The Ben Shapiro Show - Democrats vs. Trump vs. North Korea | Ep. 360

00:00:00.000 President Obama is coming back to the political scene.

00:00:02.000 The fire and the fury and the furiosa.

00:00:05.000 All of it will be discussed.

00:00:06.000 Plus, we talk about the mailbag.

00:00:07.000 We're going to do the mailbag today.

00:00:08.000 You can be part of it.

00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:17.000 Alright, so we're going to give you the latest on North Korea in just a moment, plus the Democrats basically taking sides with North Korea over Donald Trump, if forced to make a decision.

00:00:26.000 Some Trump staffing issues, some Trump-Russia stuff, plus we're going to do a fulsome mailbag today.

00:00:31.000 But before we get to any of that, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Birch Gold.

00:00:35.000 So right now, things seem a little uncertain.

00:00:38.000 Do you wake up in the morning wondering whether you will survive a nuclear attack?

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00:00:58.000 Birchgold.com slash Ben gets you a comprehensive 16-page kit

00:01:02.000 We're good to go!

00:01:32.000 The hubbub over North Korea continues to unfold and evolve.

00:01:36.000 So, President Trump, I do love the fact that for President Trump, not only does he never back down, he always doubles down.

00:01:43.000 Like, everything is a double down for President Trump.

00:01:46.000 If you ever played poker with him, you would always want to go all in.

00:01:49.000 And this is sort of the problem.

00:01:50.000 The reason being that half the time he's bluffing, and half the time he's not.

00:01:54.000 And you really don't know when he's bluffing and when he's not, but you have a pretty good indication that he's bluffing sometimes because

00:02:00.000 He can never get out of a hand.

00:02:01.000 He never just puts it down and says, okay, walk away from this hand.

00:02:05.000 Everything has to be doubled down on.

00:02:06.000 So, you remember a couple of days ago, Trump said about North Korea that if North Korea were to continue to threaten, then he would unleash the fire and the fury and frankly, the power.

00:02:17.000 You remember all of this.

00:02:17.000 The fire, fury, furiosa, frankly, power, Mad Max, Fury Road, unbelievable.

00:02:23.000 Draconis.

00:02:24.000 And so everyone went nuts.

00:02:26.000 The left just thought this was insane. 1.00

00:02:27.000 He's gonna burn everyone alive. 0.97

00:02:29.000 And I was saying calm down everyone. 0.92

00:02:30.000 That's not going to happen.

00:02:32.000 There are negotiations happening behind the scenes.

00:02:34.000 Trump tweets stuff because that's what Trump does.

00:02:36.000 And even the North Koreans know better than to fire a nuclear missile just because Trump is mouthing off.

00:02:42.000 They know enough to know that should they actually try something, we would finish them.

00:02:46.000 They would be done.

00:02:47.000 So this morning, Trump tweeted out, Okay, everybody said, oh, it's an escalation, a dramatic escalation.

00:02:51.000 The rhetoric is escalating.

00:02:52.000 The activity is not.

00:03:01.000 So we are doing the same flyovers of North Korea that we've always been doing.

00:03:05.000 We've been doing the same joint naval exercises with the Japanese and with the South Koreans, rather with the South Koreans that we've always been doing.

00:03:11.000 Nothing has really changed along those scores.

00:03:14.000 So the idea that Trump is dramatically escalating the situation, it's just not true.

00:03:18.000 His rhetoric is constantly escalating because Trump gets a high off of his own fumes when it comes to the level of his rhetoric.

00:03:24.000 I mean, this is why he has people apparently bring him folders filled with pictures of him looking powerful.

00:03:28.000 So yesterday, he's asked about the fire and the fury and the furious and phenomenal, phenomenal fury.

00:03:34.000 And he was, and he says, not only was I right then, I'm going to double down.

00:03:39.000 It's not even big enough.

00:03:40.000 I think we have to go even bigger with the rhetoric.

00:03:43.000 And frankly, the people that were questioning that statement, was it too tough?

00:03:48.000 Maybe it wasn't tough enough.

00:03:50.000 They've been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years.

00:03:53.000 And it's about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries.

00:03:59.000 So, if anything, maybe that statement wasn't tough enough.

00:04:03.000 And we're backed by 100 percent by our military.

00:04:06.000 We're backed by everybody.

00:04:08.000 And we're backed by many other leaders.

00:04:09.000 And I noticed that

00:04:10.000 Many senators and others today came out very much in favor of what I said.

00:04:15.000 But if anything, that statement may not be tough enough.

00:04:20.000 I love that he keeps saying that the statement may not be tough enough.

00:04:22.000 He did this during the campaign a lot also.

00:04:24.000 Anytime he was asked about something, he would say, there's some people who are saying I didn't go far enough.

00:04:27.000 Maybe I should have gone farther.

00:04:29.000 I should have talked about the ferocity, frenzy, furor.

00:04:30.000 I should have talked about the fierceness and the flare-up and the force.

00:04:33.000 I should have talked about all of those things just for alliterative

00:04:36.000 Purposes.

00:04:37.000 Alliteration is where the first letter is the same of all the words and the sound is the same.

00:04:41.000 Yes.

00:04:41.000 Beep-bop.

00:04:42.000 Okay, so is all of this helpful?

00:04:45.000 You know, honestly, I don't think it's that bad.

00:04:47.000 I don't think it hurts.

00:04:48.000 I don't think it's the end of the world.

00:04:49.000 I don't think we're going to get in a nuclear war because Trump is doing any of this stuff.

00:04:53.000 And all the media members attempting to push you into feeling this way have an agenda, as we discussed yesterday.

00:04:59.000 Trump said, listen, this is not a dare.

00:05:01.000 You know, I'm not daring North Korea to do anything.

00:05:03.000 I'm just stating if they do something, then we'll finish them.

00:05:06.000 Let's see what he does with Guam.

00:05:09.000 He does something in Guam.

00:05:12.000 It will be an event the likes of which nobody's seen before what will happen in North Korea. 0.62

00:05:20.000 And when you say that, what do you mean?

00:05:21.000 You'll see.

00:05:22.000 You'll see.

00:05:23.000 And he'll see.

00:05:24.000 He will see.

00:05:25.000 It's not a dare.

00:05:27.000 It's a statement.

00:05:28.000 Has nothing to do with dare.

00:05:29.000 That's a statement.

00:05:31.000 He's not going to go around threatening Guam and he's not going to threaten the United States and he's not going to threaten Japan.

00:05:38.000 And he's not going to threaten South Korea?

00:05:40.000 No, that's not a dare, as you say.

00:05:44.000 That is a statement of fact.

00:05:45.000 So what's the actual likelihood of anything happening here?

00:05:48.000 Very low, because here's the reality.

00:05:49.000 The Kim Jong-un regime is mainly interested in self-preservation.

00:05:53.000 It's a stable regime because they don't care if they continue killing their own people and oppressing their own people for decades on end.

00:05:59.000 They've been doing it now for 60 odd years, so nothing really changes there.

00:06:03.000 All they care about is maintaining their own power, and that means the last thing they're going to do is launch a nuclear weapon at Guam or launch a nuclear weapon at the United States.

00:06:10.000 What they could do is act bellicose in an attempt to gain concessions from the world, because this is what they've been doing for the past couple of decades.

00:06:17.000 If Trump shows that they're not going to get any concessions for this, that in fact we're going to ratchet up sanctions every time they do this, then maybe they'll cut out even that.

