Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Well, folks, it was a very hot weekend in the news. President Trump has made some significant gains with regard to the Panama Canal. So President Trump has been issuing a lot of threats over the Panama Canal, which, of course, was built by the United States back in the early 20th century, late 19th century. And President Trump
has wanted to maintain control over the Panama Canal. It was handed over to the Panamanian government by Jimmy Carter. And that final facilitation of transfer happened in the 1990s over the course of time. And in the meantime, the Chinese have been using extraordinary power
bribery, graft in order to take control of two ends of the Panama Canal. We have here a map of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is really important because it cuts down shipping time across the bottom of South America by 27 days. It allows instead all sorts of shipping traffic to be pushed through Panama. It's an amazing thing. I mean, I've been down to Panama. I've seen the Panama Canal.
in person. It has its locks on both ends. The water level is increased and lowered in order to facilitate shipping. You have to pay a fee in order to go through if you are a shipper or if you are the U.S. military. Apparently, one of the victories that President Trump has now won is that some of the fees will be gone for U.S. military shipping across the Panama Canal. What you can see in this map
There are two sites on this map that are really important for folks who can't see it. Panama, of course, is a very narrow bridge of land, a spit of land that exists between North America and South America. And the Panama Canal carves across some parts of that spit of land to create a free-flowing waterway that goes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Balboa, which is on the Pacific coast of the Panama Canal,
is controlled by the Chinese. At least they have a site there that is controlled by the Chinese. They were attempting originally to actually put their embassy on that part of the Panama Canal.
A subsidiary of CK Hutchinson Holdings, which is a Chinese-run company out of Hong Kong, controls that port. They also control the Cristobal Port, which is on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. Why is that a concern? Well, the concern was that in case of some sort of serious conflict between the United States and China, the Chinese could use those cutout companies to basically obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, preventing American warships from being able to transit that at a
at a stretch of one day or two days as opposed to 27 days. It's how President Trump said, listen, we're not going to allow the Chinese to effectively control ingress and egress from the Panama Canal. Here's President Trump talking about this yesterday. Secretary of State Rubio is in Panama right now, and we're talking about the Panama Canal. What they've done is terrible. They violated the agreement.
They're not allowed to violate the agreement. China's running the Panama Canal. That was not given to China. That was given to Panama foolishly. But they violated the agreement, and we're going to take it back or something very powerful is going to happen.
So the question is, what is that threat designed to do? So Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, he said in his confirmation hearing that Beijing has the ability to turn the canal into a choke point in a moment of conflict. That's what I'm talking about. They could theoretically, for example, sink barges at both ends of the canal and prevent shipping traffic. You remember just a few years ago when the Suez Canal was blocked by one ship that went sideways? That could easily be done at certain choke points in the Panama Canal, which actually does get incredibly, incredibly narrow near the ends, both
both ends of the Panama Canal. Over the past two decades, China has developed many economic ties with Panama, including through its Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is a giant influence operation in which China, quote unquote, gives you things. There are always strings attached. Those strings attached may be surveillance of your country.
and maybe control over significant national resources. That's what the Belt and Road Initiative is. So the victory that President Trump just won is that Panama has just announced that they will not renew the Belt and Road Agreement with China. This makes it the first Latin American nation to leave the Belt and Road Initiative. Panamanian President José Raúl Molino said his country would not renew its agreement with the Belt and Road Initiative following a visit from Secretary of State Rubio over the weekend. Here is Molino. One important thing.
which is a decision that I adopted and communicated to him, this is Marco Rubio, the memorandum of understanding of the year 2017 on the road, Belt and Road Initiative will not be renewed by my government. This is where we're going to study the possibility of whether it can be finished earlier or not, but I think it's his turn
In one or two years, the renewal, because it is every three. So this initiative that was signed, when it was signed, at the time it was signed,
will not be renewed by my government. So there are other countries in Latin and South America who are looking at the possibility of joining the Belt and Road Initiative, and they are no longer presumably going to do that, or at least they're going to take very seriously the possibility of not doing that. Secretary of State Rubio tweeted when I met with Panamanian President José Rubio Molino and Foreign Minister Javier Champa to make clear that the United States cannot and will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue with its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area. We also discussed efforts to
and the hemisphere's mass migration crisis and ensure fair competition for U.S. firms. This is an unmitigated good, and President Trump throwing the United States' weight around with regards to Panama and achieving some quick results that is also apparently happening with regard to Venezuela. According to media, eight-six Americans were freed from captivity in Venezuela on Friday as President Trump concluded his second week back in office. The government of President Nicolás Maduro freed them after receiving pressure from the Trump administration.
