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Feb. 4, 2026 - The Ben Shapiro Show
57:23
Transing of Children in America…IS DEAD
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Time Text
Medical Nonsense and Gender Transition 00:12:58
Is the transing of the children finally dying in America?
We'll get to some breaking news that suggests that it is, plus, breaking news on the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's mom and everything that is the latest from Minneapolis and all the rest.
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Well, if you go back just a few years, it was deregored that every major commentator, every major politician would be called to say that boys were girls, girls were boys, they could become one another.
Major medical establishment organizations came out and said that it was the purest form of science to say that boys could become girls.
And in fact, the best treatment for people suffering from gender dysphoria was for them to have hormone treatment and surgery.
In fact, if you go back to 2021, the American Medical Association was telling governors to oppose state legislation that would prohibit medically necessary gender transition related care for minor patients, calling such efforts, quote, a dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine.
That, of course, was not relegated only to psychological care or social transition or even to hormones.
That also included, on many occasions, surgery.
In fact, the AMA specifically put out a letter saying, quote, empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.
For gender-diverse individuals, standards of care and accepted medically necessary services that affirm gender or treat gender dysphoria may include mental health counseling, non-medical social transition, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and or gender-affirming surgeries.
This was the standard of care, according to the American Medical Association.
Well, as it turns out, all of that was a load of horse crap.
And if you are wondering about the sort of signal moments in the last 30 years of American history where people fell out of love with institutions and decided that institutions had betrayed their trust, this would be a big one.
There have been many of them.
Obviously, there is the media betrayal of Americans' trust over things like Joe Biden's mental health issues.
There's the betrayal, the fundamental betrayal of trust by our nation's educational institutions with regard to things like critical race theory.
There was the betrayal of trust by our scientific organizations over COVID.
But a really, really big one, maybe the biggest one in many ways, was the basic lie that everyone who is above the age of one and a half knows is a lie, which is that boys and girls are the same.
The fact that the medical establishment said that boys could become girls, girls could become boys, and the best treatment for somebody who is struggling with body dysmorphia was not to work on their brain, but to work on their body by cutting off healthy body parts, by creating fake new body parts.
This was insanity.
It was pathological.
It was nuts.
And it was, again, DeRegore.
It was the thing.
Well, now it turns out that all of that is coming to a screeching halt.
And I have to say that as a company, Daily Wire, I think we've played a very large role in this, not just through Matt Walsh's fantastic documentary, What is a Woman, but from the fact that we as a company from day one rejected this nonsense.
We rejected it wholesale.
We are the only company I am aware of in America that refused day one ever to use gendered pronouns for people who are not of that sex.
We used sex pronouns all the way through because we rejected the fundamental lie that boys could become girls and vice versa.
The fact that Democrats are still struggling with this shows how out of touch they are with reality.
Well, what finally broke the system?
As always, in America, trial lawyers, trial lawyers broke the system.
You know that things are about to go haywire for your political position when the trial lawyers start winning big victories.
Well, according to the New York Times, in the first malpractice verdict against providers of gender-affirming care for minors, again, the Orwellian language here is insane.
Gender-affirming is sex-rejecting.
That is what gender-affirming means in this context.
We are not talking about a person who had a double mastectomy, a woman who had a double mastectomy because she had breast cancer or the BRCA gene and decided to have that double mastectomy and now wants to reconstruct her breasts.
That would be gender-affirming.
Gender-affirming in this context means sex-denying.
A boy believes he's a girl, so they cut off his penis and testicles.
That is what they mean.
Okay, so back to the piece.
In the first malpractice verdict against providers of gender-affirming care for minors, a jury in New York State has awarded a woman $2 million in damages for a double mastectomy she received as a teenager that she said had left her disfigured.
I mean, obviously, it left her disfigured.
That is just a reality.
When you have your breasts cut off, not because you're worried that you're going to get breast cancer or for any other real medical reason, but because you say you want to look more like a boy and some plastic surgeon then chops off your breasts and you're a minor.
Yeah, I mean, that's disfiguring.
The plaintiff, Fox Varian, 22 of Yorktown Heights, had accused her psychologist and the plastic surgeon who performed the operation of failing to obtain adequate consent about the risks before she agreed to undergo the procedure in 2019.
She also claimed that the providers had deviated from standard practices governing gender-related medical care.
Varian was 16 at the time of the surgery.
She was assigned female at birth, but as a teenager identified as a man, again, the Orwellian language that the media, our legacy media, continue to use here is totally psychotic.
Assigned female at birth.
You are not assigned anything.
A doctor looks at you and knows you are female by looking at you when you are a baby.
This is silly.
It is ridiculous.
You are not simply assigned at random a sex.
This woman later came to regret the decision to transition and now identifies as a woman, an example of a process known as detransitioning or, you know, recognition of reality.
The verdict was announced on Friday following a three-week trial in White Plains.
Now, very often when people cite studies suggesting that people don't really detransition, that is because the studies do not include people who don't follow up with the doctor.
It turns out the vast majority of people who decide that they don't want to carry forward with their quote-unquote gender transition, they just never get back in touch with the people who are trying to transition them in the first place.
And so the continued pressure tactics used by people who are in this industry, for example, a Kinnan McKinnon, who studies transgender care at York University in Toronto, and who says that a vast majority of young people who opt for a medical transition say the procedure resolves their gender dysphoria and improves the quality of their lives.
Do you think they're coming back to Kinnan McKinnon to explain that things went bad?
That is typically not the way that it works.
