Ep. 2140 - Trump & Vance WRECK Europe

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ben Shapiro Show

Episode: 2140 - Trump & Vance WRECK Europe
Release Date: February 18, 2025
Host: Ben Shapiro
Publisher: The Daily Wire

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Introduction

In Episode 2140 of The Ben Shapiro Show, Ben Shapiro delves into a series of pressing geopolitical and domestic issues, analyzing recent events with a conservative lens. The episode covers topics ranging from a tragic plane crash in Toronto, critiques of billionaire influence in economics, U.S.-Europe relations under the Trump administration, and the escalating tensions with China over Taiwan. Additionally, Shapiro addresses recent domestic controversies, including policy shifts towards Mexico and scandals involving high-profile figures.

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1. Toronto Delta Plane Crash

[00:00 - 02:20]

The episode opens with Shapiro discussing a recent Delta Airlines crash in Toronto. A CRJ900 plane flipped onto its roof upon landing, resulting in 80 passengers aboard. Remarkably, no fatalities occurred, though 15 individuals sustained injuries, including two critical cases and a child transported to a specialized hospital.

Notable Quote:

"It's an insane crash landing. Basically, the plane comes down so hard that it rips off part of the landing gear and flips the plane completely over."
— Ben Shapiro [01:06]

Shapiro attributes the crash to probable pilot error, dismissing theories blaming broader systemic issues like FAA staffing or external influences such as Elon Musk or Doge. He criticizes the media's tendency to link such incidents to political agendas, particularly pointing fingers at the Trump administration without substantial evidence.

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2. Media Critique of Billionaires: The Bill Burr Controversy

[02:20 - 13:31]

Shapiro transitions to discussing comedian Bill Burr's incendiary remarks targeting billionaires. Burr suggested that merely earning significant wealth in the U.S. justifies moral condemnation, even advocating for violence against billionaires.

Notable Quote:

"If you work a full week at a job, you should be able to pay your rent. You shouldn't have to go out and get another job and still be struggling... These billionaires need to be put down, you know, like rabid dogs."
— Ben Shapiro [03:10]

Shapiro vehemently disagrees, emphasizing that modern billionaires accumulate wealth through innovation and providing valuable goods and services within a free-market system. He contrasts this with historical wealth accumulation under feudalism, where riches were often taken by force rather than created. Shapiro further argues that economic policies advocating for the redistribution of wealth through high taxes and regulation stifle business growth and innovation.

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3. U.S.-Europe Relations and JD Vance's Speeches

[13:31 - 22:11]

Focusing on international relations, Shapiro critiques Vice President J.D. Vance's recent speeches in Munich, where Vance urged European nations to become more self-reliant in their defense and economic policies. Shapiro supports this stance, arguing that Europe has long depended on U.S. support for security through NATO and other alliances.

Notable Quote:

"It's going to be to the far left, to the economic populist far left... because the American people have not been made aware of the realities of how economics works because our education system has failed them completely on all of this."
— Ben Shapiro [13:31]

Shapiro contends that Europe must address its internal issues, such as open immigration policies and excessive regulation, to regain its autonomy and effectiveness on the global stage. He underscores the importance of President Trump's administration pushing Europe to shoulder more responsibility, thereby preventing the U.S. from being overextended.

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4. Free Speech in Germany and Media Censorship

[20:06 - 24:07]

The conversation shifts to the state of free speech in Germany, referencing a 60 Minutes segment that discusses new hate speech laws. Shapiro argues that such regulations, while seemingly protective, can be weaponized to suppress dissenting opinions and stifle free expression.

Notable Quote:

"If you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail... Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime."
— Ben Shapiro [22:11]

Shapiro defends the importance of unrestricted free speech, cautioning against governmental overreach that could lead to authoritarianism. He cites historical precedents where suppression of speech did not prevent authoritarian regimes but may have inadvertently facilitated their rise by fueling public resentment.

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5. U.S. Foreign Policy Under Trump: Ukraine Negotiations

[24:07 - 36:05]

Shapiro examines the Trump administration's pivot in handling the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He highlights recent diplomatic efforts in Saudi Arabia aimed at negotiating an end to the war, emphasizing the exclusion of Ukrainian officials from key discussions.

Notable Quote:

"The Trump administration is urging European governments to fill out a questionnaire clarifying whether they are willing to send troops into Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force... If you want part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game."
— Ben Shapiro [33:53]

Shapiro explains that this strategy is designed to pressure European nations to increase their defense spending and take a more active role in facilitating peace talks. By doing so, the U.S. aims to reduce its financial burden while compelling Europe to contribute more substantively to regional security.

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6. Interview with Senator Tom Cotton: China and Taiwan Threats

[36:07 - 46:41]

In an extensive interview, Senator Tom Cotton discusses the strategic threats posed by China, particularly concerning Taiwan. Cotton outlines China's ambition to supplant the U.S. as the global superpower through military buildup and economic dominance.

Notable Quote:

"China's ultimate goal is to replace America as the world's dominant economic and military superpower and to call the shots in the world."
— Senator Tom Cotton [36:35]

Cotton warns of the catastrophic global economic repercussions should China succeed in taking Taiwan, highlighting Taiwan's critical role in semiconductor manufacturing. He advocates for bolstering U.S. military capabilities and ensuring that Taiwan can withstand potential aggression. Additionally, Cotton addresses domestic threats, pointing to China's influence in the U.S. through networks aimed at infiltrating government and society.

Notable Quotes:

"Any kind of conflict over Taiwan would be devastating... The only way to prevail in a conflict with Taiwan is to prevent it from happening in the first place."
— Senator Tom Cotton [37:29]

"China has built up a large influence network throughout our society and our government of people who are ready to man the ramparts and defend China."
— Senator Tom Cotton [44:31]

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7. U.S. Policy Shifts Towards Mexico and Drug Cartels

[46:41 - 56:07]

Shapiro discusses the Trump administration's initiative to target Mexican drug cartels more aggressively through enhanced CIA operations. This shift aims to address the ongoing fentanyl crisis, which has resulted in over 100,000 American deaths annually.

Notable Quote:

"Illegal immigration is down to some of the lowest levels ever recorded. We are down to less than 200 border encounters a day across the entire southwestern border of the United States."
— Ben Shapiro [46:31]

He praises the administration's focus on dismantling drug cartels as a direct response to demand from American citizens suffering from the opioid epidemic. Shapiro also touches upon internal investigations into the Afghanistan withdrawal, highlighting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's commitment to accountability.

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8. Social Security Administration and DOGE Scandal

[56:07 - 62:11]

The episode covers controversies involving Elon Musk's DOGE initiative's attempts to access sensitive government records. This has led to the resignation of the Social Security Administration's acting commissioner, Michelle King.

Notable Quote:

"DOGE is not going to interrupt Social Security benefits of all Republican administrations. This administration understands. Do not touch the entitlement third rail."
— Ben Shapiro [56:07]

Shapiro criticizes the perceived overreach of DOGE into government operations, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding taxpayer information and protecting entitlement programs from external interference.

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9. Domestic Scandals and Cultural Critiques

[62:11 - End]

Shapiro addresses various domestic issues, including the public fallout from celebrity scandals and critiques of popular culture's handling of sensitive topics. He comments on recent appearances by celebrities like Ryan Reynolds and Tom Hanks on Saturday Night Live, interpreting their actions as indicative of a broader cultural decay.

Notable Quote:

"It's bad when Antonio Cromartie has a thousand kids by a billion different women. And even if a person I like does it, it's still not great."
— Ben Shapiro [72:05]

He underscores the importance of traditional family structures, asserting that deviations from this norm negatively impact societal values and the well-being of children. Shapiro advocates for a return to conservative principles as a remedy to what he perceives as moral and cultural decline.

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Conclusion

Episode 2140 of The Ben Shapiro Show offers a comprehensive analysis of current geopolitical tensions, particularly focusing on U.S.-Europe dynamics and the rising threat of China concerning Taiwan. Domestically, Shapiro critiques shifts in policy and cultural narratives that he believes undermine traditional values and national security. Through incisive commentary and strategic discussions with figures like Senator Tom Cotton, the episode underscores the importance of conservative principles in addressing both international and domestic challenges.

