Professor Robert George (27:23)

Well, the idea was floated from someone in the media to the President. The President would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That's how he feels. And as for his discussions with the Attorney General, I'm not sure.

Ben Shapiro (27:35)

Okay, so as far as the discharge petition, it would tee up a floor vote on legislation giving Attorney General Pambondi 30 days to release a broad array of files released to Epstein, Glenn Maxwell and other associates. It would provide for the release of investigative files without regard to, for any embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary. Now, again, that's typically not how the FBI and DOJ work. If somebody makes a false accusation in a in a federal affidavit, for example, about somebody, and there's no evidence to support it. The FBI typically will not release that into the public. Now, the claim is that should be released into the public simply because of interest in the case. I mean, you can see the rationale on both sides of this. But those rules are there for a reason. As far as transparency, Caroline Levitt is saying, why? What's the claim that Trump has not been transparent? What exactly is the claim here?

Professor Robert George (28:24)

The attorney general and the FBI, led by Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, these are great patriots, some of the most trusted voices in the Republican Party movement. It's part of the reason the president appointed him, appointed them to these high law enforcement positions. And they spent many months going through all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, and they concluded what they found in that memo, which they drafted and they released. And so the president has been transparent. He has followed through on his promises to the American people.

Ben Shapiro (28:55)

As far as the claim that this is all a hoax, what is the hoax? Well, Caroline Lovett explained the hoax is that people are claiming that Trump is covering something up, which I agree is a hoax. There's been a lot of discussion about the Epstein files and the president's comments yesterday calling it a hoax. Can you clarify which point? Part of the Epstein hoax is the hoax part. Ms.

Professor Robert George (29:15)

The president is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on this, as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make. The Democrats had control of this building, the White House for four years, and they didn't do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.

Ben Shapiro (29:38)

And she's certainly right about all of that. She was also asked about whether President Trump has been talking to influencers, and she says, well, yes, but all these people who are attempting to sort of hijack maga, and that is the real thing that's happening here. Let's be very clear. Many of the people who are most exercised over the Epstein thing, many of whom were happy to hobnob with Andrew Tate and the Tate brothers five minutes ago, despite credible accusations of sex trafficking, many of those same people are really upset with the Trump administration for not doing what they wanted on Iran, on Ukraine, and now they are using this as an excuse to try and seize power inside the MAGA movement away from President Trump. Well, good luck with that. Here is Caroline Levitt yesterday.

Professor Robert George (30:15)

The president and this team are always in Contact with the president's supporters, with voices of many kinds on both sides of the aisle. I think that's part of the reason. This president is a great president, because he's willing to listen and hear other people's perspectives. But ultimately, he has left, led this country, not just over the past six months to historic success, but also through his first four years as president and as the leader and the creator of the MAGA movement. He has led through these perilous times for our country, based on instinct and in the best interest of the country. And as I always say, the American people should trust in President Trump.

Ben Shapiro (30:51)

