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Aug. 28, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

59:55

Will Bernie Run?

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	Joe Biden is playing a very, very dangerous game.
	I don't just mean with regard to his presidential run against the presumptive Republican nominee right now, Donald Trump.
	I mean with regard to his own party.
	So Joe Biden is non-existent as just a human being.
	According to the Republican National Committee, Joe Biden has spent 23 of the past 30 days on vacation.
	Later this week, he's going back to Rehoboth Beach for more.
	His entire strategy as a president of the United States is now apparently the same strategy he used in getting to the presidency, which is hide in a basement in Delaware and just stay there.
	Every so often, they open the coffin and they roll Joe on out.
	And then they machinate his mouth for him.
	And then they move him back into his coffin.
	And then the door shuts and click.
	But here is the problem.
	There are a lot of Democrats who aren't particularly satisfied with all of this, particularly because the person who is backing up Joe Biden is also wildly unpopular in Kamala Harris.
	Republicans are not just going to run against Joe Biden, they're also going to run against the person who presumptively will pick up the pieces when, God forbid, something happens to the current president of the United States.
	This is why, presumably, you have Bernie Sanders back in New Hampshire over the weekend.
	So Bernie has no business in New Hampshire.
	The only reason for Bernie to be in New Hampshire is because he thinks, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden ain't going to be around if it's time to run for president again.
	And everybody has talked about the Gavin Newsom's of the world.
	We'll get to him in a moment.
	Everybody talks about Kamala Harris.
	People forget that the person who won Iowa and New Hampshire in the last Democratic primary season was neither of those two characters.
	Kamala Harris dropped out before we even hit California.
	The person who won was Bernie.
	And if it had not been for the entire Democratic Party infrastructure coming together to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination, they literally all got together and then they all endorsed Joe Biden simultaneously.
	If that doesn't happen, Bernie Sanders is the nominee for the Democratic Party.
	And there is every belief that Donald Trump wins re-election over Bernie Sanders.
	Well, Bernie is getting active again.
	And I gotta tell you, communism must be amazing for your blood, because apparently being a complete leech on other people for your entire life, which is Bernie Sanders' story, one of the most useless people in all of American history.
	Bernie Sanders' entire life has been built around uselessness, taking American public dollars, and all the rest.
	He is just the worst.
	And Bernie is back in New Hampshire over the weekend.
	He delivered a speech entitled The Agenda America Needs at St.
	Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
	He said this will lay out a concrete agenda which speaks to the needs of the long-neglected working class.
	And he put out a statement saying, All of this is sparking some speculation.
	CNN did an interview with Bernie over the weekend.
	discussed it at the growing levels of income and wealth inequality in our
	country and the rampant corporate greed we are seeing. All of this is a sparking
	some speculation. CNN did an interview with Bernie over the weekend here's what
	he had to say. You said if we're going to defeat the creeping authoritarianism and
	right-wing extremism there has to be an ideological change of course.
	Can you explain what you mean by that?
	Well, what I mean by that, Dana, is that the President has a right to be very proud of many of the accomplishments that we've achieved in the last three years.
	Unemployment very, very low.
	We've brought inflation down.
	We're investing in clean energy.
	We're rebuilding our infrastructure.
	We have made real progress in a number of areas.
	The reality is that today, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.
	We have massive levels of income and wealth inequality.
	Three people are more wealth than the bottom half of America.
	Okay, so Bernie, this is the language of a person who wants to campaign.
	As New Hampshire Institute of Politics Executive Director Neil Vesk told the Christian Science Monitor, he said, we invited him, but he is coming here for a reason.
	I think it opens the door for a lot of other sorts of thoughts about whether or not Biden is going to be the nominee, whether or not Biden is going to be running in next year's presidential election.
	Now, Biden, Bernie has said over and over and over he's going to back Biden.
	But again, it seems as though there is now the door is now open to Democrats openly talking about what happens if Joe Biden doesn't survive.
	And this has been sort of verboten, right?
	There's been a kind of ixnay on the talking about Joe Biden's elf hay.
	Just don't talk about it and it'll go away.
	But now it is perfectly obvious to everyone that Joe Biden is ailing.
	And so even Bernie Sanders, by the way, is older than Joe Biden.
	Bernie Sanders is 81 years old.
	Bernie is not just going to give up the ghost right here.
	He looks at that field and he says, well, I have more of a support base nationally than Gavin Newsom.
	And so the possibility that Bernie could theoretically be waiting in the wings for Joe, I don't think any of these people are going to jump in directly against Joe Biden unless Joe Biden has some sort of serious health scare.
	But honest to God, I mean, it seems like day to day, the possibility of Joe Biden having a serious health scare is like 50 percent.
	Every time that man has a press conference, you're waiting for him, for God forbid, something to happen to the current president of the United States.
	You don't want anything bad to happen to anybody for health reasons.
	But if you're a Democrat waiting in the wings right now and you look at Joe Biden and they are hiding him on a beach by himself, trying to stop the old man from getting COVID or something, you have to be thinking, well, who's backing him up?
	And no one is happy with Kamala Harris, despite the attempt by Politico to sort of revive the enthusiasm that never existed around Kamala Harris.
	So Bernie may be back in the ballgame.
	Meanwhile, everybody is pretty...
	Pretty clear on the fact that Gavin Newsom is waiting in the wings as well.
	Gavin Newsom has been running a shadow campaign.
	It's why he's been running against Ron DeSantis.
	According to NBC News, Newsom is increasingly being viewed as a nuisance by some of President Joe Biden's political advisors, according to four people familiar with the matter.
	The Biden's camp no longer sees Newsom as a wannabe challenger.
	Newsom's plan to debate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on TV carries more risk than potential reward, according to those people.
	This has caused consternation within Biden's operation, and particularly among Vice President Kamala Harris's allies.
	It should cause consternation with Kamala Harris.
	The notion that if Kamala Harris were the heir apparent to Joe Biden, no one would challenge her is nonsense.
	Everyone would challenge her.
	The number of people in the race if Kamala Harris is the presumptive heir to Joe Biden is insane.
	That place is going to be more crowded than the U.S.
	Open this weekend.
	I mean, it's totally crazy.
	Some Biden advisors have complained privately.
	The planned debate could make voters think Newsom is running a shadow 2024 campaign at a time when most Democrats say they'd prefer a different candidate at the top of the ticket.
	They also argue it could elevate DeSantis, whom White House advisers initially perceived as a greater threat to Biden's re-election hopes, than the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
	Harris' allies take particularly umbrage at what they see as Newsom's attempt to position himself for the 2028 Democratic presidential primarily at her expense.
