A horrifying terrorist attack on Muslims in Christchurch shakes the world, as President Trump runs into Republican resistance over his national emergency, and we check in on the mailbag with Ben Shapiro on The Ben Shapiro Show. Ben Shapiro: The events in New Zealand are disturbing and horrifying in every possible way, and naturally there are folks on social media and in the media who will politicize all of this, because that is what we do, unfortunately, in our fast-moving media world. We ll talk about all of that, and much more, on this week's Daily Wire Presents: Ben Shapiro's Mailbag. Subscribe to the Daily Wire's new show on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your stuff, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to our other shows CRITIQUE, The Anthropology, The HYPEBEAST, and HYPETALKS. If you don't feel sick to your stomach after reading the coverage of all this, it's because you weren't paying close enough attention to the story, or weren't watching the story closely enough, and you're not paying attention to it enough. Go check them out right now! No reason to lose your hair when you can stop it from happening and get a FREE month of treatment today at Keeps. That's a hell of a deal for getting to keep your hair tomorrow! Keeps is only $10 to $35 a month for your first month for $10, plus you can get your very first month free of treatment for your hair! Go check it out! Today! -Ben Shapiro: -The Daily Wire What do you want? - Subscribe to Ben Shapiro s Mailbag? by clicking here Ben: The Daily Wire s first episode of the show on the Ben Shapiro Mailbag Subscribe and review the show! Ben: What would you like to see Ben Shapiro do in the future? Ben s next episode on his next episode? Subscribe on Anchor.fm/Ben Shapiro's first episode on the show? What's a problem you ve got a problem? . Leave a question for Ben Shapiro? or a rant about something you ve seen him talk about on The Weekly Mailbag or a question you dmccart or a story you d like him to talk about? Or a question he d like to have him answer on the next time he s listening to Ben's latest podcast?
00:00:00.000A horrifying terrorist attack on Muslims in Christchurch shakes the world, President Trump runs into Republican resistance over his national emergency, and we check the mailbag.
00:00:15.000The events in New Zealand are disturbing and horrifying in every possible way.
00:00:18.000Naturally, there are folks on Twitter and in the media who will politicize all of this because that is what we do, unfortunately, in our fast-moving media world.
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00:01:46.000Let's start with obviously stomach-churning, horrifying, evil, white supremacist terror attack on mosques in New Zealand.
00:01:55.000If you didn't lose sleep last night, it's because you weren't following the story closely enough.
00:02:01.000If you don't feel sick to your stomach after reading the coverage of all of this, after reading about the evil of the participants in this, then legitimately you're not paying close enough attention to the story.
00:02:12.000It is utterly horrifying in every conceivable way.
00:02:16.000New York Times reporting 49 people were killed 49 people were killed in shootings at two mosques in Central Christchurch New Zealand on Friday in a terrorist attack the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as extraordinary and unprecedented act Obviously, this was a white supremacist terror attack that was driven at Islamic centers.
00:02:38.000Officials said one man in his late 20s had been charged with murder, that two explosive devices were found attached to a vehicle that they had stopped.
00:02:45.000A Muslim leader in New Zealand said the attack was especially shocking.
00:02:47.000It took place around Friday prayer, so it was coordinated to be when the mosques were most full.
00:02:52.000A gunman streamed a live video of the attack on Facebook.
00:02:55.000He appeared to have posted a manifesto online.
00:03:13.000We're also not going to read the terrorist manifesto today.
00:03:16.000We're not going to give credence to his thoughts.
00:03:18.000We will mention his politics only to the extent that it is necessary to discuss the overarching political issues that affect the world and affect our nation.
00:03:26.000But we are not going to quote his manifesto.
00:03:29.000We are not going to go out of our way to lend any sort of support or credence to not only his manifesto, but to the notion that his manifesto should be used as a guidebook for others.
00:03:39.000What these folks want, what evil terrorists want is attention.
00:03:42.000That's why they commit terrorist attacks.
00:03:44.000That's why this guy live streamed a video of his attack on Facebook.
00:03:47.000And it shows you that in our two connected world, we've got a real problem.
00:03:51.000Because if you are seeking fame, if you are seeking notoriety, then all you have to do is commit an act of evil with a camera in your hand.
00:03:58.000We've seen this over and over and over again now.
00:04:16.000And there's also this sense of ersatz community that is created for white supremacists online who are able, because of the internet, to find people who think like them in the dark niches of Western society and non-Western society, able to find...
00:04:30.000These dark niches of people who think like them and who cheer when this sort of stuff happens and who act performatively for the sake of others.
00:04:38.000You see this when it comes to a lot of bleep posting online, the sort of performative nature of harassing people, bothering people, annoying people.
00:04:47.000But, and that's, you know, that's an aspect of free speech.
00:04:50.000It's not something I like, but it's an aspect of free speech that we all have to just deal with.
00:04:53.000When that bleeds over into the real world, where performance becomes violence, and where people are performing acts of vile cruelty and evil in order to receive the cheers of others, we have to wonder whether our connected universe is a little bit too connected.
00:05:08.000Because the truth is, it's not real connection.
00:05:10.000Real connection is the connection that we forge with each other when we are offline.
00:05:14.000How many of your best friends are people that you meet online and never meet in person?
00:05:18.000How many of the people that you actually connect with are people that you are just talking to in a chat room or on a Reddit board?
