Daily Wire Backstage: Russian Coups, Hunter Pleas … Ben and Nicki Minaj Tweet.
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Hey, Michael Knowles here.
The latest episode of Daily Wire Backstage is available now.
Join me and a star-studded Daily Wire cast as we discuss the most important news of the day, the cultural insanity spreading across the country, and take live questions from the viewers, all while enjoying a wonderful cigar.
Take a listen.
Welcome to Daily Wire Backstage, brought to you by ExpressVPN.
I am not Jeremy Boring.
I am Michael Knowles.
Jeremy was otherwise occupied this evening in all the amazing and multiplied projects that we're doing right now.
I am joined tonight I am joined by nobody.
Nobody else has made it to the set.
So it's me, and we... Oh, hey!
All right, there we go.
Joined by Ben Shapiro.
Thank you, sir.
How are you?
Good to see you.
Yeah, so I asked someone else to be here tonight, actually.
There's a conversation I've been waiting for a long time to have with you, but every time I want to have this conversation... About 2024 or... Yeah, no.
I'm waiting for like almost 10 years.
Oh.
To be frank.
To have this conversation.
But every time I start to have this conversation, Jeremy walks in and just kills it dead.
Is he coming?
Is he?
No.
No, he's not.
Actually, I was going to have Chris from HR step in.
I don't know if I know Chris.
For a second.
Does he have thoughts on stopping by?
He has thoughts on like Russia.
Yeah, Chris.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Michael, great to see you.
How you doing?
Hey, yeah.
Great.
Yeah, it's mostly to prevent me from creating liability for the company that asked Chris to be here.
There are certain things I'm not allowed to say, like that you should die in a car fire, apparently.
I was told by HR that I'm not allowed to say that.
But anyway, I felt like now was a great opportunity for a job performance review.
Oh, good.
We should have been having these annually.
Yeah, I agree.
Totally.
Again, Jeremy kept stepping in and not allowing that to happen.
So now we're going to do that, actually.
Yeah.
Because he's not here.
So let's... You want to talk about, like... So we're going to go all the way back to, like, 2015, 2016, right?
My best-selling blank book.
We'll get to that.
So, when you started at the company, you were originally hired with some job descriptions and duties, including, for example, being in charge of social media.
Oh, yeah.
And you proceeded to never post anything on social media, but you did take a lot of audition calls in the office.
And sometimes out of the office.
That's right.
You didn't get any movies out of them, by the way, but you were an unemployable person, so we apparently just kept paying you.
Yeah, but don't forget, there was a span of like three or four weeks when I didn't show up to the office.
Because I was shooting, I was filming a project right before that election, remember?
And it never really saw the light of day, did it?
You didn't watch the movie?
Did it?
Was there a movie?
Yeah, not for Daily Wire.
It didn't make any money for Daily Wire.
Yeah, or ever.
Yeah, wait.
In any case, so, you know, at that point we probably should have called HRN, but again, Jeremy kept stepping in, you know, and telling me I couldn't have this conversation, but he's not here tonight.
So, then you, then we decided, I mean Jeremy, decided to give you a podcast, I guess because I actually was looking up your credentials for the show, and you went to Yale, and Those were your credentials.
There was nothing else.
I could not find any other productive thing that you had done in your entire life.
But as I mentioned, I was the number one national best-selling author.
Yeah, then as I recall, you somehow scammed me into giving a blurb to a blank book.
And I did that.
And then you proceeded to not only make several hundred thousand dollars off of that blank book, I then proceeded to get you a book contract for that same exact blank book that had already sold several hundred thousand copies.
Again, because my blurb was on it.
And at that point, I wanted to have this conversation.
As HR can attest, it's in the file.
And still, Jeremy stepped in and stopped it.
So, over the course of the last eight to ten years, I would say that you've probably cost the company Couple million dollars, maybe three.
Wait, that's all?
The return on investment has been, shall we say, disappointing.
And between that and the fact that you, we've had complaints, many complaints, almost too many to count, the file cabinet is breaking, about you walking around shirtless in the office.
Yeah, you're welcome by the way.
We have actual dressing rooms where you could put a shirt on.
So tonight is the night I have been waiting for nearly all of my professional life.
And so, Chris, you have the paperwork with you, I believe.
I do.
It's really less of a performance review and more of an exit interview.
What was it like working here, Michael?
And what do you see as the biggest problems with the company?
So I guess the only problem that I would see right now is If I leave the show, then you're the only guy doing the show, right?
How long, guys, how long is this show?
90 minutes.
Do we have any advertisers?
A few.
They're paying us money?
Probably a lot.
So there's money?
So I lose money if Michael, for the first time ever, Michael being fired would lose me money, is what you're saying, right now?
Chris, can we do this a little later?
I'll come back in two hours.
I appreciate that.
Thanks, guys.
Listen, man, I'll take what I can get.
In the long run, we're all dead.
Thanks for stopping by, guys.
I appreciate it.
I'll see you in a little bit.
So, how are you?
I'm good.
I'm good.
Anything to talk about?
Well, yeah.
No, actually, I did... Sorry, my mind kind of...
I had a few different thoughts there.
So the Wagner Group, you know those guys.
I was thinking about the coup d'etat.
Actually, I do want to get to the Wagner Group, but I legitimately, so we should say for some people, the reason Jeremy wasn't here to protect my employment is because he's working on a hundred different projects right now.
We've got Mr. Walsh is out.
He might be on his way.
He might not be on his way.
Drew is still alive.
Drew is alive.
I did have to ask about that.
I'm glad to know that.
Yeah, no, I was told that Drew is actually at some sort of event starring Drew, and my initial response was that it was a funeral.
It was a starring role.
Right, I figured who's in the coffin, but apparently that's not the case.
But everyone, seriously, everyone is doing all these different things right now.
And so we can't all meet up to talk about the most important story, which is something about Hunter Biden with drugs and like a payoff and like, I don't know.
That's true.
That dude loves hookers and Coke and Parmesan cheese and not paying his taxes and paying off his father, apparently.
But the thing, so they went after him.
Right.
They go after Hunter and they say, OK, we've got all this information.
We have hundreds of hours of videos of you committing all sorts of crimes all over the world.
And so as a result of that, we're going to hit you with two misdemeanor tax crimes and sort of a gun charge.
And a diversion.
And a diversion with a gun charge.
I like that it's called a diversion.
First of all, it's called the diversion, which sounds delightful.
I mean, I'd like just in my normal life to have a diversion.
So yes, Hunter Biden, we have him on tape cavorting with prostitutes and paying them to cross state lines to engage in said prostitution.
Apparently he was paying a secretary on the West Coast.
And as we all know, secretary on the West Coast means a whore.
So he was paying a prostitute.
You're going to go after me for my shirtless changing room.
We're going to get hit, Michael, at any point where you're a secretary on the West Coast.
Yeah, so apparently the whistleblower has basically, the whistleblowers have a couple of things to say.
Thing number one is that they are saying that the Attorney General basically stepped in and stopped the prosecutor in this case from charging in a couple of different jurisdictions.
And there's pretty good support for that.
Apparently, there was a meeting October 7, 2022, in which this particular prosecutor was told by Merrick Garland that he was not allowed to prosecute whatever he wanted.
And he then told all of his lower downs.
And one of those lower downs, a guy named Shapley, who works for the IRS, that he was not able to prosecute whatever he wanted.
So it looks like a cover-up by the Biden DOJ, which would not be surprising in any way.
Of course.
That was problem number one.
And then there is that text message, which is insane.
For those who have not been watching, there's a text message.
It's a WhatsApp message.
He says, I'm sitting next to my father.
He's writing, he's calling.
I'm doing the crime.
I'm doing the crime, member of the Chinese Communist Party.
Send me the money.
Just in case you missed it, I'm sitting next to my father.
So I have a question.
Why is everyone in politics absolutely stupid?
Were they all dropped on their heads as babies?
They're accused of crimes and then there are actual tapes and texts of them doing the crime.
Like, they're violating the first rule of doing crime, which is don't get caught doing crime.
But he's going to get away with it.
Because the only... Look, the hookers and the drugs and the whatever, it's all... I mean, first of all, it sounds like an amazing Saturday night, but beyond that... Yeah, the guy knows how to have a party.
But the only crime I actually care about, the only crime that really matters to the public interest as a matter of national corruption is the shakedown, selling American influence to the highest bidder all around the world.
It looks like you got the Bidens dead to rights.
It looks like it implicates Joe and nothing.
Nothing.
No, no one will even ask the questions.
