Friendly Fire: Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale

Summary

Podcast Summary

The Ben Shapiro Show – "Friendly Fire: Gavin for President, Greenland for Sale"
Date: January 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, Shapiro and fellow Daily Wire hosts—Andrew Klavan, Matt Walsh, and Michael Knowles—engage in a spirited "Friendly Fire" roundtable. They dissect the potential 2028 presidential run of California Governor Gavin Newsom, the concept of American expansion via a theoretical acquisition of Greenland, and preview Walsh's new documentary series on controversial history topics—starting with slavery. The episode is marked by sharp, often tongue-in-cheek banter, and conservative perspectives on current political, historical, and foreign policy debates.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Gavin Newsom: Democratic Frontrunner or Overrated?

• (02:11, 07:12, 09:09, 13:54, 15:55, 20:27, 31:36)

• Ben's Encounter with Newsom:

  • Ben recently sat down with Gavin Newsom at the California Governor's Mansion, describing him as personable off-camera but politically "squirrely," often shifting blame for California’s failures to local officials while taking credit for state successes (02:11).
  • Ben notes Newsom's attempts to moderate his image, especially around controversial issues like ICE and the trans debate, to appeal to a broader electorate in anticipation of a 2028 presidential campaign (08:46).

• Will Newsom Get the Nomination?

  • Andrew Klavan doubts Newsom’s appeal: “I think Newsom is a haircut, a sleazy haircut. And I think that that doesn't play.” (09:28)
  • Klavan alleges that the media overstates candidates’ charisma and underestimates how much voters care about substantive policy, citing California's failed homelessness policies and "graft" in Democratic one-party rule (09:28).
  • Matt Walsh concedes Newsom could be the nominee due to his rare ability among Democrats to engage in long-form discussion, but thinks he won't win the presidency (11:56).

• On Democratic Voters and Identity Politics:

  • Walsh questions whether Democrats will revert to a white male candidate, referencing past failed diverse candidates (13:25).
  • Ben: The Democratic base, especially in the South, being heavily Black, may undercut non-Black minority candidates (13:54).

• Key Quotes:

  • Ben, on Newsom’s rhetorical strategy:

    "[Newsom] will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base, and then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it because he still wants to win moderates for 2028." – (08:46)

  • Klavan:

    “I think that Newsom is toast the minute his record comes up.” – (10:35)

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2. 2028 GOP Landscape: Can Anyone Replicate Trump’s Coalition?

• (15:55, 19:41, 20:27, 28:46, 29:25, 31:36)

• JD Vance and the Inheritance Problem:

  • The hosts debate whether JD Vance, now Vice President, can maintain or expand Trump’s diverse coalition—blue-collar workers, Hispanics, some Black voters, and more online-engaged, younger men (15:55, 19:41).
  • Ben is skeptical, suggesting Trump’s appeal is unique and not transferable:

    “My biggest question mark for JD Vance is can he grow any part of Trump's coalition?” – (19:41) “MAGA is Trump. I think that MAGA without Trump is boring and stupid in many ways, because I just don't think as a concept it holds together.” – (28:46)

• Republican Alternatives and Meme-Worthiness:

  • Rubio is floated as another option, but Ben notes his base would skew more college-educated and Hispanic, but with fewer blue-collar white voters (29:37).
  • Knowles: Vance is wise to lean into meme culture that underestimates him—that dissonance favors candidates when reality outperforms the jokes (26:16).

• Foreign Policy & Internal Party Tensions:

  • Klavan argues that Vance is drifting too isolationist (24:24); Knowles counters with examples of Vance’s support for intervention, suggesting isolationism is a media exaggeration (23:22).

• Key Quotes:

  • Knowles, on candidate meme strategies:

    "I think it was so smart of the VP to lean into the goofy meme... you want to be underestimated so that the reality can surpass expectations." – (26:16)

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3. Slavery in Historical Perspective: Matt Walsh's "Real History"

• (37:43, 38:13, 41:13)

• Slavery: Global and American Contexts (37:43)

  • Walsh previews his upcoming documentary series, aiming to challenge mainstream narratives about controversial historical topics—starting with slavery.
  • He asserts that slavery has existed on every continent for millennia and is often misrepresented in schools and media to induce unwarranted guilt in Americans.
  • Walsh also argues that African empires’ involvement is routinely omitted, and that being transported to America was, in many cases, the "best-case scenario" for enslaved Africans (38:13).

• Heritage, Identity, and Modern Discontent:

  • Knowles admits to a "lib" take: the legacy of slavery does shape the identity of Black Americans, which he feels should be acknowledged (42:23).
  • Walsh provocatively argues:

    "If you're a black person in America today and your ancestors were enslaved, you are better off today because of that than you likely would be if your ancestors had not been enslaved... I'm not making an end justifies the means argument. I'm only saying that to be mad about a thing that ultimately has actually benefited you today makes no sense." – (46:35)

  • The group concurs that, while the legacy is real, people should take pride in the progress made and note that abolitionists deserve “outsized credit” given slavery’s universality (51:41).

• Key Quotes:

  • Klavan: “People should not own other people.” – (42:59)
  • Ben: “The history of black Americans is one of the most glorious things—moving from slavery to freedom... to participating in building the greatest country in history and becoming leaders in a variety of fields.” – (44:18)

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4. Greenland for Sale! Manifest Destiny, Foreign Policy, and American Expansion

• (52:38, 54:22, 56:03, 56:46, 58:05, 61:28)

• Should the U.S. Acquire Greenland?

  • Matt Walsh jokes he’s been “lusting after Greenland” forever and, tongue-in-cheek, calls for its annexation—even by force (08:08, 52:58).
  • Walsh roots his argument in American tradition, arguing that expansion, war, and land acquisition are how America was made. He’s “not going to automatically rule out” conquest if it’s in “the interests of Americans.” (54:22)
  • Ben is more cautious, adamant that military invasion is unnecessary given current treaties allow for substantial American military presence (58:05).
  • The hosts riff on Denmark’s feeble ability to defend Greenland (dog sleds, etc.) and the geopolitical irrelevance versus the symbolism of American “growth.” (56:46, 61:28)

• Larger Theme: Expansion as National Strength

  • Knowles and Klavan, reflecting on post-WWII American growth, lament that the country hasn’t added territory since 1959—the same era America was “really strong and growing” (56:46).
  • Klavan:

    “Empire is a phase in the life of great nations... there's just an amoral truth about the fact that you grow or you die.” – (56:56)

  • Walsh:

    “If you're a great country, then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore, go to unknown places. This is when America has been great.” – (60:12)

• Comedic Relief:

  • Jokes about renaming Greenland as "Trumpland," seizing the Nobel Prize from Venezuela dissidents, and “manifest destiny” abound (58:05, 59:23).
  • Shrimp, dog sleds, and Greenland’s “12 people” become recurring punchlines.

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Notable Quotes (& Timestamps)

• Ben on Newsom’s Tactics:
  "[Newsom] will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base, and then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it because he still wants to win moderates for 2028."
  — Ben Shapiro, (08:46)

• Klavan on Democratic Leadership:
  "I think Newsom is a haircut, a sleazy haircut. And I think that that doesn't play."
  — Andrew Klavan, (09:28)

• Walsh on Memes and Candidate Image:
  "He doesn't take himself too seriously... that's a rare quality for a politician people appreciate."
  — Matt Walsh, (27:18)

• Knowles on Heritage:
  "If my ancestors had come on a slave ship ... I would view the country differently ... identity really really does matter."
  — Michael Knowles, (42:23)

• Walsh on Slavery’s Legacy:
  "...to be mad about a thing that ultimately has actually benefited you today makes no sense."
  — Matt Walsh, (46:35)

• Klavan on Expansion:
  "Empire is a phase in the life of great nations... I think ultimately there's just an amoral truth about the fact that you grow or you die."
  — Andrew Klavan, (56:56)

• Walsh on Expansion & Greatness:
  "If you're a great country, then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore, go to unknown places. This is when America has been great."
  — Matt Walsh, (60:12)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Ben’s debrief on meeting Gavin Newsom: (02:11–08:46)
• Debate: Is Newsom inevitable for Dems in 2028? (09:09–15:55)
• JD Vance and the future of the GOP coalition: (15:55–29:25)
• The meme game and underestimation in politics: (26:16)
• Slavery and American history—preview of Walsh's documentary: (37:43–51:41)
• Greenland debate: Conquest or contract? (52:38–63:58)
• Closing banter and expansion as national ethos: (61:28–64:27)

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Conclusion

This episode is a lively, multi-topic conservative roundtable blending sharp policy analysis, historical revisionism, and playful hyperbole. It covers the intricacies of the upcoming Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, the legacy and cohesion of Trump’s "MAGA" movement, complex legacies of historical injustices like slavery, and the enduring allure of American expansion. Even the wildest proposals—like annexing Greenland—are vehicles for deeper commentary on American identity, ambition, and the cycles of political myth-making.