00:06:23.000 Now, is that the greatest possible outcome?

00:06:25.000 No. 0.99

00:06:26.000 I mean, it would be great if the Kim family would just all drop dead immediately. 0.99

00:06:29.000 You know, that would be the best possible outcome for the world. 0.99

00:06:31.000 It'd be the best possible outcome for the North Korean people, who don't deserve this monstrosity that's been thrust upon them for the better part of half a century. 1.00

00:06:38.000 But, that said, are we at the verge of nuclear war?

00:06:42.000 No, we're not.

00:06:43.000 Now, what is the danger of them having a weapon like this?

00:06:45.000 There are really two dangers of the North Koreans having an intercontinental ballistic missile with an atomic tip. 0.82

00:06:51.000 Okay, there are two basic threats.

00:06:53.000 One threat is that all of the neighboring countries are then going to say, okay, well, if they have a nuclear weapon, we should have a nuclear weapon.

00:07:00.000 Like, South Korea will say, listen, we can't be living under the nuclear umbrella of the North Koreans. 0.73

00:07:04.000 We should have the capacity to say to them, if you fire anything at us, we will nuke you.

00:07:08.000 Right? 0.96

00:07:09.000 If you fire conventional weaponry at us and then threaten us with your nuclear weapon, we will finish you. 0.91

00:07:13.000 Right?

00:07:13.000 So the South Koreans might develop their own nuclear weapon.

00:07:15.000 Japan, which has been non-nuclear, they may develop their own nuclear weapon in order to deter the North Koreans. 0.82

00:07:21.000 And so you could see widespread proliferation around the world.

00:07:24.000 And Jon Podhors was making this point in his commentary podcast, and I think it's right.

00:07:28.000 We've spent, again, basically every waking moment since 1945 and the use of the A-bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

00:07:36.000 We've been spending all that time trying to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

00:07:39.000 There have been a number of states like South Africa that have gone non-nuclear.

00:07:43.000 Libya was giving up its nuclear ambitions.

00:07:45.000 There have been a number of states that have decided not to go nuclear.

00:07:48.000 Specifically because they felt like there is a global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons but now you're seeing proliferation spread.

00:07:55.000 Pakistan is proliferating. 1.00

00:07:56.000 Iran is going to proliferate thanks to the Obama administration. 0.99

00:07:59.000 Saudi Arabia in response could proliferate thanks to the Obama administration.

00:08:02.000 You could see Turkey and Jordan proliferate. 0.51

00:08:04.000 You could see a widespread development of nuclear weapons and that would be very dangerous because again all it takes is one mistake for things to go boom.

00:08:12.000 It's one thing when you're talking about two regimes.

00:08:14.000 When you're talking about the USSR and the United States, and we were basically the only nuclear powers, then, you know, that was hard enough to keep us from going boom, right?

00:08:21.000 We had things like the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Six-Day War in 1967.

00:08:27.000 There were serious nuclear threats that were issued by the Soviets with regard to the Middle East.

00:08:31.000 So, you know, it was very tenuous even between two powers, one of which was good, one of which was evil, but both of which were rational in terms of self-preservation.

00:08:39.000 What happens if you have a regime that is really tenuous and that feels that its only method of defense is a nuclear weapon and everybody else is proliferating?

00:08:48.000 So that's danger number one.

00:08:49.000 Danger number two is you could see a world in which the North Koreans start to pursue more aggressive action and attempt to ratchet up pressure on the world to give them concessions. 0.98

00:08:57.000 And so they start destroying South Korean boats.

00:09:00.000 They start threatening Japan, firing missiles at Japan every so often and basically saying, listen, what are you going to do about it?

00:09:05.000 You attack us, we'll nuke somebody. 0.78

00:09:07.000 Using that as their deterrent, not in order to calm the waters, but in order to rule the waters.

00:09:12.000 That's the danger in North Korea. 0.98

00:09:13.000 But is the danger immediate nuclear war?

00:09:15.000 No, I don't think the danger is immediate nuclear war.

00:09:17.000 So everybody ought to stop thinking that they're Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, where they're grabbing a chain link fence as the blast wave hits them and rips their skin away from their body.

00:09:25.000 I don't think that's what's about to happen here.

00:09:28.000 By the same token, the military option certainly should not be off the table because things are only going to get worse, not better with North Korea. 0.87

00:09:33.000 I think everybody who's assuming that this regime is just going to magically collapse... Again, the Soviet Union collapsed because Mikhail Gorbachev made a vast miscalculation with regard to modernization.

00:09:42.000 He felt, okay, if we modernize, if we open our doors a little bit...

00:09:45.000 If we do Glasnost, the Soviet Union will survive. 0.99

00:09:47.000 Instead, everyone who could opt out of the system opted out of the system.

00:09:51.000 The Kim regime is not going to make the same mistake.

00:09:52.000 They're going to keep this thing locked down as long as humanly possible.

00:09:55.000 Kim Jong-un is a very young man, and that means that he is going to be around for quite a while, unfortunately, barring some sort of miracle that takes him out. 0.76

00:10:04.000 You know, you hate to pray for God to kill people, but if God's going to take somebody, let him take Kim Jong-un. 0.98

00:10:08.000 That guy is a piece of human debris. 0.99

00:10:11.000 And the entire family needs to be deposed. 0.99

00:10:13.000 But he's my age, right?

00:10:15.000 He's 33 years old.

00:10:16.000 In fact, he was born a week before I was.

00:10:19.000 So he's a young guy.

00:10:21.000 He could be around for another 50 years.

00:10:23.000 So the idea that this is on the verge of collapse is just not true.

00:10:26.000 And that's why it's such a dangerous situation.

00:10:27.000 Now, because it's a dangerous situation, you would assume that the Democrats should, for just a second, put aside their animus for President Trump and start talking instead about supporting

00:10:37.000 A basic American stance on this, which is that North Korea has to calm this stuff down, or we're going to be forced into taking action.

00:10:43.000 In North Korea, the negotiations should be taking place, that when Trump says things, he does have the credible threat of force behind him.

00:10:50.000 And instead, Democrats have decided it's more important to shame President Trump.

00:10:53.000 Talk about that in just a second, but first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the USCCA.

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00:12:31.000 Okay, so naturally Trump is saying all this stuff and the media is trying to make it out that he's a crazy person who's gonna get us into a nuclear war. 0.59

00:12:37.000 Not happening.

00:12:38.000 And the Democrats are trying to suggest that Trump is actually the bad guy.

00:12:41.000 So a Democratic representative named Juan Castro

00:12:44.000 He is, is this Julian Castro or Juan?

00:12:48.000 I know that Juan and Julian are twins.

00:12:50.000 So this one is Joaquin, sorry.

00:12:53.000 Joaquin Castro.

00:12:53.000 So Julian and Joaquin are brothers.

00:12:55.000 And Joaquin was arguing that North Korea is just getting more, more threatening because of Trump.

00:13:01.000 Not because they threaten and they've been threatening consistently for my entire lifetime, but because of Trump.

00:13:05.000 I mean, this is just, this is working in bad faith for Democrats.

00:13:09.000 It really is.

00:13:10.000 Here is Castro.

00:13:11.000 Well, the first thing is that I think some of these threats have been made because the president has also made his own threats.

00:13:18.000 And so that's why I'm saying that we need to allow diplomacy a chance to work instead of going tit-for-tat with a 32-year-old dictator in North Korea.

