The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 105 - The Case For Handing Donald Trump The Nomination

00:00:00.000 Folks, we finally made it to a Thursday, but well, yesterday, on Wednesday, the leftist media discovered that Ted Cruz, when he was Solicitor General of Texas, argued against the notion that there is a constitutional right to masturbation. 0.88

00:00:13.000 Seriously.

00:00:14.000 This troubles them greatly, because this is what they do in their spare time, but is there any substance to the actual complaint?

00:00:21.000 Not if you know how to read, or if you've ever read the Constitution.

00:00:24.000 In 2004, distributors of dildos in Texas attempted to challenge a state law outlawing sale and promotion of obscene devices, according to David Korn of Mother Jones.

00:00:34.000 They had a law in the books that said you can't publicly sell sex toys. 0.94

00:00:37.000 In my own personal view, and I would guess this is probably Cruz's view too, this is a silly law. 0.63

00:00:42.000 Silliness, however, does not mean something is unconstitutional. 0.96

00:00:46.000 There are lots of silly laws, including laws that say, for example, that biological men should be allowed to go to pee in women's bathrooms. 0.89

00:00:53.000 Silliness is not a constitutional concern, it's a political one. 0.94

00:00:56.000 In other words, you don't want a bad law, don't elect bad politicians. 0.99

00:00:59.000 The Constitution doesn't have anything to say about stupid laws. 0.98

00:01:02.000 Well, the plaintiffs in this particular case, they claimed that the law violated their constitutional right to privacy. 0.96

00:01:09.000 It's a right that doesn't exist in the Constitution.

00:01:11.000 It certainly does not govern public sale of marketable goods.

00:01:14.000 There is no constitutional right to pleasure yourself, okay?

00:01:18.000 It wasn't in there, and it's not there for a reason.

00:01:20.000 A federal judge ruled for Texas, saying there was no federal constitutional right to buying products to help you pleasure yourself.

00:01:28.000 This case was then appealed to a panel of the Fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General's office, Cruz's office, argued the state has the power, it's called police power,

00:01:35.000 This is, of course, true on just a factual level, as again, we can note the Constitution.

00:01:38.000 It's not in the Bill of Rights.

00:01:40.000 There's nothing in the Bill of Rights that mentions touching yourself, right?

00:01:43.000 It's not high priority for James Madison and company.

00:01:46.000 Again,

00:02:00.000 Doesn't make the law right. 0.99

00:02:01.000 Doesn't mean the law ain't stupid. 0.87

00:02:02.000 But it certainly is not in conflict with the federal constitution of the United States.

00:02:07.000 Not only do such laws not violate the quote-unquote substantive due process clause, substantive due process doesn't even exist. 0.96

00:02:13.000 It's legal idiocy coined by the left to push for its favorite things. 0.98

00:02:16.000 The left can't point to where the constitution protects sex toy sales for masturbation, but they want it to be there, so it must be. 1.00

00:02:24.000 Dammit. 0.99

00:02:25.000 And for freedom of association and religion and freedom of speech, that stuff's kind of bothersome, so we'll just kind of like ignore that. 1.00

00:02:30.000 Really, the Constitution was deeply focused on whether or not somebody could sell sex toys.

00:02:35.000 In the end, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

00:02:38.000 They said that the right to privacy extended to buying products to enhance intimacy.

00:02:42.000 Cruz's office decided not to appeal the case.

00:02:44.000 This means that Cruz is a prude rather than a lawyer tasked with fighting on behalf of the people of the state who voted for the law.

00:02:52.000 That's at least according to the left. 1.00

00:02:53.000 According to noted legal scholar David Corn, this means he's a constitutional idiot to boot, which leads to a question. 0.99

00:02:58.000 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Cruz. 0.99

00:03:00.000 The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld pretty much the exact same law in Alabama the year before.

00:03:05.000 There, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found, quote,

00:03:08.000 If we were to accept the invitation to recognize a constitutional right to sexual intimacy, this right would theoretically encompass such activities as prostitution, obscenity, and adult incest, even if we were to limit the right to consenting adults.

00:03:22.000 Right?

00:03:22.000 The idea is that if you had a constitutional right to have sex however you please, you could never have laws against incest.

00:03:27.000 This is true.

00:03:28.000 This is actually the road where we find ourselves after the Obergefell decision with Justice Kennedy.

00:03:33.000 The left believes there is a constitutional right to everything they like, and a mandate against everything they don't.

00:03:39.000 The Constitution, however, disagrees.

00:03:41.000 But never mind the legal niceties. 0.78

00:03:43.000 Cruz must be a prude. 0.95

00:03:44.000 He must be a prude because the left wants him to be a prude. 0.90

00:03:47.000 He's just a constitutional lawyer, but he must be a prude because he's a Republican, and Republicans are prudes, and therefore any Republican who stands up for the Constitution. 0.61

00:03:56.000 is approved.

00:03:57.000 Or perhaps the left just doesn't care about the Constitution.

00:03:59.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:04:08.000 So, speaking of the Constitution, if you don't know or if you want to know why it is that Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, virtually all the candidates don't know or care about the powers of the Presidency under the Constitution, why they keep saying over and over that the President can do anything he wants, he's some sort of God-King monarch,

00:04:25.000 If you want to know about that, you need to go to our friends at Hillsdale College.

00:04:27.000 They have a new course, Presidency and the Constitution.

00:04:30.000 It's free, and you can go there and register.

00:04:33.000 Hillsdale.edu slash Ben.

00:04:34.000 Hillsdale College is one of the best colleges in America.

00:04:37.000 A great place to send your kid.

00:04:38.000 Also a great place for you to educate yourself about the principles that matter.

00:04:42.000 Presidency and the Constitution is the name of their new course.

00:04:44.000 Go there.

00:04:45.000 Hillsdale.edu slash Ben.

00:04:47.000 You won't regret it.

00:04:48.000 It's really terrific.

00:04:49.000 Okay.

00:04:50.000 A lot to get to here today on The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:04:52.000 I mean, a lot to get to, and I know our producers are already groaning knowing how much time I'm going to exceed our mandate, but tough. 0.91

00:04:59.000 I'm here and the camera's running, so you're screwed.

00:05:02.000 All right, so let's start today with the fact that Donald Trump's knowledge of the Bible could fit inside a thimble. 0.95

00:05:07.000 So Donald Trump

00:05:09.000 is um he was asked you know he has said before that he doesn't know what his favorite biblical phrases or he said at least it was too private it was too private you remember he was asked his favorite biblical verse and he says you know that's that's a private thing that you tell me that you're asking me about it's a private frankly frankly it's unbelievable how private it is so yesterday so yesterday he was asked by a radio host the same question what's your favorite biblical verse what's your favorite biblical passage and donald trump proceeds to do what he does best which is

00:05:37.000 I wrote with great documentation for the Daily Caller, which is not... Well, I think many.

00:05:42.000 I mean, you know, when we get into the Bible, I think many.

00:05:44.000 So many.

00:06:01.000 Tell people to hook an eye for an eye, you can almost say that.

00:06:03.000 That's not a particularly nice thing, but you know, if you look at what's happening to our country, I mean, when you see what's going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us, and they laugh at our face, and they're taking our jobs, they're taking our money, they're taking our, you know, they're taking the health of our country, and we have to be very firm, and we have to be very strong, and we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.

00:06:28.000 Frankly, you can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.

00:06:31.000 I have never learned anything from the Bible, clearly, but you can learn so many things that frankly, I'll tell you, believe me, I know the Bible.

00:06:37.000 Believe me, it's huge.

00:06:39.000 I study it bigly.

00:06:40.000 It's huge.

00:06:40.000 Okay, so there are a couple things wrong with what Donald Trump says here.

00:06:44.000 First of all, the dude's a pagan. 0.61

00:06:45.000 Okay, so let's take the actual verse he's talking about.

00:06:48.000 Let's actually look at the verse.

00:06:49.000 So I don't put on my Orthodox Jew Bible analysis hat.

00:06:54.000 Particularly often, because it's not usually relevant to what we're talking about.

00:06:58.000 Here, it's highly relevant to what we're talking about because Donald Trump, biblical scholar, is on the order of OJ Simpson, marital relationship therapist.

00:07:06.000 Okay, Donald Trump knows less about the Bible than my two-and-a-half-year-old child.

00:07:10.000 And it is not close.

00:07:11.000 It is not close.

00:07:12.000 She can at least recite certain things in Hebrew.

00:07:14.000 Okay, Donald Trump, when he says this, he says an eye for an eye, right?

00:07:17.000 So, for people who are atheists, for people who don't know biblical scholarship, they think an eye for an eye means, literally, that if I hit you in the eye and I knock out your eye, you now have a right under biblical law to hit me in the eye and knock out my eye.

00:07:31.000 Clearly, this is what Trump thinks, right?

00:07:32.000 Trump says that. 0.98

00:07:33.000 He says, if you look at what's happening to our country, if you look, they laugh at us, they laugh at us, so we should laugh at them and we should hit them. 0.81

00:07:39.000 So, he doesn't know anything.

00:07:41.000 First of all, his favorite part of this verse is actually not the eye for an eye.

