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Nov. 11, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:01:57

The Rittenhouse Trial And The Collapse Of American Institutional Trust | Ep. 1374

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Time	Text
	Kyle Rittenhouse's trial goes completely sideways for the prosecution.
	Media respond by attacking the Rittenhouse judge.
	And Bidenflation is here, and it's massive.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
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	Okay, so, I just want to remind you, before we go through the details of the Britten House trial, which has just gone completely sideways for the prosecution.
	It's a complete fail for the prosecution.
	And honestly, it has created significant issues for me with institutional trust.
	I think the last couple of years in particular have demonstrated that all of the institutional distrust that frankly drove Donald Trump to the presidency was well-founded.
	It is deeply disturbing when you see that institutions that you are supposed to trust have been lying to you, are manipulatable, are not honest, they don't do their fundamental job.
	And when you see trials like the Rittenhouse trial, you think to yourself, okay, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to trust that the system is apolitical.
	We've seen this in nearly every area of American life.
	We've seen bureaucracies that are designed to protect you at your workplace now being used to ram down vaccine mandates on 85 million Americans.
	We've seen CDC A system that is supposed to prevent the spread of disease, telling homeowners that they're not allowed to evict renters.
	We've had bureaucracies that have been completely twisted into what they were not supposed to be.
	The FBI and the DOJ basically using Clinton oppo dump research in order to initiate investigations on allies of President Trump and then spend four years essentially propping up an investigation predicated on false nonsense that was propagated by the Clinton team.
	You know, we've seen so many institutions in American life that have completely blown all credibility.
	What we're now watching as the supposedly independent Federal Reserve takes its orders from the Biden administration.
	What we're watching as the media, which was supposed to be the arbiter of truth, becomes essentially just a democratic left-wing talking points propaganda machine.
	We've watched as Facebook and Google and all of our social media tech companies, the big tech companies, are batted about by the state so much that they essentially just become propagators of Democratic Party propaganda attempting to scuttle any outlet that doesn't mirror those positions.
	All of this is super disturbing for people and the Rittenhouse trial is just one of those moments when the truth bobs its head above the waves and you say, oh, there's probably an iceberg under there.
	There's definitely an iceberg under there.
	So I just want to go for a walk down memory lane.
	Grabian put out a supercut of all of the various pundits and commentators who had things to say about Kyle Rittenhouse in the immediate aftermath of what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	Last year, you'll recall that Kenosha, Wisconsin was set on fire over Jacob Blake after the media promulgated a lie, which is that the police shot an unarmed man for no good reason.
	It was not true about Jacob Blake.
	Jacob Blake was a criminal, and Jacob Blake was carrying a knife, and the police shot Jacob Blake because he refused to put down the knife after they ordered him a million times to put down the knife.
	And all of it was on tape, and the media ran with the false narrative anyway, and Kenosha burned.
	And then Kyle Rittenhouse, Who apparently knew the people who were attempting to guard a car dealership, decided that he was going to go 20 minutes down the road, and he was going to help protect the car dealership, he was going to wipe away the graffiti, he was going to do some medical treatment on people who were injured in the riots that were happening, and then he got roped into a horrible situation in which he had to shoot three people.
	And all of that was on tape.
	The shootings were on tape.
	And we could see from the get-go what happened.
	And barring some sort of extraneous evidence that showed the contrary, and I always wait on these cases.
	I really do.
	I try to be considered about jumping in in the early moments of cases and giving you sort of preliminary thoughts without all of the evidence being available because sometimes you get more evidence that wasn't available.
	I'd rather be late than be first and wrong.
	Late and right is better than first and wrong.
	But everybody in the media is incentivized to give an opinion on cases right from the get-go and without any provisos.
	And so the media, in the face of the available evidence, suggested that Rittenhouse went there as a white supremacist to murder people.
	Here is a supercut from Grabian, people making the suggestion, beginning with Jason Johnson over at MSNBC.
	Rittenhouse is basically what you would have had in a school shooter.
	He's a 17-year-old kid.
	He shouldn't have had a gun.
	He crossed state lines to supposedly protect property.
	No, he was going out to shoot people.
	Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old vigilante.
	Kyle Rittenhouse, the vigilante.
	Kyle Rittenhouse, the armed teenage vigilante.
	A 17-year-old vigilante, arguably a domestic terrorist, picked up a rifle, drove to a different state to shoot people.
	Kyle Rittenhouse.
	A guy who's deeply racist went with weapons to a Black Lives Matter protest looking to get in trouble.
	He did.
	He murdered a couple of people.
	Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old kid, just running around, shooting and killing protesters.
	You see the 17-year-old, who was radicalized by Trumpism, took his AR-15 to Kenosha and became a killer.
	Okay, so Kyle Rittenhouse is going to be a very, very rich man if the jury does what it obviously has to do in this case and acquits him.
	Because Kyle Rittenhouse should have all, he should have his lawyers on speed dial.
	This makes Covington Catholic look like nothing.
	Covington Catholic was about the humiliation of a bunch of school kids for doing nothing but standing there.
	You have commentators on these networks with the tape available calling him a domestic terrorist and a white supremacist.
	These are prominent people.
	These are people like Cenk Uygur and Steve Schmidt of the Lincoln Project, which has a habit of going after minors.
	John Heilemann talking about he's a domestic terrorist.
	Joe Scarborough suggesting that he's running around shooting and killing protesters?
	You're not a protester once you go for somebody's gun, guys.
	That ain't how that works.
	And you'll remember that Facebook legitimately banned links to Rittenhouse's defense fund he had his lawyer on before the trial began.
	And his legal team was saying they could not raise fund.
	They couldn't crowdfund.
	So you could have Kamala Harris bailing out rioters in the middle of the 2020 BLM riots.
	But Kyle Rittenhouse could not raise a defense fund because the big tech companies essentially labeled him a domestic terrorist.
	They labeled him somebody who is not worthy of being able to raise money for his legal defense.
	The Blaze reported that just last year, Facebook has banned users from sharing a crowdfunding link to assist with the legal fees for 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who was charged with homicide last week following fatal shootings that occurred during a riot in Kenosha.
	But the site allows posts asking for fundraising for several other individuals who have been charged with crimes, including murder.
	So they basically singled out Rittenhouse.
	The Washington Times reported online fundraisers were made for the teen's legal defense shortly after he was identified as the suspect, but they quickly vanished from GoFundMe.
	GoFundMe said that campaigns for Rittenhouse violated its terms of service, but did not explain any further.
	Facebook did allow links for other fundraisers, including Mark Wilson, a 21-year-old who was charged with felony murder after killing a 17-year-old girl.
