0:00

Well folks, it's drinking from a fire hose

0:02

tons of news on the economy. We'll get

0:04

to all of it momentarily. Remember, DailyWire Plus

0:06

is the place you are going to get

0:08

people telling you the unvarnished truth. Here we

0:10

are a facts-based company. We try to do

0:12

things that are facts-based. If you are fact-based,

0:14

if you are fact-based, if you just want

0:16

the unvarnished truth, then join us here at

0:18

DailyWire Plus. DailyWire Plus members. Get free access

0:20

to all of our shows. You can live

0:22

chat with me, you, you, you, you, my

0:25

show, my show, my show, my show, my

0:27

show, my show, my show, my show, my

0:29

show, my show, my show, my show, my

0:31

show, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

0:33

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

0:35

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

0:37

my, my, my, my that exposes what the

0:39

corporate press refuses to touch and premium entertainment

0:41

films and documentaries that break the box office

0:43

shift the culture and say the things other

0:45

people won't the fight for the country is

0:47

happening right now be a part of it

0:50

at dailywireplus.com/subscribe so as I suggest tons of

0:52

economics news breaking yesterday of course was a

0:54

horrifying day in the stock market and people

0:56

who are attempting to play this game whether

0:58

they say well you know the stock market

1:00

taking a massive dump that's that's okay I

1:02

mean that doesn't if 50% of Americans have

1:04

stocks Maybe because they have 401ks. This notion

1:06

that Main Street is totally disconnected from Wall

1:08

Street, that it's just a few people at

1:10

the top of the food chain who are

1:13

playing with the money, that is not actually

1:15

true in any way shape or form. And

1:17

obviously the stock market, as a sort of

1:19

gauge of investor confidence, makes a large-scale difference

1:21

in availability of liquidity for startups. And being

1:23

able to raise money to, for example, hire

1:25

new people. If the stock market tanks by

1:27

half, that's a pretty good indicator, for example.

1:29

that bad things are happening. And if the

1:31

stock market continues to gain steadily, that's an

1:33

indicator that maybe some good things are happening.

1:35

And this isn't too tough. It's not too

1:38

sophisticated. It doesn't mean that every time there's

1:40

a little bit of a sell-off, it's the

1:42

end of the world. And it doesn't mean

1:44

that every time there's a little bit of

1:46

a sell-off, it's the end of the world.

1:48

And it doesn't mean that every time there's

1:50

the end of the end of analysis. And

1:52

in fact we have lots of it. They're

1:54

not sure what to expect. They're not sure

1:56

what comes next. There are a lot of

1:58

conflicting messages coming out of the White House.

2:00

So yesterday, the US market suffered its steepest

2:03

decline since 2020. On fears the President Trump's

2:05

new tariff plans would trigger a global trade

2:07

war and drag the United States economy into

2:09

a recession, according to the Wall Street Journal,

2:11

major stock indices dropped as much as 6%

2:13

on Thursday. Stocks lost roughly $3.1 trillion in

2:15

market value, that is their largest one-day

2:17

decline since March 2020, was COVID.

2:19

And this is not being inflicted by

2:22

an external shock, like for example COVID.

2:24

This is being inflicted by a deliberate

2:26

choice by the Trump administration's position. What's

2:29

sort of the best case scenario for

2:31

the thing that they are shooting for

2:33

with these tariffs? The market this morning

2:35

again opened down very steeply. Investors

2:38

obviously are not sanguine about the

2:40

situation. There was a good jobs report

2:42

that came out for March. The employment report

2:45

came out at 228,000 jobs added in

2:47

March, which was more than forecast. Of

2:49

course, that is a backward looking report.

2:51

So it didn't have a massive impact

2:53

on the markets today because people are

2:55

saying, well, yeah, I mean the economy

2:57

was doing fine. giant stick and stick it

2:59

right in the bicycle spokes. That is what the

3:01

market is saying right now. Now again, that data

3:03

came as a bit of a surprise because economists

3:05

were expecting it to be a little bit slower.

3:08

This came amid a federal jobs decline. So

3:10

normally this would be like a point

3:12

of giant celebration for the Trump administration.

3:14

Jobs increase, federal jobs go down. But

3:16

the problem, of course, is that policy just radically

3:18

changed. So looking at the jobs report based on

3:21

a time when there were not these sorts of

3:23

tariffs. That is not comparable to what

3:25

is going to what is going to happen next.

3:27

So investors are freaking out. The

3:29

Wall Street Journal quotes a man named

3:31

Rob Citron, a 60-year-old hedge fund manager,

3:34

watching from his Orlando Florida home, as

3:36

President Trump announced his plans. He says, I

3:38

should have sold more. Across Wall Street,

3:40

money managers, brokers, were reeling from

3:42

what many described as an unprecedented

3:44

shock, fearing it marked and ends

3:46

in the market's post-covet rally. They

3:48

might have lived through a bigger market swing,

3:51

but this one, induced by a US president

3:53

bent on establishing a new US president, felt

3:55

incomparable because of the result of deliberate policy.

3:57

And this is the part again that is

3:59

freaking out markets. Markets can price in

4:01

external shocks pretty quickly, but if the

4:03

question is, you don't know what's going

4:05

to happen next from the White House,

4:07

people pull out their money in fear

4:10

at what's going to happen next. So,

4:12

one strategy is hold on for your

4:14

life, and let's be clear, I'm not

4:16

giving investment strategy because I'm not legally

4:18

capable of doing so. However, a long-term

4:20

investment strategy says leave your money where

4:23

it is over the long haul. Don't

4:25

sell during a dip is a pretty

4:27

good piece of advice. How

4:29

long and prolonged that tip is

4:31

is another question. But if you

4:33

have the ability to hold for

4:35

long periods of time, then obviously

4:38

that it's a better investment strategy

4:40

than selling as the prices decline.

4:42

As far as the idea that

4:44

this was going to have a

4:46

salutary impact on job creation in

4:48

the United States, the early indicators

4:50

are at best mixed. Stylantis, for

4:53

example, has now temporarily laid off

4:55

900 workers in the United States.

4:57

This of course led to criticism

4:59

from the UAW. The UAW is

5:01

very happy about the tariffs until

5:03

precisely the moment the economic effects

5:05

of the tariffs are felt. Now

5:07

remember, this sort of economic policy,

5:10

high tariffs, big trade wars, unless

5:12

there is some sort of ancillary

5:14

rationale for them, they are on

5:16

their face not good. Thomas Sowell,

5:18

who is the best economist of

5:20

our time and a man who

5:22

deserves plaudits for being sort of

5:24

the heir to Frederick Hayek and

5:27

the entire Vienna School of economics,

5:29

here he was yesterday, the wisest

5:31

man in America, explaining what he

5:33

thought about President Trump's tariff regime.

5:35

It's painful to see what a

5:37

ruinous decision from back in the

5:39

1920s being repeated. Now, insofar as

5:42

he's using these tariffs to get

5:44

very strategic things settled and that

5:46

he is satisfied with that he

5:48

satisfied with that he satisfied with

5:50

that he satisfied with that he

5:52

satisfied with that he satisfied with

5:54

that he satisfied with that. but

5:56

if you've got set off a

5:59

worldwide trade war. That has a

6:01

devastating history. Okay, and of course,

6:03

Sewell would know better than anyone

6:05

else and he happens to be correct.

6:07

There's also the problem that

6:10

while the Trump administration can

6:12

maintain that America is not

6:14

just about the cheap and

6:16

plentiful products, it turns out

6:18

that Americans actually do like

6:21

affordable and plentiful products. Jimmy

6:23

Carter tried this routine as well during his

6:25

Malay speech, while Americans need to spiritually buck

6:27

up even if things are worse for them

6:29

economically. It turns out this is not a

6:31

popular selling point. Here is Harry Anton on

6:33

CNN explaining. It's the American

6:35

people who are the naysayers oppose

6:37

new tariffs on other countries all

6:40

goods look at this 56% of

6:42

Americans oppose new tariffs on all

6:44

goods. How about cars in particular

6:47

56% of Americans oppose new tariffs

6:49

on imported cars and park car

6:51

parts look the bottom line is

6:54

the American people oppose oppose oppose

6:56

oppose no no they do not

6:58

want new tariffs I looked at

7:01

a ton of polling It's really

7:03

hard to find any in which

7:05

you find folks supporting new tariffs. And

7:07

that is going to be only more true if

7:09

the economy actually declines on the

7:11

back of all of this. The

7:14

stock market and then more broadly

7:16

the economy, employment, investment opportunity, problems

7:18

with mortgages. One of the big problems

7:20

here is that of course there's a

7:22

lot of corporate debt in America. Companies

7:25

operate on marginal growth and if

7:27

that marginal growth goes away and that corporate

7:29

debt get called in, you got a problem

7:31

on your hands. And again, this

7:33

is being created by the Trump

7:35

administration. As I mentioned yesterday, I mean, I

7:38

know business people who import products, these

7:40

are domestic American businesses with American

7:42

employees, and they have to import

7:44

their inputs to their products, and

7:47

they're getting smashed by these tariffs.

7:49

So President Trump, one of the

7:51

big problems here also is level

7:53

of uncertainty. There's a huge level

7:55

of uncertainty as to what exactly

7:57

President Trump is trying to accomplish.

7:59

don't have a perspective on how long

8:02

this is going to last, what the end

8:04

goal looks like, people start pulling their money.

8:06

People say, listen, I know I'm not supposed

8:08

to sell into a dip, but I'd rather

8:11

sell into a dip and have at least

8:13

some dry powder in the back room than

8:15

ride this thing out. So President Trump, the

8:17

White House, they have put out a set

8:20

of talking points to their allies that was

8:22

obtained by Politico. And here are their talking

8:24

points. And again, the problem with some of

8:26

the talking points that they're mutually mutually exclusive.

8:29

President Trump is revolutionizing the global trade order

8:31

to put the American economy, the American worker,

8:33

and our national security first. Okay, so, again,

8:35

I don't know what revolutionizing the trade order

8:38

looks like. What is the end goal of

8:40

the trade order? If the end goal is

8:42

everybody goes to zero on their tariffs and

8:44

non-tariff barriers, sounds great. But totally unclear if

8:47

that's the case at this point, because again,

8:49

there are countries that have extraordinarily low tariffs

8:51

with the United States who just got smashed

8:54

by these tariff rates. The White

8:56

House continues, foreign trade and economic practice

8:58

have created a national emergency, and President

9:00

Trump's order imposes responsive tariffs to strengthen

9:02

the international economic position of the United

9:04

States and protect American workers. Now, again,

9:06

it is not true that foreign trade

9:08

has created a, quote, national emergency by

9:10

any technical terminology with regard to a

9:12

national emergency. You can say that you

9:14

don't like the trade balance. You can

9:16

say that you don't like that certain

9:18

industries have been offshore, and you want

9:21

to reassure them for national security reasons

9:23

or whatever. remains the most powerful economic

9:25

engine on planet Earth by a long

9:27

shot. It is not particularly close still.

9:29

China has bulk, but the United States

9:31

has actual power. Bulk and power, similar,

9:33

but their cousins. They're not exactly the

9:35

same. The idea that these are reciprocal

9:37

tariffs are responsive tariffs. The problem there,

9:39

again, is if I thought these were

9:41

responsive tariffs, and I think if the

9:43

market thought that, it'd be a lot

9:45

more sanguine. Because the question is what

9:47

comes next. Is President Trump going to

9:49

try to try to cut? bilateral deals

9:51

with various countries to lower the tariffs

9:53

back down to zero or is he

9:55

doing this because he just doesn't like

9:58

trade deficits? This is the problem. I

10:00

was pointing out yesterday, that giant poster

10:02

board that he was holding up that

10:04

showed quote unquote tariff rates for various

10:06

countries on our goods. It's not true.

