Ep. 2328 - What Did Ilhan Omar Know, and When Did She Know It?!

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Well, it seems that the Somali welfare fraud scandal is now breaking into full view and it's hitting a lot of people who are elected officials. That includes, of course, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, but apparently now it also includes possibly Ilhan Omar. So to understand why this matters so much, we have to understand this is all tied into a couple of major national issues. One, of course, is mass migration from third world countries. Is that something America should be pursuing? The second is a gigantic... unaccountable welfare state in which billions of dollars can simply go missing, and it takes years in order to uncover all of that. And those two stories are intertwined. Obviously, when it comes to the question of mass migration, the Trump administration, has taken an incredibly strong position that mass migration, particularly from countries that do not cohere to American values, that that mass migration should be significantly limited or curtailed. The Wall Street Journal reports today, quote, work permits issued to immigrants who have applied for asylum. or a range of other humanitarian programs will now be valid for 18 months rather than five years under a new policy announced Thursday by the Trump administration. Of course, the goal there is, if people stay here for five years, they then tend to receive full asylum and to, they tend to become American citizens. If they only stay for 18 months, then it is easier to review their cases and say, okay, well, now you can go back where you came from or to a third-party country. By forcing immigrants to renew their work permits more often, the government will have more opportunities to revet them, said Joe Edlo, director of U.S. citizenship and immigration services. Edlo framed the change, which reverses a Biden-era policy as the latest action by the administration to crack down on legal immigration in response to the shooting last week in Washington, D.C., of two National Guard members. That shooting, of course, was allegedly carried out by an Afghan national who had been radicalized in the United States after being imported in the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal by Joe Biden. It's clear that USCIS must enforce more frequent vetting of aliens. Edlo said in a statement, all aliens must remember working in the United States is a privilege, not a right. So when it comes to the question of mass migration, this is a very open question that has been implicated by not only that Afghan national shooting to members of the National Guard and killing one, but also by this gigantic Somali welfare fraud case in Minnesota. As the Wall Street Journal points out, what happens when welfare becomes not a temporary hand-up, but an ingrained expectation of American life? For an ugly glimpse, look at the astonishing fraud unfolding in Minnesota. Turns out those GOP reformers were right to call out fraud in the one big, beautiful bill act. The White House this week published a memo titled, Yes, There's Something Wrong With Walls, and it cost taxpayers a billion dollars, highlighting various swindles in the land of 10,000 lakes. There may be as many fraud schemes as likes in the state given the ease in which scammers tapped government funds. Some 86 individuals have been charged with defrauding Medicaid and the federal child nutrition program in Minnesota, yes, literally stealing lunch money from kids. No one was doing anything about the red flags. One defendant's attorney told the New York Times, it was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it. In one of those alleged schemes, the outfit feeding our future recruited individuals to set up a network of sham companies and sites that claimed to feed children in the pandemic. They then submitted false invoices and fake attendance rosters to the state. In fact, one of those rosters actually grabbed names from another website called list of random names.com. And somehow this worked for years.

In another scheme, a 28-year-old woman allegedly launched a company called Smart Therapy, claiming to Pride one-on-one behavioral therapy to autistic children. She employed her relatives with no formal education. She recruited parents to enroll their non-autistic kids in her therapy sessions by paying them kickbacks of up to $1,500 a month per child. And in a darkly comic twist, some parents allegedly then extorted the woman by threatening to enroll their children in other autism centers if they weren't paid bigger kickbacks. In another indictment, eight individuals were charged with fraudulently billing Medicaid to help recovering addicts find stable housing. Yes, housing. Minnesota pioneered the use of Medicaid money to help beneficiaries secure housing on the questionable rationale this improves health and reduces health care spending. So again, they tried to cram housing spending, welfare housing spending, into Medicaid. So again, Democrats built this entire massive infrastructure. And now it turns out lots of people took advantage of that. And those people were, in this particular case, Somali. Now, it's hilarious to watch members of the media try to create a rationale for why Somali immigrants to the United States overall have been a massive boon. We went from, again, 2,500 Somali Americans in 1990 to almost 200,000 today. And that is purely through mass migration and the natural increase. And that mass migration was driven. by humanitarian concerns, but it turns out that it's come with some pretty significant costs. So today there's an article from KSTP in Minnesota. That's the ABC outlet in Minnesota. And here's the headline. Somali Minnesotans drive economic growth, pay $67 million in tax annually. I mean, I may not be like unbelievable at math, but if you drive $67 million in state and local taxes. and you scam $1 billion. There are some zeros missing there of what you're hoping to show is that the mass migration has been a net benefit to the economic health of the United States. Apparently, Somali Minnesotans generate $500 million in income annually. So in other words, this one big welfare scheme doubled the amount, doubled the amount of income earned by Somali Minnesotans. That they took out from just that welfare scheme. Okay, not even like legitimate welfare. Like fake welfare fraud. They took out twice the amount that they actually earn an income, which is crazy. That's crazy. So, again, the levels of poverty in the Somali American community incredibly high. The levels of education dramatically lower than surrounding Minnesotans. And so that raises the problem, of course, of mass migration, as well as the welfare system. Now, in order for all this to happen, you have to have complicit politicians. Because when the fraud is this big and when this many people seem to know about it, it seems almost impossible that you don't have elected officials who knew about it. Fascinating piece in today's New York Post by Chadwick Moore. quote, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar's close ties to the $1 billion welfare scam in her Minnesota congressional district are being uncovered. Omar held parties at one of the key restaurants named in the fraud, knew one of its now convicted owners, and one of her own staffers has also been convicted for both for stealing millions. Omar even introduced the bill that led to the $250 million in fraud, yet she claims to have been completely unaware of it. Bill Glenn, a policy fellow with the Minnesota-based center for the American experiment, said, quote, Representative Omar knew who these people were.

