Ep. 2094 - The Media Root For TRUMPFLATION?!
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Well, folks, Milton Friedman once said that inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon. And yet there are a lot of people who are suggesting today that really inflation is going to be a result not of printing money or spending too much money. It's going to be the result of Donald Trump's economic policy. I think this is wish casting. We'll talk about it in a second. First, if you have not heard, our best deal of the year is happening right now. Get 50% off new annual memberships, no code needed. Go to dailywire.com slash Black Friday and join right now. So

President Trump is currently riding high. His approval ratings are in the high 50s, low 60s. People generally approve of his transition team's plans. They like what they are seeing. And so that means it is now indicative that the media are trying to crush his sort of economic dreams. The idea...

that is being promulgated by the media is that inflation, which ate up the Biden administration, is now going to plague Donald Trump. Now, this is kind of funny because we were told by this exact same media that inflation was not going to be a factor for Joe Biden when he took office. We were told that modern monetary theory, Elizabeth Warren's,

bizarre and strange theory about economics. You could endlessly spend money without ever inflating prices, without ever inflating away people's savings, that that was possibly true, that we could just keep spending money until the end of time and inflation would not result. And then, of course, inflation did result. Well, now the claim is that Donald Trump's economic policies are going to produce Trumpflation, that Trumpflation is coming. Now, the pitch on this is basically that Donald Trump is pursuing a series of policies that are

that are going to lead to price increases. Those policies would be in order tariffs, tax cuts, and deportations. This is a case made by Alan Blinder over at the Wall Street Journal. He's a professor of economics and public affairs over at Princeton. He was also a member of the Federal Reserve from 94 to 96.

He says three such policies received the most attention during the campaign tariffs, tax cuts and mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He says no matter how many times Mr. Trump denies that tariffs are discriminatory sales taxes, discriminating against imported goods is their purpose. Sales taxes raise prices for consumers. Now, this is true. It is true that tariffs raise prices to consumers. That's literally what they are designed to do. Tariffs protect particular domestic industries against foreign competition.

And what that really does, that's nice speak for it raises prices on consumers in order to benefit one particular class of producers. So let's say that you are a steel producer in the United States. And let's say that China is importing steel at a rate that is much lower. You put tariffs on the Chinese steel. And now it is cheaper for Americans to buy the American steel than the Chinese steel. But that's at a price that is higher than they otherwise would have paid. So.

The domestic steel manufacturers are very happy, but the consumers of steel are very unhappy. The thing about tariffs is that like most government policies, they have a set of very specific beneficiaries and a set of extremely diffuse victims. And there's a lot of government policy is that the damage done to the broader public

is mild to moderate. And the benefit to a very, very selective class is very high. But that's not exactly what Donald Trump is doing with regard to tariffs. What Donald Trump is doing with regard to tariffs is something different. To understand what he's doing with regard to tariffs, you have to understand the past of Donald Trump. So Donald Trump, for example, threatened incredibly high tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in the middle of his first administration.

He was ripping on NAFTA. He suggested that he was going to scrap NAFTA entirely. He was going to increase trade barriers against Mexico and Canada. What was he actually doing? Well, what he was actually doing is just rewriting NAFTA in favor of the United States. The result of the threat of tariffs was the so-called USMCA, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. And the changes to NAFTA were somewhat moderate.

So, for example, the USMCA required that 75% of a vehicle's parts be made in Mexico, Canada or the United States. That was an increase from 62.5% in order to remain free from tariffs. It was a moderate change and it helped the American economy slightly, probably. It also meant that labor laws had to be strengthened in Mexico. So Mexico couldn't use its lax labor laws, things like child labor, in order to undercut American prices.

It gave dairy farmers more market access. So there used to be a lot of tariffs on American dairy farmers going into Mexican markets or Canadian markets, and those went away. So the USMCA kept tariffs at zero and opened the Canadian market to US dairy, poultry, and eggs, right? So basically, Donald Trump used the threat of tariffs to leverage benefits away from the Canadians and the Mexicans. And this is historically what Donald Trump has done with regard to tariffs.

And the way you can tell that this is how people are looking at Donald Trump's tariff policy is because the markets have responded quite well to Donald Trump's actual economic proposals. You can see, for example, that President Trump is now hiring as a top member of his transition, Kevin Hassett, to the National Economic Council in the White House. Kevin Hassett is, by nature, a very, very pro-markets guy. He was, of course,

part of the first Trump administration. Hassett will head the National Economic Council and markets love it already. President Trump says, as chair of my council of economic advisors, Kevin played a crucial role in helping design and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Hassett, his work is excellent. He's worked for the American Enterprise Institute previously.

And again, he is seen by the markets as a pro-market guy. So you have to understand that what Donald Trump is attempting to do with tariffs is to leverage wins out of a wide variety of American enemies. That is the goal here. As far as tax cuts, there are a lot of people who suggested that the 2017 Trump tax cuts were going to lead to inflation.

