Pam Bondi (2:39)

I do, Jesse. There are well over this. This will make you sick. 200 victims. 200. So we have well over. Over 250, actually. So we have to make sure that their identity is protected and their personal information. But other than that, I think tomorrow, you know, the personal information of victims. Other than that, I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now. You're going to see some Epstein. Epstein information being released by my office.

Ben Shapiro (3:11)

Okay, so in that clip, she says there'll be new Epstein information released by her office tomorrow. And she says it's on my desk. It's what the attorney general of the United States says. So everybody all day long is waiting for the release of this information. Like literally all day long. And then sometime yesterday morning, pictures start being released of a bunch of social media influencers who are holding up binders that supposedly contain new Epstein information. And these social media influencers, many of these people are people with whom I'm friendly. People like Liz Wheeler. Wheeler, who's just great. I think Liz is terrific. It was handed to libs of TikTok and Jack Posobiek and a bunch of other people. Right. It was a big binder. It's had the Epstein files phase one, and people were holding them up kind of like trophies, which, you know, frankly, I think is sort of a bad look when you are talking about the release of criminally oriented documents about the abuse of minors. I don't think it's an amazing look to walk out holding this up as though you just won an Olympic medal. But in any case, we then were like, okay, fine, it's an odd way to release it, but can we see what's in it? And then it turns out over the course of the day that the answer was there was basically nothing in it. The binder was filled with stuff that we already knew there was. There's effectively nothing new in the binders. And this became clear pretty quickly, actually. So Anna Paulina Luna, who's leading up a task force in Congress to review the Epstein documents, put out a tweet at 2:10 yesterday, quote, I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today. A New York Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phone book. This is not what we or the American people asked for. Get us the information we asked for instead of leaking old info to the press. Ok, so nothing new here. And so then the question became, well, what a bleep show. I mean, you said there was gonna be sort of a big reveal, we were gonna get some new information. By the way, this is the second time this has happened. We were told that the JFK files were gonna be released and that was gonna explode everything. And that never happened. Cuz guess what guys? We kind of know all there is to know about the JFK assassination. It's been more than half a century. There have been many, many, many reports on it and lots of documents revealed. This kind of conspiratorial angle that the right seems to have fallen in love with, that unanswered questions must be answered in the most perverse possible way. And if the evidence isn't there, then we just keep saying that there is a lack of evidence. And lack of evidence is actually proof of evidence. Again, I'm willing to follow this evidence wherever it leads. I want the answers the same as you. And unlike the JFK assassination where by the way, it was Lee Harvey Oswald, unlike the JFK assassination where there's a plethora of video forensic and documentary evidence available in the Epstein case, we really don't know what the hell happened. We still don't know any of the key questions. Who was, who was running him, if he was an op, what exactly he was doing, who are the people on the island, what kind of tapes he had. Like all those are unanswered. So I understand why there is so much dyspepsia over the Epstein case. But if you are going to do a reveal, that means you better, you better have some goods, right? Something better come out. And it didn't come out yesterday. And I think people are right to be angry about it. I think that it is bizarre to release it to social media influencers as opposed to releasing it to many journalists. I'm not talking about journalists on the left, I'm talking about journalists on the right. I mean though the Washington Free Beacon has a bunch of excellent investigative journalists. We at the Daily Wire have investigative journalists. We have like people who we hire, who we pay to actually go through documents at a legal granular level to do this sort of stuff. Or you could just release all of it online and have us all Peruse it. I mean, that would be the best way to do this is so that we could all see it. The kind of release strategy was weird. And then when it turned out there was nothing in it, then the repercussions began. So the repercussions began with a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Kash Patel over at the FBI. And now Pambandi is claiming that Kash Patel is essentially having the wool pulled over his eyes by underlings who may be getting rid of documents. Again, I'd love to see the evidence of this. If that's true, that's a criminal offense in. Destroying relevant criminal documents would be a criminal offense, and people should go to jail for it. So if we're going to make those sorts of allegations, you shouldn't just throw them out there. She wrote a letter saying, quote, Dear Director Patel, before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response to this request, I received approximately 200 pages of documents which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein's list of contacts, and a list of victims names and phone numbers. I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI we had received the full set of documents. Late yesterday, I learned from a source the FBI field office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated request, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information. So this is her saying someone, someone out there in FBI land is covering things up. It's not your fault, Cash, and it's not my fault. AG Pambondi. It is the fault of these unspecified members of the New York office at the FBI who are destroying documents or hiding things, which again, criminal offense people should go to jail. If that is true. Quote. By 8:00am Tomorrow, February 28th, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office, including all records, documents, audio and video recordings and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. Regardless of how such information was obtained, there will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access. This is her kind of blaming Cash Patel, but letting him off the hook. The DOJ will ensure that any public disclosures of these files will be done in a manner to protect the privacy of victims and. And in accordance with law, as I have done my entire career as a prosecutor. I'm also directing you to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed. You'll deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days. I appreciate your immediate attention to this important matter. I know we are both committed to transparency for the American people. I look forward to continuing to work with you to serve our president and our country. Okay, so first of all, her issuing that letter publicly is a way of shifting blame. I mean, there are a couple ways of reading it. One, this is totally true that actually there's somebody in the FBI offices who, who is scurrilous, scurrilously hiding away thousands of pages of documents that we have never seen and shredding them in the back room. Okay, again, if that's the case, that should not just be a matter of the records show up at the. At the offices of the doj. That should be a matter of people who are doing that thing should not only be fired, but prosecuted. So that's a very serious allegation. Or the other way you can read this is. This was pretty humiliating that Pam Bondi thought that she had new stuff. Nobody in her office bothered to check whether it was new stuff. They released it to a bunch of social media influencers in order to get clicks, and then it turned out there was nothing in the files. Okay, those are the possibilities. So Liz Wheeler, who again, is excellent. Love was a human. Love lives a human being. She put out a statement, quote, president Trump and AG Pembani committed to releasing the Epstein files. The FBI was told to deliver the files to Bondi. They did about 200 pages. Bondi smelled a rat because there was nothing juicy in the 200 pages, just light logs and a Rolodex of phone numbers. No smoking gun. Still, Bondi promised to release the documents, so she prepared a binder of them. Then last night, a whistleblower contacted Bondi and revealed the SDNY was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files, defying Bondi's order to give them all to her. We're talking recordings, evidence, et cetera. The juicy stuff named these swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi Cash. And you be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be because the evil deep state lied to your face. The binder is powerful because it's tangible, physical evidence of the disgusting stunt the SDNY tried to pull. Okay, the binder is not powerful. The binder is empty. It is. And if Pam Botany wanted to say this, she could have just said this without the reveal of the binder. Again, this looks like a low level bureaucratic screw. Up and now people who are backfilling the story. I'm just gonna give you the honest story. That's what it appears to be. I wish I didn't have to say that. But again, the American people deserve answers to these questions, not either obfuscation or silliness. And if it turns out, by the way, that there are no thousands of pages of documents and then they're not revealed because they don't exist, then this, of course, is only going to feed the fire of, well, you know, absence of evidence is actually evidence. Right. If it's not there, it must be because it once was there and we never got it. You want to feed conspiracy theorists, this is the way to do it again. I want full release of everything forthwith. And the Trump administration is in charge of both the FBI and now the AG's office. So there are no excuses left. Either reveal it all or say it has already been revealed, or prosecute the people who actually got rid of the documents. Those are your three choices. There are no other choices. Don't blame everybody else. Like, do the thing. Give us the stuff. And if the stuff ain't there, tell us that the stuff ain't there. And tell us why the stuff ain't there. Well, listen, we deserve to see the Epstein documents, obviously. Obviously. 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I'm upset about this because, number one, we deserve answers to the Epstein questions, okay? The whole case is insane and ridiculous. And the fact that we don't have answers at this point in time is just disgusting. Two, I'm annoyed because if the Trump administration is going to make a big deal out of this sort of stuff, you have to be professional about how you do it. You, these are serious issues. And by the way, this also applies to the House Judiciary Committee. And again, I love the people on the House Judiciary Committee. I'm friends with many of them. You don't do what you did yesterday. Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee put out a link and they said, this is the link to the new FBI files. And then it was a Rick roll. I'm sorry, it's not a joke. The mass rape of underage girls and sex trafficking of underage girls to prominent men. That is not. That is not a subject for jocularity. Take it seriously. I mean, this across the board, seriousness of purpose is going to mean seriousness of result. And if it's unserious, then all you're gonna end up doing is distracting people with shiny objects over here, not getting the job you need to get done over here with the other hand. And that's just not what you're looking for here. It's not what you're looking for. The level of distraction has to come down. It does, because there are serious things to be done. Trump has appointed an amazing cabinet. Like, his cabinet is filled with stars. He's got a big agenda. Things to do, a short time to do them. These sorts of distractions either put up or shut up. We're now joined on the line by journalist and TV host Emily Austin. She left the White House yesterday with, again, that binder of the Epstein files. I want to get the inside story on how that went down. Emily, thanks so much for joining the show. So why don't you tell us what happened yesterday? Obviously, a lot of controversy online about the release of the Epstein binders, which didn't really contain much that was new, apparently. I. Tell us what actually went down at the White House.