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Note: Ads, promotional plugs, and extended board game segments were omitted from this summary for clarity and focus on substantive discussion.

Transcript

[A]

Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me that's hilarious.

[B]

Really?

[C]

You think JD Would mog Gavin Newsom?

[B]

Yes, I do think he would mog him.

[A]

I'm really enjoying Neocon.

[B]

I have also been lusting after Greenland my whole life.

[C]

I don't buy that.

[D]

Oh, come on.

[B]

I know it's uncouth to say it, but, like, am I wrong for media matters?

[A]

He's joking. It's not true.

[C]

He's not joking. Friends like these coonies.

[D]

Enemies of friends like these coonies.

[C]

Enemies.

[A]

Matt first. First time that Matt wants to talk foreign policy. So I'm like, I'm all ears, man. Let's do it.

[B]

I mean, no, don't put it all on me. I just.

[A]

Normally mention any place that is outside the United States and I can see Matt's eyes glaze over green.

[B]

Greenland is the only country outside the US That I care about.

[C]

And it's meant to be inside the U.S. yeah, exactly.

[A]

I just love that we have as a listed topic the slave trade.

[D]

Yeah, no, I'm hoping Matt is going.

[A]

To take the Aristotelian pro.

[D]

That's funny because you said that I was thinking about Aristotle, too, in that.

[C]

Will Gavin Newsom be the next president? Daily Wire's very own Ben Shapiro just became Paul Allen, sitting down with the Patrick Bateman of California. We will hear all of the juicy details. Then Matt, I believe, is calling for a civil rights movement for white people as he releases his new mini documentary on the slave trade. What is a slave? No, I don't think it's called that. Anyway, he's gonna be giving the history on that. And then we will be going all the way into green. I don't think it's coincidental. Denmark has said that they will not sell Greenland to the United States. Then France came out and they said, the French military will defend you. And then immediately Denmark said, okay, listen, we'll make a deal. So we will get into all of those things on friendly fire, gentlemen. Wonderful to be with all of you. Happy New Year and Merry Christmas. Christmas is still on until February 2nd, as far as I'm concerned.

[A]

Wow. I didn't realize it lasts that long, Michael.

[D]

Why, I could go through the Lent myself.

[C]

Yeah, I actually. I count Christmas as lasting through until the next Advent. So I've still got all the decorations up in my set. It's amazing. I haven't seen you guys in a little while. And, Ben, you were just over with Mr. Slimy himself.

[A]

I was with Gavin Newsom at the Governor's mansion in California, which by the way is very tiny. It is the tiniest governor's mansion. It is a very, very small building in Sacramento. You have to brush thousands of homeless people out of your way just to get to it. But, you know, it was definitely an interesting experience. I had a little bit of time off camera with Gavin Newsom. I'd met him briefly before and like most politicians, he's very good in person. I will say that just as a class of people, politicians in person, way better than politicians on camera, just generally speaking. And we all know a bunch of politicians and I think that this is the general rule about literally all of them. So off camera, he's very friendly, he's very garrulous. He will kind of get a little more honest with you than he might in terms of his positions on camera. And then I was out there because he had invited me to come on his podcast. That's a podcast where he has, I guess once every couple of weeks, I believe. Usually it's somebody of the left. Occasionally he'll have somebody of the right. Famously, he had Charlie, Charlie Kirk on the show. This is back during last summer and it was about a two hour show, a little bit under two hours. We covered a lot of ground.

[C]

Before I get to your epic, sit down with him because I want to know if he's going to be the next president. I really hope he's not. I want to get to a more an even more epic topic, which is of course the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, which is coming out. It's coming to Daily Wire plus. This is the latest reason that you have to subscribe. Become a Daily Wire member right now. This just amazing, elaborate, multi continental journey. If only we had waited a little longer to make it, we could have shot it in Greenland. Just a beautiful, beautiful series. And by the way, if you go check it out right now, you can go to dailywire.com shop and get the Pendragon cycle Rise of the Merlin board game, which is very, very cool. Depending on how long this goes, maybe we can all play it together.

[D]

Guys, I love the board games. Send me one of those.

[C]

It's good. This is looking. I don't know, we spent some money on this. This is a nice looking board game. Anyway, go check it out right now. Become a Daily Wire plus member. January 22nd. It all happens and then possibly in January of 2029, our whole country falls apart if Gavin Newsom becomes president.

[A]

It turns out that series is the only thing more ambitious than Gavin Newsom.

[C]

We have a trailer, right? Play the trailer. What was it like, Malin, to be alone with God?

[B]

Is that who you think I was alone with?

[C]

There is a new power at work in the world. I've seen it. A God who sacrifices what he loves for us.

[B]

I learnt of Yesu, the Christ and.

[C]

I have become his follower.

[A]

Trust in Yezu.

[B]

Great light, great darkness. Such things mattered to me then.

[C]

What matters to you now?

[B]

Mistress of Lies the Pendragon Cycle Rise.

[C]

Of The Merlin A Seven Part Series premieres January 22nd only on Daily Wire.

[A]

Plus, I mean, it is as good or better than anything that you will see on hbo. And. And you won't get the gratuitous sex and. And the. And the insane nihilism. So. Sorry. I know it's massive disincentive for.

[C]

For.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Well, no, so they, they. Because they said we're gonna play the Pendragon trailer and they came in and gave me this fake sword. I said, what is this for? It's a. So this is a bit where I'm supposed to pull this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this, but it's. They gave me the sword and said, well, you could do a bit where you have a sword. What's the bit? Like I. I have a sword. What am I supposed to. I don't know.

[D]

For the lady in the lake. That'll be.

[B]

Is anyone in my ears with the sword? Is there a thing I'm supposed to.

[A]

Be doing with it now?

[B]

I think I'm supposed to just have the sword and you guys are supposed to laugh hysterically because Matt Walsh has a. You know, is holding us.

[C]

You could use it to smash in the windows of illegals in Minneapolis or something. You use it for like a very practical political purpose.

[B]

It's not even a real. It's plastic.

[A]

If you wish to buy Matt a real sword, then you can get a subscription to Daily Wire and you can watch Pendragon and then we can pay for actual metal swords that Matt can use to go and, I don't know, chop down trees in whatever part of rural America he is in right at this very moment. Anyway, back to. Back to Gavin. So. So Newsom. I will say that he is good on his feet, right? He's squirrely enough that he knows his talking points well enough that if you hit him on California policy, he is. He is able to sort of shift responsibility. His big moves. He likes to shift responsibility onto local officials for failures and then take credit for any state successes or he likes to make sort of grandiose claims about the robustness of, of California. And if you point out it is not as robust as he has said that it would be, then he'll start talking about Louisiana. So you see that sort of stuff happen a lot. So for example, I was dinging him on California's income tax policy because it's driving business out of the state. And his immediate response was, well, yeah, but we're fairer than say, Louisiana. And here's how that kind of went. I think we have the clip likely lowering the income tax rates.

[D]

Well, California has tax. I mean, there's 16 states right now. Let's talk about those 16 states.

[A]

Why don't we talk about California?

[D]

That's going to, they tax their low wage earners more than California taxes. It' high wage earners. Let's talk about those, lowering those tax rates in those 16 states.

[A]

Okay. So again, notice, notice what he tends to do is he will misdirect away from the actual topic. And even when it comes to the topic of taxes, he'll, he'll misdirect because the point I'm making is not a fairness point, it is a, an efficacy point, meaning you're driving every taxpayer out of your state, which is what's happened in California. He'll shift it over to Louisiana and then he will have his online minions talk about how he owned everybody by showing that you pay a lot of tax in Louisiana as a poor person based on excise taxes and such. So that's kind of one of his squirrely strategies. There are certain places where he is less squirrely, and that's kind of what's interesting. I will say the thing that I found interesting is his overt attempt to moderate his sort of online Persona. So there are a couple of points where he did this. One of them most obviously was on ice. So his, his crazy social media account, his press office account, which has been dedicated to trolling President Trump for a while, had tweeted out that he, that they'd engaged in ice, had engaged in state sponsored terrorism. And I asked him straight up about it and really pushed him on it. One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, that she was a domestic terrorist who was attempting to run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying not, not just this officer, but multiple officers. That was the original statement I said at the time I thought that was untrue. And then your press office tweeted out that it was State sponsored terrorism, which, I mean, Governor, I do have to ask you about that. That sort of thing makes our politics worse. Yeah, I mean, it does. And our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

A tragic situation is not state sponsored terrorism.

