Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 28, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

45:40

Joe Biden's Crashing Economy | Ep. 1483

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	The Washington Post accuses Elon Musk of targeting Twitter employees just days after one of their reporters doxed libs of TikTok, Russia cuts the gas on Europe, and U.S.
	GDP growth goes negative under Joe Biden.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
	Protect your online privacy today at ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.
	Well, as you all know, the U.S.
	GDP just went negative.
	And, you know, this might be a good time for you to start trying to save some money.
	So look at those bills.
	What's one of those big bills?
	You know what it is.
	It's your cell phone bill.
	This is why you need to take a look at why you are paying Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile so they can spend a bunch of money on their marketing.
	Just don't do that.
	Instead, head on over to Pure Talk.
	They have the same 5G coverage as one of the big guys, but they will save the average family over $800 a year.
	I made the switch already, so what exactly is your excuse?
	What are you waiting for?
	You can keep your number, keep your phone, or get huge discounts on the latest iPhones and Androids.
	They've got unlimited talk text, 6 gigs of data, it's just $30 a month, or get unlimited data and still save a fortune.
	Go to puretalk.com.
	Enter promo code SHAPIRO.
	You will save 50% off your very first month of coverage.
	That's puretalk.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
	Pure Talk is Simply Smarter Wireless.
	Why not save hundreds of dollars per year instead of spending it on the big phone companies that kind of hate your guts?
	Instead, head on over to puretalk.com, get the same exact coverage as one of the big guys, and enter promo code SHAPIRO to save 50% off your very first month of coverage at puretalk.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
	The prospect again of Elon Musk taking over Twitter is freaking out the blue check marks.
	It is freaking out the media.
	The media, who are supposed to be all in favor of more speech, not less speech.
	More journalism, not less journalism.
	It turns out they don't like speech and they don't like journalism.
	They like to do what they want to do.
	And anybody who stands in their way is bad.
	And also anybody who doesn't just elevate their material and elevates alternative material is also bad.
	And so now you have the specter of the Washington Post owned by the second richest person on earth, Jeff Bezos.
	Going after Elon Musk and the reason this is on the front page of the Washington Post yesterday.
	The reason they're going after Elon Musk is because Elon Musk is now criticizing Twitter executives, not by name.
	He didn't criticize them by name.
	He's criticizing how Twitter was run.
	How dare he?
	This is very bad.
	You are not allowed to criticize people at the company you're about to take over.
	Even though you're about to take the company over because you have critiques of the company, apparently, according to the Washington Post.
	So the Washington Post has an entire piece today about how Elon Musk is a big, bad, evil, bad, mean man who's bad.
	It's called Elon Musk's Boost Criticism of Twitter Executives Prompting Online Attacks.
	This is the way that the left likes to work this thing.
	If you criticize somebody on the left, even if that person is a public figure, and then that person receives blowback, it is your fault.
	So if you're just not criticized, then they wouldn't receive the blowback.
	Now, if you are Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for the Washington Post, and you try to uncover the identity of an anonymous Twitter account called Libs of TikTok, and all that account does is just finds dumb left-wingers on TikTok who post crazy stuff and then post that stuff on Twitter.
	You unleash Taylor Lorenz on that person, you have Taylor Lorenz knock on the doors of the person's relatives, you have Taylor Lorenz link to the person's real estate profile so that the personal information is available, and then later you delete the link and you pretend that this is excellent and necessary journalism.
	That's what the Washington Post does about libs of TikTok, because it's really important to know who stands behind an account that's entire job is to just retweet things that leftists have put out there publicly.
	But if Elon Musk criticizes Twitter employees without naming them, then this is an act of harassment.
	And this is because Elon Musk is bad.
	This ties into the broader narrative that the left is trying to tell about Elon Musk, which is that what he really wants is to open up the floodgates on Twitter to abuse and cruelty and malice.
	That's what this is about.
	Because remember, according to the left, free speech is really not a thing.
	Free speech is just a guise for power.
	This is all part of the deconstructionist woke attack on rights.
	The basic idea here is that any principle you hold is really a reflection of power structure.
	So if you're in favor of free speech, it's not because you believe that everybody should be able to speak freely.
	The reason you're in favor of free speech is because you are one of the powerful, and the system of free speech helps you.
	If you really wanted equity, if you wanted justice, if you wanted speech justice, what the left does is they take any modifier, put it in front of the word justice, and then pretend that this is now principle.
	If you wanted equity and speech justice, what you would do is quash the speech of the more powerful, and you would shut up and listen to the less powerful.
	And Elon Musk instead is saying that everybody should be able to speak freely, and this is because he's attempting to re-enshrine his own power.
	And we know that he's attempting to do this because he's being so mean to people like Twitter employees, like the Twitter top lawyer, Nishaya Gaddy, who earned, get ready for this, $17 million last year.
	She is a victim.
	She is a victim of Elon Musk's evil brutality, making $17 million a year to shut down content to Twitter.
	So according to the Washington Post, two days after striking a deal to purchase Twitter, Elon Musk used his powerful Twitter account to elevate conservative criticism of two executives at the social media company, roiling a workforce already uneasy about how he will balance his abrasive social media style and abrasive free speech with the stewardship of the company.
	Well, I mean, if the workforce doesn't like it, well, I mean, that's a real problem, isn't it?
	Now, again, as a person who's the co-founder of a major media company, let me just say, if the workforce doesn't like how this company is run, the door is located over there.
