Ep. 2266 - Mamdani Can't LIFT...Plus Democrats Unleash Their 2028 CONTENDER?

Zora Momdoni apparently cannot lift like one of those shake weights.

And we now have a video of it, and it's pretty impressive.

Democrats are starting to retail the person who they think is their front runner for 2028.

And all updates from Russia-Ukraine.

First, we've been rolling out a lot of new content over at Daily Wire Plus, Journey to the UFC, Dr.

Jordan Peterson's Answer the Call, Michael Moles' new docuseries, The Pope and the Fuhrer, the Isabel Brown Show premiering September 8th, and now another announcement to mark a decade of the Daily Wire.

We're bringing back the whole crew for a brand new show.

Here's your first look at Friendly Fire.

September 10th, we celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Daily Wire.

10 years of leftist tears.

New shows, big moves, bigger targets.

And first up is our newest show, Friendly Fire.

We're on the show.

This is it.

No safe words, no moderator.

My original proposal had been that Noel should be moderator.

We all agree on that.

We're celebrating our first decade and kicking off the next 10 years by doing what we do best.

It's really true.

Picking arguments, starting fights, and filming the whole thing.

This is enough small dog, I think.

I'm a little hungry.

I hope that your wife made you that, Sandway.

Oh, my God.

I think we do need a moderator, just a programming note.

September 10th on Daily Wire.

Friendly Fire premieres live September 10th on Daily Wire Plus.

If you're not a member yet, now would be the time.

Go to dailywireplus.com, use code SUMMER, save 40% on a new annual membership.

Well, perhaps Democrats are learning that soy is actually not an amazing nutritional base for all things.

They might be learning this from Zoran Mamdani, who is, of course, the likely next mayor of New York City.

Now, Democrats have been claiming that he's the hot new thing in the Democratic Party, that Zoran Mamdani is going to lead the way to a bright new socialist future for America, starting with the most powerful financial capital on planet Earth.

But if we're speaking about power, if we're speaking about socialist strongmen, Zoran Mamdani, it's going to be hard-pressed, no pun intended, to actually be a strong man, pun intended.

Zor Mamdani yesterday showed up at the annual Men's Day open streets event in Brooklyn on Saturday where a bunch of dudes were lifting, apparently.

And the 33-year-old socialist, again, he's 33, which is like young in the prime of life.

He tried to bench.

Now, Madude, Madude, let me just say.

that if you're going to do something like this and you're a public figure, you have to know your limitations.

Like Zor Mamdani must have at some point been in in a gym.

I mean, maybe not, given how this video went.

But if you don't know how much you can bench, this is not a great time to try it out.

It's like in front of a giant crowd of people in the middle of a mayoral race.

So he shows up

and he takes a couple of 45s, like two plates, and he stacks them on the bar.

So this is maybe 135 pounds total.

And now, let's just be clear.

A decent bench for a man is his own body weight.

And that's like a decent decent bench for a man.

Zar Mamdani, I assume, weighs more than 135 pounds.

Maybe not, but I assume that he does.

135 pounds is not a lot of weight, like not a lot of weight at all.

I am not a bench press enthusiast.

For the record, I max out at around 200 pounds.

I'm not like an amazing bench pressed connoisseur.

Even I can lift 135 pounds, probably 15 times, because that's not a lot of weight.

Zarin Mamdani,

it doesn't go well.

Here's how it went in Brooklyn.

He has to have this guy.

They're cheering him.

Yeah.

Let me get one more.

Let me get one more.

Let me get three.

Let me get three.

Let me get three.

He does not get three.

He gets two very assisted.

Very, very assisted

bench presses at 135 pounds.

so um that that's not that's not great well mayor eric adams and ex-governor andrew cuomo both of whom left council on the opportunity according to the new york post mayor adams went to the same exact event and then proceeded to just knock out a bunch of 135 pound lifts

he then called him mom scrawny as opposed to mom donny quote the only thing he can lift is your taxes

Andrew Cuomo said it's easy to talk.

It's hard to carry the burden.

He provided no evidence of his own bench press prowess in his ex post, but I assume that Andrew Cuomo can lift a little bit.

His brother Chris Cuomo is very big into the lifting.

Also, Mamdani literally had to take off his designer boots to kick a stranger's soccer ball at an inflatable target.

So

here's the thing.

I think that for the vast majority of normal men, this is very, very embarrassing.

But the left has decided that they are done with male normality, like truly done with it, that the future of the Democratic Party is apparently going to be an extraordinarily feminized party, not just because an outsized share of Democrats are now single women, but also because the kinds of men the Democratic Party wants to attract are not the kinds of men who lift heavy weights.

This is why you've seen over the course of the last several years, a spate of articles talking about how lifting, going to the gym has become Republican-coded.

There's no reason it should be Republican-coded, except if you just mean that testosterone is Republican-coded.

That the idea that you should stay healthy and that you should lift is Republican coded.

And that goes to why do you want a sort of weak and feminized America?

Why do you?

I mean, the media clearly do.

There's a piece from Axios that is sort of fascinating about the supposed redefinition of identity under President Trump.

And there's something very telling about it, how they see identity.

Quote, through immigration crackdowns and cultural purges, President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.

The MAGA movement's obsession with American identity and Western civilization is shaping federal policy far more than in Trump's first term, fueling a reckoning over who belongs and what history should be remembered.

So, first of all, why shouldn't we all be a little obsessed with American identity and Western civilization?

I thought that's what America is about, like what it means to be an American.

And a huge part of that is being the apotheosis of Western civilization.

And what are we supposed to represent?

Non-Western civilizations, third world civilizations, other civil, like what is the implication?

According to Axios, however, in MAGA's telling, America is the heir to ancient European civilizations built on a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity, meritocracy, traditional gender roles, and the nuclear family.

Notice how they just slide in white identity.

Right?

Now, the idea of a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity is a bizarre amalgam of two exclusive beliefs.

A Judeo-Christian identity is absolutely, by definition, not white identity.