00:05:27.000Most of the deep connections in your life are the people who you meet.
00:05:30.000And because we don't spend enough time out in the world being with other people, it allows us to other other people.
00:05:37.000It allows us to treat other people as though they are foreign to us, as though they are monsters, as though they are to be clubbed or destroyed in some way.
00:05:47.000Because The reality is when we treat each other face-to-face, when we see each other face-to-face, it is exorbitantly rare in good societies, in decent societies, that we treat each other badly when we treat each other face-to-face.
00:05:58.000And that's why something like this is so shocking, when the sort of vile underbelly of the internet brews up into the real world and ends with deadly consequences.
00:07:04.000There is no place in New Zealand for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence, which it is clear this act was.
00:07:14.000For now my thoughts and I'm sure the thoughts of all New Zealanders with those who have been affected and also with their families.
00:07:22.000My thoughts also to those in Christchurch who are still dealing with an unfolding situation.
00:07:28.000Now we'll treat the media response to all of this in just a second after we bring you the information because the media response has been in many cases irresponsible over the top Attempting to cast blame as a first resort.
00:07:43.000Politicians, particularly one particularly foolish politician who's gotten an inordinate amount of attention tweeting out ridiculous things.
00:07:51.000First, let me give you the rest of the information.
00:07:52.000Shots were fired at Al Noor Mosque on Deans Avenue in the center of the city and at Linwood Mosque about three miles away, the police said.
00:07:58.000The country's police commissioner, Mike Bush, said in an evening news conference that 41 people had been killed at Al-Noor Mosque and seven at Linwood Mosque and another victim had died at Christchurch Hospital.
00:08:07.000David Meats, the chief executive of the Canterbury District Health Board, said that 48 people, including young children, were being treated for injuries at the hospital.
00:08:14.000He said the injuries included gunshot wounds and ranged from critical to minor.
00:08:18.000The International Committee of the Red Cross created a page for reporting the names of people who are missing or accounted for.
00:08:22.000The police said that four people, Including three men and one woman had been taken into custody.
00:08:27.000Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia said that one of them was Australian.
00:08:31.000Mr. Bush said that a man in his late twenties had been charged with murder and would appear in Christchurch court on Saturday morning.
00:08:36.000A number of firearms were recovered from the scenes of the shootings, he said.
00:08:40.000By the way, written on the firearms were the names of other mass murderers who had particularly targeted mosques.
00:08:45.000Of the three others who were detained, the police commissioner said that one might have had nothing to do with the attack, and the police were working to determine how the other two might have been involved.
00:08:53.000None of those detained were on security watch lists.
00:08:56.000Two explosive devices were found on one vehicle, Mr. Bush said.
00:08:59.000Adding that the police had diffused one and were in the process of diffusing the other.
00:09:02.000Mr. Bush had urged people not to go to mosques anywhere in New Zealand on Friday.
00:09:06.000He also urged mosques nationally to close your doors until you hear from us again, which is just horrifying.
00:09:12.000Shutting down religious institutions because evil people are attempting to kill people at religious institutions is just insane.
00:09:40.000And when I see somebody who's chosen to wear a hijab, I mean, it's one of the reasons I was in favor of the Congress changing its rules to allow Ilhan Omar, who I think is terrible for a lot of other reasons, but for this, I think that it's great.
00:09:53.000Congress changing its rules to allow Ilhan Omar to cover her head on the floor of the Congress if she chooses to do so, that's a wonderful thing.
00:10:01.000Because when you see other people who are attempting to reach out to something larger than themselves, people who are attempting to recognize that they are subject to a morality above themselves, that's a good thing.
00:10:13.000And for people to despise that and try and murder people because of that is such an act of tremendous, tremendous evil.
00:10:20.000There's a 17 minute video posted to Facebook showing part of the attack.
00:10:23.000Facebook didn't see it in time, so they didn't take it down in time.
00:10:25.000The clip, which may have been taken from a helmet camera worn by a gunman, begins behind the wheel of a car.
00:10:30.000The man, whose face can occasionally be seen in the rearview mirror, drives through the streets of Christchurch before pulling up to the Al-Noor Mosque beside the sprawling Haigley Park.
00:10:37.000He approaches the mosque on foot, his weapon visible, and begins shooting at people at the entrance.
00:10:41.000What follows is a harrowing nearly two minutes of his firing on worshippers.
00:10:45.000At one point, the gunman exits the mosque and fires in both directions down the sidewalk before returning to his car for another gun, which, like the others, was inscribed with numbers, symbols, or messages.
00:10:54.000When he re-enters the mosque, he shoots at several bodies at close range.
00:11:00.000People should absolutely not watch it or give it coverage.
00:11:04.000He also posted a white nationalist manifesto on Twitter and 8chan, and people have of course been perusing this to see if they can cast aspersions at American political figures.
00:11:13.000The 8chan post included a link to the gunman's Facebook page where he said he would broadcast the live video of the attack.
00:11:21.000In the middle of this evil video, Felix Kjellberg, who is PewDiePie, a YouTube celebrity, I've been on his meme review, he distanced himself from the attacks because he's not responsible for the attacks.
00:11:32.000And here's where the media start to lose it.
00:11:33.000The media start suggesting that because Kjellberg was mentioned by this guy, somehow he is responsible for the attacks.
00:11:40.000No, there is a sick online meme world where people make references to other people who are online in order to gain attention, or in order to polarize.
