Guest/Interviewer (12:41)

I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to. To interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. But there were folks who said, I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in a. There's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. We're here to wor. We're here to worship Jesus because that's the hope of these cities, that's the hope of the world, is Jesus Christ. I'm gonna be very respectful. Please don't push me, though. We're here. We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here. Okay? That's why we're here. That's what we're about. Don't you think Jesus would be understanding? We're about love these folks. We're about spreading the love of Jesus. But did you try to talk to them as a Christian? No one is willing to talk, okay? I have to take care of my church and my family. So I asked this. You actually would also leave this building? You don't want us to worship?

Ben Shapiro (13:32)

I'm always worship.

Guest/Interviewer (13:33)

I'm a Christ. We're here. Well, we're here to worship. We're here to worship. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Ben Shapiro (13:39)

Don Leman was not there to worship, Obviously. He was there to help promote the cause of these protesters who decided to shut down a service. By the way, the First Amendment does not mean that you get to walk onto private property and start shouting in the middle of somebody's business or in the middle of a church service. In fact, there is something called the Face act, which is all about desecrating houses of worship or interfering with Christian worshippers. The DHS says they will investigate all of this. So will doj. Agitators aren't just targeting our officers, said the DHS in a post. Now they're targeting churches, too. They're going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans. And the DOJ again announced that they would be investigating all of this. Now, Jacob Fry, the mayor of Minneapolis, has defended a lot of this sort of stuff, and he says that order will be restored the minute that ICE leaves here. He was on CNN with Jake Tapper.

Guest/Interviewer (14:29)

If the goal here is to create peace and safety and calm, there's a very clear antidote here, which is leave. The second these ICE agents leave the city, I'm telling you, you're going to have calm in Minneapolis and you will continue to see the great comeback that we had been experiencing.

Ben Shapiro (14:50)

Now, again, this sort of activity by Democrats is likely to backfire. So at the moment, the image that people have in their heads, the ugly image that people have in their heads right now, is again, that image of Renee Goode. However, that image can be replaced by a series of ugly images from Democrats, including, for example, storming churches. That is not going to help. There's a fascinating piece by Roland Fryer in the Wall Street Journal talking about these sort of effects of protest, typically speaking. And one of the points that Roland Fryer makes is that actually nonviolent protest that does not disrupt things like church services is likely to work out better for you than being absolutely confrontational or violent or chaotic, he says in this piece. Roland Fryer, professor of Economics at Harvard When I was young, I mistook restraint for weakness and anger for honesty. What I failed to see, what we still failed to teach students, was that Martin Luther King wasn't avoiding conflict, he was engineering it on terms that made progress possible. In other words, don't just kind of run into a church and start screaming at the top of your lungs and hope that Americans are going to like that sort of thing, because they very likely will not. But with that said, to pretend that the Trump administration has facilitated popular immigration policy here would be to belie the polls at this point. So again, it's less about the policy than it is about the implementation. Democrats who are smart are going to focus in on the implementation, and they're not going to give credence or, or credibility to people who are violently protesting or invading churches. They're also not going to use these sort of outstanding radical language that the radical left would like to use. So, for example, I was on Gavin Newsom's podcast last week. I pressed him on the fact that his press office had suggested that what happened to Renee Good was state sponsored terrorism. What it really was was a tragedy. A tragedy, presumably of differential interpretation of circumstance, as we say. I don't know what Renee Goode was thinking when she decided that she was going to hit the gas on her car. And when I look at that tape, I'm not sure that her intent is to hit the officer. It looks to me like she's trying to turn the wheel to avoid hitting an officer who's in front of her car or stepped up in front of her car. But that doesn't mean that he did not perceive her as trying to hit him. Right. Both of those things can be true at the same time. And so when Governor Newsom suggested it was state sponsored terrorism, that obviously is untrue. However, now, Gavin Newsom, who told me that he thinks that it was fair to criticize that particular statement. I don't know whether he's trying to buy back the love of his base after those comments or what. But here was Governor Newsom over the weekend suggesting that President Trump is trying to stoke a civil war.

Guest/Interviewer (17:23)

He has tried to stoke a civil war in this country. It is a disgrace what he's doing in Minneapolis. It is a disgrace what he's doing all across the United States of America terrorizing communities. It is a disgrace what his Department of Homeland Security is putting out. I mean, these ads evoking the worst, the 1930s, very intentionally stoking tensions, white supremacy being promoted actively by this administration, the corruption and graft the likes of which we've never seen in modern history, modern world history.