00:07:44.000 It's a hand for a tiny, malformed hand with sausage fingers.

00:07:47.000 But, the eye for an eye language is mentioned twice in the Bible.

00:07:51.000 For people who care about this sort of thing. 1.00

00:07:52.000 And I think everyone should now care because it shows that Trump is both an ignoramus and a liar. 1.00

00:07:56.000 And a bully, by the way, because of the way he interprets this. 1.00

00:07:58.000 So.

00:07:59.000 There are three major religions that use eye-for-an-eye language.

00:08:02.000 There are three major religions that use eye-for-an-eye language.

00:08:05.000 There's Judaism, there's Christianity, there's Islam.

00:08:07.000 Right?

00:08:07.000 The three of them all use eye-for-an-eye language.

00:08:09.000 Exodus 21 says, quote, Which presumably means that Michelle Fields can go and bruise Corey Lewandowski. 1.00

00:08:13.000 But in any case, it says all of these things.

00:08:26.000 And then it says in Leviticus 24, if anyone injures his neighbor as he has done, it shall be done to him.

00:08:31.000 Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.

00:08:36.000 So Trump takes this literally.

00:08:38.000 No Bible-believing Jew ever has taken this literally, ever in the history of Judaism.

00:08:42.000 The Talmud explicitly talks about this.

00:08:44.000 This is relegated, and it appears in the section of the Bible that talks about monetary damages.

00:08:49.000 So the idea is, when it says an eye for an eye, if I knock out your eye, you then take me to court, and you sue me for the value of my eye.

00:08:57.000 Meaning how much that has damaged me in my life, how much it's damaged me in business, how much it's damaged me in my personal life, and you have to pay me for that.

00:09:03.000 It's about monetary compensation.

00:09:05.000 It has always been about monetary compensation in Judaism.

00:09:09.000 Maimonides says this, the Talmud says this, this has been true for literally three and a half thousand years.

00:09:14.000 Okay, there's no- just a fact.

00:09:16.000 Okay, Christianity goes further. 0.72

00:09:18.000 Right, Sermon on the Mount.

00:09:19.000 Okay, this is in my religion and I know it better than Trump.

00:09:22.000 Okay, Matthew 5 specifically says, you have heard that it was said, quote, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

00:09:28.000 But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

00:09:34.000 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

00:09:38.000 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

00:09:41.000 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. 0.94

00:09:44.000 So, Trump not only rejects the basis of Judaism, right, the legal nature of Judaism, he also rejects what I understand to be, for my Christian friends, the actual ultimate basis of Christianity, which is mercy, right?

00:09:57.000 I mean, that's the idea of Christianity.

00:09:59.000 As a Jew reading the Christian text, I think there's a second way to read that Christian text, which is that it's actually what we would call in Judaism, Mussar.

00:10:05.000 It's sort of a

00:10:07.000 It's a buck-up message, meaning that there's a legal system that says that if you get hit in the eye, you still take the guy to court, but in your personal life, don't take revenge.

00:10:14.000 Revenge isn't the thing to do, right?

00:10:16.000 This is the general idea of the Christian text.

00:10:19.000 You'll notice that in both Judaism and Christianity, nowhere does it say an eye for an eye is to be taken literally.

00:10:24.000 There is one religion.

00:10:25.000 There is one religion where an eye for an eye is actually taken literally.

00:10:30.000 That religion is Islam, okay? 0.94

00:10:31.000 In radical Islam, an eye for an eye is actually taken literally.

00:10:34.000 And they actually implement it.

00:10:36.000 In Iran in 2008, this is a report from the BBC, Iran 2008, a court in Iran has ruled that a man who blinded a woman with acid after she spurned his marriage proposals will also be blinded with acid.

00:10:48.000 So, Donald Trump, you know, the guy who wants to boot all the Muslims and make sure they don't come in? 0.91

00:11:00.000 His biblical interpretation is a lot closer to Islam's interpretation than Judaism's or Christianity's.

00:11:05.000 This points out two things.

00:11:06.000 One, Trump doesn't care about the Bible.

00:11:08.000 Like, really doesn't care about the Bible.

00:11:10.000 He has his principles, and then he fits the Bible into his principles, which is the nature of paganism.

00:11:15.000 Paganism is, I take whatever text is available to me, I would take whatever my worship of God is, and I fit it into this box that I like to call God.

00:11:22.000 God is supposed to comply.

00:11:24.000 With my wishes for the universe, not the other way around.

00:11:27.000 It's not my idea that I have to fulfill God's principles.

00:11:30.000 God fulfills my principles.

00:11:31.000 So Trump already feels this way.

00:11:32.000 He already feels like, I only hit back.

00:11:34.000 That's all I do.

00:11:34.000 Frankly, all I do is hit back.

00:11:36.000 All I do is hit back.

00:11:39.000 When Trump does that routine, he then tries to fit the Bible in there because he doesn't know anything about the Bible.

00:11:44.000 So that's point number one about Trump.

00:11:45.000 Point number two is that he's really bad at pandering, but people are following him anyway.

00:11:49.000 But he's not the only one. 1.00

00:11:51.000 So today we're doing this episode is essentially biblical analysis with idiot Republicans. 1.00

00:11:56.000 So I don't even have to get to Democrats. 1.00

00:11:58.000 They also pretend to like the Bible, but the truth is they would rather use it as toilet paper than follow it.

00:12:02.000 John Kasich also pretends to be a Bible lover. 0.99

00:12:05.000 This is ridiculous. 0.97

00:12:07.000 Okay, so here he is. 0.93

00:12:08.000 He is in Crown Heights, New York.

00:12:09.000 Which is a very Jewish area.

00:12:11.000 As you can see, if you're watching the tape, everybody he is surrounded by, these are Orthodox Jews, right?

00:12:16.000 These are people wearing black hats, with beards.

00:12:19.000 He's in a Hasidic neighborhood.

00:12:20.000 Obviously, you can see from the earlocks, the payas that come down around their ears.

00:12:24.000 Everybody's wearing a yarmulke.

00:12:25.000 Okay, these people actually spend their lives studying the Bible.

00:12:28.000 This is what they do, right?

00:12:30.000 In these communities, you actually spend like 10 hours a day studying the Bible and the Talmud and all the texts.

00:12:35.000 John Kasich comes in and begins lecturing them about the Bible, and he doesn't know anything.

00:12:42.000 It's pretty amazing.

00:12:42.000 Here we go.

00:12:43.000 John.

00:12:43.000 You guys like Joseph?

00:12:45.000 You studied Joseph?

00:12:46.000 Yeah.

00:12:47.000 What'd you think about Joseph?

00:12:48.000 Did you hear what the most important thing Joseph said to his brothers?

00:12:54.000 My brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

00:12:59.000 Did you know that?

00:13:00.000 Yes.

00:13:01.000 What am I gonna have to go over?

00:13:03.000 What is going on here?

00:13:06.000 No, do you know this?

00:13:08.000 Yes.

00:13:09.000 Because his brothers, they hated him, you know, because part of it, he may have been a little bit of a bragger, you know, Joseph.

00:13:15.000 May have been a little bit, maybe.

00:13:18.000 But they threw him in that ditch and his brothers saved him and then they sold him into slavery.

00:13:24.000 And that's how the Jews got to Egypt, right? 0.89

00:13:26.000 Did you know that?

00:13:28.000 Yes.

00:13:28.000 Did you know that?

00:13:29.000 Yeah, but then he was telling his brothers, you know, like, you're going to worship me, you know?

00:13:38.000 And they're like, what?

00:13:40.000 Right?

00:13:41.000 So he really didn't like them.

00:13:48.000 He didn't want to say that.

00:13:49.000 You think Jacob knew that?

00:13:50.000 It said that.

00:13:51.000 Jacob really knew.

00:13:52.000 Is that in the scripture?

00:13:54.000 He didn't want to develop further jealousy.

00:13:57.000 So he said, my wife and I were going to bow down to you.

00:14:02.000 He really knew that.

00:14:05.000 Okay, so this continues along.

00:14:07.000 Okay, this is great.

00:14:08.000 John Kasich, so first of all,

00:14:10.000 Yeah.

00:14:11.000 Yeah, I have.

00:14:31.000 And he's like, but have you ever heard of this thing called, have you ever heard of water and how like if you put two drops of water close to each other they attract and then they become one?

00:14:42.000 And Albert Einstein's like, yeah, I have.

00:14:44.000 I know about that.

00:14:46.000 And that's what that clip is.

00:14:48.000 He's explaining to them, like, basic biblical verse that Jews know.

00:14:53.000 I'm sorry to break it to all you Christians. 0.99

00:14:55.000 Orthodox Jews, we're really into the Old Testament.

00:14:57.000 Like, we're into it in a big way.

00:14:59.000 Like, once a year we go through the entire Bible.

00:15:02.000 Every week at the end of the week, we go through a major portion of the Bible.

00:15:05.000 Not only do the people he's talking to know what Joseph said, they know all the commentaries on what Joseph said, and they know it in the original Hebrew, and he's standing there in their bookstore, surrounded by books about this!

00:15:14.000 Surrounded by books about this!

