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Could go one way or the other. And We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Elan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.
These are people that work. These are people that say, let's go, come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain and from where they came from they got nothing.
So he's talking about Somalia, and he's talking about the Somali community inside Minneapolis, mostly Minnesota. It's the largest one in the country. And we also know this huge burgeoning scandal where they've been bilking. Most of them are Somalis. I mean, 79 of the 84 indictments are Somalis.
52 of the convictions, almost all are Somalis. And it looked systematic, and the money might, in fact, be going back to Somalia to Al-Shabaab, their Al-Qaeda affiliate.
So if that indeed, that's the Chris Ruffo connection that he talked about last week that is being pursued now by the Treasury Department. And the president is fed up. She's fed up with people like Elon Omar who do nothing but complain who raise kids that have anti-Semitic, take part in anti-Semitic protests at Columbia, who just whine about this country instead of trying to make it better. And by the way, one of her staffers is indicted. And a restaurant that she has an affiliation with is right in the middle of it, stealing tens of millions of dollars.
So this is going to get a lot bigger. But is the President language helpful? His directness. Let's bring in Ben Shapiro. Daily Wire co-founder, host of the Ben Shapiro Show, number one New York Times best-selling author.
His latest book is Lions and Scavengers, The True Story of America. Hey, Ben, welcome. Your thoughts about the President's approach and now banning travel, excuse me, immigration from, I think, 19 to 20 countries. I mean, on policy, there's no question he's correct. I mean, the fact is that we cannot vet people who are coming in from countries that effectively have no government.
And not only do they have no government, what government they do have is very often complicit in actual terrorism, especially when you're talking about a place like Somalia, where something like 35% of its entire economy is remittances from the United States, which is totally insane. I mean, so what the president is doing by saying we can't have mass migration from areas where people don't hold anything in common with us, generally hate American values, have no love for the American Constitution. I don't even see what's remotely controversial about that part of it. Obviously, the president uses the president's language. And anybody who's shocked at President Trump's language after a decade of President Trump, I think, I mean, get over it.
Like, honestly, we're now 10 years into this. And on the list of insults, this comes up very short.
So this thing's going to get big. You know, Keith Ellison, who just was a terrible congressman and a horrible attorney general, but the people of Minneapolis seem to like him, is defending Governor Wals' responses to the fraud that's going to be over a billion dollars. And with the stuff they, the programs they took from autistic programs, from poor people, from these food programs, some of which Elon Omar sponsored and got federal funding for.
So this is going to be really big. Where do you think this goes as the Federal Government gets involved?
Well, I mean, obviously, the investigations are probably going to grow from here. My guess is that's only the beginning. I think that probably there's more there than they've even uncovered so far. One of the funnier articles I saw, there was an ABC affiliate that came out this morning talking about the benefits of mass Somali migration into Minnesota and pointing out that the total income of Somali Minnesotans was $500 million last year.
Well, I noticed that $500 million as a total income is half of what was built from the federal government just in the cases that have already been uncovered.
So if what we're talking about is the great enrichment that has happened due to mass migration, and the best you can come up with is an income that amounts to half of the fraud committed by this small group of Somalis, then I'm not sure exactly what case it is that you're making at this point. Again, this is not to malign every single person who's coming from Somalia, because whenever you have a group of people, I'm sure there are great individuals that exist within a broader spectrum of human beings. And when the president says garbage, I think, by the way, in that quote, he seems to be talking specifically about Ilhan Omar, who I also agree is a trash human being. I think she has horrible beliefs. I think.
That she stands for horrible things. And then he says, and her friends, I don't know that he's necessarily referring to every single Somali person in the United States. He may be referring to people who are politically affiliated, or he may be referring to her actual specific friends, some of whom seem to be caught up in the actual fraud welfare scheme here. Including one of her staffers. That's involved.
And one of these restaurant owners who owns a Safari Inn has 35 tables, but yet he claims to, he's gotten reimbursed for 18,000 meals. He's got a multi-million dollar mansion. I mean, are we kidding? And guess what? He's like $9,000 a month at Nordstrom.
That's a lot of clothes. I mean, I hope he dresses well. That's a lot of clothes. $9,000 a month. Whoa.
So, so, Ben, I'm going to add something to this.
So, if you actually built your paper out of this money, there's now a phone call that I understand that the Attorney General Ellison has, where some of these people involved in the fraud pledge campaign contributions, which he eventually. Collects. From these people. They also did the threatening, you talk about full circle, of if you come down on me, I'm going to hit you with the racism and bias claims, which backs out these politicians who need the 80,000 member Somali committee or community to vote for them. Yes, that's correct.
I mean, obviously, every politician has to answer to constituents. And so when you have Keith Ellison basically garnering campaign contributions from many of the same people who are associated with this sort of activity and saying, I'm going to be your guy, I mean, I'm not sure how that isn't a scandal. I think Tim Walls obviously is a scandal. I think Elhan Omar obviously is a scandal. It's hard to see how fraud perpetrated at this great a scale was unknown by everyone in a position of power, especially people who are extremely close to the communities in question.