	There was a GoFundMe started by Michael Moore to support individuals prosecuted for tearing down monuments.
	There's a Minnesota Freedom Fund promoted by Kamala Harris.
	All of these people were able to raise money, not Kyle Rittenhouse, because Kyle Rittenhouse was prejudged by the media to be a domestic terrorist, guilty white supremacist.
	And none of it ended up being true.
	None of it.
	This case never should have been brought.
	Again, my faith in the system is such that I figured if they're bringing a case, maybe they know something I don't.
	Because that does happen in trial sometimes.
	Sometimes they bring a case and then the case ends up being stronger than you thought it was going to be.
	Or sometimes they bring a case and it ends up being weaker than you thought it was going to be.
	And you don't know until the evidence is in the room.
	And so I tend to withhold judgment in these cases until the evidence is in the room.
	But when you see a case this bad being brought, this horrible being brought, you gotta think, the institution has now been gutted from the inside.
	When prosecutors are bringing cases specifically because of political pressure, you cannot feel safe.
	I'm talking about you.
	You cannot feel safe in a system where prosecutors are bringing cases purely out of political pressure.
	If you happen to be on the wrong side of the media in any particular conflict, you will end up in the prosecutor's crosshairs.
	And it undermines my faith in the system when it comes to everything from the BLM rioters, most of whom were basically let off scot-free, to the sentencing of people on January 6th.
	Again, I think criminals should go to jail.
	If you commit a crime, you should go to jail.
	But now, I want to see all the evidence in all these cases.
	Because I gotta say, again, when you see a little bit of the iceberg above the waterline, you start to think, oh, maybe these institutions, maybe that iceberg is real.
	And I don't want to rip on the institutions.
	I'm a conservative.
	I think the institutions are necessary and good, but only if they follow due process of law.
	And prosecutorial discretion is part of due process of law.
	And that prosecutorial discretion is supposed to be independent and not shaped by media pressure.
	In one second, we'll get to the actual testimony yesterday because Kyle Rittenhouse took the stand, which is a unique and rare move in a defense of a murder trial.
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	We know That the narratives that are formed in the lead up to criminal cases obviously have an impact on both juries and how prosecutions conduct their case.
	We saw this in the Derek Chauvin trial, where without any evidence whatsoever, that case was made to face the bleeding edge of racism in the United States.
	There was no evidence that Chauvin was racist.
	It was not even alleged in the courtroom.
	The media instead decided it was a referendum on all cops and a referendum on racism in the United States.
	With Rittenhouse, they did the same thing.
	They said this is a referendum somehow on racism.
	Okay, now they're having a tough time with this one because Rittenhouse, number one, is not a white supremacist.
	And number two, the people he shot were all white.
	All three had criminal records.
	One of them was a child molester.
	So, this was not the best case to pick if you're a member of the media and you wish to talk about the evils of domestic terror, white supremacists running around.
	But the goal, you have to remember, when this happened with Rittenhouse, was to posit that there was a great conflict in the nation between the morally just BLM rioters and Trump supporters who are evil.
	That was the conflict they were trying to create.
	This case didn't fit inside that conflict at all.
	The conflict itself was stupid and didn't make any sense, but the media had a narrative and whatever the narrative had to be, they were going to cram this into it.
	Well, this is where you would expect the system of justice to actually do its job and stand aside.
	They didn't.
	The system of justice decided that it was necessary to bring a criminal case against Kyle Rittenhouse because of the public pressure.
	And at the time, again, I was willing to withhold judgment until I saw all the evidence.
	Now we've seen all the evidence.
	Let me just tell you, this prosecutor ought to be disbarred.
	There is no way this case should have been brought.
	It's insane that this case was brought based on the evidence.
	So Kyle Rittenhouse, yesterday, takes the stand.
	Now, as a lawyer, I gotta tell you, first-year criminal law, they tell you, if you got a client, do not let your client take the stand.
	Because, especially, unless the evidence really runs against you, and you feel that it is definitely necessary, that you need your client to take the stand, you don't put your client on the stand, because you just don't know what's going to happen.
	Courtrooms are unpredictable, juries are unpredictable, you don't know how they're going to react to particular testimony.
	But, Rittenhouse decided to take the stand.
	And again, that's kind of an incredible thing.
	You got to remember, it's an incredible thing because the prosecutor had completely failed to make his case.
	In the days leading up to this, I mean, I did a lot on the podcast Monday about this.
	In the days leading up to yesterday, Rittenhouse's prosecutors did a horrible job.
	They were calling witness after witness, the prosecution, and those witnesses were quickly turning into defense witnesses.
	Gage Grossklutz, or whatever the guy's name is.
	He was the guy who was shot in the arm by Rittenhouse.
	He was asked by the prosecutor if he had dropped his gun, or what was going on.
	And instead, he was like, oh yeah, yeah, no, I was pointing my gun at him.
	I mean, he literally just made the defense case.
	Forward to the defense.
	It was incredible.
	And that sort of testimony was very common.
	The prosecutor would call a witness.
	The witness would testify to Rittenhouse's innocence.
	And then, the prosecutor would kind of throw up his hands.
	So finally, Rittenhouse takes the stand yesterday.
	And it didn't go great for the prosecution.
	So let's begin with Clip 29.
	So the prosecutor asks him about one of the people that he shot, a guy named Huber.
	And this is the guy who, if you recall the footage, just to go through the timeline here, Rittenhouse was running away from a fire.
	There was a big fire and Rittenhouse was running away from the fire.
	And a man confronted him and started yelling at him.
	Apparently, he had confronted him earlier in the night.
	This would be Joseph Rosenbaum.
	And started chasing him.
	Rittenhouse ran away, even though he had a gun.
	Right?
	If he'd been there to kill, he just would've shot him there.
	He wasn't.
	He ran away.
	Rosenbaum chased him down.
	And Rittenhouse turned around, Rosenbaum grabbed for his gun, and Rittenhouse shot him.
	Rittenhouse then stood there, as a reporter came over, a reporter from the Daily Caller came over, and tried to provide medical aid to Rosenbaum, who was bleeding out.
	And a crowd started to gather and Rittenhouse didn't feel safe, so he started trying to run toward the cops.
	As he was running toward the cops, he was pursued by a bunch of Antifa thugs.
	One of those Antifa thugs was Huber, who jumped on him with a skateboard and started trying to clock him in the head with the skateboard.
	Because he was now prone, he'd fallen down and tripped and fallen.
	And Rittenhouse shot Huber.
