The Jussie Smollett hoax reaches its natural termination, President Trump's wall is still divisive, and Democrats celebrate losing jobs in New York City. All that and more on today's episode of The Ben Shapiro Show! Subscribe to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe on iTunes. Like, comment and share the podcast on whatever you're listening to. You can also join our FB group and join the conversation by using the hashtag when posting a new episode, and find me on Insta if you're looking for a new podcast episode to listen to on your favorite streaming platform, hit me up and let me know what you like and what you don't like about the new show. I'll be back next Monday with a brand spanking new episode of featuring special guest host, Ben Shapiro who will be covering the latest news and breaking it all down for you in a new segment called right here on the . Happy Friday, everyone! Ben Shapiro. -Ben Shapiro Subscribe, Like, Share, and Retweet! Subscribe and Share this with your fellow podcasting friends! If you like what you hear, share it on your social media, and share it with a friend, and spread the word to your friends and family about what's going on in your feed! - Ben Shapiro's new show! and the rest of his new book, "Ben Shapiro's New York Times bestselling book, coming out on Amazon Prime Day, coming out next Monday! is out! Thank you Ben Shapiro s new book out now! You'll get a copy of the book out in paperback edition of the new novel out in the next issue of the next week, "The White House Journalist's Guide to the White House? and much more! by Ben Shapiro is out on Tuesday, May 15th, coming soon, so don't miss it! -- CLICK HERE! Get all the details on that's coming out in May 5th and 6th, so stay tuned for the book, The White House is coming out soon! Thanks Ben Shapiro will be out in June, so keep up with the rest in the coming weeks! . . . Ben's new book is out soon, Ben's review of the latest in the new issue of The Daily Mail, The New York Sun, The Irish Times, The Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, and more!
00:00:00.000The Jussie Smollett hoax reaches its natural termination, President Trump's wall is still divisive, and Democrats celebrate losing jobs in New York City.
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00:01:42.000Alrighty, so over the weekend, The Jussie Smollett hoax turned out to have been dun dun dun a hoax.
00:01:49.000Everybody knew it was a hoax from the very beginning.
00:01:51.000Everybody with half a brain was incredulous about the story, which again made no sense.
00:01:56.000Jussie Smollett, an actor on Empire, claimed that he had received a bunch of threats and that then at two o'clock in the morning in Chicago, in the middle of a polar vortex, He went over to a subway to buy a sandwich, and on the way back, he was accosted by two gentlemen who were supposedly wearing MAGA hats.
00:02:11.000Some of the reports said they were wearing MAGA hats.
00:02:13.000And they wound a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him, and shouted, this is MAGA country.
00:02:19.000Again, remember, at 2 a.m., in the middle of Chicago, in the middle of a polar vortex, And they also shouted at him the N-word and the F-word and recognized him from Empire because that's huge with the Trump folks.
00:03:09.000If you were a smart person, the first thing you did was say, you know, this sounds a little fishy.
00:03:14.000Like, maybe it happened just the way he said it did, but it sounds a little fishy.
00:03:17.000Well, now it turns out it was not just a little fishy, it was the entire Mediterranean Sea fishy.
00:03:22.000According to CBS News, the two Nigerian brothers arrested in connection with the assault on Empire actor Jussie Smollett are no longer suspects in the attack.
00:03:31.000A source close to the investigation confirms to CBS News that the brothers told detectives that Smollett paid them to participate in the alleged attack on January 29th and that they purchased the rope, which was found around Smollett's neck, at a nearby hardware store.
00:03:45.000The source said detectives have evidence to corroborate the sale, something the men's attorney alluded to on Friday night.
00:03:51.000New evidence that was brought to their attention.
00:03:54.000My clients had it, said Gloria Schmidt, the brother's attorney.
00:03:56.000The Chicago Police Department released a statement on Saturday night saying information from the brothers had shifted the trajectory of the investigation.
00:04:12.000That is the rumor and decent information from inside CPD.
00:04:16.000Nonetheless, CPD finally coming forth and acknowledging what everybody else knew.
00:04:20.000We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation.
00:04:27.000We've reached out to the Empire cast member's attorney to request a follow-up interview.
00:04:31.000Smollett's attorneys, Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson, issued a statement late Saturday saying Smollett was angered and devastated by reports that he knew the people associated with the alleged attack.
00:04:40.000One of these purported suspects was Jussie's personal trainer, who he hired to ready him physically for a music video.
00:04:45.000It is impossible to believe that this person could have played a role in the crime against Jussie or falsely claimed Jussie's complicity, the statement said.
00:04:52.000Except that's exactly what CPD is saying.
00:04:55.000The attorney said the actor would continue to cooperate with authorities as the investigation continues.
00:04:59.000He may be cooperating from inside a jail cell because it is in fact a crime to lie to police.
00:05:04.000They've wasted hundreds of man hours, hundreds of thousands, I'm sure, of taxpayer dollars in the city of Chicago over this nonsense.
00:05:10.000The term in jail would be up to three years.
