← The Ben Shapiro Show
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2202 - Biden Was Senile, Had CANCER, And They Knew!
01:13:05
Joe Biden has metastatic prostate cancer – but we only find out now; audio breaks of the infamous interview between President Biden and special prosecutor Robert Hur from 2023 – and it shows just how cooked the president was; and the economy continues to teeter on the brink as Republicans fight over the Big, Beautiful Bill. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/3WDjgHE Ep.2202 - - - Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings - - - DailyWire+: Join us at https://dailywire.com/subscribe and become a part of the rebellion against the ridiculous. Normal is back. And this time, we’re keeping it. “Parenting” with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson premieres May 25th. https://bit.ly/3RXTL07 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://...
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- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
This is Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Watch Parenting, my new Daily Wire plus series May 25th. We're dealing with misbehaviors with our son. Our 13 year old throws tantrums. Our son turned to some substance abuse. Go to DailyWirePlus.com today folks. An enormous amount coming up on today's show. Joe Biden has deadly cancer. How long did he have it and who knew? Plus tape has emerged of him being seen out in 2023. Everybody knew. Plus we'll get to the economy and all of the controversy around it. First, if you're not a Daily Wire plus member, here's what you're missing. Ad free full length shows from the most trusted voices in conservative media. Access to our award winning investigative journalism, breaking news and top headlines. Unlimited access to our entire entertainment library, including the number one documentary of the decade, Am I Racist? And Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's brand new series Parenting, premiering this Sunday exclusively on Daily Wire. Plus live chats with the show, my producers, fans across the country and so much more. Join now@dailywire.com subscribe folks, what we are watching right now is one of the most cynical uncoverings of scandal in the history of American politics. It really is an amazing, amazing thing. So why don't we begin with this. Obviously our hearts go out to the former President of the United States, Joe Biden, who's been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. A diagnosis of course has now been revealed just months after he left office. And everybody has been expressing their good wishes for the Biden family and for Joe Biden personally. Obviously the announcement of stage four cancer, which is what Joe Biden apparently has, it's metastat prostate cancer that moved apparently from the prostate all the way into his bones. It's an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The statement went out 3:56pm Sunday afternoon, apparently having been seen by medical professionals earlier last week for a finding of a prostate nodule. He was diagnosed Friday with stage four prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone, an aggressive form of the disease. There's a 10 point scale, the so called Gleason score. He has a 9 on a 10 point scale. It it doesn't mean that he is definitely terminal. Prostate cancer moves slowly. Metastatic means that of course it has moved already from its original source to someplace else in the body. Once you have cancer in your bones, obviously the prognosis is not good. Doesn't mean it's necessarily deadly in the next couple of months or anything like that. Barack Obama put out a statement saying Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family. Joseph Fighter I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience and optimism that have always defined his life. That is Kamala Harris. Donald Trump. President Trump wrote on Truth Social. Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Joe and the family and wish Joe a fast and successful recovery. Now, obviously everybody's heart goes out to somebody who is stricken with cancer. We have to ask the obvious question, who knew this and when did they know this? Prostate cancer is not a fast moving cancer. Prostate cancer usually takes years to develop to the point of metastasis. It is very slow moving cancer actually, which is why usually I asked my doctor wife about this. When it comes to sort of standard of care, there's a little bit more wiggle room on when prostate exams are done or when PSA tests are done, which is effectively a form of blood test in which they can see certain elevated counts that that lead to a suspicion that you may have cancer or not. But when I asked my wife about this yesterday, she said, when was his last physical, his last recorded physical? The answer was February 2024. Was his last recorded physical. His last recorded physical did not include a PSA test. She said, that's definitely weird. I mean, he's the President of the United States, so you would do as much of a workup panel as you possibly could. This is not like your average 82 year old guy or 81 year old guy where okay, maybe you check for PSA, maybe you don't. In fact, as people get older, sometimes people don't check the PSA because it's such a slow moving cancer that the suggestion is that by the time the cancer actually would kill you, you'd be dead anyway of old age. With that said, as people are living older and over older, if you're in your 80s, there's a pretty good shot that they're going to do a psa. So I didn't want to rely on just my own medical expertise or my wife's medical expertise. I also asked our friends and sponsors at Perplexity. Given the fact that President Biden was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer with metastasis to his bones, how long was he likely suffering from cancer before his May 2025 diagnosis? Also, what is the standard for PSA testing for men above the age of 50 in the United States? So here is what perplexity tells me. Former President Biden was diagnosed with stage 4, prostate cancer with bone metastasis in May 2025, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 indicating a highly aggressive cancer. While the exact timeline of his cancer progression is unclear, metastatic prostate cancer typically develops over several years. High grade cancers often progress faster, with studies suggesting metastasis can occur within two to five years if untreated. Again, two to five years didn't develop over the course of the last year. Biden's diagnosis followed increasing urinary symptoms and the discovery of a prostate nodule, which underscores the importance of early detection. So what are the standards? Well, it turns out that the U.S. preventative Services Task Force says there are individualized decisions for age 55 to 69 and no routine screening after 70. But Medicare covers annual PSA tests for anyone over 50. Medicare. And as my wife, I did ask her, you know, PSA testing, she was a family physician. She said, literally every physical that I did for anybody over the age of 50, I recommended that they may as well get a PSA test. So it beggars the imagination that Joe Biden did not have one. The notion that there was no knowledge whatsoever of developing cancer in Joe Biden for years on end and we only found out about this is only diagnosed at stage four. Typically when you have a stage four cancer diagnosis and it's sudden, it is not a prostate cancer diagnosis. That is typically some much faster form of cancer that has developed. And again, this is not just me saying this because I am not a doctor, but you know, who is a doctor. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is the left's favorite doctor. He's one of the designers of Obamacare. And he appeared on Morning show this morning. And here is what he had to say about when Joe Biden and family and people around him would have known about a deadly cancer forming inside the president. And this raises all sorts of questions about, number one, when people knew. Number two, if they didn't know, were they deliberately avoiding tests that theoretically could have led to a better standard of care for the president of the United States in order to get him through the election? This all ties into the broader scandal about the fact that he's obviously in the mid stages of senility. They knew this during the campaign. There was open talk of him having to use a wheelchair after he was elected. And so again, this announcement actually raises more questions than it answers. If the idea here was that they were going to drop this cancer announcement as a way of sort of distracting from the questions about his senility. And again, that theory is out there and that Theory is not totally crazy, considering the fact that you have people like David Axelrod openly suggesting that now would be an amazing time to stop talking about all of this because. Absolutely. Because obviously you have a president who's ailing and that's really bad. And so you have people literally saying, like David Axelrod, the former Obama advisor, that we should stop talking about his senility because he has cancer. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. That actually this creates more questions. I mean, this is a scandal. I'm sorry, it's just an absolute scandal. Everybody knew in 2020 that Joe Biden was not full well. Everyone knew this. And then we were told by the media for years he was not senile. There was no evidence of senility. And now we're finding out. Of course, not only was he senile, everybody knew he was senile. As we'll see in a moment. There's actual tape of him in an interview with special prosecutor Robert Hur. This was the tape that made Robert her say, we can't prosecute this guy because he's too senile. And the Democrats at the time said, no, no, no, no, no. That's Robert her being a jerk. That's terrible that Robert her would say that. So they all knew he was senile. Now the question is, do they all know that he had cancer or if they didn't know that he had cancer, how did nobody know that he had cancer? This is again, not a fast moving form of cancer. This is the kind of cancer that it takes 10 years to develop. That's not me saying that. That's. That is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel saying that. Here he was on MSNBC.
- [08:07]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
Doesn't it take some time for prostate cancer to develop to a point where it would spread to the bones?
