Nov. 20, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show
57:05
Participants
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Democrats are way ahead in the polling for 2026 in Congress. | ||
| We'll talk about why that's happening and what needs to change. | ||
| We'll also get into affordability as well as some bizarre journalistic ethics questions. | ||
| First, our Dailyware plus Black Friday, it's here right now. | ||
| Get your annual Dailywire Plus membership for half the price. | ||
| All the shows, all the movies, all the news you need, 50% off. | ||
| Go to dailyware.com slash subscribe. | ||
| Well, we have new economic news. | ||
| We'll talk about that in a moment. | ||
| It actually is quite good for the Trump administration. | ||
| However, we begin with the fact that Democrats in polling currently have a massive advantage in Congress for 2026. | ||
| According to the latest NPR PBS News Marist poll survey of 1,443 adults conducted from November 10th to 13th found that Democrats hold their largest advantage since 2017 in terms of who people would vote for on the congressional ballot, the generic congressional ballot. | ||
| Now, remember, you're not voting on a generic congressperson when you actually go to the polling place. | ||
| You are voting on your congressperson. | ||
| And so it's possible that widespread dissatisfaction with the Republican Party doesn't necessarily translate into your individual congressperson losing his or her seat. | ||
| However, Democrats currently hold a 14-point advantage in this poll, which is a very, very large advantage. | ||
| If that were to stick in the generic congressional ballot, you'd be looking at a Democratic wave in 2026. | ||
| President Trump in this polling, his approval rating is just 39%, which is his lowest since right after January 6th. | ||
| A combined six in 10 people blame congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown, which, again, well done, legacy media, for somehow spinning a completely Democrat cause government shutdown into a story about President Trump and Republican intransigents. | ||
| Nearly six in 10 say that Trump's top priority should be lowering prices. | ||
| No other issue comes close, actually. | ||
| So again, those are very bad numbers for the Republicans right now. | ||
| What does that mean for the 2026 election? | ||
| Well, in the fall of 2022, Democrats had a lead in the generic congressional ballot. | ||
| They ended up losing nine House seats to the Republicans. | ||
| In 2018, during Trump's first term, the Democrats' lead was somewhere between six and 12 points, and they ended up winning 40 seats. | ||
| In 2014, when Obama was president, Republicans had a five-point advantage and the GOP gained 13 seats. | ||
| So the number of actual vulnerable districts has shrunk fairly dramatically. | ||
| So even if Democrats have a gigantic advantage in the generic congressional balloting, again, the way that the districts are stacked up, there are a lot more solid Dem districts and a lot more solid Republican districts and fewer swing districts overall. | ||
| In fact, we asked our sponsors over at Perplexity. | ||
| They have a brand new web browser called Comet. | ||
| And we asked, how many vulnerable Republican seats are there in the House for 2026? | ||
| And what is the likely range of Democratic wins? | ||
| And according to Comet, there are about 20 to 25 highly vulnerable Republican House seats going into the 2026 midterm elections based on expert forecasts and ratings of competitive districts. | ||
| Those vulnerable seats are concentrated in swing districts with close 2024 results. | ||
| There are a bunch of open seats to retirement, and there are areas with unfavorable demographic shifts for the GOP. | ||
| Key battlegrounds include districts in Nebraska, Iowa, Pennsylvania, California, and New Hampshire. | ||
| According to many analyses, 10 to 12 of those seats are currently ranked as toss-ups, and another 8 to 15 are listed as lean Democratic or lean Republican. | ||
| So all of those could shift depending on, again, how the generalized feeling about the Republican Party goes. | ||
| Remember, Democrats need three seats to take control of the House, three. | ||
| So what is the most likely outcome? | ||
| Well, I mean, probably the upper end of disaster for Republicans is like 25 seats, 20 to 25 seats, which would put Democrats pretty solidly in control of the House. | ||
| Now, it would take a massive Democratic wave in order for them to actually take the Senate. | ||
| The Senate map for the Democrats is not good. | ||
| Again, asking our sponsors over at Comet, the most vulnerable Senate seats for Republicans in 2026 and the likelihood of Republicans losing them. | ||
| So the two most vulnerable seats are in Maine and in North Carolina. | ||
| Senator Susan Collins, frequently a sort of target for many dyspeptic Republicans who don't understand that if you want a Republican to hold the seat in Maine, that a Republican is not going to look like Tom Cotton or Rick Scott. | ||
| That Republican is going to look like Susan Collins. | ||
| Susan Collins is a battler and a survivor up in Maine. | ||
| She's the only Republican incumbent running in a state won by a 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, meaning this is the only senator who is up for election as a Republican in a state Commonwealth. | ||
| It is a top Democratic target. | ||
| That, of course, is a very fraught seat. | ||
| That race right now has as the leading Democratic candidate, not the sitting governor of Maine, but actually a radical Democratic socialist, Graham Plattner, who is a disaster area for a wide variety of reasons. | ||
| It'll be an interesting race. | ||
| And then you have North Carolina. | ||
| That seat has opened up because Tom Tillis, a frequent target of the president, has decided that he is not going to run for reelect. | ||
| And so that seat opens up and maybe that seat swivels blue. | ||
| So that's two seats. | ||
| But remember, Republicans hold 53 seats, which means that in order for Democrats to take control of the Senate, they would need to take two more. | ||
| So even assuming you lose Maine, you lose North Carolina. | ||
| Republicans still have 51. | ||
| The next most likely switches would be Texas, Iowa, and Alaska. | ||
| Now, Texas is always the kind of great white whale for Democrats. | ||
| They're always saying this will be the year that they finally take Texas. | ||
| That Texas race is John Cornyn. | ||
| John Cornyn, of course, is facing a pretty dramatic primary challenge from Ken Paxton. | ||
| Paxton is a significantly less good general election candidate than Cornyn. | ||
| So that race could be a little bit dicey for the Republicans. | ||
| Iowa is a very red state, but Joni Ernst, who's a very popular senator, is leaving that seat open. | ||
| And open seats get a little dicey. | ||
| If it's a big Democratic wave in Iowa, you could theoretically see Republicans lose that Iowa seat. | ||
| And then that would take Republicans down to 50. | ||
| And at that point, you'd have the vice president Shady Vance breaking any ties in the Senate. | ||
| There'd be no margin for error for the Senate majority leader, John Thun. | ||
| There is one more race that is up for Republicans. | ||
| That is the Ohio race. | ||
| John Husted is the current senator. | ||
| He is running against Sherrod Brown. | ||
| Sherrod Brown, you'll recall, is one of the senators who just lost a race. | ||
| He is now coming back. | ||
| He lost to Bernie Moreno. | ||
| He's now coming back, and he's going to race again. | ||
| He was very recently a senator. | ||
| So that's a vulnerable race as well. | ||
| In other words, it is not totally out of the range of possibility for Democrats to win the Senate, but it would take a lot for Democrats to win the Senate. | ||
| If Democrats were to actively take the Senate, they would probably also need to take Alaska, which is, again, a red state. | ||
| Dan Sullivan is a popular senator there. | ||
| So it seems pretty unlikely that the Republicans lose both the House and the Senate, but losing the House would be bad enough. | ||
| If they lose the House, that's the end of major legislation from the Trump administration. | ||
| It means endless investigations. | ||
| It means that the House becomes a baton to wield against everything the Trump administration is trying to do on the executive level. | ||
| So this requires us to look at what exactly is happening here. | ||
| Why is President Trump lagging in the polls now? | ||