00:05:12.000At the present time, Jussie and his attorneys have no inclination to respond to unnamed sources inside of the investigation, but will continue discussions through official channels, the statement said.
00:05:21.000Police said that the two men, identified as Ola and Abel Asundero, were captured on surveillance video at the time that Smollett said he was attacked.
00:05:29.000Ola Asundero is connected to Smollett through the hit show Empire, where he plays a prisoner in season two.
00:05:33.000Both brothers apparently left Chicago the day of the alleged attack and were detained when they returned on Wednesday.
00:05:38.000Chicago detectives tore through their apartment looking for clues, and an evidence log shows they found ropes, masks, and bleach.
00:06:33.000And then Jesse Smollett came forward and he said, on Good Morning America, again, this was Thursday morning.
00:06:37.000All of this began to break Thursday afternoon.
00:06:39.000So this story held up for approximately the length of a squirrel's attention span.
00:06:45.000And Jussie Smollett on GMA said, you know, the reason people are angry at me, the reason people come hard at me, the reason for it?
00:06:52.000Well, of course, it's because I don't like Trump.
00:06:54.000And you know, in America, you can't you can't dislike Trump.
00:06:56.000You know, being being anti-Trump in America, that's very unpopular, except for how the entire media are anti-Trump and celebrate everything that any anti-Trump person says.
00:07:54.000Well, it turns out he sort of paid someone to lynch him, but there's that.
00:07:57.000He said, to those in Congress who don't feel the urgency to pass our anti-lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime, I urge you to pay attention.
00:08:04.000It was a vicious, brutal attack staged by Jussie Smollett and his friends.
00:08:09.000Then Cory Booker was asked over the weekend about, um, remember that time when you said that Jussie Smollett was lynched and you said it was a vicious, brutal hate crime and then it turned out that that guy paid his friends to do it because he knew that suckers like you would buy it?
00:08:23.000And Cory Booker was like, you know what?
00:08:28.000Well, the information's still coming out, and I'm going to withhold until all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources.
00:08:34.000We know in America that bigoted and biased attacks are on the rise in a serious way.
00:08:41.000What we're seeing is attacks on people because they're different, and we all need to join together and condemn those attacks.
00:08:47.000Oh, so he's going to wait for all the information to come out, not like he did before when he just sort of declared that it was true And also, just because this was a hoax doesn't mean that there isn't a rise in hate crimes.
00:09:08.000We have a non-falsifiable thesis that is put out by the left.
00:09:11.000So, if an actual crime occurs in which a black man is grabbed around the neck with a rope, poured bleach upon, and then people shout at him about Trump, then this is evidence that Trump's America is evil.
00:09:22.000And if it turns out that was a hoax, that's also proof that Trump's America is evil, because where else would even such a story be believable?
00:09:30.000Where else would even such a story be believable?
00:09:32.000So you gotta love these folks who are now suggesting that, you know, we're gonna wait for all the facts.
00:09:46.000Here's the reason Jussie Smollett lied about this.
00:09:48.000Here's the reason Jussie Smollett did this.
00:09:49.000The reason he did it is because he knew there was a waiting and ready cadre of humans who are ready to parrot any story that suggested that Trump supporters were a bunch of racist rednecks roaming major cities in search of black people to hurt.
00:10:02.000That is why this story went viral in the first place.
00:10:04.000Jussie Smollett himself said it, by the way, on Good Morning America.
00:10:07.000He said, if I were attacked by black people, nobody would cover this story.
00:10:37.000The media have a narrative that they want to promulgate, that they want to push.
00:10:41.000And so, if there is a story perfectly tailored to that narrative, they're more likely to jump on it.
00:10:45.000Now, a rational person would say, knowing their own bias, knowing that they want their narrative to be supported, a rational person who tries his best would say, if a story comes out that seems too good to be true, that's probably because it is.
00:10:58.000If a story comes out that backs your narrative to the point where every single aspect of the story seems tailored to your narrative, probably it was tailored to your narrative.
00:11:07.000If somebody comes to you, if somebody came to me and they said, I have a story, you know, as I run, I run a website, I have a story.
00:11:14.000And the story is that Barack Obama was wandering around on the street when he suddenly saw a rich person grab that guy's wallet, ran the other way and started redistributing his cash to his cronies in Washington, D.C.
00:11:26.000I'd be like, I don't believe that story because that story seems too metaphorical to be real.
00:11:32.000Because if the story fits your narrative, obviously the metaphor being that Barack Obama was a redistributionist who wanted to grab other people's money.
00:11:39.000If the story fits your narrative so well that it seems every detail is tailored for your narrative, well then it probably is not true.
00:12:11.000Their story is that America is a terrible, horrible, racist place filled with evil, racist deplorables who are going around on the street beating up black people and throwing ropes around their neck.
00:14:05.000After this came out as a hoax, members of the media still defending their coverage by saying, well, you know, the overall narrative, which is that things suck in America, that narrative is still true.
00:14:13.000It's the same thing they did with the Michael Brown shooting.
