← The Ben Shapiro Show
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2177 - TRUMP U-TURN WIN: Tariff War Paused, China Isolated!
01:05:46
President Trump does the right thing by pausing his tariff war on America’s allies; massive tariffs against China remain on the books; and we examine all the fallout for the future. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/3WDjgHE Ep.2177 - - - Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings - - - DailyWire+: We’re leading the charge again and launching a full-scale push for justice. Go to https://PardonDerek.com right now and sign the petition. Now is the time to join the fight. Watch the hit movies, documentaries, and series reshaping our culture. Go to https://dailywire.com/subscribe today. Get your Ben Shapiro merch here: https://bit.ly/3TAu2cw - - - Today's Sponsors: Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that searches the internet to deliver fast, unbiased, high-quality answers, with sources and in-line citations. Ask Perplexity anything here: https://pplx.ai/benshapiro ExpressVPN - Go to https://expressvpn.com/ben and find out how you c...
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- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
Well, folks, President Trump lives in the world of reality. As I've been saying for a very long time, when the headlines change, so does the president's opinion on things. We'll get to that in a moment. First at Daily Wire. Plus, as you know, we lead with facts. We deliver the truth from the most trusted voices in conservative media, people who say what you can't, who fight where you can't and who won't back down. Members get this show ad free and unfiltered with live chat, investigative journalism that takes you inside the story and premium entertainment that actually reflects your values. Now is the time to become a member. Go to dailywire.com subscribe so yesterday, that's at 1:00 in the afternoon, the President of the United States made a U turn on his tariff policy. He put out a statement on Truth Social that read, quote, based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets, I'm hereby raising the tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125% effective immediately. @ some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the United States and other countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable. Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 countries have called representatives of the United States, including the the Departments of Commerce, treasury and the US Trade Representative to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to trade, trade barriers, tariffs, currency manipulation and non monetary tariffs, and that these countries have not at my strong suggestion retaliated in any way, shape or form against the United States. I've authorized a 90 day pause and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So that is in fact a U turn for the President of the United States who is suggesting just a couple of days earlier that there would be no postponement. That was suggested by pretty much everybody in the President's cabinet. It was said over and over and over again this is the right thing to do. The president did the right thing here. He reversed what was going to be a meltdown moment for the global markets. And the question is why? What made him reverse everything? And the answer is pretty obvious. Basically the entire global economic system was shouting at him that he needed to reverse this tariff system that he was about to put into place. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan appeared on Fox Business specifically to message to the president because the president watches Fox News. Jamie Dimon has essentially admitted as much. Here he was Wednesday morning Explaining that a tariff war would bring a almost certain recession. Do you personally expect a recession?
- [02:10]
Scott Besant
I am going to defer to my.
- [02:12]
Ben Shapiro
Economist at this point, but I think probably that's a likely outcome. Okay. Between him saying that and also the bond market completely wrecking itself on Wednesday morning, the President of the United States saw the reality and he reversed himself. The bond market sell off that was initiated by President Trump's statements about tariffs, meaning that people started selling their bonds in the market. They were so disquieted by what was happening that they realized they couldn't be in stocks. The stock market was about to tank, and they realized they couldn't shift their money over to bonds because inflation was gonna kick in, which meant that the bonds would be worthless as inflation increased. So bonds were not a safe haven. And so people started selling their bonds off. The bond yields spiked yesterday morning all the way up to the 30 year bond yield spiked all the way up to 5%, meaning that no one was buying bonds. Everybody was selling bonds at a particular time. And so the President of the United States did what he was supposed to do and he saw reality and he changed his mind. That is the thing that actually happened. And naturally, the stocks rallied. So again, for all the people who believe that the stock market didn't matter, five seconds ago, when the stock market was declining, we were told the stock market didn't matter. And then when the stock market spiked after President Trump did this, we were told that the stock market now mattered an awful lot. One of the same people who a moment ago were saying a giant global tariff war would actually be salutary and good for the United States, who then reversed themselves and said, actually it was all part of the plan. A tariff war would've been super bad. And we're glad the President actually planned it out this way. Okay, why don't we just get your position at the outset and then we can tell whether you are fibbing or not in order to achieve a particular political end. Okay. President Trump made that announcement, and naturally the market spiked, of course, because everyone in the investment community, everybody who understands how basic economics 101 works, understood that when the President backed off of the most severe tariff regime in modern history, that that would spike the markets. That was perfectly obvious. I mean, I was at the gym yesterday, working out when this went down, and I was watching the stock checkers, and suddenly the markets jumped 2,000 points. And I turned and said to a friend, he must have paused the tariffs, because that was obviously the only reason that the markets would Spike which suggests that again, the investment community is not stupid when it comes to, you know, investment and economics. According to the Wall Street Journal, investors had spent nearly a week dumping everything American when seven minutes after markings opened on Wednesday, the president posted on social media it was time to buy. By the day's end, US Stocks stage a historic rally after another Trump Post announced a 90 day pause on some tariffs and and signals a willingness to negotiate on trade. Wednesday surge added a record $5.1 trillion in value to the market. So the president did what he was supposed to do. He prevented a global market sell off. A complete tanking. President Trump then came out and he said, we will be making deals with every country that is not China. Again, this is the thing that he should be doing. Kudos to the president for doing the right thing. And u turning on the policy that he announced last week with that, with that cork board. Here he was.
- [05:08]
Donald Trump
Yeah, a deal could be made with every one of them. Deal. A deal is going to be made with China. A deal is going to be made with every one of them. And there'll be fair deals. I just want fair. They will be fair deals for everybody.
- [05:23]
Ben Shapiro
So that's what everybody's talking about. That's what people want. I said this literally the day that he announced the tariff regiment, that if it was a negotiating tactic to get everybody back to the table, then fine, but you actually have to say that and then you have to give people time to negotiate those deals. I was not the only one saying this, of course. Elon Musk was saying this. Bill Ackman was saying this. A number of people were saying this. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary who essentially talked the President into the reversal, he lauded the negotiating strategy yesterday.
- [05:51]
Howard Lutnick
We saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented a week ago. Today. It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment. And what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago, they're in this very spot. Do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.