Personally, she knew they were making tens of millions of dollars in this program. She had been inside the safari facility on numerous occasions and couldn't put two and two together. Either she's terminally naive or she knew and she did not care. That $250 million referenced here by Chadwick Moore was handed out by the Minnesota government for those meals for school kids that never actually materialized. Instead, the money just got pocketed by corrupt business owners, including one Salim Ahmed Saeed. who's the co-owner of the safari restaurant where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. He was found guilty in August of stealing $12 million for serving almost 4 million phantom meals during COVID-19. Apparently, he had a pretty significant shopping habit. He blew $2 million on a Minneapolis mansion. And he had a $9,000 a month shopping habit at Nordstrom. That is a lot of money on clothes, my dude. I hope at least you were well-dressed because that is a lot of money on clothes. Omar, again, this happened inside her district. Her defense is everybody who mentions this sort of stuff is racist. That is always and forever the defense. So President Trump, of course, has been highly critical of the Somali-American mass migration issue. Ilhan Omar says that Trump is an abusive, deranged old man. This woman who once suggested that 9-11 was something some people did. and who herself has written, again, she wrote a letter to a judge asking that a recruit to ISIS be granted mercy because of the evils of having to integrate in America. That is a real thing she did. And here's a sitting congresswoman in the United States of America calling the president an abusive, deranged old man because he's been critical of Somali mass migration. And I think the press in many ways that covers the White House, I think have gotten used to his bigotry. They all have, I think, that delayed reaction. And they've all gotten used to all of his lies. That's why there's rarely a fellow up. But they also have gotten used to his abuse. You know, you've seen him say to one female reporter, quiet biggie. You, you know, you see him calling another one stupid and dumb. You know, this is a very abusive, deranged old man. And I think for a lot of people, it's still shocking, it's still jarring. I mean, I think actually what is more shocking and jarring is that a person like Ilhan Omar is in the United States Congress, given her levels of corruption, given the open and very real questions about her own immigration story with regard to her brother, given the fact that she is wildly anti-American in the way that she approaches politics and the Constitution of the United States, given her warm embrace of terrorism adjacent people. Already coming up, we'll get into the Democratic response to the problems with Somali welfare fraud. That includes Tim Walz apparently being very, very offended at something. First, this episode is sponsored by our friends over at Birch Gold. Our first advertiser at the Daily Wire was, in fact, Birch Gold Group. In that time, we've helped thousands of Daily Wire listeners diversify into physical gold. Talk about peace of mind, especially when you see Gold up over 50% this year. In all that time, the most successful promotion we've ever run with Birch Gold.

