Ep. 2086 - It’s MAHA TIME: Trump Picks RFK Jr.
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Man, this is some fantastic TV. We'll bring you all the latest updates from the Trump transition first. Listen up, this is the final weekend for our presidential deal. 47% off new Daily Wire Plus memberships. That ends Sunday. Watch MI Races, the number one documentary of the decade. Access our daily uncensored shows and investigative journalism only with Daily Wire Plus. Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code Trump. Lock in 47% off before the deal is gone. Alrighty, so Donald Trump,

He's doing, as Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania says, some God-level trolling. Many of the picks that he is currently making are both hilarious and kind of wonderful. And we'll get into all of them. Here's John Fetterman. I got to say, John Fetterman gets it. I don't know why, but he on a gut level sort of understands the Trump movement. Here was John Fetterman laughing as he talked about some of Donald Trump's latest picks.

I mean, it's I would describe it as God tier level trolling to just trigger a full on China syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity. I mean, that's a good description. Agree. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow at MSNBC is melting. This is going to destroy the government as we know it.

Yeah, that's the idea, Rachel. See, here is the thing. When you gaslight everybody about COVID and COVID vaccines and the necessity to mandate those things, when you shut down the entire country but you allow people to ride in the streets so long as they're doing so for George Floyd, all in the name of science, you're going to get RFK Jr. at Health and Human Services. That is the natural consequent of what you have done.

If you decide to weaponize the DOJ, you should not then be super surprised when Donald Trump nominates somebody like Matt Gaetz to head the DOJ.

If you're going to turn the military into a bastion of woke-ism and pervert its structure and purpose from killing bad guys into promulgating your favorite social theories, you should not be surprised when Pete Hegseth is the nominee. You earned this, people. Anyway, here's Rachel Maddow lamenting. That's part of consolidating power, to make the U.S. government nothing other than the leader and people who will do what he says. And there are not being any repository of expertise there.

let alone just general day-to-day know-how anywhere. So it's a sort of, as Steve Bannon used to say, it's a sort of Leninist project, right? Destroy the state. This is the cabinet that you nominate not to run the U.S. government to do anything, but to destroy the U.S. government.

so that the U.S. government can be fundamentally reimagined as something much more like a unitary, authoritarian or autocratic, for lack of a better term, system. OK, the amazing thing about what she is saying is that it is such an inversion of history. What the Democrats have been doing their entire project since the beginning of the 20th century under Woodrow Wilson was to actually consolidate power in the executive branch to create a complete, gigantic,

unelected authoritarian bureaucracy. That was the purpose of the Woodrow Wilson progressive movement. It was the purpose of FDR. It was the purpose of LBJ. It was the purpose of Barack Obama. It was the purpose of Joe Biden. And now when Donald Trump comes in, he says, listen, I'm the president now. And that means I'm the captain now. And that means I'm going to select people. I'm going to put them all over. Maybe the solution to all of this, if you're a Democrat, is to maybe walk away from the idea that the unitary executive ought to be the repository of all power

You ought to be able to put career appointees in place all over the government to do your bidding. Who you can't fire and are unelectable in the first place. Maybe this should be the end of the administrative state. This is something that I've said to some of my friends on the left. I did an interview with Anna Kasparian a while back. We were talking about our differences in politics. Anna Kasparian, of course, is a host over at the Young Turks. And by the end of the interview, I said to her, you know what might be a great solution to many of our disagreements at the federal level?

to have the federal government not involved in many of these things, to minimize the power of the federal government as per the founding fathers in the structure of the Constitution. And she agreed to that. That seems like a pretty good solution. But you guys, you bought the ticket and now you take the train ride. You brought this upon yourselves. In any case, yesterday, Donald Trump made a bunch of controversial picks. His most controversial pick

was RFK Jr. So Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of course, ran as a Democrat in 2024.

And then he was basically ousted from the primaries in favor of Joe Biden in the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party said Joe Biden had to be the nominee. You remember this. RFK wanted to run against Biden inside the Democratic Party. And they said, no, no one will run against Joe Biden. He's too great and important a president. And then, of course, they took him and they tossed him off the back of a train when he died on stage versus Donald Trump. Well, again, you you made this happen, folks. So RFK Jr. immediately flipped.