00:11:50.000People who don't understand anything about meme world take everything that the folks who are doing in these chat rooms, these threads, they take all of that seriously.
00:12:01.000Not only should all of it not be taken seriously, some of it is directly an attempt to generate headlines.
00:12:06.000Some of it is directly an attempt to implicate people who are not responsible for things.
00:12:11.000You've seen Candace Owens' name mentioned in this person's manifesto.
00:12:15.000Candace Owens has nothing to do with this guy, and it's actually pretty obvious from the manifesto itself that he is naming Candace Owens specifically to cause political rifts.
00:12:22.000The one thing that is clear from this white nationalist manifesto that this piece of human wrote, the one thing that is that is absolutely clear from that is that he wanted to drive political division.
00:12:31.000He was seeking to drive political division in the West that would break down along racial racial lines.
00:12:36.000And then he could claim that he had started a race war.
00:14:22.000You don't get to attribute violence to people unless they are openly calling for violence.
00:14:26.000If they are openly calling for violence, that's a violation of the First Amendment, and those posts should not be available anywhere.
00:14:32.000The fact that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, the fact that they've been looking to take down political posts, political posts they don't like, as opposed to targeting actual posts that inflame violence, that are directly attempting to inflame violence, is a blot on the record of these tech companies.
00:14:48.000The 17-minute video apparently could be found on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram more than an hour after being posted.
00:14:55.000In order to evade detection, people were cropping the video or posting the text of the manifesto as an image, both of which are techniques used to evade automated systems that find and delete the content.
00:15:07.000Facebook has already invested enormous amounts of resources.
00:15:10.000They can't be perfect here, of course, and especially when it comes from an account that they weren't actively following.
00:15:16.000Still, the tech companies need to focus a little more, if they can, on cracking down on incipient violence and a little bit less on the politics that they particularly do not like.
00:16:08.000When you look at at manifestos like this, first of all, it is not coherent other than a generalized hatred for people who are not of white identity.
00:16:16.000Second of all, the manifesto itself is memery.
00:16:20.000It is designed in order to heighten conflict.
00:16:23.000It is designed to call out certain people, to get them centered in the media.
00:16:29.000It is not designed as an active, coherent call to arms.
00:16:34.000But the media covering it that way are doing so for political purposes.
00:16:37.000There are a lot of things that are said in here.
00:16:38.000The guy calls himself an eco-anarchist, or an eco-fascist is what he called himself.
00:16:42.000They're not quoting that part because it doesn't meet their narrative.
00:16:46.000The fact is that you shouldn't be looking at this guy as anything other than an evil white supremacist because that's the overarching message of what he did, but instead what we're trying to do is now attribute his actions to others.
00:16:57.000Now, there are people who have reacted badly on both sides of the political aisle.
00:17:01.000I hesitate even to label Senator Fraser Anning, a member of the Australian party, as a right-winger, given this kind of rhetoric.
00:17:10.000But he tweeted out one of the worst statements I have ever seen.
00:17:15.000Quote, Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?
00:17:33.000I mean, this guy has a long record of this sort of thing.
00:17:38.000The reason people are turning to the rhetoric question is because they can't turn to the gun control question.
00:17:42.000The reason they can't turn to the gun control question is because New Zealand law is some of the most heavily gun-controlled on planet Earth.
00:17:49.000Murders are rare in New Zealand, reports the New York Times.
00:17:52.000There were 35 murders countrywide in 2017.
00:17:55.000Since 2007, gun homicides have been in the single digits every year except 2009, but there are plenty of guns.
00:18:01.000There were 1.2 million registered firearms in the country of 4.6 million people in 2017, which just goes to show you that high levels of gun ownership don't necessarily mean high levels of gun violence.
00:18:12.000New Zealand law allows any person aged 16 or older with an entry-level firearm license to keep any number of common rifles and shotguns.
00:18:19.000Most guns can be purchased without being tracked by law enforcement officials.
00:18:24.000With that said, there are still some very heavy gun control regulations in New Zealand.
00:18:29.000Virtually every person who owns a firearm has to be registered.
00:18:34.000The media is trying to turn this into a gun control debate, but the fact is that compared to the United States, their gun control is pretty serious.
00:18:45.000So potential gun owners in New Zealand have to pass a police background check, for example, The gun laws in Australia were tightened following a 1996 mass shooting in which 35 people were killed by a lone gunman in Tasmania.
00:18:56.000Within two weeks, Australian lawmakers banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns and introduced tighter laws governing ownership of other weapons.
00:19:04.000New Zealand has some of these laws on the books, and of course they have an incredibly low murder rate.
00:19:09.000So this is really not about gun control.
00:19:11.000Nonetheless, what you're seeing from some people is a call for gun control.
00:19:15.000You're also seeing people trot out their slogans at the wrong time.
00:19:18.000So one of the big things that happens in the United States is whenever there is a massacre of some sort, people immediately say that their thoughts and prayers are with the folks who were hurt, which is a way of expressing empathy.
00:19:28.000Aren't we told that in politics and in life, sympathy and empathy are good things?
00:19:32.000And if I say that I'm praying for people who just lost loved ones, that that is my expression of care for them?
00:19:38.000And yet, it has become a thing in the United States that if you say thoughts and prayers, what that really is, is a way of you avoiding the harder discussions about policy and rhetoric.