So why do I say that this means that the transing of children in America is dying or dead?
The reason is because once plastic surgeons now find themselves at risk of medical liability for doing something that is clearly non-medical, you know, cutting off healthy body parts.
Once that happens, doctors are going to stop doing it.
And that is the position of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
So yesterday they put out a statement, quote, consistent with ASPS's August 2024 statement that the overall evidence base for gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions is low certainty.
And in light of recent publications reporting very low to low certainty of evidence regarding mental health outcomes, along with emerging concerns about potential long-term harms and the irreversible nature of surgical interventions in a developmentally vulnerable population, ASPS concludes there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.
ASPS recommends that surgeons delay gender-related breast chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.
Now, what's hilarious about that is that they are not making the case.
They're not making the case that the 19 is because your brain is now developed enough that you can make a good decision.
That is not the case they're making.
They're not saying that there's a difference in kind between these sorts of surgeries performed on a 21-year-old and a surgery performed on a 17-year-old.
The reason that they are putting out 19-year-old, why do you think?
Why do you think?
The answer is very obvious.
Because at 18, you can legally consent.
And once you can legally consent, you can't be sued.
That's all that's happening here.
The liability came to the plastic surgeons.
And now they are saying, okay, well, you know, we still want to do these surgeries because we get paid for them, even though they're really bad.
We're going to continue to do them, but we'll do it for people above the age of 18.
Now, that is still bad medical practice and does not solve the problem politically for people who claim that men can become women, women can become men, and all the rest.
And that is a barrier to entry for Democrats.
It really is.
It's funny.
When I was on Gavin Newsom's show in California, this issue came up and he really struggled with it.
And the reason he struggled with it is because he knows it is not only a political loser, but that in his heart, he knows it is not true.
He knows it is not true.
The vast majority, pretty much everybody in the United States, knows it is untrue that a man can become a woman.
It is just that there are demands, social demands, to mirror that nonsense.
If Democrats decide that they're going to follow that all the way down the political rabbit hole, they will not be able to get out.
It is legitimately, it is a barrier to entry for voters.
If they think that you're crazy enough that you think a boy can become a girl, very difficult to argue that your position on marginal tax rates outweighs that.
Nonetheless, again, Democrats have drunk deep from the well here.
This is presumably why, for example, Kansas State Representative Lindsey Vaughan is melting down over boys being barred from the girls' bathroom.
In effect, this makes it impossible for trans people to use bathrooms in public spaces, which is just, I mean, it's, it's, it is not just discrimination.
It's beyond the pale.
It's cruel.
The fact that they're also including unisex bathrooms, I just beyond words.
I mean, how terrible it is.
And beyond that, I mean, the most atrocious part is there was no hearing on this language.
There was no hearing on this amendment that I'm calling the bathroom bill.
And yet it got voted into the bill.
So now that is also part of House Bill, what was House Bill 2426.
Okay.
And again, it is not unique to slightly crazy people in Kansas.
In California, in Gavin Newsom's own state, where again, he says that he understands the unfairness of boys playing against girls in sports.
And I asked him, well, I mean, that seems to me a secondary issue to should you surgically mutilate children?
And he avoided the question.
His attorney general in California has now filed a lawsuit against Rady's Children's Health, which is a hospital in San Diego on Friday, for shuttering its gender-affirming care program for patients under the age of 19.
So you have the state of California, the legal authority in the state of California, suing medical establishments for doing medicine and failing to go along with the junk science that has been promoted here.
Earlier in January, according to NBC San Diego, the hospital stated, quote, escalating federal actions concerning gender-affirming care and being under investigation by the HHS are what led to their decision to end those services.
In the lawsuit, Banta argued that Rady's decision to end care violates legally binding conditions placed by the Attorney General himself on the Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego's merger with Children's Hospital of Orange County and its affiliates.
According to the AG, quote, Rady flagrantly disregarded its legal obligations by unilaterally deciding to preemptively comply with the administration's demands and cease medically necessary care for roughly 1,450 patients.
By the way, that number is astonishing.
1,450 patients, kids whose parents are delusional enough to believe that if they confirm their gender delusion, that somehow this makes them better.
That is, by the way, the charitable description of what many of these parents are doing.
For many of these parents, this has become sort of a hip thing to do, to talk about your trans child because it shows how caring and wonderful and empathetic you are, how open-minded you are by scarring your children for life.
So, apparently, California says we will not allow Rady to violate its obligations to its patients and the state.
Apparently, the hospital had said they would continue to provide counseling, mental health resources, and care coordination, but they would no longer be doing, for example, surgeries and hormone treatments.
Bottom line here is that if Democrats keep running up against both the science and legal liability, Democrats are in for a continued world of hurt.
All righty, coming up, we'll get into the latest from the Epstein files.
Yeah, there are some people who actually are on the chopping block.
We'll get into it first.
Latest From Epstein Files 00:15:40
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Meanwhile, in the other big news of the day, the Epstein files continue to roil the political world.
One of the things that's sort of fascinating about the Epstein files is that truth is gradually dripping out about specific people in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect.
So, for example, Jeffrey Epstein apparently wrote a letter to file, meaning he wrote an email to himself or a draft email to himself in which he accused Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, of having obtained an STD from a sex worker, from a prostitute, and then passed it on to his wife, and then tried to give her anti-STD drugs in order to shield her from the consequences of his own terrible actions.
And it is well known that Epstein was hanging out with Bill Gates on a wide variety of occasions.
Melinda Gates, Bill's wife who divorced him, she was asked about this.