00:15:15.000 And he's going, well, have you ever heard of this book called the Bible?

00:15:18.000 I like it.

00:15:19.000 It's pretty good.

00:15:20.000 Have you ever heard of this guy called God?

00:15:22.000 Pretty excellent.

00:15:24.000 The level of arrogance that it takes to do this is just astounding.

00:15:28.000 But this is the level of arrogance of some of our presidential candidates.

00:15:31.000 And it is somewhat telling.

00:15:33.000 John Kasich trying to browbeat people into compliance with... This is the same guy, by the way, who says that this Orthodox bookstore should have to, presumably, hand out a ketubah, hand out a marital document for two gay guys. 0.73

00:15:45.000 They should have to do that, according to John Kasich. 1.00

00:15:48.000 Biblical criticism with idiot Republicans. 1.00

00:15:52.000 I was wondering how we could go downhill in this election, and we found a way. 1.00

00:15:56.000 We did.

00:15:57.000 You thought we couldn't surpass ourselves.

00:15:59.000 We did it.

00:16:00.000 Okay, so... Alright, so is it time for Reagan.com yet?

00:16:06.000 Fine, we'll do Reagan.com.

00:16:07.000 Okay, we'll say hello to our friends at Reagan.com really quickly. 0.97

00:16:09.000 So, Ronald Reagan was not a complete moron, unlike some of these other folks.

00:16:13.000 And if you like Ronald Reagan, and you think that Ronald Reagan was a good president, perhaps you'd like Reagan to be associated with your emails. 0.88

00:16:19.000 You can get an email address that is YourNameAtReagan.com by going to ReaganPrivacy.com.

00:16:24.000 You don't just get to use Reagan.com, of course, you also get your information protected from the government, protected from corporations.

00:16:30.000 All this is very cool stuff.

00:16:32.000 ReaganPrivacy.com, go there right now, you get two months for free.

00:16:35.000 YourNameAtReagan.com, so that's neat.

00:16:37.000 Okay, so, I say that we can't go downhill, and then we promptly go even further downhill.

00:16:41.000 So, today, or yesterday, Donald Trump was speaking in

00:16:46.000 He was speaking in Pennsylvania, and here's what he had to say to a Pittsburgh crowd about Joe Paterno, who was the, who was the, his clip won.

00:16:56.000 Here's what he had to say to Joe Paterno, about Joe Paterno, who was the, if you recall, the football coach at Penn State for 50 years, and who was also embroiled in a sex scandal when Jerry Sandusky, who was one of his defensive coaches, was molesting little boys in the shower room.

00:17:10.000 And Paterno heard about it and basically didn't do anything.

00:17:14.000 Here's Donald Trump talking about it.

00:17:16.000 How's Joe Paterno?

00:17:17.000 Are we gonna bring that back?

00:17:20.000 Well, he's dead.

00:17:20.000 How about that whole deal?

00:17:26.000 Wise words from Donald Trump.

00:17:28.000 How about Joe Paterno?

00:17:28.000 Are we bringing that back?

00:17:30.000 How about that whole deal?

00:17:31.000 He said later he meant the statue, because they took down the statue of Joe Paterno when it turned out he knew his coach was molesting little boys and didn't do enough about it.

00:17:38.000 And here's Trump saying, put it back up, put it back up.

00:17:41.000 Yeah, these are all solid people.

00:17:43.000 And unfortunately, there's now a consolidated movement to start gathering around Trump.

00:17:48.000 And you knew this was going to come.

00:17:49.000 You knew that there was going to come a point where people suggested that it was just too dangerous to stop Trump from getting the nomination.

00:17:55.000 Over at Fox News, this has been true for a while, there are a lot of very pro-Trump Fox News hosts ranging from Sean Hannity to Greta Van Susteren.

00:18:02.000 They're very, very pro-Donald Trump.

00:18:04.000 And Roger Ailes is apparently very pro-Donald Trump.

00:18:06.000 Roger Ailes brokered a meet between Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump

00:18:10.000 We're good to go.

00:18:34.000 This is a move, a consolidated move, by Republican higher-ups to now start unifying behind Trump in preparation for Hillary Clinton.

00:18:44.000 And this is not a great surprise.

00:18:47.000 I've thought for a while that there would be this move, that as it became clearer that Trump was the frontrunner, that there would be this move.

00:18:53.000 There's been a move simultaneously to go to Cruz to try and stop Trump, but that seems to be, at least I'm getting the feeling, that from at least the elites, it's petering out a little bit.

00:19:01.000 And that's for a reason.

00:19:03.000 Stephen Miller is one of the surrogates.

00:19:05.000 We quoted him yesterday.

00:19:06.000 Stephen Miller is one of the surrogates for Trump.

00:19:08.000 He's on TV, and he says that the only way the Cruz can win is by cheating, essentially.

00:19:12.000 But on the second point, which is the moral point, and I am going to make it, and I'm happy to make it, it is wrong to disenfranchise voters by going around the country, making secret deals with inside party officials, elected GOP officials, and saying, yeah, your GOP district, representing 750,000 people, supports Donald Trump.

00:19:33.000 ...and rejects Ted Cruz, but we want you to make a secret pact to nullify the vote and support Ted Cruz.

00:19:38.000 All I'm saying is Ted Cruz has only won three primaries outside his home state.

00:19:42.000 Ted Cruz is trailing by two million votes.

00:19:44.000 Soon it's going to be a lot more votes than that.

00:19:46.000 He has no Democratic path to the nomination.

00:19:48.000 The only way Ted Cruz can win is by nullifying ballots that have already been cast.

00:19:53.000 Okay, that's not true.

00:19:54.000 The only way Ted Cruz can win is by going to delegates.

00:19:57.000 The delegates are selected.

00:19:59.000 The only way that Trump can win at this point is basically by cuddling a bunch of people who didn't vote for him into voting for him because he's gonna come up short of the delegate number.

00:20:07.000 But there's a case to be made, I'm gonna make it in a second, that Trump should be handed the nomination anyway.

00:20:11.000 That even if he comes up short, I've said in the past, I don't think he should.

00:20:13.000 Now I'm going to make the opposite case and then I'm going to explain why I think it's wrong, because I think that it's important that you hear all the arguments.

00:20:19.000 So, Trump, just to finish up what Trump says about this and then we'll get into the argument, Trump says, by the way, that his unfavorability numbers are now nearing 70% nationwide.

00:20:30.000 By the time this election cycle is over, he will be above 100%, 197% of people.

00:20:35.000 Children who have yet to be born three generations from now.

00:20:37.000 Well, not like Donald Trump.

00:20:39.000 Donald Trump says, don't worry, I'm just like Ronald Reagan.

00:20:41.000 Reagan also had low favorability.

00:20:43.000 Reagan ended up winning.

00:20:44.000 The difference was, number one, it was 1980, so the polling wasn't as good.

00:20:47.000 And number two, Ronald Reagan was actually not a huge, huge pile of dreck.

00:20:53.000 Here is Donald Trump, though, making the I'm like Reagan case.

00:20:57.000 Here we go.

00:20:57.000 Now, I haven't even started on Hillary, and my numbers are better right now than Ronald Reagan's numbers were with Jimmy Carter.

00:21:04.000 You know, Ronald Reagan, who was great, he had a 30 favorability, and he was behind Jimmy Carter by so much.

00:21:14.000 Everybody said, oh, this is going to be a disaster.

00:21:16.000 And Jimmy Carter, now I will say this, the last person that Hillary wants to run against is me, I will tell you that.

00:21:23.000 And I know that for a fact.

00:21:26.000 But Jimmy Carter wanted to run against Ronald Reagan.

00:21:29.000 He said, oh, please let Reagan win. 0.98

00:21:31.000 And he was so far behind Reagan.

00:21:33.000 And by the time the election took place, it was a big victory, an easy victory for Reagan.

00:21:38.000 That's what happens.

00:21:39.000 That's what happens.

00:21:40.000 Okay, so he says that he's going to be just like Ronald Reagan, and he's going to involve himself in a major comeback, and everything is going to be just hunky-dory.

00:21:48.000 Reince Priebus at the RNC, who as I said, looks more and more like Lando Calrissian dealing with Darth Vader when it comes to Donald Trump.

00:21:55.000 He's just looking around going, this deal gets worse all the time, and Trump looks at him and goes, pray I do not alter the deal further.

00:22:02.000 Frankly, you're not going to like it if I alter the deal further.

00:22:04.000 So here's Reince Priebus saying, he's not being jibbed, it's not rigged, but it doesn't matter.

00:22:10.000 Here he says this.

00:22:11.000 But he specifically said, you, and you're the chairman of the Republican National Committee, you should be ashamed of yourself for what's going on.

00:22:19.000 How extraordinary is that?

00:22:24.000 I have no idea how extraordinary that is, given the year we have it.

00:22:31.000 I honestly don't take it all that personally.

00:22:35.000 But I do have to respond, though, when a campaign says that the RNC is rigging the rules.

00:22:44.000 It's just not the case.

00:22:45.000 The rules have been set.

00:22:47.000 They're in place.

00:22:47.000 They're not going to change in these states.

00:22:51.000 And they're the same, you know, for the next state, New York, they're all out there.

