The Ben Shapiro Show - NYC’s Whiny Brats Pick A Mayor

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Aug. 14, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:00:27

NYC’s Whiny Brats Pick A Mayor

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	Alrighty, folks, tons coming up on today's show.
	A new poll show, Zarin Mamdani leading by leaps and bounds in New York.
	What the hell is happening?
	Why are young people in New York resonating to Zoran Mamdani Plus?
	The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, stops by to explain why Democrats ran away.
	Will they come back?
	And President Trump taking over the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center honors.
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	Well, the new polls are out.
	There's a new Sienna College poll that shows Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York City, is now leading by an increased amount, 44%.
	Former Governor Andrew Cuomo is at 25%.
	Where is that support coming from?
	Well, as you might have guessed, it is people who are young.
	It is people under the age of 35.
	According to pollster Stephen Greenberg, city voters under 35 are overwhelmingly supporting Mom Dani, as are a plurality of voters 35 to 54.
	Voters 55 and older back Cuomo over Mom Dani 38 to 32.
	So what does that mean?
	It means younger voters are driving Mom Dani forward.
	And, you know, there are a lot of folks asking questions like, why is this person even the frontrunner in the first place?
	He's never held a real job.
	And that's true.
	So I asked our sponsors over at Comet, which is a project of perplexity, about the complete employment history for Zoran Momdani since his time in college, because obviously this must be a person with just unbelievably good resume.
	This person must have a CV that just blows you away.
	Or alternatively, he's never held a real job in his entire life.
	So here is his actual resume.
	2014, graduated from Bowdoin with a BA in Africana Studies.
	As we all know, the most useful BA, the kind of BA that will earn you millions of dollars at a hedge fund somewhere, or alternatively, maybe allow you to TA at another low-ranking university in Africana Studies.
	2014 and 2015, he was an organizing trainee at Change Corps, but he left after six months while attempting to unionize within the program.
	So they were like, nah, you leave now.
	2014, he was also a short-term organizer with various advocacy groups, including moveon.org.
	Wow.
	And TexPERG.
	He did canvassing and organizing for like a few months.
	In 2015 and 2016, he was the music supervisor and curator for the film Queen of Katya.
	Now, his mom directed that, so he worked for his mommy.
	2015, he was also a volunteer on Ali Najmi's New York City Council special election campaign.
	If I'm not mistaken, that was a loss.
	2016 to 2019, this was really when he began to hit his stride, just career-wise.
	He became an independent hip-hop artist and producer under the name Young Cardamom and then Mr. Cardamom.
	And he released many, many singles, including the famous single Nani.
	He performed at Uganda's Niege Niege Festival.
	Huge, huge.
	It's like the Taylor Swift of Uganda.
	2017 joined Democratic Socialists of America and he became staff on Kyoto El Yatim's New York City Council campaign in Brooklyn.
	If I'm not mistaken, that was a loss.
	2018, he was the campaign manager for Ross Barkins' New York State Senate campaign.
	I don't think that one went amazing either.
	Then in 2019, he's the field organizer for Tiffany Cabin's Queens District Attorney Campaign.
	From 2018 to 2020, he was a foreclosure prevention and housing counselor in Queens, which was basically trying to teach people how they could avoid being expelled from their homes, evicted from their homes for not paying their bills.
	And then from 2021 to present, he was the member of the New York State Assembly, where he missed about half of his votes.
	And then he became the nominee.
	So, in other words, if you were looking for the definition of a career useless person, this would be the human.
	This human would be the human.
	I've talked about Bernie Sanders being completely useless, a leech On the ass of society for legitimately his entire adult life from the time he was 20 to the time he is now, which he's like 172 years old.
	Well, Zoran Mamdani is that, but younger.
	So, you know, 15 years of uselessness or so.
	He's barely ever held a job.
	So you might say to yourself, how does a person with effectively no resume who worked for his mommy and was a rapper, how does that person end up as the Democratic nominee in New York City?
	And to misunderstand that is to misunderstand everything about Generation Z. Now, here's the thing.
	I'm not a politician, so I don't have to pretend that the concerns of Generation Z are legitimate.
	I understand that if you're a politician, then you have to placate people when they emotionally explain to you why their life is so difficult.
	Sometimes people do have difficult lives.
	People have real challenges in the world.
	But when I hear from Generation Z that the American dream is dead to them, all I can think of as a generation, not individually, as an entire generation, is, you have got to be kidding me.
	You've got to be kidding me.
	I've read more pieces over the course of the last couple of years about how Generation Z has it tougher than any generation in modern history and thought to myself, you, I'm just going to vomit.
	I mean, really, I'm just going to vomit.
	You have lived through zero serious wars that America has had to undergo.
	Zero.
	You've lived through zero serious terrorist attacks.
	You have lived in the most prosperous time in human history and the healthiest time in human history.
	And you are because your rent is too high in New York City while you concomitantly hold some sort of nonprofit job in New York City.
	And this is the thing that you are whining about as a general rule.
	Now, again, I don't mean everybody in Generation Z. Again, I'll say it for the third time here.
	There are many people who are suffering who have disease, who have health problems, who have been dealt a rough hand by life.
	That is not who I'm talking about.
	The generational complaint that somehow Generation Z has it worse than the Millennials or Gen X or the boomers or the greatest generation ignores literally all of American history, all of it.
	But if you're a politician, you can make bank by pretending that these people have concerns that are legitimate and they're not just being ungrateful and bratty.
	And again, Mamdani, for these folks, is a sort of avatar.
	The thing that you look at as a bug.
	He has no resume.
	He grew up absolutely wealthy, like loaded, and currently is taking advantage of a rent controlled apartment in New York City.
	He is currently living in a rent-stabilized apartment where the rent is $2,500 a month.
	The market rate would be $8,000 per month.
	He earns $147,000 a year and is campaigning on housing affordability in New York City.
	You might think to yourself, that's crazy.
	How are all of these socialists in New York City supporting somebody who's so clearly a hypocrite?
	That misses the point.
	That misses the point.
