The Ben Shapiro ShowMay 19, 20261h 6m

Ep. 2429 - Luigi Mangione and the Left's Murder Fantasy

Showing mention at 13:58 — highlighted below

Transcript

169 segments
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A society that Greenlight's political violence is likely to see more of it. You subsidize it, you get more of it. The Luigi Mangione case, which of course sprang up now, got a year ago when Luigi Mangione allegedly shot to death. United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson then went on a gigantic sort of media spree. He ran all over the country and people were trying to find out who he was and he had a whole fan base that emerged. All of that leads to more political violence, a society that greenlights political violence by essentially arguing, number one, that these systems you don't like are murderous systems. And thus, people who participate in those systems must be murdered. Any society that greenlights that is just green lighting political violence. And then when you have liberal systems that are set up to let criminals off the hook, it gets even worse. So there's a big trial update for Luigi Mangione yesterday. A judge ruled that while the murder weapon was admissible at trial, a bunch of other evidence was suppressed. So a New York judge has now ruled that some key evidence that was seized from his backpack during his arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald's is inadmissible at trial. Some of it can still be shown to jurors. The decision is a little bit complex. It is also not particularly well-founded. So essentially, the evidence that's been ruled admissible includes the gun, a 3D printed silencer, and a red notebook that allegedly contains a bunch of damning writing. The evidence to be suppressed, however, includes a phone, Man Jay Jones passport, loaded magazines, a wallet, and a computer chip. The judge in this particular case said he agreed with the defense argument that the search of Mangione's backpack at McDonald's without reading him in his rights was unconstitutional because it had been moved away from arm's reach. So why? Well, New York law is super duper, duper weird. Hey, first of all, it's unclear why New York law should be applied, even though the entire search happened in Pennsylvania. The judge wrote, quote, defendant is being tried in New York for a crime that occurred in New York. Under these circumstances, it is clear that New York is the forum state. and that New York has a paramount interest in the application of the law, suppression issues, procedural issues, and evidentiary issues are governed by the law of the forum state. Okay, that's super duper weird. It really is. It's strange. And the reason it's strange is if he'd been caught in California, why exactly would the cops in California have to know New York law in order to properly do their job? Well, in any case, New York's laws on this sort of stuff are insane. First of all, the federal law with regard to search and seizure is totally crazy. Under a case called Map v. Ohio, which is one of these critical criminal law cases you learn in law school year one, map versus Ohio established the so-called exclusionary rules. So believe it or not, for the vast majority of American history, if there was any legal search and seizure, somebody broke into your house, the cops broke into your house, and they found evidence of a crime, that evidence was still admissible in court. The cop might be punished. There might be a lawsuit against the cop. But Map v. Ohio established the so-called exclusionary rule, which said that if your Fourth Amendment rights are violated, then we can't even use the evidence in court. Now, the reason this is particularly stupid is because it is penalizing the general public for the failures of the cops. So the cops fail to fully follow the Fourth Amendment, and now criminals have to be let out on the street. Unless they, quote, unquote, review your rights. I know we all take this for granted now because we've watched a bunch of episodes of Law and Order, but it really is quite stupid.

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The idea that you have to be read your Miranda rights, again, another ridiculous case. Somebody has to inform you of your right not to self-incriminate, for example. Otherwise, we'll take the evidence and throw it out of court. Really, really, really dumb and means that lots more criminals get off and end up on the street. Well, in this particular case, New York law goes even further. New York law has something called the exigency exception. Okay, so what that means is that you are allowed to search somebody without a warrant or without any warning. if there's threat of exigent danger. There's imminent danger. There's a guy he's running away from you and he's firing a gun at you. You tackle him and you search his pockets and you come up with drugs. So that would be the exigent circumstance. In this particular case, they say that the property must be within the suspect's immediate control or grabable area, but the backpack was moved away from him to a table about nine feet away, at which point it was now no longer in his control. And so they therefore could not search it without having the evidence excluded. However, later they also searched the backpack after they had seized all the property and they had a proper warrant and they had already read him his rights. The officers didn't search the backpack itself at McDonald's. So they did have sort of an independent source. And to typically under the law, even if there's a Fourth Amendment violation, if there's an independent source of the information, then you're still allowed to use it. So let's say, for example, that you're arrested before somebody reads you your Miranda rights, you immediately blurt out that you did the crime. You haven't been informed of your rights. You just blurt out that you did the crime. That may be inadmissible. But after they read your rights, if you repeat that, it's now admissible. So I'm unclear as to why some of this evidence is being thrown out. But the bottom line is that so much of our criminal justice system has been twisted in favor of the perpetrator and against the victims. that that is part and parcel of a broader effort over the course of the last 70 or 80 years in American law to grant outsized rights to perpetrators as opposed to defending the general public from those perpetrators. But that's not the really big issue here. The really big issue when it comes to Luigi Mangione, of course, is the fact that he has a lot of supporters. There's been an entire permission structure that's been set up largely by the left that says if you don't like the systems of American life, those systems are intractable, they are unchangeable, and people who participate in the systems are guilty. Now, this is nothing new. I'm old enough to remember because I am more than 15 years old. I'm old enough to remember the Occupy Wall Street protests. Occupy Wall Street was a movement that came up in the aftermath of the Great Recession, 2009, 2010. And there are a group of people on the left who instead of protesting the government's involvement with Wall Street decided to protest Wall Street itself. The idea was that Wall Street was inherently evil. Now, that was a completely misdirected use of mental and emotional resources because after all, the members of Wall Street are not answerable to the general public. They are operating in the private sphere. If you wish to protest public policy, we have a whole city called Washington, D.C., where federal public policy gets made. But that's not what the left is protesting. They're not protesting government involvement in industry. They're not protesting government's heavy hand. They're protesting that government, they say, is actually not doing enough to be involved. They're protesting the existence of the private sector itself. And so if they don't like the systems, they blame members of the private sector for participating in those systems. And you can see this throughout left-wing politics. In soft version, you see it in Zohran Mamdani, saying ridiculous and insane things.