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This summary encapsulates the main discussions, key insights, and conclusions drawn by Ben Shapiro and his guests, providing a thorough overview for those who have not listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, folks, it was a very busy President's Day weekend. In the news, we're gonna get to all of it. Ongoing negotiations over Ukraine between the United States and Russia. In Saudi Arabia, President Trump at the Daytona 500. J.D. vance giving off some pretty strong, aggressive vibes in Germany. Lots of stuff happening. We begin today with the latest on this insane situation up in Toronto where a Delta plane landed and then flipped over onto its roof. Here's a video. It is just breaking. And as of this morning, you can see this plane is completely on its roof.

[Margaret Brennan]

Breaking news from Pearson Airport.

[Ben Shapiro]

Apparently Everybody's alive.

[Margaret Brennan]

Airlines CRJ900 has crashed. As you can see, the plane ended up upside down and the wings were sheared off. 80 people were on board the flight. No one was killed. Good evening. The crash occurred around 2:30 this afternoon. According to Peel paramedics. Fifteen people were injured, two of them critically. One child was also transported to sick kids hospital.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, so we do actually have some video of the moment of impact. This looks like pilot error. I mean, there really is no other way to read this. This is an insane crash landing. Basically, the plane comes down so hard that it rips off part of the landing gear and flips the plane completely over. One of the wings comes off the plane. So it is not as though it flipped around in the air or anything like that. This is not an FAA issue. This is not a coordination issue between various planes. This is a pilot who's going to have some splaining to do. Here is the video. Oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no. That is not good. Miracle that nobody was killed in this. Again, there are 15 people who have been injured. Now, this has not stopped anybody on the left or in the media from immediately blaming the Trump administration for a plane crash that happened in Canada, which may maybe this is the start of our, our invasion of Canada. Actually, this is the inciting event. But in any case, here was NBC News trying to blame Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Doge for a plane crash in which it is pretty obvious that the pilot screwed something up here.

[Tom Cotton]

This is going to yet again raise.

[Ben Shapiro]

The concern about FAA staffing, air traffic control staffing. Now, this is a Canadian air traffic control tower and this is under Canadian authority once it crosses the border. And yet, as you know, there has been this talk about maybe staff cuts at the FAA as a part of President Trump's effort to trim down the federal workforce.

[Tom Cotton]

And yet, as you also know, the.

[Ben Shapiro]

FAA has been complaining for years that.

[Tom Cotton]

That they are understaffed in critical job.

[Ben Shapiro]

Positions, especially air traffic control. There is zero evidence that had anything to do with the FAA or firings at the FAA or anything remotely like that. In fact, a CNN safety analyst named David Susi admitted as much, said, yeah, we've had a bunch of plane incidents lately, but there's not really one factor tying them together or anything.

[David Susi]

When we look at a short period of time in aviation, you have to understand that the litmus test here is a personal decision on your part. Do you feel safe now when you're trying to make that decision? Do I feel safe flying? And I do, very much so. There's no trend. There's nothing that ties these accidents together. So, using critical thinking, you can say for yourself, do all of these things indicate some kind of trend in aircraft accidents? And to me, as an experienced investigator and being involved in aviation, as a mechanic and as a safety inspector for the faa, I feel perfectly safe doing this. I don't see anything tying these together that says, oh, the FAA is bad, or the system is a problem. There are incidents that are a problem.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. Now, the way that the media are attempting to spin this as a problem with Elon Musk or Doge, the reason they're doing this is, and this is gonna be the approach for the next several years, is that every time there is an incident, it is going to be tied to some sort of broader spate of cuts. It's. It's gonna be difficult to link the incident to the cuts, but that's gonna have to be the argument, because in reality, when bad things happen, somebody has failed, and that somebody is usually a person who's there, not a person who's not there. So it is much harder generally to blame something on quote, unquote, understaffing than on the people who are there failing to do their jobs. It's not as though there's nobody at the controls of this plane, for example, but that is going to be the case that the left makes. In any case, thank God everybody is alive. We'll find out how injured everybody was, I'm sure, as time goes on. Meanwhile, one of the big controversies of the weekend was Bill Burr. So I've spoken about Bill Burr on the program, and as I've said before, Bill Burr has completely lost the thread. Absolutely lost the thread. So Bill Burr has decided, as a very rich individual who makes money by saying funny things sometimes. And again, this is coming from somebody who really enjoyed, for example, his Red Rock special. I think that he's done some really funny stuff in the past, and then he decided that he was gonna go not just woke, but the wokest of the woke on everything from race to economics. So on his Monday morning podcast, he decided that he was going to sound off about billionaires again. Now, again, this is not his first rodeo on this particular topic. We talked about this a few weeks ago. He suggested that Luigi Mangione, who is the shooter of Brian Thompson, who is the head of United Healthcare, you, he's a CEO over there. The murder of that guy on the street, Bill Burr had suggested that he basically had it coming because he ran a health insurance company. Well, now Bill Burr has expanded his critique out to all billionaires. Apparently, according to Bill Burr, simply earning a lot of money in the United States or anywhere else means that you should be murdered. This means that Bill Burr is both a moral and an economic idiot. This is not actually how economics works. The way that you become a billionaire in a free market capitalist system is by generating new goods, products and services has at a price enough affordable that people want to get it. That is it. That, that is how you make a lot of money. Back in the old days of feudalism, the way that you made a lot of money is by robbing poor people and taking all their stuff. And you had to do that to a lot of poor people because they didn't have a lot of stuff. And it turns out the people in those days who are rich actually weren't all that rich by modern standards. They didn't have any modern conveniences. There was no innovation or anything like that. Okay, but billionaires of today, generally speaking, are billionaires because they created something that's awesome for everybody. But Bill Burr obviously doesn't understand economics. He doesn't understand morality either, because his suggestion is that if you, apparently if you are worth $999 million, you're good to go. If you make a billion dollars, you should be murdered on the streets. According to Bill Burr, the amount of people that are struggling out there because of these billionaires, and they got us all arguing liberal and conservative, we gotta stop doing that. If you work a full week at a job, you should be able to pay your rent. You shouldn't have to go out and get another job and still be struggling. It's bad for the country. These billionaires, they need to be put down, you know, like rabid dogs. And then he added, they are rabid with effing greed and they're going out and dividing everybody. Well, there's certainly no divisiveness I'm sensing from Bill Burr there talking about how people should be legitimately murdered for earning too much money in the United States. It's this sort of terrible economic analysis that leads to Bernie Sandersdom. You just say, you know, in a free country, nobody should have to live on more than one salary. Okay, well, thanks for your statement about realities that you wish didn't exist. Now, what is your alternative? Because it turns out the government ownership and redistribution of resources makes everyone extremely poor. It turns out that massive tax rates, confiscatory tax rates, kill the very businesses that people need to work for. It turns out that high levels of government regulation and intervention in the real estate market tend to generate higher prices in real estate, including in rent. That's what rent control does. For example, a misbegotten attempt to punish developers who are quote, unquote, billionaires by controlling the rents. And what you end up with is less production of buildings. The economy is dynamic. People like Bill Burr believe that the economy is static. And so billionaires are just taking a bigger chunk of a fixed pie. But that is not how the economy works. But where that shades over into truly evil thinking is when you start translating that into violence. That billionaires, because you misunderstand economics, need to be killed because they are suddenly centralizing all the resources. Please name me the person from whom Elon Musk has stolen money. Seriously, I'd like to hear the name of that person so Elon Musk can repay that money. For that matter, I would love to know from whom Bill Burr has stolen his money. Bill Burr has a net worth apparently around $20 million. From whom did he steal that money? What's the cutoff for being a bad person? Is it like $21 million or something? It turns out that Bill Burr charges a lot of money for his comedy special. Shouldn't he give it out for free? I mean, there are a lot of working people who really like Bill Burr, and they now have to choose between paying their rent and getting a Bill Burr ticket. So, you know, maybe he should give away all of his product for free. Maybe Bill Burr should do all of his comedy shows for free. Maybe we should have the government force him to do those things in the name of economic justice, you know, when they're not killing the billionaires. Or maybe we should do none of those things because this country was founded on freedom. Freedom from a country that forced us to buy their overpriced tea and then try blockading us when we dumped their tea into the ocean. How'd that work out for you, Great Britain? Well, it's time to throw your overpriced big wireless contract overboard as well. You don't need to pay 100 bucks a month just to get a free phone. PureTalk, my cell phone company, says no to inflated prices. The qualifying plan. You can choose an iPhone 14 or a Samsung Galaxy for $0. And yes, this is for premium service on America's most dependable 5G network. Get your iPhone 14 or Samsung Galaxy for $0 with a qualifying plan by going to PureTalk.com Shapiro. You make that switch in as little as 10 minutes. No hassle, no gimmicks, just honest to goodness wireless priced right. Again, that's PureTalk.com Shapiro claim your new iPhone or Galaxy with qualifying purchase from PureTalk America's wireless company. Visit PureTalk.com Shapiro for details. Again, I've been using PureTalk myself for years. 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They're built tough enough for long days, but stylish enough for those big nights out. Now, do I look like the typical kind of guy who wears boots? But here's the thing. I actually enjoy wearing the Tokova's boots. And they look cool. They are subtle. They are not loud. Or at least they don't have to be. Unless you want them to be. No matter your size or your style, they've got the perfect boot waiting for you. Plus with To Cova's best in the West Guarantee yet free returns and exchanges for 30 days. Pretty hard to beat right now. Get 10% off at tokova.comshapiro when you sign up for email and texts. That's 10% off at T E C O V A S.comshapiro to covos.com/shapiro so you cite four details to Covas. Point your toes, West. The reason this matters is because I have a fear. Here is my fear. The American body politic tends to pendulum from side to side. This is how you end up with Trump and then Biden and then Trump again. But I think that the next pendulum swing, and there will always be another pendulum swing, is going to be to the far left, to the economic populist far left, to people who agree with Bill Burr. If there is an economic downturn in any way, shape or form, because the American people have not been made aware of the realities of how economics works because our education system has failed them completely on all of this. This sort of zero sum ugly thinking is going to eventually gain victory in the United States at some point. Not permanently, but at some point because of all of the broken systems of education that have been put in place in this country because people have become so comfortable with the bizarre idea that rich people are stealing from poor people. Now, for the moment, it's really unpopular and it should remain really unpopular because it is a stupid, terrible idea. And the same thing happens to be true in terms of the sort of zero sum thinking that some people have on race in this country. It turns out that in a free country, people of all races should do better. But there are some people who don't believe that. People like for example, Trevor Noah and Princeton Professor Ruha Benjamin, who have now basically come all the way. They've horseshoed around to the racist right and they are now arguing in favor of segregation because the races can't get along with one another according to these geniuses on the left. I know what your shout means. The same way an Italian knows what an Italian shout means. Yeah, right. I know I'm prefacing it with a lot because it's a loaded question, but I would love to know if you think integration was the right solution. Maybe on the other side of you know what America of civil rights.

