cover of episode Ep. 2075 - I Just Got Another ASTOUNDING Email From The Washington Post

Ep. 2075 - I Just Got Another ASTOUNDING Email From The Washington Post

2024/10/31
logo of podcast The Ben Shapiro Show

The Ben Shapiro Show

Key Insights

Why is The Washington Post targeting conservative media?

To shut down dissenting viewpoints and maintain a market monopoly.

Why did The Washington Post suggest YouTube should censor conservative shows?

They believe it's technically challenging for companies to do content moderation.

Why did The Washington Post label ballot harvesting as election misinformation?

They want to censor Trump and his supporters by any means necessary.

Why is The Washington Post trying to destroy X (Twitter)?

To regain their informational monopoly and business success.

Why are Democrats blaming social media if Kamala loses?

To avoid acknowledging their candidate's failure and to crack down on free speech.

Why is Trump's garbage truck stunt effective?

He connects with Americans who appreciate corny, cheesy Americana.

Why is Kamala Harris's authenticity questioned?

She appears inauthentic and doesn't genuinely like people.

Why are Democrats pushing Amendment 4 in Florida?

To create a radical pro-abortion regime and make money from it.

Why are Democrats pushing Amendment 3 in Florida?

To create a corporate weed cartel and gain blanket immunity.

Chapters

The Washington Post and the New York Times are coordinating efforts to pressure YouTube into censoring conservative media, alleging election misinformation.
  • Washington Post sent an email to Ben Shapiro alleging election misinformation.
  • The email suggests YouTube should censor conservative podcasts.
  • The Washington Post and New York Times are part of a coordinated effort to silence conservative voices.

Shownotes Transcript

Well, folks, five days until the biggest election of our lifetime will bring you all the news in a moment. First, your reminder, not only is Am I Racist the number one documentary of the decade, it is streaming now exclusively at Daily Wire Plus. If you're not a DW Plus member, you need to go check it out right now at dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code DEI and save 35% off your new annual membership. Take a look at the trailer for Am I Racist right now.

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in which they essentially were attempting to pressure YouTube into censoring all sorts of conservative podcasts, videos, everything else. The claim was that I was engaged in election misinformation. And then the entire email was all about how

I essentially needed to be shut down by YouTube because if you're demonetized on YouTube, they also shut down your reach and all the rest. We talked about that a couple of days ago. Well, in case you thought that was not a coordinated hit, yesterday I received the following email from the Washington Post. Again, when I say that there is a democratic media human centipede,

It's because there is. It's because there is. And the entire goal of that Democratic legacy media human centipede is to shut down anyone who disagrees with them, anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. So Media Matters had brought out this study, apparently, behind closed doors, and they fed it to The New York Times, who then attempted to get comment from people like me, from Tucker Carlson, from a bunch of other people on the right, in which they were essentially attempting to elicit the response, suggesting that we were all election deniers and engaged in misinformation so YouTube could shut us down.

The Washington Post literally within 48 hours sent me this email yesterday. Quote, Hi, Ben. I'm a tech reporter at the Washington Post. My colleagues and I are working on a story that examines the role podcasts are playing in casting doubt on the integrity of the 2024 election. The piece includes interviews with researchers who say podcasts are an especially effective medium for such claims because of how technically challenging it is for companies to do content moderation. So what does that mean? They're saying, the suggestion here is, that companies ought to be doing content moderation. Which companies?

While presumably social media companies ought to be shutting down, once again, shows like this one. YouTube ought to shut down this show, according to the Washington Post. Or perhaps she's talking about Spotify. Or perhaps Netflix.

or perhaps she's talking about advertisers. They can't do content moderation on shows like yours, and you are in elections. This is what the Washington Post reporter is saying. Quote, a Washington Post analysis found that the Ben Shapiro show is one of many nationally prominent podcasts that have aired these claims. Our analysis is based on your October interview with former President Trump, where you referred to Democrats as professionals at ballot harvesting, and Trump referred to them as cheaters, conspiracists,

Could you please let me know if you have any comment? My deadline is 5 p.m. Eastern today. We received that early in the afternoon yesterday. Okay, so notice the claim. Okay, the claim is that I was engaged in election misinformation by referring to Democrats as professionals at ballot harvesting.

That apparently is election misinformation. Here is NBC News. Quote, Democrats, for their part, have long enjoyed successes in mail voting, fueled in part by ballot collection where it is legal. The Democratic National Committee said it plans to spend tens of millions of dollars in support of voting programs like mail and early voting.

NBC News, you election deniers, you engaged in election misinformation every day, apparently NBC News. Of course, they don't believe that I'm engaged in election misinformation. The thing they're mad about is that I had on Donald Trump. It's not just me they want to censor. They also want to censor Trump. They believe that it is some sort of informational crime for me to have on the former president of the United States and likely future president of the United States. That's insane. It's totally crazy.

And again, the claim is, again, that we are supposed to censor President Trump, that I can't say things that are perfectly true about ballot harvesting, which is one of the most corrupt practices in America. It's legal, but corrupt. Republicans are doing it now also because if that's the process, that's the process. But it is very bad. I do not like ballot harvesting. I do not like it all, Sam. I am. It's bad. But apparently that's election misinformation sufficient that we should now be silenced.

Remember, that's the Washington Post. Now, the Washington Post has become a joke, so much so that Jeff Bezos had to issue an editorial just a couple of days ago titled The Hard Truth. Americans don't trust the news media in which you recognize that, according to Gallup, Americans just think the news media stink.

Well, maybe if Jeff Bezos actually wants to correct things at the Washington Post, it's not enough to stop them from endorsing Kamala Harris on the editorial pages. Maybe he ought to look to his reporting staff who are now doing the bidding of places like Media Matters and coordinating, obviously, with the Democratic apparatus to unleash two separate stories that came out almost simultaneously, one from the New York Times and one from the Washington Post today. And both of these stories say the same thing. They say that conservative media ought to be destroyed.

So that New York Times piece finally dropped. And the New York Times piece has, of course, a big graphic. And the graphic includes people ranging from Tim Pool to Rudy Giuliani to Tucker to Michael Moles to me talking in the background. And the title is Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as it looks the other way. YouTube is not censoring things the way the New York Times would like YouTube to censor things. Just think for a second how sick this is.

Truly sick. You have members of the media, members of the press, people who are supposed to be about the dissemination of speech, actively asking YouTube to shut down people they don't like. And again, this is not about election misinformation because included in their litany of sins is me saying things like, for example, Democrats set the rules on ballot harvesting and mail-in voting, which is true. It was reported by the New York Times. They quote me saying,

The Democrats rigged voting rules in 2020. Okay, what did I actually say? I said, your party rigged many of the voting rules in advance in order to advance mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. That's true. It was reported by both the New York Times and CBS News. In Nevada, that's what happened. The Trump campaign tried to challenge it and they weren't able to, the challenge fell flat. That happens to be a reality.

So here is what Nico Grant, the ridiculous reporter at The New York Times, writes, quote, In June 2023, YouTube decided to stop fighting the most persistent strain of election misinformation in the United States, a falsehood that President Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Within months, the largest video platform became a home for election conspiracy theories, half-truths, and lie.

and lies. They in turn became a source for revenue for YouTube, which announced growing quarterly ad sales on Tuesday. So again, the theory here is that YouTube is making money off election denial. Now, why would you quote me in that context? This is how you, it's the dead giveaway. I'm the dead giveaway in this story. Why? Because I never said that Trump won the 2020 election. I've said repeatedly that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, at least by the counted ballots, by the state certification procedure.

