Ep. 2148 - The Epstein File Release FIASCO
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Folks, we have a jam-packed show for you here today. Vivek Ramaswamy will be joining us later to talk about his Ohio gubernatorial run. We're going to do like a full breakdown of the Oscars. I mean, a full breakdown. I actually slogged through virtually all of the Best Picture nominees on your behalf. So we'll go through all of those.

And we'll get to everything related to Ukraine and Doge. But we begin today with basically what appeared to be some sort of Geraldo Rivera reveal of the Epstein files. Y'all remember that episode of Geraldo Rivera in which he tried to open Al Capone's vault and then he did and there was nothing inside? Well, it was basically that. And this has led to a bunch of speculation that secretly somewhere the Epstein files are still there.

and that actually the lack of justification for more material being out there is demonstrated by the lack of material. This sort of stuff is annoying. I want all the Epstein files out there, every single bit of it, all of it, as much unredacted as humanly possible. The only parts, theoretically, that should be redacted are things to protect the victims, certainly nothing to protect the allegations against perpetrators. I want to know exactly who Jeffrey Epstein was, who was opping him, because the question of how he made his money is a serious question.

And why he was basically allowed by law enforcement to gallivant around performing atrocities against young women on behalf of powerful men with his girlfriend, Paramore, and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and all the rest of this. But that did not happen yesterday. And I got to say, I think that these distractions are really not great for the Trump administration. They're really not. The Trump administration has very serious work. I keep saying this because it's important.

I want the Trump administration to be highly successful, and there are important things to do. We need to rebuild the American military. We need to rebuild the American economy and unleash its dynamism. We need to get our debt under control. We need to cleanse DEI from all aspects of the federal government. We need to reshape America's foreign policy around rising threats like China. There's tons to do and not a lot of time to do it. And so these sorts of shiny object distractions that don't materialize into anything are

I think that they are a problem, and I think that, again, they lend credence to the opponents of the Trump administration, which I don't want to happen. Well, yesterday was kind of a bleep show, frankly, when it came to the Epstein file. So basically, it is now Friday. On Wednesday, Pam Bondi, the attorney general of the United States, had announced that she would be releasing some new Epstein files, that there would be new files showing names that we hadn't seen before, materials that we hadn't seen before. Here she was explaining.

You said last week that you have the Epstein files on your desk. When can we see them and what's taking so long to release them? I do. Jesse, there are well over, this will make you sick, 200 victims, 200 victims.

So we have well over over 250, actually. So we have to make sure that their identity is protected and their personal information. But other than that, I think tomorrow, you know, the personal information of victims. Other than that, I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now, you're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office. OK, so.

In that clip, she says there will be new Epstein information released by her office tomorrow, and she says it's on my desk. That's what the Attorney General of the United States says. So everybody all day long is waiting for the release of this information, like literally all day long. And then sometime yesterday morning,

Pictures start being released of a bunch of social media influencers who are holding up binders that supposedly contain new Epstein information. And these social media influencers, many of these people are people with whom I'm friendly. People like Liz Wheeler, who's just great. I think Liz is terrific. It was handed to Libs of TikTok and Jack Posobiec and a bunch of other people. It was a big binder. It said the Epstein files, phase one. And people were holding them up.

Kind of like trophies, which, you know, frankly, I think is sort of a bad look. When you are talking about the release of criminally oriented documents about the abuse of minors, I don't think it's an amazing look to walk out holding this up as though you just won an Olympic medal. But in any case, we then were like, okay, fine. It's an odd way to release it, but can we see what's in it? And then it turns out over the course of the day that the answer was there was basically nothing in it. The binder was filled with stuff that we already knew.

There's effectively nothing new in the binders. And this became clear pretty quickly, actually. So Anna Paulina Luna, who's leading up a task force in Congress to review the Epstein documents, put out a tweet at 210 yesterday, quote, I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today. A New York Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phone book. This is not what we or the American people asked for. Get us the information we asked for instead of leaking old info to the press.

Okay, so nothing new here. And so then the question became, well, what a bleep show. I mean, you said there was going to be sort of a big reveal. We're going to get some new information. By the way, this is the second time this has happened. We were told that the JFK files were going to be released and that was going to explode everything. And that never happened because guess what, guys? We kind of know all there is to know about the JFK assassination. It's been more than half a century. There have been many, many, many reports on it and lots of documents revealed. This kind of conspiratorial angle that the right seems to have fallen in love with, that

unanswered questions must be answered in the most perverse possible way. And if the evidence isn't there, then we just keep saying that there is a lack of evidence and lack of evidence is actually proof of evidence. Again, I'm willing to follow this evidence wherever it leads. I want the answers the same as you. And unlike the JFK assassination, where, by the way, it was Lee Harvey Oswald, unlike the JFK assassination, where there's a plethora of video, forensic, and documentary evidence available, in the Epstein case, we really don't know what the hell happened. We still don't know any of the key questions.

who was running him, if he was an op, what exactly he was doing, who are the people on the island, what kind of tapes he had, right? All those are unanswered. So I understand why there is so much dyspepsia over the Epstein case. But if you're going to do a reveal, that means you better have some goods, right? Something better come out. And it didn't come out yesterday. And I think people are right to be angry about it. I think that it is bizarre to release it to social media influencers as opposed to releasing it to many journalists. I'm not talking about journalists on the left. I'm talking about journalists on the right.

I mean, though the Washington Free Beacon has a bunch of excellent investigative journalists. We at The Daily Wire have investigative journalists. We have like people who we hire, who we pay to actually go through documents at a legal granular level to do this sort of stuff. Or you could just release all of it online and have us all peruse it. I mean, that would be the best way to do this is so that we could all see it. The kind of release strategy was weird. And then when it turned out there was nothing in it, then the repercussions began. So the repercussions began with a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Kash Patel over at the FBI.

And now Pambandi is claiming that Kash Patel is essentially having the wool pulled over his eyes by underlings who may be getting rid of documents. Again, I'd love to see the evidence of this. If that's true, that's a criminal offense. I mean, destroying relevant criminal documents would be a criminal offense and people should go to jail for it. So if we're going to make those sorts of allegations, you shouldn't just throw them out there.

Short a letter saying, quote, Dear Director Patel, before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response to this request, I received approximately 200 pages of documents, which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein's list of contacts, and a list of victims' names and phone numbers. I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI we'd receive the full set of documents. Late yesterday, I learned from a source the FBI field office in New York

was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information. So this is her saying, someone, someone out there in FBI land is covering things up. It's not your fault, Cash. It's not my fault, AG Pambondi. It is the fault of these unspecified members of the New York office of the FBI who are destroying documents or hiding things. Which again, criminal offense. People should go to jail if that is true.

