The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage: Trump’s Address to Congress

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

President Donald Trump delivers a historic address to Congress, outlining his America First agenda on immigration, the economy, and national security—and for the first time ever, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh will be in D.C. for the historic event. Join a special Backstage Live with Shapiro, Walsh, Knowles, Klavan, and Boreing, followed by unfiltered reaction on what it means for America’s future.   - - -   Today's Sponsors:   Boll & Branch - Get 20% off, plus FREE shipping at https://BollAndBranch.com/backstage   Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code BACKSTAGE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, Michael Knowles here. The latest episode of Daily Wire Backstage, Trump's address to Congress live is available now. Join me, Andrew Claven and the God King Jeremy Boring, along with Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, reporting live from Congress as we break down President Trump's biggest moves since taking office and give our real-time reaction to his address. Was this the greatest address of all time? How has Trump changed Washington since becoming president? We're covering it all, so do not miss it. Enjoy. Welcome to Daily Wire Backstages live coverage of Donald Trump's address to Congress. Some people will call it a state of the union. Some people will get on to us if we do call it a state of the union. It's very controversial. It will look exactly like a state of the union, and I think that's really what matters. I'm joined here in Nashville by Andrew Claven and Michael Moles. Of course, I'm your host, Jeremy Boring, and joining us remotely from the Capitol itself. Tonight we have Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh. There's an empty chair, which we were saving for Elijah, but it has now been filled. and the man filling it is the former acting director of ICE and the current borders are in the second Trump administration, Tom Holman.

Thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. If you are not a Daily Wire Plus member, here's what you're missing. Add-free, uncensored shows from the most trusted names in the conservative media, plus Andrew Claven. If you're not watching DailyWire Plus, you're not getting the full show, plus exclusive investigative journalism, first access to what's next. And if you join now, you can take part in the live chat

where you can ask us questions during the live show, dailywire.com slash subscribe. Obviously a really big night, the sort of triumphal return of Donald Trump to the Capitol as now the 47th president. What can we expect tonight, Ben? Well, I mean, I think that you're going to expect a very enthusiastic Republican reception. We heard from the speaker that we are expecting a bunch of Democrats to show up with empty egg cartons and they're going to wave them at the president, about egg prices. That'll show him. Noisemakers. They're going to try and disrupt as many things as possible, but they've been unable to disrupt the agenda thus far. And so I think they're going to have a rough time of it tonight.

But we'd be remiss. We don't get to sit what the borders are very often. So borders are on home. What are you expecting tonight? I expect President Trump to educate American people on the facts of the border that what he did in three weeks, Biden administration failed to do in four years. We had the lowest border numbers in the history of United States border. And that's not an exaggeration. Last month, we had the fewest of the number of encounters in the history of this nation. And President Trump did that in four weeks, so think what he's going to do in the next 47 months. So we've got the most secure border ever right now. We've got a little bit more work to do.

I said record amounts to rest in the interior. So as the president secures the border, here's where I hope people take away tonight. When you have 97% less people come in. Border is now on the border, 100% engaged, 100% on duty, not changing diapers, not making baby form, not making hospital runs. It means we seize more fentanyl, less Americans die from fentanyl. arrest more traffickers for less women and children of sex traffic. We got less no-inspected terrorists getting away in this country.

The Godaways alone, under Biden average, 1,800 God-Aways, the day that we know of, the other day, it's 41. And we're going to get that down to zero. So we're going to have total operational control of our southern border beast of first time history. Just to state the obvious that so when the media tries to claim that, well, the deportation numbers aren't as high as what Trump promised, The point is that the border is being secure, so we're not having the people come in, right? Exactly. They're counting the numbers of what was removed. Look, President Trump can remove 90% of people coming across the board. His deportation numbers are still going to be lower than Biden, even if Biden deported 10%

because they brought millions of people in. Understand in one month, total of 8,000, 8,000 in one month. And under Joe Biden, we're doing it's 11,000 a day. right? I don't mean... It's a big game changer. And I say every day, and I'll say tonight, President Trump proves every day why

he's the greatest president in my lifetime. It doesn't seem possible that the administration could have made this accomplishment because I was under the impression that it was impossible to secure the border unless we voted for Joe Biden's comprehensive immigration reform package. So somewhere I just got bad information.

Well, look, the President Trump did it before. this administration knew how to fix it. They just didn't choose to fix it. What Biden did was not mismanagement and was not incompetence. It was by design. They knew exactly what they're doing. He ran on open borders. He said he's going to shut down an ICE detention.

He said he's going to put a moratorium on deportations. He says we want to give free health care to illegal aliens. The promises he made, we knew the whole country, the whole world's going to come to the greatest nation on earth when you're offering all these giveways with no consequences. They knew how to fix it. refuse to do it. Again, what they failed to do in four years, Donald Trump did in three weeks. You know, Mr. Holman?

Tom Homan. Mr. Oman, Ben just mentioned that the Democrat lawmakers are planning to interrupt the speech with all sorts of noise makers and make a general nuisance of themselves. I know you're busy, sir. Would it be possible for you to deport them as well, please? Don't tempt me. Don't tempt me. Because, you know, I've been fighting with the Democratic outside of the house for a long time, especially the last couple of days, there's going to be members of Congress sitting in the audience tonight who are educating criminal illegal aliens how to evade law enforcement. They say, well, we're educating them as a constitutional rights. Okay, plan what you want. We all know what you're doing. You're educating those, how do we

evade law enforcement. Don't open your doors. Don't answer a question. You know, hide. And these are congresspeople that begged that these people had to write the claim asylum. They got to a right to see a judge. They got a right to due process. And that happened. They had that due process. But 90% of the been ordered removed. So if we don't execute the final decision of the court, there is no due process. It means nothing. You can't demand due process and ignore the final decision of the course. If we do that, they might as well just shut down the immigration courts, take the border to off the border. There's no consequences. You can't ask to implement a system of laws and ignore the final result. And that's why we're going to have a mask of deportation

operates because millions of people cross this border, 90% we get an order removal. We got to remove them. So any member of Congress who wants to educate, and we made a clear the Trump administration is going to concentrate in the worst, the worst, worst public safety threat, right? I can't believe any member of Congress wants to educate an illegal handling who's been convicted of a serious offense. He's got order removal at due process at great taxpayer expense and wants to educate them how to evade arrest. To me, they are resigned her position as member Congress going to do the complete opposite with American taxpayers expect to. Can I ask you about what about the Democrat mayors and governors who have promised, claimed,

in some cases claim that they're going to harbor illegal aliens in their own homes? Have you found that they're actually doing this? What are they doing to interfere with your operations? Or are they kind of getting in line? What's going on there? They haven't crossed the line yet. But if they cross the line, they're going to be prosecuted. You can stand aside and watch ICE do your job.

ICE is making their community safer. And I find it hard to believe every day there's any mayor or governor or city council person that doesn't want public safety threats removed from the public. It's sooner more responsibility to community safety. If you want to help us get the hell out of the way.

But I've warned numerous mayors and governors. Don't cross that line. If you impede us, that's a felony. And Pam Bondi, we'll ask Pam Bondi to prosecute. If you harbor or conceal an illegal an alien, knowingly harboring, concealing, and concealing alien from ICE, that's a felony. In my career, I've arrested U.S. citizens for harboring,

concealing, illegal alien in the workplace or a home. If I can prosecute a U.S. citizen in doing it, why can't we prosecute a politician who does that same thing? So, you know, I think we've got a strong A.G. and Pam Bondi, and if they cross that line, we should prosecute it and make an example of them. Now, to your point earlier, sir, that it's perfectly reasonable, perfectly understandable why someone living south of our border in particular would want to get to the greatest country in the history of the world. That's, it's a no-brainer.

When you add further incentives through all of our government programs, all the handouts, the open invitations that Joe Biden and his administration were putting out to people to come to the country, you can't be surprised when they do. At the same time, the idea that American politicians would engage in harboring, those people. It seems to me, it's very easy to throw around words like treason in political discussion. But when you're actually using your position as an elected representative of the American people to help criminal aliens in the country at the expense of your own constituents, I mean, how is that not a treasonous offense? When Joe Biden shuts down the Remain in Mexico program and says,

no, instead, we're going to bring millions of people into the country who don't need to be here. We already have a solution. The first Trump administration implemented the solution. We're going to remove the solution. How is that not treasonous? Look, I think a lot of what they did is treasonous. Take for example, the Gadaways, right? They overwhelmed the border patrol where many nights, 70%, 70% of agents were pulled off the line

to make sandwiches, change diapers, make baby form, to make hospital runs, dealing with this humanitarian crisis they created on purpose. Yeah. And the border patrol is overwhelmed. So you've got 30% of board patrols is left on the line. Then the criminal cartels are sent a group of 100 family units in one area, knowing that 30% are going to seize that opportunity to deal a humanitarian crisis there, which the cartels create gaps.

So you've got 2.2 million known got to ask yourself, why did 2 million plus people pay more to get away? Because you pay the cartels one amount of money to get to the border. The cartel's job ends when you get to the border because you just turn yourself in there. green uniform. You get released one in 24 hours. You get a free airline ticket to the city of your choice. You get put in a free hotel room. You get three meals a day and free medical care. After about three months, you get work authorization, the very reason they came here. So why did two million people pay more not to take advantage that giveaway program? Why did they pay more to get

away? Because they didn't want to be vetted. They didn't want to be fingerprinted. These are going to be people of trafficking in women and children. They're going to be ones carrying a fat and they're going to be ones coming from a country sponsoring terror. Now, under Trump in four years, we arrested a total of 14 people on terrorist watch list. 14 and 4 years. This Biden administration had 14 in a day. I mean, they were up over 400. So the question is, border to those arrested people from 181 different countries,

many of these countries are sponsored terror. They've arrested over 400. How many that 2.2 million came from a country sponsored terror? If you think it's zero, you're a moron. So this is the biggest national security vulnerability I've seen in my lifetime. Even FBI Director Ray, who I don't like, even he agreed this is the biggest national security vulnerability. He's seen a lot of red flags.

What they did when they purposely opened this border up is create the biggest national security vulnerability this nation's ever seen. And we know there's people here that want it to us harm. We know national security threats enter this country. We're monitoring some. Some. We don't know where there are. So when you use the word treases, I agree with you.

Because they, on purpose, create this open border, which resulted in a significant national security concern, national security vulnerability. We all know something's coming. The intelligence community believe something's going to be coming. And thank God we got President Trump in the Oval Office to deal with it when it happens. The right window treatments change everything. your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver.

Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 45% off site-wide, plus get a free professional measure at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. Yeah, and when you talk about this, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's very clear that the Biden administration, it was an act of will for them to leave the border this way. I was talking to you before we were on air. I was actually down at the border in Arizona's a Native American reservation right along the border.