There's been a lot of talk about President Trump, what his foreign policy looks like. When it comes to the Monroe Doctrine, he takes that very seriously. The idea that the Western Hemisphere is a United States pond
That, of course, has been the stated goal of the United States since the early 19th century. But that is something that is being reinvigorated by the Trump administration. Secretary of State Rubio put out an entire piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining that the United States was going to be shifting a lot of resources and attention to the Western Hemisphere, which, of course, makes perfect sense since we have mass migration crises, huge illegal immigration crises that are springing from the lack of American influence in places like Latin and South America. Now, meanwhile...
Elon Musk is moving to blow up the U.S. Aid and Development Agency. According to the Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk's allies are moving swiftly to exert control over vast swaths of the U.S. government. Musk oversaw a successful effort by his representatives to get direct access to a payment system that distributes trillions of dollars to Americans every year. Individuals working for Doge access the U.S. Agency for International Development following a clash with security officials.
The moves marked the start of a far-reaching campaign by Musk to upend the federal government agency by agency, according to his allies. The effort prompted outrage from Democrats and some Republicans who said that Musk doesn't have the authority to overturn programs and spending priorities decided by Congress. They also raised concerns about the nature of Musk's operation because, of course, he has not been Senate confirmed in any way, shape, or form.
Doge had initially been conceived as a sort of advisory outside panel, but Doge instead is actually operating inside the U.S. government in many ways, which, of course, violates the Senate's advice and consent procedures. So if we're going to do this, then it should go through Senate advice. Now, what is Musk doing? Well, some of what Musk is doing is obviously great. He's going through and he's cutting an enormous amount of waste and fraud in the program. He's shutting down programs that are wildly inefficient.
Musk said he was on track to cut federal spending by $4 billion a day. He said career Treasury officials were routinely making illegal payments. The Treasury press office didn't respond on Sunday to a request for comment. Now, meanwhile, this is broken out into the open because of controversy over USAID.
On Saturday, roughly eight Doge representatives sought access to classified systems and floors at the USAID building in downtown Washington. Security officials initially resisted Doge representatives' requests. The security officials, John Voorhees and his deputy, were then put on administrative leave for not complying. Now, let's be real about this. The president of the United States is in control of the Treasury Department and USAID.
So if the president of the United States decides to quote unquote declassify material, he can. He has the summary power to declassify material as we learned to our great chagrin over the course of the last four years when we had many, many conversations about what the president could and could not do in declassifying material. The Doge representatives were given access to at least the executive secretariat and nerve center for coordination and communication for the agency's highest levels in the office of the general counsel, the current USAID official and Senate Democratic aide said. Now, USAID said,
Now, there is one problem.
The problem is that if you actually destroy USAID as a functioning agency, rather than going in with a scalpel, then what you actually could be doing, unfortunately, is sort of an unintended consequence of breaking things and moving fast, is opening the door to things like China's Belt and Road Initiative. Because if USAID is giving aid, and a lot of that aid is crap and should go away, but if it's giving some aid that is good to countries, for example, that are wavering between United States influence and Chinese influence, and then you withdraw...
Chinese influence grows. If you don't like the Belt and Road Initiative in Panama, you shouldn't like the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa or in Southeast Asia or in any other place that China is attempting to spread its tentacles. Again, in the world of tech, moving fast, breaking things, blowing things up, having to rebuild them, that's just the way that business is done. In the world of government, if you are, for example, a foreign country that is reliant on USAID to sort of prop you up
And that goes away. Do you think you're just going to sit there and wait for the United States to figure out its bleep? Or are you just going to turn to China? China is quite happy about this particular move. One particular account on Twitter, which is, shall we say, very, very Chinese friendly, is celebratory about the death of USAID, quote, because USAID isn't really a humanitarian aid agency. It's a covert intelligence arm funding coups, protests and regime changes. What exactly are some of the things that this person objects to?
that USAID opposed the Cuban regime, the Venezuelan regime, opposed the Bolivian regime, opposed, for example, the Taliban in Afghanistan, that it was a front for counterinsurgency operations.
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So China could be like two things can be true at once, as always, as always. And this is, I think, really important when it comes to the policy of an administration that I support. Many things can be true at once. Policy is complex and shaded. It's not all good and it's not all bad. When it comes to things like USAID, again, going through in targeted, precise fashion and nuking programs within USAID that need to die would be a wonderful good. And Doge can do an amazing amount of good there.
At the same time, nuking the entire agency, for example, could be opening the door to Chinese influence operations in a wide variety of areas all over the globe that the United States is then going to have to backfill.
