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Feb. 18, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:13:46

Trump & Vance WRECK Europe

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	Well, folks, it was a very busy President's Day weekend.
	In the news, we're going to get to all of it.
	Ongoing negotiations over Ukraine between the United States and Russia in Saudi Arabia.
	President Trump at the Daytona 500. J.D. Vance giving off some pretty strong, aggressive vibes in Germany.
	Lots of stuff happening.
	We begin today with the latest on this insane situation up in Toronto where a Delta plane landed and then flipped over onto its roof.
	Here's a video that is just breaking.
	As of this morning.
	You can see, this plane is completely on its roof.
	Apparently, everybody's alive.
	As you can see, the plane ended up upside down and the wings were sheared off.
	80 people were on board the flight.
	No one was killed.
	Good evening.
	The crash occurred around 2.30 this afternoon.
	According to Peel Paramedics, 15 people were injured, two of them critically.
	One child was also transported to SickKids Hospital.
	Okay, so we do actually have some video of the moment of impact.
	This looks like pilot error.
	I mean, there really is no other way to read this.
	This is an insane crash landing.
	Basically, the plane comes down so hard that it rips off part of the landing gear.
	And flips the plane completely over.
	One of the wings comes off the plane.
	So it is not as though it flipped around in the air or anything like that.
	This is not an FAA issue.
	This is not a coordination issue between various planes.
	This is a pilot who's going to have some splaining to do.
	Here is the video.
	Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
	That is not good.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Miracle that nobody was killed in this.
	Again, there are 15 people who have been injured.
	Now, this has not stopped anybody on the left or in the media from immediately blaming the Trump administration for a plane crash that happened in Canada, which maybe this is the start of our invasion of Canada, actually.
	This is the inciting event.
	But in any case, here was NBC News trying to blame Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Doge for a plane crash in which it is pretty obvious that the pilot screwed something up here.
	This is going to yet again raise the concern about FAA staffing, air traffic control staffing.
	Now, this is a Canadian air traffic control tower, and this is under Canadian authority once it crosses the border.
	And yet, as you know, there has been this talk about maybe staff cuts at the FAA as a part of President Trump's effort to trim down the federal workforce.
	And yet, as you also know, the FAA has been complaining for years that they are understaffed in critical job positions, especially air traffic control.
	There is zero evidence that had anything to do with the FAA or firings at the FAA or anything remotely like that.
	In fact, a CNN safety analyst named David Soucy admitted as much, said, yeah, we've had a bunch of plane incidents lately, but there's not really one factor tying them together or anything.
	When we look at a short period of time in aviation, you have to understand that the litmus test here is a personal decision on your part.
	Do you feel safe?
	Now, when you're trying to make that decision, do I feel safe flying?
	And I do, very much so.
	There's no trend.
	There's nothing that ties these accidents together.
	So using critical thinking, you can say for yourself, Do all of these things indicate some kind of trend in aircraft accidents?
	And to me, as an experienced investigator and being involved in aviation as a mechanic and as a safety inspector for the FAA, I feel perfectly safe doing this.
	I don't see anything tying these together that says, oh, the FAA is bad or the system is a problem.
	There are incidents that are a problem.
	Now, the way that the media are attempting to spin this, as a problem with Elon Musk or Doge, the reason they're doing this is, and this is going to be the approach for the next several years, is that every time there is an incident, it is going to be tied to some sort of broader spate of cuts.
	It's going to be difficult to link the incident to the cuts, but that's going to have to be the argument.
	Because in reality, when bad things happen, somebody has failed.
	And that somebody is usually a person who's there, not a person who's not there.
	So it is much harder, generally, to blame something on...
	Quote, unquote, understaffing than on the people who are there failing to do their jobs.
	It's not as though there's nobody at the controls of this plane, for example.
	But that is going to be the case that the left makes.
	In any case, thank God everybody is alive.
	We'll find out how injured everybody was, I'm sure, as time goes on.
	Meanwhile, one of the big controversies of the weekend was Bill Burr.
	So I've spoken about Bill Burr on the program.
	And as I've said before, Bill Burr has completely lost the thread.
	Absolutely lost the thread.
	So Bill Burr.
	And again, this is coming from somebody who really enjoyed, for example, his Red Rock special.
	I think that he's done some really funny stuff in the past.
	And then he decided that he was going to go not just woke, but the wokest of the woke, on everything from race to economics.
	So, on his Monday morning podcast, he decided that he was going to sound off about billionaires again.
	Now, again, this is not his first rodeo on this particular topic.
	We talked about this a few weeks ago.
	That Luigi Mangione, who is the shooter of Brian Thompson, who is the head of UnitedHealthcare, he's the CEO over there, the murder of that guy on the street, Bill Burr had suggested that he basically had it coming because he ran a health insurance company.
	Well, now Bill Burr has expanded his critique out to all billionaires.
	Apparently, according to Bill Burr, simply earning a lot of money in the United States or anywhere else means that you should be murdered.
	This means that Bill Burr is both a moral and an economic idiot.
	This is not actually how economics works.
	The way that you become a billionaire in a free market capitalist system is by generating new goods, products, and services at a price enough affordable that people want to get it.
	That is how you make a lot of money.
	Back in the old days of feudalism, the way that you made a lot of money is by robbing poor people and taking all their stuff.
	And you had to do that to a lot of poor people because they didn't have a lot of stuff.
	And it turns out the people in those days who were rich actually weren't all that rich.
	By modern standards.
	They didn't have any modern conveniences.
	There was no innovation or anything like that.
	Okay, but billionaires of today, generally speaking, are billionaires because they created something that's awesome for everybody.
	But Bill Burr obviously doesn't understand economics.
	He doesn't understand morality either because his suggestion is that if you, apparently, if you are worth $999 million, you're good to go.
	If you make a billion dollars, you should be murdered on the streets, according to Bill Burr.
	The amount of people that are struggling out there because of these Billionaires.
	And they got us all arguing liberal and conservative.
	We've got to stop doing that.
	If you work a full week at a job, you should be able to pay your rent.
	You shouldn't have to go out and get another job and still be struggling.
	It's bad for the country.
	These billionaires, they need to be put down.
	Rabid dogs.
	And then he added, they are rabid with effing greed and they're going out and dividing everybody.
	Well, there's certainly no divisiveness I'm sensing from Bill Burr there talking about how people should be, you know, legitimately murdered for earning too much money in the United States.
	It's this sort of terrible economic analysis that leads to Bernie Sanders-dom.
	You just say, you know, in a free country, nobody should have to live on more than one salary.
	Okay, well.
	Thanks for your statement about realities that you wish didn't exist.
	Now, what is your alternative?
	Because it turns out that government ownership and redistribution of resources makes everyone extremely poor.
	It turns out that massive tax rates, confiscatory tax rates, kill the very businesses that people need to work for.
	It turns out that high levels of government regulation and intervention in the real estate market tend to generate higher prices in real estate, including in rent.
	That's what rent control does, for example.
	Developers who are quote-unquote billionaires by controlling the rents.
	And what you end up with is less production of buildings.
	The economy is dynamic.
	People like Bill Burr believe that the economy is static.
	And so billionaires are just taking a bigger chunk of a fixed pie.
	But that is not how the economy works.
	But where that shades over into truly evil thinking is when you start translating that into violence.
	That billionaires, because you misunderstand economics, need to be killed because they're suddenly centralizing all the resources.
