Ep. 2156 - Trump SLASHES AND BURNS Through Department of Education!
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Folks, as you know, tons going on in the news. Everything from tariff wars to the Department of Education being slashed and burned. First, you've seen the headlines. I'm sure The Daily Wire has stirred up the usual nut job leftist voices on CNN and MSNBC talking about our new effort to attain a pardon for Officer Derek Chauvin. No matter how much the Trump administration works to undo the damage caused by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over the last four years, the woke movement in American politics will

won't be over truly until this injustice is righted. Derek Chauvin was railroaded to appease a mob. President Trump does have the power over the federal part of Chauvin's charges to relieve those charges, but he does need to hear from you. Go to pardonderek.com right now. Sign the petition. When we fight, we win. With your support, we'll do it again. All right, so President Trump is winning big victories.

His big victory of the day is slashing and burning his way through the Department of Education. So according to CNN, the U.S. Education Department announced on Tuesday it is cutting nearly 50% of its entire workforce. President Trump, of course, has proposed eliminating the agency altogether.

Now, people don't seem to understand what it is that the Department of Education actually does. They seem to believe that all public schools all over the country are paid for by the federal government. That is not true. The vast majority of public school spending is state and local spending, as it should be, because there is legitimately no reason why a taxpayer in Florida should be subsidizing the public school education of a student in California, at least in the main.

The truth is that the vast majority of spending that happens via the Department of Education is federal student aid on college loans. In other words, what you have seen is the cost of college skyrocket because of the gigantic subsidies that are paid for by your taxpayer dollars to the colleges that are then churning out good little left-wing apparatchiks.

If you look at the Department of Education by subcomponent for fiscal year 2025, what you find is by far, by far, the largest outlay is the Office of Federal Student Aid. You can see that their total budgetary obligations

Sixty eight point seven seven billion dollars just on that federal student loan. And remember, Joe Biden wanted to radically expand that. Why? Because those are all his friends. They're all his friends. When you talk about the pipeline of dollars flowing from permanent employees in the federal government to permanent staffers in the blue infrastructure around America, the number one place this happens is in higher education, which is, in fact, subsidized by the American taxpayer. It should not be. This could all be done privately. All of it.

And it would be better if it were done privately. I've made this case before. The reason it would be better is because then you would actually be forced to consider whether you need a degree in lesbian dance studies as opposed to simply taking the money from the federal government subsidized over the course of 30 years to go get a degree in lesbian dance studies. We've artificially inflated the necessity for a degree in this country. There are many, many jobs in this country that now require a degree that didn't before. Why? Because when you increase the number of people going to college,

Well, then you increase the expectation that people will have gone to college. There is a signal category error in higher education in the United States that was made back in the 1960s.

The dunderheads in the federal government looked at the stats, and what they saw is that college grads made more than high school grads. Their conclusion was not that college grads make more than high school grads because they were going into professions that made more money. Their conclusion was that this was a lack of opportunity in general for high school grads, and that if we could artificially boost the number of high school grads who are going into college, that that would somehow boost overall income in the United States. Well, all it did was it pushed everybody up one level.

So now grad students make a lot more money than college students who make a lot more money than high school grads, who just prolonged the time before entering into the workforce. So a bunch of people who don't need a college degree to do the job they are currently doing spend four years incurring $100,000, $200,000 in debt

On the tax paradigm, subsidized. Before they get to go to a job, they certainly could have done when they were 18 years old and they could have just gone into the workforce. It is a scam. It is a massive, massive scam. That doesn't mean everything at our universities is a scam. As I've talked about before, when you are talking about specific career paths, university can be great. If you're talking about science, technology, engineering, math, the STEM fields, all that stuff, you are going to need a degree because it is preparing you for a higher level job that requires higher levels of training.

And I know that there are a lot of people who believe that colleges and universities should be a sort of prereq to entry into public life because somehow they create good citizens. That died long ago. The argument for liberal arts colleges died with the takeover of those liberal arts colleges by the left. It used to be that universities and colleges in the United States inculcated a sense of virtue and citizenship. You still see the occasional college or university that does that. Some of them are sponsors of the show. Others are startup universities.

Some of them are Christian universities. They are few and far between. The reality is the vast majority of colleges and universities instead take in high school students. They churn out left wing thinkers or people who are apathetic about politics with a degree that cost them a lot of money subsidized by taxpayer dollars. So cutting the Department of Education has in fact been a Republican item on the agenda since the 1980s. But only President Trump is actually taking that seriously and all credit to him.

Linda McMahon, the newly approved Secretary of Education, is going to take over a department that has already been cut by something like 50 percent. Many of the proper jobs of the Department of Education, things, for example, like the Office of English Language Acquisition, which is designed presumably to get people to actually learn English in the country. And there are certain parts of the DOE that you might want to maintain. OK, fine. You shift those out of that department and you kill the department entirely so that it can't be rebuilt from within by the left. This is one of the most bloated parts of the federal government, the Department of Education.