	This is super simple.
	If you don't wish to receive a paycheck from this company, there are plenty of other places you can receive a paycheck.
	But according to the Washington Post, Elon Musk, the richest person on planet Earth, needs to take advice from a bunch of barely college-educated left-wing 26-year-olds who spend their days with their button on the bandfinger.
	According to the Washington Post, on Wednesday, Elon Musk tweeted a meme to his more than 86 million followers with the face of Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gaddy, that appeared to suggest the company's decisions are affected by left-wing bias.
	No!
	This is harassment and evil!
	The tweet came hours after he criticized a 2020 policy decision Gaddy made and was in response to an earlier tweet from a political podcast host calling her the company's top censorship advocate.
	Twitter users quickly piled on.
	Wait, you mean that he said a true thing about the lawyer over at Twitter?
	Who, by the way, is a public figure who has appeared on Joe Rogan's show.
	And, um, he said a thing about this person's handling of censorship.
	And people piled on?
	Mah ye gods!
	Ye gad!
	Twitter users quickly piled on calling on Musk to fire Gaddy or using racist language to describe her.
	So is that Musk's fault?
	First of all, he should fire her.
	As far as using racist language, is that Musk's fault?
	Did he use racist language?
	So if I say Joe Biden is a bad president, and then somebody immediately calls him an MF-er, is that my fault?
	Or is that the person who used the curse word?
	How does that work exactly?
	If I say that I think Joy Reid is a terrible MSNBC host, and then somebody immediately throws a racial taunt at her, Is that my fault?
	Because I feel like if that's the case, then Bernie Sanders is responsible for the congressional baseball shooting.
	Barack Obama is responsible for the murder of six police officers in Dallas, Texas circa 2015.
	Like if that's the way this is going to work, then the consequences for speech are rather dire.
	Which by the way, this only applies, the left does think this, they just think it applies only to one side.
	So if Elon Musk says a thing and then someone else does a bad thing because they were ticked off by something Elon Musk said, It's Elon Musk's fault.
	If, however, Bernie Sanders says that Republicans are killing millions of people with their health care plans, and then somebody goes and shoots a bunch of Republican congresspeople, then obviously that was just a crazy person.
	It has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders.
	Oh my God!
	Gowdy was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child.
	One user said she would go down in history as an appalling person.
	Oh my God.
	A user, an anonymous user, one user on Twitter, which has hundreds of millions of users, said a mean thing about this lawyer who earns $17 million a year.
	Well, stop!
	Hold the fort!
	Stop the presses!
	Hold up that Twitter sale!
	According to the Washington Post, Musk's tweets have singular power to unleash mobs against people with much lower profiles and 280 characters or less.
	As Musk stakes his $44 billion takeover of one of the world's most influential social media platforms on the promise of restoring free speech there, his rhetoric is at odds with the way his supporters have weaponized Twitter.
	Prompting people to lock down their personal profiles and public information.
	Well, I mean, you wouldn't want to have supporters weaponizing Twitter.
	Like, you wouldn't want to have a reporter from the Washington Post doxing libs of TikTok and then revealing personal information about that person.
	Or, if you're the Washington Post, you would want that.
	You would link directly to the person's real estate profile, and then you would actually sponsor the story with advertising on Twitter.
	That's what you would do if you're the Washington Post.
	I mean, the hypocrisy of these people is insane.
	And it's not just the hypocrisy.
	It's the absolute double standard.
	Elon Musk mentions he doesn't like the policy that is purveyed by Twitter's big $17 million-a-year lawyer, and this means that he's a harasser, and therefore somebody has to step in and stop the brutality.
	April Glazer, senior research fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School, said, quote, Musk has actually used Twitter as his slingshot when going after critics.
	It's not surprising he would then want to have greater control of that slingshot.
	Well, well, I mean, as opposed to the Washington Post, which has never wanted to have power over social media, which is why half of their staff has been delegated to try and stop the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk.
	And the New York Times in Washington, they have no dog in this fight.
	They are perfectly objective journalismers getting their hot, sticky journalism just everywhere.
	Musk's power to unleash his followers in this way has alarmed some Twitter workers who expressed concern at a company town hall meeting on Monday and in interviews about the possibility of being mentioned in tweets by their future boss.
	It is unusual for an incoming owner to make any public comment about future employees, much less publicly criticize their performance or past decisions.
	I mean, that is unusual.
	And that that's really, really bad.
	The terms of his deal to acquire Twitter allow the SpaceX and Tesla CEO to tweet about his acquisition so long as the tweets do not disparage the company or any of its representatives.
	A person familiar with the deal-making process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a confidential matter said the so-called disparagement clause is only applicable when Musk is tweeting or commenting about the deal itself.
	So negative comments about Twitter outside of that don't violate his terms.
	Well, I mean, again, if you're trying to moot a $44 billion sale because Elon Musk tweeted something vaguely critical of the company's top lawyer, which is what happened here, good luck with that.
	Musk views Twitter as the de facto town square, a place where rules should be kept to a minimum.
	Twitter employees, however, have spent years developing sophisticated protocols to police its platform for hate speech and other rule-breaking content, including recently investing in tools to limit online harassment.
	Now the company is being acquired by the world's richest person, whose views are fundamentally at odds with those of much of the workforce.
	Well, I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's devastating stuff.
	Devastating.