00:13:27.000 Okay, diplomacy is working.

00:13:29.000 In fact, there are reports today that diplomacy is moving forward, that the Trump administration has had contacts for months with the North Koreans, and that we are moving toward some sort of defusing of the situation.

00:13:44.000 But the idea that you're going to go on national TV and you're going to undercut the credible use of military force with regard to North Korea is a very dangerous notion.

00:13:52.000 Maxine Waters is doing the same thing again.

00:13:54.000 Maxine Waters has been proclaiming for months that Trump will be impeached, or Trump will plot, or something will happen that will get Trump out of there through some democratic created miracle.

00:14:01.000 She says that Trump is bluffing.

00:14:02.000 Okay, again, this is bad stuff.

00:14:04.000 You never want to say that the President of the United States is bluffing. 0.98

00:14:07.000 When Obama drew his red line in Syria, there were those of us who said, it's stupid to draw the red line if you're bluffing. 0.87

00:14:13.000 But it was not a good thing if we were out there saying he's definitely bluffing. 0.63

00:14:17.000 You don't want to show enemy regimes that you think the president of the United States is full of it because it means that their credible threat for use of force is gone.

00:14:27.000 How do you deter if people think that you're completely full of it?

00:14:30.000 Here's Maxine Waterhouse, however, whose top priority is not preventing North Korea from getting aggressive.

00:14:35.000 Her top priority is instead trying to humiliate President Trump. 1.00

00:14:39.000 I believe that North Korea is interesting threats to the United States.

00:14:45.000 But I think there are some things that they want from us.

00:14:50.000 And we have to find out whether or not we can work with them on the things that they're asking for.

00:14:56.000 And so this is something that we should be very concerned about.

00:15:00.000 But this is not the time to go bluffing and threatening.

00:15:04.000 This is a time for diplomacy.

00:15:06.000 Okay, so, you know, whenever Democrats say it's time for diplomacy, diplomacy involves the credible threat of use of force.

00:15:12.000 I mean, that's half of diplomacy.

00:15:13.000 The whole idea of diplomacy is supposedly the iron fist inside the velvet glove.

00:15:18.000 And you either get the velvet glove or you get the fist.

00:15:21.000 If there is no credible threat, then why engage in diplomacy in the first place?

00:15:25.000 I mean, if the North Koreans know we're not going to do anything, then why wouldn't they just continue to develop their nuclear weapons and threaten whomever they want and fire nuclear weapons at whomever they choose? 0.97

00:15:34.000 There has to be a credible threat of force.

00:15:35.000 Democrats treat diplomacy, it's a pet peeve of mine, they treat diplomacy as though diplomacy is an actual policy instead of diplomacy being a strategy toward the achievement of policy.

00:15:45.000 There is a difference.

00:15:47.000 A policy is something that you are attempting to forward.

00:15:50.000 Obviously, you would prefer diplomacy to force if they achieve the same end, but if they don't achieve the same end, then you have to determine, is diplomacy better, or is force better?

00:15:58.000 Diplomacy is a strategy.

00:16:00.000 It's like, you know, I'm in a fight with my wife, right, and I have a couple of strategies as to how I can defuse the situation.

00:16:06.000 Okay, the goal is not the strategy.

00:16:08.000 The goal is to defuse the situation.

00:16:10.000 Maybe to defuse the situation, I need to give her space.

00:16:12.000 Maybe to defuse the situation, I need to hug her and talk.

00:16:15.000 But those are strategies towards defusing the situation.

00:16:18.000 The goal of the situation isn't for me to have alone time.

00:16:21.000 The goal of the situation isn't for me to grab a hug.

00:16:24.000 You know, Maxine Waters and Democrats, they treat diplomacy as though the goal of the situation is to talk with North Korea.

00:16:28.000 Who wants to spend their time talking with North Korea? 1.00

00:16:30.000 The purpose of talking with North Korea is to achieve some sort of settlement where we're not on the verge of nuclear war every five seconds with a nutcase who lives there. 0.59

00:16:38.000 That's the purpose of all of this. 0.94

00:16:39.000 One of my pet peeves here is also Ben Rhodes, who just needs to go away and shut up. 1.00

00:16:43.000 Ben Rhodes is the idiot National Security Advisor under President Obama. 1.00

00:16:48.000 His great national security experience before that had been being a failed novelist. 1.00

00:16:53.000 He'd written half a novel that was never published.

00:16:56.000 And it's really, uh, he is the author of the egregious and horrifying Iran deal and he's tweeting out about this stuff. 0.55

00:17:03.000 He should shut up because the bottom line is that we're going to be in the same situation with Iran in about five minutes here because he signed a nuclear deal with the Iranians that allows them to pursue a nuclear weapon. 0.84

00:17:11.000 The minute they say they have developed a nuclear weapon, then all of a sudden we're going to get, oh, it's because Trump undermined the nuclear deal.

00:17:16.000 That's why all this happened.

00:17:17.000 No, the reason this happened is because Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration chose to ignore it in favor of trying to make overtures to one of the most evil regimes on the planet, exactly as the Clinton administration did during the 1990s.

00:17:30.000 Ben Rhodes, he said, he's tweeting out now, Trump turned to national security was inevitable given domestic failures and constraints, but this week doesn't bode well for next three years.

00:17:40.000 So now this is a distraction?

00:17:42.000 Remind me again, who was it who was threatening Guam?

00:17:44.000 Oh yeah, it was the North Koreans. 1.00

00:17:46.000 Remind me, who was it who was reported to have built a nuclear weapon that can fit on the tip of an ICBM?

00:17:51.000 That's right, it was North Korea.

00:17:52.000 But the Democrats hate Trump so much that everything, everything is Trump's fault.

00:17:57.000 And then you've got Ben Rhodes tweeting about how we can't back out of the Iran deal because if we back out of the Iran deal then it's just terrible.

00:18:07.000 He says this is a key point.

00:18:08.000 Any chance of a deal with North Korea goes out the window if Trump cancels a nuclear deal that Iran is complying with.

00:18:13.000 Then maybe you shouldn't have signed a bad nuclear deal with Iran handing them the store, opening the grocery store. 0.61

00:18:20.000 The Democrats keep signing bad deals and then they're shocked when everybody takes advantage of the bad deals.

00:18:25.000 That is far more of a problem than people trying to enforce deals and trying to ensure that places don't go nuclear and threaten others.

00:18:33.000 It's really quite amazing.

00:18:34.000 I mean, the delusion of the Democrats is insane.

00:18:38.000 He says they're ripping on Trump because of this tweet about military solutions and locked and loaded.

00:18:43.000 He says, are we coordinating with our allies?

00:18:45.000 Listen, I am sure that our military is coordinating with our allies.

00:18:48.000 Trump says stuff.

00:18:49.000 Everybody knows Trump says stuff.

00:18:51.000 So I'm highly doubtful that we're in the midst of a nuclear war here, but this is what Democrats want you to believe so that you're scared of President Trump.

00:18:58.000 Okay.

00:19:00.000 There's been some hubbub about Trump's staffing decisions with regard to national security.

00:19:04.000 And this is indeed a problem.

00:19:05.000 You want to present a united face when it comes to your national security team.

00:19:08.000 Trump's governing by chaos is not useful when it comes to national security.

00:19:11.000 So you've got open battles now between Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, and H.R.