Okay, so there are a couple of questions here with regard to how this is impacting the Trump presidency. All of this on an overall level. One is, do the American people believe that they're getting everything on the Epstein case? And the answer to that by the polling data is no. A Reuters Ipsos poll from earlier this week found 69% of Americans think the government is hiding a list of Epstein's clients. Now, just because 69% of Americans believe that an absence of evidence means that there is, in fact, a thing that is being hidden, just because that's true doesn't mean that their claim is true. The real question and the one that President Trump put his finger on at the very beginning of all of this, and it made everybody really mad, Trump was kind of right. He said, is this a priority for the American people? I'm doing, like, amazing things for the American people right now, says President Trump. I'm making peace happen in the Middle east through strength. I'm backing Ukraine against Russia to prevent more Russian predations. I am taking action to end wars in the Middle east, in Africa and Eastern Europe. I'm pushing forward new pieces of legislation. I'm keeping your taxes low. I'm doing all sorts of stuff that you want. And you're asking about Epstein, like, day in and day out, how many Americans actually care about this? And a lot of influencers were very upset with President Trump for saying this, because they, of course, are very upset about the Epstein case. Because let's be real about this, a lot of Americans, not statistically, it's on, but many Americans are terminally online, like, really, really online. And that doesn't mean their concerns are specious or not real or inauthentic. But if we're going to talk about how many Americans really think that the Epstein case is, like, top of agenda for them, the answer is really, really low. In fact, President Trump, in the last CNN poll retains an 88% approval rating among Republicans, which is actually up 2 points from the last time this was pulled before all of the Epstein news. And how many Americans, how many Republicans say that the Epstein files, the Epstein case is their number one concern, like the thing they care about most. Now, let's have Harry Ensign review the results. I mean, on X, all you hear about is the Epstein files. But how about out in the real public? Republicans who said the top issue was Epstein case? The answer is one. One and not 1%. One respondent. Okay, one respondent. And by the way, there were 1057 respondents to that poll and there were 306 or 307 registered Republicans in that poll. One said the Epstein file was their top issue. One. That doesn't mean it's not a secondary issue for some people. But again, his approval rating among Republicans, President Trump's remains, as it ever was, very, very high. And it shows. And this is a real issue, the massive, incredible, looming gap between the world of X and the real world. I've been saying for a long time, people need to get out and touch grass. And what I mean by that is turn off X and go talk to friends, family, family, people in the real world. If you go and talk to people in the real world, first of all, the polarization that splits Americans by politics, it's real. It's not nearly as bad as it is on X. But beyond that, many of the opinions that are most promulgated on X, the most extreme opinions, most conspiratorial opinions that pick up velocity and virality on X, are not reflected by the American body politic. They just are not. And politicians who follow the rabbit hole that is X are very likely to find themselves at odds with the American people. They're very likely to be suckered into believing that X is somehow a representative sample of what Americans think. And I understand, because politicians, everybody acts with whatever data they have. But what if the input is really crappy? What if the input that politicians are using to decide whether or not a policy is popular is the same exact input that Grock4 was using when it started calling itself Mecca Hitler? What if it turns out that X is being gamed and that a huge number of the big narratives on X do not match up with the stuff the American people care deeply about? Now, the media is very online because it's easy to cover the news if you're online and just trolling X, much easier to do that than it is to go talk with actual human beings or go find the news for yourself or Anything like that. It's a great shortcut, and it's a great shortcut for politicians. It means you don't have to go talk to your constituents. You just go to X, see what's trending, tweet something out and feel good about yourself. But it is not reflective of the real world. The amount of media coverage on the Epstein case, the amount of X coverage and conspiratorial insanity on the Epstein case far outweighs what's happening in the real world. And this is where President Trump is unique, truly unique. So you have to understand President Trump's informational diet to understand why he is not being suckered by a lot of this stuff. President Trump is not on X. President Trump was never really on X. What I mean by that is he put stuff out on Twitter, but he was not somebody who's spending all day just reading the scroll doom scrolling on. That's not who President Trump is. His media diet largely consists of cable news and establishment media outlets and the New York Post. That is the stuff that he is mostly reading. He. He literally has his staff print out articles. He is not sitting there with a computer and browsing the Internet or even with his cell phone. He has his staff print things out for him because he likes to read physical media. Okay, what does that mean? What it means is that many of the narratives that quickly gain velocity and then run out of steam, he just go right under his radar. He doesn't care about them. And so he actually has a better connection to the real world than many of the people who have been basically brainwormed by X. And those brain worms are pretty serious and they have a spillover effect. Now, can those impact real life? Absolutely. Absolutely. You can get a conspiracy theory started on X, pick up a ton of velocity, get a bunch of followers, and suddenly find yourself on some of the biggest podcasts in the country. And now those views are being heard by a bunch of people, particularly young people. And so my prediction is that you will see more of a connect. This would make sense. Between the insanity you see on X and the beliefs of younger generations who are using X or TikTok for their media consumption, I think that's what you're going to see. But that does not mean that the normal American just trying to live his or her life, build a family, build a community, have a job, go to church, that those people are deeply, deeply concerned and spending every day trolling the Internet for the latest Internet outrage about Jeffrey Epstein or anything else. And this is where President Trump is much more connected to reality than many of his critics on this sort of stuff. And it's why President Trump is now right to call on Pambani to try to get out as much as possible released. But people who are saying the Epstein this is going to do deep and lasting damage. First of all, I think a lot of the people who are saying that are doing so for malicious reasons. They are doing so because they hope that their own online narratives, which do not prevail in real life on anything from foreign to domestic policy, will somehow get an ear in the White House. If they can damage the president with a bunch of false nonsense about the Jeffrey Epstein story. They're hoping that if they can wield power on that, then they can somehow get back into the presidency on a bunch of foreign policy decisions. I think it's a losing game. I think it's a malicious game. I wish we're being called out more often by some of the people in the orbit of the White House who themselves are close with some of these influencers. But with all of that said, President Trump, again, much more connected to reality than virtually all of his critics. Welcome to Ben After Dark, the show where I say all the things I probably shouldn't, welcome celebrity guests to play games and answer weird questions sent to us by weird people.