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about the nature of how the world should work. All right, coming up, we'll get into the left's agenda, their permission structure for violence. Plus, Gadsad, we'll join the show, and we'll get into the Thomas Massie primary in Kentucky, a ton of stuff still coming up first. I'm glad that we took the risk of starting the Daily Wire because, hey, business is rough, and you need to take risks in order to get started. But this also means that you need the best service providers. Our sponsor, Shopify is one of them. Shopify is the e-commerce around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including... our very own Daily Wire Shop. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, you can build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography so you can accelerate your efficiency. Maybe you already know you have a good product, but you need help getting the word out. Shopify helps you find your customers with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns, making it feel like you have a marketing team behind you. You can tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics, without juggling multiple websites or platforms. And if you ever get stuck, Shopify's award-winning 24-7 customer support is always around to help. Plus, that iconic purple shop pay button, it's not just recognizable. It is the best converting checkout on planet Earth, and that means more sales for you. If you've ever bought something from the DW shop, that means that you were using Shopify? Why not be on the other end of it and use it for your own business? It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Josh Shapiro. Head on over to Shopify.com slash Josh Shapiro. That's Shopify.com slash Josh Shapiro. So Zoramamamani, the New York City mayor, who again is wonderfully clear about exactly what it is that he believes. I mean, I will give him points for clarity. Yesterday, Zohran Mamdani was doing an event, and he was talking about Reagan's most terrifying words in the English language. The most terrifying words Reagan said were, I'm from the government, I'm here to help. Zohran Mamdani says, no, no, no. The most terrifying words in the English language come when the government is not involved. You need more government involvement. It's the private sector that has everything wrong. Here is Zohran Mamdani and Zohran Mamdani modifying the Reagan nine most terrifying words. Standing here this morning, I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan. He famously said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government, and I'm here to help. It's a good quote, but I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually, I worked all day and can't feed my family.

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We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table. When government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind, time and again, it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today. Again, the entire left-wing thought structure is that failures are attributable to the private sector. So if you're a person who's in the private sector and you're paying somebody a wage that they wish to accept from you, you are therefore responsible for all the problems of their life. Government is the fix. Government is always in forever the fix. And so, for example, if you don't like the health care system, it is not that the health care system in the United States is heavily regulated and heavily subsidized, all of which is true. The United States health care system is a mess, but one of the reasons it is a mess, the biggest reason it is a mess, is because of the heavy hand of government, involved in everything. But according to the left, the people involved in the private sector are bad. The people involved in the public sector are good. And this creates a phenomenon that they like to call social murder, which justifies violence. So if, for example, you're Brian Thompson, a father, a person who raised himself up from... Not particularly wonderful economic circumstances in his youth to become the head of United Health, one of the biggest insurers in America. And if it turns out that you operate within the law and that the law itself is flawed, but you operate within it, you are responsible for death. And thus, you may deserve to die. So yesterday, outside of the trial of Luigi Mangione, some self-proclaimed Mangionistas named Abro Rios Ashley Rojas and Lena Weissbrot. showed off passes that they had received, according to the New York Post, from Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration. And they got press passes, apparently for their content following the Mangione trial. But they're pretty clear, these so-called reporters, about their beliefs about Mangione, which is that he was justified in murdering allegedly Brian Thompson, who are Rojas and Bari Weiss brought making that case. So if you guys are okay with someone like Ryan Thompson being around, and that being a part of our society that says more about you as a person because you look absolutely monstrous, defending someone like that. participates in social murder. Mass, mass social murder. He's responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden. And I remember Americans celebrating when Osama bin Laden was killed. It's not like we don't understand heroic violence or like when violence is good. That's like as American, as America gets. Now, again, this is psychotic stuff. Brian Thompson responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.

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because you ran an insurance company, and that insurance company sometimes denied claims. And if you believe that they were unjustifiably denying your claim, then you would take them to court. Again, this isn't to say that our systems are wonderful when it comes to health insurance. Again, health insurance largely at this point is simply health coverage, because it turns out that you're not insuring against the possibility of future risk. You are very often covering people who have conditions you know about in advance. But that's to get into the complexities of the system. The idea that Brian Thompson, by being the CEO of a major insurance company, was somehow like Osama bin Laden, who literally ordered the flying of planes into buildings in New York, is psychotic, but is an increasingly popular view with people on the left who, again, believe that the private sector is responsible for all of the ills of society, and that all the systems that they don't like are run by people who are attempting to do things like murder. Here, Ashley Rojas and Weissbrot, again, saying that they actually liked Brian Thompson's murder. children are better off without him they need to learn to not be like their dad and enjoy the blood money kids was that what was that i didn't get that what you said um i'm standing on business for johnson i don't give a blind god millions of americans i liked it Okay, these people are saying they literally liked the murder and his kids, Brian Thompson's kids are better off without him. Now, lest you think that I'm just nut picking here. I'm just taking some nuts off the tree and then pointing them out. Hasan Piker was talking about quote unquote social murder with regard to Mangione to the New York Times like a couple of weeks ago and this guy is considered a mainstream political commentator by the left up to and including people like Ezra Klein and John Favro. Again, this was with the New York Times, him saying the same kind of nonsense. Engels wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson as the United Healthcare CEO. was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder, the systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit paywalled system of health care in this country, and the consequences of that are... tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths. And that was a fascinating story from, for me, because Americans are very draconian about crime and punishment. They're very black and white on this issue. And yet, because of the pervasive pain that the private health care system... had created for the average American, I saw so many people immediately understand why this death had taken place. If you want more political violence in the United States, the left will bring it to you. They will bring it to you. There's a reason why a quarter of young people on the left totally approve of political violence because it is part and parcel of the system of thought that they have built up. When you start treating...

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Private sector activity as quote unquote social murder because it has externalities that you don't like. But meanwhile, the government regulatory systems that drive that activity are somehow good. And what you actually need is top down government tyrannical control. So if you're a member of the government, you're never answerable to the American public. But if you are a member of the private sector, you're answerable in terms of possibly being murdered because people like Hasan Piker are talking about how you have committed social murder. It's a form of self-defense to murder CEOs at this point. And then you wonder why people are increasingly being shot over politics. This would be the reason. Joining me on the line is Gad Sad. He's a Lebanese Canadian evolutionary behavioral scientist and professor of marketing. And He has a brand new book out called Suicidal Empathy, which of course is a massive bestseller. Gad, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Oh, good to be with you, man. So let's talk about this concept suicidal empathy. Obviously, I've mentioned it on the show before. Basically, the idea seems to be that your levels of empathy at a certain point may lead you to do things that actively harm you because you care so much, you care so much about people who actively hate you that you're willing to do things that end up putting you in harm's way. Maybe you can explain where this concept comes from how you came up with it. Exactly. So look, empathy is a wonderful virtue to possess. We are a social species for you and I, Ben, to have a meaningful conversation. I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa. That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. But Aristotle explained to us several millennia ago in his Nicomachean ethics, everything in moderation. Too little of something is not good. Too much of something is not good. And much of life is about finding that sweet spot. And that exact principle applies to empathy. If I have no empathy, I'm likely to be a psychopath. If I have too much empathy, if empathy hyperactivates in the wrong situations, toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy. So, yeah, this manifests in a bunch of ways. Most obviously, it manifests as you talk about in your book with sort of an open immigration protocol on the part of the West. People care so much and they're so empathic to people outside the West that they say, come on in, you know, enjoy all of the benefits, all the goodies. We don't vet people. They come in. They take advantage of our civilization. And that's how you end up with hundreds of thousands of people marching for Hamas on the streets in London. Exactly right. So. In my previous book, in the parasitic mind, I talk about how many parasitic ideas can hijack our ability to reason. So take, for example, cultural relativism, which is a parasitic idea. It basically says that you're not allowed to draw any negative pejorative judgments of other people's cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, and so on. So if they wish to engage in honor killings, shut up racist. If they wish to engage in female genital mutilation of five-year-old girls, shut up racist.