And here was her answer.
It is not on you to have to respond to the details of that alleged behavior, but I wonder what your dominant emotion is when you read these news articles with these details.
Sad, just unbelievable sadness.
Unbelievable sadness, right?
And again, I'm able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, my God, how did they?
How did that happen to those girls, right?
And so for me, it's just sadness, sadness for, you know, I've left, I had to, I left my marriage.
I had to leave my marriage.
I wanted to leave my marriage.
I had to leave the, I felt I needed to eventually leave the foundation.
So it's just sad.
That's the truth, right?
And it's kind of like, at least for me, I've been able to move on in life.
And I hope there's some justice for those now women, right?
We see them standing up in front of microphones in D.C. What they went through is just unimaginable, I think.
So Melinda Gates does not deny it.
Bill Gates is denying it.
The denial is, shall we say, somewhat tepid.
And when you have the wife not denying the allegations in the email, but you have Bill Gates denying the allegations in the email.
Bottom line is this, when you lie down with the world's worst people, in this case, literally with Jeffrey Epstein, then you are not going to get up without fleas.
Yeah, I met Jeffrey in 2011.
The focus was always he knew a lot of very rich people and he was saying he could get them to give money to Global Health.
You know, in retrospect, that was a dead end.
And I was foolish to spend time with him.
I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.
You've no doubt saying the allegations, including some of them in the last 24 to 48 hours.
Is that true?
No, apparently Jeffrey wrote an email to himself.
That email was never sent.
The email is false.
So I don't know what his thinking was there.
It just reminds me, every minute I spent with him, I regret and I apologize that I did that.
So what does this say?
Well, it does suggest that in some of these cases, evidence is now becoming clear about the coordination between Jeffrey Epstein and certain political figures.
And the reason that is important is because we have basically been told by the folks who are retailing the broadest possible narrative about Jeffrey Epstein, which is that he was certainly an intelligence asset, that he was trafficking underage girls to various political, powerful people in order to obtain from them both money and political power.
And people say, well, you know, just because there's no evidence doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
Well, but here's the thing.
There is some evidence of this happening with particular political people.
And as that emerges, all that means is that that should be the search.
The search should not be for individual emails that seem to kind of through a glass darkly suggest that maybe your giant narrative is true.
What we actually should do is follow the evidence wherever it leads.
So, for example, the evidence is pretty clearly leading to a scandal for the UK's ambassador to the United States, one Peter Mandelson.
According to the Associated Press, the Conservative Party is now attacking Peter Mandelson because of his relationship with Epstein.
They said that they would force a vote in parliament calling for the release of emails and other messages related to Mandelson's appointment in 2024.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer said, I intend to make sure all of the material is published.
Starmer said that Mandelsohn had lied repeatedly to officials about his relationship with Epstein and had betrayed our country, our parliament, and my party.
And he said he regretted having appointed Mandelson.
So, Mandelson, 72, was fired in September from his job as envoy in Washington after emails were published showing he maintained a friendship with Epstein following the late financier's 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.
Epstein died by suicide in a jail in 2019.
Obviously, Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords and faces a police investigation for alleged misconduct in public office.
A trove of documents released by the DOJ suggested Mandelson may have shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was a government minister a decade and a half ago.
In 2009, for example, he appears to have told Jeffrey Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce attacks on bankers' bonuses and passed on an internal government report discussing a potential sale of UK government assets.
The following year, he appears to have tipped off Jeffrey Epstein about an imminent bailout of the European single currency.
The newly released files also suggest that back in 2003, 2004, Epstein sent three payments totaling 75 grand to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner, Reynaldo Avia de Silva.
Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
So, why is this important?
Well, I mean, obviously, it's important because now you have emerging evidence that this person was in league with Jeffrey Epstein and engaged in actual violation of law.
The same thing seems to be true, increasingly, of ex-Prince Andrew.
Apparently, according to the UK Sun, the former Duke of York is understood to have been booted out earlier than planned from the royal lodge after his brother King Charles became increasingly concerned with shocking revelations about Prince Andrew.
There are pictures, of course, of Prince Andrew with unidentified women on Epstein Island.
Andrew left the property on Monday with work to clear out the mansion now seemingly underway in the wake of his departure.
In one email, Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein he wanted to be his pet.
He wrote in December 2010: Kate has agreed to a deal in London.
It's down to you to bring Jay over the line.
God, it's cold in Dencare.
Wish I was still a pet in your family.
It also emerged that Sarah Ferguson emailed Epstein in July 2010, claiming she was being hung out to dry, and no woman has ever left the royal family with her head after appearing to accept cash for access to ex-husband Andrew 65.
So, again, there is evidence of particular people doing particular things, and that's the standard.
The standard should not be narrative rumor.
The standard should not be sort of these gigantic accusations about worldwide conspiracies.
The standard should be the evidence.
Again, we have lots and lots of documents, tons and legitimately, millions of pages of documents.
So, the standard should now be: what is the evidence for each individual who is named in these cases?
That, of course, is the Department of Justice's standard.
The bigger narrative that certainly is substantiated is that Jeffrey Epstein was hobnobbing with some of the richest and most powerful people on planet Earth.
And part of that was undoubtedly him procuring the services of sex workers, prostitutes, for these people.
And not only that, many of them were showing up at his island or at his parties in order to engage in their worst ids.
That's bad enough.
I'm not sure why we need the sort of broader narrative, aside from the conspiratorial, that a small cadre of people running international politics were being involved in a child sex trafficking ring.