00:19:49.000This was a massacre carried out at a mosque, where people were legitimately praying because they wanted to be in consonance with something higher than themselves.
00:19:55.000That did not stop Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, very fresh and very face, from tweeting out, quote, At first, I thought of saying, imagine being told your house of faith isn't safe anymore.
00:20:04.000But I couldn't say imagine because of Charleston, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs.
00:20:08.000What good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pews safe?
00:20:13.000What the hell does she even mean by that?
00:20:16.000These were Muslims, religious Muslims, praying to Allah.
00:20:54.000Thoughts and prayers is a reference to the NRA's phrase used to deflect conversation away from policy change during tragedies.
00:21:01.000Not directed to the Prime Minister Ardern, who I greatly admire.
00:21:06.000Well, no, thoughts and prayers is not an NRA phrase.
00:21:09.000Thoughts and prayers is a phrase that is used by decent people all around the world for legitimately centuries.
00:21:16.000To suggest that thoughts and prayers is just a way to shirk responsibility for a gun control debate that you feel like having at this particular time, the blood's still on the pavement.
00:21:28.000But of course the whole thing is horrifying, and the reaction is horrifying.
00:21:30.000The truth is, every human being of decency is united on this.
00:21:36.000Everybody believes that this human piece of excrement should pay whatever is the ultimate price in New Zealand, and so should anybody who is associated with this act of absolutely evil terror.
00:21:46.000Everyone agrees on this stuff, and people who are trying to generate false division based on the fact that they don't like Trump, or they don't like guns, or they don't like Environmentalism, whoever is trying to turn this into a political thing today, other than condemning the ideology of the terrorist.
00:22:00.000OK, the ideology of the terrorist is a white supremacist ideology.
00:22:04.000It is fully evil to suggest that if a Muslim lives in your neighborhood, that Muslim deserves to die because they are a threat to your white majority.
00:22:26.000And anybody who is suggesting today that white supremacism doesn't have victims is, of course, being ignorant of the reality of the modern world.
00:22:51.000Typical mainline conservatives do not believe this stuff.
00:22:55.000They forcibly fight back against this stuff.
00:22:59.000There's a reason that the same white supremacists on 4chan are not big fans of a lot of conservatives.
00:23:07.000I mean, again, this guy's manifesto itself said that he was not a conservative and didn't like conservatism because he felt it hadn't conserved.
00:23:14.000The fact is, White supremacy is indeed evil.
00:23:16.000We should all be front and forward in condemning the tribal politics of race.
00:23:34.000But it does nothing but tear apart a civilization that is united on acts of evil like this sort of stuff.
00:23:40.000Alrighty, in just a second we'll turn to President Trump's national emergency declaration.
00:23:44.000First, let's talk about life insurance.
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00:25:50.000Let's move on to President Trump and his emergency declaration.
00:25:54.000So, the Senate voted yesterday to reject President Trump's emergency declaration.
00:25:58.000Immediately, Trump tweeted, VITA, all capital letters, the Senate's resolution was passed 59 to 41 to overturn his national emergency declaration.
00:26:08.000Them saying, we didn't delegate you this kind of power and you are not allowed to simply overrule us by declaring a national emergency.
00:26:14.000And it does show that the national emergency power is to a certain extent being abused because the fact is that the National Emergency Act was designed to allow the president to act in the absence of congressional opinion making or weighing in.
00:26:27.000The reason to declare a national emergency is you don't actually have time to go to Congress for the appropriations.
00:26:32.000You just declare a national emergency.
00:26:33.000It was the first time That, I think, has ever happened, where Congress has explicitly rejected a national emergency declaration from a president.
00:26:45.000And then he declared a national emergency.
00:26:47.000That is a violation of the constitutional order.
00:26:49.000That is not how the Constitution is supposed to work.
00:26:52.000President Trump said he was going to veto this.
00:26:53.000He said, And in fact, you saw a bunch of Republicans who switched their position on this simply because President Trump does have a massive amount of support.
00:27:21.000The fact is that a bunch of senators flipped on this, most prominently Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
00:27:26.000He had said earlier, we absolutely have a crisis at the border, but as a constitutional conservative, I don't want a future Democratic president unilaterally rewriting gun laws or climate policy.
00:27:35.000If we get used to presidents just declaring an emergency any time they can't get what they want from Congress, it will be almost impossible to go back to a constitutional system of checks and balances.
00:27:44.000Over the past decades, the legislative branch has given away too much power, and the executive branch has taken too much power.
00:27:50.000That seems like a pretty good predicate for voting against the National Emergency Declaration.
00:27:54.000And then he voted in favor of the National Emergency Declaration.
00:27:58.000He said the reason he did so is because he and Mike Lee had put forward a bill that would have curbed, generally, the power to declare a national emergency.
00:28:06.000And that bill had not been agreed to by the president.
00:28:11.000Well then why are you voting with him on this national emergency that still doesn't answer the question?
00:28:15.000The fact is this national emergency, the one being declared right now, is not in fact legally a national emergency.
00:28:21.000It is a national emergency in the common parlance.
00:28:23.000It is something that the Congress ought to do something about.
00:28:26.000The president doesn't get to overstep his boundaries just because he's doing something you like.
00:28:30.000The measure of a principle is whether if the violation of the principle accomplishes something that you want, you are for it or against it.
00:28:38.000So if you have a principle, And then it turns out that tossing out the principle in order to get something done appeals to you.
