Matt Van Epps (10:44)

On the Venezuela boat strike. If there were a second strike that killed wounded people wounded in the first strike, are you thinking that would be legal?

President Donald Trump (10:53)

I don't know that that happened. And Pete said he did not want them. He didn't even know what people were talking about. So we'll look at, we'll look into it. But no, I wouldn't have want wanted that. Not a second Strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine. And if there were two people around. But Pete said that didn't happen.

Caroline Levitt (11:13)

Does that make you.

President Donald Trump (11:13)

I have great confidence saying there's no second strike.

Ben Shapiro (11:17)

I don't know.

President Donald Trump (11:17)

I'm going to find out about it. But Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.

Ben Shapiro (11:24)

Okay, so President Trump says that Pete Hegseth did not order the death of the people in the water. And this is the real question here is whether the second strike was authorized by Pete Hegseth knowing that people were actually in the water and drowning, or that they were clinging to life and basically they were killed while wounded. Caroline Levitt, the White House press Secretary, came out yesterday and read a statement at the White House.

Caroline Levitt (11:47)

President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question, on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.

Ben Shapiro (12:18)

Okay, so again, the contention here is actually that. That there was a general or given to take out the boat, and that maybe Admiral Bradley is the person who actually gave the order to conduct a second strike, if, in fact, a second strike was conducted. Caroline Levitt did say that Pete Hegseth did not order that everyone be killed, because again, that would possibly violate war crime statutes.

Caroline Levitt (12:42)

Thank you, Caroline. So just to be clear, to clarify.

Commercial Narrator (12:45)

On Jackie and Gabe, did Admiral Bradley.

Caroline Levitt (12:49)

Order that second strike? Because there were still survivors after the initial strike. Again, as I read for you, Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority in the law. He directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat of narco terrorists to the United States was completely eliminated.

Commercial Narrator (13:06)

Was the initial order from Secretary Hegseth everyone be killed?

Caroline Levitt (13:11)

And did that come from President Trump? I saw that quoted in a Washington Post story. I would reject that the Secretary of War ever said that. However, the President has made it quite clear that if narco terrorists again are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them, and that's what this administration is doing.

Ben Shapiro (13:31)

Okay, so there actually doesn't seem to be a legal dispute nearly as much as a factual dispute about what actually happened. Secretary Hegseth, for his part, put out a statement, quote, let's make one thing crystal clear. Admiral Mitch Bradley's an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100 support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made on the September 2nd mission and all other sins. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this Department of War says we have the back of our warriors, we mean it. Now the New York Times did have a follow up piece that came out late yesterday in which they seem to admit that Hegseth did not give a general kill order, especially for people who are already or to combat. According to the New York Times, the Trump administration on Monday defended the legality of that September 2nd attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea as calls grew in Congress to examine whether a follow up missile strike that killed survivors amounted to a crime. According to five U.S. officials who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter under investigation, Mr. Hegseth ahead of the September 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs. But each official said Mr. Hegseth directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things. And the official said his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast. So according to every single source, it doesn't sound like Hegseth did anything wrong. It sounds like Hegseth said kill the people on the boat. So they tried to, they fired some sort of hellfire missile at the people on the boat, they blew up the boat and then there were survivors. And if there was a second strike, he did not come back in and say kill those people. It was not in response to surveillance footage showing survivors. And he didn't actually say in the original order, oh yeah, by the way, if they're wounded in order combat, you should kill them anyway. Apparently Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat. As the operation unfolded. According to these sources, Hegseth did not give any further orders to him. They were clarifying these officials the sequence of events. Again, that is different from the original report in the Washington Post which said that Bradley ordered the second strike to fulfill a directive by Hexef to kill everyone. So that does sound as though it was bad reporting from the Washington Post. And if there's a question, the question now falls on Admiral Bradley as to why he ordered follow up strikes. If people were in fact or to combat, or maybe they weren't order combat in the first place. All of this seems like a convenient way of simply providing support to the Democrats doing what was quite a bad thing a couple of weeks ago when they released that video telling members of the military not to obey orders. It feels ginned up. It feels as though the Washington Post went ahead and reported a story on extraordinarily thin sourcing to create the possibility of an illegal order that it turns out may not have been illegal at all in order to provide support for the Democratic narrative that this administration is lawless and that only a moderate military veteran who might be running in 2028 can step into the breach. And again, it'll be interesting to see what happens here, but this does feel like the predicate for a move by the Democratic Party to elevate somebody like a senator. Mark Kelly, for example. So if you check the Cal market right now, Kalshee is one of our sponsors, what you will see is that Gavin Newsom is far and away the leader right now in terms of who is most likely to be the Democratic presidential nominee. He's about 37% on the calcium markets. Alexander Ocasio Cortez at 10, and then you've got Josh Shapiro at 6, Pete Buttigieg at 6, Kamala Harris at 5. Mark Kelly is all the way down at 2%. But again, it is extremely early right now, like really, really early. And so it is quite possible that you could see somebody like Mark Kelly make some sort of fairly strong move. Mark Kelly did win a narrow election originally in the Senate in 2020 over Martha McSally. He won 51 to 48, and then he won again over Blake Masters, 51 to 46 a couple of years later when the special election was over. It's still a two year term and then he has a full term that goes until 2028. Kelly, of course, is a military veteran. He is an astronaut. He tends to portray himself as a, as a moderate. Even though he voted with Joe Biden in the senate something like 95% of the time. He tries to portray himself as a middle of the road moderate. Kyrsten Sinema, who was of course the other Democratic senator who then turned independent and now is no longer in the Senate. Ruben Gallego has filled that seat. She was an actual moderate. Like she stood up against Democratic predations with regard to the filibuster. Kelly is a down the line Democrat, but he wants to present as a moderate. And this is why I say it seems to me the Democrats are trying to elevate some of their more moderate voices, at least the ones who are not talking openly about dei transfer and the rest of their sort of radical issue set already coming up. Senator Mark Kelly does that guy have presidential aspirations? It kind of feels like at first when we started Daily Wire, it felt like we had to figure everything out with minimal help, editorial guidelines, studio setup, production schedule, branding. It was overwhelming. New decisions were needed daily. Finding that one tool that simplifies everything when starting a business becomes a game changer and a lifesaver for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the e commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. We even use it for our own daily wire shop to make sure things are running smoothly and efficiently so you can get the goods. 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Here he was yesterday sounding the alarm on Pete Hegsev.