By definition, it is not.

Look at the history of the church.

Look at the history of the Catholic Church.

Look at the history of Protestantism.

Look at the billions of Christians all over planet Earth.

And you tell me, are they all white?

Are they?

Because I don't think so.

Judaism is a Middle Eastern religion.

It began in Israel.

Like,

what are you talking about?

How How is a Judeo-Christian foundation white identity?

Monotheistic religion is by its very nature non-racially based.

It is bizarre to suggest that Judeo-Christian religion is biblical values are somehow about

racial identity, about whiteness or something.

Like that is Axios fundamentally making a gigantic category error.

But in order to throw the baby out with the bathwater, they basically have to call all this racist.

Meritocracy also apparently is about racism.

You cannot simultaneously hold two beliefs, a belief, one, in meritocracy, and two, a belief in white identitarianism.

Those two things are not compatible.

Because if you are for a meritocracy, that by definition means that the person who is most meritorious, regardless of color, is the person who should get the job, who should advance in society.

Meritocracy and white identity, these two things, mutually exclusive, biblical values, white identitarianism, mutually exclusive.

Now, traditional gender roles, that is a part of Judeo-Christian foundations.

That is a true part of biblical beliefs.

It's also traditional gender roles, a foundational part of science, because it happens to be the case that men and women are different, which is why dudes this morning are making fun of Zoran Mamdani for not being able to lift as much as the pregnant lady would.

It's kind of funny, right?

There is something bizarrely effeminate about Mamdani's performance in the New York mayoral primaries.

There just is, and it's strange and it's weird.

And maybe Democrats love it.

Maybe they're very into the sort of androgyny of the Zoran Mamdani candidacy, but okay, that is a violation of traditional gender norms in a lot of different ways.

And the nuclear family, I was unaware that somehow this is bad.

Why is the nuclear family somehow bad?

American identity, you're telling me, has nothing to do with biblical values, meritocracy, traditional gender roles, and the nuclear family.

That comes as a shock to literally every one of the founders, all of them.

These tenets, according to Axios, are cast as universal truths, and mantras such as America is an idea or diversity is our strength are dismissed as liberal fictions.

Well, hold up a second.

America is an idea is not mutually exclusive with biblical values, traditional gender roles, meritocracy, and the nuclear family.

Those are all ideals.

Those are all ideas.

Those are things that we enact in our daily life.

But look how Axios has to throw all of it to the wind, right?

Axios is expressing the traditional left-wing view of what it means to be an American.

Because the reverse, apparently, is what it means.

Apparently, no Judeo-Christian foundations to our civilization, no Western civilization at the foundation of America, no meritocracy, no traditional gender roles, and no nuclear family, which is kind of saying the quiet part out loud.

I mean, I did write an entire book on this, okay?

Lions and scavengers.

is legitimately about the desire by so many to tear away at the fundamental foundations of a successful civilization.

And it is about tearing away traditional gender roles and the nuclear family and the meritocracy and biblical values.

That is what the book is about.

So, not that I was pressured, but like it's all in the book.

But this does speak to the Democratic Party and the move to the left that is being fostered by, again, this sort of a feat set of liberals at places like Axios, or apparently in the New York City primary.

By the way, the results of this are very clear.

If you get rid of things like biblical values, traditional masculinity, the nuclear family, what do you end up with?

You end up with a bunch of rootless and useless young adults already coming up.

Young American adults apparently aren't getting married.

They aren't having kids.

Things are not going amazing.

Plus, Wes Moore, is he going to be the Democrats' 2028 nominee?

And President Trump going to send troops into Chicago?

How's that going to work?

We'll get to all of that in a minute first.

You know, it can be overwhelming to have too many options.

Have you ever been to a restaurant and the menu is like a book and you don't know what to pick?

Well, the same implies if you're a business owner who's hiring, it can be overwhelming to have too many candidates to sort through, but you're in luck.

ZipRecruiter now gives you the power to proactively find and connect with the best ones quickly.

How?

Through their innovative resume database.

Right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash daily wire.

ZipRecruiter's resume database makes it easy to find the right people for your job openings by letting you filter through candidates quickly to spot the best matches.

When you see someone who catches your eye, you can get their contact details right away to reach out.

With over 320,000 new resumes being added every single month, you'll have plenty of fresh talent to choose from.

That means you can fill your positions faster.

It's no surprise, ZipRecruiter has become the highest rated hiring site on G2.

Here at the Daily Wire, we're always looking for top talent.

Having the great features ZipRecruiter offers would make hiring a breeze for any business owner, big or small.

Skip that candidate overload.

Instead, streamline your hiring with ZipRecruiter.

CI, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within day one.

Just head on over to this exclusive web address, ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire right now and try it for free.

Again, at ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.

ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire.

Also, if you're feeling overwhelmed by those back taxes, you are not alone.

Maybe you missed that April deadline.

Maybe your financial records are all over the place.

Whatever the situation, stop putting it off.

The IRS is not getting any friendlier.

Those penalties, they pile up fast.

We're talking 5% every month.

You don't file, maxing out at 25%.

That adds up really quickly.

Here's the thing.

You don't have to handle all this alone.

Tax Network USA specializes in exactly these situations.

They've worked with thousands of Americans, employees, small business owners, people who haven't filed in years.

Messy books.

They've literally seen it all.

They know how to sort it out.

What sets them apart is their direct access to IRS programs that most people don't even know exist.

Plus, they have expert negotiators who actually know how to get results.

They'll start with a free consultation to assess your situation.

If you qualify, they may be able to reduce or even eliminate what you owe.

More importantly, they can protect you from the really scary stuff like wage garnishments and bank levies.

The bottom line, don't wait for that next IRS letter to show up in your mailbox.

The sooner you act, the more options you will have.

Call 800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com/slash Shapiro to talk to a real expert at Tax Network USA.

Take that pressure off.

Let Tax Network USA handle your tax issues issues today.

Axios, not apparently spotting the irony, same day has a piece titled, America's Young People Are Delaying Adulthood Milestones.

