As sexual allegations become more vague, are we reaching the end of the Me Too moment? Plus, President Trump s comments on immigration are polarizing the country, but are Republicans and Democrats painting themselves into opposite corners? Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, Ben talks about all of that and much more, including the latest in the scandal surrounding comedian Aziz Ansari, who has been accused of sexual assault by a woman named Grace, who says she went back to his apartment to have sex with him after they had sex and felt uncomfortable and wronged. Plus, Ben explains why feminists are coming out in droves in support of Harvey Weinstein, and why that s actually undermines the entire idea of feminism itself, which is that women have sexual agency. And, as always, thank you for tuning in to The Ben Show! Ben Shapiro is a writer, comedian, podcaster, and podcaster. He is the host of the podcast and co-host of the radio show , and is a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, The Daily Beast, and the Atlantic. and The Huffington Post. Subscribe to his new podcast, where he also hosts a podcast called , where he talks about sex, drugs, and pop culture, and other things that aren t related to pop culture. Also, check out his new book, The Handmaid s Tale out on Amazon Prime, out now! and other places he is also on the pod is out on the road! If you like what you hear, you can find him on the internet, listen to him on his podcast on the podcast on if you re looking for him, he s also on the or on his podcast is , and more like that s on on The podcast, here s his podcast is his , here s the link is linked here: v= , he s in the . and here s a tweet about it on , right can do it, right here is the link it s and his video on it is right here at , if you like it? and he s on it on my profile on the social media story , or also , can he s all that s also on it, and so on it , etc. etc
00:01:44.000Again, when you use that slash Ben, then you get their first month of their travel size version of everything plus the razor for $5.
00:01:52.000So check it out right now, dollarshaveclub.com.
00:01:55.000Use the slash Ben so they know what we say and get the best shave possible and get the rest of their great products as well.
00:02:00.000And I'll say butt wipes one more time just because it's hilarious.
00:02:03.000Okay, so now let's begin with the collapse of the Me Too movement.
00:02:08.000So the Me Too movement is going to continue because it should.
00:02:13.000Nobody is in favor of rape or sexual assault.
00:02:15.000I have yet to see all the people out there marching in the streets in defense of Harvey Weinstein, which demonstrates once again that the idea that we live in a rape culture that is fine with rape is
00:02:26.000What we are concerned with, and what we should be concerned with, is this feeling that more and more people are now being dragged into a dragnet of exaggeration and awkwardness and uncomfortableness.
00:02:40.000The idea being that if a woman is uncomfortable or awkward about sex, and afterward she feels bad about it because maybe she shouldn't have been there in the first place, then we are supposed to believe that she was raped or wronged in some way.
00:02:51.000Now, I believe she was wrong by her, right?
00:02:53.000If you put yourself in a bad situation and then you go forward with something without any indicator to the person that you are having sex with, that you don't want to do this and then you feel bad later, you have been wrong.
00:03:09.000If you say to a guy, I'm gonna come back to your apartment, I'm gonna have sex with you, you go through the whole thing, and then the next morning you feel bad because it was awkward or it turns out the guy was a jerk and halfway through the sex you felt like you didn't like it,
00:03:35.000It's so funny, we're talking constantly about mansplaining things.
00:03:38.000Like if I explain something to a woman, I'm mansplaining.
00:03:40.000Feminist-splaining is where you explain to me I was supposed to read your mind based on outward indicators that make no sense.
00:03:46.000The reason this is coming up now is because, as we discussed yesterday, there's a long article in babe.com about Aziz Ansari, this comedian who plays Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation.
00:03:56.000And there's this long 3,000-word piece about this woman named Grace who went back to Aziz Ansari's apartment, engaged in multiple rounds of sexual activity with him, and then as she was leaving said she felt uncomfortable and wronged, and then he said, well, I'm sorry you felt that way, and that was the end of the story.
00:04:11.000But this was treated by a bunch of feminists as actual evidence that Aziz Ansari should have his career ended, that he should be finished by this.
00:04:18.000Now, I'm glad to report that I'm not the only one who's saying this story is ridiculous.
00:04:22.000Barry Weiss over at the New York Times wrote a very good piece on this.
00:04:24.000Over at the Atlantic there was a very good piece on this.
00:04:26.000But there are feminists who are coming out nonetheless and suggesting that Aziz Ansari should basically be put away and his career should somehow take a ding because he, a famous celebrity, invited a girl back to his apartment where she proceeded to get naked with him and then engage in several rounds of sexual activity.
00:05:28.000The new program Legal Fling claims to provide couples who hook up on the fly with an easy way to avoid being later accused of taking advantage of one another, an app that couples can use to create a legally binding contract saying that both of them consent to their casual union.
00:05:40.000See, we used to have something like this called a marriage contract, but it actually came along with obligations.
00:05:45.000Where you actually were supposed to do things for one another beyond getting your rocks off.
00:05:49.000But now, we have to have legal consent forms for you to have a one night stand.
00:05:53.000After downloading LegalFling, you can send requests to potential partners who then have the option of checking off certain boxes like, use a condom, photo and video, and BDSM.
