EP Administrator Scott Pruitt is out, Trump rallies in Montana, and we check the mailbag. Today's mailbag includes: - Why did Scott Pruitt resign? - Is he on the up and up? Why did he leave the EPA and why did it come so suddenly? If so, what was the real reason for his ouster and why is there so much talk about him being "unfairly targeted"? - What will happen now that Andrew Wheeler is coming in to replace Scott Pruitt? And why is it that the only Trump administration officials who have been forced out were forced out for actual reasons of corruption, not for reasons of incompetence or incompetence? Is there any truth behind all the talk about Scott Pruitt being the victim of some sort of political vendetta or is he actually the target of some kind of political smear campaign by the White House or is this all part of a White House cover-up designed to smear him as a crook and smear him for being a creature of the swamp? What does this mean for the future of the Trump administration and what will it actually mean for us as a country? and more! Subscribe to The Ben Shapiro Show on Apple Podcasts and leave us your thoughts and reactions in the comments section below! Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your fellow Gold and Silver junkies! Ben Shapiro Timestamps: 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 21. Intro Music: "Solo" by Ian Dorsch (feat. ) Music by Jeff Perla 21# 22. Music Credit: "Goodbye" by Haley Shaw & "Good Morning America" by Suneaters? & 24. 25. 26. 27. Theme Song by Jeff Kaale 26 27 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 35. 36. #1 Intro Song by Ian Breden_ Theme Music by Ferell & Other Music by Haley Rowell #3. & Good Morning, My Thoughts? ) & 34. 45.
00:00:24.000Well, because the money that we now owe other countries is greater than the entire economic output of the United States.
00:00:29.000If your entire life savings is tied to the U.S.
00:00:30.000dollar, you should ask yourself a question.
00:00:32.000Now, I'm not saying that you should take all your money and stick it in gold, but I'm saying that my savings plan is diversified and yours should be too.
00:00:38.000The company I trust with precious metal purchases, Birch Gold Group.
00:01:59.000They were trying to get rid of some waste, and so they blew up a barrier in the place that was holding the waste and infused an entire river with this bright yellow copper-tinged gunk.
00:02:08.000You know, the EPA under Barack Obama was a disaster.
00:02:18.000Well, if that's the case, then you have to wonder, why is it that the only Trump administration officials who have been forced out were forced out for actual reasons of corruption?
00:02:25.000Like Tom Price over at the Health and Human Services desk, or Scott Pruitt over at EPA.
00:02:29.000Like, they haven't found anything on General Mattis over at Department of Defense.
00:02:32.000They haven't found anything on Mike Pompeo over at State, even when Rex Tillerson was there, and he wasn't a good Secretary of State.
00:02:39.000There are a lot of folks who are defending Scott Pruitt today, saying that he was just targeted because he was such a do-gooder over at the EPA, reducing regulations.
00:02:46.000But the guy who is going to be replacing him, Andrew Wheeler,
00:02:49.000is going to be just as activist from what I understand.
00:03:14.000His resignation letter to Donald Trump is appropriately obsequious.
00:03:33.000But also because of the transformative work that is occurring.
00:03:36.000However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.
00:03:42.000The talk from inside the administration is that Pruitt was actually forced out.
00:03:44.000This was not him saying that he wanted to go.
00:03:47.000The president says that Pruitt did an outstanding job inside the EPA.
00:03:52.000So here's just a list of the scandals that led to Scott Pruitt stepping down, because there's a lot of talk about Pruitt being unfairly targeted here.
00:04:02.000So, number one, Pruitt fired an aide after she refused to alter appointments on his calendar.
00:04:06.000So an EPA scheduler was asked to delete and change information about past events on Pruitt's schedule.
00:04:10.000Scott Pruitt asked his staff to find his wife a job with a salary of at least $200,000, which is not an appropriate use of government staff.
00:04:15.000She also reportedly agreed that Pruitt had asked subordinates to perform personal work
00:04:32.000This is according to Samantha Dravis, a former EPA policy administrator.
00:04:36.000She told congressional investigators that Pruitt had asked her to help find Pruitt's wife a job, and the salary should be at least $200,000.
00:04:42.000Scott Pruitt used official channels to try to get a Chick-fil-A franchise for his wife, which is real weird since you can just apply to get a Chick-fil-A franchise.
00:04:48.000He used a secret email address instead of official ones, even after the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
00:04:53.000He used a loophole to award staff raises without White House knowledge.
00:04:57.000This, of course, was very controversial at the time.