| Why is he at 39%, 40%? | ||
| How does he recover? | ||
| So there is a brand new Reuters-Ipsos poll that also shows, just like that NPR poll, that Trump is in the high 30s, that he's at 38%, which is the lowest rating he has had since he returned to power in January. | ||
| What are the reasons for that? | ||
| Well, it shows actually that the reason is not what people say that it is. | ||
| So people have been saying that it's his foreign policy, that Trump's foreign policy is tearing apart the Republican Party. | ||
| It's his foreign policy. | ||
| It's his policy in Ukraine and in the Middle East. | ||
| And it's all of his focus on foreign policy that's destroying the party. | ||
| Actually, wrong. | ||
| The only actually part of his policy right now that is wildly popular, at least by Trumpian standards, is his foreign policy. | ||
| In fact, Trump's foreign policy, his approval ratings are better than any prior president of the modern era at this point in his term, which is kind of extraordinary. | ||
| And for the amount of crap that he is currently taking in the very online spaces, guys, get out and touch grass. | ||
| It turns out most Americans like the stuff that President Trump has been doing on foreign policy, or at least a plurality of Americans like it. | ||
| And here's Harry Enton talking about the president's approval ratings on foreign policy. | ||
| You know, this is one of the areas in which Donald Trump is performing significantly better than he was in term one. | ||
| One of his best issues relative to term one. | ||
| What are we talking about? | ||
| Approval of Trump on foreign policy at this point in term one. | ||
| Look, Donald Trump was just at a 35% approval rating. | ||
| Up like a rocket. | ||
| We're talking about 43% now. | ||
| That's an eight-point rise on the net approval rating. | ||
| We're talking about a double-digit rise. | ||
| The American people like much more of what they're seeing from Donald Trump and foreign policy in term two than they did in term number one. | ||
| Okay, so again, it ain't his foreign policy. | ||
| It isn't immigration either. | ||
| The president's net approval rating on immigration have gone down, but that's largely because he has solved the immigration crisis in the United States. | ||
| It turns out that Americans, they get a little bit more heartburn when it comes to deportation of people who are already in the United States. | ||
| But the part that Trump already solved, which was the Big Biden problem, was leaving that southern border wide open. | ||
| That was the part that Trump solved. | ||
| And because he solved that, now that problem is off the table. | ||
| So Americans aren't even thinking about the southern border. | ||
| If they were thinking about the southern border in comparison to Biden, his approval ratings would be 80%. | ||
| But we've now reached the point in the presidency where if you solve the problem, that no longer actually accrues to your benefit or redounds to your benefit. | ||
| Actually, it kind of goes away just in the mind. | ||
| Like, when's the last time you thought about the southern border? | ||
| The answer is you don't because Trump solved it. | ||
| We'll get to more on the lagging polls for Republicans in a moment. | ||
| First, in all the time, I've been endorsing Pure Talk, my wireless company, I can honestly say I haven't seen an offer like this from them before. | ||
| Listen to this. | ||
| Unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited data with a 30-gig hotspot for just $29.95 a month for the rest of your life. | ||
| Friends, this is Pure Talk's top-tier plan, normally $65 a month. | ||
| Now through December 7th, just $29.95 a month, you're saving over 50% a month every month for life. | ||
| Yes, that's on their crazy fast 5G network. | ||
| This offer is extremely short-lived. | ||
| Make the switch today. | ||
| Then tell all your friends. | ||
| Go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro for PureTalk's best unlimited plan for just $29.95 a month for life. | ||
| And my Pure Talk coverage is excellent. | ||
| Again, a lot of my life is on my phone. | ||
| And if I don't have great coverage, it makes me very, very upset. | ||
| So I do have great coverage from Pure Talk, and it costs me less money. | ||
| And the company likes me. | ||
| So that's a good thing. | ||
| Make the switch. | ||
| In as little as 10 minutes, keep your phone, keep your number, start saving with unlimited for life for just $29.95 a month. | ||
| Again, that's puretalk.com slash Shapiro to switch to my wireless company, PureTalk. | ||
| Taxes and fees not included, some restrictions apply. | ||
| See PureTalk.com for details. | ||
| Offer ends 12,725. | ||
| Also, true self-reliance begins with taking control of your own health. | ||
| Armra colostrum harnesses at nature's original blueprint for resilience. | ||
| Packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients, colostrum fortifies your gut and strengthens your immune system from the cellular level up. | ||
| When you invest in your health, you invest in your ability to show up fully, think clearly, and stay in control no matter what comes your way. | ||
| Look, our bodies are under constant assault. | ||
| Toxins, processed foods, relentless stress. | ||
| Your gut is your first line of defense. | ||
| Most supplements only address part of the problem. | ||
| Armra colostrum is different. | ||
| This isn't just another supplement. | ||
| It's a bioactive whole food, a pure concentrate of bovine colostrum that's sustainably sourced with a commitment to CAF-first sourcing. | ||
| It's packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that fortify your entire gut well system, not just one piece. | ||
| This means balanced and strengthened immune health, better digestion, less bloating, support for healthy metabolism and fat burning from the inside out. | ||
| Elite athletes have been using colostrum for years because it enhances nutrient absorption, builds lean muscle, and speeds recovery. | ||
| But the benefits go deeper. | ||
| Cellular level support for hair, skin, energy, everything. | ||
| This isn't processed or manipulated. | ||
| It's pure, potent, and natural. | ||
| Your body's blueprint for rebuilding itself the way it was designed to function for daily servings, infinite benefits. | ||
| We've worked out a special offer for my audience. | ||
| Receive 30% off your first subscription order. | ||
| Go to armra.com/slash Shapiro or enter Shapiro to get 30% off your first subscription order. | ||
| That's A-R-M-R-A.com/slash Shapiro. | ||
| On the economy, he is 24 points underwater, or at least he slid 24 points since February of 2025. | ||
| On the cost of living, he has slid to negative 39. | ||
| That's his net approval rating since returning to office on cost of living. | ||
| And he's getting shellacked at least a little bit on the Epstein files. | ||
| 59% of Americans do not approve of his handling of the Epstein files. | ||
| Among Republicans, 44% approve, 31% disapprove, 25% don't know. | ||
| Among Democrats, of course, it's 88 to 6 because Democrats hate everything that he does. | ||
| So, if you had to put your finger on the two things that are sort of dragging Trump down in the approval ratings, it would be economic issues, which, of course, is true for every president, and yes, the Epstein stuff. | ||
| Why the Epstein stuff? | ||
| Well, Democrats were always going to disapprove of Trump on the Epstein stuff, of course, because Democrats disapprove of Trump on literally everything he does. | ||
| The reason that Trump has dropped in his approval rating on the Epstein stuff is because you have actors who are trying to use the Epstein stuff as a club against the president in order to seize control of the MAGA movement. | ||
| That's what's happening. | ||
| Okay, Trump has not done anything radically different about Epstein than Joe Biden did, for example. | ||
| In fact, he has been significantly more transparent than Joe Biden ever was. | ||
| And I noticed that many of the big advocates on the Epstein matters are either directly implicated by the Epstein files themselves, like Steve Bannon, or are people who had no qualms about Epstein. | ||
| We weren't even talking about Epstein a year and a half ago. | ||