Quote, by 8 a.m. tomorrow, February 28th, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office, including all records, documents, audio and video recordings and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. Regardless of how such information was obtained, there will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access. This is her kind of blaming Kash Patel, but letting him off the hook.

The DOJ will ensure that any public disclosures of these files will be done in a manner to protect the privacy of victims and in accordance with law, as I've done my entire career as a prosecutor. I'm also directing you to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed. You will deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days. I appreciate your immediate attention to this important matter. I know we are both committed to transparency for the American people. I look forward to continuing to work with you to serve our president and our country. Okay, so first of all, her issuing that letter publicly...

is a way of shifting blame. I mean, there are a couple ways of reading it. One, this is totally true, that actually there's somebody in the FBI offices who is scurrilously hiding away thousands of pages of documents that we have never seen and shredding them in the back room. Okay, again, if that's the case, that should not just be a matter of the records show up at the offices of the DOJ. That should be a matter of people who are doing that thing should not only be fired, but prosecuted. Okay, so that's a very serious allegation.

Or the other way you can read this is, this is pretty humiliating, that Pam Bondi thought that she had new stuff. Nobody in her office bothered to check whether it was new stuff. They released it to a bunch of social media influencers in order to get clicks. And then it turned out there was nothing in the files. Those are the possibilities. So Liz Wheeler, who again, is excellent, love Liz as a human being,

She put out a statement, quote, President Trump and AGP and Bonnie committed to releasing the Epstein files. The FBI was told to deliver the files to Bonnie. They did about 200 pages. Bonnie smelled a rat because there was nothing juicy in the 200 pages, just flight logs and a Rolodex of phone numbers, no smoking gun. Still, Bonnie promised to release the documents, so she prepared a binder of them.

Then, last night, a whistleblower contacted Bondi and revealed the SDNY was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files to find Bondi's order to give them all to her. We're talking recordings, evidence, etc., the juicy stuff names. These swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi, Cash, and you. Be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be because the evil deep state lied to your face. The binder is powerful because it's tangible physical evidence of the disgusting stunt the SDNY tried to pull. Okay, the binder is not powerful. The binder is empty.

It is. And if Pam Bondi wanted to say this, she could have just said this without the reveal of the binder. Again, this looks like a low-level bureaucratic screw-up, and now people who are backfilling the story. I'm just going to give you the honest story. That's what it appears to be. I wish I didn't have to say that. But again, the American people deserve answers to these questions, not either obfuscation or silliness. And if it turns out, by the way, that there are no thousands of pages of documents, then

And then they're not revealed because they don't exist. And this, of course, is only going to feed the fire of, well, you know, absence of evidence is actually evidence, right? If it's not there, it must be because it once was there and we never got it. You want to feed conspiracy theorists? This is the way to do it. Again, I want full release of everything forthwith. And the Trump administration is in charge, both the FBI and now the AG's office. So there are no excuses left.

either reveal it all or say it has already been revealed or prosecute the people who actually got rid of the documents. Those are your three choices. There are no other choices. Don't blame everybody else. Like, do the thing. Give us the stuff. And if the stuff ain't there, tell us that the stuff ain't there and tell us why the stuff ain't there. But listen, we deserve to see the Epstein documents, obviously, obviously. And we also deserve our freedom because

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I, this sort of, why am I upset about this? I'm upset about this because number one, we deserve answers to the Epstein questions. Okay, the whole case is insane and ridiculous. And the fact that we don't have answers at this point in time is just disgusting. Two,

I'm annoyed because if the Trump administration is going to make a big deal out of this sort of stuff, you have to be professional about how you do it. These are serious issues. And by the way, this also applies to the House Judiciary Committee. And again, I love the people on the House Judiciary Committee. I'm friends with many of them. You don't do what you did yesterday. Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee put out a link and they said, this is the link to the new FBI files. And then it was a Rick roll. I'm sorry, it's not a joke. The mass rape of underage girls and sex trafficking of underage girls to prominent men. That is not a subject matter.

for jocularity. Take it seriously. I mean this across the board. Seriousness of purpose is going to mean seriousness of result. And if it's unserious, then all you're going to end up doing is distracting people with shiny objects over here, not getting the job you need to get done over here with the other hand. And that's just not what you're looking for here. It's not what you're looking for. The level of distraction has to come down. It does because there are serious things to be done. Trump has appointed an amazing cabinet. His cabinet is filled with stars.

He's got a big agenda, things to do, a short time to do them. These sorts of distractions either put up or shut up. We're now joined on the line by journalist and TV host Emily Austin. She left the White House yesterday with, again, that binder of the Epstein files. I want to get the inside story on how that went down. Emily, thanks so much for joining the show. So why don't you tell us what happened yesterday? Obviously, a lot of controversy online about the release of the Epstein binders, which didn't really contain much that was new, apparently. Why don't you tell us what actually went down at the White House?

Right. So initially we were invited to the White House, a delegation of Republican, conservative media, independent journalists, influencers, whatever you want to call it, to meet with Vice President J.D. Vance. And then to our surprise, Kash Patel was joined and Pam Bondi came. And it was a really nice environment. And we were being briefed on policies that they're implementing, etc. Now, coincidentally, that morning was the morning that Pam Bondi received the exact binder we received on her desk.

in which we didn't open it in the briefing, but later on, like everyone else, we find out

That, like you just said, there's not much new information about here. But the point of the binder that everyone seemed to be missing was that this is what the FBI gave Pam Bondi and expected us to be satisfied with these files rather than being outraged that they're withholding thousands of documents. And being outraged at us for being the messengers trying to show you this is what the Attorney General received. This is what we received. It's a step in the right direction, but all the outrage towards the

the media personalities that were there rather than the FBI corrupt agents that are holding this information. It's just kind of ironic and it's just dividing the party for no reason. I mean, one of the things that is kind of sort of bizarre about the whole situation is it sounds like there was not an actual plan to simply handle the social media influencers, these binders, but the binders were there and then they were handed to you guys. It sounds like it was kind of sprung on a lot of the social media influencers. You had no intention of going there and being the kind of source of revelations about the Epstein documents when you went there.

Yeah, it definitely wasn't planned. It wasn't our intention to whoever didn't want to post it or publish it necessarily didn't have to. They didn't like definitely did not have to. And one thing I definitely want to debunk is that there's this narrative going around that we were like paid or instructed to leak it or we were encouraged to do. Literally, nobody was encouraged to do anything. Obviously, we're independent journalists.