00:04:59.000The White House told Pruitt he couldn't offer high salaries to two of his closest aides, but then he used a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act to boost their wages, according to The Atlantic.
00:05:24.000He had a $43,000 soundproof phone booth installed in his office, suggesting that there were just too many people attempting to spy on him.
00:05:30.000He ordered an unprecedented security detail.
00:05:33.000He was saying there were threats against him, which may or may not have been true.
00:05:37.000There are a bunch of other issues with Scott Pruitt, and thus he had to step down.
00:05:40.000Are any of these, you know, fireable in and of themselves?
00:05:43.000Probably not, but when you aggregate them all together, it doesn't look good for Scott Pruitt, and that is why Scott Pruitt is out today, and appropriately, he should be.
00:05:49.000Again, his resignation letter explains why it is that Scott Pruitt was such a favorite of President Trump.
00:05:59.000Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your administration.
00:06:05.000Your courage, steadfastness, and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace, and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends.
00:06:20.000That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA,
00:06:24.000So, there's a reason that Scott Pruitt was a favorite of President Trump's.
00:06:46.000By the way, what he did in terms of regulatory reform at the EPA, I agree with a lot of that stuff.
00:06:50.000But when it comes to being a swamp creature, it's pretty clear that Scott Pruitt, unfortunately, was one of them.
00:07:35.000The fact is that one of the things the Democrats are counting on with regard to 2020 particularly is a feeling of general unease about President Trump's administration, a feeling that just in general things are up in the air too much.
00:08:06.000Was only because more people are getting back into the workforce because finally the economy is really, is really moving.
00:08:17.000Total nonfarm payroll increased 213,000 in June, has grown by 2.4 million over the last 12 months.
00:08:23.000Employment in professional and business services increased by 50,000 in June, has risen by about 521,000 over the year.
00:08:30.000Manufacturing added 36,000 jobs in June.
00:08:33.000These are very good numbers for the President of the United States, very good numbers for the country.
00:08:37.000The participation rates have shown some improvement, labor participation rates.
00:08:40.000There's a lot of talk during the Obama administration that a lot of people had dropped out of the workforce.
00:08:45.000Those people are now starting to come back.
00:08:46.000But at least it's moved in the right direction.
00:09:04.000The employment population ratio is still at 60.4%, which is still a very low rate.
00:09:09.000We need more people employed, but the fact the unemployment rate went up is actually good news, because more people are getting back into the workforce, looking for work again.
00:09:17.000There's also slow wage growth, but that makes sense, because when only 6 in 10 people are working, there's a lot of people who are still entering the job market, creating competition that creates pressure for a lowering of the wages.
00:09:28.000So, all of this is good economic news.
00:09:31.000All of this is excellent economic news, and President Trump has a right to be proud of it.
00:09:36.000President Trump has a right to be proud of the economy that he has helped to foster here.
00:09:41.000Now, with that said, we are looking at more tariffs now.
00:09:45.000The reason that President Trump is, I think, undermining his own economy is with his tariff talk.
00:09:50.000So now, President Trump is firing the biggest shot yet in the global trade war, according to the Economic Times, by imposing tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports, delivering on a promise to his political supporters that risks provoking retaliation and harming the world economy.
00:10:02.000So, as I have said many times before, when it comes to tariff policy, I have no problem whatsoever with the President of the United States using tariffs as a tool to lower tariffs in other countries.
00:10:12.000If he's using tariffs as a ratchet, if the idea here is that there's a tariff on our products somewhere else, so we're putting a tariff on their products here, and now let's lower all the tariffs, that's fine.
00:10:21.000But the president seems to have a peculiar fondness for tariffs.
00:10:23.000He thinks that trade wars are easy to win.
00:10:25.000Well, it turns out the trade wars are in fact not easy to win.
00:11:15.000I mean, there are a lot of soybean farmers who are going to be damaged by the fact that China is now putting new tariffs on all of this.
00:11:20.000Now, there's still a lot of folks saying this is not showing a lot of trade fears hurting the United States economy, but we have not seen this play out yet.
00:11:26.000There was a report yesterday that folks are holding back capital, that there are new reports from the Fed suggesting that businesses are holding back capital investment because they are perturbed about the future of this trade war.
00:11:36.000Under a full-blown trade war, according to Bloomberg, in which the U.S.
00:11:38.000slaps 10% tariffs on all other countries and they respond, economists reckon U.S.
00:11:42.000growth would slow by 0.8 percentage points in 2020.