First, he went independent. And then finally, he ended up endorsing Donald Trump. And now he is the leader of the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement, MEHA, which, by the way, I think is a great purpose for RFK Jr. We had him on our show. He talked extensively about his purpose in making America healthy again. He said, listen, many of the biggest issues facing the American people are issues that none of our politicians talk about. Our politicians will talk about tax policy. They'll talk about whether to drill or not to drill. But they'll never talk about the fact that the American people are increasingly unhealthy.

And RFK Jr., Bobby, he said, if I were in government, my number one job would be to make the American people healthy again. That there are a bunch of substances that are in our food and our drink that are banned in Europe and that are replete in all of our products, and they are making us fatter. And by the way, he's not wrong about this. In the New York Times today,

acknowledges that nearly three quarters of American adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. By the way, this has some downstream effects because it turns out that when you hear statistics about American life expectancy flatlining, about the fact that people are getting high rates of chronic diseases in the United States, that's because of what we are eating, that is because of what we are drinking, and it's because we never exercise. There are comparable places around the earth that have higher life expectancies than we do, and that is not because of our medical system.

That is not because American doctors are worse or American hospitals are worse or anything remotely like that. When somebody in Europe has cancer, they're coming to the United States for treatment. The reality is that it's not our medical system per se that's broken. Our medical insurance system is broken. Our medical system is not broken. The thing that is broken is our healthcare system, our health system.

According to the New York Times, the findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation's health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases. The study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rates of obesity nationwide since 1990. In 1990, just over half of American adults were overweight or obese, and it shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, and they shorten life expectancy.

With that aggressive intervention, they forecast the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up, reaching nearly 260 million people in 2050. The paper defines overweight adults as people who are age 25 with a body mass index of BMI at or over 25 and obese adults as those with a BMI at or over 30. Now, again, there are a number of things that the pharmaceutical industry is attempting in order to kind of walk that back. Obviously, Ozempic would be the most obvious example.

But if you can take preventative measures so kids aren't obese at age seven, and if that means that we look for different solutions inside the FDA or inside the NIH or inside HHS generally, that's a good thing. Here, for example, was RFK Jr. talking about the sort of products and services that are available to Americans that are not available other places because, as he says, the food industry has a giant lobbying arm, which is true.

I've been picking on targazine today, but that's just one of at least 100 chemical poisons that our health agencies allow into our children's food. I can make a video just like this to talk about Red 40, BHA, BHD, potassium bromide.

chemical after chemical and on and on and on. If just one of them can cause all of these problems, imagine what they're doing in combination. That has never been studied. If we took all of these chemicals out, our nation would get healthier immediately. We'd have fewer sick days. We'd have better focus. We'd have less anxiety. Our kids would learn more easily.

We'd lose weight. We'd have more energy. We'd have fewer tumors and longer lives. It's not all dark. Over the past 16 years, the government has banned eight chemical additives that cause cancer, genetic damage, asthma, and many of the other self-conditions, as Tartucine does. And you know what's interesting?

All eight of those crucial steps forward in our kids' health were taken under President Trump. But the Democrats, who claim to be all about health care, have stood by watching other countries ban these poisons that make our kids sick, asthmatic, hyperactive and depressed. They left them on every supermarket shelf in America.

They even used your tax money to put them in your kids' school lunch. So their big food and their big egg donors probably gave them all that golden handshake and the big money hug. And their big pharma donors probably called them up and thanked them also because now they're going to make billions selling Adderall, Prozac, and rescue inhalers. Enough is enough. President Trump and I are going to stop.

the mass poisoning of American children. Together, we're going to make America healthy again. Okay, so the general mission there, there's nothing wrong with the general mission there. How that is actually applied in real life is going to be the big question. And in a confirmation hearing, I'm sure much of that will come up. How much power should the HHS have to outright ban things in your food? How much power should the HHS have, for example, to hold up new drugs? One of the big problems in the United States is

is that it is very difficult to get a new pharmaceutical product approved and very expensive. That's the reason why pharmaceuticals are very expensive when it comes to the consumer level, is because it's not just the R&D you have to do to develop a drug. It's also that you then have to go through an extraordinarily rigorous process that very often is replete with red tape. So there are a bunch of problems inside FDA, inside NIH. Many of the studies that are being promulgated by NIH are just crap.