	See, so many folks in America look to their politicians as aspirational figures.
	I think a lot of people who love President Trump look to him as an aspirational figure, somebody who's very wealthy and very powerful, somebody who's made more of himself than otherwise he might have had at the beginning.
	Yes, he grew up rich, but he made himself into a brand name available all across the world for literally decades and then president of the United States twice.
	And so that's an aspirational thing.
	But what if the Gen Z aspiration is to be a career loser who lives off of his parents' income until he gets some sort of Kush government job living in a rent stabilized apartment?
	What if that is the actual aspiration?
	What if people look up to Zoran Mamdani, not because he is a loser, not in spite of the fact that he is a loser, but because he is kind of a loser?
	This is, I think, the theory of a piece in Tablet magazine called Zoran Mamdanti's Fantasy Island.
	According to Armin Rosen, writing for Tablet, Zoran Mamdani first reached elected office in 2021.
	He defeated four-term Democratic incumbent state assemblywoman Arabella Somotas, a 46-year-old former lawyer, city health staffer, and community planning board member who belongs to the century-old Greek immigrant community of Northwestern Queens.
	Mamdani, then 29, had been rejected from the nation's internship program after graduating from college.
	He tried to launch a rap career.
	He worked as a music coordinator on a Disney-produced film directed by his mommy.
	His sole qualification for public office was his relatively brief time as a housing counselor for Chaya Community Development Corporation, an organization that works with low and middle income South Asian communities in Jackson Heights in central Queens.
	To dismiss this resume, says Armin Rosen, as a multinational trust fund kid's laughable excuse for a career is also to misunderstand how power is now organized within Democratic Party verticals in major cities.
	Groups like Chaya have become one of the primary instruments of public policy in New York, where social programs are often carried out through the public subsidy of nonprofit private sector partners, groups with the freedom to be less accountable, more sectarian, and more ideological than government tends to be.
	In New York City, nonprofits received $20 billion in public money in 2021 in 2019 chia which is the organization he worked for got 600 grand in government grants accounting for one-third of the organization's revenue this public large just didn't mean momdani was drawing a large salary apparently he wasn't drawing much of a salary at all but The point is that he had all of these people available to fund him.
	In New York City, a taxpayer-funded matching program pays candidates $8 for every $1 they raise from city residents whose donations are $250 or lower.
	A lot of New Yorkers now have jobs and backgrounds very similar to Mom Dani's.
	And this is the central point.
	New York is thought of as the sink or swim epicenter of American capitalism, but that's not true anymore.
	The city is home to more than 600,000 jobs in the nonprofit sector and a roughly equal number of jobs in government.
	Nonprofits now employ nearly 17% of the city's total private sector workforce compared to 10% nationally.
	And wage growth there is healthy because it's all done off of government grants.
	So all of those nonprofits are not independently raising their money.
	They're getting money from the government.
	So they're effectively second order government employees.
	And when you look at the stats in New York, you understand just why Zorin Mamdani is so successful.
	The top industries in New York City in terms of employment, about 17% of people living in New York City are government employees.
	Another 10% are in financial activities.
	Those are the people who are actually supporting the tax base of New York City.
	12.5% are leisure and hospitality, meaning that those are business people who are coming in from out of town and staying at a hotel.
	And then there's 34% in education and health services, right?
	Those are all on government subsidies.
	So you have well over 50% of the population that is working for some sort of government orchestrated, government-organized, or government-funded segment of the economy.
	And when it comes to tax revenue, the people who are paying the taxes are largely the people who are in that small portion of the business community, the people who are in financial activities.
	Business income taxes represent about 14% of all tax revenue in the city of New York.
	The finance and securities industry represents 6% to 7% alone.
	And then when it comes to office space and other real estate taxes, that represents half of all tax revenue that's being paid by all the financial and securities industries guys and the leisure and hotel activities that are in New York City.
	So in other words, the people who are getting money from the government are not the people who are paying for the government.
	They're all Zorin Mamdani types.
	They're living off the largesse of government.
	And meanwhile, all of the rent across New York City has been rent stabilized.
	50% of all of the units across New York City have been rent stabilized.
	1 million units have been rent stabilized, which means that there's an artificially low supply of actual new construction in New York City.
	And that means the prices go up.
	So the average rent across New York City stands at approximately $4,000 a month.
	In Q1 of 2025, the median asking rent was $3,400 a month with zero to two bedrooms at $3,400 a month, three bedrooms at almost $4,800 per month.
	That's not Manhattan.
	That's all of New York City.
	Manhattan, the average rent is over $5,400 per month in Manhattan.
	So when Zora Mamdani is complaining about affordability, number one, what we should point out, it's all left-wing policies that made things unaffordable.
	And number two, the people who are in New York City trying to afford those rent-controlled rent-stabilized apartments, a huge number of them are on the government dole.
	So they are earning from both ends.
	The government is stabilizing their rent.
	And at the same time, the government is likely subsidizing their salary.
	So this is why I'm mildly irritated when I hear from Gen Z about how tough things are in places like New York.
	All right, in a second, we'll go through what has changed in America.
	Why are so many young people feeling hopeless about the American Dream Plus?
	We'll get into President Trump trying to fix up Washington, D.C., and also the Smithsonian and also the Kennedy Center first.
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	First of all, I think we should point out something.
	There has been this mindset that has settled in among the American population that you're supposed to die where you were born.
	This is not a typically American idea.
	This spans, by the way, the gamut.
	There are people on the right who believe this, there are people on the left who believe this.
	This is not actually a traditionally American idea.
	The traditional American idea, if you go back to the very beginning, is cross an ocean with nothing to guarantee what is going to happen to you on the other end.
	Go into a wilderness, build a crappy house, and try to start a business.
	And if that doesn't work, then what you do is you abandon that place and then you move further to the west across mountain ranges, across rivers.
	I mean, that was the original American idea.
	But look at this chart.
	This is about migrations, migration across the country by Americans.
	This chart is astonishing.
	Look at the drop-off in migration levels in the United States.
	It is easier than it has ever been in American history to move.