Ben Shapiro (18:08)

And again, is this sort of language useful? My guess is not. It wasn't useful last week when he'd announced it. It's not useful now when he's sort of using it again. Meanwhile, Democratic strategist Megan Hayes says President Trump wants to normalize the use of the military on the streets. And we are now in this reactionary ping pong that is not great. I think this is what he is planning all along with these ICE raids and wanting to call for an insurrection in most of these places. He wants to normal, normalized military on our streets so he can call for an insurrection so he doesn't have to have elections. So I don't necessarily think that the American people should think this is outrageous. I think this is part of Donald Trump's plan, and it's been part of his plan all along. Now, again, ripping into Trump may be a sort of rich vein for Democrats, but the minute they decide to push the abolish ICE program, things are going to go squirrely on them because Americans once again do not like ugly pictures on their tv. And when ICE pulls out and then violence reigns, that is not going to be a wonderful program either. So when Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, a supposed moderate, overturned this weekend an executive order mandating cooperation with ice, you know, that's a risky move here. She was doing that over the weekend. And this executive order rescinds executive order number 47. State and local law enforcement should not be required to divert their limited resources to enforce federal civil immigration laws. It is a responsibility of federal law enforcement. Virginia state and local law enforcement officers must be able to focus on their rapport responsibilities investigating crime and community policing. Now, again, do I think that's going to work well for Democrats? I do not. Especially when it's being pressed forward by celebrities like Bruce Springsteen, who says ICE should get the hell out of Minneapolis.

Guest/Interviewer (19:49)

If you believe in the power of the law and that no one stands.

Ben Shapiro (19:53)

Above it.

Guest/Interviewer (19:57)

If we stand against heavily armed, masked federal troops invading an American.

Ben Shapiro (20:04)

City.

Guest/Interviewer (20:07)

And using Gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens, if you believe you don't deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest and send a message to this president. And as the mayor of that city has said, I should get the out of Minneapolis. This song is for you. And in the memory of mother of three and American citizen Renee Good. Thank you.

Ben Shapiro (20:46)

Again. This is starting to feel an awful lot like BLM summer in 2020, when a bad situation involving the death of George Floyd under, at the very least significantly disputed circumstances turned into widespread rioting and chaos and looting. And the blowback to that was actually, in the short term, good for Democrats, but in the long term, very, very bad for Democrats because Americans once again, do not like ugly pictures on their tv. Now, the Trump administration, the way they should be handling this is with absolute calm, with, with just tremendous, predictable enforcement of the law. That's what they should be doing. So when Stephen Miller goes on TV and he says federal law must rule, that, of course, is right. Federal law, of course, does have to preside here. It does have to take the the four. We have one nation. We have one set of federal laws. We have one constitution. We have one law of immigration. We have one law of citizenship. If you allow a city or a state to decide immigration laws for themselves. You have an immigration law for Minnesota, you have an immigration law for Minneapolis. You have an immigration law for St. Paul, you have an immigration law for Los Angeles and for San Francisco and for New York. What you have then is total, complete anarchy and the dissolution of the American republic. And again, that's not wrong. He is right about that. Which is why it is so important that in the pursuit of the law, the Trump administration has to be the most effective it can be. And this has been sort of one of the bugaboos of the Trump administration, number two. And that is very good ideas on policy, sometimes poorly executed. I would say that the Department of Governmental Efficiency would be a good example of this. I know that the Trump administration, number two, really wants to move fast and break things. And you know what? I totally get it because you only have a certain limited time and in office in order to get things done. On the other hand, if you move so fast and break so many things that you end up generating a tsunami of anger at you, what you end up with is a reaction that wipes away the effect of what you're trying to do in the first place. So as an example of this, when it came to the Renee Good situation, I said from the very outset that the DHS should not have called her a domestic terrorist. They should have said, this is a tragic circumstance. We are doing a full investigation. We'll get back to you when we get to the end of that. It appears to us that there that an objective officer could believe or should believe that she was trying to hit him with the car or that he was going to be hit by the car. And therefore, it looks like the shoot was justified. Instead, the administration came out very strong with, with language that I thought was, frankly, not connected strongly enough with the facts on the ground, which is what the polls are showing right now. And so it's not a particular wonder that Harry Anson over at CNN is now reporting that a majority of Americans don't trust the feds to investigate that case.

