America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - Reacting to Ben Shapiro vs Destiny

00:00:13.000 We're good to go.

00:00:30.000 L.A.

00:00:31.000 I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

00:00:31.000 Monster.

00:00:37.000 Lord, save these people.

00:00:40.000 They are sweet.

00:00:42.000 Hey, let it stay.

00:00:45.000 Anyone is sweet.

00:00:47.000 Lord, save us from L.A. 0.83

00:00:51.000 Monster.

00:01:12.000 I am Limelight.

00:01:13.000 Blueprint 5 mic.

00:01:14.000 Go get his Rhyme-Lite.

00:01:15.000 Should've been signed twice.

00:01:17.000 Most imitated.

00:01:18.000 Grammy nominated.

00:01:19.000 Hotel accommodated.

00:01:20.000 Cheerleader prom dated.

00:01:22.000 Barbershop player hated.

00:01:23.000 Mom and Pop, who played it?

00:01:24.000 Felt like it rained till the roof caved in.

00:01:27.000 Two words. 1.00

00:01:27.000 Goddamn crazy. 1.00

00:01:29.000 So I live by two words. 1.00

00:01:29.000 Crazy. 1.00

00:01:31.000 Fuck you, pay me. 1.00

00:01:32.000 Scream me. 1.00

00:01:32.000 Pay me. 1.00

00:01:33.000 Tease me.

00:01:34.000 Save me.

00:01:34.000 You know how the game be.

00:01:36.000 I can't let him change me.

00:01:37.000 Cause on Judgment Day...

00:01:57.000 We're good.

00:02:43.000 Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business.

00:02:56.000 The more that a broken system tells you that you're wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead.

00:03:07.000 Because it's the outsiders who change the world.

00:03:10.000 And it'll make a real and lasting difference.

00:03:13.000 Nothing worth doing ever came easy.

00:03:18.000 Treat the word impossible as nothing more than motivation.

00:03:24.000 The future belongs to the people who follow their heart no matter what the critics say.

00:03:31.000 We must always remember that we share one home and one future.

00:03:36.000 Glorious destiny.

00:03:39.000 We all bleed the same red blood of patriots.

00:03:43.000 We all salute the same great American flag.

00:03:48.000 Our best days are yet to come.

00:04:37.000 Smart people, but we have people that are

00:08:56.000 Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Donald Trump were all cut from the same cloth.

00:09:00.000 And that cloth is very, very large.

00:09:03.000 It's not too big, is it?

00:09:04.000 It's wrong, isn't it?

00:09:06.000 It just feels so right.

00:09:10.000 And it's a deal?

00:09:34.000 I like that.

00:09:35.000 Go big or go home!

00:09:37.000 Donald Trump!

00:09:38.000 You know, you're really beautiful.

00:09:41.000 A woman who looks like that has to have a nutritious head. 1.00

00:10:14.000 Thank you very much.

00:10:15.000 I'm done with it.

00:10:50.000 Everything's separate tonight, Mr. Trump.

00:11:39.000 Listen, this sounds like political presidential talk.

00:11:42.000 You said, though, that if you did run for president, you'd believe you'd win.

00:11:47.000 I like that.

00:11:48.000 I would say that I would have a hell of a chance of winning.

00:11:53.000 I'd never go on to lose.

00:11:56.000 I've never gone on to lose in my life.

00:11:58.000 I don't know how your audience feels, but I think people are tired of seeing the United States ripped off.

00:12:06.000 That's the guy on fire, right?

00:12:08.000 That's him.

00:13:23.000 You can't go back to the past.

00:13:25.000 That's what people always say, isn't it?

00:13:27.000 They say, can we really go back?

00:13:28.000 And the answer is, whether you're conservative or liberal, right what you're left with, the answer is no.

00:13:35.000 We're never going back.

00:13:36.000 It's done.

00:13:37.000 It's gone.

00:13:38.000 All of that is gone.

00:13:39.000 But I would call myself something like a Christian futurist instead.

00:13:44.000 Because Jesus Christ was our past before any of us were born or conceived.

00:13:49.000 Jesus Christ is our present now.

00:13:52.000 And Jesus Christ is our future after we die on Earth.

00:14:03.000 We want this century to be the most Christian century in the history of planet Earth. 0.99

00:14:10.000 We love everybody.

00:14:11.000 And we want people that can burn, really, more than anybody.

00:14:15.000 But this country can no longer be held hostage by a small minority that doesn't believe in real hell.

00:14:25.000 The mission of our movement is to make this country a Christian country.

00:14:30.000 The mission is to create a Christian,

00:14:34.000 Hey, what's up everybody?

00:14:41.000 It's me, Nick Fuentes.

00:14:43.000 Live here today on Rumble, we're gonna be watching the Destiny vs. Ben Shapiro debate.

00:14:50.000 Hosted by Lex Friedman.

00:14:53.000 And I think this just came out yesterday, or two days ago.

00:14:56.000 So we're gonna be watching the whole thing, or as much of it as I can tolerate, to be honest.

00:15:03.000 But I'm never gonna make that kind of commitment again.

00:15:05.000 I think I've committed to watching long videos like this, and I always tap out after like an hour, so...

00:15:14.000 So we're gonna be watching the debate.

00:15:16.000 Check in on the live chat if you're here.

00:15:18.000 Say what's up.

00:15:19.000 Let me know you're here if you're in the live chat watching right now.

00:15:24.000 Say what's up.

00:15:27.000 And we'll see who we got tuning in today.

00:15:29.000 We got Arthur Friend Spexo.

00:15:32.000 Good afternoon Spexo.

00:15:33.000 We got Laffy King.

00:15:36.000 CoolCheeseGuy, AFP, Chad King, what's up?

00:15:40.000 Vito Carlucci, favorites.

00:15:42.000 Trombone Zoomer, great guy.

00:15:44.000 What do we got?

00:15:46.000 Okay, it's moving a little too fast.

00:15:48.000 Now we got Andy Stew, MSG, Shiny Flake, Gallon, Nitro Super, some new faces, some old faces, new faces.

00:15:57.000 Harris Walker?

00:15:57.000 What's going on?

00:15:58.000 No fucking way. 1.00

00:16:00.000 Harris Walker? 1.00

00:16:03.000 Good afternoon, buddy.

00:16:04.000 He says, what's up, Nick?

00:16:05.000 What's up with you, dude?

00:16:08.000 Nomad Groyper.

00:16:09.000 Dalton.

00:16:10.000 Is that Dalton Clawd?

00:16:12.000 No, that's Dalton Kleinfelter.

00:16:14.000 That's Dalton Kleinfelter.

00:16:16.000 Don't get it twisted.

00:16:18.000 Well, good afternoon, everybody.

00:16:20.000 I think we'll just get into it.

00:16:24.000 We're here.

00:16:25.000 I think this is my first Rumble exclusive daytime stream in a few weeks.

00:16:30.000 So it's been a minute, but it's gonna be fun.

00:16:34.000 And remember to follow me.

00:16:36.000 I'm gonna shill the rumble this time.

00:16:37.000 Follow me on rumble before we get into it.

00:16:41.000 Smash the follow button and the like button on the video.

00:16:46.000 And remember I'm going live tonight.

00:16:47.000 I'm going live tonight.

00:16:50.000 Like 10 o'clock Central Time to do America First.

00:16:53.000 There's a lot of big other news going on.

00:16:56.000 We gotta cover what's happening at the border with Texas.

00:17:00.000 And what's happening in the Middle East?

00:17:03.000 United States withdrawing from Iraq, but re-engaging Yemen.

00:17:08.000 So it's gonna be a packed show tonight, but... Okay, let's just get into it.

00:17:13.000 Let's just... let's just do this thing.

00:17:18.000 Strap in.

00:17:19.000 It's Destiny vs. Ben Shapiro, Lex Fridman.

00:17:22.000 I guess they filmed this... or they had planned on filming this in November.

00:17:29.000 And they had to postpone it.

00:17:30.000 So, this has been a few months coming.

00:17:35.000 And, you know, it's notable that they're both Zionists. 0.90

00:17:38.000 I think that's the only reason maybe why Shapiro agreed to it is because Destiny is a hardcore Zionist, just like Shapiro.

00:17:46.000 So imagine that.

00:17:47.000 You know, you think you're getting the far left versus the far right.

00:17:51.000 In reality, you're getting two Zionists bickering over who is a better president. 0.98

00:17:57.000 But,

00:17:59.000 I'm sure we will get into that and everything else so let's just

00:18:05.000 There has to be some diplomatic bilateral communication there.

00:18:09.000 No, what has to happen is the containment of Iran. 0.84

00:18:10.000 History moves in one direction.

00:18:12.000 Why?

00:18:13.000 Because of time?

00:18:14.000 Communism, Nazism, all of that was a regression from what was happening at, for example, the beginning of the 19th century and the 20th century.

00:18:20.000 In what way?

00:18:22.000 Do you think that today Donald Trump knows that he lost the election?

00:18:24.000 Absolutely.

00:18:25.000 So, I don't.

00:18:26.000 This is one of the areas where we get into this.

00:18:28.000 I don't understand if there's like brain breaking happening or what's going on.

00:18:32.000 I don't know what world we can ever live in.

00:18:34.000 Well, we say that Trump is less divisive for the country than Biden.

00:18:38.000 Joe Biden literally used the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration to try to cram down vaccine mandates on 80 million Americans.

00:18:45.000 That's insane.

00:18:45.000 What about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

00:18:47.000 What about pneumoultramicroscopics?

00:18:49.000 Or the science terms.

00:18:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:18:50.000 Or what about the 7,000-letter thing that's from part of Biochemistry?

00:18:53.000 I got my education in the Soviet Union, so we just did math.

00:18:57.000 That's why you're a useful person.

00:18:58.000 Does body count matter?

00:19:04.000 This preview is already giving me AIDS.

00:19:06.000 I'm already, that was a 55 second preview.

00:19:10.000 I'm already filled with regret.

00:19:13.000 And by the way, the comments are even worse.

00:19:16.000 Let's just preface.

00:19:16.000 Let's look at the, let's just get a little preview here.

00:19:20.000 So it's going to be liberalism versus conservatism, education, Trump and Biden, foreign policy, Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, January 6th, abuse of power, wokeism,

00:19:34.000 Institutional capture, monogamy versus open relationships, and rapid-fire questions.

00:19:40.000 Lex hosting the Super Bowl for nerds is a great gift to us all.

00:19:46.000 Nice.

00:19:48.000 I enjoy this type of debate.

00:19:49.000 No screaming over each other.

00:19:51.000 Just a conversation where the content is more important than the show.

00:19:57.000 Nine hours of debate compressed into two and a half hour video.

00:20:00.000 Thank you!

00:20:02.000 It is actually so weird seeing them in the same room, but pretty refreshing.

00:20:07.000 Actually, pretty refreshing.

00:20:09.000 Absurdly refreshing to see two people who are familiar with the subject matter across a what?

00:20:15.000 Familiar, that's a stretch.

00:20:17.000 Across a wide variety of topics making arguments based on factual, verifiable claims and if-then logic as opposed to just name-calling.

00:20:27.000 One big takeaway is that there's a lot of agreement between certain camps, at least between the ones interested in reaching conclusions based on data, rather than reaching data based on conclusions.

00:20:41.000 Kill yourself in Fortnite, okay?

00:20:48.000 Can we say, is that against Rumble's terms of service? 1.00

00:20:50.000 Can I say kill yourself? 0.97

00:20:55.000 Some platforms are really touchy about that. 1.00

00:20:57.000 You can't say kill yourself.

00:20:58.000 But if you can't say it on Rumble, then it was just a joke and I didn't mean it.

00:21:02.000 But I don't know.

00:21:03.000 I need... I gotta text my connection to ask Chris directly.

00:21:08.000 Is it against the TOS to say kill yourself?

00:21:11.000 I also need some clarity.

00:21:13.000 Does kill yourself against the TOS is like... Can we say the F slur?

00:21:18.000 Can I say the N word?

00:21:20.000 Can I say...

00:21:22.000 You know, we need a little clarity here on what we can say.

00:21:25.000 ...and destiny, each arguably representing the right and the left of American politics, respectively.

00:21:32.000 They are two of the most influential and skilled political debaters in the world.

00:21:36.000 This debate has been a long time coming, for many years.

00:21:40.000 It's about 2.5 hours, and we could have easily gone for many more, and I'm sure we will.

00:21:47.000 It is only round one.

00:21:50.000 This is the Lex Freeman Podcast.

00:21:52.000 To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:21:55.000 And now, dear friends, here's Ben Shapiro and Destiny.

00:22:00.000 Ben, you're conservative.

00:22:02.000 Destiny, you're a liberal.

00:22:04.000 Can you each describe what key values underpin your philosophy on politics?

00:22:08.000 And maybe light.

00:22:09.000 Also, we have to acknowledge, just quickly, before we get into it, they are all Zionist liberals.

00:22:17.000 Okay, and that's not just me saying that.

00:22:19.000 That is objectively true, and I think they would all identify that way.

00:22:24.000 Lex Friedman is a Jewish Zionist.

00:22:27.000 Ben Shapiro is a Jewish Zionist. 0.92

00:22:29.000 And Destiny's a Zionist. 0.91

00:22:32.000 Lex Friedman is a liberal. 0.75

00:22:34.000 He is in favor of capitalism, markets, human rights, egalitarianism, democracy.

00:22:42.000 So is Ben Shapiro.

00:22:44.000 So is Destiny.

00:22:46.000 So, and I just want to point that out at the very beginning.

00:22:50.000 I promise I'll let it play, but I just want to point that out.

00:22:54.000 They say it, and they're setting it up like it's two opposites coming together and having this debate, but they're really not opposites.

00:23:03.000 They're really both coming from generally the same place.

00:23:07.000 It's really like center-right versus barely center-left.

00:23:13.000 And the presuppositions they all agree with.

00:23:16.000 So I just want to put that out there.

00:23:17.000 Okay, now we'll get into it.

00:23:23.000 Yeah, so I think that we have a huge country full of a lot of people, a lot of individual talents, capabilities.

00:23:31.000 And I think that the goal of government, broadly speaking, should be to try to ensure that everybody's able to achieve as much as possible.

00:23:38.000 So on a liberal level, that usually means some people might need a little bit of a boost when it comes to things like education.

00:23:45.000 They might need a little bit of a boost when it comes to providing certain necessities like housing or food or clothing.

00:23:51.000 But broadly speaking, I mean, I'm still a liberal, not a communist or a socialist.

00:23:54.000 I don't believe in the, you know, total command economy, total communist takeover of all of the, you know... Whenever anybody says things like, broadly speaking, that means they're an idiot. 1.00

00:24:05.000 Okay? 1.00

00:24:06.000 Whenever anybody says, broadly speaking, or whenever... This is another one of my favorites.

00:24:10.000 Whenever somebody says, a 20,000 foot view, 1.00

00:24:14.000 The macro level... That means you're a fucking idiot. 1.00

00:24:18.000 Also, we're gonna get a lot of this. 1.00

00:24:19.000 Broadly speaking.

00:24:19.000 There it is again, by the way.

00:24:20.000 Broadly speaking.

00:24:31.000 Not necessarily.

00:24:33.000 I notice that when liberals talk about government, especially taxes, it seems like they talk about it for taxes' sake or bigness' sake.

00:24:40.000 So people talk about taxes sometimes as like a punishment, like tax the rich.

00:24:45.000 I think taxing the rich is fine insofar as it funds the programs that we want to fund, but Democrats have a really big problem demonizing success or wealth, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

00:24:55.000 I don't think it's a bad thing to be wealthy, to be a billionaire or whatever, as long as we're funding what we need to fund.

00:25:00.000 Ben, what do you think it means to be a conservative?

00:25:02.000 What's the philosophy that underlies your political view?

00:25:04.000 So first of all, I'm glad that Destiny you're already coming out as a Republican.

00:25:07.000 That's exciting.

00:25:08.000 I mean, we hold a lot in common in terms of, you know, the basic idea that

00:25:15.000 People ought to have as much opportunity as possible and also insofar as the government should do the minimum amount necessary to interfere in people's lives in order to pursue certain functions, particularly at the local level.

00:25:30.000 So a lot of governmental discussions on a pragmatic level end up being discussions about where government ought to be involved, but also at what level government ought to be.

00:25:38.000 And I have an incredibly subsidiary view of government.

00:25:43.000 I think that, you know, local governments, because you have higher levels of homogeneity and consent, are capable of doing more things.

00:25:51.000 And as you abstract up the chain, it becomes more and more impractical and more and more divisive to do more things.

00:25:57.000 In my view, government is basically there to preserve

00:26:00.000 Certain key liberties.

00:26:02.000 Those key liberties pre-exist the government insofar as they are more important than what priorities the government has.

00:26:11.000 The job of government is to maintain, for example, national defense,

00:26:15.000 Protection of property rights, protection of religious freedom.

00:26:20.000 These are the key focuses of government, as generally expressed in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

00:26:24.000 And I agree with the general philosophy of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

00:26:28.000 Now, that doesn't mean, by the way, that you can't do more on a governmental level, again, as you get closer to the ground, which, by the way, is also embedded in the Constitution.

00:26:34.000 People forget the Constitution was originally applied to the federal government, not to local and state governments.

00:26:41.000 If I were going to define conservatism, it would actually be a little broader than that, because I think to understand how people interact with government, you have to go to kind of core values.

00:26:47.000 And so for me, there are a couple of premises.

00:26:50.000 One, human beings have a nature.

00:26:51.000 That nature is neither good nor bad.

00:26:54.000 We have aspects of goodness and we have aspects of badness.

00:26:56.000 Human beings are sinful.

00:26:58.000 We have temptations.

00:26:59.000 And what that means is that we have to be careful not to incentivize the bad and that we should incentivize the good.

00:27:05.000 Human beings do have agency and are capable of making decisions in the vast majority of circumstances and it is better for society if we act as though they do.

00:27:14.000 Second, the basic idea of human nature, there is an idea in my view that all human beings have equal value before the law.

00:27:22.000 I'm a religious person, so I'd say equal value before God, but I think that's also sort of a key tenet of Western civilization, being non-religious or religious, that every individual has equivalent value in sort of cosmic terms.

00:27:33.000 But that does not necessarily mean that every person is equally equipped to do everything equally well.

00:27:37.000 And so it is not the job of government to rectify every imbalance of life.

00:27:42.000 The quest for cosmic justice, as Thomas Sowell suggests, is something that government is generally incapable of doing, and more often than not botches and makes things worse.

00:27:51.000 So those are a few key tenets, and that tends to materialize in a variety of ways.

00:27:57.000 The easiest way to sum that up, the traditional kind of three legs of the conservative stool, although now obviously there's a very fragmented conservative movement in the United States, would be a socially conservative view in which family is the chief institution of society, like the little platoons of society, as Edmund Burke suggested, in which

00:28:15.000 Free market and property rights are extraordinarily valuable and necessary because every individual has the ability to be creative with their property and to freely alienate that property.

00:28:29.000 And finally, I tend toward a hawkish foreign policy that suggests that the world is not filled with wonderful people who all agree with us and think like us.

00:28:38.000 And those people will pursue adversarial interests if we do not protect our own interests.

00:28:43.000 Can I ask a question on that?

00:28:44.000 I'm so curious.

00:28:45.000 What's interesting, okay, I just want to jump in here.

00:28:48.000 What's interesting about Ben Shapiro being a Jew is that Jews don't believe that Gentiles have to follow God's law. 0.66

00:28:59.000 They don't believe that God accepts repentance from Gentiles and they believe that Gentiles effectively cannot 1.00

00:29:10.000 God doesn't ask the Gentiles to repent, and therefore God doesn't accept their repentance, and therefore Gentiles can do whatever they want. 0.81

00:29:19.000 They only have to follow seven of the Noahide laws.

00:29:25.000 And so, it's interesting.

00:29:27.000 I mean, he says he believes in equality before God.

00:29:29.000 He doesn't.

00:29:30.000 Jews don't believe in equality before God. 0.99

00:29:32.000 They believe that Jews, rather than Gentiles, are the only ones that can access God directly.

00:29:39.000 They don't believe that Gentiles can have that level of spiritual development.

00:29:46.000 And, Jews and Gentiles are not equal before Jewish law. 0.87

00:29:51.000 So there is the civil law, there's the law of the government, and then there is Jewish religious law.

00:29:59.000 And that's what Judaism is.

00:30:00.000 It's a codex of law that comes from the Hebrew Bible, which is summed up in the Mishnah, interpreted in the Talmud, enforced by the rabbis.

00:30:12.000 So it's interesting that liberalism is really an ideology which proceeds from a Jewish disposition.

00:30:19.000 Of course Jews are liberal.

00:30:21.000 Of course Jews have this view of government that says everyone should be allowed to do what they want.

00:30:27.000 The government's job is to call balls and strikes.

00:30:30.000 It's just there to protect human rights.

00:30:33.000 Because, and again, notice how the so-called conservative position is basically identical to the liberal position.

00:30:41.000 There's just a little tweak.

00:30:43.000 They both believe the government's job is to protect rights.

00:30:46.000 They both believe the government's job is to protect property.

00:30:49.000 They both believe that the government should provide some level of basic necessities.

00:30:55.000 They both believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

00:30:57.000 They both believe in the power of markets.

00:30:59.000 They both believe in a hawkish foreign policy.

00:31:01.000 So there's wide agreement.

00:31:03.000 The only thing that they disagree on is maybe the size.

00:31:07.000 We're good to go.

00:31:29.000 Some form of UBI or some minimal level, you know, some scaling back of the present welfare system.

00:31:36.000 He basically supports a welfare state.

00:31:38.000 I think Destiny supports one that's just a little bit bigger.

00:31:41.000 But they fundamentally agree.

00:31:43.000 And the point is, I'm a Catholic.

00:31:46.000 And the true reactionary position, the true right-wing oppositional position, is to say that we reject liberalism.

00:31:59.000 We reject democracy.

00:32:01.000 We reject the idea that government's job is to facilitate people's material wants and needs.

00:32:09.000 Because a truly radical point of view would say that government's job is to get people to heaven.

00:32:15.000 So, for example,

00:32:39.000 Here's the difference.

00:32:40.000 Catholics would support banning pornography.

00:32:42.000 I don't know where Ben stands on that.

00:32:45.000 Dennis Prager, who's a Jew, he's against that.

00:32:47.000 He thinks that porn should be legal. 0.77

00:32:49.000 He thinks porn's good. 0.88

00:32:51.000 He thinks porn and masturbation aren't even sinful. 0.98

00:32:55.000 And that's a classic 0.99

00:32:57.000 That's a Jewish innovation. 0.79

00:32:58.000 So...

00:33:15.000 I just want to put that out there, that there is nothing in Christianity that says that government should be separate from religion or that the government shouldn't be Christian.

00:33:24.000 That's something that, you know, religious pluralism benefits Jews.

00:33:29.000 It doesn't really, maybe it benefits the Christian denomination that may be persecuted if you look at the history of the United States and the history of the Reformation and the religious wars, but

00:33:42.000 I'm excited for this conversation because I consider you to be really intelligent.

00:33:57.000 But I feel like sometimes there are ways that conservatives talk about certain issues that seem to defy logic and reason, I guess.

00:34:04.000 So here- and I'm sure you feel the same way about progre- well, I feel the same way about progressives.

00:34:08.000 But even some liberals, for sure.

00:34:11.000 Before I ask this question, it's going to relate to education.

00:34:13.000 We can agree, broadly speaking, that statistics are- There it is.

00:34:17.000 Didn't I just say that at the beginning?

00:34:19.000 People that always say these kinds of words, what they-

00:34:23.000 When they say that, what they mean is I'm about to say something imprecise.

00:34:29.000 I'm about to say something ambiguous and imprecise. 1.00

00:34:32.000 Broadly speaking, broadly speaking, generally, on a macro level, on a 20,000 foot view, if you say that, you are a fucking idiot. 1.00

00:34:43.000 And I haven't even seen this yet, by the way. 1.00

00:34:45.000 I haven't watched any of this.

00:34:48.000 But yeah, I that's my that's I have a big problem with when people do that broadly speaking broadly speaking Just be precise, you know just Use language and just be precise about what you're saying.

00:35:02.000 It's just it's sort of like a hedge if you're about to say something that is not precise or not true or Stupid if it's unintelligible, then you get to say.

00:35:13.000 Oh, I said broadly. 0.80

00:35:14.000 I mean generally, I mean

00:35:17.000 So that's like a nice little way to kind of save yourself.

00:35:20.000 It's a little mulligan.

00:35:22.000 I asked this question, I feel the same way about progressives, but even some liberals for sure.

00:35:27.000 Before I ask this question, it's going to relate to education.

00:35:30.000 We can agree, broadly speaking, that statistics are real and that not everybody could do everything.

00:35:36.000 So for a grounded example... I hate, dude, I hate the way he moves his hands.

00:35:40.000 He does that same like, first of all, his tiny hands. 1.00

00:35:43.000 That's how you, by the way, that's how you know he's a pussy. 1.00

00:35:47.000 It's because not only is he small... I mean, listen. 1.00

00:35:50.000 Some people are shorter than other people.

00:35:52.000 It is what it is.

00:35:52.000 But, I mean, I'm not the tallest guy on campus, okay?

00:35:56.000 But you know he's a pussy because he has these tiny little baby hands. 1.00

00:36:00.000 He has those Junior Whopper hands. 1.00

00:36:04.000 And I hate that he does all these TikTok hand motions. 0.98

00:36:07.000 He does these faggoty... My hand movements are good. 1.00

00:36:12.000 My gesticulation is good. 1.00

00:36:14.000 His is gay. 1.00

00:36:14.000 And I hate it. 1.00

00:36:15.000 And I hate his tiny hands. 0.89

00:36:17.000 Life was pretty bad.

00:36:18.000 I got into streaming and I turned my life around and that was really cool, but I can't expect everybody to do what I did, right?

00:36:24.000 Like everybody being able to join the NBA or to be like a streamer.

00:36:27.000 Everybody has different qualities.

00:36:27.000 Well, of course.

00:36:28.000 Sure.

00:36:29.000 Okay.

00:36:29.000 So I used to be a lot more libertarian when I was 20, 21.

00:36:33.000 And one of the things that dramatically changed kind of my view on government

00:36:37.000 Manipulation of things in society came when it came time to deal with my son and the school that he went to.

00:36:45.000 And one of the things that I noticed was when it came time to send my son to school, I could either do private education or I could do public.

00:36:51.000 Personally, I did 12 years of Catholic private education.

00:36:54.000 However, the public schools in Nebraska, depending on where you lived, were very, very, very good.

00:36:59.000 Thank you for watching!

00:37:15.000 Do you think that there is some type of, I don't want to say injustice or unfairness, because I'm not even looking at it that way, just pragmatically, that there might be children that are in certain schools, that if they just had better funding or more access to technologies or things available to them, that those kids would become more productive members of society, that with a little bit of help, they could actually achieve more and do better for all of society?

00:37:39.000 So I think that on the list of priorities when it comes to education, the availability of technology is actually fairly low on the list of priorities.

00:37:46.000 Sure, the two things I've heard are food availability and I think air conditioning I think are the two biggest ones that I hear, but sure.

00:37:51.000 I mean the biggest thing in terms of education itself, not just the physical facilities that we're talking about.

00:37:56.000 We're good to go.

00:38:16.000 Uh-huh.

00:38:32.000 If I had a replicator machine from Star Trek, would I give everybody an enormous amount of stuff?

00:38:35.000 Sure, I would.

00:38:36.000 Every resource is finite, every resource is limited, and you have to prioritize what are the outcomes that you seek in terms of the means with which you are seeking them.

