Mayor Pete Buttigieg says God has no political party. Kamala Harris flip-flops once more. And Democrats prepare further investigations. On today's show, Ben Shapiro talks about all of that and much more.
00:01:29.000I want to begin today by talking about a point that was made by Pete Buttigieg, Mayor Pete, the man who is the man of the hour in Democratic media, the guy who is rising from the crowd.
00:01:38.000He is now running third in Iowa after Bernie and Biden.
00:01:41.000He is running maybe third nationally after Bernie and Biden.
00:01:45.000And he's come out of nowhere because obviously he is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a town that is smaller than probably my district.
00:01:53.000In California, in terms of population.
00:01:55.000Almost certainly my district in California, in terms of population.
00:02:18.000If he were just a gay guy who did not have this sort of articulateness, he would not be succeeding.
00:02:22.000If he were an articulate guy who were not gay, he would be going nowhere inside a democratic primary that values intersectionality above all else.
00:02:29.000Intersectionality, radicalism, or name recognition.
00:02:38.000Well, Buttigieg is gaining an enormous amount of credibility in the media, too, because members of the media have long been seeking a spokesperson for their bizarre views on religion.
00:02:47.000Their bizarre view of religion is this.
00:02:49.000You can call yourself a Christian or a Jew, and you can have You can pick and choose which views you want to abide by in the Bible.
00:02:57.000You can call yourself biblically literate.
00:03:00.000You can call yourself a Bible believer.
00:03:02.000You can call yourself biblically adherent while ignoring vast swaths of the Bible in favor of your preferred leftist politics.
00:03:08.000This is something that happens widely in the Jewish community.
00:03:11.000It's also happening increasingly in the Christian community.
00:03:22.000Whenever I make a political argument, I don't cite God to back my political argument, nor do I cite the Bible to back my political arguments.
00:03:43.000You and I can have a political conversation without invoking God.
00:03:47.000In fact, as I say, I prefer those sorts of conversations because I think that those are the ones public policy should generally be based on.
00:03:54.000Every single public policy should have a secular rationale to support it.
00:04:06.000There are a group of people on the left who really, really, really want to be able to reach out to religious people by telling those religious people they've gotten their interpretation of text wrong for the last several thousand years.
00:04:16.000And those people are not truly religious.
00:04:18.000Truly religious people would be secular leftists.
00:04:20.000Truly religious people would be people who say that they believe in the Bible, but then read out broad swaths of the Bible.
00:04:28.000Mayor Pete is the guy who is the youth pastor from Sunday School at an Episcopalian church Who will tell you all about how much pizza and guitar are great and how much God loves you.
00:04:38.000And also we have no standards for behavior here.
00:05:49.000They would like to see religion moved in this direction.
00:05:51.000Now, religion has been moving in this direction in the United States, and that is why you have been seeing adherents to the church running, screaming away from the church.
00:05:58.000This is why you have been seeing the increase in secularism and atheism, because the only dividing line between seculars and atheists And the sort of religion that Mayor Pete is promoting here is belief in God.
00:06:10.000Because the principles are exactly the same.
00:06:12.000It's just, do you want God or do you not want God?
00:06:13.000If you don't want God, then you say, well, I'm tough-minded and I don't want God and I don't think God is necessary.
00:06:18.000I think that he is the thesis that is unnecessary, the unnecessary thesis in the language of Laplace.
00:06:25.000And so I'm an atheist, or I'm a secularist.
00:06:27.000And if you believe in God, you say, well, I want a spiritual life, I believe there's something beyond, so I believe in God, but this God doesn't mean that I have to do anything.
00:06:34.000Or if I do have to do something, it's only the more soft, emotionally-driven commandments.
00:06:39.000Anything that demands anything of me, no.
00:06:41.000Anything that says, be a more humble human being in concert with the universe, you know, all of that kind of stuff, the sort of stuff that you could get from a Marianne Williamson lecture, That sort of stuff we will find in the Bible.
00:06:51.000So the reason that I bring this up is because there is an inactive attempt by members of the media to promote Mayor Pete's version of religion as the true version of religion and Mike Pence's version of religion or the traditional view of religion or biblical scholars view of religion as a sort of intolerant sham.
00:07:09.000There's a dark underbelly to this attempt.
00:07:12.000The dark underbelly to this attempt is the attempt to suggest that if you believe in traditional notions of sin, this is because you are a bigot and you are simply covering for your bigotry with God's language.
00:07:23.000Basically, you're using religion as an excuse to be a bigot.
00:07:26.000This is what backs a lot of the push for anti-discrimination law that targets religious people.
00:07:31.000This is what backs the idea from so many people that if you believe, for example, that same-sex marriage is sinful.
00:07:38.000I'm a libertarian on same-sex marriage when it comes to government.
00:07:40.000Again, I think all arguments in public policy realms need secular rationales.
00:07:43.000But when it comes to my personal view of sin, because I'm a biblically living and believing Jew, I believe that homosexual activity is a sin.
