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April 4, 2024 - The Ben Shapiro Show

49:40

Why Joe Biden Is Losing

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	For a very long time in American politics, there was a truism about running for president of the United States.
	That truism suggested you were supposed to run to the extremes during the primaries, and then you were supposed to run toward the center in the general, which made perfect sense.
	You wanted to consolidate a base in the primaries so as to overcome your primary rivals.
	And then, once you had done that, you were supposed to run toward the center because that's where the independents were.
	And the truth is that in every American election, The winner of that election has been the person who won independence with the sole exception of 2012 when Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama with independence.
	But it didn't matter because Barack Obama had enough of his base show up that he was able to win a victory.
	In every other election, independents have decided the election.
	Joe Biden is deciding that it is time for him to buck conventional wisdom.
	He is not running to the center.
	Instead, he's believing all of the political idiots around him that he asked to run to the far left.
	He's believing the Bernie Sanders crowd.
	He's believing the Pod Save America crowd.
	He's believing the most extreme members of his own base.
	And there is very little data to support the notion that he is going to win if he runs to the extreme parts of his base.
	This is why he is losing right now.
	In fact, according to the latest NPR Marist poll, that actually has Joe Biden up two nationally.
	That same poll shows that in October of 2020, Joe Biden was winning among independent voters.
	By 21 points, 57 to 36.
	In March of 2024, Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden with independent voters by seven points, 52 to 45.
	That is a net 28 point swing toward Donald Trump among independent voters.
	And there is a reason for that.
	It is because Joe Biden has decided that he is not going to instead swivel to the center.
	He is going to run directly to his left.
	And he has cheerleaders on his left who are promoting this narrative, even though the narrative isn't particularly true.
	The real reason that Joe Biden is losing right now has nothing to do with his positions that are somewhat democratic center-left on, for example, Israel-Gaza.
	The reason that he is losing right now is because most Americans perceive the economy to be poor.
	Most Americans perceive the president to be too old.
	They perceive Joe Biden to be disconnected.
	They believe that Joe Biden doesn't have their concerns at heart.
	For example, MSNBC yesterday reporting that 63% of swing state voters say the United States economy is not so good or poor.
	Only 36% say that it is excellent or good.
	Here's MSNBC discussing.
	The poll also finds negative perceptions about the economy do remain a problem for the incumbent.
	63% of swing state voters say the U.S.
	economy is in not so good or poor condition, while just 36% say it's an excellent or good condition.
	Okay, well that would be the reason that you're losing.
	I mean, if you are the incumbent president and 63% of swing state voters say that the economy is not so good or poor, that's the reason why you're underperforming in the polls.
	But again, if you are Joe Biden and you have a closed loop echo chamber of people surrounding you, former Obama staffers, for example, who are very much to the left and who believe in the magic, mythic notion that Barack Obama's 2012 campaign can be replicated, that you can get out enough members of the base to overcome deficits with independence, which historically has not been true.
	Barack Obama is the only outlier and that was a real outlier election.
	If you listen to all those people, you're going to swivel to your left.
	And you're going to skew the data to do it.
	So, for example, yesterday, CNN's data guru, Harry Enten, he suggested that the Israel-Hamas war is costing Joe Biden votes.
	The way that he does this is sort of fascinating.
	So, he looks at Democrats who approve of Joe Biden's handling of various issues, including the economy, Russia-Ukraine, foreign policy, gun violence, the US-Mexico border, and the Israel-Hamas war.
	This is a Quinnipiac University poll.
	Here is Harry Enten trying to explain.
	Look here, the Israel-Hamas war, look at that approval rating.
	Less than 50% of Democrats are approving on Joe Biden, on the Israel-Hamas war.
	And more than that, John, these numbers have gotten significantly worse.
	So this is Democrats' views of Biden on the Israel-Hamas war.
	Look back in October of 2023.
	It was 67%.
	Look where we are today, 48%.
	It was 67%.
	Look where we are today, 48%.
	That disapproved number, look at that.
	Jumped up from 28% in October of 2023 to 46% now.
	This is within the margin of error.
	Democrats are split on Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
	John, you know I look at poll numbers a lot.
	For a president to be doing this poorly amongst his own party on any issue is quite something to see.
	Okay, but there's one problem with this narrative.
	It's the top of that poll.
	Only 81% of Democrats approve of Joe Biden on the economy.
	His best issues are 80% issues among Democrats.
	That's the reason he is losing.
	It is not because of the third tier issue that is Israel-Hamas.
	That is not the issue for Joe Biden.
	Harry Enten went on to explain, he said, That's equal to the percentage of Republicans overall who say they're extremely motivated to turn out in November.
	But if they dislike Joe Biden on the Israel-Hamas war, only 53% of Democrats are extremely motivated to vote in 2024.
	out and vote in November. That's equal to the percentage of Republicans overall who say they're
	extremely motivated to turn out in November. But if they dislike Joe Biden on the Israel-Hamas war,
	only 53% of Democrats are extremely motivated to vote in 2024. In other words, if you like
	Joe Biden's performance on Israel-Hamas, you are more likely to vote for him if you're a Democrat.
	Like, go out and vote for him.
	If you don't like it, you're less likely to go out and vote.