If there's something in there to leak, of course we want to leak it. And one thing that people are forgetting is Trump did make a promise that he was going to enable the independent journalists and not only rely on traditional media. One thing that was mentioned yesterday was that they want to start getting more conservative, independent journalist resources in the press room. They want Breitbart to be able to have access. They want more than just Fox News and CNN and CNBC to be able to have access. But then it seems like when they give access to the independent journalists, like everyone's mad about it.

So let's talk for a second about the sort of action that happened after that. So the binders are given to you guys. Some people walk out. They're sort of holding them up triumphantly, which, again, I'm not sure it's an amazing optic, but that happens. And then the revelation comes out that the binders themselves don't contain much new information. And right after that, Pam Bondi then releases a letter publicly calling on Kash Patel to investigate SDNY for not releasing the documents. I mean, I guess my question is, why didn't you just release that letter in the first place? Why the whole sort of

rigmarole with the binders as opposed to just say publicly, we found out from an informant inside SDNY that things are being destroyed. Cash, go investigate it and go do this. I'm not sure what the point of the binders was.

I think my take on it was that they wanted outrage. I don't think they wanted it directed at us, but they wanted it more so. We requested the Epstein files. They gave us a bunch of baloney in a binder. They expect us to be satisfied with it. So everyone should be very unsatisfied with it. And now it's Kash Patel's job to get the remaining files. And it wouldn't have happened, by the way, that letter until the whistleblower from SDNY came out and said, hey, we're actually sleeping on a bunch of files here in the New York Bureau. You know, you should get on it. If that hadn't happened, I don't know where we'd be today. Why the whole...

I think it was a publicity stunt where it's saying, hey, look, this is what we got. We don't buy it. We're going to investigate it. And regarding the whole leaving the West Wing with the binders up in the air,

I'm gonna be very blunt about this. They were not supposed to do that. We were instructed when we got the binders that they want Pam Bondi to have a first say in it. And then we can be the first ones to have like the access on it. There were a bunch of reporters outside of the West Wing waiting for the UK's prime minister to come. They lifted their binders. We were on a, I call it an embargo for three hours. They said, don't post till 3.30. I honored that. A few others honored that. A few others clearly did not. And they kind of ruined it for the whole team and actually made it a lot worse than what it was.

Well, Emily, really appreciate you coming on and clarifying what happened. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Well, speaking of distractions that people don't need, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in the United States yesterday. They, of course, are American citizens. They're dual citizens, or in the case of Andrew Tate, I believe he has seven citizenships. And he showed up in the United States. The reporting was the Trump administration had put significant pressure on the Romanian government to allow them out of their house arrest in Romania.

so they could come to the United States. As I said yesterday on the show, I don't know the legalities here. I don't know whether it is in the interest of Romania to do that. I don't know that it was American pressure that actually secured their release.

All I can say is anyone who is celebrating their arrival in America has a screw loose because these are some of the worst people in the world. They are not good people by their own admission, just by their own stated comments. These are not people you would want to have anywhere near your wives, daughters or families unless you're an insane person. Well, President Trump was, in fact, asked about the arrival of the Tates and all of the talk about how the Trump administration had pressured for their release. And here was President Trump yesterday saying, no, I don't know anything about this and don't want any part of it. So good for President Trump.

Andrew and Tristan Tate landed in Florida today on a private jet after being released from custody in Romania. They are accused rapists, human traffickers, not thought of as good people in many circles. Did your administration pressure the Romanian government to release them? And if so, why? I know nothing about that. I don't know. You're saying he's on a plane right now? He's back. They already picked him. Yeah. I just know nothing about it. We'll check it out. We'll let you know.

And so, again, I think President Trump saying I have no interest in this particular topic is the right approach. And anybody in his administration who decided to make this top priority, I'm confused why that was a top priority at all. Unless you have evidence that they were being mistreated in some deep and abiding way by the Romanian justice system, as well as the British justice system. Rhonda Sanchez, the governor of Florida, was asked about this. He said, well, no, I don't really want them here in Florida. We don't like alleged sex traffickers in the state of Florida.

Well, we have no involvement in that. I read about it through the media. Clearly, the federal government has jurisdiction whether they want to rebuff his entry into the United States. And I have confidence that whether it's Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem, that they will be looking at that. I do know our attorney general, James Uthmeyer, is looking at what state hooks

and jurisdiction we may have to be able to deal with this. But the reality is, no, Florida is not a place where you're welcome with that type of conduct in the air. I don't know how we're keen to this,

we were not involved. We were not notified. I found out through the media that this was something that was happening. Again, this is a pretty large split that's now emerging inside the right wing of the party between people who really don't want anything to do with, you know, self-professed pornographers, self-described misogynists, people who are Muslim converts who proclaim that

Islam should actually dominate the UK, who stand for Yahya, Sinwar, and Hamas. For some reason, there is a part of the party that seems warm toward this stuff simply because it's oppositional in some way to left-wing agenda items.

Although, again, the solutions seem to foment actually a lot of left-wing agenda items such as, for example, sexual promiscuity. And then there's part of the party which is like, nope, not interested in any part of this. And it seems as though President Trump actually is on the same page here as Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida. And obviously, you can hear Governor DeSantis saying, listen, we're going to look at the legal authorities.

If there's prosecutions that need to be brought in the state of Florida, we will look at them. But as far as like whether the state of Florida is excited to have them here, the answer is absolutely not. That is the proper response to this. Well, it's good to know that there are some good people in our government because there are also bad people in our government at the IRS. And they are after you.

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Once again, that's thecandleclub.com slash Ben. That is the proper human response to this on the part of the right. Good for Trump. Good for DeSantis. Again, these are not distractions that are necessary in a time where actual heavy work has to get done. Speaking of which, today, Vladimir Zelensky is heading to the White House to sign an agreement handing over rare mineral rights to the United States.

President Trump is very excited to secure that deal. Yesterday, he hosted Keira Starmer, the left-wing prime minister of the UK. And, you know, President Trump, again, he's great with people and he's very friendly with humans. And so here he was with Keira Starmer praising his accent, which is a pretty classic Trump right here. We look forward to welcome you in the United Kingdom. Thank you once again. Thank you very much. What a beautiful accent. I would have been president 20 years ago if I had that accent. Thank you very much.

Okay. Keir Starmer's job was to sort of warm President Trump up to the idea that the United States would help to provide security guarantees in Ukraine. It turns out that the best way to warm President Trump up to security guarantees in Ukraine actually is to sign economic deals with President Trump. That seems to be one of President Trump's sort of key levers is

is that if you are willing to allow the United States to make money, then obviously we have more interest in helping to defend you, which seems perfectly rational. Keir Starmer pushed the idea at this joint press conference that any peace in Ukraine has to be directed at being a lasting peace. You don't want something temporary, which would seem to be obvious.