Pam Bondi (15:14)

Right. So initially, we were invited to the White House, a delegation of, you know, Republican, conservative, media, independent journalists, influencers, whatever you want to call it, to meet with Vice President J.D. vance. And then, to our surprise, Cash Patel was joined, and Pam Bondi came. And it was a really nice, you know, environment, and we were being briefed on policies that they're implementing, etc. Now, coincidentally, that morning was the morning that Pam Bondi received the exact binder we received on her desk in which we didn't open it in the briefing. But later on, like everyone else, we find out that, like you just said, there's not much new information about here. But the point of the binder that everyone seemed to be missing was that this is what the FBI gave Pam Bondi and expected us to be satisfied with these files rather than being outraged that they're withholding thousands of documents and being outraged at us for being the messengers trying to show you this is what the Attorney General received, this is what we received. It's a step in the right direction. But all the outrage towards the media personalities that were there rather than the FBI corrupt agents that are holding this information is just kind of ironic, and it's just dividing the party for no reason.

Ben Shapiro (16:21)

I mean, one of the things that is kind of sort of bizarre about the whole situation is it sounds like there was not an actual plan to simply handle the social media influencers, these binders. But the binders were there and then they were handed to you guys. It sounds like it was kind of sprung on a lot of the social media influencers. You had no intention of going there and being the kind of source of revelations about the Epstein documents when you went there.

Pam Bondi (16:40)

Yeah, it definitely wasn't planned. It wasn't our intention to. Whoever didn't want to post it or publish it necessarily didn't have to. They didn't, like, definitely did not have to. And one thing I definitely want to debunk is that there's this narrative going around that we were, like, paid or instructed to leak it or we were encouraged to do. Literally nobody was encouraged to do anything. Obviously, we're independent journalists. If there's something in there to leak, of course we want to leak it. And one thing that people are forgetting is Trump did make a promise that he was going to enable the independent journalists and not only rely on traditional media. One thing that was mentioned yesterday was that they want to start getting more conservative, independent journalist resources in the press room. They want Breitbart to be able to have access. They want more than just Fox News and CNN and CNBC to be able to have access. But then it seems like when they give access to the independent journalists, like, everyone's mad about it.

Ben Shapiro (17:30)

So let's talk for a second about the sort of action that happened after that. So the binders are given to you guys. Some people walk out. They're sort of holding them up triumphantly, which, again, I'm not sure. It's an amazing optic, but that. That happens. And then the. The revelation comes out that the binders themselves don't contain much new information. And right after that, Pam Bondi then releases a letter publicly calling on Kash Patel to investigate SDNY for not releasing the documents. I mean, I guess my question is, why didn't you just release that letter in the first place? Why the whole sort of rigmarole with the binders as opposed to just say, publicly, we found out from an informant inside SDNY that things are being destroyed. Cash, go investigate it and go do this. I'm not sure what the point of the binders was.

Pam Bondi (18:11)

I think my take on it was that they wanted outrage. I don't think they wanted it directed at us, but they wanted it more. So we requested the Epstein files. They Gave us a bunch of baloney in a binder. They expect us to be satisfied with it, so everyone should be very unsatisfied with it. And now it's Cash Patel's job to get remaining files. And it wouldn't have happened, by the way, that letter, until the whistleblower from SDNY came out and said, hey, we're actually sleeping on a bunch of files here in the New York bureau. You should get on it. If that hadn't happened, I don't know where we'd be today. Why? The whole public thing, I think it was a publicity stunt where it's saying, hey, look, this is what we got. We don't buy it, we're going to investigate it. And regarding the whole leaving the West Wing with the binders up in the air, I'm going to be very blunt about this. They were not supposed to do that. We were instructed when we got the binders that they want Pam Bondi to have a first say in it, and then we can be the first ones to have, like, the access on it. There were a bunch of reporters outside of the West Wing waiting for the UK's Prime Minister to come. They lifted their binders. We were on a. I call it an embargo for three hours. They said, don't post till 3:30. I honored that a few others honored that a few others clearly did not. And they kind of ruined it for the whole team and actually made it a lot worse than what it was.

Ben Shapiro (19:19)

Well, Emily, really appreciate you coming on and clarifying what happened. Thanks so much for your time.

Pam Bondi (19:23)

Thank you.

