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Oct. 4, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

54:26

McCarthy OUT As Speaker

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	So what if I told you that the GOP had pretty much every systemic advantage going into 2024?
	They had a deeply unpopular president of the United States with approval ratings in the high 30s, low 40s.
	A president of the United States with approval ratings on the economy in the 30s or 20s.
	What if I told you that the GOP had an economic edge on the issues that is their biggest since 1991?
	Well, what if I told you that going into the election, there was a very solid shot that Joe Biden's economic policies were going to drive America directly into a recession?
	Well, all of those things are true.
	All of those things are true.
	And yet, somehow, Republicans have come up with a brand new strategy.
	This strategy is to join an idiocracy.
	It's a movie from the 2000s.
	Join in the idiocracy show, Ow My Balls.
	This is their actual strategy.
	It's just to kick themselves over and over in the balls until they win.
	I cannot see any other strategy here.
	I don't know why it's happening.
	It makes no sense to me.
	It is incredibly frustrating because I would like to see Joe Biden not be president of the United States.
	I'd like to see Democrats not make policy for the United States.
	I'd like Chuck Schumer not to be the Senate Majority Leader.
	And yet since Republican victory in 2016, Republicans have lost something like 11 governorships.
	Republicans have lost something like 20 plus House seats.
	Republicans have moved from a majority to a minority in the Senate, all in the face of wildly unpopular Democrat policies.
	The Democratic Party has moved to the radical left.
	They continue to mirror all the policies of the radical left.
	The American people don't like them on any of the issues, and yet Democrats keep getting elected.
	And so the question becomes, why?
	Why would that be?
	Well, maybe the reason for that is because Republicans are strategically inept.
	Maybe it is because Republicans have essentially decided that protest votes are more important than actual votes.
	Maybe they've decided that dousing themselves in gasoline and setting a match is probably the best strategy.
	I don't know what it's a strategy for, other than maybe feeling good for a brief moment in time, because if we show frustration to our leadership class, then for sure we'll get a new leadership class.
	And then somebody else enters.
	We're like, wait, hold on.
	The incentive structure is exactly the same.
	Thomas Sowell says very frequently with regard to politics, that people, big mistake when it comes to politics is believing.
	That the problem with the politicians is the politicians rather than the incentive structure that creates the politicians.
	And that is exactly correct.
	Republicans have now replaced, in the last few years, Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House, John Boehner as Speaker of the House, and now Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
	What has changed?
	Seriously, what has changed?
	What magical new things have happened from the replacement of any of these people as Speaker of the House?
	Now, I was not a Boehner fan.
	I didn't want Boehner to be Speaker of the House.
	I thought he was far too conciliatory toward Barack Obama.
	I thought Paul Ryan was fine.
	I thought Kevin McCarthy was fine.
	But apparently, we tend to be operating under the wild delusion that if we simply replace one speaker with another speaker and leave the incentive structure exactly the same, Then everything will be, you know, better.
	Things will change.
	That is not how any of this works.
	The incentive structure right now in the House of Representatives, just to take the latest example, because yesterday Kevin McCarthy was ousted as Speaker of the House for no reason I can discern by eight Republicans who joined with all Democrats to oust McCarthy, which means that 96% of the Republican caucus voted in favor of Kevin McCarthy, and McCarthy is no longer the Speaker because of the eight House Republicans who decided that McCarthy had to go for a reason that no one can actually discern or specify.
	The incentive structure right now Unfortunately, for a huge number of people, is get famous, run for a higher office, win or lose, it doesn't really matter, clean up, pick up some checks, start a pack, start a non-profit, move into a different area of your career.
	This is a different incentive structure.
	It used to be, when parties were more powerful, that they'd actually have the ability to punish their members.
	Now, that was bad in some ways because it meant that party leadership actually mattered an awful lot because the party leadership could decide the direction of the party.
	And because of that, the party structure was weakened.
	Well, the result of that is that there is a massive collective action problem whereby a few people can hold hostage the entire Republican caucus for no reason that anyone can explain.
	Again, in order to really understand how dumb all of this is, what you have to understand is that Kevin McCarthy was, by pretty much any measure, the most conservative speaker that Republicans have had since Newt Gingrich.
	He achieved actual wins against Joe Biden.
	The last continuing resolution that the people who ousted him are very angry about, he proposed a better one two weeks ago that they scuttled.
	They said it wasn't good enough.
	And so they scuttled it.
	And so he had to pass a continuing resolution.
	And even then, he stripped out funding for the Ukraine war.
	And somehow he's the bad guy.
	Again, this is not that Kevin McCarthy is like the most amazing politician of all time, that he would be the greatest speaker in history.
	It's you got no replacement.
	You got no strategy.
	This is all grandstanding nonsense.
	There's no purpose to it.
	What wins are you attempting to get?
	I said this during the original speakership fight back in January.
	Chip Roy, who's one of the people who may be considered for the speakership slot if he wants it.
	I don't know why anyone in the world would want that job.
	It's a horrible job.
	It is the second worst job in America behind Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
	I do not understand.
	Well, Chip Roy did not want this.
	OK, but in any case, Chip Roy back in January, he said, I want certain concessions from McCarthy.
	And then he got them.
	And then he said, OK, McCarthy should should be speaker.
	That's a plan.
	But this is not a plan.
	This is just people ranting and raving again.
	This is Leroy Jenkins congressional version.
	People running for no reason into a brick wall and then declaring victory.
	As they bleed.
	It's an amazing thing.
	Again, to truly understand how dumb this is, you have to understand how vulnerable Democrats are.
	And to understand how vulnerable Democrats are, let me give you just the economic situation in the United States right now.
	Stocks tumbled on Tuesday, according to CNBC, as Treasury yields hit their highest levels since 2007.
	Raising concern higher interest rates would freeze the housing market and tip the economy into a recession.
	The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 431 points.
	That's the worst day since March.
	The Dow is now in the red for the year.
	The 10-year treasury yield touched 4.8%.
	That's the highest level in 16 years.
	The benchmark yield has surged in the past month as the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates at a higher level for longer.
	The 30-year treasury yield hit 4.925%.
	That is also the highest since 2007, which means that money is now rushing out of stocks and back into bonds.
