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March 18, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:03:54

Hunter’s Laptop Was Real, And Everybody Lied About It | Ep. 1456

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Time	Text
	The New York Times admits in paragraph 24 of a story about Hunter Biden that his laptop was not Russian disinformation.
	Tensions continue to ratchet up in Ukraine as the Biden administration tries to pressure China.
	And the Biden administration prepares for a mass migration event on America's southern border.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	Get ExpressVPN right now at expressvpn.com slash ben.
	Alrighty, so, you'll recall that just before the 2020 election, October 2020, the New York Post broke a story.
	It was about how Hunter Biden, who is a formerly drug-addicted derelict, now he may not be a drug addict, he's still a derelict, Hunter Biden, now an artist, derelict.
	But at that time, a drug-addicted derelict, he left his laptop at a Delaware repair shop and just left it there.
	Because this is what drug-addicted derelicts do.
	And it turns out that that laptop was filled with all sorts of good stuff about Hunter Biden, including pictures of him with prostitutes and smoking crack, and there were text messages between him and his dad and him and his business partners about his dad and all of this stuff.
	And the New York Post reported this.
	And you will also recall that social media immediately cracked down on it.
	Facebook said, sure, this has not been subjected to a fact check yet, but we're going to shadow ban it.
	We're going to reduce its distribution because it looks suspicious to us.
	Now, what looks suspicious about the story is that it was about Hunter Biden and it was bad.
	That's what looks suspicious.
	Because the notion that it was completely unthinkable that a doof like Hunter Biden would have just left a laptop at a Delaware repair shop That's not particularly unthinkable.
	But the entire media instead swiveled into action to declare that this was, in fact, Russian disinformation, because everything I don't like is Russian disinformation.
	Every single thing.
	When my scale tells me that I am four pounds more than I was just a couple of weeks ago, that is Russian disinformation.
	I don't know how they hacked my scale.
	I just know what I know.
	And that's precisely what happened with the Hunter Biden story.
	And so it was disappeared off Facebook.
	And if you posted it on Twitter, you were disappeared off Twitter.
	The New York Post Account on Twitter was actually banned.
	It was closed down for like a month.
	It was suspended based on an overtly true story where there was no one even rebutting it.
	The Biden administration, the Biden campaign, Hunter, none of them actually even denied that the story was true.
	They just kind of pretended that it was Russian disinformation.
	And the entire media swiveled into place because it was very, very important that Joe Biden win the election.
	And you wouldn't want one month out people to be talking about how Hunter Biden was stripping prostitutes and picking up giant bags of cash based on the fact that his last name was Biden.
	And you certainly wouldn't want anybody talking about the fact that Hunter Biden was chatting with his friends over in China about who the big guy was and the big guy was going to have reserve capital and reserve percentage points in businesses.
	You wouldn't want anybody talking about that.
	So you just made the story go away.
	And so you saw establishment media personalities, one after another, come out and say that the story was just fake.
	It was made up by the Russians.
	MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin, who is a wild leftist, he tweeted that Trump campaign claims Facebook is censoring journalism because Facebook plans to limit the spread of the New York Post report.
	That is not censorship.
	Facebook is under no obligation to allow a disputed report that appears to contain disinformation to spread on their platform.
	Now remember, This entire media apparatus has spent four years promoting the lie that Donald Trump was in fact a tool of the Russians and that the Steele dossier, which it turns out was just a bevy of garbage, was actually maybe true.
	We don't know.
	It's disputed.
	We don't know.
	But it's newsworthy.
	So we have to report it.
	The managing editor of TruthOrFiction.com, some of our trusted fact checkers, tweeting out, the great thing about this is that it's very easy to see who's committed to pushing known Kremlin disinformation.
	You had Ben Rhodes, former Obama official, tweeting out, the right to spread false Russian disinformation about American political leaders on social media platforms is not the hill I would choose to die on.
	You had Brian Stelter putting out entire stories about how this was all Russian disinformation targeting Biden.
	You had CNN's Wolf Blitzer tweeting out, we do know it's a very active Russian campaign, and that's according to the US intelligence community.
	Ooh.
	Jim Sciutto of CNN, he said, this is most likely Russian propaganda.
	You'll recall that there was an entire letter in Politico from 50 former intelligence officials, which, by the way, tells you why we don't trust our intelligence apparatus anymore.
	Because it turns out that all of the people in our intelligence apparatus, or at least a huge chunk of them, are just mental, mental idiots.
	I mean, it's amazing.
	According to Politico, more than 50 former senior officials, intelligence officials, signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's sons has, quote, all the classic hallmarks of a Russian disinformation operation.
	The letter, signed on Monday, centers around a batch of documents released by the New York Post last week that purport to tie the Democratic nominee to his son Hunter's business dealings.
	The letter's signatories presented no new evidence, but they said their national security experience had made them, quote, deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.
	And on the basis of these brilliant intelligence officials who had their thumb on the pulse of the intelligence flow, they knew this was Russian disinformation, despite the fact that they had no evidence it was Russian disinformation.
	And no less than Joe Biden came out and said over and over and over that this was all nonsense.
	It just was not true.
	So, for example, Joe Biden said there was no controversy involving Hunter.
	Anyone who said there was controversy involving Hunter was just crazy.
	Here was Slow Joe.
	Oh, so it was all lies.
	It was flat-out lies.
	And he didn't just say it once, he said it many, many times.
	Here he was, just a little bit later, saying there was no evidence that anything was wrong that Hunter had done.
	Ever.
	Like, ever.
	In his entire head.
	Nothing.
	Hunter Biden was clean as the driven snow that he was snorting.
	Here is Joe Biden saying this on Axios.
	So you think that everything that happened was kosher?
	You know there's not one single bit of evidence, not one little tiny bit, to suggest anything done was wrong.
	You know that.
	But you keep asking me these questions.
	It's okay.
	You know, you're doing what you have to do.
	But I'm not worried about it.
	Look, the American public knows me.
	Yes, we do.
	Yerp.
	And suddenly you have lots and lots of houses all over the place after spending a lifetime in the Senate earning 200 grand a year.
	So yeah, I mean, people have some questions.
	And then he said, well, you know, no one in this family will be taking overseas deals, said Joe Biden before the election.
	Hmm.
	Interesting.
	Weird.
	What guardrails would you have to be sure that your son, your brother Jimmy, doesn't do anything to trade on the family name?
	They will not be engaged in any foreign business because of what's happened in this administration.
	No one's going to be seeking patents for things from China.
	No one's going to be engaged in that kind of thing.
	So no foreign business for your relatives?
	Correct.
	And he's not doing that because Hunter has some sort of corrupt history of, you know, going around and just picking up grift from a bunch of foreign countries like China and Ukraine.
	No, no, no.
	He's doing it as a reaction to Trump's corruption.
	That's the key right here.
	Joe Biden said during the campaign there was no conflict of interest with Hunter's Ukraine relations.
	None.
	Sure, Joe Biden was overseeing relations with Ukraine at the time when Hunter was picking up those giant bags of cash in Ukraine.
	But there was no conflict of interest, said Joe Biden.
	Again, all Russian disinformation.
	All of it.
