The Ben Shapiro Show - Cameron Kasky | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 21

00:00:00.000 When you're in a room and you hear about those schools, everything gets silent, everything gets awkward, everything gets melancholy.

00:00:05.000 I can't have that.

00:00:06.000 When people hear Stoneman Douglas, I don't want them to think about people crying, I want them to think about people taking action.

00:00:11.000 No matter what that action might be.

00:00:21.000 I can't wait for today's Sunday special with Cameron Kasky from Middle Ground.

00:00:24.000 We'll get to talk with Cameron in just one second.

00:00:26.000 But first, let's talk about your privacy online.

00:00:29.000 Whether you're in a cafe or a hotel, we often rely on public Wi-Fi to use the internet on the go.

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00:00:42.000 It's not just hackers either.

00:00:43.000 Government agencies like the NSA, they monitor the internet.

00:00:45.000 You don't know what they're doing with that information.

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00:00:49.000 Well, the software I use to protect my online activity from spies and data thieves is called ExpressVPN.

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00:01:34.000 Cameron, thank you so much for stopping by.

00:01:35.000 I really appreciate it.

00:01:36.000 Thank you for having me.

00:01:37.000 So, for folks who don't know, Cameron was one of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, when the awful shooting took place, and he was subsequently a member of March for Our Lives.

00:01:47.000 Now, he is one of the leaders of a group called Middle Ground.

00:01:50.000 Are you a founder of Middle Ground?

00:01:51.000 Yes, I am.

00:01:52.000 Okay, so tell us a little bit about Middle Ground, then we'll kind of backtrack and talk about how we got here.

00:01:56.000 So, one of the lessons I've learned since starting March for Our Lives, and this was a truly difficult one to grasp, was that, surprisingly enough, I don't know everything.

00:02:03.000 Now, as a 17-year-old boy who was dead set on the fact that I knew everything, that threw me for a loop.

00:02:09.000 And halfway through my tour with March for Our Lives this summer, where we were advocating for more accessible voting and encouraging people to register, I realized...

00:02:19.000 I was in Texas and I spoke to some people.

00:02:21.000 Maybe the people who disagree with me don't want the country to be a bad place.

00:02:25.000 Maybe they just have different views.

00:02:26.000 And I was born in a bubble where my heavily liberal mindset that I still maintain convinced me that anybody who didn't agree with me had malintent.

00:02:36.000 And they didn't.

00:02:38.000 I thought that people who didn't agree with me on gun laws didn't care when kids died.

00:02:42.000 That's not the case.

00:02:43.000 I learned a lot of things.

00:02:45.000 So, I thought, how can I prevent people from making the mistakes that I made?

00:02:49.000 We've got a really engaged young generation, there's no lack of passion, but there's a lack of information, and there's a lack of civility, very frequently.

00:02:57.000 And very often, there is incivility in the guise of passion, and that's fine.

00:03:03.000 But I want to move into the future with a more humanized look at politics.

00:03:08.000 I think that everybody in the country, well, I would call 96% of the country wants the country to be a better place.

00:03:14.000 How do we fix this?

00:03:15.000 I mean, we're in a more polarized place than ever.

00:03:18.000 What can we do to make this better?

00:03:20.000 So I thought to create a program called Middle Ground.

00:03:24.000 And at Middle Ground, we would really explore everybody's perspectives.

00:03:29.000 Personally, my opinion hasn't changed, but my opinions on opinions have changed.

00:03:33.000 I respect people who disagree with me.

00:03:35.000 I want to learn from them because I'm a child.

00:03:38.000 I can't rent a car.

00:03:39.000 I can't buy a house.

00:03:41.000 I'm not the expert on everything.

00:03:43.000 And very frequently, I'm treated like the expert on things.

00:03:46.000 And, you know, I believe that my insight is valuable.

00:03:48.000 I think that a fact, whether spoken by a 3-year-old or a 70-year-old is still a fact, and insight is subjective, but I want to create a more educated youth.

00:03:58.000 That's really obviously mature, and I have a lot of sympathy for you because you were sort of thrust into the public eye in a fashion you obviously never expected or wanted.

00:04:06.000 I've been in the public eye at your age, and it's definitely a difficult thing.

00:04:10.000 And the lesson that you learned, you learned faster than I learned it, for sure.

00:04:14.000 And so that's definitely a path you've had to take.

00:04:16.000 So let's go back to the beginning.

00:04:17.000 So let's start with you as a person.

00:04:20.000 Where were you born?

00:04:21.000 What's your family like?

00:04:22.000 So I was born in Hollywood, but Hollywood, Florida.

00:04:25.000 I grew up in South Florida.

00:04:27.000 My parents got divorced when I was 10.

00:04:29.000 I was lucky enough to get two amazing step-parents.

00:04:32.000 Not everybody gets those.

00:04:34.000 I was happily raised by four people who really had a great dialogue with each other, very respectful and very understanding of me.

00:04:41.000 I wasn't always the easiest kid to raise.

00:04:44.000 I have an older brother who is actually pretty easy to raise and a younger brother who has autism.

00:04:48.000 Surprisingly enough, my younger brother, who does have special needs, requires the least attention of the three of us.

00:04:54.000 I have a stepsister who's lovely as well.

00:04:57.000 I mean, I'm definitely the worst person in my family.

00:04:59.000 And I think I'm a good person, so that's saying something.

00:05:02.000 And, you know, I grew up with a very liberal mindset.

00:05:04.000 I was knocking doors for Obama when I was seven years old.

00:05:08.000 There was lack of information for me.

00:05:09.000 I thought that John McCain was running with Tina Fey because I had seen on the news that Tina Fey was portraying Sarah Palin and I wasn't able to put two and two together.

00:05:17.000 But I always cared because I always thought that... I always wanted more from the country.

00:05:23.000 I was a Bobby Kennedy fanatic for a while because I like people who look at the future.

00:05:28.000 And that's really what gave me the progressive mindset is I'm not opposed to conservative views, but I think that a lot of conservatism will have people thinking more of using the past as a model as opposed to a springboard.

00:05:41.000 I think there's always somewhere we can go.

00:05:43.000 I think everything can be better.

00:05:44.000 And that was always my mindset.

00:05:46.000 So I was always very vocal, very loud, very obnoxious, very flippantly rude.

00:05:50.000 And I found theater, which was really a way for me to take my voice and hone it and find something I cared about.

00:05:58.000 So I started doing plays and musicals. 0.75

00:05:59.000 I sounded like crap, but I sang a lot. 0.74

00:06:01.000 And it helped me a lot. 0.99

00:06:03.000 It helped me become expressive.

00:06:04.000 It helped me empathize with people.

00:06:05.000 I mean, did you ever do plays in high school or anything?

00:06:08.000 I didn't.

00:06:09.000 No, it was in our boys' school, so it wasn't that much we could do.

00:06:12.000 Well, acting helps you understand other people a lot, because you have to put yourself in other people's shoes.

00:06:18.000 Sometimes it's easy and people can just read a script and become someone else, but it took a lot more for me.

00:06:25.000 I very often played a bad guy, which didn't really help me.

00:06:28.000 Are you familiar with Little Shop of Horrors?

00:06:30.000 I was the dentist.

00:06:32.000 There's not a lot of humanity you can search for. 0.92

00:06:34.000 It's hard to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is a psychopath.

00:06:37.000 But, you know, I... Well, obviously, that would've been hard for me, but... But I, um... You know, I developed a deep empathy for my fellow human being that drove me to a very passionate and emotional stance.