	And then Gage Grosskrutz decided that he was going to get.
	Yes.
	Why?
	What was so urgent?
	And he ran over with his pistol pointed at Rittenhouse and Rittenhouse shot him in the arm.
	That is the timeline here.
	So actually, let's start with with clip two.
	So Rittenhouse was asked by the prosecutor why he was running.
	And he says, because there was a fire.
	You decided you need to run because the fire in the Duramax?
	Yes. Why?
	What was so urgent?
	It was a fire.
	There's fires all over the place.
	So I was getting to the fire to put it out.
	Well...
	We'll get back to that in a second.
	Okay, so... Great job here.
	Great job.
	Good job, prosecutor.
	Why were you running to a fire?
	Well, there are fires everywhere!
	Why are you running to that fire?
	Excuse me?
	I have a question.
	Is that also how you, like... Well, if a firefighter gets a phone call and he says, go to a fire, Would you say to him, there are many other fires in the city, sir.
	Why aren't you going to those as well?
	Like that, what are you even talking about?
	What are you talking about?
	Okay.
	Then the prosecutor asks, you know, why did you shoot this Anthony Huber character?
	This 26 year old who is swinging a skateboard at him.
	And Rittenhouse gives the obvious answer because he was trying to hit me in the head with his skateboard, which could kill me.
	And when you shoot him, he's got his skateboard in his hand?
	Yes.
	You didn't see any gun in his hand, correct?
	No.
	You didn't see a knife?
	No.
	You didn't see a bat?
	No.
	You didn't see a club?
	No.
	All he's got is the skateboard, right?
	That he's hit me in the head with twice, yes.
	Okay.
	That he's hit me in the head with twice!
	Okay, as it turns out, under American law, I don't have to wait for you to hit me in the head with a skateboard the third time.
	Once you've hit me in the head with a skateboard the first time, I can- By the way, if you come at me with a skateboard, and you swing back, and you are about to hit me in the head, I can shoot you before you hit me!
	Self-defense is still a part of American law.
	And by the way, all Western common law- And by the way, all non-Western law!
	Okay, like, I'm unaware of any state, anywhere, where self-defense is not a thing.
	Where if somebody swings a skateboard at your head, you're supposed to just stand there and take it.
	Okay, and then the prosecutor suggests that Rittenhouse is just out to shoot people.
	And Rittenhouse is like, uh, I didn't want to shoot people.
	I mean, you can see in the tape that he's holding back from shooting people.
	You just assumed that he was going to use it, that he was going to try and take it from you, first of all.
	And then you assumed he was going to try and use it on you.
	If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum get my gun, he would have killed me.
	But you had already pointed your gun at him.
	Yes, because he was chasing me.
	Did you want him to think that you were going to shoot him?
	No, I never wanted to shoot Mr. Rosenbaum.
	Why'd you point it at him if you didn't have any intention of shooting?
	He was chasing me.
	I was alone.
	He threatened to kill me earlier in that night.
	I didn't want to have to shoot him.
	Okay, I love how the prosecutor suggests that if you point a gun in the vicinity of a person who is chasing you with violent intents who would threaten to kill you, that this means- and then you don't shoot!
	This means you meant to shoot.
	Okay, and then Rittenhouse is asked about the third character who attacked him, Gage Grosskreutz, and he says to him, you know, you had a rifle, he had a pistol, so what made you think you had to shoot him?
	I don't understand, does this prosecutor not understand how guns operate?
	This is not a video game.
	A pistol can kill you just as easily as a rifle can, particularly when you're about 8 feet apart as they are in the video.
	They are on top of one another.
	This is not Kyle Rittenhouse, out at sniper distance, and Gage Grosskreutz walking around the perimeter carrying a pistol.
	This is Gage Grosskreutz pulling a gun out, raising it up about 10 feet away from Kyle Rittenhouse, who's prone on his back.
	Here's the prosecutor.
	This prosecutor's a mockery.
	He's just a mockery.
	He's got a pistol not aimed at you.
	You've got an AR-15 aimed at him.
	Why is he more of a threat to you than you are to him?
	Because he was moving at me with a gun in his hand.
	This is right after you've killed Anthony Huber, correct?
	Yes.
	Right after you fired two shots at almost point-blank range at the man running towards the camera right now and missing him, correct?
	Yes.
	And you're telling us Gage Grosskreutz is the real threat at this moment?
	Yes.
	I mean, yeah!
	Have you seen the video?
	I don't know how ass-backwards you have to be not to be able to watch that video and come away with the idea that gauged road scoots is not a lethal threat.
	If you fall on your back, you're running away from people, you fall on your back, you got your rifle here, somebody approaches you with his pistol, he's withdrawing it to shoot you, and the prosecutor's like, why would you feel like you were in dire threat?
	You mean he wasn't coming to give you a Christmas present?
	He wasn't coming over there to give you a nice shoulder.
	How do you know?
	Maybe he was going to drop the pistol and come over there and give you a bear hug.
	Maybe he was going to give you a foot massage.
	Like, what in the world?
	What in the actual?
	So Rittenhouse is asked, why were you trying to get to the cops after the first shooting?
	Why are you trying to get to the cops?
	And he says, because I was defending myself.
	Like, what do you not understand about the English language, sir?
	People were saying cranium him and get him, kill him.
	People were screaming and I just was trying to get to the police running down Sheridan Road.
	And you say I'm trying to get to the police.
	Why were you trying to get to the police?
	Because I didn't do anything wrong.
	I defended myself.
	Okay, so, this testimony goes very, very poorly for the prosecution.
	Like, super poorly for the prosecution.
	But, the left has to have its narrative.
	Because remember, they've doubled down on the notion that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist murderer who went out that night to shoot people.
	The evidence is precisely the opposite.
	It does not matter.
	They have to have their victim.
	They have to have their blood here.
	And Rittenhouse has to go down.
	So, they need something to hang their hat on.
	And what they decide to hang their hat on is the fact that Rittenhouse cried yesterday at the trial.
	That is what they've hung their hat on.
	Okay, so yesterday, Rittenhouse is getting beat up by the prosecutor.
	He's being asked over and over about shooting people.
	He's 18 years old, so he's a young man.
	Now, the reason I use the term young man here is because I want to be consistent, right?
	Michael Brown was also a young man when he attacked a police officer and when he was shot for his trouble.
	Okay, so when you're 17 years old, 18 years old, I'm hesitant in a criminal justice context to use different terminology for different people based on the age, right?
	If you're 17, 18 years old, you are now a young man.
	So Rittenhouse, if you were a kid, then not only should he not have been out on the street, there would have been no excuse for him to be out on the street.
