The Ben Shapiro Show

00:00:00.000 We have a lot to get to today.

00:00:01.000 Lena Dunham lies again.

00:00:03.000 We're going to get to the special counsel apparently opening a grand jury.

00:00:06.000 We're going to talk about Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, looking to crack down on leakers.

00:00:11.000 We'll get to all of that.

00:00:12.000 This is Ben Shapiro, and this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:18.000 So, we do have a lot to get to today.

00:00:20.000 I want to get to all of the stuff that's really in the news, the kind of main news of the day.

00:00:23.000 But the best story of the day is this story about Lena Dunham.

00:00:26.000 And I would just be remiss if I didn't lead off with it because it is so grand and so glorious and she is such a terrible person in every way.

00:00:33.000 This, of course, is Lena Dunham, the wildly unattractive star of Girls.

00:00:38.000 The reason that I point out that she's wildly unattractive is because she has said in the past that if you find her wildly unattractive, it's because you're sexist.

00:00:44.000 Um, no.

00:00:45.000 It's because you have eyes.

00:00:47.000 So, Lena Dunham, apparently, she's lied about a bunch of things in the past.

00:00:51.000 She's said, in the past, the Star of Girls, she campaigned with Hillary Clinton.

00:00:54.000 She has said in the past that she was raped by a Republican named Barry.

00:00:58.000 Not true.

00:00:59.000 She has said that she did not abandon her dog.

00:01:01.000 She just was given a dog that had a history of being abused, also not true.

00:01:06.000 And now, her latest story, her latest iteration in her stupidity cycle, comes courtesy of American Airlines.

00:01:13.000 On Thursday, Dunham tweeted that she overheard two American Airlines employees speaking about how they believed that the transgender agenda was terrible for children.

00:01:22.000 Horror!

00:01:23.000 Shock!

00:01:24.000 No, they must be stopped!

00:01:26.000 It's just too terrible!

00:01:28.000 She tweets out, late last night, quote,

00:01:31.000 At this moment in history, we should be teaching our employees about love and inclusivity, American Air.

00:01:37.000 That was the worst part of this night.

00:01:39.000 Everything that she does is always about the drama, right?

00:01:41.000 Oh, it's the worst thing that ever happened.

00:01:43.000 It's just the worst part of the night.

00:01:44.000 I can't handle it.

00:01:46.000 And American Airlines wrote back, you have us concerned.

00:01:48.000 Please meet us in DMs with your record locator and details.

00:01:51.000 What they really should have said is, you have us concerned, please see a psychologist as soon as humanly possible.

00:01:55.000 And then, she started DMing with them, and here's what she said, quote,

00:02:17.000 So in other words, there are two women walking along talking about one of the hottest issues of the day.

00:02:21.000 Trans children, right?

00:02:23.000 Kids who believe that they are a member of the opposite sex.

00:02:25.000 And these women were saying, I would not accept it if my child said that they were a member of the opposite sex.

00:02:29.000 Which is perfectly rational, since you shouldn't really accept that because your child is not a member of the opposite sex.

00:02:34.000 You should look for treatment.

00:02:35.000 And this idea that, as a parent, you should accept this new idiocy

00:02:40.000 Foisted on Americans by leftist society.

00:02:43.000 It's just dumb all the way through but she says big sister Lena Dunham You know big sister the one who said that she once pleasured herself next to 11 year old sister So she's not just big brother.

00:02:51.000 She's big sister and the best kind of big sister big sister reports that to American Airlines What if someone had been walking behind them someone was and she was a terrible person so she reported that and

00:03:02.000 And then, she said, I wasn't flying American, this was at JFK, and I was in a terminal with American attendants.

00:03:08.000 And American wrote back, do you know what gate this was at?

00:03:09.000 She said, I was in the arrivals hall, coming from gate B30 to baggage, by the Hudson News, across from the wine bar.

00:03:15.000 Okay, Stalin!

00:03:16.000 My God, just reporting people for having normal conversation in the hallways at JFK, like this is what this has come to now?

00:03:22.000 It wasn't manifesting in their behavior toward trans people?

00:03:25.000 It wasn't manifesting in how they treated any of the trans customers?

00:03:28.000 It wasn't manifesting in anything, even assuming all of this is true.

00:03:31.000 They said, thanks for the info, Lena.

00:03:32.000 We're passing this along to our team to review.

00:03:34.000 And she wrote back, thank you.

00:03:35.000 And then she wrote, hashtag, across from the wine bar.

00:03:37.000 So now we're now, like, targeting and tracking down anyone who has wrong think.

00:03:42.000 I mean, this is Orwellian garbage.

00:03:43.000 Orwellian garbage.

00:03:44.000 Number one, these women can say whatever they like.

00:03:47.000 Even if they'd been saying stuff that was really anti-Semitic, do you think that I would have gone to American Airlines and said,

00:03:51.000 You have these two vicious anti-Semites working for your company.

00:03:54.000 Like, get over it.

00:03:56.000 Get over it.

00:03:56.000 It's a free country.

00:03:57.000 You may think that people are terrible.

00:03:59.000 That doesn't give you the excuse to destroy their jobs.

00:04:01.000 As I said, you know, on Sunday, we did a Q&A.

00:04:03.000 As I said, if it's not impacting how they do their job, it makes no difference.

00:04:07.000 Okay, then there's a big, and then she tweeted, For those who followed my airport saga yesterday, here's my takeaway.

00:04:13.000 These days, it's the little things.

00:04:15.000 A smile, offering a seat, respect.

00:04:20.000 You mean the little things like not getting people fired because you're a giant douchebag of a human being?

00:04:25.000 Like the little things like not targeting random passers-by who happen to disagree with you on a hot political issue of the day?

00:04:31.000 I mean, God, heavens forfend if they had said they voted for Trump.

00:04:35.000 I mean, my God, then Lena Dunham really would have reported them to American Airlines.

00:04:39.000 Except there's one extra wrinkle to this story, as always.

00:04:42.000 American Airlines checks out the story, and on Friday they told Fox News, quote,

00:04:52.000 So there is no evidence that any of this happened at all.

00:04:55.000 And Lena Dunham, once again, is just saying crap.

00:04:58.000 Because this is what Lena Dunham does to get attention.

00:05:01.000 Leftists, I never give you advice because I want you to continue to be a giant fail.

00:05:04.000 But, here's a piece of advice.

00:05:06.000 Stop associating with nutcases like Lena Dunham if you want people to take you seriously.

00:05:10.000 Number one, having your little emissaries going around and reporting people in USSR, East Bloc Stasi fashion,

00:05:20.000 When they say things you don't like, that's gross enough.

00:05:22.000 Having them lie about it, or say it without evidence, is really, really super gross.