	How is your role as Vice President in charge of policy in Ukraine, in your son's job in Ukraine, how is that not a conflict of interest?
	It's not a conflict of interest.
	There's been no indication of any conflict of interest from Ukraine or anywhere else.
	Period.
	I'm not going to respond to that.
	Not even going to respond to that.
	Not even going to respond.
	Well, as Charles Cook over at National Review points out, Joe Biden is Hunter Biden's father.
	He must have known full well this story wasn't a bunch of garbage.
	He must have known full well it wasn't Russian plans.
	He must have known full well Rudy Giuliani wasn't the only one who believed it.
	Hell, he knew full well Hunter Biden himself hadn't denied the accounts, and instead had said that the laptop absolutely could have been his.
	But Biden said otherwise, because he assumed that the press in Silicon Valley would back him up in the lie, which, of course, they did.
	And Joe Biden literally said this, quote, That was Joe Biden lying because he knew all of it was true.
	folks who said that what he's accusing me of is a Russian plant. Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage.
	No one believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani. That was Joe Biden lying because he knew all of it was true.
	Now you recall that Jen Psaki was working on the Biden campaign during this time.
	She came out at the time and called it Russian disinformation.
	She shared that political article on Twitter, the one that had all these former intelligence officials who are so in the know, and we should definitely trust them, saying, quote, Hunter Biden's story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.
	That's what she tweeted out.
	So, Jen Psaki was asked about this yesterday, given the fact that, again, the New York Times did report it.
	It was in paragraph 24.
	I'm not kidding.
	Paragraph 24 of this long, long story about Hunter Biden's problems with IRS scrutiny.
	Finally, it is admitted that this was not, in fact, Russian disinformation, that it was, in fact, real, that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden, and that he did, in fact, leave it at this Delaware repair shop.
	Quote, people familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity.
	Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop.
	The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.
	Yeah, so there it is, just buried in paragraph 24.
	Now normally what you would assume is that the top headline here would be, New York Times confirms laptop was not Russian disinformation.
	Instead, the headline from the New York Times was, Hunter Biden paid tax bill, but broad federal investigation continues.
	It's all unjustified.
	He's a good guy.
	He paid back the back taxes that he owed.
	Years later, after selling his art for $500,000.
	Mm-hmm.
	New York Times covering its butt all the time.
	Jen Psaki was asked about the fact that she had said it was Russian disinformation, and she started spinning so fast that she actually dug a hole directly through the center of the Earth, discovering a renewable source of energy in the heat in the Earth's core.
	You asked about Hunter Biden's laptop.
	You also, in October 2020, dismissed it as Russian disinformation.
	Do you stand by that assessment?
	Again, I point you to the Department of Justice and Hunter Biden's representatives.
	I'm a spokesperson for the United States.
	He doesn't work for the United States.
	That was not the question.
	You may have noticed.
	I'm just going to go to this.
	Isn't it fun that we are supposed to believe that all of the mechanisms of electoral integrity are on the up and up when it comes to the information that we are passed?
	It's always seemed to me that the argument that the 2020 election was rigged by voting fraud, for example, is overrated.
	That the evidence that this election was shifted by somebody stuffing the ballot box was not true.
	However, if you're going to say the election was rigged, it was rigged by a media that deliberately Obfuscated and openly lied in order to suppress information about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, for example, that deliberately refused to ask Joe Biden any tough questions and allowed him to hide in the basement for months at a time.
	And then are we really surprised that this administration is a bleep show?
	It was never held to account.
	And here's the thing.
	People in the media tend to think that when they go soft on their own candidates, this is good for their candidates.
	In reality, all that ends up happening is that reality clocks the administration directly in the face.
	So instead of asking Joe Biden any tough questions about his foreign policy or his ideas or his background or his relationships or anything, they hated Trump so much that they just decided to basically lie about everything and cover everything up.
	And the case of social media basically banned true stories in order to get Joe Biden elected.
	Then he got elected and it turns out he's an unbelievably crappy president.
	So when you seek help from somebody like Jen Psaki, you're not always gonna get the best service or the best answers.
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	You'll wait in line to finally get to the front of the line And the dude behind the counter is gonna be like, Gonna have to order that part.
	Because here's the thing, there are a lot of kinds of cars.
	And they're not gonna have the kind of part that you are looking for.
	This is why you should just go straight to the internet.
	Because they're just gonna upcharge you at the auto parts store.
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	Best of all, prices at rockauto.com are always reliably low and the same for professionals and do-it-yourselfers.
	Why spend up to twice as much for the same parts?
	So here's the latest from Ukraine.
	low prices all the parts your car will ever need. Rockauto.com.
	Head on over to rockauto.com right now. See all the parts available for that car or truck and write Shapiro in there. How did you hear about us box? So they know that we sent you. So here's the latest from Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal, rescuers dug through the debris of a bombed theater in Mariupol, where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians had sought shelter as Russian forces continued to shell the southern port city and other urban areas across the country. The entrance to a bomb shelter under the theater in Mariupol was blocked when the building partially collapsed from a Russian airstrike late on Wednesday night said Pavlo Kerlenko, the head of military administration in the eastern
	region of Donetsk.
	Former Governor Sergei Taruta said on Thursday the shelter had remained intact and there were, in fact, survivors.
	Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in an overnight speech accused Russia of deliberately attacking the theater, adding that the death toll is still unknown.
	Russia's defense ministry denied its forces conducted an airstrike on the theater at all.
	Zelensky spoke to Germany's parliament on Thursday.
	That is his latest in a string of appeals to Western governments for more support.
	Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin feeling increasingly boxed in.
	So Putin gave a speech yesterday in which he railed against the so-called traitors inside of his government.
	Basically, he's just angry that his military infrastructure has completely collapsed around him.
	This invasion was supposed to be a cakewalk.
	Instead, you probably have, at minimum, 7,000 dead Russian troops over the course of three weeks, which makes this particular battle more deadly than the Battle of Iwo Jima was for the United States during World War II, when we did not have complete military superiority over our enemy.
	Here's Vladimir Putin trying to claim that it's all traitors, traitors inside the administration.
	Because if but any people, and even more so the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that actually accidentally flew into the mouth.
	Spit them out.
	I'm convinced that such a natural and necessary cleansing of society will only strengthen our country.
	I mean, this is like echoes of Stalin right here.
	I gotta purge everybody who has led us to this grave impasse.
	Meanwhile, according to the UK Daily Mail, Vladimir Putin will edge closer to deploying a nuclear attack if Ukraine continues its valiant pushback against the invasion of Russian troops, a top U.S.
	defense official warned.
	Lieutenant General Scott Barrier, director of the U.S.
	Defense Intelligence Agency, detailed the grim concerns in a new 67-page summary of global threats on Thursday.
	It raises the specter of a possible nuclear attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital which has so far resisted Russian advances, and said a desperate Putin posed a threat to the entire world.
	His report notes that Russia claims to be developing missiles that are capable of circumventing Western defenses in order to ensure that Russia can credibly inflict unacceptable damage on the West.