00:28:44.000So you toss out the principle, then you really didn't have the principle to begin with.
00:28:50.000It's not just Senator Sasse who flipped on this sort of thing.
00:28:53.000Senator Tom Tillis wrote a full op-ed saying that he was not in favor of the National Emergency Declaration.
00:28:58.000He announced he would vote to terminate the National Emergency Declaration.
00:29:01.000And then he changed his mind and voted against terminating the National Emergency Declaration.
00:29:05.000And listen, I understand that there is severe pressure on these senators from people who are sitting home and who are thinking, OK, well, all this really comes down to is do you want to protect the border or not?
00:29:16.000But that is a failure to educate your own voters, which is part of the job.
00:29:20.000There's been this move in national politics toward, we will just appease whichever voters are in front of us.
00:29:26.000It's our job to give the voters what they want.
00:29:34.000It's to go back home and give people the hard messages.
00:29:37.000If you're not doing that, then you're not acting as a good representative.
00:29:40.000This is the difference between the sort of straight democratic representation model and the Burkean model of representation.
00:29:46.000Edmund Burke famously wrote that if you were a representative, Then it was not just your job to represent the temporary wishes of the public.
00:29:55.000It was your job to represent, to act as your own conscience.
00:29:59.000They elected you to use your own conscience.
00:30:01.000And if the people don't like it, then I suppose they can turn you out.
00:30:04.000But they should give you a solid listen.
00:30:13.000That is a lack of principle on the part of a lot of Republicans, including many Republicans with whom I generally agree.
00:30:20.000And I think there is a case to be made, and I think that you've heard Representative Dan Crenshaw make it, that if you really believe that it is legal for the President to declare a national emergency under current powers, then you vote in favor of this.
00:30:30.000But there are a bunch of people who said the President doesn't have those powers under the National Emergencies Act, and then they voted in favor of the President exercising powers he doesn't have.
00:30:50.000Democrats would go along with violations of the constitutional order.
00:30:53.000Which is why, again, I am not a Democrat.
00:30:56.000So, I guess you can continue to just go along with whatever the president wants if it mirrors your political preferences, but don't claim to be a constitutional conservative if you do.
00:31:05.000Okay, coming up, we're going to talk about Beto O'Rourke and we're going to jump into the mailbag.
00:31:10.000First, you're going to have to subscribe over at dailywire.com.
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00:33:18.000You knew that it was going to happen, that he was going to be criticized for being too privileged.
00:33:23.000I mentioned yesterday that it was astonishing to me that the media hadn't already jumped on this.
00:33:27.000The fact that Beto O'Rourke grew up exorbitantly wealthy and exorbitantly powerful in a fairly small town, and that he escaped a couple of misdemeanor transgressions, including a DWI, in which he apparently crossed the median lane, rammed into somebody, and then ran away.
00:33:42.000That he was able to spend most of his 20s running around the country in a crappy punk rock band with no blowback.
00:33:48.000And I was asking, why aren't Democrats pointing this out?
00:33:51.000I thought this is the party of inspiring personal stories and intersectionality and opposing white privilege and all of that.
00:33:57.000Well, all I had to do is wait 24 hours.
00:33:59.000Estiad Herndon is a columnist over at the New York Times.
00:34:02.000He writes, in Beto O'Rourke's announcement, his wife's silence stands out.
00:34:07.000Beto O'Rourke, the charismatic Texas Democrat and former member of the House of Representatives, announced his presidential campaign in a video on Thursday.
00:34:13.000The three-minute clip quickly racked up thousands of shares, with some viewers excited by the prospect of his out-of-nowhere political rise.
00:34:19.000But others were put off by how his campaign deployed an age-old trope in American political theater, the silent, supportive wife.
00:34:26.000Throughout the video, Mr. O'Rourke's wife, Amy, sat quietly by her husband's side, periodically grasping his hand as he outlined his campaign vision.
00:34:33.000And occasionally, she smiled and gazed.
00:34:39.000There are a bunch of tweets, people saying, I'm so sick of wives being forced to silently gaze.
00:34:43.000Okay, so my wife, who is in fact a doctor, does not follow politics supremely closely.
00:34:49.000When people have asked her if I would ever run for office, she said, God, I hope not.
00:34:53.000My wife doesn't like being in the public spotlight.
00:34:56.000If she were in some sort of campaign commercial, if I asked her, you know what, sweetheart, I want to show a kinder world to the face, would you be in a campaign commercial?
00:35:02.000You think she actually wants me to kick it to her so she can talk about tax policy?
00:35:06.000Or is it possible that she would be supporting my dream in the same way that I have supported her dreams?
00:35:12.000I mean, there are a lot of rips on Beto O'Rourke.
00:35:13.000I don't think this one is particularly fair.
00:35:16.000Nonetheless, he's getting hit for it because his wife is not speaking in his campaign video.
00:35:51.000Throughout the 1980s, Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush could be found next to their presidential husbands, often silently supporting them in big moments.
00:35:57.000More recently, buoyed by Hillary Clinton's active role in her husband's campaigns, many elected officials have leaned on their partners as high-profile surrogates.
00:36:05.000In the current presidential race, Jane Sanders, wife of Bernie Sanders of Vermont, enjoyed a prominent behind-the-scenes role and gave a speech at his initial campaign rally.
