The Ben Shapiro Show - Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie, OH MY

Oct. 17, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:09:26

Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie, OH MY

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	Alrighty, folks, tons coming up on today's show.
	Zorn Mamdani in full color, showing just how radical he is.
	We'll talk about the Democratic Party's extremism, Bernie and AOC to a joint appearance on CNN Plus.
	Eric Trump stops by first.
	Last night we kicked off a decade two of the Daily Wire, which is kind of amazing, with the launch of our new show, Friendly Fire, and a lineup of major announcements, including the world premiere trailer for the Pendragon cycle, which you can watch right now at DailyWire.com.
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	Well, folks, there's been a lot of talk about the right over the course of the last few days, the radicalism problem on the right.
	And as we talked about on yesterday's show, that is a problem that exists.
	However, is it nearly as mainstream as it is on the left?
	Has it been imbibed?
	Has it been ingested?
	Has it been sucked into the great maw of the party and turned into the mainstream position on the right?
	The answer, of course, is no.
	However, on the left, the answer is very much yes.
	And herein lies the problem for the Democratic Party.
	The Democratic Party has decided to let the radicals run the show.
	And this has become extraordinarily clear over the course, not just of the past couple of election cycles, but in the past few months, when Zoran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate, who came from legitimately nowhere to become the frontrunner for New York mayor, has now been feted by the entire Democratic Party as the future of the party.
	It's an amazing thing.
	All of the so-called moderates in the Democratic Party refuse to dissociate in any way from Zoran Mamdani, who is in fact a terror sympathizer, who is in fact a Marxist radical, who is in fact a complete useless narrow duel of a human being who has somehow managed to manipulate himself into a position to become the mayor of the financial center of planet Earth in New York City.
	It's really, really incredible.
	And Zoran Mamdani, he's trying now to sort of back off some of his more radical public positions, some of them, not all of them, but the truth is that Zoran Mamdani is in fact a Marxist.
	He is a Marxist with jihadist leanings.
	That's just the reality.
	And in the modern Democratic Party, that is a feature, not a bug.
	There are a lot of people in the media who've been struggling to sort of figure out how is it that Zorn Mamdani was able to win a primary, quote unquote, despite having these radical positions.
	And I've been saying since he won the Democratic Party primary that that actually isn't a bug.
	That is a feature.
	That is a thing that is quite popular among Democratic primary voters because the Democratic electorate has basically split between moderates, who are increasingly bleeding over into the Republican Party or into registration as independence, and the hardcore Democrats who are increasingly moving ever further to the left.
	We are now two generations removed from the specter of communism via the Soviet Union.
	The Soviet Union now fell 35 years ago.
	And that means that there are a lot of people who don't even remember the Soviet Union or remember the risks of communism or what that looks like.
	When they think of socialism, they actually are thinking of mixed states, capitalist states that have a significant welfare portion, things like Europe.
	And they don't even understand what's going on in Europe, but they're thinking of Europe.
	But the solutions that they are actually proposing are full-scale nationalization projects, Marxist projects directly from the Soviet Cuban Venezuelan handbook.
	And they don't even know they're doing that or they don't care.
	And what that means is that the candidate who signals the furthest to the left in many of these areas in the primaries is actually quite likely to win.
	That is also true with regard to Zoran Mamdani's positions on the Middle East in terrorism and jihadism.
	It's how just 24 years removed from September 11th.
	New York City is likely to elect as mayor somebody who has sympathies for the program of Al-Qaeda.
	I don't mean he's sympathetic to the actual terror attacks of 9-11, although he's quite sympathetic apparently to the terror group Hamas.
	I mean that the program written down by Osama bin Laden as to why he hated the West.
	You remember about a year ago?
	There's a big scandal because over at TikTok, there are a bunch of youngsters who decided that they were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's 2001 letter to America.
	They read, hey, these are legit grievances.
	Zoran Mamdani is somebody who believes that the Osama bin Laden articulated grievances of 2001 are actually mostly correct.
	That That's just a reality.
	And that is again a feature, not a bug, because there have been people who've been trained for generations in this country to believe that Western civilization is responsible for everything bad that happens on planet Earth.
	Third world countries are third world because of exploitation by the first world.
	Terror centers are terrorist centers, not because of a deeply steeped radical Islamic ideology, but instead because somehow the West has been mean to people.
	That is the stuff that Zor Mamdani is preaching, and it is finding a ready audience among Democratic primary voters, which again is why he's the frontrunner for the New York City mayoralty, with the entire Democratic Party backing him at this point.
	Very few Democrats have had the stones to just say, nope, this is a bridge too far.
	The answer here is no.
	And what's amazing about that is that the risk factor in doing that is actually relatively low.
	Imagine that you are a mainstream Democrat from Kansas, and somebody asks you, you're an elected official about Zor Mamdani.
	Does it cost you anything to say, no, that guy's too extreme?
	Would not vote for him.
	I'd vote for Andrew Cuomo, probably.
	Does that cost you anything?
	Let's say that you're a purple state Democrat.
	Or let's say that you're a blue state Democrat.
	You're just not a New York City, far left, Greenwich Village Democrat.
	Does it cost you anything to say no, that dude is too much for me?
	I understand the primary voters chose him, but the reality is that is not representative of America.
	But instead, the Democratic Party has decided they must sort of draft off of the Zoran Mamdani energy.
	And that's why you're seeing nationally a reflection of Mamdani's politics via the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.
	Now, Mamdani is a child of the Bernie Sanders revolution because Bernie obviously is not just a socialist when it comes to domestic policy, he is also a Howard's in anti-American extremist when it comes to American foreign policy.
	And Mamdani is just following in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders, but he's adding a more diverse backstory and face to that.
	AOC is the same sort of thing.
	AOC and Mamdani are basically cut from the same cloth, as we'll talk about in a minute.
	But to understand just how extreme Zor Mamdani is, all you have to do is listen to the stuff that he says.
	So, Mamdani, just a couple of days ago did an interview on Fox News with Martha McCallum, and Martha did a fabulous job interviewing Mamdani.
	Mamdani has taken a wide variety of extraordinarily insane positions.
	Some of them he has walked back because he understands that they actually are politically toxic.
	So one of the ones that he walked back was his criticism of the NYPD.
	So Mamdani, not all that long ago, was saying that the NYPD was racist and quote unquote anti-queer.
	And again, that is the sort of stuff that makes you popular with the Democratic Party primary base, but is unlikely to make you popular with the generic voter in New York City, where it turns out people hate crime more than they hate the police.
	And so Mamdani was forced to back off of that at least a little bit by Martha McCallum.
	You said in the past, I almost don't need to go through it.
	It's been said many times, but that you called the police force racist, said they were a major threat to public safety, called them wicked and corrupt.
	And now the report that you apologize to two dozen members of the NYPD, what did you say to them?
	I apologize for the language that I used, and I spoke to them about the fact that I want to work with them to deliver public safety.
	Because what we're seeing in the city right now is we're asking officers to do nearly everything we can think of.
	We used to ask officers to focus on serious crimes.
	Now we're asking them to focus also on the mental health crisis, to focus also on homelessness.
	In one year alone, the NYPD receives 200,000 mental health calls.
	Police officers that I spoke to, they don't want a behind closed doors apology.
	They want a broad public apology for the things that you suggested about them.