00:38:46.000 And so, again, I think that the question is... I quibble with the premise of the question, which is that

00:38:53.000 Again, the chief injustice when it comes to education on the list of injustices is lack of availability to technology or that it's a funding problem.

00:39:01.000 I just don't think that's the case.

00:39:02.000 Sure, and I can half agree with you there, but I don't think any amount of changes in the schools will create two-parent households, right?

00:39:09.000 We can't bring a... I totally agree with you.

00:39:12.000 That's why I think that the fundamental educational problem is not, in fact, a schooling problem.

00:39:15.000 I think that it pre-exists that.

00:39:17.000 Sure, but then I feel like we're now I feel like this is kind of the conservative merry-go-round where it's like what can we do to help with schools?

00:39:24.000 So two of the things that I've seen I think that are usually brought up in research is one is air conditioning that children in hotter environments just don't learn as well.

00:39:32.000 And then the second one is access to food.

00:39:33.000 So, like, kids that are given, like, a breakfast or a lunch that's provided at school, like, increases educational outcomes.

00:39:38.000 Now, I agree that neither of these things might be determinative in, like, well, 20% of kids are graduating, and now 80% of kids are graduating.

00:39:45.000 Or these kids are all going, you know, with their GEDs into the workforce, and now these kids are all suddenly becoming engineers.

00:39:51.000 But in terms of where we can help, do you think there should be, like, some... Okay, so, I mean, he just admitted his whole argument is moot.

00:39:58.000 Talk about... See, this is why this guy is such a slippery debater.

00:40:03.000 So, if you're following this line of argument, he said, well, what made me a liberal is seeing how, when I got rich, I moved to a nice zip code and I put my son in a nice public school.

00:40:17.000 And it's not fair that other kids, whose parents aren't wealthy, can't go to a nice public school with, you know, a well-funded facility.

00:40:27.000 But now he's saying, well, maybe it's not determinative how well-funded the school is.

00:40:33.000 Okay, then, but what?

00:40:35.000 Maybe it's not determinative.

00:40:36.000 I guess it isn't determinative, then.

00:40:39.000 Maybe it's not decisive at all, the level of funding the school receives.

00:40:43.000 But, it's like, but what?

00:40:47.000 So you became a liberal because you felt bad about the fact that inequality exists?

00:40:55.000 At least in terms of schooling.

00:40:58.000 But I mean really it's a question of equality in general.

00:41:01.000 That is the fundamental question.

00:41:05.000 It's about equality.

00:41:07.000 And the fact that there is no equality.

00:41:12.000 And there is no way that you can... And that's really the question I think that conservatives and liberals grapple with.

00:41:19.000 Is...

00:41:22.000 It's the fact that men and women and, you know, and within men and women were all created unequal.

00:41:29.000 And there's combating with this question of fairness.

00:41:35.000 Is that fair? 1.00

00:41:36.000 Is it fair that some people are born stupid? 1.00

00:41:40.000 And then there's the secondary question of, well, if we can't control 0.99

00:41:46.000 How people are born well, we can give everybody if we could give the children a fair opportunity because it's a question one of Decision and it's a question of birth people are born unequal and then people make decisions and their life is a product of their decisions plus their starting position plus circumstance

00:42:10.000 And I guess liberals want to go in there and they want to say, well, school, education should be a place where the state kind of resets it so that everyone has a level playing field.

00:42:21.000 That's basically what it is.

00:42:23.000 And same thing with like health care and same thing with other things. 0.95

00:42:26.000 They basically think that some institutions, like the inequality of the world, should not be allowed through the door.

00:42:34.000 Schools, hospitals,

00:42:37.000 Um, but it doesn't work that way.

00:42:40.000 If you're richer, you get more healthcare.

00:42:43.000 It just is what it is.

00:42:44.000 If you're richer and you have more resources, then you get more healthcare.

00:42:48.000 It's just what it is.

00:42:50.000 And that works, by the way, no matter what.

00:42:52.000 You wanna know why?

00:42:53.000 Even if you live in a socialist country, you could always get on a plane and fly to another jurisdiction where you can pay more for healthcare.

00:43:01.000 If you have tons and tons of money.

00:43:03.000 And same thing with schooling.

00:43:05.000 No matter what happens in the world, if you pay more money, you will get better education.

00:43:10.000 Your children will get better education.

00:43:13.000 Your children will have a better opportunity at a good life.

00:43:16.000 But liberals kind of want to circumscribe equality around the school, around the hospital, around a child age 0 to 16.

00:43:27.000 You know, but it doesn't work that way.

00:43:31.000 So, that's where you get this kind of, he's like retreating from the position where he says, well, maybe it doesn't matter what school you go to, but, you know, can't government help a little bit?

00:43:40.000 And if the argument is like, things should be better, yeah, then we agree.

00:43:47.000 But the question is not that some schools don't get enough money.

00:43:52.000 The question is the kinds of people that are employed.

00:43:55.000 And then you get into questions about who these teachers are and how the resources are spent and who's going to these schools.

00:44:03.000 I mean, like, for example, I went to a very good school.

00:44:07.000 My parents made a lot of sacrifices so that they could pay high property tax so I could go to a good public school.

00:44:15.000 And we live paycheck to paycheck.

00:44:18.000 And the thing is though, my school wasn't, it wasn't like it was a super rich grade school.

00:44:23.000 What made it good is that it was a great community.

00:44:25.000 That all the parents were very involved, and they were involved with the teachers, and they were involved with the extracurriculars, and the whole community was involved with the school.

00:44:35.000 And, you know, so that's a problem that you just can't solve with money, which is something like what liberals always believe, which is that, you know, if something isn't going right, it's just because government hasn't been giving them enough money. 0.97

00:44:49.000 But sometimes communities just suck. 0.98

00:44:51.000 Sometimes you get a bunch of communities full of transient people who just suck. 0.99

00:44:57.000 They're not involved, you know, or they can't be involved for one reason or another, and it's really too bad, but that's also just the way it is. 0.95

00:45:05.000 And you're always gonna have that.

00:45:07.000 You're always gonna have some level of that.

00:45:09.000 So... Anyway.

00:45:13.000 Minimum threshold or minimum baseline of, like, at the very least, every school should have a non-leaky gym.

00:45:19.000 Or every school should have, uh, if children can't afford lunch or breakfast, like, some sort of food provided.

00:45:23.000 Or every school should have these, like, baseline things.

00:45:25.000 So... The food provided is crazy!

00:45:27.000 The parent... What's the role of the parents?

00:45:30.000 The parents should be able to feed their kids.

00:45:34.000 The school's gotta provide- Okay, maybe lunch.

00:45:38.000 But then you get into this outrageous stuff where the school's providing like daycare and preschool and breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

00:45:44.000 I mean, what's the responsibility of the parents?

00:45:46.000 The parents have kids.

00:45:48.000 They don't feel obligated to feed the kids breakfast?

00:45:51.000 Come on.

00:45:52.000 That's on the government now?

00:45:55.000 Again, at some point, you gotta introduce some culpability.

00:46:00.000 Again, I'm going to quibble with the premise of the question because I think when it comes to, for example, food insecurity, school food programs, again, you can always pour money into any program and at the margins create change.

00:46:11.000 I mean, there's no doubt that pouring money onto anything will create change in a marginal way.

00:46:15.000 The question is how large is the margin and how big is the movement, right?

00:46:19.000 So the delta is what I'm looking at.

00:46:21.000 And so I think that you're starting at a second order question.

00:46:24.000 Which is, what if we ignore what I would think are the big primary questions of education?

00:46:29.000 Namely, family structure, value of education at home, how much you have parents who are capable or willing to help with homework.

00:46:34.000 What are the incentive structures we can set up for a society that actually facilitate that?

00:46:38.000 How local communities take ownership of their schools is a big one, right?

00:46:41.000 All of these issues we're ignoring in favor of, say, air conditioning or lunch programs.

00:46:45.000 And so in a vacuum, if you say, air conditioning and lunch programs,

00:46:48.000 Sounds great in a vacuum.

00:46:49.000 In terms of prioritization of values and cost structure, are those the things that I think are going to move the needle in a major way in terms of public policy?

00:46:59.000 I do not.

00:46:59.000 And in fact, I think that many of them end up being disproportionate wastes of money.

00:47:03.000 I mean, I've talked before, pretty controversially, about the fact that an enormous amount of school lunch programs are thrown out.

00:47:09.000 Like, an enormous amount of that food ends up in the garbage can.

00:47:13.000 Is there a better way to do that?

00:47:14.000 If there is a better way to do it, then I'm perfectly willing to hear about that better way to do it.

00:47:17.000 But it seems to me that one of the big flaws in the way that many people of the left approach government is, what if we hit every gnat with a hammer?

00:47:25.000 And my question is, what if the gnat isn't even the problem?

00:47:29.000 What if there's a much bigger substructure problem that needs to be solved in order to... If you're shifting deck chairs on the Titanic, sure, you can make the Titanic slightly more balanced because the deck chairs are slightly better oriented.

00:47:40.000 But the real question is the water that's gaping into the Titanic, right?

00:47:43.000 Yeah, and I agree with you 100%, but again, I feel like we're on the conservative merry-go-round, then, of never wanting to address... That's not a conservative merry-go-round.

00:47:51.000 I can give you ten ways.

00:47:52.000 Well, sure, but so, like, here would be the merry-go-round.

00:47:54.000 I would say that, like, there is a minimum funding for schools that I think would help children.

00:47:57.000 And then we go, well, the thing that would help them the most is two-parent households.

00:47:59.000 Then I go, okay, well, two-parent households actually aren't the problem.

00:48:02.000 The issue is access to things like birth controls, that people don't have children early on.

00:48:05.000 And it's like, but the issue isn't actually birth control.

00:48:07.000 The issue is actually, you need a certain amount of money to move out early and to get married and then to have a two-parent household.

00:48:12.000 So it's actually like economic opportunity.

00:48:14.000 No.

00:48:14.000 Well, it's not, you know.

00:48:15.000 No, just two-parent households.

00:48:16.000 That's it.

00:48:17.000 Yeah, but like, what is the, what are the precursors? 1.00

00:48:18.000 Don't fuck people before you're married and have babies. 1.00

00:48:19.000 Sure. 1.00

00:48:20.000 That's great we can say that and try to fight against, you know, however many hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, but people will have sex and people will make babies. 0.53

00:48:20.000 Done. 0.53

00:48:27.000 And then they used to get married.

00:48:28.000 The vast majority of people in this country, with kids, used to be married.

00:48:31.000 The vast majority of people with kids in this country, now, are not married increasingly.

00:48:36.000 That is obviously a societal change.

00:48:38.000 Something changed, it wasn't human evolution.

00:48:39.000 But a lot of those things in terms of resting on whether or not- W?

00:48:42.000 Woah! 0.99

00:48:43.000 W, Ben! 1.00

00:48:43.000 Get fucked! 1.00

00:48:45.000 Combo! 1.00

00:48:45.000 C-c-c-combo! 1.00

00:48:47.000 Okay, W. Shapiro on that one.

00:48:50.000 Rare Jewish document.

00:48:50.000 W. Havel.

00:49:12.000 People don't tend to want to get married at 22 when they've just finished college, when they don't have the money to move out, and they can't afford a house.

00:49:17.000 Because we have changed the moral status of marriage in the culture.

00:49:19.000 Meaning that everyone, poor, rich, and in-between, used to get married.

00:49:23.000 By the way, a huge percentage of marriages in the United States used to be what they would call shotgun marriages, meaning that somebody knocked somebody up, and because they did not want the baby to be born outside of a two-parent household, they would then get married.

00:49:32.000 Do we think that shotgun marriages, though, are a way to bring back equilibrium to education?

00:49:37.000 Yes.

00:49:38.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:49:39.000 Yes, 100%.

00:49:40.000 A child deserves a mother and a father, because that is the basis for all of this, including education.

00:49:44.000 Do we think that shotgun marriages are, well, let's say this, do we think that that's a reasonable direction that society would ever take?

00:49:50.000 Or is this like, it was the reasonable direction for nearly all of modern history?

00:49:53.000 It was, but history moves in one direction, right?

00:49:56.000 Because of time?

00:49:57.000 I mean, people don't think that.

00:49:59.000 In what way?

00:50:00.000 I don't think we've ever regressed social standards back to, like, oh, well, let's go 100 years back and do things that, you know, used to exist before.

00:50:06.000 That's weird.

00:50:07.000 The entire left right now is arguing that we regressed social standards by rejecting Roe vs. Wade, so that's obviously not true.

00:50:11.000 The Roe vs. Wade is not a social standard, it's a Supreme Court ruling, number one.

00:50:14.000 Number two, if you read the actual majority opinion on Roe v. Wade, we can see that socially we actually never made huge progress on how society viewed abortion.

00:50:22.000 This has always been an incredibly divisive thing, right?

00:50:25.000 I think part of Alito's writing on it was that things like gay marriage, for instance, we've kind of moved past and it's not really as debated anymore, but abortion was never a settled topic, despite Roe v. Wade.

00:50:34.000 The notion that the arc of history constantly moves in one direction is belied by nearly all of the 20th century.

00:50:40.000 What do we mean by that?

00:50:41.000 I mean, in terms of like, women's rights, civil rights... Barbarism, communism, Nazism, all of that was a regression from what was happening at, for example, the beginning of the 19th century and the 20th century.

00:50:50.000 In what way?

00:50:50.000 That's not true at all.

00:50:52.000 Nazism and communism were a regression from what was going on in 1905?

00:50:55.000 Well, in terms of like, communism being a regression, for instance, I'm not a communist, but like, the industrialization of the Soviet Union happened under a communist society.

00:51:02.000 Nazism was the product of what had been happening! 0.95

00:51:05.000 It was not a regression at all!

00:51:08.000 It was the fulfillment of what had been happening.

00:51:13.000 That he doesn't see, that he doesn't see Nazism as the product of science, and Darwin, and Freud, and Hegel, and in a sense Marx.

00:51:26.000 No, no.

00:51:27.000 Nazism was the fulfillment of what European civilization was building towards for hundreds of years. 0.93

00:51:36.000 So I totally disagree with that.

00:51:38.000 You know, Ben is just on a different... He's just on a different trajectory.

00:51:43.000 Okay, when Destiny talks about regression and Ben talks about regression, they're actually quite similar.

00:51:49.000 Okay, the regression was the Enlightenment.

00:51:51.000 The regression was... Modernism.

00:51:55.000 That was the regression.

00:51:56.000 The regression was the French Revolution, the American Revolution.

00:52:02.000 That was the regression.

00:52:04.000 The regression was the three great monarchies under attack by the Jewish banking-dominated West, which was Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary. 0.91

00:52:17.000 So no, you have it twisted.

00:52:18.000 You have it all wrong.

00:52:20.000 It's a murder of tens of millions of people.

00:52:40.000 Back and forth.

00:52:40.000 Sure.

00:52:41.000 I don't think that all of history moves in one direction.

00:52:43.000 There are going to be wars.

00:52:44.000 There are going to be times of peace.

00:52:45.000 I think in general, we're more peaceful now than we have been in the past.

00:52:48.000 But I think when we look at the way that people live their lives, I think that we tend to move in a certain direction socially.

00:52:53.000 So when it comes to things like racism or when it comes to things like slavery or women's rights, I think that there are two huge things that probably aren't changing in the U.S.

00:53:00.000 and one is access to contraception and one is women working jobs. 1.00

00:53:03.000 I think that these two things are probably huge things that are moving us off of shotgun marriages or- This guy's such an idiot, dude. 1.00

00:53:10.000 This guy is really an idiot. 0.99

00:53:13.000 That's, you know, it was so valuable that we found all these clips showing what he doesn't know because you listen to him talk and you realize this is just not a high-level thinker when he says, these are probably two huge things that aren't gonna change. 1.00

00:53:28.000 So do you think that all of human possibility is limited by what your imagination says is plausible on a very short-term timeline?

00:53:37.000 Because that's what it sounds like.

00:53:40.000 That all of human possibilities in this century and the next century in the world is limited by your imagination, limited by what you find sensible and your discretion.

00:53:55.000 Do you really believe that?

00:53:58.000 Erm, these are probably like huge things that aren't changing.

00:54:02.000 Really?

00:54:04.000 I don't think so, pal.

00:54:06.000 I think things... It's like Ben Shapiro says.

00:54:09.000 I mean, I hate to admit it, but it's true that things do go back and forth.

00:54:14.000 It just depends on how big your time frame is.

00:54:19.000 But that's the progressive view.

00:54:21.000 That is the theory of progress that all liberals kind of inherently believe in, which is the idea that

00:54:35.000 That history is this linear marching forward, going towards more freedom and more understanding and our nature is improving as technology develops.

00:54:51.000 And that's just not true.

00:54:52.000 If you look at the long arc of history, it just isn't that way.

00:54:56.000 Married very early on.

00:54:57.000 And I don't see those... Do you think that those two things are going to change fundamentally?

00:55:00.000 First of all, what the data tend to show is that actually more highly educated people, as you were saying, tend to get married more.

00:55:06.000 So if the idea is that women getting an education somehow throws them off marriage, it's the opposite. 0.96

00:55:11.000 Usually it's women who are not educated who are getting married. 1.00

00:55:12.000 But those women aren't getting shotgun marriages. 1.00

00:55:14.000 Yeah, but now you're shifting the topic.

00:55:16.000 My topic was how to get more people married.

00:55:19.000 And you suggested that higher levels of education are delaying marriage and making it less probable.

00:55:25.000 And what I'm telling you, because this is what the data suggests, is that actually as you raise up the educational ladder, people tend to be married more than they are lower down on the educational ladder.

00:55:35.000 If you're a high school graduate, you're less likely to be married than if you're a postdoc.

00:55:39.000 I agree with you, but that's because one of the biggest precursors to getting married is having, like, a level of economic stability.

00:55:44.000 So as people get more educated, they obtain this economic stability, and then they're in a more comfortable position to explore more serious relationships.

00:55:49.000 There's another confound there.

00:55:50.000 I mean, the confound is that people in stable marriages tend to be the children of stable marriages, and there's only one way to break that cycle, which is to create a stable marriage, and that is something that is in everyone's hands.

00:56:00.000 Again, this notion that it is somehow an unbreakable, unshatterable barrier to get married and have kids,

00:56:05.000 I don't understand where this is coming from.

00:56:07.000 Why is that such a challenge?

00:56:09.000 I don't think it's unbreakable or unshatterable.

00:56:11.000 The initial point was for school, if we can provide a minimum level of educational stuff for children, that'd probably be good.

00:56:18.000 But when we retreat back to, well, it has to be the families that are fixed first, fixing families is a multivariate problem.

00:56:25.000 I am fine within my local community.

00:56:26.000 We all vote.

00:56:27.000 Again, I've suggested that there's a difference between local community and federal.

00:56:30.000 I'm fine with my local community voting for school lunches or air conditioning or whatever it is that we all agree to do because the more local you get, the more homogeneity you get in terms of interest and the more interest you have in your neighbors.

00:56:40.000 All of that's fine.

00:56:41.000 I'm part of a very, very solid community.

00:56:43.000 In our community, we give to each other.

00:56:45.000 We have minimum standards of helping one another.

00:56:46.000 All of that's wonderful.

00:56:48.000 By the way, how much you want to bet he lives in like a mostly Jewish community in Florida?

00:56:55.000 What's the, what's the over-under?

00:56:57.000 Okay, odds?

00:56:58.000 What are the odds that Ben Shapiro lives in a Jewish, like an Orthodox Jewish community in South Florida?

00:57:04.000 Or somewhere in Florida?

00:57:05.000 Because that's my money is on that, which is pretty ironic.

00:57:12.000 I just want to put that out there.

00:57:14.000 It comes to the actual problem of education.

00:57:16.000 What I object to in the political sphere, and this happens all the time, is everybody is arguing on top of the iceberg about how we can move the needle 0.5 percentage points, as opposed to the entire iceberg melting beneath them.

00:57:30.000 And we just ignore that.

00:57:31.000 We pretend that that's just, you know, sort of the natural consequence of things.

00:57:33.000 The arc of history suggests that people are never going to get married again.

00:57:35.000 Well, I mean, actually, what the arc of history suggests, realistically speaking, is that the people who are not getting married are not going to be having kids.

00:57:42.000 I don't know.

00:57:59.000 Is that the people who are more religious and getting married are having more kids.

00:58:02.000 And so if you're talking about the arc of history shifting toward marriage, I would suggest that actually demographically over time, long periods of time, not over one generation, over long periods of time the only cure for low birth rate is going to be the people who get married and have lots of kids.

00:58:14.000 Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, but I'm just saying that, again... What are you saying?

00:58:21.000 I think that there are good conversations to be had about people getting married, because stable families produce stable children that are less likely to commit crime, that are more likely to go to school, that are more likely to be productive members of society, et cetera, et cetera.

00:58:30.000 I'm not going to disagree with you on any of that.

00:58:31.000 All of that is true.

00:58:32.000 It's just frustrating that sometimes when you bring up any problem, all of it will circle back to other things that makes it seem like we can't make any progress in any area without...

00:58:41.000 Dude, he's just getting dominated by Shapiro.

00:58:44.000 Just dominated.

00:58:46.000 Because remember how this started.

00:58:48.000 Destiny said I'm a liberal because I was able to put my son in a good public school.

00:58:56.000 And then it turns into, well, maybe funding for public schools isn't determinative, to, okay, you're right, being in a two-parent household's the most important thing, but being in a two-parent household requires this, and he gets beaten back all the way to saying, well, I'm just frustrated that when we have these conversations... So it started out with, I'm a liberal because the government doesn't provide a minimum level of quality of schooling,

00:59:23.000 To, I'm frustrated about conversations.

00:59:30.000 Where it feels like any suggestion that we could approve anything is shot down because blah blah blah.

00:59:37.000 But that's the problem with liberals, is they always start in the middle of the story. 0.91

00:59:41.000 Which is, these kids are in these shitty schools, or not getting education, and you always gotta rewind the story to, how did we end up here? 0.96

00:59:52.000 Why is the gym leaky? 0.97

00:59:53.000 Is it a money problem?

00:59:54.000 I think more likely it's a they're-not-doing-their-job problem.

00:59:59.000 Or the parents-aren't-involved problem. 0.99

01:00:01.000 Or the parents-don't-give-a-shit-and-aren't-married problem. 0.99

01:00:04.000 And they didn't do that because they were irresponsible. 0.99

01:00:09.000 And that's where liberals make everybody's problems everybody else's fault.

01:00:13.000 And, you know, on some level I think that government should provide a net.

01:00:18.000 But that's what it should be, is a net.

01:00:20.000 It's not supposed to be everybody is going to be taken care of if they just don't do their part.

01:00:27.000 It should be that they will not completely fall into hell.

01:00:30.000 You know, the floor and the ground won't open up and they'll be swallowed by hell if they make bad decisions.

01:00:35.000 That's why it's a net.

01:00:37.000 We're not providing a minimum standard of living for everybody.

01:00:42.000 That's decent.

01:00:43.000 It's supposed to say you're not going to fall into a complete catastrophe.

01:00:48.000 In what way?

01:00:49.000 I mean, I literally just told you that on the local level, I'm fine with people voting for air conditioning.

01:00:52.000 Yeah, but so, for instance, on the local level, so for school funding, school funding is done, I think, generally per district.

01:00:58.000 So what do you do when you have poor districts that can't afford air conditioning for their schools?

01:01:03.000 I mean, the idea there would be that presumably if the society, meaning the state, and I generally don't mean the federal state, I mean like the state of California, for example, decides that everybody ought to have air conditioning, people will vote for air conditioning, and that's perfectly legal, and I don't think there's anything morally objectionable about that per se.

01:01:20.000 Cool.

01:01:20.000 I also don't think that that's going to heal anything remotely like the central problem.

01:01:23.000 Sure, I agree.

01:01:23.000 And I think that what tends to happen in terms of government is people love arguing about the problems that can be solved by opening a wallet, and nobody likes to solve a problem by

01:01:32.000 You know, closing their sex life to one person, for example, or having kids within a stable religious community, like the things that actually build society.

01:01:45.000 I'm fine with arguing about each of these policies and whether we apply them or not is a matter generally of pragmatism.

01:01:50.000 Not morality.

01:01:50.000 It's a matter of incentive structures, not, per se, morality.

01:01:53.000 Because incentive structures do have moral underpinnings.

01:01:56.000 There's such a thing as, for example, if you're going to use a welfare program, you have to decide how effective it is, to what crowd it applies, where the cutoffs are, does it disincentivize work, does it not?

01:02:05.000 All of these are pragmatic concerns.

01:02:07.000 But on a moral level, the generalized objection that I have to people on the left side of the aisle is that they like to focus...

01:02:14.000 In these conversations, very often it feels as though it's a conversation with people who are drunk searching under the lamp for their keys.

01:02:22.000 The problems they want to look at are the problems that are solvable by government.

01:02:25.000 And then all the problems they don't want to look at, which are the actual giant monsters lurking in the dark, and not particularly solvable by government, are the ones they want to ignore and assume are just the natural state of things.

01:02:33.000 And I don't think that's correct at all.

01:02:34.000 And I one billion percent agree.

01:02:36.000 And then obviously my criticism for the conservative side is the exact opposite, where there are parts where government could remedy some issues.

01:02:42.000 For instance, you know, children having sex. 0.60

01:02:44.000 I disagree though because government does have a huge role to play.

01:02:47.000 That's where a Christian would disagree with a Jew and say that the thing is about Jews is they're willing to say that let's let the government step out and let people figure out their own problems, but it ignores the fact that 0.76

01:03:04.000 There's an asymmetry between people and society.

01:03:09.000 There's an asymmetry between people in large firms, people in the media, people in Hollywood, and the government's job is to get in the middle of that, and the government's job is to regulate behavior as well as money.

01:03:25.000 So Shapiro says, well, liberals want to look at every problem like we could open up our wallet.

01:03:29.000 Well, I would say the government is not just about money, it's also about guns.

01:03:35.000 And the government should be able to go in there and say, no more pornography. 1.00

01:03:39.000 If you make pornography, we will send men with guns to arrest you.

01:03:44.000 That's a perfect example of something where that's an extremely profitable thing.

01:03:50.000 It is something that has totally penetrated the household and the family.

01:03:54.000 You can't control that.

01:03:55.000 You can't control the proliferation of pornography on these devices inside a home.

01:04:02.000 I mean, you can.

01:04:03.000 I mean, you really... I mean, technically you can.

01:04:05.000 But it's very difficult.

01:04:07.000 It's very difficult to prevent a child from accessing that stuff.

01:04:11.000 And the same goes in the old days for television and for other forms of mass media.

01:04:16.000 So I think the government does have a role to get in the middle of some of those things.

01:04:19.000 And the government does have a role, for example, with marriage.

01:04:22.000 Are we going to pretend that marriage as an institution is completely spontaneous?

01:04:27.000 That it's completely...

01:04:30.000 Everything that's happening there is a result of people's decisions, or is there an incentive structure within marriage as well?

01:04:37.000 You know, Shapiro can say, well, all of our families are married, but that's because he's talking about Orthodox Jews. 0.90

01:04:44.000 What about all the Gentiles out here that do not have a nation, like the Jews have, that provides for each other, that has a sense of community and identity? 0.91

01:04:54.000 These are things that are not easily rebuilt.

01:04:58.000 Things like no-fault divorce, things like feminism, and these schools that push women to go to college. 1.00

01:05:08.000 And Shapiro's right that higher educated people are more likely to be married, but it delays marriage.

01:05:15.000 And for a lot of people, when marriage is delayed for women, they're out having promiscuous sex, and then by the time they get married, it's more likely that they'll get divorced.

