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Nov. 15, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

53:11

We Are Not Afraid

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	We are not afraid.
	We, the citizens of the West, are not afraid and we should not be afraid.
	The massive pro-Hamas rallies we've seen in nearly every major Western city and across college campuses are designed to intimidate.
	That's why they do violence.
	It's why they fly terrorist flags.
	But here is the optimistic reality.
	Far more people in the West oppose Hamas than support it.
	Far more people are in favor of Israel wiping Hamas off the map than are in favor of Hamas retaining any level of power at all.
	The silent majority may be largely silent, but it is, in fact, A majority.
	That much was clear yesterday on the mall in Washington, D.C., where pro-Israel ralliers, mostly Jewish, came by the hundreds of thousands, 300,000 in all, the largest single gathering of Jews in modern history.
	They came from Florida and California and New York and New Jersey.
	They came from Cleveland and Chicago and Houston.
	And they came for one reason, to show that those who support Israel are more numerous than those who support Israel's enemies.
	The rallyers actually showed far more than that, actually.
	They showed that those who support Israel love the West, and by extension, they demonstrated that those who hate Israel generally hate the West.
	The contrast could not have been clearer.
	That pro-Israel rally was replete with American flags, like everywhere, with pride in the United States.
	The pro-Israel rally featured no hate chants, no calls for genocide, no blood-curdling baying on behalf of the targeting of innocent people.
	Instead, it featured prayer, solidarity, and love.
	As one police officer reportedly put it, quote, I received a career's worth of thank yous in one day.
	Meanwhile, here is footage of a pro-Hamas rally yesterday in Staten Island.
	They want Israel destroyed.
	That's what that slogan means.
	Look at the number of masks in the crowd.
	People blocking off their faces, because they don't want to be seen.
	Localize the Intifada!
	An Intifada is a violent uprising.
	This is in New York City.
	This protest devolved into attacking police officers.
	Get back!
	Get back!
	You can see these pro-Hamasniks literally punching at, striking out at New York City police officers at the NYPD.
	Yes, the contrast is rather obvious.
	It's obvious to me.
	It's obvious to you.
	It's obvious to most Americans.
	The support for Israel yesterday at this big rally was bipartisan.
	Here was newly minted Speaker of the House Mike Johnson yesterday.
	The auditorium was full of Republicans and Democrats in the house, and they wept as we watched the film together.
	Most couldn't sit through it.
	These Israeli hostages were kidnapped in their homes by barbaric Hamas terrorists for simply being Jewish and living in Israel.
	As Prime Minister Netanyahu says so well, this is a fight between good and evil, between light and darkness, between civilization and barbarism.
	The calls for a ceasefire are outrageous.
	That was Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, and here with the Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
	My friends, in conclusion, Hamas's goal was to scare us.
	Those perpetrating the poison of anti-Semitism and bigotry around the world are trying to scare us.
	But we will not allow history to slide back to the days of the Holocaust when Jews were targeted and murdered and butchered.
	Instead, the Jewish people will be resilient.
	And today, all of you are here showing we will not hide in the face of adversity in America and in Israel.
	Am Yisrael Chai!
	Now, the rally had its haters, of course.
	Hamas supporters vandalized a medical tent at the rally the night before.
	I just want you guys to see, this is our medical tent.
	You see the medical tent is white right now on the outside?
	We had to flip them around.
	This is what it was last night.
	When we got it this morning, all the tents had this on the outside of them, so we had to flip around the canvas.
	It had been spray-painted by Pearl Hamas next.
	Crazy.
	Free Gaza!
	Apparently, bus drivers refused to take Jews arriving from out of town from Dulles Airport to the rally itself, in a clear case of religious discrimination.
	This bus company is going to be sued out of existence.
	Here was the announcement aboard a chartered plane from Detroit.
	The way this works, by the way, is if you fly a chartered plane into an airport, you cannot deplane unless there is, on the tarmac, some sort of vehicle ready to take you off the plane and to your destination.
	The bus company that had been chartered for this ...refused to actually participate in bringing Jews to a pro-Israel rally.
	Here's what it sounded like on the plane.
	...by our Detroit Jewish community members to attend the March for Israel in Washington, D.C.
	And we were proud of the significant number who traveled to the event.
	The buses that were hired to take over 900 participants from Dulles International Airport to the site of the march failed to appear, delaying the arrival of many, or most, in our group.
	We have learned that this was caused by a deliberate and malicious walk-off of drivers.
	Fortunately, many were able to travel to the march, and we are grateful for the drivers of those buses that arrived.
	While we are deeply dismayed by the disgraceful action, our resolve to proudly stand in solidarity with the people of Israel, to condemn anti-Semitism, and to demand the return of every hostage held by Hamas has never been greater.
	This has been confirmed by the bus company of their drivers and what has happened.
	All of this is pretty depressing, of course.
	It's even more depressing to see such sentiments in the halls of power, emanating almost entirely from the far left.
	Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who's just a terrible person, spent yesterday ripping Israel, an unsurprising development from the morally blind adult who is definitely not.
	Definitely not.
	Fidel Castro's kid.
	Here is Justin Trudeau ripping into Israel yesterday.
	I have been clear.
	that the price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians.
	Even wars have rules.
	All innocent life is equal in worth, Israeli and Palestinian.
	I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint.
	The world is watching.