There's no fencing there because the Native American reservation has wanted there to be fencing there. And so basically it's wide open. And the Biden administration, I was told by Border Patrol, had assigned them to process people as a number one priority. The drug cartels would essentially drive up with the truck filled with people. They would unload them at the border. There was actually a button they could hit at the border that would call Border Patrol to, them. Border Patrol would then have to take them for processing, and that would leave the rest of the border completely wide open for the predations of the drug cartels. I think one part of the story

that hasn't been told here is just how much the Biden administration enriched the drug cartels. The drug cartels made literally billions of dollars off of human trafficking and drug smuggling during the course of the Biden administration. No one celebrated that election more than the criminal cartels. They knew they were back in business. Criminal, the reason is so much violence in Mexico right now because the cartels make more money they've ever made. And sex trafficking, African women and children, alien smuggling, and the smuggling of narcotics. Now, there's a lot of discontent in Massachusetts. President Trump has taken billions of dollars out of their pockets when he secures that border.

So I think they're going to see more violence on the border. I don't think they're going to go away quietly. I think President Trump did the right thing, designated them terrorist organizations because these cartels have killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined. But what they did to the border was on purpose. I agree 100%. And here's why I know it's on purpose. We never talked about this.

Let me just mention this. When Barack Obama was president, Joe Biden was vice president, Secretary of Majorcas was a deputy secretary. We had a surge of family groups coming across the border. How do we stop it? We built family residential centers. We held them long enough to see a judge. 91% lost your case.

We put him in an airplane, send him home, the border numbers dumped. So, Majorcas knows how we fixed it. And Biden knows how we fix it. What did they do when he becomes a job? president, myorks become secretary. They don't contain them. They don't make him see a judge. They don't deport him. They did exactly

the opposite of what proved worked when he was vice president, the secretary of my office, deputy secretary. So this wasn't an accent. They did the exact opposite or what they knew we succeeded with when President Obama was in office.

So this wasn't, again, this is by design. They knew exactly what they were doing. And the reason they didn't detain them is because when an ambulance in detention, they get a hearing within 40 days at top, which means in 40 days, that 91% be ordered removed and they go home. That's not what they wanted. So they released them to NGOs, putting in a hotel room, because once you're out of ICE custody, it's called the non-detained docket. Non-detain docket takes anywhere from three years to nine years, depending on what city you're in. Wow. And they knew in that three to nine years,

they'll get one or two years citizen kids, they'll get equities here, and hopefully it Democrat Congress and Democratic President that were rewarded them in amnesty. This is why they didn't detain them. They don't want them removed, so they figured they put them on a non-custody docket with immigration court. Their cases are so far down the road that there will be a change in the administration and they can award them in a dynasty. That's exactly what's their plan.

And thank God we changed that in November. We got President Trump. Mr. Holman, you mentioned just now that President Trump redefined these organizations as foreign terrorist organizations. and a lot of people hear that and they think, well, that's just a kind of new way of describing them. But obviously, that is an official classification that then frees up certain American resources to deal with them. So in case there are any face tattooed gangsters watching the stream tonight, practically speaking, what does it mean that the cartels can anticipate now that they're designated this way?

If you're involved in cartels anyway, if you're transporting for them, if you're moving money for them, If you're helping these cartels in any way, then you are part of a terrorist organization and we'll charge you with terrorist-related crimes, which has significant penalties. Being designated terrorist brings a whole of the U.S. government on the military. We're not just going to tack them on our southern border. We're going to tack them across the globe. Halifical cartels in 43 countries around the globe. Not only are they moving drugs across the border, that's the way it used to be.

Now they have a presence in every major city in this country. So on top of smuggling narcotics in this country, they're taking over the interior distribution of narcotics within our largest cities. We're going to tack them on the border. We're going to tack them in the interior United States. We're going to tackle them in every country there around the world with assistance the other countries. This designation is put them on notice.

We're going to use the whole money, the United States government, to take them out. We're going to, and the first thing we do is take the money. They don't have money. They have no power. They can't buy Mexican military. They can't buy Mexican legislation. They can't buy Mexican legislation. And the Mexican judges.

So we're going to shut them down one piece at a time. What President Trump did by designating the terrorist organization take their first step avoiding these cartels off the face of the earth. You know who's going to be more grateful than anybody? The country in Mexico. Because there's a lot of corruption in Mexico, whether it's a military, law enforcement, or government officials. Many of them didn't choose to be corrupt, but cartels will tell you, you're going to do this

and we're going to kill you in your family. To take the cartels out of Mexico and demolish him and incinerate them and take them off the face to earth, we're going to free Mexico. We're going to free Mexico. We want to be under the control of the cartels. They can operate in a free society. So I think no one's to be more grateful than Mexico. Borders are, Tom Holman.

Thank you for making time with us. It's a huge night. We're very grateful for the work you're doing. I'm very grateful for the work that President Trump is doing. And just looking forward to actually having some sanity and law and order on the southern border. Thank you. I appreciate the thanks. Let's give the thanks to the men and women wearing the green uniform

are down there 24-7. While I'm sitting at this event tonight, there's some board place that's standing on a dirt trail someplace. It's going to take somebody on, whether it's just an illegal an or a heavy-armed drug smuggler. These are the men and women who sit on that board 24-7 while we're laying in bed sleeping safe at night. Thank the ICE agents who are out there,

you know, with a Kevlar vest and a gun under hip, going to Sanctuary City, is arresting bad people because they couldn't arrest them in the jail. And we got leakers telling people where these operations are. Let's pray for the men and women. I say they go home and save their families every night. There's the real heroes. I'm grateful to be in.

I got a great president. But I want to thank the men and women on the front line who are doing the job. Steve Miller is the architect, probably one of the smartest men ever met. We strategize. We come up with plans. We come up with the methods of what we want done. But the men and women carrying the badge and gun, God bless them. Let's keep them safe because they're doing God's work.

on the front line. Amen. Amen. Ben, it's hard to follow that with an ad read, but if anyone can do it. Folks, I need to tell you about a great way you can improve your quality of life. It's something I've been doing for years that I cannot recommend enough. Is it transcendental meditation classes? Nope, me meditating. It sounds unbelievably boring, so it's not going to happen. Is it Reiki energy healing? And that looks relaxing, but nope, I'm not going to be doing it. doing that. I know about you, but that kind of stuff is not for me. So what do I do to improve my health and energy if wacky self-care schemes are out? Well, it isn't complicated. It's bull and brand sheets, baby. With their 100% organic cotton sheets, I get a great sleep every single night and I wake up

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And as your chance, change the way you sleep with bowl and branch. That's bull and branch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash backstage to save 20%. Exclusions apply. Seaside for details. So quite a treat to have Tom Holman with us and also a treat that Ben and Matt get to attend this event. And to make it even better is that you had to go to the Joe Biden. I know. I'm feeling a little jipped.

I mean, I'm very grateful to my friend, Congressman Andy Ogles for having me last year. It was very cool to be at the State of the Union. but I had to listen to Joe Biden incoherently scream for like 45 minutes. And you guys get to go to the UFC fight of State of the Union addresses. It's going to be super fun. Oh, it is going to be great. First of all, I think there's a good shot that President Trump is going to announce this rare earth mineral deal with Ukraine, so that'll be a big win for him.

And I think it'll rectify a lot of the breach that happened last Friday in that extraordinarily combative press conference between Zelensky, President Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance. He's obviously going to talk about his accomplishments on immigration that Borsar Homan just mentioned a moment ago. He's going to be talking about the investments that were just made by a number of companies in America. The TSM, which is, of course, the gigantic semiconductor maker in Taiwan, has announced they're going to spend $100 billion additionally in the United States. The Honda Civic is now going to be produced entirely in Indiana as opposed to in Mexico. I'm sure he's going to be talking a lot about that.

There's been a lot of winning. He's going to talk about DEI. I'm sure he'll talk about Matt's big issue, the issue that if one person really helped push over, the line. It was Matt Walsh, the death of men in women's sports. I'm sure he's going to mention that as well. It's been, I mean, this has been, as we discussed last time we were together, the fastest moving administration in modern American history. I mean, this administration is moving like absolute lightning. It's going to give Trump a lot to talk about. And of course, it's going to get spicy because I would be shocked if there's no dramatics from the fainting couch left out there. Some of them

are not showing up. And frankly, to me, that seems like the best tactic for some of them. I think that the ones who are idiots are going to show up and make fools of themselves. You know, it seems like not showing up, though. They actually get paid to show up. That's what they're there for. It seems like everything they do, every strategy they come up with just sends them further and further into the wilderness. And I grieve for them. I miss them deeply.

But I think that if they just continue to protest cutting fraud and waste, if they continue to protest, securing the border, if they continue to protest, putting not allowing men into women's sports, I could be gone before there's another Democratic administration, which may be only only. 10 minutes away, but like still, I think that this could be a long, long term in exile. They seem to have learned absolutely nothing. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned some of the members not showing up tonight. But even the Democrat governors who say, no, by golly, we're going to ignore federal

law and we're going to force hulking dudes to crack women's skulls. And they elect David Hogg, one of the least likable Democrats, even among Democrats, to be the vice chairman of the party. It just seems like these guys cannot possibly win for losing. I would like to ask a question of you guys. You know, when they, when I'm listening to home and talk about the border, this lawlessness, this incredible, it was an invasion. I mean, I know that's like a big word, but it was an invasion. Yeah. Allowed by the president of the United States, allowing us to be invaded. And you hear all these theories that are bringing in

voters. It's the great replacement and all this. Do you think that that was the strategy? Was that it that they just thought that this would turn the demographic? They told us this in 2004. Ben, you correct me because you probably remember the paper better. It was 04 or 06. There was a very prominent political science paper pushed by the left on this strategy to import people from all over the world and to have a permanent electoral majority. And I don't think they were counting on Trump winning 46% of Hispanics or an increasing number of black male votes or anything like that. But I think they were pretty open about it. I don't think they hid the ball. Because this is happening in Europe too. I mean, I think there's some of that. I also think that there's something

else happening to, and that is that there's been this myth in democratic politics, really since 2012, that you could create a permanent minority-majority coalition. And so it was almost a no-loss proposition for them. They figured that they were going to win more Hispanic votes in the United States by opening the vote, and by opening the border, and they could simultaneously bring in new voters. And at the same time, they'd be pleasing all of their white liberal college graduates who believe that the United States bears blood guilt for ever having won Texas in California from Mexico. And so it was sort of a win-win for them. And what they didn't understand is that you are now creating a backlash that's going to make for your undoing.

If there's one issue more than any other that really swung the election, it was the illegal immigration issue. And number two, it was the trans issue, and Democrats are unable to kind of let go of both. But I want to ask my buddy Matt here, because he's been sitting here silently as is his wants during our backstage. He's always very excited to be here, as we know. And he's even more excited to travel. Matt, do you feel the electricity?