00:36:14.000Mr. O'Rourke's video, however, struck some observers as especially out of place in a presidential race in which more Democratic women are running for president than ever before.
00:36:22.000Among several of these women, the husbands are rarely seen.
00:36:33.000On his first day of campaigning, in a seemingly offhand comment, Mr. O'Rourke joked about his wife, saying she was raising their children, sometimes with my help.
00:36:40.000His comments elicited both laughter and derision.
00:36:44.000And then the following sentence is the best part.
00:36:46.000This is not the first time Mr. O'Rourke has been accused of appearing to revel in his advantages as a white male in an increasingly diverse Democratic Party.
00:37:02.000Have we created a world where the guy that I mock as a pseudo pothead who spends his days on the quad playing guitar for the Gullible women.
00:37:26.000That is Beto O'Rourke saying that his wife is a heroine and he is a person who is not doing his fair share.
00:37:32.000It's ridiculous to criticize him for that.
00:37:36.000But, this columnist for the New York Times says, as he announced his campaign, complete with a profile in Vanity Fair, in which he hinted he was born to run for president, detractors pointed out that prominent black Democrats who lost their 2018 campaigns, including Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida, are not running for president.
00:37:50.000Well, first of all, that's only for now.
00:37:52.000Both of them have said that they are considering it.
00:37:54.000For weeks before his presidential announcement, O'Rourke traveled across the country as he wrestled privately with whether to run and wrote musings on his Medium account.
00:38:01.000This drew jokes from several comedians and prominent social voices who compared his public Agonizing with the stereotypical tendency for men to refuse to commit to relationships, particularly romantic ones.
00:38:12.000Okay, that of course is absolutely true.
00:38:16.000Nonetheless, this sort of rip is amazing.
00:38:18.000By the way, you know what I just noticed?
00:38:27.000You get to the bottom and it reads like an opinion column.
00:38:28.000You get to the bottom and it says that there are a couple of reporters who helped with this column.
00:38:33.000It says, Megan Felling, Sergio Pencaja, and Anjali Singhvi contributed.
00:38:39.000Wow, just the bias of the New York Times is so strong that you can legitimately read one of their news pieces as though it's an op-ed and not notice it until you hit the end.
00:38:47.000But that just shows you where Beto is going to fall flat with a certain segment of the Democratic Party.
00:38:52.000It's the same place, by the way, that Joe Biden is going to fall flat.
00:38:57.000It's the same place that Joe Biden is going to fall flat with that intersectional base of the Democratic Party.
00:39:02.000Bernie Sanders can escape that because Bernie Sanders has that progressive base that is locked in.
00:39:07.000That's why I think people are overestimating Beto, not underestimating Beto at this point.
00:39:10.000I think people think that his charm offensive with the media will have some sort of significant impact in the primaries.
00:39:15.000I think that that stuff is going to wear off.
00:39:17.000It's going to wear real thin really quickly.
00:39:19.000Barack Obama had the capacity to carry both the intersectional core as well as the media's love.
00:39:28.000By the way, Beto is not doing a wonderful job on the campaign trail.
00:39:30.000He's going around making gaffes basically.
00:39:33.000Yesterday he did some sort of Instagram where he asked people for gas money because he's driving his minivan.
00:39:39.000But he just told us that we were all going to die thanks to climate change and here he is at a gas station asking for money.
00:39:45.000Hey everybody, we're in Wapaloa, Iowa.
00:39:47.000We started the day in Keokuk, we then went to Fort Madison, then Burlington, and we're going to stay on the problem for a very long time, but it takes your contributions to keep us out here.
00:39:57.000Let me show you, we've just filled up.
00:39:59.000So we've got 12 gallons in the Dodge Grand Caravan that cost us $28.53.
00:40:04.000Please pitch in, join everyone else who's helping to make this happen.
00:40:17.000One of the beautiful things about being a Democrat is you can actively ask for gas money as though you are Beto O'Rourke when he's 25 years old, not 45 years old.
00:40:25.000And people will think that this is a cool thing to do.
00:40:29.000Also, Beto suggested, of course, that the Green New Deal is just like Normandy.
00:40:32.000So at the same time he's asking for gas money, he's saying the Green New Deal is like Normandy.
00:40:36.000If you think of our leadership, those who preceded us, those who were on the beaches in Normandy, those who faced an existential threat to Western democracy and our way of life, they showed us the way.
00:40:47.000We can all come together, we can unite, we can marshal the resources, and we can convene the countries of the world around otherwise.
00:40:56.000Okay, so, if we're indispensable, also give me gas money.
00:41:04.000We're all gonna die in 12 years, also.
00:41:06.000Can I get in this minivan and spew some carbon emissions into the air?
00:41:11.000Okay, time for some mailbag because it is a Friday.
00:41:13.000Ryan says, Hi Ben, I'd be curious to know your perspective on the court's ruling that Remington can be sued in connection with the tragic Sandy Hook shooting.
00:41:22.000There is a court that ruled, for those who missed it, that Remington can be sued in court because the shooter in Sandy Hook used an AR-15 manufactured by Remington.
00:41:49.000If you want to sue the state for failing to do proper background checks, that's more understandable.
00:41:55.000But if you're going to sue Remington, that theory of products liability is a complete fail.
00:42:01.000Products liability, generally, there are only a couple of classes of products liability, and I'm trying to remember all the way back to law school, which was now 12 years ago.