00:14:14.000You remember Michael Brown shot in Ferguson, Missouri.
00:14:17.000The lie went out that Michael Brown was approaching the police officers and raising his arms and saying, hands up, don't shoot.
00:14:23.000And then it turned out all of that was a lie.
00:14:26.000The entire media ran with it because it pushed the narrative that our police forces across America were racist, even though there was nothing racist about the shooting.
00:14:33.000And in fact, Michael Brown was justifiably shot.
00:14:37.000She's an editor over at Vox.com or a writer over at Vox.com.
00:14:41.000She said, listen, just because it's a hoax doesn't mean it's not real.
00:14:45.000I think it's important to cover this story.
00:14:47.000I also think it's important to cover the other several stories of hate crimes.
00:14:51.000Not to say that this was a story of a hate crime, but that there are real hate crimes that happen in this country and there's an increase in them against black people, against LGBTQ people, against Muslims, and the fact that one robbery was fake does not mean that robbery is not a problem.
00:15:06.000Okay, first of all, we're going to have to establish that there is in fact a trend of rise in hate crimes.
00:15:09.000We have to cover these issues as trends and as patterns and not fall into the trap that because one story is not real, that the problem is not real.
00:15:17.000OK, first of all, we're going to have to establish that there is, in fact, a trend of rise in hate crimes.
00:15:22.000For example, the ADL tried to release a report earlier this year saying there was a radical rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes.
00:15:27.000It turned out that report was deeply flawed.
00:15:30.000What's funny is that on that same panel, there was a host for a podcast called The Fifth Column, Black Guy, and he was saying, we are still trying to establish whether these fact patterns exist.
00:15:42.000But Liz Plank then turned back to him and said, what do you know about hate crimes?
00:15:47.000America's filled with hate crimes because America's hateful.
00:15:49.000I also love how she lists out the groups who have been victimized by hate crimes.
00:15:52.000She says, you know, we have to worry about increase of hate crimes against blacks and against Muslims and against LGBT people.
00:15:58.000I'll get to the actual stats on hate crimes in just a second because it turns out there is one group of people who have been increasingly victimized by hate crimes and it is none of those groups.
00:16:07.000I mean, those groups may have an increase.
00:16:08.000The major increase is not occurring among those groups.
00:16:10.000I'll explain where the major increase is occurring in just one second.
00:16:14.000But again, this backs a media narrative.
00:16:15.000The media narrative is that Jussie Smollett should have been covered exactly the way he was covered.
00:16:20.000That we on the right exaggerate how bad the media was in this case.
00:16:23.000First of all, The media were awful in this case.
00:16:26.000Brian Stelter claims this wasn't about the media.
00:16:29.000Brian Stelter on CNN, a reliable source, he says, this story was not about the media botching it.
00:16:34.000The story was weaponized by the right.
00:16:35.000So, of course, the left, having been shown to be completely terrible at their jobs, members of the media who are on the left, who jumped the gun on this one, like two weeks after they jumped the gun on Covington High School.
00:16:45.000They say the real story here is Republicans pouncing, that the story was weaponized.
00:16:49.000Here's Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources.
00:16:51.000Remember, he's supposed to be sort of the journalistic ombudsman of CNN calling to account journalistic Journalistic crappiness.
00:17:00.000Instead, he says, no, no, we all did a great job.
00:17:07.000As I've pointed out over the last six weeks, whenever there's an increase in Republicans pounce stories, it means the media are not doing their jobs.
00:17:13.000It means the left are terrible at their jobs.
00:17:21.000The actual story is the media screwing it up.
00:17:22.000But here's Brian Stelter defending the media and then saying the real problem here are the folks on the right.
00:17:27.000Strong, high-quality news organizations have tried to be very careful on this point.
00:17:32.000But because TMZ said just a few hours after the alleged attack that this was a Trump supporter attack and it had political connotations, like I said, it became partisan from day one.
00:17:42.000And when you're looking at those random websites all over the world spreading information, you can end up thinking this story was able to be weaponized in many different ways.
00:17:53.000But at its heart, it is still a mystery.
00:17:57.000Okay, it was weaponized in many different ways.
00:19:02.000The media uncritically reporting a completely implausible story, and then when caught in their own garbage coverage, immediately turning around and saying, no, no, we didn't do anything wrong.
00:19:13.000It's that the white, the right people, the people on the right, they keep weaponizing this thing.
00:19:19.000Caleb Howe has a great piece over at Mediaite pointing out Newsweek writers, the senior reporter at the Daily Beast, Kevin Fallon.
00:19:24.000We're talking about writer for Boing Boing, writer at Philadelphia Magazine, Vibe Magazine, producers for Nightline on ABC, contributors to Forbes and Slate, an editor at the LA Times, a Buzzfeed writer, a Reuters reporter, writers for Teen Vogue and Washington Post, freelance contributors for Cosmopolitan, senior writers at Rolling Stone, AP, NBC News writer and producer, HuffPost writer, editor at Washington Post, Vanity Fair, So we're supposed to believe that the media didn't jump on the story?