	On TV, on social media, we're hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who've lost their parents.
	The world is witnessing this.
	Justin Trudeau is a disgusting human being trying to suggest that Israel is somehow not exercising maximum restraint, as we'll see in just a moment.
	He's totally insane.
	Meanwhile, Representative Jamal Bowman of New York took a break from pulling fire alarms to claim that his opposition to Israel was actually an attempt to uphold Judaism.
	The gall of this is just insane.
	I love that he is flanked with a bunch of ridiculous-looking human beings with shirts like, Rabbis for Ceasefire, and it's an overweight female.
	who is definitely, definitely not a rabbi in any real sense.
	I do love these folks are trotting out fringe elements as though they are representatives of
	Judaism. Truly insulting stuff here.
	And I've heard what was said here this evening before, that by me calling for a ceasefire with
	my colleagues and centering humanity, I am uplifting deeply what it actually means to be Jewish.
	Because I'm so...
	So, uh, he knows. He- He's definitely a Jew.
	Yes, Jamal Bowman uplifting the Jewish people.
	So I feel grateful to be standing here.
	Well, harav hagadol Jamal Bowman there speaking on behalf of the Jewish people.
	That's not insulting at all.
	Meanwhile, Bowman's fellow Hamas squad colleagues took a different tack.
	Ilhan Omar claimed that all people of faith should oppose Israel.
	Not bigamy, you know, or not marrying a brother apparently, but apparently opposing Israel.
	something fascinating and bizarre in the fact that there are people who seem to be upset that there are rabbis and other people of faith out here asking for ceasefire.
	And it's bizarre because you would assume That if you are a religious leader, if you are a faith leader, that your number one priority would be to look into your faith, into the teachings of your faith, and to say, I oppose violence.
	I oppose violence from Ilhan Omar, who has yet to meet a terror group she doesn't provide support.
	Truly amazing stuff.
	By the way, where are all the imams who are out there calling for Hamas to surrender?
	Where are they?
	Can you name them?
	Bueller?
	And then there was the inimitably idiotic AOC.
	Fellow traveler with the Hamas squad who suggested that Israel needs to not engage in military action against Hamas.
	Instead, they have to find a way to, wait for it, negotiate with the terrorists who have openly stated that they wish to murder every Jew on planet Earth.
	AOC.
	She's now the cartoon.
	There's this famous cartoon of John Kerry trying to negotiate between Hamas and Israel.
	And the Hamasnik is holding a sign saying, death to all Jews.
	And the Jew is sitting there.
	And John Kerry is saying, can you meet them halfway?
	That is now AOC.
	Ceasefire means there is no military solution, only a diplomatic and cultural solution.
	A relational solution.
	A reckoning with ourselves and our history.
	That is what ceasefire now means.
	She's pathetic.
	In truth, however.
	And this is all depressing.
	These are, in fact, fringe sentiments.
	According to a new poll from Harris X, 67% of Americans believe Israel should continue fighting Hamas until Hamas is defeated and Israel's hostages are released.
	More than 8 in 10 Americans agreed that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens.
	This is the true America, not the pictures you see on CNN or the minority portrayed as a majority by our pathetic media infrastructure.
	We'll get to the media in just one second, because boy, are they pathetic.
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	Okay, so speaking of the media, They spent most of yesterday ignoring that giant rally, like the biggest rally of Jews in modern history, maybe since Sinai.
	And instead they decided to focus in on astroturfing resistance to Israel finishing off Hamas.
	So for example, the front page of the website of the New York Times last night carried zero mention, again, of the largest Jewish rally in centuries.
	But they did have a front page article about 500 anonymous members of the executive branch writing a letter to Joe Biden protesting his Israel policy.
	Clearly that pro-Hamas groundswell is buildings, says the New York Times.
	The media continue to do their damnedest to undermine Israel's ability to defend itself.
	Because again, Israel is an extension of the West, the media don't like the West, therefore Israel must be undermined.
	So despite the fact that every major media outlet of the last 20 years has reported that Hamas has placed military headquarters beneath Al Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, the press continue to treat Israel as a political leper for pursuing that military target.
	No matter that the Pentagon spokesperson literally confirmed yesterday that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad use hospitals as fronts for military sites.
	We do have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad uses some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including the Al Shifa Hospital.
	As a way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages.
	They have tunnels underneath these hospitals.
	And so Hamas and PIJ members operate a command and control node from Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
	They have weapons stored there.
	and are prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against the facility.
	So this is, I'm just telling you what we as the intelligence community assesses is happening in Gaza City, how Hamas is using these hospitals to operate.
	But absolutely, we do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where there are innocent civilians.
	No one wants to see a firefight in a hospital.
	The only problem is that Hamas is going to pursue a firefight in the hospital and is literally doing that as we speak.
	No matter that this behavior by Hamas under international law does transform such sites into military sites.
	In 2016, as the Wall Street Journal points out, U.S.
	forces attacked a hospital in Mosul.
	Actually, U.S.
	forces didn't just attack the hospital, they hit it with an airstrike.
	Here is what CENTCOM said at the time, quote, ISIL was using the hospital as a base of operations and command and control headquarters.
	In support of the Iraqi security forces, coalition aircraft conducted a precision strike on the location to target enemy fighters firing on Iraqi forces.
	No heartburn from the media.
