Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 26, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

57:37

Corpse Declares Re-Election Launch

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Well, Joe Biden finally on Tuesday decided to launch his not really awaited presidential campaign, his reelect campaign.
	Everybody knew he was going to do this.
	We talked about it a little bit earlier this week.
	The expectation was that he was going to do it in a video.
	And that's precisely what he did, because he does not have the capacity to give some sort of barn burner speech.
	He can't get five sentences out of his face before he starts to physically collapse.
	This is going to be a very rough reelect campaign for Joe Biden.
	And you can tell that by the ad that he actually cut, this three minute launch ad.
	He did the same thing four years ago when he again launched on video.
	In this three minute launch ad, he appears on camera speaking, For about three seconds at a time, because anytime the camera is on him for more than a few seconds, it just gets extremely awkward.
	And here's the thing.
	Joe Biden is not a very popular man.
	According to a variety of polls, his job approval among independents is worse than dirt.
	CBS News has him at 32% approval among independents.
	NPR-Marist has met 36% among independents.
	Fox News has met 35% among independents.
	And Harvard-Harris has met 38% among independents.
	Those are not re-elect numbers for the President of the United States.
	And so he is relying solely and completely on the idea that the Republicans are going to run Donald Trump.
	That is what his entire campaign is based on.
	And you can tell it from his launch video, which is not about anything that he has done as president of the United States.
	It's purely about the idea that he stands between you and the Trumpian darkness.
	We're going to go through this launch video in detail because it really does show you who Joe Biden is and what his campaign is all about.
	Here we go.
	It opens with January 6th, obviously.
	More images of January 6th.
	And then abortion is healthcare outside the Supreme Court.
	Freedom.
	Oh boy, he's old.
	Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are today.
	There's nothing more important, nothing more sacred.
	That's been the work of my first term.
	We fight for our democracy.
	This shouldn't be a retribution.
	Again, he's all audio.
	He's all audio.
	There's no video of him.
	Back to January 6th.
	Okay, pause it right there.
	It's all about Trump.
	He's all audio.
	There's no video of him.
	But you know, around the country, many voters are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms.
	Okay, pause it right there.
	It's all about Trump.
	It's all about Trump.
	There's a picture of Trump with DeSantis, trying to smear DeSantis by association with Trump.
	There's a picture of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
	The idea here is that a bunch of MAGA extremists, the same people who he's been going after for the past several years, the people who are putting democracy in danger, those are the people he is there to stop.
	Remember, up till this point, his launch ad has not mentioned a single thing he's actually done as President of the United States.
	His entire shtick here is I was elected to save democracy from Trump.
	And that's why you need to reelect me is to do the same thing because he can't actually stand on anything he has accomplished.
	Typically, you run on what you've done in your first term.
	Well, according to Joe Biden, the only thing he's done in his first term is not be Trump, which is true.
	He has not been Trump.
	But that's not a very strong pitch.
	He continues.
	Again, pause it.
	your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy, dictating what health care decisions
	women can make, banning books, telling people who they can love, all while making it more
	difficult for you to be able to vote.
	Again, pause it.
	This is all the same speech that he gave back in Philadelphia.
	Remember that terrible speech, worst speech I've seen a president give in my lifetime?
	That speech that he gave in front of a blood-red Independence Hall where he declared half the country his enemies and suggested that they stood in the way of democracy?
	This is what he's saying, right?
	He's standing in the way of all these bigoted, terrible Republicans, and if they gain office, then the country will be thrust into a new dark age.
	And then cue the rising music here as he strides forward with the least popular politician in America, Kamala Harris.
	When I ran for president four years ago, I said we're in a battle for the soul of America.
	And we still are.
	The question we're facing is whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom.
	More rights or fewer.
	I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too.
	This is not a time to be complacent.
	He's not pledged to do anything?
	That's why I'm running for re-election.
	Because I know America.
	I know we're good and decent people.
	I know we're still a country that believes in honesty and respect and treating each other with dignity.
	Incredibly vague.
	That we're a nation where we give people no safe harbor.
	We believe that everyone is equal.
	That everyone should be given a fair shot to succeed in this country.
	It's all warmed over platitudes.
	Not one, but like five separate photos of a Ketanji Brown Jackson, a black woman.
	You can't tell what a woman is.
	And there's Jill.
	Jill says this a lot.
	Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.
	And John Lewis.
	And this is our moment.
	He ran for like a step.
	And now it's a bunch of fast clips of people doing things and being people.
	Or people.
	Yeah, man.
	Real people.
	People hitting shots.
	People on trains.
	People hugging.
	Wow.
	Like humans.
	Who are people.
	With faces.
	Somebody speaking Spanish.
	Who might be a taco.
	Or burrito, according to Joe.
	And there he is with Kamala Harris.
	What is the job he's trying to finish?
	This is the big question.
	Nothing we cannot do if we come together.
	Let's finish the job.
	Okay, what job is it that you seek to finish?
	This would be the question that everyone is left asking.
	That is a terrible slogan.
	Let's finish the job?
	Okay, your entire shtick, again, your re-elect shtick is the same as your prior-elect shtick, which is, I will stand in the way of Donald Trump.
	How is that finishing the job?
	What is the job that you were elected to finish?
	His entire campaign in 2020, and he made this very clear, is he was elected to stop Donald Trump for being president, and he kind of implied that he would step down before a second term, because he don't got it.
	The dude is super old.
	How old is he?
	He's so old that in his campaign launch ad, he does not appear for more than three seconds at a time.
	It's all an audio take.
	He is not capable of speaking continuously into the camera without stopping and falling over, like Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride after taking Iocane powder.
	So instead, they cut a bunch of fast cuts of still photos of humans.
	Humans who do things.
	And then he's like, I'm here to finish the job.
	Here's the problem.
	If he finishes the job, we got a problem.
	Because everything he's done so far has been garbage!
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	Let's talk about the fact that your big cell phone wireless carrier, they are overcharging you.
	They locked you in a bad contract.
	It's time for you to change.
	That's why I made the switch to PeerTalk where there are no hidden fees, no contracts, no hassle.
	PeerTalk has a range of affordable cell phone plans to choose from.
	You can find the perfect option for your needs, like unlimited talk, text, and plenty of data for just $30 a month.
	PeerTalk saves the average family over $900 per year.
	Think about what you could do with that money.
	You don't get cheap, inconsistent service.
	With PeerTalk, you get the same coverage you're used to at half the rate you're currently paying.
	I use PeerTalk.
	Their 5G service is super fast and it doesn't drop my calls.
	PeerTalk's U.S.
	customer service team helped me make the switch.
	In as little as 10 minutes, I was even able to keep my phone number.
	Not only are you going to save money, you're going to get the satisfaction of knowing you're supporting a great American company.
	The CEO and Chairman of PeerTalk is a U.S.
	military vet.
	When you become a Pure Talk customer, you're given the option to support America's Warrior Partnership, an organization that works to support military veterans.