	But it also means that a lot of people are expecting that inflation could be baked into the economy.
	That's the only reason the interest rates are going to be stuck this high.
	Market Watch has an entire article today talking about how government bond yields are ripping through global markets.
	By the way, when the bonds that America is selling have a facially higher rate, that means the national debt is greatly exacerbated.
	It means that if you're worried about national debt and about the amount of spending America is doing, get ready.
	America's interest payments on its debts are going to outstrip the defense spending in the United States in the very, very near future.
	And these are bad numbers.
	The possibility of recession is very much on the horizon right here.
	Again, according to MarketWatch, banks are now bracing for a recession.
	Quote, bank stocks might be on pace for yearly losses as sharply higher interest rates take a
	toll. The industry's reserves are at the highest level in three decades. Bank shares have come
	under more selling pressure since the Federal Reserve in September signaled it could keep rates
	higher for longer than earlier anticipated. The tough talk has dampened the years of rallying
	stocks and reignited a dramatic sell-off in the roughly $25 trillion Treasury market.
	Right now, there's nothing standing in the way of higher Treasury yields, said Kathy Jones,
	the chief fixed income strategist at Schwab Center for Financial Research.
	It's fairly obvious it's not good for banks.
	The rise in yields has just been relentless.
	Higher yields on newly issued treasury bonds erode the portfolios that include lower coupons that issued when rates were lowered.
	Again, what happened at Silicon Valley Bank is they invested in American bonds at a certain facial rate, and those became absolutely worthless the minute that the Federal Reserve issued new bonds at a higher rate.
	So this sort of stuff is going to have dramatic follow-up.
	So, Republicans are in historically very good position to win back more seats in the Congress.
	They don't have a tiny majority, they have a big majority to win back the Senate.
	The map Senate, the Senate map in 2024 favors Republicans.
	They're in very good position to win back the presidency.
	So naturally, why not distract the American people by having a useless speakership fight?
	Why not?
	Sure, why the hell not?
	Get to that momentarily first.
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	Okay, so yesterday the fight over the speakership commenced.
	Commenced.
	Matt Gaetz had been threatening this for a few days after the passage of the Continuing Resolution.
	It's a clean Continuing Resolution that only takes them 45 days into the future, so there was more room for negotiation.
	But Matt Gaetz decided that he'd had enough of Speaker McCarthy.
	Now, the predicate for this was set back in January, because McCarthy had basically pledged that anyone, at any time, could bring what would be a no-confidence vote.
	A vote to remove McCarthy.
	And so what that meant is that anybody at any time could make national headlines and become an international political figure by going up against McCarthy.
	For good reason or bad.
	And Matt Gaetz was just waiting for his opportunity.
	So what that meant for Matt Gaetz and for some of the people who surround him is scuttle a better continuing resolution a couple of weeks ago.
	Then, a new continuing resolution goes forward.
	McCarthy has to pass it, because otherwise we're going to go into a government shutdown, with no prospect of actually passing a bill, because Gates has already suggested he won't support, really, another bill, anything that's actually passable in a Senate controlled by Democrats.
	And then Matt Gaetz says, how dare McCarthy work with Democrats on this bill, after helping scuttle a Republican-only bill?
	How dare he work with Democrats?
	I'm going to file a motion to vacate the chair.
	And then he, along with seven other Republicans, votes with the entire Democratic caucus to get rid of McCarthy.
	So just to get the logic here, Matt Gaetz is very, very angry that a majority of Republicans voted with some Democrats to pass a continuing resolution.
	That only happened because Matt Gaetz and his crew decided not to vote for a Republican-only version of the continuing resolution a couple of weeks ago.
	And now, he and his friends voted with all Democrats in order to oust McCarthy.
	So it's bad to side with Democrats.
	Very, very bad to side—unless you're ousting your own speaker.
	That's a hell of a strategy.
	And it makes no sense unless what you actually believe is that this has nothing to do with strengthening the Republican caucus or making the House more conservative.
	It makes sense if what you believe is that it's really about grandstanding and getting headlines and raising money and sending out text messages.
	Then it makes some sense.
	And that's what American politics has become about.
	It is all about incentive structures.
	Again, to go back to Sowell, this is all about incentive structures.
	Yuval Levin is a really good political theorist.
	He has said for quite a while that one of the big problems right now in the modern era is that our political class are incentivized to use Congress and political power as a platform for other things.
	It used to be that the institution of Congress shaped you.
	You went in, you learned how the game was played, how the sausage was made, and then you participated in that process.
	Now, you go into Congress, and basically, your job is to comment on everything that is going on, and to grandstand for the people back home, and to not get anything done.
	And it's not about getting things done, it's about whether those things are good or bad.
	But the incentive right now is to simply yell at things, and then get a cable hit, and then portray yourself as the most conservative guy in the room.
	So here's how it went down yesterday.
	Yesterday, Matt Gaetz moved against McCarthy.
	There was laughter on the House floor, mostly from Democrats, who were like, I can't even believe the Republicans are doing this.
	Why is this even a thing that is happening right now?
	Here was Gaetz moving against McCarthy yesterday.
	For what purpose does a gentleman from New Jersey seek recognition?
	You're off the way, don't you think?
	So, you can hear people laughing in the chamber.
	Thanks.
	Okay, just a quick flashback.
	Matt Gaetz, okay, back when Paul Ryan was Speaker, he opposed ousting Paul Ryan.
	And here was Matt Gaetz, speaking on Fox News at the time.
	If we take Paul Ryan off the field right now, instead of being able to finish strong in the 115th Congress, we will shatter into a bunch of factions fighting against each other for power.
	We got enough of that in Washington already.
	Paul Ryan can be a caretaker of the speakership.
	We can have a leadership election.
	We can go into the midterm strong.
	And I don't think that pushing him out early, if he doesn't want to go, is in any way advantageous.
	That was Matt Gaetz in 2018.
	Haven't been that long.
	And, um, what changed?
	The answer to what changed is pretty much nothing, except that Matt Gaetz realized that you get a lot more credit among a certain group of people for shouting and ranting at the wind and making moves like this than you would for, you know, actually getting things done in Congress.
	Again, I'm all for people trying to exact more conservative concessions from the Speaker of the House.
	That's fine.
