All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 7, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show
48:11
New York City’s Forever Pandemic | Ep. 1390
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces vaccine mandates for all private employees and kids 5+.
Plus, Joe Biden faces down several simultaneous foreign policy crises.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
Protect your data from big tech with the VPN I trust.
Visit expressvpn.com slash ben.
Alrighty, this holiday season I know you're looking for ways to save.
I have a great way for you to save money, and that is stop spending so much money on your cell phone bill.
Instead, switch on over to Pure Talk USA.
And if you want to be a hero for the holidays, here's a great idea.
Get your loved one a new iPhone.
That's right.
Pure Talk has iPhone 12s starting at just $479 through the end of the year.
They even have 13s as well.
I switched to Pure Talk.
I'm getting the same great nationwide 5G coverage as the big guys.
You can too.
The average family saves over $800 a year, which is a lot of money.
I would not tell you to use a service that I'm not completely happy with, but I've been using PeerTalk and I can tell you it works for me.
You can make the switch as well.
With PeerTalk's 30-day risk-free guarantee, you have nothing to lose.
They've got unlimited talk text, 6 gigs of data, just $30 a month, and as I said, the iPhone 12 for just $479.
Head on over to puretalk.com, shop for the plan and phone right for you, then enter promo code SHAPIRO and save an additional 50% off your very first month and save on a new phone.
That is puretalk.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
PureTalk is simply smarter wireless.
Some restrictions apply.
See site for details.
puretalk.com, promo code SHAPIRO to get started.
All righty, so.
Omicron!
Are you scared?
Are you scared?
Because, um, apparently Democrats just want you to be scared, but for no actual reason.
So, some of us have been saying ever since the news broke of Omicron that Omicron was not super scary.
And the reason I said that Omicron was not super scary is because we had no data that it was particularly scary.
You kept seeing headlines like, 30 different mutations!
Ooh!
Ah!
It's like they were selling you a brand new hoverboard or something.
No, that was not the thing about Omicron that was supposed to scare you.
Then it was, it spread super fast in the population.
You're like, well, yeah, but Delta also spread super fast in the population.
At no point did they ever say that Omicron was more virulent, meaning more deadly, meaning more damaging.
Instead, the early data seemed to suggest that it was very infectious and not particularly virulent, sort of like a cold, that it was like a really, really mild case of the flu, actually.
In fact, to date, I'm unaware of a single report anywhere that anyone has died of Omicron.
Anywhere!
And now, I can name you, like, almost 800,000 Americans who died of COVID, and some 5 million people worldwide, which is a low-end estimate, who have died of COVID, but if no one has died of Omicron, and it's spreading really fast, and it's crowding out Delta, that's a good thing.
It is a good thing if people are getting Omicron versus Delta if Omicron is milder, because then they get natural immunity via a much milder infection.
And yet, and yet, the Democrats have decided that they are going to go absolutely ballistic ape bleep over Omicron.
It's not just Democrats and liberals here in the United States.
It's people in Europe.
It's people in Israel.
The entire world, which has been incentivized over the past year and a half to push the lie that they can control the spread of Delta and spread of COVID generally, they continue to double down on stupid.
And now the data continues to drip out.
The New York Times today, quote, Oh, Macron is fast moving, but perhaps less severe.
Early reports suggest.
Oh, you think?
Oh, like you mean like all the data said at the very beginning, like the South African doctor who discovered Oh, Macron said at the very beginning, but we all ignored her because we were too addicted to panic.
According to the New York Times, the COVID-19 virus is spreading faster than ever in South Africa, the country's president said on Monday, an indication of how the new Omicron variant is driving the pandemic.
But there are early indications that Omicron may cause less serious illness than other forms of the virus.
Researchers at a major hospital complex in Pretoria reported their patients with COVID are much less sick than those they've treated before, and that other hospitals are seeing the same trends.
In fact, they said, most of their infected patients were admitted for other reasons.
They have no COVID symptoms at all.
The New York Times has to hedge its bets.
They say, scientists cautioned against placing too much stock in either the potential good news of less severity or the bad news, like early evidence that prior coronavirus infection offers little immunity to Omicron.
The variant was discovered just last month.
More study is needed before experts can say much about it with confidence.
Beyond that, the true impact of the coronavirus is not always felt immediately.
There could be hospitalizations and deaths that lag.
Yes, but normally the hospitalizations and deaths lag by like two to four weeks.
They don't lag by months.
In the absence of more hard information, says the New York Times, governments have reacted to Omicron with sharp restrictions on international travel and new vaccination requirements.
And herein lies the point.
The government has lied to all of us by telling us that they can control this thing.
Now, here's the thing.
You can control it for yourself.
You can get vaccinated.
I'm pushing vaccination since the beginning.
I think vaccination is a good idea.
Now, that doesn't mean you're not going to get a breakthrough case.
But it does mean if you do get a breakthrough case, you're very unlikely to get hospitalized or die.
Now, here's the reality when it comes to COVID generally.
If you're young and you get COVID under any circumstances, you are very unlikely to end up hospitalized or dead.
You are less likely than that to end up hospitalized or dead if you are vaccinated.
And if you're boosted, then you're probably even less likely than that.
Okay, so there are some questions as to whether you actually need the booster if you're young and healthy.
If you're older, you probably should have the booster if you're above the age of 60.
But here's the bottom line.
The outsized panic that we are now seeing from Omicron makes no sense whatsoever.
None.
Zero.
Zip.
Zilch.
And yet, there's a competition, a race now, a frenetic race of people throwing up their hands like Kermit the Frog, racing to try and lock things down.
