Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

July 6, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

58:32

Who Left Their Cocaine At The White House?

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	So, um, they found a bunch of cocaine in the White House.
	Now, normally that would be a big deal, and it would also be a big mystery.
	Who could have dropped this cocaine?
	Let's say that there was somebody who had, like, a long record of doing crack cocaine, and there are lots of pictures of him doing crack cocaine.
	In fact, there was a story this week about this dude doing crack cocaine while driving 172 miles per hour on the freeway to Las Vegas so that he could, you know, have sex with a bunch of hookers.
	What if that person lived at the White House and actually roomed with the President of the United States?
	I know, it's a big mystery.
	Sort of like the mystery of how the Hamburglar, you know, you have a McDonald's, all the hamburger goes missing, and there's a person there, whose literal name is the Hamburglar.
	Who could have taken all the hamburgers?
	No one knows!
	It's a giant mystery.
	Well, according to audio, which has now been released of the Hazmat team, here's what it sounded like when they found cocaine in the West Wing of the White House.
	Director Richard Hazmat, we have a Resolving the Gemini.
	We have a yellow bar stating cocaine hydrochloride.
	Path number 53-21.
	Well, originally, the suggestion from the tape is that it was found in the White House library, then they claimed that it was not found in the White House library, but the mystery remains.
	Who left the cocaine?
	According to the Washington Free Beacon, shifting stories about where law enforcement officials discovered a substance identified as cocaine at the White House this week are raising questions about how it ended up inside the building.
	A Washington, D.C.
	Fire Department dispatch call on Sunday said the White Power identified as cocaine hydrochloride was discovered in the library of the executive mansion.
	A Secret Service spokesperson later said it was found generally in the West Wing.
	The West Wing houses the daily work offices for President Biden and White House staffers.
	The library is located in the White House living quarters below where access is more restricted.
	So it makes sense if you're trying to hide.
	Who was behind the cocaine to suggest that it was just in the West Wing more broadly.
	The West Wing is very large.
	You have hundreds of people who are working there.
	The location of the substance, according to the Free Beacon, could provide clues to whether it was brought into the building by a White House staffer, a visitor, or a Biden family member.
	Now, of course, you'll remember that Hunter Biden just pled guilty to tax and gun charges in June and has publicly struggled with cocaine addiction for years.
	He was booted from the U.S.
	Navy in 2014 after testing positive for coke.
	This is all very awkward for the Biden administration.
	What's even more awkward is the posters that have reportedly been appearing all around the White House.
	Somebody is missing his baggies of white powder, and for some reason that person is offering a reward of oil paintings.
	I don't know who it could be.
	I don't know who could offer oil paintings in return for the return of cocaine.
	No one really knows.
	Meanwhile, law enforcement is bewildered and bamboozled, which is weird because there are a few cameras in the White House.
	You would figure that this would be a pretty easy crime to actually solve, but apparently the FBI is really on top of the classified documents in Mar-a-Lago.
	Cocaine in the White House.
	According to Politico, law enforcement officials confirmed on Wednesday cocaine was found at the White House over the weekend, but one official familiar with the investigation cautioned the source of the drug was unlikely to be determined, given it was discovered in a highly-trafficked area of the West Wing.
	It could be anyone.
	Small amounts of cocaine was found in a cubby area for storing electronics within the West Exec Basement Entryway into the West Wing, where many people have authorized access, including staff or visitors coming in for West Wing tours.
	Well, that's fair enough.
	I mean, I've actually been in this area of the White House, and this area of the White House does in fact have like this little cubby area where you're supposed to drop off your cell phones so that you don't record anything that happens in the West Wing.
	But that's really stupid.
	I mean, if you're a person walking into the West Wing, you're like, well, I guess I will leave here my cell phone and my cocaine.
	That is definitely a move.
	asked what the chances were of finding the culprit. The official said it's going to be
	very difficult for us to do that because of where it was.
	Said even if there were surveillance cameras, unless you were waving it around, it might not
	have been caught by the cameras.
	It's a bit of a thoroughfare. People walk by there all the time. Now, here's the deal. Even if it
	were somebody associated with the Biden family, we would never find out about that because, I mean,
	the Secret Service has covered up for Hunter Biden in the past.
	You'll recall that when Hunter Biden actually applied for his gun license while lying on the forums, right?
	I mean, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge on that one.
	He ended up actually being sent to a diversion program for his drug abuse.
	But he lied on his gun forms, which would theoretically be a felony.
	And then his then girlfriend and sister-in-law, who he ended up having sex with and sleeping with
	after his brother was dead, well, she took the gun
	because she was afraid of him having it, and she dumped it in a trash can behind a grocery store,
	which was directly across from a high school.
	And the Secret Service actually showed up and then approached the owners of the store
	where Hunter bought the gun, according to Politico, and asked to take the paperwork involving the sale,
	according to two people, one of whom had firsthand knowledge of the episode.
	The other was briefed by a Secret Service agent So the Secret Service showed up to actually, presumably, cover up for what exactly Hunter Biden was doing at the time.
	So even if it were, somebody, call him I don't know, maybe his name rhymes with Blunter Schmeiden.
	Even if it were somebody like that, the question as to whether the Secret Service would ever allow that thing to, you know, be released is, I think, questionable at best.
	We'll get to the White House response to all this momentarily first.
	It takes a special kind of company to want to partner with the show.
	There are a lot of things that we say on the show that are controversial.
	I say them anyway because I believe that it's important to say the things that we actually believe here on the show.
	And, you know, companies that stand behind us are companies we are proud to stand behind.
	That includes our friends over at PeerTalk.
	They make it possible for me to get here and bring you facts, logic, and truth every single day.
	PeerTalk shares my values as well as the values of Matt Walsh, Brad Cooper, Candace Owens, and the rest of the DailyWire hosts.
	That's why we made them the official wireless partner of the DailyWire.
	But that's not the only reason.
	We check the coverage and it is premium.
	Pure Talk is the most dependable 5G network in the United States.
	I use it myself.
	Mix and match your plans to fit every person in your family.
	Choose from talk, text, and 5G data for just $20 a month, all the way up to unlimited data with mobile hotspot for $55 a month.
	Remember, you vote with how you spend your money, so stop supporting those woke wireless companies that don't support you.
	Switch on over to Pure Talk today.
	Go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
	Save an additional 50% off your very first month of coverage.
	That's puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
	Pure Talk is wireless for Americans by Americans.
	Go check them out right now.
	Puretalk.com slash Shapiro to save that additional 50% off your very first month of coverage.
	I use them for my own phone coverage.
	You should do the same.
	Puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
	Okay, so I will say there's one solid piece of evidence that it was not Hunter Biden who actually left a cocaine in the White House.
	And that is that dude really loves cocaine.
	And the chances that he would leave behind some very nice cocaine Are fairly low.
	If there's one thing about cocaine addicts, they really like to hold on to their cocaine as a general rule.
	Which does raise the question as to who else was attempting to bring the cocaine into the White House.
	Well, there were no answers forthcoming from the members of the White House Press Secretary's office.
	Corinne Jean-Pierre, world's most untalented White House Press Secretary.
	She announced that the Biden administration is proud to have restored the rule of law in the White House.