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So that then renders you impotent when you're standing there, deciding on what type of immigration policy you should have, you then argue, in a suicidally empathetic way, that it is wrong for you to argue that not all immigrants are equally likely to assimilate within the American ethos. Everybody should have a chance, and therefore your inability to discriminate between one set of cultural values and another leads to the disaster we see today. So, again, I have a concept that I've posited before when I'm talking about your idea, extending it a little bit further, which is this concept that I've called homicidal empathy, which is basically the idea that you empathize with a group of people, and your empathy with that group of people is so strong that you yourself join them in their murderous ideas. And I think you see this an enormous amount in the West. We were talking a moment ago about the people who are sympathetic to Luigi Mangione. And so their basic idea is, and Hasan Piker has said this, that he is so empathetic. toward people who have suffered under the American health care system, that actually the people who are running that system, the people who are in the insurance companies, those people are guilty of what he calls social murder. So his empathy for people who are supposed victims of the insurance system is so strong that actually it's probably okay to murder healthcare as CEOs because that's also coming from empathy. It's empathy for one group leads to murderous hatred of another group. Right. And here, I mean, we can invoke the Ten Commandments that say it's a deontological rule. You cannot murder someone. Deontological ethics is absolute statements. It's never okay to lie would be a deentological statement. If you were to say, it's okay to lie to spare someone's feelings. That's a consequentialist statement. So the ones who, as you say, are suffering from homicidal empathy are applying a consequentialist ethic. to murder. It's okay to murder that guy because otherwise the world will be much darker. So therefore, murder is allowed for that guy. It's a very, very dangerous way to think. So, again, in your book, Suicidal Empathy, obviously, I think you're taking a pretty kind view of many of the people who dislike Western civilization. And so I wonder if you think that the empathy is really sort of the biggest problem here, or do we actually have something that's happening in the United States, in Europe, that may be even deeper, which is not even that this is driven by empathy. People may want to flatter themselves and believe that it's driven by empathy, but actually what it's driven by. is envy and actually dislike and hatred of particular groups, particularly people who are successful or civilizations that are more successful. And so it may not be that, for example, left-wingers in Europe and in the United States want mass migration because they're so sympathetic to what third-worlders are claiming. It may be that they actually want to bring people in because they themselves hate the civilization and believe that the civilization is bad. Are the revolutionaries, in other words, being driven by empathy or are they being driven by envy that is masquerading as empathy? I mean, I think it's a bit of both. So take, for example, communism, right? The idea is that it is inherently existentially unfair that some of us make a lot more money than others. And so here comes the empathetic overlords who are going to equalize income distribution. So it may be that they have other nefarious reasons, including pathological envy, but it is instantiated through an appeal.

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to envy, right? I mean, communists don't say we're going to confiscate your private property because we're being. They invoke this idea that, you know, it's inherently unfair that person A has less than person B. Let me take from person B redistributed via an appeal to empathy. So let's talk about solutions here. Obviously, very, very difficult to convince someone out of what they believe is a moral virtue. A lot of people believe that empathy itself is a moral virtue. And as you say, not in a sort of moderate way, the more empathetic you are, the better a person you are. And so when you're confronting someone politically, when you're talking about politics and public policy, and you say, listen, the empathy that you're expressing right now is not actually... ending up with good public policy that helps the greatest number of people it's actually ending up with some pretty horrible results you're speaking in a language that people don't actually believe you mentioned deontological ethics versus consequentialist ethics for a lot of people who speak in terms of empathy they actually are speaking in the language of deontological ethics they think that more empathy equals good and so it's very hard to shake that by pointing to consequentialism how do you argue people out of the idea that their empathy is some sort of absolute good That's a great question. And depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, I'm either optimistic that it can be resolved or I'm pessimistic and it becomes an intractable problem. One of the things that I've become quite adept at doing is when I'm engaging an interlocutor, I gauge whether they are flippable or not. And if I think that the light of reason can enter them. I continue my engagement. Otherwise, I walk away. There is really no magic recipe, Ben. You really have to get people to have the administration of the mind vaccine to them. And hopefully, this book is one small step in trying to declutter people's minds. But it is a very difficult problem. Well, that's Gad's sad. His book is suicidal empathy. You can go pick it up right now. It's a huge best seller, Gad. Thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ben. Cheers. What is Toyota affordability? It all starts with buying smart, and your Toyota dealer has great deals available to qualified customers on reliable cars and SUVs, including the redesigned Rav4, Spacious Grand Highlander, sporty Camrys, and corollas. It means driving for less, with efficient hybrid and plug-in hybrid options available throughout the lineup, extending your overall driving range and delivering great MPGs, saving you money at the pump. And it means trading for more. Toyota is known for building long-lasting vehicles and has the best resale value brand according to Kelly Blue Book, your Toyota can be worth thousands more than average when it's time to trade in. That's Toyota affordability. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. Shop Toyota.com or your local dealer for deals and details. Vehicles projected resale value is specific to the 2026 model year. For more information, visit Kelly Blue Books, KB.com. Toyota brand average resale value is 53% versus the average vehicle at 45%. Toyota, let's go places. A mass shooting at a mosque in San Diego, the Islamic Center of San Diego, when two shooters who were openly Nazis, apparently, decided to shoot a bunch of people, three people.