- [06:21]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary who lost this argument, the Commerce Secretary Lutnick, he was the one who's arguing for these tariffs to basically remain. He thought that was just good for the economy, period. Besant always saw them as a way of achieving reciprocal tariffs. Howard Lutnick put out a statement. Scott Besant and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary truth posts of his presidency. The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade and China has chosen the opposite direction. Okay, so the big argument that's now broken out online is whether this is all part of a 40 chess plan, an underwater upside down, hungry hungry hippos plan, in order to somehow achieve a 5% drop in the markets, a 125% tariff on China, tremendous uncertainty with regard to investment futures and tariff deals with a bunch of countries that we could have called up on the phone. Why does this matter? The answer is it really doesn't. It doesn't matter in one sense, if the president gets to the right policy. I don't really care how he got to the policy, but he's getting to the right policy. And again, I think there are two going theories here of what President Trump did. Theory number one is the theory that I have posited. The president lives in the world of reality, meaning if he puts out a proposal and that proposal does not work, he is not ideologically tied to his own proposals such that he is willing to undergo enormous pain in order to prove the veracity of his ideology. So if he puts out a tariff plan and it turns out the markets hate it, and it turns out people are calling him up day and night telling him it's a bad plan, and turns out the bond market experiences a mass sell off that he reverses himself and then finds a better policy. Which is one of the good things about that's not a criticism of President Trump, that is a praise of President Trump that is good. You don't want a president who keeps just driving off the cliff once it is clear that this thing is headed for a cliff, you want him to change course. The president made a U turn. That's a good thing. The U turn is not a sign of weakness. The U turn is a sign of strength. Because making a U turn in the middle of a bad policy shows that you are more interested in getting the right outcome than you are in your own perception of ego. The U turn matters. It is a good thing. And I think there's this bizarre setup in politics where if a, if a politician makes a mistake and then walks back the mistake, somehow this is a sign of cookery. Somehow this is a sign of weakness by the politician. Or maybe it's a sign of strength because you, number one, you can get away with it. And number two, it shows that you actually care about the end outcome. The argument I've made about President Trump over and over and over to people who would not vote for President Trump in the last election cycle is Even if you don't like what President Trump is selling, he is utilitarian enough that if the outcome is likely to be bad, he will change his policy. And that's exactly what you saw here. So that's opinion number one. And then there's opinion number two, which was again, that this was 5D chess existing in dimensions beyond time and space, that it was all planned out, every element of this. Now, in order for you to believe that every element of this was in fact planned out, you would have to believe that the president a month ago at his State of the Union laid out a hard core tariff regime in order to not do it within 13 hours after announcing that it was now in place a month later, and that he couldn't have just achieved the actual goals that he achieved here without all this sort of manipulation. So he would have to lay out a giant Liberation Day plan at the State of the Union address. Then he would have to unleash gigantic tariffs based not on reciprocal tariff rates, but based on trade deficits that would include islands, including penguins. And then you would have to have the stock market. This is all necessary, right? This is all part of the plan. The stock market would have to tumble 10% and come to the precipice of complete nuclear meltdown. You would have to assume that President Trump then wanted his entire team to fight with each other publicly. He would want Elon Musk calling Peter Navarro, Peter Ricardo and Peter Navarro calling President Trump, and Peter Navarro calling Elon Musk a car assembler as opposed to a car manufacturer. And Scott Besanton, Howard Lutnick retailing completely different messages. All of this was necessary to the plan and then let the tariffs go into place to spark a bond market sell off a historic bond market selloff, all to achieve a reversal of all of those things within 13 hours of implementing those things. That would have to be the plan. That would be the art of the deal sort of strategy here. Well, with all of this uncertainty, many things remain unclear. But one thing is still clear, and that is that big tech dominates our digital lives. Companies don't just serve ads. They potentially influence our political choices through controlled content delivery. The original Internet promised personal freedom and control over your informational journey. There's a way to reclaim that control and freedom. ExpressVPN. When you browse the Internet, your service provider tracks everything you do, building a profile that data brokers sell to advertisers and government agencies. This constant surveillance means we are being watched and manipulated online. 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We've worked out a special offer for my audience. Receive 15% off your very first order. Go to tryarmra.com Shapiro or enter Shapiro to get 15% off your very first order. That's T R Y A r m r a.com Shapiro that's triarmra.com Shapiro or answer Shapiro get 15% off your first order now. Again, I don't care whether it was the art of the deal, whether it was a plan, or whether it was not a plan. The only reason that it makes any difference at all whether it was quote, unquote, part of the plan or not part of the plan is because the suggestion from people who say that it was all Part of the plan is that if you criticize bad policy, somehow it undermines the plan. But here's the thing. If it was all part of the plan, you need people to criticize the bad policy so as to push the President into doing the reversal. If it's all part of the plan, then so is the criticism. Again, this is part of the problem with these very sophisticated theories of it was all part of the plan.
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Scott Besant
Okay?
- [13:07]
Ben Shapiro
So it was all part of the plan except for what the people who said that it was bad policy. So if those people had shut up, then he still would have done exactly the same thing. Or maybe. Or maybe the President, because he is a smart, capable man who is able to read tea leaves and see headlines and adjust and stick and move, because he's able to do that. Actually, it is quite important that honest commentators actually say the thing, that when a policy is bad, they say it's a bad policy, and when policy is good, they say it is a good policy. Because otherwise you can't tell what the hell they think, and you can't tell what is good policy and what is bad policy. And so, again, both of these lines are sort of being retailed. And then the President, it turns out, just basically said one of the things I love about President Trump, he's totally transparent. He really is. He's very, very transparent about the reason he does the things that he does. So there were, again, multiple lines being retailed yesterday after the reversal. One was that it was all part of the plan. So Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, he said, no, no, no, it wasn't the bond markets or the Commerce or the stock. None of that made the President change his mind. This is Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary. Did the market reaction cause the administration to rethink its tariff plan? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. The tariff plan for the President. Look, he's trying to fix the fundamental trade imbalances that have been going on for this country for 35 years. I mean, we were just in the Oval Office, and he said, I don't blame China. I blame the people who sat behind the desk of the Oval Office. This, for letting this occur. It is time to take back the ability to trade with America. And Donald Trump is leading the charge to do that. Okay, so apparently, according to Commerce Secretary Lutnick, the markets, the bond markets, nothing of this had any impact on Trump. This is all part of the 40 hungry hungry hippos Upside down underwater chess plan. And then Caroline Lovett, again, I understand all these people work for the Trump administration. And so they have an interest in suggesting, of course, that this is all part of the plan. I get it. I get it. Because they think that they have to project strength. And that if you say that was all part of the plan, as opposed to the reality, which is that the president is utilitarian enough and smart enough to react to circumstance, that somehow that undercuts him. Again, I disagree, but I understand why they're doing it. Here is Caroline Levitt, White House Press Secretary, saying, you know, this is all the art of the deal. Again, you'd have to assume that all of this was designed in order to achieve what that couldn't have been achieved by picking up the phone or just doing the tariffs on China. Many of you in the media clearly.
- [15:35]
Caroline Levitt
Missed the art of the deal.
- [15:37]
Ben Shapiro
You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here. You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer.
- [15:44]
Caroline Levitt
To China, when, in fact, we've seen the opposite effect.
- [15:46]
Ben Shapiro
The entire world is calling the United.
- [15:48]
Caroline Levitt
States of America, not China, because they.
- [15:51]
Ben Shapiro
Need our markets, they need our consumers.
- [15:53]
Caroline Levitt
And they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them.
- [15:58]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, we'll get to that in a minute. Because what China's going to do next, what every other country is gonna do next still remains sort of an open question. Yes, they wanna negotiate an off ramp with the United States to avoid these tariffs. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are not also gonna triangulate with China, however. Then there's the other theory, okay, the theory that I have retailed, which is that the president changed his mind because the circumstances changed, that he put in place a tariff regime that was unsustainable for the global economy, and the markets reacted as they do when they take in new information. And then he saw the markets react and he didn't like it. And as Exhibit A in the. In the explanation for his activity, that market activity, bond selloffs, market sell offs, criticism changed the President's opinion. I present to you, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, saying exactly that yesterday. So here is the president saying it.