Ben Shapiro (19:25)

Well, speaking of distractions that people don't need, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in the United States yesterday. They, of course, are American citizens. They are dual citizens. Or in the case of Andrew Tate, I believe he has seven citizenships and he showed up in the United States. The reporting was the Trump administration had put significant pressure on the Romanian government to allow them out of their house arrest in Romania so they could come to the United States. As I said yesterday on the show, I don't know the legalities here. I don't know whether it is in the interest of Romania to do that. I don't know that it was American pressure that actually secured their release. All I can say is anyone who is celebrating their arrival in America has a screw loose, because these are some of the worst people in the world. They are not good people by their own admission, just by their own stated comments. These are not people you would want to have anywhere near your wives, daughters, or Families, unless you're an insane person. While President Trump was in fact asked about the arrival of the Tates and all of the talk about how the Trump administration had pressured for their release. And here was President Trump yesterday saying, no, I don't know anything about this and don't want any part of it. So good for President Trump. Andrew and Tristan Tate landed in Florida.

Emily Austin (20:28)

Today on a private jet after being.

Ben Shapiro (20:30)

Released from custody in Romania. They are accused rapists, human traffickers, not thought of as good people in many circles. Did your administration pressure the Romanian government to release them?

Emily Austin (20:45)

And if so, I know nothing about that.

Ben Shapiro (20:48)

I don't know.

Emily Austin (20:49)

You're saying he's on a plane right now, he's back. They already. Yeah, I just know nothing about it. We'll check it out. We'll let you know.

Ben Shapiro (20:56)

So again, I think President Trump saying, I have no interest in this particular topic is the right approach. And anybody in his administration who decided to make this top priority, I'm confused why that was a top priority at all, unless you have evidence that they were being mistreated in some deep and abiding way by the Romanian justice system as well as the British justice system. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, was asked about this and he said, well, no, I don't really want them here in Florida. See, we don't like alleged sex traffickers in the state of Florida.

Emily Austin (21:23)

Well, we have no involvement in that. I read about it through the media. Clearly the federal government has jurisdiction whether they want to rebuff his entry into the United States. And I have confidence that whether it's Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem, that they will be looking at that. I do know our Attorney General James Uthmeyer is looking at what state hooks and jurisdiction we may have to be able to deal with this. But the reality is, is no, Florida is not a place where, where you're welcome with that, with those, that type of conduct in the air. I don't know how akin to this. We were not involved, we were not notified. I found out through the media that this was something that was happening.

Ben Shapiro (22:05)

Yeah. Again, this is a pretty large split that's now emerging inside the right wing of the party between people who really don't want anything to do with, you know, self professed pornographers, self described misogynists, people who are Muslim converts, who proclaim that Islam should actually dominate the uk, who stand for Yahya Sinwar and Hamas. For some reason, there is a part of the party that seems warm toward this stuff simply because it's oppositional in some way to left wing agenda items, although again, the solutions seem to foment actually a lot of left wing agenda items, such as, for example, sexual promiscuity. And then there's part of the party which is like, nope, not interested in any part of this. And it seems as though President Trump actually is on the same page here as Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida. And obviously you can hear Governor DeSantis saying, Listen, we're going to look at the legal authorities. If there's prosecutions that need to be brought in the state of Florida, we will, we'll look at them. But as far as, like, whether the state of Florida is excited to have them here, the answer is absolutely not. That is the proper response to this. Well, it's good to know that there are some good people in our government because there are also bad people in our government at the irs, and they are after you. The IRS is going to ramp up its enforcement efforts in 2025. With April 15 approaching, time is now running out. If you're facing back taxes or unfiled returns, delaying action only compounds the problem. Every day you wait makes your tax situation more difficult to resolve. Do not let another tax deadline pass you by. While taking immediate action is crucial, attempting to deal with the IRS alone could be a costly mistake. And this is where Tax Network USA's expertise becomes invaluable. What sets them apart? Well, unlike other tax resolution firms, Tax Network USA maintains privileged access to the IRS through their preferred direct channels. This means they know exactly which agents can resolve your case effectively, whether you owe ten grand or ten million bucks. Their team of attorneys and negotiators brings proven strategies to settle your tax issues favorably. With over $1 billion in tax debt already resolved, they have the experience and expertise to handle your situation. Talk with one of their strategists. Today, it's free. Stop the threatening letters. Stop looking over your shoulder. Protect yourselves from property seizures and bank levies. Do not let the IRS control your future. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com Shapiro April 15 is just around the corner. Act now before the IRS acts first. Also, victory is in the air. So is the scent of renewal. Behold, this is George Washington on a candle. Look, it smells great. Trump's first joint session of Congress since his historic reelection is almost here. America is again winning. Celebrate the triumphs of a new era. From Doge's major cuts to protecting America's borders to major cabinet confirmations and more. With a candle. The Smells Like Victory candle from the Candle Club. Again, it's the Washington. It's George Washington on a candle representing victory. If you love America, you need it. It's that simple. Capture the essence of America with a fresh, invigorating scent, a burning reminder with strong leadership, our best days still lie ahead. I'm going to blow out this candle now, but do not let them blow out the candle on liberty. Don't wait. Right now, you can get 20% off when you order by Friday. Bask in the smell of victory. Order right now@thecandleclub.com Ben Once again, that's thecandleclub.com Ben that is the proper human response to this on the part of the right. Good for Trump. Good for Desantis. Again, these are not distractions that are necessary in a time where actual heavy work has to get done. Speaking of which, today Vladimir Zelensky is heading to the White House to sign an agreement handing over rare mineral rights to the United States. President Trump is very excited to secure that deal. Yesterday he hosted Keir Starmer, the left wing prime minister of the UK and you have President Trump again. He's great with people and he's very friendly with humans. And so here he was with Keir Starmer, praising his accent, which, you know, pretty classic Trump right here.

Emily Austin (25:45)

We look forward to welcome you in the United Kingdom. Thank you once again.

Ben Shapiro (25:49)

Thank you very much.

Emily Austin (25:50)

What a beautiful accent.

Ben Shapiro (25:53)

I would have been president 20 years.

Emily Austin (25:54)

Ago if I had that accent.

Ben Shapiro (25:57)

Thank you very much. Okay. Keir Starmer's job was to sort of warm President Trump up to the idea that the United States would help to provide security guarantees in Ukraine. It turns out that the best way to warm President Trump up to security guarantees in Ukraine actually is to sign economic deals with President Trump. That seems to be one of President Trump's sort of key levers, is that if you are willing to allow the United States to make money, then obviously we have more interest in helping to defend you, which seems perfectly rational. Keir Starmer pushed the idea at this joint press conference that any peace in Ukraine has to be directed at being a lasting peace. You don't want something temporary, which, you know, would seem to be obvious.

Emily Austin (26:37)

I think my views on Putin are pretty well rehearsed and pretty well known. And my concern is that if there's a deal, and I hope there is a deal, that it must be a lasting deal, that it's not a temporary measure. And that is why I think it's really important that Putin knows that this deal, a historic deal, which I very much hope comes about, is there, is there, and it's a lasting deal, and that we're able to deal with any inclination he has to go again or go further.

Ben Shapiro (27:12)

And again, by the way, Trump is sitting here nodding. And President Trump then reiterates that idea. He says, like, yeah, the whole point of a deal is that the deal holds. You don't want a deal where we sign an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, including the eu, and two weeks from now, Russia's invading again. That's not something anybody wants. It sounds as though one of you.

