The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 176 - Trump Has His Finest Hour

00:00:00.000 If you ever wanted proof the left hates Republicans, it came in the form of a CNN headline news decision late yesterday.

00:00:06.000 A man named Stephen Eckold saved a baby from being trapped in a hot car.

00:00:09.000 He broke a window to do so.

00:00:11.000 During his interview on CNN headline news, he wore a Trump 2016 t-shirt.

00:00:15.000 The network couldn't do anything about it at the time, but when they rebroadcast the interview, they then blurred out the Donald Trump logo. 0.98

00:00:22.000 That's fairly typical for a media intent on casting every Trump supporter as an evil pile of human poop. 0.68

00:00:27.000 Meanwhile, the media continued to celebrate 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who donned a different sort of apparel and practice, socks, 0.99

00:00:35.000 Really, it's like a picture of a pig with a cop hat on top.

00:00:38.000 But Colin Kaepernick is the bravest, most wonderful, most brilliant racial spokesperson in America. 0.93

00:00:43.000 We must all pay homage to his intellect and courage.

00:00:45.000 No wonder college students across America feel triggered by Trump 2016 chalkings but have no problem slandering cops.

00:00:52.000 They're learning it from the older generation in media.

00:00:54.000 That's the point.

00:00:55.000 Those who disagree politically with the left must be castigated.

00:00:58.000 And if an eminently good person openly disagrees with the left, the left simply excises their politics from the equation.

00:01:04.000 I don't know.

00:01:19.000 Thus, the left's moral juggernaut chugs ever forward, turning right-wingers into enemies and left-wing radicals into friendly faces.

00:01:25.000 No wonder Republicans are always fighting an uphill battle in the public mind.

00:01:29.000 Members of the public have never actually seen a nice, decent Republican, since the media just memory holes them.

00:01:34.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:01:35.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:01:41.000 So lots to get to today here on The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:01:43.000 Obviously we'll be talking a lot about Donald Trump's trip down to Mexico, way down in Mexico, and he also went up to Phoenix and talked about illegal immigration.

00:01:51.000 We'll get to all of that momentarily.

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00:03:40.000 So, Donald Trump is down in Mexico.

00:03:42.000 He goes down to Mexico yesterday, and there's a lot of lead-up to him going down to Mexico, a lot of fuss about what was going to happen.

00:03:48.000 I sort of laid out the possible options.

00:03:50.000 It turned out he was sort of halfway between two of my options that I mentioned yesterday, what actually happened.

00:03:55.000 But we'll start with Vincente Fox, the former president of Mexico.

00:03:58.000 He said that Trump would be rejected by everybody in Mexico.

00:04:01.000 Now you seem very angry again.

00:04:04.000 What happened?

00:04:05.000 I think so.

00:04:22.000 Representing 130 million people, I'm sure he's going to be rejected by everybody here in Mexico.

00:04:31.000 We cannot accept this going on.

00:04:35.000 And yes, it could be a desperate move.

00:04:38.000 He's just a day ahead or a day in advance of his address to the union, equivalent here in Mexico.

00:04:46.000 And yeah, to me, it is a desperate move on both sides.

00:04:51.000 Okay, it's a desperate move on both sides is what Vincente Fox and his mustache have to say about Donald Trump going down to Mexico.

00:04:57.000 Now, brief kind of timeout.

00:04:59.000 Here are the two narratives that have now emerged after Trump's trip to Mexico and his immigration speech.

00:05:04.000 And over the course of the program, we'll determine which one of these narratives is correct or if they're both correct.

00:05:09.000 Narrative number one is the pro-Trump narrative.

00:05:11.000 So the pro-Trump narrative says yesterday was the biggest success of the Trump campaign.

00:05:14.000 It was his best hour.

00:05:15.000 It was the best thing that he's done in the campaign so far.

00:05:17.000 He went down to Mexico.

00:05:19.000 He looked stayed.

00:05:21.000 He looked sober.

00:05:23.000 He didn't go down and vomit on somebody, so it's a big success.

00:05:26.000 And therefore, you know, big win for him.

00:05:28.000 He shakes the hand of the president of Mexico.

00:05:30.000 The president of Mexico doesn't slam him.

00:05:31.000 And then he goes to Phoenix, and he gives a very strong immigration speech, which is very heavy on policy.

00:05:35.000 He does walk back a little bit, kind of.

00:05:38.000 He kind of vaguely walks back the idea that he's going to deport everybody, but in such a way that it sounds like he might still deport everybody.

00:05:44.000 So big win for Donald Trump.

00:05:45.000 That's the narrative from the Trump camp.

00:05:46.000 The narrative from the mainstream media is Trump goes down.

00:05:49.000 He appears sober.

00:05:50.000 But it turns out that he fibs, right?

00:05:52.000 He goes down there and he says that we didn't talk.

00:05:54.000 Nieto, the president of Mexico, Peña Nieto.

00:05:57.000 We didn't talk about who was going to pay for the magical Trump wall.

00:06:00.000 We never had that conversation.

00:06:03.000 And Pena Nieto comes back a few hours later, and he says, no, we actually did have that conversation.

00:06:08.000 I told him I wasn't paying for the wall, so Trump lied.

00:06:10.000 And then Trump goes to Phoenix, and he's supposed to be giving this kind of moderating, softening pitch.

00:06:14.000 And instead, he gives a raw meat, red meat speech to his base of supporters who are very enthusiastic.

00:06:21.000 And he doesn't soften anything at all, so big loss.

00:06:23.000 The media says big loss.

00:06:24.000 Trump's people say big win.

00:06:25.000 So now we're going to talk about what actually happened.

00:06:27.000 I think there's some truth on both sides here, actually.

00:06:30.000 So Trump

00:06:31.000 You know, goes down to Mexico and he's speaking with Enrique Peña Nieto, who is the president of Mexico.

00:06:39.000 Prosperity and happiness in both of our countries will increase if we work together on the following five shared goals.

00:06:49.000 Number one, ending illegal immigration. 0.78

00:06:54.000 Not just between our two countries, but including the illegal immigration and migration

00:07:00.000 From Central and South Americans and from other regions that impact security and finances.

00:07:07.000 Number two, having a secure border is a sovereign right and mutually beneficial.

00:07:14.000 We recognize and respect the right of either country to build a physical barrier or wall on any of its borders to stop the illegal movement of people, drugs, 1.00

00:07:28.000 Improving NAFTA, number four.

00:07:30.000 NAFTA is a 22-year-old agreement that must be updated to reflect the realities of today.

00:07:37.000 There are many improvements that could be made

00:07:55.000 That would make both Mexico and the United States stronger and keep industry in our hemisphere.

00:08:04.000 Number five, keep manufacturing wealth in our hemisphere.

00:08:10.000 We can stop it there.

00:08:11.000 So bottom line is that he goes there and he speaks out all of his priorities.

00:08:14.000 We're going to stop illegal immigration. 1.00

00:08:15.000 We're going to build a wall.

00:08:16.000 So here's what this was and here's what this wasn't. 0.98

00:08:19.000 It was Trump appearing sober, which was important because the rip on him from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats is that he's a complete nutcase. 0.77

00:08:25.000 He's going to go down there and he's going to start launching nuclear weapons.

00:08:28.000 He was going to walk in with a mariachi band and a taco bowl, present it to Peña Nieto, and then annex the country, right?

00:08:34.000 That's the way that Hillary Clinton was basically speaking about how Donald Trump was going to act.

00:08:39.000 He didn't do that.

00:08:39.000 He appeared sober.

00:08:40.000 He appeared staid.

00:08:41.000 Honestly, it looks like he took a couple of Valium, and that wasn't a bad look for him.

00:08:45.000 What this does demonstrate, by the way, is that Donald Trump's standard, the standard to which we hold Donald Trump, and I think this is actually smart politically for him, is much lower than it would be for a normal politician.

00:08:53.000 He doesn't have to be interesting, he doesn't have to say anything exciting.

00:08:56.000 He can go down there, give a normal speech, and we treat him like we treat a two-year-old who just peed in the potty for the first time.

00:09:02.000 We just do a big, big round of applause.

00:09:04.000 It's an amazing, amazing showing.