01:05:26.000 So I disagree about, you know, like, let's leave everybody to their own devices.

01:05:33.000 I think government has a role in shaping society, and it should.

01:05:38.000 ...producing other children out of wedlock.

01:05:40.000 Like, sometimes having after-school programs is nice to prevent that.

01:05:43.000 Like, I didn't have time for these things when I was in school.

01:05:45.000 I was doing football practice.

01:05:46.000 I was doing cross-country practice.

01:05:47.000 I went in early for a band, you know?

01:05:49.000 I agree with you that sometimes people only focus on one end of the problem.

01:05:51.000 As a... I hate to be that guy, but as somebody that... Have you ever watched The Wire?

01:05:56.000 Sure.

01:05:56.000 I'm not going to cite the wires of your life example, but like obviously there's only so much you can do in a school when the children coming in are so beyond destroyed because of the family life and everything prior to them even getting to school that day.

01:06:06.000 So I agree.

01:06:07.000 Government is not like the solution to broken families.

01:06:10.000 That would never be the case.

01:06:10.000 And it's actually not the solution to education, depending on the kind of solutions that you're talking about.

01:06:16.000 Some solutions, yes.

01:06:16.000 Some solutions, no.

01:06:17.000 Yeah.

01:06:18.000 So the only thing I'm looking at is, as I said earlier, just like these minimum threshold things where it's like, where can government make, because you mentioned marginal, which I think is a really minimum

01:06:25.000 You know, he always says that whenever he's losing the argument, he just uses affect.

01:06:31.000 He uses these weasel words and these rhetorical tactics to say, well, I'm just saying, you know, minimal.

01:06:37.000 We're talking minimal.

01:06:38.000 I'm talking anything.

01:06:40.000 Make an argument, bro.

01:06:42.000 Make an argument.

01:06:42.000 What's the standard?

01:06:45.000 But whenever he's losing, it always resorts to these weasel words.

01:06:48.000 Again, he started out saying, I'm a liberal because I could afford a good public school for my kid and that makes the difference.

01:06:56.000 And that's not fair.

01:06:58.000 And then you fast forward to the end and he says, Well, government could do the minimal thing.

01:07:02.000 You're arguing they can't do anything minimal even if it's not determinative at all? 1.00

01:07:08.000 Okay, so you're just full of shit. 1.00

01:07:09.000 You don't even know what you believe. 1.00

01:07:11.000 He just got raped on that. 0.98

01:07:12.000 He just got absolutely dominated on that topic. 0.99

01:07:13.000 It wasn't even funny.

01:07:35.000 Conservatism and liberalism.

01:07:37.000 Let's go to the pragmatic muck of politics.

01:07:40.000 Trump versus Biden.

01:07:42.000 Between the two of them, who was in their first term the better president?

01:07:47.000 And thus, who should win if the two of them are, in fact our choices, should win a second term in 2024?

01:07:53.000 Ben?

01:07:56.000 Sure.

01:07:57.000 So in terms of actual job performance, you have to separate it into a few categories.

01:08:02.000 In terms of actual performance in foreign policy, I think Trump's foreign policy record is significantly better than Biden's.

01:08:08.000 The world being on fire right now being a fairly good example of that.

01:08:13.000 And we can get into each aspect of the world being on fire and where the incentive structures came from and how all of that happened in a moment.

01:08:18.000 When it comes to the economy, I think that Trump's economic record was better than Biden's.

01:08:23.000 Doesn't mean he didn't overspend.

01:08:24.000 He wildly overspent.

01:08:24.000 He did.

01:08:26.000 But he also had a very solid record of job creation.

01:08:30.000 A huge percentage of the gains in the economy went to people on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

01:08:35.000 Actually, the gross income to the average American was about $6,000 during his term.

01:08:41.000 The unemployment rates were very, very low before COVID.

01:08:44.000 I think that you almost have to separate the Trump administration into sort of before COVID and during COVID, because COVID obviously is sort of a black swan event.

01:08:50.000 The most signal

01:08:52.000 Change in politics in our lifetime.

01:08:54.000 And so, you know, governance during COVID is almost its own category, which we can discuss.

01:08:59.000 But, you know, in terms of foreign policy, in terms of domestic policy, I think that Trump was significantly better than Biden has been.

01:09:04.000 And that's on the upside for Trump.

01:09:06.000 On the downside for Biden, obviously, you're talking four-year highs in inflation.

01:09:08.000 You're talking about savings being eaten away.

01:09:10.000 You're talking about everything being 20 to 30 percent more expensive.

01:09:14.000 You're talking about

01:09:15.000 Massive increases to the deficit, even at a rate that was unknown under Trump.

01:09:19.000 The deficit under Trump raised by about a little under a trillion dollars every year up until 2020.

01:09:23.000 Again, 2020 was COVID year, so everybody decided that we're going to fire hose money at things.

01:09:27.000 But then Joe Biden continued to fire hose money at things in 21, 22, and 23.

01:09:32.000 That obviously is, in my opinion, bad economic policy.

01:09:37.000 And then you get to the rhetoric and you get to the stuff that Donald Trump says.

01:09:40.000 And as I've said before, 1.00

01:09:42.000 My view is that on Donald Trump's epitaph, on his gravestone, it will say, Donald Trump, he's had a lot of shit. 0.99

01:09:47.000 I think that Donald Trump does say a lot of things. 0.99

01:09:50.000 I think that that is basically baked into the cake, which is why everyone who's bewildered by the polls is ignoring human nature, which is, at the beginning, when you see something very shocking, it's very shocking.

01:09:59.000 And then if you see it over and over and over and over for years on end, it is no longer shocking.

01:10:03.000 It is just part of the background noise, like tinnitus.

01:10:05.000 It just becomes, you know, something that your brain adjusts for.

01:10:08.000 And so, do I like a lot of Donald Trump's rhetoric?

01:10:11.000 No, and I never have.

01:10:12.000 Do I think that that is dispositive as to his presidency?

01:10:15.000 No, I do not.

01:10:17.000 When it comes to Biden, again, I think he's underperforming economically.

01:10:20.000 I think that his foreign policy has been really a problem.

01:10:23.000 Even the things I think he's done right are, I think, band-aids for things that he created by doing wrong.

01:10:29.000 And when it comes to his own rhetoric,

01:10:32.000 You can argue that it's grading on a curve because Trump was coming in with such wild rhetoric that just a maintenance of that wild rhetoric doesn't really change, again, the baseline.

01:10:40.000 For Biden, he came in.

01:10:43.000 In the same way that Obama did, on the sort of soaring rhetoric of American unity, I'm the president for all—like, Trump came in, he's like, listen, I'm the president for what I am, and, you know, I'm going to say the things I want to say, I'm going to be on the toilet, and I'm tweeting.

01:10:52.000 And we're like, okay, you know, that's what it is.

01:10:54.000 With Biden, he came in with, I'm the president for all Americans, I'm trying to unify everybody, and that pretty quickly broke down into a lot of oppositional language about his political opponents in particular, an attempt to lump in, for example,

01:11:06.000 Huge swaths of the conservative movement with the people who participated, for example, in January 6th or who are fans of January 6th.

01:11:14.000 And, you know, the sort of lumping in of everybody into MAGA Republicans who wasn't personally signed on to an infrastructure bill with him.

01:11:22.000 That sort of stuff, I think, has been truly terrible.

01:11:24.000 I thought his Philadelphia speech was truly terrible.

01:11:26.000 And again, I think that you do have the problem of

01:11:29.000 He is no longer capable of, certainly rhetorically, unifying the country when every speech from him feels like watching Nick Melenda walk across a volcano on a tightrope.

01:11:39.000 It really is like you're just sort of waiting for him to fall.

01:11:43.000 It's sad to say, I mean, the other day he was speaking for what was, in effect, his campaign kickoff.

01:11:48.000 This is one of the areas where we get into... It doesn't, honestly, though.

01:12:18.000 When people talk about presidents it's this is almost Like a diversionary tactic to talk about presidents because in this unique

01:12:33.000 Scenario, I think that the president is effective when we're talking about Trump versus Biden But under normal circumstances the president is not and so to talk about American society and how it moves by talking about the presidency

01:12:50.000 It's not like Shapiro doesn't know how the country actually works.

01:12:53.000 It's just to talk about it any other way would actually get to the heart of the matter, which I think he doesn't want to do.

01:12:59.000 That's why I think the president talk is just really a diversion to say, oh, Trump versus, you know, people love to talk shop about Trump versus Biden and Pelosi and all these political characters, but the things that are going on are much deeper than that, deeper than the level of the presidency.

01:13:17.000 I don't understand if there's brain-breaking happening or what's going on.

01:13:21.000 I don't know what world we can ever live in where we say that Trump is less divisive for the country than Biden.

01:13:27.000 I think it is so patently obvious. 0.50

01:13:29.000 Trump is so divisive.

01:13:31.000 Not only does Trump make an enemy out of every person in the opposition party, he makes an enemy out of his own party and every single person around him.

01:13:39.000 We all watched him bully

01:13:40.000 You know, Jeff Sessions, we all watched him bully his own party on Twitter.

01:13:43.000 We all watched, like, all of these people walk away from him.

01:13:46.000 Even recently, I think, the Secretary of Defense Esper and John Kelly, the Chief of Staff, were, you know, saying, I think Trump is a threat to democracy.

01:13:56.000 You know, you've got all of his prior people that were around him, some of his closest allies.

01:13:59.000 You've got Bill Barr that won't cosign a single thing that he says. 0.86

01:14:03.000 You've got all these people that he used to work with that all say Trump is a horrible, evil person, he is ineffective as a leader, he doesn't accomplish anything, and he didn't.

01:14:11.000 To say that Biden has failed at bipartisanship when we've gotten the CHIPS Act, we've gotten the IRA, we've gotten the ARP, we've gotten the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, when we've gotten all this major legislation that is working in this historically divided Congress, as opposed to Trump that got us tax cuts and deficit spending?

01:14:28.000 I don't understand where we ever are in this world where Biden is somehow

01:14:32.000 More divisive than Trump.

01:14:34.000 Even the speeches that Ben is bringing up, they always bring up, I remember that one, I think we might have even done it on our episode, the one speech that Biden gave where at one point the background is red.

01:14:43.000 Yeah, the Philly speech I referenced.

01:14:45.000 Yeah, and they're like, oh my god, it's over, this is the end.

01:14:48.000 And then meanwhile, you've got Donald Trump coming into office saying things like, if you burn the flag, you should have your citizenship revoked.

01:14:54.000 Or talking about MSDNC, that I'm going to investigate every single one of these media organizations for corruptness.

01:15:01.000 I'm going to open the libel and defamation laws.

01:15:02.000 I'm going to take all of these guys to court.

01:15:04.000 You've got this weird Project 2025 stuff where...

01:15:08.000 Thank you.

01:15:26.000 It's a whole other level in terms of the demonization of political opponents.

01:15:30.000 I mean, this is a guy that's known for giving his political opponents bad nicknames, right?

01:15:34.000 Like, that's what Trump does.

01:15:36.000 You know, like, it's funny, but even as a resident of Florida, if Florida had another natural disaster, do you think Trump would withhold aid?

01:15:44.000 Because you had, I think that was one of the few nice things that DeSantis actually said about Biden, was it like, hey, listen, you know, when the buildings collapsed in Miami Beach, yeah.

01:15:52.000 That, you know, for the hurricane stuff, that Biden was there.

01:15:55.000 He was saying, if you guys need aid, however many billions, you can have it.

01:15:58.000 Meanwhile, Trump, I think, was threatening to withhold federal funding from blue states that wouldn't... I think it had to do with the National Guard stuff, the deployment of the National Guard, that they weren't, like, doing enough for the riots.

01:16:08.000 And Trump was threatening to withhold aid from some of these blue states.

01:16:12.000 Yeah, Trump is literally the most divisive person in the world.

01:16:15.000 I don't see how on any metric he is ever succeeding in the divisive category.

01:16:20.000 In terms of the economy,

01:16:22.000 I do think it's funny that Republicans are very keen to say that, like, well, we can't really grade Trump, you know, post-COVID because obviously COVID messed everything up, which is fair.

01:16:29.000 But pre-COVID, what did Trump do?

01:16:32.000 Yeah, he did deficit spending tax cuts.

01:16:34.000 He presided over historical interest rates and an economy that was already, like, blazing past the final years of Obama.

01:16:40.000 We were posting all-time highs on all the stock markets of 2013 onwards.

01:16:43.000 You know, unemployment rates were falling.

01:16:45.000 Now under Biden, unemployment rates are even lower than they were under Trump.

01:16:48.000 But it sucks that for Trump, we can say, well, we can't really hold him accountable for 2020.

01:16:52.000 That was COVID. 0.82

01:16:53.000 Well, all we have for Biden is post-COVID.

01:16:55.000 We don't have any pre-COVID Biden, you know, economy.

01:16:58.000 And it was the same thing for Obama too, coming in right after the housing collapse as well.

01:17:01.000 And it sucks that Republicans are able to walk out of office, you know, having burned the entire American society to the ground economically.

01:17:09.000 And now we've got to try to evaluate, okay, well,

01:17:11.000 What did Obama do during his first two to three to four years just trying to recover from where the housing crash left it?

01:17:17.000 And then we look at Biden now who's trying to recover from COVID and now we're grading him on a totally different scale than what Trump is being graded on. 0.98

01:17:24.000 Yeah, that sucks, I think. 0.78

01:17:25.000 Can you comment on the foreign policy? 0.98

01:17:27.000 On the foreign policy, I'm going to be honest, I am very liberal.

01:17:32.000 I'm very not progressive.

01:17:34.000 I'll probably come off as more hawkish than others, because I'm not a big fan of this.

01:17:39.000 Which also, if Ben agrees, I think people like Trump are going to be the most dovish isolationist people ever.

01:17:46.000 They don't want to do anything internationally.

01:17:49.000 They just want to, you know, 1.00

01:17:50.000 Just like a straight up idiot. 1.00

01:17:50.000 This guy's just an idiot. 1.00

01:17:52.000 He just has no idea what he's talking about. 1.00

01:18:16.000 Guys like Trump are gonna be, like, dovish and, like, not do anything internationally? 1.00

01:18:24.000 What a fucking retard. 1.00

01:18:28.000 Obviously, I mean, and don't get me wrong, Trump had an America First foreign policy, but the simplistic terms, well, when you're an isolationist or a non-interventionist, that's when you don't do anything internationally, like, 1.00

01:18:44.000 He didn't not do anything internationally.

01:18:47.000 He renegotiated NAFTA, attempted to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela, he walked into North Korea and did brinksmanship with North Korea for four years and negotiated them down from doing

01:19:01.000 WMD testing, ICBM testing, attempted a backdoor regime change in Iran, drew our troops down in Syria, paved the way for withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying, well that's why he wanted to take apart NATO!

01:19:15.000 He was the one that greenlit lethal aid to Ukraine, pulled America out of the Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile Treaty, and redeployed medium-range ballistic missiles to Eastern Europe, which was a huge deal.

01:19:28.000 Engage China in a trade war. 0.81

01:19:31.000 Am I missing anything?

01:19:31.000 He killed Qasem Soleimani.

01:19:34.000 Did a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

01:19:36.000 The Abraham Accords with the Emirates. 0.95

01:19:40.000 Almost Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Morocco and South Sudan.

01:19:46.000 The idea that he... That's when you do nothing.

01:19:49.000 When you're in non-intervention, that's when you do nothing.

01:19:52.000 Destroyed ISIS, somebody says.

01:19:54.000 Ended regime change against Assad.

01:19:57.000 Pulled the United States out of the JCPOA.

01:20:01.000 So this like, well, that's when you do nothing.

01:20:05.000 And the whole thing about, you know, well, what did he do for the economy?

01:20:09.000 Slashed, he killed thousands of regulations, cut the corporate tax rate by 14%.

01:20:18.000 And then the trade war, which was a huge deal.

01:20:22.000 Put tariffs on...threaten tariffs on Mexico, tariffs on China, build 500 miles of border wall, remain in Mexico policy.

01:20:31.000 So, this whole...what did he even do?

01:20:34.000 The stock market was high after Obama too!

01:20:39.000 Guy doesn't know, he doesn't know anything about anything.

01:20:43.000 Crane Russia, and I'm so happy that he decided to go to our European allies and our NATO allies and try to build a coalition of people to help Ukraine so that that wasn't only the United States.

01:20:53.000 Personally, especially after doing a whole bunch of research, I do tend to side with Israel over Palestine and a lot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

01:21:00.000 I'm glad that Biden, while remaining a staunch defender of Israel,

01:21:03.000 Is that what he thinks is happening?

01:21:05.000 Does he think Biden is telling Israel what to do? 1.00

01:21:07.000 What a fucking idiot, dude! 1.00

01:21:33.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:21:34.000 Biden went in and said, hey, we're not going to kill Palestinians and the Israelis were like, oh, okay. 0.99

01:21:41.000 Yeah.

01:21:41.000 Cause that's how it's been going.

01:21:42.000 That, that describes what has been taking place there for a hundred days.

01:21:46.000 Don't go too high.

01:21:47.000 Um, for foreign policy, I mean, blemishes, I mean like the, the biggest one you can give to Biden is Afghanistan and the poll out there, but man,

01:21:57.000 Are we going to talk about, you know, the Inspector General report that says that one of the biggest reasons why the Afghanistan pullout was so disastrous was because of the Doha Accords, where Donald Trump headed talks that didn't even include the Afghanistan army?

01:22:09.000 I mean, like, these were disasters.

01:22:10.000 Like, when Biden took office, we had 2,500 troops left in Afghanistan.

01:22:14.000 Like, what was the options even afforded to Biden at that point?

01:22:18.000 Obviously, you've got the abandonment of the Kurds in northern Syria, you know, for the Turkish armies to lay waste to.

01:22:24.000 You're talking about Iran and North Korea, although I'm not sure where Ben would land on those, but yeah, that's a broadly... That's a lawful... There it is again!

01:22:32.000 You hear that?

01:22:32.000 There it is again!

01:22:34.000 Ben would land on those, but yeah, that's a broadly... That's a lawful...

01:22:40.000 But pick something where you disagree with here.

01:22:42.000 Well, I mean, there's a lot.

01:22:43.000 So I mean, I want to ask a few questions on each one of these.

01:22:47.000 So let's let's talk about divisiveness for a second.

01:22:51.000 So there's no one who can make the case that Donald Trump is not divisive.

01:22:54.000 Of course, he's incredibly divisive.

01:22:57.000 It's a given.

01:22:58.000 Do you treat Biden's rhetoric with the same level of seriousness that you treat Trump's rhetoric?

01:23:03.000 I should probably put that the other way around.

01:23:05.000 Should we treat Trump's rhetoric with the same level of seriousness as Joe Biden or, say, Barack Obama's rhetoric?

01:23:10.000 I'm going to try to be concise when I say this.

01:23:12.000 Broadly speaking, especially in studying Israel-Palestine and Ukraine-Russia, I try not to take politicians at their word because sometimes they just say stuff to say stuff.

01:23:19.000 I understand that.

01:23:20.000 But broadly speaking, I'm going to look at the rhetoric— They just say stuff to say stuff. 1.00

01:23:26.000 Dude, you're a fucking doofus. 0.99

01:23:47.000 Can I ask you, like, for our head of state, our chief executive, shouldn't rhetoric be arguably one of the most important things that he does? 1.00

01:23:55.000 I mean, the answer would be yes.

01:23:56.000 And now I've been given a choice between a person who I think in calibrated ways says things that are divisive and a person who in uncalibrated ways says things that are divisive.

01:24:05.000 And so the evidence that Joe Biden is divisive is every poll taken.

01:24:10.000 Since essentially August of 2021.

01:24:13.000 He is, by all available metrics, incredibly divisive.

01:24:17.000 A huge percentage of Americans are deeply unhappy, not only with his performance, but don't believe he's a uniter.

01:24:23.000 That's just the reality.

01:24:25.000 And that may just be a reflection.

01:24:26.000 I mean, honestly, we may be putting too much on Trump or Biden personally.

01:24:28.000 It may just be that the American people themselves are rhetorically divided because of social media, and social media can in fact be assessable.

01:24:35.000 One thing that I would ask you about that, though, is I agree, especially when you look at the favorability, but sometimes when I look at these polls, when you start to disaggregate them by party, I wonder if it's actually, is Biden historically divisive?

01:24:47.000 I'm trying to think of a really polite way to say this.

01:24:50.000 The people that like Trump worship Trump.

01:24:53.000 I don't know.

01:24:54.000 Like, one of the most prescient things that Trump could have probably ever said was that I could kill someone on Fifth Street and nobody would hold me accountable.

01:24:59.000 And he could!

01:24:59.000 And I would still love him!

01:25:00.000 Is it really that Biden is historically divisive, or is it that every single Trump supporter will always say that Trump is great and always say that Biden is bad?

01:25:05.000 No, the reason I would say that Biden is, in fact, historically divisive is because Republicans felt much more strongly about Barack Obama than Joe Biden, actually.

01:25:13.000 But they didn't feel as strongly about Trump as they did about, like, Romney or McCain.

01:25:16.000 Right.

01:25:17.000 And the allegiance to Trump.

01:25:46.000 Right?

01:25:47.000 And I'm separating that off from, like, the inherent content of what they say, because obviously what Trump says is more divisive just on, like, the raw level.

01:25:52.000 I mean, if he's insulting people as opposed to Joe Biden doing MAGA Republicans, like, if I were to just — if I were an alien and come down from space and look at these two statements, I'd say, this one's more divisive than this one.

01:26:01.000 But then there's the reality of being a human being in the world, and that is everyone has baked Donald Trump into the cake.

01:26:07.000 And Joe Biden, again, started off with a patina of being non-divisive and now has emerged as divisive.

01:26:14.000 If you don't mind, I actually want to get to the foreign policy questions, because this one is actually slightly less interesting to me.

01:26:19.000 Just one quick thing, I guess, because we can say the reality of it and we can look at opinion polls.

01:26:23.000 What if we look at legislative accomplishments?

01:26:26.000 Biden is working on a 50-50 divided Senate.

01:26:28.000 Donald Trump had both House of Congress and the Supreme Court and got no major legislation passed.

01:26:34.000 Biden had the House and the Senate.

01:26:36.000 Well, I mean, he did lose Congress in 2018.

01:26:39.000 But sure.

01:26:40.000 But prior to that, we got the we got the infrastructure bill, I think, in one year, which Trump promised for his entire presidency.

01:26:45.000 Didn't get anywhere.

01:26:46.000 I mean, yes, his Republican base was not in favor of mass spending on infrastructure.

01:26:50.000 And neither am I. So there's that.

01:26:52.000 I think that's mostly a state.

01:26:53.000 But they were in favor of mass spending for tax cuts.

01:26:55.000 That's not a spending.

01:26:56.000 I mean, effectively it is, right?

01:26:58.000 Effectively it's not.

01:26:59.000 Well, if you're cutting tax receipts but you're not changing the level of spending, like Biden did with the IRA.

01:27:04.000 Again, we have a fundamental philosophical difference here.

01:27:07.000 I think that when the government takes my money, that is not the government

01:27:12.000 Somehow being more fiscally responsible, and when the government allows me to keep my money, I don't see that as the government spending.

01:27:16.000 I see that as my money, and the government is taking less of it.

01:27:19.000 That's great, but at the end of the day, the government is still going to be in a deficit spending, and they're going to have to borrow money from the Treasury.

01:27:23.000 Right, we have a spending problem, in other words, not a receipts problem, is the case that I'm making.

01:27:26.000 The problem with Donald Trump is not that he lowered taxes.

01:27:28.000 The United States has one of the most progressive tax systems on the planet, and in fact, if you wish to have a European-style social welfare state, what you actually need is to tax the middle class to death.

01:27:36.000 I mean, the reality is that the top 20% of the American population pays literally all net taxes in the United States after state benefits and all of this.

01:27:44.000 So, if you actually wanted to have the kind of social welfare state that many liberals seem to want to have, like Northern Europe, for example, you'd actually have to tax people who make 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars.

01:27:53.000 And I don't want that.

01:27:53.000 I agree with that.

01:27:54.000 So how do you explain the lack of legislation?

01:27:56.000 I mean, if he's like such a uniter.

01:27:58.000 Because I think the Republican Party itself is quite divided.

01:28:00.000 And I think that Trump's- But isn't that his job?

01:28:02.000 He's the head of the Republican Party.

01:28:03.000 He's the president, Republican president of the United States. 0.99

01:28:05.000 I mean, again, I don't think that- This is just like a dumb argument. 0.92

01:28:08.000 Biden has passed wildly historic legislation. 0.71

01:28:11.000 The infrastructure bill was the largest, like- So here's the problem.

01:28:14.000 If you're a Republican, the only bills that you can get consensus on tend to be bills that either, that

01:28:21.000 Let's be real about this.

01:28:22.000 There are tax cuts because, as you would, I think, agree with, when it comes to polling data, Americans constantly say they want to cut the government.

01:28:30.000 And then the minute you ask them which program, they have no idea.

01:28:33.000 And so it's much harder to come up with a bill to cut things than it is to come up with a bill to add things, which is why spending was out of control under Trump as well.

01:28:33.000 Right, exactly.

01:28:42.000 But there are some Republicans who still don't want to spend on those things.

01:28:44.000 Right.

01:28:44.000 So inherently, the task that

01:28:47.000 This goes back to the first question.

01:28:48.000 The task that Republicans think government is there to do is different than the task that Democrats think that government is there to do.

01:28:54.000 So the way that the very metric of success for a Democratic president versus a Republican president, namely, for example, pieces of legislation passed.

01:29:01.000 As a Republican, one of my goals is to pass nearly no legislation because I don't actually want the government involved in more areas of our life.

01:29:08.000 I want to ask a couple questions on the foreign policy.

01:29:10.000 Yeah, okay, wait, real quick.

01:29:10.000 Sure.

01:29:11.000 So, for instance, like, Donald Trump wanted to punish China, and he wanted to bring microprocessor manufacturing to the United States.

01:29:17.000 Biden did that with legislation, with the CHIPS Act.

01:29:19.000 You talk about, like, spending being out of control, and I mean, I can agree with that.

01:29:23.000 I think anybody that looks at the numbers has to agree with that.

01:29:24.000 But why not pass legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, which is at least, like, spending neutral?

01:29:29.000 Right?

01:29:30.000 Like, why are there not bills where Donald Trump could take— Well, I mean, first of all, I think that whenever the government says something is spending neutral, it rarely materializes that way.

01:29:36.000 That is not going to be a spending neutral bill.

01:29:37.000 Sure, but there's a difference between, like, at least they say it's spending neutral versus this is a $500 billion bill over, like, 10 years, right?

01:29:43.000 Well, but again, I don't see a tax cut as a matter of, quote, spending neutrality.

01:29:46.000 The big problem is they keep spending, not that they are allowing me to keep the money that I earned and they did not earn.

01:29:51.000 Okay, so then just to understand, so if somebody just did massive, like, reductions in tax receipts, so tax cut after tax cut after tax cut, but they didn't change spending at all, you wouldn't consider that, like, an increase in deficit spending or out-of-control spending?

01:30:02.000 You would just— That's not spending!

01:30:06.000 What?

01:30:08.000 How does he— But that's not spending.

01:30:12.000 The deficit would go up, but that doesn't constitute spending.

01:30:16.000 No, the opposite.

01:30:19.000 I would consider it a wild overspending.

01:30:22.000 So then was it under Trump then when he did the tax?

01:30:22.000 Okay.

01:30:24.000 I mean, the deficit spending, by the way, under Biden is way worse than it was under Trump.

01:30:27.000 Of course, but we're in post-COVID, right?