00:11:45.000Trump has already imposed duties on foreign steel and aluminum imports, drawing a response from the EU and Canada, which fret he may go after automakers next.
00:11:53.000So none of this is a particularly good policy.
00:11:56.000But we will find out whether it continues to spiral or whether everybody seems to back down, because there was another report yesterday that suggests that China was going to lower its tariffs a little bit, which would suggest that President Trump's strength on tariff policy may be a good thing.
00:12:10.000So we'll talk about that in just a second.
00:12:23.000Check out the underwear from Tommy John's, the revolutionary clothing brand that has redefined comfort for people everywhere, including me.
00:12:28.000Only Tommy John combines the latest in fabric technology with patented wedgie-proof designs for a fit so perfect, it's almost like wearing nothing at all.
00:12:35.000The wedgie-proof design would have come in very handy for me back in high school.
00:12:38.000And you will never have to worry about swamp-like conditions below, because Tommy John's moisture-wicking fabrics pull perspiration right off the body.
00:12:44.000So, it's like 110 degrees here in L.A.
00:13:29.000Well, the dollar has been knocked, so that's not good.
00:13:32.000According to the Financial Times, what we are looking at right now, the possibility of a trade war is going to have an impact on the strength of the United States dollar, according to
00:13:41.000According to Andrew Milligan, who's the head of global strategy at Aberdeen Standard Investments, with so many mixed messages coming out of Washington, it may be a relief for investors to focus on hard data such as Fed minutes and payrolls report.
00:13:52.000The combination should re-insure investors that whatever the travails of some emerging markets, the U.S.
00:13:58.000China's stocks found support, Wall Street equities indices are holding steady, and European bourses are drifting lower in cautious trade as investors tracked the latest rounds of the international trade dispute.
00:14:38.000I also don't understand why Congress isn't stepping in and reasserting its trade authority.
00:14:41.000I don't think the President, no matter which party, should have this much trade authority.
00:14:45.000It's why I thought the TPP should have been ratified through the Senate.
00:14:48.000It should not have been a situation where TPP was being signed off on by the President of the United States.
00:14:52.000All treaties should be ratified by the Senate.
00:14:54.000The Senate should have the power to look over any sort of tariff arrangements the President of the United States is making.
00:14:59.000It was not granted under Article 2 of the Constitution.
00:15:02.000The presidential power does not include foreign commerce.
00:15:05.000That is, under the legislative power, the idea that the President can unilaterally decide tariff rates seems to me foolish and counterproductive if the President wants to continue strengthening the economy.
00:15:32.000So, if you just read that headline from the AP, you would assume that the U.S.
00:15:35.000Army was quietly discharging immigrant recruits, that they were seeking out people who are immigrants, or illegal immigrants who joined the Army for citizenship, and then trying to dismiss them out of some sort of misguided xenophobia.
00:15:45.000But that's not actually what the article says, and it turns out that's not the way that any of this works.
00:15:49.000According to the AP, some immigrant U.S.
00:15:51.000Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.
00:15:58.000The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the Special Recruitment Program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their future.
00:16:09.000Okay, so let's start with the statistics here.
00:16:12.000There are 70,000 members of the United States military who are immigrants.
00:16:15.000The AP has tracked down 40 and said these 40 are now being discharged and they say this is because of xenophobia.
00:16:21.000You might wonder why they're not going after all 70,000 if this is really about xenophobia.
00:16:25.000The answer is because it's not about xenophobia.
00:16:27.000According to AP, some of the service members said they were not told why they were discharged.
00:16:31.000Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they'd been labeled as security risks.
00:16:41.000When you go and you sign up for the military, you are now technically a recruit.
00:16:44.000But you have not gone through basic training.
00:16:45.000And if you have not gone through basic training, that is because they have not completed the background check on you.
00:16:49.000So if you sign up, and it turns out that you were once a drug runner for MS-13, you are going to be rejected from the Army.
00:16:54.000You are now an immigrant recruit rejected under the AP's tally.
00:16:58.000But the AP is attempting to create the perception that there is a widespread Trump administration policy to get rid of immigrants in the United States military, which by any stretch of the imagination would be a ridiculous policy if it existed.
00:18:20.000citizens who weren't allowed to start BASIC because a bad background check came back.
00:18:23.000Lions noted that one of many possible reasons why a recruit might not make it to boot camp is because they didn't complete background checks.
00:18:58.000military has a lot of foreign-born recruits who add immensely to our capabilities.
