Ben Shapiro dissects the fourth Republican debate, highlighting policy rifts between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley over transgender rights and governance. He critiques Vivek Ramaswamy's attacks on Haley's foreign policy knowledge and counters claims of her fascist leanings as misrepresentations. The analysis covers the GOP base's steadfast support for Donald Trump despite age concerns, contrasts this with Democratic electability bets, and details legislative gridlock over Ukraine aid versus border security. Finally, Shapiro condemns university presidents like Claudine Gay for abandoning free speech principles under pressure, attributing their reversal to intersectional ideology rather than legal necessity. [Automatically generated summary]
Last night's fourth Republican debate will likely end up as a footnote in presidential history.
Donald Trump, who's leading the race by leaps and bounds, wasn't on the stage.
The debate aired on NewsNation rather than Fox News, so the viewership is likely to be a lot lower than the prior debates.
But in some ways, the debate was by far the most interesting debate of the race.
It was interesting for a few reasons.
First, it showed that governance actually matters.
The battle between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who are the top two candidates fighting for a distant second place behind Trump, Is a battle over policy positions sure?
The debate exposed serious differences of position on social issues, for example, Warren Haley has posed as more moderate and DeSantis is more conservative.
But DeSantis' main advantage against Haley, an advantage he thought would carry him further than it has in the polling so far, is that he can point at his accomplishments and contrast them with the empty words of his opponents.
In a normal world, DeSantis would be running away with this nomination.
DeSantis is by far the most conservative candidate who can win on the stage, has a record of victory in Florida.
There were four candidates on the stage last night.
Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and for some odd reason, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is still in the race.
But DeSantis is by far the most classically conservative person on the stage.
Here, for example, was Ron DeSantis talking about Calvin Coolidge, who was Ronald Reagan's favorite president.
One of the guys I'll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge.
People don't talk about him a lot.
He's one of the few presidents that got almost everything right.
He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution.
We need to restore the US Constitution as the centerpiece of our national life.
And that requires a president who understands the original understanding of the Constitution, who has a good sense of the Bill of Rights, and who knows how we've gone off track with this massive fourth branch of government Well, again, that's pretty solidly conservative stuff, but the main differentiating point for DeSantis versus, for example, Haley, is over their actual governance style.
knew the proper role of the federal government.
The country was in great shape when he was president of the United States
That obviously is a strong differentiating point for DeSantis.
And again, he thought that that was going to be the main part of this campaign, was that even the stuff that Trump has talked about doing, DeSantis has actually done in the state of Florida.
However, this brings us to the second point.
Second, the debate showed that Donald Trump is still the dominant force on the right.
That's because of all the stocked up goodwill he has from his tenure as 2016 candidate, beating Hillary Clinton, and as president, where he's pretty conservative.
And because his one true point of electoral vulnerability, Trump's point of electoral vulnerability, is the fact that he already lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
But that has now been obscured both by the media's election malfeasance in 2020, The fact that, for example, the Hunter Biden laptop story was covered up.
The fact that all the voting rules were changed by the Democrats in the lead up to the 2020 election.
The fact that we had a 20 million vote spike in the number of votes between 2016 and 2020.
And, mostly, by Joe Biden's awful poll numbers right now.
If the argument is that Trump is unelectable, then the real clear politics polling average, which puts Trump ahead of Biden right now, is very difficult to overcome.
That's why attacks from Ron DeSantis against Trump fell flat.
Democrats still believe that Trump is the most beatable nominee for the Republicans, no matter what the polls say.
The problem is, when the polls have Trump up on Biden, as they do right now, when Donald Trump is in the best polling position of his career, actually, better than any time in 2016, better than any time in 2020, the electoral argument is a hard case to make.
In one second, we will get to the third point that we take away from the debate first.
Pure Talk has you covered for the holidays with a free Moto 5 5G phone.
No gimmicks, no trading necessary.
Just sign up for Pure Talk's unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 15 gigs of data.
You can get all of that for just $35.
You'll get the Moto G 5G phone for free.
But here's the deal.
You need to move fast because these phones are almost gone.
So, if your current phone is on life support, upgrade for free with PureTalk.
The new Moto G 5G boasts a 2-day battery life, an exceptional quad-pixel camera, and a whole lot more.
PureTalk gives you America's most dependable 5G network at half the price.
So, make that switch today.
Just go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro, get this exclusive offer, select the plan that's right for your family.
Remember, PureTalk gives you America's most dependable 5G network at half the price.
