While the media fulminate over the supposed failure of DOGE, Elon Musk’s signature project just keeps cutting; the Trump tax bill approaches fruition; and we examine the fallout from Canada electing a Leftist, again. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/3WDjgHE Ep.2189 - - - Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings - - - DailyWire+: It’s our first-ever 100-Hour DailyWire+ FLASH SALE! To celebrate President Trump’s first 100 days and the beginning of America’s golden era, use CODE: DW100 and join the fight. The hit podcast, Morning Wire, is now on Video! Watch Now and subscribe to their YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/3RFOVo6 Get your Ben Shapiro merch here: https://bit.ly/3TAu2cw - - - Today's Sponsors: ExpressVPN - Go to https://expressvpn.com/ben and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free! Kikoff - Get your first month for $1. That’s 80% off the normal price when you go to https://getkikoff.com/shapiro today. SimpliSafe - Visit https://SIMPLISAFE.com/SHAPIRO to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. Lean - Visit https://takelean.com and get 20% off with promo code BEN20 - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3cXUn53 Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3QtuibJ Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3TTirqd Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPyBiB
Chapter 1: What is the significance of DOGE in government spending?
Well, folks, a lot of news to get to, as always. But first, time is almost up. We are in the final hours of our Daily Wire 100-hour flash sale, celebrating President Trump's first 100 days back in office. This is your last chance to get the best deal of the season on a Daily Wire Plus annual membership. Trump is trying to rebuild the country. We're trying to rebuild the culture.
Join the fight before the clock hits zero. Go to dailywire.com. Use code DW100 to join right now. Well, We have been hearing for a very long time that Doge, that would of course be the Department of Governmental Efficiency under the tutelage of Elon Musk, has been a giant fail.
We've been hearing this from the legacy media who have been saying that all the cuts are basically fake, that nothing is happening, that it's chaos, that it's wrecking the country. No one social security check has been stopped. The Medicaid checks are still going out. The Medicare checks are still going out. The government, unfortunately to my mind, is still running much as before.
However, much spending has in fact really been stopped. There's been an open question as to how much spending will be permanently stopped. How much can be temporarily frozen versus actually just cut? Will firing these employees actually stick? But Democrats are caterwauling because as it turns out, Doge actually has been quite effective in stopping an enormous amount of spending.
Is it trillions of dollars? No. Is it hundreds of billions of dollars? The answer apparently is yes. According to Reuters, President Trump's administration has so far withheld at least $436.87 billion of congressionally approved funding, the top Democrats on the U.S. Congress's Appropriation Committee said on Tuesday.
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Chapter 2: How much funding has been withheld by the Trump administration?
The frozen allotment spanned the federal government, according to the first estimate of potential impoundments in the project, led by Senator Patty Murray of Washington and Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. You'll remember Rosa DeLauro, she of the purple hair. Almost $42 billion was frozen or canceled for the State Department.
Of course, that includes the freeze on support for USAID, along with another $62 billion plus in competitive grant funding for the Transportation Department, according to the estimate. Democrats also are detailing $943 million frozen for the Head Start early education program. By the way, Head Start is one of the great fails in federal history. Head Start, the idea that you're
radically increasing the chances for young children if they go to a federally funded, federally run preschool program. The data on Head Start has been pretty solid for a long time, showing effectively no difference between kids who go to Head Start and kids who do not. There's also been some $10 billion frozen and canceled for the National Resources Conservation Service as well.
Democrats, of course, are very angry about all of this. Listen, all of the spending is going to have to be then... put permanently into the no-spend category by Congress. They can do so with a simple 50-vote majority in the Senate. That is the path presumably Congress is going to have to take.
And we are now moving in this administration from the sort of executive order side of the administration, what President Trump can do unilaterally to Congress. The focus needs to move to Congress because the truth is that President Trump, Doge, they can temporarily freeze a lot of this funding. But unless it's rescinded by Congress, it will go right back into place after a certain period of time.
This is the reason why Democrats are freaking out about all of this. They're worried that Republicans are in fact going to start passing rescission bills that would make permanent many of the freezes and turn the freeze into a cut.
According to the Reuters News Service, the administration is citing the Doge efficiency movement and the undoing of the federal government's DEI initiatives as reason for blocking congressionally approved funding. The question is, how much the executive branch can actually block that funding under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. Usually the president has to tweak levels by proposing cuts.
That, of course, would be the rescission. That has not happened so far. Now it is up to Congress, which brings us to Congress. And again, right now, it would be an act of political magic. Every time you get a Republican majority together, it's a bit of political magic. That's just the way that it works.