	But there were no concessions actually attempted or exacted here.
	So, Speaker McCarthy had a choice.
	He had to basically bring up a motion to table.
	The motion to table, if it had succeeded, would have stopped the motion to vacate.
	The motion to table would have relied, presumably, on some Democrats.
	Democrats were like, you know what?
	I'm not gonna kill you, but I don't have to save you.
	The Batman perspective from Batman begins.
	Which is, you guys, this is a problem of your own making.
	Why would I possibly save you?
	Now, Is that good faith?
	Of course not.
	I mean, Democrats know that they're likely to get somebody in that Republican seat next time who is probably going to be the head of another weak caucus, going to be very difficult to negotiate with because, again, it's too fractious.
	The rules of the caucus don't make for the ability to consolidate policy.
	McCarthy had basically worked with them in good faith on a couple of issues, but they don't care.
	I mean, why should they care?
	I'm not going to put this on Democrats.
	If the shoe were on the other foot and Democrats were busy ousting Hakeem Jeffries and he were the Speaker of the House, I wouldn't be saying the Republicans ought to save him.
	So I don't blame Democrats for doing what Democrats do.
	I blame Republicans for voting with entirely Democrats in order to oust their own speaker for no reason again.
	That makes any sense.
	So McCarthy instead called the vote.
	The motion to table failed.
	The vote went forward.
	And in the end, The eight Republicans who voted along with all Democrats to oust McCarthy from the speakership were representative to Andy Biggs of Arizona, who is a wild and crazy character, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
	And again, it's amazing because their complaints were sort of vague, to say the least.
	Bob Good got up and he said the Speaker fought through 15 votes in January to become Speaker but was only willing to fight through one failed CR before surrendering to the Democrats on Saturday.
	We need a Speaker who will fight for something, anything besides just staying or becoming Speaker.
	So what would you suggest?
	And there's never an answer to this.
	Understand, Matt Gaetz doesn't know who the hell is going to become Speaker.
	It's not like he has an alternative plan.
	He's a dog that caught the car.
	They don't know what the hell is happening next.
	Every single person they are suggesting to replace McCarthy as Speaker supported McCarthy for Speaker.
	That's Jim Jordan from Ohio.
	That is Chip Roy from Texas.
	All these people voted for McCarthy for Speaker and opposed this motion.
	So what is this exactly?
	What it really is is an act of personal peak and also, you know, personal political benefit for Matt Gaetz.
	And when the incentives are not aligned, when the stars aren't aligned, when your personal political benefits run directly against the interests of the party at large or the movement at large, the incentive structure right now says there are going to always be rogue actors who are able to do this sort of thing.
	That's a problem.
	We'll get to the actual breakdown on how this happened in just one moment first.
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	Okay, so yesterday it went like this.
	McCarthy called the vote.
	On a motion to table, it failed.
	So then he was forced to bring to the floor, according to the deal that he had made with these Republicans, the motion to vacate the chair.
	And here was McCarthy defending himself.
	He said, Getz planned this all along.
	Here he was yesterday.
	You know, if I counted how many times someone wanted to knock me out, I would have been gone a long time ago.
	Can you explain a little bit about why do it today?
	I mean, the idea that you... Why not?
	Rip the mandate off here, or what?
	Why not, you know?
	Look, I think Matt has planned this all along.
	It didn't matter what we transpired.
	You know, he would have done it if we were in shutdown or not.
	I firmly believe it's the right decision to keep government open, to make sure our military is still paid, our border agents are still paid.
	And if that makes a challenge based upon whether I should be Speaker, I'll take that fight.
	So you're calling this a bluff?
	Yeah.
	Okay, well, it turned out that it wasn't a bluff.
	He was assuming.
	I mean, I know Kevin McCarthy.
	He was assuming that in the end, even the rogue actors would have enough, would have enough wherewithal to assume that voting entirely with Democrats was a bad look and that they would come back into the fold.
	And he was wrong.
	It turns out that the personal incentives did not align with the rest of the Republican incentives, so 4% of the caucus takes down the other 96% of the caucus.
	McCarthy said keeping the government open was the right decision because we had no alternatives.
	The bill that I tried to advance was opposed by the same people trying to kick me out of the speakership now.
	I had a lot of Republicans that wanted me to do it.
	I never did it.
	Did Nancy and I get along?
	No, we really don't get along.
	But I thought the institution was too important, and I thought that was too personal.
	But you know, at the end of the day, keeping government open and paying our troops was the right decision.
	I stand by that decision.
	At the end of the day, if I have to lose my job over it, so be it.
	But I'm going to fight for the American public, and I'll continue to fight.
	Now, as you will see, people in the Republican caucus, from the right side of the caucus to the left side of the caucus, supported McCarthy in retaining the speakership.
	So Representative Elise Stefanik, who's a very Trumpy congresswoman from New York, but she's more on the left wing of the Republican caucus.
	Yesterday, she said, I don't understand why we're going after McCarthy.
	Like, what's the deal here?
	Kevin McCarthy is a happy warrior.
	He is tireless.
	He has that uniquely American grit.
	Under Kevin's speakership that lasted 15 rounds of him never giving up, this Republican majority has exceeded all expectations.
	We reopened the People's House.
	We passed the strongest border security bill in our nation's history.
	We passed an energy plan to unleash American energy dominance.
	We passed defense bills to support our troops.
	Under Kevin's leadership, he's brought hundreds and hundreds of bipartisan members of Congress to Israel, our greatest ally.
	He elected the most diverse class of Republicans ever, with the largest number of Republican women ever in American history.
	This boy from Bakersfield, he cares deeply about his constituents, his country, and the American people.
	Okay, that's Stefanik.
	She's on the left wing of the Republican Party.
	Then you got Thomas Massie, who's very much on the right wing of the Republican Party.
	Extremely stringent with regard to spending.
	And here's Massie supporting McCarthy yesterday.
	As the only member who's serving here who took every chance to vote against Speaker Boehner and to vote against Speaker Ryan, I can tell you that this chamber has been run better, more conservatively, and more transparently under Mr. McCarthy than any other speaker that I have served under.
	As a member of the Rules Committee, one of three conservatives who were placed there out of trust, the Speaker gave us a blocking position by putting three of us on there to keep an eye on the Rules Committee to make sure the process was fair and even.