00:07:53.000The left wants to suggest that that is just thinly veiled bigotry.
00:07:57.000That even if I didn't believe that stuff, then I would still believe that homosexuality was wrong simply out of bigotry, not out of any natural law beliefs, not of any traditional philosophical beliefs, simply out of sheer hatred and bigotry.
00:08:10.000This is what undergirds a lot of the argument being made in favor of what Mayor Pete is saying.
00:08:15.000The reason I invoke Mayor Pete is because this is the hard push that he has been making now for weeks and months, and the media have picked up on it and amplified it.
00:08:22.000So here is Buttigieg yesterday suggesting that God has no political party.
00:08:27.000As you know, it can be challenging to be a person of faith who's also a part of the LGBTQ community.
00:08:33.000And yet, to me, the core of faith is regard for one another.
00:08:38.000And part of how God's love is experienced, according to my faith tradition, is in the way that we support one another, and in particular, support the least among us.
00:08:48.000One of the things about Scripture is different people see different things in it.
00:08:51.000But at the very least, we should be able to establish that God does not have a political party. - Okay, there are a couple of things there that are very much worthy of note and go to this underlying conflict over religious philosophy.
00:09:04.000Number one, Mayor Pete's version of religion is the same as Barack Obama's version of religion or Hillary Clinton's version of religion.
00:09:09.000They're going to quote one verse from Matthew about the least among us, and then they're going to ignore the rest of the entire Bible.
00:09:17.000Also, they're going to conflate treating people with respect or tolerance with treating their sin with respect or tolerance.
00:09:24.000So therefore, if you see somebody in front of you who you believe is committing a sin, Even if you treat them nicely, but you don't accept that their sin is decent, then this means that you are not respectful or tolerant.
00:09:38.000I, as a religious Jew, I've said this before, you can watch me on Dave Rubin's show, as a religious Jew, I believe homosexual activity is a sin.
00:09:47.000The reason that that is relevant is because I treat gay people very well, just the way I would treat everybody else, because it turns out that lots of people that I know sin in a variety of ways of which I do not approve.
00:09:58.000That does not mean that I have to think that their sins are no longer sins, just as they don't have to take seriously my religious point of view.
00:10:04.000Differences of opinion are fine so long as we treat each other With a certain modicum of respect.
00:10:08.000Now, that modicum of respect does not mean I have to violate my religion.
00:10:12.000It doesn't mean I have to attend a gay wedding.
00:10:13.000It doesn't mean that I have to cater my services to a same-sex wedding.
00:10:16.000It doesn't mean that I have to bake a cake for a gender transition ceremony.
00:10:20.000I don't have to do any of those things.
00:10:25.000Demand of service is not the same as a demand of respect.
00:10:27.000Respect just means I have to treat you just as I would any other human being when I deal with you interpersonally.
00:10:32.000It does not mean that I have to leverage my behavior or my activities on behalf of your specific sin, which is why I've said to my friend Dave Rubin, I'm more than happy to go out to dinner with you and your husband.
00:10:42.000I'm not willing to go to your gay wedding because one is the celebration of something that I religiously consider sinful, and the other is just me going out with my friends.
00:10:49.000And if they commit a sin, that's on them.
00:10:51.000I mean, that's not really my responsibility.
00:10:54.000These distinctions matter because what's the underlying drive here is to paint all religious people as bigots, as intolerant.
00:11:01.000So if I don't do what you want me to do, I'm a bigot and I'm mean and I'm intolerant.
00:11:05.000I have a right to think what I want about a behavior in which you engage.
00:11:08.000And you have a right to think that my religion is stupid.
00:11:10.000You have a right to think whatever you want.
00:11:12.000And if you want to have a diverse worldview, if you want to have a diverse Society, you're going to need to accept that other people may not think of sin in the same way that you think of sin.
00:11:21.000And so long as we all treat each other decently when we interact with one another without necessarily green lighting each other's sins or each other's philosophies, then we can have a perfectly nice society.
00:11:33.000If not, things are going to get really ugly really quickly.
00:11:35.000Now in a second, I want to explain the second part of Buttigieg's statement where he says that God has no political party.
00:11:40.000Which I think is half true and 100% disingenuous.
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00:13:41.000The point that I'm making is that if you're like Mayor Pete, and you're going to invoke Judeo-Christian values and the biblical God in order to back your position, as Mayor Pete does on a routine basis, It's a package deal.
00:13:53.000When I say that Mayor Pete leverages his religion on behalf of his politics on a routine basis, I mean it.
00:14:00.000So for example, Pete Buttigieg said just the other day that he is faithful because he is humble, whereas President Trump is not.
00:14:06.000He said this in the same interview on CNN.
00:14:08.000Part of where I'm coming from is a faith tradition that counsels me to be as humble as possible, that counsels me to look after those who need defending.
00:14:18.000And frankly, it couldn't be more radically different than what I see certainly in this White House, where there's a lot of chest-thumping and self-aggrandizing.