I think my views on Putin are pretty well rehearsed and pretty well known. And my concern is that if there's a deal, and I hope there is a deal, that it must be a lasting deal, that it's not a temporary measure. And that is why I think it's really important that Putin knows that this deal, a historic deal, which I very much hope comes about, is there, is

is there and it's a lasting deal and that we're able to deal with any inclination he has to go again or go further. And again, by the way, Trump is sitting here nodding and President Trump then reiterates that idea. He's like, yeah, the whole point of a deal is that the deal holds. You don't want a deal where we sign an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, including the EU, and two weeks from now, Russia's invading again. That's not something anybody wants. It sounds as though one of you completely trusts President Putin and one of you doesn't trust him an inch.

Have I got that right? And why do you trust him? -No, look, you know, it's trust and verify. Let's call it that. And I think we both can be that way. You have to verify, 'cause you never know what's gonna happen. I know a lot of people that you would say, "No chance that they would ever deceive you." And they're the worst people in the world. I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you. And you know what? They're 100% honorable, so you never know what you're getting. No, I have confidence that if we make a deal, it's gonna hold.

Now, one of the things that was hilarious is that in this press conference, Trump was asked in front of Starmer about his comments last week that Zelensky was a dictator. I just want to point out here that all the people on the right who felt the necessity to go out of their way to defend those comments were making a rather large tactical error.

Again, President Trump says many things off the cuff. I've said this for literally a decade about President Trump is that on his tombstone after 120 years, President Trump's tombstone is going to read 45th and 47th presidents of the United States. He said a lot of bleep. OK, a lot of the stuff that President Trump says is meant for effect. Some of it is meant as bargaining position. Some of it you just blurts.

So the entire Republican Party infrastructure shaped itself around him calling Vladimir Zelensky a dictator when Vladimir Zelensky is actually not a dictator. He's the elected leader of Ukraine. He can't hold another election in the middle of a massive war in which millions of your citizens are now living abroad. Hundreds of thousands of your young men are on the front lines and hundreds, thousands of more Ukrainians are living in Russian occupied areas in Donbass and Crimea.

The Constitution does not actually allow it. That is a unified governmental position and non-governmental position in Ukraine, by the way. The opposition parties, who don't even like Zelensky, say he's not a dictator. And it was totally fine to say that even last week, even after Trump had said that he was a dictator. It was totally fine to say that's not actually true. It didn't undermine Trump. It didn't undermine any peace efforts. And yet you saw an enormous number of people on the right who started kind of shaping their opinions to meet what was an off-the-cuff comment by President Trump. How do I know it was off-the-cuff? Because yesterday he said so.

So in this press conference, he's asked, what about the told Zelensky's a dictator thing? And Trump's like, me? Was it really? Here we go. Mr. President, do you still think that Mr. Zelensky is a dictator? Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question. And he's kind of like giving a little smirk there. He knows he said it, but he's like, you know what? What are you going to do about it?

So herein lies the point. For people who are in my position, you don't always just have to mirror the thing that President Trump is saying to understand what he is attempting to do. You don't have to buy into the idea.

That Ukraine, quote unquote, started the war in order to suggest that the proper solution to the war is an off ramp that everybody agrees has to happen in which Russia basically maintains control of Donbass and Crimea. Security guarantees are given to Ukraine and economic redevelopment happens in Ukraine that the United States makes money off of. All of that is fine and dandy and you don't have to.

repeat sillinesses that are untrue in order to achieve any of that. Well, yesterday during this Keir Starmer meeting, there was also a rather amusing moment where President Trump called on J.D. Vance to basically just shellac Keir Starmer over speech restrictions in the UK. And this is like, when you call J.D. on this stuff, it's like J.D. from the top rope. Here we go.

I said what I said, which is that we do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the UK and also with some of our European allies. But we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British. Of course, what the British do in their own country is up to them, but also affect American technology companies and by extension, American citizens. So that is something that we'll talk about today at lunch.

And again, you can see how much J.D. is enjoying that sort of stuff and from has been using the vice president in this way. He'll be in press conferences and be like, J.D., say something mean. And J.D. OK, man, it's go time. And then he'll just go for it. And I will say it is a pretty effective use of the vice president of the United States. Speaking of which.

I'd be remiss if I did not comment on the vice president that we narrowly avoided. So Tim Walz is still out there being a giant, inflatable, and a used car lot weirdo with his strange hands and odd motions and all the rest of it. It is still amazing to me that Kamala Harris decided this of all the humans on earth had to be her VP pick. Just incredible. So he was on a show yesterday and he suggested that the country has now been stolen by fascists and Nazis. Now this is someone who loves America.

You see the nonsense that's being put forward on that. We're going to need your voice there because I would just end with this. And we're seeing it in these town halls that charismatic leaders not going to come there. You know, I see the pundits on TV. What's wrong with the Democratic Party? What's wrong is our country is being sold by fascists and Nazis. And we're trying to do all we can to try and do it.

Okay, keep going with this. Seriously, that guy almost was vice president of the United States. He was like this close. America really dodged a bullet, not just literally as in President Trump dodged a bullet, but really dodged a bullet here in not having these clowns at the top of the American political hierarchy. Seriously.

Amazing. Really, truly good. Good job, America. Good job, because we almost had that thing. We almost had it. All right, folks, coming up is a very stacked show today. Vivek Ramaswamy is going to be stopping by. He, of course, has announced his run for Ohio governor. Also, we are going to do our full review of the Oscars, which are happening on Sunday. I know you didn't watch the movies, but sadly for me, I did.

But first, it all goes down. Tuesday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, President Trump addresses Congress, laying out his America First agenda on immigration, the economy, and national security. You already know we're going all in. Kick things off with Backstage Live, 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, where the entire crew breaks down what's at stake and sets the stage for President Trump's speech. Then we watch the full speech together, live on Daily Wire Plus. No spin, no nonsense. And when Trump is done, we're just getting started. The gang is back for real on filtered analysis you're not going to get anywhere else.

This is history in the making. Do not sit on the sidelines. Watch it all live Tuesday night on Daily Wire Plus. Subscribe now at dailywire.com. Well, earlier today, I had the opportunity to sit down with Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek, of course, friend of the show, ran for president last time around, was part of Doge briefly, and now he's declared his running for the Ohio governorship. We had a chance to sit down together. Here's what it sounded like. Well, joining me on the line is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has now declared his run for the governorship of Ohio. Vivek, welcome to the show.