Do you feel the energy? Are you just, like, static to be here? I appreciate the pity throwing it to me, so I have something that. And it's a great honor to be here. We're a little too physically close right now, so it's an uncomfortable physical proximity that I'm not accustomed to. I am wearing a tie for the first time in two years, so that shows you how much I can honor it.

And there's a pocket square. I'm going to note that right before this, by the way, Matt actually did up his tie. Like a few minutes ago before we began, Matt had not buttoned his top button. Well, it's still not button. It's still not button. Yeah, but you've got the tie tight enough that you can masquerade. And his short was pretty loose, and he kind of looked as though, And he had the cup of whiskey in front of him and the glass whiskey.

And he looked as though, you know, he'd worked a long day at the accounting office. And now he'd been finally released to his local pub where he could, you know, just let this high down a little bit. And that was actually him dressed up. So I'm just going to point that out. I don't even know if we're – can we drink alcohol where we are right now in these sacred halls? It's Congress, my friend. I was probably a long way. I will say it was pretty cool.

We met with Speaker Johnson right before this, and he actually took us to take a picture, which I'm sure has now been posted online. And he actually showed us a room that apparently has never been used in the Capitol building, which was a prayer room. It was actually like a prayer room off to the size. It's really cool. It is a beautiful stained glass window of George Washington kneeling in prayer, you know, the famous painting, and emblems from all 50 states.

And George Washington was the last one to use it. Yes. Exactly. Well, I mean, at least use it for prayer. I mean, I'm hoping that none of the other Congress people discovered it, because the one rule about Congress is you never want to blacklight anything here. It's just a huge mistake. So basically this is going to be a giant pep rally for the right tonight.

And to make it all the more glorious, we're going to be filling up with leftist here, left, right, and center. Is there anything being bandied about that we think would be a surprise? Is there anything that is Donald Trump going to do anything here tonight that shocks his constituency, or is this pure fan fiction playing out right in front of us tonight? Well, I think the big floating idea is that you could get an announcement of the Ukraine deal, which might surprise some people because President Trump picked that fellow up and flung him at the window the other day during the Oval Office meeting. But again, these kinds of deals are bigger than just one shouting match in the Oval Office. So you could see that. That would be somewhat surprising.

Obviously, President Trump last night implemented these tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which surprised some people because I think some people believed that the tariffs were merely in negotiating, to try to get concessions on fentanyl or border enforcement or whatever. However, I think Trump campaigned on believing in tariffs in terms of economic theory, like in tariffs for the good of the American economy. Well, not just tariffs themselves, though, balanced tariffs. In other words, why should we have tariffs on our goods going out and not put tariffs on people coming in? The whole ethos of Trump is we're not your daddy. You know, if we're going to help you, you're going to help us. We want to get paid for what we do. We want you to take part of your own

defense. I've been telling Europeans this for over a decade that all their wonderful welfare programs that they have and their universal health care that they have is paid for by us because we protect them. Right. Of course. But the one surprise tonight potentially could be that Trump, as Howard Lutnik was suggesting earlier today, Trump could roll back some of those tariffs that he announced this last night. So that might be somewhat surprising. Otherwise, I'm expecting the PEP rally. I don't know about you guys. It's too late to buy any index funds tonight. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'd be a little surprised if he rolls back to tariffs that quickly.

I think that he has to have some sort of headline that he can latch on to in order to do that, some sort of win that he can say that he prized out of Canada or Mexico in order to do that. The one thing about President Trump that I've said many times, but I think you're going to see it play out with regard to these tariffs, is that President Trump likes good headlines and he does not like bad headlines. When to the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops by 1,500 points in two days, and suddenly the lights start blinking red, I don't think that President Trump is, so wedded to the magical idea of tariffs, that he won't reverse himself in order to sort of preserve economic health.

That's one thing. There had been some rumors. I doubt that he'll do it tonight. But obviously, I was pushing very hard today to pardon Derek Chauvin, which I think would be a good move for the country. Because while he was convicted on state charges, he wouldn't free him from prison. I do think that it would be very good and salutatory for the country

for the federal government to make clear that it is not going to hold to account people for crimes they did not commit in which the jury was pretty obvious. poisoned by everybody surrounding the court. Anybody who thinks that Derek Chauvin got a fair trial, regardless of what you think of the actual outcome of the trial, anybody who pretends that that was even remotely a fair trial or the evidence stacked up to the conviction in that case, I honest to God, don't understand what you're thinking, to be fairly frank with you. And again, I think it would be a shocker if President Trump said anything about it tonight,

but I would not be surprised if something in the near future is done about it. Well, Ben and Matt, you've got to get to your seats. The show's about to begin. you're sitting in Speaker Johnson's box as I understand. It's an unbelievable honor. I have no doubt that Drew and I will be invited to the next state of the union. Tell Speaker Johnson we actually met. He and I met right after he was elected. I sat next to him

at the first Trump prayer breakfast and he's forgotten me in time. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. You guys have a great night. We'll see you after the president's remarks. Hopefully we're able to get you back. And in the meantime, we're going to look at the people coming in, which is always kind of my favorite part of this, like the red carpet of ugly people when people make their grand entrances into the state of the union. All right, guys, we'll see you later. Yeah, yeah, bye. Catch you later. Ben and Matt, off to the speaker's box to hear President Donald Trump make his address to a joint session of Congress. We're seeing

all the best people walking into the Capitol as we speak. It's actually kind of fun. I mean, really saw Elon a second ago and of course Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson already up on the podium. And then a bunch of really sullen-looking Democrats, which makes it... I can't imagine what's wrong with them. They are quite colorful, though. It's interesting because in recent years, the Democrats, especially the squad Democrats, have worn white to make themselves look like the suffragettes or something. This year they're wearing pink. Maybe the, I don't know, the purity. It's the femininity. It's the femininity. No one was buying. in the white head. Your softness and gentleness in the

I noticed that none of them have shaved their heads. I feel like if you're going to do it, do it. If you're going to do it, do it. Go all the way. I'm waiting. I like this whole idea of them having noise makers and, you know, like throwing egg. Firecrackers and things. Yeah. They can't humiliate themselves anymore. As far as I'm concerned, they can't humiliate themselves

enough to actually humiliate themselves as much as they deserve. Nancy Pelosi is not a young woman. She is evil. Evil ages you. She's actually only 40. It's just the evil has sucked all the life out of it. What does it say on that lady's jacket?

Be the people. Huh. It may have been the 14th Amendment on her sleeve. It's interesting. I'm not positive, but I think it may have been the text of the 14th Amendment. We're hearing that the president is running just a few minutes late, which I call presidential prerogative. Of course. You.

Or just rudeness. Wherever the president arrives, he is precisely on time. That's right. That is one of the perks of the job. It's hard. classifying documents, he just declares it. You know, it's hard to tell exactly what the Democrats are trying to convey with their coordinated outfits, because the white was supposed to convey women's rights, you know, harkening back to the suffragettes. The pink, presumably,

is more, and we have Melania walking in now, looking much more elegant than any of the Democrats. But the pink, I suppose, is to communicate women's rights vis-a-vis abortion, I would guess. Hey, there's been to Pira. I know them. Second. I'm certain. I'm certain. I'm certainly. it has something to do with abortion. It's really the only issue they care about. But I guess that to me again states that the Democrats haven't learned anything from the election. Because abortion was supposed to win in the election and they lost the biggest election that they lost in 20 years. So then even this 14th Amendment thing, you know, trying to make an argument that birthright citizenship pertains to anchor babies and illegal aliens, even the New York Times ran a column the other day, making a good point.

that actually it's unclear from the 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on that. So I don't know, it seems like they're fishing for an issue. Well, see, usually it's the right who is blind to the culture, but this is a really interesting situation in which the left does not know that that shield of invisibility that was created by our corrupt news media has vanished. It's been destroyed by the evil us, and I think that they just don't get it.

They do not get that we can see them. They don't get that they're standing there naked, and like the whole country is kind of laughing at them. The president's cabinet arriving now is the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and crew. Pete Hegseth, who's kind of a friend of the organization and a fellow Nashville resident with us. Howard Lutnik. People don't know this. Howard Lutnik talked to us one time about buying the Daily Wire.

He's not buying it. He wanted to help us take it public at one time. Can we nationalize it now? Yeah. Well, that would be. He's at Gombardous. I like Lutnik. I like his enthusiasm.

I do too. I get a big kick out of Lutnik. He's a, you know, he's he actually is Bobby Axelrod. They say that the character was actually, I say the character is actually written in part. Is it really based on Lutnik?

Yeah, that checks out. Based on Howard Lettick. His RFK, I'm surprised he showed up because he has measles. Oh yeah, hearts breaking all over the crunches sphere as he endorsed the MRNA vaccine. Except, did you read the column? So the headline. Not MRNA. The measles, the MMR.

So the headline from foxnews.com was, you know, the measles vaccine is really important and it's crucial to fighting the disease. If you read the column, so the editors write the headline. If you read the column, he never endorses the vaccine. Really? And in fact, he says, really the best way to fight this is good nutrition. And, you know, actually 98% of deaths disappeared before the measles vaccine. So if you read the text of it, clearly HHS and the White House want to hedge their bets a little bit,

in case there is a big outbreak. But what's funny is, if I'm reading the tea leaves, if I'm looking to invest maybe in different big pharma companies, I think this health secretary still hates the vaccine. If he hates the measles vaccines, he's a doofus. Because the measles vaccine cured the measles. It's like whatever it appears, they're gone. At the very least, he is the greatest Kennedy.

That's a cruel thing to say. I will say that the Make America Healthy Again movement, I think that it has some very good foundations and then it also has a little bit of kooky silliness to it. I get the sense, though, that RFK Jr. is one of the most genuinely decent dudes in American politics. Really?

I just think that he's a... I think he actually likes people. Yeah. I think he actually likes the country. Yeah, yeah. I think he's intelligent. I think he's intelligent. Yeah, yeah.

And I love that he drove a chainsaw. off whalehead from Kennebunkport to my hometown. Okay, that's the part I like. Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of stuff with the women. I'm not sure. Well, you can't judge a Kennedy by that.

That's only 50% of the world. If all of the women in his background are still alive and none of them are submerged. We lost one of them, didn't we? That's a fair point. We also now, I actually, oh, I guess that's Ushah Vans. I don't know who the two other women are. But I want, you know how they always introduce people that they've helped. What I want is for Trump to say, heal and for walsh to stand up and go, I can walk again.

Shapiro can say, like, that was better than Jesus. I never liked that guy. Oh, man. Oh, man, you can't say things like that. Oh, I'm sorry. We've got. Just imagining what would be fun. Long speeches.