	So you can see the media attempting to step in and stop big, bad, mean, terrible, bad Elon Musk from abusing poor little Jaya Gadi, the $17 million a year Twitter lawyer whose main job consists of censoring people she doesn't like.
	By the way, buried down in this story, the Washington Post acknowledges Musk did not specifically name or tag Gatti.
	But he did respond to a tweet by political podcast host Sagar Anjeti, in which she was named, drawing more than 400,000 likes, retweets, and replies on Musk's post.
	Wow, I mean, so just to get this straight, Musk did not name the person, but he replied to a tweet that did name the person.
	So he's responsible for all of this stuff.
	And so he's bad.
	And so this must be, it just shows that he's only taking this thing over because he wants more harassment.
	He wants more harassment.
	And that's terrible.
	It's just, there's so much harassment on Twitter.
	Let me make clear.
	As someone who is no foreigner to being harassed on Twitter, grow a thick skin.
	Like seriously, you work in, you are the Twitter head of legal.
	You are a public figure.
	Grow up.
	And the Washington Post, which spends its days doing the dirty scut work of the Democratic Party in uncovering meme accounts that it doesn't like for destruction.
	You're being a little sensitive here.
	But this is the new narrative.
	The new narrative is Elon Musk is so mean.
	Like really, this is, by the way, this is so much of the entire democratic media complex narrative now boils down to this.
	We're going to do something incredibly aggressive.
	We're going to shut down free speech on things like Twitter.
	We're going to shadow ban people.
	We're going to ban accounts for no apparent reason.
	We're going to shut down the Babylon Bee for saying that men cannot be women.
	We're going to do all of these things.
	And if you step in and say, no, no, no, free speech means that you should be able to say these things.
	You're so mean!
	It's just terrible!
	Why are you doing this?
	Okay, your tears mean nothing.
	I have an entire Tumblr dedicated to drinking them.
	They mean nothing to me.
	Because guess what?
	Unless you're crying for a good reason, not because you're just being a bitchy little pathetic whiner, I got nothing for you.
	But this is the entire leftist pitch.
	The entire leftist pitch these days.
	We get to indoctrinate your children in school the way we want to do it.
	And then if you say, no, no, no, you don't get to do that.
	Well, that's so mean.
	It's just terrible.
	And the tears begin.
	So in a second, we will get to the fact that Twitter employees are now openly weeping, the entire left weeping, gnashing of teeth, wailing, sackcloth in ashes, full biblical mourning happening over Elon Musk taking over Twitter.
	We'll get into why people on the left think that their tears actually matter in this particular debate.
	But if you are weeping because your biology isn't working the way that it's supposed to, well, why don't you just go get that problem solved?
	You're far from ordinary, but the truth is that ED is actually really common.
	In fact, 52% of dudes age 40 to 70 experience some form of erectile dysfunction.
	Go to GetRoman.com slash Ben right now.
	Speak to a U.S.
	licensed healthcare professional about erectile dysfunction.
	Get 15 bucks off your very first month of treatment.
	The benefits of ED treatment can help you reconnect with your partner.
	Roman Ready is confidence personified.
	It's the self-assurance that comes from knowing that everything is working the way that it is supposed to.
	And Roman's system is completely confidential, totally discreet.
	No big logos or labels on the packages.
	With Roman, You get a free online evaluation and ongoing care for ED all from the comfort and privacy of your home.
	A U.S.
	licensed healthcare professional will work with you to find the best treatment plan.
	If medication is appropriate, it ships to you free with two-day shipping.
	The whole process is straightforward, convenient, and discreet.
	Getting started?
	Super simple.
	Just go to GetRoman.com slash Ben.
	Complete an online visit today.
	Take care of your ED without leaving your home.
	Complete that online visit today.
	Connect with a U.S.
	licensed healthcare professional and get it taken care of.
	Go to GetRoman.com slash Ben today.
	If you're prescribed, get 15 bucks off your very first month of ED treatment.
	Make sure you're ready to have confidence and control this fall.
	Roman Ready.
	Okay, here's the deal.
	In terms of people I care about crying, just generally speaking, I mean, there's an entire article yesterday about Vijayagadi crying on a Twitter internal phone call to all the employees who are so deeply upset, weeping, tears of salty rage at Elon Musk taking over.
	Here is a complete list of the people whose tears I care about.
	My wife, my kids, my siblings, my parents.
	That's the entire list.
	There are no other people on that list.
	Employees, Twitter heads?
	Washington Post writers?
	Jeff Bezos?
	Don't care about any of those people crying.
	You know why?
	Because they are grown-ups.
	And if they cannot control their emotions, that is their problem.
	But, again, the entire... It is amazing.
	And by the way, the reason that the left is doing this, the reason that the left is responding with the tears, is because they know they've lost the argument.
	And so they start to cry.
	Now, that's a tactic that works in marriage.
	It does, I'll be honest with you.
	Like, when my wife and I are having a discussion and it turns into tears, I lose.
	I mean, that's an automatic, I lose.
	Okay, but, and that's true for every husband everywhere.
	Gentlemen, as soon as your wife starts crying, the argument is over and you've lost.
	However, in the non-marital world, When somebody starts crying, it's because generally they have lost the argument.
	The reason the left, however, goes to this is because they realize that there is sort of a congenital niceness to most Americans.
	And that when people start to cry and whimper and talk about how hard their lives are, you sympathize, right?
	There's something inside you that swells to their tears.
	And so what the left has done for years is they've played the victim and they've wept.
