A (24:08)

Hey, hey, Ben. Thanks for having me and thanks for taking an interest in all of this.

B (24:12)

So let's talk about what you've been doing and some of the results that you've been getting. So as I say, the fda, they give the go ahead to to particular products. But then I think everyone assumes that what you're eating is now safe because the FDA has said that it is safe. But there's no sort of follow up testing. And, and that was the basis for the Healthy Florida first initiative.

A (24:29)

That's 100%. Right. And so what we have learned pretty much is that the FDA does a really good job as a reactionary force, right? If there is a problem, they will go and investigate. If there's a E. Coli or salmonella outbreak, they will go and investigate. But what we want to do in the free state of Florida and through a coalition of other states is to do trust but verify testing.

B (24:48)

Right?

A (24:48)

A company can put a product out on the market, it has a list of ingredients, and what we want to do is trust the integrity of that product to ensure that there are no contaminants like heavy metals, leads or pesticides or any like that. And I think through the states, in a federalist type way, we can help be a force multiplier to the federal Maha movement, give our data and our evidence to the FDA and say, hey listen, here's some actors here that are problematic. Like glyphosate, which we found in the bread, which is weed killer, commonly found in Roundup, right? Like this is totally unacceptable. And so we want to help provide truth and accountability and just give consumers the information so they can make informed decisions.

B (25:30)

And some of these results are pretty astonishing. So so far you guys have done baby formula, you've done candy and you've done bread. The candy results, I think were the ones that actually got the most attention because again, we all know that when we hand our kids candy, it ain't great for them, but we don't think that there's arsenic in it. But it turns out that actually some of these candies have a non insignificant portion of arsenic, apparently.

A (25:50)

Yeah, right. And the problem lies in aggregate. We're not talking about one piece of candy on one day. But no child is eating one pie of candy on one day and not eating candy for the rest of the year. Right. When we look at it through our risk analysis, it is how much candy are they eating and consumption over the course of a year? And what does that mean as far as the intake of arsenic and being problematic? So what we saw, for instance, with nerds, if you eat more than 86 nerds over the course of a year as a child, you are exceeding the allowable safe threshold, as I put in air quotes, of arsenic for a child. If you eat more than six Jolly Ranchers, you are exceeding the allowable level of arsenic for children. And so when you think about Halloween and Valentine's Day coming up and Christmas and even yesterday, I made the example of when I was in a store with my daughter in CVS and, you know, she's, you know, pulling at my shirt sleeve because she wants a candy, you know, and I just want to try to pacify her so I don't cause a big scene, you know, you will just instinctively like, okay, sure. What is one piece of candy, and how can it be problematic? Well, when you make those decisions in aggregate, you know, every week or every month or over the course of a year, you can see how this adds up. And it goes back to this fundamental principle that parents have a right to know what is in the food so they can make informed decisions to protect their health and certainly the health of their children.

B (27:10)

So what has been the reaction from some of the candy companies to. To all of this? Because you're presenting data, I assume that they're not particularly happy with people believing that if you eat too many nerds, that, that you. You're going to be consuming unsafe levels of arsenic. So what's been their response so far?

A (27:26)

Well, you know, I'll let them speak for themselves. I don't think that they're arguing that there is indeed arsenic in the products. And so when we look at it in our analysis, it is in aggregate. The silver lining, though, in a lot of this, Ben, is yes, while we found a lot of the name brand candies did have problematic levels of arsenic when you're eating it in aggregate over the course of a year, there are candies that didn't have any trace levels of arsenic in it. And also, we saw candies in the healthy side, right? A little oxymoronic, but the healthier varietal or the organic varietal that didn't have it, which tells you a couple of things. One, it can be done, right? You can manufacture this stuff better so that you don't have arsenic. It is not inevitable. And also, I see, as more parents get informed about this, they will vote with their pocketbook, right? They're going to go and buy the things that they deem to be better for their children. And that by inertia, is then going to hopefully kind of tip the scales a little bit of these companies to make better decisions as it pertains to their products, to. So we have a safer array of food out there, and the organic and the healthy ones, by and large, of the ones we tested. And I think There were eight or nine. Two were a little bit problematic, but not by much, but the rest of them were good. So I can see as more of the consumer gets, consumer folks get more educated about all of this, that companies hopefully will want to start shifting down this road because they're going to see there's this huge market of informed consumers that just want better options.

