Tonight's episode of The Ben Shapiro Show is all about Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, and the Never Trump movement. Plus, a blast from the past as Mitt Romney enters the presidential fray. Ben Shapiro is a regular contributor to CNN and host of the conservative podcast "The Weekly Standard" and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Daily Wire. He's also the host of "The Daily Wire" and hosts the conservative radio show "Conspiracy Theories" on Fox News and CNN. Ben is the author of the book "Conspiracies: The Inside Story of the Trump Revolution" and has been featured on ABC's "The View" and CBS' "The Early Edition" and "The Five". He is also the co-host of the radio show, "The Situation Room" on SiriusXM Radio's The Situation Room with Alex Castellanos. You can catch him on the Tonight Show with John Dickerson and Alex Blumberg wherever you get your shows on the airwaves. If you're a fan of the show, please consider becoming a patron patron by clicking the link below. Thanks for listening and supporting the show! Thanks also to our sponsor, Caff Monster Energy Drink. We make great drinks and coffee! Don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and subscribe to our new podcast, and tell a friend about the show on Apple Podcasts! or wherever else you're listening to your favorite podcast. Enjoy & Retweet us your thoughts on social media! Tweet us what you think of this episode! and let us know what you thought of it! Timestamps you'd like to be featured on the next episode? and tag us in your thoughts and what you're looking forward to in our next episode of the Ben Shapiro show? and we'll be hearing about it on Instapaper? in the next one? on Insta: or your answer is a tweet about it? or you'll be getting a cup of coffee and what's your favorite thing we're drinking next week? & we'll have it on the podcast next week's episode will be responding to it on your feed? :) tweet us on Instaphotcastrocast & your answer to this episode is in a post on Instafeed if you have a question or your thoughts or your response is a cup o
00:00:23.000Okay, so we're going to start with Donald Trump, as always, because he's the Republican frontrunner, and also because he is wildly entertaining.
00:00:32.000And I want to talk about a couple of things.
00:00:33.000First off, I just want to remind people, every day I feel the necessity to remind you, this is the man who is likely going to be your Republican nominee unless there is a major movement to stop Donald Trump.
00:00:43.000And then I'm gonna talk about Romney, and then after that, I'm gonna talk about the Never Trump movement, which has started to gain a lot of steam online.
00:00:49.000Okay, so let's start off with a reminder who Donald Trump is.
00:00:52.000So Donald Trump put out this video yesterday.
00:00:55.000He put out this video yesterday, and here is the video of Donald Trump talking about how he's going to make America great again.
00:01:08.000In making deals, even if it's big deals, with Congress or maybe other countries, it really takes a certain amount of common sense.
00:02:21.000Okay, so Trump puts out videos like this, and as I tweeted yesterday, you have to have the IQ of a platypus to find this convincing and interesting.
00:02:29.000I mean, if this is what you're looking for, again, I understand the whole anti-establishment, he'll break things apart, he'll change things.
00:02:35.000Do you really think that Donald Trump is gonna change things with logic?
00:02:38.000Like, we have to get everybody in a room together and say, fellas, let's do this for the good of the country.
00:02:43.000Wow, I'm sure that's never occurred to anyone, ever, in the history of man, that when you negotiate with somebody, you have to get them in a room.
00:05:09.000His proposed 35 percent tariff-like penalties would instigate a trade war, and that would raise prices for consumers, kill our export jobs, and lead entrepreneurs and businesses of all stripes to flee America.
00:05:25.000His tax plan, in combination with his refusal to reform entitlements and to honestly address spending, would balloon the deficit and the national debt.
00:05:37.000So even though Donald Trump has offered very few specific economic plans, what little he has said is enough to know that he would be very bad for American workers and for American families.
00:07:05.000You know, a Venn diagram, typically, it's like a circle crossing over with another circle, and the common area is where the crossover is, in terms of any idea.
00:07:14.000The cartoon was one circle, and it said people who care about Mitt Romney's opinion, and another circle, all the way over here, that said Trump voters.