	And then they've moved forward with incredibly aggressive policy.
	How dare you victimize us?
	We're going to cry about it.
	So you really should.
	Do you want these tears?
	Dude, you want us to cry?
	We're gonna cry.
	This is why you have pieces like Elizabeth Spires today in the New York Times.
	Quote, let's be clear about what it's like to be harassed on Twitter.
	Tell me, Elizabeth, what it's like to be harassed on Twitter.
	Tell me, I who trend every three weeks for some random stupid reason.
	I was the number one target of all anti-Semitic Twitter hate on planet Earth in 2015 and 2016.
	Please tell me what it's like to be harassed on Twitter, please.
	And tell me why you now get to control the rules.
	Now some of us are mature enough to say that when people harass us on Twitter, you have a mute button.
	And then there are those of us who suggest that we ought to control the levers of informational dissemination because our feel-feels got hurt.
	So Elizabeth Spires tweets, quote, and she writes in the New York Times.
	Again, this is the entire argument.
	The new argument is, Elon Musk is bad and mean because he says things.
	And he's not even being bad and mean, but people who follow him then say mean things.
	And mean things are bad.
	And we can tell mean things are bad because my feelings are hurt.
	So the more my feelings are hurt, the more bad they are.
	So Elizabeth Spires writes, quote, The Tesla co-founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, is set to shortly become the new owner of a slightly used social media platform with more than 217 million daily users.
	He has said very little about how he plans to make the business work, but one thing is clear.
	He is really, really preoccupied with how we talk on the platform and appears intent on rolling back some of its moderation policies in order to allow all legal speech on Twitter.
	The statements of free speech absolutists like Mr. Musk conflate harassment with criticism.
	I've been on the receiving end of both.
	In my two decades of writing columns about media, finance, culture, and politics, there's a material difference between the two.
	To wit, a couple of years ago, a couple of weeks ago, a former colleague of Mr. Musk's at PayPal, Keith Rabloy, called me dumb on Twitter after I suggested that eliminating moderation policies would be bad for Twitter's business.
	This is not particularly sophisticated criticism, but neither is it harassment.
	However, I've also received rape threats, anonymous letters to my home address, threatening comments about my family, all manner of misogynistic pejoratives that are not principal in this newspaper, from my stated positions on everything from abortion to hiring practices and startups to who the next James Bond should be.
	Okay, so I'm unaware that Musk is saying that rape threats are now legal on Twitter.
	That's totally fine.
	By the way, my understanding is that rape threats are generally not legal at all.
	That is a form of assault.
	If I threaten you with rape, that is a crime and I will go to jail.
	So I'm unaware how Musk is changing the policy that rape threats are now okay on the platform.
	But, says Elizabeth Spires, getting rid of policies that restrict hate speech will most likely affect women and minorities much more than it does white men.
	White men.
	Always the pejorative of the day.
	White.
	And by the way, if you don't pronounce the H before the W, you're doing it wrong.
	It's not white men.
	It's white.
	Men.
	Like Mr. Musk.
	And unlike him, most people on the receiving end of threats and harassment can't afford personal security.
	Twitter's rules already allow for a broad range of abuse, much of which falls into a kind of gray area between personal insult and harassment.
	What exactly does he believe can't be said on the platform right now?
	It certainly doesn't take long to find discredited race science, arguments that women are intellectually inferior, anti-Semitism, defenses of white supremacism, and transphobic comments that remain on the platform even under current policies.
	Well, here's one.
	How about men are not women?
	How about that?
	But she says, it is easy to assume that the banned speech Musk is standing up for is worse even than that.
	As the comedian Michael Che put it on Saturday Night Live, the $44 billion deal shows, quote, how badly white guys want to use the N-word.
	So again, this is all about Elizabeth Speier's hurt feelings.
	She's got hurt feelings, guys.
	And that means that it's so sad.
	It's really sad.
	Also, the Washington Post is noting now, I love this.
	So the Washington Post, Which is itself a corporate takeover with social activism in its center, is now noticing, only now do they notice, quote, Elon Musk's free speech takeover, part of new corporate activism wave.
	Oh, you think?
	Oh, you think?
	So for literally several decades, we have now had left-wing activists taking over major American corporations from the inside.
	Not just shareholders like BlackRock, but the whole stakeholder economy, in which you have CEOs basically Dancing to the tune of the far left.
	But only when Elon Musk takes over Twitter do we now notice in the business section of the Washington Post that there is a corporate activism wave.
	Well, Elon Musk is a response to the corporate activism wave.
	I mean, that's precisely what is happening right now, and they cannot deal with it.
	They cannot deal with it.
	And guess what?
	The fact that they can't deal with it is the reason why what Musk is doing is so all-fired important.
	Now, it's not just important with regard to private companies, because if the left had its way, this would be regulated by the government.
	This sort of stuff would be regulated by the government.
	I make this point because yesterday, The Department of Homeland Security announced that it was time to set up a disinformation governance board to fight misinformation.
	So last I checked, this is illegal.
	The First Amendment to the Constitution explicitly bars the federal government from inflicting restrictions on freedom of speech.
	Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.
	Yet Alejandro Mayorkas, our feckless Homeland Security Secretary, he spoke about the just-established governance board during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, according to Breitbart, arguing it would help reduce domestic threats to the United States.
	Now, no one is against the idea of preventing Russia from from disseminating actual disinformation within American borders.