[D]

Yeah, I think that's fair.

[A]

Okay, so again, you can see him trying to, like, take his own press office and just chuck it under the bus. He's doing a couple of things. One is he will kind of rhetorically appeal to the radicals in his base, and then when he's called on it, then he will back really quickly away from it because he still wants to win. Moderates for 2028. By the way, our sponsor Kalshee in the prediction markets shows that he is right now the leader in the clubhouse among Democrats for the 2028 nomination.

[C]

Hold on, hold on. Before. I want to hear. Because you saw him actually personally, I want to hear what you think about him for 2028, but before you sully the opinions of the, you know, you sway our fellow DW guys here. Do you think Drew and Matt, do you think that Newsom's the guy for 28?

[D]

No, I think he's the Jeb Bush of the Democrats. I think, you know, one of the continual arguments we have had on this show and when it was backstage is, you know, Ben and Jeremy would always say that if Michelle Obama runs, should win against anybody. And I think, I don't think it's underestimating the American public. I think it's misunderstanding the American public. They actually are. The American public actually is keyed into issues. More the media wants them to be. More the media wants them to look at people, what they look like and how they behave and whether they do this or that and what words they use. But the people actually do care about topics and issues, especially when they affect them. I think Newsom is a haircut, a sleazy haircut. And I think that that doesn't play. I think the fact that they, anybody who runs against them is going to bring up the fact that they have spent $40 billion almost on fixing the homeless issue and their homelessness has gone up 30%. Where's the money? The bullet train. Where the hell did that those billions of dollars go? Money disappears in California because like any one state, one party state, it's full of graft. It's just a completely.

[C]

But Drew, wouldn't you also say that Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were greasy haircuts? I mean, sleazy haircuts.

[D]

Bill Clinton was one of the great. And Barack Obama. This is the other thing about Democrats, by the way, we've had three Democrat presidents over the last several decades. Obama and Clinton were two of the greatest politicians of my lifetime. They were fantastic, wholesale politicians. And Joe Biden. Biden won under very suspicious circumstances, let's face it. I mean, very, you know, weird circumstances. So. So I. I don't know. The drift. The drift in this country is to the right. The drift in the west is to the right. And in Europe, they're basically stamping it down, but we don't have the capability of stamping it down. And I think Gavin Newsom is toast the minute his record comes up. And. And the social stuff, the. The way he handled Covid, the way he had everybody. He shut down John MacArthur's church and tried to. And harassed them while he was dining out at a French restaurant with his friends without a mask. I mean, guy is just. He's too easy a target to really make it once the national attention is on him. And I just don't think he's. Look, I understand he's ahead in the polls. Anything can happen. It's way too far away to actually predict it. I'm not making a prediction, but he's just not the guy I'm looking at. It's AOC who keeps me up at night.

[B]

Is the question whether he's gonna win the presidency in 2028 or whether he's the Democrats guy in 2028, even start.

[C]

With just the nomination?

[B]

Yeah, because. Well, among Democrats, I guess I could put this sword on. Gavin Newsom, among Democrats, has a. Has something that no other Democrat has that I'm aware of on the entire national stage, which is that he can actually talk to people. Like, he could sit down and talk to Ben. He can go on any podcast and have a conversation. And, yeah, he's lying the entire time, but. But he's willing to do that. I mean, can you name any other Democrat at any level who could even potentially run for the presidency in 2028 who could go on, say, Joe Rogan and have a conversation for two and a half hours? Gavin Newsom could easily do that. And again, although what he's saying is almost always false, everything he believes is wrong, and he's lying almost always. He's at least able to go do that in that environment. And he's the only Democrat. Not only the only Democrat in the field right now who could do that. He's the only Democrat in the last, like, 20 years who has that kind of ability, I think. What. So that's an argument for why, all things being equal, he has a good chance of being the, you know, the nominee for the Democrats of 2028. I don't think he's gonna win the presidency for a lot of the reasons that Drew just articulated.

[C]

You think assuming that J.D. is the presumptive nominee, you think J.D. would MOG Gavin Newsom?

[B]

Yes, I do think he would MOG.

[C]

I agree.

[B]

I do. But then, not that I know what MOG means, but I think he would.

[C]

No one does.

[B]

But the problem for Gavin Newsom is that, like, the obvious thing for a Democrat is that he's a white male. And in a primary, like, would the Democrat voters be willing to say, hey, we tried a woman and she failed. We tried a black woman, she failed even worse. So now we're just gonna go back to a white guy because they're the only ones who can win. I don't know that the Democrats belong.

[D]

To midget or something.

[A]

So I'll say this. He is. He is smoother on his feet than virtually any of the Democrats that I've talked to, and I've talked to a fair number of them. He is also, I think that there's a more than decent likelihood he's the nominee in 2028 because his chief rival is AOC, meaning that AOC is. Is not a black woman. She's a Hispanic woman, actually. And as if you. If you look at the Democratic voting base, particularly in the south, that is a heavily black voting base, there is no evidence that that crosses over to, quote, unquote, the people of color category, a category that has never existed nor will ever exist in real life. And you've already seen cases in which the black vote has mobilized behind a white person to stop another white person or a Hispanic. So I would not be surprised if he's able to pull out the nomination. I will say that again. The game that he's playing, which is a smart game, is he's usually rhetorically radical with regard to President Trump personally and with regard to Trump, you know, that that makes you real popular inside the Democratic Party. But he's trying to moderate on a lot of the issues where he actually is most radical. Like in that interview, he suggested that he's cooperating with ice, which I find, you know, very difficult to believe, shall we say. In that interview, he tried to pretend sort of moderation on the trans issue. His state is not moderate on that issue at all. And that brings up sort of the second question that you're raising, Michael, which is, how does he do in a general election if it's JD VAN so, you know, obviously the number one question there is going to be how's the US Doing, right? If the economy sucks, JD he's got a real problem. And I think everybody acknowledges that. Circumstantially, that's just the reality. As far as sort of head to head as candidates. You know, I will say that I look, my biggest question mark for JD Is can he grow any part of Trump's coalition? I look at Trump's coalition and I think to myself, Trump has maxed out in many ways, many parts of that coalition. What is the part that JD Grows that Trump was unable to grow because this was a fairly narrow election. If you look, it was a couple hundred thousand votes in a couple of different places and very, very high turnout because again, people really, really love Trump in a way that, you know, again, that's not a rip on JD that's just a reality.

[D]

But you've been saying for a while, Ben, and this is something I totally agree with, that almost all of this is going to on depend on the economy, which I think is getting better. I mean, even the Wall Street Journal, which has been hysterically depressed ever since the tariff thing comes out, is admitting that the economy is actually turning around and doing pretty well. And the other thing is also, you know, again, I don't think we talk too much and the media likes this. They want to talk about everything as people's faces and their style and the way they talk. And I admit all that is important, but people actually do pay attention to certain things. Like for instance, the parade of U hauls leaving California looks like a Howard Hawks cattle drive. I mean, people are just like deserting the state. And the state, as we all know, is paradise. If you left it alone, if you took the people out, it would be, it would be paradise. And it's just he's ruined everything that he touches.

[A]

And I just, I mean, listen, I left the state to make video. We all left his state. We all left his state because again, I don't think that his state was well run. But there is one thing that I do know, and that's that you need life insurance.

[C]

You do.

[A]

That's just the reality. You need to start the new year with clarity and security. You need to lock in your life insurance today because, let's face it, you, and I specifically mean Andrew Klavan, might die this year. Policygenius is an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. Their licensed team helps you get what you need fast so you can get on with your life. You can easily find what you need. Coverage, amounts, prices, terms. No guesswork, just clarity. And policy genius will help you find your most affordable policy that meets your needs. They'll answer your questions, handle the paperwork, advocate for you throughout the process. Policygenius has thousands of five star reviews on Google and trustpilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs. Drew, tell me about what you're going to do to protect your family should you die this year.

[D]

Actually, you know, I don't like to bring this up because it violates my contract, but I actually died last year and the payout from my life insurance was so good that my wife was able to, you know, marry her tennis instructor and, you know, live really the way she had wanted to for the last 45 years. So I think it's really, it is important. Look, you disappear, your earnings go with you and that leaves your family alert. So, yeah, it's important, especially for people like me or people like you, Ben, who might finally, they might finally catch up with you and just carry on.