So New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who for some odd reason, this big, giant, weird-ass, Frankenstein-like communist, thinks that he's going to run for governor of New York.
Good luck to him after his failed presidential campaign.
I mean, they can barely stand him in the city of New York.
So he announced on Monday that he would be requiring on-site employees at all private businesses, all of them, from bodegas to multinational banks to get vaccinated in order to work inside the city.
The mandate would apply to about 184,000 businesses.
De Blasio said this is a pre-emptive strike designed to stall another wave of virus cases amid rising concerns about Omicron.
By the way, this thing is set to take effect December 27th.
That's like four days before Bill De Blasio is no longer mayor of New York.
So on his way out, he's just leaving you a sweet goodbye cookie, New York City.
And it'll be fun to see whether Eric Adams, the incoming mayor, decides to double down on that and just continue with such policies or whether to the cheers of the throngs, he decides to repeal Bill de Blasio's insane order.
I would bet that he decides to maintain it because he can always say that de Blasio put it in place and he didn't actually have to do anything.
And the way that it works apparently in blue areas is the more crazy you are about COVID, the more you are rewarded.
This is why people on the left made Jacinda Ardern the Prime Minister of New Zealand into some sort of heroine for locking down the island completely.
This is why people on the left seem okay with Australia welding people in their houses, essentially.
It seems like you are rewarded by the political calculus of the moment by the left, the more harshly you crack down.
And what starts in one of the big blue cities never ends up there.
Eventually, you'll see it in San Francisco, you'll see it in New York, you'll see it in Chicago.
And this will exacerbate the population separation we've seen in the United States, because I promise you, if you're a business in New York, and let's say that 10% of your iBankers don't actually want to get vaxxed, are you just going to sit there and fire them all?
Or are you just going to move your headquarters outside the city?
Real estate in Florida ain't going down, guys.
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
First, let's talk about keeping your home safe and secure this holiday season.
Deck the halls, walls, windows, and doors with the best deals of the year on the award-winning Ring Alarm.
I'm sure we all know about the Ring Video Doorbell by now, but did you know that Ring makes an award-winning alarm as well?
Ring Alarm is Ring Alarm is a powerful, affordable whole home security system you can easily install yourself.
So whether you're running across town or across the country this busy season, you and your loved ones can rest easy knowing your home is protected.
And it's more than just security.
Ring Alarm protects your home from flood, freeze, and fire as well.
Plus, it is way cheaper than those other companies.
For what they charge for one month, you can get an entire year of Ring Alarm with professional monitoring.
And right now, the best deals of the year are available on Ring Alarm.
Go to ring.com forward slash ben.
I love my ring alarm because every time I'm out of town, I can check in on the house and I can see what crazy stuff my kids are doing around the premises.
In fact, even when I'm home, I was in the backyard the other day and I was supposed to be watching the baby, got caught up on my phone, looked around, baby's gone.
That's bad.
Immediately pulled up that ring app and now I know exactly Where my baby was.
Thank God she wasn't doing anything too dangerous.
This holiday season, check the halls, walls, windows, and doors for the best deals of the year.
From Ring Alarm, go to ring.com forward slash Ben.
Get a great deal on a Ring Alarm security kit today.
That is ring.com forward slash Ben.
Alrighty, so.
Bill de Blasio announces on his way out that he is going to be putting down these new mandates.
Here was Bill de Blasio yesterday on MSNBC.
We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of COVID and the dangers it's causing to all of us.
So, as of today, we're going to announce a first-in-the-nation measure.
Our health commissioner will announce a vaccine mandate for private sector employers across the board.
All private sector employers in New York City will be covered by this vaccine mandate as of December 27th.
We're going to have some other measures as well to really focus on maximizing vaccination quickly so we can get ahead of Omicron and all the other challenges we're facing right now with COVID.
How exciting.
And then de Blasio decides that he is going to extend this.
So it's not just that he's going to make sure that all of these employees are vaccinated.
He says that if you want to take a 5-year-old to a restaurant, your 5-year-old has to be vaccinated.
Your 5-year-old.
Now, your 5-year-old wasn't going to die of COVID.
Statistically speaking, the number of children under the age of 18 who have died of COVID being perfectly healthy beforehand is vanishingly low.
But according to Bill de Blasio, if your kid is 5 to 11, they now must vax in order to go to a Broadway show with you.
This is insane.
Remember how, it's incredible how fast, remember there were people at the beginning of this thing who said it's a slippery slope.
And I sort of resisted that idea, to be honest with you, that this was a slippery slope.
I thought, okay, well, you know, we can still make policies that are geared towards saving lives and geared toward protecting the elderly.
We can do all of that in a rational way based on the data.
And there were people from the very beginning who expected the worst and who started arguing this was going to be a slippery slope to full authoritarian tyranny from people like Bill de Blasio.
And I thought, okay, maybe.
But would the population actually stand for it?
And now the answer seems to be yes.
It seems to be that populations, large swaths of people, will not only stand for this, they will cheer for this.
How else could you have a mayor of the biggest city in America making the argument that five-year-olds must be vaccinated in order to go to a bodega with you?
I mean, this is nuts.
This is crazy stuff.
Here is six-foot-nine groundhog murderer Bill de Blasio explaining on the streets of New York last night.
Here in New York City, we were the epicenter of the COVID crisis.
We lost so many people in this neighborhood and neighborhoods all over the city.
We didn't have PPE.
We didn't have ventilators.
We were alone.
And then we started to fight back, and vaccines came, and we focused on vaccination.
