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March 21, 2024 - The Ben Shapiro Show
50:21
World War III: China Edition
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Today, I want to talk about World War 3 and how World War 3 could happen.
To understand how World War 3 could happen, we should look historically at the closest that the world has gotten to World War 3 since the end of World War 2.
The world came closest to World War 3 during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the Soviet Union attempted to ship nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba, and the United States put a blockade around Cuba to prevent just that from happening.
Essentially, the United States and the USSR stood eye-to-eyeball And eventually the USSR backed down.
That was very, very close.
And everybody knows how close that was.
It's become an incredibly famous incident, not only in foreign relations, but in American history.
But to understand why we came so close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, you actually have to reverse field for a few years.
The reality is that the USSR started to challenge the United States so strenuously around the world because of about a decade of weakness in American foreign policy.
This is how world wars break out.
The way that world wars break out is miscalculation.
They break out because one side believes that the other side is likely to cave in the face of its aggression.
And that's particularly true when the United States shows its neck to its enemies.
So to really understand what was happening in the lead up to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, you really have to reverse field to about 1956.
So 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower is president.
And there is a crisis that emerges in the Middle East.
That crisis involves the Suez Canal.
There's a leader of Egypt, a nationalist, pan-Arab nationalist leader of Egypt named Nasser.
And Nasser decides that he is going to unite all the Arab countries by essentially flexing muscle in the face of the West.
And so he decides that despite the fact that he had nothing to do with the building of the Suez Canal, that he didn't run the Suez Canal, that the Suez Canal is actually an incredibly important artery for trade, Nasser decides that he's going to nationalize the Suez Canal.
The French and the British Both have an interest in the Suez Canal.
And they say to Nasser, you can't do that.
And the United States stands on the sidelines.
And the United States vacillates.
And the United States under Eisenhower vacillates for a couple of reasons.
Reason number one, they believe that if they are kind enough to Nasser, then Nasser will
not align himself with the Soviet Union, and that Nasser might in fact become the tip of
the spear in some sort of American overture to the Arab world.
So if they're just kind and nice to Nasser, then everything will work out just fine.
That is point number one.
Point number two is they are supposedly afraid that the USSR is going to get directly involved
in the Suez Canal crisis.
Now it turns out that would have been highly unlikely, that the USSR was not interested
in some sort of major international war over the Suez Canal.
In any case, the British, who we now understand historically with 20-20 hindsight, were no longer an international power of the sort of vintage they had been historically.
The British and the French Who had historically not worked particularly well together, decided to work with the Israelis in order to liberate the Suez Canal.
And so what they did is they went to the Israelis and the Israelis were, of course, very afraid of the Egyptian militarization of the Sinai Desert, for example.
And so Israel decided that it would work with the British and the French in order to free the Suez Canal and possibly overthrow Nasser and put in place somebody who is not going to be an enemy of the West.
So, in 1956, July 1956, Nasser decides to nationalize the Suez Canal.
The Israelis end up moving into the Sinai Desert.
They quickly overrun the Sinai Desert and actually are on the march to Cairo.
The British and the French are about to intervene.
This is the plan.
They're going to intervene to tell the Israelis to stop, but it's going to be the British and the French who take over the Suez Canal.
And at this point, Eisenhower steps in and basically wraps everybody on the knuckles.
The United States steps in on the side of Egypt And says to the British and the French that this is a violation of international law.
This is wrong.
Nasser gets to nationalize assets that he did not create and that he should not have run.
Now, the supposed result of all of this was going to be that Nasser would then align himself with the West.
After all, Eisenhower was showing goodwill.
Eisenhower was showing how much the United States cared about non-colonization of the Suez Canal, despite the fact that, again, the Egyptian government really didn't build the Suez Canal.
The British government did.
None of that matters.
The bottom line is, Let's do it.
Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev, who is the new premier of the Soviet Union.
It's only a couple years after the death of Stalin.
Nikita Khrushchev decides now is the time to move.
We'll get to more on this in just one moment.
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And so here's what the timeline of the Cold War looks like from 1956 to 1962.
1956 Suez Canal Crisis happens.
The United States steps in and basically chastens the British and the French.
By the way, in chastening the British and the French, the United States was basically saying to the British and the French, they are no longer world powers.
The United States is the only hegemonic world power.
And therefore, the British and the French start to withdraw from the international scene.
Guess who gets to fill the gap?
The United States.
The fact that the French no longer think of themselves as a world power is one of the reasons why the United States ends up embroiled the way it is in, for example, Vietnam.
Because, remember, French Indochina was French.
It was the French who were actually occupying that particular area.
Again, geopolitics is complicated and intertwined.
So, 1956 Suez Canal Crisis goes down, the United States steps in and prevents Nasser from falling, and also ends up basically wrapping the British, the French, and the Israelis on the knuckles.
The next thing that happens, just a few months later, is that there is an uprising in Hungary.
Hungary is a state in the Soviet sphere of influence.
It is a part of the USSR.
Or it's an aligned state with the USSR, rather.
And the Hungarian government starts to feel these roiling currents of anger from the population.