00:05:26.000 And at this point, the fact that the left continues to hang on to Lena Dunham, just like they hang on to Linda Sarsour, is just demonstrative of the fact that they don't care about middle America, they don't care about people who disagree.

00:05:36.000 They want the heroes that they want, and it doesn't matter if those people are garbage heaps.

00:05:40.000 Those people must be upheld.

00:05:41.000 It doesn't matter that Lena Dunham is a personal dumpster fire.

00:05:44.000 They're going to continue to label her just the woman of the year.

00:05:47.000 Amazing, amazing stuff.

00:05:49.000 But that's just another great story from the Lena Dunham annals of joy.

00:05:52.000 Okay, in other big news today, bigger news obviously, there are a couple of big stories that are breaking.

00:05:56.000 The first big story that is breaking is that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has now announced a broad crackdown on leaks.

00:06:03.000 Now there's a lot of speculation that the reason that Sessions is cracking down on the leaks

00:06:07.000 Is because he knows that Trump is angry with him and so he is trying to please the President of the United States by cracking down on leaks.

00:06:12.000 The truth is he should be cracking down on leaks anyway.

00:06:14.000 We saw a very dangerous leak yesterday when we saw that the Washington Post had run on the front page a story that was full transcripts from calls between President Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Australia.

00:06:25.000 As I said yesterday, that is super dangerous stuff.

00:06:27.000 It doesn't matter that nothing really important was said in those transcripts.

00:06:30.000 What had happened if there had been something important?

00:06:32.000 That kind of stuff should not be made public, especially because America's enemies are looking for the inside scoop

00:06:37.000 And what exactly Trump is telling our allies and our enemies.

00:06:41.000 So, that stuff is really bad.

00:06:42.000 Obviously, Sessions should be looking for the leaks.

00:06:44.000 Here's what Attorney General Sessions had to say today.

00:06:47.000 First, let me say that I strongly agree with the President and condemn in the strongest terms the staggering number of leaks undermining the ability of our government to protect this country.

00:07:00.000 Just yesterday, we saw reports in the media about conversations the President had with foreign leaders.

00:07:07.000 No one is entitled to surreptitiously fight to advance battles in the media by revealing sensitive government information.

00:07:17.000 No government can be effective when its leaders cannot discuss sensitive matters in confidence or talk freely in confidence with foreign leaders.

00:07:27.000 Okay, and then he continued.

00:07:29.000 Everything that he's saying there is exactly correct, but it's the latter part of what he said that is a bigger problem.

00:07:35.000 So he now says that he is going to start targeting media sources for subpoenas about their sources.

00:07:41.000 He actually accused the media of getting people killed.

00:07:44.000 So, he talked about this in a long statement as prepared for release.

00:07:49.000 He said,

00:08:05.000 In the first six months of this administration, DOJ has already received nearly as many criminal referrals involving unauthorized disclosures of classified information as you received in the last three years combined.

00:08:15.000 This, of course, is because they're a bunch of Obama holdovers who are leaking everything they can get their hands on.

00:08:19.000 Obviously, that's criminal activity.

00:08:20.000 It is also true that President Trump should have moved much more quickly.

00:08:23.000 He says,

00:08:44.000 And then he talked specifically about what he was going to do with regard to the media.

00:08:50.000 He said that the media had basically got people killed.

00:08:52.000 He said,

00:09:07.000 They cannot place lives at risk with impunity.

00:09:09.000 We must balance their role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in our intelligence community, the armed forces, and all law-abiding Americans.

00:09:18.000 That's some pretty harsh stuff.

00:09:20.000 I mean, it's some pretty heavy stuff.

00:09:21.000 And I think that it's worthwhile discussing it for just a second.

00:09:24.000 First of all,

00:09:25.000 Should the media be printing stuff that actually puts American national security at risk?

00:09:28.000 Of course the media should not be doing that.

00:09:30.000 But the media very often, at least the Washington Post and New York Times from what I've seen, they tend to take a general level of care with national security information so as not to reveal stuff that would actually put people in harm's way.

00:09:42.000 In fact, the most obvious example that comes to mind in the last six months is there was that New York Times report about how Trump

00:09:47.000 Had spilled classified information to the Russians in that Oval Office meeting behind closed doors with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, and Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of the Russians.

00:09:59.000 And if you recall, the New York Times actually said that they were not going to print some of the material because they thought it would hurt national security.

00:10:07.000 And then Trump promptly went out and basically blew that wide open by saying exactly what it was that he had said, putting an Israeli national security asset at risk.

00:10:15.000 The media obviously has to be careful about what it leaks.

00:10:17.000 If somebody leaks to you that we are the nuclear codes, to give the most obvious example, and the New York Times prints the nuclear codes, obviously that would be something that falls into the realm of endangering American national security.

00:10:29.000 But we have to be very careful just because we like Attorney General Sessions or the Trump administration, we still have to be careful about the idea that the press can be cracked down upon to reveal their sources just because the Trump administration doesn't like it or an Obama administration doesn't like it.

00:10:42.000 I didn't like it when Obama did this.

00:10:43.000 Obama

00:10:44.000 Famously prosecuted leakers.

00:10:46.000 He also went after particular news sources that were involved in releasing the information from the leakers.

00:10:53.000 This is dangerous stuff.

00:10:54.000 We do want a high level of transparency when it comes to American government.

00:10:57.000 Obviously, if you're working for the government, you shouldn't be leaking.

00:11:00.000 But going to press outlets and trying to force them to reveal their sources because you don't like the information

00:11:06.000 There's a very thin line between trying to protect national security and going after press outlets because you just don't like the information that's being leaked.

00:11:13.000 And I'm not sure how much to trust the Department of Justice with drawing that line in a relevant and decent way.

00:11:19.000 I want to talk a little bit more about that.

00:11:21.000 I also want to talk about the big breaking news, obviously, which is that Robert Mueller, who's the special counsel, has now appointed a grand jury.

00:11:26.000 I want to tell you what that means from a legal perspective.

00:11:28.000 Before I get to that,

00:11:29.000 I want to tell you about the United States Concealed Carry Association.

00:11:32.000 So last week in Las Vegas, a woman was beaten nearly, I mean, just beaten the crap out of by her boyfriend.

00:11:37.000 When she went to flee, she was followed by her attacker.

00:11:40.000 In the ensuing chaos, a bystander intervened and shot the guy, saving her life, eliminating threats to the community.

00:11:45.000 But, when the cops showed up, they did what they're supposed to do, they arrested the bystander.

00:11:49.000 He was arrested for being Good Samaritan.

00:11:51.000 This is the all-too-common reality for people brave enough to defend themselves and others.

00:11:54.000 And it's not the fault of the cops and it's not your fault, but you could get caught up in a situation where you are now being criminally prosecuted or investigated simply for using a gun in self-defense.

00:12:04.000 This is why you need the USCCA.