	Other than, you know, like drug law and that sort of thing.
	The president is proud to have restored the rule of law in his administration and I can tell you here and I can tell you now that he will not exploit his office with conventions at the White House like it was done in the last administration.
	He will not do that.
	Well, you know, that is a very, very legally oriented administration, that administration.
	Then Corinne Jean-Pierre was hit with a blizzard, a veritable snowfall of cocaine questions from the White House press corps.
	And I mean, she blew it.
	Can you give any more details on where the Secret Service found cocaine in West Wing and how it got there?
	So, as you know, this is under the preview of the Secret Service.
	They are currently investigating what happened over the weekend, so I would have to refer you to the Secret Service on all of this.
	Well, one thing that I can share, that I'll share a little bit more information.
	As you know, the President and the First Lady and their family were not here this weekend, as you all reported on this.
	The President said, hey, let's get to the bottom of what happened here.
	Well, I just said that we have confidence that the Secret Service is going to get to the bottom of this.
	As you all know, the President follows all the reporting here.
	Thanks, Breen.
	Just two quick follow-ups.
	You said the President has been briefed on the cocaine that was found at the White House.
	Is the White House conducting its own internal investigation?
	This is something that's under the purview of the Secret Service.
	They're the ones who handle this investigation, so it lives in their purview, in their world.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden was asked about this, and obviously this is a president who takes the problem very seriously.
	He actually started laughing almost out loud about the question of whose cocaine was found in the White House that he, you know, runs.
	President, what makes you confident that you can still intercept Sweden and NATO?
	Everyone, everyone, can you please clap?
	President, do you know how many Israeli terrorists you have?
	Do you know how many Israeli terrorists you have?
	I wish I had some.
	I remember when cocaine was actually in Coca-Cola.
	Those were good times.
	Good, good, good times.
	Meanwhile, the media treated this with all of the levity that Democrats receive when bad things happen to them.
	Here was the CNN team cracking up while talking about the cocaine situation at the White House.
	It was suspected.
	The field test said cocaine.
	Now these more conclusive lab tests, yeah.
	I would like to know blow by blow who was responsible for this.
	Too soon.
	There's no too soon on this.
	No one was injured as far as we know.
	And it's an illicit drug at the White House.
	Why can't you actually have a bit of fun with it?
	I don't believe in fun.
	See, they're allowed to joke about this.
	Now, it is funny, but here's the thing.
	It's also criminal.
	But the entire media, these people who you know, if this were during the Trump White House,
	this would be, Oh, is Don Jr. on?
	on the sauce?
	Who at the Trump White House?
	Those horrifying, evil people who are jailing, jailing drug addicts all over the country.
	Those terrible people.
	Who did this?
	Who would sully the White House this way?
	We need to restore honor to the White House.
	But if it's a Democrat, they're like, hey man, it's fun and games.
	Just throw in a few lines.
	It'll all be good.
	Here the CBS anchor is also laughing hysterically.
	I'm hung up on the believe to be comment.
	How long does it take to find out?
	Also, they're kind of blaming it on the tourists.
	On the tourists?
	The public area.
	Yes, are people careless with their cocaine?
	You know, it's an expensive drug.
	So many questions there.
	A lot of questions.
	We are not quite to the Jimmy Carter level where multiple officials in the White House are in trouble and one person resigned.
	And I don't want to hear from, you know, President Biden or Trump.
	I would like to hear from one person in particular.
	Who?
	That bill that used to sit on Capitol Hill for Schoolhouse Rock.
	Put this in layman's terms, what happened?
	Because I'm a little confused.
	He was already rolled up in the cartoon.
	Never say Hunter, guys.
	Tell every joke but the Hunter joke if you're a member of the mainstream media.
	Just don't do it.
	Now, again, here's the thing.
	If you're a Democrat, none of this sort of stuff matters.
	If you're a Republican, all this sort of stuff matters.
	If you're a Democrat at the White House, you can have a man jiggling his fake breasts at the White House, and that's not a problem.
	That's actually just a sign of true freedom.
	Or if you're Barack Obama, you can have Snoop Dogg at the White House, openly talking about doing pot at the White House, with no ramifications, no repercussions.
	And here's Snoop Dogg back in the day when Barack Obama was president,
	openly talking about how he toked at the White House.
	Why you f***ing holding?
	I've been doing all this other bullst. I'm at the White House fking smoking.
	F**k the President.
	I mean, there was an open talk during one of these big star-studded White House events that Snoop Dogg was, you know, doing some pot in the White House bathroom.
	That, of course, is not a big deal at all.
	And, of course, Barack Obama himself made it part of his struggle to talk about his drug abuse when he was a youngster.
	When it was George W. Bush and he was hit with the DUI well before he was running for president, that was like a career-shattering scandal that put his presidency in question.
	When it was Barack Obama openly admitting that he had done, quote, a little blow And, you know, maybe back in the day was passing that sort of stuff around.
	Well, that was that was when he said that it was so off limits to even ask him about it, that people objected to the notion that he would even be asked about it during a presidential campaign and the standards for morality at all.
	They just do not apply to Democrats from the media.
	They don't apply at all.
	If a Republican in the White House would be outraged.
	I mean, you remember when George W. Bush's daughters We're caught in college drinking.
	It's like, oh, they're underage drinking.
	That's just terrible.
	How could they be underage drinking?
	Do you think anything like that ever would have applied to the Obama kids?
	Of course not.
	Because the rule is that if you are Hunter Biden, a 52-year-old moral derelict who snorts cocaine off the asses of hookers, then you are a beautiful boy.
	You are merely a wayward child.
	And the real story here is your beautiful relationship with your addled old father.
	If, however, you're a Republican, and anything remotely like this happens, then it's outrageous, it's just terrible, it's awful across the board.
	That's the way all of this works.
	Speaking of lack of moral standards, we'll get to the Biden grandchild scandal in just one moment.
	First, when you are running a business, your employees can create all sorts of interesting situations, as the White House is finding out right now.
	This is why you need to talk to Bambi.
	Bambi gives you access to your own dedicated HR manager, starting at just $99 per month.
	This person is available to you by phone, email, and real-time chat.
	They'll help you run employee onboardings, terminations, and performance reviews.
	With Bambi's HR Autopilot feature, you can automate important HR practices like setting policies, employee training, and feedback procedures as well.
	All of Bambi's HR Managers are based in the United States and can support the nuances across all 50 states.
	HR Managers can easily cost $80,000 per year.
	Bambi starts at just $99 per month.
	Schedule your free conversation today.
	See how much Bambi can take off of your plate.
	Head on over to BAMBEE.com right now, type Ben Shapiro on your podcast when you sign up.
	It's spelled B-A-M-B-E-E.com, BAMBEE.com.
	Type in Ben Shapiro.
	If you run a company, probably haven't thought about HR as much as you need to.
	I mean, the simple fact of the matter is, you start a company, you're mostly worried about just getting product out the door and making sure the trains run on time.
	But, if you ignore HR, it's your biggest liability.
	Head on over to BAMBEE.com right now, clean up that liability, type Ben Shapiro on your podcast when you sign up.
	Again, it's B-A-M-B-E-E.com.
	Type in Ben Shapiro to get started.