That didn't actually happen. Why? Because it turns out that allowing people to keep their own money is not the same thing as simply pumping government money into the system. Allowing people to keep their own money, American consumers and American investors act with actual rationality with regard to their own spending and investment, which means they don't just blow money into the economy willy-nilly. If there is a tax cut, people...

tend to use that money to not only pay off their bills in responsible fashion, but they also tend to make economic decisions that help them and their families as opposed to the government. Because the way the government spends money is it finds particular constituencies that it likes and then it throws money at those constituencies. Special projects that government wants that don't have to be profitable. They can be absolutely profit neutral or negative and just tosses money at them. And that creates artificial inflation in areas where there is no concomitant productivity.

The reality is that new products, new innovations, initially that means that people spend money on those innovations at a higher rate. And then as there's competition, the prices come down. That's what happens when you allow people to keep their own money. But that entire incentive structure is broken by government spending. So tax cuts and government spending are not remotely the same thing. And only a person who believes that all money basically comes from the government equates those two things. Me allowing you to keep your own money is not the same thing as me cutting you a check.

or me cutting a check to anyone else. Not the same thing remotely. Okay, finally, there's the idea that mass deportation is going to create inflation as well. But it's totally unclear exactly what that's going to look like. So in any case, Alan Blinder suggests that if you put all this together, the new Trump policies might add 2% to 3% to total inflation over two to three years, a percentage point a year. Now, the real problem here is not going to be that. The real problem here is going to be if there's an attempt to push the Federal Reserve to continue to lower the interest rates.

That would be the real problem because it turns out the Federal Reserve is generally the biggest driver of the national inflation rate, that and massive government spending. So at the same time that Trump is pushing all this, he, of course, is also pushing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Now, there's only so much that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can actually do in terms of cutting. That doesn't mean they can't do anything. It just means that it'll be a lot tougher than people think it will be. Because if you break down the American economy,

spending initiatives. The spending as a share of gross domestic product, 14.7% of our GDP is spent on mandatory programs that are already embedded in law that Trump has said he will not touch like social security, Medicare and Medicaid. When it comes to non-defense discretionary spending,

That has remained fairly consistent in terms of its spending levels since the 1960s. And defense actually represents significantly less of the American GDP spend than it did back in the 1960s. We were spending about 9% of our GDP on defense spending back in 1960. Today, we spend about 3% on our defense spending. So this kind of bizarre notion that defense spending is what's eating up the budget, that is not true at all. So what exactly can they touch?

Well, again, the list is relatively small. What remains is discretionary spending, according to the Wall Street Journal. That breaks down into two main categories. The first is defense. So presumably you could get rid of some of the golden toilets of the Pentagon. The second is non-defense discretionary spending, which includes everything else, which is funding for NASA, farm programs, housing assistance, and on and on. It's about $950 billion. So unless they are willing to touch some of the actual mandatory programs, unlikely they're going to be able to cut all that much. However,

Trump's overall economic plans are to cut in particular areas to allow people to keep their own money and to use again. If tariffs are the main thing that people are worried about in terms of inflationary policy, understand Donald Trump's purpose in using tariffs is as leverage.

Even the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which is very anti-tariff and very pro-free trade, acknowledges that that's probably what Donald Trump is trying to do. They point out the president-elect issued a broadside Monday on Truth Social, vowing 25% tariffs against all goods from Mexico and Canada and a new 10% tariff on imports from China. And then he said, quote, this tariff will remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country. Now, again, that is not him making a claim.

that tariffs are going to help the American economy. That is him making a claim that tariffs can be wielded as a tool of policy. This is part and parcel of his broader approach to foreign policy, which suggests that economic leverage is a very, very important part of getting other countries, America's geopolitical opponents, competitors and enemies to do what we want them to do. Listen, there are always people trying to take advantage of the United States. Trump is fighting back against that. And there are always people trying to take advantage

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As the Wall Street Journal points out, the tariff here is in service of Trump's campaign promise to reduce illegal migration and fentanyl smuggling. He vows to take unilateral executive action without any explicit legal rationale. Trump is threatening the countries, including two neighbors and allies, with economic harm if they don't help him solve a domestic U.S. problem. Now, again, that's the Wall Street Journal being very skeptical. But the reality is fentanyl is not just is where the Wall Street Journal is wrong. Fentanyl is not just a U.S. domestic problem. Not remotely have been down to the border. I've seen the areas.

where Mexican drug cartels are smuggling fentanyl over the border. They are wide open. It is a massive business for the Mexican drug cartels, and they are working with China. China has been sending over the precursor agents for the making of fentanyl. They send them over to labs that are run by Chinese scientists in Mexico to then cook up all of those precursors into fentanyl, and then those are shipped across the border, in many cases, to even Chinese distributors on the other side of the border. This is a foreign policy problem. It is not merely a domestic policy problem.

As The Wall Street Journal points out, he tried a version of this in his first term to coerce Mexico into assisting him in better policing the border. And he liked the result. Mexico went along with the Remain in Mexico program that held migrants on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande while they awaited asylum rulings. Now, again, that is correct. That is what Trump is actually doing.

