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Jan. 30, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show
52:23
Bernie Goes NUTS: DENOUNCE THE ONESIES!
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Well, folks, horrible, tragic situation in Washington, D.C. According to the UK Daily Mail, an American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people on board crashed midair into a military helicopter while attempting to land at Reagan National Airport.
This is one of the most heavily policed areas of the sky in all of America.
Reagan National, of course, is a very sensitive security site, given the fact that it has close proximity to pretty much all of the major American security sites in Washington, D.C. The tragedy is just shocking.
You can see on video as this American Airlines passenger jet, a small passenger jet that was taking off from Kansas, is trying to land at Reagan National.
And a helicopter, which was swirling around in the area, a Black Hawk military helicopter, flies directly into its path.
And it's pretty clearly an accident.
There was a lot of speculation last night.
I don't like doing speculation, particularly in situations like this where all the information is not available.
The video is shocking and horrifying.
This is some camera footage that was available, some security camera footage available from afar.
You can see the fireball that is created as the plane hits the helicopter here.
You can see the explosion happening near the bottom of the screen.
There's a close-up.
You can see the helicopter approaching the flight, flying directly into the path of the airplane.
It explodes in midair.
It breaks apart.
It lands in the Potomac River.
Everybody aboard apparently dead.
That includes members of the U.S. figure skating community who'd been returning home from the National Development Camp, which is an advanced training camp for promising young athletes held in conjunction with U.S. figure skating championships.
As many as 15 people on the flight may have been involved in figure skating, according to the reports.
It included a married couple, a Russian married couple named Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who apparently won a world championship in figure skating.
Back in 1994. Again, there were three soldiers who were aboard the Black Hawk helicopter.
Just a horrifying, tragic scenario.
We'll bring you the latest as more news becomes available.
But at this point, all you can really do is pray for the families because there are no survivors, from what we know, at this point.
Bodies have been fished out of the Potomac.
This is going to mandate serious change, I'm sure, in how Reagan National is run.
And that is some very busy airspace, despite the fact that it's very sensitive airspace.
The last time there's a major American plane crash was 2009. It's been a long time in the United States.
These are very rare.
The United States does have the safest aviation system on planet Earth.
So when this sort of stuff happens, it is truly, truly shocking, horrifying, and tragic.
Once again, our prayers go out to the family.
We'll bring you more information on how people can give charity and help out as time goes on, as that information becomes.
Okay, meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the big story of the day was that RFK Jr., Bobby Kennedy, had his hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
He, of course, is one of the more controversial nominees by President Trump, both from the right and from the left.
From the left, there are a lot of people who question Bobby Kennedy's association with President Trump, the fact that he gave a pretty bang-up speech leaving the race.
He was running originally as a Democrat.
He was basically barred from the Democrat primaries because the Democrats were trying to rig it for Joe Biden.
And then, He ran as an independent, and he was picking up a not insignificant portion of the vote, and he decided to drop out and endorse President Trump.
In that speech, he went after many of the Democrat-controlled systems, ranging from the media to academia.
So there's a lot of ire from Democrats who used to love Bobby Kennedy at Bobby Kennedy.
On the right side of the aisle, there's some dyspepsia over many of Bobby Kennedy's prior positions, ranging from abortion to his sort of broad position on vaccines.
So his hearing yesterday was, I think, an excellent job by Kennedy.
of walking back some of the positions that are more extreme, generally anti-vaccine positions, or positions that suggest that he's going to outright work to ban foods that he doesn't like.
The implication had been, from many people, that make America healthy again, was really going to be a sort of Michael Bloomberg effort to ban you from buying a soda or buying a hamburger.
And Bobby Kennedy said, no, that's not the case.
He said right off the top, listen, I'm not interested in taking people's food away.
The president of the United States is Donald Trump.
That dude loves, that dude loves McDonald's.
He loves Diet Coke and he loves cheeseburgers.
Those ain't going away.
I don't want to take food away from anybody.
If you like a McDonald's cheeseburger or Diet Coke, which my boss loves, you should be able to get them if you want to eat.
Hostess Twinkies, you should be able to do that, but you should know what the impacts are on your family and on your health.
Okay, the fact that he's pushing for more information being available is not a terrible thing.
He says that his tenure at the head of HHS, if he is confirmed, will be marked by radical transparency, which of course would be a major shift from the past.
The Democratic Party, of course, has not embraced radical transparency in any area of administrative law.
All the administrative agencies have basically been opaque.
You only find out when you violated a law because...
You had a summons from some sort of executive branch agency.
Here is RFK Jr. suggesting that the hallmark of his tenure will be radical transparency.
My approach to administration, HHS, will be radical transparency.
If members of this committee or other members of Congress want information, the doors are open.
I've spent many years litigating against NIH and its sub-agencies.
