The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 291 - Is The Trump Wall Dying?

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.

00:00:00.000 For the past couple of weeks, President Trump has been railing against the trade treachery of our neighbor to the north, Canada.

00:00:05.000 Canada has replaced China as Trump's new bugaboo.

00:00:08.000 At the same time Trump turned his anger against the evil Canucks, he said China was not a currency manipulator. 0.96

00:00:13.000 That'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.

00:00:19.000 There's nothing wrong with Trump ripping Canadian protectionism on milk importation.

00:00:22.000 It's true that Canada has been tariffing American milk products in order to subsidize its domestic farming industry.

00:00:27.000 Here's what Trump tweeted today, quote, Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult.

00:00:33.000 We will not stand for this.

00:00:34.000 Watch!

00:00:35.000 But it's Trump's solution that's sort of a problem.

00:00:37.000 Instead 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.

00:00:49.000 On Monday night, Trump announced to conservative allies he would put a, quote, countervailing duty of somewhere between 3% and 24% on Canadian lumber.

00:00:55.000 The United States buys nearly 80% of all Canadian softwood lumber exports.

00:00:59.000 This means builders will pay the price for Trump's trade retaliation.

00:01:03.000 As Cato Institute pointed out a decade and a half ago, quote,

00:01:18.000 But this tariff does pay off domestic loggers who are celebrating along with their Democratic representatives.

00:01:23.000 Senator Ron Wyden is a radical leftist and he called the move a quote message that help is on the way.

00:01:27.000 Herein lies the problem.

00:01:29.000 The truth is that the trade dispute over lumber has nothing to do with the trade dispute over dairy.

00:01:33.000 The issues are not linked.

00:01:34.000 America has had a long-standing dispute with Canada over lumber for the past three decades.

00:01:38.000 But Trump likes tariffs and he wants to raise them.

00:01:40.000 He 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.

00:01:49.000 That'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.

00:01:56.000 If Trump were using the new lumber tariffs as leverage for future negotiations, that would be understandable.

00:02:00.000 But it appears he's just using the milk dispute as a trigger for the protectionism he so desperately seeks.

00:02:05.000 Look for more punitive measures that harm American producers and consumers from the Trump administration, unfortunately.

00:02:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:02:11.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:02:17.000 So, tons of breaking news this morning.

00:02:18.000 We're going to get to the latest on Mike Flynn.

00:02:20.000 It now appears that Mike Flynn may have broken the law and the White House is sort of stonewalling for him, which is really not good.

00:02:26.000 Meanwhile, we'll talk about the government shutdown, which is not just Trump's fault.

00:02:29.000 Republicans do not know how to handle government shutdowns.

00:02:32.000 And we're going to talk about what they actually should be doing on all of this.

00:02:35.000 Plus, I want to talk about a poll that is really disturbing to me.

00:02:38.000 But first, we are going to say thank you to our advertisers over at Bowling Branch.

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00:04:14.000 So, a lot to talk about today.

00:04:15.000 I want to start off with this poll from Pew Research that is deeply troubling to me and should be troubling to all conservatives.

00:04:21.000 That is, this poll shows that more Americans now want bigger government with more services now that Trump is president.

00:04:27.000 So if that seems counterintuitive, it shouldn't be.

00:04:29.000 The fact is that Trump did not campaign on the basis of small government.

00:04:32.000 He campaigned on cutting some regulations.

00:04:33.000 He campaigned on the basis of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:04:36.000 But when it came to funding of programs,

00:04:38.000 It's hard to find a program that he wanted defunded other than the EPA and foreign aid.

00:04:43.000 Every other program he wanted to increase funding.

00:04:45.000 Veterans Affairs, he wanted to increase funding.

00:04:46.000 Military spending, he wanted to increase funding.

00:04:49.000 The entitlement programs, he wanted to increase funding.

00:04:51.000 He wanted to increase funding on health care because he said that nobody should be left out on the street and all the rest of it.