Caroline Levitt (37:55)

I hate hot chicken.

Ben Shapiro (37:56)

It's sarcasm. It's chaos. Not that big of a deal. It's the only show where I can destroy something, not because it's wrong, but just because it mildly annoys me. It's everything I've always, always want. The show airs on Friday night, 7:30pm Eastern. I know not exactly late night, unless you're Joe Biden, in which case it's three hours past mandatory pudding. Only on Dailywire, plus only for members. Ben After Dark. Joining us online to discuss this and many other subjects is one of the wisest people in America. Wisdom is in short supply. Professor Robert George McCormick, professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, director of Princeton's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has a brand new book titled Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth. Professor, thanks so much for joining the show. I really appreciate it.

Caroline Levitt (38:37)

It's a great pleasure as always, Ben. Thanks for having me on the show.

Ben Shapiro (38:41)

So in your book, you talk about the modern age of feeling. And I've been talking about this in the context of the disconnect between the world online and the world of reality that the world online, which promotes narratives, these sort of viral narratives that go very, very hot. People get very passionate about them and the world of Reality, where it turns out most people don't even know about those things or care about those things, that that gap is creating real problems in American life. And it underscores, I think, what you're talking about, which is an emphasis on short form content that generates emotional reactivity as opposed to the sort of genuine arguments that allow for discussion, agreement and truth seeking.

Caroline Levitt (39:17)

Yeah, that certainly is right. I mean, we had all hoped at the beginning that the Internet would give people access to more information, expose people to more perspectives, and that as a result of that we would all be better off. We would have a better shot at getting at the truth of things because we'd have more exposure to more ideas, more arguments, and easier access to information. We wouldn't be stuck with three networks and a handful of newspapers and so forth. But there has been a dark side to social media and there's been a dark side to the Internet. Confusion, short narratives, kind of grotesque emotivism that seems to have gripped the country, especially younger generations, but not exclusively. So we have to say now, Ben, it's not going away. The Internet's not going away. Social media are not going away. So we can't just wish them away. We're going to have to reform them. We're going to have to bring to the Internet and bring to social media voices that are actually sane and reasonable and that don't take the shortcuts of appealing to emotion and feeling, but actually provide reliable information, make genuine arguments, do business in what I call the proper currency of intellectual discourse, A currency consisting of reasons and evidence and arguments.

Ben Shapiro (40:34)

So, professor, that obviously sounds like a real uphill battle in the moment, given it is forces stacked on the other side. So I mean, how do we go about fighting that? Because this is a real thing that's happening to enormous number of people. Conspiracism, for example, is running rife on both sides of the political aisle right now, because that is emotionally driven. I mean, conspiracy theories are typically driven by an appeal to emotion in the absence of fact. And in fact, the absence of fact is taken as support for the theory. Absence of evidence is not evidence that your theory is wrong. It's evidence that your theory is right. It's just somebody is hiding the actual truth. That is an emotional argument. It's not a logical argument. There's no actual way to debunk it. So how do we go to sort of the first principles? How do. How do we get people to engage their reasoning centers rather than. Than their emotional centers, which when in the moment at least, it Feels so much more satisfying to sort of go with the amygdala. The amygdala response to any event.