Why, I can't imagine why.

Young adults are pushing back the big milestones Americans have historically associated with growing up, moving out of your parents' house, getting a job, getting married, and having kids.

Now, again, all of those things are associated with precisely the American values that Axios is condemning the Trump administration for promoting.

Biblical values involve, like as in the book of Genesis, you will leave your mother and your father and you will cling to your wife.

That is one of the fundamental hallmarks of becoming a man is you leave your parents and you leave their house and then you get married and you cling to your wife and you form your own family unit.

That's a biblical value.

It is also a traditional stepping stone of the meritocracy because it turns out that moving out of the house, getting a job, getting married, these are the ways that you elevate yourself in any free society.

Married people tend to make more money than single people, for example.

Having kids is the way that you mature.

The nuclear family is the way that you build a next generation.

So when you tear away at the fundamental values of all of your institutions, of all of your ideas and ideals, what you end up with is a bunch of young adults who are completely atomized and useless.

You might say, like Zora Mamdani, who's a 33-year-old socialist who's never held a real job, but soon will be the mayor of the financial capital of planet Earth.

According to Axios, in 1975, about half of America's 25 to 34-year-olds had done all of those things, moved out of their parents' house, gotten a job, got married, and had kids.

50 years later, less than a quarter have, according to a census working paper out this month.

The way young people think about marriage and family is changing.

It used to be the first step of adulthood, with financial security and an established career potentially coming after a wedding.

Now it's commonly the last step.

Young people want to find work, pay off debt, and live alone before looking for a partner, and these goals are harder to hit than they were for previous generations.

Findings suggest young adults today prioritize economic security over over starting a family, reflecting the rising burden of housing, food, gas, and other costs.

Okay, that's such horse.

It's horse manure.

This notion that young people today are wildly poor and that is the reason why they're not getting married and having kids is a lie.

It is not true.

Your grandparents were way poorer than you and they got married at 20 and then they had a bunch of kids and then they ended up paving the way for a better America.

If you're 25 years old and unmarried, living in a $5,000 a month apartment in New York City.

That is a you problem.

That is your fault.

Okay, the rent is not your fault.

The rent is the fault of New York, which refuses to build any more housing because of all their crazy regulations.

But your life decisions are your fault.

I mean, this should be just baseline rudimentary morality.

The decisions you make in your life are your problem.

That's not mean there can't be systemic change in ways that make your decisions easier.

But the vast majority of problems in your life in the freest country in the history of the world where you have the most wealth in the history of the world.

Stop blaming other people for that.

But again, when you tear away things like Judeo-Christian morality and expectations of traditional gender roles, like get married, be a husband, be a dad, what you end up with is useless young people.

And then those useless young people vote for other useless young people, again, like Azoran Mamzani.

In 2024, 28% of young adults lived on their own with jobs.

But the combination of moving out, marrying, and having kids no longer ranks among the top five most common milestone patterns.

By the way, that is a priority issue.

Because if you ask young people what they want out of life, they are not prioritizing these important things.

Why?

Well, because

you on the left decided that somehow it was white identitarian to talk about biblical values, meritocracy, traditional family units,

and traditional gender roles.

Somehow that was white supremacy.

Well, the result of that is precisely what we are seeing today.

Hey, well, I do think, I do think that at some point Democrats are going to have to steer back towards sanity because they can't do this.

I mean, they can do it in fits and starts.

They can elect a Zora Mamdani in New York, or they can elect a Brandon Johnson in Chicago, the least popular mayor in America.

You can elect an AOC in a borough of Brooklyn or something.

You can do those things.

But on a national level, do most Americans want that?

Is that a thing most Americans want?

I think the answer is no.

And so it's fascinating to see as Democrats start looking for their legit 2028 candidate.

Now, I know that Gavin Newsom's been making a big splash.

So I asked our sponsors over at Comet, Perplexity's new web browser, I asked, what is the order of the Democratic primaries in 2028?

Because it makes a very big difference in terms of who the 2028 Democratic nominee is.

So if you recall, back in 2024, Joe Biden, in an attempt to stack the primary so he would have no real competition, he was afraid that if he allowed Iowa and New Hampshire to be first in the nation for the Democrats, he might get some sort of insurgent candidacy from Bernie Sanders again or some other left-wing member of the Democratic Party.

And so he stacked it.

He put South Carolina first.

That, of course, was a callback to his 2020 race where he lost Iowa and New Hampshire, but then won South Carolina and basically swept the rest of the primaries.

While the current order still retains South Carolina at the head of the primaries, however, the DNC is currently debating the calendar.

Strong competition is emerging among states like South Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Nevada to obtain or reclaim early voting status.

The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee will determine the order.

A decision is not expected until at least late 2025, possibly 2026.

New Hampshire is fighting very hard to restore its long-held first in the nation status, but the bottom line is this.

The most important state for the Democratic Party primaries is South Carolina.

So if I ask, comment then, what percentage of the 2024 South Carolina Democratic Party primary electorate was black in 2024?

The answer was 56% of 2024 South Carolina Democratic.

Party primary voters were black.

In 2016, by the way, that number was 61%.

So, how do you think Gavin Newsom is going to do with that crowd?

I mean, maybe he will do somewhat better than Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigedge would do, but he's not going to blow it out of the park, which means the Democrats are looking to another face.

Who is that other face?

That face is Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland.

So, Wes Moore has been the person who I'm hearing a lot about from my friends in the Democratic Party.

I hear his name come up a lot.

There are a lot of people who are very hot on Wes Moore.

He, of course, is the governor of Maryland.

Here is George Clooney talking up Wes Moore recently with Jake Tapper on CNN.

But who I think is, who I think is levitating above that is Westmore.

I think he is the guy that has handled this tragedy in

Baltimore beautifully.

He's two tours of duty in Afghanistan, active duty.

He speaks sort of beautifully.

He's smart.

He ran a hedge fund.

He ran the Robin Hood Foundation.

