The Ben Shapiro Show - Bad Moon Rising | Ep. 495

00:00:00.000 Democrats run strong in Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district.

00:00:03.000 Students prepare to walk out all day to protest gun violence.

00:00:07.000 And President Trump says some stuff about a space force or something.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:12.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:17.000 So today, I'm interested in talking about what's happening with this student walkout rather than awkwardly staring at the camera for weird periods of time.

00:00:25.000 I'm actually going to talk about what's going on in the news.

00:00:28.000 Man, sometimes you're just off.

00:00:29.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at LegalZoom.

00:00:33.000 LegalZoom is marking National Small Business Month.

00:00:36.000 And whether you're just starting out or you already have a business, there's a lot you can take advantage of right now.

00:00:39.000 So I've known about LegalZoom for literally years.

00:00:41.000 It was one of the ways that I would file documents, do wills and trusts from the time when I was a younger human.

00:00:47.000 But now, LegalZoom has actually expanded its business offerings.

00:00:50.000 Go to LegalZoom.com slash startup during March and you can download your free business startup kit.

00:00:54.000 You get a ton of great information.

00:00:56.000 You can find out how to maximize your business deductibles under the new tax laws.

00:00:59.000 Plus, you'll get great discounts.

00:01:00.000 Your kit includes special deals

00:01:02.000 From LegalZoom, along with offers from their service partners, so you can save a bunch of money financing, marketing, and operating your business.

00:01:08.000 LegalZoom is not, in fact, a law firm, but they do know that you need to tap into the right resources to run a successful business.

00:01:14.000 And that's why they have their business startup kit.

00:01:17.000 They even have people who are actually available to answer your questions as well.

00:01:20.000 So it's not just a list of forums.

00:01:21.000 You also have people who you can consult with.

00:01:23.000 Go to LegalZoom.com slash startup.

00:01:25.000 We're good.

00:01:39.000 There is no obligation, just free business resources, and the offer is only available in March.

00:01:44.000 So if you're listening after that, you can still enjoy special savings by using code Ben when you check out at LegalZoom.com.

00:01:49.000 That's LegalZoom.com, where life meets legal.

00:01:52.000 Again, use that special code Ben when you check out and you enjoy special savings, and it's only available in March.

00:01:57.000 So we're already nearing the middle of the month, so check it out there.

00:02:00.000 It's LegalZoom.com and use that promo code Ben.

00:02:03.000 Again, these folks, I mean, there's a reason they've been topping the business for literally

00:02:07.000 More than a decade at this point.

00:02:09.000 Check it out legalzoom.com and use promo code Ben.

00:02:11.000 All right, so

00:02:12.000 A couple of big news stories out the gate today, so we will get to what happened in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District last night, because that actually—I have a lot of notes on that.

00:02:22.000 But we begin today with this massive walkout that's happening at supposedly 2,500 schools all over America, where a bunch of kids, astroturfed by people who organized the Women's March, have decided to walk out of school for 17 minutes to honor the victims at Parkland—rather, the Parkland school shooting, the victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

00:02:42.000 And of course, what this really is, is not a call for an agenda, right?

00:02:46.000 It's not actually an agenda-driven march, right?

00:02:49.000 We actually don't know what they want, and if you read what the Women's March say they are marching for, nobody agrees with their actual agenda. 0.98

00:02:55.000 I'll get to their actual agenda in a second, but what it really is about,

00:02:57.000 It's about having a lot of pictures of a lot of young people standing around and saying that they hate gun violence so that a bunch of leftist politicians can claim that they are standing with the children in pushing for vast gun confiscation regimes.

00:03:08.000 That's what this is all about.

00:03:10.000 And that's essentially what the New York Times admits in their editorial today.

00:03:12.000 They say the children should lead us, which to which I say, fine.

00:03:15.000 Then let the children take over your editorial board.

00:03:17.000 They can't do a worse job than you have.

00:03:19.000 Why don't you just let the kids run all your op-eds? 1.00

00:03:21.000 And they can decide whether they want to run op-eds on whether homework is necessary or not.

00:03:25.000 It's really funny.

00:03:26.000 All the adults at the New York Times, who are all in their 50s, they always talk about how wonderful and genius these 17-year-olds are, but I don't see them giving up their jobs anytime soon to high school juniors who are attending Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

00:03:36.000 But here's what they write in their editorial.

00:03:39.000 They say,

00:03:43.000 Weird.

00:03:43.000 I don't hear this from the New York Times on issues like abortion, that adults are supposed to take care of children.

00:03:48.000 I don't hear about them with regard to single motherhood.

00:03:50.000 That line seems to go out the window.

00:03:51.000 But now, of course, adults are supposed to take care of children, according to the New York Times, not by defending kids with guns, but by letting kids decide policy, which is a weird way of protecting them.

00:04:00.000 They say schools are essentially an extension of the home in that sense, providing sanctuaries of learning, of nurturing and care.

00:04:05.000 But after years of attacks by people with weapons of war, students cannot feel safe and are demanding that adults end years of complacence and act.

00:04:11.000 OK, first of all,

00:04:13.000 It is.

00:04:13.000 The school shootings are actually on the decline, not on the uptick, statistically speaking.

00:04:17.000 And your chances of being killed in a school shooting are significantly worse than your chances of being killed in virtually any other sort of accident in the United States.

00:04:24.000 And these are acts of terror, really.

00:04:26.000 They're not asking for their schools to become armed garrisons, while some would like for there to be more armed guards.

00:04:31.000 Rather, they want those weapons to be brought under control.

00:04:33.000 I like how the New York Times has direct link into the minds of all young people.

00:04:36.000 It's amazing.

00:04:37.000 It's like Rousseau's general will.

00:04:39.000 They just look at young people and they magically know that all of Chuck Schumer's proposals on gun control have embedded themselves in the minds of young folks.

00:04:47.000 But what is the smack of the smacks of the New York Times?

00:04:49.000 Basically, taking a child, putting the child out front and saying, this child demands that you do what I say you do.

00:04:54.000 Are you going to say no to this very cute child?

00:04:57.000 It's like the Pinky and the Brain episode, where they decide to take over the world by becoming small children with big puppy eyes.

00:05:03.000 The way to actually become leaders is to show something really cute.

00:05:07.000 Well, that's what the New York Times is basically doing here.

00:05:09.000 They say, at Stoneman Douglas Jr., Florence Yared said at the Florida State Capitol late last month,

00:05:27.000 Again, you know, I understand that this girl went through something absolutely horrible, but the world is significantly safer for kids growing up today than it has been at any time literally in human history.

00:05:38.000 And if she thinks that she's going to be able to ram through gun control because something bad happened to her, I have another thing coming for her.

00:05:43.000 She says, with Wednesday's demonstration and their March for Our Lives movement on March 24th in Washington, young voices are being heard.

00:05:49.000 How will the nation's adult respond?

00:05:51.000 Hopefully by amplifying their demand.

00:05:52.000 Never again.

00:05:53.000 So first of all, I love the use of the Holocaust 1.00

00:05:56.000 All right.

00:05:56.000 And then they quote a bunch of high school juniors, right?

00:05:58.000 And we're supposed to believe

00:06:21.000 Then all of these high schoolers are the wisest and greatest among us.

00:06:23.000 Now again, tragedy does not confer expertise.

00:06:26.000 I've said this about Jimmy Kimmel and his son.

00:06:28.000 Just because something bad happened to you in your life does not make you an expert on the underlying issue.

00:06:33.000 Jimmy Kimmel had a surgeon perform the surgery on his son.

00:06:35.000 He didn't perform the surgery himself because he understands that just because he was suffering doesn't mean that expertise goes out the window.

00:06:41.000 The same holds true of gun control.

00:06:42.000 Just because you witnessed something awful happen at your school does not mean you know what you are talking about when it comes to the best public policy to stop such shootings.

00:06:49.000 But the New York Times, again, they want to use these kids as political human shields, and so here is what they do.

00:06:55.000 They turn over their editorial page to these kids, and then they quote them, right?

