Trump announces new tariffs on Canadian softwood and dairy products, but there's no sign that he's using them as leverage to get back at Canada. Plus, the latest on Mike Flynn and the government shutdown, and a new poll that shows Americans are more worried about the shutdown than they are about the economy. Ben Shapiro is on The Ben Shapiro Show with Ben Shapiro to talk about it all and much more! Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's new show, The Weekly Standard, wherever you get your news and information. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code: CRITICIALS to receive $50 off your first set of Bullenbranch sheets. If you don't like them, you can try them for yourself for 30 nights for $50 plus free shipping. You can't ask for much more. You're not going to get more affordable sheets like these anywhere else. Plus, there's free shipping on all orders over $50, and you'll get twice the retail markup you get at your local retailer, plus a 20% discount when you use promo code CRITICALS. at checkout. It's $50 for a full set of sheets, plus FREE shipping. That's a deal that doesn't get any better than that! You won't want to miss it! Thanks to our sponsor, B&B! - Ben Shapiro and the team at Bullenbach! to make the bedding you need to get a good night's rest and a good nights rest, right here at home with the best bedding company in the landline connection in the whole world. Ben's favorite place in the U.S. Ben Shapiro on the whole place! Ben and the crew at The Daily Mail, Ben Shapiro, and the people who make the best sheets in the entire place you get the best of the best in the place you can get the most comfortable and the most affordable bedding in the best service in the world, all in the cheapest possible place on the best place to do it all for you, anywhere you can find it all, no matter where you go, no frills and the best price possible, free of charge, free shipping and everything you need it all you need the most of it, no shipping at all the best, no extra postage and everything that you can do it, it's all over the whole thing, including free shipping, no fizz and the whole lot of it's gonna get it.
00:00:00.000For the past couple of weeks, President Trump has been railing against the trade treachery of our neighbor to the north, Canada.
00:00:05.000Canada has replaced China as Trump's new bugaboo.
00:00:08.000At the same time Trump turned his anger against the evil Canucks, he said China was not a currency manipulator.
00:00:13.000That's because Trump is now attempting to appeal to the blue-collar workers in the swing states who've been harmed by Canada's protectionism.
00:00:19.000There's nothing wrong with Trump ripping Canadian protectionism on milk importation.
00:00:22.000It's true that Canada has been tariffing American milk products in order to subsidize its domestic farming industry.
00:00:27.000Here's what Trump tweeted today, quote, Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult.
00:00:35.000But it's Trump's solution that's sort of a problem.
00:00:37.000Instead of pressuring Canada to lower its tariffs on Wisconsin milk, Trump has decided to retaliate via tariffs of his own, with no sign that he's using those tariffs as leverage to tamp down protectionism from the Trudeau administration.
00:00:49.000On Monday night, Trump announced to conservative allies he would put a, quote, countervailing duty of somewhere between 3% and 24% on Canadian lumber.
00:00:55.000The United States buys nearly 80% of all Canadian softwood lumber exports.
00:00:59.000This means builders will pay the price for Trump's trade retaliation.
00:01:03.000As Cato Institute pointed out a decade and a half ago, quote,
00:01:18.000But this tariff does pay off domestic loggers who are celebrating along with their Democratic representatives.
00:01:23.000Senator Ron Wyden is a radical leftist and he called the move a quote message that help is on the way.
00:01:34.000America has had a long-standing dispute with Canada over lumber for the past three decades.
00:01:38.000But Trump likes tariffs and he wants to raise them.
00:01:40.000He has a particular constituency that he wants to protect, and just as Democrats do with domestic spending, he's going to use trade to help them out through indirect taxation.
00:01:49.000That's why Trump has blamed NAFTA for Canadian trade intransigence, which doesn't make a lot of sense considering that NAFTA lowered tariffs rather than raising them.
00:01:56.000If Trump were using the new lumber tariffs as leverage for future negotiations, that would be understandable.
00:02:00.000But it appears he's just using the milk dispute as a trigger for the protectionism he so desperately seeks.
00:02:05.000Look for more punitive measures that harm American producers and consumers from the Trump administration, unfortunately.
00:03:10.000You get $50 off your first set of sheets, plus free shipping.
00:03:13.000The sheets are like $200 for a set of sheets, which, if you're talking about really, really high quality sheets, actually is not a lot of money.
