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March 3, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show
01:01:15
The Great Anti-Bernie Consolidation | Ep. 965
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Time Text
Joe Biden's allies come out of the woodwork to stop Bernie, Trump fulminates over the anti-Bernie coup, and Chris Matthews is gone.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN's Surf the web with peace of mind.
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Well, don't worry.
We will get to Chris Matthews leaving.
I'm going to be safe.
I'm very sad about it.
Gotta admit to you.
I'm very upset.
Chris Matthews, go!
He's gone.
Go.
He went.
We'll get to that in a little bit.
Very upset about it.
One of my favorite impersonations.
Finally retired.
Gone to a better place.
I'll see you in heaven, old friend.
We'll get to Chris Matthews a little bit later on in the program.
Dude lasted 23 years until the woke scolds got him.
And that really is what happened, but we'll get to that in a little bit.
We begin at the star with the Great Consolidation.
That's what's happening inside the Democratic Party.
So I will say, this Democratic Party is way, way more systematic than the Republican Party was in 2016.
So remember in 2016, you had a fragmented field.
When you had Donald Trump, he was running straight for the nomination.
And you had like eight candidates and none of them would get out.
Marco Rubio wouldn't get out in favor of Cruz.
Cruz wouldn't get out in favor of Rubio.
John Kasich, for some reason, was just like, I'm gonna stay in for no reason, ever.
Just a raisin in the sun, John Kasich.
A piece of paper wadded up in your pocket that went through the washing machine.
That dude was just going to stay in the race.
All the way to the end.
And he did!
And he ended up being president.
No, he just stayed in.
Well, the Democratic Party doesn't have the same problem.
They are at least systematic enough to say to the also-rans, guys, you need to get out.
And that's pretty much what happened yesterday.
Pete Buttigieg got out.
Amy Klobuchar got out.
And not only did they get out, they went and they endorsed Biden because it is very obvious that this race is now a Biden-Sanders race.
Now, Michael Bloomberg is still sitting out there somewhere just throwing wads of cash like a rapper at a strip club.
I mean, just take it, just boom, making it rain everywhere.
No one understands why.
No one understands what he's doing.
But he continues to do that.
But Bloomberg is really not a threat.
My prediction for tonight, tonight is Super Tuesday.
My prediction for tonight, Biden overperforms the polls.
Bloomberg wildly underperforms the polls because, as I said yesterday, my going theory about Michael Bloomberg is that he was a placeholder for the anti-Bernie sentiment.
That if you felt that Biden was not a durable candidate, you said in polls that you were going to vote for Bloomberg.
But now that Biden looks more durable, a lot of those votes are going to fall away from Bloomberg and back toward Biden.
Now that it's become a two-person race, basically.
That means that Bloomberg is not going to cross that 15% threshold that you are required to pass in order to receive delegates in all of these states.
And that means that those delegates instead are going to be split among the other candidates, which means more victories for Joe Biden.
So I think that Biden is going to overperform tonight.
It would actually not be the world's largest shock if Joe Biden were to end up outperforming Bernie Sanders tonight.
And the betting markets are reflecting this.
The betting markets are now reflecting that at the very least, what you're going to see on Super Tuesday is a delegate split.
That it's not going to be a Bernie runaway.
That Bernie made you real well in California.
But that as long as Joe Biden passes 15% in California and splits the vote at all, he is likely to emerge within 100 delegates of Bernie Sanders.
And if that happens, and if it's a neck and neck race, there are a lot of big states coming up, like Florida, like Georgia, where Biden can really run up the score on Bernie, make up that deficit, and end up in a position to win a plurality of the votes.
Now, that doesn't mean that Biden is gonna end up winning the Democratic nomination outright on the first ballot.
Right now, 538, has rejiggered all of their calculations.
Here are the 538 calculations.
61% chance that nobody has a majority of the delegates.
That nobody has, so a two and three, three and five chance that nobody is gonna have a majority of the delegates, which technically is not an open convention, but it's a contested convention because nobody wins outright.
In second place is Joe Biden now.
So Biden has well surpassed Bernie Sanders.
Sanders has dropped precipitously in the 538 estimate of delegates.
Biden now has a 31% shot at winning a majority of the delegates.
Sanders is all the way down at 8%.
And if you look at the number of delegates they are forecasting for Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, they've got Bloomberg dropping and they've got Biden precipitously rising to 1,738 delegates.
He needs 2,000 to just win this thing.
But 1,738 delegate Sanders all the way down at 1,363.
So that consolidation of the field is happening at exactly the right time for Joe Biden.
And again, this shows discipline within the party.
I mean, you do have to admire it as a Republican, the discipline within the party.
Now, part of that has to do with the fact that there is more time in the Democratic calendar to mobilize that opposition.
The Republican Party doesn't have as much time.
If somebody starts running up victories very early on in Republican primaries because they are winner-take-all, it is difficult to stop them.
Imagine that Iowa had been winner-take-all, and let's assume that Bernie had won Iowa.
He actually didn't.
Buttigieg won Iowa.
But let's assume for a second that Bernie won Iowa outright.
Let's assume he won New Hampshire outright.
Let's assume he won Nevada outright.
And suddenly he's racking up these winner-take-all scores.
And let's assume California.
We're not a plurality.
We're not proportional delegations.
Instead, we're just a winner-take-all state.
Well then, Sanders would be in a much more commanding position.
That was the position that Trump was in.
Trump was winning 35% of the vote and walking away with 100% of the delegates.
That created this giant eight ball that nobody could get out from behind inside the Republican Party.
For the Democrats, there's a little bit more lead time, and that means there is time to mobilize opposition.
One state victory in South Carolina has now put Joe Biden on a fairly solid path toward the nomination.
And that became even clearer with all of these other candidates dropping out.
So Pete Buttigieg didn't need really to be urged.
Pete Buttigieg understood fairly clearly that his future runs through Joe Biden.
We'll get to Pete Buttigieg dropping out of the race in just one second.
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OK, so the New York Times reports late last year, a group of first term House Democrats anxious over the party's fractious presidential race can mean a series of discussions intended to spur party unity.
Led by Representatives Colin Allred of Texas and Haley Stevens of Michigan, they considered issuing a collective endorsement of one moderate candidate.
The group held phone calls with Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg, but the lawmakers could not agree.
Some were torn between the options.
Others worried about alienating voters at home, who backed other contenders like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
A few issued solo endorsements of Biden, but the grander plan disintegrated.
There wasn't time to reach consensus over one candidate, said Ms.
Stevens, who eventually endorsed Bloomberg.
That effort was just one in a series of abandoned or ineffective plans to rally the moderate wing of the Democratic Party behind a single contender.
But now, on the eve of Super Tuesday, when Democrats across 15 states and territories will hand out more than a third of the delegates required to claim the nomination, Sanders is within reach of a clear national lead, and Biden is racing to catch up.
In the last few days, moderate Democrats acting with a new sense of urgency have begun a large-scale effort to coalesce around Joe Biden.
And this is the big story, the coalescing around Joe Biden, the consolidation around Joe Biden.
So Pete Buttigieg, who's had some fairly harsh words for Joe Biden, not as harsh as the other candidates on the stage with regard to Joe Biden.
