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Jan. 30, 2024 - The Ben Shapiro Show
49:36
Biden Needs Taylor Swift
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When it comes to the 2024 election, there are a couple of points made.
One for Republicans and one for Democrats.
Let's start with the point for Democrats.
Celebrities are not going to save you.
I know that Democrats seem to believe that leveraging celebrity in favor of their best political candidates magically raises them to victory.
They're thinking back to a time when Marilyn Monroe was singing Happy Birthday Mr. President to the president she was shipping, JFK.
They're thinking back to a time during the 1990s when Bill Clinton was playing saxophone on late night TV.
They're thinking back to a time when celebrity mattered an awful lot more than it does right now.
And they've tried this before.
Trying to drag a lackluster candidate over the finish line with celebrity tends not to work.
But when you are a desperate candidate, you have to take desperate measures, which is why The New York Times is reporting today that President Biden is trying to pump energy into his re-elect bid, kicking off what is likely to be an ugly, dispiriting, and historically long slog to November between two unpopular candidates.
Apparently, he has now sent two of his most trusted White House operatives to take the helm of his reelect campaign in Wilmington, Delaware.
Other Biden aides are drafting wish lists of potential surrogates, including elected officials, social media influencers, and the endorsement of their wildest dreams, the global superstar, Taylor Swift.
Oh yes, they are resorting to the Swifties this early.
That is not a good sign for your campaign.
When you are starting to target Taylor Swift as like, if she endorses, oh my God, that's going to change everything.
So first of all, we should point out Taylor Swift did in fact endorse Joe Biden for president in 2020.
It didn't really move the needle all that much because she's just a very famous pop star and very famous pop stars endorsing people doesn't tend to move the needle all that much.
Thank God.
Now, there are some polls that suggest that actually A fifth of voters are likely to back the candidate endorsed by the singer.
There's a poll conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies for Newsweek, and it found that 18% of voters say they are more likely, or significantly more likely, to vote for a candidate endorsed by Taylor Swift, and that sway was most visible with voters under the age of 35.
So I have a mild proposal, a moderate proposal.
If you base your vote on who Taylor Swift endorses, you should not be allowed to vote in the United States.
This doesn't hold just true for Taylor Swift.
If you base your vote on the thoughts of celebrities who spend two seconds engaging with politics, but you really like their songs, you should not be voting.
If you are voting Republican based on the endorsement of Kanye West, if you are voting Democrat based on the endorsement of Taylor Swift, you should not be voting.
That is not how politics is supposed to work.
And it's worth noting again that back in 2020, she literally tweeted in favor of Joe Biden.
She tweeted, quote, After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence.
When the looting starts, the shooting starts.
We will vote you out in November, Donald Trump.
Now, it is also true that 17% said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Taylor Swift.
So 18% said more likely, 17% said less likely.
How about this?
How about we don't care?
How about no one cares what Taylor Swift has to say on politics because she is a pop star and she makes songs and then is in many shots by the NFL.
Quick side note here.
I have to say, good for Lamar Jackson for preserving his breathing on this planet because if Lamar Jackson had actually put the Kansas City Chiefs in danger of losing the AFC Championship game the other day, Roger Goodell would have hit him with a drone to prevent that from happening.
There's actually a drone hovering over the stadium.
It's gonna be like a Barack Obama drone attack in Somalia or something if Lamar Jackson actually brought the Baltimore Ravens to the brink of the Super Bowl.
In any case, Biden is now early reaching for the celebrity lever.
When you're reaching for the celebrity button or lever that quickly, you're in serious, serious trouble.
According to the New York Times, the campaign has begun discussing discussions with celebrities and social media stars about promoting Mr. Biden on Instagram and TikTok because there's nothing the kids like better than their favorite celebrities endorsing A vegetable.
When Biden took a fundraising swing through Southern California in December, the campaign carved out time to meet with influencers to pitch them on posting pro-Biden content.
You remember some of the pro-Biden content from a little bit earlier in his presidency, including random weird people with selfie sticks in the White House being all strange and off-putting?
We're gonna get a lot of that this year.
The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Swift herself, the pop sensation and NFL enthusiast who can move millions of supporters with an Instagram post or mid-concert aside.
She endorsed Biden in 2020.
Last year, a single Instagram post led to 35,000 new voter registrations.
Okay, can I just point out here that first of all, her Instagram, how many followers does Taylor Swift have on Instagram?
She must have, oh my God, hundreds of millions of followers, 280 million followers on Instagram.
And she was able to register 35,000 people.
Those are not amazing numbers.
If Joe Biden is counting on Taylor Swift, getting millions of people to vote, good luck to him.
Gavin Newsom apparently all but begged Taylor Swift to become more involved in Biden's campaign.
He said, quote, Taylor Swift stands tall and unique.
What she was able to accomplish just in getting young people activated to consider they have a voice and they should have a choice in the next election, I think is profoundly powerful.
That, of course, is Gavin Newsom trying to massage Taylor Swift into endorsing him for president in 2028.
