Tons coming up on today's show a huge announcement coming up in just a moment plus. We talk about President Trump's new travel ban on a bunch of countries trying to keep bad people out of the United States. We're joined by Representative Elise Stefanik, who may be running for Governor of New York and to the New York mayoral debate. Plus, Tucker Carlson is attacking Mark Levin with, I guess, inside information from the White House or something.
But first, give dad with the culture won't common sense. Get 40% off daily wire plus gift memberships for Father's Day and give dad ad-free daily shows from the most trusted voices in conservative media. Use code DAD40 at dailywire.com to say 40% now. Alright folks, today I have a huge announcement.
My first book in four years is coming out on September 2nd. It's titled, Lions and Scavengers. I started writing this book in a white heat at a specific time and place outside London in November 2023, where I was preparing to do a series of debates at Oxford Union and Cambridge. I've been thinking about the themes in the book for a long, long time.
It all truly crystallized after October 7th, 2023. Not because of the barbaric terrorism of the terrorist who came off. None of that was particularly surprising. But because of the response in the West where hundreds of thousands of born and bred Westerners took to the streets before Israel had even responded in order to rally to the side of terrorists who murdered babies in front of their parents, rape women and kidnapped Holocaust survivors.
Something deeply wrong had happened in the West. And so I spent the course of the next year thinking and traveling and writing. This new book is a work of the heart and of the mind. I think it's my most important book.
It's certainly my most passionate. Lions and Scavengers took shape as I traveled from Washington DC to Oxford University from the southern border of the United States with Mexico to the drug infested areas of Kensington, Pennsylvania from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Jerusalem, Israel. And the thesis of the book is really simple. Our civilization is now divided between lions and scavengers.
And we must decide between them. So now I want to read you just the very beginning of Lions and Scavengers. Attention lies at the core of our being. It roils us.
It guts. It boils our brains. That tension lies between two opposing forces. Those forces beat within every man's breast.
They fight for supremacy within every civilization. One must triumph and one must fall. The spirit of the lion. The spirit of the scavenger.
I write these words in London, England. I write them in disappointment and horror and dismay. For London has been conquered by the Scavengers. Just last weekend, London saw a massive river of protesters hundreds of thousands strong marching.
Their banners unfurled. The banners of terrorist groups and communists and transgender activists gathered together to revolt against the civilization that has given them their rights and their prosperity and their power. These marchers have gathered to protest in favor of the terror group Hamas. It has been just a few weeks since the slaughter of 1200 Jews in kidnapping of 250 others on October 7, 2023 in the envelopes surrounding the Gaza Strip.
Members of Hamas and Palestinian civilians flooded into villages, a music festival, homes. They dragged out men, women and children. They live streamed their crimes. And the Scavengers have risen in rage in support of Hamas.
As the savagery mass murder rape kidnapping took place, one comment are posted on social media. What did y'all think? De-colonization meant? Bives, papers, essays, losers.
Her comment received nearly 100,000 likes. And it spoke to the very core of the Scavengers. All inhumanity against the Lions is justified. And so the Scavengers have gathered here in the beating heart of what was once the center of western civilization to pay for more blood and to scream at a West that insists that the defense against terror is the first right of all men.
They march with their red flags held high, ecstatically singing the praises of murderers and rapists, for this is their opportunity to castigate the Lions' pride to bring it low. The British Communist Party issued a statement in solidarity with Hamas condemning the Israeli government on the day after October 7 before Israeli military action had even begun. Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labor Party, appeared at rallies flanked by Palestinian flags. The hilarious leaders of our group queers for Palestine quickly formed in solidarity with people who would throw queers off buildings at the first available opportunity if given half a chance.
Many of the most ardent liberteens have thrown their support behind Hamas, claiming solidarity with those who would throw them off roofs at the first opportunity. Anything to tear down the pride. This is not mere anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is an age-old hatred rooted in a conspiracy theory.
It takes many forms and has countless victims. This is something different. It is united, coalitional hatred of the West. In the Lord of the Rings, J.R.
Tolkien wrote of the hordes of Mordor, stand-ins for the Nazis and their allies by way of metaphor, gathering on the planes outside the gates of Minasteroth, the last red of mankind. The plane was dark with their marching companies. And as far as eyes could strain in the mark, they're sprouted like foul fungus growth, all about the bleagered city, great camps of tents, black or sombrered. All day the labor went forward while the men of Minasteroth looked on, unable to hinder it.
So what goes today? In London? The marchers march, their numbers increase, and the scavengers cast their avaricious ravenous eyes across the landscape and see no one to oppose them. The lions are gone, and without the spirit of the lion, our civilization collapses.
That is the very beginning of my brand new book, Lions and Scavengers, available for pre-order right now at DailyWire.com. I think it's incredibly important not just for you, but also for your kids, because we do need to be a civilization of lions if we want to survive and thrive. We need to teach our children to be lions and to fight the scavengers. I hope that my brand new book, Lions and Scavengers, is a fitting start because the battle continues every single day.
A speaking of the scavengers, Democrats are having a very, very difficult time right now. My book, by the way, has a fair bit of optimism to it because over the course of the year from October 2023 to election 2024, some things change. But the sort of fascinating devolution of the Democratic Party is a study on what it looks like when scavengers have nothing to rally around. We saw that last night in a New York mayoral debate that just exploded into chaos when all these bizarre left-wing perspectives came into conflict.
So in this New York mayoral debate, New York right now is, of course, in serious political trouble. Eric Adams has been under fire for allegations of corruption. He's running as an independent. And meanwhile, their nine Democrats are competing essentially to run against him.