01:30:30.000 COVID ended effectively... I mean, you live in Florida.

01:30:32.000 COVID effectively ended in the state of Florida by the middle of 2021.

01:30:34.000 Yeah.

01:30:34.000 I mean, even if you're a vaccine fan, by like April, May of 2021, there was wide availability of vaccines, whether or not you liked the vaccines.

01:30:42.000 And at that point,

01:30:43.000 We were done.

01:30:44.000 I agree, but like we're in a post, like how many trillions of dollars have been dumped in worldwide that are like leading to inflation, right?

01:30:50.000 The inflation is like a worldwide issue right now because of the economy shutting down for a year or two.

01:30:54.000 It's not like those effects are gone in one year, right?

01:30:56.000 COVID might be gone, but the after effects of all the stimulus spending and the unemployment and everything else.

01:31:00.000 The definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods.

01:31:02.000 So pouring more money on top of that makes for more inflation.

01:31:05.000 That's what it does.

01:31:06.000 Sure, I agree.

01:31:08.000 But like, there's also the definition of when do you deficit spend is when economies are headed for recessions, right?

01:31:12.000 Rather than when economies are doing really well, like they were under Trump, and he was deficit spending, whereas Biden can at least make the argument that I should, I ought to be deficit spending because the economy is headed for potential recession.

01:31:20.000 So here's the thing, I don't think that the economy is actually headed for a recession.

01:31:23.000 In fact, if you look at the economic statistics... Every economist said it was.

01:31:27.000 They're still saying that there's like a recession coming, right?

01:31:57.000 Sure.

01:31:58.000 A lot because of the American recovery plan, right, that Biden did as well?

01:32:02.000 Four million jobs?

01:32:03.000 No, I'm not going to attribute it to that because the rates of growth in job growth from September, October, November, were actually very similar to the rates of job growth after Joe Biden took office.

01:32:13.000 What you see is actually kind of a straight line.

01:32:15.000 In any case, on the foreign policy stuff, this is getting abstruse, but on the foreign policy stuff.

01:32:22.000 So the questions that I have with regard to Biden on foreign policy.

01:32:28.000 Very, very simple question.

01:32:31.000 Do you think that the situation in the Middle East is better now than it was under Donald Trump?

01:32:39.000 Probably... That's a hard one.

01:32:44.000 The factors that I'm making right now... How is that?

01:32:46.000 W. Ben, how is that hard?

01:32:49.000 Obviously, you've got the Israel-Palestinian war that's going on right now, which is kind of bad, but broadly speaking, I'm not sure how much that affects the Middle East as much as the collapse of Syria.

01:33:02.000 So we got a twofer there.

01:33:04.000 Well, the Israel-Palestine conflict is kind of bad, but it doesn't affect the whole region.

01:33:08.000 And then we got another, broadly speaking.

01:33:10.000 Then we got another, broadly speaking.

01:33:12.000 How many is that?

01:33:13.000 Has anybody been keeping score on that?

01:33:16.000 Has anybody been counting?

01:33:18.000 Broadly speaking.

01:33:18.000 First of all, in this case, maybe that's actually appropriate to use that phrase.

01:33:23.000 Broadly speaking about the Middle East.

01:33:25.000 But you got the wrong answer!

01:33:26.000 Yeah, the Israel-Palestine conflict isn't affecting the whole region, for sure.

01:33:31.000 Just kind of bad, but, like, broadly speaking, I'm not sure how much that affects the Middle East as much as, like, the collapse of Syria.

01:33:36.000 2013 Syrian Civil War sent millions of immigrants throughout all of Europe.

01:33:41.000 Millions!

01:33:42.000 This war isn't displacing people? 1.00

01:33:44.000 This war hasn't displaced millions of people, you fucking idiot? 1.00

01:33:49.000 If you just say it like that. 1.00

01:33:51.000 But when you're Destiny, you could just say it like that and that's an argument.

01:33:54.000 If you just say millions, all the economists with this weird Jewish accent. 1.00

01:34:00.000 Why does Destiny have like a Jewish accent? 0.91

01:34:02.000 He's from Nebraska.

01:34:04.000 He's from Nebraska and he sounds like a Jew. 0.79

01:34:06.000 Why does he say, why does he say all?

01:34:11.000 All.

01:34:12.000 All of those things, broadly speaking, you're from Nebraska.

01:34:18.000 Buddy, what's with the Jew accent? 1.00

01:34:20.000 What is that?

01:34:21.000 That's autism.

01:34:21.000 You know what that is?

01:34:23.000 Autistic people tend to emulate these other speech patterns, if you've ever noticed that.

01:34:28.000 They talk like, they adopt these weird accents.

01:34:32.000 If you know anybody with Asperger's,

01:34:35.000 I'm sure you know somebody who does something similar.

01:34:39.000 So that's what that is for sure, but that's hilarious.

01:34:41.000 Millions of people! 0.98

01:34:43.000 Yeah, millions have been displaced by this too, retard. 1.00

01:34:47.000 Which was under Obama and continued under Trump. 0.85

01:34:49.000 Trump didn't do anything to alleviate any of the Syrian civil war.

01:34:53.000 That's not true.

01:34:54.000 Why did Syria end up as a preserve of Russia again? 0.94

01:34:56.000 How did Syria end up as a preserve of Russia? 0.88

01:34:58.000 Yes, why did it end up being essentially a client state of Russia?

01:35:02.000 I know that Putin enjoys access to the ports down there.

01:35:05.000 I don't know, you tell me.

01:35:06.000 I mean, the reason is because Barack Obama suggested that there was a red line that would be drawn in the face of chemical weapons use.

01:35:10.000 Bashar al-Assad then used chemical weapons in Syria, and Barack Obama was unwilling to then essentially create consequences for Syria in the form of any sort of Western strike, and so instead he outsourced it to Russia.

01:35:22.000 Do you think there might have been some hesitancy after, like, seeing how Libya ended up, that maybe us, like, intervening?

01:35:22.000 This is 2013-2014.

01:35:22.000 Sure.

01:35:28.000 Who was president during Libya?

01:35:30.000 Yeah.

01:35:31.000 What does that have to do with anything?

01:35:33.000 There might have been like a mistake learned.

01:35:34.000 The point that I'm making is that actually the Middle East, I mean, just historically speaking, was historically good under Donald Trump.

01:35:40.000 I mean, it's very difficult to make the case that either before or after Trump were better than during Donald Trump.

01:35:44.000 I mean, the Syrian, I don't think that Trump contributed to the Syrian situation improving much.

01:35:51.000 He did wreck ISIS, which was in the West. 0.98

01:35:53.000 I mean, ISIS had been getting wrecked by the Kurds in Iraq, by every single person, by 1.00

01:35:58.000 I mean, yeah, they did.

01:36:14.000 For sure.

01:36:14.000 He called them the JV squad.

01:36:16.000 Sure.

01:36:16.000 And then they became not the JV squad.

01:36:18.000 Yeah, but I don't know if ISIS is originating in Syria and Baghdadi and all of the growth of that is necessarily Obama's fault.

01:36:25.000 I know that we like to say that Obama created ISIS.

01:36:27.000 I don't know if you say that, but I've heard that saying a lot.

01:36:29.000 I think that's a little bit simplistic.

01:36:31.000 I don't think that when I'm looking at actions that presidents have taken, the

01:36:35.000 The biggest criticism I have for Middle Eastern policy is, I think the Doha Accords were a disaster, and I think that's one of the biggest blemishes that we have right now.

01:36:42.000 I would also argue that moving the embassy to Jerusalem was also kind of silly, and arguably contributed to some of the conflict we see right now between Israel and Palestine.

01:36:50.000 I would argue precisely the opposite, especially given the fact that after the movement of the embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords continued to sign and actually expand.

01:36:57.000 And that if Donald Trump had been elected, I have no doubt in my mind that Saudi Arabia would now be a part of the Abraham Accords.

01:37:03.000 In fact, that was basically pre-negotiated.

01:37:05.000 And then when Joe Biden took office, Joe Biden took a very anti-Saudi stance on a wide variety of issues.

01:37:11.000 The biggest single effect in the Middle East of Joe Biden's presidency, and again, I agree with you that not every foreign policy issue can be laid at the hands of a president.

01:37:19.000 Joe Biden's main approach to the Middle East was very similar to the Obama approach, which is why the Middle East was chaotic under Obama and chaotic under Biden.

01:37:25.000 And that was to alienate allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel, and instead to try to make common cause or cut deals with Iran.

01:37:34.000 What that did is incentivize terrorism from Iran.

01:37:37.000 What we're watching in the Middle East is Iran attempting to use every one of its terror proxies in the Middle East, and it was specifically launched in an attempt to avoid what Biden actually was trying to do, which was good, which was 0.91

01:37:47.000 After two years of failure with Saudi Arabia, try to bring them into the Abraham Accords, right? 1.00

01:37:50.000 That was what was burgeoning at the end of last year.

01:37:53.000 And Iran saw that, and Iran decided that they were going to throw a grenade into the middle of those negotiations by essentially activating Hamas. 0.56

01:37:59.000 Hamas activates, Hamas commits.

01:38:01.000 October 7th, Israel, as a sovereign nation-state, has to respond to the murder of 1,200 of its citizens and the taken kidnapping of 240.

01:38:07.000 Israel has to do that not only to go after its own hostages and try to restore them, but also to reestablish military deterrence in the most violent region of the world.

01:38:15.000 Hezbollah gets active.

01:38:16.000 On Israel's northern border.

01:38:17.000 Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy.

01:38:18.000 Hezbollah!

01:38:19.000 They get active on the northern border.

01:38:21.000 The Houthis in Yemen get active.

01:38:24.000 The only reason all this is happening at the same time is because Iran is doing this, right? 1.00

01:38:27.000 But not just that.

01:38:28.000 They are threatening global shipping.

01:38:30.000 If you're talking about the effects of global supply lines, which I totally agree had a major inflationary effect on the economy thanks to COVID.

01:38:36.000 Right now, the cost of shipping is nearly double what it was just a few weeks ago, and that is because a ragtag group of hoodie barbarians are attacking international shipping and forcing everybody to stop using the Babel Mound and straight instead of going around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. 1.00

01:38:52.000 All of that is the result of the fact that Joe Biden reoriented the United States in the very early days in favor of a more pro-Iranian stance.

01:38:58.000 He appointed Robert Malley to negotiate the Iran deal, who, as it turns out, was using proxies.

01:39:03.000 Many of his aides were actually taking money from Iran.

01:39:06.000 The Biden administration, literally one of their first acts was to delist the Houthis as a terror organization and end sanctions against the Houthis.

01:39:13.000 Shapiro, by the way,

01:39:27.000 Shapiro is wrong about some of this, but his answer to Destiny is just like... I mean, Shapiro's wrong because he's a Zionist. 0.61

01:39:37.000 So, he's interpreting everything through the lens of what benefits Israel. 0.99

01:39:42.000 Destiny's just ignorant. 0.98

01:39:43.000 Destiny just doesn't even know what he's talking about. 0.90

01:39:45.000 He says that, like Shapiro says, the Middle East was objectively stable under Trump from 2017 until 2021.

01:39:53.000 Inarguably, it was more stable than it had been at any other time in this century.

01:39:58.000 Whether it's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, period of the rise of ISIS, Syrian civil war, what's happening now.

01:40:04.000 Just inarguably.

01:40:06.000 Right now there's fighting happening on every single front.

01:40:09.000 There's a major ground war in Gaza.

01:40:10.000 There's potentially going to be a major ground operation in Lebanon.

01:40:14.000 The United States is now directly bombing Yemen.

01:40:16.000 Of course, they were assisting the Saudis in bombing Yemen during their civil war under Trump, but now we're directly involved.

01:40:23.000 Terrorism in Iran. 0.84

01:40:25.000 So, just objectively, it was more stable under Trump, and moving the embassy, much as I disagree with that, has nothing to do with what's happening now.

01:40:35.000 The moving of the embassy has nothing to do with what's going on today and what happened on October 7th, because Shapiro's right. 0.95

01:40:45.000 Whether, and I don't agree that Iran activated Hamas, I think that probably Hamas acted of their own volition, although it's possible that Iran activated them,

01:40:54.000 It had everything to do with a potential Saudi inclusion in the Abraham Accords, which Shapiro's right, Biden was negotiating in August.

01:41:04.000 And they were going to promise Saudi Arabia a security guarantee.

01:41:08.000 So it had nothing to do with the embassy.

01:41:11.000 The biggest disaster was, we are all traumatized by it now, was the Iraq invasion, which happened under a Republican president.

01:41:17.000 You agree with that, right?

01:41:18.000 Sure.

01:41:18.000 The deposition of Saddam Hussein and everything that followed after probably contributed more to the growth of ISIS and the destabilization of that entire region, probably more than anything else.

01:41:26.000 I think that under, prior to Bush, for Clinton, and even at the beginning of Bush's presidency, we were on some kind of road to normalcy with Iran, which I think has to happen, whether we like them or not, until Bush, for whatever reason, decides to 0.93

01:41:39.000 W Destiny.

01:41:41.000 Shapiro hated that. 0.98

01:41:43.000 Shapiro just hates Iran because he's a Jew. 0.90

01:41:46.000 So Shapiro's like, Biden made the mistake of trying to have rapprochement with Iran and Destiny says, well that's inevitable.

01:41:54.000 Look at Shapiro's face when he says that.

01:41:56.000 Point A. Point A.

01:42:19.000 I find that very difficult to believe, and I don't see a lot of evidence.

01:42:22.000 I mean, we can just disagree on that.

01:42:23.000 Sure, we can disagree on that, but I know that once it got going... By the way, the after-effects, just a quick note, the after-effect of the Iraq war that was the most devastating was the increase in power of Iran. 0.96

01:42:31.000 I agree, yeah, because of the destabilization of Iraq, and Iraq not having a government there that was functional for at least a decade.

01:42:38.000 And was, in fact, a Sunni government, right?

01:42:39.000 Originally it was a Sunni government.

01:42:40.000 Disbanding the Sunni army was one of the worst things that the Bush administration did.

01:42:43.000 Probably, yeah, banning all the former Ba'ath parties, all the military, yeah, all horrible.

01:42:46.000 We're good.

01:43:06.000 Yo, W?

01:43:26.000 The Ayatollah even is there, like the citizens of Iran, I don't think are big supporters of the government there. 0.98

01:43:30.000 Okay, gay? 0.96

01:43:31.000 No, they all love him.

01:43:32.000 I feel like moving on a path where, you know, let's do our nuclear inspections, we had that Iranian nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of, let's do the nuclear inspections, make sure you're not on the way to nuclear weapons, let's unfreeze some funds, let's move in some direction where we get on a good term with you, I feel like that's the most important thing that needs to happen in the Middle East.

01:43:48.000 As much as people like to look at the Abraham Accords, who cares if, what was it, Bahrain, I think Oman, 0.75

01:43:53.000 UAE and Morocco.

01:43:55.000 The UAE and Morocco, yeah.

01:43:57.000 All of these people, even Saudi Arabia, already have de facto normalization with Israel anyway.

01:44:01.000 They're all trading.

01:44:02.000 To pretend that anybody even 15 years ago would have been talking about normalization, Saudi Arabia and Israel is insane.

01:44:10.000 They were already on that path.

01:44:12.000 They were already de facto trading partners with each other.

01:44:16.000 They had already been collaborating and doing things.

01:44:18.000 That's a wild claim that Israel and Saudi Arabia were going to normalize 15 years ago.

01:44:22.000 15 years ago might have been a wild claim.

01:44:24.000 But after Turkey, after Jordan, and then in the past like 20 years of like economic relations and ties with each other, all of the leadership in the Middle East, and you'll agree with this, look at Israel and they go, okay, well we've got Palestinians who, you know, God bless them.

01:44:38.000 Do nothing.

01:44:38.000 And then you've got Israel, which is on a region with no natural resources to somehow become like an economic giant.

01:44:44.000 They're good to trade with.

01:44:44.000 Their population is educated.

01:44:46.000 They have military power.

01:44:48.000 All of the leadership in these Middle Eastern countries are wanting to be friendly with Israel and are engaging in trade de facto with Israel.

01:44:53.000 And the idea that, like, the UAE and Bahrain were brought in to say, like, oh, well, now we're going to officially say this, I just— Those were the first steps toward, obviously, the formation of a new Middle East in which economics would predominate over sectarian conflict.

01:45:07.000 The chief obstacle to that is Iran. 0.98

01:45:09.000 The notion that negotiations with the Ayatollah were going to be a solution to any of this is absolutely benign. 1.00

01:45:09.000 I agree. 1.00

01:45:16.000 But do we think— Is it the Abraham Accords that's convincing Saudi Arabia to take a stance against Iran?

01:45:21.000 No, they're already fighting with each other.

01:45:24.000 I don't think the Abraham Accords moved us any closer towards any type of real peace in the region. 0.53

01:45:28.000 What has to happen is something has to happen with Iran. 0.98

01:45:31.000 There has to be some diplomatic bilateral communication there.

01:45:34.000 No, what has to happen is the containment of Iran, which was what was taking place with the increased normalization with the Sunni Arab world and Israel combined with significant economic sanctions.

01:45:45.000 The notion that there's this far-fetched notion in foreign policy circles that diplomacy can sort of be wish-cast out of thin air.

01:45:52.000 That if you sit around a table that you can always come to an agreement with somebody.

01:45:55.000 The Ayatollahs do not have common interests with the United States.

01:45:58.000 They do not.

01:45:59.000 And this idea that they are willing to take money in exchange for, for example, some sort of peaceful acquiescence to Israel's existence is obviously untrue.

01:46:08.000 Hasn't that been the case, though?

01:46:10.000 That you've had a region with tons of sectarian violence for a long time, and then finally Turkey was like, you know what?

01:46:15.000 This isn't worth it.

01:46:16.000 The United States paid them a lot of money.

01:46:17.000 They had conversations with Israel, and you know what?

01:46:20.000 The economy, the economic gains... Jordan, same thing with... Not to get into Turkish politics, but the situation with Turkey was actually quite warm between Israel and Turkey in the 90s when you had the

01:46:33.000 Because Turkey recognized Israel in the 40s, if I'm not mistaken.

01:46:37.000 They recognized Israel right after independence.

01:46:58.000 I thought that he meant, because he kept saying Turkey and Jordan, but Turkey didn't need a deal from the United States to normalize ties.

01:47:05.000 They did it shortly after Israel's founding, which was unique among the Arab states.

01:47:12.000 Not that Turkey is Arab, but among the Muslim states, I should say.

01:47:16.000 That's crazy. 1.00

01:47:18.000 What a fucking idiot. 1.00

01:47:19.000 That's like the one thing that he didn't need to do. 1.00

01:47:22.000 That he had to not do was make like a serious blunder like that.

01:47:26.000 Turkey.

01:47:27.000 Oh, did I say Turkey?

01:47:28.000 Oh, I meant Egypt.

01:47:29.000 Yeah, common mistake.

01:47:30.000 It's like the same country.

01:47:32.000 Not.

01:47:34.000 Yeah, Turkey and Egypt.

01:47:35.000 Everybody gets those mixed up.

01:47:36.000 Kind of like Russia and China.

01:47:38.000 You say Russia, but you mean China.

01:47:41.000 That's crazy, dude.

01:47:43.000 You need big ones.

01:47:45.000 Here's the thing.

01:47:46.000 Is it possible that you could theoretically come to a deal with Iran only with a new leadership group?

01:47:50.000 This is true for every peace agreement in the region.

01:47:54.000 Israel could not have made peace with... Well, they made peace with Egypt and Sadat was the leader for Yom Kippur, right? 0.55

01:47:59.000 They did not make peace with Nasser.

01:48:01.000 The point is that this is a different regime.

01:48:01.000 Right.

01:48:03.000 You need a different regime.

01:48:04.000 But I'm saying the same regime that did part of the Yom Kippur War was the same regime that negotiated peace with Israel.

01:48:10.000 I mean, that's true.

01:48:11.000 It is also true that that is a relationship that could be cultivated specifically because

01:48:18.000 It was Sadat who made clear he was going to come to the table.

01:48:20.000 Have the Iranians ever made clear that they would come to the table over, for example, the existence of the State of Israel?

01:48:24.000 Wow.

01:48:25.000 Ben just got BTFO'd there.

01:48:27.000 But that's his neocon Jewish lens getting in the way of reality. 0.68

01:48:31.000 He says, well, the only way anyone can go to the table is with regime change!

01:48:36.000 And Destiny's like, yeah, what about Anwar Sadat?

01:48:39.000 Oh, well, uh, uh, uh, well, because he, well, he wanted to make peace.

01:48:42.000 Okay, so, seems like your little heuristic is just completely wrong then, isn't it?

01:48:47.000 Uh, no.

01:48:48.000 That is not a thing that's going to happen.

01:48:50.000 But I think people probably felt the same.

01:48:52.000 Every single one of their proxy groups, every one of them, not only calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, they also call for the destruction of America.

01:48:58.000 I mean, this is literally the Houthi slogan. 0.97

01:49:00.000 They're busy hitting ships, and their slogan is literally, Allahu Akbar, death to America, death to the Jews, death to Israel. 0.99

01:49:06.000 It doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, and it's not all that catchy, but that is, in fact, their slogan.

01:49:10.000 The notion that the regime that propagates that is going to be approached with diplomacy is not only wrong, the problem is that it's easy to say that the stakes of diplomacy are, okay, so we try to talk, right?

01:49:22.000 Jaw-jaw is better than war-war. 0.99

01:49:24.000 Sure.

01:49:25.000 The only problem is that in the Middle East, weakness is taken as a sign that aggression might be an appropriate response.

01:49:31.000 That is how things work in the Middle East.

01:49:34.000 And the fact that Joe Biden...

01:49:37.000 By the way, I think the logic of violence in the Middle East is actually closer to what most international politics looks like than we wish that it were.

01:49:44.000 I mean, I think that's part of what's happening in Ukraine as well.

01:50:06.000 Which brings me, by the way, here's my question about Ukraine.

01:50:11.000 So you think that for Iran, right, a country that has been sanctioned for God knows how many years now, you think that for Iran just continuing to sanction them and contain them is an effective way, is more effective than trying to engage them in bilateral or multilateral peace talks?

01:50:24.000 Yes, 100%.

01:50:26.000 And the proof's in the pudding.

01:50:27.000 Before we go to Ukraine, can I ask about Israel?

01:50:29.000 So, you're both mostly in agreement, but what is Israel- I was about to say that.

01:50:33.000 Okay, but as I'm learning, what is Israel doing right?

01:50:38.000 What is Israel doing wrong in this very specific current war in Gaza?

01:50:45.000 I mean, frankly, I think that what Israel's doing wrong is if I were Israel, okay? 0.99

01:50:49.000 Like, again, America's interests are not coincident with Israel's interests.

01:50:53.000 If I were an Israeli leader,

01:50:55.000 I would have swiveled up and I would have knocked the bleep out of Hezbollah. 1.00

01:50:59.000 BLEEP! 0.56

01:50:59.000 What does that mean? 0.56

01:51:02.000 Yoav Galant, who is the Defense Minister of Israel, was encouraging Netanyahu, who is the Prime Minister, and the war cabinet, including Benny Gantz.

01:51:07.000 So whenever people talk about the Netanyahu government, that's not what's in place right now.

01:51:10.000 There's a unity war government in place that includes the political opposition.

01:51:13.000 The reason I point that out is because there are a lot of people politically who will suggest that the actions Israel is currently taking are somehow the

01:51:20.000 Manifestation of a right-wing government.

01:51:21.000 Israel currently does not have a quote-unquote right-wing government.

01:51:23.000 They have a unity government that includes the opposition.

01:51:25.000 In any case, Yoav Galant was urging in the very early days of the war that Israel should turn north and instead of hitting Hamas, they should actually take the opportunity to knock Hezbollah out because Hezbollah is significantly more dangerous to the existence of the State of Israel than Hamas. 0.69

01:51:37.000 I actually agree with that.

01:51:39.000 As far as what Israel has been doing wrong in the actual war, I mean, I think that 0.65

01:51:46.000 Again, from an American perspective, I think that Israel is doing pretty well.

01:51:50.000 From an Israeli perspective, if I were Israeli, I would actually want Israel to be less loose about sending its soldiers in on the ground level.

01:51:59.000 So Israel's attempting to minimize civilian casualties, and the cost of that has been the highest.

01:52:03.000 Military death toll that Israel has had since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

01:52:06.000 I mean, I personally know, through one degree of separation, three separate people have been killed in Gaza.

01:52:11.000 And that's because they're going in door-to-door, it's because they're attempting to minimize civilian casualties, and they're losing a lot of guys in this particular war.

01:52:22.000 The problem that Israel has had, historically speaking, is that Israel got very complacent about its own security situation.

01:52:27.000 They believed the technology was going to somehow correct for the hatred on the other side of the wall.

01:52:33.000 Okay, so our people have to live underground for two weeks at a time while some rockets fall, but at least it's not a war.

01:52:39.000 And that complacence bred

01:52:42.000 What happened on October 7th.

01:52:43.000 So to me, what Israel did wrong was years and years and years of complacence and belief in an Oslo system that is at root a failure because you cannot make a peace agreement with people who do not want to make peace with you.

01:52:55.000 So that's what I think Israel is doing wrong. 0.81

01:52:56.000 I have a feeling there's going to be wide divergence on this point.

01:53:00.000 Maybe.

01:53:02.000 So in terms of, broadly speaking, I generally oppose settlement expansion.

01:53:09.000 Well, in terms of, broadly speaking, I generally oppose settlement expansion.

01:53:14.000 It's a thing that Israel does incorrectly, but I think it's kind of, like, provocative to at least all the Palestinians in the West Bank, and it probably energizes hatred in the Gaza Strip for them as well.

01:53:24.000 In terms of conducting warfare, the one thing that I always say to everybody, especially Americans, is you can't evaluate things from an American perspective. 1.00

01:53:33.000 It's very stupid. 0.99

01:53:34.000 It happened a lot with Ukraine, where people are like, oh, well, didn't they work with the Nazis? 1.00

01:53:37.000 Wow!

01:53:37.000 Most Americans are not operating at this level.

01:53:37.000 Really?

01:54:05.000 What was that little preamble about the Soviet Union and the Nazis? 1.00

01:54:10.000 This guy's just on another level of stupid. 1.00

01:54:14.000 He's just an idiot. 1.00

01:54:17.000 We have to remember, Israel's not just at war with Hamas. 1.00

01:54:22.000 What's he gonna say next?

01:54:24.000 Well, they're also at war with Hezbollah and the Houthis.

01:54:28.000 Oh my goodness.

01:54:30.000 Wow, bro is breaking out the knowledge!

01:54:32.000 Well, what I'll break with, Ben, is I think that minimizing civilian casualties and everything is very, very, very important, I think, on the Israeli side.

01:54:38.000 I don't think it's important so that the U.S.

01:54:39.000 will stay with them, because I think the U.S.

01:54:41.000 is probably going to stick with Israel, as long as they're not doing anything crazy.

01:54:43.000 And I don't even think it matters for the international community.

01:54:46.000 It definitely doesn't matter for the U.N., because Jesus Christ.

01:54:49.000 However, I think it's really, really, really important that I think that in the Middle East, broadly speaking,

01:54:55.000 I think that leadership, especially in the Gulf, has gotten over the Palestinian issue.

01:55:02.000 I think that leadership is kind of like they don't care as much anymore, but the populations still care quite a bit.

01:55:08.000 And I think that the main issue that Israel could run into is if the civilian death toll does climb too high, and if they start to hit this, you know, 40, 50, 60,000 number of civilian casualties,

01:55:17.000 We're good.