00:04:57.000 Trump is not a small government guy.

00:04:59.000 The era of small government, according to Republicans, apparently is over.

00:05:02.000 The 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.

00:05:13.000 All 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.

00:05:22.000 So for example, veterans benefits and services, 53% of Americans wanted more funding for that in February 2013.

00:05:27.000 Today that is 75%.

00:05:30.000 Let's take one that lefties like. 1.00

00:05:31.000 Let's take assistance to the needy in the United States.

00:05:33.000 Listen, we all like assistance to the needy.

00:05:35.000 I want it to be done through private organizations.

00:05:37.000 The left wants it done through government.

00:05:39.000 Only 21% of Americans in February 2013 thought that the government should provide more assistance to the needy.

00:05:45.000 Today, that number is 29%.

00:05:46.000 So it's risen by 8% since Donald Trump has taken office.

00:05:50.000 Government assistance to the unemployed, it's up 5% from 24 to 29.

00:05:54.000 Sorry, assistance to the needy in the world is from 21 to 29.

00:05:56.000 Assistance to the needy in the United States is up from 27% to 45%, an 18-point jump from the Obama era.

00:06:03.000 So what's happening here?

00:06:05.000 What'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.

00:06:15.000 As 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. 1.00

00:06:24.000 This is stupidity. 1.00

00:06:25.000 It's just silliness. 1.00

00:06:27.000 And you can see that a lot of this shift is coming from Republicans, not from Democrats.

00:06:31.000 In 2013, only 28% of Republicans wanted increased spending on roads and infrastructure.

00:06:36.000 21% wanted less spending on those things.

00:06:38.000 Today, 55% of Republicans want increased spending on infrastructure.

00:06:42.000 That 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.

00:06:51.000 The government cannot fix your problems.

00:06:53.000 And you are seeing this from mainstream Republicans.

00:06:55.000 You've seen it for years from mainstream Republicans.

00:06:57.000 Today, the obvious example comes from John Kasich.

00:07:00.000 So John Kasich is the governor of Ohio, who I could not stand in the primaries.

00:07:03.000 As you remember, every time John Kasich spoke during the primaries, I said, oh God, no, please God, not John Kasich.

00:07:08.000 Oh yes, John Kasich, governor of Ohio and MSNBC this morning.

00:07:11.000 Listen to how he describes President Trump.

00:07:14.000 My wife says you're the father of Ohio.

00:07:16.000 Why don't you act like it?

00:07:17.000 It's in the book.

00:07:19.000 And I changed.

00:07:20.000 And you know, when you're running a big job like that, you have to not only use your head, but your heart and they have to work together.

00:07:28.000 And what he

00:07:29.000 We're good to go.

00:07:47.000 Okay, to paraphrase Triumph, the comic insult dog, I poop on this, okay?

00:07:51.000 The idea that John Kasich is the father of Ohio, Donald Trump is the father of America.

00:07:56.000 I'm old enough to remember when Chris Rock said about Barack Obama that he was like the country's dad.

00:08:01.000 And Republicans and conservatives said, are you out of your mind?

00:08:04.000 He's not like my dad.

00:08:05.000 I don't need Obama as my dad.

00:08:06.000 I have a dad.

00:08:07.000 My dad's great.

00:08:08.000 Okay?

00:08:08.000 I don't need Barack Obama or Donald Trump or John Kasich to be my dad.

00:08:12.000 Because government is not my parent.

00:08:14.000 Government is there to do a job to defend and protect my rights.

00:08:17.000 But it is not there to be my mommy or my daddy.

00:08:20.000 But now you have Republicans, including John Kasich, and I think to a certain extent Trump, buying into this generalized idea, only I can solve.

00:08:26.000 Okay, only you can solve.

00:08:27.000 Let's be real about this.

00:08:28.000 Trump cannot solve your problems.