00:12:06.000 The USCCA is an invaluable resource for armed Americans before, during, and after a self-defense incident.

00:12:11.000 And they know the police aren't always able to make a judgment call immediately following the event.

00:12:14.000 Sometimes the law just precludes that.

00:12:16.000 That means that even if you're involved in a self-defense incident, pretty good chance you'll be arrested while an investigation is concluded, even if you're innocent.

00:12:23.000 So, don't leave your future up to chance.

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00:13:03.000 Okay, so the other big story of the day is this breaking news that the special counsel Robert Mueller has now impaneled a grand jury.

00:13:12.000 So, what exactly does that mean?

00:13:14.000 Well, it means a couple of things.

00:13:15.000 Andrew McCarthy, over at National Review, who's been all over this, he says this is officially a criminal investigation now.

00:13:20.000 You don't impanel a grand jury for a counterintelligence investigation.

00:13:23.000 Grand juries are essentially, it's a group of jurors

00:13:27.000 Who are set up in order so that they can issue subpoenas for documents and testimony with the power of law.

00:13:33.000 That's what a grand jury does.

00:13:34.000 It doesn't necessarily mean that the grand jury is going to indict, but you set up the grand jury so that they have the power to compel testimony and the power to compel documentation.

00:13:42.000 The next logical step is an indictment if they find some element of guilt.

00:13:46.000 Now, what is this grand jury actually going to do?

00:13:49.000 Well, it's not going to be investigating Mike Flynn.

00:13:51.000 So Mike Flynn, the former national security advisor, there's already a grand jury that's been impaneled in Virginia to check out Mike Flynn, which suggests that there are other people who are now in the line of Robert Mueller's fire.

00:14:00.000 According to CNN,

00:14:02.000 Federal investigators exploring whether Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russian spies have seized on Trump and his associates' financial ties to Russia as one of the most fertile avenues for moving their probe forward, according to people familiar with the investigation.

00:14:14.000 So, there are a lot of people on the right right now who are legitimately saying, and I think this is correct, that this investigation has now broadened beyond collusion.

00:14:20.000 They can't prove collusion, and so now they're looking for other criminal activity.

00:14:24.000 That is not within the scope of the investigation.

00:14:26.000 It's not within the scope of the investigation.

00:14:28.000 And Trump is now stuck between a rock and a hard place, because if Mueller

00:14:31.000 I think?

00:14:48.000 If Trump fires Mueller, it's going to look like he's trying to obstruct something.

00:14:51.000 If he doesn't fire Mueller, there's the good shot that Mueller comes up with the prosecution of some ancillary official in the Trump campaign, and the Democrats use that as a brick bat in order to club Trump into submission.

00:15:00.000 It's a rock and a hard place.

00:15:01.000 Again, this is why it was such a mistake for Trump to get a special counsel appointed in the first place.

00:15:06.000 It was his own fault.

00:15:08.000 If you recall back to the firing of James Comey, the only reason a special counsel was appointed in the first place

00:15:13.000 Is because the Attorney General had already recused himself on Russia, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had not, but Trump used Rod Rosenstein as an excuse to fire Comey, and then Comey leaked out that Trump had basically threatened him, at least according to Comey, and then Rosenstein was now implicated in this whole thing, and then Trump went on national TV and said he really fired Comey because of the Russia thing, using Rod Rosenstein as cover, and forcing Rosenstein to recuse himself and appoint a special counsel.

00:15:38.000 So, Trump is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

00:15:40.000 According to CNN,

00:15:42.000 The FBI is reviewing financial records related to the Trump Organization, as well as Trump, his family members, including Trump Jr.

00:15:49.000 and campaign associates.

00:15:50.000 They've combed through the list of shell companies and buyers of Trump-branded real estate properties, scrutinized the roster of tenants at Trump Tower, reaching back more than a half-dozen years.

00:15:57.000 This is exactly the kind of stuff Trump said he didn't want.

00:16:00.000 If you recall back to a New York Times interview two weeks ago, Trump said, if Mueller starts looking into financial impropriety, then maybe I'll fire him, which would trigger not a constitutional crisis, but certainly a major constitutional conflagration.

00:16:12.000 Again, it's not a constitutional crisis because there are means to deal with it, but it would certainly create a firestorm.

00:16:17.000 It would look a lot like Nixon trying to fire the special prosecutor in the middle of the Watergate investigation.

00:16:22.000 And again, Trump could do this even if he's completely innocent, but it would just look bad.

00:16:26.000 Trump attorney Jay Sekulow is openly stating now that there's no reason to think Trump is under investigation and an inquiry from the special counsel that moves beyond the mandate might be a reason to fire him.

00:16:38.000 This is not a surprise because the impaneling of a grand jury in situations like this, when you've got an investigation, is typically how they move forward.

00:16:47.000 It is really very much a standard operating procedure when you've got a situation like this.

00:16:52.000 But with respect to the impaneling of the grand jury, we have no reason to believe that the President is under investigation here.

00:16:58.000 Okay, so they're suggesting still that there's separation with Trump, and this is true.

00:17:02.000 I mean, we don't have any information that's not true.

00:17:03.000 The problem is that Sekulow has had credibility problems in the past.

00:17:06.000 Just in the last week, it was revealed that Donald Trump was intimately involved in the crafting of Donald Trump Jr.'

00:17:12.000 's statement about the Russia meeting from 2016, and Sekulow had gone on national TV and said, as you recall, that Trump had not been involved in the drafting of that statement.

00:17:19.000 So there's credibility problems all the way across the board.

00:17:22.000 This is going to be a thing that just dogs the Trump administration.

00:17:25.000 And this is the problem.

00:17:26.000 You know, because Trump kept talking about it, because there are all these leaks coming out, and the leaks are truly egregious, you know, special counsel should not be leaking.

00:17:33.000 Because of all this, it's just a dark cloud on the Trump horizon that he can't seem to get rid of.

00:17:37.000 And if he fires Mueller, then that actually accelerates.

00:17:40.000 Now the media, of course, have been

00:17:43.000 have been suggesting that this is the be-all end-all.

00:17:44.000 Now there's a grand jury, that means Trump is going down.

00:17:46.000 A lot of wishful thinking in the media, and it's driven the left a little bit nutty, to the point where they now suggest that Trump was intimately involved, that he was in bed with Vladimir Putin again, without evidence.

00:17:58.000 I thought that Kellyanne Conway did a good job on CNN pointing this out.

00:18:02.000 In this case, again, I think people are just talking about an investigation that exists, but looking for collusion and conclusions that don't exist.

00:18:11.000 And I like the fact that CNN took about almost a full week off, slinking away from covering the Russian so-called investigation.

00:18:20.000 Because you know that the polls say that 6% of Americans say it's the most important issue to them, but that it's consumed 75% of the coverage.