	So, again, there are a lot of Democrats and they are champing at the bit to go after Joe Biden, and at least after the people who would come after Joe Biden.
	There's a reason Joe Biden's team is hiding him away.
	In just one second, we'll get to the continued controversies swirling around Joe Biden.
	Makes him incredibly vulnerable even inside his own party.
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	Okay, so.
	The controversy continues to swirl over the failures of the Biden administration.
	All of the investigations surrounding legality of what Joe Biden has been doing, those are not simply going to go away.
	In fact, there's an article in the New York Post over the weekend that's pretty dicey with regard to Jack Smith.
	Jack Smith is, of course, the special counsel who's appointed to go after Donald Trump in multiple cases.
	He's got the Florida case over Donald Trump's mishandling, allegedly, of classified documents.
	And he's got the January 6th case up in Washington, D.C.
	Well, now, according to the New York Post, it turns out The White House Counsel's Office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden's likely opponent in 2024.
	Jay Bratt, who joined the Special Counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, took a meeting in the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House Counsel's Office, according to White House visitor logs.
	They were joined in the 10 a.m.
	meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office.
	Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith's office on June 8th, 2023.
	Brad, who is 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was mired in negotiations with the National Archives.
	Brad had a third meeting in the White House September 2021, this with Katherine Riley, an advisor to the White House's Chief of Staff office.
	It's not clear what exactly was discussed, but critics and legal experts are questioning why Bratt was taking meetings at all with the White House Counsel's Office while part of an active investigation into President Biden's likely 2024 Republican opponent.
	Obviously, Rudy Giuliani is fighting mad about it.
	He says there's no legitimate purpose for a DOJ guy to be meeting with the White House, except if it's coordinated at the highest levels.
	Giuliani said that he believes that obviously this is some sort of coordination.
	George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said that the meeting was particularly troublesome and raises obvious concerns about visits to the White House after Brad began his work with the special counsel.
	He said there's no reason why the DOJ should not be able to confirm whether this meeting was related to the ongoing investigation or concerns some other matter.
	Now, theoretically, it could concern some other matter.
	But the fact is that when you have meetings between the people who are prosecuting Donald Trump and members of the White House staff, That is not something that a special counsel's office should be doing, quite obviously.
	Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, the congressional investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden continue.
	Kevin McCarthy over the weekend, Speaker of the House, he was asked about shutting down investigations into Hunter or Joe Biden.
	He said, of course, I'm not doing that.
	Walk us through your scenarios that you expect.
	Do you think we'll see a short term continuing resolution while you finish the appropriations process?
	Well, one of our goals is to change Washington.
	We're tired of these omnibus bills where Congress doesn't do their work like their appropriations.
	So in the debt ceiling, we put a provision in there, if you didn't do your job, there was a 1% cut across the board.
	It made a lot of members mad, but they're actually doing their work.
	I don't believe we'll have enough time to pass all the appropriation bills by September 30th, so I would actually like to have a short-term CR, only to make our arguments stronger.
	Because, Maria, if we shut down, all the government shuts it down.
	Investigation and everything else.
	It hurts the American public.
	But, if we're able to pass our appropriation bills, we're in a stronger position to remove those Pelosi policies that are locked into law right now.
	Okay, so the investigation into Hunter is going to be ongoing from Congress as well.
	It should be.
	Viktor Shokin, who's at the center of a lot of this controversy, you remember Viktor Shokin, he was the former top Ukraine prosecutor who was targeted by Joe Biden as well as by Burisma.
	Now, Joe Biden's claim is that the reason he got Shokin fired in Ukraine is because there was international consternation over Viktor Shokin having the power that he did, that he was corrupt, and that's the reason that Joe Biden was doing all of that.
	Burisma was at the same time lobbying for Shokin to be gone because he was investigating Burisma.
	His claim is the reason that Joe Biden did it is because he was investigating Burisma.
	Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma and Joe Biden suddenly took a magical interest in his particular job.
	Over the weekend, he did an interview with Brian Kilmeade in which he talked about why he thinks he was fired Victor Shokin.
	Why were you fired from your position by President Poroshenko?
	I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma.
	So did President Poroshenko tell you that?
	That he wanted you to stay on the job, but there was pressure from Vice President Biden?
	You understood me correctly.
	This is how it was.
	There were no complaints whatsoever, no problems with how I was performing at my job.
	But because pressure was repeatedly put on President Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.
	He says the reason I oversaw the Burisma case was because I was Prosecutor General.
	Burisma was an ordinary case.
	There was nothing particularly different about it.
	He said the reason I was handling it is because it deserved a special mention.
	It was on a list of cases to merit special attention because Hunter Biden was involved with Burisma and of course his father, the Vice President Biden at the time, oversaw Ukraine affairs for the White House.
	This is why.
	He also added he had no doubt Burisma was engaged in illegal activities and said it would half a day to explain them all.
	Among the allegations, he said that Burisma illegally produced, sold, and utilized natural gas supplies.
	This is according to Fox News.
	He says, I have no doubt there were illegal activities engaged in by Burisma.
	As a matter of fact, the criminal case had been started before me.
	It continued to explain, and Slavchevsky, who at the time held the post of minister and was the founder and CEO of Burisma, started bringing in people who could provide protection for him.
	Hunter Biden was among them.
	The corruption network expanded as a result.
	So yes, to answer your question, there is no doubt in my mind Burisma was engaged in illegal activities.
	Now, as Fox News points out, it is pretty obvious that Hunter called DC to work on Shoken.
	House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said, quote, when Burisma's owner was facing pressure from the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company for corruption, Devin Archer, who is Hunter Biden's former business partner, testified that Burisma executives asked Hunter to call DC after a Burisma board meeting in Dubai.
	And Fox News Digital reported that on November 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadim Pazarsky emailed Hunter Biden, Archer, and fellow Hunter associate Eric Schwerin about a revised proposal, contract, and initial invoice for Burisma holding from lobbying from Blue Star Strategies.
	Hunter reportedly connected Burisma with Blue Star Strategies to help the energy firm fight corruption charges levied against Zlovchevsky, the company's owner.
	And Pazarsky emphasized in that email the ultimate purpose of the agreement was to shut down any cases or pursuits against Nikolai in Ukraine.
	That would be Zlovchevsky.
	Shoken also went on, he accused the Bidens of actually taking bribes.
	He said, had I continued to oversee the Burisma investigation, we would have found the facts
	about the corrupt activities they were engaging in that included both Hunter Biden and Devin Archer
	and others. He said, I don't want to deal in unproven facts.