He's a proper leader.

And Democrats, you know, know, the thing is we say Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line.

Although I think Republicans have fallen in love a little bit,

I like him a lot.

I think he could be someone we could all

join in behind.

We have to find somebody rather soon.

Now, again, his background, Westmore, is pretty interesting.

Wesmore is very young.

Wesmoore is 46 years old right now, which for the Democratic Party is, again, very, very young.

He was born in Maryland.

His dad died when he was very young.

His mom moved him to the Bronx.

He got involved, apparently, in petty crime as a youngster, and he ended up enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy.

And then he completed requirements for the U.S.

Army's early commissioning program.

He became a second lieutenant of military intelligence in the Army Reserve.

He went to Johns Hopkins University.

He's got his BA from there.

He played wide receiver for their football team for a couple of seasons.

And then he interned at the Department of Homeland Security under Tom Ridge.

He ended up going to Wolfson College in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and then served in the 82nd Airborne Division and was in Afghanistan 2005 to 2006.

And he ended up leaving as captain.

He was a White House Fellow in February 26

under Secretary of State Connalisa Rice.

He worked at Deutsch Bank in Manhattan, Citibank from 2007 to 2012.

And then he ended up, of course, running for office.

He became sort of a TV producer for a while.

He was CEO of a charitable organization that was designed to alleviate childhood poverty.

So again, this is the guy who has sort of the classic political resume.

And so Democrats are very into this.

And the big thing right now for Wes Moore is that as he's watching Gavin Newsom garner all the attention, he wants to jump in.

He understands the primaries now start earlier than ever, and he's starting to jump in.

Already coming up, President Trump talking about sending federal troops to Chicago, Democrats going nuts, plus a lot more.

First, if you've been living on credit cards just to cover your groceries, your gas, your bills, you know those interest rates can be absolutely brutal.

If you don't pay on time, you're paying like 20% or more to the banks.

You could call my friends over at American Financing.

They have mortgage rates in the fives.

They're showing people every day how to keep more of your hard-earned money in your pocket and out of the hands of those credit card companies.

Right now, American Financing is helping homeowners save an average of $800 a month by using their home equity to wipe out that high interest debt.

No upfront fees, no obligation, just a 10-minute call to a salary-based mortgage consultant.

Here's the the kicker.

If you start today, you could delay two mortgage payments, putting even more cash in your hands right away.

Don't wait.

Call American Financing Now, 866-574-2500.

That's 866-574-2500.

Or visit AmericanFinancing.net slash Shapiro.

Again, it is much, much better to utilize your home equity to access your wealth than it is to access that credit card over and over and over at a 20% interest rate.

And American Financing can help you fix all this right-size yourself.

Call American Financing right now, 866-574-2500.

Or visit AmericanFinancing.net slash Shapiro.

Also, Grand Canyon University, it's a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.

They believe we're endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose.

GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come.

By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends, and your community.

Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God.

Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCUs online on campus in hybrid learning environments, they're designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal, and professional goals.

With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams.

The pursuit to serve others is yours.

Let it flourish.

Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.

PrivateChristian Affordable, visit gcu.edu.

You've heard a lot about how institutions of higher education are basically soul-sucking people.

That is absolutely true.

It is not the case at Grand Canyon University, where they help restore yourself.

Go check them out.

Private Christian Affordable, GCU.edu.

President Trump has said that he was interested in sending the National Guard into Baltimore to quickly clean up crime.

This is a follow-on to his use of the National Guard in order to quash crime in Washington, D.C.

Now, legally speaking, the president of the United States has an awful lot more authority in Washington, D.C., which of course is a federal district than he does in a city like Baltimore, which is just a city in the state of Maryland, right?

States typically have police power.

It is not the federal government that enforces state law or basic criminal law in the states.

That is the job of the state.

It is the job of the locality, typically legally, in order for the president of the United States to utilize the National Guard in these particular areas.

He either has to cite the Insurrection Act, right?

He has to say that there's some sort of riot that's taking place, or he has to send in the National Guard to help federal forces effectuate federal laws.

That's what he did in Los Angeles.

He said that the federal government was unable to effectuate immigration law, and and the National Guard was brought in in a support capacity for ICE.

So it's not clear what legal authority President Trump would be citing in sending the National Guard into a place like Baltimore.

Now, Baltimore has been a high crime area for a very, very long time, obviously.

And the reason that the wire took place, the HBO show, terrific show, took place in Baltimore is because Baltimore has been sort of the epicenter.

of American crime for decades and decades and decades, going all the way back to when David Simon was writing about it in his book, Homicide.

President Trump threatened, he said, if Wesmore needs help like Gavin Newscomb did in LA, I will send in the troops, which is being done in nearby D.C., and quickly clean up the crime.

Well, this is this, nothing excites a Democrat more than being attacked by President Trump at this point.

Now, this is a difference.

Very early on in President Trump's presidency, Democrats seem to kind of want to make nice with him.

You saw this from Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.

You also did see this from Wesmore.

Last December, after President Trump became president-elect Trump again, Westmore greeted him in the basement of the Army-Navy game.

Here's what that looked like:

President,

welcome back to Maryland, sir.

Welcome back to Maryland.

It's good to see you.

Thank you, sir.

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Great to have you back here.

It's a pleasure.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Stu.

So this is a great moment for Westmore to finally declare war on the president of the United States, because, of course, if you wish to run for that 2028 Democratic nomination, you have to basically run against Trump first before you get to whoever the Republican nominee will be, whether it's J.D.

Vance or Marco Marco Rubio or somebody else.

So here was Westmore jumping on the opportunity, talking about how President Trump needs to get the name of Baltimore out of his mouth.

I do want to be very clear.

If you are not willing to be part of the solution, keep our names out of your mouth.

Specifically, Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth.

Yeah, well, I mean, again, that sort of, you know, ridiculous notion that President Trump, if you're not, I mean, he is willing to be part of the solution.

That's why he's talking about sending the National Guard there.

But it's not about that.