00:18:27.000 So I do think Americans are owed full coverage of all the issues they say affect them.

00:18:31.000 The economy, jobs, health care, certainly national security, and the like.

00:18:36.000 And I hope that your network will continue to do that.

00:18:39.000 Well, you know we try to cover everything that matters, and sometimes...

00:18:44.000 All credit to Kellyanne there shellacking a piece of wood, Chris Cuomo, who's a living embodiment of a tree.

00:18:50.000 I mean, you just think of him when he was in high school and they're like, we need someone to play the tree.

00:18:56.000 Chris!

00:18:56.000 Step forward!

00:18:57.000 And he plays a fantastic oak.

00:19:01.000 His pine is mediocre, but his oak is just absolutely terrific.

00:19:03.000 So well done, Kellyanne Conway.

00:19:05.000 This is the problem with the media on all of this, is that the media have declared that every element

00:19:10.000 We're good to go.

00:19:30.000 Paul Manafort, who is always in bed with the Russians.

00:19:33.000 Okay, they're suggesting now that Paul Manafort was being targeted because investigators had found conversations among alleged Russian operatives regarding Manafort's attempts to encourage help for the campaign from the Russians.

00:19:43.000 That would be the collusion that people are talking about with Manafort.

00:19:46.000 Trump has a good answer to that, which is, I found out about it, I fired Manafort.

00:19:49.000 The problem is that he didn't just say that up front.

00:19:51.000 He should have just said that up front.

00:19:52.000 We're good to go.

00:20:08.000 Does any of this mean that Trump is guilty?

00:20:10.000 No, it doesn't mean that Trump is guilty.

00:20:12.000 And if you're actually going to find evidence, then let's see the evidence.

00:20:15.000 But I think that it is a problem for the Trump administration to suggest that nothing is wrong, and it's a problem for the media to suggest that everything is wrong.

00:20:24.000 I want to talk a little bit more about this.

00:20:25.000 Plus, Trump does something pretty great and it demonstrates the movement of the country that has not as much to do with Trump as it does the movement of the country toward a redder country in terms of the map.

00:20:34.000 But for that, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com.

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00:22:10.000 Okay, so, the other big news that happened yesterday was at this Trump rally, the West Virginia governor, who's a guy named Justice, that's really his actual name is Justice, and he, Jim Justice, which is just a great comic book name, but he does not look like a comic book character, unfortunately.

00:22:26.000 That'd be awesome, but he does not.

00:22:27.000 He looks like...

00:22:28.000 A governor from West Virginia.

00:22:30.000 And he was a Democrat, he was a Republican, then he was an Independent, then he was a Democrat, and now he's converting back to being a Republican.

00:22:35.000 Is he doing that because he has principled agreement with President Trump?

00:22:38.000 No, he's doing that because West Virginia is turning red.

00:22:42.000 I've been to the Oval Office twice in the last two or three weeks.

00:23:13.000 I've been there to present an idea on coal and an idea on manufacturing.

00:23:20.000 I've had the great opportunity to be with our president.

00:23:27.000 Now, let me tell you just this.

00:23:32.000 I have to be really serious with you just a moment.

00:23:37.000 I have to tell you that the last session of our legislature, I tried with all my soul.

00:23:46.000 Okay, so he's obviously happy moving in that direction because both houses of his legislature are Republican in West Virginia.

00:23:52.000 So it's now a united Republican-dominated state in West Virginia.

00:23:57.000 So add another one to the Republican column as well.

00:24:00.000 And he also paid homage to Trump, which is what you probably have to do in West Virginia.

00:24:04.000 A state that Trump, I believe, won by about 43 points.

00:24:06.000 I mean, it's just a blowout in West Virginia.

00:24:09.000 I'll have to check that.

00:24:11.000 In any case, he actually said, there's nothing to this Russia stuff, right?

00:24:15.000 Anytime you're in Trump's presence, you have to say there's nothing to the Russia stuff, just as sort of a point of homage.

00:24:19.000 And then Trump jumped on that bad wagon too.

00:24:22.000 Again, I'm not sure this is helping Trump's case too much.

00:24:24.000 He should really just be quiet and let everything take its course, and then defend himself when the time comes.

00:24:28.000 But Trump decided to go off on the Russia stuff too, prompting chants of, you guessed it, because we will never escape 2016.

00:24:33.000 2016 is now the time loop we can never escape.

00:24:37.000 2016 is a black hole of human time, and will forever be sucked into its maw, reliving the death of Harambe over and over and over, as well as the 2016 election.

00:24:45.000 It's like Groundhog Day all over again.

00:24:48.000 It's time to chant, Lock Her Up.

00:24:50.000 The Russia story is a total fabrication.

00:24:55.000 It's just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics.

00:25:03.000 That's all it is.

00:25:07.000 What the prosecutors should be looking at are Hillary Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails.

00:25:34.000 They're all chanting, lock her up.

00:25:35.000 I mean, it's, you know, everybody's very enthusiastic about Trump.

00:25:38.000 Again, we're never going to escape 2016.

00:25:40.000 Here's the thing.

00:25:40.000 Until we escape 2016, we can't actually move forward with a Republican agenda.

00:25:44.000 Instead, we're just going to keep reliving this thing over and over and over.

00:25:46.000 And Trump's just going to keep talking about Russia as a distraction.

00:25:49.000 Russia is a distraction, but the distraction isn't from Hillary Clinton.

00:25:53.000 Okay, the distraction is from your agenda.

00:25:55.000 I'd say, listen, we could be moving forward on popular legislation that helps Americans, except the media and the Democrats keep focusing on what is a giant nothing burger.

00:26:03.000 They've yet to show a shadow of proof of actual collusion.

00:26:07.000 Right?

00:26:07.000 Instead, we're going back to Hillary Clinton.

00:26:09.000 I understand this is a cheap throwaway line.

00:26:10.000 I understand.

00:26:11.000 Listen, if he wants Hillary Clinton prosecuted, his attorney general can do it.

00:26:15.000 But I don't see him ordering the Attorney General to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton because it's just another one of these throwaway lines.

00:26:21.000 Okay, so, what this is causing with regard to Trump, all of this is causing with regard to Trump...

00:26:26.000 People on the right to go to this place where everything that Trump does that is bad is justified by some of the things that Trump does that are good, and on the left, everything Trump does is awful and evil and terrible and garbage-y, and there's no in-between.

00:26:38.000 So Greg Gutfeld, who has been at times, I think, a rather well-calibrated critic of President Trump's, yesterday, he's talking about how Trump lied about the Boy Scouts because he had said that the Boy Scouts were calling him to say that he'd give him the best speech ever, and Gutfeld basically says,

00:26:56.000 About the rally itself.

00:27:00.000 You can see how Trump's persuasion works.

00:27:05.000 What he does there, when all this other stuff is going on, he focused on the everyday issues.