Guest/Interviewer (23:35)

Do you trust the federal government to investigate the Minneapolis police shooting? Federal government? And I think it just sort of speaks to the trust the federal government overall. And the overwhelming majority, more than three.

Ben Shapiro (23:44)

In five you see on your screen.

Guest/Interviewer (23:45)

Say 62% say no, they don't trust the federal government.

Ben Shapiro (23:49)

And this comes on top of other.

Guest/Interviewer (23:50)

Polling data which shows that ISIS net.

Ben Shapiro (23:52)

Approval rating is way, way down from.

Guest/Interviewer (23:54)

Where it was back at this point during Trump's first term. It also shows at this point that.

Ben Shapiro (23:59)

Trump's net approval rating on immigration is.

Guest/Interviewer (24:01)

Way, way down from where it was.

Ben Shapiro (24:03)

Just say, at the beginning of last year. So what should the Trump administration do? Again, calmly and consistently enforce the law, and if the law is violated, arrest people in calm and consistent fashion. That is the best thing they can do. And wait for the left to make the mistakes that they certainly will make. Because they will. They'll continue going to churches, they'll continue to call for the abolition of ice. And this will be a boon for Republicans in terms of policy because again, you want solid immigration policy to be popular, just pursue that policy with the least amount of hubbub possible. Again, the most solid part of Trump's administration thus far has been the thing that's gotten the least attention. He just closed the southern border. Why? Because it was effective and it was quiet. Effective and quiet is a really, really good thing, politically speaking. Less effective and very loud is likely to lead to the kind of blowback that leads to your electoral loss or your party's electoral loss. Now, now, Democrats should pay attention to the same thing, because if their resistance to ICE is both ineffective and loud, then they are likely to be in a world of hurt themselves. All right. Meanwhile, on the economic front, the Trump economy continues to do really well and yet enormous amounts of dyspepsia about the economy. According to the polling data. According to the Wall street journal, by 15 percentage points, more voters rate the economy as weak rather than strong. That's a deterioration from July when negative views predominated by four points. About half of voters say the economy has gotten worse in the past year, compared with 35% who see improvement. That finding continues a years long disconnect between traditional measures of inflation and economic growth, which are relatively positive, and a negative public outlook. So President Trump's in party approval rating remains 92%. There is not a split inside the Republican Party. However, 54% of voters disapprove of the president at this point. He has it a 54% job, disapproval rating at 45% approve. And when it comes to the handling of the economy, his numbers have been dropping. So as I was just saying, if you look at the breakdown, President Trump's approval rating, where is it the best on border security. Right. The thing where he is most effective and the quietest? The border closed. His net approval rating is +6 on immigration. Americans generally like his immigration policy, but they are gradually moving against it as it gets louder and louder. He's at minus 4 on the economy, he's at minus 10 on tariffs. He's at minus 10. I'm looking out for the middle class, minus 11 on inflation and minus 17. So what, what is happening here? Again, I think that doing things well and doing them quietly is the way that presidents become popular. What Americans mostly want, and no president allowed them to do this maybe for most of my adult lifetime. At this point. What Americans mostly want from the president is to be left alone. They want to believe that they'll wake up in the morning and life will be the same or slightly better than it was yesterday. They don't want to wake up and be bothered by the latest chaos. And that is why it is a mistake for the president to futz around so much with, for example, tariff rates and to tie those so much to international issues like, for example, should we grab Greenland? Americans do not want to pay higher rates at the grocery store because the president wants Greenland. They don't want to do that. They don't even understand why we need Greenland in terms of actual sovereign American territory. Why does this come up? Well, because it turns out that we're about to launch apparently a new trade war over Greenland. According to the Wall Street Journal, the President announced over the weekend that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from several European countries in an effort to to pressure Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States. So there was a trade deal that President Trump reached with the EU last year, and it was supposed to lower tariffs on many U.S. exports. The president in a social media post on Saturday said the 10% tariffs would go into effect Feb. 1 and would apply to all goods sent to the U.S. from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K. netherlands and Finland. Then apparently the tariffs are going to go up to 25% on June 1 and remain in place until a deal is reached for, for what he called the complete and total purchase of Greenland. That is, after the Europeans sent like a dog sled and a couple of guns to Greenland to deter the United States like that. That would not stop us if we wished to invade Greenland. President Trump wrote on Truth Social, quote, these countries who are playing this very dangerous game have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable. Therefore, it is imperative that in order to protect global peace and security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation and quickly and without question. Now, again, the United States under 1951 treaties, does have the ability to radically increase our military presence in Greenland if we so choose. In order to deter the Russians from their predations in Northern Waters, the EU for its part, started to push back. The EU's top two officials, European Commission President Ursula von der Land and European Council President Antonio Costa said, quote, tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated and committed to upholding its sovereignty. The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson said, quote, we will not let ourselves be blackmailed. President Trump did not say if this would be added on top of the existing levies, which are still like 15% for most EU countries and 10% for most UK goods. So again, those, those Greenland threats are starting to make waves and they'll make economic waves as well. The NATO allies put out a statement complaining about all of this. Their joint statement suggested, quote, as members of NATO, we are committed to strengthening Arctic security as a shared transatlantic interest. The pre coordinated Danish exercise Arctic Endurance conducted with allies, responds to this necessity. It poses no threat to anyone. We stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland. Building on the process begun last week, we stand ready to engage in a dialogue based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that we stand firmly behind. So NATO is saying, I don't even understand what is going on right now. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, seems to be trying to talk people off of a ledge. He says there's not really a choice between Greenland or NATO. We're not trying to undercut NATO here.