It's good to see you, Ben. So let's talk about why you decided to run for governor of Ohio. There's a lot of things you could have done. You decide that you want to remain in the sort of public service area and you want to run for governor of Ohio. Right now, you are prohibitively ahead of the rest of the field in the polling of the endorsement of President Trump, Elon Musk as well. What made you want to do this?

Yeah, look, I looked at my impact on the future of the country. I had run for U.S. president. And one of the things I reflected on, Ben, is many of the issues that I discussed, even on my presidential campaign, have to now be addressed by the states, by strong governors. Then you look at what President Trump is doing in Washington, D.C. I think he's going to be very successful in the next two years. But that means a lot of those programs, from education to health care, are going to be shifted down to the states and to the people where they belong.

So if you skate to where the puck is going in terms of driving a real change in the country, I think the center of gravity in politics is going to move to the states. Saving the country is going to belong to the states after President Trump has done his part. And then for me, there was the broader question of just staying in public service and public life. There's obviously, in many ways, you could wake up many days and say there's better ways to live than that. I came from the business world and we live a blessed, comfortable life.

But my reason for remaining in this is that, first of all, I believe in excellence. I want my home state. I was born and raised here. I'm raising my two sons here. I want my state not just to be one of the best in the Midwest, but the best in the country. And there are just so many basic fixes that you could bring to a state like Ohio. They're just really basic that would accomplish that, that I felt a sense of duty to do it right here at home.

And you and I, we've both lived the American dream. My wife's lived the American dream. We want our kids to live that same American dream. And we're pretty passionate about having an impact. And we're grateful for what the country and the state have given us. And so in some sense, this is just our way of giving back. So Vivek, the state of Ohio has been moving significantly to the right over the course of the last several election cycles. I'm old enough to remember when it was a bellwether state. Now it is a fairly solidly red state. What are some of the biggest problems that are facing the state of Ohio that you'd want to cure and focus in on as governor of the state?

Yes, it's not California. It doesn't require a U-turn. But I would say it is a conservative state. You're right in its electorate. It's time for the state to actually be governed like a conservative state. And there I see.

Room for progress and actually stepping on the gas, thinking about the basic table stakes on economic policies. You got to be a zero tax state. Find a path to become a zero tax state. There's eight other states that have done it. There's no reason we can't do it right here in Ohio. Bring down the property tax burden. You know, I think with my own instincts in the long run, I'd love to see that get to zero, but at least bring it down to a reasonable place.

slash and burn the regulatory state. In some ways, I want to see Ohio become a special economic zone for the rest of the country at the heart of the Midwest.

for really any entrepreneur, for industrialization, for production. The natural gas timelines for building a new pipeline in the state, we've got great natural resources underneath our ground. Drill Baby Drill belongs in Ohio and not a lot of people are actually even aware of the natural resources we have. And yet it takes 18 to 36 months to get a new permit when that should be six months or less.

And so the sum total of that is when you look at other states across the country, Texas and Florida are number one and number two when it comes to people moving into the state versus out. Ohio is number 38 today. And I see an opportunity over the next eight, 10 years for Ohio to find its way actually to number one on that list. And that might sound unrealistic today.

But if you look at the first Industrial Revolution, Ohio was the leading state in the country. And I think with a strong governor, I'm motivated. I think we can get there again. I'd say the other distinctive part of my candidacy, and this is really what gets me going, Ben, is not just making sure that we're at the forefront economically, but to be able to do something that no other state has actually done is leading in the crisis of educational achievement in America.

That's a 50-state problem right now. Our kids aren't excelling in math and reading and writing. Even if we talk about conservative solutions like school choice, which I'm a strong proponent of, ardently in favor of, we also have to take aim at looking at how we revitalize our public schools on their own terms.

And I just, for my part, refuse to stand by and watch idly as China laughs at our gradual decay into oblivion when 75% of eighth graders in this country aren't even proficient in math according to international standards. In fact, there's kids in other countries where English isn't even their first language now doing better on English proficiency than our own kids here. And just to speak some hard truths,

I found that people, frankly, in both political parties, aren't too patient. They don't want to hear this message because it hurts to hear. But if you care about somebody, you tell them the truth. And I think being a true conservative state governed according to conservative principles means targeting that educational achievement deficit. Yes, beat the DEI. Yes, beat the woke. I mean, I led the crusade on that, and I believe in all of that. But there's a deeper failure here as well as it relates to just raw educational achievement on math,

Reading, writing, physical education, civic education. And I think we as conservatives need to step up in directly tackling those deficits. And that's one way where I hope to set the standard for the rest of the country, the Ohio standard, we could call it.

for the way the rest of the states, I think, need to catch up as well. Vic, one thing that's distinguished you from a lot of other Republicans is your focus on economic dynamism, on innovation. That's a really important thing for the Republican Party. It's also a really important thing for the Midwest. There's sort of been this model that's been applied by really a lot of sort of blue governors in the Midwest that's

regulate and subsidize, regulate and subsidize. You heavily regulate and then you subsidize all of your political friends with taxpayer dollars. And somehow this is supposed to bring jobs back or spur particular friendly industries. And what you're talking about is something different, which is take the shackles off of American industry in places like Ohio, and you will get naturally an incredible level of growth.

That's exactly right. And I say that the reason to flash and burn the regulatory state and over bureaucratization and regulation and taxation isn't because that's a more important objective than standing for American workers and manufacturers. It is because it is the best way to lift up American workers and manufacturers.

And I'm keen to make sure that our Republican Party doesn't make some of the mistakes as Democrats have made in these blue states in the Midwest as well. The right answer isn't to foster greater dependence on the government and justify that with a new victimhood culture.

The right answer is to find a path to independence from the government. That's actually true compassion. That's not cruelty, that's compassion. Things like work requirements for Medicaid, for welfare. That's even in the long run been good for the people who receive it. It's not good to be dependent on the government permanently in this handout welfare state that leads to depression, anxiety, fentanyl, suicide, opioid usage, as we've seen in so much of this part of the country.

It's really good for nobody. And, you know, the left has made that mistake for years and we've been good at calling that out and we should, and we've won.

We won decisively in November. I think for that victory to mean what it should in the long run, I think we in the Republican Party, in the conservative movement, in the pro-American movement, owe it to ourselves to stick to the principles that made America great the first time around. And there I see President Trump doing a great job in Washington, D.C., downsizing that federal government, taking aim at the tax rates, taking aim at the type of things that have held back the American economy.

But we got to stay true to that North Star rather than getting distracted in other directions, I would just say. And the way I want to lead Ohio, I want to embody those same principles of excellence, of dynamism, rejection of victimhood, rejection of dependence on the government, embracing capitalism. Yes, I don't think that's a bad word, capitalism.

capitalism and meritocracy, not crony capitalism, but the real thing. I want Ohio to be the state that leads the way where freedom is our heritage, excellence is our destiny. And we got to remember that. I think that's true in America. And I think it's every bit and true here. I believe in the heart of America right here in Ohio.