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He has since falsely accused Haitian migrants of eating pets and referred to Haiti and African nations as bleephole countries. Again, I'm still confused as to why labeling Haiti a bleephole is remotely controversial. It is a horrible place to live. That is not a slur against the people who have to live in Haiti. It's not a slur against the landscape. That is a terrible place to live. If ever the descriptor bleephole applied. I mean, Haiti seems like that would be kind of like the place that, I mean, does she disagree? Is it a great place to live? Did I miss it? He's accused Mexico of sending rapists and drug peddlers across our border. Again, like just the litany of he's racist, therefore don't look over here where, you know, I've been pandering to all the people who are committing welfare fraud. Pretty incredible. Pretty incredible stuff from Ilhan Omar. And again, the attempts by some of the most radical people in our society to spin themselves as victims is pretty incredible. It's an amazing thing. So, for example, the Council on American Islamic Relations, Minnesota director, a person named Jailani Hussein, went on national TV on CNN to claim that actually the real victims in the welfare fraud were not the taxpayers. The real victims were Somali Americans. I mean, sure, the crime was perpetrated by Somali Americans to the tune of a billion dollars, but the real victims, the people who are really victimized in all of this. are, you know, Somali America. It's a hot take. It's a weird take, but I guess not that weird from a representative of one of the most dishonest Muslim Brotherhood Associated Organizations on Planet Earth, the Council on American Islamic Relations. Of the 70 or so people charged in that case, most are members of the Somali community. Do you think that scandal is giving the White House ammunition for these attacks? I think this actually, first of, fraud is wrong. In fact, this particular fraud impacts specifically low-income families, which many are Somali Americans. And in fact, they were victims in this particular moment. Really? Like that? Okay. It's a take. It's a bit of a hot take. Jay Lani Hussein then went on to explain that President Trump is actually targeting Somali Americans, not because he is concerned about the impacts of mass migration on American life. No, it's because they're a success story. If I are going to name mass migration success stories, I'm not sure this would come at the top of the list. Attacking the Somali American community is very unfortunate. Somali American community have been here for now 30 plus years. And we came here predominantly actually by George Bush Sr., who provided refugees to come to the United States in the early 90s, like myself. And Somali Americans today pretty much complete the state of Minnesota. We are your educators, your teachers, your nurses, your doctors, and also doing some of the toughest jobs. in factories across the state of Minnesota and across this country. Somali Americans are predominantly younger generation today. In fact, majority of us are now born in the United States. We are part and parcel of the success of the state of Minnesota. And not only are we in Congress and other parts of the country, other parts of industries, but the Somali American is actually a success story. And we believe that is at the heart of why President Trump is targeting us.

If you were really that much of a success story, I feel like no one would be targeting it because there wouldn't be a lot to, you know, hang your hat on. But I guess this is the line that people are going with. State Senator Zainab Muhammad. And from the same area says Minnesota could not succeed or thrive without the Somali community, which is weird because Minnesota was succeeding and thriving without the Somali community prior to 1990, actually. State Senator Zadah Muhammad says these attacks won't stop with Somalis and their contributions can't easily be a race. We are in every industry. And Minnesota would not be able to survive nor thrive without the Somali community here. That's, again, I take. Meanwhile, the Minnesota governor who oversaw all of this. And note to our friends in the legacy media, this dude was the nominee for vice president under Kamala Harris. And we were told that he was really good at his job. It's weird that no one uncovered any of this, which happened back in 2020, 2021, until after that race was over, strange. It took until now for this to become a major issue. Just weird how that works. Very strong. Anyway, he's very upset. He too is a victim. Tim Walz's a victim, he says, of the fact that the president of the United States called him retarded. Okay, my dude.

I don't even know how to take this seriously. There's no way. There's just, it's not possible to take this seriously. Hey, the president calling you, retarded. This is, this is, this is the big issue. Somehow, a billion dollars goes missing. You're presiding over the social breakdown and disorder in Minneapolis, attendant to mass migration from third world countries. You have sitting Congress people who spend their days writing letters on behalf of people who tried to join ISIS in your state. And you're upset because people called you retarded? I mean, is, listen, let's be clear about the word retarded. It has reentered the normal lexicon. It has. There's nothing anybody can do about it. No one is being broken by it. It's not the end of the world. The attempt to treat the word retarded the same way that we treated it 10, 15 years ago. It's silly. It's not real. You can pretend to be as offended now as you were 15 years ago about this, but no one is. And, I mean, he's not super great at his job. He doesn't appear to be incredibly smart. I mean, here he was complaining that people are driving past his house calling him retarded. Now, people don't drive past people's house calling them retarded. Just as a general rule, don't do it. But also, I mean, this creates danger. And I'll tell you what, in my time on this. I'd never seen this before, people driving by my house and using the R word in front of people. This is shameful. And I have yet to see an elected official, a Republican elected official, say, you're right, that's shameful. He should not say it. So look, I'm worried. We know how these things go. They start with taunts. They turn to violence. So deeply concerned.