	Russia recently deployed non-nuclear missiles that come equipped with decoy projectiles, a feature that hadn't previously been seen by Western defense bosses, giving a possible glimpse of the type of feature that could be fitted to the most devastating bombs in Now, as I mentioned yesterday, the reality here is that if Putin decided to deploy a nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon, inside Ukraine, the chance that the West responds with anything remotely like boots on the ground or weapons of mass destruction in response is nil.
	And Putin has to know this.
	He still has this particular card to play.
	And what exactly is the downside for him once he's been completely removed from the world economy?
	I mean, right now his economy is effectively dead.
	He's made a backdoor deal with the Chinese, which we'll get to in just one moment, to continue selling oil to the Chinese.
	He's still selling oil to the Indian government.
	Meanwhile, as the Biden administration continues to alienate independent countries by demonstrating weakness vis-a-vis our enemies, these independent countries are drawn closer to China and by proxy also with Russia.
	Because it turns out that a West that does not understand that hard power, meaning military power, is the essence of foreign policy.
	Everything else can be built up on top of a basis of hard power and willingness to use hard power.
	But if you're unwilling to use your hard power, the guy who is willing to use the hard power tends to make the territorial gains and scare the living daylights out of everybody else.
	People in general are much more scared of bombs falling on them than they are of even economic downturns, even being cut off from the world economic system the way that Russia is.
	And if the West is unwilling to leverage that kind of military threat, and Putin is, guess who's going to be making inroads with independent countries?
	Okay, all of that said, Putin still has that particular card to play.
	And the West does not seem to have an off-road here.
	In fact, it seems as though there is this bizarre feeling that has set in among members of both parties that what's going to happen here is that Putin will be deposed inside of Russia.
	Now, I don't know what evidence they have that this is going to be the case.
	Dictators generally have a long history of being able to suppress revolts in their own country.
	And Putin's been arresting thousands of people, like, en masse.
	Nonetheless, the Washington Post has an entire editorial dedicated to the proposition that Russia's population is going to rise up against Vladimir Putin.
	They say thousands of Russian scientists, journalists, and scholars have also signed protest letters.
	One open letter from scientists and science journalists has nearly 8,000 signatures.
	Woohoo!
	8,000 signatures.
	War with Ukraine is a step to nowhere, they declared.
	Russia has doomed itself to international isolation and has developed into a pariah country.
	Now listen, I'm not mocking or making light of the people who are attempting to publicly resist Putin.
	That is a risky proposition and the people who are doing that are brave.
	But the basic idea that they are about to overthrow Putin, or that if we put enough pressure on Putin at this point, after deterrence has failed, that suddenly his regime is going to be overthrown?
	What is the evidence that that is the case?
	The Washington Post is sort of hoping here.
	Opposition leader Alexei Navalny unjustly imprisoned last year, was put on trial again Tuesday at Correctional Colony No.
	2 in the town of Pokrov in Russia's Vladimir region.
	In oral arguments and closing statements, he delivered defiant statements.
	The results of the war, he said, will be a breakdown, the collapse of our country.
	He said, Mr. Putin and his cronies are just a group of sick, crazy old men.
	They don't have sympathy for anyone or anything.
	Our country is the very last thing they care about.
	Their only motherland is their Swiss bank accounts.
	Whatever they say about patriotism is a myth.
	Listen, all of these are heroic words and Navalny is being imprisoned for those heroic words.
	But the point is this.
	When it comes to the West and what we do about Putin, we should not bet on the idea that Putin is about to fall.
	Because the thing that he will do to prevent himself from falling is fire a nuke at Kiev.
	And we are not going to respond with global thermonuclear war.
	That is not what is going to happen here.
	In fact, Putin's probably best defense, just on a tactical level here, is to unleash something like a nuclear weapon and scare the living daylights out of everybody, as opposed to a chemical or biological weapon.
	Because we've already seen Assad unleash, for example, a chemical weapon and get away with it.
	So if Putin were to up the ante here, he would end up taking Ukraine.
	I mean, there's pretty much no question that if he fired a nuclear weapon into the middle of Kiev, he takes out Zelensky and the entire administration.
	And the Russians end up just waltzing through a lot of the rest of the country.
	Even if there's heavy resistance at that point, is the West going to step in, put boots on the ground, establish a no-fly zone?
	Like, what are they going to do with a dictator who then has demonstrated the willingness to not only create, but use nuclear weapons?
	This is why I said yesterday, I think we are in an extraordinarily perilous moment with regard to Vladimir Putin.
	And that's why all the sort of happy talk that you are seeing from Nancy Pelosi and company is, I think, really ill-advised.
	Yesterday, for example, Nancy Pelosi got up and she read a Bono poem about Vladimir Zelensky.
	It's great.
	And the evil from, risen from friends, from the darkness that lives in some men, but in sorrow and fear, that's when saints can appear, to drive out those old snakes once again.
	And they struggle for us to be free from the psycho in this human family.
	Ireland's sorrow and pain is now the Ukraine, and St.
	Patrick's name is now Zielinski.
	Yeah, she's so happy with herself.
	I had a cat named Snowball.
	She died.
	She died.
	Mom said she was sleeping.
	She lied.
	She lied.
	Listen, you can have as much sympathy as you want for Zelensky, and I do.
	I mean, I think that we should have backed Ukraine much earlier than we did here.
	That is the problem.
	With that said, the prospect of Vladimir Putin unleashing hell here, it's pretty high.
	It's pretty high.
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	So, what needs to happen here is some sort of off-ramp, obviously.
	Not Crazy Hopes, actual off-ramp.
	Speaking of which, the Chinese know this, and so the Chinese have been pushing where there is mush, because this is what they do.
	Xi and the Chinese have been triangulating.
	On the one hand, they're buying up Russian assets at pennies on the dollar.
	They recognize that Russia's at low up economically, so now they can turn Russia into their gas station.
	Russia has a lot of rare earth minerals that China wants control of.
	And so basically, Russia, instead of being a great power that has its own proxy states, China wants to use Russia as its own proxy state at this point, and then Russia by proxy will have Iran as its proxy state, and China will be at the top of the heap.
	That is sort of the plan.
	That is why China is in pretty good position right here.
	And by the way, China is getting more repressive, not less repressive.
	It's important to mention this.
	Everybody seems to be working under the assumption that China is still somehow moderate here, and I don't know where they're getting any of this.
	They're literally probing officials who have respect for religion.
	Pieced by Josh Chin in the Wall Street Journal today, China's Communist Party has now authorized a corruption inquiry into a senior official who was previously an influential advocate of Muslim culture, according to people familiar with the matter, and a signal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's resolve to push ahead with the country's aggressive ethnic assimilation efforts.
	Wang Zhengwei, a member of China's Muslim Hui minority and currently vice chairman of China's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, is under investigation by the party's internal disciplinary watchdogs for abuse of power and corruption.
	The investigation was prompted by concerns Wang had promoted, quote, unrestrained Muslim culture and encouraged religious extremism.
	Now, who thinks that that is actually what happened here?
	Is it much more likely that this particular figure dissented from the regime in some sort of way and now Xi is cracking down?
	See, I think people are misreading Xi.
	Xi has very much the same sensibility about his legacy that Putin does about his, which is, I don't care so much about economic development.
	I care about the broadening of China's base.
	I care about the broadening of China's territorial holdings.