The total budgetary resources of the Department of Education amount to something on the order of $103 billion, somewhere in that neighborhood. All of that can be cut. The left, of course, is mewling over this, screaming over this. Hundreds will be laid off, according to CNN, starting on Tuesday evening, in addition to those who voluntarily tick buyouts.

Those actions would cut the department's workforce of about 4,100 at the start of the Trump administration in half. Education Secretary Linda McMahon put out a statement, quote, She said later the reductions are the first course of action in shutting down the agency entirely.

CNN reported last week the White House was preparing an executive order directing Linda McMahon to begin the process of dismantling the department. By the way, huge credit to our friend Chris Ruffo, who's been pushing in serious ways for this for a very long time. Hard to think of a more effective advocate journalist than Chris Ruffo over the course of the last five years in the United States. The roughly 1,300 employees notified of their layoff will be terminated in 90 days, according to senior agency officials.

Senior officials told reporters the cuts will not impact federal student aid in any way, shape or form. I would hope that they do. I understand that it's an unpopular view with some who believe that federal dollars should just keep flowing willy nilly. But again, one of the most bloated parts of the federal government is this thing. The laid off employees will begin their telework beginning Wednesday until March 21st. Unions, of course, are just freaking out about all of this.

And by the way, that is a good sign. You want the unions to freak out about all this. So for example, Randy Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the most loathsome figures in American public life, a person who kept kids out of school for two years to get her constituents, union members, paid to effectively do nothing, wrecking kids for a couple of years on the basis of pseudoscience. Randy Weingarten, the far left advocate for every bad policy you can imagine, shoes on with Molly Jongfast, who's

The only notable thing about Molly Jongfast is her hair color changes on sort of a random basis. In any case, here was Randy Weingarten going off and saying, I love this. She was saying, you know what's going to happen here? What's going to happen is this is going to boost funding for school choice. Oh, no. You mean the most...

popular civil rights policy of our era might be boosted, that parents might have the opportunity to take their kids out of failing public schools, for example, and put them in better private schools or competitors. Oh no, Randy Weingarten, that sounds, rule of thumb, anything Randy Weingarten is against, we should all be for.

So we know, for example, what Texas would do. They'll use it for vouchers. So they won't give it to the kids who have it now. They'll just give it for vouchers. Catholic schools, religious schools. And frankly, what we're seeing in all the programs that are now extant in terms of vouchers, they don't work for kids. They basically go right now.

it becomes a tax credit for people who already are sending their kids to private schools. So it's income redistribution. It's income redistribution, school vouchers. School vouchers are a way to let parents remove their kids from schools they don't want to send their kids to. And she says this is somehow bad. Of course it's bad for her because her entire shtick is taxpayers should fund me, Randy Weingarten, and my schmucks over at the AFT.

to indoctrinate your kids or keep them out of school entirely. All of this is very good. It's a big win for the Trump administration, and we hope that it continues, obviously. This also ties into a broader level move against the educational establishment in the United States. So President Trump is utilizing the fact that major universities around the country have violated the civil rights of their Jewish students in order to essentially crack down on federal funding of these universities.

Good for him. Good for him. Again, let me point out, if you are against all anti-discrimination law, you're fully libertarian. I sympathize with that position. The idea that it should not be up to the federal government to discriminate against particular types of speech or particular types of attitude. And anti-discrimination laws do that, so you're against it. Okay, that's fine. But the reality is the Civil Rights Act does, in fact, ban in federal spending discrimination.

Any place that receives federal aid is not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, on the basis of sex, on the basis of other immutable characteristics, for example. And that also applies to Jews. It applies to blacks. It applies to whites. It applies to everyone. It applies to Jews. And these universities have basically decided it does not apply to certain subgroups who are too successful, particularly Jews and Asians.

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strong side effects that are, I think, beneficial. According to Commentary, Seth Mandel writing for Commentary magazine, the administration last week canceled $400 million in federal funding to Columbia and announced it was undertaking a review of billions more in grants. Finally, we had an answer to a lingering question. Would there be any tangible consequences for schools that allowed their campuses to descend into prolonged bouts of antisemitic hysteria?

Universities clearly took President Biden's passivity as a reason to bet against being held to account for their flagrant violations of Jewish students' civil rights. If they were right, that meant the only students they had to placate were the anti-Zionists.

There was no reason to protect Jewish rights or Jewish safety on campus because the Jews would never cause anywhere near the same level of trouble for them. But now the playing field has changed entirely. A source at Columbia told journalist Steve McGuire the Trump Education Department's threats weren't empty. Quote, grand cancellation notices flowing in now, labs shutting down, layoffs imminent, faculty apoplectic at Katrina Armstrong for letting it get to this point. She has to fix this fast. She, of course, is the university president over at Columbia replacing the disgraced Manoush Shafiq.