I'm not really certain that the president calling him retarded is going to lead to violence against Tim Walz. By the way, of the things the president has called Tim Walz, this is like eighth on the list of offensiveness. Truly. Man, good luck with this argument. Really, really. Good luck for the Democrats with the argument that actually Somali American migration is the thing that has made America historically wonderful and awesome. that welfare fraud is not about the size of the welfare state, that it's about racism. And mass migration itself is a wonderful thing inherently without any attempt to measure assimilation or economic mobility or education levels or anything. And also that the biggest problem of all is, of course, that someone called Tim Walz the R word. Okay, then. Already coming up, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, under fire from Democrats for something or other. First, this episode is sponsored by ZipRecruiter. So Christmas is coming up, and that means it's a wonderful life is going to be on my TV, like all the time, because that movie is unbelievable, truly a great movie. Shockingly dark, that movie, actually. But to make a holiday favorite like that, it took a team of talented people, from actors to editors to props, people, sound crew, and more. And when it comes to building such a team, whether it's for the entertainment industry or a wide range of other industries, You need to hire the right people, the best people. And the best way to do that is with ZipRecruiter. Right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Daily Wire. ZipRecruiter makes building your dream team incredibly simple. Their smart matching technology quickly connects you with top talent in your area, so you're not wasting time sifting through unqualified candidates. Plus, you get instant access to their resume database, where you can unlock contact information for the best candidates right away. It's no surprise. They're the number one rated hiring site on G2. Make your hiring a little merrier with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers to post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within day one. Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash daily wire. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Also, what's the common sense approach to keeping your home and family safe? Is it taking action after someone's already inside? Doesn't seem like it to me. But that's what most security companies actually offer. Our sponsor, SimplySafe, does the opposite. They stop criminals before they enter your home. Now, that sounds like common sense to me. Before, you know, not after. They do it with a double layer of defense. First, they've got AI cameras that detect threats early. Here's the key thing. They alert live agents, real people who actually speak directly to intruders. Hello, what are you doing? You're being watched. I would leave. And you know what? They actually do leave. Because if they don't, then the cops come. Now that's common sense. It's real security. There are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees. You can cancel anytime. Here at the studio, we've got SimplySafe. Again, that means that when we leave for the day, we don't have to worry about whether our cameras are here when we come back in the morning. SimplySafe has been named Best Home Security Systems by U.S. News and World Report five years running. They back it up with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see the difference for yourself. This month only take 50% off any new system. This is one of the best prices you will ever see for SimplySafe. Don't miss it. Hit Simplysafe.com slash Josh Shapiro again. At Simplysafe.com slash Josh Shapiro and lock in your discount, there's no save like Simplysave. Okay. Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to glum on to another narrative. That narrative remains the Pete Hegseth narrative. I said the other day that no one cares about the Pete Hegseth Second Strike narrative. And I will amend that. A few Democrats care. No one else cares. And the reason no one else cares is because the story does not appear to be true. It does not appear to be true.

Wasn't that the locus of the original story? So I guess now they should move off of Pegsat, but apparently not. Apparently not. Mark Warner, the senator from Virginia, he says he remains troubled. Well, good for him, I suppose. I'm going to say what the video was very troubling, and I think more people need to see it. But I want to better understand process, justification. and some of the items. I had a checklist of items that I want to see that I think some of my, many of my colleagues have asked for as well. So is this dog going to hunt? Probably, probably not. Mark Thiessen has a good piece over at the Washington Post talking about the so-called double-tap strike. He says President Barack Obama did it all the time. Indeed, in targeting cartels, it has designated as foreign terrorist organizations. The Trump administration appears to be closely following the playbook pioneered by Obama. On taking office, Obama dramatically escalated the use of drone strikes against terrorism targets after ending the CIA's terrorist interrogation program, finding it was simpler to vaporize enemy combatants rather than capture them alive for questioning. So Obama forged what the New York Times called at the time a take-no prisoners policy, ordering more than 540 drone strikes on terrorists in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, including one that killed an American citizen, Anwar Al-Aki, who was a terrorist. The strikes that Obama ordered were similar to those Trump has carried out in the waters off Venezuela. Obama used what were called signature strikes in which the U.S. targeted patterns of behavior to noting terrorist activity, even when the precise identity of the individuals being targeted was unknown and he routinely carried out so-called double-tap strikes, hitting a target once, and then striking again to take out any survivors or other terrorists who rushed to the scene after the initial hit. David Shedd, former deputy director, an acting director of the DIA in the Obama administration, said, quote, we used double taps all the time. You would get the initial signature off of a target that's been hit. And if you saw that they squirted and were injured, you hit them again. In fact, he said there was often a second predator ready to go that was fully expected to be used if you didn't have 100% coming out of the first hit and maybe a third hit. He said it was done routinely. There was bipartisan support on the hill for doing it. Obama personally approved the kill lists. By the way, those kill lists, according to one estimate, killed up to 3,800 people. So. Again, I just don't think this is going anywhere for the Democrats. The Democrats do, apparently in all of this, have one more ripe line of attack. And that line of attack is the fact that people still think things are too expensive. Now, as I've explained many times, President Trump and any president handed an inflationary economy over the course of the last four or five years. is going to have a problem. The reason is, even if you stabilize the prices, that's not actually what people want. What people say they want and what they want, two different things. When people say they want the inflation to stop, they don't mean they want the inflation to stop. They mean they want deflation. They want lower prices than currently exist. Not that if a box of cereal costs five bucks a year ago, it should also cost five bucks today. What they mean is that they, if a box is here, it cost five bucks last year, it should cost four bucks today. That's what they want. They want actual deflation. And what Trump is saying quite correctly is, well, you said you wanted me to stop the inflation. The inflation's running a little hotter than normal, but not much. We're at like two and a half, three percent, as opposed to nine to 11 percent under Joe Biden.