And suddenly, there is a Hungarian revolution in 1956, an attempt to actually substitute the puppet government that has been installed by the Soviets with a new government, a better government, that is going to essentially remain non-aligned in the way that Tito's Yugoslavia was non-aligned during the Cold War.
Because the United States has shown its neck, because it has shown no willingness to actually do anything about Soviet aggression, and in fact, has shown itself pretty wishy-washy as far as international politics.
The Soviets immediately invade Hungary and crush everything and kill everybody who's involved in the Hungarian uprising, the Hungarian revolution of 1956.
That's just 1956.
By 1957, Sputnik is launched, the space race is on.
By 1958, Nikita Khrushchev, believing that he has the impetus, he has the forward momentum, That between Sputnik and the Middle East and Hungary, that he actually has the power to challenge the United States globally.
In 1958, he demands the withdrawal of American troops and Western troops from Berlin, beginning what's known as the Berlin Crisis.
And so Berlin, geographically, is located inside the Soviet-occupied areas, East Germany.
Berlin was this strange island of Westernism that was in the middle of East Germany.
And so it had been divided between the Allies and the Soviets.
Right after World War II, and so there was a Soviet side of Berlin that became East Berlin, and there was West Berlin.
The big problem the Soviets were having is that everyone in East Berlin, and it turns out all of East Germany, was rushing to West Berlin in order to get the hell out of Soviet-occupied areas or Soviet-aligned areas.
And so the Soviets had a problem, but they also had a solution.
And their solution was they were going to apply extreme pressure to the United States and see if the United States would back down in the face of that aggression.
And so for three long years, The Soviet Union and the United States stand toe-to-toe and battle over Berlin.
And in 1961, Khrushchev steps in and solves the Berlin crisis by building the Berlin Wall.
So overnight, a giant wall goes up right in the middle of the city, dividing family members from family members, and it sticks around all the way from 1961 until 1989, when it actually falls.
But again, even between then, Soviets facilitate a Cuban revolution that ends with Fidel Castro in charge of Cuba, right?
All of this is the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In other words, I tell you this story, not just because the history is interesting, I think it's fascinating, but because there is one rule when it comes to world war, and that is lack of clarity in your intention, vacillation, failure to make clear to your enemies what exactly your lines are.
Fake bluffs.
Empty threats.
These things lead to war.
Much more likely that that leads to war than the open threat of war.
Very often, the open threat of war actually deters war.
Very often, the willingness to actually flex muscle leads the other side to believe, hey, maybe I shouldn't actually go and have this firefight with somebody.
They're ready to have the firefight.
Miscalculation is the most likely way that great powers end up in war.
That's precisely what happened during World War I. And actually, that's what happened during World War II.
The Germans miscalculated because they thought that since the West had caved at Munich and before, because they've been able to occupy the Sudetenland, that they would then be able to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia.
In the aftermath of that, they thought they could then occupy the Danzig Corridor, and that is where the West drew its line.
So again, failure of willingness to convey your intention.
Failure to act as an iron wall against the aggression of your enemies leads to escalation and then you actually do get dragged into hot wars that involve extraordinary numbers of casualties.
That is the story of large-scale war in the world.
So why do I bring this up?
Because today there's a story out of the Daily Express that American troops are to be permanently stationed in Taiwan.
According to Taipei, they say Taiwan has officially confirmed the presence of US troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait permanently, a development that could further create impetus for war for the Chinese It escalates mounting tensions.
The National Defense Authorization Act passed in 2023 facilitated the deployment of troops to conduct training programs for Taiwanese frontline forces.
The move comes as China continues to assert its disputed claim over Taiwan, viewing it as a renegade province despite never having ruled it.
The heightened military's activities by China in and around the Taiwan Strait have prompted Taiwan to bolster its defense capabilities.
And that comes just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued what he called an ironclad warning to China as tensions between the two nations rise.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are buzzing the borders of the Taiwan Strait.
The Taiwan Strait obviously divided between Taiwan and China in terms of sort of offshore control.
And apparently, Chinese jets have been busing the Taiwan Strait.
And not only that, the Chinese are again pursuing hypersonic missile tests and all the rest.
Now, why would they be doing that?
The reason they are doing that is because Joe Biden has put his neck on the line.
Meaning, he's showing his neck.
He's showing his neck!
China has been busily facilitating the creation of an anti-American, anti-Western alliance.
That alliance is predominantly staffed by China, Russia, and Iran.
That is an actual axis of countries that are legitimately working together.
Iran is currently sending drones, for example.
and military capabilities to Russia for use in Ukraine.
Russia has been for a very long time facilitating nuclear development in Iran.
China has been funding both of them.
Right, that axis is quite real.
And it's not an imaginary axis, it's just countries we don't like.
Those are countries that are very obviously working together, and they're pretty openly working together.
So much so that the Houthis, which is an Iranian-backed terror group that has currently been attacking shipping in the Red Sea, announced that they would not be attacking any Chinese or Russian shipping in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.
Meaning our allies, their ships get to go through, Which means a lot cheaper shipping for them, for Russia and for China.