	Please, name me the person from whom Elon Musk has stolen money.
	Seriously, I'd like to hear the name of that person so Elon Musk can repay that money.
	For that matter, I would love to know from whom Bill Burr has stolen his money.
	Bill Burr has a net worth, apparently, around $20 million.
	From whom did he steal that money?
	What's the cutoff for being a bad person?
	Is it like $21 million or something?
	It turns out that Bill Burr charges a lot of money for his comedy special.
	Shouldn't he give it out for free?
	I mean, there are a lot of working people who really like Bill Burr, and they now have to choose between paying their rent and getting a Bill Burr ticket.
	So, you know, maybe he should give away all of his product for free.
	Maybe Bill Burr should do all of his comedy shows for free.
	Maybe we should have the government force him to do those things in the name of economic justice, you know, when they're not killing the billionaires.
	Or maybe we should do none of those things because this country was founded on freedom.
	Freedom from a country that forced us to buy their overpriced tea and then tried blockading us when we dumped their tea into the ocean.
	How'd that work out for you, Great Britain?
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	The reason this matters is because I have a fear.
	Here is my fear.
	The American body politic tends to pendulum from side to side.
	This is how you end up with Trump, and then Biden, and then Trump again.
	But I think that the next pendulum swing, and there will always be another pendulum swing, is going to be to the far left, to the economic populist far left, to people who agree with Bill Burr.
	If there is an economic downturn in any way, shape, or form, because the American people have not been made aware of the realities of how economics works, because our education system has failed them completely, On all of this.
	This sort of zero-sum ugly thinking is going to eventually gain victory in the United States at some point.
	Not permanently, but at some point.
	Because of all of the broken systems of education that have been put in place in this country.
	Because people have become so comfortable with the bizarre idea that rich people are stealing from poor people.
	Now, for the moment, it's really unpopular and it should remain really unpopular.
	Because it is a stupid, terrible idea.
	And the same thing happens to be true in terms of the sort of zero-sum thinking that some people have on race in this country.
	It turns out that in a free country, people of all races should do better.
	But there are some people who don't believe that.
	People like, for example, Trevor Noah and Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin, who have now basically come all the way, they've horseshoed around to the racist right, and they are now arguing in favor of segregation because the races can't get along with one another, according to these geniuses on the left.
	I know what your shout means.
	The same way an Italian knows what an Italian shout means.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I'm prefacing it with a lot because it's a loaded question.
	Yes.
	But I would love to know if you think integration was the right solution, maybe, on the other side of, you know, of civil rights.
	Yeah.
	No, I don't.
	And I don't think it's actually that controversial if you understand that segregation and integration...
	Weren't the only options.
	Within those two options, it may seem like integration is the more progressive.
	Of course, we don't want segregation.
	But again, when you're being integrated into institutions, into a culture that's a supremacist culture, that's a culture that feeds off of hierarchy, that feeds off of insecurity, anxiety, why are we being integrated into that?
	I mean, this is how pathetic the left has become.
	So they're arguing in favor of fixed pie economics, which has been debunked.
	By literally all of human history in every country.
	And they are arguing in favor of sort of a fixed pie with regard to racial reconciliation.
	That the races can't get along.
	It's a white supremacist system.
	This is why it is so important that President Trump succeed.
	Truly.
	Because if these are the two sides, and only one side can win, if the left continues to follow the Bilbo economic populist path and the Trevor Noah, Ruha Benjamin racial path, And if that pendulum tends to swing, it is very important that President Trump continue to be successful.
	It is really, really, really important because if he is not successful, if he does not succeed, the alternative is this trash.
	This ugly, immoral trash.
	And, you know, I'm obviously hopeful that President Trump continues to succeed for precisely that reason.
	That's why it's important that he do smart things, which, thank God, so far he is.
	President Trump's popularity remains at all-time highs for him.
	The latest public opinion poll has President Trump riding at a 51% approval rating compared to 45% disapproval rating.
	In fact, the politician that Americans like the least right now is Chuck Schumer.
	Chuck Schumer is stuck at a minus 10. Only 32% of Americans actually like Chuck Schumer at this point.
	This is according to the new SurveyUSA poll.
	President Trump is also making himself culturally ubiquitous.
	So he went to the Daytona 500 over the weekend and actually used the Beast as the pace car.
	And here is some of the radio traffic that was happening while he was pacing the field.
	This is your favorite president.
	I'm a big fan.
	I am a really big fan of you people that you do this.
	I don't know, but I just want you to be safe.
	You're talented people and you're great people and great Americans.
	Have a good day.
	Have a lot of fun.
	Again, this is kind of awesome.
	This kind of stuff is cool and good.
	President Trump at the Super Bowl getting big ovations.
	President Trump at the Daytona 500 getting big ovations.
	All of that is quite good because, again, the alternative is really, really bad.
	And meanwhile, the administration is making some fairly serious moves, and one of those moves involves pushing Europe to actually, for the first time in nearly a century, stand up on its own two feet.
	So since the end of World War II, the United States has essentially been the bank roller.
	For European security.
	And you understand why that is.
	Europe had basically destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn't become a communist-ridden hellhole.
	And then Europe became essentially a sick man, reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union.
	And then the Soviet Union fell.
	And instead of Europe actually getting its act together, Europe just continued to live on the largest of the United States.
	We helped prop up all of their security arrangements.
	We helped prop up NATO, for example.
	And meanwhile, they themselves got more and more robust in their stupidity.
	They decided that they could basically play with house money.
	And by playing with house money, I mean they could be as left-wing as they wanted to be, while knowing that the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee to them.
	And so they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea.
	They decided to actually pass.
	Essentially forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post-colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that it had once colonized.
	They were going to take those policies, put them in place, and there would be no negative side effects.
	Well, over the weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke in Munich, and the Europeans were very angry at him.
	He spoke at the Munich Security Conference.
	He gave a very important speech.
	And at the speech, he said, listen.
	There are some problems in Europe.
	Those problems include things like China and Russia.
	But the biggest problem in Europe is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about.
	Now, the Europeans don't like being told this.
	The Europeans like to believe that they are the sophisticates on the block.
	They like to believe that they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than these brash, annoying Americans.
	But what J.D. Vance says here is 100% true.
	He says, you guys decided to let terrorists into your own borders.
	You guys decided to crack down on free speech.
	You guys decided to crack down on free market economics.
	That was your choice.
	Why should we have to pay for it precisely?
	The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia.
	It's not China.
	It's not any other external actor.
	And what I worry about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
	And again, this should be combined in how it's viewed with his speech at the Paris AI Action Summit where he chided the European Union for being so risk averse that they were basically cracking down on their own ability to innovate in the AI space.
	There's a very good piece of the Wall Street Journal by a person named Dominic Green, who's a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, talking about these speeches.
	He says, combine those two speeches, you have the classic American one too.
	Economic and individual freedoms support each other.
	Innovation, competitiveness, and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech, and democracy.
	Europe should be the natural partner of the United States and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment.
	But Europe is divorced from reality.
	And this is right.
	And so one of the policies, it seems, of the Trump administration is to force the Europeans to actually own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past.
	And that stupidity is very, very real.
	And by the way, there's a threat that that stupidity starts to cross the water.
	So, for example, 60 Minutes did an entire piece over the weekend about Germany and about free speech law in Germany in which German officials openly acknowledge that they will criminally prosecute people for insulting other people in public, for example.
	It's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, or deny the Holocaust.
