0:00

The delicious ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper

0:02

has a lasting effect on people. Lindsay from

0:04

Sacramento said... Pro tip, 40 degrees is

0:06

the perfect temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

0:09

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

0:11

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

0:13

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

0:15

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

0:17

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

0:20

share that with my friend Nancy. She likes Dr.

0:22

Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

0:24

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

0:26

your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

0:28

by Real Fan Posts. Unless

0:36

you're in the military or you're in

0:38

a nursing home, a medical emergency, it

0:41

should not be a thing. But it is.

0:43

Right. We're stuck with it. We can

0:45

change it if we win. Maybe we get

0:47

HR2 passed. But we're stuck with it

0:49

now. So I like the pivot. Thankfully, he's

0:51

made this pivot where now he's like, listen, let's

0:53

just swamp this thing. The Democrats bank their early

0:56

vote. You know what happens on election day? It

0:58

rains, people's kids are late

1:00

for school, someone gets a fever. That's

1:02

about one, two percent of the vote

1:04

that doesn't show up because of some

1:06

environmental anomaly. The Democrats don't have that

1:09

problem. If their early voting starts tomorrow,

1:11

vote tomorrow. Dan Bongino is

1:13

a prominent conservative political commentator, author, and

1:15

entrepreneur. As a former New York City

1:17

police officer and Secret Service agent, Bongino's

1:19

broadcasts at the Dan Bongino Show are

1:21

characterized by his profound patriotism and relentless

1:24

pursuit of truth. His commentary has garnered

1:26

a record setting following on various platforms

1:28

where he's known for his no-frills analysis

1:30

and unwavering defense of conservative principles. Bongino

1:32

is also a successful entrepreneur departing from

1:34

Fox News in 2023 and

1:36

taking his live podcast over to Rumble, an

1:38

online streaming platform where Bongino himself is a

1:40

significant shareholder. During the pandemic, Bongino was banned

1:43

from YouTube altogether for questioning the efficacy of

1:45

masks. Google banned him from using their ad

1:47

service. The New York Times labeled him one

1:49

of its top five election misinformation super spreaders

1:51

in 2020. All the while, Bongino's

1:53

commentary continued to garner hundreds of millions of views.

1:55

In today's episode, we forecast the 2024 election, discuss

1:58

Donald Trump's unique political struggles. and

2:00

potential presidential debate strategies for each candidate. We

2:02

also weigh the merits of populist economics and

2:05

the rights of recent bifurcation on foreign policy.

2:07

As the temperature climbs and the national political

2:09

landscape bungeenos, insights on the latest headlines help Americans make

2:11

sense of it all. Tune in for

2:13

another fantastic conversation on this episode of the

2:15

Sunday Special. Hey

2:25

Dan, thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Good to see

2:27

you again. Yeah, you too. It's been a while. Last time I

2:29

was in LA now. I know, I know. I didn't say it,

2:31

but it made your upgrade. Oh yeah.

2:33

I mean, it's like a free place and

2:36

everybody's nice. I know. The

2:38

sun's always out in December. It's

2:40

75 degrees. You're swimming in the

2:42

pool. My kids' birthdays are in

2:44

January. You do pool parties. Exactly. No, it's awesome.

2:46

Okay, so let's jump right into the election, because

2:49

obviously that's what everybody wants to hear from you about, is

2:51

what you think is going to happen in the election. Why

2:54

don't we start with sort of that broad view. If you

2:56

had to put money on it today, who do you think

2:58

wins, Trump or Biden? You

3:00

know, listen, predictions kill me because it's one of

3:02

those things, you know, like day holes, like everybody's

3:04

got one. But unless you can

3:06

back it up with some data, it's kind of meaningless. I

3:08

love that your facts don't care about your feelings, right? I

3:11

think when everybody's kind of miscalculating about

3:13

the selection, I think Donald Trump's going

3:16

to win. So let me answer your question first, plainly. But

3:18

there's a reason. The coalition is completely different.

3:20

And this is where I think everybody miscalculated.

3:23

I think we can both agree you kind

3:25

of saw it after 2020. And

3:28

there was a whole 2020 one year where there was, you

3:30

know, a lot going on. A new cycle was crazy. There was,

3:32

you know, there was a left January 6th to Stereae and

3:35

all this stuff. Everybody's like, this guy's going to get

3:37

smoked. Forget it. And all you kept hearing about, if

3:39

you go back and look, you can actually see the

3:41

coverage was suburban moms and independents are

3:43

going to abandon Trump. He has no shop. And

3:47

then this moment happens. I had a friend of

3:49

mine, you know, this guy too, but he's

3:51

at a UFC and he calls me

3:53

and this is like, you know, I ended 2021,

3:55

early 2022. It doesn't matter. Right around that time

3:57

period. And he says, Dan. You're

4:00

never gonna believe this man. I'm sitting in a green room and

4:03

he said I'm telling you man The black vote

4:05

is gonna go for Donald Trump in big numbers.

4:07

I mean not a majority obviously, but in big

4:09

numbers I said what makes you say that and

4:11

I've been kind of hearing that too, but anecdotes,

4:13

you know anecdotes single subject designs Not that reliable

4:15

whatever He said I was

4:17

talking to a bunch of entertainers sports figures in

4:19

the green room and business people all all black

4:21

He said and they could not stop raving about

4:24

Donald Trump I was kind

4:26

of blown away by it It wound up turning

4:28

to this online kind of spat with me and

4:30

this uh, this other conservative nice guy was friendly

4:32

at all But he didn't buy it

4:34

he didn't believe and now you see the

4:37

raw data polling numbers the Trump coalition is

4:39

just different Hispanic voters black

4:42

voters you're seeing that you're working-class males

4:44

and droves and most importantly Union

4:47

workers my brothers are local three electricians.

4:49

No a single person voting for Biden

4:51

But when did the Republicans ever win

4:53

the union vote and in my

4:55

humble opinion Ben? I think Trump's

4:57

lasting gift outside of the Supreme Court Abraham

5:00

Accords and other things. I really believe this

5:02

I think his real gift to the Republican

5:04

Party is gonna be that

5:06

he completely altered the coalition moving forward

5:08

We've never you've been following this as

5:10

long as I have when did we ever

5:13

in the past rely on black? Hispanic

5:15

voters and union voters I can tell

5:17

you like never and I think

5:19

really that's gonna be his left and gift Gifts

5:21

gift. Excuse me if we can keep it, you

5:23

know Republicans have an act for screwing stuff up

5:25

So, I mean what do you think that's based

5:27

on? Obviously Trump is one of one his unique

5:29

figure in American politics Yeah The question of whether

5:31

we can keep it is partially dependent on the

5:34

fact that is there anyone else like Trump and

5:36

the answer is no But I think there's something

5:38

else that's going on and the argument that I've

5:40

been making about Trumpism since the beginning I is

5:42

that Trumpism is Less a

5:44

philosophy than a correct impulse and

5:46

and that impulse is at the

5:49

left that what Donald Trump Really isn't a nutshell

5:51

because he's not somebody who's gonna sit there and

5:53

give you a 200 page tome on the American

5:55

founding He's gonna give you exactly what he thinks

5:57

in his most instinctive way and mostly what he

5:59

represents giant pulsating orange middle finger to a

6:02

bunch of people who don't care about

6:04

union workers, about blue-collar workers, about people

6:06

who go to church. And

6:08

because the Democratic Party has become

6:10

the distillation of Barack Obama's philosophy without

6:13

Barack Obama's personality, I think

6:15

that there was almost an inevitable backlash

6:17

that was going to occur. They've disconnected

6:19

themselves not just economically, but also in

6:21

terms of social values from

6:23

the middle of the country in a radical

6:25

way. Yeah, yes to all of

6:27

that. But I think the first part you hit

6:30

on is critical, the big middle

6:32

finger to the establishment class, whatever that means,

6:34

because it means different things to different people.

6:37

Again, we've been at this game a long time.

6:40

Can we at least both agree that Democrats have always beaten us

6:42

at the message game, right? I can tell

6:44

you, because I ran for office. I used to knock on doors

6:47

in Maryland all the time. And they should do this little trick.

6:49

People say Republican or Democrat, if they want to talk to you.

6:51

Most people just slam the door. But I'd say,

6:53

how about this? How about I don't tell you? How

6:55

about we just talk about a few things, give me two minutes, and

6:57

then you tell me what I am. I'm running

6:59

in Maryland. It's not hard to find Democrats. I

7:01

would go knock on doors in Prince George's County,

7:04

largely black, very wealthy county. I'd

7:06

be done if there's a two-minute spiel, and I swear

7:09

to you, seven out of 10 people go, you're a

7:11

Democrat. No, no, I'm a Republican and

7:13

a conservative. They were stunned. So

7:15

they just beat us at the messaging game. I mean,

7:17

they could tell you how they won, right? Bill Clinton

7:19

goes on our Cineo Hall, starts playing the saxophone. Everybody's

7:21

like, man, I want to be like that guy. They

7:23

had no idea what he stood for. Most

7:26

people out there were just like, this is the kind of the cool

7:28

guy. Obama, hope he change.

7:30

What did that even mean? No one knew what that

7:32

meant. If they knew hope he change, he meant your

7:34

insurance was going to be canceled. Nobody would

7:36

have done hope he change. But they did

7:38

it because they're just really good at messaging.

7:40

So Trump comes along. And we've

7:42

had this stodgy, you know,

7:45

Mitt Romney, George W. Bush Republican

7:47

Party forever, where we would

7:49

go in like a methadone clinic, right? And we'd be

7:51

talking about the Laffer curve. And the guys in there

7:53

are like, bro, I'm like dying of a heroin. I

7:56

appreciate that. That's a thing. The Laffer

7:58

curve. That's great. What are you going

8:00

to do for me? And no one

8:03

could talk plainly because we just came

8:05

from a different stock. It was like

8:07

this Brahmin class that had never related

8:09

to middle-class workers. And then the

8:11

most ironic thing, you get this Queens

8:13

billionaire, billionaire, who should be correct. He's

8:15

richer than you and me, man. He

8:18

should be so detached from the middle

8:20

guy. But because he was a

8:22

builder, a builder, my father's been in this

8:24

business his whole life, I'll explain it to you perfectly. You're

8:26

dealing with union guys, cement

8:29

workers, electricians, HVAC guys,

8:31

steam fitters, tin knockers, every day. This

8:34

guy was one of them. It wasn't a money

8:36

thing. It was a talk thing. And people, like

8:38

you said, were just like, you

8:40

know, he kind of talks like me. The same

8:43

losers I hate, he hates. Is it a thing?