So, make that switch today.
That's puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
Claim your free Moto G 5G phone with a qualifying plan.
Again, that's puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
Pure Talk is Simply Smarter Wireless.
I've been using Pure Talk for the last year or so.
Their coverage is excellent.
I take all my calls on it.
It's good enough for me.
It's good enough for everybody.
Go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro and get that free Moto G 5G phone with qualifying plan today.
Okay.
And this leads us to the third point of the debate.
There is no reservoir of anger at Trump among Republicans.
So, DeSantis was trying to go after Trump on the basis that Trump is too old or that he can't win.
The problem is that Trump is running against a person who is even older and right now he's leading in the polls.
But the other attack on Trump, which is that he would be quote unquote unfit for the presidency, is something Republicans do not believe.
There is no reservoir of anger at Trump over his erratic and often awful behavior itself.
Only if that behavior threatens electoral viability do Republicans become queasy.
Republicans have essentially decided, I think rightly given the nature of today's politics, that we are well beyond questions of civility.
Many of us have decided that if the most plausible candidate happens to be the guy who tweets dumb stuff and makes jokes about becoming a dictator, jokes, by the way, that really underscore the fact that every single president since Barack Obama has used executive power in dictatorial fashion, we don't really care.
We may not like the stuff that Donald Trump did between November and January of 2021.
But if the alternative is Joe Biden using his own dictatorial power to, say, make OSHA cram a vax down on 80 million people, Or Joe Biden, using dictatorial power to essentially keep the border open.
Well, we will pick our own giant pulsating middle finger, thank you very much.
That means that Chris Christie's attacks on Trump, which is that Trump is unfit for the presidency, those fell flat.
Republicans are treating Donald Trump like generic Republican.
And weirdly, so are Democrats at this point.
So, when Christie attacked DeSantis and said, why won't you answer whether Trump is fit or not?
DeSantis is smart enough not to play the game.
DeSantis knows that if he says that Trump is unfit, all of Trump's voters don't like DeSantis then.
But what Christie is attempting to do is point out, I think correctly, that the Republican Party, so long as it thinks Trump is fit, is likely to nominate Trump.
I don't know how he would score on a test, but I know this.
We have an opportunity to nominate someone and elect someone for two terms who's going to be spitting nails on day one and for eight years deliver you big results.
We should not nominate somebody who's almost 80 years old.
Look Megan, it's often very difficult to be the only person on the stage who's telling the truth, and the only person who is taking on what needs to be taken on.
I look at my watch now, we're 17 minutes into this debate, and except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us.
The fifth guy, who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, He's the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.
And yet, I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort.
We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in, in their homes, without the government telling them what those values should be.
And yet, we want to take other parental rights away.
I'm sorry.
As a father of four, I believe there is no one who loves my children more than me.
Except that a lot of that stuff isn't really unsayable.
When you say that the 2016 election, the results were thwarted by the so-called deep state, pretty much every Republican believes that.
Literally all of us believe that the Russian hoax was a hoax promulgated by people inside the federal government who are promulgating false information.
The 2020 election was stolen by Big Tech.
If by that he means that Big Tech put its thumb on the scales for Joe Biden, we all believe that.
That's obviously true.
That's not saying the unsayable.
Literally everyone on stage will say that.
However, what he will do, he'll then put all of that in a sandwich with January 6th was an inside job.
I'm not sure what he means by January 6th was an inside job.
Does he mean that somehow the Trump administration, which was in power at the time, Worked with the protesters?
Does he mean that it was Nancy Pelosi working with the protesters who are coming into the Capitol building?
Does he just mean that there were police officers who opened the doors, which obviously is true after the riots were already in progress?
January 6th wasn't a quote-unquote inside job in the sense that no one committed criminal activity.
It's true the prosecution of some of the people who are in the Capitol is clearly excessive.
But inside job?
When he says that the government lied to us for years about 9-11, What he means is that one of the people who housed 9-11 hijackers was a member of the Saudi intelligence service and that was revealed in a report in 2021.
But he's making a broader claim than that when he says that the Great Replacement Theory is real.
That's a term with semantic overload because it has been used by white supremacists as a buzzword for replacement of whites by minorities, including Jews, and specifically Jews crafting this entire system in order to replace white people.
That's what people were chanting at, for example, Charlottesville when they said, Jews will not replace us.
They weren't worried about the invasion of hundreds of millions of Jews.
They were suggesting that Jews were presiding over the system of immigration.