	If he's 14 years old, 13 years old, but he's 17 years old, he's out there, he's a young man.
	Okay, so.
	That does not mean that it's not rather an emotional thing when you're on trial for your life for having shot three career criminals, essentially.
	So Rittenhouse is being beat up by the prosecutor and he starts crying.
	And it was pretty intense testimony.
	He essentially has a panic attack.
	That's basically what happens on the stand.
	And frankly, I can't really blame him.
	I mean, if you were called to testify for your life in a trial that was so ridiculous on its face, And you knew that you'd had to shoot three people.
	You hadn't wanted to shoot going out there.
	You brought the gun to defend yourself and you had to defend yourself.
	That's not an easy thing.
	And now you're on trial for your life with a prosecutor who's attacking you for shooting people, attempting to hit you in the head with a skateboard and approaching you to grab your gun and alternatively trying to point a pistol at you.
	You might have a panic attack on the stand too.
	And that's essentially what happened with Rittenhouse yesterday.
	Here's what that sounded like.
	Once I take that step back, I look over my shoulder and Mr. Rosenbaum.
	Mr. Rosenbaum was now running from my right side.
	And I was cornered from in front of me with Mr. Zeminski.
	And there were...
	There were three people right there.
	Okay, so the media's response to this,
	in large part is he's lying.
	This shows he's a fake.
	There are people who are tweeting out photos of him next to, of course, Brett Kavanaugh, because all white people who cry are apparently the same.
	And not only that, also Brett Kavanaugh, we know, was lying because he got upset too.
	It turns out that when you are accused of a thing you did not do, you tend to get upset.
	But apparently, according to the media, your tears are some sign of guilt.
	So you have, for example, LeBron James, who tweeted out, I mean, LeBron is just, I'm sorry, LeBron is just kind of a garbage human.
	I mean, he's just a bad person.
	He's just a bad person.
	A person who spends all day whining about how America is deeply racist while he becomes one of the wealthiest people in the country.
	Who bullies people into saying nothing about Chinese human rights violations, but he has time to suggest that Kyle Rittenhouse is lying, and this is all false.
	Here's what LeBron James tweeted, quote, what tears?
	Five question marks.
	I didn't see one.
	Man, knock it off.
	That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court.
	And then three emojis of laughing, crying.
	Yeah, I mean, coming from a guy who acts like a soccer player on the court frequently, I will not take acting lessons from LeBron James.
	And I've noticed that, again, LeBron has a lot to say when it comes to defending the Chinese government and pretty much nothing to say when it comes to the question of due process for people he doesn't particularly like.
	What a godsend LeBron James is.
	He has every right to speak his mind, and frankly, I'm glad he does, because he demonstrates what kind of person he is pretty much every time he goes on Twitter.
	You'll recall that this is not the first time LeBron James has had to do this.
	You remember that just back in April, he had to delete a tweet about a police shooting of Makia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio.
	You'll remember that Makia Bryant was a 16-year-old black girl who was attacking another black girl with a knife.
	And a cop drove up and had to shoot her.
	And LeBron James tweeted out in giant letters, your next, all caps, your next, hashtag accountability and an hourglass emoji.
	And then added, I'm so damn tired of seeing black people killed by police.
	I took the tweet down because it's being used to create more hate.
	It's about the entire system.
	They always use our words to create more racism.
	I'm so desperate for more accountability.
	Yeah, sure, LeBron.
	What a delight he is.
	We need more of LeBron's insightful political commentary to make the world a better place, really.
	In Space Jam 3, I look forward to him maligning an innocent person.
	I mean, he maligns an innocent cop for saving a black person, and now he's maligning Kyle Rittenhouse as a guy who eats lemon heads before going into court while he's on trial for his life.
	Space Jam 3 should just be about an innocent person being victimized and LeBron James standing on them and spitting.
	That's what Space Jam 3 should be about.
	What a genius he is.
	Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster got into the act.
	You want your local dictionary to get into the act on these things.
	It's very, very important.
	So, Merriam-Webster tweeted out, the term crocodile tears, a superficial display of anguish, comes from a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears of sadness when killing their prey.
	They tweeted that out in the middle of the trial.
	Because Merriam-Webster is now run, their Twitter account at least, is run by wokesters.
	So people who literally are defining the words you use in English are sounding off this way in the middle of a trial.
	Hakeem Jeffries, a progressive congressman from New York.
	He gets in on the act.
	He tweets out, lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key.
	Based on what, exactly?
	Based on what?
	Ana Navarro.
	You're a supposed in-house Republican in places like CNN and The View.
	She tweets out, Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and injured Gage Grosskreutz, now 27.
	Think about how much their loved ones have cried real anguish and grief, not crocodile tears.
	And by the way, you can see in this picture the actual tears on his face.
	So LeBron is not only stupid, he's blind apparently.
	But Ana Navarro here saying that you have to think about the families of Joseph Rosenbaum, who was a child molester, a serial child molester, and Gage Grosskreutz, who was attacking a 17-year-old who was thrown on the ground with a pistol, and Anthony Huber, Who had a criminal record and was swinging a skateboard at this guy's head.
	Think about how much their loved ones have cried real anguish and grief, not crocodile tears.
	See, he cried.
	That was as big a problem as he cried.
	Benjamin Dixon, another blue check on Twitter, tweeted out similarly, proud boys is trending.
	Not looking so proud now.
	Are you, boy?
	The language here is really quite a delight.
	Quite a delight.
	Ryan Grimm from The Intercept joins.
	He says, what people could do with anger about the Rittenhouse trial is advocate for a law that says that if you bring a weapon to a public place where you know violence is basically guaranteed, you lose any self-defense grounds.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	So basically, if you bring a weapon to defend yourself to any unsafe area in the United States and someone attacks you, you can now be murdered at whim.
	Great job, everyone.
	That makes perfect sense.
	Great job, everyone.
	And so, you can see, with this sort of climate, that's the reason the prosecutor brought this thing.
	That's the reason the prosecutor brought this thing.
	Because there's no other reason for him to have brought this case.
	He's got nothing.
	He's got less than nothing.
	He made himself look like a fool.
	This trial is a joke.
	It's been a joke beginning to end.
	I kept waiting.
	Honest to God, I kept waiting for them to bring forth the piece of evidence that we hadn't seen already.
	And then every additional piece of evidence was worse for the prosecution.
	As somebody who generally wants to uphold institutional trust, as somebody who believes the criminal justice system is imperfect, but generally does a decent job, it is hard to watch trials like this and believe that sort of thing.