	So, head on over to puretalk.com, enter promo code SHAPIRO, save 50% off your first month of coverage.
	Again, that's puretalk.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
	Pure Talk is simply smarter wireless.
	Okay, so that is Joe Biden's launch ad.
	And it ain't great.
	It ain't great.
	The RNC then immediately came out with a response ad.
	This ad was actually generated by AI.
	I gotta say, the AI is pretty good at this.
	Here is the AI's response ad, courtesy of the RNC, against Joe Biden's launch.
	It says, what if the weakest president we've ever had were re-elected?
	What if international tensions escalate?
	What if financial systems crumble?
	What if our border is gone?
	What if crime worsens?
	It says beat Biden.
	What if markets are in free fall as 500 regional banks have shut down?
	What if financial systems crumble?
	What if war regions were overrun by a surge of 80,000 illegals yesterday?
	What if our border is gone?
	What if the city of San Francisco this morning, citing the anti-corruption crime and fentanyl
	crisis?
	Who's in charge here?
	It feels like the train is coming off the track.
	It says beat Biden.
	Okay, that's a pretty good pitch.
	Because Joe Biden's entire pitch is, don't vote for Donald Trump, vote for me.
	Let's finish the jabadabity!
	And that's the pitch.
	I mean, that's his entire pitch.
	He does not at any point say what he has done.
	He has said that he has stopped Republicans from stopping black people from voting or something, which was always patent garbage.
	Black people were not stopped from voting by Republicans.
	That's absurd.
	He says that he has stopped democracy from being overthrown by the January 6th protesters, who were essentially a couple of hundred morons who went into the Capitol building, the ones who were actually violent and who actually got jailed.
	The ones who were actually violent were morons who got arrested, and then within a couple of hours, the election was certified.
	That doesn't count the people who wandered in thinking that it wasn't actually illegal because the cops were actually showing them through the building.
	That doesn't count the people who were protesting outside.
	But that was a threat to the republic of such dire nature, according to Joe Biden, that you have to elect him not once, but twice.
	Because if you don't re-elect him to finish the job at Abbotty, then that means that you want those people to win.
	Now here's the problem.
	He's a bad president and everyone knows he's a bad president.
	And he's super old and everyone knows that too.
	Corinne Jean-Pierre, world's worst press secretary, she was asked, is he going to actually serve eight years?
	He doesn't look good.
	In fact, they won't even put him on camera, because he is an animate corpse at this point.
	They shoot him full of something, and then he stumbles out, his eyes wide and his pupils dilated, and then he proceeds to speak through his face hole for a non-prolonged period of time, and then he stumbles nonsensically off the stage looking for where to go next, before they wrap him back into his coffin at night.
	It closes.
	They pipe in some old Perry Mason episodes, and he's a happy camper.
	And he wakes up the next morning, they do it all again.
	Here's Corinne Jean-Pierre asking, is this man gonna be able to even serve eight years?
	And she's like, eh?
	That's crazy!
	How does she not have an answer to that question?
	eight years? I'm not, I'm just not going to get ahead of the president. That's something for him
	to decide. I'm just not going to get ahead of it. And there's a 2024 campaign. Anything related to
	that, I would refer you to that. That's crazy. How does she not have an answer to that question?
	I mean, the answer to that is yes. What?
	Does he plan to?
	It's not like he's going to quit being president so he can run for a higher office.
	Very often politicians, governors, say Governor DeSantis, he's running and everybody kind of knows there's a good shot he might run for president.
	And so when people ask, are you going to serve out your term or are you going to run for a higher office, you say, well, I'm still thinking about it.
	What's there to think about?
	He's the current president.
	If he wins again, is he going to step down to become like NFL commissioner?
	What exactly is the pressing job that would be on the docket for him?
	James Clyburn, who's his biggest backer in South Carolina, probably put him over to the top in the primaries.
	Even he was like, well, he's got to show some energy because frankly, he looks a lot like that, that frog in the electricity experiment.
	Looks like they're shooting him some electricity into his leg.
	He's like flopping around a little bit.
	Here's James Clyburn.
	First of all, I think the president is going to have to deal with the whole issue of age.
	He is 80 years old.
	I might add I'm 82.
	I do believe that he's up to the task, and that is something that we just cannot pretend is not on people's minds.
	So, I think he has to show the energy that he's been showing over the past several months, and he has to continue to pursue an agenda that will, as he says, build this economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, so that people can feel a part of this.
	Okay, so even James Clabourne, who is two years older than the president, is like, I look better than that guy does.
	Which is true.
	James Clabourne looks a lot better than Joe Biden currently does.
	Meanwhile, Morning Joe is still trying to figure out why Kamala Harris is still on the ticket.
	Here they were trying to figure out why this wildly incompetent politician is on the ticket.
	I have a hint.
	It rhymes with, she's a mack-shwoman.
	Yes.
	Yes, that would be the reason.
	Here we go.
	I mean, there's been a lot of talk about the vice president and are they going to replace the vice president?
	And you always get this, by the way.
	You always get this.
	The vice president's always turned into a secondary figure for good reason, but also a lot of people leading up to reelection campaigns will say, well, are they going to dump this?
	But no, she's there.
	She's their voice on abortion.
	Yeah, and she certainly has been their voice on abortion.
	She had a successful trip to Africa.
	And Gene Robinson, there's absolutely no reason why they should upset the apple cart, as it's said.
	Why would you upset the apple cart?
	I mean, she is wildly unpopular.
	There are a lot of problems for Joe Biden, but he does have some systemic advantages, and those advantages are built around one person and one person in particular.
	We all know who that is.
	We'll get to that momentarily.
	First, this year marks the 75th anniversary of Israel's independence.
	Coincidentally, The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is also celebrating 40 years of ministry today.
	Thousands of Jews both in Israel and in war-torn Ukraine are struggling to survive life-threatening crises including extreme poverty, hunger, and violence in the form of conflict, anti-Semitism, and terrorism.
	Among these vulnerable people are tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors and elderly Jews who will not survive without their basic needs met.
	I've spent a lot of time with Holocaust survivors, some of the most incredible people on the planet.
	There are a lot of them in Ukraine who suffered not only through the Holocaust, but then through communist oppression.
	And now they're having to suffer through war.
	With just 40 bucks, you can provide one person with an emergency food box and hot meals for one week.
	Today, we've got a special matching opportunity where your gift will double in impact.
	A $40 gift becomes an $80 gift.
	A $100 gift becomes a $200 gift.
	An $80 gift to $100 gift becomes a $200 gift.
	Go to benforthefellowship.org or call 800-331-3737 to rush an emergency food box today.
	Your special gift will double in impact to provide those in need with twice as much nourishment.
	That's benforthefellowship.org or call 800-331-3737.
	That's 800-331-3737.
	So again, Joe Biden is extremely weak and we didn't even get to his agenda yet.