00:08:30.000 Only you in a free country can solve your problems.

00:08:32.000 John Kasich cannot solve your problems.

00:08:34.000 Only you in a free country can solve your problems. 0.99

00:08:36.000 And this idiotic notion that government is supposed to sit over us and fix all of our problems is really a Democrat left notion. 0.89

00:08:43.000 This 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. 0.96

00:08:57.000 But 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.

00:09:13.000 That's really dishonest, and it's dishonest in a huge way.

00:09:16.000 You can see the dishonesty when it comes to the government shutdown.

00:09:19.000 Donald Trump wants his wall funded by Congress.

00:09:22.000 It should be funded by Congress.

00:09:23.000 We should have a physical barrier on the southern border.

00:09:25.000 It should either be fencing or a wall.

00:09:27.000 It should be monitored.

00:09:28.000 We shouldn't have people crossing the border illegally.

00:09:30.000 I 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.

00:09:37.000 Bottom line is that Trump says he wants funding for the wall, and Republicans in Congress go,

00:09:43.000 And Democrats in Congress go and say, no way, we're not going to do it.

00:09:46.000 If you do that, we will shut down the government. 1.00

00:09:47.000 We will not pass a budget with funding for your stupid wall in it. 1.00

00:09:51.000 So what does Trump do? 1.00

00:09:52.000 Trump backs down and Republicans back down.

00:09:55.000 Trump and Republicans say, no, you know what?

00:09:58.000 We've decided differently.

00:09:59.000 We're not going to do that anymore.

00:10:00.000 Screw it.

00:10:01.000 No big deal.

00:10:01.000 We'll move off of it.

00:10:03.000 This is why Republicans cannot be trusted to cut the government.

00:10:07.000 Here's how the logic should work.

00:10:08.000 Republicans have been making the case for decades that small government is better.

00:10:12.000 That, as Ronald Reagan put it, the problem in America is not

00:10:16.000 You, the problem is the government.

00:10:17.000 The government is the problem, right?

00:10:18.000 That was Ronald Reagan's case.

00:10:20.000 So if government is the problem, less of it would be a good thing.

00:10:23.000 So 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.

00:10:34.000 Those are considered essential services that are not cut.

00:10:36.000 When there is a government shutdown, people continue to work, right?

00:10:38.000 That's just the way that the system works.

00:10:41.000 But Republicans are so damn scared of government shutdowns that they think that it's going to crush them.

00:10:47.000 Now, let's examine that for a second.

00:10:49.000 If you're a Republican, why are you scared of a government shutdown?

00:10:51.000 You're advocating for cuts to government every single day.

00:10:54.000 Why are you scared of a government shutdown?

00:10:56.000 Shouldn't you say, okay, fine, shut down the government.

00:10:58.000 Let's see what happens.

00:10:59.000 Is everybody going to die?

00:11:00.000 Right?

00:11:00.000 You're the ones who want the government open.

00:11:02.000 You tell me why the government should stay open.

00:11:04.000 You explain to me why the government should stay open on the terms that you want.

00:11:08.000 And if you want to shut down the government, fine.

00:11:10.000 We can all exist without the government. 1.00

00:11:11.000 We can all exist without the government doing all of these stupid things that the government is doing. 0.95

00:11:15.000 You 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? 0.98

00:11:23.000 You know how little it mattered?

00:11:25.000 You know how little it mattered?

00:11:26.000 It mattered so little that Barack Obama, in order to show you how much it mattered, had to forcibly shut open-air national parks.

00:11:32.000 That's how little it mattered.

00:11:33.000 Because he couldn't come up with a victim.

00:11:35.000 Zombies weren't stalking the streets.

00:11:37.000 There weren't people being shot en masse.

00:11:39.000 There wasn't mass chaos.

00:11:40.000 It wasn't the Purge, right?

00:11:41.000 Nothing bad was happening.

00:11:42.000 So, 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.

