The great irony of Trump's victory is that he was actually an anti-celeb. After years of President Obama traipsing around studios in L.A. to read mean tweets, after nearly a decade of listening to the sophomoric, unearned moral superiority of actors and actresses who earn millions for reading lines other people write, after watching 9/11 Truth-O-Rapper go to the White House, Americans said no to celebrity culture by electing a celebrity. Because that s what we do. Americans voted for a woman whose closest contact with flyover country came during one highly choreographed stop at Chipotle. Meanwhile, celebrities who didn t grow up in tremendous wealth hobnobbed with the elites. Meanwhile others who didn't grow up with tremendous wealth taped a fight song rendition for the Democratic National Convention. So did Bruce Springsteen. And all of them did so for a man who, unlike her, was not a flyover middle-class voter in Wisconsin by virtue of living in a penthouse covered in gold leaf and playing the role of an everyman on television and it worked. Ben Shapiro explains why Americans may never get over their obsession with celebrity, but they sure don t want to hear those celebrities talk down to them. And rural Americans were more than willing to punish Hollywood for that grave sin if Democrats hope to win down the road, they're going to have to do better than trotting out the scornful glitterati who trot out the sanctimonious liberal elite trotters. . Ben Shapiro is a writer, comedian, and host of the podcast The Weekly Standard. He's also hosts a weekly podcast called The Ben Shapiro Show, and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, The Cut, The Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast. He's on a mission to make sense of it all. He also writes a book called and hosts a podcast called . He's a good friend of the culture, which you should listen to. And he's also a regular at a lot of good wine. and he's a very good at drinking wine, too. And he also happens to be a pretty good at it. If you're looking for a good time, you can find him on social media, too, you should check out his Insta story about it. And if you like wine, he's on Insta: . And he makes it on Instapaper, too!
00:00:01.000On the Saturday night after Donald Trump's stunning presidential victory over Hillary Clinton, Saturday Night Live decided to forgo its mandate, you know, humor, in favor of a full-on political wake.
00:00:11.000Kate McKinnon, who has done a creditable job mocking Clinton for most of the election cycle, led off the show with a full rendition of the recently deceased Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
00:00:20.000There were zero laughs and lots of delicious, delicious celebrity tears.
00:00:23.000McKinnon wasn't the only one crying, by the way.
00:01:18.000After years of President Obama traipsing into studios in L.A.
00:01:21.000to read mean tweets, after nearly a decade of listening to the sophomoric, unearned moral superiority of actors and actresses who earn millions for reading lines that other people write, after watching 9-11 Truth-O-Rappers go to the White House, Americans said no to celebrity culture.
00:01:38.000The great irony of Trump's victory is that he was actually an anti-celebrity celebrity.
00:01:42.000He had all the perks of celebrity, but he reveled in them.
00:01:44.000He didn't try to claim he was a better human being than the white middle-class voters in Wisconsin by virtue of living in New York in a penthouse covered in gold leaf.
00:01:51.000Trump played the everyman on television and it worked.
00:01:53.000Meanwhile, celebrities who didn't grow up in tremendous wealth hobnobbed with the elites.
00:01:58.000Singers and actresses taped a fight song rendition for the DNC.
00:02:01.000Dunham appeared on stage at the convention sans her sister.
00:02:04.000Beyonce and Jay-Z campaigned for Clinton.
00:02:42.000First, we have to say hello to our sponsors over at Wink.com.
00:02:45.000So, if you don't know anything about wine, what a good wine is, what a bad wine is, but you know kind of what you like in terms of food and drink, then go to TryWink.com.
00:03:37.000Okay, lots and lots to get to today here on The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:03:40.000So first of all, got to give you the update from what happened at DePaul.
00:03:45.000Last night, DePaul University, I'm supposed to speak there, and the way that we were working this is, as you recall, six months ago, there's a big hubbub at DePaul because Milo Yiannopoulos spoke at DePaul, and a bunch of the students rushed the stage, and they took over the stage, and they were yelling at him, and the security didn't do anything, and then the administration decided to fire the president of the university, basically, for having allowed that lecture, and they issued a blanket ban, not only on Milo, but on me.