And anything that is associated with America or the West, we will try to blow up their ships.
That's what the Hoothies are saying.
We'll get to more on that in just a second.
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So in the face of that, what the Biden administration should be doing is saying no.
The Biden administration should be taking the position that it is going to destroy any who the attempts to harass shipping in the Red Sea.
It's not going to be pinpoint hit a camel in the ass little attacks in Yemen.
If pirates attempt to harass shipping in the Red Sea, we will put naval gunboats in the Red Sea and we will blow away anything that attempts to move against shipping from anywhere in the Red Sea.
What the United States should be doing in Ukraine is holding the line.
That doesn't mean that the United States should put out their pie-in-the-sky things like, well, Ukraine is going to take back the Donbass and Crimea.
But the United States does have an interest in holding the line against Russia.
The United States, when it comes to Israel, should be saying that Israel has the full capacity to go and destroy Hamas, which is an Iranian proxy group.
The reason that China is getting aggressive with Taiwan, the reason that a war could possibly break out is because, again, Chinese miscalculation.
What they could say is, yeah, we see that you guys have troops over there.
We see that you have troops on Taiwan.
But you know what?
We just don't believe that Joe Biden is going to do anything about that.
Not only that, you guys look so divided internally in the United States on foreign policy that if we make a move, we think that probably you will just let it go.
And by the way, we should note here that the single most effective method of upgrading Chinese military capacity is to take or blockade Taiwan.
It is the single most effective thing they can do.
It's not about the money for the Chinese military.
It is about the microchips.
Taiwan has the largest manufacturer of microchips, sophisticated microchips, on the planet.
About 92% of sophisticated microchips are being produced in Taiwan.
When I say sophisticated microchips, I'm talking about the kind of stuff that goes in American F-35s, American F-22s.
I'm talking about the kind of stuff that goes in our nuclear submarines.
Those microchips are the single greatest advantage the United States has in terms of military tech, because we design all the software here, and then the hardware is then printed off and created in Taiwan.
And we're not going to be able to ramp up our microchip facilities in the United States fast enough to make up for Taiwan being lost.
But not only that, It's not about that.
It's about, will China have access to those same microchips?
Right now, Taiwan, because it is run by a government that is unfriendly to the Chinese, is saying that they will not supply those microchips to China.
China is hoping to apply enough pressure to Taiwan to make the people of Taiwan feel so threatened and feel that the United States is a bad partner in the world.
After the abandonment of Hong Kong, after the abandonment of Afghanistan, after the internal pressures in the United States over Ukraine and Israel.
They're hoping, the Chinese, that Taiwan is going to get the message and elect a government that is friendlier to China and then just give them the microchips.
And if they get the microchips, suddenly their military goes from a very large but second-rate military to a first-class military.
I mean, people who estimate the sort of strength of the Chinese military are missing the central feature of the Chinese military, which, again, is more about size than it is about sophistication.
is something called chip war.
It's all about this sort of stuff.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, the reason that Taiwan is necessary for the United States to protect and defend is not just because it is a democracy far away.
It is because we have a very real interest, a military interest in making sure that our military superiority remains over threats to the world like China, which, by the way, is killing 100,000 American citizens a year by shipping fentanyl into Mexico that just gets shipped into the United States.
This is why, again, Foreign policy weakness is all of the piece.
It is a game of perception.
How does the world perceive Joe Biden right now?
They perceive him as weak.
How does the world perceive the United States?
They perceive the United States as divided.
When you have a weak president and a divided United States, that seems like a really good time to march.
And that's precisely why it matters.
The United States' position on things like the Red Sea.
Or yes, Ukraine.
Or yes, what's going on in the Gaza Strip.
Now, most obviously, the Biden administration has been, at least promoting rhetorically, American support for Ukraine.
Although again, I think that they've done a piss poor job of explaining exactly why Americans should support what's happening with the Ukrainian government, or to what extent, or what the off ramp is, or all the rest.
I've made my critiques of the Biden administration on Ukraine very clear.
But what they're really doing, the heavy lifting on behalf of America's enemies, is obviously with regard to their rhetoric, with regard to Israel and the Gaza Strip.
And the Palestinians.
So let's be very clear about this.
The Palestinian people support terrorism.
They do.
Just by poll data, they do.
That doesn't mean they're all terrorists.
It doesn't mean that they all deserve to be put in prison or they all deserve to be killed in airstrikes.
What it means is that if you're going to formulate a foreign policy, that foreign policy ought to be somewhat related to reality.
So while the Biden administration is pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian state, They're completely ignoring the fact that a Palestinian state would be a terror state directly in the heart of the Middle East.
That would, by the way, not just be a threat to Israel, it would be a threat to Egypt.
It would, in fact, be a threat to Jordan.
Jordan likes to mouth off about a Palestinian state, but I noticed that between 1948 and 1967, there was no talk of a Palestinian state by either Egypt, which ruled the Gaza Strip, or Jordan, which ruled Judea and Samaria.
They don't want a Palestinian state, because if there had been a Palestinian state, it would have been a threat to the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan, and it would have been a threat to the Egyptian military.