Guest/Interviewer (30:29)

Since 1980, the US has spent US military spending versus NATO military spending. We have spent 22 trillion more dollars than the Europeans have that we are peace through strength. And the Europeans now are only trying to play catch up, and that is only through President Trump. President Trump believes in NATO, but he does not believe in the American people being dragged in.

Ben Shapiro (30:55)

Okay, I understand that he doesn't want the American people being dragged in, but it seems to me that if we are in a conflict with NATO and NATO is redirecting its resources from, you know, our enemies like Russia toward, say, Greenland, that is not necessarily the best use of NATO resources. Scott Besant also suggested, we're not going to outsource our national security and that is why we must have full control over Greenland again. We have by treaty power the ability to place more troops in Greenland if we so choose. We could do it right now.

Guest/Interviewer (31:23)

We are not going to outsource our national security. We are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to other countries, countries. In Trump 1.0, President Trump told the Europeans do not, do not build Nord Stream to do not rely on Russian oil and guess what? Christine, guess what is funding Russia's efforts against Ukraine? European purchases of Russian oil. So America has to be in control.

Ben Shapiro (31:52)

Here again, this notion that the United States has to be like, if we want to defray cost, why are we then picking up more cost? It will cost more by the way, to actually administer Greenland than it would to have Greenland administer by Denmark and for us to just place a few military bases. That's just the reality of the situation. And this is more of a territorially expansionist policy for the United States. And if we wish to buy from Denmark, that makes sense, some sense to me. But the idea that this is like a core national security interest is, is such that we must grab the territory, not that we must increase our military presence, but that we must own Greenland is strange to me. The reason that this is a problem because normally I just sort of laugh this stuff off. Why is this a problem? Because what is actually happening, the world is adjusting to America's sort of aggressive take against everyone. Not just against our enemies or our opponents, but also apparently against our allies by reorienting, by shifting its own strategy on a broad level. So I've been commenting about this with regard to, for example, Canada for a while. The President decided to slap Canada with extremely high tariffs. I mentioned when this happened earlier last year that this would only drive Canada into the arms of the Chinese. And this is also true with regard to the Canadian election where the President of the United States slapping tariffs on Canada helped to ensure that the Canadian election would move in the direction of Mark Carney, who is a far left winger as opposed to in the direction of a significantly more right wing figure, Pierre Poliev. Right. There are knock on effects to doing things. And the President of the United States is wonderful at a great many things. He's heterodox on a great many things. But also he can be a hammer in search of a nail. And when he doesn't have a nail, he sometimes hits a baby. And the problem is there are knock on effects to all of that. And so when we look at the international results of all of this, what it seems is happening is that all over the world everyone is reorienting in their perception of the United States. Instead of the United States being the country that is sort of the black hole of politics where everything revolves around us. Instead of that, it seems as though people are looking for new loci of gravity. They're looking instead to other places, they're looking for other relationships. They're looking to defray the cost of losing the United States as for example, a trade partner or a security partner. So what does this mean in practical terms? Well, to take one example, this means that the EU and the MERCOSUR bloc of South American nations have now signed a landmark free trade agreement. So they could get a free trade agreement with the United States. Instead, they decided to sign one with each other, which means they're maximizing trade with each other, but not with the United States. According to the Associated Press, the EU and the MERCOSUR bloc of South American countries formally signed a long sought free trade agreement on Saturday, strengthening commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world. The signing ceremony in Paraguay's capital Asuncion caps more than a quarter century of torturous negotiations. It marks a major geopolitical victory for the EU in an age of American tariffs and surging Chinese imports, expanding the bloc's foothold in a resource rich region increasingly contested by both Washington and Beijing. Now, this will likely be ratified in South America. It includes, by the way, Argentina and Brazil as well