In fact, I challenged between November and January Trump's claims that he had the legal capacity to overthrow the election or that Mike Pence did. And yet they include me in the article anyway, because it's not about election misinformation. It's about destroying everyone on the right. That's what The New York Times wants to do. The New York Times writes, while Media Matters is a partisan organization that regularly criticizes conservatives, reporters and academics frequently cite it as a source on YouTube misinformation because it devotes significant resources to tracking the vast platform.

The New York Times independently verified the research, examining all of the videos identified by Media Matters and determining whether YouTube placed ads or fact check labels on them. So this is them attempting to justify precisely why they just cribbed Media Matters' work. My favorite part of this story from the New York Times is, as you know, I put up a thread on X. That thread received tens of millions of views at this point, I believe.

And and Tucker Carlson also released a screenshot of his replies to The New York Times reporter basically telling him to F himself, which coincidentally is what I told The New York Times reporter. Here is the quote about our comment. Mr. Carlson and Mr. Shapiro did not directly respond to a series of questions, but attacked reporting from The New York Times. Well, I did notice that when I put up the thread and then I sent this report to the thread, it was an extensive thread.

He could have quoted that thread, but he can't quote the thread because if he quotes the thread, it totally debunks his entire stupid story and shows the underlying motive. Okay, if you thought that that was just a one-off, it was not. Hours apart, literally hours apart, the Washington Post put up their piece, quote, in the podcast election, top shows cast out on integrity of 2024 vote. Claims aired on the free-flowing and beloved medium could undercut trust in the results of a razor-tight election, experts say.

Experts is always, they just go and they find somebody who works at like Brookings Institute and get them to say the thing the reporter wants to say. Experts say is just a guise for the writer wants to write a thing. I didn't find an expert to say anything in America. It's so easy, super duper easy. Okay, the lead picture is a terrible old picture of me. I always enjoy when I'm in legacy media because they find whatever is the worst picture of me and put it on there. And it's kind of amusing. They found a crappy picture of me from 2018. I noticed it's 2024. Okay, so I was still in LA at the time.

They found a crappy picture. That's the lead picture on the story is me, right? I'm Captain Election Misinformation, according to the Washington Post. Democracy dies in darkness. Well, folks, all the media do is put out misinformation. I'll tell you what is misinformation. The idea that your online activity is private. It is certainly not. The internet has changed the way everything goes. They know, the ISPs.

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your money, presumably, on left-wing cause. Go ahead and over to coin.com to join the waitlist, C-O-I-G-N.com. The only reference to me in the story refers to the fact that Donald Trump appeared on this program. You'll recall this. It happened a week ago.

Donald Trump appeared on the program. What was the big problem with anything that I said? They can't they can't identify the thing that I said. It's a problem because it doesn't exist. Instead, they just say during October appearances on the Shapiro and Joe Rogan shows, Trump said that Democrats were cheating and that the media was interfering with the election. What I have a question. Is it my job seriously to not have Donald Trump on the show? Is that is that the implication by The Washington Post? Democracy dies in darkness.

Ask for comment. Shapiro in a post on X cast this story as part of the legacy media's coordinated attempt to destroy conservative media. Yes, because that's what it clearly is when you come out with a story at the same exact time as the New York Times and both of you are cribbing from the work of Media Matters and both of you are lying about the purpose of your story. Of course, it's an attempt to destroy conservative media one week out from an election. Now, I'm sorry I thwarted your little stupid plans to get YouTube to shut down shows like this one five days before an election. I'm sorry that your little October surprise has fallen flat.

YouTube, by the way, to its credit, has said this stuff isn't election misinformation. It doesn't violate our rules. And so we are not going to ban it. So good for YouTube. But that doesn't mean that the attempt didn't happen. And again, this is all a broader part of the attempt by legacy media

to strangle in the crib any sort of competitive media and any social media structure that refuses to abide by its rules. So the same Washington Post ran a piece yesterday titled Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning. X's crowdsourced fact-checking program has been hailed as a bold idea for social media. Research shows it's failing at a critical moment. Well, I mean, if you've noticed community notes on X, they're wonderful. Community notes are one of the best features of X. It's great.

For example, I'll give you a great community note yesterday. Nicholas Kristof, the awful columnist at the New York Times, I know there are many of them, so that descriptor is not specific enough. He's a particular type of awful. But anyway, Nicholas Kristof,

He writes the following tweet yesterday. A struggling Nevada mom suffers a miscarriage. Then the police show up and arrest her for manslaughter. And she's sentenced to 2.5 to eight years in prison. Only when a pro bono lawyer steps up and appeals does the judge reverse the conviction and set her free to return to her children. This is family values. Think about that as you vote. Okay, so here is what the community notes then says.

One, she smoked meth while pregnant. That is two crimes. Two, her baby was well past viability. The autopsy said 28 to 32 weeks. Three, she admitted she did it to kill the baby. Four, law enforcement believes the baby was born alive and then killed. Five, this is in 2018 before Roe was overturned. So, I mean, that is a hell of a community note. This is why community notes is great. Community notes allows the tweet to stay up and then the correction to appear below it, which is quite good.

But the Washington Post is very angry because what they would really like is for the old Twitter regime to be in place where they just shut down anything they don't like, where they ban Jordan Peterson for the crime of saying that boys are not girls, where they shut off the reach of particular conservatives because they just don't like what those conservatives are saying. That's what the Washington Post wants. They want back their informational monopoly. They want it so bad. It's the most important thing to them because that informational monopoly grants them also a market monopoly.

If social media allows for the dissemination of alternative viewpoints and these people are busy blowing the trust of the American people, they lose the game. And so the only way to restore their profitability and to restore their business success is to shut down the opposition. That is the only way to restore it. That's the entire game. So they're trying to shut down X now. I mean, they're trying to destroy X and its credibility.

The Washington Post says, By the way, you can notice what the Washington Post is doing now. They're going to left-wing interest groups. They're just cribbing their research and then duplicating the research as the newspaper.

The consequences are potentially profound, says the Washington Post. False posts on the service were recently blamed by federal officials for hindering hurricane relief, and ex-dispoys play a prominent role in the U.S. presidential election. Now, I noticed that the Washington Post was never particularly interested in policing social media when social media was shutting down the Hunter Biden laptop story at the behest of intelligence agencies and lying intelligence officials. I noticed they didn't care so much about that.

They're busy dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story themselves. So this is not a pursuit of the truth. This is a way of ripping Elon Musk and then blaming him preemptively should Kamala Harris fail. And a lot of these stories are set up for that, too. A lot of these stories are set up for who do we blame if Kamala loses? Who do we blame? It is amazing that we've reached the point in American politics really over the course of the last decade

three election cycles? It used to be when I was growing up, and I think for most of American history before that, if a candidate lost, that candidate lost because they were considered worse than the other candidates. It's pretty simple logic. If Al Gore lost to George W. Bush, it's because Al Gore had failed.

because he was not a sufficient candidate. In 2004, John Kerry lost because he was a bad candidate, a worse candidate than George W. Bush. In 2008, John McCain was a worse candidate than Barack Obama. And yes, in 2012, Mitt Romney was a worse candidate than Barack Obama. And then 2016 happened and it broke brains because Donald Trump was so widely considered a worse candidate than Hillary Clinton by members of the legacy media,

By so many in the public mind, because of that, when she lost, everybody, including the legacy media, decided she had not, in fact, lost because she was a worse candidate than Trump, even though she certainly was a worse candidate than Trump. They simply decided that it had to be some extraneous source that caused her to lose. And so we've been living in that bizarre, bizarre world for the last three election cycles. And so already the Democrats are prepping their narrative. If Kamala loses, it can't be that she was worse than Trump. Not possible. She's intersectional.