So everyone's still mingling. This is not kicking off for a little while now. No, no, no, no. This is Mingle City. Yeah. It is interesting, though, to think, in recent memory, we've had a mixture of conservatives and liberals up there on the dais. We've had at least one woman, you know, Nancy Pelosi ripping up beach. We've had Kamala Harris up there, you know, being Kamala. And now, just a bunch of Republican dudes, you know, just a bunch of normal-looking Republican, white dudes. Yeah. I like to think we're back.

We're back. We're so bad. The New York Times today ran an article. Trump has bullying masculinity. I thought good. A lot of people who need bullying in that town. It's very interesting to see what the president chooses to cover in the speech. Obviously, Donald Trump has never given a short speech.

Well, except his inaugural speech. That's true. He was pushed inside, yeah. That's right. But then, in fairness, he immediately went downstairs. It gave the rest of the speech. The rest of the speech. Absolutely true.

That's absolutely right. And this one, you know, truly, Trump said we get tired of winning. And I almost am tired of winning. And I mean, in a very literal way, and I do have three kids, four and under, and I've been traveling a lot. This news cycle is exhausting because Trump, whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit, he has notched so many victories in the first month in office. Yeah, we're like 45 days or something into a second year.

Less than that. Less than that. Yeah. And I personally have. have not stopped grinning. I have been giddy. And it's like, you know, sometimes Trump annoys me. Sometimes he doesn't. But like, I think he's doing great. I love what he's doing. And, you know, it's funny, this needed to happen. And there's going to be some ancillary damage. I mean, I'm sorry for some of the people losing their jobs. Some of the people who lose their jobs are going to be

good people. Yeah. But this cancer of these agencies has to be ripped out. There's just, just has to. And the president needs to be able to run the executive branch. I mean, this is kind of basic stuff. So, you know, the Democrats are whining. I was on a liberal news show recently. They said, oh, isn't there a threat to the separation of powers? And I thought, no, no, there was a threat to the separation of powers. Trump is exerting, actually, his just authority. I would like to hear a lawyer.

I have not asked a real constitutional lawyer how the legislature can create an agency in the executive branch that the executive can't destroy. It seems to me, if it's in the executive branch, the executive can do anything you want. Well, the trick of it is, and then, This is kind of what Chevron was ultimately about. It actually is the legislature seating its authority to regulate to executive agencies. That the executive doesn't have control over.

No, they created a branch of government. They created a branch of government. And all this stuff about Elon Musk wasn't elected, you know, and they have all of these people were elected. But the other crazy thing when they knock Elon and the Department of Government Efficiency, Doge has a 100-year-plus precedent. This began really under Wilson, Wilson of the Bureau of Efficiency, that reformed the executive branch. After that, you had FDR, had the Brownlow Commission.

That created the executive office of the president. After FDR, Truman had the Hoover Commission. Same thing, reorganized the executive. Reagan had the Grace Commission. My favorite example, though, is more recently Al Gore, as a vice president. I was just going to say that, yeah. It was Al Gore in the 90. I actually, oddly enough, was just sitting down.

behind Al Gore on an airplane. Apparently, global warming doesn't pay anymore because he was sitting right in front of me commercial. But Al Gore in the 90s had the national initiative for reinventing government. And it fired a quarter million federal employees and it consolidated 800 agencies. Elon hasn't come anywhere close to it. I know. He was the most successful.

The only problem with him is a lot of it was gutting the military because they thought the Cold War was over and they were going to get rid of all these soldiers. It was actually a bad thing. But in terms of cutting government and cutting government and cutting the military, regulation. Corps was very successful. Yeah. They were, you know, Clinton was a good president domestically. If you don't look at him

overseas, he was actually not a bad person. And if you don't look inside the office. And you don't look inside his heart. Never look. It's at his black heart. It is fun to think back to the 90s. As you know, I always say that the 90s were the peak of American civilization.

The 90s are like the new 50s. That's the new era that you look back to sort of nostalgically. But it's so much better than the 50s. And the 50s, we're in the middle of this Cold War the nuclear arms race, the space race. Everyone had PTSD from the war. In the 90s, we didn't have a single problem. In the 90s, we could ascend Bill Clinton twice to be president of the United States.

It didn't matter. And it didn't matter. It was actually pretty good. In the 1990s, we could make smash mouth, a best-selling rock and roll band, singing songs about having your finger and your thumb in the shape of an L on your forehead. Because literally nothing was wrong. No, somebody once told me about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was the great onion headline when 9-11 happened. Americans yearn to care about stupid crap again. Yeah, right, right. That was the 90s, no question. I spent the 90s in England, so I missed the whole thing. It was great in England. You missed the height of American power. But there is a truth to that.

In the 1990s, Kurt Cobain killed himself to protest that nothing was wrong. There was literally nothing wrong. Now is this, all right. Now we have, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. I mean, what a triumphant moment for Donald Trump. No kidding. This is like the greatest version of when Nigel Farage went to the European legislators. And he said, you know, I came here a decade ago,

and I said we were leaving the EU and you all laughed at me. Who's laughing now? This is Donald Trump's Who's Laughing Now moment. And in living memory, nothing like this has ever. No, I don't think of anything. Maybe Napoleon escaping from him. You know, my son has a little placemat with all the presidents on the dining room table,

and he loves Trump. He loves Johnson for some reason, but he loves Trump. He points to Trump at it. He loves impeached presidents. Not that Johnson. No, Lyndon Johnson. But there's one president with two pictures on there. And on the next edition,

of that placement. Yeah, there'll be two. There are going to be two. And, you know, so Trump runs for President 16, and he says, I'm going to be great, I'm going to be greatest president, so historic. And he has now made that happen. He is now one of the most significant figures in American history. There's no question about that. And it's still, you know, it's up for grabs whether he's going to get away with doing what he has to do, which is killing the influence of the deep state. Yeah. But he did get kissed by Nancy Mace, which I think So that's my personal dream. I'm a simple man.

Win the presidency. Win the presidency again. It's lute from Nancy Mason. I keep thinking that the sergeant in arms is Senator Bob Menendez. Then I remember that Menendez is out. Not doing the claim. If he was, he's not anymore. Yeah.

Is that Chip Roy? I can't tell in the sea of, yeah. I think anyone else has such a handsome goatee? True, you know. The United States Congress. Oh, this is the joke. Rubio nearby. He's recovered from sinking into the couch

during that Oval Office. The old man, he looked like just going to see some steam behind it. He was sort of like that meme of Homer Simpson backing into the bush. He, by the way, is doing great. He's doing a great job. He's doing a great job.

Kavanaugh. All the justices and saying, right. You're welcome, Brett. You're welcome, Amy. Who are you? President, greeting me. the Joint Chiefs. Now, I couldn't quite see which justices made it.

I did not see Katanji Jackson. No. I did not see Sotomayor or Kagan. Now, I might have just missed him. It's hard to see. Cameras are moving. Scalia famously would not go to the State of the Union. He went in the first few years, and then he said it was just a ridiculous political display,

and the justices really had no role there. The president about to take the podium and address the Joint session of Congress. We'll cut to his remarks, and then we'll be back as soon as the speech is over to tell you what we think about it. We'll see you then. An amazing speech by Donald Trump to the joint session of Congress. Maybe the longest joint session ever by a president of the United States. I mean, if we think of it as the State of the Union address, even though technically it isn't one, you know, was this an hour 40? An hour and hour? It's something. Bill Clinton had some doozies in there, so I don't know it was the longest ever.

but, you know, I was there at Biden's last year, and it felt long. At 40 minutes or something? Yeah, he might have pushed it closer to an hour, but it felt like two days. And this one, I'm not saying there weren't moments that lulled compared to others, but I was engaged for about 92% of this. I mean, this was an amazingly well-written and delivered speech. Also, Trump set this trap for Democrats. Really, the Democrats set the trap for themselves,

and he just called their attention to it. When he said, I could get up here, I could cure the worst diseases, I could do the greatest feats, and they would not stand up and applaud. And at that point, they said, well, now we're really not going to stand up and applaud. So, you know, just to use the most stirring example, in a night of amazing moments, the one that stole the show was that 13-year-old boy who's been fighting brain cancer, DJ, Special Agent Secret Service. You know, he always wanted to be a cop, and he's now made a member of the U.S.

U.S. Secret Service, and you just think, man, if you can't agree in this country that that is a good thing, we have nothing in common. We have nothing that we can agree on. And the Democrats would not stand up, many of them would not even applaud, a little kid fighting cancer. You know, these are sick people. It was an extraordinary speech. And, you know, yeah, you can say it was too long Trump tends to do that. Guys, according to AI, which knows everything. Yeah. The record belongs to Bill Clinton. Yep, I knew it.

One hour, 28 minutes, 49 seconds. Oh, wait. I think there may be a new record. Wow, okay, all right. There may be a new record. Wow. But I've never, I don't think anyone has ever seen a president go in there as pugilistically as he did and really take the Republicans,

that Democrats head on like that. And the Democrats, who came to start trouble, were bullied into silence, beaten into silence by this one man who has just taken everything from them. You know, false accusations, impeachments, an assassination attempt, you know, convictions for felonies that don't even exist, that no one can name. And he has beaten them every time, and he did it again. He did it again. And I just can't help thinking that, look, in the end, the proof is in the pudding.

He's going to have to pull it off. He's going to have to improve the economy. He's going to have to bring down prices. He's going to have to resolve the debt and all those things and build our military back because we're in big trouble with our military as China's military sores. But in terms of a promise, in terms of looking at a president and thinking, yeah, that guy could do that. We now have a leader. It's an extraordinary.

He's an extraordinary person and an extraordinary moment. And, you know, he has this way of blowing away all the kind of picayune criticisms that you can throw at him because it's been so long since anybody stood up and said, this is a great country, and I will bring it to another level of greatness. Who has said that besides Reagan, since Reagan? Right. Who has said, this is a wonderful, wonderful country, which it is, and I will make it in, and I will stand up into that tradition and move it to the next step. It was an amazing thing, and I don't know, I can't help thinking, I could be wrong.

You never know about this stuff, but I can't help thinking that after the press fumes and screams and roars and shakes their fists, the American people are just going to, you know, push his, his popularity up to the next level. You know what they won't be able to say. They always say after Trump's speech is, it was dark. Dark, yeah. And the reality is, there was nothing dark about this speech.

Trump was having a great time of it. Yeah, you looked like he was having fun. Trump was having so much fun. And it was infectious, and the audience was having fun. And they did not know how to react to them. So I can't name even a tenth of the examples. But when Trump goes out there, he says, We killed the top terrorist in Afghanistan.

The Democrats, not only do they not stand, they don't applaud. So the Democrats formally come out in favor of the top terrorist in Afghanistan. When Trump says we're taking down the cartels, the Democrats don't applaud. Democrats formally come out as pro-cartel. That's a curious political choice. When Trump announces that he brought an American citizen home from a Russian prison, they can't even applaud that. They booed the police.