	That's clear.
	Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?
	Yes.
	Yes, it is.
	And it's a crime to insult them online as well?
	Yes.
	The fine could be even higher.
	If you insult someone in the internet.
	Why?
	Because in internet, it stays there.
	If we are talking face to face, you insult me, I insult you, okay, finish.
	But if you're in the internet, if I insult you or a politician...
	That sticks around forever.
	Yeah.
	Again, this is not just 60 Minutes interviewing people in Germany about what hate speech looks like in Germany.
	This is 60 Minutes pushing for this kind of stuff.
	How do we know?
	Because this is the overall view of the legacy media.
	The overall view of the legacy media is that only things legacy media likes being said should actually be said.
	Margaret Brennan, who recently off being face-planted by J.D. Vance on the news, she's on CBS News and Face the Nation, and she's interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
	And she was chiding J.D. Vance for going to Europe and saying that Europe might want to value free speech a little bit more.
	Right now, again, in Europe, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham.
	Depends on what kind of prosecutor you get from the Crown Prosecution Service in Great Britain.
	But here's Margaret Brennan saying that the real problem is this whole free speech thing.
	He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.
	And he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups.
	The context of that was changing the tone of it.
	And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right.
	I have to disagree with you.
	Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.
	The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those.
	They had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews.
	There was no free speech in Nazi Germany.
	There was none.
	Okay, and by the way, there actually was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany.
	The Weimar Republic actually had many, many laws on the books that restricted speech.
	In fact, Hitler ended up spending some time in jail.
	Not because of his speech, but because he tried to lead a revolt.
	And then afterward, he wasn't allowed to speak for several years publicly.
	Goebbels was actually forced to not speak publicly.
	There were like 40 lawsuits against Joseph Goebbels, who was the publicist for Adolf Hitler.
	In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis.
	In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people felt like, hey, maybe they have something to say.
	Maybe these people are being silenced because they have something to say.
	sort of normal human tendency to buck against censorship by trying to suggest that there is something to the thing that the person is trying to say.
	But again, this is all about this sort of left-wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don't like, and this will magically protect you from the impact of those opinions.
	So what J.D. Vance was saying in Europe is, guys, you've given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.
	I will say I took some personal enjoyment in J.D. Vance just slamming the door on the fingers of Mehdi Hassan.
	Mehdi Hassan, of course, is the front man for very often Qatari opinions.
	He tweeted out, quote, Hey J.D. Vance, I know you're busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this?
	He was referring to President Trump's decision to limit AP reporters' access to White House press briefings because they refused to use Gulf of America.
	And J.D. Vance wrote back, Yes, dummy.
	The thing about J.D. is that J.D. is an online troll, so J.D. definitely uses the online troll language.
	Yes, dummy.
	I think there's a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the White House press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views.
	The latter is a threat to free speech.
	The former is not.
	Hope that helps.
	So, again, JD, very good at this.
	But all of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet.
	And that is taking particular front row when it comes to Ukraine.
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	So when it comes to Ukraine, Ukraine, you may have noticed on a map, is very, very close to the rest of Europe.
	In fact, Ukraine is right in the middle of Europe, just spatially speaking.
	Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others.
	And it turns out that the Europeans, while they've increased their defense spending, have been rather hesitant to actually Take further actions.
	They want the United States to foot the bill.
	And the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, listen, we're tired of footing the bill.
	This is on your continent.
	Why don't you take a leading role here?
	And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending.
	Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security.
	Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles?
	Why is that precisely?
	Now again, this is not a case that the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin.
	It is a case that cudgelling the Europeans to actually, you know, do what they're supposed to do is not a stupid tactic.
	In fact, it is very often a smart tactic.
	So, top diplomats, according to the Associated Press from Russia and the United States, met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
	Talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Trump.
	No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago.
	President Zelensky has said his country will not accept any outcome from this week's talks if Kiev doesn't take part.
	European allies have also expressed concerns that they are being sidelined as well.
	According to Secretary of State Rubio, he said the two sides agreed to pursue three goals, quote, to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team.
	To support Ukrainian peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.
	So what is this really about?
	So if you just read this on the surface, maybe this is about the United States cutting Ukraine out of the loop.
	Or perhaps what the United States is doing here is what the United States might have had to do all along, which is make a deal that they then cram down on Zelensky.
	Because remember, Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, can't go back to his own people and say, I gave up Donbass and Crimea.
	Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and I gave up Donbass and Crimea.
	He has to make the case to his people that they're going to win back these areas that pretty much everybody, including the Biden administration, recognized they were not going to win back.
	And so the idea of the United States cramming down the deal and playing bad guy in this particular scenario might actually be an off-ramp for Zelensky.
	Because both sides need an off-ramp here.
	Putin needs an off-ramp that allows him to go back to his people and say that they won something for this enormous cost.
	And Zelensky needs an off-ramp, said he can say to his people, listen.
	I didn't want to go along with the deal.
	The deal was forced upon me.
	I've been saying this for literally three years.
	For three years, I've been saying this.
	Okay, meanwhile, this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table.
	They say we want to slap, and the United States is saying, fine.
	You want to come to the table?
	Why don't you bring a purse?
	Seriously, you want to come to the table?
	What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?
	According to the Associated Press, the recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won't be favorable to them.
	Kiev's absence at Tuesday's talks has rankled many Ukrainians.
	France called an emergency meeting of EU countries and the UK on Monday to discuss the war.
	And again, forcing the EU to actually come together to prove that they ought to be part of the conversation is not a terrible idea.
	Again, there's this attempt to sort of play it as though what the United States is doing is cutting some sort of soft deal for Putin.
	But this is also one way of getting the Europeans to actually step up and do what they are supposed to do.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea that the fate of Europe might be decided without direct European participation has alarmed the continent's capitals.
	European governments weaned their economies off Russian fuel exports and poured billions of military aid into Ukraine as part of the war effort they regard as crucial to the region's security.
	Now the snub from Washington has raised pressure.
	And Emmanuel Macron of France, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other leaders to define how they plan to contribute to any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
	In recent days, the Trump administration has asked European governments to fill out a questionnaire clarifying whether they are willing to send troops into Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force and what other capabilities they can provide as part of a security guarantee for Ukraine.
	The leaders must also discuss how to increase European military spending and fund longer-term assistance for Kyiv.
	And again, all of this makes perfect sense.
	Saying to the Europeans, listen, you want a slot at the table, you don't get to free ride anymore.
	It doesn't get to be like the UN, where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.
	If you want part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.
	After Monday's meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rudy said Europe was, quote, ready and willing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and to invest a lot more in our security.
	Now, with that said, it is also true that Poland has said they don't want to actually put their own people on the ground as a security guarantee for Ukraine.
	So we're going to find out very quickly who's willing to put their money where their mouth is.
	Meanwhile, President Trump is putting severe pressure on the Europeans to step in.
	How?
	Well, apparently, he has now made a very controversial demand, this is according to the UK Telegraph, a demand for $500 billion in payback from Ukraine.
	Essentially, The Telegraph obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract marked Privileged and Confidential dated February 7, 2025. It says the U.S. and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.
	The agreement covers the economic value associated with the resources of Ukraine, including mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, and other infrastructure as agreed.
	The U.S. would take 50% of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources.
	50% of the financial value of all new licenses issued to third parties for the future monetization of resources.
	There would be a lien on such revenues in favor of the United States.