I mean, it's HHS and its sub-agencies, NIH, CDC, FDA, on FOIA issues, trying to get information that we, the taxpayers, paid for, and oftentimes getting back redacted copies after a year or two years of litigation.
That should not be the case.
And if Congress asks me for information, you will get it immediately.
Okay, again, that is a good thing.
By the way, one of the things Bobby Kennedy pledged is that...
Null studies, meaning studies that come out that are basically file-droored.
What that means is very often the studies that tend to get a lot of play are the ones that have quote-unquote new results.
And very often those new results are not duplicated in other studies.
And so if somebody tries to put forward a result that basically shows no impact, a void impact of a drug, for example, that is file-droored.
Somebody just gets rid of the study.
It just doesn't see the light of day.
It says we need to see more of those things.
We need to see more of the studies.
We need more information.
That, of course, would be very, very good.
RFK Jr. also walked back some of his pro-choice positions.
Not that he has suddenly become pro-life, but he does work for the Trump administration, which is a pro-life administration.
He's not going to use HHS to promote abortion.
That was one of the things that he said yesterday, which I think quieted a lot of concerns from the right about his anti-life positions in the past.
Of course, he had said on many shows, including my own show, I've interviewed him, that he is fully pro-choice, but he says...
He is a member of the Trump administration.
Minimizing abortion would be the idea.
I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy.
I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions here.
I agree with him that the states should control abortion.
President Trump has told me that he wants to end late-term abortions.
That he wants to protect conscious exemptions and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions here or abroad.
That's Title X. I serve at the pleasure of the president.
I'm going to implement his policies.
Again, that I think is aimed at the Republicans in the Senate who are likely to vote for RFK Jr.'s confirmation.
He also mitigated his own statements with regard to vaccines.
Far too broad-reaching, suggesting, for example, at one point that vaccines, there was no such thing as a safe and healthy vaccine.
Now, he says he meant for everyone, meaning that every single vaccine has some sort of side effects for someone, which, of course, is true.
He was asked about that, and he said, listen, if you think I'm taking away the measles vaccine or the polio vaccine, that is not what I am in favor of.
I support the measles vaccine.
I support the polio vaccine.
I will do nothing as HHS secretary.
That makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those practices.
Anybody who believes that ought to look at the measles book you wrote saying parents have been misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease.
That's not true.
Okay, so, again, he was browbeaten by Democrats on that particular list.
He spent a lot of yesterday walking back old comments, which, of course, is not a shock considering that he has said a lot of controversial things in the past.
Now, that's not all that he did.
He pointed out that many of the same Democrats who were attacking him used to be his friends.
Here he was yesterday pointing out that many of the same Democrats who are now saying that he's out of his mind, that he's insane.
All these same people were courting his favor just a few years ago.
All these Democrats are opposed to me for partisan issues.
They used to be my friends.
Agreed with me on all the environmental issues that I've been working on for my whole career.
Now they're against me because anything that President Trump does, any decision he makes, I mean, again, he's right about that.
If President Trump wants to snuff out all of his opponents, all he has to do today is come out in favor of breathing oxygen.
All his opponents will immediately denounce breathing oxygen and put plastic bags over their heads.
And that is the oppositional nature of our politics at this moment.
Well, RFK Jr. may be confused by how many of his former friends have now become his enemies, but there are people out there who actually don't want the best for you.
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Get the help you need with Tax Network USA. RFK Jr. also went after the kind of spending that we've been doing on our public health care system.
He's not wrong about this.
In fact, every single public health care system on planet Earth reaches a point of diminishing returns.
You can increase the health of your population only to the point of the baseline health of the population, meaning that if you have a deeply unhealthy population that is, for example, obese, ridden with diabetes, has too much sugar, never exercises, no matter how much money you sink into Medicaid, it is not going to fix those problems on the back end.
That is not how medicine works.
Here's RFK Jr. on this.
Americans, by and large, do not like the Affordable Care Act.
People are on it.
They don't like Medicaid.
They like Medicare.
And they like private insurance.
We need to listen to what people, they would prefer to be on private insurance.
Most Americans, if they can afford to be, will be on private insurance.
We need to figure out ways to improve care.
Particularly for elderly, for veterans, for the poor in this country.
And Medicaid, the current model, is not doing that.
I would ask, you know, any of the Democrats who were chuckling just now, do you think all that money, the $900 billion that we're sending to Medicaid every year has made Americans healthy?
Do we think it's working for anybody?
Are the premiums low enough?
He's right about this, although when he talks about premiums on Medicaid.
He was banged about for this in the press because it turns out that there are no premiums in Medicaid, right?
I mean, when it comes to premiums in Medicaid, Medicaid is not a private health insurance system.