Ben, not that you should be surprised. That's why you started the Daily Wire, but they looked at the networks and say how much coverage this has gotten. Zero. You know, I know that I mean zero. How could that not be a billion dollars gone from a state like Minnesota?
But I want to talk about also what's going on with the anti-Semitism. I spoke at a Jewish conference last night, and the isolation that the Jewish community feels, especially in New York City, is beyond. Comprehension, especially with the election of this mayor. And there's some studies that are really disturbing. Nearly four in ten of the current GOP, 37%, believe the Holocaust was exaggerated and did not happen as history described.
By the way, I met a Holocaust survivor last night, 96 years old. He told me it happened. Who would have thought? Younger men are especially likely to hold this view: 54% of men under 30, 39% of women under 50. Among men over 50, 41% agree, compared with 18% of women over 50.
How did that happen? How does this happen, Ben?
Well, I do think that one of the things that that poll from Manhattan Institute is really fascinating because it sort of breaks down traditional GOP and then people who are sort of new GOP voters in 2024. And what it shows is that the traditional GOP is significantly less likely to believe the sort of conspiratorial or anti-Semitic nonsense. A lot of new GOP are more likely to believe it, mainly because they were alienated by the Democratic Party, but not necessarily because they hold traditional sort of conservative views. And it does show that whenever you have an electoral coalition, there are a lot of people inside that electoral coalition, but the coalition is defined by its leadership. Are the leaders willing to say true things?
Are the leaders willing to call out actual bad beliefs? Are they willing to call out the purveyors of those actual bad beliefs? Because listen, no political leader should be expected to condemn every single person who is voting for them. But if the question is who defines the future of the coalition, who defines the belief system by which the coalition rides together, that really does come down to a question of leadership. And I think that that leadership has been in some quarters not.
Present, particularly in the online space, it has been very much not present. And let's be clear that on Ags and TikTok, this sort of stuff goes viral very, very quickly. Yes, maybe disproportionately. We get the theory that maybe too many people think that way. But let's just amp this up.
It's very commonplace, and it's total truth to say that the Democrats have a huge problem, and they'll admit it with the so-called socialist wing of the party that's growing. Got it. Like that left-wing lunatic who ran in the 7th district of Tennessee. I understand it. And then they got other people that are looked at as moderates, the Spambergers, the Joe Manchins, who's not in politics anymore.
I got it. And Fetterman, to me, seems to speak what I would hope to be the future of that party, but he's the minority of that party. That's the fracture we like to dissect. But in your estimation, Do the Republicans have a problem with the extreme right? That says, you know what, Israel, they're way too over the top, we're way too close to them.
Russia, they're just misunderstood, we shouldn't be involved. Venezuela, not our problem. Why we get why are we doing, why are we worried about that? Do you think that divide on the Republican side presents the same quantitative problem as the Democrats have.
So, I think that there is a massive quantitative problem on the Republican side. I don't think it's about disagreements over Israel policy or Venezuela policy or even Ukraine policy. I think it has to do with something deeper. And that is, I think there's a wing of the Republican Party that is rejecting the basic promise of meritocracy, which used to be sort of the root of the conservative agenda. The root of the conservative agenda was the idea that we have constitutional checks and balances in order to preserve God-given freedoms that allow us to rise or fall on our own merits.
That was basically the promise of the United States. And there is a side of the right that has decided that the meritocracy is actually a lie and that what we actually need to do is target a so-called globalist elite who are manipulating the system to their own ends. That tends to cross over with conspiratorial views, particularly about Jews, but it tends to cross over with other sort of conspiratorial views in general, which is something you've seen growing inside the Republican Party. That same poll shows that there are a huge number of Republicans who believe in conspiracy theories about 9-11 or even the moon landing. And that sort of thing, I think, again, goes to a grievance-based politics that used to be more foreign.
Into the conservative coalition, but definitely has been growing in recent years. I know why it's been growing. I mean, the reason it's been growing is because if the left continues to say for years and years and years that white Christian men are bad, particularly, then there will be a reactionary response to that by saying, okay, we've been victimized. The system has been constructed in order to put us down. But that response shouldn't be.
To destroy all systems, or that capitalism is bad, or free markets are bad, or freedom of thought is bad, or that America historically is bad, the response should be meritocracy. Unfortunately, very often it isn't, and it's a sort of grievance-based politics that looks more left than right. With the holidays coming, that means more gift buying and more deliveries to the front door. It made me think about how I should upgrade my security to keep away the porch pirates and keep my deliveries safe. I went with Simply Safe because it's proactive.
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Well, I mean, that's a theory, Ben. I mean, that's a deep theory. The other thing is, people are doing it for clicks.
Well, what if I did a show and I interview a World War II historian that says Hitler was misunderstood, that we never really should have got involved, that Winston Churchill was more of a problem, he was just going to take Czechoslovakia and maybe a little of Poland and that was it. We way overreacted, never should have dropped the bombs on Japan.