01:55:36.000 On the public speaking side, you've got a lot of people condemning Israel for the attacks. 0.97

01:55:40.000 And on the private side, you've got people telling Israel, please kill all of Hamas, because this is untenable. 0.58

01:55:45.000 Nobody wants to work in this situation.

01:55:47.000 I don't know if this ended up being true or not.

01:55:49.000 I'm guessing it didn't.

01:55:50.000 But I saw on a couple of Twitter accounts, it was leaked that potentially Saudi Arabia was considering installing a government in the West Bank that they would run.

01:55:58.000 No, I mean, I think Israel would love nothing better than that, but that is not helping the Saudis.

01:56:02.000 One of the big problems in the Middle East is literally no one wants to preside over the Palestinians. 1.00

01:56:06.000 No one.

01:56:07.000 In the Arab states, Israel, no one. 0.89

01:56:09.000 So I think the issue, and I think, and I'm largely actually, I'm very sympathetic towards the Palestinians because I think that for, since 1948 and onwards, I think that all of the Arab states super gassed them up on that. 0.98

01:56:19.000 They wanted the Palestinians to fight because they wanted to fight with Israel.

01:56:22.000 However, as time has gone on and they've realized that it's kind of a lost cause, states have started to drop out.

01:56:28.000 So you're getting these bilateral peace treaties with Egypt and with Jordan.

01:56:32.000 You're getting multilateral agreements like the Abraham Accords.

01:56:35.000 And now the Palestinians are looking around and like, OK, well, you guys told us to fight all this time. 0.97

01:56:38.000 And now the only people that we have supporting us are Iranian proxies.

01:56:42.000 So the Palestinians are in a very weird spot where they've lost all their support.

01:56:46.000 Yeah, I think that Israel, what I would say to be quote-unquote critical of Israel, is Israel needs to take strong steps towards peace that probably involves them enduring some undue hardship.

01:56:57.000 So, not the October 7th attacks, because Jesus, that's way too much, but, you know, other types of, you know, attacks that they might have to deal with, that might cause some civilians to die, that they don't come out over the top with and retaliate with, if there's ever going to be peace in that region.

01:57:09.000 However, another thing that I've always said is a huge problem between Israel and Palestine is I think that both sides think that if they continue to fight, it will be good for them. 1.00

01:57:19.000 But the problem is one side is delusional.

01:57:22.000 Israel, I think Israel wants to continue to fight because they get justifications for the annexation of the Golan Heights. 0.55

01:57:28.000 They get justifications for expansions, especially in Area C that I think they're probably going to try to annex soon.

01:57:34.000 I think?

01:57:52.000 Is there a difference between Palestinian citizens and the leadership when you say that?

01:58:22.000 Palestinians in general want to fight in violent conflict with Israel.

01:58:27.000 That's not just the position of the government.

01:58:29.000 That's not just people.

01:58:30.000 There's a reason why Abbas doesn't want to do elections in the West Bank, and it's because the Palestinian people really do want to fight with Israel. 0.90

01:58:37.000 But to combat that problem is like...

01:58:40.000 You have to get the UN on board.

01:58:41.000 We've got to do an actual addressing of the Palestinian refugee problem, which is handled like a joke right now.

01:58:47.000 Iran has to be brought to the table in terms of negotiations.

01:58:50.000 There has to be huge efforts made to economically revitalize these Palestinian areas, even though they're one of the highest recipients of aid in the world.

01:58:57.000 Based?

01:58:57.000 Let's go.

01:58:58.000 Okay, based? 1.00

01:58:58.000 Let's fucking go. 1.00

01:58:58.000 It's actually a W. 1.00

01:59:28.000 Israel wants the fighting to continue so they can annex everything, and the world doesn't give a shit. 0.98

01:59:34.000 Settlements, for example, Israel did have settlements inside the Gaza Strip. 0.97

01:59:36.000 There were 8,000 Jews who were living inside the Gaza Strip in Gush Katif.

01:59:40.000 Up until 2005, they withdrew all of those people, I mean, took them literally out of their homes.

01:59:47.000 And the result was not the burgeoning of a better attitude toward the state of Israel with regard to, for example,

01:59:54.000 You know, the Palestinian population in Gaza, in fact, is more radical in Gaza than it was in the West Bank.

01:59:59.000 The result was obviously the election of Hamas, the October 7th attacks, in which unfortunately many civilians took part in the October 7th attacks.

02:00:08.000 There's video of people rushing, who are civilians and dressed in civilian clothing, into

02:00:13.000 That is 100% true, obviously.

02:00:17.000 And when it comes to, you know, Area C and Israel's, you know, supposed deep and abiding desire for territorial expansion in Area C. Area C, so for those who are not familiar with the Oslo Accords, and again, this is getting very abstruse, but the Oslo Accords are broken down into three areas of the West Bank.

02:00:32.000 Area A is under full Palestinian control.

02:00:34.000 That'd be like Jenin and Nablus, the major cities, for example.

02:00:37.000 There's Area B, which is mixed Israeli-Palestinian control, where Israel provides 0.73

02:00:41.000 Some level of military security and control.

02:00:44.000 And then there's Area C. And Area C was like to be decided later.

02:00:46.000 It was left up for possible concessions to the Palestinian Authority if the Oslo Accords had moved forward.

02:00:54.000 Those are disputed territories.

02:00:55.000 There is building taking place in Area C by both actually, no one talks about this, but by

02:00:59.000 I think?

02:01:18.000 For Palestinians who spent every day since really 67, it's not even 48, because between 48 and 67, Jordan was in charge of the West Bank and Egypt was in charge of the Gaza Strip, and at no point did either of those powers say, hey, maybe we ought to hand this over to an independent Palestinian state, which was originally the division that was promoted by the UN Partition Plan in 47.

02:01:38.000 Because of that, the leadership post-67 and really starting in 64, the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 64, and it called for the liberation of the land in 64.

02:01:50.000 They had the West Bank and they had the Gaza Strip, so they're talking about Tel Aviv.

02:01:54.000 When it was founded in 64,

02:01:56.000 The basic idea, as you know, kind of indicated by that, was Israel will not exist.

02:02:01.000 And that was a promise that's been made by pretty much every Palestinian leader in Arabic to the people that they are talking to.

02:02:07.000 Yasser Arafat famously would do this sort of thing.

02:02:10.000 He'd speak in English and talk about how he wanted a two-state solution, and then he'd go back to his own people and say, this is a Trojan horse.

02:02:15.000 If Israel could, if you think that Israeli parents want to send their kids at the age of 18 to go and monitor Jenin and Nablus and be in Khan Yunis, you're out of your mind.

02:02:27.000 You're out of your mind.

02:02:28.000 Israelis do not want that.

02:02:29.000 In fact, Israelis didn't want that so much that they allowed rockets to fall in their cities for full-on 18 years in order to avoid sending soldiers en masse back into the Gaza Strip.

02:02:37.000 True, but I think Israel does want to continue to expand settlements into the West Bank, right? 0.85

02:02:39.000 They want to continue to build.

02:02:40.000 They want to have all of Jerusalem. 0.96

02:02:42.000 East Jerusalem as well.

02:02:43.000 They want all of it.

02:02:44.000 They want all of it.

02:02:47.000 And destiny is correct in this.

02:02:48.000 Which they are!

02:02:49.000 Which they are!

02:03:10.000 They love war.

02:03:12.000 Listen, the Jews love war. 1.00

02:03:14.000 They love killing, and they love war, and they love suffering and misery. 0.99

02:03:18.000 That's why they inflict it on the world, because they're greedy for land, and they want more stuff.

02:03:23.000 And everyone knows that.

02:03:25.000 And that's why anti-Semitism is so prominent.

02:03:28.000 He was funding the people in the Gaza Strip by allowing Qatari money to come in, even though he was actually speaking in opposition to Abbas, allowing the Gaza Strip to fall for Netanyahu to clear it out for him and then give it back, etc, etc.

02:03:37.000 I'm not claiming those theories.

02:03:39.000 I'm just saying that I think that Israel will take a relatively neutral stance towards conflict enduring, because as long as the conflict endures and as long as the settlements can expand, I think that ultimately benefits Israel. 0.77

02:03:52.000 Let's put it this way.

02:03:54.000 If suddenly there arose among the Palestinians a deep and abiding desire for peace, approved by a vast majority of the population with serious security guarantees, I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find Israelis who would not be willing to at least consider that.

02:04:07.000 In return for not expanding bathrooms in a frat.

02:04:09.000 I kind of, I would have agreed with you on October 6th.

02:04:11.000 I think we're probably a year or two away from that right now.

02:04:14.000 No, but the point I'm making is that Israelis now realize that the entire peace process was a sham, meaning the people who are on the other side of the table were using it as a Trojan horse in the first place. 0.76

02:04:22.000 The death of Oslo is not the death of Israeli hopefulness.

02:04:25.000 It's the death of the illusion that on the other side of the table was anyone worth bargaining with.

02:04:30.000 That's what's happening, and that's why you have this sort of insane disconnect right now between the United States and the Israeli government.

02:04:34.000 Again, it's a unity government.

02:04:36.000 No one in Israel is talking about making concessions to the Palestinian Authority for a wide variety of reasons, including the fact that Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah continues to pay actual families of terrorists who kill Jews.

02:04:45.000 Sure, the Mark Fund, yeah.

02:04:47.000 Which is from the moderate West Bank.

02:04:49.000 So, again, the taste in Israel for this is...

02:04:49.000 Right, exactly.

02:04:54.000 Even the people who are the Chilonim, right? 1.00

02:04:56.000 Those are the most secular people in Israel.

02:04:57.000 Which was, by the way, the place that was attacked on October 7th.

02:05:00.000 I mean, what people should understand is that October 7th was not an attack against settlements in the West Bank.

02:05:04.000 It was an attack on peace villages that were essentially disarmed.

02:05:07.000 And many of these people who were killed were peace activists who were literally trying to work with people in Gaza to get them...

02:05:12.000 What a coincidence.

02:05:13.000 It's almost like that was by design.

02:05:16.000 It's mind-boggling.

02:05:16.000 That's why you've had this ground shift in Israel.

02:05:18.000 The next 20 years in Israel is going to be about security and economic development, period.

02:05:22.000 End of story.

02:05:23.000 Everything else goes second, third place.

02:05:25.000 And I will say, I agree essentially with everything you're saying.

02:05:28.000 Not to loop back on another topic, but this is one of the reasons then why I was so critical.

02:05:31.000 I don't want to say critical, but like kind of nonchalant about the Abraham Accords because they didn't address anything with the Palestinians whatsoever.

02:05:37.000 We're good.

02:05:56.000 With that said, the rhetoric that he's been using recently and that Blinken has been using recently about Israel needs to make painful concessions for peace, re-centering this issue at the center of relations in the Middle East is doomed to failure.

02:06:07.000 The magic, magic is a strong word, the benefit of the Abraham Accords was proof 1.00

02:06:14.000 Of what you're saying, which is true, which is that all of these surrounding countries, in reality, have abandoned the idea that there is a centrality to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

02:06:21.000 That is not the central conflict in the Middle East.

02:06:24.000 And by the way, one of the reasons it's not the central conflict in the Middle East is because actually, ironically, because of the rise of Iran.

02:06:29.000 It's Sunni states that are largely signing up with Israel because they're realizing they need some sort of counterweight to a burgeoning nuclear power in Iran. 0.93

02:06:37.000 Can we talk about Ukraine?

02:06:38.000 Sure.

02:06:39.000 Do you have a disagreement with what Destiny said?

02:06:43.000 My main problem with Biden's policy with regard to Ukraine is that he outsourced the end goal of the war to Zelensky early on.

02:06:53.000 Now, that might make sense if that goal were something that he was willing to fund to the point of achievement, or if Zelensky could have achieved it on his own.

02:07:02.000 But right now, and this has been true since pretty early on in the war, this point Henry Kissinger made, that pretty early on in the war it was very clear that, for example,

02:07:10.000 Crimea was going nowhere.

02:07:12.000 The Russians had control of Crimea, barring the United States giving permission to fly F-16s over Crimea.

02:07:18.000 Nothing was going to change over there.

02:07:19.000 The same thing was true in most of the Donbass, right, in Luhansk and Donetsk.

02:07:23.000 That was not going to change.

02:07:24.000 Zelensky stated goal, and you understand it, he's the leader of Ukraine, right, is that there was a predation on his territory in 2014, and that the Russians sent their little green men across the border, and then they took all of these areas.

02:07:34.000 And so he, as leader of Ukraine, is saying, okay, I want all of that back.

02:07:37.000 Now, the reality is that the U.S.' 0.90

02:07:39.000 's interest had largely been achieved in the first few months of the war, meaning the revocation of the ability of Russia to take Ukraine and just ingest it, and two, the devastation of Russia's military capability.

02:07:51.000 I mean, Russia has just been wrecked.

02:07:52.000 I mean, their military is in serious

02:07:54.000 straight because of the war in Ukraine.

02:07:56.000 From an American perspective, I'm very much pro all of that.

02:07:58.000 I think that we have an interest in Ukraine maintaining a buffer status against a territorially aggressive Russia.

02:08:04.000 I think that the United States does have an interest in degrading the Russian military to the extent that it can't threaten the Baltic states or threaten Kazakhstan or other countries in the region.

02:08:13.000 The problem I have with Biden's strategy is

02:08:17.000 As always, I think that it's a muddle, and I think muddles tend to end with misperceptions.

02:08:22.000 War tends to break out and maintain because of misperception.

02:08:25.000 Misperception of the other side's strength, the other side's intentions, and all of the rest.

02:08:28.000 People misperceive what's going to happen.

02:08:30.000 They say, I'll cross that line and nothing will happen, right?

02:08:32.000 This is what Putin thought.

02:08:33.000 He thought, I'll cross that line, they'll greet me as a liberator, and because the United States just surrendered in Afghanistan, essentially they won't do anything, and the West is fragmenting, because NATO's fragmenting, and all the rest of this, and obviously he was wrong on all of those scores.

02:08:44.000 The problem for Biden is that

02:08:47.000 As with virtually every war, no end line was set.

02:08:51.000 And so it became out recently that it was widely reported that actually there was a peace deal that was on the table in the first few months that Putin was on board with that basically would have ceded Luhansk and Donetsk and Crimea to Russia in return for solidification of those lines, American and Western security guarantees to Ukraine, right?

02:09:09.000 Ukraine wouldn't formally join NATO, but there would be security guarantees to Ukraine.

02:09:12.000 We're ending up there anyway.

02:09:14.000 It's just taking a lot more money and a lot more time to get there.

02:09:16.000 And do you think Trump would have helped push that piece?

02:09:33.000 Needed was for Joe Biden to be the person who foisted that deal upon him so that he could then go back to his own people and say, listen, guys, I wanted all those things, but the Americans weren't willing to allow me to have all those things.

02:09:44.000 And so we did an amazing job.

02:09:46.000 We did a heroic job in defending our own land.

02:09:48.000 We devastated the Russian military, even though no one expected us to, but we can't get back those things because it's unrealistic to get back to those things because America, basically, they're a big funder and they're the ones who want the deal. 0.55

02:09:58.000 Instead, what Biden said, and this was reported in the Washington Post last year, the Biden administration said,

02:10:02.000 We're going to fight for as long as it takes with as much as it takes.

02:10:05.000 And when they were asked until when, they said, whatever Zelensky says.

02:10:10.000 And that's not a policy.

02:10:12.000 That's just a recipe for a frozen conflict with endless funding.

02:10:17.000 Now, it may be that Putin has walked away from the table and that deal is no longer available.

02:10:20.000 If that deal is available right now, I certainly hope that's being pursued behind closed doors.

02:10:25.000 My main critique, again, of Biden is that

02:10:27.000 When you outsource the end goal to another country without stating what America's interest is, that's a problem.

02:10:33.000 I also think that Biden did... The problem is the war should have never happened, okay?

02:10:37.000 The problem is that Putin... Forget about the deal in the first few months of the war.

02:10:41.000 Putin came to Trump in the fall of 2020 and said, let's negotiate about the intermediate-range ballistic missile treaty.

02:10:52.000 Let's negotiate about missiles in Eastern Europe.

02:10:55.000 And the deal was that they would trade inspections of their missile facilities and try and draw some of them back.

02:11:01.000 And Trump didn't take that deal and didn't even negotiate.

02:11:04.000 And Putin made the same deal to Biden, as he surrounded Ukraine in the fall.

02:11:09.000 And this totally ignores what ignited the conflict, which is that in February, Zelensky came out and said Ukraine should have a nuclear arsenal.

02:11:19.000 So Ukraine was in the process of acceding to NATO.

02:11:22.000 They had never given up on that prospect.

02:11:25.000 NATO was supplying Ukraine with lethal aid and drones, which was changing the tide of the conflict in Donbass.

02:11:33.000 Deploying short and medium-range ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe.

02:11:38.000 And then they refused the negotiation.

02:11:40.000 So that's why Putin went in.

02:11:41.000 This idea that he was coming for the Baltics and he's coming for Kazakhstan.

02:11:46.000 Kazakhstan.

02:11:49.000 Just totally flies in the face of what was happening in the months leading up to that.

02:11:52.000 So they should have taken the deal.

02:11:54.000 They should have committed in 2008 that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO.

02:11:59.000 They should have never overthrown the regime in 2014 in Ukraine.

02:12:06.000 Yanukovych.

02:12:08.000 And they replaced him with Petro Poroshenko, and that's what started this whole thing.

02:12:12.000 So, they always try to portray Putin as one of the dictators in the axis of evil that is gobbling up territory and slaughtering people, and preying upon our weakness.

02:12:24.000 Like, if you pay attention, that's the theme.

02:12:26.000 If Israel doesn't do this, Iran will attack, because in the Middle East, that's how it works. 0.98

02:12:31.000 They prey on weakness.

02:12:33.000 If we didn't back up, when we abandoned Afghanistan, Putin preyed on our weakness.

02:12:38.000 But it's the complete reverse.

02:12:41.000 It was the Euromaidan which was the first shot in the war.

02:12:47.000 Putin drew a red line in 2008 and said Ukraine will never join NATO.

02:12:52.000 And we performed a second color revolution in Ukraine in 2014 with the Euromaidan overthrowing Yanukovych because Yanukovych was trying to join the European Union and NATO

02:13:07.000 And Putin gave him a better deal to join the CIS and their own bilateral trade deal.

02:13:19.000 So Yanukovych took that deal.

02:13:20.000 So then the State Department went in with the National Endowment for Democracy and the other NGOs and they overthrew the then pro-Russian government in Kiev.

02:13:31.000 And that's when Putin went in to seize Crimea, because the prospect of a pro-Western government in Ukraine is unacceptable.

02:13:39.000 It always has been.

02:13:41.000 The idea that, and by the way, Crimea was a semi-autonomous oblast in Ukraine, which fielded Russia's naval base at Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet.

02:13:53.000 I believe it's their only year-round

02:13:58.000 Naval base that has access to the sea because the the port in st.

02:14:03.000 Petersburg in the port in the east I Forget the name of the city Novgorod I think both of those ports are not year-round ports because they freeze in the winter because they're so far north so the prospect of Crimea falling under the control of NATO is obviously unacceptable to Russia and

02:14:24.000 And the prospect of NATO missiles in Ukraine, and NATO training exercises, and a NATO presence in Ukraine, which is historically Russian.

02:14:34.000 There is no such thing as Ukrainian.

02:14:36.000 Ukraine just means borderland.

02:14:38.000 The borderland of what?

02:14:39.000 Russia.

02:14:42.000 So, you could go back a hundred years.

02:14:44.000 And the creation of a Ukrainian state is an anomaly of how Joseph Stalin divided up the various territories when the Soviets took over Russia after the end of the Russian Civil War.

02:14:58.000 So, and even, and by the way, Crimea didn't even initially belong to Ukraine.

02:15:04.000 It was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 50s.

02:15:08.000 So, this premise that Ukraine was going to be an independent nation

02:15:14.000 This is a result of the historic weakness of Russia after Brest-Litovsk, the historic weakness of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Crimea even being a part of that is its own unique historical anomaly.

02:15:27.000 But the United States could never let it go.

02:15:31.000 The United States wanted to, just like they did in Georgia, they wanted to bring Ukraine into the EU, into NATO.

02:15:38.000 Putin said no.

02:15:40.000 We didn't accept that, so we overthrew their government, and yeah, we didn't invade, because that's not what we do in the 20th century, 21st century, but we overthrew their government in a color revolution and we thought we were going to steal it away that way. 0.58

02:15:54.000 And Putin, that is when Putin invaded.

02:15:56.000 That's when the little green men crossed the border, the Russian proxies that seceded in Luhansk and Donetsk.

02:16:05.000 And the whole point of the secessionist war, one,

02:16:11.000 One, it was because as long as Ukraine was engaged in internal conflict, they could never join NATO.

02:16:21.000 It's a precondition for NATO that Ukraine was stable.

02:16:24.000 So as long as Putin kept a simmering, low-boil conflict,

02:16:31.000 In the Donbass, Ukraine would be precluded from joining NATO.

02:16:35.000 That was the whole point of it.

02:16:36.000 And then, but it just got worse.

02:16:38.000 The United States, so really you could go back to 2014.

02:16:42.000 If in 2014, the United States abandoned its designs on Ukraine, maybe there could have been peace nine years ago. 0.63

02:16:50.000 But that wasn't enough.

02:16:53.000 Trump only escalated things.

02:16:55.000 You know, Obama was sending the non-lethal aid.

02:16:58.000 Trump got into office, began sending lethal aid.

02:17:01.000 Again, pulled us out of the missile treaty and deployed missiles into Poland.

02:17:07.000 And that's when things began to escalate.

02:17:09.000 So, again, but the kind of perception they're trying to create is that Putin is this land-hungry dictator, power-hungry dictator, that if you're not constantly on your guard, they're just gonna gobble up all the territory on their border.

02:17:24.000 It's not true.

02:17:26.000 We were responsible for the initial incursion.

02:17:29.000 Why is the United States in Ukraine?

02:17:31.000 Do you know how far Ukraine is from the United States?

02:17:33.000 Do you know how far Ukraine is from Moscow?

02:17:36.000 And yet we were there, overthrowing their government, wanting to integrate them into Europe and into the security framework over there.

02:17:43.000 It's unacceptable to Russia.

02:17:45.000 So Russia responded.

02:17:47.000 We didn't let it go.

02:17:48.000 We kept pushing.

02:17:49.000 So Russia responded.

02:17:51.000 But the way that he portrays it, it's like, well, if we didn't, you know, if we didn't bomb Russia, if we didn't give Ukraine all our material, well, then they would have invaded the Baltics and they would have invaded Central Asia. 0.85

02:18:03.000 It's ridiculous. 0.98

02:18:04.000 Totally ridiculous. 0.99

02:18:07.000 So that's just not, it's just a lie. 0.78

02:18:11.000 Really quite a poor job of sort of explaining what America's realistic interests are.

02:18:15.000 I don't like it when American leaders, um,

02:18:18.000 It's weird for me to say this, but I'm not a huge fan of the we're-in-it-to-protect-democracy kind of rhetoric.

02:18:23.000 Because, frankly, we are allied with many, many countries that are not democracies, and that's not actually how foreign policy works.

02:18:29.000 We should, as an overall, you know, 30,000-foot goal, advance democracy and... There it is!

02:18:36.000 30,000-foot goal!

02:18:38.000 ...right where we can.

02:18:39.000 But the reason that we were fighting

02:18:42.000 In favor of Ukraine, and when I say fighting, I mean giving them money and giving them weaponry. 0.97

02:18:45.000 The reason that we were doing that in favor of Ukraine is not because of Ukraine's long history of clean voting and non-corruption.

02:18:52.000 The reason that we were doing that is to counter Russian interests in the region. 0.75

02:18:55.000 I mean, it was a pure realpolitik play, and that realpolitik play is hard to deny no matter what side of the aisle you're on.

02:19:01.000 I think that what many Americans are going to, are reverting to, is we have no interest there.

02:19:07.000 Why are we spending money there and not spending money here?

02:19:09.000 And that kind of stuff.

02:19:09.000 And that argument can always be applied unless you actually articulate the reason why it is good for Americans beyond simply the ideological for the United States to be involved in a thing.

02:19:16.000 So for example, I think right now, when Biden is talking, I think that what Biden just did, the United States as we speak, is striking the Houthis. 0.72

02:19:24.000 I think that that's a really, really good thing.

02:19:26.000 I think that's a necessary thing.

02:19:27.000 Of course you do!

02:19:27.000 I think American people should understand why that is happening.

02:19:30.000 It's not because of quote-unquote ideology.

02:19:33.000 It is, I mean, on a very root level, but really it's because

02:19:36.000 You're screwing up the straits.

02:19:38.000 I mean, you can't do that.

02:19:39.000 It's happening because we can't keep Israel in check. 0.98

02:19:42.000 The Houthis say that they're attacking the straits because Israel will not implement a ceasefire in Gaza, which the United States is asking them to do.

02:19:53.000 So... No.

02:19:55.000 That's obviously... It's got nothing to do... Of course, that is the idea.

02:20:00.000 Well, we've got to go after Houthis. 0.99

02:20:02.000 That's the nominal reason.

02:20:03.000 That's the pretext. 0.97

02:20:05.000 We have to bomb the Houthis because they're attacking the shipping. 1.00

02:20:08.000 Okay, but why are they attacking the shipping?

02:20:11.000 It's because Israel is engaging Iran on every front. 0.86

02:20:16.000 And screw up free trade, and Americans have an interest in not seeing all of our prices at the grocery store.

02:20:20.000 But there's a pattern.

02:20:21.000 But it's the same thing.

02:20:22.000 Just like we antagonized Russia, 0.97

02:20:25.000 Israel permitted Hamas to attack. 0.98

02:20:28.000 The idea that Israel did not anticipate the attack by Hamas, it's just ridiculous.

02:20:34.000 No serious person would believe that it was a lapse in security, that Israel did not see the attack from Hamas, and that it took them seven hours to repel them across the border. 0.98

02:20:45.000 It's just ridiculous.

02:20:47.000 So they wanted that attack to justify and to serve as a pretext for an expansion into Gaza.

02:20:55.000 And ultimately so they could engage Hezbollah and Iran's other proxies, which they are now doing.

02:21:02.000 So Ben said a lot there.

02:21:07.000 Do you disagree with any aspect on the Ukrainian side?

02:21:13.000 A little bit, yeah.

02:21:15.000 I think on the macro, I agree.

02:21:16.000 Maybe we get at the weasel a little bit on some things.

02:21:18.000 On the final thing that he said, though, I wish that Americans could have honest conversations about foreign policy.

02:21:23.000 I think that it would just be better for everybody.

02:21:26.000 I don't know if it's, you know, Red Scare. 1.00

02:21:28.000 When you're an idiot and you're losing the debate, that's when you start talking about conversations. 1.00

02:21:33.000 That's when you start talking about basically something completely without substance. 1.00

02:21:39.000 And you don't actually make any claims about the subject of the debate, you just start talking about the debate itself. 0.98

02:21:44.000 When you're an idiot and you have nothing to say, or you've lost the debate definitively, that's when you zoom out and say, well, I just wish that these conversations are so great. 0.99

02:21:55.000 Okay, so you have now left the actual conversation and now you're talking about it like some spectator. 1.00

02:22:01.000 Now you're talking about it like someone who's not actually in it.

02:22:04.000 If you're in the debate, you're talking about the subject of the debate.

02:22:08.000 You're not talking about debating as a concept.

02:22:11.000 You can't!

02:22:12.000 You can't!

02:22:12.000 I asked you that and you couldn't do it!