- [16:47]
Donald Trump
Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippee, you know, they're getting a little bit yippee, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions, because we have a big job to do. No other president would have done what I did.
- [17:04]
Ben Shapiro
Okay? And then the President went on to say the bond markets were getting queasy. So in other words, the people who are getting yippee and queasy shaped what exactly what was happening with his opinion on. And if everybody else had stayed strong, then presumably he would have gone forward with the plan. So if you're happy that he reversed the plan, which apparently Trump fans are today, as they should be, then what caused it? Right. This is a question because it does relate to who is trustworthy in the public space when you are talking about these issues. The people who would be just as happy if he left the tariffs on or the people who are happy that he took the tariffs off and always thought he should take the tariffs off, except for on China. And again, President Trump just says the quiet part out loud. I mean, he just sits. He says it again. The people who are positing that this was all part of the magical Ocean's Eleven plan, all those people keep getting undercut by the fact that the President of the United States is telling them openly that that's not what happened. Here was the president yesterday, he said the stock market is doing great. But wait, I thought five seconds ago that Wall street and Main street were in complete opposition. We should pay no attention to the stock markets. They were just filled with a bunch of dullards and queasy yipsters.
- [18:09]
Donald Trump
There's a lot of winning out there and we're having a good day in the stock market, as you can see, an all time record day. And hopefully it continues. I think it should. Our country's stronger than it's ever been and somebody had to do that with. We had to take the medicine way to go through the operation. And that's what we've been through.
- [18:27]
Ben Shapiro
Okay. So whether you think we had to go through the operation or we didn't have to go through the operation, bottom line is we ended up in a spot that is a much better spot than we were in three days ago. And again, all of the reporting suggests precisely the theory that the president changed where he was on this because of the reaction. Again, that is a praise of the President, not a rip on him. If the president changes his opinion for utilitarian reasons in order to achieve a better end goal, that's him being smart. It would be stupid to continue running full speed into a wall in the name of Peter Navarro's benighted idiocy with regard to trade, you don't need Ron Vera guiding you on trade, Mr. President, if you want to see a real bull market. The president should fire Peter Navarro today if he wants to see an actual bull market run. Charlie Gasparino at Fox News. He was reporting from the White House. Yeah, pretty clearly this was sparked by the bond market sell off. What happened in the bond market overnight? The spike in yields on the 30 year and the 10 year bond, which showed that people were dumping our bonds. And who were those people dumping our bonds? Japan, the biggest holder of bonds was selling bonds. That's what I'm getting from some very big money managers. China maybe to some extent, but it was largely Japan and others. If you have a mass sale of bonds, that means people are losing confidence in the US Economy on the ability to do deals with us. And from what I understand, this is what forced the hand of this 90 day reprieve. I mean, historically speaking, this is correct. He of course is exactly right. When you are talking about bond yields dramatically spiking very often, that presages serious economic turmoil, downturns and all the rest of signals an underlying real problem. In fact, I asked my sponsor Perplexity about this. I asked, quote, can you please provide historical examples of situations in which U.S. bond yields spiked dramatically? How often did they presage serious economic turmoil? Perplexity says historically, spikes in US Bond yields have often signaled economic stress or shifts in fiscal and monetary policy. In some cases they have preceded serious economic turmoil. And then it gives a bunch of examples, including the 1980, 81 inflation and Paul Volcker's rate hikes. So bond yields surged because investors anticipated aggressive action by Paul Volcker to combat inflation. And you got a recession. 1993, 94, the yields on 10 year treasuries rose from around 5% to 8% as bond traders reacted to increased government spending. And what ended up happening? Clinton ended up reversing. He's got absolutely clocked in the midterm elections in 1994, Republicans won Congress for the first time in like 50 years. And, and then he reversed his policy. 2009, 2010. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Bond yields rose amid concerns over inflation and unsustainable debt levels. And then the Federal Reserve had to step in. 2013, yields spiked after Ben Bernanke hinted at reducing quantitative easing. 2020, 21 pandemic, it happened. And then of course, it just happened the other day. So as Perplexity AI points out, while not all yield spikes lead directly to economic crises, they frequently signal underlying vulnerabilities in fiscal or monetary policy that may contribute to turmoil and if left unaddressed, in other words, bond yields don't spike for no reason at all. There is a reason the bond yield spiked and there's a reason why President Trump saw that and went, you know, maybe I should do a u Turn here. Fox News also reported that even staffers in the White House were taken by surprise by President Trump's about face. So the idea again that this was like a well thought out plan with everybody involved, clearly not for the staffers of the White House. Yo, this is really interesting what's happened. I was actually the one who walked into lower press here. That's where a number of the press communication folks are at the White House. And I asked them, is it true? A 90 day pause looked at me with blank stares. I had to tell the press folks that the President had put on true social, that he considered the 90 day pause on tariffs. So that's news to the White House. The Wall Street Journal itself has a long report today on exactly why President Trump changed his opinion. And he did. Okay, let's be clear. He changed his approach here. Why did that happen? Because he responds to reality. He's a president who lives in reality. And I don't know why this is so offensive to people who are big Trump fans. That's a good thing. And yet it's also offensive to people on the left who think that President Trump lives in fantasy land. Clearly he does not. He puts forward a proposal. If the proposal breaks all the rules and the rules were stupid, he maintains the proposal. If it breaks all the rules and it turns out that things are going to crater, then he changes where he was. And that's precisely what he did here. According to the Wall Street Journal, quote, President Trump finally blinked. It took a week for the plunge in the stock and bond markets, along with the sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and foreign leaders to to prompt Trump to roll back for 90 days, a major element of his sweeping tariff plan. The President said the reaction to the tariffs was getting a bit. Yippee. Like a nervous athlete unable to perform. And he relied on his instincts to change course as he watched the bond market tank and listened to business leaders, including Jamie Dimon, express fears of recession. The episode was classic Trump. He took a drastic action, closely tracked the reaction, kept advisors and allies guessing, and then changed course. In this case, the extraordinary reversal was announced via Trump's social media platform just hours after so called reciprocal tariffs officially went into effect. He tapped out the post in the Oval Office as he sat with Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trump also significantly raised tariffs on China. So what exactly happened? Quote, Bessant was flooded with worried calls from Wall street over the weekend and felt strongly he had to persuade Trump a pause was needed. It wouldn't be a capitulation, Bessant argued, because they were going to have so many deals. He revealed little about publicly about why the president and his team waited until Wednesday afternoon to enact it, with Trump saying he decided on the move Wednesday morning. So he openly said he decided on a Wednesday morning. It's all part of the plan. But he just Bessen said more than 75 countries have reached