Caroline Levitt (41:26)

Well, let's look at history. And of course, history is filled with evil and carnage and bad things that we human beings have done to each other. But let's look at the good moments. Let's look at when actual progress, real progress, the real thing has been made, whether it's in overcoming slavery or establishing civil liberty or republican government, whatever it is, how did those good things happen? And there's something that we find as a constant throughout, and that is people who stepped forward to provide models for other people. Progress has been made when it's genuine progress and when it has been made in no small measure by the presence of people who became heroes and saints, they modeled for other people what it means to be a good person, what it means to be a truth seeker, what it means to stand up for Republican government or civil liberty or against slavery or against racism or whatever the evil was of the day that someone needed to stand up against. It was always hard. It was always an uphill battle. It always looked impossible, Ben. But people will follow the example of leaders, of heroes and saints, of people who make sacrifices and model the kind of behavior that we'd like to see spread abroad in the culture.

Ben Shapiro (42:49)

So I think part of that, professor, is the reinstitution of trust in institutions. And I know that's sort of a. A strange anti narrative point these days because there's so much distrust in our institutions, and I think for so many good reasons. I think a lot of our institutions were basically hollowed out, emptied out, and then worn around as though they still had institutional legitimacy after they'd already been burned out from the inside. But how do you rebuild trust in institutions here? I'm thinking of not just the American government and the institutions of American government, which of course, I think that a healthy amount of distrust of American government and its interventions is obviously warranted. But here I'm talking about even things that are as basic as church. You know, the lack of trust in institutional churches, for example, the lack of trust even in family structure. These things have really gone the way of the dodo. But how do you reinstitute those? And how long a project is that? Because I think one of the disheartening things about this moment is that it takes generations to build up institutional trust, and it takes about one second to destroy it.

Caroline Levitt (43:46)

That's exactly right. You've hit the nail on the head here, Ben. So what is, I think, quite unprecedented or if it's not entirely unprecedented, it's been a long time since we were in this condition, is the literal collapse of trust in the principal institutions of culture, the institutions that transmit culture to each new generation. Certainly in my lifetime, in my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents, lifetime trust has never been so low. But you're right about something else. The institutions earned that distrust by their own failures. And you're also right that it's not just the institutions of government, it's the institutions of journalism, it's the institutions of religion, it's more broadly the institutions of culture. Now, how do you earn it back? That's a slow and difficult process, but you do it by doing the right thing and doing it for the right reason and doing it when it's hard standing up in the face of mobs, standing up in the face of kind of overwhelming public opinion or the passions of the day. And again, it requires leadership, it requires saints and heroes, people who will do the hard stuff. How long a project is it? 50 year project, maybe 100 year project, maybe a 200 year project. But if we're going to get anywhere, we've got to begin now. We're beginning at a very, very low point, even trust in institutions that have historically had high levels of trust, the judiciary, the military. Trust has collapsed in these institutions and you cannot do without them. I mean, there's a kind of dream, a kind of anarchist dream that, well, we can do without institutions. We can live as individuals. Now, it doesn't work that way. It requires institutions to transmit whatever is good about a culture, to transmit culture to each new generation.

Ben Shapiro (45:36)

Well, as Professor Robert George, his brand new book is Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth. It is definitely worth the read, as is everything that he does. Professor George, really appreciate the time, thank you.

Caroline Levitt (45:45)

It's a pleasure to be with you again, Ben.

Ben Shapiro (45:47)