And that could be a problem because China is fully stalwart about all this stuff. China will always offer you a check. China is perfectly willing to bribe anyone. China is corrupt. China is tyrannical. The Chinese regime, the CCP regime is evil full stop. It is an evil regime. It is not our friend. It is not our friendly competitor. The Chinese regime is an oppressive communist tyranny that steals IP, undercuts American markets, and targets all of America's interest for destruction.
That is what China does. So just recognize that we live in a world filled with harsh enemies who are perfectly willing to fill gaps left by the United States. And you may be willing to say, OK, fine, whatever. We leave a gap. China fills it. Do we really care enough? And that's an open question. Depends on the interest. Some interests just aren't worth it. However, we should be at least smart enough to acknowledge that there are effects of a vacuum created by the United States. That is a rather important thing.
Okay, back on the good side of the ledger, President Trump is apparently killing aid to South Africa. This, of course, is a good thing because when it comes to South Africa, South Africa has become an increasingly racist state focused on expropriating the property of whites. Now, you can talk about the evils of South African apartheid, which, of course, were tremendously evil. And you can also point out that the way to come together after apartheid
the demise of an apartheid regime would not be confiscatory policy designed to harm the white people in Africa in racist fashion. That's exactly what the South African government has done.
That's what the Zimbabwean government did also, by the way, completely destroying the country in the process. South Africa has pushed forward an expropriation measure signed by the president Cyril Ramphosa designed to bring land reform in the public interest, meaning just seize property, presumably from white farmers disproportionately. South Africa, by the way, because it has impoverished itself,
In ways that it need not because South Africa has pursued a racialist policy because South Africa's identity is largely tied up and sort of anti-colonialist mindset. It has also become a plaything of places like Iran and China, who very often are funneling money in South Africa. President Trump was like, no, we're done with this. We're not we're not going to give aid to a country that is in racist fashion seeking to expropriate property from white farmers.
The leadership is...
doing some terrible things, horrible things. So that's under investigation right now. We'll make a determination. And until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing, they're taking away land, they're confiscating land. And actually, they're doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.
He's absolutely right about this. And the fact that it was ignored, nay, forwarded by the Secretary of State under the Biden administration is a tragedy. South Africa is a deeply corrupt, criminality-filled state. It is a failing state.
And the fact that we've been pouring money into it is a disgrace. So good move by the Trump administration on that. Speaking of other good foreign policy moves, I think all of the talk about President Trump being in isolation as president, it's kind of weird because what we're seeing so far is definitely not isolationism. President Trump on Saturday announced that he had ordered military airstrikes in Somalia, taking out a senior ISIS attack planner and other terrorists the planner had recruited, according to Fox News. The strikes come just weeks
After an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 14 people and injured dozens more after plowing a truck into New Year's Eve revelers in New Orleans. Trump said, quote, these killers we found hiding in caves threatened the United States and our allies. Trump said the strikes destroyed the caves the terrorists were living in and, quote, did not in any way harm civilians. He said our military has targeted this ISIS-stacked planet for years. Biden and his cronies would not quickly enough to get the job done. I did. The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is we will find you and we will kill you.
This is very, very good, obviously. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who, of course, is excellent, put out a statement saying, I authorized U.S.-Africa Command to conduct coordinated airstrikes today targeting ISIS Somalia operatives in the Golis Mountains. Our initial assessment is that the multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes. No civilians were harmed. This action further degrades ISIS's ability to plot and conduct terror attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians.
He said that strikes should send a clear signal. The U.S. stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the country and its allies, even as it carries out robust border protections at home. So again, this sort of isolationist notion that that is what Trump is all about. I have yet to see the evidence of that. Well, meanwhile, the big story of the weekend is that President Trump was going to launch these massive tariffs on Canada and China and Mexico. And the tariffs were basically 25% tariffs blanket on
on Canadian product, 25% blanket tariffs on Mexican product, 10% blanket tariffs on Chinese product. There were some exceptions for oil that was coming in from Canada. And the big question when it comes to tariffs is whether President Trump is using them as leverage or whether he's doing this ideologically. This is always the big question with President Trump, because using them as leverage, he's been quite successful. There is no one in the business world who is better at leverage than President Trump when it comes to making deals. President Trump
loves the leverage, and he gets what he wants. He did this just a couple of weeks ago with regard to Columbia, the country, not the university. He threatened them with 25% tariffs and said they would escalate unless they took back illegal immigrants, and they immediately caved. Well, it seems as though that may be what is happening as of Monday. Now, President Trump was sending some vague signals. Here he was announcing, and he sent a few different signals here. He said, listen,
I like tariffs. Now, maybe, again, the reason that he is talking up tariffs as a policy is because this is a great strategy when you're playing chicken. You put a brick on the accelerator and say, listen, I'm perfectly happy to go off this cliff. You want to go off the cliff? Let's do this thing, man. Let's make it happen. And so he talks up tariffs as a way of saying, listen, I don't mind. We'll do it. You think we won't do it? We will 100% do it. This is not a bluff. I'm happy. I'd rather do it.