00:06:58.000 Alfonso Calderon, Jr.

00:06:59.000 No kid should be afraid to go to school, no kid should be afraid to walk outside, and no kid should have to worry about being shot.

00:07:04.000 Now that's why I'm marching.

00:07:06.000 Okay, no kid should have to worry about leukemia.

00:07:08.000 No kid should have to worry about disease.

00:07:09.000 No kid should have to worry about murder.

00:07:10.000 No kid should have to worry about anything terrible.

00:07:13.000 That's true.

00:07:14.000 I mean, that would be great.

00:07:15.000 Unfortunately, we live in a world where there are evil people.

00:07:17.000 The question is, how do you stop them?

00:07:18.000 We all want to stop those evil people.

00:07:20.000 Hey, how about Ali Shihi? 0.52

00:07:22.000 Not Ali Shidi.

00:07:23.000 Ali Shihi.

00:07:24.000 The children—senior in high school.

00:07:25.000 The children you pissed off will not forget this in the voting booth.

00:07:28.000 Don't doubt the power of the younger generation, because we are a force to be reckoned with.

00:07:32.000 Every young generation says this.

00:07:33.000 Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

00:07:35.000 But again, the idea that everybody who's young is solidly behind a particular gun proposal is just not true by polling.

00:07:41.000 Emma Gonzalez is one of the people who's been featured the most in the media. 0.55

00:07:44.000 And subsequently, the media have been just enamored of her Twitter followers because she has gotten this big Twitter bump.

00:07:50.000 She went from like nothing to 1.1 million because she was featured on Ellen and a bunch of other shows. 1.00

00:07:54.000 So they quote her.

00:07:55.000 Maybe the adults have gotten used to saying it is what it is.

00:07:57.000 But if us students have learned anything, if well, first of all, if we students have learned anything, Emma.

00:08:02.000 Right?

00:08:03.000 Maybe you should learn some grammar.

00:08:04.000 But if us students have learned anything, it's that if you don't study, you will fail.

00:08:07.000 You should study grammar or you'll fail.

00:08:08.000 And in this case, if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead.

00:08:12.000 So it's time to start doing something.

00:08:14.000 We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks.

00:08:16.000 Not because we're going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because we are going to be the last mass shooting.

00:08:21.000 I fervently wish that this were true.

00:08:23.000 I fervently hope that this is true.

00:08:25.000 But just because we all want to stop mass shootings doesn't mean I agree with Emma Gonzalez's prescription.

00:08:29.000 I mean, all of this is basically Bernie Sanders-style politics.

00:08:32.000 I've ripped on Bernie Sanders' Twitter account for a long time because Bernie Sanders' Twitter account is largely Bernie Sanders just saying things like, there are rich people and there are poor people.

00:08:41.000 The world should not be like this.

00:08:43.000 Is it?

00:08:43.000 Well, okay.

00:08:45.000 Fine.

00:08:46.000 What you can do about it.

00:08:48.000 And this is the same thing.

00:08:49.000 It's, there shouldn't be shootings of children.

00:08:51.000 Yes, we all agree.

00:08:52.000 Now, your proposal, please.

00:08:54.000 I'm not sure anyone was making the contention that more God was going to bring back children who died.

00:08:56.000 The only way to get that back is through gun control, starting now.

00:09:12.000 Weird, because there is significant gun control all over Chicago and people don't feel particularly secure.

00:09:17.000 Gun control doesn't make people feel secure.

00:09:19.000 Lack of being shot makes people feel secure.

00:09:20.000 The only reason that you would embrace gun control over, for example, more armed security guards, is for political reasons.

00:09:26.000 So make an argument.

00:09:28.000 I love this.

00:09:28.000 Madison Leal.

00:09:29.000 I don't even know what that means.

00:09:35.000 And again, it's always selective.

00:09:36.000 So, the New York Times did turn over one of the editorials on their editorial page to a sophomore at Randolph High School, a junior at Toms River North High School, and a senior at Marlboro High School, all in New Jersey.

00:09:48.000 Again, this is just political human shield stuff, right?

00:09:51.000 They're going to bring out a bunch of young kids and then suggest these kids know something better because they are kids.

00:09:56.000 Which is weird.

00:09:57.000 And they write,

00:10:21.000 Well, I'm sure that some of you are, and some of you are not.

00:10:23.000 I mean, there are lots of people who vote, there are lots of people who don't vote, there are lots of people who lead, there are lots of people who don't.

00:10:39.000 There are lots of people who are young who will join the NRA.

00:10:40.000 There are lots of people who won't.

00:10:42.000 Let us remind corporations like FedEx that provide discounts to NRA members that we are their future customers.

00:10:47.000 Again, this is not an argument.

00:10:49.000 This is a moral appeal, right?

00:10:50.000 It's an emotional appeal.

00:10:51.000 Now, the reason that I'm reading all of this from the New York Times is to demonstrate that they're rather selective in the folks that they choose to feature.

00:10:58.000 Because there are a lot of young listeners to The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:11:00.000 There are a lot of young people who listen to this show.

00:11:02.000 Something like 70-75% of our audience is under the age of 35.

00:11:05.000 We have a very disproportionately young audience, of which we're very proud.

00:11:09.000 And we have tons and tons of high schoolers who listen to this show.

00:11:12.000 And I've been getting overwhelmingly

00:11:15.000 One message from my emailers over the last two weeks.

00:11:17.000 And I mean this.

00:11:19.000 I'm talking about scores of emails.

00:11:20.000 I'm talking about probably more than 100 emails from high schoolers over the last week alone.

00:11:25.000 And today, many, many more, after I wrote this piece, who are saying that they are upset with the media coverage of this mass walkout and asking for advice on how to deal with it.

00:11:35.000 I've gotten lots and lots of emails from these folks.

00:11:38.000 So here are some of the emails.

00:11:39.000 And I want to read the emails from some of these students who are not going to be featured in the New York Times.

00:11:43.000 I want to read some of the emails from these students who are not going to be shown on network news tonight.

00:11:46.000 I want to read the emails from some of the students who are going to be ignored and castigated and told that they are worse, that they are worse human beings because they disagree with gun control.

00:11:55.000 I want to give them a voice, because the rest of the media certainly are not giving these kids a voice.

00:11:59.000 And I am speaking with these kids, I promise you, far more often than the editorial board of the New York Times is.

00:12:03.000 The editorial of the New York Times hasn't talked to a person under the age of 40, except for, like, this last couple days in years.

00:12:09.000 I'm talking to people under the age of 20 every single day.

00:12:12.000 So I'm going to read some of the things that they've been sending to me and let them speak.

00:12:15.000 So I'm going to turn over my show to them in just one second.

00:12:18.000 I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Wondery's new show, This Is War.

00:12:38.000 We're good to go.

00:12:59.000 And that was August of 2001.

00:13:00.000 Obviously, life changed very much in the next month.

00:13:03.000 So, if you want to hear his story, go over to This Is War on Apple Podcasts.

00:13:06.000 Wherever you're listening to this podcast, This Is War is available.

00:13:08.000 Check out This Is War, hit the subscribe button, or visit wondery.fm slash ben.

00:13:13.000 That's wonder with a y.fm slash ben.

00:13:15.000 Subscribe, listen, it's really worth your time.

00:13:18.000 And again, it'll give you just a greater appreciation for what it is that our heroes do on a daily basis.

00:13:24.000 Check it out, Wondery's This Is War podcast.

00:13:26.000 Totally worth the subscribe.

00:13:27.000 Alrighty, so.

00:13:29.000 Now, I want to read some of the emails that I've been getting from high schoolers all over the country who are deeply upset and deeply angry that there are so many people who are castigating them as bad people because they disagree.

00:13:41.000 I mean, I'm looking at just in the last hour.

00:13:43.000 In the last hour, I've received 15 separate emails in one hour.

00:13:47.000 Before the show, from various high school students who are asking about what they should do during these walkouts, because they're frustrated and they're upset.

00:13:55.000 They feel like they're being ignored.