00:42:08.000But thinking back to law school, there are only a couple of lines of product liability.
00:42:12.000There is design flaws, and then there's manufacturing flaws.
00:42:15.000Design flaws are that I designed a product that is designed Badly and is going to harm you because of its design and the other one is a manufacturing flaw There's something in the machine itself that is broken and that broke and that hurt you It's not a design flaw when the gun works exactly how it's supposed to work It is just being aimed by a complete evil piece of garbage at innocent people Because the gun was not designed for that purpose.
00:42:37.000This is like suing a knife manufacturer for a murder for OJ Simpson's alleged murder of his of his ex-wife Now, I don't see that happening.
00:42:53.000I think that what we've seen in the last ten years is basically ideological shifts within these parties.
00:42:59.000It's easier to take over an established party than it is to start a new party in the United States.
00:43:03.000The Libertarian Party proves that legitimately every presidential election cycle.
00:43:21.000No, I have not actually met Rabbi Shmuley.
00:43:23.000As far as the debate between atheists and theists, you know, I've done a couple of these.
00:43:30.000So I've had more discussions than debates.
00:43:32.000I've had discussions with Sam Harris a couple of times, once on his podcast, once on mine.
00:43:36.000I've had discussions with Michael Shermer, a friend of mine who happens to be the editor of Skeptic Magazine and is best described as sort of an agnostic slash atheist.
00:43:46.000The real question about the argument between atheism and theism is that I don't think Both sides actually understand each other.
00:43:53.000Mainly, I think atheists don't understand theists.
00:43:55.000I think that a lot of atheists seem to believe that if they argue against the Bible, that this is somehow an argument against theism itself.
00:44:10.000That if There is an order to nature that somehow this is a disproving of God's presence, or that if you are a believer in Darwinian evolution, that somehow this disproves God's presence because it looks like an order without a designer.
00:44:28.000All that theists believe is that there is a designed order to the universe, and that that order to the universe was created by an active mind.
00:44:38.000And it's not really a disprovable thesis.
00:44:41.000There are some people who have attempted to... And then you stack up evidence on both sides.
00:44:44.000You see which is more likely, which is less likely.
00:44:47.000So, I find these sorts of things interesting.
00:44:49.000What I do find is that for a lot of atheists, people with whom I speak, and I talk about this in my new book, The Right Side of History, a lot of atheists use religious premises for their own arguments.
00:44:57.000So a lot of atheists will assume that free will exists.
00:45:01.000A lot of atheists will assume that reason is something worth doting upon.
00:45:06.000But in an atheistic materialist universe, I don't see why reason is anything special.
00:45:10.000Reason is just a firing of neurons that is evolutionarily beneficial, presumably.
00:45:14.000So why should we value reason above, for example, force, if force is more evolutionarily beneficial?
00:45:19.000The attempt to build a morality on atheism is the real problem I have.
00:45:23.000There are lots of atheists who are wonderful people.
00:45:24.000I have lots of friends who are atheists.
00:45:26.000But building a morality on atheism, I think, is nearly impossible.
00:45:48.000Well, I've expressed a slight preference for Pete Buttigieg.
00:45:53.000I'm still trying to figure out exactly how he's pronounced.
00:45:54.000Pete Buttigieg, Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana mayor.
00:45:58.000Mainly because he seems like he is a little bit more considered than his Democratic colleagues.
00:46:02.000He'll throw out a proposal and then he'll say, and maybe it won't work.
00:46:05.000It's like, okay, I sort of appreciate that.
00:46:07.000I mean, he's just as radical as a lot of his friends, but he seems like a person who is slightly more open-minded.
00:46:13.000As far as people who I think would be the most damaging, anybody who polarizes along intersectional racial lines is going to be deeply damaging to the country.
00:46:20.000And obviously, open socialists like Bernie Sanders will be very damaging as well.
00:46:26.000There's a temptation to say Joe Biden, but I don't think that Joe Biden is actually the quote-unquote moderate that he purports to be.
00:46:32.000Whenever he's been in a position of actual power, he doesn't govern like a moderate and he doesn't speak like a moderate.
00:46:37.000He just pretends to be a moderate for purposes of elections.
00:46:56.000She's currently unemployed and claims she's too depressed to work.
00:46:58.000She often attributes my success to being lucky rather than decision-making, but she's near rock bottom and desperately wants to turn her life around.
00:47:04.000How do you convince someone that luck has nothing to do with success?
00:47:06.000And more importantly, how does someone come back from horrible decision-making?
00:47:09.000She's family to me, so I hope you can help.
00:47:11.000Well, the real question is, is she really ready to turn her life around?
00:47:15.000That really is the question, because the only person who's going to be able to turn her life around is her.
00:47:20.000If she ignores the advice, it's not going to help.
00:47:22.000If she insists on being depressed and blaming societal forces for her own mistakes, she's not going to fix her own life.
00:47:28.000If you take control and ownership of your own life, and you're ready to do that, and you're ready to take responsibility, and you're ready to take action, then you can make a practical plan with her.
00:47:36.000You can find out, for example, what sort of financial support does she need to make sure that her daughter is taken care of while she goes and finishes high school.
00:47:45.000You can make sure that there are people who are out there willing to grant her a helping hand.
00:47:48.000There are lots of charitable people out there.
00:47:51.000Lots of people give charity for specifically this reason.
00:47:53.000You can get her enmeshed in a social fabric.