00:06:06.000I know that when I'm thinking romance, nothing says romance to me like a legal app, like an actual form that you fill out with boxes to check.
00:06:14.000Every time I decide to get romantic with my wife, this is what I do.
00:06:16.000I walk in the room, I drop a quick contract because I'm a lawyer, and then I say, please sign and date on the dotted line and initial at these particular paragraphs if you're into this.
00:06:26.000If you later decide you want to revoke your consent, you grab your phone and electronically end the hookup.
00:06:30.000You can also, according to the app's website, use the app to write notes about your experience.
00:06:34.000All of these notes and contracts are then maintained securely and privately using blockchain.
00:06:38.000The app's creators believe they are solving the problem of consent issues, but legal fling still hasn't passed either Apple or Google's approval process.
00:06:44.000It's also questionable as to whether the contracts are in fact legally binding.
00:06:47.000They are not, of course, because according to the left, consent is a continuous issue, meaning that in the middle of the sex, if the woman says,
00:06:54.000I'm done, then the consent has been ended.
00:06:57.000So unless you grab the app in the middle of the actual coitus, then you are going to presumably be accused of violating the woman's consent, even if she signed the contract beforehand.
00:07:07.000Now, what's funny is that the left used to recognize how prudish and silly all of this was.
00:07:47.000This is a very funny scene in which Zooey Deschanel basically is with a guy, and it demonstrates the disconnect between what feminists think they want out of sexual experiences and what they actually want out of sexual experiences.
00:07:59.000Because Zooey Deschanel's character on the show is a feminist.
00:08:01.000She is a single woman who's living with a bunch of dudes in an apartment.
00:08:05.000But this is a flashback to her prom night, and it demonstrates the stupidity of apps like LegalFling.
00:08:52.000Okay, the reason that's funny is because this is stupid, people.
00:08:55.000Okay, if this is how you think sexual encounters are supposed to go, or that any sexual encounter in history has gone this way, you're out of your mind.
00:09:01.000That's why Hollywood used to be able to joke about this stuff, but now Hollywood can't even joke about it because they think that this is the ideal sexual scenario.
00:09:07.000The ideal sexual scenario is where you're asking every step of the way for permission.
00:09:12.000There's not a woman alive who feels like this is sexy.
00:09:52.000This is all fictional nonsense that was created by a culture that has refused to make any rules and now is backtracking and making new rules to fill in the rules that should have been there in the first place.
00:10:31.000Also, I have small children, which means I need a washing machine because they get everything insanely dirty all the time.
00:10:37.000Well, that's why I need Tripping.com, because if I were staying in the local Hyatt, it might be nice, but it's smaller, doesn't have any of these amenities.
00:10:44.000Tripping.com makes sure that I can go any place that I want, basically, and they have vacation rentals there for you.
00:10:50.000With Tripping.com, one search lets you filter,
00:10:53.000Compare, sort over 10 million available properties on trusted sites like VRBO, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and more.
00:10:58.000And you don't have to worry about getting the best deal because you're saving an average of 18% per night by booking your vacation with Tripping.com.
00:11:43.000The Democrats are grilling on the Hill today the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, a woman named Kirstjen Nielsen, about President Trump's alleged statements regarding immigrants from bleephole countries.
00:11:54.000Did he really say bleephole countries?
00:11:56.000Did he really say he wants fewer people from bleephole countries?
00:11:58.000OK, we are now in, what, day six of this controversy?
00:12:01.000This interminable controversy where we're supposed to discuss ad nauseum whether the president is racist or whether he was just making comments that were about which countries we ought to prioritize, and we're just going to go around in circles on this thing and everybody's going to make each other crazy.
00:12:16.000One thing I will say, when Democrats suggest that they are deeply concerned about the president's racism for saying that he wants immigrants from Norway over Haiti,
00:12:24.000And they refused to acknowledge, by the way, that the day before, the ambassador from Norway was at the—or the prime minister of Norway was at the White House, which is probably why Trump was saying Norway.
00:12:33.000And they refused to acknowledge that Trump said in that same report, the Washington Post report, that he wants more immigrants from South Korea, which is not exactly indicative of racism, because South Koreans are not white, it turns out.
00:12:44.000Maybe it's just possible Trump was talking about a merit-based immigration system.
00:12:49.000Maybe he was saying, I want fewer black people in the United States.
00:12:51.000Or maybe he was saying that you have created a system by which we are supposed to judge a hierarchy of countries that we are supposed to take immigrants from.
00:12:59.000And I'd prefer to take immigrants from countries where the countries are closer to the Western way of life than countries that are less close to the Western way of life.
00:13:09.000And it may be wrong, because the fact is what I would like is a merit-based system where we judge individuals instead of judging the country of origin.
00:13:17.000But if you're going to judge solely based on country of origin, of course you're going to value South Korea over Russia, for example.
00:13:22.000Because South Korea is a more westernized country than Russia is.
00:13:26.000I've used Russia as the example because there are a lot of Russian immigrants to the United States who do really well.