00:14:35.000He's the one making the religious arguments right now.
00:14:37.000So since Buttigieg is going to make religious arguments, I'm going to make religious counter-arguments.
00:14:41.000When he says that he is humble, there's nothing less humble than I can imagine, that I can imagine, as a religious person, than going in and willy-nilly rewriting 3,000 years of biblical history.
00:14:53.000And as you'll see, Pete Buttigieg does this on a routine basis.
00:14:56.000So I'm not a big believer that Donald Trump is a religious man in any traditional sense.
00:15:01.000I don't think that he believes in traditional definitions of sin either, or if he does, I don't think that he abides by them.
00:15:06.000He's a sinner in the way that everybody else is a sinner, maybe more so.
00:15:10.000But for Buttigieg to stand there and say, I am a humble servant, whereas Donald Trump is an arrogant man, Okay, he may be more humble than Trump in some ways.
00:15:20.000He is not more humble in the sense that Donald Trump is not the one coming forward and saying, oh yeah, these millions of believers who have believed this stuff for the last 3,000 years and it's written in the text.
00:15:29.000I'm just going to override all of that because that's how I feel about things.
00:15:34.000I'll show you evidence of this arrogance in just one second.
00:15:36.000So, evidence of Pete Buttigieg's arrogance.
00:15:38.000Number one, Pete Buttigieg is in favor of late-term abortion.
00:15:42.000Now, again, you can argue God has no political party because God doesn't say in the Bible, vote Republican or vote Democrat, but God does have principles in the Bible.
00:15:51.000God is not silent on issues of morality in the Bible.
00:15:53.000The Bible is a long, long, morally based document.
00:15:57.000It establishes a system of ethics and morality.
00:16:00.000God has things to say about issues that affect us now.
00:16:04.000Religious values do have implications for politics.
00:16:07.000So, for example, if you are a religious believer, you cannot read the Bible and come away with, it's okay to abort a baby at any point during the term.
00:16:16.000Whether you are reading Psalms, or whether you're reading the Old Testament, or whether you're reading the New Testament, there is just nothing in there.
00:16:23.000There is nothing in there that suggests that you can abort a fully grown baby inside the womb.
00:16:39.000And this doesn't have to have implications for public policy.
00:16:42.000But what you cannot do is claim that a religious perspective says X because I want it to say X. And you cannot claim, if you claim to believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that God is silent on these issues because God is not silent on these issues.
00:16:55.000By the way, you can believe that something is a sin without government having to legislate it.
00:17:00.000I believe that people are basically allowed to sin so long as they are not harming anyone else.
00:17:04.000Which is why I was libertarian on same-sex marriage before Obergefell, and why I have been in favor of legislation barring abortion since forever.
00:17:12.000Because one harms a human, and another is a consensual relationship.
00:17:15.000There's a difference in terms of secular public policy.
00:17:18.000I never make a religious argument on this sort of stuff.
00:17:20.000But, from a religious perspective, God is not silent on either of these issues.
00:17:24.000God is not silent on the issue of, for example, the differences between the sexes.
00:17:31.000God is not silent on this, if you're a Bible believer.
00:17:34.000God is not silent on the idea of government fixing all of your problems.
00:17:38.000God does not believe that government ought to fix all of your problems.
00:17:42.000God believes that God is God, not government as God.
00:17:44.000God certainly doesn't believe in anti-religious discrimination, which is something the Democratic Party seems very much in favor of these days.
00:17:50.000So, if you're going to match up God's priorities with party priorities, that's something that every religious person is going to have to do.
00:17:57.000So when Buttigieg says, God has no political party, that's his easy sloganeering way of ignoring the fact that if you're a religious person, you have to match up your values with a party that matches your values.
00:18:10.000God doesn't have a political party, but God does have values, and you as a human being are going to have to decide which of these two parties mirrors those values better.
00:18:37.000There is no evidence that God would support a party that supports infanticide, late-term abortion, same-sex marriage, And more than same-sex marriage, the use of same-sex marriage to cram down against religious institutions, practices that violate their specific beliefs, anti-discrimination laws that target religious people.
00:18:55.000There's no evidence that they would back that God would be super in favor of the abolition of sex, of biological sex.
00:19:06.000I know, there are a lot of people out there who are like, why are you talking about God?
00:19:08.000Because Buttigieg is talking about God.
00:19:10.000On this program, go back, listen to the entire history of the program.
00:19:13.000The number of times I've mentioned God on this program in a religious context, in a truly religious context, probably it's less than the number of fingers on my hands in the course of the four-year history of this program.
00:19:25.000But I'm mentioning it now because Buttigieg is trying to make a move that I think is actually philosophically dangerous.
00:19:49.000To me, it's a very complex issue that should be guided by a very simple principle, which is that having these things dictated by government does not make that decision any easier.
00:20:00.000In some ways, some of these questions are...
00:20:03.000Religious or metaphysical, however you want to put them, they're not things that are knowable in a traditional sense.