So, again, this is not just Columbia. It turns out that the Trump administration is cracking down on 60 other schools. The list of five dozen schools includes colleges from red and blue states, includes Brown and Yale, includes Arizona State University and the University of Tennessee, smaller institutions like Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And all of these universities are screaming to the high heavens about all of this. And the answer is maybe you shouldn't have made yourself dependent on federal aid if you didn't want any of this attached.

And two, maybe you should have, you know, cracked down on the tentafada nut jobs you took over your campus. I am amused, by the way, at the consistent attitude of Democrats toward anyone who hates Jews in Israel. And it is a pretty consistent attitude. So this, of course, brings up the pseudo controversy around the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, who's a green card holder, who's an open terror sympathizer. See, here's the thing. If you hold a green card,

You don't have a right to be in our country if you support terrorists. That's all. That's all. If the argument is that you have the free speech right under free speech somehow to pass out flyers with Hamas insignia on them and lead up groups that call for armed revolution against the West, I'm wondering what exactly our immigration standards are at all. At all. So President Trump had the right response to this yesterday.

It is almost impossible for President Trump not to take iconic photos. It's just an innate quality. Yesterday, he did a bit of a showpiece for Elon Musk about Tesla. He bought himself a Tesla. And so he was standing in front of a series of Teslas next to Musk, and he was asked about Mahmoud Khalil, and here was his response. I think we ought to get them all out of the country. They're troublemakers. They're agitators. They don't love our country. We ought to get them the hell out. I think that guy, we ought to get him. I heard his statements, too. They were plenty bad.

And I think we ought to get him the hell out of the country. I watched him. I watched tapes. Specifically, I watched tapes. And you can have him. Okay? You can have him. By the way, you know who agrees with that? Everyone. Everyone. This is not a controversial proposition in America. Everybody who...

I will say it's a very weird agglomeration of people who are suddenly very interested in the quote unquote free speech rights of green card holders. I've noticed on the right, it includes many people who are deeply exercised over H-1B visas for Indians coming here to, you know, do tech. But they really don't want the Indians coming here to do tech, but they must, they must maintain the rights of a green card holder who supports terrorism. Very important. So long as that that person's attitude is anti-Jewish. And I noticed that just the thing I noticed.

Very strange juxtaposition. We hate all immigrants and they should be out of here, except for this guy who really, really hates Jews. Notice it's weird. It's a little weird. In any case, this is not a free speech case, as Andy McCarthy over at National Review points out. When you openly support terrorism and when you take over buildings to openly support terrorism in a way that amounts to a threat, which is what he actually did as the head of this organization at Columbia University, you have now violated the law.

Andy McCarthy has a good rundown on this over at National Review. He says, it's not clear how old Khalil is or when he began matriculating at Columbia. He came to the United States to study at Columbia after receiving his undergrad degree in computer science at the American University of Beirut. Apparently, he worked for the British government as an intern at its embassy in Beirut and for an NGO called Jasur, which is Arabic for bridges. But apparently, he also worked as a public affairs officer for the UNRWA, which is basically a terrorist front group for Hamas.

Last spring, at the apex of the pro-Khamas agitation in Colombia that followed the October 7th atrocities, Khalil reportedly told The Verge, quote, I am here on a foreign visa. That's why for the past six months I barely appeared on the media. That's why I'm not suspended. I did not participate, fearing I will be arrested and ultimately deported from the country. So does he have a student visa? Does he have a green card? Not totally clear at this point. Again, a permanent green card holder can be deported if that person espouses terrorist activities.

Section 1182 of federal immigration law controls the categories of aliens who may be excluded from the United States. In the category of national security, the statute mainly targets aliens who have engaged in terrorist activities, but there's additional latitude. An alien may be excluded if he has endorsed or espoused terrorist activity. That includes violent attacks and the planning of such attacks. So if you support Hamas, you have now violated that under the law. Once an alien has entered the United States and then has residential status,

Then they have some additional rights. However, the claim should fail because when it comes to support for terrorism, our law does not privilege green card holders over other classes of aliens. So, yeah, again, the reality is that Secretary Rubio is correct. An alien, even a green card holder, has no right while in the United States to join with groups that endorse or espouse terrorist activity. So all the government has to do is show that Khalil was in a campus group that endorsed or espoused Hamas atrocities.

And as we talked about yesterday on the show, he did that like a lot, like a lot. And he didn't hide it. And yet you see people who are out there defending Mahmoud Khalil on, again, the bizarre right and the entire left. The Senate Judiciary Democrats put out a tweet yesterday saying, free Mahmoud Khalil. I noticed they didn't have a similar tweet saying, free Idan Alexander, the actual American hostage still being held by Hamas in terror tunnels. In any case, Caroline Lovett was asked about this. And here was her answer yesterday.

Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation's finest universities and colleges. And he took advantage of that opportunity, of that privilege by siding with terrorists

Hamas terrorists who have killed innocent men, women and children. This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda. Flyers with the logo of Hamas.