One of the problems with Medicaid is that typically the reimbursement rates are so low that many doctors won't even take it in the first place.
But his point, which is we spend billions, hundreds of billions of dollars on these gigantic health care systems when we should actually be encouraging people to do healthy things on the front end.
That he is right about.
Now, the Democrats made fools of themselves.
One of the things that helps RFK Jr. in this hearing is that whatever mistakes he made were quickly covered up for by the fact that Democrats are out of their freaking minds.
They are out of their minds.
They're just crazy.
They're crazy.
I mean, listen, it's not our fault on the right that you guys decided to tout Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as your champions of diversity, of inclusion, of economic wherewithal.
That is your fault.
You decided to make these people your leading lights.
We didn't.
You chose the form of your destructor, and it turns out it was a bunch of geriatric socialists with no relationship with the real world.
The funniest moment by far of the day came when Bernie Sanders started questioning RFK Jr. about a onesie for a baby that said, unvaxxed, unafraid.
And apparently, Bernie doesn't like the onesies.
Onesies are bad.
Where are the legs?
Why are there no legs on this onesie?
Why can't I wear a onesie?
Will you denounce the onesies?
Who made these onesies?
They are selling what's called onesies.
These are little things, clothing for babies.
Are you supportive of this?
I've had nothing to do with leadership.
Are you supportive of these onesies?
I'm supportive of vaccines.
Are you supportive of this clothing, which is militantly anti-vaccine?
I am supportive of vaccines.
I want good science, and I want to protect the vaccines.
But you will not tell the organization you founded.
Not to continue selling that product.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Why?
Will you not denounce the onesies?
Who ordered the onesies?
Who did it?
Was it you?
Was it you?
Babies are okay.
They're not great.
They're okay.
They poop a lot.
They wear onesies.
I don't like the onesies.
These are bad onesies.
Bernie2028, will you denounce the onesies?
By the way, one of the funniest things that I've ever seen in a congressional hearing like this.
It was Megyn Kelly, who showed up, and Megyn, of course I'm friends with Megyn, Megyn showed up directly behind RFK Jr., right?
She considers herself a maha mom, and she was sitting behind RFK Jr., and during this exchange, if you can't see it, she bursts out laughing.
It's really funny, and it's everybody's thought.
It's like, this is just crazy.
You think that you're going to get RFK Jr. on, will you denounce the onesies?
These onesies?
I have questions about onesies.
Why do they have snaps?
Snaps are not good for onesies.
Why don't they just use zippers?
The snaps are very difficult.
Sometimes you get one, sometimes you get three.
What do you do?
How can you take it?
Sometimes the poop explodes in the diaper.
It hits the onesie, but now you have to take the onesie off over the baby's head.
As you can tell, I've had some experience with baby onesies.
That was not the end of Bernie's insanity.
He then asked RFK Jr. if health care is a right, and RFK Jr. gave the correct answer, which is not the way you mean it.
Is health care a human right?
In the way that...
Free speech is a human right?
Yeah.
I would say it's different because with free speech it doesn't cost anybody anything, but in healthcare, if you smoke cigarettes for 20 years and you get cancer, you are now taking from the pool.
And so are you guaranteed the same rate or is there also a duty?
I'm sorry.
Okay, so that is the correct answer.
Okay, the correct answer when someone says, Is X a right?
You have to ask, what do you mean by that?
There are many different types of quote-unquote rights.
What Bernie means is, do you think it's a good thing that everybody should have?
And the answer to that is sure.
That doesn't mean it's a right.
If you're demanding a service from somebody, it's no longer a right.
I don't have a right to food, for example.
I have a right to the ability to obtain food in a free system.
I don't have a right to food because that means that somebody else would have to provide me that food.
I do have a right to free speech because...
I do have the ability to demand from you that you not actually impede my ability to speak freely.
That is the difference between so-called negative rights and positive rights.
Positive rights is a conflict of terms.
It doesn't mean anything other than an entitlement.
Meanwhile, it wasn't just Bernie.
It was also Elizabeth Warren who sort of knocked off Timu Bernie.
Here she was, yelling at RFK Jr. and basically just redoing the lady screaming a cat meme.
If this is what Democrats...
Like, please, more of this.
Like, really.
How did you turn Republicans into the cool kids?
Well, probably with the lecturing school marm, fake Native American, who is the senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. Kennedy, it's just a really simple question.
You've taken in two and a half million dollars.
I want to know if you will commit right now that not only will you not go to work for drug companies, you won't go to work suing the drug companies and taking your rake out of that while you're a secretary and for four years after.
I'll commit to not taking any fees from drug companies while I'm secretary.
I'm asking about fees from suing drug companies.
Will you agree not to do that?
You're asking me to not sue drug companies.
No, you can sue drug companies as much as you want.