	I care about Chinese greatness and return to Chinese greatness and that is not defined as world economic power because the risk of world economic power is that it moderates us or that we have dissenters or we have a rich oligarchy here who might eventually ask for some sort of real rights to match the quasi property rights we have granted.
	And so instead, he's like, no, we're shutting all of that off.
	The sort of great opening that was pursued by his predecessors in China is now over.
	And now Xi has to get more territorially ambitious and he needs to make alliances with other states that are in his sphere of influence.
	And so Joe Biden is now reaching out to Xi Jinping.
	They plan to confer, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the U.S.
	works to deter China from deeper involvement with Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
	The call, scheduled for Friday, comes as Beijing is trying to prevent itself as eager to help prevent the Ukraine crisis from worsening further without abandoning its alignment with Moscow.
	Biden is preparing to deliver a message to Xi that there would be consequences should Beijing's support move beyond words to actions, according to administration officials.
	What exactly is the Biden administration willing to do?
	They're already facing an inflationary cycle with severe supply chain shortages.
	Are they really willing to go to some sort of economic warfare with China?
	Maybe they should be.
	But it seems unlikely to me that they are willing to do anything that's going to seriously damage China right now.
	Especially not while they're, I mean, they're literally appeasing the Russians right now in their deal with the Iranians.
	So it's hard to imagine that they're going to take severe consequences against China in the middle of this.
	We've said before that the United States, the military is not prepared to fight a two front war.
	How about a global economic world war?
	Is the United States prepared to undergo the sacrifices necessary to do that?
	Perhaps we should be.
	Perhaps we should be.
	But I don't think that Joe Biden has done anything like prep the groundwork for that.
	And Joe Biden is the same guy who five minutes ago was saying that China is not an enemy, they're just a competitor.
	Well, Antony Blinken is using some rather charged language now.
	Now he says that China needs to use its influence to end the war.
	Yeah, good luck.
	Good luck there.
	Yeah, I'm sure that China is going to intervene in the middle of a war that China sees is only beneficial to it.
	Right.
	The longer the United States funds the insurgency in Ukraine, the longer that that war goes on, the more dangerous Putin appears to be.
	The less people are paying attention to the other hand over here in the Asian Pacific region.
	And by the way, cheaper.
	China is able to buy out the Russians like there really is no downside here.
	If Russia were to lose, Then China would be really badly off if Putin fell.
	But if Putin stays in power, there's basically no bad solution for them.
	Russia impoverished means Russia selling its goods to China at bargain basement rates.
	Russia winning in Ukraine means that China is emboldened to take Taiwan.
	So what is it?
	It's kind of a win-win here for Xi.
	Here is Tony Blinken trying to shame Xi into doing things.
	I'm sorry, this whole shame tactic where we just... We're gonna tut-tut.
	The Chinese will tut-tut you.
	That is not going to work.
	Here is Tony Blinken trying it.
	We continue to call on all nations, especially those with direct influence with Russia, to use whatever leverage they have to compel Moscow to end this war of choice.
	We believe China in particular has a responsibility to use its influence with President Putin and to defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support.
	Okay, really?
	Really?
	Tony, really?
	Seriously?
	China's going to support the rules and principles it professes to support?
	The Chinese.
	Again, this is sort of a bizarre notion that every... We're all aligned, guys.
	We all have the same intentions.
	China, Iran, Russia.
	We all just want a better world where we all agree about everything from economics to gay rights.
	And we're all aiming at just a better living standard for... Like, what are you talking about, dude?
	Seriously, what are you talking about?
	Then Blinken threatened, right?
	Blinken said, there are going to be consequences to China if they send weapons to Russia.
	Really?
	You might want to be specific about that.
	But again, one of the problems here is lack of clarity leads to miscalculation.
	That's what it does.
	If you know that A will inevitably be followed by B and B is a very clear and serious consequence, maybe you won't do A. It works this way with even your own children.
	If you say to your kids, if you do that, something bad is going to happen.
	Something bad.
	Your kid's like... If you say, if you do that, you go to your room for 30 minutes.
	Then the kid actually has to calculate and think, okay, do I really want to go to my room for 30 minutes?
	Instead, the United States is taking the former straight.
	Well, gee, if you do this, you know, we're going to be super mad.
	And if we're super mad, bad things are going to happen.
	Bad things.
	And meanwhile, she is looking at the fact that Tony Blinken is simultaneously negotiating with the Russians to relieve economic sanctions on the building of nuclear power plants in Iran because they're so desperate to make a crappy nuclear deal with Iran that they're even willing to allow the Russians to backdoor, use their economy.
	And he's like, yeah, what are you going to do?
	Seriously, what are you going to do?
	Here's Tony Blinken threatening without much threat.
	President Biden will be speaking to President Xi tomorrow and will make clear that China will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia's aggression.
	And we will not hesitate to impose costs.
	And what are those costs?
	They just would not make that clear in any way, shape or form.
	Again, if you don't make the cost clear, China is likely to be like, well, you know, we could just hang out here and just, you know, low level fund the Russians the same way that you guys are high level funding Ukraine.
	White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, this is an opportunity for President Biden to assess where President Xi stands.
	The fact that China has not denounced what Russia is doing in and of itself speaks volumes.
	Meanwhile, the Chinese leader likely will call on Biden to honor a commitment Chinese officials say he made during the leader's last phone conversation in November to not seek to change China's system.
	As Washington continues to build up alliances to pressure China, that assurance is seen by Beijing as crucial to preventing an outright conflict between the two superpowers.
	We are at a delicate moment in China-U.S.
	relations, said Evan Medeiros, a former national security official in the Obama administration.
	He said the Biden administration is likely laying out alternative pathways for relations, including some dark ones, if Beijing intensifies its support for Moscow or a more moderate course in which the two powers manage tensions.
	After having been caught off guard during the early days of the Russian aggression, foreign policy experts close to the Chinese government say that Beijing has now settled on a clearer strategy.
	It won't oppose Russia.
	It will support Ukraine.
	What's being described is China as benevolent neutrality.
	Which really means just triangulation.
	The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about what China is doing here.
	Beijing, for many years, played down whatever ambitions China harbors to become a great power.
	The past three weeks have shown why.
	President Xi Jinping, in one of his boldest strategic moves, cast his lot with Russian President Vladimir Putin before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
	Xi now finds himself embroiled in a global uproar that will be neither easy nor cheap for China.
	It deserves the global scorn it is receiving.
	Xi must view the West's closure to Russia as a boon for China, which stands ready to buy as much energy and other resources as Putin is willing to sell.
	It's a bonus that China might be able to pay for them with Chinese yuan, which Beijing has long wanted to make a global trade currency.
	Above all, this conflict gives Beijing a new opportunity to put itself forward as the leader of a global faction hostile to democracy, economic freedom, and U.S.
	leadership.
	China's economic heft now means that it gives it the means to try this gambit.
	Xi's desire to block any breeze of freedom within his own country is motive enough.
	Beijing may calculate it can win in Ukraine no matter what happens.
	If Putin conquers the country, Xi will have picked the winning horse.
	If the invasion fails, the West and American-Asian allies may still be demoralized by a partition of Ukraine, and Russia will be a reliable supporter of natural resources to China for as long as the Western sanctions persist.