So in the media, they started to ask questions of the White House press secretary, the world's most talented White House press secretary and historic White House press secretary, who is historic because she's a black lesbian.
And she is and she said that she's historic, by the way.
And they asked her multiple times about this.
She's like, I'm not going to comment on that.
So you'll come on and literally everything else.
But this is the one thing where you won't comment on it.
I mean, Joe is lying.
Right.
So first, I liked the lawyerly sort of Massaging of the response.
So it went from the original statement by Hunter Biden's team and Joe Biden's team was, Joe does not know anything about Hunter's businesses, which was always implausible.
He was riding on Air Force Two to China to pick up business.
And also, Joe and Hunter were in regular contact.
It's not like they're estranged.
I mean, they were talking the whole time.
And then it shifted to, the president was not in business with Hunter.
That is very lawyerly language.
I mean, technically, I'm not sure that you and I are personally in business, right?
Like, I own a part of the company that employs you, but I'm not sure that you and I are technically in business.
I've not signed a contract with you at any point.
And I never gave you a cut of the Chai Com money that I've been getting from overseas.
Yet.
Unless you... I don't... We're not supposed to say that on camera?
Can we get Chris back in here?
Can we?
Hold on.
Yeah.
No, of course.
They use very, very specific language here.
And I don't know.
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You know, one of these secrets that we've been finding out, these secrets allegedly, and you're hearing all these congressmen and senators talk about it, is that they think that they believe in aliens and UFOs, and I'm so happy that Matt is not here right now, because I don't want to hear his stupid nonsense about how the aliens and the UFOs are going to come down from outer space and kill us all, so we can have an adult conversation about this this evening.
We agree on this.
It's going to be a real short conversation.
Thank goodness.
I do not.
Sick of it.
I do not care about it.
I want to take advantage of every second that I have of Matt Walsh not being in this room, because he keeps peddling it.
Rubio was talking about this today.
Did you see it?
Really?
Yes.
Rubio was, and he said, oh, I don't know.
So what was Rubio's take on it?
Rubio said, I've heard from senior people in the government who I respect, who are admirable, who say that they can't really explain this, and it's technology that's beyond our capabilities.
But between that and him kind of Crapping on capitalism recently.
I'm having some... I like Marco.
He's a very nice man, and he's a good senator, and he needs to stop that.
Stop with the UFOs, guys.
Find something better to do.
It's totally fake.
It's demon, right?
You and your demons.
It's demons!
Stop with your demonology!
You don't think it's demons?
I don't believe in demons.
Really?
Do Jews not believe in demons?
Ah, it's a controversial proposition.
It depends on your definition of demon.
It depends on your definition of Jew.
Wait a second.
If you're talking in sort of the, like, technical, there are spirits that wander the earth doing evil to people demon way.
Yeah.
No.
Hm.
No.
Like, like.
All right.
Hey.
Anyway, we were talking, we were just talking about Hunter Biden.
Is there a balance that he's doing right now?
Just tell me to walk in, I got no context.
No, that's fine.
We were just talking about Hunter Biden.
Yeah, we weren't going to talk about aliens or UFOs or anything.
Well, I haven't been following the news, so that's the only thing I can talk about.
Rubio's like half on your side.
I hate it.
Senator Rubio.
Oh, on the UFOs.
On the UFO thing?
Yeah, apparently he likes UFOs also.
Are we going to talk about that right now?
No.
Anyway, so back to Hunter Biden.
Yeah, so back to Hunter.
Okay, bottom line is that Hunter Biden is... Joe is pretty obviously corrupt.
No one's going to ask a single question about it.
It'll all go away tomorrow.
And Joe is so blasé about this that he's openly joking about it.
There was a video of him today being like, I stole... He was selling state secrets.
He literally joked openly about selling state secrets.
And everybody's just going to move along with this.
It'd be great if we had a presidential candidate who could meticulously target the problems that Joe Biden presents.
That would be awesome.
Hey.
So, you know, I know we can't do horse race this early.
But should we do horse race?
Is your favorite candidate going to be the nominee, Donald John Trump?
Is he going to be the nominee?
I mean, if I had to give odds, the answer is yes.
I mean, I'd give him like 65, 35 odds right now.
Trump, Kennedy, 24?
Sweet.
Wait, you're not... Baby gang.
Are you into Bobby Jr.? ?
Uh, into him?
Yeah.
I mean, as a, if I had to choose a Democrat.
Like he's a really ripped hot guy, you know?
Like, are you?
I don't really get the, if I had to choose a, if I had a gun to my head and had to choose a Democrat, I would choose him, but that's not saying much.
So.
But could he, so here's my argument for, for Trump.
He's making a good argument for, for testosterone replacement therapy.
I'll be honest.
Allegedly, reportedly, allegedly.
Dude, he did like eight pushups and then picked up a, and then did like an inclined bench press with 45 pounds on it.
Yeah.
You don't get to look like that naturally doing 45-pound bench presses and doing eight push-ups.
I'm just telling you, I work out an hour to an hour and a half a day and I don't look anything like that, man.
There's some unnatural things happening.
So you know why the Trump-Kennedy thing, though?
Look, I'm not saying I'm advocating for it, but Trump's biggest weakness is on the COVID vax and the way he handled it.
Is that his biggest weakness?
I think so.
Of all the weaknesses, it really is the COVID.
I think, certainly with the Republican Party.
Or is it the possible imprisonment?
No, that's not a problem.
Because he could be elected from prison.
He could be elected and pardon himself, and then he's good.
First of all, if I'm rooting for drama, that would be an amazing way for Season 7 of Trump to end.
Totally.
That he's actually being sworn in, in federal prison, and then he just pardons himself.
Yeah.
You're like, put your hand on the Bible, he pardons himself, and like, bring me the pardon documents.
Yes.
Like, bring them to me.
And as our friend Alan Estrin has pointed out, as Jeremy has pointed out, The narrative demands the most wild, crazy, exciting conclusion, and that would be that.
Matt, you're more pro-DeSantis?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, certainly.
Well, when it comes to the primary, I think...
There are a lot of reasons why I prefer DeSantis over Trump, but when it comes to the primary, I'm kind of a single-issue voter, which is, can you win in the general election?
Because nothing else matters.
So even if I agreed that Trump would be a better executive than DeSantis, which I don't, The bigger issue is I just don't see his strategy for winning, and I've asked Trump supporters this for months, and it's not accusatory.
I'm saying, how does he win?
What's the plan?
How does he actually win the White House?
Because if he can't win the White House, nothing else matters.
Here's how he wins.
Look, I'm fairly pessimistic on the whole electoral shots for Republicans, period, and for Trump, too.
Biden's negatives are way higher than they were in 2020.
Country's in a different place.
The base, I think, is more fired up for Trump.
You look at some of those, again, I think the national polls this early are pretty silly, but some of them have Trump up over Biden.
A lot of them have Trump up over DeSantis.
Now, you might say, well, okay, the polls are bogus, or it doesn't matter because you're only talking about... Is there a poll that has Trump beating a generic, doing better than a generic Republican over Biden?
Yeah.
Generic Republican or DeSantis?
Who's the number two guy?
Generic Republican, first of all.
No, I haven't seen that poll.
Yeah, I mean, versus DeSantis, one of the things you have to take into account is lack of public knowledge for DeSantis, as opposed to universal knowledge of Trump.
But the bigger issue, as you mentioned, is that basically this election comes down to like five states, right?
I mean, it comes down to Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, maybe Arizona and Georgia.
But if you lose either Arizona and Georgia, you lost the election.
It's already over.
So if it really comes down to three, right, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Trump is trailing in all three of those states by every poll that I've seen.
I don't see him winning any of those.
So how does he win?
Well, his past... He magics them.
Yeah, no, look, I think it's very hard.
I mean, I think the Democrats rigged the system in 2020.
I'm not saying that Hugo Chavez, you know, went in and poked numbers or anything.
We're just saying... You shouldn't because that would create legal liability for us.
Yes, it's true.
It turns out it's not true.
It'll be Tucker and Michael on Twitter.
I'm not saying it has to be that, but they changed all the rules and they changed the rules in a way that benefited Democrats in the case of Pennsylvania in a way that violated the state constitution.
And it's easy enough to say, well, Republicans just need to ballot harvest.
But it's very hard for Republicans to ballot harvest when our voters are all over the country and their voters are all in these machine cities where you can drive around for two hours and get all your ballots.
It's not that hard.
Ron DeSantis did it in Florida.
He ballot harvested the living bleep out of the last election cycle.
DeSantis also benefited though from a million new conservatives moving into the state.
So I know Governor DeSantis fairly well at this point, since he's the governor of my state.