00:13:30.000I mean, my great-grandparents were Russian immigrants to the United States.
00:13:34.000Russia is also a place that's governed in a very different way, has a different culture and a different language.
00:14:08.000Well, I have a challenge for Donald Trump.
00:14:10.000Okay, actions speak louder than words.
00:14:12.000If you want to begin, just begin that long road back to proving you're not a racist, you're not bigoted, support the bipartisan compromise that three Republicans and three Democrats have put on the floor, everyone gave, and get the dreamer safety here in America.
00:14:24.000In other words, embrace the policy that Chuck Schumer likes, and that's how you can prove that you're not a racist.
00:14:28.000And that's what I was saying yesterday, is that it seems to me that a lot of what Democrats are doing here is using the racism club in order to beat Trump into a corner on policy.
00:14:37.000And there's a certain irony to this, right?
00:14:39.000Chuck Schumer is saying that Trump is a racist for saying that people from certain countries are going to assimilate better than people from other countries, or that we should prioritize certain countries over other countries, and that's racist, right?
00:14:49.000But Chuck Schumer is proposing a legal regime that prioritizes certain countries over other countries.
00:14:54.000If Chuck Schumer really wanted us not to judge people based on their place of origin, he should be in favor of getting rid of the diversity visa lottery.
00:15:01.000He should be in favor of getting rid of country-based, origin-based immigration systems.
00:15:06.000He should be in favor of an individual merit-based system, which, I am told, President Trump wants.
00:15:10.000And President Trump says that he wants.
00:15:12.000So if we were really all on the same page, and we were all anti-racism, or anti-bigotry, or anti-discrimination based on birthplace, then we'd have a system that didn't take into account birthplace, wouldn't we?
00:15:21.000We'd have a system that looks purely at whether somebody ought to come into the United States or not on an individual level.
00:15:28.000And that's how you can prove that what they're talking about, this deep caring about Trump's a racist, Trump's not a racist, it's all a lie.
00:15:36.000If they really cared about racism and immigration, they would be trying to wipe out any semblance of country of origin being the adjudicative factor when it comes to immigration itself.
00:15:49.000But I think that there's something else going on here, too.
00:15:51.000And I think the Democrats are painting themselves into a corner.
00:15:53.000So I think they're doing this on shutdown talk.
00:15:55.000So right now, there's talk of a government shutdown.
00:15:59.000So Republicans obviously control Congress.
00:16:02.000President Trump, the immigration deal is basically dead.
00:16:28.000It'll basically be a clean government funding program the same way it was last year, because I don't think that Trump actually has the intestinal fortitude to have a government shutdown fight with Democrats over border wall funding.
00:16:39.000I think he should, but I don't think he will.
00:16:41.000All that said, Democrats have painted themselves into a bit of a corner.
00:16:48.000We've got people running for president all trying to find their base, and then you've got people from Trump states that are trying to continue to legislate that we always have by negotiation, and never the twain shall meet.
00:16:56.000In other words, she is saying that there's not a lot of interest in actually coming to an agreement here, but nobody else wants to be blamed for an actual government shutdown.
00:17:06.000Obviously, a lot of the senators are fighting with one another, but the chances that we shut down the government over all of this, I think, are incredibly low.
00:17:12.000There's another way, though, in which Democrats are painting themselves into a corner, and here is how.
00:17:16.000Hillary Clinton got herself in all sorts of trouble.
00:17:18.000Hillary Clinton lost the election in large part on the basis of suggesting that the vast majority of Americans, or at least a large swath of Americans, were deplorables, racists, bigots, alt-righters.
00:17:30.000That anyone who supported Trump was a member of this group.
00:17:32.000That anybody who was sanguine about Trump as president was ignoring his bigotry in order to vote for him.
00:17:38.000That all of these people had to believe that bigotry and racism didn't matter, making them racists and bigots.
00:17:43.000And there are a lot of people who felt like, you know what, Hillary's a jerk, I'm going to vote against her just because she disdains ordinary Americans.
00:18:09.000In fact, I think Chuck Schumer's policies with regard to immigration are kind of bigoted because he wants to benefit certain countries over other countries as opposed to using a merit-based system.
00:18:18.000But Democrats, when they suggest that Trump's policies and his rhetoric are all of a piece, that everyone who agrees with Trump on policy must be a racist, what they are doing is driving away large segments of the American population.
00:18:31.000You can either choose Trump's policies and his racism, or you can choose Democratic policies and their non-racism.
00:18:38.000Well, what if I neglect to make that choice?
00:18:40.000What if I say I like a lot of Trump's policies, but I don't like a lot of the things Trump says?
00:18:44.000Well, Democrats say I'm not allowed to make that choice.
00:18:45.000They've created this false dichotomy, this false binary.
00:18:49.000And I'm now supposed to fall into that trap.
00:18:52.000The problem is, that alienates voters.
00:18:54.000If you're a Democrat and you're saying that, you should think twice about saying that.