Therefore, he could blackmail them for compromise and control world politics.
When that's substantiated, happy to report on it, has not yet been substantiated, so we stick to the evidence here on this show.
But informal networks of power are very real, those definitely exist.
And was Jeffrey Epstein part of that informal network of power?
Of course.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Casey Wasserman was in Italy for the Winter Olympics, scheduled to make a presentation to the International Olympic Committee on the progress of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Peter Attia, the longevity doctor with cult followers and a best-selling book, was dazed into a new role as a CBS news contributor.
Brett Ratner was promoting Melania, his first film since 2017.
All three men had reached or returned to the pinnacle of their industries in February 2026, and all three apparently had secrets in the Epstein files.
Flirtatious email exchanges between Wasserman and Ghelaine Maxwell from 2003 were among the files released by the DOJ.
Addia's name appeared more than 1,700 times in the documents, with correspondence showing he maintained a relationship with Epstein through 2019.
20 undated photos showed Ratner hanging around with Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse, the two men with their arms wrapped around women whose identities are currently redacted.
These interactions have largely escaped scrutiny, says the Wall Street Journal.
The Epstein saga has generated headlines about people ranging from former President Bill Clinton to Prince Andrew.
Clinton has now been called to testify before Congress.
But the files contain millions of pages.
Many of the people in the Martin, former royals are former presidents.
They're executive doctors, lawyers, deal makers at the tops of their fields.
Their now public messages and photographs, says the Wall Street Journal, reveal just how intricately Epstein spun his web of influence and how he traded on his connections to amass wealth and powerful friends.
The files also show some people sought the counsel and companionship of Epstein, sometimes even after he pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008.
Wasserman and Attias said they regretted their email exchanges and didn't know about Epstein's crimes.
Ratner said the photos were from 20 years ago.
The woman in the photos was his then fiancé and he didn't really know Epstein.
So again, these sorts of celebrity interactions with Epstein were very common.
Does that mean that all of them were controlled by Epstein?
No.
Doesn't mean that all of them were trafficked to by Epstein.
No, that evidence is not there.
Does it mean that all these people were hanging out together?
Sure.
Is that bad?
Absolutely.
But it is important to tease out the various strands if we wish to be accurate about what exactly was going on.
Speaking of the Clintons, Bill Clinton has now been called to testify before Congress.
According to the New York Post, Michael Goodwin, at first glance, the decision by Bill and Hillary Clinton to drop their long resistance and agree to testify before a GOP-controlled House panel about Jeffrey Epstein looks like a huge defeat for them.
And it is, since the Clintons' separate appearances scheduled to take place in public later this month, are certain to turn into circus-like spectacles that will heap embarrassment and scorn on the former first couple.
Yet it's worth noting it wasn't the goodness of their hearts that led the Clintons to give in to the congressional demands to testify under oath about Epstein.
They did it only because they were facing prosecution by the DOJ on criminal charges of contempt of Congress.
So they decided that they are going to testify.
It will indeed be a circus.
Representative James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Panel, said, quote, no one is above the law, and that includes the Clintons.
Once it became clear, the House would hold them in contempt that Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed filmed depositions this month.
Okay, now, I know a lot of Republicans are very excited about all of this.
I guarantee you, nothing of merit is going to emerge in those hearings.
Nothing.
Bill Clinton is incredibly squirrely, so is Hillary.
The idea they're going to get up there and suddenly start attesting to their sexual relationships with people that Epstein was trafficking to them, the chances of that are zero.
Not only that, my guess is that the Clintons now see themselves not only as quote-unquote wrong victims in this circumstance.
My guess is they're going to flip this on Trump.
My guess is that they will get out there.
Democrats are on these panels too.
And Democrats will then ask Bill Clinton about Donald Trump's relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, which I assume is why Democrats are very excited about the Epstein files themselves.
Now, President Trump, for his part, again, because he traveled in these circles, he knew Jeffrey Epstein.
He knew the Clintons.
He was one of the rich and famous.
And again, this is why we have to be careful about what you accuse people of.
What you accuse people of actually matters.
I know we live in a country where apparently that no longer matters, but if you're going to accuse people of specific relationships, actions, and possibly criminal activity, you should probably evidence that.
So President Trump was grilled by Caitlin Collins of CNN yesterday, and he did not take it kindly to it over the Epstein files.
What would you say to people that don't think about justice, Mr. President?
Something that people care about.
Yeah, what do you say, Go ahead?
What would you say to the survivors who built their future?
You are the worst reporter.
No wonder CNN has no ratings because of people like you.
You know, she's a young woman.
I don't think I've ever seen you smile.
I've known you for 10 years.
I don't think I've ever seen a smile in your face.
You know why you're not smiling?
Because you know you're not telling the truth.
And you're you're a very dishonest organization and they should be ashamed of you.
Obviously, he's made a lot of headlines yesterday because the president saying to a woman that she should probably smile more.
And she's asking about sexual abuse of women on Epstein Island.
Not a great look.
What President Trump is upset about, and he said it in this exchange a little bit earlier, is that he wants to talk about actual issues, not about the people who are chumming around with Jeffrey Epstein without criminal charges attached or the sort of bad behavior in which people were engaged that was non-criminal in nature.
Evidence Matters 00:04:31
And I don't think the president is wrong about that, frankly.
So many things, as always can be true at once.
Jeffrey Epstein, one of the world's worst human beings, deserved whatever happened to him 100%.
Some of the people with whom he was associating were surely involved in crimes.