And then when he gets what he wants, he can back off the tariffs. That seems to be the strategy he's employing here. Here is President Trump announcing the tariffs. This would have been on Saturday. Mr. President, is there anything China, Canada and Mexico can do tonight to forestall your implementation of tariffs tomorrow? No, not right now. No, not a negotiating tool. No, it's not. No, it's a pure economic. We have big deficits with, as you know, with all three of them.
And in one case they're sending massive amounts of fentanyl, killing hundreds of thousands of people a year with the fentanyl. And in the other two cases they're making it possible for this poison to get in, number one. And number two, we have big deficits and it's something we're doing. And we'll possibly very substantially increase it. We're not, we'll see how it is.
It's a lot of money coming to the United States. As you know, we have about a $200 billion deficit with Canada, getting close to $200 billion. They've treated us very unfairly.
And I say, why should we be subsidizing Canada? You know, it's wonderful. I have so many friends in Canada. It's a great place. Is there a concession you're looking for, sir? No, we're not looking for a concession. We'll just see what happens. We'll see what happens. With Mexico, it's the same thing. We have a $250 billion deficit, and we have a lot of people coming into the border. Now we've largely stopped that, but we've stopped that ourselves.
I think they've done a fantastic job. You've seen the numbers, they've dropped to almost zero. But we've suffered under the past administration for years and years. We've suffered with millions of criminals coming into our country. Criminals, people from jails from all over the world. They come through Mexico and they come through Canada too. A lot of them come through Canada and a lot of fentanyl comes through.
Canada and China makes the fentanyl. You know, China makes the fentanyl, gives it to Mexico, puts it through Canada, puts it through different places, mostly Mexico, but also a lot through Canada. And so all three haven't treated us very well.
Okay, so a bunch of different things happening here. So President Trump is saying, listen, I love the tariffs. Nothing can make me remove the tariffs. Nothing, nothing. And then we found out on Monday morning after markets immediately dipped at open because they thought maybe these tariffs were permanent, that they were anything but permanent. In fact, President Trump was able to leverage major concessions out of the Mexican government.
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Quote,
and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and high-level representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations with President Scheinbaum as we attempt to achieve a deal between our two countries. So remember, President Trump had used his emergency authority to stop fentanyl illegal immigration in order to make the tariffs happen. And he's now saying that because Mexico is alleviating the emergency, presumably, this is going to be delayed by a month so a new trade deal can be negotiated. So it was all leverage.
So it was not, in fact, a sort of overall love for tariffs as President Trump saying he likes tariffs overall in order to gain leverage. Meanwhile, he is now starting to make clear exactly what he wants from Canada. He said, quote, Canada doesn't even allow U.S. banks to open or do business there. What's that all about? Many such thing, but it's also a drug war. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the United States from drugs pouring through the borders of Mexico and Canada. Just spoke to Justin Trudeau. We'll be speaking to him again at 3 p.m. Now, presumably there are other concessions that the
Canadians could make, that would mean that the tariffs end up being relieved with regard to Canada. Okay, which again, all of that is good and fine. Using tariffs as a form of leverage is something President Trump is very good about. He's very good at it. As overall policy, it should be noted, by the way, tariff policy, trade wars are bad and not easy to win. Trade wars tend to impoverish people. Trade wars tend to impoverish the American consumer in particular. Here, for example, is a map of what happens with just the auto parts in your car
If a trade war were actually to take place, this is a map of a capacitor's journey through North America. A Michigan circuit board manufacturer buys a capacitor for a company in Colorado, which imported it from Asia. Let's say it came from China. That's a 10% tariff. It goes down to Chiodad Juarez in Mexico, where it's inserted in a circuit board. When it comes back up through the board, it's another 25% tariff. Then when it goes to Canada, it'd be inserted into a seat, for example.
That is another 25% tariff when it comes back down. So you're talking at that point about an aggregated 60% tariff on the product, right? These sorts of things have a major impact on American markets, which is why you saw the stock market take a dump at the very beginning of the day when it looked as though Trump was in principled fashion pushing tariff policy as sort of a net good to the United States.