	After all, Barack Obama was president at the time.
	And yet Israel is going in and attempting to take out Hamas room by room, all while trying to protect Gazan civilians.
	And still the media are treating that as some sort of war crime.
	Many members of the media keep asking if a hospital suddenly becomes a legitimate target just because Hamas is You know, using it as a military site.
	Now, the answer, by the way, is yes.
	Here is article 19 of the Geneva Conventions quote, The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled
	shall not cease unless they are used to commit outside their humanitarian duties act
	harmful to the enemy. Protection may however cease only after due warning has been given naming in all
	appropriate cases a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.
	Israel has warned Hamas and medical officials inside Al Shifa Hospital for literally weeks.
	Israel has facilitated exit from the hospital for the sick and the innocent.
	But here was the BBC openly lying about what Israel is doing in the hospital.
	And make no mistake, this is not a mistake, this is a lie.
	Because the BBC lies.
	Because the BBC is effectively a Hamas propaganda arm.
	Here we go.
	At this moment we are hearing from Reuters that is reporting that Israel, it says its forces are carrying out an operation against Hamas in Gaza's al-Shifa hospital and they are targeting people including medical teams as well as Arab speakers.
	They are also saying that Israel is calling on all Hamas operatives in the hospital to surrender at this point.
	Once again, we are hearing from Reuters that Israel says that its forces are carrying out an operation against Hamas in that hospital that we had just heard of.
	They are targeting Arab speakers as well as some of the medical staff there, and they are asking all Hamas operatives in that hospital to surrender.
	They repeat the lie twice.
	They say that Israel is targeting Arab speakers and medical personnel.
	And they repeat it twice.
	That is a lie.
	In fact, Israel is exposing its own soldiers to fire from terrorists in al-Shifa.
	And according to the IDF, those forces, quote, include medical teams and Arabic speakers
	who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment
	with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields.
	In other words, Israel is literally shipping in medical teams and Arabic speakers
	to facilitate help for the innocent and the sick.
	This is something no army in history has done ever, literally ever.
	The BBC was so egregious here, they were forced to apologize again
	for this particular blood libel.
	This follows on their other blood libel where they claimed that Israel had bombed a hospital early on in the conflict and then had to walk that one off.
	Here's BBC apologizing for the lie.
	And now an apology from the BBC.
	BBC News, as it covered initial reports that Israeli forces has entered Gaza's main hospital, we said that medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted.
	This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report.
	We should have said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation.
	So we apologise for this error which fell below our usual editorial standards.
	Well, here's the thing.
	It didn't fall below your usual editorial standards.
	Your usual editorial standards are you hate Israel and you're not fond of the Jews either.
	Yet here was Elizabeth Spiers.
	She writes frequently for the New York Times and here's what she tweeted.
	I actually think the morality regarding civilian kids here should be apparent to everybody.
	Anyone who tells me Palestinians are using children as human shields, F off.
	That is racist by itself and has been used to justify all manner of atrocities.
	Yes, it's now racist, according to this columnist, to point out that Hamas uses human shields.
	She should probably talk to Hamas because apparently they are also racist because they brag openly about using human
	shields.
	.
	In a second, we'll get to the encouraging fact, however, because there is something encouraging about what is going on.
	We'll get to that momentarily first.
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	So here's the thing.
	Watch the media lie.
	You watch left-wing politicians lie.
	But here's the thing.
	Nobody with a brain actually believes the media's moral equivalence game.
	There are people who are soft-headed, who are interested in the moral equivalence game because it makes them feel sophisticated.
	There are people who do the moral equivalence game because it makes them feel like they can have a level of disconnect from the conflict, and that makes them feel very good about themselves.
	The easiest position in any conflict is to both sides the thing.
	But the reality is, the vast majority of Americans are not doing that.
	And that's encouraging.
	Because in truth, all Hamas and its allies have is fear.
	That's all they have.
	That is the whole thing.
	They have intimidation.
	Well, we're not afraid.
	The West doesn't need to be afraid.
	Good news.
	We don't just have right on our side, it turns out we have might on our side as well.
	Okay, meanwhile...
	The congressional clown show continues.
	I have to say, our elected officials, it's a very serious time in the world.
	It's always a very serious time, but it is a particularly serious time right now.
	And the more clownish our politics gets, the worse it is.
	And this is not just a Republican problem, it's a Democrat problem as well.
	We have now created A massive dislocation of incentives with regard to actual governance.
	The people who enter Congress were supposed to be originally public servants.
	They were supposed to be people who actually had in mind the best for their district, for example.
	And then power was supposed to check power.
	Ambition was supposed to check ambition.
	The thing was that in order to advance in the political realm in the United States, That meant that you had to play the game of politics.
	That meant that you had to cut deals.
	It meant that you had to manipulate.
	You had to be Machiavellian.
	You had to be clever.
	You had to actually get things done from time to time.
	You had to exert power, and you sometimes had to take a loss, right?
	This was the push and tug of politics in the United States for centuries.
	And then it's because everyone who's a politician aspired to be a higher level politician.
	If you're a congressperson, you wanted to be a senator.
	If you're a senator, you might want to be the president.
	If you're a governor, you might want to be the president.
	If you're a local state representative, you might want to be the governor.
	The idea was be good at that job and you might elevate to the next job.
	But we have now completely done away with that.