8:45

Is it about the Abraham Accords? Is it about

8:47

maybe to like the white paper crowd? You know,

8:49

you and I read a lot of that stuff,

8:51

but let's be honest, we're voting Republican anyway. To

8:54

a lot of independents, it's not a knock on them,

8:56

Ben. These people work for a living. You know, this

8:58

is what we do. You and I get paid to

9:00

analyze politics. People have real jobs. We don't

9:02

have real jobs. It's a fake job. It's like, you

9:04

know it. You and I get paid to do what

9:06

we love. Talk about politics. But it's a fake job.

9:09

You think the guy out there sitting in the

9:11

Florida sun pouring concrete is reading through a 51

9:13

page white paper on the marginal

9:15

effect of a corporate tax cut?

9:17

He's not really, he's actually doing

9:20

stuff. He's the one who listens

9:22

to Trump and he's like, hey man, it's

9:24

like Dave Chappelle. Sorry, Dave Chappelle said, he

9:26

goes, I call this guy, you

9:28

know, what did he say? That segment about him

9:31

being an honest liar, how he called Hillary, like

9:33

that's it. Everyone in politics

9:35

bullsh** you, but this is the first

9:37

guy who does it honestly. It's the strangest thing.

9:40

The question I think for the Republican Party going forward

9:42

is, is that replicable? In the same

9:44

way that the Democrats sort of fell for the Barack Obama

9:46

model, but they didn't have Barack Obama, are

9:49

Republicans gonna do the same thing? So here's

9:51

my grand unified field theory of politics, is

9:53

that basically everything changed in 2012. It

9:55

wasn't 08 when Obama won the first time. Because

9:58

by all rights you should have lost, he was wildly. He was

10:00

incredibly unpopular with the American public. His politics

10:02

sucked. Everybody hated Obamacare. And then he basically

10:04

decided to abandon the middle and run directly

10:07

to his base and cobble together the coalition

10:09

of the dispossessed, along with some college educated

10:11

white ladies. And then he won

10:13

based on that. And so that led to this

10:15

idea in the Democratic Party that that was the

10:17

winning coalition. And it led to the idea in

10:20

the Republican Party that that was an unbeatable coalition

10:22

because the media kept saying that over and over,

10:24

right? Now they're all ripping everybody about the –

10:26

you're talking about the Great Replacement Theory. They're

10:29

talking about the Great Replacement Theory first, where people like Roy

10:31

Teixeira was on the left talking about how the demographics

10:33

of the United States had changed, and now Republicans would

10:35

never win another election. So 2016 happens.

10:37

Trump comes out of nowhere. He wins the

10:40

nomination. And then he beats Hillary Clinton, who's

10:42

trying to replicate the Obama coalition. And the

10:44

conclusion because of 2012 for

10:46

Democrats was there's no way that Trump

10:48

possibly could have won. He must have

10:50

cheated. And the response for Republicans was there's no

10:52

way Trump should have won. He must have worked

10:55

miracles. And so since then

10:57

we've been stuck in this sort of weird binary

10:59

where Republicans think that Trump is a miracle worker

11:01

and Democrats think that Trump is Satan.

11:04

And we're sort of stuck there based on the falsehood, which

11:06

is that the one who was actually out of the

11:08

box in terms of his political approach was Obama.

11:10

And the magic of Donald Trump in 2024,

11:12

shockingly, is that he is the moderate candidate

11:14

in this race. If you look at him

11:16

positionally, Donald Trump has grabbed the

11:19

middle on every single issue. 100

11:21

percent. It's interesting you say that

11:23

because it's funny when people paint this guy

11:25

as like this far right conservative dictator. And

11:27

then, like you said, you go back and

11:29

look back and it was actually the first

11:32

term was quite a quite a moderate agenda.

11:34

I mean, I don't think there's any question

11:36

that there is some position. I mean, listen, I

11:38

love Donald Trump, endorse him early, but we've

11:40

had disagreements on my show on the air

11:42

about things like abortion. He's

11:46

more of a practical guy. And as I've said about

11:48

Donald Trump, and I think this is the

11:50

appeal of Donald Trump, and I think this is what bothers

11:52

conservatives because you're right. We are kind of stuck in this

11:54

fugue state right now. Some old school

11:56

conservatives, I think what bothers them is

11:59

that. He's transactional and I

12:02

don't say that as an insult like guys

12:04

like you and me and some of

12:06

these old-school guys Have been in the

12:08

conservative movement me kind of

12:10

conservatarian. We're really passionate about this I

12:13

mean, you know don't kill babies like I'm not

12:15

that's like my thing I know I always say

12:17

like we can argue tax policy we want but

12:19

if you're dead, you're not really paying taxes So

12:21

that's like kind of my thing like don't whack

12:23

babies, you know Um, and I believe

12:25

it like that's that's that's in my soul, man

12:27

That's I'm not I'm not going in front of

12:29

Jesus Christ one day going. Hey, I didn't fight

12:31

when I could but he's

12:34

transactional He sees everything is a

12:36

spreadsheet. It's his business background. I

12:38

think it's his general unfamiliarity with

12:40

dirty politics He looks at something

12:43

and goes Okay, you

12:45

want to save X number of babies? You're

12:47

not gonna get that done in this state So

12:49

how about we do this and it's like I

12:52

think the old-school conservatives sometimes even like me like

12:54

but then you you're like He's

12:57

not wrong about the politics. We haven't done

12:59

enough political work to get there yet You

13:02

know, I think about other things too like the

13:04

Supreme Court thing Did he

13:06

I mean did he personally look at each of

13:08

these people and go? Oh, here's what they're gonna

13:10

do about voter ID and abortion The Second Amendment.

13:12

No, he's a transactional guy. He's

13:15

used to delegating He goes I Leonard

13:17

Leo Federalist Society's guys had some pretty

13:19

good ideas of people and that's what

13:21

he does and maybe the Republican

13:23

Party Needs more of a transactionalist and

13:25

you would asked in the beginning You

13:28

know, can we keep this going and

13:30

the answer is I'm not sure I mean,

13:32

I'm not sure we have this great bench

13:34

of people who can blend this

13:37

new populism I think there's something else that's

13:39

happening with Trump, which is really unique And

13:41

what that is is when you talk about

13:43

Trump being transactional, it's not just that Trump's

13:46

transactional It's at the base is willing to

13:48

accept that he's transactional So when you say

13:50

Mitch McConnell's transactional, which he is because the

13:52

politician the entire base goes that

13:55

that sell out that Right and

13:57

then they do the same thing with any politician John

14:00

Boehner or Paul Ryan or now Mike Johnson,

14:02

anybody who, quote unquote, caves to the left,

14:05

who's being transactional because that's what politics requires,

14:07

is the transactional. The difference with Trump is

14:09

that we have such a visceral connection, the

14:11

Republican base, with Trump, that he'll be transactional,

14:13

but we trust him. We're like, okay, yeah,

14:15

but we get that he's on our side.

14:18

And I think that because of

14:20

that, that's the part that I'm not sure

14:22

is replicable, meaning that when I talk about

14:24

the people in our industry, it's sort of

14:26

fascinating. I spoke at the House Republican, they

14:29

have sort of a big get together every year, and the

14:31

one year they're doing it in Florida is when McCarthy was

14:33

House Speaker. And I got up and I

14:35

said to the members of the House, listen, my job is not the

14:38

same as your job, right? My job is to say what I think

14:40

is true and what you guys should be going for, and your job

14:42

is to get 75% of that. And

14:44

it's not to do my job. It's not to go

14:46

on TV and say what 100% would look like and

14:48

that everybody is failing because of a lack

14:51

of will and spine. Generally speaking, I actually

14:53

don't think that a Republican Party fails because of lack of

14:55

will and spine. I think sometimes that's true, but I think

14:57

generally the reason they fail is because right now they have

14:59

like a two-vote margin in the House. They don't run

15:02

the Senate and they don't have the presidency. And when it

15:04

came to lack of will and spine, it seems to me

15:06

like that was more when they actually controlled all three elected

15:08

branches, right? I mean, the very early

15:10

parts of Trump, they controlled the Senate and the House

15:12

and the presidency, and they didn't do enough of that.

15:14

And that's when we should be browbeating them. But the

15:17

thing about Trump that's unique is that Trump can say,

15:19

yeah, listen, I'm getting to get 75%. And I'll

15:21

go, that's amazing. He's getting 75%. That's awesome. And

15:23

I know that if he could get 100%, he would. Yeah,

15:28

but I think your analogy there,

15:31

you got me thinking, which happens

15:34

a lot when you make a really good point. The

15:36

McConnell thing, you're right. Why

15:38

the disparity in kind of views? Why

15:41

are we so sure that McConnell sold

15:43

this out but Trump didn't? I think

15:45

it's because I think they believe McConnell's

15:47

playing a cynical game where Trump is

15:49

really doing it because he believes people

15:51

in the know have told them like

15:54

this is the better path. I'll

15:56

give you an example. Here's what I mean. I

15:58

think it's almost like political naive. Hey is

16:00

Trump's of his term superpower

16:02

which sounds odd. Whereas.

16:05

It's it's it's Mcconnell curse because is

16:07

Not polygamy. And I mean there's no

16:09

one less politically naive semifinal here, for

16:11

example, The. Abraham affords. How

16:14

many Republicans Or democrats? Or and democrat

16:16

or entire swamp? As said, you will

16:18

never get any this down without solving

16:20

the Palestinian issue of Stone Image or

16:22

his legions of state John Kerry. Republicans

16:24

say it, it's don't even. But you

16:26

gotta fix the Palestinian issue. Don't even

16:29

bother. Trump. Comes in because he's and

16:31

I save us a good comp and a lot

16:33

of story fashion a compliment and he sees politically

16:35

naive about and he's like I that's the way

16:37

was bothered by.on really by that kind of bs

16:39

like I'm going to do a my way. We're

16:41

going to put a spreadsheet downstairs a number of

16:43

people many get on board. And. Any does

16:45

it and everybody's like oh my god He did

16:47

that we weren't supposed to do as well. Why

16:49

were You Must Do it. Because. Somebody

16:52

told us we weren't supposed to do it and I

16:54

knew I'd. That's the difference

16:56

between him and of Mcconnell. Like Mcconnell will

16:58

get transactional, Grow a pair. When

17:00

the something really on the line like the

17:02

appeals court filibuster. At Listen, I'm not

17:04

a Mcconnell guy. never have been. For most

17:07

important, the Senate Majority Leader has oh my

17:09

gosh, he denies hundred lives might resemble a

17:11

permanent. There's no this Auto care how much

17:13

you hate Mcconnell. There is Zero disputing that

17:15

authored the Director of the Country Road. The

17:17

Way: everything. At A But again

17:19

I think it was a political calculations the time

17:21

that likely could have been done earlier and I

17:23

think of the diversity Mcconnell and Trump's or to

17:26

is it Trump's Mcconnell is like a counterpoint to

17:28

he's got away from the politics the com his

17:30

way and I have the same deal with oh

17:32

she's gonna would sell for us but Trump will

17:35

just throw it out there. And really, I think

17:37

it's just that. Can he be a bit impulsive?