[Margaret Brennan]

Yeah, no, I don't.

[Ben Shapiro]

And, and I don't think it's actually that controversial when if you understand that segregation and integration weren't the only options, within those two options, it may seem like integration is the more progressive. Of course we don't want segregation. But again, when you're being integrated into institutions, into a culture that's a supremacist.

[Margaret Brennan]

Culture, that's a culture that feeds off.

[Ben Shapiro]

Of hierarchy, that feeds off of insecurity, anxiety, why are we being integrated into that. I mean, this is how pathetic the left has become. So they are arguing in favor of fixed pie economics, which has been debunked by literally all of human history in every country. And they are arguing in favor of sort of a fixed pie with regard to racial reconciliation, that the races can't get along. It's a white supremacist system. This is why it is so important that President Trump succeeded, truly. Because if these are the two sides and only one side can win, right? If the left continues to follow the Bilber economic populist path and the Trevor Noah, Ruha Benjamin racial path, and if that pendulum tends to swing, it is very important that President Trump continue to be successful. It is really, really, really important. Because if he is not successful, if he does not succeed, the alternative is this trash, this ugly, immoral trash. And, you know, I'm obviously hopeful that President Trump continues to succeed for precisely that reason. That's why it's important that he do smart things, which, thank God, so far he is. President Trump's popularity remains at all time highs for him. The latest public opinion poll has President Trump riding at a 51% approval rating compared to 45% disapproval rating. In fact, the politician that Americans like the least right now is Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is stuck at a -10. Only 32% of Americans actually like Chuck Schumer at this point. This is according to the new Survey USA poll. President Trump is also making himself culturally ubiquitous. So he went to the Daytona 500 over the weekend and actually used the Beast as the pace car. And here are some of the radio traffic that was happening while he was pacing the field. This is your favorite president. I'm a big fan. I am a really big fan of you people. That you do this, I don't know. But I just want you to be safe. You're talented people, and you're great people and great Americans. Have a good day, have a lot of fun, and I'll see you later again. This is kind of awesome. This kind of stuff is cool and good. President Trump at the super bowl getting big ovations. President Trump at the Daytona 500 getting big ovations. All of that is quite good because the alternative is really, really bad. And meanwhile, the administration is making some fairly serious moves. And one of those moves involves pushing Europe to actually, for the first time in nearly a century, stand up on its own two feet. So since the end of World War II, the United States has essentially been the bankroller for European security and you understand why that is? Europe had basically destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn't become a communist ridden hellhole. And then Europe became essentially a sick man, reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union. And then the Soviet Union fell. And instead of Europe actually getting its act together, Europe just continued to live on the largesse of the United States. We helped prop up all of their security arrangements. We helped prop up NATO, for example. And meanwhile they themselves got more and more robust in their stupidity. They decided that they could basically play with house money. And by playing with house money, I mean they could be as left wing as they wanted to be while knowing that the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee to them. And so they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea. They decided to actually pass essentially forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that had once colonized. They were going to take those policies, put them in place, and there would be no negative side effects. Well, over the weekend, Vice President J.D. vance spoke in Munich and the Europeans were very angry at him. He spoke at the Munich Security Conference. He gave a very important speech. And at the speech he said, listen, there are some problems in Europe. Those problems include things like China and Russia. But the biggest problem in Europe is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about. Now, the Europeans don't like being told this. The Europeans like to believe that they are the sophisticates on the block. They like to believe that they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than these brash, annoying Americans. But what J.D. van says here is 100% true. He says you guys decided to let terrorists into your own borders. You guys decided to crack down on free speech. You guys decided to crack down on free market economics. That was your choice. Why should we have to pay for it? Precisely. The threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. And again, this should be combined in how it's viewed with his speech at the Paris AI Action Summit where he chided the European Union for being so risk averse that they were Basically cracking down in their own ability to innovate in the AI space. There's a very good piece at the Wall Street Journal by a person named Dominic Green, who's a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, talking about these speeches. He says, combine those two speeches, you have the classic American one, too. Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the United States and a key link in the emerging American led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality. And this is right. And so one of the policies, it seems, of the Trump administration is, is to force the Europeans to actually own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past. And that stupidity is very, very real. And by the way, there's a threat that that stupidity starts to cross the water. So, for example, 60 Minutes did an entire piece over the weekend about Germany and about free speech law in Germany in which German officials openly acknowledge that they will criminally prosecute people for insulting other people in public. For example, it's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, or deny the Holocaust. That's clear. Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes.

[Tom Cotton]

Yes, it is.

[Ben Shapiro]

And it's a crime to insult them online as well? Yes.

[Tom Cotton]

The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the Internet.

[Ben Shapiro]

Why?

[Tom Cotton]

Because in Internet it stays there. If we are talking here face to face, you insult me, I insult you.

[Margaret Brennan]

Okay, finish.

[Tom Cotton]

But if you in the Internet, if I insult you, or a politician that sticks around forever. Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

So again, this is not just 60 minutes interviewing people in Germany about what hate speech looks like in Germany. This is 60 Minutes pushing for this kind of stuff. How do we know? Because this is the overall view of the, of the legacy media. The overall view of the legacy media is that only things legacy media likes being said should actually be said. Margaret Brennan, who recently off being face planted by JD Vance on the news. She's on CBS News on Face the Nation and she was interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and she was chiding JD Vance for going to Europe and saying that Europe might want to value free speech a little bit more right now. Again, in Europe, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham. Depends on what kind of prosecutor you get from the Crown Prosecution Service in Great Britain. But here's Margaret Brennan saying the real problem is this whole free speech thing. He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. And he met with the head of a political party that has far right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that. That the censorship.