10:08

Those were not tariff rates. They had

10:10

nothing to do with tariffs. Those were

10:12

trade deficits divided by imports. Meaning

10:14

the only way to get those numbers down

10:16

to zero would be for those other countries

10:18

to just buy more American product regardless

10:20

of whether they are poor or whether

10:23

they even have tariffs on American product

10:25

in the first place. It is the equivalent

10:27

of You saying that you are running a deficit

10:29

with your grocery store, you are running a trade

10:31

deficit with your grocery store because you gave them

10:34

money and they gave you goods. And the only way

10:36

that you're going to achieve parody is by getting

10:38

the grocery store to buy fan belts from your

10:40

factory. Well, listen, all of this creates

10:42

uncertainty. There's a lot of uncertainty and

10:44

in these uncertain economic times with tariff

10:46

tensions, recession worries, stubborn inflation. It's no

10:48

surprise gold, prices keep breaking records. Rather

10:50

than watching from the sidelines during market

10:52

volatility, consider taking proactive steps to protect

10:54

your savings. That's why many Americans are

10:57

connecting with Birch Gold Group. They've helped

10:59

thousands of people convert existing retirement accounts

11:01

into physical gold IRAs. Wondering if gold

11:03

might be a smart hedge against inflation

11:05

and economic uncertainty for you. To learn

11:07

about owning physical gold in a tax-

11:09

advantaged account, text Ben to 989898. Birch

11:11

Gold will send you a free information

11:14

kit with no obligation. There are a

11:16

Plus Better Business Bureau rating and numerous

11:18

five-star reviews reflect why I recommend Birch

11:20

Gold to help protect your savings through

11:23

gold investments. The economic challenges we're facing

11:25

took a long time to develop. The

11:27

real questions are how long will recovery

11:29

take, what's going to cost, what's going

11:32

to cost along the way how long

11:34

will recovery take, what's going to cost

11:36

along the way, how much uncertainty will

11:38

recovery take, what's going to cost along

11:41

the way, how much uncertainty, 98, 98, 98, 98,

11:43

98 today. Also, let's talk about that car that

11:45

you own, but you don't use. You know, the one

11:47

that's like rusting in front of your house, but you

11:49

pay to keep it registered and insured? It's taking up

11:51

space, it's doing no one any good. Well, let me

11:53

tell you what you could do with that thing, what

11:55

you should do. You should give cars for kids a

11:57

call and have them take care of it for you.

11:59

That's right. them the info and they will come

12:01

to you as soon as the next day

12:04

and take that car off your hands at

12:06

no cost to you. Even better. They'll turn

12:08

that car into funds to help kids. They

12:10

take care of all the paperwork and logistics.

12:12

You walk away with a tax deductible receipt

12:14

for the sale price of the car, a

12:17

vacation voucher, and space in your driveway for

12:19

your new car. Don't wait. Call one eight

12:21

seven seven cars for your new cars. Donate

12:23

now. It takes just two minutes to give

12:25

them your information. They take it over from

12:28

there. They've done this over a million times.

12:30

They can help you as well. carsfor kids.org/better.

12:32

Remember that's cars with a K. No reason

12:34

for you to keep paying insurance on that

12:36

old vehicle you ain't doing anything with. Instead,

12:38

why not give it away, get the tax

12:41

write-off, help kids at the same time. Cars

12:43

for kids at the same time. Cars for

12:45

kids. That's cars for kids.org/Ben. The talking points

12:47

go on for decades. The trade status quo

12:49

has allowed countries to use unfair trade practices

12:52

to use unfair trade practices to use unfair

12:54

trade practices to use unfair trade practices to

12:56

use unfair trade practices to use unfair trade

12:58

practices to use unfair trade practices to get

13:00

ahead at the expense for hardworking to get

13:02

ahead at the expensive hardworking, And again, you

13:05

want to label things that want to get

13:07

rid of them? I'm using tariffs as leverage

13:09

good tariffs without leverage Simply as a way

13:11

of quote-unquote rejiggering the global order. I don't

13:13

know what you're going for neither to the

13:16

markets And that's why they're freaking out the

13:18

distorted trading system has caused the off-shoring of

13:20

our manufacturing base. The reality is our manufacturing

13:22

productivity has gone up significantly since the beginning

13:24

of NAFTA in 1997 in 1997 It has

13:26

risen from about one point 7 trillion dollars

13:29

to 2.4 trillion dollars, something in that neighborhood.

13:31

The manufacturing base in the United States in

13:33

terms of jobs has actually been harmed not

13:35

predominantly by offshoring, but by automation. It's been,

13:37

if you're talking about jobs in factories, why

13:39

those are going away? The answer is robots.

13:42

The answer is machinery. That's why you don't

13:44

see giant assembly lines of humans doing this

13:46

stuff anymore. You see robots doing this stuff.

13:48

And here's the thing, Howard Lutnik, who's a

13:50

big proponent of the tariff strategy. He is

13:53

saying as much. He was asked last night

13:55

on Jesse Waters about reshoring manufacturing from places

13:57

like Vietnam, which makes t-shirts. And here is

13:59

Lutnik's answer. Now we're not going to have

14:01

all factories come back. Like clothing manufacturing, that's

14:03

tough to bring back. But what kind of

14:06

manufacturing are you talking about returning

14:08

here? Well don't eat. You can't

14:10

just give that away. See, what's going

14:12

to happen is robotics are going to

14:14

replace the cheap labor that we've seen

14:16

all across the world. I mean, think

14:18

of what our factories did. They went

14:21

to the cheapest labor, the whole world,

14:23

slave labor, cheap labor, the worst environmental

14:25

conditions, polluting the heck out of it.

14:27

And then we bring back those cheap

14:29

products here and we feel good about

14:31

ourselves because we don't see the pain.

14:34

But the pain is in our... are

14:36

workers. The American workers have been given

14:38

the raw deal and what's going to

14:40

happen now is we're going to build

14:42

factories and we're going to train and

14:44

we're going to have trade craft. We're

14:46

going to do the greatest set of

14:48

training ever in our high school educated

14:51

people. They're going to train to do

14:53

robotics mechanics. It's kind of like a

14:55

supercharged BMW mechanic. Okay

14:57

let's just be clear about this. The

14:59

robotics are one of the chief reasons

15:01

for the decline. in employment in

15:03

the manufacturing sector. So if the idea

15:05

is we bring the factories back here

15:07

and then robots replace the foreign

15:09

workers, you might incrementally gain jobs.

15:12

You're not going to massively gain

15:14

jobs because most of the work is going

15:16

to be done by the robots. Again, there

15:18

are a bunch of the work is going

15:20

to be done by the robots. Again, there

15:22

are a bunch of different sort of different

15:24

sort of priorities that are going to be done

15:26

by the robots. Again, there are

15:28

a bunch of different sort of

15:30

different sort of priorities that. there's

15:32

good and there's bad in some

15:34

of the tariff policy but it's

15:36

unclear what the rationale is if

15:38

we are talking about reassuring critical

15:41

supply chains okay fine but then

15:43

you get elimination of export

15:45

market access that the people

15:47

are eliminating our ability to

15:49

export to them okay well they are

15:51

likely to raise their tariffs on us right

15:54

now and we are starting to see

15:56

that already as we will get to in

15:58

a moment they say that this This is

16:00

sold out the American middle class. I

16:02

showed you yesterday. The American middle class

16:04

has not in fact been sold out.

16:07

Most of the American middle class turned

16:09

into the upper middle class. The decline

16:11

of small towns across America. The truth

16:13

again is that there are certain towns

16:15

across America that have declined and there

16:18

are other towns across America that have

16:20

declined. And there are other towns across

16:22

America that have risen. And there are

16:24

other towns across America that people would

16:27

go to the next town. And that

16:29

is not a wonderful thing. It's not

16:31

an amazing thing. It is a reality

16:33

of an economy that does not just

16:35

subsidize you in the place where you

16:38

are. The White House talking points continue.

16:40

Under the Biden administration's watch our trade

16:42

deficit soared to $1.2 trillion in 2024.

16:44

This status quo cannot continue. Okay, well,

16:46

I mean, if we're just going to

16:49

look at the US trade deficit, by

16:51

year, what you will see is that

16:53

the United States trade deficit was actually...

16:55

quite high during the Trump administration as

16:57

well. So it wasn't as though it

17:00

got solved under the Trump administration. And

17:02

trade deficits are not again a good

17:04

substitute for an explanation of why that's

17:06

bad for the United States. Trade deficits

17:08

finance virtually our entire debt load. Because

17:11

let's say that we are buying more

17:13

from another country than they are buying

17:15

from us. They take those dollars, those

17:17

dollars are used as the world's reserve

17:19

currency, and those dollars are very often

17:22

traded for the American bonds that finance

17:24

our debt. Okay, and

17:26

then the talking points, again, these are

17:28

the talking points distributed by the White

17:30

House to allies in Congress. Gone are

17:33

the days of America being taken advantage

17:35

of, there's a new sheriff in town,

17:37

and trade is a core issue in

17:39

restoring American strength on the global stage.

17:41

Again, that's a nice rhetoric, I don't

17:43

know, that's a nice rhetoric, I don't

17:45

know what it means. That's a nice

17:48

rhetoric, I don't know what it means.

17:50

President Trump is correcting, I don't know

17:52

what it means. I don't have tariffs

17:54

on us. So

17:56

it's kind of a mishmash of various

17:58

rations. Now, to steal man, what's going

18:00

on here, there is the sort of

18:03

Scott Besson theory of the case, the

18:05

Treasury Secretary. Again, knows economics really well.

18:07

Besson is an excellent Treasury Secretary. The

18:09

case that he has been making is

18:11

a more sophisticated case, and it's laid

18:13

out well by a policy analyst named

18:15

Tan Viratna. Tan Viratna is quoted by

18:17

the investor extraordinary Bill Ackman. Here's what

18:20

she writes today. Trump's new tariffs aren't

18:22

a trade tweak. They're the first move

18:24

in a full-spect spectrum reset. 9.2 trillion

18:26

dollars in debt matures in 2025. Inflation

18:28

lingers alliances are shifting. One announcement just

18:30

set a dozen wheels in motion. Here's

18:32

what really is happening. Start with the

18:34

debt. 9.2 trillion dollars must be refinanced

18:37

in 2025. If rolled into 10-year bonds,

18:39

every one basis point drop in rates

18:41

saves approximately $1 billion a year. So

18:43

a 0.5% drop would save $500 billion

18:45

over a decade. Lower yields for a

18:47

fiscal room without them core spending gets

18:49

crowded gets crowded out. What we need

18:52

to do is drop bond yields. So

18:54

scare the crap out of people in

18:56

the markets. They move their money into

18:58

what they think are more secure bonds.

19:00

And in doing so, they decrease the

19:02

bond yields. Meaning that the demand for

19:04

bonds goes up. When the demand for

19:06

bonds goes up, it means that you

19:09

can basically refinance the American debt. People

19:11

are going to buy American debt at

19:13

lower interest rates. And that means that

19:15

when we pay off those interest rates,

19:17

it will cost us less money. So

19:19

as she says. How to push yields

19:21

down with sticky inflation and a cautious

19:23

fed manufacture uncertainty. You sweep in with

19:26

tariffs, you spook the markets, you trigger

19:28

a risk off, money exits stocks, floods

19:30

into long-term fresheries, a deliberate detox to

19:32

cool the economy and cut refinancing costs.

19:34

And then you have to cut the

19:36

deficit and this is where Elon Musk

19:38

and Doge are coming in. With these

19:40

savings, says Tanvi Ratna, the big economic

19:43

pillar to successfully deliver on Secretary Besson's

19:45

3-3 plan is to get growth up.

19:47

Tariffs come in as a trigger for

19:49

domestic industrial revival. The thing is, by

19:51

making imports expensive, you create room for

19:53

US producers to step in. But here

19:55

is the problem. It takes a while

19:57

for American factories to scale up overnight.

20:00

In the meantime, they're offering near-term relief,

20:03

like for example, tax cuts or currency

20:05

devaluation. And the idea is the terrorists

20:07

might bring in additional revenue. But, as

20:09

Ratna points out, this approach is not

20:12

without risks. If domestic supply chains can't

20:14

catch up, or if global retaliation kicks

20:16

in, inflation could start rising again. If

20:18

that happens, then the Fed actually raises

20:21

rates, which blows a hole in the

20:23

low-yield plan. That's the tightrope. And not

20:25

only that. Terrorists could serve as a

20:27

leverage to renegotiate terms in terms of

20:30

military deals with other countries, bilateral deals.

20:32

This is sort of, again, the strong

20:34

case for the tariffs is that this

20:36

is the beginning of a much more

20:39

sophisticated strategy designed to essentially lower yields

20:41

on bonds that we don't have to

20:43

pay back as much in interest on

20:46

our national debt and set the stage

20:48

for reciprocal trade deals that are going

20:50

to lower tariffs on both sides. If

20:52

that's the plan, somebody ought to spell

20:55

it out. Okay, one of the big

20:57

problems here is that they're not spelling

20:59

out exactly what they want to do,

21:01

what President Trump's plan is. Radha sums

21:04

the stuff well. She says, if it

21:06

works, it's a defining success. That is

21:08

more under control, manufacturing or born, global

21:10

leverage restored, Trump is vindicated in 2026.