- [08:16]
Joe Biden
Oh, he's had this for many years, maybe even a decade. Growing there and spreading. That's right. It's a little surprising. I look back at the records and there's no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released that he had a prostate specific antigen. Now, it is true that a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate specific Adenogen after 70, but President Biden's been in public life a very long time. He was vice president and had a lot of exams under 70. So it's a little surprising that they didn't do it. And maybe President Biden decided he didn't want the test.
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Ben Shapiro
Okay, that is crazy. Okay, he's saying what I was saying a moment ago, which is he was the vice president of the United States. Then he was the President of the United States. The notion that you would not do a PSA test, which is a very easy test to do, you wouldn't do a PSA test on the sitting President of the United States. A person who, by the way, apparently had a history of cancer, Joe Biden himself said in 2022. He said he had cancer in 2022. And then they said, oh, he meant, he meant that a while ago he had skin cancer. Is that what he meant? Is that what he meant? Here he was in 2022, and because.
- [09:30]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
It was a four lane highway that was accessible, my mother drove us. And rather than us be able to walk and guess what, the first frost, you knew what was happening. You'd had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That's why I, and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer.
- [09:54]
Ben Shapiro
What? What? I mean, he said that in 2022. And everybody went, wait, what is he talking about right now? Which. What, what now? Huh? Well, which cancer was he talking about? Okay, beyond that, here is the bottom line for all of this. These questions are perfectly legitimate. The entire media are going to now mobilize to say, you cannot ask these questions. A tragedy has occurred. You cannot ask these questions. Absolutely you can ask these questions. And absolutely you should ask these questions, because we now have a series of questions. Dr. Jill Biden, she was there the whole time. She knew. She was. She doesn't have any excuses. She knew he was going senile. Everyone knew he was going senile. And yet she continued like Edith Wilson, to promote his presidential candidacy the entire time. I mean, two weeks ago, she had him out on tour on the View. He was doddering. He couldn't. He could barely speak a sentence. And she was finishing his sentences on the View. She was still trotting him out. What kind of person does that to their ailing husband? Who does that? That's wild. That's. Where's the rest of Joe Biden's family? Where's Hunter? Where's beloved Hunter in all of this? Where are his kids?
- [10:59]
Kamala Harris
Where?
- [11:00]
Ben Shapiro
Who? Why was there no one around him to say, no, you can't do this? Not just on the basis of his senility, but now maybe on the basis of the fact that he apparently has a deadly cancer. The overall chance that a person diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer is alive after five years, around 37%, according to the American Cancer Society. So who knew this? When did they know this? Why did we not know this? And by the way, who the hell was president for the last several years? I mean, that's a serious question. He had physical problems. He had mental problems. And we were told the Democratic Party tried to make this person president for another full term. They tried to make him president for another full term. How delusional is this? So delusional that some people still have the delusion. James Kleiber, who is the congressman from South Carolina, who more than any other person, made sure that Joe Biden was the nominee in 2020, as opposed to Bernie Sanders. Yesterday, he said that Joe Biden was fit for four more years. By what standard was Joe Biden fit for four more days? Here was James Clyburn.
- [12:03]
Kamala Harris
Do you think that Joe Biden really would have been able to perform as president all the way through January 2029, when he would have been. When he would be 86?
- [12:16]
James Clyburn
Yes, I thought that back then. I still think that. But I don't know that when people ask me, did I know this or did I know the other? And the fact of the matter is, no, I didn't. And that' syou make my point here. So it's not all about age. I've seen people develop Alzheimer's when they're in their 30s and 40s. So it's not about age. It's about the ability to do the job. And I never saw anything that allowed me to think that Joe Biden was not able to do the job.
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Ben Shapiro
Okay? So, I mean, my goodness. My goodness. And we'll get to the senility issue in just a minute because all this stuff ties together again. There were people who actually were talking about this a while ago. There were people who are talking about this in 2024. So, for example, there. There was in fact, a report in 2024 of a serious medical issue involving Joe Biden. This is from July 22, 2024. Jordan Shaktel reporting that President Biden began his campaign trip in Las Vegas, but the day before he abruptly left town, he delivered a keynote address in front of a packed crowd of 5,000 people at the NAACP National Convention at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. He was scheduled to deliver the keynote at another annual convention at the MGM Grand. But he didn't appear at the convention or any of his scheduled events later that afternoon. Instead, he left town, departing Las Vegas on Air Force One for a Hoboken Beach, Delaware, where he remained since that trip. He had announced over social media he would not seek a second term as president. So they suggested it was because of COVID 19, but actually as Charlie Kirk at the time had reported that there was a. He said he got a call from a source close to Las Vegas Metro. The official story was that Biden's trip was cut short because of COVID But according to the source, U.S. secret Service informed Las Vegas Metro there's an emergency situation involving Joe Biden and that they had to close necessary streets so the President could be transported immediately to University Medical, which they began to do in earnest. And then there was a stand down order and Secret Service informed local Vegas PD they were going to fly the President to Johns Hopkins back east. Apparently the rumor mill in the police department was that Joe Biden was dying or possibly already dead. Laura Loomer of course also tweeted at the time suggesting that the President had a terminal illness. So again, who knew what When I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe, like bordering on the impossible to believe that no one knew about Joe Biden and his cancer until like last week, I find that impossible to believe. Truly. That is a slow moving cancer. This is a President who must have been tested over. And by the way, we should change the law. Seriously, the law should be changed with regard to Presidential health advisories and notifications and public disclosure. It is not just a matter of medical privacy. How the President is doing that is a matter of national security and it matters to the American voters. The President should be required should of both parties. The President should be required take a full paneled health test every year and we should know about it. We the American people, we are owed that. We should know whether the President has cancer. We should know whether the President has a mental condition. We should know whether the President has high blood pressure. It shouldn't be up to the handpicked doctor of the President of the United States to cover up his health condition. That is a violation of the bargain that the American people have with their elected leaders. I mean this is, it's unbelievable, truly. And again, that does not stand in the way of sympathy for a man who has cancer. The question I have is why didn't anyone seem to have sympathy for him over the course of the last two years when he was obviously ailing in middle of public life. It's unreal. It's absolutely unreal. And I, I, I just, I, I don't believe, I don't believe the story. Sorry, I don't, I don't believe that you only found out that he had cancer last week. Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer that takes years to develop. I do not believe that one of the most highly scrutinized people on planet Earth did not know that he had what is a fairly common cancer for people of his age. I I nope, don't believe it. We'll get some more on this in a moment. First, your online activity is not private. You know this. Data brokers are tracking everything you do online. Your browsing, shopping habits, even your beliefs. In the United States, they can legally sell that information. Companies buy this data to target you with ads. Social media platforms use it to control what content you see. And during elections, it's used to influence your vote. To protect your privacy and maintain your autonomy online, you should be using ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN routes all my online activity through secure, encrypted servers, making it impossible for my Internet provider to see what I'm doing online. That means you can browse without feeling like somebody's watching over your shoulder all the time. It also hides your IP address. That's the unique number that identifies you online and allows data brokers to build and sell profiles about you. Without access to your IP or activity data, those companies have literally nothing to work with. I use ExpressVPN all the time. I travel a lot, unfortunately. But that also means that I'm on public WI fi. On public WI fi, that means my information is exposed unless I am using ExpressVPN. Plus, ExpressVPN is remarkably simple to use. Just one click activates protection across all my devices, from phones and tablets to smart TVs and computers. Plus, it works on up to eight devices simultaneously, so I can extend privacy protection to the entire family. Right now, you can get an extra four months for free when you use my special link. Go