The chatter around Swift and the potential of her 279 million Instagram followers being reached, reached such intensity that the Biden team urged applicants in a job posting for a social media position not to describe their Taylor Swift strategy.
There was an idea that maybe they would send Biden to actually her eras tour, which would be the death of her eras tour, by the way.
Like nobody wants to watch that old dude hobble up there and then try to dance to Taylor Swift's overproduced music at this point.
So instead of actually, you know, being a good president, they're going to try to bring Taylor Swift on board in all of this.
Now, again, I'll just point out here, the Democrats have been trying to play this game for multiple election cycles in a row.
Barack Obama did not win in 2008 or 2012 because he had celebrity endorsements.
He won because he was the celebrity.
It is one thing for the candidate themselves to be a celebrity.
Donald Trump won in 2016 because he was a celebrity.
Pop cultural relevance does matter an awful lot.
But only when the person with the pop cultural relevance is the politician himself.
It is non-transferable credit.
If you stand next to Taylor Swift, that does not make you Taylor Swift.
And it does not give you the appeal of Taylor Swift.
Again, Hillary Clinton tried to do this back in 2016.
Here was Hillary Clinton trotting out every celebrity she could possibly find to sing fight song.
I don't know if you remember this.
It was one of the most irritating things in the history of American politics.
I mean, honestly, Hillary Clinton's entire 2016 campaign was just a two-year nails-on-the-chalkboard moment.
Just interminable nails on the chalkboard.
And so she trotted out at the DNC a bunch of celebrities like Elizabeth Banks and Mandy Moore singing fight song.
And you know what happened?
She lost.
Here is a little bit of that just to remind you and to irritate you today.
This is for Hillary.
Oh, no.
You remember this?
Oh, no.
Oh, good lord.
Yeah, you remember this?
You remember this?
From the lady who never became president?
Again, relying on celebrities is not going to fix your problem.
No, no, cut it off before we get to the chorus.
No, no, don't do it.
No.
No.
OK, so.
Oh, no, please stop.
No, but actually stop.
It's OK.
We're done.
In any case.
Wrong you are!
Not gonna work.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
candidates that no one likes remain elderly candidates that no one likes. So
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fixed by Tay Tay, wrong you are not gonna work. We get some more on this in just
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Okay, now, onto the Republican side of the aisle.
Guys, not everything is a Pentagon conspiracy.
So, the right has been falling for this line a lot.
For the past 10, 12 years, increasingly, every conspiracy theory now must be treated as a real possibility.
So here's the problem with conspiracy theories.
The problem with conspiracy theories is that almost always they are wrong.
The reason I say almost always they are wrong, sometimes they're right, but almost always they are wrong because they require incredible levels of dedication.
They require incredible levels of competence.
And every time somebody says something about the moon landing being faked, for example, you have to think to yourself, how many thousands of people would have to be in on it and competently do their part in order to make this happen?
And then it could be debunked, as my friend Matt Walsh said, by some schmuck in the internet connection in 2024 and like a couple of pictures from Google images.
And the answer is no, that is not real.
Okay, the problem with conspiracy, sometimes they're fun, sometimes they're silly, but conspiracy theory starts to do damage because if you believe that a conspiracy is in control of all the things you see, all the things you hear, it is enervating.
It makes you less likely to get active.
It makes you more likely to believe that nothing you do is going to end with the result that you seek.
There is no connection between your action and the result because there's an intervening conspiracy to stop that thing from happening.
And that is particularly true in politics.
It's the reason I do not like and still do not like.
I did not like.
I still don't like.
The whole Donald Trump had the election actively voter fraud stolen from him in 2020.
The reason this is bad is not just because it's not true and there's not enough evidence to demonstrate it.
And Donald Trump has never shown enough evidence to demonstrate that.
You can say that the election was rigged.
I agree with that.
If by that you mean that all the rules were changed, that you saw an unprecedented number of voters in that election cycle, virtually all of whom were marginal voters who had very little interest in voting in the first place and who are now sending their ballot in by mail months in advance of the election in violation of the way that law is normally supposed to work.
Totally agree with that.
If you want to argue that the media rigged the election by ignoring all of the relevant issues in 2020 in favor of a bunch of garbage and then actually hid stories about Joe Biden in the run-up to, again, totally agree.
You want to argue that social media was actively stumping on behalf of Joe Biden and acting at the behest of actors in the deep state to stymie stories.
Totally agree with that.
That is not the same thing as the conspiracy theory that there was a well-organized voter fraud effort that deprived Donald Trump of his reelect.
The reason that's bad is not, again, just because it's untrue.
It is also because if that's true, why bother voting?
And that, in fact, is how people reacted.
If you recall all the way back to early 2021, well, we were in the midst of all of this craziness.
Donald Trump literally told people that in Georgia.
And so we now have two Democratic senators in Georgia, a heavily red state.
And if Donald Trump is the nominee, which he will be, then he's going to win that state in all likelihood this time around.
What happened?
What happened?
Did all the voter fraud just disappear?