And the two leading Democrats are Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of the state, who spent his term grabbing ass and killing old people, and he ran out of old people. And then he was ousted for the alleged ass-grabbing. So Andrew Cuomo is the current front-runner in the New York mayoral race. And then the person who's running second is a person named Zor-an-Mandani, who's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
And basically an open communist. I mean, he's openly said that he wants government-run grocery stores. He has suggested that the government basically ought to run housing completely in the city of New York. And he's a full-fledged red communist.
Zor-an-Mandani. And he's running second. He's like 22% in the polls behind Andrew Cuomo's at 35% in the Democratic primary polls. So this debate broke into absolute sheer chaos right from the beginning.
And watching the competing strains of the sort of scavenger mentality go at each other. The intersectional coalition clawing at one another. It's pretty astonishing to watch. I wonder why Democrats are in trouble.
This would be the reason. So Justin Garamos is a New York state senator. She really has very little juice in this race. But just to show how radical the Democrats are, she suggested that because President Trump will not use federal tax-paradallers who subsidize the transing of the children that New Yorkers should withhold their own taxes.
This is a serious proposal from a person running from New York Mayor is that people should stop paying their taxes unless Donald Trump restores the ability of taxpayer dollars to fund the transing of minors. Okay, here we go. Not only should my administration litigate to protect immigrants, to protect gender-affirming care, but we should be ready to withhold our federal taxes when Trump unlawfully takes away funding from the things that we need. Unbelievable.
So unless you have openly legal immigration and transing the kids, then you should stop paying your taxes according to a Democrat who's running from New York. She wasn't the only Democrat running from Mayor Michael Blake, former New York Assemblyman and Vice Chair of the DNC from 2017 to 2021. He jumped in to attack Andrew Cuomo. I have to say this was sort of amusing.
He said that grandmothers don't feel safe around Andrew Cuomo because of his history of handsiness, shall we say? The people who don't feel safe are young women, mothers and grandmothers around Andrew Cuomo. That's the greatest threat to public safety in New York City. Yeah, you have to be worried about the old people and who can make ill and all the- I mean, good times over at the Mayoral Debate.
Adrian Adams, the Speaker of the New York City Council, she also exploded on Andrew Cuomo. Clearly, Cuomo was the recipient of most of the ire on the stage. There were some nine candidates on the stage and most of them were directing their anger at Cuomo because he's the front runner. Here he was.
Mr. Cuomo, this question was a little regret at all. This question was about your personal regret in your politics. None.
I said I regret the state of the Democratic Party. No personal regret. No regrets when it comes to cutting Medicaid or health care. No regrets when it comes to cutting child care.
No regrets when it comes to slow-walking PPE and vaccinations in the season of COVID to black and brown communities. Really no regrets. No regrets. So in a little while, we're going to have on Representative Elise Stefanik, who made the running for governor of New York, to talk about what's going on here at first.
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The man isn't going to subside anytime soon in my opinion. Again, this is one of the reasons why I'm investing in precious metals. I'm looking around the market. I see a lot of bubbles everywhere.
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Shopify.com. Shopiro. Meanwhile, Selmore, Mayri, another one of these quasi-anonymous state politicians in New York State Senator, he says that New York should stop carrying out federal immigration policy altogether. So these are Democrats who are all stampeding to the left off the cliff.
It's legitimately right there. We have to stand up. They are snatching people out of our schools. They're snatching people out of our courthouses.
We cannot stand for that in this moment. I have a frontline agenda. I want to hire 50 more lawyers to the law department. I want to go on the offensive.
I want to utilize the 10th Amendment to ensure that we are not carrying out the federal government's immigration policies. But where he may or if you would not hire more cops, you would hire more lawyers to challenge President Trump on illegal immigration. Genius level stuff. Zoram Andani, who again is running in second place, he is so radical that he refused to acknowledge that Israel should be a Jewish state.
He says it should exist, just not exist, which is hilarious. Here we go. Yes or no? Do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?
I believe Israel has the right to exist. As a Jewish state? No. As a state with equal rights.
He won't say it as a right of a Jewish state. And his answer was no. He won't visit Israel. No, no, no.
I'm like you. I'm like you. I just went directly. I want to be right here.
I believe every state should be a state of equal rights. Okay. He clearly does not believe that. He's never called on any Muslim state to be a state of equal rights ever.
And when it comes to equal rights, of course, Israel is the only state in the region that actually does have equal rights for Muslims and Christians and Jews, all the other states are privileged in the region, turned Muslims, like far and away, not close. In any case, that guy's running seconds in the New York primaries. You know, Andrew Cuomo eventually got mad at moderators and he started ripping into them. He was just given a chance to actually address the clear claims that were stated and ignored it.
Okay. We do have to move on because we have other candidates on stage and we want to hear about their rates. Mr. Stringer, please hear about your stuff.
We can't qualify. Mr. Mueller. You denied the close.
We're here to talk about this. We're gonna move on. Mr. Mirey.
Things are going well over in that New York Democratic primary. Things are going so well for the Democratic Party, in fact, the Korean Jean Pierre, who was the White House press secretary under Joe Biden and clearly knew that the man was no longer mentally capable. She's now decided she's no longer Democrat. She's now independent.
I know. a little late to run away from the sinking ship, especially when you are the person who actually drilled the holes into the ship. But Karine Jean-Pierre is now trying to do that and make money off that she has a brand new book that is coming out titled Independent, which is hilarious, at least independent and independent of all time. According to Politico, Karine Jean-Pierre's announcement that she's leaving the Democratic Party time with the rollout of a new book has detonated long simmering grievances among her former White House colleagues about Jean-Pierre's pursuit of celebrity and personal media exposure while serving as then-President Joe Biden's press secretary, the attention grabbing ploy, lit up Democrat and Biden alumni, texting groups and reignited frustrations that burn for years about Jean-Pierre, according to seven former Biden administration officials granted anonymity to describe private conversation.