02:22:13.000 I literally asked him

02:22:42.000 I wonder if I could even find it right now. 0.99

02:22:44.000 I mean, I'm not going to because that would be a pain in the ass. 0.98

02:22:46.000 But literally, when me and Destiny debated in July, that was the first thing I asked him. 0.98

02:22:52.000 I said, why is Israel our closest ally?

02:22:55.000 And he had no answer for that.

02:22:57.000 You couldn't answer it now.

02:23:01.000 And you've got Turkey confused with Egypt?

02:23:04.000 Do you think Egypt shares a border with Russia?

02:23:06.000 You still don't know who Erdogan is.

02:23:08.000 You still can't recognize Assad.

02:23:10.000 You still don't know who Mahmoud Abbas is.

02:23:13.000 You can't find any of these countries on a map.

02:23:16.000 You thought the Bible was written in Arabic because you didn't know the Arabs were in that place until 800 years, 700 years later? 1.00

02:23:28.000 Well, it's important to have conversations and not be retarded idiots. 1.00

02:23:32.000 Brother, you are a retarded idiot. 1.00

02:23:49.000 I just wish we had more honest conversations. 1.00

02:23:51.000 That's just the language of losers. 1.00

02:23:54.000 When you are a fucking loser, that is the kind of nonsense that you say. 1.00

02:23:58.000 I just wish we had more honest conversations. 1.00

02:24:01.000 That is what you say when you're a fucking loser and you have lost the debate completely. 0.99

02:24:08.000 Can we all just agree that having honest conversations with nuance is really freaking important? 0.99

02:24:17.000 I like that.

02:24:17.000 I like that little hand motion.

02:24:43.000 What is that?

02:24:44.000 I like that little move.

02:24:45.000 That was a cute little move, right? 1.00

02:24:46.000 Good little visual for all of the dumb Americans in his audience that don't know anything. 0.99

02:25:08.000 Okay, now this is Russia's sword. 1.00

02:25:10.000 This is our sword.

02:25:11.000 This is them crossing.

02:25:13.000 This is them engaging in combat. 1.00

02:25:14.000 This guy sucks. 1.00

02:25:18.000 This guy sucks, dude. 1.00

02:25:21.000 This guy is so stupid. 1.00

02:25:24.000 It's crazy. 1.00

02:25:26.000 Between NATO and the EU?

02:25:27.000 Brother!

02:25:27.000 He coalition built with NATO and the EU!

02:25:49.000 That's hilarious.

02:25:50.000 Funds, training, soldiers, airplanes, and everything to Ukraine.

02:25:53.000 I thought those two things were really good.

02:25:55.000 In terms of basically writing Zelensky a blank check, I would like to hope that Biden and the entire United States learned a lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan that open-ended missions with unlimited budgets and no clear goal are like the worst foreign policy decisions you can ever do.

02:26:11.000 They've like defined U.S. 0.74

02:26:12.000 foreign policy for the past two or three decades, which is unfortunate, but seems to be the case.

02:26:18.000 My feeling would be—and this is just a feeling, I don't know if internal cables have leaked that say otherwise—is the Biden administration has probably always had a quiet position of, at some point, there's going to be an off-ramp here.

02:26:30.000 And I think even a month or two ago, I think those talks were being leaked, that discussion had begun with Zelensky looking for an off-ramp.

02:26:36.000 But publicly, of course, the United States is never going to come out and say, we're going to support you guys to fight as much as you want for three months.

02:26:43.000 And then after that, it's no more.

02:26:45.000 Obviously, that can't be the statement.

02:26:46.000 It's always going to be that we're going to support you in your fight against Russia.

02:26:50.000 Yeah, we tried that under Obama with Afghanistan.

02:26:51.000 It was terrible.

02:26:52.000 We'll escalate the troop levels to X, but only for six months.

02:26:56.000 Yeah, you just can't do that.

02:26:57.000 It's always going to come off as, we're going to support you forever, and as long as it takes, and as long as you need, whatever we have to do to defend freedom and democracy in your country.

02:27:03.000 And any other statement would be absurd.

02:27:05.000 So I can understand why it feels like, on a public level, a blank check and an indefinite time period was granted to Zelensky, but I don't think that's going to be the case.

02:27:13.000 I think, again, I hope we've learned our lessons in the Middle East about the forever wars, that this isn't going to be a forever funding to Ukraine to fight for as long as they want.

02:27:21.000 I do disagree.

02:27:22.000 I feel like we're playing a little bit retrospectively, saying that, like, well, it's obvious that they're not going to capture the Donbass.

02:27:27.000 It's obvious that they're not going to capture Crimea.

02:27:29.000 I agree for Crimea, that was incredibly obvious. 0.93

02:27:30.000 But it was also really obvious that in two weeks, Russia would own Kiev and Ukraine was going to be Belarus 2.0.

02:27:36.000 I think that even for a lot of military people and analysts around the world, that that was an expectation, or at least a significant probability.

02:27:45.000 Nobody knew, the phrase that's thrown around now is paper tiger, that Russia's military was as ill-equipped as they were.

02:27:51.000 So I can understand why, especially if you're Ukraine and if you've repelled an invasion from one of the world's largest

02:27:56.000 This guy's just hopeless.

02:27:57.000 He just does not bring... He just does not bring the minimum level of IQ to discuss these matters.

02:28:19.000 Erm, maybe Ukraine was like, erm, guys, did we just beat, did we just repel Russia? 1.00

02:28:25.000 Fuck it. 1.00

02:28:26.000 Let's keep fighting for a few months. 1.00

02:28:29.000 Erm, did we just repel Russia? 1.00

02:28:31.000 Eh, fuck it. 1.00

02:28:36.000 Let's keep fighting for, like, this is, this is what's happening. 1.00

02:28:39.000 This is how, this is how war works.

02:28:42.000 Uh-huh, yeah.

02:28:46.000 Erm, Russia's right behind me. 0.94

02:28:47.000 Aren't they?

02:28:52.000 And I can understand the United States supporting them, but I agree that there has to be some reasonable off-ramp where we're not going to fight forever.

02:28:52.000 That's crazy.

02:28:58.000 I think the U.S.

02:28:59.000 State Department has already begun those conversations with Zelensky to look at what that off-ramp looks like.

02:29:05.000 But yeah, I'm not too sure.

02:29:06.000 Other than explicitly stating publicly, like, you can only fight until this date, I don't really know what else I would change.

02:29:13.000 I don't think the Biden administration should have done that.

02:29:15.000 I don't know what else.

02:29:16.000 Do you think Biden should cut this deal on the funding?

02:29:18.000 Meaning there's this $105 billion deal that's been held up by debate between Republicans and Democrats over border, right?

02:29:25.000 So basically it contains $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, another several billion dollars for Taiwanese defense against China, and that includes some border funding and some border provisions.

02:29:35.000 Republicans want the border funding and the border provisions because we can get into the illegal immigration issue.

02:29:40.000 That's a pretty serious issue.

02:29:41.000 And Biden and Democrats have been unwilling to hold that up.

02:29:43.000 And that seems to me like, just from, put aside Republican Democrats, it seems like political malpractice.

02:29:47.000 Meaning there's a widespread perception in the United States that the border is a disaster area.

02:29:51.000 Joe Biden wants these things.

02:29:52.000 Many Republicans don't want these things.

02:29:54.000 If he caves on the border stuff, he gets all the things that he wants.

02:29:57.000 And he's going to be able to go back to the moderates in the country and say, I did something about the border.

02:30:00.000 It seems like such an obvious win.

02:30:02.000 If he caves on the border stuff, you mean on the Ukraine stuff?

02:30:04.000 Yes, because then he gets the whole package.

02:30:05.000 He can go back to his own base and he can say, listen guys, I wanted to be easy on the border.

02:30:09.000 The Republicans forced me to it, but we needed the Ukraine aid.

02:30:12.000 We needed the Taiwan aid.

02:30:14.000 Honestly, you're going to be more educated than me on this.

02:30:16.000 I don't like, or maybe I just don't know enough.

02:30:19.000 I don't like the principle that when we negotiate things in the United States, there's like 50 million hostages at all points in time for every single thing.

02:30:26.000 Like, oh boy, here comes the debt ceiling.

02:30:28.000 What do the Republicans want?

02:30:29.000 What do the Democrats want?

02:30:30.000 Oh boy, like here, you know, we can't fund our government.

02:30:33.000 But I mean, obviously, the argument is going to be that if the Ukraine funding doesn't come in this bill, and if Biden and his administration feel like it's really important that unilaterally, or not unilaterally, but as a single issue, it's not going to pass.

02:30:44.000 So, um, I would say that at this point, and I don't know what the conversations look like between the Biden administration and Zelensky, I would say at this point that it's probably fair to start making contingencies on the money that we give to Ukraine that, listen, like, this, uh, conflict has, you know, waged on now, like, now we need to start looking for potential- Waged on.

02:31:03.000 This conflict has waged on for so long.

02:31:06.000 We can't just write you an unlimited check.

02:31:07.000 Wagey wagey! 0.66

02:31:09.000 So I mean, if those strings are attached, I'd be okay with it.

02:31:12.000 But the broader question of like, is it okay to make this particular piece of legislation with all this funding contingent on Ukrainian funding?

02:31:18.000 I mean, that just seems to be the way the government works now, unfortunately.

02:31:21.000 Quick pause.

02:31:22.000 Bathroom break.

02:31:23.000 One of the big issues in this presidential election is going to be January 6th.

02:31:29.000 It's in the news now and I think it's going to get, become bigger and bigger and bigger.

02:31:32.000 So question for Destiny first.

02:31:35.000 Did Donald Trump incite an insurrection on January 6th, 2021?

02:31:40.000 Absolutely.

02:31:41.000 Uh, this is probably ignoring every other issue we've talked about, of which I think there are plenty that I would say disqualify Trump from holding office.

02:31:48.000 Um, I think that the conduct and the behavior leading up to and including January 6th, I think is wildly indefensible.

02:31:56.000 I am excited to see Ben.

02:32:00.000 The three to four stages are the taking, what I think any reasonable person would say, knowingly false information about elections being rigged, or ballot boxes being stuffed, or Ruby Freeman running a ballot three times in Georgia.

02:32:14.000 Taking that knowingly false information and trying to call state secretaries and stuff to have them flip their electoral vote.

02:32:22.000 That was horrible.

02:32:24.000 The plot that Eastman hatched in order to have these like false slates of electors where all seven states had citizens go in and falsely say that they were the duly elected electors that could submit votes to Congress, that was insane.

02:32:41.000 That happened.

02:32:42.000 Asking or begging Pence to accept these false states of electors initially and then just say, you should just throw it out completely and throw it to the House delegation, which was majority Republican.

02:32:53.000 That was absolutely unbelievable.

02:32:55.000 And then on the day of January 6th, trying to capitalize on the violence by him, Giuliani, and Eastman making phone calls to senators and congressmen saying, well,

02:33:04.000 Don't you think maybe you guys should delay the vote a little bit?

02:33:07.000 You know, don't you think they're just really mad about the election?

02:33:09.000 I think you said to McCarthy, they're more upset than you.

02:33:11.000 And his utter dereliction of duty in not doing anything to stop the rioting that happened on January 6th, because he was too busy taking advantage of it.

02:33:20.000 I think all of these things are horrible.

02:33:23.000 I look forward to seeing the Jack Smith indictments play out in court, maybe even the Georgia Rico case.

02:33:29.000 But yeah, I think all of these things are unfathomable.

02:33:32.000 And I think when you look at the plot from start to finish,

02:33:34.000 Clearly the goal the entire time was to circumvent the peaceful transfer of power.

02:33:38.000 That was the goal from start to finish.

02:33:40.000 Whether it was through false claims, whether it was through illegal schemes, or whether it was through violence at the Capitol to delay the certification of the vote.

02:33:46.000 Ben?

02:33:48.000 So I'm glad you're excited.

02:33:49.000 It's always fun.

02:33:50.000 So there are two elements to incitement of insurrection.

02:33:53.000 The other is insurrection.

02:33:53.000 One is incitement.

02:33:55.000 So incitement has a legal standard.

02:33:57.000 So does insurrection.

02:33:58.000 Neither of those standards are met.

02:33:59.000 So if you're asking me, morally speaking, did Donald Trump do the right thing between November 4th and January 6th?

02:34:04.000 I said, I will continue to say, no, he did not.

02:34:07.000 I think he was saying things that are false, just factually false, about his theories with regard to the election, about the election being stolen, about fraud.

02:34:15.000 This is all adjudicated in court.

02:34:16.000 He did not even bring many of the claims that he has brought publicly and all the rest of that.

02:34:20.000 If we're talking about incitement of insurrection as a legal standard, it doesn't meet any of those standards.

02:34:23.000 When it comes to incitement, it has to be incitement to immediate lawless action.

02:34:27.000 That's the standard for incitement. 0.94

02:34:29.000 And I'm very meticulous in how I use this because I happen to speak publicly a lot, and that means there are lots of people who listen to me, which means some of those people are probably crazy.

02:34:37.000 And some of them may go and do a crazy thing.

02:34:39.000 Did I incite them?

02:34:40.000 The media tends to use the word incitement very loosely with regard to this sort of stuff in the same way that Bernie Sanders quote-unquote incited the congressional baseball shooting.

02:34:46.000 He did not.

02:34:47.000 Bernie Sanders has a lot of things I disagree with. 1.00

02:34:49.000 I think Bernie's a schmuck. 1.00

02:34:50.000 Doesn't matter. 1.00

02:34:51.000 He did not incite that.

02:34:52.000 So saying bad things is not the same thing as inciting violence. 0.99

02:34:57.000 Inciting violence, the legal standard in the United States is, I want you to go punch that guy in the face. 0.96

02:35:00.000 That's inciting.

02:35:02.000 With regard to insurrection, typically in insurrection, and there are some descriptions in case law, though none in statutory law as far as I'm aware, the typical description in case law is the replacement of one legitimate government of the United States with another by violent means.

02:35:14.000 The notion that Donald Trump coordinated any such insurrection is belied by the FBI itself.

02:35:20.000 The FBI put out a report in, I believe it was August of 2021, suggesting that there was no well-coordinated insurrectionist attempt coordinated by the White House.

02:35:29.000 In fact, what you had was Donald Trump thrashing around like

02:35:31.000 That weird alien in the movie Life.

02:35:34.000 I don't know if you ever saw Jake Gyllenhaal or he's like kind of thrashing up against this glass box.

02:35:37.000 Just an alien just thrashing up against the glass.

02:35:39.000 That I think is more what you were seeing from November 4th to January 6th.

02:35:44.000 And then again, the claim that January 6th itself was an insurrection.

02:35:49.000 So, virtually, I'm not aware that anyone was charged with actual insurrection.

02:35:52.000 There were some people who were charged with seditious conspiracy.

02:35:54.000 There are insurrection statutes that do exist.

02:35:56.000 No one was charged under those particular statutes.

02:35:59.000 There were some people who you could say informally had insurrectionist ideas.

02:36:03.000 Those would be the people who wanted to hang Nancy Pelosi or kill Mike Pence.

02:36:06.000 And those people are in jail right now.

02:36:09.000 Do not do that.

02:36:09.000 Do not.

02:36:10.000 Do not.

02:36:30.000 He did not depose the sitting government of the United States in the name of a specious legal theory.

02:36:35.000 He did not attempt that.

02:36:35.000 He did not do that.

02:36:36.000 Nobody working for him did that.

02:36:38.000 The most you can say, I think, about what everybody was doing is that, you know, and I want to say everybody.

02:36:44.000 We can talk about Trump because this is really about Trump.

02:36:47.000 He used a phrase that Trump was disseminating knowingly false information.

02:36:51.000 The word that's carrying a lot of weight there is the word knowingly.

02:36:54.000 So knowingly implies a knower.

02:36:57.000 Do I think the information he was disseminating was false?

02:36:59.000 Yes.

02:37:00.000 Do I think that Donald Trump has unique capacity to convince himself of nearly anything that is to his own benefit?

02:37:05.000 And I think that that's actually what

02:37:05.000 Absolutely.

02:37:07.000 Absolutely.

02:37:29.000 So I don't, actually.

02:37:32.000 So I'm glad that you have the attorney background.

02:37:34.000 When we are assessing mens rea, when we're looking at certain criminal statutes where intent is required, it's a reasonable person standard, right?

02:37:40.000 Would a reasonable person have known that they were... No, it depends on the mens rea standard.

02:37:44.000 So it's not the same in every case.

02:37:46.000 If you have to establish individual intent, then it's not enough to say a reasonable person should have known.

02:37:51.000 That would be enough for a negligence statute.

02:37:53.000 Usually when you're talking about reasonable people, person statutes, just legally speaking, a reasonable person statute is, should a reasonable person have known, that's when you get to, like, manslaughter.

02:38:01.000 You can't do a reasonable person standard on, like, first-degree murder.

02:38:04.000 You have to establish actual motive in first-degree murder.

02:38:06.000 But for first-degree murder, you don't need the statement of, I plan to kill this person, or I intend to kill this person.

02:38:12.000 We can prove that state of mind.

02:38:14.000 You can talk about circumstantial evidence.

02:38:15.000 Correct, yes.

02:38:16.000 Yeah, so I feel like my feeling for Donald Trump was there were all these people around him that he trusted to investigate election fraud.

02:38:22.000 He trusted Barr and the DOJ.

02:38:24.000 He asked Pence, his vice president, to look into it.

02:38:26.000 He asked his chief of staff.

02:38:28.000 He asked his legal counsel.

02:38:29.000 So many people that, ostensibly, he trusts them if he's asking them to look into it.

02:38:33.000 And when all of them looked into it and reported back to him, no, we found nothing. 0.99

02:38:37.000 Unless we're going to literally make the concession that Trump might actually be a delusional psycho man. 0.70

02:38:42.000 At that point, should he not have realized like, well, okay, maybe that's not a thing.

02:38:45.000 I think he should have realized the day of the election that he lost the election, but that's not the question.

02:38:48.000 Sure, but I'm just saying that like at that point, should he not have known that for him to go and propagate those claims that he'd asked all of the people he trusted to research, and then for him to take those claims to Michigan and to Georgia and then publicly and to try to convince people to throw out the election, you don't think that... But you're doing the same thing.

02:39:04.000 You're reverting to, should a reasonable person have known?

02:39:06.000 Yes, a reasonable person should have known.

02:39:08.000 Did Donald Trump know?

02:39:10.000 That's a different question.

02:39:12.000 And so, conflating those two questions is going to get you into some mess of territory.

02:39:14.000 By the way, this is why Jack Smith charged the way Jack Smith charged.

02:39:17.000 Yeah, which wasn't... Jack Smith did not charge conspiracy.

02:39:19.000 Jack Smith did not charge insurrection.

02:39:22.000 He did not charge seditious conspiracy, right?

02:39:23.000 The reason is because... Jack Smith is a good lawyer.

02:39:26.000 What he's doing is he's actually...

02:39:28.000 Broadly, I would say pretty obviously expanding statutory coverage in weird areas in order to cover a thing that doesn't quite fit into any of these legal categories.

02:39:38.000 But the point that I'm making is that Jack Smith is on my side of this.

02:39:40.000 He doesn't think that he can actually establish the intent necessary to convict under a seditious conspiracy or an insurrection charge.

02:39:47.000 But I think a lot of the underlying facts, though, because he does bring up those calls to Raffensperger in Georgia, he does bring up in the indictments that they were knowingly false information.

02:39:56.000 So it seems like that's going to be part of the case, maybe not to convict on any of the four particular charges that he mentioned, but it seems like that's probably going to be part of the case.

02:40:04.000 What he's going to have to establish in court to convict Trump.

02:40:06.000 So, I want to look at the actual text of the charges.

02:40:09.000 So, I'm sorry that I don't have them memorized, but I believe one's a fraud charge that generally does not apply to cases like this.

02:40:14.000 Generally, the fraud charge is like you're trying to steal money from the government.

02:40:16.000 Sure, fraud has been used pretty broadly in the past, though it doesn't have to just be, because Smith has done oral arguments in response to a lot of the claims by Trump's lawyers.

02:40:23.000 This was one of them.

02:40:24.000 The infinite civil and criminal immunity was another one of them, where he cites past cases where these types of things, because I think it was to defraud of civil rights, I think was the fourth charge.

02:40:32.000 Right, so the defraud of civil rights is usually somebody standing in the actual like voting house door and preventing you from voting, not you have a specious legal theory that you espouse in court about whether those votes should be thrown out.

02:40:43.000 Sure.

02:40:44.000 Although I don't like that when we say specious legal theory and novel application, which I do agree some of these in some ways is novel.

02:40:50.000 I don't think we've ever also had a president try to do this before.

02:40:53.000 It is a novel situation where somebody has resisted the peaceful transfer of power this

02:40:57.000 Well, if you're talking about the legal cases, I mean that's not true, but Gore sued in 2000.

02:41:06.000 If this is comparable to Gore... I'm not saying it's comparable to Gore.

02:41:08.000 I'm saying that if the idea is that espousing a legal theory in court amounts to de facto

02:41:14.000 Some form of election denial or interference in some way that can't—that's not—as a general principle, it's over-inclusive.

02:41:22.000 Sure.

02:41:23.000 Gore wasn't trying to decertify the vote, though, for states, right?

02:41:26.000 They challenged their thing to the Supreme Court.

02:41:27.000 They lost their case in the Supreme Court, and then power transfer happened.

02:41:30.000 Right.

02:41:30.000 And Donald Trump had a bunch of legal challenges, and then he had a rally, and then there was a riot, and then he left power.

02:41:34.000 Yeah, but the Eastman theory of what Pence could do in Congress is a far cry away from- A truly shitty theory. 0.94

02:41:41.000 I mean, make no mistake, it's a really- But not just shitty. 0.64

02:41:44.000 I think that if any Democrat had done this, I feel like we'd be looking at it in a far different lens.

02:41:51.000 As in, we would be using terms like attempted coup, subversion of peaceful transfer of power.

02:41:56.000 If a Democrat vice president tried to- Look at how the argument has just completely fallen apart.

02:42:03.000 It's like this with every topic.

02:42:04.000 It's just like this cascading, like the argument just falls apart piece by piece, piece by delicious piece.

02:42:11.000 Starts out by saying, well, Trump knew that the election was rigged because, well, everyone told him.

02:42:17.000 So, or rather, knew that the election was legitimate.

02:42:21.000 Well, he knew that the election was legitimate, but resisted the transfer anyway.

02:42:28.000 And he had to know that it was false because people just simply told him.

02:42:32.000 So he's wrong about incitement.

02:42:34.000 He's wrong about insurrection.

02:42:37.000 He just kind of folded on both of those.

02:42:40.000 And then it turns into, well, you know, maybe, you know, maybe we can, maybe in normal circumstances, we would say that this is an incitement.

02:42:49.000 Maybe under normal circumstances, we wouldn't say this is fraud, but this is a very novel circumstance.

02:42:54.000 And Shapiro says, well, no, it isn't.

02:42:57.000 Because Al Gore challenged the election 20 years ago.

02:43:01.000 And Destiny says, well, yeah, but, you know, he didn't try to decertify it.

02:43:05.000 Shapiro says, yeah, okay, well, but Trump had legal challenges, held a rally, there was a riot, then he left.

02:43:11.000 Just like Al Gore, minus the riot and the rally.

02:43:15.000 And now it turns into, well, but if a Democrat did it... So, again, what's the argument?

02:43:22.000 The argument is that if a Democrat did what Trump did, it would be considered or perceived differently?

02:43:30.000 Again, what's even the claim here?

02:43:32.000 Is that the substantive argument?

02:43:34.000 Because it went from Trump committed incitement and insurrection, and I can't wait.

02:43:39.000 This is exciting.

02:43:40.000 I can't wait to hear you defend this.

02:43:42.000 He committed incitement and insurrection.

02:43:43.000 That was the initial claim.

02:43:46.000 Now the claim is, well, maybe it wasn't incitement.

02:43:49.000 Maybe it wasn't insurrection.

02:43:50.000 Maybe it's not even fraud.

02:43:53.000 Maybe it isn't all that novel, but hey, if a Democrat did it, this would be perceived very differently.

02:43:58.000 We would look at this very differently.

02:43:59.000 Again, what are we even arguing at this point?

02:44:01.000 It's like at the beginning when he said, I'm a liberal because education is a difference maker and we need to fund it at a minimum level to like, well, I just, broadly speaking, would you fund air conditioners?

02:44:18.000 So... The guy has no argument.

02:44:21.000 Ben Shapiro is dominating just because...

02:44:24.000 Honestly, Ben Shapiro is what Destiny pretends to be.

02:44:28.000 Ben Shapiro is a motor-mouth nerd who has done all the reading and he actually is an expert.

02:44:34.000 He is a lawyer and he has been doing this actually longer, I think, than Destiny and at a very high level professionally.

02:44:40.000 It's interesting because I think they're roughly the same age.

02:44:43.000 I think Shapiro's maybe slightly older.

02:44:45.000 But look at the difference!

02:44:47.000 Shapiro has a billion-dollar company, he's got a wife and kids,

02:44:53.000 His hair is cut, his beard is groomed, Destiny's gone through two divorces, deadbeat dad to a kid, he's like a low millionaire on drugs, his wife just left him, streaming on YouTube, and he doesn't know anything!

02:45:09.000 At least Shapiro went to law school and was a lawyer for a time and did a lot of writing, actually had a career.

02:45:16.000 This guy's got nothing going on.

02:45:20.000 So, I think what I want to get to here actually, so we can be more specific, is why are these terms important?

02:45:29.000 We agree on, largely speaking, what happened.

02:45:32.000 I think the characterization of the term, are we bouncing around between two different categories?

02:45:38.000 We can dump the legal stuff, actually.

02:45:41.000 We're not looking at incitement, because like you said, Jack Smith, nobody's charging with incitement, and I don't believe insurrection is a part of it.

02:45:46.000 So we can dump legal.

02:45:47.000 Just in terms of a president that is trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

02:45:51.000 So we can call that a bloodless coup, or a coup, or whatever contemporaneous term you want to use.

02:45:55.000 Right, so prevent the peaceful transfer of power with all means, or using means that are inappropriate, not quite the same thing.

02:46:03.000 Using means that are inappropriate or illegal.

02:46:06.000 Inappropriate, okay, so illegal, I don't think so.

02:46:08.000 I don't think that these charges actually meet the criteria for the various charges, and we can discuss each case if you want.

02:46:13.000 Sure.

02:46:14.000 As far as inappropriate, sure, I think tons of inappropriate stuff.

02:46:18.000 I mean, inappropriate seems not— The reason why I don't like the word inappropriate, though, is because then conservatives are very quick to say, well, sure, he was inappropriate, but everybody was inappropriate.

02:46:25.000 I mean, I'll concede that he's more inappropriate than others.

02:46:27.000 I just don't see that... He's most inappropriate.

02:46:30.000 Well, conservatives would say... Okay, that's important to me, though.

02:46:33.000 Does it not bother you that, like, Donald Trump sought through legal and extra-legal and Trump-magical ways of trying to entrench his power as president past when he should have been able to?

02:46:47.000 Is that not something that is incredibly troublesome?

02:46:49.000 I mean...

02:46:50.000 The question to me is the bigger question that I think the Democrats are trying to promote in this election cycle, which is this means he is a threat to democracy sufficient that if he were to win the election, there would not be another.

02:47:01.000 But he tried to do that last time.

02:47:04.000 Could he not try to do it next time?

02:47:06.000 I mean, he could try to do whatever he wants, presumably, and he would fail the same way that he did last time.

02:47:10.000 Why do we think that?

02:47:11.000 Because he failed.

02:47:12.000 Because there was a riot and it was in three hours.

02:47:15.000 Yes.