00:07:21.000Nobody in the Trump circle cares about Mitt Romney's opinion, especially because juxtaposed, juxtaposed, I know it's a big word for some people, juxtaposed, okay, Mitt Romney's language with the language of Donald Trump.
00:07:33.000So again, that Donald Trump video that we just watched a few minutes ago, the one where he was saying, we're gonna make great deals and you have to treat people differently.
00:07:40.000Russia and China are actually different and distinct countries.
00:07:43.000I didn't know if you knew that, but they're actually different countries.
00:08:49.000And not only did they all lose, none of them were that conservative.
00:08:53.000And you're gonna bring them forward as the spokespeople for conservatism?
00:08:57.000And again, the way that Romney attacks is just so... The substance is great, and the style is so lacking in every way.
00:09:03.000Here's Mitt Romney attacking Donald Trump on foreign policy.
00:09:07.000Now, Donald Trump tells us that he is very, very smart.
00:09:13.000I'm afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart.
00:09:29.000Now, I'm far from the first to conclude that Donald Trump lacks the temperament to be president.
00:09:34.000After all, this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity.
00:09:54.000Donald Trump says he admires Vladimir Putin.
00:09:57.000At the same time, he's called George W. Bush a liar.
00:10:01.000That is a twisted example of evil trumping good.
00:10:15.000There's a dark irony in his boasts of his sexual exploits during the Vietnam War.
00:10:22.000While at the same time, John McCain, whom he has mocked, was imprisoned and tortured.
00:13:49.000So now I want to talk a little bit about, so Rubio's thing is going to back, I mean, Romney's thing here is going to backfire.
00:13:53.000It's not going to have any impact on the race.
00:13:55.000If it does, it's actually going to help Trump.
00:13:58.000And tonight with the debate coming, now instead of it being Cruz and Rubio on the attack, it's gonna be Trump attacking Romney and the other two being forced to defend Mitt Romney.
00:14:06.000Romney's now the central issue, so it's actually really bad tactics in a whole variety of ways.
00:14:10.000Especially since, gang, everybody now has the same op-o-file.
00:15:17.000I think the media have not begun to open up their guns on Trump.
00:15:19.000I think Trump is bringing in new voters, sure, but he's alienating a hell of a lot more voters than he's bringing in.
00:15:23.000And it's because Trump says things like this, for example, clip 17, here's Donald Trump talking about, remember, we've talked about it all week, Donald Trump refusing to disown the KKK, and then disavowing them the next day, and all of this stuff, and then blaming his magically white hooded earpiece, and he didn't hear properly, and his earwax was a member of the KKK, so it whispered bad messages to him, and all the rest of it.
00:15:47.000Donald Trump was on MSNBC this morning still trying to walk this back and here was Donald Trump ridiculously trying to walk this back.
00:17:28.000How dumb do you have to be to buy into that particular lie?
00:17:32.000I had this argument online with a friend of mine, Patrick Coriolchi, this morning, and I really like Patrick a lot, but anybody who believes that Donald Trump didn't hear the questions did not watch that interview.
00:17:41.000Because Donald Trump was repeating the questions back to Jake Tapper.
00:17:44.000In any case, that's argument number one in favor of Never Trump.
00:17:47.000You get behind this guy, he's going to lose.
00:17:49.000And so regardless of whether I vote for him now or in a general, he's going to lose anyway.
00:18:28.000In other words, if the idea for the Republican Party is no matter who we nominate, you're going to have to vote for them because the alternative is always going to be worse.
00:18:36.000It's always going to be Bernie Sanders or Hillary.
00:18:37.000Then we really don't have a say in the nominee.
00:18:45.000That's how you end up with McCain and Romney and now Trump.
00:18:48.000This is how you end up with George W. Bush and Bob Dole and H.W.
00:18:51.000This is how you end up with all these people is because we're constantly being told, well, you may not like Mitt Romney, but do you really want a second term of Barack Obama?
00:18:59.000And at a certain point, conservatives have to say no.
00:19:02.000They have to say, no, we're not going to accept the lesser of two evils.
00:19:16.000That conservatives have to say no at some point.
00:19:18.000And that conservatives saying no is a defense of conservatism.