So first of all, we should point out at this point, everyone who's using competent, I called her for years, the world's worst White House secretary because she was awful at her job, truly terrible at her job. A joke, and Democrats kept defending her. Why? Because of course, she was intersectional.
She was a Black lesbian who was also the White House secretary, even though she was wildly incompetent. So you basically had a DEI hire covering for a dead man in the White House and everybody in the Democratic Party thought this was perfectly fine until the moment it imploded in on them. According to Politico, one former official recall that Jean-Pierre had joked about becoming independent even while on the job in the White House, an off-key comment for someone ostensibly serving as a major messenger for the Democratic Party. Another former official said that Jean-Pierre had begun working during the Biden administration with a New York-based publicist and had copied that person on official emails before someone Jean-Pierre's White House colleagues intervened.
Everyone thinks this is a grift, the first former official sent of Jean-Pierre's book project. And then this is the objective reporting. This is the objective reporting. It happens to be true.
As Biden's press secretary, Jean-Pierre's halting, ineffectual briefings, exasperated reporters and routinely offered material for the Republican Party's main accounts on X. She frustrated colleagues throughout the West Wing for focusing on raising her own profile while leaving the hands-on management of media relations and the White House press shop to other aides. While it's unclear how she will portray Biden or her time in the White House in the book titled Independent, a look inside a broken White House outside the party lines, several former colleagues expressed confusion at how Jean-Pierre seemingly intends to paint Biden as a victim while pending her own decision to leave the party on his broken White House. So, that's going to be fun.
It'll be fun to watch Democrats tear each other apart over all of this. And again, the sort of self-sabotage of the Democratic Party is the realistic response of a party of people who can't build things. And right now, are facing down a relatively impregnable Trump administration. They've just decided not to attack any of the vulnerabilities of the Trump administration.
They're spending all their time focusing inward. And they can't help but do so because the reality is that their own politics is so broken and so angry and vicious and just anti-American in so many ways that they're just tearing one another apart. You can see this in a fascinating column by David at Wall as well, so it's a columnist for The New York Times. It's a piece titled Our Regression on Gender is a Tragedy, not just a political problem.
And this piece is all about lamenting the fact that Democrats have lost young men. The young men don't want to be part of the Democratic Party. And there's a reason young men don't want to be part of the Democratic Party. The reason is because the Democratic Party has spent literally decades telling young men that they are completely useless and are counterproductive, violent, a threat to the system and a threat to women.
When you make men feel as though they are useless and counterproductive, they are going to leave you and not be with you. That is true personally and it is true politically. And the Democratic Party has spent years building up a feeling among young men that they are not wanted. And so David Wall as well as his lament is, why won't they stick around and be part of matriarchy, essentially?
Quote, on the surface, the Trump coalition might appear powered by an unapologetic, rakish, UFC party-bro energy. Think of the glimpses we've gotten of Pete Haggsets, naked torso, or the way his confirmation hearings were mimefied as a hard-ass man accused of sexual assault staring down a hexering panel of hysterical grandmas. Or for that matter, the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, invited her Instagram followers to observe her working out in a sports bra. There may not be a more representative clip about the Vibeshift of 2024 than the comedian and podcaster and Rucholtz explaining his supposed defection from the Democrats by explaining that he liked the dudes that have sex, using a crude term for female anatomy, and say whatever they want.
And David Wall as well is upset about this. Why? Well, because what this suggests that men would actually like to be men again, and one of the things that Democratic Party has been focused on for a very long time is that men essentially need to be castrated, that men need to not be treated as men, that men's aggressive instinct to create and protect is inherently bad and insulting to women. According to Wall as well, since 2022, fewer than 30% of Republican men believe the proposition that women should return to their traditional roles in society, according to the views of the Electoral Research Survey assessed by a group of political scientists writing for the times.
Two years later, then number was 48%. Republican women underwent a similar search from 23% in 2022 to 37% in 2024. Today, political scientists note 79% of Republican men and 67% of Republican women say they believe American society has gotten too soft and feminine, with 43% of the country overall agreeing. According to Pew the Sheriff Republican, who say American society has gotten too accepting of men taking on traditionally female roles like nurses, presumably or schoolteachers has grown by 40% since 2017.
But that's not what those words are saying. What they're saying is that the traditionally female role, just for all of human history, was childbearing, rearing, taking care of the home. That doesn't mean that women can't work also. You can find women engaging in commerce going all the way back to the book of Proverbs.
In fact, we choose every Friday night. We actually sing a song that is a quotation from the book of Proverbs that talks about all the wonderful things that women do, including being active in the marketplace. What people are rebelling against is the idea that men and women are essentially inrogynous widgets, and that when men take on female roles or females decide that they no longer need no man, that that is somehow good for society. Because in general, it isn't.
In general, men need to be told and they need to be trained to be protectors and providers. They need to be trained to be lions that talk about in the book. And women actually need, if they wish to be fulfilled, to have a part of their life that is dedicated to things like childbearing and child rearing. This is perfectly natural.
There's nothing wrong with saying it. And it is specifically because the Democratic Party has said that the highest form of womanhood is to treat, as Michelle Obama said, the reproductive system as non-reproductive. She literally said this just a week ago. She said openly that the female reproductive system, the least important thing it does is reproduce.