They booed the police. That's no surprise. We've got to support the police and they boot. Yeah, but that moment has passed. That moment when you could say, maybe one of the stupidest things any political party has ever supported defunding the police, that moment of hysteria and dizziness and vertigo has gone. And now we know, we remember the obvious thing we need police because they're bad guys and we need good guys to stop the bad guys. And he supports them, they're booing, they're literally booing it.

They're not just not standing up. They're literally booing him. Unbelievable. And, you know, the Democrats, they do not know. I said this to Megan Kelly the other day. They simply do not know what has happened. And what has happened is that force field of protection that it was given to them by our rotten, corrupt,

left-wing establishment press has been destroyed by people like us. And by Megan and by Joe Rogan and by all those people, this new media has wiped it away. And, you know, they're still there. They still have a lot of reporting power. but they do not have the power to lie without being exposed in real time. Thanks to Elon Musk, to some degree, on X, you know, that they can be exposed and people see through them. They don't get it.

They don't get that their force field is gone. Should we talk about Al Green getting thrown out? Not the good singer. Yeah. I was going to say, I always liked Al Green. You know, when he stood up there right at the beginning, I just thought, wow, this is, he's a ridiculous person. Yes. But really, he was just by degree, a degree.

little bit more extreme than the Democrats. Many of them were heckling him tonight. And I thought from the moment they started doing that, I said, this is a, it's inappropriate, it's disreputable, but it's just a bad political choice. I agree. I also think it was a bad choice of the people who were producing the actual video broadcast of the speech, not to let us hear what he was saying. Yeah. Because he went to all that trouble. It was so disruptive. It's shut down the speech. All these things happened. And none of us know what on earth. I mean, he had a cane. I think you made the point that it was like from the 1800s. The caning of summer or something.

Yeah, yeah, right. But I don't know what the guy was on about. But you could tell, obviously, that Speaker Johnson was already prepared for this. Yes. He had all of the procedural order in front of him so that he'd be able to react because the Democrats were forecasting that they were going to cause this kind of trouble for, you know, the entire day leading into this. And Al Green, I think, has already introduced articles of impeachment against Trump. And he's probably to impeach him like 150 times already. So he's a slightly more extreme version of the Democrats.

But all the heckling tonight, I just thought, you know, it was going to be a bad night for the Democrats. Because they lost the electoral college by a lot. They lost the popular vote significantly. And for the first time in 20 years. So it was just going to be a bad night. And if they just sort of were even slightly normal, they might have gotten through it and lived a fight another day. But I don't think the median American or even the center left American watching, that display tonight is taking the side of it. It's a terrible night for the Democrats.

And truly, if they had just treated it like any 1990s state of the union address, they would have come out far ahead of what they had. Yeah, they could have walked out and just said, what a divisive speech. You know, he could have brought the country together and he didn't. It would have been ineffective, but it would have been a lot more effective than this. And because he knew it was coming, he brought that force of personality. I've never seen it. You know, he's just, he's like those old sheriffs in the movies who go out and stand up against a lynch mob and just the force of their personality makes everybody kind of ashamed and go old. By the end of it, they weren't saying anything. They were just sitting there. They put down their stupid signs and all this. What do they support?

You know, what do they support? They're stuck. They're stuck with this transgender garbage. They're stuck with this racial garbage. The people, you know, I think people on both sides of the racial divide, if it still is a divide. I think they're sick of it. You know, they know it doesn't work. The DEI thing is disgraceful. It is racism embedded in government. Like it hasn't been since the end of the Jim Crow laws. It's all of it is so disgusting. And I think that that fog that people were in. I mean, this is the thing that bothered me most about the Biden administration. I would talk to normal, everyday people who were not particularly political.

And you would say, you know, sexually mutilating a child is a Nazi-like atrocity. It's not like, oh, Donald Trump is Hitler. It's actually what Nazis did. And they would kind of just gloss, you know, kind of go into this fugue state because we were all in this bad dream, that this was the way it was going to be, that this was normal, that there was something right about this or defensible about it. And I think people have woken up from that, and he just took advantage of that and slammed them. And one last thing, he's right about Joe Biden. Joe Biden was the worst president ever.

And the fact that he was protected by the press, and Jake Zapper is writing a book, if I did it, you know? Yeah, exactly. The autobiography. It's like, yeah, no, I mean, they think we're going to forget, but we don't have to forget anymore because the new media is here to remind us and to show us and bring the receipts. I think there was that. on some of the Democrat members' faces tonight, which was, and not all of them, but some of them, where they thought, you know, yikes, maybe just maybe we shouldn't have raided this guy's

house. Like, you know, because Donald Trump woke up today, and he chose violence. He knew. He came to this thing. He said, you know, I've paid a lot, and I nearly lost my life very nearly on one occasion and almost on another occasion. To be here, I've given up a lot for this job, and you people, you tried to throw me in prison four times, you tried to kick me off the ballot, you tried to murder me, you raided my home, and guess what? Guess who's laughing now?

Yeah. How did that? He even asked the question of the members. How did that work out? How did that work out for you? You know, I mean, just a political vindication, the likes of which we have never seen in this country before. And you're right, that line where he said,

you know, I could do anything and you wouldn't stand up, it actually kind of cut their legs off. Yes. Because he started by saying, look, you know, what would you applaud for? What would you? And they proved that he was right. And so it just kind of took the legitimacy away from them. It's kind of amazing.

And I did enjoy seeing Walsh and Shapiro in the gallery. Yeah, do we have any video of Ben and Matt at the event? Quite an amazing thing. Yeah. Oh, we may have the Democrat response. Let's hear what they're saying. I also signed an executive order to Ben, Men. men from playing in women's sports.

There they are. With our friend Riley Games. Guys, I believe we have the Democrat response. Can we hear it? You can find that same sense of patriotism here in Yandot, Michigan, where I'm speaking from tonight. It's a working class town just south of Detroit. President Trump and I both want here in November. It might not seem like it. Maybe it's not any. If you're not, maybe rocks,

like this still exists across the United States. We actually, there we are. Places where people believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should do well and your kids should do better. You don't believe that. It reminds me of how I grew up. My dad was a lifelong Republican by mom, a lifelong Democrat. But it was never a big deal because we had shared values that were bigger than any one party.

We just went through another fraught election season. Americans made it clear that prices are too high and that the government, government needs to be more responsive to their needs. America wants change. But there's a responsible way to make a change and we don't want you castrating little kids. And we can make that change without forgetting who we are as a country and as a democracy. So that's what I'm going to lay out tonight. Because whether you're from Wyandotte or Wichita, most Americans share three core beliefs, that the middle class is the engine of our country, that strong national security protects us from harm, and that our democracy, no matter how messy, is unparalleled and worth fighting

for. Let's start with the economy. Michigan literally invented the middle class, the revolutionary idea that you can work at an auto plant and afford the power of building. Yeah. Oh, that's not even Michigan. Sorry, Detroit. Because I'm pretty sure it was like Italy in the high middle here that invented the middle class. I don't know. of things we spend the most money on, groceries, housing, health care. We need to make more things in America with good-paying union jobs and bring our supply chains back from places like China. I'm voting for Trump.

I've asked to say she's doing a very good job. I actually don't understand how she is just-posing a Democrat platform from Trump's administration. Look, the president talked a big game on the economy, but it's always important to read the fine print. So, do his plans actually help Americans get ahead? Not even close. President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. He's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America. And to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life.

Grocery and home prices are going up, not down, and he hasn't laid out a credible plan to deal with either of those. His tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber, and cars, and start a trade war that will hurt manufacturing and farmers. Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn't work without going after your health care. Meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down. And if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession. And one more thing. in order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement.

The Social Security Medicare. They were talking about taking your savings. The President claims he won't, but Elon Musk just called Social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. I mean, in fairness, it is the big... I'm calling on the subject of Elon Musk. But Trump won't touch it. Is there anyone in America who is comfortable with him and his gang of 20-year-olds using their own computer servers to poke through your tax returns, your health information, and your bank accounts?

No oversight. They're actually using U.S. Digital Service, which is a branch of the federal government. No card rails on what they do with your private data. We need a more. If it's my private data, why does the government have it? And all those people, what are there like 100,000 people in the Treasury Department looking at you? People who work to protect our nuclear weapons, keep our planes from crashing and conduct the research. This is, by the way, what I mean by the press, right?

In the old days, the press would have said all this was true. America could do that without being severely fired. But now, like, we've talked about economic security. She is quite good. Whoever she is. She's quite a good presenter. They made a choice to seem normal. They picked someone we never heard of them.

Yes, that's true. That's right. It's a blue dog, period. Democrats and Republicans should all be for that. But securing the border without actually fixing our broken immigration system is dealing with the symptom and not the disease. Oh, my Lord. is a nation of immigrants. We need a functional system.

But that's dealing with the diseases. The symptom is all the illegals that are here. So I look forward to the president's plan on that. Because here's the thing. Today's world is deeply interconnected. Migration, cyber threats, AI, environmental destruction, terrorism. Until we can solve it all. We can't solve any of it.

Yeah. We need friends in all corners. And our safety depends on it. President Trump loves to say peace through strength. That's actually a line he stole from Ronald Reagan. But let me tell you, after the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave. Well, here's the thing.

They should have edited this part of the speech. The events in the Oval Office was Zelenskyy were very difficult to watch. But in order to have a judgment about them, now, you have got to have a judgment. You have to ignore the fact that he got the deal. Zelenskyy literally today, send him a letter and said, yeah, all right. Yeah. As we knew he would when you were watching it because he had no choice. I swear the Democrats told them he could go in there and the, you know, the American people.

But what was, they'll greet as a conqueror? Yeah, greet him as a liberator. A liberator, yeah. Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s. Trump would have lost us the Cold War. Well, that is bad. Now I'm sorry we elected because he would have lost us the Cold War. nation. He would have lost World War II. He would have lost the Spanish-American War.

He would have been perfect. But I stand with the majority of America. I stand with the rough riders. Unparalleled. And I would rather have American leadership over Chinese or Russian leadership any day of the week. Oh, wow. Me too. Because for generations, America has offered something better. Our security and our prosperity, yes, but our democracy, our very system of government has been the aspiration of the world. And right now, it's at risk. It's at risk when the president decides you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow, when he ignores court orders and the Constitution itself, or when elected leaders stand by and just let it happen.

But it's also at risk when the president pits Americans against each other, when he demonizes those who are different and tells certain people they shouldn't be included. Are you doubling down on trans? Because America is not just a patch of land between two o'clock. We are more than that. Generations have fought and died to secure the fundamental rights that define us. Those rights and the fight for them make us who we are. This woman has secured her career if there's an opening of a view.