	His actual agenda items have been terrible.
	Right now, you can see that the stock markets are already falling.
	Why?
	Well, because they're looking forward to the possibility of some really bad reports.
	So, while there's talk about the financial system being healed, that's not right.
	It's not pretty.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, First Republic bank shares sank 49% on Tuesday, a day after it reported customers pulled about $100 billion in deposits out last month alone.
	Though regional banks in general have suffered since the collapse of several smaller mid-sized lenders last month, First Republic has been the focus of market anxiety following a surge in deposit outflows last month.
	Again, people feeling very uncertain.
	About places like First Republic after what happened with Silicon Valley Bank.
	Plus, there's a lot of talk about what's going to happen.
	Is the Fed going to raise the rates again?
	And you can see the earnings reports that are about to happen are scaring everybody.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, the tough day for stocks essentially started after trading closed on Monday, after the First Republic Bank reported the banking turmoil.
	But also, the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite dropped about 2%, the S&P 500 fell 1.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial slid 1%.
	All of this because people are expecting some earnings reports to come out this week, and those earnings reports are not likely to be particularly good.
	Joe Biden's economy is sliding.
	And everyone knows this.
	He's trying to happy talk his way past this, but the man can't even regular talk, let alone happy talk.
	Here he was yesterday talking about how he's turning things around in a big way.
	Folks, trickle down economics doesn't work.
	We have a very different plan for the economy.
	We, you and I, together, we're turning things around and we're doing it in a big way.
	Uh, no.
	And he also said we are bringing down costs, which, uh, No one's laughing, Mr. President.
	We thought maybe people should start paying their fair share.
	The Inflation Reduction Act is going to bring down hundreds of billions more in decades ahead.
	Bring the cost down.
	We're doing all this by making the biggest corporations just begin to pay part of their fair share.
	Just pay your fair share.
	Pay at least something.
	When I have to hear the schmuck talk about people paying their fair share, and he's talking about the people who actually pay the vast bulk of taxes in the country, it is very, very irritating.
	Meanwhile, even Joe Manchin, who signed onto the Inflation Reduction Act, right, he's one of the guys who signed onto that boondoggle, suggesting that it was going to somehow bring down inflation, mainly because there were a bunch of provisions that were supposed to protect The mining for coal and natural gas in West Virginia.
	Well, now he's realizing that Joe Biden absolutely shafted him and that Joe Biden never had any intention of protecting energy production in Joe Manchin's home states.
	Now Joe Manchin's out there like, yeah, I really got screwed.
	Yeah, you did, sir.
	Maybe you shouldn't have trusted him.
	Maybe you shouldn't have done that.
	Let me make it very clear.
	If this administration does not honor what it said it would do, and basically continue to liberalize that, where $384 billion is what we're supposed to invest over ten years, and they blow that out of the water, and it's six or seven or eight hundred, I will do everything I can in my power to prevent that from happening, and if they don't change, then I would vote to repeal my own bill.
	Well, that makes no sense.
	Who cares whether you vote to repeal your own bill, you jerk?
	He voted for the thing in the first place.
	It's a little late now.
	He's going to have to wait until after the next presidential election in order to reverse all of that.
	But even Joe Manchin is saying, yeah, I thought he was supposed to be a moderate.
	Yeah, he's not a moderate.
	Meanwhile, Corine Jean-Pierre, she is pushing forward the agenda of this wildly unsuccessful administration.
	She says that unlawful immigration is down.
	Things are going amazing on immigration.
	Did you know that?
	Did you know that things are just going swimmingly on immigration in this country?
	So, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security will have more to share soon.
	As you know, the Department of Homeland Security shared their plan back in January, and we have seen from the data, we have seen that the unlawful immigration is down, and so what they have put forth in their protocol and their processes is working, but they will have more to share.
	They're doing an amazing job, according to Corinne Jean-Pierre.
	How amazing is the job they're doing?
	I mean, they did send Kamala Harris to the... I mean, they didn't really, but they pretended they did.
	What an amazing job.
	How amazing?
	6.3 million illegal border crossings under Joe Biden.
	6.3 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border under Joe Biden.
	A lot of those people got sent back, but at least 1.3 million are known illegal immigrant gotaways.
	He's the most unsuccessful president in American history on the border, just as he is the president who brought about 40-year inflation.
	The good news is that he really has his head screwed on.
	I wouldn't say he had his head screwed on straight in this particular context.
	He has his head screwed on properly when it comes to the social issues, which is why Karine Jean-Pierre was celebrating the thing that matters most, Lesbian Visibility Week.
	I have a question.
	Is there a week in the calendar that is not some form of LGBTQIA plus minus divided by a sign, happy face sign, sad face emoji, tilde, hashtag, caret, Week?
	Is there like a week in the calendar left for, you know, like, heterosexual people?
	Because, I gotta say, I'm wondering.
	Here we were at the White House yesterday with Corinne Jean-Pierre celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, as opposed to the other 51 weeks of the year, which I guess are Lesbian Invisibility Week.
	Which is, you know, I think, troubling.
	Do we have a spade of crime from the invisible lesbians?
	No one knows.
	So this week is Lesbian Visibility Week, and as the first openly queer person to hold the position of Press Secretary for the President of the United States, I see every day how important visibility and representation are.
	Today, I'm honored to welcome the cast of The L Word and Generation Q, two Showtime series that chronicle the friendship, the love, the challenges, and the triumphs of strong, funny, and resilient queer women.
	Up here with me are the amazing, talented actresses who play those very roles.
	Jennifer Beals, Leisha Haley, and Katherine Menig, and the show's co-creator, writer, and executive producer, Eileen Shakin.
	So basically, why don't they actually just turn the White House into the upfront?
	So it'll be great.
	We can actually have Joe Biden trot out there and preview a bunch of shows for the olds.
	They'll be like, here's what we got coming on CBS for those of you who are no longer alive.
	And then you can have Corrine Jean-Pierre, and she'll get up there and be like, for all of you who are people of color who are queer, we have every other show on TV.
	It'll be amazing.
	I mean, they've already done like the Ted stupid show, the one with the soccer.
	Yes, Ted Lasso, that stupid show.
	They already did that one.
	We've already had, like, which other stars have they had at the White House?
	It's like they've had a bevy of them.
	Matthew McConaughey showed up.
	Everyone who's in Hollywood has shown up to do a junket.
	So I think they should actually have like swag bags that they give out at the White House, you know, with like a card for Dylan Mulvaney's latest sponsored product.
	And then they can actually just pitch the TV shows.
	Here she is previewing Showtime, the L word, sponsored by the White House.
	This is your White House.
	You must reelect this president.
	You must.
	It is imperative that you reelect this president.
	He's doing important work.
	Very, very important work.
	It's more of the president's important work in just one second.
	First, let's talk about living a healthy lifestyle.
	So, gotta tell you, as you know, I have the taste buds of a child, which means I hate vegetables.