00:19:16.000 McMaster, Trump's national security advisor.

00:19:18.000 McMaster has ousted a bunch of Bannon loyalists inside the administration, some of whom should have been ousted, some of whom probably should not have been ousted.

00:19:24.000 McMaster is an expert on counterinsurgency.

00:19:29.000 His perspective on Afghanistan is apparently one of the things at issue with Steve Bannon.

00:19:33.000 Bannon just wants to get out of Afghanistan.

00:19:34.000 McMaster is saying, guys, Al Qaeda is still there.

00:19:38.000 If we get out of there, there will be another terrorist attack.

00:19:40.000 We ought to be staffing up, not staffing down in Afghanistan.

00:19:43.000 Bannon is arguing the reverse.

00:19:45.000 That fight is causing Bannon to feel marginalized and lash out at McMaster.

00:19:52.000 There are some ancillary issues regarding McMaster.

00:19:53.000 McMaster is not particularly pro-Israel, which I think is a problem, obviously.

00:19:57.000 But Trump is the president, and if he can check McMaster on Israel and then listen to his advice on Afghanistan, that seems to me probably a better strategy.

00:20:04.000 Trump has been forced to come out yesterday, for example, and say that he has confidence in his own national security advisor.

00:20:10.000 This does not provide the sort of

00:20:12.000 Face to the world that you want.

00:20:13.000 What you want when it comes to foreign policy is a united front where people know that whatever you say is credible, that they're not arguments among your members of your administration publicly.

00:20:22.000 You don't want members of your administration arguing with each other.

00:20:25.000 That creates confusion and it leads America's enemies to sit around thinking, okay, what do they really think?

00:20:30.000 What do they really want?

00:20:31.000 So here is Trump being forced to testify to the greatness of McMaster.

00:20:35.000 Do you have full confidence in your national security advisor?

00:20:38.000 Yes, I do.

00:20:39.000 General McMaster?

00:20:40.000 Absolutely.

00:20:41.000 He's our friend, he's my friend, and he's a very talented man.

00:20:44.000 I like him, and I respect him.

00:20:47.000 Okay, so, you know, he's sticking with McMaster for now.

00:20:50.000 The right is very upset with McMaster because of all the purges of a lot of the abandoned people, and the feeling that McMaster is more of a traditional defense guy who's willing to work with Obama holdovers.

00:21:00.000 All of that is Trump's call.

00:21:02.000 All of it's Trump's call.

00:21:03.000 I keep hearing from people, you gotta trust Trump?

00:21:05.000 Fine.

00:21:05.000 Trust Trump.

00:21:06.000 It's his call. 0.92

00:21:06.000 Time for him to get his poop in order. 0.92

00:21:08.000 You know, the same thing is happening with regard to Sebastian Gorka.

00:21:11.000 Sebastian Gorka is one of the national security advisors, a foreign policy advisor to President Trump.

00:21:15.000 It seems like his main job is to go on TV and say stuff that Trump likes.

00:21:19.000 Sebastian Gorka, I've met him, I think, once.

00:21:21.000 Seems like a nice guy.

00:21:21.000 I think he's pretty knowledgeable about world events.

00:21:24.000 But...

00:21:25.000 Yeah, he and Rex Tillerson, Trump's own Secretary of State, are going at it because Tillerson is saying, don't worry about the militaristic rhetoric, we're working on something, and Gorka's out there saying, Tillerson's at SAIT, he doesn't get to talk about what Defense Department is doing, and so now Gorka is under fire for going to war with Tillerson.

00:21:42.000 Sebastian, you know this is going to be all over the papers, and whether you had the exact meaning that people have now interpreted it as, it looks like, to some people, it looks like, forget backstabbing, that you frontstabbed the Secretary of State, and, you know, people look at that and say, who was he to admonish any process that the Secretary of State would take?

00:22:05.000 He's handpicked by the President.

00:22:08.000 I was admonishing the journalists of the fake news industrial complex who are forcing our chief diplomat into a position where they are demanding he makes the military case for action when that is not the mandate of the Secretary of State.

00:22:27.000 That's why we have a Department of Defense.

00:22:29.000 If a journalist doesn't know the difference

00:22:32.000 Okay, we see.

00:22:32.000 So Gorka tries to turn on the media, but again, Trump needs to get his team under control.

00:22:36.000 You'd hope that John Kelly would help him with this, but obviously Kelly is not able to get everything under control as of yet, and that is not a good thing.

00:22:45.000 Okay, so before we get to things I like and things I hate, and then I want to spend some ample time on the mailbag,

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00:26:11.000 Okay, so, time for some things I like and things I hate, because I would like to leave ample time for the mailbag today.

00:26:15.000 So, we'll go right to things I like.

00:26:18.000 So, today's thing is I like another book on North Korea.

00:26:21.000 I think people should be educated about this state.

00:26:23.000 The book is called The Impossible State by Victor Cha, and it is a history of North Korea.

00:26:29.000 It looks

00:26:29.000 Back at what it was, it looks forward to what's going to happen there.

00:26:34.000 It talks about its level of stability, what comes after if the Kim family should basically lose power, whether there is in fact some sort of internal turmoil.

00:26:43.000 It's very difficult to tell.

00:26:44.000 North Korea is sort of a black box.

00:26:46.000 And so the reporting on North Korea

00:26:49.000 I don't know.

00:27:05.000 That I like.

00:27:06.000 So Barack Obama is coming back.

00:27:08.000 So this is exciting.

00:27:09.000 He's going to campaign for the Democrats.

00:27:11.000 I could not be more excited about this. 0.98

00:27:12.000 Democrats are so screwed that they are trying to bring back the ghost of Christmas past. 0.92

00:27:17.000 They're bringing back the president who lost them a thousand seats in state houses across the country, 12 governorships, 10 Senate seats. 0.98

00:27:23.000 63 house seats.

00:27:24.000 That's the guy that they are trying to restore to the leadership of the Democratic Party.

00:27:27.000 The guy who created a coalition so fragile that even Hillary Clinton couldn't mobilize it in her own favor to defeat a reality TV game show host.

00:27:36.000 And Obama is back.

00:27:37.000 Apparently he's going to help them fundraise.

00:27:39.000 Ha ha ha.

00:27:39.000 The Democrats have raised apparently half the funding that Republicans have since the election cycle, which is amazing.

00:27:45.000 And he is apparently also going to help the politicians out by speaking.

00:27:49.000 That is not going to work for them.

00:27:50.000 So congratulations to Democrats.

00:27:51.000 You have hit on, yet again, one of the world's worst strategies.

00:27:55.000 So that is just excellent.

00:27:56.000 Other news that I like.

00:28:00.000 It's not really news that I like, but I do like when reality takes hand.

00:28:05.000 So here is the piece of news by Amanda Prestigiacomo.

00:28:09.000 She is one of our favorite writers over at Daily Wire.

00:28:13.000 A woman who enlisted to become the first ever female Navy SEAL quit after one week of training. 0.97

00:28:18.000 One week of training.

00:28:20.000 According to the report from the Washington Examiner, the unidentified female candidate dropped out in early August during a three-week course in San Diego that began July 24th. 0.95

00:28:28.000 It was the first assessment of potential SEAL officers before they can be sent on to more grueling courses, according to the website, which cited multiple Naval Special Warfare Command sources.

00:28:37.000 So, before January 2016, women were not allowed in military combat roles.