00:13:56.000 Here's a high school junior today, quote, honestly, it's like the Women's March. 0.62

00:13:59.000 There's no single consolidated argument, just a loose collection of rants that obscure the main point.

00:14:03.000 From a 16-year-old high school girl, quote, I was planning on not participating in the walkout.

00:14:07.000 I do not see the point in leaving class to simply walk outside, stand and talk with peers for 17 minutes, and return to class.

00:14:12.000 The act of walking out of class to protest school violence

00:14:15.000 Does not seem to have a target audience, even though they may have a news crew.

00:14:18.000 It is doubtful the students in Florida will see the actions of our school's walkout as a stand with solidarity.

00:14:23.000 I also support the Second Amendment, and I see this walkout as another opportunity for students and their parents to attack that amendment and my opposition to gun control.

00:14:31.000 I do see that my refusal to participate may be seen as unsympathetic or cruel.

00:14:35.000 My brother, who's a freshman, is being pressured in class to participate.

00:14:38.000 from a 17-year-old high school student.

00:14:39.000 Tomorrow, my school is having a walkout at 10 a.m.

00:14:41.000 for the 17 students who were killed in the Parkland, Florida shooting.

00:14:43.000 The walkout, however, here at my school is not really about that.

00:14:46.000 It is being promoted by an anti-gun leftist political agenda that I just don't and can't support, especially using the 17 kids that were my age as a platform.

00:14:53.000 I was wondering what you would say to people who want to call me insensitive and a terrible person.

00:14:57.000 I mean, my initial response to that is anybody who calls you insensitive and a terrible person because you disagree on political matters is insensitive and a terrible person.

00:15:05.000 Here's from another 17-year-old high school student.

00:15:17.000 I'm in favor of walking to honor the victims, but not in favor of promoting gun reform.

00:15:21.000 I feel like I have to choose between going against my political values or looking like a bad person.

00:15:24.000 I need help.

00:15:25.000 What do I do?

00:15:26.000 I'm getting emails like this literally minute by minute now.

00:15:28.000 From another high schooler.

00:15:29.000 My high school is participating in the walkout on Wednesday.

00:15:32.000 I am unsure what to do.

00:15:33.000 I am very against gun control.

00:15:34.000 I don't want to protest Congress for something they are doing right, if that makes sense.

00:15:37.000 However, I don't want to be singled out by students as someone who quote, doesn't care about the students who died.

00:15:41.000 Should I participate and conform to avoid humiliation and honor the students, or should I remain in class alone?

00:15:46.000 I don't know if the walkout is more about gun control or honoring the students.

00:15:50.000 I mean, I could literally do this all day.

00:15:52.000 I could literally do this all day.

00:15:53.000 Here's one that came in in the last four minutes.

00:15:55.000 Okay, hello, my name is — I'm going to bleep out his name and his class because I don't want him to get in trouble.

00:16:00.000 I saw your tweet about the unheard conservative students and it is very relatable.

00:16:03.000 There was a walkout at my school today.

00:16:04.000 A large majority of the students sat in the gym instead of walking out.

00:16:06.000 This is a school of about 1,800 people.

00:16:08.000 Fortunately, my school would not allow protests, so the liberal students had to mask it as a memorial, but the motives were still very much apparent.

00:16:14.000 The local media only covered the minority of the students participating in the walkout.

00:16:18.000 I have a question as to how to get my own and my conservative peers' voices heard.

00:16:22.000 Can you post about that or something related to that sometime, please?

00:16:24.000 I'm happy to talk about it right now.

00:16:26.000 This is in the last 10 minutes, OK?

00:16:28.000 These are all emails from the last 10 minutes alone.

00:16:29.000 I'm not even screening them.

00:16:30.000 I'm just pulling them up from my mailbag right now.

00:16:33.000 This guy, this guy is named Anthony, says, Ben, first, let me say I'm a big fan of the show on the website.

00:16:37.000 Second, I'm a 16-year-old sophomore in Philadelphia.

00:16:41.000 Our student council, in collaboration with our school administration, organized a walkout today to remember and pray for the victims of the recent shooting.

00:16:47.000 In my opinion, this walkout quickly shifted into a walkout for gun control, similar to the walkouts occurring across the nation.

00:16:52.000 We thankfully had the option to choose to stay inside, which I did.

00:16:55.000 As a Catholic, I stayed inside and said a prayer for the victims of the shooting.

00:16:58.000 However, I refuse to go outside to protest gun control because I am a proud Second Amendment supporter.

00:17:02.000 I believe we have the constitutional right to bear arms, and therefore it shall not be infringed upon.

00:17:05.000 Just thought I would share my story regarding this walkout.

00:17:07.000 Again, thanks for your mail.

00:17:08.000 I'm getting these things—they're coming in faster than I can actually read all of them, because there are tons of them coming in over and over and over.

00:17:17.000 And all this—and here is the thing.

00:17:20.000 Here is the thing.

00:17:22.000 The media won't read you any of these emails, because the media wants to promote this agenda.

00:17:25.000 The media wants to suggest that the only reason in the world that you would not walk out with these students is because you hate the students and you don't care about the students, and by the way, we support gun control.

00:17:34.000 Now, in a second, I'm going to talk about the supposed agenda of this gun control walkout.

00:17:39.000 In a second, I'm going to talk about that.

00:17:40.000 So let's jump right in.

00:17:42.000 The Women's March is organizing this, first of all. 0.99

00:17:44.000 The Women's March is organized by some of the worst people on earth. 1.00

00:17:48.000 Three of the four people who are Women's March co-chairs are open supporters of Louis Farrakhan.

00:17:53.000 And still, the Women's March has not really disciplined them. 0.84

00:17:55.000 The Women's March has not demoted them.

00:17:57.000 These three people have not come out and apologized for their support of Louis Farrakhan.

00:18:00.000 The Women's March put out sort of a ridiculously vague statement about how they want to be tolerant, but they didn't go any further than that.

00:18:06.000 The Women's March is a group of radicals who like to obscure their message by suggesting that you have to walk out in support of women. 0.78

00:18:13.000 We have to walk out in support of children.

00:18:15.000 But here's what they're actually stumping for.

00:18:16.000 So if you actually go to the Women's March website, and they have something called hashtag enough national school walkout, our demands.

00:18:23.000 You can't demand anything.

00:18:24.000 It's a democracy.

00:18:25.000 You can elect people who do what you want, but your demands are going to fall on deaf ears because it's just you shouting at the wind with media support.

00:18:31.000 Here are their demands.

00:18:31.000 Quote, demand one, banning assault weapons in high capacity magazines.

00:18:35.000 In this country, there's a fine line between wanting to be protected and wanting to intimidate others.

00:18:39.000 It's all in the title.

00:18:40.000 Assault weapons don't protect, they harm, and too easily these deadly weapons can be bought, sold, and distributed within the borders of our nation.

00:18:46.000 How can we enjoy freedom if our own country condones the selling of deadly, military-grade weapons which threaten our very existence?

00:18:52.000 The right to bear arms should not be the right to kill. 1.00

00:18:55.000 No one says you have the right to kill, you idiots. 1.00

00:18:57.000 And the notion that assault weapons are even a definable category is ridiculous. 1.00

00:19:03.000 You know what a military-grade arm is?

00:19:04.000 Any rifle ever.

00:19:06.000 Those are all military-grade because at some point in history, all rifles have been used for military purposes.

00:19:11.000 But I guess that we're supposed to pretend that this makes any sense.

00:19:14.000 Well.

00:19:28.000 This is, again, a misstatement of the law.

00:19:30.000 The statement is that if you're going to buy from a federally licensed firearms dealer over the internet, at a gun show, or anywhere else, you have to go through a federal background check.

00:19:36.000 The well-researched connection between a history of domestic violence and gun violence, combined with expanded background checks, could have prevented much of the gun violence we experience in this country.

00:19:44.000 We know states that required background checks on all handgun sales or permits had 35% fewer gun deaths per capita than states without that background check requirement.

00:19:54.000 I don't know where you are getting that particular statistic, and I would like to.