Wrong, Madam. Actually, it is the most important thing, just as the male reproductive system. The most important thing it does is reproduce, actually. That's literally why it is called the reproductive system.
It's why there's so many parts down there. It is amazing. The Democrats have run headlong away from reality, and then they are upset when reality clocks them back into place. Coming up, you and Stefanik will be joining us.
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Also, as I mentioned at the very top of the show, my brand new book Lions and Scavengers is available for pre-order right now at dailywire.com slash Ben Shapiro. If you believe Western civilization is worth defending, this is the book for you. It's a direct challenge to the destructive life that all cultures are equal and that success is something to be ashamed of. My brand new book Lions and Scavengers drops September 2nd pre-order today at dailywire.com slash BEND Shapiro.
The movement of men away from the Democratic Party is not because they need more messaging from the terror supporter Hassan Piker who works out a lot and wears pearls. That's not why you're losing men. The reason you're losing men is because your vision of masculinity is unattractive to men. Men do not want to be the kinds of men that you're talking about.
And by the way, women don't like those kinds of men anyway. That is why you're falling apart, but the Democrats have to tear each other apart because again, they're running up against reality. And this is the thing that David Wells is fussing about. What he should be doing is reminding Democrats, guys, there is a reality.
Men are men. Women are women. They don't generally want all the same things. There's some crossover in that Venn diagram, but men actually want to live their lives differently than women.
And if you alienate men, then you're going to alienate them by telling them that they can't be men anymore. But according to David Wells, again, they have a vision. They have a vision of society in which men are torn to the ground. Quote, there's a reactionary turn outside the workplace too.
There's been a similar drop in surveyed backing for gay rights, but the Republicans support for marriage equality following 14 points in three years, according to Gallup, and the economists you got reporting that nearly two thirds of Republicans are now in opposition. By the way, the reason for that is because the promise of gay marriage back in 2013 or so when Obergefell was decided was that it would essentially be, okay, so men are going to marry men sometimes and women are going to marry women sometimes. But how does that affect you and your family? And then it turned into a giant push for the idea of sexual fluidity for all children, including gender transformation.
And we're going to teach this to your kids. It turns out it was never about being left alone. It was about completely changing every social standard in society. Some of us were arguing that for years before this happened, but that has always been the program and that program was revealed and now your single reaction to that program says David Wells, we're not living in that world.
When you could look back on the previous decades and probably see below the ups and downs of partisan conflict, the broad strokes of the basic cultural consensus, one that pushed for a strong embrace of markets and consumption in the realm of economics and toward more personal autonomy and freedom of choice in the social sphere, like the just story of free markets, the just story of reliably expanding civil rights and opportunity looks at the time if simplistic, also not inaccurate. But he says, now that's over. Now there's been a backlash against the culturally liberal project and that's terrible. There's an awful lot to chew over about the reactionary turn of young men.
The way you think liberalism might have contributed to male alienation, it is the sole reason for the male alienation. The way the deindustrialization may be like, no, actually, because America has been moving away from a manufacturing industrial base since essentially the 1970s. That would not be the thing. The way that the magazine of reindustrialization may be in efforts to reverse those forces and the sexual dynamics that may result, again, it's not about, it is not about reindustrialization.
It's about you forcibly decided to teach young men that they are useless and counterproductive and bad and that all basic masculinity is the same as one of what toxic masculinity. That's the reason. But the democratic coalition doesn't have a place to go. They are stuck and it's a real problem for them.
They find themselves defending some of the worst people on earth and some of the worst ideas, which is what you were seeing in that New York mayoral debate. And joining some lines to discuss the state of New York is chairwoman Elise Stefanik, who's representative from New York's 21st district, the most senior elected Republican in New York state. She's currently the chairwoman of House Republican leadership and she recently launched a Save New York Pact design helping Republicans in local races around the state representatives of panics. Thanks so much for joining the show.
I really appreciate it. Great to be with you, Ben. So why don't we start with the state of play in New York? Obviously, it's New York City mayoral races a complete bleep show in a disaster area that they had last night was a complete mess and indicative, I think, of the state of the Democratic Party in the state of New York.
What do you make of the state of play in New York, which of course has been a democratic stronghold forever at the state level and also New York City? Well, you talk about how it's a democratic stronghold and the result of single party Democrat rule over years. And in fact, I've seen this over the course of my lifetime. You've seen you've seen absolutely no rule of law.
You've seen releasing of criminals. You've seen putting illegals first, the highest taxed state in the nation, the least friendly to small businesses. We leave the nation in population exodus. And as a result, in the past few election cycles, no state has moved more to the Republican direction than New York state.
If you look at President Trump's performance in 2024, he did historically well in communities in the Bronx and Queens, for example, than any other Republican on the ballot. If you look at 2022 when Lee Zeldin was on the ballot, he came within six points to defeating Kathy Hokel, who essentially is an accidental governor. What is interesting today, Ben, and very concerning, is you saw the Democrat mayoral primary last night, the debate. And it was the epitome of the just absolute challenges and catastrophe in today's Democrat party.
Every single candidate has been on record for defunding the police. Every single Democrat candidate has supported failed bail reform, which of his course caused this crime crisis and the skyrocketing of danger in New York state. You had candidates like Zoron Mamdami, who didn't want to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. You had a failure of candidates to combat and condemn anti-Semitism, which is raging on the streets of New York.
And of course, you saw what has happened at Columbia. So these are real crises and they're created by Democrats. The polling shows that over 60% of New Yorkers want to elect someone new. And if you look at voter registration, it is increasingly Republican.