00:28:41.000 There were no female applicants in the 18 months since that historic change until July, which is when this woman enlisted. 0.99

00:28:47.000 She lasted for one week.

00:28:49.000 She lasted for one week. 0.99

00:28:51.000 Okay, so the fact that she signed up, listen, anybody who signs up is doing more than I have, so I can't criticize them on that basis, but the stupidity of a left that suggests that women are exactly the same as men in every way is demonstrated every single day by reality. 0.74

00:29:06.000 By the way, this is one of the reasons I think this movie Atomic Blonde is failing. 0.90

00:29:09.000 We were discussing this

00:29:10.000 Before the show, Mathis and Austin saw the movie, he thinks it's really good.

00:29:14.000 I haven't seen it yet, so I really have no opinion on the quality of the film.

00:29:16.000 Apparently it has a 20-minute fight sequence that's really amazing.

00:29:19.000 I have a general problem with female fight sequences where you get one woman beating up guys who are 200 pounds, like she's 105 pounds soaking wet, and she's beating the crap out of guys who are 200 pounds. 1.00

00:29:28.000 It's like, uh, no.

00:29:30.000 No.

00:29:30.000 In boxing, we have weight classes, right?

00:29:32.000 If there's a 10-pound difference between two boxers, they're in different weight classes.

00:29:36.000 You think that doesn't apply to a 75-80 pound difference between men and women?

00:29:40.000 Like, come on, gang.

00:29:42.000 Come on.

00:29:42.000 I think that's one of the reasons why the female action star genre hasn't been doing particularly well.

00:29:47.000 There have been a bunch of movies that have come out recently with the female action star, and they just don't work that well, typically, because the suspension of disbelief to watch some beautiful woman the size of my wife 1.00

00:29:58.000 Throw around some six-foot-three dude who weighs 240 pounds.

00:30:03.000 It requires certain suspension of disbelief.

00:30:05.000 I think also the marketing for that film, it seemed to make a lot of the lesbian relationship in the film. 0.99

00:30:10.000 And I think that that's a mistake for the marketers.

00:30:12.000 Not just because some people are put off by that, but also because... This is a question I asked Austin.

00:30:20.000 I asked, in the film, is there a reason that Charlize Theron's character had to be a woman instead of a man?

00:30:25.000 Is there anything about her character in the film that makes her necessarily female in any real way, other than the fact that she's a female?

00:30:34.000 And Austin said no, right?

00:30:34.000 She's seducing a woman in the same way that James Bond would seduce a woman.

00:30:37.000 So, what is the relevance of her being a woman? 1.00

00:30:41.000 If she's a female action star, but she's basically just a dude who's a lady, then what have you gained from this? 1.00

00:30:46.000 Like, the best written female action stars?

00:30:48.000 Think of Terminator 2.

00:30:49.000 Linda Hamilton's character is really well written because her entire motivating feature

00:30:53.000 Is trying to care for her child trying to make sure that John is safe, right?

00:30:55.000 That's the entire motivation of her character if you think of other great action movies where a woman is put in a position of peril 0.50

00:31:02.000 Often she's given a motivation that is more typically feminine than, you know, basically she could be James Bond.

00:31:10.000 And I think that's a good thing.

00:31:11.000 I think that people, there's something that doesn't ring authentic about women who just could be men on screen, or men who could just be women on screen.

00:31:18.000 You know, that men and women are different, and we pick up on that, and films lack authenticity when they don't play into that, I think.

00:31:24.000 So that's not sexism.

00:31:25.000 That's just the reality of men and women being different, which I understand is something we're not allowed to talk about anymore.

00:31:31.000 I get all of that.

00:31:32.000 So, other things.

00:31:33.000 Okay, so you know what?

00:31:34.000 Let's do some things that I hate.

00:31:39.000 So, I think that President Trump needs to shut up about Russia.

00:31:42.000 And the reason I think he needs to shut up about Russia is every time he opens his mouth, he just gives fodder to the Democratic side.

00:31:47.000 Now, I still see no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia in this election cycle.

00:31:51.000 I see evidence that his son, Donald Trump Jr., attempted to collude with Russia, but that is not evidence of collusion.

00:31:56.000 The person who is most closely tied with Russia in the Trump campaign was Paul Manafort.

00:32:01.000 Paul Manafort was his chief campaign staff.

00:32:03.000 He was the head of his campaign for three months and he was raided by the FBI apparently in the last couple of months.

00:32:10.000 Trump was asked about Manafort and the raid on him by the FBI and here was Trump's statement.

00:32:16.000 To do that early in the morning, whether or not it was appropriate, you'd have to ask them.

00:32:21.000 I've always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man.

00:32:25.000 And he's like a lot of other people, probably makes consultant fees from all over the place.

00:32:29.000 Who knows?

00:32:29.000 I don't know.

00:32:30.000 But I thought that was a very, pretty tough stuff.

00:32:36.000 To wake him up, perhaps his family was there.

00:32:38.000 I think that's pretty tough stuff.

00:32:40.000 Okay, the reason that he should not say stuff like this is because literally a week and a half ago, he was on tape talking to police officers and saying, when there is a criminal suspect, don't put your hand on the top of their head.

00:32:48.000 If you have to rough them up a little bit, go ahead.

00:32:51.000 Right now he's talking about it's really tough stuff that Paul Manafort got woken up in the middle of the night.

00:32:55.000 It's not a good look.

00:32:56.000 Okay, not a good look.

00:32:56.000 Like, that's not the problem here.

00:32:57.000 What he should say is, if he thinks Manafort's innocent, he should say, Paul Manafort is innocent.

00:33:01.000 If he doesn't think he's innocent, he should shut up.

00:33:04.000 But doing this whole, he's a victim of the system routine, it just doesn't wash.

00:33:07.000 And it especially doesn't help that every time Russia does something bad, Trump seems to feel the need to defend them in some weird way.

00:33:14.000 So Vladimir Putin kicked out 755 diplomats out of the U.S.

00:33:18.000 Embassy in Moscow apparently, and here was Trump's response to that.

00:33:24.000 No, I want to thank him because we're trying to cut down on payroll.

00:33:28.000 And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll.

00:33:37.000 There's no real reason for them to go back.

00:33:39.000 So I greatly appreciate the fact that they've been able to cut our payroll for the United States.

00:33:44.000 We'll save a lot of money.

00:33:46.000 So he's sort of half-joking there, but I'm not sure what that joke is supposed to mean, considering that all of these people are still employed by the United States.

00:33:52.000 So it's not really true.

00:33:53.000 Shouldn't he say, you know, that's inappropriate?

00:33:55.000 Like, there are a bunch of people who just were kicked out of their homes, out of their living quarters, kicked out of the country.

00:34:01.000 Shouldn't he at some point say, uh, that's bad?

00:34:03.000 Like, I'm sorry, they're saving us a lot of money.

00:34:05.000 First of all, it's not even technically true.

00:34:06.000 And second of all, it's not even a good joke.

00:34:07.000 So I'm not sure what exactly he's trying to accomplish with all of that.

00:34:10.000 Okay, other things that I hate.

00:34:12.000 Kathleen Rice is a Democratic Congresswoman. 0.99

00:34:16.000 She's very angry because the NRA and Dana Lash have cut a series of ads.

00:34:20.000 The ads are very kind of tough in tone and tenor.

00:34:25.000 They're not my favorite ads.

00:34:26.000 I love Dana.