	I just based on transportation, based on the availability of buying new things based on Amazon, based on all of this.
	But the annual U.S. migration rate in 1947 was about 20%.
	The annual U.S. migration rate in 2019 was about 10%.
	It was cut in half.
	So, the normal answer to the rent is too high in New York City.
	There'd be two answers normally.
	One would be get rid of all the rent stabilization, the rent control, get rid of all of the regulations that prevent the building of new apartments, for example.
	And that's something that both the left and the right should be able to agree on.
	That is what Ezra Klein writes about in abundance.
	But the other thing that traditionally Americans did is when it was too expensive to live in a place, they left.
	They went somewhere else.
	But Americans are not doing that anymore.
	Instead, the reason that so many New Yorkers seem warm on socialism is because many New Yorkers are already living a form of socialism.
	They're living the Zoran Mamdani lifestyle where they are being supported by the government in a wide variety of ways, ranging from the regulatory to the actual subsidy.
	And so, when they say things are so hard in New York City, and the answer is more redistribution from the people who are earning all of the income and paying all of the taxes, the answer to that from saying people should be no.
	That is a bad answer.
	Now, maybe New York wants to do it, but I think at some point there's going to have to be a call for some level of responsibility on the part of yes, young people.
	Now, whenever I say stuff like this, I always get a bunch of flack because, oh, you grew up rich.
	Okay, let me explain.
	I did not grow up rich.
	I didn't.
	Okay, when I say this, this is not about me saying that everyone can have the same life that I've had.
	I don't think that's true.
	I had the ultimate privilege, which was a solid two-parent household.
	My parents are wonderful people, but I did grow up in an 1,100-square-foot house in Burbank, California, sharing a bedroom with three sisters until I was 11 years old, one bathroom for six people.
	And you know what?
	It was a fine life.
	It was a fine life.
	I'm grateful for that life.
	I grew up watching my dad play pianos on Monday and Tuesday nights at an Italian restaurant in Studio City.
	My mom would pick us up from school.
	She would still have to be at work.
	So she would drop us off at the restaurant and we would sit in the back of the restaurant and watch my dad play the piano.
	And if he got a 20 in the tip drive, that was a massive night.
	Okay, I'm not telling this story because I'm looking for some sort of blue collar sympathy or something.
	I'm telling this story because there is this dumb assumption that if you talk about mobility in America and the capacity of people to make smart decisions and to make the kinds of moves that would be necessary to achieve success, the immediate accusation is that it was only true for you.
	It's not true for anybody else.
	It's not only true for me.
	It is true for a huge majority of Americans.
	If you make smart decisions in America and if you stop whining for five seconds and if you go out and make better decisions for yourself, you can make a better life for yourself.
	And I think that this has really infused all of our politics.
	It really has.
	So many politicians make bank.
	Who makes bank off of this, this line that America is dying, that the American dream is dying?
	Who makes bank off that?
	Not you.
	You're not doing better because people are saying that to you.
	Politicians are doing better.
	This is how they gain power because every time they fail, they turn around and they say that the system has failed.
	You give me more power.
	This is how you end up with Zorn Mamdani or Bernie Sanders.
	And you're seeing a sort of populist economics on the right that says sort of the same thing, which is, if the economy hasn't worked the way that you want it to work, give me power and I can fix.
	Well, guess what?
	That mentality is not going to fix your life.
	For the vast majority of people, the vast vast, again, this is not true for everybody.
	There are people with real challenges for the fourth time.
	There are people with real challenges in the world, health challenges, life challenges.
	Not everybody was as lucky as I was to have two wonderful parents.
	I happen to know a great number of people who are very wealthy who also did not have two wonderful parents.
	You know, obstacles can turn into stepping stones for your success if you make the right decisions.
	But our entire politics is designed around the idea that people who tell you to make the right decisions are somehow selfish.
	And people who tell you to give them your money and your power so they can do what they want with it, those are the people who are really trying to help you.
	And that is a great lie.
	It is a tremendous lie.
	And there have been a lot of conspiracy theories floating around right and left over the course of the last few years.
	And as I've said before, sometimes there are conspiracies.
	Sometimes the conspiracies are very real.
	But the sort of generalized conspiracy theory of life, which is that your failure is the result of some grand conspiracy run by a shadowy group in the back room that is trying to somehow screw you, that has not made anyone's life better.
	No one's life has been made better.
	If you can identify a conspiracy with actual conspirators, with actual bad policies, let's all fight it together.
	And now I'm saying the same thing that I said about the accusation that America was systemically racist, which was an accusation that there's essentially ghost hunting.
	Because how do you fight systemic racism?
	Name me a racist policy.
	We can fight it together.
	Name me a conspiracy with actual conspirators in a bad policy that harms people.
	We can fight it together.
	We should all be on the same side of that sort of stuff.
	But that's not what's happening here.
	There's an entire group of commentators who are there to massage the feelings of people who complain that they are being screwed by life, screwed by society, screwed by the system.
	And you know who gets rich off of that?
	Not the person making the complaint.
	The person who gets powerful off of that is the commentator or the politician.
	And nobody makes money telling people that they ought to make their bed.
	That is generally not a great way to win friends and influence people, but it also happens to be the only thing that makes people's lives better in a free country.
	And this is a free country.
	And the reason I'm saying this is not because I think this is going to help defeat Zorin Mamdani.
	I think a lot of people are ensconced in the idea that they have insoluble problems that only the dumbest possible solutions can fix.
	And that's why they are throwing power to minuscule IQs like Bernie Sanders and lifelong losers like Zorin Mamdani.
	I'm just telling you, it's not going to work out.
	It's not going to work out for you.
	It's not going to work out for the city of New York.
	It's not going to work out for the country.
	So again, get real.
	The only person who can make your life better in the end is likely you.
	You are the person who makes your life better.
	Not Zorin Mamdani, not Bernie Sanders, not people who are living like you.
	Because guess what?
	Zorin Mamdani, I'm sorry, that is not the kind of life that most Americans are dreaming of.