So what if you have somebody that says building number seven was an inside job and their name wasn't Rosie O'Donnell, that 9/11 was an inside job, of course everybody knew it, and they talk about everybody involved in it. What if that same group said, wait, a man popped out of a pothole cover and shot Charlie Kirk, not somebody from the roof?
So, I don't know if there's a school of thought there or if someone's just trying to outdo each other with sensational claims. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's both, it's all of the above. It's definitely a clickbait thing. It's definitely very viral online. All of that is definitely true.
I think there is an ideological aversion to, again, basic American principles with some of these folks that really amounts to a great demoralization, an attempt to demoralize all Americans. Everything you've been told is a lie. Everything about America that you've ever been told is untrue. America itself is rotten to the core. And only I, I, the conspiracy theorist or the person who's laying out this new vision or no vision.
Only I am the real spirit guide for you who can illuminate all of the secrets that have been hidden from. That's why your life isn't what you want it to be, is because no one has told you the truth, but I'm here to tell you the truth.
Now, the problem, of course, is that it's not the truth. And all of these lies are going to make your life markedly worse. But it's kind of sexy to believe that the reason that your life isn't what you want it to be is because of conspiratorial forces beyond your control. And if only you could see past the curtain, then magically your life would be fixed.
So, I mean, I look at you, your success. You got it. You made your success online. You formed your own company. Everybody knows it.
But you still, you don't say anything sensational. These are just your opinions. They're conservative thought. What's in the conservative school of thought? There's always debate.
Rush Limbaugh didn't change his delivery or his statements in order to remain number one. He just was consistent. As issues came up, he knew exactly what he was going to dig into, and he quickly knew his opinion.
So would he recon would Rush Limbaugh recognize the right right now? I think it'd be very difficult for him to recognize at least some segments of the right. I don't want to say it's the entire right because it isn't. I think a huge percentage of the Trump right doesn't believe a lot of this nonsense. And all the numbers that we're citing, except for some of the young men numbers, are minority numbers.
But I will say that, yes, I mean, let's put it this way: Brian, if I went back 10 years and I looked at the stuff that you were saying, it looks exactly the same as the stuff that you're saying.
Now, nobody has ever asked what happened to Brian Kilmey, right? Nobody who's looked at the course of my career, I've been writing syndicated columns since I was 17. I'm now 41. Nobody would look at anything that I've said and said, What happened to Ben? How did Ben Shapiro change?
But there are an enormous number of quite powerful influencers. And that question is being asked about them all the time. What happened to this person? What changed for this person? And if this person is radically changing their opinion on a dime and seems to be gaining virality for it, you do have to ask the question about whether they're chasing virality or on what basis they've changed their opinion.
All right, so let me bring you into practical politics. You, Donald Trump. You had your arms wrapped around everybody. You know, a lot of people had thought you agree, a lot of people on Fox, a lot of people that do the podcasts. And now, all of a sudden, those people are fighting with each other, and you need every single vote to keep the House and the Senate, practically.
And then you got this 2028 where you have to have a nominee that's going to have to find a way. possibly to be all things to all people or just pick a side. What responsibilities do the people in power have now on their own party? You could say that for Democrats, but let's just focus on Republicans now. I think Republicans have tremendous responsibility to define what the party looks like going forward, because if they don't, then the people, yes, the leaders, absolutely.
I also think that it's not worthwhile fighting yesterday's war, meaning that J.D. Vance's coalition is not going to be identical to Donald Trump's coalition because it doesn't work that way. Hillary Clinton's coalition was not identical to Barack Obama. She thought it would be, and that's why she lost. And if Republicans continue to think that every single voter who voted for Donald Trump is just going to translate right over, so if you just say nothing, if you just kind of hover across the top of these controversial issues, that you will be able to keep everybody in your warm embrace.
Donald Trump is a unique Swede generist figure who's able to encompass multitudes. That is not true of any other Republican in the field, period. End of story. And so, you know, listen, I wish that President Trump would do it himself. But if President Trump won't do it, then I wish other politicians would say, here is what my conservatism looks like.
And more importantly, here is what conservatism does not look like. And here is what can happen. Define the party going forward. Ted Cruz is: I want you to hear Hillary Clinton because she seems equally dismayed in a way. Listen.
Smart.
Well-educated young people from our own country, from around the world. Where were they getting their information? They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok. And what she was referring to as her Columbia students' anti-Semitic views, and he doesn't understand they had no perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian disagreements at all. Just 30 seconds, your thoughts on what she just said.
I mean, that's the worst person you know, meme, is right, right? When Hillary Clinton, broken clock being correct, twice a day, that this is the twice a day. I mean, obviously, the social media algorithms are rotting people's minds. And what I've said to people is: you want to know what Americans really think? Get outside, touch some grass, spend less time on TikTok and on X, and actually go to church and talk with your fellow Americans a little bit.
You'll find that the nutty beliefs are significantly less prevalent and important than you believe they are. All right, Ben. Hang in there. Ben Shapiro, go get his book for this holiday season, Lions and Scavengers, and check him out on the Daily Wire all the time. Ben, thank you.
Thanks, Brian. This is Ainsley Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