	Instead, everybody apparently in Congress aspires to be a political commentator.
	They want my job.
	And the thing is, my job is very different than their job.
	My job is to say things that I think are true.
	Their job is to get things done.
	Those are not quite the same job.
	Now, you can say things that are true and also get things done, but what that would require is you to admit to your public that you are not always going to get everything that you want, because life isn't fair.
	It requires that instead of posturing, you actually have to make a deal and then go back to your constituents and explain to them the deal that you just made and why you weren't able to meet all of their dreams.
	And there's a problem for politicians because, again, the politicians most likely to win are the ones who promise you the world.
	Now, that isn't really a problem with the politicians.
	In the end, it's a problem with the electorate.
	The electorate needs to get over itself.
	The electorate in the United States is true, again, across the board, have a tendency to fall for politicians who promise them the world.
	And then they can't deliver the world.
	And then people get frustrated.
	And then the politicians say, I feel your frustration.
	And let me tell you something, I'm going to fix it by giving you the world.
	And we're like, wow, that sounds amazing.
	I would love to have the world.
	And then the politician can't give you the world because it's not practical and they fall short and you get frustrated.
	And the politician comes back to you and say, if you give me more power, guess what I'll do?
	I'll give you the world.
	We're like, whoa, I would love the world.
	That sounds amazing.
	Just ramming our head into the same stupid wall over and over and over.
	And what you end up with is a bunch of clowns in Congress.
	That's what you actually end up with.
	Is a bunch of people who are idiotically smacking each other in the back of the head like a bunch of dumb school kids sticking gum in each other's hair in order to get attention.
	That's what you end up with.
	And it's true on like all sides of the aisle and it's frustrating and it's idiotic.
	And meanwhile, the government just continues spending insane amounts of cash and making really crappy policy because in the end, the people who actually do the deals are the ones who are in the back room hashing the deal out.
	And then it was like, well, if we just replace those guys with someone who promises me the world, that will fix the thing.
	It's like that doesn't fix the thing.
	The incentive structure is wrong.
	Again, I can't emphasize this enough.
	When it comes to politics, it's incentive structures that matter.
	It is not the politician.
	You can get a bad politician to do the right thing if the incentive structure is correct.
	And you can get a very good politician to do the wrong thing if the incentive structure is wrong.
	All the incentives are misaligned right now.
	And so everybody is playing for camera time.
	Everybody's playing for the viral clip.
	And nothing gets done except by the people in the back room.
	Which again, is what the populists were saying we need to avoid is the people in the back room.
	Are the people in the back room?
	They're gonna do the deal anyway.
	So then the question is whether you're gonna elect politicians who are good at making the deal or bad at making the deal.
	Okay, so, we're gonna go through a litany of just absolute clownish behavior by members of Congress over the course of the next few minutes.
	So, we begin with the Senate.
	There is a senator.
	His name is Mark Wayne Mullen.
	He is a United States senator from Oklahoma.
	And Mullen's a fine senator.
	He's fine.
	He's a Republican.
	He threatened to get in a fist fight with a union boss in the Senate yesterday.
	And Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist clown who has never done a productive thing in his entire life, suddenly is the voice of reason here.
	That's how far we've gone.
	We have now gotten to the point where the geriatric communist who literally was thrown off a commune for being too lazy in the 70s and refused to pay, like, any of the paternity bills for his kids.
	Like, that guy.
	He is now the voice of reason in the United States Senate.
	That's how clownish this is.
	So this all led off, by the way, because the union boss who was testifying, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters president, Sean O'Brien, he had apparently tweeted against Mullen, calling him a clown and a fraud who pretends like he's self-made.
	And he said, quit the tough guy act in the Senate hearings.
	You know where to find me, any place, any time.
	And here's how it went down in the Senate yesterday.
	Sir, this is a time, this is a place.
	If you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here.
	Okay, that's fine.
	Perfect.
	You want to do it now?
	I'd love to do it right now.
	Well, stand your butt up, then.
	You stand your butt up.
	Oh, hold on.
	Oh, stop it.
	Is that your solution?
	No, no, sit down.
	Sit down.
	You're a United States Senator.
	Activate!
	Sit down, please.
	Can I respond?
	Hold it!
	Hold it!
	If we can't, no, I have the mic.
	I'm sorry.
	This is what he said.
	You'll have your time.
	Okay.
	Can I respond?
	Oh, no, you can't.
	This is a hearing and God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress.
	Let's not make it worse.
	I don't like thugs and bullies.
	I don't like you because you just described yourself.
	Hold it.
	You have the mic.
	You have time.
	All right.
	Oh my god, Bernie Sanders, again, the voice of reason.
	He crazed old socialist, is the voice of reason.
	And meanwhile, I got over here, Senator Duane Elizondo, Mountain Dew Camacho!
	And he's ready to go!
	And meanwhile, I got the union bus, like, let's do this right now, let's do this right here, right now, middle of Senate floor, let's do this thing!
	Like, so first of all, gotta admit, Woodwatch.
	10 out of 10, Woodwatch.
	Woodwatch actual fist fight in the Senate.
	Because honestly, if these clowns aren't going to do anything, if they're going to be completely useless people, we may as well get like a UFC match out of it.
	By the way, Mark Wayne Mullen would win.