But again, President Trump, it looks like, is doing this as a leverage play. It looks as though President Trump is pushing these tariffs specifically in order to get something out of Canada. That, by the way, was the take of Conrad Black, who was a journalist up in Canada. He said, like, what are you guys worried about? This is about shutting down the border, spending 3% on NATO defense. Get some concessions for Trump. It's a big win for him. He gets the victory. He chalks that up and the tariffs go away. The Canadians, for their part, are getting very militant. Justin Trudeau,
who is still titularly the Prime Minister of Canada, he announced retaliatory tariffs right away. Tonight, I am announcing Canada will be responding to the U.S. trade action with 25% tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods. This will include immediate tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods as of Tuesday.
followed by further tariffs on $125 billion worth of American products in 21 days' time to allow Canadian companies and supply chains to seek to find alternatives.
Now, of course, the reality is that that would hurt Canada more than it would hurt us. If they tariff American products, then they're taxing their own consumers. But this is what happens in a trade war. You increase your tariffs. The other countries that are being targeted increase their tariffs to retaliate because they say, OK, well, we're not going to let your goods in our market if you're not letting our goods
in your market. And then if this sort of thing were to be carried out over a long period of time, it would be a real problem because China particularly is more than happy, just as with USAID going away, more than happy to fill that gap with cheap free trade with say Canada or Mexico or the Europeans. The Europeans, by the way, are already setting up for this. The Europeans are already anticipating that President Trump is going to try tariffing the Europeans. And so they've been creating more free trade agreements with themselves and presumably also with China. Okay, but
When it comes to playing chicken, President Trump is very, very good at playing chicken. Mexico sending 10,000 troops to the border. Mexico pledging to stop the flow of fentanyl. These are big wins for President Trump. There's no other way to put it.
Again, I've said this all along. When it comes to many of the things that Trump does, if you did them in a vacuum without trying to use them as leverage, there would be a major problem. And many of the things that Trump says in order to get those things done are things I disagree with. So, for example, you heard him railing against trade deficits. Trade deficits are not a thing. A trade deficit is when you buy a thing from someone else and you gave them money and they gave you the good. You have a trade deficit with your grocery. If we buy a bunch of stuff from Vietnam, that doesn't mean that Vietnam has ripped us off in some way. The United
The United States can still be the world's leading economy while having a giant trade deficit. And meanwhile, there are a bunch of poor countries that have trade surpluses. That's not the point.
For President Trump, it's the effect of what he's attempting to do that matters. It is not what he says about the thing, apparently, that matters. So he gets a win out of Mexicans. Presumably, he will get a win out of the Canadians as well. The United States throwing its weight around, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. I'd like to see what it looks like when the U.S. throws its weight around with regard to, say, China as well. We're doing a little bit with that 10% tariff on China. I'm hoping that one is more permanent.
Am I racist?
Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe now and join the fight. All right, meanwhile, the DNC remains absolutely out in the wilderness. So the Democratic National Committee had to pick a next chair. Who did they pick? They picked a guy named Ken Martin. Ken Martin says that the Democratic Party is doing just fine. He, in fact, was the leader of the Democratic Party organization in Minnesota. He was a deputy to Tim Walz. And he basically said we did an amazing job. Kamala Harris was amazing. Tim Walz was amazing.
He said the fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country. He has they have nothing. They have literally nothing. He said, quote, Donald Trump, the Republican Party. This is a new DNC. We're not going to sit back and not take you on when you fail the American people. But he had also said that there was nothing wrong with the party. Quote, We don't call it a postmortem or autopsy. Our party's not dead. It's still kicking, right?
What we really need to do is get a handle around what happened last election cycle. We know we lost ground with Latino voters. We know we lost ground with women and younger voters and working class voters. We don't know the how and the why yet. Now, we kind of know, but you guys keep doing it. Here is some evidence for why that is, in fact, the case.
So Jamie Harrison, who's the outgoing DNC chair, at one point they had to select the top committee at the DNC and it has to be gender balanced according to the DNC. And so he announced that they didn't know what to do because they didn't have enough non-gender binary, non-binary gender queer people on their executive board. Good luck to the Dems, man. Wow.
Rules specify that when we have a gender non-binary candidate or officer, the non-binary individual is counted as neither male nor female and the remaining six offices must be gender balanced. With the results of the previous four elections, our elected officers are currently two male and two female. In order to be gender balanced, we must elect
One male, one female and one person of any gender. And why are they losing? Amazing. Wow. Wow. Meanwhile, who are the other candidates for DNC chair? Well, there's one DNC chair candidate named Gina Rapace, who gave her pitch as to why she should be the chair of the DNC.