	Vegetables are one of nature's great evils, but I still need the nutrition of the vegetables, which is why I use balance of nature fruits and veggies.
	They're a great way to make sure that you're getting essential nutritional ingredients every single day.
	Through Balance of Nature's advanced cold vacuum process, the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients of the fruits and vegetables are preserved, so you can get that vital nutrition in each capsule.
	Balance of Nature is a whole food supplement with no additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.
	The only thing in their capsules is pure fruits and vegetables.
	Balance of Nature has sent a bunch of their product down to the studio for my team to try.
	We all love the product.
	It's not just me, you know, in terms of people around here who hate vegetables, but like the product.
	Producer Jake hates broccoli like every normal human being, but he loves Balance of Nature's fruit and veggie capsules.
	They make him feel a lot better, and they do that for all of us around here.
	I was excited to find out the product is certified kosher, which means I can actually attest to its quality.
	Go to balanceofnature.com, use promo code Shapiro, get 35% off your first order as a preferred customer.
	That's balanceofnature.com, promo code Shapiro, get 35% off your first preferred order.
	So, Here's the thing.
	Joe Biden, actually a terrible president, but he has some systemic advantages going into the election.
	His chief advantage, according to the New York Times, the presence of Donald Trump, quote,
	the mere presence of Mr. Trump in the Republican primary race is helping the Democrats make the
	2024 campaign a choice between the two parties, not a referendum on the incumbent. A far more
	difficult challenge for the party in power, said Jim Messina, who managed the last successful
	presidential re-election campaign, Barack Obama's in 2012.
	Early polls, both in key states like Wisconsin and nationally, have Biden holding onto a slim lead over Trump, but even with or behind Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.
	And then there's the map.
	The 2022 midterms should have been a disaster for this president.
	Instead, in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Democratic Party greatly strengthened its hand and its electoral infrastructure.
	With victories in the governor's races in both states, the Pennsylvania House flipping to the Democrats, and the Michigan legislature falling to complete Democratic control for the first time in nearly 40 years.
	These were both states in which the Trump wing of the Republican Party had outsized influence.
	At the outset of the 2024 campaign, two-thirds of the upper Midwestern blue wall that Trump shattered in 2016 and Biden rebuilt in 2020 appear to favor the Democrats.
	Some battlegrounds, like Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, these are starting to look more and more reliably Democratic.
	So, what does that mean?
	There are only a few states that now matter.
	Wisconsin?
	Georgia, which used to be Republican.
	Arizona, which used to be Republican.
	Pennsylvania, which used to be, which went for Trump in 2016, but went for Biden in 2020.
	If Biden locks down Pennsylvania, then he only needs to win one of Wisconsin, Georgia, or Arizona to win.
	So that is the big question.
	Joe Biden right now is leading Donald Trump in every one of those states by every available poll.
	Okay, so what does that mean for the Republicans?
	Well, it means you might not want to nominate the guy that Democrats want to run against.
	Again, the entire basis of Joe Biden's campaign is democracy dies in Dambedoo.
	Dambedoo is Donald Trump.
	That is the thing.
	And meanwhile, Donald Trump, I gotta say, his campaign looks like a campaign of fear.
	It really does.
	He looks like he's afraid of something.
	The reason I say this is because he came out yesterday and he put out on Truth Social the following statement, quote, I see that everybody is talking about the Republican debates, the Republican debates!
	But nobody got my approval, or the approval of the Trump campaign, before announcing them.
	And then he continued.
	When you're leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile networks with angry Trump and MAGA-hating anchors asking the questions, why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?
	Also, the second debate is being held at the Reagan Library, the chairman of which is, amazingly, Fred Ryan, publisher of the Washington Post.
	No.
	So this is Donald Trump saying he will not debate anybody.
	He's just going to run away from debates.
	Now, he did some of this in 2016, you'll recall.
	You'll recall that after he didn't like questions from Megyn Kelly, he actually ditched one of the debates.
	But I'm not sure he can play that card this time.
	I don't think a lot of Republican voters are up for an uncontested primary.
	If he just skips the debates, I don't think that's going to play very much in his favor, especially if people on the stage continue to focus on Trump, even if he is not on the stage.
	And again, one of the big questions for Republicans is, how much do you wish to run this campaign based solely on President Trump?
	Trump, by the way, is focusing all of his, all of his ire, like every element of his firepower is now focused, like the eye of Sauron on Ron DeSantis, without a doubt.
	He is now apparently attempting to lobby the Florida GOP To, in Tallahassee, to deny a bill that would allow Ron DeSantis to run for president while maintaining his slot as governor.
	So, first of all, that's not gonna work.
	I'm just gonna put it out there right now, that's not going to work.
	The Florida GOP is going to actually, in the legislature, change the law so that you can simultaneously serve as governor and run for president.
	The reason they will do this is because, imagine the consequences if they don't, let's say they change that law, and they basically say that if you have to run, And then you lose.
	You can't go back to being governor.
	Like, what is the expected outcome if he then does not run for president to maintain his slot as Florida governor?
	Does that go amazingly well for those legislators?
	We're all members of his party?
	Probably not.
	It's a weird strategy.
	It also looks pretty weak.
	I mean, if Trump is trying to use every legal means at his disposal to stop DeSantis from even running, that's a problem for him.
	And again, every headline about Trump from now until the end of the election cycle will be about Trump.
	It will not be about Biden.
	I have a very simple rule when it comes to presidential politics.
	Whoever an election is a referendum on, loses.
	It's that simple.
	In 2008, the election was a referendum really on George W. Bush and then became a referendum on John McCain.
	In 2012, it should have been a referendum on Barack Obama, but the media pulled a magic trick and suddenly it was a referendum on Binders Romney.
	In 2016, the election, contrary to popular opinion, was not a referendum on Trump, it was a referendum on Hillary.
	In 2020, it was a referendum on Donald Trump.
	And in 2024, it should be a referendum on Joe Biden, but if Trump runs, it will be a referendum on Trump.
	Which is why those of us on the right who are looking at, for example, this what looks to be a foolish civil trial about a 20-year-old rape allegation, 30-year-old rape allegation from E. Jean Carroll, that sort of stuff is still not going to play amazing with independents.
	According to the Washington Examiner, jury selection begins Tuesday in a lawsuit brought against former President Trump by the humor and advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her sometime in 1995 or 1996.
	Carroll is now 79 years old.
	At a minimum, the alleged attack took place about 27 years ago.
	Apparently, she never reported the alleged crime to any authorities.
	She didn't tell anybody else.
	Years passed.
	The statute of limitations came and went.
	Even when he ran for president 20 years later, she said nothing.
	She said she didn't speak up for years because her elderly mother, a longtime Republican, was ill and she didn't want to set off a distracting controversy.
	But then, she changed her mind in 2017.
	It's a very, very weak case because this much time passes and it's a he said, she said.