00:34:26.000 Dana's wonderful.

00:34:27.000 I don't think this is the best use of Dana.

00:34:30.000 I think Dana's a wonderfully charming person.

00:34:33.000 A very warm and inviting personality.

00:34:35.000 And I think the ads have become very kind of growly.

00:34:38.000 So they're not my favorite thing in the world, but this is insane, okay?

00:34:41.000 So Kathleen Rice is a Democratic representative. 0.96

00:34:42.000 She says, I'm just gonna say it.

00:34:44.000 Okay, first of all, on Twitter, and in life, whenever you say, I'm just gonna say it, it's usually followed by something you really should have thought more about saying, right?

00:34:52.000 She says, I'm just gonna say it.

00:34:53.000 NRA and Dana Lash are quickly becoming domestic security threats under President Trump.

00:34:58.000 We can't ignore that.

00:34:59.000 Domestic security threats? 0.99

00:35:01.000 Are you crazy? 0.98

00:35:03.000 I mean, the answer is yes. 1.00

00:35:04.000 You are crazy. 0.99

00:35:04.000 I mean, that's a crazy statement. 0.99

00:35:06.000 Domestic security threats.

00:35:06.000 Your domestic security threat, when you suggest that Americans ought to be armed in case of violence, that Americans ought to be armed in order to protect themselves from home invasion, exercising their Second Amendment rights, that's what the NRA is for.

00:35:18.000 And when Dana Lash points out that it's a threatening world out there, they're a domestic security threat?

00:35:23.000 No wonder Republicans say the Democrats are fascists when they issue stuff like this.

00:35:27.000 Once you label someone a domestic security threat, that leads to a justification for shutting them down. 0.94

00:35:32.000 That's utterly, utterly nuts.

00:35:34.000 Okay, final thing that I hate, and then we'll do some mailback. 0.99

00:35:36.000 So, final thing that I hate here is ABC's chief political analyst, a guy named Matthew Dowd, he tweets out dumb stuff about religion all the time. 0.62

00:35:42.000 He used to be a Bush 2004 campaign chief strategist.

00:35:46.000 About a month ago, he tweeted out that he was Catholic, and he said, being Christian is a state of being.

00:35:50.000 Practicing Louvre, some of the most Christian folks I know in life are atheists. 0.71

00:35:54.000 And every Christian went, wait, wait, wait, hold up a second, just what? 0.91

00:35:57.000 Like, being a nice person and being a Christian are not identical, right? 1.00

00:36:00.000 They're not quite the same thing.

00:36:02.000 Some of the most Christian people that he knows are not atheists, because, like, I'm a very nice person to my employees, despite me making fun of them a lot.

00:36:11.000 I'm a very nice guy with my family.

00:36:12.000 I'm generally a nice person who tries to go out of my way for others.

00:36:15.000 I am not a Christian, I am a Jew, right?

00:36:16.000 I mean, like, there's a certain set of beliefs you have to engage in.

00:36:19.000 Okay, that wasn't even the worst.

00:36:20.000 So yesterday he tweets out, quote, No.

00:36:31.000 Okay, if I see a guy in the park shouting, Jesus saves, and he just runs into the park holding a briefcase, and he shouts, Jesus saves!

00:36:39.000 I think to myself, okay, you know what?

00:36:40.000 I'm gonna, like, probably, you know, like, shy away from him, but I'm not really that afraid that maybe he's going to blow himself up.

00:36:47.000 However, if he runs into the park carrying a briefcase and he shouts Allahu Akbar, then my reaction will be slightly different.

00:36:53.000 And that's for a reason. 0.98

00:36:54.000 That's because the vast majority of bombings worldwide, the vast majority of terrorist bombings worldwide are being carried out by radical Muslim fundamentalists. 0.98

00:37:03.000 Okay, tens of thousands of people dead every year thanks to radical Muslim fundamentalism. 1.00

00:37:07.000 24% of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal, unerrant word of God.

00:37:11.000 And there's another 47 who believe that it's inspired by God.

00:37:14.000 So, the vast majority of Americans are at least religious to that extent, and a quarter of Americans are religious fundamentalists, according to Matthew Dowd, and yet we don't see Christians going around and raiding gangs, raping and looting and blowing people up. 0.99

00:37:29.000 But this is the stupidity of the media that's looking for moral equivalence wherever it can find it. 0.99

00:37:32.000 Okay, so, let's do some of the mailbag now. 1.00

00:37:35.000 Alright, Dean says, Ben, quick, top 5 Halloween October movies, go.

00:37:40.000 Okay, so,

00:37:42.000 I have to admit, I am not a scary movie fan.

00:37:45.000 Scary movies are not my thing.

00:37:47.000 They tend to be kind of off-putting to me.

00:37:50.000 If I were forced into it, I would say The Shining is in my top five.

00:37:59.000 I'm not a huge psycho fan.

00:38:00.000 The reason being that the first two-thirds of it is great, and then the ending is so weird.

00:38:04.000 Like, the last ten minutes of it is so meh.

00:38:08.000 I'm having a hard time coming up with movies that I think are really scary, that are good, that are not sci-fi.

00:38:15.000 Like, for example, I really like 10 Cloverfield Lane, but I don't think that counts as a horror movie, even though maybe it should.

00:38:19.000 It's sort of a quasi-horror film.

00:38:22.000 I like lock-box movies, the ones where it's like

00:38:24.000 Two people in an enclosed space and they sort of have to deal with it, but that's not my favorite thing.

00:38:29.000 So instead of answering your question, I'm gonna answer a question I'm making up on my own because it occurred on Twitter yesterday, and that was top five action movies.

00:38:35.000 So I separate action from adventure, which is why my list is a little bit different from other people's lists.

00:38:41.000 So I don't include movies like Indiana Jones in my top five action movies because it's more of an adventure movie.

00:38:46.000 Adventure to me is characterized by going to

00:38:49.000 I know a lot of people disagree with this.

00:38:51.000 There are some other action movies that I think are close up on the list.

00:39:16.000 Particularly, like, some people put Gladiator.

00:39:18.000 Gladiator's not an action movie to me.

00:39:20.000 It's a historical epic.

00:39:21.000 It's not really as much of an action film.

00:39:23.000 For me, if no one fires an automatic weapon at any point in the film, then it's probably not an action movie, unless there are a bunch of great action set pieces, like a train trying to run you over, like in The Fugitive.

00:39:34.000 It's amazing how The Fugitive has sort of been forgotten, but it's so eminently watchable.

00:39:37.000 If you're flipping around TV and The Fugitive is on, then the chances are that you're going to end up watching at least 15 minutes of it.

00:39:43.000 But Die Hard, obviously top of the list.

00:39:45.000 Die Hard is just an amazingly good film.

00:39:46.000 The script is so good.

00:39:48.000 The key to a great film, period, is that the villain has to be fantastic.

00:39:51.000 And each one of these films, the villain is really good, or at least the situation is really compelling.

00:39:57.000 So Die Hard, the villain is one of the greatest villains in film history.

00:40:00.000 Hans Gruber is one of the best villains ever.

00:40:02.000 Terminator 2, Robert Patrick playing the kind of puddle...

00:40:07.000 Of metal that can morph into the T-1000.

00:40:10.000 It's just, it's spectacular.

00:40:12.000 The Fugitive is a great performer.

00:40:15.000 I mean, Tommy Lee Jones won Best Supporting Actor Oscar for it.