	My firm personal conviction is, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed. The fact
	that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for buying this missile, my firing
	alone, isn't that a case of corruption?
	Well, I mean, the answer is yes. I mean, the only question there is whether Joe Biden is able to
	hide his motivation, which may have been over Burisma by saying that everybody wanted Chokin
	fired anyway.
	But two things can be true at once.
	Everybody wanted Shokin fired.
	And the real reason that Joe Biden was interested in Shokin to the point where he was calling up the president of Ukraine And actually sending emails from a secret account to Biden and to Hunter over Ukraine.
	The reason maybe he took like a special interest, maybe it's because of the fact that his son was working for Burisma at the time.
	All of this is not dead.
	Not by a long shot.
	Other Democrats know it.
	This is why there's a little bit of blood in the water with regard to the current president of the United States.
	Okay, we're gonna get to more on this race in just one second, particularly with regard to the economy, which it is very unclear which way the economy is going to go.
	I have my doubts.
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	Meanwhile, the economy continues to be on sort of the edge here.
	So Jerome Powell gave a speech in Jackson Hole over the weekend.
	He's the head of the Federal Reserve.
	And I will say it once again, the fact that our entire economy is run by a small cabal of human beings who preside over massive, enormous Global economy breaking power with regard to central banking is despicable.
	It really is despicable.
	The gold standard used to take this directly out of the hands of bureaucratic quote-unquote experts.
	I'm not saying these people are uniquely bad.
	What I am saying is the system of incentives is uniquely bad.
	The fact the Federal Reserve has been tasked with simultaneously keeping inflation low and keeping employment high, it used to be that that was the job of, you know, legislatures.
	That was the job.
	And now when you hand it off to the Federal Reserve, basically their job is to continue to backfill all the bad legislation coming out of Washington, D.C.
	Fiscal responsibility can only happen when you don't have a bunch of central bankers who are manipulating the switches behind the scenes.
	In any case, Jerome Powell, who everybody now watches like you watch a papal conclave after trying to pick a new pope, just waiting for the smoke to emerge.
	That's how we now watch these economic events, which is insane.
	So Jerome Powell in a room in Jackson Hole.
	Wyoming, because this is how, again, our macroeconomics is now done.
	He gave a speech talking about inflation and the interest rates.
	A lot of people are worried particularly that the Federal Reserve and the central banks across the world are going to continue to raise those interest rates in an effort to quell inflation.
	And in doing so, they're basically going to clamp down on the ability of lenders to lend.
	They're going to increase standards for lenders because the money ain't going to be quite as easy to recoup.
	And they're afraid that will tip us over into a recession.
	Here was Jerome Powell over the weekend.
	2% is and will remain our inflation target.
	We are committed to achieving and sustaining a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to that level over time.
	It is challenging, of course, to know in real time when such a stance has been achieved.
	OK, meanwhile, he says, is he going to give any guidance?
	I mean, we all know that he wants to bring inflation down to 2%.
	That's always the target rate for the Federal Reserve, which, by the way, is in and of itself immoral.
	Let me just point out that a 2% inflation rate over the course of 50 years is a 100% inflation rate.
	Which is why everything is way more expensive in just pure dollar terms than it used to be.
	The fact that we deliberately inflate the currency in order to artificially jog consumer spending in this country is what we would call a nidashanda.
	It is something that is shameful.
	We should not be doing this.
	We are actively degrading people's savings in order to jog Fake consumer spending.
	Which does not actually generate innovation, by the way.
	What generates innovation is investment.
	What generates innovation is R&D.
	What generates innovation is not you buying an additional hamburger today.
	That doesn't generate the new products and services that make the world a better place.
	In any case, Jerome Powell then gave very little guidance.
	He basically just kind of said, well, you know, we don't know.
	You don't know.
	Nobody knows.
	As is often the case, we are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies.
	In such circumstances, risk management considerations are critical.
	At upcoming meetings, we will assess our progress based on the totality of the data and the evolving outlook and risks.
	Based on this assessment, we will proceed carefully as we decide whether to tighten further or instead to hold the policy rate constant and await further data.
	Okay, well that's, um, that is very edifying.
	In just one second, we'll get to what that means for the economy.
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	Get that special Okay, so what does all this mean for the economy?
	According to the Wall Street Journal, Powell's message wasn't terribly different from his previous comments.
	Analysts and investors said it wasn't music to the ears of many of the portfolio managers who have been crossing their fingers the fastest rate cycle in decades is finally at an end.
	Stocks rose Friday afternoon, a rare advance in an August slog for U.S.
	indices, but futures markets showed a greater expectation rates could stay higher for longer.
	They will, okay?
	These rates are not going anywhere for a bit.
	At what point does the bond market provide competition to the stock market in the eyes of investors?
	Said David D'Nabedian, the Chief Investment Officer of CIBC Private Wealth U.S.
	The idea would be that the stock market right now is still inflated a little bit.
	Although U.S.
	indices remain in the green for the year, this month has been difficult for investors in riskier assets, signs of continued strength in the U.S.
	economy, a flood of treasury debt sales, expectations the Fed could keep higher rates higher for longer.
	Lifted government bond yields to decade-plus highs.
	Traders on Friday assigned a 54% probability to the central bank lifting rates again by the end of the year.
	That's up from 32% that they estimated a week earlier.
	Again, the fact that everybody is now sitting around and reading chicken entrails as to what a bunch of central bankers are going to do with the rates is absurd.
	There is a natural rate of inflation.
	The natural rate of inflation occurs based on products and services and productivity.
	There's a natural rate to lending.
	Natural interest rates exist.
	They are different from economy to economy.
	They are not consistent.
	They should not be set by any central point.
	It is amazing that many of the same free market economic thinkers who understand that no one cadre of people is capable of setting prices in literally any other area of the American economy believes that there is a cadre of people who should be setting the price of debt.
	That's totally insane.
	It's not just people like me who believe this.
	Mohamed El-Erian of Allianz, he wrote a book a long time ago.
	Well, they ain't going to be able to save.
	This creates such a set of perverse incentives.
	The perverse incentive is, if you're a member of the legislature, you just spend endlessly hoping the Federal Reserve is going to come in like mommy and kiss the boo-boo.
	And it's basically Jerome's Powell job.
	The problem is that means that everybody else out here who's trying to invest, we don't have an idea what Jerome Powell is going to do tomorrow.
	You're sitting around waiting for this guy to figure out exactly what the plan is for all the rest of our lives.
	And you don't even have a say in it because it's not an elected position.
	The fact that there is not more hue and cry about the outsized powers of the Federal Reserve is absolutely beyond me.