It made all the difference.
We're now the safest place in this country, but we gotta go even farther.
Omicron's here.
Winter's coming.
We gotta go even farther.
Today in New York City, we announced a mandate.
All private sector employers must have their employees vaccinated by December 27th.
This is what's gonna keep us safe.
This is the kind of thing we need to do now, not just here, but everywhere, so we can leave COVID behind once and for all.
You keep saying so you can leave COVID behind, but I don't think you guys ever want to leave COVID behind.
I think you're addicted to this kind of control.
I think you love the power because, again, it underscores the notion that you guys even have the capacity to actually control this thing.
You can't.
You can't.
By the way, I'm looking right now at the vaccination by demographic group in the city of New York.
So right now in the city of New York, about 55 percent, this is according to New York City's government website, About 55% of black New York City residents have one dose of the vaccine.
Only 49% of black New York City residents, 49%, less than half, are double-vaxxed for COVID.
None of them will be able to work in the city if Bill de Blasio has his way, if they work in the private sector.
Only 62% of Latinos living in the city of New York, or Latinxs, as Bill de Blasio might put it, Only 62% are fully vaccinated in the city of New York.
By the way, only 56% of white people in the city of New York are double-vaxxed.
So, like, a huge percentage of people in the city of New York are apparently not double-vaxxed.
I mean, that's pretty wild.
And among children, the numbers are even worse.
Okay, among children between the ages of 5 and 12, only 15% of kids in the city of New York, 15, 1-5%, are double-vaxxed.
In the city of New York.
Which means, effectively speaking, he's closing the city to half the population of the city.
And this is seen as some sort of godsend, apparently, by some people on the left.
At least there hasn't been a significant amount of blowback.
I haven't seen a lot of New Yorkers saying, this is nuts.
Aside from sort of the Republicans who have been left behind over there, and who are eagerly eyeing Zillow for places in South Florida.
Where's the uprising there?
Where are New Yorkers saying, hold up a second.
Why can't we go back to our normal lives?
Why?
To prevent us from getting Omicron?
Where we get mildly ill?
Which is called winter in New York.
Because everyone in New York has a cold during the winter.
Everyone.
If you've ever been to New York, everybody's blowing their nose all the time.
All winter long.
But I guess the idea is that no one must ever blow their nose again.
The Wall Street Journal went after Bill de Blasio this morning.
He says this will yield diminishing public health benefits while making it harder for the city to recover economically from his and former New York Governor's Andrew Cuomo's destructive lockdowns.
De Blasio has already required vaccines for city government workers, teachers, anyone who wants to eat at a restaurant, use a gym, or see a show.
This has harmed small business and tourism.
And apparently these mandates are not coercive enough for his honor.
So now he's giving the unvaccinated an ultimatum.
Get one shot by December 27th, leave the city, or stay unemployed.
New York City still has a 9.4% unemployment rate in October, and businesses can't find enough workers.
Okay, this is wild.
And a huge number of New Yorkers, by the way, are not getting vaxxed because they already had COVID.
Remember, New York was the epicenter.
New York got slammed.
So, well done, Bill de Blasio.
Like, truly astonishing stuff here from Bill de Blasio.
It's not just Bill de Blasio.
Letitia James, who wants to run for governor, right?
She put out the hit report on Andrew Cuomo to get him thrown off his seat as governor.
Now she wants to fill it.
Well, she issued a statement on New York City's announcement, quote, I support a vaccine mandate with a testing option, but why are we still doing this piecemeal?
A mandate alone won't get us out of the crisis, particularly when it's implemented without input from employees and employers.
Science tells us we need everyone to wear masks in public settings, accessible at-home testing, and real public health outreach to our communities.
This cannot be done municipality by municipality.
New York State must finally lead.
They are stampeding to the left in that New York governor's race.
The reason Kathy Hochul is getting wildly restrictive is because she's hoping to outflank Letitia James, who's hoping to outflank Bill de Blasio, who's hoping to outflank both.
The authoritarianism is no longer the bug.
It is the feature.
We sure move fast from mask up to protect grandma when there are no vaccines available to make sure that you get your five-year-old double vaxxed so you can see a Broadway show.
By the way, in Oregon, they're doing the same thing.
Oregon has now begun drafting forever rules for masking.
According to KGW8, in Oregon, quote, the Oregon Health Authority's Rules Advisory Committee met last Thursday to begin the process of drafting a permanent set of rules for the state's indoor mask requirement.
OHA lifted Oregon's outdoor mask mandate last week.
Outdoor mask mandate?
What century are they living in?
Outdoor mask mandate?
We've known since the beginning of the pandemic you don't need to wear a mask outdoors.
But separate mask rules for indoor spaces, schools, and healthcare settings all remain in place.
Oregon's first mask mandate was imposed May 2020, lifted in June 2021.
The more virulent Delta variant arrived in late July, and health leaders reimposed the mask mandate in August.
The current indoor mask mandate is temporary.
It's set to expire in February, so Oregon health leaders want to be able to switch to a permanent rule.
The permanent rule could still be ended once COVID-19 recedes to a safe level, but it could remain in place indefinitely.
And it won't expire prematurely while case numbers are still dangerously high.
So in Oregon, they are now talking about a draft permanent rule that allows the state to mask you up at will under all circumstances.
Meanwhile, by the way, if you're the Oregon governor, you're good to go.
If you're the Oregon governor, no need to worry.
You can just go to public places and take your mask off.
Because after all, you are one of the specials.
According to the Daily Wire, John Rigalizzo reporting.