And in that sense, Trump's been handed an unenviable job because really the only way to radically decrease prices, as we have discussed many times on the show, is to either radically increase supply or to lower demand. Lowering demand typically comes along with a recession. Increase in supply comes with productivity increases. The problem when it comes to food, for example, is that productivity increases were pretty productive. We have a lot of food, like a lot of food. And so the price of food is unlikely to come down unless demand drops off in some significant way. With that said, the polling shows that when people feel stretched, they blame whoever is in office. Politico has a poll out showing that almost half of Americans say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can remember it being, a view held by 37% of 2024 Trump voters. Now, by the way, that can certainly be true. Because, again, if it's 3% higher this year than it was last year, and last year it was 11% higher than the year before, Well, it is, in fact, the worst that it has ever been in terms of affordability, in terms of pricing. I mean, that's reality, but it doesn't mean that things are escalating as poorly under Donald Trump as they were under Joe Biden. They're not, not even remotely. Americans also say the affordability crisis is now Trump's responsibility, with 46% saying it is his economy now and that his administration is responsible for the cost they struggle with. Now, again, that shouldn't be a shock. He's the current president of the United States. What are they going to say? That it was, you know, Biden still. What difference would that make? GOP strategist for O'Connell said after that last Tennessee election, that Tennessee congressional seven election in which the Republican beat the Democrat by nine points. It's a small warning. It's one that Republicans need to understand. So, again, there need to be radical productivity increases. People do need to feel the economy moving in their direction. Wall Street continues to turn. I mean, there is no question right now that the stock market has been doing quite well. It will continue to do, I believe, quite well for the next few months minimum because there's just so much money turning through the system right now, particularly in the direction of AI, that I say we're in a bubble. I do believe we're in a bubble, but the bubble can continue to expand before a contraction comes. Democrats, meanwhile, are putting their foot on the gas with regard to the affordability argument. The beauty of being a Democrat is that you can propose a horribly inflationary and regulation-ridden system like Obam it through in the name of lowering costs. You don't lower costs and then you blame the Republicans for not lowering the cost. It's beautiful. One of the beautiful thing about big government politics is that you get to claim that when it fails, you need more big government. So Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, made that case yesterday. He says, Obamacare is in broken Obamacare is awesome. Also, we're going to need another $350 billion to fund it. Shows you how out of touch they are. 55% of people who voted for Trump. in November of 2024 support extending the credits. 55% of Trump voters. The Republicans are so much in a bubble. They're so out of touch. They don't understand the anguish and concern of the American people.