	It says, for all future licenses, the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for purchase of exportable minerals.
	So basically, the United States is saying, listen, you want us to support you?
	What you need back is you need to give us a giant chunk of your future revenues, essentially.
	Now, the United States, cumulatively, has given about 120 billion euros.
	So this is much larger than the amount that the United States has actually put in.
	However, one of the things the United States is saying is, if you drag us into an economic relationship here, if we go into an economic relationship, it better be worth our while because essentially it's a security relationship.
	Once the United States is tied in terms of economics to rare earths minerals coming from Ukraine, well, we're going to have a pretty good incentive to actually come to the defense of Ukraine if Russia gets in.
	So, are the Europeans going to offer you a better deal?
	And if the Europeans are willing to offer you a better deal, great!
	That means the United States is not on the hook for nearly as much.
	This is the game, I think, that the Trump administration is playing.
	It's not a game where the United States abandons Ukraine.
	It's not even a game where the United States impoverishes Ukraine.
	This is all a negotiating tactic to get the Europeans to step up and do the thing they always should have done, which is take the lead on all of this, rather than simply waiting for the United States to do the dirty work as they have been doing since essentially 1945. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was asked what the process is moving forward.
	Here he was explaining.
	When you meet with your Russian counterpart, whoever that is, are you gonna be sitting there arguing Ukraine's position?
	Well, first of all, I think the way we have to understand is right now there is no process.
	What we have right now is a call between Putin and President Trump in which both sides expressed an interest in ending this conflict.
	I imagine there will be follow-up conversations to figure out what a process to talk about that would look like.
	And then at that point, perhaps we can begin to share more details.
	So it's a bit premature.
	I know there's been a lot of reaction to it because there's been no conversation about it, any serious conversation.
	Okay, so we'll find out where exactly this goes.
	Meanwhile, President Zelensky is attempting to butter up President Trump.
	He says, listen, I trust President Trump.
	Obviously, he was voted in.
	He's the person we're dealing with.
	I trust President Trump because he's the president of the United States.
	Because your people, your people voted for him.
	And I respect their choice.
	And I will work with President Trump with trust, which I have.
	To the United States.
	But, of course, I want to have real meeting, productive, without just words, with the concrete steps, and to hear us, to hear President Trump, to make common plan, and to share it with allies than with Russians, and stop this war.
	By the way, meanwhile, the United States in our own hemisphere is getting significantly more aggressive.
	In just a moment, we're going to get to that.
	We're going to get to Elon Musk's latest child and the controversy surrounding all of that.
	First, if you were with us for election night or the inauguration, you already know the Daily Wire doesn't just show up.
	We take over.
	And now we are headed back to Washington, D.C. to do just that.
	At CPAC, join me along with Matt Walsh, Michael Moles, Andrew Klavan, and Jeremy Boring all on stage live Thursday night, February 20th.
	No scripted talking points, no corporate approved narratives.
	Just real conversations that actually matter, streaming live on Daily Wire Plus.
	And we are taking your questions as well.
	Don't just watch CPAC. Be a part of it.
	Live, Thursday night, February 20th on Daily Wire Plus.
	Joining me on the line is Senator Tom Cotton.
	He is, of course, Senator from Arkansas and best-selling author of Sacred Duty and Only the Strong.
	He has a brand-new book out titled Seven Things You Can't Say About China.
	It is out today, available everywhere.
	Books are sold.
	Senator Cotton, thanks so much for the time.
	Thank you, Ben.
	So let's talk about the situation with China right now.
	Despite the fact there's been a ton of talk about China, it still seems as though we are actually underestimating what China is doing in the world.
	There's almost this sort of soft belief that China isn't going to take aggressive action against Taiwan.
	They won't do anything that really damages world trade in the South China Sea.
	There's even a sense by some on the right that if we sort of abandon the world in terms of foreign policy, that China won't attempt to fill the gap.
	First of all, what is China's strategic vision?
	What are they attempting to do?
	Ben, China's ultimate goal is to replace America as the world's dominant economic and military superpower and to call the shots in the world, make everyone dance to their tune.
	They've been open about this at times, like during President Trump's first term on a state visit, telling his senior aides that they view a future in which America is basically a low-cost commodity exporter to China, that we'll provide them cheap oil and cheap agricultural products, and that's about it.
	And that's why you've seen...
	They undertake this breathtaking military buildup over the last 25 years.
	So they now have the world's largest military by far and the second most technologically capable military after ours.
	That's why they take such aggressive economic actions to try to benefit their companies and try to harm our companies.
	And why they're so aggressive towards Taiwan, which is really the linchpin of China's strategy.
	They know that they can't achieve their goals without taking Taiwan.
	But if they take Taiwan, they're on the precipice of achieving those goals.
	So, Senator Cotton, let's talk about Taiwan because obviously that's a hot-button issue.
	They have projective power certainly across the Taiwan Strait, which is incredibly narrow.
	So the big issue with Taiwan, not just in terms of the fact that it's a democratic country that essentially constitutes its own polity, but also TSMC, which is the world's leading manufacturer of superconductors, sophisticated superconductors, microchips, is located there.
	If that were to be taken by China, it would be a serious danger to the world economy.
	How seriously should we take what China is attempting to do with Taiwan?
	What is their goal?
	Are you more worried about an invasion or a blockade? - Both would be very worrisome.
	Any kind of conflict over Taiwan would be devastating, Ben.
	It would probably lead to an immediate global depression that would wipe out the life savings of many Americans in the stock market, lead to mass unemployment, shortages on the shelves.
	Of American stores.
	And part of that reason, as you say, is that Taiwan is the source of more than 60% of all global semiconductor manufacturing, more than 90% of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
	It's also that you could expect a complete breakdown of economic ties between China and the United States and the West.
	Unfortunately, we've allowed those ties to grow very deep and therefore very dependent on China.
	So even if there were a conflict that were inconclusive, that reached a stalemate, you would still see, again, an almost immediate global depression that would be devastating for Americans.
	That's why the only way to prevail...
	In a conflict with Taiwan is to prevent it from happening in the first place, to be strong and confident in the defense of a democratic partner and make it clear to communist China, as we have for a long time, that we will not tolerate any unilateral attempts to invade and annex Taiwan to the mainland.
	Senator Cotton, one of the things that you say in the book is that China could actually win.
	And I know there's been a lot of skepticism.
	I'm one of the skeptics of China's sort of...
	Generalized ability to project power.
	I look at their demographics.
	Their demographics are upside down.
	I look at their economy.
	It's incredibly debt-laden.
	They've been building empty cities to the loss of billions and trillions of dollars for years now.
	So for people like me who are skeptical that China is as powerful as it sort of seems on the world stage, what's the case that China could actually win?
	How would they achieve victory?
	Or would it mainly be that they just burn everything down and what happens next?
	You know, who knows?
	Well, it does get back to Taiwan.
	I mean, Douglas MacArthur said in 1950 that if Taiwan were to fall in the hands of a hostile power, it would be a disaster of utmost importance for the United States.
	Partly it's because of their centrality in the global semiconductor manufacturing chain, but also it's because of their strategic position.
	It's not Hong Kong, it's not Tibet, places where China has also committed egregious crimes.
	By taking Taiwan, it would turn the so-called first island chain, which goes from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines, from an obstacle to Chinese ambitions to a springboard.
	They would have what MacArthur called the unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender.
	That would also lead a lot of our friends in the region to start seeking accommodations with.