00:22:54.000 Everyone knows what the rules are.

00:22:55.000 So I have to respond, though, if the party of which I'm the chairman of is getting attacked, especially when it's not true.

00:23:03.000 Okay, so he says all this.

00:23:05.000 Now, here is the case.

00:23:06.000 Here is the case for Donald Trump being given the nomination, even though he doesn't win it.

00:23:10.000 He doesn't get to 1237, but he should be given the nomination anyway.

00:23:13.000 So here is the case.

00:23:15.000 Trump will be in the delegate lead going into the RNC.

00:23:18.000 If the nomination goes instead to somebody like Cruz, Trump is going to claim that he was a victim.

00:23:21.000 Which is what he does anyway, right?

00:23:22.000 He whines and he whines until he wins.

00:23:24.000 He's said this over and over and over.

00:23:26.000 He's lying.

00:23:27.000 Of course, he's not a victim.

00:23:27.000 The system is the same for everybody.

00:23:29.000 Everybody plays by the same rules and if you lose, you lose.

00:23:32.000 But Trump doesn't like losing and he likes to whine about it.

00:23:35.000 An eye for an eye.

00:23:36.000 So, Trump supporters, here's the problem.

00:23:39.000 Here's the problem.

00:23:40.000 Trump will say that it's been rigged, and his supporters, who have now become idolaters, many of them, not all of them, but a good percentage of them, have become idolaters at the altar of Trump.

00:23:48.000 We'll talk about that a little bit more later, when we get to Stuff I Hate.

00:23:51.000 Those people will believe him, no matter what.

00:23:53.000 They'll believe him.

00:23:53.000 He'll say that it was rigged, he was stopped.

00:23:56.000 They will believe him.

00:23:57.000 Now, Trump's supporters are really not particularly conservative for the most part, but

00:24:01.000 Any victorious politics requires a coalition.

00:24:04.000 If Cruz had a victorious coalition, it would look like some of the Trump people and some of the Kasich people and all the Cruz people.

00:24:10.000 Trump, if he got the nomination, he's not going to win. 1.00

00:24:13.000 He'll get his ass kicked by Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:24:14.000 I mean, he will get blown out by historic proportions. 0.99

00:24:18.000 But if Trump doesn't get the nomination, then the possibility of his supporters ever joining the coalition again to create a victorious coalition drops dramatically.

00:24:26.000 If you prevent Trump from winning the nomination, that keeps the Trump rage alive for another election cycle.

00:24:32.000 All these people just say, he was gypped, it just shows the establishment will do anything to stop outsiders like Donald Trump, and then we get to do this whole slow-rolling tsunami of horror again in four years.

00:24:43.000 Right?

00:24:43.000 This is the case, that if we stop Trump now, then if we strike him down, he shall become more powerful than we could possibly imagine, right?

00:24:50.000 In four years, they'll come back, it'll be Mad Max beyond Thunderdome.

00:24:55.000 It'll be Sausage Fingers beyond Thunderdome, right?

00:24:58.000 We'll just get the sequel.

00:24:59.000 Trump's support base isn't really just about Trump, obviously.

00:25:02.000 It's a small but durable agglomeration of these alt-right white nationalists and disaffected white blue-collar voters who want tariffs and more government policy.

00:25:11.000 Largely the same people who backed both Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot.

00:25:14.000 What's made Trump a bigger candidate than Buchanan or Perot

00:25:17.000 is the fact that there are all these angry conservatives, the Trump ragers, who have gotten so involved in the idea that people are being screwed, we need the guy who's gonna come in like doomsday, and he's just gonna absorb all the energy and then refract it out, or destroying everything in his path, right?

00:25:31.000 That's the Trump guy that they want. 0.98

00:25:32.000 They need a nasty guy like Trump. 0.91

00:25:35.000 So that's argument number one in favor of Trump, right? 0.96

00:25:38.000 Giving him the nomination.

00:25:38.000 If you don't do this, they will destroy conservatism for the future, we'll do this again in four years,

00:25:43.000 They'll just be so enraged that they go after whoever is the ragiest candidate in four years, and they will come back stronger than they ever were because they feel like they've been victimized in some way. 0.83

00:25:53.000 That's argument number one.

00:25:54.000 Argument number two is that if Cruz takes the nomination, let's say Cruz gets it, and then he loses.

00:25:59.000 Which, I've said all along, I think Republicans have a very narrow shot in this election.

00:26:02.000 Let's say Cruz takes the nomination, then he loses.

00:26:04.000 This is actually worst case scenario for conservatives.

00:26:07.000 For constitutional conservatives.

00:26:08.000 Because, if you're a constitutional conservative, Trump takes the nomination, he loses.

00:26:12.000 Of course he lost.

00:26:13.000 He's not a conservative.

00:26:14.000 Of course he lost.

00:26:15.000 He's a guy who, he's a bad guy.

00:26:17.000 So, it makes sense that he would lose.

00:26:19.000 If Cruz takes the nomination and loses,

00:26:21.000 You got the Trump people on the one hand saying Lyin' Ted stole the nomination and then proceeded to lose. 0.87

00:26:25.000 You got the GOP establishment on the other hand, who hate Cruz and hate constitutional conservatives, saying all the wrong guys, the Tea Partiers, those evil constitutional conservatives, they're the ones who made us nominate a crap candidate like Cruz, and then he loses, you need to hand power back to us. 0.81

00:26:39.000 We need more Jeb, and we need more Mitch McConnell, and we need more Paul Ryan.

00:26:44.000 So what this means, fast forward to 2020, a revitalized Trumpster crowd waiting for their next moment, and a constitutional conservative wing scorned by the establishment, and the establishment confident that it can now retake control.

00:26:57.000 So we get to do this whole crap show over again in 2020 if Trump is stopped.

00:27:03.000 And then there's finally the emotional argument, and this one I'm real close on, and that is 0.98

00:27:08.000 Trumpsters, you get what you deserve.

00:27:11.000 You get what you deserve.

00:27:12.000 I heard Clavin use the HL Mencken quote the other day, and this is right.

00:27:15.000 Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. 0.97

00:27:20.000 If you are a Trump supporter and you've been bitching and moaning about how Trump is being screwed and you want to strike back against the man, you deserve your shot. 0.79

00:27:27.000 This is, I think, the most telling argument. 0.99

00:27:29.000 You deserve your shot.

00:27:30.000 And there's a part of me that says, I agree. 1.00

00:27:32.000 You should get your shot because I want to see you pummeled. 1.00

00:27:36.000 I want to see your nasty, fascistic, authoritarian, God-worshipping movement pummeled to the ground, and it'll be delicious to watch. 0.99

00:27:44.000 There's a part of me emotionally that says that, because you're filling up my Twitter timeline, and I know you are. 0.51

00:27:49.000 But that's too personal, so I'm going to try and remove myself from that, because I don't think that my personal feelings should really impact the future of the country.

00:27:57.000 So now, here's the counter-argument to all of that.

00:27:59.000 First, the Trump-rage argument.

00:28:01.000 The Trump-rage-beyond-Thunderdome-they're-going-to-come-back-better-and-stronger-than-ever argument.

00:28:07.000 This neglects that Donald Trump will not be the candidate in four years.

00:28:10.000 Movements need a guy to coalesce around.

00:28:12.000 Trump is not going to be that guy in four years.

00:28:14.000 He's already a thousand years old.

00:28:15.000 He'll be a thousand and four by the time four years comes around.

00:28:20.000 Trump isn't just a figurehead.

00:28:21.000 He also happens to be a guy who's really famous with a hundred percent name recognition.

00:28:25.000 And so who are they going to come around?

00:28:26.000 Are they going to come around Tom Tancredo on immigration?

00:28:28.000 Are they going to come around

00:28:30.000 You know, they're going to come around Rand Paul.

00:28:31.000 I mean, who's the next figure?

00:28:33.000 This movement requires a figure just like all third-party type figures need a figure.

00:28:37.000 You need a Huey Long or you need a Ross Perot or a Buchanan.

00:28:40.000 Who's going to be that figure?

00:28:41.000 Nobody on the horizon who's nearly as successful at consolidating support as Trump has been.

00:28:46.000 Second, the possibility that Cruz loses after winning the nomination.

00:28:50.000 That's just true for any candidate.

00:28:51.000 It's just true for any candidate.

00:28:53.000 I would rather put up the guy who I best feel represents conservatism and represents the Republican Party than the guy who does it worse.

00:29:01.000 And, you know, then let the chips fall where they may.

00:29:02.000 If he loses, he loses.

00:29:03.000 If he wins, he wins.

00:29:04.000 If the establishment says, well, you guys blew it, well, then we'll fight it out again with the establishment in four years.

00:29:09.000 And if the Trumpsters want to walk, let them walk.

00:29:11.000 I mean, this is what's good for the country is a constitutional conservative running from the Republican Party, not a nationalist populist running from the Republican Party.

00:29:19.000 And hey, it's possible Cruz wins.

00:29:21.000 If Trump wins, then

00:29:23.000 You know, I don't think he'll be a good president.

00:29:25.000 I think he'll be a quite terrible president, and I think he'll have wrecked conservatism for a generation.