00:18:57.000You should think twice about saying that Trump is a racist, not just because it's questionable as to whether Trump is actually a Richard Spencer-type racist, but also because if you are going to say Trump is a racist, you need to say his comments are what make him a racist, not his policies.
00:19:12.000They're just saying that Trump is a racist bully and the implication, and I think that all Trump voters are reading into that, I think a lot of people who are not even Trump voters, I didn't vote for Trump and I'm reading into that, I think what they're reading that when people say Trump is a racist, what they're really saying is anyone who agrees with his immigration policy is a racist.
00:19:27.000That they're using Trump as a proxy for anyone who agrees with Trump policies.
00:19:31.000So when Elizabeth Warren says Trump is a racist bully, she's actually, I think, painting Democrats into a dangerous corner, ripping the American population by proxy.
00:19:39.000Donald Trump is a racist bully, and we know how to deal with bullies.
00:20:17.000They trot out Al Sharpton, a guy who is legitimately responsible for at least helping to incite riots in Crown Heights in 1991 against Orthodox Jews, and then again against Freddie's Fashion Mart in New York City that ended with the burning down of the store and the death of many people who are minorities.
00:20:32.000Al Sharpton is one of the worst racists of the last 35 years, and here's Al Sharpton ripping Trump as a racist.
00:20:38.000You don't have to spray paint the N-word over the Oval Office and sleep with a KKK hood to be a racist.
00:20:46.000If you have racist policies, say racist things, operate in a racist manner, you are a racist.
00:20:55.000Okay, so it's that part where he says racist policies that's fascinating, right?
00:20:58.000When he says racist policies, that's the part where Democrats are going to lose everybody.
00:21:02.000If they just said Trump's a bad character, I think a lot of people agree.
00:21:05.000If they said Trump might be borderline racist in terms of his statements, I think a lot of people would probably agree or at least give Democrats the benefit of the doubt.
00:21:12.000When they say you must agree with us or you are a racist just like Trump, you're going to lose the entire population.
00:21:16.000And now they're trotting out celebrities to make this case.
00:21:18.000So, in just a second, I'm going to explain to you which celebrities
00:21:23.000Apparently, it's everybody in the NBA, essentially.
00:21:25.000And they're not being they're not being coy about this.
00:21:28.000They don't just believe that Trump is a racist.
00:21:29.000They believe that anyone who agrees with Donald Trump on policy is a racist.
00:21:32.000The Democrats, I think this is such a major political mistake they're making right now.
00:21:36.000So let's start here with LeBron James.
00:21:39.000So LeBron, who, again, I don't know why the one of the best powerful words in the history of the NBA has amazing things to say on matters of immigration.
00:21:48.000I wasn't aware that penetrating the paint has anything to do with making border policy.
00:21:53.000But in any case, here's LeBron James saying that Trump has given racism an opportunity to be out.
00:21:57.000Again, what he's really saying here is that because of Donald Trump, everybody in Donald Trump's base, they're secret racists, but now they're coming out.
00:22:08.000People in racism, negative racism, an opportunity to be out and outspoken without fear.
00:22:22.000Because it's with you and it's around every day, but he's allowed people to come out and just feel confident about doing negative things.
00:22:30.000OK, so this idea that Trump has emboldened racists, what he is really suggesting, listen, I said this during the campaign when he was actively appealing to the alt-right, is that Trump should have done more to tamp down racism.
00:22:41.000But what LeBron is actually saying here, LeBron James, when he says that Trump has given racism an opportunity to be out of the closet, and then he says, I like when he says negative racism as opposed to presumably positive racism.
00:22:52.000The idea that racism begins and ends with Donald Trump, I think, is an exaggeration.
00:22:56.000Now, what LeBron says is not all that awful.
00:22:59.000You know, I think that you can make the case that Trump did that during the campaign.
00:23:03.000But what Greg Popovich does really is awful.
00:23:07.000And this is where he says that Trump can't even prove to me that he's not a racist.
00:23:10.000There's no way Trump can prove to me he's not a racist, other than by presumably agreeing with Greg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs.
00:23:49.000Presumably you respond by saying, no, I'm not a racist.
00:23:51.000But according to your logic, this now means you're a racist.
00:23:54.000So we're now caught in a Knight-to-Knaves logic problem, where the minute somebody's accused of being a racist, there's no way to get out of it, right?
00:24:00.000Because if you deny that you're a racist, then that means you're a racist.
00:24:03.000And if you say that you're a racist, then you're obviously a racist.
00:24:05.000So there's no way to avoid being a racist.
00:24:07.000As soon as somebody throws the charge racist at you, we're all supposed to run for the hills and just assume that that person is a racist.
00:24:15.000You wonder why Trump still has a solid base?
00:24:17.000It's because everyone's attempt to lump together Trump's base with Trump.
00:24:21.000Everyone's attempt to lump Trump's policies together with Trump's rhetoric.
00:24:24.000Everyone's attempt to take Trump's individual statements and then suggest that it is indicative of a broader worldview.
00:24:31.000I don't know that Trump has a worldview about anything.