	Harry Enten then suggests that Joe Biden, if he switched his Israel-Hamas policy, would win those 53% of voters back up to 63 or 73%.
	There's one problem with this logic.
	It is backwards.
	The reason that 53% of voters who don't like Joe Biden's policy on Israel Hamas, only 53% of those voters who are Democrats are voting.
	The reason is because wild left progressives are lower propensity voters than moderate left Democrats.
	You're talking about a young base of largely people of color
	who have lower voter turnout records.
	So he's looking at it backwards.
	What he should be looking at is low propensity voters think that Joe Biden is too far to the right on Israel.
	High propensity Democratic voters think that Joe Biden is kind of right on Israel-Hamas.
	But again, the narrative must be pushed forward.
	And so you have all of Obama's old buddies John Favreau on Pod Save America is suggesting that Joe Biden should cut off aid to Israel.
	And this is, of course, increasingly the call.
	He tweeted out, the president doesn't get credit for being privately enraged
	when he still refuses to use leverage to stop the IDF from killing and starving innocent people.
	These stories only make him look weak.
	That was in response to a story saying, angry Biden not changing Israel policy
	after deadly strike on aid workers.
	So again, the idea that the IDF is purposefully killing and starving innocent people is a lie.
	But it is a lie that is being promoted by the far left and Joe Biden, because he is afraid, is listening to all of this.
	We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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	This is why you have Corinne Jean-Pierre out there on the White House podium, least talented press secretary of my lifetime, suggesting that Israel should not go into Rafah, which is of course the last Southern city in Gaza, repository of at least four Hamas battalions, Yair Sinwar, the leader of Hamas is probably hiding underground there.
	One of the reasons, by the way, that Egypt does not want Israel going into Rafah is because there are apparently tunnels from Egypt into Rafah that have been used as gun smuggling routes by terrorists in Egypt.
	And they are afraid that if Israel goes in there and finds those tunnels, that that will implicate Israel-Egypt relations.
	In any case, here's Corinne Jean-Pierre giving military advice to the Israelis out of her vast experience in war.
	We believe there has to be alternative ways to deal with Hamas in Gaza, specifically in Rafah.
	A military operation, we believe, is not the way to move forward.
	There is active conversations happening with the Israeli government, and obviously our government, and I think that's important.
	No, it's very important, except that they have no actual plan.
	Of course.
	One of the other people inside the administration who's pushing very hard is the actual president of the United States, Jill Biden.
	The Edith Wilson of our age.
	You have a senile old president who's barely hanging on by his fingernails.
	Jill Biden is out there suggesting that actually Joe Biden is winning the election, but she doesn't actually believe that, as we'll talk about in a moment.
	How is the campaign going before you go?
	Oh my gosh, it's going great.
	I have been traveling every day that I'm not in the classroom.
	People are excited.
	And I really feel like, you know, people know the choice this election.
	They can choose chaos or they can choose, you know, steady wisdom experience.
	There's not a part of you that's a little worried?
	No, no.
	I feel that Joe will be re-elected.
	Oh, she's not worried at all.
	Well, apparently she's worried enough by the left flank that she has been telling Joe Biden, according to the New York Times, that he should literally tell Israel to cease fire now, immediately, with hostages still being held by Hamas.
	According to the New York Times, one of the strongest voices inside the White House urging an end to civilian casualties in Gaza is the person closest to the president, Joe Biden.
	She's not urging an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.
	She's urging an end to the war in Gaza, which would leave Hamas in place with at least 50 live hostages still in the possession of Hamas.
	The unaccounted for hostages still number well over 100.
	At a meeting with Muslim community members at the White House on Tuesday evening, one guest told President Biden his wife had disapproved of him coming to the meeting because of Biden's support for Israel and its war against Hamas.
	Biden said he understood.
	The first lady, he said, had been urging him to stop it, stop it now, according to an attendee who heard his remarks.
	Asked about the President's remarks, White House officials on Wednesday said there was no daylight between Mr. Biden and the First Lady on the conflict, and the President was just as outraged by the civilian casualties as his wife has been.
	They also said she was not calling for Israel to end its efforts against Hamas.
	Yeah, sure.
	Yeah, right.
	Again, the left of the Biden administration believes that the reason that he is losing is because he is not far enough to the left.
	Now, they decided to use as a sort of hook to hang their leftist hat on this horrifying and tragic incident in which seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, which is run by Chef Jose Andres, were killed in what is best described as a friendly fire incident.
	It was an incident in which apparently the Israeli Air Force thought that there was a terrorist riding on top of the convoy.
	They saw an armed man, apparently, according to Haaretz, riding on top of the convoy.
	That person got off at a particular point.
	The Israelis thought that the convoy had been taken over by terrorists, and so they struck the convoy, and they were wrong.
	And they've already apologized, and they've already acknowledged that they were wrong.
	Now, let me just put this in a little bit of context.
	Friendly fire incidents in war are extremely common.
	This is something that Americans really don't have a lot of experience with, because if you don't watch war closely, and if you don't have members of the military in your family, it's almost impossible to think about the horror of being killed by your own side.
	But the reality is that this sort of stuff happens really a lot.
	It's always tragic, it's always terrible, and it happens a lot, particularly in situations that are highly populous and in which it is very difficult to tell one side from another.