00:06:51.000 Then my school gets shot up, and I say, OK, I've heard of Sandy Hook, I've heard of Columbine, I've heard all these things, and when you're in a room and you hear about those schools, everything gets silent, everything gets awkward, everything gets melancholy.

00:07:03.000 I can't have that.

00:07:05.000 When people hear Stoneman Douglas, I don't want them to think about people crying.

00:07:08.000 I want them to think about people taking action, no matter what that action might be.

00:07:12.000 So take me through that day.

00:07:14.000 What exactly was that day like for you?

00:07:16.000 So before the shooting, I was in my drama class.

00:07:18.000 We were halfway through a song that I was doing. 0.67

00:07:20.000 Again, I sounded like hot garbage, but I remembered the special needs kids at my school are let out a half hour before everybody else because they're picked up at the bus loop and they have to be picked up before the buses come. 0.54

00:07:30.000 So on days where I had school and my mother was at work, I picked up my brother and I brought him to drama. 0.97

00:07:35.000 He loved it.

00:07:35.000 He got attention from the girls.

00:07:37.000 He felt like, you know, he felt like a cool guy, which he is.

00:07:40.000 And it was about 2.20, and I was supposed to pick him up at 2.10, so I said, oh crap, I gotta go.

00:07:46.000 I rush out of the drama room, run over to pick up my brother, because I have to be back for my song, and suddenly there's a fire alarm.

00:07:52.000 And I say, uh-oh, the buses are about to come, and I'm with the special needs students, and we have to go in the bus loop to avoid the fire.

00:08:00.000 You know, there are a lot of very high-functioning students in the ESE program at Stoneman Douglas, there are a lot of lower-functioning students, but it's a hassle to get in the parking lot, and I was just like, okay, this is annoying.

00:08:10.000 Especially being outside of the class you're supposed to be in during a fire drill, because then you have to tell the teacher, they have to walkie the staff to make sure everybody's accounted for.

00:08:18.000 And while we're out there waiting, this kid near me says, shooter.

00:08:21.000 I look at him and I say, that's not cool.

00:08:25.000 That's not cool at all.

00:08:25.000 I said something very inappropriate.

00:08:28.000 If this reaches a younger audience, I'm going to avoid it.

00:08:30.000 But suddenly everybody starts running back into the school.

00:08:34.000 And there are teachers beckoning us inside, and my initial thought is, okay, we're with the ESE class, and several other classes, but we're with the ESE class, in the middle of the bus loop, and there was a, it must have been a fake fire drill, and the buses were about to come, so they were like, everybody get inside so you don't get hit by the buses.

00:08:49.000 Then we're sent into a classroom, the lights turn off, and I say, something's going on here.

00:08:53.000 Took me a couple minutes to realize that there was gunfire.

00:08:57.000 I heard conflicting rumors.

00:08:58.000 It was hysteria in the room, but it was the type of hysteria where you are hysterical but still have to be quiet because you don't know where the gunman is.

00:09:06.000 He could have been right next door to us.

00:09:08.000 I had no idea.

00:09:09.000 I didn't hear any gunfire.

00:09:10.000 I thought I did, but when you know there's a shooter and you hear something, you think it's gunfire.

00:09:14.000 It's natural.

00:09:15.000 And everybody was telling me conflicting stories, and this was just the people next to us.

00:09:20.000 They were whispering.

00:09:20.000 They said 50 people were killed.

00:09:22.000 Two people were killed.

00:09:24.000 This teacher was killed that wasn't.

00:09:26.000 This person was the shooter.

00:09:27.000 This person was the shooter.

00:09:27.000 And I spent the whole time thinking, I really, really, really hope my brother doesn't understand what's going on.

00:09:33.000 And that's a moral qualm.

00:09:35.000 Do I tell him what's going on because he deserves the truth, or do I allow him the bliss of ignorance for the time being?

00:09:42.000 But there were also a lot of other special needs students there and some of them were non-verbal.

00:09:47.000 But non-verbal doesn't mean you can't make noise.

00:09:49.000 And some of them were yelling, some of them were making loud shrieks and hollers and fortunately the special needs specialists at Soman Douglas were able to keep everybody together and it was a problem that was solved quickly.

00:10:02.000 We were able to be released.

00:10:04.000 The SWAT team came in.

00:10:05.000 The first thing we saw was a rifle in the glass crack, so we thought we were toast.

00:10:09.000 But the SWAT team came in.

00:10:10.000 We run outside.

00:10:11.000 I get picked up by my parents at a hotel a couple hours later.

00:10:14.000 And then came a week of chaos, but also peace.

00:10:19.000 All of the laws of physics kind of didn't exist in Parkland.

00:10:22.000 It was as if the world had stopped.

00:10:25.000 There was this eerie calm, but also this fiery madness.

00:10:29.000 It was...

00:10:30.000 It was a time where I said, in this lack of... While nobody around us knows what's going on, I have to step up and say, here's what I think.

00:10:41.000 The cameras came, and I couldn't have them come and film people crying.

00:10:45.000 I had to have them come and I had to have people stand in front of them and say, we cannot have this anymore.

00:10:51.000 We demand a change.

00:10:52.000 Parkland is not the city of people who are going to encourage you to join our melancholy.

00:10:57.000 Parkland is the city of people who are going to encourage you to take action.

00:11:01.000 If you could have had your druthers about how the media treats these sorts of situations, obviously you don't.

00:11:05.000 I mean, the media does what the media do, which is they cover the news when it happens.

00:11:09.000 But if you could have had your druthers emotionally, just politically in every way, what would you have the media do?

00:11:15.000 How would you have the media cover these sorts of situations?

00:11:18.000 Well, it's a double-edged sword.

00:11:20.000 Because on the one hand, I was on national news while there were bodies that were still warm and people hadn't been buried yet.

00:11:26.000 And at the time, I didn't really think about it.

00:11:29.000 But in retrospect, it makes me question, was that appropriate?

00:11:32.000 On the one hand, the cameras are going to leave.

00:11:34.000 And I want to make sure the message that I believe is right gets across while the cameras are still there.

00:11:38.000 On the other hand, people are dead.

00:11:41.000 And I don't regret anything I did because I know that what I was doing I did because I believed it was right.

00:11:47.000 And that's the best I can do.

00:11:48.000 But in regards to how the media covers it, I think that the names of shooters should never be released.

00:11:54.000 Daily Wire covers that very well.

00:11:56.000 I know that there are multiple pundits as well that do not name the shooters.

00:12:00.000 I think that making the shooters celebrities is flippantly inappropriate.

00:12:05.000 I think that...

00:12:07.000 I think that I was very often treated like an expert, when I'm not.

00:12:11.000 I'm not the expert on anything.

00:12:12.000 So in the days immediately following, obviously there are a lot of cameras there, people are looking to you for comment.

00:12:16.000 When did you and the other members of March for Our Lives really start to consolidate into a group?

00:12:21.000 Sure, so February 15th, we were all a bit separated.

00:12:24.000 And it was February 16th, two days after the shooting, that I was able to kind of see who was ready to speak out and get them together.

00:12:31.000 We all came to my house.

00:12:32.000 I thought of doing a march in DC in my Ghostbusters pajamas in my bathroom.

00:12:37.000 And I said, okay, the whole nation in one way or another is galvanized right now.

00:12:42.000 What can we do?

00:12:43.000 How can we materialize this?

00:12:45.000 And I said,

00:12:46.000 Let's get everyone to D.C.

00:12:48.000 and let's demand a change.

00:12:49.000 So quickly the team started to grow.

00:12:52.000 More and more people became part.

00:12:54.000 All my friends from Douglas that I knew were well-spoken and eloquent joined.