00:29:29.000 If Cruz becomes president, you could actually have a constitutional spring that would be unique, certainly in my lifetime.

00:29:35.000 Finally, the Mencken argument.

00:29:36.000 The idea that democracy is people getting what they need, good and hard.

00:29:40.000 The majority of people hate Trump.

00:29:42.000 The majority of Republicans dislike Trump.

00:29:44.000 The majority of Republicans never voted for Donald Trump.

00:29:47.000 So democracy is the notion that common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard, but common people have not selected Trump.

00:29:53.000 They haven't.

00:29:55.000 A plurality of common people have selected Trump, not a majority.

00:29:58.000 Trump hasn't gotten majority support.

00:30:00.000 So, I don't think that Trump should be handed the nomination.

00:30:03.000 I don't think he's gonna get to 1237, so I guess let the fireworks begin.

00:30:07.000 By the way, the consolidation around Trump continues apace, and the consultant class is ready to make cash off Trump.

00:30:12.000 Karl Rove, breaking story, Karl Rove's American Crossroads is letting donors know they think they can propel Trump to victory if he's the nominee.

00:30:19.000 So Karl Rove, who says that Trump is the worst thing since mold, he says that he can help Trump win.

00:30:26.000 All you have to do is send him a few bucks.

00:30:28.000 So the consultant class will continue to get rich off of Donald Trump.

00:30:31.000 Meanwhile, the other side of the aisle, the process actually is rigged.

00:30:36.000 The other side of the aisle, the process actually is rigged.

00:30:38.000 Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the head of the DNC.

00:30:41.000 She says that Hillary Clinton is going to win the nomination outright. 0.98

00:30:43.000 We won't need the superdelegates to decide this thing.

00:30:46.000 Here is Jar Jar Binks.

00:30:48.000 I still think that we are likely on track as we go through the rest of the primary and caucus season to result in an election at the end that will have a presumptive nominee that becomes the presumptive nominee prior to the convention without the need for superdelegates and that will have the majority of unpledged delegates going into the convention.

00:31:14.000 So I do not think we're going to have a contested convention.

00:31:17.000 Okay, so she says we won't have a contested convention, and the reason she says this is because she is personally going to intervene, and she is going to ensure, using her secret dark Jedi skills, that Debbie Wasserman says that the Bernie Sanders people are stalkers.

00:31:33.000 She's now putting her thumb on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:31:36.000 Mesa no like Bernie Sanders!

00:31:37.000 Go! 0.95

00:31:38.000 The concern is that, is this a harassment dynamic going on?

00:31:42.000 What is your take?

00:31:44.000 You know,

00:31:45.000 It's certainly completely fine, because superdelegates are up for grabs, so to speak, all the way until we get to the convention.

00:31:53.000 And there is always a fierce effort to make sure that candidates' supporters can win over those unpledged delegates, because they can decide all the way up until they get to the convention.

00:32:08.000 Using tactics that border on harassment, that feel like stalking, is really something that I hope our campaigns really condemn, and that we make sure that their supporters' enthusiasm is fantastic, making sure that we have appropriate contact and outreach is just great, but intimidation is not okay, and I'm not suggesting that that's occurring right now,

00:32:35.000 We are a little bit.

00:32:36.000 I think we need to make sure that we are careful about how we persuade.

00:32:41.000 Well, you are suggesting that just a little bit.

00:32:43.000 Let's be real, like a little bit.

00:32:45.000 So...

00:32:46.000 The DNC putting its thumb on the scales in favor of Bernie Sanders, in favor of Hillary Clinton against Sanders, and you can see this playing out. 0.97

00:32:52.000 So a Bernie Sanders supporter called Hillary a corporate whore at a Bernie Sanders rally yesterday, which is of course true. 1.00

00:33:02.000 Hillary Clinton is the woman who was literally at the Goldman Sachs groundbreaking and was taking speeches for $200,000 in front of all of these hedge funds and Wall Street firms and then won't release any of them. 0.98

00:33:12.000 She was on the board of Walmart.

00:33:13.000 I mean, I don't know if people recognize this.

00:33:15.000 The same lady who rips Walmart is this evil, horrible corporate organization that pays people too little and jacks them. 1.00

00:33:19.000 She was on their board for several years. 1.00

00:33:22.000 So, corporate whore? 1.00

00:33:24.000 Yeah, I mean, if you're a lefty, you think that Hillary's a corporate whore, sure. 1.00

00:33:26.000 A Bernie Sanders supporter says that at the rally yesterday. 0.99

00:33:29.000 Here's what it looked like.

00:33:30.000 Now, Secretary Clinton has said Medicare for all will never happen.

00:33:39.000 Well, I agree with Secretary Clinton that Medicare for all will never happen if we have a president who never aspires for something greater than the status quo.

00:33:52.000 Medicare for all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate democratic whores who are beholden to big pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us. 1.00

00:34:07.000 Okay, so he calls Hillary a corporate democratic whore. 1.00

00:34:09.000 Hashtag democratic whore starts trending. 0.99

00:34:11.000 Naturally, this means that the Democratic Party must come in to defend Hillary Clinton. 0.99

00:34:16.000 Hillary must be defended at all costs. 0.73

00:34:18.000 So Claire McCaskill, who's a senator from Missouri, she says it's unacceptable for anybody, anybody to refer to Hillary in this form or fashion. 0.99

00:34:25.000 I mean, the only people who we should be talking about as whores are the ones who have sex with Bill Clinton. 1.00

00:34:29.000 Anyway, here's what she says. 0.99

00:34:30.000 Yeah, I worry about the tone, and I worry about it on both sides.

00:34:34.000 I think it's really important we keep the tone where it should be. 0.99

00:34:38.000 It is unacceptable for anybody to reference Hillary Clinton as a corporate whore. 0.97

00:34:43.000 And that's what happened in the introduction last night at that rally. 0.98

00:34:46.000 And I have not yet heard Bernie Sanders say, totally unacceptable.

00:34:52.000 It's totally unacceptable.

00:34:54.000 And we should say that Bernie Sanders has just tweeted that it was inappropriate and unacceptable himself.

00:35:00.000 Well, good for him.

00:35:01.000 But he should have done it from the podium. 0.99

00:35:03.000 The minute those words were issued, there was a huge cheer that went up when Hillary Clinton was called a corporate whore. 1.00

00:35:09.000 And that's when the candidate has to step in and go, wait a minute, guys. 0.98

00:35:13.000 Remember what the real enemy is here.

00:35:18.000 By the way, I think this is an important point.

00:35:24.000 For the left, the enemy is always the right.

00:35:25.000 For the right, the enemy is sometimes ISIS, but rarely the left.

00:35:28.000 And that's why it's an asymmetric political war.

00:35:32.000 Until Republicans recognize that the real enemy to American freedom is the American left,

00:35:37.000 They're not going to be able to actually win elections.

00:35:39.000 Anyway, Claire McCaskill goes after Bernie Sanders, the entire Democratic Party goes after Bernie Sanders, Debbie Wasserman Schultz goes after Bernie Sanders, Jar Jar Binks, Debbie Wasserman Schultz goes after Bernie Sanders, and annoys everyone in the process.

00:35:50.000 Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, as we mentioned yesterday, she actually went out and blamed Bernie Sanders for people getting killed in New York State.

00:35:57.000 Jane Sanders, who is Bernie's lovely wife, she came out and she said, it sort of bothers me that Hillary blames Bernie Sanders for gun violence.

00:36:05.000 I think everything that she's done around the gun issue bothers me because Bernie has common sense gun values.

00:36:13.000 I mean, he's voted for all the things that are even under consideration there.

00:36:19.000 He lost his first election because he said, I want to stop the manufacture and sale of assault weapons.

00:36:27.000 And he lost that election by three points.

00:36:30.000 In 1990, he had the same position.

00:36:33.000 But people understood that he was really, even if they disagreed with him, that he was trustworthy.

00:36:39.000 He won that by 17%.

00:36:39.000 She's trying to make him look like he's in the NRA gun lobby when he's got a D-minus, that he doesn't care about the Sandy Hook parents.

00:36:50.000 That really bothers me.

00:36:52.000 It's like, come on, we just don't go there.

00:36:54.000 We don't go and ask people for support in the worst time of their lives.

00:37:00.000 And so that bothers me because

00:37:06.000 The fact is the Democratic Party is not defending Bernie Sanders against brutal, vicious assaults by Hillary Clinton. 0.98

00:37:11.000 But as soon as a Bernie Sanders supporter says she's a corporate whore, then the entire Democratic establishment jumps in to save their girl, Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:37:19.000 She must be saved at all costs. 0.97

00:37:21.000 And this is really, you know, it's pretty amazing how rigged the system is against Bernie Sanders from the very top.

00:37:29.000 Meanwhile, there's an attempt by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, as we mentioned,

00:37:32.000 To turn Ted Cruz into Donald Trump.

00:37:34.000 So as I've said before, one of the dangers of Trump is that Trump smears the entire Republican Party, the entire conservative movement.

00:37:40.000 Bernie Sanders, you'll hear him link up Trump and Cruz, and then you'll hear Hillary do the exact same thing.