00:03:19.000Plus, remember, you're sleeping on them every single night.
00:03:23.000As I say, they breathe, they're like half the price of expensive retail markup, and you get twice the quality of the stuff that you're gonna get at your local retailer, because this is, they just are the best.
00:03:34.000You can try them for 30 nights, see for yourself if you don't like them.
00:03:36.000You can send them back for a full refund.
00:03:40.000That's why three ex-presidents, plus Bill Clinton's lovers, sleep on Bull and Branch sheets.
00:03:43.000Bull and Branch is just, the company is great, the product is fantastic.
00:03:47.000If you go to bullandbranch.com today, you get $50 off your first set of sheets, plus free shipping, when you use that promo code BEN, B-O-L-L and branch.com, promo code BEN.
00:03:56.000As I say frequently, it's one of those things that will make you feel rich, even if you are not, because sleeping on a luxurious set of sheets is really top-notch, and as I say, it's so good that I can't sleep on other sheets now.
00:04:07.000We bought a bunch of sets on our own initiative, because we can't sleep on any other sheet.
00:04:11.000Bull and Branch, the best in the business.
00:04:59.000The era of small government, according to Republicans, apparently is over.
00:05:02.000The poll shows that Americans now want more spending on programs ranging from veterans benefits and services to infrastructure, from Medicare to health care, from defense to environmental protection, from social security to assistance to the needy.
00:05:13.000All of them, Americans now want more, more government than they did back in February 2013 when Barack Obama had just been re-elected and was starting his second term.
00:05:22.000So for example, veterans benefits and services, 53% of Americans wanted more funding for that in February 2013.
00:06:05.000What's happening here is obviously, unfortunately, it now appears that a lot of the small government rhetoric of a lot of people on the right was just reactionary tribalism directed at Barack Obama.
00:06:15.000As soon as they got one of their own in, then all of a sudden all the small government rhetoric went completely out the window because we like Trump, but we didn't like Obama, so it was bad when Obama spent, but it's good when Trump spends.
00:06:27.000And you can see that a lot of this shift is coming from Republicans, not from Democrats.
00:06:31.000In 2013, only 28% of Republicans wanted increased spending on roads and infrastructure.
00:06:36.00021% wanted less spending on those things.
00:06:38.000Today, 55% of Republicans want increased spending on infrastructure.
00:06:42.000That is due to Donald Trump, and it's also due to the fact that Republicans have bought into, I think all Americans, unfortunately, have now bought into the idea that the government can fix your problems.
00:06:51.000The government cannot fix your problems.
00:06:53.000And you are seeing this from mainstream Republicans.
00:06:55.000You've seen it for years from mainstream Republicans.
00:06:57.000Today, the obvious example comes from John Kasich.
00:07:00.000So John Kasich is the governor of Ohio, who I could not stand in the primaries.
00:07:03.000As you remember, every time John Kasich spoke during the primaries, I said, oh God, no, please God, not John Kasich.
00:07:08.000Oh yes, John Kasich, governor of Ohio and MSNBC this morning.
00:07:11.000Listen to how he describes President Trump.
00:07:14.000My wife says you're the father of Ohio.
00:08:14.000Government is there to do a job to defend and protect my rights.
00:08:17.000But it is not there to be my mommy or my daddy.
00:08:20.000But now you have Republicans, including John Kasich, and I think to a certain extent Trump, buying into this generalized idea, only I can solve.
00:08:30.000Only you in a free country can solve your problems.
00:08:32.000John Kasich cannot solve your problems.
00:08:34.000Only you in a free country can solve your problems.
00:08:36.000And this idiotic notion that government is supposed to sit over us and fix all of our problems is really a Democrat left notion.
00:08:43.000This idea that Trump can do it with tariffs, this idea that Trump is going to change the economics and the working of economics to protect his specific group of people, it is no better than Democrats using direct taxation to redistribute wealth to use indirect taxation to redistribute wealth.
00:08:57.000But I think Republicans have bought into this big government nonsense, and it really is upsetting, and it demonstrates the moral corruptness of a movement that claimed that it was small government through and through, and then turns around and says that it's not small government anymore as soon as somebody they like is in, and then blow out the spending.
00:09:13.000That's really dishonest, and it's dishonest in a huge way.
00:09:16.000You can see the dishonesty when it comes to the government shutdown.