	Now, the Wall Street Journal is a little less sanguine than I think the Chinese government is.
	They say, the nature of great power politics is that none of this will be cost free for Beijing.
	By picking a side, China, by definition, antagonizes those on the other side, including its own neighbors and economic partners.
	Japan is already renewing a debate about nuclear sharing with the United States.
	South Korea has elected a more pro-American president.
	Several traditionally neutral Asian countries joined Western sanctions on Russia in a signal to Beijing.
	China's new friends could also prove to be a headache because Russia is, in fact, a headache.
	However, if Russia is able to carve off a sphere, if China is able to create a sphere of influence here that includes things like India, Saudi Arabia, if you see a reshuffling of the world deck here, that's a big win for China.
	And again, this was all created by Western weakness in the first place.
	When deterrence fails, bad things happen.
	India right now continues to turn to Russia, according to the Washington Post today.
	When Russia faced internal condemnation and sanctions after Vladimir Putin launched his February 24th invasion of Ukraine, India stayed on the diplomatic sidelines.
	Now, as the economic sanctions begin to bite, Moscow is again turning to India.
	India is the world's biggest oil importer behind China and the United States, and they have agreed to purchase 3 million barrels of Russian oil at a heavy discount, an Indian official said on Thursday.
	That purchase is relatively small given Russia's production and Indian demand, but the volume could increase over the coming months.
	and reinforce a growing perception India is determined to preserve its extensive trade and military ties with Moscow.
	Now imagine that India starts using Chinese Yuan as the currency to trade with Russians for their oil and Saudi Arabia starts using Chinese Yuan and allowing all of these countries to buy gas in Chinese Yuan.
	Suddenly, America's status as the world currency starts to fade because a lot of these major countries hold tremendous amounts of American dollars.
	They do that because they believe that those are solid and fungible Well, as the United States has blown out its national debt, and as we rely on raising more national debt by selling more bonds over the course of time, what exactly are we going to do when all of these markets that have been buying that stuff up for solidity purposes disappear because they hate the United States?
	The United Arab Emirates, by the way, is now reaching out to Russia.
	And the reason, again, that the UAE and Saudi are doing this is not because the UAE and Saudi are naturally warm toward Russia right now.
	I mean, Russia is backing Iran.
	It's because the United States is backing Iran.
	If Joe Biden had not been attempting to cut a nuclear deal with Iran right now, you think the UAE and Saudi would be drawing close to the Chinese and the Russians?
	According to Breitbart, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said during a visit to Moscow on Thursday that his government looks forward to working with Russia on improving global energy security.
	Sheikh Abdullah said it is important to maintain the stability of energy and food markets.
	We welcome all mediation efforts in the Ukraine crisis.
	The UAE is ready to engage with the parties to strengthen opposition for a peaceful resolution.
	Basically, again, these are all independent countries that once were considered quite friendly to America.
	Whether you're talking about India, I mean, when I say recently, I mean like in the last two years.
	Whether you're talking about Saudi, whether you're talking about UAE, whether you're talking about India, or even whether you're talking about Israel, which has had to triangulate here by attempting to stave off Russia on its northern border.
	Remember, Russia runs Syria.
	Russia has given a green light to Israel to strike particular Iranian military sites inside Syria without having to strike Russians.
	What if that goes away?
	Israel has to worry about that.
	The reason Israel has to worry about that in the first place is because Obama turned over Syria to the Russians.
	Western weakness breeds chaos, and that is what we are seeing right now.
	Now, what's fun is that, of course, the New York Times is blaming this all on Republicans, which is weird because Republicans have no power in Washington right now.
	They have an entire piece titled, Republicans once silent on Russia, ratchet up attacks on Biden.
	Yeah, the story is not how Biden has botched this thing six ways from Sunday.
	And even now, his sort of hesitancy and unwillingness to draw clear lines is leading to more miscalculation, not just from Russia, but also from China.
	No, now the problem is that Republicans are sounding off about it.
	The answer, always and forever, for the New York Times, from fools like Jonathan Weisman, the answer, always and forever, is that if Democrats do something bad, the story is that Republicans notice it, not that Democrats are doing anything bad.
	Speaking of which, we have another crisis on America's southern border.
	I know we're supposed to pretend that that crisis ended because Kamala Harris was put in charge, but it turns out that crisis on our southern border is getting worse and worse and worse day by day because this administration is just a disaster area.
	We'll get to that in just a moment.
	Well, Republicans have a lot to pounce on right now, including those extraordinary gas prices.
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	Alrighty, so if you missed my latest book in the Third Thursday Book Club last night, I took members through my analysis of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
	You can watch that analysis right now at dailywire.com slash watch.
	Remember, Third Thursday Book Club is a live experience.
	You get to engage with me like never before.
	People are phoning in, they're sending me videos.
	Here's the thing, even if you haven't read the book we discussed, you will feel well-read by the time we are done.
	I'm going to be your guide.
	I'm going to show you why each one of these books is an important work.
	When you sign up, you also get my notes, which is a cheat sheet to the important lessons, themes, and characters.
	Remember, you're doing all of this with thousands of other Daily Wire members live.
	It's not like any book club you've ever been a part of.
	Plus, the sets are just unbelievable.
	Next month, I'm taking you through The Once and Future King by T.H.
	White, considered sort of the grandpappy of all great fantasy novels.
	So, if you don't have a copy or if you've never read it, Now is the time to pick one up.
	It is a great read.
	One of my favorite books, The Once and Future King by T.H.
	White.
	Sign up for the Third Thursday Book Club at thirdthursdaybookclub.com to get my notes sent straight to your inbox next week for The Once and Future King by T.H.
	White.
	Also, as you know, the situation in Ukraine is dire.
	That is why we are releasing a special episode of Morning Wire this Sunday, featuring our correspondent Cassie Dillon.
	She recently returned from the conflict.
	She is joining John and Georgia to discuss the humanitarian effort on the ground and the people she met who are risking their lives to make a difference.
	Make sure you tune in to Morning Wire this Sunday.
	Not only is an incredibly important episode, It's the only daily podcast that values your time and the truth.
	And while we are working overtime to bring you the news you need to know, we need your help to keep the facts trending toward number one.
	So please 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, we just don't stop churning content.
	We have brand new content for you, including our latest docuseries, Fauci Unmasked.
	The show exposes the most successful failure in government history, Dr. Anthony Fauci, hosted by our very own Michael Knowles.
	He peels back the mask on Fauci's past and shows the world's leading scientist for what he really is, a fraud.
	The third and final episode dropped this morning.
	In it, Michael exposes the final layer of Fauci's unnatural rise to the authoritarian top.
	This is good and important stuff.
	Check out the sneak peek.
	He's the highest paid employee in our federal government.
	And beginning in the spring of 2020, Dr. Fauci began to set national policy that affected the way the 330 million Americans lived their lives.
	For goodness sakes, I'm telling you wear a mask, keep social distancing.
	There's nothing political about that.
	But who is Anthony Fauci?
	People who have conspiracy theories.
	Those are people that don't particularly care for me.
	In this short series, we will do what the establishment media have refused to do.