00:47:55.000Find friends and family of yours to help her out.
00:47:59.000There are lots of people who are willing to help out.
00:48:02.000But first, she has to commit herself to actually changing her behavior and not blaming the situation around her.
00:48:08.000Like you, many people I grew up with dated with a purpose in mind.
00:48:11.000However, do you think a case can be made that looking only at the opposite gender for purposes of marriage could result in the genders never engaging on a friendly basis?
00:48:18.000Is dating only for marriage somewhat responsible for a disconnect between the genders?
00:48:22.000So much so that in traditional communities, they seem to be occupying two separate worlds.
00:48:27.000Yeah, I think this is a legitimate criticism.
00:48:29.000You know, I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community.
00:48:32.000There was a separate boys' school and a separate girls' school in our high school.
00:48:35.000I think that was a good thing, because I think the risks of sexual interplay between boys and girls in an unhealthy way in high school is extremely high.
00:48:44.000With that said, once I went to college, did I hang out with girls?
00:49:29.000Connor says, Hey Ben, I'm planning on starting a blog featuring my political commentary.
00:49:34.000Do you have any tips on how to gain an audience and a platform?
00:49:36.000Well, you know, I think that the great temptation, and I know this because I went through this at 17, the great temptation is to write stuff that is deliberately provocative to get attention.
00:49:47.000I think most of the stupid stuff that I feel like I've said in my career happened very early in my career when I was attempting to do just that.
00:49:55.000It means the path might be slightly longer, but it will also mean that you have less that you regret saying back when you were a young person publicly.
00:50:02.000When it comes to getting an audience and platform, the fact is that virtually every successful company is based on marketing.
00:50:08.000It means that you have to find somebody who's willing to invest a little bit of money into marketing on Facebook.
00:50:23.000JC says, Hey Ben, I'm somebody who did not finish college due to multiple reasons.
00:50:27.000I've always planned to go back for at least an associate's degree in business, but I recently found out my brother's college offers a degree in homemaking.
00:50:33.000If the cost is equal, and my goal is ultimately to be a stay-at-home mom, would the homemaking degree be a better option, or should I get the business degree in case I need one in the future?
00:50:56.000I'm not sure what the homemaking degree does for any of those things.
00:51:00.000But again, I don't know the specific degree program.
00:51:02.000As far as business, it does offer a credential that is very useful.
00:51:05.000It may offer a skillset, depending on the program.
00:51:07.000So I tend to lean toward the idea that you should check out the business program rather than the homemaking program, knowing nothing else other than the titles of the program, not the contents of the program.
00:51:57.000They're all talking about running away from it.
00:51:59.000George W. Bush was thrown under the bus as soon as humanly possible by future members of the party.
00:52:04.000In some ways that's appropriate because you are not those people and the easy intellectual temptation is to lump people in with former presidents of their own party.
00:52:12.000With that said, is that intellectually honest?
00:52:45.000There is a nine-year-old, a nine-year-old who was featured by the New York Times reading a book about climate change to the adults.
00:52:52.000I hate this stuff more than I can tell you.
00:52:56.000This notion that nine-year-olds have something deep to tell us about the world.
00:53:00.000Nine-year-olds are innocent, but they are not wise.
00:53:02.000Nine-year-olds are innocent, but they are not knowledgeable as a general rule.
00:53:05.000Why am I supposed to take the advice of a nine-year-old who I assume has not read any of the IPCC reports upon which he is basing his book about climate change while he lectures me about how he thinks we should balance the economic needs of six billion people with the need to lower carbon emissions so as to lower the climate by a grand total of three degrees Celsius over the next century.
00:53:24.000But nonetheless, the New York Times featured this on their homepage, a video of a nine-year-old boy reading a climate change book to the adults so as to shame us into agreeing with the prospects of the left.
00:53:56.000cities burned and temperatures soared you upped and left the Paris Accord you think this is a fun rhyme book?
00:54:03.000With your inaction the earth will cook I've had enough of empty vows, your plastic bags, your farting cows on a hot February day you barbecued and went to play but it's no time for celebration you totally screwed my generation if we don't protect all it's worth prepare to say goodbye earth Whoa, little frickin' Nostradamus over there.
00:54:57.000And New York Times, what in the world?
00:54:59.000I mean, I understand that the average op-ed columnist at the New York Times may have about the same level of rhetorical capacity as this nine-year-old boy, but that doesn't mean you should be pushing nine-year-olds and their poetry about global warming on your homepage.
00:55:24.000There's some video of what that looked like, actually.
00:55:28.000Now you should understand how terrifying that is.
00:55:29.000Those are rockets flying over the largest, most populous city in Israel.
00:55:35.000And then the Iron Dome shoots down those rockets that are shot by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
00:55:43.000Why Israel, why any state would be expected to just sit there and take it as a hostile terrorist power, shot missiles at their civilian centers, is beyond me.
00:55:52.000Yet, if Israel retaliates, undoubtedly they will be condemned, because that is the way that our media works.
00:57:44.000Democrats want to be the big tent, diverse party.
00:57:49.000They're more than willing to pose with Omar on magazine covers, but when she tried to talk about a truly difficult topic, which is her job as an elected official, and her life was in danger, they kind of threw her under the bus.
00:58:00.000Ilhan Omar went from being a Somalian refugee to a fearless congresswoman on the hill, and has demonstrated that she is willing to learn.