They're just terrible. So there's a lot to do there. There's a lot of deadwood to clear out right there. Well, when it comes to the scientific community, a lot goes wrong very often because of the so-called audience effect. That's a psychological phenomenon where people behave differently when they know they're being watched. So if you're in the scientific community,

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the vulnerability of a particular product to cause to causation of a health problem so if there's even a remote causative effect of some sort of product on somebody's health then you can sue based on that you can make a lot of money if you're a trial lawyer however is that enough of a standard to ban it or are we going to get more advisory opinions right none of this is particularly clear at this point what is clear is that refocusing america on being healthier

while also allowing for more innovation in a lot of these areas would definitely be the target goal. I think that's what President Trump wants here. President Trump put out a statement. He said, I'm thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception and misinformation and disinformation when it comes to public health.

The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any administration. HHS will play a big role in helping ensure everyone will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country. Mr. Kennedy will restore these agencies to the traditions of gold standard scientific research and beacons of transparency to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America great and healthy again. And one of the big problems in this entire area is that much of the data is confused, jumbled, very difficult to suss out.

For example, when it comes to pesticides on fruits and veggies, they're used on fruits and veggies. It makes America's agricultural sector incredibly productive. It means that, for example, genetically modified organisms, when you're talking about GMOs, different types of corn or different types of rice, it's been a massive boon in terms of the productivity for society. And then there are people who will put out studies suggesting it's less healthy than sort of organic. Okay, well, what is the sort of happy medium there in terms of productivity and price?

versus possible risks? These are difficult questions to answer, but the fact that the questions very often have not even been asked is the problem. There's a clip of Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor, talking with Barry Weiss of the Free Press about this. And it was kind of fascinating. He basically said the problem with science right now, he said science historically has been, this is a good take, it's been a balance between skepticism and doctrine.

So science has pushed back against both. So if there's a doctrine that appears unscientific, science has pushed back against it. That's kind of the story of enlightenment versus religion in a wide variety of ways. But also you have to push back against radical skepticism in science as well. You have to push back against the idea that, for example, does my chair exist? A speculative philosophy. And he says, if you fast forward to today, the problem is that scientists are actually doctrinaire.

If you look at NIH, if you look at FDA, if you look at the treatment of COVID, they're doctrinaire, right? They just accept whatever is coming down the pike and they refuse to even think about the possibility that maybe they've been wrong and that maybe the studies that they've been citing and relying upon are no good. And he says, you know, maybe what we need is more skepticism rather than being just as doctrinaire as they are right now. Now here, for example, is RFK Jr. talking about public health. And again, I don't think that there's a lot to argue with here.

In some categories of workers, there are entire departments like the nutrition departments at FDA that are that have to go that are are not doing their job. They're not protecting our kids. So, again, I don't think he's wrong about all that. Now, there are a bunch of places, for example, where the media is pushing back and being doctrinaire, where the answer isn't particularly clear. So RFK Jr., for example, has pushed against fluoridation in water.

And this has been sort of a much mocked, quote unquote, conspiracy theory going all the way back to Dr. Strangelove all the way back in the 1960s, that the fluoridation in the water is going to kill everybody. So what actually happened with fluoridation in the water is that the federal government at a time when there wasn't enough fluoride in toothpaste and many people weren't actually brushing their teeth, decided to put fluoride in water so we didn't get massive tooth decay because fluoride builds up the materials in your teeth so that you don't get tooth decay.

And there was a lot of questions about that at the time. And then it sort of went by the wayside and was treated as conspiracy theory that there were any downside effects of fluoridating the water. So, for example, the Wall Street Journal today says Kennedy has pledged to advise against fluoride in drinking water, a stance that would put him at odds with public health officials. OK, but here is the thing. Leanna Wen, who is certainly no conservative, writing for The Washington Post today, says, quote, the debate over water fluoridation is far from settled.