00:09:06.000 I thought the most amusing aspect of this was Laura Ingraham coming out after this and saying, isn't it great that we just had such a successful meeting with our chief trading partner?

00:09:14.000 I thought you hated NAFTA, Laura.

00:09:15.000 I thought that was your whole deal.

00:09:16.000 But in any case, Trump, you know, Trump gives this statement.

00:09:20.000 He appears sober and he appears not crazy.

00:09:22.000 And that's the whole thing.

00:09:22.000 I mean, the whole thing here is he has to look not crazy on the international stage.

00:09:26.000 It's a big win.

00:09:27.000 The media acknowledged that it's a big win.

00:09:28.000 And then Trump is asked about the wall.

00:09:30.000 Did you speak about whether someone would pay for the wall?

00:09:34.000 Well, I'll start.

00:09:35.000 I mean, nothing like an easy question like that.

00:09:38.000 We did discuss the wall.

00:09:39.000 We didn't discuss payment of the wall.

00:09:42.000 That'll be for a later date.

00:09:43.000 This was a very preliminary meeting.

00:09:44.000 I think it was an excellent meeting.

00:09:47.000 And we are, I think we're very well on our way.

00:09:51.000 A lot of the things I said are very strong, but we have to be strong.

00:09:54.000 We have to say what's happening.

00:09:56.000 There is crime, as you know.

00:09:58.000 So he goes along these lines.

00:09:59.000 So great.

00:10:00.000 I mean, he says, we didn't discuss it.

00:10:01.000 And that's fine.

00:10:02.000 A lot of people who are kind of cynically trying to bash Trump, they say, well, you know, why didn't he discuss it?

00:10:06.000 That's him being weak.

00:10:07.000 You can't have it both ways.

00:10:08.000 Either you want him to pivot or you don't want him to pivot.

00:10:10.000 If you want him to pivot, then he can't discuss it.

00:10:12.000 If you don't want him to pivot, then you wish that he had mentioned it.

00:10:15.000 But then you have to be ideologically consistent and condemn his new pivot altogether.

00:10:19.000 Charles Krauthammer, who's not a Trump fan.

00:10:21.000 I mean, obviously I'm not a Trump fan either.

00:10:23.000 Pretty much everybody.

00:10:23.000 Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, all the people who you would think of as sort of the people who don't love Trump, to say the least.

00:10:31.000 They said that Trump helped himself with this particular jaunt to Mexico.

00:10:34.000 And it put Trump on the international stage.

00:10:37.000 Do you think it'll help him?

00:10:39.000 Yes.

00:10:40.000 He took a risk and he pulled it off.

00:10:42.000 Look, the big negative about Trump, the thing that the Clinton campaign plays on, is the fact that it's hard to imagine him as president.

00:10:51.000 Being presidential is the thing he's been trying to do.

00:10:54.000 His staff has been trying to get for him for the last six months.

00:10:58.000 Now here he is standing on the world stage with a world leader.

00:11:02.000 This is a big step.

00:11:03.000 He not only held his own, I think in some ways he sort of dominated.

00:11:08.000 The Mexican president was rather defensive, asking for respect.

00:11:12.000 Trump, I thought, spoke well.

00:11:15.000 And then if you noticed at the very end when they took questions, it was Trump who took charge.

00:11:21.000 He's sitting in the palace of the president of Mexico.

00:11:25.000 This never happens.

00:11:26.000 Normally, it's the host who picks the journalist.

00:11:30.000 Trump took charge naturally, walked off the stage as the dominant guy.

00:11:35.000 He pulled it off.

00:11:35.000 I think he really helped himself.

00:11:37.000 Okay, and I agree.

00:11:38.000 I thought that he helped himself yesterday.

00:11:39.000 I wrote a piece about it right afterward.

00:11:41.000 Hours later, the Mexican government comes out and they say Trump lied.

00:11:44.000 When he said we didn't talk about payment for the wall, that's not true.

00:11:47.000 Here's a Mexican spokesperson saying, yeah, we mentioned the wall.

00:11:50.000 So according to Reuters, quote,

00:11:52.000 Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday told Donald Trump Mexico would not pay for the Republican presidential candidate's proposed wall along the border.

00:12:00.000 According to Eduardo Sanchez, presidential spokesman, he said what the president said is that Mexico, as has been said on several occasions, will not pay for that wall.

00:12:08.000 So it sounds like Trump fibbed.

00:12:10.000 Now, again, I don't think that hurts Trump too badly, because he said right in front of Peña Nieto that we didn't talk about it, and Peña Nieto let it go.

00:12:16.000 So it looked like a little bit of sour grapes.

00:12:17.000 It looked like kind of Seinfeld jerk-storing, like he's coming about late to the party and trying to buy it back.

00:12:23.000 But it does cast a slight gloss on a little bit of a scar on what was a pretty blemish-free appearance by Donald Trump.

00:12:30.000 Then Donald Trump goes to Phoenix.

00:12:32.000 Then Donald Trump goes to Phoenix.

00:12:34.000 And Donald Trump gives this speech in Phoenix.

00:12:36.000 Now, to lead off, I think it's important to mention a couple of things.

00:12:38.000 One,

00:12:39.000 The speech was not at a policy conference.

00:12:43.000 It was not a policy center.

00:12:44.000 I think this was a mistake.

00:12:45.000 If you're going to give a big pivot policy speech, you don't do it to a rah-rah cheering crowd of people who are also cheering when you said you wanted to deport 11 million people.

00:12:53.000 If you're going to actually pivot on that issue, you don't do it in front of the red meat base. 0.98

00:12:57.000 You actually do it at like Heritage Foundation so that the crowd isn't cheering all of the lines that are the most militant

00:13:03.000 And going silent at all the lines that are the most pivot-friendly.

00:13:05.000 That's if you're trying to pivot, which Trump, I think, was trying to do.

00:13:08.000 That's number one.

00:13:09.000 Number two, the theatrics here.

00:13:11.000 There's one element of theatricality that I thought was good, but there are other elements that were pretty incredible.

00:13:16.000 You had Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Sessions walking on stage at this event wearing hats that said, Make Mexico Great Again Also.

00:13:23.000 I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, other than it seems like a slap in Mexico, right?

00:13:27.000 I don't know, are we going to invade?

00:13:28.000 Are we going to take it over?

00:13:29.000 Is it going to be like the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli?

00:13:33.000 I mean, are we going to go Woodrow Wilson-style in there?

00:13:36.000 It's bizarre.

00:13:37.000 But Trump gives this speech.

00:13:39.000 And so here's my initial take.

00:13:41.000 I read the speech last night.

00:13:42.000 I didn't watch the speech.

00:13:43.000 I read it.

00:13:44.000 And when I read the speech, I thought, this is a very well-stated policy position for Republicans on immigration.

00:13:50.000 I thought it's a really well-stated speech.

00:13:52.000 I thought that it mirrored Ted Cruz's position on immigration in the primaries, which is the position I supported.

00:13:57.000 I thought that this was a very, very strong speech.

00:13:59.000 And that was sort of widely accepted on the conservative right.

00:14:02.000 We looked at the speech.

00:14:03.000 We said, on policy, this is really good.

00:14:05.000 There were some holes on it when it got to deportation, but it's okay to leave that vague.

00:14:08.000 You don't have to talk about what you're gonna do 10 years from now when we finally secured the border.

00:14:12.000 You can kind of say, okay, we'll leave that to 10 years from now when we finally secured the border.

00:14:17.000 So let's go through Trump's speech.

00:14:18.000 There was a distinction, as I say.

00:14:20.000 One of the problems for Trump was that Trump is a showman.

00:14:23.000 Because Trump is a showman, he tends to perform to the live audience in front of him.

00:14:26.000 Now, as somebody who's done this before, I give speeches all the time, it's hard not to respond to the audience right in front of you as opposed to the audience that's outside the camera coming through your TV screen.

00:14:37.000 Trump should know this because he's been on TV so much, but he tends to respond to the people in the room like a musician would.

00:14:42.000 If you're a musician and you're playing a concert, I'm a violinist, if you're a musician, you're playing a concert and people are clanking their way through dinner,

00:14:48.000 Then you're going to start getting angry.