00:11:52.000 That's how he, he had to do that, specifically in order to demonstrate how terrible, how terrible the government shutdown was.

00:11:58.000 He shut national parks, right, which caused nothing, nothing to operate.

00:12:01.000 He could have just redirected money.

00:12:02.000 He 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.

00:12:10.000 What 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.

00:12:18.000 Republicans, 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.

00:12:27.000 They should just go away.

00:12:29.000 We shouldn't have them at all.

00:12:30.000 And yet Republicans treat government shutdowns like they're the end of the world, and Democrats treat government shutdowns like, well,

00:12:35.000 You know, it'll just redound to our benefit.

00:12:36.000 What's the big deal if there's a government shutdown?

00:12:38.000 You know why that is?

00:12:39.000 It's because both parties have been complicit in pushing the notion that big government is good for you.

00:12:44.000 It does not make sense for a small government party to be scared of a government shutdown.

00:12:47.000 It only makes sense for a big government party to be scared of a government shutdown.

00:12:52.000 And right now, Trump has the perfect ground to stand on.

00:12:55.000 So I want to flashback to the last government shutdown.

00:12:58.000 This is the shutdown that happened over Obamacare.

00:13:00.000 And here is what Barack Obama said about the government shutdown.

00:13:02.000 And this was, and Obama did what a president should do during a government shutdown.

00:13:07.000 He's a terrible president, but he did what a president should do.

00:13:09.000 He blamed it on the opposing party.

00:13:10.000 And he said, here is their priority they think is so important.

00:13:14.000 And here is why the government shouldn't be shut down over that priority.

00:13:17.000 Here's what Obama did.

00:13:18.000 At midnight last night, for the first time in 17 years, Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government.

00:13:27.000 Let me be more specific.

00:13:29.000 One faction, of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government, shut down major parts of the government.

00:13:39.000 All because they didn't like one law.

00:13:43.000 This Republican shutdown did not have to happen.

00:13:47.000 But I want every American to understand why it did happen.

00:13:52.000 Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act.

00:14:02.000 Okay, so he was blaming it on Republicans don't want Obamacare funded.

00:14:05.000 So the case he was making is they shouldn't have shut down the government over they hate the Affordable Care Act.

00:14:10.000 Why can't Trump make that same case of you shouldn't shut down the government just because you don't want to fund a border wall?

00:14:15.000 It demonstrates how you're open border globalist, right?

00:14:17.000 This is his entire case.

00:14:18.000 This is his case for being president.

00:14:20.000 I am not an open borders globalist.

00:14:21.000 The Democrats are.

00:14:22.000 That's why we need a wall on the border.

00:14:24.000 Shouldn't he be out there screaming in favor of a government shutdown if the Democrats are going to do it?

00:14:28.000 Fine!

00:14:28.000 You don't want to fund the government because you want to keep that border open so anyone who wants to can cross it?

00:14:33.000 Fine.

00:14:33.000 Your problem.

00:14:34.000 Let's play this game.

00:14:35.000 Right, this is a game of chicken.

00:14:37.000 This is a game of chicken.

00:14:38.000 And what Republicans constantly do is they don't understand how the game of chicken works.

00:14:41.000 So, 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.

00:14:48.000 If there are two people who are running a car directly at each other, their worst outcome is if nobody swerves, right?

00:14:53.000 That's the worst outcome for both parties.

00:14:55.000 Nobody swerves and there's a crash.

00:14:56.000 The second worst outcome is if you're the guy who swerves and the other car just keeps driving straight forward.

00:15:01.000 That's the second worst outcome.

00:15:03.000 And the best outcome for you is if the other guy swerves.

00:15:07.000 That's the best outcomes if the other guy swerves.

00:15:09.000 So, how do you make the other guy swerve in a game of chicken?

00:15:12.000 The 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.

00:15:19.000 You put a brick on the accelerator and you take the club and you put it on the steering wheel.