	Like if you actually look at Mark Wayne Mullen's background, like that guy actually kind of knows how to fight, is apparently the story.
	But that's pretty wild stuff.
	So that was just one element.
	Again, because this clownish behavior has now been incentivized.
	Because the reality is that, like, is he going to pay a penalty for that politically?
	No.
	And Democrats know the same thing because Democrats are doing it.
	Now, Republicans are so busy being bad at their jobs that they're doing it more often than Democrats.
	You're seeing clownish behavior by Democrats for sure.
	You got moron Jamal Bowman pulling a fire alarm and then pretending he didn't know that a fire alarm was a fire alarm and he thought that it opened doors.
	Every time he opens his fridge, he thinks he's opening, he thinks he's starting a shower or something.
	So he's a clown.
	You got AOC who makes a living out of being a clown.
	You got actual terror supporters in Congress.
	And then you just have sort of like the regular clownish behavior of members of Congress.
	I gotta say, why would you trust these people with more power in any way, shape, or— But Republicans, because they're so bad at governing right now and because the caucus is so fractious, they've decided the best thing to do is to hit each other!
	So, apparently, yesterday, there was a bit of a throwdown between Kevin McCarthy, the ex-Speaker of the House from California, and Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
	NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales first reported the encounter on X saying it happened when she spoke with Burchett after the GOP's conference meeting on Tuesday.
	She said, have never seen this on Capitol Hill.
	While talking to representative Tim Burchett after the GOP conference meeting, former Speaker McCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett.
	Burchett lunged toward me.
	I thought it was a joke.
	It was not.
	A chase ensued.
	This is when the Benny Hill music starts playing.
	saying. Anyway, Birchett's back was to McCarthy and his detail walking by in the hallway,
	then the lunge. Birchett responded jokingly as McCarthy kept walking. Seriously, Kevin,
	didn't, sorry, Kevin, didn't mean to elbow, then yelled, hey, why'd you elbow me in the
	back, Kevin? Kevin, you got any guts? Birchett then looked back at me and said, jerk, referring
	I asked if he'd done that before and Birchett said no.
	And that's when the chase ensued.
	Birchett took off after McCarthy and his detail.
	I chased behind with my mic.
	Representative Birchett yelled after catching up to McCarthy, hey Kevin, why'd you walk behind me and elbow me in the back?
	McCarthy said, I didn't elbow you in the back.
	Birchett said, you got no guts.
	You did so.
	The reporter said it right there.
	What kind of chicken move is that?
	HC5.
	You're all down there, right?
	so pathetic.
	Burchett starts to walk away from McCarthy, says, what a jerk, and then says, you need
	security, Kevin.
	He's a jerk, just a childish little.
	He says, did you see that?
	So so that's that's how that went down.
	And then McCarthy was asked about it.
	He denies that he hit Burchett.
	But don't worry, that's not the end of the story.
	Here's McCarthy yesterday.
	H.C. five, you're all down there, right?
	Not a very big hallway.
	So I'm walking out.
	You could talk to Bruce Westman, because I actually called him after you guys reported
	something, said, did I hit somebody?
	Bruce Westman and I were walking out, and I guess the reporter was interviewing Burchard or something.
	I guess our shoulders hit, because Burchard runs up to me and I didn't know what he was talking about.
	Some reporters asked me.
	I did not run and hit the guy.
	I did not kidney punch him.
	I did not shoot anything like that.
	You didn't shove him?
	No!
	We're walking through.
	You're at HC5, right?
	You guys line up along the way there.
	It was Bruce Wester and I walking out.
	He must have been interviewing someone.
	I didn't know it was him or something.
	I guess our elbows hit as I walked by.
	I didn't punch anybody.
	Okay, so, and then they pulled each other's hair and called each other, and then Kevin McCarthy said to Burchett, I'm rubber and you're glue.
	Whatever bounces off of me sticks back to you.
	And then Burchett went to a giant boulder and painted a tunnel on it in the hopes that Kevin McCarthy would run directly into the giant boulder, but Kevin McCarthy escaped by going into the tunnel and Burchett tried to follow him, but then he actually hit the giant boulder.
	That's what is apparently happening in the halls of Congress.
	But don't worry!
	The clown show wasn't over!
	Then, Matt Gaetz, who is like, The best clown at Circus de Soleil.
	He showed up too!
	Matt Gaetz had to get into the story because this clown car can't fit... You thought it couldn't fit more clowns, this clown car.
	It turns out it can fit way more clowns!
	Are you kidding?
	It's a clown car!
	We can fit at least 435 clowns in this clown car.
	In just one second, we'll get to Matt Gaetz's involvement in this.
	He's like, Kevin McCarthy?
	Let's do this thing!
	Matt Gaetz jumping into that clown car headfirst.
	Honk honk!
	We'll get to that moment.
	Okay, so maybe World War III is coming.
	Maybe the Chinese are about to pull in over on Joe Biden.
	Maybe the economy is about to collapse.
	But we do have Republicans who are actively putting on a three-ring circus, so that's exciting stuff.
	We'll get to that in one second.
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	So the story wasn't over.
	The clown show had to continue.
	And what would a clown show in Congress be without Matt Gaetz?
	Yeah, that dude.
	He busts through the wall like the Kool-Aid man with his giant hair and his big teeth.
	And he's like, yeah!
	And he's ready to go.