She is a black woman. There is no way she was worse than Trump. Doesn't matter that she's worse than Trump. Doesn't matter. She is amazing at this. She is brat. She is joy. She is energy. And you will love it. And if she loses, who do we blame?

Who do we blame? Well, probably we ought to blame social media for allowing shows like this one to be aired. Probably we ought to blame Elon Musk for having bought X and freeing up X to allow for the dissemination of alternative points of view. You can see they're already pre-planning their defeat, who they blame in defeat. And it's gross and it's wrong and it's really dangerous for the country.

Because it turns out that if you blame the sources of the dissemination of information for the failure of your candidates, if you do that, you end up cracking down on free speech. Turns out when the Washington Post says democracy dies in darkness, they're the ones turning out the light. All right, meanwhile, as for the state of the race, the answer right now is nobody knows. Anybody who's telling you that Donald Trump is clearly going to win this election is, I think, hoping. And like, I can have a gut feeling my gut is that Trump wins, but my gut doesn't mean anything.

What matters is that you need to go and vote. If you're in a swing state, do not be sanguine about this. If you're in a swing state, you need to vote. Your friends need to vote. Everybody needs to vote. Even if you're not in a swing state, you should vote. I mean, if you think that Donald Trump will make a better president because he was a better president than Kamala Harris, you should go vote. That is a thing. There are a lot of tea leaves out there. Nobody quite knows how to read them. Harry Enten, CNN's election analyst,

He's sort of been saying this. He says like, if Kamala wins, there were some warning signs, but he says, you know, if Trump wins, there are a lot of warning signs as to why Trump is going to win.

Registration numbers, Harry. Yeah, Republicans have been registering voters in big, huge numbers. They have been gaining in party registration versus the Democrats in the swing states with party registration. We're talking Arizona. I think it's a five point. They've expanded their lead from five points from where it was back in 2020. How about Nevada? Big Republican registrations there. They like the early vote. How about North Carolina? Big Republican registration games.

How about Pennsylvania? We spoke about it before a few months ago. Big Republican party registration gains from where they were four years ago. So Republicans are putting more Republicans in the electorate. The Democratic number versus the Republican number has shrunk. And so the bottom line is, if Republicans win...

Come next week. Donald Trump wins comes next week. The signs all along will have been obvious. We would look at the right direction being very low. Joe Biden's approval rating being very low and Republicans really registering numbers. You can't say you weren't warned. OK, so.

Harry Hansen saying it's quite plausible that Trump wins based on the data that he's seeing. However, it is worth noting here. And again, I put out these points of caution just so that you don't have bad election information. Nate Silver, who, again, I think is the best elections analyst in the business. He says that when you look at the early voting numbers, he says that doesn't reliably predict results. You're seeing a lot of this online right now. You're seeing a lot of people say, hey, look at those Nevada early voting numbers. Republicans are killing it in the Nevada early vote. Or you're saying, look at those Pennsylvania early voting numbers. They're doing better than they did in 2020. OK, but we don't actually know what that means.

We don't actually know what that means. Why? Because it turns out that the early voting procedures are really new. It used to be we had Election Day in this country. You only voted the day of the election unless you were a veteran overseas or something. If you are living in the modern era, however, like the last two election cycles, mail-in voting now constitutes an extraordinary percentage of the vote. And so does early voting. We're talking at this point maybe half of all votes are going to be cast before Election Day.

So it's very difficult to gauge where those votes are coming from. Well, it may be very difficult to suss out exactly what's happening with this election, but there's one thing that is perfectly obvious. The IRS is coming after you if you've already not paid your taxes or if the deadline passed, you didn't do what you need to do. Do you owe back taxes? Are your tax returns still unfiled? Did you miss the deadline to file for an extension? Well, now that that October 15th is behind us, the IRS may be ramping up enforcement. Let me tell you, they don't play around. You

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You may have noticed that while we are facing a pivotal moment in American history with the election next week, there is something legacy media won't tell you. And that, of course, is that Israel is fighting for its very survival right now. It's facing attacks from enemies on literally all sides. You've got Hezbollah in the north. You've got Hamas in the south. You've got the Houthis from the south. You have the

Iraqi militia. You have the Iranians directly. You have Syrian militia. Tons of horrible problems over there. Ordinary citizens, just like you and me, they've left their families to defend their homeland. These brave men and women have been injured fighting for their country's survival. Their families need our help. That's precisely why I've partnered with my friends over at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Right now, the fellowship is on the ground in Israel, providing real help, food, shelter, security to people who need it most. Just 45 bucks.

less than the cost of a tank of gas, can help provide essential supplies to a soldier's family during this crisis. So here's what I need you to do right now. Go to benforthefellowship.org. That's benforthefellowship.org to make a gift today. In the face of these many threats, the fellowship's ongoing work providing security to Israelis has never been more important. Remember, benforthefellowship.org. That's benforthefellowship.org. God bless and thank you. So for example, very easy question. Let's say Republicans are out early voting what they did last time.

Are those new voters who are voting early or is that voters who would have voted day of who are voting early to get it out of the way? In other words, are Republicans cannibalizing their election day voting in order to get those early votes? We don't know the answer to that. As Nate Silver says, these are not good baselines, especially coming after a COVID election.

He says in 2016, the last non-COVID election, Michael McDonald was able to track down a partisan breakdown of early voting data in 13 states. Some of it is pretty wild stuff. Democrats led the early vote in West Virginia by 12 points, but Trump eventually won the state by more than 40. More Republicans than Democrats voted early in Colorado, but Hillary Clinton won there. Similar states can produce surprisingly different patterns. He says early vote returns are highly non-predictive of election outcomes.

On average, the D less R margin in the early vote mispredicted the final Clinton-Trump margin by 14 points in 2016. So could you be wrong? Also, it may be that all of this is accounted for by polls because it turns out that early voting is not a poll. It is just a count of a select group of people who are voting early.

And we also don't know who anyone actually voted for. Like when they say there's an early vote, what they are looking at is the number of registered Republicans who voted early versus the number of Democrats who voted early. But that doesn't mean they necessarily voted Republican or Democrat. They could have switched parties, for example. So it's not totally clear that party ID totally correlates with who you voted for. And finally, as Nate Silver points out, predictions based on the early vote have a really, really bad track record. So he says...

You're probably better off ignoring the early vote almost entirely, with the possible exception of John Ralston in Nevada. So you mentioned the Nevada early vote. Republicans are doing better in the early vote than they were expected to, by far. But he says, generally, don't look at the early vote as predictive. What does that mean? It means get your ass out to vote. That's what that really means. Now, with that said, apparently...

I just warned you not to look at the early vote. Now I'm going to look at the early vote a little bit. So Politico has a piece today saying that Democrats are fretting over the early vote in North Carolina. They say that early vote numbers in North Carolina show the electorate skewing older and whiter compared to the state's voter registration. A red flag for Democrats who need black voters to turn out in heavy numbers if Kamala Harris is going to flip the state. By the way, if that's indicative of national trends, that's a serious problem for Kamala Harris. Take Pennsylvania, for example. In Pennsylvania,

Most of the state just territorially is red. And then you got Philly, right? Philly is a huge population center. Very, very large black population. Democrats need heavy black turnout in the Philadelphia area if they are going to win that election. Are they going to get it? Well, I mean, hard to say. If black turnout in North Carolina is low, is that indicative of a national trend of black turnout being lower than expected?