It's all about the performative.

The Democrats have to first pass the bar of the performative before they can get to the substantive.

On CNN on Friday, he said, it's because they have not walked our streets.

He said, many of the comments that are being made from the White House come off as so, so tone-deaf and so ignorant about fighting crime.

They've not been in our communities.

They're more than happy just making these repeated tropes about us, but not actually working with us to be able to make sure that our streets are safe and that people can have a real opportunity to feel safe in their own neighborhoods.

Now, to be fair,

it is pretty clear that

the democratic rule in Maryland has not been particularly beneficial for people wishing to avoid crime in Baltimore.

Crime in Baltimore remains extremely, extremely high.

Homicide is down over the course of the last year or two.

With that said, it remains significantly higher than the rest of the country.

President Trump responded as president, I would much prefer he clean up this crime disaster before I go there for a walk.

Well, yeah.

I mean, again, the crime rates in Baltimore are extremely bad.

It is the fourth most dangerous city in America, according to some recent studies.

It has consistently high crime rates.

There's significant problems with drugs.

President Trump targeting it on the basis of it being incredibly criminal.

He's not wrong to do that.

But again, this does give Wes Moore the opening to basically now run against Trump, which is the thing that he wants to do more than anything else.

Wes Moore then sent a letter to President Trump, basically inviting him to walk the streets.

Again, President Trump said, I'll walk the streets after I clean up the crime.

That seems safer for me.

But Wes Moore said, Dear President Trump, last week you responded to my concerns about the deployment of National Guard personnel for municipal policing in Washington, D.C.

by insulting me personally from the Oval Office.

So I wanted to write in order to clarify the root of my frustration and extend an invitation for you to visit Maryland, where we can discuss strategies for effective public safety policy.

There's no higher priority for me as the governor of my state than the safety of my people.

This is an issue of both professional and personal significance.

I grew up in and around communities left behind by people in power who sought to weaponize the pain of their constituents through hollow talking points that never changed the reality on the ground.

From the day I became Maryland's chief executive, I've sought a different path.

We've taken an all-of the above approach to public safety that addresses the root causes of crime, mobilizing state resources, building strong partnerships with local jurisdictions, prosecutors, public defenders, police officers, and advocates, and ensuring greater coordination and data sharing to deliver staggering drops in violent crime.

Homicides in Maryland are down statewide by 20% since my inauguration two and a half years ago in the first six months of 2025.

The Baltimore PD continued to see a double-digit reduction in gun violence, including a 22% decrease in homicides and a 19% decrease in non-fatal shootings.

This is basically a press release.

I mean, Wesmore sends President Trump a press relief.

And he says, if there's anything Maryland has proven over the last two years, it's that we can achieve performance without being performative.

I'd like to invite you formally to attend our next public safety walk in September at a date of your choosing.

So, again,

I think that this is all about Westmore trying to wrest control of the microphone away from Gavin Newsom.

And frankly, he does have an advantage.

Again, Westmore is black.

So that is going to make an awfully big difference in South Carolina in 2028.

If South Carolina is the first primary state, Westmore has a heavy advantage going in.

He just does.

That is just a reality.

And pretending it is not so

is foolish.

Right now, if you had to draw odds on favorite for the nomination for the Democratic Party right now, Westmore is probably it.

Again, it's not going to be hard for him to get money from people like George Clooney.

He does have a moderate affect, even though his policies are not particularly moderate in the state of Maryland.

He's obviously well-spoken.

He seems to be politically adept.

Now, can he fall into radicalism?

Absolutely.

So, for example, he doesn't need to do this.

Once Trump has attacked him over Baltimore, he should just stick to that.

Westmore instead is attacking Trump for sending troops to D.C.

That's foolish.

It's unconstitutional.

It's a direct violation of the 10th Amendment.

And for a party that talks about state rights, it's amazing how they're having such a big government approach in the way they're conducting public safety.

Again, it is not unconstitutional for the president to send troops to Washington, D.C.

That is fully in line with the Constitution of the United States.

President Trump responded to Governor Wes Moore, who invited him to walk the city.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump criticized the Maryland governor's record on crime.

He said, if Baltimore needs assistance, he'll will send in the National Guard like he did to L.A.

and Washington, D.C.

He also noted he had given Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge, adding he might have to rethink the decision.

Governor Westmore of Maryland, he said, has asked in a rather nasty and provocative tone that I walk the streets of Maryland with him.

I assume he's talking about out-of-control crime written in Baltimore.

As president, I'd much prefer he clean up this crime disaster before I go there for a walk.

He says Westmore's record on crime is a very bad one unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other blue states are doing.

But if Westmore needs help like Gavin Newscomb did in L.A., I will send in the troops, which is being done in nearby D.C., and quickly clean up the crime.

Now, again, it seems to me that the reactionary nature of our politics is leading everybody into some box canyons politically.

The reality is that the president of the United States does not have the unilateral authority, again, unless he somehow declares that an insurrection is taking place to simply send in the National Guard to local cities to clean up the crime.

And there is a reason for that.

We do not want the federal government being in the business of enforcing local law.

At that point, states cease to exist.

That is a problem.

If you're on the right side of the aisle, that is a problem for you.

Imagine Wes Moore as president of the United States.

Imagine Joe Biden just a couple of years ago as president of the United States, sending in troops to enforce local law in places like Florida or Texas, picking which laws to enforce.

You'd be upset about that, and you'd have a right to be upset about that.

That is not how the Constitution.

was drawn.

This is why I am less than enthused about the idea of now deploying troops to Chicago.

Again, there's a difference between deploying troops to LA to enforce immigration law, federal immigration law, and deploying troops to Washington, D.C., which is in fact a federal district.

Now, apparently, the Pentagon is planning a military deployment in Chicago, according to the Washington Post.

The Pentagon has for weeks been planning a military deployment to Chicago as President Trump says he wants to crack down on crime, homelessness, and undocumented immigration.

In a model that could later be used in other major cities, officials familiar with the planning said.