21:13

If it fails, you get inflation, retaliation,

21:15

loss midterms and strategic drift. that with

21:17

total uncertainty, the chances of things like

21:19

inflation go up with other countries retaliating.

21:22

Other countries have a say here in

21:24

how this goes. If those other countries

21:26

come on bending need to President Trump

21:28

and offer him a bunch of concessions,

21:31

then, okay, but the administration isn't really

21:33

being clear what it is looking for

21:35

right now. So the administration is sending

21:37

some mixed signals. On the one hand,

21:40

President Trump is now suggesting that this

21:42

is all prelude to negotiations, which, okay,

21:44

fine. I mean, hopefully. He has some

21:46

amazing negotiations out of this. There's some

21:49

early indicators that maybe you will have

21:51

your mule is already attempting to make

21:53

a deal with President Trump. He's been

21:55

into Yahoo and Israel's attempting to make

21:58

a deal with President Trump pretty obvious.

22:00

Here's President Trump saying

22:02

everybody's calling him.

22:04

And those tariffs have come

22:06

in and every country's called

22:09

us. That's the beauty of

22:11

what we do. We put

22:13

ourselves in the driver's seat. If

22:15

we would have asked some of

22:17

these countries to do us forever,

22:20

they would have said, no, now

22:22

they'll do anything for us. But

22:24

we have tariffs. They've been set.

22:26

And it's going to make our

22:28

country very rich. Or you open to

22:31

deals with these countries if they're calling you.

22:33

Well, it depends. If somebody said that

22:35

we're going to give you something that's

22:37

so phenomenal, it's almost like they're

22:39

giving us something that's good. So

22:42

maybe this is deal making us good.

22:44

Okay, so maybe this is deal-making. Prelude

22:46

to deal-making, which is kind of what

22:48

I suggested yesterday. That's the probable path

22:50

that this is on, so it's not

22:52

going to be quite as bad as

22:54

advertised. Unless. was saying no

22:56

negotiations, it's not a

22:58

negotiation. Guys, get on message.

23:00

This is not a negotiation,

23:03

Jesse. This is a national

23:05

emergency associated with chronic and

23:08

massive trade deficits that are

23:10

brought about by higher tariffs

23:12

and higher non-tariff barriers that

23:15

take our jobs, that take

23:17

our factories, that lead to

23:19

massive... trade deficits that result

23:22

in massive transfers of wealth

23:24

into foreign hands, a jeopardizer,

23:26

manufacturing base, and defense industrial

23:29

base. So it's not a negotiation,

23:31

but maybe it is a negotiation. Well,

23:33

how are countries to know? Because if

23:35

they think that it's not a negotiation,

23:38

they're immediately going to

23:40

reshift their trade relationships

23:42

toward wait for it China. In the

23:44

mixed signals are part of the

23:46

problem. The messaging is part of the

23:48

problem. President Trump is usually

23:50

pretty open about what exactly he is looking

23:53

for. And so far he has not been saying that

23:55

he is looking for off-ramps with all of these

23:57

countries. His negotiation is possible, but countries that

23:59

have already... off or an off ramp? Again, I used

24:01

Israel as the key example here because they actually did

24:03

it. They literally just said, zero tariffs. And they

24:05

got hit with a 17% tariff. Well, a lot remains

24:08

unclear, but there is something that should

24:10

be clear to you. You need better

24:12

sleep quality. There's something deeply satisfying about

24:14

a good spring refresh while decluttering and

24:16

storing away winter items makes a difference.

24:18

Refreshing your bed might be the most

24:20

rewarding change of all. Bolan branch signature

24:22

sheets, signature sheets, crafted from the finest

24:24

100 100% organic organic cotton, offer a

24:26

breathable foundation. Paired them with bowling branches,

24:28

airy blankets, do vase, and quilts for

24:30

the perfect seasonal upgrade. Bolan branches, 100%

24:32

organic cotton sheets, were pivotal in my

24:34

sleep quality from the first night. I

24:36

could feel the difference. They're not just

24:38

any sheets. They really do have an

24:40

incredible softness that puts you in instant

24:42

relaxation mode. What really impressed me is

24:44

how they get softer with every single

24:46

wash. I didn't think that was possible,

24:48

but after a few months, they felt

24:50

even more luxurious than when I first

24:52

got them. Believe me. Believe me, I've

24:54

tried other premium sheets before. I've tried

24:56

other premium sheets before. These are just

24:58

way better. In fact, we got rid

25:00

of all of our other sheets in

25:02

the house. We only have a bowl

25:04

and branch. The best part, they're woven

25:06

with the finest 100% organic cotton on

25:08

earth, with designs and colors for every

25:10

mattress size and bedroom style, so you

25:12

can find the perfect fit this spring.

25:14

Upgrade your sleep during bowl and branches

25:16

annual spring event. For a limited time,

25:18

get bowl and branch.com/men, take 20% off-site

25:20

wide for a limited time. Exclusions applies,

25:22

you cite for details. Also. You know,

25:24

it's funny, when I started DailyWire, I

25:26

thought the hard part would be creating

25:28

the awesome content. It turns out, the

25:30

actual pain in the butt is the

25:32

hiring, HR policies, employee issues, the behind-the-scenes

25:34

stuff. That's what eats up your time.

25:36

I know I'm not alone. When you're

25:38

a business owner, every second of your

25:40

time, every second of your time, every

25:42

second of your time is incredibly valuable.

25:44

So don't waste your energy and risk

25:46

losing money dealing with time-sucking payroll issues

25:49

in HR and HR infractions. Focus on

25:51

what matters most. Here's what makes Bambi

25:53

different. They give you access to your

25:55

very own dedicated HR manager at a

25:57

fraction of what it costs to employ

25:59

someone full-time. And get this, Bambi costs

26:01

just 29 bucks a month, where you

26:03

have 10, 75, and 100 employees. If

26:05

I had Bambi when I was first

26:07

building this team, it would have saved

26:09

me a lot of time, a lot

26:11

of headaches, instead of getting bogged down

26:13

with paperwork and compliance issues, we could

26:15

have focused on growing the show, connecting

26:17

with the audience even more than we'd

26:19

even more than we did. With Bambi's

26:21

HR autopilot, you'll never have to waste

26:23

your valuable time getting into the weeds

26:25

of HR policies on boarding or determinations

26:27

again. Plus, Bambi is month to month,

26:29

no hidden fees, you can cancel any

26:31

time. Right now, get one month of

26:33

Bambi for just $1. Go to bambi.com,

26:35

type in Ben Shapiro under podcast to

26:37

schedule your first call with an HR

26:39

manager right now. That's one month of

26:41

BAMB for just $1. BAM, B-B-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-T-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E They're

26:43

basically saying trust us. It's trust us.

26:45

Well, markets are not in the business

26:47

of trust us. Markets are in the

26:49

business. I'm trying to take in the

26:51

best available information and then spit out

26:53

what people think is going to happen

26:55

next. President Trump, he says that he

26:57

is confident the markets are going to

26:59

boom. The question is when. If it's

27:01

not soon, that's going to be a

27:03

problem. We have six or seven trillion

27:05

dollars coming into our country. And we've

27:07

never seen anything like it. The markets

27:09

are going to boom. The stock is

27:11

going to boom. The country is going

27:13

to boom. And the rest of the

27:15

world wants to see, is there any

27:17

way they can make a deal? They've

27:19

taken advantage of us for many, many

27:21

years. For many years, we've been at

27:23

the wrong side of the ball. And

27:25

I'll tell you what, I think it's

27:27

going to be unbelievable. She said that

27:29

there was not going to be pain

27:31

incurred. You're going to mix signals here.

27:33

There's Caroline Lovett saying no pain. So

27:35

there are two messages. You need pain

27:37

in order to get long-term gain. And

27:39

then there will be no pain message.

27:41

And they're kind of in conflict. This

27:43

won't be painful at all for American

27:46

people and consumers. Caroline. It's

27:48

going to be there's not going to

27:50

be any pain for American owned companies

27:52

and American workers because their jobs are

27:54

going to come back home and again

27:56

as for prices President Trump is working

27:58

on tax cuts to put more money

28:00

back into the pockets of Americans. Okay,

28:02

meanwhile, JD Vance is saying we're not

28:04

going to be able to fix things

28:06

overnight. Obviously, by the way, American workers

28:08

are also American consumers. They're the same.

28:10

You have a job and you also

28:12

consume things. Here's the vice president. What

28:15

I'd ask folks to appreciate here

28:18

is that we are not going

28:20

to fix things overnight. Joe Biden

28:22

left us, this is not an

28:24

exaggeration, Lawrence, with the largest peacetime

28:26

debt and deficit in the history

28:29

of the United States of America,

28:31

with sky high interest rates. You

28:33

don't fix that stuff overnight. We

28:35

know people are struggling. We're fighting

28:37

as quickly as we can to

28:39

fix what was left to us,

28:42

but it's not going to happen

28:44

immediately. Right, not immediate. American politics

28:46

worked in terms of immediacy. The

28:48

stock market continued to tank today.

28:50

People are looking at that and

28:53

they are not sanguine about it.

28:55

Is hiring going to be up

28:57

this month based on these sort

28:59

of expectations of what could come

29:01

next or fear of what's going

29:04

to come next? And politicians, by

29:06

the way, work on two-year cycles.

29:08

They work on 18-month cycles increasingly.

29:10

A multiplicity of Republican senators have

29:12

now come out and said, listen,

29:14

we don't like this very much.

29:17

It has not been spelled out

29:19

to us why this is necessary.

29:21

The strategy has not been explained

29:23

to us. What's the deal? So

29:25

Senator Rand Paul, who of course

29:28

is a free market libertarian on

29:30

this sort of stuff, he said

29:32

this is clearly a tax. Taxation

29:34

without representation is tyranny. Bellow James

29:36

Otis, in the days and weeks

29:38

and years leading up to the

29:41

American Revolution, it was non-negotiable. This

29:43

was what sparked the revolution. And

29:45

yet today we are here before

29:47

the Senate because one person in

29:49

our country wishes to raise taxes.

29:52

Well this is contrary to everything

29:54

our country was founded upon. One

29:56

person is not allowed to raise

29:58

taxes. The Constitution forbids... That's it.

30:00

Okay, but you say, well, you know, Ram Paul

30:03

is always taking the sort of

30:05

contra position whenever it comes to

30:07

government action. He's sort of out

30:09

there on his own, except he's

30:11

not. So, for example, Senator

30:13

Jerry Moran of Kansas. He's been

30:15

a pretty solid Trump ally. Here

30:18

he was, saying this is a

30:20

risky thing that is happening here.

30:22

The consequences are yet to

30:24

be fully known, but I

30:26

would have thought they would

30:29

have been less dramatic, less

30:31

dramatic. significant and more targeted.

30:33

And I think we

30:36

ought to be

30:38

focused on our

30:40

economic adversaries and

30:43

be less damaging

30:45

to our economic

30:48

allies. Senator Ted

30:50

Cruz, who has been

30:52

a really solid

30:54

Trump ally. Ever since

30:57

he lost the primaries in 2016

30:59

to President Trump, he's been on

31:01

the Trump bandwagon since then, basically.

31:03

Here is Ted Cruz saying, well, actually,

31:05

this is a tax on consumers,

31:07

because it is. If the result... is

31:10

our trading partners jack up their tariffs

31:12

and we have high tariffs everywhere. I

31:14

think that is a bad outcome for

31:17

America. Terrorists are a tax on consumers

31:19

and I'm not a fan of jacking

31:21

up taxes on American consumers. So my

31:23

hope is these tariffs are short-lived and

31:26

they serve as leverage to lower tariffs

31:28

across the globe. Okay, so again, I

31:30

think that's everybody's hope in

31:32

the Senate. What's actually going to happen

31:34

in Congress? So the Senate's a different story.

31:37

Senators can say what they want because they've

31:39

already moved to basically put limitations. Chuck Grassley

31:41

put forward a bill that says if there's

31:43

no congressional renewal of this in 60

31:46

days, this stuff should just go away. But

31:48

the House of Representatives would have to sign

31:50

on. There's a massive misalignment of incentives in

31:52

the House of Representatives. Let's say that this

31:54

tariff regime does not go particularly well. And

31:56

let's say that President Trump is willing because

31:58

he's not up for re-elect. do the thing.