00:09:19.000Donald Trump wants his wall funded by Congress.
00:09:28.000We shouldn't have people crossing the border illegally.
00:09:30.000I was for a wall before Trump was, and after the Trump wall is not built, presumably, I still will be for the Trump wall when Trump has said he kept his promise.
00:09:37.000Bottom line is that Trump says he wants funding for the wall, and Republicans in Congress go,
00:09:43.000And Democrats in Congress go and say, no way, we're not going to do it.
00:09:46.000If you do that, we will shut down the government.
00:09:47.000We will not pass a budget with funding for your stupid wall in it.
00:10:20.000So if government is the problem, less of it would be a good thing.
00:10:23.000So Republicans, to a certain extent, should be rooting for a government shutdown, because vital essential services continue to be performed, the military continues to operate, the social services, like social security, it continues to get paid.
00:10:34.000Those are considered essential services that are not cut.
00:10:36.000When there is a government shutdown, people continue to work, right?
00:10:38.000That's just the way that the system works.
00:10:41.000But Republicans are so damn scared of government shutdowns that they think that it's going to crush them.
00:11:00.000You're the ones who want the government open.
00:11:02.000You tell me why the government should stay open.
00:11:04.000You explain to me why the government should stay open on the terms that you want.
00:11:08.000And if you want to shut down the government, fine.
00:11:10.000We can all exist without the government.
00:11:11.000We can all exist without the government doing all of these stupid things that the government is doing.
00:11:15.000You know how meaningless the government shutdown was during when Cruz and the Republicans tried to defund Obamacare and there was a government shutdown for like a month?
00:11:42.000So, Obama, in order to show how terrible it was that the government had shut down, he had to forcibly shut, like, the World War II memorial and ban people in wheelchairs from going and visiting the memorial for their buddies.
00:11:52.000That's how he, he had to do that, specifically in order to demonstrate how terrible, how terrible the government shutdown was.
00:11:58.000He shut national parks, right, which caused nothing, nothing to operate.
00:12:02.000He could have just redirected money and kept them open, but he wanted people to feel the suffering, and the only way he could make people feel the suffering was to shut down national parks.
00:12:10.000What Republicans should have said is, dude, if that's all this is, like you're shutting down national parks, here's a bill to reopen the national parks, and let's just leave everything else closed.
00:12:18.000Republicans, in other words, conservatives should not be afraid of government shutdowns, because we're constantly making the case that not only should there be a temporary government shutdown, a lot of these programs should just die.
00:14:38.000And what Republicans constantly do is they don't understand how the game of chicken works.
00:14:41.000So, not to drop a tweet thread game theory on you, okay, but there's a basic concept in game theory called chicken, right, and this is the way that it works.
00:14:48.000If there are two people who are running a car directly at each other, their worst outcome is if nobody swerves, right?
00:14:53.000That's the worst outcome for both parties.
00:15:03.000And the best outcome for you is if the other guy swerves.
00:15:07.000That's the best outcomes if the other guy swerves.
00:15:09.000So, how do you make the other guy swerve in a game of chicken?
00:15:12.000The way that you make the other guy swerve in a game of chicken is you demonstrate openly and obviously to the other person that you are not going to swerve no matter what.
00:15:19.000You put a brick on the accelerator and you take the club and you put it on the steering wheel.
00:15:43.000If you want to lose the standoff that is the government shutdown, continue to be this stupid.
00:15:49.000Barack Obama was perfectly happy with the shutdown.
00:15:51.000He was perfectly happy with the shutdown.
00:15:53.000But here was Mitch McConnell talking about the shutdown at exactly the same time.
00:15:56.000Let's switch to the issue of potential government shutdown.
00:16:00.000You probably know that Democrats are making a big deal out of comments that you made talking about the strategy that you would use if you became Majority Leader to use spending bills to change policy.
00:16:14.000And that you didn't rule out a government shutdown.
00:16:22.000I'm the guy that gets us out of shutdowns.
00:16:25.000But that doesn't mean that Congress has an obligation to send appropriation bills to the President that are a blank check, which is the way it's been with the Democratic Senate.
00:16:34.000One of the powers of Congress is to direct spending, and we have an abusive bureaucracy across the board that's been particularly bad here in Kentucky with the EPA and the coal industry that needs to have some directions from Congress.