	I will just point out that for a solid year, the media's perspective on Hunter Biden's laptop is that it was Russian disinformation.
	So I have no trust in the federal government run by the Democratic media complex to determine what is disinformation.
	And when they conflate disinformation with misinformation, what they are actually saying is we wish to shut down streams of information we don't like.
	Disinformation is an actual diplomatic term of art, meaning that foreign governments are actively spreading lies inside your body politic in order to achieve a particular purpose.
	Misinformation is just anything you don't like.
	Misinformation is when I say a true thing and then PolitiFact says it lacks context.
	That's quote-unquote misinformation.
	To have Alejandro Mayorkas in front of Congress Stating that we are now going to have a board that is dedicated inside the Department of Homeland Security, which by the way should be disbanded immediately and it should be revised inside the Department of Defense in part and inside the Border Patrol in other parts.
	Department of Homeland Security is an evolutionary hangover from the 9-11 era.
	All it does is garbage.
	I mean, DHS is just a bad, it's an incompetent area of American law.
	But put that aside, the notion that you have to have inside DHS Basically, a Twitter safety and health board is pretty scary.
	So here's Alejandro Mayorkas explaining.
	I engage with secretaries of state from all over the country to focus our efforts on election security.
	We have just established a misinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security to more effectively combat this threat, not only to election security, but to our homeland security.
	Okay, so again, if they were actually trying to crack down on disinformation, then I might be a little more sanguine about this.
	However, I have some questions.
	One of my questions is, who's heading this thing up?
	So the person heading this thing up is a human named Nina Jankiewicz.
	Nina Jenkiewicz tweeted repeatedly in 2020 that Hunter Biden's laptop was in fact Russian disinformation.
	Quote, back on the laptop from hell, apparently, Biden notes 50 former NatSec officials, national security officials, and five former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op.
	Trump says Russia, Russia, Russia.
	Also, Nina Jankiewicz says, by all means, let's regulate social media.
	Let's do it with proper thought and consultation with the nation's best interests at heart, not with the sweep of a sharpie in response to a specter of political censorship that does not exist.
	She said in testimony to the House Elect Committee on Intelligence, quote, disinformation is a threat to democracy.
	She criticized government and social media platforms who have, quote, all but abdicated their responsibility to address, quote, domestic disinformation.
	She recently did an interview with NPR, the new head of this regulatory board for the federal government on disinformation and misinformation, in which she talked about the amount of sexualized abuse online.
	I mean, I'm sure that that's true.
	Also, I was not aware that the federal government was generally in the business of policing abusive jokes.
	What are the distinctions that she's making right here?
	Over a period of two months on six social media platforms, we found over 336,000 pieces of gendered or sexualized abuse and disinformation directed at just 10 U.S.
	candidates.
	And when you compare what women receive, as some of my colleagues have done in other organizations, with what their male counterparts receive, it's just far and away much, much worse, especially if you're a woman of color or a woman of an intersectional identity.
	Ah, women of an intersectional identity.
	Women of color.
	Here we go.
	Here's the equity language about how free speech basically needs to be curbed on behalf of intersectionality.
	She continues along these lines saying that the big problem with free speech is marginalized people might feel insulted.
	And those marginalized people aren't empowered.
	And that means they might be silenced.
	So the best thing we can do is look for speech equity, not free speech.
	In my own life, it is a form of censorship, right?
	Every time I am online thinking about, okay, am I going to tweet?
	Am I going to pitch this article today?
	I think about, you know, do I have the emotional capacity right now to deal with what might come if that's going to be out there in the real world?
	I now carry a personal safety alarm around with me because I am worried about if one of these people who has threatened me online shows up in real life.
	Particularly women of color have had offline threats that originated from online threats.
	You see, it's a form of censorship if people are mean to her.
	Again, this is all part and parcel of the same sort of anti-Elon Musk argument.
	If people are mean or people are abusive, that is a form of censorship.
	Now, again, threats are illegal.
	I'm not saying that Elon Musk should allow targeted harassment on his platform, where people are just throwing slurs at one another.
	By slurs, I don't mean saying that Lea Thomas is a man, because Lea Thomas is a man.
	That's not a slur.
	That's an accurate label.
	But Nina Jankowicz is about to head up a department in the Department of Homeland Security that looks at misinformation and disinformation.
	And this person has openly explained that she is worried about free speech absolutism.
	I don't know how you can have a government agency dedicated to cracking down on disinformation and misinformation when the person in charge of that is a person who actively conflates information she doesn't like with misinformation and disinformation.
	Because after all, that information might make marginalized people feel bad or something.
	The onus always falls on the target of the abuse.
	The platforms aren't doing very much right now.
	And I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities all around the world, which are already shouldering so much of this abuse, disproportionate amounts of this abuse.
	She shudders to think about it.
	So when we say that the Democrat media complex, they're all in line, they're all in line.
	It's not a coincidence that the same week that the media are going after Elon Musk, the Biden administration is now talking about putting together a board to look at disinformation and misinformation.
	And no, I don't trust them with that sort of authority.
	Neither does the Constitution of the United States, depending on the breadth of that authority.
	And this person certainly should not be confirmed for any sort of position in this administration if she is to undergo some sort of Senate confirmation process.
	Okay, meanwhile, brand new GDP report.
	It turns out that Joe Biden is not just a bad president.
	He has brought about actual stagflation.
	It turns out that the GDP in the first quarter in the United States was negative 1.4%.