32:00

House Republicans are going to be split.

32:02

Many House Republicans are going to say,

32:05

listen, I'm going to lose my seat

32:07

in the next election cycle because of

32:09

this deliberately created tariff policy. So I

32:11

don't like this very much. But if

32:13

Speaker Johnson were to step in and

32:15

try to stop the tariff policy, there

32:18

would undoubtedly be a Trumpist insurrection inside

32:20

the Republican caucus to overthrow him and

32:22

you'd get another speaker fight. So basically,

32:24

Trump better be right is what I

32:26

got to say here. Like either they

32:28

better move off of this pretty quickly

32:31

with bilateral trade deals or he better

32:33

be right. The problem here, the real

32:35

problem here, is that other countries have

32:37

a say. And many of those other

32:39

countries not only don't like President Trump,

32:41

they are not particularly fond of the

32:43

United States these days. They are not

32:46

particularly fond of the United States these

32:48

days. And that does not just mean

32:50

China. China of course was going to

32:52

retaliate China. I have no problem with

32:54

terrifying China. I think that a trade

32:56

war with China. So long as we

32:59

are broadening and opening our trade relationships

33:01

with everybody else, isolating China economically speaking

33:03

is actually not a terrible thing. But

33:05

the reason that China is doing that

33:07

is because China is now stepping into

33:09

the breach with our allies. This is

33:12

why we should not be treating Canada

33:14

the way we treat China. We should

33:16

not be treating the EU, the way

33:18

we treat China. Some of these places

33:20

are allies of the United States and

33:22

some of these places are enemies of

33:25

the United States. But... In

33:27

a lot of these countries that are

33:29

led by people who don't like President

33:31

Trump very much, they are perfectly willing

33:34

to make time with the Chinese. I

33:36

take, for example, Canada. It is of

33:38

great annoyance to me that Pierre Poliev,

33:40

who is a terrific candidate for the

33:43

Conservative Party, is now lagging in the

33:45

polls thanks to this trade war that

33:47

President Trump declared on Canada. And Mark

33:50

Kearny, who is the definition of a

33:52

globalist elite. This guy who is put

33:54

in place by Justin Trudeau's party. He's

33:56

out there excited as all hell about

33:59

the trade war. Why? Because now he

34:01

gets to reorient Canada away from the

34:03

United States. States and toward China. So

34:05

here is Mark Kearney who could not

34:08

be more celebratory about this. The 80-year

34:10

period when the United States embraced the

34:12

mantle of global economic leadership, when it

34:15

forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual

34:17

respect, and championed the free and open

34:19

exchange of goods and services, is over.

34:21

And although their policy will hurt American

34:24

families until that pain becomes impossible to

34:26

ignore, I do not believe they will

34:28

change direction. Okay, so is

34:30

Canada going to change direction? Or does Mark Kearny

34:33

actually like the tariff war because the tariff war

34:35

is keeping him in competition with Pierre Poliev? How

34:37

about the UK? Do we think that Kiar Starmer

34:39

is going to come on bending need to President

34:42

Trump? If so, why would he? Because again, he's

34:44

sort of internationalization of the populist movement means that

34:46

people like Kiar Starmer are going to oppose that

34:48

no matter what, even if it means economic damage

34:50

to his own country. Here's Kiar Starmer, the Prime

34:53

minister of the Prime Minister of the Prime Minister

34:55

of the UK. Decisions we

34:57

take in coming days and weeks

34:59

will be guided only by our

35:02

national interest, in the interests of

35:04

our economy, in the interests of

35:06

businesses around this table, in the

35:09

interest of putting money in the

35:11

pockets of working people. Nothing else

35:13

will guide me. That is my

35:16

focus. Meanwhile, by the way, Emmanuel

35:18

McCrawn in France, he is... urging

35:20

everybody not to cut bilateral deals

35:22

with the Trump administration. The Trump

35:25

administration has taken the side of

35:27

Marine La Penn, who's his chief

35:29

opposition, and so he is hoping

35:32

that actually the trade war will

35:34

escalate. Other countries have a say

35:36

in how the trade war goes.

35:39

And so there is this idea

35:41

that no one will stand up

35:43

to the United States and our

35:46

economic power. And that's a gamble,

35:48

because there are a lot of

35:50

places that don't like the United

35:53

States very much. The

35:55

global economy will massively suffer, uncertainty

35:57

will... spiral and trigger the rise

35:59

of further protectionism. The consequences will

36:01

be dire for millions of people

36:03

around the globe. Also for the

36:05

most vulnerable countries, which are now

36:07

subject to some of the highest

36:09

US tariffs. So let's say that

36:11

this doesn't result in other countries

36:13

lowering their tariffs immediately. It results

36:15

in other countries increasing their tariffs.

36:17

You're likely to actually get price

36:19

inflation. The interest rates that President

36:21

Trump would like to drop, those

36:23

interest rates, presumably, actually stick or

36:25

go higher, which undermines the thing

36:27

that he's trying to do with

36:29

the national debt, presumably. What's happening

36:31

right now is a major gamble

36:33

at best. The best way to

36:35

characterize it is a major gamble

36:37

by the Trump administration. Now maybe

36:39

the gamble pays off. What that's

36:41

going to rely upon is President

36:44

Trump making deals now. Now it's

36:46

dealmaker time. Because if it just

36:48

continues to be confusion, or if

36:50

this administration just has a vested

36:52

interest in the idea that tariffs

36:54

themselves in rich countries, and it's

36:56

totally unclear what the case here

36:58

is, or whether there is a

37:00

good feedback loop that would allow

37:02

President Trump to adjust, and again,

37:04

I think President Trump lives in

37:06

reality, I think if the headlines

37:08

are bad, he adjusts, we just

37:10

don't know. An uncertainty is, again,

37:12

its own form of economic risk,

37:14

and investors know that. So again,

37:16

to sort of... explain the steelman

37:18

theory of what President Trump is

37:20

doing right here. I asked, my

37:22

friend, perplexity AI sponsored the show,

37:24

how much would the cost of

37:26

America's debt service drop over the

37:28

next year if the yields on

37:30

the 10-year treasuries drop from 4.75%

37:32

which is what they were in

37:34

January or so, to 3.5% to

37:36

3.5% currently, they're just below 4.

37:38

And perplexity says based on the

37:40

provided calculations, if the yields on

37:43

10-year treas drop from 4. 4.75%

37:45

to 3. That calculation assumes a

37:47

total U.S. set of $33 trillion,

37:49

25% of the debt is tied.

37:51

to 10-year treasuries, and the yield

37:53

decreases from 4.75% to 3.5%. So

37:55

theoretically, it could be a little

37:57

bit more. You could also get

37:59

revenues that are taken in by

38:01

the tariffs, which effectively, as I

38:03

mentioned, is in fact, a tax

38:05

increase. So you could talk about

38:07

the reduction of the American debt

38:09

servicing if you used all that

38:11

money to pay off the debt,

38:13

for example, of several hundred billion

38:15

dollars. Now, the reality is that

38:17

over the long term, that isn't

38:19

going to solve the problem. of

38:21

entitlement is going to solve the

38:23

problem, particularly means-based entitlement programs. However,

38:25

if the idea is to bend

38:27

the cost curve down, and then

38:29

meanwhile, you're ramping up, for example,

38:31

AI and productivity in order to

38:33

make up for the vast expenditures,

38:35

and so it's a short-term pain

38:37

in order to kind of hold

38:39

steady, that's the best case that

38:41

you can make for the... Maybe

38:44

that's what President Trump is doing,

38:46

and what that's going to require,

38:48

is not only that the bond

38:50

yields remain fairly low... but also

38:52

it's going to require a pathway

38:54

to getting off of the current

38:56

tariff curve that we are on

38:58

because that carries its own inflationary

39:00

risk. Have you checked lately to

39:02

see if your home's title is

39:04

still in your name? With one

39:06

forged document, scammers can steal your

39:08

home's title and its equity. But

39:10

now you can protect yourself from

39:12

this crime. Home title locks, million

39:14

dollar triple lock protection, give 24

39:16

7 title monitoring, urgent alerts to

39:18

any changes, and if fraud does

39:20

happen, they'll spend up to a

39:22

million dollars to fix fraud and

39:24

restore your title. Get a free

39:26

title history report and access your

39:28

personal title expert, a $250 value,

39:30

when you sign up at home

39:32

title lock.com and use promo code

39:34

daily wire. That's home title lock.com,

39:36

promo code daily wire. Well, well,

39:38

Republicans are struggling over tariffs, and what

39:41

exactly is going to happen. Democrats have

39:43

some serious struggles of their own Ezra

39:45

Klein of the New York Times, the

39:47

New York Times, the brand-of-the-branded, all about

39:49

how Democrats really need to abandon what

39:51

he calls their everything bagel strategy. Ezra,

39:54

thanks so much for the time, really

39:56

appreciate it. Thanks for having me. How

39:58

are you? feel it, Ben, how liberated?

40:00

Scale of one to ten. On a

40:02

scale of one to ten, there are certain

40:04

areas in which I feel liberated, in certain

40:07

areas in which I feel a little bit

40:09

more dicey. I'll be honest with you. And

40:11

I'd like to see, you know, some stability

40:13

out of the markets. I'd like to see

40:16

the president actually explain what he

40:18

is doing and what he intends to

40:20

do. But it does feel like we're

40:22

living in a moment where almost everyone

40:24

across all parties is engaged in a

40:26

sort of chaotic game of, And I

40:28

think that that is something that you

40:30

talk about in your book, Abundance, is

40:32

sort of the stacking on of various

40:34

memos, various regulatory rationales on

40:36

top of each other, and what you end

40:38

up with is an unworkable system.

40:40

That seems to be one of the

40:42

main themes of abundance. Oh, that's a

40:44

good connection. I haven't thought of that.

40:47

So yeah, what you're describing there is

40:49

an argument or an idea I call

40:51

everything bagel liberalism, which I was trying

40:53

to make a distinction between the delicious,

40:55

everything bagel, which has some things on

40:57

it, but not too many, and then

40:59

the everything bagel from everything everywhere all

41:01

at once, which gets everything on and

41:03

becomes a black hole. There is a

41:05

tendency in the way Democrats govern to

41:07

pile... standard and goal and aim and project

41:09

after project after project into the same bill.

41:11

You know, you're trying to do affordable housing,

41:14

but you're also trying to achieve environmental goals

41:16

and unionization goals and a bunch of other

41:18

things in a way that means your housing

41:21

never actually gets built or gets built at

41:23

an insane cost level. Same thing can be

41:25

said for California high-speed rail. This affected a

41:27

bunch of different... Biden policies, but it's actually

41:30

as you I think drew in a pretty

41:32

smart connection there, you see this in the

41:34

Trump tariff policy too. It's by no means

41:37

just a left-wing problem. The Trump tariff

41:39

policy as far as I can tell

41:41

has at least four distinctive goals. One

41:43

is to raise money, another is to

41:46

insourced production that has gone to other

41:48

countries, another is to create leverage against

41:50

other countries and another to get sort

41:53

of, you know, the concessions on things

41:55

like fentanyl and border policy, and

41:57

another something to reshape global trade flows

41:59

and... orders and you can't pursue all

42:01

of those at once. For instance, you can't

42:03

raise the money and change the manufacturing structure.