He dropped out of the race yesterday and then he flew to Dallas to do a rally with Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke for some odd reason.
And Pete Buttigieg basically, here's the thing with Buttigieg.
Booty Judge is smart enough to recognize that he has no political future in the state of Indiana.
So after he dropped out, there were a lot of talk.
Well, he can come back next time and he can run.
First of all, I find it hilarious.
CNN was like, in 2024, he can run.
Well, first of all, thank you for admitting that Donald Trump is going to win in 2020.
But second of all, Well, how?
How?
It turns out that politicians have moments, right?
Elizabeth Warren's moment was not 2020, it was 2016.
And Pete Buttigieg had his moment.
This was his moment.
So Pete Buttigieg really only has two paths to a future in politics.
One is a cabinet appointment.
He gets appointed Secretary of Defense because of his military background by Joe Biden or something.
And the second is that Pete Buttigieg ends up carpetbagging it.
That he leaves the state of Indiana and he ends up going to the state of New York or the state of Massachusetts.
He pulls a Robert Kennedy or a Hillary Clinton and moves from a state where he is unlikely to win to a state where he is much more likely to win.
Because, remember, the one time he ran statewide in Indiana, he got his butt kicked.
I mean, just got destroyed by Richard Murdoch, of all people.
So he doesn't have a future outside of endorsing Biden.
He knows that.
So Buttigieg comes out yesterday and he endorses Biden.
Here is Mayor Pete dropping out of the race and endorsing a guy who, until five minutes ago, had not won a single primary.
We made it clear that the whole idea was about rallying the country together to defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for the values that we share.
And that was always a goal that was much bigger than me becoming president.
And it is in the name of that very same goal that I'm delighted to endorse and support Joe Biden for president.
We need a politics that's about decency.
A politics that brings back dignity.
And that is what we sought to practice in my campaign.
That's what Joe Biden has been practicing his entire life.
So there is Buttigieg basically bending the knee to Biden in the hopes that Biden will give him some sort of cabinet appointment.
And it's perfectly clear that that's exactly what's going on.
Buttigieg is smart enough to read the tea leaves.
He's the smartest candidate in this field.
He understands his future glory lies in being some sort of cabinet level appointee by a president, Joe Biden.
And so he's going to bend the knee to Joe Biden.
He's not going to get one nickel from Bernie Sanders.
So here's the problem for Sanders.
Sanders is so off-putting and Sanders is so insular in the group of people he trusts, because they are a bunch of socialists who are radicals, that he doesn't have the opportunity to offer patronage.
He doesn't have the opportunity to basically bribe these people to join his campaign.
He has nothing to offer them.
Like, what's he going to offer Pete Buttigieg?
Buttigieg has been attacking on Medicare for All, right?
Sanders has basically said, I'm not going to accept the endorsement of anybody who didn't endorse Medicare for All.
And so Buttigieg, again, the smartest candidate in the field, if not the most successful, he recognized what was going on here.
Joe Biden, for his part, came out and embraced Buttigieg.
And I will say, even as my Chris Matthews impersonation dies, my Joe Biden Impersonation is beginning to bloom into its full flower.
Here is Joe Biden explaining that Buttigieg reminds me of his son, Beau, who died, which has to hurt Hunter, right?
There's a second son out there.
And Joe's like, well, Pete, I don't say this to a lot of people, Pete is not, Pete reminds me of my son, Bo, and hunters out there like snorting coke and doing hookers and everybody's, and it's like, why doesn't my father love me?
And Joe's like, well, I have another hunter, yeah, I don't want to talk about, he's in Ukraine, we don't understand, go.
I don't think I've ever done this before, but he reminds me of my son, Bo.
And I know that may not mean much to most people, but to me it's the highest compliment I could give any man or woman.
And again, he has another son.
He's never compared anyone to his son, Beau, including his other son, Hunter, who may cost him the presidency, by the way, Hunter Biden.
So there is that.
And then Biden basically admits, he says, listen, if I win, then Buttigieg gets an administration role.
You know, we'll get to President Trump's response to this, which is pretty classic in one thing.
But here's Joe Biden being like, yeah, of course, if I win, then Buttigieg gets to be secretary of Secretary of Indiana.
I don't know, just something.
We'll give him something in America.
Speak to Pete Buttigieg a couple days ago to encourage him to stay engaged because he has enormous talent.
And I indicated to him that if I became the nominee, I'd come and ask him to be part of an administration, to be engaged in moving things forward.
He could be Secretary of Transportation or something.
I don't know.
We'll give him something.
By the way, President Trump's response to all of this is pretty spot on and pretty hilarious.
Trump was like, guys, you know what we call that when you bribe somebody to join your campaign?
You know, we have a name for that, guys.
It's called the quid pro quo.
Quid pro quo go Buttigieg just went out and said something And probably they'll say Hey look, if I win, I'll put you in the administrations That's called quid pro quo, right?
Quid pro quo.
And they probably said, hey, listen, if I win, I'll give you an endorsement, but will you take me in the administration?
Now, I'm sure nothing like that has ever happened, right?
Fact check true.
Fact check true.
I mean, it's also true that, like, that's not a deal with a foreign country.
But in any case, in any case, that is a fact check true.
It turns out that that's exactly what happened.
That is called political patronage.
And it wasn't just, of course, Pete Buttigieg yesterday who jumped behind Joe Biden.
It was also Amy Klobuchar.
So Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota who Again, had outperformed Joe Biden in two of the three states that had that had taken place before South Carolina.
Klobuchar dropped out and then she flew down to Dallas and she endorsed Joe Biden.
So this is the first time that Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have agreed on anything.
Then they went in the back room and for some reason just attacked Pete Buttigieg's jugular with a comb.
It was very weird.
But here is Amy Klobuchar explaining why she is endorsing Joe Biden.
If you feel tired of the noise and the nonsense in our politics, and if you are tired of the extremes, you have a home with me.
And I think you know you have a home with Joe Biden.
It is up to us, all of us, to put our country back together, to heal this country, and then to build something even greater.
I believe we can do this together.
And that is why today I am ending my campaign and endorsing Joe Biden for president.
So these other Democrats are smarter than the Republicans were in 2016 because they recognize that their pathway to glory is getting behind somebody who is not Bernie Sanders.
The entire Democratic Party establishment is now moving against Bernie Sanders, like all of them.
So you've got Harry Reid, who came out yesterday in a very non-shocking move and endorsed Joe Biden.
So Reid, who's the former Senate majority and minority leader, he came out and endorsed Biden, so did former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.
Here is Terry McAuliffe endorsing Joe Biden.
By the way, on his way to endorse Joe Biden, he was doing some sort of presser yesterday.
Apparently, his elevator got stuck with like 10 people in it.
I cannot think of much of a worse fate than being stuck in an elevator for two hours with Terry McAuliffe.
That sounds like almost the definition of hell.
In any case, here is Terry McAuliffe, former DNC head and former Virginia governor, explaining why he was endorsing Joe Biden on CNN.
I have made a decision.
I'm going to endorse Joe Biden.
I'll be with him in Norfolk tomorrow at 7 o'clock tomorrow night.
He's coming up to Virginia.
You know, I've thought long and hard about this.
For me, it's about beating Donald Trump.
And to me, it's an electability issue.
