The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 44 - Why 'The Force' Is Evil, and Why Trump Can Beat Hillary

00:00:01.000 Here we are.

00:00:01.000 It is a Monday, and it is the Monday of Christmas week.

00:00:05.000 And I have the best Christmas gift ever for you.

00:00:07.000 It's me.

00:00:07.000 I'm here.

00:00:08.000 And I have so much to talk about.

00:00:09.000 We're gonna go over the Democratic debate.

00:00:12.000 Donald Trump and Jeb Bush get into it again.

00:00:14.000 Plus, we will talk Star Wars.

00:00:15.000 Spoiler free Star Wars.

00:00:17.000 And some stuff I like, some stuff I hate.

00:00:19.000 So lots to get to here today.

00:00:20.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:21.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:22.000 I tend to demonize people who don't care about your feelings.

00:00:29.000 Alrighty, so here we are, and it is Monday, and we'll start with a little bit of Star Wars commentary.

00:00:35.000 Now, there will be no spoilers here because I haven't seen the film, but I do want to talk briefly about something that drives me a little bit insane, which is of course the essence of the entire show, things that drive me insane, but there was an article that I saw about a church that was holding some event celebrating the Force.

00:00:53.000 And I thought to myself, we're finished as a civilization.

00:00:57.000 Not only because there's so many people who worship at the altar of Star Wars.

00:01:00.000 Okay, great movies, I love the originals, I grew up on the originals, I love the originals so much that when my younger sister was born and my parents got to, they asked me what I thought her middle name should be, because I really wanted a younger brother and it was a sister, and I said that they should make her middle name Leia, which it is, right?

00:01:15.000 That's how much I liked the Star Wars films, but...

00:01:19.000 The morality of the Force is really, really screwed up. 0.58

00:01:22.000 It's really skewed, and it's really screwed up.

00:01:24.000 So if you remember the original Star Wars films, and this is why I don't worship at the altar of the morality of Star Wars, the original Star Wars films, they're based on the idea that hate and rage are the dark side of the Force, and happy-dappy-do is the light side of the Force.

00:01:37.000 If you give in to hate, if you give in to rage, then you will have given in to the dark side. 0.98

00:01:41.000 Which is, of course, why the light side gets its ass kicked, right? 0.99

00:01:43.000 At the beginning of Episode IV, 0.97

00:01:45.000 The two most powerful people in the universe are a frog that lives in a swamp and an old guy who lives in a cave.

00:01:51.000 Right?

00:01:51.000 Those are the two most powerful people in terms of the Force, except for the Emperor, right, who shoots lightning out of his fingers, and Darth Vader, who, as you recall, had all of his limbs chopped off by the guy who lives in the cave.

00:02:03.000 Right, so Darth Vader, the guy who lost that fight, right?

00:02:06.000 That guy now runs entire starships and huge planetary doom machines.

00:02:12.000 And the guy who chopped off all of his limbs with one swipe of his lightsaber?

00:02:15.000 That guy lives in a cave, waiting for Luke Skywalker to walk around, right?

00:02:19.000 So the bottom line is, the idea here is that if you use force in defense of good, there is something inherently wrong with it.

00:02:25.000 This has always been the sort of conflict within Star Wars that doesn't really work.

00:02:28.000 And that is that, really, in order to defeat evil, you have to fight it.

00:02:31.000 And you see this at the end of Return of the Jedi.

00:02:34.000 Jeremy Boring, managing editor, who's a huge Star Wars fan, he and I were discussing this, that Return of the Jedi, the real problem is...

00:02:41.000 That Luke, in order to win, Luke has to actually fall prey to the dark side, right?

00:02:46.000 Yoda warns him that if you leave, and Empire Strikes Back says, if you leave, if you don't complete the training, then you'll lose everything that you fought for, and you'll fall to the dark side.

00:02:55.000 And you're supposed to think, oh, Yoda was wrong, it didn't really happen.

00:02:58.000 But the truth is, that if you remember back to Return of the Jedi, if you recall this, Luke actually beats Darth Vader by losing his, right?

00:03:05.000 He loses...

00:03:07.000 Darth Vader mentions Leia, and Luke loses his blank, right?

00:03:12.000 And proceeds to beat the living hell out of Darth Vader and then chop off his hand.

00:03:15.000 Right? 0.54

00:03:16.000 And then, at that point, he says, oh, well, you know, I've won.

00:03:18.000 I'm a Jedi now, because he doesn't kill Darth Vader.

00:03:20.000 Right! 0.99

00:03:21.000 And then the Emperor's gonna kill him. 1.00

00:03:22.000 Right? 1.00

00:03:22.000 The Emperor is electrocuting him. 1.00

00:03:24.000 And that's when Darth Vader decides that he's gonna pick up the Emperor and throw him down a well.

00:03:28.000 He throws him down the mineshaft.

00:03:29.000 Okay, well, there was a simpler solution, which is that Luke could have walked over, picked up the Emperor, and thrown him down the mineshaft, right?

00:03:36.000 At that point, he is the most powerful Jedi in the universe.

00:03:39.000 He just took out Darth Vader pretty easily by knocking him over in like, well, he gets pissed, and literally within the next five seconds, Darth Vader is done, right?

00:03:46.000 This giant seven foot tall guy dressed in the black skeleton mask, that guy who's been beating the crap out of Luke for three movies at this point, at the very end,

00:03:55.000 Luke turns on the dark side switch, and boom!

00:03:57.000 He takes down Darth Vader, no problem!

00:04:00.000 And not just takes him down, he starts wailing on him, right?

00:04:03.000 Everybody remembers this scene.

00:04:04.000 It's not even a duel, right?

00:04:06.000 The duel lasts for five seconds, and then he knocks him over, and he proceeds to just beat the crap out of him until Darth Vader's hand goes wide, and then he chops off his hand, right?

00:04:15.000 Everybody remembers this.

00:04:16.000 Okay, so in other words, the only thing that preserves the Rebel Alliance is the fact that Luke actually hates evil.