Senator Mark Kelly (20:50)

I was, I was talking about this from the beginning of this operation that the thing that I am most concerned about is the very difficult situations that this Secretary of Defense is going to put service members into. And it's because this guy is so unqualified for the job. I mean, think about this. He runs around on a stage talking about lethality and warrior ethos and killing people. We have the most common, competent, capable military this planet has ever seen by far. That's not the message that needs to come from the Secretary of Defense.

Ben Shapiro (21:39)

Okay, so again, Kelly is, by the way, promoting himself in the middle of this little address about Pete Hegseth. He talked about his own record and all the fighting that he'd done and the fact that he was a braver man than President Trump and all of the rest of it. And Kelly then went on CNN to double down on this. I mean, the Washington Post says they were clinging to the wreckage, but whatever their survivors, we know there were survivors. Are you allowed to then attack the survivors?

Senator Mark Kelly (22:05)

Absolutely not. I sunk a OSA 2 missile patrol boat. It was in the middle of night, like 3am with two cluster munitions in Kuwait harbor. And then we. Laughs. We were, you know, out a palm of the troop carrier in the Persian Gulf during the day, getting shot at by. There were two ships. One of them was shooting at us. No, you don't do that. Everybody knows that. You know, that is against the Geneva Conventions. That's against the laws of war, which we should always be abiding by. We're the United States of America. We are Not Russia. We're not Iraq, we're not Iran. We have to hold our people to a higher standard. This is really serious.

Ben Shapiro (22:41)

So the White House. Okay. Again, I think this is all part of an attempt by Democrats to sort of push themselves toward a moderate middle by suggesting that war crimes have been committed here. Hakeem Jeffries over in the House, House minority leader, who if trend told, could soon be the speaker of the House. He was raging about this yesterday.

Hakeem Jeffries (23:01)

Everybody on Capitol Hill knows he should have never been confirmed. It's a shame. It's because these Senate Republicans, just like House Republicans, are nothing more than puppets for Donald Trump's extreme policies. That's why they put Pete Hegseth into that position when they knew he was woefully unqualified. And now we have real evidence that extrajudicial killings are taking place. That's the stain on America's leadership in the free world, which is why our international standing is plummeting. And of course, the standing of the Republican Party is a complete and total disaster here in the United States of America.

