Joe Biden Just Surrendered To The Taliban | Ep. 1318
|
Time
Text
The war in Afghanistan draws to a conclusion as the Taliban overrun Kandahar and threaten the United States Embassy in Kabul.
And the American Academy of Pediatrics says kids don't need to see human faces anymore.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
You have a right to privacy.
Defend your rights at expressvpn.com slash Ben.
We'll get to all the news in just one moment.
First, here is your quick reminder that we had a really, really bad inflation report yesterday, and we had a really, really bad inflation report the month before that.
Inflation in the United States right now is at like a 20-year high, and the reason for that is because we are blowing out the spending.
Now would be an excellent time to diversify at least some of your holdings into a precious metal that has never been below zero.
I'm talking about investing with my friends over at Birch Gold.
If you haven't yet reached out to Birch Gold to diversify part of your IRA or 401k into a precious metals IRA, do it today.
Text Ben to 474747.
Get a free information kit on protecting your savings with gold.
I buy my gold from Birch Gold.
They have an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, countless five star reviews, thousands of happy customers.
Talk to them.
Have them help you safeguard your retirement savings.
Again, I know the folks at Berkshire Gold.
I've been working with them for years, and I do in fact trust them.
The reality is that you can't trust the centralized government of the United States to keep the dollar worth what it is currently worth.
In fact, if you had taken the dollar and its value, like, 40 years ago, and then projected it out over the course of time, it would be worth about 15% of what it is worth then, now.
So, yes, the government is in the business of inflating the currency.
Text BEN to 474747 to claim your free, no-obligation information kit, and speak with a precious metals expert on holding gold and silver in a tax-sheltered account.
Again, text BEN to 474747 to protect your savings today.
Alrighty, so, After 20 long years in Afghanistan, the United States is pulling out.
We're not pulling out for a good reason.
It would be one thing if there was some actual strategy attached to this, or if the United States were actually achieving some sort of sensible goal.
The United States, however, is not doing any of that.
The United States is withdrawing from Afghanistan at a time When this is no longer among America's endless wars.
In order for a war to be considered endless, you actually have to be in a state of continual warfare.
The United States currently has, or did have until Joe Biden announced a withdrawal, 3,500 troops in Afghanistan.
The last combat casualties in the United States from American soldiers in Afghanistan was on February 8th, 2020.
It is currently August 2021.
That is not an active combat zone.
You're more likely to be killed as a cop in Chicago than you are to be killed as a combat soldier in Afghanistan if you're an American right now.
But Joe Biden decided he wanted a win.
And because he wanted a win, and I don't even know what he thought the win was going to be, we were going to pull out precipitously from Afghanistan.
Now, I understand the argument that we were never going to achieve our goal in Afghanistan if our goal was defined as nation building.
This was never going to be a thriving democracy.
It is literally the most tribal place on earth.
There's no history of democracy or liberality or human rights.
Those things just were not there until the United States got there.
And so the idea that we were going to graft Western institutions onto very inhospitable soil, that always seemed like a bit of a pipe dream.
But there is still a rather large scale American interest in Afghanistan.
If you recall why we first went there, we didn't go there to build democracy in Afghanistan.
We went there in order to deny Al Qaeda a staging base.
And because we had not done that in the 1990s, Al Qaeda used Taliban occupied Afghanistan as a staging base for 9-11.
And having 3500 troops taking control of the Kandahar Air Force Base, for example, and ensuring that the United States had the ability to send out drone strikes, the ability to work with the Afghan military to stage attacks on terror bases, the ability to train the Afghan military and provide them backup and weaponry if they were going to take on potential threats to the United States.
That was always the primary goal.
Again, the goal was never Primarily to turn Afghanistan into a democracy.
The problem is over time because politicians have a very difficult time just expressing what America's interest is in terms of foreign policy.
American politicians tend to speak in high flown, beautiful terms about the rise of democracy and the rise of human rights and all the rest of this.
But if you make that your primary driver, Then you do become the world's policeman, and people start to miss why we went into Afghanistan in the first place, which is that Al-Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans on 9-11, and we said to the Taliban, turn over Osama bin Laden, and they refused to do so.
And so we deposed the dictators there, the Taliban.
We replaced them with the Northern Alliance.
There was a sort of proto-democracy happening there.
In other words, we let our failure with the secondary goal of establishing a thriving democracy in Afghanistan overtake our primary goal, which is to continue to provide a base of operations against terrorists in Afghanistan.
And so now we are withdrawing for no discernible purpose at all.
And the immediate effect of this.
As it was always destined to be, is that the Taliban are rushing right back in and taking over.
According to the Associated Press today, the Taliban captured two major Afghan cities, the country's second and third largest after Kabul, and a strategic provincial capital on Thursday, further squeezing the embattled government just weeks before the end of the American military mission in Afghanistan.
Remember, Joe Biden for some odd reason decided that he wanted to withdraw all American troops by September 11th, which I don't even understand the symbolism there.
What in the hell is the symbolism there?
The symbolism of here's the group of people who harbored the people who committed 9-11.
We're going to pull out on the 20th anniversary of that date and hand the place back to those people.
How is that even a symbolic win?
Who was the constituency for this?
It's always been a promise that politicians have made, right?
Obama made the promise he was going to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Then he increased troops because it turns out being the president comes with seeing the intel reports.
And then Donald Trump said he was going to pull out of Afghanistan and then necessity meant that we had to keep troops in Afghanistan.
And then Joe Biden, because he's a dullard, decided we're just going to go ahead with this and it doesn't matter what comes next.
Which is completely short-sighted.
And I don't even see the political calculus here.
Because the American people don't tend to care about foreign policy until the heads start coming off.
Right?
That's the point where we care about foreign policy.
So America doesn't care about what's going on in Syria.
But if the media start blanketing the TV with James Foley being beheaded in Syria, suddenly the American people are deeply concerned about what's happening in Syria.
Half a million civilians can die in Syria and we won't give a damn.
But the minute an American gets beheaded, suddenly we want our troops on the ground doing something about it.
If there is tape that comes out of the Yazidis being attacked by ISIS, then all of a sudden we say, why can't we do something about that?
See, America is good hearted, but only in short spurts.