00:04:24.000 Right?

00:04:24.000 And you're supposed to hate evil.

00:04:26.000 The idea of the Force is this passive kind of Wu, Wei, Dao, Eastern religion stuff.

00:04:32.000 It's not Western.

00:04:33.000 Right?

00:04:33.000 It's actually very non-Western.

00:04:34.000 The truth is that it says right in Proverbs, right?

00:04:37.000 If you love the Lord, you should hate evil.

00:04:39.000 Right?

00:04:39.000 The idea of the Bible is that you're not supposed to be passive with regard to evil.

00:04:42.000 You're supposed to hate evil, and you're supposed to fight evil.

00:04:45.000 And yet, at the beginning of Episode 4, the fact is that all the good people are sitting around doing nothing, and all the people who know the Force are on the bad side.

00:04:53.000 Right, the fact that because the most effective parts of the Force, as anyone who watches the movies knows, the most effective part of the Force is the dark side of the Force, right?

00:05:00.000 I mean, they keep telling you the light side of the Force is awesome.

00:05:03.000 Really?

00:05:04.000 Is the light side of the Force that awesome?

00:05:06.000 Like, it allows you to tell a stormtrooper that these aren't the droids you're looking for.

00:05:10.000 That's pretty much the extent of it.

00:05:12.000 And also to stand there and get killed by Darth Vader, at which point you turn into a magic ghost.

00:05:16.000 Awesome! 0.58

00:05:17.000 Or you could control the entire galaxy.

00:05:20.000 And blow up planets.

00:05:21.000 So, let's see, which one is more powerful?

00:05:23.000 This is not an argument in favor of the morality of the Empire.

00:05:26.000 It is an argument that the picture of this dichotomous kind of... Every religion has the idea of dichotomous good and evil, but good and evil in the Star Wars universe is passive versus active.

00:05:36.000 It's hatred versus love.

00:05:37.000 Okay, well the fact is there's no point at which Luke actually learns to love the Emperor and this saves everything.

00:05:43.000 Right?

00:05:44.000 If he had learned to love the Emperor, then he would have joined his side, presumably. 0.97

00:05:47.000 So it's very silly.

00:05:48.000 The truth is that the best plan in all of Star Wars, the actual best plan in all of Star Wars, and he should have done it, is articulated by Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back.

00:05:56.000 Can you imagine how different the galaxy is?

00:05:58.000 Darth Vader says, you join me and we will rule the galaxy together as father and son.

00:06:02.000 We'll take control of this entire giant military apparatus, and then we can do whatever you want, right?

00:06:08.000 Where's the downside, exactly?

00:06:10.000 I mean, as it turns out, according to the new movie, and this isn't a spoiler, they're still fighting people, right?

00:06:16.000 It's like 40 years later, and Han's super old, and Carrie Fisher's gotten fat, and they're still fighting people.

00:06:21.000 Wouldn't it have been better if Luke had sided up with Dad, and they'd taken down the Emperor, and then they'd figured out some sort of democratization process for the entire civilization?

00:06:30.000 That might have been better!

00:06:30.000 You know, instead of disbanding the entire Iraqi military and then letting it devolve into chaos, it would have been better if they'd actually taken advantage of the systems that were in place.

00:06:39.000 But here's the thing you have to understand about Star Wars.

00:06:42.000 George Lucas, when he made Star Wars, people don't know this historically, George Lucas meant it as a swipe at Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.

00:06:49.000 Right?

00:06:49.000 He's actually said this.

00:06:50.000 Back in 1973, he talked about how he was going to do Star Wars, and he specifically has said that Emperor Palpatine, he says he was a politician.

00:06:58.000 Richard M. Nixon was his name, right?

00:07:00.000 Palpatine was supposed to be Nixon, which is weird since Palpatine never got deposed after bugging Darth Vader's campaign headquarters.

00:07:08.000 And then he said also that this was supposed to be the Vietnam War.

00:07:11.000 He actually supposed to, apparently, he said the Viet Cong were supposed to be like the Ewoks, which is a really kind of dismissive view of who the Viet Cong were, considering that they were communist murderers,

00:07:20.000 We're good to go.

00:07:48.000 And hey look, the AT-AT just went down, that's crazy! 1.00

00:07:51.000 No, that would never happen, not in a million years, that's stupid crap. 0.99

00:07:54.000 So anyway, the bottom line is, even for someone who loves Star Wars like me, the morality of the Star Wars universe is actually the morality of the American left. 0.99

00:08:02.000 It's the same morality that you now see...

00:08:05.000 In every single movie, every single movie or TV show where you have somebody fighting evil, there is a scene now, and it drives me nuts.

00:08:12.000 There's always a scene where somebody says to the good guy, but if you kill the bad guy, won't you be just like him?

00:08:19.000 Right?

00:08:20.000 You've seen this, right?

00:08:20.000 This is like in every movie now.

00:08:22.000 There'll be a pedophile, and you'll see the superhero, and he's about to kill the pedophile. 0.97

00:08:25.000 And someone says, you can't do that! 1.00

00:08:26.000 If you kill the pedophile, then you'll be no better than he is. 0.99

00:08:29.000 And I'm thinking to myself, well, no, I won't be molesting children. 1.00

00:08:32.000 And this guy won't be molesting children either, because he'll be dead.

00:08:35.000 So no, actually, it turns out that I'm nothing like that guy. 0.55

00:08:38.000 It turns out that killing Hitler doesn't make you like Hitler.

00:08:40.000 It makes you just like the guy who killed Hitler. 0.89

00:08:42.000 Which is a good thing.

00:08:43.000 Right?

00:08:44.000 This pacifist notion.

00:08:46.000 That in order to do good things, you have to be a complete pacifist Quaker. 0.93

00:08:50.000 This means evil people win, and the truth is that at the end of Star Wars, the message of Star Wars is actually counter to the message of Star Wars, right?

00:08:57.000 What Lucas actually ends up doing, because this is how the real world works and this is how narrative works, you have to fight evil in order to defeat evil.