00:19:51.000Of course they did, it supported their narrative.
00:19:54.000Not only did they jump on the story, so did the entire left, because the media and the left wanted this story to be true.
00:19:59.000They desperately wanted the story to be true.
00:20:02.000And so funny, folks on the left will say things like, you know, the entire right bought into Pizzagate, or the entire right bought into the Barack Obama birtherism hoax.
00:20:12.000But the entire left, or at least huge swaths of the left, bought fully into not only the Jussie Smollett story, but into the narrative that it was President Trump's fault.
00:20:19.000So Ellen Page went on TV with Stephen Colbert, and she suggested it was Mike Pence's fault that a crime that never happened actually happened?
00:20:44.000The vice president of America wishes I didn't have the love with my wife.
00:20:49.000He has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the government of Indiana, and I think the thing we need to know, and I hope my show Gaycation did this in terms of connecting the dots, in terms of what happened the other day to Josiah.
00:21:23.000She's just, it's, I'm sorry, this is disgusting.
00:21:26.000You're taking a fake crime, and you're pinning it on Mike Pence, and then you're blaming Mike Pence for problems across the country for which Mike Pence has no responsibility, and people are uncritically cheering you.
00:21:34.000Because this is the world in which fake information can travel quickly.
00:21:38.000You hear about fake news all the time from the media.
00:21:40.000Oh, the scourge of fake news, the scourge of false narrative.
00:21:43.000And President Trump complains the media are complicit in fake news and false narrative.
00:21:47.000The reason this is the case is because human beings have a natural tendency to believe stories that back their play.
00:21:52.000And right now, people have narratives about America that are not true on a lot of different sides, and they're willing to believe stories that back those narratives, no matter how untrue they are.
00:22:01.000There's a fascinating piece in the Washington Post today by a person named Nana Efua Mumford, who's executive assistant to the Washington Post editorial board.
00:22:09.000The title of the piece is, I doubted Jussie Smollett.
00:22:12.000It breaks my heart that I might be right.
00:22:14.000Why would it break your heart when it turns out that a hate crime is false?
00:22:18.000It means that a hate crime did not occur.
00:22:21.000Why does it break your heart when it turns out that accusations that America is deeply racist and homophobic are not backed by an implausible story?
00:22:29.000Like, if it turned out that somebody accused somebody of an anti-Jewish hate crime and it turned out not to be true, I'd be like, great, because America is not an anti-Semitic country.
00:22:37.000But for folks on the left, if the story backs their play and it turns out the story is false, that's really bad because then it doesn't back their play.
00:22:44.000I'll tell you what this columnist has to say in just one second.
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00:23:39.000Instead, go be responsible, consolidate that debt, and make sure that you can pay it off with Lending Club.
00:23:44.000Again, they allow you to pay off all this stuff with one fixed monthly payment.
00:23:53.000All right, so this columnist at the Washington Post suggests that it is actually, she's actually very sad that the Jussie Smollett story turned out not to be true.
00:24:03.000She's sad because maybe it means that Americans won't be as sensitive to hoax stories.
00:24:08.000The fact that the entire country took this stupid story seriously in the first place demonstrates how sensitive we are, by the way, to stories like this.
00:24:14.000But here's what this columnist writes, quote, Perhaps I don't want to believe Smollett because this is a stark and scary reminder of the poor condition of the country that I call home.
00:24:21.000Maybe this story makes the boogeyman of my nightmares all too real, too close, and too calculating.
00:24:27.000Maybe it's because while I consider myself an ally to the LGBTQ community, I still don't understand and appreciate the daily harassment that they endure.
00:24:34.000Or maybe, even though I'm a black woman, I still don't know what it's like to be a black man in America.
00:24:39.000If Smollett's story is found to be untrue, it will cause irreparable damage to the communities most affected.
00:24:45.000Oh, as opposed to if it were true, then we would be able to slander the entire white community in America and the Trump-supporting community in America as a bunch of racist bigots.
00:24:53.000Then that would be good, because they are racist bigots, but since it turns out to be false, we can't slander a bunch of people anymore, so that's really bad.
00:24:59.000She says Smollett would be the first example skeptic site when they say we should be dubious of victims who step forward to share their experience of racist hate crimes or sexual violence.
00:25:07.000The incident would be touted as proof that there is a leftist conspiracy to cast Trump supporters as violent, murderous racists.
00:25:13.000It would be the very embodiment of fake news.
00:25:15.000Well, there is, in fact, a widespread tendency on the left to cast Trump supporters as violent, murderous racists.
00:25:24.000At the very least, the tendency to call Trump supporters bigots, that's a mainstream tendency.
00:25:28.000If not violent and murderous, certainly bigots.
00:25:31.000And she says that reason more than any other is why I need this story to be true.
00:25:35.000Despite its ugliness and despite what it would say about the danger of the world I live in, the damage done would be too deep and long lasting.
00:25:41.000So in other words, in order for one of two things has to happen.