Democratic Oregon Governor Kate Brown was spotted maskless at a gala event in Washington, D.C., even as she pushes for permanent mask mandates in her state.
She was the featured guest at the LGBTQ plus IA, greater than sign, less than sign, question mark, backslash, double quotation mark, semicolon, 30th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C.
on Saturday.
Brown was also one of the four LGBTQ, at sign, hashtag, dollar sign, percentage sign, caret.
Victory Hall of Fame inductees, from a pro-LGBTQ, open parenthesis, closed parenthesis, open bracket, closed bracket, colon, PAC.
A Twitter user posted a photo of himself standing with Brown and David Gins, Deputy Director of Operations for Vice President Kamala Harris, who by the way has been making a lot of appearances recently in the media.
You'll remember that it was yesterday that David Gins, the Deputy Director of Operations for Vice President Harris, put out a photo of himself, very excited about his job, staring Desperately into nothingness.
With a tweet saying how much he loved Kamala Harris.
So that guy's having himself a week.
Thank you both for evening you do for advancing our communities.
Said the user.
So there she was, unmasked.
Good times.
Good times.
Again, the elites are not bound by the rules.
David Gins, thank you both for evening you do for advancing our communities, said the user.
So there she was unmasked.
Good times.
Good times.
Again, the elites are not bound by the rules.
But that's the whole point.
For the left, COVID has basically become a pagan god.
And if you appease the pagan god by pushing mask mandates, you can do whatever you want.
You have bought yourself an indulgence.
If you believe in government top-down control, you don't have to wear a mask.
If you believe in government top-down control, you can come vacation in Florida.
If you believe in government top-down control and lockdowns, then you get to be as reckless as you want to be, and no one will ever blame you because you have come out and you have said all of the right things.
In the media, by the way, they are mirroring this perspective.
Mehdi Hassan, the terrible host on MSNBC, he yesterday was saying, we need harsher measures on COVID.
Of course, of course, of course.
I just don't get it.
We are more than a year and a half and more than three quarter of a million deaths into this pandemic here in the United States.
And we're still not taking it seriously enough.
Still not doing what needs to be done.
Still coddling the COVID conspiracists and the anti-vaxxers.
We should be escalating, not de-escalating vaccine mandates.
I mean, why on earth do we still not have a federal vaccine mandate for all domestic flights?
Why?
Why?
Because there's no data to back a federal vaccine mandate on all domestic flights.
Flights have HEPA filters.
They've not been a source of transmission this entire time.
The answer is because you are utterly disconnected from the data.
By the way, it is amazing the career trajectory for some of these people.
Mehdi Hassan, of course, used to work for Qatar's Al Jazeera propaganda network before moving on over to MSNBC.
Meanwhile, Sunny Hostin, representing the high IQ women of The View, she was blatantly un-vaxxed for Omicron.
Which is a unique take, since the vaxxed are also passing Omicron.
In fact, there's a study out of Norway, and it showed one of the major super spreader events for Omicron was a completely vaxxed event.
Half the people ended up with Omicron.
Now, none of them died.
Again, I'm pro-vax.
I think you should get the vaccine, because it is not great at this point.
It's not super amazing at preventing transmission, but it is still great at preventing hospitalization and death.
But the vaccinated are passing this thing.
It is not just the unvaccinated.
So here's Sunny Hostin, well behind the times and also unable to pronounce the name of this particular variant of the virus.
Well, you know, it was interesting to me that the argument was being made, if you're vaccinated, why do you care about me being vaccinated?
You're protected.
And that's why we are at the Omarion Omicron variant, right?
That's why We are where we are because it's mutating.
It's becoming this crazy super bug inside of the people that aren't vaccinated.
And now it's affecting us.
I don't know why they were not understanding that.
We've got like 80 million people that are not vaccinated.
They understand.
They don't want to.
They don't want to.
They understand.
They understand they're going to all give us Omicron.
You guys are fine.
You're all fine.
You're vaccinated.
So am I. Some of us are going to leave our... At a certain point, people who want to be miserable are just going to be miserable.
And then those of us who want to be happy are just going to be happy.
Let me just tell you, my Hanukkah was great.
I went to like five concerts.
I hung out with a lot of people.
And if some people got COVID, they were fine because everybody had the choice to get vaccinated already.
Or they were small children, so no one cares.
If you choose to be miserable, in the misery lies the happiness.
It really is not that they think that if we do X, Y, and Z, we'll get out of the pandemic.
It's that they kind of revel in the pandemic.
The people who revel in this stuff most are the white-collar idiots who are sitting up there in their air-conditioned offices with their laptops or on camera all day, telling you how terrible Omicron is.
Everybody else in the country is like, eh.
And all these guys are like, oh my God, I'm so worried.
I'm so deeply worried that I'm going to die.
You're not going to die.
You're fine.
Will you stop already?
If I have to hear one more person who makes $500,000 a year complain about how their two-year-old might get sick from Omicron when there's no evidence that your two-year-old was ever going to die of COVID, it's just sick-making.
It's ridiculous.
The most risk-averse people on planet Earth are now controlling the entire discourse and celebrating themselves as moral actors for it while they put a bunch of low-income people who already had COVID out of jobs for not getting vaxxed.
It's unbelievable.
We'll get some more on this in just one second.
First, it is the holidays, and that means it is time for you to get yourself a gift.
So you're at the office, many hours a day, got that backache, sitting in one of those uncomfortable office chairs that you inherited from the guy who had the job before you.
Why not get yourself the Chair of Gods, my friends, the Throne of Joy.