It's a state where you got 60% of the population in North America within a single day's drive of where we are right now, led the way in the 19th century, led the way in the early 20th century. I'd like to see Ohio occupy that leadership position again.

with some friendly coopetition, let's just say with Texas and Florida, I'd like to see Ohio be in that vanguard of states that actually shows the country what's possible. That's Vivek Ramaswamy running for governor of Ohio. I'm sure that he is well positioned in this primary. Vivek, if people want to give to your campaign or help out, where should they go?

Go to VivekForOhio.com. Appreciate support across the country because it's about lifting Ohio up, but it's also about setting a standard for the rest of the country. That's the standard we hold ourselves to. And I appreciate support from anybody, however big or however small. It's a big movement here. That's Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek, good luck in the race. I'm sure we'll check back in.

Thank you, man.

Learn more and get a free debt analysis in just 30 seconds at pdsdebt.com slash wire.

Alrighty, folks. So, of course, the Oscars are this weekend, and we're going to go through the various categories. I'm going to handicap the Oscars for you. I have actually seen virtually all of the Best Picture films at this point. I know. I suffer so that you don't have to. I'm be joined in this journey by producer Phil, who's sort of our in-house film expert. And actually, Phil is quite good at this. How many of these films have you actually seen that are nominated for Best Picture, Phil? I have not seen Wicked. I have not seen I'm Still Here and...

I have not finished The Substance yet.

Okay, so this is good because our crossover here is not super high. The only ones that I've actually not seen are A Complete Unknown. I haven't seen Conclave. I've read the book, so I figured I didn't need to see the movie. And I haven't seen I'm Still Here, all the others I've seen. So this should be a good crossover. I think the only one that neither of us have seen here is probably I'm Still Here. Yeah. So, okay, between the two of us, I think we can do this. Let's try. What's bizarre about this Oscars is how many nominations –

First of all, Emilia Perez racked up. Emilia Perez racked up an enormous number of nominations, 13 nominations. The Brutalist racked up 10 and Wicked racked up 10. And Emilia Perez started off, this happens now almost every year at the Oscars, where Emilia Perez was the front runner and then there was

woke blowback and then Amelia Perez was not the frontrunner. We've seen this so many times. We saw this with Green Room. We saw this with La La Land. This sort of stuff tends to happen a lot. What's bizarre about the anti-woke blowback on Amelia Perez is that it is the wokest, most horrible film ever, perhaps. And yet somehow there's anti-woke blowback because the person who is nominated for Best Actress, a dude, had a

had a bunch of bad old tweets that apparently mean the entire film now has to be thrown out entirely. Now, the film should have been thrown out entirely in the first place because it sucks, but that blowback has now led to a sort of race for who is going to replace Emilia Perez as the frontrunner. Right now, my understanding, Phil, is that the frontrunner is Enora. Is that right? Yes, it is. It...

Got the Palme d'Or and it has won pretty much every single Best Picture award you can think of except for the SAG Ensemble Award, which went to Conclave. So I want to go through each of these. We'll do like some capsule reviews of these particular films. So Onora, as we say, is now the frontrunner. It's directed by Sean Baker. Sean Baker did the Florida Project, which actually I kind of liked.

And also did Red Rocket, which I did not like, and Tangerine, which I did not like. And Sean Baker is kind of this auteur director who apparently has no capacity to write because Nora is truly an awful film, like truly a very, very bad film. The plot of the film is sex worker, meaning a prostitute.

and meets Russian oligarch's son. Russian oligarch's son really likes this girl that he is paying to have sex with him routinely while he plays video games and marries her almost on a whim. And then Russian family is like, this isn't happening.

Nothing happens for about an hour. And then they kind of chase him around town. He disappears. They chase him around town. Finally, they uncover him. She realizes, as she should have from the beginning, that he's a douchebag. And they give her a little bit of money to go away. She takes the money to go away. And she flirts with one of the...

who's been sent to separate them. I think that's a fair summation of the plot. Yeah, that's pretty fair. And can you believe that, I guess, the director one time liked one Tulsi Gabbard tweet and they're trying to cancel him for that? That's hysterical. First of all, again, it is amazing. These movies are terrible. I mean, this is a truly awful film. It offers no character development. I think my favorite part of the film is there's a scene where...

Anora, who's the prostitute, is being confronted by the henchmen of the Russian oligarch's parents and the Russian oligarch parents and the henchmen call her a prostitute in front of her and she can speak Russian and she starts screaming at them. And all I could think of is, well, you are. I don't understand your objection. Literally, the whole movie is supposed to be an almost unapologetic look at sex work, meaning like.

Girls love it. It's super fun. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't damage your soul or you in any serious way, even though, again, sort of the underlying thematic is that what she's actually looking for is to be a married woman.

in a normal relationship, and then she can't have that because she is, you know, a prostitute. And so the film is in conflict with itself. On the one hand, it wants to glorify sex work. On the other hand, the thing that she actually is looking for is to not be a sex worker, but to actually be, you know, like a traditional housewife who's taken care of, which is kind of hilarious. And I think perhaps the most fascinating part about this film is that it's been characterized as a

You can't have a Cinderella story where Cinderella is utterly unsympathetic. Right. I mean, Cinderella in this particular film is, again, a sex worker who basically takes advantage of what appears to be a 70 IQ, 18 year old kid in order to get to his money.

And somehow this makes her a heroine of the story and a victim of the evils of a society that won't accept the sex workers. So that was my take. It's 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and then 90% from the audience. I don't know what the audience is thinking other than their OnlyFans login was lost or something. So The Brutalist has also been nominated for 10 Academy Awards. I have many, many thoughts on The Brutalist, actually. I will say it's at least interesting.

Like there's some things that are going on. I don't like the political take of the film. I think there is one move that is made near the end of the film. And again, spoiler alerts all over guys. Like if we're going through the films, you're going to have to actually deal with it. The Brutalist is beautifully shot. It's really well directed. The acting is across the board. Excellent. Guy Pearce particularly is terrific in this film. It makes no political sense at all. So the entire basis of the Brutalist, for those who haven't seen it, is a Holocaust refugee, a

arrives in the United States. It turns out that he is a sort of master architect from the Bauhaus School. And he ends up doing the library for a very rich person

played by Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce originally doesn't appreciate it and yells at him and doesn't pay him. And then Adrian Brody's character, who is this Hungarian artist, eventually he finds the Hungarian artist, tracks him down and says, I realized what you did here is a masterpiece and I want to commission you to make a giant community center in honor of my mother.