Hello, Democrats. Hey, I am speaking and I would love your attention. There is a black woman at this podium and I deserve your attention like the 11 people who went before me. Yes, I am speaking. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So Ken Martin is the new chair. Congrats, guys. But even better is the new DNC vice chair. You're not going to believe it, but it's it's wonderful.
It is the inestimably stupid David Hogg. Yes, you remember David Hogg, the failed pillow company guy? Remember the guy, the kid who was a student at Parkland over here in South Florida during the Parkland shooting? But he became world famous for stumping against guns and shouting about gun control and being a theater kid about all this sort of stuff. Remember this? And then he was admitted to Harvard despite...
What apparently was a 1270 SAT score. He'd been rejected, I believe. And then he got admitted based on his activism. Meanwhile, Kyle Kashuv, another student at Parkland, who'd scored, I believe, a 1600 on his SATs, was rejected because they uncovered some bad old texts. Well, now this schmuck has somehow parlayed his apparent victimization at Parkland into the vice chairmanship of the DNC after a career of stupid tweets at Harvard University.
Man, oh man, you guys. He's supposed to be, by the way, driving young men back into the arms of the DNC. This one, this one, this stick figure of a human. Like, oh my God, this is really just amazing, amazing stuff. I just want to point out before we hear his victory speech. And again, he is literally only famous because he was a student at the school where a school shooting took place. That is the only reason. There's no other reason. Hey, here are some of his better tweets over the course of the last few years. This deeply stupid human.
Quote, So, you've got to defund the police activist as your vice chair of the DNZ. Here he is on his future hopes for life. Quote,
I'm never planning on having kids. I would much rather own a Porsche and have a Portuguese water dog and golden doodle. Long-term, it's cheaper, better for the environment, and will never tell you it hates you or ask you to pay for college. Wow, DNC. You're really representing those blue-collar working people who go to church, aren't you, right there with this David Hogg? My goodness. He's like if Timothee Chalamet somehow got even more fragile and annoying. Truly an amazing, amazing example. David Hogg tweeted February 2020.
Lincoln was a really good president. People got mad at him. So then he tweeted, actually, I was not aware of the scope of how detrimental he was so many Native American populations. He was really not a good president. Lincoln was not a good president from the vice chair of the DNC. I thank my indigenous peers that brought my attention to Lincoln's atrocities committed against Native Americans. I'm deeply sorry for not acknowledging these crimes that I was unaware of until now. I will do better in the future. David Hogg, 2020, your new vice chair. How about this one? Quote,
I'm one of the most politically toxic people in the country. I'm too radical for American politics. No, I'm not running for office. We have enough straight white men in power. He ran for vice chair of the DNC and then was made vice chair of the DNC. David Hogg. Man, oh man, these geniuses. Here he was with Bill Maher attacking Israel. This is just a few months ago. These are the people. I can't imagine why the Democratic Party has an approval rating beneath that of prostate cancer.
Do you believe Israel has a right to be a state? Absolutely. I believe in a two-state solution, but what I don't believe is productive, what I don't believe is productive, Bill, is when we continuously focus on what these students that are still trying to figure out who the hell they even are a lot of the time and talking about that instead of the people that are actually responsible for these atrocities continuing, whether that is...
us not having a two-state solution, or our leaders that fail to meet this moment over and over and over and over. I'm glad that my generation knows that what the current course that we've been on of just enabling the government of Ben-Gavir, the government of Netanyahu that was being protested by the Israeli people leading up to October 7th, just acting like everything's normal is not the answer.
Unbelievable. Great job, guys. Slow clap for the DNC. As always, doing amazing work. Congrats to David Hogg. I hope he has a long and unsuccessful tenure as the vice chair of the DNC. You guys are just doing great. Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and you don't want to find yourself grabbing a heart-shaped box of chocolates, do you? Why not a smaller box with a heart-shaped sapphire pendant necklace from Jared Jewelers inside?
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The Grammys were last. Speaking of people completely disconnected from everyday life, the Grammys. Now, I didn't know they were happening. You didn't know they were happening, but my producers knew they were happening. And so I'm going to need my producers to join me for this one to help walk me through what happened at the Grammys when a bunch of people whose music I don't care about and whose names I don't know decided to wear, as it turns out, either the most garish or the most
stuff imaginable or nothing. So apparently they're going to lead me through a series of pictures of various artists, most of whom I don't know, and what they wore at the Grammys. So guys, why don't you just go for it? Tell me what you got. Well, I think the first one to start out with is definitely Chapel Roan. Okay. Do you know any of her songs? No. H-O-T-T-O-G-O. No, no, stop.