Emily Austin (27:29)

Completely trusts President Putin and one of.

Ben Shapiro (27:32)

You doesn't trust him an inch. Have I got that right? And why do you trust him?

Emily Austin (27:35)

Look, you know, it's trust and verify.

Ben Shapiro (27:38)

Let'S call it that.

Emily Austin (27:39)

And I think we both can be that way.

Ben Shapiro (27:41)

You have to verify because you never know what's going to happen.

Emily Austin (27:44)

I know, I know a lot of people that you would say no chance that they would ever deceive you, and they're the worst people in the world. I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you. And you know what? They're 100% honorable, so you never know what you're getting. No, I have confidence that if we make a deal, it's going to hold.

Ben Shapiro (28:04)

Hey. Now, one of the things that was hilarious is that in this press conference, Trump was asked in front of Starmer about his comments last week that Zelensky was a dictator. I just want to point out here that all the people on the right who felt the necessity to go out of their way to defend those comments were making a rather large tactical error. Again, President Trump says many things off the cuff. I've said this for literally a decade about President Trump. Is that on his tombstone, after 120 years, President Trump's tombstone is going to read 45th and 47th presidents of the United States. He said a lot of bleep. Okay. A lot of the stuff that President Trump says is meant for effect. Some of it is meant as bargaining position. Some of it just blurts. So the entire Republican Party infrastructure shaped itself around him, calling Vladimir Zelensky a dictator, when Vladimir Zelensky is actually not a dictator. He's the elected leader of Ukraine. Ukraine. You can't hold another election in the middle of a massive war in which millions of your citizens are now living abroad. Hundreds of thousands of your young men are on the front lines, and hundreds, thousands of more Ukrainians are living in Russian occupied areas in Donbass and Crimea, the constitution does not actually allow it. That is a unified governmental position and non governmental position. In Ukraine, by the way, the opposition parties who don't even like Zelensky say he's not a dictator.

Emily Austin (29:14)

Hey.

Ben Shapiro (29:15)

And it was totally fine to say that. Even last week, even after Trump had said that he was a dictator, it was totally fine to say that's not actually true. It didn't undermine Trump, didn't undermine any peace efforts. And yet you saw an enormous number of people on the right who started kind of shaping their opinions to meet what was an off the cuff comment by President Trump? How do I know it was off the cuff? Cuz yesterday he said so. So in this press conference he's asked, did you? Didn't you? What about the toll, Zelensky's a dictator thing? And Trump's like, me, did I? Was it really? Here we go.

Pam Bondi (29:43)

Mr. President, do you still think that Mr. Zelenskyy is a dictator?

Ben Shapiro (29:49)

Did I say that? I can't believe I said that.

Emily Austin (29:52)

Next question.

Ben Shapiro (29:56)

And he's kind of like giving a little smirk there. He knows he said it, but he's like, you know, what are you gonna do about it? So herein lies the point. For people who are in my position, you don't always just have to mirror the thing that President Trump is saying to understand what he is attempting to do. You don't have to buy into the idea that Ukraine, quote, unquote, started the war in order to suggest that the proper solution to the war is an off ramp that everybody agrees has to happen, in which Russia basically maintains control of Donbass and Crimea, security guarantees are given to Ukraine, and economic redevelopment happens in Ukraine that the United States makes money off of. All of that is fine and dandy, and you don't have to repeat sillinesses that are untrue in order to achieve any of that. Well, yesterday during this Keir Starmer meeting, there was also a rather amusing moment where President Trump called on J.D. vance to basically just shellack Keir Starmer over speech restrictions in the uk and this is like when you call JD on this stuff, it's like JD from the top rope. Here we go.

Emily Austin (30:56)

I said what I said, which is that we do have, of course, a.

Ben Shapiro (31:00)

Special relationship with our friends in the UK and also with some of our European allies. But we also know that there have.

Phil (31:05)

Been infringements on free speech that actually.

Ben Shapiro (31:08)

Affect not just the British, of course, what the British do in their own.

Phil (31:12)

Country is up to them, but also affect American technology companies and by extension, American citizens.

Ben Shapiro (31:18)

So that is something that we'll talk.

Phil (31:19)

About today at lunch.

Ben Shapiro (31:22)

Again, you can see how much JD Is enjoying that sort of stuff. And Trump has been using the vice president in this way. He'll be in press conferences and be like, JD Say something mean. And JD Will be like, okay, man, it's go time. And then he'll just go for it. And I will say it is a pretty effective use of the Vice President of the United States. Speaking of which, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the vice president that we narrowly avoided. So Tim Walls is still out there being a giant inflatable and a used car lot weirdo with his strange hands and odd motions and all the rest of it. It is still amazing to me that Kamala Harris decided this, of all the humans on earth, had to be her VP pick. Just incredible. So he was on a show yesterday and he suggested that the country has now been stolen by fascists and Nazis. Now, this is someone who loves America. To see the nonsense that's being put forward on that. We're gonna need your voice there, because I will just end with this. And we're seeing it in these town halls. That charismatic leader is not gonna come there. You know, I see the pundits on tv. What's wrong with the Democratic Party? What's wrong is our country's being stolen by fascists and Nazis, and we're trying to do all we can to try and do it. Okay, keep going with this. Seriously, that guy almost was vice President of the United States. He was, like, this close. America really dodged a bullet. Not just literally as in President Trump dodged a bullet, but really dodged a bullet here in not having these clowns at the top of the American political hierarchy. Seriously amazing. Really, truly good. Good job, America. Good job. Because we almost had that thing. We almost had it. All right, folks, coming up, this is a very stacked show today. Vivek Ramaswamy is going to be stopping by. He, of course, has announced his run for Ohio governor. Also, we are going to do our full review of the Oscars, which are happening on Sunday. I know you didn't watch the movies, but sadly for me, I did. But first, it all goes down Tuesday night, 9pm Eastern. President Trump addresses Congress, laying out his America first agenda on immigration, the economy, and national security. You already know we're going all in. Kick things off with backstage live, 8:30pm Eastern Time, where the entire crew breaks down what's at stake and sets the stage for President Trump's speech. Then we watch the full speech together live on Daily Wire. Plus, no spin, no nonsense. And when Trump is done, we're just getting started. The gang is back for real. Unfiltered analysis you're not going to get anywhere else. This is history in the making. Do not sit on the sidelines. Watch it all live Tuesday night on Daily Wire. Plus, subscribe now@daily wire.com well, earlier today, I had the opportunity to sit down with Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek, of course, friend of the show, ran for president last time around, was part of Doge briefly. And now he's declared his running for the Ohio governorship. We had a chance to sit down together. Here's what it sounded like. Well, joining me on the line is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has now declared his run for the governorship of Ohio. Vivek, welcome to the show.

Emily Austin (34:02)

It's good to see you, Ben.