00:19:02.000So, everybody sort of jumped to conclusions on this, because this is what happens.
00:19:05.000The media create these false headlines, and then everybody jumps to conclusions based on the false headline, and then it turns out they're simply not true.
00:19:14.000Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Stock, who created the so-called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest Program, has opposed the fact that this was combined with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program under then-President Barack Obama.
00:19:28.000This created additional security screenings for those waiting in the MAVNI pipeline, the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest Pipeline.
00:19:36.000Colonel Stock, Lieutenant Colonel Stock, she said, So, just brilliant stuff there by the AP, and of course, brilliant stuff there from the Obama administration, as per the usual arrangement.
00:20:48.000More than that, it's really comfortable, and you're in those sheets every single night, so why wouldn't you actually want to get something nice?
00:20:54.000Everyone who tries Bull and Branch sheets loves them.
00:22:37.000After Trump claimed victory, I went to the gym in a foul mood.
00:22:40.000Just effing load up the effing sled, all right?
00:22:41.000Let's get it over with, I said, without much grace, as I strapped a belt around my waist.
00:22:45.000I pulled the sled like a human oxen while being filmed.
00:22:48.000It would be like a human ox, actually.
00:22:50.000And the gym staff cheered, but I did it.
00:22:52.000The Trump victory soured my successful show of strength.
00:22:55.000Yeah, I could pull a pretend sled, but how was that going to help me when the world had been destroyed by nuclear weapons or climate change?
00:24:01.000Could I really avoid the gym for the entirety of his presidency?
00:24:04.000I missed being strong enough to open jars and carry groceries.
00:24:07.000So last week, I returned to the gym, slinking back in as if no time had passed.
00:24:11.000I hoped that by wearing a puffy jacket and MC Hammer pants, I could hide my lack of definition, that I could pretend I'd maintain fitness on my own.
00:24:33.000A week or two and you have to start again with the two kilogram dumbbells and the tremor in your forearms.
00:24:38.000I returned again this week to the boredom and pain of the gym, trying to build up back to the strength I had before Trump became president.
00:24:59.000Okay, so that, speaking of the crazy, so an actual older gentleman decided that it was necessary to assault a teenager who was wearing a MAGA hat.
00:25:08.000There's a teenager in Texas who went to a Whataburger restaurant, and he's wearing a MAGA hat, he went like 2 a.m., and this guy who was working at the Whataburger decided to go over, rip the MAGA hat over this guy's head,
00:25:19.000Here's a little bit of what it sounded like.
00:25:25.000Right now, police are looking for that man who was caught on tape, on camera, throwing a drink at a teenager in that video, the man in the red hat, and walks off with the teenager's hat, pulled it off so aggressively, also pulled out some hair with it.
00:25:38.000Okay, so there's just a charming, charming fellow.
00:25:59.000The part of all of this that's hilarious is that there were, seriously, a bunch of people on the left who decided that it was worthwhile supporting all of this.
00:26:09.000So for example, Mark Lamont Hill came out and he suggested support for the MAGA hat stripping guy.
00:26:16.000He said that it's just terrible that this guy was arrested.
00:26:19.000So he tweeted out, there's a guy named, I guess, Van Lathan?
00:26:30.000Yeah, you're no longer a decent person, right?
00:26:31.000If somebody were wearing a Hillary hat, and I said, that Hillary hat stands for abortion on demand and the murder of the unborn, and then I took that person's hat and I threw a soda on them, you'd think I was a jerk, because I would be a jerk.
00:26:40.000Mark Lamont Hill tweeted back a bunch of crying, laughing emojis, because it's so funny.
00:26:45.000Then he says, he still, I actually don't advocate throwing drinks on people, not at all.
00:26:49.000But yes, I think MAGA hats deliberately reflect a movement that conjures racism, homophobia, xenophobia, et cetera.
00:26:54.000So yes, it's a little harder to feel sympathy when someone gets Coca-Cola thrown on him.
00:26:58.000So in other words, I don't condone throwing drinks on people, but I sort of condone throwing drinks on people.
00:27:02.000Well, you wonder why President Trump is so popular with the base.
00:27:06.000The reason is because President Trump's basic attitude toward the world is F all these people.
00:27:11.000And that's his basic attitude toward the world.
00:27:13.000And when you hear Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at, I think, Georgetown, talking about how Republicans are all racist, you get the appeal for a lot of Trump supporters.
00:27:21.000Here's Michael Eric Dyson going crazy on CNN as per his usual routine.