	I can tell you it's been fair and even.
	None of us are voting against the Speaker today.
	It's only eight Republicans who voted against the Speaker.
	But all it takes is a few to throw the rest of the house into chaos.
	And we'll get to more on this in just a second.
	I'm gonna get to Matt Gaetz's argument against Kevin McCarthy.
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	Okay, so what exactly was Matt Gaetz's argument?
	Well, it wasn't that he's siding with Trump on this.
	Trump wanted McCarthy to be Speaker.
	It wasn't that he's siding with the right wing of the party on this.
	Chip Roy, Thomas Massey, they wanted McCarthy to be Speaker.
	By the way, you want to talk about disloyalty in American politics?
	How about the fact that McCarthy has been incredibly loyal to, for example, President Trump, and Trump is nowhere to be found in any of this, just completely absent, not weighing in with Gaetz, not weighing in with anybody, just like he took a breather on this one.
	Meanwhile, Gaetz gets up and he assails McCarthy and gave a speech assailing him.
	Again, he didn't convince anybody, but he did have enough of the kind of An unaligned caucus to topple him on the basis of whatever this is.
	Here's Gates.
	The problem with my friend from Ohio's argument is that many of the bills he referenced as having passed are not law.
	We are on a fast track to an omnibus bill, and it is difficult to champion oversight when House Republicans haven't even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden.
	So it's hard to make the argument that oversight is the reason to continue when it sort of looks like failure theater.
	Failure theater?
	You want to talk about failure theater?
	How about you oppose the CR?
	How about the failure theater of, what if we propose a bill in Congress to cut all spending?
	And then we send it to a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president.
	And then if you don't vote for it, it's because you're insufficiently conservative.
	You want to talk about failure theater?
	This is failure theater.
	I mean, this right now isn't just failure theater.
	It's just failure.
	It's stupid failure.
	Again, it is ramming yourself in the face with a brick.
	It's so dumb.
	Okay, so then he didn't... Gates, by the way, didn't just trash McCarthy.
	He then trashed all of his Republican colleagues as well.
	My colleague says we've passed the strongest border bills in history.
	Well, guess what?
	Look at the border right now.
	We didn't use sufficient leverage in the debt limit or in any other thing to actually get results on the border.
	The border is a disaster, really something I don't think you're going to be campaigning on that you've fixed the border.
	And when it comes to how those raise money, I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, who have called for all you want, who have hollowed out this town and have borrowed against the future of our future generations.
	Olly, this is such greasy, stupid garbage.
	Unbelievable.
	Honestly, shut it up.
	This is such stupid... Every element of this assumes that you're a moron.
	Every single element assumes this is a moron.
	So, the House passes a very strong border bill.
	And then it turns out, you know who controls the Senate?
	Democrats.
	You know who's the President?
	A Democrat.
	Do you think any of those things become law?
	Of course not.
	And then he's like, well, it didn't become law, did it?
	That's your fault.
	How is it possibly their fault?
	They did their part.
	They passed a bill.
	And then it goes nowhere because no negotiation took place because of people like Matt Gaetz.
	I don't even understand that argument.
	Then he's making the case.
	Well, I'll fundraise however I want.
	I'm not going to take lectures on people who are bought and paid for.
	You're literally fundraising off of doing a thing that does not move the ball forward for conservatives one inch, not one centimeter.
	You're making money off of that.
	You're fundraising off of that.
	And then he's doing the pathetic routine where he calls all of his colleagues corrupt.
	Like, this is just such... If you fall for this grift, it is a grift.
	If you fall for this grift, man, I've got a beat-up jalopy from 1968 to sell you for $500,000.
	Maybe you'll take that, too, because this is a grift.
	Okay?
	There is nothing else happening here other than a grift.
	You know how I can tell?
	Because there are 222 Republicans in the House of Representatives, and 214 of them voted together, and 8 of them voted with Democrats.
	This is not about McCarthy.
	This is about the idea that you can make money and you can make hay in the Republican Party right now by losing and pretending that you are winning and fighting the establishment, whatever that means.
	There have been establishment politicians.
	I'm just wondering, is Chip Roy, is Thomas Massey an establishment politician?
	Who the hell are you talking about?
	Who are you even talking about?
	And if I'm going to take lectures from Matt Gaetz on fiscal irresponsibility, you know what I noticed?
	I noticed that Matt Gaetz was a big backer and continues to be a big endorser of a presidential candidate who refuses to touch entitlements on principle.
	Virtually all debt in the United States is driven by our entitlement programs.
	So again, he's just assuming you're a moron.
	He's assuming that when he shouts about spending and how he wants to lower it, that you're going to ignore the fact that he's endorsed candidates who spent $7 trillion more money than any person in the history of America and has vowed never to cut entitlements.
	When he talks about how he's going to raise money and he's not going to take lectures from anybody else raising money, I should point out here at this point, Kevin McCarthy, for all that people are saying about him, Kevin McCarthy aligned PACs, spent millions of dollars supporting various members of the caucus that ended up ousting him.
	His majority committee contributed $10,000 each to the campaigns of Matt Rosendale, Nancy Mace, and Tim Burchett in the last election cycle, gave $5,000 each to Eli Crane and Bob Good.
	The majority committee also contributed $10,000 each to Victoria Sparks, Warren Davidson.
	They were all in favor of voting to vacate McCarthy in the first place.
	So again, this is like, it's just, it's, it's such, it's so obvious that there is a group of Republicans in power and in the media who think you're an idiot and are not going to tell you the truth on any of these matters because they believe that if they just tell you that somebody is insufficiently conservative, then that is enough.
	They don't have to prove the case.
	They don't have to provide the evidence.
	They don't have to provide a strategy.
	And this sort of theater purism, where I'm the most pure because I say that we should spend no money on these things.
	It doesn't matter if it goes nowhere.
	It doesn't matter if we end up losing elections, but I've been pure.
	That is not how any of this works, but I guess it is how this works if people celebrate based on this, and Gates is celebrating today.
	He got his win.
	I don't know what he's going to get for his win, but he got his win.
	People have called you a narcissist.
	People say that it's to your benefit alone.
	Is it to the benefit of you and to Donald Trump?