	They had negative GDP.
	Hey, that is recessionary type stuff.
	That is full-on stagflation.
	When you have 8.5% inflation and negative 1.4% GDP growth, this is stagflation.
	We have now arrived.
	When you blow out the spending, when you regulate the economy, when you freak everybody out about COVID for no apparent reason, when you do all of these things in the middle of global supply chain crises, when you actively prevent oil companies from new oil exploration, When you talk about penalizing companies that you don't like.
	I gotta tell you, none of this is good economic policy and Joe Biden is about to, I mean, the Democrats deserve to be shellacked.
	If people thought the days of stagflation had ended circa basically 1982.
	Fast forward 40 years and we are right back there.
	According to the New York Times, by the way, the New York Times is spinning like a top here.
	This is why I always say a democratic media complex, a term coined by one of my mentors, Andrew Breitbart.
	What he meant by that is that basically they are one in the same, that they are just an echo chamber for one another.
	The New York Times is just the PR wing for the White House.
	Here is their headline.
	Now imagine that the economy had actually contracted, not because of COVID, but the economy had contracted under President Trump during not COVID by 1.4% in a quarter.
	Do you think that the New York Times would run with this headline?
	Quote, the economy contracted in the first quarter, but underlying measures were solid.
	I mean, that's a hell of a spin there by the New York Times.
	The economy contracted, but I mean, sure, you made less money this month, but your underlying economic metrics, pretty good.
	Sure, you have cancer, but underlying that you have been working out and eating healthy lately.
	According to the New York Times, U.S.
	economy contracted in the first three months of the year, but strong consumer spending and continued business investment suggested the recovery remained resilient.
	Oh, really?
	Is that what it's suggesting?
	So you had the economy contracting, and now we are about to raise the interest rates by a minimum of half a basis point.
	Or by half a percentage point, 50 basis points.
	And you are, the underlying fundamentals are good.
	I mean, Deutsche Bank is now, by the way, openly suggesting that we are about to enter into a major recession.
	Deutsche Bank, according to CNN, raised eyebrows earlier this month by becoming the first major bank to forecast a U.S.
	recession, albeit a mild one.
	Now, it's warning of a deeper downturn caused by the Fed's quest to knock down stubbornly high inflation.
	We will get a major recession, Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a report to clients on Tuesday.
	The problem, according to the bank, is while inflation may be peaking, it will take a long time before it gets back down to 2%, which means the central bank is going to have to raise interest rates so aggressively it hurts the economy.
	Meanwhile, I got the New York Times happy talking this thing.
	Gross domestic product, according to the New York Times, adjusted for inflation, declined at 0.4% in the first quarter, or 1.4% on an annualized basis, according to the Commerce Department.
	That was down sharply from the 1.7% growth, 6.9% to annualized, in the final three months of 2021.
	It was the weakest quarter since the early days of the pandemic.
	Decline was mostly a result of two most volatile components of quarterly reports, inventories and international trade.
	Lower government spending was also a drag on growth.
	This is one of the games, by the way, that we are constantly playing when it comes to GDP growth.
	GDP is a very flawed statistic because GDP basically just means the amount of money flowing around in an economy.
	And so if the government injects trillions of dollars into the economy, this is now considered growth.
	That's not really how economic growth should be measured.
	There are other measures that I think are superior to GDP.
	It's just the kind of all-purpose one.
	The problem is government spending taken as part of GDP means that any government, including the government of China, can simply fudge its stats by injecting crap loads of debt.
	It's like saying that your personal finances are going well because you spent a lot of money using your credit card.
	That's not a particularly great measure.
	Most important, consumer spending, the engine of the U.S.
	economy, grew 0.7% in the first quarter.
	Jay Bryson, chief economist for Wells Fargo, said consumer spending is the aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean.
	It just keeps plowing ahead.
	But, says the New York Times, choppy waters may lie ahead.
	Yes, that's correct.
	The first quarter data mostly predates the spike in gas prices that accompanied Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the lockdowns in China that have threatened to further disrupt global supply chains.
	In other words, all of the bad stuff we saw in March was not really even taken into account in those first quarter GDP stats.
	So get ready for a rough second quarter.
	Inflation is still really bad.
	We're about to experience major interest rate increases.
	The impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war still have not been totally felt.
	China's shutdown in the supply chain still has not been totally felt.
	So really, well done here by the Biden administration, as always.
	They're just, they are great at this.
	The good news is that Joe Biden's solution to this is to relieve college debt.
	So he's going to just apparently get rid of college debt, because nothing says quash inflation quite like raising taxes, as Chuck Schumer suggested, while simultaneously relieving college debt, which essentially is just a giant injection of money into the economy.
	Stagflation is now a purposeful policy of this administration.
	They haven't thought this stuff through at all, by the way.
	So with Joe Biden's economy on the rocks, I think everybody is sort of expecting that real estate is going to start leveling out.
	When that happens, there might be some really good buying opportunities available to you.
	And this is why you should be looking at American financing.
	If a new home has been on your mind lately, it is a smart idea to take action right now.
	You can review your budget, start that pre-approval process, get ahead of rising rates.
	Better yet, lock into a competitive rate.
	Like right now, before you start shopping, get the best of both worlds.
	Lock into that competitive rate and maybe you take advantage of the fact that the real estate prices are starting to stagnate just a little bit.
	Real estate is going to always be a healthy investment because again, they ain't making any more of it.