I'm not going to agree to not sue drug companies or anybody.
I mean, first of all, it's kind of amazing that what Elizabeth Warren is doing there is what she's what she's trying to do is she's trying to suggest that RFK Jr. would be corrupt if he sued the companies that he is regulating as HHS.
normally, The corruption allegation is that you go and you work for the companies that you're regulating at these various agencies.
That's usually the rip.
Pete Hegseth, for example, was asked about this by Mazie Hirono during his hearing when he was being nominated for Secretary of Defense.
The question is, are you going to go work, for example, for some sort of defense contractor afterward?
That's the normal question.
But she's not asking whether he's going to go work for Pfizer.
She's asking if he will refrain from suing Pfizer after he's the head of HHS, which is a super weird take.
Now again, I think that Big Pharma gets a horrible rap in the United States as a general rule.
Big Pharma has developed literally every drug that you and your parents rely on.
All of them.
And your kids.
So Big Pharma does bad things, just like every other corporation does bad things.
But this notion that Big Pharma is uniquely bad when they develop literally all of the life-saving things that surround you in the world is a bizarre one to me.
Nonetheless, Elizabeth Warren was attacking him from the right there.
It's super duper duper weird.
Meanwhile, Maggie Hassan.
The senator from New Hampshire, she was ripping on RFK Jr., suggesting that he had sold out his life's work by now suggesting that he would be part of a pro-life administration.
When was it that you decided to sell out the values you've had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?
Senator, I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy, that we can't be a moral authority in this country.
Right, but that isn't what you said back in New Hampshire.
In 2023. My question is exactly when did you decide to sell out your life's work and values to get this position?
Senator, I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy.
So what you're telling us, just to be clear because my time is limited, is that regardless of what you believe, regardless of what values you have, if President Trump tells you to do something, you're going to do it.
Again, this is the take?
This is your take?
Fine.
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Okay, so the Democrats decided to go hard after RFK Jr. using these particular lines.
Again, the only effective line of attack on RFK Jr. in this hearing.
Was basically just asking him about past comments and he spent most of the time rebutting that.
But if Bernie yelling about onesies and Elizabeth Warren going nuts over RFK Jr. are your methodology, good luck.
Also, I'm sorry, you blew it here.
You really did.
Sorry, Democrats do not get to complain about their own nominees when they nominated people like Rachel Levine to the assistant HHS secretary.
Remember Rachel Levine?
The dude?
The fake admiral?
Remember that?
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This person was approved by Democrats.
This person was championed by Democrats.
And now it's like, okay, RFK Jr. is too weird.
All right, again.
I might have respected that position if you guys weren't so weird yourselves.
And again, there are going to be questions about how RFK Jr. does his job.
I hope that he is held to the standard that he set for himself in the hearings, meaning no cramdowns on Americans' ability to choose what kind of foods they want to eat.
No attempts to simply punish companies for not doing the will of HHS. No shutting down of R&D that would actually be useful.
I mean, there's some R&D that really is counterproductive, as we saw from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But not attempting to shut down research.
You're going to judge him by the fruits of his labors over at HHS. But I don't think Democrats really laid a glove on Bobby Kennedy yesterday, which is indicative of their total failure across the board since they lost the last election cycle.
Meanwhile, speaking of that failure, President Trump continues to succeed along the lines of cracking down on illegal immigration.
Yesterday, he signed into law the Lakin-Riley Act.
The Lakin-Riley Act, of course, was designed to crack down on criminal illegal immigration in the United States.
In doing so, he praised Democrats who signed on to the act.
the act many of them did. - I very much especially appreciate the bipartisan support.
The Democrats, really a big percentage of them came through and plenty of them wanted to, they probably felt they couldn't but they really wanted to.
That they don't understand that would have made them a lot more popular, would have made them a lot better with their people.
The ones that didn't are gonna be, they're gonna be sorry because the people are not gonna forget that they wouldn't sign This is a perfect, incredible tribute to an unbelievable young lady.
So, what exactly did the Lake and Riley Act do?
Well, it orders ICE to detain illegal immigrants for crimes like theft, and it allows states to sue the Department of Homeland Security over harm caused to citizens by illegal immigrants.
That obviously is a strong act that had a bunch of Democratic support.
Trump is winning on this particular issue.
He's also expanding his mandate.
On this particular issue.
So yesterday, President Trump announced that Gitmo would essentially be turned into a housing facility for the worst criminal illegal immigrants in the United States.
According to the Wall Street Journal, he ordered the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to construct a facility for holding as many as 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay.
The U.S. Navy base in Cuba, the site of a prison for more than two decades, where terrorist suspects would instead be used to contain the worst criminal illegal immigrants.
Here's President Trump announcing it yesterday.
Today I'm also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Most people don't even know about it.