And the reason for that is because the Republican House of Representatives majority is so unbelievably narrow. And even in the Senate of the United States, you have to acknowledge just pretty much right off the bat that Collins and Murkowski are likely to go the other way on major legislation. So you're from 53 votes to 51 votes.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the proposed tax bill?
Besant told reporters after a big six meeting of top GOP negotiators that they don't have a new X date, but they'd have more information about when the country will need to raise its borrowing limit before the end of the week or next week as well. So again, there are a lot of things that are up in the air and Speaker Johnson is going to have to magic this thing through.
The same thing is true when it comes to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. We'll get to more on this in a moment. First, free online services like Google actually charge you by using your personal data. They track your behavior and sell this information to advertisers. When something's free, you're not the customer. You are now the product being sold.
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Chapter 4: How is the trade war affecting American businesses?
It was all supposed to be directed against the Chinese government, preventing them from growth, reshoring manufacturing in the United States. And the administration keeps saying that China's gonna come to the table. So Scott Besant, the treasury secretary yesterday, he said, over time, we're gonna see the Chinese tariffs are actually horrible for China. China's gonna have to back down.
Over time, we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China. I've seen some very large numbers over the past few days that show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly. And even if there is a drop in the tariffs, that they could lose five million jobs.
So that is all fine and dandy. There's only one problem. China doesn't seem to care. Why doesn't China seem to care very much? Well, the answer is China has some systemic advantages against the United States. Their biggest systemic advantage in a trade war is they don't give any dams whatsoever about their citizens. That's the biggest advantage. They're an absolute communist tyranny.
When I say communist, I don't mean that they actually practice communism. They don't. They practice a form of mercantilism. But it is the Chinese Communist Party running the place, and they don't care about their citizens whatsoever. If you disagree with them, they will gulag you. If they don't like you enough, they will just kill you.
So you think China cares that its citizens are going to suffer from the trade war so long as it also makes the United States suffer? They're actually in favor of it, which is why China is not coming to the table. There is no evidence whatsoever that China is actually negotiating with the United States at any serious level at this point.
In fact, China put out a defiant propaganda clip yesterday on Twitter. Here's what it sounded like.
Have you heard of the eye of the storm? It appears calm for a moment, but is actually a deadly trap. the calm before an even fiercer storm. The US has stirred up a global tariff storm and deliberately targeted China, playing a 90-day pause game with other nations, forcing them to limit trade with China. This is just like the deadly trap of the eye of the storm.
Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst. It only deepens the crisis. China won't kneel down, because we know
standing up for ourselves keeps the possibility of cooperation alive while compromise snuffs it out china won't back down so the voices of the weak will be heard bullying will be stopped and justice will not disappear from the world for china for the world we must rise and fight on
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Chapter 5: Why is China unaffected by the trade war?
Chapter 6: What was Amazon's controversial proposal regarding tariffs?
So that is all fine and dandy. There's only one problem. China doesn't seem to care. Why doesn't China seem to care very much? Well, the answer is China has some systemic advantages against the United States. Their biggest systemic advantage in a trade war is they don't give any dams whatsoever about their citizens. That's the biggest advantage. They're an absolute communist tyranny.
When I say communist, I don't mean that they actually practice communism. They don't. They practice a form of mercantilism. But it is the Chinese Communist Party running the place, and they don't care about their citizens whatsoever. If you disagree with them, they will gulag you. If they don't like you enough, they will just kill you.
So you think China cares that its citizens are going to suffer from the trade war so long as it also makes the United States suffer? They're actually in favor of it, which is why China is not coming to the table. There is no evidence whatsoever that China is actually negotiating with the United States at any serious level at this point.
In fact, China put out a defiant propaganda clip yesterday on Twitter. Here's what it sounded like.
Have you heard of the eye of the storm? It appears calm for a moment, but is actually a deadly trap. the calm before an even fiercer storm. The US has stirred up a global tariff storm and deliberately targeted China, playing a 90-day pause game with other nations, forcing them to limit trade with China. This is just like the deadly trap of the eye of the storm.
Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst. It only deepens the crisis. China won't kneel down, because we know
standing up for ourselves keeps the possibility of cooperation alive while compromise snuffs it out china won't back down so the voices of the weak will be heard bullying will be stopped and justice will not disappear from the world for china for the world we must rise and fight on
Okay, so China is trying to build a multipolar world in much the same way that Russia wants a multipolar world with itself as sort of the center of Eurasia. China would love a multipolar world with itself at the very least at the center of the Southeast Asian part of the globe. Plus, they're spreading their tentacles all the way across Eurasia into Africa, even into South America.
So they are very pleased, actually, that President Trump, in declaring a trade war on China, also decided to simultaneously declare a trade war on everybody else because that pushes all those countries toward China and away from the United States. That is why China is perfectly happy with this situation. They actually are quite pleased with all of this. They don't care about their citizens.