00:20:10.000But to people who would criticize that, they'd say, actually, it is a pretty easy answer.
00:20:14.000These are the women facing some of the most unbelievably excruciating decisions.
00:20:19.000This is why Buttigieg is being arrogant, and this is why he's being a liar.
00:20:22.000He's being a liar when it comes to religion.
00:20:24.000If he wants to say, I disagree with the traditional religion on abortion, that's fine.
00:20:29.000But you can't say that someone says something that they do not.
00:20:32.000That's unfair and it's wrong, whether you're quoting the Bible or you're quoting another person.
00:20:36.000To quote somebody and say this is what they are saying when that is not what they are saying is silly.
00:20:41.000When Buttigieg suggests that he has a religious set of values and then he's asked directly about abortion and he immediately reverts to narrow, pro-choice America language.
00:20:52.000He at least has to acknowledge the conflict.
00:20:54.000As I said before, it is not a sign of human... In fact, Dennis Prager is a religious scholar.
00:20:59.000He has an entire series coming out with commentaries on the Bible.
00:21:03.000His interpretation of the commandment in the Bible, that thou shalt not bear a false witness, or that thou shalt... It's actually, thou shalt not use God's name in vain.
00:21:10.000That particular commandment, thou shalt not use God's name in vain.
00:21:13.000Dennis's interpretation, I think this is largely backed by the text, and I think that ideologically is correct, is that using God's name in vain is not about you shouting, It's not about you using God's name in the middle of a curse or something, just saying God bleep.
00:21:27.000That's not what taking God's name in vain means.
00:21:29.000Dennis says, and I think this is correct, that taking God's name in vain is quoting in the name of God the reverse of what God says.
00:21:36.000So saying that God says X, when in reality God says not X, is a sign of deep intellectual arrogance, not a sign of humility.
00:22:25.000He won't say that because he is attempting to twist the very nature of what religious practice is to fit his definition of politics so he can appeal, presumably, to people who believe that religion and politics are deeply intertwined.
00:22:38.000That's a clever move, but it's not an honest move.
00:23:51.000Meanwhile, the other Democratic candidates are having a little bit of trouble.
00:23:55.000So Joe Biden is preparing to launch his campaign.
00:23:59.000He's supposed to launch his campaign tomorrow with some sort of online video.
00:24:02.000And then the idea is that he's going to travel to Pennsylvania and he's going to give his first address in some sort of Philadelphia Union Hall, which is exactly where he should, right?
00:24:10.000I mean, that is the smart political move.
00:24:12.000His base is going to be in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin.
00:24:15.000At least that is the case that he is making.
00:24:17.000He can win back the states that President Trump won when he broke the so-called While Biden is set to announce on Thursday with an online video, according to people familiar with the plans, they are reporting it to CNN.
00:24:28.000The former VP's team has been laying the campaign groundwork for months, with Biden's decision growing less secretive or suspenseful by the day.
00:24:34.000But now that he has given the green light to his advisors, says CNN, Biden is facing one of the biggest challenges of his half-century career in politics.
00:24:40.000He's scheduled to hold his first campaign event in Pittsburgh on Monday.
00:24:44.000A source said he plans to hit the road to early voting states of Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire in the coming days.
00:24:50.000His political action committee, American Possibilities, sent an email to supporters on Tuesday to urge them to sign up for the news.
00:24:56.000We'll cut to the chase, the message said.
00:24:57.000There's been a lot of chatter about what Joe Biden plans to do.
00:25:00.000As one of Joe's top supporters, we want you to be the first to know.
00:25:03.000He's jumping into a race already in progress, likely becoming the 20th Democrat to declare candidacy.
00:25:08.000He's closely watched the campaign from the sidelines, they'd say, following the policy debates and the introduction of rising stars less than half his age.
00:25:15.000This will mark his third run for the White House.
00:25:17.000Everything is different this time because this time he was vice president for Barack Obama, although he ran in 88 and 2008 and was a giant fail.
00:25:25.000Now, everyone is sort of forgetting that Joe Biden is a terrible campaigner.
00:25:28.000Everybody seems to be forgetting the fact that he is good as a VP campaigner because he's not the guy at the top of the ticket.
00:25:34.000People weren't voting for Joe Biden in 2008 or 2012.
00:25:38.000If they've been voting for Joe Biden, it doesn't go quite the same way.
00:25:42.000People only like Joe Biden when he is talking about other people.
00:25:45.000When Joe Biden talks about himself, he is far less popular, which is why he was a fail in 1988 and had to drop out over a plagiarism scandal.
00:25:52.000And then in 2008, he botched it within the very beginning of the run by suggesting that Barack Obama was the first, quote, clean and articulate black man ever to run for president of the United States.
00:26:05.000The more he is on the stump, the more he will gaffe.
00:26:07.000The more he gaffes, the more there will be people like Pete Buttigieg waiting in the wings to stab him in the back.
00:26:12.000Joe Biden also has made a strategic mistake here.