And I think that all of the worries that what he's attempting to do is remake the entire global trading system. That's a lot of rot. Look at the people he's actually appointing to high positions of economic power in his administration. Scott Besant is not somebody who's going to simply erect Smoot-Hawley tariffs. It was like the 1930 tariffs that helped exacerbate the Great Depression. Donald Trump wants to win. He does not want high inflation and he does not want low growth, both of which would be the impact of massive across the board tariffs.

without any reference to concessions from the other side. You're already, by the way, seeing the impact. So, for example, Mexico is now getting cold feet over a new Chinese electric vehicle plant after Donald Trump's win. This is according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is finalizing plans for a factory in Mexico, a push that will test Donald Trump's trade policies and the Mexican government's appetite for conflict with the president-elect. BYD officials say the company is aiming to reach a deal with Mexico state officials to break ground on a factory near one of the automotive hubs in central or northern Mexico. The plans put Mexico in an dilemma made worse by Trump's threat to impose a 25% tariff on Mexican goods.

BYD rivals Tesla as the biggest electric vehicle maker in the world. That's largely because, of course, BYD supplies to Chinese citizens and to people who are associated with Chinese markets. There's a major security risk with BYD, by the way. Again, Chinese technology is loaded with monitoring and intelligence gathering operations. This is why TikTok is a Chinese op. The same thing is true with regard to BYD. Having a lot of BYD cars driving American roads would actually be a rather large security problem.

Mexican officials fear a BYD plant would send the wrong message to Trump and trade hawks around him by suggesting that Mexico wants to be a backdoor for Chinese companies to sell to Americans. Mexico says it is not aiming to be a conduit for Chinese-made goods and has made strides in addressing illegal immigration. It needs to persuade both the U.S. and Canada of that when talks begin next year on extending the U.S. MCA. Mexico has to present itself with a business card that says reliable partner of North America, said Eduardo Solis, a consultant who previously led Mexico's Automotive Industry Association.

That is that is exactly right. So Trump is already getting wins out of all this. Now, it's possible that Mexico could decide to shoot itself directly in the foot. After all, their elected president, a woman named Claudia Scheinbaum, who is essentially a socialist. She is the she is the former deputy to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is a very socialistic, extremely left wing leader of Mexico, who is in hock with the drug cartels. They're all in hock with the drug cartels, the government of Mexico, because the drug cartels control the border.

Well, Scheinbaum says that she's going to tariff American goods going to Mexico. Well, I mean, good luck with that. I'm sorry. The American market for Mexican goods is far larger than the Mexican market for American goods.

Apparently, according to Scheinbaum, she sent a Tuesday letter to Trump saying among Mexico's main exporters to the United States are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company, which arrived in Mexico 80 years ago. Why impose a tariff that would jeopardize them? Such a measure would be unacceptable and would lead to inflation and job losses in both the United States and Mexico. Well, if you don't want that, see, here's the thing about tariffs. What Trump is doing is playing a game of chicken. The thing about playing a game of chicken with someone who is widely perceived as a

a radical, like a crazy person, which is the way the world perceives Trump, is you don't want to play chicken with the guy who's willing to go over the cliff.

That is not the game you want to play. So is Mexico going to blink? I think they will, especially when faced with the prospect of American markets closing to Mexican goods. Justin Trudeau is also going to be bullied into taking positions that are less antithetical to American interests. Apparently, Justin Trudeau, handsome Bernie Sanders and Taylor Swift dancer said he spoke to Donald Trump on Monday after the president-elect shared plans to use his first day in office to slap 25 percent tariffs on Canada.

Trudeau said it was a good call. We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. So again, the move would hit more than $400 billion worth of annual Canadian exports to the United States.

And it's all about apparently stressing the border security is their top priority. Again, even the Canadian socialists are recognizing they need to comply with Donald Trump's actual policy desires here. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc then released a statement Monday night stressing border security is their top priority. And throwing America's weight around in the world is generally a very, very good thing. That is a good thing.

And so President Trump, the idea that he's going to create mass inflation through tariffs, it is all a leverage play. Donald Trump loves leverage and he loves to use leverage. And by the way, the same media that was cheering Joe Biden for relieving the student loan debt, which is an inflationary measure, because again, it is the government simply paying off people's debts willy nilly. That's going to go away because Donald Trump is poised to pull the plug on Biden's years long push to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of people.

According to Politico, his transition advisors and outside allies have been discussing ways to quickly unwind the various Biden era initiatives that offer new or easier paths to loan forgiveness for borrowers, according to two people familiar with the discussions. That's something that's going to be difficult and complicated, but that is going to be pursued by the new secretary of education, Linda McMahon. And this is now going to flow throughout the American economy. Mark Andreessen, the investor, he says, can't you feel the energy being unleashed in the system? You absolutely can.

The pedal is to the metal on the American economy. Here, for example, is the Walmart CEO acknowledging that it's time for a DEI rollback. It's time to open up the economy along every line.