00:04:40.000And she was going to be accompanied by me.
00:04:42.000So halfway through, she was going to hand over the microphone to me, and we were going to do an event to get around the band.
00:04:48.000So, DePaul finds out about this a couple of days beforehand, and they say, we're gonna shut down the event unless you ban Shapiro, unless you re-ban Shapiro.
00:04:54.000So they say, okay, well, what if Shapiro just, he's already here, what if Shapiro just comes as a guest and listens to Christina Hoff Sommers?
00:05:00.000And the administration says, no, he can't even be in the room.
00:05:11.000So the situation yesterday when I did the podcast was that the administration was literally threatening to arrest me if I walked onto campus.
00:05:19.000They were literally threatening to arrest me if I walked onto campus.
00:05:21.000So, the way that we worked it was this.
00:05:23.000Christina went inside the hall, and she started her speech, and then I came up afterward because I wanted to see if these people were actually serious about shutting down free speech.
00:05:32.000I'm giving a speech, by the way, about free speech, right?
00:05:35.000The speech is actually about free speech.
00:05:37.000And I wanted to see if they were actually willing to arrest me.
00:05:40.000Turns out they were, because fascism is alive and well on America's college campuses.
00:05:44.000Here is the video of what happened last night at DePaul University.
00:05:56.000Well, I mean, YAF did inform me that I was coming as a speaker, as a person sitting in the audience, as well as as a member of Christina Haas-Sommers' team.
00:06:10.000So, I'm not sure whether the standards are necessary.
00:06:13.000I'm also wondering exactly why it's so necessary to keep me personally out.
00:07:49.000As you've come to know me over the course of the last year, I love violence so much that I've denounced every candidate who has engaged in any violent rhetoric the entire campaign.
00:08:50.000But they've internalized the demands of the rioters and the protesters so much that they didn't arrest any of the rioters and protesters when they destroyed Milo's speech six months ago.
00:08:59.000There weren't any tonight, but the administration still threatened to arrest me if I had tried to step onto the campus.
00:09:06.000You know, there are people saying that I should have gotten myself arrested just for the shtick of it.
00:09:09.000Okay, first of all, I'm not going to get arrested just for the sake of getting arrested, because it was clear they were going to arrest me.
00:09:16.000One of the people there was actually suggesting the reason that that fellow you see there, the security guy, was attempting to bring me aside in that tape, is he wanted to get me over onto the grass off a public walkway.
00:09:26.000He wanted to actually have me step over onto the grass, and at that point everybody tackles me.
00:10:17.000It's incredible how, I mean, time after time, these college campuses won't even let you speak because you get shouted down by intolerant people when you try to go and then they say it's a security concern.
00:11:31.000So once they'd made clear that I would be arrested if I took two steps forward, then what I did instead is Christina Hoff Sommers, who joined me at this lecture, she actually Skyped me into the lecture hall, and then we told everybody in the lecture hall to get up and walk out, and we all walked over to a theater that was about three blocks away and did the event anyway.
00:11:48.000What do the kids who, if there are kids who are protesting, young adults, your presence, say?
00:11:57.000Well, I mean, I think that they're just offended by anybody who has a differing point of view.
00:12:01.000I mean, I'm speaking tomorrow at University of Wisconsin in Madison, and one of the key reasons that they're protesting me, apparently a big protester plan, is because I'm pro-Trump, which is weird, since I wasn't.
00:12:37.000State senator in Wisconsin, Dewey Strobel, he just wrote this letter directly to the folks at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
00:12:47.000For weeks, the Young Americans for Freedom at UW-Madison have been meticulously planning an event with conservative commentator and New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro.
00:12:55.000In recent days, the campus conservatives have come under attack from ultra-left agitators.