| There were no major motions from Representative Thomas Massey to the Biden administration asking for the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| In fact, the bill that just passed in the House and then in the Senate and the president signed, that bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, was only initiated in July of this year. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, because it turns out that you have a bunch of angry critics of the president's foreign policy who attempted to use the Epstein files as a way of undermining the president, period. | ||
| That is what is happening. | ||
| That doesn't mean people don't have open questions or that normie Americans aren't concerned. | ||
| Of course, all of that's true. | ||
| But the people who have elevated this to the top of the issue stack are people who, shall we say, do not like the president's policy decisions. | ||
| That's what this is about. | ||
| I mean, here was Thomas Massey yesterday, a guy who's apparently going to stake his entire congressional career on the Epstein files, talking about the Epstein files, again, endlessly. | ||
| These files implicate billionaires and friends of him, of his, and political donors that he's trying to protect. | ||
| And Epstein also had close ties to our own intelligence agencies and Israel's intelligence agencies. | ||
| That's why there's so much effort in trying to stop this. | ||
| Okay, he has provided no evidence that that is in fact the case because no evidence has actually been provided by anyone that that is in fact the case. | ||
| He's putting that out there because, again, he's very angry that the president decided to bomb the Fordo nuclear reactor in Iran. | ||
| That's what this is. | ||
| Marjorie Taylor Green doing the same thing, seeing an opportunity to try and cause a rift with the administration over foreign policy and using Epstein as a club in order to do that. | ||
| And Democrats are happy to jump in. | ||
| Why do you think Abby Phillip is now massaging Marjorie Taylor Greene? | ||
| You can tell who's getting the strange new respect these days. | ||
| When you're on the same side as Abby Phillips with regard to the Epstein files, you might want to think about it a little bit. | ||
| I do think that this loyalty thing with Trump, if you've covered him as I have, you know it's a one-way street. | ||
| But she literally is learning that in real time. | ||
| Right now, just literally yesterday, she said, I've been so loyal to him. | ||
| And they're calling me a traitor. | ||
| I think she is realizing that Trump is not there for her. | ||
| So it's not about the loyalty thing. | ||
| Marjorie Taylor Greene feels betrayed. | ||
| The reason that Marjorie Taylor Greene is pissed off is because she doesn't like his foreign policy and she wanted to run for the Senate and she was going to lose. | ||
| And Trump told her he wasn't going to back a Senate run where she was going to lose. | ||
| That's why she's pissed off. | ||
| And so she's tried to turn this into a moment where she breaks the Republican Party. | ||
| And yes, that is going to have some impact on Republican levels of support for the president. | ||
| Also, when you have popular podcasters and voices who continue to malign the president without saying his name because they're cowards, who continue to go out there and say that the administration is covering up the Epstein files, the administration without saying Trump's name, because they don't want to offend Trump, they're afraid that Trump will reach over like King Kong and just crush them. | ||
| And so instead, they simply imply and imply and imply without just saying the thing they want to say out of pure unbridled cowardice. | ||
| It's pretty impressive. | ||
| Meanwhile, Democrats, of course, are happy to jump on this bandwagon. | ||
| Chuck Schumer was out there blasting President Trump on Epstein yesterday. | ||
| But I want to be very clear. | ||
| The job is not done. | ||
| The vote is not the end. | ||
| It's only the beginning. | ||
| Once the president signs the bill, he must apply and execute it faithfully. | ||
| There must be no funny business from Donald Trump. | ||
| He must not use the excuse of frivolous investigations to release some Epstein documents while intentionally hiding others that deserve to be seen by the American public. | ||
| This is not an invitation for Donald Trump to pick and choose his version of the truth. | ||
| This bill is a command for the president to be fully transparent, to come fully clean, and to provide full honesty to the American people, even if he doesn't want to. | ||
| So I want to be clear. | ||
| Anything less than full transparency will be unacceptable in the eyes of the American people. | ||
| If Donald Trump refuses to comply, if he refuses to obey the law, Senate Democrats will hold him accountable. | ||
| I mean, I'm sorry. | ||
| Senate Democrats are going to hold him accountable to what? | ||
| Okay, the DOJ has policies and procedures. | ||
| The law itself, the one that just passed, that Trump signed, allows exceptions for redaction for national security reasons and for legal reasons. | ||
| So the bill was just a bunch of virtue signaling by people who don't like Trump. | ||
| That's all it was. | ||
| Meanwhile, people like Stacey Plaskett, it's amazing. | ||
| This is a Democratic delegate from the Virgin Islands. | ||
| And here she was. | ||
| She had a relationship with Epstein, right? | ||
| She was emailing with him. | ||
| And she says she has no regurts, no regurts at all on Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| There are a lot of people who have done a lot of crimes. | ||
| And as a prosecutor, you get information from people where you can. | ||
| I've interviewed confidential informants. | ||
| I've interviewed narcotics, drug traffickers, and others. | ||
| And that doesn't mean that I'm their friend. | ||
| That doesn't mean that they are friendly with me. | ||
| She had no idea. | ||
| He's just another constituent who was a sex trafficker of the underage. | ||
| Meanwhile, Jasmine Crockett, the brilliant congresswoman from Texas who would like to run for Senate herself, we'll see how that goes for her. | ||
| It's a bull of move cotton. | ||
| Here she was with Caitlin Collins on CNN trying to suggest that Lee Zeldon had taken money from Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| There's only one problem. | ||
| There's more than one Jeffrey Epstein in the country. | ||
| And the person she's talking about is not, you know, the Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| You mentioned Lee Zeldon there. | ||
| He's now a cabinet secretary. | ||
| He responded and said it was actually Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, who's a doctor that doesn't have any relation to the convicted sex trafficker. | ||
| Unfortunate for that doctor, but that is who doted into a prior campaign of his. | ||
| Do you want to correct the record on the people that you're going to be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein. | |
| Just so that people understand when you make a donation, your picture is not there. | ||
| And because they decided to spring this on us in real time, I wanted the Republicans to think about what could potentially happen because I knew that they didn't even try to go through the FEC. | ||
| So my team, what they did is they Googled. | ||
| And that is specifically why I said, A. Jeffrey Epstein, unlike Republicans, I at least don't go out and just tell lies. | ||
| Because it was not the same one, that's fine. | ||
| But when Lee Zell didn't have something to say, all he had to say was it was a different Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| He admitted that he did receive donations from a Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| So at least I wasn't trying to mislead people. | ||
| Slow clap on that one. | ||
| She wasn't trying to mislead people by saying that he took money from a Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| There's no implication that it was the Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| She was just putting out that the guy had the same name. | ||
| Then what would your point be, madam? | ||
| Literally, there would be no point. | ||
| That's like saying that I found a 5'0 white guy named Michael Jordan and I defeated him in basketball. | ||
| And then I went on Twitter the next day and I said, I just destroyed Michael Jordan in basketball. | ||
| And when called upon it, I didn't say, hey, I didn't say it was that Michael Jordan. | ||
| I mean, like, then of what relevance would it be? | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Like, this is our Congress. | ||