00:40:17.000 Born Identity has some of the great action scenes in film history.

00:40:20.000 And Taken, I love Taken, I gotta admit.

00:40:22.000 I think Taken is an amazing action film.

00:40:25.000 Taken is, it's become so iconic that now everybody is, that now everybody is, you know, makes up lines from it.

00:40:34.000 You know, the

00:40:35.000 I have a particular set of skills.

00:40:37.000 Yes.

00:40:57.000 What if they made Leonardo DiCaprio, like his father, like reverse the casting?

00:41:02.000 And Liam Neeson, young Liam Neeson versus Daniel Day-Lewis for the rest of that film?

00:41:05.000 So much better.

00:41:06.000 Like Liam Neeson just makes stuff better.

00:41:08.000 Darkman is not a good movie, but it's a good movie because Liam Neeson is in it.

00:41:12.000 It's- Liam Neeson is awesome.

00:41:14.000 They have to stop killing him in the first 10 minutes of every film.

00:41:17.000 There's like a thousand films where Liam Neeson gets killed in the first 15 minutes. 1.00

00:41:19.000 It's stupid! 1.00

00:41:20.000 Stop doing that, people! 1.00

00:41:21.000 It's annoying.

00:41:22.000 Like, even in silence.

00:41:23.000 He's the best thing in silence.

00:41:24.000 He's in silence for like 10 minutes.

00:41:26.000 And it's fantastic.

00:41:27.000 By the way, good movie silence.

00:41:28.000 I actually- I think it's the best Scorsese film in silence.

00:41:30.000 Okay.

00:41:31.000 Um, Eric says, Hey Ben, how much can you bench?

00:41:34.000 So, I am, I know this sounds geeky, I'm more of a CrossFit guy than a bench press guy because I'm not looking to gain bulk.

00:41:41.000 I'm long and lean.

00:41:42.000 I'm just a massive, coiled tension and muscle.

00:41:46.000 The last time I tried to do any sort of benching, I think I topped out around like 215.

00:41:51.000 Um, so, not huge amounts of weight, but I, I benched it, I think, six times?

00:41:57.000 So, I don't know what my top, my top bench is, but I'm not like a, I'm not a bodybuilder or weightlifter.

00:42:02.000 Um, I can say that I can pump out a hundred push-ups pretty easily.

00:42:06.000 I can pump out thirty pull-ups pretty easily.

00:42:08.000 Um, you know, the, all, all the sort of active stuff that, that I'm, that I flip lots of tires and hit things with, with hammers and such.

00:42:15.000 Hey Ben, what is a good non-religious argument against issues like euthanasia and assisted suicide?

00:42:19.000 Thanks.

00:42:32.000 I've told people, this is an issue where I am split, when it comes to the legality of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

00:42:39.000 What I have a problem with, with regards to euthanasia and assisted suicide, is making doctors into modes of death dispensation.

00:42:46.000 Where do you draw the line?

00:42:47.000 Right, so some people say, okay, well, for terminal patients, euthanasia.

00:42:50.000 That's the strongest case.

00:42:52.000 But just like abortion, that's like using rape and incest to justify the whole thing.

00:42:55.000 What about somebody who just has depression?

00:42:57.000 Right now, I think the statistics are like 1 in 200 people in the Netherlands is put to death through euthanasia.

00:43:03.000 I don't want doctors to be trained in death.

00:43:06.000 You actually get a market for that then, right?

00:43:08.000 You get a market in doctors who dispense death at the lowest available prescription rate.

00:43:12.000 And I think that a society that forwards dealing in death is likely to start taking life less seriously.

00:43:21.000 Plus you could have a lot of malfeasance.

00:43:22.000 I mean, you could see a situation in which family members are pressuring an older member of the family to just get it over with so that they can take the inheritance.

00:43:30.000 Or somebody has Alzheimer's and the family just decides, okay, put them out of their misery.

00:43:34.000 I think it's a bit of a slippery slope, euthanasia.

00:43:36.000 That's the secular argument.

00:43:38.000 Dakota says,

00:43:40.000 Does the Bill of Rights apply to the state?

00:43:41.000 If so, are any of California's new gun laws in violation of the Second Amendment?

00:43:44.000 So, great question.

00:43:45.000 The Bill of Rights originally did not apply to the states.

00:43:47.000 It is only about the federal government because it is a federal document.

00:43:50.000 Over the course of time, the Supreme Court gradually did what they called the Incorporation Doctrine, where in order to apply a lot of the elements of the Constitution to southern states, particularly, that were violating those provisions of the Constitution with regard to their black population,

00:44:06.000 The Supreme Court started using the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Due Process Clause, to try and suggest that states were bound by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause to enforce all of the other elements of the Constitution.

00:44:20.000 That seems bad constitutional law to me.

00:44:21.000 The First Amendment actually does not apply.

00:44:23.000 I mean, the wording of the First Amendment obviously doesn't apply to the states, right?

00:44:26.000 It says, Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.

00:44:30.000 Congress.

00:44:31.000 Congress is a federal institution.

00:44:32.000 I don't know how you apply that to the states, but now that it's been legally applied to the states, it applies.

00:44:37.000 So, if you were to apply the Second Amendment to the people of California, then yes, California's gun laws almost universally violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

00:44:47.000 Tyler says,

00:44:49.000 Do you think legalizing medical marijuana on the federal level would help combat the opioid epidemic?

00:44:53.000 Also, do you think Big Pharma would lobby against this?

00:44:56.000 So, Tyler, I haven't seen evidence that marijuana presence in particular states has lowered effects of the opioid epidemic.

00:45:02.000 So, if you could show me evidence of that, then I'd be all in favor of that.

00:45:05.000 I'm in favor of legalizing marijuana on the federal level anyway, because I don't think that the federal government has done a good job of policing it.

00:45:14.000 With that said, I think that it is worth noting that the high apparently that you get from marijuana is not even close to the high that you get from opioids.

00:45:21.000 And opioids are significantly more addictive.

00:45:23.000 The evidence on marijuana addictiveness is mixed at best.

00:45:26.000 The evidence on opioid addictiveness is extraordinarily strong.

00:45:29.000 Maybe next week we'll talk a little bit more about President Trump's decision to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency.

00:45:36.000 I'm not sure what the federal government can do here.

00:45:38.000 The bottom line with the opioid epidemic is it sprang from two particular sources.

00:45:42.000 Influx of heroin from down south across the Mexican border to the over prescription of drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin that started in the in the 1990s and 2000s and so people would have an injury and then they would go get Oxycontin.

00:45:57.000 They'd be basically using what is a soft form of heroin and then they would go out and seek a further high.

00:46:03.000 Actually one of the things the federal government did was exacerbate this because people who are on Medicaid could go get a

00:46:08.000 Callie says,

00:46:36.000 If you were to ask a question for the mailbag, what would it be?

00:46:39.000 Well, it would be, Ben, why don't they double your salary?

00:46:42.000 That would probably be, and my answer would be, I don't know, I'm the boss, I should do that, shouldn't I?

00:46:46.000 Tyler says, hey Ben, I don't like sports, I don't drink, I'm 22, how on earth am I supposed to have a social life?

00:46:51.000 I find it hard to have friends when most of my peers have totally different priorities.

00:46:55.000 I'm generally a social guy and by no means an introvert, but I have almost no interest in what most people my age care about.

