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Aug. 2, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

49:16

Will Nancy Pelosi Spark World War III? | Ep. 1547

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	Nancy Pelosi prepares to visit Taiwan as the Chinese threaten, the military kills Ayman al-Zawahiri with a drone strike, and Beyoncé is forced to change her lyrics thanks to political correctness.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
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	We'll get to all the news in just one moment.
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	Well, the breaking news of the day is that an American drone strike has now killed Ayman al-Zawahiri.
	You may remember Ayman al-Zawahiri from such hits as 9-11 and the bombing of the Tanzania and Kenya embassies.
	Well, he was a key plotter.
	On September 11th, he took over for Osama bin Laden after Osama bin Laden's untimely demise at the hands of the United States Navy SEALs.
	While President Biden announced on Monday night That Zawahiri had been killed and he was very triumphal about it and understandable.
	I mean, the fact is that it's a very good thing for the United States when a high-ranking terrorist in Al Qaeda is indeed killed.
	He was killed by drone strike in the heart of downtown Kabul over the weekend.
	There's a 21-year manhunt for him.
	Apparently, he was responsible more than anyone except for bin Laden for September 11th.
	Biden gave a seven-minute nationally televised address from the White House.
	Here's what it sounded like.
	The United States successfully concluded an airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed the Emir of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
	You know, Zawahiri was bin Laden's leader.
	He was with him all the whole time.
	He was his number two man and his deputy at the time the terrorists attacked 9-11.
	He was deeply involved in the planning of 9-11.
	Well, Joe Biden is very reliant on this particular story to shield him from criticism over Afghanistan.
	You'll notice that one of the things that he is focused very in on is the idea that No matter that the United States actually does not have assets on the ground in Afghanistan, somehow we'll still be able to combat the terror threat in Afghanistan.
	According to the New York Times, American intelligence agencies tracked down al-Zawahiri in Kabul earlier this year and spent months determining it really was him hiding out in a house in a crowded section of the Afghan capital.
	By hiding out, we mean kinda living in the open, apparently.
	A reminder, by the way, that the American military is unbelievably good at its job.
	to help fire missiles and killed Oswald Wachry on a balcony of the house without killing anyone else, including members of his family or any nearby civilians, according to American officials.
	A reminder, by the way, that the American military is unbelievably good at its job.
	That when the American military decides to take you out, they will take you out without killing anyone else while you stand on a balcony at 618 in the morning.
	That is pretty impressive stuff there from the American military.
	It's also a reminder that when you watch the sort of carnage that you're seeing in Ukraine, for example, the reason is that the Russian military is supremely unsophisticated by American military standards.
	America's wars are, by contrast to wars by less sophisticated military nations like Russia, extraordinarily clean.
	The death of one of America's most vocal enemies, according to the New York Times, after a long and maddening search, was a major victory for Biden at a time of domestic political trouble.
	But, and here's the big but, it raised an immediate question about the terrorist leader's presence in Afghanistan a year after Biden withdrew all American forces, clearing the way for the Taliban to recapture control of the country.
	Al-Zawahiri moved back to Afghanistan earlier this year, evidently believing that he would be safe there, according to officials.
	So one of the premises of America moving out of Afghanistan was one, the Afghan military would not actually collapse, which of course it promptly did.
	And two, Joe Biden said repeatedly that al Qaeda had been routed from Afghanistan and would not come back.
	This was always extraordinarily doubtful, given the fact that I believe the second-ranking member of the Taliban was a man who is responsible for the so-called Haqqani Network, which is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.
	The Taliban is, in fact, a terror-associated radical Muslim extremist group.
	And Joe Biden handed over control of the country to these 8th century barbarians for no reason other than his own arrogance and stupidity.
	At the time, Joe Biden said, as he withdrew, as the United States withdrew in ignominious defeat in Afghanistan, as Joe Biden suggested that the Afghan military would not collapse, as he suggested that there would be no evacuation from the top of the U.S.
	embassy.
	Instead, it was actually from an airfield where Afghans were clinging to wheel wells of jets.
	You remember all of this?
	Where 13 American service members were murdered by terrorists in an attack that may have well been coordinated with the Taliban in advance.
	You remember all this, right?
	This didn't happen that long ago.
	It happened about a year ago.
	At the time, Joe Biden came out and he said, well, the reason we're doing this is because we achieved our objectives in Afghanistan.
	One, we got bin Laden, and two, we were able to root out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and so the terror threat is done.
	Well, if the terror threat is done, then why is the active leader of al-Qaeda living directly in the capital of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?
	Why?
	We were told the Taliban were going to be our big cooperators, right?
	They were going to help us now.
	They were our new friends.
	Joe Biden said so.
	Well, if they are our new friends, then why exactly is it that this guy was droned in a house that was likely owned by a senior person in the Taliban government?
	It turns out that everything that Biden's critics said was correct, and the fact that our military is really good at what it does is not a justification for really bad international policy.
	Droning an Al Qaeda leader every once in a while is not going to be the end of the story with regard to terrorism.
	And the notion that it takes us six months to figure out that Zawahiri is actually in Kabul when five minutes ago Kabul was controlled by an allied to America government is pretty astonishing.
	It really is an amazing thing.