That's enough of that. Okay. What do you think? Why does she look like a terrible painting of Marie Antoinette if Marie Antoinette was a trans man? Why is that what she looks like? I'm confused. It's giving like trans Mad Hatter. Yeah, I could see that. I could see that. She looks mentally healthy.
is what I'll say right here. That's a look right there. For those who can't see, she's wearing just a hideously ugly yellow dress and it's got some sort of black straps that are holding it up. And then she's wearing a mop on her head and some really overdone makeup.
She seems well. Thank you, Chapel Roan. I don't care. Okay, next. Enough of that. All right, next. You actually like her. So we got Cynthia Erivo, your girl. Okay, Cynthia Erivo, who's immensely talented. I don't know what she's wearing here, though. It could be worse, but we really wanted you to focus on if you guys could close up on her nails there. Yeah, I was wondering what's going on with the nails. Check those babies out. I mean, she's famous for these bizarre nails. Like, in her interview, she's got, like, a wizard hat, and then...
It's got some jewelry going on. How do you type with these? That's always what I want to know. All right. Next up, we have Billie Eilish. Oh, Billie Eilish. She's a classic. Yeah, she is. Yeah. What a great look. So people are saying that on the Twitters. Go to the next photo. That's funny. They're saying Billie Eilish thuns on this year's Grammys red carpet as one of the members of the Three Blind Mice.
I could see that. All right. Next up, my personal favorites. Jaden and Willow Smith. But let's start with Jaden first. Oh, boy. Oh, well. He walked out of the house and he was like, you know what? For those who can't see this, Jaden is wearing a house on his head. I'm not even kidding. You think that that's a joke or that I'm being figurative. I am not, if you're just listening. He's wearing an actual model of a house on his head.
He's a house head. It matches. I mean, I will say the color scheme matches. I don't understand. Honestly, this is like my four-year-old daughter when she makes a house out of a box and just kind of puts it on her head. What is happening right now? The tux is nice. It's like the Wicked Witch of the East got hit by a house in the head.
Okay. I would be concerned with him going through any doorways, but he's relatively short, so I don't think he's having any issues. Sucks if you're sitting behind him. Yeah, exactly. That's a hell of a look. Okay. These are all people. But why is the Democratic Party failing to connect with people? I don't understand. I mean, isn't this going to be on your must-wear list this season? Let's see Willow, because this is a look.
What? And there's Willow, who's wearing like a bra under a jacket, but none of that's relevant. What's relevant is what's happening with the teeth right there. Ooh. What is that? Does Willow play hockey in 1977? That is a look.
Okay, man. Jafar in the prison scene dresses the old man giving the lamp to Aladdin. Happening over here. Alright. Yep. Alright, next is Lady Gaga. Unfortunately, she's not dressed in meat. I feel like Lady Gaga's really toned it down, you know?
She really has. She's just going as Wednesday Addams now. But I'm just wondering, what happened to the old Lady Gaga, the one who would show up in a bubble or in a meat dress? I think she's coming back. Oh, you think she's coming back? Yeah, yeah. I think old Lady Gaga is on her way back. Well, she probably is. I think this is preliminary stages. I mean, she's tried the acting thing, and it worked out for her pretty well, but maybe she has to get back into the shock. There's only a couple of trajectories for these pop stars as they age out. One is that you become an...
elderly matron who can act and you move into that realm which would be the smart move and the other is your Madonna and you're still twerking on stage at the age of 92. Alright, next is let's see Chrissy Teigen. Alright, moving on to naked people. Oh, Chrissy Teigen. Wow. What a charmer Chrissy Teigen is. So, naked person attacked by jellyfish is what I'm getting here and kind of pained look of smiling.
Like, again, there's so many dead eyes at the Grammy, so many people who are deeply unhappy. That's yeah. Imagine this is your life. I mean, I guess she's real rich, but who cares? I mean, that can't be a particularly happy person. And speaking of unhappy people, Kanye West, who I have been reliably informed is a deeply religious Christian by all the best sources. This is what a deeply religious Christian would do would be to trot out his wife fully naked.
at the Grammys before being arrested for indecent exposure. I'm going to say this is not legal. That is not legal. And also, he is a horrifying person. Before she met Kanye, was this her normal mode of dress? No, definitely not. He styles her. And then the way he styles her is by apparently just trotting out his wife completely naked, which makes him a complete piece of.