	Okay, meanwhile, The other scandal that is a brewing regarding Hunter, aside from, you know, the overt criminality of Hunter Biden and the very high likelihood that he was involved in a corrupt scheme where he was trafficking in his father's name and then having the money passed through him, quite possibly, to his dad.
	Leave all of that aside.
	The other damaging Hunter Biden scandal is the continuing problem that Hunter Biden sired
	a child out of wedlock and Joe Biden simply refuses to acknowledge this grandchild.
	Like, refuses, utterly.
	Hunter Biden signed, as we've discussed, an actual arrangement, a custody agreement with
	his former lover where he was able to lower the amount of money that he was paying her
	per month, but he did give her some oil paintings.
	And also, she was not allowed to use for her daughter, the Biden last name, which is literally the only thing that has made Hunter Biden a success in life at all.
	I think he's a giant failure in life, but the only thing that has granted him any level of monetary fiscal success, Hunter Biden, is trafficking in the last name.
	That is exactly the thing he denied to his illegitimate child by a former stripper and secretary who is essentially performing sex acts upon him and with him.
	And so the question is, where is Joe in all this, right?
	Isn't Joe a man of honor, where the Biden family means everything to him?
	Well, the White House has asked about this.
	Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the seventh grandchild, who is never mentioned by the White House.
	And here's her answer.
	There was a story in the New York Times over the weekend about Hunter Biden's daughter in Arkansas.
	Does the president acknowledge this little girl as his granddaughter?
	I don't have anything to share from here.
	I don't have anything to share from here about, you know, whether he actually acknowledges having a granddaughter who is clearly his granddaughter.
	Does that seem like a nice old man to you?
	Or does it seem more and more like across the Hunter Biden story that Joe Biden is just an enabler and that maybe he enables his son, not only because he doesn't know what to do with him.
	I mean, there are a lot of parents who don't know what to do with kids who are wayward, but maybe it's also because, you know, his son clears an awful lot of cash for him, as it turns out.
	Breitbart is now reporting, based on a piece from the Washington Times, quote, a staffer for then-Vice President Joe Biden cc'd Hunter Biden on an email to Joe about a scheduled call with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, a document released by the National Archives due to a FOIA request chose.
	While Hunter Biden was earning 83 grand a month as a board member of Burisma Holdings, Joe Biden's assistant, John Flynn, looped in Hunter on a scheduling email dated May 26, 2016 about a call between Joe Biden and Poroshenko.
	Flynn wrote to Joe and Hunter Biden, quote, On May 27th, the call took place.
	Joe Biden urged Poroshenko to reform Ukraine's prosecutor general office, the establishment media reported.
	At that time, Burismo was under suspicion of money laundering and public corruption.
	commencement, Nate will have your draft remarks delivered later today or with your press clips
	in the morning. On May 27th, the call took place. Joe Biden urged Poroshenko to reform Ukraine's
	prosecutor general office, the establishment media reported.
	At that time, Burisma was under suspicion of money laundering and public corruption. Prosecutor
	Victor Shokin was investigating the case before his termination by Poroshenko
	due to pressure applied by Joe Biden.
	So is that kind of suspicious?
	That Hunter is being copied on conversations between Joe Biden and Poroshenko?
	And it was Poroshenko who fired the prosecutor who was investigating the Ukraine case that involved Burisma, which was Hunter Biden's firm.
	Biden, of course, famously bragged about the firing and how he went to Poroshenko and basically had Chokin fired.
	Quote, I looked at them and said, I'm leaving in six hours.
	If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.
	Well, son of a bitch, he got fired, said Joe Biden.
	An FBI informant claims to possess two pieces of evidence showing Joe and Hunter Biden received $5 million each in bribes from Burisma, according to House Republican investigators.
	So yet another piece of corroborative evidence that Hunter Biden was looped into relationships in Ukraine involving Joe.
	All this is rather gross, to say the least.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden trying to forge forth with his 2024 campaign.
	The economy continues to be on very shaky ground, but Joe Biden is running directly into it.
	So he actually tweeted out about Bidenomics.
	So he keeps trying to make fetch happen and fetch isn't happening here.
	So he keeps just saying Bidenomics over and over in the hopes that somehow it'll latch on.
	So he tweeted out, quote, every American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are and keep their roots where they grew up.
	That's Bidenomics.
	Now, you may be asking yourself what the hell that means.
	How is that even a school of economics?
	Normally, when you say Bidenomics, Reaganomics meant supply side economics, right?
	Reaganomics meant lower the tax rates and that will increase production, it will increase investment, and that will generate a bigger A bigger economy which will generate more tax revenue.
	That was Reaganomics.
	You can describe it.
	Clintonomics was the idea that a balanced budget would eventually achieve significant economic growth and more full faith and credit in the American dollar, right?
	That was Clintonomics.
	Obamanomics was we are going to just spend endless amounts of money on random projects Under the demand-side Keynesian theory that if we do so, we'll grow the economy.
	What the hell is Bidenomics?
	Let me read that phrase to you again, what he says.
	Every American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are and keep their roots where they grew up.
	Well, I also can say stupid statements like that.
	Every American willing to work hard should be able to make $7.3 million per year at the job of their choice in the beachside resort of their choice.
	That's Shapironomics.
	Like what the hell does that mean?
	You're just saying random sentences now.
	Every American should be able to work the job of their choice without an educational degree even up to and including brain surgeon in the city of their choice in a penthouse apartment.
	Of at least 4,000 square feet.
	That's Shapironomics.
	That's not a school of economics, dude.
	We can all see what Bytonomics is.
	It looks like 40-year highs in inflation.
	It looks like stagnating wages.
	It looks like a continued stagnation in the economy that eventually is going to lead to a recession here.
	That's what it looks like.
	But tell me about the president's disapproval ratings and how you counteract that.
	He's not getting credit for his economic achievements.
	No, he's not.
	He's got the media defending him up to his eyes.
	Andrew Mitchell saying that Joe Biden just doesn't get enough credit
	for his economic achievements.
	That's the big problem.
	Must be nice to be a Democrat.
	But tell me about the president's disapproval ratings and how you counteract that.
	He's not getting credit for his economic achievements.
	No, he's not.
	And a lot of it has to do with the fact that people are in a pretty sour mood.
	I have been studying politics pretty much all of my life.
	And I have been really taking a hard look at where we are today in the scheme of things,
	comparing it to where this country was back in 1876, when the vision in the country was as stark then
	as it is now.
	I mean, why do you think people are in a pretty sour mood?
	Could it be because his economy is not all that good?
	We'll get into more economic problems facing Joe Biden in one second.
	First, the CEO of InnovationRefunds and GetRefunds.com has been on TV lately explaining how they've helped so many small businesses with their ERC tax refunds.
	They've completed thousands of returns for different kinds of businesses, including over $700 million for construction companies.
	Over $200 million in restaurants, bars, and hotels.
	Innovation Refunds has hundreds of 5-star Trustpilot and Google reviews and is certified with the Better Business Bureau.
	In just 8 minutes, you can easily start the process over at GetRefunds.com.
	You could be on your way to receiving up to $26,000 per employee.
	That ERC tax credit is not a loan.
	It's a refund on your already paid taxes designed to let the business owner direct the refund money into anything the business needs to grow.