Okay, so again, you want to defend that? Go for it. Seriously, it's all you. And we all know, by the way, that if this person had been on campus as an immigrant, handing out Ku Klux Klan flyers, that person would be deported and there wouldn't be anybody batting an eye. We all know this to be the fact.

It is only that there are certain subgroups in the United States, particularly on the left, who are seen as too successful to be determined as quote unquote minority groups. That's what's going on here. So another win for the Trump administration. Speaking of wins for the Trump administration,

Obviously, the talks between Ukraine and Russia have been incredibly fraught. There are no direct talks between Ukraine and Russia. Yesterday, there was a meeting in Saudi Arabia between representatives of the United States government, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, both of whom are excellent at their jobs, both terrific appointees by President Trump. And they met with the Ukrainians. They then put out a joint statement. The joint statement suggested, one, that Ukraine would agree to a 30-day ceasefire conditional on Russia's reciprocal implementation.

The U.S. would resume intelligence sharing and security assistance. During the ceasefire, Ukraine would propose a prisoner exchange, the release of civilian detainees and the return of Ukrainian children. Delegations would establish negotiation teams to work toward a lasting peace. Ukraine wanted Europe involved in the process, and the president's agreed to move quickly on a critical minerals deal to strengthen Ukraine's economy. So this is this is a win. It is a win for the United States. It's also a win for Ukraine because now the ball is in Russia's court.

Because Ukraine has now agreed to a ceasefire without any other preconditions. The restoration of aid and intelligence is good because, again, this is what Ukraine needs. They need American support so that if Russia does not come to the table, Ukraine doesn't collapse. Here are Rubio and Waltz explaining yesterday. Today we made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable and accounts for their interests, their security, their ability to prosper as a nation.

I want to personally thank we both want to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's majesty for hosting us for making this possible. They've been instrumental in this process and we're very grateful to them for hosting us here today. And hopefully we'll we'll take this offer now to the Russians. And we hope that they'll say yes, that they'll say yes to peace. The ball is now in their court. And again, this is a good move by Ukraine. It's a good move by the United States. The ball is in Russia's court and Russia needs to be held accountable for not coming to the table now.

because Ukraine is at the table. And it took some cuddling, it took some pushing, it took some... Ukraine is at the table. That's all. They've accepted the ceasefire deal. Now Russia needs to do the same. Early indicators, by the way, say that Russia is not going to do the same, that Russia is too interested in pushing forward. According to the Wall Street Journal, the ceasefire plan, which is contingent on Russian acceptance, envisions opening negotiations between Kiev and Moscow on halting the war. According to that joint statement, President Trump reinforced that message at the White House.

He said, now we have to go to Russia and hopefully President Putin will agree to that and we can get the show on the road. We want to get that war over with. Now, it'll be interesting to see whether Vladimir Putin actually comes to the table, whether he futzes around, whether he lies. President Putin is not famous for being particularly truthful in his foreign negotiations. The National Security Advisor, Mike Walsh, said that his talks with the Ukrainians did involve discussions on, quote, how this war is going to permanently end, what type of guarantees they're going to have for their long-term security and prosperity.

He said, we're going to really look at what's going to it's going to finally take to end this horrific fighting. So it's unclear exactly what the United States' role in that is going to be, which is presumably why the Europeans want to be involved. And Zelensky wants the Europeans involved. Zelensky, for his part, said yesterday that the conversations in Saudi Arabia were good and productive. Our delegation has just reported on the meeting.

With the American team in Saudi Arabia, the discussion lasted most of the day today. It was a good discussion, constructive. Our teams managed to cover many details. Our position is absolutely clear. Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of the war.

And we want to do everything to ensure that that peace is lasting. And that is Zelensky's take. So again, the administration has moved the Ukrainians. Now it's up to the Russians to move the other way. Folks, earlier on the show, we talked about failing educational institutions. Let me give you one that actually is not one of those institutions. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, they believe were endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose.

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Meanwhile, Democrats are distracted with the most bizarre issues. So yesterday, the biggest blow up of the day happened in the House of Representatives, where there was a House committee that was meeting one of the members of that House committee, where a person formerly known as Tim McBride, who is a biological male, who says he is a female and calls himself Sarah McBride, Representative Keith Self of Texas, referred to McBride as Mr. McBride, because, of course, he's a man.

Sarah McBride is man and all hell broke loose. I now recognize the representative from Delaware, Mr. McBride. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ranking Member Keating, also wonderful. Mr. Chairman, could you repeat your introduction again, please? Yes, it's a it's a we have set the standard on the floor of the House and I'm simply. What is that standard, Mr. Chairman?

Would you repeat what you just said when you introduced a duly elected representative from the United States of America, please? I will. The representative from Delaware, Mr. McBride. Mr. Chairman, you are out of order. Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I've come to know you a little bit, but this is not decent. We will continue this. You will not continue it with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way. This hearing is adjourned.