But the Biden administration continues to ignore reality because they have this cloud-cuckoo-land view of foreign policy.
That if they say nice words, then somehow that's going to magically heal all the problems.
So they'll say to the Israelis, yes, sure, you should take out Hamas, but really, can you not?
Really, can you not?
And also, we need you to establish a Palestinian state as a reward for the worst terror attack in the history of the state of Israel.
And again, by the way, a poll released on Wednesday Found that 71% of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank believe that the October 7th massacres was correct.
That is 7 out of 10.
That is a huge number.
Not just that, the number of Palestinians who admit that Hamas committed war crimes is 5%.
5%.
Support for Hamas as a political party is up to 42% in the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank, it is about 35-44%, but there is no backing for Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.
The Fatah party, which is what the Americans are putting all their faith in, Mahmoud Abbas being a Holocaust-denying semi-terrorist, as opposed to, like, an openly genocidal terrorist in Hamas.
There is no backing for Mahmoud Abbas.
It is hilarious to me that you see Chuck Schumer calling for new elections in Israel.
They have not held an election in Palestinian areas in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip since 2005.
And there's a reason for that, because everyone knows who wins if there's an election in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.
backing for Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party is currently 25% in Gaza and it is 12% down
from 26% in September. So that means that it is currently 14% in the West Bank,
which is the area that by the way, Fatah actually has power.
They have no power in the Gaza Strip.
Asked who they would hope to see in charge of the Gaza Strip at the end of Israel's war with Hamas, 52% of respondents in Gaza said they wanted Hamas back.
52%!
In the West Bank, 64% think Hamas should run post-war Gaza.
21% of respondents in Gaza said they hoped the PA would return to control the Strip, but only under the leadership of someone other than Mahmoud Abbas.
So, there is no support for the American plan for what's going to happen in the Gaza Strip, and everybody knows this.
Everyone knows this, which is why this is all pie-in-the-sky absolute nonsense.
And again, everything that the Biden administration does rhetorically smacks of an unwillingness to acknowledge the realities of geopolitics, up to and including this unbelievable story.
It's an exclusive from Spencer Lindquist of Daily Wire.
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This is an insane story.
The Biden administration, intelligence documents, internal documents from the intelligence community, They're now warning to avoid what they call problematic phrases on Islamic terrorism.
What exactly are those problematic phrases?
Quote, Salafi jihadist, jihadist, Islamic extremist, Sunni Shia extremism, or radical Islamists.
That is an unclassified newsletter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence called The Dive.
And they say that the intel community needs to focus on quote, changing terminology related to counterterrorism because words matter.
Quote, this article is about one of our goals, disentangling Islam from words and phrases used to discuss terrorism and extremist violence.
The article declares it is trying to quote, remove certain phrases to identify terrorism threats that are hurtful to Muslim Americans.
Well, I mean, I'm sorry if it's hurtful to Muslim Americans that there are a lot of Islamist extremists in the Middle East.
That is the reality.
And I don't think that Muslim Americans as a group support that.
So I'm not sure why they would be insulted by that per se.
But this is, again, where the Biden administration is.
Show weakness.
Vacillate.
Suggest that if you just say the right words, then magically, magically, Nasser will become your friend.
By the way, we should tell the end of that Suez Canal story.
Nasser ends up facilitating the Six-Day War.
He continues to harass Israel on its borders, at which point Israel eventually launches a preemptive assault on Nasser and his allies in 1967 and ends up winning the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
So if you don't like Israel having done that, you can thank Dwight D. Eisenhower for that, because that is Eisenhower facilitating Nasser's continuation in power in 1956.
Meanwhile, again, the United States continues to vacillate.
They continue to shilly-shally on these issues.
According to the Times of Israel, the United States is going to pitch Israel on securing the Egypt-Gaza border as an alternative to, quote-unquote, smashing Intarafa.
Apparently, one of the senior U.S.
officials said, quote, this isn't just us saying, no, you can't do it.
We're saying we're willing to work with you on viable alternatives that help you achieve your objectives.
What exactly would that viable alternative be?
A second senior U.S.
official said Washington envisions Israel focusing on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphia Corridor.
That doesn't, how, what?
That is not an alternative.
The weapons are already in there.
They're already in Rafah.
Hamas is already in there.
That's like saying, okay, fine.
We'll just leave the Nazis in charge of Berlin.
We'll just make sure that no more ammunition gets into Berlin.
Or alternatively, you could just stop the Nazis being in Berlin by killing them.
That's the other thing that you could do.
The second senior official said, if Israel smashes into Rafah with all the civilian casualties that doing so would entail, cooperation from Egypt on locking down the Philadelphia corridor will be much more difficult.
Will it, though?
Does Egypt really want Hamas to have more weapons?
And why should the United States not apply its pressure to Egypt to stop that sort of thing, considering that we, I know we only talk about foreign aid to Israel, but the reality is that Egypt receives billions of dollars in foreign aid from the United States as well.
We should have some leverage over Egypt to tell them to stop, you know, shipping weapons or allowing the shipment of weapons across the Philadelphia corridor into Rafah.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to try and suggest that Bibi Netanyahu is the problem or that the Republicans are politicizing Israel.