| By the way, speaking of the insanity of our Congress, I have to say, the tastes of the American people when it comes to our Congress, people, undefeated, we make some interesting decisions. | ||
| Representative Corey Mills of Florida is a disaster area. | ||
| He's been a disaster area for quite a long time. | ||
| Representative Nancy Mays is now planning to force a vote on censuring Corey Mills and removing him from several committees. | ||
| Democrats had triggered a vote on Tuesday to censure Mills and kick him off the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| And then they withdrew it because the GOP put forward a measure to censure Stacey Plaskett for her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| So basically, there was a dirty deal where Republicans decided not to censure Mills and Democrats decided not to censure Plaskett. | ||
| And they both should have been censured. | ||
| I mean, Corey Mills is, I mean, like, his record is quite bad. | ||
| And the measure is going to touch on a wide array of allegations against Corey Mills, including domestic abuse, stolen valor, and financial misconduct. | ||
| Nancy Mace sent a letter to the speaker asking him to censure. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, because apparently, prior to serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to Representative Mace, Mills founded Paysom Solution International LLC and Paysim Defense LLC and acquired Amtec Corporation, companies which engage in security and military contracting with the U.S. government, as well as the governments of foreign nations. | ||
| Mills retains an ownership interest in those entities. | ||
| In 2024, the Office of Congressional Conduct found that Paysim Defense ALS has been actively contracting with the federal government, securing close to a million dollars in federal contracts for munitions and weapons distributed to prisons across the country. | ||
| 94 of those contracts have been awarded to entities owned directly by Mills. | ||
| Apparently, he may have entered into, held, or enjoyed contracts with federal agencies while a member of Congress. | ||
| Also, apparently, Paysim Solutions does work with the U.S., Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, UAE, Australia, Kenya, Malaysia, and Kuwait. | ||
| And he had tried to enter into contracts to sell munitions to foreign nations, including Saudi Ukraine and Colombia. | ||
| Also, there are credible allegations that he misrepresented his military service and that he engaged in stolen valor. | ||
| Also, there are many accusations that are currently floating around that he committed crimes against women with whom he had romantic relationships, including allegedly physically assaulting a woman and also allegedly threatening to release intimate photographs and videos of another. | ||
| Now, why do I bring this up? | ||
| Because if you don't want to lose congressional seats, you shouldn't run bad congressional candidates. | ||
| All righty, coming up, our Congress is a mess. | ||
| If Republicans wish to retain the Congress, they might need to dump a couple of pretty bad candidates first. | ||
| The holidays will be here before you know it. | ||
| And for many families, that means excitement and a little stress. | ||
| Between gifts, travel, higher prices, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, especially if you're already relying on credit cards to cover those basics. | ||
| If that debt is piling up, you're not alone. | ||
| If you're a homeowner, you might have considered reaching out to American Financing, but hesitated because you don't want to give up your low mortgage rate. | ||
| Well, that's why American Financing created the Smart Equity Loan, a simple, smart way to get your finances back on track without giving up that low mortgage rate. | ||
| Unlike a HELOG, which can fluctuate with the market, the Smart Equity Loan offers a fixed rate. | ||
| So you'll have one predictable monthly payment. | ||
| It lets you use your home's equity to pay off those high interest debts, free up your cash flow, and still keep your existing mortgage intact. | ||
| There are no upfront fees to find out if you qualify. | ||
| Call American Financing today, 866-574-2500, or visit AmericanFinancing.net/slash Shapiro. | ||
| Call American Financing today at 866-574-2500 or visit AmericanFinancing.net slash Shapiro, NMLS182-334-NLS ConsumerAccess.org. | ||
| Also, the holidays are here. | ||
| If you're like me, you're juggling, decorating, shopping, hosting everything. | ||
| And you look at your windows and you realize, well, those blinds don't look particularly good, but who has time to deal with that right now? | ||
| Well, that's where blinds.com can help you out. | ||
| They've completely flipped the script on window treatments. | ||
| No more waiting around all day for somebody to come measure. | ||
| No pushy salespeople, no hidden fees. | ||
| The price you see is the price you pay. | ||
| Here's what I love. | ||
| You can do this however you want. | ||
| DIY it yourself, have professionals handle everything or something in between. | ||
| You're in control. | ||
| They've got hundreds of customizable styles. | ||
| Their design experts are available on your schedule for free consultations. | ||
| Need measurements? | ||
| They'll send licensed vetted pros to measure everything at no cost and then install for one low price. | ||
| From blackout shades to motorized blinds to classic shutters, they've got you covered for every room and budget. | ||
| It's all backed by their 100% satisfaction guarantee. | ||
| The Black Friday deals at blinds.com are going strong all month long. | ||
| So don't miss your chance to save big. | ||
| And as always, our listeners still get 50 bucks off when you spend $500 or more. | ||
| Just use code Shapiro at checkout. | ||
| Limited time offer, rules, and restrictions apply. | ||
| See blinds.com. | ||
| For details, go check them out. | ||
| That's blinds.com. | ||
| Here's Nancy Mace going after Mills yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2A1 of Rule 9, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House. | |
| The form of the resolution is as follows: censuring Representative Corey Mills of Florida and removing him from the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. | ||
| Okay, well, it turns out Democrats are salivating at the prospect of going up against Mills. | ||
| According to the Orlando Sentinel, multiple Democratic candidates are now looking at his district, which is the Florida 7th district. | ||
| That would be a vulnerable district. | ||
| Normally wouldn't be. | ||
| That is a district that Mills in his last congressional election won, I believe, by 13 points. | ||
| But historically, that has been a seat that has been held by Democrats before, before Mills. | ||
| So if he's a bad candidate and if he's going to lose, it would certainly behoove him to get out of the way. | ||
| And it would behoove Republicans to push him out of the way and get a better candidate in there so that they don't lose that seat. | ||
| Meanwhile, turns out, again, Congress is filled with wonderful people. | ||
| One of those wonderful people is apparently Congresswoman Sheila Sherphyllis McCormick, another Congressperson from Florida. | ||
| So my state is doing yeoman's work in Congress these days. | ||
| Apparently, the DOJ is charging her with stealing $5 million in FEMA funds, laundering the proceeds, and then using the money to support her 2021 congressional campaign. | ||
| She faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted. | ||
| According to the indictment, the DOJ says that Sherphyllis McCormick, 46, and her brother, Edwin Sherphyllis, 51, both of Miramar, worked through their family healthcare company on a FEMA-funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. | ||
| In July 2021, the company received an overpayment of $5 million in FEMA funds. | ||
| Again, apparently they conspired to steal that $5 million, allegedly, and they routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source. | ||
| So we are only bringing the best. | ||
| It's been a wonderful, wonderful day for Congress, which remains a repository of enormous amounts of stupidity. | ||
| Okay, meanwhile, in some positive news for the Trump administration. | ||
| So we've talked about the Epstein of it. | ||
| We've talked about the sort of drag effect on Republican approval ratings for President Trump. | ||
| The biggest issue for the president, obviously, is the affordability issue, as always, as always. | ||