Ben Shapiro (23:47)

Again, I will give credit to the Democrats for being clever right here. And it appears that this may be bearing some fruit. So today there's a special election in Tennessee's 7th congressional district. That district should be a cakewalk for Republicans. It should be. That is a district that Mark Green, who was the incumbent in the last 2024 congressional election cycle, he won that seat by 70,000 votes. He won by a 20 point margin, the Tennessee 7. This is a heavy red district. And yet right now, if you look at the polling, this district is incredibly, incredibly close. According to the Daily Wire. The reputation of our state is on the line, said Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Hagerty as he addressed several hundred Republican voters gathered Monday morning to rally support for congressional candidate Matt Van Epps one day before the special election that is taking place today. The temperatures outside were chilly. The mood of Republican officials inside the rally was confident but but urgent. Most said they believe Van Epps will win the race for Tennessee's 7th congressional district. The margins could be closer than what would typically be expected in the Republican favorable district. He is facing off Van Epps against a state Democratic representative named Afton Bain, who's a far left candidate who supports trans procedures on kids and wants to roll back Tennessee's pro life protections. Democrats have been pouring millions and millions of dollars into the race. Hagerty said it's going to come down to numbers. The Democrats have seen an opportunity counting on us to slide into December 2nd haven't enjoyed Thanksgiving and not thinking the seat is at risk. The fact that this seat is even close speaks to a real problem for Republicans. Republican officials say they believe Van EPPS will win by 7 to 10%. But again, remember in the last election cycle this was a 20 point margin, like a 20 point margin. And the Democrat in this race, again, she is trying to elide some of the more controversial issues, but she herself is pretty radical. So here, for example, is these Tennessee Democrat Afton Bain being asked about whether there ought to be more policing or defunding of the police.

Casey Hunt (25:40)

Crime is of course also was a major issue in the presidential election. And I know there are some old posts. You've been asked about those old posts a number of times. My question for you today is whether more money for cops on the streets in the district you hope to represent would help fight crime. Would you like more money for more cops on the streets in your district?

Afton Bain (26:02)

So those past comments were at a time when I was a private citizen as an activist and organizer. And now as a Tennessee Lawmaker, I represent 40,000 individual opinions and political thoughts.

Casey Hunt (26:15)

What do you think now? Would more money for cops be good or bad?

Afton Bain (26:20)

I think it depends on what the community wants. And so there I've worked with communities at least my constituents want to ensure that there is investment in their community for community safety, community protection, mental health services. And that's what I'm hearing from at least my constituents.

Casey Hunt (26:38)

All right, fair enough.

Ben Shapiro (26:41)

Okay, so it's not fair enough because again, she's not actually giving an answer there. She's a radical who is posing as a quasi moderate, like a little bit. She's been called the AOC of Tennessee for a reason. Here is CNN's Casey Hunt asking her about it.

Casey Hunt (26:56)

Where would you place yourself when you think about all of the other Democrats on the national stage? And you are taking a turn on the national stage because of the way this race has been going. The president's labeled you the AOC of Tennessee. Are you the AOC of Tennessee?

Afton Bain (27:15)

I resonate with Democrats who have been trying to lower costs for working families and those that don't take corporate pac. Tennessee is a state that has been bought and sold to the highest bidder. And the reason this race is so close is because voters in the 7th district want someone who is not going to sell out to special interest but will represent the people. And that's why I hope we will be able to pull out this win tomorrow.

Ben Shapiro (27:39)