[Margaret Brennan]

I have to disagree with you specifically about the right. No, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that had a list of people that hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay. And by the way, there actually was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany. The Weimar Republic actually had many, many laws on the books that restricted speech. In fact, Hitler ended up spending some time in jail, not because of his speech, but because he tried to lead a revolt. And then afterward, he wasn't allowed to speak for several years publicly. Goebbels was actually forced to not speak publicly. There were like 40 lawsuits against Joseph Goebbels, who was the publicist for Adolf Hitler. In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis. In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people felt like, hey, maybe they have something to say. Maybe, maybe these people are being silenced because they have something to say. Sort of normal human tendency to buck against censorship by trying to suggest that there is something to the thing that the person is trying to say. But again, this is all about this sort of left wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don't like, and this will magically protect you from the impact of those opinions. So what JD Vance was saying in Europe is, guys, you've given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place. I will say I took some personal enjoyment in JD Vance just slamming the door on the fingers of Mehdi Hasan. Mehdi Hasan, of course, is the front man frontman for very often Qatari opinions. He tweeted out, quote, hey, J.D. vance, I know you're busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this? He was referring to President Trump's decision to limit AP reporters access to White House press briefings because they refused to use Gulf of America. And JD Vance wrote back, yes, dummy. The thing about JD Is that JD Is an online troll. So JD Definitely uses the online troll language. Yes, dummy. I think there's a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the White House. Press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views. The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps. So again. J.D. very good at this. But all of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet. And that is taking particular front row when it comes to Ukraine. Well, Europe. They don't have American values, but you should have American values. Most American universities are no longer teaching those, but there is one that is Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come. By honoring your career, calling you impact your family, your friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others? That's yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christian Affordable Visit gcu Edu. I've been to their campus. It's a beautiful place, terrific faculty, excellent student body. Go check them out right now. Grand Canyon University. Visit them at gcu. Edu Again, that's gcu Edu for Grand Canyon University. Also, when you're covering breaking news and political developments the way I do, you can't always stick to a normal 9 to 5 schedule. Stories break at all hours. Having the flexibility to manage my time effectively isn't just a luxury. It's essential for delivering the news people need to hear. That's why I appreciate tools that let me handle business tasks on my own schedule, not someone else's. Takestamps.com has revolutionized how you and your business can handle all mailing and shipping needs. Whether you're sending out important documents, promotional materials, or packages, you can do it all right from your computer or phone, any time of day or night. No lines, no traffic, absolutely no waiting. Plus, if you sell products online, stamps.com seamlessly connects with every major marketplace and shopping cart. And here's what makes it even better. Stamps.com Rate Advisor takes all the guesswork out of shipping costs. It automatically calculates the best shipping rates and shows you options you're not going to find anywhere else, including up to 88% off USPS and UPS services. All you need is a computer and printer. They'll even send you a free scale to get started. Have more flexibility in your life with stamps. Com. Sign up at stamps.com, use code SHAPIRO for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and free digital scale. No long term commitments, no contracts. Just go to stamps.com code shapiro. Again, that's stamps.com, code shapiro for that special offer including a four week trial plus free postage and free digital scale. So when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine, you may have noticed on a map, is very, very close to the rest of Europe. In fact, Ukraine is right in the middle of Europe. Just spatially speaking, Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland and Romania, among others. And it turns out that the Europeans, while they've increased their defense spending, have been rather hesitant to actually take further actions. They want the United States to foot the bill. And the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, listen, we're tired of footing the bill. This is on your continent. Why don't you take a leading role here? And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending. Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously. When you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security, why is it that the United States always gets dragged in to your domestic squabbles? Why is that precisely now? Again, this is not a case that the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin. It is a case that cudgeling the Europeans to actually, you know, do what they're supposed to do is not a stupid tactic. In fact, it is very often a smart tactic. So top diplomats, according to the Associated Press from Russia and the United States met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Trump. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. President Zelensky has said his country will not accept any outcome from this week's talks if Kyiv doesn't take part. European allies have also expressed concerns that they are being sidelined as well, according to Secretary of State Rubio. He said the two sides agreed to pursue three goals, quote, to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high level team to support Ukrainian peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation. So what is this really about? So if you just read this on the surface, maybe this is about the United States cutting Ukraine out of the loop. Or perhaps what the United States is doing here is what the United States might have had to do all along, which is make a deal that they then crammed down on Zelensky because, remember, Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, can't go back to his own people and say, I gave up Donbass in Crimea, hundreds of thousands of people are dead, and I gave up Donbass in Crimea. He has to make the case to his people that they're going to win back these areas that pretty much everybody, including the Biden administration, recognized they were not going to win back. And so the idea of the United States cramming down the deal and playing bad guy in this particular scenario might actually be an off ramp for Zelensky, because both sides need an off ramp here. Putin needs an off ramp that allows him to go back to his people and say that they won something for this enormous cost. And Zelensky needs an off ramp. Said he can say to his people, listen, I didn't want to go along with the deal. The deal was forced upon me. I've been saying this for literally three years. For three years I've been saying this. Meanwhile, this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table. They say, we want to slot, and the United States is saying, fine, you want to come to the table, why don't you bring your purse? Seriously, you want to come to the table? What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation? According to the Associated Press, the recent US Diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won't be favorable to them. Kyiv's absence at Tuesday's talks has rankled many Ukrainians. France called an emergency meeting of EU countries and the UK On Monday to discuss the war. And again, forcing the EU to actually come together to prove that they ought to be part of the conversation is not a terrible idea. Again, there's this attempt to sort of play it as though what the United States is doing is cutting some sort of soft deal for Putin but this is also one way of getting the Europeans to actually step up and do what they are supposed to do. According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea that the fate of Europe might be decided without direct European participation has alarmed the continent's capitals. European governments weaned their economies off Russian fuel exports and poured billions of military aid into Ukraine as part of the war effort they regard as crucial to the region's security. Now, the snub from Washington has raised pressure on Emmanuel Macron of France, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other leaders to define how they plan to contribute to any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In recent days, the Trump administration has asked European governments to fill out a questionnaire clarifying whether they are willing to send troops into Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force and what other capabilities they can provide as part of a security guarantee for Ukraine. The leaders must also discuss how to increase European military spending and fund longer term assistance for Kyiv. And again, all of this makes perfect sense, saying to the Europeans, listen, you want a slot at the table, you don't get to free ride anymore. It doesn't get to be like the UN where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security. If you want part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game. After Monday's meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rudy said Europe was, quote, ready and willing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and to invest a lot more in our security. Now, with that said, it is also true that Poland has said they don't want to actually put their own people on the ground as a security guarantee for Ukraine. So we're going to find out very quickly who's willing to put their money where their mouth is. Meanwhile, President Trump is putting severe pressure on the Europeans to step in. How? Well, apparently he has now made a very controversial demand is, According to the UK Telegraph, a demand for $500 billion in payback from Ukraine. Essentially, the Telegraph obtained a draft of the pre decisional contract marked privileged and confidential, dated February 7, 2025. It says the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine. The agreement covers the economic value associated with resources of Ukraine, including mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports and other infrastructure. As agreed, the US would take 50% of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, 50% of the financial value of all new licenses issued to third parties for the future monetization of resources. There would be a lean on such revenues in favor of The United States, it says for all future licenses, the US Will have a right of first refusal for purchase of exportable minerals. So basically, the United States is saying, listen, you want us to support you, what you need back is you need to give us a giant chunk of your future revenues, essentially. Now, the United States cumulatively has given about 120 billion euros in aid. So this is much larger than the amount that the United States has actually put in. However, one of the things the United States is saying is if you drag us into an economic relationship here, if we go into an economic relationship, it better be worth our while because essentially that's a security relationship. Once the United States is tied in terms of economics to rare earths, minerals coming from Ukraine, well, we're gonna have a pretty good incentive to actually come to the defense of Ukraine if Russia gets in. So are the Europeans gonna offer you a better deal? Right, and if the Europeans are willing to offer you a better deal, great. That means the United States isn't on the hook for nearly as much. This is the game, I think, that the Trump administration is playing. It's not a game where the United States abandons Ukraine. It's not even a game where the United States impoverishes Ukraine. This is all a negotiating tactic to get the Europeans to step up and do the thing they always should have done, which is take the lead on all of this, rather than simply waiting for the United States to do the dirty work as they have been doing since essentially 1945. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was asked what the process is moving forward here. He was explaining, when you meet with your Russian counterpart, whoever that is, are you going to be sitting there arguing Ukraine's position?