00:27:26.000said, it's not the white supremacists who are the problem, it's white moderates and conservatives who tend to be complicit with that by trying to dismiss it.
00:27:35.000Brother Jennings, much respect for you, but this is ludicrous.
00:27:38.000What you're doing is even more egregious because you're attempting to justify, legitimate, and make valid what are essentially naked, raw statements of racism.
00:27:47.000And until white folk like you can stand up and find your spine, you will continue to be complicit in the racist animus of this country.
00:27:54.000Okay, so for all of the people who actually voted for President Trump, for all the people who plan on voting for President Trump, and for all the people who are doing so because they think the Democrats are nuts and because they like Trump on policy, being called a racist is actually not all that pleasant.
00:28:06.000It's the worst thing you can call somebody in American life.
00:28:08.000As my mentor Andrew Breitbart used to say, calling people racist just because you disagree with them on policy or because they support a politician you don't like
00:28:33.000So I was on Fox News yesterday and I was supposed to be on at the time that President Trump was speaking, which means they push you off until President Trump is done speaking because he's the president and they like to cover his rallies, which makes perfect sense.
00:29:57.000Yeah, well, you know, okay, honestly, like, all right, like, I know, should I be upset that he said that they shouldn't go up and rescue the lady?
00:30:03.000She wanted to be up there, so I don't really see the problem.
00:30:07.000I'm not sure why anybody should risk their life.
00:30:08.000We'll get some nuts up there, we'll get, like, how about we should just surround the Statue of Liberty with bounce houses, and the lady can jump down onto bounce houses.
00:31:28.000So she tweeted out, Well, Donald Trump wants to give DNA tests to everyone, to me, to immigrant children at the border.
00:31:34.000First of all, the immigrant children at the border being given DNA tests, you know the reason they're given DNA tests.
00:31:38.000It's to determine that the people who say they are their parents are actually their parents.
00:31:41.000That's legitimately why they're giving DNA tests at the border.
00:31:44.000Because we want to make sure that it's not human smugglers who are trying to bring children in for human trafficking.
00:31:48.000But I love that Elizabeth Warren tries to swivel off of the fact that she's not Native American but continues to claim Native American ancestry.
00:31:55.000You gotta love the guy when he says this kind of stuff.
00:32:00.000Okay, I have a little bit more on that, plus I want to get to the mailbag.
00:32:02.000First, we're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and you're going to have to subscribe.
00:32:05.000For $9.99 a month, you get the rest of this show live and you can be part of our mailbag.
00:32:08.000You can get your questions answered today.
00:32:10.000When we have our events, like we have big events coming up in Dallas and Phoenix, get your tickets now because they are running out at dailywire.com slash events.
00:32:16.000If you are a subscriber, you would have first access to the VIP tickets.
00:32:19.000And those are the people who we actually get to hang out backstage and become best friends and go fishing together and everything.
00:32:56.000We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.
00:33:04.000So President Trump's entire instinct always is to punch back.
00:33:07.000And in a time when the left is so aggressive, and they were so aggressive with Mitt Romney, it's loved by the base.
00:33:15.000And I see why it is loved by the base.
00:33:16.000It's something that, in 2011, actually, I wrote a column about Donald Trump.
00:33:20.000Before, I was not a fan of Donald Trump in 2015.
00:33:23.000In 2011, I wrote a column about Donald Trump in which I said that he had F-you money and an F-you attitude, and it's why he might be the only person who could beat Barack Obama in 2012.
00:33:30.000I was right in 2011, because that is the thing people like about Donald Trump.
00:33:35.000And so long as the left continues to play directly into his hand, by being as extreme as humanly possible, he is going to continue to succeed along these lines.
00:33:42.000Okay, let's do the mailbag and let's get into some of your questions today.
00:33:45.000So Cameron says, Dear Ben, can you tell us the origin of the daily wire?
00:33:48.000Did you and Jeremy Boring meet secretly in the Hollywood hills under the pale moonlight to lay your plans?
00:33:52.000Were the two of you doused with cosmic rays, transforming him into the lowercase g, lowercase k god king, and you into the bringer of leftist tears?
00:33:59.000And more specifically, did you ever consider being anything other than a strictly conservative outlet?
00:34:03.000So, he says that we might consider hiring liberals and branching out to become more of an objective newsroom.
00:34:10.000So, the story of how Daily Wire came to be is that Jeremy Boring and I have been good friends for eight years and business partners for approximately five now?