00:19:59.000 I haven't had a chance to actually vet that statistic.

00:20:00.000 That comes from the Giffords Law Center to prevent gun violence.

00:20:05.000 I think that, you know, the statistics do not bear out that one factor in a multifactorial analysis explains the states that have fewer gun deaths per capita.

00:20:16.000 That background check on handgun sales, you'd have to explain that there are a bunch of people who are buying privately and then shooting people.

00:20:20.000 Again, those statistics are not available as a general rule.

00:20:23.000 Okay, this one I actually support.

00:20:27.000 Right, this is when they say time and time again we hear people commenting on how they saw it coming or always knew it would be him.

00:20:44.000 OK, nothing.

00:20:45.000 First of all, that is a wild misstatement of the law at the very end that the due process comes after the seizure of the guns.

00:20:52.000 No, the due process comes before the seizure of the guns, and then the due process continues after the seizure of the guns.

00:20:57.000 OK, but.

00:20:58.000 Then they get to the final one, and this undermines all their others.

00:21:02.000 In 2017, there were only 14 days when police didn't kill someone.

00:21:07.000 So it's important that when we talk about gun violence, we not forget state-sanctioned gun violence that disproportionately impacts black or brown communities.

00:21:18.000 Non-mentioned here, black people also constitute one half of all murder victims in the United States and approximately half of all murderers in the United States. 0.76

00:21:26.000 This is not a statement about race being implicitly tied with violence, but so long as you are citing race in connection with violence statistics, it's important to note that police actually statistically undershoot minority people.

00:21:35.000 They don't overshoot minority people if you actually connect that with the levels of violence occurring in the minority community. 1.00

00:21:41.000 This act would slow the process of turning our neighborhoods into war zones by preventing the police from having the weaponry and equipment of invading armies.

00:21:47.000 So, here's the hilarious part.

00:21:49.000 They want to disarm everyone, presumably leaving all of our safety in the hands of the police.

00:21:56.000 And then they want to disarm the police.

00:21:59.000 Who do you think is actually going to disarm all those people?

00:22:00.000 Do you think that it's going to be a bunch of unarmed people who walk up to armed people in Texas and take away their guns?

00:22:05.000 Do you think that when a school shooter shows up, if the police don't have weapons, they're going to go in?

00:22:08.000 We've been told by these same people that a guy with a handgun can't even go up against a guy with an AR-15.

00:22:15.000 If that's the case, then why would you possibly want to disarm the cops?

00:22:17.000 But this is what the Women's March is. 1.00

00:22:18.000 It's a radical, radical group.

00:22:20.000 And it gets even better.

00:22:22.000 I mean, at some point in here, they actually talk about how they want to oppose international violence or something like that.

00:22:28.000 This is an agenda-driven march masquerading as a broad statement of sympathy for students.

00:22:33.000 I hate that sort of conflation because it's just not true.

00:22:36.000 Okay, in a second, I'm going to move on to Pennsylvania 18th, and I want to also give a piece of advice to all the students who are experiencing the walkouts today.

00:22:45.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Helix Sleep.

00:22:47.000 So as I've said many, many times, I am very bad at sleeping.

00:22:50.000 This is particularly true when I'm on the road because I miss my Helix Sleep mattress.

00:22:53.000 Helix Sleep gives you something that does not exist anywhere else.

00:22:55.000 A mattress personalized to your unique preferences and sleeping style that won't set you back thousands of dollars.

00:23:00.000 You go to helixsleep.com slash ben.

00:23:02.000 We're good.

00:23:17.000 We're good.

00:23:38.000 There's a lot of more expensive mattresses out there and they're not as good.

00:23:41.000 HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

00:23:42.000 Make sure that it's personalized.

00:23:44.000 Make sure that it is made just for you.

00:23:46.000 That's what Helix does. 0.99

00:23:46.000 HelixSleep.com slash Ben. 0.99

00:23:48.000 Use that slash Ben to get 50 bucks for your custom mattress.

00:23:50.000 Plus, it lets them know that we sent you.

00:23:52.000 Okay, so for all those students,

00:23:54.000 We're asking what they should do during this walkout, given all the propaganda that's surrounding the walkout.

00:23:59.000 Here is my answer.

00:24:01.000 My answer is that you should go to the walkout so that you're not perceived as uncaring, and you should bring with you a sign.

00:24:09.000 And the sign should say something like, I care about children's lives.

00:24:15.000 I care about my life.

00:24:16.000 Protect my life.

00:24:18.000 Arm teachers. 0.61

00:24:19.000 Protect my life.

00:24:20.000 Arm law-abiding people.

00:24:22.000 Protect my life.

00:24:23.000 More school security.

00:24:25.000 Put your message right out there.

00:24:26.000 Show that you can do both.

00:24:27.000 It's like I said at CPAC.

00:24:28.000 Everybody in the room at CPAC, the vast majority of them are Second Amendment supporters.

00:24:32.000 Very strong.

00:24:33.000 I said to them, raise your hand if you care about what happened in Parkland.

00:24:36.000 Every hand goes up.

00:24:36.000 And I said, raise your hand if you care about the Second Amendment.

00:24:39.000 Every hand goes up.

00:24:40.000 The media seem to want to believe that these two things cannot coexist.

00:24:43.000 They do coexist.

00:24:44.000 Show that they coexist.

00:24:45.000 Go to the walkout and carry a sign saying that you stand with the Second Amendment and you stand with the kids.

00:24:49.000 The media will ignore you, but at least you'll have made your point, and I think that's sort of important.

00:24:53.000 Okay, so last night the other big news, aside from the impending school walkout, was the results from the Pennsylvania 18th Congressional District.

00:25:00.000 So, Conor Lamb apparently has won that seat, or apparently it looks like he's going to win that seat.

00:25:04.000 He is the Democrat in that district.

00:25:06.000 That district went to Donald Trump by 20 points. 20.

00:25:09.000 And it is flipped all the way Democrat.

00:25:11.000 This makes just another data point in a data set that is really, really bad for conservatives.

00:25:17.000 According to FiveThirtyEight.com, in the seven special elections that have taken place since 2016, there's been an average swing in favor of Democrats of 16 points.

00:25:25.000 And the way they're measuring that swing is they average the differences between how the constituencies in these particular districts voted and how the country overall voted in the last two presidential elections.

00:25:34.000 So the average swing has been 16 points.

00:25:37.000 There was a 31-point swing, for example, in the Alabama U.S.

00:25:39.000 Senate race, in which Doug Jones ended up becoming the senator.

00:25:42.000 The Democrat ended up becoming the senator.

00:25:44.000 The same thing happened in Pennsylvania last night.

00:25:47.000 There's a 20 point swing in that race.

00:25:50.000 This is not good news for Republicans.

00:25:52.000 It's actually very bad news for Republicans, pretty obviously.

00:25:55.000 And Republicans are trying to make all sorts of excuses for this.

00:25:57.000 They're trying to explain why this is not such a big deal.

00:26:00.000 One of the explanations is put forward by Kayleigh McEnany, who's a big Trump fan, big Trump acolyte.

00:26:05.000 And she says, listen, Conor Lamb won because he was basically running as a Republican.

00:26:08.000 Conor Lamb has essentially run as a Republican.

00:26:11.000 He's pro-gun.

00:26:12.000 He says he's personally pro-life.

00:26:15.000 He says he's pro-coal.

00:26:16.000 He's pro-tariff.

00:26:17.000 He's anti-Nancy Pelosi.

00:26:18.000 Imagine that.

00:26:19.000 The Democratic candidate who's against Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, he has made himself into essentially a Republican.

00:26:26.000 So you have a Republican in name and a Republican in truth running against one another.

00:26:31.000 Okay, so, you know, this is the argument is that it's really not a big deal because Conor Lamb is basically a Republican.

00:26:35.000 Well, Conor Lamb is not a Republican.

00:26:37.000 He's a pro-abortion Democrat.

00:26:38.000 He says he is personally pro-life, but he is in favor of abortion being legalized all the way across the board.