B (28:51)

Now, we talked about candy, obviously we're talking about some of the other staple products that people are using. Things like baby formula. You don't have a choice very often when you're using baby formula. What are you finding when it comes to baby formula? Oh, yeah.

A (29:01)

So this is one of the most ridiculous things that I think that we've seen, and that's why we started with baby formula, because these are obviously, this is all that kids are going to be consuming sometimes for the first year or two of their life. Like, I tried to breastfeed as long as I could, but there came a point when I went back to work where I had to supplement. You know, I was going down store aisles and I was looking at baby formula, making an assumption based on trust that everything there was safe. Right? So when you find problematic levels of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, you know, all of this arsenic, like, it's really unnerving. But here's the other unnerving part of it. This is not new, right? So if you go back to last year, Consumer Review came out with a review of a lot of these baby formulas and they found there were problematic levels of these contaminants, Right? And you remember, rightfully so, Secretary Kennedy, President Trump, they went out and did Operation Stork Speed and they said, we need to go in and test. Right?

B (29:57)

Good.

A (29:58)

100%, the right avenue to take, applaud their efforts. Here we are with the independent testing of the Florida Department of Health and there's no change, Right. We're seeing still problematic levels and it's not okay. So now we're trying to say, hey guys, you need to do a better job. And so I think through the accountability in the sunlight, going on and talking to, you know, your viewers, going on and just informing the consumer base to make better informed decisions, I think that that can help push. I do think that there might be some statutory reforms that might be done. For instance, right now they are required by law to test for things like salmonella before the formula leaves the factory. Well, my thing is, is could we not just have them also test for lead and mercury and arsenic? I mean, you know, we're talking about babies here. Right. And the ramifications of having these heavy metals in food is really problematic. It doesn't just simply leave the system. And our surgeon general would say, your risk of getting cancer over the course of your lifetime by consuming these heavy metals and pesticides early in life, that risk goes up by 20%. That's not okay, right? As a former cancer survivor, okay, that's not cool. We don't want to do this. We want better options, and we want consumers to be informed.

B (31:14)

Well, as first lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, head up the Healthy Florida first initiative. First lady, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it.

A (31:20)

Hey, thanks, Ben. Keep up the great work.

B (31:22)