Or is it possible that he just wasn't that popular a candidate in 2020 because of all the aforementioned reasons and because he ran a bad campaign in 2020 and didn't do an amazing job in 2020?
But he could win in 2024.
The problem with conspiracy theories is, again, it leads you to believe that all the factors out there that could lead to your success are actually beyond your control.
So, while the Democrats are busily digging their own graves by saying, look, we're going to ignore the fact that we're crappy on policy and we're going to go get Tay-Tay to endorse it.
If we can get the 1989 lady, you know, the lady who's... How old is Taylor Swift now?
Taylor Swift is... I think she's 34, right?
Yeah.
They're like, if we can get the 34-year-old lady who sings songs like she's 17 years old and breaking up with her first boyfriend again, and she's like two years younger than my wife, who's a doctor and has four kids.
If we can get that lady to endorse us, then magically, we are going to win the election.
If Republicans just stood there like, why?
How desperate are you?
That is a much better attack than what we have seen instead, which is a bunch of people on the right going, it's a PSYOP.
It's a Pentagon PSYOP.
Everything's a conspiracy.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Now listen, again, I think some of this stuff is hilarious.
I think that it's- I think that the entire Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce so she can boost the NFL's ratings and then write a breakup song, Fury of Life, may very well be true.
Because, again, everything around Taylor Swift is incredibly produced, everything around the NFL is incredibly produced, and frankly, it's funny, and I enjoy the funny of it.
I enjoy the trollery of it.
But one of the signal failures of the right these days is to believe that everything is a conspiracy.
So there's a theory going around, I kid you not, that Taylor Swift is being promoted by the NFL, which she is, for ratings.
I mean, the ratings have gone up because Taylor Swift is very popular and people are amused and interested in the fact that she is dating the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelsey, and that every so often, and by every so often I mean literally every 27 seconds when the producer gets fired, the NFL swivels to a view of her in the skybox.
People have speculated, on the right, that this is actually a Pentagon deep state conspiracy that is designed to elevate Taylor Swift so that she will endorse Joe Biden and thus change the election.
Guys, not everything is 4D chess.
Not everything is 4D chess.
Again, I'm all here for the pop culture, people dating each other for the press kind of stuff because they do that all the time.
That does happen in Hollywood all the time.
It happens in the music industry all the time.
You can find entire ratings online of Taylor Swift's various romances and which are considered legit and which ones are just sort of put together for the press.
This has been a long-standing tradition in Taylor Swift circles, from what I understand.
Again, I'm no Taylor Swift expert.
I'm not a Swifty.
I don't know her songs very well.
I don't know her oeuvre.
I don't know, like, pretty much anything about what she does, other than some of her songs are catchy, but those tend to be the older songs.
And she doesn't write any of her own songs anymore.
But!
The theory that is now going around, and again, it's become popular on the right, is indicative of a deeper rot inside the Republican Party, which is that when you despair of the world, you start to think that everything is a conspiracy.
So, there's a video that's going around from 2019 of somebody in like the Pentagon PSYOP division talking about how they would love to recruit Taylor Swift.
I'm sure they would!
I'm sure they would.
I mean, like, who wouldn't?
If you're a government and you could get Taylor Swift as, like, a CIA asset, why wouldn't you?
Does that mean that what we are watching right now is, like, a deep state conspiracy to promote Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce?
And then, I guess there's a deep state conspiracy so that the San Francisco 49ers will lose the Super Bowl and Travis Kelce will propose to Taylor Swift and her first act, upon being proposed to, will be to accept the ring and then immediately turn around and say, but there's only one person I love more.
Joseph R. Biden. And suddenly Biden's winning in a landslide.
Again, if that first of all, if that's the Pentagon's plan, it's the dumbest plan I ever
heard. Taylor Swift can't move 35,000 voter registrations. That's really stupid. But anyway, here
is the theory being laid out here.
Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?
Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon's Psychological Operations Unit floated
turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.
What kind of asset?
A psy-op for combating online misinformation.
Listen.
You came in here wanting to understand how you just go out there and counter an information operation.
The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change, so potentially as like a peaceful information operation.
I include Taylor Swift in here because she's a fairly influential online person.
I don't know if you've heard of her.
Yeah, that's real.
The Pentagon PSYOP unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online.
If I was running Biden's management perception team, I would identify someone who would align themselves with my agenda, such as a Taylor Swift who has close to 600 million followers.
I would target her, I would engage her, and I would get her to do what we used to see as like public service announcements and that type of enlistment.
That type of solicitation is analogous to the old days of deployment of a PSYOP.
You mean a celebrity endorsement in a candidate's campaign?
Is that what we're talking about here?
Again, is this like super worthwhile?
Is this super worthwhile?
Is it like the worst thing in the world that people are... Again, it is indicative of a broader mindset.
Guys, not everything you don't like is a conspiracy.
Not everything I don't like is a conspiracy.
Some things are in fact conspiracies.
But I promise you, if this is a conspiracy, it's the stupidest conspiracy of all time.