00:47:00.000 I imagine this is a rather common problem with young conservatives.

00:47:02.000 How would you advise people like me deal with this dilemma?

00:47:04.000 So, you know, I think that, listen, when I was in college, I was not the world's most social animal.

00:47:09.000 When I was in law school, I also don't drink.

00:47:13.000 Not out of principle, because I'll have a drink every so often, but because I have some bad acid reflux, so it doesn't do, it does a job on me.

00:47:20.000 But,

00:47:22.000 I do like sports, I can talk about that, but I think that America's a huge place with lots of people with varying interests.

00:47:28.000 Obviously, we have a huge audience here at The Ben Shapiro Show, and that means there are lots of people who think like you, if you listen to the show, and want to talk about issues like this because they spend time every day listening to this content.

00:47:38.000 If you're interested in politics, politics is a conversation starter, and you should be able to find people who are willing to talk about deep issues.

00:47:44.000 By the way, when you're dating, that is the stuff that you should talk about, are the deep issues.

00:47:48.000 My wife, I've said this before, our first date was legitimately a three-hour conversation about free will and determinism.

00:47:55.000 Not joking.

00:47:56.000 We've been married now for almost ten years, we have two beautiful children, and we are an extraordinarily happy couple.

00:48:01.000 Jackson says,

00:48:03.000 Does the Jewish faith teach that some sins are worse than others?

00:48:06.000 Also, does it teach that there are unforgivable sins?

00:48:07.000 So, Judaism says that some sins are more serious than others.

00:48:11.000 Obviously, there's a different level of punishment for different levels of sins.

00:48:14.000 Murder is a more serious crime than eating not kosher, for example.

00:48:18.000 And I think any religion that suggests that all sins are equally as egregious is not a religion worth listening to because obviously that's not true.

00:48:26.000 Judaism does say that you can't impute to God your own justification for a particular sin.

00:48:31.000 So it's up to God to decide which ones are more severe.

00:48:33.000 But yes, there are levels of severity.

00:48:35.000 When it comes to sin, as evidenced by the different punishments.

00:48:37.000 Some you can bring a sacrifice for, some you die for, right?

00:48:40.000 As far as unforgivable sins, so I believe that they say the unforgivable sins in Judaism, and forgive me if I get this wrong, I'm sure other Orthodox Jews will write me if I do, but the unforgivable sins, in the sense that you must pay for them, are adultery, idolatry, and murder, I believe are the three biggies. 0.96

00:48:55.000 So if you do those three, any of those three, then those are essentially unforgivable.

00:49:00.000 Jackson says, what's your beef with Michael Knowles?

00:49:02.000 I don't have a beef with Michael Knowles.

00:49:04.000 My beef with Michael Knowles is, where is the beef?

00:49:06.000 I mean, that's my beef with Michael Knowles.

00:49:08.000 He wrote an empty book and sold 120,000 copies of it.

00:49:10.000 That's my beef with Michael Knowles.

00:49:11.000 I mean, come on.

00:49:13.000 Come on! 0.61

00:49:14.000 Okay, Chris says, Well, first of all, I mean, I think that you should just say that.

00:49:17.000 I think that you should say exactly what you say here.

00:49:25.000 You didn't wait for marriage.

00:49:26.000 You wish that you had.

00:49:28.000 You want to bring up your children so that they do that.

00:49:31.000 And I think repentance is a wonderful thing.

00:49:33.000 I think that you realizing that you made a mistake and that you wish you hadn't, that's okay.

00:49:38.000 You know, we all make mistakes in life.

00:49:39.000 You know, being honest about your past and suggesting that you've gotten beyond it is the best way for your potential spouse to know that you're capable of that sort of thing, which is really important.

00:49:48.000 No, I don't think that they've wasted their education at all.

00:49:50.000 I think that whatever choice you make to be at home with your kids is a good choice.

00:49:53.000 And the balance that you choose to make between career and being at home

00:50:07.000 Is your choice.

00:50:07.000 I think that, you know, women who choose not to be at home with their kids at all have a serious problem.

00:50:11.000 It's why, one of the reasons my wife is working the way she's working is because she's hoping that when she's done, she's able to create a much better work-life balance than if she didn't go through a couple of years of poop to get to the roses. 0.99

00:50:22.000 And as my grandmother used to say, sometimes you have to walk through the poop to get to the roses, the manure to get to the roses.

00:50:27.000 And I think that that's what a lot of, you know, the educational process is all about.

00:50:31.000 But no, I think that, you know, stay-at-home moms are doing something that is 0.55

00:50:34.000 Is vital.

00:50:35.000 I mean, you can see that there's been a tremendous impact on children who don't have parents around as much, thanks to things like divorce.

00:50:42.000 This is not a rip on working women, but everybody has to balance out how much time is necessary with your kids and how much time is necessary in the workplace. 1.00

00:50:49.000 And this idea that you can have it all.

00:50:51.000 No, you can't have it all.

00:50:53.000 You can have a lot of most things, and this is not a case against women in the workplace either. 0.98

00:50:56.000 Okay, a couple more questions and then we'll go.

00:51:00.000 Callie says, with Google and the memo being a hot topic in the news this week, I was wondering what is your belief the role should or should not play if a business is discriminating in hiring and or paying employees?

00:51:08.000 My belief is that the government should pay no role in this because if a business discriminates in hiring, then they are losing money because the idea is of discrimination inherently is that you're going to avoid hiring the best person for a particular job.

00:51:20.000 And you're going to hire instead somebody else, which means somebody else is going to hire the best person to make more money than you, and if you don't pay employees that well, then you're going to be able to, then that person can go across the street.

00:51:30.000 Free markets tend to get rid of discrimination, not for everybody, but over the course of time.

00:51:36.000 I'm going to try and read this backwards.

00:51:39.000 Oh no, that's it?

00:51:40.000 Okay, so Mathis is going to fix this because otherwise I'm literally reading an email live backwards and upside down.

00:51:50.000 Okay, it's loading.

00:51:51.000 There we go.

00:51:51.000 Bunbury.

00:51:52.000 You're fond of saying students shouldn't sacrifice their grades to make their argument for conservatism.

00:51:56.000 After the Google memo, it's clear you're not even safe after school.

00:51:58.000 What can we do?

00:51:59.000 Well, again, I think that there is something to be said for the Google memo guy, who we had on yesterday, just in the sense that he has now raised the consciousness of the country with regard to the sort of discrimination that's happening at Google.

00:52:12.000 So, that's a calculated decision.

00:52:14.000 You have to decide whether you think you're going to do the most good by fighting the power where you stand, or by, you know, staying in the closet as conservative until you have more power.

00:52:22.000 And I think that that changes situation by situation, but I don't think that it's worthwhile always granting a baton to the bad guys in order to make a point, because sometimes that point does not go over or is worthless.

00:52:32.000 Okay, so, we'll be back here next week with all of the latest news.

00:52:36.000 Thanks so much for everything that you do for the show.

00:52:38.000 We really appreciate it.

00:52:39.000 Again, we are the number two podcast in America after Oprah, and if we continue to grow, then we will overtake Oprah, Oprah Delenda-esque, and we will eventually take that top slot on iTunes, which would be pretty awesome.

00:52:52.000 So, we will see you next week.

00:52:54.000 Have a wonderful weekend.

00:52:54.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:52:55.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - August 11, 2017

Democrats vs. Trump vs. North Korea | Ep. 360

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