00:14:50.000 You might play faster.

00:14:51.000 You might play louder to try and get their attention.

00:14:54.000 Trump responds to the crowd.

00:14:55.000 And because he responds to the crowd here,

00:14:58.000 He ends up sounding more extreme than the text of the speech makes it out to be.

00:15:03.000 And that allows the left to create their own narrative of what Trump was actually doing here.

00:15:07.000 What he was trying to do was pivot while still maintaining a strong immigration position.

00:15:10.000 I think the text of the speech did that.

00:15:12.000 I also see why the left would seize on the sort of militance of Trump's tone as well as the vagary of his language to suggest that he wasn't really pivoting at all.

00:15:21.000 So we'll go through that in just a second.

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00:16:54.000 Okay, unfortunately that brings us to the end of our Facebook Live and YouTube.

00:16:57.000 If you want to hear my full analysis of Donald Trump's speech, plus we got the mailbag coming up, plus we have so many things I like and so many things I hate.

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00:17:27.000 We are the number one conservative podcast in America.

00:17:35.000 So there's two things to pay attention to in Donald Trump's speech, really three.

00:17:40.000 One is the policy, which we'll talk about, which was very good.

00:17:43.000 Two is the tone, which was not as good, the tone in the crowd, which was not as good.

00:17:46.000 And three was the key point, did he shift his position?

00:17:49.000 Did he shift his position?

00:17:50.000 Because the New York Times got itself in trouble.

00:17:53.000 They wrote an entire lead today, the entire lead to their piece about Trump's speech, which they had to release early, was Trump pivot.

00:17:59.000 And then it turned out that Trump didn't really pivot very hard.

00:18:02.000 They had to rewrite and pull down their entire piece and rewrite it.

00:18:04.000 This is the trouble with pre-writing all of your analysis.

00:18:08.000 So here's Donald Trump yesterday in Phoenix.

00:18:10.000 He says that he's just landed, having returned from Mexico, and here's how he says that went.

00:18:15.000 I've just landed, having returned from a very important and special meeting with the President of Mexico, a man I like and respect very much, and a man who truly loves his country, Mexico.

00:18:34.000 And by the way, just like I am a man who loves my country, the United States.

00:18:45.000 We agreed on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns, and people across our border, and to put the cartels out of business.

00:19:08.000 We also discussed the great contributions of Mexican-American citizens to our two countries, my love for the people of Mexico, and the leadership and friendship that we have between Mexico and the United States.

00:19:26.000 So we can pause it here.

00:19:28.000 So I just want to read you the text as it was written.

00:19:30.000 Okay, so he's reading it as it was written, but here's how it should have been read.

00:19:35.000 This is just a political note.

00:19:37.000 You hear him kind of screaming this out, and when he reads it this way, it sounds like there's a severe competition.

00:19:42.000 Doesn't it sound like there's a severe competition between the United States and Mexico?

00:19:46.000 He loves his country. 0.99

00:19:47.000 Well, screw him. 0.99

00:19:47.000 I love my country. 0.99

00:19:49.000 The way that this was supposed to read on the page, this is sort of the problem with reading his speeches as opposed to watching them, the way that it reads on the stage, on the text, is like this.

00:19:57.000 I've just landed, having returned from a very important and special meeting with the President of Mexico, a man I respect and like very much, and a man who really loves his country, just as I'm a person who loves the United States.

00:20:08.000 Right?

00:20:08.000 That's how it's supposed to be.

00:20:09.000 It's not supposed to be

00:20:11.000 It's not supposed to be, I love my country just as much as he loves his, it's supposed to be, he loves his country just as much as I love my country, right?

00:20:17.000 That's the actual reading.

00:20:18.000 He reads it opposite, right?

00:20:19.000 He reads it, so the emphasis is, I love my country more than he does, he loves his country, I love my country more, and that's why I'm gonna schlong him in a deal, right?

00:20:25.000 That's sort of the way that it reads, just in terms of tonality.

00:20:29.000 That's not how it reads on the page.

00:20:30.000 He goes on along these lines, he says, he starts talking about how we're gonna talk about immigration honestly.

00:20:35.000 Now again, the content of this

00:20:37.000 But if we're going to make our immigration system work, then we have to be prepared to talk honestly and without fear about these important and very sensitive issues.

00:20:44.000 For instance, we have to listen.

00:21:00.000 To the concerns that working people, our forgotten working people, have over the record pace of immigration and its impact on their jobs, wages, housing, schools, tax bills, and general living conditions.

00:21:17.000 These are valid concerns expressed by decent and patriotic citizens from all backgrounds, all over.

00:21:27.000 We also have to be honest about the fact that not everyone who seeks to join our country will be able to successfully assimilate. 0.98

00:21:37.000 Sometimes it's just not going to work out.

00:21:40.000 It's our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.

00:21:52.000 Okay, again, the content here is 100% correct.

00:21:55.000 What he says here is exactly right.

00:21:56.000 That there are a lot of people in the United States who feel this way about immigration.

00:21:59.000 It doesn't mean they're bigots, it doesn't mean they're xenophobes, and people should stop pretending that they are.

00:22:03.000 And he's exactly right when he says, not everyone who's joining the country will be able to successfully assimilate. 0.99

00:22:08.000 And he says it's our right as a sovereign nation to choose people we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish.

00:22:13.000 This should be him trying to convince.

00:22:15.000 Instead, it sounds like he's kind of beating people down.

00:22:17.000 Again, the contrast between the content and the tone is a little bit of a problem.

00:22:22.000 I don't think that it's a huge problem, but I think part of it is, again, he's giving it in a big auditorium with an echoey microphone, with a big crowd behind him cheering what he's saying.

00:22:30.000 He continues along the lines, again, the content here is excellent.

00:22:33.000 He talks about the issue of security.

00:22:34.000 This is excellent content.

00:22:37.000 Then there is the issue of security.

00:22:40.000 Countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws like they have to be enforced.

00:22:56.000 I have met

00:22:58.000 With many of the great parents who lost their children to sanctuary cities and open borders.

00:23:06.000 So many people.

00:23:08.000 So many, many people.

00:23:11.000 So sad.

00:23:12.000 They will be joining me on the stage in a little while and I look forward to introducing.

00:23:19.000 These are amazing, amazing people.

00:23:22.000 Again, the crowd here is the problem.

00:23:24.000 What he's saying here is not the problem.

00:23:25.000 The crowd cheering, the crowd kind of yelling, it adds the feeling that this is sort of a rabble-rousing speech, when in reality, this is not a rabble-rousing speech. 0.50

00:23:32.000 This is a policy speech.

00:23:34.000 And if you give a policy speech, you don't need people yelling in the background.

00:23:37.000 That's a mistake of imagistic.

00:23:39.000 But everything that he's saying here is, of course, exactly right.

00:23:43.000 Then he continues along these lines.

00:23:45.000 He talks about who are the illegal immigrants who are actually coming to the United States.

00:23:49.000 While there are many illegal immigrants in our country,

00:23:52.000 Who are good people.

00:23:54.000 Many, many.

00:23:55.000 This doesn't change the fact that most illegal immigrants are lower skilled workers with less education who compete directly against vulnerable American workers and that these illegal workers draw much more out from the system than they can ever possibly pay back. 0.97

00:24:15.000 And they're hurting a lot of our people that cannot get jobs under any circumstances.

00:24:22.000 Okay, that last line wasn't in the original text, as I understand it.

00:24:24.000 They're hurting a lot of people that cannot get any jobs under any circumstances.

00:24:29.000 Again, this is putting a moral onus on people who just want to get a job, and it sounds harsher than it actually is.

00:24:34.000 The whole tone here should be, I'm just stating facts, okay?

00:24:37.000 These are just the facts.

00:24:38.000 The vast majority of people who are coming into the country are good people.

00:24:41.000 That doesn't change the fact that it does lower the wage rate when you have a broader labor pool, especially of people who are not subject to minimum wage.

00:24:48.000 I just said the same thing he did, except it doesn't sound as militant, right?