[Margaret Brennan]

Well, first of all, I think we have to understand is right now there is no process. What we have right now is a call between Putin and President Trump in which both sides expressed an interest in ending this conflict. I imagine there will be follow up conversations to figure out what a process to talk about that would look like. And then at that point, perhaps we can begin to share more details. So it's a bit premature. I know there's been a lot of reaction to it because there's been no conversation about it, any serious conversation.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, so we'll find out where exactly this goes. Meanwhile, President Zelensky is attempting to butter up President Trump. He says, listen, I trust President Trump. Obviously he was voted in. He's the person we're dealing with. I trust President Trump because he is the President of the United States, because your people, your people voted for him and I respect their choice and I will work with the President Trump with trust, which I have to the United States. But of course I want to have real meeting, productive without, without just words with the concrete steps and to hear us, to hear President Trump to make common plan and to share it with allies than with Russians and stop this war, by the way. Meanwhile, the United States in our own hemisphere is getting significantly more aggressive. In just a moment we're going to get to that. We're going to get to Elon Musk's latest child and the controversy surrounding all of that. First, if you were with us for election night or the inauguration, you already know the Daily Wire doesn't just show up, we take over. And now we are headed back to Washington, D.C. to do just that at CPAC. Join me along with Matt Walsh, Michael Moles, Andrew Clavin and Jeremy Boring all on stage live Thursday night, February 20th. No scripted talking points, no corporate approved narratives, just real conversations that actually matter. Streaming live on Daily Wire plus. And we are taking your questions as well. Don't just watch CPAC be a part of it. Live Thursday night, February 20th on Daily Wire Plus. Joining me on the line is Senator Tom Cotton. He is of course senator from Arkansas and bestselling author of Sacred Duty and Only the Strong. He has a brand new book out titled 7 Things yous can't say About China. It is out today, available everywhere, books are sold. Senator Cotton, thanks so much for the time.

[Tom Cotton]

Thank you, Ben.

[Ben Shapiro]

So let's talk about the situation with China right now. Despite the fact there's been a ton of talk about China, it still seems as though we are actually underestimating what China is doing in the world. There's almost this sort of soft belief that China isn't going to take aggressive action against Taiwan. They won't do anything that really damages world trade in the South China Sea. There's even a sense by some on the right that if we sort of abandon the world in terms of foreign policy that China won't attempt to fill the gap. First of all, what is China's strategic vision? What are they attempting to do?

[Tom Cotton]

Ben China's ultimate goal is to replace America as the world's dominant economic and military superpower and to call the shots in the world, make everyone dance to their tune. They've been open about this at times, like during President Trump's first term on a state visit, telling his senior aides that they view a future in which America is basically a low cost commodity exporter to China that will provide them cheap oil and cheap agricultural products. And that's about it. And that's why you've seen them undertake this breathtaking military buildup over the last 25 years. So they now have the world's largest military by far, and the second most technologically capable military after ours. That's why they take such aggressive economic actions to try to benefit their companies and try to harm our companies, and why they're so aggressive towards Taiwan, which is really the linchpin of China's strategy. They know that they can't achieve their goals without taking Taiwan. But if they take Taiwan, they're on the precipice of achieving those goals.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, Senator Cotton, let's talk about Taiwan, because obviously that's a hot button issue. They have projective power, certainly across the Taiwan Strait, which is incredibly narrow. The big issue with Taiwan, not just in terms of the fact that it's a democratic country that essentially constitutes its own polity, but also tsmc, which is the world's leading manufacturer of superconductors, sophisticated superconductors, microchips, is located there. If that were to be taken by China, it would be a serious danger to the world economy. How seriously should we take what China is attempting to do with Taiwan? What is their goal? Are you more worried about an invasion or a blockade?

[Tom Cotton]

Both would be very worrisome. Any kind of conflict over Taiwan would be devastating, Ben. It would probably lead to an immediate global depression that would wipe out the life savings of many Americans in the stock market, lead to mass unemployment, shortages on the shelves of American stores. And part of that reason, as you say, is that Taiwan is the source of more than 60% of all global semiconductor manufacturing, more than 90% of advanced semiconductor manufacturing. It's also that you could expect a complete breakdown of economic ties between China and the United States and the West. Unfortunately, we've allowed those ties to grow very deep, and therefore we're very dependent on China. So even if there were a conflict that were inconclusive, that reached a stalemate, you would still see, again an almost immediate global depression that would be devastating Americans. That's why the only way to prevail in a conflict with Taiwan is to prevent it from happening in the first place, to be strong and confident in the defense of a democratic partner and make it clear to communist China, as we have for a long time, that we will not tolerate any unilateral attempts to invade and annex Taiwan to the mainland.

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator Cotton, one of the things that you say in the book is that China could actually win. And I know there's been a lot of skepticism, I'm one of the skeptics of China's sort of generalized ability to project power. I look at their demographics, their demographics are upside down. I look at their economy, it's incredibly debt laden. They've been building empty cities to the loss of billions and trillions of dollars for years now. So for people like me who are skeptical that China is as powerful as it sort of seems on the world stage, what's the case that China could actually win? How would they achieve victory? Or it mainly be that they just burn everything down? And what happens next? Who knows?

[Tom Cotton]

Well, it does get back to Taiwan. I mean, Douglas MacArthur said in 1950 that if Taiwan were to fall into the hands of a hostile power, it would be a disaster of utmost importance for the United States. Partly it's because of their centrality and the global semiconductor manufacturing chain, but also it's because of their strategic position. It's not Hong Kong, it's not Tibet. Places where China has also committed egregious crimes by taking Taiwan. It would turn the so called first island chain, which goes from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines, from an obstacle to Chinese ambitions to a springboard. They would have what MacArthur called the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender. That would also lead a lot of our friends in the region to start seeking accommodations with China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia. You'd probably see widespread nuclear proliferation as countries like Japan and South Korea and others start getting nuclear weapons as well, destabilizing the world. And you'd see China trying to undermine American influence everywhere, showing other countries that they can walk in and take over a democratic land like Taiwan, and that all countries everywhere should start seeking those kind of accommodations with China. And that ultimately China would achieve its goal again of making us kind of an island on the edge of the world, as Henry Kissinger warned about. So a place where in here, in the new world, we are limited. We're not allowed to trade with China's partners. We're not allowed to invest or get investment from them. And that China would really would call the shots. So it does get back to Taiwan and the central strategic place that Taiwan plays, not just for China, but for the entire world.

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator Khan, one of the things that actually kind of meets between what you're talking about, what I'm talking about is it could be that they feel like their window is closing. So even if they are weaker than popularly perceived, that weakness could in fact be a spur to Action. Because if the idea is that their window is closing, they need to move fast, their demographics are upside down, their economy is going to collapse, then that does give them added incentive to get incredibly aggressive right now because the situation is going to be better for them three years from now.

[Tom Cotton]

Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Ben, is that China does have a lot of domestic internal problems, like, you know, the one child policy, which resulted in more than 300 million forced abortions, has turned their demographics upside down. They have a lot of economic problems, but at the moment, they probably close the gap as much as they're going to or close to as much as they are with the United States. And you can kind of look out at projected investments in our military, for instance, or economic growth and maybe see that gap widening again in another 10, 15, 20 years. But in the moment, China may perceive itself as both best positioned in terms of its own power and its future relative power to the United States to actually go for the jugular in Taiwan, try to create a fait accompli, and then use that success if we allow it to address some of the problems that they have internally.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, Senator Cotton, it's not just that China is a threat externally. China also has obviously been infiltrating our government. They have been stealing our iPad, and of course they've been deploying apps like TikTok to infiltrate the minds of our children. Maybe you can talk a little about the sort of domestic threat of China inside the United States.

[Tom Cotton]

Yeah, because China has waged this economic world war and especially against the United States, and stole so much of our wealth and built up their economy. It gives them tremendous influence in the United States. I write in the book that you haven't seen a movie with a Chinese villain in a very long time. That's because all those movie studios depend on on access to the Chinese movie market. Also, every major news network besides Fox News is owned or affiliated with one of those movie studios. And is it any surprise that Fox News is the toughest network on China that does the most hard hitting reporting about China? I don't think so. Consider what happened in the NBA. China is their biggest overseas market. You had the general manager of the Houston Rockets merely posting a symbol on social media saying he supported Hong Kongers fighting for their freedom. And China took Houston Rockets TVs off of or games off their streaming services, took their merchandise out of stores. You had NBA players like LeBron James and Stephen Kerr cracking down on the GM of the Rockets. Or just look at what happened to me. Five years ago, when I first said this week, five years ago, that the coronavirus pandemic might have come from that lab, not from a food market, I expected Chinese Communist officials to criticize me, but also had American elites coming down on me, calling me a conspiracy theorist at the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and so forth. So China has built up a large influence network throughout our society and our government of people who are ready to man the ramparts and defend China. It's not just traditional spies and espionage. It's this massive degree of influence they have in every corner of American society.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, Senator Cotton, given the threats, what are the best ways for the United States to counter those threats, particularly militarily? I mean, when we talk about being able to deter China from taking Taiwan, what sort of projective power do we have that's capable of deterring that sort of action? How well armed is Taiwan? What are the steps we need to take there? And what sort of steps ought we be taking domestically in order to prevent Chinese influence operations?