But it is true that the Democratic Party has talked for 20 years about the changing demographics of the country, facilitating a permanent Democratic electoral majority.
So Vivek wants to win points for audacity.
But let's be real, he's really not saying anything that Tucker Carlson hasn't been saying better for longer.
In reality, Vivek, like Trump, needs an opponent.
In a vacuum, a lot of his viewpoints don't make all that much sense.
He's been on most sides of a wide variety of issues, but that also gives him leeway to fire at all the candidates from every other side of every other issue.
Provinces Divided: Hawks vs. Isolationists00:13:37
So last night, Vivek's target was mainly Nikki Haley, whom he perceives as his candidate of differentiation because she is the quote-unquote mainstream candidate.
DeSantis is popular at the base.
Nikki Haley is not nearly as popular with the base.
So Vivek was going to go after her using the same angle Trump himself used in 2016 against the so-called interventionists in the Republican Party.
Now, there are a few problems with this.
The biggest problem is that the right has always been divided between hawks and isolationists.
Going back to George H.W.
Bush versus, for example, Pat Buchanan.
And before that, Charles Lindbergh versus the rest of the Republican Party.
In the pre-World War II era, the isolationists on the right generally had their way.
In the post-World War II era, the hawks had their way on the right.
In the aftermath of the Iraq war, it's an open question who wins this battle, but as the world grows more dangerous, isolationists tend to actually lose sway.
The most obvious line of attack for Republicans against Joe Biden on foreign policy, for example, isn't that he is too interventionist.
It's that he's weak, that he's waffling, that he surrenders in Afghanistan, that he sends mixed signals, that our enemies can see all of that and they are taking advantage.
We'll get to the foreign policy issues that are being raised by Vivek in just one second, because they're kind of fascinating.
First, as a Dailyware listener, you're not just informed, you are engaged.
You value freedom and personal responsibility, and this is why you need to check out Metashare.
Metashare is a community-based approach to healthcare that lines up with the principles you actually believe in.
Your values matter.
And with Metashare, your healthcare dollars will not be used for medical procedures that don't line up with your beliefs.
Metashare is the highest rated healthcare sharing ministry with a 30-year proven track record.
It's not health insurance.
It's a community of 400,000 believers committed to caring and sharing with one another.
Members save up to 50% or more on their monthly healthcare costs.
Member satisfaction surveys show they like Metashare much more than their own health insurance.
Why?
Well, because Metashare actually works for a limited time.
Daily Wire listeners will receive a $150 gift card when they join MediShare.
To find out more, go to MediShare.com slash Ben.
That's MediShare.com slash Ben.
Terms and conditions do apply.
Go check them out right now.
MediShare.com slash Ben.
And again, this helps you not only get great medical coverage, but your healthcare dollars are not gonna be used for medical procedures that you have moral objections to.
Go check them out right now.
MediShare.com slash Ben.
Hey, so when it comes to foreign policy, Vivek launched a bunch of attacks on Nikki Haley last night.
Those attacks are generally from the isolationist right, which is very similar to the isolationist left.
The problem is, that doesn't really line up with the Republican perspective, writ large, on Joe Biden.
Joe Biden is weak.
It's not that Joe Biden is too muscular in foreign policy, it's that he's too weak, even in Ukraine.
The problem for Biden is that he refused to choose an actual line.
Either you have to give Ukraine the weaponry necessary to actually smash Russia in the Donbass and Crimea, or you have to find an off-ramp and pursue it.
Biden's choice, as always, is neither.
That's always his choice, is, what if I just, you know, sit here and be a vegetable?
But when it comes to Israel, the attack on Biden isn't that he's too pro-Israel.
From the right, it's that he enabled Iran, delisted the Houthis as a terrorist organization, fostered more funding for the Palestinian Authority and the UNRWA, which means Hamas, and now is trying to handcuff Israel in its ability to finish off a genocidal anti-Jewish terrorist group.
So, when Vivek, for example, attacks Nikki Haley for being too pro-Israel, that generally doesn't go over that well with the crowd that's not on X. Here he was last night doing just that.
Obviously, Israel isn't in America, and the interests of the United States are not always the interests of Israel and vice versa.
But suggesting that Haley holds some sort of dual loyalty is asinine, and the crowd knew, which is why that attack fell flat, even if the fever swamps of X cheer on this sort of silly posturing.
Likewise, the internet cheered Vivek quizzing Nikki Haley on the provinces of the Donbass region in Ukraine.