She says, my column this week was very different from what I anticipated. I had listened to an NPR interview in which RFK Jr., President-elect Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, said his day one priority would be to stop municipalities from adding fluoride to public water systems. My first reaction was, this is nuts.

When I delved into the research, I was shocked. The data clearly indicates that conventional wisdom needs to be revisited. And as I explained in my column, the benefit of continuing to fluoridate drinking water is unclear, given the widespread availability of fluoride-containing toothpaste. In addition, emerging research raises concerns for fluoride's negative impacts on developing brains. She says, the studies demonstrating fluoride's impact are well-conducted, peer-reviewed, and published in prestigious journals like JAMA. That's the Journal of American Medical Association.

Earlier this year, the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, concluded with moderate confidence fluoride in drinking water is linked with lower IQ in kids. Critics have pointed out the association is seen at fluoride levels either at or higher than 1.5 milligrams per liter, which is more than twice the optimal level recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service. But nearly 3 million Americans live in areas with tap water fluoride levels at or above this threshold. She says, you know, again, that the sort of doctrinaire

This repetition of so-called medical truths has shut the mind to the possibility of future data. Again, you saw this a lot with regard to people's views on the mRNA vaccine. My own views on that evolved as data emerged with regard to that. I was never in favor of mandates, but following the data as it emerged, it became clearer and clearer that, well, the mRNA vaccine for COVID might be highly useful for people who are really obese or really old, for people who are young and healthy, but for people who are

It was a much dicier question. For example, there are myocarditis risks for people who are younger. My own kids were not vaccinated for COVID. You got to follow the data. But the scientific community has used these sort of conspiracy theory label to hit everybody at all times. And that's exactly what Leanna Wen is pointing out. By the way, Jared Paulus, again, no Republican.

He put out an entire statement saying, quote, I'm excited by the news. President-elect will appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to HHS government. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans, which I think are terrible, just like mandates. By the way, states still get to control how vaccines work. It's actually not a federal level question in general, unless you're banning full out a vaccine.

He said,

RFK Jr. saying we've got to get off pesticide intensive agriculture. Yes, we've tried unsuccessfully to better protect people and pollinators from harmful pesticides in Colorado. We need all the help we can get to take on big chemical companies and improve human health and the environment. So again, like this is a lot more shaded an issue than I think the media want it to be.

It is also worth noting that if you flash all the way back to 2008, Barack Obama, according to Politico, openly considered RF Kennedy Jr. to head the EPA. So the same people today who are screaming and shrieking to the sky about RFK Jr. were openly considering putting him at EPA just about 16 years ago. But you can hear over on CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta freaking out.

You know, it's not often that the entire medical and public health community is going to be in lockstep on something, but they're pretty close on this in terms of their significant concerns, horror even. Somebody said to me today, "I can't think of any single individual who'd be more damaging to public health than RFK." Keep in mind, I think if the reporting's correct and the job is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, that comprises the CDC.

You know, we just got through this pandemic comprises the FDA comprises the NIH. He's talked about wanting to basically strip funding for infectious diseases overall. Again, just coming out of this pandemic with concerns about other viruses and things out there. So, again, the sort of doctrinaire approach is wrong. It doesn't mean that everything that RFK Jr. says is stuff that I agree with. For example, I don't think that there's evidence linking vaccines to autism. In fact, the evidence is.

Just the studies that have been out there are –

are completely evidence-free with regard to that link. Now, does that mean there shouldn't be studies done? Sure. I mean, open the floodgates on studies. Open the floodgates. Like, let's investigate all of it, even if I disagree. And by the way, I think that when it comes to the data, the data are going to be what the data are. I believe in the data when the data are well done. I think the problem that RFK Jr. has, and I think he's right, is that very often the data are not well done. Very often you're p-hacking or cooking the data, right?

There are massive institutional problems inside science. If you don't like RFK Jr. handling it, that's your fault. You guys decided that you were going to pervert all the institutions of science and then claim in the name of science that you were unquestionable.

Unquestionable. The reaction is going to be RFK Jr. More big announcements from President Trump coming up. First, let's talk about something that affects all of us responsible, hardworking Americans. Taxes. That October 15th deadline to pass. Are you prepared for what's coming next? If you still owe back taxes, if your tax returns are still unfiled, if you missed the deadline to file for an extension...