Ben Shapiro (34:03)

So let's talk about why you decided to run for governor of Ohio. There's a lot of things you could have done. You decided that you want to remain in the sort of public service area and you want to run for governor of Ohio. Right now, you are prohibitively ahead of the rest of the field in the polling of the endorsement of President Trump. Elon Musk as well. What made you want to do this?

Emily Austin (34:19)

Yeah, look, I looked at my impact on the future of the country. I had run for US President. And one of the things I reflected on, Ben, is many of the issues that I discussed, even on my presidential campaign have to now be addressed by the states, by strong governors. Then you look at what President Trump is doing in Washington, D.C. i think he's going to be very successful in the next two years. But that means a lot of those programs, from education to health care, are going to be shifted down to the states and to the people where they belong. So if you skate to where the puck is going in terms of driving a real change in the country, I think the center of gravity in politics is going to move to the states, saving the country is going to belong to the states after President Trump has done his part. And then for me, there was the broader question of just staying in public service and public life. There's obviously, in many ways you could wake up many days and say there's better ways to live than that. I came from the business world and we live a blessed, comfortable life. But my reason for remaining in this is that, first of all, I believe in excellence. I want my home state. I was born and raised here. I'm raising my two sons here. I want my state not just to be one of the best in the Midwest, but the best in the country. And there are just so many basic fixes that you could bring to a state like Ohio. They're just really basic that would accomplish that, that I felt a sense of duty to do it right here at home. And you and I, we've both lived the American dream. My wife's lived the American dream. We want our kids to live that same American dream. And we're pretty passionate about having an impact and we're grateful for what the country and the state have given us. And so in some sense this is just our way of giving back.

Ben Shapiro (35:53)

So, Vivek, the state of Ohio has been moving significantly to the right over the course of the last several election cycles. I'm old enough to remember when it was a bellwether state. Now it is a fairly solidly red state. What, what are some of the biggest problems that are facing the state of Ohio that you want to cure and focus in on as governor of the state?

Emily Austin (36:08)

Yes. It's not California, it doesn't require a U turn, but I would say is it is a conservative state. You're right. In its electorate, it's time for the state to actually be governed like a conservative state. And there I see room for progress in actually stepping on the gas. Thinking about the basic table stakes on economic policies. You got to be a zero tax state. Find a path to become a zero tax state state. There's eight other states that have done it. There's no reason we can't do it right here in Ohio. Bring down the property tax burden. You know, I think with my own instincts in the long run, I'd love to see that get to zero, but at least bring it down to a reasonable place. Slash and burn the regulatory state. In some ways I want to see Ohio become a special economic zone for the rest of the country at the heart of the Midwest for really any entrepreneur for industrialization for production, the natural gas timelines for building a new pipeline in the state. We've got great natural resources underneath our ground. Drill baby. Drill belongs in Ohio. And not a lot of people are actually even aware of the natural resources we have. And yet it takes 18 to 36 months to get a new permit when that should be six months or less. And so the sum total of that is when you look at other states across the country, Texas and Florida are number one and number two when it comes to people moving into the state versus out Ohio is number 38 today. And I see an opportunity over the next eight, ten years for Ohio to find its way actually to number one on that list. That might sound unrealistic today, but if you look at the first industrial revolution, Ohio was the leading state in the country. And I think with the strong governor, I'm motivated. I think we can get there again. I'd say the other distinctive part of my candidacy, and this is really what gets me going, Ben, is not just making sure that we're at the forefront economically, but to be able to do something that no other state has actually done, is leading in the crisis of educational achievement in America. That's a 50 state problem. Right now. Our kids aren't excelling in math and reading and writing. Even if we talk about conservative solutions like school choice, which I'm a strong proponent of, ardently in favor of, we also have to take aim at looking at how we revitalize our public schools on their own terms. And I just, for my part, refuse to stand by and watch idly as China laughs at our gradual decay into oblivion when 75% of 8th graders in this country aren't even proficient in math according to international standards. There's kids in other countries where English isn't even their first language now doing better on English proficiency than our own kids here. And just to speak some hard truths, I found that people, frankly, in both political parties aren't too patient. They don't want to hear this message because it hurts to hear. But if you care about somebody, you tell them the truth. And I think being a true conservative state governed according to conservative principles means targeting that educational achievement deficit. Yes, beat the dei. Yes, beat the woke. I mean, I led the crusade on that and I believe in all of that. But there's a deeper failure here as well as it relates to just raw educational achievement on math, reading, writing, physical education, civic education. And I think we as conservatives need to step up in directly tackling those deficits. And that's one way where I hope to set the standard for the rest of the country. The Ohio standard, we could call it, for the way the rest of the states, I think need to catch up as well.

Ben Shapiro (39:27)

Vivek, one thing that's distinguished you from a lot of other Republicans is your focus on economic dynamism, on innovation. That's a really important thing for the Republican Party. It's also a really important thing for the Midwest. There's sort of been this model that's been applied by really a lot of sort of blue governors in the Midwest, that's regulate and subsidize, regulate and subsidize. You heavily regulate, and then you subsidize all of your political friends with taxpayer dollars. And somehow this is supposed to bring jobs back or, or spur particular friendly industries. And what you're talking about is something different, which is take the shackles off of American industry in places like Ohio and you will get, naturally, an incredible level of growth.

Emily Austin (40:01)

That's exactly right. And I say that the reason to flash and burn the regulatory state and over bureaucratization and regulation and taxation isn't because that's a more important objective than standing for American workers and manufacturers. It is because it is the best way to lift up American workers and manufacturers. And I'm keen to make sure that our Republican Party doesn't make some of the mistakes as Democrats have made in these blue states in the Midwest as well. The right answer isn't to foster greater dependence on the government and justify that with a new victimhood culture. The right answer is to find a path to independence from the government. That's actually true compassion. That's not cruelty, that's compassion. Things like work requirements for Medicaid, for welfare, that's even in the long run, been good for the people who receive it. It's not good to be dependent on the government permanently in this handout welfare state that leads to depression, anxiety, fentanyl suicide, opioid usage, as we've seen in so much of this part of the country. And so it's really good for nobody. And, you know, the left has made that mistake for years, and we've been good at calling that out. And we should. And we've won. We won decisively in November. I think for that victory to mean what it should in the long run. I think we, the Republican Party, in the conservative movement, in the pro American movement, owe it to ourselves to stick to the principles that made America great the first time around. And there I see President Trump doing a great job in Washington, D.C. downsizing that federal government, taking aim at the tax rates, taking aim at the type of things that have held back the American economy. But we got to stay true to that North Star rather than getting distracted in other, other directions, I would just say, and the way I want to lead Ohio, I want to embody those same principles of excellence, of dynamism, rejection of victimhood, rejection of dependence on the government. Embracing capitalism. Yes. I don't think that's a bad word. Capitalism and meritocracy, not crony capitalism, but the real thing. I want Ohio to be the state that leads the way where freedom is our heritage, excellence is our destiny. And we got to remember that. I think that's true in America and I think it's every bit and true here. I believe in the heart of America right here in Ohio. It's a state where yet 60% of the population in North America within a single day's drive of where we are right now led the way in the 19th century, led the way even the earlier 20th century. I'd like to see Ohio occupy that leadership position again with some friendly coopetition. Let's just say with Texas and Florida. I'd like to see Ohio be in that vanguard of states that actually shows the country what's possible.