to expressvpn.com Ben get four extra months of expressvpn expresvpn.com Ben Also, listen, I need to make sure that I'm maintaining my health, hitting the gym, spending time with the family, even with the busy work schedule. When I was a little younger, I used to think I could just power through on willpower and caffeine. And you know, sometimes I still do. But it turns out that you actually need to eat the good stuff for your body. And that means eating vegetables. But unfortunately, vegetables are God's punishment to human beings. So I'm very thankful to have balance of nature, which fits right into even the busiest of days. Imagine trying to eat those 31 different fruits and veggies every day they tell you to eat. That sounds pretty miserable and time consuming. With balance of nature, fruits and veggies, there's Never been a more convenient dietary supplement. To ensure you get a wide variety of fruits and veggies daily. Balance of Nature takes fruits and veggies. They freeze dry them, they turn them into a powder and then they put them into a capsule. You take those fruit and veggie capsules every day and then your body knows precisely what to do with them. It's kosher. So that means I pop it right into the protein smoothie and keep the gun show going strong. Go to balance of nature.com use promo code SHAPIRO for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer. Plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balance of nature.com promo code Shapiro. Balance of nature.com promo code shapiro. Okay, and this again ties into a broader cover up and that is the COVID up of his health condition, generally speaking. So to talk about that for a moment, audio of former President Biden, his interview with special counsel Robert her got a public airing on Friday afternoon. So Axios originally posted some segments of this audio and then they posted the full audio. Okay. This of course is an interview that Joe Biden did with the special prosecutor, Robert Her. You will recall that the left went insane about this particular interview. Why? Well, because it turns out that Robert Hur, early on in 2024, put out an explanation for why Joe Biden was not being prosecuted for mishandling classified documents. And in that document where he explained why he wasn't going to prosecute Biden, he said basically people will see him in the jury as a well meaning older man with memory issues, which was a very nice way of saying he's senile. And the entire left went insane. How dare Robert her say this. Robert her must be some sort of Republican operative saying that the President of the United States has memory problems, that he's senile. You might recall Tommy Vitor, Obama van driver and advisor, saying, quote, her's claim that Biden couldn't remember the day his son died was an outrageous lie. It's also cruel and irrelevant. Anyone who's experienced loss like that can remember images, smells, bits of conversation. The pain is burned into you, David. Dates blend together because they're irrelevant. Okay? And he was just one of the people who was leading the attack on Robert Hur for saying the perfectly obvious, which is that the President of the United States did not have a functioning brain. Okay, well now we have the audio. And guess what? It turns out Robert Hur was actually understating the case. Robert her was being kind. He said that he was a well meaning Elderly man with memory issues. No, this is a person who clearly had senility. Clearly and obviously. And again, I asked the question, where was Dr. Jill? Where was the rest of his family? Honest to God. I mean, can you imagine the absolute kind of moral corruption that it would take to have an ailing member of your family in the most visible position in the world and you keep him out there because what, you still need to clear some cash if you're Hunter, or you still need to get a pardon, or you just really, really like the power and you really want to be the person who's signing the auto pen, by the way, who the hell was signing the auto pen? This is not a president who knew what he was doing. Who was the actual President of the United States for the last two years of his administration? Who. That's a big unanswered question. Who the hell was the president? Because wasn't this guy here was Joe Biden talking to Robert, her and not remembering when his son died.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
And so what was happening, though? Month ago, dying.
- [21:30]
Ben Shapiro
May 2015.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
2015. He died 2015. I think it's 2015. I'm not sure the months are, but.
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Ben Shapiro
I think that was.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
Yeah, that's right, Mr. President.
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Ben Shapiro
Oh, my God. He couldn't remember the year. Forget about the, the month. He couldn't remember the year that his son died. I mean, now anybody again with sort of a functioning brain can put that together. Even if you forget for a moment, you can put that together pretty quickly. If you ask you the, if you ask me, for example, the year that my children were born, I can give you the years that my children were born and also the dates, because I know my kids. Okay, but like, that is not a matter of him struggling. That. That is a matter of him not. He has to be reminded by people around him the year his son died. Again, I don't think that's because the images were so deeply ingrained in his memory that the dates didn't matter. I think it's because he couldn't remember. Here he was, he can't remember when. When Donald Trump was elected. Here's the audio.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
And Trump gets elected in November of 2017. 16. 2016. All right, so.
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Ben Shapiro
That'S when he left office. So that would be January 2017. Okay. Unbelievable. He has to be reminded why he has 2017 on the paper, even after he's told the date that Trump is elected, November 2016, he says. So why is it, why does it say on the paper 2017? This is someone who was ailing. He was ailing in 2023. Everyone knew it. Everyone around him and his family put him out there anyway. His staff put him out there anyway. By the way, how much do they hate Kamala Harris? My goodness. They were so desperate to ensure that Kamala Harris was never president that they propped this person up as the President of the United States and tried to make him run for another term. Remember, that is October of 2023. That was a year before the next election. And they still tried to prop that guy up. I have another question. Who the hell around him allowed him to do that debate with Donald Trump? I mean, you want to talk about political malpractice, who allowed him to do that? That's insane. He was out there going, I'm going to take on Donald. And meanwhile, in the back room, they're all going, wait, wait, this is the same guy who couldn't remember the year his son died or the year Donald Trump was elected? He's going to take on Donald Trump in a debate? Truly. Like that's it. And remember, folks, if he had not fully collapsed in that debate, he still would have been running. He never would have dropped. Here was Joe Biden being totally unable to put together a coherent sentence in that special prosecutor interview, period.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
That I was still in the Senate anyway. Excuse me, There was pressure. Not pressure. Bo knew how much I adored him. And maybe this sounds so everybody knew how close we were. There was not anybody in the world who wondered whether or not. Anyway. And so I'm wondering if this is.
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Ben Shapiro
A good time to take a break.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
No, let me just keep going and get in touch.
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Ben Shapiro
Okay. So literally, that sounds like Robert Hurst saying, sir, do you want a break at this point? Because you're kind of falling apart here. This was the person that they said was totally. And remember, the entire media lied to you. They lied. Ok, because you can say they didn't know the specifics. Fine. They didn't know the specifics. They saw the same thing we were saying, but they didn't just say what we were saying, which is, this person appears to be ailing. They said you were absolutely a Republican operative, vicious and mean. If you pointed out what was perfectly obvious, the naked eye, and they did so little investigation and so little investigative reporting that they tried to prop this person up until he himself had to drop out of the race because it became perfectly obvious to every sentient human being exactly what was happening with Joe Biden during that debate with Donald Trump. That's the scandals. You have scandal along the line. Oh, I mean, here's Joe Biden not being able to remember why he kept classified information. Remember this entire interview is why he had a bunch of classified information about Afghanistan in his library, like filed and with Top Secret stamped on it. And here he was.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
Was this memo. Mr. President, was this something that you consciously kept after your term as vice president? Is this something that you wanted to hold on to? I don't recall. Did I have this? Was this in my possession, this memo? Yes. And to give you some context for this, Mr. President, it was found in the front of this notebook that's on the first page. And the notebook was found in the library at the lake house in one of the drawers. I don't recall how it got back. I mean, I don't recall how it got back in the book because I sent it to the President. I gave it to the President. And this looks like the original. I don't think there's maybe copy made of them. I don't think so. It was faxed just to use. Oh, okay. That's why. Yeah, all right. Now I got it. I wasn't sure how I got how I. Whether I gay handed the President. It was faxed to the president, which I had to copy. Right. Okay. You had the original? Yeah, I had the original and I just put it in the book and that was it.