I want to say one thing about the tie to Ukraine, if I may.
So foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom.
I want everybody at home to know that I was the first person to say we need a reasonable peace deal in Ukraine.
Now a lot of the neocons are quietly coming along to that position, with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden, who still support this, what I believe is pointless war in Ukraine.
And I think those with foreign policy experience, one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.
These people have... I mean, she has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it.
So reject this myth that they've been selling you, that somebody had a cup of coffee stint at the UN and then makes 8 million bucks after, has real foreign policy experience.
It takes an outsider to see this through.
Look at the blank expression.
She doesn't know the names of the provinces that she wants to actually fight for.
And there's a puppet minister right there, the donors.
Couple of things to note about Vivek's point here.
One, Nikki has never called for putting troops into Ukraine.
No Republican candidate has.
Literally zero of them.
In fact, Haley's entire point is that you fund Ukraine so you don't have to put troops into Ukraine or any of the surrounding countries that would presumably be threatened if Russia were to take Kiev.
So he's completely misstating her position to suggest the sort of isolationist notion that we are going to send American boys and girls over to die for territories far away.
She has not suggested that.
No one has suggested that.
But it's worth noting that Haley did in fact, after this, name two of the three provinces correctly after the question.
She said Crimea instead of Kharkiv.
She said Donetsk and Luhansk.
Here's the reality.
Most Americans don't know the answer to this particular question.
That lack of knowledge isn't actually dispositive as to what American action should look like in any particular region.
This is a very tried and true attack line, and it doesn't tend to score a lot of points in the real world.
Why?
Well, because Geography B quizzes are a quick and easy way for isolationists to score a really cheap and easy point.
Quick!
Name all the provinces of East China.
You can't?
And how can you criticize China over its COVID-19 policies or oppose an invasion of Taiwan?
Can you name every province in all of China?
But these sorts of attacks don't actually work.
In 1999, George W. Bush was asked by a reporter to name the leaders of Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Chechnya.
He responded, Can you name the foreign minister of Mexico?
Bush won the election.
Americans don't need you to be an encyclopedia.
They needed to make the right decision when you are pressed.
And that decision comes from baseline worldview, not a quick search of the Google machine.
That's why Trump became president.
Do you think Trump could name like 10 other countries off the top of his head outside of Europe?
But being right isn't the point of a Vicks campaign.
It's oppositionality.
That's literally the whole point of the campaign.
That's why he went so hard at Haley, not just on policy, but personally.
In the most conspiratorial of ways, by the way.
He accused her of bad faith, of fascism, of fakery.
It was pretty ugly.
It was vague comparing Nikki Haley to Kamala Harris.
I don't question her faith, but I question her authenticity.
And I think that's deeper here.
We were just talking about the trans issue.
This is a symptom of a deeper cancer in American life.
Identity politics.
This new religion that says your race, your gender and your sexuality are your identity.
It is anti-American.
It is meritocratic, it's anti-meritocratic, and it is dividing this country to a breaking point.
And I've spoken about this to the left.
My books are all about this.
I've preached this to the left.
But it's even worse when Republicans try to play the same game.
We're talking about that trans issue.
Nikki Haley's campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad talking about how she would kick in heels.
At the first debate, she said that only a woman can get this job done.
That's what she said.
After the third debate, when I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five failed years of leadership of this party, and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military contractor, she said that I have a woman problem.
Nikki, I don't have a woman problem.
You have a corruption problem.
And I think that that's what people need to know.
Nikki is corrupt.
This is a woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house.
This is the problem.
Using identity politics more effectively than Kamala Harris is a form of intellectual fraud.
Nikki Haley was heaping praise on me when I wrote that book, but now I worry I was warning about the woke industrial complex in this country as a warning.
Apparently she read it as a how-to manual, just like she reads George Orwell's books as well.
And so I think that that's actually far more dangerous than... This is really important for people to understand.
We're marching towards fascism under Biden.
Jack Smith has subpoenaed Every last retweet that someone has issued from Donald Trump in the year 2020, the only person more fascist than the Biden regime now is Nikki Haley, who thinks the government should identify every one of those individuals with an ID.
We're now 25 minutes into this debate, and he has insulted Nikki Haley's basic intelligence.
Not her positions, her basic intelligence.
She doesn't know regions.
She wouldn't be able to find something on a map that his three-year-old could find.
Look, if you want to disagree on issues, that's fine.
And Nikki and I disagree on some issues.