And he is meticulous in this sort of stuff.
He and Trump are almost polar opposites in terms of personality.
Trump does not care about policy.
DeSantis cares deeply about policy.
Trump is not a policy wonk.
He has instincts.
DeSantis is a policy wonk who really digs into this stuff.
And when it comes to being meticulous about how he pursues his political aims, DeSantis is really, really good at that.
And so, for example, back in 2018, he writes about this in his memoir.
Everybody who was watching that race like this said nail biter with Gilliam.
Yeah.
Remember, he ended up winning by like 0.4%.
And DeSantis said, and he's told me this himself, he said, we knew within the first hour of the election that they'd won.
Because they could see the numbers breaking, and they knew in each individual county the numbers that they had to hit.
And they were hitting those numbers, and they're like, this election's over.
And there's no way that that's working.
I mean, there was an interview with Trump where he was literally asked, I think it was by Seb Gorka, about ballot harvesting.
And he starts off saying, yeah, we'll do the ballot harvesting.
And then at the very end, he's like, we don't even need the ballot harvesting.
We're just going to win.
And it's like, that's not a strategy.
I mean, so far, his campaign has consisted largely of just shouting things on Truth Social.
And I suppose that's working for him because, again, we're very, very early on.
But, you know, he's also avoiding debates.
He hasn't really taken a punch yet.
But his numbers keep improving.
I mean, how do you make sense of that?
Because he's the center of the narrative.
He's the center of the narrative.
Here's the reality.
No one wants to talk about Biden.
Trump is innately interesting to talk about.
He's just a way more interesting person than Joe Biden.
And by the way, I can tell this from my own data.
If I put Joe Biden in a thumbnail on YouTube, Ratings death.
Ratings death.
No one wants to talk about Joe Biden.
He's incredibly boring.
We've actually done him a favor by talking about how he is no longer capable of forming human sentences from his face hole.
That's actually a favor to him because it makes him even more boring.
And so when he does something that's truly terrible, we're like, you mean the genial old man who can't speak words from his face hole?
And so, but Trump is magnetic.
He's really interesting to talk about because he has no limits.
I mean, he literally, we're making fun of Hunter Biden for, you know, saying that he was doing the crimes.
Donald Trump said that he did crimes.
I mean, you shouldn't do that.
Yeah, kind of.
No, not kind of.
I don't buy it.
Okay, so two things can be true at once.
One, he should not be prosecuted for this because Hillary wasn't.
Yeah.
Two, he said he did the crimes.
I'm sorry he did.
So they have some audio tape that they're playing.
Some audio tape.
It's some audio tape.
Look, this beautiful audio tape.
But they have it on CNN, and it's him saying, look, these are classified documents, and I could have declassified them when I was president, but, you know, I can't do it now or something, right?
Yes.
Yeah, okay.
Which is the crime.
Yeah.
The literal crime.
The crime is you are keeping classified documents that you could not declassify and you did not turn those back into the National Archives.
That's the crime.
But what if he turns to the, I'll call it the Jordan Walker Project Veritas excuse and say, bro, I was literally lying.
I did declassify them.
The very fact that the president can declassify on a whim without answering to anybody.
Why in the world would he say that to somebody?
That's like the worst defense in the entire world.
That's like me telling you I murdered my wife after my wife was dead.
And then later I was like, I was lying to you and I said I murdered my wife.
I actually didn't murder my wife just to look cool.
I told you I murdered my wife.
The reason he would say that is to avoid prosecution for this particular crime.
But also you're saying, why did Donald Trump say something outlandish?
I mean, we could go back.
Yeah, but it's not, no, the thing, no, I'm saying that he has no defense to the thing that he said that's outlandish.
And then he went on Brett Barron, who's like, they were newspapers I was talking about, and then in the tape he's like, these are not newspapers.
Yeah, I, no, I, look, I'm sorry, I'm obviously.
Again, he shouldn't be prosecuted because there's a double standard and Hillary should not, should have been prosecuted, okay?
But here's the thing that I really dislike about the common, the common discourse.
Here's the discourse.
And what about Bill Clinton when he stole the tapes and shoved them inside?
Okay, so that is it.
Okay, the sock drawer defense is garbage, okay?
Why is it garbage?
The reason that it's garbage is because the Presidential Records Act only applies to presidential records.
Records made by the President of the United States in pursuit of his job.
It does not apply to classified documents handed to the President from a different agency.
These are called agency records.
These are defined in law.
The Clinton software defense that Tom Fenton has tried out, I know Tom, really nice guy, he's just wrong.
It's not true.
So, again, I'll go back to my original point.
Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted.
If Hillary Clinton had been prosecuted in 2016, by the way, then for America, it's kind of happily ever after.
Really, because, number one, we would have now realized that, oh, people actually get prosecuted for this particular crime, and then presumably Trump wouldn't have gone and committed the crime.
Literally, in the tape, he says, these are exactly the type of documents that Hillary Clinton sent to Anthony Weiner.
He says that in the tape.
Like, what are you doing?
But you know what would have happened.
Here's my question about this.
Forget about the prosecution.
Forget about him going to jail.
Maybe he gets off because he's in Fort Pierce.
Fort Pierce, thank God, very conservative area.
Maybe he gets a jury nullification.
Yeah, but he did in Jersey, too.
Right.
I mean, they could bring charges in Jersey.
They haven't yet.
They haven't yet.
Right, so right now we're just talking about Fort Pierce.
So let's say that that happens.
Fine.
I have a question just for Republican voters.
He knows he has the world's biggest target on his back.
This is the case he's been making since 2015, right?
They're out to get me, they want me, they're out to get me.
Yeah.
Let's say that you knew that everyone in the world was out to get you.
Would you then go commit the world's stupidest crime and then admit on tape to doing the world's stupidest crime?
Or would you be uber careful about not doing that just to not take yourself off the board?
Look, I'm not... I've said a thousand times, I overpay my taxes when Democrats are in office.
Of course.
Okay?
Because I don't want these people breathing down my neck.
I would much rather overpay... I do when Republicans are in office too.
I'd rather overpay my taxes and never have to deal with the IRS.
Yeah.
Specifically because of that.
He makes it easy on them.
Exactly.
That's one of the... The number one mark against Trump for me At least when you look at what actually happened when he was in office.
And it's not the Vax, that's a problem too, but it's the drain the swamp.
You know, you go in promising to drain the swamp, and it just didn't happen.
Period.
It didn't happen.
I mean, infamously Fauci not only stayed in his position, but was awarded a medal on the way out.
And part of the reason he didn't drain the swamp, I think, is that he doesn't really understand the swamp.
You have to understand who these people are that you're up against.
Now it's the same thing on the other end, where Trump's enemies don't really understand him either.
They're trying to make him out to be Hitler or some kind of fascist dictator.
So you got two people going at each other that don't understand each other.
But this is Trump's problems.
He doesn't understand his enemies.
I think DeSantis does understand his enemies much better than Trump.
But I would still, not to take the conversation backwards, but even though I prefer DeSantis, if I could be convinced Because I think another Biden presidency is a disaster for America.
An even bigger disaster than the first presidency was.
If I could be convinced that Trump really did have a better chance of beating Biden than DeSantis would, then I would support Trump.
I agree with you.
I would, because we cannot have an 82-year-old Biden taking office in 2024.
We don't even know.
What does that look like?
Do you think there's a dark horse?
We're all talking Trump-DeSantis.
Do you think there's a dark horse that could emerge?
I mean, possibly, if DeSantis really started to collapse in the polls.
Who would be the dark horse?
I've heard Glenn Youngkin's name.
Brian Kemp.
Brian Kemp from Georgia.
Chris Christie.
Hey, shut up with Chris Christie.
You and Chris Christie.
You and your New Jersey... Is that ironic on your part?
You're saying, is it a bit, or am I serious about it?
Yeah, is it a bit, or are you serious?
I'm asking myself that every day.
He started out as a little bit... No, no, I'm not advocating.
Round, mound, or rebound?
The guy went from 1% to like 6%.
Okay, come on.
That's nuts.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
It's the croissants.
It's the croissants that we're waiting for.
Croissants?
The guy's running third in New Hampshire.
He loves the croissants, that's true.
You were supposed to be describing Trump's path to victory.
We haven't done that yet.
I'm legitimately interested to hear.
I'm telling you, I think that probably it's going to be very difficult for any Republican to win.
Okay, but you have to grade them.
You have to grade them.
Is it easier for Trump to win or easier for DeSantis to win?
I don't know.
Don't give me the I don't know.
I don't know.
Neither do I. No one knows.