00:27:10.000 He brought up taxes, crime, drugs, terror, jobs, coal, the Paris Accords.

00:27:15.000 These are things that are major concerns for people.

00:27:18.000 And what it does is it marginalizes, by comparison, the obsessions of the media.

00:27:24.000 Whether it's about his language, about his meetings, about his fibs, about- comes off as superfluous, irrelevant, because all the people- if you went up to somebody there and you said, yeah, but did you hear they're impaneling?

00:27:38.000 They'd go, I don't give a damn!

00:27:40.000 You know what?

00:27:41.000 I have a problem with Oxy- I got problems with Oxycodone in my society.

00:27:45.000 I'm glad he's destroying ISIS.

00:27:47.000 He's bringing-

00:27:48.000 Okay, and so this is the right-wing line.

00:27:50.000 The right-wing line has become, I don't care about the Russia stuff because he's doing things that I want him to, or at least talking about things that I want him to do.

00:27:57.000 I have other concerns.

00:27:58.000 And the left-wing line is, I don't care about Trump's other concerns or the people's other concerns because of the Russia stuff.

00:28:02.000 That's Anna Navarro's line over on CNN.

00:28:06.000 Here she is saying that yesterday.

00:28:08.000 The real story here is that you have the Prime Minister of Australia having to explain policy to him like you teach a four-year-old how to read.

00:28:17.000 A is for apple, B is for boy, C is for cat.

00:28:21.000 The President of the United States was completely ignorant and clueless as to the policy that they were discussing.

00:28:28.000 It was cringe-inducing.

00:28:30.000 It was painful.

00:28:31.000 Okay, so let me just say this, and I've been saying this all along.

00:28:34.000 Please do not gauge your level of political participation, knowledge, the stuff that you care about, by President Trump.

00:28:41.000 If you're on the right,

00:28:43.000 Don't gauge what he's doing wrong by what he's doing right.

00:28:46.000 And if you're on the left, don't gauge what he's doing right by what he's doing wrong.

00:28:50.000 Don't pretend that he's universally one way or another.

00:28:52.000 Don't pretend everything he does is great.

00:28:53.000 Don't pretend that his sins are excused by his good deeds.

00:28:57.000 That's not how it works.

00:28:58.000 And on the left, don't pretend that the stuff that Trump is doing that some of which you like is stuff that is somehow antithetical to the American way because you don't like the Russia stuff.

00:29:09.000 Instead, why don't you put Trump aside and say, okay, what is he actually doing?

00:29:11.000 Why don't we all try to do the same thing?

00:29:13.000 If we all try to do the same thing, at least we could exist in the same realm of facts.

00:29:16.000 The problem is we no longer even tell the same narratives.

00:29:17.000 You look at the headlines at Huffington Post, it's Trump lies about Boy Scouts, and Trump lies about Russia, and then you hover to Breitbart and it's...

00:29:25.000 Trump succeeds in West Virginia with coal.

00:29:27.000 I mean, it's like two separate worlds that you're living in and never the two shall meet.

00:29:30.000 We have to keep both of those things in our mind if we're actually going to create, I think, a relatively reasonable and objective and useful picture of the President of the United States and how well he is doing.

00:29:41.000 Okay, time for some things I like, things I hate, and then I want to do

00:29:44.000 Uh, an extra special mailbag today.

00:29:46.000 So, uh, the thing I like today, we've been doing Anthony Scaramucci, uh, all the way through the week.

00:29:50.000 This actually isn't a movie that I like a lot.

00:29:52.000 I don't like the movie very much, but, uh, this is Anthony Scaramucci in a nutshell.

00:29:56.000 I-I just, I had a hard time saying goodbye to him, guys.

00:29:58.000 I mean, I gotta be real about this.

00:29:59.000 Anthony Scaramucci was my favorite character in Trump the series.

00:30:02.000 And it makes me really sad.

00:30:03.000 I mean, just the way that I felt terrible after the Red winning in Game of Thrones, and I just kept thinking, God, that was terrible what they did to Rob.

00:30:10.000 Now, I just think about Anthony Scaramucci, and I think, what would he be doing with this news cycle?

00:30:16.000 WWASD.

00:30:18.000 What would Anthony Scaramucci do?

00:30:20.000 I just think that every so often, and it makes me sad.

00:30:24.000 I said earlier in the week that we shouldn't mourn, we should just be thankful for the time we had together with Anthony Scaramucci.

00:30:29.000 But, you know, it's a line that people say at funerals and then two days later they feel terrible because they remember the person's not there anymore.

00:30:35.000 That's how I feel about Anthony Scaramucci.

00:30:36.000 You know, every few days I just think and I think back and I go...

00:30:40.000 Man, that guy, that dude, that Anthony Scaramucci dude.

00:30:43.000 So, this of course is from American Psycho, the movie that I think most closely resembles Anthony Scaramucci.

00:30:50.000 It's not a great movie, it's a cringe-inducing, horrifying movie.

00:30:54.000 Christian Bale plays...

00:30:56.000 He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

00:31:24.000 Hey, Albert.

00:31:25.000 Yes, Alan?

00:31:26.000 Why are there copies of the style section on the play?

00:31:28.000 Do you have a dog?

00:31:30.000 A little chow or something?

00:31:34.000 No, Alan.

00:31:35.000 Is that a raincoat?

00:31:36.000 Yes, it is!

00:31:39.000 In 87, Huey released this.

00:31:42.000 Four.

00:31:42.000 Their most accomplished album.

00:31:44.000 I think their undisputed masterpiece is Hip To Be Square.

00:31:47.000 A song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics.

00:31:51.000 But they should!

00:31:52.000 Because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of friends.

00:31:56.000 It's also a personal statement about the band itself.

00:31:59.000 Hey, Paul!

00:32:06.000 The movie itself is terrifying and insane and you're left at the end with the you don't know whether Christian Bale actually did any of things or whether it was all in his head but I think that's that's Scaramucci in a nutshell everything is sort of over-the-top and crazy and he may be an axe murderer I just don't know enough about him at this point well maybe maybe one day we'll find out you just don't know okay so time for some things I hate and then we'll get to the mailbag

00:32:32.000 Okay, so the first thing that I hate is Colin Kaepernick's girlfriend came out yesterday.

00:32:38.000 You remember Colin Kaepernick?

00:32:40.000 He's the guy who used to play quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers until he started becoming incredibly crappy, became a second string quarterback, and then decided to kneel for the National Anthem, cratering a lot of the NFL's ratings and destroying a lot of their credibility with non-black communities.

00:32:55.000 And I say that because the polls show that black Americans liked the National Anthem stuff and non-black Americans really didn't.

00:33:00.000 Hispanics and whites really didn't.

00:33:02.000 In any case, Colin Kaepernick's girlfriend tweeted out...