Now again, that is a great way of avoiding the answer, which is that she very much is of the AOC wing of the Democratic Party. She is expected to lose. The margin of her loss is going to matter an awful lot. Looking forward to the midterms, according to our sponsors over at Comet, a project of perplexity, I asked how many seats should Republicans be expected to lose in 2026 if they lose the Tennessee 7th congressional district in a special election? And according to Comet, if Republicans lose that district, it would be a major upset. The district is historically very conservative. It previously gave Trump and Republicans 60% of the vote. If there were a loss in Tennessee 7 to a Democrat, that would suggest that Republicans could lose above average numbers, possibly anywhere from 20 to 40 seats, depending on national mood and turnout. Coming up, we'll be joined by the Republican Congressional candidate in that Tennessee 7th district. First, this episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Like I'm on the road constantly covering news stories, political events, you name it. Between the flights and the hotel rooms, sometimes getting a proper nutritional meal is the first thing that goes out the window. But here's the thing. I've got a wife and kids at home counting on me to stay healthy. Which is why I started taking Balance of Nature's fruits and Veggies supplements. These are the original whole food supplements. 16 fruits, 15 veggies freeze dried into capsules. As somebody who keeps kosher, I appreciate there are no binders, no fillers, no flow agents, just 100% whole food ingredients. Nothing added that shouldn't be there. When I'm rushing through an airport, I can take them with water. If I'm in the car between interviews, I can chew them. Sometimes I'll even open the capsules and mix that powder into my smoothies. And however my day is going, they go with me. Balance of Nature delivers the natural goodness of fruits, vegetables, spices, fibers just as nature intended. Which means Even when I'm 2,000 miles from home, I'm still taking care of myself the way my family needs me to. I love Balance of Nature. It means that I'm healthy. I'm taking it on the road with me. I'm popping into protein smoothies. Plus they are launching a fantastic new product. Balance of Nature's freeze dried snacks are 100% real fruit, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, strawberries freeze dried to lock in flavor and give that perfect Crunch. Go to balanceofnature.com Get a free variety snack pack plus a free preferred customer membership with your first set of balance of Nature supplements. Head on over to balanceofnature.com to claim this limited Time offer before it ends. Also, our Cyber week continues with our best deal that we offer all year long. 50% off all Daily Wire plus annual memberships. That gets you everything, every show, every film, every investigation and the first chance to watch the epic seven part cinematic series, the Pen Dragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin. All Access members watch episodes one and two on Christmas Day. Everybody else, January 22nd. You're not going to see this price again for a full year. Join now@daily wire.com subscribe or kiss that deal goodbye. Well, joining us online is the man standing in the breach, Matt Van Eps. Matt, of course, is a West Point grad. He has a, a long and outstanding career and now he's running in what is a shockingly tight race in the Tennessee 7th. Matt, thanks so much for taking the time.

Matt Van Epps (30:20)

Ben, thank you so much. Honor to be on with you.

Ben Shapiro (30:24)

So why don't we talk about the state of the race. Tell us about your opponent and tell us about yourself.

Matt Van Epps (30:28)

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, the distinction here between the two of us cannot be more clear. I'm a Christian, a husband, a father, an America first conservative and a combat veteran. I'm a West Point graduate. I served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a, as a helicopter pilot to include Service with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers with real world boots on the ground leadership experience. And you contrast that with my opponent who is a socialist, has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America who wants new and higher taxes to fund her socialist agenda that will skyrocket our cost of living. We are going to work to decrease cost of living to drive America first forward. My opponent wants to defund the police. She wants to abolish prisons. She is a crazy far left radical and we've got to stand against that. And that's what we're going to do when we win decisively today. And we're, we're up right now and we're driving a whole lot of folks out to the polls today.

Ben Shapiro (31:27)

Yeah. So Matt, obviously Democrats have been pouring money into this race. They've had a bunch of big names who've shown up in the district, including Kamala Harris, who made her first post election surrogate speech for your opponent, as well as AOC who showed up at a virtual rally alongside Al Gore. There's been an attempt by Democrats to at least drive the margin down. So even if she loses, she doesn't lose by that much because of course, this is a historically very conservative district. How much does margin of victory matter tonight as Opposed to just victory.

Matt Van Epps (31:56)

Well, we, we want to win. We want to win by as much as possible, but here I think it's, it's a win. This is with special Election Dynamics. You know, it's, it's a, a time of year where folks are not used to going to the polls right after Thanksgiving. We've done a whole lot of work to show just who our opponent is. They're not attack ads. It's just showing her, her public statements and what she believes in, which is the polar opposite of us. We stand with law enforcement, we back the blue. We're going to drive down taxes, cut, cut red tape. And as we've, we've also worked to get out the vote, and we're seeing that right now. We've got reports coming back in from polling locations across the district that are very favorable to us. We, we won early voting and we want to keep pushing forward to get the biggest margin possible. And Ben, I'll tell you, we built a coalition in this since the primary, honored to be endorsed by the president. Speaker Johnson was with me campaigning all day yesterday. We went to probably 10 events yesterday, and I've got over 50 local endorsements from leaders across the 14 counties, business leaders, farmers, you name it, and we've, we've got the coalition, and I'm so proud of that. And that's, that's what's going to take us to victory today.