	If you look at just the history of friendly fire, during World War II, to take a long ago example, perhaps as many as 56,000 American troops were killed by friendly fire during World War II.
	That's according to the Rand Institute.
	During the Iraq War, somewhere between 1 to 2% of American troops killed in Iraq were killed by friendly fire.
	Right now, because of the very close quarter combat situations in Gaza, at least 30% of
	all Israelis who are being killed in the Gaza Strip have been killed by friendly fire.
	And again, this is not rare in the annals of American war.
	If you go back to 2003, according to PBS, a BBC reporter traveling in a convoy of 8
	to 10 cars said it came under attack as it approached an area that was recently captured
	from Iraqi forces.
	This BBC reporter said, I counted 10 or 12 dead bodies around us.
	There are Americans dead.
	It was an American plane.
	It dropped a bomb right beside us.
	I saw it land about 10 to 12 feet away.
	Apparently, the attack killed at least 18 Kurdish fighters and injured another 45.
	That was 2003.
	Famously, Pat Tillman, who left the NFL to join the army after 2001, after September 11th.
	He was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in 2000.
	And 15, for example, the US military mistakenly attacked an actual medical hospital, killing 22 people in Afghanistan.
	And the United States did an investigation late, and then said some words about it, and that was kind of it.
	During the attempt to go after ISIS in Syria, the United States bombed hospitals in Raqqa.
	That's according to the Physicians for Human Rights.
	They pointed out that since the beginning of the conflict, they had documented at least three attacks against Raqqa's National Hospital.
	It was the only healthcare facility operating to serve tens of thousands of people remaining in the city, according to PHR.
	In 2018, there was a friendly fire incident that killed at least 11 people.
	That was in an attempt to kill members of ISIS.
	According to Reuters, friendly fire from a U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh—that's ISIS—killed 10 members of an Iraqi security force and a local official in an airstrike west of Baghdad.
	We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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	Now again, friendly fire incidents are extremely common.
	Treating friendly fire incidents as anything but a horrifying tragedy is a lie.
	And the worst lie that you can tell about allied forces in Iraq or allied forces in Afghanistan or Israeli forces in Gaza is the lie that they are actively attempting to target people who they are working with.
	The World Central Kitchen has been working with the Israeli government to get aid into the Gaza Strip.
	That is why they are there.
	They've been doing it for six months on end.
	That doesn't mean that the situation is any less horrifying.
	It's totally horrifying.
	But it does mean that there is literally zero evidence or logic to support the idea that Israel would purposefully strike a convoy of aid vehicles for literally no reason.
	To accomplish what exactly?
	More world condemnation?
	More moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas, which literally does attempt to kill aid workers who are not giving them the aid?
	But that's exactly what Chef Jose Andres did.
	So, he's a big celebrity.
	So, it makes a difference when he says things that are untrue.
	So here he was yesterday, literally accusing Israel of targeting workers.
	Deliberately.
	Now again, there's a difference between they saw a truck with the World Central Kitchen logo on the top that they thought was being driven by terrorists or that had been taken by terrorists, and they knew it was World Central Kitchen workers who were not terrorists and decided to kill them willy-nilly for no reason at all.
	There is no logic behind it.
	There would be no rationale behind that at all.
	It would make literally no sense.
	As you can see from the world condemnation and from the world's bizarre attempts to turn what is obviously a friendly fire incident into deliberate Israeli killing of aid workers who they had greenlit themselves.
	But here is Chef Jose Andres saying some things here.
	What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, non-stop, until everybody was dead in this convoy.
	That cannot be.
	That cannot be the role of an army.
	That cannot be the role of an army that has hundreds of drones above Gaza in any single moment.
	Humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war.
	This is a basic principle of humanity.
	At the time, this looks like it's not a war against terrorism anymore.
	Seems this is a war against humanity itself.
	That's disgusting.
	I'm sorry, that's a disgusting statement.
	It truly is gross.
	It's morally gross to suggest that a friendly fire incident is a war against humanity itself.
	It's an accident and a friendly fire incident.
	And the attempt to make a moral equivalence between Israel hitting an aid convoy in a case of mistaken identity, and Hamas literally holding hostages right this moment on purpose, killing civilians on purpose, You want the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to end?
	Hamas could surrender right now.
	Not only is Hamas not surrendering, they're not even negotiating anymore because they believe that they have the world on their side because the world is so eager to declare a moral equivalence between an actual terrorist group and an actual army.
	But again, I don't think we should be particularly surprised by Chef Andres here.
	He's a very passionate person.
	He says things that are uncalibrated about foreign policy literally all the time.
	Back in 2018, for example, he actually accused the United States of what he called a passive genocide.
	With regard to Hurricane Maria, he said, he was tweeting at somebody who he didn't like, Don't insult me, son of a smelly rotten sunchoke.
	Presidents had only 16 deaths at the time, minimizing the hundreds of American deaths early on, probably thousands by now.
	Katrina response was slow, but eventually Bush activated a response, Maria is passive genocide of Americans.
	So he's literally calling the American response to Hurricane Maria back in 2018 a genocide.
	If you fast forward to 2022, he was accusing Israel of killing children, women, and civilians.
	He said, Israel will never be safe for killing children, women, and civilians.
	Big power should always show restraint.