Meanwhile, the President is in fact doing things that helped the American people. On Thursday night, Republicans in the House Rules Committee moved to push forward the $9 billion rescission. The House passed it and they sent it to President Trump's desk for a signature. So that means defunding of NPR. The vote was 216 to 213. Only two Republicans opposed it. These rescission moves are excellent. They are good. They're cutting a bunch of wasteful government spending, including to, again, publicly funded radio. That is just left wing propaganda. And that is a perfectly worthwhile and good thing. It also includes cuts to usaid, which of course is absolutely worthwhile. Now, again, there's foreign spending that we should do in order to counter Chinese spending. Chinese, they use their money in order to build their soft power around the globe ranging from Africa to Latin America. And sure, we should also use soft power to fight the Chinese in these arenas. But USAID had basically just become a bankroll for a bunch of left wing causes. That's actually particularly clear when you see a new memo released by the Committee on the Judiciary over at the House of Representatives talking about the use of grants, cooperative agreements or other awards received by the USAID or State Department and given to NGOs in for example, Israel, where they basically funded a bunch of the protesters in the streets for the years leading up to October 7th. So essentially your taxpayer dollars, we're, we're here, we're not talking about military ideas, we're talking about literally going to NGOs who are putting hundreds of thousands of people in the streets to protest the government of Israel. And so that is where much of the money was going in. USA is going to not only useless but counterproductive left wing agit prop. So the fact that recision is going to cut a lot of that is definitely a good thing. Meanwhile, President Trump is pushing forward the so called Genius Act. Apparently according to Axios. After huddling in Speaker Mike Johnson's office, members of the House Freedom Caucus switched their votes to yes, ending a nearly 10 hour standoff. House GOP leadership unlocked support for the vote by agreeing to attach one of the key crypto measures, the anti CBDC Surveillance State act, to the must pass National Defense Authorization Act. That would be to ban the government from having its own cryptocurrency. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he spoke with Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday about adding the provision to the ndaa. So the, the Genius Act. I asked our friends and sponsors over at Perplexity what exactly is in the Genius Act? And what it does is it creates a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. So stablecoins are essentially crypto assets that are pegged to the value of the dollar. Now, they're not necessarily one to one. It's not as though you buy a stablecoin and if you could turn it in for a dollar, and this is one of the things the Genius act was designed to do, is designed to put regulations on anything calling itself a stable coin. Bitcoin is not a stable coin. Bitcoin is tied essentially to the widespread public adoption of Bitcoin itself. It's its own currency, it's its own cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are supposedly tied to the value of the underlying asset, in this case, for example, the United States dollar. And so what the Genius act was designed to do was provide some stability in the stablecoin market and then let a thousand flowers bloom. Or you can buy a stable coin is worth half a dollar or a stablecoin that is worth a dollar. According to Perplexity, the main objectives were to impose strict requirements on stablecoin stablecoin issuers to ensure that these digital tokens are fully backed by high quality liquid reserves. It's designed to prevent the kinds of losses seen during previous crypto crashes and guarantees that holders can actually redeem those coins for cash at any time. So it turns stable coins into an actual usable, tradable and. And stable commodity. They're actually stable coins, right? They're not just cryptos, they're stable coins. The al. The other goal was to mandate anti money laundering compliance AML and prohibit risky reserve practices and requires all issuers, including those abroad, to obey U.S. sanctions and AML laws if they do business with U.S. customers. So the goal here is to not allow stable coins pegged to the US dollars to, to essentially act as a workaround to move into sanctioned areas like, say, Iran or Russia. It'll also help preserve the US Dollar's dominance because the law aims to strengthen the role of the dollar in the global digital economy. So instead of necessarily buying Bitcoin as a hedge against the dollar, you're now going to buy a stable coin, which is essentially a crypto version of the dollar. That is the, that is the goal here. So is that a good thing? Well, I mean, it's being pushed inside the administration by tech Bros Like David Sachs. So my answer here would be yes, this is a good thing. It does in fact, help innovation. Meanwhile, the White House is preparing an executive order targeting woke AI and it's outlining the President's vision to win the AI race with China, which of course is deeply important. AI is the technology that is going to be dominating the next several generations of human life at a minimum. According to the Wall Street Journal, White House officials are preparing an executive order targeting tech companies with what they see as woke artificial intelligence models going after dei. The order would dictate that AI companies getting federal contracts be politically neutral and unbiased in their AI models, an effort to combat what administration officials see as a liberal bias in some of those models. And again, this is absolutely true. There, there are preset standards that are used by these AIs in order to dictate sort of safety standards. And the goal here would be to say that you can't have a safety standard on an AI that ignores, for example, basic biological fact like men exist and women exist and a man cannot become a woman. The trend has been troubling. AIs are David Sachs and Sriram Krishnan, senior White House Policy advisor for AI. And you'll recall he was involved tangentially, he was just. His name was used in a sort of foolish and I think not particularly productive debate over H1B visas. There's an interesting conversation to be had. I'm not sure why I was about Sriram, but this move by the White House to make more neutral these AI tools is definitely a good and useful thing. So President Trump continues to win victories. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to target illegal immigration. Last night, Caroline Levitt said that any suggestion that there was going to be amnesty for illegal immigrants, that that is.