	So this is what I love most about Matt Gates.
	Seriously, is that his deep and abiding hatred of Kevin McCarthy is so extraordinary.
	It's like unbelievable.
	He's like, did someone say he's a thousand miles away?
	And it's like the bat signal goes up.
	Kevin McCarthy's in the news.
	He's like. Someone is that's the Undertaker's music.
	He like runs right there.
	He's like, let's do this thing!
	So, Matt Gaetz heard this rumor about Kevin McCarthy getting into a physical altercation with Tim Burchett.
	So what did he do?
	He immediately files a formal ethics complaint against McCarthy.
	He wrote a letter to the House Ethics Committee Chair, Michael Guest of Mississippi.
	So he wasn't satisfied to throw McCarthy out of his job as Speaker for literally no reason.
	I mean, we'll get to that in a second, because it was literally no reason.
	OK, we were told it was going to be, wow, there's going to be a change in the way Congress works.
	Big victories have been won.
	And nope.
	Uh, nope.
	It turns out that Mike John- Again, really like Mike Johnson.
	Thinks he's awesome.
	Also, Mike Johnson gonna cut exactly the same deal that Kevin McCarthy was going to cut.
	Why?
	Because again, incentive structures, folks.
	It's not about putting better people in Congress.
	It's about changing the incentive structure.
	And that comes chiefly from the electorate.
	So if you don't like your Congress people, maybe you should think seriously about not electing idiots.
	Anyway.
	Matt Gaetz immediately filed.
	So the same House Republicans who didn't vote to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas and who are about to pass a giant spending bill.
	Those same House Republicans, they're like, you know what?
	You know what?
	Matt Gaetz is like, I had to oust Kevin McCarthy.
	It was really important.
	And not only that, now that he's not the speaker anymore, I'm going to curb stomp that guy.
	He files an ethics complaint based on Kevin McCarthy supposedly elbowing Tim Burchett.
	Says Congress has seen a substantial increase in breaches of decorum, unlike anything we have ever seen since the pre-Civil War.
	Yes, when I think of congressional decorum, I think of Matt Gaetz.
	Yes, that great guardian of congressional decorum who, I mean, literally wore a gas mask on the House floor in a vote about COVID.
	Now again, that's like funny and weird, but like decorum from Matt Gaetz?
	What are we even talking about?
	What the hell?
	It's like Sideshow Bobshawn was like, we need decorum here.
	There's too much clowning around.
	I wonder why there are so many people who think that the Republican Party is a bunch of rubes and morons.
	Why?
	Why would they think that?
	I don't know.
	It's so confusing.
	What should we do?
	I don't know.
	Oh my God.
	Gates took Birch's side.
	He said, I myself have been a victim of outrageous conduct on the House floor as well.
	That, of course, was in reference to when House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers of Alabama lunged at Gates during the election of McCarthy as Speaker back in January.
	But nothing like an open and public assault on a member committed by another member.
	The rot starts at the top.
	McCarthy was asked, he said, oh good, I think ethics is a good place for Gates to be.
	Which, of course, is a reference to the fact that Gates was actually facing an investigation from the House Ethics Committee himself.
	So things are just, they're going, they're going awesome.
	Here's McCarthy slamming Matt Gaetz.
	Again, the clown show just continues to, more clowns, more, we, send in the clowns.
	Here we go.
	Congressman Gates, though, is submitting a complaint to the Ethics Committee over this issue.
	Do you have any response to Congressman Gates?
	No, I think Ethics is a good place for Gates to be.
	And then he and Gates engaged in a duet.
	Isn't it rich?
	Aren't we a pair?
	Me here at last on the ground.
	You in mid-air.
	Where are the clowns?
	There should be clowns.
	So many clowns!
	So many!
	But wait, there's more.
	Oh my god.
	I'm now the infomercial guy.
	But wait, there's more!
	Don't worry.
	20% more clown in this package of Congress.
	So, Jared Moskowitz decided to get into it with James Comer, and so that went great.
	That was good.
	So, here is what happened.
	This does involve a reference to a smurf, which I'm here for.
	Here we go.
	But you and Goldman, who is Mr. Trust Fund, continue to try to- No, I'm not going to give you your time back.
	We can stop the clock.
	You all continue to... You look like a smurf here, just going around and all this stuff.
	Now listen... Mr. Chairman, you have... No, I'm gonna tell you something.
	No, no.
	Hold on.
	If we're not on time, we can... You continue to spew disinformation.
	You have gone on TV and said the President did something illegal.
	You discount an investigation of public corruption.
	You're doing stuff with your brother.
	The American people have the same questions.
	Why should they believe you?
	There's a different rule for the president.
	There's a different rule for you.
	Why should they believe what you're saying, Mr. Chairman?
	Why?
	You go on Fox News and say loans and steals are way to evade taxes.
	We don't know that's what you're doing or not.
	We don't know.
	We have no idea.
	We're supposed to take- Okay, they just go on like this.
	They're still going so far as I'm aware.
	So basically what happened here is that Jared Moskowitz, who to be fair, is dressed like a Smurf.
	And they call me like, you're a smurf fucking ass!
	Anyway...
	Anyway, Jared Moskowitz, he was implying that Comer is corrupt.
	There's no evidence for that at all.
	And Comer goes back at him and calls him a smurf.
	Things are just going great.