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That was not the only big announcement by President Trump yesterday. Yesterday, President Trump was at Mar-a-Lago. He was introduced by Sylvester Stallone, which is just, guys, the entertainment value of this administration is going to be like through the roof. Here is Sylvester Stallone introducing President Trump. This is at an event for the America First Policy Institute, which is sort of the think tank that is very much associated with the Trump administration. And I'll just say this, and I mean it.

When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, you can imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington. Congratulations. So there's Rocky introducing President Trump. President Trump then gets up and he announces that Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, will be his nominee for secretary of the interior.

We have a big announcement and I won't tell you it's I won't tell you the name of his exact name. I think he's an incredible person. Got an unbelievably wonderful wife named Catherine. So I won't tell you his name. Might be something like Burgum. Burgum. He's from North Dakota. He's going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position. So everybody's waiting. There he is. Hi, Doc. He's going to be.

Announced tomorrow and we have somebody else that's probably coming up with him to be announced who's a big one and we're going to do things with energy and with land Interior that is going to be incredible. And so I look forward to doing the formal announcement Although this is a pretty big announcement right now. Actually, he's going to head the Department of Interior and it's going to be fantastic Good dog Congratulations Catherine

But we'll make the formal announcement tomorrow. So again, Burgum for Secretary of the Interior makes all the sense in the world. And he is from an area that does have an enormous amount of land that is protected by the federal government. Secretary of the Interior basically oversees national parks as well as drilling. So Secretary of the Interior does have a relationship with a lot of the a lot of the oil companies. He is, of course, been a person who's very involved in the energy sector.

Yeah, as governor of North Dakota. So Burgum is a great and sort of conventional pick. So you're getting, you know, some great conventional picks and then you're getting some unconventional picks. And the pushback on some of the unconventional picks is pretty wild. The pushback on Pete Hegseth particularly over Department of Defense, President Trump's Department of Defense nominee, who I think will be excellent.

is wildly over the top, like really over the top. Take, for example, MSNBC commentator and former NAACP president, Sherilyn Ifill. She was on MSNBC last night, and they are just throwing out the playbook. Whatever is the playbook, they're just going right to it. It's amazing. So she says that Pete Hegseth

is a white supremacist. Zero evidence of this. Honest to God, he's just sewer for defamation. The Secretary of Defense nominee, Peter Hegseth, the Fox News commentator as well, because this is someone who we can host.

Important distinction. This is someone who, you know, is known to be a white supremacist, known to be an extremist, whose platform, whose book is basically about his opposition to the advancement of black officers to the top brass. What a what a jerk. I mean, honestly, it's just just nasty and untrue. I mean, false. I'm sorry. Opposing diversity, equity and inclusion. Nonsense.

which by the way is counterproductive in terms of racial comedy. That is not racism. That is not white supremacy. If this is the best you got, he's going to get confirmed. Meanwhile, you have Representative Steve Cohen from Tennessee saying that Pete Hegseth's main qualification is Fox News, which is weird since he is an Army National Guard major with two bronze stars who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and has an degree from Harvard and another degree from Princeton. So yeah, I'm going to go no on that, Steve.

And the suggestion that the Department of Defense should be led by the host of Fox and Friends on weekends is his main contribution to society is scary to our soldiers who need the best and brightest at the helm. Again, like this is the best you got, truly. So Senator from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth, who is a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel,

She's very upset that Pete Hegseth said that women should not serve in frontline combat positions. She's upset apparently because she says that that makes him unqualified because she was wounded in combat.

This idea that you can exclude women from combat is really one that shows his lack of experience and really, you know, him being unqualified to be the secretary of defense because it's not where modern warfare is. Well, I mean, it absolutely is where modern warfare is. He said frontline combat positions and the fact that you were wounded in the line of duty, that's heroic and amazing and great.

Honestly, hats off to you. All honors appropriate. That doesn't change what the rules should be about whether women should be in frontline combat positions, given the fact that men, on average, and at the extremes, have physical advantages over women. That's just the reality of the world. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren was attacking Pete Hegseth, saying he was unqualified. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma says, why would we possibly listen to Chief Wiggum over here?