00:26:16.000He waited too long to get in because there's a lingering question whether he can fundraise, particularly in small dollars.
00:26:22.000There are a lot of Democratic bigwigs who want to get behind him, but how many of the truly motivated base players are ready to hand their five or ten dollars to him?
00:26:29.000Bernie Sanders has tons of those people.
00:26:32.000How many of those people are going to turn to Joe Biden?
00:26:37.000Everybody has their own particular favorite.
00:26:39.000The polls are split 1,000 different ways, and that means that Joe Biden is going to have to suck up an inordinate number of dollars to truly do damage, at least from the grassroots.
00:26:48.000As I say, I think that the best day for Joe Biden may be his first day.
00:26:51.000Now, he is getting some help, apparently, from the University of Delaware.
00:26:55.000According to Brent Scherr over at The Free Beacon, the University of Delaware library is in possession of nearly 2,000 boxes of archival records covering Joe Biden's 36 years as a senator, but has not committed to releasing them before the presidential election.
00:27:10.000You have thousands of pages at the University of Delaware, which I believe is a state school, and they're not going to release it before the election?
00:27:19.000The same people who are fighting mad that Donald Trump has never released his tax returns are now saying that they want to cover up thousands of pages of Joe Biden's Senate records?
00:27:29.000Those things should be a matter of public record.
00:27:32.000The records were donated by Biden to his alma mater during his first term as vice president in 2011.
00:27:37.000Biden stipulated when he donated the papers, their release could come no sooner than two years after Biden retires from any public office, according to the library.
00:27:44.000Well, Biden left office January 20th, 2017, but now the library says that they have made a new agreement with Joe Biden to keep the archive closed until at least the end of the year.
00:27:54.000Why would they make that new agreement exactly?
00:28:01.000And this sets a pretty bad precedent, which is you turn your papers over, and then you just don't do any— and then you dictate that they can never become public.
00:28:08.000So then what was the purpose of you turning them over?
00:28:11.000The Biden senatorial papers are indeed still closed pending the completion of processing still underway and as per our agreement with the donor, which is that the papers would remain closed until the later date of December 31st, 2019 or two years after the donor retires from public service.
00:28:25.000They say that they won't guarantee the archive would open to the public immediately once the Biden imposed deadline had passed.
00:28:31.000In a Thursday morning email, the head of the library said there were no other stipulations on the release of papers made by the donor.
00:28:39.000Last December, the university launched the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.
00:28:44.000So he has a pretty cozy relationship, obviously, with the University of Delaware.
00:28:48.000So what exactly does Joe Biden have to hide in those Senate records?
00:28:52.000And meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has more to hide.
00:28:55.000It turns out that Bernie Sanders has been drawing his mayoral pension.
00:28:58.000It's wonderful to be a socialist when you're at the top of the chain.
00:29:00.000When you're at the top of the government chain, then you get to live high on the hog.
00:29:04.000It's one of the beautiful things about being a socialist.
00:29:06.000Socialists like to rail about income inequality.
00:29:08.000The true income inequality in a socialist country is everybody else living in penury, and you living off the government largesse, off taxpayer dollars.
00:29:14.000Bernie Sanders has been drawing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for the last four decades.
00:29:20.000And now he complains that America just isn't generous enough.
00:29:24.000It turns out that Sanders, who earns $174,000 a year as a senator, received about $5,000 from Burlington, Vermont's pension system in 2018.
00:29:33.000He's still drawing a pension for his eight-year stint from the 1980s as mayor of Burlington.
00:29:46.000His total income with his wife last year Or in 2018, was $561,000.
00:29:51.000That was down from the more than $1 million they earned in the prior two years, largely as a result of his book about running for president in 2016.
00:30:08.000In fact, former Obama administration official, Ro Khanna, conducting a challenge to incumbent representative Mike Honda of California, blasted his fellow Democrat, Honda, for double dipping.
00:30:19.000Well, Ro Khanna is now part of Sanders' second bid for the White House.
00:30:23.000He's one of four national co-chairs of Sanders' campaign.
00:30:26.000So I guess his perspective on double-dipping has gone completely by the wayside.
00:30:29.000David Sirota told CNBC, quote, Wonderful that the people of Burlington can continue to pay Bernie Sanders.
00:33:08.000By the way, We were, according to statistics, the second most downloaded news podcast in America for the entire last month, following only the New York Times as the daily.
00:33:36.000But the rest of the 2020 Democratic candidate field is led by Kamala Harris.
00:33:39.000So Kamala Harris has an unfortunate habit.
00:33:41.000The senator from California says things, and then she realizes they are dumb things, and then she walks back to dumb things.
00:33:46.000So she has done this multiple times already in the race.
00:33:49.000Virtually every time she appears on CNN, she feels like she has to appease the crowd that is in front of her, and then she has to walk it back.
00:33:55.000So you'll remember that last time she was on CNN for her town hall, she suggested she wanted to do away with all private health insurance plans.
00:34:02.000And then within a week, she backtracked that by saying, well, maybe we could do that, but maybe we won't do that.