It's a Democratic administration politicizing this entire issue.
So, for example, Hakeem Jeffries yesterday, he says that Republicans are the ones politicizing Israel, which is weird because it was Chuck Schumer who went on the floor of the Senate and called for the ouster of the elected government of Israel.
Was Schumer right to address this issue at all?
Netanyahu Was pretty upset that he said that a Democratic official in the United States was wading into Israel's domestic policies.
Leader Schumer, throughout his career, has been an incredibly strong supporter of the special relationship between the United States and Israel.
And I believe he will continue to be moving forward.
And it is unfortunate that some of my extreme Republican colleagues, once again, are trying to politicize the issue of the relationship between the United States and Israel, as opposed to leaning in at a time when Israel is in the middle of a war against Hamas.
Okay, so apparently it is the Republicans politicizing this thing, even though it was Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, who literally called for the ouster of the elected government of Israel in a unity cabinet that involves the opposition.
It's a war cabinet right now.
Not only that, Chuck Schumer, he was asked by Netanyahu, can he speak to the Senate Democratic Caucus?
And Schumer said no.
He was going to do it behind closed doors, and Schumer said no.
Why?
Because Schumer understands that his own Democratic Caucus is increasingly non-supportive of Israel, for example.
And then Senate Republicans are like, well, you can talk to us.
And Netanyahu is like, okay, that sounds good.
I'll talk to whoever.
And they're like, well, that seems partisan.
That's not the way that it works.
If Netanyahu asks you if he can speak to your caucus and you say no, and then he goes to the other caucus and they say yes, that's you being a partisan, not him.
He went to both sides.
It's just an absurdity.
We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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The media, for their part, have been doing cover for the Biden administration on all this by trotting out every far leftist they can find on this issue.
So they'll never interview anybody who has, like, legitimate smicha or represents any actual stream of Judaism in any serious way.
Instead, they have on people like Rabbi Sharon Braus, who is not a rabbi.
Okay, I have a quick rule about rabbis.
If you know less than my 10-year-old daughter who goes to Jewish day school, you're not a rabbi.
That's the way this works.
Also, if you openly say, as this supposed rabbi does, that she runs a unique and unaffiliated branch of Judaism, also not a rabbi.
Rabbi, you think what Trump is doing is not just dangerous for Jews, but for democracy.
Why?
Yeah, that's right, Dana.
I mean, first of all, these comments are totally on brand for Trump.
though she is the leader of a mass movement inside the Jewish population on Israel to
rip on Republicans and Netanyahu and all the rest of this.
Rabbi, you think what Trump is doing is not just dangerous for Jews, but for democracy.
Why?
Yeah, that's right, Dana.
I mean, first of all, these comments are totally on brand for Trump.
It is an attempt to really bully and shame American Jews into voting for him.
And he's trying to stir fear and paranoia among American Jews.
It's not going to work.
American Jews historically vote very solidly Democratic and also really dislike intensely the former president.
That's not going to change now.
In fact, most American Jews don't share Trump or Bibi's vision for Israel and certainly don't share Trump's vision for America.
Okay, so why should she speak for Jews?
She literally is part- There's a Wall Street Journal article that's a feature of her, because again, the way that the Wall Street Journal works, for those who are unaware, the news pages are all far to the left.
Like, even further to the left than the New York Times, it's only the op-ed page that is not far to the left.
She founded a supposed synagogue, and I say supposed because literally, It says in this article that this particular congregation, quote, is not affiliated with any denomination within Judaism.
So obviously that's who CNN is going to trot out as a spokesperson for the Jewish people.
Slow clap for the geniuses over at CNN.
And when it comes to foreign policy, part of foreign policy and foreign policy weakness is also domestic policy.
And when it comes to domestic policy, this administration continues to do the hard work that China is expecting from them.
So, for example, one of the mainstays of the American economy is the ability to travel in things like cars.
And by the way, to drill for oil and natural gas, and send those things overseas, and export them to Europe, and provide them with the cheap energy sources they need to, for example, survive a Russian cutoff in materials.
Is the Biden administration doing any of that?
Of course not.
Instead, they've declared an LNG pause.
They've cut down the number of licenses that are available for drilling.
They made it much more difficult to drill.
They vowed that they were going to get America off of oil and natural gas in the very near future, which means no one's going to invest in oil refineries.
And now, apparently, the EPA is pushing forward under Joe Biden toward a zero emissions economy.
According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration finalized the United States' toughest limits on planet warming emissions from passenger cars and light trucks on Wednesday in a controversial bid to accelerate the nation's halting transition to electric vehicles.
The Environmental Protection Agency will require automakers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles while slashing carbon emissions from gas-powered models, which account for about one-fifth of America's contribution to global warming.
Now again, I'd like to underscore that statistic.
They don't account for one-fifth of global warming, or emissions generally.
They account for one-fifth of America's contribution to global warming.
Which is to say a very small percentage of the total contributions to global warming from all countries all over the world.