She already endorsed Biden.
She's going to endorse him again.
Taylor Swift is a very popular, very, very popular musician, probably most popular musician in world history by metrics.
And you know what's going to happen if she endorses Joe Biden?
Nothing!
Because he's a crap president!
Nothing is going to happen!
So like, all the angst and all the kind of heartburn that you see on the right constantly about this sort of stuff... The left is motivated.
The left does try to do bad things.
But when they try to do the bad things...
We can all usually see it when they are trying to make sure that small children are exposed to pornography in school libraries.
They're doing it right out in the open and you can stop it and you can work on it.
The whole basis of politics is that we can make choices to actually impede the progress of a wild left.
And when you start getting into like every single thing that we see over here is some sort of organized psyop.
It's just I think it's enervating.
I think it's bad for the Republican Party.
I don't think it's good for conservative.
I don't think it's good for America.
I think the generalized belief that all systems are rigged in America is a very bad belief, whether it is on the left or whether it is on the right, because the truth is in America, Very few things are truly, truly rigged to the extent that people like to believe they are.
And when politicians tell you that things are so rigged, everything is so rigged, when they say that sort of stuff without any real evidence...
When they don't present evidence, they just say that things are rigged.
Typically, it's because they want more power to rig them the other way.
That is what they are doing here, and I don't like any of it.
We'll get some more on that in just one second.
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Okay, meanwhile, speaking of Joe Biden being like an absolute crappy president, the thing that people are actually gonna vote based on, We are now finding out that the names of the soldiers who were killed in Jordan by Iranian proxy forces.
What exactly happened?
According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States failed to stop a deadly attack on an American military outpost in Jordan when the enemy drone approached its target at the same time as a U.S.
drone was also returning to base, U.S.
officials said.
So basically, an Iranian drone came in at the same time an American drone was coming in.
They mixed up the American drone and the Iranian drone, and the Iranian drone killed a bunch of American soldiers, and there are still something like 40 wounded.
The return of the U.S.
drone led to some confusion over whether the incoming drone was friend or foe.
They cautioned the inquiry into the attack was in an early stage, according to officials.
The enemy drone was launched from Iraq by a militia backed by Tehran and struck the outpost's living quarters.
That outpost sits near the borders of Iraq and Syria.
Jordan has requested, of course, American presence in Jordan in order to protect their own borders, and Jordan is a U.S.
ally in the region.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters there's a responsibility that needs to be laid at the feet of the leaders in Tehran.
But the problem, of course, is, as we have said, the Biden administration has botched this thing six ways from Sunday.
I'll just remind you that right now what we are seeing in the Middle East, this giant conflagration, is all Biden.
In the same way, the giant wave at the border is all Biden.
Back in September 2023, Jake Sullivan, wisest, fairest in the land of most national security, such a wise person that he moved from the Obama administration where he screwed up national security to the Biden administration where he screwed up national security.
He was at the Atlantic conferences back in September.
And here he was bragging about how quiet the Middle East was in September.
You may recall that in October, some things happened.
Look, first, I think it's very important to note that this is an incredibly volatile time in the Middle East.
today than it has been in two decades.
Quieter today than in two decades.
And then here is Antony Blinken, the secretary of state yesterday.
Look, first, I think it's very important to note that this is an incredibly volatile time
in the Middle East.
I would argue that we have not seen a situation.
as dangerous as the one we're facing now across the region since at least 1973 and arguably
even before that. Oh well I mean what changed? What magically changed?
Now of course October 7th happened but the question is why did October 7th happen?
And the answer is because you pursued a pro-Iranian policy from day one of this administration and it emboldened Iran and made Iran believe that they could push the United States around and its allies in the region without any sort of serious consequences.
And of course, Iran so far has been right.
And when John Kirby keeps putting out there All of these sort of weak need responses to Iran killing Americans.
Iran is sitting there thinking, OK, we can get away with pretty much anything we want.
Does it really hurt Iran if we kill a few of its proxy forces without dismantling the terror networks?
Does it really hurt Iran if we allow the Red Sea to continue to become a sort of pond on behalf of Iranian military proxies?
What exactly are we doing to hurt Iran at this point?
Again, Donald Trump had them contained.
Joe Biden has not only uncontained them, he's released them.
He's unleashed the power of Iran via its proxies all over the Middle East.
Look at a map.
Look at a map.
Iran is all over the damn place.
If you look at the Middle Eastern peninsula, what you will see is Iran at the south.
You'll see Iran in the east.
You'll see Iran in the west.
That is a deliberate policy decision by the Biden administration to let Iran out of the box.
So yesterday, John Kirby said, don't worry, we're not looking for a military solution with Iran.
Now listen, no one wants a war with Iran, but you know who really, really doesn't want a war with Iran?
Iran.
I keep saying this, but people pretend that it's not a reality.
In a war with Iran, Iran loses.
It might not be fun for the United States.
It won't be fun for the United States.
It might cost money.
But no one wants a war with Iran in the United States, but you know who wants a war even less?