| If people do not feel secure about the economy, then they start to blame that on the president of the United States, no matter who the president is. | ||
| That's just the way it works, whether it's fair or whether it's unfair. | ||
| Hey, well, a couple of pieces of good news for the president. | ||
| So the September jobs report, which was delayed for some six weeks, and we don't know if there will be an October jobs report at all or when it will come out. | ||
| But apparently, the U.S. added 119,000 new jobs in September. | ||
| That is above expectations of 53,000 jobs. | ||
| The unemployment rate climbed, but that's because more people are joining the job market. | ||
| That's what happens. | ||
| Sometimes you can have an increase in jobs, but the number of people who are now seeking a job has increased to outmatch that. | ||
| That's what happened with the unemployment rate. | ||
| So the question remains as to whether the Fed is going to cut the interest rates or not. | ||
| If they believe that employment is slowing, they may in fact cut the interest rates. | ||
| On the other hand, the stock market continues to churn along. | ||
| So the Dow Jones industrial average today is likely to pop a little bit. | ||
| That's because of the NVIDIA earnings report that went out yesterday. | ||
| So NVIDIA has been just raking it in. | ||
| And we've talked about some of the circular deals that are allowing for this to happen, in which NVIDIA buys stock in a private company like OpenAI and OpenAI then takes that money and pumps it right back into NVIDIA chips, which pumps up NVIDIA stock. | ||
| So it's kind of a weird indirect version of a stock buyback in a way, kind of. | ||
| Well, NVIDIA apparently continues to just sell and sell and sell and sell. | ||
| According to the Wall Street Journal, NVIDIA reported record sales and strong guidance on Wednesday, helping soothe jitters about an artificial intelligence bubble that have reverberated in markets for the last week. | ||
| Sales in the October quarter did a record $57 billion. | ||
| Holy moly. | ||
| As demand for the company's advanced AI data center chips continued to surge, that's up 62% from one year early and exceeded the consensus estimates. | ||
| The company increased its guidance for the current quarter. | ||
| They estimate that sales this quarter are going to reach $65 billion. | ||
| So in pre-market trading on Thursday, the stock was already jumping. | ||
| Jensen Huang said, we've entered the virtuous cycle of AI. | ||
| AI is going everywhere, doing everything all at once. | ||
| By the way, when we talk about skilled immigration, which we'll get to in a moment, Jensen Huang is like a pretty good indicator of why America, you know, it's good to brain drain other countries and bring the best and brightest here. | ||
| Jensen Huang is Taiwanese. | ||
| He is here in the United States because his parents came here. | ||
| And his company is now worth more than the entire economy of Germany. | ||
| And it's based in the United States, creating an awful lot of wealth and jobs. | ||
| So that is the good news. | ||
| The good news is the employment market is churning along. | ||
| More people are joining the lines to try and get a job again. | ||
| The NVIDIA profits were big. | ||
| On the other hand, there's still a lot of nervousness. | ||
| And the nervousness is not misplaced. | ||
| Number one, we don't have data on the October unemployment rate, so it's unclear exactly what the Federal Reserve is going to use for its guidance in terms of raising or lowering the interest rates or just keeping them the same. | ||
| But meanwhile, Target is having trouble. | ||
| So at the retail level, people are just buying less stuff, which suggests that all the extra money that people have, a lot of it is going into the upper end of the tech market, but some of it's not bleeding down into the sort of basic everyday staples. | ||
| According to the Wall Street Journal, Target's plan to fix its continuing sales slump involves billions of dollars in investment. | ||
| Apparently, incoming chief executive Michael Fidelke said the retailer would invest about a billion dollars more next year to improve stores, its merchandise selection and digital capabilities, bringing total new investment next year to $5 billion. | ||
| That change will include store experience improvements and more exciting merchandise, along with better tech and e-commerce systems. | ||
| In recent years, shoppers have been complaining of messy stores, items missing on shelves, and less exciting products. | ||
| Well, I mean, I think there's truth to that. | ||
| My family and I routinely shop at Target. | ||
| I will say that it's gotten messier over the years. | ||
| It used to be a lot cleaner of a store. | ||
| It used to be better run. | ||
| So there's truth to that. | ||
| But the drop in profits, I don't think, is entirely attributable to that. | ||
| People might just be buying less because of the inflated price of things like groceries and basic staples. | ||
| And now they're pulling back on their spending. | ||
| This was the 12th consecutive quarter or week or falling sales for Target. | ||
| The company said fewer shoppers visited its stores. | ||
| Those who did spent less during the quarter. | ||
| Comparable sales from those from stores and digital channels operating for at least a year fell 2.7% in the three months ended November 1st, according to the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| He said that Fidelke, who's the CEO, he said that discretionary items like home to corn apparel are where they are really seeing a downturn, not particularly on groceries, but on the other sort of stuff. | ||
| Target has already been cutting jobs. | ||
| So are those stock market gains at the upper end of the market producing jobs in the same way? | ||
| No. | ||
| And that's not unusual. | ||
| So for example, in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble that burst in 2000 at the tail end of the Clinton administration, there was a fairly quick recovery in terms of the stock market under George W. Bush, but it took a little while for the jobs to come back. | ||
| Because it turns out that when a bubble bursts, there tends to be consolidation. | ||
| The consolidation increases the revenues and profit margins of companies, but it takes a while for that to bleed down into I now want to hire additional people. | ||
| Now, again, there is some good news for the Trump administration here. | ||
| In, for example, the price of groceries. | ||
| As I've said before, one of the big problems the Trump administration has in terms of the affordability argument is that what people actually want is not a thing that the Trump administration probably is capable of delivering, and that is 2022 prices, 2020 prices, right? | ||
| That very unlikely we're getting back to that level. | ||
| So people in their own minds are not comparing what they paid for groceries this year to what they paid for groceries last year. | ||
| If they were, that's kind of a small incremental increase or dead even. | ||
| What they are doing is comparing the price of groceries this year to the price of groceries four years ago. | ||
| And there, really, Biden did bake this into the cake. | ||
| Once you have prices inflated by 10, 12, 15%, the only way the prices go back down 10, 12, 15% to what they were originally is a dramatic lack of demand. | ||
| Because particularly with regard to groceries, a radical increase in supply very often is not possible. | ||
| With that said, it is true, and the president has said this, that the inflation rates are down pretty dramatically from the Biden years. | ||
| According to Axios, the average classic holiday feast for 10 will run $55.18 this Thanksgiving per the American Farm Bureau's Federation new annual survey. | ||
| That's about $5.52 per person, down 5% from last year. | ||
| So that actually is a decline. | ||
| However, as they say, three years of declines don't fully erase dramatic increases that led to a record cost of $64.05 in 2022. | ||
| That estimate is based on turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and more. | ||
| Cheaper turkey is driving a lot of the overall decline. | ||
| So, again, the Trump administration has been handed a real bag when it comes to inflation and affordability and then been told to solve it. | ||
| It ain't quite that easy. | ||
| Now, when it comes to the matter of affordability, the big question for President Trump is what can he do about affordability? | ||
| Well, there are two things he can do on immigration. | ||