Well, I mean, no, Republicans are saying that that's your fault. You designed a system to fail, and then it failed, then you turn around and blamed everybody else. By the way, you can't claim that the system you designed is working when you keep requiring gigantic infusions of taxpayer cash in order to keep it functional. But that's exactly what Chuck Schumer is saying. He says that it is necessary for Trump to extend the ACA tax credits. What Trump ought to do is talk to the Republican senators and say, vote for this proposal. That's the way to solve the problem. That's just about the only way to solve the problem before the January 1st deadline. I mean, look at it. They don't even have a plan. They don't even have two plans they're divided about. They're all over the lot saying many different things fighting with each other. It's crazy. It's just crazy on such an important issue that they would have that. Well, I mean, again, the reason that they are pushing back is because you keep designing systems that fail and then you ask them to provide you more money. Now, there's some talk on the Republican side about the possibility of at least temporarily extending the ACA subsidies in order to avoid the political blowback from the increase in health care costs while some sort of transitional plan is made. I could see that as a compromise solution if there is an actual alternative plan that takes form over the course of the next year. And so you package ACA tax subsidies, which are basically just giveaways, you package those with actual changes put in place over the course of the next year or two before President Trump has to leave office in order to actually course correct the system. That would be the only fair trade here. Democrats, however, are saying that they want essentially a clean ACA tax subsidy expansion. They don't want to change anything. which, of course, is a road to more and more and more government interventionism. That is why Republicans are resisting. Already coming up, the pipe bomber from January 6th has now been arrested. We'll bring you the details first. This is it the very last day. There are no more days to get 50% off your new annual Daily Wire Plus membership. Let me repeat that. 50% off DailyWare Plus annual memberships that ends tonight. Now is the time to lock in our best deal of the year and get everything we make, including that incredible seven-part series, the Pendragon cycle Rise of the Merlin. 50% off DailyWire Plus annual memberships. It will not return for another year. Do not miss this deal. Join right now at dailywire.com slash Cyberweek. All right. We'll get to more on this in a moment first. There are certain purchases that should be simple. Somehow they still feel stuck in another era. Window treatments are one of those things. You decide you want new blinds or shades. And suddenly you have to schedule an appointment and wait around for somebody to show up and you sit through a sales pitch. And then you brace yourself for a gigantic quote. Well, you know, there are a lot of home projects that are like this where you think you're fixing a light bulb and it turns out that you have to repair all of the electrical sockets in your house or something. Well, you don't need that. At least not for your window coverings. This is why I trust blinds.com. Blines.com lets you shop for custom window treatments but still gives you access to professional measuring and installation services if you want them. And honestly, that right there, that's the sweet spot. If you're the kind of person who knows exactly what you want, you can build a quote online in minutes. If you'd rather get some guidance, they will offer virtual design consultations on your schedule. instead of making you wait around all day for an appointment. They'll also send samples directly to your door so you can compare colors, textures, materials in your actual home before you make a decision. Blinds.com carries everything from traditional blinds and shades to shutters, bamboo shades, outdoor shades for patios, and more. They've been around for 29 years. They've covered more than 25 million windows, making them the number one online retailer of custom window treatments. Plus, every single order is backed by their 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you're not happy, they'll make it right. Right now, blinds.com is giving our listeners...

An exclusive $50 off when you spend $500 or more. Just use Code Josh Shapiro at checkout. Limited time offer, rules and restrictions apply. See Blinds.com for details. 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 Corolla's. 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. Folks get ready for some fast facts. The DOJ has now announced that the pipe bomber from January 6th was arrested. which is pretty amazing because, again, January 6th, last I checked the calendar, was over four years ago, so well done by the FBI and the DOJ for actually figuring out who planted a pipe bomb, multiple, actually, outside the RNC and the DNC ahead of the January 6th riot. According to the New York Post, accused DC pipe bomber, Brian Cole Jr.'s face was revealed for the first time since he was busted for allegedly planting those explosive devices. He is a young black man. His politics are unclear. Apparently, according to Pam Bondi, this happened because the Trump administration made the case of priority where the Biden administration had not. Here was the attorney general. The FBI, along with U.S. Attorney Piro and all of our prosecutors have worked tirelessly for months sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden administration for four long years. Let me be clear. There was no new tip. There was no new witness. Just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work. The bomber was charged with the use of an explosive device and the attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials. There would be more charges to come. Now, again, totally unclear what the politics of this person were, why he did it. But there is something to the idea that if they were using the same exact evidence the Biden administration had, and the Biden administration basically memory hold this entire case because it... what, misdirected resources away from January 6th prosecutions for trespass inside the Capitol or whatever. Politicization of justice is always a bad thing. Democrats, by the way, are trying to play the reverse. So meanwhile, Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia, he's saying that the DOJ is picking and choosing by actually taking time to find the pipe bomber.