Ben Shapiro (33:07)

So, Matt, I think the big question obviously on everybody's mind is aside from the special election dynamics, the fact that it's held in an off year, at a time of the year when, when people aren't used to voting, as you say, you know, this isn't a district that, that should be heavily Republican. So what do you think are sort of the national dynamics that Republicans should worry about come 2026, the issues they should be focusing on come 2026, given the fact that this district is obviously looking more competitive than otherwise anyone would suspect.

Matt Van Epps (33:32)

Well, we're, we're talking a lot about affordability, about housing, health care, child care, energy, keeping taxes low, cutting red tape, keeping our borders secure, keeping men out of women's sports, getting really good jobs. And so we've, we've focused a lot on that. We've heard about that. We've got a significant rural population, too, a lot of farmers. And so I stand with, with our farmers. I did not grow up on a farm, but met with Farm Bureau a number of times, met with farmers across the district, been endorsed by, by farmers. And we're going to Fight hard for them. For Fort Campbell is in District where I serve with the 160th in Montgomery county in Clarksville. So military and veterans, very important. And we'll, we'll be fighting hard for them from day one.

Ben Shapiro (34:18)

Well, that is Matt Van Epps. He is running in the Tennessee 7th congressional district. It is the biggest race of the year so far and we hope that he not only wins the race, but that he blows out his socialistic opponent. Matt Van Eps, thanks so much for taking the time. Good luck in the race today and thank you, sir.

Matt Van Epps (34:33)

Really appreciate it.

Ben Shapiro (34:34)

Well, meanwhile, the President of the United States. Well, we are fighting an actual war on narco terrorists in the Caribbean. And while we're putting pressure on Venezuela militarily not to ship fentanyl up to the United States, up to and including, by the way, pressure for possible regime change in Venezuela, the President made a very odd move over the course of the last few days. He is apparently now considering the pardon of the ex president of Honduras who flooded America with drugs. And I honestly cannot explain this. I have long been an advocate of getting rid of the pardon power. I think the pardon power is generally a disaster area. I think it's bad for governors, I think it's bad for presidents. It seems to me that having one person with the ability to simply pardon people is a bizarre holdover from monarchy. If you actually want the criminal justice system to mean anything, it means that the consequences have to attend to the crimes. And we've had too many situations dating all the way back to Bill Clinton of corruption being implicit in the pardon power. You think of Denise Rich and Mark Rich and the sort of money that was changing hands during the Hillary Clinton New York senatorial race back in 2000 while Bill Clinton was pardoning Mark Rich. I mean, this has been a long time problem in the United States. I do not like that power. The conservative solution, by the way, typically to abuse of power is to take away power from the government. The left wing solution typically is to maintain the power and then use it themselves. Not always true, but largely true in this case. I just don't understand the President's logic here. According to the New York Times, he once boasted he would quote, stuff the drugs up the gringo's noses. He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras. A man was killed in prison to protect him. At the federal trial of Juan Orlando Hernandez in New York, testimony and evidence showed how the former President maintained Honduras as a bastion of the global drug Trade. He orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy the that prosecutors said raked in millions for cartels while keeping Honduras one of Central America's poorest, most violent and most corrupt countries. Last year, Hernandez was convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison. It was one of the most sweeping drug trafficking cases to come before a US Court since the trial of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega three decades before. But on Friday, President Trump announced he would pardon Hernandez, who he said was a victim of political persecution. It is not clear why, why he believes that is the case. Apparently, Hernandez's two week trial in Manhattan offered a glimpse into a world of corruption and drug running spanning several countries. Bags of cash, a machine gun with his name emblazoned on it, bribed from El Chapo, featured heavily. Prosecutors said that Hernandez was key to a scheme that lasted more than 20 years and brought more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States. Honduras, of course, has long had ties with the United States and drug trafficking has been a major problem. So if we are fighting a war on narco terrorism, it seems to me that pardoning people who were engaged in what it was, apparently narco terrorism, I do not understand that in the slightest. Certain traffickers testified that they had bribed Hernandez. He was convicted of drug trafficking, weapons conspiracy. Apparently a letter behind the pardon has now been released. Axios says that this letter was apparently penned from Hernandez and it was part of a longtime lobbying campaign by Roger Stone, one of the scummiest people in American politics historically. Apparently, Roger Stone cast Hernandez as a victim of leftist lawfare in Honduras and President Biden's administration. He told Axios, you reached out to Trump, Roger Stone and reiterated those points. Stone claimed a pardon announcement would energize the National Party in Honduras and called Trump's attention to Hernandez's four page letter begging for clemency. In his letter to Trump, Hernandez praised President Trump, quote, I found strength from you, sir, your resilience to get back to that great office, notwithstanding the persecution and prosecution you faced. And he talks about working closely with President Trump during his first term. And then he blamed Biden, Harris and their DOJ. Okay, now again, a 45 year sentence for drug trafficking up to and including taking bribes from El Chapo. That is not, you know, a false prosecution based on mortgage statements or inflation of, of real estate assets. That's not what this is. So it's bizarre. Caroline Levitt over at the White House claimed that Hernandez was set up, which again, no evidence has been provided to that idea.

