The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Episode (03/20/2024):

3:05pm- On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided to temporarily permit Texas’s Senate Bill 4 to take effect pending a lower court’s review. The bill makes it a crime for migrants to illegally enter Texas—allowing for Texas officials to arrest and/or deport anyone who recently entered the state unlawfully. However, several hours later a Fifth Circuit panel voted 2 to 1, effectively blocking Texas from enforcing SB 4. You can read more here: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/supreme-court-ruling-deportation-texas-sb4-f8328b6d?mod=hp_lead_pos4

3:10pm- On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing which included testimony from business associates of Hunter Biden. Biden’s “former business partner Tony Bobulinski publicly accused the first son and his uncle, Jim Biden, of lying under oath about the nature of their business dealings with Chinese conglomerate CEFC,” writes James Lynch of National Review. You can read the full article here: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/former-biden-business-partner-accuses-hunter-jim-of-lying-under-oath-about-chinese-dealings/

3:20pm- During his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski said that he was “1,000% sure” that Joe Biden was the “big guy” referred to in several email communications regarding a business deal with a Chinese-based energy corporation—suggesting that Joe may have derived some financial benefit from his family’s foreign business transactions.

3:30pm- Ben Schreckinger of Politico reports: “Prosecutors said a business associate of Jim Biden conspired to defraud Medicare alongside an alleged leader of the Colombo crime family in a brief filed Friday in federal court in New Jersey. The government’s accusation is likely to intensify scrutiny of the ties between President Joe Biden’s brother and the associate, Mississippi businessman Keaton Langston. The Justice Department named Langston as a co-conspirator in the ongoing fraud case just three weeks after congressional investigators grilled Jim Biden about his relationship with the Mississippi businessman. In the course of a previous prosecution, the Justice Department identified a defendant in the fraud case, Florida businessman Thomas Farese, as a high-ranking member of the Colombo crime family, according to court filings.” You can read the full report here: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/18/doj-jim-biden-associate-mafia-boss-00147626

3:50pm- Chick-fil-A pizza? Rich says it sounds repulsive—but Matt and Henry are excited to try it.

4:05pm- Coral Davenport of The New York Times reports: “The Biden administration on Wednesday issued one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032. Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency would transform the American automobile market. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles rolled off dealers’ lots last year, but they made up just 7.6 percent of total U.S. car sales, far from the 56 percent target under the new regulation. An additional 16 percent of new cars sold would be hybrids.” You can read the full report here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/climate/biden-phase-out-gas-cars.html

4:10pm- Does cross dressing make you a better intelligence officer? Spencer Lindquist of The Daily Wire reports: “Agents at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and throughout the intelligence community were distributed a newsletter that celebrated an intelligence official for crossdressing, saying that dressing up in women’s clothes makes him ‘a better intelligence officer.’” You can read the full article here: https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-top-intelligence-agency-says-crossdressing-makes-man-better-intelligence-officer-internal-docs-show

4:30pm- Ben Brasch of The Washington Post reports: “It is the driver who takes tourists on Jeep tours. It is the veteran who works as a carpenter. It is the person who works at the Whole Foods that sells sashimi-grade salmon for $44.99 a pound. They all live a precarious life sleeping every night in their cars parked somewhere around Sedona, Ariz. It’s become a big problem for the tony tourist town, which is why the Sedona City Council approved a program last week that temporarily converts an empty parking lot into a place where families or workers or students can live while trying to find a permanent home. Detractors said they feared it would eventually become an encampment of tents, which aren’t allowed under the program.” You can read the full report here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/03/19/sedona-homeless-sleep-car-housing-crisis/

4:40pm- According to reports, New York Attorney General Letitia James does not believe Donald Trump is “truly unable” to post the $450+ million bond in his civil fraud case. Earlier this year, New York Judge Arthur F. Engoron found that the former president inflated the value of assets controlled by the Trump Organization in past financial statements. With no jury, Judge Engoron unilaterally chose to fine Trump and barred him from conducting business in New York for three years. Notably, in 2018, while campaigning to become New York Attorney General, Letitia James vowed to “sue” Trump and routinely spoke of how she would like to see him imprisoned—providing evidence to the defense’s legal argument that this civil suit was entirely political.

4:50pm- Kate-Gate! What’s the latest online conspiracy theory involving Kate Middleton and the Royal Family? PLUS, are landscape paintings racist? Cancel culture comes for Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Paul Cezanne.

5:05pm- On Monday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri—a case which will determine whether officials within the federal government can use their power to coerce social media platforms into censoring speech they unilaterally deem harmful and/or misinformation. While questioning the U.S. Principal Deputy General Brain Fletcher, Justice Samuel Alito seemed to suggest that government pressuring social media companies to do their bidding is violative of the First Amendment, explaining: “The only reason why this is taking place is because the federal government has got Section 230 and antitrust in its pocket…it’s got these big clubs available to it—so it's treating Facebook and these other platforms like they are subordinates. Would you do that to The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or the Associated Press?”

5:10pm- During oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voiced concern that ruling against the federal government in this case could result in “hamstringing” their ability to curate speech online—suggesting that the government has a “duty” to police harmful statements.

5:30pm- While appearing at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, President Joe Biden said of Latino voters: “I need you badly.” According to most polling data, Biden is currently several points behind Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Arizona.

5:40pm- Are landscape paintings racist? Cancel culture comes for Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Paul Cezanne.

6:05pm- On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing which included testimony from business associates of Hunter Biden. Biden’s “former business partner Tony Bobulinski publicly accused the first son and his uncle, Jim Biden, of lying under oath about the nature of their business dealings with Chinese conglomerate CEFC,” writes James Lynch of National Review. You can read the full article here: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/former-biden-business-partner-accuses-hunter-jim-of-lying-under-oath-about-chinese-dealings/

6:15pm- During his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski said that he was “1,000% sure” that Joe Biden was the “big guy” referred to in several email communications regarding a business deal with a Chinese-based energy corporation—suggesting that Joe may have derived some financial benefit from his family’s foreign business transactions.

6:30pm- A new study suggests intermittent fasting can be bad for your health. Rich hopes the research isn’t accurate—because he does it almost every day!

6:40pm- Andrew Restuccia of The Wall Street Journal documents how local governments across the country are just handing out cash. He writes: “Houston is joining dozens of American cities and counties—most led by Democrats—that are experimenting with guaranteed-income programs amid growing wealth inequality in the U.S. The programs are part of a trend at the local and national level toward providing direct, largely unconditional payments to Americans for everything from pandemic relief to child assistance. They reflect a growing sentiment among economists, tech industry leaders and Democrats that distributing money without strings is one of the most effective and least bureaucratic ways to help struggling Americans.” You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/governments-across-the-u-s-are-handing-residents-cashno-strings-attached-7f602ea6?mod=hp_lead_pos8