I'm talking about the X Chair.
I absolutely love the X-chair.
So do all of my employees.
We actually have actual fight club fist fights in the break room to see who gets to sit in the X-chair each day.
It's the most entertaining part of the day.
Not only is X-chair the world's greatest office chair, with its patented Elemax technology, it doubles as a massage chair and It can either cool or warm your back.
Can your office chair do that?
I don't think so, because this office chair was built by the angels that sit before the throne of God.
Now is the perfect time for you to purchase an X chair.
Buy early.
Buy now.
Save $100 off your X chair just by purchasing it at xchairshapiro.com right now.
That is the letter X.
xChairShapiro.com.
xChair has a 30-day guarantee of complete comfort.
You can finance your purchase for as little as $30 a month.
Go to xChairShapiro.com and save xChairShapiro.com.
And when it arrives at your door, I've been reliably informed that a choir of angels sings it into your home.
Go check it out right now.
xChairShapiro.com.
All right, so our cultural thought leaders have now embedded the COVID lifestyle.
It's a lifestyle.
It's an actual lifestyle.
You're a good person if you believe in the innate power of COVID.
So, you know, those of us who are actually religious, we talk about two aspects of worship of God.
If you're a Jew, there are two things particularly you talk about when it comes to attitude toward God.
There's Yiras Shemaim, which is fear of God, and then there is Ahavas Shemaim, right?
Then there's love of God.
Shemaim in this case being sort of a stand- Shemaim means heaven literally, but we use it as a stand-in for God's name.
So there's fear of God and there's love of God.
And as a religious person, you're supposed to have both.
You're supposed to fear God's justice because if God ever implemented his justice with you, you would surely be screwed.
And you're supposed to love God because God has given you all that you have and constructed a universe that is made for man, right?
This is the basic idea of fear of God and love of God.
Well, the paganistic secularists, when it comes to COVID, they have fear of COVID and love of COVID.
They have a bizarre fear of COVID.
They believe that only by By attempting sort of paganistic sacrifices, if they wear the mask, and if they dictate that you wear the mask, if they offer their children up on Mount Moriah as sacrifices to COVID, mask up the five-year-old, and make sure that this kid cannot go to Aladdin unless this kid is double, triple, quadruple, octuple-vaxxed, then this will somehow prevent the wrath of COVID, right?
Fear of COVID.
And then there's love of COVID.
These people love it.
They love it.
COVID has constructed an alternative universe where they get to do whatever they want, where they get to dictate all the terms of engagement, where people have been more willing to give up power to government than any time in American history.
People are just willing to, like, they're throwing power at government, especially in the blue states.
Like, okay, fine, you want to mask us?
Please mask us.
Please, master, mask us.
Please do it.
Please throw, just do it.
Please tell us what jobs we can and cannot work.
Please tell us whether we can open our business, whether we can't open our business.
And if we fear COVID and we love COVID enough, it will usher in a new kingdom of COVID glory upon Earth, where we build back better, where we wreck all the institutions, where we get rid of logic, where we get rid of data, and we live solely on faith.
We live as one in faith with COVID.
That is the attitude.
And that's why you end up with idiotic pieces of culture like Jimmy Fallon cutting songs for Christmas with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion.
Her middle name is Thee.
I'll never get over this.
It's Megan Thee Stallion, which I assume was not her given name, but Megan Thee Stallion.
Not Thee Stallion, which would make some sense because then she would be Thee Stallion.
Megan Thee Stallion.
You, my friend, are Thee Stallion, because it's T-H-E-E.
Megan Thee Stallion, with Ariana Grande, singing with Jimmy Fallon, who's aging like a bad piece of cheese over here.
I gotta say, I remember when Jimmy Fallon was young and he's now reaching the age where this is just kind of creepy and odd and sort of yucky.
Here he is singing a song with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion about masking up for Christmas.
And they're so, here's the thing, they're playing it as parody, but they're actually kind of comfortable with it.
They kind of love it.
They're kind of into it.
Because this means that they are, they are the elite.
They get to dictate to you.
What sort of sacrifices you should perform?
Sure, Christmas is supposed to be a time for Christians where you celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but for Jimmy Fallon and Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion, all of whom are definitely, I would say, excellent advocates on behalf of traditional Christian worldview, what Christmas is truly about is COVID masks and shots and sitting by the fire wearing odd accoutrements.
Her fingernails are syringes, in case you can't see.
on the couch, this year hang that mistletoe.
Her fingernails are syringes, in case you can't see.
You can tell.
Take those towels and jingle bells.
Put Purell on.
And now you have a person twerking while wearing paper towels, and they're spraying everything with hand sanitizer.
Somebody wipe Rudolph's nose.
Oh, hey, I promise we'll be OK.
Cause I learned life's a full story.
And then this creepy thing of Jimmy Fallon wearing a mask with Ariana Grande's face on it and the same thing with her.
We'll be in line for a booster.
Bye.
Here's the thing.
It's obviously, look, he's trying to be funny, and Jimmy Fallon hasn't been funny for quite a while here, but it is pretty amazing.
Megan says, this year, hang that mistletoe.
I'mma kiss everybody that I know.
But it was a masked Christmas.
We stayed in the house.
We covered our nose and covered our mouth.
But now the boosters are available.
Then they can party it up.
Until they can't, of course.
Because, according to Dr. Anthony Foucher, by the way, even if you're fully boosted, you should still mask up when you are in the presence of others.
In fact, there's an entire article in the Atlantic.
It is titled, How to Socialize Safely in the Booster Era.