OK, so I will notice here that the congressmember who is chiding Keith Self right there and Representative Bill Keating, the one who's losing it on him from Massachusetts, when he says, have you no decency, sir? That is a paraphrase of something that was said by a Boston lawyer back in the McCarthy era to Joseph McCarthy when McCarthy was going after people for supposedly being communists.

He said, have you no sense of decency? So just to come right now, the thing that Democrats are most concerned about is that a man must be called a woman, even if he is not a woman.

You geniuses, you. Slow clap for you guys. You're really on the ball these days, really doing great. Meanwhile, Alyssa Slotkin, who for some reason, the Senator from Michigan, is being promoted as a sort of new hot face of the Democrats. I'm not sure what the supposed skill set is that elevates her to this position, but she appeared on that great presidential testing ground, The View, Total IQ, 72. I mean, total, like for all of the members. And there, she proceeded to insult Americans, which is always a great idea.

I don't think there's anyone who feels like what's going on right now is normal, even if you voted for Trump. Right? I think there's a feeling in the country, and I often say this, you know, we're about to turn 250 years old, right? We're still pretty young for a country. These are our, like, our angry teenage years, right? We are going through this push and pull where we're happy, we're sad, we want this, we want that. And what do you do when you have a teenager who's threatening...

themselves and others, you just try to get them through this period alive so that their brain can fully form and you can come back to kind of what the country... Are you talking about Trump? No, I'm talking about our country. We're pendulum swinging. We're pendulum swinging. And so for me, I think that this... I don't think there's a single American who feels like this is normal. No, no, no. It doesn't feel like... We're just a bunch of angry Americans. Angry teenagers. Angry teenagers. We don't know what's coming next. Just...

Great. I'm so glad that you've characterized the American people this way. This is definitely the way to win them back. Now, meanwhile, the reality is I've been saying for a while here is that the only way Democrats are able to get back into power, given their dedication to some of the world's worst causes, truly some of the worst causes from the pro-Homasnics to the idea that men are women,

The only way for them to gain power again is if the economy slows or goes into recession. That is the only way for them to regain power, which is why I am quite wary of what has been going on in this ongoing sort of tariff war that President Trump has now declared.

So President Trump yesterday was asked about the tariff war. And again, the tariff war is escalating, according to the Associated Press. The European Union on Wednesday announced retaliatory trade action with new duties on U.S. industrial and farm products, responding within hours to the Trump administration's increase in tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25 percent. The EU measures will cover goods from the United States worth about $28 billion. They're not just targeting steel and aluminum products, but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans will be hit.

Now, of course, this also happened during President Trump's first term. This is more an early indicator. It's not like these tariffs in and of themselves are going to destroy the American capacity to export or something. These are relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but they're sort of a shot across the bow.

According to the AP, the EU duties aim for pressure points in the United States while minimizing additional damage to Europe. The tariffs primarily target Republican-held states, hitting soybeans in House Speaker Mike Johnson's Louisiana, but also beef and poultry in Kansas and Nebraska, as well as Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia. Ursula von der Leyen put out a statement saying that they will always remain open to negotiation. She said, as the U.S. are applying tariffs worth $28 billion, we're responding with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros, which is the same amount,

She said, we firmly believe in a world fraught with geopolitical and economic uncertainties. It is not in our common interest to burden our economies with tariffs. And she said jobs are at stake. Prices will go up in Europe and in the United States. President Trump tried to lay out his defense of the sort of tariff wars that he is now declaring. Here he was yesterday.

What I have to do is I have to get the workers back. I have to get the factories open. We have 90,000 factories and plants are closed from what you had just prior to NAFTA, which is not very long ago. 90,000. Think of it. 90,000 factories and plants are closed from what it was. And it's just not right. So and we gave it away. Presidents before me gave it away. And I could name every one of them.

but they gave it away and we're taking it back. We're taking our jobs back. Okay, I should just point out at this point that actually manufacturing in the United States, in terms of its actual GDP, in terms of its actual output, has risen dramatically, dramatically from its low point in about 2010. So manufacturing, employment has dropped. It's been rising steadily since 2010, actually, manufacturing employment. However,

The output has risen dramatically. What does that mean? It means manufacturing got more efficient. One of the things nobody wants to talk about in manufacturing is that the reason we lose jobs in manufacturing or are not generating more jobs in manufacturing is because manufacturing in the United States via union employees is so expensive that people simply replace the employees of capital machinery with robots, in other words.

The real reason why manufacturing is not more of a thing in the United States than it currently is, is because of the high cost of doing business in the United States in the manufacturing arena. It is cheaper to do business elsewhere. You can relieve all that. You can fix all of that through tax cuts and deregulation, as opposed to tariff regimes that really kind of subsidize bloated industries.