00:24:33.000I mean, I'm not even sure that Donald Trump has a worldview about Starburst.
00:24:37.000There's a story yesterday, by the way, it's pretty great, that staffers at one of the Senate offices were being tasked with going through boxes of Starbursts and picking out the pink and red Starbursts as a gift to President Trump, which is just astonishing.
00:24:49.000I hope if I were ever president one day, I would force everybody, I wouldn't just buy the sour packs of jelly beans, I would force Senate staffers to go through entire bags of jelly beans and try to determine which one were the sour jelly bellies, and then make them give them to me.
00:25:02.000It'd be like Willy Wonka's factory, I'd make them all into my Oompa Loompas.
00:25:19.000Remember last week, Stephen Colbert suggested that America was the real bleephole.
00:25:24.000That all these other countries were not bleepholes.
00:25:25.000America was a bleephole because Trump was president.
00:25:27.000The disdain for Americans who disagree with the left is really coming out now because they're using disdain for Trump as the proxy.
00:25:35.000And I think that this is what so many Trump supporters and Trump voters are basing their support for Trump on.
00:25:41.000I think wrongly in some ways, but I think that this is what they're basing their support on, is every time they read an attack on Trump, they read an attack on them.
00:25:47.000Because every time there's an attack on them, it's an attack on Trump.
00:25:50.000And what Bill Press here says is so indicative of a worldview and mentality that comes from the left that everyone can read into the verbiage.
00:25:58.000Listen to what Bill Press says and then you'll see that people make the connection between what Bill Press said and what Hillary Clinton said and what Elizabeth Warren is saying today about Trump.
00:26:07.000I am sick and tired of talking about Donald Trump's face.
00:26:10.000So he's got 35% of the most extreme, wacko, racist, I don't know, rednecks in the country.
00:26:27.000Now I've said before that I think there is some truth to the idea that Donald Trump's base is too attached to Donald Trump, but
00:26:51.000I also think that it is true that one of the reasons that they're so attached to Trump is because they see Trump and the slings and arrows that he takes as a proxy for the slings and arrows that they would take if he were not there.
00:27:00.000That how the left feels about Donald Trump is exactly how the left feels about Donald Trump's base, and they felt that way about Donald Trump's base when Donald Trump wasn't there.
00:27:09.000This is why I think, I've said this before, I think in many ways 2012 broke the country.
00:27:12.000I think that the attempt to paint Mitt Romney and his supporters in the same exact way as the left now attempts to paint Donald Trump and his supporters is demonstrative of why Donald Trump won.
00:27:22.000You can only call people racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes for so long before they finally say, listen, whoever they call a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe must not be one and everybody's full of crap and whoever stands up to that nonsense is going to be the guy that I back.
00:27:34.000I think it is almost as simple as that.
00:27:36.000I think that Trump's presidency is a backlash.
00:27:38.000I think it's a backlash against the entire left, which suggested that everyone on the right was a deplorable, not just when they were voting for Trump, but long before that.
00:27:46.000I've spent my entire life being called a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe by the left.
00:27:50.000I am not any of those things, and my entire career is proof positive that I am not those things.
00:27:56.000The left has suggested that anyway, about somebody like me, the guy who did not support Trump.
00:28:00.000But the idea that now they're going to attack Trump, I think this is what's happened.
00:28:03.000I think that people are making a mistake of logic, but it's an understandable mistake of logic.
00:28:08.000The mistake of logic that they are making is they are buying into the idea that any attack on Trump is an attack on them.
00:28:15.000But it is true that the leftists attack on Trump.
00:28:18.000Very often, it is sort of an attack on them.
00:28:21.000Bill Press' attack on Trump is really not an attack on Trump.
00:28:23.000It's an attack on everybody on the right.
00:28:25.000Elizabeth Warren's attacks on Trump are not just an attack on Trump.
00:28:28.000They're an attack on everyone on the right, including people like me who did not vote for Trump.
00:28:31.000This is why you see this grand and ridiculous disconnect in the leftist media on how they approach people like me, who back Trump's policies, but don't necessarily think Trump is a great president or good for the country in a lot of other ways.
00:28:45.000The way they approach that is they say, listen, if you really don't like what Trump is saying, you shouldn't support any of his policies.
00:28:51.000Which suggests to me an ulterior motive.
00:28:53.000You're painting yourselves into a corner.
00:28:54.000Democrats, you want to keep doing this?
00:28:55.000You want to keep on with the deplorable stuff?
00:28:57.000All you have to do is keep saying Trump is a racist and that his base is racist for supporting his policies, not just his rhetoric.
00:29:42.000It's our fifth episode of the conversation featuring Andrew Klavan, moderated by host Alicia Krauss.
00:29:46.000Subscribe today to be part of the conversation.
00:29:48.000You can ask Drew live questions, which you will answer for everyone to hear.
00:29:51.000Drew's conversation streams live on the Daily Wire Facebook page and the Daily Wire YouTube channel.
00:29:56.000It's free for everyone to watch, but only subscribers can ask the questions.