As of Wednesday, according to Politico, black voters in North Carolina make up 18% of the electorate in early voting. Democratic operatives say they have to bump that up to about 20% for Harris to even be competitive statewide. In 2020, black voters were 19% of the electorate and Trump narrowly won the state. So again, very early, too early to tell. However, there are reasons probably for both parties to be a little bit worried at this point. Obviously, nobody should be sanguine about the state of the race.

Joining us online is Brent Buchanan. He's president and founder of Signal, an international public opinion polling and analytics firm. And of course, FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times. They've recognized Signal as the most accurate private polling firm in the United States. Brent, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Hey, great to be with you, Ben. OK, so let's get right down to it. What is the state of the race right now? I mean, it's the only question anybody really cares about, obviously. You know, who's for sure going to win, Brent? Who's for sure going to win?

Oh, what race are you talking about? Is there one going on? That's, and I say that jokingly, because there is a segment of the population that actually has that thought right now. And it's hard to think for those of us who are in the bubble, and we do and think about this every day, and we live and breathe politics, to think that there are Americans who have decided to pick their head up and say, oh, I guess there is a race going on, and I should pay attention to this. And

And they're not an insignificant group of the population. Our recent national poll showed that it's about 6% of Americans fall within this category. And so when people say everything's going to come down to turnout, what they actually mean is, are those people going to show up or are they not going to show up?

Because many folks and we just did a focus group with with y'all in the two most important counties in Pennsylvania that have picked the correct election winner going back to Obama's first election. And that was the sentiment on that group of persuadable voters was it was not necessarily like I'm definitely going to vote for this candidate. It's like if I decide to show up.

I'm going to vote for that candidate. So I know that's a long intro to it, but I think that people don't think about that enough of these individuals who may or may not show up. They're really not paying attention. And if you're looking at some of this early vote data, it definitely looks good for Republicans. But what we've seen is that there's also a large chunk of young, male, moderate voters who would vote for Trump if they show up too. So my long-winded answer is,

I would say it's a complete toss-up still with a slight Trump edge.

Yeah. So when you look at all of that, you know, it is kind of amazing how the narrative has been built up on the right that Trump is for sure going to win. The narrative has been built up on the left that Harris is almost certainly going to win. What's weird about this election is that typically the line from Republicans has been that if it's a low turnout election, Republicans do better. And if it's a high turnout election, Democrats do better. And it seems like this year that's completely reversed, that Trump really needs low propensity voters to show up. And Democrats are really counting heavily on high propensity voters. And the question really is who's going to show.

Yeah, I would say the narrative is probably actually somewhere in between there, where if it was a very low turnout, it would actually benefit Democrats. If it was a super high turnout, it benefits Democrats. And Trump actually needs it to land somewhere in the middle, but in the like further up the right end of that curve. And so the perfect scenario for him is somewhere in between 16 and 20 turnout levels.

So when you look at the swing states, and obviously this thing is going to come down to just a handful of states at this point, it looks like Trump has enough momentum in Georgia and Arizona that he likely carries it over to the finish line in those particular states. North Carolina, Harris seems to have more hopes in North Carolina, although, again, I'm a little more skeptical. So that means that if you had to gamble at this point, you'd probably say it comes down once again to the blue wall states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

Michigan, each one of those isn't just close in terms of the presidential race. They're very, very close in terms of the Senate races. One of the questions I have about the polling here and it's it is how much are the pollsters grouping? You're not seeing any outlier polls, which is which is weird to me. Like, why is every why is every top line result the same with widely variant polls?

with widely variant breakdowns. You have a widely different breakdown of what the likely voter screen looks like. And then the top line looks exactly the same. Are these just pollsters who are sort of grouping because they're trying to be careful not to give an out-of-the-box answer and then get blamed if they're wrong?

I've had the exact same question of why is everything coming in 47, 46, 46, 47. And then when you go look under the hood, which is what I always recommend people do on public polling first, is start at the bottom. Is the partisan break right? If they asked who you voted for in 2020, like, does that make sense? And they have similar top line numbers. And you're exactly right. The under the hood doesn't look the same. And I

I can't remember an election where there has been so much grouping and this like race tied where everybody wants to say the race is tied so they can say that they're all correct.

you know, we're currently in the field in six of the battleground states to get our own answer on that because we just don't understand how these races are so close in states that historically have not polled close. You know, Wisconsin was a slight Trump loss last time. It was a slight Trump win in 16. Like, I just don't believe any poll that comes out that has him up by four or down by four. But I

I also don't believe that it's like net even tide because there's been no polling scenario in Wisconsin, which has a trash voter file that has ever showed it tied. And so it seems like they're pulling these levers to make it look a certain way. And again, it does come to turnout and people are making assumptions in the turnout audiences for their polls. But I just I can't for the life of me fathom why you have all this grouping, like you said.

So when it comes to election night, and I know you're going to be with us election nights, help us break it down. What are the early things that people should be looking for as indicators as to how the election is going? I know Democrats seem to be worried a little bit about the early voting stats for black voters in North Carolina. If those come in really low, is that an indicator for black turnout in places like Philadelphia? What are your early sort of flags as to which way the election is going?

I think too much is being read into early vote statistics already. The only thing that we can take away from the early vote numbers thus far is that more Republicans have voted earlier than they have in the past. And anything beyond that is guessing. And because what normally happens is older, educated, more educated people vote early. And those are also the most likely people to defect early.

They're a Republican, but they're going to vote for Harris. And so we're trying not to read too much into it, though, following it. So what we're going to be looking for is who are the states that report early and even. And I think Georgia is going to be one of our best indicators this year, particularly

Secretary of State Raffensperger has said that they're not going to do ballot dumps, which was a really frustrating part of trying to follow the 2020 election in a lot of states, but Georgia specifically, where it looked like Trump was up by three, and then you'd have 400,000 ballots be counted and added to the total. So there's a lot of states that have also had ballots

change their laws and allow for more pre-processing of ballots prior to election day. So I expect we're going to have a bit smoother, you know, first couple hours of the election. But I'm definitely going to be watching Georgia. I'm going to be looking at Northampton and Erie counties in Pennsylvania. What are the numbers looking like there? Because they, again, have picked the right winners for going all the way back to Obama's first term as the race swapped back and forth to Republican and Democrat elections.

But the biggest thing is that the out West states have such heavy mail voting and MAIL and they, they don't pre-process those ballots. I mean, we, we may be sitting on pins and needles at two o'clock in the morning, waiting on like some of the first data from Arizona as an example. Yeah.

Well, the election's a mess. Brent Buchanan's here to break it all down. Really appreciate the time. We'll see you on election night. That's Brent Buchanan, president and founder of Signal, the most accurate private polling firm in the country. Brent, appreciate it. Hey, thanks, Ben. Well, because this race is so unbelievably tight, and it really, really is tight.

Every small mistake makes a difference at this point, which is why Joe Biden the other day, obviously and clearly saying that Trump supporters are garbage, which is what he said. He didn't. There was no apostrophe. He wasn't unclear about it. He said Trump supporters are garbage. That is a problem. It's not a problem for swing voters. I don't think that a lot of swing voters are like, you know what? I was thinking about Kamala, but now that Biden called Trump supporters trash, I'm not can't do it. Pulling the lever for Trump. It's not about that. It's about those marginal Trump voters.