	Will you do that right now?
	Absolutely.
	I'll apologize to police officers right here, because this is the apology that I've been sharing with many rank and file officers.
	And I apologize because of the fact that I'm looking to work with these officers and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.
	So again, what's hilarious about all of this is that no one in the NYPD believes Zora Mamdani.
	No one.
	I have friends who are in the NYPD.
	They do not believe him.
	They believe that he is mouthing these slogans in order to win over the so-called moderate Democrats who are probably going to vote for Mamdani in the actual New York City election, which is happening the week after next.
	But the fact that he feels the need to back off of that is because the anti-police position is such a luxury belief that even the Democratic Party can't actually sustain it for very long.
	They tried it in 2020, the anti police position, and it was really quite bad for them.
	It led to broad scale riots.
	It led to an increase in crime between the Ferguson riots of 2014 and essentially 2022.
	And so now they're being forced to back away from these crazy positions.
	But what does Zorn Mamdani actually believe?
	Well, he actually believes the thing that he's apologizing for.
	He doesn't like the police.
	And if you think that he is going to give broader purview to the police to actually stop crime in New York City, you're out of your mind.
	Because what actually is Zoran Mamdani?
	He is absolutely radical, and the signaling is how you can tell.
	Who to whom is he signaling?
	And the answer is the most radical parts of his base.
	And the best part for him, the feature, again, not a bug.
	Everyone keeps getting this wrong in the media.
	They keep pretending that Zoran Mamdani's radicalism about the Middle East is actually somehow an inhibitor to his political success.
	Wrong in New York City with the Democratic primary base.
	It is in fact an aphrodisiac.
	Already more from Zoran Mamdani, again, the New York mayoral frontrunner.
	I don't know why the city has some sort of suicidal impulse, but there we are.
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	So Zor Mamdani has made the claim that as mayor of New York he is going to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Intenaho of Israel.
	Now, this is just a legal absurdity.
	It's a moral absurdity, also.
	Like a total moral absurdity.
	Arresting the elected leader of a democratic ally of the United States who just won a multi-front anti-terror war for the crime of winning that war based on a bunch of specious propagandistic crap that Zoran Mamdani and others traffic on TikTok.
	It's ridiculous.
	On a legal level, it's totally ridiculous.
	There are absolutely zero legal grounds by which the mayor of New York can order the arrest of a democratically elected foreign leader for winning a war in the Gaza Strip.
	Mamdani was asked about this by McCallum, but he doesn't back off of it.
	He doesn't back off at one iota.
	Why?
	Because the Democratic Party base, they want this signaling.
	They want the extremism.
	They want the Howard zenification of American foreign policy.
	You have said that you would arrest Netanyahu if he came to the United States.
	You've been very outspoken in your criticism of him.
	Do you stand by that?
	You would arrest him if he came here if you were mayor?
	I've said that this is a city that believes in international law, and this is a city that wants to uplift and uphold those beliefs.
	The Prime Minister.
	It hasn't signed the treaty for the International Criminal Court.
	The International Criminal Court, however, has issued a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu as the.
	As it has for Vladimir Putin, I've said that I believe that we should uphold arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court, and that we would you should do so only in abiding with all of the laws in front of us.
	I'm not going to make a new law to ensure that we can actually do this.
	Do you think that Commissioner Tish would allow you to arrest Netanyahu in New York City?
	I've appreciated Commissioner Tish's leadership of the NYPD, and I think that she's done a good job at lowering crime across the city.
	But if she do you think that she would she would be go along with arresting Netanyahu in New York?
	I can tell you that I'm going to exhaust every legal option in front of me, not to make new laws to do so.
	Okay, so um here's the deal.
	What he's saying there is that he's not going to arrest Netanyahu.
	He doesn't have the legal basis to arrest Netanyahu, but he's going to continue to say that he's going to arrest Netanyahu on these specious grounds.
	Now, lest you believe that Zoran Mamdani actually is just quote unquote in favor of international law.
	Or he is just sort of a peacnik.
	You know, just sort of one of those guys who is vibing in the park in 1968, smoking dope and talking about how actually the Viet Cong, they're not that bad, but you know, American soldiers kind of bad.
	Like, unless you just think that he's that, he is not.
	He is a full-scale pro-terror advocate.
	How do you know?
	Because in the same interview with Martha McCallum, he was asked about whether Hamas should disarm in the Gaza Strip.
	Now, no matter what you believe about what Israel has done in the Gaza Strip, if you are a person with any sense of decency at all, like just basic pure moral decency at all, you should want Hamas disarmed in the Gaza Strip.
	For the sake of Palestinians right now, Hamas isn't killing Israelis right now, because Israel pulled back in the Gaza Strip.
	They will try again, obviously, just as they tried before and succeeded before.
	But right now, Hamas's tender mercies are being directed at other Palestinians.
	They are apparently killing dozens, if not hundreds of people a day in the areas that Israel pulled out of.
	This is the great irony of the international body, basically telling Israel to pull out of the Gaza Strip.
	Oh, how how dare Israel be there?
	Well, what a threat to Palestinians.
	Israel is.
	So Israel pulls out and Hamas immediately starts consolidating control by literally pulling people out of their houses, lining them up, putting them on their knees and shooting them in the head.
	There are videos of this happening right now.
	And Zor Mamdani has nothing to say about this.
	Not only does he have nothing to say about this, he's asked whether Hamas should disarm.
	Now, whether or not, again, you believe that Israel should maintain military control of the Gaza Strip, whether you believe there should be an international force there, whether you believe in some sort of fantasy world in which the Palestinian Authority takes security control of the Gaza Strip after their complete inability to do the same in Judea and Samaria, the so-called West Bank.
	Regardless of what you believe on this, left, right, or center, you should want Hamas to be disarmed.
	It is a terrorist group.
	It is a terrorist group that kills anyone who is not in favor of its complete theocratic control of an area that it has robbed of billions of dollars in aid to build terror tunnels.
	They've murdered thousands of Palestinians and gotten tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip.
	And yet Zor Mamdani was asked about Hamas disarming.
	And here so remember, there's a guy who wants to arrest the elected prime minister of a democratic ally of the United States, but he has no words at all.
	In fact, he won't even answer a question as to whether Hamas ought to be disarmed in the Gaza Strip.
	You've denounced Israel and the United States for the response to the slaughter on October the seventh.
	In fact, at times uh you've called it a lasting stain, the response.
	And at times you have left October 7th out of your statements completely around this issue.
	Right now, you you just talked about Israelis killing some Palestinians, but Hamas is killing Palestinians within Gaza.
	And they have not returned the bodies that they promised to return, including two Americans.
	Umutra, whose families we have interviewed over these months.
	So what is your response to what Hamas is doing now?
	I think those are bodies and remains that should absolutely be returned, and I think that I have no issue with critiquing Hamas or the Israeli government because my critiques all come from a place of universal human rights.
	And my focus, however, is right here in New York City and transforming the most expensive city in America into one that's affordable for each and every New Yorker.
	But okay, I and I want to get to that.
	Uh absolutely.
	But do you believe that Hamas should lay down their weapons and leave the leadership in Gaza.
	I believe that any future here in New York City is one that we have to make sure that's affordable for all, and as it pertains to Israel and Palestine, that we have to ensure that there is peace.
	And that is the future that we have to fight for.