	China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia.
	You'd probably see widespread nuclear proliferation as countries like Japan and South Korea and others start getting nuclear weapons as well, destabilizing the world.
	And you'd see China trying to undermine American influence everywhere, showing other countries that they can walk in and take over.
	A democratic land like Taiwan, and that all countries everywhere should start seeking those kind of accommodations with China, and that ultimately China would achieve its goal, again, of making us kind of an island on the edge of the world, as Henry Kissinger warned about.
	So a place where...
	And here in the new world, we are limited.
	We're not allowed to trade with China's partners.
	We're not allowed to invest or get investment from them.
	And that China really would call the shots.
	So it does get back to Taiwan and the central strategic place that Taiwan plays, not just for China, but for the entire world.
	Senator Cotton, one of the things that actually kind of meets between what you're talking about and what I'm talking about is it could be that they feel like their window is closing.
	So even if they are weaker than popularly perceived.
	That weakness could, in fact, be a spur to action, because if the idea is that their window is closing, they need to move fast, their demographics are upside down, their economy is going to collapse, then that does give them added incentive to get incredibly aggressive right now, because the situation is going to be better for them three years from now.
	Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Ben, is that China does have a lot of domestic internal problems, like the one-child policy, which resulted in more than 300 million forced abortions.
	Has turned their demographics upside down.
	They have a lot of economic problems.
	But at the moment, they probably close the gap as much as they're going to or close to as much as they are with the United States.
	And you can kind of look out at projected investments in our military, for instance, or economic growth, and maybe see that gap widening again in another 10, 15, 20 years.
	But in the moment, China may perceive itself as both best positioned in terms of its own power and its future relative power to the United States to actually go for the jugular in Taiwan, try to create a fait accompli, and then use that success if we allow it to address some of the problems that they have internally.
	So, Senator Cotton, it's not just that China is a threat exclusively.
	Externally, China also has obviously been infiltrating our government.
	They have been stealing our IP. And, of course, they've been deploying apps like TikTok.
	Yeah, because China has waged this economic world war, and especially against the United States, and stole so much of our wealth and built up their economy, it gives them tremendous influence in the United States.
	I write in the book that you haven't seen a movie with a Chinese villain in a very long time.
	That's because all those movie studios depend on access to the Chinese movie market.
	Also, every major news network besides Fox News is owned or affiliated with one of those movie studios.
	And is it any surprise that Fox News is the toughest network on China that does the most hard-hitting reporting about China?
	I don't think so.
	Consider what happened in the NBA. China is their biggest overseas market.
	You had the general manager of the Houston Rockets merely posting a symbol on social media saying he supported Hong Kongers fighting for their freedom.
	And China took Houston Rockets games off their streaming services, took their merchandise out of stores.
	You had NBA players like LeBron James and Stephen Kerr cracking down on the GM of the Rockets.
	Or just look at what happened to me five years ago when I first said this week five years ago that the coronavirus pandemic might have come from that lab, not from a food market.
	I expected Chinese communist officials to criticize me, but I also had American elites coming down on me, calling me a conspiracy theorist at the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and so forth.
	So China has built up a large influence network throughout our society and our government of people who are ready to man the ramparts and defend China.
	It's not just traditional spies and espionage.
	It's this massive degree of influence they have in every corner of American society.
	So, Senator Cotton, given the threats, what are the best ways for the United States to counter those threats, particularly militarily?
	I mean, when we talk about being able to deter China from taking Taiwan, what sort of projective power do we have that's capable of deterring that sort of action?
	How well-armed is Taiwan?
	What are the steps we need to take there?
	And what sort of steps ought we be taking domestically in order to prevent Chinese influence operations?
	Taiwan has been increasing its spending on its military, not fast enough, in my opinion, and not necessarily on the right things.
	They need to be singularly focused on adding more and more time to the amount of time it would take communist China to subdue the island so other friendly nations can come to its aid.
	What are the things that we can do?
	We need to make sure that we significantly increased our munitions manufacturing capability.
	We've seen in Ukraine and in the war in Gaza against Hamas.
	That we're strained in what we can provide to our allies.
	We need that capability to build up here in America so we can support our allies and defend our interest in the Western Pacific.
	We need to invest in shipbuilding so we have a navy that can actually deter Chinese aggression.
	We need to be buying more stealth bombers and stealth fighters to do the same.
	Our army needs more air and missile defenses and long-range strike capabilities so they can defend our positions in the Western Pacific.
	One reason, here what we can do domestically, one of the reasons I wrote seven things you can't say about China is I want to ring the alarm bell.
	Most Americans have a justly low opinion of communist China, but there's still a lot they don't know, in part because a lot of our elites don't want to say it.
	But I wanted to ring the alarm to make it clear the extent of Chinese influence in this country.
	So I'd encourage...
	All of your audience, not just to get the book, but stay informed after the book is published and you've read it about what's happening with China, what they're doing in America.
	Tell your friends, tell your kids about things like TikTok or the curriculum they may have in schools.
	Do everything you can to hold China accountable.
	That's what I'm going to do as a senator, but you can do a lot too as a normal American citizen.
	That's Senator Tom Cotton, his new book, Seven Things You Can't Say About China.
	Senator Cotton, really appreciate the time.
	The book is a must-read, and thanks so much for your efforts on behalf of this cause.
	Thank you, Ben.
	Meanwhile, the United States is taking a much harsher look at Mexico.
	Apparently, according to the Washington Post, the CIA is poised to take a larger, more aggressive role under President Trump in the battle against the Mexican-based drug cartels devising and evaluating plans to share more intelligence with regional governments, train local counter-narcotics units, and possibly conduct covert actions, according to people familiar.
	With the matter, which, yes, yes, there are like 100,000 Americans who are dying every year from fentanyl poisoning.
	So, yes, it makes sense to maybe go after the drug cartels that have been single-handedly responsible for the death of those American citizens.
	By the way, illegal immigration is down to some of the lowest levels ever recorded.
	We are down to less than 200 border encounters a day across the entire southwestern border of the United States.
	That's crazy.
	These numbers are insanely low.
	Why?
	Because everybody understands if you come right now, you're getting turned away, or you're going to end up being arrested and deported.
	I mean, that's what's going to happen.
	According to the Washington Post, the expanded focus on cartels represents a new and potentially risky priority for the spy agency, which in recent years has made espionage against China, counterterrorism operations in the Middle East and Africa, and support for Ukraine its main concerns.
	Why is that risky?
	Presumably.
	I mean, it seems like that's actually the thing that the CIA should be doing.
	The emphasis will be on increased U.S. support to anti-drug forces within Mexico and elsewhere inside the hemisphere.
	And again, this makes perfect sense.
	This is our southwestern border.
	The attempt to pretend that that didn't exist for years got a lot of Americans killed.
	So good for the administration for taking that seriously.
	Speaking of taking important things seriously, apparently, according to Breitbart, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that he has already picked investigators who will look into the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
	He says, I don't have a time frame on it.
	I don't want to wait any longer, but I always want to get it right.
	So there will be a full investigation now into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
	Presumably, some people are going to lose their jobs for the decision-making process all along the way.
	And all of that is, of course, quite good.
	Meanwhile, Doge continues to make significant inroads into the federal government.
	According to the Washington Post, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with Elon Musk's U.S. Doge service.
	Over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said on Monday.
	Michelle King, who spent a bunch of decades at the agency, left her position Sunday after the disagreement.