Who has the best shot of beating Donald Trump?
You know, health care is our biggest issue.
That's why Democrats win.
I want someone who's going to protect Obamacare and expand Obamacare.
Okay, so Harry Reid did it as well.
Harry Reid's statement was, President Donald Trump has done unspeakable damage to our country, our institutions, and the rule of law.
Democrats need a candidate who can assemble the largest, most diverse coalition possible to defeat Trump and lead our country following the trauma of Trump's presidency.
That candidate is Joe Biden.
So everybody's making the pure electability argument.
Other endorsers in the last 48 hours, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, former Senators Barbara Boxer of California.
Barbara Boxer, by the way, the dumbest person in the U.S.
Senate for years.
I mean, she held that title unchallenged for years, but she is behind Joe Biden as well.
So is Mark Udall of Colorado and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
So a spate of endorsers coming out.
And those weren't the only ones.
Susan Rice.
Basically, Obama called up all his friends.
He said, I'm not going to get involved, but if you would endorse Joe, that'd be good.
So Susan Rice, an awful, awful National Security Advisor to Barack Obama.
She came out and endorsed Joe Biden.
She tweeted, I'm proud to endorse Joe Biden for president.
Here he is comforting me on January 4th, 2017, just after my mother passed away.
There is no one kinder, more empathetic and caring than Joe Biden.
He will lead America with the same deep compassion and decency.
Okay, this has been the pitch for Biden is that Biden is a nice guy, whereas Bernie is a very, very mean guy.
We'll get to one more major endorser of Joe Biden in just one second.
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Okay, so one more big endorsement came forth for Joe Biden yesterday, and that'd be Beto.
Now, honestly, I'm just happy I get to break out the Beto impersonation.
Like, I have all of these impersonations that are being buried in shallow graves lately because they have these brief flickers of light.
Beto is one of them.
He was one of everybody.
Everybody loved the Beto impersonation.
I dropped out of the race months ago and I haven't been able to break out my Beto for a while.
So Beto, he endorsed Biden yesterday.
He had a smoke of doobie and then just skateboarded in all cool and everything.
Still got the same shirt.
He only has one shirt.
And that shirt has gone through a beating, man, from the cover of Vanity Fair to like being very rich in his mansion paid for by his in-laws to like, you know, being useless.
But he just jet-set it in.
In Texas?
And he was like, oh, you know who I like?
I like Joe.
Joe Biden's great.
And he's going to appoint me secretary of browness, secretary of smoking up, secretary of awesome.
Yeah, man, go, go, Beto, go.
Tomorrow, March 3rd, 2020, I will be casting my ballot for Joe Biden.
We need somebody who can bring us together and heal us.
We need somebody who can reestablish the moral authority of the United States.
We need somebody who will fight for democracy here and abroad, because democracy is under attack here and abroad.
We need Joe Biden.
And I'll be honest with you, bro, not only do we need Joe Biden, we need a president who's not going to ban all the deodorant, because let me tell you, my pit stains are horrendous in this particular video, bro.
Now, here's what's scary is that Joe Biden did make a promise apparently to Beto as well, because this is what again, no corruption.
It's all just out of principle, guys.
So I do love how politics works.
It's pretty great.
So Joe Biden is like.
Oh, you know, I like Beto.
Beto's great, and he's Beto, and O'Rourke, and he... You know, he said he's gonna ban all the guns, and I don't hate guns, but I'm gonna put Beto in charge of the guns.
Guns are things that fire in the air.
You take a shotgun, do it twice in the air.
That's what I do to scare off robbers.
I remember one time in 1922, my house was being robbed, and I don't really remember which house or where.
All I remember is Winston Churchill was there, and Nelson Mandela too, and Beto's gonna run our guns program.
I want to make something clear.
I'm going to guarantee you this is not a last year's scene of this guy.
You're going to take care of the gun problem with me.
You're going to be the one who leads this effort.
I'm counting on you.
I'm counting on you.
You're going to take over guns.
Honestly, guys, I've been a proponent for a long time of the idea that English ought to be the national language.
Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump, these people are proof positive that English needs to be the national language.
We must establish English as the national language so that everybody is mandated to speak a language we all understand.
Joe Biden has... It's basically one long word now.
His entire campaign has devolved into one long word.
And I mean, it's not just him saying to Beto O'Rourke that I'm putting in charge of guns.
I'm going to put this guy in charge of guns.
Also, would you like to hear Joe Biden recite the Declaration of Independence?
Would you?
Would you like to hear it?
Because it's spectacular and it's real and it's great.
So here is Joe Biden explaining what the Declaration of Independence says.
This is the guy they chose.
You had a million candidates, and the one you chose is this one.
Of all the humans on the earth, this human with the head in which the hair plugs have grown deeply into the synapses, into the neural firing mechanisms.
Here is Joe Biden trying to recite the Declaration of Independence.
And Thomas Jefferson just spun so hard in his grave, he dug a hole directly to China and acquired a coronavirus.
Here is Joe Biden.
All these truths to be self-evident.
All men and women created by the... Go, you know the... You know the thing.
Oh, play it again.
Play it again.
Do it again.
Do it again.
All men and women created by, so you know the thing.
Oh!
And they call Trump it out of the thing. - Yeah.
We hold each truth to be self-evident, that all men and women are created by the thing.
All men and women are created by the thing.
You know the thing.
You know the movie.
That's the fly.
I created, you know, vitamin, vitamin, vitamin, vitamin.
By, you know, the thing.
By, you know, Jeff Goldblum.
The thing.
You know, the movie.
That's the fly.
I remember one time I saw a thing.
It was from Fantastic Four.
It looked like a brick.
Well done, everyone.
Well done.
By the way, were you aware?
So I made fun of Beto a moment ago because Beto O'Rourke started his little endorsement of Joe Biden by explaining that today he said tomorrow because yesterday he said today is Tuesday.
Tomorrow is Tuesday.
Super Tuesday, March 3rd.
Well, I mean, I made fun of him for saying that, but maybe he was just trying to tell Joe Biden, because Joe Biden actually said yesterday that tomorrow is Super Thursday, which doesn't exist.
I don't know what Super Thursday is or where he's getting this, but, um, here's Joe Biden.
He's jumping in a super into the Wednesday.
Look, tomorrow is Super Thursday, and I want to thank you all.
Even everybody else is laughing at him.
I'm rushing ahead, aren't I?
I'm rushing ahead on Thursday.
Okay, guys.
I mean, I hope all the candidates should live long and be well.
All I'm going to say is that I feel like the country is in severe danger because coronavirus is only killing people above 65 and we only nominate people above 65.
So that's all I'm going to say about that.
Meanwhile, meanwhile, Bernie is feeling a little bit left out in the cold.
Man, this is getting to be fun.
Bernie's feeling a little bit upset.
We're gonna get to that in just one second.
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Enright Shapiro in there.
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So they know that we sang.
OK, meanwhile, Bernie rightly is looking at this and going, the Democratic Party is trying to stop me.
What are they doing?
I can't believe it.
They're stabbing me in the back.
It's just like 2016.
And or like when Stalin pushed Lenin down the stairs and killed him.
I mean, that was good.
Then we got Stalinism.
But other than that, it's exactly the same.