as Paraguay and Uruguay. It is not including Bolivia and Venezuela, of course, was suspended a long time ago. But the goal here for the EU is forge trade relations outside the United States. And if this were relegated to simply increased trade relations between some of our allies and other of our allies, that'd be one thing. But actually what's happening here is that China is beginning to capitalize with regard to trade relations. I warned last year that alienating the Canadians by smacking them with lumber tariffs and all the rest, that all this was going to do was give a permission structure, an excuse for Marker Carney to draw closer to China. You know what I don't want? I don't want China to have great close relations with our northern neighbor. I think that's a very bad thing for the United States. Well, unfortunately, that's what's happening. According to Axios, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's decision to ease trade tensions with China is the latest sign that US Allies squeezed by Trump era tariffs are recalibrating and in some cases drifting closer to Beijing. President Trump's tariff driven trade strategy is accelerating efforts by U.S. partners to hedge and diversify, creating openings for China as countries manage retaliatory trade fallout. China and Canada struck a deal on electric vehicles, agriculture and energy. A statement said, quote, canada's new government is working with urgency and determination to diversify our trade partnerships and catalyze massive new levels of investment. As the world's second largest economy, China presents enormous opportunities for Canada in this mission. So Canada dropped its 100 electric vehicle tariff on China and will allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs into the Canadian market. So more relations between China and Canada. Here's Mark Carney over the weekend announcing his strategic partnership with the Chinese.

Guest/Interviewer (36:45)

It's been eight years since a Canadian prime minister visited China. And this is a relationship that has been distant and uncertain for nearly a decade. That has held back investment, it stalled business growth and cost Canadian workers good opportunities. And that's why you can't. Canada's new government began to recalibrate our relationship with China through periods of global tension and disruption. We've created more opportunities for our workers, businesses and investors by working together. That's the opportunity before us now. More stability, more certainty and prosperity on both sides.

Ben Shapiro (37:17)

Okay, now again, do we want the Canadians reorienting toward the Chinese? I think not. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, he said, I think Canada is going to regret the day that it did this.

Guest/Interviewer (37:27)

I love my brothers and sisters to the north.

Ben Shapiro (37:29)

I'm from Northern Wisconsin, and I'm not.

Guest/Interviewer (37:33)

Going to accuse them of making the smartest decisions all the time. I think they will live to regret the day they partner with China in bringing in their vehicles.

Ben Shapiro (37:43)

Now China's increasing flex is going to move toward Taiwan. Taiwan, in an attempt to keep the United States in the fold, is trying to build more resources in the United States. Less because they're trying to offshore to the United States, more because they're trying to please the Trump administration. Which again, is fine so long as the quid pro quo is that the United States actually is going to provide for some element of defense to Taiwan in case of a Chinese move. The big question with regard to President Trump's foreign policy, after all is said and done here, is whether what we are looking at is a hawkish realist foreign policy from the president, one where he pursues America's interests aggressively around the globe, from Venezuela to Greenland to the Middle east to Taiwan to defending trade routes or whether what we are watching is a retrenchment in which the United States strengthens its hand in places like Greenland, maybe Cuba or Venezuela, but other places on Earth basically draws back. And nobody seems particularly clear on this at this point. Which is why, presumably, you are starting to see all the geopolitical puzzle pieces moving. China getting more aggressive, the EU starting to make overtures toward both China and towards South America, the Canadians trying to make their move toward China. Right. Things are. Things are in flux right now. And to pretend otherwise would be to ignore the Chess pieces as they move on the board. Meanwhile, Democrats seem pretty confident that they are going to take over Congress and you can tell by the kind of language that they are using. Chuck Schumer is vowing that if the Democrats were to take over the Senate that they would restore all Doge cuts, which is pretty astonishing since Doge cut some pretty useless stuff if you look at the budget actually we're working on right now, and we'll have the T HUD budget, you know, transportation and HUD budget.