And that matters because when you're trying to deter someone, if you don't want to get in a fight with that guy over there, And that guy over there is crazy.
Sometimes, if he starts getting in your face, you might have to punch him.
And if it turns out that you are stronger than he is, he will stop punching you.
That is the entire policy of deterrence.
You have to kill the guy.
You have to get into a full-scale war.
But you do have to deter.
In order to deter, deterrence is very simple.
It is the credible threat of military force.
That is what deterrence is.
And when you keep saying over and over and over that you don't have a credible threat, the other side might think you might not have a credible threat.
Here was John Kirby, national security spokesperson, yesterday.
Is the president currently actively considering potential attacks inside Iran?
We are not looking for a war with Iran.
We are not.
Seeking a conflict with the regime in a military way.
And as I said in the opening, we're not looking to escalate here.
This attack over the weekend was escalatory.
Make no mistake about it.
And it requires a response.
Make no mistake about that.
I will not get ahead of the President's decision making.
You're not saying either way whether striking inside Iran is or isn't?
We are not looking for a war with Iran, MJ.
I am not going to speak to the President's decisions.
Okay, how about this?
We will make a decision when we make a decision.
How about that?
Now again, no one wants a war with Iran.
For the one millionth time, there are a few people who might be interested.
Those people have been marginalized in the American public debate.
No one is interested in a direct war with Iran.
But if you are the White House, why are you laying all your cards on the table?
What exactly is the purpose of that?
So John Kirby was asked, guys, you've kind of been appeasing Iran for the past several years.
And Kirby was like, we don't see it as appeasement.
Well, you know who does?
Iran.
The president's response to Republican critics who are of the mind that this attack was the result of perceived weakness.
For instance, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said that President Biden's fear of escalation has morphed into a doctrine of appeasement.
They can speak for themselves.
That's obviously not the way we see this.
Oh, well, I'm sure you don't see it that way.
But Iran does.
The Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, was also asked if deterrence had failed by Dana Bash.
And she did not have a good answer because deterrence obviously has failed, which is why there are dead Americans now.
Looking at this and more broadly, have U.S.
deterrence policies failed?
I mean, how will the president's response be different this time?
Well look, what we saw last night, what we saw yesterday, was lethal action that impacted our service members.
And that's something that weighs heavily on this building, that weighs heavily on the Secretary.
Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with those service members and their families.
But when you look at the wider region, when you look at what's happening in the region, we know tensions are high.
But the conflict that's happening between Israel and Gaza has been contained to Gaza.
And we have seen multiple attacks on our service members in Iraq and Syria that have been largely unsuccessful.
Minor injuries, minor damage to infrastructure.
Unfortunately, yesterday we saw a lethal action.
Well, actually, we've had five dead Americans over the course of the past couple of weeks.
We have two Navy SEALs who were also lost as they attempted to defang a military shipment from Iran to the Houthis in Yemen.
So we actually have five dead Americans.
We have some Americans, many Americans apparently, with significant brain damage because of Iranian attacks.
When she says it's been contained, understand that it is not that this thing started in Gaza and then spread out.
That is not what happened here.
What happened is that Iran had a well-coordinated plan in which Hezbollah would attack Israel from the north.
Hamas would attack Israel from the south.
The Houthis would attack the Red Sea.
Iranian proxy forces in Syria would attack American proxy forces in Syria and Iraq.
I mean, this is all part of a bigger plan by Iran to stir up as much trouble as possible, knowing, again, it's an election year.
And that's what this comes down to.
It's an election year.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Now, as it turns out, you know what's a terrible plan?
You know what's a terrible plan?
The Biden foreign policy was basically carry a tiny stick and speak very loudly.
It was the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt.
Speak softly and carry a big stick.
It was, speak really, really loudly and carry no stick at all.
Carry one of those rubber hammers that squeaks when you hit something with it.
That's basically the Biden policy.
The reason I say this is because here was Team Biden for weeks warning Iran, don't, don't.
You want to get up buddy with us?
You want to start making trouble?
Don't.
Don't.
And Iran was like, don't is not a policy.
Don't is not a policy.
If you just keep saying don't, And what's the message to Iran?
is going to do. They've pushed you every which way and you've done zero things. You had a couple of
camels in the ass in Yemen. You blew up a couple of empty buildings. You gave like 24 hours warning
for people to get out of the way. So you didn't even kill any of the terrorist pirates. And then
you said don't a lot. Oh, you and your don't. Oh, I'm sure the mullahs are freaking out over you
saying don't all the time. Here was a compilation of various Biden officials saying don't to Iran.
And then they did. And what's the message to Iran? Don't.
It was very important to send a very clear message to anyone who might seek to take advantage of the
conflict in Gaza to threaten our personnel here or anywhere else in the region.
Don't do it.
What is your message to Hezbollah and its backer, Iran?
Don't.
Don't, don't, don't.
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
Approximately two weeks ago, here was Joe Biden explaining Don't.
I've already delivered the message to Iran.
They know not to do anything.