So I don't understand what Biden even thinks he's doing here, because you know what the next footage is going to be, and it's going to be a Taliban fighters beheading people.
We'll be back in there in six months.
In fact, as it turns out, we might be back in there inside of six hours.
The United States is going to have to put thousands of troops on the ground to evacuate the U.S.
embassy in Kabul.
According to the Associated Press, the seizure of Kandahar and Herat marks the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban, who have taken 12 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals as part of a week-long blitz.
The capture of the city of Ghazni, meanwhile, cuts off a crucial highway linking the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the country's southern provinces, all part of an insurgent push some 20 years after U.S.
and NATO troops invaded and ousted the Taliban government.
While Kabul itself isn't under direct threat yet, the losses and the battles elsewhere further tighten the grip of a resurgent Taliban who are estimated to now hold over two-thirds of the country and continue to press their offensive.
With security rapidly deteriorating, the United States plans to send in 3,000 troops to help evacuate some personnel from the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul.
So, just to get this straight, we are withdrawing 3,500 troops so that we can send back in 3,000 troops to evacuate the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul.
And then, when the videos hit the TV, of all the women being lined up and shot by the Taliban, which is undoubtedly the next thing that is going to hit your TV, then presumably we'll be sending in another 3,000 troops again.
This is just a replay of Barack Obama's decision that we were going to pull all troops out of Iraq, and then ISIS took over, and voila, we were back in Iraq.
It turns out that when the United States ends a war, our opponents don't.
That is not how wars typically end.
If you declare that you have lost, your opponent simply fills the vacuum.
According to the Associated Press, thousands of Afghans have fled their homes amid fears the Taliban will again impose a brutal repressive government, all but eliminating women's rights and conducting public amputations, stonings, and executions.
Peace talks in Qatar remain stalled, though diplomats met throughout the day.
The latest U.S.
military intelligence assessment suggests Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days, and that if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a few months.
The Afghan government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities in the coming days if the Taliban keep up their momentum.
The onslaught represents a stunning collapse of Afghan forces and renews questions about where the over $830 billion spent by the U.S.
Defense Department on fighting, training those troops, and reconstruction efforts went, especially as Taliban fighters ride on American-made Humvees and pickup trucks with the M-16s slung over their shoulders.
Just delightful, delightful stuff.
Afghan lawmaker Samin Barghazai announced the city's fall, saying some officials there had escaped.
Witnesses described seeing Taliban fighters once detained at Herat's prison now moving freely on the streets.
In Kandahar, the Taliban seized the governor's office and other buildings.
Witnesses said the governor and other officials fled the onslaught, catching a flight to Kabul.
They declined to be named publicly because the defeat has yet to be acknowledged by the government.
The Taliban then opened up all the prisons and let out all of the Taliban fighters who were there.
Ghazni Provincial Council Member Amanullah Kamrani alleged the provincial governor and police chief made a deal with the Taliban to flee after surrendering.
Taliban video and photos purported to show the governor's convoy freely passing by insurgents as part of the deal.
The Afghan Interior Ministry spokesperson, Mirwais Stanekzai, later said the governor and his deputies had been arrested over that alleged deal.
The officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
So this is a full-scale disaster area.
The USA Air Force, B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, drones, and other aircrafts were involved in fighting across the country.
So, for all the talk about how we weren't involved in the fighting anymore, it turns out that we are involved in the fighting.
We're just now losing.
So, well done everybody.
Also, NBC News is acknowledging that Al-Qaeda is rushing back in.
Who could have predicted this except for every single sentient human being?
Of which Joe Biden doesn't belong in that cadre.
He is not a sentient human being any longer.
He is a houseplant.
Reality remains reality.
According to NBC News, with the Taliban steamrolling across Afghanistan, U.S.
defense officials are concerned a Taliban takeover of the country will allow al-Qaeda to rebuild and consolidate, creating security concerns well outside Afghan borders.
Nearly 20 years after it planned the September 11th attacks from Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has a diminished presence in the country.
Senior officials say it's only two or three hundred members.
Or as Barack Obama might say, it's the JV squad.
Until it's not the JV squad anymore.
One of the officials said they're not really very large, or what we would consider a capable contingent, but the security vacuum left by the withdrawal of U.S.
military forces could create an opening for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to reorganize, the officials say.
If the Taliban take over the government, intelligence about Al-Qaeda is likely to become even scarcer.
And while the U.S.
will still maintain authority to strike Al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan, there's no U.S.
presence on the ground, no Air Force base, which means we have to use neighboring countries to base our Air Force if we decide that we want to launch some strikes.
According to Marine General Frank McKenzie, he said, what we're here to do is prevent Al-Qaeda and ISIS from being able to reconstitute in the ungoverned spaces, generally of eastern Afghanistan, and be able to plot attacks against our homeland. That threat is still here today.
He says, if the pressure comes off, I believe they're going to regenerate.
I think it's only a matter of time before we see them assert themselves and begin to plan attacks against our homeland.
And of course, that would be the predictable result.
Remember, September 11th was the outgrowth of the United States' unwillingness to take on Al-Qaeda after the USS Cole bombing, after the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
You remember that Osama Bin Laden specifically said that the United States was a paper tiger.
And so the idea was that he'd hit us over and over and over again.
We hadn't done anything.
So obviously we wouldn't do anything if he hit our towers and if he hit the Pentagon.
And then we kind of shocked him because we actually did quite a lot.
But it turns out that when you surrender territory to some of the worst people on earth, they don't take that as you just want peace.
They take that as you are weak and you are foolish and then they come after you.
There's this sort of wishful thinking that goes into so much of our foreign policy these days that if we just do the things that we want to do, everybody else will just fall into line.
That is crazy.
By the way, the chances right now that the United States Embassy ends up falling to the Taliban?
Really, really high.
Maybe we avoid these sort of Insane imagery of the fall of Saigon, where people are attempting to climb onto helicopters, but that will only be because we station 3,000 Marines outside the U.S.
Embassy while we evacuate the place and then we leave an empty building for the Taliban to dance inside of.
Joe Biden says, you won't see us helicoptering people off roofs.
Well, I have a feeling that we're going to see something very similar.
Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam with some people feeling?
None whatsoever.
Zero.
What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy.