Ben Shapiro (42:32)

That's Vivek Ramaswamy running for governor of Ohio. I'm sure that he is well positioned in this primary. Vivek, if people want to give to your campaign or help out, where should they go?

Emily Austin (42:40)

Go to vivekforohio.com appreciate support across the country. Cuz it's about lifting Ohio up, but it's also about setting a standard for the rest of the country. That's the standard we hold ourselves to. And I appreciate support from anybody however big or however small. It's a big movement here.

Ben Shapiro (42:56)

That's Vic Ramaswamy. Vivek, good luck in the race. I'm sure we'll check back in.

Emily Austin (43:00)

Thank you, man.

Ben Shapiro (43:01)

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Phil (43:52)

Phil, I have not seen Wicked. I have not seen I'm Still Here and I have not finished the Substance yet.

Ben Shapiro (44:00)

Okay, so this is good because our crossover here is not super high. The only ones that I've actually not seen are a complete unknown. I haven't seen Conclave. I've read the book, so I figured I didn't need to see the movie. And I haven't seen I'm still here all the others I've seen. So this should be a good crossover. I think the only one that neither of us have seen here is probably I'm still here. Yeah. So, okay, between the two of us, I think we, we can do this.

Phil (44:21)

So let's try.

Ben Shapiro (44:22)

What. What's bizarre about this Oscars is how many nominations. First of all, Emilia Perez racked up. Emilia Perez racked up an enormous number of nominations. 13 nominations. The brutalist racked up 10 and Wicked racked up 10. And Emilia Perez started off this happens now almost every year at the Oscars where Emilia Perez was the front runner and then there was woke Blowback and then Emilia Perez was not the front runner. We've seen this so many times. We saw this with Green Room. So this is La La Land. Like this sort of stuff tends to happen a lot. What's bizarre about the anti woke blowback on Amelia Perez is that it is the wokest most horrible film ever, perhaps. And yet somehow there's an anti woke blowback because the person who is nominated for best actress, a dude, had a bunch of bad old tweets that apparently mean the entire film that has to be thrown out entirely. Now the film should have been thrown out entirely in the first place because it sucks. But that blowback has now led to a sort of race for who is going to replace Emilia Perez as the front runner. Right now my understanding, Phil, is that the front runner is Anora. Is that right?

Phil (45:23)

Yes, it is. It got the Palme d'or and it has won pretty much every single best picture award you can think of, except for the SAG Ensemble award, which went to Conclave.

Ben Shapiro (45:36)

So I want to go through each of these and we'll do like some capsule reviews of these particular films. So Anora, as we say, is now the front runner. It's directed by Sean Baker. Sean Baker did the Florida Project, which actually I kind of liked and also did. And also did Red Rocket, which I did not like, and Tangerine, which I did not like. And Sean Baker is kind of this, this auteur director who apparently has no capacity to write because Honora is truly an awful film. Like truly a very, very bad film. The plot of the film is sex worker Meaning a prostitute. And meets Russian oligarch son. Russian oligarch son really likes this girl that he is paying to have sex with him routinely while he plays video games and marries her almost on a whim. And then Russian family is like, this isn't happening. Nothing happens for about an hour. And then they. She. They kind of chase him around town. He disappears. They chase him around town. Finally, they uncover him. She realizes, as she should have from the beginning, that he's a douchebag. And they give her a little bit of money to go away. She takes the money to go away, and she flirts with one of the henchmen who's been sent to separate them. I think that's a fair summation of the plot.

Phil (46:44)

Yeah, that's pretty fair. And can you believe that? I guess the director one time liked one Tulsi Gabbard tweet, and they're trying to cancel him for that.

Ben Shapiro (46:53)

That's hysterical. First of all, again, it is amazing. These movies are terrible. I mean, this is a truly awful film. Offers no character development. I think my favorite part of the film is there's a scene where Honora, who's the prostitute, is being confronted by the henchmen of the Russian oligarch's parents. The Russian oligarch parents. And the henchmen call her a prostitute in front of her. And she can speak Russian, and she starts screaming at them. And all I could think of is, well, you are. I don't understand your objection. Literally, the whole movie is supposed to be an almost unapologetic look at sex work. Meaning, like, girls love it. It's super fun. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't damage your soul or you in any serious way. Even though, again, sort of the underlying thematic is that what she's actually looking for is to be a married woman in a normal relationship. And then she can't have that because she is, you know, a prostitute. And so the film is in conflict with itself. On the one hand, it wants to glorify sex work. On the other hand, the thing that she actually is looking for is to not be a sex worker, but to actually be, you know, like a traditional housewife who is taken care of, which is kind of hilarious. And I think perhaps the most fascinating part about this film is that it's been characterized as a Cinderella story. The problem is you can't have a Cinderella story where Cinderella is utterly unsympathetic.

Phil (48:05)

Right.

Ben Shapiro (48:05)