	Here is Biden circa July of 2021 talking about how Al Qaeda had been routed from Afghanistan.
	The United States did what we want to do in Afghanistan, to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 and deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States.
	We achieved those objectives.
	That's why we went.
	So much of Biden's policy is built on the idea that everything will be fine when we withdraw from some of the worst areas of the world.
	And that, of course, is not true.
	An American official, according to the New York Times, called al-Zawahiri's presence a clear violation of the agreement with the Taliban, but it was not evident what action, if any, Biden would take against the Taliban as a result.
	The answer is none.
	Biden is just going to declare victory, and then he is going to continue to ignore the fact that the Taliban run the country as al-Qaeda grows in power.
	In his short address delivered on a White House balcony with monuments behind him, the president vowed not to permit another sanctuary for terrorism.
	And here he is talking about how he's not going to allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven.
	And I made a promise to the American people that we continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond.
	We've done just that.
	In February, our forces conducted a daring mission in Syria that eliminated the Emir of ISIS.
	Last month, We took out another key ISIS leader.
	Now we have eliminated the Emir of Al-Qaeda.
	He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we're gonna make sure that nothing else happens.
	And none of that is true.
	None of that is true.
	Not only have you allowed this to become a terrorist safe haven, an occasional drone strike does not alleviate the problem.
	Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on the House Foreign Affairs Committee correctly said that the strike serves as a reminder to the American people that they were lied to by President Biden.
	Al Qaeda's not gone from Afghanistan, as Biden falsely claimed a year ago.
	Often seen sitting by bin Laden's side with his gray beard and fierce skeleton, Al-Zarraqi, 71, never achieved the same global notoriety as the terrorist mastermind, but was widely considered the intellectual force behind Al Qaeda.
	The CIA missiles hit the house in Kabul's Sherpur area, a wealthy downtown enclave within what is considered the city's diplomatic quarters, which once housed dozens of Western embassies and now is home to some high-ranking Taliban officials.
	So basically, this guy was just hanging out with, like, the top leaders of the Taliban government, and it took us six months to find out and to drone him.
	So clearly things are going incredibly well.
	The strike took place at 9.48 p.m.
	on Saturday East Coast time, or 6.18 on Sunday in Kabul time.
	After the strike, members of the Haqqani Network, a terrorist group that is part of the Taliban government, tried to conceal that Zawahiri had ever been at the house and restrict access to the site, according to a senior administration official.
	But the official said the U.S.
	had multiple intelligence threads confirming that Zawahiri was killed in the strike.
	The Taliban repeatedly have said that they are adhering to the Doha Agreement, not allowing Afghanistan to become a base for attacks on other countries.
	But analysts and experts have warned that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Tariq-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, have found refuge in the country since the takeover.
	That, of course, is absolutely obvious.
	I mean, this is the equivalent for these purposes.
	Osama bin Laden shows up not in some backward part of Afghanistan, but Osama bin Laden shows up directly in Kabul, okay?
	Because, effectively, this guy was bin Laden.
	So, showing up directly in Kabul would be a pretty good indicator that maybe al-Qaida's back in the country now.
	Pakistani officials have warned that cross-border attacks launched by the Pakistani Taliban from Afghanistan surged after the Western-backed government in Afghanistan collapsed.
	Between last August and the end of April, the Pakistani Taliban carried out 82 attacks in Pakistan, more than double the number over the same period the previous year.
	And this spring, a UN report warned al-Qaeda had found increased freedom of action in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power.
	Again, you have to be willfully blind to pretend that the United States, with no boots on the ground in Afghanistan, is going to have similar control over terrorist areas in Afghanistan As we did a year and a half ago.
	It's just not true.
	That UN report noted a number of al-Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul, and the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahiri suggested he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.
	Al-Zawahiri was thought to have been living in Pakistan for long periods of time.
	But again, apparently, earlier this year, American intelligence sources learned that al-Zawahiri's wife, daughter, and grandchildren had relocated to a house directly in Kabul.
	A senior administration official told reporters the official said the family had exercised long-standing terrorist tradecraft that was intended to prevent anyone from following them.
	Still, American intelligence agencies grew increasingly confident al-Zawahiri was at the house as well.
	Intelligence officials used different sources and methods to build a so-called pattern of life that confirmed his presence.
	Once al-Zawahiri arrived at the location, American officials were never aware of him leaving.
	He was observed for sustained periods on the balcony where he was ultimately struck.
	So Joe Biden is being very triumphal about all of this, but what it actually demonstrates is that everything he said about the pullout from Afghanistan was a lie.
	That is truly the message here.
	It is not that the United States can strike whenever and wherever it pleases.
	It means that we can pull off a sort of spectacular one-off strike like this.
	But it does not mean that the United States has any sort of control over this territory in terms of Al Qaeda.
	When the leader of Al Qaeda shows up directly in the place Joe Biden said he would not be, because remember, the Afghan military was never supposed to collapse.
	And number two, when it did collapse, the Taliban were supposed to be our friends working with us.
	And now it turns out this guy was basically hobnobbing with the leaders of the Taliban government Joe Biden surrendered to.
	The fact that we killed Osama bin Laden is a wonderful thing for the United States.
	It also happens to be a band-aid over a gaping flesh wound that exists in Afghanistan at this point.