Six, if I'm not mistaken.
The Taliban is not the South, the North Vietnamese army.
They're not, they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability.
There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.
It is not at all comparable.
It is extremely comparable.
What do you mean they don't have the same capabilities?
You mean the capabilities that Ho Chi Minh's army had when they invaded South Vietnam and then took the capital?
You mean exactly the same thing that the Taliban are doing exactly right now?
In what sense is this any different?
Like, really, is there any difference at all?
It's exactly the same thing.
We were achieving many of our objectives in Afghanistan, mainly the objective to maintain a base of operations with which to fight terrorism, just as we had achieved many of our objectives in South Vietnam.
And then, political actors decided that surrender was preferable to any form of success, and so they just pulled out precipitously while proclaiming victory.
It's insane.
By the way, Taliban fighters are apparently executing surrendering troops, so things are already going fantastically well over there.
We'll get to that in just one second.
First, let's talk about the simple fact that it can be overwhelming to perform at your best as you age.
You got career and family, staying in shape.
Life can be very stressful.
You start to slow down.
You're not present when you want to be.
To perform at your best physically and mentally, you can't let age beat you, and that's where mDrive can help.
M-DRIVE is the daily supplement for driven men who don't want to slow down, who refuse to be tired every day and want to be the best at what they do.
It's packed with clinically tested ingredients that support healthy testosterone levels while helping you lose weight and stay lean.
Added vitamins and nutrients reduce stress and boost your drive so you can perform at your best.
Find it at Walgreens and other retailers today.
Or visit M-DRIVE at 4men.com.
Get 20% off your first order with promo code BEN.
They have free shipping and a 60-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to lose.
M Drive.
It's not for everyone.
It's for the driven.
M, that's the letter M, drive4men.com.
Promo code Ben if that energy level is starting to wane, and frankly, as you get older, it's just going to.
You should try M Drive 4 Men.
They've got the free shipping, the 60-day money back guarantee.
So really, give it a try and see if it works for you.
M drive4men.com.
Get 20% off your very first order with promo code Ben today.
Okay, so the Taliban, of course, doing what the Taliban do and they are already executing everyone they come across. According to ABC News, as Taliban forces advance on more provincial capitals, the U.S. is warning that its fighters are committing atrocities that could amount to war crimes. The State Department will also begin reducing its staff levels at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul due to the evolving security situation. Wait, I was just informed by Joe Biden there wouldn't be anything like the fall of Saigon, that it wouldn't be the invasion of the U.S. Embassy.
Embassy and helicopters flying off the roof.
And yet here I'm finding out that the State Department is saying that they're reducing their staff levels at the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul because of the quote-unquote evolving security situation.
Which is a nice euphemistic way of saying because we're deliberately abandoning the country.
To facilitate this decision, the Pentagon will temporarily deploy additional personnel to Hamid Karzai International Airport.
The U.S.
Embassy in Kabul has also urged Americans to evacuate Afghanistan immediately.
So get out right now.
So yeah, this sounds pretty much like kind of like Saigon guys, not seeing a whole hell of a lot of distinctions here.
The only distinction is that Afghanistan is, is a landlocked country.
So you're not going to see the boat people, but that's about it.
Meaning there's no place for a lot of these folks to go.
The capital could fall into Taliban hands in a matter of weeks.
A military analysis said the city could be isolated in the next 30 to 60 days, be captured in 90 days.
But now, that seems like an outside timeline because the Taliban are just running roughshod across the country.
The Taliban are denying reports its fighters are executing Afghan troops, but the U.S.
Embassy said on Thursday it was hearing additional reports of Taliban executions of surrendering Afghan troops.
They said they were deeply disturbing and could constitute war crimes.
Well, I mean, if they constitute war crimes, I guess we'll have to do something about that.
Like nothing.
I don't even understand what you're talking about at this point.
Joe Biden has said there are no conditions under which we go back in or insert troops or anything like that.
So you mouthing off and writing angry letters to the Taliban is likely to accomplish precisely zero, except to make you look like an idiot, which is exactly what Joe Biden looks like today.
The Taliban have also detained, quote, several members of the Afghan government, including both civilian leaders and officers in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in several locations.
God, we are just the worst allies.
Seriously, like all the people who worked with us are going to get shot.
They're going to get shot in the head in the public square.
And Joe Biden is just going to go.
And that was unnecessary because, again, zero combat deaths in the United States from American troops, zero combat deaths since February of 2020.
It's one thing to make the argument we need to pull out of Afghanistan because the costs are too high in 2011.
It is another thing to say that when you are talking about zero combat deaths, most of the fighting, by the way, being done by civilian contractors who are getting paid for the privilege.
I don't even know how, with a straight face, the U.S.
Embassy under Joe Biden or the State Department can talk about human rights violations by the Taliban like they're going to do a damn thing about it.
They're not going to.
I don't know why America's allies would trust us.
Like, this is the real takeaway.
The takeaway is, if you're an American ally, do you feel comfortable right now relying on America's ability to back you up?
Do you?
The people of Hong Kong relied on the West to back them up, and now they're all living under the tender mercies of communist rule.
The Kurds relied on the United States to protect them.
That didn't work out particularly well for the Kurds.
The Afghans relied on the United States to ally with them in order to overthrow the Taliban, and now all those people are going to get shot in the head and all the women are going to cram back into burqas and acid thrown on their faces and all the rest.
Who takes the risk of doing anything in alliance with the United States when the United States acts like this?
Isn't it more likely that countries, in order to preserve themselves, are simply going to start cutting deals with, for example, the Chinese?
Isn't that more likely the case?
Like if you're a country in the middle, let's say you're a country, a European country, and the United States says, listen, China is a rising threat.
China's aggressive.
They are, they are vindictive.
They pursue human rights abuses.
They're some of the worst people on the planet in the, in the Chinese government.
And we need you to help us isolate the Chinese.
If you're an American ally, and let's say you're an American ally in the Middle East, like the Saudis or the Israelis, or let's say that you're an American ally in Europe, like the Germans or the French.
Why in the world would you rely on the United States to back your play?
I just don't understand.
It doesn't make any... If you wish, the United States has to be credible in two ways.
It has to have credible threats, and it also has to have credible commitments.