	Most Americans are not dreaming of a government job, making you a decent salary and living in a rent-stabilized apartment.
	That is not the American dream.
	That is not what it is.
	That is not what it was.
	Alrighty, coming up, we'll get to President Trump, his intervention in Washington, D.C., fighting the Smithsonian, and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is going to stop by in a bit.
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	All righty.
	Meanwhile, speaking of Washington, D.C., where all this power has been aggregated, by the way, I should mention here that we just hit $37 trillion on the national debt.
	The reason for this is this sort of conspiratorial thinking.
	It is this idea that the American system is inherently corrupt.
	And if we just spend our way out of it, then that will magically fix all of our problems.
	Well, we're $37 trillion deep.
	Do you feel the problems have been fixed at this point?
	Or are we just $37 trillion deep?
	In any case, President Trump has now said that he wants to unleash the federal law enforcement auspices on Washington, D.C. And the Democrats are predictably very upset about this.
	Senator Chris Van Holland, who is absolutely one of the dumbest people in Congress.
	I mean, I know it's a long list, but Chris Van Holland really is near the top of the list.
	Here he goes ripping into President Trump over this.
	I'm very concerned.
	The president is showing all of his authoritarian tendencies.
	We have this decision by the president to essentially federalize the D.C. police at a time when actually crime in the District of Columbia is at a 30-year low last year and has been continuing to decrease in the first six months of this year.
	Okay, so apparently President Trump is some sort of fascist for wanting to decrease crime further from where it is.
	Again, if you give Democrats more power in Washington, D.C., probably they'll solve the same problem they've been failing to solve for literally decades.
	Meanwhile, a Democratic Philadelphia DA, Larry Krasner, who's responsible in large part for destroying the city of Philadelphia.
	I mean, truly destroying it.
	Larry Krasner is, again, one of these George Soros elected prosecutors, a man who was focused laser-like on ensuring criminals were out of prison so they could do more crime.
	Here he was complaining to CNN about President Trump being a fascist.
	He's doing it for the same reason he did that stupid birthday parade.
	He's doing it because he really likes the idea of being a dictator.
	He likes the idea of destroying our legal system.
	He likes the idea of eliminating the courts and taking away individual rights.
	I mean, look what he's doing talking about people who are unhoused as if they're criminals.
	They're not criminals.
	They need a place to sleep.
	They need food.
	You know, last time I checked the Bible, it said, take everything you have and give it to the poor.
	It didn't say steal everything you can from the poor and lock them up.
	And that's what he's doing here.
	This is a profoundly un-American attempt to exercise power in ways that are illegal to scare big cities and to go after democratic cities that are diverse to serve his racist, fascist agenda.
	Oh my goodness.
	Well, that is obviously a man who is deeply ensconced in his Bible reading.
	I didn't realize that the Bible was just a big communist workbook.
	That's exciting.
	I also didn't realize that it's not criminal to live on the streets as a mentally ill person or a drug abuser.
	It's criminal.
	You're not supposed to do it.
	And the actual solution to that is, as President Trump has suggested, arrest the criminals, make people who have serious drug problems dry out.
	And also, you actually do need involuntary commitment of people with serious mental illness so they can get their medication.
	What's fascinating about all of this is that, of course, if President Trump were a Democrat, they would be praising him for his perspicacity in trying to shut down crime in these major cities.
	Here's Kathy Hochl, the New York governor, bragging about deploying the National Guard to the subway system in New York in order to shut down crime.
	My job is to keep people safe.
	I have to keep any way I can.
	I'm going to keep New Yorkers safe.
	And I'll tell you who does show appreciation for the people out there on the streets.
	I've been walking the streets.
	I walk into business.
	People are just saying, thank you for taking such strong actions.
	I needed to do something dramatic and quickly to send a message that you will not get away with committing crimes in our subways.
	Wow, she must be a racist fascist.
	I mean, how could she say something like that, Kathy Hogel?
	That's just absolutely terrible.
	Well, President Trump had the best take on this.
	He says, listen, they're going to call me a dictator and then they're going to get mugged.
	We're going to fight crime.
	That's a good thing.
	Already they're saying he's a dictator.
	The place is going to hell and we've got to stop it.
	So instead of saying he's a dictator, they should say we're going to join him and make Washington safe.
	But they say he's a dictator.
	And then they end up getting mugged.
	you know but the stats are very bad but um Points for honesty and truth there for the president of the United States.
	Now, back to the topic of this sort of generalized running down of America.
	In order for politicians to truly demagogue, you have to suggest that America is a terrible place, that the only thing that can fix America is if you give me more power.
	Your life will be better if you give me more power or you give me more money.
	Well, to President Trump's credit, he understands that in order to rectify that, in order to fight against that, what you actually have to do is change the cultural conversation around what America is.
	So there are a lot of people today who are very, very angry at President Trump for intervening with the Smithsonian.
	So the Smithsonian Institute is, of course, a series of museums.
	It's everything from the National Museum of American History to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
	And the Smithsonian has had some problems being infiltrated by woke.
	See, the left has known this for a long time.
	If you want to build up a narrative that America is truly a terrible place that requires massive earth-shaking change, that has to be done culturally.
	And this is why, for example, back in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter moment, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of African American History, literally put out an exhibit called Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness and White Culture in the United States.
	I remember this one almost verbatim because it was so insane.
	Because it was basically that, that horseshoe theory where the alt-right Nazis and the woke Black Lives Matter folks, like they shook hands.
	So according to the National Museum of African American History, again, this was back in 2020, aspects and assumption of whiteness and white culture, like things that are uniquely white, include things like rugged individualism.
	The individual is the primary unit.
	Independence and autonomy are highly valued and rewarded.
	Things like family structure are white.
	The nuclear family, father-mother, 2.3 children is the ideal social unit.
	An emphasis on the scientific method.
	Again, this is put out by the Smithsonian, saying that this is a white thing, like science is a white thing.
	Also, by the way, history is a white thing.
	Also, work ethic is a white thing.
	Other white things include time, quote, follow rigid time schedules.
	Also, aesthetics based on European culture.