	It's going to be very difficult to actually demonstrate Donald Trump's guilt.
	But, are they going to fill the headlines with this sort of stuff?
	You bet they'll fill the headlines with this sort of stuff.
	So, is that what Republicans want to fight?
	Is that the battle that they want to fight?
	Especially when Donald Trump is currently attacking Ron DeSantis consistently from the left?
	I don't know.
	Certainly Joe Biden is betting on Republicans doing precisely that.
	Okay, in just one moment, we'll get to the most horrifying story of the day.
	First, regardless of your religion, everybody around here needs a little more peace in their life.
	There's just too much chaos in the world, too much anger in the world.
	When it's time for you to calm down and connect with the deeper values, you need something like Halo.
	Halo is an incredible app that offers a unique approach to prayer and meditation.
	Unlike other meditation apps, Halo is tailored specifically for people of faith to deepen their relationship with God.
	The Halo app is filled with studies, meditations, and reflections rooted in Judeo-Christian prayer practices.
	Obviously, we have a lot of Christians who work here at Daily Wire.
	They've been using Halo.
	They love it as well.
	You can pray alongside Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Rumi, who portrays Jesus in The Chosen, even some world-class athletes.
	You can access the number one Christian podcast, The Bible in a Year, with Father Mike Schmitz on Halo.
	Halo helps you maintain that daily prayer routine.
	With features like progress tracking and streaks, you can stay motivated and make prayer a regular part of your daily routine.
	If you're looking to deepen your relationship with God and improve your mental and emotional well-being, try Halo for three months free at Halo.com slash Shapiro.
	That's Halo.com slash Shapiro.
	Now, speaking of God, if we are made in God's image, it means that there is an ethical and spiritual infrastructure to the universe.
	We're supposed to behave according to God, who made us in his image, obviously.
	Well, we had this discussion on the show Exodus, starring Jordan Peterson.
	I was privileged to be on that show.
	Here's a clip.
	And isn't there's an irony here that for all the insistence upon equality, The very foundation for that equality in Western culture, i.e., the idea that human beings are made in the imago dei, in the image of God, has been lost, of course.
	So it's almost as if, because of the erosion of this foundation, The drive for equality is stressed all the more.
	That's exactly what Nietzsche claimed would happen when he wrote, particularly in Beyond Good and Evil.
	He said that would be an inevitable consequence.
	It's a fantastic series.
	In addition to Douglas and Jordan, I sat alongside a group of big thinkers from different backgrounds to explore one of the most seminal books in the Bible.
	We're heading into the conclusion of Exodus.
	It's exclusively for Daily Wire Plus members.
	If you haven't seen it, start at the beginning because it's well worth your time.
	Join now at dailywire.com slash subscribe to watch Exodus.
	Also, Crane & Company, our friends, they're hosting a 2023 NFL Draft livestream tomorrow, Thursday, April 27th.
	They'll be taking bets, providing in-depth analysis on draft picks and the upcoming season.
	They will also be having some very special surprise guests.
	Tune in at 7.45 p.m.
	Eastern.
	You don't want to miss what they'll do if they hit 100,000 subscribers during the stream.
	Meanwhile, this is the worst story of the day.
	According to the Post Millennial, a 2016 medical article documenting the tragic death of one of the participants in the linchpin Dutch study, upon which the entire child sex experiment, sex change experiment is based, indicates the puberty suppression was to blame for the young person's death.
	The case is that of an 18-year-old trans-identified male whose puberty was blocked by the Dutch researchers at a very early stage, meaning there wasn't enough penile tissue for surgeons to use to create a neo-vagina.
	Therefore, a more risky procedure using a section of the patient's bowel was necessary, which resulted in fatal necrotizing fasciitis.
	The manuscript begins by saying the absence of a functional vagina has had a negative effect on the sexual quality of life of transgender women and explains that multiple surgical procedures have been described for vaginal reconstruction, reconstruction meaning actual construction, in these patients.
	The patient was described as being a healthy 18-year-old for whom standard vaginoplasty surgery was not feasible due to having underdeveloped genitals as a result of early puberty suppression.
	So instead, they decided to literally grab a piece of this person's colon and try to form this into a false vagina.
	And the person died.
	And the person died from this.
	Apparently Jazz Jennings, star of the reality TV show I Am Jazz, faced a similar issue when it came time for genital surgery.
	Jennings was an extremely gender non-conforming child, who would almost certainly have grown up to be a gay man, but was instead transitioned at a very young age.
	Jennings' puberty was blocked from early childhood, meaning vaginoplasty was not possible.
	Jennings required three corrective surgeries, still struggles in the dating world, and has never experienced orgasm, which of course is going to be a lifelong problem.
	Now we are all supposed to pretend that this is life-saving care, according to the media and the current White House.
	Speaking of which, Jazz Jennings has now responded to criticism from people like me.
	The criticism from me is not of Jazz Jennings as a human being.
	My criticism is actually of Jazz Jennings and his parents, because this is a person who's indoctrinated from the time that he was a very young person, like a small child, into the idea that he was actually a she, and then facilitated into life-altering hormone treatments and surgeries that have not alleviated Jazz Jennings' underlying feelings of depression, anxiety, and other issues.
	Here's Jazz Jennings, however, responding to that claim.
	This person was born in 2000.
	This person is a boy and was transitioned by his parents when he was a very, very young kid.
	It's almost like comedic at this point.
	I've been watching these videos over and over again.
	It's just not for these people to define me and tell me who I am.
	I define myself.
	I know who I am and just shut up and let me be.
	Let our community be.
	Let us thrive, you know?
	Why do you have to bring us down?
	Why do you care so much?
	It's just so annoying and so stupid.
	They don't know my life and my personal business and I'm here saying right now that I have no regrets when it comes to my transition.
	I am proud to be me.
	So for people to jump to that conclusion that I regret my transition, it's just not true.
	And me saying that right here, right now, should be enough.
	Why are you talking about me when I'm on TV making the case that young, very young people should be transitioned?
	That would be the reason why.
	You're a public figure.
	You make a claim, which is boys can become girls.
	I deny that claim because it's not true.
	You know, as far as your own personal happiness and your own personal mental state, you are the person putting that on television.
	I played clips from your show on my show and I talked about the clips of you obviously being in a dire emotional state.
	You put that out.
	I did not put that out.
	It was not a secret.
	It was on national television.
	To point out that the lie that it's all rainbows and unicorns once you take hormones and surgically mutilate your body, to point that out does not make me the villain.
	The villain Was the people who as adults decided that a small child was capable of picking his gender.
	Those are the villains in this story.
	But again, we're supposed to pretend that everything is hunky-dory.
	We're supposed to ignore the horror stories.
	We're supposed to pretend that none of this has any impact on real life.
	It obviously does have some very significant impact on real life.
	In terms of the broader cultural debate, it turns out that a lot of Americans are not fond of having the message that boys can be girls and girls can be boys crammed down upon them.