And we don't have credible threats at this point, and we also don't have credible commitments at this point.
The arrests, by the way, contradict the Taliban's claim to support a negotiated settlement, and contrast the Taliban's own rhetoric providing for the safety of Afghan leaders and troops in areas recently seized by the Taliban, according to the U.S.
Embassy.
Critics are saying the Biden administration is foolish to count on promises made by the Taliban in Qatar while Taliban continues to just run roughshod over the entire country and do whatever the hell they want.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News the reported atrocities were, quote, deeply, deeply troubling, but the administration has not taken any action to punish the group for them.
In fact, the administration just sounds weak and pathetic.
Okay, I'll give you an example.
Here's how weak and pathetic the administration sounds.
Here's Jen Psaki from the White House talking about the Taliban and their human rights abuses.
The Taliban also has to make an assessment about what they want their role to be in the international community.
And I know that Ambassador Khalilzad made comments when he was at the political negotiations yesterday, making clear that the international community is going to watch closely how the Taliban behaves.
They have a range of tools in their arsenal as well to take steps should they choose.
Oh boy, what are you going to do?
Leverage economic sanctions against a bunch of cavemen from the 8th century?
I'm sure they're quaking in their boots.
They've been living in caves for the last 20 years.
I'm sure they're really going to be upset if you guys... Economic sanctions on the Taliban?
Wow.
Don't threaten them with a good time.
I mean, seriously, this is unbelievable.
Like, they have to decide... I'm pretty sure the Taliban decided a long time ago whether they wanted to be members of the international community.
Such putzes over here in this administration.
It's just unbelievable.
Like, it's insane.
Genocide, they have to decide.
Well, I mean, they do have to decide that.
It's like, okay, so you got the serial killer in the corner, and he's holding the woman in the closet, and every so often he goes in, and he brings another victim, and then he just kills one.
That guy, and we know he's doing it, that guy over there, we have to decide whether that guy, he, that man, is gonna have to decide whether he wants to be part of the international community.
He's gonna have to decide whether he wants to be welcome at bingo night.
Or, alternatively, he's just gonna do whatever the F he wants because you just signified that you don't care.
Don't pretend you care when you don't care.
If you wanna own it, own it.
Seriously, if you don't care about what's happening there, just say you don't care about what's happening there.
That's at least an argument.
But they want it both ways, of course, of course.
And the CBS, even the members of the media are saying this.
This is part that drives me up a wall.
The members of the media who spent the last, you know, they spent eight years under George W. Bush and then four years under Donald Trump talking about how we desperately needed to pull out from Afghanistan.
And then Biden does it.
And then the media are like, well, I hate that the consequences here are terrible.
This is, yes, you guys made those consequences.
Congratulations.
Slow clap for all you morons.
But here's the CBS reporter saying to the state department spokesperson, you know, you keep saying you're with the Afghan people.
I'm noticing that you're not while they get shot in the face.
I respect you, and we know you have a job to do.
But there is no way you can sit there and say that the people of Afghanistan, watching the Taliban take over provinces, watching their country crumble, are now going to watch American diplomats get on military planes and leave the country.
That that sends a signal that the U.S.
is with them in the long haul, diplomatically.
Look at what we've been doing.
Look at the investments we have made in Afghanistan.
Look at the investments, however you measure it.
Okay, everyone is laughing at these people.
And they should be laughing at these people, because they're pathetic.
Okay, in just one second, we'll get to more of this because it really is, it's an ignominious end to this war.
And again, to what basically was just a continuous peacekeeping mission.
That's all this was in Afghanistan.
It's pretty incredible.
We'll get to more of it in a second.
First, most of my listeners already know this, but Vincero is the premier maker of men's and women's lifestyle products.
Most people can't afford to drop like seven, eight grand on a luxury watch.
Instead, you want a watch that's not going to cost you a fortune, but looks like it should cost you a bunch of money.
And that's where Vincero comes in.
Vincero is loved by some of your favorite entrepreneurs, commentators, and hosts like me.
I love my Vincero products.
I've given Vincero products to pretty much every member of my family.
They make great birthday gifts.
These are hands down the best products you can get for this price point.
When you pick up one of their watches or sunglasses, you immediately know you got more than you paid for.
It is the best value for your money guaranteed, which is why they offer a five-year warranty and a 365-day return policy because they stand behind the products they make.
Right now is the perfect time to shop Vincero because right now is their big anniversary celebration.
This won't just be the biggest sale of the year, but the biggest sale in Vincero history.
It's up to 25% site-wide.
You won't be able to get a Vincero watch at a more affordable price outside of this sale.
They even have a brand new anniversary automatic watch they just released.
And I love my automatic watches.
Head on over to VinceroCollective.com forward slash Shapiro.
Your discount will be automatically applied to checkout, but only if you use that specific website.
VinceroCollective.com slash Shapiro.
Everything on the site is up to 25% off.
No exclusions.
That includes sunglasses, wallets, and bracelets.
Go to my link.
Check out Vincero's big sale today.
Alrighty, so.
This is all, it's amazing to watch this administration spin as though they're just not abandoning these folks.
And again, you want to abandon them?
Make the case.
Make the case why they should be abandoned.
Make the case why the sacrifice that we are currently undergoing, not the sacrifice we underwent for the last 20 years, the sacrifice we are currently undergoing is unnecessary.
I haven't heard virtually anybody make that case.
I keep hearing phrases like endless wars thrown around without recognition of the fact that we had 3,500 troops on the ground and zero combat deaths in the last 18 months.
I keep hearing phraseology thrown around about look how much money we've already spent which is sort of like saying you buy a house and let's say the house is a money pit like it's a complete money pit and you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade this house and it's eaten up your savings so after you're done right and now you're living in the house it's got some maintenance issues but you know you're living there and you've already spent a lot of money so you decide you know what Because I spent a lot of money here over the last 10 years, I'm out now.
He just bans in the house.
That makes no sense.
Why would you do that?
Again, the question is not what we've spent in the past or whether that's justified.
There are serious questions about that.
The question is, why are we leaving now?
And the answer is because Joe Biden is a boob, a rube, and a moron.
That is the answer.
There's no other answer that is possible.