We have to actually peg down which people were involved in what crime.
The broader, again, conspiracy theories that Jeffrey Epstein was the great wizard atop world politics or was being wizarded on behalf of foreign governments that has yet to be evidenced.
If it is trending toward one direction in terms of evidence, it would actually trend toward Russia.
But that sort of speculation is just that, pure speculation.
And I think some of the eagerness that people have around this sort of stuff, some of it is obviously proriant, and some of it is the same interest that people had around the Diddy parties.
Who was there?
What were they doing?
But some of it has to do with a mindset that has now spread in our political discourse that basically says that you are not in control of your own life.
All the systems are rigged, and therefore anything that goes wrong in life must be attributable to some sort of cadre of evil elites who are controlling everything in your life secretly.
And by the way, they happen to be pedophiles.
You saw the similar theory play out with regard to Pizzagate, for example.
Now, again, Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile, and that's why he was in jail.
And that is presumably why, according to the available evidence, he hanged himself.
But that is not the same thing as the broader conspiracy theory that some sort of cadre of super elite pedophiles is running America, running global politics.
That theory, shall we say, has yet to be evidenced.
And calling for evidence of theories is not, in fact, support for the people who were involved in the crimes alleged.
It is the baseline standard for reason and logic in any sort of political or legal coverage, or at least it should be, because doing otherwise is, frankly, irresponsible.
Meanwhile, the government shutdown was avoided yesterday.
The president was quite happy about that.
He announced that the government shutdown had been avoided yesterday in the Oval.
This bill is a great victory for the American people.
Instead of a bloated and wasteful omnibus monstrosity full of special interest handouts, we've succeeded in passing a fiscally responsible package that actually cuts wasteful federal spending while supporting critical programs for the safety, security, and prosperity of the American people.
So, again, President Trump pressured Republicans into not pushing forward the SAVE Act on the back of the sort of government shutdown threat, whose right to do so.
Democrats, by the way, are still talking about another government shutdown.
According to the Washington Post, Congress is staring down yet another partial government shutdown in 10 days unless Democrats strike a deal with President Trump and Republicans over new restrictions on federal immigration authorities.
And some key lawmakers in both parties are not optimistic.
Democrats are demanding that Republicans agree to a range of accountability measures, according to the Washington Post, to rein in personnel from ICE and other agencies.
Democratic lawmakers are seeking tighter rules governing the use of warrants.
Again, if they're asking for only judicial warrants can be used by ICE, that means the end of immigration enforcement in the United States, and they know it.
Independent investigations of alleged misconduct, which of course would violate, I assume, union rules.
A ban on masks for federal immigration agents, again, a non-starter, and a requirement for them to wear body cameras, a thing that Christy Noam says they are already going to be doing.
Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma has been slamming Democrats for their absurd demands.
Obviously, this is a group of people that just don't like President Trump, period, and whatever he's for, they're against, and they're trying to be able to find a way to drive a wedge.
We've got very radical leftist protesters that are literally jumping in the way of law enforcement when they're arresting someone that is a criminal alien, that has had a DOI, that has had a rape, that has had a murder, whatever it may be.
They're jumping in the way and trying to be able to defend them.
That's not where the American people are.
The American people don't like the chaos.
They want to be able to have a national security that they can actually trust on it.
And what Democrats are asking for is a sanctuary country, not just sanctuary cities.
And Republicans are absolutely going to have none of that.
We are not going to just give up enforcement across the country.
Let's do it the right way, do it professional, but actually have enforcement and not just ignore the obvious.
Okay.
Meanwhile, Democrats are stuck because of their own positioning.
They are now stuck in a self-perpetuating spiral of radicalism.
That spiral is being fed by culture and it's being fed by politics.
Celebrity Push and Law Enforcement 00:02:47
So on the cultural side, obviously you have our cultural arbiters that we saw at the Grammys on Sunday, people like the estimable political voice Bad Bunny talking about the evils of ICE.
Caroline Levitt from the White House ripped into the aforementioned Bad Bunny.
I think it's very ironic and frankly sad to see celebrities who live in gated communities with private security, with millions of dollars to spend protecting themselves, trying to just demonize, again, law enforcement public servants who work for the United States government to enforce our nation's laws.
And you didn't hear this same type of uproar from celebrities in Hollywood when the previous administration allowed an invasion of our nation's borders and allowed innocent women and girls like Jocelyn Nungare and Lake and Riley to be killed and raped and murdered at the hands of people who should have never been in our country in the first place.
Now, meanwhile, the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, he picked Bad Bunny to perform at the Super Bowl.
There was talk that Bad Bunny was going to don a gown, which, of course, is just wonderful.
That's what you want your nine-year-old boy watching during halftime is some large dude wearing a dress.
Perfect.
Well, the NFL commissioner said, we told him he's not allowed to be political.
We'll see if he sticks to that.
I think everybody in Morno, listen, Bad Bunny was, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world.
And that's one of the reasons we chose him.
But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that.
And I think artists in the past have done that.
I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he'll have a great performance.
So we will see if that holds true.
But the celebrity push continues apace.
Billie Eilish, you'll remember.
She of the now normal colored hair, actually.
She said at the Grammys that no one is illegal on stolen land.
No one is illegal on stolen land.
Yeah, it's just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now.
Now, apparently, the Tongva tribe has now confirmed that Billie Eilish's home is situated on stolen land on its ancestral hand, and that she has not yet reached out to them regarding her home.
The tribe said, we appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity regarding the recent comments made by Billie Eilish.