	It's money you can use to improve your business however you see fit.
	Go to GetRefunds.com right now to start the process.
	There's no upfront charge.
	They don't get paid unless you get paid, so you have nothing to lose.
	Innovation Refunds has already helped clients claim over $5 billion in payroll tax refunds through the ERC.
	You might be able to help your business as well.
	Head on over to GetRefunds.com or download the app from the App Store today.
	That's GetRefunds.com today.
	If you paid too much money to the federal government, why not go get that money back right now?
	Head on over to GetRefunds.com or download their app from the App Store today.
	That's GetRefunds.com.
	Okay, so speaking of the stagnating economy, the The federal officials at the Federal Reserve actively considered raising rates in June.
	Okay, what that means is that they're having trouble actually reining in inflation to the extent necessary to allow for future economic growth.
	And they're afraid that if they raise the interest rates too high, they're going to sink the economy in time for Joe Biden's re-elect effort.
	This is why when anybody claims the Federal Reserve is truly independent, it's really not true.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, most Federal Reserve officials expected they would need to lift interest rates further this year after pausing increases last month.
	Though some want it to raise rates in June because the economy hasn't slowed enough.
	Minutes of the June policy meeting released on Wednesday offered nothing to dispel recent market expectations of a rate increase this month to combat inflation.
	So the Fed is just sending a bunch of mixed signals right now, and you can sense it in the markets.
	People don't know whether they should put their money in, whether they should keep their money out.
	And when in doubt, people are keeping their money out.
	And that's a real problem.
	And it's going to get worse.
	When the Federal Reserve says, we're not sure, did we raise the interest rates high enough?
	Maybe we should raise a little more next month.
	When they are treating the economy and the strength of the United States dollar as essentially a soup, and they are just constantly tasting the soup, that doesn't lend confidence.
	All 11 voting members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee agreed to last month's decision, but the minutes suggested that several of the 18 voting and non-voting officials would have agreed to raise rates then.
	Some of them favored or could have supported a rate increase, according to the minutes, because momentum and economic activity had been stronger than earlier anticipated.
	There were few clear signs inflation was on a path to return to the 2% objective over time.
	And there will come a point here, by the way, where if Joe Biden is faced with a serious economic meltdown here, Then you could see a world in which the Federal Reserve basically just changes its benchmark.
	Instead of looking at a 2% rate, they say, you know what, it would be so bad if we were at like 3%.
	Now remember, inflation is the silent destroyer of savings.
	It destroys your savings.
	If you inflate at a 2% rate, then that means that over the course of the next 50 years, your savings are worth literally almost nothing.
	You've basically by 100% increased the money supply, at which point all of your savings are worth virtually nothing.
	So that is one of the things that is happening here.
	And people who are saving don't know whether to spend and spend into the economy or they should hold out in the hopes of the interest rates go back down.
	Plus, there are some other significant market problems that are waiting in the wings, and people know this.
	The Wall Street Journal reports, this was supposed to be the year that higher interest rates started to bite, taking down dodgy borrowers who had loaded up on too much debt.
	Some are now in trouble, but investors don't expect problems to spread far.
	I think they're making a mistake, especially if rates march higher.
	This is James McIntosh writing.
	Even as distressed companies start to hit the headlines, notably a major water utility in Britain, the riskiest part of the bond market has performed the best.
	The CCC-rated borrowers closest to default have returned 10% this year.
	The worst performing are safe investment-grade borrowers with AA-rated corporate bonds returning 2.7%.
	In other words, there's still so much money floating around in the economy that all of that bad debt has yet to be called in.
	A lot of investors, myself included on a personal level, are betting on the idea that over the next two years, cash is going to be very hard to come by, and a lot of these companies are going to struggle to actually come up with the money necessary to pay back their banks, at which point a lot of equities are going to come onto the market at very, very lowered rates.
	It's going to be a buyer's market.
	But that hasn't materialized yet.
	As McIntosh says, for now, it's only among smaller companies that shareholders seem to care.
	Just as junk bond investors like the trashiest investments, big stocks with the weakest balance sheets, measured using economist Robert Merton's distance-to-default scores, are beating those with stronger balance sheets.
	This dash for trash makes some sense.
	The big macroeconomic surprise of the year is the U.S.
	economy has remained strong, even as inflation has moderated.
	The weakest borrowers benefited because the most famously wide-cast recession in history simply refused to arrive.
	The credit worthy didn't gain much because the Federal Reserve will keep rates higher for longer as a result.
	In investment management speak, credit risk has done well, interest rate risk has done badly.
	In other words, if you were betting on the interest rates to come down, you were wrong.
	If you bet that people would continue to pump money into the economy, then you were right.
	But the rates are still rising.
	The economy will be held back by the need to shore up those highly indebted companies.
	And so there are a bunch of weak links in the economy.
	When that debt comes due, is the federal government going to pump up the inflation again by lowering the interest rates again to prevent companies from simply failing?
	Or is there actually going to be a recession in which it will be a buyer's market for the smart investor who stayed out?
	Macintosh says there are a bunch of weak links.
	He puts them in three buckets.
	The first are the obvious disasters.
	Super Speculative also rants that finance themselves in the final stages of the post-pandemic boom, mostly using SPACs.
	Plus some debt finance zombies that should have gone bust but were saved by zero interest rates.
	This would be like second-tier electric car startups.
	As the markets implode, so will they.
	The second type of weak company is more worrisome.
	Decent businesses with solid cash flow piled on huge amounts of debt during the era of easy money, but now facing a reckoning.
	Rising rates make it harder to service their debt.
	And steady, supposedly safe businesses can have problems.
	This is where I think the market is going.
	I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities for people who have cash in the bank to buy up some pretty decent companies at lowered rates.
	The third type of weak company is the one that ought to be doing it best.
	A business with earnings that swing around a lot without too much debt.
	These should benefit from growth in the economy while not suffering much from higher interest rates.
	They're more likely to be listed than the financially engineered high-debt businesses.
	Private equity doesn't like them as much because their higher volatility means they can't actually borrow much.
	And in fact, those are the companies that are outperforming right now.
	Well, those risky companies, if they start to underperform, if the economy tanks or if they are unable to pull back their debt, then you're going to see a pretty significant economic pullback, a pretty significant recession.
	So just wait for it.
	I still believe that bad economic ideas have consequences, and we've seen over the course of the last several years some really, really bad economic ideas.
	Those are all in the short term, by the way.
	We have a much bigger long-term problem, and that is the baby boomer generation are all about to retire.
	And when they all retire, then the systemic debt problem in the United States—now remember, we still have to service our debt at the increased interest rates.
	Those are going to come due.
	The boomers are all going to want their social security and the base of people who are there to support them is much smaller than it was 20, 30 years ago.
	As the Washington Post points out, lower numbers of workers per retiree threaten the future of programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which support older Americans by taxing current workers.
	And maybe the stupidest thing is in our modern politics, you're literally not allowed to talk about this as a presidential candidate.
	The minute you say we need to look at our entitlement programs and restructure them because we don't have enough workers able to pay these bills, the minute you say that, people from both sides of the aisle come and yell at you.
	Donald Trump will yell at you if you say that we need to restructure Social Security and Medicare, which we clearly need to do, and so will the Democrats and so will the media.