[A]

Well, that's a dark thought for me. This year with Policygenius, real users have gotten 20 year $2 million policies for just 53 bucks a month. Ease the way to protecting a wonderful life. Head on over to policygenius.com fire to compare life insurance quotes from top companies. See how much you could save. That's policygenius.com/fire. So here's my question, Drew. I agree with you obviously about all of Gavin Newsom's policy failures. The real question to me, and I even agree with you obviously about the economy, it's hard to disagree with a 5.3% GDP growth in Q4, you know, following a 4.5% GDP growth in Q3. I mean, those are really, really good numbers. Here is the problem. I go back to it. Just coalitionally speaking. You look at Trump's coalition, it's a very weird coalition, right? It's a different coalition than the sort of historic Republican coalition. It's blue collar voters, his heavy share of Hispanics, slightly outsized portion of black males particularly, and skewing younger than traditionally. It's hard for me to see exactly where JD Grows any part of that coalition. He's going to win fewer Hispanics than President Trump did. Trump has a sort of weird capacity to move beyond his own. He's kind of everybody's idea of a rich person in their various ethnic group. It's really, really funny. Like, if you talk to, you know, if you, if you talk to my people, you talk to the Jews, he's like, oh, yeah, he's like every rich Jew that I know. And then you talk to, like, a white Italian guy. He's like, yeah, he's like, just like the rich Italian guys I know. You talk to a Syrian. He's bizarrely every person and no person at the same time. Donald Trump, in a weird way, that's not true of J.D. vance, who is a very talented politician, but clearly a politician. And so you take sort of Trump's comments about ICE and he's not going to. It doesn't come across the same way as JD Vance online.

[D]

My.

[A]

My chief critique of JD in this way is that I think JD Is too online and he needs to get off X. This is also my chief critique of everyone because I think X rots your brain. And if you're a politician and you're using that as your echo chamber, telling you which direction to row, I think you're going to end up rowing.

[C]

Doesn't that under undercut your point on Trump? Who is the tweeter in chief?

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

Trump is not on X. That's not true. Trump. Trump tweets, but he does not read X. Trump is not online. Trump literally, they print out things for him and put them in front of him. You know, this. This is a factual truth, right? They were literally. He doesn't like. Trump does not spend any time at all on CNN.com or newyorktimes.com they literally print out. If there's a tweet that he has seen, it's because his staff literally prints out the tweet on physical paper and puts it in front of him.

[B]

Okay, but how does. How does Gavin Newsom grow the coalition? Because isn't this conversation Gavin versus Katie Vance?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why does Gavin Newsom grow it?

[A]

So the way that. So again, when it's two choices, then shrinking your coalition is growing the other guy's coalition. So if you have a Hispanic voter, he's only gonna go in one of two directions. If that guy does not vote for JD Vance and now he votes in, the election doesn't just go home. He's gonna vote for Gavin Newsom. So I think that Gavin Newsom does win a larger share of Hispanic voters than Donald. Then Kamala Harris won in the last election cycle. I don't know.

[C]

I think there's a. There's a counter argument here. One is, a lot of people were predicting that Trump had maxed out his coalition the first time and, you know, people were upset they weren't getting exactly what they wanted. You know, all these disappointments. And then what happened? He goes on to win the popular vote the second time. So if JD Were able to maintain Trump's coalition, that alone, he'd be great. And let's say that things change because obviously in 2024, almost half the voters were millennials and zoomers. Skewed a little younger. In my meanderings through the young right, I think the young right does like the vice president a lot, for sure. But the other thing. So, you know, to me, that's a bonus. I do think this guy is very, very talented in that he came up as this, you know, Ohio guy, this guy who wrote a very famous memoir about his lower class upbringing. And he goes on, succeeds at very high levels. He plays well in Silicon Valley. He plays well with rural people who want industrial policy. He plays well. You know, I think he's got a lot of talent. But this actually gets to my point vis a vis Newsom, which is Newsom is overestimated. We're all talking about how slick he is. The thing he's most famous for in politics is just being really deceitful, you know, and Nicki Minaj had whole line, oh, he's so sexy, he's so slick, he's so this. So I think he's being overestimated in the ways that people overestimated guys like Beto o'. Rourke. These also rans who fell away. I don't think it's always great to be the top guy in the race a year or a year and a half out. But second of all, there was a great interview once between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. And Clinton said he goes, you know, George and I have benefited from the same thing, which is we've both been underestimated. Me, because I'm a nice guy, and they thought I was all nice and they thought he was kind of dumb. And you think about the winning presidential candidates, they tend to be very underestimated. Trump doesn't know anything. He's totally ignorant.

[D]

Go ahead and run, Donald.

[C]

Yeah, right, yeah. Barack Obama, he's black in a racist country. Bill Clinton, he's bubba. Bush is stupid. You know, Ronald Reagan's a cowboy.

[D]

On that subject, though, I have to say, last time we were here, which is not that long ago, I would have bet money, and I'm not a betting man, but I would have bet money on JD Vance being the nominee right this Minute, I'm a little uncertain if that's. If we're actually talking about the next nominee, because he's not, you know, every time. I mean, Trump has been going very hard on foreign policy, and he has people around him in the press conferences, mostly Rubio. And Vance is nowhere to be seen because Vance is one of these guys who's trying to take MAGA and turn it into isolationism, which it never was.

[C]

I don't buy that.

[D]

Oh, come on.

[C]

Where is he?

[D]

Why isn't he in these meetings?

[C]

Well, I'll give you an example. So this was very interesting. I don't know if you guys caught this interview with Sohrab Ahmari right after the Venezuela strike, Sohrab posted it again, and he said, wow, these comments the vice president made a couple weeks ago really hit differently now. And he was being asked, you know, his involvement in the admin, and he said, I'm getting it a little off. It's not verbatim, but this is the thrust of it. He said, look, if, let's say, hypothetically, there were an action to be taken by the administration, that would look really good for Marco, that I would not be all that publicly involved in. In part because you don't have the president and vice president in the same place often outside of the White House, where, you know, Marco would be center stage and I would seem to be more in the background. If I were optimizing for 2028, I would try to kill that action. But if I were optimizing for the good of the country and just to be a good person, I would encourage that action. And, you know, it's kind of unclear what he was talking about there after the Venezuela strike. It seems clear as day to me that's what he's talking about. I think the idea that J.D. is some isolationist. I don't buy it.

[D]

He's positioning himself that way. He's been very close with Tucker Carlson, who. I don't know if Tucker Carlson believes anything at this point. I have no idea. But, I mean, he's actually kind of on the phone. Remember on that signal call that was bugged? He was the guy who was calling for restraint. You know, he's not always, like, it doesn't seem to be online with the president's foreign policy, which, frankly, I think is working out great right now. You know, I think it's going very well. So, I don't know. I'm not saying. Look, I'm not counting him out by any stretch of the imagination. I'm Just saying the guy who looks great is Marco Rubio. And I keep saying, here's the thing.

[A]

I think Marco has basically already said that he is not going to run if Cheney runs. And I think that that's probably true. And I think that right now, if you're looking at the vice president, obviously his benefit is that he is the vice president. No one's, no one's underestimating that. He's incredibly talented. He for sure is. I think that there are a couple of systemic factors that are running against him because I sort of did a bit of a deep dive into this. I mean, the reality, he's the vice president who currently has a 40% approval rating. Vice presidents who have a 40% approval rating, running after presidents who have a 40% approval Rating don't typically do amazing in general elections. And so, you know, maybe that changes, maybe that changes radically. But I think that the sort of core assumption that a lot of Republicans are making, that there's sort of a cakewalk into the presidency for the Vice president that I don't see. And I will say that I do think that the memory, if you do care about the very online, every meme of Marco Rubio, the big meme of Marco Rubio, obviously is Marco having a different job every day, right? Is the Secretary of State now. He's like a gladiator now. It's just him in that pose being like annoyed that he's been given a new job as king of Venezuela or now the new governor of Greenland or whatever it's going to be today. And then all the memes of JD are the JD is fat with weird hair. And like that's not kind of where you want to be, just in sort of meme land.

[C]

I disagree. It gets me.

[A]

You should talk to your guest clavicular. Okay, like your guest clavicular, which is hilarious.

[C]

I don't think the looks maxing, you know, meth addicted 19 year old is representative of the American voter.

[A]

I certainly hope not.

[C]

This is why I disagree though, and it gets to my point on Newsom is I think, I think it was so smart of the VP to lean into the goofy meme. And the reason I think it was so smart is you want to be underestimated so that the reality can surpass expectations. So even down to the physicality, the fact that the meme is he's like this big fat guy, but then you see him, he's not a big fat guy. He's actually a pretty thick, relatively thin guy. The meme is that he's kind of like short, he's actually very tall. The meme is that he's kind of dumb, he's extremely intelligent. So I think all of those things play really well, even to the point ideologically. Some people tried to pin him down on he's an isolationist or he's this or he's that, but he's defended the administration's actions in Iran, in Venezuela, quite vociferously. And so I don't know, to me, like, if I were in this position, I would not want the memes to be making me out to be the really cool guy, frankly. You even saw this with Trump in 2015, 2016. All the memory was that he was like a big dumb idiot. And I think to be underestimated actually puts you in a better position.