First, let me say, like many companies all across the United States, we've been on a journey and we continue to be on a journey. And what we're trying to do is to ensure that every customer, every associate feels welcome here to shop and to feel like they belong. And that term belong, we've been talking about belonging now for almost two years, early 2023, we started to talk

about belonging and we're going to continue to make the best decisions we can that makes everyone our customers our associates feel like this is an environment they can shop in and thrive in okay so that is him saying by the way

that they're going to roll back a lot of the DEI initiatives that they are pushing at Walmart. That's John Furner, the Walmart CEO. The handcuffs are off the American economy. And when people are worried about Trumpflation, they have to understand Donald Trump is a results oriented person. He has always been a results oriented person. The last thing he wants is his name on an inflationary policy that results in five, six, seven percent inflation. He knows full well that crippled Joe Biden's presidency and probably ended

the democratic rule in the White House. So he is not going to make that mistake. Now, meanwhile, he is making more excellent picks. So yesterday he announced to my great delight that he is going to choose Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. This is amazing. Again, so many people who were victimized by the so-called deep state in the last administration are now leading the departments that victimize them.

This is true of Jay Bhattacharya. So Jay Bhattacharya is a Stanford health policy professor. He, of course, was the author of the so-called Great Barrington Declaration, which we talked about at length on the show at the time. It called for ending lockdowns and isolating the vulnerable. So everybody who is young and healthy could go back into the workforce because his point, which was correct, is that young, healthy people getting COVID weren't going to die, at least in very large numbers.

And so the idea that we should lock down entire populations was totally wrong. Anthony Fauci attempted to quash Bhattacharya, directed government resources to be used at quashing Bhattacharya. Well, now he is going to be heading up the NIH, a $47 billion agency that funds much of the nation's basic research into underlying causes of infectious and other diseases. This is excellent. Bhattacharya has called for overhauling the agency. His proposals include more studies that repeat other studies, which

is absolutely necessary. There's a massive duplication crisis in science in which people issue a study. That study may be what they call p-hacked, which means that they're actually changing the internal measurements used in order to achieve what's called statistical significance to show that the study is important or useful. P-hacking means that a bad study becomes a titularly good study.

And then it's very difficult to duplicate. And because there's no interest, nobody gets paid for duplicating somebody else's study. It's a major problem. You have a bad result that's floating around for decades at a time and used as the basis for public policy. This, by the way, is what happened to lead to, for example, the six foot rule on COVID. It was based on absolutely nothing. It was based on like old flu studies from the 1950s that had never really been duplicated and particularly not with COVID. Well, Bhattacharya is going to actually spend time and money duplicating studies. And we know that we get good results.

He says, this is how you turn the NIH from something that is sort of how to control society into something that's aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans. So another excellent pick for President Trump, but you need to make excellent picks when it comes to filling your offices. Look, choosing the right candidate for any office is a huge responsibility. Well, if you are hiring and you want to find the best candidates in

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Meanwhile, on the foreign policy front, everyone knows that Trump is coming and that is shaping all the reactions in ways that are both good and bad. So last night, Israel announced that it would approve a ceasefire with Lebanon. It's really a ceasefire with Hezbollah. There's always this big issue with regard to the war in Lebanon for Israel, which is that the Lebanese government is basically a meat puppet for Hezbollah. So if you're going to war with Hezbollah, are you at war with the Lebanese government? Are you trying to strengthen parts of the Lebanese government at the expense of other parts?

of the Lebanese government, namely Hezbollah, which is not just a terrorist group, it's a political party in Lebanon and the political party that is most in control of many of the military resources and provide an actual threat to the Lebanese armed forces. So all of that's very complicated. Israel announced that it would approve a ceasefire with Lebanon

President Biden announced the ceasefire last night. He, of course, is very happy about this, but we'll explain the underlying dynamics. The reason the ceasefire got signed is because Israel just wants to get beyond Biden. It is that simple. It is that simple. It's a 60 day ceasefire. There are 56 days until the schmuck leaves public office. That is not a coincidence. Israel is simply attempting to get beyond the Biden presidency for a wide variety of reasons. We'll discuss in a moment. Here is Joe Biden.

Just as the Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They too deserve an end to the fighting and displacement. The people of Gaza have been through hell. Their world is absolutely shattered. Far too many civilians in Gaza have suffered far too much. And Hamas has refused for months and months to negotiate a good faith ceasefire and a hostage deal.

And so now Hamas has a choice to make. Their only way out is to release the hostages, including American citizens, which they hold. In the process, bring an end to the fighting, which would make possible a surge of humanitarian relief. Over the coming days, the United States will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

for the hostages to be released and the end of the war without Hamas in power.

That becomes possible. OK, so let's point out at this point that his immediate turn from Lebanon to Gaza is a great indicator as to what Joe Biden is, which is a complete befuddled moron when it comes to foreign policy. When he says that he's going to attempt to achieve a ceasefire with the help of Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, those are all cutouts for the Iranian position at this point. Qatar was always a cutout for the Iranian position, which is why Hamas was housed there. Hamas leadership left Qatar and went to Turkey, which is another one of the nations that he

Turkey has said that Israel is conducting a genocide that is said by the dictator Erdogan, who has been the provoker and the instigator of massive human carnage in the Middle East, including in Syria and including in Armenia.