	Bud Light has taken it directly on the chin in market terms.
	Bud Light has now suffered a 17% sales plunge amid the Dylan Mulvaney botch-up, according to the New York Post.
	The latest sales data from Nielsen IQ and Bump Williams Consulting shows Bud Light sales fell 17% in dollars, while volume dropped a whopping 21% in the week ending April 15th.
	That's sharply ahead of the 6% drop in sales dollars and 11% drop in volume that Bud Light had suffered during the week ending April 8th, the seven days that immediately followed the April 1st launch of the controversial Mulvaney campaign on social media.
	Insights Express, a beer-focused newsletter, said, These numbers are staggering.
	Right now, this is an extremely difficult scenario for Anheuser-Busch, the Bud Light brand, and for AB distributors.
	So the question is going to be, who else is going to stand up and say enough of this nonsense?
	The real big question is going to be for women here.
	The reason that that question is going to be for women is because the vast majority of brands who've actually used Dylan Mulvaney as a brand influencer are female-oriented.
	You want to talk about men who are standing up for women?
	How about men who say, no, you don't get to womanface.
	You don't get to pretend to be a woman and mock women in the process and then earn millions of dollars doing it.
	That's not something that we as men are going to stand for.
	But women are going to have to do the same thing.
	Men can't do all the heavy lifting here, ladies.
	You're going to have to stand up.
	There are many women who do, like JK Rowling.
	Many women are going to have to stand up and say, no, you don't get to pretend to be a woman and make money off of us at the same time.
	Currently, Dylan Mulvaney's list of sponsorships includes... Dylan Mulvaney's full list includes Ulta Beauty, MAC, CeraVe, Kate Spade, Instacart, Nike... I mean, this is a large list.
	A very, very long list.
	Maybelline.
	Maybe it's Maybelline.
	And maybe that's a dude.
	Like, this is... It's...
	Ladies, it's up to you.
	I can't decide which makeup you buy, but you can decide which makeup you buy.
	I don't buy makeup.
	I'm a dude.
	In fact, even for the show, I don't buy the makeup.
	Fabby buys the makeup to make sure that everybody looks good on camera.
	Okay, but the reality is that people buying makeup should take a look at their pro- And women should have most of the stake in this.
	Why are men the ones who are leading the way?
	Why only when it hits Bud Light is there a sponsored blowback?
	Women should be the one who are offended by this nonsense.
	This is a man pretending to be one of you and saying that men should be able to go into the women's bathroom and compete against women.
	Women need to stand up at a certain point here.
	Meanwhile, the Hollywoodites continue to do their worst.
	So Kevin Bacon is now speaking out against drag bands, which is very exciting stuff.
	He and Kaira Sedgwick are dancing for the drag queens.
	Oh no.
	This is not good.
	Oh no.
	They're wearing shirts that say drag is an art and drag is a right.
	It is neither.
	Also, that is seven degrees of awkwardness right there from Kevin Bacon.
	Okay, meanwhile, the left continues to celebrate, in the media world, the ouster of Tucker Carlson from Fox News.
	And one of the worst things about Tucker's ouster from Fox News is, of course, the left's reaction, which is triumphalist.
	We finally did it!
	We finally achieved victory!
	Fox News will continue to exist, it will continue to not agree with you.
	Tucker will continue to exist, you will continue to be successful, but It is amazing to watch as government actors call openly for deplatforming and censorship.
	And so long as they are on the left, it is totally fine.
	Here was Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, so fresh, so phased, irrepressibly stupid, talking about how Tucker being gone is a good thing.
	It shows that deplatforming is a wonderful thing.
	Yeah, it is.
	It must be a wonderful thing to be an elected official who can say anything that she wants on the floor of the House without any fear of legal blowback.
	It must be fun to be her and never actually have to earn a buck.
	Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News.
	Couldn't have happened to a better guy.
	goes to the Met Gala. Never have to do any of those things.
	It must be just a pleasure.
	Or at least you only pay it much, much later. It must be great. While you call for the platforming
	of other people, you know, as a government employee.
	Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News. Couldn't have happened to a better guy. What I will
	say though, is while I'm very glad that the person that was arguably responsible for the
	some of the largest driving some of the most amounts of death threats and violent threats,
	not just to my office, but to plenty of people across the country. I also kind of feel like
	I'm like waiting for the cut scene at the end of a Marvel movie after all the credits
	of rolled and then you see like the villains like hand Re-emerge out to grip over like the end of a building or something.
	But, de-platforming works.
	So, it's always fun to watch as members of Congress call for deplatforming.
	They literally work for a body about whom there is a federal constitutional provision saying that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.
	So, remember, it's a threat to democracy when Trump criticizes the press.
	When AOC says that people should be deplatformed and censorship should be applied to people she doesn't like, that's totally fine.
	She's incredibly fresh and incredibly face.
	So fresh and so face that she makes Marvel movie references because she has the IQ of a kumquat.
	I mean, honestly, get a better set of references.
	She wasn't the only celebrity who's celebrating Tucker's ouster, of course.
	Seth Meyers was out there joking about it.
	Now, Seth Meyers, it's amazing to me he's never been cancelled, considering that he has fewer viewers than a normal toenail clipping on a street corner in Los Angeles.
	But here is Seth Meyers.
	This is the first time anyone's actually seen this, so I'm excited to bring you a person named Seth Meyers telling a joke.
	This will be the first time you've ever heard of him or have seen any of his jokes.
	Fox News announcing in the last hour, Tucker Carlson is out.
	Effective immediately.
	Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News?
	Oh my God!
	Does this mean Fox News has gone...
	Woke?
	He's so funny, guys.
	Dude, that guy is hilarious.
	I went through all the stages of Tucker's face in one sitting.
	First I was shocked.
	Then I was confused.
	Then I did the Tucker laugh.
	He is so funny.
	That's actually closer than you think.
	Okay, that's fine.
	Then I had so many questions.
	What are we going to do without Tucker?
	Who else is going to tell us when M&M's aren't sh** anymore, you know?
	You know what would be really funny though?
	If they replaced him at 8pm with the new green M&M, that would be pretty funny.
	Who wrote these jokes?
	The only thing that was funny about that is Tucker actually laughing.
	That's the only thing funny about that entire clip.
	By the way, I just want to point out that from 2016 to 2022, Seth Meyers' show went from 1.5
	million viewers to 786,000 viewers. He is on a network, guys.
	And here he is criticizing— I mean, what do you have to do to get cancelled at one of these networks?
	That's the real question in all of this.
	Watching these dolts celebrate Tucker's ouster, Tucker, wherever he goes, will certainly have better ratings than Seth Meyers in very, very short order.
	We'll get to more in just a second.
	If you own a business, the past few years have been a really bumpy ride.
	You could probably use a break.
	Innovation Refunds can help.
	Innovation Refunds knows the value of your time.
	That's why they made it easy to apply for the Employee Retention Credit, or ERC.