We're a nation of strivers, risk takers, innovators, and we are never satisfied. That is America's. I'm actually somewhat impressed with them. I've lived and worked in many countries. I've seen democracies flicker out. I've seen what life is like when a government is rigged. You can't open a business. without paying off a corrupt official.

You can't criticize the guys in charge without getting a knock at the door in the middle of the night. That's what I'm announcing tonight. I'm becoming a Republican. The kind of countries that have ballot dropbox is all over unsupervised. Widespread mail in ballots, contrary to the state constitution.

You don't even need your identification to vote. I know a lot of you have been asking that question. First, don't tune out. It's easy to be exhausted. All right, I'm officially saying let's tune out. I know. I'm not joking, Matthew. As soon as she said, we can't tune out, I'm not. Game over.

I will say, I have, truly, I'm not, this is not a joke. I do not know who this human is. I get the sense that she's from Michigan. I think this is maybe one of the best responses that I've ever seen. Consider this indictment of the Democrat Party. They had to find someone who was reasonably normal. Yeah. And they scoured.

Anyone we've ever heard of. Anyone we've ever heard of. and anyone that we might have even seen on TV one time? And they came up with the dog catcher from Michigan or whatever. I have no clue what position she had. Her name, according to the control booth,

is Alyssa Slot. Oh, it's Slotkin. Actually, she is like a name. She ran, you know. She's actually a member of the Senate. I didn't even recognize her, though. Is she a member of the Senate? Yeah, she...

I feel bad about this. Slotkin rant, I don't feel bad at all. She, because, also, that was a close race and that was very frustrating this cycle. But, you know, it is a, It is funny because, like, this woman, so she's relatively new. That is also why people don't, like, recognize her. She's kind of new to her job.

And they do try to pick fresh faces. You know, they did it with Katie Britt last year for the Republicans. And this is the worst job in politics. Yeah, it's horrible. You never do it, right. That's why I'm quite impressed with it. I'm also, it's a very moderate speech. Yes.

It's so moderate, in fact, that it is actually difficult to distinguish most of what she just said from what Trump actually. That's what I mean. It's actually attacking the Democrats' policies and pretending they're the Republicans' policies. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. You know, Pavel, can you please bring in the basket? A basket.

Yeah. Oh, my. Holy angel of mercy, what on earth is that? That is a lot of fruit. I'll say. I had to get the strongest man on this property to even get that thing out there. Pavel, is it heavy? Yeah.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I cannot imagine. Having to eat all of that fruit in one day. What about every single day? How many Polish men would we go through? That would be absurd. You want to get all of that nutrition, but you don't want to be sickeningly stuffed with fruit.

Or breaking the bank on an absurdly large basket of healthy food. Or taking the time it would take to eat everything in that basket. Let me introduce to you. Balance of nature. With balance of nature, fruits and veggies, there's never been a more convenient dietary supplement to ensure you get a wide variety of fruits and vegetables daily. 31 fruits and veggies, to be exact. Drew, can you eat 31 fruits and veggies every day? You're damn straight I can. I'm not a wimp like you, but I prefer not to. Ha ha, because it sounds miserable and time, and it drips in my beard. But I can take one of these

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promo code backstage. Ow! That hurt! Because you don't take it that as a major. You're a weakling, that's it. God, I miss Shapiro. That was quite a display guy.

So are we cutting back to the trash collector from Michigan? No, no, no, no. The mayor of political Michigan? I can actually see, I'm not joking, I have a monitor here, and I could see the audience numbers beginning to plummet. The minute she was speaking. Yeah, you know. But it was, look, we had just heard that speech.

It was a repeat. Yeah. So where is Shapiro and Walsh? They're out drinking with the Senate. Difficult to get out of the House chamber, but they are. We do think there's some chance that they will make it back to Speaker Johnson's office. I think it's possible. Last year, I was up there.

I was actually sitting right behind Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. And Bill Lee, if you're a governor, it turns out you get to keep your cell phone during the state of the union. Most people do not. And you get a heads up from Secret Service before the president. It's about to wrap so you can get out of there before they lock you down. So they lock you down in the House chamber, and you just kind of sit there and schmooze with the people to your right and left. What's a little weird, not if you're sitting, as Ben and Matt were with Riley and the Speaker's Gallery, but when you're sitting just with the Hoypolloy, with the regular, you know, members' guests, you're often sitting next to Democrats.

So, you know, some people who might be fuming about the speech or, you know, it's a little bit awkward. But you make small talk. And, you know, it takes something like half an hour to get out of there. Yeah, of course. Now, happily, because, you know, now the Republicans are back in charge in D.C., I think Ben and Matt will be able to broadcast from the Capitol. So it won't take them five hours to get out there. And we might be able to hear what it was like in the room.

But of all the state of the unions that I've watched, one in person, all of the rest of them on television, I think that was the best one I've ever seen. Yeah, I have to say. It was a bit rambling in places as Trump's speeches can sometimes be and went longer than it needed to as Trump speeches almost always do. He's sort of like the modern Martin Scorsese of speech makers. You're like somewhere in there, there was a perfectly good 90-minute. The greatest master of this of our generation. However, it was the most fun state of the union address I've ever seen.

No question. He was there. It was triumphant. And you said it before. he was enjoying himself. You know, he had some great lines, too. I mean, what a, what a mic-drop moment to be able to say, oh, yeah, and Zelensky just called him wants me to make a peace still with Russia. That's a, that's a, that's a, one week ago, people were essentially saying the world order was over. Yeah. There's going to be a unified European army and yeah. And now he's just getting exactly what he went. Less than one week ago, Friday afternoon.

Friday afternoon. And you know, when he said to Zelisky, you don't have the cards. That was true. Yeah. You know, I mean, you could, you knew that. You knew that. It was true when he was saying it. And nobody really asked, like, what was Zolenski thinking? You know, even if, you know, there was this idea that it had been some kind of set up that they were waiting to lying and wait from them. But what did Trump have to gain from that? Nothing.

Where Zolensky spent 40 minutes kind of sighing and rolling his eyes and fiddling them, provoking J.D. You started that part. Trump remained very gracious to him until that moment when Zolensky said, you are going to feel this, you don't feel it now. And he was like, don't tell me. And I was kind of like, ooh, you know, that was a mistake. There are a couple theories on it.

One is that Zelensky wanted there to be a tense moment to spur Europe to greater aid, because he kind of knew that Trump wanted a peace deal. And if Trump negotiates a peace deal with Putin, then that's going to involve concessions from Ukraine. Yeah. And Zelensky doesn't want that. The other theory that was going around some of the press was that Zelensky was talking to some of his friends from the past Democrat administrations, many of whom have been integral in American policy in Ukraine going back to 2014 even, and that maybe they encouraged him not to play nice with Trump.

And so then I have this image afterward of, you know, Zelensky, running up to Victoria Newland, like, I will kill you. You are going to make me dead. What did you do to me, woman? And so, clearly within 48 hours or something, he's back on the horn to the White House. It looks like they have a deal. That was clearly a mistake. And, you know, the thing is, no matter, if Biden had negotiated this deal, if that woman who ran for, I can't remember her name, had, you know, oh yeah, Kamala's thing. Oh, yeah, I can't remember. I forgot. But if she had negotiated it still, same thing would have happened. Putin would have gotten some of the stuff that he'd already stomped on, and that

would have, they just would have had to settle for that. There was never going to be, you know, the Ukrainians were never marching on Moscow. That was not something. I find it distasteful that some on the American right now are sort of playing the Putin as the great defender of Christendom. I hate that. It's absolute nonsense. Vladimir Putin's the aggressor in the invaded a sovereign nation in Ukraine. He has missiles pointed at us. He has nuclear missiles pointed at us right now. He's not our friend.

But Ukraine can't win this war. Right, that's right. That can't be done. The other, I know we're not allowed to have any historical nuance or anything in here, but some of the territories that we're talking about, most notably Crimea, have been contested for millennia, many centuries at this point, and have historically been part of Russia and have been considered very important to Russia. And so, like, I know Americans decide they're going to become experts on every issue overnight,

but this is a complex issue. And that was kind of Trump's point in the Oval Office is, you know, look, we're going to have to come to a deal here. Unless you want to be like the Democrats and just have it be a meek rinder forever with no end in sight. But if you are going to have a deal, then you need to figure out what these strategic objectives are and the interests. And where is it there? It's also different in kind than any war that we've seen in our lifetime. I'm not making an age joke, but you actually have seen things like this. Michael and I have not.

This is a war where the casual... The Battle of Lepanto for it. This is a war where the casualties are in the seven figures. Yeah, yeah. You know, America lost something like 5,000 troops in the totality of the war on terror. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have died in the last three years in this war. when we say meat grinder, we're not being rhetorical. It's a World War I kind of stalemate that they're just killing each other.

And the other thing about it is, you know, you don't have to make excuses for Putin or say that it's a good thing that he invaded to understand that in these situations, power matters. And who is in power matters? And we're not going in there. We're not putting bits on the ground. America, and this is the other thing, because the Putin apologists make of him this larger-than-life figure, And they want to say, well, America couldn't beat Putin.

Of course America could beat Putin. Europe could beat Putin if they set their mind to it. Europe and America would destroy Putin at risk of nuclear war, which is why it will not happen. It will not happen because it cannot happen. And just on a, I don't think this is really cynical, but on a realistic level, China is the threat to America. We are not under threat from Russia. China is the threat. China and Russia have formed an alliance.

This is a way of breaking that alliance. It is better for Putin to be friends with us who will not try to devour him than friends with China who will devour him last. And Putin knows that. He knows when he's not looking at Xi and thinking, he's a great guy, I look into his eyes and see his soul. He's going to be good to me. He knows that the price of an alliance with China is Russia ultimately, and he won't have to pay that price to us. And so if we separate them and we have to make a little bit nice to him, you know, it's distasteful. I think it is distasteful.

But it may just be necessary because we have to be. be ready for China. And that's the one thing I think is in Trump's mind in a way that it's not in the minds of our intelligence community. And I don't know why it's not, but it's not. Maybe because the head of our intelligence is named Heinzai, Cole. I don't know. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all business.

birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. The one thing that I found disappointing in the foreign policy part of the president's speech is that he didn't talk about the new Trumpistan colony in what was formerly the Gaza Strait. I wanted at least three paragraphs. Mara Gaza. The Maga, yeah. Magaza. It Magaza International. National hotel and casino. You know, part of that, when that announcement came out, everyone lost their minds, as is often the case when President Trump makes big declarations.

And some people still haven't learned it 10 years into this thing. But, you know, when Trump throws something out there, he is often negotiating or speaking past the sale to you, Scott Adams' phrase. And so in this case, why didn't he bring it up? Because he, well, just look at the news today of the Arab states coming in and saying, no, no, no, hold on. Wait a second. We don't want, maybe we'll be involved in this.