[Tom Cotton]

Well, so Taiwan has been increasing its spending on its military. Not fast enough, in my opinion, and not necessarily on the right things. They need to be singularly focused on adding more and more time to the amount of time it would take Communist China to subdue the island so other friendly nations can come to its aid. What are the things that we can do? We need to make sure that we significantly increased our munitions manufacturing capability. We've seen in Ukraine and in the war and Gaza against Hamas, that we're strained in what we can provide to our allies. We need that capability to build up here in America so we can support our allies and defend our interest in the western Pacific. We need to invest in shipbuilding so we have a navy that can actually deter Chinese aggression. We need to be buying more stealth bombers and stealth fighters to do the same. Our army needs more air and missile defenses and long range strike capabilities so it can defend our positions in the western Pacific. One reason here, what we can do domestically, one of the reasons I wrote seven things you can't say about China is I want to ring the alarm bell. Most Americans have a justly low opinion of Communist China, but there's still a lot they don't know, in part because a lot of our elites don't want to say it. But I wanted to ring the alarm to make it clear the extent of Chinese influence in this country. So I'd encourage all of your audience not just to get the book, but stay informed after the book is published and you've Read it about what's happening with China, what they're doing in America. Tell your friends, tell your kids about things like TikTok or the curriculum they may have in schools. Do everything you can to hold China accountable. That's what I'm gonna do as a senator. But you can do a lot too as a normal American citizen.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's Senator Tom Cotton. His new book, 7 Things yous can't say About China. Senator Cotton, really appreciate the time. Book is a must read and thanks so much for your efforts on behalf of this cause.

[Tom Cotton]