	Especially because it's not as though central bankers know what the hell they're doing.
	Again, whenever you have a small cadre of experts who say that they know exactly what they are doing, that is almost never the case.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, central bankers from around the world are finally getting the inflation slowdown they've been expecting, but they worry it won't last.
	That apprehension explained the uneasy optimism underlying their discussions here in the Wyoming mountains this weekend about whether interest rates have reached a summit.
	Federal Reserve officials are grappling with new economic cross-currents.
	U.S.
	consumer spending has grown faster than they expected in recent months, buoyed by higher inflation-adjusted wages.
	Stronger demand prompted concerns it might prevent inflation from falling further.
	But a recent surge in long-term government bond yields combined with weakening growth abroad could help touch off a U.S.
	economic slowdown Fed officials have been trying to engineer by raising rates aggressively over the past 18 months.
	The problem is, once you tip over that cliff, you don't know how far down it is.
	Meanwhile, China, they've destroyed their own economy.
	They've been doing that over the course of the last few decades.
	They've been hiding it with fake growth numbers based largely on borrowing extraordinary sums of money and then spending it on empty cities.
	Well, now, according to the Wall Street Journal, ideology is driving China's economic policy to a degree not seen since the country's opening to the West nearly half a century ago, deterring its leaders from taking steps to spur the sputtering economy.
	So it used to be that when China got in trouble, they might try a little free market stuff.
	Not anymore.
	Economists and investors have been calling on Beijing to make bolder efforts to boost output, especially by promoting consumer spending if necessary by offering cash handouts, as the U.S.
	did during the pandemic.
	But top leader Xi Jinping has deep-rooted philosophical objections to Western-style consumption-driven growth people familiar with decision-making in Beijing say.
	Xi sees such growth as wasteful and at odds with his goal of making China a world-leading industrial and technological powerhouse.
	Now, the way that China could theoretically do that is, you know, open up.
	But they're not going to open up.
	Instead, they're just going to follow this corporatist path.
	What's amazing is that the same corporate path that China follows is one Democrats in the United States wish to follow.
	It's China that takes hundreds of billions of dollars and just shovels it into particular industries in the belief that this will somehow magically fix their ailing economy.
	Joe Biden wants to do the same thing here.
	He calls it Bidenomics, the communist Chinese.
	Call it communism, but it isn't either.
	What it really is is corporatism.
	It really is the government picking and choosing particular business sectors or businesses that they think are the most important business sectors or businesses and taking money away from the most efficient to give to these particular sectors.
	It exists on both the left and the right, by the way.
	And all it really is is favoritism combined with political ideology, which is not the way that free market economics is supposed to work.
	It does not generate the most efficient levels of growth.
	It does not generate the best outcomes for the vast majority of the population.
	The fact that the West wishes to copy China as China falls directly into the pit is absolutely insane.
	But again, the illusion of control is such a, it is so just desirous for so many people in positions of power.
	The illusion that they alone can control, they alone can fix.
	Give me enough power and I'll fix the American economy.
	Now the answer, whenever you hear a president of either party say he has created jobs, it is a lie.
	The president of the United States does not create jobs, neither do congresspeople.
	You create the jobs in your business.
	I create the jobs in my business.
	We create the job, I know, because we sign the paychecks over here.
	The fact that the federal government pretends that it creates jobs, the federal government can take away jobs by destroying the baseline preconditions for economic growth.
	And that is one of the things that happens when you participate in the economic favoritism and the corporatism that both parties engage in here in the United States and that is engaged in by some of the most economically fascist countries on the planet.
	By the way, all of this is having pretty dire effects, not just on the world economy, but more specifically, on the lower end of the world economy.
	You're starting to see a bunch of countries absolutely collapse in terms of emerging markets.
	Emerging markets are especially sensitive to Fed policy, according to the Wall Street Journal, because higher U.S.
	rates make riskier assets less attractive to investors.
	You're not going to invest in Nigerian bonds if the money is just not as easy.
	So, get ready.
	For all those people who believe that the markets are on solid footing, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale at the moment.
	Okay, meanwhile, on the Republican side of the aisle, Joe Biden is incredibly vulnerable.
	Even Democrats are noticing this, which is presumably why you have Bernie Sanders traveling to New Hampshire.
	Republicans are steaming toward a Donald Trump nomination.
	There's just no two ways about it.
	Right now, the 2024 presidential nomination, the update in the RealClearPolitics polling average has Donald Trump up 40 points over the rest of the field.
	There's been some sign that Vivek Ramaswamy is starting to recede back to the field, that Nikki Haley is starting to pick up a little bit of ground.
	The solid No.
	2 continues to be Ron DeSantis.
	By pretty much all the available polling data right now, he continues to be No.
	2.
	Pence is picking up a little bit of ground in some of the latest polls.
	By a little, I mean he's up to 5 or 6% in some of the latest polls.
	Nobody is within shouting distance of Donald Trump.
	After Donald Trump's pick was took at the Georgia courthouse, at the Fulton County Courthouse, it wasn't the courthouse, the jail, at the Fulton County Jail, he raised more money on that day alone than he had the entirety of the campaign, which is both I would say encouraging in the sense that Republicans are very, very motivated and a little bit discouraging in the fact that if you want Donald Trump to be president, probably you shouldn't want him to be president just because he took a mugshot.
	Now, as I said, the mugshot is an amazing, amazing marketing opportunity for Donald Trump.
	I talked about it on Friday.
	It's a great mugshot.
	If there is such a thing, it is a great mugshot.
	And there are.
	I mean, Frank Sinatra's, most famously.
	Like, there are great and iconic mugshots.
	This is an iconic mugshot.
	Well, Trump turned that Georgia mugshot into gold.
	According to Politico, Trump raised $7.1 million since he was booked at an Atlanta jail on Thursday evening, according to figures provided first to Politico by his campaign.
	On Friday alone, Trump raised $4.18 million.
	That is the single highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date, according to a person familiar with the totals.
	The campaign's fundraising has been powered by merch.
	It's been selling through the online store, which again, makes sense.
	It's all people signaling to each other that they also wish to throw the establishment the giant orange middle finger.
	The campaign has also been prodding online donors with emails and text messages as well.
	Trump's campaign says it has raised nearly $20 million in the last three weeks based on the repeated charges against him.
	Now, as I said last week, the polling does not demonstrate that Donald Trump is likely to win an election based on this.
	It demonstrates that he is likely to win the nomination based on the charges against him.
	But the fact is that most Americans, unfortunately, still believe that Trump should stand trial before the 2024 election.
	He has a court date in Georgia today.