	But you won't say that Hamas should lay down their arms and give up leadership in Gaza.
	I don't really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety and the fact that anything has to abide by international law.
	And that applies to Hamas, that applies to the Israeli military, applies to anyone you could ask me about.
	So just pure moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas, the IDF, which has spent extraordinary amounts of blood and treasure and lives of its actual citizens in going house to house in the Gaza Strip and the terror group that is currently murdering people, absent any Israeli control of these areas of the Gaza.
	And Mamdani, we're supposed to believe now has no opinion.
	He has no opinion.
	Well, he just, you know, he has no opinion now.
	I mean, weird how his opinions just disappear the minute he is asked about whether Hamas, an actual honest to God terror group, ought to disarm.
	The opinions just go away.
	And if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, except he probably already nationalized it.
	Elise Stefanik, who, of course, is the Congresswoman from New York, she put out a statement in response to a question from a reporter from the New York Times.
	Apparently, this reporter, Emma Fitzsimmons, asked her, quote, I'm a reporter for the Times.
	I'm writing about Elise Stefanak's comments in response to Mam Dani's Fox News interview.
	Mamdani's campaign said that her comments calling him a jihadist were Islamophobic.
	Please let me know if you want to respond.
	And so Stefanik responded publicly on X quote, why yes, Emma, I do want to respond.
	Please print in full.
	I call Zoran Mamdani a jihadist because he is.
	Zar Mamdani is a raging anti-Semite.
	Mamdani is the definition of a jihadist as he supports Hamas terrorists, which he did as recently as yesterday when he refused to call for Hamas terrorists to put down their arms.
	The same Hamas terrorist group that slaughtered civilians, including New Yorkers, on October 7, 2023.
	His Kathy Hochels endorsed jihadist communist, who she has empowered to destroy New York City.
	It's why the New York State Democratic Party chair refuses to support him.
	It's why multiple Democrat members of Congress refuse to support him.
	It's why Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have still not endorsed him.
	Because Zoran is a jihadist who will destroy New York.
	Thank you.
	Well, yes.
	And the answer is yes.
	But again, that raises the question.
	Why aren't Democrats just dissociating from him?
	Yes, he doesn't have the open endorsement of Jeffries or Schumer, but neither of them has said, no, I don't think this guy should be the mayor of New York.
	I think it's bad that he's mayor of New York.
	If he becomes mayor, we'll have to work with him because we have no choice.
	But should he be mayor of New York?
	Absolutely not.
	None of them will say it.
	None of them will say it because they try to draft off the jet fuel that is radicalism and nut jobbery inside the Democratic Party.
	Now, Mamdani did a mayoral debate yesterday with Andrew Cuomo, the former Democrat governor of New York, and Curtis Sleewa, the Republican candidate.
	What the polls show right now is that Mamdani is the front runner, but he's still in the mid-40% range, that Curtis Slewa is running in the teens, and that Andrew Cuomo is running in the high 20s.
	So the basic theory goes that if you wish to defend, if you wish to stop Mamdani from becoming mayor of New York, basically Slewa has to drop out and endorse Cuomo.
	My guess is that probably will happen sometime in the next week or so because there's really no upside at this point for Sleewa continuing the run.
	I like Curtis.
	I think Curtis is a nice guy.
	Curtis is a radio host, I've been on a show.
	Like all of that's wonderful.
	Also, he has no shot of actually being the mayor of New York, and every vote for Sleewa at this point is a vote for Mamdani because it prevents Andrew Cuomo, the only real challenger in the city of New York from being able to become mayor.
	How extreme is Zoran Mamdani?
	Again, it's not just that he is pro-Jihad.
	Zoran Mamdani, I mean, again, he uses the cover of quote unquote international law and human rights to defend the worst jihadists on planet earth, which you'll find to be a common trait among people who are quote unquote defenders of international law, defenders of the international criminal court or the international court of justice or the United Nations.
	People who cite international law while defending those who routinely violate it.
	But Zor Mamdani is also a Marxist, a Marxist who's going to wreck the city of New York.
	So in the debate last night, Zor Mamdani said that he is in fact going to make busing in New York City free because nothing will make busing safer or cleaner than making it absolutely free.
	Quick, name a government service that has not become More degraded as a result of being quote unquote free, meaning fully funded by the taxpayers.
	You cannot.
	In any case, here is Zorn Mamdani saying that the way he's going to pay for that free busing is with is with taxes.
	Now, again, the nice thing about the busing system in New York is not wildly expensive.
	It just isn't.
	And this idea that if you want to take buses in New York City, it's going to bankrupt you.
	Look at the cost structure on the New York City transit system.
	It has one of the strongest transit systems in probably the world, certainly in the United States.
	But Mamdani wants to bring that price down to zero.
	How?
	By taxing the only people who are generating revenue in his city, obviously.
	But the question is how you'll make them free.
	We will fund the revenue that would have otherwise been brought in from fares.
	And that's something that we would do in partnership with Albany.
	And I've put forward two proposals.
	The first is to raise taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers by 2%.
	That would raise $4 billion.
	The second is to raise the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey, which would raise $5 billion.
	Okay, by the way, I'm just going to point out here again.
	I asked Comet, a project of Perplexity, one of our sponsors, what exactly the transit fairs are right now in New York City.
	Apparently, as of October 2025, the standard fare for riding a New York City MTA local bus is two bucks and ninety cents per ride.
	Express buses cost $7 per ride.
	And there are, in fact, reduced fare options for eligible groups like seniors and low-income residents who may pay as little as a buck forty-five per local bus ride.
	Ain't nobody going bankrupt because they are taking the New York City bus.
	I understand that everything sounds great when it's quote unquote free, but raising taxes in New York City, already one of the most overtaxed jurisdictions in the United States, that is a fool's errand.
	Zor Mamdani, by the way, has also come out in favor of a gigantic quote-unquote millionaire's tax, which is just going to drive all revenue creators out of the city.
	This is how you empty out a great American city, by the way.
	You raise the cost of public services.
	You tax everybody who can pay the tax.
	All those people are mobile because they have money, and then they leave, and your tax base gets undercut.
	And in order to compensate for the worst public services, you then start raising debt.
	You then start taxing the people who remain, and then they leave.
	And that's how you end up in a death spiral for a city.
	Meanwhile, Zorn Mamdani would also love to apparently decriminalize prostitution because there's nothing that sounds better than bringing Times Square back to the hellscape that it was before Rudy Giuliani with women street walking.
	I can't you know, New Yorkers, I I guess that the theory of democracy is every 40, 30 years or so, we just have to repeat the mistakes of the past and then relearn why this was incredibly stupid.
	And I guess if you put an unbelievably smarmy face on all of this, people buy into it.
	I mean, this dude is a smarm machine.
	Zorn Mamdani is just a machine that generates nuclear levels of SMARM.
	It really is incredible.
	Here is Zorn Mamdani, a man who cannot manage press 135 pounds, speaking to you like a substitute middle school teacher who watches too much Rachel Maddow.
	And to follow the advice of district attorneys that we have here in New York City, the current Manhattan DA, the former Manhattan DA, the current Brooklyn DA, the former Manhattan DA, having said that prosecuting women for prostitution is something that actually leads to less safety.
	And what we need to do is provide an economy of opportunity.
	Just a quick clarification.
	So no legalization.