00:25:46.000Either she has to recognize that the story is false and maybe her preconceptions about America as an evil country are false, or the story can be true and that can reinforce her narrative beliefs.
00:25:56.000And she would prefer that a black man was beaten on the streets of Chicago by two MAGA-hatted racists so that she can think America is a bad place than that that turn out to not to be true.
00:26:07.000If your belief in the world relies on people being beaten in the streets, let me suggest, and you feel better when people are beaten in the streets because it backs your worldview, let me suggest you need to change your view of the world.
00:26:19.000If you are happy when a story of federal hate crime turns out to be true, Something is deeply wrong.
00:26:37.000Everybody, even people who were skeptical of Jussie Smollett, kept saying, if this turns out to be true.
00:26:42.000They said, we have questions, but if this turns out to be true.
00:26:44.000Again, what the left wants you to believe is that there are a lot of people on the right who don't take hate crime seriously, and now they definitely won't take hate crime seriously because of Jussie Smollett.
00:26:52.000No, no rational human being should treat outlandish claims as seriously as they would treat serious claims in the first place.
00:26:59.000Now, I want to talk for a second about hate crimes themselves, because there was a real hate crime that took place over the weekend in New York, and no one gives a crap.
00:27:05.000The reason no one gives a crap is because it's against a Jew and it wasn't done by a white supremacist.
00:27:09.000According to NBC New York, a window of a Brooklyn synagogue was smashed on the Sabbath while the rabbi and his family, including young children, were inside.
00:27:16.000A large plate glass window was shattered in front of Chabad of Bushwick, On Flushing Avenue, Rabbi Menachem Heller said.
00:27:21.000Heller said his family, including nine children, stays at the center on Shabbat.
00:27:25.000They saw two people walking away from the scene.
00:27:28.000Heller said they walked across the street.
00:27:45.000But you haven't heard about those on the national news, have you?
00:27:47.000Because the only time you hear about anti-Semitic crime is when it's a Trump-supporting white supremacist or somebody you can pin on President Trump.
00:27:57.000Again, let me give you the narrative in this country.
00:27:59.000The narrative in this country right now from the media and the left is exactly the narrative put out by Liz Plank that the people who ought to be most worried in America about hate crime are Muslims and black folks and LGBTQ folks.
00:28:09.000Now listen, everybody should be upset about any hate crime against any group, but statistically speaking, the group most likely, per capita, to be targeted are Jews.
00:28:17.000And no one talks about that unless it's a white supremacist.
00:28:19.000Because it turns out that Jews are targeted by a wide variety of groups, including members of the intersectional pyramid, who stack higher on that pyramid than Jews do.
00:28:31.000And by the way, the New York Times has admitted as much.
00:28:33.000The New York Times has admitted, we don't cover hate crimes against Jews in New York City because it doesn't fit our narrative preconceptions.
00:28:39.000A couple of months ago, they ran a piece about the uptick in hate crimes in New York City against Jews, and they said, we don't cover this on the front page because there's no pattern to it.
00:28:48.000What they mean by that is there's no way we can pin it on Trump, so we're not going to cover it.
00:28:52.000Here are the FBI statistics from 2017 on federally reported hate crimes.
00:29:29.000Of the 1,749 victims of anti-religious hate crimes, 58.1% were victims of crimes motivated by their offender's anti-Jewish bias.
00:29:38.00018.6% were victims of anti-Islamic Muslim bias.
00:29:40.000were victims of anti-Islamic Muslim bias.
00:29:43.0004.3% were victims of anti-Catholic bias.
00:29:47.000So if you're going to look at actual hate crime statistics, what you would find is that Jews are disproportionately targeted more than any other group per capita.
00:29:56.000More than any other group per capita, except for perhaps gay people.
00:30:00.000It's very close between the two groups.
00:30:01.000The point that I'm making here is that America is a wildly philo-semitic country.
00:30:05.000Thank God there are not that many hate crimes per capita in the United States.
00:30:09.000And yet we are supposed to be told that America is a deeply hateful, terrible place and Jussie Smollett shows it.
00:30:13.000So when Jussie Smollett turns out to be false, everybody is sad on the left.
00:30:17.000And Jews are targeted in this country at about the same per capita rate that gay people are targeted in this country.
00:30:38.000But if you are super eager to buy into a narrative that promotes your group as a victim group in the United States, or that promotes the Trump supporters as a group of bigots and vile racists, maybe the problem is with you.
00:30:51.000Maybe the problem with the narrative is chiefly with you.
00:30:55.000In a second, we're going to get to President Trump's wall.
00:30:57.000First, let's talk about how you keep your house safer.
00:31:00.000The way you keep your house safer is with Ring.
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00:33:45.000And meanwhile, controversy continues over President Trump's border wall.
00:33:54.000Democrats continue to fringe themselves by claiming that all walls are bad.
00:33:59.000All they have to claim here is that President Trump's border wall is not the best expenditure of money.
00:34:04.000All they have to do is say, like, let's put up fencing in certain areas.