Does he think less?

of Americans who support Trump than he does of those who do not. And two, why is he using that kind of rhetoric? How is that presidential? So a couple of things, a couple of things. So just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage, which is why he put out, this is why he wanted to make sure that we put out a statement that clarified what he meant and what he was trying to say. And so just want to make that very clear for folks who are watching. And I just want to...

read that out to folks. So he was regarding to the comedian and I quote, I refer to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump's supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage.

Yeah. So she's lying, obviously. Kamala Harris had to dissociate from those comments yesterday. It was kind of awkward for her. I'm not sure what Kamala Harris's compulsion has been since the start of this election cycle where she was kind of tossed in place of Joe Biden. I don't understand why she's been unable to simply dissociate from Biden. That would be the easiest move in politics. They should have asked her and many people did ask her, what differentiates you from Biden? She said, listen,

I agree with Joe on a lot. I'm privileged that he made me his vice president. However, I thought that we got it wrong on the border. And that is something that I've worked hard to correct and will work hard to correct as president. I mean, she could do that and she could throw Joe under the bus. She's avoided doing so thus far, probably because she thinks Joe's going to throw her under the bus. Well, now all bets are off. It's too close to the election. So here she was yesterday trying to dissociate from the Biden garbage comments.

I think that first of all, he clarified his comments, but let me be clear. I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career.

I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not. That is my responsibility, and that's the kind of work that I've done my entire career, and I take it very seriously.

Okay, the last part of that is a total lie. The work that she has done is to unify Americans. I don't know, throwing pro-lifers in prison doesn't seem like unifying Americans. Saying literally last week, there should be no religious exemptions with regard to abortion. That seems to me like a pretty divisive view. Offering giveaways based on race. That seems kind of divisive, Kamala Harris. Making room for the pro-homasnics at the table. A little divisive.

She doesn't seem like a president for all Americans to me. She was asked if she has sympathy for Trump voters who are being demonized this way. And she sort of skated around a bit. Do you sympathize with any voters who do feel offended by or insulted by the garbage comments? I am running for president of the United States. I will be traveling to three states today to do what I have been doing throughout.

She's going to do what we have always been doing throughout and for the future and for all of time in the context of that which we most believe.

Ooh, she's bad at this. The big problem for Kamala Harris is that no one believes, truly, no one believes that the modern Democratic Party, which has labeled Donald Trump a Nazi and has labeled his supporters Nazis, is actually sympathetic to Donald Trump's supporters. No one believes this. We've had three straight election cycles, four actually, if you go all the way back to 2008, in which the Democrats, sorry, five, right? 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2020, we have five straight election cycles in which the Democratic candidate for president has demonized the other side.

Five straight. We had 2008, where Barack Obama called them bitter clingers. And then in 2012, he sort of doubled down, if not on the language, then certainly on the attitude. In 2016, Hillary Clinton called everybody deplorable. In 2020, Joe Biden suggested that ultra bad super MAGA was ultra bad traitorous. And then he did that as president. And now you have Joe Biden suggesting that Trump supporters are garbage. So

It turns out that Democrats really don't like their opposition very much, and they don't like any of the people who vote for those people. There's a big distinction in politics, truly. People keep saying that Trump has said something like, everyone who votes for Kamala is human scum. He has not said that. He has not remotely said that. What he actually said, he called his political opponents human. Now, I don't love that kind of language with regard to the actual political opponents that you have. I don't think that Trump should call Kamala Harris human scum. That's a little much for me. However, he never said that everyone who votes for Kamala Harris is human scum.

He's never even implied that. OK, but Joe Biden just said that out loud about the Trump supporters. He just said right out loud that they are garbage Trump supporters. His words, not mine. And again, this is a big problem for Democrats. Many of them believe this to be true here. For example, Charlemagne, the God who two days ago was interviewing Kamala Harris saying, well, if you support Trump's rhetoric, you are garbage.

I don't understand why he's walking that back, because, I mean, based off the examples he gave, like if you if you if you are a person who supports those examples that he gave, you are garbage. OK, well, I mean, nobody supports the examples that he gave. The Tony Hinchcliffe example, including Donald Trump. So he talking about precisely. And of course, it's not unique to Charlene. CNN panelist Daniela Gibbs Leger, she says, you know, I don't even care what Joe Biden says, because Trump's such a mean, bad, very, very bad, mean man.

Look, President Biden has a long history of making gaffes. It's not a surprise. He's not on a ballot. And I think her comments were spot on. That's not how she talks. She always is about being inclusive and being a president for the American people. So I understand why the Trump campaign is trying to make this a thing. But please miss me with the outrage from the man who consistently demeans and denigrates the American people since 2015. Please. I'm sorry. Enough. OK, bye.

Donald Trump has, in fact, responded to the Joe Biden garbage comments in the funniest possible way. Troll level 1000.

He did it, the absolute madman. We'll get to that in just one moment. First, it is Halloween, and Matt Walsh's tricks against the left in Am I Racist are your treat over at DW+. I know what you're thinking. Is Am I Racist really a Halloween movie? The answer, of course, is absolutely. First of all, we released it in theaters Friday the 13th. Matt Walsh is in such a great disguise, no one from the left could even recognize him. To top it all off, the left is terrified of it.

Sounds like a Halloween movie to me. Plus, it's the number one documentary of the decade and the biggest opening day movie in Daily Wire history. Best of all, it's available right now for you exclusively at Daily Wire Plus. So here's the plan. Take the kids trick-or-treating, grab some of their candy for yourself, watch Matt Walsh's cultural phenomenon, Am I Racist? now at Daily Wire Plus. If you're not a Daily Wire Plus member, we've got another treat for you. Take 35% off new Daily Wire Plus memberships with code DEI at miracist.com. Go to miracist.com, use code DEI for 35% off your new membership.

annual membership. So you got to say that Donald Trump, this is a dude who's having fun on the campaign trail. So yesterday, after Joe Biden's Trump supporters are garbage comment. I don't know who was in the room to set this up. Trump will tell us the story in a moment. But he decided to get a garbage truck, slap a Trump label on the side of it, get on an orange garbage man vest, and then do a presser from a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Yeah, honestly, you gotta love it. You gotta love it.

Because here's the thing. Donald Trump, there's a side of Americans that is just super corny and super cheesy. And Donald Trump loves that side of Americans. He loves them, right? Really. This is why Donald Trump wears the big red tie. This is why, like he knows image. Donald Trump, the reason that he put on McDonald's uniform and was having fun handing out fries is because he understands that most Americans like that stuff. They find it funny and they find it charming. And it's kind of hilarious. And also like, you know what other things Americans like? They like Lee Greenwood. So he plays at his rallies.

You know what else they like? They like Frank Sinatra. So I'll play Sinatra doing my way. All the stuff that you consider cheesy because we live in an ironic era and a post-authenticity era, because of all of that, Trump, he totally counter-programs that, right? The original MAGA hat, I remember commenting on this at the time. Here's the thing about the MAGA hat. It's super ugly. Like just aesthetically, it is an ugly hat, right? It is a red hat that is constructed like it's from a family reunion you had with your extended relations

in Minnesota in 1997. Okay, the original MAGA hat was like styrofoam and even had like a string across the front. And you know what? People love that stuff. They do, because it's kind of Americana. Donald Trump is Americana, man. There is nothing that says Donald Trump more than America. Here he was, this is like perfect American Donald Trump inside the truck, wearing the garbage man vest, doing a presser explaining why he likes Americans.