It kind of makes me looking at this crowd doing a victory lap when all the senior FBI officials across all key divisions have been fired for political purposes, when in some field office is up to 45 percent. of the FBI officers who were doing things like counter-tespionage and cyber have been assigned to do immigration cases. It's a little rich that they're saying they're America's safer. How much earlier could we have caught this guy if resources hadn't been diverted? And I hope it would also remind folks that on January 6th, I was here at the Capitol on January 6th. It was an ugly, awful day. And this administration and this president basically pardoned all the perpetrators. You know, it's that kind of picking and choosing a facts from this crowd that makes me a little bit crazy. Okay, so I'm just wondering why you had to look for an angle on how the arrest of the pipe bomber was bad. Why do Democrats do that? Why do they always feel it's like the magic of Trump? Trump does an obviously good thing. Members of his administration doing an obviously good thing, and Democrats have to somehow come up with a rationale for why it's actually a bad thing. Can't we just say like it's good that the pipe bomber was arrested? Meanwhile, there was, in fact, a large-scale screw-up with regard to the pipe bomber. There was a report from the media outlet The Blaze that misidentified the alleged pipe bomber. We are now finding out new details about how that happened. Apparently, according to CBS News, multiple sources said a unit overseen by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drafted a memo identifying the woman and describing allegations she had placed the explosive devices outside the RNC and DNC. The memo was written after ODNI was made aware of allegations from an outside source, according to the ODNI. Apparently, the agency received a tip from a person affiliated with the media organization about potential criminal wrongdoing by an individual believing to be working at an intelligence agency and documenting it in a memo. And then a copy of the unfinished memo was given to senior staff at the security officer's workplace. And then a short time after that unfinished memo began to circulate, Blaze News published details similar to those in the draft, including the woman's full name. So that doesn't seem particularly great. That seems... like a bad way to do law enforcement, shall we say, and gathering of evidence. Meanwhile, in gigantic media news, Netflix is going to buy Warner Brothers, apparently. Of course, that's a big win for Netflix. They were up against Paramount, Skydance, as well as Comcast. Warner Brothers has some pretty significant assets that includes HBO Max. It includes all the Batman properties, for example. The transaction is comprised of cash in stock. It's valued at about 2775 per Warner Brothers share. So the equity value of the deal is $72 billion, total enterprise value, $82.7 billion. That is a hefty chunk of change right there. That will help Netflix. Netflix has been, I think, struggling to bring aboard excellent content recently. And so bringing on the Wizard of Oz and the Harry Potter franchise and the DC Comics universe.

as well as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, is like big wins for Netflix. For sure, for sure. Netflix co-CEo Ted Sarando said, I know some of your surprise were making this acquisition. I understand why. We have already made incredible shows and movies and a great business model. It's working for talent, but this is a rare opportunity. Now, again, the reality is that Netflix was having to expend billions of dollars, like billions upon billions of dollars every year to build its own entertainment catalog. Very, very expensive. And so them buying up all these legacy properties is pretty helpful. It allows the creators they hire to now use that IP as the basis for further IP. Netflix has already agreed to pay a almost $6 billion reverse breakup fee if the deal is not approved. So should this be stopped by regulators? The answer here is no. It'll make consumption better, frankly. So there are two theories of antitrust. Theory one of antitrust is that anybody who gets too big in a particular market is violative of monopoly principles. That is not true here. You don't have to be on Netflix. You can go to Apple TV. You can head on over to Paramount Plus. There are plenty of places you can get your entertainment. This is not a monopoly concern. The other is doesn't make it worse for consumers. And the answer here is almost certainly the opposite. Probably makes it better. You'll see consolidation. Instead of you haven't got both a subscription to HBO Max and to Netflix, now maybe you only have to get to Netflix. Earlier this week, Paramount raised questions about the fairness and adequacy of the sales process arguing that Warner Brothers discovery favored Netflix. But, you know, we'd have to see exactly what the offer was from Paramount. Did it out strip it in terms of money? If not, then this seems like an empty complaint. Meanwhile, speaking of the state of media, Bari Weiss over at CBS News, has been making some pretty major moves. She is, of course, slated, I believe the week after next, to interview Erika Kirk, which should be fascinating. Meanwhile, older members of the... legacy media former members are lamenting the supposed decline of CBS News, which is kind of incredible, considering that CBS News was in the toilet before the Ellison family took it over and Barry was put in charge. Here is a Connie Chung lamenting the state of CBS News. What's it like to watch CBS right now? We don't. I mean, I can't. The paradigm has completely changed in news, and we have so much opinion that the truth doesn't hold value anymore. And what we end up doing is trying to, we as consumers, trying to find the truth. We can't find good old-fashioned facts. And it distresses me so terribly. CBS is a whole different organization that I had worked for. Okay, so again, the idea that CBS has been doing wonderful job up until now.