	How about um decriminalization?
	I do not think that we should be prosecuting women who are struggling, who are currently being thrown in jail and then being offered job opportunities.
	I think we should be actually providing those kinds of opportunities at the first point of interaction.
	So, I mean, I don't understand even his theory, but at the first point of interaction, so what?
	You see a lady on the street streetwalking, charging some John a bunch of money for, and suddenly you just walk up to her with like a job application.
	This is his theory.
	This is his great theory, Zorn Mamdani.
	By the way, it's not as though this stuff hasn't been tried.
	Again, prostitution was effectively decriminalized in New York City for a couple of decades in the 70s and 80s.
	Just watch a movie from the 70s and 80s.
	And um, it didn't work out amazingly well for quality of life in New York City.
	It's a more on Zorn Mamdani, the extremism in the Democratic Party that will not stop first.
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	Meanwhile, Mamdani does have critiques of Andrew Cuomo.
	What are his critiques of Andrew Cuomo?
	Apparently, Andrew Cuomo is unqualified and also intolerant because he didn't visit a mosque during this campaign.
	So just to be clear about this, Zoran Mamdani is not intolerant for believing that Hamas should not disarm or having no thoughts on it.
	And also for endorsing for the vast majority of his campaign, the idea of globalizing the intifada, which is a violent revolution.
	That doesn't make him intolerant at all.
	It doesn't make him intolerant when he puts out an October 7th statement that doesn't mention Hamas in any way, and then spends the vast majority of its time condemning the Israeli defense forces for defending their country.
	That doesn't make him intolerant in any way.
	Zorma him hanging out with Hassan Piker, one of the great traffickers of violent revolution while shocking his dog in America.
	You know, that that apparently doesn't make him a uh an intolerant person anyway.
	What makes you intolerant apparently is if you don't go and visit a mosque, says Zoran Mamdani to Andrew Guomo.
	He had more than 10 years, and he couldn't name a single mosque at the last debate we had that he visited.
	And what Muslims want in this city is what every community wants and deserves.
	They want equality and they want respect.
	And it took me to get you to even see those Muslims as part of this city.
	And that frankly is something that is shameful and is why so many New Yorkers have lost faith in this politics.
	Yeah, except you know, that is I worked with the Muslim community for many years.
	Name a single mosque you went to in four, but can you name a single mosque you went to in ten years?
	They were before I was here.
	Before you were even in the state government, I worked with the Muslim community.
	Yeah, imams presided over state of the states.
	Uh, we worked in religious working groups, I couldn't visit a mosque.
	All right, gentlemen.
	You will visit the mosque or you will be labeled anti-American.
	That's a hell of a take.
	That's a hell of a take from uh Zoran Mamdani.
	My goodness.
	And again, the Democratic Party, he is their nominee.
	And Democrats having a very tough time dissociating from him.
	Bill Ackman put out his thoughts on the New York City mayoral debate.
	He said on Zoran Mamdani, it's now abundantly clear he's completely full of it.
	The whole thing is an act.
	Just look at that identical practice smile with which he ends each answer.
	After watching him recreate his fake smile, your skin will start to crawl.
	He does have a sort of Gavin Newsom lizard person feel about him, Zorn Mamdani.
	Mamdani exudes inauthenticity and smugness.
	He denies Or disavows any of his previous public statements that he knows will now cost him votes.
	The only takeaway is that he is an extremely articulate inauthentic actor.
	He can't trust one word out of his mouth, and that's before you get to his policies, which make no economic sense.
	I mean, again, hard agree on that one.
	But this is the nature of the modern Democratic Party.
	The modern Democratic Party is moving in this direction at light speed.
	Which is why, just a couple of nights ago, CNN did a town hall event with Bernie Sanders and AOC.
	Now, what this really is is Bernie crowning AOC as queen of the movement.
	Bernie is too old for to run for president again.
	He's starting to lose it, Bernie Sanders.
	I mean, he already let's be clear.
	I think that Bernie Sanders lost it when he was a teenager because he has been a complete useless leech on the ass of American society for the past multiple decades.
	The man is 84 years old, and he has not produced a useful thing in his entire life.
	Not one useful thing in his entire that's an amazing record, an unblemished record of uselessness from Bernie Sanders and counterproductivity when it comes to forwarding the principles of the United States.
	But he has bequeathed, he has given birth to a bizarre socialist movement that has now taken over the heart of the Democratic Party, and he is touting AOC as his sort of heir apparent.
	Because the theory of the Democratic Party, at least in the Bernie iteration, is Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee in 2020, were it not for the fact that minorities did not like Bernie Sanders.
	They saw the old school Brooklyn Jewish accent.
	They didn't like it.
	They thought he was real white.
	And so a lot of minorities didn't like Bernie Sanders.
	Again, this is the Democratic theory of the case.
	It's been written about extensively.
	This is why Joe Biden was able to swing into action in 2020 and stop the Bernie Sanders nomination cold, despite the fact that Bernie had already won Iowa and New Hampshire.
	In South Carolina, everything turned because the Democratic Party basically came together to stop him, reliant heavily on minority votes.
	So the theory of Bernie and company is what if we take Bernie's program and we pour that old wine into a new, more diverse vessel?
	That's the theory.
	And that is why AOC has turned from a punchline, which she actually is, because again, she's charismatic and she's good on TV, and she has never said a thing of worth ever.
	But AOC is now being turned into a legit figure because of Bernie Sanders, who is basically crowning her.
	And during this interview, over and over, Bernie Sanders basically stepped in and protected AOC from any difficult question.
	So at one point, for example, Caitlin Collins of CNN asked AOC if she was going to challenge Chuck Schumer for his Senate seat in New York.
	And Bernie stepped in to protect her, white knighting for AOC.
	Here we go.
	Are you saying that Senator Schumer should not be worried about a primary challenge from you?
	I mean, let me jump in on this one.
	This is what we're talking about.
	That's exactly what we're talking about.
	This is what we're talking about.
	We had a house housing crisis, a health care crisis, an education crisis, massive income and wealth inequality, a corrupt campaign finance system, and the media says, Oh, you could have run what are you gonna run for?
	Nobody cares.
	So one more total.
	Nobody cares.
	Eric's the House Speaker and President Trump and the vice president saying it.
	Right.
	Pardon?
	Well, of course, they're saying it to deflect the tension away from the real issues.
	Exactly.
	And he only tell you what the real issue is.
	Let's see if CNN talks about it.
	We're living in the richest country in the history of the world, right?
	All right, you tell me why we're the only nation not to guarantee health care to all people, the only nation not to guarantee paid family and medical leave.
	Why we have a $7.25 an hour minimum wage.
	Why we have 800,000 people sleeping out on the street, why we have a president who denies the reality of climate change.
	Why we have oligarchs on top who have more and more power every day.
	Let's talk about that issue, not her own political future.
	She'll decide that.
	What a what a joke he is.
	Let's talk about too many rich people in America and there are too many poor people in America.
	Let's talk about how everybody needs health care, paid for by someone, by a magic monkey somewhere that generates money.
	Let's talk about all of it.
	That's what we need to talk about.
	Don't ask any questions about whether she's going to run against the Senate minority leader.
	I will step in as an old white man, and I will tell you why you, Caitlin Collins, a woman, cannot ask this other woman a question about her political future because of the relationship.