	I'm going to chalk this one up to a bad apple in the prosecutor.
	But it seems more and more often that criminal justice trials are now being brought simply because of public pressure brought by the media.
	The media can whip up an outrage and then you just use the prosecutor as the head of the mob in order to go after somebody.
	It's really disgusting.
	By the way, the judge agrees.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	And this thing went super poorly for the prosecutor, not just according to people who are sort of watching the trial, but according to the judge.
	So the prosecutor... I don't know how disbarment is not considered here.
	Seriously.
	The prosecutor, twice, essentially, got called on the carpet by the judge, who was very, very pissed off, and for good reason.
	And the reason that the judge was pissed off is, in the first instance, The lawyer attempted to make the argument during cross-examination.
	about why he had remained silent after his arrest.
	So when he was arrested, he didn't talk to the police.
	Now, it is a well-established rule.
	I mean, literally going back centuries, that silence is not an admission of guilt.
	Okay, this goes all the way back to like the Thomas More trial.
	The belief that if you are silent on a particular topic, this means that you are guilty, as well as the notion that if you take the Fifth Amendment, that this is an implication of guilt in a courtroom, you're not allowed to even bring that up if you're a lawyer in a courtroom.
	You're not allowed to.
	And it's like black letter again, first-year law.
	And the judge just reams the prosecutor for attempting to do that.
	I mean, the prosecutor did that.
	He's like, why did... You're really attempting to make the argument that Kyle Rittenhouse not talking to the cops means that he's guilty?
	By the way, again, quick lawyer rule, guys.
	If you are ever arrested for a crime, call your lawyer and say nothing to the cops.
	If you're ever arrested for a crime, call your lawyer, say nothing to the cops.
	Again, first-year basic law.
	And it doesn't mean you're guilty.
	It means that you need to talk to your lawyer because the police are there to do their job.
	And that job might involve asking questions that implicate you in crimes you didn't commit, for example.
	So you always want to work with your lawyer.
	But one thing that's not allowed to happen is in the courtroom, the opposing lawyer isn't allowed to say, because you didn't talk to the cops, this means you're guilty.
	That gets rid of the purpose of the Fifth Amendment in the first place.
	Here's the prosecutor just getting ringed by the judge for this one.
	You are already, you were, I was astonished when you began your examination by commenting on the defendant's post-arrest silence.
	That's basic law, it's been basic law in this country for 40 years, 50 years.
	I have no idea why you would do something like that.
	I said I had heard nothing in this trial to change any of my rulings.
	That was before the testimony, Your Honor.
	Pardon me?
	That was before the testimony.
	Don't get brazen with me.
	You're an experienced trial attorney and you're telling me that when the judge says, I'm excluding this, you just to take it upon yourself to put it in because you think that you've found a way around it?
	Come on!
	Okay, and then the judge says, I don't believe that you're acting in good faith.
	Okay, the second thing he's commenting on there is that there was a piece of evidence that was ruled out pre-trial.
	Okay, that piece of evidence has nothing to do with the case.
	It comes from like a month after Hal Rittenhouse got out on bail to talking about months after the initial incident.
	And he was photographed in a bar with members of the Proud Boys wearing a shirt that said, free as F. Okay, that is not relevant to his state of mind on the day that he shot people.
	That is not relevant, okay?
	That was declared out of evidence by the judge because when it comes to criminal trials, you have to weigh prejudicial evidence against the probative value of the evidence.
	What that means is that, for example, in a criminal trial, you're generally not allowed to bring up the criminal history of the person who is on trial because that does not go into the calculation as to whether the person committed this particular crime.
	So, if something happens three months after an incident, In which you're wearing a shirt that's offensive and stupid.
	Does that have anything to do with whether you committed the particular crime that is in question three months earlier?
	The answer, of course, is no.
	It does not.
	And the judge had already ruled that out.
	He'd already said, I'm ruling that out.
	If you want to, like, approach me later and ask about it, you can, but it's out for now.
	Right?
	I'll leave the door open to myself, but not to you.
	This prosecutor just started bringing up the evidence that had already essentially been ruled out in the first place.
	And the judge is like, you can't do that.
	I know what you're doing here.
	I mean, this prompted, by the way, the defense to ask for a mistrial without the ability of refiling.
	A mistrial of prejudice, saying, just end the case right now.
	By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if this trial never goes to the jury.
	That's how bad this is.
	He says the judge just went after him.
	And then, according to the Associated Press, The defense asked for a mistrial over what appeared to be an out-of-bounds question asked of Rittenhouse by the chief prosecutor.
	The judge did not immediately rule on the request.
	The judge did say that the kind of activity that the prosecutor engaged in here essentially was bordering on mistrial.
	It was certainly grounds for an appeal if Rittenhouse were to be convicted.
	It was so weak.
	How weak was the prosecution's case?
	I mean, this one sums it up.
	How weak was the prosecution case?
	The prosecutor tried to link Kyle Rittenhouse and his self-defense claim with plain call of duty.
	I kid you not.
	This is a thing that happened in real life in a courtroom.
	Did this lawyer get his degree from a Cracker Jack box?
	Did he just mail in a bunch of box tops and they sent him a lawyer's degree?
	Honestly, God, I want to know where he went to law school because he apparently went to law school at like the Fisher-Price School of Law or something.
	Here we go.
	Isn't it true when you would hang out with Dominic Black, you'd play Call of Duty and other first-person shooter video games?
	Sometimes.
	And those are games in which you use weapons like AR-15s to pretty much shoot anybody who comes at you, correct?
	It's a video game where two players are playing together.
	I don't really understand the meaning of your question, to be honest.
	Isn't one of the things people do in these video games, try and kill everyone else with your guns?
	Yeah, in the video game it's...
	It's just a video game.
	It's not real life.
	So I love that Kyle Rittenhouse now has to explain to him that video games are not real life.
	Well done here, sir.
	Well done.
	And Michigan University, the University of Michigan Law School should be extraordinarily proud.
	By the way, Binger ran as a Democratic candidate for the position of District Attorney in Racine County and was appointed Kenosha County DA about 18 months ago.
	Just really well done here.
	So, the media are now reacting to this with their usual aplomb.
	They're attacking the judge.
	That's the problem here.
	The judge is now going to come under fire.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
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	All right. We'll get to more on written house and and Bidenflation in just one second.
	First, when it comes to Joe Biden's vaccine mandate, Daily Wire is not backing down.
	So as you know, with your help and your support, we filed a lawsuit against this tyrannical unconstitutional mandate a week ago today.