	Also, things like, you know, justice based on the English common law, competition, and religion.
	All those things were just white people things, according to the Smithsonian.
	Well, the president has come in and he says, listen, we're not doing this anymore.
	We want to go through everything that the left woked up, and we're going to try and fix that now.
	So the White House sent a letter to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a person named Lonnie Bunch, talking about all of this.
	Quote, as we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding, it is more important than ever that our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story.
	In this spirit, and in accordance with Executive Order 14253, we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions.
	This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the president's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
	And so they're going to go through the public-facing content and how content is curated and how exhibitions are planned and all of the rest.
	And so they asked for all the material on educational materials, external partnerships, grants, and everything else.
	And everybody on the left went insane.
	How dare you touch the Smithsonian?
	How dare you touch it?
	Now, again, this is a game that the left has been playing for a long time.
	They take a venerable institution like the Smithsonian, they gut it, they wear the face around like Hannibal Lecter.
	And then they pretend that if you say, hey, things need to change here, you're attacking the institution itself.
	But it's too late.
	It's already been gutted.
	But this is the game.
	So here is Peter Baker of the New York Times claiming this is just like Vladimir Putin.
	But when it's the president of the United States dictating what the history should be, that, of course, brings to mind a different kind of history, a history of the kinds of countries where politicians are deciding what people should know rather than historians and experts.
	And if you put this together with a president who's now planning to personally host the Kennedy Center honors, who's determining what kind of culture should be showcased himself personally, who is now sending American troops into the streets of Washington, all of these things together hearken to a lot of people to the kind of countries that Vladimir Putin would feel very comfortable in.
	Okay.
	So in other words, if the White House looks at an executive branch issue like the Smithsonian Institution and tries to go through the history and write it in accordance with American history as opposed to listening to the left complain about the rewriting of history after they spent years tearing down statues and defacing them is kind of an amazing thing.
	It really is.
	But again, this is the way that it works.
	The left hijacks culture.
	And then if you attempt a counterrevolution, then of course you are the great offender.
	President Trump is not standing for that.
	Other things that he is doing on the cultural level, you heard Peter Baker mention that President Trump is going to host the Kennedy Center honors this year.
	He's excited about this.
	Honestly, this is like President Trump's thing.
	And let's be real.
	This is a guy who has legitimately featured on the Tonys and the Grammys and the Emmys for years.
	Like back in prime time in the position of TV host.
	Like this is President Trump.
	He's getting all the things.
	He's so happy about this.
	Here he was explaining that he's going to host the Kennedy Center honors.
	Let's talk about right now the Kennedy Center, and I'm delighted to be here as we officially announce the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center honors.
	It's going to be a big evening.
	I've been asked to host.
	I said, I'm the president of the United States.
	Are you fools asking me to do that?
	Sir, you'll get much higher ratings.
	I said, I don't care.
	I'm president of the United States.
	I won't do it.
	They said, please.
	And then Susie Weil said to me, sir, I'm like your host.
	I said, okay, Susie, I'll do it.
	I really don't think it took that much to talk President Trump into this.
	I think President Trump was pretty, this is probably the thing he's been most enthused about as president in a while.
	He also acknowledged that the people who are Being honored by the Kennedy Center, that that went through him, that he wiped out all of the wokeies.
	I would say I was about 98% involved.
	No, they all went through me.
	They came over, Rick and Sergio and everybody.
	They said, I turned down plenty.
	They were too woke.
	I had a couple of wokesters.
	No, we have great people.
	This is very different than it used to be.
	Now, the people, by the way, who are being honored are George Strait, who is the king of country, Michael Crawford, who you'll recognize from Phantom of the Opera.
	I myself am not a huge Michael Crawford fan.
	His baritone lacks something, but that's, you know, an aesthetic judgment.
	Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, and Kiss.
	So obviously he's featuring a bunch of people who are fairly friendly to him.
	But guess what?
	That's what the Kennedy Center's honors were like every year.
	It was Barack Obama inviting all of his friends up there and then giving them a big bro hug.
	So, okay, so President Trump is pushing back on that.
	You know what?
	Fine.
	Absolutely fine with me.
	I could not care less about this considering how the left has hijacked the arts over the course of the last several decades.
	Already coming up, we'll be joined by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.
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	Meanwhile, the New York Post yesterday reported a kind of shocking story.
	I mean, not that shocking if you've been following Russia Gate, but a little shocking.
	Apparently, according to the New York Post, Senator Adam Schiff, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, authorized leaks of classified information to tarnish President Trump's image during the RussiaGate probe, having assumed he would lead the CIA in the Hillary Clinton administration, according to newly released whistleblower statements.
	It's an unidentified source who worked as a Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee for 12 years after spending a couple of decades in the Intel community.
	He told FBI agents in December 2017 the mood among the panel became indescribable after Trump's upset win the year before.
	Apparently, he said, quote, ranking member, that's Schiff, was particularly upset as he had believed he would have been appointed as the director of the CIA had candidate Hillary Clinton won the election.
	In September 2017, the same whistleblower told investigators he had heard from congressional staff colleagues around October 2016 that Schiff would be offered the CIA job if Clinton had won.
	So this whistleblower says basically that Schiff and apparently they were also worried about one congressman, Eric Swalwell, that they might be leaking bad information about Trump in order to hurt him.
	During an FBI interview in June 2023, the whistleblower recalled being part of an all-staff meeting called by then Congressman Schiff, at which the Democrats stated that the group would leak classified information derogatory to the president.
	Schiff said the information would be used to indict President Trump.
	The whistleblower said he objected only to be told by other participants they would not be caught if they did leak classified information.
	Again, here I mention Eric Swalwell.
	Apparently, that was one prominent oversharer, according to the whistleblower.
	Because apparently over drinks that evening, the whistleblower claimed Democrats on the Intel Committee had established a system for leaking in which sensitive information would be given to Schiff, after which a decision was made as to who would leak the information.
	In that December 2017 FBI interview, a whistleblower recounted how a particularly sensitive document was seen by a small group of lawmakers and staff, including Schiff and Swalwell, but leaked out almost verbatim within a day.