17:39

Yeah, I think that's an understatement. I don't think

17:41

anybody does that. But. I think people see

17:44

hub see like well that's different I've ever seen

17:46

that before. Good like let's move the overton window

17:48

in our direction. Democrats do it all the time.

17:50

I. mean they're impulsive every single day they'll come out say

17:52

some phrases i'm it's how do get that employ worth

17:54

the oh boy can be a girl that as a

17:57

kind of thing twenty years of have you brought it

17:59

up in a demo debate in a Democrat debate,

18:01

they would have laughed in your face. And

18:03

he pushes it Trump, he just keeps moving the ball forward

18:05

and I think that's what they like about him. We

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19:08

let's talk about kind of the difference between Trump 2020

19:11

and Trump 2024. So when you look

19:13

at Trump 2020, I know

19:15

that you have strong opinions about what happened in

19:17

the election. My take on that has been they

19:19

changed the rules, which is a form of cheating.

19:21

They radically increased the amount of mail-in balloting, which

19:23

is a form of cheating. There was a voter

19:25

increase of 22 million in terms of just pure

19:27

number of votes between 2016 and 2020, which is

19:29

unprecedented in American history. It

19:32

obviously benefited Joe Biden. They hid the Hunter Biden

19:34

laptop story for a full month. The entire media

19:36

were arrayed against him. The institutions of his own

19:38

government were arrayed against him. All

19:41

of that is a form of cheating. With that said,

19:43

I don't think the electoral fraud proof is strong enough

19:46

to suggest that he lost purely on the basis of

19:48

electoral fraud. So there's

19:50

that. Assuming my premise, which is that

19:52

he actually lost in 2020 on just the pure

19:54

number of counted votes. What do you think changes

19:56

between 2020 and 2024? Because clearly something has. He

20:00

was he was lagging in the polls behind Biden the

20:02

entirety of the 2020 election cycle by some between five

20:04

and seven points And then of course he ends up

20:06

losing by much closer this time around

20:09

he's been leading almost wire to wire right and

20:11

and so what that says to me is that

20:13

really about Trump and Changes with regard to Trump

20:15

or is that people taking a second look at

20:17

Trump because Biden is such Unbelievable

20:19

at being president of the United States.

20:21

Yeah. Well it and you well know

20:23

the polls always underestimate Yeah, exactly. So

20:25

if he's ahead and I saw today's

20:27

Titan, Virginia It's great. We haven't won

20:30

Virginia since 2004 real-clear

20:32

politics just moved it in I

20:34

mean and I hate polls. I've said

20:36

all time there points in

20:38

time and they're typically off But they

20:40

always underestimate it straight, but let's get to the election. I want to

20:42

say first I Can't prove a

20:45

counterfactual obviously. I love economics, but I can't

20:47

tell you what would have happened because it

20:49

didn't however I absolutely

20:51

believe that the results of this election were fraudulent,

20:53

but I'm about I'm under an obligation to back

20:55

that up Okay, you got to produce some data

20:57

to have an opinion or else you're just talking

20:59

a bunch of If you

21:01

go back to 2012 and I encourage all

21:04

your listeners to do this. It's a New

21:06

York Times article Not the New York Post

21:08

is some New York Times. It's a piece

21:10

by Adam Lipptack It's called error and fraud

21:12

rises as absentee ballot rises. It's

21:14

a New York Times piece written in 2012 over 10 years ago

21:18

It was meant to eviscerate absentee balloting because

21:20

back then if you remember it was a

21:22

big deal in Florida with military and elderly

21:25

So the New York Times ultimately can be able

21:27

to vote by right vote Republican and they didn't

21:29

like it So they wrote this hit piece and

21:32

it was a pretty good analysis and you'll see

21:34

they talk about all the stats and They

21:36

quote a bunch of figures saying you're

21:39

almost guaranteed to double your rejection and

21:41

fraud rates by mail It's not complicated

21:43

logic. There's a choke point if I

21:45

vote in person, you're the election official

21:47

I have to go give an ID

21:49

if it's a voter ID state. I

21:52

show up five minutes later and try to vote again

21:54

They're gonna be like Ben you you Dan you were

21:56

just here in a ballot

21:58

box. There is no such choice So

22:00

there's an obvious fraud mechanism. This isn't hard

22:03

to figure out. So the fact

22:05

that the New York Times did this

22:07

expose says to me, they already know

22:09

there's going to be massive problems with

22:11

mail-in-bouting. Then you do it for

22:13

the first time, you send out ballots across

22:15

the country, and you, I mean, this is

22:17

laughable. You tell us, oh my God, the

22:19

most secure election in America, like it's a

22:21

joke. I can't prove the

22:23

counterfactual. Nobody can, it's a shame. I

22:26

don't believe in my heart that that thing was,

22:28

that result was legitimate. Combine that

22:30

with some other things. So it's not just

22:32

that I believe the mail-in-balloting was a complete

22:34

train wreck, and I believe probably, especially Pennsylvania.

22:37

Pennsylvania changes the rules at the last minute, and

22:39

they just make it up. You gotta put

22:41

a date on the ballot. The court's like, ah, no you

22:44

don't. We changed our mind. No, you

22:46

do, it actually says that. Like in the law,

22:48

it literally not figured it. Right, no, you have

22:50

to stop counting the ballot days beyond the election.

22:52

It's insane. Yeah, no, no. And then

22:54

there's this myth out there that, well, this has all

22:56

been litigated. No, it has not. Nothing

22:59

made it past the initial standing face. It

23:01

was not litigated. That is total garbage. It

23:03

was not litigated at all. And

23:06

then, I'll make one last point. The

23:08

Hunter Biden fiasco. It's obviously, that's a

23:10

separate matter, I get it. But there

23:12

was obviously a cabal, deep state, silly

23:14

state, the blob, I don't care what

23:16

you call them, of people who are

23:18

very well connected, who hid from the

23:20

public vital voting information. You combine those

23:22

three factors. There's no sane person that

23:24

can say with a straight face with

23:27

a barrel of gun at their face going, hey man,

23:29

this thing was totally legit on the up and up.

23:31

I don't buy it at all. I think it was

23:33

a total scam. I'm just

23:35

hoping now some states have made some

23:37

pretty substantial changes. Georgia, Florida, Arizona is

23:39

somewhat. That In the swing

23:42

states, we gotta hold this. Cause It's gonna

23:44

be a train wreck in California. I Mean,

23:46

the biggest question for me for Trump, just

23:48

in terms of the mechanisms, are really the

23:50

state parties. How Are the state parties gonna

23:52

perform? Because When it comes to the turnout

23:54

efforts in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and there

23:56

are certain states that Trump is expanding the

23:58

map in, like Nevada right now. Well

24:00

I had a margin of error which is jumping

24:02

husband's yeah no I was hired hind it's totally

24:04

crazy or and in but but if you'll get

24:06

your michigan is razor thin. Pennsylvania.

24:08

Is super razor thin and they're gonna come down to

24:10

a question a turn on. so they're the question is

24:13

going to be really. How. Does the Pennsylvania

24:15

Republican Party perform? Or the Michigan Republican

24:17

Party which has been. Pretty.

24:19

Dicey and last election cycles in terms of

24:21

Africa, say hi, how are they gonna perform

24:23

or Wisconsin? Yeah, it's a good question and

24:25

I think we can both agree. Ah, you

24:27

know, Listen. We don't like

24:29

mail empowering. Republicans just don't And I

24:31

just told you, wise prone to fraud.

24:34

But. The Hard: I'm a real policy. Oh do it

24:36

right now. Go Me Feel Rather we're stuck with

24:38

what we have our we did it, We did

24:40

it in Florida. The I am when if we

24:42

want my twenties and everybody has different ones. Why?

24:44

So the point is, mail and balloting can be

24:46

done relatively secure. Of let's just put this, I'd

24:48

rather not have. A Unless you're

24:50

in the military or you're in a nursing

24:53

home, you get a medical emergency. It

24:55

should not be a thing. But. It is

24:57

right, we're stuck with it. We. Can change

24:59

it if we win. Maybe we get hr

25:01

to pass. On. But we're stuck with it

25:03

now. So I liked the pivot. Thankfully.

25:06

Made this pivot was always like this unless

25:08

the swamp this thing because if we're stuck

25:10

with these damn rules me think about like

25:12

early voting when I refer of is on

25:14

the ice at attorney retire How many republicans

25:16

ss idol like vote narrowly a principal long.

25:19

As it you realize there's no way to win

25:21

an election where it's the democrats bank thoroughly vote.

25:23

You know what happens on election day? It rains.

25:26

People's. Kids are late for school. Someone

25:28

gets a fever that's about one two

25:30

percent of the vote. It doesn't show

25:33

up because of some environmental anomalies. The.

25:35

Democrats don't have that problem. We're stuck with this

25:37

stuff. Can we change it? We can't. Do I

25:39

want to change? Yes. But I live in the

25:41

real world, not the world I want and I'm

25:44

glad they pivoted on that. They got a swamp

25:46

this thing and banks of bed Early Voting starts

25:48

tomorrow. Vote tomorrow or hundred, bring on. So we

25:50

we talked one man from was switch to the

25:52

other side of the aisle because the reality is

25:54

that. If. joe biden would in a wonderful job

25:56

the numbers might look different but the reality is that yeah

25:58

when when you said the I got a call

26:01

from somebody in UFC who I'm sure we

26:03

both know talking about all of this that

26:05

my guess is that that probably was not

26:07

far after we decided to randomly surrender in Afghanistan

26:09

and leave billions of dollars in military equipment in

26:12

Afghanistan and get 13 American soldiers killed at Abbey

26:14

Gate and all the rest of it. If you

26:16

look at Joe Biden's poll numbers, they've never recovered.