42:06

You can't keep prices low but also move

42:08

the manufacturing decisions. You need a lot of

42:10

stability for companies that are making five to

42:12

ten year investment decisions. So it's a good

42:15

point. So, you know, there are a few

42:17

things here that there's so much in your

42:19

book to talk about. Let's focus in on

42:21

sort of the regulatory side that you're talking

42:23

about. One of the things that you talk

42:26

about in the book, and when you're making

42:28

the case for what you call abundance liberalism,

42:30

which is this idea that the government should

42:32

do things, that you just do those things

42:35

better, I'm wondering how realistic you think that

42:37

is, because you do see it, because you

42:39

do see it, from time to time, as

42:41

you do see it, from time to time,

42:44

sometimes in red states. But does that have

42:46

to do with what people perceive to be

42:48

the proper role of government? and small government

42:50

because there are certain areas where of course

42:52

conservatives favor big government say defense spending and

42:55

there are certain areas where liberals favor small

42:57

government say morals regulations but it's really not

42:59

big government versus small government it's more the

43:01

proper role of government and in early on

43:04

in the book one of the things that

43:06

you say is well you need the government

43:08

to step in on justice based goods and

43:10

and to me that's you can get in

43:13

some messy definitions there how do you get

43:15

into an area where it's not government over

43:17

nearly always declared that something is a justice-based

43:19

good, and once it's a justice-based good, then

43:21

you do have everybody trying to kind of

43:24

put their fingers in the pie. Well, you

43:26

do, you air quoted justice base goods, but

43:28

that's not a term I use. What I

43:30

do say is that there are certain goods

43:33

that over time, the American public has made

43:35

clear that they think access to them is

43:37

a matter of justice, right? Healthcare and housing

43:39

and housing and education and as such, both

43:41

Republicans and Democrats alike, have spent now collectively

43:44

trillions of dollars subsidizing them. The distinction I'm

43:46

drawing there is something like flat screen televisions

43:48

or a VR headset. the price discrimination is

43:50

such that a lot of people can't buy

43:53

them, we don't consider that a matter of

43:55

justice. If you can't have an oculus headset,

43:57

it's fine. You can't have an oculus headset.

43:59

We don't see it that way in terms

44:02

of whether or not you can have a

44:04

home. we don't see it that way in

44:06

terms of whether or not you can get

44:08

health care if you are sick. I mean,

44:10

we have a law that says hospitals have

44:13

to treat people if you walk into that

44:15

emergency room irrespective of ability to pay. And

44:17

so we've made that set of decisions already.

44:19

What I'm saying in that chapter in that

44:22

section is it when we've decided to subsidize

44:24

something, which we do a lot. We then

44:26

have to ask this secondary question, which we've

44:28

gotten quite bad at asking, which is do

44:31

we have enough supply of the thing that

44:33

we are subsidizing. subsidize housing through rental vouchers

44:35

and other things, but you don't build enough

44:37

housing, then what you're going to do is

44:39

simply push the price up on the homes

44:42

you already have. If, for instance, you did

44:44

Medicare for all, but you have not increased

44:46

the supply of doctors and nurses and hospitals

44:48

and so on enough, you would create different

44:51

kinds of rationing. And so the thing I

44:53

am trying to do in the book. is

44:55

move liberals to think more about the supply

44:57

of the goods that they want everyone to

44:59

have. I'm not really, nor is Derek, in

45:02

the project here, adding a bunch of ideas

45:04

of categories of goods that we should subsidize.

45:06

What I'm saying is that we have a

45:08

lot of things that we say we want

45:11

everybody to have. We say that they're part

45:13

of a flourishing life, from the ability to

45:15

go to higher ed, to the ability to

45:17

have a home, and in many, many, many

45:20

cases we have allowed government. or regulation to

45:22

become a huge bottleneck. And we've sort of

45:24

called that progressive, but in its ultimate account,

45:26

it's not. And any liberal looking at, say,

45:28

Texas, building more clean energy, despite politics, much

45:31

more hostile to clean energy, despite politics much

45:33

more hostile to clean energy, than most blue

45:35

states are, needs to do some rethinking about

45:37

whether or not our policy equilibrium is actually

45:40

achieving our goals. So in the book, how

45:42

do you make the balance between doing that

45:44

in an actual... direct subsidy base way. So

45:46

for example you mentioned housing. Obviously one of

45:49

the big restrictions on housing, I used to

45:51

live in Los Angeles, is all the housing

45:53

regulation. Tremendous regulation in terms of how you

45:55

build, can you build, can you build, can

45:57

you build, can you rent your garage out

46:00

to somebody? This is a big thing when

46:02

I was living there, can you actually, this

46:04

is a big thing when I was living

46:06

there, can you actually, can you rent your

46:09

garage to somebody, you were not allowed to

46:11

do this, as a sort of grandma, as

46:13

a sort of grandma, as a sort of

46:15

grandma suite, as a sort of grandma suite,

46:18

as a sort of a sort of a

46:20

sort of a sort of a sort of

46:22

a sort of a sort of a sort

46:24

of a sort of a sort of a

46:26

sort of a sort of a sort of

46:29

a sort of a sort of a sort

46:31

of a sort of a sort of a

46:33

sort of a sort of a sort of

46:35

a sort of a, one, one, one, one,

46:38

one, one, one, one, what to do as

46:40

far as regulations, which I think is more

46:42

of a generalized Republican proposal, get rid of

46:44

the regulations, make it easier to build, let

46:46

the market mechanisms take over, versus direct subsidies,

46:49

and then how do you distinguish ideologically between

46:51

what there is liberal versus what is conservative?

46:53

Because you seem to be talking, well, why

46:55

wouldn't that just be called conservatism if you're

46:58

removing regulations that allow for more housing to

47:00

be built? It's a great question. So let

47:02

me take that in a couple different pieces.

47:04

much more focused on the end of what

47:07

I'm trying to create more of than the

47:09

policy means by which I get it. So

47:11

in the question you're asking, what would I

47:13

subsidize? What would I have the government do

47:15

directly? Let's take housing as the core example

47:18

here. In my view, we should have a

47:20

lot more market rate development and a lot

47:22

more affordable housing development, some of which I

47:24

am perfectly happy to have be public housing.

47:27

But in all these cases, we have certainly

47:29

in California, certainly in LA, where the housing

47:31

policies are quite bad, we have, certainly in

47:33

LA, where the housing policies are quite bad.

47:36

We have regulated this into a level of

47:38

unaffordability. I happen to read on an airplane

47:40

last night, a new report from the Rand

47:42

Corporation. But it's about the cost of construction

47:44

of homes in California, in Texas, ending Colorado.

47:47

And it's about the cost of construction of

47:49

multifamily housing of two types, one market rate

47:51

and the other subsidized by the public. And

47:53

one of the things the report shows, and

47:56

something I've reported on too, is it specifically

47:58

in California, when we subsidize housing, right? So

48:00

the government says we want affordable housing for

48:02

the poor. We layer on so many. regulations

48:04

and demands and wage standards, etc. that we

48:07

actually make that housing per square foot much

48:09

more expensive than even the market rate housing.

48:11

Now there's nothing inevitable about that. In Colorado,

48:13

it doesn't work that way. And I don't

48:16

think most liberals would say Colorado is a

48:18

dystopian conservative healthscape. But in Los Angeles,

48:20

and like what they have done to increase the

48:22

cost per square foot of the of the

48:25

housing that they are getting taxpayers to subsidize.

48:27

is crazy. My view on this is that

48:29

it should be possible to have the government

48:31

actually clear things out of the way

48:33

to make the things it wants to have

48:36

happen happen faster. That was sort of the

48:38

legacy of operation warp speed, which is a

48:40

policy that has been sadly, in my view,

48:42

disowned by both sides. But liberals have to

48:44

get pretty serious about the question. If you

48:47

want government to build things, then it has

48:49

to be at the very least affordable and timely

48:51

for the government to do it. If you've

48:53

created rules by which government construction or things

48:55

that are funded by the government for construction

48:57

from housing to high-speed rail come in much

49:00

more expensive and much over budget compared to

49:02

letting the market do it or having it

49:04

not happen at all, then in the end

49:06

you're not going to get the things you

49:08

want and it's not going to be affordable

49:11

to get the things you want. One of

49:13

the stats from the Rand project that I

49:15

found really striking was it if California had

49:17

Colorado's housing regulations on affordable housing, then the

49:19

same amount of money we are spending, because I'm a Californian like you,

49:21

would have built four times as much. publicly subsidized affordable housing. So to

49:24

my view, whether you call that goal liberal or conservative, it is a

49:26

good goal and the right thing to be shooting for. Yeah, I mean,

49:28

and to be fair, I'm no longer in California specifically because California became

49:30

such a hellscape. I moved my entire family to 40 years ago, right?

49:32

Of course, of course. Completely give it up. I'm in California next. I

49:34

give it up pretty damn fast, man. Florida's great, but you know, but

49:36

you know, I think that one of the one of the things that

49:38

you're saying that you're saying that you're saying that you're saying that you're

49:40

saying that you're saying that you're saying that you're saying that you're saying

49:43

that you're saying that you're saying that you're saying that you're saying that

49:45

you're saying that you're saying that, that you're saying that you're saying that,

49:47

that, that, that, that you're saying that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

49:49

that, that, that, that, One of the things I like about

49:51

that is that it gets back to a time when

49:53

actually political conversation was possible because the goals were in

49:55

fact the same. It feels like that is increasingly not

49:57

the case in the country in a lot of different

49:59

ways. But there is a means distinction.

50:01

I'll make the conservative argument here, which

50:03

is that the minute you start to

50:05

grow government, everything big of liberalism becomes

50:08

almost a necessary component beyond a certain

50:10

point. Maybe you can do that on

50:12

individual one-off emergency projects, operation war speed,

50:14

it's time for war. We need to

50:16

motivate Ford to start making airplanes. And

50:18

that's why I think people on the

50:20

left are so fond of declaring wars

50:22

on things. It's a war on poverty.

50:24

on housing shortages. Because if you declare

50:26

a war, that means you get to

50:29

clear all the decks. And now it's

50:31

an emergency. And with emergencies, you can

50:33

sort of wipe everything off the bagel

50:35

and just go with the bagel. You

50:37

saw this in Los Angeles after the

50:39

fires when suddenly everybody started talking about,

50:41

hey, maybe we shouldn't actually do all

50:43

these environmental reviews before we rebuild all

50:45

the housing and Pacific Palisades and all

50:47

this kind of thing. But the problem

50:49

is that just as a general matter,

50:52

the conservative argument, the conservative argument, the

50:54

conservative. people are going to lobby for

50:56

that cash and that regulatory power, and

50:58

the people who are elected are going

51:00

to be answerable to a lot of

51:02

those people. If you're looking at labor

51:04

regulations, for example, many of the labor

51:06

regulations are being effectively indirectly written by

51:08

unions that contribute to the members of

51:10

Congress or to the governor or state

51:12

senator to whom they're contributing. I think

51:15

that the conservative argument would be the

51:17

reason to minimize government in the areas

51:19

where you don't have to have it.

51:21

would be because it is almost an

51:23

inevitability, unless you're going to declare an

51:25

emergency into what you're talking about, which

51:27

starts to verge on possible tyranny. Because

51:29

I mean, again, one of the things

51:31

that happens here is the more public

51:33

input there is the more you get

51:36

everything on the bagel, the less public

51:38

input, the less public input, the less

51:40

public input, the less public input, the

51:42

less you get everything on the bagel.

51:44

And so you start to run into

51:46

some pretty dice. is the best way

51:48

to do that just to deprive the

51:50

government of the cash and base yourself

51:52

more on market-based solutions. I think this

51:54

is where it's very helpful to be

51:56

grounded in both specific examples and specific

51:59

policies because Yes, conceptually, all that is

52:01

true. And then you just look around

52:03

and you realize that the policies work

52:05

very differently and the interest group constellations

52:07

are very different in different places. And

52:09

I mean, that is true for, like,

52:11

look, we build, we, they build transit

52:13

much better, much cheaper, much faster, in

52:15

Spain, in France, in Japan than we

52:17

do. And the difference there is not

52:19

that Spain, France, and Japan don't have

52:22

governments. It's not that they don't have

52:24

unions. They have higher union density than

52:26

we do. It's that they have a

52:28

very different structure of how they do

52:30

government. So a big thing I'm focusing

52:32

on in the book. is the way

52:34

we have begun to restrain government in

52:36

this country through process and adversarial legalism,

52:38

where you can just tie it up

52:40

in lawsuits again and again and again

52:43

and again. That was one way of

52:45

trying to avoid tyranny, but what you

52:47

created is a very ineffective form of

52:49

government. So one thing I think worth

52:51

just saying is that we can see

52:53

this working very differently in different places.

52:55

I just mentioned Colorado and California have

52:57

quite different housing outcomes, even though they

52:59

are both currently governed by Democrats and

53:01

they both have government. So I always

53:03

think it's good to stay a little.