00:09:04.000 And you have to use blasters, and you have to use lightsabers, and you have to use the Force, and you have to use...

00:09:11.000 You have to use X-Wings, and you have to use the Millennium Falcon, and you have to blow up giant planets full of presumably millions of people, but you have to do lots of bad stuff in order to win a war.

00:09:20.000 But George Lucas, it never occurs to him, apparently, that this is how all of this works.

00:09:25.000 Okay, so there's a brief commentary on Star Wars.

00:09:26.000 Again, I haven't seen the movie.

00:09:28.000 I will see the movie.

00:09:31.000 I think I will be disappointed by it because, as I've said before, J.J.

00:09:34.000 Abrams is not my favorite director.

00:09:35.000 I've now heard

00:09:37.000 For multiple people in this office who have seen the Star Wars film and who are big Star Wars fanatics, that they were disappointed by it.

00:09:42.000 Jonathan Hay, who does all of the production on this show, he says that it was a six to seven.

00:09:47.000 Jeremy said that he sort of felt the same.

00:09:49.000 Mathis, for some reason, is over the moon about this thing, which I say, and so Jonathan was saying like the third or fourth time he sees it, it'll finally hit him, that this movie isn't actually a 10.

00:10:01.000 And I made the joke that's sort of like seeing a transgender in a bar. 1.00

00:10:05.000 From far away, okay, and then you get close, and then if you have a few too many drinks, presumably, according to those who have done this, apparently, is what I hear, but after a few drinks, then you look around, you realize maybe you should have spotted the 90-degree jaw.

00:10:19.000 So basically, that's what's happening with Star Wars with some people, is that they're giving it the benefit of the doubt, because they really want it to be so good, and so they're giving it the benefit of the doubt.

00:10:27.000 Okay.

00:10:28.000 So that's enough about Star Wars, as well as dismissive transgender jokes.

00:10:31.000 So, okay, let's talk about the Democratic debate, which is a joke in and of itself.

00:10:35.000 This debate took place on Saturday night, the Saturday night after Star Wars came out, which means no one watched this thing.

00:10:41.000 So this is the first you're seeing of it.

00:10:43.000 This is the second I'm seeing of it.

00:10:44.000 I didn't watch it live at the time because I have a daughter and a life and things to do.

00:10:49.000 and like wash my hair and and this thing took place basically and it would be hard to find a way to schedule this where less people would watch this.

00:10:58.000 I mean this was essentially scheduled on a moving subway from the movie The Warriors at 3 a.m.

00:11:03.000 on a Sunday morning.

00:11:04.000 It's basically and and the moderators are out there with their little clinky bottles going Hillary Bernie come out to play! 0.99

00:11:11.000 We're good to go.

00:11:33.000 ...of terror here on the home front, and as we await Secretary Clinton backstage here, we're going to begin on the economy.

00:11:39.000 We want to turn to the American jobs, wages, and raises in this country.

00:11:44.000 And we believe Secretary Clinton will be coming around the corner any minute.

00:11:47.000 But in the meantime, we want to start with this eye-opening number.

00:11:50.000 And Senator Sanders, this question goes to you first anyway.

00:11:53.000 In 1995, the median American household income was $52,600 in today's money.

00:12:00.000 This year, it's 53,600.

00:12:03.000 That's 20 more years on the job with just a 2% raise.

00:12:07.000 In a similar time frame, raises for CEOs are more than 200%.

00:12:09.000 There she comes, big hand! 1.00

00:12:11.000 By the way, she looks like something from Star Wars. 0.99

00:12:16.000 And she walks in, she says, sorry, and she's wearing, I mean, she looks like she's wearing, like, a mal coat, and she, and she kind of saunters on over, uh, shaped like a pear, and stands behind that, stands behind that podium.

00:12:27.000 Now, the reason that she was late to the debate, and she walks in late to the segment, is apparently she was offstage going to the bathroom, and she had to go pee-pee.

00:12:34.000 And, uh, and, but they had plenty of time for her to go pee-pee. 1.00

00:12:37.000 I mean, there was, like, a five-minute break, which is, as someone who does radio for a living,

00:12:41.000 Five minutes is a long time.

00:12:42.000 You can go pee, but you can even do number two.

00:12:44.000 Like, there's plenty of time to do whatever you please.

00:12:46.000 Hillary, the reason this happened, according to the Boston Globe, is because one of Martin O'Malley's staffers also had to go pee-pee.

00:12:52.000 And so they went to the bathroom, and the staffer was inside going pee-pee.

00:12:56.000 And apparently there are multiple toilets in his bathroom.

00:12:59.000 It wasn't like there's one toilet in the entire building.

00:13:01.000 There are multiple stalls.

00:13:02.000 But Hillary didn't want to go in there while there was someone else in there. 0.99

00:13:06.000 She has to be in the room alone, right?

00:13:08.000 Princess Hillary has to be in the room alone. 1.00

00:13:10.000 No one can hear her.

00:13:11.000 Flatulence, presumably.

00:13:13.000 And so she has to be in the room alone when she really lets loose, even though she is a walking ball of gas.

00:13:19.000 But she, you know, finally she comes back out.

00:13:22.000 And it turns out Clint Eastwood was right all along, except that he was right about Hillary, not about Obama, when he said it's an empty chair.

00:13:28.000 It's actually an empty podium.

00:13:29.000 And it's Hillary's podium.

00:13:30.000 So Hillary! 1.00

00:13:32.000 Walks back out, and this debate continues, and no one cares, of course, because, hey, why would they?

00:13:36.000 Hillary did drop a line that was kind of amazing. 0.99

00:13:39.000 There are a couple things that happened that were noteworthy in this debate.

00:13:42.000 One was that Bernie Sanders really slapped Hillary around on foreign policy. 0.83

00:13:45.000 And Bernie Sanders, who is the senator from Loonville, he is, um, what he says here about Hillary's foreign policy is exactly correct, actually, which is sort of shocking.

00:13:54.000 So here is, clip one, Bernie Sanders smacking Hillary around on her foreign policy while waving his arms like Larry David.