26:18

That was the inflection point for his presidency, and

26:21

he has never come back from that, mainly because

26:23

it exposed the reality about Joe Biden, which is

26:25

that he is venal, that he does not care

26:27

about other human beings. He was absolutely uncaring about

26:29

what was going on in Afghanistan. He's terrible at

26:32

his job, that he lies on the regular. All

26:34

of these things were exposed by Afghanistan, and we've

26:36

just seen that ever since. And so to

26:38

me, it looks like, if I'm looking at this

26:40

election, it looks like so much is baked into

26:43

the cake. Everyone has an opinion on Trump. You know what

26:45

you think of Trump. Nobody's opinion about Trump is going to

26:47

change, whether he's convicted as he was or

26:49

whether he's not. If he goes to jail, frankly, I think it

26:51

probably helps him in a wide variety of ways. We can talk

26:53

about that in a second. Nobody's

26:56

changing their mind about Trump. I think what's happened here

26:58

is an enormous number of people have changed their mind

27:00

about Trump. I know them personally. I'm going to talk

27:02

anecdotal and tell you in the Jewish community, a lot

27:04

of Jews look at how Joe Biden has approached Israel,

27:06

and they're like, I am not voting for that jackass.

27:09

I'm not going to vote for him. Even the ones who are very

27:11

left, who are like, I can't bring myself to vote for Trump because

27:13

whatever, they'll vote for our character, they won't show

27:15

up. There's going to be a significant

27:17

problem for Joe Biden. The enthusiasm for him is unbelievably

27:20

low. When you look at the Biden presidency, I've said,

27:22

this is the worst presidency of my lifetime. Bar

27:25

none. What do you make of the failures of

27:27

Joe Biden? Well, two

27:29

points. The

27:32

first is the damaging political narratives. The second will

27:34

be none of this is changeable for him. So

27:37

first, there are bad political stories

27:39

that do harm, and there are

27:41

bad political stories that don't. Why

27:44

did this trial up in New York

27:46

backfire spectacularly on Biden, not Donald Trump?

27:48

I mean, convicted felon, the Stormy Daniels

27:50

stuff. And the reason is

27:52

because the only damaging political narratives I learned this

27:54

running for office, the only ones that do any

27:56

harm at all are stories that

27:59

change your pre-existing lives. notion of who a candidate

28:01

is. If, let's say Mike

28:03

Pence, there was a story about him hanging

28:05

out partying the weekend and drinking it up

28:07

at a University of Michigan rager. People

28:10

be like, that's kind of weird. That's not the guy.

28:12

If it was a story about Donald Trump or

28:14

maybe Tom Massey or Rand Paul, you'd be like,

28:17

that sounds like fun. It's the same story, bro.

28:19

So the thing about Joe Biden, getting back to

28:21

your question here, is why is

28:23

Joe Biden so grotesquely unpopular? And

28:25

I concur, the most destructive president

28:27

in our lifetime, even worse than

28:29

Obama, because he's dumb. Obama

28:31

was at least politically smart. It's

28:34

because he ran as the stability guy,

28:36

the transition agent, the non-chaos agent. He

28:38

did. Look at all these crazy

28:40

things Trump did. I mean, he never actually pointed anything,

28:42

but he's like, look at the tweets and this guy's

28:44

going to be Hitler, or Edie Amin, look at the

28:46

Pol Pot. And then you get Joe Biden.

28:49

And like you said, the first thing he does is you

28:51

got people falling off planes in Afghanistan trying to

28:53

fly their way out. And you're like, wait, I

28:56

thought Trump was this. So that started it, but

28:58

he was still maintained like a 45% approval rating.

29:01

You're right though. Never goes down to that.

29:03

Then inflation. Like, wait, wait. I thought

29:05

again, you were this stability guy. My money's not even stable. I

29:07

can't even buy bacon. I'm like, what are you talking about? So

29:10

the destructive narrative, and then he

29:12

runs also as this kind of a funcular

29:14

grandfatherly figure, right? And then you

29:16

find out the Hunter Biden story and you're like, wait,

29:19

this guy's a good dad. Like I'm

29:21

a dad. I got a kid, God

29:23

forbid, with some drug problem

29:26

and I'm sending them overseas to hustle money

29:28

for the family so I can get, I'm

29:31

sorry, brother. I'm not buying the good

29:33

dad drill. Good dad. Get

29:35

your kid and some, get them out of

29:37

Ukraine and Barisma and put them in some

29:40

care. Are you kidding? So every one of

29:42

the stories starts dinging at his credibility till

29:44

he's down now to the 30% approval,

29:46

35%. And

29:48

those people I'll make a strong case to you are

29:51

the hard left. They don't really approve of Joe Biden.

29:53

They know he's dumber than Obama. You got

29:55

to remember Joe Biden is

29:58

the president. Barack Obama always wanted to. to be,

30:00

but was too politically smart to become. Don't

30:02

ever forget that. Obama

30:05

wants to be Joe Biden, not the other way

30:07

around. He does. Biden's just too dumb

30:09

to say no. AOC and the squad come

30:11

in, they're like, Israel sucks, Israel

30:13

sucks, Gaza sucks. Gaza sucks, every day

30:15

he changes his mind because he's too

30:17

stupid to have a position. But the

30:20

problem he's gonna have on the second

30:22

point here is none of this is

30:24

changeable. He's only getting older.

30:26

He obviously has some cognitive frontal lobe

30:28

dementia. If you just look at him,

30:31

none of his policies are changeable. The

30:33

economy's not gonna turn around. The Middle

30:35

East isn't getting any better. They still

30:37

haven't completely sealed the deal. Russia has

30:39

been making advances in Kharkiv. What

30:41

is he gonna change in three, four months? There's

30:44

no political trajectory that turns around

30:46

for him. And that's why I'm

30:49

optimistic. But any red wave

30:51

talk, I ban people for my show immediately. Yeah,

30:53

exactly. We made that mistake in a midterm. So

30:55

that brings up what Trump's gonna do in the

30:57

debate with Biden. So my advice to Trump has

30:59

been just don't do what you did in the

31:01

first debate with Biden. Just let Biden talk. The

31:04

recipe for success with Joe Biden is make him

31:07

speak for a particular length of time without

31:09

a teleprompter. And when he's in

31:11

debate, if Joe Biden does the, ah, anyway, and then

31:13

just kind of fades away, then Trump should say, Mr.

31:15

President, you still have 30 seconds on the clock, go

31:17

for it. And then you can just be urging more

31:19

talk from Joe Biden. The more you see of Joe

31:22

Biden, the more he makes you very, very nervous. And

31:24

when it comes to President Trump, well then, we all

31:26

find him entertaining. And we've already

31:28

baked into the K-Carps perception of him as far as

31:30

who he is personally. But the perception that can change

31:32

about Trump, and that people keep wanting to change about

31:35

Trump, is that at some point, maybe it'll just get

31:37

a little less nutty. Or it'll just get a little

31:39

less nutty. Like, take down kind of the volatility and

31:42

the colorfulness, like 15%. And

31:44

he's president forever, you know? Yeah, I

31:47

get it, but I worry that that's the

31:49

appeal. That so many people out there who

31:51

are not us see that.

31:53

Like, my brother's a perfect example. Like I said,

31:55

local three electrician, I never voted for a Republican

31:57

in his life. And that's the appeal.

32:00

I understand I've had this conversation with a bunch of

32:02

people about it. I don't listen, I don't think at

32:04

this point, anything's gonna change. And you said it's baked

32:06

into the cake. But on the debate front, I

32:09

think Donald Trump, yes, has to let Biden talk.

32:11

You're a hundred percent correct. The more he talks,

32:13

the more Pandora's box opens up. It's a disaster.

32:16

I think though Biden has a real Achilles heel.

32:18

If you watch him in debates, this is not

32:20

the guy who debated Paul Ryan years ago. I

32:22

gotta tell you, I was kind of stunned. I

32:24

was expecting Paul Ryan to kick his ass in

32:27

that debate. And Biden lied the whole way through

32:29

it, but he lied really well. You were like,

32:31

wow, that's impressive. This guy lies really good. I

32:33

mean, he was like a Jen Psaki level of

32:35

lying. I was like, wow. Clap on that Joker

32:37

religious, go for it. Yeah, we were stunned. I

32:39

remember sitting up in New York watching it. He's

32:41

a different guy now. He's got this anger

32:44

issue. It's a serious anger issue. He

32:46

can't seem to control himself anymore, especially when

32:48

his son is brought up. So

32:50

I think what Trump should do, and I

32:53

said this repeatedly, even to him, is they need to

32:55

bring props. I'm not talking about

32:57

like a big rubber ducky or anything. He needs to pull

32:59

out a copy of that check, that $40,000 check. They're

33:03

like, Joe, it says Joe Biden, right? $40,000, where'd it come from?

33:06

Joe explained. He'll lose his

33:08

mind. He clearly has no emotional

33:10

control anymore. I think Biden agreeing

33:12

to the debate was a really,

33:14

really awful idea. I think

33:16

it's the last straw. I don't see him

33:18

being the nominee. Wow. I

33:20

don't, I don't. I don't see him being the nominee. I see less

33:23

than a 50% chance. Obviously, he

33:25

can't predict the future. However, the Democrats

33:27

know this election is too important. There's

33:29

some big money that's sitting there on the sidelines

33:31

waiting. I think they watched this first debate. If

33:34

it goes bad, which it can, but

33:36

who knows, state of the union, I don't know what the hell

33:38

happened with him. Who knows? I ain't even getting into

33:40

it, but he gets up there at the state of the union. It's

33:43

a horrible speech, but it's not like by

33:45

Biden standards, it's okay. He didn't fall over.

33:47

Yeah, he didn't fall over. He didn't die.