So Bernie is very mad about this.
He says, it's not a surprise to me that they're coming after me.
Of course they're coming after me.
This is what the Kulaks always do.
The Kulaks are always coming after me.
Bernie Sanders, Leninist.
It is no secret that the Washington Post has 16 articles a day on this.
That there is a massive effort trying to stop Bernie Sanders.
That's not a secret to anybody in this room.
The corporate establishment is coming together.
The political establishment is coming together.
And they will do everything.
They are really getting nervous that working people are standing up.
Well, mostly they're nervous that you're an old loon bag commie and they're afraid you're going to lose to Trump.
But he's correct.
He's correct.
Obviously, the party is mobilized.
All the heads of the party do not want to see Bernie as the nominee.
And again, I think it shows impressive discipline.
To be honest with you, it is a disciplined party.
It's one of the reasons why the Democratic Party typically Has been more popular with its own constituents than the Republican Party.
The party apparatus among Democrats is still very much operational.
It's completely dysfunctional with Republicans.
The Republican Party apparatus does not exist, which is why Trump was able to run in and just take over the entire party.
Well, Bernie tried it, and now the establishment is kicking back, and they are saying no.
Sanders was asked directly by Anderson Cooper last night on CNN if the Democrats are stealing the nomination from him again, and Bernie's like, I'm not going to answer that question.
I mean, maybe they are.
Maybe they're stealing the nom... Normally, I'm the only one who steals from people.
I just come and take their money.
But now the Democrats keep trying to steal the nomination from me.
They need to stop it.
This is very bad.
Here's Bernie getting mad.
Again, we'll get to the implications of the Bernie versus Biden showdown and the fact that no one's going to have a majority of delegates going in in just one second.
But here is Bernie refusing to answer if the Democrats are stealing the nomination from him.
President Trump questioned last night the timing of Buttigieg's withdrawal, tweeting in part, this is the real beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play.
No nomination again.
He also tweeted this afternoon, quote, they are staging a coup against you.
Is he right?
You know what?
I really wish that the president of the United States might kind of spend his time doing his job.
Maybe, just maybe, he might want to worry about the corona virus.
The corona virus?
A virus that is made from beer?
I don't like beer.
I like vodka, like my Russian compatriots.
In any case.
He won't answer it, right?
He rips on Trump because that's always the convenient out, but he's not saying.
And the answer is that the Bernie bros feel like this is being stolen.
And if you watch the Bernie bros online, they're making this very clear.
Trump, of course, is stoking those flames, right?
Trump is just like, go for it.
Trump tweets out, they're staging a coup against Bernie.
Now, of course, they're not staging a coup against Bernie.
It's called a normal election process.
But that's not what Trump is doing there, right?
Trump doesn't actually think that they're staging a coup again.
Maybe he does, but who cares?
What he's actually doing there is trying to stoke the flames of division inside the Democratic Party.
Sanders yesterday, he's getting more and more ticked off.
As he is the frontrunner, he has never felt actual scrutiny.
Bernie, when you get to when you're the outsider and you get to aim fire at everybody else, you're not the one who faces the scrutiny.
And so Bernie went through an entire election cycle where he was the outsider and Hillary was the insider.
And up until this point, he was able to play that card because Biden was the guy who was going to win the nomination and Bernie was just going to be outside sniping at him.
Then Bernie became the front runner.
All the all the spotlights swiveled and hit him like the end of Stalag 17.
All the spotlights in the place went and just hit him.
And all of a sudden, the machine guns are aimed at him, and Bernie starts to lose it.
So Bernie's getting more and more angry on the campaign trail, which is not his best look, honestly.
Sort of avuncular honest guy was always his best look, but angry communist is, it turns out, not supremely popular.
So he was asked yesterday whether he was, you know, why he keeps campaigning as a socialist, why people keep calling him a socialist, and Bernie Sanders answered with the Popeye answer, I am what I am, and that's all that I am, and then he downed a can of spinach.
It was real weird.
Here's Bernie explaining.
Congressman Ro Khanna told the Wall Street Journal that he's been trying to convince you to portray yourself differently as a successor of Franklin Roosevelt and as a new dealer.
Do you ever regret labeling yourself a democratic socialist?
No, I am what I am.
I am what I am.
And that's all that I am.
I'm strong to the finish when I eat my spinach.
He's Popeye, the sailor communist.
Michael Moore then came out and he says it's really sad that people are thinking of how to stop Bernie instead of stopping Trump.
You can see they're already in mourning.
The Democrats on the Bernie side, they're already in mourning.
They think it's being stolen and they are pissed.
They are super pissed.
So I'm going to give you the coming up in just a moment.
I'm going to give you the sort of breakdown of the possible options that happen after Bernie after Super Tuesday.
We'll give you the delegate breakdowns.
What are the possibilities here moving forward?
None of them are good for Democrats.
This is all a disaster for Democrats.
But Michael Moore, you know, obviously already in preemptive mourning for Bernie Sanders's campaign.
Here he is explaining that people should stop thinking about Bernie.
Instead, they should think about Trump.
But of course, neglecting the fact the reason that people don't want Bernie to be the nominee is specifically because they think that Bernie can't beat Trump.
That's the whole point.
I think they're falling in line.
They're not thinking tonight about who can stop Donald Trump.
They're thinking about who can stop Bernie Sanders.
And it's sad to see that.
And it's sad for anybody to be thinking about voting for Biden because they're afraid.
They're voting out of fear.
If you're afraid of Trump now, if that's what really is behind this, Well, you might lose to Trump if you try to elect a communist.
I mean, that's what most of the Democrats are thinking.
In just a second, I'm going to give you the breakdown of what could happen going forward, and none of these scenarios are good for the Democrats.
A real problem for Democrats.
We'll get to that in a second.
First, Super Tuesday is upon us.
An octogenarian communist is in the lead to face off against President Trump.
But Joe Biden, an actual dead person, is now gaining on him quickly.
Now, if Bernie Sanders were to run this company, everything here would be free.
Free memberships, free advertising, free pudding cups, and kill the Kulaks to pay for it.
But in reality, that would make us go bankrupt very quickly unless we killed the Kulaks to pay for it.
Nevertheless, We still have some great savings in store for you.
Right now, you can become a Daily Wire member for 25% off on any plan using coupon code NEVERSOCIALIST.
I don't know about you guys, but savings like these always make my Tumblr overflow with leftist tears.
Daily Wire members get an ad-free website experience, access to all of our live broadcasts and show library, the full three hours of The Ben Shapiro Show, access to the mailbag, and now exclusive Election Insight op-eds from yours truly.
Join us for special events like the Super Tuesday episode of Daily Wire Backstage, where we'll be breaking down and covering all of the Super Tuesday election updates in real time.
That is correct.
We'll be here.
Unless my wife is in labor.
In which case, I'll still try to be here for part of the time, but my wife will murder me if she's actually in labor and I'm here.
In any case, we will hope and pray that she holds off.
I also want to announce that Sunday Special is back!
They kicked off the first episode of the season yesterday with controversial guest Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA.
Watch as I ask him some tough questions about Trump and he answers why he believes that the MAGA view is the only view worth...
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Super Tuesday calls for super savings, so head on over to DailyWire.com slash subscribe.