	Baby boomers have broken the so-called population pyramid.
	Normally, a population demographic chart is supposed to look like a pyramid, with people 20 to 29 at the bottom, acting as sort of the biggest base, and people 70 and over at the very top, representing like a very small slice of the population.
	So as you striate the population in terms of age, what you end up with is a very pyramid-looking chart.
	20 to 29 is the biggest, followed by 30 to 39, 40 to 49, etc., because people die off as they get older, obviously.
	But because the boomers are such a large generation, you're starting to see the population pyramid invert.
	Right now, the population pyramid almost looks like a rectangle up and down.
	That's a real problem because the people at the top of that rectangle, those people are not paying into the system.
	They're just drawing out of the system.
	The workforce currently is older than it has been ever.
	In 1984, people under 40 were 60% of the workforce.
	That's only 45% today.
	People are going to continue to retire.
	They're going to want their money.
	And all those programs are inflation adjusted.
	Which means that it's the workers who are going to pay the bills.
	So look for the stagnation.
	Again, market realities still exist.
	We saw it materialize in terms of inflation.
	If you don't think the other market realities, namely the recession that comes in the wake of easy money spends and bubbles that burst, is going to happen, I'd recommend that you look at reality a little bit.
	In just a second, we'll get to the Joe Biden educational plan.
	The National Education Association has, surprise, surprise, reelected all of its old bosses and friends, and Joe Biden had things to say about the magic of education.
	We'll get there in just one second first.
	Let's talk about the thing that keeps you sane.
	So one of the things that keeps you sane in life is connection with God.
	It's one of the things that keeps me sane in life.
	There's a lot going on in my life.
	There's a lot going on in the world.
	And it's that connection with God that means a lot to me, which is why I pray three times a day.
	But if you're looking to up your game, regardless of religion, maybe you should check out 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.
	There are a lot of Christian employees who work here at Daily Wire who have been using Halo, and it means a lot to them.
	You can pray alongside Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Rumi, who portrays Jesus on 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.
	Hello 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.
	Set prayer reminders, invite others to pray with you, track your progress along the way.
	It is super important to set time aside for God, since God is spending all of his time on you.
	So if you're looking to deepen that relationship with God, try Hello for three months free at hello.com slash Shapiro.
	That's hello.com slash Shapiro.
	Also, Did you declare independence from your woke razor company?
	You missed July 4th, but there is still time.
	We hope you enjoyed celebrating Independence Day with friends and family.
	But like Great Britain taking an L in 1776, woke razor companies need to do the same thing.
	Head over to jeremysrazors.com right now.
	Save 40% on our founders and beard kit.
	You won't just look good, you'll also feel good knowing you're supporting a company that doesn't hate you for being a dude.
	Don't wait too long.
	The sale ends tomorrow.
	That is jeremysrazors.com.
	I mean, look at this kit.
	This is the so-called beard box.
	Behold its magnificence.
	In it, you will find beard shampoo, beard oil, beard balm, and of course, this beard brush right here.
	Now, I'll be honest with you.
	I'm not enough of a man to use all of this on my facial hair because it's not a full beard.
	It's kind of like half a beard.
	But for the Matt Walshes of the world, this thing comes in handy.
	And if you have a dad with a beard, if you have a beard, Or, ladies, if your man has a beard, jeremysrazors.com.
	Beardless or not, Jeremy's Razors will make the magic happen for you.
	This thing is really gonna explode when I throw it.
	Meanwhile, Democrats making the nation worse in other ways as well.
	The National Education Association has, shock of shock, re-elected all of its leaders.
	Who knew they were going to do that?
	So the NEA is one of the most nefarious forces in American life, along with the American Federation of Teachers.
	Both of these groups worked very hard to make sure that your child could not go to the local public school during all the COVID shutdowns for no apparent reason other than it was great to have their teachers paid by the state to not work.
	Well, now, the NEA has re-elected all of its leaders.
	All of them!
	They're doing such a magnificent job over there, not teaching your children.
	It is fairly amazing that America continues to wildly underperform educationally, and the big solution offered by the Democratic Party and teachers' associations is, pay the teachers more.
	I am loathe to- I honestly cannot think of another career where the worse you perform, the more you get paid.
	Like, at a certain point in athletics, if you're very bad, they just waive you.
	They just cut you from the team.
	You lose all value.
	But if you're a teacher who's been just blowing it for decades on end,
	the NEA, AFT, and Democratic Party are there for you.
	Not only that, the corrupt teachers unions, because this is how the way,
	this is the way the bargain works, the AFT, the NEA, in many states,
	the union dues are actually collected by the state on behalf of these unions
	because they're public sector unions.
	And then those dues are used by the NEA and AFT in order to pay for various political campaigns
	that invariably back Democrats, which is the actual corrupt bargain.
	That is also the reason why at the NEA annual meeting, The representative assembly on July 4th, Miguel Cardona, the U.S.
	Secretary of Education, showed up.
	Joe Biden apparently spoke.
	So did Jill Biden.
	What do you have to do to get these people to show up for you?
	Well, I mean, you pay them lots of money.
	And then you say that it's not corruption in politics.
	One of my favorite things is when Democrats, people on the left are like, there's too much money in politics except for the giant teachers unions that handle everything related to your kids and use money that you pay in taxes in order to indoctrinate your kids and get paid richly for being bad at their jobs.
	That's not money in politics.
	Money they seize from you, via your tax money, and then pay to these teachers, and then the teachers have to pay the unions, and then the unions pay the Democrats.
	That's not corrupt money in politics.
	Corrupt money in politics is when you give a donation to Donald Trump of $75.
	That's corrupt money in politics.
	Anyway, they're doing a stellar job over there.
	Miguel Cardona, who is the head of the education department, one of the departments that needs to be immediately erased over at the federal level, he talked about the magic of the National Education Association and he talked about the evils of privatizing education.
	God forbid your children should be able to go to a school of your choice.
	In some parts of this country, there developed an intentional toxic disrespect against teachers in public schools.
	A toxic disrespect from so-called leaders that complain about public education but sleep well at night knowing their teachers are making less than $40,000 a year.
	A toxic disrespect from those who want to privatize education and starve public schools from the resources they so desperately need.
	A toxic disrespect from those seeking to divide our nation by politicizing equity and inclusion.
	Oh my god.
	They're politicizing equity and inclusion.
	That's why you have toxic disrespect, my friend.
	No one respects that garbage.
	You're teaching my kids, quote-unquote, equity, which means that if the results are not equal, there must have been racism.
	You're teaching kids that, and then when we say no, that's toxic disrespect.
	When you teach kids that the only thing that matters is ethnicity, and then people say no, you call that toxic disrespect.
	By the way, who the hell is he talking about when he says public school teachers all over the nation are making under $40,000 a year?
	I mean, it really depends on the state.
	In the state of Florida, which is, I assume, the state he's talking about there, the toxic disrespect state, the average public school teacher salary is like $54,000 a year.
	That's for nine months of work.
	Okay?
	Because remember, teachers get the summer off.
	That's not a terrible salary, I will point out, right here.
	And that's, like, the average.
	Okay, there's a sliding pay scale as you gain seniority in all of these programs.