250 million people, that's what I think the real number is for making America great again. 250 million, the real number.

They don't think in terms of garbage, OK? They don't use terms like that. And it's a shame. And Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself if he knows what he's even doing. And she should be ashamed because she shouldn't let him do it. She's the vice president, but I assume she's acting as the president. She should never have let that happen. I hope you enjoyed this garbage truck. Thank you very much. And then Trump goes and he does a rally and he just leaves the vest on.

He just leaves it on. There's a whole rally in the garbage man vest, which is great. There are 8 million renters in America who are not only qualified to own a home, but could be saving 30% monthly on their rent simply by owning instead. Smart people know the path to wealth is through real estate. This is where Churchill Mortgage comes in. Churchill Mortgage's Home Buyer's Edge gives you, the buyer, the power. It allows you to compete with cash offers, provides lightning fast pre-approval, and Churchill Mortgage sweetens the deal with a $10,000 seller guarantee.

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Okay, here's the thing. Nobody believes that Donald Trump gave up his job as the presidential candidate and as the head of the Trump organization, all of that, to be a garbage man. No one believes that. The whole point is he's not embarrassed to put on the garbage man vest. He doesn't find that embarrassing. Kamala Harris would be embarrassed to do that. Why? Because in the back of her mind, she's like, well, garbage man. Is that a real job? I don't know. It's not a real job by community organizers. Trump likes those kinds of people. He's always liked those kind of people.

And he likes blue collar people, which is why blue collar people like him. So here he was yesterday explaining how this whole stunt came to be. And one of my people came in and said, sir, you know, the word garbage is the hottest thing right now out there. The hottest thing out there, sir. Would you like to drive a garbage truck? Now we're about, you know, 30 minutes from landing. We had to do this pretty quick. I said, it's sort of cool though, isn't it? Because, you know, and I said, you know, I think that's okay. But, you know, I don't feel comfortable wearing a suit.

And they pulled up this garbage truck. I don't know how the hell they did it so fast. I have very capable people. They put a big sign on the truck. Did you see it? I think they showed it. And then they said, sir, we have a vest. I said, well, should I leave my suit on and put it over the vest? But that doesn't look very good, right?

That doesn't look good. So I said, all right, look, let me take it off. And then I actually said, I climbed into the truck. But here's the, so I said, how the hell do you get into this truck? It's way up high. It's a big one. This was a beauty. I said, you didn't have to buy it that big, right? You have to get it that big.

I'm sorry. That's genuine and it's authentic and it's super duper funny. And here's the thing, right? The final point for Trump on this is the right one, which is the reason that he can get away with this is because he actually likes people. And Donald Trump likes people. I've been on the trail with him. I've seen him interact with humans. Donald Trump likes humans. Kamala Harris looks like she has never even met a human. She lives in the uncanny valley with all of the other NPCs.

She doesn't feel authentic. She doesn't feel human. And she doesn't really like people. You just get the impression that she's not a person. She had to have a rehearsal dinner just to do a donor dinner a few years ago, where they had to get her drunk just so she could get used to downing a couple of glasses of wine and being a normie. And here is Donald Trump pointing out you cannot lead America if you don't love Americans. And I have to begin by saying 250 million Americans are not garbage.

This week, Kamala has been comparing her political opponents to the most evil mass murderers in history. And now speaking on a call for her campaign last night, Crooked Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them garbage. No way. No way.

And they actually mean it, even though without question, my supporters are far higher quality than Crooked Joe or Lion Kamala. Higher quality. Higher quality. My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple. You can't lead America if you don't love Americans. That's true.

You can't be president if you hate the American people, which I believe they do.

I mean, contrast that with Kamala Harris. So yesterday, somebody put together a compendium of the speeches that she's been making on the stump. And listen, I sympathize. I've seen a lot of politicians, particularly this election cycle, and you got to go and you got to tell the same story over and over and over. But if you're doing these big rallies, you should be able to mix it up. She's a totally phony, inauthentic politician. She always has been. Here are eight separate Kamala Harris speeches in which she says word for word the same thing with the same cadence.

Eight separate rallies, exact same morning, exact same hand motions, exact same emotional affect.

She's an NPC, guys. I'm sorry. She's like the AI candidate, but the AI ain't perfect yet. It ain't that good. She also happens to be a liar. So here she was on the campaign trail yesterday just lying about everything Donald Trump has said about policy. Donald Trump's not done. He would ban abortion nationwide. Yes, even here in Pennsylvania, if he were successful. He would restrict access to birth control, put IVF treatments at risk.

and force states to monitor women's pregnancies. Just Google Project 2025. Read the plans for yourself. It's not Project 2025. He's not banning abortion. He's not banning IVF. It's just nonsense. It's just nonsense. The thing is that in this election, one of the big factors is which one is more authentic. That is a real thing. Trump is more authentic. And by the way, I'm sorry that their attempt at authenticity, which was bring Tim Walz off the bench, that's been a giant fail.

Let me demonstrate for you what a fail Tim Walz is. This is footage of him from the end of a rally yesterday that he did with Kamala Harris. Even Kamala Harris is irritated by the fact that this guy is a bizarro world, wild-handed, insane person. Escapee from a mental asylum. Here we go. For those who can't see, he's doing his manic hand clapping. And then he's like raising his hands. He's kicking his feet. He can't stand still. Honestly, he's like an ADHD child.

Tim Walls, like, waving his hand all loose-wristed and, like, waving and pointing at people, doing weird things with his feet. And Kamala Harris is like, why am I with this weirdo? Why didn't I pick Josh Shapiro?

And he's waving to the crowd. He just keeps waving. And eventually she looks at him and she taps him on the arm. She said, let's go. And then he turns around and keeps doing it. And she turns around. She's like, Tim, why are you still doing this? What are you doing? That's your pick. Solid job, guys. Really, really solid job. OK, well, yesterday we had the opportunity to sit down with Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. There are two big ballot initiatives that are coming up here in Florida. It's a good window into what Democrats are trying to do nationally. Here is a bit of what we talked about yesterday.

I'm here with Governor Ron DeSantis. Governor, thanks so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it. No, it's great to be here. I'm glad you got a nice Southern command down here. You're not the first one to do it, but you've been doing really well down here. It kind of reminds me Rush had a place in West Palm, so congrats. Exactly. Yeah, I know. Well, you've drawn a lot of us here. And I want to talk about that, your governance style and the fact that you've been able to change things here. But there are two big amendments on the ballot this year in the state of Florida. They do have sort of national ramifications because

Whether Florida becomes a swing state or not, again, that's obviously been a Democratic dream. Things have changed pretty radically down here in terms of voter registration. These two amendments are an attempt by Democrats, largely in the state, to regain some sort of mojo. Let's talk about the amendments on the ballot. So let's start with Amendment 4. Amendment 4 is an attempt to claw back the heartbeat bill that you pass in the state legislature that essentially guarantees the right to life of kids beyond 18.

a fetal heartbeat. And what does Amendment 4 do? Because I think there's been a lot of- Well, I think it does more than that. I mean, so I always tell voters, how did these amendments get here? So this is the left-

Soros, Planned Parenthood, 1630 Fund, which has foreign money. They've done $120 million. And what they're doing is they provide a very opaque amendment, no definitions on any of this stuff. So we really don't know what some of this stuff will do. They obviously will want to have a very aggressive left-wing posture.