00:12:57.000 Some people just showed up at my house and some of them ended up becoming very passionate and well-spoken advocates for what we were advocating for.

00:13:06.000 But by what I would call February 19th, our team was together.

00:13:10.000 So the tactics that March for Our Lives used came under a lot of criticism, including from people like me, because obviously at the very beginning, particularly, there was a lot of focus on some of the stuff you talked about earlier.

00:13:20.000 There was an implication that was put out by particular members of the team in public settings that if there was a disagreement about politics, that this was a reflection of lack of care about what had happened.

00:13:34.000 What do you think could have been done to mitigate against that?

00:13:37.000 To be honest with you, a lot of that was me.

00:13:39.000 A lot of that was me telling my friends, you know, these people don't agree with us.

00:13:43.000 They don't care.

00:13:43.000 They care more about their guns than they care about kids getting killed.

00:13:47.000 Anything I'll criticize about March for Our Lives really comes from me.

00:13:50.000 I started it.

00:13:51.000 I was whispering in my friends' ears the whole time.

00:13:54.000 I know the people in March for Our Lives.

00:13:56.000 I know them pretty much like the back of my hand.

00:13:58.000 And I know that these are people who really just want the world to be a better place.

00:14:01.000 And a lot of our errors in messaging, particularly if you don't like us, you don't care, came from me.

00:14:07.000 And I believed it.

00:14:08.000 And I believed it until relatively recently.

00:14:11.000 I'm embarrassed, certainly, but I'm also, I'm not losing sleep over it, because I believed it.

00:14:17.000 What do you think changed that for you?

00:14:18.000 I mean, you talked about being in Texas, but obviously, for those of us who are watching from afar, the first time that I saw you on TV, I think, was probably during the CNN town hall event, which was obviously, got huge ratings, was a big television event.

00:14:30.000 I criticized Jake Tapper for it, because I suggested that the media really should have, if they want to have a discussion of the issues, they should do a discussion of the issues, as opposed to sort of an emotionally driven event.

00:14:39.000 I think I reached out for a bit.

00:14:57.000 Look, the left's never going to get rid of the right.

00:14:59.000 The right's never going to get rid of the left.

00:15:00.000 They certainly evolve.

00:15:01.000 The parties change over time.

00:15:03.000 But as long as we have a binary system, it's a binary system.

00:15:07.000 And half the country doesn't want the world to be a bad place.

00:15:10.000 I thought that. 0.97

00:15:11.000 I thought that half the country, the Republicans, were evil.

00:15:14.000 I think so.

00:15:32.000 We're all people.

00:15:49.000 Looking back, it didn't used to be like this.

00:15:51.000 I think this has been a long time coming.

00:15:53.000 I think that right now our socio-political fabric is not only bad because of Trump.

00:15:58.000 I think Trump doesn't do anything good for it.

00:15:59.000 I think Trump is too focused on owning the libs and not uniting the country.

00:16:05.000 But we've earned this.

00:16:09.000 America as a whole is responsible for this division and we need to come together.

00:16:13.000 Okay, so I'm going to ask you a bunch more questions about sort of your political perspective, how it's changed, and where you are now in just one second.

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00:17:22.000 OK, so obviously you said you were the driving force when it came to some of the emotional response to what had happened.

00:17:29.000 Now that you've kind of moved toward trying to pursue a conversation, it was something I noticed early with you, by the way, on Twitter.

00:17:34.000 I remember you and I had an exchange on Twitter, and it was actually relatively cordial.

00:17:37.000 You said something, I responded.

00:17:39.000 It was about Chicago, I believe.

00:17:40.000 Yeah, I think that's right, exactly.

00:17:41.000 It was about Chicago gun violence being tied to Indiana.

00:17:43.000 Exactly.

00:17:43.000 And so we just kind of went back and forth on that and then you made some comments and I liked them and I said, this is good, what you're doing here.

00:17:49.000 And I thought, this is somebody who's actually considering, you know, how to go about making the country a better place.

00:17:56.000 Why do you think that you had to break from March for Our Lives?

00:17:58.000 Why not stick around and try and change the thing from the inside, for example?

00:18:01.000 Well, at the end of the day, March for Our Lives is advocating for things that I'm currently not advocating for.

00:18:06.000 Now, on a policy stance, I agree with March for Our Lives almost entirely.

00:18:10.000 And they are currently involved with advocating for policy change.

00:18:14.000 They're involved with raising awareness about gun violence in parts of the country that are very often forgotten, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that, and I'm proud of my friends.

00:18:24.000 Truly, I believe that my friends are great people who really want the country to be a better place, and I'm proud to cheer them on to the future, proud to help, but right now I'm focused more on social things.

00:18:33.000 I'm focused more on the fact that we all have that family member that's why we can't talk about Trump at Thanksgiving.

00:18:39.000 And I think that we need to de-stigmatize these conversations.

00:18:42.000 March for Our Lives is advocating for policy.

00:18:45.000 I'm advocating for conversation.

00:18:48.000 So I couldn't be connected to March for Our Lives when I was so focused on other things.

00:18:53.000 It was bad for March for Our Lives.

00:18:54.000 It was bad for me.

00:18:55.000 I'm proud of my friends.

00:18:56.000 I always will be.

00:18:57.000 And I'm doing something else.

00:18:59.000 So what are the conversations that you're trying to pursue?

00:19:01.000 Obviously, you're here, so this is part of the conversation.

00:19:02.000 We'll talk policy in a little bit.

00:19:04.000 But what are the other kind of conversations you're trying to pursue, and how are you going about doing that?

00:19:07.000 I think that, strangely enough, the conversation that needs to be pursued is the conversation about conversations.

00:19:13.000 Is the fact that, you know, if I'm speaking to somebody who does not share my views on abortion, that does not mean that they want to kill babies or they want to oppress women.

00:19:23.000 I think that if I'm talking to somebody about the Israel-Palestine issue and one side of the issue doesn't hate Jews and one side of the issue doesn't hate Palestinians, I think that we need to stop it.

00:19:35.000 You said this to me before.

00:19:36.000 The left and the right need to stop attacking each other's worst arguments.

00:19:39.000 I think that's a big problem.

00:19:41.000 So I'm here to say, not even where can we agree, but how can we approach this respectfully?

00:19:47.000 So you say you were progressive on politics before.

00:19:50.000 You're progressive on politics now.

00:19:51.000 So what is your stance on gun control?

00:19:53.000 I think that no citizen of this country needs to have a semi-automatic rifle.

00:19:58.000 I also think that when I'm an adult, I will get a concealed carry permit. 0.69

00:20:02.000 And if you try to hurt my family, I'm going to hurt you.

00:20:04.000 Okay, so what do you think is the difference between, I don't mean to grill you on politics, but what do you think is the difference between a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle in this context?

00:20:13.000 I think that if you look at the situations we've had in this country where people have used semi-automatic rifles for mass shootings, we see that a lot of it, that having a semi-automatic rifle will make people feel empowered.

00:20:24.000 And I know that

00:20:25.000 I don't

00:20:44.000 We're good to go.

00:21:02.000 An attempt to be known, an attempt to feel large and powerful, and I feel like a large and powerful gun can frequently make people feel that.

00:21:09.000 I also think that the shooting in Las Vegas could not have been done with anything but an AR-15.

00:21:13.000 I know the shooter used a bump stock, but if that person only had semi-automatic handguns and was firing from that distance, then it wouldn't be as effective.

00:21:22.000 Now, I understand that that is very often treated as an anomaly.

00:21:25.000 It's very often treated as an outlier when we discuss the issues with these shootings.