But I'll tell you this, I've known her for 12 years, which is longer than he's even started to vote in a Republican primary.
And while we disagree about some issues and we disagree about who should be president of the United States, what we don't disagree on is, this is a smart, accomplished woman.
Again, what's amazing about Chris Christy is that he actually does have a lot of innate political talent, which is why he became governor of New Jersey.
He then misused it and blew it in every single way.
That wasn't the extent of Christy laying into Vivek last night after the debate.
He also laid into Vivek in the post-debate spin room.
Because that's what it is, when he's dictating to me and Nikki Haley, who have committed ourselves to public service, while he's been off stealing from seniors to make his fortune.
The Helix Elite collection includes six different mattress models, each tailored for specific sleep positions and firmness preferences.
Head on over to HelixSleep.com slash Ben, check out the new collection today.
If you're nervous about buying a mattress online while you don't have to be, Helix has a sleep quiz.
It matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress.
Cause why would you buy a mattress made for somebody else?
I took that Helix quiz.
I was matched with a firm but breathable mattress, which is what I need if the mattress is too soft.
I get back pain.
It's not breathable.
I heat up too much at night.
Helix right now is offering you 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows for my listeners.
Go to helixsleep.com slash Ben.
It is their best offer yet.
It's not going to last long with Helix.
Better sleep starts right now.
Go check them out right now.
Helix has a 10 year warranty.
You can try it out for 100 nights risk free.
Go to helixsleep.com slash Ben to get started.
Also, When The Daily Wire made Lady Ballers, we made history with our first ever full-length comedy.
And we made history again this week when Lady Ballers skyrocketed to become the nation's number one streaming movie, all thanks to your incredible support.
With a solid 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and thousands of user reviews, Lady Ballers is the return of comedies we all enjoy.
We've proven that breaking records and shattering expectations is part of The Daily Wire's DNA.
Our mission, if we choose to accept it.
How do we outperform the top reigning movie?
There's only one way to do it.
We want everyone to watch Lady Ballers exclusively on Daily Wire Plus and beat our own record-setting opening weekend.
If you haven't watched Lady Ballers, it's time to join in on the laughs.
If you have friends, family, co-workers, pets who haven't watched Lady Ballers, tell them they have to watch the number one movie in America streaming exclusively at Daily Wire Plus.
Take a look at the nation's top stream movie from the Daily Wire, Lady Ballers.
unidentified
In a world where women's sports is being transformed, The Daily Wire calls foul with the most triggering comedy
Get your Daily Wire Plus membership now at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
Okay, meanwhile...
Final note about last night's debate.
It showed that the gap between winning a primary campaign and winning a general election is indeed very real for Republicans.
By polling data, Nikki Haley is the Republican best positioned against Joe Biden.
DeSantis leads Biden by one in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Donald Trump is up on Biden by a couple of points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Nikki Haley leads Joe Biden by five in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
In some polls, she's up by as much as ten points.
But aside from foreign policy, where Haley is a hawk's hawk, her positions are, in fact, moderate across the board, from abortion to gender surgery for minors.
Here she was last night walking back her stated position on gender surgery for the underage.
She said yesterday, as we played it on the show, that should be a question for parents.
And I just ask you, if you're somebody that's going to be the President of the United States, and you can't stand up against child abuse, how are you going to be able to stand up for anything?
OK, but that moderate position that she laid out yesterday is not a position that Republicans like because it's not a good position.
The Republican primary electorate is not in the mood for moderation.
You have to be either militant in policy or in affect, which is, again, why Trump, who is a moderate on many of the same policies, ironically, on which Haley is, is way out in front. He might be closer
to Haley on policy than he is even to DeSantis, but his affect is always militant. And let's be
frank about this, the Republican base is pissed off. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is betting that
Republican anger will backfire on Republicans the same way that it did in 2020. It's not a bad bet, by
the way, because when you look at what's happening in Congress, Republican militants may lose them
the House majority without even another election taking place.
So, last night, Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House, who was ousted by Matt Gaetz and company for literally no reason, Mike Johnson has now replaced McCarthy, and the House is running in exactly the same way that it was when McCarthy was the Speaker of the House.
So nothing has changed.
It was merely a petty grudge match between McCarthy and Gaetz, in which Gaetz decided to depose McCarthy, and McCarthy's like, you know what, I've had enough of this, and he is leaving.
He announced yesterday that at the end of his term, he was going to leave.
He says, no matter the odds or personal cost, we did the right thing.