Guest/Interviewer (39:20)

We restore most of the cuts and.

Ben Shapiro (39:24)

Even go higher than previous years on many of the programs that Doge slash. So again, the fact that Democrats are perfectly willing to go right back into spending even bigger than we are currently spending is pretty incredible. Meanwhile, other Democrats are openly promoting the idea that there should be such a thing as a wealth tax. The big force behind that in the state of California, again, Gavin Newsom, who I spoke with last week on his show, denounces wealth tax in the state of California because he understands it will drive all the wealth out of his state. Ro Khanna, the congressman, is one of the people pushing a wealth tax. Newsom has sort of suggested that while he opposes it on a state level because it will drive wealth out of his state, it's fine and dandy on a federal level, which is insane because again, very, very wealthy people can actually move offshore as well. This actually happened in France. France had a millionaires tax at one point, a wealth tax. And people just moved, they just left. Wealth taxes are crazy. A wealth tax for those who missed out is not an income tax. A wealth tax is a tax on your unrealized assets. So for example, just to take a an example that might arise in everyday life if the wealth tax applied broadly, you buy a house, the house was with $200,000 when you bought it. Today the house is worth $500,000, but you didn't sell it. And now they're going to say you have to pay a couple percentage of tax on the value of the house, the unrealized value of the house. So now you're going to owe, say 60, $70,000 on a house you never sold. How precisely is that fair? How is that right? And how doesn't that actually end up harming business creation? The answer is it absolutely does. But for Democrats, it's never about the efficacy of the program. It is all about the revenge to be taken on the people who actually earn. So Kara Swisher had Ro Khanna on her show and she suggested that if you leave the State. If you're Larry Page or Sergey Brin or other founders who are leaving the state now because they don't wish to bankrupt themselves or their companies, which is what would happen here, then this means that you are somehow ungrateful.

Guest/Interviewer (41:21)

I got 100 people, I think it.

Ben Shapiro (41:22)

Is, who are threatening to leave California, except for Jensen Huang, who's apparently staying. I have two minds of this. One is you made your. And I set it to one this weekend. I said you made all your money in California, you ungrateful piece of. You could figure out a way to get pay more taxes and you. And we deserve the taxes from you, given you made your wealth here. The second thing is, yes, there are different ways to do this, but the length of time it would take and the kind of vehemence you would fight whatever happens means nothing would happen. So why don't we just do shock and awe at this point?

Guest/Interviewer (41:57)

Because you don't seem to be, you.

Ben Shapiro (41:59)

Know, availing yourself to thinking that you owe your state something more. Okay, you don't owe the state of California gigantic chunks of the wealth that you built in the state of California because you happen to be in California when it was built. You could have easily built it in Nevada or someplace else. The state of California benefited from having your gigantic business in it, not the other way around. This is an absurdity. But again, the sort of jealousy and nastiness of that particular comment is really quite astonishing. The idea that Larry Page or Sergey Brin Elon, all these billionaires, that they should be sitting around grateful for the wonders of California's regulatory structure as California attempts to bankrupt them, because that is actually what you are talking about, or attempts to radically change the market cap of their company through a wealth tax is totally insane. But this is what happens when you have a Democratic Party that again can't go back to normalcy. All people want is just some level of normalcy. That's all they want. I will say that Republicans have done a pretty poor job of fighting back ideologically against all this sort of stuff. This is one of my big problems with the new pro centralized state Republican Party. There are large swaths of the Republican Party that have jettisoned economic laissez faire conservatism, that have decided that the free markets are bad now that actually what we need is some state, state, state sponsored capitalism, other words, corporatism. We need the state picking and choosing winners and taking stakes in private companies. We need the centralized government deciding what is good business and what is bad business and which deals are fair and which are not. Well, if you do that, it's going to be very hard to make the case against the centralized state as run by the Democrats, because, frankly, the case against the centralized state in the economy is a case that the state really has no part to play here other than ensuring that people don't defraud one another, that they don't steal from one another. But the minute that you get into the state, should pursue the common good with your money. There's no limiting principle there. And this is why I think that if you look at all the polls recently, what you see is the rise of socialism. You see people who are getting warmer and warmer toward the concept of socialism. They never had to live under it. And so when you hear Senator Tim Scott saying, we have a chance to make sure America is never socialist, which, of course, you know, is something you have to fight for consistently, it is hard for Republicans to make that argument while continuing to use the government to do outsized things.