00:21:28.000 But I think that as long as another one of these can happen, which right now it can, we need to address the issue as it is.

00:21:34.000 How much of the problem do you think is the instrument and how much is it the people?

00:21:36.000 Considering there are, you know, 100, 200 million rifles in circulation in the United States, probably 100 million handguns in circulation in the United States, which is basically a gun per person in the United States.

00:21:46.000 And barring a full-scale confiscation of rifles, how would you propose to achieve this?

00:21:52.000 I think that the way I look at it is a lot of attacks, whether it be suicide or shooting, and this is why I very often advocate for red flag laws, even though some people argue they're unconstitutional, I think a lot of these things are reactionary.

00:22:05.000 I think that a lot of mass shooters will be able to find a weapon on the black market or illegally, and a lot of them, if they are, it takes more time, and if they have to go through a harder process, will not be as quick to do it.

00:22:18.000 I watched the videos, I don't know why I did, but I watched the videos that my shooter put out,

00:22:22.000 We're good to go.

00:22:38.000 And I saw a reflection of a desire to be powerful.

00:22:43.000 I've said this several times, but I think that it's something we need to address.

00:22:46.000 I think that between facts and feelings, there's logic.

00:22:48.000 And we have to look at the facts and also apply our insight.

00:22:52.000 Well, why not start with sort of the most localized solutions?

00:22:55.000 So a lot of these solutions that you're talking about in terms of gun control are blanket solutions that affect literally hundreds of millions of people.

00:23:01.000 Whereas, for example, in the Parkland case, it's pretty obvious that the Broward County Sheriff's Office was engaged in massive malfeasance at the very least.

00:23:09.000 At the very least, yes.

00:23:10.000 And the school board wasn't very good either.

00:23:11.000 Right.

00:23:12.000 To say the very least.

00:23:13.000 I believe that there are many changes that can be made on a local level.

00:23:17.000 And I then began to advocate for them.

00:23:19.000 I think that school safety is important to focus on.

00:23:21.000 I also think some aspects of school safety are dangerous.

00:23:23.000 For example, I think metal detectors are not safe.

00:23:28.000 I think that you've been to an airport, there are long lines around metal detectors, and getting everybody in one place makes them just as susceptible to shootings.

00:23:35.000 That's similarly my issue with single entry points.

00:23:38.000 I know for a fact that the Broward School Board had hundreds of millions of dollars that were allotted for school safety that are completely missing.

00:23:45.000 And my friend Kenneth Preston actually covers this in a lot of his investigative journalism.

00:23:48.000 He's fantastic.

00:23:50.000 And there was foul play.

00:23:53.000 I'm consistently openly critical of Superintendent Runcie.

00:23:56.000 I will sleep so much more comfortably at night the second he's gone.

00:24:01.000 Sheriff Israel has... I was initially on his side.

00:24:05.000 Not because I knew him.

00:24:07.000 That was really why.

00:24:08.000 I had met him a couple times.

00:24:09.000 He seemed like a nice guy.

00:24:11.000 But as time went on, I realized this is horrible.

00:24:14.000 Now, what Broward Sheriff and Broward School Board should have done was say, we messed up.

00:24:19.000 We messed up.

00:24:19.000 We're owning up to it.

00:24:20.000 Here's how we messed up.

00:24:20.000 Here's what we're going to do better.

00:24:22.000 I would give them a bit of credit for that because I think that owning up to your mistakes is very important.

00:24:27.000 That being said, I think that

00:24:30.000 I think that instead of doing that, well I know for a fact instead of doing that, they then went out and were touting how great of a school year it was.

00:24:37.000 Donna Korn, who ran against Mr. Petty, the father of one of the victims at our school, said it was an amazing school year.

00:24:42.000 You don't say that when a school gets shot up.

00:24:44.000 You don't.

00:24:45.000 And it was an amazing school year.

00:24:46.000 I know for a fact.

00:24:48.000 Stoneman Douglas ran out of printer paper for a while and we had to use legal.

00:24:51.000 Now is that a crime against humanity?

00:24:53.000 No.

00:24:54.000 But the Broward School Board has a slew of issues that they simply refuse to own up to.

00:24:58.000 I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and it's been a pretty short one.

00:25:01.000 I think I've made a bit too many for how long I've been around.

00:25:04.000 We all have been.

00:25:05.000 But I'll own up to them. 0.96

00:25:06.000 I've said some dumb stuff, and I'll tell you that it was dumb, but right now the school board and the sheriff, like you have said, they are not holding themselves accountable. 0.91

00:25:15.000 They are not auditing themselves. 0.96

00:25:16.000 There are so many things that they could do to bring some sort of justice here.

00:25:21.000 I wouldn't even say justice.

00:25:22.000 Do something.

00:25:23.000 And they're not.

00:25:24.000 So you have to create a proportional relationship between what you believe in.

00:25:28.000 If you believe in more gun rights, then that's your own cup of tea and we can talk about that. 0.99

00:25:33.000 If you believe in gun control, remember that at the end of the day, I'm a gun control advocate, but I know guns don't kill people, people kill people.

00:25:41.000 The thing is, people very frequently kill each other with guns.

00:25:44.000 No question.

00:25:45.000 But let's talk a little bit about, you talk about the tenor of the conversation and the content of the conversation.

00:25:50.000 It seems to me one of the areas where there could be crossover is that the tenor of the conversation is generated by the content.

00:25:57.000 Meaning that when we immediately in the aftermath of a shooting like this jump to

00:26:01.000 I don't know.

00:26:19.000 There are certain areas where there are agreement.

00:26:21.000 And what's weird is that it seems like it's almost impossible to even have conversations about those areas of agreement because both sides are making hay off of the areas where we disagree.

00:26:29.000 So, for example, we agree on the actions that the school board should have taken.

00:26:33.000 We do agree on how the media should be treating the names of shooters because it's absurd to glorify shooters and repeat their names publicly.

00:26:42.000 That's why we don't do it at Daily Wire.

00:26:43.000 But instead,

00:26:46.000 There was a jump immediately by the media, which I think, frankly, used you guys as props, to push an agenda that they agree with.

00:26:53.000 I think that CNN agrees with the agenda that March for Our Lives is pushing, and so they started to push that in a way that they wouldn't have after, for example, the mass shooting at a church in Texas, where a bunch of the people who were there were members of the NRA.

00:27:03.000 The guy who shot the shooter was a member of the NRA.

00:27:07.000 Do you feel that the media's bias on these issues contributes to a lack of understanding?

00:27:12.000 I feel like the media's bias on every issue contributes to a lack of understanding.

00:27:15.000 I don't think, I think there are very few publications out there that are straightforward about their bias.

00:27:21.000 I think that, for example, I'm very respectful towards MSNBC.

00:27:24.000 Because MSNBC is a liberal news network that tells you it's a liberal news network.

00:27:27.000 Fox News got rid of Fair and Balanced.

00:27:28.000 You can give them credit for that.

00:27:29.000 Daily Wire is a conservative publication that does not pretend it's not a conservative publication.

00:27:34.000 And I think that as long as people are straightforward with what they're saying and don't try to, you know, throw in hasty generalizations, don't try to throw in any bias that's not admitted, we can do some good things here.

00:27:48.000 I think if people report on the news... I'm trying to think of the best way to say it.

00:27:52.000 If people report on the events and not their interpretation, they leave the interpretation up to you, we would have a much better, more understanding society.

00:27:58.000 So what's amazing to watch with folks like you, and I'm friendly with Kyle Cash, another student at the school, is that it seems like there are a lot of people who are honestly seeking more information, people who are going through an intellectual journey.

