The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 21 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Shapiro: Federal gridlock will permanently shift political power to state governments
“I think that actually this is not going to get solved at the federal level. I think what's actually going to happen is that the federal government is going to lock up and it's going to be essentially rotating elected quasi-dictators until, until the end of tim…”
Shapiro: Qatar gave Hamas $2B and U.S. universities $6.3B recently
“They gave two billion dollars to Hamas over the course of the last several years. And have funded the American university system to tune a 6.3 billion dollars for a country that has a grand total of 2.6 million citizens.”
Shapiro: All net U.S. taxes are paid by the top income quintile
“All net taxes in this country are paid by the top quintile, all of them, because below the top quintile, you're getting as much back from the government or more than you are paying into the system.”
Shapiro: DOGE is avoiding means-tested welfare, the main national debt driver
“The systemic drivers of our national debt are not actually being touched at this point by Doge. I mean, it's the means-tested welfare programs that are really the systemic long-term drivers of our national debt.”
Shapiro: A U.S. recession will trigger populist revolts against free-market capitalism
“And if the, and if it goes sideways, then what you're going to get is a populist revolt on the left and a populist revolt on the right that is going to take down everybody who is even remotely connected with this idea of free market capitalism.”
Shapiro: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was previously a paid Qatari agent
“The current attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, was a foreign registered agent for Qatar for a while, being paid by Qatar to do that sort of lobbying work.”
Shapiro: U.S. average tariff rate is highest since the 1930s
“The average tariff rate right now is higher than it's been any time since the 19 thirties.”
Shapiro: US faces wild currency inflation or massive austerity in 5-10 years
“The answer is we're going to either wildly inflate our currency or we're going to go into massive austerity measures. You know, five to 10 years from now. There's not going to be a third choice.”
Ben Shapiro: Medicaid price controls will drive up private insurance drug costs
“And so if you do that with Medicaid, what you'll probably get is number one, a lot of these pharmaceuticals just won't be used by Medicaid. Pharma won't sell it to them. Instead, you'll have to go into the private sector, which means it's going to be more expe…”
Shapiro: US border crossings have dropped to lowest in recorded history
“The numbers of the border have just Plummeted to almost zero. I mean, the lowest numbers in recorded history, and that is an unmitigated success.”
Shapiro: Trump will carve out tariff negotiation off-ramps within weeks
“I think the most likely result of these tariffs is that within the next few weeks, the headlines are not good. President Trump starts driving trucks through the center of the tariffs. And then he starts getting wins from various parties outside that allow him …”
Shapiro: Israel removed US tariffs before Trump levied 17% tariff
“Yesterday, in anticipation of this, Israel, which had very, very low tariffs on United States goods anyway, announced they'd removed all tariffs. On American goods, right? There were no tariffs on American goods anymore. And the administration that afternoon l…”
Shapiro: Loss of US dollar reserve status will trigger higher taxes
“The exit of the dollar as the world's global reserve currency is going to have some pretty nasty spillover effects, and it's going to require the government to start sucking in more dollars from the American population in order to pay off all of these debts th…”
Shapiro: If China reaches AI superintelligence first, state corporatism wins
“If they get there first, then corporatism wins.”
Shapiro: US defense spending as share of GDP has decreased post-Iraq War
“Military as a percentage of the GDP, or as a percentage of the budget, has been, you know, relatively stable, and in some cases decreasing since, since the end of the Iraq War.”
Shapiro: Most US manufacturing job loss stems from technology, not offshoring
“The vast majority of job loss in the manufacturing sector is not due to offshoring. It's due to technological advancements.”
Shapiro: An economic downturn will make both parties favor Lina Khan
“And that's how you get a populist uprising on the right. And what you end up with is a horseshoe theory politics where both parties are in favor of Lena Kahn. Right. Both parties are in favor of Lena Kahn.”
Ben Shapiro: The US middle class has shifted into the upper middle class
“The fib, the politicians always make bank on is the idea that, for example, the middle class in America is completely dissolved. That is not statistically true. The middle class has turned into the upper middle class.”
Shapiro: Newsmax market cap will land between $2B and $4B
“It'll end up being, you know, total market cap will probably be somewhere when it lands in like the two to three bill range, somewhere three to four bill, something like that.”