And maybe that sort of thing is what Trump was actually after. Obviously, he was. And he was also after putting paid to the two-state solution, which is the dumbest idea that people have clung to for decades. It's like, one state called Israel, another state that wants to kill Israel. It would be perfect. And I think he just avoided that exactly for what you said. He had negotiated them into a position, which we said at the beginning,

where he would be able to say to them, okay, what's your idea? You don't want me to build my hotel in Gaza. What's your idea? Because they were in sort of a stalemate of these two notions and no one was moving. And then Trump just came in and dropped this wild idea. And everyone sort of just stopped and said, wait, what? Wait, hold on. Yeah.

Bibi Net and Yahoo and he knows. Wait, hold on. Did I catch that right? We didn't talk about this. I mean, I was a little surprised he didn't mention it only because, as we knew they would, the Hamas is violating, you know, not going forward with the ceasefire and has not returned all the hostages, and I assume Israel is going to go back in there and kick some ass, and I think that he probably didn't want to seem to have incited it.

Right. Though he's going to support it, I suspect. He's going to support it, and it is, at this point, it's a fate of complete. Of course, Israel's going back into the gods' trip. I thought it was, you know, it's funny at the inaugural ball that we were at. They interviewed me on the red carpet, and they asked me what I thought of the deal. And I said, well, the deal is terrible, but we know the Hamas is going to break it, and we know that Trump is going to support them when they go back in.

That was kind of the setup of the deal that it was always going to come to this, you know. But he got the win that he needed, you know, so he could, he didn't stand in the way of a ceasefire, which would have been bad for him, and it would have been bad for everybody. But he's now going to support. Also, in terms of foreign policy, he presented tariffs in a way that was digestible and common sense to people. First of all, I mean, I've been advocating throughout the campaign that really the key phrase here is got to be common sense. That's why, I mean, and I'm not the first. to notice it. It goes back to Antonio Gramsci and many other political thinkers. But, you know,

he held on to that. And so when we're talking about free trade or tariff theory or these kind of complex economic concepts, it's a little difficult for even someone who's studied economics to really grasp what he's talking about. And so when he says, look, you guys charge us a lot of money for our products, but you expect us not to charge you a lot of money when you bring your products into our market, which is much more valuable, that's not going to happen. We're going to have tariff parity. Yeah. And if we get into a trade war, I promise you we're going to win. Yeah. That is really clear, common sense thinking that doesn't require a degree in economics. I have to say, I am maybe the only person in America who does not know what the result of

the tariffs will be and will openly admit it. But that did make sense to me. You know, I mean, I thought like that. I thought it was a sensible enough rhetorical argument for something that I think is somewhat nonsensical in practice. I'm completely against it. tariffs. I think using tariffs as a form of leverage to get us better trade deals than we might otherwise have, which we've seen President Trump do in the past is a perfectly good thing to do. But free trade has been very good for America and the dollar being the standard currency, basically of all global trade. That's been good for us. It is very, very good for us. And that's the thing that you do not want to lose and that you put at risk with this tariff.

But globalist trade has not been so good for us. It's not good for everyone. Yeah, the idea that the center of the country is going to be gutted of jobs, but your iPhone is going to cost less because it's made by slave labor, has not really worked out for us. He's right. Remember, this is why his first inaugural speech was called Dark because he talked about American carnage. I was out there during the Biden administration in all the boarded shops

and all the people out of work and all the closed factories. It was heartbreaking. And I think he was right about that. So if he can bring America back to the place where we support American goods and still can have free. trade, I mean, that would be better than the globalist trade that we were dealing with. Well, I think that if we're going to talk about things that none of us understand, we should bring someone on who does understand some of them, and that is Matt Walsh.

And also, Ben Shapiro, you guys are at the Capitol. What was the energy like in the room? I mean, it was pretty outstanding from where we were sitting. Well, I mean, right now we're just wondering while we're here, because, I mean, well, we're exhausted. I mean, it's been a very, very long evening. And my annoyance is, you sent the two most easily annoyed people in America. this? And now you're bringing us back and it's 1135 at night. So I have not, I have not clapped and I have not clapped that much like in total in my entire life as I did in the room. So it's a lot of clapping. I will say that, that I thought it was a great speech.

And I thought, but for me, unfortunately, being in the room, even though it was a really good speech, the big takeaway is just the Democrats. And I'm sure you guys have covered it. The performance by the Democrats, I thought, was just disgraceful and ridiculous. And being in the room, I mean, I don't know how much you pick up on camera. I'm sure the one guy is standing up and refusing to leave. That certainly made it in. But it just constant comments, the little stunts, they're looking down at their phone. You know, I had a woman who was right in front of me down below who was like taking

angry selfies of herself and texting him to her friend. I could see that happening. So this is what the lawmakers were busy doing. Matt, did you photo bomb any of the selfies for this Democrat woman's friends? Just like, I got, I did. I got in one of them. I got in one of her that she sent to a friend. But to me, the thing that kind of tells you everything you need to know is that the Democrats sat on their hands and did not clap anything.

They didn't, you know, they didn't clap a child cancer survivor. They didn't clap planting a flag on Mars. They didn't clap, you know, protecting Americans from crime, killing terrorists. and all of that, the only thing they clap for, the only thing that they clapped for was Ukraine. That was the one single applause line from the Democrats. And I think that that sort of tells you everything you need to know about the Democrat Party, which is just nothing but a...

They didn't even clap for their own vote. There was one point when Trump thanked them for voting for Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. They didn't even clap for that. I mean, it really was an impressive show. And they kind of were gradually walking out. Like, you could see Bernie Sanders, maybe 15, 20 minutes before the end. He gets up and he walks out. You can see a bunch of the Democratic Congress,

people starting to file out kind of slowly during the actual event. Now, President Trump's energy was really good. I mean, President Trump is happy to be there. He's in a very good mood. Obviously, Republicans love him. They were really pumped. They're really ready to go. A lot of enthusiasm.

And I got to tell you, the Democrats felt dead. They felt dead. I mean, it felt like the air had been sucked out of their side of the room, not just because they were depressed because they lost, but also because there's just no juice to the resistance anymore. It feels as though they have kind of lost their point of opposition. And so they're kind of sitting there in. in weirdly disparate fashion with signs that read different things and they're holding them up

and we're supposed to take away from that that they're unified. The only points of unity they seem to be able to find in opposition to President Trump where at one point they tried to start a chance of January 6th, which is so played out as to be meaningless. Oh my gosh. And then again, when they applauded Ukraine, which again was less about their love of Ukraine and much more about their belief that President Trump is a caspaw of Vladimir Putin. So as far as the speech itself, you know, I think that it was very clear that President

Trump was focusing in on two really, really big themes, aside from the tariffs, which I heard you guys talking about, the two big themes that he kept coming back to, and he actually did come back to them multiple times. He actually would go away from them and then come back to them again. Illegal immigration, he beat the border to death tonight. And I think that that was actually a really smart strategy because it is the greatest single success of his administration so far. I mean, when we were talking to Tom Homan earlier, the stats that he was citing are extraordinary. And when President Trump brought that up and talked repeatedly about the damage that criminal illegal immigrants have done in the country, but it kept going back to that, that is a huge issue.

It is an entire country moving issue. And then the other big issue was, of course, one that is all near and dear to our hearts. I mean, obviously, we all care about illegal immigration, but the one that maybe the Daily Wire has taken the lead on as a company more than any other company in America is the trans issue. President Trump spoke about it. He left it. He came back to it. He came back to it repeatedly. And we had the pleasure, Matt and I, sitting next to Riley Gaines, who, of course, has also been a big sort of character in pushing forward, the notion that traditional sexes, actually is the metric for how we measure human beings in terms of, for example, sports. And the energy in the room for those two issues was extremely high.

He gave what I thought was properly short-trifted foreign policy, actually, because he is a domestic policy president. He said, we're going to strengthen the military. We're going to rebuild our shipping. We're going to build Golden Dome, which is a take on Iron Dome. Even though Iron Dome, for the record, is actually a system for shooting down short-range rockets, and Golden Dome would be presumably a large missile defense system designed for shooting down, say, supersonic.

sort of low, low altitude Chinese missiles. But, you know, same difference. He kind of talked about that, but it was all domestically focused. And I think that's totally appropriate for a president who is, in fact, domestically focused. And I know you guys are talking about the tariffs. You know, it's interesting to see how he's playing the tariffs. And it'll be interesting to see how they materialize.

The big question going forward, I think, for both the economy and for President Trump, is whether the key word in the phrase reciprocal tariff is reciprocal or tariff. Yeah. Yeah. So if the key word there is reciprocal, I think that, you know, what he's going to do is what, Jeremy, you are talking about, leverage other countries to lower their own tariffs in order so that we can get our tariffs lower and then more free trade for everyone, yay, hooray. If the keyword there is tariff and not reciprocal, meaning what he actually just likes are the tariffs, economic theory and history tell that that is a, that is a dicey proposition. And you can see the effects on the stock market almost immediately, right? You've seen it over the course of the last couple of days alone when Dow Jones Industrial

Average dropped 1,500 points. So, again, that is a dicey game that he is playing right there if he's fighting inflation. Large-scale tariffs tend not to lower inflation. They tend to increase, you know, sort of prices of goods and services because you're limiting supply while leaving demand exactly the same, which obviously increases prices. And then the question is just going to be whether it is a leverage play or whether it is a principal play that he sort of likes tariffs and has a vision of the world in which everyone reshores to the United States.

We export, but we don't import, which, again, I think that is likely to result in some pretty dire economic side effects. Well, this is, to me, the most interesting question, because the guy is a good poker player and it's hard to read it. You know, on the one hand, there are people, though I know it's unfashionable in our day and age, but there are people who make a serious principled economic argument for tariffs, and there's a long history of tariffs in the Republican Party, going back to Abraham Lincoln, who said, give me a tariff, I'll give you the greatest country on earth.

Now, that obviously fell out of favor in the middle to the latter part of the 20th century, but there is a world in which, and Trump has been, I think, advancing this view, that he really believes as a matter of principle in tariffs, and many of his economic advisors do as well. However, Trump is a dealmaker. He is promoted free trade, a global free trade, for many years of his career. And so there is also a view that he's kind of bluffing.

But the thing is, if he's bluffing, He's doing so in an extraordinarily persuasive way, which is his great strength on the global stage, is his unpredictability. So if you are an adversary of the United States or a trading partner of the United States that's kind of maybe ripping us off a little bit, and you're trying to read Trump right now, at least 10 to 20 percent of you has to think the guy might just love tariffs, and I better play my cards real cautiously. Yeah, and it is, it does, I don't know, I'm a simple man when you tell me that they're putting a 275% tariff on milk going out, but we can't put anything on, you know, and I think, well, why not? I don't understand why we can't play. It's all part of Trump's, we're not your daddy strategy, you know, like, we are not here to just support the world. And we have been treated like that, especially by Europe, but we have been treated like that by the country. We're supposed to show up, but they don't have to show up for us. And Trump's, you know, it may be garrish, maybe a little boarish to say, what's in it for us all the time. But what isn't it for us? We are a sovereign nation. I mean, I think what's in it for us is actually a pretty good pitch. What's in it for us is a pretty good pitch? Yeah.