And meanwhile, on the sort of it's okay to be proud of America storyline over at the Olympics, controversy broke out over the last couple of days when USA freestyle skiers Chris Lillis and Hunter Hess were asked about representing the United States, and they talked about their mixed emotions. Don't do this, guys. Don't do this. You want to have critiques of the presidency, go for it. But say you have mixed emotions about representing the greatest country in the history of the world. No. Then don't represent it. Then. Seriously, don't represent it. Don't do it. You don't have to. Nobody thought that you were deeply necessary. But here's what it sounded like. I feel heartbroken about what's happened in the United States when, you know, I'm pretty sure you're referencing ICE and some of the protests and things like that. I think that as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody's rights and making sure that we're treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect. And I hope that when people look at athletes compete in the Olympics, they realize that that's the America that we're trying to represent. It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US Right now. I think it's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I'm representing it. Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S. okay, guys, no one asked for that. No one asked for that. You can say, listen, my politics have nothing to do with my pride in representing my country, which is the greatest country in the history of the world. That's all you have to say. President Trump, naturally, was concerned about this and ticked about it. He put out A statement on Truth Social. US Olympic skier Hunter Hess, a real loser, says he doesn't represent his country in the current Winter Olympics. If that's the case, you shouldn't have tried out for the team. And it's too bad he's on it. Very hard to root for someone like this. Make America Great again and again. All, I think a huge percentage of Americans. All we're asking for, truly all we're asking for is a baseline level of love of country, like true love of country. That's all. That's all. Do all the things from the halftime show to skiing for the United States at the Olympics just exhibit love of country? It's not that much to ask. And honestly, it is the reason why President Trump has been so successful because he does not have politically consistent positions. The president, what he does level does have is a gut level patriotism. And I think the vast majority of Americans share that, which is why the Make America Great Again movement has been successful. Now, going back to the things that will make the Make America Great Again movement not successful, one of those things would be tweeting out idiotic and terrible videos showing the Obamas as monkeys. That would be a terrible, stupid thing to do. Truly, it was taken down from Truth Social, as I predicted. I told you. I told you this, ok? And there are people in the media who are upset that I said this, but it was clearly true. President Trump tweeted out a video. The video, which I think was unverified in terms of its actual content, talked about voting machines in Georgia and the flaws in the voting machines. And the president, of course, is very caught up in all of the hubbub about voting machines in Georgia because he still maintains he won the 2020 election. He said the very tail end of that video, there's a graphic that popped up of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. It's really gross, it's racist and it's ugly and it's stupid. And at first the administration tried to claim that he didn't put it up. They said that some sort of intern put it up, which of course is not true. The president is the only one who's posting on Truth social media. And the president says he didn't see the whole thing, which was clearly the case. I told you, the president does not have the attention span to watch through a full one minute video that he is. If you think he's watching every video that he's putting up on Truth Social, you're out of your mind. Here's the president basically saying that I Looked at it, I saw it and I just looked at the first part. It was about voter fraud in someplace, Georgia. There was a lot of voter for 2020 voter fraud. And I didn't see the whole thing. I guess during the. The end of it, there was some kind of a picture that people don't like. I wouldn't like it either, but I didn't see it. I just. I looked at the first part and it was really about voter fraud in and. And the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is. Then I gave it to the people to generally they look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn't and they posted and we took it down. Okay. So, yeah, duh, that's what I said last week. Duh. And yeah, I think he's telling the truth, because I don't think that the President, again, watches through any of the videos that he posts. If they have nice pictures of President Trump, he puts them up. This has been true for his videos for legitimately 10 years. The stuff that he puts on social media. And President Trump condemned the racist part of the video? Of course. Do you condemn the racist parts of the video? Of course I do. Yeah. Okay, So, I mean. Yes. Okay, so don't make that sort of mistake. That's a dumb mistake. It's dumb. Now, what's amazing to me is truly that the left gets away with extraordinary open racism and everybody pretends it's not going on. So, for example, Representative Gene Wu, who is in the Texas House of Representatives, he basically spills out his program. He says that minorities need to side against the white man. This is an elected official in Texas. The day the Latino, African American, Asian, and other communities realize that they are. That they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning. Because we are the majority in this country now. We are.

A (36:50)

We.

B (36:50)