00:34:06.000We don't need a 2,000 mile border wall.
00:34:08.000Let's strengthen security at different points of entry.
00:34:11.000Let's let's work on a variety of other ways to shut down illegal immigration.
00:34:15.000Instead, Democrats have decided that They think because people don't like Trump generally, because Trump is not super popular, that that means that Americans are in favor of the most radical version of the open borders argument.
00:34:26.000This argument was presented by the venerable fresh face, so fresh, so face AOC on Instagram over the weekend.
00:34:33.000She says that our border wall and the wall Trump wants to build, it's just like the Berlin Wall, which makes perfect sense if you smacked your head on a stoop when you were three.
00:34:41.000No matter how you feel about the wall, you know, I think it's a moral abomination.
00:35:27.000If we were building a wall that were forcing people to stay in America, yeah, that's like the Berlin Wall.
00:35:31.000It turns out that people were not trying to get through the Berlin Wall from West to East Germany.
00:35:36.000They were trying to get through the Berlin Wall from East to West Germany.
00:35:39.000The Soviets were shooting people trying to leave East Germany.
00:35:43.000So, when we start shooting people trying to leave America... By the way, that seems more in line with socialist thinking, right?
00:35:48.000Socialist thinking is that if you make a lot of money in the United States, then we should grab your money, force you to stay here, and then tax the living crap out of you, and if you try to leave, we should punish you.
00:35:57.000It's much more in line with left thinking to build walls that keep people in than with right thinking.
00:36:01.000Walls on the right, for better or for worse, tend to be built to keep people out.
00:36:05.000Sometimes that's really bad, sometimes it's not.
00:36:08.000Walls on the left tend to be built to keep people in.
00:36:14.000In any case, the wall continues to be a hot-button issue.
00:36:16.000The Trump administration is not making the world's strongest case for the national emergency declaration that President Trump announced last Friday.
00:36:23.000Again, I don't think the president had to make that national emergency declaration.
00:36:26.000I think he had the capacity under 10 U.S.C.
00:36:29.000284 to declare that there were drug corridors existing along the U.S.-Mexico border that required the building of additional fencing.
00:36:36.000He doesn't need to declare a national emergency to do that.
00:36:38.000Instead, he declared a national emergency And that created a real problem for the administration because they now have to explain why this is not a wild violation of precedent.
00:36:47.000That anytime you can't get a congressional deal on the table, you just declare a national emergency and then get the funding however you want.
00:36:53.000This is very much akin to Barack Obama not being able to get an immigration deal and then unilaterally declaring that he was not going to enforce immigration law.
00:37:00.000Chris Wallace made this very clear when he was interviewing Stephen Miller.
00:37:03.000He said, like, I'm gonna need an instance of a president who declared a national emergency to redirect funding after failing to negotiate a deal with Congress.
00:37:12.000Can you name one case where a president has asked Congress for money, Congress has refused, and the president has then invoked national powers to get the money anyway?
00:37:21.000Well, this current situation... Yes or no, sir?
00:37:23.000The current situation pertains specifically to the Military Construction Authority.
00:37:28.000I'm just asking, has there been a single case where Congress asked for money for military construction, Congress said no, and he then... The meaning of the statute, Chris, is clear on its own terms.
00:37:38.000If you don't like the statute, or members of Congress don't like the statute... Would you agree the answer is no?
00:37:42.000There hasn't been a single case like this.
00:37:44.000Okay, so what Miller is saying is not wrong.
00:37:46.000I mean, there is an arguable case that you can declare a national emergency and use these various methodologies in order to spend money on the border.
00:37:54.000What Wallace is saying is not arguable.
00:37:56.000What Wallace is saying is that there is not a history of presidents failing at congressional negotiation and then simply declaring a national emergency to get the money that they want.
00:38:05.000So this is going to continue to be a hot-button political issue.
00:38:10.000The chances that President Trump builds any substantial portion of the wall before his reelect effort in 2020 is extraordinarily low, especially because, as I mentioned last week, the budget that he signed itself, on its own terms, prohibits the spending of money outside of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley.
00:38:25.000So it's a real legal conundrum for the Trump administration.
00:38:30.000With that said, is it a political victory for the Trump administration?
00:38:34.000And again, if Democrats continue to double down on all border walls or bad, that's going to be a problem for them.
00:38:39.000And Democrats are going to continue to double down on that because Democrats running in 2020 have to run to the left.
00:38:44.000This is why even Sherrod Brown, who's considered more moderate 2020 possible Democratic candidate, he was asked about tearing down existing wall.
00:38:52.000And the reason he was asked about this is because Beto O'Rourke From El Paso, dude.
00:38:57.000He was asked last week, if you don't like walls so much, why not tear down the wall between the United States and Mexico in El Paso, where you're from?
00:39:17.000Do you think the existing walls and fencing along the border should come down?
00:39:21.000I take a back seat to nobody in border security and it's clear we've learned over time that we have the technology, helicopters, border agents to make our country safe and to keep illegal crossings at a minimum without building a long wall.