00:29:59.000To ask questions as a subscriber, log in to our website, dailywire.com, head over to the conversation page, watch the live stream after that, just start typing into that Daily Wire chat box, and then Alicia will funnel those questions to Drew and he'll answer them for an entire hour.
00:30:11.000Once again, subscribe and get your questions answered.
00:30:29.000So check that out for $99 a year, which is cheaper than the monthly subscription.
00:30:33.000Or later, you just want to listen to the rest of the show, go over to iTunes, SoundCloud, YouTube.
00:30:36.000Please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
00:30:38.000We have lots of great videos that come out there on a regular basis.
00:30:40.000We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast in the nation.
00:30:48.000Alrighty, so it's not just Democrats painting themselves into a corner.
00:30:51.000Because Trump has become the prism through which everyone views politics, I think things have gotten skewed.
00:30:56.000We're basically living in a funhouse mirror.
00:30:58.000We're looking at a funhouse mirror, and none of it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.
00:31:02.000So Democrats, on the one hand, are seeing in everyone who supports Trump's policy a mirror of Trump.
00:31:09.000Everyone who supports Trump's policies on immigration, for example,
00:31:13.000All of those people must be the tiny little Trump racist dolls, like these little bobbleheads that have funny hair.
00:31:20.000That's how the left sees everybody on the right.
00:31:22.000And the right, meanwhile, sees themselves as forced to defend everything that Trump says because they feel like it's an attack on them.
00:31:29.000They feel like if Trump is our shield, then we must be his sword.
00:31:34.000If Trump is the guy who's taking all the slings and arrows, it's our job to go out there and defend everything that Trump says.
00:31:39.000I know there are people who believe this because they're in our office.
00:31:42.000I have this conversation pretty much every day with Andrew Klavan and Michael Mullins, both of whom have suggested that I'm not doing enough to fight back against the slurs against President Trump.
00:31:50.000What I say is, when I think it's a slur, I'll fight back against it.
00:31:54.000Pretty strong on suggesting there are two possibilities on the bleed poll comments, for example.
00:31:58.000But when he does something that I think is wrong and or stupid, I'm going to call it out because my job is not to defend Trump.
00:32:04.000My job is to defend conservative principles, and that includes defending conservative principles and the future victory of those principles.
00:32:10.000From President Trump, if Trump toxifies himself, right?
00:32:12.000What I'm scared of, and I think with good reason when you look at the polls, is the possibility that I like a lot of Trump's policies, and that if Trump's toxicity smears those policies, Republicans lose the House in 2018, they lose the Senate in 2020, and they lose the White House in 2020, and then you have an era of Democratic dominance brought about because nobody on our side had the guts to say, I like a lot of what Trump is doing, but I don't like a lot of what Trump is saying, and I think it's polarizing and problematic.
00:32:35.000That's, I think, the fundamental disconnect here.
00:32:38.000And this is where I think Republicans are painting themselves into a corner, too.
00:32:40.000So if Democrats have painted themselves into a corner by alienating 40 to 45 percent of the country by suggesting that if you agree with Trump's policies, then you are therefore a racist, just like Trump's a racist.
00:32:50.000If that's the Democratic problem, and they've alienated a huge percentage of the population, the problem on the right is that by defending everything Trump says, you're also alienating a huge percentage of the population.
00:33:00.000What I've said is that Trump deserves, and every president deserves, the ability of the commentariat to judge each individual action or comment on its own merit.
00:33:12.000Obviously, we take character into account.
00:33:14.000I said during the last administration, I thought the Obama administration was a Jew-hating administration, at least in terms of their policies toward Israel.
00:33:21.000And that's very much like the left suggesting that Trump is a racist.
00:33:24.000The difference is that if somebody on the right, I think, is a Jew-hating person, like Pat Buchanan, then I will say so and have said so for many, many years.
00:33:31.000People on the left won't do that with regard to their own.
00:33:33.000But with regard to President Trump and labeling him a racist, you can take your view of Trump and his racism and separate that off from a particular policy and determine whether the policy is motivated by animus or whether a lot of people who support the policy are not motivated by animus.
00:33:48.000That's, I think, my critique for people on the left.
00:33:50.000It's also my critique for people on the right.
00:33:52.000Just because Trump says something doesn't mean that we have to defend it.
00:33:55.000In fact, sometimes it's better for Trump if you're trying to convince him to stop doing these things.
00:34:00.000If you want Trump to do better, then what you would really like from President Trump is to continue with the policies that you like, but not to have to fight a week-long battle over whether he means that people from Haiti should not be allowed to immigrate to the country because, quote-unquote, all Haitians have AIDS.
00:34:14.000It's not a battle that you want to fight.
00:34:15.000Because, let's be real, I've spent my entire career fighting for a conservatism that believes in certain principles about immigration, merit-based immigration, that have nothing to do with those sorts of nasty comments, or alleged nasty comments.
00:34:27.000And here's the trap Republicans fall into.
00:34:30.000They think that every defense of Trump is a defense of Trump's policies.