So we're gonna crush our automakers in order so that Joe Biden can please his environmentalist base.
And you know who benefits from this is China.
Because China is racing to catch up in the EV game.
China's pouring billions and billions of dollars into their own subsidized EVs.
And by the way, they don't care how much they pollute.
They don't care at all.
Like, at all.
Now Biden, again, is trying to split the baby.
Here, he's trying to make it so that you'll only feel the effects after he is presumably re-elected.
According to the Washington Post, unlike last year's proposed rules, automakers will not need to dramatically boost EV sales until after 2030.
So he's going to put the rule in place, but then he's going to delay the effect of the rule until after he would leave office.
Typical Democrat tomfoolery.
The delayed timeline reflects an election year concession to labor unions.
Those labor unions don't like the EV crap because it turns out it puts all of them out of a job because people don't want to buy EVs at the same rate as... Listen, I'm not anti-EV, I own a Tesla.
But let's just be clear, that is an expensive car.
And most Americans cannot afford to get into one right now.
This is going to be a gas-powered economy for a long time to come.
And pretending that it's not is absurdity.
Here's Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, ripping into Joe Biden over all of this.
This week, House Republicans will pass the legislation promoting American energy independence and opposing Biden's anti-energy agenda.
There's no other way to describe it.
Our bills, as you've heard, are going to support fracking.
They're going to expedite permitting processes.
We're going to decrease fees on oil and gas producers.
And, of course, we will continue to denounce President Biden's radical policies.
This is a continuation of the pro-American energy agenda that House Republicans have been pursuing and will always pursue.
We passed H.R.
1, our signature piece of legislation, right out of the blocks, the Lower Energy Cost Act.
And that legislation was to support our LNG producers and protect gas-powered vehicles.
So this is very clear.
The White House is more eager to appease radical environmental activists than the American people.
There's no other way to assess this.
That is absolutely correct.
By the way, Donald Trump's policy is on this, because again, it's a binary election now.
Donald Trump's policy is on this?
A 100% tariff on Chinese vehicle imports.
Which would be punishing China and making clear to China that if they screw with the United States, there will in fact be consequences.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is basically creating economic pathways for China at the same time that he is appeasing China's enemies and vacillating over America's allies.
You wonder why the chances of war seem to continue to go up?
That would be the reason.
In just one second, we'll get into a squatting crisis that apparently is now threatening America first.
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Okay, meanwhile, America, you know, all of our crises are coming to a head at once.
One of the ways that the Federal Reserve is going to try to bail Joe Biden out is by continuing to talk about lowering the interest rates.
So right now, inflation is still running way higher than it needs to.
The Federal Reserve has been having a tough time kind of getting that final mile on inflation.
That doesn't matter, apparently.
Jerome Powell is still saying That they are looking at cutting interest rates three times this year.
So what is that doing?
That's artificially bumping up the stock market, obviously, because if people expect that the interest rates are going to come down, well, that means that they're going to spend more money now knowing they can borrow at lower rates later.
That is the general idea of what's happening in the economy right now, so it's artificially being inflated again by the Federal Reserve.
According to the Wall Street Journal, while the latest data hasn't given officials the confidence they would need to begin rate cuts, Chair Jerome Powell said his outlook for inflation to continue declining had not changed substantially in recent weeks.
The projections released Wednesday were little changed from December and showed most of his colleagues expect two or three rate cuts this year.
So, most economists had expected the Fed to dial back on the expectations of rate cuts.
Instead, the Federal Reserve, which controls way too much of the American economy via the interest rates, they've decided that they are going to, just in time for the election, superheat the economy by injecting more money into the economy with lower interest rates.
So, again, the Federal Reserve trying to save Joe Biden from his own bad policy, but Meanwhile, the social fabric of the United States continues to decay.
According to the UK Daily Mail, America's squatting crisis is at boiling point.
Every week, shocking tales emerge of helpless families booted out of their homes by scrounging crooks.
Entire communities in L.A.
and Atlanta have been ravaged by criminals turning homes into strip clubs and hosting all-night raves, while residents of Texas and Colorado are being tormented by a serial squatter who is running rings around the police.
Emboldened by weak law enforcement, their unruly behavior becomes more brazen by the day.
In fact, here is an NYC, a New York City squatter standoff caught on camera.
One of the big problems here is that basically you have homeless people who have decided they're just going to take over temporarily empty apartments or homes or homes for sale, sit there, and then it is very difficult in liberal jurisdictions to eject them.
Because these liberal jurisdictions basically say that unless you get a court order, you can't get rid of these people.
And it might take a while for the court order to come.
Meanwhile, they can wreck your house.
And it's not as though you can sue them or anything because they have no assets.
So here's what it looked like when a New York City squatter was caught on camera.
Less than 10 minutes after police left and the locks were changed.
The man who claims to be the one actually leasing the house shows up.
Call the police again!
With the other guy, police took off the property.
Do you see this?
This guy just literally broke down my door.
Broke through myself and my daughter to get in here.
This guy just forced himself into my house.
Yes he did.
And so did you.
You broke through the front door.
The man called the police on her.
So why is it that I have to leave and he doesn't have to leave?