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who were innocent shot. Two people died who were the shooters. They shot themselves apparently inside a BMW, which again goes to show you the idea that political violence and crime are driven by people who are underclass, right? People who are forgotten, the poor. Very often it's not true. Very often when it comes to political violence, political violence is driven largely by people who are upper middle class, actually. Luigi Mangione was not poor. He grew up as privileged as it's possible to be in the United States. It sounds like these two shooters, same sort of thing. According to the New York Post, anti-Islamic writings were found in the suspect's vehicle. Hate speech was written on the firearms used in the shooting according to a source. A shotgun and gas can with an SS sticker on the side were located at the scene where the gunmen's bodies were discovered. So again, media are labeling this right-wing violence. It's Nazi violence, people who obviously were, I would assume, radicalized online because I don't think that in San Diego, it's a hotbed of Nazi activity, traditionally speaking. My guess would be, and again, it's speculative, that these are people who found common cause in online communities. I'm sure we'll find this out with others who mimic Nazi cosplay. This is why the Nazi cosplay online is not a victimless issue. It turns out that when you emulate Hitlerian nonsense and glorify it, crazy people might latch on to that and then go and do violence. Not a shock. It's a permission structure for violence. You're literally justifying one of the most violent movements ever to have existed on planet Earth. The head of the Islamic Center, San Diego, a person named Taha Hussein, said it's outrageous to target a place of worship, which of course is true. It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship. Our Islamic Center is a place of worship. People come to the Islamic Center to pray, to celebrate. to learn not only Muslims but we have people from all walks of life just this morning earlier a group of people non-Muslims coming just to learn about our faith and our cultures so this is something that we have never expected Okay, so I think the moral of the story, Nazism bad, right? I mean, this is not a very difficult moral. Nazism bad. Now, again, the media are trying to play all of this as quote-unquote right-wing violence, that these youngsters must have been some sort of right-wing Republicans or something. We don't know yet what they politically identified as, except for the Nazi writings. But typically, this is what the media do. Whenever there is an act of white supremacism or Nazi violence, that means that it's right-wing. Well, here is the problem with that. Nazism as a movement was actually in American terms of a left-wing movement about centralized government and about racial supremacy and all the rest of it. And it turns out that today's Nazis are pretty widespreading politically speaking. I mean, after all, you have a guy with a Nazi tattoo running for the Senate in Maine as a Democrat. You have all of the Nazi supporters of today, people who support Hamas, which is effectively... identical to Nazism in its approach toward Jews, for example, and the collective. Fans of Hamas, one of them will be a Senate Democrat candidate in Michigan. So it turns out, again, Nazism is not a right-wing phenomenon in that sense. And it turns out the right has actually been attempting to expel those who are Nazi adjacent from the party.

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with some exceptions on the woke right. We've been trying to embrace many of those people. President Trump has obviously been trying to do all of that. Already coming up, it is a hotly fought primary involving Thomas Massie and a Trump-indorce candidate because Trump, of course, wants Thomas Massie gone. We'll get to all of that. Plus, a report from Brent Scher, our editor-in-chief, on the ground in the district. First, adult life, pretty stressful, especially when you're having car issues. You don't need one of those, but... It happens. We've all been there. That small crack in the windshield, the screeching breaks, ignoring it all for months on end. And then, of course, three days later, you're standing in a repair shop hearing a sentence that begins with, well, unfortunately. So here's the thing. Cars have become unbelievably expensive to fix. Even relatively normal fixes can suddenly cost thousands of bucks, and somehow it always seems to happen at the worst possible time. This happens. It's happened before to me. It happens to everybody. This is why companies like Car Shield make... a lot of sense. CarShield offers vehicle protection plans that help cover expensive repairs before they completely destroy your budget. One reason people like it is it's built around convenience as well. They offer 24-7 roadside assistance, towing, and rental car options, which matters because car problems are stressful enough without also trying to figure out how to get home afterward. CarShield also works with ACE certified mechanics and repair shops around the country. Their plans are month to month with low deductibles designed to make surprise repairs a little less financially painful. And honestly, peace of mind matters with this stuff. Most people depend on their cars constantly, commuting, family trips, errands, work, school pickups, and a breakdown never arrives at a convenient moment. CarShield has been doing this for more than 20 years now, protects millions of vehicles, and has built a pretty strong reputation with customers over time. The road is calling. Make sure your car is ready to answer right now. CarShield is offering our listeners 20% off with the code Josh Shapiro at carshield.com slash Josh Shapiro. Protect your vehicle from the unexpected. before the first big repair bill hits. Join the millions protected by CarShield. Head on over to carshield.com slash Josh Shapiro and use code Josh Shapiro now for 20% off. Also, as I said yesterday on the show, AI is going to become one of the defining technologies of this generation. The productivity gains are real. The economic implications are huge. Strategically, the U.S. cannot afford to lose that race to China, but there's a serious question everybody should be asking. Who controls all the data that feeds the systems? Because AI becomes exponentially more powerful when paired with massive behavioral profiles built from years of online activity. Every search, every website visit, every purchase, every political opinion, every medical question. Modern technology companies collect enormous amounts of that information already. And once those systems mature, the incentives to use that data become very obvious. Insurance companies assessing risk. Employers evaluating candidates, advertisers predicting behavior, political actors who try to influence voters. The technology itself is neutral, but the incentives are not. That is one reason I use ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN encrypts online activity and routes it through secure servers so Internet providers, data brokers, and third parties can't easily monitor what websites you visit or what apps you use. ExpressVPN also hides your IP address, one of the primary ways data brokers identify and track users online, and despite the technology behind it being sophisticated, using it is incredibly simple. One click. And it works across phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart TVs, basically every device connected to the internet. Because embracing technological innovation doesn't require surrendering the expectation of privacy. Right now, you can get ExpressVPN at just 349 a month. That's the VPN that is ranked number one by the experts at the verge and CNET for less than 12 cents today. Don't wait until it's too late. Use my special link at four extra months of ExpressVPN's privacy protection. Just head on over to expressvPN.com slash ben.