This is what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
It is in this spirit I've decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways.
I know my work is only getting started.
There's one problem for Republicans.
They just ousted George Santos, who is a fraudster.
They just ousted him from Congress.
And that seat will likely go Democrat.
Kevin McCarthy's seat is going to be up for a special election.
Republicans currently hold 221 seats to Democrats 213.
That means they can afford three defections on party line votes.
With Santos out and McCarthy leaving by the end of the year, well, that means that the buffer dwindles to two votes as early as mid-February.
So that means that the Republican majority in the House is now two votes large.
So they better hope nobody dies.
Nobody has a skiing accident.
Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma, chair of the Republican Study Committee, he said it emboldens some individuals at any given time with a specific issue to hold up and stop the entire process.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has emerged as an actual Republican who wants to get things done, says, I think it makes everything harder.
That's everything from appropriations bills to impeachments to passing anything on the House floor.
Again, he was ousted for no reason and McCarthy's like, I've had it and I'm out.
And you're seeing a lot of Republicans who feel this way.
What's what's hilarious is that Democrats are looking at the upcoming election.
Many of them are retiring.
Many, many more Democrats are retiring in 2024 than Republicans leaving those seats open.
But Democrats are leaving because they see that Joe Biden is a weak candidate.
Republicans are leaving because they're tired of each other and they're annoyed by the false purity tests that they are engaging upon with each other.
So leave it to Republicans to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
That is one thing they are good at.
And Democrats are counting on them to do that again.
That's precisely what Joe Biden is counting on.
So yesterday he was giving a speech, the president, and he said, I'm not the only person who can beat Trump, but I will defeat him.
That's following up on his comments.
Literally, the only reason he's running is because he thinks Trump is the nominee.
unidentified
Any Democrat who could defeat Donald Trump other than you?
Well, he ran a basement campaign last time and hit a bunch of factors in his favor, including a vast uptick in absentee voting that is not going to be repeated this time around.
And so again, the left is relying on Republicans basically running directly headlong.
It's not a horrible bet.
Republicans jump on rakes on a routine basis.
They're basically like that sideshow Bob clip from The Simpsons where he walks on every rake.
That's Republicans.
Is that a smart bet by Democrats?
Again, the way they think they're going to run against Donald Trump is by claiming that he is a fascist and a criminal.
So just keep saying fascist over and over and over, that's going to win you the election.
I have serious, serious doubts that that is, in fact, the case.
And the reality is that, as I've said many times before, everything is baked into the cake with regard to Trump.
The only question is whether a criminal conviction is baked into the cake.
That is literally the only question left in this election cycle.
If Donald Trump is criminally convicted, which he likely will be in Washington, D.C., not because he's guilty of the crimes alleged, but because it's a Washington, D.C.
jury, if that happens, does that change the poll numbers in any market or serious way?
Or everyone already kind of assumes that that's the way that it's going to go?
Joe Biden was the default candidate in 2020.
Today, because Biden is really bad at this, Trump is the default candidate.
And that is a serious problem for Joe Biden and all the people shrieking fascist from the top of the Empire State Building.
It is not going to work.
Okay, in just one second, we'll get to the latest from Ukraine.
Where Democrats can't seem to make the obvious deal that is right in front of them.
First, The Ben Shapiro Show is supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university with a vibrant campus in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.
Ranked top 20 in the country by Niche.com, GCU is a missional, Christ-centered university striving to foster a culture of community, giving, and impact.
GCU's goal is to help you develop into a servant leader who can make a difference through finding your purpose.
With 330 academic programs and over 270 online as of June 2023, GCU integrates the free market system with a welcoming Christian worldview into your bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree.
You'll have support from your own university counselor who takes a personalized approach to helping you achieve those goals.
Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.
Private.
Christian.
Affordable.
Visit gcu.edu today.
Okay.
Well, meanwhile, the Biden administration having a very tough time pulling the trigger on what is a very obvious deal.
So Republicans have basically said at this point, all right, fine.
You want your funding for Ukraine?
We'll give you your funding for Ukraine, even though we don't like it, if you give us some border security.
And Joe Biden is just fighting this thing tooth and nail.
He believes that he has a winning proposition with the American people by suggesting that Republicans are out of touch on Ukraine because they want some sort of off-ramp In Ukraine, that if Joe Biden screams freedom over and over without any plan, that this is somehow going to make everything all better.
That is not going to work.
So here is Joe Biden yesterday.
Again, the deal is in front of him.