Oh, they know not to do anything, do they?
Well, that's weird because they're a bunch of dead Americans.
So there's that.
And this is what happens when you are weak.
And why is Joe Biden being so weak?
And the answer is because Joe Biden is afraid he's going to lose the reelect.
That's why Joe Biden is weak.
And Iran knows it.
Yesterday an Al Jazeera reporter grilled the spokesperson for the White House about all of this and said,
are you following the polls?
Are you guys following the polls?
Now, Al Jazeera is of course an outlet, it's a pro Hamas outlet, Al Jazeera.
It's run by the Qataris.
The Qataris are very much in league with Iran.
They play this sort of fake middleman position, the Qataris very often,
in which because they host terror groups in their country, they act as sort of the staging ground for negotiations
between those terror groups and terror sponsors and Western states when those negotiations
have to take place.
So the negotiations between say Hamas and the Israelis over the hostages are taking place in Qatar.
Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar and it is a pro terror outlet.
It is a pro-Hamas outlet, Al Jazeera.
So, Al Jazeera is asking the Biden administration, aren't you following the polls?
Why are they asking that?
Because they understand that the media, you want to talk about an actual conspiracy?
The media do not like the West.
They do not.
They think that the West is bad.
They think the West is colonialist and imperialist.
And they believe in the equity structure that has been built up by the political left that suggests that lack of success in the world must be due to exploitation by the West.
In any case, The media do have an agenda.
Their agenda is shape American public opinion so as to pressure Joe Biden into giving in to the bad guys.
Al Jazeera knows that, which is why they're pushing it, too.
Here's a reporter for Al Jazeera pressing the White House.
This is an election year.
Is the president looking at his polling when he's weighing all of these options?
Is the president looking at what?
That's a heck of a question.
He's not looking.
Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, let me just stop you right there.
Commander-in-Chief is not looking at polling or considering the electoral calendar when he's defending... Now can I answer the question?
He's not looking at political calculations or the polling or the electoral calendar as he works to protect our troops ashore and our ships at sea.
And any suggestion to the contrary is offensive.
Okay, but he is.
Well, let's be clear, he is.
That is the reason why Ron thinks he can get away with all this.
And you know who knows that he is?
Members of the media.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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Okay, meanwhile.
So, why exactly are the media focusing in on the polling numbers?
Because this is the thing that they can shape.
The media are very anti-Israel.
They're very anti-America.
They do not like the presence of the West in the Middle East because they somehow believe that the lack of success in the Middle East is due to Western interventionism as opposed to, you know, the gigantic history of failure in the Middle East.
But in any case, you can see that in the media.
So there's an amazing clip that emerged a couple of days ago.
There was a host from Sky News who was interviewing a spokesperson for Israel and compared the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust.
It's just, this is the kind of crap that the media are doing on a regular basis.
You've called for a voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza.
In November, you co-authored a piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
You suggested the ethnic cleansing of some of Gaza's population to Western countries that would accept the refugees.
The exact quote from that article, one idea is for countries around the world to accept limited numbers of Gazan families who have expressed a desire to relocate.
Do you stand by those statements?
Ethnic cleansing, that's a word you used.
If you read my article, I spoke about voluntary immigration.
I read that article.
I did read that article.
And I've just quoted from it.
Let me remind you that you spoke about ethnic cleansing.
I spoke about voluntary immigration.
And I think anyone in the world who voluntarily wants to move to another country should be eligible to do that.
Yes, the sort of voluntary relocation of many Jewish people during the Holocaust, I imagine.
It is not a convenient relocation.
How can you even compare that?
Shame on you for that comparison.
That's a shameful anti-Semitic equation.
Let us please go to the subjective.
I will not allow you to speak about the Holocaust.
You said, you said earlier... Sky News has been a disaster area.
I mean, listen to that.
She literally just compared the question of whether a Palestinian who wants to leave the Gaza Strip, so is not to live in the Gaza Strip, wants to live in Egypt or Jordan or somewhere else.
She compared that to Jews being shipped via train to concentration camps.
This is...
This is what these people are talking about.
I mean, like, this is what the media are.
So this is why they are hoping that Joe Biden is looking at the polls.
And unfortunately, Joe Biden is, in fact, looking at the polls, particularly on his left, which is what he's afraid of.
Meanwhile, again, because the Biden administration has a central foreign policy fallacy, which is that the Israel-Palestinian issue is central to all Middle Eastern politics.
And it is a lie.
They continue to put pressure on Israel, despite the fact that Hamas continues to deny every hostage deal offered to them.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is turning down an offer of a two-month ceasefire in which Israel would release more Palestinian terrorists in exchange for the innocent hostages that are being held by Hamas.
He turned it down because he says Israel has to stop the war.
So, who's anti-ceasefire now?
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to foment support for the UNRWA.
Refugee and Works Agency, which again is a garbage, the Relief and Works Agency, it's a garbage agency.
It has been garbage for decades.
It is run by Hamas.
A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found 1,200 people out of the UNRWA's total 12,000 employees had direct links to Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
One-tenth of them.