[B]

And he doesn't. And he's not. And he's not taking himself too seriously. So that's. Which is a rare quality for a politician people appreciate. But the question is for Republicans, what other Republican, I mean, to go to Ben's point about Trump's coalition, what other Republican has a better chance of at least maintaining most of Trump's coalition if not expanding it? And I don't see anybody outside, I mean, there are others who might have a shot. There are others who I could like in that spot, But I think J.D. vance certainly would have the best shot of that. And as far as approval ratings go, it's like every president and vice president my whole life has had terrible approval ratings. It feels like I don't think it means anything. It's part of the political reality we live in that you just hate whoever's in there and they get bad approval ratings and it still just goes to. I don't see anyone else in the. And this could change, obviously we're still a couple years out, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican field who I'd look at them and say, well, we know what Trump's coalition is and that guy over there really is gonna resonate with that coalition more than J.D. vanceworth.

[D]

And I have to say, by the way, I wasn't suggesting he won't be the nominee or the next president. Cuz that was. That has been my certainty. I'm just saying that my certainty is a little less certain nowadays. But just what Matt was saying, I agree with this. I think, you know, the embassy is a big deal. And think about having Donald Trump's policies without Donald Trump, you know, the Trumpian of Trump that people don't like a lot of people don't like his brashness and his big mouth and all that stuff. And if you, if we thought we could get MAGA without Trump, I think a lot of people would turn up.

[A]

Oh, see, I totally agree. I disagree with this, actually. I've completely flipped on this. I think that, I think that MAGA is Trump. I think that MAGA without Trump is boring and stupid in many way, because I just don't think as a concept it holds together. There's no, Everyone keeps trying to say, what is maga? And so you have the isolation of saying MAGA is America first, meaning America alone. Then you have people who are saying, no, no, no. What MAGA really means is X, Y. MAGA means whatever Donald Trump says MAGA means. That's the reality. And trying to take away the sizzle from the steak and then say, yes, but now it's very nutritious. Like, that's not the thing. And if I were going to look at, here's what I've said about jd, I'll say about Rubio too. Every politician must form their own coalition. Anybody who thinks they're just going to pick up the last guy's coalition, they're wrong.

[C]

It never, ever, ever works in weird circumstances. No, Biden did that, didn't it?

[A]

But in what way did Biden do that?

[C]

He was just running on Obama's third term, basically in a strange circumstance.

[A]

Okay, the 2020 election, as I think we will all acknowledge, those of us who think that he won and those who bizarrely think that he lost are the, are the. We will acknowledge that was the weirdest election of our lifetime and that, that those circumstances are not replicable absent some sort of massive pandemic that shuts down the entire world. Unless we just. Right.

[C]

Unless.

[A]

Unless we do it again. I mean, which could. But, but the biggest problem is that if you look at, here's the thing, I look at JD and I look at JD's coalition and it looks like Trump's coalition, but smaller. I look at Rubio's coalition and if I were going to build a coalition as a Marco Rubio, it would not actually be Trump's coalition, it would be Rubio's coalition, meaning more college educated white people, more Hispanics, fewer blue collar white voters. Right. I mean, that's actually what his coalition would look like. Probably more women. Right. Like his coalition just looks different. And when we dismiss that kind of thing, it ignores the fact that that's actually what Trump did. He didn't just replicate George W. Bush's coalition. He built an entirely new coalition where he went to low propensity voters who weren't voting and got them in his camp. My guess is somebody like Marco Rubio drops some low propensity voters and maybe convinces some more higher propensity voters who voted for Mitt Romney, but not for Donald Trump to come back. Now, again, I'm not saying that means that Rubio WINS or the JD loses. I'm just saying that when I look at JD Vance, I cannot see how if Donald Trump got 77 million votes in the last election cycle, how JD Vance gets to 79 million votes in the next election cycle, very difficult for me to see that. And that's a problem for Republicans. That's not a question just for JD That's a problem for Republicans. They should keep that in mind. So when I'm saying Gavin could be the next president, I'm not talking about Gavin because he's so intellectually superior and such an amazing candidate. I'm saying we have now had a series of binary elections in which everyone was kind of squirrely about all the candidates. Then we came down to the final two, and there were a couple of, you know, core bases who were like, yeah, I love it. And then a huge swath of the middle was like, man, I, this is. Man, this kind of sucks. And if you look at the Gallup poll right now, more than 45% of Americans are now identifying as politically independent, not because they actually are, but because they don't want to be identified as either member of either party. Right.

[D]

That's right. But see, this is the thing. I mean, as you've pointed out, Ben, Trump's policies, you know, eliminate Trump. His policies are fairly middle of the road. I mean, I think some things he's more right and some things he's more left, but he's not, you know, he's not a radical in any shape or form. It's just that the. Our politics has been so radicalized that he sometimes looks like it. And I can't help feeling that you could pick up the Trump MAGA and present it in a somewhat more statesmanlike way. And, you know, I always feel that the, what the people are asking for is normalcy. They're asking to kind of get back to the way we're supposed to be. And I could see Vance selling that really easily. You know, I don't see why he can't do that.

[C]

The other issue. I see your point, Ben, that I agree with it, that MAGA is what Trump says it is, but I Think where I disagree is I think that Trump actually has a pretty coherent policy vision, though it's often called incoherent or capricious. And you see this, especially with foreign policy, like, what does America first mean? I was just debating some guys on this the other day on Piers Morgan's show, and there's some people who insist America first means conservative or libertarian isolationism. I don't think that's what Trump ever meant. Some people that say the alternative is a liberal internationalism, whether we're, you know, talking about, I don't know, like George W. Bush or something, spread liberalism and democracy overseas. I think Trump's is this third option, which is a conservative imperialism. I think he's been consistent about it. He ran in the first term on destroying isis. That obviously doesn't mean you're just gonna only focus within your borders. But when he does intervene, it seems to be in this way that's a little bit more restrained. We're going to have these real tactical, you know, in and out kind of hits in the Middle east, and then we're gonna focus a little more in the Western Hemisphere. But in the Western Hemisphere, that's gonna have cascading effects that do affect Iran, Russia, China. And so to me, that it's. It's a third option that is kind of coherent and that therefore could be replicated by whoever succeeds.

[D]

He's also always thinking about China. He's always setting us up to fight the Cold War with China. I mean, everything he does. You know, when you look at Venezuela, the Chinese ran for their lives, like a lot of running Chinese. After they got. Took Maduro out of there, they were setting up shop in Venezuela, and now not so much. You know, now they're sort of thinking, well, maybe we can use this as an excuse to go into Taiwan, which eventually they'll do. But they. But they're not in Venezuela anymore. And I think Trump is thinking about that all the time. I think if you extend everything he does in terms of.

[A]

I mean, I totally agree that. I think that the danger in trying to intellectualize MAGA is that I think that when you abstract into sort of absolute terms what his foreign policy is, then when you zoom back in into what the specific decisions that are made are by somebody who's not Trump, they don't necessarily match up. I think that, for example, you could make easily the case right now, and I'll make two varying cases. One is that President Trump is what I think he is, which is sort of a hawkish realist, which is that he only wants to get involved in the most minimal possible way to achieve the maximum possible effect on behalf of American interests abroad. And that's not restricted to the Western Hemisphere. Right. That he will. He will bomb the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran if he feels that that's necessary. Maybe he'll go ahead and he'll take a military action in Iran if he believes it'll be necessary right now, but only if it achieves his desired effect. He's not going to just do something like fire a missile at a camel and hit him in the ass sort of for show. Right? Like, so that, that's, that's sort of one version. And then there's an equally coherent version that I find really off putting and I think would be wrong in policy, which is this sort of multipolar hemispheresm, right? This idea that what Trump's actually trying to do is create a Western hemisphere free of foreign intervention. But he's totally fine with Russia dominating both the near east and Eastern Europe and maybe a little bit Western Europe, and he's fine with China dominating Taiwan and the Far East. Right. That vision has actually been put forward by people who consider themselves in sort of the MAGA camp. And because Trump is not, I would say, rhetorically coherent in the way that he approaches these issues, even though I think you can read the policy line in the ways that I've presented, and I think the first one is much more accurate than the second. I think that's why you're seeing concerns about, you know, when people say, well, what is maga? Those are real open questions. Because again, ideology does sort of matter, and President Trump doesn't really have one. And so he's the best pragmatist you'll ever find without a root idea. But what that means, very difficult to have an ideological error. How do you have an ideological error?