	The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has already issued a temporary stay over the weekend preventing Biden's mandate from going into effect.
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	So when the media aren't attacking Kyle Rittenhouse for the great sin of crying on the stand, you know, while he's on trial for murder in a clear self-defense case, they're very upset about that.
	Steven Crowder, I thought, made an excellent point about this.
	The same people who will tell you that it should be verboten in American life to call people by their biological pronouns because it might hurt their feelings are the exact same people who are laughing at Kyle Rittenhouse for crying on the stand in a murder trial where he's being wrongly accused of murder.
	Yeah, these people are...
	Not great, people.
	Not great, Bob.
	Okay, so the media have now taken a new tack.
	The new tack is that the judge is real bad.
	That's the new tack.
	The judge is a meanie, bad meanie who's bad.
	According to the New York Times, the judge who has clashed with prosecutors has been in this business for 50 years.
	That's according to the New York Times piece.
	They have a long piece about this.
	Bruce Schrader, the longest serving circuit judge in Wisconsin, is presiding over the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
	At times during Rittenhouse's testimony on Wednesday, he took a strict line with prosecutors, clashing with them over a reference to Rittenhouse's silence in the months before the trial and an attempt to introduce testimony on a previous incident the judge had ruled inadmissible.
	Judge Schrader, 75, who has said he believes he has seen more homicide trials than any other judge in the state, graduated from Marquette Law School in 1970, worked as a prosecutor, and began serving as a circuit judge in 1983.
	His longevity is a subject of frequent conversation in the courtroom.
	In Kenosha legal circles, Judge Schrader has a reputation for strictness in sentencing.
	He's known for delivering lectures to prospective jurors about their civic duty, which in this trial he likened to serving as an American soldier in Vietnam.
	He frequently complains about media bias and the impact news coverage can have on prospective jurors.
	As Judge Schrader quizzed prospective jurors, he said he's read news articles on the Rittenhouse case, has asked himself whether he was in the same courtroom that was described in the articles.
	He has also acknowledged that some of the topics raised in pre-trial hearings are new to him.
	Until this case, Judge Schrader said in a hearing he'd never heard of the Proud Boys.
	The first time I saw it, or a version of it, was Chef Boyardee on a can of spaghetti because of the OK hand signal, is what he's talking about.
	In one of the judge's highest profile cases, the 2008 murder trial of Mark Jensen, who was accused of poisoning his wife with antifreeze and smothering her, a conviction was overturned when appellate courts and the state Supreme Court ruled that Schrader had improperly allowed evidence in the trial.
	The judge allowed the prosecution to present a letter that Julie Jensen had written and given to a neighbor, as well as a voicemail message she left for a police officer, suggesting if anything happened to her, her husband would be responsible.
	So in other words, the only case that they can find on this judge that was overturned is because he was too favorable to the prosecution.
	But apparently this means he's very bad.
	So the New York Times is going after the judge.
	You've got the Washington Post.
	Saying, as Kyle Rittenhouse trial nears end, judges' decisions from the bench come under scrutiny.
	Regardless of how he is viewed, Judge Bruce Schrader is indisputably a man with fixed rules for how trials in his Kenosha County courtroom will be run.
	Some are basic.
	Some unorthodox.
	All reflect the experience of a jurist who believes trials can be too easily manipulated, particularly by the prosecution.
	For a jury trial, if you get him, you're happy as a defense attorney, said Michael Cecchini, a criminal defense lawyer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	He's appeared before Schrader numerous times, including earlier this year.
	In that case, he won an acquittal for his client, who was charged with battery.
	Schrader's reputation has summoned Kenosha worried.
	The 75-year-old judge is running the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
	The defense has already logged some wins in Schrader's courtroom.
	Gage Grosskreutz, the man who survived Rittenhouse's gunfire, took the witness stand for the prosecution but acknowledged he was pointing his gun at Rittenhouse when the teenager fired at him.
	Then, as the prosecution resisted its case, Schrader dismissed a charge for his alleged failure to comply with curfew.
	The judge said he agreed with defense attorneys the prosecution had not entered sufficient evidence to prove a curfew was even in effect.
	And then he got sharp with the prosecutor.
	It seems like he's aiming to let this man out of his courtroom scot-free.
	We're not gonna let that happen, said Justin Blake, whose nephew Jacob Blake was shot by the police last year, triggering nights of unrest.
	By the way, if he's friendly to the defense, I'm finding it kind of hysterical that the same people who are all in on defending career criminals are like, yeah, but we can't have a judge who's pro-defense.
	That'd be scary.
	So in other words, exactly the kind of judge you would be looking for if Jacob Blake was on trial and you were an ally of Jacob Blake, you don't want for Rittenhouse.
	I've noticed a slight difference in how you're treating prospective criminal cases.
	I've just noticed.
	I've just noticed.
	So basically, he's too liberal.
	He's too liberal is the rap against him.
	So now that's bad, according to the Washington Post.
	He's too liberal with defendants.
	I'm, again, getting the impression that the media are mostly interested in a verdict that they like.
	According to the Washington Post, while generally respected, Schrader is not universally loved and has been accused of overstepping his authority.
	He once ordered a woman convicted of shoplifting to inform an employee of any retail store she entered she was under supervision for her theft.
	In another case from the 1980s, Schrader ordered a babysitter accused of molesting a child to submit to an AIDS test.
	AIDS test.
	He began requiring sex workers who appeared before him to do the same.
	There's no statutory authority for him to do that.
	But he's been on the cutting edge of a lot of cases.
	Wow, what a terrible man.
	What a terrible, horrible man.
	Clearly, he will be to blame if the prosecutor brought a crappy case and the media went completely over its skis in order to push a false narrative about what was happening in Kenosha and used Kyle Rittenhouse as their case in point to prove American white supremacy.
	For a white guy who shot a bunch of other white guys, Really, genius, genius stuff.
	Again, faith in institutions has been shaken here, and it should be shaken.
	And I would recommend that everybody take the same attitude when it comes to these criminal trials as we should all be taking, I think, which is wait to see how the evidence shakes out before you immediately assume the institutions are doing their job, because of late, they have not been.
	Okay, meanwhile, Inflation hit a 30-year high, according to reports yesterday.
	By the way, it just missed.
	If it had been slightly higher, it would have been maybe a 50-year high, since the late 1970s.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S.
	inflation hit a three-decade high in October, delivering widespread, sizable price increases to households for everything from groceries to cars due to persistent supply shortages and strong consumer demand.
	The Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index, which measures what consumers pay for goods and services, increased in October by 6.2% from a year ago.