Thank you, Ben.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, meanwhile, the United States is taking a much harsher look at Mexico. Apparently, according to the Washington Post, the CIA is poised to take a larger, more aggressive role under President Trump in the battle against the Mexican based drug cartels. Devising and evaluating plans to share more intelligence with regional governments, train local counter narcotics units and possibly conduct covert actions, according to people familiar with the matter. Which yes, yes, there are like 100,000Americans who are dying every year from fentanyl poisoning. So yes, it makes sense to maybe go after the drug cartels that have been single handedly responsible for the death of those American citizens. By the way, illegal immigration is down to some of the lowest levels ever recorded. We are down to less than 200 border encounters a day across the entire south southwestern border of the United States. That's crazy. These numbers are insanely low. Why? Because everybody understands if you come right now, you getting turned away or, or you're going to end up being arrested and deported. I mean, that's what's going to happen. According to the Washington Post, the expanded focus on cartels represents a new and potentially risky priority for the spy agency which in recent years has made espionage against China, counterterrorism operations in the Middle east and Africa, and support for Ukraine its main concerns. Why is that risky, presumably? I mean, it seems like that's actually the thing that the CIA should be doing. The emphasis will be on increased US support to anti drug forces within Mexico and elsewhere inside the hemisphere. And again, this makes perfect sense. This is our southwestern border. The attempt to pretend that that didn't exist for years got a lot of Americans killed. So good for the administration for taking that seriously. Speaking of taking important things seriously, apparently according to Breitbart, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that he has already picked investigators who will look into the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. He says, I don't have a timeframe on it. I don't wanna wait any longer, but I always wanna get it right. So there will be a full investigation now into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Presumably some people are gonna lose their jobs for the decision making process all along the way and all of that is of course quite good. Meanwhile, DOGE continues to make significant inroads into the federal government. According to the Washington Post, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with Elon Musk's US DOGE service over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said on Monday. Michelle King, who spent a bunch of decades at the agency, left her position Sunday after the disagreement. Now again, this bizarre idea that Elon Musk is like combing through individual data because he's desperate to see your credit card is just silly or your Social Security number. It's really, really dumb. The White House has now nominated a person named Frank Bosigno to lead the Social Security Administration. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti fraud expert is the acting Commissioner Martin O'Malley, the Social Security commissioner under the Biden administration and former Maryland governor. Obviously longtime Democrats had at. At this rate, they will break it and they will break it fast. There'll be an interruption of benefits. That is the last thing that's going to happen here. DOGE is not going to interrupt Social Security benefits of all Republican administrations. This administration understands. Do not touch the entitlement third rail. Do not do it. Meanwhile, DOGE is seeking access to IRS systems. According to the Wall Street Journal, an agreement with the IRS could give the team access the Integrated Data Retrieval System. That system allows anyone with access the ability to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts. Democrats are warning about the risks to taxpayers if DOGE is allowed to access those sensitive taxpayer information without legal guardrails. I have a question. Didn't you guys leak Donald Trump's tax returns? I noticed. I'm sorry. All this craziness about how DOGE is going to invade privacy after the massive invasions of privacy that took place under the Biden administration, they ring rather hollow. Okay, so, so many important things happening. So many important things happening. And I think that it is very important, as I said earlier, for the Trump team to continue to be successful. And they are doing so many things that are necessary, delving into the waste, fraud and abuse, government agencies finding improper payments, finding that thousands of people who are dead still receiving Social Security benefits, digging up USAID fraud and mismanagement, telling the Europeans where to get off and how to restructure. These are all deeply important things. Looking at peace in The Middle East. Okay? So what that means is no distractions. No distractions. Distractions are the killer here. Getting involved, getting high in your own supply to the point where you do things that end up clawing away at your popularity rating in very kind of slow but telling ways. That is not what you want to be doing here. Politics, as I was saying to one of the producers earlier, politics is like a marriage. The public marries the politician. And like a marriage, marriages go bad over a course of time and then all at once. So if you ever meet a couple that gets divorced, even before they get divorced, they're kind of picking at each other, and they kind of pick at each other and they kind of say nasty things. They're kind of small, and you're like, ah, that's not great. But, you know, maybe they. Maybe they'll just let it go. And then something big happens, and all at once, the bottom just falls out because all of the systemic supports for the marriage have already been ground away. And all of the. All of the stability has been removed from the situation, and all it takes is some sort of big fail for the entire system to collapse. Okay, it's like that with public approval and presidents as well. Joe Biden, he had an approval rating that was high 50s, mid to high 50s when he took office. He then proceeded to do an awful lot of things that people didn't like. He did these vast spending programs. He started to put equity in all of his programming. He started appointing people who are incompetent to positions of high office. He was pushing for the transing of the kids. And all this had sort of an incremental effect on his popularity rating. If you take a look at his popularity rating, it kind of hovered in the high, and then it started to decline. Then it was in the low 50s, and it was like hovering right around 50. And then the Afghanistan debacle and the bottom falls out. He spends the rest of his presidency at 40% in the approval ratings. Okay, why? Because all of those kind of small things that weren't so small as it turns out, just like a divorce couple, all those things that people think that they've forgotten and dismissed, they all end up in the divorce papers when the big thing happens. So every president encounters a big thing, a big bad thing that happens during their presidency, during President Trump's first term, obviously, that was both the BLM riots and Covid. Those were huge things that happened in 2020. And the bottom sort of dropped out of the presidency and all of the other things that had been Niggling and annoying and all. Everything from the false fake nonsense of Russiagate to the dumb tweets, all that sort of stuff came back to haunts, right? And the bottom went out. That's the stuff you want to avoid. You want to avoid that stuff because those are unforced errors. In tennis, it's an unforced error. You weren't forced to do the thing. You just decided that you wanted to go for a risky play and you did the thing. I bring this up because there are some indicators that these sorts of things are being put out there, and it's a warning sign. It shouldn't be done because we need Trump to. The alternative is so bad. The alternative is Bill Burr on economics and Trevor Noah on race and Randy Weingarten on gender. I mean, these are the alternatives. And everybody on the right who's very confident that the country will never swing the other way. That sort of confidence never pans out. Democrats have been confident before, and they got hit with Trump twice. Republicans, I remember, were very confident after 2004, and by 2006, Democrats have taken over Congress. Okay, so when President Trump, for example, tweets out things like, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law. I understand he's trolling. I understand the phrase was apocryphally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. This is a dumb thing to tweet. It just is. There's no reason to tweet that, because, again, it's not true. He who saves his country does not violate any law. Well, who defines saving the country and in what way? The whole purpose of the rule of law is that it's supposed to apply equally to everybody. And I understand that, as always. And this is the consistent theme of President Trump, Trump 1 and Trump 2. He is almost always the coroner and never the murderer. Meaning he comes upon the body of American democracy, and he says that this body is dead, and then everyone blames him for having killed American democracy. That's not right. Trump is using executive authority in vast ways. Why? Because those executive authorities had already been established. He came upon them and he said, hey, look, giant executive authorities here. I can use these things, okay? This attitude, he who saves the country does not violate any law. That was precisely the attitude of Barack Obama. It was precisely the attitude of Joe Biden as well. So he's not saying anything the Democrats haven't already said, but it's the kind of statement that comes back to bite you. If, for example, the economy takes a tank. Right? That is a problem. You know, why Waste, really? Why waste any level of sort of public scrutiny on that sort of stuff? Why, for example, deploy people to Romania to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate, who is an admitted pornographer and alleged pimp? What exactly is the purpose of that? According to the Financial Times, the Trump administration is urging Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate and his brother Tristin Tate, as they await trial on charges including human trafficking, sexual misconduct and money laundering. He's currently under house arrest in Romania. Are high interest debt on credit cards, personal loans, collections or medical bills keeping you up at night? PDS debt can help start saving you money immediately. PDS Debt's platform can analyze your unique situation and create the perfect personalized plan to get you out of debt. There's no minimum credit score required, and it takes just 30 seconds to get your results. With PDS debt, you'll save more, pay off your debt faster, and take back control of your finances. Learn more and get a free debt analysis in just 30 [e-mail] wire now, is there an accusation that his rights as an American are being abused? Is that the accusation? If so, what's the substantiation? And sure, he's a dual citizen, although I will say that he's a dual citizen who is currently UK and us, who's currently seeking, by the way, to run for political office in the uk. So I'm not sure why this is, you know, like, top priority for America. He also happens to be a complete derelict of a human being. Andrew Tate, the kind of person who tweeted out over the weekend that if you only have children by one woman, then you are not a conqueror. Quote, if all your children come from one woman, you're not a conqueror. I understand this kind of like, pseudo macho nonsense from a complete grifter and con man like Andrew Tate has some level of popularity, and it's found some level of popularity in circles surrounding President Trump, apparently. Rick Renell, who, again, I like Rick generally, but he came out and he said, I support the tape. Do you think most Americans do really like. Is this something you wish to expend political capital on, truly? Or is it a principled stand about the abuse of power by the Romanian government? And if so, can you substantiate that same thing with Eric Adams. So, Eric Adams, mayor of New York, and he was put under indictment for apparently taking bribes from Turkey. Eric Adams then attempted to turn that into a referendum on his illegal immigration policy. He sort of changed after the indictment came down to suggest that it was because he was being harsh on illegal immigration in New York City, that he was being targeted, that it was for political purposes. The reality, of course, is that a year prior to his shift on illegal immigration, the investigation started into his sort of penny anti crimes with regard to Turkey. His alleged penny anti crimes with regard. With regard to Turkey. Okay, so the Trump administration dismissed his case. The doj. Now the problem with that, you want to dismiss it, fine. You want to dismiss it and say that it was a political prosecution? I'm not sure that I see the evidence for that. I also don't think that the case itself was a big deal in the first place. As Andrew McCarthy over at National Review says, I wasn't blown away by the case against Adams. That's mainly because Adams appears to be a bumbling small timer and often incoherent loose cannon. Okay? But one of the things that they are doing here is they are dismissing without prejudice. Okay? If you're gonna dismiss the case and say that it's a corrupt political case, then you really should dismiss with prejudice. With prejudice means you can't bring the case back. That's what that means. If you're saying the case could be brought back, the suggestion seems to be that if he goes the wrong way politically, then maybe the case comes back. That's the accusation that Democrats are making now. Even if that accusation is false, even if the accusation is not true, why allow that accusation to live out there? Just to, what, Dismiss the case without prejudice? Dismiss it with prejudice if you're gonna do it? Doesn't make any sense. Maybe the goal here is political in the sense that it puts pressure on Kathy Hochul to get rid of Eric Adams because she has the ability to do that as the governor of New York. Maybe the idea is to pressure Eric Adams politically. Either way, that's not stuff the DOJ should be doing. The DOJ should be. Should only be dismissing cases if they believe that the case is in fact political. And if it's political and un based in reality, you should dismiss it with prejudice. Again, the DOJ assessed that the main justice had not even assessed the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which it was based. Is this something that the Trump administration should be distracting itself with? On a practical level? Put aside the moral for a second. On a practical level, is this something that they should be spending time on or effort on? It seems to me the answer is no. And again, these are the kinds of little things that don't matter in the moment. But are they gonna be brought up Again, you're not gonna have heard the last of these. Political scandals and accusations don't just die. They go underground until they're brought out. Once the sort of popularity rating has been eaten away enough that you can break the now hollowed out shell. That is the thing that I am concerned about here. Okay? Meanwhile, other scandals broke over the weekend or so the big sort of buzzy scandal of the weekend is that Elon Musk has another baby. All right, well, you know, it's another weekend, another Elon Musk baby. Elon has now 13 children by a wide variety of other women. And it's not as though he's hiding the ball here. Elon has been doing this with many women for a long time. He is artificially inseminated, I believe, the the former CEO or currency of neuralink. He has a bunch of kids by a bunch of different baby mamas, ranging from Grimes to his first wife. Apparently, he has a new baby mama. Her name is Ashley Sinclair. She is an online conservative influencer. According to the UK Daily Mail, she went public about their child over the weekend. Why? Well, because he ghosted her on Valentine's Day, according to her acquaintances. So she put Musk on blast. On Friday, she publicly posted at him on X saying she'd been trying to communicate for the past several days. And you have not responded. While ghosting Sinclair, Musk was pictured on Thursday with another woman, mother of his three children, Siobhan Zillis. We brought with their offspring to a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sinclair told the world she had Musk's baby. In a shock post the following day, on the evening of Valentine's Day, claiming she'd been forced to reveal her secret due to tabloid media probing her personal life. But an acquaintance says that the real reason that she came for, she has another kid, by the way, with another person, was a disagreement with the billionaire Trump activist Kylie Kramer posted on X, quote, seems like she wasn't getting what she wanted, was emotional, that hurt on Valentine's Day, decided to parade her crazy on the front porch thinking people would be sympathetic to her as a victim of a powerful wealthy man. Well, that seems not particularly good. Sinclair spokesperson named Brian Glicklitch released a statement over the weekend saying Sinclair and Musk have, quote, been privately working toward the creation of an agreement about raising their child for some time. And he rubbished those claims as ridiculous and wrong. Her statement, Ashley Sinclair's, was, quote, five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world. Elon Musk is The father. I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child's privacy and safety. In recent days, it has become clear tabloid media intends to do so regardless of the harm it will cause. I intend to allow our child to grow in a normal, unsafe environment. For that reason, I ask that the media honor our child's privacy and refrain from invasive reporting. And then the plot thickened because Milo Yiannopoulos, who is a. A muckraker extraordinaire, shall we say, he dug up a tweet from Ashley Sinclair. It was in reply to a person named Greg Price who said he's got a kid with a woman already. Seems unlikely to work out. And she wrote back, well, he actually has seven kids and goes through women pretty fast. So that's what turned into this bizarre online conversation. She was apparently receiving a $15,000 a month apartment that she clearly was affording, presumably because Elon was paying for it. And she also apparently, over the weekend, had been doing a photo shoot, I believe. So she. She invited the New York Post into her house the next day to do a full spread, which is typically not what you do when you are attempting to avoid all sorts of public scrutiny. So how do we analyze all of this? Well, let us begin with this. No one in this situation is a victim other than the child. First of all, it is always good when a child is born. Children are good. We'll start with that. So I saw a lot of online influencers congratulating Ashley Sinclair and Elon on the kid. Fine, fine. Whenever a kid is born, that is a good thing. Better that a kid is born than that a kid is not born. That's good. Also, everyone else in this situation is acting badly and no one is a victim. How about that? It is bad to impregnate women to whom you are not married because it is bad for the child not to grow up with a father and a mother in the home, period. My principles have not changed on this ever. It turns out traditional, conservative principles on this, super clear. And have been for several thousand years at this point. Man, woman, child, that's the thing that you want. Anything that gets in the way of that is bad for the child. So when a man has a child with a woman and is not there living in the house with mother, does not love mother. Mother and dad do not love each other. They do not take care of the kids together. That is bad for the child. Okay, this is all very simple stuff, but I feel like it's bizarre that people apparently need to be reminded of this but, yeah, that's actually the way that, you know, those of us who have been part of the biblical virtue system have been on board with this for, like, a super duper long time. I feel like the fact that I even have to say this demonstrates the sickness at the root of many of the things in our society. But it's not great when Antonio Cromartie has a thousand kids by a billion different women. And even if a person I like does it, it's still not great. Okay, so there's that. So principle number one. Children good. Principle number two, the best situation for a child is mom and dad are married. And now, is anyone a victim here? The answer here is no. Presumably, Elon, when he was sleeping with Ashley Sinclair, knew that she was not on birth control. In fact, there are some indicators that he knew that she was not on birth control and he was paying her bills. So obviously he doesn't feel like he was taken for some sort of, you know, long grift here or something. So Elon apparently went in knowing full well what the situation was. And that's on Elon. He's not a victim. Ashley Sinclair is not a victim either. And anyone trying to portray her as a victim, I'm sorry, that's nonsense. She's a grown ass woman. She's a grown ass woman who knew exactly who Elon Musk was. She knows he's the richest man on earth. He is in his 50s. She is in her 20s. This did not appear to be a love match that was likely to end in marriage. Folks, that is not Elon's way. Okay, so she knew. This is a caveat emptor situation. He's not a victim. He knew what he was getting in for. And she is not a victim either. And her attempt to portray herself as some sort of victim in this scenario is ridiculous on its face. It's silly on its face. Like, you are not a victim. You literally went and slept with a man who is twice your age and extraordinarily wealthy and took an apartment from him worth tens of thousands of dollars a month. And now you're acting as though you are some sort of victim in this situation. Again, the only victim in the situation is a child who is going to be deprived of a father in the home. That is a. That is the. That is the actual victim in this situation. It is much better for a child to be with a mother and a father. It is quite frustrating, frankly, that we even have to have these sorts of conversations. It's bizarre to me that we now live in such a post morality era that saying the perfectly obvious is somehow considered controversial or an insult to the people involved. But she's not a victim. He's not a victim. Kids deserve mom and a dad. That's all. That's all. And her going public, I gotta say, not in love with it. Like, it's. What is the purpose? Is it good for the child? See, this is my only standard here. Now it's good for her. Now it's good for Elon. What's good for the baby. What's good for the baby. It's kind of bizarre to put out an entire statement to the world, have reporters over to your home, and then be like, yeah, man, I just want to keep private. She's arguing that, you know, the. That she had to release it preemptively because the tabloids were after. Okay, fine. If that's the case, that's also a bit of a different story. Although, again, welcoming tabloids into your home doesn't tend to add credibility to that particular allegation. But let's assume that's true. Let's assume. You know, it's still an amazing thing to do. Be quiet. You could still do that. Actually, it turns out you could still say nothing and then it would be on the tabloids because you know how all of us. You know how I would react if the tabloids did that? Not by bashing you. I would then react by bashing the tabloids because I would say that's between mommy and Daddy. Right? But you kind of lose my sympathy when you announce to the world and then start subtweeting Elon directly and he's tweeting you. And again, is any of this. Imagine this kid is 10 years old reading these exchanges, which is what's going to happen again, there's a kid in the picture. Once the kid is in the picture, I no longer care about your wants, needs, or desires. If you didn't want the world to know about it, you know, it's an amazing way for the world not to know about it, to not talk about it on Twitter while. While actually tweeting the father of your child and then inviting reporters to your home for a photo shoot. Now, listen, maybe she's having emotional issues. Whatever that's. You know, and if that's the case, I hope she gets the help that she requires. But it is amazing to me that we'll have conversations about her and we'll have conversations about him, and no one seems to have conversations about what is good for the kids. Kid which to me is like the main issue here and maybe the only issue here. Cause once you're an adult, whatever happens next is on you. Well, meanwhile, over the weekend, SNL did its 50th anniversary tribute. And there was one moment that seemed to stand out. That was a moment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler called out Ryan Reynolds in the audience. And it was a little awkward. This is supposed to be a joke about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively now being widely derided as not particularly good or nice people because they, of course, have been attacking Justin Baldoni. They accused him of sexual harassment. She had basically attempted to take over his film and rewrite the script. And she brought Taylor Swift in as support and Ryan Reynolds and they tried to bully Justin Baldoni. And then Justin Baldoni basically ended up as a character apparently in the new Deadpool movie. And so now Ryan Reynolds is going to try and joke his way out of it. And it didn't go over. Amazing. The audience that's seated around Ryan Reynolds looks awkward. Particularly keep your eye on Kevin Costner, who kind of looks like he wants to crawl through the floor during this one. I have a question. Oh, hey, Ryan Reynolds. Hey. Hey, Ryan Reynolds. How's it going? Great. Some people in the background not looking happy. Okay, so, you know, joking about how you and your wife essentially tried to leverage a director by accusing him of sexual harassment is not amazing. It's not an amazing look. I think it's going to do serious career damage to Ryan Reynolds. And by the evidence, it probably should. If the entire shtick of Ryan Reynolds is garrulous, fun loving, nice guy, what's his reputation after all of this? Seriously? Well, what is the reputation after you and your wife basically attempt together to take over a movie where she was simply hired as an actress and then put together a spate of allegedly defamatory accusations against that same guy because you didn't like the publicity that was being spread about you, what does that say about you and Ryan Reynolds, his entire brand is rooted in this sort of fun loving dude that you'd want to have a beer with. But what if that fun loving dude is actually just acting as a tool of his wife as she attempts to take over random movies in which she appears, even though she's really not that big of a star? And snl, snl, trying to sort of whitewash Ryan Reynolds with that joke is not a particularly good look. That wasn't the only not amazing look on SNL this weekend. So SNL did a an episode of Black Jeopardies This. This was a very funny sketch when it first appeared. Black Jeffer, Black Jeopardy. On snl. And this version, they had Tom Hanks appear as a white contestant on black Jeopardy. Wearing a MAGA hat. And the implication seemed to be that he's kind of a racist. So here we go. Now, speaking of church, can I say something? If more folks went to church, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in now. You know what? I agree with you, Doug.