00:14:01.000 I worry too much that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be.

00:14:13.000 Yes, we could get rid of Saddam Hussein, but that destabilized the entire region. 0.99

00:14:18.000 Yes, we could get rid of Qaddafi, a terrible dictator, but that created a vacuum for ISIS. 1.00

00:14:27.000 Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS. 0.89

00:14:34.000 So I think, yeah, regime change is easy.

00:14:37.000 Getting rid of dictators is easy.

00:14:39.000 But before you do that, you've got to think about what happens the day after.

00:14:44.000 And in my view, what we need to do is put together broad coalitions to understand that we're not going to have a political vacuum filled by terrorists, that in fact we are going to move steadily and maybe slowly.

00:15:00.000 Okay, so he's actually exactly right about this.

00:15:15.000 Everything that Bernie Sanders just said, I mean I've never said this before, everything that Bernie Sanders said right there is exactly right.

00:15:20.000 Now what's weird about this for the Republican race is who can actually say this in a debate with Hillary?

00:15:25.000 Right?

00:15:25.000 Because you actually need to take this perspective.

00:15:27.000 It won't be Rubio.

00:15:28.000 Rubio voted for the war in Libya.

00:15:30.000 Rubio's in favor of regime change in Syria.

00:15:32.000 He and Hillary are actually sort of on the same page in terms of their policy in Syria and Libya, which were two of Hillary's biggest foreign policy boondoggles and mistakes.

00:15:41.000 Donald Trump can take the opposing point of view.

00:15:43.000 Ted Cruz can take the opposing point of view.

00:15:45.000 And we'll get to that in a second because the Republican side of the aisle is now in complete chaos. 0.95

00:15:49.000 It's a complete mess because of the opposition to Trump.

00:15:53.000 Bernie Sanders hitting Hillary was a noteworthy moment, and it was effective, and this should tell people on the Republican side of the aisle that the George W. Bush regime-change-in-favor-of-democracy ideal has been put to the side now, because even people like me, who are very hawkish on foreign policy, want to see a very effective and powerful American military, look at what Bernie Sanders is saying there, and we say, well, there's more truth to that than Hillary's, let's just knock out Qaddafi and chortle about it while ISIS takes power.

00:16:20.000 In the country.

00:16:20.000 The other moment in the debate that was telling was Hillary Clinton at one point said that Donald Trump was the lead recruiter for ISIS.

00:16:26.000 Here is Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, wearing what has to, this has to, Lindsay, you're a girl, this is the ugliest jacket. 0.97

00:16:32.000 I mean, I'm not into fashion, but even I can tell when it looks like you are wearing my grandmother's carpet from 1973 in her, yeah, she looks like a potato.

00:16:42.000 She looks like she's wearing a potato sack, right?

00:16:44.000 It looks like she took a burlap sack, cut a hole in it, and then stuck it over her head, which

00:16:49.000 I mean, honestly, if she hadn't cut a hole in it and just left it over her head, that would have improved the appearance for everyone involved.

00:16:53.000 But here's Hillary Clinton talking about how Donald Trump is the lead ISIS recruiter.

00:16:58.000 One of the best things that was done, and George W. Bush did this and I give him credit, was to reach out to Muslim Americans and say, we're in this together.

00:17:07.000 You are not our adversary.

00:17:08.000 You are our partner.

00:17:10.000 And we also need to make sure that the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don't fall on receptive ears.

00:17:19.000 He is becoming ISIS's 0.99

00:17:21.000 First of all, Hillary Clinton has apparently picked up Bernie Sanders' hand motions. 0.72

00:17:45.000 This is actually a change.

00:17:46.000 I mean, seriously.

00:17:47.000 Hillary Clinton has a problem, which is that she's such a calculated politician that she unconsciously, and she desperately wants to be liked, so she unconsciously mirrors the stuff that everyone around her does. 1.00

00:17:57.000 This is why when she goes down south and she's speaking at a black church, suddenly she starts dropping the black accent.

00:18:01.000 She's watching Bernie Sanders get big applause, and so she turns to Sanders. 0.85

00:18:04.000 She sees Sanders doing the crazy hands, right?

00:18:07.000 Every word has a hand connected with it, and you don't know what he's gonna do, but the hands are moving all the time.

00:18:14.000 Touchdown.

00:18:15.000 And Hillary Clinton, you know, she does the same thing there. 1.00

00:18:18.000 But what's amazing, so she's lying there, okay?

00:18:20.000 There are no ISIS videos, none, where they use Donald Trump to recruit.

00:18:23.000 There are, however, ISIS videos where they use Bill to recruit, actually.

00:18:27.000 And if we're going to talk about recruitment tactics for ISIS, pull out from Iraq would be a good one. 1.00

00:18:31.000 Hillary's Syrian policy would be another good one. 1.00

00:18:34.000 America's failures to keep her commitments in the Middle East, that would be a really good one. 1.00

00:18:38.000 The idea that Hillary Clinton has some advantage over Donald Trump in this area is asinine. 0.98

00:18:42.000 She lied about that. 0.99

00:18:43.000 She clearly lied about that.

00:18:44.000 But the way that it works for the media is that when Hillary lies, it's basically okay. 1.00

00:18:48.000 When Donald Trump does something similar, then it's not okay at all.

00:18:51.000 So her campaign came out and they said she didn't mean there are videos with regard to ISIS.

00:18:56.000 She just meant social media with regard to ISIS.

00:18:58.000 And the media went, oh, okay.

00:19:00.000 I seem to remember a month of controversy over Donald Trump saying that there was video of thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey.

00:19:06.000 Right?

00:19:06.000 We talked about it, like, three weeks ago.

00:19:08.000 And I remember that there was controversy over Carly Fiorina talking about Planned Parenthood videos.

00:19:13.000 Right?

00:19:13.000 Like, a month of controversy over that.

00:19:15.000 But Hillary says an outright lie here, and it's totally fine, because that's how the media works.