Caroline Levitt (38:56)

Cherry picking the president's statement a little bit yesterday. As he also said yesterday, the people of Honduras have highlighted to him how the former President Hernandez was set up. This was a clear Biden over prosecution. He was the president of this country. He was in the opposition party. He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras. There were some other egregious facts that come out, came out during this trial, and I would encourage you to report on them now.

Ben Shapiro (39:27)

The president himself put out a statement saying that Hernandez was treated, quote, very harshly and unfairly in his conviction, while also praising Nasri Asfura, who's a candidate for the Honduran presidency and leader of the National Party. Maybe this is played as a way to sort of boost that party. But again, I see just because Joe Biden presided over a thing, and believe me, I mean, you don't have to look very far to find my critiques of Joe Biden, who I think is perhaps the worst president in modern American history. I don't see the evidence that this person was, quote, unquote, set up. Many things can be true at once. A person can be a political opponent of an administration and also guilty of crimes with which he was charged. So this is a strange move at the very least. And again, you know, there are people like Roger Stone that exist in both parties. Using them as sources for your information, I think is a dicey move at best. Now, speaking of criminality, like actual criminality, according to the New York Post, a powerful U.S. house committee and the Treasury Department have now both launched investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walls's role in that massive fraud scheme in the Somali community that we talked about just yesterday on the program. James Comer, the House Oversight Committee chairman, told the New York Post his panel will, quote, conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walls's failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars. As a result, he said that Walls was warned about massive fraud in that pandemic food aid program, but he failed to act, even though whistleblowers were whistleblowing. And they raised concerns, he says, Comer, that they face retaliation. So it'll be interesting to see if a criminal indictment is in fact brought against Walls for some sort of corruption. Presumably, it can't just be bad politicking. It can't just be he was bad at his job, he'd actually have to show money changed hands or he was doing it for corrupt political purposes or something like that. Last year, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee issued a subpoena to Walls for records. It's unclear what information his office provided at this point. And again, some of the money that was being defrauded from the federal government ended up being sent to terrorists at Al Shabaab in Somalia, like remitted over to Somalia. Full disaster area for Tim Walls. Remember, that person was almost vice president of the United States, which is really quite shocking. Meanwhile, hubbub continues over the National Guard shooting, the murder of one National Guard member and the critical wounding of another by an Afghan refugee, Caroline Levitt. At the White House. She says that the National Guard shooting shows that the mass deportations that President Trump has talked about must proceed.

Caroline Levitt (42:03)

According to a new bombshell report from the New York Times, Somalian migrants in Minnesota have defrauded nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funded benefits. Under Democrat Governor Waltz's leadership, President Trump is putting an end to this dangerous America last approach. His position is rooted in common sense. In the wake of last week's atrocity, it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the President's mass deportation operation. America cannot allow millions upon millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be rewarded with amnesty after they broke our nation's laws to come here. They must go back to their home countries.

Ben Shapiro (42:43)

Okay, so again, this is a very strong case being made by the Trump administration and of course it is not wrong. And one of the complicating factors, as we discussed yesterday about this particular terrorist who again shot two members of the National Guard, is that this person was in fact part of a CIA program and should have been vetted when he came into the country and then was granted full asylum by the Trump administration in 2025. The story isn't quite as clear cut as I think the White House is trying to make it out to be. Here. Here's Caroline Lovett talking about the background of the shooter.

Caroline Levitt (43:13)

A foreign terrorist that the Biden administration failed to properly vet ambushed two members of of the West Virginia National Guard who were honorably serving here to keep their residents and visitors of Washington, D.C. safe. U.S. air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf was severely wounded in the attack and remains hospitalized while he continues to fight for his life. Tragically, US Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom died of her wounds. She was just 20 years old. President Trump and the entire White House are praying for Andrew's full recovery at the request of his parents and their personal phone call with the President over the weekend. And we are keeping Sarah's family and friends in our prayers during this unimaginably difficult time.