	This is he's trying to hand control of the Bernie movement to AOC.
	So again, that's what that's why the white knighting routine.
	And again, here's the problem for AOC.
	She is a radical.
	She is a radical, and she is a nut.
	And I know there are a lot of people on the right who look at this sort of thing and They say, well, you know, but all the Democrats, they're standing in solidarity.
	And look, that's that's a good quality.
	They're standing with if the Democratic Party follows Bernie Sanders and AOC and Zoran Mamdani down this primrose path.
	That is not a path to victory.
	Donald Trump has been tr president two times.
	I said it yesterday.
	I'll say it again.
	Republicans control the Senate.
	They control the House.
	They are likely to retain control of the Senate.
	It is increasingly likely they may even retain control of the House.
	In an off-year election.
	Republicans control the majority of governors' houses.
	The demographics of the country are moving in favor of Republicans.
	Because the Democrats declared solidarity with the Bernie Sanders movement.
	And if the Democrats hand leadership of the movement over to AOC, that is good evidence the party has gone completely bat Loony.
	And they can do it.
	I mean, sure they can.
	And again, we live in a country that's a two-party system.
	It's possible that if AOC becomes leader of the Democratic Party, she could be president.
	There's an economic collapse, and AOC gets elected.
	But is that a good thing for the Democratic Party or for the United States?
	I don't think so.
	AOC is a bag of vanity fair slogans poured into a young, fresh face.
	That's what she is.
	So AOC during this town hall was asked about President Trump's ability to achieve the release of Gaza hostages.
	And she couldn't even give Trump credit for that.
	She called Trump an obstacle to peace, which is unbelievable because this is a lady who wept openly on the floor of Congress when Israel was given continued funding for Iron Dome, which again is the anti-rocket system that prevents Hamas rockets from hitting civilians in Israel.
	She wept on the floor for abstaining from the vote.
	And here she is saying that Trump is an obstacle to peace.
	Good Lord.
	These there have been several ceasefire announcements and developments that have happened over the past two years.
	I think that the release of the hostages is a tremendous accomplishment.
	And it is providing so much healing to to so many people, Israelis and Palestinians.
	And it is a profound and important moment in this conflict.
	I also think that as President Trump was on the plane back to the United States, there's already indications and questions about whether this ceasefire will hold.
	And I pray that it does.
	for everyone's benefit.
	I pray that it does, but I do believe we need to see if it holds.
	I don't believe that there's been a history of fidelity to these agreements, and so I think we have to ensure that we will see the terms held too.
	But do you give him credit?
	Do you give him credit though for getting to this point where it did get those 20 hostages back home with their families?
	In this particular development, yes, but we also know that President Trump uh was an obstacle to peace previously as well.
	Okay, he's an obstacle to peace.
	All right, says the party that again is promoting the Hamas should not disarm candidate in New York City, whom AOC campaigns for, by the way.
	AOC also had some words for Republican men.
	She says that that Republicans are radicalizing and exploiting young boys.
	Again, if this is the direction the Democratic Party wants to move, chiding young men for, you know, not being androgynous, then good luck to them.
	Here is AOC lecture.
	Keep lecturing the dudes.
	See how it works out for you.
	And they are able to radicalize and target and exploit a generation of young boys in particular away from healthy masculinity and into an insecure masculinity that requires the domination of others who are poorer, browner, darker, or a different gender than them.
	And that is why they are resonating online, because they are appealing to the most basist and worst parts of human nature to divide us.
	The most basis parts of human nature.
	Ah, the wisdom of mass I need to hear more about masculinity from AOC and Zoran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.
	Just I need to hear more about it.
	I think I think it's going to be fascinating.
	Well, meanwhile, she says that Republicans Are successful online because they believe women are inferior.
	Which, again, is a hell of a take here from AOC.
	They have been successful because they have also been very clear, especially digitally, about what they believe.
	That women are inferior.
	That do not, and they do not deserve equal rights.
	That they believe that LGBTQ Americans are subhuman.
	Oh, goodness gracious.
	Goodness gracious.
	Well, the good news, at least for Bernie and AOC, is they've found allies on the other side of the aisle in the form of Marjorie Taylor Green.
	Again, I'm uh a little annoyed with people who suggest that pointing out that Marjorie Taylor Green is trying to lead an insurgency inside the Republican Party by gaining strange new respect from the left, that those are the people dividing the party.
	Marjorie Taylor Green has spent the last multiple months attacking the president of the United States and getting massages from all the members of the left.
	But if you mention this, then you're quote unquote breaking the unity.
	Here's Bernie Sanders endorsing Marjorie Taylor Green.
	Always a good indicator that you've gone wrong somewhere.
	There are some decent, honest Republicans.
	And you know, in American society, we believe in democracy.
	You're a conservative Republican.
	We disagree.
	So what?
	It's called America.
	We have different points to you.
	I gotta tell you, though, if I may, one of the things that has concerned me very, very much.
	And is that we are seeing the Republican Party doing less of representing their districts and their states than just swearing allegiance to the president of the United States.
	So now I never thought that I would say this.
	But you have somebody like Marjorie Taylor Green saying, you know what?
	I was elected by my constituents.
	That's who I am beholden to, not the president of the United States.
	So there are good Republicans out there, and if Trump would leave them alone for five minutes and not threaten them with a primary, if they stood up and did the right thing, I think we can make progress.
	The reason, by the way, he's praising Marjorie Taylor Green is because she hates Israel, and so does Bernie Sanders.
	That's that's the real reason that that is happening.
	In five seconds ago, he would have rapped on her for her conspiratorialism.
	Today she's a hero.
	So when we talk about people who are attempting to split the Republican Party, Marjorie Taylor Green, again, is one of those names.
	Now, the Democrats, they're having a tough time recruiting candidates who are not members of the radical left at this point.
	And one of the more hilarious turns in recent memory, Graham Plattner, according to CNN, a marine veteran turned oyster farmer, who is now a rising Democratic Senate candidate in Maine.
	He was supposed to be the sort of bro response because there are lots of pictures of him out on the lake.
	And of course, he has a military background.
	And there he is looking like a dude who who fishes and spends his time doing man things.
	Well, it turns out that he once called himself a communist, dismissed all police as bastards, and said rural white Americans actually are racist and stupid.
	According to deleted social media posts reviewed by CNN's K file, that'd be Andrew Kaczynski, who does a pretty good job of digging.
	Most of the posts were made five years ago under Platinum's then Reddit handle, P Hustle.
	They were deleted ahead of his campaign launch in August.
	The post in some ways underscore Platinum's reputation as an anti-establishment outsider with unapologetically left-wing views, but the labels and tone used in his writings could also prove costly in a state known for electing political moderates.
	So he came out, he said that was very much me effing around the internet.
	I don't want people to see me for who I was in my worst internet comment, or even frankly, who I was in my best internet comment.
	I don't think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.
	I don't believe you.
	I think that that is quite actually indicative of of what you think.
	So, again, hilarious that the Democrats try to recruit a man's man, a moderate to run against Susan Collins in Maine.
	And what they come up with is a communist who hates white rural people.
	Slow clap for the Democratic Party.
	They're doing an amazing job.
	Alrighty, coming up, Democrats, they've gone radical.
	So obviously the people they need to oust, they they want to go after John Fetterman.
	Well that really?
	John Fetterman?