and that Barry is somehow going to challenge their journalistic integrity. Reverse. Reverse. Sixty minutes has been a bleep show. And if Barry can somehow fix it, good for her. Meanwhile, the most salacious media story of the day comes courtesy of the former couple, Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Liza. So this one is just people who deserve each other. According to the Wall Street Journal, Olivia Nuzzi seemed like she was floating above it all. You don't remember her from, you know, having had a sexting scandal with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. So a year after that, she had a new contracted vanity affair, a book coming out where she would finally address the mistakes that cost her a prominent place in DC's media elite. There was a splashy rollout, a glowing New York Times profile, an excerpt to appear in the magazine accompanied by an audacious, abstract nude portrait of the author, which, again, it sounds like from Ryan Liz's descriptions. I'm not sure that half of DC needs a portrait. Then, apparently, Lizza started talking. So he's her former fiance and he is miffed. He is miffed because they were together. And apparently she was of questionable moral character. But they were perfectly happy to write books together. They were writing a million dollar book together for Simon & Schuster. Apparently, after she has now written this new book. He said that the book forced his hand. He launched a series about Nuzzi and his substack letter Tilos in November ahead of the new book's plan released, offering part one for free and raising the paywall after the first installment. He's like, I should make some money off my ex. Nuzzi said, I knew the second I poked my head up from my exile, I was probably going to be met by some madman charging me with an axe. I didn't know which man it was going to be. Well, I mean, you were engaged to that one. So, I mean, there's that. Nuzzi is now promoting her new book American Canto, which was published on Tuesday. Lizza continues to unspool a salacious, serialized version of his side of the story on substacks. So he's aiming, I assume, for some sort of magical book deal of his own. Apparently, in the first substack post, Lizza took aim at Nuzzi's journalistic integrity, airing alleged text message exchanges, love poetry, and recorded conversations meant to incriminate his ex. So he sounds like a delightful person. But, you know, they deserve each other, as I say. He wrote that her affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was just one of many ethical mistakes he made as a journalist. Apparently, she had another affair with another politician she'd profiled for New York Magazine. She had an artist secretly record a session with President Trump in Florida. Nuzzi said, quote, I suggest people refer to what I have said about my own life, rather than the distortions or conspiracies promoted by someone I was at least fortunate enough not to marry. Lizza then responded by saying, telling the truth is not harassment. Accountability is not an axe. Again, I feel like this is the world's worst journalistic rom-com. Eventually, they'll end up back together after they both burn themselves to the ground. Honestly, I think that both of these people probably should not earn your trust. Her book, by the way, has been called a tell-nothing memoir by the Atlantic. A New York Times reviewer called it a self-serious and disappointing book. I do love that we live in a country where a journalist is sexting, a politician she is covering, and then gets a great book deal out of it. Man, oh man. America's a great place. Anyone can succeed here, truly. And meanwhile, the Supreme Court has now allowed Texas to use its new congressional map. So you'll recall that there were some questions about whether Texas's redistricting was ever going to go forward via the court system.

That would have been a big defeat for Republicans if they had tried to redistrict in Texas and only in exchange received a redistricting in California, adding Democrat seats. Instead, the Supreme Court said that it will allow Texas to use a congressional map, adding as many as five Republican seats for next year's midterm elections. The justices on Thursday set aside a lower court decision from last month that blocked the new electoral lines in order Texas to use existing ones. The unsigned order from the Supreme Court said the district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal state balance in elections. The court's three liberal justice dissented, and Elena Kagan accused the majority of substituting its own judgment for the lower court's factual findings. So this is good news for Republicans, obviously. How does that reshape the map? What you see right now over at Kalshi, one of our sponsors. is that the Democrats are now heavily favored to take Congress. That has only been growing over the course of the past month. If you go back to October, they're slightly favored, about 60, 40. Today, they are favored about 80, 20. Obviously, Republicans need every seat they can get, but they are running an uphill race. So had they lost this case and also, and also been facing this uphill battle, it could have been a wipeout. All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now. I'm going to be jumping into that wanted Ben Shapiro's show mailbag and answering some of your questions. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use Code Josh Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. All of this is an illusion, an echo of a voice that has died. And soon that echo will cease.

They say that Merlin is mad. They say he was a king in Dovered, the son of a princess of lost Atlantis. They say the future and the past are known to him. That the fire and the wind tell him their secrets. The magic of the hill folk and druids come forth at his easy command. They say he slew hundreds. Hundreds do you hear that the world burned and trembled at his wrath. The Merlin died long before you and I were born. Merlin Emress has returned to the land of the living. Fortigan is gone. Rome is gone. The Saxon is here. Saxon Hengist has assembled the greatest war host ever seen in the island of the mighty. And before the summer is through, he means to take the throne. And he will have it. If we are too busy, squabbling amongst ourselves to take up arms against him, here is your hope. A king will arise to hold all Britain in his hand. A high king, he will be the wonder of the world. You... To a future of peace. There'll be no peace in these lands till we are all dust. Men of the island of the mighty. You stand together. You stand as Britons. You stand as worn. God, they're down! Great darkness is falling upon this land. These brothers are only hoped to stand against it. Not our only hope. I say Mervyn slew 17 men with his own hands. I could say he slew 500. No man is capable of such a thing. The immortal man.