	Now again, this bizarre idea that Elon Musk is like combing through individual data because he's desperate to see your credit card is just silly.
	Or your social security number.
	It's really, really dumb.
	The White House has now nominated a person named Frank Bisignio to lead the Social Security Administration.
	In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.
	Martin O'Malley, the Social Security Commissioner under the Biden administration and former Maryland governor, obviously a longtime Democrat, said at this rate they will break it and they will break it fast and there will be an interruption of benefits.
	That is the last thing that's going to happen here.
	Doge is not going to interrupt Social Security benefits.
	Of all Republican administrations, this administration understands, do not touch the entitlement third rail.
	Do not do it.
	Meanwhile, Doge is seeking access to IRS systems.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, an agreement with the IRS could give the team access to the integrated data retrieval system.
	That system allows anyone with access the ability to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts.
	Democrats are warning about the risks to taxpayers if Doge is allowed to access those sensitive taxpayer information without legal guardrails.
	I have a question.
	Didn't you guys leak Donald Trump's tax returns?
	I noticed.
	I'm sorry.
	All this craziness about how Doge is going to invade privacy after the massive invasions of privacy that took place under the Biden administration, they ring rather hollow.
	Okay, so, so many important things happening.
	So many important things happening.
	And I think that it is very important, as I said earlier, for the Trump team to continue to be successful.
	And they are doing so many things that are necessary.
	Delving into the waste, fraud, and abuse of government agencies.
	Finding improper payments.
	Finding...
	Thousands of people who are dead still receiving social security benefits.
	Digging up USAID fraud and mismanagement.
	Telling the Europeans where to get off and how to restructure.
	These are all deeply important things.
	Looking at peace in the Middle East.
	So what that means is no distractions.
	No distractions.
	Distractions are the killer here.
	Getting involved, getting high on your own supply to the point where you do things that end up clawing away your popularity rating.
	In very kind of slow but telling ways, that is not what you want to be doing here.
	Politics, as I was saying to one of the producers earlier, politics is like a marriage.
	The public marries the politician.
	And like a marriage.
	Marriages go bad over a course of time and then all at once.
	So if you ever meet a couple that gets divorced, even before they get divorced, they're kind of picking at each other.
	And they kind of pick at each other and they kind of say nasty things.
	They're kind of small.
	And you're like, ah, that's not great.
	But, you know, maybe they just let it go.
	And then something big happens and all at once the bottom just falls out because all of the systemic supports for the marriage have already been ground away.
	All of the stability has been removed from the situation and all it takes is some sort of big fail for the entire system to collapse.
	It's like that with public approval and presidents as well.
	Joe Biden, he had an approval rating that was high 50s, mid to high 50s when he took office.
	He then proceeded to do an awful lot of things that people didn't like.
	He did these vast spending programs.
	He started to put equity in all of his programming.
	He started appointing people who were incompetent to positions of high office.
	He was pushing for the transing of the kids.
	And all this had sort of an incremental effect on his popularity rating.
	If you take a look at his popularity rating.
	It kind of hovered in the high, and then it started to decline, then it was in the low 50s, and it was like hovering right around 50, and then the Afghanistan debacle on the bottom falls out, and he spends the rest of his presidency at 40% in the approval ratings.
	Okay, why?
	Because all of those kind of small things that weren't so small, as it turns out, just like a divorced couple, all those things that people think that they've forgotten and dismissed, they all end up in the divorce papers when the big thing happens.
	Every president encounters a big thing, a big bad thing that happens during their presidency.
	During President Trump's first term, obviously, that was both the BLM riots and COVID. Those were huge things that happened in 2020, and the bottom sort of dropped out of the presidency.
	And all of the other things that had been niggling and annoying and everything from the false, fake nonsense of Russiagate to the dumb tweets, all that sort of stuff came back to haunt, right?
	And the bottom went out.
	That's the stuff you want to avoid.
	You want to avoid that stuff because...
	Those are unforced errors.
	In tennis, it's an unforced error.
	You weren't forced to do the thing.
	You just decided that you wanted to go for a risky play and you did the thing.
	I bring this up because there are some indicators that these sorts of things are being put out there and it's a warning sign.
	It shouldn't be done.
	Because we need Trump to...
	The alternative is so bad.
	The alternative is Bill Burr on economics and Trevor Noah on race.
	And Randy Weingarten on gender.
	I mean, these are the alternatives.
	And everybody on the right who's very confident that the country will never swing the other way.
	That sort of confidence never pans out.
	Democrats have been confident before and they got hit with Trump twice.
	Republicans, I remember, were very confident after 2004. And by 2006, Democrats had taken over Congress.
	Okay, so when President Trump, for example, tweets out things like, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law.
	I understand he's trolling.
	I understand.
	The phrase was apocryphally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
	This is a dumb thing to tweet.
	It just is.
	There's no reason to tweet that.
	Because, again, it's not true.
	He who saves his country does not violate any law.
	Well, who defines saving the country and in what way?
	The whole purpose of the rule of law is that it's supposed to apply equally to everybody.
	And I understand that, as always, and this is the consistent theme of President Trump, Trump 1 and Trump 2. He's almost always the coroner and never the murderer, meaning he comes upon the body of American democracy and he says that this body is dead.
	And then everyone blames him for having killed American democracy.
	That's not right.
	Now, Trump is using executive authority in vast ways.
	Why?
	Because those executive authorities had already been established.
	He came upon them and he said, hey, look, giant executive authorities here.
	I can use these things.
	Okay, this attitude, he who saves the country does not violate any law.
	That was precisely the attitude of Barack Obama.
	It was precisely the attitude.
	Of Joe Biden as well.
	So he's not saying anything that Democrats haven't already said.
	But it's the kind of statement that comes back to bite you if, for example, the economy takes a tank.
	That is a problem.
	Why waste?
	Really, why waste any level of sort of public scrutiny on that sort of stuff?
	Why, for example, deploy people to Romania to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate, who is an admitted...
	An alleged pimp.
	What exactly is the purpose of that?
	According to the Financial Times, the Trump administration is urging Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate as they await trial on charges, including human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and money laundering.
	He's currently under house arrest in Romania.
	Now, is there an accusation that his rights as an American are being abused?
	Is that the accusation?
	If so, what's the substantiation?
	And sure, he's a dual citizen, although I will say that he's a dual citizen who is currently, UK and US, who is currently seeking, by the way, to run for political office in the UK. So I'm not sure why this is, you know, like top priority for America.
	He also happens to be a complete derelict of a human being.
	The kind of person who tweeted out over the weekend that if you only have children by one woman, then you are not a conqueror.
	Quote, if all your children come from one woman, you are not a conqueror.
	I understand this kind of like pseudo macho nonsense from a complete grifter and con man like Andrew Tate has some level of popularity and it's found some level of popularity in circles surrounding President Trump apparently.
	Rick Grinnell, who again, I like Rick generally, but he came out and he said, I support the tape.
	What do you think most Americans do?
	Really?
	Like, is this something you wish to expend political capital on?
	Truly.
	Or is it a principled stand about the abuse of power by the Romanian government?
	And if so, can you substantiate that?
	Same thing with Eric Adams.
	So Eric Adams, mayor of New York, and he was put under indictment for apparently taking bribes from Turkey.
	Eric Adams then attempted to turn that into a referendum on his illegal immigration policy.
	He sort of changed after the indictment came down to suggest that it was because he was being harsh on illegal immigration in New York City that he was being targeted, that it was for political purposes.