For Elizabeth Warren to say that someone's not qualified when she was claiming to be Cherokee for the majority of her life, which I am Cherokee, which is a direct insult, carries no weight with me. Peter served for 20 years in the United States Army. He was a decorative combat veteran with two Bronze Stars.

and he's a civilian. People forget that the Secretary of Defense is supposed to be a civilian. That's for a particular reason. So he knows how to carry a message, he knows how the military works, and he's truly a civilian. He's not a general that's just gonna be looking over other generals' shoulders. He's somebody that's gonna go up there and actually look at things from a other perspective, and the DOD needs to be looked at differently.

Okay. Again, he's right about all that. Even the ex-Obama DHS chief, Jay Johnson, is defending Pete Hegseth on CNN.

I've given the benefit of the doubt on at least the nomination at this point, because here's somebody who is well-educated, obviously intelligent, was in financial services, was in the Wall Street community for a while, could have made a lot of money and chose to leave that, put on the uniform of our country and see combat. So I give him the benefit of the doubt for that reason. So again,

I think that's the proper approach. My belief at this point is that Hegseth will get confirmed, RFK Jr., and we'll see what the confirmation fight looks like. I think there's some outstanding issues for pro-lifers particularly about RFK Jr. because obviously he's very pro-choice and HHS does have some ability to shape exactly, for example, religious mandates. So we'll see how that plays out in the hearings. Then there's Matt Gaetz. So Matt Gaetz is obviously the most controversial of President Trump's picks. The justification for Matt Gaetz was basically made

by J.D. Vance, the vice president-elect. He said, the main issue with Matt Gaetz is that he used his office to prosecute his political opponents and authorized federal agents to harass parents who are peacefully protesting at school board meetings. Oh, wait, it's actually Merrick Garland, the current attorney general. Okay, so you don't have to make the argument with me that Merrick Garland is an awful attorney general. I think Merrick Garland is one of the worst attorney generals in American history. He's awful, truly, truly awful. We've had a bunch of bad ones ranging from Janet Reno to Eric Holder.

That does not answer why Matt Gaetz should be the guy, because let's be real about this. Donald Trump can find a bevy of excellent lawyers who are capable of doing exactly what he wants them to do as a G who don't have the excessive amount of baggage that Matt Gaetz has. And Matt Gaetz has tons of baggage. There's a reason he's wildly unpopular in the House. And there's also a reason that there is some skittishness about sort of his own personal record.

So, for example, Professor Robert George, there is no one in the country in academia who is more conservative than Professor George. Robert George, a McCormick professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, he also happens to be on the board of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. And they wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying, quote, as an elected member of Congress, Mr. Gates admitted to attending sex parties.

These parties reportedly included young women, some allegedly minors, who were paid to participate in sex acts. It is further alleged that Mr. Gates did not merely attend these events, but actively participated. Evidence suggests he sent payments through Venmo and Cash App to an associate, who then transferred funds to the women, labeling payments as tuition. Some on Mr. Gates' team argued the prostitution fell outside U.S. jurisdiction because it took place on yachts in international waters, an excuse that does not stand up to moral and perhaps legal scrutiny. Robert George says...

N.C.O.S.E. works tirelessly to protect women and children from trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation. My fellow board members are politically left, right and center. We're Republicans, Democrats and independents. We're asking the Senate to withhold confirmation hearings for Mr. Gates until a full and transparent investigation is conducted into his possible role in the exploitation of young women and girls at the sex parties he has admitted to attending. So, again, we'll have to see exactly how all of that plays out. These are not, in fact, unserious concerns.

John Cornyn, there was one of the reasons that Matt Gaetz supposedly stepped down from his position in Congress immediately. He was nominated, he immediately stepped down. That's rare. Usually if you're nominated, you wait until the outcome of your actual hearing and you take the position and then you resign your seat. Matt Gaetz said that the reason he was doing that was to accelerate the Republican race that would take place in his old district so Republicans would still have a majority in the House. The problem with that, of course, is that

is that it's not going to take, as originally suspected, six to eight weeks to run a special election in his seat because of mail-in balloting. It's going to take full-on half a year. So that reason doesn't seem to pass scrutiny. The other sort of suggested reason is because there was a House ethics report that was going to drop on him on Friday. And so he resigned to sort of quash the House ethics report because the House typically does not release ethics reports until if somebody has dropped out of Congress. If you're out, they're not going to just drop a report on you.