So there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to save New York once and for all. And that starts at the local level. As you know, I've been in office. This is my 11th year in Congress.
I flipped a district. We win not only Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. And we've built up this local infrastructure and grassroots flipping multiple counties in my district. We're hoping to do that across the state to lay the groundwork for next year to fire Kathy Hokel once and for all.
One of the big missions that you've been on also is to go after the university system that you mentioned there. You talked about Columbia University. You obviously famously had all of the heads of some of the major universities in front of you who refuse to condemn anti-Semitism. What do you make of the Trump administration's attempts to curb anti-Semitism by pushing on some of the funding mechanisms for these major universities?
Well, I called on President Trump to do that and work very closely with him. He followed those hearings incredibly closely. It's an issue that I've discussed with him extensively going back the past few years. And I applaud this administration for stepping in and holding these universities accountable.
We saw Ben, they had an opportunity to save themselves. They failed. They failed at the highest levels, but it is an end-de-mak within these institutions. Whether it's the offices of DEI, whether it's the rise of anti-Semitism, even predating the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th.
You see the decline of admissions of Jewish students. You see assault physical threats, verbal threats against Jews. You've seen Hillells who have been targeted at these schools across the country. You've seen professors who are spewing violent anti-Semitism.
And yet they're propped up by these universities in the state of New York. Look at what has happened to Columbia. These are once great institutions that have failed at all levels. They have fundamentally lost their way.
So it is important for this administration and it's why Congress has stepped in as well to use the power of the purse when it comes to ensuring that US tax payer dollars don't go to prop up this anti-Semitism. One of the things that was astonishing watching some of the debate last night was the openness toward immigration from some of the worst places on Earth and some of the worst people. There are people on stage who are literally saying that you should withhold your tax dollars from New York if New York complies with federal immigration law in conciliance. But the Trump administration, the Trump administration right now is trying to reduce the number of people coming in from abroad who hate the country.
This is something the Secretary of State Rubio has talked about obviously. And in the aftermath of a person who pretty clearly is an illegal immigrant throwing Molotov cocktails at Jews in Boulder, Colorado for the great sin of rallying for hostages. And the Trump administration is trying to support the family and the judges standing in the way. It's never been more important for the White House and for the federal government to stand in the way of the importation of people who hate the country hate the West.
Hate is real hate Jews. They're not in coordination with American values. And yet their Democrats want to bring more of these folks in. I stand strongly with President Trump and it is important that we take a moment to comment on the absolute anti-Semitism, this terror attack on U.S.
soil that happened in Boulder, Colorado. The fact that this illegal was here because of Joe Biden's failed border policies, Molotov cocktails thrown, including an individual who was a Holocaust survivor ban. This is happening on U.S. soil and it's a result of policies.
And what did you see from New York Democrats? By the way, a party that Cathy Hokelees, you saw that they want more illegals, that they're putting illegals first, but they also want to keep importing people that fundamentally are anti-American. We need to make sure we are standing up for American values. And that's why you are saying, like, totally increasing numbers of votes in key parts of New York, moving towards the Republican direction, because enough is enough.
You also heard on the debate stage last night the fact that they want to continue using U.S. taxpayer dollars for illegals housing, for illegals healthcare, for illegals first, and New Yorkers last. New Yorkers don't want that. New Yorkers want to put New Yorkers first.
And that's what I intend to do. That's what I've done in Congress. And we're going to be supporting candidates to do that at the local, and all levels up and down the ballot. Now, speaking of your role in Congress, obviously, the big, beautiful bill just recently passed Congress and is now sitting in the Senate where it's being renegotiated.
And then eventually, it'll be reconciliation between the bills that come forward from both houses. And what do you make a debate over the big, beautiful bill? Obviously, voting in favor of it. There's been a lot to talk about.
The debt ceiling and debt. What is your take on that conversation? My take is this is the centerpiece of President Trump's agenda. This is what we ran on.
We owe it to the American people to deliver border security, energy independence, tax cuts, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. These are very key provisions that President Trump run, and he ran and he won on, and we fully support that. I was the deciding vote, Ben. That is how important it is.
And that's why I'm still in Congress to make sure that we hold this House majority. And I was proud to cast that deciding vote. They're going to be bumped along the road as there always is when you work through this legislative process. Currently, the Senate, this bill is in front of the Senate.
There's a lot of discussions, but it needs to be a bill that can come back and pass the House, given our various limit. So we are working very hard to stand up for the American people. Again, the key provisions are the border security aspect, the economic package about whether it's the tax provisions or energy independence. So yes, I know the day-to-day news headlines can make it seem rocky, but we've been able to deliver.
And most importantly, President Trump has been able to deliver and has a way to be able to work with all of these members, all of whom he knows, including all the senators, all the House Republicans, to get this done for the American people. And I'm particularly proud of the important economic pieces, cutting taxes, not only for Americans, but specifically for New Yorkers, which has been a very important part of our delegation's effort. So Representative Stonick, you're also on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Obviously, one of the big issues at the forefront of what the President has been considering right now is negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program.
He has said for 10 years that the Obama JCPOA is the worst deal in the history of mankind. He has said clearly and concisely that there should be no nuclear development in Iran. Period. What do you make of the intelligence that's coming in about Iran's actual nuclear development?
Their levels of nuclear development? How urgent is the situation? And what do you make of the negotiating strategy of the United States? Well, first of all, President Trump is the master negotiator.
We have seen this, whether it's the Abraham Accords, whether it is his trade deals, and it will be the case in this as well. I absolutely, we need to make sure that it is zero, zero, no nuclear, not for power, not for anything. It needs to be zero nuclear resources when it comes to Iran. And the President has stated that over and over again.