| One thing is he could take the unskilled immigrants who are here illegally and he could deport a lot of them. | ||
| This would presumably be less of a drain on public resources. | ||
| It would also presumably increase wages at the bottom levels. | ||
| Now, that comes along with the increased prices of the things that those wages are used for. | ||
| However, the vice president has pointed out that it would take some pressure off of housing. | ||
| That's probably true, at least in the short term. | ||
| So that's one aspect of immigration. | ||
| And then the other aspect is you do need to bring in skilled immigrants. | ||
| I know this has somehow become a very, very controversial matter on the political right. | ||
| There's a big debate over H-1B visas. | ||
| We've talked about the flaws in the H-1B visa program, which are quite real. | ||
| People abusing it, people using it to bring in people who are sort of lower-level tech people who could easily be Americans filling those jobs. | ||
| But we do, in fact, need skilled immigrants coming into the country if you wish to make things more affordable. | ||
| Because again, the only way to make things more affordable on a basic econ 101 level is you increase supply and the demand stays the same, or you reduce the demand and the supply stays the same. | ||
| That's the only way to reduce prices because prices are a function of supply and demand. | ||
| Those are the only two factors that are going into the prices. | ||
| Now, there are a lot of things that go into the supply and the demand, everything from subsidies to regulation. | ||
| However, if you wish for cheaper products, which is what affordability is, and again, I'm kind of amazed that we constantly hear this drumbeat from the right. | ||
| All these Americans buying their cheap foreign products. | ||
| Well, what if Americans just want, there's another word for Americans wanting to buy cheap products. | ||
| It's called affordability. | ||
| That's literally what that means. | ||
| It doesn't have to be a foreign product, but it does have to be affordable. | ||
| And if you wish for things to be affordable, then the inputs in making that thing also have to be cheaper and more plentiful. | ||
| Okay, so the president has taken a lot of flack from members of his sort of heritage American right, shall we say, about his comments on skilled immigration. | ||
| This is not the president in favor of mass migration. | ||
| This is the president saying what is clearly and obviously true, which is that if you have a factory and you do not have people who are capable of staffing that factory in fruitful fashion, you can't just take somebody off the unemployment line and have them producing missiles tomorrow. | ||
| You may need, at least temporarily, to bring in some foreign skilled labor in order to make that factory run. | ||
| Otherwise, the factory gets outsourced and then Trump tariffs it and now it's expensive for Americans. | ||
| This is all very, very basic stuff, but the basic has now become controversial. | ||
| Here is the president speaking at the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum yesterday talking about skilled immigration. | ||
| You can't come in, open up a massive computer chip factory for billions and billions of dollars like is being done in Arizona and think you're going to hire people off an unemployment line to run it. | ||
| They're going to have to bring thousands of people with them. | ||
| And I'm going to welcome those people. | ||
| Now, my, I love my conservative friends. | ||
| I love MAGA, but this is MAGA. | ||
| And those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips. | ||
| And in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great. | ||
| And those people can go home where they probably always want to be. | ||
| Okay, so again, he is not wrong about this. | ||
| He's taking an awful lot of flack for this. | ||
| One of the things about President Trump is that the people who don't like Trump's policy very often wishcast his policy into something else. | ||
| So isolationists will wishcast his policy into a sort of paleo-con isolationism, which is not actually his policy. | ||
| Or they'll wishcast his economic policy into some sort of economic autarky. | ||
| That is not his actual policy. | ||
| His policy is a mix of impulses, some of them that tend to be more paleo-con in nature, like tariffs, and some of them that tend to be pretty free market based, like, for example, the free flow of skilled labor, which he tends to be more in favor of. | ||
| But if you want affordability, one of the things the government can do to actually make things more affordable is, for example, allowing companies to bring in labor that is useful to them, at least on a temporary basis, in order to get the factories up and running, which will increase wages and keep jobs at home here in America. | ||
| Preventing outsourcing, preventing higher wages and prices from being the result. | ||
| Again, just supply and demand. | ||
| Meanwhile, again, the president is cracking down on illegal immigration. | ||
| Now, Zorn Mamzani in New York isn't. | ||
| Zorn Mamdani is now vowing that he is going to prevent the NYPD from assisting ICE. | ||
| Here was the new mayor. | ||
| I mean, New York is going to get it good and hard. | ||
| They deserve it. | ||
| They voted for it. | ||
| Here's Zorn Mamdani. | ||
| People are living in fear. | ||
| And what we will ensure is the NYPD will be delivering public safety, not assisting ICE in their attempts to fulfill the administration's goal of creating the single largest deportation force in American history. | ||
| So that is his chief priority. | ||
| Again, the things that Mamdani is doing right now, he's not going to get a lot of his economic plans done. | ||
| Thank God for New Yorkers. | ||
| But he is going to virtue signal a lot about illegal immigration. | ||
| And so I hope that he enjoys the next time a Democrat is president and decides to reopen that southern border and Greg Abbott or whoever the governor of Texas has started shipping those illegal immigrants up to New York. | ||
| I hope he has fun with that. | ||
| Here's Mamdani saying that he will tell Tom Homan that this city is an immigrant city. | ||
| Yeah, I will tell Tom Homan what I will tell anyone who asks, which is the fact that I am looking forward to representing the entirety of the city. | ||
| And this city is also an immigrant city. | ||
| It's a city that's proud of its immigrants' heritage. | ||
| It's proud of the fact that so many from across the world find their home in this city. | ||
| And we will protect those New Yorkers as we protect every New Yorker. | ||
| So does he mean illegal immigrants? | ||
| Because apparently he does. | ||
| And meanwhile, all of this is leading to where is the state of the current economy? | ||
| So the Trump administration believes that if they can keep the interest rates low, if those interest rates can drop even more, they can spur demand. | ||
| If they can spur demand, then presumably they will increase demand for labor. | ||
| People will have higher wages and all the rest. | ||
| The problem is, again, we have an inflationary economy. | ||
| We do. | ||
| The inflation rates are still riding about 50% too high. | ||
| I understand that we all got used to 10% inflation rates, but the reality is that the inflation rate is still riding somewhere between 2.8 and 3%. | ||
| That is 50% higher than the Federal Reserve would want. | ||
| It is 2.8% higher than I would want. | ||
| I want the inflation rate to be zero. | ||
| I think it's ridiculous that we gradually inflate the currency based on what I think is bad Chicago school economics theory. | ||
| I'm more of a Vienna school guy. | ||
| But put that aside, the president is angry at Chairman Powell over at the Federal Reserve for not lowering the interest rates even more than he has already done. | ||
| Here he was yesterday. | ||
| The mortgage rates are down despite the Fed. | ||
| I mean, Scott, you got to work on this guy. | ||
| He's got some real mental problems. | ||
| And there's something wrong with him. | ||
| It's just, sweet. | ||
| I be honest, I'd love to fire his ass. | ||
| He should be fine. | ||
| Guy's grossly incompetent. | ||
| Okay, but here is the thing. | ||
| Putting all of America's failures or successes in the economy on the Federal Reserve is a mistake. | ||
| It is a systemic mistake. | ||
| The Federal Reserve is considering not cutting the rates. | ||