00:24:52.000 He continues, but again, I want to point out the difference between content and tone, because what people tend to take away from these speeches is not the 90 minutes of content, it tends to be the 30 seconds of tone that you get from a YouTube clip, or that you get from listening on the radio.

00:25:07.000 That's what you get, right?

00:25:07.000 What you get is, is he yelling, is he not?

00:25:10.000 If he's yelling, that means he's angry.

00:25:11.000 If he's angry, that means he's angry at somebody. 0.97

00:25:13.000 If he's angry at somebody, he's angry at illegal immigrants, that means he hates illegal immigrants and wants to harm them. 0.83

00:25:18.000 That's the way the human brain works.

00:25:19.000 Most of the judgments we make about how people think are based on our initial takeaway from what they project in terms of feeling.

00:25:27.000 And this is why it was a mistake to do the speech this way.

00:25:29.000 But we'll put that behind because I don't have to keep reiterating the same point.

00:25:32.000 Now let's focus a little bit on the actual content of the speech.

00:25:36.000 And again, I think a lot of this, he's really, really good.

00:25:39.000 He says, he talks about the fact that the media have misprioritized this entire deal.

00:25:45.000 But these facts are never reported.

00:25:48.000 Instead, the media and my opponent discuss one thing and only one thing.

00:25:54.000 The needs of people living here illegally. 1.00

00:25:58.000 In many cases, by the way, they're treated better than our vets.

00:26:09.000 Not going to happen anymore, folks.

00:26:11.000 November 8th.

00:26:12.000 Not going to happen anymore.

00:26:14.000 Right, that sounds like mass deportation.

00:26:17.000 Right, it sounds like mass deportation.

00:26:19.000 And he's right that the central issue in illegal immigration should not be the people who are here. 0.98

00:26:23.000 Everybody treats it like it's an urgent problem that people are living here illegally. 0.98

00:26:27.000 It's not an urgent problem.

00:26:27.000 It's been happening for literally decades.

00:26:30.000 Nothing has changed.

00:26:31.000 The only urgent problem is the safety concern and stopping the continuation of the flow into the country, and then we can figure out what to do with these folks.

00:26:38.000 That was the Rubio plan.

00:26:39.000 That was the Jeb Bush plan.

00:26:40.000 That was the Ted Cruz plan.

00:26:40.000 They all had basically the same plan on this particular matter.

00:26:45.000 But nonetheless, you know, Donald Trump is, you know, he's stating it, but it sounds like, it sounds harsh.

00:26:51.000 It does.

00:26:51.000 It does sound harsh.

00:26:53.000 He continues, and again, he continues along these lines, and he points out that the media are totally out of touch here.

00:26:58.000 The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants, or however many there may be.

00:27:09.000 And honestly, we've been hearing that number for years.

00:27:13.000 It's always 11 million.

00:27:15.000 Our government has no idea.

00:27:17.000 It could be 3 million, it could be 30 million.

00:27:20.000 They have no idea what the number is.

00:27:23.000 Frankly, our government has no idea what they're doing on many, many fronts, folks.

00:27:31.000 But whatever the number, that's never really been the central issue.

00:27:36.000 It will never be a central issue.

00:27:41.000 It doesn't matter from that standpoint.

00:27:44.000 Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington.

00:27:55.000 Only the out-of-touch media elites think the biggest problem facing American side, and you know this, you know this, this is what they talk about,

00:28:06.000 Facing American society today is that there are 11 million illegal immigrants who don't have legal status.

00:28:15.000 And they also think the biggest thing, and you know this, is not nuclear, it's not ISIS, it's not Russia, it's not China, it's global warming.

00:28:29.000 To all the politicians, donors, and special interests,

00:28:34.000 Hear these words from me and all of you today.

00:28:41.000 There is only one core issue in the immigration debate, and that issue is the well-being of the American people.

00:28:53.000 Okay, when you watch this, and when you listen to it, he's saying a lot of things that are true.

00:28:57.000 He is.

00:28:58.000 The question is, who's his audience?

00:29:00.000 So he thinks his audience are the people right in front of him.

00:29:02.000 But his audience for this whole day was supposed to be the working mother in the suburbs, the woman who may vote Republican sometimes, votes Democrat sometimes, is concerned about safety, but also feels the need for compassion.

00:29:15.000 And he opened up the speech by talking about how he wanted to be compassionate and fair.

00:29:19.000 Are you sensing compassion from him?

00:29:21.000 Do you get the sense of compassion from him?

00:29:23.000 And so this isn't a question of right or wrong.

00:29:25.000 I think that he's right on virtually everything he's saying.

00:29:28.000 This is a question of tonality.

00:29:30.000 And I keep going back to this point because it's important.

00:29:31.000 In politics, the question is your audience.

00:29:34.000 Who is his audience?

00:29:35.000 What is he trying to do?

00:29:36.000 And when he's just citing back to his stump speech, which it seems like is what he's doing here,

00:29:40.000 I'm not sure who he's gaining.

00:29:42.000 It was a real opportunity.

00:29:43.000 He goes to Mexico, has a very sober meeting.

00:29:45.000 He could have come forth, done a really sober speech in which he laid out this exact same agenda, the exact same agenda, but done so in a way that wasn't yelly, and wasn't screamy, and wasn't cheery, and wasn't people clapping, and wasn't people yelling, but instead was, I'm just going to lay out for you, here are the hard facts about immigration, and we have to be compassionate, and we have to deal with people in a way that's fair, but we also have to make sure that we're protecting America's interests.

00:30:06.000 He could have done all of that.

00:30:07.000 But instead, it turns out, just imagistically, it doesn't look like that.

00:30:11.000 From any standpoint, it doesn't look like that.

00:30:13.000 And so what that does, that opens the door for the left narrative.

00:30:16.000 So the left narrative is that Trump did not pivot yesterday.

00:30:19.000 Now, Trump was on Laura Ingraham this morning saying, no, no, no, I'm softening, I'm softening.

00:30:22.000 So last week we had the softening, then we had the hardening, then we had the softening again.

00:30:26.000 And he needs to talk to his urologist at this point.

00:30:29.000 He says that in the middle of the speech, he sort of takes both positions.

00:30:34.000 So there's one point where he says, we're not going to have any amnesty.

00:30:37.000 He says there's not going to be legal status.

00:30:39.000 There's not going to be any amnesty.

00:30:40.000 Here's what he had to say about that.

00:30:43.000 Number one, are you ready?

00:30:48.000 Are you ready?

00:30:49.000 It's like a rock concert.

00:30:51.000 We will build a great wall along the southern border.

00:30:58.000 And Mexico will pay for the wall.

00:31:04.000 They don't know it yet, but they're gonna pay for the wall.

00:31:08.000 Okay, so that's not a flip.

00:31:10.000 Okay, the clip that I'm looking for, I think this is probably four or five from the end, guys.

00:31:14.000 It's the one where he talks about his message to the world, you can't obtain legal status.

00:31:18.000 Do we have that one?

00:31:19.000 All right.

00:31:21.000 Our message to the world will be this.

00:31:27.000 You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. 0.86

00:31:39.000 Can't do it.

00:31:45.000 This declaration alone will help stop the crisis of illegal crossings and illegal overstays, very importantly.

00:31:54.000 People will know that you can't just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized.

00:32:02.000 Not going to work that way.

00:32:05.000 Those days are over.

00:32:07.000 Right.

00:32:08.000 Those days are over.

00:32:09.000 So that sounds like he's gonna deport everybody, right?

00:32:11.000 And then, literally in the next sentence, he says, in several years, things could change.

00:32:18.000 Do we have that clip?

00:32:20.000 In several years when we have accomplished all of our enforcement and deportation goals and truly ended illegal immigration for good including the construction of a great wall which we will have built in record time and at a reasonable cost which you never hear from the government

00:32:47.000 And the establishment of our new lawful immigration system.

00:32:52.000 Then, and only then, will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those individuals who remain.

00:33:04.000 That discussion can take place only in an atmosphere in which illegal immigration is a memory of the past, no longer with us, allowing us to weigh the different options available based on the new circumstances at the time.

00:33:24.000 So he says, so that's the flip.

00:33:26.000 That's the flip.

00:33:26.000 So you can't hear it again because he's yelling it at you.

