Transcript
Ben Shapiro (0:00)
Well, folks, woke leftism is totally on the ropes. The Democrats don't know what to do about this, but their entire centralizing philosophy is on the ropes. We can get into all of that today, ranging from the Washington Post to the war in Ukraine, to how Democrats are responding to everything that President Trump is doing. But we begin today with the Washington Post. So, the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, he's the owner of the Washington Post, he bought it several years ago, and he said at the time he was not going to get involved in the editorial side of the newspaper. And then the newspaper decided to basically become the repository of the most radical woke nonsense in all of American media. The Washington Post blew out its credibility more than any other major newspaper in the country. It was the paper of record. It was the paper of Watergate. It was the paper that broke an enormous number of serious scandals about American government. And instead it turned into basically salon.com, it was just Jennifer Rubin whining about how Donald Trump was a mean, bad, mean man. It was Eugene Robinson whining about how America was terrible. It was all the usual suspects just saying the most radical, stupid things. And the Washington Post subscribership began to seriously dip because they weren't making any of the same sort of smart business moves the New York Times made. The New York Times also became a liberal fan paper, but they also decided to diversify into wordle. That did not happen with the Washington Post. The Washington Post simply kept doubling down on on the anti Trump radical leftism and the suggestion that boys weren't just girls. Boys, boys had to be girls. This had to be taught to kids. The idea that all politics could be boiled down to racial and sexual identity. The idea that capitalism was in and of itself bad. Well, there is a new middle in America, and the new middle in America is fairly pro free market. It's a middle that doesn't like the idea that the American economy is rigged on behalf of white people or rigged on behalf of men. It's an American middle that believes in the American dream and thus believes in the idea, generally speaking, of capitalism. It's also an American middle that, well, fairly liberal about what their neighbors do is not completely liberal about what their neighbors do. Meaning that if their neighbors decide to open a porn shop next door, the answer is no. If their neighbors decide the local public school is going to be teaching gender queer, the answer is no. That's the new middle in America. I was thinking about this a lot last night about President Trump and the fact that, as I said during the election cycle. It's not that President Trump is uniquely right wing is that the left in the United States has moved so far away from the center that by occupying the middle, Donald Trump now appears to be right wing because the left has alienated everybody to the right of msnbc. So what does that mean? It means that there is now a real market possibility of newspapers like the Washington Post reorienting. Jeff Bezos is by no stretch of the imagination a traditional Republican. He is not somebody who believes in sort of traditional conservative social values. He's not somebody who, as far as I'm aware, is particularly hawkish on foreign policy. But Jeff Bezos does exist in the business world and in the world of semi rationality. And so yesterday, Jeff Bezos put out an announcement. His announcement was that he was going to be remaking the Washington Post editorial board. Quote, I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning. I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the Internet does that job. I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical, it minimizes coercion and practical, it drives creativity, invention and prosperity. I offer David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't hell yes, then it had to be no. After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, says Jeff Bezos. Won't be easy. It will require 100% commitment. I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new opinion editor to own this new direction. I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void. Jeff. Okay, so that is a sea change and it is a recognition, a true recognition, that the Washington Post was never one of these places that had a broad spectrum of opinion. The tacit recognition in What Jeff Bezos is saying is, sure, there might have been a time when you could claim that the Washington Post was a place that was sort of a platform for a variety of opinions, right? Charles Krauthammer and George Will used to write for the Washington Post. And then something changed. And so once the Washington Post became the exclusive preserve of the radical left on matters economic and social, once it did that, it was no longer a platform. It was now, in the most real sense, a publisher, only of the things that the editorial board wanted to publish. And so he says, listen, if that's gonna be the way that it is, then I want it to publish things I want. I spent $100 million on this newspaper. I own this newspaper. I get to decide what's in this newspaper. And to this I say, of course, that's true. As the co founder of a rather major publication, we publish the things on our publication that we think are appropriate, and we don't publish the things that we don't feel are appropriate. So you're not gonna find pro abortion positions at the Daily Wire. You're not. You are not going to find pro communism positions at the Daily Wire. That's not a thing. You're not gonna