Ransom Note Reveals Coordination 00:15:24
As the first people of greater Los Angeles Basin, we do understand that her home is situated on our ancestral land.
Eilish has not contacted our tribe directly regarding her property.
Hmm.
Well, that's unfortunate.
That's quite unfortunate.
It feels to me as though she is selling out.
What a sellout Billie Eilish is.
Unfortunately, these cultural arbiters, they do have an impact on how top Democratic politicians are thinking about this stuff.
So do legacy media, who have decided to go fully radical.
When we talk about the legacy media radical spiral, the feeding frenzy that is everything from Billie Eilish to the New York Times and how that impacts politicians, the New York Times has a big piece out today titled A Winter of Anguish for Minneapolis Children.
I mean, here is my question.
Is it for like all Minneapolis children?
If so, why?
So the idea here is that if you are the child of an illegal immigrant, then it's difficult for you in Minnesota.
Well, it's probably difficult for you all over, particularly if you're the child of a criminal illegal immigrant as opposed to somebody who came across the border.
That was your crime and you haven't committed a crime since.
But according to the New York Times, for weeks, the Minneapolis area has been a landscape of intense turmoil as federal immigration agents face off against furious citizens.
But there's a quieter upheaval taking place behind closed doors as the city's youngest residents attempt to grasp the altering of their neighborhoods, their schools, and their sense of security.
Regardless of what they might understand about the politics embedded in their surroundings, some things are clear.
The adults in their lives are weary and overwhelmed.
Neighbors are scared to leave.
The house bomb threats have been called into schools.
Events have been canceled.
Friends are missing from classrooms and parents have been taken away.
Now, again, the vast majority of children in Minneapolis are not the children of illegal immigrants.
The vast majority of children are not implicated in any of this.
But because of the chaos that has been fomented by government, the Minneapolis government, the Minnesota state government, because of all of that, that is why things are bad for kids.
But the New York Times is proclaiming that enforcing federal immigration law is, in fact, the problem.
And now you have more states that are rising to meet the moment by doing exactly what Minnesota did.
According to the Washington Post, Maryland is poised to bar local law enforcement agencies from formally facilitating federal immigration arrests, joining several other states who have sought to use their local authority to curtail the Trump administration's ramped up enforcement effort.
Eight states have already either prohibited or set restrictions against local police and sheriff's offices entering into 287G partnerships.
That is where they actually just inform ICE if they take into custody an illegal immigrant for a separate crime.
This is being encouraged by the media, by our cultural arbiters.
And people like Tim Walz continue to encourage it.
Here was the governor of Minnesota still maintaining that ICE has to leave Minnesota.
Now, again, Tom Holman said, listen, if you cooperate with us, if you ensure that when you pick up an illegal immigrant for drunk driving, you tell us so we can deport that person, then everything's hunky-dory.
Walls, meanwhile, just continues to posture.
It's been a week since I met with Tom Holman.
Expectations have not changed.
This force must leave Minnesota.
The state of Minnesota and the professionals, nonpartisan judiciary, must do the investigations into the shootings and other abuses of Minnesota's human rights.
And again, Tom Homan has made clear that if, in fact, Minnesota authorities cooperate, then there's no problem.
In fact, the Malugan of Fox News is reporting that Tom Homan has announced that 700 federal agents will be pulled out of Minnesota after he says he's made significant progress with local officials and says there are now an unprecedented number of counties communicating with ICE.
He also makes clear he isn't asking sanctuary jurisdictions to hold criminal aliens in jail longer than they normally would be.
He just wants locals to give ICE a heads up.
So Democrats keep programming into this, though.
Homan is offering them an off-ramp and they are refusing the off-ramp.
You have people like Representative Delia Ramirez from Illinois saying that DHS has to be totally dismantled.
We must have accountability and we must bring justice to every fascist in the administration.
And that includes Chrissy Noome.
That includes Stephen Miller.
And that includes Tom Hooman.
ICE will be abolished.
VHS will be dismantled.
And together we will get it done.
And the radicalism spiral for Democrats here, they may think that this is a short-term victory.
It is not a long-term victory by any stretch of the imagination, but the agitation goes ever on.
Joining us on the line to discuss is Christina Buttons.
She is a City Journal investigative reporter and she has been all over the anti-ICE protests and agitation in Minneapolis.
She has a great piece over at City Journal titled Inside Minneapolis' Ice Watch Network.
Christina, thanks so much for the time.
Thanks so much for having me.
So you've been spending a lot of time digging into the network of people who have been harassing ICE agents.
They say that they're there just to film or to monitor.
Very often it turns into actual obstruction of law enforcement.
What have you been seeing in your investigation?
How coordinated is all of this?
Extremely coordinated and extremely organized.
This is, you know, a group of people who purport the organization to be just like a decentralized, spontaneous community effort.
And I found that, you know, it was actually implemented by a national group that has been working to implement ICE Watch across the U.S. in any area where there's been an ICE presence.
So in your report, you talk a lot about the States at the Core group, which apparently has modeled this sort of agitation and interference strategy.
What is States at the Core and how are they funded?
States at the Core is a national organization, activist organization.
They're funded by the Hopewell Fund, fiscally sponsored by it.
And this is part of the Arabella Advisors Dark Money Progressive Money Network.
They are responsible basically for turning the IceWatch model into a framework that can be kind of a national strategy.
And what exactly is the Ice Watch model that you mentioned?
What are they actually being told to do?
Are they being told to interfere with law enforcement?
What are they doing that's law violative as opposed to simply annoying?