	That was the fastest 12-month pace since 1990.
	Again, it just missed since like 1978.
	And the fifth straight month of inflation above 5%.
	The core price index climbed 4.6% in October from a year earlier.
	On a monthly basis, the consumer price index increased to seasonally adjusted 0.9% in October from the prior month.
	That is a sharp acceleration from 0.4 in September and the same as June's 0.9.
	Remember, the Biden administration was suggesting 2% inflation across the year.
	We are now talking about 6% inflation across the year.
	Well over 6% annualized inflation.
	That is scary as all hell for many people who are attempting to just live in the country.
	And by the way, inflation has completely wiped out all wage gains.
	Wage gains in the United States no longer exist because inflation is just too high.
	All of the wage gains have now been taken away, according to CNBC.
	The Labor Department reported on Friday the average hourly earnings increased 0.4% in October, but top-line inflation was 0.9%, which means you might have been earning more, but you were spending way more than you were earning.
	Real average hourly earnings when accounting for inflation actually decreased 0.5% for the month.
	So when Joe Biden brags about how wages are rising, understand that in real terms they are falling.
	Wages have swelled since the beginning of the year.
	Average hourly earnings are up 4.9% year over year in October.
	But, compared with inflation, which is what you actually care about, real hourly wages have declined more than 1.2% during the same time frame, according to the Labor Department.
	So you're like, oh look, a 5% raise.
	Oh wait, all of the products are 6% more expensive.
	Sad music from the prices right there.
	Even CNN is slamming Joe Biden for this inflationary spiral.
	And remember, when they say transitory, they said transitory.
	It's not transitory.
	It has not been transitory.
	Once it's there, it's there.
	Here is CNN's Anna Cabrera slamming Biden for his inflationary policy.
	If you feel like your dollar is being stretched thin, you are not alone.
	And the latest inflation data just today is sobering proof.
	Consumer prices are surging more than they have in 30 years.
	And to make matters worse, there's no sign it'll get better anytime soon.
	We knew that this inflation report would be brutal, but this was much worse than expected.
	New vehicle prices were up by nearly 10% year over year.
	That is the biggest increase that we've seen since 1975.
	It is never a good sign when you're making inflation comparisons with the 1970s.
	Okay, meanwhile, Politico is reporting surging gas and grocery prices are constant reminders of inflation.
	But another creeping trend spells more trouble for people's wallets and Democrats' political fate.
	Rising rents.
	Housing costs just posted one of their largest monthly gains in decades.
	Many economists expect them to loom large in inflation figures over the next year heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
	It's not just economists.
	The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in research released Monday that Americans on average expect rents to rise 10 percent over the next year, the highest reading in the history of the survey.
	Robert Dietz, the chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, says, quote, We could face an economy a year from now where some of the supply chain disruptions are going to ease and price growth will ease.
	But housing is likely to be the one where we are going to continue to see cost growth, and that will have an impact on households.
	63% of Americans in a recent poll say they are very concerned about the rising cost of food and consumer goods in a poll of more than 10,000 adults conducted by Pew.
	That's one reason why Joe Biden's failed policies are having a real impact on his approval ratings.
	He's down in the high 30s, low 40s.
	Even Joe Biden seems stunned by what Joe Biden has unleashed.
	So Joe Biden did a presser yesterday in which he was stunned to learn that he's president of the United States and things are bad.
	We got higher demand for goods at the same time we're facing disruptions in the supplies to make those goods.
	This is a recipe for delays and for higher prices.
	And people are feeling it.
	They're feeling it.
	Did you ever think you'd be paying this much for a gallon of gas?
	In some parts of California, they're paying $4.50 a gallon.
	That's why it's so important that we do everything in our power to stabilize the supply chain.
	Okay, so I love that.
	Did you ever think you'd be paying this much?
	Well, no, but that's your fault.
	I'm pretty sure it was you.
	I mean, aren't you the president?
	And right now, I love this.
	He's out there in Baltimore, that's where he is, touting the infrastructure plan.
	which just tossed $1.2 trillion more into the spending hopper.
	So inflation is spiraling out of control. He just tossed over a trillion dollars in new spending out there with the help of some idiot Republicans and many, many idiot Democrats. And that's what he's touting in the middle of an inflationary spiral. And he continues along these lines, admitting that everything costs more.
	Man, he's just making campaign ads for Republicans now.
	Today's economic reports showing unemployment continue to fall, but consumer prices remain too high.
	Tell us, the American people, in the midst of this economic crisis, that recovery is showing strong results.
	But not to them.
	They're still looking out there.
	Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs more.
	And it's worrisome, even though wages are going up.
	So this senile old man is going to jabber at you about how he will save everything by spending more money.
	So he's touting the bipartisan infrastructure plan.
	And for some odd reason, he started jabbering about how people get their internet from McDonald's.
	Now, I don't know if this is a major thing, I will admit.
	It has been a rare circumstance where I've been in the car and I haven't had internet and I have to pull over someplace and try and leech onto somebody else's Wi-Fi.
	But I'm just wondering, is this like a major thing that lots of people do?
	Really?
	And also, why would that justify $1.2 trillion in spending in the middle of an inflationary spiral?
	Here's Joe Biden being incoherent as per his usual arrangement with reality and words.
	Those of you who have kids in school, when we've been going this hybrid thing, some in class, some out of class, how many times, if you don't live in an area where you have high-speed internet you can afford, how many times you've driven your kids to the parking lot of McDonald's and sat there going off the McDonald's internet so you could hear?
	No, I'm not joking.
	Think of this.
	United States of America, for God's sake.
	Uh-huh.
	When you're going to Zoom school and it's hard.
	When you're going to Zoom school and it's a little hybrid and you're at McDonald's and you like their hash browns but their fish sandwich is kind of soggy and you're like, I don't even think the kids are around.
	You need to hear it.
	You need to hear it.
	You're stealing your kid's Zoom class at McDonald's in the parking lot.
	Billbook butter!
	And by the way, he's not done yet.
	Then he says he wants much, much more spending.
	That's the solution.
	More spending.
	Magical green jobs at $45 an hour.
	Yes, yes.
	Artificially inflate the price of labor.
	That will have no impact on the costs that are passed down to consumers, thereby driving up inflation even more.
	Yes, if you helicopter cash to people, that will definitely help with the inflationary spiral we're in.
	Here's what I'm gonna do.
	I'm gonna create good-paying union jobs.
	Union.
	Not $12 an hour, not $15 an hour.
	$45 an hour and up, with good benefits.
	So you can raise the family on and build the middle class out.
	And jobs that cannot be outsourced.