	We will give you an unvarnished look at the career of the most powerful politician in America, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
	Don't you think it's time that you step down and let someone else who has a more effective message?
	Actually, no.
	It's good stuff.
	It's important stuff.
	The last part of the three-part series is streaming right now.
	It is available exclusively at The Daily Wire.
	If you're not a member yet, head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe to join today.
	The show is excellent since we're only adding more content every day.
	You don't want to miss it.
	that you're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	So if you're worried about problems overseas, we should also be worried about problems on our southern border.
	According to Axios, U.S.
	intelligence officials are privately bracing for a massive influx of more than 170,000 migrants at the Mexico border if COVID-era policies that allow instant expulsions during the public health emergency are ended, sources with direct knowledge of the discussions tell Axios.
	The response underway includes a newly created And previously unreported, Southwest Border Coordination Center, SBCC, essentially a war room to coordinate an interagency response.
	Why does that matter?
	Well, border officials have used Title 42 more than 1 million times to rapidly expel migrants at the southern border without hearing asylum claims.
	But that Trump-era order was not set up to be permanent.
	Senior Biden officials are preparing for its end as the virus is brought under control.
	DHS intelligence estimates that perhaps 25,000 migrants are already waiting in Mexican shelters just south of the border for Title 42 to end.
	On Wednesday, DHS Deputy Secretary John Thien asked employees to consider stepping forward to support the DHS Volunteer Force, citing large numbers of migrants at the southwest border.
	Sources spoke to Axios on condition of anonymity.
	White House spokesperson Vedant Patel did not confirm or dispute specifics of Axios' reporting but said quote, of course the administration is doing our due diligence to prepare for potential changes at the border. This is good government in action.
	As always is the case this administration is working every day to provide relief to immigrants, restore order, fairness, and humanity to our immigration system and bring it into the 21st century.
	Well, actually, they're just going to start allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants across the border, and then they're going to release them into the interior pending an asylum claim.
	The remain in Mexico policy is opposed by this administration.
	Title 42 was their backdoor way of allowing themselves to deport people.
	They were like, well, you might be COVID positive.
	You need to stay over there.
	But we also hate Romania, Mexico.
	Romania, Mexico is racist.
	But COVID means you have to stay over there.
	Well, as COVID ends, they're like, well, now we sort of have to let you into the country.
	And, you know, we're kind of in favor of that.
	We kind of don't.
	This is all a choice.
	It is a choice by the Biden administration to allow this crisis at the southern border to continue.
	The number of illegal immigrants who have been Turned away at the border since Biden was elected is well over two million.
	And it is going to get worse.
	And those people are for every two million people who are turned away, there are a bunch of people who are entering the country.
	Apparently, the SBCC will physically operate out of the DHS headquarters at St.
	Elizabeth's in case of a border emergency.
	DHS's modeling would trigger some extreme measures, many of which have been taken during past border surges like in 2021 and 2019.
	The department could surge hundreds or thousands of additional personnel from Customs and Border Protection, ICE, the Transportation Security Administration, Citizen and Immigration Services, Border resources are already strained with an unusually high number of people attempting to cross every month for a year straight.
	Officials expect those numbers to climb even higher in coming months due to both seasonal trends and the expected end of Title 42.
	And the administration is leaning toward ending Title 42 itself.
	Apparently, officials are planning with how to coordinate with Mexico and other Latin American nations.
	DHS is discussing with Mexico Title 42 ending as soon as April and what that could mean for migration flows.
	After declining in January, the number of encounters with migrants at the border ticked up in February to 165,000.
	That's still below last year's peak of 214,000 encounters in July, but it's higher than last February's.
	Border Patrol arrests reached an all-time high in fiscal year 2021 at nearly 1.7 million.
	So yeah, this is going to become a much, much worse problem for the United States.
	So, we have simultaneous foreign policy crises, which also creates economic crises.
	We have a massive immigration influx at our southern border we have no ability to handle because this administration does not want to handle it.
	And of course, we are starting to see the interest rates rise, which has some pretty significant downstream consequences.
	And all of that would have been unnecessary if the Federal Reserve hadn't blown easy money into the system for two years on end for no apparent reason.
	It was understandable at the very beginning of the pandemic.
	It was not understandable a year and they kept doing it over and over and inflation was the result.
	Now the era of ultra low mortgage rates is over.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, the average rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage topped 4% for the first time since May 2019.
	At the beginning of the year, the average rate on America's most popular home loan was 3.22%.
	was 3.22%.
	It hit a record low of 2.65% in January 2021 and spent more than half the year under 3%.
	Home lending costs had been rising ahead of the Federal Reserve decisions Wednesday to raise rates for the first time since 2018.
	And while the Fed's quarter point move did not affect Freddie Mac's weekly average of 4.16%, it is likely to send rates even higher.
	If you look at the chart, it's scary.
	I mean, the average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage, basically since like late 2021 or the very beginning of 2022, it's just spiking straight up.
	The line looks like this and then boom, straight up.
	Mortgages are the first place Americans are feeling the effects of the Fed's decision to start raising rates to curb inflation.
	It will not be the last.
	You're going to see it on your credit card.
	You're going to see it in terms of your business loans.
	The monthly payment on a $375,000 home with an interest rate of 4% is $220 higher than the payment on a similarly priced home would have been in December 2020 when the rates were near record lows.
	So get ready, because all of these houses are already overpriced, so those prices are going to drop as people are unable to get the mortgages.
	The only people who are able to get the mortgages are going to be the people who Have the easiest time getting credit, meaning the richest people.
	So you're likely to see an exacerbation of a lot of the complaints about income inequality as a result of the Biden administration's activity, which was to delay the pain.
	And now the pain is coming.
	Meanwhile, this administration is still not turning away from its utopian goals with regard to environmentalism.
	Jen Psaki yesterday was asked if Joe Biden would be declaring a climate emergency.
	Remember how much fun it was when the government for two years declared emergency powers because of a pandemic?
	And a lot of us were worried that declaring emergency powers would be the predicate to declaring emergencies based on things like the climate.
	Jen Psaki refused to rule it out because we now live in an elected dictatorship where every four years we change our dictator, apparently.
	The Congressional Progressive Caucus recommendations for executive action are out, and they're asking for a decision to declare a climate emergency and ban all U.S.
	exports of oil.
	Is that something the president is thinking about doing?
	There are a range of really good ideas out there.
	The president's looking at all of them, but I don't have anything to predict for you at this point in time.
	Nothing to predict.
	Nothing to predict about that.
	Yes, this utopianism is definitely going to bear excellent fruit for the United States.
	Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg, as always, has excellent solutions to these problems.
	The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is completely unable to fill potholes in his own city, but also is gay.
	Pete Buttigieg, he says, if gas is too expensive, I have a solution.
	Get on a bus, gang.
	Uh-huh.
	We do have a lot of capacity in public transit, and that's something that I hope becomes a means of choice alongside driving, that people have good options and good affordable options to get to where they need to be.
	Look, we need to make sure that there is less pressure on family budgets from transportation, which is often the second biggest budget item after housing itself.
	One of the tools that we have in our toolkit to do that is to make sure there's access to excellent public transportation Yeah, it's gonna solve it in California.