	The reality, of course, is that a year prior to his shift on illegal immigration, the investigation started into his sort of penny-ante crimes.
	Okay, so, the Trump administration dismissed his case, the DOJ. Now, the problem with that, you want to dismiss it, fine.
	You want to dismiss it and say that it was a political prosecution.
	I'm not sure that I see the evidence for that.
	I also don't think that the case itself was a big deal in the first place.
	As Andrew McCarthy over at National Review says, I wasn't blown away by the case against Adams.
	That's mainly because Adams appears to be a bumbling small-timer, an often incoherent loose cannon.
	Okay, but, One of the things that they are doing here is they are dismissing without prejudice.
	If you're going to dismiss the case and say that it's a corrupt political case, then you really should dismiss with prejudice.
	With prejudice means you can't bring the case back.
	That's what that means.
	If you're saying the case could be brought back, the suggestion seems to be that if he goes the wrong way politically, then maybe the case comes back.
	That's the accusation that Democrats are making.
	Now, even if that accusation is false.
	Even if the accusation is not true, why allow that accusation to live out there just to what?
	Dismiss the case without prejudice?
	Dismiss it with prejudice if you're going to do it.
	Doesn't make any sense.
	Maybe the goal here is political in the sense that it puts pressure on Kathy Hochul to get rid of Eric Adams because she has the ability to do that as the governor of New York.
	Maybe the idea is to pressure Eric Adams politically.
	Either way, that's not stuff the DOJ should be doing.
	The DOJ should only be dismissing cases if they believe that the case is in fact political.
	And if it's political and based in reality, you should dismiss it with prejudice.
	Again, the DOJ assessed that the main justice had not even assessed the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which it was based.
	Is this something that the Trump administration should be distracting itself with?
	On a practical level, put aside the moral for a second, on a practical level, is this something that they should be spending time on or effort on?
	It seems to me the answer is no.
	And again, these are the kinds of little things that don't matter in the moment.
	But, are they going to be brought up again?
	You're not going to have heard the last of these.
	Political scandals and accusations don't just die.
	They go underground until they're brought out.
	Once the sort of popularity rating has been eaten away enough, you can break the now hollowed out shell.
	That is the thing that I am concerned about here.
	Okay, meanwhile, other scandals broke over the weekend.
	So, the big sort of buzzy scandal of the weekend is that Elon Musk has another baby.
	Alright, well, you know.
	It's another weekend, another Elon Musk baby.
	Elon has now 13 children by a wide variety of other women.
	And it's not as though he's hiding the ball here.
	Elon has been doing this with many women for a long time.
	He's artificially inseminated, I believe.
	The former CEO or currency of Neuralink.
	He has a bunch of kids by a bunch of different baby mamas, ranging from Grimes to his first wife.
	Apparently he has a new baby mama.
	Her name is Ashley Sinclair.
	She is an online conservative influencer.
	According to the UK Daily Mail, she went public about their child over the weekend.
	Why?
	Well, because he ghosted her on Valentine's Day, according to her acquaintances.
	So, she put Musk on blast on Friday.
	She publicly posted at him on X, saying she'd been trying to communicate for the past several days, and you have not responded.
	While ghosting Sinclair, Musk was pictured on Thursday with another woman, mother of his three children, Siobhan Zilis, who he brought with their offspring to a meeting with Indian Prime Minister.
	Narendra Modi.
	Sinclair told the world she had Musk's baby in a shock post the following day on the evening of Valentine's Day, claiming she'd been forced to reveal her secrets due to tabloid media probing her personal life.
	But an acquaintance says that the real reason that she came for, she has another kid, by the way, with another person, was a disagreement with the billionaire.
	Trump activist Kylie Kramer posted on X, quote, Seems like she wasn't getting what she wanted, was emotional and hurt on Valentine's Day, decided to parade her crazy on the front porch, thinking people would be sympathetic to her as a victim of a powerful, wealthy man.
	Well, that seems not particularly good.
	Sinclair's spokesperson named Brian Glicklich released a statement over the weekend saying Sinclair and Musk have, quote, been privately working toward the creation of an agreement about raising their child for some time.
	And he rubbished those claims as ridiculous and wrong.
	Her statement, Ashley Sinclair's, was, quote, five months ago, I welcomed a new baby into the world.
	Elon Musk is the father.
	I have not previously disclosed this to protect our child's privacy and safety.
	In recent days, it has become clear tabloid media intends to do so regardless of the harm it will cause.
	I intend to allow our child to grow in a normal and safe environment.
	For that reason, I ask that the media honor our child's privacy and refrain from invasive reporting.
	And then the plot thickened because Milo Yiannopoulos, who is a.
	A muckraker extraordinaire, shall we say.
	He dug up a tweet from Ashley Sinclair.
	Thank you.
	It was in reply to a person named Greg Price who said, he's got a kid with a woman already, seems unlikely to work out.
	And she wrote back, well, he actually has seven kids and goes through women pretty fast.
	So that's what turned into this bizarre online conversation.
	She was apparently receiving a $15,000 a month apartment that she clearly was affording, presumably because Elon was paying for it.
	And she also, apparently over the weekend, had been doing a photo shoot, I believe.
	So she invited the New York Post into her house the next day to do a full spread, which is typically not what you do when you are attempting to avoid all sorts of public scrutiny.
	So, how do we analyze all of this?
	Well, let us begin with this.
	No one in this situation is a victim other than the child.
	First of all, It is always good when a child is born and children are good.
	We'll start with that.
	So I saw a lot of online influencers congratulating Ashley Sinclair and Elon on the kid.
	Fine.
	Fine.
	Whenever a kid is born, that is a good thing.
	Better that a kid is born than that a kid is not born.
	That's good.
	Also, everyone else in this situation is acting badly and no one is a victim.
	How about that?
	It is bad to impregnate women to whom you are not married because it is bad for the child not to grow up with a father and a mother in the home.
	Period.
	My principles have not changed on this.
	Ever.
	It turns out traditional conservative principles on this.
	Super clear and have been for several thousand years at this point.
	Man, woman, child.
	That's the thing that you want.
	Anything that gets in the way of that is bad for the child.
	So, when a man has a child with a woman and is not there living in the house with mother, does not love mother, mother and dad do not love each other, they do not take care of the kid together, that is bad for the child.
	This is all very simple stuff, but I feel like it's bizarre that people apparently need to be reminded of this.
	But yeah, that's actually the way that, you know, those of us who have been part of the biblical virtue system have been on board with this for like a super duper long time.
	I feel like the fact that I even have to say this demonstrates the sickness at the root of many of the things in our society.
	But it's not great when Antonio Cromartie has a thousand kids by a billion different women.
	And even if a person I like does it, it's still not great.
	Okay, so there's that.
	So principle number one, children, good.
	Principle number two.
	The best situation for a child is mom and dad are married.
	And now, is anyone a victim here?
	The answer here is no.
	Presumably Elon, when he was sleeping with Ashley Sinclair, knew that she was not on birth control.
	In fact, there are some indicators that he knew that she was not on birth control, and he was paying her bills.
	So obviously he doesn't feel like he was taken for some sort of long rift here or something.
	So Elon apparently went in knowing full well what the situation was, and that's on Elon.
	He's not a victim.
	Ashley Sinclair is not a victim either.
	Anyone trying to portray her as a victim, I'm sorry, that's nonsense.