out seeking a deal to ease tariffs with Japan at the front of the queue. One key to the change Trump's decision to give Besson more authority within his team of trade advisors. People close to the discussion said along with the talks on Sunday, Besson flew down Sunday to Florida. I reported on this yesterday. Politico had reported on this. Besson flew down Sunday to Florida and afterward was authorized to make comments publicly about deals which heartened many people close to Trump who who believed the treasury secretary could find an exit ramp. And indeed, on Wednesday morning, as Scott Besant went out there and retailed deal after deal after deal, the markets were kind of roiling, but they had not yet dumped. And I tweeted shortly before President Trump actually u turned I tweeted that Besant was single handedly holding the markets up because that was absolutely true. If you were an investor and you were watching Howard Lutnick, you were selling and if you were watching Scott Besant, you were not selling. And it was pretty much that simple. Because Besant represented the off ramps. When the two men returned to Washington together on Air Force One, Besant encouraged Trump to focus on negotiations, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Another factor that made Trump more willing to relent on tariffs was that so many countries are in negotiations with the administration. Trump was also swayed by the stock market and the parade of business leaders expressing concerns about the tariffs. So in other words, all the people who he labeled panicans who were in his ear telling him this was a bad idea, he listened to them as he should have. Over the past few days, executives and lobbyists had flooded White House chief of staff Susie Wiles his phone, according to a person close to her. A White House aide noted it was standard for the president's chief of staff to field calls on his behalf. The message delivered to Trump and his top advisors by chief executives was that they needed to find an off ramp. He privately acknowledged his trade policy Trump did could trigger a recession, but said he wanted to be sure it didn't cause a depression, according to people familiar with the conversations. Trump was also in listening mode. Over the past few days, he has been asking friends and advisors about the markets and he was indicating he was closely watching them. Again, this is all the Wall Street Journal, okay? This is being reported. At the White House on Wednesday, he had lunch with financier and investor Charles Schwab and with Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had warned Michigan was already feeling the impact of the tariffs throughout its automotive industry. On Tuesday evening, Trump said he absorbed the bad news about the plummeting bond market. Quote, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. He then watched Dimon's interview Wednesday morning with Maria Bartiromo. That's when we played a few minutes ago. During the interview, Dimon said a recession was a likely outcome. Dimon has not had a substantive conversation with Trump for years, apparently, but his appearance on Fox Business had been in place for some time. And Dimon knew Trump and his inner circle often watched Fox. Trump told reporters he'd been thinking about pausing tariffs over the last few days, adding, quote, it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning. We wrote it up from our hearts. Trump said. We don't want to hurt countries that don't need to be hurt and they all want to negotiate. So again, this idea that this was sort of like brilliantly negotiated all the way back a week ago or a month ago, it's not true. But that doesn't matter. That's good. It means he is listening to outside advice. 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Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite adapts to your needs, helping you respond to immediate challenges and and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com Shapiro the guide is free to you at netsuite.com Shapiro that's netsuite.com Shapiro you can't afford to be without them. This netsuite.com Shapiro and so now the off ramp is becoming available. Canada's Mark Carney, the Prime Minister who replaced Justin Trudeau, he says that this is a welcome reprieve. He put out a tweet quote this pause on reciprocal tariffs announced by President Trump is welcome reprieve for the global economy. As President Trump and I have agreed, the U.S. president and Canadian Prime Minister will commence negotiations on a new economic and security relationship immediately following the federal election. As part of today's announcement, the President has signaled that the US Will engage in bilateral negotiations with a number of other countries. This will likely result in A fundamental restructuring of the global trading system. In that context, Canada must also continue to deepen its relationships with trading partners that share our values, including the free and open exchange of goods, services and ideas. This election is importantly about who can best fight for Canadian families, workers and businessmen at the negotiating tables with the United States and other potential partner countries. So that is Canada looking for an off ramp. The tariffs on China remain and that is going to be the big sort of push down on the economy in the near future. Now, that may be pain that is worthy of going through. I've been an advocate of tariffing the living hell out of China for as long as I can remember. I've said for years. I'm not even sure it was good policy in the 1970s for Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to open China. Maybe we should have just let them collapse from within instead of ushering them into the global trading system with the bizarre hope that this was somehow going to moderate their politics. Instead, they have retained all of their authoritarianism, but they've also gained enormous amounts of global economic power. With that said, the shock and awe of the tariffs that President Trump is putting on those will have ramifications. There's no question. The pre markets were down fairly significantly. Because the reality is that 10% across the board tariffs are staying, which will in fact lead to some level of inflation. Not remotely the kind of thing that was gonna happen if President Trump had been putting 40 or 50% tariffs on a wide variety of inputs and goods from other countries. But it will lead to a global economic slowdown of some effect. Meanwhile, the markets are trying to price in what it means that we are slamming the door on China's fingers really, really, really hard. So Scott Besant, he's going after China hard again. I'm all in on this. I think this is good. I think we should be going after China hard. The question is gonna be the sort of approach that is being taken. Is this a negotiating tactic? What is the off ramp with China if there is one? Because there are risks that attend on upping the ante with China in this sort of dramatic non escalatory fashion. Just kind of like ramping up to 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds. Here's Scott Bessant going after China yesterday.
- [31:33]
Howard Lutnick
But in terms of escalation, unfortunately, the biggest offender in the global trading system is China. And they're the only country who's escalated. And I can tell the rest of the world that. I'm not sure whether it was the Prime Minister or the economic Minister in Spain made some comments this morning. Oh, well, maybe we should align ourselves more with China. That would be cutting your own throat.
- [32:02]
Ben Shapiro
So Besant again is basically saying choose China or choose us. And then he says we will keep slapping China. This is yesterday after the U turn in reversal by President Trump.
- [32:13]
Howard Lutnick
As I said a week ago today, don't retaliate, hold your ground. Let's see what happens. And China, they kept escalating and escalating and now they have 125% tariffs that will be effective immediately.
- [32:29]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, then he continued along these lines, says, listen, China can hurt us, but we're going to hurt them more in trade war. Which is true, actually, in terms of.
- [32:38]
Howard Lutnick
Certainty, we will see what China does. But what I am certain of, what I'm certain of is that what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours because they have an export driven flood the world with cheap export models. And the rest of the world now understands because when we put our barcodes tariff wall, those exports were already flowing to the rest of the G7 and to the global South.