We have the ability to take over this country and to do what is needed for everyone. Okay, so that is a problem. See, that seems to be much more problematic just in terms of thoroughgoing ideology, than President Trump tweeting out a racist meme, not having watched the end of it, which is legitimately what happened. If your thoroughgoing ideology is all minorities against the white guy, that is a massive, massive issue in American life. It really is. And the left seems to be embracing this more and more. This is why, again, the biggest thing for the Trump administration is make your policy choices which are designed to benefit Americans, all Americans. Make those clear, be consistent in their application, take down the rhetoric, just enforce, just do the baseline business of Governing and let the left spin out. That would be the advice to the Trump administration for 2026. Thank God the Trump administration is now doing that with regard to sanctuary cities by putting Tom Homan, an adult, in charge of the policy. Here is Tom Homan over the weekend criticizing politicians doublespeak on sanctuary cities. But for the politicians that say, we want you to arrest the criminals, we want you to target the criminals, but not let me to jails, you can't square that. If you really want to arrest the criminals and target the criminals, which I do, then let us do it in the safety and security of a jail or a prison where it's safer for the aliens, safer for the community, and safer for the agents. So for those, and there's many of them on both sides of the aisle, says public safety threats are what you should be concentrating on. So everybody should come together and make that happen and give us access to the jails. Again, this sort of low key advocacy for the basic intervention of law enforcement, that's the way to go. That's the thing that the Republicans should be doing right now, especially because Democrats continue to to spin out on the immigration issue, truly spin out on it. Over the weekend, Zormadani in New York signed an executive order to restrict ICE in New York City. He restricted access to city property, barred federal government from accessing city data, and mandated training for city employees on where they do and don't need to cooperate with ice. And then he went ahead and cited the Quran in support of anti ICE policy, which dude, my dude. All right. The story of the Hijra reminds us that Prophet Muhammad was a stranger too, who fled Mecca and was welcomed in medina. Surah An Nahl 1642 tells us, as for those who immigrated in the cause of Allah after being persecuted, we will surely bless them with a good home in this world. Or as the Prophet Muhammad said, Islam began as something strange and will go back to being strange. So glad tidings to the strangers. Okay. He also then proceeded to invade the entire Middle east and slaughter people who did not adhere to his religion. So there was some of that happening as well in Quranic times. Yeah, things are getting weird out there. Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, anti ICE rioters were attacking cars with sex toys, which seems like a very strange thing to do. I'm not sure I understand the logic of attacking a car with a dildo, but I guess here we are. Also, I find it somewhat unsurprising that the Minnesota ICE protesters have such a rich supply of dildos to hurl. So there they are throwing, throwing sex toys at the ice vehicles, which. That's interesting. You did it. You saved America. Great job, guys. That's a lot of bored white people out there in Minneapolis in the cold, throwing sex toys that presumably they got from their nightside stands at the. At the ice vehicles. Great, great job, everyone. And of course you have Don Lemon, who's still out there, that no one is happier than Don Lemon about. What happened to Don Lemon comparing himself to civil rights leaders of the past. Yes, you two are a civil rights leader. If you allegedly coordinate with people to go inside a church and harass the parishioners. In my time when I was there, I thought about all the people who'd come before me. I thought about all of the people who fought for civil rights, who fought for gay rights, all of the people who were at Stonewall, Marsha P. Clark. I'm like, yes, those are the people. Those are the real heroes. And so what's happening to me, I have, at least in this time that I'm living now, more agency, more resources, more rights and I hope than the people who were fighting for our freedom and our civil rights. So much heroism. Okay, so the Democrats are doing that. So all Republicans have to do is implement basically good policy in a low key way. And they will benefit from doing this. This is the thing they will benefit from. Now that of course assumes that the economy continues to sail forward. And that is an open question right now. Lot of, lot of cross currents in the economy right now, obviously. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to soar. It closed above 50,000 for the first time on Friday. It's been doing great. With all that said, when it comes to, for example, employment, there is a deep freeze that has enveloped the US labor market. According to the Wall Street Journal, the pace of hiring in America has dropped precipitously. There isn't a single reason why. Instead there are a lot of them. Uncertainty over tariff policy, high short term interest rates. Workers aren't leaving the jobs that they have right now. And of course, a lot of concerns that AI is going to wipe out large swaths of the job market by replacing a lot of labor. All those are very, very serious concerns. And those concerns are leading people to feel worried about the economy. Even if the stock market is doing great because there has been a stall in tech employment starting November 2022, there's some evidence that AI is, is filtering down into the markets. Amazon obviously cutting out jobs. AI is wiping out certain value in the market while propping up value in the AI end of the market. So software companies took it right on the chin last week because there's so many things that AI is now doing that used to be the preserve of software companies. So the president is trying to run the economy hot, apparently running up to the election. So that is why, presumably he wants the interest rates lowered. He is hoping that there will be more liquidity available and that will mean more hiring. The question is whether the uncertainty over AI is preventing people from hiring up because they believe that AI is going to develop such that they don't need to hire a lot of other people. Again, economic uncertainty always harms presidencies and we are in an off year election. That's always bad for the party in power. With very few exceptions, all of that is true. But the biggest thing the Trump administration can do and speak rationally to the American people, show that you are doing things on the topics that they care about and be calm and collected in your approach to the American public, considering that the left is spinning out. Joining me online is Winston Marshall, host of the Winston Marshall show, co founder of the Dissident Dialogues Festival of Ideas, and a former member of the Grammy Award winning folk rock band Mumford and Sons. Winston, of course, covers everything political in the UK as well. Winston, thanks so much for taking time, really appreciate it.