And so the whole movie is about the conflict between these two characters where Guy Pearce is trying to get this thing built. He's not he respects the talent of the Hungarian, but he doesn't like the Hungarian. But he kind of loves the Hungarian. It's like this bizarre love hate relationship that he has with the Adrian Brody character. And the whole kind of thematic of the film is America is xenophobic. There's sort of a weird, badly done Zionist.

in the brutalist? The big problem is that, number one, the case for Zionism is not only that the Jews need a place to go because everybody is constantly persecuting the Jews, which is true, but the case for Zionism is also, I mean, just as a Zionist, the case for Zionism is that there is a biblical basis to it. The Judaism actually believes that there is a holy land promised by God to the Jewish people

that's never dealt with in the film. And so what you end up with is Israel as sort of repository of almost anti-American hatred, that basically what Israel is a place for people to run away from America. Now, if you're gonna set it up that way, then what you have to do is basically show that Adrian Brody and his entire family are deeply mistreated by America.

And so from the very outset, this is the director, Brady Corbett's job, is to show that America is not all that it's cracked up to be. From literally the first shot in the film, which is this big shot where you see the Statue of Liberty coming upside down, and you see Adrian Brody scramble up to the surface of the ship that's taking him from Europe to the United States,

And then the camera swivels upside down. And so you get the upside down Statue of Liberty. You know, right from the outset, this is going to be an America sucks movie. And by the end, you also have a cross upside down. So it turns out that America is rooted in Christianity and Christianity sucks, which is why Jews apparently are victims or something. The problem is Adrian Brody is not a victim in this movie until about three quarters of the way through the movie. Meaning that Guy Pearce treats him badly at first. And then...

There's a read on this movie where Guy Pearce is actually, for most of the movie, the hero of the film, meaning he is a very rich person who finds an impoverished European immigrant, recognizes his talent, pays him an enormous sum of money to make him a monument on a hill that serves no purpose other than the charitable and in honor of his mother, brings, like hires a Jewish lawyer to bring his family from Europe and get them out of a DP camp in Austria.

have them live on his property, right? These are not the actions of like a typical movie villain. And so the entire movie is based around the idea that Guy Pearce is a villain, but then the first three quarters of the movie don't set that up. So what do they do? They add in a rape scene in which Guy Pearce literally rapes Adrian Brody's character. Now, by this point in the film,

Guy Pearce is supposed to be probably 60 and Adrian Brody is supposed to be probably 50 in the film at this point. And it's just – it's absolutely bizarre except that they had to do it because otherwise Guy Pearce can't be portrayed as the villain. And so they're making flesh the implication of the movie, which is that basically America rapes its immigrant population for its talents and then treats them badly so much so that they want to leave.

The politics are really perverse and disgusting. It's a very well-directed film, but because the politics are so perverse and because, again, the vast majority of the plot does not support the conclusion, all of this feels very shoehorned in the last quarter of the movie is kind of my take on it.

I think circling back to the scene you were just talking about with Guy Pearce and Adrian Brody, I feel like that was the least subtle thing possible. I feel like 99% of the audience was able to understand the allegory and the metaphor that he was going for. And then he just had to have that scene and have Guy Pearce explicitly say the things that you knew that he was thinking. Whereas just like 40 minutes ago, they had that scene between Harry and Zofia.

implied something similar, but it was a much higher degree of subtlety that I think worked cinematically because it was showing, not telling. And again, I think that Brady Corbett had to do that. The question becomes, why did they even do that? And I think the reason he had to do that is because otherwise the setup is Adrian Brody's being really, really oversensitive here, right? He's like, okay, fine. So the guy doesn't like you. How many people like their boss? How many people don't like their boss?

How many people like the people who pay? I mean, aside from obviously all of our employees, like Phil loves me. But aside from that, I mean, clearly, I mean, it's not that we pay him to say that. He actually does. But but, you know, most people don't feel like that they have to love the person who is paying them to do a thing. And so the problem is that unless you set up that Adrian Brody is literally a physical victim.

Then you cannot actually set up the rest of the sort of moral of the film, which is, again, made perfectly obvious in the last part of the film because they fast forward to 1980 and now there's a big tribute scene to Adrian Brody's character and they explicate that when he created this –

bizarre monument on the top of a hill in Pennsylvania that actually it was supposed to be taking elements from Dachau and Birkenau. So the idea was there's some sort of continuity between Nazism and American industrial capitalism, which is just, I'm sorry, sick and perverse in every way that is possible to be sick and perverse. And anybody who takes away

from, you know, world history, that there is a similarity between people shoving you into a gas chamber and murdering you and your entire family, and people commissioning you to build a tower on a hill in Pennsylvania. I don't know how far you have to have your head up your ass to come to that conclusion, but apparently that's about as far as Brady Corbett has his head up his ass. Okay, Conclave. I read the book, and so I could not put myself through the movie. The book was interminable enough, and I say that as a fan of Robert Harris, the guy who

who wrote the book. I've read a bunch of his books. So for those who missed it, I did like a little capsule review of Conclave, the book as well, before the movie even came out, telling you what it was going to be. And indeed it is that thing because the movie is the book. Basically, Pope dies, time to appoint a new Pope, College of Cardinals all get together, winner, spoiler alert, intersex person,

Because it turns out that all the cardinals who find this out after the person is made pope, it turns out they all decide that it's important to violate all the vows they've ever taken in order to maintain the fiction that this person is actually just a genetic male as opposed to an intersex person who's actually female. So you have a lady pope is sort of the idea of this film. Yeah, I felt like I was watching a Shyamalan movie in a way because it was like this political thriller about who is going to ascend to the seat of the pope. And then all of a sudden the pope has ovaries. Right.

It's like you're watching Split. It's about multiple personality disorder. And then all of a sudden he becomes the Hulk. Bruce Willis is dead at the end of the sixth. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think like the reason. And so this is the Catholic Church is mean and too conservative and needs to liberalize movie. I think that my biggest issue, too, is that they don't really process that revelation that he has.

ovaries in a uterus. He kind of just says it and then the film ends a minute later. Yeah, well, I mean, that's true in the book also. There's like a brief kind of internal monologue that the main character, who's played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie, does where the main character is like, well, you know, I could say something but I really shouldn't say something. Okay, I guess I won't say something. And it's, which is really stupid because really the entire debate theoretically should be about that thing, right? You should have a whole movie about them debating. We just appointed a pope. What do we do now? You know, he, well,

there's like the legality. Can you, like, I don't know any of those procedures. Is that, is that revocable? How does it, how exactly does that work in this way?