We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.
Some of them are so bad we don't even trust the countries to hold them.
Because we don't want them coming back, so we're going to send them out to Guantanamo.
This will double our capacity immediately, right?
And tough.
That's a tough place to get out of.
Okay, well, this, I think, is going to be a popular notion for Americans who don't wish to see violent illegal immigrants in the United States.
According to the Wall Street Journal, opening 30,000 additional detention beds would almost double ICE's capacity to hold migrants ahead of their deportations.
Congress has allotted funding for detaining as many as 41,000 immigrants.
At a time, a historically high number Trump's team considers inadequate as it tries to carry out mass deportation.
This is not the first time Gitmo has been used this way.
It was used this way during the 80s and the 90s.
Kristi Noem, the newly approved head of the Department of Homeland Security, she said, listen, this is something we've done in the past.
We're already doing it, actually.
There is already facilities there that are housing illegal immigrants, and it's the worst of the worst that are kept there.
Many times those who are sent there are gang members, you know, people that have created terrorist activities in the United States of America and have been a real danger and threat to our people.
So what we'll be doing is utilizing our resources to expand the capacity there and to make sure that as we continue to do what President Trump has talked about and in deporting people who are here illegally and are making our streets much more dangerous is that we're going to utilize Guantanamo Bay to a more expansive purpose.
And that we will be going and putting resources there to make sure we have the space to getting people out of this country right away that will make sure our country much more safe.
Well, again, I think the entire administration is on the same page.
This is very different from Trump 1.0.
Everybody is moving in lockstep inside the Trump administration.
Pete Hegsat, the new Secretary of Defense, he said something similar.
He said, listen, we're ramping up mass deportations.
This is a plan in movement, but not in movement because we're behind, but because we're ramping up for the possibility to expand mass deportations because President Trump is dead serious about getting illegal criminals out of our country.
And the DOD is not only willing to, is proud to partner with DHS to defend the sovereignty of our southern border and advance that mission.
Now, again, this is a whole of administration approach.
And President Trump is not slowing down on any of this.
Now, Colombia had, of course, talked back to the United States, suggested they weren't going to take illegal immigrants that were deported from the United States.
Trump said, you're going to take exactly what we send you.
For the first time in history, we're loading dangerous and illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came.
You probably read about Colombia two days ago.
They said, no, we're not taking them.
They said, we're going to take them.
You're going to take them.
You're going to like it too.
You're going to take them.
By the way, it is worth pointing out here that Democrats, again, have very little response to any of this other than to claim that you won't be able to get blackberries or blueberries in your smoothies because the illegal immigrants are picking all your fruit.
Again, it is kind of incredible that this is the only comeback they've been able to come up with after, what, 30 years of this conversation about illegal immigration?
Is your mangoes might be more expensive?
Really?
That's what you got, guys.
Really that?
I can't wait until American women can't get blueberries for their smoothies.
I cannot wait until there is a full crackdown on all small businesses as if that's going to be the solution to the immigration problem.
It is just going to put immigration-related issues further into the darker corners.
We're not going to see them.
It's just going to become even harder to solve the problem.
It doesn't make sense to punish individuals and people when there is a broken system.
Well, actually, it does make sense to actually fight the broken system by unbreaking the system and deporting the people who are illegally here.
Again, if your white lady privilege, which is we have to absorb 20 million illegal immigrants so that your blueberries can be a little bit cheaper for your protein smoothie.
I'm not sure what to tell you.
I feel like you might be just a little out of touch.
Just a little bit.
Meanwhile, the President of the United States continues his spate of very strong executive actions.
Yesterday, he issued an executive order ending racial indoctrination in K-12 schooling.
This, of course, is designed to end DEI indoctrination across the public school system.
The executive order suggests, quote, imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful and false ideologies on our nation's children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, it usurps basic parental authority.
For example, steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement or allowing males access to private spaces designed for females may contravene federal laws that protect parental rights.
My administration will enforce the law to ensure recipients of federal funds providing K through 12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights.
So this means no more if you're receiving federal funding.
of this nonsense where you socially transition a child.
No more indoctrinating kids at school to believe that they are inferior based on their white skin color.
No more of that.
That all goes away.
Meanwhile, the president issued another executive order attempting to broaden the possibility for school vouchers.
According to this brand new executive order, parents want and deserve the best education for their children.
Too many children do not thrive in their assigned government-run K-12 school.
According to this year's National Assessment of Educational Progress, 70% of 8th graders were below proficiency in reading, 72% were below proficiency in math.
Moreover, geographically based school assignments exacerbate the cost of housing in districts with preferred schools.
It is the policy of my administration to support parents in choosing and directing the upbringing and education of their children.