Act now before it's too late.
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We want to hear from you.
Tell us who you think will win the Democratic nomination by texting either Biden, Bernie, Bloomberg, or Warren to 83400.
If you text Warren, we know you're not serious.
And on Tuesday night during our Daily Wire backstage, we'll analyze the results live.
In fact, there will be only one text for Elizabeth Warren.
It will be from Elizabeth Warren.
Again, text either Biden, Bernie, Bloomberg, or Warren to 83400.
We'll analyze the results on Daily Wire backstage tonight.
Tonight.
Super Tuesday.
You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
All righty.
So here are the scenarios.
Here are the scenarios.
The 538 is now pegging it that Joe Biden will be the leader in terms of delegates going into the convention.
He will not have a majority.
Bernie Sanders will follow him closely.
Also not with a majority, obviously.
He'll have a not even plurality.
And then they're thinking that Bloomberg wins something like 500 delegates.
I think that is a wild overestimate for Bloomberg.
I think Bloomberg significantly underperforms tonight.
I may be wrong.
I will be surprised if Bloomberg wins more than about 40 delegates tonight.
Seriously, I think that Bloomberg is not going to cross 15% in nearly any state.
I think he is going to completely collapse once the voters have a chance to actually vote for Biden or Bloomberg.
I think people are going to vote for Biden.
So I think that Biden significantly overperforms.
I think Bernie performs exactly in line with expectations.
And I think Bloomberg's votes all go to Biden, basically.
Also, Klobuchar and Buttigieg endorsed Biden.
So I would assume that most of those voters, not all of them, but most of them, end up moving over to Joe Biden as well.
This leads to the possibility of three scenarios.
The worst-case scenario is the scenario in which Sanders cleans up tonight, but Biden gains, and by the time of the convention, Sanders ends up with slightly more delegates than Biden, and Bloomberg ends up with like 500, 600 delegates, right?
That is the worst-case scenario.
Let's say that Biden ends up with 1,500 delegates, and Bloomberg ends up with 600 delegates, and Bernie ends up with 1,700 delegates.
Bernie's not gonna get the nomination in that case, because the rules state you have to win a majority of the delegates.
But, Bernie's gonna claim that having won plurality of the delegates, he should be handed the nomination.
As the leader in the clubhouse, he should be allowed to have the nomination, and anything else is stealing the nomination from him.
Biden is gonna claim, hey guys, like, if Bloomberg weren't in the race, I'd obviously win this thing.
Bloomberg throws his delegates over to Biden.
They have a combined Biden-Bloomberg ticket or something.
Or he makes Bloomberg the head of one of his departments, one of his agencies.
And then, they take the nomination.
Bernie feels like he is jobbed, or alternatively the party has to give it to Sanders and the entire moderate wing just checks out.
And not only do they check out, all the money checks out, which is really the big issue, right?
The entire money, like everyone who has any cash in the Democratic Party is not on board with a full-on socialist.
That is worst-case scenario for the Democrats, so honestly, I'm kind of rooting for it, right?
Bernie ends up with the most delegates, but not...
A majority.
Biden finishes a close second.
That is full chaos at the convention.
That is worst case scenario.
Then there's the best case scenario.
Best case scenario is Biden's comeback is complete.
He wins a plurality of the delegates.
Bloomberg pulls out but keeps spending on anti-Bernie ads, crushing Bernie.
Bernie ends up in second place and doesn't have a real case for the nomination.
And then he just claims victory for his movement.
Now, that's still not great for the Democrats in the sense that Bernie's people are grievance mongers.
This is their entire political campaign.
Their entire political campaign is that the system is rigged.
The system is corrupt.
And so they're going to say, listen, Bernie was in the lead until the entire Democratic Party infrastructure mobilized behind Joe Biden.
And so really Bernie got jobbed again.
Now, they claimed this in 2016 because Hillary did win.
The majority of the delegates, right?
She had the majority of the delegates.
She won more votes than Bernie Sanders, but people were still claiming that Bernie got screwed out of it because the DNC was interfering.
He can make the same case right now, given the fact that there is this obvious mobilization on behalf of Biden, this obvious consolidation of the field on behalf of Biden.
So even if Biden were to walk into the convention with a plurality of delegates, Bernie is still going to claim that he got screwed out of it.
And so are his people.
And that's a real problem for the Democrats.
Even if Bernie gives a sort of lackluster, half-hearted endorsement of Joe Biden, that's going to have exactly the same impact as Bernie doing that in 2016 with Hillary Clinton.
Namely, a bunch of Bernie supporters are going to be like, I don't care about this.
I'm not in.
I'm not in.
Here's the big problem for the Democrats.
And then finally, there's the anything-goes scenario.
Dead heat.
No-one situation.
Democrats try to go off the board for somebody like Michelle Obama.
Unlikely.
Very, very unlikely.
The most unlikely.
Okay, so here is the problem for the Democrats.
There were three things that the Democratic Party did wrong.
I mean, really, like three serious things.
One, they rejiggered the primary process to help popular but non-majoritarian candidates like Bernie at Bernie's behest.
So Bernie claimed last time around he was screwed.
So the Democratic Party responded by releasing raw vote totals in places like Iowa.
They responded by getting rid of the impact of superdelegates, making it appear that Bernie had more of a shot at bucking the party infrastructure.
That was big mistake number one.
Big mistake number two, letting Bernie run as a Democrat without actually being a Democrat.
And then hijacking his platform, right?
Everybody decided to hijack Bernie's platform and decided to be mini Bernie's.
And at that point, Bernie became the most honest guy in the field.
And there was a sort of consolidation that happened behind Bernie.
So letting Bernie into the game in the first place and then rigging the game to try and help Bernie, two horrible decisions.
And finally, the decision by Biden to run a horrible, lackluster campaign.
So even if Biden pulls out the nomination, Biden will have done severe damage to the Democratic Party by running such a crap campaign.
Why?
Because he opened the door wide to Sanders, which ends up allowing the Sanders supporters to feel jobbed by Biden winning the nomination.
Imagine if Biden had not run a crappy campaign.
Imagine if Biden had raised money and spent in Iowa and spent in New Hampshire and he'd won the first couple of contests.
There wouldn't have been a split in the party.
But now that Bernie actually was for a short time the delegate leader and may still be the delegate leader after Super Tuesday, given California.
Now, no matter what happens, because Biden ran the world's crappiest campaign, it ends up that you have a major split inside the party.
So this is almost best case scenario for President Trump.
Trump is just overjoyed about all of this, and he should be.
Now, meanwhile, Bernie is sort of praying that Michael Bloomberg does better than expected in these various Super Tuesday states.
There's only one problem, which is that Bloomberg is awful at this.
Yesterday, Bloomberg did another one of these CNN town halls, and he was confronted on gun control.
It did not go well for him.
This is actually on Fox News, rather.
It did not go well for him.
I probably get 40 or 50 threats every week, okay?
And some of them are real.
when you have an armed security detail that is likely equipped with the same firearms and magazines that you seek to ban the common citizen from owning.
Does your life matter more than mine or my family's or these people's?
I probably get 40 or 50 threats every week, okay?
And some of them are real.
That just happens when you're the mayor of New York City or you're very wealthy and if you're campaigning for President of the United States, you get lots of threats.