| I would say that's the likelihood at this point. | ||
| You have an economy that is overheated in terms of the stock market, huge, huge numbers pouring into the stock market. | ||
| The stock market, again, it's jumping again today based on those NVIDIA earnings. | ||
| The question is whether those circular deals are going to end up paying off in the end, whether it is a bubble or whether it's legit. | ||
| You already have an employment market that does not seem to be cratering. | ||
| It's kind of holding steady. | ||
| So I guess the idea here would be that you have to lower the interest rates into an already hot market in order to keep the unemployment rate from spiking. | ||
| But the unemployment rate is like 4.4%. | ||
| There's not a historically high unemployment rate here in the United States. | ||
| I do not think that this is the way that affordability happens is by, again, more bubblish helicopter money. | ||
| That does not seem like a great idea to me. | ||
| Meanwhile, one of the ways that you could actually create affordability would be to stop with the bad left-wing policy. | ||
| And one of the things I notice too often on the right is this belief in the free market goes away the minute that it is tested by any economic question at all. | ||
| And the minute that the free market, literally the minute the free market produces a lag effect, a bunch of people on the right jump off the bandwagon on the free market. | ||
| Oh, no, no, no, no. | ||
| Now we need, this is when we need government policy. | ||
| Government should step in and stop everything cold. | ||
| This is when we need a new national socialism, or maybe not. | ||
| Maybe it turns out that bad policy remains bad and that the economy has hiccups all the time. | ||
| And maybe it's true that the government turns those hiccups into full-blown cardiothoracic problems. | ||
| Case in point, the Free Press has a good piece by Matt Miller talking about the ghost apartments in New York City. | ||
| What he says is that strict limits on rent increases under 2019 laws in New York have left an estimated 50,000 apartments vacant across the city. | ||
| Because the restrictions on what landlords can charge for these apartments often don't even cover the cost of maintaining them, they become ghosts. | ||
| It's like they don't exist at all. | ||
| Incoming New York Mayor Azar Mamdani promised during his campaign to immediately freeze the rent for rent-stabilized apartments, but those rents have essentially been frozen since 2019. | ||
| At the time, the laws were widely heralded as the strongest set of rent regulations anywhere in America. | ||
| They were designed to protect tenants from supposed price gouging. | ||
| But actually, what has happened is that sometimes tenants die, sometimes tenants move. | ||
| And if you can't raise the rent, well, then it actually costs you more money to keep the apartment lights on with a renter there than it would be to just leave the apartment totally empty. | ||
| New York's rent laws rely on vacancy controls, which means rents don't reset between tenants. | ||
| So just because somebody leaves doesn't mean you can charge a new higher rent to the new tenant. | ||
| The government instead assigns a maximum rent for every rent-stabilized apartment. | ||
| That rent can't be meaningfully increased no matter how much money I have to spend on renovations. | ||
| According to the authorities, the rent guidelines board, the average cost to operate an apartment in a rent-stabilized Manhattan building built before 1974 was $1,560 a month, not including mortgage payments. | ||
| Rounding for simplicity's sake, assuming $50,000 of renovations, that maximum legal rent on the apartment would only increase to about $1,230. | ||
| After all the work was done, an apartment owner would still be upside down on that apartment. | ||
| Because once again, it turns out that government policy usually achieves the reverse of the thing that it is attempting to achieve. | ||
| Okay, meanwhile, the DOJ is running into some problems of its own. | ||
| One of those problems, apparently, is basic competence. | ||
| According to Politico, the Trump administration's criminal prosecution of former FBI director James Comey is now in serious jeopardy. | ||
| The federal judge overseeing the case questioned the validity of a grand jury indictment that charged Comey with lying to and obstructing Congress. | ||
| U.S. District Judge Michael Nakmanov pressed prosecutors during a hearing on the events around the charges against Comey. | ||
| They questioned whether the entire grand jury even saw the actual two-count indictment a magistrate judge received after grand jurors rejected one of the three charges proposed by the interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan. | ||
| So apparently, Halligan was called to the courtroom and he asked her to address the court. | ||
| And it appears that actually the grand jurors were not present when the original indictment and a narrower substitute were presented to the magistrate judge. | ||
| Halligan said that the four-person and another grand jury were present, but not everybody in the grand jury. | ||
| So that is an irregularity. | ||
| Typically, the grand jury has to see the charges. | ||
| Assistant U.S. Attorney Tyler Lemons suggested the replacement indictment was a necessity because the grand jury had turned down one of the proposed charges. | ||
| Quote, they really had no other way to return it. | ||
| So a lawyer for Comey said there's no indictment. | ||
| So the procedural misstep was tantamount to a complete bar to prosecution. | ||
| So at the very least, the government provided problems for itself. | ||
| Maybe it's a procedural problem, but basic competence would be a good thing. | ||
| Meanwhile, Pam Bondi has been talking about the possibility of a new Epstein investigation, which of course will quiet zero of the critics because it will come to the same conclusions as, you know, the old Epstein investigation. | ||
| But it'll allow Pam Bondi, I suppose, to kick the can down the road. | ||
| She has handled this about as poorly as any AG has handled any issue that I've ever seen. | ||
| Here is the Attorney General yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What changed since then that you launched this investigation? | |
| Information that has come for information. | ||
| There's information that new information, additional information. | ||
| And again, we will continue to follow the law to investigate any leads. | ||
| If there are any victims, we encourage all victims to come forward. | ||
| And we will continue to provide maximum transparency under the law. | ||
| Okay, so again, a new investigation will please pretty much no one and also drag this thing out for several more months. | ||
| So well done once again to the Attorney General Pambondi. | ||
| Again, everything from her Epstein binders to the original announcement that there would be no additional charges brought with regard to people related to the Epstein case. | ||
| Announcements that there was no foreign intelligence intervention. | ||
| All of that was handled about as badly as you can handle it. | ||
| And apparently she is going to keep that pattern going. | ||
| So well done there. | ||
| Meanwhile, in positive DOJ news, I mean, positive only in the sense that the DOJ is doing its job. | ||
| Apparently, a New Jersey man whose lengthy prison sentence for fraud convictions was commuted by President Trump in 2021 is now headed back to federal prison for another fraud conviction. | ||
| U.S. District Judge Michael Schipp, according to ABC News, handed down a 37-year sentence on Friday to one Eliyahu Eli Weinstein of Lakewood, also known as Mike Koenig. | ||
| Apparently, he has to pay $44 million in restitution due immediately. | ||
| He was convicted in March on charges. | ||
| He helped defraud dozens of investors out of $35 million. | ||
| Apparently, according to prosecutors, Weinstein and others falsely promised investors access to deals involving scarce medical supplies, baby formula, and first aid kits destined for wartime Ukraine. | ||
| This would be the third time he has been convicted in a New Jersey federal court for defrauding investors. | ||
| The first case involved a real estate Ponzi scheme. | ||
| The second stemmed from additional fraud he committed while on pre-trial release. | ||
| He caused losses of $230 million. | ||
| He was sentenced to 24 years in prison. | ||
| President Trump commuted his term to time served, about eight years into his sentence in 2021, just before leaving office. | ||