00:34:08.000Well, In the last 48 hours, she was on CNN saying that we should seriously study the question as to whether terrorists sitting in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, ought to be able to vote from prison.
00:34:19.000And then she realized, oh, this is a bad idea.
00:34:23.000It's that kind of decisive leadership I think America is really seeking and looking for.
00:34:27.000The decisive leadership of Kamala Harris, who will decisively steer in one direction, and then, when rejected, decisively steer in precisely the reverse direction.
00:34:36.000You'll hear her complete reversal within 24 hours right here.
00:34:39.000I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship.
00:34:45.000But people who are convicted, in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted of sexual assault, they should be able to vote?
00:34:54.000I think we should have that conversation.
00:34:56.000Do I think that people who commit murder, people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights?
00:35:04.000I mean, wow, what could have happened to change her mind within such a short period of time?
00:35:09.000Clearly, it must have been new evidence or compelling arguments, or alternatively, everybody looked at her and said, a lady, what are you talking about?
00:35:18.000I think it's the crazy bleep thing, probably.
00:35:20.000So Kamala Harris, the reason that she is flailing is because she's basically a combination of the worst aspects of Hillary Clinton and Kyrsten Gillibrand.
00:35:30.000But, aside from her being super intersectional, she's got nothing.
00:35:34.000She's as charmless as Hillary Clinton, she laughs just as weirdly and awkwardly every time she's caught in a lie, and she flips positions like Kyrsten Gillibrand at a Twister party.
00:35:56.000I think even Pete Buttigieg is going to start receding.
00:35:58.000The reason I think Buttigieg will start receding is because I think his record will come under fire.
00:36:01.000And also because the part that is the part about Buttigieg that is attractive is the fact that he pretends to be a moderate when he is not.
00:36:09.000As he moves away from moderation, And he will be forced to by the other Democratic candidates.
00:36:14.000I think that he will become less popular over time.
00:36:16.000Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren is getting owned by the Washington Post editorial board.
00:36:22.000By the Washington Post editorial board.
00:36:23.000So she came out with another one for audacious, bold, incredible plans.
00:36:29.000Our media synonyms were incredibly stupid.
00:36:31.000She came out with her plan earlier this week to forgive all student loan debt, which makes perfect sense because we want to make sure that all the middle income and middle upper income and rich people in the country who incurred student loan debt, people like Pete Buttigieg, who admitted yesterday that he had $100,000 in student loan debt.
00:36:45.000By the way, I think a basic rule of thumb, you shouldn't be elected president if you still have student loan debt.
00:36:51.000It seems to me that a very basic function of you being a responsible adult is you paid off your student loan debt.
00:36:55.000But put that aside, Elizabeth Warren suggested that all the upper-income people who went to college should have their student loan debt removed from them, which doesn't make any sense.
00:37:05.000Also, it punishes people who actually spent the money to pay off the student loan debt.
00:37:08.000I know, I've paid off two student loan debts.
00:37:10.000I've paid off my own from Harvard Law School, and I paid off my wife's medical school loan debts.
00:37:15.000So I'm very well aware of student loan debt and how much it costs and how you have to pay for it.
00:37:19.000But those were choices we make to incur debt.
00:37:22.000And then we paid off the debt like responsible humans.
00:37:24.000Even the Washington Post is looking at Elizabeth Warren and going, lady, you're too radical for us.
00:37:28.000When you are too radical for the Washington Post editorial board, you may have lost the thread of the plot.
00:37:33.000The Washington Post editorial board says the nation's households owe almost $1.5 trillion in student loans, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
00:37:41.000This represents a burden on many families, which under Ms. Warren's plan would disappear completely for 75% of them, and at least partially for 95% of them.
00:37:51.000One of the things I love about the very objective editorial boards at our nation's newspapers is when they see a stupid idea and then they soft-pedal how stupid the idea is.
00:38:42.000The good news for Beto O'Rourke is he was running against Ted Cruz.
00:38:45.000Not that Ted is a super weak candidate, but Beto O'Rourke received the unstinting applause and accolades of the entire mainstream media, which they hate Ted Cruz with a passion.
00:39:41.000The former police officer who arrested Beto O'Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time.
00:39:49.000O'Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he caused.
00:39:51.000O'Rourke admits he was intoxicated, says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee.
00:39:57.000Beto's DWI is something he has long publicly and openly addressed, said O'Rourke's spokesperson.
00:40:02.000But neither the investigating officer nor his former supervisor specifically recalls the events of that night.
00:40:07.000They said the report they compiled and signed is accurate.
00:40:10.000However, they say there is no doubt he tried to leave the scene of the DWI.
00:40:14.000Weird, because the media allowed him to get away with this for years when he was running against Cruz.
00:40:17.000Suddenly, he's running against Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
00:40:21.000And oh, now we have to report on Beto.
00:40:30.000And the answer is he's no longer running against Ted Cruz.