- [33:08]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, so he's pointing out here that again, we do an enormous amount of trade with Europe, we do an enormous amount of trade with the global South. Now there are countries that trade much more with China than they trade with us. Japan is one of those countries. For example, kind of approximately the same percentage of Japan's export market goes to the United States as goes to China. They import significantly more from China, Japan does, than they import from the United States, for example. However, there is in fact bipartisan consensus that China cheats and they do. They steal intellectual property. They make it impossible to do actual solid, honest business in their country. If you contravene their belief system, they will shut down your business and in some cases just steal your property. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, no ally of the president, she was out there stumping against China yesterday on cnn. I believe that China cheats, that the government there subsidizes industry which creates an unlevel playing field for Wisconsin workers. You know, Wisconsin is a state that makes things. We're a big manufacturing state. But when you have an unlevel playing field, you see the results. We lose jobs. We see China being able to undercut and underprice, we see steel dumping, aluminum dumping. I think it's absolutely appropriate to have targeted tariffs or countervailing duties when, when China cheats. So again, there's bipartisan consensus for this. So what actually is going to happen next? And this is one of the big questions and this again is why the market is roiled, because China does have tools it can use against the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal, the escalating trade conflict between the United States and China has reignited fears that Beijing could use financial markets to hit back at Washington. China is one of the largest overseas owners of U.S. government debt. There have long been fears that China could dump U.S. treasuries that make up a large chunk of its foreign exchange reserves. China owned about $1.2 trillion in U.S. treasury securities in January, but they might be able to actually own more because they have third parties that are buying them and all the rest. US government data showed China owned about $761 billion of Treasuries as of January, trailing only Japan. That data covers Treasuries held by both the government and private investors. Some have speculated about whether China was behind this week's treasury sell off. Goldman Sachs said that they were skeptical of that. But China could also use its currency that could devalue the yuan to help offset the impact of tariffs. The yuan's value is tightly controlled by the central bank. Investors have watched the daily fix. They could be subsidizing their domestic industries. There's a bunch of stuff that China could try to do. All of it would hurt China. The real question is, is there an off ramp here for China that forces them to, for example, abide by IP regulations? Is there some sort of goal that the United States is attempting to implement with regard to China? Can we isolate China without actually provoking them into doing the biggest thing, which would be blockading Taiwan? So one of the things that we do have to watch out for with regard to China is let's say we go to 125% tariffs, which we have on China, and let's say we maintain those, and let's say everything goes swimmingly the way that I would want it to go. We signed zero tariff agreements with Vietnam, with Japan, with South Korea. We signed zero tariff agreements with the eu. Suddenly you basically have a free world trading system that excludes China. And we start using the levers of financial power against China in the world markets in a much more severe way, and China becomes more and more isolated. Well, then you do run the risk that China at some point will attempt to blockade Taiwan as a negotiating chip against the rest of the world economy, because they figure if they're in serious trouble anyway, they may as well threaten to melt down the entire global economy by basically destroying the semiconductor industry. That's something that China very well could do. Which is one of the reasons why you need a simultaneous military buildup and a stronger position in the, in the Indo Pacific region. It's actually quite important. I assume that's one of the reasons why the Trump administration is also pushing on the budget for $1 trillion. Pentagon budget, more shipbuilding and all the rest. If you're gonna box in China, you gotta box them in along every line. Not just some lines. It's also one of the reasons, by the way, why some people who are even China hawks have suggested that going directly to 125% tariff on China, it would be better to go a little bit slower and sort of boil the frog more slowly. Go to 20% tariffs, then go to 40% tariffs. Allow people to reshore, gradually tighten the noose around China and make it so that it gives, it buys us some time to actually up our game in the South China Sea, in the, in the Taiwan Straits, before China tries to melt everything down if they feel too much pressure. I mean, all of this is complex. The bottom line is that the situation that we are now in, that President Trump has put us in is way better than the position we were in eight days ago when the President of the United States was announcing Liberation Day. The markets again are nervous. I understand the nervousness of the market's not clear what's gonna happen with the trade deal. It's not gonna clear what happened. Like, do these 10% blanket tariffs go away at any point? What is the purpose of a 10% blanket? Is that an emergency tariff? That's still a very, very large tariff. It's just not nearly as large as the tariffs that were gonna be put on a moment ago. That's why the markets are still hovering below where they were before President Trump announced Liberation Day stuff. So, yeah, there was a big recovery yesterday and there's a bit of a sell off today. We're not back to where we were before because again, nervousness in the markets. When you talk to investor types, they don't know what's coming down the pike. There's too much uncertainty in the markets. The next step for the Trump administration is to establish that certainty. The next step for the Trump administration? Start announcing trade deals. Like tomorrow he announced a 90 day postponement. Get some good trade deals, explain how the tariffs on China are gonna be implemented, what the future looks like now. You're all on the same page right now. You have an administration where presumably you don't have internal battles and everybody is aimed in the same direction. The President has shifted course, which is a very good thing. Now let's hear the entire spell out the entire rollout, and then you'll see a much more solid stock market, a much more sanguine investment community. Joining us is Mary Margaret Olihan, our White House reporter. She joined Pete Hegseth on a trip down to Panama. She's getting her travel hours in. Mary Margaret, thanks so much for joining the show.
- [38:58]
Caroline Levitt
Good morning, Ben. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
- [39:01]
Ben Shapiro
So how was the beautiful country of Panama, and what was that experience like traveling with PETE hegseth?
- [39:06]
Caroline Levitt
Well, this is one of the coolest trips I've ever been on, honestly. We went down on Monday evening, flew down with the secretary to Panama. It was a snow small group of reporters, and I was honored to be one of them. And what was really interesting about this trip was we learned on the way down there that this trip was focused on protecting the Panama Canal from China. And so Secretary Hegseth and his team had a little bit of a daunting task. They had to convince Panama that it was in their interest, too, to protect the Panama Canal from China. And so the secretary and his team were really focused on making sure that all of the reporters understood what we were getting into, where we were going. You know, this is a diverse group of reporters. There was Breitbart, National Pulse, Reuters, and a military defense publication. And all of us were interested in finding out how this was going to go. And it was interesting because the secretary and his team were a little cautiously optimistic, but they seemed like they, too, were ready for things to go in a couple different directions. But they were very eager and ready to get on the ground. So we went down there and the secretary went to the Panama president's palace and engaged in a number of bilateral meetings with these Panamanian officials. And the end result of this trip was that they came out of it with multiple agreements signed between the United States and Panama, and they did, in fact, successfully convince the president of Panama and the minister of defense to agree to protect the Panama Canal from China. So huge win. Secretary Hegseth told us last night that this was a historic visit and that the effects of this visit will hopefully continue on throughout this administration and the next. So part of these agreements, Ben, were not only to protect the canal, but also to engage in sort of joint military exercises between the United States and Panama at places like Fort Sherman, where they can engage in jungle training. And Fort Sherman was a really cool old military base that the United States used to have and then turned over to Panama. And it looks like that might be up and running again soon. And these soldiers will be able to participate in jungle training there, which is very cool and really neat to be on the ground and to see the secretary interacting with the troops in these places. So I could go on and on about this for hours. I'm not going to forget it anytime soon. But a very historic visit and so neat to be there while this diplomacy was in action.
- [41:19]
Ben Shapiro
So, Mary Marker, for those who don't understand the situation with the Panama Canal, it is not that the United States needs total control over the Panama Canal. I believe that what was negotiated was really about what happens at either end of the Panama Canal. So basically, the Chinese were controlling essentially territory embassies. They had a firm that was controlling one of the ends of the the other end of the Panama Canal. And I think the concern for the United States was in case of a wartime scenario, China could essentially just sink things at either end of the canal and then prevent transit of American ships through. Is that one of the major concerns?