You know that he's gone completely wrong when even the Washington Post editorial board is like, guys, this dude is screwing things up in a radical way.
The Washington Post, their editorial board, they put up a piece titled, Afghan lives ruined or lost will be part of Biden's legacy.
Yeah, no bleep.
According to the Washington Post editorial board, Mr. Biden called it quits, he says, because after 20 years of trying to get Kabul to govern effectively and fight harder against the Taliban, there was still no outright victory or prospect of one.
But the United States was stalemated, not defeated.
There's a difference.
And how big a difference may soon become tragically apparent.
In addition to preventing terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base for another 9-11, the United States achieved, or at least oversaw, real progress for the people of Afghanistan.
When the Taliban ruled between 1996 and 2001, it forbade schooling for girls.
By 2015, the last year for which World Bank data exist, more than 50% of girls attended first grade.
In 2006, the Coed American University of Afghanistan, which now enrolls over 1,700 students, opened in Kabul, supported by U.S.
government funds.
It has partnerships with Stanford, the UCs, University of California, and the University of Nebraska.
A massive terrorist attack in 2016 forced the AUAF to close.
It courageously reopened in 2017.
Most Afghans live in unfathomable poverty.
But today's per capita income of around 550 bucks per year is still a 66% improvement in real terms since 2002.
Biden surveys the impending disaster and absolves himself of any responsibility.
He says it's up to Afghan leaders to come together.
He said they've got to fight for themselves.
The truth is they had been fighting, but the United States had trained them to do it with the support of U.S.
advisors and contractors.
Suddenly, all the support is just gone.
The Biden administration says it will take care of people who work directly for the United States.
In a real sense, though, this country assumed at least a partial responsibility for the Afghan people, and now we are abandoning them.
Of course, that is very largely true.
And, you know, the video coming out from Afghanistan is not pretty.
The BBC has a report about what life is like under restored Taliban rule.
Suffice it to say, it doesn't look like people living in Brooklyn.
The market is still busy.
Women have apparently been allowed to come here without male companions, if they need to.
But elsewhere, Taliban commanders have reportedly banned them.
Since if they don't wear the burqa, there's no problem.
They can wear the hijab.
There's no compulsion to wear the burqa.
The head is covered by a hijab.
I'm well in.
The next day, a young woman was killed close by, allegedly for wearing immodest clothing.
Many fear the Taliban want to resurrect their practice of brutal punishments.
They insist they were not responsible for this flogging, supposedly filmed last year.
Many people here in Afghanistan and around the world Would be horrified at the idea of a society where hands are cut, women are stoned to death.
He says, we're being misjudged.
Is it better to let these crimes go unpunished?
You mean the crime of like walking around without your head covered in a bag?
Like that crime right there?
Yeah, things are going beautifully over there.
By the way, how pathetic is America right now?
Here's how pathetic America is.
This story is unreal.
Okay, this is from the New York Times.
The US asks Taliban to spare its embassy in coming fight for Kabul.
We are basically asking, we are begging the worst people on the planet, the Taliban, to at least give us the optical grace of not burning down our embassy.
You know, it's okay if you take over the country, and you kill all of the people who worked with us, and you acid all the women who go to school, and you beat people in the street, and sometimes shoot them in the street.
That's all okay.
Please, if you could just not burn our embassy so there aren't these ugly pictures on CNN that get people mad at us, that would be amazing.
P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C with a capital P. According to the New York Times, American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country's government and ever wants to receive foreign aid.
Three American officials said, foreign aid?
The F you talking?
To the Taliban?
What?
Don't burn our capital if you ever want us to sign you a check.
Under what circumstances would we be signing checks to the Taliban?
The people who literally are murdering all of the people we allied ourselves with.
This is, I mean, this is legitimately one of the most pathetic things I've ever heard in terms of American foreign policy.
We are now begging the Taliban, a ragtag group of 8th century primitives, we are begging them to not burn our capital, to not burn our embassy, because if they burn our embassy, maybe we won't sign them a welfare check.
According to the New York Times, the effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off a full evacuation of the embassy as they rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the State Department announced it was sending home an unspecified number of the 1,400 Americans stationed at the embassy and drawing down what the agency's spokesperson, Ned Price, described as a core diplomatic presence in Kabul.
By the way, the Pentagon spokesperson announcing this thing, I mean, it's pathetic.
It's pathetic, pathetic footage.
And I will say that America's response to all of this, to the insanity of what's going on, is even more pathetic.
The U.S.
Embassy put out a statement about the detention by the Taliban of members of the Afghan government.
Here is the statement put out by the Embassy of the United States of America.
The U.S.
Embassy in Afghanistan condemns detention of Afghan officials.
We strongly condemn the unlawful arrest of several members of the Afghan government including both civilian leaders and officers of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.
Credible sources indicate that the Taliban have detained provincial government officials and members of the Afghan police in several locations.
These actions are unacceptable, and they contradict the Taliban's claim to support a negotiated settlement in the ongoing Doha peace process.
The actions also contrast the Taliban's own rhetoric, providing for the safety of Afghan leaders and troops in areas recently seized by the Taliban.
We're urging The immediate release of all Afghan government officials detained by the Taliban, and we are calling on the Taliban to fully and earnestly engage in negotiations that end the suffering of the Afghan people and pave the way for an inclusive political settlement that benefits all Afghans.
That's gonna work, guys.
Way to man up there.
That's totally gonna work.
You mean a weakly and vaguely worded... You're urging the Taliban to not execute the people they oppose?
Well then, I mean, that radically... Until then, the Taliban were just like, we're gonna do whatever the hell we want and execute all of our enemies.
But now that you put out a statement urging them not to do so for the sake of Miss Congeniality-esque world peace, that's going to change the math on the ground.
Nobody ever asked them to be nice before.
Now that somebody's asked them to be nice, I think that'll change everything.
Again, there are no words for how pathetic this is.
And remember, the people who are currently dancing in the offices of the governor of Akash, not only lack rhythm, they lack a basic sense of civilization and human decency.
These are the worst people on earth.
There's some video that emerged from Afghanistan of Taliban fighters dancing around.
Honestly, they have even worse rhythm than I do, which is saying an awful lot.
Here's some of that footage.
Yeah, that's not... That's not good dancing.