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Ben Shapiro
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Even today, the media are still covering this as though it's a Republican's pounce story. That's the way the media works. When Democrats do a bad thing, the story is Republicans pouncing. When Republicans do a bad thing, the story is Republicans being bad. When the Democrats do a bad thing, it's Republicans pouncing. So here is Politico reporting. The audio fed into ongoing Republican efforts to portray Biden as mentally unfit for the presidency at the end of his term and to allege that Democrats hid that fact from the public. Oh, did it play into that? Did it? Well, I mean, I wonder how that could have happened. Maybe because it's true. Maybe because it's true. And again, it is absolutely incredible to me that the media tried to cover this up. The media tried to cover this up. Everyone around him tried to cover it up. I don't believe for a second that Jake Sullivan did not know that Joe Biden was senile. I do not believe for a hot second that Mike Donilon didn't know that Joe Biden was senile. I don't believe for a second that Joe Biden didn't know he was senile and that he likely had cancer. I don't believe any of that stuff because I can't imagine in my own daily life dealing with people who are older than my parents, like 10 years older than my parents, not knowing that stuff. And first of all, let's just be real about this. As you get older, I've noticed this just as just a regular thing in life. As you get older, you end up talking about your health problems with your friends a lot. Right? Because as you get older, your body starts to not act the way that it was when, when you were 20 years old. If you've ever been in a room with a bunch of 80 year olds, half the conversation is about health because it takes up a lot of their time and a lot of their life. I understand. I get it. The notion that none of this ever came up around Joe Biden, the most powerful person on planet Earth, honest to God. We are lucky the world didn't explode even worse than it did under Joe Biden. When you listen to this, when you realize his health condition. We are, we are honest to God lucky that China didn't go for Taiwan while Joe Biden was president. We are lucky that Russia didn't actually try to break NATO outright, not just attack Ukraine, break NATO outright, because my goodness, this is insane. Totally insane. President Trump asks a relevant question. Whoever had control of the auto pen is looking to be a bigger and bigger scandal by the moment. It is a major real part of the crime that the presidential election of 2020 was rigged and stolen. Millions and millions of people knew that. But the radical left Democrats waged a campaign of inoculation and innocence like none had ever been waged before. This is why the unselect committee of political thugs who are given a full and complete pardon by the person who wielded the now illegally used auto pen, deleted and destroyed all evidence and information from their corrupt and vicious witch hunt against me and many other people whose lives were completely shattered and destroyed by the historically criminal event. OK, so again, the, the 2020 election stuff about it being rigged and all that. Again, you can say that it was rigged in the sort of informal sense that you had the media covering things up that were relevant about Joe Biden. And that part's true, if what he means is that votes were changed and all. Again, but that's not the issue here. The real question is who was the President of the United States? Who was it? I want to know. Everyone ought to know. Van Jones, maybe the last honest Democrat, he said yesterday, we're gonna pay for this cover up for a very long time as A party.
- [29:57]
Kamala Harris
I was shocked to see his condition when he came out, and so was the world. And that wasn't the first time he was in that condition. The book makes it very, very clear. There are people who knew and said nothing. And that is a crime against this republic. And I think the Democrats are gonna pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover up.
- [30:22]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, And Van Jones, again, he's being honest about that. I remember had a conversation with Van in the middle of the campaign, and he was saying the same things. So Van has been honest about this for a very, very long time. Speaking people who are not honest about this, Senator Chris Murphy, who's attempting a quixotic 2028 candidacy, he was saying that the reason that Donald Trump is in the White House is because the Democrats didn't have the balls to oust Biden. Now, there is some truth to that. Imagine for a second that Joe Biden had actually been ousted from the presidency, not in the middle of 2024, but like in the middle of 2023 when everybody knew that he was gone. It turns out it was earlier than that. But imagine that Joe Biden, two years into his presidency, had stepped out. Kamala Harris becomes the president, and now you have open primaries in 2024. Does that change the trajectory? I think Donald Trump still wins, but. But he's not wrong. The Democrats tried to. They tried to push this horse over the finish line. They propped El Cid like, almost literally a dead body on the horse. And it turns out that it didn't work because then Kamala Harris actually got her shot and she lost anyway in the most humiliating electoral defeat, maybe of all time. Here's Senator Chris Murphy. But ultimately, in retrospect, you can't defend.
- [31:27]
Kamala Harris
What the Democratic Party did because we.
- [31:29]
Ben Shapiro
Are stuck with a madman, with a.
- [31:31]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
Corrupt president in the Oval Office, and we should have given our ourselves a better chance to win.
- [31:37]
Ben Shapiro
Okay? I mean, the fact that he's admitting it is kind of the whole thing. Everyone, everyone knew on a sort of colloquial, casual level what was going on. But now what we are learning about the President's mental state, what we are learning about the fact that he had, in fact, a slow developing, now deadly cancer. You. Deep immorality. It's not just political malpractice, which of course it is. It is deep immorality. Lying to the American people in this way is deeply immoral. Using an old man who is clearly in ailing mental and physical health in order to get done. Your political job is just vile. It really is. And everyone around him, everyone who knew, everybody who enabled this, should be put out to political pasture as soon as humanly possible. I'm not just talking about members of the family, obviously, who will be. I'm talking about all the senators, all the congresspeople, all the political advisors. This is a stain on the Democratic Party. It should be. It's a stain on the media. I mean, you wonder why the media's trust numbers have collapsed. This is the reason the media's trust numbers have collapsed. Because for several years, anytime anyone said, hey, why don't you look into that? Like, no, no, it's Republicans pouncing again. It was never Republicans pouncing. And the status question, the one that honestly you have to ask, but it's really sad you even have to ask, this is if Joe Biden now has stage 4 deadly cancer, 2/3 of people who have it die within 5 years according to the stats. And if this was slow developing, one of two things is true. Either they knew and then they, how did they, how did they treat him if they knew? Was he getting treatment all the time he was in the White House? Who was doing that treatment? How did that not leak? Okay, that's, that's number one. Like the best possible scenario here, just on a moral level, is that they knew and that they got him the treatment that he needed and the cancer just is winning. That's the best possible. And then there's the worst possible moral outcome, which is they knew he was ailing, they knew he was old, and they either specifically did not test him or they did test him and didn't get him the treatment he needed cuz they needed him to remain in the presidency. And that one is like the darkest possible moral scenario here. And all these questions are on the table and they should be on the table and pretending that it's some sort of grave evil to even ask the question is nonsense. It's nonsense. As you know, I'm not in the business of just asking questions here on the show. I don't like just asking questions. Meaning, like throwing out speculation without any proper proof. Okay, the medical evidence suggests. Not according to me, according to every doctor that I've talked to, this thing was slow developing, which means there was ample time to diagnose many people who could have known. So either they did not do the PSA tests because for whatever reason they decided they didn't want to know the answer, or they did the PSA test and they probably knew the answer. And then things get even darker from there. This is an evidence based question, not a question of just total speculation and it implicates everyone around him. Between the cancer story and the senility story, this is a nuclear bomb at the heart of the Democratic Party and the heart of the media and it absolutely should be treated as such. We'll get some more on this in just one moment. First, if you're the owner of a growing business the way I am, imagine a hiring approach similar to speed dating, but instead of meeting potential romantic partners, you would be meeting multiple qualified job candidates in a single scheduled session. 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Enjoy the benefits of hiring with new Zip Intro. It's only from ZipRecruiter rated the number one hiring site based on G2. Try Zip Intro for free at ZipRecruiter.com daily wire again at ZipRecruiter.com Daily Wire Zip Intro post jobs today, talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. Also, most universities at this point, they're a problem. But not Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. They believe we're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come. By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God. 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That that downgrade in the credit rating was based on the fact that Moody's is saying that we are just going to continue to blow out our debt. That obviously is true, but that's been true for a very long time. Moody's does have a political angle to it. There's just no question about this. Moody's is constantly moving its ratings up and down in response to sort of political politics that you could best describe as a sort of center left take on the world. This notion that the debt was great and now that the Republicans are going to pass a tax bill that basically continues the trajectory of debt along the lines it already was, that that is what that really sinks the credit rating. That of course is really silly. Now, do we have a massive debt problem right now? Absolutely. The 30 year yield on bonds right now is really high, like around 5%, meaning that that is the rate that investors are basically charging the government to take a 30 year bond, which means significant uncertainty as to whether they're going to get paid back in inflated dollars or whether it's even worthwhile to buy a 30 year bond. That means that there's not a lot of faith in the markets that 30 years from now the United States is going to have paid off its debt in fiscally responsible fashion. Now, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, he says that Moody's is a lagging indicator here he was yesterday.