Here's the problem.
Look, I really like Ron DeSantis.
I think he's a terrific governor and he's a very strong candidate.
The problem for Ron DeSantis is that he's running in the Trump lane and his positions are Trump positions.
His entire campaign pitch is, I'm going to do all the stuff that Trump said he was going to do but was not able to do.
That's a valid point.
And let's say that that's true.
People tend to, when given an option between the original and New Coke, original Coke Classic and New Coke, they'll go for the original.
They'll go for the OG.
And he broke the mold, in a way, on certain policy positions, especially with trade and immigration and foreign wars.
He broke the Republican mold.
He's kind of a weirdo candidate.
He inspired people to vote who hadn't voted before, even if you might say, well, that's not going to take him over the finish line in 2024.
I just think He is, I don't disagree with you, the real question about Trump as a viable candidate inside the Republican Party, because no matter what I say, people are going to vote how they're going to vote, but the real question I have inside the Republican Party and what dynamic could change would be that Trump, and it's happened a couple times in the race so far already and I think it could happen again, is that he actually gets boring again.
Whatever.
He's exciting and he's at the center of the news.
Yeah.
Then people just immediately resonate to him, mainly in opposition to the left, because they feel like if the left is attacking him, then there must be something good there, which is an understandable if reactionary response.
If he gets boring again, then things could get bad for him.
So like every time you think it's getting boring for him and he starts to drop in the polls, a new exciting thing happens.
Like he gets indicted in Florida or something.
So the thing is, I think that that's likely I think that he'll get boring, and then he'll get indicted in Georgia for election interference.
He'll just keep getting these kind of narcotic boosts, like cocaine hits, of, oh my gosh, they're attacking Trump again, this is crazy, we need to rush to his defense.
Now, the thing that could happen that could hurt him, theoretically, is if you get in a debate, but he's actually being a coward about this.
Why would he get into a debate when he's 30 points up?
Because when you are in an open primary, where you are not the incumbent president, you debate the people.
But he kind of... The thing that's weird about this race is... Politically, the smartest thing is to not debate.
I agree.
But he kind of is the incumbent, right?
I mean, that's what's weird about this race, is he's not the incumbent.
Obviously, Biden's the president.
But we haven't been in the situation where you had a one-term president who runs again later.
And I know a lot of people are looking for a fresh face.
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Today.
Now, I want a little bit of a hard pivot here.
We're talking about... Oh, hello, my dear!
Hello!
We're joined by the marvelous Brett Cooper.
Listen.
We're talking about stupid nonsense, like who's, you know, are we going to be able to save the republic?
Are we going to be able to... Oh, that's not as fun as what I talk about on my show.
I want to talk about, and I actually want your take on this.
Yes.
Did you get into a thing with Nicki Minaj?
That is a thing that happened in my life.
I know nothing about this.
I haven't followed.
I always try to update Nicki's social media feeds.
I know you're big in that.
I'm a big Minaj head.
But what happened?
What happened with you?
No, Michael, it's not a Minaj head.
You're a Barb.
If you are a Nicki Minaj fan, you're a Barb.
Is she from the new Barbie movie?
No, you're just a Barb.
I actually don't know where it comes from.
She has a song in the new Barbie movie, right?
Yes, because a lot of people were commenting under your post saying, oh, can you promote this for the Barbie movie?
And people were saying, Ben Shapiro is an undercover Barb, which means that you're an undercover Nicki Minaj fan.
Do you know what you call a group of three Nicki Minaj fans?
A menage a trois.
Good night, everybody.
I hope you enjoyed Daily Wire backstage.
So, hold on.
You're an undercover Barb?
I don't even know what to say to that accusation.
Anyway, this all came about because there is a song, a great emblem of Western civilization, a piece of art so reminiscent of the great Gothic cathedrals of the 12th and 13th centuries.
It really just inspires you like a Beethoven symphony.
It is called Poundtown.
A town in which much pounding goes on.
And also, there is a second version of this song.
It is called Pound Town 2.
How does it go?
The Revenge of Pound.
I haven't heard it.
How does it go?
How does it go?
Well, first, I have to introduce you to the artist.
Her name is Sexy Yee Yee Red.
I say it's that because she has two Ys at the end of sexy, for no reason other than apparently no one in the rap industry can spell.
And also, I assume, as always, that this was her given name.
And she came out of her mother, and her mother said, behold, I shall call thee Sexy Yee Yee Red.
I think we have the music video.
Do we really?
Well, I'd like to introduce you all.
There's a toilet in the background.
My coochie pink, my booty ho brown Oh, come on.
This isn't real.
Are you a real fan?
There's a toilet in the background.
Why did you bleep this but not the first thing said in the song?
Why did the bleep come...
Selective bleeping.
Why did it have to be about the colors of her orifices?
So, I did a Deconstructing the Culture segment on this song, and as I say, this one is not the one that stars Nicki Minaj.
There's a Poundtown 2, The Revenge of Pound.
Poundtown 2, more pounding.
Electric boogaloo.
Poundtown 2, electric boogaloo.
That was it.
Poundtown 2, two pounds two harder.
Well, we just heard Poundtown 2.
No, I think that was one.
No, that was one.
That was one.
Okay.
So Poundtown 2 has Nicki Minaj in it.
She was like, this is such an inspiring song, I must take part in a remix titled Poundtown 2.
And so I pointed that out while I was critiquing this masterpiece of Western civilization and the apex of our entire creative output since the dawn of time.
And Nicki Minaj got mad at me.
And so she then tweeted, and I read to you directly.
Quote, Roman said, leave his ass out of it, sir.
No pun intended.
Who's Roman?
This is an excellent question.
At first I thought perhaps she's speaking of the emperors of old.
Perhaps this is a reference to, say, Claudius, Nero, perhaps Augustus.
That was my assumption.
And it was not, as it turns out.
So Roman is apparently, she plays many roles as Nicki Minaj.
And one of the personalities she inhabits is apparently called Roman, a homosexual man.
I know.
This required me to translate this because I don't speak stupid people.
So it said, Roman said, leave his ass out of it, sir.
No pun intended.
I didn't know that there was a pun that was actually in it.
And then I didn't know who Roman was.
So it took me like a, you know, I can knock out like a solid econ book in like three hours.
This one took me at least six hours to figure out what this meant.
And then I tweeted back at her because she said that Roman should leave his ass out of it.
Not possible, Nicki Minaj, since you apparently have never recorded a song that left your ass out of it.
Which is accurate.
She literally has not recorded a song ever that left her own ass out of it.
So it's not possible for me to leave her ass out of it because her ass was in it.
To which she responded in classic Barb fashion.
Next time, I'll be sure to add my D, that is a word for the male appendage.
So you can suck it, but suck is spelled S-U-K, because as already noted, spelling is not allowed in Rapville.
Which is directly adjacent to Poundtown, as it turns out.
So if ever you choose to take a car trip from Rapville to Poundtown... I found other things out about Poundtown as well in my journey down this particular vista.
Like, for example, Sexy Red.
She says there are rules in Poundtown, including that thou shalt not...
Get Chlamydia twice, which she has had, apparently.
Not just once, but twice.
So it wasn't just Poundtown 2, it was Chlamydia 2.
Anyway, she says, Next time, I'll be sure to add my D so you can suck it.
Love you, and then many emojis.
To which I responded, Surprise twist.
Nicki Minaj was the one with the anaconda all along.
Wow, you know more about pop culture than you let on.
That little anaconda reference.
The anaconda reference was- I want to know- I think it impressed her.
I don't get it.
You've never heard the Sir Mix-a-Lot classic, My Anaconda?
Sure, okay.
Right, that's with her.
That's Sir Mix-a-Lot and Nicki Minaj.
But that came out in the 90s?
Didn't that come out in the 90s?
No.
The remix includes Nicki Minaj.
Yeah.
Yes.
So there is the original, which is like, and then there's the one in 2000.
Was she like 4 when she was in the song?
No, she's like 80 now.
That's it.
Anyway.
How old is she?
She's 41.
A lady never tells.
How do you know all of this?
When I dive into a topic, I dive into that topic.
What I want to know, Ben, was this... Not Poundtown itself, because that has weird orifices.
I'm sure.
Anyway.
Is this you two flirting?
Is that what this was?
Because I know you're ostensibly like in a fight here, but it's kind of like a cheeky little like hearts and kissy emojis.
Well, she's the one doing that.
I don't know.
I have four children, Michael.
I've been married for almost 15 years.
I'm not tempted by the opposite of William Shatner.
The William Shatner was going where no man has gone before.