	And that is entirely the fault of Joe Biden, the President of the United States.
	So the media are going to try and again, paint this as some sort of major victory for Joe Biden.
	It's a major victory for the U.S.
	military.
	I've always been very skeptical of the idea that, for example, the killing of Osama bin Laden was a quote-unquote gutsy call.
	It is maybe the most obvious call in American foreign policy history.
	You have the guy who literally murdered 3,000 American citizens on 9-11.
	You have to send in some SEALs to kill him.
	And Barack Obama delayed for four days about making the call, but...
	The people who really deserve the credit here, not Joe Biden, the people who deserve the credit are the CIA, the American military, the people doing the on-the-ground work to make sure that we can take out terrorists like this, but to pretend that this is a justification of America's quote-unquote over-the-horizon capacity, which is what Joe Biden and company always talked about, Ben Rhodes always talked about, the former national security advisor for Barack Obama, that suddenly we can strike anywhere at any time.
	Well, it took us six months to find this guy, and he was living directly in the middle of Kabul.
	And his allies are in the Taliban government, like, right now.
	So just another... It's a victory for the United States that underscores a major loss for the United States.
	It is, shall we say, a temporary reprieve from the realities of everyday foreign policy in which this administration routinely surrenders to America's enemies.
	Well, it is certainly good news that Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead.
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	Now, meanwhile, chaos is breaking out over Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, Nancy Pelosi says that she is going to visit Taiwan and meet with government officials this week to find warnings from Beijing not to do so and setting up the potential for increased tensions between the United States and China.
	People that Pelosi is planning to see in Taiwan have been informed of her imminent arrival.
	A person familiar with the matter said, though some details remain in flux, some meetings are scheduled for Tuesday evening, most are set for Wednesday, the person said, indicating they include Taiwanese government officials.
	She's definitely coming, the person said.
	The only variable is whether she spends the night in Taipei.
	A visit by Pelosi would make her the first House speaker to do so in 25 years and put her in the center of a long-standing flashpoint in U.S.-China relations, U.S.
	support for Taiwan.
	A now democratically governed island, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory.
	Joe Biden has, I believe twice already during his presidency, suggested that he supports an independent Taiwan and his defense department and state department had to rush out and say, Hey, no, no, no, no, guys, guys, no, no, no.
	We still hold by the one China policy.
	Taiwan is still theoretically a part of China, but it's two different governances.
	So Joe Biden has been muddying the waters.
	One of the things you cannot do in international relations is muddy the waters.
	You have to have some very clear lines about what it is you believe and what you are willing to do because nearly all serious conflict begins with a misperception of strength or weakness on the other side.
	Virtually all this is true of Ukraine.
	It is true of what's happening right now in China.
	It was true of the Gulf War.
	Misperceptions are generally what lead to war.
	Clarity is what leads to not war.
	The Cold War had an extraordinary amount of clarity between the United States and the USSR, which meant that you could be in a Cold War for literally half a century.
	Because both sides knew, if you violate this line, there will be a nuclear exchange and we both will be gone.
	Well, the truth is that the United States is being extraordinarily unclear about what exactly it believes about Taiwan.
	Joe Biden says things that I think are correct about Taiwanese independence, but he doesn't actually have the stones to back it up in terms of strengthening America's economy, strengthening our military.
	He's not willing to do any of those things.
	And so you almost have the worst of both scenarios.
	And I'm actually very supportive of the idea that top American officials should be able to visit Taiwan whenever they want.
	China should not be dictating to the United States or any other democratic country their relations with a democratic country in Taiwan.
	Taiwan is de facto, and has been since 1949, an independent country.
	When Mao failed to take Taiwan and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, and Taiwan was governed as an independent country, it was an independent country.
	And the fact is that the West has made enormous mistakes over the course of the past 30 years in pretending that China has anything but predatory intentions with regard to surrounding enclaves of freedom.
	Hong Kong should be an excellent example of why you should not trust the Chinese to allow, quote unquote, two systems within it.
	And while China is sounding off a lot about this thing, China conducted live fire exercises in the South China Sea and off the coast of mainland opposite Taiwan in recent days, according to Chinese state media, A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman renewed a warning Monday that the People's Liberation Army will not sit idly by if Pelosi makes the visit.
	He didn't elaborate on what actions China might take.
	The chances, by the way, that China are gonna like actually shoot down Pelosi's plane or something and prompt an actual exchange of live fire with American military jets.
	I think that that is...
	Shall we say, extraordinarily overblown.
	I do not think that that is going to happen.
	I don't think the Chinese are stupid enough to provoke an actual live-fire confrontation with America's military power.
	It would just be too damaging for them.
	I think what instead you will see is increased actions directed against Taiwan, not particularly against Pelosi.
	The potential for trouble prompted the White House on Monday to try to reign in tensions, with officials reiterating a visit by Pelosi doesn't break precedent and that U.S.
	policy has not changed.
	So the White House is sort of trying to downplay Pelosi's visit as though it is not particularly important.
	They're trotting out John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, to talk about this, saying, well, we don't even understand why this is a big deal.
	Here is John Kirby saying that, you know, maybe China should welcome this.
	Do you think it's an unnecessarily provocative move?