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	It is not, by the way, just that the Democratic Party is doing an amazing job in recruiting nut jobs to run for office, and then burnishing them, touting them.
	They're also taking the only sane people left in their party and forcibly attempting to eject them.
	According to Axios, top Democrats in Pennsylvania are maneuvering to run against Senator John Fetterman in a 2028 primary contest, threatening to tear the party apart in the biggest battleground state in the nation.
	Democrats have not flipped a GOP Senate seat since Fetterman did it in 2022.
	He was the last Democrat to flip a Senate seat.
	And he remains quite popular with Pennsylvania voters.
	In large part because Fetterman is the only rational Democrat, apparently, who's willing to say basically rational things at this point.
	For example, John Fetterman said a thing that Democrats apparently are not allowed to say.
	He said Trump voters are not fascists and Nazis.
	I know this is like crazy stuff to Democrats, apparently.
	Here was Fetterman on News Nation saying this just the other night.
	I refuse to call people uh Nazis or fascists, or I would never compare anybody, anybody to Hitler and those things.
	And uh that kinds of extreme rhetoric is going to continue.
	We're going to be more likely in resulting in extreme kind of outcomes and political violence and doing all these kinds of things.
	I mean, like, this is just basic rationality.
	Fetterman also said in that same news nation interview that extremism on the Democratic side is why they lost.
	They embraced every extreme cause.
	And now a lot of the things, the extremism that people turn their back in 24, and that's how we kind of came up short.
	Uh I mean, you know, I campaigned for thousands, thousands of thousands of miles across Pennsylvania for for uh vice president Harris.
	And and it was going to be incredibly difficult.
	You could just feel the energy there, and people really have connected there and at a very fundamental level.
	And that's what I tried to explain to my party.
	And I'm trying to explain to the party right now.
	It's like this is why we lost, and this is where we need to be to continue to win for these things.
	And there are parts of extreme things emerging, clearly, on those things.
	And that's why I refuse to follow that, even if that is gonna cost me uh uh support in parts of the base.
	So um, you know, again, basic rationality there from John Fetterman, and Democrats are trying primary over it.
	It's amazing.
	It's unbelievable.
	By the way, Fetterman was asked about this, and he pointed out that he actually is among the least Trump-aligned Democratic lawmakers in Pennsylvania.
	He voted with the president six percent of the time.
	He just takes publicly moderate positions.
	But when it comes to his voting record, he votes as a straight Democrat.
	The fact that Democrats are trying to oust him for saying bad things, meaning like saying things that are rational and reasonable, is amazing.
	Again, Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania twice in the last three election cycles.
	And what Pennsylvania keeps showing is that moderate Democrats can do okay there, but radical Democrats will not.
	Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who's widely perceived as a more moderate Democrat, has a 60% job approval rating in Pennsylvania.
	Meanwhile, John Fetterman is clocking in at a 46% approved, 38% disapprove.
	Which, again, is a fine number.
	The Republicans approve of him 62 to 21.
	Democrats, 54 to 33%, disapprove.
	Independents are evenly split 4343.
	Which is kind of amazing for a guy who, again, is in fact voting against President Trump nearly all of the time.
	So Democrats can do this.
	They can throw out the only moderates that they have in Congress.
	News Nation asked Fetterman why he's still a Democrat at this point.
	He said, Because I vote with the Democrats, guys.
	That's why.
	Why are you a Democrat, though?
	And I don't say that being a wise guy.
	You you support Israel, correct?
	Yeah, well, I I do, and that's been that's been isolating it too because look, you support Israel and the progressives don't, generally speaking.
	You are for a very rigorous defense against Putin in Ukraine, correct?
	You want to stop them, right?
	Oh, yeah, of course.
	I mean, I I would fully support I've I in fact I just thought on social media encourage uh President Trump to provide tomahawks uh to the Ukrainian.
	I mean, it's like he is probably the only person in the world that could end this terrible war.
	And uh, I I think why can't we all agree that that that's that's necessary?
	You're not a wild spender.
	You you want to get the debt under control.
	So why are you Democrat?
	That's your party is against you on all three of those issues.
	And Bill O'Reilly is pointing out an obvious discrepancy, but the problem, of course, is that Fetterman actually is a big government Democrat.
	He campaigned on a sort of Medicare for All platform in Pennsylvania.
	And they're trying to throw him out.
	Because the Democrats cannot handle moderation inside their party.
	Which is why Senator Tim Kane of Virginia continues to defend attorney general candidate Jay Jones after Jay Jones was caught in a text thread with a political opponent saying that he wanted the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates murdered for being right wing.
	Here's Tim Kane defending.
	Well, and and look, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia has said some vile things, and we haven't called on her to drop out of the race.
	Um the voters are gonna make this decision.
	The Jay Jones texts were abhorrent and they are indefensible.
	But I also have known Jay Jones for 25 years, and I put that knowledge on a scale, and it weigh more than one really indefensible set of texts.
	But I'll tell you this, Jake, it's interesting to know.
	Jay Jones has earnestly and sincerely apologized and said he made a grievous error.
	What did you hear from J.D. Vance?
	Did he say any of these texts were wrong?
	I didn't hear any condemning of the text.
	I didn't hear him having any concerns about what was said.
	Okay, so um again, like this is the Democratic Party.
	They can't divide off from this stuff.
	They still refuse to let go of the trans issue.
	I mean, it's an unbelievable thing.
	The fact that they have decided this is sort of the litmus test for being a Democrat is saying that a boy is a girl.
	This is one of the reasons they're upset with Fetterman is because he won't say that, is truly incredible.
	Here, for example, is California Democratic governor candidate, Betty Yee, with Piers Morgan, explaining that transgender female athletes are women athletes, meaning like men who say they are women are women.
	I think transgender female athletes uh are women athletes.
	And they should be able to compete.
	Really?
	if you were governor of California, you would support biological males who identify as women competing in women's sport in the Olympics.
	They are now identified as transgender female.
	And you think that makes and and you think it's fair that they should then compete in women's sport.
	I think they should be able to compete in women's sports, but I also think that there is still some discussion about uh whether they should compete uh uh in the same field.
	But I just want them to be able to participate.
	Sure, I'm sure you're gonna be able to do that.
	Why why out of interest?
	Why do you think we separate the sexes in the Olympics?
	Um well, because they do come with different attributes in terms of physicality and uh you accept that we separate the sexes because men have a physical advantage over women.
	Uh I know about an advantage in some sports, yes, and other sports maybe not.
	Okay, so I guess Democrats can keep doing this, and we'll see how it works out for them.
	Speaking of extremism, the government shutdown continues to drag on.
	It seems as though there really is very little incentive for either side to come to the table at this point.
	Both sides seem to think that they are winning.
	Democrats are happy with the government shutdown because it shows that they are resistant to President Trump in some way.
	Republicans are saying, why exactly should we give up the victories we just won in the one big beautiful bill because you're throwing a hissy fit?
	According to the Wall Street Journal, both parties think they have the upper hand.
	Democrats and Republicans think they're on the stronger side of the argument and see little reason to budge.
	Both points of polling, they say shows public opinion is on their side.
	Republicans say they're simply trying to do what Democrats have done for decades.
	Pass a straightforward short term bill that continues funding at prior levels until a broader full year deal is reached.
	And they say Senate Democrats are being hypocritical.