00:33:30.000 But what he's saying there is in two paragraphs, right, back to back, he says, you can't obtain legal status, you can't become a citizen by illegally entering the country, you can't hunker down and hope that we're eventually going to amnesty you.

00:33:40.000 Then in literally the next paragraph, he says, in several years, in several years, then we can have a discussion about the appropriate disposition of people who hunkered down and stayed here.

00:33:50.000 And now it doesn't sound like mass deportation, does it?

00:33:52.000 Right, so a minute ago it sounded like mass deportation, now it doesn't sound like mass deportation.

00:33:56.000 That was near the end of the speech.

00:33:58.000 It was the critical point of the speech, but it got overwhelmed by the image of him with this huge cheering throng, 5,000 people, cheering every time he said he was going to build a wall, cheering every time he said there would be no amnesty, cheering every time he ripped illegal immigrants as criminals.

00:34:11.000 So what the media did is they took that and they said, that's the story.

00:34:14.000 The story is Trump doubling down.

00:34:16.000 The story is not the actual policy shift.

00:34:18.000 The story is Trump doubling down.

00:34:20.000 And so this morning, Politico is reporting that a bunch of Hispanic people on Trump's campaign are now quitting because they didn't see the pivot they wanted to see.

00:34:27.000 Now, if you read the speech, the pivot's there.

00:34:29.000 If you just read the text, the pivot's present.

00:34:31.000 It's vague.

00:34:32.000 He wants to split the baby.

00:34:33.000 He wants to have it both ways.

00:34:34.000 But basically, the media are saying there was no pivot.

00:34:38.000 The media are saying there was no pivot, and Trump's people saying there was a pivot.

00:34:42.000 And that's why the narrative that this was a big win for Trump on the Trump side I think is not completely correct.

00:34:47.000 The narrative on the part of the left that there was no pivot is also not correct.

00:34:51.000 Trump's policy on deportation remains just as vague as it ever was after his big immigration speech last night.

00:34:57.000 And I think the media is going to glom onto that and then they're just going to ask about deportations nonstop.

00:35:01.000 Now if he's smart, what Trump will say is, look,

00:35:04.000 As I've said before, as I said in that speech, we'll talk about deportations of non-criminal illegal aliens, meaning, you know, they're already criminals because they're here illegally, but criminal activity beyond that.

00:35:13.000 We'll talk about deportations of those people once we've already secured the border.

00:35:16.000 We'll talk about what we do with the people who are here once we've secured the border.

00:35:21.000 Okay, I think that that's the answer he has to start giving on a regular basis.

00:35:24.000 But the image, just even the attitude of Trump in Mexico versus Trump on the stump last night, you can see the difference, right?

00:35:30.000 Trump in Mexico is very soft-spoken.

00:35:32.000 Trump in Mexico is very subdued.

00:35:34.000 Trump on the stump with 5,000 people, mistake by his campaign, it got his juices flowing and you got the full Trump.

00:35:39.000 You got the full, complete Trump.

00:35:42.000 So there's a lot of fallout from all of this.

00:35:44.000 You know, people who love Trumpianism were very happy about all this.

00:35:48.000 Ann Coulter, in her typical moderate language, she said this was the most magnificent speech in the history of Earth.

00:35:54.000 She said, wow, this doesn't sound like softening.

00:35:56.000 Go Trump.

00:35:57.000 Right?

00:35:57.000 So she sees it as not softening, so the media latched onto that.

00:36:00.000 She says, God bless Trump for refusing to go along with the nonsense number of 11 million illegal—it's at least 30 million, could be 60 million.

00:36:07.000 I'm gonna put this hat on.

00:36:42.000 Donald Trump made it clear that obviously he understands and respects and admires tremendously the contributions of Mexican-Americans who have come here legally over the years.

00:37:00.000 First generation, second generation, third generation.

00:37:04.000 Okay, so he's wearing a hat and says, make Mexico great again also. 0.98

00:37:07.000 I don't know what the point of that was or who decided on this stagecraft, but it's really kind of dumb. 0.98

00:37:12.000 Here's the thing. 0.88

00:37:13.000 So you could see the attitude of Democrats about the Trump move yesterday by the level of panic during the day.

00:37:19.000 So the level of panic declined markedly after his speech last night.

00:37:22.000 After he went to Mexico, you could feel the panic.

00:37:26.000 On Twitter, you could feel the panic in the Hillary campaign.

00:37:28.000 Hillary gave a speech yesterday before Trump gave his immigration speech, and you could see that she was starting to panic.

00:37:34.000 Here's Hillary saying, leadership is more than a photo op. 0.97

00:37:37.000 You don't build a coalition by insulting our friends.

00:37:42.000 Or acting like a loose cannon.

00:37:45.000 You do it by putting in the slow, hard work of building relationships.

00:37:53.000 Getting countries working together was my job every day as your Secretary of State.

00:38:00.000 It's more than a photo op.

00:38:02.000 It takes consistency and reliability.

00:38:06.000 Actually, it's just like building personal relationships.

00:38:10.000 People have to get to know that they can count on you.

00:38:14.000 That you won't say one thing one day and something totally different the next.

00:38:20.000 So, let me stop there.

00:38:22.000 She says leadership is more than a photo op.

00:38:23.000 Well, you know, lady, your leadership led to the death of four Americans in Benghazi, the trashing of Libya, the trashing of Egypt, the trashing of Tunisia, the trashing of Turkey. 0.53

00:38:35.000 The genocide that's ongoing in Syria, you really don't get to talk about leadership on the foreign sphere.

00:38:40.000 And this is why people were panicking, because in the Clinton camp, they're looking, and you hear what she says, we can't have crazy people doing foreign policy. 0.95

00:38:46.000 Trump goes down to Mexico, and the only bar he had to jump over was, don't be crazy.

00:38:52.000 That was legitimately the only bar, right? 0.99

00:38:53.000 Don't be a crazy person.

00:38:55.000 And he wasn't a crazy person, and so the Democrats started to panic because their narrative of Trump is such a nut that you can't trust him, that disappeared.

00:39:02.000 Then he did his speech last night, and suddenly they were all happy again.

00:39:05.000 Suddenly all of the Democratic frowny faces turned into smiley faces, and people started wondering what was Trump doing, what was his strategy here.

00:39:13.000 And you can sort of see relief set in on the Democratic side.

00:39:16.000 Trump had the opportunity to make a significant move here.

00:39:19.000 He didn't end up making a very significant move because of that speech.

00:39:21.000 He still can do it.

00:39:22.000 He still can do it.

00:39:24.000 But to me, it was a bit of a blown opportunity.

00:39:26.000 So this is why, you know, in the two-narrative battle that I mentioned at the beginning, the left's narrative that yesterday was a disaster for Trump and the right's narrative that it was great for Trump, I'm in the middle.

00:39:34.000 I think that it was a blown opportunity for Trump, an opportunity that he created through good politicking, and then he proceeded to not fulfill through bad politicking.

00:39:43.000 Okay, it's time for some things that I like, and then some things that I hate, and then we got some mailbag today.

00:39:47.000 So, things that I like today.

00:39:49.000 Let's start with, it's Gene Wilder week, because obviously Gene Wilder passed away this week.

00:39:54.000 We've done Blazing Saddles, we did The Frisco Kid, which is one of my personal favorites.

00:39:59.000 Probably the best movie that he was ever in was The Producers, the original Producers.

00:40:03.000 They made a musical out of this that stinks, but they did do a

00:40:08.000 I don't know.

00:40:24.000 One of the more famous Gene Wilder clips from the producers.

00:40:26.000 He plays kind of a nebbishy accountant.

00:40:27.000 And the plot of the film is that Zero Mostel plays this would-be Broadway producer who discovers that you actually make more money from producing a Broadway flop than you do from producing a Broadway hit.

00:40:37.000 And the way you do this is you go out and you raise a bajillion dollars for your opening night.

00:40:42.000 You sell 1,000% of the operation.

00:40:47.000 And then you have an opening night that is such a disaster.

00:40:50.000 It's so bad.

00:40:51.000 The reviews are so terrible that you have to pull the thing in one night.