The sort of surprise ending conclave is very much like nickel boys. So nickel boys is a movie about a school. It's based on an actual real school in Florida that was a reform school in which apparently students were abused for decades. Some of them were killed and apparently buried in a field and like bodies have actually been found. There have been reparations that have been paid to some of the families in the state of Florida over all of this. There's some controversy over whether this was just a generalized, uh,

evil reform school that basically victimized all the people who went there or whether it was particularly racist. It's one of the controversies over the Florida school. Nickel Boy's novelization by Colson Whitehead that turned into a movie. And the movie is fine, but it's not particularly revelatory. The reason I'm comparing it to Conclave is because the twist ending is that the character you think you've been watching the whole time, who's kind of

In the future, in the late 1980s, who's deciding whether or not to go and reveal what happened at the school, that character you think is one character the whole time, and it turns out it's another character. The character you think it is was actually killed earlier in the film, and this person took that person's name and lived out his life basically.

That doesn't change anything fundamentally in the film. This is one of my problems with some twist endings in films. At least in Conclave, you can make the case that that actually has some impact. In Nickel Boys, it really wouldn't have mattered at all whether the switch ever took place. If one of the boys had been killed and the other boy had lived, that would have made no difference to the actual plot of the film. I think it's more of an explanation for why the kid didn't come forward because he was actually, you know, inhabiting somebody else's life. Maybe that's the explanation. But there's nothing particularly that changes what happened during the story

that one character lived and the other died. You could easily have just left it alone. And I think the shock value of the Switch is supposed to be like the big revelation and just didn't do anything for me. As far as it being directed well, yeah, I mean, I think it's directed fine. I think it's interestingly directed, Nickel Boys, because it kind of takes various perspectives. It's done from first person.

So you see the camera in the place of the person for one character, and then you see it switch, and you see the same scene from the character of the other person. And so, you know, it's kind of a cool directorial trick. But we've also seen that with things like, for example, 1917. So I don't think there was anything particularly new about that per se. It's fine. I don't think it's an amazing film by any stretch of the imagination. The substance. Okay, so I did not hate the substance as much as I thought I would hate the substance.

I don't think it's anything special. I think it's a body horror film. I think that it's being given all sorts of plot. It's just because Demi Moore gets naked. And the entire plot of The Substance is Demi Moore is an aging actress and she's fired from her job by close-ups of Dennis Quaid eating shrimp. And then at a certain point,

She is she's given notice, but she gets in a car crash at the hospital. Somebody gives her notice of a thing called the substance that allows her basically to separate into two beings. One of them is a young version of Demi Moore, like a young, hot Margaret Qualley version of Demi Moore. And one is older Demi Moore. And they have to switch off week to week. So the basic idea is that her soul or brain, whatever she is.

inhabits one body and then inhabits the other body week to week. And then, of course, there starts to be tension because she wants to stay in the younger body. But then every time she goes back to the older body, her older body is more depleted because the younger body has essentially been drawing life force from that. The end of it is, of course, as with most horror films, you know, some sort of sick horror explosion involving lots of blood. The movie kind of peters out around an hour 15 and then for 45 minutes, just kind of hovers there.

Nothing really happens between an hour 15 and kind of two hours. This movie at an hour and a half would have been a nice little horror flick at two hours. It's really, really overlong. It's interesting that you told me that this film is about the evils of sexism in America because Vanity Fair told me it was a stealthy trans allegory.

Yeah, Vanity Fair is high on their own supply. And that was, of course, by a person I believe named Emily St. John or something who is a trans person. St. James, yeah. St. James. Emily St. John is the novelist. Emily St. James is a trans person who believes that every movie is about him.

And The Substance is absolutely not a trans allegory. It is about women aging in Hollywood and how they feel a lack of self because they are aging and because everybody is mean to them because they're older, which is clearly not true of Demi Moore, who's getting more work now than she's had in 20 years, by the way. The thing that works in Late Night with the Devil doesn't work for me here in The Substance, just thematically.

is that the very basis of the substance is that fulfillment is to be found in sort of youth and beauty for women. And so when she goes back to being Margaret Quiley, and now she's young, instead of utilizing her youth and beauty to actually do productive and interesting things, she basically Fs around. I mean, that's essentially what she does as a young woman, right? She parties and she has sex with her. The idea that like what a woman wants most out of life, the fulfilling thing that is gonna cause her to want to relive her life is to essentially, you know,

act like a teenager is really, really stupid. And so I don't think the movie flows in that way. And you know what would have been useful actually is if she'd gone back and said, I want to relive my life. You know what actually worked? If she'd gone back and said, I want to relive my life as a young woman. I want to get married and have kids.

Right? That would have actually created some real dramatic tension because then you would have had sympathy for the idea that she wants to stay a young woman and not be an old woman again. Like, she has to relive her life because she made some bad choices, but it's none of that because, of course, Hollywood could never possibly think that a young woman would want to get married and have kids. That sounds like a Daily Wire plus original. It does. It does. So we're scripting it in real time. And finally, there's Wicked. If you want to see my review of that, then you can. Obviously, that did a lot of traffic because I liked Wicked. So...

Of these pictures, the best picture, the only one that people are going to be watching 10 years from now is Dune Part 2. The rest of these kind of suck. Wicked is fine. So you think in an ideal world, Dune Part 2 would win Best Picture? Yes. Who's going to win? I think given the momentum, I think Enora will probably win.

I think there's too much controversy with the others. And somehow, the movie about prostitution and sex work with enormous amounts of pornography is the least controversial nominee on this list. But it just shows you where Hollywood is, right? Nora is the America is evil because it doesn't like sex work. The Brutalist is America is xenophobic. A Complete Unknown is just walk the line. Conclave is the Catholic Church is transphobic. Amelia Perez is society is transphobic. Nickel Boys is America is racist. The Substance is America is sexist. The top three contenders are...

The Brutalist and Conclave. Out of the three, which one do you think deserves to win? I mean, I think all three are bad. And again, I'm speaking out of turn here because I haven't seen Conclave. I've only read the book. But my assumption is that the most interesting of those three is The Brutalist, which is at least attempting to do something thematically and at least is well-directed and well-acted. Well, folks, there is your rundown on everything Oscars related. I know it's a bit lengthy, but there are a lot of films there. And we'll give you, I'm sure, our full review of the Oscars themselves on

on Monday.

All of our movies, obviously, the Matt Walsh stuff. Am I racist? What is a woman? We've got All Access Live, which we did yesterday, in which I answered your questions. We also have episodes of The Search with people like Elon Musk and Megyn Kelly and Vivek. If you're not a member, you need to become a member today. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.