	And here's the thing, American financing knows this.
	Hey, they realize no two journeys home are alike, so they're going to get to know you and then create a custom loan that achieves your goals.
	From flexible terms to fast closings, plus access to every loan in the industry, this is a company that's got you covered.
	And they never charge upfront or hidden fees.
	So whether you're upgrading, downgrading, or investing, they're always the lender I trust and recommend.
	Find out for yourself.
	Call 866-721-3300.
	That's 866-721-3300.
	Or visit AmericanFinancing.net and MLS182334 and MLSConsumerAccess.org.
	Check them out at AmericanFinancing.net.
	They're the people that I trust for home loans.
	All right, guys.
	Great news.
	My third Thursday Book Club.
	It's back tonight on the fourth.
	I hope you took advantage of the extra week to read The Once and Future King by T.H.
	White, because we will be discussing it tonight, 8 p.m.
	Eastern.
	One of my favorite books.
	We'll talk through my notes.
	I will answer all of your questions.
	It's a beautiful book.
	Check out the trailer for the book club.
	I want to tell you about my third Thursday book club.
	This is not your average book club.
	These are the greatest books in the history of Western literature.
	We're going to dive into the greatest works of all time.
	These are the books that helped form the key pillars of Western civilization and helped define America.
	And we're going to do it live with thousands of you, our Daily Wire members.
	I'm going to be your personal guide.
	I've read every one of these books.
	I'm going to draw out the important lessons and themes from every book.
	Plus, I'm going to be answering your questions along the way.
	So we actually do read the book together.
	You join the book club, you are going to get smarter.
	You're going to get more knowledgeable.
	Because this is an investment in your most valuable asset.
	You're mine.
	The 3rd Thursday Book Club.
	It's going to change the way you think.
	The book club is unique.
	It's a wonderful thing.
	I mean, honestly, it's one of my favorite things that we do here at the company.
	We get to broaden our minds and have great discussions.
	I get to have direct contact with you.
	You send me video questions and we interact during the show.
	After the stream, make sure you pick up your copy of Moby Dick by Herman Melville for next month's book club.
	To join me tonight, you have to be an all access daily wire member.
	So join right now at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	New members can use code Shapiro to get 20% off your membership.
	Seriously, this isn't like any book club you've ever been a part of.
	So, become an All Access member right now at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	Use code Shapiro for 20% off your new membership.
	You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	So again, the Biden administration's plan here is what if we then relieve student debt?
	And the reason they're doing this is because the only people in America who don't hate Joe Biden's administration and like hate it are college-educated white liberal women.
	And so why not just give them some money?
	I mean, that'd be definitely the way out of this.
	So Jen Psaki was asked a question yesterday, a pretty easy question.
	So you're trying to fight inflation.
	When you relieve student debt, aren't colleges just going to raise their prices?
	Because after all, that's now the government just subsidizing things.
	One of the reasons for increased healthcare costs in the United States is the government subsidizes via Medicare and Medicaid.
	And so healthcare providers then respond by raising their prices.
	If I knew...
	That the government was going to cover half the price of a subscription to Daily Wire.
	I would then raise the subscription price on the Daily Wire by about 50%.
	The reason being, I know what subscribers are willing to pay, and then I would just add on the government on top.
	So when you relieve student debt, colleges just raise their prices.
	Chensaki has no answer on this because these people don't think through any of their own positions.
	It's just a bunch of throwing almost literal horseshit against the wall.
	What is to stop some of these schools from just increasing tuition for the next generation of students?
	Isn't that half of the equation here?
	I don't know if people would consider it half of the equation.
	I don't know.
	We'll let Americans define it.
	I would point you to the Department of Education to talk about their efforts on that front.
	She has nothing. I mean, weird, weird, weird. She has nothing. By the way, you want to know why colleges cost so much? One of the reasons the colleges cost so much, and this was tweeted out by a person named Theo Jordan. He tweeted out the staffing at some of the diversity, equity, and inclusion positions at one major university.
	This is one major university.
	Okay, you ready for this?
	Here we go.
	We're going to read off some of these positions.
	This is why colleges cost so much.
	Because administrators versus teachers, way more administrators now than there ever have been before.
	This is one university alone.
	$289,600 salary for the Associate Vice President at the Office of Institutional Equity.
	Associate VP of Talent, Diversity, and Leadership, $262,000.
	Vice Provost, Diversity and Inclusion, $257,000.
	Associate Vice President, Office of Institutional Equity, $220,000.
	Associate Dean, Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach, $183,000.
	Director, Office of Institutional Equity, $155,000.
	By the way, I don't even know how you distinguish these positions.
	Associate Dean, Diversity, Inclusion and Outreach, $183,000.
	Director, Office of Institutional Equity, $155,000.
	By the way, I don't even know how you distinguish these positions.
	What is the difference between the Vice Provost at Diversity and Inclusion and the Director at the Office of Institutional Equity?
	And And this list goes on.
	It goes on for four pages.
	For four pages.
	It just keeps going, and going, and going, and going.
	Total cost to this university.
	This is Ohio State University, by the way.
	Major university in the United States.
	Total payroll, $10 million per year.
	Fringe benefits, $3.2 million per year.
	Total compensation for your diversity, equity, and inclusion staff, $13.4 million every single year for a bunch of career useless people.
	By the way, this is why Democrats want to sponsor people to go to college.
	It's not because you need to go to college in order to be a plumber.