00:12:59.000These liberals have invited hundreds to a private Facebook group page titled, F-White Supremacy, Interrupting Ben Shapiro.
00:13:06.000Now, a complaint has been filed against the organization, stating they broke a university policy by advertising the event to the public.
00:13:12.000In an advising meeting, Center for Leadership and Involvement staff advised the conservatives that student organization events are open only to the campus community, students, faculty, and staff, and in order to open an event to the public, a department must sponsor.
00:13:24.000The staff also informed the students a portion of the complaint alleges the group targeted a member of the campus community by sharing a publicly available Facebook post.
00:13:32.000While opposing students are filing frivolous grumbles to the staff,
00:13:36.000It appears the university is welcoming to protesters.
00:13:38.000However, not members of the public looking to listen to Mr. Shapiro.
00:13:41.000Senator Struble said, at a taxpayer-funded university, Madison should make efforts to have more events open to the public.
00:13:47.000It is important student organizations have the ability to, without cumbersome red tape, host events to include the public.
00:14:21.000People just got sick of all the nonsense that the left is pushing, the safe spaces and the shut it all down, the political correctness, all of that nonsense that's gone by the wayside.
00:14:31.000Americans just aren't interested in it anymore.
00:14:33.000And that I can certainly appreciate about the Trump campaign and about the support for Trump, because it is clear that across the country, the left, the fascistic left is interested in shutting down anything remotely resembling freedom of discussion.
00:14:46.000Now, along those lines, I think that it is important to note that the media continue to make absolute asses of themselves.
00:15:07.000I don't have an interest in propping up Trump.
00:15:10.000I have an interest in him succeeding as a conservative, that would be great, but I don't have an interest in BS-ing for him as so many others do.
00:15:16.000When I say the media are out to get this guy, they are out to get this guy and they're doing it in the stupidest possible way.
00:15:22.000So, for example, Chris Matthews, you know what I'm gonna say?
00:17:09.000The media are so ridiculous that if they're suggesting that Americans are going to be deeply, deeply upset about the appointment of John Bolton, Secretary of State, the former U.N.
00:17:17.000ambassador under George W. Bush, this is just nuts.
00:18:40.000He decided to go out to dinner without alerting some of his key staffers, as well as the press.
00:18:45.000And it appears to be yet another misunderstanding of exactly how much gravity his new title as president-elect holds.
00:18:53.000You know, if, God forbid, something were to happen to him, that is a matter not only of public record, but also a matter of national security, given that he is next in line to take the White House.
00:19:25.000He's going to get there, and he's going to be like, pass the A1 sauce right now.
00:19:29.000And if someone doesn't pass the A1 sauce, he breaks it off into a jagged edge and then shoves it in their jugular, and then he gets impeached before he's done.
00:19:40.000In one moment, believe it or not, you're going to have to hear me defend Steve Bannon.
00:19:43.000I know, I can't believe it either, but that's what this media has come to.
00:19:46.000I'll talk about that in just a second, but first, I have to give a shout-out to our sponsors over at birchgold.com.
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00:20:26.000Okay, before we take off, I just have to make one more quick note about the media.
00:20:31.000The media have wildly overplayed their hands on Steve Bannon.
00:20:35.000So, as one of the leading Bannon critics in America, somebody who worked with Steve Bannon for years, I think that Steve Bannon is a vicious, very bad guy.
00:21:34.000So instead of just saying, here's what troubles me about Bannon,
00:21:37.000The hollowing out of traditional conservatism, traditional constitutional conservatism, in favor of European far-right populism, which doesn't care about the size of government, which doesn't worry about the size and scope of government, it just worries most specifically about shutting down the borders and increasing tariffs.
00:21:59.000But they're not criticizing that, right?
00:22:00.000They're not criticizing that aspect of Bannon.
00:22:01.000They're not criticizing the aspect of Bannon that he's really vicious and that he may use the government as a method of going after old enemies, considering that he's, again, one of the most vindictive people in the business.
00:22:13.000No, instead, they have to go full Hitler.