53:06

more grounded than that. But the other

53:08

thing that I do think you're getting

53:10

at is both parties, in my view,

53:12

have a sort of scarcity side and

53:14

abundant side inside of them. This cleavage

53:16

that I'm trying to cut occurs on

53:18

both sides. So on the Democratic side,

53:20

on the liberal side, I see this

53:22

is between, you know, you can call

53:24

it different things, but the new deal

53:26

left and the new left left. So

53:29

the new deal left was very growth

53:31

oriented, very building oriented. It created a

53:33

lot of physical infrastructure, created highways because

53:35

Dwight Eisenhower was sort of part of

53:37

this political order. And it did things

53:39

very fast. And in doing that, it

53:41

created a counter reaction, not just sort

53:43

of conservatism as we think about it

53:45

with Ronald Reagan, but also the new

53:47

left. Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson and,

53:50

you know, this sort of raft of

53:52

environmental legislation passed by the way under

53:54

Richard Nixon, California Environmental Quality Act passed

53:56

under Governor Ronald Reagan. So these things

53:58

often were bipartisan. their times, but over

54:00

time, they're not the right policy equilibrium

54:02

for the next stage. On the right,

54:04

though, you have the same issue. So

54:06

you have a, I don't want to

54:08

call it an abundance, right, but a

54:10

right that is more open to markets,

54:13

more open to trying to create a

54:15

lot of housing, and then you have

54:17

a scarcity right, a populist right, which

54:19

is currently the right in power. And

54:21

you look at Donald Trump, you look

54:23

at shady vans, when they look at

54:25

the housing problem, they don't propose a

54:27

lot of ways to make supply bigger

54:29

on the campaign trial again and again,

54:31

they use it as an argument for

54:33

deporting immigrants. When they look at trade,

54:36

they don't make a lot of ways

54:38

for making more ways for us to

54:40

make more things more easily and trade

54:42

them with the world. They're rapidly reducing

54:44

the entire quantity of global trade using

54:46

a completely insane tariff scheme. So this

54:48

is not a crew in my view

54:50

that looks forward and sees a sort

54:52

of world of more. They look at

54:54

scarcity we currently have, things we don't

54:57

have enough of, manufacturing capacity, etc. And

54:59

then find a way to create a

55:01

scarcity of something else. So my view

55:03

is that the sort of supply side

55:05

of both parties has a fight on

55:07

its hands. And the fight is different

55:09

and it plays out in different ways,

55:11

but one of the things that should

55:13

make us more optimistic rather than fatalistic

55:15

about the inevitable pathway of government that

55:17

sort of you're suggesting there is it

55:20

if you look around at different countries

55:22

at our own country and at our

55:24

own even federal government at different times,

55:26

you realize that these are pendulums that

55:28

swing back. These are man-made processes that

55:30

can be unmade or reformed or reformed.

55:32

And that should always give you a

55:34

sense of hope. So let's talk briefly

55:36

about the two parties. Obviously, I agree

55:38

with a lot of your characterization of

55:40

what you just discussed. I think there

55:43

is a much heavier tendency in the

55:45

Republican Party and has historically been toward

55:47

supply sideism, toward the idea that you

55:49

need to increase supply. And this is

55:51

true everywhere in sort of the right-wing

55:53

focus on how do doctors get paid

55:55

to how do we get rid of

55:57

regulation. It seems like the left. is

55:59

left of the Democratic Party at this

56:01

point that you would say is rich

56:04

in abundance liberalism. I can spot abundance

56:06

conservatives everywhere, some of them are in

56:08

hiding, some of them are being pretty

56:10

quiet right now, but I think that

56:12

if you poll the vast majority of

56:14

people who voted for Republicans, they would

56:16

actually agree with a sort of abundance

56:18

supply side conservatism because that is kind

56:20

of in the bones of the Reagan

56:22

bones are still part of the skeleton

56:24

of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party

56:27

has moved so far to the left

56:29

in a lot of different ways. that

56:31

it feels like it's going to be

56:33

a while in the wilderness before Democrats

56:35

realize they have to engage with the

56:37

sort of arguments that you're making. I

56:39

have been extraordinary. I'll say two things

56:41

about this. One is it, just some

56:43

of you just released a book on

56:45

this. I've been extraordinarily pleased with how

56:47

I've been extraordinarily pleased with how much

56:50

the Senate has released a book on

56:52

this. I've been extraordinarily pleased with how

56:54

much the Senate of California, and he

56:56

completely agrees with the book and it's

56:58

all correct. It's very hard and I

57:00

take that point, but you know, Corey

57:02

Booker was shouting the book out in

57:04

his 25 hour speech on the Senate

57:06

floor. He shouted every book out ever

57:08

written in his 25 hours. It was

57:11

a lot of hours, but nevertheless, he's

57:13

read it as of a bunch of

57:15

others. But nevertheless, he's read it as

57:17

of a bunch of others. So one

57:19

thing I think is happening here is

57:21

a bit of others. So one thing

57:23

I think is happening here is a

57:25

bit of. At the same time, I

57:27

don't agree with your characterization from a

57:29

minute ago, because much of the book

57:31

is motivated by things happening that predate

57:34

the book in the Democratic Party already.

57:36

So the Biden administration compared to the

57:38

first Trump administration, compared to the Obama

57:40

administration, compared to the Obama administration, was

57:42

quite committed to an atypically physical legacy.

57:44

What it was trying to do was

57:46

build things in the real world. It's

57:48

major bills, the infrastructure bill, the chips

57:50

and science act, which is trying to

57:52

bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the US.

57:54

And of course, the Inflation Reduction Act

57:57

are all about constructing things, not in

57:59

the regulatory state or in the tax

58:01

code, as was true in sort of

58:03

previous administrations. but out of cement and

58:05

steel and cable and fiber. Now the

58:07

problem, and what motivated at least some

58:09

of the inquiry of the book for

58:11

me, is that our laws and our

58:13

processes are not set up. to build

58:15

at that scale and at that level

58:18

at the speed that I think we

58:20

need to do it, or frankly that

58:22

they thought we need to do it.

58:24

Brian D. So former NEC director under

58:26

Biden, the director of the National Economics

58:28

Council, is a great piece in foreign

58:30

affairs about how America needs to build

58:32

faster and how that's central to the

58:34

kinds of things Biden was trying to

58:36

do, but will not be achieved unless

58:38

we change laws. So in my view,

58:41

you've actually had, driven by housing scarcity

58:43

and the need for decarbonizationization. building things,

58:45

not just creating social insurance, not that

58:47

there's anything in my view wrong with

58:49

social insurance, but having begun to make

58:51

that turn, they have begun to confront,

58:53

as I've had to begun to confront

58:55

covering it, how ill-suited. the architecture of

58:57

procedural liberalism is to achieving those goals.

58:59

And so what's I think the really

59:01

difficult confrontation now is not whether this

59:04

stuff is needed, but the confrontation that

59:06

liberals are having with the overhang of

59:08

their own past legislative achievements, things that

59:10

might have made sense at one time,

59:12

but are now not the right processes,

59:14

not the right laws for the kinds

59:16

of things that we are now trying

59:18

to achieve and promising to achieve. and

59:20

that it's in that space that a

59:22

lot of the very very difficult policy

59:25

work and frankly coalitional confrontations are going

59:27

to have to have that. That's the

59:29

last point and I know you I

59:31

know we have to run here but

59:33

I think that's the last point the

59:35

I think that's the last point the

59:37

coalition of the Democratic Party is not

59:39

conducive yet to the kind of change

59:41

that you're talking about. The Biden administration

59:43

even if you assume what what you're

59:45

assuming here which they wanted to build

59:48

things between the environmentalist side of their

59:50

coalition and the and the sort of

59:52

generalized, you know, interest group nature of

59:54

the Democratic coalition, it made it nearly

59:56

impossible for them to do any of

59:58

these things without stacking up the kinds

1:00:00

of regulation, even in the bill back

1:00:02

better. for example, that they would need

1:00:04

to ignore in order to actually get

1:00:06

done the things they were saying they

1:00:08

wanted to get done. I would say

1:00:11

the great failure of the Biden administration

1:00:13

was to be too coalitional and have

1:00:15

too little, at least on domestic policy,

1:00:17

strong executive leadership. And I think that

1:00:19

has to do with Biden's particular issues

1:00:21

and his age and where his focus

1:00:23

was. And I think that has to

1:00:25

do with the culture of the Democratic

1:00:27

Party that had sort of evolved over

1:00:29

a period of time. And now that's

1:00:32

going to have to change. I think

1:00:34

it's quite widely acknowledged that that was

1:00:36

a problem. And look, I think if

1:00:38

Donald Trump proves anything in American politics

1:00:40

for all of his flaws, what he

1:00:42

proves is that the coalitions and the

1:00:44

cultures of the coalitions are malleable. Donald

1:00:46

Trump has reshaped the Republican coalition not

1:00:48

by kicking everybody who is in it

1:00:50

out. In part, it's persuasion. People have

1:00:52

come to believe things they did not

1:00:55

believe before. You know, it's a cottage

1:00:57

industry on X to retweet old Mike

1:00:59

Waltz or Marco Rubio tweets that seem

1:01:01

to have a high level of contradiction

1:01:03

to what they are now carrying out

1:01:05

in the current administration. But look, Trump

1:01:07

changed his party on immigration, on trade,

1:01:09

on isolationism, on Europe, on Russia, right?

1:01:11

I am not saying that I want

1:01:13

to see a Trump arise on the

1:01:15

left, I don't, but it is a

1:01:18

mistake to think that these things are

1:01:20

too settled. Barack Obama changed the way

1:01:22

the Democratic Party worked and functioned, and

1:01:24

I think frankly a lot of the

1:01:26

problem ended up being that Biden was

1:01:28

the fumes of the Obama coalition, but

1:01:30

he didn't have the control over it

1:01:32

that Obama himself had. So he wasn't

1:01:34

able to drive it and govern it

1:01:36

in the way that one needed to.

1:01:39

What's going to come next is going

1:01:41

to have to be different. It's not

1:01:43

trying to re-put together the old thing.

1:01:45

The old thing is failed now. It's

1:01:47

going to be putting together the new

1:01:49

thing. I'm not going to sit here

1:01:51

and tell you, I know who can

1:01:53

do it or how they're going to

1:01:55

do it. But I can tell you,

1:01:57

somebody who covers the Democratic Party quite

1:01:59

closely, that this is a period of

1:02:02

rebuilding and doing it, but I can

1:02:04

tell you, somebody who covers it on

1:02:06

the book. Thank you Ben, I appreciate

1:02:08

it. Well, meanwhile, in other weird news

1:02:10

from the White House, apparently President Trump

1:02:12

had Laura Loomer in, you remember Laura

1:02:14

Loomer? She was actually kicked off Air

1:02:16

Force One on 9-11 because she was

1:02:18

flying with the president. There were a

1:02:20

lot of his aides who were really

1:02:22

kind of upset about it. There were

1:02:25

a lot of his aides who were

1:02:27

really kind of upset about it. It

1:02:29

wasn't Air Force One. And people were

1:02:31

upset that Loomer was traveling with the

1:02:33

president. And so the president sort of

1:02:35

said, well, she doesn't need to be

1:02:37

on the plane anymore. Well, she was

1:02:39

welcome back to the White House, where

1:02:41

she proceeded to apparently unfurl a list

1:02:43

of people in the National Security Council

1:02:46

that she, Laura Loomer, believed were not

1:02:48

loyal to President Trump, and he promptly

1:02:50

fired a bunch of them. That seems

1:02:52

to be the best read on this

1:02:54

story. There's an all-purpose term that is

1:02:56

used by people who tried to oust

1:02:58

people inside the Trump circle, and that

1:03:00

is neo-con. apparently labeled a bunch of

1:03:02

people Neocons or non-fact Neocons. Neocons is

1:03:04

a specific designation for people who were

1:03:06

Democrats in the 1960s and 70s, and

1:03:09

then they became conservative, hence Neocons. They

1:03:11

bore new conservatives. They were liberals were

1:03:13

mugged by reality, used to be the

1:03:15

description of Neocons, and then during the

1:03:17

Bush administration, the Neocons were associated with

1:03:19

the sort of Wilsonian view of American

1:03:21

foreign policy where we needed to transform

1:03:23

Iraq into a democracy where America was

1:03:25

a nation-buildinging country country. wing of the

1:03:27

Republican Party is just gone. It does

1:03:29

not exist anymore. No one in the

1:03:32

Republican Party. No one believes in nation

1:03:34

building by the United States. That the

1:03:36

United States needs 100-year occupations of places

1:03:38

and full-scale nation building. It's a much

1:03:40

more pragmatic, a hundred-year occupations of places

1:03:42

and full-scale nation building. It's a much

1:03:44

more pragmatic Republican Party. The term Neocan

1:03:46

is just thrown around by people who

1:03:48

very often don't even agree with President.