00:26:44.000 He is not pro-gun control, so he opposes gun control.

00:26:47.000 This is not an argument that Republicans are going to do well in 2018. 0.98

00:26:50.000 It's an argument that if Democrats are not stupid and they run people tailored to their districts, they will do better. 0.95

00:26:54.000 If they run John Ossoff in the Georgia 6th district, if they run a Nancy Pelosi fan who's not from inside the district, they're going to lose. 0.97

00:26:59.000 If they run Doug Jones, who is perceived as moderate in Alabama, even though he is not, if they run Conor Lamb, who is perceived as moderate in the Pennsylvania 18th, then they will win.

00:27:07.000 So, the argument here is not that Republicans are doing fine because this Democrat ran a conservative campaign.

00:27:12.000 The point is, a Democrat, just one, who caucused with Democrats in a district that no Republican has lost—no Republican has lost in 20 years, and no Republican has won by fewer than 15 points in the last 20 years.

00:27:23.000 They just lost that district.

00:27:25.000 Now, listen, there were some factors moving against the Republicans in this district.

00:27:28.000 Tim Murphy was the former congressman who stepped down.

00:27:31.000 He stepped down specifically because he had knocked up his mistress and then he had told her to get an abortion.

00:27:36.000 Then he had to step down.

00:27:36.000 That's never good for the Republican who's going to have to step in.

00:27:39.000 But in an R-plus-20 district, that really should not make a difference.

00:27:42.000 There are a lot of bad signs for Republicans here.

00:27:44.000 The reason I'm saying this is not

00:27:46.000 God forbid, celebratory.

00:27:47.000 I don't want Republicans to lose the House.

00:27:48.000 I think it would be terrible, as I've said many times on the show, for Republicans to lose the House because I think the Democrats would then start passing all sorts of bills, and I think President Trump would be sorely tempted to sign a lot of those bills.

00:27:57.000 I'm not sure that Trump is going to stand between the Democrats and their policy priorities if he thinks he's going to get some good headlines out of it, particularly if he can swivel to the middle.

00:28:05.000 If he can give Democrats a bunch of things they want and get a bunch of good headlines, Trump likes pleasing the people who are in the room with him.

00:28:11.000 I'm very perturbed by the possibility of a Democratic Congress.

00:28:15.000 And it's fairly obvious at this point that Democrats do have a major enthusiasm advantage.

00:28:20.000 Again, in those seven special elections in 2017, Democrats gained an average of 16%.

00:28:25.000 Last night, they gained 20% just over 2016.

00:28:28.000 So in a year, like one year, that district shifted by 20 points.

00:28:33.000 One of the reasons for that is obviously that Republican enthusiasm is really low.

00:28:36.000 There's only 60% of the turnout that they got in 2016.

00:28:39.000 Trump isn't on the ballot this time.

00:28:41.000 So, you know, off-year elections are usually bad for the president in power.

00:28:44.000 But there's sort of regression to the mean.

00:28:46.000 That said, Trump's unpopularity doesn't help.

00:28:48.000 Right?

00:28:48.000 Trump actually went and campaigned for Rick Saccone.

00:28:50.000 Didn't make one bit of difference.

00:28:52.000 Not one.

00:28:53.000 And here's a worse statistic for Republicans.

00:28:55.000 This is an R-plus-20 district.

00:28:57.000 There are 118 seats held by Republicans that Trump won by fewer than 20 points.

00:29:03.000 There were closer districts than this district.

00:29:05.000 Now, does that mean Republicans are going to lose 100 seats?

00:29:07.000 No, it doesn't mean that.

00:29:08.000 Republicans will win the vast majority of those seats.

00:29:10.000 But Democrats only need to pick up 24 seats in order to win the House.

00:29:12.000 So you have to say at this point that statistically speaking, in a data-driven way, they are the favorites to pick up the House, which means House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, God help us.

00:29:20.000 OK, second point here.

00:29:22.000 Trump's popularity does actually matter.

00:29:23.000 So there's been a lot of talk, a lot of loose talk.

00:29:26.000 About the idea that Trump can be as unpopular as he wants to be.

00:29:28.000 Polls don't matter. 0.94

00:29:29.000 His base will support him.

00:29:30.000 His base will get out there and vote.

00:29:31.000 His base is not big enough to win congressional elections.

00:29:35.000 It just isn't.

00:29:35.000 His base was not big enough to win the popular vote.

00:29:38.000 And congressional elections are going to look a lot more like the popular vote than they are like the electoral college because, again, they're within smaller districts.

00:29:44.000 The electoral college means that if you win the state of Florida by one vote, you win all of their electoral votes.

00:29:49.000 But congressional districts are much more localized.

00:29:51.000 So that means that national polling, you know, these sort of generic congressional ballots, they do matter.

00:29:56.000 If there's a generic congressional ballot that shows the Democrats are up by about nine, which is where they're saying it is right now, Democrats win back the House in a pretty easy walk.

00:30:03.000 Trump's popularity is a drag here.

00:30:05.000 My president's with low popularity ratings, depressed turnout for their own side, and Trump has a gift for increasing turnout on the other side, at least now that Democrats realize that he could be president.

00:30:14.000 The reason that the Democrats didn't show up to vote for Hillary is because Hillary was awful, but also because they believed it was a foregone conclusion that Hillary was going to win.

00:30:20.000 And they believed that if they stayed home, it wouldn't make a difference.

00:30:22.000 Hillary was going to walk over Trump by 10 points. 1.00

00:30:25.000 But they were wrong.

00:30:26.000 And I don't think they're going to make that mistake again.

00:30:28.000 So Trump had better pull his plummeting popularity ratings out from the sewer.

00:30:33.000 Democrats are also, as I say, running better candidates.

00:30:35.000 Conor Lamb is a much better candidate than John Ossoff.

00:30:38.000 Lamb ran, it is true, as a soft Republican.

00:30:41.000 But the fact that he ran as a soft Republican 0.99

00:30:44.000 Demonstrates that Democrats may not be quite as stupid as the intersectionality-laden politics they have been promoting would suggest, which is devastating for Republicans. 0.99

00:30:54.000 We've been hoping that Democrats are going to basically cave in on themselves. 0.99

00:30:59.000 They will run the worst candidates in human history again and again and again and again.

00:31:03.000 They will in some districts, but not in all districts.

00:31:05.000 We're good.

00:31:25.000 Nolz's Show Live gets to be part of our mailbag on Friday, so if you want your mail answered, then actually go to the mailbag by becoming a subscriber at $9.99 a month.

00:31:33.000 The annual subscription comes along with this.

00:31:35.000 The very greatest in tumblers.

00:31:37.000 The Leftist Tears Hot or Cold Tumbler.

00:31:38.000 You will enjoy it.

00:31:39.000 You will treasure it.

00:31:40.000 It will make your morning.

00:31:41.000 It will make your evening.

00:31:41.000 It will make your entire life, actually.

00:31:43.000 It's just that good.

00:31:44.000 Check that out.

00:31:45.000 $99 a year, so cheaper than the monthly subscription.

00:31:47.000 Also, you just want to listen later?

00:31:48.000 iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, Stitcher, any of those.

00:31:50.000 Please subscribe.

00:31:51.000 Please leave us a review.

00:31:52.000 We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:32:00.000 Alrighty, so there are a lot of people who just want to ignore the data in Pennsylvania 18.

00:32:04.000 There are a lot of people who want to believe that everything is going to be fine.

00:32:09.000 There are a couple factors cutting against this.

00:32:11.000 Trump actually has governed pretty well.

00:32:13.000 His actual governance has been pretty decent for the first year.

00:32:15.000 We got a big tax cut.

00:32:16.000 The economy is doing pretty well.

00:32:18.000 All those things are true.

00:32:20.000 He still just lost a district, right?

00:32:22.000 Saccone did.

00:32:23.000 Just lost a district that was R plus 20.

00:32:25.000 And Trump visited that district.

00:32:27.000 All of which is to suggest that things are not going to get better for President Trump.