33:49

It weren't that many stuttering or stammering or

33:51

anything like that. He shows up and

33:54

we set the bar so low, you

33:56

always run the risk of like, oh my gosh, look, he

33:58

did so well because you... and you got like

34:00

a 1.2 or something, you know? Yeah,

34:03

and I think that's right. I think that that's why I would urge

34:05

President Trump to stop talking about,

34:07

you know, quite how senile Joe Biden is and how he's going

34:09

to kick his ass in the debate. Because

34:11

once you set those expectations, it's actually a real

34:13

problem. The other thing is that what Biden wants

34:16

to do, Biden's game

34:18

plan going into that debate is going to be

34:20

make Donald Trump suck him into talking about 2020.

34:23

Because if that entire debate is about 2020, then

34:25

Biden does well with that, not because whether he won

34:27

or whether he lost. If people

34:29

think that all Trump is fixated on is 2020 and

34:32

January 6th and all of this, that's not

34:34

stuff that most Americans want to hear about. They want

34:36

to hear about what happened in the last three and

34:38

a half years under Joe Biden. And I think that

34:40

Joe Biden actually gave him a gift with the prosecution

34:42

in this way. I think that if he says, you

34:44

know, you wouldn't leave office and you tried to overturn

34:46

the country and the Constitution and we haven't had anything,

34:49

he should say, you know, Joe, I may

34:51

have done a lot of things. But one thing I didn't try to

34:53

do was jail my political opponent. Reframing.

34:56

I mean, it's a standard debate tactic. You

34:58

would learn a debate 101 is you take an

35:00

argument thrown at you. You know what I

35:02

would do? I would do that. The

35:05

British debating method. Here's how I say, if I was Trump, I'd say, Joe

35:08

Biden's going to tell you X that I am a

35:10

Nazi and a fascist and I want to be dictator.

35:12

That's what he's going to think. That's why when he

35:14

says it, he looks like a tool. And

35:16

you say, but let me just let's

35:18

put out this kind of predicate argument. Here's what

35:21

Joe Biden did. He goes through the list of names.

35:25

George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Steve

35:27

Bannon, Peter Navarro, Mike

35:29

Flynn. What do all those names have in

35:31

common? Those are people who committed no known

35:34

documented crimes but found themselves under an extensive

35:36

deep state Joe Biden team led investigation. Matter

35:38

of fact, it was Joe Biden who recommended

35:40

the Logan Act against Mike Flynn. I forgot

35:42

about that. That's so crazy. So

35:45

who really is the dictator? And

35:47

Joe Biden's so not mentally there. He'll forget

35:49

that just happened in five minutes later. He'll be

35:51

like, let me tell you who the dictator is and it'll

35:53

look like a complete buffoon. But it's clearly

35:56

Biden who has

35:58

really taken the president. and

36:00

really embarrassed us. I'm not talking about mean tweets.

36:04

I'm talking about just a double-barreled middle finger to

36:06

the Supreme Court. I mean,

36:08

the calandula leaving the DOJ.

36:10

This is just unprecedented. Third

36:12

World Kim Jong-un's taking notes stuff. Like, wow, it's pretty

36:14

cool. Maybe I should try that. I mean, really, he's

36:17

embarrassed. You'll bite and beat him with a punch, you

36:19

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37:21

when you look at who

37:23

would replace Biden, you suggest that he's not going to

37:26

be the nominee. The problem I see is who the

37:28

hell do they get? The only person who everyone on

37:30

the right is afraid of is Michelle Obama. Everybody

37:33

else, I feel like Trump eats. But

37:35

if it's Michelle Obama and they pull her somehow

37:37

out of the wings and she's playing Oprah New

37:39

Vote, listen, I think that she's vulnerable as a

37:41

politician because she is a deeply radical human being,

37:44

much more radical than Barack was in

37:47

writing theses at Princeton about

37:50

how she was a victim of racial discrimination

37:52

at Princeton. But do you think

37:54

that they can pull her out or is it

37:56

common? Are they really going to depose the old

37:58

man for the least part? popular vice president

38:00

in American history for Kamala Harris? Well, listen,

38:02

she has to leave voluntarily. The left has

38:05

boxed themselves in. You know, I call it

38:07

my cannibalism theory. And it's the idea that

38:09

guys like you and I ignored cancel culture

38:11

leftist a long time ago, but there's power

38:13

in it. They enjoy it. So they had

38:15

to start feasting on their own because there

38:17

was nowhere else to go. That's why you

38:19

see entertainers getting beat up by it now.

38:22

So this cannibalism theory applies to

38:24

that. They box themselves in

38:26

with Kamala Harris. Joe Biden made crystal clear.

38:28

It was valuable to have a black woman

38:30

as vice president. What's

38:33

he going to do now? What's his people? Oh,

38:35

we changed our mind all of a sudden. The

38:38

whole black woman, D E I, which they and I

38:40

didn't say if they did that all of a sudden

38:42

she's not worthy. She has to

38:44

step aside, step aside voluntarily on the Michelle

38:46

Obama front. One thing I

38:49

know well is the Obama's. I worked with

38:51

him for a couple years. I'm telling you,

38:53

there's I'll say zero point zero zero one

38:55

because nothing's impossible. There is no way she's

38:57

running. No way. She hates

38:59

politics. Any one of her agents

39:02

back in the day, I'll tell you, she

39:04

can't stand politics. She hated being a public

39:06

figure. She absolutely hated the White House. I

39:08

always tell this story about the

39:10

guys when they like, like, where were you guys? They came

39:12

back to the White House. So like we were out

39:14

at a Target or a Walmart. So how are you doing

39:17

a woman? These EFLD guys, first ladies detail, because,

39:19

you know, we all hang out together. But how are you

39:21

doing a Walmart? I forget where it was. I think it was a target, but

39:23

it doesn't matter. And we were with

39:26

the first lady. Really?

39:30

I forget about her name. Rennigabe. He

39:32

was Rennigabe. And I said, what were you

39:34

doing? She wanted to go shopping. I'm

39:36

like, what? They took her in this low

39:38

key car. She put on like a scarf

39:40

and glasses and a hat. And

39:43

she was in Target shopping and they just like

39:45

everybody backed off. And she just wanted to go

39:47

out and be normal. She does

39:50

not want anything to do with this. This

39:52

is all one. I hate that term. I

39:54

hate it. So overused, but this is it.

39:56

I swear the left is playing games with

39:58

us. If it's going to be anyone. is

40:00

gonna be calm. If she voluntarily steps

40:02

aside or there's an eruption in Chicago

40:05

at the DNC, which is possible, you

40:08

could see an outsider, Josh Shapiro

40:10

in Pennsylvania, really popular

40:13

guy. I mean, he's a leftist, but

40:15

really popular guy. I think

40:17

Newsom's kind of cooked. I think a lot of people are sick

40:19

of him, but you know, he's power hungry. You

40:21

know, obviously Whitmer wants it, JB

40:23

Pritzker. I mean, you could see

40:25

Hakeem Jeffries. You could see a bunch of people

40:27

who jump in, but I don't think

40:30

he's the nominee. The only thing stepping in the

40:32

way of him leaving is

40:34

him. He is obviously a sociopathic

40:37

level narcissist. He believes he's like

40:39

an FDR type figure. That's

40:41

why he, look at the polls, Jack, look at the

40:43

poll. We all look at the polls, everybody hates you.

40:46

We look at the actual polls, Jack. What

40:49

are you looking at? I mean, that

40:51

which brings up Jill, who is obviously like an

40:53

Edith Wilson figure who's really propping him up at

40:55

this point. The fact that they're deploying her out

40:57

to every TV show when he can't appear on

40:59

any of them to pretend that he is totally

41:01

with it is really, it's an amazing statement. So

41:03

I'm gonna turn back to the Republican Party for

41:05

a second. So the fact that Donald Trump is

41:07

the leader of the Republican Party, he's had all

41:09

these benefits that we've talked about, including the broadening

41:11

of the coalition, including the fact that he's been

41:13

able to break through the media in a way

41:15

that no other Republican candidate of my lifetime has

41:17

because he was so big that they tried to

41:19

box him into being X, Y, or Z. And

41:22

everybody knew who he was already. So it was very

41:24

difficult for the media to attach whatever label they wanted

41:26

on him because Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Well,

41:29

when I look at that, that's the upside.

41:31

One of the downsides is, as we discussed

41:33

before, he's not a philosophical conservative.

41:35

He's sort of an instinctive conservative,

41:38

but pragmatic, meaning he has conservative instincts,

41:40

but that doesn't mean that he's going

41:42

to be thoroughly

41:44

pro-life, or that he has a fully formed

41:46

theory of how foreign policy ought to work.

41:48

He has sort of a baseline route, patriotism,

41:50

believe in America, America's military ought to be

41:52

strong, we shouldn't get involved in wars, we

41:54

have no place in. Very

41:57

good stuff, but subject to interpretation. And that,

41:59

that I kind of. I want to ask you about. So

42:01

the fact that Trump is so heterodox

42:03

in sort of his approach, and that

42:05

he's so pragmatic and non-ideological, means that

42:08

the party remains somewhat amorphous. The

42:10

conservative movement remains sort of amorphous. And what

42:12

that means, there's a lot of internal battling,

42:15

obviously, over pretty much everything at this point,

42:17

and Trump himself as a singular figure sort

42:19

of keeping a cap on it. And that's

42:21

everything from economics to social policy to foreign

42:23

policy. You're seeing sort of these internal battles

42:25

inside the Republican Party on a lot of

42:28

these issues. So we can start with economics

42:30

where there's this bizarre battle that's been going

42:32

on. As long as I've been alive, the

42:34

Republican Party has been the generally free market

42:36

party that believes in free

42:38

trade and private property. And there's been a

42:40

real push inside some wings of the

42:42

Republican Party to push for a significantly

42:44

more interventionist federal government that works on

42:46

redistributionism and uses regulation to

42:49

benefit certain populations at the expense of

42:51

other populations. And it's been

42:53

called economic populism. And

42:56

Trump has been on kind of both sides of that debate. He likes the free

42:58

market, but he's also been the same guy

43:00

who says we should never discuss Social Security

43:02

or Medicare or Medicaid because it's a political

43:04

loser. So how do you see that shaping

43:06

up in the post-Trump

43:08

era, whether that's a year and a half from now or

43:11

whether that's five years from now? Well,

43:13

first I'll say that's definitely not unique to the

43:15

Republican Party. I mean, you've seen these internal fights

43:17

on significant issues. I mean, it was Barack Obama

43:19

who said, marriage between a man and a woman,

43:21

and then all of a sudden now we can't

43:24

even figure out what a man or a woman

43:26

is. I mean, so the

43:28

party's evolving certainly is nothing

43:30

new. But to your point as an kind

43:33

of an old school conservatorian, I say conservatorian

43:35

because I'm definitely conservative on the fiscal front,

43:37

but on the foreign policy front, I'm kind

43:39

of a limited intervention guy. So

43:41

I have kind of different views on that. That's

43:44

nothing new, but you're correct. I

43:46

was a diehard doctrine air free trader

43:48

from the libertarian front. Free trade is

43:51

good. The Japanese want to be

43:53

the kings of rubber dog toys. Send

43:55

them over brother. We'll produce AI. Why

43:57

would we want people work in building

43:59

rubber? It's a waste of time. But

44:03

then you realize, I hate the term evolved

44:05

because it's associated with them, but

44:07

I listened to a podcast once, I love

44:10

econ talk. You guys also, yeah, he's just fantastic.