1:03:50

In any case... Laura Luma apparently labeled

1:03:53

a bunch of people disloyal to President

1:03:55

Trump inside the national security infrastructure and

1:03:57

four national security council aides were then

1:03:59

fired. overnight to other national security council

1:04:01

aides were let go on Sunday according

1:04:03

to the Wall Street Journal. Those staffers

1:04:05

worked on a series of portfolios

1:04:07

including intelligence India, congressional affairs, and

1:04:09

the impact of technology security. Two

1:04:12

people added this with the latest round of firings

1:04:14

that will be at least ten people ousted from

1:04:16

the NSC by the end of the second round.

1:04:18

And during Wednesday meeting in the Oval

1:04:20

Office, Loomer told the president she had

1:04:22

concerns about some of his staff and

1:04:24

President Trump then said she makes recommendations

1:04:26

and sometimes I listened to those recommendations.

1:04:29

Let's just say, I hope the

1:04:31

staffing protocols at the White

1:04:34

House are stronger than

1:04:36

single recommendations

1:04:38

by Laura Loomer. I think that

1:04:40

that is probably not the

1:04:42

best way to staff in

1:04:45

administration. Let's just leave

1:04:47

it at that. And meanwhile, in

1:04:49

lighter news, in cultural news,

1:04:52

you know, I'm... I understand. The

1:04:54

markets are putting me in a

1:04:56

bad mood. Also, I want President

1:04:58

Trump's plans to succeed, as I've

1:05:00

said a thousand times here on

1:05:02

the show. President Trump is doing

1:05:04

too much important work for all

1:05:06

of it to be waylaid by bad things

1:05:08

happening. And so I'm in a bit of

1:05:11

a bad mood. I'll be honest with you.

1:05:13

But I decided to do something that put

1:05:15

me in even a worse mood, and that

1:05:17

was I watched the new preview for

1:05:19

Superman that was put out by James

1:05:21

Gun. Ridiculous humor, kind of

1:05:24

Gonzo humor, people unsurfaced. His

1:05:26

old tweets that were kind of jokey,

1:05:28

ugly tweets in early days of Twitter,

1:05:30

James Gunn based on those old tweets

1:05:32

was actually fired by Marvel. And

1:05:35

I will say that I publicly supported

1:05:37

the idea that he should be rehired

1:05:39

because you shouldn't cancel people based on

1:05:41

jokes that they made back when Twitter

1:05:43

was a jokeier place. And now he's directing

1:05:46

the new Superman movie. And we

1:05:48

can watch this preview together. It

1:05:50

sucks. It's bad. I hate to break

1:05:52

it to you. It's just, it's terrible.

1:05:54

Here we go. So

1:06:00

for those who can't see, Superman

1:06:02

is wounded and he is lying

1:06:04

on the snow. The original preview,

1:06:06

it just showed at this point,

1:06:08

Krypto the dog arriving, but this

1:06:10

preview is much longer. Here comes

1:06:12

Krypto, he whistles for Krypto, the

1:06:14

super dog. So Krypto arrives and

1:06:16

then Krypto proceeds to for well

1:06:18

over a minute, beat the living

1:06:21

hell out of Superman. He's screaming

1:06:23

in pain as Krypto jumps on

1:06:25

him. And

1:06:29

continues to nudge him, bite

1:06:31

him. Okay, I don't see

1:06:34

the purpose of this. So

1:06:36

this is not dramatic, it's

1:06:39

just silly and ridiculous. And

1:06:41

then finally, crypto figures out

1:06:44

that he needs to take

1:06:46

Superman back to the fortress

1:06:48

of solitude. So now crypto

1:06:51

is dragging Superman's prone body

1:06:53

through the snow back toward

1:06:56

the fortress of solitude, which

1:06:58

arises from the Arctic. And

1:07:01

it's a cool-looking fortress of

1:07:03

solitude, I'll give you that.

1:07:06

But don't worry, it gets

1:07:08

worse. Once Superman is brought

1:07:11

inside, a team of robots,

1:07:13

presumably of Kryptonian origin, then

1:07:15

starts to handle him, and

1:07:18

they have one of the

1:07:20

most nonsensical exchanges in any

1:07:23

James gun movie, which is

1:07:25

to say pretty nonsensical. Here

1:07:29

come the robots. They pick

1:07:31

him up and they're carrying

1:07:34

him. Thank you. No need

1:07:36

to thank us, sir, as

1:07:39

we will not appreciate it.

1:07:41

We have no consciousness whatsoever.

1:07:44

Thank you. No need to

1:07:46

thank us, sir, as we

1:07:48

will not appreciate it. We

1:07:51

have no consciousness whatsoever. Merely

1:07:53

automaton's here to serve. Meet

1:07:56

12. She's news. She's new.

1:07:59

No! He looked at

1:08:01

me. With a healthy dose

1:08:03

of yellow sun, we'll have

1:08:05

you up and add him

1:08:07

in no time. Okay, and

1:08:09

then they, uh, they're, they're

1:08:12

gonna hit Superman with a

1:08:14

magnifying glass. And

1:08:24

now he's painfully absorbing the sun,

1:08:26

which apparently was not available before. So

1:08:28

the sun, which, as we all know,

1:08:30

illuminates the earth, which is the planet

1:08:33

we are currently spinning on, apparently only

1:08:35

the magnifying glass could make Superman better.

1:08:37

And we will notice the obvious incongruity

1:08:40

of one robot explaining that the robots

1:08:42

have no feelings, and then the

1:08:44

female robot being giggly, like a little

1:08:46

girl at Superman. The entire attitude here

1:08:49

is wrong. The gold standard for Superman

1:08:51

movies remains the original Superman in the

1:08:53

late 70s by Richard Donner. By far

1:08:56

the best Superman movie, not close, better

1:08:58

than Man of Steel, significantly better. Because

1:09:00

it gets right the idea that

1:09:02

there is a solemnity to Superman that

1:09:05

he is supposed to be the embodiment

1:09:07

of America and then the second half

1:09:09

of the movie shifts into a more

1:09:12

comic book humorous mode. And it's very,

1:09:14

the color palette is very rich and

1:09:16

very bright. Man of steel they basically

1:09:19

desaturate the entire film so the

1:09:21

in the entire color palette is

1:09:23

gray scale and kind of ugly and

1:09:25

dark and the entire character of

1:09:27

Superman is much darker The the attitude

1:09:29

here is totally wrong. It's just guardians

1:09:32

of the galaxy in a Superman suit

1:09:34

and that takes me off it really

1:09:36

does because as a lifelong fan of

1:09:39

the Superman brand Let me just say

1:09:41

that it's not that hard to get

1:09:43

Superman right. He's supposed to be

1:09:46

the embodiment of everything cool and heroic

1:09:48

about America and Of course, he's supposed

1:09:50

to be charming as well. That's the

1:09:53

whole stick. So you don't need full

1:09:55

scale James Gunn. He's the same character

1:09:57

as essentially crisp rat in Guardians of

1:10:00

the Galaxy and all the jokes are

1:10:02

the same as as the Guardians

1:10:04

of the Galaxy movie. It's silly

1:10:06

and stupid and bad, do not like

1:10:08

two thumbs down, very disappointed, ugh.

1:10:10

The angry, okay, so I was going

1:10:13

to be put in a better mood

1:10:15

by that and then I was just

1:10:17

put in a worse mood by that.

1:10:20

In other news, Wicked for Good, which

1:10:22

is the second part of Wicked. The

1:10:24

footage has now been presented to attendees

1:10:27

at Cinemacon in Las Vegas, by

1:10:29

Universal. So as I said, I like

1:10:31

Wicked Part 1. I'm sure Wicked Part

1:10:33

2 will be good, although I assume

1:10:36

they film these things at the same

1:10:38

time. I would hope so, because unfortunately

1:10:40

both leading actresses seem to be starving

1:10:43

themselves into submission. I mean, they really

1:10:45

look rough out there. Meanwhile, Spider-Man

1:10:47

4 has been, the release of

1:10:49

it has been announced, July 31st, 20-26.

1:10:51

That is one week after Christopher

1:10:53

Nolan's new film, the Odyssey, which, again,

1:10:56

I'm up for anything Christopher Nolan, John

1:10:58

Wick has been announced. And I'm hoping

1:11:00

that the John Wick 5 is better

1:11:03

than John Wick 4 is. You know,

1:11:05

I was a little disappointed in John

1:11:07

Wick 4. You can go back and

1:11:10

see my YouTube review of it.

1:11:12

Obviously he wasn't dead at the end

1:11:14

of John Wick 4. That was obviously

1:11:16

clear. There was a joke going around,

1:11:19

however. He was supposed to be dead.

1:11:21

There's a naked gun reboot that is

1:11:23

coming. Now again, I think it's kind

1:11:26

of sad that that... The Zucker brothers

1:11:28

weren't involved in the naked gun

1:11:30

reboot. They're the ones who were

1:11:32

responsible for the first naked gun. There's

1:11:34

one funny joke in the naked

1:11:36

gun reboot, and it's about OJ Simpson.

1:11:39

It's a pretty good joke. Hi, Davy.

1:11:41

It's me, Frank, Jr. Love you. Hey,

1:11:43

dad. Why do I miss you? Don't

1:11:46

let them want these! And that joke

1:11:48

put me in a better mood. It

1:11:50

did. And then I found out that

1:11:53

Greta Gerwig's Netflix adaptation of the

1:11:55

Magician's Nephew, which is the first book

1:11:57

in C.S. Lewis' Narnia series. The

1:12:00

person who they are thinking about casting

1:12:02

is Aslan, who is supposed to be

1:12:04

very obviously a metaphor for Jesus. There's

1:12:06

no question. It's clear in the books.

1:12:08

I mean, down to the resurrection of

1:12:11

Aslan, in the line, the witch and

1:12:13

the wardrobe. The voice is now going

1:12:15

to be Merrill Streep, which makes no

1:12:17

sense at all on a metaphorical level.

1:12:19

It's one of the dumbest things you

1:12:21

could possibly do. If you want to

1:12:24

alienate the entire CS Lewis audience, this

1:12:26

is the thing you should do. Meanwhile,

1:12:29

Charlie XZX is apparently in talks for

1:12:31

the role of the white witch. But

1:12:33

why? But why are you doing this?

1:12:35

Just adapt it straight. It's not that

1:12:38

difficult. Just, it's a good book, just

1:12:40

adapted straight. This is the same as

1:12:42

that ridiculous suggestion a while back that

1:12:44

Cynthia Arivo was going to be cast

1:12:47

in Jesus Christ Superstar as Jesus. Stop

1:12:49

with this stuff. Stop with this stuff.

1:12:51

Stop it. Just stop. It's stupid and

1:12:53

it's insulting and it's gross and you

1:12:56

would never do this. with any other

1:12:58

religion, you wouldn't. It's ridiculous and annoying

1:13:00

and just demonstrative of how Hollywood spits

1:13:02

on people who don't believe the things

1:13:05

they believe. And then takes classic intellectual

1:13:07

property from those spaces and uses it

1:13:09

against them. Unplescent, bad, do not like.

1:13:11

Well, you know, the markets were down

1:13:14

today. It's been a rough couple of

1:13:16

days, but I did want to leave

1:13:18

you with a bit of a picker

1:13:20

upper before the weekend. I sat down

1:13:23

with Senator Dave McCormick and his wife.

1:13:25

Dana Powell McCormick, the authors of a

1:13:27

brand of book titles who believed in

1:13:29

you, how purposeful mentorship, changes the world.

1:13:31

It is out right now in bookstores.