00:34:50.000There's one particular group that didn't understand our business plan that we talked to.
00:34:54.000I won't mention the group because it's a little embarrassing for them considering how well the company, thank God, has done.
00:34:59.000It was an older group of people and I was trying to explain to them exactly how the company would operate, how we would actually make our money.
00:35:10.000So I was explaining to them how we were going to spend a lot of money on social media marketing, and how that was going to translate into traffic for our website, and how this in turn would generate more money that we could use for social media marketing and all the rest.
00:35:36.000Needless to say, that meeting did not go well, but eventually we got our funding.
00:35:41.000At one of the funding meetings, there's a very funny story where I was meeting with a funder, and one of the funders, a billionaire, said something like,
00:36:04.000And I said, well, I'm better at this than any of them.
00:36:07.000And he started laughing, and that meeting did go well.
00:36:09.000So you never know what's going to work at a business meeting.
00:36:11.000All I will say is that sometimes being brash helps you and sometimes being brash hurts you.
00:36:15.000As far as whether we are interested in moving into more objective news coverage, I'm happy to have debates on the site with people on the left.
00:36:22.000I'd be happy to do point-counterpoint right and left on Daily Wire.
00:36:25.000I think that would actually be kind of fun.
00:36:27.000As far as our reportage, I'm not going to report from the left because I think the left is wrong.
00:36:30.000OK, Michael says, Ben, if you're president, who are some people you would want as advisors?
00:36:35.000I would probably want on foreign policy, both both John Bolton and maybe Angela Cotovia from just for a difference of opinion at Claremont Institute.
00:37:54.000But with that said, I think that we ought to give our legislators a little more credit than to think that they're all quite as cynical as we make them out to be sometimes in the talk radio business.
00:38:03.000Dear Ben, what is your opinion on a convention of states?
00:38:06.000I know the late Justice Scalia had a negative view of the idea and voiced his concerns.
00:38:09.000I don't see any other way to pass amendments that would repeal the 16th Amendment and Institute of Fair Tax, for example.
00:38:14.000I'm a fan of the convention of states.
00:38:15.000I think the convention of states is a fine idea.
00:38:17.000I know there are lots of concerns about a quote-unquote runaway convention where people just start proposing random ideas and suddenly they're being ratified by the states.
00:38:25.000But anything that you pass at the convention of states still has to be ratified by the states.
00:38:28.000So I don't really see how that is going to happen.
00:38:30.000So I'm fine with the idea of a convention of states.
00:38:32.000I think it's quite a good idea, the Article 5 convention of states.
00:39:01.000That is why the Obamacare decision is a travesty of justice.
00:39:03.000It has nothing to do with the actual text of the Obamacare bill.
00:39:07.000It's one of the reasons why I'm very skeptical about Judge Kavanaugh, who's now being considered for the Supreme Court by President Trump, because in his opinion at the D.C.
00:39:14.000Circuit Court level, he tried to avoid jurisdiction on Obamacare altogether by claiming that it was a tax rather than a fine.
00:39:20.000If it were considered a fine, it would have been ruled unconstitutional on its face probably.
00:39:36.000As a general rule, calling individual human beings evil, unless they are clearly, you know, in the evil category, or Stalin or Hitler or something, calling human beings evil is a difficult thing to do unless they are actually a murderer or a rapist.
00:39:49.000If you're a murderer or a rapist, I have a feeling that we can call you evil with a pretty fair bit of confidence.
00:39:54.000I don't think that we have to worry too much about you, you know, actually being a good person if you're a murderer or a rapist.
00:39:59.000If, however, you are just a person who has shoplifted once,
00:40:03.000You're an alcoholic when you were young, and you were abusive to people, and then you got over it and you repented.
00:40:12.000Maimonides has a basic view of this, and that is that there are people who we consider good, where their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, and there are people who we consider evil, where their bad deeds outweigh their good deeds, and then there are the benonim, the people who are sort of in between.
00:40:24.000And this raises a bunch of questions, which is like, okay, well,
00:40:27.000Are you only in the middle when you have exactly the same number of sins as merits, basically?
00:40:33.000The answer is that you have to consider yourself basically a person in the middle of your entire life.
00:40:37.000The minute you consider yourself good, you're likely to do evil.
00:40:39.000The minute you consider yourself evil, you're likely to do evil.
00:40:43.000So you should consider yourself as a person who's always walking that fine, razor-sharp edge between good and evil, and this will keep you on the straight and narrow.