Guest/Interviewer (44:22)

So the truth of the matter is that when you look at the candidates that they're putting up, they're Democrat socialists or just outright socialists, we have a chance to reinforce that America will never be a socialist nation. Holding the House, holding the Senate, and making sure that President Trump has a Republican majority means the attention, as he said, will not be on impeaching him. The attention will be on the American people, who deserve a president who listens to the people and then delivers again.

Ben Shapiro (44:54)

I think Republicans can campaign against socialism, will make it a lot easier if they stop, you know, acting kind of like socialists. Meanwhile, on foreign policy, President Trump continues to push for the ouster of the Iranian regime. The president told Politico over the weekend, it's time to look for new leadership in Iran, which, of course, is true. The president said on Saturday the best decision that Ayatollah Khamenei ever made was not hanging more than 800 people two days ago. That came shortly after Khamenei's ex account posted a series of hostile messages aimed at Trump. President Trump said, quote, what he is guilty of as the leader of a country is the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before in order to keep the country functioning, even though that function is a very low level. The leadership should focus on running his country properly, like I do with the United States, and not killing people by the thousands in order to keep control. Leadership is about respect, not fear and death. The president said. The man is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people. His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership. Now, obviously I think that that's true. The question is what's going to happen now? Because this idea that things have gone silent, that everything is fine and hunky dory there is not true. We have reports ranging from 3,000 dead all the way up into the 23,000 range dead have been multiple reports anywhere in that spectrum. At the very least, you're looking at thousands upon thousands of people who've been murdered by the regime, tens of thousands of people who've been wounded by the regime. Right now, Iran has basically locked down the entire country. The Internet is still dead. You're still unable to get on the Internet in Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, the protesters who filled the streets of Tehran are gone, replaced by security forces and reminders of the violence used by the regime to suppress a national uprising aimed at ending its rule. Members of the Basij pro government militia patrolled the streets of Tehran on motorbikes in recent days, with some shouting, don't come out, we'll shoot you. A medical student in Tehran said accounts of the charred remains of at least 5 mags. Many shops remain closed. Universities are still closed. There have been only two new protests across Iranian cities since Monday, according to human rights activists in Iran. That is not because the Iranian government has calmed everything down and now everything is back to normal, right? The help has not yet arrived. The president said that people should remain out in the streets and they should continue protesting and help was on its way. The help did not come. All that happened is that Iran shot a crapload of people in the streets and then put guns and tanks and human beings in on motorcycles in the streets and threaten to murder people for walking out. Authorities said they are easing an Internet shutdown that started January 8th but apparently is still not possible to to fully get on the Internet. Tan continues its crackdown Tajrish, an affluent neighborhood of north Tehran normally known as the capital's top dating spot, has been eerily quiet in the past week, according to one resident. Most shops remain closed. Armed security forces have taken over the streets of several cities across the country and imposing what some Iranians have described as unofficial martial law. In Karaj, an industrial town to the west of Tehran, police loudspeakers are blasting calls to people to stay away from their windows, apparently so there's still rumors coming out of people being shot in back rooms that there's still murders that are going on. They're just not happening in the middle of the street. We don't know the answer to any of that. Suffice it to say the crisis in Iran is not yet over. Meanwhile, nearby in Syria, the Syrian regime, which again is supposed to be this moderate regime, it is not in fact a moderate regime in any real sense of the word. It, it was run by an Islamist who was a member of ISIS and Al Qaeda and now is backed by the Turkish regime. Syria has been slaughtering the Kurds again. The Kurds have been fighting for their independence in this region for quite a long time. They're opposed by the Turks in this effort. Well now this has resulted in the Syrian military seizing swaths of Kurdish held territory at the behest of the Turks. The Turks are now trying to turn Syria into essentially a, a, a Turkish client state. That, that's what they are attempting to do. Erdogan is a radical Islamist himself. He has full solidarity with, for example, Hamas. He has said so. The fact that Turkey is a NATO power is insane. It should not be, it should be expelled from NATO. The fact that it's being treated by the United States as an, as an erstwhile ally is similarly insane. Turkey is not a moderate power. It is increasingly Islamist and the military has basically been purged of any of its secularist elements. And now it is working hand in glove with Syria to wipe out the Kurds. According to cnn, in the space of two days, the Syrian military, aided by tribal militia, has driven Kurdish forces from wide swaths of northern Syria that they've held for more than a decade. Among the towns and cities reported to have fallen is Raqqa, that is once the notorious capital of isis. After the territorial gains, Syria's president said Sunday an agreement had been reached with the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces to end the fighting in the northeast of the country. Why did this apparently happen? Well, the sdf, the Syrian Defense Force, again a Kurdish force, is a US Backed group that was not part of the rebel alliance that overthrew Bashar al Assad in 2024. And so the Syrian government decided to basically wipe them out with the help of the Turks. Now, for some odd reason, members of the administration seem to believe that the Turks are friends to the United States and to the Western powers. There is zero evidence this is true. The United States has announced that the Turks are going to be involved in the so called Gaza Oversight Board, the Gaza Peace Board. I, I see zero reason why the Turks, who again were pretty openly allied with Hamas, should be part of helping to reconstitute the Gaza Strip when the entire question is whether Hamas is going to retain any controlling part of the Gaza Strip. According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel is publicly pushing back against the makeup of a US committee created to oversee Gaza, which includes both Turkey and Qatar. Turkey again is an Islamist rival to Israel and Qatar, of course, is an Iranian cutout. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday the committee established by the White House to help advance the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire was, quote, not coordinated with Israel and contrary to its policy. Among the members included on the board are Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and senior Qatari official Ali Tawadi. That is nuts, frankly. The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of course has been, as I say, over and over again a deep ally to Hamas. So of course has Qatars. This would be a large scale mistake. Okay, Closer to home on the cultural front, the most bizarre story of the day apparently Dylan Mulvaney I I don't know why brands which to touch with a 10 foot pole Dylan Mulvaney's brand but apparently they want to Dylan Mulvaney has now been cast in the Broadway musical about women's history six which is about these six wives of Henry viii. Dylan Mulvaney will now play Anne Boleyn, which makes perfect sense because certainly the king would have been very upset when his trans female bride could not give birth. I mean if you know your history gang, the reason the king was pissed is because Anne Boleyn gave birth to a female child but not a male child. I have a feeling that the king would have been significantly less concerned about that if Anne Boleyn had been a dude. That they're just just putting it out there. That doesn't seem to make a lot of historical sense. The musical's official X account announced Friday, quote losing our heads to introduce your newest Anne Boleyn show some royal love to Queen Dylan Mulvaney. Again, like the whole point of the show supposedly is that it is re censoring the female experience. Well now the female experience is male. And again if we are just talking about the history of Henry VIII here, it doesn't make a ton of sense that a woman executed for her failure to bear a male heir would be played by a male who can't bear anything not having a uterus. So there's that. Well, I hope everyone who is going to see Dylan Mulvaney enjoys sex. Enjoy that. Alrighty, the show continues for our members right now. A kind of shocking story about how many Democrats are trying to avoid the trans issue come 2028. 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.