00:28:12.000 Obviously, you're going through that intellectual and emotional journey.

00:28:14.000 And I have a ton of respect for that because the minute that journey stops, you stop being a human being.

00:28:19.000 Well, I think that Kyle, for example, he's somebody that I have a deep understanding for.

00:28:25.000 Kyle represents, not in his own way, but what was done with him, a bit of hypocrisy, if you ask me.

00:28:31.000 I think that a lot of people went out and said, here's the left parading these kids around.

00:28:35.000 And then the NRA found a student from Stoneman Douglas who was pro-gun and said, look at this kid who's pro-gun from Stoneman Douglas.

00:28:41.000 Well, there's no question.

00:28:42.000 I mean, I was one of the people pushing Kyle.

00:28:43.000 Sure.

00:28:45.000 And I will be open about the fact that what I was doing was essentially saying, look, to say that there is a monolithic opinion at Stoneman Douglas is inaccurate.

00:28:53.000 Here's a student who feels a different way and who actually, in my opinion, was going out and trying to work with people on both sides of the aisle, at least legislatively, and try and meet with as many people on both sides of the aisle as possible.

00:29:02.000 That's why I'm appreciative of what you're doing.

00:29:04.000 But yeah, I mean, this does raise a larger question of how do you think that we in the media should be treating people who are 17 years old?

00:29:10.000 Again, I was there, so I was a syndicated columnist when I was 17, but my own perspective when I was 17 was that I better learn things fast because you're not 17 forever and nobody's going to pay attention to you just for your age.

00:29:21.000 Sure, I have a question for you.

00:29:22.000 Sure. 0.96

00:29:24.000 I saw an article of yours that was, here's a list of all the dumb things I've said. 0.99

00:29:28.000 Yeah. 0.95

00:29:29.000 What's someone you said at 17 that you are not a fan of?

00:29:33.000 Let's see, I wrote a piece when I was 18 talking about enemy civilian casualties, saying essentially that I had very little care about them because I was more interested in protecting the American soldiers.

00:29:44.000 The piece was really badly phrased.

00:29:45.000 It's a bad piece.

00:29:47.000 There's a piece that I wrote on Israel and Palestinians when I was 19, I believe.

00:29:51.000 I don't know.

00:30:08.000 18, 19, 20 years old that I just think are not very good, and I've openly stated I don't think that they're very good. 0.95

00:30:14.000 There was one from 2006 when I was 22 about the use of espionage law to prosecute people or sedition law to prosecute people that I think is an idiotic column.

00:30:25.000 You know, I've been writing a million words a year since I was 17 years old, so there's a lot there. 0.94

00:30:29.000 There's a lot of stupid crap I've written, and that's why I have a lot of sympathy for what you're going through, and it's hard to do it in public. 0.97

00:30:34.000 I mean, it's hard to do it in public knowing that everything's going to get picked apart, too. 1.00

00:30:37.000 I mean, I'm sure I'll say things right now that I'm incredibly proud of that I, when I'm 34, will say I'm full of crap for.

00:30:44.000 I'm interested in seeing that day.

00:30:46.000 Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's the journey that we all go through and it's interesting and fun to watch people who are actually trying to go through that journey as opposed to sort of battening down the hatches and being in that box.

00:30:54.000 I'm going to ask you some more about that and what your sources of information are in just a second.

00:30:58.000 But first, let's talk about your hiring process.

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00:32:01.000 Okay, so Cameron, let's talk about where you get your information.

00:32:03.000 Since you say that you were a progressive from a very young age, I was a conservative from as long as I can remember, so again, I sympathize from the opposite point of view.

00:32:11.000 What sources of information do you look at and how do you gather that information and then sift through it?

00:32:18.000 I read everything from CNN to Fox News to Daily Wire to Young Turks.

00:32:21.000 I try to read everything because I think that there are common themes in everything that's presented.

00:32:26.000 I think that I can get the story from everything that's presented and I will pick out the bias in everything that's presented and assess my principles and see what I think about it.

00:32:35.000 I really don't like identifying with a party. 0.99

00:32:38.000 I think that, like George Washington said, the parties are a bunch of garbage. 1.00

00:32:42.000 I vote for people. 0.99

00:32:44.000 Now, the people I haven't voted, but I will vote for people.

00:32:47.000 As a matter of fact, I turned 18 six days after the election this year.

00:32:51.000 But the point is, I vote for people.

00:32:53.000 Now, the people I vote for are normally Democrats.

00:32:55.000 But I also see flaws on both ends.

00:32:58.000 So I'm really, genuinely willing to vote for somebody on either side of the aisle.

00:33:02.000 OK, so what are your central principles, just politically speaking?

00:33:05.000 Politically speaking, I think that the way I see it is very often the Republican platform is based off of modeling our decisions off the past and the rights of the individual, whereas I think that the Democratic platform is basically

00:33:19.000 Modeling our decisions on what we want the future to be and the rights of the people as a whole.

00:33:24.000 And I think there are strengths in both and flaws in both.

00:33:27.000 I think that Republican views of the rights of the individual can lead to a lack of understanding for certain groups of people, whereas I think that the Democratic views of the rights of the people will very often be difficult for individuals.

00:33:40.000 It's a double-edged sword.

00:33:42.000 It really is.

00:33:43.000 Both sides have

00:33:45.000 I said this before, both sides have some amazing public servants and both sides have some really crappy ones.

00:33:49.000 For sure.

00:33:50.000 I mean, the way that I tend to think about politics is that the role of government is not necessarily the way I want society to run.

00:33:56.000 Meaning that as somebody who's a religious Jew, for example, I believe a lot of things about how people should act.

00:34:01.000 I don't think the government should get involved in nearly any of it because I don't think it's my place to basically tell people

00:34:05.000 We're good.

00:34:21.000 Insuring communities are safer and smarter and better.

00:34:24.000 Most of that can be done through conversations between individuals who don't feel like the government is trying to force a particular perspective or trying to get into anybody's pocket or force anything from above.

00:34:34.000 The minute one side uses force

00:34:36.000 Things get really ugly.

00:34:37.000 I think one of the reasons that we've seen such polarization in our politics is because people on both sides of the aisle expect government to solve all of their problems.

00:34:44.000 So if there's a hurricane, the Washington Post says it's Trump's fault.

00:34:47.000 And if the economy does great, the right says that's Trump's benefit.

00:34:50.000 And it feels to me like none of this is real.

00:34:54.000 The reality is most of the relationships we have with other folks are relationships we do have one-on-one or in the context of a community that we share together.

00:35:01.000 And that doesn't require necessarily legislative input or guys with guns coming to your front door and trying to force you to do things.

00:35:06.000 Sure, well I'm going to offer you my two cents.

00:35:08.000 Sure, please.

00:35:08.000 I know by the end of this you're going to be a staunch liberal.

00:35:10.000 Okay, let's make it happen.

00:35:11.000 You're going to change this to a rightist Tears vlog.

00:35:14.000 By the way, I'm very thirsty right now.

00:35:16.000 My lips are very dry, but I can't drink out of that.

00:35:18.000 If you get me one that says Alex Jones Tears and it's pictures of Alex Jones crying.

00:35:22.000 We might be able to agree on that one.

00:35:22.000 You know, it's an intellectual property issue.

00:35:24.000 We'll talk about that.

00:35:26.000 So I was in Chicago for a bit.

00:35:28.000 And Chicago, I think, is a strong example of the ways that liberal idealism has failed and the ways that liberal idealism needs to be there.

00:35:37.000 And I'll explain.