00:19:21.000There's an argument with which I agree.
00:19:22.000I think this is a good argument, right?
00:19:24.000You can't just keep saying to us, hold your nose and vote.
00:19:27.000Because if I'm just gonna always hold my nose and vote, you can take my vote for granted.
00:19:30.000If you can take my vote for granted, you never have to give me what I want, which is an actual conservative candidate.
00:19:35.000And third argument, also a good argument, in favor of Never Trump.
00:19:38.000Victory before conservatism perverts conservatism.
00:19:42.000In other words, if all you care about is winning, if all you care about is winning, you're going to end up embracing a lot of things that sully the name of conservatism and destroy conservatism.
00:19:52.000And here, I want to talk about Trump's argument.
00:19:54.000Trump's counter-argument is, I'm gonna win.
00:20:42.000Now, they focus on Romney, who's, you know, just trying to stay relevant.
00:20:46.000But the biggest story out there, by the people that really understand it, is the fact that the Republican Party is gaining millions and millions of people.
00:20:55.000And you saw that with South Carolina, you saw that with Nevada.
00:20:58.000I went to Nevada, the polling booths, and I tell you what, you couldn't even get within, you couldn't get within 200 yards of the polling areas.
00:21:07.000And the people working there said, Mr. Trump, I've never seen anything like this, and I've been at these booths for years, and I've never seen anything like what's happening with the Republican Party.
00:21:15.000So he's saying that he's broadening the party, making it bigger.
00:21:18.000Millions of people are joining, and he's right.
00:21:20.000There are a lot of people who are joining the Republican Party who have never voted Republican before.
00:21:24.000The problem is, as Grover Norquist was fond of saying with regard to tax policy, if you have a big tent, you're going to let in a lot of clowns.
00:21:31.000And the fact is that if you have no defining principles, no centralizing principles, the center cannot hold, things spin apart, and you end up with this fragmented party that stands for nothing except for its own self-aggrandizement and power.
00:21:46.000You allow Trump to define the party, this is what you're going to get.
00:21:49.000Here's some video yesterday, and this is already going around, okay?
00:21:52.000Again, I've spent my entire career fighting against perceptions that the Republican Party and conservatism are racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, and Trump is making it very easy for the other side.
00:22:03.000Voting for Trump, under any circumstances, makes it too easy for the other side to say conservatives don't really stand for anything, they just don't like Hillary Clinton, they just don't like
00:22:13.000Their program, but they're willing to even in there.
00:22:15.000They're even willing to go along with racism and bigotry in order to achieve their ends, which is not a group of people.
00:22:22.000That's not something I want to go along with.
00:22:24.000Here's here's what happened at the rally.
00:22:25.000There are a bunch of rallyers who started assaulting.
00:22:28.000There's black woman who came to protest and she came to protest and she came to make an issue and I've as you've seen in recent days dealt with protesters in the recent past.
00:22:36.000The way you do this is you have security in the room and if someone protests you call security, right?
00:22:41.000Here's what actually happened at the Trump rally.
00:22:44.000...rallied today with several interruptions by anti-Trump protesters.
00:22:49.000It was Governor Chris Christie who came out first and introduced Trump.
00:22:53.000Trump spoke for about 30 or so minutes, and when a protester did interrupt him, Trump would yell, get them out of here, and many were escorted out by police.
00:23:03.000Some protesters have signs that read, love Trump's hate.
00:23:07.000And it went on like that, people kind of pushing this lady around.
00:23:12.000All of this isn't Trump's fault, except that Donald Trump is the guy who said this about protesters.
00:23:29.000But I will tell you that the man that was, I don't know, you say roughed up, he was so obnoxious and so loud, he was screaming.
00:23:38.000I had 10,000 people in the room yesterday, 10,000 people, and this guy started screaming by himself.
00:24:49.000To a degree, it is hurting, I think it hurt Trump, the attack ads in Northern Virginia.
00:24:55.000I don't know if the KKK was in there, but these things are designed to hurt him.
00:24:59.000My guess would be you might see some kind of closing in Florida, but again, you gotta wait for April 15th, or excuse me, March 15th, and I'll tell you.