This is the opposite of William Shatner, going where every man has gone before.
I don't find that to be a tempting proposition.
I've never been... A woman who pitches Chlamydia Twice joining in song, joining in joyful, celebrative song with Nicki Minaj to talk about their bodily orifice colors.
No, that was not appealing.
I don't know why I'm gonna ask this, but how do we know she had Chlamydia Twice?
She said this on an interview.
She had a full-on interview.
Brett, help me out here.
Well, no, she did a podcast and she was talking about the roles of Poundtown.
I only know this from the lovely Ben Shapiro show.
You're my new pop culture dude.
I know.
I had to catch up on the drama.
But yeah, so she had Chlamydia twice and apparently that's not in the roles of Poundtown.
She really is a character.
She responded- They did not defund the police in Poundtown, by the way.
No.
I'm just pointing that out.
But didn't she respond to you?
She commented back and was like, Some, I don't know if it was sarcastic or not, but she responded to, I think, the reel on your Instagram.
Did she?
Yeah.
Sexy wrist.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she did respond to something like, thanks for promoting my song or something.
Yeah, the ones that also look interesting.
And I responded to her, I very much look forward to Poundtown 4, The Quest for Peace.
This has become kind of a pattern with you, though, because... You get in fights with rappers?
Yes, with female rappers.
Because they all suffer from face tattoo syndrome.
In this case, literally.
Sexy E-Red has, like, face tattoos.
Face tattoo syndrome, as I've explained before, is that weird phenomenon where you walk into a coffee shop and there's some weird lady with a face tattoo, and you're looking at her face tattoo, and she's like, what are you looking at?
And you're like, your face tattoo that you put on your face so I would look at it.
And she's like, that's offensive.
Why are you looking at this face tattoo?
Well, I mean, I challenge you not to look at the face tattoo.
Yeah.
I mean, I thought maybe she just was in a... Another thing that she does is she colors her hair like this, apparently.
I don't know why, but apparently she was out for the Little Mermaid part and it just failed.
It didn't work out well for her.
And in her Chlamydia interview, she actually has, like, her hair is orange with black stripes.
Oh, yeah.
Like a tiger.
Her designer was Tony the Tiger from the Frosted Flakes box.
Can I just say, just to be the grumpy old guy for a second, it really is a problem that Kids are listening to this stuff.
Yes!
It's a civilizational-level collapse-type problem.
Yes!
And it's not just that it's so gratuitously vulgar and disgusting, but it's just so stupid.
It's so dumb.
Dude, we didn't get to the worst part of the song.
There's a part of the song where she literally opens applications for her child's stepdad.
So sadly, this person has already born a child, and that child is in her home.
And she actually is, like, talking about she's looking for a dad for her kid.
In, like, one of the verses of these songs.
Well, that's one way to get a... And on her resume is apparently the color of her booty hole.
Excellent.
Yeah, which is... Okay, well, I mean... Now you know things you didn't have to know before.
A lot of things I didn't want to know about her, but I... Yeah, because it's funny because anytime you complain about pop culture, you always hear people say, well, you know, older generations have been saying that forever.
They've always, they've always complained about... They were saying back in the 70s it was demonic.
It's like, yeah, they were always right, actually.
People back in the 50s who were complaining about Elvis, that this is what they were envisioning, is that it would become this.
They were, they were, they could not have been more right about it.
As always, the slippery slope was totally vindicated.
That's right.
The only graph of civilization that matters is the you are here graph, the slippery slope graph that you are here.
And it's like, we're about to fail.
Nope.
And then it's like an arrow to like right before you hit, and you are here.
And that's true of all of these things.
Basically, everything that you were called a fuddy-duddy for, for saying in the year 2000, you were right on all of them.
I wrote a book called Porn Generation in 2004.
I was 21 years old, and it was about the pornification of American society.
And I had chapters on rap, and I had chapters on the mainstreaming of pornography in television, and I had a chapter on Disney stars who are becoming highly sexualized.
And at that point, it was about Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears.
And the book was mocked as fuddy-duddy-ish, and look at this young man who's pushing this kind of stuff, and what is he worried about?
Why is he so worried about all of this stuff?
And I'm sorry to say, but I was right.
I really am sorry to say.
I wish I were wrong.
I wish I were wrong.
It was a very encouraging statistic, and the youth in the room, I think, would understand this.
Which is, it came out of Gallup, Gallup had its values survey that they came out, and it showed a marked shift towards social conservatism.
And you see this, especially pronounced in the Republican Party, and you see this all the way on issues like approval of same-sex relations.
We're not talking about the issue that everybody's talking about these days.
We're not just talking about redefinition of marriage.
We're talking about same-sex relations.
Seven-point drop in one year.
You're seeing this across social conservatism, and what's most interesting about it is it's not the old boomer fuddy-duddies who are leading it.
In fact, the only group that's becoming more socially liberal Or the Boomers.
It's the younger generations, 18 up to 49 I think it was, that is becoming markedly more socially conservative.
So I know it's our job to just complain about the fall of the West every single day, but aren't the Brett Coopers of the world leading the way toward perhaps a move away from sexy E.E.E.
Red?
Toward Virtue Town?
To Virtue Town, baby.
Virtue Town 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Yeah, I mean, am I being overly hopeful here?
No, no, I do think it's better.
I mean, obviously, there are still things that are terrible, especially with my generation.
I mean, I do stories all the time about, you know, the OnlyFans girls and all of that stuff, and I think that it's dangerous because it's being marketed online, but I think a lot of young people are pushing away from things that Society is generalizing about Gen Z, like Gen Z is now the soberest generation, like in mid-twenties.
Most abstinent?
Yes, most abstinent.
They are the ones that are driving the pushback to flip phones.
It's like interesting things like that.
And even though I think Gen Z can be very misguided with their values and, you know, kind of very emotional and obviously directed in wrong ways, they're still very, very passionate and very civilly aware, even if they are kind of misdirected.
And I think that that can be Pushed back in a different direction.
Obviously, we're seeing changes, so that's at least helpful to me.
Like, I look at my comments, and it's so encouraging.
Like, it's awesome.
I think one thing we have going for us, the most encouraging thing for me with the younger generation, some of these videos we've seen recently of, like, high school kids.
Laughing at the LGBT indoctrination going on in their schools or, you know, tearing down the pride flag.
One video in particular, I don't remember where it was, but I think it was a math teacher trying to put on some sort of LGBT video, and the kids were just booing and laughing and pretending to vomit.
And it was really encouraging because, first of all, when I was in high school, that's exactly how we would have reacted, that sort of thing.
But also, I think it shows that, a few things it shows, and one of them is that this stuff It's not cool because it's what your math teacher pushes.
When it became the culture, it's no longer the culture.
As soon as, like, the 45-year-old woman who teaches algebra is telling you about LGBT pride, it's like, it's not cool anymore.
I mean, it has all the institutional power, but it can't be cool, and it can't be rebellious.
It's no longer edgy.
I mean, did you guys see that article where they said that, like, has monogamy become the new kink?
Because we have gone so far.
That is literally, it's a serious article.
I'm a sick fetishist because I'm married.
Because we have gone so far that now something that is virtuous and correct and good is now the edgy rebellion.
Like the last line is like, it's dangerous.
Good for them that they finally found the kink that brings sexual satisfaction and happiness.
It took 60 years.
Right, they've made history.
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So, yeah.
I'm very hopeful on this.
I tell you when I... So, one of the reasons I'm... So, one of the things that's happened... The reason this is happening is because...
Finally, and the reason I think a lot of people feel vindicated who are arguing the slippery slope, is the argument that was being made in 2000, in 1995, in 1990, was always a lie.
And we kept saying over and over, this is not the argument that's being made.
The argument that you are saying you are making is not the argument that you are actually making.
The argument that you say that you're making is, why can't you leave people alone in the privacy of their own bedrooms to do what they want?
And all we really want is to be involved in just monogamous relations with one another where we can go visit each other at hospitals.
And it's like, and everybody on the right is like, that's not what you want.
What you want is to overthrow key societal institutions and then you want to supplant those institutions with a morally relativistic view that prizes individual sexual orientation and pleasure.
And then you want a bicycle naked down the street.
Right, and that's the manifestation of it.
That's the final manifestation.
Well, we've reached the final manifestation because after Obergefell, I think most Americans were like, Okay, well, you got what you want, so I guess we're done here.
And then they're like, well, no, that's not what we want at all.
What we would like is for your church to celebrate it.
What we need is to make sure that your kid hears about it.
We need to make sure that your kid is watching naked bicyclists ride down the street in Seattle.