00:35:38.000 So when I say I was in Chicago, I was not visiting the Bean.

00:35:41.000 I was in Englewood.

00:35:43.000 I was in one of the most violent neighborhoods in the country, and I was there with a lot of young people who live in Chicago and who have lost family members.

00:35:50.000 Almost every friend I have in Chicago has directly lost at least one family member to gun violence.

00:35:56.000 Or as somebody who disagrees with my... Violence utilizing a gun, yeah.

00:36:02.000 Yes.

00:36:02.000 And I saw some interesting things.

00:36:03.000 I saw the negative results of genderfication, which I believe can sometimes be positive and sometimes be very negative. 0.98

00:36:09.000 And I also saw the need for opportunity.

00:36:12.000 Now, my general view is the reason I identify as liberal is in this country to be successful you need to pull up your bootstraps, but not everybody has access to the boots.

00:36:21.000 And I think that things need to be done in neighborhoods like Chicago, where there are a lot of cultural issues, but there are also a lot of issues that can't really be solved by fixing the culture.

00:36:31.000 There are people in neighborhoods there that have been pushed out of other neighborhoods.

00:36:34.000 The South and West Side have very little access to healthy food.

00:36:38.000 I know a friend who has to walk almost six miles every day to get food that is very often either expired or very unhealthy, and that leads to a lot of obesity, which limits certain job opportunities.

00:36:49.000 I think so.

00:37:04.000 It's really something that I need to take an econ class or a finance class or any of those to really fully understand.

00:37:10.000 But through my eyes, the government, as long as we are such a strong country, as long as we are a country that should really be serving as a beacon for the rest of the world, not just morally but really in every sense,

00:37:23.000 I think that there are things we can do to help people out.

00:37:43.000 It basically has.

00:37:45.000 And one of the things that I suggested is that government could be involved in helping to stop this.

00:37:49.000 And over time, I've become less sanguine about the possibility of government, specifically because when you see people who you disagree with run the government, what you realize, and this is something, again, that you may realize as you get older, because I realized it as I got older.

00:38:01.000 When you're 17, you look at the adults and you think they must know what they're doing.

00:38:04.000 And then once you hit about 25 and you look around, you realize they're the same people you went to school with. 0.99

00:38:10.000 You realize everybody's kind of dumb. 1.00

00:38:11.000 And young people are dumb, and old people are dumb, and everybody's kind of dumb. 1.00

00:38:14.000 And that means that dumb people in charge of a bunch of power do dumb things. 1.00

00:38:18.000 And no matter how much they think they're helping, they generally are not. 0.99

00:38:21.000 So leave me alone.

00:38:22.000 I can spin that on you a bit in what I believe is a fair way.

00:38:25.000 Sure. 0.99

00:38:26.000 In libertarian views, those dumb people can also press the nuke buttons. 0.98

00:38:29.000 Well, I mean, you mean as far as there has to be a collective defense? 0.99

00:38:33.000 Yes.

00:38:34.000 Right.

00:38:34.000 I mean, in the rarest of circumstances, you do have to have the ability to collectively mobilize to protect your life, for example.

00:38:42.000 And so having an army that's available to fight off terrorists is one thing.

00:38:47.000 And I think that there's generally wide agreement, at least in the constitutional structure, on when you can go to war, which is why I'm very much in favor of the idea that Congress should be declaring war, not the president unilaterally declaring war.

00:38:57.000 I don't think the president should

00:38:58.000 Really be able to just push a button and hit somebody in Syria with a missile. 0.66

00:39:02.000 I think that Congress should have to declare war for that to happen.

00:39:04.000 The way the Constitution was structured was to create all sorts of gridlock so that only an overwhelming majority of people could get anything done.

00:39:12.000 And that was supposed to help sift out a lot of the problems.

00:39:14.000 Well, ours is really the only Constitution that serves to protect the people from the government as opposed to the government from the people.

00:39:19.000 Exactly.

00:39:20.000 And to protect entrenched minorities against the tyranny of the majority, as they talk about in Federalist 51.

00:39:26.000 And with that said, defense is one area where the Congress was supposed to declare war.

00:39:32.000 That was an area where it required a fair bit of pushing in order to make that happen.

00:39:37.000 And there are certain rules of government that cannot be done anywhere else.

00:39:40.000 Basically, defense is a public good.

00:39:42.000 But some of the stuff that you're talking about, I'm not sure is a public good.

00:39:45.000 And not only that, I'm not sure the government is very good at it.

00:39:47.000 Basically, government is good at breaking things, I think.

00:39:49.000 And so if we have to break something abroad, then government is quite good at that.

00:39:52.000 If we have to break something at home, all you have to do is put government in charge of it.

00:39:55.000 Sure.

00:39:55.000 I think there are benefits and a lot of drawbacks to both small and big government.

00:40:02.000 I think the government's too big.

00:40:03.000 I think that a lot of people who want smaller government want the government to be too small.

00:40:07.000 But I also think that in defense of a big government, I'm not a big government guy necessarily, but in defense of the concept, the more people are involved with government, the more you can use the system against itself if you need to.

00:40:19.000 Explain that.

00:40:20.000 So basically, the government overstep is a problem.

00:40:23.000 We've seen it fail other countries.

00:40:25.000 I think that discussing other countries is occasionally used in a double standard, because if I'm talking about gun control in another country, they'll say, well, we can't talk about other countries.

00:40:33.000 But if I talk about, you know, but then they'll say, look at Mao Zedong.

00:40:37.000 You know, I think that we need to create a more respectful dialogue around basing our own ideas off of other countries' values.

00:40:43.000 You see how close the comparison works, yes.

00:40:45.000 Yes.

00:40:45.000 So, I think that having a big government allows more people to get involved with the government.

00:40:49.000 It allows more people to be part of it.

00:40:52.000 And I think that the more people that are part of the government, the more representation there is, the fairer a lot of people are treated.

00:40:57.000 I mean, it's how I feel about a lot of police officers.

00:41:00.000 In areas like Chicago and areas like Milwaukee that deal with a lot of gun violence and there's also some turmoil between the people in the area and the police, I believe that most neighborhoods should be policed by people who live there.

00:41:12.000 And I'd like to kind of apply that to the government.

00:41:16.000 The idea of having a neighborhood police by people who live there are, they understand the community, they understand how the community works.

00:41:21.000 You can create a dialogue and a respect between the people and the police.

00:41:25.000 My father's a reserve police officer.

00:41:27.000 I respect the idea of the police a lot.

00:41:32.000 Far too many respect too much and far too many people don't respect enough.

00:41:35.000 But I treat that the way I treat the government.

00:41:38.000 I think the more people who are involved, the more representation we can have and the more ideas can have a voice.

00:41:43.000 Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your perspective on Second Amendment issues in terms of, you know, you talk about kind of making better arguments.

00:41:50.000 Let's steel man it.

00:41:51.000 So you get to play me for a second.

00:41:53.000 So you get to be the guy who makes the case for the Second Amendment.

00:41:56.000 What do you think is the strongest case for the Second Amendment?

00:41:58.000 For the Second Amendment?

00:42:00.000 I think that if the government becomes evil, you've got to overthrow them.

00:42:05.000 I think that's the general.

00:42:06.000 I also think that the individual has the right to protect themselves.

00:42:10.000 Where we differ on the Second Amendment is how far that right should extend.

00:42:14.000 Like, for example, I have a question for you.

00:42:15.000 How do you feel about the National Firearms Act of 1930-something?

00:42:18.000 I don't have a problem with long machine guns.

00:42:20.000 Okay.