00:25:08.000Then, at that point, we're going to see whether Trump has a clear shot to the nomination and can't be stopped, or whether he's going to be short in terms of delegates.
00:25:16.000Does he have to win Ohio and Florida on the 15th?
00:25:56.000Well, they're going to have to get over that after March 15th, I'll tell you, or they will be responsible for blowing not only the opportunity to win, this, I think if you drive these Trump people off from the party who are coming in... They're gone.
00:26:10.000The party is gone, and I don't know what shouldn't be.
00:26:12.000Look, the establishment positions have been repudiated.
00:26:16.000They're not coming back on trade or intervention or open borders or all the rest of it.
00:27:12.000government for its apology for sheltering the Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk.
00:27:17.000Demianic, William F. Buckley wrote of Buchanan, I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism.
00:27:28.000It was Pat Buchanan who urged Reagan, when he was communications director for the White House, to visit an SS cemetery at Bitburg in Germany, providing a great photo op for neo-Nazis everywhere.
00:27:38.000And then he lectured any Jewish leader who objected, saying that they should be Americans first.
00:27:42.000And he wrote over and over in his notebook, succumbing to the pressure of the Jews.
00:27:45.000Okay, this is the guy, Pat Buchanan, the fact that he's been re-mainstreamed is incredible to me, but he's been re-mainstreamed.
00:27:51.000And some of Trumpism is this, the isolationist, the anti-trade,
00:27:57.000The tariff, the high tariffs, the anti-immigration, and there's a difference between anti-illegal immigration and anti-immigration.
00:28:35.000And the people who he's suggesting the Republican Party has to cater to, these are not people who are going to help conservatism or make it better.
00:28:42.000Now listen, every time I do a podcast or a column on one of these things, I know there are people who oppose this, who disagree.
00:28:55.000And one side or the other here is going to win.
00:28:57.000The implication here seems to be, and it's troubling, the implication here seems to be that either the voters who stayed home for Mitt Romney and John McCain come out and they get what they want, an isolationist, anti-free trade,
00:29:25.000Because I'm not willing to sacrifice conservatism on the altar of beating Hillary Clinton for a guy like Donald Trump, who, by the way, is going to be a terrible president.
00:29:32.000Donald Trump will be a very, very bad president.
00:29:35.000And he may be better than Hillary Clinton, but George W. Bush was better than Al Gore, and without George W. Bush, there's no Barack Obama.
00:29:41.000What happens after Trump becomes Republicanism?
00:29:44.000What happens after Trump becomes Conservatism?
00:29:46.000What happens after Conservatism looks like Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump?
00:29:51.000What do you think the reaction from the left is gonna be?
00:30:24.000George Wallace essentially said if a protester lies down in front of one of our vehicles it'll be the last vehicle that they run, that they lay down in front of, and encourage the crowd from the dais to throw out black protesters.
00:31:28.000He's making the case easy for the left.
00:31:31.000And in the process, he's making it hard for the rest of us conservatives who actually believe in things he doesn't believe in, like small government and individual liberty and a constitution with checks and balances.
00:31:44.000Ben Sasse, who's become, I think, one of the moral leaders of the Republican Party, Senator from Nebraska, here's what he had to say about Donald Trump if Donald Trump becomes the nominee.
00:31:53.000I want to celebrate what's great about America in the Republican Party.
00:31:57.000But if the Republican Party becomes the party of David Duke, Donald Trump, I'm out.
00:32:02.000And I think lots and lots and lots of people are out.
00:32:05.000And so ultimately, there will be more choices than these two if Trump is the nominee.
00:32:11.000And you hope there are more choices than these two if Donald Trump is the nominee.
00:32:16.000Okay, on to some of the other candidates.
00:32:17.000Marco Rubio is having a real rough time.
00:33:14.000So I watched Marco in two interviews last night, and I want to be very clear here.
00:33:18.000For the record, I've always liked him.
00:33:20.000It's very hard not to like Marco Rubio.
00:33:23.000I get the sense that he couldn't get out the word con artist, fraud, supporting the KK, hiring illegal immigrants, Trump University, over and over and over, enough.