And it's way higher than that because those are people with direct links.
And so the United States temporarily paused aid to the UNRWA because it's a Hamas front group, because that's what it is.
But because the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge the reality, which is that the Palestinian population in Gaza is incredibly radical, that they do support terrorism on an ideological basis.
By the way, so do Palestinians in the West Bank.
By every available polling metric, every single one, there is no data to support the idea that there is a moderate Palestinian population that does not seek vast terror attacks on Jews and the murder of many Jews.
There is no data to support that.
No, I wish there were.
It would make life a lot easier.
But wish-casting is not, in fact, a foreign policy.
And yet, that's what the Biden administration continues to do.
So, John Kirby, he's being tried out there by the Biden administration to defend the UNRWA in the face of this investigation.
The U.S.
has suspended aid momentarily to the U.N.
relief agency UNRWA in Gaza after accusations that members of the U.N.
agency were connected to Hamas and in one case participated in the October 7th attack on Israel.
What is the proper response if these allegations are verified and what does that mean in terms of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well as this is the main agency administrating aid there?
Yeah, the UN Reliefs and Works Agency, UNRES, it's called colloquially.
They have been doing a lot of amazing work on the ground in Gaza, literally helping save thousands of lives.
Now, they're taking this seriously.
They brought the information to us, by the way.
They let us know that they had this report of about a dozen employees who were somehow involved in October 7th.
They're taking this very, very seriously.
They've called for an investigation, and they've made it clear that they're going to hold anybody appropriately accountable, to include criminal prosecutions.
Total whitewash.
Total whitewash there from the Biden White House.
Again, appeasement of the bad guys leads to bad guys taking advantage of you.
Shocker, shocker.
That, again, is the story of the Biden administration.
Meanwhile, on the immigration issue, Joe Biden continues to be a disaster area.
The giant wave of immigration, illegal immigration, has it crested?
Unclear at this point.
The latest stats that we have from the southern border in December, which were just released recently, 370,000.
370,000 border encounters, which means those people, they don't call them border arrests because the vast majority of those people aren't sent back to their home countries.
Those people are let into the United States.
This is a losing issue for Joe Biden.
By every available polling metric, Joe Biden is getting his butt kicked.
In terms of polling data on immigration.
It's a very damaging issue for him.
So naturally leave it to Republicans to try to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
So you know what is not useful?
What is not useful is the take our border back convoy to the border.
Not a useful thing.
Not a useful thing.
The reason it's not a useful thing is because the state of Texas has this under control.
The state of Texas is using its actual state power as it should to protect its citizenry.
The state of Texas has not been ordered by the Supreme Court to get rid of razor wire or not build any more razor wire or not to put any more border wall in place.
They've not been ordered to do any of that by the Supreme Court.
They are taking care of the issue.
You know what's going to be a problem is if anybody in that border convoy decides to get
frisky with a federal officer, guess what the media is going to do with that?
First rule of politics, do not get in the way of your opponent when your opponent is
making a mistake.
Very first rule of politics, just don't do it.
And that holds true of Donald Trump as well.
Donald Trump should simply stand aside and he should let Joe Biden sizzle in the sun.
That's what he should do here.
So Donald Trump seems to be shading his message in a better way.
So yesterday he was like, put the failure of the border bill on me, which is exactly what Joe Biden wants.
Today he put out a statement that is much better and much more explanatory.
Which, I mean, when I read a Donald Trump statement, you can kind of tell what he's writing and what he's not based on the syntax and how the sentences are structured.
He needs to let other people write his truth social tweets because this one's very good.
A border bill is not necessary to stop the millions of people, many from jails and mental institutions located all over the world that are pouring into our country.
It's an invasion the likes of which no country has ever had to endure.
It's not sustainable or affordable and will, under crooked Joe Biden, only get worse.
I had the safest and most secure border in U.S.
history.
I didn't need a bill.
They're using this horrific Senate bill as a way of being able to put the border disaster onto the shoulders of the Republicans.
The Democrats broke the border.
They should fix it.
No legislation is needed.
It's already there.
Okay, that happens to be true.
And Donald Trump saying so is good.
Donald Trump saying so is good.
And so, guys, Trump's got this.
Greg Abbott's got this in Texas.
Border convoy to bring a... Don't.
Just don't.
It raises a lot of risks that are absolutely unnecessary, again, when your political opponents are making a mistake.
All right, so we're supposed to believe that E. Jean Carroll, who was a gossip columnist who wrote a lot about sex in the 1990s, was raped by Donald Trump.
And as I've pointed out before, E. Jean Carroll's claims, they don't bear even kind of mild scrutiny.
She doesn't know what season it was when she was raped.
She can't describe the physical layout of the store, so you can't even check the timeline on whether she's telling the truth or not.
She can't tell you what day of the week.
She can't tell you anything about any of these things.
She just knows that she met Donald Trump in a Bergdorf and then he took her upstairs to a dressing room and proceeded to rape her.
This is what she said.