- [41:50]
Caroline Levitt
Yes, absolutely. And as we know, Ben, the Trump administration, one of its very highest concerns is the control that the Chinese Communist Party has throughout the world. They've been paying very close attention to how China has interacted with Panama, with the Panama Canal, with Venezuela. And as they watched these things and began to grow more and more concerned, President Trump put out a bunch of different statements on social media earlier this year saying that we were going to retake the Panama Canal. And obviously some people thought this might be a dead serious assertion that we might be going in with our military to retake the canal. And I heard that there were some Panamanians that were concerned about this as well. And so part of Secretary Hegseth and his team's job yesterday was to emphasize the importance of Panamanian sovereignty, that the United States is not going to come in and take over the canal, but instead wants to work with Panama to ensure that the Canal is actually safe from Chinese interference. And that, you know, the historic partnerships between Panama and the United States can grow and flourish and protect our both of our countries interests in a different way. So it was a nuanced approach. I think it was a very delicate situation to handle. I did not envy the secretary this task, but he was very optimistic when we spoke with him last night before he got on the plane and we all went with him back to D.C. it was very hot, by the way, 90 degrees down there and super humid. And all of these military men are in their military uniforms and braving the heat. And Hegseth told us, you know, I specifically asked him, are you worried about Chinese retaliation from these negotiations this week and this diplomacy? And he looked me in the eye and said, no, not worried about it at all. He said, we'll continue to stand our ground and we're going to move forward with the United States plans in this area. And he was very confident. So I think he'll be back here today at the White House, hopefully speaking with the president about these negotiations. And as far as we know, this is going to go on into the future with more talks between between Panama and the United States on how they can best secure both our country's interests.
- [43:50]
Ben Shapiro
Well, Mayor Margaret, really appreciate the time and congrats on another successful foray into the wilderness with members of the Trump administration. Appreciate it. Good to see you.
- [44:00]
Caroline Levitt
Thanks, Ben. It's great to be here.
- [44:02]
Ben Shapiro
Okay. All of this also relies on the Republicans doing what they actually need to do with regard to taxes. We'll get to more on this in a moment. First, you know, every time I go shooting, I think to myself, this is great. It could probably be a little better. Guess what? It can. Let me tell you how to make shooting more fun, safer, just overall cooler. If you've never used a suppressor before, you're missing out. Trust me, once you shoot suppressed, you're not gonna wanna shoot unsuppressed again. That's where my friends at Silencer Shop come in. They don't just sell silencers. They specialize in making sure your shooting experience is awesome. The experts at Silencer Shop will help you find the perfect silencer so you can enjoy your guns even more. And now is the perfect time to get one. Why not let your tax return work for you this year? Invest in a suppressor and completely upgrade your shooting experience. The best part, Silencer Shop makes the entire process ridiculously simple. They're the number one source for suppressors in America with the largest selection of top brands. Silencer Shop helps handle all of the paperwork so you actually don't have to. With their nationwide dealer network and easy to use kiosk system, you can get started in minutes and have your suppressor faster than ever. So don't wait. Visit silencershop.com Shapiro turn your tax return into the ultimate shooting upgrade. That's silencershop.com Shapiro again silencer shop.com/shapiro. That's silencershop. Com Shapiro so the Congress has been attempting to negotiate a budget plan. This is the big, beautiful bill. The Senate budget does not include many of the cuts that the House budget originally included. And so both houses of Congress are now sort of fighting with each other. There's a press conference earlier on Thursday morning in which the speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader got together and they talked about a commitment to in fact find cuts in the budget. According to Politico, House Republicans cleared a key hurdle Wednesday afternoon toward advancing a budget framework. Final adoption is far from certain. The House voted 216 to 215. Man, these margins are just non existent on the rule to tee up. Floor debate on the Senate approved budget resolution and a vote on approval. While many fiscal hawks said throughout the week they would vote against the budget itself, some of those holdouts are now working with a group of GOP senators to hammer out an agreement on spending cuts. That burgeoning deal could boost House Republican support for the budget framework. If the measure fails, it would be an embarrassing setback for the House GOP and for President Trump. Trump himself is pushing very hard for the budget, as he should. That budget does include a massive spending upgrade with regards to the Department of Defense. Pete Hegseth posted from his personal account the Defense Secretary coming soon the first trillion dollar Department of Defense budget. P.S. we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely on lethality and readiness. That's a significant increase from the $892 billion funding Congress allocated for national defense programs this year. Peace through strength requires an arsenal. Pretty obviously President Trump said, quote, nobody's seen anything like it. We have to build our military. We're very cost conscious. Military is something that we have to build. We have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now. That of course is true. Meanwhile, again, there's significant negotiation going on between the House and the Senate with regard to this budget bill. The House members of the House would like to see more cuts embedded. Members of the Senate just want to get something done. GOP holdouts forced a delay in a vote on the Trump budget plan yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Republican leaders postponed a vote on the blueprint for President Trump's big beautiful bill, throwing the GOP legislative agenda into temporary uncertainty as they try to find a path forward on tax cuts and spending. A handful of hard right conservatives resisted the pleas from Republican leaders in Trump, who had urged wavering House members to close your eyes and get there. The holdouts argued the plan that came out of the Senate on Saturday did not lock in enough spending cuts alongside extensions of those expiring tax cuts. Key members of the holdout group met with top Republican senators and then with Mike Johnson for more than an hour. Those sessions yielded progress. According to lawmakers, they did not produce enough of a breakthrough to get the budget adopted on Wednesday. But this is going to happen. The big, beautiful bill is going to happen, because if it doesn't, then the economy really will dump. If it turns out that the tax cuts that President Trump put into place in his first term are not extended and reinstated, then of course, the economy is going to sink pretty significantly. Meanwhile, President Trump was in a good mood the rest of the day yesterday after having announced the reversal on the tariff plans, he signed an executive order restoring the ability of Americans to get high pressure showerheads, which, you know, if just this alone is worth your vote for President Trump, there's nothing worse than low water pressure in a shower. It is just awful. Here is the president signing one of the most significant of his executive orders. With this executive order, we're effectively going to be reversing that set of regulations to ensure that Americans have choice in the consumer market. If they want a low flow showerhead.
- [48:31]
Caroline Levitt
They can buy one.
- [48:32]
Ben Shapiro
If they want a real deal showerhead, they should have the ability to get one.
- [48:37]
Donald Trump
You buy a new house, you pay a lot of money, and the developers, you're not allowed to do anything more. They put restrictors on. They used to have a restrictor where you could take it out, but now they weld it in and you take a shower or wash your hands, whatever you do, including dishwashers where no water comes out but you wash your hands. And in my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair and have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes till it gets wet. It comes out, drip, drip, drip. It's ridiculous.
- [49:10]
Ben Shapiro
He's right about that. Those low, low, low flow shower heads are indeed the worst. Also yesterday, the Senate did confirm the appointment of Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, as the ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is an amazing pick. He will be terrific. He has all the right principles on this particular subject. President Trump then made one of the better jokes of his presidency, actually, and that's saying a lot because he's a super funny guy. Here he was yesterday making a joke about Mike Huckabee's appointment. And then we also have a transmittal letter to the President of Israel requesting that he accept Governor Huckabee's or, excuse me, Ambassador Huckabee's credentials.
- [49:50]
Donald Trump
He's going to be fantastic. He's going to bring home the Bacon. Even though bacon isn't too big. It is really.
- [50:00]
Ben Shapiro
That's just a third level.
- [50:01]
Donald Trump
I had to clear that up.
- [50:07]
Ben Shapiro
Good stuff there from the president. President Trump also reiterated yesterday that with regard to the negotiations that are supposed to take place with Iran over the weekend, that they better get on board or bad things are going to happen. This, of course, is the right approach to Iran. You know, peace through strength remains the only solid foreign policy approach. You said the other day that if they do not agree to a potential nuclear deal, that it would be very dangerous for them. What specifically?