[Tom Cotton]

I'd like to shake your hand, sir. Here we go.

[Ben Shapiro]

No. Oh, no, no. Oh, no, no.

[Tom Cotton]

It's just. It's just a handshake.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, it's just a handshake. Yeah. All right. You're welcome at black Jeopardy. Anytime. All right, well, thank you, my. My brother. You know, maybe I'll start a show for you to come on and we'll call it White Jeopardy. We don't need it. We don't need it. So that was a joke that didn't play at all. So again, he's playing Doug sporting a mag I hat. That's Tom Hanks. And apparently they had a bunch of shared sentiments about distrust of government and other issues, but then was thrown by having to shake the hand of a black man. So there are two ways to read that. One way to read that would be to suggest that Tom Hanks is playing the MAGA guy as a, like, overt racist who doesn't want to shake the hand of a black man. The other way to read that is maybe as a joke about his sort of perception of black criminality, which is still calling him kind of racist, but not quite as sort of terrible, I guess. Either way, not a good joke, and some people were offended by it. Again, Hollywood, basically insulting the MAGA supporters is not a great look, but, you know, to be fair, that's a pretty mild jab. I think people may be overreacting to that particular one. Honestly, the Ryan Reynolds thing is way worse. The Ryan Reynolds thing? Like bringing out Ryan Reynolds to joke about an ongoing controversy with Justin Baldoni. Like, where is Justin Baldoni there? Why didn't they bring Justin Baldoni and do it and have him do a joke? I feel like that's, you know, just another indicator of the power imbalance, as the lefties among us like to say. All right, guys, coming up, the United States versus Canada in hockey. And, yeah, we're taking it to the Canadians before we annex their country. Also, horrible news from the Middle east where Hamas is announcing who they are releasing dead this week. Plus, Pope Francis is in the hospital. 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. We have tons behind the paywall for members, including Run, Hide, Fight. We have tons of fantastic movies, great entertainment stuff for your kids as well. Go check it out right now. Again, become a member. Use code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans and click that link in the description and join us.