00:19:20.000 Well, meanwhile, on the Republican side of the aisle, one of the reasons people are interested in seeing Donald Trump in a debate with Hillary Clinton is because they feel like Donald Trump

00:19:28.000 We'll just reach down into his Mary Poppins bag of hammers, basically, and just pull out a Roger Rabbit mallet and hit Hillary Clinton with it. 0.88

00:19:37.000 And that's because of stuff like this.

00:19:39.000 Here's Donald Trump talking about Hillary Clinton.

00:19:41.000 He says, yeah, Hillary tends to lie about pretty much everything. 1.00

00:19:45.000 I want to play one particular quote that Hillary Clinton said last night and get you to respond to it.

00:19:50.000 Here it is.

00:19:52.000 He is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. 0.92

00:19:56.000 They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.

00:20:06.000 Now I know what you're about to say.

00:20:08.000 No fact checker has been able to back up her claim on that.

00:20:12.000 That's exactly correct.

00:20:14.000 I was going to say that.

00:20:15.000 Exactly correct.

00:20:16.000 Right.

00:20:16.000 Nobody has been able to back that up.

00:20:19.000 It's nonsense.

00:20:20.000 It's just another Hillary lie. 0.99

00:20:21.000 She lies like crazy about everything, whether it's trips where she was being gunned down in a helicopter or an airplane. 1.00

00:20:29.000 She's a liar, and everybody knows that. 0.99

00:20:31.000 I mean, but she just made this up in thin air. 1.00

00:20:34.000 And he says she lies about everything.

00:20:36.000 The thing that people like about Trump is that he'll just say that, right?

00:20:39.000 She just lies all the time, and we all know that she lies all the time. 0.96

00:20:41.000 What's amazing about the question, though, is you can see Todd doesn't want him to answer it, right?

00:20:45.000 He says to him, you can see that she says this about you.

00:20:48.000 I know what you're gonna say.

00:20:49.000 When's the last time you saw an interview say that?

00:20:51.000 An interviewer say that?

00:20:52.000 When's the last time you saw an interview with Hillary Clinton where they ask a question about one of her opponents slandering her, and they say, I know what you're gonna say, but...

00:21:00.000 But they do it with Trump, right?

00:21:01.000 And good for Trump for jumping in and cutting off Chuck Todd to answer that question.

00:21:05.000 Now, with the good Trump comes the bad Trump.

00:21:08.000 Trump over the weekend was basically endorsed by Vladimir Putin, and he said that he was asked by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC about Vladimir Putin killing journalists.

00:21:17.000 There is proof that Vladimir Putin has been connected with the killing of journalists.

00:21:21.000 As far as the reporters are concerned, obviously I don't want that to happen.

00:21:23.000 I think it's horrible.

00:21:43.000 In all fairness to Putin, you're saying he killed people.

00:21:46.000 I haven't seen that.

00:21:47.000 I don't know that he has.

00:21:48.000 Have you been able to prove that?

00:21:50.000 Do you know the names of the reporters that he's killed?

00:21:52.000 Because I've been, you know, you've been hearing this, but I haven't seen the name.

00:21:57.000 Now, I think it would be despicable if that took place, but I haven't seen any evidence that he killed anybody in terms of reporters.

00:22:06.000 Here's what Mitt Romney tweeted about that.

00:22:08.000 He said there's an important distinction here. 0.94

00:22:10.000 Thug Putin kills journalists and opponents. 0.99

00:22:12.000 Our presidents kill terrorists and enemy combatants. 0.99

00:22:15.000 Does he know for a fact that he kills the reporters? 0.91

00:22:18.000 I don't know.

00:22:18.000 I don't think anybody knows that.

00:22:20.000 It's possible that he does, but I don't think it's been proven.

00:22:23.000 Has anybody proven that he's killed reporters?

00:22:25.000 And I'm not trying to stick it for anybody.

00:22:26.000 There have been many allegations that he was behind the killing of Annapolis Sky.

00:22:29.000 No, no, allegations.

00:22:29.000 There are allegations.

00:22:30.000 Yeah, sure, there are allegations.

00:22:32.000 I've read those allegations over the years, but nobody's proven that he's killed anybody as far as I'm concerned.

00:22:37.000 He hasn't killed reporters.

00:22:38.000 So what killing has the United States government done?

00:22:40.000 George, excuse me.

00:22:41.000 Let me finish.

00:22:42.000 If he has killed reporters, I think that's terrible.

00:22:44.000 But this isn't like somebody that stood with a gun and he's, you know, taken the blame or he's admitted that he's killed.

00:22:49.000 He's always denied it.

00:22:51.000 He's never, it's never been proven that he's killed anybody.

00:22:54.000 So, you know, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country.

00:22:59.000 He has not been proven that he's killed reporters.

00:23:03.000 But then you said, I think our country does plenty of killing too.

00:23:07.000 What killing are you talking about there ordered by the United States government?

00:23:10.000 Well, take a look at what we're doing in the Middle East.

00:23:13.000 We went into Iraq.

00:23:14.000 We shouldn't have.

00:23:15.000 You know that I was opposed to going into Iraq many years ago.

00:23:19.000 You can cut it out there.

00:23:21.000 The part about Trump that's bad is that Trump, everything is personal.

00:23:24.000 He's actually very much like President Obama this way.

00:23:26.000 And so if somebody says he likes Trump, then that person Trump will now defend.

00:23:29.000 So he'll defend Vladimir Putin, who's legitimately one of the worst people on planet Earth. 0.98

00:23:33.000 Vladimir Putin is a bad, bad guy. 0.98

00:23:35.000 Vladimir Putin does have political opponents killed. 0.98

00:23:37.000 Vladimir Putin does apparently have journalists killed.

00:23:40.000 The allegations are extraordinarily credible that his regime has killed journalists.

00:23:44.000 So, you know, the fact that Trump is defending him, it's not a good moment for Trump.

00:23:47.000 The reason, however, that Trump is doing well, the reason that Trump is doing well is because of people like Jeb Bush and the establishment.