Guest/Interviewer (53:21)

What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God? Is that who you think I was alone with? I knew your father. I am yet convinced that he was.

Ben Shapiro (53:40)

Not of this world.

Guest/Interviewer (53:43)

All men know of the great Taliesin. You are my father. That the gods should war for my soul. Princess Garrus, savior of our people. I know what the bull God offered you. I was offered the same. And there's. There is a new power at work in the world. I've seen it. A God who sacrifices what he loves for us. We are each given only one life. Singer.

Ben Shapiro (54:12)

No.

Guest/Interviewer (54:13)

We're given another. I learned of Yazu the Christ. And I have become his follower. He's waiting on a miracle. And I think you can give him one.

Ben Shapiro (54:25)

Trust in Yezu.

Guest/Interviewer (54:26)

He is the only hope for men like our.

Ben Shapiro (54:28)

Alas.

Guest/Interviewer (54:29)

Fate of Britain ever rests in the hands of the great light. Great light, great darkness. Such things mattered to me then. What matters to you now? Mistress of lies. You, nephew. The sword of a high king. How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you. You were born to wield so clinging to the promises of a God who has abandoned you. I cannot take up that sword again. You know what you must do. Great light, forgive me. The time has come to be reborn. New Year, new me. Cute. But how about New Year, new money? With Experian, you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card offers giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're gonna crush start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO scoring model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details. Experian.