And the President is in the position to be able to deliver on that. I am deeply concerned, Iran is just a growing threat in the region. But President Trump is, again, the strongest negotiator we have, and he's the strongest negotiator around the world. I've always taken this threat very seriously.
We know that Iran is the backing of Hamas and Hezbollah. And of course, that led to October 7th, the bloody state for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. So we need to see this regime for what it is. It's a regime of terror.
And we can never let them get a nuclear weapons capability. And what have you seen in terms of the intelligence that you can reveal with regard to Iran's nuclear program? I know obviously there's a lot of this Pepsi among Republicans and it has been a long time because of all of the botched intelligence around the Iraq war. So what do we actually know about Iran's nuclear program?
You know, I can't get into the specific intelligence that I'm seeing, Ben, you know, that's done in a classified setting. What I can say that is we have been crystal clear, the House Republicans and this administration that this will be zero when it comes to nuclear weapons capability. We can never let Iran get nuclear weapon. And that has been clear from the first term on the President Trump, and that remains clear today.
Well, Representative Lisa Stefanik, check out her Save New York, which of course we hope will turn the politics of New York State completely. Representative Stonik, really appreciate the time. Thank you so much, Ben. Little later on in the show, I'm going to get to Tucker Carlson attacking Mark Levin.
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You remember in his first administration there was all sorts of heartburner over the fact that he had said that he doesn't want to import people from countries that really don't like America very much. Last night he said it again as we should why are we importing people who are unvetted from countries that generally speaking do not have cultures that adhere to American values or even friendly to American values. Like a basic obvious kind of stuff. A great example of this by the way would be the family of the terrorist who just threw Molotov cocktails at Jews in Boulder while declaring that Allah was going to destroy America.
That guy came on a visa and then he overstayed his visa and then he was given asylum for no reason at all. And now by the way a judge has ruled that his family cannot be deported which is totally insane. And so President Trump is like you know what if you're not going to let us deport people then how about you should come here in the first place. How about that?
There's President Trump yesterday correctly. Very simply we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States. That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya and numerous others. The strength of the restrictions we're applying depends on the severity of the threat posed.
The list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made and likewise new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world. This is perfectly rational in the same way that it is perfectly rational for Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say that we are not going to allow visa holders to come to the United States, and they just overstate their visas. It turns out that when they do that sometimes they're really really bad and they don't help the American body politic. And there is a left wing sentiment in the United States that somehow we owe everyone on Earth citizenship in the United States.
And if they come to tear down the society so much better, please after all we bear some sort of blood guilt for the fact that there are other countries that are less successful on Earth. It's a stupid proposition but it has come to dominate a lot of the talk on the left. The ban will fully restrict entry of nationals from 12 countries according to CNN. Afghanistan Myanmar also known as Burma, Chad Republic of the Congo Equatorial Guinea, a retreat up, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
There are another seven countries that have partial restriction that be Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turk, and Manistan. And Venezuela. The proclamation includes exceptions for lawful permit residents existing visa holders, certain visa categories, and individuals whose entry actually serves American interests. This seems well calibrated.
One of the critiques that I've had of the Trump administration is that sometimes I love the ends but the means being used are not well calibrated to withstand, for example, court challenge. This is a well calibrated policy. Obviously it's a leftover from Trump 1 when they actually had to slug it out over this policy. White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson wrote, President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause a harm.
These common restrictions are country specific and include places that lack proper vetting exhibit high visa overstate rates or fail to share identity and threat information. I mean, yes, that makes all this makes perfect, perfect sense. And the reality, which is that left wing judges are now trying to make sure that bad people say in the United States means it's even more important to make sure these people never come to the United States in the first place. According to the Washington Post, a federal judge on Wednesday barred the Trump administration from supporting the wife and children of an Egyptian man accused of throwing mild to cocktails at a pro Israel demonstration in Colorado.
By the way, it wasn't a pro Israel demonstration. It was a pro hostage demonstration trying to free the hostages. The US District Judge Gordon Gallagher found that supporting the family quote without process could cause a reparable harm and said he was issuing his order due to the urgency the situation presents. The development came after lawyers for a high on Elgomol and her five children filed an emergency petition earlier in the day arguing their intentions were illegal.
Now, again, it is worth noting that these people are in the country illegally. They came, they overstate of Visa, they claimed asylum falsely, and then they've been here ever since. Homeland Security Secretary Christine Om said that I said to tain, solely mine's wife and children, and the Trump administration said that they would process their cases via expedited removals. In the court filing Wednesday seeking the family's release lawyer said the couple and their children had applied for an obtain viscer of visa visas in the United States in August of 2022.
Solomon quickly applied for asylum for the entire family in September 2022. So they got viscer visas and within a month they've been trying to get asylum visas, which goes to a branch of like handout like handout like handout by the Biden administration. The basic rule was if you claim the asylum, they just gave you asylum status. All our citizens of Egypt.
So they could leave and go to Egypt. Why can't they be in Egypt? What is the problem? Probably the worst headline of the day, concurrency of Michael Loria over at USA Today.
Quote, both her suspects daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation. Well, I mean, there are medical schools in Egypt as well. It turns out you do not have a right to study medicine in the United States if we do not wish you to be here.
We have a lot of doctors in the United States, a lot of people who went to medical school. And there are plenty of people who need a doctor over in Egypt. Many of them agree with the principles espoused by your dad. So by would be the proper response.