I mean, Cinderella in this particular film is, again, a sex worker who basically takes advantage of what appears to be a 70 IQ, 18 year old kid in order to get to his money. And somehow this is. This makes her a heroine of the story and a victim of the evils of a society that won't accept the sex workers. Is that so? That was my take is 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and then 90% from the audience. I don't know what the audience is thinking other than their onlyfans. Login was lost or something. So. The Brutalist has also been nominated for 10 Academy Awards. I have many, many thoughts on the Brutalist. Actually, I will say it's at least interesting. Like there's some things that are going on. I don't like the political take of the film. I think there is one move that is made near the end of the film. And again, spoiler alert's all over, guys. Like, if we're going through the films, you're gonna have to actually deal with it. The Brutalist is beautifully shot, it's really well directed, the acting is across the board excellent. Guy Pearce particularly is terrific in this film. It makes no political sense at all. So the entire basis of the Brutalist, for those who haven't seen it, is a Holocaust refugee arrives in the United States. It turns out that he is a sort of master architect from the Bauhaus school. And he ends up doing the library for a very rich magnate played by Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce originally doesn't appreciate it and yells at him and doesn't pay him. And then Adrien Brody's character, who is this Hungarian artist, eventually he finds the Hungarian artist, tracks him down and says, I realized that what you did here's a masterpiece. And I want to commission you to make a giant community center in honor of my mother. And so the whole movie is about the conflict between these two characters where Guy Pearce is trying to get this thing built. He's not. He respects the talent of the Hungarian, but he doesn't like the Hungarian. But he kind of loves the Hungarian. It's like this bizarre love hate relationship that he has with the Adrien Brody character. And the whole kind of thematic of the film is America is xenophobic. There's sort of a weird, badly done Zionist plot in the Brutalist. The big problem is that, number one, the case for Zionism is not only that the Jews need a place to go because everybody is constantly persecuting the Jews, which is true. But the case for Zionism is also, I mean, just as a Zionist, the case for Zionism is that there is a biblical basis to it. The Judaism actually believes that there is a holy land promised by God to the Jewish people. That's never dealt with in the film. And so what you end up with is Israel as sort of repository of almost anti American hatred. That basically what Israel is, a place for people to run away from America. Now, if you're going to set it up that way, then what you have to do is basically show that Adrien Brody and his entire family are deeply mistreated by America. And so from the very outset, this is the director Brady Corbett's job is to. Is to show that America is not all that it's cracked up to be. From literally the first shot in the film, which is this. This big shot where you see the Statue of Liberty coming upside down, you see Adrian Brody scramble up to the surface of the ship that's taking him from Europe to the United States. And then the camera swivels upside down. And so you get the upside down Statue of Liberty. You know, right from the outset, this is going to be an America sucks movie. And by the end, you also have a cross upside down. So it turns out that America is rooted in Christianity and Christianity sucks, which is why Jews apparently are victims or something. The problem is Adrien Brody is not a victim in this movie until about three quarters of the way through the movie, meaning that Guy Pierce treats him badly at first. And then there's a read on this movie where Guy Pierce is actually, for most of the movie, the hero of the film. Meaning he is a very rich person who finds an impoverished European immigrant, recognizes his talent, pays him an enormous sum of money to make him a monument on a hill that serves no purpose other than the charitable. And in honor of his mother brings, like, hires a Jewish lawyer to bring his family from Europe and get them out of a DP camp in Austria, have them live on his property. Right. These are not the actions of, like, a typical movie villain. And so the entire movie is based around the idea that Guy Pierce is a villain. But then the first three quarters of the movie don't set that up. So what do they do? They add in a rape scene in which Guy Pearce literally rapes Adrien Brody's character. Now, by this point in the film, Guy Pierce supposed to be probably 60 and Adrien Brody's supposed to be probably 50 in the film at this point. And it's just. It's absolutely bizarre, except that they had to do it because otherwise Guy Pierce can't be portrayed as the villain. And so they're. They're making flesh. The implication of the movie, which is that basically America rapes its immigrant population for its talents and then treats them badly, so much so that they want to leave. The politics are really perverse and disgusting. It's a. It's a very well directed film. But because the politics are so perverse and because, again, the vast majority of the plot does not support the conclusion, all of this feels very shoehorned in the last quarter of the movie, is kind of my take on it.

Phil (52:39)

I think, circling back to the scene you were just talking about with Guy Pierce and Adrien Brody, I feel like that was the least subtle thing possible. I feel like 99% of the audience is able to understand the allegory and the metaphor that he was going for. And then he just had to have that scene and have Guy Pearce explicitly say the things that you knew that he was thinking. Whereas just like 40 minutes ago, they had that scene between Harry and Zofia that implied something similar. But it was a much higher degree of subtlety that I think worked cinematically because it was showing, not telling.

Ben Shapiro (53:16)

And again, I think that Brady Corbett had to do that. The question becomes, why did they even do that? And I think the reason he had to do that is because otherwise the setup is Adrien Brody's being really oversensitive here. Right?

Phil (53:25)

Yeah.

Ben Shapiro (53:25)

He's like, okay, fine, so. So the guy doesn't like you. How many people like their boss? How many people like the people who pay? I mean, aside from. Obviously all of our employees. Like, Phil loves me, but aside from that. I mean, clearly it's not that we pay him to say that he actually does, but. But, you know, most people don't feel like that they have to love the person who is paying them to do a thing. And so the problem is that unless you set up that Adrien Brody is literally a physical victim, then you. Then you cannot actually set up the rest of the sort of moral of the film, which is again, made perfectly obvious in the last part of the film because they Fast forward to 1980, and now there's a big tribute scene to. To Adrien Brody's character. And they. And they explicate that when he created this bizarre monument on the top of a hill in Pennsylvania that actually it was supposed to be taking elements from Dachau and Birkenau. So the idea was there's some sort of continuity between Nazism and American industrial capitalism, which is just, I'm sorry, sick and perverse in every way that is possible to be sick and perverse. And anybody who takes away from world history, that there is a similarity between people shoving you into a gas chamber and murdering you and your entire family and people commissioning you to build a tower on a hill in Pennsylvania. I don't know how far you have to have your head up your ass to come to that conclusion, but apparently that's about as far as Brady Corbett has his head up his ass. Okay. Conclave. I read the book, and so I could not put myself through the movie. The book was interminable enough, and I say that as a fan of Robert Harris, the guy who. Who wrote the book. I've read a bunch of his books. So for those who missed it, I did, like, a little capsule review of Conclave, the book as well, before the movie even came out, telling you what it was going to be. And indeed, it is that thing, because the movie is the book. Basically, Pope dies. Time to appoint a new pope. College of cardinals all get together. Winner. Spoiler alert. Intersex person. Because it turns out that all the cardinals who find this out after the person is made Pope, it turns out they all decide that it's important to violate all the vows they've ever taken in order to maintain the fiction that this person is actually just a genetic male as opposed to an intersex person who's actually female. So you have a lady pope is sort of the. Is sort of the idea of this film.

Phil (55:27)

Yeah, I felt like I was watching a Shyamalan movie in a way, because it was like this political thriller about who is going to ascend to the seat of the pope. And then all of a sudden, the Pope has ovaries.

Ben Shapiro (55:36)

Right.

Phil (55:36)

Like you're watching Split. It's about multiple personality disorder. And then all of a sudden, he becomes the Hulk. Bruce Willis is dead at the end of six, Right?

Ben Shapiro (55:43)

Exactly, Exactly. And so I think, like, the reason. And so this is the. The Catholic Church is mean and too conservative and needs to liberalize movie.

Phil (55:51)

I think my biggest issue, too, is that they don't really process that revelation that he has ovaries in a uterus, that he kind of just says it, and then the film ends a minute later.