	Go to GetRefunds.com, get started in less than 8 minutes, see if your business qualifies for ERC assistance.
	Your business might be eligible for a payroll tax rebate of up to $26,000 per employee kept on payroll during COVID-19.
	Innovation Refunds has already helped clients claim over $3 billion in payroll tax refunds through the ERC.
	They might be able to help your business as well.
	There's no upfront charge.
	They're not going to get paid until your business gets its refund.
	Don't miss this opportunity because this payroll tax refund only available for a limited amount of time if you spend too much money.
	On the federal government, why not get that money back?
	The federal government has basically dedicated itself for the last several years to destroying your business.
	If you overpaid on taxes, why not get the refund?
	Check out, see whether you actually can get it.
	Go to GetRefunds.com again.
	That's GetRefunds.com.
	GetRefunds.com.
	Contact my friend at Innovation Refunds and see how much you can get back.
	GetRefunds.com.
	Once more, GetRefunds.com today.
	Meanwhile, we also have some updates with regard to Don Lemon's ousting.
	So apparently, according to the New York Times, Don Lemon was fired at least in part because he finally ticked everyone off super a lot.
	Not just because he was mistreating everybody, but also because he's really bad at his job.
	So he did an interview with our friend Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for president.
	Uh, he did this interview in which they got into America's racial history.
	And it got very weird and ugly because Don Lemon basically said that Vivek isn't allowed to have an opinion because he's not black.
	And meanwhile, Caitlin Collins was sitting there like, you know what?
	I'm just going to browse my email.
	Like, I'm just, I'm super bored with this.
	It was not a good segment.
	Say what you said again.
	Black people secured their freedoms after the Civil War.
	It is a historical fact, Don.
	Just study it.
	Only after their Second Amendment rights were secured.
	That's a fact.
	They were not secured their freedoms after the Civil War.
	You are discounting Reconstruction.
	You're discounting a whole host of things that happened after the Civil War when it comes to African Americans, including the whole reason that the Civil Rights Movement happened.
	It's because black Black people did not secure their freedoms after the Civil War.
	You are sitting here telling an African American about the rights and what you find insulting, about the way I live, the skin I live in every day.
	Here's where you and I have a different point of view.
	And I know the freedoms that black people don't have in this country, and that black people do have.
	Well, here's where you and I have a different point of view.
	I think we should be able to express our views regardless of the color of our skin.
	We should have this debate, without me regarding you as a black man, but me regarding you as a fellow citizen.
	That's what I think we should see.
	Whatever ethnicity you are explaining to me, whatever it's like to be black in America, I'm sorry.
	Whatever ethnicity I am, I'll tell you what I am.
	I'm an Indian American, I'm proud of it, but I think we should have this debate.
	Black, white, doesn't matter.
	I think we should have this debate.
	On the content of the ideas.
	If you're going to do it, you should do it in an honest way.
	According to the New York Times, quote, the incident left several CNN leaders exasperated.
	The people said, yeah, no, no bleep, Sherlock.
	I mean, yes, he's an exasperating human being, which is why he was ousted.
	My favorite part of the media coverage of this is The View, which they did the wave when they found out, they literally did the wave on air when they found out that Tucker Carlson had lost his job.
	They had to, even The View was like, we kind of have to admit that Don Lemon says dumb stuff sometimes.
	I mean, we love him and he's the best, but also he says dumb stuff sometimes.
	Don, yes, said some things that were sexist and I think ageist.
	He apologized for them and received formal training.
	And he spoke to us.
	I know him too.
	We all know him here.
	Sarah stayed at his house one time.
	He loves me.
	And he loves her.
	She needs to hear that over and over again.
	But it's fine.
	But, um, you know, he has been on the air for a long time fighting bigotry, whereas Tucker has been fomenting bigotry.
	Oh my God.
	Don Lemon's been fighting bigotry?
	In what world, man?
	And yes, he did some dumb things.
	And apologize.
	Tucker never apologizes to anybody.
	But I only know him personally.
	I don't know what he does when he's with his co-workers.
	Well, I do, because I work with his co-worker.
	Yeah.
	They're all defending him at The View.
	The one who, you know, actually was apparently mean to women and terrible to women, like, on the air.
	And meanwhile, in other media news, Nate Silver is actually out at ABC News.
	And Nate Silver, of course, is the founder of FiveThirtyEight, famous Dana analyst.
	And apparently, he was let go.
	FiveThirtyEight was retained as a brand, but basically gutted in the process.
	What's amazing about this is that it wasn't as though this was a particularly expensive proposition.
	So, things that I like today.
	I was forwarded one of the great pieces I have ever read.
	This is truly one of the great pieces I have ever read.
	But they must be just looking for nickels and dimes to get their to make their way through this particular period.
	Legacy Media is having itself a difficult time over here and for good reason.
	Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	I was forwarded one of the great pieces I have ever read.
	This is truly one of the great pieces I've ever read.
	It is by a student named Carolina Araujo.
	She's from a place called Kenyon College.
	And I will admit that I was not really aware of Kenyon College until I actually, you know, read this piece.
	It apparently is in Gambier, Ohio.
	It is a private liberal arts college.
	A four-year liberal arts college.
	Carolina Araujo is very upset Here is the title of her piece, quote, What is an ESA?
	An emotional support animal.
	So Kenyon, the college, they failed to provide this person stable housing as a student of color with an emotional support animal.
	Then proceeds a massively long, self-centered story about how this person demanded like eight types of housing and was accommodated every step of the way, but they didn't do enough because she is a person of color who has a cat.
	I kid you not.
	This is the generation that we have bred here in the United States.
	Quote, for almost two months, I've been in communication with the Office of Residential Life, trying to figure out where I'm supposed to live.
	Capel's residence hall is now the fourth residence I've been assigned to during my first year at Kenyon after transferring from Binghamton.
	I switched schools because of the disrespect I received from Binghamton's residential life.
	Oh, um, so, yeah, so Binghamton didn't actually give her the housing she wanted, so she instead went to Kenyon College.
	More recently, I chose to be a member of Sisterhood because I am a non-binary Latinx person with an emotional support animal, attending a predominantly white institution.
	At Sisterhood, I found a community in which femme-identifying people of color can unite.
	Like many, my identity is multifaceted, intersectional, and vulnerable.
	While searching for other safe spaces, I realized Unity House was not an option.
	Sisterhood includes queer people, but there are additional spaces provided by the College for LGBTQ plus students, such as Unity House, but Unity feels exclusive because there are too many white LGBTQ plus people.
	So, not there.
	So, Sisterhood made it easier, but Sisterhood wasn't good enough.
	Quote, my emotional support animal is one of the few therapeutic methods that have successfully supported my disability.
	But when I moved into sisterhood housing after spring break, I wasn't allowed to remain with my cat due to someone in the house being allergic.
	So, the campus immediately created a list of options to resolve the conflict.