00:40:53.000 You have to pull the musical in one night.

00:40:55.000 And then you just say to your investors, sorry, all the money's gone.

00:40:58.000 We invested it.

00:40:58.000 It's gone.

00:40:59.000 Can't do anything about it.

00:41:00.000 And you just pocket the cash, right?

00:41:01.000 That's the plot of the film.

00:41:02.000 And he ropes Gene Wilder into this.

00:41:05.000 And Gene Wilder is the Nebuchadnezzar accountant. 0.99

00:41:06.000 And it's really, really funny.

00:41:07.000 When you get a hold of yourself, don't touch me!

00:41:15.000 Don't touch me! 0.58

00:41:16.000 I'm hysterical!

00:41:20.000 I'm having hysterics!

00:41:21.000 I'm hysterical!

00:41:23.000 I can't stop when I get like this!

00:41:24.000 I can't stop!

00:41:25.000 I'm hysterical!

00:41:30.000 I'm wet!

00:41:32.000 I'm wet!

00:41:34.000 I'm hysterical and I'm wet!

00:41:37.000 I'm in pain!

00:41:39.000 And I'm wet!

00:41:41.000 And I'm still hysterical!

00:41:42.000 No, no, don't hit, don't hit.

00:41:44.000 It doesn't help.

00:41:44.000 It only increases my sense of danger.

00:41:46.000 What can I do?

00:41:47.000 What can I do?

00:41:48.000 You're getting me hysterical. 0.97

00:41:50.000 Go away, go away. 0.99

00:41:51.000 You frighten me. 0.98

00:41:52.000 Stay over there.

00:41:55.000 Okay.

00:41:57.000 Okay.

00:41:59.000 I'm over here.

00:42:00.000 This better?

00:42:01.000 That's better.

00:42:03.000 But you still look angry.

00:42:05.000 How's this?

00:42:09.000 Good.

00:42:12.000 That's good.

00:42:14.000 Really, really funny film.

00:42:15.000 And of course, this has some of the great Mel Brooks classics, like Springtime for Hitler. 0.75

00:42:20.000 It's a really, really, really funny movie, which has been blown up by Hollywood, which is what they always do.

00:42:26.000 They always take the great things, remake them, and make them stink.

00:42:28.000 But the original film is the best, by far.

00:42:30.000 And he's charming and funny.

00:42:33.000 It's a great film.

00:42:34.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:42:35.000 So somebody said, I have the world's both greatest and weirdest fans.

00:42:39.000 So I had, so yesterday we had a bizarre Japanese anime thing and I have no idea what the Japanese on it said, although I have been informed that there was some stuff in there that was inappropriate.

00:42:48.000 So if there was,

00:42:49.000 I didn't know about it, and I still don't know about it because it's in Japanese, and I don't speak Japanese.

00:42:53.000 But if it was, I apologize for those who read Japanese. 0.65

00:42:56.000 If there was anything offensive in there, I have no clue.

00:42:58.000 Again, it was in Japanese.

00:42:59.000 But somebody sent me this, and this is offensive and terrible, but I think it's hilarious, so I'm gonna put it up.

00:43:07.000 So, somebody sent me this graphic of shot glasses with Harambe, the gorilla.

00:43:13.000 I'm obsessed with the whole Harambe memeing routine. 0.91

00:43:15.000 I think it's the funniest thing ever, because I have a really dark sense of humor.

00:43:18.000 It says, take a shot for Harambe. 0.53

00:43:19.000 He took one for you.

00:43:23.000 Okay.

00:43:24.000 I understand.

00:43:25.000 The animal rights people hate me now, but tough.

00:43:27.000 It's funny.

00:43:27.000 Okay.

00:43:28.000 Things I hate. 0.80

00:43:30.000 So I mentioned very early on the program this double standard that exists in the media, and it is pretty ridiculous, but Things I Hate. 0.80

00:43:36.000 Let's do it.

00:43:38.000 Oh, we already did.

00:43:39.000 We're never going to get this right.

00:43:40.000 Fine.

00:43:40.000 So CNN, here's this routine on CNN.

00:43:43.000 They were doing an interview of this guy who had saved a baby who was stuck in a hot car.

00:43:47.000 So some terrible mother decided it would be a genius move to leave a four-month-old baby in 80-degree weather in a closed car, which is a good idea if you want to roast the baby and kill the baby. 1.00

00:43:57.000 So this guy broke the window and saved the baby.

00:43:59.000 He was on CNN, and he was wearing a Trump shirt.

00:44:02.000 Here's what CNN did with the Trump shirt.

00:44:05.000 You're walking through the parking lot, you see the baby.

00:44:07.000 Help us understand what went through your mind and why you did what you did.

00:44:12.000 As I was walking up, I was parked far back from the car.

00:44:15.000 And as I was walking up, I saw this old lady walking out of the store. 1.00

00:44:19.000 And as we got shoulder-to-shoulder by the back end of this car, she had yelled, oh my God.

00:44:25.000 So when I turned around, we heard the baby screaming.

00:44:28.000 We were like, oh my God.

00:44:30.000 The baby was sweating.

00:44:31.000 Her hair was all wet.

00:44:33.000 She was covered up with a wool blanket on.

00:44:35.000 Didn't happen in this case.

00:44:35.000 Thanks to you and Sarah.

00:44:37.000 Thank you again.

00:44:38.000 We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

00:44:40.000 Okay, notice something.

00:44:40.000 Okay, so this is a good guy, right?

00:44:42.000 This is a good guy.

00:44:42.000 He broke the window of the car to save this baby.

00:44:44.000 The mother, by the way, is going to be prosecuted for child endangerment.

00:44:48.000 Look at his shirt.

00:44:48.000 You notice something?

00:44:49.000 They blurred out the Trump.

00:44:51.000 This is on CNN Headline News.

00:44:52.000 They blurred out the Trump.

00:44:52.000 Was it obscene?

00:44:53.000 I don't understand.

00:44:54.000 If that was an Obama shirt, you think there's one chance in hell they would have blurred it?

00:44:57.000 Or a Hillary shirt, you think they would have blurred it? 0.95

00:44:59.000 No way.

00:45:00.000 And then they claimed it was a mistake.

00:45:01.000 This is what they claimed later.

00:45:02.000 It was a mistake.

00:45:04.000 We have film editors here.

00:45:05.000 I mean, we edit the show every day.

00:45:06.000 We cut lots of stuff.

00:45:08.000 We blur things.

00:45:09.000 Have you ever accidentally blurred something?

00:45:11.000 Has that ever happened?

00:45:12.000 You're just sitting around and boom, something goes blurry?

00:45:15.000 It never happens.

00:45:15.000 I mean, clearly this is a deliberate move to blur out the shirt because they don't want people to know that this swell fellow is a Trump supporter because you're not allowed to know he's a Trump supporter.

00:45:25.000 There are other items of apparel, however, that the media are willing to hide on behalf of the left.

00:45:29.000 Here's one of those items of apparel.

00:45:30.000 Colin Kaepernick, who is just turning out to be a terrible person.

00:45:33.000 This is the bench-riding quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who says he will sit out the National Anthem on Military Appreciation Day because he's a class act.

00:45:41.000 These are the socks that he's now wearing at practice.

00:45:44.000 There's a story about this at Daily Wire that's linked to Drudge. 0.95

00:45:47.000 The picture is, on his socks, it is a picture of pigs wearing cop caps. 0.91

00:45:53.000 I'm wearing police hats. 0.98

00:45:55.000 So this guy who says that America's a deeply racist place, a really terrible discriminatory place, he has socks with pictures of the police as pigs on them. 0.94

00:46:03.000 And he wears them out to practice. 0.96

00:46:05.000 Apparently he's been wearing these since August 10th.

00:46:07.000 Nobody has seen fit to ask him about them.

00:46:09.000 The entire media knew.

00:46:10.000 He's not been asked one question about them.

00:46:12.000 Not one.

00:46:13.000 Because he's a civil rights hero, gang. 0.99

00:46:15.000 And if he's a civil rights hero, we can't ask him why he thinks that all cops are pigs. 1.00

00:46:18.000 Just disgusting. 1.00

00:46:19.000 Just disgusting. 0.61

00:46:21.000 Okay.