00:34:51.000Again, I mentioned last week that the folks in the media had no problem bleeping out President Obama or Joe Biden.
00:34:57.000There was another instance, by the way, that came to mind.
00:34:59.000There was a story by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic talking about Barack Obama's comments about Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Obama called Netanyahu in that article a chicken bleep.
00:35:10.000And it's the exact same bleep as the bleephole, right?
00:35:19.000Did they report it just by saying, like, you know, if you say that about an ally of the United States, the prime minister of an ally of the United States, then maybe that's newsworthy, so we'll just say it 195 times in a day as CNN did.
00:35:32.000Look, they just want to drop the idea that Trump is vulgar in a way that Obama is not.
00:35:35.000I don't think that that's actually true, at least when it comes to the language used.
00:35:39.000Anyway, the Mooch is on MSNBC, and Katie Turd grills him, and you'll see the Mooch doesn't have a lot of really good defenses.
00:35:45.000He did say it, according to multiple people, and Lindsey Graham, who's a Republican and on his side a lot, has not denied it.
00:35:51.000Let's stipulate for this conversation that he said it, so we don't have to argue about whether he said it or not.
00:35:56.000I don't know if he said it, but just for this conversation, because I want to make a broader point.
00:36:00.000If you are in a private conversation in the White House with a group of people that you're trying to get a deal done, and you are prone to New York-style rhetorical flourishes, which unfortunately I also happen to be prone to.
00:36:50.000If I have to explain everything the president is saying, if I have to be the Trump translator, if it's my job to be his magical Star Trek-like translator where suddenly I understand alien languages,
00:36:59.000Then he's not doing his job correctly.
00:37:01.000Especially for a guy who's supposed to be this grand communicator and great brander.
00:37:07.000And when you do this, it allows the Democrats to play this game where they get to label you a racist, particularly if you're a person in a position of prominence or power.
00:37:16.000And that does alienate, again, another group.
00:37:18.000So I think there are two groups in America, and they're alienating each other.
00:37:21.000And the question is, who's alienating more people in the middle?
00:37:24.000And I think that that's an open question.
00:37:26.000One of these things can be solved very easily.
00:37:28.000And in fact, solving one of these things sort of solves both of these things.
00:37:31.000If President Trump doesn't make controversial and silly comments, if he doesn't make comments that could be interpreted as racist, then Republicans don't have to defend him and Democrats don't have the opportunity to attack him or his base.
00:37:43.000So in the end, the president shouldn't say this stuff.
00:37:46.000But the various interpretations, by the right to defend everything and by the left to attack him and all of his supporters on policy, both of these things are deeply polarizing.
00:39:10.000To this idea that Trump is this delicate snowflake that we all have to protect from the ramifications of his own verbiage, that every time he says something we all have to rally around him and we must defend the leader, must defend the flag.
00:39:22.000Trump's perfectly capable of defending himself.
00:39:24.000I mean, this is why he won't get off Twitter, supposedly.
00:39:27.000It's because he's fully capable of protecting himself.
00:39:29.000And again, do I think this will do any long-term damage to Trump?
00:39:31.000I think you'd be a fool to believe that these comments will do any long-term damage to Trump.
00:39:37.000I mean, they hit him with a brick during the last election.
00:39:39.000They've been hitting him with bricks ever since.
00:39:41.000The Democrats haven't stopped talking about a Russia collusion scandal that has yet to materialize based on which he has supposedly stole the election with the help of Vladimir Putin.
00:39:50.000But all of that said, I'll tell you what can't take it.
00:39:55.000What cannot take it, and what I mean by it is critiques of racism and suggestions that you're bad people.
00:40:02.000The people who can't take it are not Trump.
00:40:04.000The people that are going to pay the price for that are people in the Republican Party.
00:40:29.000You can't have it both ways if you are a big Trump supporter, a MAGA, MAGA, MAGA 4D genius guy.
00:40:33.000You can't suggest that he's such a genius that he requires my help to help him out of these situations, and also that he dug himself this bleep hole, stuck himself in it, and now requires me to pull him out with a rope.
00:40:44.000Either he's such a genius that he put himself there knowing that it was a win for him, or he needs my help.
00:41:29.000If the entire Republican Party rushes to the defense of bad comments, that does have ramifications not only in the now, but down the line for how young people think of the Republican Party.
00:41:56.000Now, there may be some Trump supporters who see the entire political scene as a reflection of Trump, who think that the mooch is better for the Republican Party than Ben Carson in those two contrasting clips.
00:42:05.000I would argue ultimately the opposite, that what you need are more people doing what Ben Carson does, saying, I like the policy, I don't always like what's being said, and fewer people doing what the mooch did there, which is, you know, I know it's hard, he just talks like a New Yorker, and even if it sounds super bad, that means that I just have to defend it all the more.
00:42:21.000Again, things that are defensible are worth defending, and I'll do that.
00:42:25.000But I think it's a mistake for everybody on the right to paint themselves into a corner by defending everything Trump does on the basis that Trump did it.
00:42:31.000Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.
