Podbit · The Ben Shapiro Show
Democrats haven't surged on the generic ballot, but Republicans face a brutal map, a red-carded Texas Senate race, and DSA candidates forcing party leadership left. Ben Domenech's verdict: midterms are going to be terrible for Republicans, and the Supreme Court just handed Democrats the perfect escape hatch on transgender sports.
Where this was said
At 34:55 · chapter starts 32:40
Michael Knowles steps out of the political debate for a heartfelt PreBorn! sponsor read. He frames the charity around the Declaration of Independence's ordering of rights — life, liberty, pursuit of happiness — arguing that without life, the other rights are meaningless. PreBorn! provides free ultrasounds for $28 per session, and Knowles cites the organization's statistic that a mother who sees her baby on ultrasound for the first time is 80% more likely to choose life. He calls it one of the best ROIs available in charitable giving, noting that PreBorn! fundraises separately for administrative costs so every donated dollar goes toward saving lives. He asks listeners to donate $250 — a nod to America's 250th anniversary — by dialing #250 and saying 'BABY' or visiting preborn.com/knowles.
Ben Domenech noted that prediction market Kalshi placed Tucker Carlson's odds of running for president in 2028 at around 25%, which he dismissed as far too high.
Ben Shapiro recalled that Pat Buchanan's Reform Party run in 2000 garnered only 0.4% of the vote, drawing a parallel to Tucker Carlson's third-party threat.
Michael Knowles cited PreBorn!'s statistic that a mother who sees her baby on ultrasound for the first time is 80% more likely to choose life.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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