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That's a price as low as $3.49 plus four extra months of service. Head on over to eXPR, E-S-VPN.com slash Ben. It turns out that it is not good for people on the right or on the left to hang out with Nazis, to hug Nazis. It's a bad thing. I think it should be an easy one, actually. Well, apparently it's not so easy, which brings us to Thomas Massie. He's the Kentucky congressman who is now in a political battle in his district. That battle really doesn't have to do very much with sort of his wild conspiracism or his associations with people with Nazi sympathies, although both of those things are true. Right now, according to the Kalshi markets and Kalshi, of course, is a sponsor. Thomas Massie is unlikely to win. According to the Kalshi markets, he is in a primary against a guy named Ed Galrine. Ed Galryne is a former Navy SEAL. According to Calci markets, pretty consistently, Galarine is at about 55% shot of winning Thomas Massie at 46% or so. When I mentioned the Nazi associations, again, Thomas Massie is not being particularly shy right now. He has embraced pretty much every conspiracy theory about Israel and Jews that it is possible to embrace at this point. I mean, here he was literally a couple of days ago with well-known Holocaust denier Ryan Mata. is at one of his rallies. The dude is literally, he's hugging a dude who is literally wearing a sweatshirt that says on it American Reich, which is a move. That's kind of strange. Also, it is not a surprise that Thomas Massie's friends are all of the most conspiratorial anti-Israel people on planet Earth. That would include Shank Weeger, who put out a tweet, if Representative Thomas Massie loses tomorrow, the Republicans will become Israel's party. It's about Israel. By the way, it's not about Israel. I'll explain in a moment. Republicans will give them as much of our money as possible and go to war for them whenever they ask. Israel will 100% control the GOP because every member will be scared to death of opposing them. Now, again, the reason why Thomas Massie is in hot water here has nothing to do with his stance with regard to Israel. It has everything to do with his stance with regard to conspiratorial nonsense about Jeffrey Epstein and the fact that he has voted against a wide variety of President Trump's priorities in Congress. He's sort of a Ron Paul figure who votes against large priorities of the Republican Party, which has ticked off President Trump pretty extraordinarily. Thomas Massie is trying this dumb routine. Thomas Massie himself is out there saying that Israel is trying to buy his seat in Congress. Again, Medud. This tactic is one of the dumbest tactics. I just have to say it's such an incredibly, it's a tactic made for stupid people. The reality is that people who are pro-Israel do not like Thomas Massie because Thomas Massie has engaged in every conspiracy theory it is possible to engage in and has made common cause with the most anti-Israel people. That's true. But the reason that Thomas Massie is actually in trouble is because the Trump administration has decided to oppose him on the basis of completely other issues. And so the usual game that is now played right now on the right in the very... podcast to Stan right. The game that is played is there will be a critique that has nothing to do with Israel. And the first thing you do is you claim that it's about Israel in an attempt to gin up the crazier part of the Republican base. Well, here is Thomas Massie doing precisely that.

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I'm walking to an airplane to rejoin the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history. Tell us about that. Yeah, well, it's a referendum, really, unfortunately. It's turned into whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress. And what they found out is my seats are really expensive. They've probably, when this is over, will have spent $20 million. Well, I mean, very expensive for him as well. And also the idea that Israel is not spending money in Thomas Massie's district. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, APAC, is all American Christians and Jews who fund it. It is illegal for the state of Israel to spend money in elections in the United States, just as it's illegal for China or Qatar to do the same thing. So that's, again, conspiratorial hogwash. It is worth noting, as Dana Lash points out, that many of his biggest donations are coming from people who are pro-Hamas. One of his top donors, according to Dana, is the Jordanian-born Mahruk family, who just happened to be huge donors of pro-Hamas Democrats. The Keani family trust, led by Iranian-born Joe Keani, gave $100,000 to a Thomas Massie super PAC. Keani has long been active in supporting Democrats. He hosted President Biden in 2024 in his California home. And so Democrats are coming out to support Thomas Massie. He's about to be the beneficiary of strange new respect. Ro Khanna, who again is as left as it's possible to get and who joined Thomas Massie and his conspiracy theorizing over Jeffrey Epstein. The idea from both Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna is that President Trump has been engaged in this massive cover-up of child sex trafficking because he himself was complicit. Again, that's something that Thomas Massie himself has said. He and Ro Khanna joined forces in order to force into the public view, unverified and unverifiable nonsense coming into the FBI, like tip calls that made no sense. Well, here's Ro Khanna putting up a tweet in support of Thomas Massie. I will just say, if the far left is supporting a Republican candidate, there's usually a reason for that. Ro Khanna put out a tweet, quote, Thomas Massie is a man of character. He's the type of congressman, our founders, and vision. I hope his constituents will see the courage, independence, and sincere love of country he brings to the job. He is also endorsed by the co-founder of Code Pink, who is a nut job herself, Medea Benjamin Netanyahu. She put out a tweet endorsing Thomas Massie. That is not because she enjoys his small government stylings. Quote, I'm so glad Representative Thomas Massie is ahead in the polls in Kentucky, despite Trump's rants against him. I don't agree with Thomas Massie on many domestic issues, but his positions on foreign policy and the Epstein files are terrific. And of course, Candace Owens, who took a break from reading Der Keir Starmer. She says, totally agreed. Conservatives should support Thomas Massie because he's one of the few who practices America First Beyond just preaching it. The New York Times opinion is also coming out in favor of him. Again, he's getting the strange new respect. He's one of a dying breeding Congress. America needs him now more than ever. The strange new respect coming from all the same people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marjorie Taylor Greene, ousted from Congress for her own conspiratorial nonsense and uselessness. She also urged people to get out in Kentucky. And of course, Tucker Carlson put out a statement suggesting,

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that Thomas Massie has refused to go along with the White House's abandonment of the America first principles that got the president elected. So again, the idea is that it's because he's an isolationist. But here's the thing. Thomas Massie's been an isolationist his entire career. I mean like a full-scale isolationist. I cut all foreign aid to everyone, lower military spending. Like wholesale. That is not the thing that has put him in trouble here. The thing that has put him in trouble is, number one, that he decided to rant conspiratorially for legitimately a year and a half about the Epstein files, which he had no interest in until President Trump was reelected. And two, he decided to oppose every one of President Trump's major legislative proposals. And it's not me saying that. It is members of the administration saying that. Here was JD Vance. Again, JD Vance, you'd be hard pressed to say that JD Vance is a foreign policy hawk. who is strongly pro-Israel. But here is JD Vance going after Thomas Massie in October 2025. Voting against the party on every single issue, you're eventually going to make too many enemies. And that is the problem that Thomas has had. It's not one issue. It's not three or four issues. It's that every time that we've needed Thomas for a vote, he has been completely unwilling to provide it. That is why the President of the United States has trained his ire on Thomas Massie. It's because we can never count on him for some of the most difficult votes. I wish that that weren't the case. I say that it's somebody who's known Thomas well before I got into politics, but politics is politics. And when you always vote against the party, you can't expect the party to actually back you. Pete Hegseth had the Secretary of Defense actually went to a Gal Rhine event, and he explained that, that Thomas Massie has been engaged in constant obstruction. Because after you've led men in life and death situations, the games that are played inside the Beltway start looking pretty small. Now contrast that with what we've gotten from Thomas Massie. At some point, being against everything becomes an excuse for accomplishing nothing. At some point, constant obstruction is not leadership. It's just commentary. It's obstruction. And Stephen Miller, top advisor to the president, he put out an entire video explaining Thomas Massie's voting record. Again, that is the reason why Trump is ticked at Thomas Massie. The single most important issue affecting the future of our country is ending the mass third world invasion of America and reversing that invasion. And on the most important issue, on the most important vote, on the most important bill, on the most important day, Thomas Massie sided with every House Democrat, every Senate Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer against President Trump, against the American people, and against you and your family. When the time came to vote for President Trump's signature border security and immigration enforcement bill, the bill to provide record funding for ICE and Border Patrol and mass deportation, Thomas Massie voted no. Thomas Massie voted to kill the bill. Thomas Massie sided with the House and Senate Democrats over the sovereignty of this republic.