	The thing that he's really decrying is the possibility that you might be able to choose to get out of this corrupt matrix.
	It remains just astonishing to me.
	And no one can see, apparently, in the media, or they'll refuse to see, I suppose, the fact that there is a corrupt bargain that has been between unions and the Democratic Party for as long as unions have been a powerful force in American life.
	A very corrupt bargain in which the Democratic Party essentially cuts bargains on behalf of the unions with taxpayer dollars, and then the unions pay off the Democratic politicians by helping them get elected by spending billions of dollars.
	That's what's going on here.
	It has nothing to do with your kids.
	Your kids are completely secondary.
	But this is also how you get Joe Biden to show up at your NEA conference.
	So Joe Biden showed up to thank them as well.
	Happy Fourth of July!
	I'm Joe Biden.
	I am Jill Biden's husband.
	Oh, you are?
	Folks, let me start by saying educators have champions in the White House.
	Jill reminds me, and I mean this sincerely all the time, Teaching is not just what you all do.
	It's who you are.
	It's who you are.
	And I know the last few years have been incredibly difficult.
	No, they haven't.
	Not for the teachers.
	We have so much of you.
	And I want you to know, I see you, we see you, we thank you, and we thank you, Becky, for your leadership.
	He talks about trans people and teachers in exactly the same way.
	We see you for who you are.
	Also, dude, button your shirt.
	There's that also.
	Button your shirt, my friend.
	No, you didn't.
	This is honestly, this one, all of his nonsense about you worked so hard over the past years.
	No, you didn't. You literally did not work in a school between March 2020 and in many cases,
	like September of 2021. In some cases, even later than that, you worked. It was so hard for you.
	You're the real heroes, you people who stayed home and barely taught on Zoom.
	You're the real heroes.
	It's amazing how the real heroes shifted from the doctors and nurses, who actually went into fairly dangerous health situations from time to time, and, you know, the people who are out there delivering your food.
	Those people we don't talk about anymore.
	It's the teachers who truly suffered, the teachers who are over-employed as it is, teaching lesbian dance theory at their local community college, and also the high school teachers who are teaching Art theory, but making sure that all of the kids in their class know about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
	Meanwhile, Jill Biden spoke as well.
	Oh, Dr. Jill.
	So much doctoring.
	She is, of course, the greatest doctor of our time, having invented nothing, and having a degree from the University of Delaware.
	Wait for it, wait for it.
	Her husband has a school named after him.
	You want to talk about affirmative action?
	Only white lady in history get affirmative action, Jill Biden.
	And you know, I knew that Joe would always be the education president.
	Because he knows that our nation's, you know, the success of our nation starts with you, the educators, who shape our students' lives.
	And so, you know, we've invested so much in our schools, and our counselors, and our nurses, and administrators, who make them all successful.
	Oh, she tiresome.
	She is so tiresome.
	Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia, was asked about the Biden education agenda.
	And he's like, Jill is the only one who believes that Joe is good for education.
	Let's get your reaction to First Lady Jill Biden saying that Joe Biden is America's education president.
	Well, I hate to say that I think she may be the only person who believes that.
	I think the vast majority of Americans believe that Joe Biden has so under supported and under prepared our kids for what we're dealing with.
	I mean, listen, Schools were closed for an extended period of time because Joe Biden thought schools should be closed unnecessarily.
	And now we're seeing a learning loss across the nation that's unprecedented.
	We've lost decades and decades of progress.
	So there's that.
	He's, of course, exactly right about all that.
	By the way, how deeply in the pocket of the unions are Democratic politicians?
	So Governor Josh Shapiro, who was elected over the terrible candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, so he had suggested that he might support a school choice program and that he might support tuition vouchers for students in failing schools.
	So Republicans in the state legislature passed that.
	What did he do?
	The unions came in so strong that Josh Shapiro vetoed it.
	He came out and he vetoed it.
	Here is the statement that he put out.
	quote, Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation with a full-time divided legislature,
	meaning nothing gets done unless it can make through a Republican-led Senate and a Democratic-led House.
	Over the past several weeks, I've worked with leaders in both chambers to craft a common-sense,
	responsible budget that makes critical investments in public safety, agriculture, economic development,
	public education, workforce development, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
	Last Friday, the Senate passed a responsible budget that delivers critical funding to our shared priorities
	and sent it to the House for its consideration.
	Now we stand at an impasse, largely over one provision of this budget.
	Pass scholarships, a proposal I support that has been passed by the Senate.
	But one that Leader Bradford has made clear does not have support of the House, where it was voted down in committee on Friday.
	Over the weekend, Leader Bradford requested a legal memo from the Office of General Counsel, which confirmed that without enabling legislation setting up the program, my administration legally cannot implement it.
	Knowing the two chambers will not reach consensus at this time to enact pass, unwilling to hold up our entire budget process over this issue, I will line-item veto the full $100 million appropriation.
	It will not be a part of this budget bill.
	So instead of weighing in and pushing his own Democrats in the House, in Pennsylvania, to allow for vouchers for kids, Josh Shapiro is now using his line-item veto to simply slice it out of the Senate budget.
	He's pledging to do that so that he can get the rest of his budget passed.
	So, um, Amazing work there from Josh Shapiro, refusing to say boo to his own party.
	The unions got to him is what happened right there.
	The unions and the Democratic Party in his own state, they got to him because again, the Democratic Party is run in large measure by various public unions, which is one of the reasons why you see so many Democrats like Joe Biden deeply in hock to these unions.
	Okay, meanwhile, in other local Democratic news, we have the tragic marital story of Bill de Blasio and Charlene McRae.
	And if those two crazy kids can't make it...
	Can any of us?
	Truly?
	So you remember that Bill de Blasio is a very tall, Frankenstein-esque monster-looking weird old dude who killed a groundhog.
	He's also a communist mayor of New York.
	And you remember that his wife, Charlene McRae, is a political radical.
	They married in 1994, but now things have changed, folks.
	This romantic story is at an end.
	And I think we should all shed a tear for Bill de Blasio.
	That dude's had a rough couple of years, right?
	He was mayor of New York, and then overwhelmingly people hated his guts.
	And then he tried to run for president, and people overwhelmingly hated his guts.
	And then he thought about running for Congress, and people overwhelmingly hated his guts.
	And now it turns out that his wife might overwhelmingly hate his guts, as it turns out.
	We'll get some more on that story in just one moment first.
	Are you tired of breathing in polluted air in the comfort of your own home?
	You and your family's health may be affected by the air quality in your home.
	Allergens and germs floating in the air you breathe can actually make you sick.
	The good news is there's technology out there that helps you purify your living space easily and affordably.
	With our new friends EnviroCleanse, you're not going to have to worry again.
	EnviroCleanse is an in-home air purifying unit designed to destroy cold and flu viruses, allergy-inflamming toxins, mold, and even more.
	EnviroCleanse promises far fewer colds, allergies, and better sleep.
	They even give you a free air quality monitor to test the difference in your own home.
	If all home air purifiers are the same, then why exactly is it the Department of Defense selected EnviroCleanse to protect and purify the air on board our Navy ships?
	EnviroCleanse air purifiers use hospital-grade technology.
	Their air purifiers come in all sizes, colors, and prices to fit every budget.