00:40:50.000But generally, we should be analyzing the acts of human beings rather than character as a general rule.
00:41:02.000No, of course there's been intellectual progress since the United States was founded on a wide variety of issues, but there has been no intellectual progress on eternal truths regarding the nature of human beings.
00:41:11.000In fact, I think there's been very little development intellectually on eternal truths regarding human beings for thousands of years.
00:41:18.000I think human nature has been pretty well understood by great philosophers and great poets and great thinkers for thousands of years.
00:41:25.000I don't think much has changed among human beings.
00:41:28.000And I think the attempt to play human nature as intensely malleable has been one of the great causes of suffering in the last two centuries.
00:41:47.000If it's not, I hope that Congress steps in and stops it.
00:41:49.000But obviously it's going to raise costs for inputs for businesses in the United States who use Chinese product.
00:41:55.000And this silly idea that it doesn't damage American businesses in any way to put tariffs on Chinese goods that are being imported into the United States is just, it's economically foolish.
00:42:04.000Well, I can barely get Knowles to wear a shirt.
00:42:06.000So, you know, getting him to wear a wig, I think, might be a little bit much.
00:42:09.000They'll retire in 2021 if a Democrat is elected, and they will retire never.
00:42:27.000If Donald Trump is reelected, they will stay as long as a Republican is in power.
00:42:31.000I don't think they want to risk their seats with the possibility of an incumbent winning, particularly because incumbents have such a good record in presidential elections.
00:42:40.000Well, the Democratic Party has been moving steadily more radical and now exponentially more radical over the past several years.
00:42:49.000I think they're going to embrace full scale Bernie Sanders, Democratic socialism.
00:42:53.000I think you're going to see them embrace Medicare for all.
00:42:55.000I think you're going to see them embrace
00:42:56.000I think you're going to see them embrace full-scale nationalization of particular industries.
00:43:01.000I think you're going to see them embrace a just blowout in government spending.
00:43:05.000I think that you're going to see them embrace virtually all the planks of Bernie Sanders' platform.
00:43:10.000A right to housing, a right to health care, a right to free college education.
00:43:14.000I think all of this is on the table for Democrats.
00:43:16.000And I think they're not going to quit with their intersectional nonsense because they see that as the spine of their support base.
00:43:22.000So you're going to see a mashup between the two worst elements of the Democratic Party, the socialism, and the intersectional identity politics.
00:43:28.000Kyle says, Ben, I went to a high school just outside of the Madison area in Wisconsin.
00:43:31.000During our study of the Great Depression, we were taught that Hoover did not believe in government intervention in the markets.
00:43:35.000And because of this, the Depression lasted longer than it had to.
00:43:50.000Seriously, according to members of the FDR administration, Herbert Hoover was a person who attempted to implement virtually everything, virtually everything, that Democrats eventually
00:45:17.000Ryan says, King Benjamin of the House Shapiro, King of the Conservatives and the First Men, I have one inquiry of you, Your Grace.
00:45:22.000What is your opinion on term limits for Congress, Supreme Court, and governors?
00:45:28.000Well, I'm in favor of term limits for Supreme Court justices.
00:45:31.000I think the idea of having lifetime appointments has outlived its usefulness, considering that people are sitting on the court for 50, 60 years and it turns into this ghoulish death watch.
00:45:40.000Having a rotation seems to me perfectly reasonable, having an 18 or 20 year term.
00:46:23.000Okay, the original Death Wish is a fantastic movie.
00:46:26.000The Charles Branson Death Wish is a great movie.
00:46:28.000It was made during the 1970s in the heyday of New York being an absolute crap hole.
00:46:32.000New York being a high crime, awful place to live where Times Square is basically a giant dung heap.
00:46:37.000Okay, and that movie is great because it's Charles Bronson and basically the plot of the movie is that these two dogs, one of whom I believe is Jeff Goldblum, like very, very young Jeff Goldblum, they break into his apartment and they rape his wife and daughter and kill his wife and leave his daughter basically catatonic.
00:46:53.000And he is this kind of soft-spoken architect
00:46:56.000And Bereft, he just starts basically wandering the streets and one day he tries to confront somebody, gets beaten up by a criminal.
00:47:03.000He's literally, the movie is literally a liberal mugged by reality.
00:47:07.000And then the next time he goes out, he takes a roll of quarters in a sock and somebody tries to mug him and he turns around and hits the guy in the face with it.
00:47:16.000And then he goes out and he gets a gun and he starts basically gunning down every criminal he can find.