However, because he's a nominee, now there's a big call for that House ethics report to be released. So we actually have full information about Matt Gaetz for his confirmation hearings. Here's John Cornyn, senator from Texas, saying that he thinks the House GOP should release the ethics report. I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated. So you want to see it? Absolutely. Now, again, I think that President Trump can nominate a bevy of people who are not Matt Gaetz and don't have this baggage to do exactly the same thing.

And so, you know, I do wonder whether, again, I think that it is perfectly true that Merrick Garland is an awful attorney general. I don't understand why that means that the best form of the person you pick to actually undo all his damage has the most baggage. That seems to me an error in judgment. Now, maybe Matt Gaetz gets through. Maybe it turns out all the allegations are false. Maybe he's a great AG. I don't know. What I am saying is that that's a risky pick and he's going to have to go through the gauntlet in the Senate at the very, very least.

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and build the future. Meanwhile, Democrats, you know, it turns out they were lying when they said that they were afraid of a Donald Trump dictatorship. It turns out that that's nonsense. So here is Charlemagne, the God saying, you know, I noticed that you guys were calling him a fascist five seconds ago and then you stopped. So what happened?

I just don't understand the White House visit. Now, granted, you know, I'm glad it's a peaceful transition of power. But what happened to the threat of democracy talk? What happened to the fascist talk? By the way, I know I've said those things about Trump as well, but I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about his political opponents like President Biden. When they say it, it holds way more weight than me. I'm just trying to figure out how do you go from he's an essential, essential threat to democracy. So welcome back. All right.

He was happy, too. He was happy. He was smiling. He was grinning. He was cheesing. Say cheese. He was cheesing. I'm just trying to figure out how. I

I understand President Biden believes in political norms, but damn. That man is happy as hell. I don't care. He want to go. I'm sorry that it turns out that all of the propaganda being spewed by the Democratic networks was untrue. Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about that. She was asked whether Joe Biden apologized to Trump for calling him a threat to democracy. She's like, no, no. I'm going to be so glad when she's gone because, boy, is she terrible.

In the meeting, we saw a unified front related to a transition in the Oval Office meeting. But a lot was said on the campaign trail, like Trump is a dangerous threat to our country and our democracy. Was there an apology today?

I'm sorry? Was there an apology from President Biden for the words, some of the words used? An apology from the President, President Biden. To President-elect Trump for some of the words that was used on the campaign trail. Look, and I've answered this a couple of times about a threat to democracy in the past week.

the president is going to always feel obligated to be honest with the American people. What we want to be also very clear about is the importance of listening to the will of the American people. There was an election. It is important to respect our institution. It is important to respect the free and fair elections. And that's what this president is doing, leading by example,

and putting that aside and putting the American people first. But what he said still stands. And it's not just him. We should not just put this at the president.

His own people said this. So I want to be really, really clear about that and not forget the facts. There are facts here that we should certainly also lift up as you're asking me these questions. So I think that the betrayal of Joe Biden's words are evident in his behavior. And so obviously he didn't mean what he said because that's not the way he's acting right now. Meanwhile, nature is healing. Joy Reid is leaving X.

How sad. I mean, it'll be such a... The average IQ on X just increased by about 10 points. Here's Joy Reid. Hey, guys. So today I finally did something I've been meaning to do for a while. And shows that she deactivated her account on X.

And the reason for doing it and kissing goodbye my 1.9 million followers over there is because I hadn't been posting for a long time. I just didn't want to contribute content once it was purchased by its present owner. But just having it there, I was only holding on to it because I really didn't want someone trying to take over that name and using it for nefarious purposes. I was a little bit worried about that.

And also every so often I would use it to just like sort of look at news that was trending and what's happening. And I would just sort of use it as like an aggregator. But I just realized that that's not really worth it because in order to like do the news aggregation and just look at all, you have to wade through a lot of dreck and a lot of just abuse and a lot of just negativity. It's just not worth it. Well, you know, I'm so sad to see you go. Bye. Well, bye.