	He has another one in D.C.
	today.
	All this is going to be about setting the timeline.
	The court date in D.C.
	is all about setting the Jack Smith January 6th case.
	Is that going to be before the election or after?
	His team is trying to argue he shouldn't be tried there until 2026, actually, which I think is unlikely.
	Meanwhile, in Georgia, it's not really about Trump, but there is a legal case against Mark Meadows that is ongoing there.
	Mark Meadows is trying to have that court move his case to federal court, and he's then going to claim that basically the supremacy clause prevents him from being tried in state court, that whatever crimes he supposedly committed, he committed as a federal official, as chief of staff to Donald Trump, and therefore he should be tried in federal court, not in state court.
	If Trump tried the same thing, that would at least foreclose the possibility that he would be tried and convicted in a state court, and then he'd be on the ballot, and then you have a real mess, a constitutional mess, because The president can't pardon himself of a non-federal offense.
	But, again, the polling does not show that the general public overall is incredibly warm toward Donald Trump's legal troubles.
	There are some people who are more warm than they otherwise would have been, but they were kind of lukewarm to begin with.
	Like, I'm more animated on behalf of Trump because of the trials than I otherwise would have been, but I voted for Trump in 2020, so I can't vote for him twice.
	You look at the polling data from Politico and what it shows, is that 61% of Americans believe that Trump's election trials should take place before the election.
	61%.
	Meanwhile, 51% believe that Trump is guilty of alleged crimes in the federal 2020 election subversion election case against 26% who say no.
	Those are not great numbers.
	Meanwhile, a plurality of respondents to Politico said a conviction in the case, 44%, would have no impact on their likelihood of supporting Trump, which makes sense.
	Again, you figure half of those people are pro, half of those people are against.
	But among people who said that the result would inform their vote, nearly one-third of respondents, 32%, said a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump.
	That includes one-third of independents.
	Only 13% of respondents total said a conviction would make them more likely to support Trump.
	That figure was more likely Republicans than not.
	And by the way, the numbers could go down because as the case drags on and as sort of the shock of Trump being indicted drags on, it becomes less shocking and more normal.
	And then this becomes baked into the cake.
	By the way, if you look at who is considered a villain in this particular case, Here's the polling data.
	Again, Politico Magazine, Ipsos Poll.
	You have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the action, statements, and behavior of the following people regarding the cases against Trump.
	58% unfavorable, 27% favorable.
	Joe Biden, 45% unfavorable, 36% favorable.
	That is a nine-point gap, negative for Biden.
	That is a 29% gap for Donald Trump, right there.
	Jack Smith, to this point, still has more favorables than unfavorables, and so does the DOJ.
	So, if the hope here is that Donald Trump's legal cases are going to spur him to the presidency, again, I think there's a high possibility they spur him to the nomination, but I think that there's a much lower chance that they actually have the sort of countervailing effect that a lot of people have said about impeachment.
	I've never bought the argument, by the way, that impeaching somebody actually helps them electorally.
	I still have yet to see the evidence of that.
	Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998.
	Maybe it helped Democrats a little bit in sort of the midterm elections.
	It didn't help Al Gore in 2000.
	And obviously impeaching Trump twice didn't really make a difference on behalf of Trump in the 2020 election either.
	Meanwhile, there is a case afoot to now truly... You want to talk about election interference?
	This would be true election interference against Trump.
	We'll get to that in just one second first.
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	Okay meanwhile. Now when Donald Trump talks about election interference and he talks about these
	cases, yeah they are a form of election interference for sure. No question.
	But here's like some actual direct election interference, and it's coming from inside the House.
	According to Byron York, some of Donald Trump's enemies are now attempting to have him removed from state primary ballots.
	According to York, he says that even though conviction does not legally bar Trump from running and winning, the hope is there is no way a convicted Trump could regain the presidency from the left.
	But there are some of Trump's opponents who are going further.
	They're now exploring the possibility that Trump is already disqualified from running for office.
	State election boards or secretaries of state, they say, can and should simply remove his name from the ballot in their states.
	No need for a hearing, a trial, legal ruling, legislation, or any of the other stuff.
	Now, how would this magical silliness work?
	The magical result occurs, proponents say, by way of the 14th Amendment.
	Section 3 of the amendment prohibits anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof from ever holding public office.
	Section 3 was intended to apply to former Confederate officials.
	It hasn't played any significant role in American governance since 1872, and it was basically a dead letter.
	Now some people are saying they should use it against Trump.
	Now, what's hilarious about that is that the entire claim against Trump for all the bad stuff that he did between November and January of 2021...
	The claim is there is no legal basis for Mike Pence to simply throw out state-certified electoral votes based on, like, nothing in the Constitution.
	You can't just make that judgment.
	There has to be, like, an actual reason that you are doing it.
	But now Trump's opponents are attempting to do precisely that against him on these state ballots.
	It's absurd.
	It's not going to happen.
	If it were to happen, it would be a complete disaster area for both the Republican Party and the country.
	You can't just take people off the ballot without, like, an actual legal reason to take them off the ballot.
	Totally crazy.
	Okay, meanwhile, Ron DeSantis has paused his campaign because there are a bunch of issues in the state of Florida, particularly this giant storm that is bearing down on the Gulf Coast.
	According to Politico, he canceled campaign events this week as a major storm bears down on the state and also in the aftermath of this horrific racist shooting in Jacksonville, which we'll get to momentarily.
	DeSantis said, During a Sunday news conference, he's going to remain in Florida in the coming days because Tropical Storm Idalia is expected to become a hurricane and make landfall along the Gulf Coast later this week.
	He says, we're locked in on this.
	We're going to get the job done.
	I'm here.
	He was slated to campaign in South Carolina on Monday.
	Probably, I assume Casey will be taking his place at some of those events.
	DeSantis also went to a vigil on Sunday night for a shooting that left three people dead in Jacksonville on Saturday before the gunman killed himself.
	DeSantis began a Sunday news conference by condemning the shooting here was Ron DeSantis showing up at a vigil over the weekend and a bunch of idiots started shouting at him because supposedly what the governor of the state is not supposed to show up in solidarity with communities that are afflicted by white supremacist mass killings. I'm so confused why you would shout at
	somebody over this. In any case, here was DeSantis. And the hero of this particular story is
	a Democrat council member named Jokobi Pittman, who steps in here and basically tells the
	protesters, shut up. We're all on the same side of this one. We are not going to allow these
	institutions to be targeted by people.
	Okay, listen, let me Let me tell you, we finna put parties aside.
	Cause it ain't about parties today.
	A bullet don't know a party.
	So don't get me started.