00:15:22.000 I cannot swerve now.

00:15:24.000 I've pre-committed to not swerving.

00:15:25.000 So, either you're gonna swerve or you're gonna get in a crash, but you have no choices, right?

00:15:29.000 And the worst of those two options for you is to get in the crash.

00:15:32.000 So, you swerve, right?

00:15:33.000 Instead, what Republicans do is they pre-swerve.

00:15:36.000 They say, we're not going to shut down the government.

00:15:38.000 They always say that.

00:15:38.000 They always say, we're not going to shut down the government.

00:15:40.000 Under no circumstances are we going to shut down the government. 1.00

00:15:42.000 You idiots! 1.00

00:15:43.000 If you want to lose the standoff that is the government shutdown, continue to be this stupid. 1.00

00:15:49.000 Barack Obama was perfectly happy with the shutdown. 1.00

00:15:51.000 He was perfectly happy with the shutdown.

00:15:53.000 But here was Mitch McConnell talking about the shutdown at exactly the same time.

00:15:56.000 Let's switch to the issue of potential government shutdown.

00:16:00.000 You 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.

00:16:14.000 And that you didn't rule out a government shutdown.

00:16:18.000 Can you just stay right there?

00:16:19.000 Oh, I did rule it out.

00:16:20.000 I'm the guy that gets us out of shutdowns.

00:16:22.000 Remember me?

00:16:22.000 I'm the guy that gets us out of shutdowns.

00:16:25.000 But 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.

00:16:34.000 One 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.

00:16:48.000 The reason Harry Reid... Shutdowns are a failed policy.

00:16:53.000 Shutdowns are not a failed policy.

00:16:54.000 Shutdowns are a failed policy if you lose.

00:16:57.000 Okay?

00:16:57.000 I don't understand how this works.

00:16:58.000 So when Barack Obama is president, the shutdown hurts the Republicans.

00:17:01.000 But when Trump is president, the shutdown hurts the Republicans?

00:17:04.000 How does this work exactly?

00:17:05.000 It's just insanity.

00:17:07.000 I 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.

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00:18:00.000 You take it, you stash it in the closet, and then you never have to worry about it until that time when you should actually be worried.

00:18:05.000 And you go, oh, I remember.

00:18:06.000 I went to preparewithben.com, and that's when I bought all of my food.

00:18:09.000 I bought my emergency food supply, and so I don't have to worry while everybody outside is starving in the zombie apocalypse.

00:18:13.000 You don't have to worry about it if you go to preparewithben.com.

00:18:16.000 Right now and check it out.

00:18:17.000 So go over there and get your four-week emergency food supply for just $99.

00:18:22.000 You owe it to yourself and to your family to do that.

00:18:24.000 So what actually gets shut down during a government shutdown?

00:18:27.000 What actually gets shut down during a government shutdown is they delay unemployment insurance.

00:18:32.000 They delay veterans benefits.

00:18:33.000 Maybe, maybe, that's unclear.

00:18:35.000 National parks, museums, and passport offices.

00:18:39.000 Whatever.

00:18:39.000 The 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.

00:18:48.000 Farm subsidy checks stopped flowing.

00:18:50.000 Oh no, farm subsidies.

00:18:51.000 And IRS tax processing would slow down.

00:18:53.000 Oh no, it turns out the IRS won't be able to audit you.

00:18:56.000 That's so terrible.

00:18:57.000 Oh no, what are we ever going to do without the IRS auditing people?

00:19:00.000 Social security checks continue to go.

00:19:02.000 Military spending continues to happen.

00:19:06.000 Commerce and labor departments shut down.

00:19:09.000 Oh no.

00:19:10.000 That's so terrible.

00:19:11.000 All of this is temporary, by the way.

00:19:13.000 Right?

00:19:13.000 TSA continues to bother you.

00:19:16.000 FBI, VA, all of this continues to function.