[D]

It's a great Wendell who listens to the maga. People talk and think, thank God somebody's finally talking about America's benefits again. Who hears that? Like, these guys come out and they say, you know, we want this to be good for America because that's who we work for. I think it was Rubio who said that. And I thought, thank you. You know, like, you suddenly remembered that all this stuff that we hear, like, you know, you're a racist if you don't open your borders. It's like, screw you. This is my country. I want to defend my country. It's a multi ethnic country. It's got everybody here. I don't want to let in foreigners. That doesn't. And I just. I think this is the first time I don't hear us being accused of anything. They remember that we actually pay their salaries.

[C]

Yeah. There's something kind of funny about when Trump goes in and he says, we're going to Venezuela for the oil, which is not even exactly true. I mean, like, we would be justified in part, but it actually does have a lot more to it and a lot more principle and everything. And, Ben, I think you make a great point, which is you can't quite tell exactly what this is, or you could read in two things, because there is a retrenchment that's going on. There's no question about that. That's what the assertion of the Don Roe doctrine is about. That's what Greenland is. And the question is, is the retrenchment a way that we can make sure that we're strong, we're not spread too thin so that we can preserve American strength around the world, or is the retrenchment this kind of surrender that says we just don't want to be involved anywhere else? And I agree it's kind of ambiguous right now, but I just don't see any real American politician on the right running to say, I want to make America weaker. That's the opposite. Of what. Of what?

[A]

Maga, literally.

[D]

Then you'd have to become a Democrat.

[C]

That's right.

[D]

That's right. That's their actual platform.

[A]

I mean, hey, Gavin Newsom just tweeted something out about me. That's hilarious. Okay.

[C]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. He tweeted out, like, here's what Ben Shapiro is hiding. And it's like, gets president, gets Gavin Newsom, gets Ben to criticize Trump's tariffs. What? What? Gets Ben Shapiro to oppose the invasion of Greenland.

[C]

Presses.

[A]

What? Gets Ben Shapiro to say that Republicans are gonna have a hard time in the midterms. Man. With that kind of. Wow. Wow.

[C]

They nailed you. You got mods.

[A]

Brutal. I got mods.

[C]

You got news.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

Brutal.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Speaking of a very hard right turn, Matt, you, I think, are. What? You're defending slavery now? You want to bring slavery back. Do I understand that?

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Very pro. Well, it's a. Look, it's a controversial issue with slavery. Are we for it? Are we against it? There are arguments. There are arguments on both sides, guys. Of course.

[C]

Okay?

[B]

Both sides make interesting arguments because you.

[A]

Can'T be off the street, please, for media matters. He's joking. It's not true.

[B]

It's.

[C]

Well, he's not joking.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

Go on, go on.

[B]

So, you know, I've got this little, this not little. We have a series coming out starting on Monday, Real History. And they're shorter, you know, shorter documentaries on various topics, various historical topics that have so often been lied about, misrepresented. And these are generally going to be topics that are talked about a lot. I mean, people talk about slavery all the time, but I think the average American doesn't understands the topic very little because schools lie about it, media misrepresents it, Hollywood, and there are all kinds of realities around these topics that are never talked about at all. And we're going to start with slavery. And it's. Look, it's very interesting because although slavery comes up a lot in our political debates, like I said, I think the average person knows almost nothing about it because we're not taught about it in schools. And that's because the history that we've been taught, and this isn't just something that started five years ago in the age of wokeness or whatever. This is something that goes back generations. I can remember being in public school, you know, 30 plus years ago, and it was the same thing. And that's because the education about American history that we get in the mainstream is designed to make us hate ourselves, hate this country, and feel guilty about it. And that starts with slavery. So in the series, we're going to begin with a look at a global look at slavery. Slavery existed as an institution across the entire world for thousands of years. If it's possible to carry the guilt of slavery in your blood somehow, as we're told white Americans do, if that's possible, then every single person who exists on the planet carries that guilt because slavery existed everywhere on the planet. And then we kind of narrow it in to slavery in America, because even if everybody will acknowledge that of course slavery existed everywhere, then they moved to. Yeah, but slavery here was more brutal and it was worse. And that is also not true. And we get into some of the facts about, you know, where did these slaves come from? Well, they came from Africa. How did the slave traders, the European and American slave traders, get their hands on those slaves to begin with? Well, it turns out that there were entire African empires who. This is what they did. I mean, this is how they became empires, is that they enslaved other African tribes, tribes and sold them. And not only that, but if you were captured by one of these African tribes to be sold as a slave, the best case scenario for you is that you'd be put on a ship and shipped specifically to North America, that would be the best case scenario. These are basic facts that I think most people don't know are going to get.

[C]

Well, as you mentioned, or as you maybe intended to mention, this is coming out once a month on Daily Wire. Plus, it's awesome. Obviously, we all agree with all of that. Can I just sound like a little bit of a lib, though, for a second? This is one of my most lib opinions. But it's correct, you know, when they talk about the legacy of slavery and the enduring challenges that come because their great, great, great, great, great, great great grandpa was brought on a slave ship, I don't think they're totally wrong. I don't think that comes from. I don't, you know, in the sense that, like, look, I'm smoking a Mayflower cigar. A brand new blend of. That's extremely exquisite that I'm not yet gonna debut for you all. But I love the fact that some, a very small number of my ancestors came here on the Mayflower. That makes me feel good about the country. It makes me view the country in a certain way. Makes me feel a kind of pride and ownership in the country. If my ancestors had come on a slave ship, even if I were rich, I were a rapper, I had, you know, gold teeth and everything, and I was materially really well off, I would view the country differently. I would have a different relationship to it. And I think as conservatives, we say that heritage matters and trad matters and all that. All I'm saying is I kind of get it. And if I were a black guy in America, that would color my view.

[D]

That's true. I also think it's important. Matt, I completely agree with the history you're saying. I know that history, and you're absolutely right about it. But I also think it's important while we're saying this, that we should put out the idea that slavery is bad. You know, we think it was bad there, it's bad here. We're against it. I think, you know, this is the Daily Wire, official Daily Wire. You know, our co founder is a Jew. Let's take the Moses idea here. Like, let people go. You know, you read Aristotle and he says, well, some people are born slaves. You just want to slap him. I just like, Aristotle. Stop that.

[C]

You know, Aristotle means like different things.

[D]

But people should not own other people. And I just think that, you know, of course it's true that, you know, it actually is true. I mean, I live in the south and I have people come up to me and they say, well, you know, Slavery wasn't so bad. And I think, okay, but can we begin with no? You know, can we begin with, like, don't hold people's slaves? And I think we could put that on our masthead maybe, but, but other than that, it is true that it was, you know, I won't say it was better here. It's just an evil. But it is true that we didn't start it. We bought people from, we bought people who had already been enslaved. And if you read, I think at one point, Matt, I sent you the memoir of Mungo, the guy who made it into, I believe it was Nigeria, the explorer. And he just described a world of slavery when he got to Africa. I mean, he had some, I can't even, I can't remember the number, but he said, like, something like 40% of the people were slave. Of course, if you got caught by the Arabs, they also castrated you, which was like an unpleasant thing in and of itself because you couldn't just then claim you were a woman and play soccer for the team you could beat. You know, it was really bad. So, I mean, I think, you know, I agree with Knowles as well. I think I do understand. The guy who sold me my gun was a black guy. And he said, he said, believe me, I believe in gun rights, because if I had gun rights, I wouldn't be here.

[A]

I actually disagree with, with, with, with Knowles on this, and I'm, I'm with Walsh. I think on, on the question of, you know, this kind of generational, I would feel differently about, about things. I think that the, the history of black Americans is one of the most glorious things, meaning, like moving from slavery to freedom. Moving from, you know, abject slavery to participating in the building of the greatest country in the history of the world and becoming leaders in a wide variety of fields. Fields in that space is an amazing history. And, you know, the, and, and the idea that you should carry with you some sort of generational stigma or shame or that you should feel internally as though that that is like, obviously, you know, the history has consequences, and you feel those consequences over the course of time. But, you know, I, I, I'm, I, I'm not willing to sort of grant the premise that a history of slavery is so deep that it ought to make you think that today's America is the problem. This is also the America that fought a civil war to abolish slavery. This is also the America that did the civil rights movement.

[D]

That's not what Knowles was saying, though.

[B]

Yeah, can I just, can I say One thing. So, actually, two things. First of all, to Drew's point that slavery is bad, that's debatable. No, it's.

[A]

Walsh's job is just to give me a heart attack. This is like. This is great.