00:33:35.000Probably a preview of tomorrow's debate.
00:33:38.000Do you agree with me that probably this is not the Marco we've known, and B, that he's probably being influenced, and he's the hired gun now, to take out the insurgency?
00:33:57.000Jeb was the hired gun to take out the insurgency.
00:33:59.000By the way, Donald Trump is the hired gun, but he's not being hired.
00:34:03.000The establishment is basically okay with Donald Trump.
00:34:05.000That's why Rupert Murdoch came out yesterday.
00:34:07.000Doesn't get more establishment than Rupert Murdoch.
00:34:09.000He came out yesterday, and he said the party, if Trump is the nominee, ought to unify behind Donald Trump.
00:34:15.000Donald Trump is the one who's taking the heart out of conservatism, hijacking it, and using it for his own purposes.
00:34:20.000Marco Rubio, though, his campaign is fading.
00:34:23.000Here is Marco Rubio now explaining that he doesn't have to even win the most delegates in order to win the nomination.
00:34:28.000So he went from, I don't have to win states, to I don't have to win delegates.
00:34:32.000Here's Marco Rubio explaining that last night.
00:34:35.000Is there anything wrong with a convention, in theory, this is not a process question, it's a very important political science question, anything wrong with a convention nominating someone other than the delegate leader if that delegate leader, when they arrive at the convention, does have the most number?
00:34:50.000In other words, is there anything wrong if Donald Trump has 1,100 delegates, and that's the most, with him not being the nominee?
00:34:58.000You know, that's why the rules are written the way they are.
00:35:00.000And, you know, I still think there's a chance it may not come to that, that there could be something between now and then, that even if someone doesn't have a delegate lead, if someone's clearly in the lead, you can work through that.
00:35:10.000It's so premature right now to even discuss that.
00:35:20.000We came in second place, but we got one less delegate than he did.
00:35:24.000We even got four delegates out of Texas.
00:35:27.000Okay, this is weak stuff, and it's not gonna fly.
00:35:30.000Which is why even some of the members of the establishment now are saying that Ted Cruz is the guy.
00:35:33.000They're coming back around to the idea that only Cruz can beat Trump, not only because Cruz has beaten Trump more often than Rubio, but because if Rubio loses Florida, it's over for Rubio, and they know it.
00:35:43.000So if he tosses his support to Cruz, then he's not expected to win Florida, but Cruz will actually start to consolidate.
00:35:49.000A lot of the support and you'll finally have this two-man race you've wanted for so long.
00:35:53.000Lindsey Graham, who despises Ted Cruz, senator from South Carolina, even he came around yesterday and he said, yeah, it's possible we may have to go with Cruz to stop Trump.
00:36:01.000So there is no way you seem to be suggesting at the convention or before the convention to stop Donald Trump from being the nominee?
00:36:09.000Short of a major scandal, probably not.
00:36:11.000If Marco doesn't win Florida, I don't know how he goes forward.
00:36:22.000But we may be in a position where I have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump, and I'm not so sure that would work.
00:36:28.000But you'd recommend that in order to stop Donald Trump rallying behind Ted Cruz?
00:36:32.000I can't believe I would say yes, but yes.
00:36:36.000Okay, so he obviously doesn't want to do it, but even he's beginning to admit it.
00:36:40.000Okay, time for some things I like, some things I hate, and then a couple of letters from the mailbag, even though we're running a little bit long here, but there's so much to talk about, obviously.
00:36:47.000By the way, here's your very brief preview for tonight's debate.
00:36:51.000It's going to be an all-out attack on Trump.
00:40:36.000Tim Tebow should have a job in the NFL.
00:40:38.000He should at least be a backup quarterback somewhere.
00:40:40.000There are enough bad teams that you would assume one of them would pick him up just because people would watch the games with Tebow in them.
00:40:46.000But Colin Cowherd rips the Tebow fans.
00:40:48.000He says because Tebow fans tend to be religious, that's why he's not able to get a job.
00:41:54.000He said, it's Tim Tebow's crazy religious fans who take over stadiums.