	The whistleblower allegedly claimed to have been warned to be careful because Swalwell had a reputation for leaking classified information.
	Well, we did reach out.
	The Daily Wire did reach out for comment to Eric Swalwell.
	And Swalwell's comms director then replied to our reporters here at Daily Wire, quote, please see representatives comment below.
	So the comment was, when Ben Shapiro is tall enough to look me in the eye and ask me a question, please reach back out.
	Until then, GFY.
	Well, I mean, okay, so I'll ask you the question.
	Were you leaking information on behalf of Adam Schiff?
	Okay, like right now, I'm asking you the question.
	I mean, Eric Swallow, that dude is so butthurt.
	I mean, honestly, we are now a year after he humiliated himself at a hearing in Congress when we went up against one another.
	He showed up.
	He wanted to play games.
	He was really silly.
	He looked like an idiot.
	And he's still butthurt over this somehow.
	If you don't remember, this is July 2024.
	I just wanted to know, from your perspective, I think it would help us understand on just like a scale of zero to 100%, how much do you support Project 2025?
	I think like President Trump, I haven't looked all that deeply at Project 2025, but it seems that Democrats on this committee, sort of like Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, if they say Project 2025 enough, their presidential candidate becomes alive again.
	And so well, let's just talk about pieces of it.
	And I guess you can tell me if you support it.
	You probably want less bureaucracy, right?
	I do.
	I want less bureaucracy.
	You want more efficiency?
	I do.
	I want less more efficiency.
	You want taxpayer money spent wisely?
	I do.
	Congrats on becoming a Republican.
	My parents would be proud.
	And just because we found some receipts, you did say I think homosexual activity is a sin.
	Yes, I'm religious.
	There's a genetic component of orientation, but the view of all religious people I know has always been that sexual behavior is something that is up to you.
	And you said, I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not.
	I agree with me.
	Yes, that's true.
	Congratulations on your.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, it went poorly for him last time.
	But, you know, I'm coming to D.C. in September.
	So maybe we'll see each other once again and he can compare heights or something.
	Man, that dude, that congressman.
	Wow.
	Okay, meanwhile, in other news, Texas Democrats have now returned.
	So their little draunt is over.
	They're apparently back.
	They're going to return to Austin.
	According to Breitbart, you remember those Texas House Democrats who ran away?
	Brave Sir Robin ran away because they were attempting to avoid providing a quorum for redistricting.
	Well, apparently, they're now going to return home after Governor Greg Abbott took emergency action to begin removing the absent legislators as they refused to show up for work.
	Multiple sources revealed the news to ABC 13 on Tuesday.
	The exact date that they will return to the state capitol in Austin has not been confirmed.
	The state house had only 95 members present for the second day in a row on Tuesday, with Speaker Dustin Burroughs predicting the session will end and a new one will start, assuming there is no quorum on Friday.
	The Senate Democrats did not break a quorum, but they did storm out of the chamber in protest as the Republicans passed the new redistricting map.
	So they got really mad and then they walked out and then they walked back in.
	So slow clap for everybody.
	That was just terrific.
	Meanwhile, Beto O'Rourke is back and this dude, ah, Beto.
	First of all, I'm very excited that Beto's back.
	I'll be honest, because I've missed being able to break out the surfer bro Beto impersonation.
	I really have.
	He is running a group called Powered by People.
	And apparently he is raising money.
	He's fundraising for statehouse Democrats who fled Texas.
	I don't know if he's buying them like MREs or if he is just sending them airdrop music from his Spotify list.
	I don't know.
	He's doing something with that money.
	But apparently, that's a legal problem.
	Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state court to clear the way for law enforcement officials to arrest him because there was a court order barring him from fundraising for those statehouse Democrats who were in violation of the law.
	Paxton filed a motion for contempt in court against O'Rourke.
	But of course, this makes Beto O'Rourke happier than anything else on earth.
	Like Eric Swabwell, that dude just wants attention, desperately, desperately wants attention.
	And since he can't get it from skateboarding, kick flip, bong, rip, beta, he says, F the rules, man.
	Just F him.
	F him.
	If you're a Democrat these days and you need to be the leader of the resistance, the best way to do that is to just show how much you are so mad at Trump.
	so it's unbelievable.
	He's a fascist.
	He's a fascist.
	In fact, he's not just, he's an effing fascist.
	He's an MFing fascist.
	Like, they're just going to get whatever is the worst form of cursing that they can use.
	That is what that shows that they care, you see.
	It doesn't mean they're effective, but it shows they care really like a lot.
	The more they curse, if they can curse like a Martin Scorsese mafioso and talk about Trump, man, that road to the White House is paved with gold for them.
	Here's Beto standing in front of a giant American.
	He's like, he's like, skateboarder patton.
	Let's go.
	Do it.
	We want California and New Jersey and Illinois and Maryland and every other state where the Democrats hold the governor's mansion, the Assembly, and the state Senate to redraw their congressional districts now, not wait for Texas to move first to maximize Democratic Party advantage.
	Listen, you may say to yourself, well, those aren't the rules.
	There are no refs in this game.
	The rules.
	We are going to win whatever it takes.
	We're going to take this to them in every way that we can.
	I'm going to go to their house with a razor.
	I'm just going to start slicing people, bro.
	There are no rules.
	I'm going to take this head splitter.
	I'm just going to use it.
	There are no rules.
	I'm going to get crazy.
	I'm going to snort some cocaine and then I'm going to do mushrooms and then I'm going to have acid.
	And then after I do all those things, I'm going to eat a bunch of dirt.
	I'm going to go vomit on Donald Trump's shoes, brah.
	That guy might be the nominee.
	I don't know.
	He's showing a lot of spice, but he's not the only one.
	J.B. Pritzker, the rotund governor of Illinois, who must be lowered into the state capitol by Crane, he also has words about this, also showing fire and passion and rotundity.
	So it's time to stop apologizing when we're not wrong.
	And it's time to stop surrendering when we need to fight.
	Yeah.