	It's the benefit of this country that we have a better Speaker of the House than Kevin McCarthy.
	Kevin McCarthy couldn't keep his word.
	He made an agreement in January regarding the way Washington would work, and he violated that agreement.
	We are $33 trillion in debt.
	We are facing $2.2 trillion annual deficits.
	We face a de-dollarization globally that will crush Americans, working class Americans.
	Kevin McCarthy is a feature of the swamp.
	He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors.
	We are breaking the fever now.
	This is breaking the fever?
	Again, I'd like to hear, are you willing to restructure entitlements?
	You worry about a 2.2 trillion dollar deficit every year?
	What is driving it, Matt?
	Are you willing to talk about that?
	Really?
	If so, would you like to say something about that to the candidate who you've endorsed for President of the United States who on principle says he will not do anything about it?
	Again, all these people who are complaining about spending, I don't remember them complaining when there was a Republican President of the United States and when there was a Republican Senate.
	It's only when they can make hay.
	Gates, after all this was over, he tweeted, the fight is not over.
	Now we must elect a speaker.
	OK, any suggestions?
	Who's out there?
	Who wants the job?
	And now everybody in Congress turns into Homer Simpson backing into the bushes.
	Every single person in Congress, because this is a **** job, man.
	If you have to deal with this caucus and this caucus, No, let's be fair and it's wrong that you ever say.
	very first sign that one of them can make a nice MSNBC appearance and clear a buck from
	a text message, that your speakership is in danger?
	Why would anyone want that job?
	It is a terrible job.
	Kevin McCarthy did issue a closing statement as he left the speakership position.
	Here's what he had to say.
	No, let's be fair.
	It's wrong that you ever say they are not conservatives.
	They voted against one, the greatest cut in history that Congress has ever voted for two
	They voted against work requirements.
	They voted against NEPA reform.
	They voted against border security.
	They voted against... They don't get to say they're conservative because they're angry and they're chaotic.
	That's not the party I belong to.
	The party of Reagan was if you believed in your principles that you could govern in a conservative way.
	They are not conservatives and they do not have the right to have the title.
	He is not wrong about any of that.
	And I've gotten to know some past speakers of the House from Gingrich, to Ryan, to McCarthy.
	And let me tell you, when you have no power over your own caucus, you don't have power.
	That's it.
	Democrats know this is a team sport.
	Nancy Pelosi was able to wield her power with tremendous authority because the Democrats at least understand that in the end, you vote with your party.
	And the reason you vote with your party is to get things done.
	You want to advance the ball?
	This sort of free radical nonsense is counterproductive.
	That tweet is so telling.
	The fight is not over.
	Now we have to elect a speaker.
	Okay, who?
	Who?
	Who is your preferred candidate?
	Who is the best?
	Who is the person who you desperately want to be?
	Because, let me tell you, if you think that is Chip Roy, Chip Roy yesterday was blasting Matt Gaetz.
	How about Jim Jordan?
	A lot of people love Jim Jordan.
	I like Jim Jordan.
	Great guy from Ohio.
	Good representative.
	Excellent on the House Oversight Committee.
	Here was Jim Jordan yesterday saying this is ridiculous.
	Mr. Jordan, how disappointed are you with what happened here?
	I thought it was unfair to Kevin.
	Kevin, I think, has done a fine job.
	He and I came in together.
	He's a good man.
	And he didn't deserve this, in my judgment.
	Will you run for Speaker?
	That's a decision for the conference.
	He's a he's a nobody wants this.
	At least Stefanik doesn't want it.
	She's the conference chair and she again was endorsing McCarthy.
	Tom Emmer is the majority whip.
	He endorsed McCarthy.
	Steve Scalise endorsed McCarthy.
	Do you think any of these people are going to be, like, radically better?
	Do you think any of these people as Speaker, they don't have the power to do the thing?
	The incentives are not aligned.
	You have a Democratic Senate, largely thanks to the personal intervention of Donald Trump in Georgia Senate races, losing two Senate seats that should be Republican.
	You have a Democratic President of the United States because Donald Trump lost to a dead man.
	So, what is your plan for victory?
	I keep asking this over and over to every Republican on a presidential level.
	On a congressional level, on a senatorial level, on a state level.
	What is your plan to win?
	What is your plan to win?
	Because you know what isn't winning?
	What isn't winning is stabbing yourself directly in the eye with a steak knife.
	That's not winning!
	I don't even know why it would look like winning to anyone.
	I understand you're really mad at the world.
	I understand that you don't like the way the politics is being run.
	But you know what doesn't change any of that?
	Chopping off your own head with an axe.
	It's so stupid.
	Never interrupt your opponent while they're making a mistake.
	First rule of politics, do not interrupt your opponent while they're making a mistake.
	Democrats have made an unending stream of mistakes.
	So Republicans naturally are like, hold on there.
	Hold on there.
	I need in on this.
	We'll get to more on all of this in just one moment.
	First, You know, let's say that you did want to get rid of a speaker of the house for no apparent reason.
	Or maybe you did.
	Maybe it was a bad speaker of the house.
	You wanted to replace him with somebody better.
	Or say that you have an employee and you don't like him.
	Like, let's say his name rhymes with Michael Moulse.
	You're like, he's terrible.
	For no reason he's been here.
	Sucking off the teeth of the daily wire for years on end.
	Just horrifying you daily with his presence.
	Let's say you wanted to actually replace him.
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	So all I'm saying here in all of this is there's no substitute for actually winning.
	The appearance of winning isn't winning.
	Shouting at the walls isn't winning.
	Pouring gasoline on yourself and lighting a match isn't winning.
	So why is Carrie Lake running for Senate in Arizona?
	Why is that a thing that's happening?
	Carrie Lake just ran for governor of Arizona and lost to a wet dish rag named Katie Hobbs.
	She underperformed dramatically how she should have performed.
	Again, Arizona, very much like Georgia, is a state that should be red.
	Arizona until very recently had two red senators and a red governor in Doug Ducey.
	Now it has two blue senators and a blue governor.
	So why keep dominating people who lost?
	I mean, first of all, I thought she's already the governor.
	I mean, how can she be both the senator and the governor at the same time?
	I mean, it's quite amazing.