Okay, that is the worst answer ever.
Basically, I deserve it because I can afford it, and also I get lots of threats, so I should be able to protect myself, but you should not be able to protect yourself.
Horrible answer by Bloomberg.
Again, I think Bloomberg falls flat on his face today.
I think Bloomberg has an awful, awful evening.
And I think that that benefits mainly Joe Biden.
Okay, meanwhile, the other big story of yesterday.
It's a loss to me.
It's a loss to America.
It's a loss to everybody.
Chris Matthews just left his show Hardball.
That's what I always say.
Come on in here.
Come to the show of Rumpel and say things.
Just show metaphors, similes, alliteration.
Just lots of things.
Come in here to say things.
Last night Chris Matthews got on his show after 23 years doing Hardball.
A lot of Hardball right there.
Lots and lots of it.
Get on and say, you know what?
I've had it.
I'm mad as hell.
I'm not going to take it anymore.
I'm leaving.
And you guys can all stick it.
Now, he makes an excuse.
He says, well, the reason I'm doing is the times pass me by.
Times pass me by.
Because we've moved into a more woke era.
He gives a quasi-apology.
Here's Chris Matthews giving a quasi-apology and saying, you know what?
I'm out.
Matthews out.
Mic drop.
Chris Matthews, go.
No, I mean, like, actually go.
Like, leave.
But go, go, Chris Matthews, go.
Let me start with my headline tonight.
I'm retiring.
This is the last Hardball on MSNBC.
And obviously, this isn't for a lack of interest in politics.
As you can tell, I've loved every minute of my 20 years as host of Hardball.
The younger generations out there are ready to take the reins.
We see them in politics, in the media, in fighting for their causes.
They're improving the workplace.
We're talking here about better standards than we grew up with.
Fair standards.
A lot of it has to do with how we talk to each other.
Compliments on a woman's appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were okay.
Were never okay.
Not then, and certainly not today.
And for making such comments in the past, I'm sorry.
Okay, and then he leaves.
Then he says, you know what?
I'm out.
I'm done.
Catch you later.
And this was somewhat hilarious because Steve Kornacki was obviously taken by surprise.
So Steve Kornacki's just on the set doing elections analysis and he's like, and they're like, guess who's the new host of Hardball?
Who drew the short straw?
Steve Kornacki!
Congratulations!
You're the host!
So Steve Kornacki on air last night was like, um, hi everyone.
I'm your new host, Steve Kornacki.
Steve Kornacki on MSNBC trying to soldier through this thing.
I mean, credit to Steve Kornacki, honestly.
That was a lot to take in just now, I'm sure.
And I'm sure you're still absorbing that, and I am too.
Chris Matthews is a giant.
He's a legend.
It's been an honor for me to work with him, to sit in here on occasion.
And I know how much you meant to him, and I know how much he meant to you.
And I think you're going to miss him, and I know I'm going to.
We're not going to have any bells or whistles here.
We do have to fill the rest of this hour.
We're going to take a quick break and come back with Space News.
I don't have a teleprompter and I don't know what to do.
You know what?
Good for Chris Matthews.
Honestly, like seriously, good for him.
Because Chris Matthews was like, I'm getting jobbed out of here, right?
That's what, okay, so what really happened here is that Chris Matthews was Chris Matthews for 23 years.
And he was wildly entertaining, okay?
Chris Matthews, the reason I imitate him is because, yes, he says silly things a lot, but also, dude is entertaining, okay?
Chris Matthews was fun.
He was fun to watch, okay?
And Chris, it was great.
I loved it.
Every moment, every moment was just a little tingle up my leg, sparks of joy, like Marie Kondo on TV.
Unbelievable.
And the reason he was ousted is because the woke bros decided to get him.
There were two basic incidents that happened over the last month.
He was fine.
Neither of them was a big deal.
One of them was where he suggested that the Democratic Party was waking up like the Allies in 1940 and realizing that the Germans had taken over the beaches, basically.
He was not comparing Bernie Sanders to a Nazi, and you have to be a moron to believe that he was doing that.
Didn't matter.
The Bernie bros don't like Chris Matthews because Chris Matthews happens to be an anti-communist, right?
He happens not to like socialism.
He happens not to like communism.
Chris Matthews is moderate enough to understand that nationalization of industry is a stupid idea.
So the Bernie bros got very mad, and then they played this idiotic game where they suggested that Chris Matthews was anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, their candidate is out campaigning with actual people who want to wipe the state of Israel off the map.
I mean, it was really cynical and really gross, and I mentioned it at the time, right?
In the last month, I've become a Chris Matthews defender, not just because I like my impression, but also because the attacks on him are really unfair.
Then there was this interview he did with Elizabeth Warren, where Elizabeth Warren was cynically going after Michael Bloomberg and suggesting that Michael Bloomberg was lying about his confrontations with the series of women in his office.
And Bloomberg had said, I'm not lying about that.
There are NDAs in place, but I'm not lying about that.
And obviously, people have a rather large incentive to say I say things that I didn't say because I'm extremely wealthy.
I run a huge company.
So Chris Matthews is questioning Elizabeth Warren about this.
And this, of course, is a big no-no.
Here's Chris Matthews being a vicious sexist by asking a basic question.
Everybody deserves a credible response when they make a charge like that.
My question about him, you believe he's lying?
I believe the woman.
You believe he's lying?
Which means he's not telling the truth.
And why would he lie?
Because just to protect himself?
Yeah.
And why would she lie?
I mean, that's the question, Chris.
Why do you assume that he's the guy... It's a striking event.
I just want to make sure you're clear about this.
You're confident of your accusation.
Look, all I know is what she said and what he said.
Okay, that is not sexist.
Nothing he says there is sexist.
And by the way, believe all women is a bunch of crap.
Everybody knows it's a bunch of crap.
There's a reason why the Democrats don't believe all women, depending on the woman.
Okay, so the fact is that he didn't say anything there that is supremely off-limits.
It didn't matter.
People went nuts.
It was sexist!
How could he ask Elizabeth Warren if a woman lied about Bloomberg?
Well, she's accusing a man of lying, so, like, why would you believe the woman as opposed to believing the man in this particular scenario?
As far as why would she lie, the answer is she was filing a lawsuit against Bloomberg against the time, who happens to be extremely wealthy.
So, yeah, that might be a good reason.
I mean, that doesn't mean that she's not telling.
Maybe she is telling.
I don't know.
You don't know.
I mean, Chris Matthews is saying, Elizabeth Warren, you don't know either.
So like, what's your evidence?
OK, and he got ripped up and down for this.
Tiana Lowe.
Over at the Washington Examiner has a good piece on this.
She says, the host's departure, which she said resulted after a conversation with MSNBC, hardly came out of the blue.
For months, Matthews and other hosts challenging 2020 frontrunner Bernie Sanders have faced the ire of the Socialist Senators fans, as well as those of Elizabeth Warren, and only now did the network apparently care that for years, rumors of inappropriate behavior have swirled around Matthews.
This is right.
So people are saying, OK, well, it's just because of all the stuff that he said back in 2000 to women.
OK, well, you know what year it is? 2020.
You know, that stuff has been around for quite a while.