	They offer additional products like surface cleaner and laundry detergent as well.
	We use EnviroCleanse in our own home.
	You should do the same.
	Breathe in pure air.
	Live a healthier life.
	Visit ekpure.com.
	Use code BEN for 10% off your EnviroCleanse home air purification unit right now.
	You'll also get their free air quality monitor plus fast free shipping that is a $150 savings.
	ekpure.com.
	Code BEN.
	That's ekpure.com.
	Promo code BEN.
	So I have to tell you the rest of this tragic and heartbreaking and truly just devastating story about Bill de Blasio and Charlene McRae.
	A beautiful, beautiful couple who just, their relationship just didn't last the test of time.
	Quote is from the New York Times.
	About two months ago, another stale Saturday night of binge-watching TV at their Brooklyn home, Bill de Blasio and Charlene McRae surprised themselves.
	It began with an offhand remark.
	Why aren't you lovey-dovey anymore?
	Mr. de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, asked, according to Ms.
	McRae, his wife.
	It moved quickly, both said, into the sort of urgently searching dialogue that had been necessary for years but avoided until that moment.
	A full accounting of their relationship.
	What they wanted.
	What they were not getting.
	So, first of all, why aren't you lovey-dovey anymore is like... Is Bill de Blasio a dude?
	I don't know.
	That's a weird thing to say to your wife.
	Why aren't you lovey-dovey anymore?
	Okay, anyway, I can't imagine why Shirlene McRae is off the bandwagon.
	She says, you can't fake it.
	I do love that they went to the New York Times to tell this amazing story.
	So most people, if they had this going on in their lives, they would kind of, you know, keep it under wraps and live their life.
	Not de Blasio and Shirlene McRae.
	They're like, man, straight to the New York Times.
	Do we have a tale to tell?
	You can feel when things are off, Mr. de Blasio said, and you don't want to live that way.
	They made their decision that night.
	Mr. de Blasio and Ms.
	McRae are separating.
	They are not planning to divorce, they said, but they will date other people.
	They will continue to share the park-slope townhouse where they raised their two children now in their 20s, the vinyl-sided hub of a thoroughly modern political family whose mixed-race symbolism helped send a spindly progressive long-shot to City Hall.
	As with much about their marriage, its strain is imbued with civic resonance, a decade after the pair became what was then the most significant and dissected biracial couple in American politics.
	As with much about their marriage, they see lessons for others, even in its tunnels, both for workaday couples negotiating the challenges of growing old together, and for the small subset who expose themselves to the uncommon glare of public scrutiny.
	I love this.
	So their marriage fails, and they're banging others, and their immediate response is, we should lecture everyone else about how marriage should work.
	Gotta love progressives, man.
	It's like they set themselves on fire and they're like, let me lecture you about fire safety.
	I have some words about asbestos.
	What the hell is wrong with you people?
	de Blasio said, I can look back now and say, here were these inflection points where we should have been saying something to each other.
	And I think one of the things I should have said more is, are you happy?
	What will make you happy?
	What's missing in your life?
	It is easy to forget now, after two uneven terms, a calamitous 2020 presidential bid, a decade of slashing tabloid headlines by turns, earned and gratuitous, precisely because of what it felt like to see Mr. de Blasio and Ms.
	McRae step into power.
	They were visually, viscerally distinctive.
	A living testament, supporters said, to the breadth and promise of New York.
	I love when, again, the New York Times is making them into the model couple.
	Oh my god, you know what?
	They're so amazing because he was white and she was black and that's just absolute wow.
	Just wow!
	Because that's never happened any time in modern American history.
	By the way, polls say that 94% of Americans are totally cool with interracial marriage and don't care.
	But it was, like, amazing.
	Over a nearly three-hour interview— Oh, man, these people would be— Can you imagine having these people to your dinner party?
	These are the most insufferable people on planet Earth.
	Giant lurch commie and his radical racial activist wife show up to tell you about how they're banging others.
	Woo!
	For three hours.
	That's a dinner coming at you.
	Over a nearly three-hour interview during which they cupped hands sporadically and once high-fived in agreement.
	Ah, hot.
	Mr. de Blasio, 62, and Ms.
	McCrae, 68.
	Well, turn it— 62 and 68 and you couldn't hold it together?
	What, are you so wildly attractive at 62 and 68?
	Like, at that point, just play out the string, my friends.
	62 and 68.
	Like, Bill de Blasio's gonna be hot on that Tinder market.
	De Blasio, 62, and Ms.
	McCrae, 68, were alternatively wistful and upbeat, self-critical and defiant.
	Rather than issue a terse joint statement to announce what they called a trial separation, the carefully worded fate of so many political marriages before theirs, the two suggested they wanted to get considerably more off their chests.
	Oh, they're so obnoxious.
	Instead of just being like, they're not even divorcing, by the way.
	They could have just done what they did.
	Instead, they're like, we won't even do a statement.
	We will call up our New York Times reporter and do a three hour interview.
	They concluded, Mr. de Blasio more forcefully than Ms.
	McRae, that their marriage would not have reached this place if he had never been mayor.
	As grateful as they said they were for the experience and as proud as they remain of their work.
	They cited the COVID crisis as an all-consuming external shock that suppressed more probing discussions about their post-City Hall lives might look like.
	It made me emotionally very needy, he said, and we were not as connected.
	I think that he was very annoying is the impression I get.
	You know how I know that?
	Because he's been a public figure for a long time and he's super annoying.
	Yet they also clocked a shift in their relationship a year earlier, they said, coinciding roughly with the presidential run.
	Ms.
	McRae viewed with deep skepticism.
	Well, then she was the realist.
	I thought it was kind of a distraction, she said.
	Kind of true, he said.
	Point for Chirlane.
	Asked how it felt when de Blasio proceeded anyway, she said she had to be supportive.
	That's part of the difficulty of being a package, she said.
	Asked what she was seeking from this new formulation, she suggested she might enjoy the non-glow of being with a non-public figure.
	I just want to have fun, she said.
	Adding, as Mr. de Blasio turned to her, it's not that we haven't had fun.
	Thank you, honey, he said.
	There's a certain weight, she said, that goes with being with Mr. Mayor.
	Oh my god, these people.
	By the way, there were some red flags here, I will note.
	Quote.
	While Mr. de Blasio said they had become so secure in their marriage he had little reason to doubt its strength, unwelcome thoughts could creep in.
	One of them both said it involved their own parents' difficult marriages.
	Another was about Ms.
	McRae.
	For the guy who took a chance on a woman who's an out lesbian and wrote an article called, I am a lesbian, Mr. de Blasio said, there was a part of me that would at times say, hmm, is this a ticking time bomb?
	Is this something you're going to regret later on?
	So I always lived with that stuff.
	Oh.
	Well.
	Yeah.
	Oh.
	But they're happier now.
	The New York Times assures us.
	They're both happier now than they have been in some time, they said, taking care to project a practiced warmth inside their kitchen, where Mr. de Blasio at one point wiped something from her face.
	Oh, man.
	Oh, wiped something from her face.
	Oof.
	A few weeks after their impromptu session amid that Saturday night of television, they exchanged written messages outlining what we felt about the moment.
	What's cool, what's not cool, whatever else.
	One of the things we're saying to the world is we don't need to possess each other, he added.