00:37:46.000 They're trying to lump them together.

00:37:47.000 Trump and Cruz have almost nothing in common.

00:37:49.000 Like, legitimately nothing in common.

00:37:50.000 Here's Bernie Sanders, though, lumping them together.

00:37:53.000 New York values are the Statue of Liberty, not a wall between us and Mexico.

00:37:59.000 In New York, we pride ourselves on our diversity.

00:38:03.000 We don't divide people up based on where they were born.

00:38:08.000 I was born and raised in Brooklyn.

00:38:10.000 BK, stand up, fight back, don't let anyone tear us down.

00:38:15.000 Okay, so he knows New York values, Bernie Sanders, and he goes on here.

00:38:25.000 I will never lose the values that New York and my family have given me.

00:38:30.000 As New Yorkers, we understand what New York values really mean.

00:38:35.000 We believe in the value of hard work.

00:38:38.000 We believe in the value of equality.

00:38:40.000 We believe in the value of a society where the American dream works for all, not just the 1%.

00:38:47.000 Those are New York values.

00:38:49.000 And the truth is, New York values are American values.

00:38:54.000 There is no difference.

00:39:07.000 When the frontrunner for the Republican nomination was asked in a national television interview to disavow David Duke and other white supremacists supporting his campaign,

00:39:37.000 He played coy.

00:39:39.000 This is the same Donald Trump who led the insidious birther movement to delegitimize President Obama. 0.99

00:39:49.000 He has called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. 0.99

00:39:53.000 He wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. 1.00

00:39:57.000 And the list goes on. 0.99

00:40:01.000 And not to be outdone by his primary rival, Ted Cruz would treat Muslim Americans like criminals and religiously profile their neighborhoods. 0.52

00:40:13.000 So ugly currents that lurked just below the surface of our politics have burst into the open. 0.85

00:40:22.000 Right, okay.

00:40:22.000 And everyone sees.

00:40:24.000 So she's lumping everybody together, and this is the problem with Trumpism.

00:40:27.000 It's why, in the end, I don't buy the let Trump have it argument, because we will all be lumped in with Trump whether we like it or not.

00:40:33.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things I hate, and then the mailbag.

00:40:37.000 And, you know, it'll only be going for another hour here or so.

00:40:39.000 Okay, so first, things that I like.

00:40:42.000 We're at the point in American life where I need calming music, like, every day.

00:40:46.000 Because if there's no calming music, then we're all just effed.

00:40:50.000 I mean, we're done.

00:40:52.000 So here is Bach wrote a piece, which was then used by Gounod, a French composer, about 200 years later.

00:41:00.000 And he uses the Bach piece as sort of what you would call now the baseline.

00:41:06.000 Uh, and then he writes a theme over it, and it's Ave Maria, it's a beautiful piece, it's really, it's quite grand, so we'll listen to a little bit of it.

00:41:44.000 Let's go.

00:41:58.000 It's just wonderful.

00:41:59.000 So that's Ave Maria.

00:42:01.000 This was written in 1853.

00:42:04.000 What you're hearing underneath with the piano is actually Prelude No.

00:42:06.000 1 in C Major by Bach from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

00:42:09.000 Charles Gounod wrote the theme that's soaring over that, and they used the Latin text of Ave Maria.

00:42:14.000 This is a cello recording, but it was originally written for voice.

00:42:18.000 But it's just, it's terrific.

00:42:20.000 It's terrific.

00:42:21.000 And you can look it up.

00:42:23.000 It's very spiritual.

00:42:24.000 It's great.

00:42:24.000 So, okay.

00:42:25.000 That makes you feel good, and then you have to look at your Twitter mentions and you feel terrible again.

00:42:29.000 So, time for... Well, you know what?

00:42:31.000 One more thing I like.

00:42:32.000 This one, at the behest of Jonathan, our producer, and Mathis is already groaning because Mathis apparently has a perverse fear of octopi.

00:42:40.000 Which makes sense.

00:42:40.000 These are the creepiest creatures on planet Earth.

00:42:43.000 They're very odd-looking.

00:42:45.000 I mean, it's like Michael Moore with suction cups.

00:42:47.000 And apparently, an octopus escaped his captivity in Finding Nemo fashion.

00:42:54.000 He really made a break for freedom.

00:42:55.000 They found a poster of a sexy female octopus, half-clad, but when the other fish ripped away the poster, they found there was a tunnel to the outside.

00:43:05.000 Here's what the story was, apparently.

00:43:07.000 Okay, we don't have the actual video, but apparently he made it all the way to the ocean.

00:43:13.000 Apparently octopi are really smart, which is why they're gonna take over the world, which, you know, given this election cycle, may be the only comfort we have.

00:43:19.000 But the octopi, well, apparently this octopus crawled all the way to the ocean to go back to his home sea, homeland, home sea, and left a trail of suction cups behind him.

00:43:32.000 So, that's a pretty awesome story.

00:43:34.000 Sorry, math.

00:43:35.000 I said it's a good story.

00:43:36.000 Okay, time for things I hate.

00:43:37.000 So really, only one thing that I hate today.

00:43:39.000 So, the prosecutor in the Corey Lewandowski case decided not to prosecute.

00:43:44.000 This is not a major shock.

00:43:45.000 For anybody who knows how law works, namely not the Trumpkins, who don't care about law or words, they don't know how to spell, they don't know the difference between you, are, and you're. 0.97

00:43:54.000 I mean, like every one of their tweets is using Y-O-U-R as opposed to Y-O-U apostrophe R-E.

00:44:01.000 Which is not correct, but in any case, the prosecutors have what's called prosecutorial discretion.

00:44:07.000 They look at cases, and then they decide whether they think there's a likelihood of victory at trial, and they also decide whether they think it's worthwhile expending the resources of the state in order to push forward the case.

00:44:17.000 They decided with regard to Michelle Fields, who was grabbed, yanked, and bruised by Corey Lewandowski, and then lied about it.

00:44:23.000 They decide that it wasn't worth pushing that case forward,

00:44:26.000 They say for a couple of reasons.

00:44:27.000 One is the resources that it would take basically to push it is not worthwhile in a district with a DA that has a backlog of literally tens of thousands of cases, many of them very serious.

00:44:37.000 Okay.

00:44:37.000 And the other reason is they say that there's probable cause to prosecute, but they didn't know the likelihood of rebutting Lewandowski's defense because it's based on testimony from Trump and Lewandowski.

00:44:48.000 And so they crafted this false defense about how Michelle had a little bomb in her hand and Lewandowski was going to save Trump from Michelle and all this nonsense.

00:44:56.000 And so what it really comes down to is number one.

00:44:58.000 What it comes down to is this wasn't a big enough deal, criminally speaking, for them to go forward with the prosecution.

00:45:04.000 Totally get that.

00:45:05.000 If I were a prosecutor, totally get that decision.

00:45:07.000 I had a very similar situation with the Zoe Tur incident where Zoe Tur grabs me on national television by the back of the neck, threatens me, threatens me afterward, threatens me on Twitter.

00:45:16.000 Whatever.

00:45:17.000 What the Trumpsters do, and this is the part that ticks me off.

00:45:29.000 There's so many people who are in love with Trump who just do not care about basic truth and standards of accuracy, like, at all.

00:45:37.000 So what they say is, this means that it was all a hoax.

00:45:39.000 It was all just a hoax.

00:45:40.000 He never touched her.

00:45:41.000 Corey Lewandowski was telling the truth from the very outset.

00:45:44.000 Now, the prosecutor, the prosecutors themselves said there was probable cause to prosecute.

00:45:48.000 They also said that they asked Michelle if an apology would be sufficient.

00:45:59.000 She said absolutely an apology would be sufficient.

00:46:01.000 They then went to Corey Lewandowski, and Lewandowski said, okay, I'll draft an apology.

00:46:05.000 He started to draft it.

00:46:06.000 They decided to drop the charges based on that, and then he didn't send it to them.

00:46:10.000 Really, this is what they said in the press conference today.

00:46:13.000 I mean, come on, gang.

00:46:15.000 I mean, talk about puerile and childish.

00:46:17.000 I mean, this is the Trump campaign in a nutshell.

00:46:19.000 Apparently Trump actually called up the prosecutor's office personally to tell them his story and also to encourage them to quote-unquote, do the right thing.

00:46:26.000 This is an area where he, where Mar-a-Lago is, right?

00:46:29.000 So he has a fair bit of sway and pull.

00:46:31.000 But again, I don't think that this was a matter of bribery.

00:46:33.000 I think this is a matter of the prosecutors looked at this and they said, I don't know why this is worth our effort, really.

00:46:38.000 That doesn't mean that Michelle never should have filed a police report.

00:46:40.000 It's the job of the police and the job of the prosecutors to weed out cases they think are worthy of prosecution from cases that aren't.

00:46:45.000 That's why the concept of prosecutorial discretion exists.

00:46:48.000 The reason she filed a police report in the first place, as she has said, as I have said, is because Trump and his campaign were calling her liars.

00:46:54.000 They were suggesting she faked her own bruises.

00:46:56.000 They were suggesting the bruises weren't even real.