	For the Speaker to go to Taiwan?
	No, it wouldn't be.
	I mean, if anything, and I heard what you were saying before here, Joe, if anything, you would think the Chinese would welcome it, because it shows consistency.
	It shows that nothing has changed about America's One China policy adherence.
	It shows that nothing has changed about our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to help with Taiwan's self-defense.
	So it shows consistency.
	We have had congressional leaders go in the past, including a Speaker of the House, There is nothing unusual about this and it's quite frankly disconcerting that the Chinese might use this as some sort of pretext to actually increase the tensions.
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	There's a reason that China is increasing the tensions, and that, of course, is to distract from their failures at home.
	Xi Jinping is trying to consolidate power, and he is also viewing the United States as a weak horse.
	And so now is the time for him to ratchet up tensions and try to back the United States off of Taiwan.
	Kirby continued along these lines, basically begging China not to be angry.
	Here is John Kirby from the National Security Council.
	Has the White House heard of any specific threats from China when it comes to this visit?
	There's no reason for the Chinese rhetoric.
	There's no reason for any actions to be taken.
	It is not uncommon for congressional leaders to travel to Taiwan.
	It is very much in keeping with our policy and consistent with our support to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act.
	We shouldn't be, as a country, we shouldn't be intimidated by that rhetoric or those potential actions.
	This is an important trip for the Speaker to be on and we're going to do whatever we can to support her.
	So I actually agree with John Kirby here.
	A shocker.
	I actually agree with the plan by Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan, but you better have the balls to back it up, right?
	That is the key in foreign policy.
	If you're going to talk big, you better have the stones to back it up and you better make it clear that you're going to back up that sort of action with serious ramifications if God forbid they were to shoot down a jet with Speaker of the House Pelosi on it, right?
	She's the third ranking official in the United States, not in terms of the executive branch, but third in line for the presidency and the most powerful person in the House of Representatives, which theoretically is supposed to be the most powerful branch of the United States government, not the executive.
	Which, by the way, should happen.
	For Beijing, a visit by Pelosi is seen as a high profile instance of rising U.S. political and military support for Taiwan, contravening Washington's commitments to limit its ties to the island, allowing a Pelosi visit to go ahead without consequences, Chinese foreign affairs specialist said, would only invite more senior political officials from the U.S.
	and other countries, breaking Beijing's diplomatic blockade of Taiwan, which by the way, should happen.
	I mean, I'd like to see more ties between the United States and Taiwan, given the importance of Taiwan to global, forget about democracy for a second, just in terms of pure strategic Taiwan is the producer of virtually all of the world's sophisticated semiconductors and microchips.
	The notion that you made subject to Chinese predation is really, really risky on a global level for the economy and for the United States.
	Pelosi opened her trip to Asia on Monday in Singapore.
	She and four other Democratic members of Congress met with the Singaporean Prime Minister, who hailed the importance of stable U.S.-China relations for regional peace and security.
	Singapore is obviously geographically placed incredibly close to China, and so they have to be very careful about what they say to China.
	They do an enormous amount of trade with China.
	Pelosi attended a closed-door reception with the American business community after which she did not respond to questions outside at the venue.
	She then put out a statement saying, quote, As we continue our regional travel, we look forward to additional engagement with our partner nations to advance a free and flourishing Indo-Pacific.
	Taiwan's government has sidestepped questions about Pelosi.
	The White House is not confirming the Taiwan stop, but its possibility consumed a large portion of a two-plus hour phone call last week between the U.S.
	and Chinese leaders.
	Xi Jinping told President Biden China would safeguard national sovereignty, describing it as the unbending will of 1.4 billion Chinese people.
	He said those who play with fire will perish by it.
	Biden told the Chinese leader that U.S.
	policy on Taiwan has not changed and that Washington opposes unilateral changes to the status quo.
	So the question, as always in foreign policy, is what are you willing to do?
	It's the untouchables question by Sean Connery.
	What are you willing to do here?
	What are you willing to do in order to protect Taiwan?
	And the United States had better make that clear right up front.
	We're talking about what sort of economic measures you are willing to take if China were to go after Taiwan.
	Would it be what?
	Heavy economic sanctions?
	What are you willing to do?
	Is the United States willing to up its amount of military support for Taiwan?
	What sort of rearmament are being provided right now to deter a Chinese invasion by making it incredibly costly to engage in such an invasion in the first place?
	Are you building up your naval superiority?
	What exactly are you doing?
	If the Biden administration is just talking big but doesn't have the brass to back it up, then China is going to invade sooner rather than later.
	Also, again, Xi Jinping has a rather large interest in demonstrating aggressiveness with regard to Taiwan, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board Point out, Beijing is escalating its efforts to scuttle a Taiwan visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the coming days, and the threatening rhetoric from the Communist Party makes more sense when you consider the domestic backdrop.
	The Chinese economy looks increasingly brittle, so it'd be no surprise if Xi Jinping resorts to nationalist brinksmanship as a distraction.
	The basic story is slowing economic growth.
	Beijing has had a GDP growth target of 5.5% in 2022, which is modest by historical standards.
	Even the party now seems to admit the country is not going to hit that target.
	Growth was only 2.5% in the first half.
	For an economy of China's size, with hundreds of millions of citizens still in poverty, this is the functional equivalent of a recession.