Like, it's really, really important that your kid be indoctrinated in all this.
And people went like, wait, why is it important that our kid be indoctrinated in all this?
And the answer is because it was always about an entire value system.
It was symptomatic of a value system.
I think the entire society misinterpreted the call for things like same-sex marriage as What if we just expanded traditional institutions to include further marginalized people?
So this is why it was pitched as basically a civil rights movement, right?
The civil rights movement was, voting has existed for a long time and is good.
And you should make sure that black people can do it also.
And we're like, that makes perfect sense.
It's a great institution.
We should extend it to include further people.
Then, the argument for same-sex marriage was made along the same lines, even though it was fundamentally dishonest, because you have to redefine marriage in order to include that particular definition of marriage.
But the idea was, we're not threatening marriage, we're just doing the same thing you're doing, we're just changing the people who are involved.
We're expanding it.
Right, but that's not what it was about.
The entire movement was about, what if we destroy traditional, civilizational institutions?
And then, what if we supplant those with another form of values that we must indoctrinate your kids with?
We must indoctrinate your kids with these things.
And I think that's what people are reacting to.
They're seeing the mask come off and they're like, oh my god, I can't believe that the call came from inside the house.
Yes, and this is why, by the way, You can see a seven-point drop in approval of same-sex relations in one year because ideas have consequences, as we all know.
And so we've had some bad ideas, some wrong premises, and it's led to all these kind of crazy consequences, and a lot of people didn't notice it as it was happening.
But when you get to the most extreme consequences, then you can go in the other direction.
You can say, well, consequences come from bad ideas.
And so I think, especially with Zoomers, they start pulling on that thread, and they say, okay, if this really extreme instantiation of an idea is bad, well, where did that come from?
Exactly.
Right?
And so they're hurtling back in the other direction.
It's also, you know, it's symptomatic of just a broader doubt in society's new institutions.
So we like to talk about the destruction of the institutions, and it's true, right?
I mean, we have very low trust for all institutions, but the new institutions are the ones we have the least trust in, because those are really... The truth is that all of our institutions basically were Hannibal Lecter'd.
I mean, like, their faces are being worn around by people who are not actually the people.
They took the institution of science, and they gutted it, and then they wore the face of science around while proclaiming that everybody had to mask up children and all of this.
But the new institutions are the things that people doubt more than anything else because they're clearly and overtly lying.
And all the things that they are saying to you, you know are not true.
Which brings us to Lizzo.
I really think this stuff is kind of important.
There's an entire piece in the Washington Post today about why Lizzo is a heroine and is not actually a fat activist.
She's an activist for all of us.
And being large is really totally fine.
And why is everybody, it's a standard of beauty that's really the problem.
And here's the thing.
Everybody knows in their heart that it's not true.
Everybody knows that it's not true.
Which is why there's that great meme that's been going around.
I think it started with Tim Pool actually.
Where Tim Pool is like, you talk to people on the left and they're all like, Lizzo's beautiful.
You should say, well, you remind me of Lizzo.
And then see.
And see how that works out for you.
Lizzo doesn't believe it either.
She just recently was saying she wants to drop out of music because she can't deal with the criticism.
Meanwhile, it's like, that's very telling because she's got the Washington Post, all the major media outlets, every institute, fans, everyone telling her she's beautiful, she's amazing.
And then just one, I think that her whole freakout was one comment that one random person left.
That made it all come crumbling down.
It was Candace or something.
Before she blocked Candace.
I think she blocked Candace.
Was it Candace?
I don't know if it actually was her.
I think it probably was Candace.
I know that she blocked Candace.
She's like clapping.
She's like, I did that, I did that.
Either way, it's...
Just being showered with love, and then one person makes it all come crumbling down.
But by the way, this I guess is why, to tie it back in with the 2024 and all the other elections.
The reason I'm a little down on Republican prospects is, one, because I think the system is rough.
You know, the other day we found 300 mail-in ballots in a random locker in Michigan.
And I'm not saying it swung the election, but I bet there's a lot of lockers in Michigan, and so that's a systemic issue that you've got to deal with.
But more broadly, just look at what we're seeing.
We all know that this stuff is crazy.
We're looking, we're seeing this reflected in the polls, especially among younger voters.
No one really believes that Lizzo is healthy.
No one really believes a lot of the lies that we're told.
And yet the institutions, the governing powers in the media and tech and the schools and the government, they're all putting that flag right in front of us.
They're all putting the bicyclists right in front of us.
Sure.
I mean, because, honestly, like you've seen- What have you been up to?
Target's not letting, none of them are.
And why are they not letting up?
Because they feel confident enough that the people can be as angry as they want to be.
That's not going to make a difference.
Even if the many are furious, the few still have the power.
I think that this has been one of the best Pride Months in the history of Pride Month.
Sure.
I mean, because honestly, like you've seen...
What have you been up to?
There have been all sorts of brands have basically been like, you know what?
Yeah.
Right?
The NHL said, you don't have to wear the warm-up jerseys anymore.
We're just not going to do this stuff anymore.
And you know what?
That's great.
I mean, like, again, that's being driven by the excesses.
But this is the part that's so funny, is that I will never cease to find it humorous that people suddenly discovered that pride parades exist.
I'm never going to stop thinking this is funny.
People will be like, oh my God, I was at a pride parade and a pride parade broke out.
Correct!
What do you think happens at the end of the parade?
Correct!
The media depiction for 40 years of the Pride Parade was, oh, it's just, you know, it's a bunch of nice-looking homosexual families who are walking down the street wearing, like, American pastoral, you know, pitchforks and suits, but carrying a gay pride flag, just like you would if you were gay.
And then what these parades have been since literally ever has been men in assless chaps dancing around And suddenly, there are cameras trained on it, and people are allowed to notice.
And I'm not sure what happened when people were... It's just Twitter, basically.
I mean, it's the rise of social media.
Yeah.
Because before that, it was the media that was basically doing cleanup for all of this stuff.
It was like, you weren't allowed to mention that any of this stuff was happening.
It's why people are mad at Libs of TikTok for actually putting this stuff on her account now, right?
They're mad at her, like, oh my God, you're exposing millions of children to this sort of stuff by putting it on your TikTok account.
She's still search banned, by the way.
I don't know if you saw that.
Oh, really?
I searched for her yesterday.
She won't pop up in search.
Many, many other people are reporting this.
Some of the independent sites are showing that.
I'm seeing some people on the right.
You want to talk about misbegotten criticism.
There are people on the right who are saying, well, you know, you're just adding to the exposure that these people are getting when they're being exhibitionistic by pointing out that they're doing this stuff and then retweeting the videos of them doing it.
And it's like you're missing the entire point.
You're missing the entire point.
If the thing is a moral atrocity, if the thing is a problem and more people know about the problem and the moral atrocity, more people are likely to We have to be better, I think, on the right about celebrating our victories when they come.
Because I think there's a certain attitude that, like, nothing is ever a victory.
It's always terrible.
It never gets better.
And we're seeing this, too, with some of this stuff in Pride Month.
These people say, well, institutions are still, these companies, they're still doing pride.
Bud Light fired those executives.
Yeah, Bud Light fired the executives.
A lot of these companies are pulling back from the pride stuff.
Hold on a second.
Look, I'll let you have your giving me hope moment, but before we do that, they fire this VP of marketing who took the fall for this thing.
This decision was made at a much higher level, and it was made at a higher level because of the asset managers that are pushing ESG.
It was made at a higher level because Transheiser Bush is part of GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsibility in Media, and because they've made a deal with the tech platforms such that they're not going to permit— Yeah, but Larry Fink is admitting from BlackRock that he's backed off investments because— By the way, I know people who are deep in this particular world, and they've told me specifically that Larry Fink has really backed off a lot of investments.
He doesn't like the bad press, but are the companies changing?
I don't buy it.
It doesn't matter.
I don't care if they've had a real, authentic change deep down in their hearts.
I don't care about that.
But are they going to change the policy?
What I want is for them to respond to our pressure.
Correct.
And if they respond begrudgingly and they don't mean it and they hate us, even better.
I mean, on the left, if they get you to do something and they know you don't mean it, That's the greatest victory.
So as far as I'm concerned, if Bud Light is pretending, fantastic.
They're pretending because we forced them to.
But are they?
They're still sponsoring these parades.
Has that really changed anything?
It's not perfect.
But even something like Target is still a progressive company.
They took the Pride garbage and they moved it to the back of the store.
Yeah.
Now, a lot of conservatives say, well, it's still there.
I think that's awesome.
No, I agree.
Now, it doesn't, I'm not going to shop at Target.