Professor Robert George (51:45)

Not a thing from my understanding. The White House nor the president has actually read through this legislation. We've been focused on, of course, the one big beautiful bill which passed, which is another historic accomplishment of this president in record time, the genius act this week, the rescissions package that. That's been the focus of the White House. But the President has made it very clear he will not support amnesty for illegal aliens in any way.

Ben Shapiro (52:09)

So, again, can't be clearer than that. By the way, again, the left is going nuts over President Trump's immigration policy, but they are not so soto voce admitting that many, many illegal immigrants are receiving federal tax benefits, including things like food stamps. Here's Representative Pramila Jayapal accidentally admitting this. Yesterday, I was at a food bank.

Professor Robert George (52:28)

In my district talking about the snap cuts, the horrible snap cuts and Medicaid cuts. And they told me that people are not even showing up to Head Start where they get their food.

Ben Shapiro (52:40)

They're not showing up to the food banks because they're afraid.

Professor Robert George (52:43)

And it's not just undocumented immigrants. It is people of all legal statuses.

Ben Shapiro (52:50)

It's undocumented immigrants who have been here for 20 years. Why, oh why, are Democrats so mistrusted on illegal immigration? It's a mystery wrapped in, wait for it, an enigma. No one knows why, why so many people are exercised about illegal immigration, except for the vast majority of American citizens. Yeah, the left is terminally online. I've talked about the right being terminally online. The left is also terminally online, and it puts them in severe electoral danger. Alrighty, Speaking of terminally online, the Democrats terminally online. It's a real problem for Them. There is a brand new poll out and it shows actually that Democrats are down in the congressional generic ballot by five points, which is kind of insane. I mean, we are 18 months out from the next election cycle and they are trailing, they're not in good shape. And the reason for that is they are wildly unpopular. There's a point Jake Tapper was making over on cnn. A brand new CNN poll out today shows the Democrats favorability among Americans. It is at its lowest point in the history of CNN's polling back to 1992. Only 28% of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably. Those are really terrible numbers, truly awful numbers. Well, why is that? Because the Democratic Party is split between the traditionalist Democrats who seem to be sort of do nothing Democrats for the base and the base Democrats who are embracing communism, socialism and third worldism, which is a move, I will say it's, I'm not sure a lot of Americans are in favor of that move. Representative Ro Khanna of California, who of course has been a guest on the show yesterday, he came out and endorsed Zoran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race. I will endorse him. Look, he's a very charismatic, relatable person and he spent a lot of time talking about the cost of living in New York, in this country, and how we address it. How do we create good paying jobs, how do we give people a raise, how do we make sure that the cost of rent, the cost of child care, the cost of health care comes down. And that's important for the Democratic Party to start talking about these economic issues. Well, you know, if this is the move you want to make, go for it. Democrats, like, really? I encourage you to do all of this because you are now endorsing a guy based on his charisma who has supported the abolition of private property. That seems like a very weird thing to do in the world financial hub, New York City. But I guess if you guys want to go with it and then make that the model for national governance, you can try it. My platform is that every single person should have housing.

Professor Robert George (55:14)

And I think faced with these two.

Ben Shapiro (55:15)

Options, the system has hundreds of thousands.

Professor Robert George (55:19)

Of people unhoused, right?

Ben Shapiro (55:21)

For, for what?

Professor Robert George (55:23)

And if, if there was any system.

Ben Shapiro (55:26)