	And yes, folks, we are messing with Texas.
	Oh, my God.
	Who wrote that line?
	Who wrote that line?
	Fire that speech right away.
	Yes, folks, we are messing with Texas.
	And that's a self-made man.
	And we talked earlier about self-made men.
	J.B. Pritzker, sign of a billionaire family.
	That dude's the self-made man, probably.
	Okay, but don't worry, there's another competitor in the passion sweepstakes here.
	And that, of course, is Neudard Kendall, Governor Gavin Newsom of California.
	So he is now tweeting in all caps because, you see, it's all about trolling the president.
	So he's tweeting in all caps.
	Donald Trump, if you do not stand down, we will be forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states.
	But if the other states call off their redistricting efforts, we will do the same.
	Thank you for your attention to this matter.
	See, it's funny because he said thank you for your attention to this man.
	Just like Trump, you see?
	So he's that he then needed it again.
	Donald Trump, the lowest pulling president in recent history.
	This is your second to last warning.
	The next is the last one.
	Stand down now or California will counter-strike legally to destroy your illegal crooked maps in red states.
	Press conference coming, hosted by America's favorite governor, Gavin Newsom.
	Final warning next.
	You won't like it.
	Thank you for your attention to this matter.
	Oh my, wow.
	Wow.
	He might have it.
	I don't know.
	How do I decide between the skateboarder who failed running for president and also failed running for the Senate in Texas, J.B. Pritzker, who no one cares about but is super wealthy because his family made a bunch of money.
	And Gavin Newsom, mostly famous for eating in the middle of COVID at the French laundry and also being the ex-husband of Kimberly Guilfoyle, our ambassador to Greece.
	I mean, wow, what a stellar lineup they have.
	And what we need is more passion.
	If only they have more passion, then they will be able to stop the Republican redistricting in Texas.
	They're not going to stop any of that stuff.
	It's not a thing that's going to happen.
	And you know what?
	If California decides to redistrict, well, again, welcome to the game.
	Democrats have been playing it for quite a while.
	Joining me on the line to discuss everything going on in Texas is Governor Greg Abbott, who is the 48th governor of the state of Texas.
	Of course, before that, he was the longest serving Attorney General of Texas and has also served as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court.
	So basically, he's held every position in Texas.
	Governor, great to talk to you.
	Great to be back with you.
	Thanks.
	So let's talk about the current status of redistricting, gerrymandering.
	Where are the Democrats right now?
	Are they still missing and can the Scooby-Doo gang find them?
	So they are still missing in action.
	and it's very un-Texan of them.
	You know, going back to the days of the Alamo, you stay and fight.
	You don't run from a fight.
	And so what these Democrats have done, they fled a fight and they went to all places, Chicago, Illinois, which is the quintessential example of gerrymandering.
	Look at their state.
	If you're going to protest line drawing, it'd be like someone going to Milwaukee to protest beer.
	It's insane.
	Bottom line is that they're still missing.
	They have said they are going to return here in a couple of days.
	We'll see.
	We'll trust, but verify.
	We will be seeking for one to get a quorum, for another to hold them accountable.
	But third, know this.
	We are going to pass those new maps, whether it be this week, next week, next month, the month after that, we're going to stay in special session until we get those maps passed.
	So Governor, let's talk about what is prompting the redrawing of the maps.
	Obviously, Democrats are claiming it's illegal or that it's being driven by political pressure from the White House.
	What is causing Texas to want to redraw those congressional maps right now?
	To be clear, it's perfectly legal.
	There's nothing in the United States or Texas constitutions or in any law anywhere that prohibits Texas from being able to do this.
	And the states like California and New York, they have constitutional provisions that tie their hands.
	That does not exist in Texas.
	All that's required is a majority of the Texas House and Texas Senate.
	A catalyst for this was a court decision from the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals last year that said that coalition districts were no longer required.
	When you couple that with the facts from the last presidential election, it showed that counties that are predominantly Hispanic that historically had in the past voted for Democrats, this time voted Republican for Donald Trump as well as other Republicans.
	So we have new facts and new law that allow us to redraw these lines in ways that these voters and these districts, they're not trapped in a Democrat congressional district.
	Instead, they can vote for a Republican candidate of their choice.
	So Democrats have been absconding in order to presumably break quorum.
	What are the sort of methodologies that can be used to compel them to come back?
	What punishments do they face?
	So the punishments are outlined in the Constitution, and they are punishments that the House comes up themselves with the consequences for not showing up for a quorum.
	One is a $500 a day fine.
	Another that the House leadership is seeking to impose on the runaway Democrats is to pay for all of the expenses, which is in the millions of dollars, as well as other potential consequences such as losing privileges on committees and different things like that.
	Those are what I would consider to be the minimum consequences.
	But there needs to be more.
	And I'll tell you what, if they don't show up, they're going to see some more consequences.
	So meanwhile, Beto O'Rourke, who, while you've served in pretty much every position in Texas government, he was a congressperson, then he ran for Senate and failed.
	That was after he ran for president and failed.
	So he continues to run for things and fails at them, but he's also raising money for a bunch of Texas Democrats.
	Supposedly, this breaks the law.
	Do we know what laws are being broken by Beto O'Rourke if he's breaking laws?
	Sure.
	First, as a reminder, his last race was actually against me for governor.
	That's right.
	And he lost by double digits in Texas.
	So he's a three-time loser when it concerns politics.
	But let's get to the law because these are very serious allegations.
	And what we did, we found a quote from Betro O'Rourke himself where he was suggesting that he was going to pay money to any of these Democrats who refused to stay in a quorum, who fled the quorum and refused to vote for these maps.
	Under Texas law, if you offer somebody money to either vote a certain way or to not vote, that would be considered to be bribery.
	This is a second-degree felony in Texas.
	These are serious allegations.
	The Texas Attorney General is investigating as we speak.
	So meanwhile, obviously, President Trump has done a magnificent job on the border.
	He just rewind about a year.
	Texas was experiencing mass migration surges to the southern border thanks to President Biden.