The fact that they thought they had to do that, that they had to hide, you know, they had to hide their light under a bushel.
I'll also tell you why it's important to declare victories when you actually receive them, is because it's almost impossible, especially when you're talking not about specific brands like Abud Light, but when you're talking about a broad overall brand, you've got to pick, so the right is very bad at picking targets also.
Because it's such a universalistic tsunami of this sort of stuff, the right will be like, well, all the companies are like this.
Well, you can boycott everything.
You can't boycott everything.
And the reality is that, honestly, winning any victory from Target, you should take the victory, and you should promote that victory.
Because in a lot of towns, Target's the only place that you can actually shop.
It's not as though Target is like Bud Light, where you just move over one shelf, and now it's Sam Adams.
Target might be, in your area, the only convenience store that actually has all the things that you need in like a several mile radius.
And so for people to boycott it to the point where they actually got a concerted action out of that, that's a good thing.
You can't ask people to do more than they're actually capable of doing, especially when there are no alternatives.
I mean, we've launched entire brands that are supposed to be responses to this sort of stuff.
Jeremy's Razors and Jeremy's Chocolates and all this sort of stuff.
But we don't have alternative Target.
And so you actually have to pick targets that you can knock down.
When you knock them down, you should celebrate specifically because the whole point that the left makes, and this is what they're really about, is they pick people and they hurt them.
And they hurt them as badly as they can to encourage you and you and me and all of us not to engage in the business anymore.
It's a shaming and destruction campaign.
The point of going after Rando Lady in a New York park is not that they care about Rando Lady in a New York park.
They don't.
They care so little about her, they're willing to destroy her life.
They destroy Randall Lady in a New York park so that you will shut up.
And so the same tactic applies on the other side.
Meaning like if we get Bud Light to even provide the concession that they're symbolically firing people over this thing, How many other companies that were thinking of doing the thing are not going to do the thing?
Because why would they step onto the landmine anymore?
That's the whole point, is to get them not to step on the landmine in the first place.
So this is part of the problem of trying to measure the change.
Yeah.
You're measuring the absence of a change.
You're actually measuring, in many cases, a company that doesn't do the thing.
It's not just getting companies to back off the thing, which we have seen some of, by the way.
It's getting companies that were about to do the thing not to step in.
It's not just companies, too.
It's also individuals.
Yes.
You can single out, it's correct, you want to pick out certain institutions, certain companies, make examples out of them.
But you also do that with individual people, which is something that we did with Dylan Mulvaney.
And the difference between Dylan Mulvaney and the random person at the park is Mulvaney deserves it.
He put himself out there.
Right, he put himself out there.
But the plan by the powers that be was to take Dylan Mulvaney, make him into a mainstream mascot of transgenderism.
And they had this plan.
It's a great plan.
Remember, with his 3365 days of girlhood or whatever, this plan, this big gala that he threw to celebrate a year of girlhood, he even said that he was planning that for months ahead of time.
So it takes money and funding to do this.
So they selected him and said, you're going to be our mainstream cheerleader for transgenderism.
Well, some of us on the right said, no, no, no, no.
So this is a toxic figure who's pushing something dangerous and toxic on children.
And now I can guarantee you that there's not going to be any other companies like Bud Light.
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Now all the things we're talking about, by the way, might be a completely moot point because within a matter of moments, we might be in World War III. - Because of the aliens? - Okay, here we go. - I thought you were there.
Well, because of certain aliens crossing into... You missed it.
That was earlier.
That was before you came in.
Before we get to the aliens.
We can get to the aliens before we go.
Before we get to the aliens...
Do you think they're going to be nice or are they going to be mean, the aliens?
They're demons, so they're going to be mean, Ben.
Why are you and your demons?
Yeah, I hope they're not my demons.
Between the two of you, there are no aliens and demons are nonsense.
Wait, the aliens are nonsense?
Both of the things you're saying are nonsense.
I don't care about the aliens, they're not here.
I don't know, you were trying to take the conversation somewhere else.
- I don't even know Brett's view on aliens.
You actually did ask me one time.
You forgot.
On your member block, you asked me.
This is so rude.
I can't believe it.
That's really unfortunate.
Just out in one ear, out the other.
I take the members block very seriously.
Yeah, obviously.
So I can't believe that I forgot.
Where are you weighing in?
No, I think that it's very possible.
I'm not committed to it.
It's not my favorite topic.
It's not the thing that I choose to dive into, but I think that it's definitely plausible.
Can I just get a clarification on the contention that you're making?
Is it that there is life in the universe or that that life in the universe has found us here?
Both.
Yeah, you're crazy.
The first one, yes.
The second one, no.
Anyway, do you agree with him that UFOs are here already?
Oh, I don't know if they're here already.
I don't know enough.
But I guess that they probably exist somewhere.
I think that something else has to be here.
I didn't say they've definitely been here.
I said it's the most likely explanation for what we have witnessed is that they've been here.
I want you to get the footage from Jake Paul.
That is going to be huge.
Jake Paul has footage of aliens?
What if they're here and they're creating pound town?
Then I might believe them.
It's sexy red.
It's sexy red.
So Jake Paul has footage, allegedly, has the most convincing footage of like an alien encounter in the US.
And a man has it on this VHS.
I think it was in Nevada, I'm pretty sure, from the article I sent you.
1973.
A little grainy.
VHS.
I think it's a VHS or some kind of DVD, I'm not sure.
And this guy has it, and he's the only one that has a copy of it, and he will not sell it to anybody, but he will show it to you if you go.
And so Jake Paul went trying to buy it.
Is it Jake Paul or is it Logan Paul?
I think it's Jake Paul.
He went.
Is it Logan?
It's Logan.
I think you told me Logan.
My pop culture is just not okay.
Anyway, whoever it is, I believe him.
Yeah, I'm sure.
But he goes and he wears the little hidden cameras, and he films, he has the guy show it to him multiple times, and he gets it from all angles, but now he won't even show the footage.
Yeah, this is all very credible.
This is like the most credible thing that's ever been credible.
I'm not trying to hijack the whole conversation.
It's too late.
But you're not not.
I'm not not trying to.
What's that box cutter in your hand?
This conversational box cutter right there?
We weren't talking about anything important anyway.
When you've got government officials, intelligence, people that worked in intelligence... People that would never lie to us, yeah.
Why would they lie about this?
See, that's what doesn't make any sense.
He doesn't even testify that he has seen evidence of the aliens.
He said he read a report that there were, that there was evidence of the aliens.
He has not witnessed any tape of the aliens.
He's not witnessed any pictures of the aliens.
He hasn't actually seen the aliens.
So he's a guy who saw a document.
Would you believe what he said that he had?
I mean, at least I'd find it slightly more credible, because then he would actually be somebody testifying that he had seen it, and then we'd have to adjudicate whether he was competent or not to testify, because it turns out the vast majority of people... But he worked in the intelligence agency that dealt with these unidentified aerials.
Right, but we need to be clear about, like, what exactly he was attesting to.
The thing he was attesting to was not that he, like... He was attesting to the testimony of other, of not just one person, multiple people who told him about it.
He was attesting to the testimony that he heard from his cousin's neighbor, who heard it from a very credible guy... So why would he make this up?
...who was an alien.
I'm not saying he made it up, he might not have.
He saw a report.
He saw a report.
- Yeah, I believe it. - So the report, why would the government, see this doesn't, the government for decades was, every UFO sighting was swamp gas, it was there, whatever.
It was a, whatever.
It was a weather balloon.
And now we're finally starting to hear, well, maybe some of that stuff actually was. - This is why I don't believe the government.
Now that they're saying it, I would be more likely to believe the UFOs like 50 years ago when they were saying it's swamp gas.
Now that they're saying it might be UFOs, oh my god, it's bull crap.
If you deny it, what you actually are believing the government, you're believing the narrative that they sold us for 50 years about this stuff.
Right, they were more credible 50 years ago than they are now.
But it also wasn't aliens 50 years ago.
50 years ago it was Cold War spy planes, and now it's demons.
Oh, come on.
It is demons.
It is.
Listen, listen.
A Catholic fight, do it.
I'm totally serious about this.
We know that spiritual reality exists, right?
We know that... Why would demons be in... Why would they be in vehicles?
Like, why are they flying around in the sky?
Well, people are seeing these weird things, yeah, but people see apparitions of all sorts of crazy things.
Why would the demons be doing that?
Do they need vehicles to get around?
Because the country is becoming much more vicious and evil.
I agree with that, but so why are there joyrides in the sky?
Yeah, I don't know.
They're in the sky.
They're on the ground.