00:41:59.000I thought the purpose was to sell tickets.
00:42:01.000I thought you weren't supposed to care who you sold the tickets to.
00:42:05.000So if the answer is that the crazy fans were taking over Denver Stadium and rooting for your team because of your quarterback, I thought that would be a good thing.
00:42:13.000But his implication is if they like Jesus, and they like a guy who's clear about his faith in Christ, that that's something that has to be stomped out right now.
00:42:20.000We need to go out, we need to get another quarterback, we can't deal with this.
00:42:23.000We can't have somebody who's bringing all these Jesus folks to the stadium.
00:42:26.000You want to talk about discrimination?
00:42:29.000Because it turns out religious people, our money is just as good as anybody else's money.
00:42:34.000These are the same people who would use government to force religious people to cater to gay weddings, but they want to say that religious people basically shouldn't have any input into the people
00:42:57.000If I don't get back to you directly, Lindsey will.
00:42:59.000I can't answer... I really feel bad about this because I like answering emails, but we literally, in the last, like, three days, we got over a thousand emails, so it makes it impossible for... I would...
00:43:09.000I would have to stay up all night and quit my jobs to do this.
00:43:11.000So instead, I've made this podcast for you.
00:43:14.000So instead, we'll answer some of your questions right now.
00:43:50.000Well, the reality is the people who tend to go into journalism are people who are idealistic about how the world should work, and they feel like they're crusading for fairness, and then they tend to hire people who are just like them and surround themselves with those people.
00:44:02.000And the difference between the right and the left is, listen, I run a media company, right?
00:44:08.000And the people who work for me are conservative.
00:45:55.000And as far as some of the older shows, Sesame Street isn't bad, but it's not great either if you're gonna pick, take old episodes of Mr. Rogers over Sesame Street any day.
00:46:04.000Okay, John writes, my family leans left and often spouts statistics that 97% of scientists believe in climate change.
00:46:10.000The only basic argument I have heard from conservatives is that there is no evidence for climate change or that it is too limited.
00:46:16.000If the argument is we are not 100% sure climate change is happening, wouldn't it still be prudent to err on the side of caution and take necessary steps just in case?
00:46:23.000Can you give a more detailed defense of your position?
00:46:25.000Okay, so there's a great article at Daily Wire, you can search for it.
00:46:28.000It was written by a climate scientist debunking all of the various myths about climate change.
00:46:33.000Here's the short answer to your question.
00:46:34.000Number one, 97% of scientists do not agree with certainty that the world is going to warm to the point where it's actually dangerous.
00:46:41.000Plus, 97% of scientists includes people who have nothing to do with climate.
00:46:45.000I mean, you ask my wife, she's a scientist, she's a doctor.
00:46:47.000Does she know anything about climatology?
00:47:16.000How much of this is due to natural weather patterns?
00:47:21.000What level is certainly attributable to human behavior?
00:47:25.000And most of all, even if you wanted to reverse this, what would it take?
00:47:28.000The problem is that when you say, wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution, well, when you're talking about doing away with fossil fuels, which power pretty much everything, when you're talking about going back to 1850 standards of living, complete with 1850 lengths of life and all the rest of it, no, I'm not willing to bet on that, especially when
00:47:47.000You know, everybody talks about the end.
00:48:51.000I wrote for the student newspaper, and then I took some of my columns, I sent them to Creators Syndicate, and they didn't know how old I was, and they read them, and they liked them, and then my parents had to sign the contract, because I was 17.
00:49:01.000And it's not illegal to sign contracts if you're under 17, if you're under 18 in California.
00:49:06.000So, that's how, and then I parlayed that into a book.
00:49:09.000Bottom line is, you have to start writing for free.
00:49:10.000Just find an outlet, start writing for free, you'll start building up a following, you'll start building up a followership, and then you can go to people and you can say, look, I'm gonna bring you something material if you print my column.
00:49:20.000And if you start to give me an outlet for my writing.
00:49:24.000Okay, folks, tonight is the next big debate.
00:49:27.000I will be live blogging it over at Daily Wire.