	Bombing cities is no the way.
	Killing people is never the way.
	Longer tables and peace is the only way.
	That was in 2022, long before this current conflict, suggesting that Israel was targeting children, women, and civilians.
	And then from very early on in the conflict, he was doing much the same thing.
	He literally called for a ceasefire October 20th.
	That was like one week after Israel started airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
	October 7th and October 20th were separated by less than two weeks, and he was calling for a ceasefire.
	Quote, thank you, Secretary Blinken, but we need a ceasefire now in order for humanitarian aid to reach all the Palestinians in need.
	That was October 20th he was calling for a ceasefire.
	January 6th, he literally denied that Hamas was hijacking aid, which we know is false.
	We know that Hamas was hijacking aid.
	He said, is not true.
	They are security guards or Palestinian police providing safety and control of the masses
	that are starving.
	If they are Hamas, they will last a second riding in the open top on trucks for hours.
	So again, notice the contrast in what he's saying.
	He is saying here that if they were Hamas, Israel would drone them.
	And then he's also saying that if Israel accidentally drones a truck, it's because they are, on purpose, droning the truck.
	So apparently Israel is absolutely perfect at this, according to Chef Jose Andres.
	It's like 12 or more drones looking at them.
	They will be hit by the IDF.
	Get to more on this momentarily.
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	Then, of course, he thanks Mehdi Hassan, who has been a Hamas propagandist during this situation.
	When Mehdi Hassan was booted from MSNBC for low ratings, he lost his show there.
	So he put out a statement.
	Thank you, Mehdi, for always giving a voice to the voiceless and speaking truth to power.
	And then, of course, fast forward to February.
	This is, you know, a month ago.
	And he was tweeting out, Now again, that is a lie.
	more needs to be done to stop the deaths and suffering of Palestinian children, of hospitals being bombed.
	Now again, that is a lie.
	Israel was not bombing hospitals indiscriminately.
	USA can support Israel right to defend itself at the same time USA should be asking Israel to stop targeting
	civilians and hospitals and tent camps and better a ceasefire.
	And then at the very end, with the liberation of all hostages.
	Well, Hamas is not releasing all the hostages and you're still calling for a ceasefire today.
	So again, this is not to rip on Chef Jose Andres when he's in the middle of something that must be horrifying for him.
	I'm sure he knew all the people who were killed.
	It is to suggest that this is a person with a particular political bent who's been saying uncalibrated things about Israel's activities while Israel has been actively working with his organization to get aid in.
	Why does that matter?
	Because when you lie, when you say things that are untrue about a situation like this, what you are doing is you are handing Hamas a victory.
	The thing that Hamas wants more than anything right now is for there to be world pressure on Israel to stop before Israel can finish off Hamas and Rafah.
	It's the thing they want more than anything.
	And they believe they have it.
	They believe that they have world opinion on their side now, which is why Israel has offered a six-week ceasefire today.
	And Hamas walked away from the table.
	Why?
	Because they don't care how many civilians die, they want more civilians to die.
	They're interested in more starvation.
	Hamas wants more people dead.
	More people dead means more pressure on Israel.
	Hamas is in the beautiful PR position of being able to hold hostage all of Gaza by refusing to surrender.
	And then suggesting that if Israel doesn't allow them to survive and continue to threaten Israel, then it's Israel's fault.
	So of course that set of perverse incentives has led Hamas to effectively disengage from negotiations.
	According to the Times of Israel, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said his terror group at war with Israel is sticking to its conditions for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, including a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.
	Haniyeh said, quote, we are committed to our demands, a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive and complete withdrawal of the enemy out of the Gaza Strip, the return of all displaced people to their homes, allowing all aid needed for our people in Gaza, rebuilding the Strip, lifting the blockade, and achieving an honorable prisoner exchange deal.
	So again, they know that they've basically got Israel in a PR bind.
	And that PR bind is entirely the fault of a foolish media and a foolish West that have decided that after a terrorist group starts a war with a much larger and more powerful power, that it is the job of the larger and more powerful power to be absolutely anodyne in its response.
	That war will suddenly become not messy.
	And no matter how much aid Israel lets in, Israel will still be blamed for starvation, despite the fact they're allowing hundreds of trucks into an active war zone.
	Again, I've never even seen anything like this militarily.
	You're not talking about a counter-insurgency effort right now.
	You're talking about an ongoing war.
	This would be the equivalent, not, of the United States trying to facilitate aid into Iraq after the fall of the Iraqi army.
	It would be the equivalent of the United States attempting to facilitate aid into Iraq, into Baghdad, in the middle of a war with the actual Saddam Hussein Iraqi army.
	It'd be like the United States in the middle of a battle with the Taliban in 2002, like right at the very beginning, the first three weeks of the conflict, and they're trying to get aid in to Kabul while the Taliban is still in control of Kabul.
	That's what you're talking about.
	Israel has tentative military control, but is facing actual firefights every single day and people are being killed every single day.
	But the idea is that if Israel doesn't magic MREs into the hands of people, With Hamas attempting to shoot at them, or if Israel makes a mistake while that's happening, then it must be that this war has to stop and Hamas has to remain in power.
	This seems to be the prevailing foreign policy idea on nearly all sides at this point.
	Is that if war is imperfect, war must end.