00:40:33.000OK, we'll get to a couple of other Democratic candidates and then we'll get to the Democrats, the Democratic members of Congress seeking new subpoenas and all the rest.
00:40:41.000So other Democratic candidates for president.
00:40:43.000So he has not declared yet, nor should he.
00:40:45.000But Bill de Blasio continues to be just world's stupidest human.
00:40:51.000One of the things that I love about New Yorkers is that they truly believe they're the smartest people on planet Earth.
00:41:08.000Okay, so don't tell me how smart you are.
00:41:10.000I don't claim that Los Angelinos are smart.
00:41:12.000We elected Antonio Villaraigosa to be our mayor, and then we followed that genius move up with Eric Garcetti.
00:41:17.000I'm not pretending that my city is full of geniuses, but New Yorkers seem to have this perspective that their city is completely full of people with 150 IQs.
00:41:25.000Your mayor is this doofus, Bill de Blasio, who announced over the last 48 hours that he doesn't want any more buildings made of steel and glass in the city of New York.
00:42:56.000de Blasio said, We certainly felt the opposition at the real estate lobby in these last months, but to the credit of everyone there, we said we don't care how much opposition there is.
00:43:12.000Okay, meanwhile, the Democrats are still trying to push forward.
00:43:16.000With more subpoenas and investigations against the Trump administration.
00:43:20.000Adam Schiff is writing, he wrote a piece for the Washington Post about President Trump and ensuring he's not working for foreign interests.
00:43:28.000The fact that he is even still able to show his face in public after spending years claiming that he has inside information, that President Trump was a stooge of the Kremlin, is simply incredible.
00:43:37.000But he has a full piece at the Washington Post today, this dolt, saying that the president of the United States may in fact be still working for other outside influences.
00:43:46.000He says that that the counterintelligence investigations showed that the president was deceiving people about Trump Tower Moscow, which means he was really in the pay of the Russians.
00:43:56.000And all this is many Americans have expressed deep concerns that foreign powers, especially Russia, cultivated or possessed financial leverage or influence over President Trump or his associates.
00:44:04.000Why did those many Americans say that, Representative Schiff?
00:44:07.000Maybe because someone on the House Intelligence Committee kept going out there and lying about his inside information?
00:44:22.000Now, Their claim to get his tax returns is actually fairly strong.
00:44:26.000Just legally speaking, the Democrats do have the power.
00:44:28.000The legislative branch does have the power to investigate.
00:44:31.000And in fact, there were a lot of people over the last couple of weeks talking about the Mueller report who said that really the power to investigate things like the Mueller report, which may become the basis for impeachment hearings, that shouldn't be done inside the president's executive branch.
00:44:43.000That should be done inside the legislative branch.
00:44:45.000That is what the separation of powers means.
00:44:47.000I am one of the people who suggested this.
00:44:49.000That means that Congress has investigative powers.
00:45:28.000I have a feeling the same thing is in order for President Trump.
00:45:31.000Representative Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said that the White House has adopted the untenable position that it can ignore requests from the Democratic majority in the House.
00:45:39.000Cummings said in a statement, it appears the president believes the constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight.
00:45:50.000Cummings was specifically referring to Carl Klein, a former White House personnel security director who was subpoenaed by Democrats.
00:45:57.000He was supposed to be deposed about granting security clearance to Jared Kushner, for example.
00:46:04.000Trump has told the Washington Post, I don't want people testifying to a party because that is what they are doing when they do this.
00:46:11.000Meanwhile, the administration on Tuesday didn't defy the demand from the Ways and Means Committee to turn over six years of President Trump's tax returns by the close of business.
00:46:21.000And the legal record here is pretty clear.
00:46:24.000There is a case called Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, a Supreme Court case, that found that Congress can subpoena private parties.
00:46:53.000And then that was sort of the end of the story.
00:46:55.000That was used as the basis for a quasi-obstruction accusation.
00:47:00.000So the Congress wants to hear direct from again.
00:47:02.000Trump is going to claim executive privilege.
00:47:04.000There are a couple different kinds of executive privilege.
00:47:06.000The first kind of executive privilege is the right of the president to prevent the Congress from overseeing certain national security needs.
00:47:13.000The Congress doesn't have a right to oversee the president on matters of national security and also protecting the privacy of White House deliberations because what you don't want is it made public every time the president has a conversation that has public impact.
00:47:25.000That probably does not apply when you are talking about the president ordering his aides to Lie, or do bad things, or commit a crime, or defend him personally.
00:47:33.000That stuff probably does not apply, so I think that executive privilege claim is probably gonna come up short.
00:47:38.000Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.
00:47:43.000Now, this is not exactly a thing that I like, but it's a thing that is worthy of note, and we should be taking note, and I hope that the Trump administration will formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.
00:48:18.000On this date in 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, Christians for the most part, We're forcibly deported from the Turkish capital of Constantinople.
00:48:27.000The numbers soon escalated into the thousands.
00:48:29.000Most of these people were eventually murdered.