00:33:05.000 That being a quarterback in the NFL was like being owned as a slave, okay?

00:33:10.000 If that is the way this works, I mean, I make myself a good living here, but if that's slavery, then boy, sign me up.

00:33:16.000 Because if slavery is being paid $100 million, like some of these quarterbacks are, I mean, Colin Kaepernick signed like a $20 million contract, and he was an awful quarterback, he was a garbage quarterback who couldn't read a play, and he couldn't even look, he couldn't even check his secondary receiver, my goodness, and he's making millions of dollars.

00:33:32.000 His girlfriend tweeted out that if you are warm with the owners of a team, that's because they're like slaveholders and you are like a house negro, essentially.

00:33:40.000 Stephen A. Smith says that all that's happening here is the NFL is trying to silence future Colin Kaepernick.

00:33:44.000 And of course, the, oh god, the excreble Max Kellerman, who I cannot stand.

00:33:49.000 The worst host in the history of mankind for any purpose ever.

00:33:53.000 Okay, Max Kellerman does a show in LA, a sports show in LA, called Max and Marcellus.

00:33:58.000 It is legitimately the worst show in the history of humanity.

00:34:02.000 If Satan could have crapped out a show, it would sound like Max and Marcellus.

00:34:05.000 It is the worst show ever.

00:34:06.000 So anyway, with that ringing endorsement in his ears, here's Max Kellerman with Stephen A. Smith talking about how Colin Kaepernick is obviously being victimized.

00:34:16.000 Last point, it goes deeper than that, and here's why.

00:34:19.000 Because far beyond the importance of winning, what you're trying to do by keeping Colin Kaepernick out the game is not just silence him, but silence all those aspiring to emulate Colin Kaepernick.

00:34:32.000 It's a dissuasive measure being exercised by league owners regardless of what they're willing to admit.

00:34:38.000 So if they play with this, where Colin Kaepernick is kept out of the league, and there is no noise that's reverberating, then you know what?

00:34:46.000 They're going to succeed.

00:34:47.000 And suddenly you're going to hear a lot of folks being very, very quiet and not speaking up about issues, and that would be tragedy.

00:34:54.000 It would just be tragedy.

00:34:55.000 If Colin Kaepernick couldn't kneel for the National Anthem, other people might think twice about kneeling for the National Anthem.

00:35:00.000 That would certainly be tragic.

00:35:02.000 I mean, not that there are any consequences or anything to the NFL for all of this, but if we dissuade athletes from doing... Like, where... You know, I don't know where Stephen A. Smith was.

00:35:10.000 I honestly don't know where Stephen A. Smith was when it came to Kurt Schilling basically being thrown off of ESPN for implying that ISIS and the Nazis were part of the same sort of general mentality about Jews.

00:35:21.000 Like, I don't know where Stephen A. Smith was for that.

00:35:23.000 I don't know where Stephen A. Smith was when Mike Ditka got kicked off the network for suggesting that he was going to vote for President Trump.

00:35:29.000 I don't know where Stephen A. Smith was when Chris Broussard was suspended because he said he wasn't personally in favor of same-sex marriage during the Jason Collins stuff.

00:35:35.000 But this idea that dissuasion can only be practiced against the right, and that Colin Kaepernick should feel nothing, you can't even disagree with him.

00:35:43.000 Look, if you're an NFL owner, why would you put a guy who made himself wildly unpopular with NFL fans on your roster, particularly when he sucks?

00:35:50.000 By the way, I promise you that if Colin Kaepernick were really a terrific player, he would still be playing in the NFL.

00:35:55.000 I promise you that right now.

00:35:56.000 They've got criminals playing in the NFL.

00:35:59.000 Perfect example, Steve Nash, right?

00:36:00.000 Terrific point guard for the Phoenix Suns.

00:36:02.000 And he was with the Dallas Mavericks, and then he was also with the L.A.

00:36:05.000 Lakers briefly.

00:36:07.000 Steve Nash, if you recall, he's Canadian, and during the Iraq War, he refused to put his hand over his heart for the American National Anthem.

00:36:14.000 He wouldn't stand for the American National Anthem, exactly the same as Kaepernick during the Iraq War.

00:36:18.000 Did he play again?

00:36:18.000 Yeah, because he's a good player.

00:36:20.000 So this idea that Kaepernick is not being hired because of his politics, no.

00:36:24.000 Kaepernick is not being hired because he's not a good player.

00:36:26.000 The same way that, you know, for all the talk about it, Tim Tebow was not hired in part because of his politics, but I think largely because he wasn't a very good player.

00:36:33.000 If he was a much better player, Tim Tebow would have been in the NFL still.

00:36:36.000 Okay, time for the mailbag.

00:36:38.000 So let's do that.

00:36:39.000 Doreen writes, Hey Ben, how did you become so good at argumentation?

00:36:42.000 Did you actively study it?

00:36:43.000 Are you simply very well informed on the topics you speak or both?

00:36:46.000 Thanks.

00:36:46.000 Well, I think that

00:36:48.000 Arguing is a tactic.

00:36:49.000 You know, debating is a tactic.

00:36:50.000 So, number one, you have to feel comfortable with your own positions, really have thought them through, thought the information through, really feel comfortable in debate, and stick and move and be able to move with people.

00:37:01.000 That's the best way to be good at debating.

00:37:03.000 But you also have to study the debate tactics of the person against whom you're debating.

00:37:06.000 So, when I debated Cenk Uygur,

00:37:09.000 I still don't know how to pronounce his last name, but Cenk Aiger over at Politicon on Sunday, I had studied his previous debates, I had looked at how he had done it with Dinesh and Anne in the past.

00:37:19.000 Actually the debate ended up being very different than those debates, but I was prepared if he was going to go low, I was prepared for how to counter that if he had decided to do that.

00:37:26.000 So every debate you have to have a game plan for.

00:37:29.000 I would say that every argument that you have in public you should have a game plan for.

00:37:33.000 Benjamin writes, hey Ben, I'm Ben.

00:37:35.000 Well, congratulations, dude.

00:37:36.000 Today I was scrolling through my Facebook and saw a post that infuriated me.

00:37:39.000 The post read like this.

00:37:40.000 Don't call transgender people mentally ill if you believe a man in the clouds loves you unconditionally, but only under certain conditions.

00:37:46.000 The implication, of course, is that all religious people are mentally ill.

00:37:48.000 How would you respond to this?

00:37:49.000 Thanks.

00:37:50.000 I would respond by saying that's ridiculous.

00:37:52.000 The reason that's ridiculous is because there's no evidence that religion is mental illness.

00:37:57.000 It is a belief system.

00:37:59.000 People believe lots of things.

00:38:00.000 Lots of people believe in secular human rights.

00:38:02.000 There is no basis for secular human rights.