02:47:16.000 Like, let's say hypothetically.

02:47:18.000 Lord, save me.

02:47:20.000 Let's say, hypothetically, Giuliani was the next head of the Department of Justice.

02:47:25.000 Giuliani was the next Attorney General.

02:47:26.000 How would he be confirmed?

02:47:29.000 Well, I'm not entirely sure.

02:47:32.000 Because so much of the Republican Party, despite feeling like they don't support Trump, when it comes time to actually back him in Congress— Also, I'd have to check whether he would be barred by criminal conviction from holding—I don't know the answer to that.

02:47:42.000 Sure.

02:47:42.000 Well, yeah.

02:47:43.000 Especially the 14th Amendment.

02:47:44.000 I'm figuring out a lot of this right now.

02:47:47.000 But I mean like, say if not Giuliani, say if there are any other number of insane people that Trump could theoretically put on his side of the government that wouldn't tell him no next time.

02:47:56.000 Because there were a lot of people that rebuked him.

02:47:58.000 There were Republicans in a lot of the states, right?

02:48:01.000 Raffensperger is one of them. 0.98

02:48:03.000 There were Republicans in his own administration.

02:48:05.000 You've got Rosen.

02:48:06.000 You've got Barr.

02:48:07.000 There was his own vice president.

02:48:09.000 But like theoretically next time, and I feel like last time going in, I'm going to do a little bit of mind reading and macro.

02:48:15.000 I think that Trump kind of thought, one, I don't think Trump knows much at all about how the government works.

02:48:19.000 I think we probably agree on that.

02:48:20.000 I think Trump probably thought that if he had people that were like at least in his party and kind of camp, that they'll basically do whatever needs to be done to give him what he wants and with no respect for process.

02:48:31.000 But now that he sees it, well, it's not enough to just have allies.

02:48:34.000 I need people that are fiercely allegiant to me.

02:48:37.000 Would we not be worried that a guy that tried to essentially steal the election for real wouldn't try to pick people that would be more amenable to his plans in the next administration?

02:48:44.000 I believe in the checks and balances of American government.

02:48:46.000 I believe they worked on January 6th.

02:48:48.000 So if you're asking me, do I think that Trump has bad intent or could have bad intent with that sort of stuff?

02:48:53.000 Sure.

02:48:53.000 Do I believe that the guardrails held and will continue to hold?

02:48:57.000 Also, sure.

02:48:58.000 Can we just skip this segment?

02:49:03.000 This segment is boring me.

02:49:05.000 We already did this segment on running the Krasenstein debates.

02:49:09.000 I'm just going to skip ahead because I just can't I just have no

02:49:14.000 ...bandwidth for this right now, because we watched this debate.

02:49:16.000 We watched Destiny do this same debate with Glenn Greenwald and Darren Beatty and Alex Jones for, like, a hundred hours last week.

02:49:24.000 The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump.

02:49:25.000 I don't think it's the only thing he cares about.

02:49:26.000 I think it's certainly the largest thing he cares about.

02:49:28.000 It's the largest thing he cares about, right?

02:49:29.000 ...but, man, the phrasing, for as much as our governmental founding fathers, everybody else, you know, wrote nice amendments... Governmental founding fathers.

02:49:37.000 ...wrote nice amendments.

02:49:37.000 Some of the phrasing is very, very, very bleh.

02:49:40.000 And the, uh, Section 3, um,

02:49:43.000 The political future of the United States, it's probably not healthy that the leading opposition candidate is now going to be barred from the ballot.

02:49:49.000 It's probably not healthy for us.

02:49:51.000 You're talking about threats to democracy.

02:49:54.000 That would be a pretty serious one.

02:49:56.000 It would be, however, like that threat to democracy was earned by Donald Trump and the conservatives that supported him.

02:50:01.000 I think conservatives made a dangerous gamble when they threw Trump into office, and now, like, all of the fallout from that is something that we all, as Americans, have to deal with.

02:50:09.000 I mean, I think that the unprecedented legal theory that a state can simply bar somebody from the ballot on the basis of, in an informal way, believing that he is, quote-unquote, an insurrectionist, is pretty wild.

02:50:20.000 I mean, that's... You can say it's pretty wild, but there is an amendment in the Constitution, the 14th Amendment, that says that if they have engaged in this, they shall not be, or you shall, I don't remember the phrasing, because it doesn't require conviction, but it's a self-executing, arguably, thing.

02:50:31.000 If we're getting into constitutional law, I mean, there are a number of provisions that suggest that this is, number one, not self-executing.

02:50:37.000 Minority opinions in the Colorado Supreme Court case are pretty thorough.

02:50:41.000 The number one contention, which is that this is not self-executing because other elements are not self-executing, that ignores subsequent actual law that happened.

02:50:49.000 I mean, Congress passed a law, for example, in 1872 defining who was an insurrectionist, who was not an insurrectionist for purposes of elections.

02:50:56.000 In 1994, Congress passed a law that specifically defined insurrection as a criminal activity so that somebody could theoretically be convicted of insurrection and therefore ineligible to run for office.

02:51:04.000 It is unlike, say, the analogs that are used by the majority opinion, like age.

02:51:10.000 Obviously, this is not the same thing.

02:51:12.000 We can all tell what somebody's age is by looking at their birth certificate.

02:51:14.000 I can't tell whether somebody's an insurrectionist without any reference to a legal statute or a definition of the term.

02:51:19.000 I would also be careful with that because remember, one of Trump's first big political actions was challenging Obama's birth certificate. 0.84

02:51:24.000 Well, and I thought that was dumb at the time. 0.62

02:51:26.000 Sure, I like that. 0.55

02:51:28.000 One of his first big political actions was... Both said 100% chance that Trump will try to go for third term and 0% chance, which statistically... Third term?

02:51:38.000 He's done, man.

02:51:39.000 Are you kidding?

02:51:39.000 He would want to.

02:51:40.000 No, he should go for three.

02:51:41.000 He should go for three.

02:51:57.000 Yeah, absolutely not.

02:51:58.000 He should go for three.

02:51:59.000 He should never leave.

02:52:01.000 He should never leave the White House after he gets elected.

02:52:03.000 I just think that the, I think it's scary that like Donald Trump, it feels like for all of the accusations that are made sometimes against Democrats, like Biden is ordering Garland to investigate Donald Trump and blah blah blah.

02:52:13.000 It seems like Donald Trump would actually do that with his DOJ, would give them orders.

02:52:17.000 He didn't!

02:52:18.000 He didn't!

02:52:18.000 Well, he kind of did, though, right?

02:52:22.000 So, for instance, with Jeffrey Clark, Jeffrey Clark went to Rosen and Donahue and said, hey, listen, I need you guys to sign off on a letter that we're going to use essentially to bully states into overturning their elections by saying we found significant election fraud.

02:52:35.000 And part of that threat was Jeffrey Clark saying, listen, if you're not going to do it, Rosen, you know, Trump's going to fire you and just make me the acting attorney general.

02:52:42.000 That was the threat that he carried, and I think Trump repeated that threat in a meeting later on that was, I only rebuked when I think like half the White House staff said, if you do this, we're resigning.

02:52:49.000 Okay, so that's a slightly different topic, because now you're getting into all the election shenanigans and all this, but... Sure, I'm saying he threatened to fire his acting attorney general if he wouldn't carry the same platform, essentially.

02:52:58.000 Like, if Trump could order his DOJ to do something, would he?

02:53:01.000 It's not beyond the pale for him, right?

02:53:04.000 It's not beyond the pale for him to order them to do it, and then it's not beyond the pale for them to reject him doing that, which is the story of his entire administration.

02:53:09.000 Whereas Joe Biden orders his DOJ to do things, and then they just do them.

02:53:12.000 Well, we can get into specifics there.

02:53:14.000 This is one of the big problems that I have with, I mean, for example, all this talk about Trump tyrant, Trump executive power.

02:53:22.000 I mean, Joe Biden has used executive power in ways that far outstrip anything that Trump does.

02:53:25.000 Every president has been stretching and stretching and stretching executive power.

02:53:29.000 Joe Biden is going like...

02:53:31.000 Joe Biden has gone well beyond anything Trump even remotely attempted to maintain via just pure executive power.

02:53:37.000 Actually, Trump's use of executive power is nowhere near even what Obama— It doesn't matter because we want Trump to go even further.

02:53:42.000 We want him to go even further beyond anything that any president has ever imagined or thought of.

02:53:50.000 We want him to go bolder and further and more aggressive in the expansion of executive power than any president

02:53:59.000 You're talking about the past.

02:54:01.000 You're talking about the past.

02:54:03.000 You're talking about other men.

02:54:17.000 We're talking about the future and we're talking about what ought to be.

02:54:20.000 So this is just completely irrelevant.

02:54:22.000 Yes, yes, Biden had more executive orders than Trump.

02:54:27.000 But this doesn't matter because we would ideally like one final decree.

02:54:34.000 Because ideally we would like the final executive order to be the dissolution of any government outside of the personal regime of Donald Trump.

02:54:44.000 So I don't really see how this is even relevant anymore.

02:54:48.000 I mean, Trump's inability to get border policy passed literally had him using executive power to march the military down to the border to do border policy.

02:54:56.000 I mean... I mean, Joe Biden literally used the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration to try to cram down VAX mandates on 80 million Americans.

02:55:04.000 That's insane.

02:55:05.000 He literally said, I cannot relieve student loan debt, and then tried to relieve hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

02:55:11.000 Yeah, but what happened to that?

02:55:12.000 It got struck down by the Supreme Court, and then they still did it!

02:55:15.000 They still did it!

02:55:16.000 Biden brags about it!

02:55:17.000 For what he was able to relieve, which I think were related to particular types of student loan debt.

02:55:23.000 Sounds like a loot goblin from Realm Royale.

02:55:25.000 You ever see that?

02:55:26.000 You ever play that game?

02:55:26.000 Saying that like, well, the guardrails are holding with Biden as much as they're holding with Trump.

02:55:29.000 The only difference is that once Biden, you know, exhausts his executive power, he's not running around like lying to people or trying to extort people or trying to concoct insane schemes.

02:55:39.000 Well, I mean, so here's the way I would think of this.

02:55:42.000 Think of the guardrails holding as the filter, okay?

02:55:45.000 Sure.

02:55:45.000 Meaning, like, the coffee is in the filter, some of it's, you know, what you want is gonna get through and all this stuff.

02:55:50.000 Coffee?

02:55:50.000 The guardrails prevent the other stuff from getting through.

02:55:51.000 Where?

02:55:52.000 Now the question becomes, what liquid are you pouring into the filter?

02:55:55.000 Meaning, so if the filter exists, if the guardrails hold, and if Donald Trump can't steal elections, what's the policy that comes through the other end of the filter?

02:56:02.000 The policy I get from Donald Trump on the other end of the filter is a bunch of stuff that I like. 0.98

02:56:05.000 The policy that I get from Joe Biden on the other end of the filter is a bunch of bullshit I don't. 0.99

02:56:08.000 So that's the basic calculation. 0.99

02:56:09.000 Okay, so then the idea is essentially that Donald Trump's rhetoric is insane, but we don't care.

02:56:16.000 Donald Trump would probably try to steal an election if he could, but he probably won't be able to.

02:56:19.000 He's not going to do it again.

02:56:20.000 I told you.

02:56:21.000 He's not... You don't think he has any... Why not?

02:56:24.000 Because he won't be eligible to be on the ballot in 20... I mean, by the way, you want to talk about 14th Amendment?

02:56:29.000 That's where the 14th Amendment applies.

02:56:31.000 Okay?

02:56:31.000 That's where it actually applies.

02:56:32.000 Meaning, you cannot... He is not qualified to be on the ballot in 2028 if he is the President of the United States.

02:56:38.000 States can literally, in self-executing fashion, take him off the ballot.

02:56:41.000 Just like he's past the age of 35.

02:56:43.000 Once you have been President two times, you're no longer eligible to be President of the United States.

02:56:47.000 Why would the 14th Amendment stop him if he thought Vice President Pence could unilaterally decide the outcome of the election?

02:56:57.000 When he's not on the ballot?

02:57:00.000 Let's just skip ahead.

02:57:01.000 Recently in the news, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT failed to fully denounce calls for genocide.

02:57:10.000 And that rose questions about the influence of DEI programs at universities.

02:57:15.000 And so maybe either looking at this or zooming out more broadly at identity politics at universities or identity politics, wokeism in our culture, how big of a threat is it to our culture, to Western civilization?

02:57:30.000 So obviously I'm going to say it's a huge threat.

02:57:32.000 The reason that I think there's a huge threat, I want to give a definition of wokeism because people are very often accused of not using wokeism properly or believing that it's sort of a catch-all phrase.

02:57:40.000 I don't think it's a catch-all term.

02:57:41.000 I think that wokeism has its roots in postmodernism, which essentially suggests that every principle

02:57:50.000 Is a reflection of

02:58:08.000 Preserved by an upper crust of people who wanted to cram down exploitation on people.

02:58:13.000 That was sort of the Marxist version of postmodernism and then got transmuted into sort of a racial version of postmodernism in which the systems of the United States are white supremacist in orientation and are perpetuated by a group of people who are in fact in favor of the preservation of white power and white supremacy.

02:58:30.000 That is the generalized theory of critical race theory as proposed by for example

02:58:38.000 That has taken a softer form that we refer to as DEI.

02:58:45.000 The key in DEI is the E, meaning equity.

02:58:47.000 So equity is a term that does not mean equality.

02:58:50.000 People mix it up.

02:58:51.000 Equality is the idea that we all ought to have equal rights, that we all ought to be treated equally by the law.

02:58:58.000 Equity is the idea that if there is an inequality that emerges from any system, it is therefore due to discrimination.

02:59:03.000 And the best way to tell whether somebody has been victimized is by dint of their race.

02:59:08.000 And we can tell whether you're a member of an oppressed group or an oppressor group by the intersectional identity that you carry and by the nature of your group's success or failure, predominantly along economic and power lines in American life.

02:59:22.000 This means that if one group is predominantly successful economically, they must be a member of the victimizing class.

02:59:29.000 And the only corrective for that would be, as Ibram X. Kendi likes to suggest, effectively anti-racist policy is racism in the service of destroying racism.

02:59:38.000 That you're going to have to discriminate on the basis of race in order to correct for discrimination that's baked into the system.

02:59:45.000 That's incredibly dangerous.

02:59:46.000 It leads to a victim-victimizer narrative that is unhealthy for individuals and terrible for societies.

02:59:51.000 It relieves people of individual responsibility, and it destroys the very notion of an objective metric by which we can decide meritocracy.

03:00:00.000 And meritocracy is the only system human beings have ever devised that has positive externalities in literally any area of life.

03:00:06.000 Every other distribution of wealth, power,

03:00:09.000 done along other lines that is not having to do with merit has negative externalities.

03:00:14.000 Every system having to do with merit has positive externalities because presumably the most effective and useful people are going to succeed under those systems.

03:00:20.000 That's the very basis of a meritocracy.

03:00:22.000 And the externalities of that mean that other people benefit from the meritorious and excellent performance of those people.

03:00:28.000 Maybe you'd be good to get your comments, your old stomping ground, Harvard.

03:00:33.000 Do you think the president of Harvard should have been fired?

03:00:36.000 I mean, I think she should have been fired not over the plagiarism allegations.

03:00:38.000 I think she should have been fired based on her performance just at that congressional hearing. 0.99

03:00:44.000 If the word black had been substituted for Jew in that statement by Elise Stefanik that she was asking about, or trans, or literally any other minority in America, maybe with the exception of Asian, then the answer would have been very different coming from Cloudy and Gay.

03:00:59.000 With that said, I don't think the firing of Cloudy and Gay really accomplishes very much. 1.00

03:01:03.000 Did she get what she deserved?

03:01:04.000 Sure.

03:01:05.000 Does that mean that the underlying DEI equity-based system has been in any way severely damaged?

03:01:10.000 No, I think that this is a way for

03:01:12.000 Universities, as truthful as McGillipan also, to basically throw somebody overboard as the sacrifice to maintain the underlying system that continues to predominate at American universities, where they spend literally billions of dollars every year on DEI initiatives and diversity hires and diversity administrators and all of this.

03:01:30.000 I mean, one of the costs of education escalating is in the massive administrative function that is now undertaken by universities, as opposed to teaching and cost of dorms and such.

03:01:42.000 You guys probably agree on a lot of this, right?

03:01:44.000 Kind of, maybe, yeah.

03:01:48.000 I don't know what makes things do this, but it feels like we can never have a good thing and then have it end as a good thing.

03:01:55.000 Things always get taken to their extreme and then we have to fight on those extremes.

03:02:00.000 I would argue that

03:02:02.000 Back in my day, we called it SJWs, Social Justice Warriors, before it became WOKE, like 2013 onwards, whatever.

03:02:08.000 Like, there are aspects to WOKEism that I think are good. 1.00

03:02:10.000 Like, I like the additional representation that we have in media now.

03:02:13.000 I like how, as much as people complain about the internet and how it's regulated, that there are way more groups that are represented on the internet, whether we're talking X, the platform formerly known as Twitter or Facebook or whatever.

03:02:24.000 I think in some ways, or whether we're pushing, you know, like women's achievements in school and in the wider workforce, I think that these are all good things.

03:02:31.000 The issue that you run into is people don't ever have a stopping point, and I think people kind of get lost in this woke-for-woke sake thing, where we start to see these very weird warpings of these, like, academic, I guess, arguments that are used for really horrible things.

03:02:48.000 So, for instance, I think that you can talk about in the United States things like white supremacy or things like oppression or certain demographics, especially with Jim Crow laws and pre-Jim Crow.

03:02:57.000 And you can even talk about effects from that.

03:02:58.000 But then when you run into this weird world where we've kind of warped these things so that not only is white supremacy still as present today as it ever has been, well, actually, black people and other minorities can't even be racist.

03:03:07.000 They don't have the power to because we're going to use a different definition of racism.

03:03:11.000 And we can only talk about punching up as opposed to punching down.

03:03:14.000 And we're actually going to say it's totally okay for these people to say or do whatever they want, and it's never bad, but like white people who have always been the oppressors, even if you're like a trailer park guy whose family's addicted to meth, you know, you have all this privilege, etc, etc.

03:03:24.000 I think that you run into these issues where wokeism, it starts off as like a really good idea, and I would argue has achieved really good things, especially in regards to like women's education and everything.

03:03:32.000 And then it just gets so academia-ie, so there's a word there, academic, whatever, where you take something and you put it into school too much and then it comes out as some Frankenstein, you know, cancer baby of, like, horrible things, such that today, when I'm reading stuff, and I know Ben is the same way, like, if I even hear somebody say the word, like, anti-racism, I'm probably ignoring every other thing you have to say.

03:03:50.000 If you utter the word, like, colonial anything, I'm probably gonna say you probably don't have anything good to say.

03:03:55.000 Yeah, a lot of it is just taken way too far.

03:03:59.000 But you know what I will blame, on some of this, is I will blame conservatives for some of this.

03:04:04.000 Because I think one issue that happens, and I think Ben might even agree with me here too, is I think there's two huge problems that have happened in the United States, I think broadly speaking, is that one, we've become more different than we ever have been, and two, we've become more similar than we ever have been. 0.84

03:04:18.000 And when I say this, what I mean is that like we're splitting off into these groups, and then these groups- Shut up! 0.98

03:04:23.000 Shut up! 1.00

03:04:25.000 Is this supposed to be edifying for anybody? 1.00

03:04:29.000 Does anybody find this to be interesting, insightful, profound?

03:04:35.000 The problem is wokeism has gone too far and that's because it got too academia-ized and I'm gonna blame conservatives for wokeism.

03:04:46.000 This guy has no ideas.

03:04:48.000 You're not a serious intellectual.

03:04:50.000 ...are enforcing this insane homogeneity between these two separate groups.

03:04:54.000 And I think one of these schisms has been conservatives' reluctancy to participate in things related to higher education.

03:05:01.000 So for a long time, conservatives are saying, like, oh, you know, the educational institutions are against us.

03:05:05.000 You know, Rush Limbaugh talks about how evil the colleges are and blah, blah, blah.

03:05:07.000 And then what happens is, is conservatives are less and less willing to engage in them.

03:05:11.000 So then you get this scenario or this environment where everybody that's engaged in 0.99

03:05:15.000 Academia on the administrative side are fucking insane. 0.74

03:05:20.000 They're, like, even more so to— and I also want to draw a distinction between, like, the administrators and the faculty, because oftentimes when you're reading story after story after story of, like, all of these insane admins that are pushing further and further left, usually the faculty is fighting against it. 0.98

03:05:33.000 A lot of the tenured professors, a lot of people in their departments are saying, like, hold on, well, we actually don't agree with this.

03:05:37.000 But I feel like because conservatives for so long have demonized these institutions rather than, like, critically evaluated them,

03:05:45.000 And try to, like, have, like, honest critique and engagement that they've just, like, completely broken off.

03:05:50.000 And when you only have a bunch of lefties or righties together, all they'll do is they'll veer off, like, even more into their insane directions.

03:05:56.000 I feel like that's a big problem that we run into in the country to where conservatives have totally broken off some conversations, broken away from, where they won't participate in them anymore.

03:06:04.000 And then the people that you have left just run as far to the left as possible.

03:06:07.000 Certainly when you look at certain institutions, I think that one of the things that people on both sides of the aisle are constantly looking at is, has the institution suffered such capture that there is just no capacity to fix it?

03:06:17.000 And when you talk about the universities, I'm not going to blame conservatives for the failure of the universities because they haven't been present in major positions at universities since effectively the late 1960s.

03:06:26.000 You can go read Shelby Steele's work on this where he talks about how, you know, he used to be, he's now a conservative

03:06:34.000 Black person.

03:06:34.000 He was a liberal black person at the time.

03:06:36.000 He was actually quite a radical black activist at the time in the 60s.

03:06:40.000 And he talks about walking into the office of liberal administrators who are largely on his side with regard to civil rights and being a radical, him claiming that the systems of the university were inherently broken, were inherently wrong, unfixable.

03:06:53.000 And he talks about this very, it's a very evocative episode where he's talking about how he's smoking.

03:06:57.000 And as he's smoking, the ash is growing more and more.

03:07:00.000 And the ash falls down on this very expensive carpet.

03:07:03.000 And the president of the university, who's listening to him rant and rave, he said, Shelby Steele says, I thought he was going to say something about this. 0.97

03:07:10.000 I mean, I was wrecking like a thousand dollar carpet in his office being a jackass. 0.96

03:07:14.000 And instead I could see him wilt inside. 0.99

03:07:16.000 I could see him collapse. 0.99

03:07:16.000 He didn't have the institutional credibility or the intellect or sort of the spiritual strength to just say, listen, I agree with you on some of these things, but you're acting like a jackass. 0.99

03:07:26.000 And what you see in the late 1960s and early 1970s is, in fact, the collapse of these institutions to the point where, by the time I was going to college, there was this radical disproportion between conservatives and liberals.

03:07:35.000 And the problem is that when it comes to a system like the universities, basically you have to separate the universities off into two separate categories.

03:07:41.000 One is STEM, where the universities are still pretty damn good.

03:07:44.000 American universities, when it comes to STEM, are still leading universities in the world.

03:07:48.000 Harvard's main creations these days are coming from actual hard science fields.

03:07:52.000 Then you have the liberal arts field in which you basically have a self-perpetuating elite because that's actually how dissertations work.

03:07:59.000 If you have somebody who's very far to the left and you decide that you're going to write a dissertation on the history of American gun rights, the chances that that is going to be approved by your dissertation advisor are much lower than if you happen to write something that tends to agree with the political positions of your dissertation advisor.

03:08:11.000 Now, listen, I think there are open and tolerant professors even in the liberal arts at these universities.

03:08:16.000 I went to these universities.

03:08:17.000 I went to UCLA.

03:08:17.000 I went to Harvard Law School.

03:08:18.000 When I was at Harvard Law School, one of my favorite professors was Lani Guinier. 0.99

03:08:21.000 Lani Guinier, they tried to appoint her, I believe, Secretary of Labor under Clinton, and she was too liberal, and she got rejected.

03:08:27.000 So she was like a full-on communist.

03:08:28.000 By the time I went there, she was great.

03:08:30.000 We had debates every day.

03:08:30.000 It was wonderful.

03:08:31.000 She used to write me recommendations for my legal jobs after we left.

03:08:35.000 Randall Kennedy, I don't agree with him very much.

03:08:37.000 Randall Kennedy was a terrific professor.

03:08:38.000 There are some professors who are like this, unfortunately.

03:08:41.000 There tends to be in these echo chambers more and more ideological conformity that is rigorously enforced, and it is by left on left.

03:08:48.000 So, for example, when I was at Harvard Law School, the president of the university was another president who ended up being ousted, Larry Summers.

03:08:54.000 Larry Summers had been the Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton, and he made the critical error of suggesting that perhaps the dearth of women in hard sciences in prestigious positions was due to 0.53

03:09:04.000 Possibly.

03:09:04.000 Two factors that people were refusing to talk about.

03:09:07.000 One was the possibility that women actually didn't want to be in hard sciences at nearly the rates that men do.

03:09:12.000 Which happens to be true.

03:09:13.000 And two was the distribution of STEM IQ.

03:09:17.000 Which is something that you certainly were not allowed to talk about.

03:09:19.000 The idea that the men's bell curve when it comes to IQ, particularly on STEM subjects, tends to be shallower than the women's bell curve. 0.97

03:09:25.000 So when you get to the very end of the bell curve, what you tend to see is a lot of really dumb... Okay, okay, okay, okay. 0.95

03:09:30.000 Too much yapping.

03:09:31.000 Let's just get to the end.

03:09:32.000 Rapid-fire questions.

03:09:34.000 I'm tapping out.

03:09:35.000 Honestly, the yapping is just, it's yap, yap, yap.

03:09:38.000 I don't agree with either of them. 1.00

03:09:41.000 One of them is just a complete outclassed moron. 1.00

03:09:46.000 And the answer, my answer was go to church. 1.00

03:09:48.000 Religion.

03:09:48.000 Yeah, I figured.

03:09:49.000 Yeah.

03:09:50.000 Well, we could talk about religion.

03:09:51.000 And the answer, my answer was have fewer and fewer and fewer children.

03:09:54.000 Rapid-fire questions.

03:09:56.000 And the answer, my answer was go to church.

03:09:58.000 Religion.

03:09:59.000 Yeah, I figured.

03:09:59.000 Yeah.

03:10:00.000 Well, we could talk about religion, but that's not rapid fire at all.

03:10:03.000 Let me ask, this is from the internet.

03:10:06.000 Does body count matter?

03:10:08.000 Jesus Christ.

03:10:10.000 You're really bringing up the red pill stuff.

03:10:12.000 Are you avoiding answering?

03:10:14.000 I mean, it's totally, it depends on who you are.

03:10:16.000 If you're somebody that doesn't care about it, it doesn't.

03:10:17.000 If you're somebody that does care about it, yeah, it does, of course.

03:10:19.000 Depends on the... The answer is yes.

03:10:21.000 Okay.

03:10:22.000 Should porn be banned?

03:10:23.000 No.

03:10:26.000 If you could do it, yes.

03:10:31.000 There is no benefit to pornography.

03:10:33.000 It's a waste of time and destructive to the human soul.

03:10:35.000 I can't believe I'm asking this question.

03:10:37.000 Is OnlyFans empowering or destructive for women?

03:10:42.000 Jesus.

03:10:43.000 These are rapid-fire?

03:10:44.000 Yeah, just... I mean, it's probably empowering for the ones that are making a lot of money off it.

03:10:48.000 It probably feels disempowering for others that feel affected by the cultural norms set by women that do OnlyFans. 1.00

03:10:51.000 There's my rapid-fire answer.