find pro sex trafficking or pro pedophilia positions. There are lots of things you're not gonna find at the Daily Wire. And what Jeff Bezos is saying is the same thing. He's saying, this is my newspaper, I bought it, I get to run it. And good for him. Good for him. I think that we are exiting the era, and we have exited the era of quote, unquote, objective journalism. And we've now moved toward the realization that there is no such thing. Now, you can make the case that there are, in fact, journalists who do their best to try to remove their personal bias from situations. However, the notion that writ large, there is a, quote, unquote, objective news media was a lie and is a lie. It is untrue. There is a prism of politics through which the news is refracted at every one of these major publications. Everybody knows the Wall Street Journal editorial page ops toward the right, and everybody knows the New York Times editorial page ops toward the left. For Bezos to say, our editorial page is now going to promote economic and social freedom, for example, that's at least a perspective. Now you know who to call when there is a problem, and the left is absolutely losing it. So as stated, Washington Post opinion section editor David Shipley resigned, suggesting, of course, that this is not what he wanted to stand for. Meanwhile, Post chief economics reporter Jeff Stein posted, quote, massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into the Washington Post opinion section today. Makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there. Well, I mean, that's not his responsibility. It's his job to run the paper as he sees fit. He owns it. Again, turnabout is fair play here, gang. I'm old enough to remember when Twitter was owned by Jack Dorsey and when conservatives said that these standards that were being applied were unfair and that even the standards that Twitter said it was applying were not the standards they were actually applying. People on the left said, well, then build your own. And then Elon Musk bought it, and now they're whining about it. The same thing is true here. When people complained about the editorial direction of the Washington Post, the left said, well, you know, you don't own the Washington Post. You don't like it, build your own. So we here at the Daily Wire, we did build our own. Okay, but. So Jeff Bezos coming around and saying, okay, well, now I'm going to run this thing the way I want to run this thing. That is not only laudable, it is useful. It is highly useful because let's just be transparent about this. Now, the Washington Post has a direction. The New York Times always had a direction. It was the lie that killed the mainstream media. It was the lie that killed the legacy media. Jeff Stein, however, the chief economics reporter, said, quote, I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage. But if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately and letting you know. Wow, what a hero. What an absolute hero. Now again, Bezos says he's not going to interfere on the news side of the business. And I will suggest that the sort of hard line, bright line division between news and opinion is not quite so bright. Again, I think we're more honest about this at Daily Wire. Our news pages lean conservative. Everything is refracted through a system of values. That's us being honest, not us being dishonest. While the ex Washington Post editor, Marty Barron, of course, presided over the Spotlight scandal that was uncovered by the Washington Post. He went after Jeff Bezos attacked him for it. He put out a statement suggesting that it was just terrible. He said he was sad and disgusted. He said, Bezos argues for personal liberties, but his news organization now will forbid views other than his own. In its opinion section. It was only weeks ago the Post described itself as providing coverage for all of America. Now its opinion pages will be open only to some of America, those who think exactly as he does, again trying to preserve the lie. It was never for all of America. The Washington Post was never for all of America. It was a left wing rag for decades. Barron said Bezos himself has done personal liberties a disservice by cravenly yielding to a president who shows no respect for liberty. One who aims to use the power of government to bully, threaten, punish and crush anyone who's not in his camp, especially the press. And then he said, there's no doubt in my mind he's doing this out of fear of the consequences for his other business interests, Amazon, the source of his wealth, and Blue Origin, which represents his lifelong passion for space exploration. He has prioritized those commercial interests over the Post. He's betraying the Post's long standing principles to do so. So first of all, if that's true, that would be terrible, right? You don't want actual journalism, conservative or leftist, being held hostage by any president. That defeats the purpose of journalism. It defeats the purpose of opinion journalism too. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this is in fact the case. And the accusation, by the way, that anybody who does anything non leftist is motivated by money. I know this is a favorite of people on the left. I know this is a. It's so funny. The people on the left who claim they are least about money, they love money. All they think about is money. All they think about is quote unquote, income inequality. They never think about the poor, they only think about income inequality. Well, folks, the left tends to think that everything is free, but the truth is that most things aren't, including freedom. Freedom isn't free and freedom has to be defended. What isn't said enough is that online freedom is not free either. It too has to be defended not by military force, but by technological force. Encryption. Strong encryption can protect your right to privacy online and defend you from hackers. So how do you get this encryption? With ExpressVPN, Internet providers track and sell your data. Hackers pray on public WI fi. Governments monitor your every move online with ExpressVPN. Their powerful encryption reroutes 100% of your online activity through secure servers, making your data invisible to prying eyes. Now, I'm constantly on the go. I'm constantly using public WI fi. I'm in an airport, for example, and I don't need hackers checking my email for me. Don't take my word for it. They invited the world's top auditors, PwC and KPMG, to verify their own revolutionary trusted server technology. And it's the only system that physically cannot store your data because it runs entirely on volatile memory. While other companies profit from invading your privacy, ExpressVPN goes the extra mile to protect it. So if you want to join me in defending your online freedom, get ExpressVPN. You can use my special link to get four extra months of ExpressVPN for free at ExpressVPN.com Ben that's E-P-R-E-S-S VPN.com Ben Also, as you all know, the Holy Land is under threat of attack every single day. In fact, this morning there's another car ramming attack in Israel. Surrounded by enemies who vow never to stop until Israel has been destroyed. While still recovering and rebuilding from the devastating October 7th attacks, the people of Israel are suffering along with many Americans who stand with Israel. I want to help in any way I can and that's why I partner with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The Fellowship has been on the ground in Israel for more than 40 years providing food, shelter and safety to those in need. They deliver meals to the elderly. They place bomb shelters in the most vulnerable places, bulletproof ambulances and life saving equipment to hospitals. That that's only scratching the surface of what they do. As anti Semitism continues to rise around the world, the people of Israel and our Jewish brothers and sisters need us now more than ever. Please join me in supporting the Fellowship in this life saving work. A gift of a hundred dollars will help provide bomb shelters and other security equipment for the people of Israel as the world turns its back on Israel. Join me and faithful listeners like you in standing with Israel. Visit Benforthefellowship.org that's www.Benforthefellowship.org thank you and God bless. Benforthefellowship.org the same people who claim that the people who are in favor of free markets are greedy are the people who spend all day trying to figure out how to pry money out of people who have actually earned it. So you see Marty Barron suggesting the only possible reason Jeff Bezos, you know, one of the richest people on earth would be doing this is for money. Nah my dude, that is not what is happening here. It is not. Bernie Sanders, of course, one of the greediest leeches in American society, put out a tweet saying, quote, this is what oligarch ownership of the media looks like. The second richest guy in the world. Bezos owns the Washington Post. He has now declared the editorial page of that paper Is going Trump right wing surprise. Mr. Musk agrees. We must support independent media. Question. It is independent media. Bezos is the owner, is not owned by the government. Independent media typically means media that is not owned by, you know, the government. That's typically what it means. Also, nothing in Bezos's note actually says that it's going to be pro Trump. You can be very pro free market and very pro liberty, and you can object to some of the things that Trump is doing. The notion that these two things are coincident is because the left has so lost the plot that simply saying you like capitalism and free markets and liberty, apparently this now makes you Trump coded. Well, that's your fault, gang, not anybody else's. Good for Jeff Bezos. I hope he puts his money where his mouth is. I hope that he actually starts hiring columnists. You know, it'd be great. Seriously, it'd be great if somebody at one of the major newspapers voted for Trump. That would be great. I'm not sure I can name a single op ed columnist for the New York Times, Washington Post who voted for Trump. Maybe at the New York Times, Ross Duthat voted for Trump. Maybe no one else did. So, you know, over 50% of the country voted for Trump. It might be nice if the Washington Post actually gave some exposure to those views. That might be good. But this is all part and parcel of a radical sea change that is happening in American politics. Again driven by the Democrats who are totally disconnected from reality. They're all on blue sky, mentally stroking themselves to left wing idiocy. And then they are surprised that everybody is running screaming away from them. And meanwhile, other big news. Yesterday, President Trump had his first big cabinet meeting. Obviously a lot of famous people in that cabinet. And while the left is really quite exercised about Donald Trump's Cabinet, now, all these people were individually powerhouses in their own right before they joined the Cabinet. Trump had a lot of good things to say in this Cabinet meeting. He began, of course, with his, his sort of signal issue, the border. He said, we will be closing the border. He was flanked on one side by his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and on the other side by Marco Rubio, his Secretary of State.