00:32:31.000 And not unless President Trump makes a market shift in how he approaches politics, which is very unlikely at this point, because the economy's booming.

00:32:38.000 Like, what could get better at this point, really?

00:32:41.000 Policy-wise, for all those policy wonks who think that everything's going to get better, this was supposed to be one of the districts that was going to love President Trump's tariffs, right?

00:32:48.000 This is a Pittsburgh suburb.

00:32:50.000 This is the area that Trump was going to bring back steel manufacturing with tariffs.

00:32:54.000 And Republicans just lost it.

00:32:56.000 So what does that say?

00:32:57.000 It says that Trump is about at the high watermark of what he can do politically to help himself.

00:33:03.000 The economy is doing really well.

00:33:04.000 There isn't any major foreign crisis on the map.

00:33:07.000 We're not involved in a long-lasting war outside of Afghanistan, which has been going on at low levels for the last 20 years.

00:33:14.000 Nothing has happened that would drive Trump's approval rating into the toilet, right?

00:33:17.000 There hasn't been an economic collapse, like killed George W. Bush's last term.

00:33:21.000 There hasn't been anything like that.

00:33:22.000 So what is Trump supposed to do policy-wise?

00:33:24.000 The answer is nothing, which means a lot of this is personality.

00:33:27.000 It means that Trump is going to have to stop

00:33:30.000 We're good to go.

00:33:52.000 It helped Republicans in 2010 that Obama was the president.

00:33:55.000 And it will help Democrats in 2018 that Trump is the president of the United States.

00:34:00.000 Again, I can like a lot of what Trump is doing and also recognize that he is a political liability in a lot of these districts.

00:34:05.000 There's a report out today that only two Republicans across the country actually want Trump to campaign with them.

00:34:09.000 Again, that's not unique to Trump.

00:34:11.000 And people who are saying, well, look, that's just because Trump's terrible.

00:34:13.000 There were a lot of Democrats who didn't want Obama anywhere near them in 2010, in 2012, in 2014.

00:34:18.000 We're good to go.

00:34:40.000 So, Republicans are sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place on Trump.

00:35:05.000 But, listen, not all of this is about Trump.

00:35:07.000 Again, there's an average loss of, you know, 20-plus seats in these congressional off-year elections.

00:35:13.000 But it does not help when people insist that data doesn't matter, that polls don't matter, that nothing matters.

00:35:19.000 Just because the polls were off on the state level in 2016 does not mean that all polls are fake.

00:35:24.000 The national polls in 2016 were actually pretty close to the money.

00:35:27.000 The polls last night in Pennsylvania were very, very close.

00:35:30.000 They said this was a dead heat.

00:35:31.000 It was a dead heat.

00:35:32.000 The races separated by like a thousand votes.

00:35:35.000 So before we just start ignoring data because it is convenient to us to ignore data, then I think we should probably look at that data and analyze whether or not any of this is a good idea.

00:35:46.000 Okay, so quick note on my friend Steven Crowder.

00:35:48.000 So my friend Steven Crowder has now been suspended from Twitter for violating its hateful conduct terms.

00:35:54.000 He's apparently also been suspended from YouTube, which is insane.

00:35:57.000 Right, so now they posted a South by Southwest video of Sven computer infiltrating a gender fluid panel and Twitter suspended Steven's account.

00:36:09.000 So they've said that he needs to delete the tweets that violate the rules.

00:36:12.000 They've suspended the account for 12 hours.

00:36:14.000 Okay, here's what Crowder's website is saying.

00:36:16.000 Here's what we think happened.

00:36:17.000 The original video that went out didn't have the word

00:36:20.000 Bleep. 0.97

00:36:21.000 It's the F word for gay people. 1.00

00:36:23.000 Soft bleep. 0.94

00:36:23.000 The original video was immediately pulled from YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook as the studio team added bleeps for the offensive content. 0.94

00:36:29.000 After the bleeps were added into the video, the studio re-uploaded the South by Southwest undercover video back to YouTube and Facebook.

00:36:35.000 When NotGayJared shared the video with the bleeps added and information blurred, he was also suspended.

00:36:40.000 Which means Twitter didn't find the word offensive, they found the general concept of the video offensive.

00:36:45.000 So, what exactly is the video?

00:36:48.000 So apparently, the video is Sven Computer, right?

00:36:51.000 A fake character who is forced to crash an LGBTQ gender non-conformity meetup at South by Southwest.

00:36:58.000 Okay, this tape has now been removed from YouTube.

00:37:00.000 It's just a comedy video, right?

00:37:01.000 It's typical Crowder, right? 0.92

00:37:02.000 Crowder's the guy who does Tranny Bane, right?

00:37:04.000 This is his shtick.

00:37:05.000 He's a comedian.

00:37:06.000 Comedians do lots of stuff that walks right up to the edge and sometimes crosses over the edge.

00:37:10.000 This is a reason that you're going to be banned from Twitter, suspended from Twitter.

00:37:13.000 Louis Farrakhan is tweeting openly. 0.98

00:37:15.000 Louis Farrakhan is tweeting openly anti-Semitic crap on Twitter every single day. 0.98

00:37:19.000 He has not been suspended. 0.97

00:37:21.000 And his counterparts on the right, people like Richard Spencer, who I even hesitate to call of the right,

00:37:26.000 You know, Richard Spencer, who is sort of the white version of Louis Farrakhan in reverse, right?

00:37:31.000 Richard Spencer has been suspended from Twitter.

00:37:33.000 I don't think he's on Twitter anymore.

00:37:34.000 I think he's been banned from Twitter.

00:37:35.000 The same thing holds true of Milo Yiannopoulos.

00:37:37.000 Now, I'm not in favor of any of these people being banned from Twitter, even though I despise all of them, but...

00:37:41.000 I think that it is completely absurd that Steven is getting knocked off these platforms because Steven happens to be a conservative comedian, where if you were a left-wing comedian and you said exactly the same words about Christians, everything would be totally fine.

00:37:53.000 If you said the same words about Jews, everything would be totally fine. 1.00

00:37:56.000 This double standard that exists in social media is really dangerous.

00:37:58.000 It's one of the reasons why Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, all of these outlets seem to be targeting conservative content right now.

00:38:05.000 Conservatives better get on their horse.

00:38:06.000 I mean, we better start building some of our own outlets because the reality

00:38:09.000 Is that if we don't build some open threat outlets, if we don't build some open source outlets that allow people to post what they want to post with some very, very minute restrictions, then the left will simply castigate everything as hate speech.

00:38:21.000 And this is one of the things that's been so funny in the recent couple of weeks.

00:38:24.000 The left keeps saying, well, you know, you know, you're worried about crackdowns on free speech on college campuses.

00:38:29.000 You're worried about intolerant leftists.

00:38:30.000 But if you look at the polls, people on campus say they're for free speech.

00:38:34.000 Right, but those same polls show that these people say that they are against what they call racist speech, but the problem is they then define racist speech as anything they disagree with.

00:38:40.000 So you have a definitional problem that's very serious.

00:38:43.000 Okay, the same thing is happening to Crowder here.

00:38:45.000 Lumping in Crowder with Milo Yiannopoulos or lumping in Christina Hoff Summers with Richard Spencer.

00:38:50.000 As some people on the left are trying to do is just absurd.

00:38:52.000 It's insane.

00:38:53.000 It's happened to me also. 0.59

00:38:54.000 It's disgusting.

00:38:55.000 If you're not going to make any sort of honest intellectual distinction between these categories, then you don't deserve to have a platform. 0.96

00:39:00.000 Your platform should fall apart.

00:39:01.000 Jack over at Twitter, get on your get on your game, dude. 0.99

00:39:03.000 I mean, this is just it's just ridiculous. 0.80

00:39:05.000 There's no excuse for it whatsoever. 0.92

00:39:08.000 All right.

00:39:08.000 So meanwhile, President Trump.

00:39:11.000 I don't know.

00:39:21.000 President Trump there in San Diego, California, taking a look at the border wall prototypes.