The planning, which has not been previously disclosed, involves several options, including mobilizing at least a few thousand members of the National Guard as soon as September.

It's what is the third most populous city in the United States.

The mission, if approved, would have parallels to the polarizing and legally contested operation Trump ordered in L.A.

in June.

The Chicago effort would further expand Trump's use of military force domestically, even when state and local authorities call the idea unwelcome and unwarranted.

Now, again, it is quite possible that a state or local authority can say they don't want to enforce federal immigration law and they obstruct federal immigration law.

Then you have a a good excuse to send in the National Guard to help ICE actually enforce the law.

But if what you're talking about is there are too many murders in the city of Chicago, so you're sending in the National Guard, again, unless you have some sort of legal basis for it, this is a problem.

President Trump is not wrong about Chicago.

He said Chicago is a mess.

You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent.

We'll straighten that one out probably next.

That'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough.

Now, as they say, they probably will use ICE as sort of a bootstrap for putting troops on the ground in Chicago.

However, it seems to me that if Chicago wishes to keep voting for awful, awful people for their politicians, that they do in fact have the right to vote for terrible politicians and live with the consequences of those terrible politicians.

The way that people learn not to elect bad people is by having 20 years, 30 years of crime like they did in New York City before they got the Rudy Giuliani treatment.

And it seems like New Yorkers don't learn, and so they'll go right back to the well on that one.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, in response to President Trump's threat to send National Guard into Chicago,

he put out a statement.

He says, quote, we take President Trump's statement seriously, but to be clear, the city has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago.

Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the city of Chicago.

The problem with the President's approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound.

Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities.

Unlawful deployment would be unsustainable and would threaten to undermine the historic progress we have made in the past year alone.

We've reduced homicides by more than 30%, robberies by 35%, shootings by almost 40%.

We continue to invest in what is working.

Okay, so, I mean, first of all, this is the wrong tack for Brandon Johnson to take and for any of these blue state Democrats to take.

The answer is not we're doing an amazing job on crime.

The answer is the president doesn't have the authority to do this, right?

Sure, we can do a better job on crime.

Everybody can do a better job on crime.

In a city in America, they can't do a better job on crime.

But the National Guard being deployed to the city is a violation of the constitutional order, would actually be the argument that should be made by Brandon Johnson, but he doesn't really care very much about that, of course, because he is very much in favor of the crime on sort of a general level.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, she also issued a statement condemning the president of the United States.

She said, it comes as no surprise.

Donald Trump is once again attacking Chicago, but that doesn't change.

The Trump's continuing pattern of politicizing and misusing our nation's military for his own partisan gain and to crush dissent is deeply disturbing, is un-American, and has no place in any of our cities.

We know this isn't about law and order because Trump is once again refusing to coordinate with state and local officials.

Now, again, President Trump would say, listen, if I coordinate with you, you're just going to thwart the actual ability to police crime.

That's what happened in Los Angeles.

Again, the Democrat...

The Democrats have a unique way, a truly unique way of taking the wrong side of any argument, even when they might be constitutionally correct.

It's kind of amazing.

What they should be arguing is the president does not have the legal authority under the Constitution of the United States to enforce local law by the military.

That is not what the military is for.

Instead, they take the perspective that actually crime is okay and it's racist of Trump to offer this.

And it's misuse of our military and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And so it looks like they're pro-crime, which is a really dumb way to do this.

Well, here it was:

Governor J.B.

Pritzkerke also put out a tweet suggesting that Trump was trying to manufacture a crisis.

Quote, Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform and continue to abuse his power to distract from the pain he's causing families.

We'll continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect Illinoisans.

So the last line there is closer to correct from J.B.

Pritzker.

But again,

this kind of notion.

that Trump is manufacturing a crime crisis when, again, crime in Chicago, there are shootings pretty much every weekend in Chicago, that obviously is untrue.

Here was Brandon Johnson trying to rebut claims that his city is basically run like trash.

This is who Chicago really is.

What's being painted by the federal government is false.

We love one another.

We support one another.

We put our arms around one another.

Okay, and then he continued by suggesting that actually the people of Chicago would participate in an uprising against President.

So what, you're going to riot to show that crime is bad?

That'd be a really stupid move, Mayor Trump.

But then again, he is a very stupid man.

You know, look, the city of Chicago, one of the most diverse economies in the world, right?

Again, you know, a city that has been, you know, founded and established on the values of working people.

We're not going to surrender our humanity to this tyrant.

I can tell you this.

The city of Chicago has a long history of standing up against tyranny, resisting those who wish to undermine the interests of working people.

people.

We're not going to back down.

We're not going to cower.

We're not going to bend.

We're not going to break.

We are Chicago.

We are the soul of America.

And we will maintain that posture from now until.

Yeah, I don't even know what he means by that.

What does he mean that we're not going to, we're going to resist?

What does that resistance look like?

Seriously, it is amazing how many of these people are playing directly into President.

Trump's hands on the radical left.

With that said, President Trump moving federal troops into Chicago, that is a very fraught constitutional move at the very best.

Now, there are moves that President Trump can make on crime that are pretty fascinating.

So, one of the ones that he is making, according to an exclusive for the New York Post, is that he's going to sign an executive order today ending cashless bail across the country, essentially attaching strings to federal funding for jurisdictions that continue to do cashless bail, which is essentially the idea that we'll just release criminals on their own recognizance around the country.

Attorney General Pambondi will provide Trump with a list of no cash bail jurisdictions that could end up targeting states like New York, cities like Washington, D.C., or other localities with lax bail policies.

A White House memo on the executive action says, quote, cashless bail policies allow dangerous individuals to immediately return to the streets and further endanger law-abiding, hardworking Americans because they know our laws will not be enforced.

Arresting repeat offenders for new crimes after they've already been freed without bail is a waste of public resources and an obvious threat to public safety.

The memo also notes.

And so the president does have the ability to attach strings to federal funding in a lot of ways.

It's been done for decades.

There's nothing new about that.