Meanwhile, Team Trump continues to go after colleges and universities that have been shuttling in these radicals. That includes Columbia University. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration attacked Columbia University's accreditation, arguing the schools in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. The education department told the organization through which Columbia is accredited that the school has violated civil rights law over handling of anti-Semitism.
And no longer appears to meet the standards for accreditation at all. That doesn't actually revoke Columbia's accreditation, which would basically destroy the university, but it takes significant escalation of the government's battle with the school. The government urged the accreditor to work with the school to make sure it comes into full compliance with federal law. Columbia said it's aware of the government's concern and is addressing them directly with the accreditor.
So the administration is opening up all of the guns on these universities that are in violation of the Civil Rights Act. Now again, I hear all these people write in last. I say, well, what about the free speech of the universities? Why can't they just espouse the destruction of the state of Israel?
Why isn't that? Okay, so here is the deal. The Civil Rights Act applies to Jews as it applies to black people. The same as it applies to Hispanic people.
You may not like the Civil Rights Act. I mean, I think that their elements of the Civil Rights Act that go too far. I've been saying this literally my entire career, controversially. Barring government discrimination, good.
Moving into the private sphere and regulating private conduct, problematic from a First Amendment constitutional perspective. But can we stop pretending for a hot second that the left has not completely restructured American life by using the Civil Rights Act as a club against all of its political enemies for as long as it has existed? Because that's what's happened. Now Trump has discovered the weapon and he is using it on behalf of perspectives that the left is not like.
And now the left has decided that it doesn't like the weapon anymore. Well, weird. We're how the rules only apply when you are the ones in power. That means they're not rules.
That means it's a weapon. Good for President Trump for using the weapons at his disposal that the left, literally left him lying right there for President Trump. Your fault, guys. You blew it.
And frankly, your complaints about lack of freedom of speech in Colombia or Harvard, I went to Harvard Law School. I went to UCLA. You just say freedom of speech was not perfectly free at these places. Well, before President Trump got there, there were consequences that attended to some of the mildest conservative speech at these places.
So now you're all hot and bothered because President Trump is actually invoking the Civil Rights Act to tell you to abide by the very laws that you yourself espoused. Poor babies. Prior self to sleep at night. Very, very, very sad.
Meanwhile, lots of turmoil over the big, beautiful bill. Elon Musk continues to call for the defeat of the big, beautiful bill because he is upset about the levels of spending. He says, man, that spending bills are bankrupting America enough. Hey, now, again, don't disagree on principle.
I agree with that. Obviously, massive spending bills are bankrupting America. But we should be clear here that this bill is not a spending bill. Tax reduction is not a form of spending is a basic philosophical distinction between the right and the left.
If you reduce taxes, that is not spending. It is not. What is spending is when the government takes money from you or from your ears and spends it. If you want to reduce spending, it has nothing to do with tax revenues.
Deficits go up when the tax revenue is lower and the spending is higher. But lowering tax revenue is not a form of spending because it wasn't the government's money to begin with. It is your money. The government taking less of your money is not a government increase in spending.
Government increases spending is government increase in spending. That's the problem. We're spending $4 trillion a year in 2019. We're spending $7 trillion a year now.
Is that a problem of tax revenues? If you saw a chart, by the way, of American tax revenue, it does go consistently up and to the right over the course of the last 50 or 60 years. But when Musk says that we're bankrupting America with our spending, that, of course, is true. However, President Trump actually doubled down on the idea of scrapping the nation's debt ceiling entirely.
This is where the battle needs to happen. If you want to have a battle over the debt ceiling, if you want to have a battle over debt, this would be where the battle lies. And this also happens to be a place where President Trump, I think, can make some concessions. So President Trump put out a post on truth, social, saying, quote, I'm very pleased to announce that after all of these years, I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren on something.
The debt limit should be entirely scrapped to prevent economic catastrophe. It is too devastating to be put in the hands of political people that may want to use it despite the horrendous effect it would have on our country and indirectly even the world. As she said, it was in second statement on the $4 trillion she suggested there's a $4 trillion deficit opened up by the bill. I like that also, but it would have to be done over a period of time as short as possible.
Let's get together. He shared Warren's post on the social media platform X from Friday where she agreed with President Trump at the debt limit should be scrapped and called for a bipartisan bill to get rid of it forever. Okay, again, the sort of idea of unlimited debt where Congress has no say, that is, in fact, a bad idea. And President Trump's been pushing for it for quite a while.
Rand Paul is offering an offer here. He says, listen, I get it. We're trying to lower the taxes and keep the taxes low. I'll do it if we don't increase the debt ceiling that much.
This, again, I think is a more rational perspective from Senator Paul. I don't think there are enough spending cuts in that. I'm worried about that. I wish there were more, but I still would support the tax cuts and some spending cuts if they weren't forcing conservatives to vote to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion.
That concerns me because when you extend the debt ceiling, this will be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever. This will be the first time that Republicans alone will be responsible for the debt. The debt will be basically owned by Republicans. And I'm not borrowing $5 trillion over the next two years.
I told the President if they will separate the debt ceiling vote out, they can very well have my vote on this. Okay, so again, not a terrible perspective from Rand Paul, basically saying that if you get rid of the attempt to leverage out the debt ceiling, that will be something to vote for. That makes some sense to me. Speaker Johnson for his part says that he's surprised about Elon Musk's criticisms because this is a bill about keeping the tax rates the same.
And it actually does make cuts as opposed to what was going to happen without the bill. Here is Speaker Johnson. Elon and I left on a great note. We were texting one another happy text Monday and then yesterday, 24 hours later, he doesn't want to get it.
And opposed to bill, it's surprisingly frankly, and I don't take it personal. We don't take it personal. You know, policy differences are not personal. No, again, I think that Speaker Johnson is correct about this.