So the original Ice Watch model was the organizers of it were very explicit that their intent was to interfere with ICE operations.
They're a little bit more careful with their language now in Minneapolis, but what they're describing is essentially the same thing.
They want to slow them down and cost them money and make ICE operations inefficient.
And, You know, they describe scenarios where, you know, if the person that they got away, they were questioning that ICE was questioning, if they were able to get away, then that's a success for them.
But there's a lot more going on in these trainings and in the signal networks than they let on.
It's not just about monitoring ICE activity.
I think the trainings in particular, they are pushing people towards very dangerous confrontations.
In them, they're delegitimizing law enforcement.
They're encouraging people to take risks.
They're encouraging non-compliance with ICE.
And I think, you know, that's what we saw with Renee Goode if she was being trained by these people.
And it seems that she was because I identified a signal account that belonged to her within the Defend the 612 signal chat networks.
It's really just, it's no surprise that, you know, she behaved the way she did.
And, you know, what happened?
So, do you have any idea whether the Trump administration, the DOJ, is looking into groups like Defend the 612, which, as you say, is sort of modeled alongside the states of the court strategy?
Are they looking into Arabella advisors for spreading money to groups that, as you say, are spreading violation of law?
I'm not aware of what their investigation entails.
I hope that they are looking into these groups and that my reporting can help give them some leads.
The organizers that sort of set up Defend the 612 in Minneapolis, they have taken considerable steps to conceal their identities and scrub their online presence.
And they aren't really making as many public appearances as they were several weeks ago when I began the investigation.
So it also appears that anti-ICE activist groups, according to Just the News, are receiving over $3 million in funding from Soros-backed charities.
So, again, the assumption that has been made by many on the right that this is not all spontaneous, that a lot of it is organized, that basically you have organizations that are going in search of monsters to slay and law enforcement to obstruct.
It seems from your reporting and other reporting that that is true, which does give the lie to a lot of the media coverage that suggests sort of a spontaneous uprising against ICE.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of chatter.
And I mean, there's across the signal network, there's just thousands of people across hundreds of different groups, and they all have different purposes for different neighborhoods.
And in like the discussion groups, they frequently make comparisons between themselves and resistance movements and comparisons of ICE to being Nazis and how they're resisting the Nazis.
They seem to think of themselves that way.
Well, that is Christina Buttons.
You can go check out all of her work over at City Journal.
This piece is a must-read.
Christina, thanks so much for your time.
Appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having me.
Joining me on the line is Lyndon Blake.
She's a Daily Wire investigative reporter and she has been all over the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, who, of course, is the 84-year-old mother of today's show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.
Lyndon, thanks so much for taking the time.
I appreciate it.
Of course, Ben, this case has been disturbing.
The details are disturbing.
And I feel like everyone can relate to this because if you just sit there and imagine your mother, your grandmother being taken in the middle of the night, someone so vulnerable as 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, I mean, it just sends shivers down your spine.
So for people who have not been following this case, how is it initiated?
What are sort of the background facts of the case?
Okay, so the background facts of the case is sometime between 9:45 Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday, Nancy Guthrie vanished from her home.
Her church friends didn't see her at church on Sunday morning.
They called the family.
The family did a quick search around the house, the property, and then called 911.
So that was Sunday.
Now we're sitting here on Wednesday, day four of the search, and the details continue to pile up.
The latest in this investigation, there were two ransom notes that we know of so far that were sent to news organizations.
One, a local news station in Arizona.
The other news outlet was TMZ.
That's the big story right now is verifying these ransom notes.
The Pima County Sheriff's Office is aware.
They're looking into it.
And I thought this was an interesting report that CBS did late on Tuesday night.
The sheriff's office was aware of the local news station receiving the ransom note Monday night.
They were able to give that to Savannah.
They were able to share that note with the family.
But on Tuesday, during the press conference with Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, he wouldn't give too many details when asked about a ransom note.
At the time, he said, We're looking into all leads.
Well, shortly after that is when TMZ went public with their ransom note.
And in that ransom note, there were details detailing Nancy's home, an outfit that she was wearing, and requesting millions of dollars in Bitcoin.
This, on top of the evidence that reporters have now been able to see with their own eyes at the house, the blood drips on the front porch, the missing security camera on the front door, the ring camera, just to give you an idea of what we're talking about when we say missing camera footage.
This is all making this case even more interesting.
The twists and turns, and time is of the essence, because when Nancy Guthrie first went missing on Sunday, authorities said she needs medication within 24 hours or it could be fatal.
She has cardiac issues.
We know that from the 911 call.
She had a pacemaker.
So these are all circumstances on top of now what we know more about the scene that just leads this case just to be a very, a very shocking, disturbing one.
So you mentioned the ransom notes, obviously.
Does law enforcement have they given any indication that they believe that the ransom notes are real?
Obviously, if there are details in there that lends credibility to the ransom notes, that it's not just some rando who's picking up on the story to try and grift some money out of the Guthrie family.
Yeah, so the law enforcement says they are taking this seriously.
This is after 24 hours or so being aware of the notes.
They haven't said that this is authentic or that this is verified.
This is a person that has Nancy Guthrie.
They haven't gone that far.
But the sheriff said this was a threatening note.
The family needed to know.
They're not giving every single lead to the family, every single tip to the family, but this was one that was given to them because it was a threat and they needed to know about that because it was a note to the family.
So that's where we stand with the ransom notes.
Another thing that has been brought up because of the press conference on Tuesday was the withholding of information.