Ben Shapiro (44:01)

As I said on Friendly Fire Yesterday, you can watch our brand new episode. It's me, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, talking about these issues. There are really two issues here that need to be contemplated. One is, of course, the mass migration issue. And the Trump administration is right. Importing tens of thousands of people from places like Somalia or Afghanistan into the United States is a crazy idea. It's crazy. You can't vet all those people. Even if you do vet them for terror ties, for example, that doesn't mean that they are going to be ripe candidates for assimilation into American values. And so the Trump administration is totally right about that. The other question, of course, is that this particular person was in fact, apparently radicalized, well, in the United States, supposedly. He showed up being relatively pro America and then was radicalized into radical Islam. And this has been a long standing problem, as we mentioned yesterday on the show, that is going to require actual significant resources deployed by the FBI and DOJ to investigate domestic constituencies here in the United States and organizations that actually spread Islamic radicalism. That is a very real thing happening in the United States. I will say that, you know, on immigration, there's no question the Republicans have an advantage. They particularly have an advantage when the left continues to maintain that mass migration itself is some sort of inherent good. So yesterday, for example, Caroline Levitt was asked by a reporter, if refugees add to our national identity, which is kind of a bizarre framing of the question, can you explain what you mean by our nation's national identity and integrity and character? And how would refugees, people coming from war torn places who are seeking a safe haven in America, like many of our forebears in this room, not add.

President Donald Trump (45:41)

To our nation's integrity and character of our national identity?

Caroline Levitt (45:45)

I'll tell you what does not add to our nation's character and integrity is refugees who come here under the alleged plight of asylum and fleeing persecution and then come to the United States to abuse our system and rip off off American taxpayers? And as I pointed out the New York Times, to their credit, it was about six months too late, but they did write about how Somali immigrants in Minnesota have been ripping off American taxpayers.

Ben Shapiro (46:12)