- [38:16]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
First of all, I think that Moody's is a lagging indicator. I think that's what everyone thinks of credit agencies. Larry Summers and I don't agree on everything, but he said that when they downgraded the US in 2011. So it's a lagging indicator.
- [38:36]
Ben Shapiro
It may be a lagging indicator, but it is also true. The United States has a massive debt problem that will be solved by neither party. Basically, the Republicans and Democrats have decided that when it comes to the debt, they're just Going to shift around the chairs on the deck of the Titanic and fight over who gets to do the shifting. To be perfectly frank about all of this, the death of the Tea Party, you know, the much derided Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan actually cared about this stuff. He might be the last Republican leader who truly cared about this stuff in a serious way. And that was considered insufficient to the day. And so he was ousted. Meanwhile, Walmart, it has been warning that prices are likely going to rise because of the tariffs, which is of course true. When you artificially increase the price of your inputs, then the price of goods tends to rise as well. So President Trump put out a statement and again, we may have to bring back good, good Trump, bad Trump here because again, he's doing so many things every single day that, that there's a solid mix of good and bad from President Trump. This one definitely falls into the bad Trump category. President Trump put out a statement that says, quote, walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the reason for rising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made billions of dollars last year, far more than expected between Walmart and China. They should, as is said, eat the tariffs and not charge valued customers anything. I'll be watching and so will your customers. Okay, Bernie Sanders, calm down there. Okay, I'm sorry. That price mechanisms work according to market principles and that if you artificially boost the prices people have to pay for things. When they then use those things to sell to someone else, the prices go up. That, of course, is the predictable result of artificially increasing the price of anything is that further down in the chain, prices are going to rise. And yelling at people for prices rising is not good economic policy. It's not good political policy. I'm old enough to remember when Barack Obama did the exact same thing. There were people during when Obamacare was first passed who had put on bills how much more you were paying for things because of Obamacare. And the Obama administration got really mad. They're like, how dare you inform people that their prices are going up because of Obamacare? And the answer was, well, yeah, because you just stacked a new cost on people. So now the prices are going to go up. When you stack a new cost on goods and services, the prices go up. And yelling at Walmart to eat the tariffs is. Is really quite foolish. Again, you want to say to the American people, the prices need to go up to absorb temporary pain so we can rejigger our trade relationship with China. That at least is honest. But eat the tariffs is a. Is a ridiculous statement. Eat the tariffs Come on. And yes, Walmart, I'm sure, is desperate to politically harm the administration. First of all, the, the family that owns Walmart is traditionally fairly Republican. Second, Walmart is a low cost store. You think they want their prices to go up on their consumers. Walmart's competitive advantage is that it undercharges pretty much everybody in the immediate area. That's always been the critique of Walmart is that it undercharges everybody, the local mom and pop stores. And so now you're going to yell at them when the prices go up. It's silly. It's bad economic policy. I would expect it from Bernie Sanders. I do not expect that from the current President of the United States, Scott Besant. Again, he has to do his best with, with the cards that he has dealt. The Treasury Secretary says Walmart will eat some of the tariffs. Listen, I'm sure they will. I'm sure that it won't all come out in the pricing. But come on.
- [41:48]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
I was on the phone with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart yesterday and Walmart is in fact they are going to the, as you describe it, eat some of the tariffs that just as they did in 18, 19 and 20.
- [42:08]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, so again, that, that is fine, but try and pretend that there are no trade offs in economic policy is of course very, very silly. And the notion that we're out of the woods on the trade war, that obviously is untrue as well. So yes, we are negotiating some bilateral trade deals. It will take a while for all that to come out in the wash. The current average tariff rate in the United States for incoming goods is the highest it has been since 1932. Those are, that those are additional costs on American consumers. They are, you can make the policy case that we need to do that for whatever reason, reassuring certain levels of manufacturing or boxing in China or whatever, but at least be honest with the American people about it. Scott Besant, he says that countries are going to have to come to the table even more. I think one of the problems here is that there are a lot of countries who are coming saying like let's give you a zero percent tariff rate. And the Trump administration, nope, still 10. Well, I mean, I don't know what you want people to offer at that point.
- [43:01]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
This means that they're not negotiating in good faith. They are going to get a letter. They are saying here, here is the rate. So I would expect that everyone would come and negotiate in good faith.
- [43:14]
Scott Besant
Do you expect that rate though that.
- [43:16]
Ben Shapiro
You would slap on any country that you think is not negotiating in good faith to be above 10%?
- [43:20]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
Well, I think that it would be the April 2nd level. Some countries were at 10%, some were substantially higher. And the negotiating leverage that President Trump is talking about here is if you don't want to negotiate, then it will spring back to the April 2nd level.
- [43:38]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, so if that's still on the table, if the April 2 levels are like 46%, tariffs on Vietnam are still on the level, again, I think that's an empty threat. I don't think that Treasury Secretary Besant wants any of that. However, to pretend that we are better off today in terms of our tariff rates, our trade policy than we were on April 1st before Liberation Day would be to maintain ignorance of the current economic plans of the administration. Meanwhile, the question over whether the Big beautiful bill gets done before Memorial Day is still on the table. So yesterday the House budget panel finally did approve the Trump Big Beautiful bill following some hardliner resistance. According to Politico, House Republicans finally launched their party line tax and spending package from the Budget Committee late on Sunday night. That was after GOP leaders promised some final changes to appease fiscal hawks after a setback on Friday. Just before the late night markup, the speaker huddled privately in a room adjacent to the meeting room with the Budget Committee Republicans who previously blocked the mega bill from advancing. That'd be right. Representatives Chip Roy of Texas, Josh Rasheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Once the markup reconvened, House Budget Chair Jody Arrington of Texas, who's been tasked with shepherding this thing through, said negotiations over changes to the more than 1100 page bill are ongoing. Apparently the promises include speeding up enforcement of several policies in the bill, including Medicaid work requirements, Nixon green energy tax perks enacted during the Biden administration, and revoking Medicaid benefits from from undocumented immigrants. All four of those Republicans did not end up voting at all in the committee. They just ended up voting present, which shows that they don't love the bill, but they're not going to hold up the bill at this point. Whether this still passes without any of those changes actually being enshrined remains a questionable thing. Basically, as I said right at the beginning with the big beautiful bill, the choices were going to be between maintenance of the Trump tax cuts and a bunch of crap or non maintenance of the Trump tax cuts and slightly less crap. Those were the two choices. It was always going to be a crap sandwich. It was just a matter of how much actual deli meat was in the sandwich and how much crap was in the sandwich? And the answer was, if you have a big, beautiful sandwich, more crap, more deli meat. If you have a, if you have a no deal, then no deli meat and still some crap. That was kind of the way to think about all of this. This is why President Trump is pushing very hard for Republicans to get it done. He's starting to weigh in significantly more vocally. He put out a, a statement on truth social, quote, republicans must unite behind the one big beautiful bill. Not only does it cut taxes for all Americans, it will kick millions of illegal immigrants off of Medicaid to protect it for those who are the ones in real need. The country will suffer greatly without this legislation. With their taxes going up 65%, it will be blamed on the Democrats, but that doesn't help voters. Our. We don't need grandstanders in the Republican Party. Stop talking and get it done. It's time to fix the mess that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And of course, this is the right move from President Trump. If the bill does not pass, the economy is going to crater. I mean, it is that simple. Right now, the markets have priced in the current tax rates and current regulation. If the tax rates spike, then what you will see is the economy drop. Investors will pull their money up because they know that they're going to be paying higher tax. It will restructure business in the United States again. The markets have already priced this in. Now, does