00:23:56.000 So here is Jeb.

00:23:57.000 Jeb talking about Donald Trump.

00:23:59.000 And there are a couple of things that we need to watch of Jeb here.

00:24:02.000 So Jeb Bush, who's completely a non-factor in the race now.

00:24:04.000 He spent $40 million.

00:24:05.000 He gets like 2 or 3% in the national polling.

00:24:08.000 It's the most ineffective political campaign probably ever, given the amount of money that he's spent.

00:24:13.000 Jeb is now making excuses for himself.

00:24:15.000 He's saying he didn't like that whole frontrunner thing anyway.

00:24:17.000 Here is the lie of the weekend.

00:24:19.000 Jeb Bush saying, yay!

00:24:21.000 People thought you were the frontrunner.

00:24:23.000 Your campaign is not the frontrunner.

00:24:24.000 I hated that.

00:24:25.000 You hated being a frontrunner?

00:24:26.000 Yeah, I feel much better back here.

00:24:28.000 Why'd you hate being the frontrunner?

00:24:29.000 Well, because I've always thought that there was going to be a high expectation for me, and I totally get it.

00:24:35.000 Because?

00:24:35.000 Because I have a brother that was president and a father that was president.

00:24:39.000 And that higher expectation, it was important to realize.

00:24:43.000 And so being the frontrunner made me feel like that people are going to begin to say, well, the guy's just dancing right through this.

00:24:50.000 I have to go earn it.

00:24:51.000 I have higher expectations on me than people have of me, so it doesn't bother me a bit that... We can stop there.

00:24:56.000 This weakling, and he is, he comes off as weak, this is why, this is why Donald Trump is doing well. 0.98

00:25:03.000 Because you compare him to this, and whatever Trump says, and he says a lot of really dumb and terrible things, Jeb Bush, I mean... 0.99

00:25:11.000 Goodness gracious. 0.97

00:25:12.000 I mean, I was the frontrunner and I really hated it.

00:25:15.000 Yeah, it's that kind of powerful leadership that we're looking for.

00:25:17.000 I was winning, but really I'd prefer not to win, I'd prefer to lose, so that people don't have expectations of me.

00:25:23.000 Yeah, that's somebody who's really gonna stand tall in the face of true adversity.

00:25:28.000 But then Jeb attacks Trump, and again, it's the attacks on Trump by people like Jeb that are driving Trump to the front of the pack.

00:25:35.000 Here is Jeb talking about Trump.

00:25:37.000 I'm trying to point out that he's not a serious candidate.

00:25:40.000 His answer about the nuclear triad, for example, is mind-blowing.

00:25:44.000 I mean, not having any knowledge about what the subject is, where you have this exclusive responsibility of the President of the United States as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to

00:25:54.000 To know women how to use our nuclear deterrent.

00:25:59.000 I mean, he has no knowledge about this stuff.

00:26:01.000 He thought, he now has come out saying that Putin is a strong man and a great guy when he's trying to destabilize our relationship with our allies.

00:26:09.000 He's not a serious candidate.

00:26:11.000 He's not a serious candidate, but you are, Jeb, sitting there in your little sweater, you know, talking about, and looking like Jimmy Carter over there, talking about how you never wanted to be the frontrunner.

00:26:20.000 So you're serious, but Trump is not.

00:26:21.000 Now again, Trump may not be serious.

00:26:23.000 I think there are a lot of things about Trump that aren't serious.

00:26:25.000 But I think we're beyond the point of seriousness being a qualifier for high office when President Obama has been there for seven years.

00:26:32.000 This President of the United States is a deeply unserious man.

00:26:35.000 President Obama over the weekend said the real reason people are afraid of ISIS is because he hasn't done enough in speaking to the American people about the threat of ISIS.

00:26:44.000 For Obama, all shortcomings are because we just don't understand him well enough.

00:26:48.000 It's never because he doesn't understand us, it's because we don't understand him.

00:26:51.000 If only we would understand President Obama better, then all would be well with the world and all of the critiques of him

00:26:58.000 All the criticism of him, says President Obama, is because of racism.

00:27:02.000 He said this over the weekend.

00:27:03.000 So don't talk to me about seriousness. 0.96

00:27:05.000 When Hillary Clinton is your Democratic frontrunner, pathological liar, corrupt beyond recognition Hillary Clinton is your frontrunner, and your secondary frontrunner in the Democratic Party is Bernie Loonville Sanders. 0.99

00:27:17.000 Don't talk to me about Sirius when those are your people on the Democratic side of the aisle. 0.86

00:27:21.000 And don't talk to me about Sirius on the right side of the aisle when the people who you're offering as the establishment picks are people like Jeb Bush, who was supposed to be the great be-all end-all sitting there in his sweater talking about how he never wanted to be the frontrunner.

00:27:33.000 Really?

00:27:34.000 Did you not want to be the frontrunner?

00:27:35.000 Or did you really want to be the frontrunner and you just stink at this?

00:27:39.000 Is that a possibility?

00:27:40.000 And it's that kind of pansy attitude from Jeb Bush where people say, OK, I don't even want you in the ring with Hillary. 0.94

00:27:46.000 But here's the problem, OK?

00:27:47.000 Trump could win the nomination if he does.

00:27:50.000 It's going to be because of people who are out there saying this.

00:27:53.000 OK, so this is amazing today, OK?

00:27:57.000 Bill Kristol, who's the editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard.

00:27:59.000 And I like the Weekly Standard, and I generally like Bill Kristol.

00:28:02.000 I think he says a lot of smart things.

00:28:03.000 I don't think everything that he says is smart.

00:28:05.000 There are some people who sort of worship at the altar of Bill Kristol.

00:28:08.000 I'm not one of those people.

00:28:09.000 I think that he's right some of the time.

00:28:10.000 I think that he's wrong some of the time.

00:28:11.000 But he's certainly a smart guy.

00:28:13.000 Bill Kristol today tweeted out, quote,

00:28:16.000 Crowdsourcing.