Ben Shapiro (56:03)

Yeah, well, I mean, that's true. In the book also, there's, like, a brief kind of internal monologue that the main character, who's played by Ralph Fiennes and the movie does, where the. The main character is like, well, you know, I could say something, but I really shouldn't say something. Okay, I guess I won't say something. And it's. Which is really stupid because really, the entire debate, theoretically, should be about that thing. Right? You should have a whole movie about them debating, we just appointed a pope. What do we do now? You know, there's, like, the legality. Can you, like. I don't know any of those procedures. Is that. Is that revocable? How does. How exactly does that work in this way? The sort of surprise ending. Conclave is very much like Nickel Boys. So Nickel Boys is a movie about a school. It's based on an actual real school in Florida that was a reform school in which apparently students were abused for decades. Some of them were killed and apparently buried in a field. And, like, bodies have actually been found. There have been reparations that have been paid to some of the families in the state of Florida over all of this. There's some controversy over whether this was just a generalized evil reform school that basically victimized all the people who went there or whether it was particularly racist. Is one of the controversies over the Florida school Nickel Boys novelization by Colson Whitehead that turned into a movie. And the movie is fine, but it's not particularly revelatory. The kind of. The reason I'm comparing it to Conclave is because the twist ending is that the character you think you've been watching the whole time, who's kind of in the future, in the late 1980s, who's deciding whether or not to go and reveal what happened at the school, that character, you think, is one character the whole time, and it turns out it's another character. The character you think it is was actually killed earlier in the film. This person took that person's name and lived out his life, basically. That doesn't change anything fundamentally in the film. This is one of my problems with some twist endings in films, at least in Conclave, you can make the case that that actually has some impact. In Nickel Boys, it really wouldn't have mattered at all whether the switch ever took place. If one of the boys had been killed and the other boy had lived, that would have made no difference to the actual plot of the film. I think it's more of an explanation for why the kid didn't come forward because he was actually, you know, inhabiting somebody else's life. Maybe that's the explanation, but there's nothing particularly that changes what happened during the story. That one character lived and the other died. You could easily have just left it alone. And I think the shock value of. Of the. Of the switch is supposed to be like the big revelation and just didn't do anything for me as far as it being directed? Well, yeah, I mean. I mean, it's directed fine. I think it's interestingly directed Nickel Boys because it kind of takes various perspectives. It's done from first person. So you see the camera in the place of the person for one character, and then you see it switch and you see the same scene from the character of the other person. And so it's kind of a cool directorial trick. But we've also seen that with things like, for example, 1917. So I don't think there was anything particularly new about that, per se. It's fine. I don't think it's an amazing film by any stretch of the imagination. The substance. Okay, so I did not hate the substance as much as I thought I would hate the substance. I don't think it's anything special. I think it's a body horror film. I think that it's being given all sorts of plot. It's just because Demi Moore gets naked. And the entire plot of the substance is Demi Moore is an aging actress and she's fired from her job by close ups of Dennis Quaid eating shrimp. And then at a certain point, she's given notice. She gets in a car crash. And at the hospital, somebody gives her notice of a thing called the substance that allows her basically to separate into two beings. One of them is a young version of Demi Moore, like a young, hot Margaret Quay version of Demi Moore. And one is older Demi Moore. And they have to switch off week to week. So the. The basic idea is that her soul or brain, whatever she is, inhabits one body and then inhabits the other body week to week. And then, of course, there starts to be tension because she wants to stay in the younger body. But then every time she goes back to the older body, her older body is more depleted because the younger body has essentially been drawn, drawing life force from that. The end of it is, of course, as with most horror films, you know, some sort of sick horror explosion involving lots of blood. The movie kind of peters out around an hour 15, and then for 45 minutes, it just kind of hovers there. Nothing really happens between an hour 15 and kind of two hours. This movie, at an hour and a half, would have been a nice little horror flick. At two hours, it's really, really overlong.

Phil (60:10)

It's interesting that you told me that this film is about the evils of sexism in America because. Because Vanity Fair told me it was a stealthy trans allegory.

Ben Shapiro (60:18)

Yeah, Vanity Fair is high on their own supply. And that was, of course, by A person, I believe, named Emily Saint John or something, who is a trans person.

Phil (60:24)

Saint James.

Ben Shapiro (60:25)

Yeah, Saint James. Emily Saint John is the novelist. Emily Saint James is the. Is a trans person who believes that every movie is about him. And the substance is absolutely not a trans allegory. It is about women aging in Hollywood and how they feel a lack of self because they are aging and because everybody is mean to them because they're older. Which is clearly not true of Demi Moore, who's getting more work now than she's had in 20 years. By the way, the thing that works in Late Night with the Devil doesn't work for me here in the substance, just thematically, is that the very basis of the substance is that fulfillment is to be found in sort of youth and beauty for women. And so when she goes back to being Margaret quietly, and now she's young, instead of utilizing her youth and beauty to actually do productive and interesting things, she basically F's around. I mean, that's essentially what she does as a young woman, right? She parties and she has sex with the idea that, like, what a woman wants most out of life, the fulfilling thing that is going to cause her to want to relive her life, is to essentially, you know, act like a teenager is really, really stupid. And so I don't think the movie flows in that way, and, you know, it would have been useful, actually, is if she'd gone back and said, I want to relive my life. You know what actually worked if she had gone back and said, I want to relive my life as a young woman. I want to get married and have kids. Right? That would have actually created some real dramatic tension because then you would have had sympathy for the idea that she wants to stay a young woman and not be an old woman again. Like she has to relive her life because she made some bad choices. But it's none of that, because of course, Hollywood could never possibly think that a young woman would want to get married and have kids.

Phil (61:50)

That sounds like a Daily Wire plus original.

Ben Shapiro (61:52)

It does, it does. So we're scripting it in real time. And finally, there's Wicked. If you want to see my review of that, then you can. Obviously, that did a lot of traffic because I liked Wicked. So of these pictures, the best picture, the only one that people are going to be watching 10 years from now is Dune Part 2. The rest of these. The rest of these kind of suck. Wicked is fine.

Phil (62:09)

You think in a. In an ideal world, Dune Part 2 would win best Picture?

Ben Shapiro (62:12)

Yes.

Phil (62:13)

Who's going to win?

Ben Shapiro (62:15)

I think given, given the momentum, I think Anora will probably win. I think there's too much controversy with the others. And somehow the movie about prostitution and sex work with enormous amounts of pornography is the least controversial nominee on this list. But it just shows you where Hollywood is right. And Nora is the America is evil because it doesn't like sex work. The Brutalist is America's xenophobic. A complete unknown just walked the line. Conclave is the Catholic Church is transphobic. Emilia Perez is Society is transphobic. Nickel Boy's is America is racist. The substance is America is sexist.

Phil (62:45)

The top three contenders are Honora, the Brutalist and Conclave. Out of the three, which one do you think deserves to win?

Ben Shapiro (62:53)

I mean, I think all three are bad. And again, I'm speaking out of turn here. Cause I haven't seen Conclave. I've only read the book. But my assumption is that the most interesting of those three is the Brutalist, which at least attempting. It's attempting to do something thematically and at least is well directed and well acted. Well, folks, there is your rundown on everything Oscars related. I know it's a bit lengthy, but there are a lot of films there and we'll give you, I'm sure, our full review of the Oscars themselves on Monday. Alrighty. Coming up, there's a new patriotic documentary that is coming out called Brothers After War, all about what happens to American soldiers after war. We're going to talk with the director of that film. Speaking of which, you actually should come subscribe at Daily Wire plus because we have tons of amazing stuff that is happening. We've got all of our movies. Obviously the Matt Walsh stuff. Am I racist? What is a woman got? All Access Live, which we did yesterday in which I answered your questions. We also have episodes of the Search with people like Elon Musk and Megyn Kelly and Vivek. If you're not a member, you need to become a member today. Use code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.