And jurors in New York decided that she was telling the truth, which means that Trump denying it and then calling her kind of a crazy person was an act of defamation.
So according to USA Today, jurors originally said that he had not quote-unquote raped her because they weren't convinced that Trump penetrated her with his member, but they were convinced that he sexually abused her.
So, again, she had claimed more than that.
So, E.J.
and Carol claimed that he actively raped her, like, with his member.
The jury found that Donald Trump had used his digits, but not his member.
That's what the jury actually found.
Based on what?
I don't even know how that... Like, that doesn't even make any sense.
As a jury verdict, that makes no sense.
You have a witness who claims she was raped, and then she describes in detail the rape, including what was used to rape her.
And the jury says, no, no, no, we don't believe you on like this half, but we believe you on this half.
You have no details on like where it happened, when it happened, any of that kind of stuff.
But we believe that he didn't rape you, but he kind of like kind of raped you.
He sexually assaulted you, but he didn't rape you.
It's a bizarre jury verdict.
Basically, it was a New York jury that hates Donald Trump finding that they hate Donald Trump.
So Donald Trump then ripped on the verdict.
And he said that he didn't believe it.
And he thought that she's a liar and a crazy person and all the rest of this.
So she sued him again for defamation.
And this time she won an $83 million judgment.
Now the thing about E. Jean Carroll, as we've discussed before on the program,
is that she is not a good witness.
She's not a reliable witness in her own cause.
Like here is a clip from a 2019 interview with CNN.
And it's super duper weird.
Like it's just weird.
You don't feel like a victim.
I was not thrown on the ground and ravished.
The word rape carries so many sexual connotations.
This was not sexual.
It hurt.
I think most people think of rape as a violent assault.
I think most people think of rape as being sexy.
Let's take a short break.
Think of the fantasies.
Okay, so, start off with that.
Now, the judge, by the way, in Trump's defamation case, refused to allow the admission of that tape into evidence.
Why?
Because that might actually win Trump the case.
You can't allow that.
You can't allow the accuser being a weirdo, strange person to come up here.
So none of this case makes any sense.
So yesterday, Eugene Carroll appears with Rachel Maddow.
And Rachel Maddow asks her what she's gonna do with all of this money that she has now taken from Donald Trump.
And she presumably expects her to say some stuff about how she's going to use the money in order to stand up for women, how she's going to fight rape everywhere, and the sexual assault culture and all this.
And instead, Yijin Carol, being a complete weirdo and a non-credible witness, says this.
And you can see Rachel Maddow wanting to jump over the desk and duct tape her mouth.
I mean, it's wild.
Here we go.
You've talked about using some of Trump's money that you're about to get to help shore up women's rights.
Do you know what that might be?
What that might look like?
Yes, Rachel.
Yes.
Tell me.
I had such, such great ideas for all the good I'm going to do with this money.
First thing, Rachel.
You and I are going to go shopping.
We're going to get completely new wardrobes, new shoes, motorcycle for Crowley, new fishing rod for Robbie.
Rachel, what do you want?
A penthouse?
It's yours, Rachel!
Penthouse and France?
You want France?
You want to go fishing in France?
No?
Alright, alright, okay.
That's a joke.
That's a joke.
Although, if me fishing in France could do something for women's rights, I would take the hint.
You know, I would obviously take one.
Look at how Rachel Maddow tries to buy that back.
Wow.
As if.
As if you need persuasion.
Oh my goodness.
That is some awkward laughter.
That is some really awkward laughter.
And that's the person who we're supposed to believe Was raped by Donald Trump, didn't fib about it, isn't doing this for personal gain, is doing this because she's just so upset with what happened to her, allegedly, 30 years ago.
That's what we're supposed to believe.
We're supposed to believe that she didn't do this for the money, when she literally just went on Rachel Maddow and said she did it for the money.
She literally went on Rachel Maddow and she said what she's going to use the money for.
It doesn't mean she was lying.
Maybe she wasn't lying.
Although again, I have very significant doubts based on her lack of any sort of supporting evidence that I can find anywhere that would support her story.
But that clip is insane.
Rachel Maddow is feeding her the biggest softball in the world, which is, how are you going to help women?
And she's like, I'm going to go on a shopping trip, shopping spree.
You want to go on a shopping spree with me, Rachel?
And Rachel's like, oh my God, get me out of here right now.
Rachel Maddow's like, if it'll help women's rights, if it'll help, say women's rights, say it, say it!
Say women's rights, say it right now!
And Eugene Carroll's like, I'm gonna buy myself a fishing rod.
Oh my God.
So Democrats who believe that somehow this is going to damage Donald Trump in the presidential race, I have another thing for you.
If you guys trot this out as evidence that Donald Trump is like the bad guy, he's like a terrible person, he's a rapist and all the rest, she is the least credible person I may have ever seen on camera.
My goodness.
Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
You're not going to want to miss it.
We'll get into Anne Hathaway talking about the evils of heteronormativity and weirdos throwing soup at the Mona Lisa.
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