	He quoted two favorite phrases of Ms.
	McRae's, labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins!
	And, I never want to be stuck.
	And one prized by his brother, a Tibetan Buddhist, avoid attachments.
	So they're going to share a home, and it's going to be super awkward, and yeah, that's going to be terrible, and thank you guys for sharing, and your marriage sounds terrible, and if you could go away, that'd be unbelievable.
	And by the way, can you imagine what the actual dates are like?
	Like the blazer just shows up on a date, can you imagine how fast his date You know, creates a Wile E. Coyote-style hole in the wall running out of the room.
	Ooh boy.
	Alrighty, time for a quick thing I like and then a quick thing that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	The Sound of Freedom has been almost entirely ignored by the mainstream press.
	We talked with Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard, who are involved in the making of the movie.
	The Sound of Freedom has blown it out at the box office.
	David Suisa, writing in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, points out that this movie grossed around $11 million on its July 4th opening.
	Its per-screen average was twice that of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
	About $4,600 in 2,600 theaters compared to $2,600 in 4,600 theaters for Indiana Jones.
	The movie's been blacked out of any coverage from mainstream outlets because, of course, Jim Caviezel is an overt Christian.
	And the media apparently don't care all that much about child trafficking.
	So there are lots of important messages the media are perfectly willing to resonate to, including, of course, gay storylines for children.
	But when it comes to actually fighting sex trafficking of children by making a mainstream movie about it, the media have completely blacked out Sound of Freedom.
	Sound of Freedom doesn't matter.
	It's been doing amazing at the box office thanks to people like you.
	And if you haven't seen the film yet, you totally should.
	It is worth the watch.
	Here's a little bit of the preview.
	These are the fastest growing international crime network that the world has ever seen.
	It has already passed the illegal arms trade, and soon it's gonna pass the drug trade.
	Because you can sell a bag of cocaine one time to the child, five to ten times a day.
	God's children are not for sale.
	So, it's really well made, it's very disturbing.
	And, um, and it's being reviewed nowhere.
	Literally, the only major review that's been done of it is over at Variety.
	That's the only one.
	Otherwise, it's being ignored.
	Why?
	Well, because the people who made The Chosen made it, and because Jim is in the movie, and we must ignore anything that an overt Christian is in.
	That's the way it works in Hollywood.
	Doesn't matter.
	The crowd is still out to see it.
	So, uh, good for the makers of the film.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	So, Jada Pinkett Smith seems like an awful human being.
	I say that because she banged her son's friend, and then she taped herself telling Will Smith about it, which seems really, really unpleasant.
	And you want to talk about broken relationships, relationships that don't seem to work too well?
	Well, they have externalities.
	One of those externalities was Chris Rock's face during the Oscars.
	But in any case, she is now reacting to her son Jaden's claim that she introduced their family to psychedelic drugs, which is excellent momming, by the way.
	That's like the best kind of momming, is you're just, you're home with your kids and you break out the LSD or whatever it was.
	It's like, kids, for dinner, we have spaghetti and coke.
	Well, what kind of coke?
	Not that kind of coke.
	It's the other kind.
	I brought straws!
	Not for the soda.
	In any case, last week, Jaden24 told audience members at the Psychedelic Science Conference all about his personal experience using psychedelics.
	According to BuzzFeed News, he claimed he was introduced to this by his mother, Jada.
	He said, I think it was my mom actually that was the first one to really make that step for the family.
	He said it was just for her for a really, really long time, and then eventually it trickled and evolved,
	and everybody found it in their own ways.
	He said this going on to explain that using psychedelics allowed him to feel a new level of love for his sister Willow
	and his half-brother Trey.
	Well, that's uh, one way to uh, put things.
	Siblings can argue so much and fight so much and Lord knows me and my siblings have done so much of that in the past, he said.
	But the level of love and empathy I can feel for them inside of the psychedelic experiences and outside of the experiences has been something that's profound and beautiful.
	Okay, so I suppose that this now means that the answer to my children fighting one another is to drug them.
	I have four of them, and they have lightsaber fights that occasionally degenerate into, you know, actually just kind of smacking each other.
	So I guess it's time to break out the mushrooms.
	Apparently.
	Means the siblings are gonna love each other.
	Oh, these families are so successful.
	Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jaden's claim his mom had been the one to introduce their family to psychedelics is the one that took the internet by storm.
	Lady, introduce a dog or camping to your family.
	You don't introduce psychedelics, said one person.
	This is the most unserious family ever, said another.
	Jada said that she would be explaining everything we need to know in her upcoming memoir, Worthy, set to be released on October 17th.
	Again, excellent momming.
	So instead of being like, no, of course I would not just, you know, give my kids mushrooms, she's like, I do have a memoir to sell.
	Here it is.
	Hollywood is filled with the most narcissistic people in the world.
	I mean, truly, they make Washington look like a place of great humility and tactfulness.
	It all gets answered in the book, she said, before adding that the memoir will also explore all of the assumptions made about her and Will's family.
	I don't think they're assumptions.
	I mean, you guys kind of said what you are.
	I think people have made a lot of assumptions, and you know what?
	Rightfully so, she said.
	I have to take ownership of that in regards to the narrative that I participated in, the falsehoods about myself.
	In the book, I really explain all of that extensively.
	This sounds like a terrible book.
	So all of that is great.
	In fact, Jada spoke about the subject with Jaden himself on a 2021 episode of her Facebook show, Red Table Talk.
	That would be the same talk show where she just unleashed on her husband that she had banged her son's friend.
	Explaining that she was introduced to a plant medicine a decade prior to help deal with depression, Jada told Adrian and Jaden, I struggled with depression for so long.
	The thing about the plant medicine is it helps you feel better, but also solves the problems of how you got there in the first place.
	Well, my favorite thing about that is all the people are like, trust the science!
	Here's a plant!
	Guys, like, plant medicine doesn't- like, arsenic is a naturally occurring substance.
	Mushrooms can poison you to death.
	One of my favorite- I do love it when all of the people who are like, trust the science!
	Give your kid the COVID jab!
	The science says so!
	Those are the same people who are like, woo woo crystals!
	The crystals will heal you.
	They have healing properties.
	And also, I like plant medicine.
	Which plants?
	I don't care.
	I just go out in my front yard and take a bite out of a tree.
	Strong stuff from Jada Pinkett Smith.
	It's all about where you're sitting and why you're doing it.
	She said, every drug that's on the market right now can be abused.
	You can use it for good.
	You can use it recklessly.
	Then Jaden opened up about how he started using magic mushrooms out of sheer curiosity.
	After discovering that scientific studies had labeled the drug as one of the most significant advances in treating depression since Prozac.
	Explaining that he experienced ego dissolution, a state in which self-identity is completely lost.
	Jaden said, it was always in my head talking, telling me what I was, what I wasn't.
	That was the moment that really changed me.
	Oh, it seems like so many beautiful families in Hollywood who should probably be writing scripts and making films that they then sell to you and your kids about how families ought to operate.
	Their moral standards are the best moral standards.
	We should totally take them seriously on all of these matters.
	For sure.
	Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We'll be getting into the mailbag.
	If you're not a member, become a member.
	Use code Shapiro.
	Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

▲