00:19:19.000 Disaster relief continues to function.

00:19:20.000 The Postal Service continues to deliver the mail.

00:19:22.000 The Federal Reserve continues to work. 0.99

00:19:24.000 Right, 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. 0.97

00:19:37.000 People are asking, what about IRS tax returns, how about my tax refund?

00:19:40.000 Yes, the IRS will be slower to process your tax refund, they'll also be slower to audit you.

00:19:44.000 You can, honest to God, like, I think that you're better off with the IRS failing to audit you.

00:19:50.000 It's not a tax refund, it's your money in the first place.

00:19:52.000 So maybe you'd be better off for there to be a government shutdown.

00:19:55.000 If they were going to do one, let's do it like April 10th, right?

00:19:57.000 Do it right before tax season.

00:19:58.000 And then they can't even process your tax returns.

00:20:00.000 You won't even have to turn them in, presumably.

00:20:02.000 But here's the thing.

00:20:03.000 If 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.

00:20:14.000 It's not me.

00:20:15.000 And they're shutting it down to prevent a wall from being built that will protect all Americans.

00:20:19.000 Isn't that a publicity win for them?

00:20:21.000 Isn't that a publicity win?

00:20:22.000 But you can see the Trump administration futzing around on this because a big government party has to avoid a government shutdown.

00:20:27.000 Here's Sean Spicer being asked about Mexico funding the wall and the funding battle.

00:20:31.000 That 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.

00:20:41.000 I think if you're coming in from our southern border, he's taken a lot of steps so far that has deterred border crossing.

00:20:50.000 But this is a permanent step that will extend beyond his presidency.

00:20:54.000 Eight years from now, the next president will have that wall in place to make sure that it doesn't continue.

00:21:02.000 Okay, so he says that he is going to get built, and sure, Mexico will eventually pay for it.

00:21:06.000 You should be angry with Trump if Trump is not willing to go to the mat on this thing.

00:21:10.000 You should be angry with him.

00:21:11.000 And I understand he doesn't want the bad headlines on day 100 or whatever, but who cares?

00:21:16.000 Show some backbone here.

00:21:17.000 Show some backbone.

00:21:18.000 This was your key issue.

00:21:20.000 Show some backbone.

00:21:21.000 Charles Krauthammer, I think, mimics the talk of Democrats when he says that Democrats have the advantage.

00:21:25.000 Here was his take on this, and I think this is totally wrong.

00:21:28.000 People accept the barrier idea, but if you look at the polling on the wall, I think the Democrats have the advantage.

00:21:35.000 I don't particularly understand why anybody would object to a barrier of any sort at the border, even if it's marginally effective.

00:21:44.000 Okay, so, you know, this idea that the wall is unpopular, so Trump will lose this battle.

00:21:48.000 No, he won't.

00:21:49.000 The 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.

00:21:54.000 But, 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.

00:22:12.000 Well, as we continue here at the Daily Wire, we're going to talk about everything that's happening with Mike Flynn.

00:22:17.000 There's some big news breaking.

00:22:19.000 It looks like Mike Flynn may be in some deeper trouble.

00:22:21.000 The former National Security Advisor.

00:22:23.000 It's going to heat up for the White House, which is not good news.

00:22:25.000 And 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. 0.91

00:22:33.000 Plus, I have to play you the most ridiculous video in the history of mankind. 0.96

00:22:38.000 Bill Nye 0.82

00:22:39.000 Has 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.

00:22:46.000 If 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.

00:22:52.000 Okay, the entire film is about a rancher who's facing down drug cartels using his land as a thoroughfare.

00:22:57.000 Really good movie.

00:22:58.000 You 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.

00:23:11.000 Plus, 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.

00:23:17.000 We always appreciate it.

00:23:18.000 We are the largest conservative podcast in the nation.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 27, 2017

Ep. 291 - Is The Trump Wall Dying?

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