00:42:22.000 I don't think people in the country should be able to carry RPGs around.

00:42:25.000 And the question is, do semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, should they fall into the category of things like RPGs, or should they fall into the categories of things like handguns?

00:42:34.000 I mean, the real question is whether they should fall into the category of things like muskets, which is what the Second Amendment was originally meant to protect.

00:42:41.000 Exactly.

00:42:41.000 Back when the Second Amendment was written, you could shoot a bullet and I could take you down before you can reload.

00:42:48.000 And that's fine because, you know, a lot of people say that the reason the Second Amendment was written is because they want the citizens to be armed the way the military is.

00:42:57.000 That's a problem for me because I can get droned pretty hard.

00:43:00.000 Right, well at least to the extent that you have the capacity to defend yourself against government tyranny and you can't do it with handguns alone.

00:43:07.000 Yes, you said it about fascism.

00:43:08.000 You said that the government will come to your door and at the end of the day they're pointing a gun at you and telling you to do something.

00:43:12.000 Well that's right.

00:43:12.000 And so there's too many examples of the government doing that with regard to basic rights that we would all consider basic rights in various countries around the world.

00:43:21.000 That one of the things that deters the possibility of the government overstepping its bounds is the knowledge that if they do, then things go wrong.

00:43:29.000 At the very least, it'll be a bloody battle.

00:43:30.000 I mean, this is why Texans aren't particularly afraid of mass gun confiscation, because the government would never attempt a mass gun confiscation in Texas.

00:43:37.000 Things would go wildly wrong.

00:43:39.000 Even when they tried gun confiscation or gun turn-ins in Australia, they only got one-third of the weapons, so weapons are still available in Australia.

00:43:45.000 One of the big problems that I have, I guess, with the arguments in favor of gun control, is that very often they're predicated on a version of what I wish the government could do, as opposed to what the government has actually proven itself capable of doing, and balancing that with whatever right is at stake.

00:44:02.000 And this, I think, holds true for my general perspective on politics, which is, what has the government proved itself competent at?

00:44:08.000 Well, sure, and I think that one of the things I can use to defend my stance on it is Trump's running the government right now, and I think that certain guns should be regulated by the government.

00:44:17.000 I don't think Trump can regulate his own mouth, so the question is, should the government be regulating weapons when people like that can be elected?

00:44:26.000 The way to fix these issues is to put people in office who we know are going to be morally just.

00:44:31.000 Now, that is a very subjective term, and that can very often be interpreted different ways, but I think the way we

00:44:39.000 We figure out just how far the government can go here is say, look what else is regulated.

00:44:44.000 I mean, I need to take a driver's test to drive a car.

00:44:46.000 No, I don't like the car argument because cars exist to take you from point A to point B as opposed to put a bullet in somebody.

00:44:52.000 But it is the government regulating something that is in some way an infringement upon certain people's rights.

00:44:58.000 But constitutionally, as far as I'm concerned, and I've only read the Constitution I think once,

00:45:02.000 And I only read John Jay's Federalist Papers and he didn't contribute anything to that.

00:45:07.000 There's like five of them, yeah.

00:45:14.000 Well, let's take guns as a new example.

00:45:16.000 I think that it's far too easy to buy a gun.

00:45:19.000 I think that if the shooter at my school spent five minutes with a specialist, they would have said, you need a doctor, not a gun.

00:45:24.000 And they basically did, right?

00:45:26.000 I mean, that's one of the problems.

00:45:27.000 The police were called on him 48 times.

00:45:29.000 Exactly.

00:45:29.000 And the shooter in Jacksonville, the tragic shooting that occurred very recently that got almost no media attention, the shooter in Jacksonville, I believe the police were called on him 26 times, but certainly more than 20, which is why a policy that I've recently started to consider, I don't really know the legal terminology I should use, is creating something where if you get the police called on you 15 times, you're put under review to buy a weapon.

00:45:49.000 Now, that's unconstitutional, but if the police are called on you 15 times, I think something's going on with you.

00:45:53.000 Well, it's not necessarily unconstitutional in the sense that David French has proposed this in National Review, and I support this proposal.

00:45:59.000 The idea of a friend or family member being able to preemptively go to a court and petition to have your Second Amendment right taken away on the basis that you're a danger to yourself or others.

00:46:08.000 That's not unconstitutional and would probably

00:46:12.000 Be upheld under judicial review.

00:46:14.000 I think that's a way to talk about it.

00:46:17.000 I'm going to talk more about this because this is fun and it's interesting to get your perspective as a young person.

00:46:22.000 And we'll talk about where you hope politics is going to be in 20 years and also what you think you could tell other 17-year-olds about getting involved in politics.

00:46:30.000 Should they do it?

00:46:30.000 Should they not?

00:46:31.000 We'll get to all that in a second.

00:46:32.000 But first, let's talk about your sleep quality.

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00:47:37.000 Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the politicians that you do like.

00:47:40.000 You're looking up at 2020, and you're actually going to get to vote in 2020, which is very exciting.

00:47:44.000 So which politicians—I assume you're not going to vote for President Trump—so which politician on the left side of the aisle is most appealing to you as a 17-year-old guy, soon-to-be 18-year-old guy?

00:47:53.000 Sure.

00:47:53.000 I love Beto O'Rourke.

00:47:55.000 I understand that a lot of people are critical of him because of his DUI and his history as a punk rock person, but I look at what he proposes in Texas, I look at his ability to communicate with people, and at the end of the day, I think that this guy wants to serve his country.

00:48:08.000 And I'm seeing less and less of those every day.

00:48:11.000 So, I'm not 100% with him on policy.

00:48:14.000 I can't say exactly what yet because I'm still really working on figuring out his platform and what I believe it truly is.

00:48:20.000 But I believe that Beto wants the best for this country, and I believe that at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, Beto will make the decision he believes is most effective for everyone in this country, as opposed to just those who will praise him.

00:48:33.000 I'm a big fan of people who are willing to piss off the people who like him if they think it's right.

00:48:37.000 I mean, I know a lot of people that I'm dear friends with who, after coming on the show, will be upset with me for coming on the show.

00:48:44.000 But I believe that conversation's more important than

00:48:47.000 I don't think so.

00:49:04.000 One of the things that's kind of fun about doing this particular episode of the show is that normally I'm the young guy on set, and now I get to play the old guy on set, which is really fun.

00:49:13.000 And I'm getting the thrill that I only get normally when I speak to my own children, because you're literally young enough to be my son, which is insane.

00:49:20.000 It's literally insane.

00:49:22.000 I'd have to be really productive at like 17 years old, but that's crazy, man.

00:49:28.000 But one of the things that has occurred to me is that

00:49:32.000 Over time, I've spent enough time, you spend a lot of time with politicians now because you've been talking with a lot of them.

00:49:36.000 I've spent a lot of time with politicians.

00:49:38.000 And I feel like I spend my life bursting people's bubbles about how politics works and what politics are. 1.00

00:49:43.000 Politicians are idiots, man. 1.00

00:49:45.000 I mean, like, I'm just telling you now. 1.00

00:49:46.000 Like, as much as, I'm sure Beto O'Rourke is a nice guy.

00:49:49.000 Maybe you'll meet him and you'll be super impressed.

00:49:51.000 Maybe you already have met him and you're super impressed.

00:49:53.000 I can name on maybe two fingers people who have not disappointed me in politics over the last 20 years.

00:49:58.000 Go.

00:50:00.000 People who have not disappointed me?

00:50:01.000 Yes, in politics.

00:50:02.000 Last 20 years.

00:50:03.000 Boy, now I'm trying to get to two fingers.