	It's because degree inflation is a way for Democrats to spend government money on things they can pretend work and also hire a bunch of their friends in diversity, equity and inclusion and indoctrinate people into the process.
	This is a large-scale, it's also a large-scale make-work program.
	It's sort of the opposite of the Tennessee Valley Authority circa 1935.
	Instead of getting people to go and work in a valley building a dam or something, instead you send them to a garbage college.
	Not OSU, but you send them to some random community college run by Joe Biden, where they learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion for three years and don't enter the unemployment rolls.
	And then they get out and they are good little liberals.
	Who proceed to vote for policies that create work for diversity, equity and inclusion officers.
	So really brilliant economic policy all the way around by the Biden administration as always and forever.
	Meanwhile.
	The situation in Ukraine continues to worsen because there's not an area that this administration does well on.
	Russia is now cutting off gas to two NATO nations in a bid to divide the West.
	This was perfectly predictable.
	According to the Associated Press, Russia cut off natural gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday and threatened to do the same to other countries using its most essential export in what was seen as a bid to punish and divide the West over its support for Ukraine.
	The move was immediately condemned by European leaders as blackmail and marked a dramatic escalation in the economic war of sanctions and counter sanctions that has unfolded in parallel to the fighting on the battlefield.
	The tactic came a day after the U.S.
	and other Western allies vowed to rush more and heavier weapons to Ukraine.
	It could eventually force targeted nations to ration gas.
	And deal another blow to economies suffering from rising prices.
	At the same time, it could deprive Russia of badly needed income to fund its war effort.
	Well, yeah, but Russia's the one cutting off the gas, so my guess is that they probably already have a backdoor deal with China to buy all their gas, or India to buy all of their gas.
	Poland has been a major gateway for delivery of weapons to Ukraine.
	Just hours before Russia's state energy giant Gazprom acted, Poland announced a new set of sanctions against the company and other Russian businesses.
	And oligarchs.
	Bulgaria, under a new liberal government that took office last fall, has cut many of its old ties to Moscow.
	Meanwhile, their gas is also being cut.
	The gas cut stones immediately put the two countries in dire trouble.
	But somebody is going to have to make up the difference.
	EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, quote, It comes as no surprise the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us.
	Today, the Kremlin failed once again in his attempt to sow division amongst member states.
	The era of Russian fossil fuel in Europe is coming to an end.
	Well, it could be.
	Coming to an end.
	Maybe it would be coming to an end more easily if the United States were filling the gap, considering the United States was, until very recently, a net exporter of natural gas and oil.
	Unfortunately, this administration is so ensconced in its own wild progressivism that it can't even face up to the realities of world politics.
	So you had a State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, literally yesterday talking about how we have to transition away from fossil fuels, and that's the solution.
	By the way, simultaneously, they're attacking the leading electric vehicle manufacturer on planet Earth in Tesla.
	Tesla's bad.
	Manufacturing EVs.
	Also, we need to get away from fossil fuels.
	Also, we need everybody in Europe to be independent of Russian natural gas and oil.
	If you can square that circle, you're the geniuses who created stagflation in the United States.
	Here's Ned Price at the State Department.
	We are working with our European allies and partners, as well as others, to transition away from Russian sources of energy, and ultimately to transition away from fossil fuels entirely, and to continue this transition to renewable, to sources of energy that will see to it that neither the United States nor any country around the world is held hostage to a country like Russia, who can close the spigot whenever they so choose.
	He's absolute buffoons.
	They're such buffoons.
	You know, it'd be great if they didn't control the spigot.
	But you idiots decided to let them control the spigot.
	The leading idiot among all idiots is always, forever, John Kerry.
	How this person was ever considered anything beyond just a grifter who married his way to wealth.
	His path to power was, go to Harvard because you're a Boston Brahmin, and then do so poorly you end up at Boston University Law School.
	And then, marry a ketchup heiress.
	Just slow clap for John Kerry, who's been wrong on every major issue in American life his entire career, including slandering American soldiers in Vietnam as war criminals.
	Here he was, literally yesterday, talking about, We can't have U.S.
	companies expanding oil production.
	His face collapsing like a mudslide in the Hollywood Hills.
	Here we go.
	One thing that seems worrying is that as energy prices soar, a lot of fossil fuel executives are smelling a business opportunity.
	I mean, their stock prices have been rising.
	They want to drill more, not less.
	What do we do about that?
	They have obviously, many of them, not all of them, decided that this is an opportunity.
	Now we have the latest warnings even of the IPCC, Telling us unequivocally that we're really at the crunch time.
	I mean, this is crunch.
	So people are going to have to get a lot more serious than they have been about accelerating this transition.
	This administration, pursuing foolishness every single day of the week, and the policies... Probably should put them in charge of free speech, right?
	We should give them more power.
	That's the solution.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
	In the meantime, go check out Michael Moll's show.
	Today, he discusses Washington State, deeming the term marijuana racist.
	You can hear more deets about that story over on Michael's show.
	That's available right now.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Elliot Felt.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our production manager is Pavel Lydowsky.
	Associate producer, Bradford Carrington.
	Editing is by Adam Saievitz.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.
	Production assistant, Jessica Crand.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2022.
	Joe Biden says your kids belong to teachers, not to you.
	DHS sets up a disinformation governance board to censor Republicans.
	What could go wrong?
	And Washington state deems the term marijuana racist.
	I guess now we have to use the term Peruvian parsley.

▲