Because technically he can't be kicked out.
We need to go to court.
They consider this a landlord-tenant issue.
And by law, it has to be handled through the housing court, not with police.
If you own this house, you would not want her inside.
I don't own the house.
I don't own this house.
Exactly.
She does.
Yes.
But then, once again, you should know how the law works.
I do know how it works.
There's rules to the law, as you've got to go to court and send me to civil court.
So, here's how it works in New York.
I'm not kidding.
This is the ABC News in New York reporting.
Okay, here's what this story is.
The homeowner's a woman named Adele Andalero.
She inherited her family's home in Flushing, Queens after her parents died.
She was in the process of selling it when she noticed a problem.
Someone had changed the entire front door and the lock of her home.
She says that squatters moved into the home in February and then they refused to leave.
She says, by the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it'll be over 30 days and this person will still be in my home.
Because in New York, squatters have 30-day rights.
Why?
Because they treat it as though you overstayed your rent, as opposed to, you were never renting the place in the first place.
So, Ann DeLara went to her property, and Eyewitness News followed her.
They were there when a woman walked up to the house, unlocked the door, and left.
Angelero decided to enter the property with her daughter and the property deed in hand.
She found two people who were sleeping in the bedroom.
Eyewitness News asked one of the men how long he'd been there and he said, I moved in two days ago and the second man didn't answer any questions.
The men then called the cops.
She said, they've called the police on me and I've called the locksmith.
We didn't come in illegally.
The door was open.
Police arrived shortly after and started interviewing the man, the neighbor, and asking for documents.
One officer asked the men, do you have something that shows you've been here more than 30 days?
When the men did not provide documentation, they escorted both off the property, and Anzaloro had a locksmith change the locks, but before police left, they warned her about changing the locks.
She said, I may end up in handcuffs today if a man shows up here and says I've illegally evicted him.
I said, let him take me to court, as I've been told to take him to court, because I'm not leaving my house.
In New York, it is against the law to turn off the utilities, change the locks, and remove the belongings of someone who claims to be a tenant, which is insane.
If you're not paying your rent, you're not a tenant.
And you're certainly not a tenant if you never paid rent and you literally just went to somebody's house while they're not home.
They went on winter vacation.
You went up, you showed up at their house, you sat in their house, and then you just say, well, you know, you can't kick me out.
I'm a tenant now.
Totally insane.
Absolutely crazy.
And by the way, you now have TikTokers who are going online and advising illegal immigrants on how to squat in random people's homes.
This is just one tape from TikTok.
He says, I have thought about invading a house in the United States.
I found out there's a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.
Guys, here in the United States, also applies the land invasion.
And I think that will be my next business invading.
The law says that the abandoned property deteriorated and that it is in bad condition.
We can get and repair and live.
We can even sell it!
Okay, this is totally intense.
So he's telling people to basically just go into other people's houses and invade them and take them.
Because property rights mean nothing.
They mean nothing anymore in places like New York and California.
Wonder why people are fleeing to Florida?
Here's why people are fleeing to Florida.
Lawmakers this week passed a bill to put a stop to squatters' rights.
House Bill 621 authorizes property owners to request action by the sheriff's office to immediately remove squatters from your home.
The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Florida Senate last week.
Before the bill was signed into law, squatters were considered tenants in the eyes of the law.
Now, squatters will face criminal charges for violating what was once within their rights.
Senator Keith Perry led the charge on HB 621, which allows property owners to file an affidavit showing the property does not belong to those who are occupying it.
The bill creates stiff penalties for violators, like second-degree felony for damage to a home and first-degree felony for fraudulently selling or leasing the property.
The sheriff is required to serve the notice and remove the unwanted occupants without delay.
Good.
Good!
I mean, that's why the state is great.
That's why the state is awesome.
Because they see it, basically, the way that Florida works is Florida looks at California and New York, they say, we're going to do the opposite of that.
And so Florida is great.
But again, the lack of respect for property rights in places like New York and California, like, why would you ever create a business in states that promote laws like this?
Why would you live in those states if you could get out?
It's truly an amazing, amazing thing.
Meanwhile, the House GOP continues to move forward on impeachment hearings against Joe Biden.
Now, are they actually going to get to impeachment?
They have a very slim margin in the House.
They may not.
But that, of course, is not the purpose of public hearings anymore.
Public hearings aren't... They haven't been for a very long time of actually doing things.
They're about the rhetoric that is used and exposing to the public what exactly is going on.
So they become TV shows as much as they have pieces of legislative leisure domain, which, again, not...
Not super shocking, not my favorite thing, but that is, in fact, the way that politics works.
So yesterday, massive fights erupted at the GOP's hearings about Hunter Biden's corruption.
According to Axios, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee's marquee hearing on Hunter Biden's business dealings evolved into squabbles between committee members and witnesses on Wednesday.
So James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, who's the oversight chair, he kicked off the hearing by waiving a rule prohibiting members from impugning the character of the president, saying the members, quote, must be allowed to speak frankly.
And there are basically two big witnesses.