	You can't outsource these jobs.
	Um, okay.
	So, my favorite thing about Joe Biden is the statement he put out yesterday on this.
	Here's the statement he put out yesterday on inflation.
	You ready?
	Today, we received two pieces of economic news, which underscore that our recovery is continuing to progress, but that we also have more work to do before our economy is back to normal.
	First, on employment, we learned that we have had six consecutive weeks of decline in new unemployment claims.
	By the way, that dates back to, wait for it, wait for it, the end of unemployment benefits Democrats wanted to extend the rest of the year.
	Then he says, on inflation, today's report shows an increase over last month.
	Inflation hurts Americans' pocketbooks, and reversing this trend is a top priority for me.
	So what is he going to do?
	He says that he's directed the National Economic Council to pursue means to reduce costs.
	He's asked the FTC to strike back at market manipulation or price gouging.
	Yes, price and wage controls.
	That's what we've been missing since the 70s.
	We need those back.
	Price and wage controls.
	That'll definitely help things.
	Also, his infrastructure bill is going to help things by spending lots of money following fewer goods.
	And also, we need to build back better.
	Isn't it incredible?
	How all the circumstances point to him doing to all the things he already wanted to do.
	Isn't that amazing?
	He had a plan.
	And then circumstances change.
	And then the solution is still his plan.
	Isn't that incredible?
	He wanted to push trillions of dollars in new spending.
	And then it turns out that we're in an inflationary spiral.
	But magically, the way that we get out of the inflationary spiral is with trillions of dollars in new spending.
	Incredible.
	Now, CEOs of major American companies, they're starting to freak out.
	We looked at the stock market yesterday, which declined even while the treasury yields started to go up, meaning that fewer people were invested.
	The price of the bonds was going down, and so was the price.
	People are like pulling their money out.
	They're starting to freak out.
	According to Politico, spiking inflation, underscored by two government reports this week showing the biggest price surges in decades, presents a powerful threat to the economy as it struggles to shake off the pandemic, executives say.
	The CEO of one of the US's largest companies, who spoke on a condition of anonymity out of concern for over angering the administration.
	Because that's what we do in this country now.
	Our capitalist overlords are in complete cahoots with the Democratic Party so often these days.
	They got corporate overlords.
	Listen, I love laissez-faire.
	Let me explain.
	I'm more free market than nearly anyone in American public life.
	And there is something deeply wrong with free markets when the heads of major corporations have to be afraid of mentioning that inflationary policies are bad for fear of pissing off the president who might then sick the government on them.
	He says, I don't think the administration is on top of it at all.
	How many people inside this White House really know what inflation is or how it impacts businesses?
	It's not really their fault.
	It's been so long since we had it.
	Many executives are flying blind, growing increasingly worried that Washington politics, in which Democrats want to spend hundreds of billions more on Joe Biden's agenda and Fed Chair Jerome Powell wants to avoid denting the labor market while Biden weighs nominating him for a second term, will block any real steps to address inflation before it gets worse.
	The executives would like to see less eye-popping spending proposals, stronger moves to boost supply chains, more pressure on Powell to speed up his efforts to choke off rising prices.
	But they're all doing it with limited real world experience.
	So CEOs are going, uh, you guys don't know what the hell you're doing, but we're afraid to say that directly to you because if we do, we're afraid you're going to punish us publicly because you guys are so anti-business.
	Now, if you want to take a what should be the greatest gangbusters economy in human history and spiral it into recession, this is a great way to do it.
	Meanwhile, I got Janet Yellen, who is as bright as a bag of bricks, explaining that inflation is no longer something that Americans should really worry about.
	It's not that big a deal.
	In the 1970s, we saw supply shocks turn themselves into endemic inflation.
	We're not seeing that now.
	I don't believe we will.
	But if that were the case, the Federal Reserve would have a role to play to keep it under control.
	That happened in the 1970s because people thought that policy makers wouldn't bring it to an end.
	And inflation expectations became embedded in the American psyche.
	That isn't happening now and the Federal Reserve wouldn't permit that to happen.
	Oh, so the Federal Reserve will step in and help us.
	So why aren't they tapering faster?
	By the way, let me tell you, I have complete trust in the Federal Reserve.
	You know why?
	Because Janet Yellen used to run it.
	I have complete trust that an institution that is so fungible that the head of the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be independent of the President's policy, moves right over to the Treasury Department and is promoting exactly the same policy.
	Isn't that magical?
	Isn't that just magical?
	I totally trust our institutions.
	Our institutions are not broken in any serious way.
	Just excellent, excellent stuff right there.
	The Wall Street Journal, by the way, points out that his economic agenda, Joe Biden's, was not designed for shortages and inflation.
	Greg Ip writes, But, President Biden's approval ratings are underwater.
	politics that a strong economy is essential to winning elections. Today, jobs and wages are growing rapidly. The stock market is at records. The public is upbeat about jobs and financial prospects. But President Biden's approval ratings are underwater. Democrats just lost the governor's race in blue trending Virginia. That's because of an unusual economy, because of shortages, inflation, daily disruptions, a gen- Biden's agenda was not designed to address that sort of problem.
	In some ways, it may make it worse.
	Yeah, you think?
	So, Joe Biden is a disaster area.
	Americans are feeling it in their pocketbook.
	They are cruising for a bruising.
	The only thing that might save them, honestly, is Joe Manchin.
	The person they are maligning as the great obstacle to progress might be the only thing that saves them.
	So Joe Manchin came out yesterday and he said, yeah, we might want to wait on the spillback better nonsense.
	We might want to wait on it.
	According to Axios, red-hot inflation data validates the instinct of Senator Joe Manchin to punt President Biden's Build Back Better agenda until next year, potentially killing a quick deal on the $1.75 trillion package people familiar with the matter tell Axios.
	Well, yeah, that would make some sense.
	So all the people the Democrats are targeting and yelling at are the people who may be saving them from disaster.
	Right now, Joe Biden's best bet is to move with Manchin, not to move with the rest of his caucus.
	He should be pulling back.
	Instead, it's all torpedoes, fire.
	Because he's got to do something transformative before the old man falls off his rocker.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
	In the meantime, go check out our newest podcast, Morning Wire.
	On today's episode, I discuss the backlash Matthew McConaughey is getting for saying he's against mandating COVID vaccines for children.
	That episode is available right now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
	Make sure to tune in.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	Shapiro, this is the Ben Shapiro Show.
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	On today's episode, inflation hits new highs, Kyle Rittenhouse takes the stand, and another COVID controversy consumes the NFL.

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