I'm sorry. That makes you a complete piece. There's no other way to put that. He's complete piece. If you like the disrespect to women is disgusting, disgusting. He's a terrible person. I forget about what he says. Look what he does. Look what he does to this woman. Yeah. And I understand she consents. It doesn't matter. Consent is not the only standard of treating people decently. If somebody consents to you beating the out of them, you still shouldn't be out of them. He's a terrible person. Let's move to performance. Okay. Time for some performances. We're in the nine hour review of the Grammys here. Time.
Time for some performances. We have apparently CharlieXCX, who doesn't know how to do Roman numerals. That is not how you do Roman numerals. But CharlieXCX showed up and did something that approximated singing. Is there a full rave happening? There's just people banging on stage. That guy is...
And now I'm making out with Bethany. By the way, this is also old. Remember that time when it used to be transgressive and now it's just old? This is like old when Madonna did it in 1993. Bring back Britney with the snake. Honestly, God, nothing has changed. It's all just like, here's the thing. It's boring. It's boring because once you've transgressed all the rules, there's nothing left to transgress. It's boring. You know what the new transgressive is? Getting married and having children in a church.
Right. Like going to church with your family. Like that's transgressive. Like normie is transgressive. This is not transgressive. It's just boring. OK. Meanwhile, there is more politics. So Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars showed up without, unfortunately, sexy red. And apparently we're dressed like in the background, like the like the Osmonds from 1975.
But then they showed up to talk about, I don't know, politics or something. Great. Want to hear from these schmucks? Trans people are not invisible. I think the problem is that they were very not invisible, actually, during the last election. Music is love. Thank you. Oh, boy. Okay. Well, you know, keep going with this. See how it works out for you. Alicia Keys showed up, apparently, dressed as Xerxes.
and explain that DEI is not a threat, it's a blessing. It's a magical, magical blessing. You're saying the quiet part out loud, lady. I mean, like, if that's the way that Hollywood views DEI, we can understand why all the art is terrible. This is not the time to shut down the diversity of voices. We've seen on this stage talented, hardworking people from different backgrounds with different points of view, and it changes the game.
DEI is not a threat. It's a gift. And everybody's cheering that. Man, when's Leonidas going to show up and fight off Xerxes over here? That's a hell of an outfit. DEI is not a threat. It's a gift. Fine, you do it then. Okay, the rest of us will just do merit over here. How about that? Meanwhile, speaking of terrible hosts, Trevor Noah was the host, which the fact that he's still working is, I think, we need to deport him. President Trump wins a third term if he deports Trevor Noah. Noah joked about it, by the way, but we can make this joke a reality if we try hard enough, gang.
We're going to make tonight special. We're going to try and have some fun and we're going to do something different. Right. I don't know if you know this. There's been a few changes in Washington. So I'm going to enjoy tonight because this may be my last time I get to host anything in this country. Well, I can only hope. Is he here on some sort of talent visa? Because I figure if he's on an O-1, then that is a completely misapplied O-1. I'm all for deporting many of the Hollywood people who are here on on talent visas.
He also suggested he was he was very angry about the tariffs, of course, because he understands tariff policy. I'm sure. Here we go. Yesterday, Beyonce announced her new tour. Yes. Everyone saw that.
I will say, though, Beyonce, there's tariffs. We can't afford a new tour. Maple syrup is about to be $50. Okay, now speaking of Beyonce, Beyonce also showed up. She won some sort of award. Album of the Year. She won Album of the Year for this? Oh, no, no. This actually backtracked. Sorry. This was when she won, I believe it was one of her songs. It was a country album.
That's what it was. Best country album. That's what it was. Beyonce won best country album? Yeah, that's why she went into the whole genre is not a code. I'm not saying that because she can't do country. I'm doing it because her country album sucks. Yeah, and it seems like the other country artists were pretty pissed too. I mean, they should be pissed because her album's terrible.
Like, it's one of the few things that I actually know about in the Grammys. I've listened to a couple songs on it, and it's garbage. It's truly bad. Like, Beyonce's a really talented person. Like, Cynthia Erivo talented. Like, very, very talented and used to be able to actually show off her pipes and sing. Okay, here we go. I think sometimes genre is a cold word to keep us in our place as artists, and I just want to encourage people to do what they're passionate about and to stay persistent.
Well, you know, that's the thing that, wow, wow. She's making country terrible again. So that's exciting. Guys, thank you so much for torturing me and the audience with that. I really, really appreciate it. That was just great. Folks, believe it or not, there's even more to today's show. We haven't even gotten to the immigration plans of the administration, which we'll get to in a moment. Hopefully it involves deporting pretty much everybody at the Grammys. 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.