I think the thing that we do have to remember, however, is that we are also, that there is something in it for us, which is namely that our gigantic national debt is actually funded by other countries who are buying our bonds. I mean, so it turns out that actually there are two sides to the story. It's not just the United States funding everybody else. The reality is that everybody else is also funding us by holding the dollar as the global reserve currency and then holding bonds that they can easily transfer into dollars. So again, economics is a bit of a sensitive game. And, you know, the one thing,

and this is the thing that I really fear for President Trump's administration, the one thing that can send things south, because the Democrats are so gone, they're so gone. I mean, that's what you can see in the room. They have lost it. They've lost it. When it comes to the trans issue, they've completely lost it. When it comes to illegal immigration, they've completely lost it. They're just so far from common sense. The one thing that could really hurt Trump is an economic downturn. It's the one thing he cannot afford. No president can afford it. President Trump more than most because he's seen as a pro-correctly, as a pro-business president. And so anything that can be done to avoid an economic downturn is the thing that he really has to do. The good news about Trump, I think,

is that even if he loves tariffs, like adores them, President Trump also, even more than that, likes good headlines and does not like bad headlines. And so if the economy starts to go south, this is one area where President Trump will stick and move. Though again, even on that point, Trump seems to, in recent weeks, and even in that speech tonight, be preparing the American people for some potential. short-term economic challenge. He says, look, it's going to be a little tough in the short term. So, again, I don't exactly know how to read it because that might just be him bluffing really well to say, no, I am really serious about him, as I understand the implications. I don't know that Donald Trump bluffs.

Hmm. I think that Donald Trump changes. I don't think that Donald Trump is fundamentally ideological. He fundamentally wants to make a deal. And so I think that one of the reasons that he is so unpredictable, is because everyone assumes that there is some other motive at play, when in fact it may just be as simple as the thing's unfair, I'm going to put tariffs on it. And if somebody comes back to me and there's a better deal to be made in the future where I take the tariffs off because something good's happening,

then that'll be the thing that I'm for. I don't know that he's, I don't know that Trump is sophisticated. And I don't say that as a knock on Trump. I'm actually saying it kind of as a good thing. Like, I just don't think that he is, I don't think that he is that. I don't know. I think he has this way of looking at things in a general way that seems unsophisticated, but it is not. He can't have won as often as he's won and be unsophisticated. I think what he does is he thinks differently. He thinks in a gestalt style that everybody calls gut politics.

But it's really a way of seeing the world in total. And sometimes I do believe that sometimes even he hasn't got his whole strategy worked out. Look, there are going to be some bad headlines. You cannot bring down inflation without increasing unemployment. they're going to be bad headlines. And I noticed nobody's talking about unemployment because it always goes up when inflation goes down. And so no one is talking about it.

So they're lying in wait so that when it goes up, they can hit him with it. He's going to have some bad headlines. Happened to Reagan when he brought down inflation. The unemployment went up. And it cost him his majorities in the legislature. But still, I do think he has an idea of what he's doing. And I do think, I don't think he bluffs.

I think he makes a deal and takes an extreme position, knowing that's not where he's. going to end? Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I think, and I agree with that, I don't see this as a bluff at all. I mean, it might change. That might be the case that it changes. I certainly don't think that it's a bluff because, I mean, I agree with Drew that I think Trump, his great appeal is that he thinks in a very simple way, which is not to say simplistic, but I say simple. I consider myself to be a simple guy in a lot of ways, which is just, you look at an issue like this. Well, why should they slap us with higher tariffs than we put on them? I mean, you did it to us. Why

shouldn't we do it to you? It's a pretty, it's the same thing with Zelensky. You visit the White House. And it's like, hey, we gave you all of this. And so if we're going to give you this, then we expect something in return. It's, you know, in that case, it's kind of similar to the, you know, I say to my kids all the time, you're in my house. You, you know, you, you're under my roof. It's my food. You're going to play by my rules. Every father says that. I gave you javelin missiles. And you're going to listen to me. Right. Exactly. I say that, I say that to my kids all time. I give you all the weapons, so you're going to play by my rules. So, and I think most people hear that and think, yeah, well, it kind of makes sense.

Like, why not? And that's, that's the way that I look at it. By the way, credit to Zelensky for recognizing that he really, really needed to put out a statement before this speech. I mean, seriously. Like, Zelensky blew that meeting on Friday in a massive, massive way. I went through on my show, like the entire details of that meeting, like went through all 50 minutes of that particular meeting. And Zelensky really blew it and then he continued to blow it. And then today he came back and he said the thing he was supposed to say, which is we're very, very grateful for all the support, we're ready to sign a rare earth mineral deal. We're trying to get to the end of this war. And so

tonight, instead of President Trump spending half the speech shalacking Zelensky in Ukraine, instead, President Trump did what he does, which is he pocketed the victory. And again, this goes back. I think we're all saying very similar things here. I don't think that President Trump, when it comes to these policies, is sitting there thinking, okay, if I move my rook here, they're going to move their night here. And then if they move their night here, I'm going to move my bishop here, checkmate. Like, that's not how President Trump thinks.

The way that he thinks is much more like, I'm going to do this thing. And if you respond to the way that I want, then we can make a deal. And if you respond to the way, I don't want, I'm going to hit you. And you know what? Most policy can actually get done fairly well that way.

I will say, I did enjoy the break with tradition that was pretty evident from the beginning of the speech. I think this is what he meant when he said, remember he had to put out this truth social in all caps. I'm going to speak plainly tonight. And everybody's like, I don't know what that means. Like, when has he ever not spoken plainly?

Where is the subtlety, my man? But, you know, I think what he meant, I'm going to speak plainly. What he meant was, I'm just going to, if I feel like banging on the Democrats, I'm just going to bang on the Democrats. When he started off, right, it was hysterically funny. When he started off right near the top, and he said, listen, I've been doing this for five years, five times I've come to you. They never clapped once.

I don't even care anymore. I'm sorry, that's really funny. And it cuts through the bullshit of the entire sort of evening, which is, you know, propped up is the sort of almost post-imperial event. I've spoken on the program a thousand times about how much I generally hate state of the union addresses. I will say it was kind of funny because it felt like kind of a post-state of the union state of the union state of the union. But I'll go step further. I don't think that it was just funny, although it was certainly funny. I don't think it was just plain speak and shalac and the Democrats, although it was certainly that.

It was also a perfect trap that he put them in. Because once he said, they cannot clap for me no matter what. He took all the tools that they had. I mean, this is the reason all their shenanigans basically fizzled out in the first three minutes. Because what was left once he had already established, here's how the game's going to get played. When he promoted no tax on tips, a policy that the Democrats stole from him and campaigned on. That's right. And they couldn't even applaud for it. They looked absolutely ridiculous. Had he not made those remarks at the beginning of the speech, they would have clapped for the 13-year-old boy. By the way, that way, I, I, I, I agree that Trump has a good gut and everything like that.

But I do think he also has strategic sophistication. Maybe that's one area where I disagree. That was clearly a trap. And it worked very well. I don't mean that he doesn't have strategy, but it's not the same kind of strategy. But I can't remember which one of you guys said it, but he's not talking about a chess game. He's more talking about a kind of, like I said, a Gestalt, an atmosphere that he knows how to move through. And he does it really expertly, you know.

Well, fella, it is very funny. He's really funny. He's just hilarious. In the room, it was very funny. There were a lot of things that we were chuckling at in the room for sure. Yeah, I'll say that this was my first time I've been in a room for, actually in the room for a Trump speech. And, you know, I knew he was a really funny guy, but that's one thing you appreciate when you're in the room. It's just kind of the energy of it and sort of the aside comments.

And I don't know, being in the room, you kind of... The little hand motions. At the very beginning, they're clapping for him and he actually did the Trump dance. I mean, could you, I don't know if you guys could see that on camera? No, we actually did. When they were giving the big ovation, I don't know if they're paying to the crowd wherever, he literally stepped to the side of the podium and did the thing. Yeah.

I noticed this. And it was really funny, like really funny. At the MSG rally right before the election, I noticed his first time I had seen him in person, I think, ever, certainly that close. But I think maybe in person. And he gets up on stage and I realized, oh, I get it now. He's Elvis. That's his thing. He's actually Elvis.

It's not that he's Reagan. It's not that he's Bush. He's Elvis. And there was, speaking of these great little moments and these great little asides, there's one that no one is talking about, but it killed me, which is that Trump was talking about illegal immigration. And he goes, and these people, you know, coming over, murderers, human traffickers. And then he just points to the Democrats in the room. Like, these murderers, human trafficking. And I thought, well, you know, shoe fits, man. Truly the most entertaining state of the union.

Yep. No question. that I've ever seen. And, you know, I had a kind of sadness watching it because Donald Trump's not a young man. Like this, we are in the end of whatever this is. And, you know, four years is a long time. We get to enjoy the ending of it. Eight years with a third term. Thank you. But it was the first time that I felt a kind of nostalgia for Donald Trump. And I was feeling it while he's still president because we will never see anything like it. No, no, no. Yeah. It's going to be. Well, it's going to be the last great administration of my life at time, but it may be the last great administration of your life done, too,

because they don't come along. Though I am hopeful for the reign of Baron Octavian Augustus from, and I don't know if it will be exactly like this, but, you know, Augustus was actually better than Julius in any ways, so we'll see. Fellas, I know it's late in D.C. and you have shows to do tomorrow. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for coming back after fighting your way through whatever mob there was

and signing autographs for Congress people. and Bobert, I know. There's just all kinds of weirdness that you guys had to deal with. But it was a good night. Yeah, very marvelous night. Marvelous night. Thanks to all of our dailywired.com subscribers

for hanging out with us, making it possible for us to do this work. We do have one fun thing going on, and that is that Ben is leading this crusade to get President Trump to consider pardoning Derek Chauvin of the federal charges that he was convicted of.

Of course. won't mean that he gets out of jail, will mean that he has to go to a state prison, but it will still be the beginning of correcting this horrible injustice. And we have a petition at pardonederic.com. We'd love for you to sign it, as we're letting President Trump know that this is still an important issue. And he's given all these great pardons already in his time as president.

But there is like one guy has obviously still been left on the field. And that's Derek Chauvin. So head over to pardonderick.com and add your name to our petition today. and we'll see you guys back here next time for Daily Wire Backstage.