One was Tony Bobulinski, the former Hunter Biden business associate, who claims that Hunter Biden was part of a pay-for-play scandal with Joe Biden.
And the other was Lev Parnas.
Lev Parnas is a Ukrainian-American businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani.
And he's claiming that basically this is all Russian propaganda.
So that was the battle.
But this whole thing started off, even before it started, with Jared Moskowitz of Florida, for some odd reason, showing up to the hearing dressed as Vladimir Putin.
Because, again, the clown show is just so obvious now.
It's just... The clown car is not big enough for all the clowns.
There are hundreds of the clowns.
How are we gonna fit all of the clowns in this tiny clown car?
Maybe they will.
It's a circus.
Here is Jared Moskowitz dressed as Vladimir Putin.
So he's wearing a Vladimir Putin mask when he says all that.
So if you can't hear him, it's because he was dressed like a clown.
committee, maybe he can come see the technology in our grocery stores. Thank you.
Congressman, I think his behavior is kind of immature.
So he's wearing a Vladimir Putin mask when he says all that.
a clown.
If you can't hear him, it's because he was dressed like a clown. Because everybody's
Other clowns included Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, who is a deeply stupid human being,
does not have two brain cells to rub together.
So she was questioning Tony Bobulinski, and she suddenly announced that RICO violations are not a crime, which is weird, because they are.
In fact, if RICO violations are not a crime, then she ought to have a talk with Fannie Willis, who's alleging precisely that criminal violation.
In any case, here is Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez making a fool of herself, because not only is she a lawyer, she's not even a half-bright human being.
Is it your testimony today that you personally witnessed President Joe Biden commit a crime?
I believe the fact that he was sitting with me while I was putting together a business deal.
Did you witness the president commit a crime?
Is it your testimony today?
Yes.
And what crime have you witnessed?
How much time do I have to go through it?
It is simple.
You name the crime.
Did you watch him steal something?
Corruption statutes, RICO and conspiracy.
What is it?
What is the crime, sir?
Uh, what?
It is a statute.
You keep up you asked me to answer the question I answered the question no go you're obviously not familiar with
Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir Rico is not a crime. It is a category
What it is a statute and that statute has criminal violations within it
Is that it's a weird it's a weird statement It's like saying that campaign finance, if you say you violated campaign finance law, well, did you see him sign a check and involve himself directly in bribery?
And you're like, well, I did see him engaging in campaign finance violence.
That's not a crime.
That's a category of crime.
Oh, these are the people that we send to Congress.
We deserve everything we get in this country because this is our choice.
We are the voters and it is our fault.
In any case, Tony Bobulinski, who again was in business with Hunter Biden.
He is the original source of the documents that suggested that Hunter Biden was saving 10% for the big guy.
Here was Tony Bobulinski yesterday slamming Democrats.
In fact, my business success is why they sought me out.
However, what they have done is repugnant to me.
I am here today because I'm a patriot and I'm a truth teller.
We keep hearing from certain corners that our democracy is at risk and democracy is on the ballot in 24.
Yet the same people preaching this mantra know better.
They continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation and remorse.
Rep.
Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman, a former prosecutor with the SDNY from New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.
Hunter Biden's defense attorney, Abby Lowell, weaponized his letters to Congress to try to smear my name.
The cold hard facts.
Mr. Chairman.
In an attempt to save his powerfully connected client and his father.
I challenge Mr. Lowell to make those claims on national television so he can be held accountable for his lies.
Okay, so, congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle started to get very upset about this and Bobulinski went at it with them.
Bobulinski also testified that Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden when he said the big guy meant Joe Biden.
Here's Bobulinski.
Mr. Bobulinski, who's the big guy?
Are you sure about that?
Because when- Joe Biden?
You're sure?
I'm a thousand percent sure.
Okay.
Meanwhile, Democrats trotted out Lev Parnas to claim that this is all Russian disinformation.
Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, he was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes, or what AOC might call a category of crimes.
Back in 2022, here he was testifying that everything surrounding Joe and Hunter Biden is really just Russian disinformation.
I say this to you because I love this country.
From shortly after my arrest on October 9, 2019 to now, I have been trying to share the irrefutable truth with you.
The American people have been lied to by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and various cohorts of individuals in government and media positions.
They created falsehoods to serve their own interests, knowing it would undermine the strength of our nation.
The only information ever pushed on the Bidens in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only.
Russia and Russian agents.
The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin.
Well, that's weird because Tony Bobulinski, unless you're accusing him of being a Kremlin agent, is saying the thing right in front of you.
In any case, does this mean that Joe Biden is going to be impeached?
Again, I think it's unlikely that Joe Biden will end up being impeached, but that doesn't matter.
The American public know that Joe Biden was engaged in a corruption scheme with his family.
Every member of his family got significantly richer off Joe Biden's name over the course of his tenure in the Senate, in the Vice Presidency, and in the Presidency.
There's nothing new under the sun here, and everybody knows it.
Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
We'll be joined on the line by one of our field reporters at The Daily Wire, Spencer Lindquist.
Plus, we'll talk about whether Disney has some sort of death wish when it comes to the Star Wars brand.
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