Now, going after jurisdictions that are releasing criminals onto the streets this way, that is within his purview.

So, again, I have no problem with the president fighting crime.

I just want to make sure that he does it in the most legally bulletproof way so it doesn't get shot down by a court at the first available opportunity.

Now, speaking of matters legal, on Friday, the DOJ released

the testimony of Ghelaine Maxwell, the transcript of her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

It's about 300 pages.

The audio is six hours or so.

Not a lot of big takeaways.

The big takeaway is that according to Ghelaine Maxwell, there are people who were clamoring for her to talk.

She was going to name the names.

She was going to spill the beans.

She was going to break this thing wide open, where it turns out that suddenly the Trump administration was covering for a gigantic child sex trafficking ring on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies, specifically according to many of the druze.

In any case, All of that seems to not be true.

So either she's lying, in which case there's no evidence that that allegation is true, or she's telling the truth, in which case there's no evidence that that allegation is true.

As I've been saying from the beginning, suspicions without evidence, maybe they're true, but at some point, you do need to show, you know, the evidence.

When Ghelane Maxwell did the six-hour interview, she testified that President Trump had never engaged in any inappropriate conduct that she saw with Jeffrey Epstein.

She added that she didn't believe that Epstein killed himself.

And again, there is the best case here is probably Alan Dershowitz's case who again was was maxwell's and was epstein's lawyer that dershowitz says that there's a good shot that epstein did kill himself but basically paid the prison guards to allow him to kill himself i mean that that is certainly a possibility

she said that bill clinton was very close with her but not with jeffrey epstein todd blanche had asked her repeatedly about her and epstein's relationships with bill clinton by the way we know how close epstein and ghelaine maxwell were to clinton particularly ghlaine maxwell because as it turns out according to cnn

Ghelane Maxwell was actually given an honor at a prestigious Clinton event years after abuse allegations actually surfaced, which is definitely weird.

It's a weird thing to do.

So, for all those who are saying it's a cover-up by Trump to protect Trump, maybe it's a cover-up by Trump to protect Hillary Clinton?

I don't know.

Maxwell said, President Clinton liked me.

We got along terribly well.

I never saw that warmth or however you want to characterize it with Mr.

Epstein.

Maxwell said there's no client list of people who associated with Epstein.

She said that there's no list that she was aware of.

She said also that there was no link to any intelligence agency.

Now, again, maybe she's lying about all of this.

That's certainly possible.

She is, of course, a criminal derelict who sexually abused minors.

So that is certainly a possibility.

However, the

absence of evidence does not strengthen your case.

One of the amazing things about large-scale conspiracy theories is when no evidence emerges to support the theory, the lack of evidence is in and of itself evidence the conspiracy theory is true.

It's the magic of a conspiracy theory.

And it is the difference between an actual conspiracy and a conspiracy theory, as I've said many times.

An actual conspiracy involves evidence of conspiratorial activity to achieve an aim.

A conspiracy theory is based on speculation that such a thing is going on without any evidence.

And the beautiful thing about that is that you just keep getting to use the absence of evidence as evidence.

that your theory is true, which is always quite delicious.

Jim Jordan, representative from Ohio, he rightly points out that the Maxwell interview, again, confirms what most people were saying, which is that Trump was not involved in any way in Epstein Island shenanigans with minors.

What I know is they didn't release parts of the transcript.

They released the whole transcript.

And, you know, so you can go through the whole thing.

And of course, this confirms what we all knew.

If the Democrats, if President Trump had done something wrong, you don't think the Democrats would have released that?

I mean, it was their Justice Department

who handled all this.

You don't think the Garland Justice Department and the Chris Ray FBI would have released information?

We knew President Trump didn't do anything wrong here.

He said that repeatedly.

This transcript is the whole transcript, and it confirms that.

So

I think

there's nothing there, it seems, based on what we got from the interview of Ms.

Maxwell.

Again, he's not wrong about that.

And if you continue to maintain the conspiracy theory in the face of no evidence, that's fine.

You can do do that.

You should just acknowledge that there's no evidence to actually back the conspiracy theory at this point.

And meanwhile, J.D.

Vance did a sort of fascinating interview yesterday with Kristen Welker over at NBC on the situation with regard to Russia-Ukraine.

Now, the Trump administration, President Trump in particular, has been taking the correct line on this.

He got Putin to go to Anchorage.

Then he went to the Europeans and he said, listen, I'm willing to do some form of security guarantee.

Ukraine really has to be on board with making some territorial concessions.

They're the ones who are going to have to negotiate all of that.

And then the president implied very late last week that offensive weaponry should actually be used by Ukraine against Russia.

That if Russia won't come to the table, you really have only one other choice, and that's to ratchet things up.

Well,

two things are happening that are sort of happen.

One, Russia has rejected everything.

Russia continues to reject everything.

They're totally intransigent.

Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, the guy who again showed up in Anchorage wearing a USSR shirt just to demonstrate what his priorities were.

Sergei Lavrov,

he also was on with Kristen Walker, and he proceeded to say that there was, in fact, no meeting planned between Vladimir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.

There is no meeting planned, and I am not challenging this, but you, you

cannot, I think, understand what I am saying.

Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready

for a summit.

And this agenda is not ready at all.

So again, he has no plans at this point.

So despite all of the talk about how we were moving on to the next step, trilateral meetings and all the rest, in the end, it was always going to be about what the Russians want from the negotiation.

We know what the Ukrainians want, an end-of-the-war security guarantees, insurance that they're not going to be invaded again.

Full-scale guarantee of their independence.

That's what they want.

What Russia wants is Ukraine.

They want to ingest Ukraine.

And so Lavrov continues to claim that Zelensky is illegitimate.

Well, that makes it kind of difficult to negotiate when you're saying that the leader of the person on the other side is illegitimate.

And by the way, the only quote-unquote legitimate leader that Russia would ever accept is somebody who's friendly to Moscow, of course.