	From your position as Texas governor, can you describe the difference between President Trump's administration and what you were facing just a year ago?
	Night and day, complete opposites, however much you can contrast it.
	Interestingly, I was visiting today with the head under Trump of the Border Patrol.
	And we were commiserating over that very difference.
	This time last year, there were thousands of people coming across the border every single day.
	Today, there is zero people that the Trump administration allows to cross the border illegally.
	Also, what the Border Patrol is doing, that they are putting into place measures that I actually put into place, such as those big orange buoys that we put into the river.
	They're doing that on a much more massive scale.
	They're working to build more border wall.
	With the one big beautiful bill, they got billions of dollars of new funding, so they're going to be able to redouble their efforts to secure the border.
	Governor Abbott, back to the redistricting for just a moment.
	So Governor Gavin Newsom over in California, who apparently spends pretty much 23 out of every 24 hours a day trolling President Trump in a desperate attempt to become the Democratic nominee in 2028.
	He is suggesting that if Texas goes ahead with redistricting, he is then going to redistrict California and wipe out some Republican districts in places like Orange County.
	What do you make of those threats?
	And is that going to determine in any way, shape, or form what the state of Texas does here?
	So what Gavin Newsom says is meaningless to me and to the state of Texas.
	I'll be honest with you, I think he really is doing nothing more than trying to posture himself as the Democrat nominee for the presidency.
	But also his threats, if you would, ring very hollow because unlike in Texas and California, it requires a constitutional amendment for them to even be able to draw new lines.
	And he's seeking that constitutional amendment, but I don't think he's going to get it.
	He does not have the ease that Texas has in passing these new lines.
	And that for one, but for another, you know, one thing that was really exposed in the aftermath of America learning that Texas is redrawing our congressional lines, what's been exposed is the gerrymandering that exists in California, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts.
	I don't think California can gerrymander any more than what they've already done.
	They've already removed all Republicans they can remove.
	And so I think it's nothing more than a hollow threat.
	He's trying to get some attention, trying to get some support for his presidential campaign and nothing more than that.
	That's Governor Greg Abbott of Texas.
	Governor, thanks so much for what you're doing and thanks for stopping by the show for the explanation and the information.
	Always a pleasure.
	Take care.
	Meanwhile, the president of the United States is on Friday supposed to be holding a big confab with Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
	There are a lot of worries, I know, among people who do not want Vladimir Putin to walk away with some sort of sweetheart deal, that President Trump is somehow going to give away the store or something.
	Apparently, he's already told the Europeans that he has a bunch of red lines.
	The Wall Street Journal reports that he agreed with European leaders, including President Vladimir Zelensky, to red lines for the coming talks with Putin in Alaska and said he hoped to follow up quickly with a trilateral summit with the two warring leaders.
	He also threatened Vladimir Putin with very severe consequences if the Russian president refused to ceasefire in their coming meeting, which of course would be a great start, right?
	Start with the ceasefire and then move on to the negotiations.
	Again, Zelensky did that.
	Trump put serious pressure on Zelensky.
	Zelensky caved.
	He gave the president what he wanted.
	And that's been the status quo for the last multiple months, like many, many months.
	When I visited Kiev and I talked to Zelensky personally, that was already something that Zelensky had accepted.
	Vladimir Putin, by contrast, has been shoving hundreds of thousands of troops toward the front lines in an attempt to break the Ukrainian lines.
	Trump told his European peers he would not directly negotiate territorial issues, saying Ukraine has to have that discussion directly with Russia.
	That's according to German chancellor Friedrich Murz, who initiated the meeting.
	The president also made it clear any security guarantees offered to Ukraine as part of a potential peace deal with Russia would not involve NATO.
	But he accepted that there would be other alternative security guarantees.
	Of course.
	Of course.
	Putin is not going to accept any deal in which Ukraine formally joins NATO because obviously he still wants to influence Ukraine's future policy.
	But Ukraine is not going to accept any deal in which they don't have some sort of external security guarantee.
	Emmanuel Macron, the French president, he said President Trump was very clear the American desire was to obtain a ceasefire at this meeting in Alaska.
	Mara said, we Europeans are doing everything in our power to set the right foundations for this meeting.
	We want President Trump to have success in Anchorage on Friday.
	Fundamental interests of Ukraine and Europe must be secured in Alaska.
	This was the message we passed on to the president of the United States.
	Putin, for his part, is attempting to presumably massage the president of the United States, give him some sort of goodies in an attempt to wheedle him into abandoning his current positions.
	President Trump Had a meeting via phone with all those leaders this morning.
	He said it was a very good call.
	He rated it a 10 out of 10, which, as we know, is the best.
	Also, he said, as we've talked about, that Putin could face very serious consequences.
	Presumably, that would mean many more additional sanctions as well.
	Meanwhile, Zelensky says Putin is bluffing.
	He's trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska on all directions of the Ukrainian front.
	And he said that Putin is acting as if sanctions are not important to him and that they're not working.
	In fact, sanctions are very helpful and are hitting the Russian military economy.
	Meanwhile, the Kremlin is basically trying to seize a bunch of territory that it hasn't won.
	Here's a map of the current status of the war.
	What you can see is that the military control of Ukraine has changed pretty significantly over time.
	But that eastern region of Ukraine, which is the area that is most at issue, that's been basically frozen for quite a while.
	Apparently, what Putin wants is the entire Donbass.
	And that Donbass region is, again, much, much more territory than they currently have won.
	They have not picked up all that territory yet.
	They're making slow moves by like tens of yards, hundreds of yards a day, maybe.
	And they've basically been stuck since, I don't know, a year ago.
	Hasn't been major movement in the actual territorial line.
	So the idea that Ukraine is somehow going to just give up the ghost and hand over control of all of these areas, that is a thing that is not going to happen.
	Alrighty, folks, coming up as we continue the show, we have an update from a friend, Jussi Smoulier.
	He's back.
	He's in a new show, and he's talking about that horrific crime and the horrifying villain who perpetrated that crime against Jusis Moulay.
	Jussie Smoulier.
	The show continues for our members right now.
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