Now, the actual thing that is happening is manufacturing as a share of America's employment has dropped. But in absolute numbers, the number of manufacturing employees actually has risen somewhat substantially over the course of the last 10 years or so. So this kind of notion that we need to re-industrialize and the way to do that is tariffs.

You can reindustrialize and have more factories, but it's going to cost you. It's going to cost the consumer. It's going to take money from certain parts of the economy to subsidize those parts of the economy. Again, if you want to do that for national security purposes, I get it. But if this is just a redistributive mechanism that harms the American economy, forces investors not to invest,

rips away people's 401ks, that is not going to be a good and beneficial thing for the American consumer or for Trump's agenda because of the economy tanks. Now, President Trump may have a long-term vision of what he wants the economy to look like, but it turns out that the American electoral cycle is two years.

Whichever party is in power when a recession happens gets absolutely hammered. If you want to see Trump's agenda actually win, what you need is for the Republicans to retain power and actually grow their power in the next round of elections in 2026. Again, one of the indicators I think that the market is taking away from what President Trump is doing is that he just likes tariffs in general. And this has been the big question for the market.

When it comes to President Trump's economic policy, and my take for a very long time has been that he uses tariffs as leverage, that he uses tariffs as a way to get other countries to do things, that he might want to protect certain national security-based industries. And all that is fine and dandy. But if the market takes away, one, high levels of uncertainty, right, people switching their mind every moment, or two, that President Trump has a generalized actual like for tariffs, and he's willing to undergo quote-unquote pain in order to enforce those tariffs, that could be a problem.

The reason that the rubber has hit the road when it comes to Canada is because everybody looks at Canada and they say, what in the, like, why Canada? Seriously. So I asked our friends at Perplexity, prior to the current tariff war, what was Canada's average applied tariff rate to U.S. goods under the U.S. MCA?

Again, this search was sponsored by our friends over at Perplexity. Perplexity is a great service. You should use it. Here is what they say. Prior to the current tariff war, Canada's average applied tariff rate to U.S. goods under the USMCA, again, that is a deal negotiated by President Trump, was relatively low. According to World Bank data, Canada's trade-weighted average tariff rate in 2022 was 1.37%. This rate was actually lower than the United States' average tariff rate of 1.49% for the same year.

It's important to note that while Canada did have some higher tariffs on specific products, particularly those protected under its supply management system, those were the exceptions rather than the norms. When you hear, for example, that dairy products faced huge tariffs ranging from 200 to 300 percent, or poultry and eggs had high tariffs, these were on specific products that really did not impact the overall tariff rate. In fact, among the 137 nations analyzed by the World Bank for trade-weighted tariff averages, Canada ranked 102nd

indicating its own tariff regime was relatively open compared to many other countries. And again, there were a lot of goods that were traded

under the USMCA, duty-free between the United States and Canada. So basically, we're banging on one of the countries we had already the lowest tariff rate with. Also worth noting, we had a trade surplus with Canada, okay? The only area where you did not have a trade surplus with Canada was in oil. That's it. That is the only area. Other than that, we have a trade surplus with Canada. So why are we banging on the Canadians other than they're kind of annoying and say eh a lot? It's bizarre to smack Canada. They're our number one trading partner. They are peaceful.

They're a bunch of people who can't spell the word color, but we like them generally. They are not exactly a wartime threat. So all the talk about, listen, I'm amused as well, but my amusement turns to bemusement when it turns out that all this sort of talk sends the Dow Jones Industrial Average spiraling.

Then the fun and games come to a bit of an end. Yesterday, the White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, she again suggested that Canada should be the 51st state. When we keep saying this, okay, we start off the joke. I'm in. I like jokes about Canada the same as anyone else. You know, they would make a fine 51st state. Although, frankly, I think that we could leave certain parts of Canada in Canada. I don't think, for example, that we necessarily need Vancouver or Toronto. But in any case,

The question of should they be the 51st state is driving liberals at the ballot box in Canada. As I mentioned, Pierre Poliev needs to be the next prime minister of Canada because he's great. We don't want the leader of the Liberal Party to be the next prime minister of Canada to just replace one Justin Trudeau with a slightly less good looking Justin Trudeau.

And yet when you repeat this kind of stuff, sure, it's kind of fun and games for the online trollery of it. Does anyone actually think that Canada is going to be the 51st day? Like, really, really? The memory is fine. The jokes are fine. I like a J.D. Vance weird face morphing meme on X as much as the next guy. I just don't understand why is this action? Like, what's the goal here? What's the goal?

Canada is a neighbor. They are a partner. They have always been an ally. Perhaps they are becoming a competitor now. But as the president also laid out in his Truth Social post today, he believes that Canadians would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state of the United States of America.