	So Mitch McConnell was like, I'm too old for this.
	Turtley Turtle, I'm too old for this.
	He was asked about the fact that everyone appears to be directly from clown college.
	And he's like, I can't.
	I just, I can't.
	As leader, what responsibility do you have to try to lower the temperature in the building right now?
	We have a senator on your side challenging a witness to a fight in a hearing.
	We have former Speaker of the House cold cocking a fellow Republican in the hall.
	I mean, what is your responsibility as leader to lower the temperature?
	Cold cocking?
	I like how that story grew.
	Frankly, I hadn't heard what you just indicated.
	It's very difficult to control the behavior of everybody who's in the building.
	I don't view that as my responsibility.
	That's something that the Capitol Police have to deal with.
	Okay, so I'm just going to point out here that there is in fact a generational difference.
	Okay, like whatever you think about McConnell, and I got real problems with McConnell, whatever you think about Bernie Sanders, I have huge problems with Bernie Sanders, there is in fact a generational, maybe, it's just occurring to me now, maybe the reason we keep electing old politicians is because everyone who is between the ages apparently in Congress of like 30 and 60 is a child.
	Or they're acting like children.
	Maybe that's the reason.
	We're like, okay, fine, so that guy's not functional and he's super old, but at the same time, at least he's not threatening fistfights.
	At least he's not engaging in Roadrunner cartoons here.
	We're such an unserious country because we have bred an entire generation of people who are fundamentally unserious about their jobs.
	And so, the people who end up with the actual deal-making power end up being the old men in the back room, as it always was.
	Now, it used to be younger men in the back room, but now it's older men in the back room, and they're like, we will promise the world and call each other smurfs and whack each other on the head with a rubber hammer.
	Beep!
	That's what we have now.
	It's just excellent.
	It's just great.
	So, how does this end up?
	Exactly how the politics always ends up, which is they spend more money.
	Yes, that's right.
	Remember that time that we ousted the Speaker of the House for no apparent reason and the new Speaker of the House came in and then cut the exact same deal?
	According to Breitbart, the House passed a continuing resolution Tuesday to extend spending levels from a lame-duck session last December by Democratic House and Senate majorities into 2024.
	The final tally was 336 to 95.
	A whopping 209 Democrats supported the measure, far more than the 127 Democrats in favor.
	So Mike Johnson came in and he immediately did exactly what Kevin McCarthy did.
	So that is exciting.
	The two-tiered continuing resolution, called a ladder to CR, extends the current spending levels for agriculture, energy and water, military, construction, VA, transportation, HUD spending bills through January 19th.
	The remaining eight bills are extended through February 2nd.
	Those spending levels were set by Democrats in December of 2022.
	Chuck Schumer said that he was very pleased with all of this.
	McConnell was pleased as well.
	So same exact deal gets cut.
	Same exact.
	Same bad time.
	Same bad channel.
	I gotta admit, I'm kinda with Ro Khanna here.
	Ro Khanna is the California Democrat.
	Very far to the left.
	And he was on MSNBC.
	He's like, I can't even explain the Republicans.
	I don't even know anymore.
	I find myself in agreement.
	I don't know, man.
	I don't get it.
	Why is it, do you think, that Speaker Johnson was able to get away with passing a clean mini-funding bill, which I think it's ridiculous to fund the government, honestly, through February in two halves.
	I think it's silly.
	But he did get something done that kicks the can.
	Why do you think he's getting away with it when Kevin McCarthy couldn't?
	Troy, you're asking the impossible to provide reasonable explanation for the actions of the Republican caucus.
	You could have expert after expert, and I don't think anyone would answer that.
	But I think it shows that a lot of the grievance against McCarthy was personal, and it didn't have as much to do with the substance.
	I wish I could argue with that, but I cannot.
	Because the evidence is not on the side of arguing with that.
	That is the reality.
	Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats aren't off the hook either.
	In just a second, we're going to get to what Senate Democrats did with their supposed support for Israel.
	We'll get to that momentarily first.
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	Meanwhile, the Senate of the United States, they keep saying they're very pro-Israel, but then yesterday, the Senate voted along party lines to table a motion to proceed on a House-passed bill, according to The Hill, that would provide that $14.3 billion in emergency aid to Israel.
	So you remember, Joe Biden asked for a $105 billion foreign aid package.
	Some of it, $60 billion, was going to go to Ukraine.
	14.3 was gonna go to Israel.
	Seven Bill was gonna go to Taiwan.
	There's gonna be some border funding and all the rest.
	And Joe Biden wanted that all tied up with a pretty bow.
	And it turns out House Republicans are not so hot on the Ukraine aid.
	They're like, we don't see an off-ramp there.
	We don't know what exactly you're planning to do.
	Those battle lines seem really stagnant.
	What is the end goal there?
	Now that is not the same thing as the war that is currently raging against Hamas.
	Israel has military superiority.
	They need rearmament in order to finish that job.
	And they will finish that job if given the rearmament.
	If given more rearmament, Ukraine is still not going to push Russia out of Donbass or Crimea, so it's a different situation on the ground.
	Okay, so the House passed a bill that funded the aid to Israel, and they included in there a rider that would cut the IRS's budget.
	They said, we'll take the money out of the IRS's budget, and instead, we'll give that money to foreign aid to Israel in the middle of a war.
	And the Democrats voted unanimously to table that.