That could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it, you know, just a statewide housing guarantee, it is preferable to what is going on right now. So if you could abolish private property, that would be preferable to people living unhoused. I love when people, they Say people living unhoused. So public housing and homeless shelters are available in all major American cities for people who are destitute. And we, of course have welfare programs for people who are destitute. The vast majority of people who are living on the streets are either mentally ill or drug abusers or both. It is a serious, real problem in major American cities. But his solution is abolish private property, which stands alongside abolish capitalism and also abolish Western civilization because you have to globalize the intifada. Good luck with this. When Tim Walls is the moderate in your party, you are in serious trouble. Here was Tim Walls yesterday saying they need to be more pro business. Donald Trump sells snake oil or whatever. But it's a, it's capturing this idea of wealth and being able to be successful, which we, as Democrats, we want people to pay their fair share. But why are we against people being successful like that? We, we can't be. Why are we against. We should talk about businesses. Not all businesses exploit their workers. And we get ourselves stuck in that, oh, well, I think we lose them. I mean, why not more of this? And the answer is because the base doesn't like this very much. Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, he is going out against Mamdani. And this is the, this is the attack that the Democrats should be taking if they had any brains at all. You'll hear no ambiguity out of my mouth. We do not. Let me hear a job killing socialist. We don't need a job killing socialist who wants to raise taxes and supports anti Semitic rhetoric. Right. In a city with the highest taxes in the country and the largest Jewish population. Are you surprised? That's not how many. So again, if Democrats are smart, this is how they'd move. Fortunately for Republicans, they apparently are not. Now, in other news, the White House released a letter yesterday about President Trump's health condition. That health condition is apparently a mild but chronic illness related to his age. He has chronic venous insufficiency, a condition in which the legs have trouble delivering blood back to the heart. That is why he has some swollen ankles. Caroline Levitt described the diagnosis yesterday.

Professor Robert George (57:44)

The President underwent a comprehensive examination, including diagnostic vascular studies, bilateral lower extremity vent vet venous Doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency AB9 in common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70. Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease. Additionally, recent photos of the President have shown minor bruising on the back of his hand. This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen. This is a well known and benign side effect of aspirin therapy. And the President remains in excellent health.

Ben Shapiro (58:36)

So again, there are people who are trying to claim that the President is unhealthy. That of course is not true. Now in other news, speaking of places that actually are unhealthy, I have to say Europe may be cooked. I mean truly cooked. Apparently the UK has now moved to lower the voting age to 16 to 16 years old. Have you ever met a 16 year old? Have these people ever met a 16 year old? I mean, I understand that for liberals who apparently believe that we should all live like we're 16 years old, you know, dependent on someone else with no actual responsibility for our own actions, that sure, why not have 16 year olds vote? I mean, they don't have jobs, they live off somebody else's paycheck. And that's precisely the kind of people that presumably the left would love voting. It's not a rip on what 16 year olds will become, but if you've ever met a 16 year old, let's just say that the prefrontal cortex is not well developed enough to withhold the passions of the amygdala. But here's Keir Starmer, the cloddish Labor Prime Minister of Great Britain, saying that they're going to lower the country's voting age to 16.

Caroline Levitt (59:37)

I think it's really important that 16 and 17 year olds have the vote because they're old enough to go out to work, they're old enough to pay taxes. So to pay in. And I think if you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on which way the government should go. So I'm really pleased that we're able to bring more young people into our democracy and give them the chance to have a say over how their taxes are going to be paid and what they're going to be used for.

Ben Shapiro (60:08)

So I'm just going to point out that that's crazy. That that's crazy. If the idea is that you pay tax money into the government and therefore you should vote, then okay, let's take the corollary. If you don't pay taxes, you shouldn't vote. Is he up for that? I feel like not. I feel like not, because then I think that the voting base would turn the other way as far as the idea that lots and lots of people in the UK are serving in the military at the age of 16 and 17. So it is true that one third apparently of the UK's army intake was under 18. 16 year olds make up the single largest year group. But that means like 2500 to 3016 and 17 year olds are joining the regular armed forces every year, like 2500-3000, according to our sponsors over at Perplexity. And now if I ask, so how many 16 and 17 year olds are there in the UK? If the idea is you can serve in the military and like 2500 to 3000 of you every year are joining the military. The total number of 16 year olds estimated in the UK is 741,000. The estimated number of 17 year olds is 723,000. So you're talking about 1.5 million votes, essentially because 2500 people join the military at this age. I don't think it's about that for the, for the Labor Party. I think this is about changing the voting base, of course, and making it easier for them to win elections. A totally idiotic idea, but we'll see how it works out for them because the UK has been pursuing idiotic idea after idiotic idea day after day after day. Alrighty. Coming up on the Ben Shapiro show, the strangest story of the day. This is just for our members. Apparently the rule of the day is never go to a Coldplay concert. Or at least don't cheat on your wife at a Coldplay concert. Or at least don't get caught on the big screen cheating on your wife at a Coldplay concert. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us there.