Okay, so I have a recommendation as to how to socialize safety in the booster era.
Get a booster or don't, and then do whatever the hell you want because it's a free country and shut the f*** up.
We're done!
Wasn't that amazing?
Incredible.
Because the vaccines are widely available, and we have therapeutics, and Omicron is less threatening than Delta, and you're fine.
Shut up.
Stop.
Like, enough.
But we still have to hear from our masters, the high priests of COVID.
And so the Atlantic says, This past spring, if someone told you they were fully vaccinated, you knew precisely what they meant.
At least two weeks before, they'd received two doses of Moderna, two doses of Pfizer, or one of Johnson & Johnson.
Now, what it means to be vaccinated encompasses much more variety.
Some people have gotten their initial doses, but haven't gotten a booster.
Some people mixed and matched the brands of their first shots in their booster.
What's more, everyone is on their own personal timeline, depending on when they got their shots.
Amid this complexity, kids under five still aren't eligible for any shots at all.
When trying to gauge whether a gathering will be risky, Outside and with masks?
But she's vaxxed!
And probably boosted!
Like, what?
It's so tiresome.
It's tiresome.
vaccinated. Jessica Mladie Rivera, a research fellow at Boston Children's Hospital, told me she wouldn't feel safe spending time with an unvaxxed person indoors. If she saw them at all, the meetup would be outside and with masks. Outside and with masks? But she's vaxxed and probably boosted. Like, what? It's so tiresome. It's tiresome. But again, all of this makes them feel better about themselves. It makes them feel self-righteous.
Just like all other virtue signaling from the left, it is all about doing irrelevant things that have no impact on the real world and then saying that your friends aren't doing it so you're better than they are.
It's like composting, or recycling, or in a big city where they take all your recycling and they toss it into the same landfill as your garbage.
They're like, oh well, did you fully use your recyclables?
Okay, guys, I'm sorry.
If you're building your notion of a virtuous life around whether you are boosted and whether you're... Bottom line is this.
Until our bodies are at least 85% comprised of just the vaccine, until our body weight is 80% vaccine, we can't go back to normal.
They never want to go back to normal.
This is the new normal.
They love it.
They love it.
These people are not miserable.
They're happy.
They're happy in their misery.
Because here's the thing.
If they didn't want to live like this, they wouldn't have to.
You know how I can tell that?
Because we're down here in Florida and ain't none of us been living like that.
Down in Florida, my family has been out and about since we were vaxxed.
End of story.
Enjoying life.
Having a good old time.
Going to synagogue with hundreds of people.
And I know there are a bunch of people in blue states who are cringing right now.
Oh my god.
Went to synagogue with hundreds of people.
Yeah, you know how many people died?
Big zero.
You know why?
Because everybody who wanted to get vaxxed, got vaxxed.
I don't know how many times I have to say this.
Leave other people alone.
You're not a better person for trying to control other people's lives when they do not pose a risk to you.
Okay, meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to roll out an administration filled with buffoonery and idiocy.
And now he's got more crisis on the foreign front.
We'll get to that momentarily.
First, Inflation continues to dominate the country.
We are at levels of inflation we have not seen in decades.
The cost of everything is going up.
So, it's time to be pragmatic, protective, and prepared.
If you are a homeowner, you should be considering a mortgage refinance right now.
Because the Fed is already talking about tapering.
The mortgage rates are going to go up.
The impact that a refi can make on your budget is substantial.
And the people to help you are the folks over at American Financing.
You'll get a free, no-pressure mortgage review.
You can learn about custom loans that fit your life better.
From lower rates to shorter terms, even high interest debt consolidation, they can do it all for you.
They're saving customers up to $1,000 a month, helping many skip two mortgage payments.
Why not see what they can do for you?
866-721-3300.
That is 866-721-3300.
Or visit AmericanFinancing.net and MLS182334 and MLSConsumerAccess.org.
Now is an excellent time to refinance.
If you're paying too high a mortgage rate, you're not going to get a better mortgage rate.
A year from now, I promise you mortgage rates are going to be higher than they are right now.
Now's a great time to refi.
Head on over to AmericanFinancing.net or give them a call at 866-721-3300.
Okay, we're going to get to Joe Biden's foreign policy crises because he is a disaster on all fronts.
First, it has never been more important that Americans get their news from objective voices who value the truth, which is why we created our newest podcast, Morning Wire.
Morningware has been topping the Apple and Spotify charts since its release.
We're continuing our commitment to bring you the news without a hidden agenda.
We're conservative.
We value your time.
We value the truth.
That's what Morning Wire is about.
And while we are working overtime to bring you the news you need to know, we need your help to keep those facts trending toward number one.
Subscribe.
Start listening right now to Morning Wire on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Leave a five-star review if you like what you hear.
Also, if you haven't heard, Matt Walsh is now an honorary member of the LGBTQ plus star sign, open parentheses, closed bracket, weird carrot thingy.
Weird squiggly thing that goes over Spanish letters.
Hey, he's a member of that community now.
Because his best-selling new book, Johnny the Walrus, did not only sell out immediately after its release, it's now the number one LGBTQ+, I-A-A, blue, color purple, print sign, bestseller on Amazon's charts.
Yes, you heard that right.
Matt Walsh is not just a beloved children's book author, he's now a best-selling LGBTQ+, minus, multiplication sign, division sign, long division sign, square root, imaginary number sign author.
And don't worry, you can reserve your copy at johnnythewalrus.com.
Get your hands on the next batch, shipping out soon.
