, and certainly our adversaries don't have those constraints. So we need, and those are self imposed. That's not the physics of the universe. That is how we are choosing to organize ourselves, to go slow. And so why, you know, why can't that take two weeks or at most two months? And so I think a lot of these problems are actually, you know, problems of will and can be solved with folks who are very focused on winning and what does winning really look like. And when I look at our past, we had all of that. So I know with great certainty that we can do this again once we realize that we've kind of accumulated all these barnacles. The barnacles are bigger than the ship at this point. People love criticizing David Packard, a Silicon Valley technologist, co founder. He founded hp, he served as a deputy Secretary of Defense. So he came up with the, I think they call it the 5000 series rules on acquisition. Today that's a 2000 page document. When he wrote it, it was seven pages. So people love criticizing his, you know, sclerotic bureaucratic contribution. But it wasn't that. When he did it, we made it that. And I think, you know, being, you know, what can we cut back in terms of regulations? How can we enable our war fighters to have the room to experiment they deserve. One of the things that always breaks my heart, you hear senior generals, senior general officers, they talk about something like this shibboleth that they say. It's like we've, well, you know, we really need the oversight because we've proven that we're not very good at spending the US taxpayers money. And, and I don't think that's true. When you're doing things that are this hard and this innovative, there's going to be some part of it that doesn't work. Maybe 1 out of 10 Silicon Valley companies end up working. Why should we think the success rate is going to be wildly different than that? And if we kind of pretend that 10 out of 10 of these things need to work, you're just going to get people who lie about it effectively. The incentives are all wrong. And so these people have signed up to die for the nation. We need to put a little bit of trust in them and give them some Discretion and yeah, not all of it's going to work, but you know what doesn't work? 2000 page documents to tell you how to run these programs.

[Michael Knowles]

So when you look at sort of the threats that are facing the United States right now, you know, the sclerotic DoD procurement process, when, when you look at the kind of systems that are sort of legacy systems that keep pouring billions of dollars into those systems, what are your sort of top threats that you see facing the country that we need to handle in short order?

[Matt Walsh]

Well, the biggest opportunity that we have, maybe to flip it a little bit, is like we have lots of individual exquisite systems. We need to be able to bring these things together to actually drive deterrence here. So how do these platforms work together from sensor to shooter? And how do you do that across all of the domains and theaters and do it at the speed of the machine as opposed to the speed of the human? When you look at the kill chain, the term of art, from going from sensor to shooter, finding the enemy to applying effects to them, what are all those stages today that are actually pretty manual, pretty mandraulic, not as effective as a term doctrinally to the military, a strike that happens inside of 72 hours is considered dynamic. So the expectation is that you're going to have three days to plan these sorts of things or more. And that's not realistic on the modern battlefield. Everything's going to be dynamic is the reality. So if everything's going to be dynamic, how are we investing in the AI enabled technologies to do that? The reason I think that's actually also really important is it plays to our American unique advantage Here we tend to as a nation underestimate how good we are at software. There's a yawning gap between number one and number two. And the reason, because if software was just about iq, it would be evenly distributed. There's smart people everywhere in the world. But think about the fact that there are zero Indian or Chinese enterprise software companies that are competitive on the world stage. So what explains our unique outperformance in America? Sometimes when people look at Silicon Valley they think, oh, maybe we imported this from India or Israel. You know, we did import it to Silicon Valley, but we imported it from Iowa. It came from Bob Noyce, the co founder of intel, the co inventor of the Transvestor. And our unique software advantage is cultural and it comes from a midwestern culture. This sensibility, a willingness to play positive sum games, open communication, high trust environments, you can see all these things are very hard to scale in a place like India or China, they don't scale, they don't work there, and the shape of their businesses reflect that. So Bob Noyce came up with the term open door policy. We don't understand the degree to which actually all of American tech is descendant from this Iowan culture. And that's what's very special, very hard to replicate. If you're a Singaporean and you come to Stanford and you're like, oh, I'm going to copy the university or Sandhill Road, you're kind of missing the whole thing. And the one thing you need to copy is, is the one that you don't want to copy. You're very committed to your culture. You're not interested in becoming Iowan, but that's what it takes.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, Sean, really appreciate the time and the insight, and obviously I hope that the DOD takes a lot of that advice. Really appreciate it.

[Matt Walsh]

Thank you, Ben.

[Michael Knowles]

All right, guys, coming up, the media are doing their best to stand for anti Semitic regimes. This is what they do. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.