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He voted against Trump. He voted against the American people. He voted against you. He voted to kill the most important bill of his career. And again, Thomas Massie has been lying in his district. He's been putting out ads in his district suggesting that he is strongly pro-Trump and he's a big Trump fan. Well, then why is Trump actually the one calling the shots here in terms of the campaign against Thomas Massie? Again, Thomas Massie has been engaged in a strange new respect crusade. Strange new respect is the phenomenon that attaches to Republicans who start mimicking Democrat talking points. If you start being a conspiratorial anti-Republican, it doesn't matter what else you believe. They will start granting you strange new respect. This is how Marjorie Taylor Greene, a person with not two neurons to rub together, somehow has become beloved of the left. Just say those same things over and over and they will love you. Well, Thomas Massie started getting the strange new respect when he started mulling over Epstein. So here is Thomas Massie in November 2025, accusing President Trump of an Epstein coverup based on nothing.

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This might be a big smokescreen, these investigations, to open a bunch of them as a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files. I mean, it is extraordinary to hear him demand an investigation and only mention Democrats, only mention his political opponents, but you're saying he may not really even want any investigation. He wants to prevent the release. Why does he want to prevent this? What is he afraid of? You know, I've never said that these files will implicate Donald Trump. And I really don't think that they will. I think he's trying to protect a bunch of rich and powerful friends, billionaires, donors to his campaign, friends in his social circles. And that's my operating theory on why he's trying so hard to keep these files closed. Thomas Massie went into, you know, every single rabbit hole is possible to go into with regard to Epstein. And there's a reason why nutcases like Chank and Media Benjamin Netanyahu are praising Thomas Massie today. I have a basic rule of thumb. If it turns out the entire left is defending you, like the entire left without qualification is defending you the hardest left most crazy people, probably you should not be in Congress representing the Republican Party. Are you coming up? Brent sure will join us from the road. He's in the district and he will explain what's happening on the ground. Plus, that caller daddy lady, you know there's that lady who does the podcast all about how she has sex with lots of people and everybody should. Well, now she's pregnant and happily married. So the rules apparently apply to her. If you took her advice, it didn't go so well for you. First, you know, it's very difficult to get your business properly insured. It's just not easy. You need one platform for payroll and another for HR, another for accounting, another for benefits, and then one for compliance, and then one for insurance. All of those have their own login, their own terminology, their own stack of documents, nobody fully understand. Again, understanding insurance for your business is really, really difficult. You might be undercover, you might be overcovered. Well, this is why you need SuperSure. SuperShore basically acts as a centralized business insurance platform, what they call a super agency. Instead of juggling multiple brokers and scattered policies, businesses can manage coverage through one brokerage relationship with one coordinated system. And honestly, one of the smarter features they offer is something called fine print fact. which translates complicated policy language into plain English, so business owners can actually understand what's covered, what isn't, and where there may be gaps. Because one of the worst business experiences is discovering that you misunderstood your coverage after something goes wrong. SuperSure also centralizes policies, certificates, and documents into one insurance vault. It reduces repetitive applications and provides year-round account management instead of only appearing at renewal time. In a world where businesses are increasingly overwhelmed by operational complexity, simplifying infrastructure actually matters an awful lot. Right now, You can go to supershure.com, get a full report on your current policies with no obligation. Find out if you're overinsured, underinsured, somewhere in between. Head on over to supershore, one super agency, one powerful platform, all your policies in one place, paid for by Supershore Insurance Agency LLC, a licensed insurance agency. Well, joining us online is Brent Scher. Brent, of course, is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, and he's been spending time on the ground in this district. Brent, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Yeah, hi, Ben. How are you? you know, hanging in. So tell me about the district. What is the breakdown of the district? Obviously, very competitive race. Thomas Massie had been largely popular inside his district before this race. You've been on the ground. What are you seeing?

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Yeah, I drove through the whole district yesterday. And look, this is one of the most pro-Trump districts in America. It went for Trump by, I think, 35 or 40 points last election cycle in the presidential. And what we're seeing now is obviously it's Thomas Massie versus Ed Gowryne. But it's more of the whole Trump administration and Trump political machine versus Thomas Massie, who they're labeling an obstructionist and who has been. you know, just really one of the more difficult members to deal with in the house. And yeah, when we were there, we went to a Thomas Massie event in his hometown last night in Vanceburg, Vancouver, Kentucky. And it's a pretty big crowd. It's hundreds of people. And in a small district like this, in really, really small towns, that's actually a big turnout. And they're very confident. We talked to some Thomas Massie voters yesterday who said the only way they're going to lose is because the other side cheats. And I was like, I thought it was the Democrats who cheat. And they just think, you know, anybody who's running against them, the only way that you could beat this grassroots Thomas Massie podcast support is if you have, you know, mass cheating. So meanwhile, on the Ed Galrine side of the aisle, it's really fascinating. It's like they're running two separate races. Galrine and the Trump administration are talking about Thomas Massie not voting in favor of their priorities. Maybe they'll bring up Thomas Massie and his sort of bizarre quest to make everything about Jeffrey Epstein along with Ro Khanna. But I'm wondering from the Ed Galrine perspective, it seems like very little Israel talk, but from the Thomas Massie perspective, nothing but Israel talk, it seems like. Yeah, I mean, according to Thomas Massie, he is running this campaign against Israel. And the only reason it's competitive is because Israel has, you know, dropped all this money against him. Obviously, that's not true. It's Jewish Americans who have dropped money against him because his policies are, you know, antithetical to anything a Jewish American would care about in this country. But the message from the Trump administration is this is the guy who's making it hard. to pass the Trump agenda. We've been talking about this a lot, but Trump and Republicans only have a few seat majority in the House of Representatives. And when you have one member who they view as an attention seeker and somebody who makes a big deal out of opposing things that they need to do to pass through the House of Representatives. That's how they are framing Thomas Massie. From the Trump campaign, from Pete Hegseth, who was there yesterday, from Stephen Miller, who posted a long video criticizing Thomas Massie last night. They are talking about him obstructing the Trump agenda that is popular with all Trump voters. And I mean, I think the most telling sign that Thomas Massie's in trouble in Kentucky is that even though he's running...