	I lived in L.A.
	for nearly my entire life.
	Let me just tell you, the bus system is not going to do it, gang.
	That is not how any of this is going to work.
	But they like buses.
	They like choo-choo trains.
	They're romantic.
	And so that means that if gas is too expensive, well, deal with it, man.
	Get an electric car or take a bus or something.
	Why don't you fly?
	Ride a horse.
	Bicycles.
	Didn't they try those out in the early 20th century?
	Do it again.
	These geniuses.
	The Democratic Party is utterly disconnected from the American people at this point.
	I mean, not just because Joe Biden is not alive anymore.
	So Nancy Pelosi gave a toast to Joe Biden yesterday, and watching these geriatric dullards make toasts to one another is an astonishing sight.
	It's really inspirational.
	I mean, truly, it is miraculous that we live in an age in which people who are not alive can still be at the heads of our government.
	It's pretty wild.
	Now, if I had known that was the case, then I would have elected George Washington.
	You know, like some actual dead good leaders.
	But instead, we just elected dead bad leaders.
	So here we have the corpse of Nancy Pelosi toasting the corpse of Joe Biden.
	Mr. President, this is a toast that I learned from my grandchildren.
	I've said it to our colleagues here before.
	And it goes like this.
	It's an Irish toast.
	She forgot it.
	Sing as if no one can hear you.
	Dance as if no one can see you.
	Love as if you've never loved before.
	And live as if heaven is on earth.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	That was inspirational stuff.
	I like that she had to really think about that one.
	My grandchildren told me they heard this in a song lyric.
	You got to find yourself, man.
	What is going on?
	Our leadership class, they're the best.
	By the way, that wasn't the worst toast that was given yesterday.
	Joe Biden gave the worst toast yesterday because of course it was St.
	Patty's Day.
	And so Joe Biden decided it was time to call Irish people stupid, which is definitely a move.
	Here is Joe Biden.
	Again, that crypt opens and he gives a toast.
	I just want you to know, I may be Irish, but I'm not stupid.
	I married Dominic Giacoppa's daughter.
	So, the crypt opens and you get that.
	There's only one problem there, by the way.
	He confused Jill Biden's grandfather and her father.
	He's not stupid, but he also doesn't know the names of the family members of the people that he marries.
	So, yeah.
	Things are going great, guys.
	We are in the best of hands.
	Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is telling us that amid a massive inflationary spiral, Build Back Better will help, because it is not inflationary.
	She's just going to keep saying this until you believe it.
	So, you're going to hear this a lot, gang.
	Here she is, Nancy Pelosi.
	I think the most fascinating... As an eyebrow aficionado, as a person with rather famous eyebrows, let me just say, Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows are a source of astonishment, mainly because they... Have you ever seen the show Life in Pieces on Amazon?
	So, there's a character in Life in Pieces who has a puppet, and the puppet has Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows.
	Those eyebrows have not moved in 20 years.
	We still want to get some things done.
	In our other agenda, the Build Back Better legislation, I don't know what that will be, but what it will be will be paid for.
	It will be non-inflationary.
	It will help reduce the national debt while it meets the needs of America's working families.
	I just want to dig into that a little bit more on the COVID relief.
	be surprised. It's almost impossible to tell at this point.
	Also, she got very irritated.
	People were asking her questions about COVID relief and sending more money to people because we're in an inflationary spiral and she people are tying in Ukraine. Well, then don't be speaker of the house lady. If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time, then please give up your job.
	I just want to dig into that a little bit more on the COVID relief.
	This will be your third time.
	My third time when I asked about COVID relief.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's substantive.
	Yeah.
	I don't want to do that.
	So, people are dying in Ukraine.
	Live like you've never lived before.
	Like heaven is on earth.
	I don't want to answer your questions. I don't want to do that. So people are dying in Ukraine Live like you've never lived before like heaven is on earth dance like nobody is watching you Yep.
	Things are great.
	By the way, good piece in Politico today.
	of the TV while drilling into your gruel, but also drink a can of Ensure every day to ensure that you don't lose too much weight and lose bone density.
	Yep, things are great.
	By the way, good piece in Politico today, it's an interview with a woman named Stephanie Murphy.
	Now, Stephanie Murphy is a Blue Dog Democrat from the state of Florida.
	And she is now retiring.
	And the reason she is retiring is because she says the Democrats are totally out of touch.
	She says, quote, my first term, there was a lot more tolerance for do what you need to do to hold your seat.
	Come back because we're trying to build toward a majority.
	With us being in the majority, that tolerance eroded a bit.
	It's unfortunate, because I think in order for us as Democrats to hold the majority, you have to be able to win in seats like mine and in redder seats.
	That means you have to cut your members a little bit of leeway to vote their district.
	This march toward party unity is going to be detrimental to our ability to lead.
	She said that Democratic leaders are encouraging outside group attacks on vulnerable members like her for wanting to separate Build Back Better agenda from infrastructure.
	She said a lot of those outside groups that purport to represent a specific interest are just an extension of leadership.
	Instead of focusing purely on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants.
	She fumed that the entire idea of allies going after Democrats ahead of a tough year election was mind-boggling.
	She said, I told those groups, for every dollar that you spend against me, it's going to take 10 to repair that.
	Why, as Democrats, we would take money we need to reserve for the on-year to help win and grow the majority?
	Why we'd spend that money against our own members is really baffling.
	She says the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is out of touch with reality and needs major reform.
	She says, I'm surprised at how short the memory is.
	It's as short as being celebrated for having flipped a seat and then excoriated for taking votes that help you keep that seat.
	I'm not talking about myself.
	I think about people like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, like some of these other members who were in 18, they were celebrities for helping us win the majority.
	And as soon as they went about taking the votes that would help them keep and represent the seat they had won, they drew the ire of Democrats.
	She happens to be correct.
	So, for a hot second, Stephanie Murphy had considered running for Senate against Marco Rubio.
	She said that she didn't because her party does not want a member like her.
	Centrist Democrats once the ballyhooed beacon of House Democrats are now greatly out of fashion.
	Because of that, she worries her party might find itself in the minority.
	Yeah, no bleep.
	They are out of touch.
	With leadership like Joe Biden, who does not know where he is at any given time of the day, and Nancy Pelosi, who is reading toast from her grandchildren and poetry involving Vladimir Zelensky, yeah, these people have completely lost the thread.
	One of the reasons they've lost the thread, by the way, I have to say this, is because the media echo chamber is just so amazing for them.
	It really is incredible.
	They have an entire group of people.
	This brings us back to the Hunter Biden story.
	They have an entire group of people who just cheer them no matter what they do.
	They say that all love is conditional, not the love that Democrats have for the media and vice versa.
	That love is unconditional.
	As long as you are on the left, the media will cover for you, and they will cheer you, and you can be the worst person, and they will just continue to massage you.
	Best example maybe I've ever seen comes courtesy of Star Trek.
	So the new Star Trek show, They had a cameo by Stacey Abrams.
	Now, why Stacey Abrams has become an icon in the Democratic Party is quite beyond me, considering that she overtly denies the election results that made her not governor of Georgia.
	And I think she's likely going to lose to Brian Kemp again this year.