[B]

Hold on a second. No, obviously, slavery is bad, but I do think that that assessing that there is a. There's an important point in bringing up that it was a global institution, which is that it was bad. But when you're assessing the individual moral guilt of people who were involved in slavery, say, 500 years ago or 600 years ago, their individual moral guilt is severely mitigated because it was a global institution. And at this time in history, they just didn't have concepts like universal human equality just simply did not exist for the majority of human history. And that means that slavery was bad. But it also means that to kind of look at it through a modern lens and assess the kind of moral guilt on those people that we would. On a slave owner today is incoherent. But secondly, to the black Americans today, I agree that the fact that they. That, you know, if this is your actual. Your heritage, of course there's plenty of black Americans who came here afterwards, and so that's not their heritage.

[C]

But if you're in, like, all of Minnesota, you mean.

[B]

Right?

[C]

You mean, like.

[B]

Exactly, yes. So if that is your heritage, then that's relevant. It's like your heritage is very. Is very relevant, of course. But what is incoherent is to be mad about it. To be mad today that slavery, that, you know, that your ancestors were enslaved is completely incoherent. Not only because it happened a long time ago. I mean, there is that it happened a long time ago. It didn't happen to you. So to be mad about a thing that didn't happen to you doesn't make a lot of sense. But also, there's the other part of this, which nobody really wants to say. And every time I say it, I get in a lot of trouble. But I'll say it again, which is that. Okay, let's just be real about it. If you're a black person in America today and your ancestors were enslaved, you are better off today because of that than you likely would be if your ancestors had not been enslaved. That's the reality. If your ancestors had not been enslaved, then guess what? Either you would not exist, most likely, or if you do exist, you'd exist in Africa. And it is better to be in America than to be in Africa. That is not an argument that slavery is. Okay, I'M not making an end justify the means argument. I'm only saying that to be mad about a thing that ultimately has actually benefited you today makes no sense. Would you prefer that you are in.

[A]

Africa right now, that you don't actually disagree with that?

[D]

Knowles is right. Knowles is actually. I mean, look, Knowles has actually said something that makes sense and is almost profound, which I think we should all stop for a minute and just understand that a miracle has taken.

[C]

Finally did it.

[D]

No, I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's rational or not. And, Ben, I completely agree that even though you have these feelings, you should be able to overcome them and understand that you've been given the gift of being born in America, and that's a beautiful thing, and I agree with that. But, you know, heritage does matter, and it does infuse you with a certain feeling. And you hear the name of the famous black comedian who went up against the trans people. You know, I'll hear him say, like, it was really the black people who freed themselves. And you think, like, no, it wasn't. It was white soldiers fighting. It was people from, you know, Maine and Vermont coming down and fighting for. For liberation. It was. It was not black people who freed themselves. You know, there's a sense of shame that goes with this. There's a sense of shame. You know, when I was growing up, I think Jews had a sense of shame that stemmed out of the Holocaust. You know, why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you stop them? Which is a complete. Obviously a complete, complete false understanding of what happened in that country and what it was like to live through it. But people feel these things, and they affect the way you see the place that you're living. And I think that's basically what Knowles is saying. And feelings. You know, I hate to. I hate to break this to the event, but feelings matter. You know, the way people feel affects their lives. And so when you see things like when you hear the word pride, you immediately know you're dealing with shame. When you hear black pride, gay pride, you immediately know somebody is. Feels ashamed. And I think that you can't make it go away the way the left wants to make it go away, by proclaiming that you're proud.

[B]

Okay, am I. Am I wrong? Am I wrong about what I just said, though? Am I wrong?

[D]

No, you're. You're not wrong that. That the. You know, I have had people say to say to me, slavery was bad. Slavery was bad. But I'm glad I'm here. I have had Black people say that to me, and I understand it. But you know, still the history counts, and I think we, we can have some kind of compassion for that and understanding for it.

[A]

I mean, on a practical level, obviously that your history is all contingent. Right. It's a bunch of if then statements. So if X had not happened, then why would not happen? But that doesn't mean that you have to be super happy that X happened, you know, in and of itself. So, so that, of course, I'm not.

[B]

Saying you should be happy. No, no, I'm not saying you should be happy.

[A]

I know you're not. Yeah.

[B]

I'm not justifying it or saying you should be happy about it. What I'm saying is that to be to, to now in your life today, to be angry about it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense because if the thing. Thing hadn't happened, then you would not exist and, or you would exist probably in a worse situation than you do.

[A]

I mean, I think that what we need is more specificity, actually. What is it that, what is it you're angry about? That a bad thing happened in history or at the concept that may still be walking around of, say, black inferiority. Right. That there's still some people who think that. And that's what leads to slavery. And so that's what you're actually angry at. That's justifiable. You know, you're right in the sense that like anything that happens happened historically, you can be angry at the. If you had been, then there, would you have been happy? No, you would have been very angry. You've been upset. Right. And I think we all agree with that, but I think we should be more specific about what it is we mean when we say angry at that. What is the. That that we're.

[C]

I guess one way to think about it is just because we're conservatives, we're not libs, ideologues who think that, you know, one action of politics can just erase the totality of human experience. You would say, well, look, the 13th Amendment was great, but it doesn't, it's not a magic wand, you know, the 14th amendment or all the way up to, I don't know, Civil Rights act of 1964 or whatever, all sorts of bungled policies that have actually made things worse in many cases. But in any case, those aren't just magic wands that erase a human identity or a heritage or a feeling of tradition or place in a society. And so I guess my point is basically boiling down to. I kind of get it. You know, identity really, really does matter. And the libs are totally wrong about their conclusions from that. That, but it's not to say that that isn't a real problem or a real phenomenon.

[D]

They're also wrong about what identity is. But I take your point.

[A]

I think one of the things that's actually quite important also is that if slavery was a human universal, then the people who abolish it ought to get outsized credit.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely. Namely the British.

[A]

Right? Yeah. No, I mean really the British. But the truth is that, I mean, slavery existed in legal form in Saudi Arabia into the 60s, and there is still slavery that is happening on a pretty wide scale, particularly in the Middle east today. And very often it's people who are being brought there as wage laborers and then they're being basically their passports are taken away, they're being held there, they can't get out. I mean, that sort of stuff is happening right now on the ground in a lot of places on earth. So the stuff that we take for granted is not easily taken for granted. Well, it's controversial stuff. And you can only make controversial stuff if you have subscribers like ours. Which is why you should head on over to DailyWire.com and go check out Matt's brand new series where he will be offended, I assume a wide variety of people over the course of the next year with actual historical takes. So that's exciting stuff.

[C]

Speaking of taking stuff, are we gonna take Greenland? Should we take Greenland? This is by my count, the first foreign policy intervention in American history, at least since the Louisiana Purchase that Matt supports. Matt, you are Pro just F35 like Don Rumsfeld flying over Nuke and taking the ice cream. Ice.

[B]

I mean, I am, I want Greenland. I've been, I have been, I have also been lusting after Greenland my, my whole life. And we just need to go take it. Look, I, I, I, I am often labeled an isolationist. And depending on how you define that, maybe I fit the bill. But my, my, my actual very simple foreign policy view has always been, I've said forever is I'm in favor of anything that America does that actually advance the interests of Americans. And I think that very often we do things, especially in faraway places that supposedly are to advance the interests of Americans, but actually aren't doing that and aren't really intended to do that. But if that's the goal is to help Americans make America's life, make the lives of Americans better, then at least it's potentially in the realm of something that I would support. And with Greenland, I mean, I can easily see the advantages. I mean, there's, of course, what Trump always talks about, the national security advantages. There's also, you know, there's the resources that are there. It's a resource rich country. You know, only like 12 people live there anyway. They're not making use of it. I will say that, you know, I think there are actually militarily invading Greenland, well, probably wouldn't be necessary, first of all, I mean, you just send in one team of Navy SEALs, you topple the whole country.

[C]

Just send in a SEAL. You can send a SEAL. One.

[B]

Like actual SEAL.

[D]

SEAL.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, one actual SEAL. So that, you know, but, but, but, but doing that, I think it would. It wouldn't come to that. That's a different conversation. Maybe they could work something else out. I will just say, though, that it's interesting to me when people today get so offended by the very notion that we would try to acquire land, that we would try to grow sort of the empire, and in particular that we would try to do it by force. It's interesting when people are so offended by that, because how do you think America right now, as it's currently constituted, came to be? You know, America became what it is today, the continental United States, plus Hawaii and Alaska. That happened through purchasing land, in some cases going to war, taking it by force, displacing people, kicking them out, and taking the land for ourselves. That is how this country came to be. We conquered this land, and we did it because we believed that, you know, manifest destiny, it's what God wanted us to do. We knew that, you know, the American empire should reign, and we had leaders who were looking out for the interests of our people. And that's how the entire world has taken the shape that it's taken. This is the way. This is the way that goes. So that doesn't mean that I'm gonna support any effort to just go and conquer land, but it does mean that I'm not gonna automatically rule it out because that's. That's the only way that America exists in the first place. So it's worth talking about.