44:12

I think he had JD Van some one time

44:14

too. And they were talking about how, yeah,

44:17

ever since China got admitted to the WTO,

44:20

they used the rubber dog toys to build

44:22

nuclear weapons to kill us. So

44:24

would you do that if there were two islands of

44:26

people and you just divorced all the politics in me?

44:30

Island A, people A, people B. Oh,

44:32

let's trade, let's trade. People

44:34

B is like, let's new people A. All of a sudden you're

44:36

not trading. You can talk all the free trade crap

44:38

you want. And that's where I started to evolve my views.

44:40

I'm not a tariff sky, they're paid for by us. However,

44:44

it can be used as a strategic

44:46

weapon if you're dealing with the threat of a hypersonic

44:48

missile attack. And

44:50

I've evolved, and believe me, that's not because of trade.

44:52

This happened to do with JD Van's podcast way before

44:55

Trump. So I think he kind of sees that in

44:57

a transactional way, like, okay, these guys

44:59

want to kill us? Yeah, yeah, make them pay more.

45:01

I get it, we pay more. What

45:03

does bother me, though, with this populist streak of economics is

45:05

you are correct. Entitlements will bankrupt

45:08

us. It's a matter of simple math. It's not my

45:10

opinion. The math doesn't lie. I don't really care what

45:12

anyone's opinion is. They will

45:14

bankrupt us. And if someone doesn't tell America

45:16

the truth, and we haven't been, we've

45:18

been lying about it forever. It's not just people who are

45:20

maybe MAGA or Donald Trump or anyone else who's like, hey,

45:23

we got to leave this stuff alone. There

45:26

are a lot of Republicans who will just, it's the third

45:28

rail. They won't touch it. We have to

45:30

look America in the face and go, hey, listen,

45:33

you're a senior. I get it. The government

45:35

made promises your whole life's been ironed out. You're done working.

45:37

We got to make it right for you. We have to.

45:40

It's our obligation, okay? I've got an easy life. The

45:42

biggest problem in America right now is obesity and the size of

45:45

your flat screen TV. You guys fought in World War II. You

45:47

guys actually did say, I don't even have a real job. I

45:50

talk for a living. We'll take care of you. But

45:52

to this 50 and younger generation, we've got to be straight with them.

45:54

And we've got, that's a part of the Republican party. We can't fold

45:56

on because you will be bankrupt. You were.

46:00

At some point you are going to have

46:02

some monetary fiscal crisis that is gonna make

46:04

the Great Depression look like Romper Room. You

46:07

can't keep issuing voluminous amounts of debt and

46:09

say this is worth something. I mean this

46:11

mug has a purpose, you can drink from

46:13

it. The paper doesn't, unless you're using it

46:16

for fire. The minute

46:18

someone believes it doesn't have value, it doesn't.

46:20

And that's the streak of the party that

46:23

really bothers me is that we gotta get back to

46:25

telling people the truth. I was just

46:28

watching a video, Pierre,

46:30

Paul Vierup, and Ken talking about the housing

46:32

subsidies. He's like it doesn't matter if I

46:34

agree with you, though. The math doesn't agree

46:36

with you. It doesn't matter what I think.

46:38

The math doesn't agree with allowing entitlements to

46:40

go forward like this. They don't. And

46:43

so obviously in total agreement with you on that,

46:45

and I think that in

46:47

the end, because the math is what the

46:49

math is, that perspective is likely to prevail.

46:52

The foreign policy front has been very fascinating.

46:54

You've seen obviously some breakdowns on the right

46:56

with regard to foreign policy. And

46:58

I think some of that is a little bit

47:01

dishonest in the

47:03

sense that, yeah, I think that there's an attempt

47:05

to label people quote unquote, neocon, who are not neocon

47:07

by either a classical definition or by the new definition.

47:09

The classical definition was people who used to be Democrats

47:11

and then became conservative largely because of crime in the

47:13

1960s and 70s, and

47:15

were fairly hawkish on foreign policy. And

47:17

then it became sort of Paul Wolfowitz,

47:20

we will transform the entire Middle East

47:22

into thriving multiracial democracy using

47:24

Woodrow Wilson ideology, right? And

47:26

the truth is I don't know very many

47:29

Republicans who are on that side of the

47:31

aisle anymore, like anybody who realistically believes that

47:33

it's the job of the United States

47:35

to go transform a tribal land like

47:37

Afghanistan into a thriving democracy. I

47:39

think that the real sort of battle that's

47:41

happening inside the Republican Party right now is

47:44

more about what are

47:46

the actual interests of America.

47:48

And what I see sometimes

47:50

is a willingness to ignore

47:52

that question almost entirely in favor

47:55

of sloganeering. And that

47:57

I find problematic. So we'll take

47:59

the... the case of, say, Russia-Ukraine. So I

48:01

can see an argument to be made about

48:03

what level of support is necessary to provide

48:06

Ukraine with the weaponry necessary to repel further

48:08

Russian advances. I've also

48:11

been making the case since probably April of 2022, a

48:13

couple months

48:15

after the invasion first began, that the best

48:17

possible outcome was going to be a hardening

48:19

of lines in Donbass and Crimea because the

48:21

chances that Ukraine was ever going to take

48:23

back that territory were incredibly low. And so

48:25

the United States might have to actually just

48:27

foist that solution on the region by giving

48:29

certain security guarantees to Ukraine, telling the Russians

48:31

they better stop their...and now let's

48:33

just harden the lines where they are, and that's presumably

48:36

where eventually all of this will end.

48:38

One of the cases that I've seen made about Ukraine,

48:40

however, from some people on the right, is that we

48:42

have no interest in Ukraine, and we

48:44

should...it's of zero relevance to

48:46

us whether Russia takes Ukraine at all, or

48:49

if the United States continues to fund Ukraine,

48:51

that's like an active bad that's bankrupting the

48:53

country. And there I have

48:55

some problems in even understanding the argument, I suppose. I'm

48:58

not sure I understand why it's in America's interest for

49:00

Russia to take Ukraine, or why it's of no relevance

49:02

to us, given that Ukraine not only is

49:04

a massive grain producer, but also borders a bevy of

49:06

NATO countries with whom we have mutual security guarantees. Also,

49:09

obviously granting enormous more resources, access to

49:11

the Black Sea in new ways to

49:14

the Russians. I feel like it's

49:16

in the United States' interest to degrade the Russian

49:18

military capacity. Beyond that, the sort of

49:21

idea that foreign aid is equivalent to putting boots

49:23

on the ground in Ukraine is obviously not true.

49:26

It seems like a

49:28

fairly...if we're going to speak about the

49:30

cost of war actually pretty plainly, it seems like the

49:32

amount of money we're spending in Ukraine is a lot

49:34

of money, also by comparison to the federal budget. It's

49:36

a very small percentage of the federal budget, and

49:38

the reality is that it's a lot more expensive if

49:41

you have to actually start forward deploying in a lot

49:43

of these areas. This is a

49:45

great question, because I think these are the

49:47

best questions on these types of shows, because

49:49

I think this is where there's some daylight

49:51

between you and I. Let's address the big

49:53

one for this evolution of Republican, the old

49:55

three-stool Republican, where national security and an aggressive

49:57

foreign posture was kind of like a... You

50:00

know the the shibboleth to get into the

50:02

party, right? That has completely changed you see

50:04

it You know, I'm not a huge fan

50:06

of being on xolday because sometimes you get

50:08

depressed Well, but you do get a real

50:10

flavor for what people are thinking because you're

50:12

micro blogging lifetime You see the shift happen,

50:15

but I think there's a reason and and

50:17

I think we as conservatives One

50:20

you're right. We have to stop the name than the

50:22

okay It's just stupid like it's become like kind of

50:24

a way to just discredit someone before they even open

50:26

it So just like stop let's have a dispassionate conversation

50:28

about why so many people Distrust

50:32

the federal government's decision-making and foreign

50:34

interventions Where

50:36

we won Where

50:38

we won now, I'm not this

50:40

is where I don't want I don't want people get

50:42

upset here, but we could have won in Vietnam the

50:45

politics weren't there We could

50:47

have won in Iraq long-term the politics weren't there

50:49

remember that a lot you got the watches we've

50:51

got the time No,

50:54

no, that's the other way they knew

50:56

everyone knows eventually our American public, which

50:58

is very wealthy We're the wealthiest country

51:00

on earth. They don't want their kids

51:02

dying in these wars where there's not

51:04

some immediate strategic outcome It was very

51:06

easy to explain world war two Nazis

51:09

you want to be speaking German? No,

51:11

okay The heroes are like let's kill

51:13

bad guys and save the world People

51:16

say to themselves now they go Yeah,

51:18

Afghanistan fell Joe Biden sucks. We probably should have

51:21

done that different. I'm not defending Joe Biden's decision

51:23

at all What

51:25

happened did your life change someone

51:27

else's did and you know,

51:30

I'm gonna tell you this per hang personal sir But

51:32

yeah, I never met my uncle Greg Amba.

51:34

He was killed in battle March 15 1968

51:38

He was shot and threw duck Vietnam in the back He

51:41

died. He was defending his friends. He got the bronze

51:43

star with a V device for valor. He

51:45

was my he was a hero I never met him.

51:47

I was born in 1974 Ben. My

51:50

family was never the same and I

51:52

mean my my grandmother died depressed You

51:55

could never mention Greg around her. He

51:57

died in 1968. My grandmother died

52:00

in about 2002. You

52:03

could not bring his name up. Her

52:05

mood would shift instantly. You

52:07

know, we owned a bar and the

52:09

day he was supposed to come home, they had all

52:11

the signs up. This is how horrible the story is.