this mean the bill is perfect? Far from it. There's a bunch of junk in this bill, like, true junk in this bill. It is true that our debt problems are out of control. It is also true that nothing that's currently being proposed would solve our debt problems. Russ Vaught over at Office of Management and Budget, he makes the case that this bill is better than what Democrats would have, which of course is true. I mean, again, that is like saying that you are a better singer than William Hyung or whatever his name was, the guy from American Idol who could, who could barely warble. Like, yes, this is better than what Democrats would provide. Also, the current status of my health is better than a man dying of gangrene. Like, yes, Democrats are very, very bad at these particular things. But that doesn't mean that the one big beautiful bill is going to really bend the cost curve in a significant way. Russ Vaught says the current House bill includes $1.6 trillion in savings. These are not gimmicks. But real reforms that lower spending and improve the program. The bill satisfies the very red line test that House fiscal hawks laid out a few weeks ago that stated that the cost of any tax cut could be paid for with $2.5 trillion in assumed economic growth, but the rest had to be covered with savings from reform. This bill exceeds that test by nearly $100 billion. $36 trillion in debt is not solved overnight. It's solved by advancing and securing victories at a scale that over time gives a fighting shot to addressing the problem. Okay, but what are the actual problems with the bill? Well, it includes a bunch of bad spending still on Medicaid. Much of the good stuff in the bill only kicks in late. The Wall Street Journal editorial board points out that it is good that the bill makes the 2017 tax reform permanent. It's also good that the 2017 reform's 20% deduction for small businesses that pay at the individual rate is made permanent. However, the bill does in fact stealth raise the top marginal tax rate by limiting itemized deductions for the 37% top SP top tax bracket. It also has a bunch of tax cuts for some groups and tax increases for others. So the bill limits a tick tip exemption to an occupation which traditionally and customarily received tips before December 31, 2024. Unclear what exactly that means. I mean, plumbers, electricians, do they actually get tips? For example, seniors earning up to 75 grand get an enhanced $4,000 deduction, which is a pure vote buying exercise. That's on top of the $16,000 standard deduction. All those tax breaks expire in 2028. By the way, this is one of the ways that you hide the cost of bills is you say that something's going to sunset that never will sunset. You say, well, it's only going to cost a certain amount, certain amount of money over the next three years, knowing it will absolutely be greenlit for the next 30 years. The bill also includes an increase, I believe, in the child tax credit. They're going to make the $2,000 child tax credit permanent, another 500 bucks through 2028. Again, those are not child tax credits. A lot of people who are getting those credits do not actually pay taxes. There's an increased $30,000 deduction for salt. Bottom line is this. Does this make major changes on the spending front?
- [50:02]
Joe Biden
No.
- [50:02]
Ben Shapiro
Does it have to be passed? Yes. Welcome to the world of politics where neither party and basically the American people are not willing to do the actual hard work of having serious conversations about our debt crisis, which means eventually we are going to have to go into austerity measures or inflation or raise taxes or all three. Those are, those are the actual options that we're going to hit probably sometime in the next five to 10 years. Okay. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has now extended its block on President Trump's deportation bid under the Alien Enemies Act. So they are not ruling that President Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies act to deport members of Trendaragua. However, the court did put a block on the use of that for the moment because they say that the Trump administration has not given them their due process. Again, this is why I say that I agree with much of what President Trump is trying to do, but you have to do it in a way that is most likely to be successful. It turns out that grabbing people and deporting them and then insisting that they remain deported without just bringing them back for a quick hearing before deporting them again, that is counterproductive. It may look strong on the page, but it actually plays weak in the Supreme Court. So the unsigned opinion, according to the justices, say this means advanced notice of deportation and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the deportations in court. Two justices did dissent. That'd be Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito saying that this is plenary power of the executive branch. The ruling does not say again that President Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies Act. It just says that if you're going to use it, then you actually do have to pay attention to the due process clause of the Constitution. So it is not the big victory that the Democrats are playing it as. It's also not the giant laws that President Trump has been has been suggesting that it is.
- [51:40]
Dan Bongino
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- [52:22]
Ben Shapiro
This podcast is sponsored by Ramp. I can't sleep.
- [52:26]
Kamala Harris
What is it now?
- [52:28]
Ben Shapiro
It's the company. It's chaos.
- [52:30]
Kamala Harris
What's chaos now?
- [52:32]
Ben Shapiro
The numbers, the expenses, the books. What if we get audited?
- [52:36]
Kamala Harris
No one's gonna audit you at 3am Go to sleep.
- [52:39]
Ben Shapiro
I can't sleep. You could if you used Ramp. Who said that? I don't care, because they're right.
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Kamala Harris
Go to sleep and sign up for Ramp in the morning.
- [52:49]
Ben Shapiro
Jerry, Ramp is the corporate card that handles all your tedious financial operations, automatically integrates directly with your ERP and gives you complete control over every transaction. Ramp gives you everything you need for bulletproof books and a better night's sleep. Wow. That is exactly what my company needs.
- [53:06]
Kamala Harris
Yes, and exactly what I also need.
- [53:09]
Dan Bongino
Go to sleep, Jerry.
- [53:11]
Ben Shapiro
Upgrade to Ramp for free today and get $250 at ramp.com that's ramp.com r a m p.com cards issued by Sutton bank members. FDIC terms and conditions apply. Meanwhile, in foreign policy news, a pretty amazing story out of the Washington examiner about the influence of Qatar. So we've been talking about this for several weeks at this point, actually going back further than that. We've been talking about Qatar and its relationship with Hamas and its relationship with Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and all the rest. Well, the Qatari embassy spends a fortune doing outreach. That outreach has shifted dramatically from the left side of the aisle to the right side of the aisle, particularly in the aftermath of President Trump's election. Well, now, a piece from the Washington examiner finds that the Qatari Embassy paid a PR firm $180,000 per month. It's called Luminate Advisors, a registered foreign agent. They paid them $180,000 a month, nearly $2 million a year. And the only thing listed on their new FARA form is acquiring the interview with Tucker Carlson and the Prime Minister of Qatar. According to the official Farah filing, the date that this particular PR agency and Tucker Carlson agreed to conduct that interview was February 26, one week before the interview aired. The stated purpose of the interview in the Farah documents was that Qatar was going to get pretty rich. Massage treatment in that interview. So again, the PR agency was paid a fortune to acquire this. This interview with Tucker. And they did their job. They got the interview with Tucker, and Tucker gave a very, very, very, very glowing interview with the Emir of Qatar. Again, this is just indicative of how much Qatar tries to intervene in American politics. And prior to election day, about 10% of communications from Qatari foreign agents to people in politics in the United States were directed at conservatives, either outlets or commentators. After President Trump won that shifted to over 50% of total correspondence. They tried to do outreach to Fox News Digital. Just the news. The New York Post, the Daily Mail, the Washington Examiner. And Qatar obviously is spreading its money around. This is why we should all be quite suspicious of the kinds of business deals that Qatar is trying to cut with people in the Trump camp. Qatar does not do things without strings attached. Clearly, they have an agenda. Pretending they don't have an agenda is an act of willful ignorance. Okay. Meanwhile, again, it is a mistake for President Trump to be going after media outlets that are pointing out that Qatar is spreading its influence this way. So President Trump went on Truth Social and attacked ABC News. Now, normally I'm totally up for the attacks on ABC News. This one happens not to be particularly accurate. He says, why doesn't Chairman Bob Iger do something about the ABC fake news? Especially since I just won $16 million based on the fake and defamatory reporting of little George Slopadopoulos. He was given warnings, but just couldn't be restrained by management. Now I see they're at it again. I again give these sleaze bags fair warning. The wonderful country of Qatar. Wonderful country of Qatar is a country of 2.6 million people, 300,000 of which are actual citizens. Some 2.3 million are either foreign workers or possible slaves. Qatar, again, one of the bigger funders of terrorism on planet Earth and a gigantic funder of propaganda operations in America and elsewhere. The wonderful country of Qatar says President Trump, after agreeing to invest more than $1.4 trillion in the United States of America, deserves much better than the misleading fake news. Everyone, including their lawyers, has been told that ABC must not say, Qatar is giving me a free but Boeing 747 airplane, because they are