Egypt, meanwhile, will not open its border, the Rafah Crossing, to allow any of the Palestinians out, even temporarily, so they can be in a safer place because they don't want the Palestinians, not one of them. And those are the people who are going to be brokering some sort of deal in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, we'll see how that works out. Okay, so in

In order to understand the dynamics of this particular ceasefire deal, you have to see what everybody's saying about it. So what Biden is saying there is something that's slightly different from what Netanyahu is saying in Israel. So Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a statement last night and he said, the duration of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon. We'll enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. Together, we'll achieve victory. He said, we'll complete the elimination of Hamas

bring back our abductees, ensure Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, and safely return northern residents to their homes. The war will not end until all its goals are achieved, including the safe return of northern residents. This will happen just as it did in the south. To the residents of the north, I'm proud of you and your resilience. I'm fully committed to your security, rebuilding your communities, and securing your future.

And then he suggested that a wide variety of achievements have been actually done by the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, which, of course, is true. I mean, let's just point out that in Lebanon, Israel lost a grand total in terms of killed in action of 79 soldiers, while completely destroying 80% of Hezbollah's entire arsenal, killing all of its leadership, legitimately all of its leadership, like three levels deep and wiping out its presence on Israel's northern border. It's an amazing military accomplishment, like one of the great military accomplishments of modern history.

So what exactly has Israel done? According to Netanyahu, we destroyed significant portions of Iran's air defense, missile production capabilities and key elements of its nuclear program.

preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons remains my top priority. So one of the things that's happening here is that Netanyahu is attempting to rearm rest up forces in case of a potential conflict with Iran more directly if Iran continues to pursue a nuclear program. Two, Gaza. We dismantled Hamas brigades, according to Netanyahu, killed approximately 20,000 terrorists, eliminated senior leaders and freed 154 hostages. We remain committed to bringing all abductees home and eradicating Hamas. So in other words, there's not going to be any sort of deal where Israel gives up control of the Gaza Strip

to UNIFIL or to any other sort of Hamas cutout. Three, Judea and Samaria. We have neutralized hundreds of terrorists, destroyed terror infrastructure, and reached every stronghold of terrorists. That's been a front that has largely been ignored by the international media. There have been a massive number of attempted terror attacks in the so-called West Bank, that's Judea and Samaria, against Jews who are living in those particular areas. And Israel has performed extraordinary anti-terror operations in places like Jenin and Nablus in order to ensure security.

Yemen, says Netanyahu, we struck the Houthi-controlled port of Khodeida with unprecedented force. Iraq, we successfully thwarted numerous drone attacks and continue to address challenges there. Syria, we systemically block Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian army from transferring weapons to Lebanon. Assad must understand he's playing with fire. So there he is threatening Assad, do not try to rearm Lebanon. We've disarmed Lebanon. We are not going to allow you to rearm Lebanon. And Lebanon, Hezbollah attacked us on October 8th.

It is no longer the same Hezbollah. We have set them back decades, eliminated Nasrallah and senior operatives, destroyed most of the rockets, dismantled their terror infrastructure near our border. Strategic targets across Lebanon have been hit. Beirut trembles. So he says that when it comes to the ceasefire, he says there are three reasons they're going along with the ceasefire. One, focus on the Iranian threat. So again, the idea here is that Israel needs to rearm and rest up and remain fresh and consolidate resources for a possible conflict with Iran.

not just via its proxies, but if Iran accelerates its nuclear program. Two, replenishing and upgrading our forces with advanced weaponry to ensure the safety of our soldiers and strengthen our capabilities. Okay, that right there is a critique of Biden. The reason they have to replenish and upgrade forces with advanced weaponry is because Biden's been slow walking this.

Basically, what Netanyahu is doing here is he's attempting to allow for the Trump administration to come in and remove the arms embargo that Biden has placed on Israeli soldiers. I happen to know from insiders on the ground over here that a significant number of Israeli troops have died due to lack of resources, thanks to the Biden administration's slow walking, basic, basic things like, for example, artillery rounds or bulldozers that are necessary that are necessary to take out infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

So Netanyahu is saying openly here that Biden has basically slow walk the aid and we're getting past Biden. And finally, isolating Hamas since the second day of the war. Netanyahu says Hamas has relied on Hezbollah joining the fight with Hezbollah out of the equation. Hamas is now left isolated, allowing us to increase pressure on them and aid in the sacred mission of freeing our hostages. He's right about that, by the way. Hezbollah said at the very beginning of the war, when they opened up rocket fire on northern Israel.