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	The troubles that are being faced by the Chinese government on the economic front are very, very serious because it turns out communism is a garbage way to run a government.
	Even mercantilist communism is still a garbage way to run a government.
	So, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board continues, slowing growth is global, but Xi has added Chinese characteristics.
	A chronic problem is his dynamic zero-COVID policy, which Beijing shows no signs of easing.
	This imposes sudden lockdowns and stringent testing requirements anywhere COVID-19 is detected.
	The lockdowns are a severe strain for ordinary Chinese and a danger to global supply chains passing through China.
	Foreign companies are rethinking investments local firms suffer.
	Chinese properties, Property implosion also continues.
	A crackdown on property speculation that started in 2020 has now become a broader crisis.
	A growing list of private developers have defaulted on debt or come close, falling property values are hurting local governments that rely on land sales for revenue.
	Basically, China was borrowing extraordinary sums of money to build giant empty cities in the middle of nowhere that are completely abandoned.
	I mean, I'm talking about like tens of thousands of units that no one is living in, and they built these things as a make work project for Chinese citizens.
	Groups of would-be homebuyers recently staged a mortgage strike, refusing to repay loans for apartments that failing developers haven't even completed.
	Far more worrying is the plight of small business suppliers to failed developers.
	These creditors hold large quantities of commercial paper, representing money owed for goods and services.
	In China's Wild West financial system, these IOUs are frequently exchanged as a form of money.
	A collapse in confidence could do serious damage.
	Apparently, Beijing is now considering a property bailout that could reach $44 billion, the money would be funneled through state-owned banks to buy unfinished projects, and the government might then rent out some of the homes rather than selling them.
	So there's a consistent speculation that Xi continues to consolidate extraordinary economic power at the center of the Chinese economy.
	And they're talking about another public works spending blowout in up to $1 trillion, much of that financed with government debt.
	So, Xi Jinping is trying to redirect away from the failures of the Chinese economy.
	And so, he is trying to challenge the United States.
	Again, this looks very much like Vladimir Putin.
	And so the question is, what is the United States going to do?
	Is the United States willing to actually face up to the possibility of something quite serious?
	And it seems like kind of not.
	It seems like they're talking a little bit out of both sides of their mouth.
	On the one hand, they want to take a very strong position with regard to China.
	Fine.
	Good.
	On the other hand, they want to appease Chinese needs.
	They want to make China feel better about things.
	You'll recall that this particular administration has undercut specific espionage proposals in the United States directed at Chinese targets.
	This administration has been softer on China, certainly, than the last administration was.
	Taiwan, for its part, is preparing the possibility of conflict.
	According to the Washington Examiner, Taiwanese defense officials have canceled the leave of some soldiers and officers to prepare for a chance of war.
	China warned early Monday its military would not sit idly by, of course.
	According to Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, he told reporters on Monday, her stature as the number three US official means her trip would be highly sensitive.
	As to what measures, let's wait and see whether she insists on the visit.
	She'd be the highest ranking US official to visit the island since Newt Gingrich went in 1997.
	Pelosi released an itinerary, but that itinerary did not include Taiwan in the first place, supposedly for reasons of national security, which makes a certain amount of sense.
	But again, it's the mixed signals that are being sent by this administration on nearly every front that create serious danger on foreign policy.
	That's true in Afghanistan.
	They're mixed signals.
	Do we support the Afghan government?
	Do we not support the Afghan government?
	The answer is we don't.
	It collapses, and now Al Qaeda is in the center of Kabul.
	Do we support Taiwan?
	Do we not support Taiwan?
	On the one hand, we are sending Nancy Pelosi there in order to demonstrate our solidarity.
	On the other hand, we're not really doing much to build up the United States Navy.
	And we also seem to be going soft on China with regard to, for example, international investigations on COVID.
	Like the countermeasures that we are taking on trade in the Indo-Pacific region are not nearly up to snuff.
	We are not taking seriously the Chinese threat to the Solomon Islands, for example.
	And this is true for pretty much every threat on the world stage.
	We didn't take seriously the threat of Russia to Ukraine until it was too late and Russia had already invaded Ukraine and now we're spending tens of billions of dollars in order to protect Ukraine from a complete takeover by the Russian military forces.
	And all of that is going to get very hairy come winter when it turns out that Russian oil and natural gas, which aren't flowing to Eastern Europe, have some pretty dire consequences in terms of the number of people who might freeze to death.
	The same thing right now is holding true with regard to Iran.
	So tremendous mixed signals being sent from this administration with regard to Iran.
	Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State under Joe Biden, he is speaking internationally and saying we should get back to the Iran deal.
	Meanwhile, Iran is ratcheting up its terror support nearly everywhere.
	Here is Tony Blinken trying to convince himself more than anybody else that it was time to get back on board with an Iran deal.
	Iran remains on a path of nuclear escalation.
	Although it publicly claims to favor a return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, since March, Iran has been either unwilling or unable to accept a deal to achieve precisely that goal.
	Getting back to the JCPOA remains the best outcome for the United States, for Iran, for the world.
	Okay, so he can say that as much as he wants, but the simple fact is that Iran continues to thwart American sanctions and support terrorism all over the world at the exact same time Tony Blinken is calling for an Iranian nuclear deal.