Johnny the Walrus.
It's the exhilarating tale of a young boy who pretends he's a walrus.
And it is all pretend, until the internet tells Johnny's mommy that Johnny is actually a walrus and she must uphold his trans walrus identity.
If you know Matt's brain, you'll laugh your butt off reading this to your kids or to yourself.
So, head on over to johnnythewalrus.com, reserve your copy of Matt's timely masterpiece, Johnny the Walrus, today.
You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
All right, so meanwhile, we have our doddering old fool of a president who has somehow pulled defeat from the draws of victory with the economy, pulled defeat from the jobs of victory, the draws of victory with regard to COVID.
And now he's pulling defeat from the draws of victory with regard to foreign policy.
So he already did this in Afghanistan.
He literally just surrendered Afghanistan to a bunch of eighth century tribal barbarians who stuff women into bags and then stuff them into the basement and starve children and marry off those children for an actual fee.
He just gave up a country to those people.
And now he is facing down other crises from Russia, from China, from Iran.
It's hilarious.
He keeps going to Iran.
He's like, can we, can we make a deal on nuclear program?
And Iran's like, um, no, because we don't want to.
And then Iran's like, no, we don't want to.
And Israel's like, well, what if we just blow up an Iranian nuclear reactor?
How about that?
How about that?
Joe Biden, man, he's such a joke.
The two big foreign policy crises right now, not Iran, Russia and China.
According to the Wall Street Journal, three potential crises are proceeding in tandem.
A potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, continuing Chinese pressure on Taiwan, and the potential collapse of Iran nuclear talks.
Any one of these standoffs has the potential to shake the world order and produce wider conflict.
Now, Joe Biden is about to hold a Democratic conference.
There is one problem, which is that the Democracy Summit is being attended by a bunch of places that are not actual democracies.
Jen Psaki was asked about this yesterday about the human rights record of some of the so-called democracies attending this thing.
is to find a way to show firmness on each front without provoking a crisis.
Now, Joe Biden is about to hold a Democratic conference.
There is one problem, which is that the Democracy Summit is being attended by a bunch of places that are not actual democracies.
Jen Psaki was asked about this yesterday about the human rights record of some of the so-called democracies attending this thing.
Didn't go great.
The Democracy Summit that will happen later this week is an opportunity to bring together U.S.
officials, civil society leaders, and foreign leaders who represent a diverse array of experiences to talk about strengthening democracy, defending against authoritarianism, fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights.
Inclusion or an invitation is not a stamp of approval on their approach to democracy, nor is exclusion a stamp of the opposite of that, of disapproval.
They're still strong on human rights this administration?
Man, I think that they've got a handle on all of this.
So when it comes to China, China is now building military bases in the Pacific.
They're seeking their first military base on Africa's Atlantic coast, according to U.S.
intelligence.
According to the Wall Street Journal, classified American intelligence reports suggest that China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea, according to U.S.
officials.
The officials declined to describe details of the secret intelligence findings, but they said the reports raised the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the east coast of the United States, a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and the Pentagon.
So, Heming in China, that's going really well, particularly after we surrendered in Afghanistan and made clear that we are a complete and utter paper tiger.
The great power skirmishing over a country that rarely draws outside attention reflects the rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The two countries are sparring over the status of Taiwan, China's testing of a hypersonic missile, the origins of COVID-19, and other issues.
Worldwide, the United States finds itself maneuvering to try to block China from projecting military power from new overseas bases, from Cambodia to the United Arab Emirates.
In Equatorial Guinea, the Chinese likely have an eye on Bata, according to a U.S.
official.
Bata already has a Chinese-built deepwater commercial port on the Gulf of Guinea.
Excellent highways link the city to Gabon and the interior of Central Africa.
The most significant threat from China would be a militarily useful naval facility on the Atlantic coast of Africa, said General Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S.
Africa Command.
By militarily useful, I mean something more than a place they can make port calls and get gas and groceries.
I'm talking about a port where they can rearm with munitions and repair naval vessels.
So things are going really well with the Chinese.
Meanwhile, Jen Psaki and the Biden administration, they are taking the overwhelmingly brutal move of saying they won't send official representatives to the Beijing Olympics.
Ooh, I'm sure that Xi Jinping is just quaking in his boots.
I mean, after all of the harsh treatment we gave them for unleashing a virus on the world that killed upwards of five million people, I'm sure that he's quaking in his boots that we won't be sending an undersecretary of state from Tony Blinken's Coffee break room over to Beijing for the Winter Olympics.
Probably Xi Jinping is like, Oh my God, that's crazy.
What are we going to do now?
Except for everything we were going to do before.
Here was Jen Psaki announcing this massive move.
The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.
The athletes on Team USA have our full support.
We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home.
We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.
Okay, and I'm sure that the China... So basically what we've now achieved by not sending a diplomat to China is to piss off the Chinese without actually doing anything.
Which seems to be a great strategy.
That's great.
Meanwhile, the Russians are mobilizing almost 200,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.
And Vladimir Putin is making demands.
According to the Washington Post, reporter Isabel Kursugian and Paul Sohn, with Russian troops massed along the border with Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin is expected to issue President Biden an ultimatum during a video meeting on Tuesday.
Wait, I was told that Hillary Clinton was going to hit the reset button.
Russia might soon launch an offensive against its neighbor.
The Kremlin has said it wants written guarantees from the United States and allies in NATO that the military alliance will not expand east, both in terms of membership and Western forces.
The video call comes during an unprecedented low point in U.S.-Russia relations, especially over Ukraine.