	Democrats say they're comfortable with their message that there's a pending health care crisis and Republicans won't negotiate to fix it.
	Now, again, President Trump hasn't gotten deeply involved.
	If he feels that it's a ballast on his presidency, he'll probably get involved in some way and cut some sort of deal.
	But so far, doesn't seem like a lot of incentive structure here.
	One of the things Democrats did, of course, since 2021 is force more people onto the Obamacare coverage via gigantic subsidies.
	24 million people on those subsidies.
	More than three quarters of Obamacare policyholders live in states that voted for Trump, according to KFF, a health research nonprofit.
	Republicans were united in opposing those ACA-enhanced subsidies.
	Democrats are betting that Republicans are going to cave because many of the people who are on these subsidies are in their states.
	The first ACA deadline isn't actually until November 1st.
	So good shot that this shutdown lasts a couple of more weeks, at least a week and a half more.
	Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, he says that Democrats are making outrageous demands to reopen the government.
	All they have to do is just say yes, and the government reopens today.
	Another day of American families feeling the very real personal and economic strain of this reckless decision that our Democrat colleagues keep making.
	They want the United States government to remain closed, and they seem not to care about the pain that it's causing.
	They have offered no plan.
	They have offered no strategy.
	They have offered no common sense path forward for ending this situation.
	And so many of you have asked all of us, how will it end?
	We have no idea.
	It's up to the Democrats.
	And they have to decide it.
	And judging by their outrageous behavior, the Democrats appear perfectly happy to keep the political theater going while real people suffer.
	So, again, he ain't wrong about all of this.
	The truth is that when people look at shutdowns like this, all they can really think is, I don't understand anything that's going on.
	Why don't you just keep the government basically running?
	If you want to have a big fight over spending, then government shutdowns typically are not the way to do it.
	I've yet to see a government shutdown fight that has ended in any major serious change that radically bends the cost curve in any way.
	This is why Stephen A. Smith received a bunch of plaudits the other night.
	He was part of a news nation panel, and he got annoyed at the government shutdown because he basically said, listen, you know, you got a bunch of Congress people on the stage.
	They keep talking about shutdown, no shutdown.
	Meanwhile, the national debt is out of control.
	People aren't getting paid.
	Like, why aren't you just basically decent at your jobs?
	Somehow, some way the taxpayers have been paying this, been throwing money because I we all look at our check and has been going to the government.
	And somehow, some way you're supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough to make sure that we don't have that kind of deficit.
	It isn't happening.
	A government shutdown is going on right now.
	A man has to work on DoorDash when he's really an air traffic controller.
	Right.
	That we applaud it, and we're up here talking about how much some money is gonna cost, and the only person that don't have a check coming is him.
	You know what I'm gonna do?
	I'm gonna take a break.
	All right.
	Again, it's performative, but Stephen A is performative, and uh I enjoy Stephen A, I will say.
	Now, again, does that solve any of our problems?
	No, but it shows kind of where people are on a generic level, which is why can't you people just like do your basic job?
	And the answer is in reality, the real answer is the government has too much power.
	When the government has this much power, when the government has the ability to suck trillions of dollars out of the American public, when the government so wildly exceeds its constitutional mandate that pretty much every issue is a federal issue.
	Of course, you end up with 40 trillion dollars in national debt.
	By the way, here, I'm gonna call out again, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania being the rational voice in the room.
	He is one of the people who's refusing to shut down the government.
	He says, listen, if we lose uh a battle, that is not a reason to shut down the government.
	We can always have a negotiation over overspending, you know, at the next budget bill.
	Here is Fetterman being a rational human.
	Yeah, well, I it's like that's why that's why shutting the government is is really what the Democratic Party wants to do.
	And I follow country then party, and it's the wrong thing for the country in a period of chaos.
	I refuse to vote to shut our government down.
	I absolutely would love to have I I would love to have a conversation about uh extending the tax credits for health care.
	Absolutely.
	But I would remind everybody too, this was designed by the Democratic Party to expire at the end of the year.
	I mean, he is he is right.
	And again, this is probably why Democrats want to oust him.
	Joining us on the line is Eric Trump.
	He's the author of the brand new book Under Siege, My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation, already a gigantic bestseller, of course.
	Eric, thanks so much for taking the time.
	Really appreciate it.
	It's great to be on, my friend.
	So why don't we start by by talking about first of all, what is it actually like to be a member of the Trump family?
	I think that that is the thing that everybody in America is constantly asking.
	So what is it like to grow up with Donald Trump as as your father?
	This is crazy as hell.
	I never thought I'd, you know, be in the real estate world the way I was.
	I never thought I'd be on, you know, seven seasons of celebrity apprentice.
	I never thought we'd be running for president, you know, three different times.
	Obviously, winning in 2016, I think we won in 2020, and then winning again in 2024.
	I never thought I'd have to go through the crusade of being the most obeyed person in American history.
	Um, and I never thought I'd be a number one bestseller selling author, right?
	And kind of accomplish all of it.
	And so um, you know, it's really been remarkable.
	But listen, the voyage has been amazing, and I love my father to death.
	He's my best friend in the entire world, and you know, I've stood by his side every single day as we went through all those things, whether it was in the business world, on The Apprentice again, or or in politics, and we didn't have any friends.
	I mean, Ben, you knew this better than anybody.
	We didn't have any friends in the political world, and we went out there and we wanted to save this country.
	This country was going to hell um on every front.
	We were losing religion, we were losing faith, we were losing the constitution, we're losing you know, First Amendment rights, we're losing second amendment rights.
	I mean, we were losing everything as a nation, and we went and we fought like hell against all odds.
	And we somehow beat the greatest political dynasty in the history of, you know, probably the last century, which was the Clintons until now.
	Um, and then came back to do it again despite them trying to take us out at every turn, and it's a hell of a story.
	Yeah, Eric, I I think one of the things that is obviously apparent about President Trump, and certainly not apparent to the legacy media, but but apparent to I think people who watch even relatively closely President Trump is how close he is with his kids.
	I mean, there's been a lot of slander that's thrown at the President of the United States about him personally, about how how he is and when he interacts with people, but you're one of the people who is closest with him.
	You've known him literally your entire life.
	And so tell tell us about what it is like to be, again, the president's child.
	Well, what is what is Donald Trump like behind the doors?
	Well, listen, he's great.
	He's the most charismatic guy you'll you'll ever meet.
	I think you've seen that personality, you know, behind closed doors, and he's tough as hell.
	He he was he was tough when he had to be with us, and at the same time, he was amazing.
	I mean, every single morning before I went to school, honey, no drinking, no drugs, no smoking, you better get good grades.
	And by the way, never trust anybody.
	He would always add that last little one in, you know, never trust anyone.
	That probably benefited us pretty well in life.
	But, you know, he always expected us to have jobs.
	Listen, we're spoiled as hell, Ben, right?
	And in the kind of conventional way, we always had a roof over our head, we always had a great meal, we always had, you know, the the best educations.
	But if we wanted something, you you better damn well go out and work for it.
	There was no handouts in the Trump family.
	There was there was no, you know, Ferraris at age sixteen.
	It's we worked our butts off.
	I grew up on construction sites in the company and doing demo in HVAC.
	And if we wanted a bike, you're gonna go pay for your own bike.
	If you want a new fishing rod, you're gonna go pay for it.