00:38:05.000 Okay, it's based on your own logic.

00:38:06.000 My belief in God is based on my idea that there is a planner and creator for this universe, and that God is intimately involved in the continuing fate of man.

00:38:16.000 Because I believe that people generally, as a whole, get what they deserve, both here and in the afterlife.

00:38:23.000 And I can give you all the logical reasons why I believe that.

00:38:26.000 I will freely admit there are logical reasons that go the other way.

00:38:30.000 I think the only evidence-based position on God is agnosticism.

00:38:32.000 That's the only evidence-based position on God.

00:38:34.000 Because I think that you can make a very solid evidentiary case for the presence of God, the idea that there was a designer of this complex universe that would be nearly impossible to comprehend in terms of random chance, and also would be nearly impossible to comprehend in terms of why human beings would be able to grasp at the essence of the universe and uncover all of its secrets.

00:38:53.000 Like, why aren't we all just animals who basically move sticks around?

00:38:57.000 Why is that?

00:38:58.000 So, that's a good case for God.

00:39:00.000 Free will is the best case for God.

00:39:02.000 The idea that you can choose to do otherwise.

00:39:04.000 If you're a determinist, then that's a good case for atheism, right?

00:39:06.000 So, I think there's evidence on both sides, but...

00:39:10.000 But certainly a belief system is not the same as mental illness.

00:39:12.000 The reason that I say it is mentally ill if you are transgender is because you believe something that is objectively not true.

00:39:20.000 You're objectively not a woman if you are a man.

00:39:22.000 You're objectively not a man if you are a woman.

00:39:24.000 Things have categories, okay?

00:39:26.000 It is not objectively untrue that there is no God.

00:39:30.000 I can believe lots of things, and as far as what God wants of me, I can believe that the system that God promulgated at Sinai and was then promulgated to the world through Christianity more broadly, I can believe that that system of morality has led to the greatest civilization in the history of mankind by a wide margin, and that's relatively good evidence for its at least utilitarian value.

00:39:52.000 So, again, trying to link belief systems with mental illness, again, it's not objectively verifiable that it is false, Judaism, Christianity, or the presence of God.

00:40:04.000 It is objectively falsifiable that you are a female if you are a male.

00:40:07.000 Okay, that's the answer.

00:40:09.000 Also, if you want to talk about why it's a mental illness, again, religion is linked to better mental health, actually.

00:40:13.000 Religious belief generally is linked to less depression, less suicide, less drug use, less alcoholism, higher grades of happiness.

00:40:22.000 Transgenderism is linked to a 40% suicide ality rate, higher rates of STDs, higher rates of not just suicide, but depression.

00:40:31.000 Higher rates of self-harm.

00:40:32.000 Okay, Adam says, Hey Ben, Orthodox Jews believe in Jesus, correct?

00:40:36.000 They don't believe he's the Son of God though, right?

00:40:38.000 Does the Jewish religion believe he claimed to be the Son of God though?

00:40:40.000 If so, isn't this blasphemy?

00:40:42.000 Can you please clarify what type of person Jesus is in the eyes of the Jewish religion?

00:40:45.000 So, Orthodox Jews believe that there was a Jesus and that Jesus existed, historically speaking.

00:40:51.000 What we believe is that Jesus was another Jew, and that he did not claim to be the Son of God, that that was a later addition

00:40:59.000 In the Christian Gospels, because Paul is writing 40 years after the death of Christ, and that's when he sees Jesus on the road to Damascus, and that Jesus was essentially attempting to lead a rebellion against the Romans and was killed for his trouble, just like a lot of other Jews were killed for their trouble.

00:41:13.000 That's the Jewish take on Jesus, obviously.

00:41:15.000 That's why we differ, right?

00:41:16.000 I mean, the Jews and Christians don't believe the same things about Jesus.

00:41:19.000 John says, Ben, with all this talk about healthcare, why are we not talking about the health of Americans?

00:41:23.000 Childhood obesity, processed food, diabetes, heart disease.

00:41:25.000 We are a fast food nation.

00:41:27.000 Where and where, when and where does the actual health of Americans come into the equation?

00:41:30.000 Cheers, John.

00:41:30.000 John, such a good question.

00:41:32.000 So,

00:41:33.000 Every time the left says that health care outcomes in the United States are lower than health care outcomes in places like Europe, one of the answers is America is a very diverse place with people who eat lots of different things and have lots of different habits about exercise.

00:41:45.000 And the fact is that if you look at ethnically similar populations in the United States and Sweden, for example, look at Swedish people living in the United States, they have exactly the same life expectancy as Swedish people living in Sweden.

00:41:55.000 So these two populations are not comparable.

00:41:57.000 And it's worthwhile noting that because otherwise you have a confounding statistic that's destroying the perception of what healthcare is and what it does in the United States.

00:42:05.000 Kyle says, Team Euron or Team Daenerys in Game of Thrones?

00:42:09.000 I didn't know that Euron had a team, although I am appreciating the goth rock Euron of this year, and I'm enjoying his, like, rabid smiling at people.

00:42:19.000 That's a thing.

00:42:21.000 I'm definitely not Team Daenerys.

00:42:22.000 I find her to be an incredibly boring character, highly incompetent at her job.

00:42:25.000 She has, like, she has a couple of jobs.

00:42:27.000 One, be good at outreach.

00:42:31.000 Sucks at outreach.

00:42:32.000 Terrible at outreach.

00:42:33.000 Everywhere she's ruled, she's been garbage at outreach.

00:42:35.000 Legitimately, the only people who like her are slaves that she freed.

00:42:39.000 Understandable, but she's not exactly the queen of popularity.

00:42:42.000 Then, she's supposed to be this great war leader.

00:42:45.000 She blows as a war leader.

00:42:47.000 She's awful.

00:42:47.000 Okay, the strategy that she has undertaken in season 7 of Game of Thrones, as promulgated by supposedly the wisest guy on the show, Tyrion, I don't know where Tyrion got this great reputation as an advisor.

00:43:00.000 I'm not seeing it, dude.

00:43:01.000 Like, in Meereen, you were awful.

00:43:03.000 He was an awful advisor in Meereen, and now he comes to Westeros, and he's a similarly awful advisor.

00:43:09.000 Again, seems like a nice guy, but not really good at his job.

00:43:12.000 Daenerys is a terrible negotiator, she's terrible at outreach, she's terrible at the military, and she happens to be, I'm sad to say, a terrible actress.

00:43:20.000 So not good all the way through.

00:43:22.000 Okay, Kyle says...

00:43:25.000 Hello, Ben.

00:43:26.000 I always hear about how America is severely in debt to China.

00:43:28.000 Is this like owing money to a loan shark for a bad gambling trip kind of debt?

00:43:31.000 Or is it a more complex economic issue?