not. Instead, and as fake news, ABC fully knows and understands this highly respected country is donating the plane to the United States Air Force Defense Department. Not to me, by the way, ABC News said that. They also reported that after the plane is used by President Trump, it will then go to the Trump Presidential Library. That is one of the stipulations of the contract. That's not their fault. If you don't like the deal being reported, don't do the deal. By the way, it's going to be really expensive to retrofit that plan. They basically have to take it apart piece by piece to make sure that there's no Chinese tech in there. In any case, the situation in the Middle east continues to be quite fraught on a wide variety of fronts. It is now perfectly clear for example, that Hamas, the. The Israeli Defense Forces are now going into Gaza full bore. Hamas has been unwilling to sign on to a deal that would freeze some nine or 10 hostages in return for a couple of months of ceasefire. What they want is for Israel to simply withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip and hand them a victory based on them holding a few hostages. Which is not going to happen, it turns out. Shock of shocks. Hamas's actual goal in the October 7 war was to destroy the possibility of an Abraham accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia days before the assault that left nearly 1200 dead, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's Gaza chief, told fellow militants that an extraordinary act was required to derail the normalization talks he said risked marginalizing the Palestinian cause, according to the document reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. So they were openly saying that they wanted to sink the Middle east peace process. Again. These are, these are the wonderful people. So much of the left are backing and a few on the right. Wonderful, wonderful people. Meanwhile, Erdogan Tayyip Recep Erdogan, who is the dictatorial leader of Turkey, is flexing his power in the Middle East. He obviously has been taking over large swaths of Syria in cahoots with hts, the terrorist group that we are now relieving sanctions on. Again, you make the case for relieving sanctions based on some actual normalization procedures, getting rid of terrorism, moderation, all the rest. There had better be some strings attached to the revocation of Syrian sanctions. Erdogan believes he's now in control of foreign policy here. He was basically. I mean, I do have to find this hilarious. He basically finger trapped Emmanuel Macron. It's so weird. So Emmanuel Macron, who's a schmuck of schmucks, the current President of France. He is a joke of a leader. He's unpopular in his own country for good reason. He has, in foreign policy, consistently provided space for terror supporters. Here is Erdogan basically showing physical dominance over the President of France by grabbing his fingers and not letting go. Very weird. He grabs his hand and then he just won't let go. He's like holding his fingers and Macron is trying to get free. And Erdogan just sits there holding his fingers. He's still holding his fingers. It's super weird, super strange. Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm so glad that people like Erdogan have taken plenary control of, of Western policy in the Middle east, apparently. And meanwhile, the question of an Iran negotiation continues. Apparently, new negotiations have been set between the United States and Iran for this weekend in Rome. The question is, what is the actual crossover? So, Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East. As you all know, I'm quite skeptical of Steve Witkoff's magical negotiating abilities here. He was on ABC's this Week explaining that the goal of the United States was 0% enrichment.
- [60:14]
Steve Witkoff
We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them. And so that's important. We want to. We want to get to a solution here. And, and we think that we will be able to. But everything begins for, from our standpoint, John, with a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that.
- [60:49]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, so that's great. That should be the standard. Not just zero enrichment. By the way, zero capacity for enrichment, meaning no centrifuges, no nuclear program in Iran. Iran, for its part, says no. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araki told Sky News Arabia, quote, washington demands are far removed from the reality of the nuclear negotiations and we will continue uranium enrichment. So what exactly is. So what. What exactly are they negotiating over? This is what remains unclear. Is it just Iran trying to buy time? Is it the United States trying to forestall the possibility of either an American or an Israeli attack on the nuclear facilities? All of this remains unclear. At this point. I'm still struggling to see what the. What the actual end goal is that seems to be achievable in any way, shape or form. And if the proposal ends up being something like a delayed jcpoa, three years of no development, and then three years from now you can do what you want. That is a fail. The United States Senate has already said they will not sign off on anything remotely like that. Meanwhile, negotiations sort of continue over Ukraine. I say sort of because President Trump had conversations today with both the Ukrainians and the Russians. Vice President J.D. vance explained there's a deadlock in talks to end the war. Putin does not know. Does not know how to get out of the war. He said if Russia doesn't cooperate, we will eventually announce this is not our war. Well, I mean, I don't know what exactly that means. This is not our war. I mean, presumably what that means is that the United States will get out of both sides. I have a question. That's exactly what Vladimir Putin wants. I mean, Putin is hoping the United States get bored and walks away. That is what he wants out of this. That is the goal. If what JD Vance means is something else, namely that we'll walk away from the negotiating table and then we'll continue to support Ukraine's efficient so they are not overrun by the Russians. Agree? If what he means is we're going to walk away and basically just abandon Ukraine in the face of the Russians, that would be a bad policy. Totally unclear at this point what any of this means. Vice President Vance did meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Rome on Sunday. The meeting at the US Ambassador's residence, it was also attended by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, according to the Washington Post, came as world leaders attended the inaugural mass of Pope Leo xiv. Zelensky described the session as a good meeting. Zelensky said pressure on Russia must continue until it is ready to stop the war. He reaffirmed Ukraine's readiness for real diplomacy and stressed the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible. Again, as I've said, Zelensky is doing the stuff that Trump wants him to do. Vladimir Putin is not doing the stuff that Trump wants him to do. Now, how successful exactly is the call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin? Trump had expressed some optimism about this, suggesting that he was going to get a ceasefire done, that Vladimir Putin respects him enough that he will do something along those lines. Steve Witkoff was suggesting the same sort of thing. Here was Witkoff on Sunday.
- [63:36]
Steve Witkoff
I want to be a bit more positive about this. I believe that the President is going to have a successful call with, with Vladimir Putin. They know each other. The President is determined to get something done here and hopefully if he can't do it, then nobody can. So I leave it to the two leaders to have that call.
- [63:59]
Ben Shapiro
So again, it's going to be very unclear as to what happens from here, but it should be made clear at this point that Vladimir Putin does not actually want anything like a negotiated peace that sets the lines where they are. He does not want that. Vladimir Putin believes the United States will eventually walk away. And hell if you were Vladimir Putin, you probably believe that too. The United States has, over the course of the last 20 years, walked away from the Kurds, the Afghans, the people of Hong Kong and now maybe the people of Ukraine. So why wouldn't they? I mean, really like that is the game that Vladimir Putin is playing. He's playing the long game here. United States is going to have to play a similarly long game if we actually wish for Vladimir Putin not to take over the entirety of Ukraine. Meanwhile, my friend Dan Bongino, who is now the Deputy Director of the FBI, did a sit down interview over the weekend. Dan is fantastic. And one of the things I like about Dan is, is that Dan is a truth teller. He's just going to tell you the truth whether you like it or not, which is again, a wonderful thing. He did say something that he was on with Cash Patel. They were talking about how they were quite properly going to go into a deeper investigation of Russiagate. That, of course, has been Dan's kind of main focus since 2017, when the media started covering Donald Trump as though he was a Russian cat's paw. So they talked a lot about that. But one of the other big sort of revelations was Dan Bongino said, listen, now, despite all the speculation, Jeffrey Epstein did in fact kill himself. Okay, I'll tell you why I like this. The reason I like this is because I'm not a big fan of just pure speculation. I too have played the did Epstein kill himself? Game because, I mean, pretty suspicious. But I believe Dan Bongino, I don't believe he's lying for the deep state. If there's one person who can be trusted not to lie for the deep state, in fact, it would be Dan Bongino here. Was Dan saying a truthful thing? I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion. But as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who's.
- [65:47]
James Clyburn
Been in that prison system, who's been.
- [65:48]
Ben Shapiro
In the Metropolitan Detention center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was. He killed himself. Again, you want me to.
- [65:59]
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
I've, I've seen the whole file. He killed himself.