[A]

I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm really enjoying neocon. Matt Walsh. This is like my favorite version of Matt Walsh. This is really exciting.

[B]

It's not neocon.

[A]

I know. I'm joking that I would never call you a neocon. I know.

[B]

You're all the things to call me.

[D]

I'm looking forward to globalist chill. I think that's Going to be Matt Walsh.

[A]

They got him. They finally got him. They got Walsh.

[B]

They got me, George Bush.

[C]

That makes a really. Matt makes an interesting point, though, which is like, we're supposed to be growing and strong. And it occurs to me the last time we seriously added territory was 1959, which, coincidentally, is the last time we were, like, really strong and growing. You know, it seems like since the 60s, everything's been kind of going downhill. And, you know, if we did acquire Greenland in a serious way, that would expand the size of the United States by 22%. That would be. Not by. In terms of people, obviously, but in terms of land. That would be a huge amount of shrimp.

[D]

The amount of shrimp we'd have, the.

[C]

Delicious shrimp would be. There is a real question, though. Does this violate, you know, the NATO treaties or spirit or international.

[D]

But I believe. I don't like to say this out loud because I know it's going to blow back on me, but I believe that empire is a phase in the life of great nations, and I don't think you can help it. And I think it's coming our way. I'm sort of hoping I'll be going, so you guys have to deal with it. But still, I think ultimately that there's just an amoral truth about the fact that you grow or you die. And I think war with Denmark is going to be so much fun. I love the foreign minister of Denmark. He looks like a lawn troll. And he's very similar at the White House. He's such a civilized little guy. And he says, I agree with Trump in many ways that this, you know, but we can talk it out. And I think, yeah, let's just invade. Come on, let's. Let's go. You know.

[A]

Oh, my God. Okay, so as the. As the. Apparently Abraham Lincoln, all of your imperialist ambitions to grab Texas and open it to slavery, Apparently, Yeah. I am not in favor of the invasion of Greenland. I think. I think that.

[D]

I think it's great that you have to say it, though.

[C]

Media Matters. Ben Shapiro. I am not in favor of the invasion.

[A]

Listen, I'm fine with cutting whatever contract we want to cut with Greenland. If we can pressure them to selling the thing, that's fine. If we want to grab their mineral rights, that's cool, too. But, like, I'm just. I'm wondering. I do love the fact that really all this has come down to is that Donald Trump really wants to rename that place Trump Land and just increase the map and be like, this is the thing that I got because that's clearly what this is, right? We have a military treaty with Denmark. We can build whatever the hell we want there. Like, right now, if we just decided to put 20,000 troops in Greenland without invading, we could just build a base and put our troops there. We literally can do that under current treaty. So this idea that, like, the Chinese are about to grab Greenland, the Russians are about to wade ashore in Nuke, and they're going to. They're going to start shooting all the dogs from their dog sleds.

[D]

I was hoping now that Trump took the Venezuela ladies. Nobel Prize. I was hoping that maybe.

[C]

Calm down.

[A]

I can't even with that. That one also. I can't even like, oh, my gosh. The taking of. The taking of the Nobel Prize is so like, are you kidding me? Like, what are we doing now? You know what it feels like to take in the Nobel Prize? You know, you know how on ebay there will be some guy who won an Oscar and then he goes bankrupt, and then he sells his Oscar. And so you're sitting there and you've got, like, Marlon Brando, second Oscar on your mantle. What do you do if you're trying to walk around like, here's Maria Kachato.

[D]

I like the idea that she insisted. She insisted. The White House, as she insisted he takes it. So this little piece of girl. I insist you take my Nobel Prize.

[A]

All right, all right, I'm sure. Yeah. And oh, my gosh, it's so good. And obviously, when we build the greenhouse in Greenland, then President Trump will obviously put the Nobel Prize in the greenhouse.

[B]

Well, I think, Look, I think it's a good. Even if you disagree with going in and conquering Greenland and making them our slaves. Cause that's another part of this we haven't talked about. But even if you disagree with that, the fact that Trump has the desire at all to kind of, like, expand in this way, that's what presidents. I like that. I mean, that's what our leaders should want to do. Like you said, 1959 was the last time when it felt like we were a country. Well, I would say it's actually 1969. To me, 1969 was the last time. Would have. Would it. When, you know, it felt like America was, like, reaching for something. And that's when we landed on the moon, of course. And we actually did land on the moon, first of all. But I think there's also this kind of. And I know it's not the most compelling foreign policy argument, but this kind of spiritual truth, which is that if you're a great country, then you should be trying to expand, trying to reach for something, explore, go to unknown places. I mean, this is when America has been great. We talk about make America great again. Well, when America has been truly great, it's when it was driven by that desire, by manifest destiny. And then it's kind of like, well, we expanded. We took over the continental United States and we had Hawaii and Alaska. And then we said, well, where is there left to go? Then we started going up, and we're not really doing that as much anymore. At least that's now kind of in the private sector with Elon Musk. And so Trump is the first leader in a while who says, no, let's continue to try to expand and grow this empire. And I think that that's. I think, like you said, Drew, if you're not growing, you're dying. I think there's like a real truth to that when it comes to nations.

[C]

There's a fact too, which is we had been, you know, since the middle of the 19th century, the state Department has been eyeing Greenland. We've tried to buy it multiple times over the years, including the 20th century. And it is kind of weird that Denmark controls Greenland in that, you know, Denmark has been downhill ever since Claudius killed Hamlet's dad. You know, like, it has not been. It's not been a good few centuries. And so you think it's bizarre that they're there. When Trump was in the Oval Office, he said, Denmark said they're gonna double up their defenses. They added another dog sled. That's real. I thought that was a joke. That's not a joke. That's real. They have the serious dog sled Arctic defense, which I'm sure they're great people and great dogs, but, you know, that's not really gonna cut it. And so, you know, then there's this argument that, well, this violates the spirit of NATO or something. And I think NATO is a Cold War organization. It was developed in the Cold War to protect the American empire, you know, against the Soviet empire and the war. And it doesn't mean exactly the same thing after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And. Yeah, really? To all of your points? Well, no, not as much to Ben's, cuz he doesn't want us to just gobble up the whole world. But to Matt and Drew's point, you know, we're great. We grow, we become empires. That's what we do. And you just look at the map and you say, this is kind of weird. Especially with a more aggressive China and Russia, whether or not they're actually going to land and put up a P F Changs and nuke. Like, the fact that they're a little more on the move now means that, yeah, I think we need to get a little more serious, guys. And, you know, Denmark, I think you're going to get on board, and I do think they're going to get on board.

[A]

By the way, Kalshee says, according to our sponsors, Kalshee, 42% shot, or 42% of the people who are betting on it say that we're going to take Greenland. So, you know, we're going to find out. And if that's, you know, you might be able to tell. We'll see if there's like an insider spike right before Trump declares that we. That we've taken Greenland. So, you know, honestly, my main objective, my main objection to taking Greenland is just. It's not even truly ideological. It's more. More like, is, why is this a priority? Like, Trump is like, we must. We must deter Russia. We must deter Russia from, from going after Greenland. Like, you know, it's a really great way to deter Russia to fight it, to have the Ukrainians fight them. Like, there's like, engage in a gigantic ass land war in the middle of Eastern Europe and it's like, no, no, no, no, they're not taking Greenland. Greenland green. Like, this is where we draw the line.

[C]

I care much more about Greenland than Ukraine. I don't mind the minority.

[A]

No, you're probably not in the minority, but you're wrong. So those are not the same thing.

[D]

I think the shrimp is the one that turns me toward Greenland. Yeah.

[A]

And I keep kosher, so I don't care about the shrimp. That's what's happening right here. It always comes down to that. It always comes down to this, you.

[C]

Know, and because we added Hawaii as a state in 1959, the vastness of the American empire, sea to sea, we can actually have coconut shrimp once we take Greenland. That's going to be so delicious.

[D]

Oh, my God, this is great.

[C]

Guys, we have to go. There's two. We have to go. And we need to go to ship.

[B]

What a shot.

[C]

Wonderful to see all of you. Wonderful to see all of you out there. Go become a Daily Wire member right now. And you can hear Matt Walsh vigorously defend slavery. This is friendly fire. We'll see you next.

[A]

You're killing me.