00:42:34.000So, let's jump right into things I like.
00:42:36.000So, over the weekend, it was indeed my birthday, and my wife and I went and had a delicious dinner.
00:43:02.000It's a different Churchill than I think most people see.
00:43:04.000A lot of people are upset with it because it kind of portrays Churchill as sort of a colorful bumbler and fumbler a little bit, whereas Churchill actually was a genius.
00:43:13.000I mean, if you read anything that Churchill ever wrote, the man was a genius, no question.
00:43:18.000A lot of people on the right who love Winston Churchill and think of Winston Churchill as the constant in a world of political vacillations.
00:43:26.000The fact is that if you had to sort of liken Churchill to any personality on the American scene, Churchill was actually, I would say, less like Ronald Reagan and more like John McCain.
00:43:37.000The reason I say that is because Churchill started off in the conservative party, then he moved to the liberal party, then he moved back to the conservative party.
00:43:43.000He'd been responsible for a number of disasters, including Gallipoli, which comes up in the movie.
00:43:48.000During World War I, he wanted to do an operation through Turkey to try and defeat the Germans by creating another front.
00:43:55.000By going through Turkey, it ended with the death of 25,000 British soldiers in Gallipoli.
00:44:15.000Once Churchill took over, there was very little consideration of actual negotiation with the Hun, as he liked to call them.
00:44:20.000Very little talk of negotiation with Adolf Hitler.
00:44:23.000From May 24th to May 28th of 1940, there was some talk of negotiation, but it ended by the time June 4th came around, by the time Dunkirk was essentially launched.
00:44:34.000And the idea that Churchill himself was divided on this, like he had any moral considerations about whether to negotiate with the Germans, is largely exaggerated.
00:44:43.000There's also one scene in here that is pure Hollywood cheese.
00:44:46.000The suggestion being that Churchill sort of had to have his spine reinforced by the British people.
00:44:51.000The British people were like, oh, let's fight the Germans.
00:46:24.000And the truth is that Churchill was kind of a hammy character.
00:46:27.000Like, the idea that Churchill was this kind of stalwart, non-camera-friendly guy.
00:46:31.000The guy wanted to be prime minister, and they say this in the movie, and it's right, since The Cradle.
00:46:35.000I mean, he thought his father should have been prime minister.
00:46:38.000His father obviously ended up having mental illness.
00:46:41.000A lot of people thought it was because of syphilis.
00:46:43.000But he spends his entire life trying to live up to his dad.
00:46:45.000And there's a lot to that with regard to Churchill.
00:46:49.000But one of the things that's really cool about this, by the way, is that if you ever go to London, you can actually go to the Churchill Museum.
00:46:54.000And when you go to the Churchill Museum, they take you down into the war bunkers.
00:46:57.000So, my wife and I have been there, so it's kind of neat to see a movie that's basically made in a replica of the bunkers.
00:47:04.000The two people who get a little bit of a raw deal in this movie are Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, who is the foreign secretary.
00:47:10.000But the main points, I think, are... I think it's a very good movie.
00:48:15.000And then he denied that there is any connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, which is just historically inaccurate and asinine.
00:48:22.000Jewish connection to the land of Israel predates Islam, like the foundation of Islam, by a solid thousand and a half years.
00:48:29.000But he said, quote, they wanted to bring Jews here from Europe to maintain European interests in the region.
00:48:33.000They asked Holland, which had the largest navy in the world, to transfer the Jews.
00:48:37.000Israel is a colonialist project that had nothing to do with the Jews.
00:48:40.000OK, these are Israel's peace partners?
00:48:42.000OK, don't tell me that Israel is intransigent and won't make concessions to people who refuse to acknowledge any Jewish claim to Israel at all, suggest that Trump's house should basically be destroyed, and then threaten Nikki Haley.
00:49:17.000The group says its membership is open to everyone, but leaders must affirm a statement of faith that rejects homosexuality.
00:49:23.000The university says it respects the rights of students, faculty, and staff to practice religion, but does not tolerate discrimination of any kind, so they're trying to shut down the group.
00:49:30.000This demonstrates, full scale, once again, that the tolerance of the left does not extend to people who do not agree with the left.
00:49:36.000Imagine if this were a Muslim group and they said, listen, we're not going to allow anybody to take a leadership position in our Muslim group who doesn't profess allegiance to Allah.
00:49:45.000Do you think that the University of Iowa would shut them down?
00:49:53.000This is anti-Christian discrimination pretty clearly and openly and if the government rules against the student group and suggests that the university gets to make the rules for the student group on the basis of
00:50:04.000You know, their anti-discrimination policy, that anti-discrimination policy trumps right to association and freedom of religion, then we really have reached the end of the road for both freedom of association and freedom of religion in the United States.
00:50:14.000And that seems to be the direction, unfortunately, that everything is moving.
00:50:17.000All right, well, we'll be back here tomorrow.
00:50:19.000We'll have a recap of everything that's happening on the Hill, where the Secretary of Homeland Security is being grilled by Democrats about bleep holes, because that's our new world.