| And right after he was released, he went back to doing this. | ||
| He's now going back to jail. | ||
| Put him in jail forever, man. | ||
| Put him in jail and leave him to rot. | ||
| Truly. | ||
| What a scumbag. | ||
| Just gross. | ||
| Okay, meanwhile, on the drama scene, I have to say that Olivia Nuzzy, man, I don't know what's going on with that lady, but pretty wild. | ||
| So Olivia Nuzzy, who has worked at a wide variety of outlets, she seems to have made a bad habit out of sleeping with the people that she covers. | ||
| That would include, of course, RFK Jr. | ||
| She didn't sleep with RFK Jr. | ||
| Apparently, she was just sexting him. | ||
| But she has a long history, apparently, of attention seeking. | ||
| Apparently, when she was a teenager, she did a lady gaga-esque track called Jailbait. | ||
| An old MySpace page from 2009 shows her posing in a purple tank dress with thigh-high boots and a skinny headband with a revealing lace top and handcuffs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's great. | |
| So she, of course, was fired when she was from New York Times magazine because she was sexting with RFK Jr., which is really quite awkward. | ||
| And then it turns out that she has a more bizarre history as well. | ||
| Apparently, when she was 21, she dated Keith Olberman when he was 55, which, okay, man. | ||
| Apparently, according to Ryan Lizza, who was her fiancé, she also slept with ex-South Carolina governor Mark Sanford in 65, who was 65 while they were dating. | ||
| So apparently they'd also traveled the Appalachian Trail, which was, as you recall, an excuse that Mark Sanford used for one of his other affairs, apparently. | ||
| Olberman had paid for Nuzzie to attend college, covered her rent, and outfitted her in luxury designs from Tom Ford, Herve Léger, and Cartier. | ||
| Sounds like some solid journalism. | ||
| Sounds great. | ||
| I'm glad that our journalistic crew is doing such a wonderful job day in and day out. | ||
| She also has a brand new book titled American Kanto that is coming out December 2nd. | ||
| So there'll be a movie made out of that, that's for sure. | ||
| I think the real story there is a story as old as time. | ||
| Older men will do pretty much anything to sleep with younger women, no matter how crazy those younger women appear to be. | ||
| Again, nothing new there. | ||
| That is just the nature of the beast. | ||
| Unfortunately, human beings are filled with sin. | ||
| Joining me online is Mary Margaret Ohan. | ||
| She, of course, is our Daily Wire White House correspondent covering events there day by day. | ||
| Mary Margaret, good to see you. | ||
| Good to be here, Ben. | ||
| Okay, so let's talk about the latest in Epstein Gate mania that just continues day by day. | ||
| I am a person who is highly irritated by this entire story because I don't think anything new is going to break. | ||
| It seems as though all of it seems to have been spun up, or at least a large part of it is spun up by people who don't like the president's agenda. | ||
| That seems to be the feeling at the White House as well. | ||
| How does the White House plan to deal with sort of next steps in Epstein Gate scandal mania? | ||
| Yeah, I think a lot of people around here feel the same way you do, Ben. | ||
| I think the vibe around the White House is that, A, the Democrats did not care about the Epstein files until recently when they could become more of a political talking point. | ||
| And at the same time, the president and his team have been saying over and over, you know, this is a Democrat-led hoax, which has led a lot of people to say, wait, what? | ||
| The Epstein files aren't exactly a hoax. | ||
| But what the White House is telling me is that's the perception of how the Democrats are handling it. | ||
| They're not actually interested in it because of the victims, according to the White House. | ||
| They're interested in it in order to score political points. | ||
| Now, the president did sign the Epstein bill last night. | ||
| We're supposed to be seeing these files sometime within the next 30 days. | ||
| But there's a couple of things to note here. | ||
| One is that we're not going to see everything. | ||
| There's going to be a lot of stuff redacted, whether that's to protect the identity of some of these young female victims, whether that is related to what the DOJ says, something along the lines of death. | ||
| If they're too related to death, we might not know about it. | ||
| I'm assuming that means Jeffrey Epstein's death. | ||
| A couple different factors there. | ||
| And so what the White House knows, and I think what all of us know at this point, is that there are going to be people who are not satisfied with the release of these files. | ||
| There are always going to be people that are saying that the DOJ, that the Trump administration, that future administrations are covering things up. | ||
| They're purposefully not revealing the full truth about the Epstein files. | ||
| And so that's definitely an anxiety in and of itself. | ||
| No one is going to be satisfied with the release of the files, and there's always going to be more questions that we want to answer. | ||
| And so the White House is grappling with all of this. | ||
| But in the meantime, their messaging is to lean into the revelations that we've learned about Democrats. | ||
| They didn't want the files released, and the Democrats released some of them. | ||
| And lo and behold, a whole bunch of Democrats are implicated in these releases themselves. | ||
| So what the White House is doing is they're sending out messaging to reporters and to the public on some of these Democrats who are implicated, such as Larry Summers, such as Katie Couric, such as a whole other host of Democrats, such as Stacey Plaskett. | ||
| And they're highlighting the relationships that these people had with Epstein, such as Stacey Plaskett texting with Epstein during a congressional hearing related to President Trump. | ||
| I actually spoke with Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, and I asked him, do you think the Democrats are going to regret releasing these files? | ||
| And he said, yes, he thinks so. | ||
| He thinks this is not going to play out well in their favor. | ||
| And the more we learn, the more these Democrats are probably going to be making some angry phone calls to their friends in the House of Representatives and saying, why did you put us in this situation? | ||
| No one is winning. | ||
| Now, Mary Margaret, meanwhile, there's been some talk that Zora Mamdani might be headed to the White House for a meeting with the President of the United States. | ||
| What have you been hearing about that? | ||
| Yes, so he's coming tomorrow, and I'm a little disappointed. | ||
| I was hoping that he was coming today. | ||
| I'll be in the White House press pool today, which means that if there is an open press event in the Oval Office, I get to go in there and hopefully ask the president some questions. | ||
| But he'll be coming here tomorrow, and he'll be meeting with the president, who announced that he was coming in a rather unusual truth social post where he called Zoron a communist and said that he asked to come to the White House on Friday. | ||
| So that's going to happen. | ||
| Obviously, this is going to be some great television if the press is allowed into that meeting. | ||
| I heard one person say that we haven't seen a little moment like this since the Zelensky-Trump advance moment in the Oval Office. | ||
| And, you know, Zoron is very interested in press himself. | ||
| He's very good at it. | ||
| He's gotten a lot of national attention, global attention. | ||
| And the president is aware of this. | ||
| And, you know, he says he wants to make sure that New York City is a good place. | ||
| Zoron allegedly does as well. | ||
| And so that'll be a very fun meeting to tune into as we prepare to head to our Thanksgiving holidays. | ||
| Well, that is going to be some spicy stuff. | ||
| And, you know, hopefully it'll help get that turkey digested. | ||
| Mary Margaret, thanks so much for the time. | ||
| And thanks for the coverage, as always. | ||
| Thank you, Ben. | ||
| All righty, folks. | ||
| Coming up, we'll jump into that vaunted Ben Shapiro show mailbag. | ||
| Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. | ||
| If you are not a member, become a member. | ||
| Use Coach Shapiro. | ||
| Check out for two months free on all annual plans. |
Export Selection