	But nonetheless, the media holds her in great esteem.
	They love her.
	How much so?
	So, Star Trek put her on the show.
	I'm not kidding.
	They put her on the show, not as the President of the United States.
	As the President of Earth.
	She cameoed on Star Trek as the President of Earth.
	Here we go.
	We greet the President of United Earth.
	Oh my God. Madam President.
	Madam President.
	Welcome.
	I am so pleased that you've come.
	We are eager to begin diplomatic discussions.
	Nothing to discuss.
	United Earth is ready right now to rejoin the Federation.
	And nothing could make me happier than to say those words.
	Thank you.
	Thank you all.
	Wow!
	So first of all, that does sound like Stacey Abrams, like immediately giving up sovereignty to a trans-planetary group.
	Like, then she probably would, as President of Earth, immediately do that.
	But, put that aside, what in the world?
	Like, could Hollywood be any more in Stacey Abrams' colon than this?
	I mean, like, that's unbelievable.
	Can you imagine them doing this?
	Or anyone else?
	Can you imagine Hollywood having like a Ron DeSantis cameo where he's President of Earth?
	I mean, Ron DeSantis is the legit governor of a state.
	Can you imagine them having a cameo in which the failed Republican candidate for governor, like the guy who no one's ever heard of in New Jersey, who nearly beat Phil Murphy, where he was like, I mean, who's the best person we can cast as president of Earth?
	This is not the first kind of Hollywood worshiping Stacey Abrams cameo.
	Apparently, there was like a giant picture of Stacey Abrams in the last season of Billions.
	Like, Hollywood is just But here's the thing.
	All the Democrats watch this stuff and they love this stuff.
	And so they are like, wow, this is reality.
	We all believe this stuff.
	And this is why you see Democrats taking unpopular positions that Americans hate.
	So, for example, the entire media started calling this Florida bill, which protects youngsters from the predations of teachers teaching them about sexual orientation and gender identity at age seven.
	The entire Democratic Party, including the White House, came out against this bill.
	Now, this, among parents, forget among the general population, among parents, this is like an 80-20 divide.
	90-10 divide.
	Parents do not want their kids indoctrinated in this stuff.
	And frankly, I'm kind of surprised that of all the polls that have been taken about this issue, they don't actually have a poll that breaks it down into parents versus non-parents.
	Because frankly, I don't care what single people think about how my kids should be educated.
	They don't have kids, so I don't really care.
	I care about what parents think about these issues.
	Those are the ones for whom this is a top issue.
	For single people who don't have kids, what kids are educated about in kindergarten is of very little consequence to them.
	For parents who have kids, that's like number one priority issue.
	But even among general Americans, a vast majority of Americans do not like kids being indoctrinated into this crap.
	But the entire media termed this bill the Don't Say Gay Bill.
	They lied about it.
	To the point, how much do they lie about this?
	So Daily Wire commissioned a poll.
	What they found is over 40% of Americans thought that Florida had made saying the word gay in school illegal, which is not true.
	But the media pushed it.
	They pushed it really hard.
	And it turns out that the Democratic Party mirrored what the media want from them.
	And this is why the media continue to take unpopular and insane positions on nearly every issue.
	So take, for example, the case of Leah Thomas.
	This is just an amazing thing.
	So, Leah Thomas just blew away all the actual women in the NCAA Women's Swimming Championship 500-yard freestyle.
	Like, the clip of it is just astonishing.
	Leah Thomas, who is a dude, clocked in at 4'33", 24.
	Okay, the person who came in second, University of Virginia's Emma Wyans, an actual woman, a freshman, finished second at 4.3499 milliseconds, dropping two seconds and 26 milliseconds behind her previous time.
	Erica Sullivan, a freshman from the University of Texas, finished third at 4.3592.
	Okay, for folks who don't watch swimming closely, that's a large gap.
	Okay, losing a race by like a second and a half is a fairly large gap.
	And if you watch the video, you can see how big the gap is.
	You can also see the physical gap between Leah Thomas and the people that this dude is competing against.
	Look at this.
	I swear, this is like Hodor competing against Tyrion Lannister.
	Like, this is ridiculous.
	It, what?
	Like I understand the platforms are slightly staggered here.
	But Leah Thomas looks as though Leah Thomas can put the fellow two competitors in his pockets.
	Like this is, it's insane.
	And yet this, slow clap for men are, all the best women are men.
	Juana Man is now a documentary.
	So Leah Thomas did an interview with ESPN after this, in which Leah Thomas talked about how excited Leah Thomas is to participate.
	And the ESPN anchor at no point says, so uh, you're a dude.
	Instead, Leo Thomas, who is a giant man, is just, I'm sorry, like, there's no way else to say that.
	This is a giant biological man, and I don't care if the biological man thinks he is a woman, this is a man.
	Like, our country has lost all semblance of sanity when this is even remotely controversial.
	This is the sort of stuff, by the way, that gets kicked off of social media.
	If you say Leo Thomas is a man, because Leo Thomas is a man, it will kick you off social media.
	This is Emperor's New Clothes kind of stuff.
	Here is Leah Thomas, a dude, talking about racing against ladies and crushing them.
	Leah, how did that performance measure up to your expectations coming into this meet tonight?
	I didn't have a whole lot of expectations for this meet.
	I was just happy to be here trying to race and compete as best as I could.
	You've undoubtedly been under the spotlight over the past few months.
	How have you been dealing with that and reasoning with everything?
	I try to ignore it as much as I can.
	I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to get ready for my races, and just try to block out everything else.
	What did that race mean to you?
	It means the world to be here, be with two of my best friends and teammates, and be able to compete.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	I'm sure it does.
	Because you went from being a pretty good men's swimmer to being the best female swimmer in history.
	Like really, well done here.
	By the way, one of Thomas's teammates said, quote, it's not necessarily an achievement in my mind.
	Women's records are separate from men's records.
	It's in its own distinct category because no woman is going to be as fast as a man.
	And here is just we're just throwing away the definition of a record to fit into someone else's agenda of what it should mean to them.
	When in reality, it makes no scientific sense to do so.
	This, of course, is exactly right.
	But if you mention this, social media will literally throw you off for pointing out the fact that Lea Thomas is a biological male.
	If you say that, then you are a bad person.
	That is how all of this works now.
	And the entire Democratic Party will mirror this.
	Just once, I want somebody in a Democratic primary to be asked the simple question, how many genders are there?
	Can a man be a woman?
	Can a biological man be a woman?
	Like, just ask a simple question.
	But they won't.
	They have to obscure it.
	And then, the Democrats just mirror all this garbage, and then it gets enacted in real-world policy, and it hurts people.
	That disconnect, by the way, is going to be punished at the polls like nobody's business, and it should be.
	These are a lot of 70-30, 80-20, 90-10 issues against Democrats and they've been so completely taken in by a media that makes Stacey Abrams president of earth that they forget that Stacey Abrams still has yet to win an actual statewide election.
	And they are about to get crushed in November, and they should, man.
	They have it coming.
	All righty.
	We'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
	First, you can't forget to end your week by tuning into The Andrew Klavan Show.
	Bruce shows every Friday.
	He's got an exciting evening planned for you.
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