Now, the reality is the immigration perspective of the Trump administration is not only popular, broad scale with Americans, the idea that, no, we should not be importing tens of thousands of people from third world countries. It may be the most popular element among fellow Republicans. It may be the glue that binds together the Republican coalition. One of the big questions that's happening inside sort of Republican dumb right now is what is the future of the Republican coalition beyond President Trump? Because Obviously he's turned out in 2028. Fascinating study by Manhattan Institute looking at what Republicans believe about a wide variety of issues. It's a new national survey. It's 3,000 voters, including large oversamples of black and Hispanic Republicans and 2024 Trump voters who are asked about a wide range of policy issues. And sort of fascinating. So they broke down the Republican Party into a couple of categories. Core Republicans, these would be long standing GOP voters who consistently back Republican presidential nominees since 2016 or earlier. And new entrant Republicans, these would be people who are recent first time GOP presidential voters, including people who supported Democrats in 2016 or 2020. And it's sort of fascinating to look at where people are on the issues in the Republican Party. So for example, on taxes and spending by a 2 to 1 margin, every is the broad spectrum GOP, meaning everyone who voted for Trump basically in 2024 believe that nobody should pay higher taxes, we should cut spending because government is ineffective at spending money. It's 63% of current GOP voters. Core Republicans back spending cuts 71 to 26. But new entrant Republicans, these are people who voted Trump for the first time in 2024, for example, actually favor higher taxes. This is a major gap in the Republican Party is the, the gap between sort of core Republican beliefs and the people who are now joining the Republican Party and disagree on, for example, taxes. When it comes to social issues, there is very little disagreement actually on some of these social issues. The current GOP coalition is a little split. According to the Manhattan institute, a plurality, 42% say the party should fight for traditional values across the board. One in four believes the party should push back on super woke stuff, but accepted some debates like total abortion bans or reversing same sex marriage are no longer on the table. So at the very least this would be, you know, moderate to very conservative GOP people. On conservative issues, that represents a vast majority of the party. But only 25% of the current GOP under the age of 50 believe the party should fight for traditional values across the board, which is again quite fascinating. It's illegal immigration that really puts everything together. On illegal migration, the current GOP coalition is totally unified. Only 3% say illegal immigrants should not be deported at all. 37% say as many as possible. One in three support deportations but say they should be doing it carefully. And 22% say deportations focus mainly on criminals. When it comes to legal immigration, there is pretty significant debate. Only 1 in 10 current GOP believe high skilled legal immigration should be decreased. Nearly half say it should be kept at its current level. 35% say it should be increased, actually. But 47% of new entrant Republicans support increasing high skilled immigration versus just 31% of core Republicans. So this is one of, again, several areas where these kind of new entrant Republicans are more progressive than the old guard Republicans. These are very real gaps and it's pretty fascinating to watch them play out in real time. But immigration is the thing that is sort of binding everybody together. Now, the problem for the Trump administration and probably for the Republican Party going forward is that Trump successfully shut the border. And because he successfully shut the border, that that issue has sort of disappeared as a glue binding together Republicans. You can see why the Trump administration, politically speaking, and forget about the morality where I agree with them, politically speaking, they're focusing on immigration because it may be the sort of one area of broad agreement all the way across the Republican spectrum. One of the big issues that's going to have to be dealt with with the Republican Party is whether it is the new entrant Republicans, the new entrant GOPs who, who occasionally vote for Republicans, who are going to be the ones who dictate the terms going forward for the Republican coalition, or whether it is the people who traditionally are the people who tend to vote Republican. Because in the end, President Trump is able to sail over all of this. He sort of signals and in affect is very much a new entrant gop. He used to be a Democrat, for example, but in his policy, he is very traditional gop. President Trump is one of one. I'm not sure there's a candidate out there on the Republican side. And again, this is not a critique of any one candidate who's capable of holding all of that together without sounding as though they're promising everything to everyone all the time. At a certain point, leadership is going to be required to define what the coalition looks like going forward. It can't just be, hey coalition, it's got to be actual values that define the coalition. And again, the reason that I became a conservative when I was very, very young and I voted Republican in every single election in which I have ever voted. The only election that I set out was 2016, and I did so because I didn't know Trump was going to be a conservative. And then of course, he ended up being quite conservative. And I was wearing a Maga hat by January of 2017 when he appointed Neil Gorsuch to the bench. Okay, so as a long time Republican. Like my entire life, I can say that if the Republican Party shifts away from traditional values and starts catering to sort of the new entrant values, they're going to lose a lot of people who actually are not on that same side. Now, again, when it comes to elections, coalitions have to be broad. That obviously is true. The problem that I see for Republicans going forward is that many of the issues that President Trump ran on are being solved. The most unifying aspects of the coalition are immigration and trans. Both of those issues have been largely dealt with by the Trump administration, and Democrats are running headlong away from those issues. So Republicans are going to have to define what it is they stand for going forward if they hope to win in 2028 or even in 2026. Okay. Meanwhile, the red flags are beginning to signal on the economy internationally, not just in the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal, US Markets are facing a threat from across the Pacific. Yields on government debt, which rises when the prices of those bonds fall, climbed across the world on Monday after the bank of Japan governor hinted at a potential interest rate increase later this month, surprising investors who thought he might hold off under possible pressure from the country's new prime minister. So the yield is dropping on the current government bonds in Japan. So people are worried that those new bond yields are going to draw money from US Investments and then spark a climb in treasury yields. So basically the interest rates on the new bonds are going to be increased. That means people are not buying the old bonds in Japan. They're going to start buying, presumably the new bonds in Japan. They're going to move their money from American bonds over to Japanese higher interest bonds. The world's third largest economy is the US Government's largest foreign creditor, according to the Treasury Department data, holding Treasuries valued at about $1.2 trillion as of September. Private Japanese investors poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the US and other foreign bonds in recent years, seeking better returns than they could find at home. For most of this year, that dynamic has not actually played out. Japanese bond yields have climbed as investors there prepare for higher rates. Yields on Treasuries, meanwhile, have fallen as the Federal Reserve moves in the opposite direction. So things are getting a little dicey. U.S. stocks fell on Monday. The S&P 500 dropped 0.5%. Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 427 points. Again, I'm not sure that anyone has an excellent read on where the economy is going next. It just for, for the last year, essentially it feels as though the economy is sort of, you know, on a razor's edge and we're not sure exactly which direction it is moving. What is very clear is that investors also don't know which direction the economy is moving. They don't know to put money in Japan or in the United States, certainly not in Europe, which has a dying economy. Europe destroyed its own economy on the shoals of green energy nonsense. So, you know, where do you put your money? That. That remains a very open question at this point. Alrighty, folks, the show is continuing for our members right now. We'll get into the latest in Ukraine talks. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.

LifeLock Advertiser (54:39)

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