Within 60 days of the date of the order, the Secretary of Education shall issue guidance regarding how states can use federal formula funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives.
The Secretary of Education shall now include education freedom as a priority in discretionary grant programs as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
So the idea here would be to promote, as far as possible, the spread of school choice across the country, the great civil rights issue of our time, allowing children to go to the best school available to them, facilitating that.
We have universal school choice here in my wonderful home state of Florida.
It is a godsend.
It is wonderful.
And President Trump is trying to extend that across the country.
In just a moment, we'll get to more of President Trump's strong executive...
Action.
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Meanwhile, President Trump is using his executive power to also go after the universities.
And that is what he is doing yesterday when he put out an executive order, additional measures to combat anti-Semitism.
The goal here would be...
to force universities to actually enforce the civil rights law that they enforce on campus with regard to black students or Mexican students or Asian students to also apply to Jewish students.
So if you violate the Civil Rights Act, then you will lose your federal funding.
Again, this is a lever that the administration is using to go after these ridiculous Ivy League institutions.
It does not make illegal free speech.
I know there are a lot of people who are saying that.
That is not what it does.
That is not what it's designed to do.
President Trump would not do that.
That is not what it is designed to do.
Instead, what it is designed to do is go after the universities by suggesting, quote, a Trumpy, the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold accountable the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.
Unlawful being the key word right there.
Specifically, within 60 days, the head of each department or agency shall submit a report to the president identifying all civil and criminal authorities or actions within the jurisdiction of that agency Now,
again, this executive order specifically, specifically, goes out of its way to point out that it is not, in fact, dealing with speech issues here, that it is simply applying the Civil Rights Act.
Which, of course, was always the design of orders like this one, despite, I think, some misrepresentation in the media.
And meanwhile, some controversy has broken out.
Yesterday, the White House rescinded its order to freeze federal assistance and grants.
It didn't actually rescind the order to pause the spending.
What it did do is rescind the Office of Management and Budget memo that ordered the thing.
It is a little bit confusing, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration rescinded its memo calling for federal agencies to pause potentially trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans, and other financial assisted programs as they, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the directive.
So the White House just withdrew the memo.
They They said, okay, fine.
In order to prevent an injunction from stopping us from pausing the spending, we'll remove the memo that was too broad and could be easily construed wrong.
Instead, what we are going to do is we're going to go with much more specific and targeted actions, which, of course, is the proper response.
The memo was a good window into what the administration is likely trying to do.
But to remove it is a way of mitigating its legal effect.
And instead, specific rescissions or specific grant pauses are going to be pursued by the administration.
Chuck Schumer, of course, took a victory lap on this one, even though he really shouldn't.
Donald Trump rescinded the OMB order.
Now he should rescind the nomination of Russell Vogt.
When the Trump administration announced...
This awful directive on Monday night, we knew immediately it was short-sighted, disastrous, cruel, and dumb.
It was clear then, as it is now, that the directive was given without any comprehension of what it actually called for, let alone the ramifications on literally hundreds of millions of Americans.
Again, this sort of exaggeration and craziness is really not going to have its intended effect.
Everybody can say, oh, it's chaos.
It's such chaos.
Okay, fine.
So they put out the memo.
A judge held up the memo.
They withdrew the memo.
These spending pauses are still going to continue with regard to DEI and trans propaganda and with regard to grants to foreign sources like the World Health Organization.
Stephen Miller said, quote, it became clear bureaucrats are still trying to funnel unapproved discretionary grants and funds to their pet projects.
You wouldn't believe the payments.
We've had to pause the last few days with bureaucrats trying to funnel money out the door.
Funnel money to the WHO, funnel money to resettlement agencies, funnel money to foreign countries.
And so, of course, you have to put a pause on these discretionary grants of funding and have a political review process.
Again, the goal here for the administration is to get the effect without providing the legal fodder for an injunction.
And that is correct.
The Wall Street Journal, I think, gets this right on its editorial page.
They say, quote, Trump's executive actions need to be nailed down and carefully explained, or they'll be torn apart by courts and agents of the status quo.
And I think that that's what you're seeing here, is a recognition in real time that the memo is going to be used as a weapon more by the left and the courts than it would be a weapon in favor of the Trump administration agenda.
And so they did the smart thing, they withdrew the memo, and now they're still moving forward with many of those same spending pauses.
The same holds true with regard to the offer of retirement to millions of federal employees.
Here's President Trump yesterday saying, listen.
It's pretty easy.
If you're a federal employee, show up to work, you're fired.
As federal employees, they must meet a high standard.
They're representing our government.
They're representing our country.
if they don't agree by February 6th to show up back to work in their office, they will be terminated and we will therefore be downscaling our government, which is something that the last 10 presidents have tried very hard to do but failed.