00:46:22.000 You know, we'll skip the—we'll save the other things that we hate for today.

00:46:25.000 We'll go straight to the mailbag so that we can see if we can approximate.

00:46:30.000 The appropriate time this show is supposed to run.

00:46:33.000 Okay.

00:46:34.000 Mailbag.

00:46:34.000 Jerry writes,

00:46:46.000 Okay, Jerry, I think this is a perfectly valid argument.

00:46:48.000 If Trump makes you feel safer, then of course that's a valid argument.

00:46:50.000 I've said myself, I think Trump might make me feel safer on immigration.

00:47:10.000 There are a lot of considerations here.

00:47:12.000 If that's your paramount concern, if your paramount concern is we have to stop the importation of people who are threats to American citizens, then vote Trump.

00:47:20.000 Although I will say that, again, you may be sinking the possibility of stopping future immigration

00:47:26.000 Waves if you vote Trump and by doing so you toxify the Republican brand for the next election because my perception is that Trump is going to lose and if you toxify the Republican brand on behalf of Trump, you're not going to be able to defeat Hillary in four years or eight years.

00:47:39.000 It's just going to be forever.

00:47:40.000 You guys went along with Donald Trump.

00:47:42.000 So I'm not sacrificing victory just for the sake of sacrificing victory here by not voting Trump.

00:47:47.000 If I don't vote Trump, if I don't vote Trump,

00:47:50.000 Then it's not because I want Hillary to win, or it's because I want Democrats to continue to win, it's because I want Democrats to lose to somebody who's actually going to fix the problem in the near future, as opposed to somebody who's going to pay lip service to fixing the problem.

00:48:01.000 So this is a very complex calculation.

00:48:03.000 I've never pretended, and I've said it over and over.

00:48:05.000 I'm not saying this is an easy decision either way.

00:48:08.000 There's a bunch of different things on the table.

00:48:09.000 The toxification of the Republican conservative brand, the attempt to turn conservatism into Trumpism, the absolute hatred with which many Americans view Donald Trump, the fact that young people despise Trump.

00:48:22.000 I mean, his poll numbers with young people are awful.

00:48:24.000 These are things that we have to think about for the future beyond just this election.

00:48:27.000 As I've said before, if you think this is the last election, if you think this is the last election, it's the last chance to save the country, vote Trump.

00:48:36.000 That's it.

00:48:37.000 If you think this is the last chance to save the country, vote Trump.

00:48:39.000 If you think that the real saving of the country rests on the election of a real conservative sometime in the near future and the non-wiping-out-of-the-Republican brand, then you might want to think about it twice.

00:48:49.000 Well, I mean, to be fair, I don't think that the brand— not all brands of Christianity are equal.

00:48:51.000 The sort of Russian Orthodox, 0.85

00:49:06.000 Greek Orthodox brand of religion that's practiced in Russia, from what I know, and that isn't very much, is not the same as, you know, the American brand of religion, just as European Christianity is not the same as American Christianity.

00:49:17.000 There are many different strains of Christianity.

00:49:20.000 American Christianity rests also in this kind of rationalistic, largely Protestant upbringing that most of our founding fathers had.

00:49:30.000 And that is what shaped the values.

00:49:32.000 Not all brands of Christianity are exactly the same.

00:49:34.000 Catholicism, obviously, is not the same as Anglicanism, which is not the same as Protestantism.

00:49:39.000 And all of these have different political considerations.

00:49:42.000 There's a reason why Catholicism is very heavy in South America, but heavily Catholic countries in South America also turn into socialist dictatorships very often.

00:49:52.000 And there's a reason for that.

00:49:53.000 So, you know, I don't think that China's on the verge of becoming a classical liberal haven.

00:49:57.000 I don't think that Russia is either.

00:49:59.000 Russell writes, Dear Ben, I'm a second year college student and have been listening to your show for two months.

00:50:03.000 I hold great respect for your defense of liberty and envy your eloquent way of speaking.

00:50:06.000 I've always held traditional conservative values partially because of my parents, although recently I've become more libertarian.

00:50:12.000 Whenever a professor presents a progressive idea and my classmates not, I feel alone.

00:50:15.000 My question is,

00:50:16.000 How do I become more solid in the ideas of free market capitalism and individual freedom so that when I'm in that situation I can rebut in a coherent way?

00:50:46.000 We're good to go.

00:51:04.000 Okay, so he says, I'm the reason that he got off the Trump train.

00:51:08.000 It made me reconsider my admiration for Trump.

00:51:09.000 For that, I'm forever grateful.

00:51:11.000 Again, if you want to vote Trump, that's fine.

00:51:13.000 Just be eyes wide open about who these people are.

00:51:18.000 As far as nation building, it's not nation building to support democracies that exist.

00:51:21.000 It's nation building to suggest that you can take places that have never experienced democracy and magically turn them democratic.

00:51:26.000 So you should be more exact when it comes to this terminology, you know, taking

00:51:30.000 Taking Afghanistan and saying we're gonna take this tribal state that's never seen anything remotely approaching Western liberalism and suddenly, boom, we're gonna turn them into, you know, Idaho. 0.95

00:51:39.000 It ain't gonna happen.

00:51:40.000 Alexander writes, hey Ben, why do you think so many companies now use affirmative action?

00:51:44.000 Would it not be more profitable to hire employees based only on things like skill, work ethic, accomplishments, education, etc.?

00:51:50.000 Do you think there are any benefits to affirmative action?

00:51:52.000 Thanks, Alex.

00:51:53.000 Alex, if you mean race-based affirmative action, no, I do not think there are benefits to race-based affirmative action.

00:51:58.000 I think it is just another way of distinguishing between people's races without looking at their backgrounds.

00:52:03.000 There are many reasons why you would pick somebody who has different experiences.

00:52:08.000 Many reasons why you would look at somebody's work experience.

00:52:10.000 If you have a 4.0 GPA and you came from a really rough background, that may be more impressive than if you have a 4.0 GPA and you came from a really rich background because you presumably had to work harder to overcome obstacles, and that has relevance.

00:52:24.000 But if it's just race-based, like there's a black guy and a white guy, and the black guy gets more points, no, I think that's anti-beneficial. 0.99

00:52:29.000 I think that's stupid. 0.99

00:52:31.000 Do you think it's likely the conservative party can come back in four years stronger than now? 0.99

00:52:47.000 And if so, who in your opinion could lead the party to victories?

00:52:50.000 And I love you stay objective and lay the information out, and I appreciate it.

00:52:53.000 Okay, so Drake, you know, as far as some of the people who I think are solid for 2020, I think Greg Abbott in Texas is somebody who's solid for 2020.

00:53:02.000 I think that Ben Sasse in Nebraska is somebody who's solid for 2020.

00:53:06.000 There's some other governors who I think would be interesting candidates for 2020.

00:53:09.000 I do think the possibility of a real conservative resurgence remains, but this is important.

00:53:14.000 I think after this election cycle, if Trump loses, which the polls suggest he will, if Trump loses, there's going to be a big battle, and it's not going to be between the Trumpsters and the conservatives.

00:53:23.000 It's going to be the establishment and the conservatives.

00:53:24.000 The establishment is going to blame conservatives for Trump and tell the Trump people they were taken for a ride by people like Cruz and bank on the hatred of Trump people for Cruz to form a de facto alliance with the Trump people and then put conservatism in the backseat.

00:53:39.000 That's what I foresee happening.

00:53:40.000 The Paul Ryans and Mitch McConnells and the Ryan supremacists of the world who have already reached out to Trump in a way that a lot of conservatives haven't.

00:53:46.000 People are forgetting the never-Trump people.

00:53:48.000 We're all basically Ted Cruz conservatives.

00:53:50.000 I mean, it's people who are hardcore conservatives, not people who are wishy-washy.

00:53:55.000 There are a few wishy-washy never-Trumpers, but most of the people who are anti-Trump are also people who are very, very hardcore conservatives.

00:54:02.000 The establishment has formed common force with Trump.

00:54:04.000 They're going to try and maintain that equilibrium after the election and say to the Trump people, look, you got your shot.