	The first option suggested I make my own arrangements to move my cat elsewhere for the remainder of the semester and keep living at the sisterhood.
	But this was not acceptable.
	So then, this woman was placed in Meadow Lane Housing despite my emotional support animal and physical disability.
	And then apparently that wasn't good enough.
	So they moved her again.
	And then again.
	And now she feels marginalized by continuously exercising their power to instantaneously remove students from residential halls.
	Kenyan landlords signal that marginalized students do not have a right to a guaranteed comfortable space.
	It feels as though the administration's primary concern is regulating and maintaining the college's reputation.
	Any opposition to the administration, such as my refusal to move, is suppressed and belittled.
	Advocating for yourself is perceived as rudely defiant.
	Regardless of identity, all students deserve to feel safe.
	So they kept accommodating this person, and it turns out when you accommodate the woke, they're not grateful.
	They just laugh at you.
	And then they continue to complain.
	We have bred a generation of people who endlessly complain.
	Forever and always.
	No accommodations will be sufficient.
	Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg is of course a very left-wing human being.
	Has made an enormous number of phenomenal movies, of course.
	One of those phenomenal movies is E.T.
	Remember near the end of E.T., there is a scene in which the kids are riding their bikes, And they have E.T.
	with them.
	And right before the bikes take off for the sky, E.T.
	makes all of them fly, lending credence to the theory that E.T.
	is, in fact, a Jedi.
	Right before that happens, there is a shot of the sheriffs, and they have guns.
	They're holding shotguns.
	Because sometime in the 2000s, it was deemed inappropriate for there to be guns in a kids movie.
	They CGI'd out the guns from the scene.
	Here is Steven Spielberg admitting, yeah, that was stupid.
	I know at one point you took some guns out of E.T.
	and then regretted it.
	That was a mistake.
	That was a mistake.
	I never should have done that because E.T.
	is a product of its era.
	And it's not, no film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.
	But E.T.
	was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching a bunch of kids with their firearms exposed.
	And I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies.
	And he admits now, this is a stupid idea.
	Yes, correct.
	So maybe all the artists should do this.
	Maybe they should all stop at this garbage where they're like, what if we just revise all of the old art and then do malice struggle sessions where we pretend that we're real sorry for having a gun in E.T.
	So good for Spielberg for coming around a lot late on this one.
	Okay, time for some things I hate.
	So it's a lot of fun to watch everybody who is super pro-vax mandate and pro-mask mandate and pro-forcing everybody to do what they like.
	Forcing, not giving them the option, forcing them to do what they wanted.
	It is fun to watch all those people now run screaming away from their own policies.
	Justin Trudeau is leading the way.
	So yesterday, Justin Trudeau, handsome Bernie Sanders of Canada, he said he didn't force people to vax in Canada.
	Did you know that?
	Remember that time when they literally My responsibility was to keep as many Canadians alive as possible.
	who were protesting the vaccine mandates, remember that time?
	He says it never happened. It was all in your imagination.
	My responsibility was to keep as many Canadians alive as possible.
	And all of the scientists and the medical experts and the researchers,
	not just in Canada, but around the world, understood that vaccination was going to be
	the way through this. And therefore, while not forcing anyone to get vaccinated, I chose
	to make sure that all the incentives and all the protections were there to encourage Canadians to
	get vaccinated.
	And that's exactly what they did.
	We got vaccinated to a higher level than just about any other of our peer countries.
	And that's why we had a less deadly pandemic.
	Oh, it's fun to see how we have now retitled government coercion into changing incentives.
	That's like saying that we're not forcing anyone not to shoplift.
	We're just saying if you do, you're going to go to jail.
	That's the whole point.
	If you're trying to get people to vax, you provide government incentives that force them to do so.
	Here was this dolt back in 2022 pushing the vax mandates.
	This government has been focused every step of the way on following the best science, following the best public health advice to keep as many people safe as possible.
	And quite frankly, it's worked.
	We've seen the curves lower in Canada than elsewhere.
	We've seen lower death rates.
	We've seen quicker economic recovery because Canadians stepped up, because Canadians got vaccinated.
	I can understand frustrations with mandates, but mandates are the way to avoid further restrictions or having to be restricted.
	As people get vaccinated, as Canadians have gotten vaccinated, we've been able to get through things.
	And this team is going to stay focused on doing exactly that.
	That is an irritating dullard.
	So he's just a liar now.
	So they're all going to lie about this sort of stuff.
	By the way, you know who else is saying this sort of stuff now?
	Anthony Fauci.
	So he has a full interview in the New York Times, in which he's now admitting something clearly went wrong.
	What went wrong?
	All of you!
	You people!
	It is your fault that things went wrong.
	So he did a series of interviews with David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times, and he said a lot of stuff.
	He suggested that the United States was uniquely bad with regard to COVID, which, again, not a lot of evidence to support that.
	But he says, How did this happen?
	The divisiveness was palpable, just in trying to get a coherent message across of following fundamental public health principles.
	I understand there will always be differences of opinion among people saying, well, what's the cost-benefit balance of restriction or of masks?
	When you have fundamental arguments about things like whether to get vaccinated or not, that is extraordinary.
	Well, maybe the fundamental argument was about whether to force people to vax and whether the vax was equally effective for everyone, and whether you were lying about the transmissibility of the virus post-vaccination, and whether you were lying about whether children actually had sufficient data to vax.
	Maybe that was the controversy.
	And then he continued, and he admitted something kind of strange.
	So after putting enormous focus on the masks, right, he acknowledged, so David Walswell said, quote, I'm not someone who doesn't think masks work.
	I think the science and data show they do work, but they aren't perfect.
	At the population level, the effect can be somewhat small.
	And what was probably our best study from Bangladesh in places where mask use tripled, positive tests were reduced by less than 10%.
	Fauci said, it's a good point in general, but I disagree with your premise a bit.
	From a broad public health standpoint, at the population level, masks work at the margin.
	Maybe 10%.
	But for an individual who religiously wears a mask, a well-fitted KN95 or N95 is not at the margin.
	It really does work.
	Wait, so you pushed mask mandates across the country, Dr. Fauci, and you admit that on a population level, they didn't work.
	And your excuse is, well, if you wore a really tightly fitted KN95 or N95, it did.
	That's not the argument you were making.
	You weren't making the argument everyone should be sent a KN95 or N95 by the government and then you could choose whether or not to wear the mask.
	You were saying everyone should be forced to do this sort of stuff.
	It is incredible.
	Really, the article with Fauci is just a perfect example of a person who is now covering his ass and pretending he did nothing wrong when, again, the mistakes were myriad across the course of the pandemic.
	Alrighty, guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We're getting to the mailbag.
	Plus, a kind of amazing story about a woman who was sadly body shamed for, and I quote, letting my boobs hang out at the gym.
	Yes, it's a strange, puzzling story.
	If you're not a member, become a member.
	Use code SHAPIRO.
	Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

▲