no limits on when an abortion could be performed. It says viability, which they say would be about 26 weeks, which would mean six months in, you can have a fully formed baby, can feel pain, sucking its thumb, heartbeat. And for no reason at all,

can just be snuffed out. But if you read beyond that, the way the amendment's written, it really has an exception that swallows the rule because it says an abortion can be performed at any time if the, quote, health care provider deems it's necessary to protect patient health. They do not define patient health. And we know the left would include things like mental health, which would basically mean a non-physician

could green light an abortion at any moment of birth. It also eliminates parental consent for minors, and they do it in a very underhanded way because they say nothing can infringe on the right of the legislature to require parental notification. So people see that, oh, parents' rights,

But that claws back what we have in law now, which is consent. So you'll have this odd thing in Florida where they can send you a notice and say, oh yeah, your kid is at an abortion clinic across the state. Um, there's a non-physician that's a, that's a recommending a late term abortion. Just thought you'd like to know that without any, without any parent involvement. Um,

you would not be able to prescribe a Tylenol to a minor without parental consent, but somehow a minor could get a late-term abortion without parental consent. And then the final thing that's tricky about this, it doesn't say it in there, but they did the similar thing in Michigan. They passed these things. Then they run into court and say, oh, taxpayers are required to fund the abortions because this is a constitutional right. So that will happen in Florida. They will go try to find a liberal judge and then get taxpayers to try to fund this. And so this is...

the left, it's ideology, but it's also a business.

Southeast part of the United States, all the states from Texas to South Carolina have pro-life laws in place. So if this passes in Florida, we will be the epicenter of abortion nationwide. And we would have one of the most radical pro-abortion regimes, not just in the United States, but in the world. And in fact, I think it would be worse than California, Colorado, some of the nine-month states, because this healthcare provider, you know, people that aren't pro-life, and I have a lot of friends who aren't, what they will say is, look,

They don't like abortion. They think it should be rare, but they don't support legal protections for the unborn because they think that that should be resolved by the woman, mother, and the doctor.

mother and the doctor. Healthcare provider does not need to be a physician. So you are opening up a can of worms. And why would they do that? Because I have some people who will read that. They're like, oh my gosh, that's appalling. Why is that language money? They will be able to run bootleg abortion clinics. They will not have to have physicians on staff overseeing, and they will make a lot more money. And they will be bringing people in from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, all converging in Florida so that they can

prop up a failing business model. It's important for people also to know groups like Planned Parenthood, they're not only involved in abortion on demand, they're doing the gender surgeries. That's a big part of their business model now. So all this money and potentially taxpayer money will go into that. So if you're pro-life, this is an easy no vote. But even if you're not, I haven't met very many people who think that there should be no limitations at all and that parental consent should be revoked and that non-physicians

should be empowered to green light abortions up until the moment of birth. As you mentioned, I mean, the overreach is so dramatic in Amendment 4, but they've really been obscuring what Amendment 4 says. I mean, I originally characterized it as a clawback, but as you say, it's not a clawback. It is moving way beyond the boundaries of where prior Florida law was even before the state legislature issued new rules on abortion. You mentioned money. What are the political reasons why you think they're going so extreme here? Well, here's the thing. Well, because I just think that

They would never do anything more modest. But it's interesting because they have a certain playbook that they run around the country, and usually they overpower the airwaves with ads. We fought back, I think, effectively. But in Florida, they're saying, oh, if someone is raped, well, our heartbeat law has an exception for rape. They talk about it. We have an exception for incest. They talk about life and health of the mother. We have that in the law.

And then they'll say if someone has a miscarriage, they would be denied care. To the contrary, not only is that obviously not prevented in Florida, a doctor would be committing malpractice if he said they couldn't treat you because of a misunderstanding of Florida law. So everything they're doing to attack Florida law is actually not

in our law. They're not even running ads saying a heartbeat is too short a time. It should be extended. That would be at least a debate that was based in fact, if that was their position. They're running on all these things that are not in Florida law just because they know those would be unpopular if they are, but they're not. And I think that that's very telling. So this is just a regime that they want. They'll make money. They'll have political power. And you mentioned, look,

This is just wrong. I mean, it's wrong to take away parents' rights. It's wrong to have a fully formed baby snuffed out for no reason, six months, eight months, nine months. And the thing is, is the media doesn't like to acknowledge this, but there are tens of thousands of late-term abortions that happen in this country, and the majority are elective. They are not for medical reasons. And so that would happen in Florida, and people think it's wrong. But I also, from the political perspective, because you did mention it,

When I got elected governor in 2018, we had 300,000 more registered Democrats in Florida than Republicans. We were the top swing state. The state had never had more registered Republicans than Democrats. Four years later, I'm running for re-election. We flipped it. We had 300,000 more registered Republicans in the 2022 election than Democrats. Obviously, we had a big red wave that year.

Interesting, since at that time when we did the heartbeat bill, we've gone from 300,000 more to 1.1 million more. And so what's happened, I think, is people that are moving here, they're drawn because we have conservative policy that works.

Some of the liberals may not like that because we have conservative policy that works, which is fine, but we've really created a situation. So if Amendment 4 passes, you have taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, and then Amendment 3 passes, which I know you want to talk about in a minute, where it's basically public consumption of weed everywhere.

That is going to start to turn Florida in the other direction politically. There's just no way around it. So let's talk about Amendment 3. Amendment 3 is an amendment that would essentially legalize marijuana across the state, but it would do a lot more than just legalize marijuana. The actual practice would make it effectively on nearly every street corner. If I'm reading the amendment correctly, why don't you characterize exactly what this thing says? Well, again, how did this get here, right? Because I tell people that when you're on these constitutional amendments,

It's not like an ordinance in a city or a county or even a law that the legislature passed. When it's in the constitution, it's done. The legislature cannot amend a constitutional provision through the normal political process. So in reality, it's taking the issue away from the people and the political process.

and saying it's out of bounds indefinitely. And the only way you'd be able to address with another constitutional amendment, which just doesn't happen. So when in doubt, vote no. If you're not convinced that this is gonna be good, you vote no. So how did amendment three come?

It came because of one mega marijuana corporation. It was written by the CEO of the corporation. That corporation has put in $140 million into passing Amendment 3. And they say, well, we want safe and regulated marijuana. Just

Be clear, we have that in Florida. We have medical marijuana program that the voters approved. I implemented it. We have almost a million people in Florida that have these cards. Do you think all million have some debilitating condition? I mean, the notion that people that really want marijuana in Florida can't get it is absurd. Now, we don't have it overrunning all our public places for good reason. So we don't want that.

Nobody is in a federal or in a state prison, in our state prison system, for using or possessing personal amounts of marijuana. They'll also say people shouldn't be rotting in prison. They're not, and I agree, and they're not. So that's the context of what they're trying to do. Some will say, hey, free state of Florida, I don't care what people do, whatever. Just understand this isn't about freedom.

They are giving a constitutional right to possess and use up to three ounces, which is about 100 joints, way more than California and Colorado, but only if you buy it from them. They do not provide you with the right to grow your own marijuana. So they are creating this corporate cartel where they will be empowered to sell you weed, but it'd only be the select companies that have these licenses.