And I want to give some context to that as we're sitting here on day four of this search and you're wondering why don't we know more about the scene?
Why don't we have camera footage?
Why don't we have a better description of what Nancy could have been wearing?
All this stuff is being kept close to authorities' chest, in my opinion, because they have information.
They know more than that they're letting on.
They have information that they want to match to a person of interest, to a suspect.
And anything that they tell the public, think about this.
If they say there was something at the crime scene that only a suspect or someone that was with the suspect would know, that hurts the investigation when they're trying to get this person when they're trying to use evidence to frame that person.
So that's being withheld.
The camera footage, there was an issue with it.
Is it on a cloud?
Is it on a server?
Has the footage already been deleted by the time that authorities got a hold of it?
It's being sorted out with the companies that are in charge of this camera, the companies that manufacture the camera.
And that footage is being withheld, in my opinion, because there's something clearly that they see on the video that again could match someone with this case, someone that took Nancy, and they're having to hold that back.
So, in these situations, when it turns from a missing person into more of a crime scene investigation, you're looking at stuff.
Shocking Suspect Rumors 00:04:12
The public can't know everything, even though we want to know so much more because this is a public figure.
It's Savannah Guthrie, who is in millions of people's homes every morning.
And it's her mother that has been on TV, that she talks about, that she loves.
So, everyone wants a happy ending to the story.
But there's something in these criminal cases that just can't be revealed yet.
So, Lyndon, there have been a lot of rumors that possibly more than one person was involved.
I know the New York Post had a report from a so-called expert suggesting that a group was involved in the kidnapping.
Have you heard any indications about that?
Authorities will not say if this was a group, if this is a person, they won't say this is targeted.
They won't say if this is random.
Things have been really limited.
And I think that's the frustrating part.
And I don't mean this in a necessarily negative way, but the press conference by Pima County Sheriff on Tuesday morning was a little chaotic.
Chaotic, meaning they didn't open up with a statement at all.
They opened it up directly to questions, and the questions are being fired at the sheriff just left and right.
And he didn't have answers.
And when he was asked, targeted, random, no clue.
Was there one person or was there a group of people?
I can't tell you.
Can you give us a timeframe of when you think Nancy may have been taken?
The pacemaker disconnecting from the Apple Watch around 2 a.m. was brought up, and the sheriff was like, Can't tell you that.
What I found most interesting, though, too, was that the crime scene has been cleared and it was cleared, according to reporters, as early as Monday night.
An Amazon delivery driver was able to drop off a package on the front porch of Nancy Guthrie's steps that had blood splattered on it Monday night.
And that's interesting, too.
Either they worked around the clock, they were able to get every piece of evidence that they know from that crime scene to feel comfortable to shut it down, or something doesn't make sense there.
Because normally, as you know, it takes days to process.
You don't necessarily clear an active crime scene.
And yes, we're calling it a crime scene because that's what the sheriff called it almost immediately.
But it's clear now that the house has been turned back over to the family.
So, Lyndon, there's some breaking quasi news this morning.
Apparently, news vision reporter Ashley Banfield had suggested that there might be some rumors of familial insider suspects in this particular case.
What are those rumors?
What are we hearing?
Yeah, Ben, this is just in.
She cites that a law enforcement officer that has great knowledge of this case told her that Savannah's sister, Annie Guthrie, her husband, Tommaso Sioni, may be the prime suspect in this case.
That Annie's car has been towed.
It is now in evidence.
And this is huge news because Tommaso, Nancy Guthrie's son-in-law, obviously.
And we have known that Annie was the last person to see Nancy before she went missing.
The sheriff said that Annie and Nancy were out to dinner on Saturday night, and she is the one that took Nancy back to her home before she went missing.
And Ashley Banfield, when she reported this, she did say, you know, I'm going to tone this down a little bit and let everybody know that family is looked at first in these cases.
You're going to look at the people that are closest.
So in this case, Nancy's immediate family.
You're going to question them.
It is interesting, though, that Annie's car has been towed into evidence to be looked at further.
And again, you're going to start with the family, then you're going to work your way out to who has familiarity with the house, who maybe has worked on the house recently.
But this shocking news about Savannah Guthrie's brother-in-law now being looked at as the prime suspect is something that we'll continue to follow throughout the day.
Lyndon, really appreciate your time.
And obviously, you say we're going to be able to follow it throughout the day.
Where should people tune in for that?
Yeah, we're going to have some updates on Daily Wire's platforms.
We're going to have a podcast that's going to go in depth in this case.
And again, you can look out at Daily Wire's social media platforms as well as my own at Lyndon Blake for updates.
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Prime Suspect Update 00:01:48
What was it like, Merlin?
To be alone with God.
Is that who you think I was alone with?
Maradin, I knew your father.
I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.
All men know of the great Talies.
You are my father.
Are the gods of war for my soul?
Princess Garris, savior of our people.
I know what the bull got offered you.
I was offered the same.
And there is a new pirate work in the world.
I've seen it.
A god who sacrifices what he loves for us.
We are each given only one life, Singer.
No.
We're given another.
I learned of Yezu the Christ, and I have become his follower.
He's waiting on a mirror, and I think you can give him one.
Trust in Yezu.
He is the only hope for men like us.
Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the Great Light.
Great Light.
Great darkness.
Such things mattered to me then.
What matters to you now, Mistress of Lies?
You, nephew.
The sword of the High King.
How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?
So clinging to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.
I cannot take up that sword again.
You know what you must do.
Great Light, forgive me.
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