	Okay, this is one of the beautiful things I will say about living in Florida, and this is why there are DeSantis Democrats as well in the state of Florida, is that in Florida, when it comes to times of actual crisis, everybody is on the same side.
	By the way, that is the nature of what a community should be, is when there's a crisis, all this stuff goes to the wayside.
	The fact that there are people who are protesting when this sort of stuff happens, and DeSantis is not responsible in any way for this.
	His response has not been lackluster.
	It's not as though he went, no comment, and then went for a week on the beach while all this sort of stuff happened.
	This was absolutely apolitical.
	Good for this city councilwoman for doing that.
	Believe it or not, there are members of Trump's campaign who are cheering on all of this nonsense.
	The people who are protesting.
	Laura Loomer, predictably enough, who is desperate to be Donald Trump's press secretary, which for entertainment value would be very, very high, I will say.
	She, of course, was celebrating people yelling at Ron DeSantis for being terrible enough to show up at this particular event.
	She said, I'm glad he was booed.
	He is disingenuous.
	Just an absurdity, obviously.
	She said, while Governor DeSantis was heckled at a vigil for the victims of a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General today comments he made back in July about Floridas are coming back to bite him in the ass.
	Come on.
	Like, seriously, come on.
	Ridiculous kind of stuff.
	But DeSantis is doing what he's supposed to do.
	He's the governor of Florida.
	He's back in the state.
	And he is going to be there overseeing whatever happens with regard to this Florida hurricane.
	Meanwhile, it is worthwhile noting here that, again, in the state of Florida, Florida is a fascinating and complex state.
	I know because I now live here, I'm a resident.
	And this particular shooting is obviously, it was motivated by white supremacy.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, authorities in Jacksonville, Florida identified a local 21-year-old Sunday as a white gunman who shot and killed three black victims at a Dollar General store before killing himself, an attack local and federal officials said was racially motivated.
	The gunman then shot himself, Our community is grappling to understand why this atrocity occurred.
	I urge us all not to look for sense in a senseless act of violence.
	marked on it. According to the police, the Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said this
	was pretty obviously motivated by hatred of black people.
	Our community is grappling to understand why this atrocity occurred. I urge us all not
	to look for sense in a senseless act of violence. There's no reason or explanation that we'll
	ever account for the shooter's decisions and actions. His sickening ideology is not representative
	of the values of this Jacksonville community that we all love so much.
	We are not a community of hate.
	We stand united with the good and decent people of this city.
	We reject this inexcusable violence.
	And this agency will not rest until this investigation is complete and every available avenue of accountability has been exhausted.
	Okay, it is perfectly worthwhile to talk about the ideology of the shooter.
	The shooter did not have a criminal history, but in 2016 was named in a domestic disturbance call.
	In 2017, had to be put on a 72-hour hold for a mental health evaluation.
	I will point out at this point that whenever there is a white supremacist shooting, we know the motives, like, right away.
	And whenever there is a pretty obviously motivated anti-Christian shooting, say in Nashville, Tennessee, just to take a quick example, we still don't have the manifesto of that shooter.
	And it has been how many months?
	Since all of that happened, which seems bizarre to me at the very, very least.
	The shooting obviously was condemned by everyone, ranging from President Biden, who said we must refuse to live in a country where black families going to the store or black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin, which of course is true.
	Governor DeSantis said something similar.
	He called the shooting horrific and said that the state was offering support to the local authorities.
	But as I say, Florida is a fascinating and complex place.
	Here was Governor DeSantis speaking about the shooting.
	Florida, the state and its people condemn the horrific racially motivated murders perpetrated by a deranged scumbag in Jacksonville at the Dollar General store.
	Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable and targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida.
	Casey and I extend condolences to the victims and their families on behalf of the entire state of Florida.
	So, that was his statement.
	Meanwhile, the sheriff over here, again, a man named TK Waters, he says, you know, you want to try to blame the guns?
	It's not about the guns.
	It's about the person who's wielding the guns.
	The story is always about guns.
	The people are bad.
	This guy's a bad guy.
	If I could take my gun off right now and I lay it on this counter, nothing will happen.
	It'll sit there.
	But as soon as a wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it, there's the problem.
	The problem is the individual.
	Okay, so that is the part of the press conference the mainstream media will never show you.
	They'll show you him talking about the white supremacy.
	They'll never tell you that what he's saying is that, yes, it was the shooter who pulled the trigger.
	And there are a lot of black Americans, by the way, who are very, very pro-gun, and it's something that the left wishes to obscure.
	Meanwhile, the rest of the Republican field is trying to figure out a way to pry away some of DeSantis' support, and all of them are way the hell behind Trump, obviously.
	Nikki Haley, who picked up some ground after her last good debate performance, and by the polling, she did have probably the best night of anyone in terms of the amount of movement that her candidacy actually experienced.
	She was asked about President Trump and him leading in the polls.
	She said, why would I drop out from Trump?
	And I'm not going to stop until we save her.
	I think that we look at the fact that we're $32 trillion in debt.
	You've got crime that's up.
	You've got a lack of transparency in the classroom.
	You've got an open border.
	And we have threats facing us around the world.
	And I think that we need a new generational leader.
	We have some serious problems.
	We need new solutions.
	Okay, so she's not going anywhere.
	Now, the problem is that, of course, the field can fragment six ways.
	So you've got Nikki Haley, who presumably, if she continues to show some sort of credibility in the race, I assume Tim Scott at some point is going to drop out because he really has no support other than from some money people.
	If he drops out, some of that support, I assume, will move over to Haley, which makes her more competitive in South Carolina, which ironically makes Donald Trump a lot more competitive in South Carolina, because if the South Carolina primary splits Trump-DeSantis-Haley, Trump probably walks away with the nomination fairly easily, even if this race gets a lot tighter.
	Meanwhile, Chris Christie continues to double down on the never-Trump lane, thinking this is going to win him New Hampshire.
	Here he was over the weekend.
	And the truth is that, you know, we can't have a convicted felon as our nominee for president and expect we're going to win.
	And it was really the most amazing part of the debate to me was the idea that, you know, the majority of my competitors believe that you can have a convicted felon as our nominee for president and that they'd support that and that he could win.
	I think that's an impossibility.
	Okay, so, I mean, that is not what they were saying on the stage.
	They were saying, if he's the nominee against Biden, I'll vote for him.
	That's not quite the same thing as, uh, we think that he is likely to win.
	If all those people on stage thought he was likely to win, they wouldn't be running, I assume.
	Meanwhile, the person who's sort of running still as Donald Trump's shadow is Vivek Ramaswamy.