00:39:27.000 In the meantime, I just want to let you know that more than 400 firms submitted proposals to be included here.

00:39:34.000 Six companies built a total of eight prototypes.

00:39:38.000 The prototypes, you can see a lot of them there in the background, are 18 to 30 feet high.

00:39:43.000 Okay, so Trump goes and visits the prototypes.

00:39:45.000 The purpose of this, of course, is to show the Democrats that he's serious about building the wall, even though we have not had one foot yet built of the wall.

00:39:53.000 The president then talked a little bit about the wall, and for some odd reason started talking about the Jamaican bobsled team or the Mexican mountain climbing team.

00:40:00.000 Like, really, this is a thing that happened.

00:40:02.000 The larger it is, the better it is, because it's very hard to get over the top.

00:40:06.000 It's really deterrent from getting over the top.

00:40:09.000 Who would think?

00:40:10.000 Who would think?

00:40:11.000 But getting over the top is easy.

00:40:13.000 These are like professional mountain climbers.

00:40:15.000 They're incredible climbers.

00:40:17.000 They can't climb some of these walls.

00:40:19.000 Some of them they can.

00:40:20.000 Those are the walls we're not using.

00:40:22.000 Okay, Mr. President, thank you for that dissertation on the climbing capacity of Mexican illegal immigrants. 0.84

00:40:28.000 Just well done.

00:40:30.000 Don't even know what's happening there.

00:40:31.000 That was not the only weird thing that Trump said yesterday.

00:40:33.000 He also pushed what he called the Space Force.

00:40:36.000 He floated the idea of creating a new military branch to fight wars in space.

00:40:40.000 Now, to be fair to President Trump, he's not the only person who's actually mentioned this before.

00:40:44.000 This has been mentioned by a number of legislators, the idea of creating a space force, but it is kind of funny when Trump says it.

00:40:48.000 So here he is.

00:40:49.000 Space is a war-fighting domain.

00:40:53.000 Just like the land, air, and sea.

00:40:57.000 We may even have a Space Force.

00:41:00.000 Develop another one.

00:41:02.000 Space Force.

00:41:02.000 We have the Air Force.

00:41:03.000 We'll have the Space Force.

00:41:05.000 We have the Army, the Navy.

00:41:07.000 You know, I was saying it the other day, because we're doing a tremendous amount of work in space.

00:41:12.000 I said, maybe we need a new force.

00:41:13.000 We'll call it the Space Force.

00:41:15.000 And I was not really serious.

00:41:17.000 And then I said, what a great idea.

00:41:18.000 Maybe we'll have to do that.

00:41:20.000 That could happen.

00:41:22.000 That could be the big breaking story.

00:41:23.000 Look at all those people back there.

00:41:25.000 Look at that.

00:41:26.000 What exactly is happening?

00:41:28.000 I'm what now?

00:41:30.000 Space Force?

00:41:30.000 Well the good news is that President Trump has already cut a commercial for Space Force.

00:41:33.000 Here's what it looks like.

00:41:35.000 Young people from all over the globe are joining up to fight for the future.

00:41:39.000 I'm doing my part.

00:41:41.000 I'm doing my part.

00:41:42.000 I'm doing my part.

00:41:44.000 I'm doing my part too.

00:41:47.000 They're doing their part.

00:41:49.000 Are you?

00:41:50.000 Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world.

00:41:52.000 Service guarantees citizenship.

00:41:57.000 There it is.

00:41:57.000 That, of course, is from Starship Troopers.

00:41:59.000 So, the President of the United States promoting Space Force.

00:42:03.000 Okay, fine, whatever.

00:42:05.000 It's probably not the worst idea in the world, actually.

00:42:07.000 So, there's that.

00:42:08.000 Okay, meanwhile, the President, this is breaking news in the last few minutes, the President of the United States about to appoint, as the head of his National Economic Council, the famed free trader, Larry Kudlow.

00:42:20.000 Which just goes to show you that Trump really doesn't have policies, he just has people he likes.

00:42:24.000 So, Larry Kudlow,

00:42:25.000 is basically Gary Cohn, except his name is Larry Kudlow.

00:42:28.000 So, Gary Cohn, you recall, was ousted from the National Economic Council head.

00:42:32.000 He was supposed to be the guy who stood up to Trump's anti-free trade agenda, and he stepped down after Trump said that he was going to push forward with his steel and aluminum tariffs.

00:42:41.000 Kudlow has been an ardent free trader for years.

00:42:42.000 He says that free trade is the bulwark of the international system.

00:42:46.000 Trump's appointing him to replace Cohn, which is a really weird pick.

00:42:48.000 Listen, I like Larry Kudlow.

00:42:49.000 I think that Larry Kudlow is correct about all of this.

00:42:51.000 Here's the report from CNBC.

00:42:53.000 President Donald Trump plans to name Kudlow as his top economic advisor, sources told CNBC.

00:42:57.000 Trump could announce his decision to choose Kudlow as his National Economic Council director as soon as Thursday.

00:43:02.000 The CNBC senior contributed an on-air personality to replace Gary Cohn, who left the White House earlier this month amid disagreements about tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

00:43:10.000 Now, I can't imagine that Larry's going to go in there and that he's immediately going to turn into a tariff fanatic, that he's suddenly going to turn into Peter Navarro.

00:43:17.000 It is good news.

00:43:18.000 I mean, this means that Peter Navarro isn't the head of the NEC, which would just be a disaster.

00:43:22.000 But it is pretty astonishing that Trump is willing to appoint somebody who disagrees with him on all the policy because he saw him on TV, which basically is what it sounds like here.

00:43:32.000 That's exactly what it sounds like.

00:43:33.000 It sounds like there is some sort of personal relationship between Trump and Kudlow, and so he's going to have Kudlow as part of his team.

00:43:42.000 Which is, again, not the best way to form policy.

00:43:45.000 This just breaking that Kudlow has accepted the job and the alert is out on the Washington Post.

00:43:50.000 So, that is pretty, that is pretty hilarious.

00:43:52.000 Okay, another hilarious news.

00:43:54.000 Katy Perry is responsible for a Me Too moment. 0.71

00:43:57.000 So, Katy Perry is a judge on the new American Idol, and there's a guy who sang for her.

00:44:02.000 He is a virgin who has never been kissed.

00:44:04.000 His name is Benjamin Glaze.

00:44:06.000 He's a 19-year-old cashier from Enid, Ohio.

00:44:09.000 And apparently, he sang beautifully on American Idol, and Katy Perry loved it so much that she came over and kissed him right on the lips.

00:44:19.000 Right, moments before his audition.

00:44:21.000 He said, instead, it came to, so she, it wasn't even after he sang.

00:44:25.000 He said, it was a tad bit uncomfortable.

00:44:27.000 His first kiss was a rite of passage he'd been putting off with consideration.

00:44:29.000 He said, I wanted to save it for my first relationship.

00:44:32.000 I wanted it to be special.

00:44:33.000 Would I have done it if she said, would you kiss me?

00:44:34.000 No, I would have said no.

00:44:36.000 I know a lot of guys would be like, heck yeah, but for me, I was raised in a conservative family.

00:44:39.000 I was uncomfortable immediately.

00:44:40.000 I wanted my first kiss to be special.

00:44:42.000 The scene with the kiss was part of a two-night season opener for the new American Idol, which is now on ABC after it was kicked off of Fox.

00:44:48.000 And the new panel of celebrities is Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan, and it's hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

00:44:54.000 In the segments that featured Mr. Glaze, he was shown waiting around in anticipation for his audition with other hopefuls.

00:44:58.000 As he entered the studio, guitar slung over his shoulder, looking a bit starstruck.

00:45:02.000 He said he enjoyed his work as a cashier because it let him meet cute girls.

00:45:05.000 And have you kissed a girl and liked it?

00:45:06.000 Asked Mr. Brian, making a coy reference to Miss Perry's first hit single, I Kissed a Girl.

00:45:10.000 Mr. Glaze said that he had not.

00:45:12.000 And he said, I've never been in a relationship.