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this race against Donald Trump. All of his ads are tying him to Donald Trump. He's not running ads to the mass public in the district talking about the Epstein files or his view on the Israel War. He's talking about how he supports Trump's agenda. And he's actually the real Trump supporter. He's more MAGA than Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump happens to be pretty good at winning these primary elections. And I just don't think it's going to work out for Thomas Madison. Brent, that last point is the one that really is telling, is that it is sort of fascinating how Thomas Massie is unwilling to go up directly against Trump, even though Trump is going directly up against Thomas Massie. The truth is that Thomas Massie has been attacking Trump incessantly for about the last year and a half. It started with the Epstein files of it, claiming that President Trump was hiding the Epstein files, was engaged in some sort of deep, dark conspiracy. And President Trump decided that he'd had enough of it, basically, and that he was going to go up against Thomas Massie. And Thomas Massie is humping his leg. I mean, Thomas Massie is in this district. putting up ads saying that he is the, he's the Trump guy and putting up pictures of himself with Trump. Meanwhile, Trump is over there saying, dude, I want nothing to do with you. In fact, I want you out of Congress. And so Thomas Massie has to come up with some sort of misdirect as to why it is that the guy whose leg he is humping doesn't want to be part of his campaign. And in fact, is actively campaigning against him. And the way that Thomas Massie has come up with a way to square that circle is by saying, actually, it's not even about Trump. It's not about Trump is not opposing me. Really, it's people manipulating Trump. who are opposing me. Really, it's the nefarious Israelis who are manipulating President Trump, which is a pretty astonishing way of doing a campaign. We'll see if it works out for him. Yeah, and I mean, I'll just say we drove through district yesterday, and every Ed Galerine sign has Donald Trump's name just about as big as El Galerine on the street signs over there. And I'll just say the amount of ads that are on TV supporting Ed Galrine, his name recognition has probably gone from zero to a lot in just a few months. And all the polling, it's hard to really assess. what's going to happen here? Because look, there has never been a competitive primary here, and there's definitely never been a competitive primary with dozens of millions of dollars dumped in. So for anybody who thinks that they're going to know what this electorate looks like or can do a poll that is going to accurately assess who's going to turn out for this, they're lying to you. A lot of the polls have Thomas Massie losing by, you know, Eight to ten points. I've seen some having him down in the double digits. But again, it's going to be interesting because this is, you know, new territory because of just how unique this primary challenge is.

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You know, Brett, one of the things that I think is fascinating about this is you pointed out that the TV ads, if you just watched the TV and you just looked at the internet, these are two completely different races. If you look at the TV, basically you have Galrine saying, I'm Trump's guy. And Trump's saying, Ed Galerine is my guy. And Thomas Massie saying, no, no, no, no, I'm Trump's guy. And that's all the TV is about. The TV, I mean, how many ads on the TV are really about Israel? Probably very few. But when it comes to the online conversation, the entire thing is about Israel and APAC money and about how actually Thomas Massie is being screwed by the nefarious Jews and all this kind of stuff. It is completely removed from the reality that most people in the district are actually seeing on their TV. It just shows you how the online world is totally different from the rest of reality. Yeah, and I'd also say that it seems like Thomas Massie's kind of buying into that. Yesterday, he did an interview with Chank Weiger from the Young Turks. I, like, do not think that that is the best way to reach voters of Kentucky's 4th District. You have podcasters who are really popular on that, you know, Horseshoe Wright segment of the country. Again, this is not how you reach. a mass audience in Kentucky for. It's probably through local news hits and a lot of events across the district. Seems like he's almost preparing for a post Congress career more than actually to win this election today. But again, he might win. It's going to be very close. Anybody who tells you it's not Dossup is lying to you. That's Brent sure he's editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, and obviously you should subscribe to Daily Wire for all of our coverage. We have people on the ground there. We have a big story happening in Ohio today about our fraud, tons of stuff, our fraud investigation, tons of stuff that's been happening because of the reporting of the Daily Wire. Brent, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Ben.

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How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget. The Price Line app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle, deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Price Line. Hold your horses. There's more. The app let you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beach fronts. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me a... All right. Meanwhile, in the polls, in the congressional generic polls, Republicans right now are getting shellacked. They're getting shellacked, obviously, because of affordability issues. According to a brand new New York Times, Sienna College poll, 50% of people now back the Democrats, 39% of people say they would pick the Republican. That is largely because of affordability issues. It's because the gas prices are up. It's because inflation is up. Now, here's the thing. There are not that many competitive districts up for election this time because of the redistricting. According to the New York Times, all 435 seats, of course, are up in November, but a fewer than a tenth of those races are likely to be competitive. Presidential candidates won about 28% of congressional districts with fewer than 10 percentage points in 2008. In 2024, that decreased to 20%. So again, the number of competitive districts is going down very, very, very significantly. So it is possible that even if Democrats outrun Republicans because of the redistricting, Republicans don't lose as many seats as they otherwise would. But obviously affordability remains a major issue for Republicans. President Trump is trying to do things on affordability. One of those things is that he has been pushing the so-called Trump RX website, which is a way of being able to find generic drugs at cost. He is doing that campaign across the aisle with Mark Cuban, who's been obviously extraordinarily critical of the president. Here was Cuban at the White House talking with Trump. I think other than you, I've been the biggest proponent of TrumpRX.com. And the reason for that is Republicans want cheaper drugs, independents want cheaper drugs. Democrats want cheaper drugs, and together, I think we're going to do something special. What makes cost plus drugs different is that when you click through Trump to our site, not only will you see a great price, but you'll see our actual cost and that we only market up 15%. And what makes this incredible, Mr. President, all the volume and all the people that are going to come from the site, as our volumes go up, our costs go down, which means we'll be ending up charging less to people over a period of time. Again, one of the things that's kind of phenomenal about President Trump is that for all the crap that he takes from people, he is willing to work with them if they're willing to work with him. Mark Cuban has been ripping him up and down for years at this point. If Trump thinks he can get something done with Cuban, then he will. Now, Trump did make a joke about Cuban endorsing Kamala Harris. It's pretty remarkable seeing you and Mark Cuban up there and the fact that, obviously, Mark endorsed Kamala Harris back in 2020. Well, he made a mistake. It was a big mistake.