1:13:34

Here's what our conversation sounded like. Joining

1:13:36

us on the line are my friends

1:13:38

Dave McCormick and Dana Powell McCormick. Dave

1:13:40

of course is Senator from Pennsylvania and

1:13:43

Dean has a senior business executive and

1:13:45

former government official who worked in the

1:13:47

Trump administration and serves in several leadership

1:13:49

roles at Goldman Sachs. Guys, thanks so

1:13:52

much for joining the show. The show

1:13:54

I really appreciate you. You have a

1:13:56

brand new book out that's coming out

1:13:58

on April 1st called Who Believed? you

1:14:01

how purposeful mentorship changes the world. So

1:14:03

Senator, let's start with you. Why was

1:14:05

this book necessary? What do you think

1:14:07

makes this this book good for this

1:14:09

time? Well, you know, we had

1:14:11

an experience during COVID where our

1:14:13

six daughters were with us. They

1:14:15

were disconnected from their friends, their

1:14:18

family, their teachers, their coaches. And

1:14:20

Dean and I started to talk about

1:14:22

how an early, at that same point in

1:14:24

our lives, mentors, had made all the

1:14:26

difference for us. And we started to

1:14:28

talk. to some of our key friends,

1:14:30

many of them very successful, and

1:14:32

we realized that in their case, also

1:14:34

a key person or two have made all

1:14:37

the difference. For me, it was a football

1:14:39

coach who saw promise in me and

1:14:41

made me the team captain, and that

1:14:43

changed my life. Help me get into

1:14:45

West Point. Dina can tell her story.

1:14:47

And so we believe that when lots

1:14:49

of people are losing trust in

1:14:52

their officials, the media, that

1:14:54

by focusing on helping

1:14:56

individuals find their best selves.

1:14:58

really grow and develop mentorship, obviously

1:15:00

the opportunity to really change the direction

1:15:02

of the country in our communities. So, you

1:15:04

know, you've worked a lot in the private

1:15:06

sector, obviously, and the public sector, and you've

1:15:08

created a lot of jobs all around the

1:15:10

world. How much does mentorship mean with regard

1:15:12

to entrepreneurialism? You know what, it is

1:15:14

so critical, Ben. When you look

1:15:16

at entrepreneurs that are successful, they

1:15:18

always had somebody that first of

1:15:20

all believed in them, oftentimes invested

1:15:22

in them, but more importantly than

1:15:24

anything, just gave them confidence. A

1:15:26

lot of the work that I

1:15:28

did through 10,000 women was female

1:15:30

entrepreneurs in the US and around

1:15:32

the world. There's one really historical

1:15:34

story about a woman in Egypt

1:15:36

and Cairo Egypt who started a

1:15:39

company called Pink Taxis, female drivers.

1:15:41

female passengers, her husband was totally

1:15:43

against it, said you're not going to

1:15:45

work. She started making so much money, he

1:15:47

became the CEO. And it took one mentor

1:15:49

to say to her, you've got this, you

1:15:51

can do it. I knew in our trailer,

1:15:53

which we're so honored that you are in,

1:15:55

you say something so important that even resonated

1:15:57

with our kids, you say run to the

1:15:59

fire. Whatever position. you're in, go to the

1:16:01

hardest problem, run to the fire. Believe

1:16:03

it or not, those words of wisdom

1:16:05

for this generation that not only missed

1:16:07

high school graduation or prom, they missed

1:16:10

like two or three years of mentorship.

1:16:12

Think about who believed in you been

1:16:14

and that experience of shadowing them, following

1:16:16

them. We really think the country right

1:16:18

now needs this generation to step up,

1:16:20

the values driven leaders and the path

1:16:22

to that is every one of us

1:16:24

investing in them. So Senator, you know,

1:16:26

you went to West Point, you served

1:16:29

in the army during the first Gulf

1:16:31

War, and the military is imbued with

1:16:33

the sense that the mentorship has to

1:16:35

be a part of it. Maybe you

1:16:37

want to talk about that a little

1:16:39

bit, because you can actually see a

1:16:41

shift in the way people are thinking

1:16:43

about serving the military thanks to these

1:16:45

sort of new recapitulation of the military's

1:16:47

image under the Trump administration. Yeah, leadership

1:16:50

is very personal. It's very intimate. It's

1:16:52

very intimate. And we learn through our

1:16:54

interviews and talking to a number of

1:16:56

retired generals, in fact, that the key

1:16:58

building blocks are, first of all, trust.

1:17:00

You have to trust someone that they're

1:17:02

with you, that you can be vulnerable

1:17:04

with them, that they're, they have your

1:17:06

best interest in mind. The second thing

1:17:09

is values. What we're trying to teach

1:17:11

people through mentorship is the values that

1:17:13

are going to guide them. It's not

1:17:15

just about the transaction of helping them

1:17:17

get the next job. It's about the

1:17:19

values by which they're going to live

1:17:21

their lives. So it's a mutual promise

1:17:23

to one another that you're going to

1:17:25

engage and use that relationship for mutual

1:17:28

benefit. And then the final thing, and

1:17:30

this came up over and over again,

1:17:32

is confidence. Because as you know, Ben,

1:17:34

and we all, anybody that's been successful

1:17:36

knows, that it's not a straight line.

1:17:38

You're going to find adversity. You're going

1:17:40

to have to overcome failure. I certainly

1:17:42

did that. I lost my first Senate

1:17:44

race and then won my second. Overcoming

1:17:47

give you the confidence. to get into

1:17:49

the arena, to find your place. That's

1:17:51

what great mentorship does in a very

1:17:53

intimate level. It's hard to do that

1:17:55

across a unit of 500 or 1,000.

1:17:57

You can do it very intimately on

1:17:59

a one-on-one mentoring relationship. So, Deena, obviously,

1:18:01

the story, the book, Who Believed in

1:18:03

You, is filled with tremendous stories. What's

1:18:06

your favorite story from the book? There

1:18:08

are so many, you know, from Sasha

1:18:10

and Adela, David Chang, Brian Greiser, Condi

1:18:12

Rice, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, I

1:18:14

got to say kind of, I love

1:18:16

her story. She talks about two big

1:18:18

mentors in her life. Obviously, her dad,

1:18:20

you know, was such a big force

1:18:22

in her life and just gave her

1:18:24

outsized and I mean that in a

1:18:27

positive way, confidence and ambition. And President

1:18:29

Trump, I mean, she was really attacked

1:18:31

in that job in a ruthless way,

1:18:33

as you remember. And he pulled her

1:18:35

aside one day and he said, listen,

1:18:37

you are really good at what you

1:18:39

do and I believe in you and

1:18:41

I believe in you. And it is

1:18:43

at those crucial moments when you are

1:18:46

not sure of yourself and frankly, especially

1:18:48

for women, that that mentor, that piece

1:18:50

of advice makes all the difference. You

1:18:52

know, in my case, Ben, there were

1:18:54

so many mentors that I had from

1:18:56

the CEOs I worked for, obviously to...

1:18:58

government leaders. But as an immigrant kid

1:19:00

from a copton Christian community in Cairo,

1:19:02

Egypt, moving to Dallas, Texas, not speaking

1:19:05

English when I was five years old,

1:19:07

you know, I learned English pretty quickly,

1:19:09

Texan took me a lot longer, it

1:19:11

was a big culture shock, and I

1:19:13

was waitressing to pay for college at

1:19:15

the University of Texas and Austin, and

1:19:17

I, you know, was dutifully doing what

1:19:19

my parents said, they said you got

1:19:21

three options, you can be a doctor,

1:19:24

a lawyer, a lawyer or an engineer,

1:19:26

that's why we left Egypt, so you

1:19:28

could pursue. something like that. I'd gotten

1:19:30

into law school, I was heading there,

1:19:32

and Senator Kay Billy Hutchison found me,

1:19:34

she started venturing me, she said, you

1:19:36

got to defer law school and come

1:19:38

work for me in DC for a

1:19:40

year as an intern. And I was

1:19:42

like, my parents are never going to

1:19:45

let me do that, and I can't

1:19:47

believe you think I can. And she

1:19:49

said, trust me, I'll get you the

1:19:51

deferral to law school. My dad Ben

1:19:53

said, I don't even know why we

1:19:55

left Egypt. He was very... But that

1:19:57

is literally the way I got to

1:19:59

Washington. I worked, you know, for almost

1:20:01

eight years for Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich,

1:20:04

and eventually for President Bush, and after

1:20:06

my business career back to working for

1:20:08

President Trump. Just think about it. Without

1:20:10

that one person in my life, I

1:20:12

would have never. had those opportunities. So

1:20:14

Senator McCormick, and there are a lot

1:20:16

of young people who don't know how

1:20:18

to take the first step toward finding

1:20:20

a mentor. For many of us, a

1:20:23

mentor is sort of natural. For me,

1:20:25

my father is a mentor. My mom's

1:20:27

a mentor. I have lots of people

1:20:29

around me. And those of us who

1:20:31

are lucky. We have that sort of

1:20:33

naturally. But mentorship, you can luck into

1:20:35

it. But for people who are actively

1:20:37

seeking a mentor. What's the best way

1:20:39

to take a first step? Well, I

1:20:42

think that they often, the best mentoring

1:20:44

relationships happen organically. You encounter someone in

1:20:46

your life and they take an interest

1:20:48

and you invest in them and they

1:20:50

invest in you, but I think you

1:20:52

have to be explicit and ask someone,

1:20:54

hey, would you, would you be willing

1:20:56

to, you know, give me advice and

1:20:58

you have to be willing to, you

1:21:00

know, give me advice and you have

1:21:03

to be committed to it and forthright

1:21:05

about how to be a good mentee.

1:21:07

And, you know, you don't get an

1:21:09

hour. Steve Schwartzman talks about a meeting,

1:21:11

which was a remarkable meeting. He wrote

1:21:13

a letter to Avril Herriman. And Avril

1:21:15

Herriman wrote him back and said, yeah,

1:21:17

I'd be happy to sit down. And

1:21:19

Steve went and sat down with Avril

1:21:22

Herriman, gave him advice on how to

1:21:24

think about his career in life. It

1:21:26

wasn't like he sat down weekly with

1:21:28

Avril Herriman, but he used that moment

1:21:30

in a way that really changed that

1:21:32

really changed his life. is about Brian

1:21:34

Grazier who I think you know Ben.

1:21:36

Brian talks about this incredible encounter. He

1:21:38

was sort of a running as a

1:21:41

runner on a big major motion picture

1:21:43

studio and finally got a meeting with

1:21:45

De Ann Barkley who was the most

1:21:47

prominent woman in Hollywood and and he

1:21:49

had been writing two scripts he got

1:21:51

in the meeting he was he was

1:21:53

pitching his two scripts and the bird.

1:21:55

She had a canary behind her and

1:21:57

the bird cage fell off the stoop

1:22:00

and died right in front of her

1:22:02

and she had this hilarious reaction. She

1:22:04

said we're destined, you know, and she

1:22:06

took an interest in him and bought

1:22:08

his two scripts, which were the movie

1:22:10

Splash and Nightshift. But she took him

1:22:12

on as a mentee and she would

1:22:14

take him around Hollywood and introduce him

1:22:16

to all the big names. But he

1:22:19

kept getting the meanings never followed up,

1:22:21

like he never got further. And she

1:22:23

finally pulled him aside and this is

1:22:25

key to mentorship. It's tough love. She

1:22:27

pulled him aside and she said, listen,

1:22:29

I've gotten the feedback from these meetings,

1:22:31

I've been into myself, you exaggerate. People

1:22:33

think you're not being truthful, they think

1:22:35

you're lying. And so they're not following

1:22:37

up. You got a good start, but

1:22:40

you finish week. And he was like,

1:22:42

oh my God, people think that I'm

1:22:44

not being truthful. And that was like

1:22:46

a major fork in the road which

1:22:48

changed. the way he projected himself, the

1:22:50

way he conducted himself, and you know

1:22:52

he had an ongoing relationship with the

1:22:54

embarkily, but that moment of intervention was

1:22:56

so critical. So sometimes mentorship is for

1:22:59

a point in time and then you

1:23:01

know sometimes it lasts over many decades,

1:23:03

those of us who have been the

1:23:05

beneficiaries of it know how valuable it

1:23:07

is. Well the book again is who

1:23:09

believes in you how purposeful mentorship it

1:23:11

changes the world available. April 1st Senator

1:23:13

McCormick, Dina, great to see both of

1:23:15

you and congrats on the book. Thank

1:23:18

you and if people want to buy

1:23:20

it they go to who believed in

1:23:22

you.com. Thank you so much Ben. All

1:23:24

right you guys coming up we'll jump

1:23:26

into the mailbag remember that you can

1:23:28

only actually hear my answers to these

1:23:30

questions or ask me a question yourself

1:23:32

if you are a member at Daily

1:23:34

Wire Plus. Do it right now. Become

1:23:37

member. Use Coach Shapiro check out for

1:23:39

two months for an annual plans. And

1:23:41

click that link in the link in

1:23:43

the description and join us. In the

1:23:45

description and join us.