00:48:30.000That kicked off the Armenian genocide, which was the persecution of Christian Armenians by the young Turks who were Muslim.
00:48:36.000They wanted to cleanse the country of the troublesome non-co-religionists in preparation for the new Turkey in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and supposedly in order to ensure against the possibility of the Armenians siding against the central powers in World War I.
00:48:49.000By the time the genocide was over, it lasted from 1915 all the way to 1923.
00:48:53.000Hundreds of thousands of Armenians had been killed.
00:48:55.000Top range estimates put that number at 1.5 million.
00:48:58.000There were massive atrocities, including forced death marches, placing women and children allegedly aboard ships and then deliberately sinking them.
00:49:05.000CNN reports, quote, While the death toll is in dispute, photographs from the era document some mass killings.
00:49:10.000Some show Ottoman soldiers posing with severed heads, others with them standing amid skulls in the dirt.
00:49:15.000The victims are reported to have died in mass burnings by drowning, torture, gas, poison, disease and starvation.
00:49:19.000Children were reported to have been loaded onto boats, taken out to sea and thrown overboard.
00:49:57.000In 1939, he was already dictator of Germany.
00:50:00.000He told Nazi officers in 1939 to kill without mercy in Poland, adding, allegedly, according to contemporaneous records, quote, And go ahead and kill whoever you have to kill, because no one cares.
00:50:14.000Rabbi Shmueli Boteach has said, Hitler's confidants learned from Turkey's genocidal playbook As Hitler strategized his rise to power in the early 1920s, his lead political advisor was Max Erwin von Schroedner-Richter, a young German consular officer in Erzurum during World War I, a region of Ottoman Turkey densely populated with Armenians.
00:50:33.000Turkey's ethnic cleansing in World War I was well-known and admired by Nazi ideologues.
00:50:37.000In 1923, a journalist named Hans Trubbs wrote in the Nazi newspaper Heimatland, these bloodsuckers and parasites, Greeks and Armenians, had been eradicated by the Turks.
00:50:45.000This chilling praise of genocide foretold atrocities to come.
00:50:48.000So, certainly the Armenian genocide is well worthy of note, and I have a lot of sympathy for Armenian claims, particularly against the current Turkish government.
00:51:04.000So, baby boomers may have ruined America.
00:51:06.000Baby boomers spent all the money, and then they whined about it, and then they taught their children very little in the way of values.
00:51:13.000And it appears that their children, my generation, millennials, have picked up on a lot of the self-centeredness of the baby boomers, unfortunately.
00:51:21.000There's a new article from Business Insider that says American millennials have less money than other generations did at their age, but we are delusional about the amount of wealth that we have.
00:51:30.000Many American millennials think they will be millionaires by middle age.
00:51:33.000They have a generally positive view about their finances, according to several studies, but research shows that millennials are currently behind financially.
00:51:39.000Well, that is because they've been told for years by their parents that if they go to college and major in lesbian dance theory, they will be millionaires.
00:51:47.000Now, income mobility in the United States is still quite strong.
00:51:50.000You can still move up if you make good decisions, but you have to make those good decisions and your firm belief that you were born in a place where you will be a millionaire simply by dint of the fact that you are an American born in America at this time and place.
00:52:02.000Now, get off your butt, work a little bit.
00:52:07.000A guest lecturer at Boston University said last month that white people who judge others as individuals instead of by the color of their skin are dangerous, according to a report in the College Fix.
00:52:24.000The lecture was entitled, What Does It Mean To Be White?
00:52:26.000It was given by a University of Washington professor named Robin DeAngelo, a white woman, who presumably should have given up her slot to a woman of minority descent, if she really wants to make these points and stop her white privilege from applying.
00:52:38.000DeAngelo specializes in whiteness studies.
00:53:27.000She said while teaching as a whiteness professor, as a white woman refusing to give up her slot at a major university, lecturing a bunch of white kids.
00:53:35.000And I need to give a heads up to the white people in the room, D'Angelo said.
00:53:37.000When people of color hear us say this, they're generally not thinking, all right, I'm talking to a woke white person right now.
00:53:42.000Usually some version of eye rolling is going on and a wall is going up.
00:53:46.000Right, if you want to be labeled woke by the intersectional crowd, you have to say, I surrender all my perspectives to you.
00:53:52.000My perspectives are no longer of consequence.
00:53:54.000I will sit here and shut up and listen and never say anything again.
00:53:57.000I've turned myself into a potted plant upon which Harvey Weinstein will ejaculate.
00:54:02.000That's basically what people are looking for.
00:54:04.000D'Angelo's remarks are, of course, diametrically opposed to certain centralized values of Western civilization, but it's good to know, and it's very exciting to know, that there are professors out there teaching students that it is very, very bad, that it is very, very terrible to treat people equally and not based on the color of their skin.
00:54:22.000Yes, our society may be nearing its terminus.
00:54:25.000Alrighty, so we'll be back here tomorrow with the last episode of the week because Friday is again a Jewish holiday.