00:39:39.000That's a decision that should be made in the whole context.
00:39:42.000You don't say, well this congressman says take it down here, this congressman says build it up there.
00:39:46.000You really want to look Okay, that's what we call avoiding the question because he doesn't want to get on the wrong side of the AOC base.
00:39:52.000It's not just Sherrod Brown doing this routine.
00:39:54.000It's Kirsten Gillibrand, she of the thousand positions.
00:39:57.000She has never taken a position on any issue and this issue is no exception.
00:40:01.000She was asked if she could support removing barriers and here's what she had to say.
00:40:04.000proposal from Beto O'Rourke to actually remove some of the existing wall.
00:40:08.000He was talking about El Paso, but the idea of dismantling some of the wall, good idea, bad idea?
00:40:12.000Well, I'd have to ask folks in that part of the country to see whether the fencing that exists today is helpful or unhelpful.
00:40:20.000But, you know, Democrats are not afraid of national security or border security.
00:40:26.000Democrats have funded border security for decades, so I could look at it and see which part he means and why, and if it makes sense, I could support it.
00:40:35.000Okay, she took three positions in the space of 30 seconds right there.
00:40:41.000It's like... Have you ever seen one of those films where there's a strobe light in the film and suddenly people are sort of flashing from one place to another?
00:40:59.000You got to admire the absolute confidence with which she says three conflicting things in the space of 30 seconds.
00:41:07.000But again, all Democrats are afraid of being outflanked on their left, and that is why they are embracing the Beto position that maybe, maybe we should consider tearing down existing border walls, which is just insane.
00:41:17.000Meanwhile, On the campaign trail, every Democrat has decided to run directly to the left.
00:41:22.000Joe Biden went to Europe over the weekend, and there he explained that America is actually an embarrassment.
00:41:27.000Which is weird, because weren't you VP like five minutes ago, dude?
00:41:30.000America, I see, values basic human decency.
00:41:34.000Not snatching children from their parents, or turning our back on refugees at our border.
00:42:07.000Well, again, when you when you're ripping Vice President Biden on removal of children from their parents, let's recall under whom that started.
00:42:17.000But one of the nice things about being a Democrat is the media will always cover for you.
00:42:21.000How in bed with the Democrats are the media?
00:42:23.000They are so in bed that a CNN reporter, who's dedicated to covering Kamala Harris, was helping her try on sequined jackets at a recent campaign stop.
00:42:49.000Okay, so there is Kamala Harris laughing with a CNN reporter named Maeve Reston.
00:42:53.000And Maeve Reston then tweeted out, Dear America, I will never apologize for encouraging a presidential candidate to try on a vintage rainbow sequined jacket.
00:43:00.000And then she put in a bunch of emojis, an American flag, a woman raising her hand, a rainbow, peace, hashtag 2020.
00:43:08.000You're not a campaign advisor or comms person for the candidate, lady!
00:45:14.000And just because some people are not going to be working for Amazon, Does not mean that it's bad for the community when a giant job creator that generates enormous sums in taxpayer dollars and jobs and income enters your community.
00:45:27.000But Bill de Blasio has a column over at the New York Times.
00:45:45.000And then he just sort of disappeared into the bushes, backed slowly away into the bushes like Homer Simpson.
00:45:50.000He has a piece in the New York Times today in which he says that it turns out that New York did the right thing by alienating Amazon and rejecting his deal.
00:45:57.000He says, The first word I had that Amazon was about to scrap an agreement to bring 25,000 new jobs to New York City came an hour before it broke in the news on Thursday.
00:46:04.000The call was brief, and there was little explanation for the company's reversal.
00:46:08.000Just days before, I had counseled a senior Amazon executive about how they could win over some of their critics.
00:46:33.000Just two hours after a meeting with residents and community leaders to move this project forward, the company abruptly canceled it all.
00:46:39.000So in other words, de Blasio had offered them a bevy of benefits to come to New York, And then when they came to New York, he said, I need you to also do these other things, like give away half your benefits.
00:46:48.000I'm going to need you to build a bunch of public housing that we didn't negotiate for.
00:46:52.000We're going to need you also to negotiate with organized labor, which Amazon will not and has not done.
00:46:57.000We're going to need you to make all these concessions we never talked about before.
00:47:00.000Basically, New York City thought that they were Darth Vader talking to Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back.
00:47:06.000If the deal has changed, pray I do not change it further.
00:47:09.000Except the difference is that in this particular scenario, the only ones with the power of the dark side are the folks at Amazon.
00:47:25.000Well, that and five bucks will buy you an overpriced cup of coffee in New York City where people don't have jobs now because you decided to pressure a company that was attempting to move in.
00:47:35.000Bill de Blasio says the lesson here is that corporations can't ignore rising anger over economic inequality anymore.
00:47:41.000No, the real lesson is that if you use that anger over economic inequality to target all the job and tax producers, the tax producers and job creators are going to leave, and they're not going to locate in your place.