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Chapter 7: What is the potential impact of tariffs on the auto industry?
There's been this sort of bizarre divide that has emerged in some of the Trump supportive movements. And that divide is kind of tripartite. There are some of us in the Trump camp who are very upset that Mark Carney won the election in Canada because he is in fact a shill of the World Bank. He worked for the IMF.
When you talk about like globalists, Mark Carney is sort of the definition of a globalist, meaning international institutions ought to rule the roost. Immigration ought to be relatively open. There ought to be commerce, not regulated by country or bilateral deals, but commerce with some of the worst places on earth, including places like China. Carney is very much in favor of regulation.
He was a net zero guy. That guy's the prime minister now. So I think that is quite bad on a personal level that President Trump intervened in the Canadian election by basically just crapping all over Canada repeatedly to no actual effect, by the way. Like, where's the big win? And so Carney got elected. I think that's bad.
And then there is another wing of the Republican Party that says that basically Trump's activities had nothing to do with the victory of Mark Carney, which to me is just pretending nonsense. or coping.
I don't think that there's any argument that can plausibly be made that President Trump saying repeatedly that Canada was going to be the 51st state and then suggesting over and over that tariffs were going to force them to capitulate their sovereignty to the United States. Maybe we'd invade. That had no impact on the election whatsoever. That is not what the polls show.
But there are some people in Team Trump land who are making the case that basically this is about Pierre Poliev blowing it in some way, despite the fact that he was leading by 25 points in December. And then there's the third category of people who seem to be perversely happy that Mark Carney is the prime minister. And that group of people, a lot of those folks seem to be convinced that
that if there is a right-wing leader who is allied with principles of conservatives in the United States, but is not quote-unquote Trumpy enough, better to have a left-wing leader than somebody who is not, what, a Trump knockoff? It's a sort of bizarre perspective. I see people dunking on Pierre Poliev. You're happy that ugly Justin Trudeau is going to be the prime minister over there?
Well, if you think that Trump had nothing to do with the election, then I defy you to answer why exactly the new Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, thinks that Trump had a lot to do with the election. Here he was, torturing Trump at his victory rally.
Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade, anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over. These are tragedies, but it's also our new reality.
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Chapter 8: What are the future expectations for trade deals?
Meanwhile, in good news, apparently President Trump is in fact shifting his position with regard to Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky and Ukraine, Russia in general. There's a good article in the New York Times about the Finnish leader, President Alexander Stubb of Finland, who is optimistic that Vladimir Putin will in fact be stared down by the president of the United States.
In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, Stubb downplayed his effect on Mr. Trump. He apparently has a good relationship with President Trump. He says that President Trump is going to actually stand down Vladimir Putin. Stubb said, quote, everyone has to understand the only thing that Putin understands is power.
I mean, there's a reason why Finland has one of the strongest militaries in Europe, and the reason is not Sweden. The reason is because Russia shares an 835 mile border with Finland and they fought a bunch of skirmishes and wars with Finland.
And in fact, Russia, Alexander Dugin, who we talked about last Friday on the show, he has openly called for the quote unquote Finlandization of much of Western Europe, meaning sort of regimes that are puppet regimes friendly to the Russians. And Finland doesn't like that very much. So according to the New York Times, Stubb has been having discussions with President Trump
He said, the president is running out of patience. We've now seen statements which are quite tough on Putin in Russia. I hope the Kremlin understands you don't play with President Trump. Obviously, I certainly hope that this is the case. I think that the proper way to get to the end of the war is in fact to stand Russia down. Otherwise, Russia is not going to accept an end of the war.
I've been calling for precisely the same thing in this war since about month four. The same thing. Freezing of the lines. Essentially a Korean armistice. That is the best available thing. And everybody, I think, understands that.
I think that the Ukrainians understand that the prospect of them winning back the Donbass and Crimea regions are basically non-existent at this point, given their current levels of weaponry and military materiel and manpower. However, you know who doesn't understand that right now is Vladimir Putin, who continues to up the ante every single day.
Vladimir Putin is basically waiting for the United States to drop out of this. And then he's going to push incredibly hard. And if Vladimir Putin were able to ingest Ukraine full scale, that would be quite bad for the United States. It'd be quite bad for NATO. He claims that he doesn't want to actually be on the borders of NATO. So first of all, NATO is already on his borders.
Since April 2023, there are other countries that are on Russia's borders that have actually joined NATO, including Finland. Finland was not a NATO member and then it joined NATO. Okay, but NATO already borders. the Russians in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Were the Russians to actually ingest Ukraine, there'd actually be more on the borders of NATO, not less on the borders of NATO, obviously.
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