	The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the United States is considering new sanctions that would target a United Arab Emirates-based businessman and a network of companies suspected of helping export Iran's oil, part of a broader effort to escalate diplomatic pressure on Tehran as U.S.
	officials push to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program.
	The firms and individuals under scrutiny have been using ship-to-ship transfers of oil and waters that lie between Iraq and Iran and forging documents to hide the origin of the cargo.
	By passing off the blended oil as Iraqi, those involved can avoid Western sanctions targeting Iranian oil.
	The administration continues to push sanctions at the same time that it's pushing talks with Iran.
	Meanwhile, it is pushing sanctions on Russia at the same time that it's using Russia as a broker for a deal with Iran.
	The reality is that there is no deal to be had with Iran that looks like anything remotely decent.
	And yet this administration continues to sort of push two policy proposals at the exact same time.
	Which is the nature of exactly how this administration works.
	Now, with all of this said, this is one of the better stretches, apparently, for the Biden administration.
	So Joe Biden is going to claim the killing of Al Zawahiri is a major victory.
	It's not going to have a major impact on American public opinion.
	In the same way that in February of 2020, when Donald Trump killed an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Qasim al-Rumi, it didn't really mean anything.
	When he talked about the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that had very little flavor for the American public.
	It really didn't do much for the American public.
	So the media is going to declare major victory there.
	Meanwhile, they're declaring major victory with regard to the economy.
	Because the media is under the wildest impression that when Joe Biden spends money, this makes him more popular.
	And I just don't know where they get this.
	I continue to doubt the giant narrative that is spun out by the media and Democrats that every single time they spend buckets of money, this has a major impact on American public opinion.
	It didn't help Joe Biden.
	The American Rescue Plan was $1.9 trillion.
	It did not help Joe Biden.
	The infrastructure plan was $1.2 trillion.
	It did not help Joe Biden.
	And now they're trotting out another $433 billion.
	And the idea is that this is going to help Joe Biden.
	No, it's not.
	His policies are not successful.
	Because his policies are not successful, it's not going to help Joe Biden.
	It really is that simple.
	But according to the media, who are always in the category of DO SOMETHING, this means that if Joe Biden does something, he is more successful than if he doesn't do anything.
	That's not how the presidency works.
	When Americans feel like things are going well, then the president is popular.
	When they feel like things are going poorly, the president is not popular.
	It is indeed that simple.
	Americans do not follow the legislative ins and outs of the billions and billions and billions of dollars in pork that are spent by Congress.
	And in fact, It turns out that if you can't clearly define what you're doing with the money, Americans don't like you very much anyway.
	Americans will say they like spending on particular proposals, but if you ask them whether it is a good idea to just throw hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars at things, their general answer is going to be no.
	So this giant kind of boondoggle narrative that's being sold by the media that Joe Biden is suddenly going to be wildly successful because he gets Joe Manchin to sign on to a $433 billion spending package that includes $400 billion in new taxes in the middle of a recession, I have my doubts.
	Axios co-founder, Mike Allen, however, he says that Joe Biden is now on a winning streak.
	There's an America first populist streak to this, that is more oil drilling here, making more vaccines here.
	They point us to a poll in The Washington Post, August 1982, 40 years ago.
	This month, for the seasoned viewers out there, a Barry Sussman file on one of the classics.
	And this was a poll with 58% of people in August 1982 saying that first-term president Ronald Reagan shouldn't run again.
	And of course, there's a resonance to this.
	We've had a parade of polls, people saying that President Biden shouldn't run again.
	And of course, Jonathan, the punchline to this, less than two years after that poll, in 1984, Ronald Reagan won 49 states, the most electoral votes of any presidential candidate in history.
	Okay, yeah, the difference is that Ronald Reagan had a booming economy by the time 1984 came around.
	He had crushed a 10-year stagflationary cycle in the United States economy with interest rates of up to 20% under Paul Volcker, and he had passed tax cuts.
	So there are a few things that Ronald Reagan did that Joe Biden is doing the opposite of.
	Namely, Joe Biden created the inflation.
	The inflation did not exist before Joe Biden.
	Massive inflationary problems under Joe Biden are not the result of what happened before Joe Biden.
	They're the result of Joe Biden.
	Also, the bills that Ronald Reagan passed were pretty popular, and they had a predictably good effect on the American economy.
	Joe Biden's bills have not had any predictably good effect on the American economy.
	In fact, he's been throwing inflation gasoline on the fire.
	So, I don't see the relation at all.
	Again, this idea that just because he passes stuff, this makes him similar to Reagan.
	I'm going to need some evidence on that one.
	We'll get to more in just one second.
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	Meanwhile, the Democrats are still trying to convince Kyrsten Sinema to sign off on their giant climate and healthcare boondoggle.
	According to CNN, Democrats this week have the chance to validate their monopoly on political power in Washington, create a legacy of true significance for President Trump.
	What legacy?
	That he spent a crap load of money?
	And even boost their hopes in daunting midterm elections in three months.
	This is all according to the sycophants over at CNN.
	But first, they must push a back-from-the-dead climate and healthcare initiative through the Senate using their tiny majority, notably by locking in the crucial vote of moderate Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has yet to sign off on a bill that may not save Democrats in November, but may at least give them a big new win to run on.