03:10:53.000 It's destructive to even the ones who are making a lot of money because when you degrade yourself to being just a set of human body characteristics that other people jack off to, it's bad for you and it's bad for them.

03:11:04.000 Is rap music?

03:11:06.000 Absolutely.

03:11:06.000 Have you evolved on this?

03:11:08.000 Have I evolved on this?

03:11:09.000 So...

03:11:11.000 Again, I'm going to go to, what's the definition of music?

03:11:13.000 My original argument about rap was that music involves the following three elements, rhythm, melody, harmony.

03:11:19.000 Rap typically involves maybe one of those.

03:11:23.000 There may be a melody, maybe, sometimes.

03:11:27.000 So it depends on the kind of rap.

03:11:29.000 With that said, I could be convinced on this issue.

03:11:33.000 Listen, I'm a classical violinist.

03:11:35.000 I mean, that's how I was raised.

03:11:37.000 I listened to Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart, like, in the car with my kids.

03:11:40.000 Dude, based!

03:11:42.000 Ben is so based!

03:11:43.000 You know what's amazing is, like, they're such a mirror image.

03:11:46.000 How old are they?

03:11:48.000 I know Stephen Bunnell is, like, 35.

03:11:52.000 How old's Ben?

03:11:55.000 Ben is 40.

03:11:55.000 Okay, so Ben, it's crazy how they're, like, a mirror.

03:12:05.000 Yeah, so he's 35.

03:12:09.000 Like, so they're five years apart.

03:12:13.000 Ben Shapiro, classical violinist.

03:12:16.000 Okay, genius.

03:12:17.000 Harvard Law School.

03:12:19.000 Billion dollar company.

03:12:21.000 Millions of followers.

03:12:23.000 Destiny.

03:12:24.000 Dropped out of music school in Nebraska.

03:12:27.000 100,000 followers.

03:12:27.000 Not a billionaire.

03:12:34.000 Ben Shapiro.

03:12:35.000 Married.

03:12:36.000 Four kids.

03:12:39.000 Stephen Bunnell.

03:12:40.000 Divorced twice.

03:12:42.000 Wife left him.

03:12:43.000 One child that he abandoned.

03:12:46.000 Ben Shapiro.

03:12:47.000 Serious intellectual.

03:12:48.000 Went to Harvard.

03:12:49.000 Was a lawyer.

03:12:50.000 Destiny.

03:12:52.000 Dropped out of music school.

03:12:53.000 Is not a serious intellectual.

03:12:55.000 Doesn't know where Israel is on a map.

03:12:58.000 Never had a real job.

03:12:59.000 Worked at a casino and then was a semi-professional gamer.

03:13:06.000 It's kind of depressing.

03:13:07.000 If I were Bunnell, I would honestly just do something about that.

03:13:14.000 Category is Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart.

03:13:15.000 I have a very hard time sticking it in the same category as that.

03:13:18.000 All right.

03:13:19.000 You're both world-class debaters, even public intellectuals, if I can say that.

03:13:27.000 Jesus.

03:13:27.000 Yeah, I know.

03:13:28.000 I'm going real hard here.

03:13:29.000 I know.

03:13:30.000 You both care about the truth.

03:13:31.000 What is your process of arriving at the truth?

03:13:37.000 I think it's really important to—everybody will say that they're objective and that they are nonpartisan.

03:13:42.000 I think it's really important to have mental safeguards for bad opinions.

03:13:48.000 So, for instance, like, a couple things that I'll ask myself is, for a particular debate that I'm having, like, can I argue convincingly both sides of the debate?

03:13:55.000 I think so.

03:14:11.000 We're all biased!

03:14:12.000 Did you know that we're all biased?

03:14:41.000 I think everyone knows that.

03:14:42.000 I think everybody knows that every human being has biases.

03:14:47.000 This is not profound.

03:14:49.000 Try to counter some of the biases that you have.

03:14:52.000 It's more important than trying to pretend that you're free of all biases, and then consuming all your media from one source.

03:14:56.000 Ben?

03:14:57.000 So, I mean, I agree with a lot of that.

03:14:59.000 I think that the easiest practical guide is read a bunch of different things from a bunch of different sources, and where they cross is probably the set of facts, and then everything else is extrapolated opinion from different premises.

03:15:11.000 That's sort of the short story.

03:15:13.000 So read The New York Times and Breitbart, and they're going to disagree on a lot, but if the core of the story... And The Daily Wire.

03:15:19.000 Certainly read The Daily Wire.

03:15:20.000 If you read The Daily Wire and you read The Washington Post, and there's a nexus of the same thing, then you can pretty well guarantee that at least, you know, if we're all blind men feeling the elephant, at least if we're all feeling the trunk, we know that there's a trunk there, right?

03:15:34.000 You may not know what the elephant is.

03:15:36.000 And if you're feeling frisky, then watch Destiny as well.

03:15:40.000 You've talked about, you know, having a conversation, debating Ben for a long time.

03:15:46.000 What is your favorite thing about Ben Shapiro?

03:15:49.000 My favorite thing about Ben Shapiro is, at least when we're in election season, he's very critical of his own party.

03:15:54.000 I appreciate that.

03:15:58.000 I feel like Ben generally tries to adhere more to the fact-based arguments than other conservatives that I listen to, which is something that I appreciate because it's more fun to fight on kind of like the factual grounds of discussing things like foreign policy or whatever, rather than people that only inhabit the idealistic or philosophical grounds because they don't want to learn about any of the facts.

03:16:15.000 So I appreciate that.

03:16:17.000 Ben, you've gotten a chance to talk to Destiny.

03:16:18.000 Now, what do you like about the guy?

03:16:20.000 A lot of the same sorts of things, but it's really fun to see how you do your process.

03:16:24.000 That is a cool thing.

03:16:25.000 That is a cool thing.

03:16:26.000 And it's a gift to the audience because, honestly, doing what we do, so much of what we do is sitting and reading and being behind closed doors and educating yourself and talking with people.

03:16:34.000 But getting to watch you do it in real time is a really cool window into how people think and how people learn.

03:16:38.000 So that's a really neat thing.

03:16:39.000 Well, gentlemen, this was incredible.

03:16:41.000 It's an honor.

03:16:42.000 Thank you for doing this today.

03:16:43.000 Hey, thanks a lot.

03:16:44.000 Thanks for having me.

03:16:45.000 That was brutal.

03:16:46.000 That was hard to watch.

03:16:48.000 And honestly, I don't know, I feel like every debate we watch is really difficult.

03:16:55.000 Do you guys feel that way too?

03:16:56.000 Is it just me?

03:16:57.000 Am I just, do I just not like anything?

03:17:00.000 Because I feel like every debate we watch I'm complaining, but all these are just tough to get through.

03:17:05.000 At least with Destiny.

03:17:06.000 I think Shapiro is not the worst.

03:17:09.000 I mean, he's bad in other ways.

03:17:11.000 I don't think he's... I don't think he's that difficult to listen to.

03:17:18.000 Everyone says they agree.

03:17:20.000 Yeah, I don't know.

03:17:23.000 It's hard listening to Destiny because I just find his personality to be completely odious.

03:17:30.000 And I just don't think he's that smart.

03:17:33.000 The things that he says and the way he says them

03:17:37.000 Like he's making a point.

03:17:40.000 He's not.

03:17:41.000 And it's clear that he just is an amateur.

03:17:43.000 Just doesn't know what he's talking about on a lot of these subjects.

03:17:47.000 And it's pretty clear when he debates somebody like Shapiro, who actually does have, I think, real deep background.

03:17:54.000 I think it's pretty clear that it's head and shoulders.

03:17:56.000 I think that it's hard to say this was even a debate.

03:18:01.000 I think he was just outclassed.

03:18:02.000 I think what happens is when Destiny debates anybody who actually knows what they're talking about, it just turns into more of like a teaching session.

03:18:12.000 And what I mean by that is when Shapiro is talking about things, he's actually explaining and introducing new information.

03:18:22.000 And I think when Destiny talks, he's just giving an opinion.

03:18:26.000 He's not actually providing information.

03:18:28.000 He's just... What Destiny is saying, I feel like this.

03:18:34.000 In my opinion, this.

03:18:36.000 Broadly speaking, this.

03:18:37.000 And when Shapiro talks, agree or disagree, he's giving information.

03:18:42.000 And I feel like I'm the same way.

03:18:44.000 When Shapiro argues about the Middle East,

03:18:48.000 Or even the war in Ukraine.

03:18:49.000 There's a very clear thesis.

03:18:51.000 It's well supported.

03:18:52.000 He introduces evidence to talk about it.

03:18:54.000 When Destiny talks about these things, I don't know that I've learned anything here.

03:18:58.000 And there's a lot of basic blunders.

03:19:00.000 I think the ideas are very simplistic.

03:19:02.000 Like when Shapiro talks about Ukraine, you know, it's actually a valid... It's actually a valid position to say that degrading the Russian army 0.99

03:19:14.000 And repelling Russian aggression as a limited strategic goal might have been valuable if they stopped there.

03:19:22.000 If they stopped within the first few months.

03:19:25.000 That's a valid thesis.

03:19:29.000 Like I said, for my reasons I disagree with that, but that's a valid position.

03:19:33.000 But remind me again, what was Destiny's position on the war?

03:19:36.000 He said something like, Biden built a coalition with NATO and the European Union?

03:19:44.000 Which, in context, doesn't even make any sense.

03:19:48.000 It's really not even true.

03:19:51.000 And, you know, we could get into that.

03:19:55.000 But he said something like, I'm glad that Biden said... What did he say?

03:20:00.000 He said something like Biden said what he wouldn't do.

03:20:04.000 Biden said that he wouldn't establish a no-fly zone, he wouldn't sell F-16s or something like that.

03:20:10.000 What?

03:20:11.000 That's your position.

03:20:13.000 I mean, when you look at the Russia-Ukraine war as a whole, and the question is, what's your position?

03:20:20.000 What insight do you have on the whole conflict?

03:20:23.000 Which is, of course, a very big story.

03:20:26.000 It's a very big story about Russia and the United States, about the United States and the rest of the world, about the United States and the unipolar age, about deterrence, about Russia and China.

03:20:38.000 It's a big story.

03:20:40.000 And his insight was, well, I like that Biden said what he wouldn't do.

03:20:44.000 What?

03:20:45.000 That's kind of like a given.

03:20:50.000 And then on these other things...

03:20:54.000 Like, from the very beginning, it's almost like Destiny doesn't even know what he believes or why he believes it.

03:20:59.000 Everybody gives him these flowers like, oh, you're really well-researched and fact-based and all.

03:21:05.000 One, we find out that he really doesn't know anything.

03:21:07.000 He doesn't actually have a very wide background at all.

03:21:11.000 And then two, his positions seem to...

03:21:15.000 They just lack foundation.

03:21:16.000 He said, well, I'm a liberal because I was able to move to a zip code where the public schools were good and other poor families, they're no fault to their own, have to send their children to a school that doesn't have the same resources like laptops and iPads.

03:21:33.000 And this argument just got annihilated.

03:21:37.000 Now, where do you go from there?

03:21:38.000 If the debate opens up with, I'm a liberal because, and your because just gets wiped out instantly, just, I mean, in 15 minutes, where do you go from there?

03:21:48.000 Where do you go with a person like that?

03:21:51.000 I'm a liberal because this.

03:21:52.000 Oh, really?

03:21:52.000 None of that is true.

03:21:54.000 Oh, okay.

03:21:54.000 Well, anyway, let's talk about Trump and Biden now.

03:21:57.000 Actually, I think we need to rewind and figure out what exactly is the basis there, or is there a basis at all?

03:22:05.000 Because I don't think there is one.

03:22:06.000 I think he's just a fake. 0.97

03:22:08.000 I think he's a fake. 1.00

03:22:08.000 I think he's a fraud. 1.00

03:22:10.000 I think that, you know, and I'll say this to show that I'm being fair.

03:22:17.000 Shapiro, I don't agree with.

03:22:19.000 And I think that he is not a patriot.

03:22:22.000 And I think that he is, I think he's a bit of a Pied Piper.

03:22:26.000 I think he has that effect on American conservatives.

03:22:30.000 But what I can say about Shapiro is that I have immense respect for him, even though he doesn't reciprocate that.

03:22:36.000 He doesn't like me at all and he would never say anything positive about me.

03:22:40.000 But Shapiro, I'd say that he's got a family and he's protective of his wife and kids.

03:22:47.000 I would say that he's built a company.

03:22:49.000 I think he works hard, at least if what he's saying is true about his life.

03:22:53.000 I think he works hard.

03:22:54.000 I think he does have an aptitude for what he does.

03:22:57.000 I don't find him charming, but he's a good talker.

03:23:01.000 My problem with Shapiro is that he's not on our team.

03:23:04.000 You know, he's not a Christian, he's not an American, he's an American Jew. 0.97

03:23:10.000 So that's really my issue, and I think that as a consequence, he interprets everything through the lens of what's good for the Jews and what's good for Israel, and he doesn't share our Christian morality.

03:23:21.000 So that's a big source of disagreement, but I have immense respect for him.

03:23:26.000 As a guy, he's obviously tremendously successful, and I think some of that is nepotism.

03:23:30.000 But, you know, nepotism doesn't really get activated unless you work hard.

03:23:34.000 I think he'd resent that I say that, but if you look at his background, it's just true.

03:23:39.000 And that's not me saying that I've resentment, you know, because I'm I'm saying I think he's a hard worker I don't think that he would have gotten to this point if he wasn't skilled, but I can't say the same about destiny He doesn't have the credentials

03:23:52.000 And the thing is, I mean, I'm also a college dropout, maybe that sounds hypocritical, but I, of course, am in a very different boat.

03:23:59.000 Destiny is a liberal.

03:24:01.000 And when you're a liberal, you really, the world is your oyster.

03:24:05.000 So, if Cenk Uygur could do it, and if other people could do it, he could do it.

03:24:10.000 He hasn't really built anything.

03:24:12.000 There's no institution there.

03:24:13.000 There's no mind towards building anything.

03:24:17.000 I mean, he's a pure streamer.

03:24:18.000 He's a pure, degenerate streamer.

03:24:20.000 I mean, even me,

03:24:23.000 I'm excluded from the system and I'm excluded from society in many ways.

03:24:27.000 But even me, I have a mind towards building.

03:24:30.000 That's why I have a non-profit.

03:24:31.000 That's why I do a convention.

03:24:33.000 That's why I'm not just someone who talks about politics.

03:24:36.000 I engage in politics.

03:24:38.000 I have an actual show as opposed to I'm just hanging out every day playing video games. 0.97

03:24:43.000 With him, it's literally, it's a lifestyle of sex, drugs,

03:24:49.000 Travel, and then turn on the webcam, play video games, and read Wikipedia articles?

03:24:55.000 Like, so this is just not a serious person.

03:24:57.000 So, I mean, in a nutshell, that's not, I don't, I guess that's not too succinct, but that's not, I mean, that's really my problem with Destiny, is that I basically just think he's a fraud.

03:25:08.000 I think he's masquerading as a serious person, and I don't think that about every liberal.

03:25:13.000 I don't think that about everybody that's on the left, but I do think that about him.

03:25:17.000 So, it's just not enjoyable at that point.

03:25:21.000 But... Someone says, Nicholas doesn't just hang out every day playing video games.

03:25:26.000 Well, maybe I play video games frequently.

03:25:30.000 But the point is, when I do a show, I prepare and I'm not on time, so yeah.

03:25:36.000 Maybe I shouldn't be critiquing everybody else, but...

03:25:40.000 I prepare a monologue, and when I'm doing the show, I'm doing the show.

03:25:45.000 I wear a suit, I get my hair straight, I have a set, I have a structure, it's organized.

03:25:51.000 When I do the show, I mean, it doesn't always happen on time, but when I do the show, you get an hour of prepared monologue, you get an hour of super chats, and I'm dressed for the occasion.

03:26:01.000 With him, it's a little bit different.

03:26:03.000 With him, I mean, he literally rolls out of bed in sweatpants.

03:26:06.000 Turns on the camera and for long stretches of the stream he's playing a video game.

03:26:11.000 Not even talking.

03:26:12.000 So that's a little bit different.

03:26:15.000 Or he's calling a friend or he's reading an article.

03:26:17.000 So this is a little bit different.

03:26:19.000 It's not... The point is about the preparation there.

03:26:22.000 So... Anyway... Yeah, I didn't really enjoy that.

03:26:28.000 Alright, let's see.

03:26:29.000 Do we have any super chats?

03:26:31.000 Usually we don't do too many super chats on the daytime streams.

03:26:35.000 Well, let's see.

03:26:36.000 We got a few.

03:26:37.000 I guess I'll read these and then I gotta get out of here, okay?

03:26:43.000 Jimbo Zoomer sent $10.

03:26:45.000 Jughead Raid, thank you for juicing my Trump Wave video.

03:26:47.000 You rock!

03:26:48.000 Hey, thanks for the raid, Jimbo!

03:26:50.000 07 to the Jugheads.

03:26:51.000 Everybody, if you don't already, follow Jimbo Zoomer on Cozy and any of his other platforms.

03:26:58.000 He's got a great show.

03:27:00.000 It's one of the only shows I watch.

03:27:03.000 What's the link?

03:27:05.000 I think it's just Cozy.TV slash Jimbo.

03:27:09.000 Where's the JimboZoomer? 0.99

03:27:10.000 I want to get it right.

03:27:17.000 Where is it?

03:27:23.000 Hang on.

03:27:24.000 Why can't I find it on this website?

03:27:26.000 Oh, JimboZoomer. 0.73

03:27:27.000 Yeah.

03:27:28.000 Cozy.TV slash JimboZoomer.

03:27:30.000 Check him out.

03:27:31.000 Great streamer.

03:27:33.000 And I appreciate the raid.

03:27:35.000 I know.

03:27:38.000 Because I'm high test.

03:27:41.000 I'm high testosterone.

03:27:43.000 That's why I have a strong brow ridge.

03:27:45.000 That's why I have a good jawline.

03:27:46.000 That's why I have big hands.

03:27:48.000 That's why I'm aggressive.

03:27:50.000 Because I'm a high testosterone.

03:27:52.000 That's how you know that I'm legit. 1.00

03:27:54.000 If I were 5'9", but I had tiny little hands, you would know I'm a faggot. 1.00

03:27:59.000 But if I'm 5'9", 5'10", but I have huge hands, that's how you know I'm a boss. 0.99

03:28:04.000 That's how you know I was born to be a boss. 0.99

03:28:07.000 I was born to kill! 1.00

03:28:08.000 I was born to choke people to death. 1.00

03:28:11.000 So... I can palm a basketball. 0.98

03:28:15.000 That's how you know I'm a real nigga. 0.94

03:28:16.000 Cause I got... Cause I got hands for scheming. 0.96

03:28:21.000 I got hands that I can rub together.

03:28:26.000 When I'm planning.

03:28:27.000 When I'm plotting.

03:28:28.000 I have hands to wrap around the globe.

03:28:30.000 That's real though.

03:28:34.000 That's a very... But that is true.

03:28:36.000 I mean, it sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not.

03:28:40.000 Spence sent $3.

03:28:41.000 Do you know if Lex Friedman is an intelligence agent?

03:28:45.000 This guy came from nowhere and suddenly has this huge podcast.

03:28:48.000 He's not interesting at all and there is nothing appealing about him.

03:28:51.000 Yeah, everyone says that.

03:28:52.000 I think it's true.

03:28:54.000 Spence sent $3.

03:28:55.000 Also thanks for all the content recently.

03:28:58.000 Hey, thank you for the super chat!

03:29:01.000 FatJuicyWop sent $3.

03:29:03.000 Destiny aka UsefulGoycause he is an easy beat in debates.

03:29:07.000 True.

03:29:09.000 Michael Haskin sent $3. 0.70

03:29:10.000 Distance yourself from the overt jag of racists and Jew haters, although I agree, or you'll be relegated to rumble, with twits commenting on their Jew cats for the rest of your political career. 0.90

03:29:21.000 I am re... In case you haven't noticed, I am relegated to rumble. 0.97

03:29:26.000 So I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

03:29:28.000 And if I'm not talking about Jews, I'm just... You're not talking about anything, basically.

03:29:37.000 RJ sent $3.

03:29:37.000 Did you see Rumble has partnered with Barstool Sports and they got a huge chunk of shares in Rumble.

03:29:43.000 They will most likely ban you now. 0.97

03:29:45.000 Dave Portnoy Jew ass coming for you. 1.00

03:29:47.000 Yeah, I heard about that. 0.99

03:29:48.000 That's a little bit worrisome.

03:29:51.000 I hope Dave Portnoy don't ban.

03:29:53.000 You know, Israel's okay.

03:29:56.000 Hey, I love sports as much as the next guy.

03:29:58.000 No.

03:29:59.000 Yeah, it's maybe over.

03:30:00.000 Benjamin Stack sent $3.

03:30:02.000 I'm going to try to be precise when I say this. 0.99

03:30:05.000 Broadly speaking, Destiny is a retard. 0.99

03:30:08.000 Well done. 0.95

03:30:09.000 Richard Percival sent $10.

03:30:11.000 Nick won the debate. 1.00

03:30:12.000 Those guys suck. 1.00

03:30:14.000 True. 1.00

03:30:16.000 Grow upper man sent $3, new joke idea I'm working out. 1.00

03:30:20.000 The only reason Muslims are able to stay sober forever in Islam is because they all force women to shut the fuck up forever. 1.00

03:30:26.000 The two are tied. 1.00

03:30:27.000 Free bit for you King07. 0.99

03:30:28.000 That sucks dude. 1.00

03:30:32.000 Noma sent $3, I will broadly rape you. 1.00

03:30:36.000 Good job. 1.00

03:30:38.000 Dude, shut the fuck up, loser. 1.00

03:30:39.000 Get away from me. 1.00

03:30:40.000 Yes I did, retard. 1.00

03:30:41.000 I said that at the beginning, stupid. 1.00

03:30:43.000 I almost said the n-word just now. 1.00

03:30:46.000 Yeah, me too.

03:31:01.000 It is fake.

03:31:01.000 Sounds fake.

03:31:02.000 Thanks.

03:31:26.000 Yeah, maybe.

03:31:26.000 Retarded idea.

03:31:46.000 Hey, I'm a millionaire.

03:31:47.000 Hey, I'm a millionaire too, buddy.

03:31:48.000 I just... I've read most of that.

03:31:50.000 Yeah, I'm a... Hey, what are you talking and watching me for, huh?

03:31:52.000 I'm doing great. 1.00

03:32:10.000 Mike518 sent $5, this dude Destiny was deadass sucking random dick at the same time as his wife. 1.00

03:32:16.000 That's true. 1.00

03:32:17.000 I don't think you ever recover from that as a human. 07

03:32:21.000 That is true.

03:32:22.000 Yeah, he was like bragging about it. 1.00

03:32:24.000 When I saw him last, we were in Miami, he said something like, he meets up with dudes on grinders and sucks their dicks. 1.00

03:32:32.000 And, uh... So he's just, he just hates himself. 1.00

03:32:35.000 He's just into this degradation stuff.

03:32:37.000 That's the only... Because you know what's, and I said this before, you know what's interesting about Destiny?

03:32:42.000 He says that he's, he doesn't kiss guys.

03:32:44.000 He's not romantically into guys. 1.00

03:32:47.000 He just sucks their dicks. 1.00

03:32:48.000 Not to get gross and vulgar, but... 1.00

03:32:51.000 But listen to this.

03:32:53.000 So, if he's not, like, homoromantic, so to speak, if he's not attracted to men in that way, he just likes doing that, doing that degrading act, then I think that tells you a lot about his psychology.

03:33:09.000 I think that kind of tells you everything, doesn't it? 1.00

03:33:13.000 Because, you know, not even women, I don't even think women like sucking dicks. 1.00

03:33:18.000 I don't know, I'm... 1.00

03:33:20.000 Never had a girlfriend, but I'm an incel, so what do I know?

03:33:23.000 I'm just totally outside my realm here.

03:33:26.000 Broadly speaking, I think women don't even like giving head, but Destiny does. 1.00

03:33:30.000 But he's not, but he doesn't love guys. 1.00

03:33:33.000 Women love guys, they don't suck dicks. 1.00

03:33:35.000 They suck dicks because they love guys. 1.00

03:33:37.000 Destiny doesn't love guys, but he likes sucking dicks. 1.00

03:33:41.000 So what does that tell you? 1.00

03:33:43.000 What does that tell you about him as a guy?

03:33:45.000 I think that tells you that he is 0.96

03:33:50.000 A freak. 0.99

03:33:53.000 Self-hating. 0.90

03:33:55.000 People are saying they love it.

03:33:56.000 Everyone in the live chat is saying they love it.

03:34:01.000 They like it.

03:34:03.000 Women love that. 1.00

03:34:03.000 Some do. 1.00

03:34:05.000 People are saying they love it.

03:34:06.000 Well, hey, I don't know. 1.00

03:34:09.000 But I think that tells you that he's into some sick shit. 1.00

03:34:15.000 You're right. 1.00

03:34:31.000 Oscar sent three dollars.

03:34:32.000 Funny how destiny suddenly gets a two-hour debate with Shapiro right after he begins to speak in favor of Israel.

03:34:38.000 Yeah, I don't think that's a coincidence.

03:34:39.000 I think he did that maybe to get the debate, or secure the debate in some way.

03:34:42.000 Altered crates sent $20.

03:34:44.000 X isn't the same without Autumn Groyper.

03:34:47.000 Hopefully he'll come back soon.

03:34:49.000 Thanks for your sacrifices.

03:34:51.000 Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

03:34:53.000 My life isn't the same without X, without Twitter, but that's okay.

03:34:59.000 But I'm hanging in there.

03:35:00.000 Okay!

03:35:02.000 Alright, that's our last Super Chat.

03:35:04.000 I gotta get out of here.

03:35:05.000 I got stuff to do, okay?

03:35:07.000 I'm a busy man.

03:35:08.000 I got stuff to do.

03:35:09.000 So, that's gonna do it for me on this stream.

03:35:12.000 Thanks for watching.

03:35:13.000 Thanks to the Super Chatters.

03:35:15.000 I hope you enjoyed.

03:35:16.000 I'll be back though.

03:35:17.000 I'll be back doing my show in about 4 hours.

03:35:21.000 Around 10 o'clock Central Time.

03:35:24.000 Give or take a little bit, but roughly 10 o'clock.

03:35:27.000 Broadly speaking, it'll be about 10 o'clock central time.

03:35:34.000 So I'll see you then.

03:35:35.000 Thanks for watching.

03:35:36.000 Don't forget to subscribe to the Rumble channel now.

03:35:40.000 Subscribe to the channel right now if you're not already.

03:35:43.000 If you're watching this content for free, this is the least you could do.

03:35:47.000 Honestly, the least you could do is give me money. 0.92

03:35:50.000 But if you're really black, and you just have no money to give me, then just follow the channel, please. 0.99

03:35:57.000 So, follow me on here, and I'll be back in about four hours, something like that. 0.97

03:36:03.000 So I'll see you then.

03:36:05.000 Have a great day.

03:36:06.000 Let me pick a song.

03:36:07.000 I think we'll play... Let's play this.

03:36:11.000 And I'll get out of here.

03:36:12.000 Thanks for watching.

03:36:12.000 I'll see you tonight.

03:36:53.000 Big city with a big city purchase.

03:37:29.000 Let's go through

03:37:49.000 I don't know.

03:38:21.000 We're good to go.

03:39:52.000 Let's go.

America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - January 24, 2024

Reacting to Ben Shapiro vs Destiny

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