	And you know, he taught us great skills early on.
	Um, you know, it made us appreciate the value of a dollar.
	And uh just uh just an amazing human being.
	I I love him to death.
	And we fought together in everything we did, and when he finally told us, hey kids, we're I'm gonna run for commander in chief, you know, I'm gonna run for president, he goes, you know, uh, I'm gonna do it, but but guys, let's do it.
	Let's do it.
	And we did it as a family.
	I mean, I never forget him calling me and saying, honey, I need you to go on Megan Kelly to talk about immigration.
	And I looked at him, I go, you know I don't know a damn thing about immigration, right?
	Like, you know, I I've spent my entire life building hotels.
	I don't know I don't know a fricking thing about immigration.
	And you know, we spoke from the heart, we did with a lot of backbone.
	We wore through shoes.
	I mean, I probably did 10 events a day every single day in every single swing state in the country.
	And uh we spoke from the heart and uh we did it as a family, and that that had never really been done in American history before.
	So, Eric, your book Under Siege is is largely about the sort of lawfare that's been used against the president and against the president's family.
	You personally, as you say, you may be the most obeyed person in the history of the United States.
	I think when people hear about the targeting of President Trump, they they they don't actually understand the cost of what lawfare means.
	Like what it means that everybody who is even in three hundred yards of of President Trump basically had to go hire a lawyer and then spend years dealing with with the constant pestering and horror of being dragged into a system for for no reason other than your association with the president.
	Can you talk about what that was like on a personal level?
	Yeah, in the hundreds of million.
	I mean, we spent about four hundred million dollars just defending ourselves from every single sham.
	I mean, start start with the Russia hoax when I get the call from the FBI saying I hear you have secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower communicating with the Kremlin.
	Give me a break, right?
	And then go to the dirty dossier where they're thinking, you know, they're they're talking about golden you know what's and prostitution that did not happen.
	This was paid for by Hillary Clinton, it was made up by Hillary Clinton.
	And then you get to impeachment number one and then Kavanaugh and what they did to him, and then you get to impeachment number two, and then you get to the weaponization of every single attorney general and district attorney in in the country, whether it be Letitia James or Alvin Bragg or Cy Vance or Jack Smith, the special counsel, or Robert Muller, right, going through and trying to do anything they can to destroy your family, destroy your life.
	91 criminal indictments.
	They were raiding our homes, they raided Mar-Lago, they raided Melania's room, they raided Barron's room, they took attorney client documents.
	They literally leaked every single one of my father's tax returns, every one of my tax returns, every one of Don's tax returns, about the top hundred corporate employees we have in the in the Trump organization, the IRS leaked their tax returns to the New York Times.
	They took my father off the ballot of Maine, they took him off the ballot in Colorado.
	When that didn't work, they took him off of Twitter and they took him off of Facebook and they took him off of Instagram because they wanted to violate his First Amendment rights.
	When we opened up Truth Social, guess what the judges did?
	Every judge in the country in these far left jurisdictions, they put gag order on him after gag order on him.
	Ben, it was unrelenting.
	They wanted to kill us in every way, shape, or form.
	And when that didn't work, they tried to kill my father and butler.
	They tried to kill him again at the golf course in Palm Beach.
	You know, they did kill Charlie, who was a dear friend of mine and he was a great friend of yours.
	They wanted to remove the conservative voice out of our society.
	They wanted me off that stage.
	They sure as hell wanted you off that stage.
	They wanted Charlie Kirk off that stage.
	They definitely wanted my father off that stage, whether it was in a prison after 91 indictments, or if it was dead, or if it was bankrupt, or if it was embarrassed.
	You know, they wanted our family broken apart.
	That was the siege.
	And it wasn't just toward us.
	We might have been the tip of the spear.
	It was toward the American people.
	They wanted us all gone.
	They wanted us all off that stage.
	They wanted us voiceless.
	You saw that with the January 6th protesters, where you had grandmothers go through the Capitol, take selfies, and they destroyed their lives.
	I mean, they wouldn't give them hearings for years.
	They destroyed these people's lives.
	And it's not right.
	And so this was a this was all of our fight.
	This was a conservative fight to restore dignity to this country, our constitution, our American flag, our national anthem, to end wokeness, to end DEI, you know, to restore family virtue, to restore our standing on the world stage.
	It was all of our fight.
	We we were just the tip of the spear.
	So, you know, Eric, you you you go through all that, and I think it is an amazing exposure over the course of the last year.
	But I think the activity of the left is over the course of the last ten years, while your president has been at the center of all of politics and all global attention.
	It has exposed so many institutions as is largely rotted from the inside.
	And the question becomes how we actually restore credibility to a lot of these institutions.
	Is it even possible to restore credibility to these institutions?
	Because, you know, the the alternative is anarchy, but we also can't have institutions that have done to your family, to your father, and to the country what they've done over the course of the last decade.
	I mean, it's kind of hard.
	I mean, you know, you you have uh unfaithful spouse, right?
	And you catch him over and over and over, you're gonna have a lot of faith in that person, right?
	And that's what's happened.
	That's what happened with the FBI.
	That's what happened with the DOJ.
	Ben, this whole thing started when they spied on my father's campaign and all of us in 2016.
	Let's not forget about that, right?
	And when the FBI called me and said, I hear you have secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower, and I said, Come over.
	You can dispel this this myth in about three seconds.
	Congratulations.
	You know who never came over?
	And you know who let that that lie perpetrate, not only because it allowed Hillary to get an extra three votes, you know, uh a greedy woman to get an extra three votes because that was their October surprise, as you remember from Podesta, but it gave them cover as to why a bunch of imbeciles who knew nothing about Politics who didn't know the delegate game, who didn't know what an Iowa caucus was, was able to beat the biggest political family in America at the time at their own game when they had a financial deficit of literally five to one.
	We funded our own campaign pretty much in 2016 versus Hillary, who raised, you know, one and a half billion dollars, right?
	They let that so it's hard to restore faith when over and over.
	When I get the call from my team at Mar a Lago saying, sir, there's 30 FBI agents who's storming Mar a Lago with a search warrant, and they're demanding that you turn off all security cameras right now.
	It's really hard to restore that that faith.
	When you have 51 intelligence officers come out and try and verify that the Russian laptop, Hunter's laptop, the laptop from hell, was Russian diff disinformation.
	It's awfully hard to restore fate.
	And that's why when you see what happened to Charlie, right?
	And you have all these kind of, you know, theories spewing around.
	You know, it's hard.
	I I mean, the these institutions have a lot of making up to do, and it's going to take them years, potentially years, to restore the faith of those institutions because they've lied to the American people, and they weaponized those institutions against the American people, time after time.
	My father was just the guy that was probably on the tip of the spear, you know, exposing their corruption for exactly what it was.
	Well, the book is under siege, My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation by Eric Trump.
	The Ford is by the president of the United States.
	Eric, really appreciate you taking the time.
	Thanks so much for the fight that you and your family have been waging over the course of the last decade, and good luck with the book.
	Thanks so much, Ben.
	Alrighty, coming up, the show continues for our members.
	We get into a bunch of Trump foreign policy fascinating things happening on the foreign front from Venezuela to Gaza, all the way on over to Japan.
	Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.
	If you're not a member, become member, use code Shapiro check out for two months free on all annual plans.

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