	So from the Democratic perspective, like, ah, it was a poison pill.
	We need our IRS funding.
	But from a Republican perspective, the question is, your IRS funding is so important that you're not willing to pass a bill in the middle of a war to aid Israel in its fight against terrorism?
	President Biden had also threatened to veto the House bill.
	Now, in reality, there will end up being a deal that is cut here, but it is evidence of sort of the prioritization that Democrats have.
	I think the next step here for Mike Johnson is going to be to pass a clean Israel funding bill without the IRS cuts.
	And then watch as the Democrats try to veto that.
	Because at that point, it's like, okay, you have no excuses at that point.
	You can't even claim that the rider is the real issue.
	And the Senate operates like the Senate operates, and pretending otherwise doesn't change the fact on the ground.
	Okay, meanwhile, everybody in the Democratic Party has severe heartburn over Joe Biden.
	Long piece over at Politico called, Here's How Biden Can Turn It Around.
	Top Democrats agree the president needs more aggressiveness, more help from his friends, and a few more friends.
	And they're calling on Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney to help.
	Yeah, good luck on that one.
	Not in terms of them helping, but in terms of anyone listening to them.
	So this entire piece is just about the heartburn that Democrats have over Biden and what he can do to fix this thing.
	So they say that basically he needs to show more life.
	Enough with the bravado and denialism.
	His aides are under no illusion about their challenge.
	Even some of his most committed loyalists told me he needs to make changes.
	Yet the president often displays his resentments in ways that do nothing to move public opinion and only delay needed adjustments.
	Some of his younger aides mimic his snark.
	Shaming or ignoring dissent doesn't make it go away.
	And now that you have Jill Stein as a Green Party candidate and Joe Manchin newly teasing his presidential run, it's possible that Joe Biden could easily lose.
	And so, one of the recommendations here is that Joe Biden should appoint more people in positions of high power to help share the burden.
	That he needs to move Mike Donilon, who's his alter ego, over to the campaign.
	They need to move the White House to war footing.
	He should bring back Ron Klain, who did an amazing job, of course.
	These are all the recommendations, but the reality is that Joe Biden's policies are failing because they are failing.
	And part of that failure is going to be his meeting with Xi Jinping this week.
	So, Xi Jinping is coming to California.
	San Francisco has cleaned up.
	Apparently, all it took to actually help the citizens of San Francisco is for the Chinese president to arrive.
	They cleaned up all the homeless on the streets.
	They took the open needles off the streets, the poop off the streets.
	Again, all that took was the Chinese dictator coming in.
	So what exactly is on the agenda between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping?
	Well, there are very few expectations for major breakthroughs.
	Xi is actually coming in weak.
	So right now, if you were going to exact concessions from the Chinese, now would be the time to do it.
	Xi actually has a very weak economy on his hands, as the Wall Street Journal points out.
	They say, on the eve of a virtual meeting with President Biden at an Asia-Pacific summit last fall, Xi was formally enshrined as China's most powerful leader in a generation.
	But China's economy is now beset by multiple challenges, from a deflating property bubble and unmanageable local government debts to slumping confidence and deflation.
	The U.S., meanwhile, recorded its strongest quarter in nearly two years, and inflation is starting to subside.
	That means the United States actually has leverage here.
	So what exactly should Biden move for?
	Well, certainly he should move for Xi to calm down on his military antics in the South China Sea.
	Certainly he should push for Xi to open the books on, say, COVID-19.
	Is Biden going to do any of that?
	Nah, of course not.
	He's going to do climate change.
	So Joe Biden is trying to assure Xi Jinping, don't worry guys, we're not trying to decouple from you.
	I mean, I'm sure on a personal level, Joe Biden doesn't want to decouple from China since again, he was the big guy who was probably receiving Chinese money while he was in the vice presidency and post vice presidency era of his career.
	Here was Joe Biden saying, don't worry, don't worry.
	What we really want is to continue to be hand in glove with the Chinese.
	And how would you define success with your meeting with President Xi?
	To get back on a normal course of corresponding, being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there's a crisis, being able to make sure our military still have contact with one another.
	We can't take, as I told you, we're not trying to decouple from China, but what we're trying to do is change the relationship for the better.
	From my perspective, if in fact the Chinese people who are in trouble right now economically, if the average homeowner or the homeowner, if the average citizen in China was able to have a decent paying job, that benefits them and it benefits all of us.
	Okay, well, we will see what sort of concessions Biden makes to Xi.
	Do I have confidence that Biden is not going to get rolled?
	Why would I have possible confidence in that, considering how many times he has been rolled in the past?
	So, on Beijing's agenda is trying to relieve bans on manufacturing of sophisticated microchips on behalf of the Chinese government.
	They also want the American government to stop helping out Taiwan's Democracy Progressive Party, which opposes He wants basically the United States to help undercut all of that.
	Also, Xi is going to continue to pitch American business people on the idea that China is a place of opportunity.
	But again, the United States has a lot of leverage here.
	And the United States should be pushing for more demilitarization, more signals of conciliation from Xi Jinping.
	That's what Biden should be pushing for.
	Is he going to be doing that?
	I have serious, serious doubts.
	Alrighty, in just one second, we'll get to the latest on the 2024 election.
	Plus, ethicist Peter Singer has some weird ideas about ethics.
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