	No, it doesn't.
	No, it, like, what, again, I ask you, what is the big new win?
	What is the top line of the bill?
	We spend $433 billion on climate change?
	In the middle of a massive energy spike?
	In terms of prices?
	In the middle of an economic recession, you're sucking money out of the American economy and raising taxes in order to do so?
	This is your win?
	I just, I'm so doubtful as to the strategy.
	It demonstrates, again, I say it all the time, but there's an echo chamber between the media and the Democrats.
	And so Democrats say, what if we do this thing that makes no sense?
	And the media are like, if you do that, you'll be super popular.
	And then they do it, and they're not popular.
	And then Democrats are like, I have a new solution.
	What if we do the exact same thing, but like a little bigger?
	And the media are like, that's an amazing idea.
	You'll probably be super popular if you do that.
	And then they're not popular because it turns out that the policy is garbaggio.
	Well, this is exactly what's happening.
	Moody's Mark Zandi says, you know what this bill does that Americans are not going to like?
	It raises taxes.
	I mean, if you want to give Republicans talking points to run on, ram through on a party line vote a tax increase to pay for climate change subsidies in the middle of a recession.
	Like really go for it, guys.
	This is brilliant politicking right here.
	Here's a Moody's Mark Zandi.
	Yeah, on the margin, it will slow growth by itself.
	That provision will slow it.
	But you gotta, I think, I'm a little confused by that because this is a minimum tax, 15%.
	So these are large corporations make over a billion in revenue a year.
	They're not paying any or very little tax.
	And, you know, if you want to pay for climate risk, if you want to pay for health insurance and for prescription drugs, you need to raise revenue.
	OK, so they're talking about raising taxes.
	Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a brilliant electoral move, according to the media.
	It's also maybe the dumbest thing you could possibly do if you are Democrats right now.
	And yet they're doing it.
	So the question for Kyrsten Sinema, who is a swing state senator, is whether she wishes to do this.
	You understand why I mentioned it.
	He got a payoff.
	My mansion's payoff is that they're supposedly going to green light a bunch of pipelines in West Virginia.
	That's the payoff.
	The payoff is that the energy sector in West Virginia is going to get some pork.
	But what interest does Kirsten Sinema have in signing off on this?
	She herself has explicitly said she's not in favor of raising taxes in the middle of a recession.
	According to CNN, the vote of Sinema is a question mark.
	Her support is just as critical as Manchin's.
	Like Manchin, she's opposed dismantling the Senate filibuster to pass other Democratic priority bills.
	She did help remodel Biden's larger Build Back Better bill before Manchin blocked it last year.
	Now there are questions over whether she'll back tax changes affecting private equity investors in the Manchin-Schumer compromise.
	Manchin suggested on State of the Union on Sunday he hadn't spoken to Sinema since he agreed on the package with Schumer, but he paid tribute to his Arizona colleague in her previous work on reducing prescription drugs.
	Manchin, of course, is wielding his power.
	The GOP is talking about putting a bunch of amendments on this bill, and Democrats are going to have to ram this through before that happens.
	One of the big problems here is that if a single Democrat gets COVID anywhere in this process, they're done.
	Because they can't come in to vote.
	Which means that when they can't come in to vote, then they don't actually have a majority.
	Now Pat Toomey, the senator from Pennsylvania, he says, it looks to me like Joe Manchin has been taken to the cleaners.
	The corporate tax increase is going to slow down growth, probably exacerbate a recession we're already in.
	Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said another multi-billion dollar spending bill would inject an incredible amount of uncertainty into the economy just as it entered into a recession.
	So again, the Democrats are pursuing a bad, dumb policy and the media are cheering them on.
	And it's going to get more unpopular over the course of the current debate.
	Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post points out that one of the problems here is that Republicans can force votes on poison pill amendments to the package, particularly on immigration.
	One Democrat sounding this alarm is Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.
	He's urging Democrats to unite against all poison pill amendments, meaning like all amendments, no matter how politically difficult it could be for senators facing tough reelection campaigns.
	He said, I call on all Democrats to stand firm and united against Republican amendments that would hurt immigrant families.
	So what exactly is happening right here?
	Well, immigration amendments are unrelated to this climate package, which by the way, the fact that reconciliation is now being used on climate packages is insane.
	Reconciliation was meant for budgetary measures.
	This is not a budgetary measure.
	It's just a spending bill.
	So if you can now characterize anything as a spending bill, you can break the filibuster, apparently.
	But, anyway.
	Immigration amendments might be added by the Republicans.
	Even if Democrats secure 50 votes to pass the package via simple majority reconciliation, Republicans could have a chance to force some tough votes.
	Take, for example, one scenario feared by Democrats.
	In it, Republicans would offer an amendment codifying in federal law Title 42.
	That is the rule expelling asylum-seeking migrants without any hearing.
	Based on COVID threat, for example.
	There's already a proposed bill on this.
	It would require the restriction on asylum-seeking to remain as long as the federal state of emergency exists on COVID-19.
	Well, the proposed bill would basically force Democrats on record opening the border.
	So, will Democrats vote that down?
	Or will they add it?