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Now, one of the ways, by the way, that you're going to be able to bring down prices overall is, in fact, AI, because AI is going to make things more productive. Ken Griffin, who's been ripped up and down by socialists like Zohran Mamdani and Zohran Mamdani for the great crime of investing well. Well, he is pointing out that if you actually want to bring prices down, you have to increase productivity. And one great way to increase productivity is through AI efficiency. He's pointing out how good the AI is getting. And it really is. It's pretty extraordinary. It has been really interesting to watch, to be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with masters and PhDs and finance over the course of weeks or months being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days. So these are not mid-tier white-collar jobs. These are like extraordinarily high-skilled jobs being... I'm going to pick a word, being automated by agenic AI. And I got to tell you, I went home one Friday, actually fairly depressed by this, because you could just see how this was going to have such a dramatic impact on society. Right, but the dramatic impact on society is going to be that everyone is now going to be an expert in finance as opposed to just Ken Griffin. And that's going to mean that prices go down. It's going to mean that efficiencies go up. Meanwhile, on the cultural front, the big cultural story of last week has been the announcement by a woman named Alex Cooper, who is most famous for a show called Call Her Daddy. That is where she has dumb political conversations with Kamala Harris, but also talks about promiscuity and how wonderful it is. Well, she put out an image of herself pregnant. And it's a nice image. It's her holding her belly. And she's there with her husband. Now, this normally, if she were wearing an entire shirt and not just revealing her belly, this normally would have been a sort of conservative coded image. Whenever you see a one, this is how far the left has moved. When you see a pregnant woman who is happy, this is now a conservative coded image. That's because the left has made a big deal out of the idea that pregnancy is not something to be happy about. It's generally something that inhibits your life in some serious way. Like if you were just to see this image, without any context at all, you would assume that this was actually some sort of patriarchal, terrible conservative image. A happy woman holding her pregnant stomach. with her husband right there with his hand on her leg. Obviously, that must be some form of sexism. Now, what makes this all very rich is that Alex Cooper, of course, has spent her entire career promoting social liberalism totally at odds with the nature of these pictures. Because here's the thing. If you want this image to be part of your life, if you're a woman, and you would like this image to be part of your future, there is a way to do that. You get married, you get happily married, and then you get pregnant. I know those are two things that the left has decided are actually bad. Pregnancy is some sort of burden on a woman and marriage is a patriarchal institution. But as for our usual rules, as per what Rob Henderson calls the luxury beliefs of the left, they hold beliefs that they don't actually behave in accordance with. And here is Alex Cooper talking about how you should have sex with people on the first date. If you want to not have that picture, a great way to do that is for women to have sex with dudes on the first date.

1:02:47

And maybe I was just a little hickr, you know, but I do believe I had it right on this one. When people on TikTok are saying, no kissing, no kissing on a first date. No, I completely disagree with you. How about this? Also, no kissing on a first date. Well, sometimes I put them on the first day. How about that one, TikTok? The first kiss at the end of the day is seriously what they write movies about and songs and books, okay? And what I dream about. Because it's one of the most exciting romantic human experiences that you can possibly have. You do not need to be denying yourself pleasure to prove some arbitrary points. You'd be like, did you kiss him? You're like, mm-mm. They're like, good girl. Good girl. Get your fucking lips in there. I mean, she's wearing a sweatshirt that says unwell while she's saying this, and I kind of agree with the sweatshirt. First of all, a first kiss doesn't have to happen on the first day. It turns out you could have it later. And if you are making out with people or having sex with them on the first date, that is a very, very bad recipe, ladies, for getting married to those guys. Statistically speaking, that is not how it works. There's an old phrase that goes something like this. Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? It sounds kind of cynical, but it also happens to be true on a generic level. And then she talks about having a body count and how it's actually great to have a body count, meaning like sleep with lots of guys. Again, if your intended endpoint, right, if the photo that you won at the end of your romantic journey is you as a woman pregnant with your husband, these are terrible pieces of advice that she is giving you. It turns out that the best way to be married and pregnant, is to not sleep with everyone in sight. That is a, again, this is not me speculating. This is the statistical evidence. There's excellent social science data to back the point that I am making here. This has nothing to do with just my moral precepts, which again, I think are true. It has to do with practical real world advice. She's giving you bad advice. This is bad advice. I feel like every single girl has a list of the guys she's ever been with. Like how fun. I just think it's so fun. Like I think mine, I have mine written in a book somewhere and then I also think I have one in my notes app. It's fun. You know, it's a fun little conversation started when you're with your girls and you're like, wait, how many? Wait, what? It's fun. It's life. Okay. I remember the men that have been inside of me and I have a husband and that's okay. Like I had a past. When I was with them, I didn't know my husband existed. I have a question. Does her husband think that that was like a wonderful thing? How's she going to talk to her kids about this? That kid that's inside her right now. How's she going to talk about that? Of course, Alex Cooper is also as pro-abortion as it's possible to be. And so that always makes these sorts of photos ironic. Bottom line is this. If the end of the journey, every comedy in Shakespeare ends with a wedding. There's a reason for that because the romantic journey is supposed to end with marriage and having kids. That is the nature of humanity. You want to talk about human nature and what reality looks like? That's what reality looks like. And that's what reality should look like. And so giving bad advice to ladies is not a great way to do your business. It really is not. And it's sad. If people follow that advice, they're much less likely to end up with the happy ever after photo that you get from Alex Cooper there. You're much better off listening to Jim Jordan Peterson about human relationships if you want that photo at the end of your romantic journey.

1:06:13

All righty, folks, coming up, we'll get into the latest on Iran. But remember, as the show continues, you actually have to be a member. So go check out membership right now, become member, use Code Josh Shapiro. Check out two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. The biggest tournament in soccer is finally here, and I've already started planning my watch parties. My go-to move before kickoff is stopping at Total Wine and More to grab drinks for the whole crew. Wine, beer, selters, maybe a few ready-to-drink options, everything we need for a full day of matches. With this many games, it definitely helps knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine makes it so easy because I can grab everything I need in one stop. Get match day ready with Total Wine and More today, so you're set from kickoff to the final whistle. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Must be 21.