	What is the plan for victory?
	What is the plan for victory?
	And doubling down on stuff isn't a plan for victory.
	I don't understand.
	You know what else is not a plan for victory?
	What else is not a plan for victory?
	Distracting from Joe Biden being a horrifyingly bad president.
	But the Republican Party seems bound and determined to distract from that by having a primary with too many candidates in it.
	Tim Scott continues to run an absolutely quixotic campaign.
	There is no reason for him to be in the campaign.
	As I've said before, if you want to have like a true interesting fight inside the Republican Party over who is best poised to take on Joe Biden, you need to get rid of some of these candidates.
	Tim Scott, I like the guy.
	There is no reason he should be on the stage.
	Tim Scott is not breaking wind, let alone 3% in the polls.
	According to Politico, Tim Scott is struggling to break through in Iowa and New Hampshire, but a top campaign advisor is privately lobbying donors to stick with him until the primary reaches his home state of South Carolina.
	That's absurd.
	He's not gonna win South Carolina.
	He's not even outrunning Nikki Haley in South Carolina.
	He's not outrunning Trump in South Carolina.
	So what we will get is just a bunch of candidates staying in until South Carolina.
	Trump will win by default, and maybe that's what you want, but that doesn't seem like a legit nominating process to me in terms of giving Americans a real choice.
	You need to consolidate the field, pretty obviously, but again, the incentive structure for every candidate is to stay in as long as humanly possible, rather than simply saying, my candidate has no purpose, I'm out, and go back to being a successful senator, Great guy from the state of South Carolina.
	Instead, I'm just going to stay in.
	Meanwhile, on the Trump front, Donald Trump is spending his days in the courtroom.
	Now again, that's not his fault.
	He's being prosecuted for no apparent reason in New York.
	They're prosecuting him for fraud despite the fact that the people he supposedly defrauded say that they did not rely on his assertions of value in order to issue loans, for example.
	So he would say, yeah, my apartment is worth a bajillion dollars and it's three times the size it is.
	And the loan officer would then say, okay, you know what we're going to do?
	We're going to do our own appraisal.
	And then they would do it based on the appraisal.
	And now they're going after him for like $250 million.
	I understand it's stupid.
	And I mean, you can see how drummed up all of this is.
	And there was a pool camera inside the courtroom the other day.
	And honestly, the optics of this are so awkward and weird.
	You've got Letitia James, who's in the background.
	She's the AG of New York, who's been pledging for years to go after Donald Trump.
	And she's glaring at Trump in the background.
	And then the camera makes its way around to Judge Engeron, who is the judge in this case, who is a liberal Democrat, who starts mugging for the camera.
	It's all gross and stupid.
	Here's what the pool camera looked like.
	You're more likely to have cameras in state proceedings, and so it's up to the discretion of the judge.
	And quite frankly, I'm not too sure that Barbara is going to want to die.
	I think that Trump views this, the optics of this, is working towards a consensus.
	People looking at this live picture right now will be either filled with rage, or they will be thrilled.
	And that's the problem.
	You have James now being Any mugs for the camera?
	Our country is such a clown show.
	It's such a clown show.
	But is any of this likely to make Joe Biden not president?
	That's all I care about.
	Make Joe Biden not the president anymore.
	2024.
	That should be the campaign slogan.
	And again, it's not Trump's fault that he's being dragged into court in this particular case.
	But if the entire campaign is going to revolve around this stuff, he's not going to win.
	If the entire campaign is about Donald Trump's legal troubles, he is not going to win.
	Well now, he's been told to watch what he says and posts or risk ending up behind bars for up to a month.
	In the second day of the former president's financial fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engeron just issued a limited gag order against everyone in the civil case to stop verbal and social media related posts, posted swipes at members of his staff.
	Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, not appropriate.
	Engron made clear Tuesday after Trump took a partisan swing at the judge's principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, on Trump's Truth Social platform.
	Calling what Trump did, quote, a disparaging, untrue, and personally identifying post about a member of my staff, Engron only cited one of the defendants as the one behind the post, but it was obviously referring to Trump.
	The now-deleted post showed Greenfield in a picture standing next to Chuck Schumer and called her Schumer's girlfriend.
	With his long history of going on offense, today is the first time any judge has put the restraints of a gag order on Trump that's according to deadline.
	And by the way, Engron would love nothing better than to put Donald Trump behind bars for a month.
	He would love it.
	It would be his favorite thing in the entire world.
	Trump, for his part, he is campaigning against the grossly incompetent and fraudulent Letitia James, who I noticed is not the current president of the United States.
	I'm not blaming Trump for going on offense on this stuff.
	My point is, if the entire race is about Donald Trump's legal troubles, he's not going to win.
	I know that's an audacious claim.
	But if the entire campaign is about that, his chances of victory are a lot slimmer than they would be if the opposite were true.
	Democrats know this, which is why they are doing it.
	Now, that can be unfair.
	It can be wrong.
	It is unfair, and it is wrong.
	All of those things are true.
	Also, you know what my top priority is as a conservative?
	Joe Biden not being president.
	That's my top priority.
	I don't like what they're doing to Trump.
	I think it's very bad.
	So, we should all contribute to Donald Trump's legal defense fund, and then we might want to think about nominating a candidate who isn't going to spend the next eight months in the courtroom, spending every dollar that goes into his campaign fund on legal fees.
	Now, here is Trump yesterday going after Letitia James.
	But he's been given false information, misleading information, and corrupt information by a very corrupt and incompetent Attorney General, Letitia James.
	This woman is grossly incompetent.
	She ran on the basis, I will get Trump without knowing anything about me.
	So he's been given this information.
	It's now been proven to be false.
	Such as Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach, Florida being worth $18 million, when in fact it's much closer to $1.5 million.
	At a minimum, she should start looking for the murderers and the criminals, the violent criminals all over New York.
	Do something about all of the illegal migrants pouring into our city and state.
	And not spend the next six months in a courthouse Because she's been caught early.
	Her numbers are fraudulent.
	She's a fraud.
	Her numbers are fraudulent.
	And this case should be dismissed.
	Okay, again, he's not wrong about any of that.
	Also, what is everybody talking about today?
	Now, what they should be talking about is the economic news, because the economic news for Joe Biden is awful.