- [66:05]
Ben Shapiro
So good for Dan Bongino. This is one of the reasons I like having Dan Bongino in there is because, you know, Dan ain't gonna hide the ball. Dan is not going to lie. Okay, that's true for Cash Patel as well, but it's certainly true of Dan, who I know well. So good. Good for Dan. That's good. Again, transparency is in fact the best medicine. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, in other good things, continues to go after major universities that are absolutely promoting anti American trash and violating the Civil Rights act at the same time. Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, she's talking openly about raising taxes on endowments for universities. This is, this is worthwhile. It is. I mean, the reality is that these universities have become propaganda outlets for a far left viewpoint, very often in violation of the Civil Rights act and treating them with kid gloves is not the way. Here is Linda McMahon expressing this.
- [67:00]
Scott Besant
Let's go back to Harvard for a minute when they have almost a $53 billion endowment. Now there's a small endowment. That tax that's on endowments, that's one currently in place is about 1.4% and that's, you know, on, you know, universities that have at least 500 students that are on tuition. So that's at about, I think 500,000 per student is kind of the barometer they look at before the taxes start. So this is really going to increase that, but it's about $2 million per per pupil. That gets, you know, sort of waived before the taxes start. But it's a ton of money if you look at it.
- [67:42]
Ben Shapiro
Sure.
- [67:42]
Scott Besant
That is going non taxed. Even though universities will say we use most of our endowment for student aid and for research. Well, don't you think that's what they should be using those endowment dollars for?
- [67:56]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, she is right about all of this. She also says, you know, if Harvard actually wants to make a deal with us so we don't tax their endowment, probably should just let us in. That would actually be the proper solution.
- [68:06]
Scott Besant
Well, we, we'd like to see them do the things we've asked them to to do in the letter. We would like for them to let us come in and sit with them and see exactly what they're doing. Show us what you're doing. They're, they're doing a lot of talk about the things they're doing. But you know, if they really are doing these things, then they should not object to allowing the task force or other members that have been assigned signed to come in and take a look at exactly what they are doing.
- [68:33]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, so again, all of this is proper. Harvard should try to cut a deal. That's what they should do. Harvard should absolutely try to cut a deal with the Trump administration and actually abide by, you know, the Civil Rights act as, as they are supposed to do. It is truly amazing to me to watch people suggest that violation of the Civil Rights act is perfectly okay so long as it is done against Jews. That's the argument anyway. Again, free speech on campus is a thing and should be a thing. However, the Civil Rights act does apply to federal taxpayer dollars and it doesn't stop applying just because you agree with some of the things that are, that are creating a, an environment of harassment. Listen, if you don't like the Civil Rights act in general or you don't like its application universities, fine with me. Let's talk about it. I'm open to that. But to pretend that the law only applies on one side and doesn't apply on the other is simply silly. Okay, time for Diddy Watch. Listen, I know we really only do Diddy Watch when it comes to Ben After Dark, but the reality is it is kind of a fascinating case. It's mostly a fascinating case because this is what happens when you have a culture that is so willing to look the other way on evil, promiscuous, disgusting behavior that by the time it reaches the level of criminal, there are serious questions about the criminality. That's the part of this that really is astonishing because there is an open legal question when it comes to the trial of Sean Diddy Combs as to whether he committed the crimes that are alleged. Because the crimes that are alleged are sex trafficking, not him being a complete piece of bleep, which he clearly, clearly is. And so that's actually the defense, the defense that Diddy's team is currently running is that Diddy is a piece of crap, but he's not a piece of crap who's sex trafficked. And one of the problems that, that the prosecution is going to have in this case is that he is fully admitting to, for example, beating up his girlfriend. But there's a difference between that and cross state line sex trafficking. And if all these people consented to this terrible treatment and kept coming back for more of this terrible treatment for the money, how criminal is it? That is the question that the defense is leaving on the table. Again, none of that a go ahead for his activity. But we have lost in our society the capacity at all to distinguish between the consensual and the moral. We have decided that if something is consensual, it is therefore moral. Now, again, there's, there's sort of three categories here. Consensual, moral and legal. Okay, very often something that is consensual is immoral but also legal. But we have decided, basically because as a country we are more secular now and because as a country we no longer believe in morality and legality being separate in any serious way, kind of on both sides. It's very strange. We now determine that if we don't like what somebody did, it must be illegal. Even if it was, you know, immoral and not illegal, it has to be illegal. Like moral and legal are the same category. Now we're conflating the two categories. Again, this is not a legal defense of Sean Diddy Combs. Again, we're still getting all the evidence, but that's the defense that he is making. According to the Wall Street Journal, faced with the amount of video and photographic evidence of their clients violence toward women defense strategies to own the bad behavior rather than make excuses. At the same time, his lawyers are trying to make clear domestic violence isn't the same as sex trafficking. Candidly, acknowledging com's flaws might bear fruit in winning credibility with the jury, according to defense lawyers who aren't involved in the case. If you defend the insensible, the jury isn't going to believe anything you say, said Moira Penza, a former federal prosecutor and partner at the law firm Wilkinson Steckloff. So again, Diddy's already taken the reputational hit, so why wouldn't he actually just say, yeah, I I engaged in all this gross and terrible behavior, but it's not criminal? Sarah Kristoff, a former federal prosecutor, said lawyers for Combs know they can't get around the video or cast even to her detailed testimony of her toxic relationship with Diddy. The legal argument she said Combs did bad things, but not these bad things. This is, according to the Wall Street Journal, prosecutors told the jury in their opening statement, that is proof of the racketeering conspiracy. They would show that Combs committed kidnapping, arson and bribery. As one example, Combs bribed Intercontinental security staff with $100,000, an attempt to keep video surveillance footage of his hotel hallway attack on Ventura under wraps, they allege. Prosecutors will also likely point to Ventura's testimony as proof of the conspiracy charge, which involves showing Combs and those in his inner circle agreed to commit crimes as part of the group. She told jurors he had a security team take her to a plastic surgeon after she suffered a gash to her head during one of the attacks. But Combs's lawyers are going to try to argue both instances were consistent by their defense with their defense saying he didn't do those independently. He was trying to cover up his abuse. So yes, he was abusive and yes, he did those things, but he wasn't doing bribery for the sake of doing bribery. He was basically doing this stuff because he wanted to cover up what exactly the underlying crime was, which was, you know, actual domestic violence. It's sort of a fascinating case again, because what we actually should have just said years and years and years ago is that people in Hollywood are disgusting, vile and disgusting. But we've fallen into this trap. Now, of course, if a woman stays with a man for long periods of time after he demands she does these degrading, degrading things that somehow all of that would be okay, except for the criminality. It was never okay. What he did was not okay. What she did in staying with him was not okay, and we would be much better off in a society that did not suggest that the consensual and the moral were the exact same thing, because they absolutely are not. Meanwhile, apparently Diddy is actively working for a Donald Trump pardon. Oh boy. I don't think that's going to happen. I have a hard time believing that's going to happen. But Kanye west, who in his spare time when he's not building shrines to Hitler, has publicly appealed to President Trump for a pardon. Sharing on X President Trump, please free my brother Puff. Wow, that sounds just awesome. Now Combs has praised President Trump in the past. In 2015 he said, Donald Trump is a friend of mine and he works very hard. But their relationship turned sour because in June 2017 Diddy admitted, according to the Mirror, I think that to be honest, we really don't give an F about Trump because black people are in the same effed up position. That's not what we're on. Tomfoolery going on in D.C. that's just regular everyday business to black folks. That's not surprising. I I do not think that a pardon is forthcoming for P. McDiddy. I don't think that is likely to happen. Alrighty folks. The show is continuing for members. Right now we're going to get to a bombing and an IVF clinic. What is behind all of that? Plus we are going to get to the mailbag. Remember, in order to watch you do have to be a member. If you're not a member, become member. 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