Nasrallah, who's now dead, the leader of Hezbollah, he said the Lebanese front will not rest until a truce is reached in Gaza. Well, I'm wrong. You're resting now and the truce is not reached in Gaza. So now it turns out that Hamas is isolated. Now, that does not mean

that Joe Biden is not going to attempt to force Israel and cudgel Israel into some sort of agreement with regard to Hamas. One of the things that Netanyahu was attempting to avoid here was the U.S. on Biden's way out, abstaining from some sort of U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its action inside Lebanon. And probably the bargain here was he gives Biden the so-called win of a ceasefire in the north and then Biden

vetoes any attempted UN Security Council resolution with regards to Lebanon or Gaza. Now the question is going to be whether Biden even remotely keeps his word. I would assume that's the deal that's happening behind closed doors there. And as Netanyahu makes very clear here, this is a ceasefire. It is not an end to the war. Now Biden is treating it as an end to the war. What the deal actually says is that Hezbollah is not allowed to ship any heavy weaponry south of the Latani River. They're not allowed to arm up

Any attempt to arm up across the Latani River will result in a triumvirate of sources. Now, I guess the U.S., the French, the Lebanese armed forces, and finally Israel assessing whether the violation has taken place. Now, the problem for Israel here, of course, is that Biden has an interest in assessing the no violation of the agreement has taken place. But this is what Netanyahu and the Israeli government also know. When Trump comes in, different math. That same agreement will be applied very differently.

When the Trump administration comes in, they're not going to have any interest in Hezbollah arming up below the Latani. So if they start shipping all sorts of Iranian made weaponry and Russian made weaponry across the Latani River,

The U.S. will give Israel the go-ahead, and Israel will have the weapons to actually do what it needs to do to finally finish off Hezbollah in that area. And by the way, Israel already is occupying that area. Basically, this agreement means that Israel's troops are supposed to pull back of the so-called blue line, that's the border between Lebanon and Israel, and the Lebanese armed forces, which are supposedly not affiliated with Hezbollah, although there's some sort of complications there, are going to fill that gap. And then if Israel intelligence, which is excellent in this region,

actually senses that there's rearming or shipment of new military material across the Latani River, then Israel will appeal to this sort of group of four. And at that point, Israel will be able to go in. Now, that means for the next two months,

It's going to be very difficult for Israel to do anything because again, Joe Biden is not going to green light anything, but that Netanyahu knows that, which is why, again, it is a 60 day ceasefire is not a coincidence. It is a 60 day ceasefire. And Joe Biden is in office for another 56 days. Those numbers are very close for a reason. That is why Netanyahu says he, by the way, in his speech, he did not call for residents of Israel's North to go back home yet. Why? Because number one, he knows they're not going to because they don't feel safe yet, nor should they. And two, he,

There is the presumption that without the Trump administration there to actually guarantee that Israel can do what it needs to do in southern Lebanon, the agreement isn't worth the paper that it's printed on. So that is the story with regards to the ceasefire. Senator Ted Cruz points out that it's clear the Biden administration is the source of all this.

of all of the instability in the region. We'll get to that in a moment. First, our Daily Wire Plus Black Friday sale is now live. Get 50% off new annual memberships right now. Normally, this is where I'd share a code, but I don't have to today because we don't need a code. Just head on over to dailywire.com slash blackfriday. Claim your new Daily Wire Plus membership for 50% off.

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Black Friday. Now, as we say, the reason this agreement is coming about is because of American pressure, but not in a good way. It's not because America is pressuring for an end to the war that secures Israel. It's because Joe Biden has been pressuring Israel not to finish off terrorists since basically December of last year. He's stopped Israel from pursuing everything it needed to pursue in Gaza every single step of the way, while leaking Israel's actual military plans to The New York Times and Barack Rabid on a consistent basis at Axios.

The same thing is true with regard to Lebanon. Senator Ted Cruz points out, I'm deeply disturbed by both reports that Obama Biden officials exerted enormous pressure on our Israeli allies to accept the ceasefire and by how those officials are characterizing Israel's obligations. Right. It's this that's the really important part. The way that Biden is characterizing the obligations is that Israel now has to pull south of the blue line and that the United States will maybe sort of kind of guarantee that Hezbollah doesn't come in, but maybe sort of kind of not.

And that basically the new status quo is that the war is over. Whereas Netanyahu is obviously characterizing this thing as what it is, a ceasefire. And if it is violated, Israel will go back in.

As Cruz points out, this pressure and these statements are further efforts to undermine Israel and constrain the incoming Trump administration. Obama Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies into accepting the ceasefire by withholding weapons they needed to defend themselves and counter Hezbollah and by threatening to facilitate a further, broader binding international arms embargo through the United Nations. Obama Biden officials are already trying to use Israel's acceptance of the ceasefire to ensure Hezbollah and other Iranian terrorist groups remain intact across Lebanon and to limit Israel's future freedom of action and self-defense.

Administration officials, including Secretary of State Blinken, today even downplayed Israel's rights under the ceasefire to strike terrorist groups in Lebanon when those groups pose imminent threats. These constraints have been rejected by our Israeli allies. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said under the ceasefire, Israel retains full freedom of action to counter Hezbollah if the group attacks Israel or tries to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure. The United States should allow and assist Israel in doing so. And that is what's going to happen. When Trump comes in, things change. The arms embargo goes away. Trump does not want American troops involved in any of this. Of course, no American does.