Meanwhile, Eva Longoria is apparently leaving the United States as well. She says she's moving out of the dystopian United States for a brighter life in Mexico and Spain. I hope you enjoy the tax rates over there, lady. It's probably gonna be great. So, you know, catch you later. Oh no, what are we gonna do without Eva Longoria in the United States? Oh no. Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, causing massive consternation, has now removed the she, her pronouns from her public profile, which is hilarious.

Oh, man. So it's fun to watch as reality sets in and they realize on the Democratic side of the aisle that all of their crazy is actually quite alienating for the vast majority of Americans. Some Democrats like Ezra Klein are beginning to admit the obvious, which is that, you know, blaming Fox News and quote unquote misinformation ain't going to fix anything. The thing that surprised me least about the election was the sharp red shift in these big cities, because if you just talk to anybody who lives in them, they are furious.

And this idea that like, oh, no, the economy is actually good or crime is actually down. This is all just Fox News. Like, shut the up with that. Like, talk to some people who live near you. He is correct. He is correct. So maybe Democrats are going to approach sanity again or or maybe they won't. Hey, folks, I do want to do something we haven't done in a while here, just because when an extraordinary thing happens in public life, I think that we have to point it out. I haven't done a thing I like on this show for months, maybe years at this point. I used to have a segment on the show. We'll probably bring it back called Things I Like.

which is kind of where we just do a fun thing near the end of the show. This clip is one of my favorite clips of all time. So Mike Tyson, who's about to fight Jake Paul in another one of these sort of made-for-TV gonzo matches, because Mike Tyson is 58 years old, and Jake Paul is 27 years old. But Mike Tyson, for a 58-year-old, is still in crazy shape. You wouldn't want to fight him. In any case, he was doing an interview with a 12-year-old influencer, and she asked him about Legacy.

And I got to say, this is pretty spectacular. And I think we all just ought to take a moment and enjoy it together.

Well, in your return to the ring for this fight, you are setting a monumental opportunity for kids my age to see the legend Mike Tyson in the ring for the first time. What type of legacy would you like to leave behind when it's all said and done? Well, I don't know. I don't believe in the word legacy. I think that's another word for ego. That's just some word everybody grabbed onto. Now it's used every five seconds. It means absolutely nothing to me. I'm just passing through. I'm going to die and it's going to be over. Who cares about legacy after that?

We're the big eagles, so I'm going to die. I want people to think that I'm this, I'm great. No, we're nothing. We're just dead. We're dust. We're absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. That is something that I have not heard before someone say that as an answer. Can you really imagine somebody saying, I want my legacy to be this way? You're dead. You think somebody really wants to think about you? I want people to think about me when I'm gone. Who the f*** cares about me when I'm gone?

And I love the hopeful 12-year-old just having her dreams crushing. And that's why I'm quoting you, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 3.20. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. For everything in life, there's a time. Everything in life, there's a season. For living, for dying. We don't mean nothing. We're all going to die someday anyway. Sun's going to explode. Eat all planets. Ain't nobody going to be around to remember you then. I'm just explaining to you something. If you ever read some Marcus Aurelius...

And let me tell you about the Stoics, the Roman Stoics, because let me explain. Love it. Love it. More of this. Mike Tyson on philosophy would be, I would listen to that show every day. That'd be amazing. Gonna explain to you about a little bit of Augustine and what he would say about the city of God. I want it. I want it. I want him on Sartre.

All right. Assistentialism. Let me tell you about assistentialism. The idea that you don't mean nothing except you walking around a cold, empty universe on a rock, a godforsaken rock. And all you got is your will, how you react to that. That's life, man. And then you die and don't mean nothing. I'm pitching this show for Daily Wire Plus. I am Mike Tyson on philosophy. 10 out of 10. Love it. Already coming up.

An actual serious topic. Brandon Carr, commissioner at the FCC, is unleashing hell on the GARM network. You remember them? He's released it on NewsGuard, on all of the censorship gatekeepers trying to deprive anybody on the right side of the aisle from receiving any sort of ad dollars. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.