	In recession, as I've been saying for months, what goes up must come down.
	It went up, now it's gonna come down.
	Where the economy is going, people are holding their money in cash.
	Every investor I know right now is waiting to see what happens with prices, because essentially, when the economy goes down, that's when everything goes on sale at the store.
	So there are a lot of people who are waiting to buy up assets when they hit the skids.
	Right now, they've been artificially bubbled by inflation.
	But they are going to go down.
	And it's going to take a little while for the economy to come back.
	So recession is probably around the corner right now.
	Shouldn't that be like top of mind for most Americans?
	In fact, it is top of mind for most Americans.
	Unless they're focused in on dumb crap.
	Unless they're focused in on stupidity.
	Again, there's a reason Democrats are doing this.
	Strategically, Democrats are putting Trump in the dock in order to make that the top issue.
	So you might say, okay, well, let's defend Trump by making him the nominee.
	Then you are in fact giving Democrats what they want, because what they do want is Trump in the dock as the nominee.
	They can only control one part of that, putting Trump in the dock.
	They can't control the other part, making him the nominee.
	I get the emotional temptation to say, okay, well, you know, they want it, let's give it to them good and hard.
	The problem is, is that going to work?
	Is that likely to work?
	Is that going to be beneficial or not?
	There are so many issues on the Democratic side of the aisle to talk about.
	Again, Democrats should be historically unpopular right now.
	If politics were working the way it should work right now, Democrats would have gotten blown out in the last election cycle.
	Republicans would control the Senate.
	Republicans lost at least four Senate seats they should have won in the last election cycle, which would have given them like a 53-seat majority in the Senate.
	Republicans should have had a House majority not of four or five or six votes.
	They should have had a House majority of 20.
	Everyone knows this is the case.
	But again, frustration with the entire system is leading people to think with lower parts of their anatomy rather than their brain.
	And it's not going to end well.
	Okay, meanwhile, one of the things that maybe Americans might want to talk about is the giant crime wave that is now engulfing the nation.
	Again, in cities all over the United States, you have mobs of roving criminals who are doing criminal things.
	And now, there have been at least two left-wing journalists, social justice advocates, so-called, who have been legitimately murdered in major American cities.
	Ryan Carson, according to CBSNews.com, a social justice advocate on a mission to make New York a better place, was stabbed to death on the streets of Crown Heights on Monday.
	People who knew Carson, 32, said he dedicated his life to trying to change things.
	For the better.
	I was absolutely in disbelief, said New York Assembly member Emily Gallagher, who knew Carson before becoming a politician.
	Gallagher and Carson bonded over losing close friends to drug overdoses.
	with his girlfriend when the suspect approached and asked, what are you looking at?
	Before stabbing Carson in the chest multiple times.
	I was absolutely in disbelief, said New York assembly member,
	Emily Gallagher, who knew Carson before becoming a politician.
	Gallagher and Carson bonded over losing close friends to drug overdoses.
	Carson's girlfriend was not hurt.
	It was so shocking and they're constantly said, Max Sabo from Bed-Stuy.
	The person was acting irrationally prior to the attack.
	The police had made no arrests.
	Now, that is story number one.
	Story number two, we talked about it briefly yesterday, Josh Krueger.
	Who is a local journalist and community activist in Philadelphia, a defund the police activist.
	He was shot seven times inside his own home in Philadelphia.
	No word on the motive for a shooting.
	No arrests have been made at this point.
	Meanwhile, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar was carjacked at gunpoint in Washington, D.C.
	So that's, things are going well all over.
	It's just, it's going great.
	And then Corinne Jean-Pierre, this is... Democrats have no comeback to the fact that these crimes are occurring in their cities, on their watch.
	Here is KJP, Corinne Jean-Pierre, world's worst press secretary, trying to blame Henry Cuellar's carjacking on Republicans somehow.
	If a member of Congress is not safe on the streets of the nation's capital, who is?
	Look, we're grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed.
	We understand what communities are going through across the country, not just in D.C.
	That's why the president took action very early on in his administration to get the American Rescue Plan done, without the help of Republicans.
	It was the American Rescue- Republicans voted against the American Rescue Plan, which passed, by the way.
	And so it's Republicans' fault that people are getting stabbed to death on the streets of New York.
	Makes perfect sense.
	And it's a target-rich environment for Republicans right now.
	It really, truly is.
	So.
	Obviously, that means it's time for Republicans to set up a circular firing squad and go to town.
	Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
	So, just as Democrats can root for chaos inside the Republican Party, I can root for chaos inside the Democratic Party.
	Gavin Newsom announced a woman named LaFonza Butler, who is actually a Marylander, for United States Senate.
	He put out a tweet saying, I'm proud to announce California's new United States Senator, LaFonza Butler.
	As we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for, reproductive freedom, equal protection, safety from gun violence, have never been under greater assault.
	LaFonza has spent her entire career fighting for women and girls, and has been a fierce advocate for working people.
	She used to be a union leader, and she's also the president of EMILY's List, which is a pro-abortion group.
	But most importantly, says Gavin Newsom, she will make history, becoming the first black lesbian to openly serve in the U.S.
	Senate.
	Well, slow clap for diversity, man, because that's the thing that really matters.
	And sadly, she's not a little person with, and as far as I'm aware, no Native American heritage.
	But if she had those things, she'd be like, perfect.
	We should just make her the president by default.
	She says, Newsom says, I have no doubt she'll carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings and fight for all Californians in Washington, which will be good since she's been fighting for Marylanders for quite a while now.
	Again, Maryland, now the only state in the union with three U.S.
	senators.
	So that's exciting.
	So why do I like this?
	Well, because again, in California, this is going to cause extraordinary chaos.
	In his first public remarks about his Senate appointment, Gavin Newsom said Monday, it's completely up to LaFonta Butler whether she runs for the seat previously held by Dianne Feinstein.
	He had said that he would appoint an interim senator as opposed to like a permanent senator.
	And so there was speculation that he had said to LaFonza Butler, I'm going to actually appoint you, but you can't run next time.
	So it'll be an out and out war between Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, but you can't like, I'll make you the senator, but you're not permanent.
	Instead, he's just throwing her in there.