That said, providing weaponry to America's allies so they can destroy terrorists seems like a pretty obvious idea. It is also worth noting at this point the corruption of the media in covering this entire war. So there's an amazing report out from Cassie Akiva over at Daily Wire titled How Hezbollah Scared Journalists Out of Embedding with the IDF in Lebanon.

Pointing out that in October, journalists from leading mainstream media outlets embedded with the IDF on tours in Lebanon. When Hezbollah threatened legal action against the journalists, they all abandoned ship. And a month later, none have returned. The IDF had organized tours on September 30th, October 11th and October 13th to expose Hezbollah's vast terror infrastructure. Reporters were given a firsthand look at tunnels and weapons caches hidden in villages and other Hezbollah resources Israel faces.

Outlets that joined included the BBC, CNN, Fox News, AP, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Reuters. So what exactly happened? He's below then threatened these reporters and reporters that were in Lebanon. And so all of these news outlets stopped embedding with the idea to actually go look at the problem. Once again, demonstrating that freedom of the press in the Middle East is a lie, not on the Israeli side, where they provide incredible transparency into ongoing military operations.

But on the other side, where Hamas officials, for example, have their offices next to the AP and threaten them with death if they report things that Hamas doesn't like, and Hezbollah threatens the same thing for associates of journalists from major media outlets. Hezbollah, for example, condemned the BBC, suggesting that they had violated Lebanese sovereignty.

So an Israeli government official granted anonymity told The Daily Wire several reporters said they could no longer participate in the tours for fear of the safety of their colleagues working in Lebanon. Not a single mainstream outlet has accepted an invitation to embed since Hezbollah issued its letter. And this is just an indicator of how cowardly the media are.

In other words, the worse you are to the media in the Middle East, the more the media lick your boots. It really is amazing. Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which continues to futz around with the UN, ignores the fact the UN continues to be one of the great anti-Semitic institutions in the history of planet Earth.

The Wall Street Journal, their editorial page, points out that the U.N. has now fired a special advisor on the prevention of genocide named Alice Rerumu Nderitu. Why? Because she said quite properly and realistically that Israel's actions in Gaza are not a genocide. The publication cited her 2022 paper on when to refer to a situation as a genocide and says the U.N. should actually, you know, use the correct usage of the term.

She points out that this encapsulates genocide, the Holocaust, genocide perpetrated by Hutus on Tutsis in Rwanda, Serbian attacks on Bosnian Muslims, the killings being carried out in Sudan. But she refused to declare correctly that Israel was engaged in a genocide. So basically the UN fired her. These are the international institutions that Joe Biden wants to make the West is subjected to. It's absolute idiocy. The world cannot wait for the entry of Donald Trump. The world cannot wait to get there. OK, meanwhile, the Democrat infighting continues.

And Kamala Harris, I don't know who did her dirty on this one, but somebody decided it would be a great idea to film Kamala Harris drunk talking to the American people. There is no world in which she is not sloshed beyond all recognition in this video. I mean, truly sloshed. Like this lady's three bottles deep at this point. She's gone into the red wine. She went from the rosé to the red wine and she has been drinking heavily. And here she is giving a note of encouragement to her supporters while clearly in, while clearly,

shall we say, in hobo mode. I just have to remind you, don't you ever let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before November 5th. And you have the same purpose that you did. And you have the same ability to engage and inspire. So don't ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.

I mean, the wine glass here is just off camera. Don't let anyone take your power from you. Well, lady, I don't know what you're talking about, but I hope that you're enjoying your life more now that you're no longer going to be president of the United States. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama is out there marketing books on anti-anxiety. So things are going well inside the Democratic Party. What do we have here?

My new workbook, Overcoming, is out. It's gonna be on shelves. This is the first time I've held it myself. This is a timely gift or purchase for yourself because

This is a workbook that takes you through some techniques and exercises based on some of the insights I shared with you all in the light that we carry. So I encourage you, particularly during this time, during the holiday season, during a time where we feel a little out of sorts, a little anxious,

I urge you to pick this book up and just walk through some of the exercises and also do it in some groups. I mean, I know there are a lot of great book groups out there. And you guys might find that using some of these exercises, techniques and tips is a form of conversation. So I hope you find this wellness check on the Democratic Party here, guys. They're having some real problems.

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Meanwhile, Jen O'Malley Dillon, who was the campaign manager for the gigantic failed Kamala Harris Hindenburg of an effort. She was on with the Pod Save America bros. Again, these people are combined single handedly responsible for making Donald Trump president twice. Here she was explaining that they actually didn't do anything wrong. Actually, when they basically hid Kamala Harris from the media for months at a time, that wasn't doing anything wrong. I would say I mean, look.