Why would aliens come from millions of light years away to take a joyride that apparently crashed in the desert like an alien?
They're not taking joyrides.
They're coming here to check out what's going on.
Yeah.
Because it's crazy.
It's because it's Pound Town.
It's a crazy town.
It is.
They wanted to see Pound Town.
They did.
Okay, can I just say one thing?
Wallace.
Terrible place.
The most likely scenario is that there are millions, like billions of other civilizations out there.
Okay, given how vast the universe is.
You're saying that's likely?
Likely, yes.
Given the vastness of the universe.
Given the fact that we live in a universe with a hundred billion galaxies.
It's like there's a really big vacuum.
So there must be a lot of stuff in the big vacuum.
But it's not just a vacuum.
It's a vacuum with trillions of planets in it.
Yeah.
Okay?
So, given that, just a numbers game, I think it's very likely that there are This is my problem.
civilizations and so it's very it's it's likely that we've been visited so there's this is my problem I can grant you a but I can't grant you B okay meaning the I would agree with you the possible The probability is that there are other forms of life on tons of other planets.
I agree with that.
The notion that it took the form of intelligent life that differed markedly from the development of human beings, I actually, I have questions about that because I wonder whether there are really a lot of other evolutionary pathways to intelligence, given that there's only one that we know about and it looks like us.
So I'm wondering, there's all sorts of speculation about weird lobster-looking creatures that are super-duper smart and fly spaceships.
I'd like to see some evidence.
We're pretty smart and we fly spaceships, so why shouldn't the aliens look like us would be one question.
But even if that were the case, let's assume for a second that we're like in the mid-level of sophistication.
We're not even remotely close to being able to travel to other systems where we can experience other civilizations.
What is the idea that they have somehow conquered space and time?
Well, because their planets have been around billions of years longer than us.
And we're much older than presumably other civilizations, because all time is relative.
Well, sure.
And there are probably civilizations that aren't anywhere close to us in advancement, but most likely there are many that are well beyond us.
But why do you think they would be able to, in just a few short billion years, cross these expanses that we're talking about?
Right, it's inconceivable to us.
But you also have to keep in mind, the 20th century, I mean, going into the 20th century... The universe is only like five and a half billion years old.
I know, but going into the 20th century, you know, you still had horse and buggy.
So, and then...
Very shortly after that, we're going to the moon.
It is true.
I'm only half-joking.
Yeah, but then it's all been downhill since then, so.
I'm only half-joking when I observe that the AI art programs went, like, a month ago, they couldn't do hands.
Like, you'd put in hands, and it'd have, like, 17 fingers and a hot dog coming out of them, and now they can make, you know, car parts.
Ooh, should we talk about AI?
It happened so fast!
Can we talk about AI?
Yeah!
Hold on!
We're still talking about aliens.
We are not talking about aliens.
We should talk about A.I.
A.I.
is fascinating.
There is one other topic.
Listen, I don't want to interrupt our fanciful musings on the bazillions of aliens out there trying to invade us, but are we entering into World War III?
Is there a civil war in Russia?
Apparently, Richard Wagner almost took over Russia.
Different Wagner, different way.
Not the Ring Cycle guy.
Not the anti-Semitic, Nazi-esque Ring Cycle guy.
- It's a different Nazi-esque weird guy, actually, named Wagner. - No, this was my favorite part of the whole story.
So this guy, Purgosian, with the Wagner group, the Vogna group, if you're very sophisticated, goes in, leads a march up to Moscow.
He's really angry because the Russian defense minister, Shoigu, attacked his paramilitary warlord troop, and so he's gonna go up there.
Now he's exiled to Belarus.
I'm sure he'll be totally fine, though.
Putin's a really forgiving guy. - Yeah, he's gonna be found having committed suicide by hitting himself repeatedly in the back of the head with a tire ironed ass.
By drinking a gallon of polonium.
And then, unfortunately, being thrown by himself off a fourth-story window and then run over twice by a car.
But my favorite part of the story was, for a brief like six or ten hours, you had all these liberals on Twitter and on the Internet.
He's the hero we've been waiting for.
Rooting for the psycho Russian warlord to take over the nuclear form of superpower.
By the way, I have to say, everything in Russia is so stereotypically Russian.
It's pretty incredible.
This is a dude who ran a hot dog stand and is known as The Chef.
That's so amazing!
He literally ran a hot dog stand and then he became The Chef by being Putin's caterer because Putin made him one of his oligarchs.
And then he created like an entire paramilitary system where he paid him billions of dollars for his paramilitary.
And then Putin was so weak that he had to call the Chechnyans, right?
He was about to call the Chechnyans to defend Moscow.
But here's the thing I have a problem with with this coup.
Why didn't you just send an email?
It feels like really, really like a lot.
Like if I were just pissed off at the Secretary of Defense and then I were not going to complete a coup, I would mainly be like, you know, he's a bad Secretary of Defense.
Hit send and then I'd probably just go back to ruling Syria and almost all of Africa.
So instead, he was like, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to, in ridiculous fashion, march five minutes up the road toward Moscow, and then I'm going to not.
And I'll end up in romantic Belarus, where I await radiation poisoning.
It's like he was listening or reading Don Quixote and was like, this is my moment.
This is my time.
I'm going to go on my hero's journey.
Until I don't.
Never mind.
There's great advice that came out of The Wire, which is, If you come at the king, you best not miss.
I can't imagine this turns out very well for Purgosian and the Wagner Group.
But what does it mean?
Does it mean that Putin is really weakened?
Does it mean he's going to pull out of Ukraine?
Does it mean that this war is ever going to come to an end?
Does it mean that we're going to enter into World War III?
Like, my favorite part, other than the joke of the libs, you know, rooting for this psycho warlord is, nobody knows a damn thing about Russian politics.
Nobody seems to know.
Because he kills everyone who, like, tries to penetrate the shield of Russian politics.
Like, literally everyone dies.
You know how many reporters have been killed over there?
I mean, it's insane.
I mean, they're currently holding a Wall Street Journal reporter, right?
I mean, like, this is not a place you want to be.
So the...
Is the war going to end?
Probably not, because he has to keep throwing people in that meat grinder in the hopes that eventually there'll be some sort of settlement.
Is the worst case scenario him falling?
Quite possibly.
Because one of the things that actually was exposed here is that if he falls, the most organized forces in the country are variously the Wagner Group, which is like psychotic, and the Chechnyans.
So that sounds great, having those two groups fight over, you know, 2,500 nuclear weapons sounds amazeballs.
That'll probably work out amazing for everyone.
So, you know, listen, Henry Kissinger, who's been much maligned, his main rule is avoid the worst outcome.
Avoiding the worst outcome is typically a fairly decent way of doing foreign policy.
And the worst outcome would probably be a giant internal battle in Russia involving people firing weapons at each other while there are 2,000 loose nukes.
That seems like the worst available outcome.
This is where you see the absurdity of Twitter the most, I think, because, yeah, I checked in with Twitter when this was all going on on Saturday morning, and what I discovered is, number one, everyone knows everything about Russian politics.
I was the only one.
I said, I don't know who this guy is.
Like, I don't know anything about this.
I know.
I'm totally clueless about it.
I know nothing.
So, everyone knows everything about it, and it's the most important thing ever, and then you check back 24 hours later, and no one cares anymore.
Purgosian who?
Yeah, exactly.
Who makes amazing hot dogs?
To me, this is the best argument for Trump, actually.
This is the one thing that Trump supporters in the primary say that I basically agree with.
I probably trust him the most to not get us involved in World War 3.
Yep.
He had the most peaceful foreign policy of any president of my life.
Yeah, because I think he just doesn't care.
I think he doesn't care what's going on in the rest of the world.
He doesn't want to get involved, which is basically my position, and it's the position I want the president to have.
DeSantis I basically trust as well, but we don't know enough about his foreign policy.
We just don't.
We might talk more about it.
But not for all those hoi polloi over there on YouTube.
We're going to talk about it in the member block.
The show continues now at Daily Wire for our members.
We're going to be taking your questions live.
We're going to be talking about the things we're not allowed to talk about on YouTube.
You know what I'm talking about?
Like there's a guy... Don't say it, Michael.
All right, I'm not gonna, but it's like a thing.
No, no, don't say it.
Give it away!
We all know what I'm talking about.
Okay, we're gonna talk about that over here.
For our members, dailywire.com.
We're gonna be talking about the release of a very exciting project convicting a murderer.
Join Candace Owens as she discovers the hidden truth of a notorious criminal case, making a murderer depicted, Stephen Avery, as a victim of corrupt law enforcement.
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