	Well, there are a bunch of Democrats who are in swing states, like Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire or Mark Kelly in Arizona.
	Would they vote for that amendment?
	Manchin and Sinema might vote for that amendment.
	There could be a bunch of other so-called poison pill amendments that Republicans can add to the bill, including, for example, construction of the border wall.
	What happens if that passes?
	Well, at that point, if there's an amendment that, for example, funds the border wall or that extends Title 42, you might see some of the liberals, like Bernie Sanders, vote down the package.
	If the climate package passes with any such amendments, that would be a terrible outcome as well, says Greg Sargent.
	It would further weaken our already wavering commitment to asylum or worsen our immigration system in any ways.
	It's unclear how Democrats can prevent the tactics.
	Congressional scholar Sarah Binder says federal law governing the reconciliation process allows for a voterama on the minority's amendments with no majority imposed limit.
	Not much can prevent this aside from a deal between both party Senate leaders or mere exhaustions.
	But this could be really ugly for the Democrats.
	They could ram through an unpopular bill with a bunch of amendments that they had to vote against.
	And this is their idea of victory?
	This is the big win here?
	I'm gonna need an explanation.
	By the way, the bill that they're calling the Inflation Reduction Act has nothing to do with reducing inflation.
	Hilariously, the Penn-Wharton Budget Model examined the details of this bill and found it doesn't contain any net deficit reduction until 2027.
	And then, through 2031, the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
	So there'll be no reduction of inflation at a minimum.
	Maybe there'll be an increase in inflation.
	The $327 billion in new taxes that they are seeking, according to the Wall Street Journal, could slow inflation if the economy falls into recession.
	That might be the quiet expectation.
	The tax increases on business will discourage investment while the Federal Reserve is raising business costs with higher interest rates.
	But that's just asking for a recession at this point.
	The book income minimum tax would hit the accelerated depreciation in the tax code that lets business write off investment in, say, new factories.
	Wholesale trade, retail trade, and information companies would get off relatively easy by contrast, but the tax would really hit U.S.
	manufacturers.
	So precisely the people who support the blue-collar jobs that Joe Manchin is supposed to stand for, those are the people who are going to get hit by the new tax here.
	An analysis by the National Association of Manufacturers says the tax in 2023 alone would reduce real GDP by $68.5 billion and cut labor income by $17.1 billion as well.
	So, good luck.
	This is Joe Biden's big win.
	A slow clap for these geniuses.
	Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve president, he says, you know, you guys are all triumphal about your economy here.
	You're talking about how oil prices are going down and all the rest.
	You may have noticed that for most Americans, real wages are still down.
	So you can talk as much as you want about passing bills, making Joe Biden popular.
	It ain't going to do it.
	For most Americans, their wages are going up, but they're not going up as fast as inflation.
	So most Americans, real wages, real incomes are going down.
	That's why families are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet.
	When they go to the grocery store, when they buy necessities, they're not able to buy as much because they're getting a real wage cut because inflation is growing so quickly.
	I mean, typically we think about wage-driven inflation.
	Where wages grow quickly and then that leads to higher prices in a self-fulfilling spiral.
	That is not yet happening.
	High prices and wages are now trying to catch up to those high prices.
	Those high prices are being driven by supply chains and the war in Ukraine among other factors.
	Bottom line here is the American people are rightly extraordinarily skeptical of Joe Biden and his economic plans right now and all of the happy talk in the world about how we're not really in a recession.
	If we spend more money, if Joe Manchin signs up, we'll have something to run on.
	And this is not correct.
	This is just not correct.
	The simple fact of the matter is that Joe Biden already has run on what Joe Biden is.
	A big spending, high tax, Horrible foreign policy leader who has driven gas prices to extraordinary highs, who has driven your cost to extraordinary highs, who has lowered real wages in significant fashion, who has surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, who has weakened America on the world stage to the point that there was a full-scale European war in place because the Russians thought that the West was just weak because of Joe Biden.
	That's who this president is.
	And none of the underlying factors here are changing.
	And you can see this, by the way, in Joe Biden's approval rating.
	You know, all this talk about how Joe Biden is enjoying some sort of massive boost in the approval ratings.
	I'm wondering exactly where they are getting this.
	I'm looking at the RealClearPolitics approval ratings for Joe Biden right now.
	His job approval remains at negative 17%.
	He's still near his all-time lows.
	He's still approve 39%, disapprove 56%.
	So that one right there, that's a big no.
	And passing more bills that people don't like?
	That's not gonna do it.
	Well, folks, recently we celebrated the one-year anniversary of our podcast, Morning Wire.
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	Okay, meanwhile, on the cultural front here in the United States, we have a very sad story.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Bradford Carrington, executive producer Jeremy Boren, supervising producer Mathis Glover, production manager Pavel Wydowski, associate producer Savannah Dominguez-Morris, editor Adam Sajevitz, audio mixer Mike Coromina, hair and makeup artist in wardrobe Fabiola Christina, production coordinator Jessica Grand.
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	Hey there, this is John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief and co-host of Morning Wire.
	On today's episode, farmers in several countries erupt in protest against climate policies, Senator Joe Manchin backs a new tax and spend bill that promises to reduce inflation, and a California judge says a lawsuit alleging Visa illegally profited from child pornography can go forward.

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