I mean, I'll... I will say.
Apparently good at humiliating the Biden State Department, very bad at dancing.
Also, that music is not... Okay, that's enough of that.
Okay.
Meanwhile, by the way, the vacuum is being filled.
Remember, Afghanistan is not the only country on the planet, and the Taliban aren't the only group we have to worry about.
China is now preparing to recognize the Taliban, because China is completely transactional.
China is entirely transactional.
Understand that us abandoning Afghanistan does not mean that some group we'll never hear of again is going to take over.
It means that the Chinese government will cut a deal with the Taliban to extract natural resources.
The Chinese government will strengthen itself.
If you think of China as a serious long-term threat to the viability of the American project, which you should because they're incredibly aggressive, then it should trouble you that China has now extended its tentacles ever more westward.
According to U.S.
News, China is now preparing to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan if it succeeds in toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul.
The U.S.
News has learned.
A prospect that undercuts the Biden administration's remaining source of leverage over the insurgent network as it continues its startling campaign to regain control.
Beijing has publicly pressured the Taliban to continue working toward a peace agreement, an outcome China appears to genuinely prefer and one the U.S.
has pressed with growing urgency, but new Chinese military and intelligence assessments of the realities on the ground have prompted leaders in the Chinese Communist Party to prepare to formalize their relationship with the insurgent network, according to multiple U.S.
and foreign intelligence sources familiar with the Chinese assessment.
So, while the Biden administration's like, guys, please don't burn our embassy because we might not send you foreign aid, China's like, if you burn their embassy, you're still gonna get foreign aid, guys.
We're gonna be your friends.
Okay, China does not care with whom they make a deal.
They don't care about the human rights of the people with whom they make a deal because they're a human rights violator themselves.
They are a tyrannical overlordship.
And they are a real threat to American interests globally.
Isolationism is not a solution to your opponents wanting to expand their power.
If the Taliban want to claim international legitimacy, these actions will not get them the legitimacy they seek, said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
They should devote the same energy to the peace process as they do to the military campaign, or alternatively, they could ignore you and then just make a deal with the Chinese.
So all of this is going extremely, extremely well.
This is a massive failure on the part of the Biden administration, and they need to own it.
They need to own it in the same way that Barack Obama had to own the rise of ISIS.
This is way worse.
This is way worse.
At least you can make an argument with regard to ISIS that ISIS was a small ragtag band when we pulled out of Iraq.
This is significantly worse.
We all know what's happening in real time.
This is not like we leave and then ISIS gradually rises and suddenly six months later, we're worried about it.
We're watching the bad guys take over Kabul now.
And Biden is like, well, you know, Matlock's on.
Amazing stuff.
Alrighty.
In just one second, we'll get to the continued madness over COVID and it grows increasingly mad.
I mean, it's just, the insanity is never, I don't think that our centralizing bureaucracy is ever going to stop.
Ever, ever, ever.
First, let's talk about a simple fact.
You need home insurance.
Everybody needs home insurance.
In fact, in many states, it's mandatory.
If you buy a home, you need home insurance.
Why wouldn't you competitively shop that?
Policy Genius makes it easy to compare home and auto insurance in one place.
They can help you find home and auto coverage similar to what you have now, but at a lower price.
They've saved their customers an average of $1,250 per year over what they were paying for home and auto insurance.
They've saved their new customers an average of $435 per year on auto insurance, and they've saved new customers an average of $350 per year on home insurance.
That's a lot of money.
Head on over to policygenius.com slash ShapiroHome, answer a few quick questions about yourself and your property, and then Policy Genius will take it from there.
They'll compare rates from America's top insurers from Progressive to Allstate, and find your lowest quotes.
The Policy Genius team can look for ways to save you more, including bundling those home and auto policies.
And if they find a better rate than what you're paying right now, they'll switch you over for free.
There's a reason they have five-star reviews, thousands of them across Trustpilot and Google.
Head on over to policygenius.com slash ShapiroHome.
Get started right now.
Policy Genius, when it comes to insurance, it's nice and very, very important to get it right.
Go check them out right now at policygenius.com slash ShapiroHome to get started today.
Alrighty, we'll get to everything COVID related in just one second.
First, it is that incredible time of the week when I give a shout out to a Daily Wire member.
Today, it's Anthony Thomas on Instagram, who understands quality parenting and quality products.
In this magnificent picture, Anthony's young son is out on the links holding his golf club in one hand and the world's greatest beverage vessel in the other.
The caption reads, nothing keeps my sweet tea cold on the golf course quite like my leftist tears tumbler.
Dad may not let me listen to all of Ben Shapiro, but He does talk to us a lot about a lot of the topics, and that's some good dadding right there.
Thanks for the pic, and thanks for being a Dailyware member.
Also, you may have noticed that America is at a turning point, that the authoritarians seem to be on the ascendant in pretty much every area of American life.
From the institutions that you work for, to your social media institutions, to your media, and yes, to your local state and federal governments.
My book, The Authoritarian Moment, breaks it all down for you and tells you how to fight back.
It is a massive national bestseller.
Thank you.
I appreciate that if you've already bought the book.
If you have not, you're missing out.
Go check it out right now.
The Authoritarian Moment is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or any other major bookseller.
Go get your copy right now.
Leave a five-star review if you like what you read.
Other things happening.
Well, you know Candace Owens.
You love Candace Owens.
But right now, she's opening her studio to one lucky VIP winner.
This is like This is like Willy Wonka and the golden ticket right here.
If you sign up right now as a DailyWire member with code VIP, you'll get 25% off your new membership and be automatically entered for a chance to win a trip for two, you and a guest, to the DailyWire studios to see Candice live.
You're not only going to meet Candice, you'll get an inside look at her studio, you'll get front row seats to watch her take down leftists live and in action on her talk show, Candice.
So get a great deal on a new DailyWire membership at dailywire.com slash subscribe with code VIP and 25% off.
So you can automatically be entered for a chance to win the VIP experience.
Also, we have a new product out.
You know about it.
You love it.
It's Morning Wire.
It's our daily news podcast.
It's been topping the Apple and Spotify charts since its recent release.
It is conservative-oriented.
It is short.
It is fast.
It gets you all the news that you need to know, and it's honest.
With Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, my personal pick to replace me as Editor-in-Chief of Daily Wire, and co-host Georgia Howell, Morning Wire will wake you up with the latest developments in politics, sports, culture, and education, all with a heavy emphasis on the facts in 15 bite-sized minutes, perfect for your daily commute.
So again, Subscribe and listen to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a beat.
If you like what you hear, leave a five-star review, tell the podcast platforms Conservative News belongs at number one on the charts.
you are listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
Alrighty, meanwhile, everybody is panicking about COVID.
The panic continues.
How bad is the panic at this point?
The Philadelphia mayor has now ordered the unvaccinated in Philadelphia to wear not one, but two masks.
In fact, probably the Philadelphia mayor, Jim Kenney, he should order them to wear infinity masks.
Like, it'll just come off their face, go all the way around the world until it hits them in the back of the head again.
Like, that's the only way to truly know that we are safe from COVID.
He is now announcing, beginning September 1st, all government employees must be fully vaccinated or they will be required to double mask when working in enclosed spaces.
But wait a second, why do we need to double mask?
I was told that single masks are good.
I was told that if you even questioned the efficacy of single masks, then you would be thrown off of YouTube, right?
But he's saying you need double masks.
Or as Anthony Fauci says, if one mask is good, perhaps a second mask would be even better.
Or maybe a third.
Or maybe a fourth.
Maybe a ninth mask.
Really, really exciting stuff.
By the way, the vaccines continue to be extremely effective against death, which is the only thing that I care about.
No one at any point has explained to me how the moral compass here is supposed to work.
What's the end goal?
What's the limiting principle?
Really, there is no limiting principle.
By the logic of the lockdown advocates and the mask vaccine advocates and the vaccine mandate people, the logic seems to be that so long as disease is with us on planet Earth, you must mask up, vaccinated or unvaccinated.
Which means you will be masking up until the end of time.
End of story.
And your kids will be masking up until the end of time.
To prevent deaths that are entirely preventable so long as you get the vaccine.
Like, What?
There's no logic here.
None.
And yet, the left has just gone back to the playbook.
The playbook is, if you are in favor of any level of human freedom at all, you're pro-death.
This is Joy Reid being her usual idiotic self.
The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, he's leaving Florida this weekend to go do a fundraiser on a sheep farm in Nevada.
That's what he thinks is important for himself to do.
You've got lawsuits in Texas in which Travis County, a judge, has batted down the governor of Texas.
The reality is these governors are taking a stance in favor of death.
And I don't understand the calculation to do that.
Well, because they're not.
They're not.
They're balancing more than one factor.
Those factors include your right to human liberty.
I understand that all you folks don't give a damn about liberty.
You don't care about freedom.
I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger said it yesterday.
He literally said, I don't care about freedom.
Your freedom is stupid to me.
I was like, well, I care about the freedom.
And you should also care about, like, that sort of language is not particularly useful.
But again, the notion is that you can do whatever you want to the unvaccinated because they are the real problem here.
They're a real problem for them.
I mean, if you're unvaccinated, this is the decision you have made.
And literally every person I know who is not vaccinated has not asked me to mask up.
I'm un- I'm vaccinated.
They've never asked anything of me.
It's only members of the government who are asking something of me.
It is only members of the liberal media who are asking something of me, not the unvaccinated.
The unvaccinated are willing to undergo whatever risk they are willing to undergo.
And that now means that that is their problem.
Because again, the vaccines remain incredibly effective despite all of the COVID panic being propagated by the media.
The headline a drudge right now.
I kid you not.
The headline is, Vaccine Effectiveness Spooks System.
That is the giant headline.
Well, why?
Why is that spooking the system?
According to Axios, the Biden administration is intensely scrutinizing coronavirus vaccine's effectiveness over time, facing the daunting task of timing booster shots right while still convincing the unvaccinated that getting the jab is worthwhile.
Well, no, if we find out that the antibodies wane over time and that there's no T-cell immunity that is provided, then people will go get vaccinated again because they got vaccinated in the first place.
Preliminary findings from the Mayo Clinic show that the Pfizer vaccine is preventing significantly fewer infections now than it was before the Delta variant.
But, um, who cares?
Apparently this study has raised alarm bells within the Biden administration.
But again, I ask, who cares?
I don't care that Pfizer is not preventing you from getting the thing if you're vaccinated because Pfizer is preventing the only thing I care about, which is not dying.
I don't need it.
If I get a mild cold because I get infected with COVID after being vaccinated, I feel like I've dodged the bullet here.
We don't even measure how many people get a cold in the United States every year because no one cares, gang.
And yet the idea here seems to be that we have to measure case counts.
So the big question according to Axios, if the vaccines are losing some of their punch against mild infections now, will they eventually become less effective against severe disease?
Um, well, when you provide me evidence that they are, and that I need to take a booster, I will go get the booster.
How about that?
Right now, they're still really effective against preventing you from being dead.
In Texas, there have been 291 vaccinated people hospitalized, which accounts for 0.2% of all COVID hospitalizations.
There have been 52 breakthrough deaths, accounting for 0.4% of all deaths.
The hospitalization rate for the vaccinated in Texas is 4 per 100,000 people.
For the unvaccinated, it's 735 per 100,000 people.
In fact, in Texas, this is according to Mediate, unvaccinated people in Texas are 185 times more likely to be hospitalized, and they are 85 times more likely to die from COVID.
So, get the Vax.
Or don't get the Vax.
You're gonna- That's all.
And here's the thing that's so ironic about all this.
The media, the same media who are ripping on Ron DeSantis.
Oh, Ron DeSantis.
Oh, look at Texas and Florida.
I've noticed that they have nothing to say about Louisiana, where the governor is a Democrat.
Also, you will notice that the media have a very different take on you, depending on your identity, if you decide not to get vaccinated.
So, if you're a white rural Trump voter from Tennessee, you're bad and evil and endangering everyone, and the, and the epsilon variant, the five variant may eventually come from you.
However, if you're a black inner city person, you decided not to get the vaccine. This is because you have a justified suspicion of the government. According to the New York Times today, quote, why only 28% of young black New Yorkers are vaccinated. As the Delta variant courses through New York City, many young black New Yorkers remains as trustful of the vaccine.