Irrespective of when this meeting might take place, and it must be very well prepared, the issue of who is going to sign the deal on the Ukrainian side.

So you're saying you don't see President Zelensky as the legitimate leader of Ukraine?

President Putin doesn't recognize him as the legitimate leader of Ukraine?

No, we recognize him as de facto head of the regime.

And

in this capacity, we are ready to meet with him.

But when it comes to signing legal documents, no,

you want to have the entire picture just part of it, which suits you.

When we come to

a stage when you have to sign documents, we would need a very

clear understanding by everybody that the person who is signing is legitimate.

And according to the Ukrainian constitution, Mr.

Zelensky is not at the moment.

Okay, so what he's saying is, sure, we'll meet with Zelensky, but we'll call him illegitimate the whole time, and then we won't allow him to actually sign the documents on the other side, which is a wild position to take, given the fact that, again, if Russia wants a peace deal, which they clearly do not at this point, they feel they can continue to ratchet up the pressure.

If they wanted to do something, they wouldn't be doing that.

Okay, meanwhile, as I've said a thousand times, the biggest barrier to a next Republican administration remains the economy.

So on Friday, Jerome Powell signaled that he would, in fact, likely be lowering those interest rates come September.

That, of course, made investors pretty happy.

Investors were excited that finally the monetary supply would be loosened at least somewhat, that there would be an ability to

get easier loans, that mortgage rates would go down, and all of the rest.

However, the labor market continues to remain somewhat stagnant, and there is ballast to the tariff policies that President Trump has been pushing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the labor market has moved front and center for the Federal Reserve, highlighting its fragility and risk to the economy.

The good news is that unemployment remains low.

Employers haven't been all that interested in laying people off.

The bad news is that companies haven't been all that interested in hiring either.

This precarious situation means even a relatively small increase in layoffs could lead the economy to start shedding jobs, a process that can be difficult to reverse once it starts.

Worries about that possibility have have come to the fore at the Fed, especially after revisions included in that July employment report showed much weaker job growth in recent months than previously thought.

So on Friday, Fed chair Jerome Powell signaled that they were going to cut rates because of the risk of a deteriorating jobs market.

He said, if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.

We've already seen the pace of hiring slowing markedly.

In June, the hires rate was just 3.3%, according to the Labor Department.

That was below 3.9% in February 2020.

And it was much less than the 4.6% registered in November 2021 when the job market was coming back from the pandemic.

Companies were already adding new employees at a slower pace when President Trump came back into office.

Then we were going to do deregulation and lower taxes and all the rest.

It turns out the tariffs have thrown a wrench into all of that.

So the Federal Reserve is going to try to apparently jog the markets.

by lowering those interest rates.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken a $10 billion stake in Intel.

And again, I am deeply uncomfortable with this.

This is not good laissez-faire free market policy.

It is not.

President Trump said Friday at the White House, I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner.

The CEO of Intel agreed.

They've agreed to do it.

Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick confirmed that deal in a post on X on Friday.

Quote, big news, the United States of America now owns 10% of Intel, one of our great American technology companies.

Intel posted details of the plan soon afterward, saying the administration would make an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock paid for with CHIPS grant money.

So basically, the idea is that taxpayer money will be used to buy America a piece of Intel.

A bad investment.

I would not be spending $9 billion to buy a piece of Intel, would you?

Because they've been in secular decline for quite a while because they've been mishandled.

The company said the stake would be funded with $5.7 billion in grants previously awarded but not yet paid and $3.2 billion from a separate Department of Defense program.

The CEO said, we are grateful for the confidence the president and the administration have placed in Intel.

We look forward to working to advance U.S.

technology and manufacturing leadership.

So some Republicans are upset about this, including Senator Rand Paul.

He correctly points out that this is actually a violation of free market principles and that once you are a partner with the government, the government basically is in charge of your business.

And not only that, it's too big to fail.

So as Mike Schmidt and Todd Fisher write in the Wall Street Journal,

the company's products business, which designs chips for computers and servers, is large and profitable, but not a national security priority.

That business underpins most of Intel's roughly $100 billion market cap.

What matters to national security is Intel's foundry, the manufacturing arm that could, in theory, produce chips for other companies, as well as Intel's internal products.

And that foundry is struggling.

It lost more than $13 billion last year.

It has almost no external customers.

But a government equity stake does not solve that problem.

Intel can easily raise capital in public markets.

There's no need for taxpayer dollars to replace what private capital is already willing to do.

Unlike grants, equity comes at a steep cost to Intel.

Transferring grants into equity risks putting Intel at a cost disadvantage relative to other chip makers, which are manufacturing predominantly in low-cost Asian countries and receiving direct incentives in the U.S.

and around the world.

And there are also practical risks because, of course, now it's politicized.

The biggest problem is that Intel's 18A process has failed to secure any meaningful external customers.

Intel CEO recently acknowledged that without external customers for its advanced 14A process technology, the company can't sustain leading-edge manufacturing.

And again,

this sort of thing here, not great.

It's just, it didn't.

Nationalization of American industries is a bad idea.

I understand that the Trump administration is trying to do as much as it can from the executive branch for the government.

They're doing it on crime.

They're doing it on immigration.

On immigration, they have plenary power.

On crime, not so much.

Doing it on the economy is not what the executive branch was designed to do.

It is not.

Congress should step in.

Congress is an independent branch of government.

The president of the United States should not unilaterally be making tariff policy.

That is not what the system was designed to do.

I don't like it happening, whether it is Democrat or Republican.

And the grand centralization of nearly all power in the executive branch as a whole is a massive, massive institutional flaw in our Republic right now.

It also means...

that whenever we have a presidential election, it is tooth and nail, because

I guess if you grab the executive branch, then you basically run everything.

And that is a huge systemic problem that the founders never would have tolerated.

Alrighty, coming up, we will get to the raid on John Bolton's house, plus Snoop Dogg speaking out against Disney.

Fascinating.

Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

If you're not a member, become a member.

Use code Shapiro.

Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

Click that link in the description and join us.