I actually looked into some of the research about the cost of living in Canada and the cost of living is much higher than it is here in the United States of America. The average cost of a home in Canada is much higher. In Quebec, the highest tax rate for an income of $150,000 or more is 53.3%, more than half of Canadians' incomes they are being taxed on. So the President has made it clear that he believes Canadians would be better served economically

militarily if they were to become the 51st state of the United States of America. So why? Like, just why? OK, like at a certain point, the joke starts to actually have real world consequences. And so I'm just I don't understand. Like, what is the goal? What is the goal? So yesterday, this all broke out into the open because the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, who is not actually like a far left winger, Doug Ford.

He's the leader of Canada's most popular province, told reporters in Toronto that he was going to be issuing an export tax on electricity. He was going to do that in retaliation for the tariffs that are being levied against Canada. So here he was yesterday saying, listen, we love America, but could you please stop attacking us with tariffs? And if you do, then I'm going to start increasing the price of electricity shipped down into the northeastern United States.

I start every interview with saying we love Americans. I love Americans, spent 20 years of my life there. And I know Canadians love Americans and vice versa. In saying that, we will not back down. We will be relentless. I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country, on families, on jobs, and it's unacceptable. Let's work together. Let's get to the table if he has issues and let's sort this out.

Okay, so he says that. President Trump then retaliates by bashing Canada for denying America electricity. He put out a statement saying, why would our country allow another country to supply us with electricity, even for a small area? Who made these decisions and why? Can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use electricity that so affects the life of innocent people as a bargaining chip and threat? They'll pay a financial price for this so big. You'll be read about in history books for many years to come. Okay, so then he escalates and he says that he is going to increase electricity.

The tariff on Canadian metals from 25 to 50 percent. Doug Ford then held a call with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, during which they agreed to scrap the electricity surcharge in exchange for relaxation of the steel and aluminum tariffs. That's the United States basically saying, OK, fine, you know, we don't want to pay more for electricity. We're going to back off some of these tariffs. What is the goal of all of this? Seriously, I don't I don't understand. What is the what is the what is the goal that I want President Trump to succeed?

If President Trump is to succeed, we need a thriving economy. Declaring a trade war on Canada under the terms of the USMCA, which he himself negotiated in Trump term one, is not going to be a productive move for his administration. And there's more to come, by the way. I mean, President Trump is expected to issue a bunch of new tariffs come April 2nd. I mean, he openly said that in the State of the Union address. If there is a plan here, the markets would love to hear it.

Because, again, the markets are simply looking for some sort of predictability here. The markets are simply looking for some sort of understanding of what's coming next and why it's coming next and what the plan is. Caroline Leavitt was asked about this a lot at the White House yesterday. Here she was defending President Trump's tariffs.

- When President Trump last addressed the BRT when he was on the campaign trail, his big push was on tax cuts. He's going there today as he's proposing tax hikes in the form of tariffs. - Not true. - And I'm curious-- - He's not doing that. - For why he's prioritizing that over the tax cuts. - He's actually not implementing tax hikes

Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that again have been ripping us off. Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people. Well, I'm glad you brought up workers because that's exactly who President Trump is looking out for with his America first trade policy and his America first economic agenda. And if you look at there's great indication to be optimistic about where the economy stands and the American people are

Investors, CEOs, small business owners, but most importantly, workers should bet on President Trump because his tariff policies, what he envisions is reciprocity, fair trade practices where American workers are put first and are no longer ripped off by foreign countries all over this world. Again, I'm going to need some clarification as to how this is actually going to, in the short term, medium and long term, benefit Americans. We can talk about other countries ripping us off as much as we want.

And again, if the goal here is to lower the tariffs by getting other countries to lower their tariffs, then great, I'm all in. Makes sense. But if the idea is the tariffs themselves enrich the American people, that is against pretty much all economic knowledge for the last couple of centuries or so. So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it'll turn out to be great.

Or maybe the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been speaking over the course of the last couple of months and it disagrees. American Giant makes great clothing, sweatshirts, jeans, and more right here in the U.S. Visit American-Giant.com and get 20% off your first order with code STAPLE20. That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com, code STAPLE20.

The reason this matters, again, the reason this matters is because what President Trump is actually trying to do in so many areas is so important. We cannot have the agenda founder on the rocks of misbegotten tariff wars. And there's so many other areas where the economy is opening up. So, for example, the new Federal Trade Commission chair, Andrew Ferguson, held a meeting with a group of big business CEOs on Tuesday, and he said he's no longer going to let proposed deals die on the vine.

He said that if a merger is going to hurt the American consumer, then he would stop it. But if we don't believe that it's going to hurt consumers, we'll get the hell out of the way. I mean, that is a complete reversal of the way that the FTC was working under the ex-grubble Lena Kahn, who basically got in the way of any merger, any deal that she could in the name of social justice. Not in the name of consumers, but in the name of her perverse views about how businesses should run. And President Trump is doing a number of wonderful things. Again,

And it's really important that he succeed. And the number one obstacle to success is an economic downturn. It is by far the number one obstacle. And I think President Trump knows this, which is why, of course, the Republicans last night and another, Speaker Johnson has been much maligned

He has been ripped up and down. He has been told by the right wing of his contingent that he's not strong enough. He's been told by the media that he's incapable of holding together such a narrow coalition. But time after time, he seems to somehow emerge with a political victory. Yesterday, the House did pass with only one Republican vote lost. That would be, of course, Thomas Massey, who votes no on everything, did pass a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. That is a good thing. It is a good thing for President Trump. It is a good thing for Speaker Johnson. It is a good thing for the Republican agenda.