	She's a grown-ass woman.
	She's a grown-ass woman who knew exactly who Elon Musk was.
	She knows he's the richest man on Earth.
	He is in his 50s.
	She is in her 20s.
	This did not appear to be a love match that was likely to end in marriage, folks.
	That is not Elon's way.
	Okay, so, she knew.
	This is a caveat emptor situation.
	He's not a victim.
	You know what he was getting in for?
	And she is not a victim either.
	And her attempt to portray herself as some sort of victim in this scenario is ridiculous on its face.
	It's silly on its face.
	Like, you are not a victim.
	You literally went and slept with a man who is twice your age and extraordinarily wealthy and took an apartment from him worth tens of thousands of dollars a month.
	And now you're acting as though you are some sort of victim in this situation.
	Again, the only victim in this situation is a child who is going to be deprived of a father in the home.
	That is the actual victim in this situation.
	It is much better for a child to be with a mother and a father.
	It is quite frustrating, frankly, that we even have to have these sorts of conversations.
	It's bizarre to me that we now live in such a post-morality era that saying the perfectly obvious is somehow considered controversial or an insult to the people involved.
	But she's not a victim.
	He's not a victim.
	Kids deserve mom and dad.
	That's all.
	That's all.
	And her going public, I gotta say, not in love with it.
	Like, it's...
	What is the purpose?
	Is it good for the child?
	See, this is my only standard here.
	Now what's good for her?
	Now what's good for Elon?
	What's good for the baby?
	What's good for the baby?
	It's kind of bizarre to put out an entire statement to the world.
	Have reporters over to your home.
	And then be like, yeah, man, I just want to keep private.
	She's arguing that, you know, that she had to release it preemptively because the tabloids were after.
	Okay, fine.
	If that's the case, that's also a bit of a different story.
	Although, again, welcoming tabloids into your home doesn't tend to add credibility to that particular allegation.
	But let's assume that's true.
	You know what's still an amazing thing to do?
	Be quiet.
	You could still do that, actually, it turns out.
	You could still say nothing.
	And then it would be on the tabloids because you know how all of us, you know how I would react if the tabloids did that?
	Not by bashing you.
	I would then react by bashing the tabloids because I would say that's between mommy and daddy.
	But you kind of lose my sympathy when you announce to the world and then start subtweeting Elon directly and he's tweeting you.
	And again, is any of this, imagine this kid is 10 years old reading these exchanges, which is what's going to happen.
	There's a kid in the picture.
	Once the kid is in the picture, I no longer care about your wants, needs, or desires.
	If you didn't want the world to know about it, you know it's an amazing way for the world not to know about it, to not talk about it on Twitter while actually tweeting the father of your child and then inviting reporters to your home for a photo shoot.
	Now listen, maybe she's having emotional issues.
	Whatever.
	And if that's the case, I hope she gets the help that she requires.
	But it is amazing to me that we'll have conversations about her and we'll have conversations about him and no one seems to have conversations about what is good for the kid.
	Which to me is like the main issue here and maybe the only issue here because once you're an adult, whatever happens next is on you.
	Meanwhile, over the weekend, SNL did its 50th anniversary tribute and there was one moment that seemed to stand out.
	That was a moment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler called out Ryan Reynolds in the audience and it was a little awkward.
	This is supposed to be a joke about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
	Now being widely derided as not particularly good or nice people because they, of course, have been attacking Justin Baldoni.
	They accused him of sexual harassment.
	She had basically attempted to take over his film and rewrite the script.
	And she brought Taylor Swift in as support and Ryan Reynolds.
	And they tried to bully Justin Baldoni.
	And then Justin Baldoni basically ended up as a character, apparently, in the new Deadpool movie.
	And so now Ryan Reynolds is going to try and joke his way out of it.
	And it didn't go over amazing.
	The audience that's seated around Ryan Reynolds looks awkward, particularly keep your eye on Kevin Costner, who kind of looks like he wants to crawl through the floor during this one.
	I have a question.
	Oh, hi, Ryan Reynolds.
	Hi.
	Ryan Reynolds, how's it going?
	Great.
	Some people in the background know what can happen.
	Okay, so, you know, joking about how you and...
	Your wife essentially tried to leverage a director by accusing him of sexual harassment is not amazing.
	It's not an amazing look.
	I think this is going to do serious career damage to Ryan Reynolds.
	And by the evidence, it probably should.
	If the entire shtick of Ryan Reynolds is garrulous, fun-loving, nice guy, what's his reputation after all of this?
	Seriously, well, what is the reputation after you and your wife basically attempt together to take over a movie where she was simply hired as an actress and then put together a spate of allegedly defamatory accusations against that same guy because you didn't like the publicity that was being spread about you?
	What does that say about you?
	And Ryan Reynolds, his entire brand is rooted in this sort of...
	Fun-loving dude that you'd want to have a beer with.
	But what if that fun-loving dude is actually just acting as a tool of his wife as she attempts to take over random movies in which she appears, even though she's really not that big of a star?
	And SNL, I mean, SNL trying to sort of whitewash Ryan Reynolds with that joke is not a particularly good look.
	That wasn't the only not amazing look on SNL this weekend.
	So SNL did an episode of Black Jeopardy.
	This was a very funny sketch when it first appeared, Black Jeopardy, on SNL. And this version, they had Tom Hanks appear as a white contestant on Black Jeopardy wearing a MAGA hat.
	And the implication seemed to be that he's kind of a racist.
	So here we go.
	Speaking of church, can I say something?
	If more folks went to church, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in now.
	You know what?
	I agree with you, Doug.
	I'd like to shake your hand, sir.
	Here we go.
	Oh, no, no.
	Oh, no, no.
	It's just a handshake.
	Yeah, it's just a handshake.
	Yeah, all right.
	You're welcome to Black Jeopardy anytime.
	Oh, well, all right.
	Well, thank you, my brother.
	Now, maybe I'll start a show for you to come on, and we'll call it What Jeopardy?
	No.
	We don't need it.
	We don't need it.
	So that was a joke that didn't play at all.
	So, again, he's playing Doug, sporting a MAGA hat.
	That's Tom Hanks.
	And apparently they had a bunch of shared sentiments about distrust of government and other issues, but then was thrown by having to shake the hand of a black man.
	So there are two ways to read that.
	And one way to read that would be to suggest that Tom Hanks is playing the MAGA guy as an overt racist who doesn't want to shake the hand of a black man.
	The other way to read that is maybe as a joke about his sort of perception of black criminality, which is still calling him kind of racist, but not quite as sort of terrible, I guess.
	Either way, not a good joke.
	And some people were offended by it.
	Again, Hollywood basically insulting the MAGA supporters is not a great look, but to be fair, that's a pretty mild jab.
	I think people may be overreacting to that particular one.
	Honestly, the Ryan Reynolds thing is way worse.
	The Ryan Reynolds thing, like bringing out Ryan Reynolds to joke about an ongoing controversy with Justin Baldoni.
	Like, where's Justin Baldoni there?
	Why didn't they bring Justin Baldoni and have him do a joke?
	I feel like that's, you know, just another indicator of the power imbalance as...
	The lefties among us like to say.
	All right, guys, coming up, the United States versus Canada in hockey.
	And yeah, we're taking it to the Canadians before we annex their country.
	Also, horrible news from the Middle East, where Hamas is announcing who they are releasing dead this week.
	Plus, Pope Francis is in the hospital.
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