52:14

Welcome home. You know,

52:16

two soldiers show up. And my grandmother remarried.

52:23

She lost her first husband, Greg's dad. So my

52:25

grandfather was a big guy. He owned the bar. He was

52:27

six, five, like 400 pounds or so. He used to do

52:30

beer commercials and so he sees

52:32

these guys first. And they said, we're looking

52:34

for Eileen Kramer.

52:37

And he knew he's like, no, no, they

52:40

said, no, we have to tell her. They said, yeah,

52:43

you're not. I'll tell her. And

52:45

that was it. She died with a broken

52:47

heart. And I get it. You

52:50

know, I'm an evidence guy. And for his emotional story

52:52

is one story doesn't make,

52:54

you know, a single subject design doesn't

52:56

make an experimental result. But

52:59

if I can't explain to someone a

53:02

tangible goal with Ukraine,

53:04

let's bring it back to Ukraine. You

53:07

know, think of Fox Connor's rules of war, right? Don't

53:09

go to war alone. Don't go to war for long

53:12

and don't go to war unless you absolutely have to.

53:14

Eisenhower love Fox Connor. Do we

53:16

have to? Because I know on one end, you

53:19

make a good point. It is one

53:21

saying Ukraine's not in our interest is clearly

53:23

that's just silly. Like if we have interest

53:25

in every country, they may be small, they

53:27

may be big, zero interest in Ukraine is

53:29

not a real position. Okay. The question is,

53:31

is it enough of an interest to

53:33

risk war? But then you get to the next question.

53:36

Well, what do we make in our decisions? Because every

53:38

time we do something, Putin says I'm going to fill

53:40

what we don't do anything. I understand that position too.

53:43

My question to people is there's there's there's

53:45

trauma, there's disaster, there's bloodshed

53:47

all over the world in Sudan, South

53:50

Africa is having a mess right now. The ANC just

53:52

lost for the first time since the Mandela I mean,

53:54

everybody's a mess. We can't fix

53:57

this. And what if what

53:59

if they told totally forfeit Kharkiv,

54:02

portions of Ukraine

54:04

in the east, Crimea is obviously gone at this

54:06

point and there are ports in the Black Sea.

54:09

If I can't explain to you how that materially

54:12

changes your life, I'm

54:14

the commander-in-chief. I'm sorry, but I can't

54:16

make a good case for a prolonged

54:18

interest. I have no problem with intelligence

54:20

sharing, but attack

54:22

them, send them into Russian

54:24

soil, which could escalate. Okay,

54:27

they escalate. What's next? Everybody talks

54:29

about, oh, well, what if Russia wins? It's

54:31

going to be so bad. Yeah, Putin's a

54:33

terrorist. That sounds like real ... but

54:36

what if he doesn't win and some

54:39

psycho takes out Putin because Russia

54:41

starts losing and now we're ...

54:43

I'd rather the enemy I know.

54:47

Nobody who articulates this view of what

54:49

this Ukraine war looks like tells you

54:51

what an actual win looks like. I

54:54

don't mean Russia ... So I totally agree with that. In

54:56

fact, one of the critiques that I've made of Joe Biden

54:58

is that he has never defined what victory looks like. No.

55:01

In fact, what he has said is basically Ukraine will define

55:03

what victory looks like and then Ukraine says, well, you know

55:05

what victory looks like is 2013 borders, not 2015 borders. Exactly.

55:10

But I think that the kind

55:13

of ... I

55:15

would say middle of the road Republican position, to

55:17

be fair, would probably be no

55:20

troops on the ground, which everyone agrees with, no

55:22

actual American military men and women in

55:24

harm's way. Isn't Ukraine necessary

55:27

to prevent the continued takeover of

55:29

Ukraine by Russia with an eye

55:31

toward the off-ramp for a negotiated

55:33

settlement that, again, allows Russia to

55:35

probably take some level of

55:38

win that Putin can go back to his people with? You

55:40

see, that that's the strategy, though. No, I totally

55:42

agree. If Joe Biden would say that, and

55:44

I get it, he's got to be careful. The police

55:46

say, make in love and diplomacy is

55:49

best behind closed doors. And is

55:51

that the informal strategy? Does this just

55:53

cause enough of a quagmire that it

55:55

really screws up Russia but doesn't cause

55:57

thermonuclear war? That's okay. Biden

56:00

doesn't seem to want to do that either. I mean,

56:02

well, they're right. There's a lack of clarity for Biden

56:04

is one thing. On the GOP side of the aisle,

56:06

the conversation you and I are having is like a

56:09

normal conversation. I think one of the conversations that I've

56:11

been hearing that's weird on the right is this idea

56:13

that Putin is somehow good or that Putin is somehow

56:15

in the interest of the United States. And

56:18

I think there's a far cry from that

56:20

to I want to know exactly what

56:22

our commitment is, how long our commitment lasts and what

56:24

that's supposed to look like. And the truth is that

56:26

foreign policy also is not measured in terms of six

56:29

months. I couldn't tell you, for example, probably in

56:31

1952, what was the specific interest that the United

56:33

States had in, say, South Korea. I can tell

56:35

you right now what the specific interest the United

56:38

States has in South Korea. But it's only because

56:40

South Korea exists. And so one of

56:42

the things that's very difficult about foreign policy is

56:44

that an ounce of prevention sometimes

56:48

prevents the pound of cure

56:50

that's necessary. Also sometimes there's

56:52

no, as you said about the election, sometimes

56:54

there's no counterfactual. So we don't actually know

56:57

what happened if you don't do the thing,

56:59

because it didn't happen. And

57:01

so when it comes to particularly foreign

57:03

aid to foreign countries, as opposed to

57:05

putting American troops on the ground or

57:07

military material in places, which seems to

57:09

me like a complete ratcheting up. And

57:11

that's where you have to be incredibly,

57:13

incredibly meticulous about should we even

57:15

be doing this at all. When it comes

57:17

to assigning some checks or

57:20

emptying stockpiles of old weapons and refilling

57:22

them, to me, the

57:24

kind of escalation of that into cause-celeb

57:27

on the right is a weird one. It's

57:30

a strange one to consolidate about, given again

57:32

that there are a thousand reasons to hate Joe Biden's

57:34

policies. And again, I think that he's screwed up in

57:36

Ukraine. He can't articulate

57:38

his policy. He's slow-walking aid, but we have to give more

57:41

aid. It's a fight for democracy, but else we're not going

57:43

to give them the aid necessary to actually allow them to

57:45

win. It's all a mess, for sure. But

57:47

on the right side of the aisle, I think that

57:49

there is a difference between sort of the conversation between

57:51

realists of different perspectives, which I think is most of

57:53

the conversation, and then the people

57:55

who are very rare now,

57:57

the full-scale neocons and the full-scale isolation.

58:00

It's more like America's nefarious force in the world. We

58:02

shouldn't be involved anywhere on earth And

58:04

we should get the hell out of the way when anybody

58:06

is fighting because American intervention only makes things worse Well

58:09

a couple things first When I've

58:11

yeah I've absolutely been Categorical about Putin

58:14

from the start and I say to

58:16

anyone who believes this guy is even

58:18

remotely some ally to any movement belief

58:20

the United States or country I've

58:23

been in Russia a lot If

58:28

you believe you are being grotesquely misled the

58:31

Russians are the best in the world

58:34

at running operations Especially online now the

58:36

abuse Twitter to make you believe Putin

58:38

will say whatever he needs to say

58:40

to get you on your side Oh,

58:43

you're a Christian. Oh, look, I'm a

58:45

Christian. He if tomorrow he thought Israel

58:47

would fight for Russia He'd be like

58:49

I'm Jewish. So he will say he's

58:51

an intelligence guy He suckers

58:53

people for a living. That's how he

58:55

stayed in power forever. He's a scumbag

58:57

He's a terrorist and most of the

58:59

stuff that's happening in the world right

59:01

now That's causing this geopolitical fracas would

59:03

stop tomorrow if him and G would

59:05

just be like hey How about

59:07

we just get along romper room style like this isn't

59:10

really hard. They can't they can't these

59:12

guys are Reventions they just want to change

59:14

everything We'll get some more on this

59:16

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discount when you do. But

1:00:18

you know, on the Ukraine

1:00:20

front, it's just one last time, there is a template

1:00:23

here. There's a, it's the

1:00:25

Reagan policy. The Reagan policy,

1:00:27

it sounds, I hate cliches, man, but

1:00:29

they're cliches for a reason because they

1:00:31

probably were. This piece through

1:00:33

strength thing is real. We

1:00:35

didn't go to war with the Soviet Union

1:00:37

because they were scared, because

1:00:40

they were like, this guy's freaking crazy. Look,

1:00:42

he's building up nuclear weapons. We've got a

1:00:44

500 ship Navy. What

1:00:46

the hell is this guy doing? We don't have

1:00:48

to fight anyone. There's only two ways to do

1:00:51

this, okay? Where people will generally leave you alone

1:00:53

and not invade and kill you. If you look

1:00:55

throughout human history, you can be Vinny,

1:00:57

who the hell is Vinny? Vinny's a kid I grew up with. The

1:01:00

kid was about five, four, a buck, 20, but

1:01:02

he was legit crazy. He would fight anyone, total

1:01:04

New York kid. Anytime I left the bar, Sally

1:01:07

O's and Sonny Seabenson, walked outside, he picked up

1:01:09

a stop sign that'd fall off the ground and

1:01:11

was fighting three guys with a stop sign. It

1:01:13

didn't weigh like 200 pounds. I don't know how

1:01:15

he was doing it. And you know what happened?

1:01:18

Nobody messed with this kid. Not that they couldn't

1:01:20

beat him up. They just didn't want to because

1:01:22

he'd bite you. He'd rip your, this

1:01:25

kid was crazy. He's a real kid, Vinny did.

1:01:28

Nobody toyed with this kid ever. And when someone

1:01:30

tried to toy with him and didn't know him,

1:01:32

someone would go, don't do it. Trust

1:01:35

me, don't do it. That's like the Kim

1:01:37

Jong Un type. He's so freaking crazy

1:01:39

that, yeah, we could wipe this

1:01:42

guy off the face of the earth, but does anyone really

1:01:44

want to risk that because he's just nuts enough to do

1:01:46

something? I don't want that, right?