Because if the continuing resolution did not pass and you got a government shutdown, Democrats would make hay. They would look properly at the Republicans and say, you're the majority. So what are you doing? So good for Speaker Johnson. Again, there's so many good things happening. Don't get in the way. Don't get in your own way here. Do not get in your own way.

Meanwhile, the big photo op of the day was President Trump did a photo op with Elon Musk featuring Tesla at the White House, presumably that has something to do with the fact that that Elon Musk's company has taken some major hits since he signed on to do all the work that he's been doing at Doge. Again, I'm a big fan of what he's been doing at Doge. Tesla stock was trading at a high of like 480 bucks a share almost in December of 2024 is now trading at approximately half that. So it's been a pretty major knockoff.

And Tesla's an amazing company. I own a Tesla. I think Tesla's great. Here's President Trump promoting Tesla yesterday at the White House. Hello, President Trump. Are you looking to buy or lease today? I'm going to buy. And I'm going to buy because, number one, it's a great product, as good as it gets. And number two, because this man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this. And I think he's been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people.

And I just want people to know that you can't be penalized for being a patriot. And he's a great patriot. And he's also done an incredible job with Tesla. Meanwhile, Elon Musk said that he was going to be working on doubling vehicle output. This has been a serious problem for Tesla in the past is that the demand for Tesla has not been supplied because there's been bottlenecking in the process. Here he was yesterday.

As a function of the great policies of President Trump and his administration, and as an act of faith in America, Tesla is going to double vehicle output in the United States within the next two years.

Double. That's a big deal. Thank you. And by the way, he makes one car. This one I don't understand. This one I don't want, but that's okay. Without a steering wheel. It comes out next year. Explain that, please. Yes. Well, the CyberCap starts production in Texas next year. And...

It's self-driving. We have so much confidence in the self-driving nature of it that it will actually not have a steering wheel. It will not have pedals. It'll either self-drive or not drive at all, but it'll self-drive. And I'm going to pass on that particular one. Okay, so again, President Trump's very funny, and this is a nice warm embrace here from President Trump for Elon Musk and the car.

President Trump also said there's been a bunch of violence at Tesla dealerships. And he says, I'll label this domestic terrorism, which again, if you're like blowing up particular stores in the name of politics, kind of definitionally domestic terrorism.

Mr. President, talk about some of the violence that's been going on around the country at dealerships. Some say they should be labeled domestic terrorists. I will do that. I'll do it. I'm going to stop them. We catch anybody doing it because they're harming a great American company. You know, I've stuck up for the NFL. I've stuck up for a lot of American companies and other companies, but American companies. I did.

a very big favor for the NFL. I do favors for all. When you heard an American company, especially a company like this, supply so many jobs that others are unable to do. When you do that, those people are going to go through a big problem when we catch them. So again, this is quite proper. Now, as I say, the big flaw here is if the economy goes south, Bernie Sanders is waiting in the wings. He's waiting for the economy to go south because then what he's going to claim is that the oligarchy sent the economy south to hurt you

This is going to be the next take. If the economy goes south, mark my words, the Bernie bros will be back and stronger than ever because they are going to claim falsely that the economy going south is not the result of bad economic policies like, for example, tariff wars, but it's actually the result of evil predatory capitalism. Bernie's waiting for it. He's rooting for it. Here he was yesterday. These are the scariest times in my lifetime. That's all. I mean, I think that's objectively the truth.

You know, it is not just they want to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut programs for working people. Frankly, that's happened before. But you combine that with the power of the oligarchy in general. You combine that with Mr. Musk owning Twitter and able to send out his messages to hundreds of millions of people. You combine that with the fact that people like Bezos, the second wealthiest person,

person in the country, fired or got rid of most of his editorial staff and is going to convert him into a right wing thing. Combine that with the fact that Trump is suing major media outlets and is threatening to investigate PBS and NPR. So it's not only the power of money, it's also combined with that, the movement toward authoritarianism. Again, this is going to be the pitch. And so long as things are going well, it's going to fail.

That's why things have to keep going well. All right, coming up, we're going to jump into the Vaunted Ben Shapiro Show mailbag, answer some of your questions. If you want your question answered, by the way, you have to be a member. If you want to be able to see things like our All Access Live, where I hang out and answer your questions live. If you want to be able to view our amazing films from people like Matt Walsh, Am I Racist? What is a Woman? If you want to be able to access the mailbag and backstage live, you need to become a member. 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.