00:28:17.000 Name of the new party will have to start if Trump wins the GOP nomination.

00:28:21.000 Suggestions welcome at editor at weeklystandard.com.

00:28:25.000 So he's talking openly about a third-party run from the left of Trump, right?

00:28:29.000 Somebody from the establishment GOP running against Trump, which of course would guarantee Hillary becomes president of the United States, right?

00:28:36.000 If you split the party.

00:28:37.000 This was the argument originally about Trump.

00:28:39.000 The argument originally about Trump is that if Trump decided to run third party, he hands the nomination to Hillary Clinton- he hands the presidency to Hillary Clinton.

00:28:47.000 Now the establishment is saying, we hate Trump so much, Trump is so crazy, that if he runs, we're gonna start a third party to run against Trump.

00:28:54.000 And this isn't just- this isn't just Bill Kristol. 0.72

00:28:56.000 Jeff Greenfield over at Politico wrote over the weekend, quote,

00:29:00.000 If the operatives I talked with are right, Trump running as a Republican could well face a third-party run from the Republicans themselves.

00:29:07.000 If you want to see the most sulfurous assaults on Trump like sulfur, don't look to the editorial page of the New York Times or the comments of MSNBC personalities.

00:29:15.000 Look instead to the most prominent media voices in the conservative world, National Review, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, and the columns of George Will and others.

00:29:24.000 And then he goes on to talk about how the Republicans really could run somebody third party against Donald Trump, which of course would guarantee the presidency to Hillary Clinton.

00:29:32.000 They would rather have Hillary be president than Donald Trump. 1.00

00:29:35.000 And here's the sad thing.

00:29:36.000 They would rather that Hillary be president than Ted Cruz because polls today, Ted Cruz is up 40 to 31 over Trump in Iowa.

00:29:42.000 Cruz is gaining in the national polling.

00:29:44.000 Trump is still well ahead in national polling, but Cruz is running second.

00:29:48.000 I don't

00:30:08.000 We're going to yell at the conservatives that the conservatives have to join our party.

00:30:12.000 And if they decide to go elsewhere, they're traitors.

00:30:14.000 But if they nominate somebody they like, then we're going to run at the first available opportunity. 0.99

00:30:19.000 It's kind of pathetic. 0.88

00:30:20.000 But it's not the first time this has happened, by the way. 0.97

00:30:22.000 People tend to forget this.

00:30:23.000 But in 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination, there was another Republican in the race.

00:30:27.000 His name was John Anderson.

00:30:28.000 And John Anderson actually ran third party against Ronald Reagan.

00:30:32.000 He was in some of the debates, the early debates, with Jimmy Carter.

00:30:34.000 He ended up winning something like four to six percent of the vote.

00:30:38.000 Reagan won walking away anyway, but the fact is that the establishment thought Reagan was so crazy they had to run somebody.

00:30:44.000 The other example of this is, of course, David Duke running for governor in Louisiana, and the Republican Party decided to put up a former governor just to knock off David Duke, but Trump is not like David Duke.

00:30:53.000 Trying to compare Trump to David Duke is a bit absurd.

00:30:56.000 So if the Republican Party wants to guarantee Trump the nomination, all they have to do is keep going

00:31:02.000 With all of this, Trump is the worst, Trump is terrible, and we'd rather have Hillary Clinton than Trump, because now I really don't trust you to pick my nominee.

00:31:09.000 I really, really don't trust you to pick my nominee. 0.56

00:31:11.000 Okay, it's time for a little bit of stuff I like, and then we'll get to stuff that I hate here on a Monday.

00:31:16.000 Couple of things, stuff I like, just some funny things that happened over the weekend.

00:31:19.000 So, I don't know how many of you saw this, it's gone viral on the internet, Miss Universe.

00:31:23.000 The end of the Miss Universe contest, Steve Harvey.

00:31:26.000 I have to apologize.

00:31:56.000 You read it wrong.

00:31:57.000 You'd given it to Miss Columbia.

00:32:00.000 Right?

00:32:01.000 She's wearing the crown already.

00:32:07.000 The first runner-up is Columbia.

00:32:11.000 Oh my gosh, she looks like she got clocked with the truck. 1.00

00:32:16.000 Miss Columbia looks like... Miss Philippines also looked like she got clocked with the truck. 1.00

00:32:31.000 She doesn't really know what's going on.

00:32:46.000 She doesn't know what's going on.

00:32:47.000 Now they're going to have to take the crown off the other girl and give it to Miss Philippines. 1.00

00:32:53.000 The queen is dead.

00:32:54.000 Long live the queen. 0.98

00:32:56.000 They literally take the crown off the other girl and give it to... See, she's wearing the crown. 1.00

00:33:02.000 There's Miss Columbia standing there wearing the crown. 0.99

00:33:04.000 And Miss Philippines is like, what am I supposed to do, tackle you here, gal? 1.00

00:33:09.000 You know, you might want to just hand it over.

00:33:11.000 And Steve Harvey's standing there all awkward-like.

00:33:15.000 And it just goes on like this while they play the triumphant music and Miss Columbia just looks super confused. 0.98

00:33:21.000 And Miss Philippine's standing there, she doesn't know what to do. 1.00

00:33:24.000 Miss Columbia doesn't know what to do. 1.00

00:33:26.000 It's pretty great television.

00:33:28.000 People were actually saying it was such great television, they thought maybe it was staged.

00:33:31.000 Here they go, taking the crown off one and giving it to the other.

00:33:34.000 Here we go.

00:33:35.000 It's okay, darling.

00:33:37.000 Let me just take control of this.

00:33:42.000 This is exactly what's on the card.

00:33:48.000 I will take responsibility for this.

00:33:51.000 It was my mistake.

00:33:53.000 It was on the card.

00:33:54.000 A horrible mistake, but the right thing, I can show it to you right now.

00:33:59.000 Okay, so that's a thing that I like today.

00:34:01.000 We can cut off there.

00:34:02.000 That's a thing that I like today.

00:34:04.000 Because it's just hilarious.