C (44:08)

Hi Ben, thanks for having me.

B (44:11)

So one of the things that's really fascinating that's been going on obviously is what's surrounding Keir Starmer and team in the UK because of Jeffrey Epstein. So while the focus in the United States has been on large scale, unsupportable conspiracy, theorizing about what Epstein did, didn't do. The suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein is the head of an international intelligence ring on behalf of a foreign power trafficking in little girls or whatever there actual is, there is supportable scandal. Right. That's stuff that I said before. That's all conspiracy conjecture at this point based on the reams of evidence that we have seen. It is beyond the evidence, but the one thing that we do know is that there were members of the Keir Starmer administration in the UK who have been forced to resign because of their connection with Jeffrey Epstein. Not necessarily because of trafficking in women or girls, but because of actual business corruption. Maybe you can fill us in.

C (45:04)

Well, I'm going to try and fill you in. I've just spent the last four or five days in full whiteboard meme mode trying to piece this all together. It is quite literally a bottomless pit of information. And it seems that Jeffrey Epstein might indeed be taking down the Starmer government from beyond the grave. Some people might think that he is saving Britain actually from beyond the grave, although there could be much worse things around the corner. Now, I joke about it, but it is an absolutely disgusting story. It's been brought me no pleasure whatsoever going into this. But it is not just a case that Starmer. This might be the last week of Starmer as Prime Minister, but it is also a corruption scandal, as you say. It's got political sleaze in it, but it's also the epitome, maybe I should say the nadir of crony capitalism all in one story. So I'm going to attempt to break this down for you. It's not easy. There have been six new revelations about Mandelson's relationship with Epstein from the January 30 tranche.

B (46:15)

But I need to explain to you, Peter Mandelson. Yes, yes, yes.

C (46:20)

I need to explain to you who Peter Mandelson is. Peter Mandelson is a Labour Party grandee. His grandfather was part of setting up the Labour Party at the beginning of the last century. His grandfather, Herbert Morrison was also in Churchill's war cabinet and famously had many clashes with Churchill. They were sort of ideologically opposed from each other. But not only that, Mandelson is regarded, was regarded at the time as the Dark Prince behind Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and the New Labor Movement from 97 to 2010. The Dark Prince is a name, by the way, that he embraced very happily. He is known as being sort of the archetypal Machiavelli. And in fact, I actually met him once when he was ambassador and that was my experience. He seemed to me to be a total Machiavelli. So having had his political career where he started as doing campaigning, then became an MP for a while, got himself up to being Deputy Prime Minister under Gordon Brown and had various ministerial roles up until 2010 when the Tories took power in the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, at which point he pivots to the private sector, which we'll come back to. The point though, is that in that period, even then his career was filled with scandal, which I'd love to go into, but there's too many other present scandals for us to address. So he became. He was appointed in February 2025 as Ambassador to D.C. and this was by Keir Starmer. Now in February 2025, it was in the public domain already, as revealed by The FT in June 2023, that Mandelson had maintained a post conviction relationship with Epstein. That Is after Epstein had been convicted in 2008, Mandelson continued his friendship with him. In that 2023 expose by the FT, we learned that he even stayed at Epstein's Paris apartment during Epstein's prison time and that they had communications after which Epstein would call him Petey. They were friends. Then he becomes ambassador. In February 2025, September 2025, we have the first tranche of Epstein files. Famously the birthday message, the big birthday. I don't know if you've gone through that book. It's like a 250 page document of sort of memories of Epstein and messages from friends. And in that birthday book he says Mandelson calls Epstein his best pal and that he loves him. And what's important to remember though is that birthday book was from 2003. So pre conviction. So you might say, oh well, you know, it's not necessarily the case that he knew about the sort of dastardly, disgusting behavior. But it was also the case then that there was evidence of a post 2008 relationship and there was also evidence that he flew on Epstein's jet and it shows an ongoing communication. So in other words, we knew that they were friends post conviction. Why this is important is because although there is new information that's been released over the last week in this new tranche from January 30, and it's pretty disgusting information when it comes to the sleaze, we've actually known the core salient issues all along. And why this is also important that your American viewers might not have picked up on is in the British media and across the British nation. It is the sleaze that everyone is focusing on.