00:46:58.000 She went in to document that this actually happened.

00:47:00.000 Michelle has said that she's going to file a civil lawsuit against Trump

00:47:05.000 And against Lewandowski for defamation, Trump then threatened her and said, well, she better not do that because Indiscovery will tear her apart. 0.86

00:47:11.000 OK, I guarantee you this, Indiscovery, Trump has a lot more to hide than Michelle Fields has Indiscovery.

00:47:18.000 So that's just.

00:47:21.000 So the thing I hate in the end is that this is the Trump campaign.

00:47:24.000 The eye-for-an-eye thing from the beginning of the show, it applies to Trump, it applies to his followers, but they're blind, so they don't care if they gouge out other people's eyes.

00:47:31.000 That's really what it comes down to.

00:47:32.000 It's not even an eye-for-an-eye, it's they're blind, and how did they get blind?

00:47:35.000 No one knows.

00:47:36.000 They just decided to gouge other people's eyes out, and that's how it's going to be.

00:47:39.000 Okay, time for a few entries from the mailbag.

00:47:42.000 We'll start with the juiciest entry first.

00:47:44.000 So this one comes from Gina.

00:47:46.000 So Gina is a student, I don't want to say where, to protect her privacy,

00:47:50.000 But she says, she praises me a lot.

00:47:52.000 She says, you convinced me to wait until marriage to have sex to be pro-life, to be an entrepreneur, and have completely aided me in un-brainwashing myself, which is great.

00:47:58.000 I get a lot of letters like this, and I'm glad that I can impact folks, and I'm glad that you listen.

00:48:03.000 I have a morality question.

00:48:04.000 I am in college struggling and working as a stripper in a high-end club.

00:48:07.000 It is very strict, no contact rules, no drugs, no touching, and only topless. 1.00

00:48:11.000 Is this wrong?

00:48:13.000 You know, normally the answer would clearly be yes.

00:48:15.000 Here's her argument for why it's not.

00:48:16.000 She says, My argument why I think it is not wrong is other performers dance for money in little clothing, acrobats, Broadway.

00:48:22.000 No one says that is wrong.

00:48:23.000 The only difference is I am topless.

00:48:25.000 But in Brazil, people go topless at the beach.

00:48:27.000 American culture just as being topless is wrong for women. 1.00

00:48:29.000 Am I being morally relative?

00:48:31.000 Moral relativism.

00:48:33.000 So, let's go through that argument first.

00:48:35.000 First off, yes, it is morally wrong for actresses to get naked on screen for money. 1.00

00:48:39.000 Yes.

00:48:40.000 It is wrong for porn actresses to do it. 1.00

00:48:41.000 It is wrong for regular actresses to do it. 1.00

00:48:43.000 When people go around scantily clad, I don't like when men do it either, but let's be real about this.

00:48:47.000 There's a difference between a woman being scantily clad and a man being scantily clad because women are generally not... 0.99

00:48:54.000 The male response to nudity and female response to nudity are not equivalent.

00:48:58.000 They're not equivalent.

00:48:59.000 And look, a woman is not responsible for a man's state, obviously. 1.00

00:49:03.000 You know, what a woman does is not responsible for a man's state. 1.00

00:49:06.000 But, it's not exactly a moral thing to trade off your body for money.

00:49:12.000 It's not exactly the baseline of morality where I come from.

00:49:16.000 So, what I would say about the argument that in certain other cultures breasts are not seen as sexual objects,

00:49:22.000 Number one, very, very few cultures. 0.97

00:49:25.000 Even in Brazil, they know that boobies are a sexual object. 1.00

00:49:28.000 And number two, they are a sexual object in the United States, so you recognize that, and that's just the truth.

00:49:32.000 I mean, there's a reason women aren't walking around topless, and that's for good reason, because that would put society in a high state of tension, I would say. 1.00

00:49:39.000 So, the other, she says, the other argument...

00:49:42.000 His men are committing adultery and cheating.

00:49:44.000 I do not see how watching a topless girl dancing or getting a lap dance is cheating.

00:49:47.000 In addition, men are not biologically monogamous and need sexual variety.

00:49:51.000 To be monogamous, they need to experience sexual variety of women to not feel suppressed by their wife and girlfriend.

00:49:55.000 This is an argument that's very often made in favor of pornography.

00:49:58.000 People say that pornography actually keeps people from cheating, right?

00:50:01.000 If you stare at naked women online and presumably do other things, then this will keep you being monogamous. 0.76

00:50:08.000 I wholly disagree with this proposition.

00:50:11.000 The reason is because men tend to push boundaries.

00:50:13.000 And so what you get is if men are looking at other women all the time, there's a certain amount of men looking at women that's natural.

00:50:18.000 It's just natural.

00:50:19.000 Men are married, a pretty woman walks down the street, a man looks, and then he goes right back to talking with his wife.

00:50:25.000 Doesn't mean he loves her.

00:50:26.000 It doesn't mean he wants to really do anything with her.

00:50:28.000 It's just biological instinct.

00:50:30.000 Men look at that.

00:50:31.000 Once you get deeply ensconced in sexualizing other women, that tends to carry over to, okay, I can behave in this way.

00:50:38.000 If I'm presented with this opportunity, is it really that different?

00:50:41.000 And there's an article today about women saying they're accepting their husband's cheating.

00:50:45.000 This is bound to fail.

00:50:46.000 It's bound to fail.

00:50:46.000 It's not going to work, because it turns out that love and sex and marriage are deeply intertwined, and the modern attempt to separate the three has destroyed marriage, has destroyed sex, and has destroyed love.

00:50:56.000 That's actually what's happening right now.

00:50:57.000 Pornography destroys sex in general, because the fact is that men are now looking for something that doesn't exist.

00:51:03.000 Pornography destroys love because it disassociates sex from love, and it destroys marriage because the reality is that women want to be the object of desire for their husbands, not... 0.99

00:51:12.000 Various other sundry goods on the shelf so that's my that's that's my response to to that is that you know I really hope that you get another job I think there are other jobs available to you sound like a nice bright gal I think that you can do better for yourself, and I think that you your future husband I would hope I think will be will be pleased to know that that is not something that you decided to keep on doing I think that I know that

00:51:37.000 Most good men would prefer that their women reserve their sex lives, and this is part of your sex life. 0.92

00:51:42.000 I mean, showing your breasts to men is part of your sex life. 1.00

00:51:45.000 Would reserve that for marriage. 0.94

00:51:47.000 I'm somebody who reserved my virginity for marriage.

00:51:49.000 You say you want to do that as well.

00:51:50.000 I guarantee your future husband will appreciate if you also reserve your nudity for your marriage.

00:51:56.000 Okay, so that's one letter.

00:51:57.000 Okay.

00:51:58.000 Stefan writes,

00:51:59.000 Sure, virtually all the European countries are republics.

00:52:01.000 Anytime you have an elected body...

00:52:11.000 That votes on things for you.

00:52:13.000 That is a republic.

00:52:13.000 A pure democracy does not really exist.

00:52:15.000 It doesn't really exist.

00:52:17.000 In Athens, the idea of a pure democracy was that you would literally get a plebiscite out, everybody would come out and vote on the major issues of the day, and they would vote issue by issue.

00:52:24.000 We're starting to move toward that in places like California, where you have referenda and people vote on specific issues.

00:52:29.000 But most elected countries are republics instead of democracies.

00:52:32.000 The problem is, as we have moved toward democratic values rather than republican values, small d, small r,

00:52:38.000 What we've done is instead of saying to people, we're electing you for your good judgment, we say, we're electing you to do X. And then if you don't do X, we throw you out.

00:52:46.000 And so instead of electing good people to make judgments that are independent and based on the evidence, we're electing people and then we're saying, we want you to do this stuff that we want you to do based on our 30 seconds of research.

00:52:57.000 And the whole purpose of an elected republic is that these people spend a fair amount of time actually looking at the issues.

00:53:02.000 You have five minutes to spend between taking your kids to school and working.

00:53:06.000 And that's why you elect people to do the job for you.

00:53:08.000 It's just like any other thing you contract out.

00:53:10.000 We contract out our politics to people we trust.

00:53:12.000 That's why trustworthiness matters.

00:53:14.000 It's why you have to know what the ideology of the person is before you elect them.

00:53:18.000 It's why I don't trust Trump.

00:53:19.000 I don't think he's trustworthy.

00:53:20.000 Okay, Justin writes,

00:53:22.000 My question is about your stance on government being completely out of business.

00:53:25.000 Do you think there's a certain point in which government should have the ability to impose regulations of safety in the workplace, or should we simply allow that to be the business of the employers?

00:53:33.000 Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and disasters such as the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire come to mind when I think about this, and I just wonder when you think government should step in and regulate how businesses treat their employees and create their products.

00:53:44.000 Okay, so as far as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the notion that ever there were people who were falling into meat grinders and being churned into sausage is nonsense, and Teddy Roosevelt said as much at the time.

00:53:55.000 The Jungle is muckraking and it's not true.

00:53:57.000 As far as the idea that employers have to have special

00:54:01.000 Regulations on them and how they treat their employees, I don't generally believe that you need that.