Most of the people we're talking about have not been going to their federal offices in many, many years, from even before COVID, but they have nevertheless been paid.
Some have worked, some haven't worked, and most of the studies say that some have just gone through the motions.
We may ask these people to prove that they didn't have another job during their...
So-called employment with the United States of America, because if they did, that would be unlawful.
Okay, he is right about this.
Caroline Lovett, who's the White House press secretary, said, listen, it's very simple.
Go back to war.
Why is it so difficult?
The question about these buyouts, you've been describing it, is this effort to get folks to return to work.
The union that represents federal workers, though, says this isn't a voluntary buyout.
They say this is a purge of people that don't agree with the president.
What's your response?
That's absolutely false.
This is a suggestion to federal workers that they have to return to work.
And if they don't, then they have the option to resign.
And this administration is very generously offering to pay them for eight months.
6% of the federal workforce in the city actually shows up to work.
That's unacceptable.
We're all here at work at the office.
There are law enforcement officers and teachers and nurses across the country who showed up to the office today.
People in this city need to do the same.
It's an overwhelmingly popular policy with people outside of Washington, D.C.
President campaigned on this and his administration's keeping the promise.
Again, Carolyn Lovett happens to be correct about all of this.
Meanwhile, Democrats are freaking out over Caroline Lovett.
It is amazing what kind of sexism you can get away with if you're a Democrat.
Joy Behar yesterday on The View suggested the only reason that this press secretary was hired by Trump is because, quote, she's a 10, which I'm not sure if that's an insult.
It feels like kind of a backhanded compliment.
Also, Joy Behar is from Hollywood, where literally everyone gets cast, except for Joy Behar, apparently, based on the basis of some sort of physical appeal.
I mean, you don't see a lot of normies making it big in Hollywood.
She's probably been put in there because according to Donald Trump, she's a 10. You know that's what it is.
I want to be clear, though.
It's not her first job.
It was her first press briefing.
She worked in the previous Trump administration.
This is the first time that she's been...
She may be.
But my point is that job would not maybe have been open to her without us.
No, I understand.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Okay, so apparently it's bad that Caroline Lovett is pretty.
It would be better if she were hideous.
We need like a hideously ugly person to be the White House press secretary.
I mean, if a Republican said that about a Democrat, that the reason that a woman was picked was because she was pretty, then probably the world would cave in about their ears.
Now, the reality is that Democrats do pick people based on external characteristics all the time.
They just openly say it.
They constantly do that sort of thing.
There's this bizarre sense among the Democrats that...
Finally, for the first time, they are beginning to recognize that they may have alienated traditional basic standards of beauty.
One of the big controversies that's broken out over the course of the last 72 hours is this New York magazine cover that shows a bunch of very attractive young people at C.J. Pearson's party, his inaugural party, last week.
And the idea from the Democrats is these are all cruel kids, but all they are is just normal, good-looking young people who are partying for Trump.
If those are the people that you guys lost, that's kind of your fault.
If you're the ones who decided that you wanted to steer directly into the Our mainstream base is going to be blue-haired lesbians with seven earrings and a navel piercing and seven tattoos on the neck.
If that's what you guys, like, no one made you do that.
That was you who did that.
So, I mean, Carolyn Lovett, you can find good-looking people to be your press secretaries too, I would assume.
Or can you not?
And if not, what does that say about you?
Very strange stuff from the Democrats, if this is their particular angle.
Pretty wild.
Meanwhile, Jerome Powell has paused rate cuts over at the Fed.
I suggested this was going to happen, that the rate cuts were going to be ramped up just before the election in an attempt to get Kamala Harris over the finish line, inject a little bit more money in the economy, hope to blow up the stock market a little bit just in time for the election, and then the inflation would kick in, and then the Federal Reserve would stop.
Well, that's exactly what happened.
The Federal Reserve has now stopped the interest rate cuts.
Now, my suggestion had been that they never should have engaged in interest rate cuts in the first place.
We had not conquered inflation yet.
Preemptively cutting the interest rates was not going to be a good idea.
It was going to artificially boost more air into an already inflated economy.
But Jerome Powell is doing this a little bit belatedly.
Again, this idea that low interest rates is sort of the only thing that creates a workable economy is very far from the truth.
Interest rates need to float with the level of risk in the economy, obviously.
Jerome Powell says, quote, with interest rates now significantly less restrictive than they were before last year's cuts, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance.
So apparently, the central bank will likely hold at its meeting in mid-March.
And Powell said that the Fed would need to see real progress on inflation or unexpected weakness in the labor market before considering further rate reductions, which again, I think makes a lot of sense.
I just wish she had done it earlier and not artificially lowered those interest rates in an attempt to boost Kamala Harris just before the election.
Joining me on the line is the newly confirmed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin.