- [50:36]
Donald Trump
Well, they can't have a nuclear.
- [50:37]
Ben Shapiro
Did you mean military action though, if they don't agree?
- [50:40]
Donald Trump
Oh, if necessary, absolutely. Yeah.
- [50:44]
Ben Shapiro
And the President then made clear that any military action would be led by Israel, not led by, by the United States. This is the right approach. And all of the people out there who are suggesting that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, using, for example, American B2s or B21s, that that would somehow lead to an all out war with Iran. Yeah. What's Iran going to do? Attack Hawaii? Well, what this president authorized the killing of Qasem Soleimani and it resulted in zero repercussions from the Iranians because it turns out Iran is a particularly weak state that does not have projective power against the United States. If they get a nuclear weapon, a lot of that changes. That's, that's President Trump's whole point. And meanwhile, the, the President should be avoiding distractions again. I've been saying since he was elected, before he was elected, that if this administration does all the things President Trump wants it to do, that is only going to happen if distractions are avoided. And that means avoiding the sort of water torture that is drips and drops of, of action that are unpopular with the American people. Because the way that relationships go bad is a bunch of smaller things and then the floor goes out and there isn't enough goodwill to hold up the relationship with the politician. Yesterday, the President announced that he was revoking the security clearances belonging to former Cecil leader Chris Krebs and also ex DHS official Miles Taylor. Now, Miles Taylor is a bit of a different story because Miles Taylor was writing anonymous op EDS from inside the Trump administration while the President was the president. Chris Krebs, a bit of a different story. So Chris Krebs is an appointee of President Trump and he was leading the cybersecurity agency. It's not just that he decided that he was going to revoke security clearances, which of course he has the power to do. He also signed an executive order calling for the DOJ to investigate their activities as government employees. So again, Taylor was the chief of Staff to Homeland Security Secretary during the first Trump administration. Then he started writing anonymous accounts ripping into President Trump. He fired Krebs by tweet after Krebs fact checked the president and said that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history. Trump called Krebs a wise guide, a fraud and a disgrace during Wednesday's signing. I'm not sure that any of that is. Is criminal here. He was instructing the DOJ to investigate his own former cybersecurity head.
- [52:56]
Donald Trump
This is an honor. We're going to find out whether or not he was right. This was a disgraceful election. And this guy sat back saying, well, I'm a member, like he's a Republican or something. And right. Almost right from the beginning. And he. He's tried to make the case that this election was a safe election. I think he said, this is the safest election we've ever had. And yet every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that's discovered. He's the fraud. He's a disgrace. So we'll find out whether or not it was a safe election. And if it wasn't, he's got a big price to pay.
- [53:38]
Ben Shapiro
So, again, this sort of stuff is a distraction and it's a mistake by the president. He should not be sicking the DOJ on people who have a different opinion about the 2020 election, again, including people who are inside his own administration. Even if you disagree with Chris Krebs viewpoint on this, that doesn't make it criminal activity. And if it's bad when the Democrats do it to President Trump, you know, using the DOJ to simply go after political opponents is not good when President Trump does it either. Alrighty, folks, now it's time for a segment that we are now initiating in which I break down a terrible argument of the week piece by piece. Today's featured takedown is John Oliver from hbo. Somehow that dude still has a show. Not sure why, but he did an entire monologue this week about why men who want to play with ladies in sports should be allowed to do so. It is not a good argument. So let's go through it. This is the takedown, the stupidest segment of the week. It comes courtesy of John Oliver, who should immediately have his. His citizenship revoked and he should be deported. I understand he's a citizen now. I don't know why we gave him citizenship. Truly, like, I don't, I don't know what he added to the country, except for obnoxious smarminess, a British accent. He did one of the dumber monologues the other night I've ever seen. John Oliver is so trapped inside the left wing echo chamber that he actually believes that it's necessary for him to defend the idea that men should punch women in a boxing ring. That, that quote unquote, trans athletes must be allowed to play with members of the opposite biological sex. And in order to, in order to make this claim, he somehow has to square the circle of pretending that men playing with women is not unfair to the women. Which means he now has to pretend that actually men are not better at sports than women. Here we go.
- [55:19]
John Oliver
When it comes to trans athletes who've medically transitioned, studies of CIS athletes are not necessarily relevant. A lot of medical, gender affirming treatments like hormone therapy have a meaningful impact on body and hormone composition. So the question then becomes, what do those impacts mean for athletic performance? We spoke to scientists on all sides of this issue and the one thing they actually agree on is that in part because the number of trans athletes is so small, the body of research specifically about them is extremely limited. There are a bunch of.
- [55:49]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, pause it there for a second. That, okay, first of all, this is amazing. I love this. Okay, so he's like, you know, we can't look at studies that say that men are stronger than women because we're now talking about men who have had a bunch of hormone treatments. So we don't, we don't know. And so we have to look at the studies of, of men who have had hormone, but there are no studies. Therefore men who have hormone treatments don't have any sort of accessibility over women, therefore they should be allowed to play with women. This is a classic in the genre of absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. In other words, absence of evidence that men with hormone treatments have an advantage over women does not mean evidence of absence of that advantage. There's like a classic logical fallacy in which she is engaging right here. So he's like, we can't look at these studies that say that men are stronger than women. We have to look at the non existent studies, but those, those studies don't exist and therefore men don't have an advantage over women. Okay, Madud, that is not how logic works.
- [56:45]
John Oliver
Studies comparing specific anatomical features like muscle mass in women who transition, but which don't directly speak to their impact on athletic performance, but we were only able to find 12 studies that actually tested trans adult women's physical fitness in a lab or other performance. Eight have a sample size of less than 20, and two are of a single athlete. And look, I don't have any scientific experience, even though I look like a cross between a scientist and the profoundly sick mice he's studying. But you probably shouldn't draw broad conclusions off a sample size of 1. Those 12 studies generally find that medically transitioning does impact trans women's performance, but disagree on how or. Or by how much that research you saw earlier.
- [57:28]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, pause it there. This is. This is hilarious. Again, this is hilarious. He's laying out a bunch of studies that don't support his own position, but then he's dismissing the studies because the sample size is too small. So he has literally cited zero evidence for his proposition so far. And somehow he's going to magic that into the idea that men playing against women is somehow fair.
- [57:46]
John Oliver
Actually published the only longitudinal study to date of multiple athletes studying the impact of transitioning on eight long distance runners. She found after at least a year on hormone therapy, their race times turned out to be more athletically similar to those of cisgender women than cisgender men. But she herself will tell you the study was limited and its conclusions were nuanced. Here she is explaining what we do and don't know at this point.
- [58:11]
Scott Besant
It is undoubtedly true that trans women will maintain advantages to in some sports, probably not so much in endurance sports, but in size and strength sports. Trans women will also have some physiological disadvantages. Our larger frames are now being powered by reduced muscle mass and reduced aerobic capacity. And that can lead to disadvantages in terms like quickness, recovery, endurance. Things that maybe aren't quite as obvious as being bigger and stronger.