00:47:20.000And the crime rate in New York City begins to plummet because criminals are suddenly afraid they're going to be shot.
00:47:25.000And people all over the city start to say, OK, well, if I'm going to be mugged, I'm going to fight back.
00:47:29.000And the city doesn't know what to do, because on the one hand, they've got this vigilante who is just going out and shooting criminals.
00:47:35.000And on the other hand, the crime rate is dropping precipitously.
00:47:39.000So the original movie is really good and super politically incorrect.
00:47:42.000There's even a scene in the original Death Wish from the 1970s with Bronson where Bronson is walking through a party and people are all talking about him, right?
00:47:49.000They don't know who he is, but they're talking about the vigilante.
00:47:52.000And there's this conversation going on where somebody says, I think it's a black person, says, well, I think he's racist because he's disproportionately shooting black people.
00:48:00.000And the person answers, well, maybe there should be fewer black criminals and then he wouldn't have to shoot as many black people, basically.
00:48:28.000I mean, there's full-scale scenes devoted to him learning how to use a gun, learning how guns work, watching videos on YouTube on how to clean and disassemble a gun, going to a gun shop where there's like this very busty blonde, this kind of upbeat, busty blonde who's explaining how guns work.
00:48:43.000And it's got some really gory, horrific scenes, but it's not as good as the original Death Wish, but the fact the left hates it so much, it's simply because the movie is pro-gun and anti-crime.
00:49:41.000Yeah, it gets really ugly really quickly.
00:49:43.000So, yeah, what happens right there is not pleasant.
00:49:47.000So, okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
00:49:54.000All right, so, thing I hate, number one, Bill Clinton says that he has done his penance, right?
00:49:59.000So he's asked on The Daily Show, they're going to continue to trot out Bill Clinton the left, and they're going to continue to offer him opportunities to pretend that he actually did penance regarding his sexual infidelities and sexual perversions and proclivities during the 1990s, and he's going to continue lying about it.
00:50:15.000Here's what he said on Comedy Central.
00:50:16.000The left will let him get away with this, obviously.
00:50:19.000We're all trying to work our way through, not all of us, but most of us are, trying to work our way through how we can use this moment to build a better country in person after person after person's life.
00:50:32.000And that should be the number one priority of everybody.
00:50:35.000That's what we should be, how we should think about this Me Too moment.
00:50:52.000My favorite part of all these interviews is just that James Patterson, who co-authored this novel with him, has to sit there and deal with it.
00:50:58.000James Patterson, who's probably the best-selling author of all time, is sitting there just looking like you.
00:52:11.000These pony play hobbyists in New Orleans, Louisiana dress up and compete in show jumping events dressed from head to toe in horse gear.
00:52:21.000Okay, so... When I put the bit in his mouth, it's like a ritual between us.
00:52:25.000He needs that transition to get into headspace.
00:52:27.000And I can feel through the bit when he actually kind of changes from like human space to like pony space.
00:52:49.000Now I'm going to leave him here for a minute for pony space before we take him out and for the reining competition because I found for us during play if I just put him in the gear and then we go immediately do it it doesn't give him time to transition into his head space that allows him to express himself as a pony.
00:53:15.000Okay, so just to be clear, folks, if you're not watching this, it's not just that they're dressed up in, like, full-on horsesuits.
00:53:19.000They're dressed up in basically the GIMP suit from Pulp Fiction, dressed as ponies in GIMP suits, walking around, competing, kicking carts.
00:55:24.000And you actually have to put them down for their own sake because the legs are not going to heal.
00:55:27.000I mean, I suppose you could try to do like they did with that racehorse a few years ago and like suspend them in a pool for a month or something.
00:55:33.000But are they really worth the trouble?
00:55:36.000Most horses are not running at the Kentucky Derby.
00:55:39.000But this is it's very, you know, it's disturbing that we would be so intolerant, that we wouldn't take them seriously, that we would not take their hobbies seriously.
00:55:49.000They say they have to be vanilla upright citizens Monday through Friday, so to get out and pretend to be something else is so much fun.
00:56:02.000And if you see one of these ponies on the street, out of the goodness of your heart, give them a carrot and a lump of sugar.
00:56:08.000Well, we'll be back here next week with all the latest updates, presumably not from Pony Space, because what the living?
00:56:16.000And we'll have all the updates from the Supreme Court, because Trump's going to be back here on Monday making his Supreme Court decision, I believe, Monday night.