00:54:06.000 The reason for that is because there is such a thing as tort law.

00:54:08.000 If I put you in a position where a beam falls on your head and I know the beam is unstable, I'm responsible for negligence.

00:54:14.000 Your family will sue me into the ground.

00:54:16.000 Right?

00:54:16.000 You actually don't need a special body of law where you have an inspector come in and inspect the beams.

00:54:19.000 You don't need that.

00:54:20.000 And if people don't want to work in unsafe conditions, they have the ability to strike.

00:54:24.000 They have the ability to strike.

00:54:25.000 And I'm very much in favor of people unionizing and striking on the basis of worker safety.

00:54:29.000 If there's a real worker safety violation,

00:54:31.000 This was sort of what they said in like Norma Rae, for example.

00:54:34.000 People working in coal mines or in sewing factories who are getting routinely hurt.

00:54:38.000 And so they decided, look, we're not going back there until you upgrade the machinery.

00:54:41.000 That's perfectly acceptable.

00:54:42.000 I don't see why the government is better at regulating business than agreements between the employers and the employees, as well as basic tort law.

00:54:50.000 Okay, Peter writes, Is it possible one of the reasons why the left seems so happy to march the Western world off the cliff when it comes to Islamic migration is because they simply don't understand religion?

00:55:00.000 Considering the majority of the people on the left look down their noses at religious people, is it possible the left just doesn't get why inviting people of such a radically different faith might be a problem?

00:55:10.000 This might come down to something you mentioned earlier where you mentioned no real religious person identifies as anything before they identify as a child of God.

00:55:16.000 This is something I doubt many non-religious people wrap their heads around.

00:55:20.000 Totally agree.

00:55:21.000 I think the left doesn't understand and they don't respect the religious values of everybody, but particularly Muslims.

00:55:27.000 The left actually believes that Muslims can be bought off by iPhones.

00:55:32.000 They believe that Muslims can actually just be bought off by

00:55:36.000 You know, by the nice things that we have in Western society.

00:55:40.000 And right now, I'm looking for a piece that I think is relevant to this.

00:55:44.000 There's a piece at BuzzFeed that was really kind of fascinating, where it was talking about... There's a kid in Islamic country.

00:55:51.000 I want to see if I can dig it up, because there was one portion of it that was really, really telling.

00:55:56.000 Let's see if I can find it real fast.

00:55:59.000 It's... Let's see... Here it is.

00:56:03.000 Okay, so...

00:56:06.000 There's a section of this piece, it's called How to Lose Your Mind to ISIS and then Fight to Get It Back.

00:56:11.000 It was written by a guy at BuzzFeed about a family who had a kid who was being recruited by ISIS.

00:56:17.000 And it talks in this piece specifically about how the family of this kid, the aunt and uncle, they went to the kid and they said they took the kid to the beach in France and they showed him a bunch of

00:56:28.000 Scantily clad women. 1.00

00:56:29.000 And they said, this is what you get if you're in the West.

00:56:31.000 Right?

00:56:31.000 They said, this is the West.

00:56:32.000 The West is these scantily clad women. 1.00

00:56:34.000 And the kid's response, which is perfectly what you would think it is if you're a religious person and understands how religion works, is, I want to soak the sand with their blood.

00:56:43.000 He's a teenage boy.

00:56:44.000 That's what he says about these women who are in bikinis, right? 1.00

00:56:46.000 Because he's a radical Muslim. 1.00

00:56:47.000 He says, I want to soak the sand with their blood. 0.99

00:56:49.000 And they said, well, you don't want to kill them.

00:56:52.000 And he said, yeah, no, I do.

00:56:53.000 He said, well, all of them?

00:56:55.000 He said, yes, all of them.

00:56:57.000 All of them.

00:56:58.000 People are not bought off by money.

00:57:00.000 People want to believe in something bigger than themselves.

00:57:02.000 They'll either believe in the left, in the value of secularism, or they'll believe in Western civilization, or they'll believe in Christianity, or Judaism, or radical Islam.

00:57:11.000 And so disrespecting Muslims enough to believe, you can buy them off with a couple of scantily clad photos from the beach, 0.98

00:57:17.000 It's a bunch of hooey, and it's arrogance of the highest order. 1.00

00:57:20.000 It's why Bono, what he was saying yesterday about, we just throw some comedy at them and that wins.

00:57:25.000 No, that's not the case.

00:57:26.000 Okay.

00:57:26.000 Michael writes, my economics professor at West Alabama was going over the multiplier effect.

00:57:31.000 The multiplier effect is the idea that if I spend a dollar on a good, you then take that dollar and you spend it on a different good, and that person takes the dollar and spends it on a different good.

00:57:38.000 It's the multiplier effect.

00:57:40.000 Also known as just trading with each other.

00:57:43.000 He says, I asked him if that was similar to trickle-down economics with difference, of course, being that instead of tax breaks, the government spends money toward the business.

00:57:49.000 He said, yes, sort of.

00:57:50.000 And then he brought up similarities in the trickle-down effect and the fountain effect.

00:57:55.000 Can you give your opinion on why one is better than the other?

00:57:59.000 The phrase trickle-down effect is something coined by the left.

00:58:01.000 The right doesn't believe that you give money to rich people and then the rich people trickle it down to the bottom.

00:58:05.000 That's not what they believe.

00:58:06.000 We believe that there's a common set of rules that governs all commerce.

00:58:09.000 The set of rules is if you provide value to somebody, you get to keep the profits of providing that value.

00:58:13.000 It's true for rich.

00:58:14.000 It's true for poor.

00:58:15.000 This encourages trade.

00:58:16.000 This encourages exchange.

00:58:18.000 The idea of a fountain effect is the idea you give money to the people at the bottom, they spend the money, and it sort of bubbles up to the top.

00:58:23.000 That's not accurate.

00:58:25.000 What ends up happening is the people at the bottom spend most of their money, because they're at the bottom rung of society, they tend to spend it on basic consumer goods.

00:58:32.000 They tend to spend it on t-shirts and food.

00:58:35.000 And so if you do that, you end up with an economy.

00:58:37.000 And if you take it away from the innovators, the Steve Jobses, and give money

00:58:41.000 Two people who spend it on burgers, you're going to get more burgers and less iPhones.

00:58:45.000 There won't be competition.

00:58:46.000 There won't be people competing to make the nice iPhones.

00:58:49.000 The poor people will never get to own an iPhone. 0.99

00:58:51.000 They will still be spending their money on ever-increasing prices of burgers, because as they spend more money on burgers, it jacks the price up.

00:58:58.000 So the price actually goes up, because now there's competition to create more burgers, and there's undersupply and overdemand.

00:59:04.000 Okay, Diane says, if you could experience a day in the life of somebody who has now passed on, whose shoes would you step into and why?

00:59:11.000 Hitler and I'd kill myself. 0.80

00:59:14.000 Alright, Niall says, this might seem like kind of a random question, but I was wondering that if you were to run for president, who would you pick as running mate?

00:59:23.000 What are your thoughts on Bill Whittle?

00:59:24.000 I like Bill Whittle.

00:59:25.000 What are your thoughts on Gavin McInnes?

00:59:27.000 Gavin's a wild man.

00:59:28.000 Milo Yiannopoulos?

00:59:29.000 Milo says some things that need to be said, and he flirts with some of the worst people on Earth.

00:59:35.000 Paul Joseph Watson?

00:59:36.000 Don't really know his stuff very much.

00:59:38.000 Last thing, what is your opinion on Deadpool, the Marvel comic book character?

00:59:42.000 You know, he's jokey.

00:59:44.000 Okay.

00:59:45.000 He ain't my favorite thing.

00:59:46.000 He's just really dark Spider-Man.

00:59:50.000 Spider-Man is happy Deadpool, right?

00:59:52.000 He's not crazy like Deadpool, but if you read Deadpool comics and you read Spider-Man comics, it's basically fight quip, fight quip, fight quip.

00:59:59.000 That's all it is, right?

01:00:00.000 So it's just quips that are really R-rated for Deadpool and quips that are really G-rated for Peter Parker.

01:00:05.000 That's basically the only difference.

01:00:08.000 And finally, a question, and this allows me to promote my new book coming out in October, so I'll do it.

01:00:12.000 Where did you get your inspiration for True Allegiance and why do I have to wait until October to read it?

01:00:17.000 You have to wait until October to read it because my publisher says so.

01:00:20.000 And my inspiration for True Allegiance was, I like writing fiction and I do think that, like Ayn Rand, like Tom Wolfe,

01:00:29.000 Sometimes the best way to get across your point is by providing a vision of what the world looks like if all of the current day events are taken to their logical extreme.

01:00:40.000 And so that's what true allegiance is.

01:00:42.000 It's you take everything that's currently happening and you amp it up by a factor of two and that's what true allegiance basically is.

01:00:48.000 Well folks, we've reached the end of the week.

01:00:50.000 Try not to break and ruin everything while I'm gone.

01:00:52.000 Try not to study Bible with Donald Trump because it's just a bad idea.

01:00:55.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

01:00:56.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 14, 2016

Ep. 105 - The Case For Handing Donald Trump The Nomination

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