	Well, I mean, good luck.
	If that is the way that Americans are going to think about war, or Westerners are going to think about war, we will never win another war.
	It's just that simple.
	Because all the incentive structures are then on the side of the people who are willing to fight a dirty war.
	The dirtier the war, the uglier the war, the more we don't want to be involved in the war.
	But we're not even involved in the war as Americans.
	The United States is not directly involved in Israel-Gaza.
	The United States, on a real foreign policy level, has an interest in the extirpation of Hamas.
	That would be good for the United States.
	It is an Iranian terror proxy arm that threatens American allies in the region.
	That is also threatening, by the way, to topple the Jordanian regime, which is an American ally in the region.
	There's a reason that Egypt does not want any of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip traveling into Egypt.
	They're afraid they'll destabilize the regime over there, the way they destabilized the regime in Lebanon.
	So it's very much in the United States' real politic interest for Israel to be unshackled in its pursuit of Hamas.
	We're not talking about putting American troops on the ground.
	Nobody wants American troops on the ground.
	I don't even want America building a humanitarian aid bridge in the Mediterranean.
	We shouldn't have American troops anywhere near this area.
	It's an absurdity that Joe Biden is putting troops in that particular area while simultaneously doing the dirty work of the Iranians.
	He's literally funding both sides of this war.
	It's totally insane.
	You wonder why people disapprove of Joe Biden's position?
	Because he doesn't have one.
	He's all over the damn place.
	But the end result of that is, of course, that America's enemies grow stronger.
	And Joe Biden has been completely unable in every foreign policy context to explain exactly what he is doing.
	He's taken halfway positions on every single conflict.
	He has slow-walked aid to the Ukrainians while claiming that the Ukrainians are going to be able to fight this war ad infinitum with no end.
	Which, again, is a bizarre position for the United States to take.
	The actual position of the United States should be that the Ukrainians should be funded sufficient to prevent their collapse to the Russians.
	But because Joe Biden says, we are going to do this until quote-unquote victory, where victory is undefined, the American public is not on board.
	Meanwhile, in a war where the victory aim is very clearly defined, the extirpation of Hamas and restoration of security controlling the Gaza Strip, Joe Biden's like, that can't be our goal.
	I don't know when the West became unaccustomed to defining the goal of victory and then actually achieving it, but we haven't won a war for a very long time in the West, like truly won a war for a super long time in the West.
	And the reason is twofold.
	One, we have no stomach for war, and two, we have no stomach for victory.
	So we won't even define victory, and then we won't do what's necessary in order to achieve victory, or even let our allies do what's necessary in order to achieve victory.
	That is the current state of play, by the way, in Ukraine.
	We'll get to more on this in just a moment.
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	According to Politico, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making dire warnings
	According to Zelensky, unless the stalled a multi-billion dollar package from the United States is soon approved, his forces will have to go back, retreat step by step in small steps.
	He also warned some major cities could be at risk of falling.
	Now, obviously, he's saying that because he wants the aid, but apparently it also happens to be true.
	According to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zhiluzhny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces until he was replaced in February, the military picture is grim.
	Officers said there's a great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive.
	Moreover, thanks to a much greater weight in numbers and the guided aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now, Russia will likely be able to penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts.
	According to one of the top-ranking military sources, there's nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us.
	We don't have those technology and the West doesn't have them as well in sufficient numbers.
	This presumably is one of the reasons why Ukraine is now lowering the age of conscription to 25.
	So Ukraine has very weird sort of conscription rule.
	So, they tried to exempt people who were younger, which is sort of the reverse of most conscription efforts.
	Usually, if you had a draft in the United States, it would start at the age of 18, and you'd largely focus on young men.
	In Ukraine, it's been focusing on middle-aged people and then gradually drifting down.
	So it started at the age of 27, and they're moving it down to 25.
	The change apparently comes as Ukraine's defensive lines come under heavy pressure from massive Russian assaults.
	Frontline commanders say they're short of personnel and ammunition, as a supplemental aid package is stuck in Congress.
	Ukrainian officers say they're expecting Russia to mount a significant offensive around the start of the summer, which is aimed at expanding the nearly 20% of territory the invading forces already occupy.
	Zelensky says the military has requested 500,000 more soldiers.
	Unclear exactly whether they're going to get the 500,000 more soldiers at this point.
	So I have a question.
	What exactly is the foreign policy of the United States here?
	Joe Biden has called for increased aid, but he's not making these sort of concessions in the House that would be necessary in order to get that aid.
	So does he actually want Ukraine to be able to survive in the face of all of this?
	All he had to do was pass some border control provisions in the Senate, and this thing sails through the House.
	But it didn't.
	Meanwhile, the discombobulation on foreign policy is on all sides.
	Yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene speculated that the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, who you'll remember, was voted in to replace Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy was apparently too woke or some such nonsense.
	She is now suggesting that Mike Johnson is being blackmailed because he is supporting a budgetary process that includes aid to Ukraine, aid to Taiwan, aid to Israel.
	Now, this sort of speculative garbage really is stupid.
	That is not how legislation works.
	The reason that the Speaker of the House is going to pass a piece of legislation that Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't like is because there are still these people called Democrats and they run the Senate and they are also in the White House.
	And it is thanks to the unworkability of the Republican majority that that Republican majority has been shrinking radically because it turns out that many principled conservatives in Congress don't want to work in this absolute bleep show that the Republican House has become.
	But here's Marjorie Taylor Greene implying that Mike Johnson is being blackmailed or bribed or something with Tucker.
	But no, Mike Johnson has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for.
	And to the point where people are literally asking, is he blackmailed?
	What is wrong with him?
	Because he's completely disconnected with what we want.
	Do you think he is being blackmailed?
	I have no idea.
	I can't comprehend, Tucker, what radically changes a man.
	I mean, if we break down the second part of basically an omnibus, let's break that down.
	He completely changed who he was, funded the FBI, gave him a brand new building,
	fully funded the Department of Justice that is persecuting everyone on the right,
	and actually targeting our presidential candidate for election this year, literally trying to put
	him in jail the rest of his life. We don't know who Mike Johnson is anymore, so there's no—I
	can't comprehend it. Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is the speaker of the House and he has to govern.
	time.
	This sort of conspiratorial nonsense is silly.
	Not only is it silly, the foreign policy prescriptions that suggest that it would be somehow in America's interest for Ukraine to fall to the Russians.
	Or that it would be in America's interest for Taiwan to be threatened increasingly by China?
	Or that it would be in America's interest for Hamas to be left intact in the Gaza Strip?
	I just want to know what's America's real po... These... The people who say this sort of stuff, they act as though they're being hard-headed about America's interests.
	I'm wondering, what is America's interest in that?
	How would it be good for America, for Russia to take Ukraine?
	And when people say, well, we can't afford it.
	Yes, we can't afford anything.
	Let's be clear about this.
	The United States budget is $7 trillion a year.
	We are currently $34 trillion in debt.
	Somewhere around 7% of our annual federal budget is spent just on the interest payments.
	When it comes to foreign aid, which is the thing that people are complaining about when it comes to Ukraine or Israel or Taiwan, that constitutes all foreign aid, all of it.
	That constitutes under 1% of the federal budget.
	Now you can say that you don't like the aid or you think that it's not worth spending.
	Okay, you have to make the case then as to what the alternative would be.
	What are the predictable results of that aid not going out?
	Make the case, seriously.
	But if the case is we're spending too much money, I would urge you to look at the other 99% of American spending that is actually funding our massive deficit, year on year.
	And logic, I think, has left the building.
	I think right now American politics is a series of thrashings and impulses.
	That is not going to be good for America midterm or long term.
	It's not even going to be good for America short term.
	OK, in just one second, we'll get to the only possible restoration, by the way, of any logic here.
	Amazingly, is Donald Trump being elected president, but he's in legal trouble.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, The Daily Wire.
	We did something weird.
	We decided to give Matt Walsh a robe, a gavel, and an all-new series, introducing Judged by Matt Walsh on DailyWare+.
	That is correct.
	It appears an individual in the DailyWare's ranks deemed it fitting to grant the most hypercritical human being on Earth the authority of a bona fide judge.
	I just want to remind you, I actually went to Harvard Law School and I am licensed in the state of California, but the judge is Matt Walsh.
	Take a look at the official trailer for the new DailyWare Plus series, Judged by Matt Walsh, right now.
	All rise for the Honorable Judge Walsh.
	Please be seated.
	Ms.
	Goldstein.
	Mr. Bentley.
	Your Honor.
	Mr. Alderbridge.
	Ms.
	Spicer.
	Your Honor.
	Mr. Barney.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Ms.
	Singh.
	Yes.
	At 30,000 feet, my lips exploded.
	Why would I pay rent to somebody who had sex with my sister?
	A dog bit my finger.
	He's allergic to, like, the grass.
	If he didn't want me to drive the car, he would've took the key I had with him.
	Has anyone told you you're the worst negotiator that's ever lived?
	I've never been more annoyed than I am in this moment.
	Not even close.
	That does it.
	it, please get the hell out of my courtroom.
	Be the first to see Judged by Matt Walsh, Tuesday, April 9th at 8 p.m.
	Eastern on DailyWirePlus.
	If you don't have a DailyWirePlus membership, get it right now for 35% off with code JUDGE to check out.
	It's hilarious.
	Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	For the record, I will never call him Your Honor.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden is in serious electoral trouble.
	Again, as we say, so much of what Joe Biden is doing right now is being driven by the fact that his left wing keeps telling him that if he drives further to the left, he's going to win, which is insane.
	And he should be moving toward the middle.
	Donald Trump is actually occupying that middle space in American politics right now.
	So the Democrats have a plan, which is to put him in jail.
	According to Axios, a Manhattan judge on Wednesday denied former President Trump's attempt to delay the start of his New York hush money trial.
	The presumptive GOP presidential nominee had asked to delay the trial set for April 15th until the Supreme Court rules on his presidential immunity claims.
	Judge Juan Amerchan wrote in his Wednesday decision that Trump had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7th, 2024.
	The defendant's motion was denied in its entirety as untimely, according to the judge.
	He faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
	That's because every single payment that Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, they're counting as a separate count.
	This is the weakest of the indictments against him, but, hell, it's in New York, so they might convict him anyway.
	And then, presumably, the judge would throw the book at him, because whichever judge throws the book at Donald Trump gets a nice, fat book deal.
	He has to be on the TVs.
	Because that's the way our criminal justice system works if the opposing party is apparently in the dock.
	Meanwhile, the special counsel, Jack Smith, who is running two separate trials against Donald Trump, He's running the trial against Donald Trump in Florida over classified documents mishandling.
	He's also running the January 6th trial up in Washington, D.C.
	Right now, he's spending his days attacking the judge in the classified documents case.
	According to the Washington Post, special counsel Jack Smith warned the judge overseeing Donald Trump's classified documents case she is pursuing a legal premise that is wrong and said he would probably appeal to a higher court if she rules a federal records law can protect the former president from prosecution.
	In a late-night filing on Tuesday, Smith's office pushed back hard against an unusual instruction from U.S.
	District Judge Eileen Cannon, one that veteran national security lawyers and former judges have said badly misinterprets the Presidential Records Act and laws related to classified documents.
	Last month, Cannon ordered defense lawyers and prosecutors in the case to submit hypothetical jury instructions based on two different and very much contested readings of the Presidential Records Act.
	In response, Smith said Cannon was pursuing a fundamentally flawed legal premise that the law somehow overrides Section 793 of the Espionage Act, which is the mishandling of classified documentations.
	He said that legal premise is wrong.
	A jury instruction for section 793 that reflects that premise would distort the trial.
	He said the Presidential Records Act should not play any role in the trial at all.
	This is an unusual filing because he's seeking a direct confrontation with the judge.
	How Cannon responds is going to be quite interesting.
	So you now have Jack Smith at war with the judge in the Trump special counsel case.
	And again, if she's wrong, presumably she will be overruled on appeal.
	There's some talk about the possibility that she is removed from the case.
	Now, is that actually going to happen?
	I see very little evidence she's going to be removed from that case.
	Suffice it to say that Donald Trump's legal docket is going to be very much filled all the way up until the election.
	And in some ways, that actually helps him.
	Because let's face it, covering these legal trials is super boring.
	It's really, really boring.
	Everyone already has an opinion on whether Donald Trump should go to jail or not.
	Very little of that is based on the legal The legal issues at play in these cases.
	People who hate Trump want him in jail.
	People who like Trump want him to be president.
	That's kind of the way that this works.
	With that said, if everything Trump related from now until the election is just legal headlines, and everything Joe Biden related is the world is on fire, then Joe Biden has a very serious problem on his hands.
	Meanwhile, speaking of the world being on fire, the situation in New York continues to be a complete disaster area.
	Yesterday, six migrant squatters in New York were actually released without bail after they were arrested for drug and gun violations.
	This is according to Fox News.
	Eight were arrested on those drug and gun charges, but six were released on bail, including D'Souza Volalta, who at one point had an attempted murder charge here in New York.
	Now, police say not only did they find four guns, they found a ghost gun inside of that basement apartment.
	They found two bags of ketamine and cocaine inside of there.
	So ultimately, this is what we have, eight migrant squatters who were arrested on gun and drug charges.
	Six of them were released on Without bail, and now three that have been arrested by ICE removal officers right in front of our cameras.
	Okay, so some are being arrested, some are being released without bail, they'll be released out locally, arrested by ICE, may be deported.
	All of this is incredibly weakly.
	I mean, the fact is that the left-wing jurisdictions like New York have decided to go soft on crime, and then simultaneously they're complaining about it.
	So here's New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was really elected to fight crime, He was elected in the aftermath of terrible communist mayor Bill de Blasio, who blew up the crime rate in New York City.
	And he was elected largely because he was seen as a pro-police force.
	And here he was, saying pro-police words, but have the policies changed all that much in New York City?
	We know the biggest challenge that we are facing, I say over and over again, is three areas.
	Recidivism, recidivism, recidivism.
	There are too many bad people who are doing bad things to good people of this city, and they believe they have the right to do that.
	A small number of people are committing a large number of crimes.
	Well, yes, that's why you should keep them in jail for prolonged periods of time.
	This is not particularly tough.
	It turns out that jail is an amazing place to keep criminals.
	And the longer you keep them there, the fewer of them are out to commit more crimes.
	But the left has decided that jails are essentially bad, and so we have to just let people out without bail, give people short sentences, let them out as fast as humanly possible, and then we are surprised when, again, The crime rates increase.
	And meanwhile, when it comes to the economy again, most Americans do not like the state of the economy.
	Jerome Powell is trying to happy talk this thing.
	He is suggesting that the Federal Reserve is still going to cut rates this year.
	He's saying that sort of stuff because every time he says that the Federal Reserve is not going to cut rates this year, the stock market takes a dump.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, stronger than anticipated economic activity this year has not changed the Federal Reserve's broad expectations that declining inflation will allow for interest rate cuts this year.
	Powell pointed to signs that labor market conditions are less tight than they have been in recent years, a view that has eased concerns paychecks and prices might rise in tandem.
	However, signs of firmer than expected inflation in January and February Have actually created a bit of a conundrum.
	Apparently, Powell said it hasn't shaken the Fed's stance that price growth will continue to slow down despite some bumps.
	He said the recent data do not materially change the overall picture, which continues to be one of solid growth, a strong but rebalancing labor market, and inflation moving down to 2% on a sometimes bumpy path.
	Now, here's the thing.
	The economy can in fact be getting better.
	Inflation can in fact be improving quarter on quarter.
	Still, the inflation that happened is embedded in the price structure.
	So if you've had wage gains in the past couple quarters, after tremendous wage erosion for the past three years, that's not going to make up for it.
	It's like having your paycheck slashed every month for three years, and then you got a little bit of a raise the last two months, and everyone's like, well, you should be happy now you're getting a raise.
	That's not the way any of this works.
	Americans' perceptions of the economy are baked in by three years of failing economic policy from the Biden administration.
	Again, that is the real reason why Joe Biden is having a very tough time in this election.
	It is not because he's not taking a left-wing enough position on any of this sort of stuff.
	We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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	Well, meanwhile, Joe Biden, you know, that guy who's supposed to be tacking to the middle yesterday, he actually literally had Bernie Sanders to the White House to talk about health care.
	No, I'm sure most Americans are eager for Joe Biden to appease Bernie Sanders on health care.
	According to the Associated Press, President Biden teamed up with Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to promote his administration's efforts to lower the cost of inhalers and other health care needs.
	Bernie, you and I have been fighting this for 25 years, said Biden to Sanders.
	Finally, we beat Big Pharma.
	Finally.
	Now, again, I gotta tell you, there are a lot of problems with Big Pharma, obviously.
	And Big Pharma has an interest in pushing drugs as more effective than they are.
	Big Pharma works hand-in-glove with the FDA.
	All of that may be true.
	Also, every drug that you use and is actually useful to you has been produced by Big Pharma.
	That is the reality.
	When your mom has cancer, it's Big Pharma that is dealing with her problem.
	Joe Biden's attempts to dump all of the problems of the healthcare system at the lap of the people who do the actual R&D is really pathetic and trying to please Bernie Sanders, who is legitimately one of the most useless people ever to have walked the planet.
	Bernie Sanders is a bag of useless.
	I cannot state this enough.
	He is a net drain on society's resources, Bernie Sanders.
	As soon as he's been on the taxpayer dime for five decades, he has produced zero major pieces of legislation.
	He represents a state with seven white people and three moose.
	And yet he has been treated as some sort of great halcyon of economic knowledge, despite being so useless that he was once thrown off a commune for failure to do work.
	There's not enough scorn in my body for Bernie Sanders.
	He really is just a pathetic specimen of our typical political class.
	Well, apparently, Biden thinks he needs Bernie.
	He thinks Bernie is going to push him to victory.
	The political malpractice here is just stunning.
	Both men touted the lower health care costs that came through the Democrats' sweeping
	climate health care and tax package Biden signed into law in 2022.
	It caps various health care costs for those on Medicare, including $35 a month for insulin,
	which again, the vast majority of people were already getting insulin for lower than that
	cost, and $2,000 a year for prescription drugs.
	Okay, now again, you can cap costs however you want.
	The availability of the drugs is the real question.
	It turns out that if these companies are unable to produce profit on the drugs, they stop producing them altogether.
	They stop doing R&D on new drugs.
	The top drugmaker lobby called Biden's comments Wednesday, quote, a missed opportunity, saying he failed to address how some other industries, like health insurance companies, are also driving up the cost of medications.
	Well, yes, that would be definitely one of the big problems.
	Also, if Joe Biden actually wanted to use his power as president to lower the cost of drugs for Americans, he could actually leverage foreign countries into paying their fair share.
	It's funny, Joe Biden always wants the quote-unquote rich to pay their fair share, by which he means apparently everything.
	That's only for rich Americans.
	When he's talking about foreign countries, he wants them to be able to free ride on America's healthcare spending.
	That's how it works.
	Canada is paying much lower prices for drugs because they've essentially said to U.S.
	drug makers, we will only pay you X. And the only reason that those drug makers are able to go along with that deal is because the United States does not cap the drug prices.
	There are two ways of dealing with that.
	One is to forcibly cap drug prices by having Medicare.
	Negotiate the spending.
	The problem with that is that no one is paying the fair price, which means no one develops new drugs.
	It's like rent control.
	The other way to do that is that the United States goes to Canada and they say, listen, we understand that you are paying unfair prices for your drugs.
	So here's the deal.
	We are now going to apply economic leverage to our much smaller northern neighbor.
	And you are now going to pay the market price for these drugs because it's an American company.
	And we have an interest in American companies continuing to produce these drugs.
	We actually do have some leverage in this sphere, but Joe Biden ain't gonna do that.
	Instead, he's just gonna rip on private industry, the only creator of innovation in human history in any real measure.
	Private industry, even in combination with government, it's private industry that is leading the way.
	Yes, obviously there have been situations in which the military developed early stage tech, and then it was private industry that drove it to the broader public.
	Always and forever.
	But, gotta put pressure on private industry, because obviously you gotta please Bernie Sanders supporters.
	It's the only way to go.
	I'm telling you, if Joe Biden continues to pursue this strategy, if he continues to push to the left, to the left, to the left, he's going to lose.
	And then, presumably, the Democratic Party will blame him for being too moderate.
	That's the way all politics works these days, because everyone is, um, stupid.
	Alrighty, coming up, we're gonna jump into the Vaunted Ben Shapiro Show Mailbag.
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