I am not a media hater by any measure. And I think that, you know, we women don't get far in life talking about double standards. So that's not the point. But I do think a narrative, 107 days, two weeks because of a hurricane, two weeks talking about how she didn't do interviews, that's not the point.

which, you know, she was doing plenty, but we were doing in our own way. We had to, you know, be the nominee, had to find a running mate and do a rollout. I mean, there was all these things that you kind of want to factor in. But real people heard in some way that we were not going to have interviews, which was both not true and also so counter to any kind of standard that was put on Trump that I think that was a problem. And then on top of that,

We would do an interview, and to Stephanie's point, the questions were small and processy and about like... Dumb. Just dumb. They were not informing a voter who was trying to listen to learn more or to understand. And I'm not...

you could say that that you know the whole system was focused on us incorrectly i'm just saying like again of the things we need to explore as we move forward as a campaign and as a country that does a disservice to voters and you know i think back and think we should have signaled more of our strategy early on about podcasts and who we were trying to reach

It's not going to work out for them. It's just not going to. Meanwhile, David Poof, another campaign advisor from the Obama team, he was out there suggesting, you know, the real problem is just very hard for Democrats to win the battleground state series with the crooked media boys. It's always worth reminding people

It's really hard for Democrats to win battleground states. Let's look at Pennsylvania. 25% of the electorate is liberal, roughly. 34% is conservative. By the way, in most battleground states, that conservative number is over 40. So in every battleground state, there's more conservative than liberals. So in Pennsylvania, if Exeter believed Trump won conservatives, 91-8, Harris won liberals, 93-6.

Moderates, Harris won 56-43, but you kind of got to win 60% of them, right? For Democrats to win battleground states, it is a false choice. You want to maximize your base, of course. And that was a place where we spent enormous time, a lot of resources. That's critical. And obviously, I think in Milwaukee, just to use that as an example, we hit our turnout targets, fell a little bit short in Philly and Detroit. So that's not good. That's part of the equation. You've got to couple that with dominating in the middle.

not just winning it a little. We have to dominate the moderate vote. And I think as we look ahead to 26 and 28, particularly where you have seen drift amongst non-college voters generally, particularly those of color specifically, we obviously have to get some of that back. We can't afford any more erosion there. The math just doesn't...

Maybe you should actually, you know, appeal to moderates then by being moderate. I know it's a very, very weird thought. Meanwhile, the Hollywood types are completely melting down. Alec Baldwin, who when he's not shooting cameramen, is apparently on press junkets. He was out there explaining that Americans are really uninformed, which is something to hear from Alec Baldwin, short-lived MSNBC host. In my country, without going into significant detail,

Half the people in the country are happy and half the people in the country are very unhappy. There's a hole, there's a vacuum. There is a gap, if you will, in information for Americans. Americans are very uninformed about reality, what's really going on with climate change, Ukraine, Israel, you name it. All the biggest topics in the world, Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information.

So, yeah, that's really the problem. The American people are uninformed, says Alec Baldwin. Or how about Sharon Stone? Trashing Donald Trump is a fascist. And Hollywood, not doing well throughout this entire process. You know, Italy has seen fascism. Oh, my God. Italy has seen these things. You guys, you understand what happens. You have seen this before. My country is in its adolescence.

Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Wow. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant. And we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence. I love that she's so historically ignorant. We haven't seen this before in our country. I love this. God, she's so stupid. Americans who don't travel, who 80% don't have a passport, who are uneducated,

are in their extraordinary naivete. Oh my God. Can we pause here just for a second? I want to point out that she doesn't know bleep all about history, like truly nothing about history. Okay. The United States was founded in 1776 with the declaration of independence, which means that the United States is now approximately 250 years old. How old is the nation of Italy? Like as an actual consolidated entity, she certainly does not know the answer to this. She's acting as though the United States is really young and Italy is really old.

The Risorgimento, which was the actual unification movement in Italy, completed in 1861. The nation of Italy as currently constituted, the country of Italy as currently constituted, was formed almost 90 years after the United States was formed.

She's going to point that out here, but she treated like, what is she even talking about? What is she even talking about? The United States is in its adolescence and facing down fascism. Oh my God. But you know what? Their mental unwellness is a sign that they're losing, which is, which is a good thing. And Joy Behar is sort of the, is the icing on the birthday cake of, of Hollywood level idiocy here. Here she is suggesting that Donald Trump's an autocrat because he's found a scapegoat. Because if there's one group of people who are tolerant, accepting,

open-minded to all sorts of political viewpoints. It is the ladies of The View.

So we're all thinking like, oh, he's talking about cats and dogs and crazy stuff. But a lot of voters who aren't tuning into the day-to-day news are seeing these targeted ads that are reaching them where they are. Fear-mongering ads about trans people. A lot of scapegoating. A lot of scapegoating. And every autocrat throughout history has found a scapegoat, and that's what he did. Yeah, I mean, there's no way around that. That is true.

I mean, there is a way around that, which is that when he points out that illegal immigration is bad, that's not him scapegoating. That's a policy critique. But again, keep going down this route, folks, and see how it works out for you. All right, coming up, we'll get to some pretty hilarious media meltdowns. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.

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