The deal is in front of him.
Republicans in the Senate have said border security plus funding for Taiwan, plus funding for Israel, plus funding for Ukraine, and we'll do it.
And Joe Biden is threatening to veto that.
He's basically having his Democrats in the Senate block that bill.
And then he's gonna try and ram through his own naked Ukraine funding vehicle, presumably.
Without border security?
And he thinks that's a winning proposition for Americans for some reason.
So again, this idea is that if you don't support his latest spending package without border security, then Americans are going to be very, very angry at you.
I'm just wondering why, since we've already spent, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, we've already spent $113 billion in Ukraine.
And he's provided no off ramp.
Again, Biden's position is always shout broad slogans without any plan.
I'm not sure how this is going to work.
Biden is accusing Republicans of playing chicken with national security while he is playing chicken with national security.
There is a must-pass bill coming, and I believe in the Senate it's got funding for Israel, funding for Ukraine, and funding for border security.
I hope that passes, and I hope in the House they had a writer cutting off all the funds that go to these Ivy Universities that are engaged in anti-Semitism.
Where is that bill right now, Senator, and what's in it?
unidentified
So the bill right now is called a Supplemental Funding Bill.
It's additional money to be able to help Ukraine, Israel, work in the Pacific, and also border funding.
We are actually in the Senate going to stop that bill from moving through because it doesn't have border policy issues.
Adding more money to the border just facilitates more people crossing the border faster with an actual change of direction on it.
So Senate Republicans will actually put a stop to that today and will say we are glad to be able to have a vote on this as long as we're also solving the issue at our southern border.
I mean, again, this is a pretty obvious win for Biden.
He gets pretty much what he wants.
And then he also gets to say that he facilitated border security.
So I don't really see the rationale other than he has an ideological commitment to some form of open borders, which is why he still has Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, which, again, is ridiculous since he's not guaranteeing the security of the homeland in any way, shape or form, suggesting that Joe Biden is actually doing an amazing job on immigration.
The immigration system has been broken for decades, and our Department of Homeland Security has been underfunded for years and years.
And President Biden has addressed both issues with strength from day one.
On the first day of his administration, he presented Congress with legislation to fix our immigration system.
And we have submitted to Congress a supplemental funding bill that will resource our department, the heroic Border Patrol agents that you displayed just a few minutes ago, to fund them as they need to address what is an unprecedented level of migration, not only at our southern border, not only in the Western Hemisphere, but throughout the world.
Republicans are objecting to the fact that what Mayorkas and Biden want is more money on the border to facilitate faster entry.
Not to actually close the border.
Not to change border policy.
They want more agents to wave people through.
That's the idea here.
Meanwhile, Mayorkas is expending his political capital suggesting that the governor of Texas is doing something deeply wrong by shuttling migrants from Texas to places like Chicago, New York.
Again, it's very hilarious.
The Democrats continue to maintain that it's horrible for illegal immigrants to go to major American cities that are dominated by Democrats.
That basically, their border policy has to only affect red states.
With respect to Governor Pritzker, with whom I communicate on a regular basis, we have provided him with tremendous assistance, not just financially through our shelter and services program, funding that the President achieved, but also in providing technical advice.
But let's get to the root.
of what Governor Pritzker's challenge is, is that we have another governor in another state that is not cooperating and coordinating with either federal or other local authorities and is unilaterally sending migrants to cities in what I think is an abdication of governance responsibility.
Well, I mean, you guys are doing it every day, but from Mexico, so that's weird.
Again, Joe Biden could end all this today by simply saying, okay, we'll change our border policies, and I'll then be considered stronger on the border.
I'll have a defense when I'm attacked in a presidential race, but he is so attached to his left flank that he simply can't do it.
Meanwhile, over at the university, so the university's made a big boo-boo the day before yesterday.
the heads of Harvard, MIT, University of Pennsylvania.
They went to the Hill and they just exploded.
They did a horrible job.
They refused to say whether it is a violation of school policy to shout genocidal chants against Jews.
And then they had to walk it back.
So this was obviously ridiculous.
They waited like 24, 48 hours.
The problem that they have, as I discussed yesterday on the program,
is that the ideology of intersectionality demands the Jews be subjected to chants like this
because Jews are not part of the intersectional coalition.
Jews are quote-unquote white people, because they are part of the power hierarchy.
And so when people chant about getting rid of the Jews, well, you know, if they are the oppressed people who are shouting that, can you really target them?
Well, this has led to some backtracking from some of these university presidents well after the fact.