00:54:09.000 Now it's our shot.

00:54:10.000 We need

00:54:12.000 We need Jebrew McBush part three.

00:54:14.000 We need Bob Bush.

00:54:16.000 We need some iteration of the Bush family.

00:54:19.000 Michael writes,

00:54:28.000 My view on libertarianism, there are multiple types of libertarianism.

00:54:31.000 There's strong defense libertarianism, which is sort of Larry Elder libertarianism.

00:54:34.000 Then there's weak defense libertarianism, like Ron Paul.

00:54:37.000 There are people who are libertarian on social policy, like Gary Johnson is pro-choice, pro-abortion.

00:54:43.000 There are people who are libertarian but pro-life, like Rand Paul.

00:54:45.000 So there's lots of strains even within libertarianism.

00:54:47.000 But my view on libertarianism is that I'm pretty much libertarian when it comes to government policy.

00:54:53.000 You should be able to do whatever you want, so long as you're not hurting anybody else, is a pretty good rule for government now.

00:55:00.000 The reason I'm a conservative and not a full libertarian is because libertarians, many of them, go further, and they say that even in the social sphere, there shouldn't be institutions that push social standards.

00:55:10.000 They say the local communities shouldn't be able to have stigmas.

00:55:13.000 Local churches shouldn't be able to throw people out.

00:55:16.000 Local organizations shouldn't be able to organize on the basis of the morality of their choosing.

00:55:22.000 That I disagree with.

00:55:22.000 I think strong societal institutions outside of government are the greatest guarantor of liberty from government.

00:55:29.000 This is what de Tocqueville said.

00:55:30.000 If you're a member of a church, and everybody in your community is a member of a church, much better shot that you're not going to go to the government to enforce morality, since you already have a quasi morality that's socially enforced.

00:55:40.000 Taylor writes, with all the controversy skyrocketing on the left about how America is not the greatest country, could you please give your opinion on this topic?

00:55:47.000 What are the five things you appreciate and respect most about the United States?

00:55:50.000 Okay, economic freedom and property rights, the belief in God-given rights that are protected from government as well as by government, the idea of checks and balances because human beings can't be trusted, the notion that equality extends to people of all races and all sexes, and that that equality is an equality of rights and opportunity but not an equality of outcome.

00:56:10.000 And finally, the basis of all of this, which is freedom of religion, the idea that I can worship as I see fit.

00:56:14.000 Those are five big ones.

00:56:16.000 And a sixth, which is sort of an adjunct to all five of those, is the idea that we have a right to protect ourselves from encroachment by the government, which is, of course, what the Founders did when they rebelled against the British, and that requires a Second Amendment.

00:56:28.000 Josh writes, do you think there should be any legal guidelines for treatment of animals?

00:56:31.000 What is your stance on the practices of Tyson and other large food processors in regard to animal treatment?

00:56:36.000 Yeah, Josh, I'm kind of torn on this.

00:56:38.000 So, I'm not an animal rights activist in the sense I don't think animals are the same as humans, and I think people for the ethical treatment of animals does grave disservice to animal rights by suggesting things like there's a chicken holocaust. 0.99

00:56:50.000 That's just, that's stupid. 1.00

00:56:51.000 That's stupid. 1.00

00:56:52.000 As far as ethical treatment of animals, yes, I think that there should be regulations with regard to the treatment of animals. 1.00

00:56:59.000 I think some of these are overbroad. 0.68

00:57:00.000 I think the idea that all chickens have to be free-range is kind of silly.

00:57:05.000 I have to admit, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I'd like to research it a little bit more and think about it a little bit more before giving a hard and fast answer, because obviously every time you create regulations like this, you increase the price of food.

00:57:16.000 Which doesn't hurt rich people, you know, people who earn a lot of money like me, but it does hurt people at the bottom of the economic chain who are looking for, you know, a cheap chicken breast they can feed their kid.

00:57:24.000 And so if there are all sorts of regulations, like in California about free-range eggs and all this stuff, and you double the price of eggs, that does have a human cost.

00:57:31.000 Okay, Adam writes, and we're gonna do maybe like one or two more of these.

00:57:34.000 Hey Ben, my wife and I are expecting our first kid next month. 0.75

00:57:37.000 We're part of the same crappy millennial generation as you. 0.98

00:57:39.000 Because our generation sucks so bad, we're considering private school or homeschool. 0.99

00:57:42.000 Thoughts? 0.94

00:57:43.000 Will public education continue to get worse regardless of who is in office?

00:57:47.000 No, I'm not sure public education will continue to get worse regardless of who is in office.

00:57:51.000 I think that if you break teachers' unions, allow school vouchers, and create competition in the public school system,

00:57:57.000 That can increase the quality of education.

00:57:59.000 You have to impose some of the same sorts of standards that Michelle Rhee tried to impose in Washington, D.C., and then was thrown out for doing so, including the idea of giving raises to quality teachers and getting rid of tenure rules. 0.78

00:58:10.000 I think that it depends on your community.

00:58:11.000 Where I live, I went to the Burbank Unified School District for elementary school.

00:58:14.000 Great school.

00:58:15.000 I went to Edison Elementary.

00:58:16.000 Terrific school.

00:58:17.000 I then went to Walter Reed, which is in North Hollywood.

00:58:20.000 Very different school district.

00:58:21.000 This one was part of LAUSD, and I wasn't in the mainstream.

00:58:24.000 I was in the IHP program, the highly gifted program.

00:58:27.000 The teachers were good, but the other students looked like they wanted to murder you every time you went out on the playground.

00:58:31.000 I mean, it was like Mad Max out there.

00:58:33.000 So it really does depend on the school district and your local community.

00:58:37.000 Stay awesome, my friend.

00:58:38.000 I am deeply insulted by that.

00:58:49.000 I don't know.

00:59:12.000 We'll take an online poll on who should play me in the film.

00:59:17.000 I've always said Shaquille O'Neal should play me in the film, but that may be bad casting.

00:59:23.000 Final one.

00:59:23.000 Michael writes, hi Ben, recently the DOJ has said it will no longer use private prisons.

00:59:27.000 Many people are excited by this decision, saying this is the end of business profiting off the incarceration of people.

00:59:32.000 The assumption seems to be private prisons are somehow driving up the number of people being incarcerated just to make money.

00:59:37.000 What's your opinion on the use of private prisons?

00:59:39.000 My opinion on the use of private prisons is that the government is terrible at everything, and if you have a competitive bid that is overseen with regulation, and you have people who are monitoring the private prison, private prisons can actually be sued into the ground by both the government and the inmates, whereas the public system, only you get sued.

00:59:54.000 So the public school system is bad because of this.

00:59:57.000 The public jail system is bad because of this.

01:00:00.000 I don't know what improves when you hand everything over to the state, as opposed to handing it over to private companies, who you then hold accountable.

01:00:07.000 Okay, we've reached the end of the week.

01:00:10.000 And that means, of course, that we're about to end, as Andrew Klavan likes to call it, enter the Klavan-less weekend, in which things get ruined and people die.

01:00:17.000 Try to control yourselves, gang.

01:00:18.000 We won't have a show on Monday, because it's Labor Day, thanks to, and we'll just preempt this right now.

01:00:23.000 Thanks to the unions for Labor Day.

01:00:25.000 Also, thanks for our skyrocketing debt and the destruction of our national sovereignty.

01:00:29.000 So, really appreciate that.

01:00:30.000 That's been awesome.

01:00:31.000 So, glad for Monday off.

01:00:33.000 Not so glad about the $19 trillion debt, as well as massive state debts across the board. 0.99

01:00:37.000 Those kind of suck.

01:00:38.000 But, and you're not responsible for all $19 trillion in debt, but you are responsible for California's debt. 0.99

01:00:42.000 California's dead.

01:00:42.000 In any case, thanks for Labor Day Off.

01:00:45.000 We will see you Tuesday, and then we'll have an exceedingly short week.

01:00:48.000 And short week just means we cram in more information, as you know, because time has no meaning here.

01:00:53.000 We just move fast.

01:00:55.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

01:00:55.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 01, 2016

Ep. 176 - Trump Has His Finest Hour

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