00:47:51.000That's the real lesson of New York City.
00:47:53.000But New York doesn't want to recognize that because it would undercut Bill de Blasio's entire political modus operandi.
00:48:00.000All righty, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
00:48:14.000And I'm going to tell you a little bit later today, you should subscribe and check it out, because I'm going to do a full hour on the history of George Washington, who, like, people...
00:48:21.000They think of him as the guy with the wooden teeth, and he looks kind of like your grandma on the dollar bill.
00:48:25.000George Washington was an utter and complete badass.
00:50:37.000In any case, my dad went to a funeral.
00:50:39.000This must have been 25 years ago, and it was for a relative, and it turns out that this, it was an old lady, and her son had been stealing her social security checks.
00:50:48.000He'd been taking her social security checks from her mailbox and going and cashing them.
00:50:52.000So she and her son, needless to say, did not have a good relationship.
00:50:54.000Well, the person, as so often happens with funerals, who was giving the peroration over the body of the deceased, was a person who had not known the person who died.
00:51:03.000You'll have the rabbi or the priest get up, the pastor, And they just got a little bit of background from the family before they got up and they gave a speech, which I never understand.
00:51:12.000You should only have family do these things.
00:51:14.000Anyway, the person who got up and was making the speech was talking about the relationship between the mother and her son, who had been stealing her social security checks.
00:51:23.000And everything that the person giving the eulogy said Was just vague enough that it could be taken in a couple of ways.
00:51:31.000He would say something like, you know, Fanny and her son, their relationship was indescribable.
00:51:47.000And then his brother-in-law, who was there, they both started cracking up.
00:51:51.000And so my dad put his head down in his hands while he was laughing so hard he was crying, and my mom put her arm around his shoulder as though my dad was actually crying over the whole thing.
00:52:00.000So, if you've ever been to a funeral, I mean, That scene is great because there are a number of funerals you will go to in your life where the urge, it's so awkward and it's so horrible, the urge to laugh at a funeral is a very real thing.
00:52:12.000Okay, time for some things that I hate.
00:52:17.000So over the weekend, President Trump got mad at SNL again.
00:52:19.000Like, I don't know why he bothers to get mad at SNL.
00:52:22.000SNL has not been funny for legitimately years.
00:52:25.000The last time it was funny, I was in my teens.
00:52:27.000And yet, President Trump, it seems like every Saturday night, he gets mad at Saturday Night Live.
00:52:58.000Now everybody's going to claim that you're trying to say that there should be retribution against SNL and that the media should be targeted.
00:53:04.000Listen, people despise the media enough as it is.
00:53:06.000They understand how bad the media are at their jobs.
00:53:08.000I spent this entire episode basically ripping on the insanity and gaslighting of the national news media.
00:53:15.000You don't have to do it, Mr. President.
00:53:16.000Like, if you're going to target them over something, make it not SNL.
00:53:19.000Like, honestly, it's just, it's a silly thing to do, and there's no purpose to it.
00:53:23.000Now, other things that I hate over the weekend.
00:53:24.000Bill Maher, who on occasion is right, but when it comes to a great many issues, is wildly wrong.
00:53:31.000On his show, he was talking about Ilhan Omar, another one of the fresh faces of the Democratic Party.
00:53:36.000He says, I don't see any reason why we should see Ilhan Omar as anti-Semitic.
00:53:40.000I mean, like, aside from her giant history of being an anti-Semite.
00:53:45.000A new Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, she is Muslim, one of the first two I think we have in Congress, and she's apologizing, she's under a lot of fire because she was talking about the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, and she said it's all about the Benjamins.
00:53:59.000Now, I probably don't agree with her a lot about what she feels about Israel and Palestine, but I don't know why this has to be seen as anti-Semitic.
00:54:06.000Now, she may be anti-Semitic, but if I criticize Saudi Arabia, that doesn't mean I'm Islamophobe.
00:54:13.000Okay, nobody suggests that just because she criticizes Israel, she's anti-semitic.
00:54:19.000She stands against its existence, and she suggested openly that Jewish money is behind the American support for Israel.
00:54:27.000We went through this last week at length.
00:54:31.000Listen, I think Bill Maher is quite good on a great many issues.
00:54:35.000There are a lot of issues on which we disagree, and I've been on his show, and it was quite cordial, it was quite nice.
00:54:39.000But the lengths to which people seem to be willing to go to pretend that Ilhan Omar is not a longtime anti-Semite, are in stark contrast to the same people, the same exact people suggesting that Trump supporters broad writ are a bunch of racists.
00:54:53.000The evidence that Trump supporters are racist is significantly less than the evidence that Ilhan Omar is a raging anti-Semite, and that is obvious to anyone with half of a brain.
00:55:01.000Alrighty, well we will be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours, including my full breakdown on George Washington.
00:55:05.000We're gonna tell the story of George Washington a little bit later today, so be there or be square.
00:55:09.000I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:55:15.000The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.
00:55:21.000Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens, edited by Adam Sajovic.