- [58:47]
John Oliver
Right. Bigger and stronger bodies are not automatically advantaged in every scenario. I mean, put the rock in a pure bar class and see what happens. I mean, we know what would happen. He'd take a video of himself. Caption it mad respect to these mamas. Everyone go see Moana too. I tried to use it.
- [59:02]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, pause it for a second. I just got. I gotta say, he has still provided no evidence to the proposition that it's fair for men to play with the ladies. We should point out that the expert he is citing is a former man, meaning a man. This is a person named Joanna Harper. Joanna Harper transitioned to female in 2004. 2005. Joanna Harper is in his 60s and he cites his proudest athletic achievement as running a 223 marathon. As a Young man. And that's the person who's being cited as the unbiased source on trans athletes in opposite sex sports. And does this go anywhere? I mean, the answer is it goes nowhere. The answer is it goes nowhere. He just continues to argue, based on no evidence, that it's totally fair for men to play with the ladies. Because he says so. Essentially, after having come up with zero evidence to the proposition that it's fair for men to play with the women, he then says it shouldn't be an issue anyway because no man is transitioning just to play with the women. Which is weird because there actually are a bunch of men who are transitioning to play with the women. By this, I mean, not that they wouldn't trans, they would not, you know, do whatever they are doing, hormone treatments and surgery in the absence of playing athletics, but they seem to want to play real bad with the ladies. They could continue to race with the men, but they would lose. And you don't see a lot of women who are transitioning into quote, unquote, men who are desperate to play with the men. I noticed. It's kind of weird, isn't it? You don't see a lot of women who are like, you know what? I'm cutting off my breasts and I'm having a fake penis attached and now I want to box the men. It never happens. I wonder why. It's strange. So here's John Oliver moving away from his zero evidence to his proposition that the only reason you would care about. Why are you even noticing? Why do you even care? Why? What? Like, sure, there are people doing this, but they're not doing it because they want to beat up on the women. What does that matter to the women? Why should the women care about the motivation for why a gigantic man like Leah Thomas is now racing against Riley Gaines? Why should Riley Gaines care what the motivation is? She now has to race against a dude who was a low ranked male swimmer but blows the other women out of the water cuz he's a dude.
- [61:20]
John Oliver
The thing is, hypotheticals like that circulate constantly and often center around someone transitioning solely to gain a competitive advantage. But as this trans researcher points out, that is an absurd proposition.
- [61:33]
Scott Besant
Trans women don't transition for sports. No one has ever said, oh yeah, I think I'd like to be a woman so I can do well in women's sports. When you go through a gender transition, you lose so many things in. My own mother said she never wanted to speak to me again. You know, I lost friends, family, Got divorced. You'd go through all of that just to win a medal? In sports?
- [62:03]
Ben Shapiro
No.
- [62:04]
Scott Besant
Trans people transition because it's the only way that we can live happily, right?
- [62:12]
John Oliver
No one says I'm going to transition just for the sake of sports. The same way no one says, could you please send me more messages about two factor authentication. Or when I walk down the aisle, I'd like a solo violin cover of a bar with a bar by Kid Rock that is just a made up person.
- [62:28]
Ben Shapiro
Still, let's engage it there. Who cares? Who cares? Who cares about the motivation of the person who wants to play with the ladies? I mean, by the way, you can have two different motivations. A motivation to, you know, add some fake boobs and cut off your penis. And that might be a very different motivation than the motivation for wanting to play with the ladies. Now that you are bigger and stronger than all the ladies. Doesn't have to be the same motivation. That's, that's silly and reductive. But silly and reductive is that that should actually be the name of John Oliver's show, Silly and Reductive, starring John.
- [62:57]
John Oliver
Oliver with the underlying premise of that question from the world's most famous sports cheater, that those assigned male at birth are automatically going to have certain immutable physical advantages. That gets raised constantly, which is why we're going to spend most of our time talking about trans women and girls. Even though in these five states these bans impact trans boys in schools too. It is obviously true that on average cisgender men and post pubescent boys have some specific athletic performance advantages, though the relative size of that advantage also depends on the sport and the event. In swimming, for instance, male athletic performance Advantage is roughly 13% in the 50 meter freestyle, but less than 6% in the 1500 meter free, which is still clearly significant, but in general very significant overlap in the average performance ranges of men and women. Basically, it is not the case that any man is going to be stronger or more athletic than every woman, which is sometimes what gets implied.
- [63:54]
Ben Shapiro
That wasn't the argument. No, the thing that gets implied is that if you are looking at the ends of the bell curve, which is where top athletic performance happens. The end of the bell curve, not the average. The ends of the bell curve. If you have men who have transitioned into women at the end of the bell curve, they are almost always going to outcompete the women because they're at the end of the bell curve by necessity. And by the way, you can make this dumb argument about Anything. Why should we have age ranges in sports? Seriously, why not have a bunch of 12 year old little leaguers play the major leaguers in baseball? Because, I mean, every so often you might have a 12 year old who's huge, like a gigantic 12 year old kid who can actually hit the ball. I mean, hey, if the bell curves overlap at all, then probably we should probably, you know, just get rid of the categories entirely. We should do this with everything makes perfect sense. Or maybe what you're saying is stupid because it is entirely stupid. Then of course it gets mad at Mike Johnson because Mike Johnson cited scripture to the effect that men and women exist. You don't have to cite scripture to the effect that men and women exist, but scripture does in fact say it. And scripture has a much better record than John Oliver and his stupid glasses.
- [64:57]
John Oliver
It is not just about denying trans women the right to play. It's about denying the right to exist. Mike Johnson basically said as much after the House passed its ban on trans athletes when he said this.
- [65:09]
Ben Shapiro
We know from scripture and from nature.
- [65:11]
Scott Besant
That men are men and women are women and men cannot become women.
- [65:17]
John Oliver
That's right, Mike. As scripture tells us, men are men and women are women. And God is his own. And some mothers are virgins and some mothers in law are pillars of salt. And some daughters are sex partners and colorful coats are dream tellers. And brothers are murderers, but also brothers are backup husbands for wives. And babies can be for splitting in half. And water is wine. And also with you. Sorry. And with your spirit.
- [65:40]
Ben Shapiro
So making fun of the Bible. Good times from John Oliver. You'll notice that he completely elides Speaker Johnson's statement and nature. So he's saying for those who believe in the Bible, the Bible says this. And for those who don't, there's this thing called nature, which is the thing John Oliver is ignoring. But then he does get to dunk on his peculiarly simplistic read on the Bible, which I'm sure has made, you know, him a very happy person. Deliberately misinterpreting biblical scripture and religious belief. And good, good for you. That, that, that particular argument isn't played out at all. Just making fun of, of miracle stories in the Bible. No one's ever tried that before. John. Wow, you're unique, unique brand of humor. Well, John Oliver is clearly not the brightest bulb in the basket, but you know, at least he somehow parlayed that into an American citizenship without having to pay President Trump $5 million. So I guess good for him on that score. Alrighty folks. Coming up, we are going to jump into the mailbag. Remember, the only way to have your question answered or to see my answers is to become a member. Head on over to Daily Wire plus become a member. Use code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.