	Uh, Vivek, in the polling data, has taken some hits since the debate.
	But of course, he wanted to be a lightning rod, he is a lightning rod, and his real campaign isn't for the presidency, so I'm not sure that he cares.
	I think the idea that he's getting all sorts of outsized attention means that he's pretty well set up for, say, an Ohio Senate run.
	Ohio is his place of residence.
	Or for being a Donald Trump cabinet pick.
	Or for a VP.
	Well, he is now, in an attempt to bend over backwards for Trump, shifted his opinion completely on Donald Trump's behavior after January 6th.
	So if you look at one of his books, one of his latest books, he talks specifically about January 6th, and he says that, you know, when you lose an election, you should just admit you lost an election.
	He has now changed his opinion radically.
	He was not asked during the debate.
	A lot of other candidates were asked during the debate about Mike Pence's behavior on January 6th.
	Did he do the right thing in certifying the election?
	The answer, by the way, is yes.
	Unequivocally, yes, there is no legal basis for Mike Pence to overturn state-certified election results.
	I'm sorry if that hurts feelings.
	That's just the way that it is.
	But Vivek has tried to, he's trying to square the circle here and come up with a way of pleasing Donald Trump and ripping Mike Pence, even though he knows perfectly well that Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th.
	Here he was saying a thing that makes no sense at all.
	And again, Vivek is too smart for this.
	The candidates on stage Wednesday night said Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th.
	Do you agree?
	I would have done it very differently.
	I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to reunite this country in that window.
	What I would have said is this is a moment for a true national consensus, where there's two elements of what's required for a functioning democracy in America.
	One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power.
	When those things come into conflict, that's an opportunity for heroism.
	Here's what I would have said.
	We need single day voting on election day.
	We need paper ballots and we need government issued ID matching the voter file.
	And if we achieve that, then we have achieved victory and we should not have any further complaint about election integrity.
	So what would you have done with Mike Pence?
	You would have not certified the election?
	In my capacity as President of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then on that condition certified the election results, served it up to the President, President Trump, then to sign that into law, and on January 7th declared the re-election campaign pursuant to a free and fair election.
	I think that was a missed opportunity, but that's the kind of spirit we're going to need to unite this country rather than sweeping those concerns under the rug.
	So just to get this straight, his solution was that on January 6th, after Donald Trump had spent two months lying that Mike Pence could unilaterally overturn the election, that on January 6th, he would have not certified the election on the condition that they pass a law doing all the things that I like.
	I like those things also, but that's not what the president of the Senate actually does.
	He doesn't initiate legislation.
	He's a deciding vote.
	He's not a senator.
	Okay, but according to Vivek, he should, you know, go outside his constitutional duty, he should start proposing legislation, Mike Pence, not certify the election in defiance of his actual job as the president pro tem of the Senate.
	And then he should, at that point, certify the election the next day, and this would heal America's conflicts?
	Yeah, Donald Trump definitely would've been happy with that.
	Probably Donald Trump would've said, okay, now that you've fixed the next election, I'm really, really happy with the results of this one.
	Probably everything would've gone away.
	What is he even talking about?
	I mean, like... Vivek is a very smart guy, okay?
	I know Vivek.
	He's a super high IQ dude.
	He knows way better than this.
	And this is part of my frustration with his candidacy, is when he gained this much credibility this quickly, when he gained this much attention this quickly, it seems to me that you have sort of a duty to say honest things.
	And again, his entire campaign is truth.
	He wouldn't have done that.
	He knows he wouldn't have done that.
	Come on.
	He knows he wouldn't have done that because he literally didn't do that, okay?
	I've spoken with Vivek after January 6th.
	Between January... That's when I actually spend the most time with Vivek.
	It was between January 6th and, like, now.
	And Vivek has never talked this way.
	I mean, he literally talked the opposite in his book.
	Okay, but this is...
	You know, for people to shift with the prevailing winds bothers me.
	And again, I feel like we're talking about blown opportunities.
	Vivek has an opportunity.
	This is a dude from the outside who's extraordinarily wealthy, really, really bright, and has the opportunity to shift the debate in a lot of really fascinating and interesting directions.
	And instead, he's saying things that he knows are not actually viable or true, I think.
	Because again, I don't think that what he's saying is coherent.
	And I think he's a coherent guy.
	So for example, he has a piece in the American Conservative today about his foreign policy.
	And in it, he says, I will lead our nation from the bloody follies of neoconservatism and liberal internationalism abroad toward a strategy that affirmatively defends our homeland.
	We will be Uncle Sucker no more.
	Rather than spending billions projecting power into global vacuums where our allies will not spend to maintain it themselves, we'll put America first again, as George Washington urged, as we recalibrate and consider our true interests.
	So first of all, let me just point out, every Republican candidate, and most Democratic candidates, campaigned on exactly the same language.
	Virtually no one campaigns on the language of unlimited spending on foreign policy and interventionism everywhere.
	Barack Obama didn't campaign on that in 2008.
	George W. Bush didn't campaign on that in 2000.
	The only candidate I can think of who actually campaigned sort of like that was McCain in 2008.
	But every other candidate of my lifetime has campaigned in exactly the way that Vivek is now talking about.
	So I don't have a problem with any of this.
	The problem that I have with this is that he seems to believe that like just random things happen in foreign policy.
	So for example, here's his solution to Ukraine.
	Now, here's my position on Ukraine.
	My position on Ukraine is that the United States should be taking the leadership position in negotiations with the Russians.
	We should basically be saying to the Russians, we are willing to allow you to maintain occupancy of Crimea and part of the Donbass region.
	In return, we are going to give security guarantees but not NATO membership to the Ukrainians.
	And that's going to be the end of the war.
	Vivek wants to go one step further in a way that I don't think is even plausible.
	Hey, here's what he says.
	He says, I will go to Moscow in 2025.
	I will deliver peace in Ukraine only under the terms that should matter to us, terms that put American interests first.
	The Biden administration has foolishly tried to get Xi to dump Putin, right?
	China to dump Russia.
	In reality, we should get Putin to dump Xi.
	OK, now.
	Uh, no.
	I'm just going to put that out.
	Nope.
	Russia is a giant gas station with nuclear weapons.
	That is its entire economy.
	You think they're going to dump China?
	That is not a thing that is going to happen.
	It is a weak state with no international ties.
	Signing a peace agreement with Russia is not going to restore those international ties to the extent necessary that Russia would suddenly magically decide to dump China.
	Quote, a good deal requires all parties to get something out of it.
	To that end, I'll accept Russian control of the occupied territories and pledge to block Ukraine's candidacy for NATO in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China.
	You know what Russia's gonna do?
	Not that.
	They're not gonna exit their military alliance with China.
	Why the hell would they?
	China's the only competitive power on the world stage to the United States.
	And then meanwhile, he says, for example, That he is going to declare economic independence from China, which is fine.
	And then he says that he is going to be clearer with regard to Taiwan.
	So his take on Taiwan is he says that we have operated in strategic ambiguity with regard to
	Taiwan for far too long. I'll move to strategic clarity by which I mean that China must understand
	I will defend American interests in Taiwan. If Taiwan wants any partnership in their defense,
	they will need to raise their defense spending and military readiness to acceptable levels.
	Meanwhile, I will commit to making sure Taiwan has the weapons they need for that defense, but from a seaborne invasion, and in the future, for long-term insurgency against any occupying foreign force, if needed.
	Okay, now, there's only one problem with that.
	That is our current policy.
	That is exactly our current policy.
	That is strategic ambiguity, by the way.
	That we will arm them, but we're not... Did I miss the part in that paragraph where he says whether we will actually, like, actively defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion?
	I did not.
	Yeah, this kind of stuff from Vivek, it's the reason why his surge was based on the idea that he was a free radical.
	He could say whatever he wanted.
	And then it appears that he's now saying things.
	He's got a little bit of audience capture.
	It seems like he's saying things that he wants people to think he believes, but it seems unlikely that he actually believes those things.
	And I think that's one of the things that came off on the stage the other night for Vivek.
	So my recommendation to him in this campaign, if he actually wants to take it, you know, as a presidential candidate, is stop trying to please President Trump personally, and start actively saying the things that people need to hear, because I think he has the strength of character to do all those things.
	Okay, meanwhile, let's do some things I like and some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like.
	Over the weekend, I read a, you know, my sort of brain relaxation is sports.
	I'm a big basketball fan.
	Rich Cohen, who's one of my favorite writers, wrote a great sports book called When the Game Was War.
	It comes out this week.
	It really is fantastic.
	So this is like my early childhood.
	So it's about the 87-88 season.
	I was only three or four years old.
	But I remember all of these players because they all continued to play until the early 90s.
	This is like Bird, Magic Jordan, Isaiah Thomas, Charles Barkley, and all the rest.
	And the book is just a fun, fun read because Rich is a terrific writer.
	It moves really fast.
	And it reminds you of a time when basketball was less about the pretty and much more about the gritty.
	It's a lot of fun.
	Again, highly recommended.
	When the Game Was War by Rich Cohen.
	Okay, another thing that I like.
	So environmentalists, they think that somehow they're going to gain support for their cause by being incredibly annoying.
	Like super duper annoying.
	What if I glue myself to this Van Gogh painting?
	And everybody's like, I hope that they just dump you into the river.
	And they'll be like, well, what if I just, you know, take this road and shut it down?
	Everybody's like, what if we just, you know, let people run you over because you're annoying.
	You're very, very annoying.
	Nobody wants anyone to die, but like, come on, get off the road.
	In any case, these idiots in Nevada decided to shut down a road in Nevada with signs like abolish capitalism.
	Well, capitalism, unfortunately for them, was not abolished.
	And instead they were abolished.
	So basically tribal rangers were like, nah, you know what?
	You're holding up the line and here's what occurred.
	Yeah!
	Get off the highway. This is a state route.
	Everybody will be arrested if not.
	30 seconds. Send your leader to my vehicle. Let's talk. Get off the road.
	Yeah!
	Yeah, that's the good stuff right there.
	They're coming back around.
	Oh, shit!
	Better move.
	Here I come.
	Get out now!
	Get out!
	On the ground!
	All of you on the ground now!
	Get on the ground!
	Get on the ground!
	Don't move!
	Okay, so all these people got arrested.
	As well they should be.
	And good for the tribal rangers.
	By the way, did you see that line of cars?
	Stupid jackass.
	Blocking like... First of all, whenever this sort of stuff happens, people shutting down traffic, and it doesn't matter to the country, it doesn't matter to the timing, stop shutting down traffic.
	It's obnoxious.
	Not only is it obnoxious because other people have lives, you're not the only person with a life, but also it sometimes creates like medical hazards because sometimes there's like an ambulance on the way to somewhere.
	Stupid idiots.
	My only regret here is that they didn't do it earlier.
	But good for them.
	Alrighty.
	We'll do a quick thing that I hate.
	Jen Psaki has been maintaining that no one is in favor of late-term abortion, which is weird because you all want late-term abortion, I noticed.
	So she tweeted out on MSNBC, she tweeted out via X, no one supports abortion up until birth.
	To which I tweeted, excellent!
	Please name the legislation you would provide in order to prevent abortion up until birth.
	She did not answer that question because she doesn't have an answer.
	So here she was trying to explain herself, Jen Psaki.
	No one supports abortion up until birth.
	I wrote that because there is a pervasive and misleading talking point that is used by a number of right-wing leaders, including presidential candidates on the stage, suggesting that Democrats are advocating for, and even rooting for, late-term abortions of babies who could live outside the womb.
	Just take a listen to some of the answers in the debate on Wednesday night.
	We're better than what the Democrats are selling.
	We are not going to allow abortion all the way up till birth, and we will hold them accountable for their extremism.
	We cannot let states like California, New York, and Illinois have abortions on demand up until the day of birth.
	I would love for someone to ask Biden and Kamala Harris, are they for 38 weeks?
	Are they for 39 weeks?
	Are they for 40 weeks?
	This wasn't just some throwaway line for applause on the debate stage.
	This is a talking point Republican presidential candidates use repeatedly on the trail.
	Okay, um, because it's true!
	Nowhere in this segment does she actually rebut the idea that she would support legislation legalizing abortion until birth.
	Instead, she just goes with like, well, it doesn't happen all that often.
	That's not the question.
	The question is not whether abortion happens all that often, close to birth.
	The question is, should it happen at all?
	And at what point should it become illegal?
	And she won't answer those questions.
	And neither will any other Democrat, because the Democratic Party position is there shall be no legislation that restricts abortion at any point up until birth.
	That is the Democratic Party position.
	And yet she just denies it.
	Outright.
	It's an amazing thing.
	It must be fun to have your cake and eat it too that way.
	Where you clearly oppose any restrictions on abortion, and then when you're called on it, you're like, yeah, but I don't like it.
	Well, I don't care whether you personally like it.
	I care whether you wish to make it illegal or not.
	We are in the business of public policy, are we not?
	It's so dishonest, but you know, she used to work for Biden, so there you have it.
	All right, you 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.
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