00:50:06.000 Senator Lee from Utah, Mike Lee from Utah, is a genuine guy.

00:50:13.000 And Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the UN.

00:50:16.000 Those would be the two that come to mind.

00:50:18.000 Everyone else, pretty much everyone else, has disappointed me in one way or another, simply because politics is a dirty, rough game.

00:50:25.000 And most of politics ends up, in the end, being about avoiding the solving of issues in order to pander for votes.

00:50:32.000 It's in many ways my biggest problem with Senator Rubio.

00:50:34.000 Now, at the town hall, you're familiar with my conversation with Rubio.

00:50:37.000 I incredibly inappropriately likened him to a school shooter.

00:50:40.000 I'm embarrassed by that.

00:50:41.000 I'm incredibly apologetic for it.

00:50:43.000 I don't think it was right.

00:50:44.000 I don't agree with pretty much anything Rubio says in a policy standpoint, but if I make a mistake, I own up to it, and that was inappropriate.

00:50:49.000 That being said, I think that he was getting out of that too easy.

00:50:52.000 I think he was able to politician sidestep out of a lot of questions.

00:50:55.000 A lot of people are.

00:50:56.000 But he was doing it, and I was pissed, and I said, this guy's not getting out of here without being exposed for the career politician he is, because Senator Rubio is a career politician.

00:51:05.000 You've seen it.

00:51:06.000 He ran for president.

00:51:07.000 I believe that I know where this guy's

00:51:11.000 Go for it.

00:51:31.000 So where are your chief political priorities?

00:51:32.000 Because the fact is that Senator Rubio is a Tea Party Republican.

00:51:36.000 That's where my priorities are, are people who are more interested in doing what they think is best for the country and putting party aside.

00:51:44.000 I think that someone who is clearly playing for their party, as I've seen Senator Rubio do, as I've seen pretty much everybody else do, needs to get out.

00:51:52.000 And I think that my generation, we were going to discuss the future here, and I'll tell you, I think my generation is going to do that.

00:51:58.000 I think if my generation learns how to discuss things with each other, we're going to learn that we've been failed.

00:52:04.000 We have.

00:52:05.000 In many ways, we've been failed by politics before because politics became exactly what Washington said it would.

00:52:10.000 Washington said, and I'm not a Washington fan, I think that anybody who owns slaves, I'm not going to be a fan of, I'll like the things they did that were good, I will not like them as people because I think that slavery is immoral and I'm a big fan of Hamilton for his criticism of it.

00:52:23.000 But Washington said political parties, I don't want to try and quote him directly,

00:52:27.000 But they were the means by which people who were manipulative and evil would come into power.

00:52:32.000 I think that there will always be parties.

00:52:34.000 I don't like groupthink, but as long as there's groupthink, let's try to make a positive groupthink.

00:52:39.000 But Rubio and many others are examples of folks who are doing what they do so they can keep their friends happy, so they can maintain power.

00:52:47.000 If I believe that what I'm doing that pisses off my friends will make the world a better place, I'll piss off my friends.

00:52:53.000 Politicians should be public servants.

00:52:54.000 They should not be politicians.

00:52:55.000 I mean, so I guess the question that I have, I mean, we can go for a while on Washington and why I think that it's okay to call people heroes who were abiding by a moral standard that at the time was considered, widely considered, not as bad as it is now, even though it was evil at the time, obviously, and is evil now.

00:53:11.000 And we uphold people who do good things and we can criticize.

00:53:17.000 I actually believe that the definition of people as heroes and villains in history is a very difficult one.

00:53:21.000 I think typically you have to judge people for who they are, and usually they do some good things and usually they do some bad things.

00:53:26.000 But the stuff we like Washington for, he was a hero about, and one of those things was the role of government.

00:53:31.000 When we talk about Senator Rubio,

00:53:34.000 I don't want to get harsh with you, but you're casting aspersions.

00:53:37.000 What about Senator Rubio makes you cast aspersions at him as opposed to say, you know, Beto O'Rourke, who obviously is running inside a political party.

00:53:45.000 He doesn't seem like somebody who's focused dramatically on reaching across the aisle.

00:53:49.000 He's a down the line person on the left.

00:53:52.000 Where do you think that Senator Rubio, to take just that example since you took him,

00:53:58.000 More of a career politician than anybody else who's in the Senate or in the Congress.

00:54:01.000 Sure.

00:54:02.000 I believe the best I can do is assess their behaviors in the past.

00:54:05.000 And I believe that you'll see from his record, and I'm not fully done really vetting it.

00:54:10.000 Not that I'm vetting it implies that I have some authority.

00:54:12.000 I'm not really done looking through it.

00:54:15.000 Beto O'Rourke is somebody who applied what he was doing to the current situation.

00:54:21.000 I think that his views... I think that when people call politicians shills and evil for changing their perspectives over time, I think that's incredibly unfair.

00:54:31.000 Because I'm less impressed with somebody who has so statically believed the same thing for 30 years.

00:54:37.000 You know, people criticize a lot of people for that, for their votes in the past.

00:54:40.000 I think if they explain why it's fair to

00:54:43.000 I think so.

00:55:03.000 I think he's a little bit more loved than a lot of people.

00:55:05.000 No, he is, yeah.

00:55:06.000 But, you know, Bobby Kennedy was a big conservative for a while.

00:55:10.000 A lot of people forget that.

00:55:11.000 He was ordering the FBI to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr.

00:55:16.000 He was a big war hound before he instantly, you know, not instantly, but quickly changed against the war.

00:55:22.000 And it makes you think, is this guy an opportunist, which some might call him, or is he somebody who changed his perspective?

00:55:29.000 And that's what I look at.

00:55:30.000 I look at somebody who I think is willing to do what they think is best for the people.

00:55:35.000 I don't think Beto O'Rourke is... First of all, I think Beto O'Rourke is a lot more classic of a liberal, and I'm more of a classical liberal than what a lot of people on the... I don't like saying the left or the right too much, but a lot of people on the left are becoming.

00:55:47.000 And I believe that Beto is a moderate guy who's willing to work with people, as opposed to just try and completely rewrite the book.

00:55:53.000 I don't want to rewrite the book.

00:55:54.000 I want to erase the stuff that's bad.

00:55:56.000 And I think that Rubio is out there just doing what he thinks will make the Republicans the happiest.

00:56:02.000 Okay, so I have one more question for you, and the question is going to be about what you think you can learn from the older generation, because you've criticized people who are older a lot in the past and here as well.

00:56:12.000 What do you think we ought to keep from the older generation? 0.99

00:56:13.000 What do you think we ought to ditch?

00:56:15.000 But if you want to hear Cameron Kasky's answer, you actually have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.

00:56:18.000 To subscribe over at Daily Wire, go to dailywire.com, click subscribe, and you can hear the end of our conversation there.

00:56:23.000 Okay, well, Cameron, thank you so much for stopping by.

00:56:25.000 I think you're one of the good guys, and even though we disagree on politics, I hope that we keep the conversation going.

00:56:29.000 It's one of the things I really appreciate about you at least trying to do that.

00:56:32.000 Thanks so much for stopping by.

00:56:33.000 I really appreciate it.

00:56:33.000 Good luck with everything.

00:56:34.000 But right now, let's talk about...

00:56:45.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is produced by Jonathan Hay, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Associate Producers Mathis Glover and Austin Stevens, edited by Alex Zingaro, audio is mixed by Mike Karamina, hair and makeup is by Jeswa Alvera, and title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:56:59.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:57:02.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 30, 2018

Cameron Kasky | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 21

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