And what will happen is the incumbent companies will basically become monopolists because they have the head start on everything. But probably the most galling, and then so it's not about freedom because they don't let you grow your own, but it's also you got to respect the freedom of Floridians who don't want to be involved in marijuana to live their life. But they have no limitation on use publicly of marijuana. We've seen Denver, San Francisco, Manhattan,

It's everywhere, but those areas actually have some restrictions. It's just not enforced. This is not providing any ability to rein in the public use of marijuana. So it'd be in the beaches, the parks, the streets, the cities, restaurant. It also, the way it's written, it's providing a constitutional right to smoke, which has not ever been done. So if you're in a restaurant, can the restaurant owner tell you to leave? It's your constitutional right. The way it's written, it's

It's not just saying the legislature shall make no law. It's basically saying you can't even have a civil lawsuit if you're smoking it. So I think it probably applies to private parties as well, which would throw a lot of businesses into turmoil. But here's the thing. And so I think you have a right to not

have marijuana in your life if you don't want it. And a lot of people say, what do we care if people use it in privacy of their home? I honestly don't care about that, but I know this amendment will bring it out into all the public spaces. The most galling thing, though, about it, so the amendment, when people look at it, they get a ballot summary. That's what you see. You don't see the actual text of the amendment on your ballot. So you gotta go, you gotta look it up, you gotta read it. And the ballot summary doesn't tell you, this amendment gives the companies

total immunity from criminal civil liability or sanctions under Florida law. Blanket immunity, no exceptions, read it for yourself. So what that means is if they sell you defective marijuana, something goes wrong, you can't sue them. And it applies to

all aspects of business, including distribution, manufacturing, selling, processing, cultivating, acquiring. So if they're driving marijuana in one of their trucks to a dispensary and they run you over, you can't sue them. This is a blanket immunity shield. That's never been done before, but that's why. So this is about...

corporate weed taking over Florida. So if you're against weed, obviously you vote no. If you're indifferent to weed, you gotta vote no, because this is a horribly written amendment. But even if you like weed, you will not be able to grow it in your backyard.

They'll make sure of that. You got to buy it from them. And then they're protecting themselves if they do you harm. Not appropriate to put in a constitution. There are other states that have attempted something similar. And the lie that's told is that this will get rid of illegal weed, that everybody will then just go buy illegally because there will be pot dispensaries that you'll be able to access. But the reality in pretty much all those other states is that's exactly not what happened.

It turns out that once you have monopoly pricing on things like weed, people just go out on the streets and obtain exactly the kinds of illegal weed they were before with all of the attendant dangers. So even the things that supposedly it's going to protect against, it actually doesn't do anything about. Well, clearly, the black market in Colorado, California has grown dramatically since they've gone down this road. And look, when Colorado did it, this was kind of the big experiment.

it was, you know, potentially a valid argument that maybe you would get rid of it. No one really knew, right? But what happens is when you regulate and tax it, it raises the price. The demand increases because people are using it everywhere. And so the black market can undercut and they can capture massive market share. And that's exactly what's happened. So

you will have more black market marijuana in Florida if this passes. There's no question. And then they're running commercials, the company that's funding all this. There's going to be a windfall for education, funding for cops and everything like that. There's nothing in the text of the amendment that allocates any money to education. Where have we heard this before? But here's the thing. Colorado, they did tax it.

I think they made some money for a short while. They don't make any money anymore off of it. A lot of their agencies had been planning on the money and it hasn't come in. So this is not something that will be beneficial fiscally. And also with Florida, we don't need it. We have a massive budget surplus. Just since I became governor, all the debt in Florida's history, we've paid off 36%. We have the lowest per capita debt in the country, second lowest per capita state taxes. We've

Our budget this year actually spent less than last year's budget. So we have the smallest state government per capita in the country in terms of employees. So we don't need weed money. I don't think it would be there in the medium term, maybe a little bit in the short term, and it'd be a relatively small amount. Uh, but

that is really a red herring in terms of, oh, this is going to be such a fiscal boon. And for folks who haven't visited Denver recently or visited Los Angeles, I was in Los Angeles with my family a couple of weeks ago. You literally cannot walk down the street anywhere in Los Angeles without smelling weed. It's just not possible. And that's also true in Denver and a bunch of other major cities around the country that have tried precisely the same thing. And here's the thing.

In a lot of those places, they do have laws on the books that say you can't do it. So this was written in a way to benefit the one weed company. So I understand why they wrote it this way. But even if they would have said, this shouldn't be used in public, it

it's hard to enforce it because it just overwhelms once you do. And then when you're talking about it being a constitutional right, law enforcement is not going to want to mess with that. So whatever's happened in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Manhattan, that will happen in Florida on steroids. And our culture is a tourism culture. You know, we would change the character of the people that visit here to be less family friendly. I think there'd be more marijuana tourism. I don't think that would be good ultimately for our economy and our industry.

Governor DeSantis, I would be remiss for the week before the national election if I didn't ask you about what I think is what you think is going to happen in the national election on Tuesday. What are the big obstacles you see to a Trump victory? And do you think that President Trump is on track right now to win? So I think that the we have an administration that has failed.

And the public, you see that they think the country's on the wrong track. They give Joe Biden very low marks. And so the Democrats are running the vice president from that administration. So she's running as claiming she's the change agent, but yet she can't identify what she would have done different.

since Biden's been in. Could she not even acknowledge their border policy has failed? Could she not acknowledge that it would have been better not to have 13 American service members killed in Afghanistan? Can she acknowledge anything? So she doesn't acknowledge that. And so somehow we're expected to think that she's gonna be this positive change agent. And I think what happened, and I warned people that Biden was gonna be replaced. I mean, I thought that was true for a long time. But after that debate, the first debate with Trump, I said, Biden's gone.

It's just a matter of when. And some people say, oh, it's too late, the money. I was like, no. Whoever it is, they're going to get showered with money. And she's raised more money than anyone's ever raised. But the media is going to do hundreds of millions of dollars in positive press. And so to me, the election would ultimately hinge on that is going to be the biggest gaslighting operation in American history. And the question is, is that going to be enough to get her

Or will people start to see who the real Kamala Harris is? And I think that every interview she gives, every time she can't, when she does her word salads, more and more people say, she's just not up to the job. And so I think in terms of the commander in chief test, they throw all these invectives at Trump, but he was president. It's one thing if he hadn't been president and you're gonna try to say he's gonna be the second coming of Adolf Hitler. I mean, obviously that wouldn't be credible, but

He was president for four years. Okay, people can look at the record and there's a lot of Americans that think that's better than what we've had. And if you don't like it, that's fine. But they're missing the mark, I think, on some of this criticism. So I think the fundamentals are in our favor. I think that Trump has proven to be a better candidate than Kamala. I would say the concern would just simply be to win. He can't just win Georgia,

Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina. He's gotta win one of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Those did not perform well for us in the midterms, different than a presidential election. But what was going on in those states that we did so bad as Republicans? And are we gonna be able to get the turnout to be able to win one of those? I think ultimately he's in a good position to do that. But that was really what the election is gonna come down. I really doubt she's gonna be able to win

states like North Carolina and Georgia. I just don't think so. I mean, she's the most liberal candidate that's ever been put up by the Democratic Party. And I know the demographics in those states have changed a little bit, but I just don't think that she's going to do it. So she's got to win all three of those. Donald Trump only needs to win one of those. Okay.

Well, Governor DeSantis, thank you so much for stopping by. Thanks for what you're doing for the state on a continuing basis. We're very grateful to live in a state governed by you, best governor in America. Thank you again for your time. Well, no on three and no on four will keep us the best and freest state. If you vote yes on no and they pass, then we're going to start to become California through the back door. God forbid. Well, Governor DeSantis, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

All righty, guys, coming up, we're going to jump into questions about how voting is going to happen, when we're going to get results and all of that. If you're not a member, become a member. Use Coach Shapiro. Check out for two months free on annual plans. Click the link in the description and join us.