00:34:06.000 Although I will say that my faith in the veracity of family feud outcomes has now been shaken.

00:34:10.000 Forever.

00:34:12.000 Because who knows who actually made the lightning round.

00:34:15.000 Okay, here's another thing that I like.

00:34:17.000 Okay, so people, there's such a, politics, there's so much about politics that really is surface level.

00:34:24.000 And people don't like to recognize this, but it really is true. 0.51

00:34:27.000 So, a lot of the scorn for Donald Trump comes from the fact that Donald Trump speaks like Donald Trump.

00:34:31.000 A lot of the scorn for Sarah Palin came from the fact that Sarah Palin speaks like Sarah Palin.

00:34:35.000 So somebody cut a video of Donald Trump, and it's pretty spectacular, of Donald Trump talking on Fox News, except they dubbed over it a sophisticated-sounding British man.

00:34:44.000 And look how all of a sudden it looks like Donald Trump's IQ just jumped about 36 points.

00:34:49.000 And it really is, it's kind of fascinating because this is how our politics works now.

00:34:54.000 Folks who can't see this, it's actually, it's Donald Trump talking and then a voice dubbed over at Donald Trump talking about Muslim immigration.

00:35:01.000 I think I'll win the Hispanics. 1.00

00:35:02.000 I employ thousands of Hispanics.

00:35:04.000 They love me.

00:35:05.000 I love them.

00:35:05.000 And I think I'm going to do great with women.

00:35:07.000 One of the reasons I'm going to do great with women is that I'm a leader. 0.79

00:35:10.000 I'm not like Hillary Clinton.

00:35:11.000 She's got no strength.

00:35:13.000 She's got no stamina. 1.00

00:35:14.000 Everything she does is, like, theatrical.

00:35:17.000 Donald Trump said this.

00:35:21.000 Yeah, actually, it's sort of interesting.

00:35:22.000 She said, I watched her last night, Donald Trump!

00:35:25.000 Looks like she practices in front of a mirror for two hours. 1.00

00:35:28.000 Donald Trump said, I think he's dangerous.

00:35:30.000 I'm dangerous.

00:35:32.000 She's the one that caused all this problem. 1.00

00:35:34.000 With her stupid policies. 1.00

00:35:36.000 You look at what she did with Libya. 1.00

00:35:38.000 What she did with Syria.

00:35:40.000 Look at Egypt. 0.84

00:35:41.000 What happened with Egypt?

00:35:43.000 Stop it there.

00:35:44.000 This is the point.

00:35:45.000 Doesn't he, Lindsay, does he seem more sophisticated?

00:35:47.000 Right?

00:35:48.000 You'd vote for him, right?

00:35:48.000 All of a sudden he looks like a sophisticate because we slapped the British accent on him.

00:35:52.000 So folks, next time you hear somebody speak with a British accent, don't fall for the play.

00:35:56.000 Women particularly. 0.58

00:35:57.000 If you're in a bar and a guy is speaking with a British accent, doesn't mean he's smart or sophisticated or kind or decent. 1.00

00:36:02.000 Just means he comes from Britain.

00:36:03.000 So, it just shows you how surface art politics is.

00:36:06.000 Okay.

00:36:07.000 Now, something that I hate.

00:36:09.000 Let's talk about...

00:36:10.000 A little bit.

00:36:11.000 The budget deal that happened last week.

00:36:12.000 So Paul Ryan last week signed off on a 1.15 trillion dollar budget deal.

00:36:17.000 It's an omnibus budget package that keeps the government funded for at least the next five minutes.

00:36:23.000 And it signs off on all of President Obama's priorities.

00:36:25.000 Planned Parenthood gets funded.

00:36:26.000 Climate change gets funded.

00:36:28.000 The executive amnesty gets funded.

00:36:30.000 Every single thing gets funded.

00:36:32.000 And then Paul Ryan, who's the great white hope of the conservative establishment, Paul Ryan goes on national TV and here's what Paul Ryan has to say about the deal that he just cut.

00:36:42.000 A deal so good for President Obama that Obama called him to wish him happy holidays and Paul Ryan said right back at ya.

00:36:47.000 Here's Paul Ryan on NBC News with Chuck Todd.

00:36:50.000 Speaker Ryan has heard the criticism.

00:36:51.000 I sat down with him on Friday and he said he'd deal with Planned Parenthood in the new year and that conservatives need to accept that he had to make compromises to get a deal done.

00:37:01.000 Let me first say, this is divided government.

00:37:04.000 And in divided government, you don't get everything you want.

00:37:08.000 So we fought for as much as we could get.

00:37:10.000 We advanced our priorities and principles.

00:37:12.000 Not every single one of them, but many of them.

00:37:14.000 And then we're going to pick up next year and pick up where we left off and keep going for more.

00:37:21.000 Beardy McLumberjack telling us that we are doing the best that we can in divided government.

00:37:26.000 Yeah, lecture me about divided government, Paul.

00:37:28.000 Just lecture me about how divided government works.

00:37:30.000 Yeah, I understand how divided government works, but guess what?

00:37:33.000 You didn't do your job.

00:37:34.000 The fact is that the House has one power, the power of the purse, since you already ruled impeachment off the table.

00:37:39.000 Barack Obama could strangle a small child on national television, and you guys have already said you'll never impeach him.

00:37:44.000 So, that means you have one power, and one power only.

00:37:48.000 And that power is the power of the purse.

00:37:50.000 And you won't use it, because you're afraid that Obama will then not sign the budget, and the government will shut down, and you will be blamed.

00:37:56.000 Boo-freaking-hoo. 1.00

00:37:58.000 Okay, it turns out that's your job.

00:38:00.000 And it's Obama's job to represent his side.

00:38:03.000 And if you're going to make—if the Republican Party's idea is that our job is basically to just sit there and do nothing until we get the presidency, it's gonna be a long hundred years, gang, because it could be a long time before there's a Republican president again.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 21, 2015

Ep. 44 - Why 'The Force' Is Evil, and Why Trump Can Beat Hillary

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