00:43:32.000 A brief synopsis would be great.

00:43:33.000 Love the show.

00:43:34.000 So, I think that people need to stop mixing up trade deficits with debt.

00:43:37.000 So, the United States has a lot of debt to China.

00:43:39.000 That means that China has bought a lot of American bonds.

00:43:42.000 They've bought a lot of American bonds because the United States has been financing its debt, its public debt, right?

00:43:46.000 The things that we take out to pay for Social Security and Medicare.

00:43:49.000 We've been taking out a lot of that debt on the open market, and China has been buying a lot of those bonds.

00:43:53.000 If China wanted to sink the value of the United States dollar, all they would do is kill our ability to actually borrow more money.

00:43:59.000 And the way they would do that is by reselling the bonds.

00:44:01.000 Put the bonds on the open market, flood the market with bonds, and then that would inflate the value of the dollar.

00:44:05.000 Right?

00:44:06.000 That's the danger of China owning our debt.

00:44:08.000 There are a lot of people who have this weird idea that because we buy lots of product from China, that's a debt.

00:44:13.000 That's not a debt, okay?

00:44:13.000 When you buy a product from your local grocery store, you don't owe a debt, you just bought a product.

00:44:19.000 They made money off of you, but you made the product off of them.

00:44:21.000 In fact, the way that international economics works, if you spend a lot of money in China, you're spending dollars.

00:44:27.000 Can Chinese people in China spend dollars on other Chinese products?

00:44:31.000 No, they don't use that.

00:44:31.000 They use the yuan, right?

00:44:32.000 So they actually would actually have to spend those dollars back in the United States.

00:44:36.000 What you've actually seen, it's called the capital surplus.

00:44:38.000 The United States with China,

00:44:40.000 Has a trade deficit but a capital surplus, meaning that China is investing much more in the United States than the United States investing in China.

00:44:46.000 This also happened with Japan in the 80s, and everybody was freaked out.

00:44:49.000 Ooh, we have a trade deficit because everybody's buying these cheap Japanese tape recorders.

00:44:51.000 Oh no!

00:44:52.000 We're all gonna die!

00:44:53.000 Okay, and it turned out, did Japan end up overtaking us as the leading world economy?

00:44:57.000 No, they collapsed in the 1990s.

00:44:59.000 They're all buying American land, American real estate, we had a capital surplus with them.

00:45:03.000 Trade deficits do not mean debt, and trade deficits do not mean that you are economically failing.

00:45:08.000 You know what's a country with a trade surplus right now?

00:45:10.000 Really.

00:45:11.000 A country with a trade surplus?

00:45:12.000 Venezuela.

00:45:13.000 We talked about them earlier this week.

00:45:15.000 They have a trade surplus because they won't let anybody ship goods and services into their country.

00:45:19.000 What does that mean?

00:45:21.000 Absolute poverty, people shooting dogs in the streets to eat them.

00:45:24.000 Hey Ben, I must ask, in what order would you put God, family, country?

00:45:40.000 It's an absolute symbiosis between those three things.

00:45:43.000 Where there is no conflict.

00:45:44.000 Where your country is not infringing on your capacity to worship God.

00:45:47.000 Where your family, which you have worked to mold in a godly image, is in consonance with the country.

00:45:55.000 This is why you need a free country.

00:45:56.000 That allows families to operate as they will and worship God as they see fit.

00:46:00.000 This is why freedom is necessary.

00:46:02.000 So when everything is in alignment, these are not in conflict.

00:46:05.000 God, family, country.

00:46:05.000 But if you were to ask me, you know, if my family were to come into conflict with the country, which one would I choose?

00:46:12.000 I would choose my family because, I mean, to be fair,

00:46:16.000 I don't know that that is even a hierarchy because it depends on the values.

00:46:19.000 Bottom line is values are values.

00:46:21.000 So if my family was right, I'd side with my family.

00:46:23.000 If the country was right, I would side with the country, presumably.

00:46:26.000 But if you're saying that, you know, where do I think I have a more heavy stamp of my values?

00:46:30.000 Obviously my family.

00:46:31.000 I have much more of a heavy stamp of my values on my family than I do on my country.

00:46:34.000 But if, you know, all that put aside, this is true for everyone, okay?

00:46:38.000 Everyone values family over country, which is why it's imperative that we stop breaking down into tribal groups and then using the government as a

00:46:45.000 We're good to go.

00:46:57.000 Doesn't that, in one aspect, defeat the purpose of owning a firearm?

00:47:00.000 Is there a way to get this amended to ensure the full rights of our illegal gun owners?

00:47:03.000 So, yes.

00:47:06.000 You can violate some laws but not others in self-defense situations.

00:47:09.000 So, for example, this is why, you know, I'm not a big fan of gun laws.

00:47:14.000 If I own an illegal firearm and somebody breaks into my house and is trying to hurt one of my children, I shoot him, I could be prosecuted for illegal use of a firearm even if I properly act in defense of self or others.

00:47:25.000 That's why I don't like a lot of these gun laws, and I think that they're really, really stupid.

00:47:28.000 As far as why you would be arrested in a situation where you need the USCCA, that's just because the cops can't tell.

00:47:34.000 I mean, if they walk into your house and they see a dead guy on the floor, they don't know all the circumstances.

00:47:37.000 They have to arrest you first off just to ensure safety.

00:47:39.000 But, you know, obviously we hope and pray that in a decent legal system you are acquitted and not even prosecuted in the first place.

00:47:48.000 Elhanan just says Shabbat Shalom.

00:47:49.000 Okay, well, you too, dude.

00:47:51.000 And Rogoff says, Hey Ben, how is it the progressive tax system was put into place?

00:47:55.000 Isn't there something in the Constitution that says the government has to protect your property and not take it away just because that's what the collective decided?

00:48:01.000 Yes.

00:48:02.000 So, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has what people wrongly call the Eminent Domain Clause, okay?

00:48:07.000 This is the idea that the government cannot take away private property for public use without just compensation.

00:48:13.000 That's the exact language of the statute.

00:48:14.000 Richard Epstein has a really good book called Takings.

00:48:17.000 In it, he basically argues that if you look at that closely, what that really means is the government can't take your money from you for public use without giving you an equal amount of services in return.

00:48:29.000 So yes, the income tax itself was unconstitutional.

00:48:32.000 The progressive income tax was unconstitutional.

00:48:35.000 The 16th Amendment is the one that legalized the income tax.

00:48:40.000 Worst amendment in the U.S.

00:48:41.000 Constitution.

00:48:42.000 And yes, the constitutional framework never conceived of the idea of this massive

00:48:49.000 Okay, so we'll be back here on Monday, and I'm sure there will be much more news, because the news never stops, gang.

00:48:58.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:48:58.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

A Very Special Episode With A Very Special Counsel | Ep. 355

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