Right at the onset of the MeToo movement in late 2017, The Daily Caller uncovered a settlement paid out by NBC to assuage a former employee of Matthews who alleged sexual harassment.
Shortly thereafter, multiple sources alleged that Matthews created an abusive work environment, other reporters corroborated the payout, and additional details.
But despite other serial sexual harassers facing punishment, Matthews continued on as usual until he got under the skin of Warren fans and Bernie bros.
Just days after he likened Sanders' victory in Nevada to the fall of France to the Nazis, he pressed Warren on her invoking the allegation that Bloomberg told a female employee to have an abortion, angering Sanders and Warren fans as a good way to alienate a substantial portion of the MSNBC audience.
Warren defender Laura Bassett compared his aggressive questioning of the Massachusetts senator to the objectifying comments she faced from Matthews three years ago.
That MSNBC decided to take action against a credible accusation isn't the problem, that they waited this long is.
And that, of course, is exactly right.
Okay, that is exactly right.
Okay, so the bottom line is that they were fine with whatever Chris Matthews did before.
It is only now that it's a problem.
And the reason that it's a problem is because Chris Matthews is cutting against the grain at MSNBC by pissing off all of the Warren and Sanders supporters.
That's all that really happened here.
So maybe he deserved to get the axe back in 2017 based on what he was saying to women.
I don't know.
Maybe.
Sure, why not.
But, they didn't do anything about it.
They settled it.
And now, they're coming after Matthews for that reason?
No, that is cynical manipulation.
So, we bid a fond farewell to Chris Matthews.
Honestly, I'm more sad that the impression's gonna go away.
What opportunity am I gonna have to imitate Chris Matthews?
I don't know.
Hopefully in the future, Chris Matthews will come back in some iteration so we can use it.
Otherwise, we're gonna have to mothball this thing.
So, Godspeed, my impression.
Godspeed.
And may you see happier days in the heaven of impersonations.
Alright, time for a thing I like and then a thing I hate.
So, things that I like today.
So, somehow, Bibi Netanyahu is some sort of political magician.
So, according to the Jerusalem Post, Benjamin Netanyahu has now defeated Benny Gantz.
He is still short of a majority.
The exit polls in Israel are a little bit ahead of the actual voting results.
So, late yesterday, it appeared that Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc had an actual outright majority.
Instead, the exit polls now suggest that Netanyahu is on track to win 59 seats for his bloc of right-wing and religious parties in Monday's election, down by one from the 60 predicted by initial exit polls.
That prediction leaves him two seats short of majority in the Knesset.
The first polls indicated that Netanyahu's Likud won 36 to 37 seats.
Its allies in Shas, UTJ, and Yamina won 9, 7 to 8, and 6 to 7.
The polls showed that Blue and White only won 33 seats.
That Labor, which is the left-wing party in Israel, won 6 to 7.
The Joint List, which is the Arab parties who, by the way, overtly call for the abolition of the State of Israel, sit at 14 to 15.
And Yisrael Beiteinu, which is sort of the swing voting bloc, 6 to 8 seats.
The numbers are expected to continue to change.
The votes of soldiers have not yet been counted.
The joint list tends to lose a seat when the soldiers' votes are added.
If the right doesn't obtain its 61st seat, it could end up being because the far-right Otzma Yehudit party refused Netanyahu's repeated request to quit the race.
So now the only question is whether they can peel off one or two votes, whether the blue and white Constituency, which is basically just an anti-Netanyahu party, whether a few of them say, listen, we're done with this.
We've done three elections in a year.
This has to end.
And they join Netanyahu's coalition.
Bottom line is that Netanyahu has basically given up for dead after the last election.
The conventional wisdom suggested that with the indictment coming down for corruption against Netanyahu, that people were going to abandon Likud in droves.
This was what people in blue and white were saying.
I said that was not going to happen.
I suggested that you were going to end up with a new election in all likelihood.
Bibi actually surpassed those expectations.
People are angry.
They're angry that blue and white continues to hold this thing up.
And by the way, the longer the BB continues as prime minister of Israel.
The better for Bibi.
Because the big issue in Israel is whether Bibi Netanyahu was going to be tried for corruption in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem.
This would be the equivalent of, is President Trump going to be tried for corruption in Austin, Texas?
Or is he going to be tried for corruption in Lubbock, Texas?
The venue makes an awful lot of difference.
If he's tried in Lubbock, he's fine.
If he's tried in Austin, he's going to jail for life.
The same thing is true of Bibi Netanyahu.
If he were not Prime Minister, he would be tried in Tel Aviv, which is a city that hates Benjamin Netanyahu.
If he is tried in Jerusalem, he probably gets a slap on the wrist, which is basically A more appropriate response to all of this, and then continues as Prime Minister, all of this is over and Blue and White liquidates.
Blue and White made a serious strategic error.
Okay, they made a serious strategic error.
I've been saying this for months.
Back in October, when the last election took place, they obviously should have formed a unity government with Netanyahu.
They should have had a rotating Prime Ministership.
That would have been their best move.
Instead, they decided to sit outside and snipe at Netanyahu.
And the Israeli voters got tired of it, and they decided they were not going to reward Blue and White.
For all of this.
They were simply not going to continue giving blue and white their votes in the same numbers they had been before, simply because they don't like Netanyahu.
So, another stunning political victory for Netanyahu.
At the very least, he remains in power for the foreseeable future, even if there's another election.
That means that that election is not going to happen until summer.
The trial starts March 17th.
That means it happens in Jerusalem, which means that Bibi is probably going to be slapped on the wrist or acquitted.
Within a couple of months.
And that means by the time the next election comes around, that's a big win for Netanyahu.
If he's acquitted or if he gets a slap on the wrist, this thing is over.
Next election, Likud wins a broad majority.
One of the great lies that you're going to see in the Western media is that this is all about Bibi.
It is not all about Bibi.
It is clearly not all about Bibi.
The fact is, the Israeli public is overwhelmingly conservative on foreign policy issues at this point.
They're not making a deal with terrorists.
It doesn't matter how much the Democrats pressure them.
They made deals with terrorists for 30 years and all they got were thousands of dead Israelis.
They're not going to do it again.
The fact is that the Blue and White Party is not significantly... They embraced the Trump peace plan, the Blue and White Party.
So the Blue and White Party is not significantly different on foreign policy than the Liquid Party.
That means that there are, in total, something like 95 seats in Knesset out of 120 that are center to center-right in Israel.
Israel has learned its lesson.
They're not making peace deals with terrorists anymore, despite the wishes of the Democratic Party.
Nor should they, because the fact is that you know who else doesn't care about making concessions to terrorists anymore?
Any of the surrounding Arab nations.
Saudi doesn't care.
Jordan doesn't care.
UAE doesn't care.
Egypt doesn't care.
None of them care.
None of them care.
Morocco doesn't care.
Like, none of them care.
So, that means that regard- like, Bibi is almost secondary to all of this.
Bottom line is that Israel has moved right.
Israel is staying right.
It is not going to stop being right so long as they are faced with the prospect of a terrorist group in charge of the people right next door and an Iranian regime that is threatening them from abroad.
So that is the thing that I like today.
Again, Bibi is great at what he does.
He's a great campaigner.
He's like Trump in the sense that he drives enormous loyalty.