1:01:49

I want the old Reagan part. That's the Brock

1:01:51

Lesnar approach. Brock Lesnar walks in a bar. Nobody's

1:01:53

fighting Brock Lesnar. Why? Because you're

1:01:55

just not gonna win. He's so

1:01:57

freaking big and just nasty looking.

1:02:00

He's the guy who's like six, five, 300 pounds of steel. Like

1:02:03

unless you wanna die, you just don't fight

1:02:05

him. So Brock Lesnar, the irony is he

1:02:08

never has to fight unless he wants to make money. That's

1:02:10

what we do. We go back to the Reagan era, we

1:02:12

go, I wish Democrats would cut the BS. They should be

1:02:15

like, tell you what, now we're not doing five, we're doing

1:02:17

600 ships. We're gonna

1:02:19

triple our nuclear payload. The nuclear triad,

1:02:21

we're gonna have the best triad anymore.

1:02:23

We're gonna get bombers, hypersonics, and we're

1:02:25

gonna build a trillion dollar military budget.

1:02:27

You know why? Because we're never

1:02:29

gonna use it. And that's the glory of those, and we don't

1:02:31

wanna do it. By the way, the magic of Donald

1:02:34

Trump is that he was both of those things, right? He was like,

1:02:36

what crazy man do you think? But like he said that directly to

1:02:38

me. Or he did a fundraiser for me. Good job, Beau. He

1:02:41

literally said to me about Ukraine, he

1:02:43

says, you wanna know? Vladimir Putin never

1:02:45

invaded Ukraine. The reason he never invaded Ukraine is because I

1:02:48

told him I bummed the sh** out of him. And

1:02:50

he said, Vladimir looked at me and he said, no you won't, Mr.

1:02:52

President. I said, I might. Both

1:02:55

are great. But you know what never happened. He

1:02:57

said you need combination of both. So

1:03:00

final topic, because I know you have to run. What

1:03:05

we've seen that has been eating up the

1:03:07

media coverage since October, obviously, has been the

1:03:09

situation between Israel and Hamas. And

1:03:12

it is insane to me that there is such

1:03:14

a lack of

1:03:16

understanding of the basic moral calculus between

1:03:18

Israel and Hamas, that the Biden

1:03:21

administration has basically now been doing the

1:03:23

PR work on behalf of Iran and

1:03:25

Hamas in the weird belief that somehow

1:03:27

if they sort of just calm things down temporarily,

1:03:29

that his left won't eat him alive at the

1:03:32

convention. But that does have

1:03:34

some deeper consequences. I don't think that that

1:03:36

particular conflict, because it's so morally

1:03:38

clear, the fact that you have hundreds of thousands of people

1:03:40

on the streets of the West who are protesting on behalf

1:03:42

of Hamas, that's a problem for the West.

1:03:44

Forget about for Israel, that's a problem for the West, having

1:03:46

a bunch of people out there who seem to believe that

1:03:48

it is acceptable to protest on behalf of a group of

1:03:51

terrorists who hate the West. You

1:03:53

know, it was Golda Maier who really summed

1:03:56

it up. She said, you know, we can

1:03:58

forgive you for killing our children. but

1:04:00

we can never forgive you for making us kill

1:04:02

yours. It's obviously a

1:04:05

really sensitive topic for me. You follow me on

1:04:07

Twitter or something, you know that. I

1:04:09

spent a lot of time in the Middle East, a lot.

1:04:11

Jordan, Abu Dhabi,

1:04:15

Saudi, Kuwait, Israel. And

1:04:19

when you were over there with the secret service,

1:04:21

there's no one protecting you, like you're it. Like

1:04:23

you're out there in advance, you're protecting yourself. So

1:04:25

it was a really

1:04:27

transformative experience because I'm not sure there's

1:04:29

so many people with opinions online that

1:04:31

are about this, who know absolutely nothing

1:04:34

about it. It's really infuriating to me.

1:04:36

Go over there, just I'm all man. You know

1:04:38

what, you want to kill Jews, you hate Jews.

1:04:43

I'm never going to talk the crazy out of you,

1:04:45

but just go, go visit Jordan or something. I

1:04:48

was doing this advance once for the first lady

1:04:50

and I'm driving from Amman to Petra. It's like

1:04:52

a three hour ride on desert highway every day.

1:04:55

And they would give me a series of these drivers.

1:04:57

These are people vetted by the embassy, but they're locals.

1:04:59

They're three hour drives. So after like an hour, pretty

1:05:02

much every day for two weeks, some driver would get

1:05:04

after like two hours, they'd be like, you know Jews

1:05:06

are dogs, right? You'd be

1:05:09

like, this is every day. And I'm like, really?

1:05:11

Like actually, like how does that work? And

1:05:14

then they realize you're not out, oh, I didn't mean it, because I

1:05:16

don't want to get fired. And

1:05:18

I'm thinking it really, I've never

1:05:20

seen anything. I've never seen a group of people, so many

1:05:23

people want to kill. For reasons they

1:05:25

can't, everybody wants to kill them. There's

1:05:27

no real explanation for the, yeah, a

1:05:29

banks or something, which one? Like Bank

1:05:31

of America, I don't understand. No

1:05:34

one has an explanation. And then you see this Hamas

1:05:36

thing, clear as moral clarity

1:05:38

cannot be clear. Savages,

1:05:42

rape women, kill people, cut their breasts off.

1:05:45

And then there's like women dancing

1:05:47

at a festival. What

1:05:50

kind of dumb, you

1:05:52

have to be to be like, I don't know, this

1:05:54

guy's got a point. What

1:05:57

point do they, this is not real. Okay,

1:06:00

I get it. There were even disagreements with

1:06:02

Israel about their internal politics. Some people like

1:06:04

Bibi, Benny Gantz, I get it. Whatever,

1:06:07

you do your Supreme Court thing was a huge deal. You

1:06:11

know, the lefties, I'm not talking about it.

1:06:13

I'm talking about basic humanity. 1947

1:06:16

to 68, who had the West Bank? Oh,

1:06:20

the Jordadians. How come there's no

1:06:22

Palestinian state? The answer is because

1:06:24

the Arabs hate the Palestinians too.

1:06:26

They can't stand them. Egypt tomorrow

1:06:28

could evacuate all of Rafah. Hey,

1:06:30

come on in, come on in.

1:06:33

Everybody's gonna be savior. They don't let them in.

1:06:35

Why? Because nobody hates

1:06:37

Palestinians. That's not even a

1:06:39

real group, by the way. Nobody hates

1:06:41

Palestinians more than the Arabs who made

1:06:43

this group up because there's money in

1:06:45

it. Unrun all this other stuff, okay? This

1:06:48

is the biggest scam argument I have ever

1:06:50

seen. I cannot believe how many suckers fall

1:06:52

for this. And one more thing too. You

1:06:54

get an intelligence briefing in every country you

1:06:56

go to, right? So you go over to

1:06:58

the Middle East. There's

1:07:00

like a thousand terrorist groups in every country. You're

1:07:02

like, oh my gosh. You're writing them down. You're

1:07:04

like, Joey Beggadonna's terrorist group. You're like, all

1:07:07

right, there's more? And you go, then you

1:07:09

go to Israel. And they're like, there's like

1:07:11

one or two domestic terrorist groups. Like, that's

1:07:13

it, right? And there's some hardcore. And you're,

1:07:15

oh, we're done? Okay. And

1:07:17

then you think to yourself, like, if you're an Arab in

1:07:19

Israel, you're really safe. Like, unless some street

1:07:21

crime happens to you, you're

1:07:24

almost guaranteed, especially down in Jerusalem how

1:07:27

many Jews live in

1:07:29

the West Bank with the Palestinians? Oh,

1:07:32

he has like none, zero. And he's

1:07:34

like, wait, there are Arab politicians in

1:07:36

Israel. How many Jewish, okay, the number

1:07:38

is zero in the Arab world. Did

1:07:41

this, you got me, don't even get me going. Cause

1:07:44

this thing's like, so this so pisses me off because

1:07:46

here's one more thing. Even for the people out there,

1:07:49

America first, I'm with you. I'm America first

1:07:52

too. I understand. I get it. I'm with

1:07:54

you 100%. These

1:07:56

people don't see you as any

1:07:59

different than. The Jews they

1:08:01

don't their actual line is first we

1:08:03

get the Saturday people then we get

1:08:05

the Sunday people So even if you

1:08:07

for some bizarre reason, I don't like

1:08:10

Jews. I can't I can't

1:08:12

I'm whatever brother I don't know why you would say

1:08:14

that any other group of people people look at you

1:08:16

like I don't like blacks Oh really why? No

1:08:19

one has a real explanation for any of this, but

1:08:21

it pisses me off because they don't understand They're

1:08:24

coming for you next. Nothing's gonna save you.

1:08:26

You're not gonna be like no on Twitter

1:08:29

I called someone his eye in a shill. Okay, put

1:08:31

your head in the guillotine They're

1:08:33

gonna cut your head off, dude.

1:08:35

They hate you. They don't give a shit.

1:08:38

They hate Christians They you're not their

1:08:40

friend They are using you and I

1:08:42

cannot believe how many suckers fall for

1:08:45

this any semitism is

1:08:47

inexcusable But even as a

1:08:49

practical matter Even if for some bizarre

1:08:51

reason you hate X group of people

1:08:53

These people will kill you and your

1:08:55

kids and in a heartbeat and they'll

1:08:58

throw them in a shallow grave and

1:09:00

piss on you They hate you you

1:09:03

wouldn't you have zero worries over in

1:09:05

Jerusalem or Tel Aviv You will not be

1:09:07

killed unless it's by street crime. I

1:09:09

dare you to go over there Hey, I did a

1:09:11

podcast on how much I hate to choose really right

1:09:13

off the roof. They hate you I'm

1:09:17

sorry. No, I'm Obviously agree,

1:09:20

but that tends to happen when you're sitting with

1:09:22

Dan bungee, you know Dan. Thanks so much for

1:09:24

stopping by really appreciate it It's great. Appreciate The

1:09:33

Ben Shapiro Sunday's Anna

1:09:35

Morris and Mac Cap associate producers

1:09:37

are Jake Pollack and John Cliff editing

1:09:39

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1:09:57

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1:09:59

Sunday special is a daily wire production. Happy right,

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daily well, 2024. Dr.

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Pepper. I'd share

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that with my friend Nancy. She likes

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