00:16:48.000The reason Harry Reid... Shutdowns are a failed policy.
00:17:07.000I want to talk a little bit more about this in just a second and the reaction that people should be having to the wall and all the rest of this.
00:17:13.000But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at MyPatriotSupply.
00:17:16.000So, if you are concerned about North Korea developing a nuke, if you are concerned about an earthquake, if you're concerned about a tornado, if you're concerned about a flood, if you're concerned in any case that there's going to be some sort of disaster for which you need resources, then you owe it to yourself and your family.
00:18:39.000The Small Business Administration and FHA don't guarantee you loan applications, which is probably a good thing, considering that half of what they're guaranteeing are bad loans that private industry wouldn't give.
00:19:16.000FBI, VA, all of this continues to function.
00:19:19.000Disaster relief continues to function.
00:19:20.000The Postal Service continues to deliver the mail.
00:19:22.000The Federal Reserve continues to work.
00:19:24.000Right, so basically, the parts of the government that people consider vital, and many that aren't vital, continue to operate in a government shutdown, but Republicans are so scared, because they're all pansies, they're so scared of this stupid government shutdown.
00:19:37.000People are asking, what about IRS tax returns, how about my tax refund?
00:19:40.000Yes, the IRS will be slower to process your tax refund, they'll also be slower to audit you.
00:19:44.000You can, honest to God, like, I think that you're better off with the IRS failing to audit you.
00:19:50.000It's not a tax refund, it's your money in the first place.
00:19:52.000So maybe you'd be better off for there to be a government shutdown.
00:19:55.000If they were going to do one, let's do it like April 10th, right?
00:20:03.000If the wall is that important, if the wall is that important, then you should be willing to stand up against the Democrats on this and say exactly what Barack Obama said and say, look, the people who are shutting this down are the Democrats.
00:20:22.000But you can see the Trump administration futzing around on this because a big government party has to avoid a government shutdown.
00:20:27.000Here's Sean Spicer being asked about Mexico funding the wall and the funding battle.
00:20:31.000That in order to get the ball rolling on border security and the wall, that he was going to have to use the current appropriations process, but he would make sure that that promise would be kept as far as the payment of it.
00:20:41.000I think if you're coming in from our southern border, he's taken a lot of steps so far that has deterred border crossing.
00:20:50.000But this is a permanent step that will extend beyond his presidency.
00:20:54.000Eight years from now, the next president will have that wall in place to make sure that it doesn't continue.
00:21:02.000Okay, so he says that he is going to get built, and sure, Mexico will eventually pay for it.
00:21:06.000You should be angry with Trump if Trump is not willing to go to the mat on this thing.
00:21:49.000The reason that he won't lose this battle is because what the polls show is that Americans don't care all that much about the wall.
00:21:54.000But, if Trump makes this battle about, one side wants there to be no barrier whatsoever so people can enter illegally, and they're willing to shut down the government for it, that's a winning political battle, and he should stand by the power of his idea, rather than caving to the power of big government, which is unfortunately what I think the Republican Party, in large measure, has become, which is really quite terrible.
00:22:12.000Well, as we continue here at the Daily Wire, we're going to talk about everything that's happening with Mike Flynn.
00:22:23.000It's going to heat up for the White House, which is not good news.
00:22:25.000And we're also going to be talking about the battle that's broken out on cable between Fox News and CNN over sexual harassment and all the rest.
00:22:33.000Plus, I have to play you the most ridiculous video in the history of mankind.
00:22:39.000Has now cut the most ridiculous video in the history of mankind, but to see it, you'll actually have to subscribe over at dailywire.com.
00:22:44.000$8 a month gets you a subscription over at Daily Wire.
00:22:46.000If you become an annual subscriber, you get a free copy of The Arroyo, a fictional film set on the southern border all about why we need a wall.
00:22:52.000Okay, the entire film is about a rancher who's facing down drug cartels using his land as a thoroughfare.
00:22:58.000You can get that for free when you become an annual subscriber, or if you're just a subscriber, go over to dailywire.com right now, subscribe, watch the rest of the show live, watch me make fun of Bill Nye, and be part of the mailbag in a couple of days, so check that out.
00:23:11.000Plus, if you don't want to subscribe right now, you just want to listen later, go to iTunes or SoundCloud, become a subscriber there, subscribe at iTunes, and leave us a review.