The CBO is saying that the big, beautiful bill, that $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years and leave something like 11 million people without health insurance. That's not actually what would happen. It would actually happen as people would shift on the private insurance stage would pick up a lot of the burden here. One of the things that's happening is that federal government inputting work requirements, for example, on Medicaid, would just shift that burden over to the states who presumably would then increase the amount they're spending on their own Medicaid programs.
But the bottom line in all of this is that without the bill, recession is coming. That is a point made by the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Boat. He says, listen, we would love to bend the cost car, but the reality is that if the tax increase, we've got a recession on our hands. If HR1 fails, if whatever comes back from the Senate fails to get to the desk of the president and sign them all, what happens at the end of this year?
I think we'll have a recession. I think we will be, uh, economic storm clouds will be very dark. I think we'll have a 60% tax increase on the American people. Okay.
And again, he's right about that. The Wall Street Journal makes the point bottom line. This is a tax bill. You can call it a spending bill.
You want it to say tax bill. It's a bill that prevents the taxes from increasing. They point out we are now a congressional budget office panic stage of the budget debate as Democrats in the press pretend to care about the federal deficit and debt. Congress's budget gnomes estimate that the House bill would add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.
This includes what CBO says are some $5.3 trillion in tax cuts offset by some $2.9 trillion in tax increases and spending reductions. The report kicked off usually wailing in National Teeth whenever Republicans propose to reduce taxes, but not when Democrats are adding to the debt, the spending. Do you remember the consternation when Joe Biden and Democrats passed their inflation reduction act? We don't.
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the energy and climate provisions of that bill at $391 billion over 10 years, but the subsidies were actually open-ended. Goldman Sachs had it would cost $1.2 trillion. The Wall Street Journal points out that CBO is not a peerless or a goal. It is often wrong.
It estimated the 2010 federal takeover of student loans would raise money for the government, but instead it cost the treasury hundreds of billions of dollars. And Wall Street Journal acknowledges that there's a bunch of problems with the bill. However, if the bill fails, taxes will rise $4.5 trillion next year. Add that to the president from tariffs and recession becomes probable.
And if there's recession, then the deficit actually sores because economic growth has to occur in order for there to be higher tax revenues. Speaking of the tariffs, by the way, the Congressional Budget Office delivered two reports yesterday. One was about the probable impact of the bill. They say a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt based on lower tax rates and higher spending.
But they also put out a report about the tariffs. And this report is kind of fascinating because this report says that the tariffs announced through May 13 would actually reduce the cumulative budget deficit by $3 trillion or $2.8 trillion after adjusting for the hit they caused to grow with an investment. So in other words, if the tariffs stayed in place and the tax cuts went through and you added it all together, theoretically, the budget deficit should decrease. Because if you are getting $2.8 trillion of reduction in the budget of the tariffs and $2.4 billion in increase in the budget of the tax cuts, that is a net of $400 billion to the federal government.
CBO also calculated that the tariff policies will increase inflation by 0.4 percentage points in 2025 and 26, reducing the purchasing power of households and businesses. Now again, the CBO is open up critiques on all sides. I think you can say that the CBO is far too optimistic about democratic spending. I think frankly they're far too optimistic about the tariffs.
I think the idea that the tariffs are going to bring in that level of revenue. I have my doubts on all of that for sure, especially because I think people, if the tariffs are high enough that people stop buying from abroad, then you don't make tariffs revenue. If the tariffs are not high enough and people keep importing stuff from abroad, you don't get a reconstruction of the manufacturing base in the United States. This is the puzzle in which the Trump administration finds itself with regard to tariffs.
That puzzle was made clear by the Commerce Secretary Howard Lettnick yesterday, who seemed to be sort of unclear on whether tariffs are good in and out themselves. Or what are the goal is to get other countries to lower their tariffs in reciprocal fashion. There was a pretty fascinating exchange he had with Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Are you or are you not seeking reciprocity in these trade deals?
We are thinking we are absolutely seeking reciprocity with respect to things that can be reciprocal. But you just said that if a country came to you and offered you the ultimate reciprocity, no tariffs, no trade barriers in return for us doing the same, you would reject that. Of course, because they buy from China and send it to us. Don't you agree with me?
But as I said, we won't buy from China. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. Would you accept that deal?
We would consider it. So the problem for Lettnick is that Lettnick believes that tariffs are inherently good, that they bring in revenue. And so his idea is that we should keep the tariffs on countries, even if they offer us basically zero tariffs and zero non-tariff barriers. So which is it?
Are you doing reciprocal tariffs? Or are we actually just tariffing people because we think tariffs are inherently good? This is one of the conflicts inside the tariff policy of the administration. All of this sort of unease and unrest in the markets means that the federal reserve is less likely to move.
So Jerome Powell yesterday announced that the rates would remain unchanged mainly due to the uncertainty in the markets. So yeah, inflation is down. You're on your. It's down to about 2.1%, which is where you want it to be.
That doesn't mean it's time to open this big. It says Jerome Powell because we don't know what's happening really. In support of our goals today, the federal Open Market Committee decided to leave our policy interest rate unchanged. The risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation appear to have risen.
And we believe that the current stance of monetary policy leaves us well positioned to respond in a timely way to potential economic developments. So what he's saying is we still in a hall is going to shake out and we would like to have the tool in our arsenal of being able to lower interest rates if things actually do start to slow down. The bottom line is that the amount of uncertainty is going to be wildly increased if the big, beautiful bill does not pass. Tariff's remain on the table unclear which direction those moves.