B (50:28)

The bottom line in all of this is that Peter Mandelson was a close deputy of the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. He was appointed even though it was clearly public that he had relationship with Epstein. The things that we're finding out right now are that there were actual law breaking activities happening between Mandelson and Epstein going back years. As you mentioned, a criminal investigation into Mandelson for having leaked insider government information to Epstein that he then used to trade off of. And this could bring down Kir Starmer's government. Just today his Chief of staff had to resign over all of this. Morgan McSweeney, his chief of Staff, who had to resign over his role in the appointment of Mandelson. If Starmer were to go down right now, according to virtually every opinion poll, the leader in the clubhouse right now is the Reform Party. If there were to be a new election that were to hold. If there were. If he weren't to be replaced simply as Prime Minister, if there were to be an actual collapse in his coalition and suddenly there were no election to be held. The Reform Party is the chief beneficiary. The Labour Party is in quite low odor. It has now fallen in many polls below the Conservative Party which was basically dead as a doornail just a couple of years ago. And some of this has to be due not just to Keir Starmer's poor governance, but also to the Epstein scandal.

C (51:38)

Yes, except I think it's very unlikely that Labour Party will have an election. They know how unpopular they are. That means that all of them will lose their job. They also hate reform because they think reform are far right. So they won't have an election because they know reform will sweep through and have a stonking majority in Parliament. Making Nigel Farage Prime Minister, that would be their worst nightmare. So I don't think we're going to see an election. What I think is more likely is that Starmer will either resign or say that he'll resign after the May council elections. There's two other things going on with regards to party politics. There's a byelection going on in South Manchester, in Gaunton, in Denton where I was just on the weekend visiting voters. But there's also these council elections which probably Labour will get smashed and at that point it will be seen that he is untenable to stay as Prime Minister. So then there'll be. He'll stay probably until there's inter party elections and they decide between themselves who the new Prime Minister and leader would be. I can run through some of the likely candidates if you want there, but suffice to say that all of them are further left than Pierre Starmer. He is actually the best of a bad bunch and they also would seem far less competent than Starmer. So that's why I say Epstein. I joked at the beginning Epstein might have made things much worse for Britain and that might be on the horizon.

B (53:18)

Well, that is Winston Marshall. Go check out all of his ideas over at the Winston Marshall show and you can check out all of his social media as well. Winston, thanks so much for the time and the insight.

C (53:28)

Thanks Ben.

B (53:30)

Alrighty folks, the show is continuing for our members right now. The American military buildup in the Middle east continues. Plus we will bring you the latest on the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, which that situation still is unfolding. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. Okay.

C (53:53)

You love.

B (54:03)

No, not even close. 2, 3, whatever. You know what? 2, 3, 4. I cannot believe we're back here again, Ben. If the Ben Shapiro show is a mom, then Ben After Dark is a cool mom. You know, like irresponsible.