Claudine Gay, who is the president of Harvard, she put out a statement saying,
quote, there are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard
will condone calls for violence against Jewish students.
Let me be clear, calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community or any religious or
ethnic group are vile. They have no place at Harvard. Those who threaten our Jewish students
will be held to account.
Now, again, she's living herself some wiggle room there.
Because if you say, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, which is a call for genocide against Jews in that region, then apparently that's okay.
Or intifada revolution, that apparently is okay.
Only if you shout straight up, I want to kill that Jew, would Claudine Gay get involved.
The reality is that these universities have very strict speech codes.
If I say, boys are not girls, I might be brought up in front of the academic senate at these universities.
But suddenly they're relying on their free speech principles we pointed out yesterday.
It's absolute nonsense.
The blowback to these presidents was in fact strong from most sides of the aisle.
Even some Democrats were going after them.
So, Representative Jake Auchincloss, as well as Seth Moulton, both from Massachusetts, they put out a statement saying, Harvard ranks last out of 248 universities for support of free speech.
When it comes to denouncing anti-Semitism, suddenly the university has anxieties about the First Amendment.
It rings hollow.
Well, yes, even the White House went after these university presidents, putting out a statement suggesting that this is ridiculous.
According to Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates, he said, quote, it's unbelievable this needs to be said.
Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.
Any statement that advocates for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting.
We should all stand firmly against them.
Only after the left signed in did these presidents start to back down.
Here was the University of Pennsylvania president who was caught on video kind of smirking as she was asked this question.
She looks quite contrite now because what the... She's blinking in Morse code.
Please leave me in my job.
That's what she's blinking in Morse code here.
unidentified
There was a moment during yesterday's congressional hearing on anti-Semitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies.
In that moment, I was focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S.
Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.
I was not focused on, but I should have been.
The irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.
It's evil.
Plain and simple.
I want to be clear.
A call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening.
All these presidents were saying this stuff because they believe this stuff.
And now they're being forced to back off the point because there are a lot of donors who don't particularly like it,
but they still believe this stuff.
In fact, they were put in these positions because they believe this stuff.
This was the litmus test in the first place.
And again, the stupidity, if you want to see the stupid person's version of this ridiculous argument,
all you have to do is tune over to The View, where Sonny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg are rushing to the
university's defense, claiming legal knowledge.
Again, Sonny Hostin, if she's your lawyer, man, you better get ready for some prison time, because she is the world's worst lawyer.
Here's Sonny Hostin trying to claim that legally speaking, these presidents are not allowed to take action against students who are calling for anti-Jewish genocide.
Naturally, it's Whoopi Goldberg and Sonny Hostin leading the charge on this one.
Of course, of course.
Because Whoopi is the same person who said that Hitler was not a racist when he went after the Jews because Jews were white people and it was white-on-white violence.
Again, they believe the stupid people version of what all these presidents believe.
The First Amendment standard, unfortunately, is not the standard on college campuses.
I've been banned from colleges for saying some of the things that I say.
This is such a lie.
By the way, if you're a student, you put up a noose outside a black student's dorm at a major university, not only will you be canceled socially, you'll be expelled from the university.
We all know this.
This is a fact.
Whoopi Goldberg is a liar and she's stupid to boot.
I don't know whether she's lying or whether she's freaking dumb.
But the fact is that between Whoopi Goldberg and Sonny Haas and suddenly becoming First Amendment attorneys and their obvious crossover with the fact that they are kind of on the side of the Hamas next year.
And when I say kind of, I mean pretty obviously on the side of the Hamas next year.
That's what's happening.
Suddenly, the same people who hate free speech, the minute that their side is threatened by the standards that they themselves have set, suddenly they're free speech advocates.
It's amazing.
Truly incredible stuff.
Now again, if you want to set a free speech standard at these schools that anybody can say pretty much anything, that we're going to broaden the Overton window of behavior to include many more quote-unquote extreme viewpoints, that's fair.
But you know what's not?
These are the most restrictive places in America in terms of speech codes.
And suddenly, there's only one thing that is somehow immune to these speech codes, and that is when you're calling for the extermination of Jews in the Middle East.
When you're calling for the removal of Jews from that entire region.
Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now, you're not going to want to miss it.
We'll be joined online by Elise Stefanik, she's House Republican Conference Chair.
She was the congresswoman who was grilling these presidents of major American universities.
If you're not a member, become a member!
Use code SHAPIRO at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.