A construction site safety manager in Queens said that as a black man, he was more worried about the prospect of being stopped by the police than he was about getting COVID-19.
A grad stu- by the way, that's crazy.
Okay, I'm sorry, that's crazy.
Like, your chances of being shot unarmed by the police in the United States as a black man, fewer than 20 people in the United States meet this definition.
Every year in the United States.
You know how many black people have died of COVID-19?
Many, many, many.
Because lots of people have died overall from COVID-19.
A graduate student in the Bronx who had not gotten vaccinated said her worst fears seemed confirmed when a vaccine that the government was directing to black and poorer neighborhoods was briefly suspended over a small number of dangerous blood clots.
And a civil rights activist in the Bronx said he grew suspicious when he heard last year that politicians were prioritizing minority neighborhoods for COVID vaccines.
So, in other words, this civil rights activist A Black Lives Matter activist named Hawk Newsome, who you've heard of, he's 44, he said that he got suspicious of the vaccine specifically because the government was trying to make sure that black people got it.
So in other words, if the government does not try to make sure that black people especially get it, it's because systemic racism.
But if the government tries to make sure that black people get it, also systemic racism, because maybe the government is trying to target you.
Since when does America give anything good to black people first, said the activist Hawk Newsome.
All three situations, according to the New York Times, reflect a trend that has become a major concern to public health experts.
Young black New Yorkers are especially reluctant to get vaccinated, even as the Delta variant is rapidly spreading among their ranks.
City data show only 28% of black New Yorkers aged 18 to 44 are fully vaccinated, compared to 48% of Latino residents and 52% of white residents in that age group.
This vaccination gap is emerging as the latest stark racial disparity in an epidemic full of them.
This is a major public health failure, said Dr. Dustin Duncan, an epidemiologist and Columbia University professor.
God, the soft bigotry of law expectations is just incredible, isn't it?
So if you're a rural white voter, then this is because you are a dum-dum and a moron and you voted for Trump.
If you're a black urban voter, and you decided that you weren't going to get vaccinated, this is a public health failure.
Everyone out in the system failed you.
And if the system tried to get you to take the vaccine, it's because the system might be racist.
My god, the media are terrible at this.
And not just terrible at this, damaging at this.
When you grant legitimacy to this particular point of view, are you surprised when people then don't get vaccinated?
Utter insanity and madness.
By the way, you want to talk about utter insanity and madness?
The American Academy of Pediatrics just put out a statement saying that children do not need to study faces.
I'm not kidding you.
They put out a statement saying babies and young children study faces, so you may worry that having masked caregivers would harm children's language development.
There are no studies to support this concern.
Young children will use other clues like gestures and tone of voice.
That's nuts.
Okay, that is so unruly.
There are no studies to support that.
Oh, you mean we haven't had any longitudinal studies about children not looking at faces because that's torturing children?
Because that would basically be an illegal study?
Like if you were to take a subgroup of children and be like, half of these babies get to look at human faces talking.
Half of these babies will be deprived of looking at human faces for a year.
That literally would not be allowed.
Okay, that would be violative of research protocols because it would damage babies.
One of the problems with autism is that people cannot read facial expressions.
Teaching kids not to be able to read facial expressions is the height of idiocy.
This is ridiculous.
One of the things that kids learn first is how to mirror facial expressions.
You see this even in primates.
The way that baby primates operate is they mirror the facial expressions of older primates.
Of course it's damaging.
Of course it is!
I remember my wife doing actual research on this when she worked in a neuroscience lab between the time she went to college and the time she went to medical school.
She worked in a neuroscience lab with a rather famous professor who's doing studies on this sort of stuff.
Yes, it makes a difference that children look at human faces.
This is insane!
Now the AAP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, is saying, screw the kids, kids don't need to see faces.
Because we have to continue to push this nonsense that all children need to mask up.
Based on precisely zero substantiated studies at this point.
Like, this is crazy.
By the way, here's a piece from Fortune.com.
As Delta infection spiked, COVID cases in schools actually fell.
A lesson from England.
For parents wary of sending their kids off to school, here's a rare bit of comforting data.
Fewer than 1 in 100 school students and staff in England tested positive for COVID-19 in June.
The capper.
There was no mask mandate in the schools at the time.
That wasn't just a noticeable drop from last autumn.
It also came as Delta variant cases were peaking not just across England, but the whole of the UK.
An estimated 0.27% of elementary school students, 0.42% of middle to high school students, and 0.27% of teachers tested positive for COVID-19 between June 14th and July 6th.
This is compared with autumn 2020, when around 1% of elementary school students and staff tested positive, while 1.22% of high school students and 1.64% of staff tested positive.
Okay, so, um, why?
Why?
So they say maybe there was additional testing at the schools.
Or maybe there's just no evidence to back this sort of stuff.
By the way, there are plenty of studies showing that face masks impair how we read emotions.
There's one particularly from Frontiers in Psychology.
It cites 65 other studies talking about how people need to see faces in order to interpret emotions.
This is perfectly obvious.
But we live in such an illogical, stupid society that things that we've accepted as writ for literally all of human existence are now being, we're being asked to defend them.
It's like, well, can you explain to me why looking at human faces is good for you?
Can you explain to me why we shouldn't all just be walking around in a burqa?
I mean, what's the problem?
It'll protect you from the virus and also you'll be abiding by Taliban-like fundamentalist law.
Like what?
You'll be hitting so many green checkmarks for yourself.
We all understand that not wearing a mask is a good thing.
The fact that we're being asked to defend this on the basis of like really, really shoddy public data is completely crazy.
It's just completely crazy at this point.
Alrighty.
Well, we have reached the end of this week, but we will be back here next week for much, much more.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Elliott Feld.
Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Bluver.
Production manager Pavel Lydowsky.
Associate producer Bradford Carrington.
Host producer Justin Barber.
The show is edited by Adam Sajevitz.
Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
Hair and makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.
Production assistant Jessica Kranz.
The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2021.
John Bickley here, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief.
Wake up every morning with our new show, Morning Wire.
On today's episode, a battle over mask mandates erupts in Texas, Oregon schools make big changes over alleged racism, and a Hollywood Me Too group is caught up in a Me Too scandal.