Wait, I was told that Hillary Clinton was going to hit the reset button.
I was told that Joe Biden was a masterful manipulator of the international scene.
By the way, anybody who told you that's an idiot.
It was Barack Obama who famously said, don't underestimate Joe Biden's ability to F things up.
It was Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense under both Obama and under Bush, who said, yeah, this guy has never made a right decision on foreign policy.
The White House has threatened Russia with serious consequences.
Wow, like sanctions.
Ooh, that's obviously.
Those sanctions, they've done wonders for our anti-Russian position.
Those sanctions on particular figures inside the Russian national system.
So they just use a bunch of cutouts to move their money.
It's obviously really deterred the Russians.
Putin plans to outline Russia's proposal to Joe Biden.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, their talks are expected to be quite long and substantive.
I'm sure that that is going to be by quite long and substantive.
They mean that Joe Biden is going to fall asleep 10 minutes into the conversation.
And then Vladimir Putin is just going to threaten him for a while.
And then Joe Biden, his unconscious face is going to slam into the hang up button on the phone.
That's how that's how World War Three starts is with the president slipping into unconsciousness and his hand hitting the nuclear button.
That seems like how this is going to work out.
Meanwhile, over at the White House, they're trying to struggle for like, what do they do here?
So a reporter asked the White House, you know, Joe Biden was vice president when Vladimir Putin took over Crimea and he did a bad job then.
So why are we supposed to believe he's going to do a good job now?
You mentioned that Biden was obviously deeply involved with the Ukraine in 2014.
And I'm wondering if you could talk about what his takeaways are from that experience, because a lot of the things that he's saying this time, supporting NATO allies on the eastern flank, sanctions, those sound like the same things that you guys tried to do in 2014, and it didn't stop Russia from taking Crimea.
So why does he think this will be different?
Well, I think first, our objective at this point, Mara, is of course to prevent them from moving forward.
That didn't answer the question.
So the reporter's like, yeah, last time you tried this, Putin took Crimea.
He's like, right, but he hasn't taken Ukraine yet.
And the reporter's like, that's what I'm asking you, actually.
No answer from the administration.
According to the Washington Post, Biden plans to make clear to Putin what costs the United States and its allies will impose on Russia if an invasion occurs, but also will offer a diplomatic pathway that could address Russian concerns about NATO activities, as well as U.S.
and European concerns about Russian activities.
The official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Still, the official suggested a written guarantee from Washington that NATO will not expand to include Ukraine was a non-starter, noting the United States believes every sovereign nation should have the right to make its own decisions about its security.
Well, Putin has to know that, right?
Putin has to know that the West is not going to give him a written guarantee that NATO will never include Ukraine, which means that he's basically just looking for an excuse to invade Ukraine.
Now, this seems like it's not a big deal up until the point where Putin crosses that border with 100,000 troops.
At that point, this becomes a very serious situation indeed.
Because what exactly is the West prepared to do?
We obviously are not prepared to put a trigger force in there that would prompt a wider fight back against the Russians.
We've given the Ukrainian military under President Trump, we've given them some javelin missiles, but they have not been rearmed under Biden to any serious extent.
Sanctions ain't gonna do it.
So if you're Vladimir Putin, probably what you do is you just grab another piece of Ukraine.
Not the whole thing.
Walk into Kiev or something.
And then you dare the West to do anything about it.
And given what we did over Georgia, given what we did over Crimea, the answer is probably the West does nothing over it.
And Vladimir Putin just goes home, notches another win.
And the West once again just starts taking Russian oil.
There's a famous quote attributed to Stalin.
That you basically push where there's mush, meaning that wherever the other side is willing to give, that's where you push.
Vladimir Putin has yet to discover the hard core of the West.
And it is questionable as to whether there is a hard core in the West anymore.
When we said that there was a mistake for the Biden administration to randomly pull out of Afghanistan because it conveyed weakness, there are consequences to that weakness.
And that is the exacerbated chances of a great power conflict, for sure.
Meanwhile, CNN's Jeff Zeleny, he points out, and he is correct, there is no appetite for U.S.
military intervention in Ukraine.
Here's the thing.
The less appetite you show for military intervention, the more your enemies are going to dare you to intervene.
This is the way that it works.
The way deterrence works is the more, right, strength, peace through strength, the Reagan-esque slogan, was designed to mean, we will show you that we are willing to go to war so we don't have to.
It seems that the new American style is.
We will show you that we are never willing to go to war.
And then war is somehow randomly thrust upon us.
Here's CNN's Jeff Zeleny pointing out the obvious here.
There is no appetite here for military intervention.
On a briefing earlier with a senior administration official, there was several moments of silence when that question was asked about a military solution to all of this.
Does the U.S.
have the stomach for that?
So, of course, they're not ruling anything out, but they simply do not want to add another thing, which would be a significantly dangerous thing to the plate of this Biden administration, which is already quite full, quite frankly.
America's enemies are on the move.
They're on the move because they sense weakness from this administration, and they are right to sense weakness from this administration.
This is a weak administration, a deeply weak administration.
All righty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
In the meantime, go check out The Michael Knowles Show.
That's available right now.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Elliot Feld.
Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.
Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Blover.
Production Manager Pavel Lydowsky.
Associate Producer Bradford Carrington.
Host Producer Justin Barber.
The show is edited by Adam Sajovic.
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.
The White House pushes a meaningless diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Olympics.
Lame duck Bill de Blasio pushes a private sector vaccine mandate in New York.
And Switzerland legalizes 3D-printed suicide pods.
▲
Export Selection