00:45:13.000 I can't kiss a girl without being in a relationship.

00:45:15.000 And then she stood up and she said, come here right now.

00:45:18.000 And then she said, one on the cheek.

00:45:20.000 And she smiled.

00:45:21.000 And then she asked for another kiss, complaining he hadn't even made the smush sound.

00:45:24.000 As he moved toward her cheek again, Miss Perry swung her face toward him and kissed him quickly on the lips.

00:45:28.000 And then she raised her arms in victory.

00:45:30.000 Okay, a Me Too moment that no one will care about because obviously even though the contestant was not into it, even though he didn't want it, Katy Perry is a hot liberal so we are allowed to pretend that that's all okay.

00:45:41.000 Yep, that's the way that it works.

00:45:42.000 Imagine that had been a conservative dude doing that to a virginal feminist and imagine how that would have gone. 1.00

00:45:48.000 The answer is it would not have gone.

00:45:50.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I like and then we'll get to some things that I hate.

00:45:55.000 Thanks for having me.

00:46:25.000 So, joining us on the line in a Rare Things I Like interview is Brad Meltzer.

00:46:28.000 Brad is the author of a number of best-selling thrillers, as well as books that I've recommended on the show many times, actually.

00:46:33.000 The I Am George Washington, I Am Abraham Lincoln children's series all about historical American figures.

00:46:38.000 He has a new book coming out.

00:46:39.000 It's his first new thriller in years, and it's called The Escape Artist.

00:46:42.000 Brad, thanks so much for joining us.

00:46:43.000 Appreciate it.

00:46:44.000 Thank you, my friend.

00:46:44.000 So, Brad, what exactly is The Escape Artist about?

00:46:47.000 Yeah, you know, The Escape Artist opens with Nola Brown, one of my favorite characters I've created in years.

00:46:53.000 And Nola's dead.

00:46:54.000 Government says she's dead.

00:46:55.000 She's a staff sergeant who died in a military accident, a plane crash.

00:46:59.000 But at Dover Air Force Base, when our hero, Zig, is laying the body to rest, he opens it up and sees that there's a hidden note inside her stomach.

00:47:07.000 And the note says, Nola, you were right.

00:47:10.000 Keep running.

00:47:11.000 And he realizes Nola's not dead.

00:47:12.000 She's alive.

00:47:13.000 She's on the run.

00:47:14.000 She's the escape artist. 1.00

00:47:15.000 And for me, that's the fictional plot.

00:47:17.000 That's what drives the book.

00:47:18.000 But what I love is that it's based on real details.

00:47:21.000 So I was,

00:47:23.000 on a USO tour a number of years ago, entertaining our troops, and found out about Dover Air Force Base, of course knew that Dover was where our soldiers, our fallen soldiers are laid to rest.

00:47:33.000 What I didn't know is Dover is home to our absolute top biggest cases.

00:47:38.000 So whether it's 9-11 and the Pentagon flight, or the space shuttle going down, or our top spies around the world, they go to Dover too.

00:47:45.000 And that means Dover is a place that's built on secrets and mysteries.

00:47:50.000 And you'd originally apparently heard the story that there were actual notes found in the bodies, correct?

00:47:53.000 So that's based on actually a true thing that you'd heard.

00:47:58.000 Yeah.

00:47:58.000 No, I always take my plot and I give it to the real person.

00:48:01.000 And the people at Dover, they just blew me away.

00:48:04.000 I was humbled.

00:48:05.000 I mean, I've done research at the White House and with Presidents Bush, and it's been an amazing experience.

00:48:09.000 But when I went to Dover, I'd seen nothing like it.

00:48:12.000 They will spend 14 hours rewiring someone's jaw.

00:48:16.000 Because they want them to see their son or daughter one last time.

00:48:20.000 Rebuilding an entire hand, because the mother specifically says, I want to hold my son's hand one more time.

00:48:25.000 And so I gave these amazing people, my heroes, I was like, we need heroes like this in the world.

00:48:31.000 I wanted to make them the heroes of this book, of The Escape Artist.

00:48:34.000 And I gave them the plot.

00:48:35.000 I said, could you hide a secret note in a body?

00:48:38.000 And they told me that if a plane was going down, this is true, that if you ate the note at the right time,

00:48:44.000 Yeah, what's the note?

00:48:45.000 I mean, that's crazy.

00:49:15.000 And of course they couldn't tell me, and I respect the privacy of it.

00:49:18.000 I thought it had to be someone in the military because who else would have the wherewithal to do such a thing?

00:49:23.000 But as I look back on it, I realized that person was doing what we all do and we all want is seeking connection, right?

00:49:29.000 We all want to love and be loved.

00:49:31.000 And to me, when my parents died, the one good thing that happened was I got to say goodbye.

00:49:37.000 And I remember they said to me, this is like the ultimate message in a bottle.

00:49:40.000 And the reason I take hope from that note is that when you put that message out there,

00:49:45.000 You're gonna be heard.

00:49:46.000 And that's the plot of the book.

00:49:47.000 I literally, all I did was just change the fact of what was on the note and said, you know, you're alive, keep running.

00:49:53.000 And I made it sexier for a thriller, but I always base my books on real research.

00:49:57.000 Well, the book is The Escape Artist.

00:49:58.000 The author is Brad Meltzer.

00:49:59.000 Again, I highly recommend The Escape Artist.

00:50:01.000 I also recommend all of his children's books, as my daughter does.

00:50:04.000 She is actually even a bigger fan of Brad Meltzer than I am.

00:50:06.000 Brad, thanks so much for joining us, and thanks for taking the time out.

00:50:08.000 I really appreciate it.

00:50:10.000 Thank you, brother.

00:50:10.000 Really appreciate it.

00:50:12.000 Alrighty, so there is a thing I like.

00:50:13.000 Go out and check out Brad Meltzer's new book.

00:50:15.000 Again, it's called The Escape Artist and it is well worth the read.

00:50:17.000 It's really interesting and quite a good book.

00:50:20.000 Okay, other things that I like today.

00:50:22.000 So there's a book that is very popular in sort of conservative intellectual circles but is not well known called The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gasset.

00:50:30.000 I think so.

00:50:48.000 I don't know.

00:51:06.000 Alrighty, so Eminem found it necessary to go off on the NRA.

00:51:10.000 I don't know what Eminem is trying to do at this point.

00:51:11.000 I know he's trying to escape being irrelevant.

00:51:14.000 And so I guess the way he thinks he's going to do that is by politicking all the time.

00:51:17.000 But here is Eminem ripping into the NRA.

00:51:19.000 Sometimes I don't know what this war has come to.

00:51:26.000 It's blowing up.

00:51:27.000 This whole country is going nuts.

00:51:28.000 And the NRA is in our way.

00:51:30.000 They're responsible for this whole production.

00:51:31.000 They hold the strings to control the public.

00:51:34.000 Okay, so there he is saying the NRA is responsible for all of this, all these people clutching their guns, etc, etc, etc.

00:51:39.000 I have a bit of bad news for Mr. Eminem.

00:51:41.000 His actual name is Marshall Mathers, correct?

00:51:59.000 Yes, I have some bad news for Mr. Eminem.

00:52:02.000 In 2001, he was sentenced to probation for gun charges.

00:52:08.000 Apparently, the gun was not loaded, nor was it directed at anyone, but the rapper pled guilty to a concealed weapons count on February 14, 2001.

00:52:19.000 And also, he had had all sorts of problems with run-ins with the law, including weapons.

00:52:25.000 He got two years probation on gun charges back in 2001.

00:52:28.000 So, well done, Eminem.

00:52:31.000 Just well done.

00:52:32.000 Again, all the virtue signaling by all these artists who are running out of steam, and so now they are looking for the approval of the critics in the hope that this will boost their profile a little bit.

00:52:40.000 I don't know.

00:53:03.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:04.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:19.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:53:21.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:53:23.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:53:25.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:27.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:53:28.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:53:30.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:53:31.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:53:34.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - March 14, 2018

Bad Moon Rising | Ep. 495

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript