The Ben Shapiro Show - August 17, 2026


Bill Maher Is Starting to Sound a LOT Like Me


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

211.54

Word count

1,858

Sentence count

145

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is definitely a time of political realignment.
00:00:02.000 The DSA is eating the Democrats, the GOP is finding its footing for the post Trump era, and the post liberal right sounds a lot like the left.
00:00:09.000 Well, it certainly seems like Bill Maher is watching this program.
00:00:12.000 He's hitting the nail on the head over and over on his show, Real Time, over the weekend.
00:00:15.000 Let's recap.
00:00:16.000 Bill Maher was talking, for example, about affordability and the questions of the burritos.
00:00:22.000 And here's Bill Maher singing my song.
00:00:28.000 He tweeted out because a student had commented on their. Platform, a burrito shouldn't cost $20.
00:00:36.000 And this guy challenged that.
00:00:38.000 And it turned out, we did some research on this, it shouldn't cost $20 because it doesn't.
00:00:47.000 It cost $20 because this kid factored in somebody bringing it to him in an Uber.
00:00:53.000 So again, pointing this out makes Bill Maher the bad guy.
00:00:55.000 But also, it turns out, I think that most sentient adults actually, actually don't believe that you deserve, deserve a burrito delivered to you in an Uber.
00:01:03.000 You deserve the opportunity to be able to buy that.
00:01:06.000 If you make the right decisions in life.
00:01:07.000 But this idea that you need a government provided Uber burrito is probably not the thing.
00:01:12.000 Kirsten Soltis Anderson, who's an excellent pollster, was on with Mar. 0.73
00:01:15.000 And she points out that these government run grocery stores are not going to do well for Democrats.
00:01:20.000 Nothing will make someone hate socialism more than trying to go to a government run grocery store.
00:01:25.000 In 1989, Boris Yeltsin comes over to the U.S.
00:01:28.000 This is when, like, the U.S. and the USSR were starting to become, was falling.
00:01:32.000 He comes over to visit Texas.
00:01:33.000 He goes to NASA.
00:01:34.000 He sees our technology there.
00:01:35.000 And then he goes to a Texas grocery store.
00:01:37.000 And Boris Yeltsin walked away.
00:01:40.000 The Houston Chronicle said he was dazzled by the jello pudding pops and things that, seriously, in the store.
00:01:46.000 And he went back to the Soviet Union and was like, guys, we've got it all wrong.
00:01:49.000 That was the end of the Cold War.
00:01:49.000 And that was it.
00:01:50.000 We just had all the soccer tourists do the same thing. 1.00
00:01:54.000 They lost their shit in the grocery aisles of the American supermarket. 0.99
00:01:58.000 It's a solved problem. 1.00
00:02:00.000 And of course, it is.
00:02:02.000 So shouldn't we stand up for free markets?
00:02:05.000 Again, Bill is like now just speaking normal.
00:02:05.000 Shouldn't we?
00:02:08.000 It's hilarious how being a normal, common sense Democrat from about.
00:02:11.000 1996 now makes you a right wing Republican, apparently.
00:02:15.000 Given the fact that socialism is actually not all that popular with Americans and free markets are, even though people don't know what socialism means, it's probably not a good idea for Republicans to just start mirroring the modern monetary theory of the Democratic Party.
00:02:29.000 And yet again, like, look, I'm not looking for reasons to criticize the vice president.
00:02:32.000 I really am not.
00:02:33.000 He's likely to be the Republican nominee, which means that I'm likely to vote for him.
00:02:36.000 But it would be great if you would not mirror the political policies of the people that I generally oppose.
00:02:44.000 I hope he has moved beyond some of the things he was saying back in March 2023.
00:02:48.000 So, if you go back to March, April 2023, a lot of these clips were circulating over the weekend of him talking about the United States as the world's reserve currency.
00:02:57.000 Now, understand, America is massively, massively privileged in the world economy because we are the world's reserve currency.
00:03:04.000 What does that mean?
00:03:05.000 It means that people trade between themselves in American dollars.
00:03:08.000 There's high demand for American dollars.
00:03:09.000 That also means that when people take our debt on, when they buy our debt, They're happy to do that because they know that we are going to pay them back in American dollars, which are widely used in the world's trade.
00:03:23.000 It's used in the banking system.
00:03:24.000 It's used to trade for pretty much all goods across planet Earth.
00:03:28.000 It allows us to spend.
00:03:30.000 It allows us to control, for example, international commerce when it comes to, for example, sanctions.
00:03:36.000 It's more on this in a moment.
00:03:37.000 First, technology has made pretty much all of our wants and desires instant.
00:03:40.000 Food rides with just a tap.
00:03:42.000 You can move money in seconds.
00:03:43.000 You can buy virtually anything you want without leaving your couch.
00:03:45.000 And usually that's convenient.
00:03:46.000 There's some decisions, however, That should not be made before you've had a chance to stop and see clearly and talk to somebody.
00:03:52.000 Abortion, unfortunately, has changed in exactly the same way as everything else.
00:03:55.000 A woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can now order the abortion pill online, often before anyone has had the chance to tell her.
00:04:00.000 You're not alone.
00:04:01.000 There's help and there's hope.
00:04:02.000 This makes the work of preborn more urgent, not less.
00:04:05.000 Preborn network clinics meet women with compassion and practical support, including a free ultrasound.
00:04:10.000 More than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at a preborn network clinic.
00:04:16.000 That's why you were made for this moment.
00:04:17.000 Just 28 bucks provides one life saving ultrasound.
00:04:20.000 140 bucks helps rescue five babies.
00:04:22.000 Dow $250, say baby.
00:04:24.000 That's $250, baby.
00:04:27.000 Or get securely at preborn.comslash Ben.
00:04:34.000 That's preborn.
00:04:38.000 Bill and I are not just on the same page when it comes to some matters economic. 0.97
00:04:41.000 He's been on the same page when it comes to the threat of radical Islam for a very long time. 0.97
00:04:45.000 Obviously, that's a big topic of discussion these days, also at Daily Wire with the upcoming release of our new film, which is awesome Run, Hide, Fight, Infidels.
00:04:53.000 But here was Bill talking about that a while back, and he got all sorts of crap for this when he talked about it with Charlie Rose years back. 0.91
00:04:59.000 Would you come to this table and have a debate about this with a moderate Muslim? 1.00
00:05:04.000 Find one. 1.00
00:05:04.000 Yes. 1.00
00:05:06.000 Find one.
00:05:07.000 Okay.
00:05:07.000 Now, again, that's a pretty obvious thing.
00:05:09.000 That's a pretty obvious thing that he's saying there. 0.67
00:05:11.000 There are not a lot of moderate Muslims, people who openly reject Quranic violence. 1.00
00:05:16.000 If they are, we hope they win. 1.00
00:05:18.000 Right.
00:05:18.000 But they're like, again, the reason why Bill Maher is commonsensical, he and I had this debate on his show, maybe a couple of years ago, a year ago, where we were talking about morality.
00:05:28.000 And one of the points that I was making to him is the reason why we have the same basic moral framework is because we grew up relatively close to one another, obviously not at the same time, but in LA.
00:05:38.000 And what that meant is that we have the same basic moral framework.
00:05:41.000 This is something that Americans need to understand about each other.
00:05:43.000 You know, one of the things that Americans tend to think is that people who live in the United States, the people who disagree with me politically, they don't think anything like I do, nothing like I do. 0.77
00:05:51.000 Okay, now, relatively speaking, that may be true.
00:05:53.000 They think much less like you in LA, if you live in Florida, than you do like your neighbors. 0.90
00:05:58.000 However, does the person in LA think more like you than the person who's living in like Pakistan? 0.97
00:06:03.000 The answer there is on average, absolutely yes. 0.99
00:06:06.000 Absolutely yes.
00:06:08.000 Now, not every single person, but in general, on average.
00:06:11.000 Well, That was particularly true back in like the 80s and 90s.
00:06:14.000 Now, things have split pretty radically since then.
00:06:16.000 And this is sort of my point.
00:06:17.000 Bill Maher would have voted and probably did vote for Bill Clinton in 92 and 96, voted for Gore.
00:06:22.000 I'm not sure the last Republican he voted for for the presidency.
00:06:27.000 I don't know the answer to that question.
00:06:29.000 And I certainly have never voted for a Democrat.
00:06:32.000 But the difference is that the Democratic Party has moved so radical that it's left Bill behind.
00:06:36.000 He keeps saying this to the Democrats where are you guys going?
00:06:39.000 Where are you running?
00:06:40.000 Why are Republicans aiming?
00:06:42.000 At a horseshoe right that is closer to Hassan Piker rather than a normie Democrat center that is closer to Bill Maher.
00:06:50.000 It seems to me that picking off the Bill Maher vote is going to be a hell of a lot easier than picking off the Hassan Piker vote.
00:06:56.000 Like, why are you going to the dirtbag left for love?
00:06:59.000 This is like a strategic question for Republicans these days.
00:07:02.000 Because a lot of Republicans seem to think that if they make common cause with Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders and they sort of look for the anti institutional angle, that that is where they will find all sorts of support.
00:07:13.000 Well, Trump looked to the anti institutional angle because the moderates forcibly rejected him.
00:07:17.000 And so he ended up with the anti institutionalists because there are a lot of people who are like that.
00:07:22.000 But the reality is that now Trump is the institution.
00:07:24.000 Republicans are in power.
00:07:25.000 And so if you're a Republican and you want to run, then look forward to 28.
00:07:30.000 Do you want to run against the institutions that your guy ran for eight out of the last 12 years?
00:07:34.000 Is that the way that you plan on doing this?
00:07:36.000 If so, again, I'm just wondering.
00:07:38.000 I don't understand the electoral logic here.
00:07:40.000 Bill Maher is there for the taking.
00:07:41.000 There are a lot of Democrats who agree with him.
00:07:43.000 It's going to be fascinating to see what happens in Michigan.
00:07:46.000 Because Michigan will be a great example of this.
00:07:47.000 Abdul El Sayed is going to win over the radical Democrats.
00:07:50.000 A lot of moderate Democrats will either not vote or will show up for Mike Rogers.
00:07:53.000 Right now, the polls are showing Abdul El Sayed down to Mike Rogers, which is kind of incredible.
00:07:58.000 Again, the president is not in Godot right now. 0.86
00:08:00.000 His approval rating is down in the low 30s, and Mike Rogers is still outpolling El Sayed.
00:08:05.000 That says a lot about what the Democrats have done to alienate the sort of Bill Maher wing of the party.
00:08:09.000 That is a very real wing of the Democratic Party.
00:08:12.000 It is ripe for the picking.
00:08:15.000 It's right there.
00:08:16.000 It's right there.
00:08:16.000 All you have to do is be normal.
00:08:17.000 All you have to do is be normal.
00:08:19.000 Don't mirror the Democrats.
00:08:20.000 Don't mirror their rush to the left economically or foreign policy wise.
00:08:24.000 Just be normal.
00:08:26.000 Just be normal.
00:08:26.000 I promise you, people like Bill Maher will be forced to consider voting for you in a way they would not have before.
00:08:32.000 And it's going to be a lot easier winning those people over than it is winning over the people who are more apt to vote for Bernie.
00:08:37.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:08:39.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:08:40.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.