	And now the Democratic Party is going to have to have an intersectionality fight.
	Oh yeah, the best kind of fight.
	This is the kind of fight where LaFonza Butler turns to Barbara Lee and says, you are black, but are you a lesbian?
	Hmm?
	Do you like the ladies?
	Because if not, I should be the California senator.
	Meanwhile, Adam Schiff is over here going, well, I am a, I am a Jewish guy, but that doesn't count as intersectional anymore.
	So that's awkward.
	So I'm all in favor of the intersectionality fight in my old home state of California.
	Newsom said, I think Lafonza Butler is uniquely positioned, simply the best person I could find for this moment in the job.
	Now, the real reason he appointed Lafonza Butler is he's trying to shore up union support in advance of a possible presidential run should Joe Biden keel over physically in the middle of 2024.
	We all know this is the case.
	So he's basically checking off every diversity box he can find in the Senate pick so that he can go back to the crowd and say, to black Americans, I did appoint a black woman.
	And he can go back to LGBT people and be like, you know who I did appoint?
	A lesbian.
	And then he can be like, you know, guys, you know what I did here?
	I appointed such I pointed a union member, an abortion pro.
	Like it all boxes checked.
	Newsome pledged in 2021 to fill the seat with a black woman, if given the opportunity, by the way, my favorite game that
	the left likes to play in the media on this particular stuff is Newsome
	will say I need a black And then he appoints a black woman.
	I said she's appointed because she's a black woman.
	People are like, how dare you say she was appointed because she's a black woman?
	She was just the best person for the job.
	Well, gang, here's the thing.
	I didn't say it.
	He said it.
	In the same way that Kamala Harris was appointed because she is a black woman.
	That's just the reality.
	I didn't make the rules.
	You made the rules.
	Whatever she decides, the governor said she'd be an ideal candidate for the seat if she chooses to run for it.
	Said, I've got an incredible appointee.
	I love this.
	So, Barbaralee had said it was an insult for Newsom to appoint a black woman to a caretaker role when he had said that he wanted a placeholder appointee so that he wouldn't actually intervene in the election.
	Barbaralee is, no, they should be permanent.
	Now Barbaralee has eaten those words.
	So this is really entertaining stuff.
	By the way, LaFonza Butler is the most radical senator in America now.
	She backed a plan to abolish bail across California for criminal suspects.
	So, Democrats... The fact that Republicans are losing to this party... Alan Simpson was a Republican senator from Wyoming, and he once suggested that American politics was a battle between what he termed the evil party, the Democrats, and the stupid party, the Republicans.
	And the stupid party continues to be incredibly stupid, and the evil party continues to appoint more and more radical people.
	So, this is all just great.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	So I am, um, I am displeased with the return of Late Night.
	I'm not sure anybody noticed the return of Late Night.
	Were they ever gone?
	Did we care that they were gone?
	I'm not sure that they did.
	But, uh, apparently they're all back now.
	And they are worse than ever.
	So I'm, I was pretty happy with the writer's strike, to be honest with you, because at least then we didn't have to, uh, deal with this kind of crap.
	Anyway, Jimmy Fallon announced that he was back last night to the cheers of at least two dozen people in his audience.
	And, uh, here he was last night.
	But I had a lot of time, five months, a lot of time to really just sit and think, you know?
	And I just finally just took a moment and I just realized how grateful I am for all of this and for this show.
	I really love it.
	I really...
	I really love this job.
	I love doing it.
	I love telling jokes.
	I love interviewing people.
	I love making you laugh.
	I'm very lucky to have this show, and I want to thank you all for supporting and choosing to have me in your bedrooms at nighttime.
	Okay, well, you know who doesn't appreciate him?
	His own employees.
	And there's a whole article while he was out about how terrible he is to his own staff, but there's that.
	Meanwhile, the joke writers were back at it, and man, Man, do they have jokes to tell about, wait for it, wait for it, Donald Trump.
	They're going to tell more jokes about Donald Trump.
	I don't even know how you could live without jokes from Stephen Colbert about Donald Trump for the past few weeks.
	I mean, it was, it was a dark time in American history.
	Here's Stephen Colbert back to telling crappy jokes about Trump.
	Big Apple also got a visit from Donald Trump today.
	No, no, you're happy he was here because he's attending a civil trial that he has already
	lost.
	Last Tuesday, last Tuesday, last Tuesday, the judge in this case took the rare step
	of issuing a summary judgment ruling that when it came time for him to apply for loans,
	Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets and said that Trump
	was living in a fantasy world, not the real world.
	Yes, a fantasy world where he won the election, windmills kill whales, and this is 215 pounds.
	So funny.
	Man, without those rhetoric, AI could replace those jokes so easily it would make your head swim.
	Was there a laugh anywhere in there?
	I'm confused as to where it was.
	But don't worry, it wasn't just Stephen Colbert.
	Jimmy Kimmel was back and he also had jokes about a topic you'll never believe what he was joking about.
	Wait, wait, hold up.
	Wait, this just in, it was Trump.
	Whoa!
	No way!
	You mean these dumbasses are back at it, joking about Trump?
	Because they can never tell a joke about a Democrat unless they lose their...
	Democrat Party wallet card or something?
	Here is Jimmy Kimmel.
	At one point Jimmy Kimmel used to be funny.
	It's pretty amazing how funny he has fallen.
	Trump is now facing 91 felony counts.
	91 felony counts.
	It's like all of Melania's birthday wishes came true at once.
	Every time something happened in the news, I would get texts asking me if I was bummed we didn't have a show that night.
	And mostly I was fine, but the one that really got me was when they booked Trump in Georgia and he self-reported his weight at 215 pounds.
	I almost crossed the picket line for that.
	I really did.
	If I was the judge in the case he has going on in New York right now, I'd start the trial, I'd say, listen, look, we're gonna get to the fraud thing, but first, hop up on this scale, big fella.
	Hmm.
	Wow.
	Like, they're all telling the same joke about how he's fat.
	Man, they're amazing at this.
	They are so good at this.
	I'm so glad that the writers are back.
	How could we have survived without the writers?
	Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We'll be getting into an article from the Washington Post claiming America needs more atheists.
	We'll be getting into that.
	If you're not a member, become a member.
	Use code Shapiro.
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