He also is unlike Trump in that he is strategically very clever.
He is much more focused in his sort of attack than Trump.
It's one of the great elements I have about Trump is that if Trump were a little bit more strategically focused, he would be at 55% in all of the polls going into 2020.
2020.
Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
So the United States is desperately attempting to get out of Afghanistan.
The Trump administration wants out.
They don't want any of our military members there.
And this has been pushed by the right.
There are a lot of folks on the right who are saying the war in Afghanistan is over.
We lost.
OK, we did not lose the war in Afghanistan.
It's just that there is no victory that is attainable in the sense of establishing a stable democracy in Afghanistan anytime soon.
The question is whether to keep what is effectively a skeleton force in Afghanistan or whether to pull out precipitously and hand the keys to the car back to the Taliban, which is, of course, a terrorist group.
So, Taliban supposedly had pledged that they weren't going to attack Afghan targets, they weren't going to attack the Americans, they had pledged that they weren't going to work with Al-Qaeda.
They are Islamic fundamentalist radicals who engage in terrorism.
The Trump administration had been engaged in exactly the same sort of wish-casting that the Obama administration was, that maybe a deal would be able to be cut with the Taliban.
It turns out that that has fallen apart almost immediately.
So the Trump administration had sent out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make the rounds suggesting that the Taliban had committed to not working with al-Qaeda.
There's nothing in the deal about that, that they had committed to ending terrorism.
There was no deal about that.
Within a day, within a day, they ended their partial truce and started attacking American and Afghan targets again.
By the way, the Afghanistan government was not on board with any of this.
So it was very weird.
The United States was negotiating with the Taliban without the direct involvement of the duly elected government of Afghanistan that is in place.
That's a very weird thing And not only that, the United States was pledging to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners who are not being held by the Americans, they're being held by the Afghan government.
So strengthening the opposition to the Afghan government in pulling out.
According to the AFP, the Taliban called an abrupt end to a partial truce on Monday, just two days after signing a deal with the United States that was meant to bring peace at last to Afghanistan.
In the southern province of Kandahar, considered the Taliban's heartland, fighting broke out in at least two districts.
They started attacking five of our posts in Panwahi and Maiwand.
Local police chief Sultan Mohammed Hakimi told AFP fighting is ongoing.
The Taliban ordered its fighters to recommence attacks against Afghan army and police forces, apparently ending an official reduction in violence that had seen a dramatic drop in bloodshed and given Afghans a welcome taste of relative calm.
The partial truce between the U.S., the insurgents and Afghan forces lasted for a week, running up to the signing of the U.S.-Taliban accord in Doha on Saturday and was extended over the weekend.
The Taliban spokesman, Sabahullah Mujahid, told AFP the reduction in violence has ended now and our operations will continue as normal.
So they bought basically like a week of a week of reduction in violence.
Well done, everybody.
As per the U.S.-Taliban agreement, our mujahideen will not attack foreign forces, but our operations will continue against the Kabul administration forces.
In other words, there's no actual truce here.
Basically, they're just saying if the Americans leave, we won't attack more Americans.
Well, okay, if the Americans leave, there won't be any more Americans for you to attack.
So what exactly is the peace deal?
What exactly is achieved?
What's the negotiation?
The answer is there is no negotiation.
When one side is determined to withdraw and the other side is determined not to, one will withdraw, the other will not, and things will go back to the way that they were.
And again, the question here is not endless war.
Nobody wants tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan.
No one wants endless wars.
The question is whether to keep a skeleton force in Afghanistan to tamp down the Taliban's ability to take over the government again, and then immediately provide a recruiting station for terrorism.
Because that's what the Taliban did last time.
And I'm old enough to remember 9-11.
I know that a lot of people are not.
It's amazing how fast time moves.
It's been almost 20 years since 9-11.
But I'm old enough to remember 9-11.
And 9-11 was not something that I would like to see repeated because we withdraw precipitously from an area where Al-Qaeda is still active.
The United States cautioned an immediate halt to violence had not been expected.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Taliban is not a monolithic group.
There's multiple terrorist organizations operating.
To think that violence is going to go to zero immediately, that's probably not going to be the case.
So now, this is the problem with signing peace deals with terrorist groups.
you end up becoming PR spokespeople for the terrorist groups.
You saw this from the Obama administration too.
The Obama administration kept saying things like, well, you know, if you look at Iran, Iran is not actually pursuing terrorism.
They became a PR spokesperson because they were signing a deal with the Iranians.
They became a PR spokes agency for the Iranian government.
Now you have the United States downplaying Taliban violence against the legitimate government of Afghanistan in order to make an excuse for why we should withdraw.
Now again, you want to withdraw, withdraw, but understand their costs.
Understand their costs to withdrawing, and the costs to withdrawing do include the prospect of future violence down the road.
The easy position in foreign policy, I've discussed this at length, the easy position in foreign policy is always bring the troops home.
Why?
Because immediate benefits, long-term downsides.
Okay, but the immediate benefits accrue immediately, and the long-term downsides accrue long-term.
Okay, let's say that you pull out, and let's say ten years from now there's a terrorist attack in New York City by Taliban associates, by Al-Qaeda.
Well, we'll look back and we'll say, well, that was a mistake, wasn't it?
To minimize America's foreign military presence.
But, at the time, it looked good.
You know how we know that this would be exactly what would happen?
Because for ten years, in the aftermath of the Cold War, The Clinton administration cut America's military presence to the bone.
Cut it down and down and down and down.
It was like, okay, with this, okay, we're redeploying all of our capital to the American side.
This is good.
We're cutting military spending.
We're balancing the budget.
And then 9-11 happens like, oh, that was what we were, oh, that was a mistake, wasn't it?
Maybe we should have been a little more aggressive and then maybe some more Americans would be alive.
Again, when you think short-term and not long-term with regard to foreign policy, you make a mistake.
And again, Afghan violence is not at the levels against American troops that it was even five, seven years ago.
The Taliban has been gathering on Monday to celebrate what they called their defeat of the U.S.
They also vowed to continue operations against the Afghan government until an Islamic system of government is restored.
So, why we are signing some sort of peace deal and then playing defense for the Taliban is beyond me.
It's an enormous, enormous mistake.
And the fact that we're down to short-term benefit Again, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans criticized Barack Obama for precipitously withdrawing American troops from Iraq, resulting in the rise of ISIS.
It would not be long before the same thing happened in Afghanistan.
And by the way, when I mean not long, I mean like within 48 hours of signing a deal.
So, let's not play defense on behalf of the Taliban, guys.
If you're gonna withdraw, withdraw.
But don't be dishonest about why we're withdrawing and suggest that a peaceful future is in the offing for the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with much more Super Tuesday content as we approach the big day.
Will Joe Biden pull it out?
Will Bernie Sanders lengthen his lead?
Who knows?
Well, I mean, I have some speculation, but we'll get to that a little bit later on in the day.
Otherwise, stop by dailywire.com.
We have a Super Tuesday broadcast for you tonight.
We'll be covering the results live and in color.
So go check that out tonight.
By becoming a subscriber, you can ask us questions.
We have a cavalcade of comedy stars.
So check that out tonight over at dailywire.com.
Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow for the recap of all the big news.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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