Lee, congratulations on the confirmation, and you've got a big agenda ahead of you.
Looking forward to hitting the ground running, Ben, and great to be with you.
Yeah, we're very excited about it.
So let's talk about your top priorities for the EPA. Obviously, the EPA has been used as a tool of the left for a very long time in order to cram down environmental policies that really are less about the environment and more about damaging the American economy or reshaping how the American economy is done.
What are your top priorities as the new EPA administrator?
So the mission of the EPA is protecting Human health and the environment.
It's important when you're doing it that you're cognizant of what the American public spoke loudly, clearly as past November.
They also care about How are these policies applied impacting lives?
All Americans want clean air and clean water.
How we go about doing it is key.
Having the cleanest, safest, healthiest air, land, and water, I think, is a goal, regardless of whether you're a conservative, a moderate, a liberal, a red, purple, blue state, it doesn't matter.
But we have to have smart...
Common sense, practical solutions that aren't going to result in people struggling to make ends meet, not having choice, being unable to obtain a vehicle that they want or to be able to power their home in an affordable way.
So it's just really important that we do our job smartly.
So Administrator Seldon, one of the things you've talked about here is making America the AI capital of the world.
I hear that and I think a lot of people hear that.
What does that have to do with the EPA per se?
AI requires a lot of access to energy.
And here in our country, there's going to be an increased demand.
And in order for America to be the AI capital of the world, we're going to have to meet this moment.
And if we make a strategic decision not to, it's not like the world is going to wait to advance.
It's only going to be a situation where we're witnessing China get further ahead of the United States.
So we have to meet this moment.
Our policies as it relates to the regulation of energy, the president's priority as it relates to making our country a nation that's unleashing energy dominance, understanding that the cleanest forms of energy are coming out of America thanks to American innovation.
This is a moment for us to meet and to ensure that we are winning this battle, that it is the United States of America that is the AI capital of the world.
President Trump obviously has a very aggressive agenda.
One of the things that he's faced in the past are people within the executive branch who may not like that agenda, who may oppose that agenda, and who may do things to get in the way of that agenda.
The EPA is a big agency.
You're talking 17,000 employees, an $11 billion budget.
How do you handle an agency of that size and ensure that actually President Trump's agenda and your agenda as the administrator actually get done?
Our agency needs to follow the rule of the law.
We need to follow our obligations under the law.
We can't be going rogue and interpreting some vague language in some law however we see fit.
The Supreme Court made very clear in the Loperbright decision overturning the Chevron doctrine that it's important for federal agencies to be following the letter of the law.
We need to be accountable to the people.
We need to be transparent with the public.
And we need to ensure that we're being as productive as possible and operating in a way that the American people can be proud of.
We can't be wasting tax dollars.
And it's important that we are doing our mission in the smartest, best way, most transparent way possible.
That is a commitment across the board they care about.
And one thing I would add to on top of it, Ben, is cooperative federalism and working with states for there to be a partnership.
And it's not just all being run out of some headquarters in Washington, D.C.
That collaboration with the states is going to be important.
You mentioned before auto jobs and the needs of the American consumer and the American worker.
Obviously that's high on President Trump's list of priorities.
Very often these two things are sort of put in opposition to one another, protecting the environment and protecting American jobs.
What do you make of that and how do you plan to square that circle?
There's a lot that goes into bringing back American auto jobs.
The EPA needs to ensure that we're doing our part to assist with that mission.
We don't want to see our American auto jobs disappearing, getting moved to other countries.
There is a need for certainty when investment is being made here, permitting reform.
Research is done within the EPA. Now, the American economy.
President Trump has already put forth notice that he's interested in cutting wasteful programs implemented by the Biden administration over the course of time.
I assume that you are going to have a pretty weathered eye when you look at sort of the cost structure inside the EPA.
Bye.
Thank you.
I don't want us wasting any money.
It doesn't matter what agency you are, and the EPA is no exception.
It's important for us to be good stewards of tax dollars.
There was a video that came out.
It was about a month or so ago.
Where there was somebody who was a political appointee here at the EPA talking about how they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic.
And this person in the video said it a few times.
They were trying to get money out the door, billions of dollars out the door by Inauguration Day.
When I hear tossing gold bars off the Titanic, to me, gold bars are tax dollars, and off the Titanic means that you know you're wasting it.
In the video, they also talked about how they were giving out money with an eye towards getting jobs at the recipient NGOs.
It is so important that not only are we being careful and not wasting billions of dollars, we shouldn't be wasting pennies.
And that's my job at the top.
Well, that is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Lee, again, congratulations on your confirmation.
Look forward to seeing what you do at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Congratulations again.
Thanks a lot, Ben.
All right, guys, coming up, we'll get to the release of Israeli hostages.
Is pretty shocking.
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