The Ben Shapiro Show - Everyone Just Died…AGAIN | Ep. 441

00:00:00.000 All righty, so today is the big tax reform day.

00:00:03.000 It finally has passed through Congress.

00:00:05.000 Your taxes will go down.

00:00:06.000 The Democrats moan in lamentation.

00:00:08.000 We'll talk about all that.

00:00:09.000 Plus, I sort of face-planted Rosie O'Donnell on Twitter, and it's hilarious.

00:00:12.000 So we'll talk about all of that.

00:00:13.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:14.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:20.000 Yes, I am back from Florida, where I had a great time talking to the college students over at TPUSA, one of my favorite student groups.

00:00:27.000 And it was a blast.

00:00:28.000 I also met Donald Trump Jr., which, nice to meet you, Don.

00:00:32.000 So that was kind of fun.

00:00:33.000 But I have a lot to talk about today, because it's a big news day.

00:00:37.000 And it, of course, starts with this massive tax reform package that is now passed.

00:00:41.000 The Republican House and the Republican Senate, President Trump is set to sign that into law formally, probably after Christmas.

00:00:47.000 They have to work out a few more kinks, I think, and then he's going to sign that into law.

00:00:51.000 So that is a big move.

00:00:51.000 I'm going to discuss everything that is in this tax reform package.

00:00:55.000 I'm going to recount the entire saga in just a second.

00:00:57.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Helix Sleep.

00:01:00.000 So I had a really good trip to Florida.

00:01:01.000 There was one thing that did not go particularly well.

00:01:03.000 That was my sleep pattern.

00:01:04.000 My sleep pattern was a giant fail.

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00:02:03.000 Okay, so, today dawned amidst a cacophony of howling dogs mourning their dead masters.

00:02:07.000 Men, women, children killed in a mass senseless slaughter by the passage of tax reform.

00:02:30.000 The Republicans just said that they wanted to lower taxes, but Democrats knew, the media knew, that if this tax reform package were to go through, then it would be like The Walking Dead.

00:02:38.000 Zombies would wander the earth, just dead bodies stacked up in cars on the highways.

00:02:44.000 That's exactly how it was this morning.

00:02:45.000 Traveling back from Florida,

00:02:46.000 You know, I was the only person on the plane.

00:02:48.000 I had to fly myself.

00:02:49.000 The airports were deserted.

00:02:50.000 Everyone was dead.

00:02:51.000 I don't even know who's listening to this program now.

00:02:53.000 I don't even know if there's anyone to listen to this program.

00:02:55.000 Austin over there is an animate corpse, just making this show happen from behind the screen.

00:03:00.000 And this is what they'd warned about.

00:03:01.000 Now, the amazing thing is that I didn't know that everyone could be killed again since everyone was killed by net neutrality repeal a week ago.

00:03:07.000 But apparently, death can be died a thousand times.

00:03:10.000 And so, everyone's dead from net neutrality repeal, and repeal of the Paris Accords, and all the rest of it.

00:03:15.000 And now, everyone has died again.

00:03:17.000 So, I guess, finally there's time for me to read, just like Burgess, Meredith, and Twilight Zone.

00:03:23.000 You know, it's been very weird inhabiting this afterlife because it's so similar to regular life.

00:03:28.000 The only good thing is that Justin Bieber doesn't have any new good songs in this afterlife lately.

00:03:31.000 So that's been excellent.

00:03:33.000 But otherwise, it seems very similar.

00:03:34.000 And I will admit that now that I'm dead, I feel a peculiar desire to head over to Chicago and vote Democrat.

00:03:40.000 Which had not occurred to me before.

00:03:42.000 But suffice it to say, this is me being sarcastic.

00:03:45.000 Because not everyone is dead.

00:03:46.000 No one died, in fact.

00:03:47.000 In fact, your taxes just went down.

00:03:49.000 If you are 80% of Americans, your tax went down today.

00:03:52.000 So here are the things you need to know about this historic tax reform bill.

00:03:56.000 And it really is historic, okay?

00:03:58.000 It's historic because it is a massive reduction in the corporate tax side.

00:04:01.000 Everyone's focusing on the individual tax side.

00:04:03.000 The part that really matters is the corporate tax reform.

00:04:06.000 So you're going to get a little bit of money back.

00:04:08.000 Not insignificant.

00:04:09.000 You'll get a little bit of money back on your taxes if you are in the middle class.

00:04:13.000 The average household is supposed to receive, according to the Tax Policy Center, a tax cut of about $1,600 in 2018.

00:04:22.000 An average household earning a million bucks or more would see a tax decrease of approximately $70,000.

00:04:28.000 compared to $870 for households making $50,000 to $75,000, that's because people at the upper end of the tax spectrum are paying nearly all the net taxes in the country.

00:04:36.000 It's not because the Republicans just decided to benefit the rich.

00:04:39.000 It's that if you reduce rates for the rich, they are getting back a lot more money because they're making a lot more money and they're paying a lot more money.

00:04:45.000 Okay, this isn't the biggest tax cut in history, but it's not insignificant. 0.99

00:04:48.000 The idiotic idea that apparently 50% of Americans believe that you're gonna pay more tax because of this bill is just stupid, and it's because the media have been lying to you. 0.99

00:04:57.000 The media have been saying this is a redistributionist bill from poor to rich. 1.00

00:05:00.000 Absolutely untrue.

00:05:02.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:05:02.000 The individual tax decreases sunset.

00:05:04.000 Okay, so in 2025, the individual tax decreases are supposed to go away, but in all likelihood, they're going to remain.

00:05:11.000 The reason they're going to remain is who actually wants to vote openly for tax increases.

00:05:14.000 Democrats are probably going to maintain those middle-class tax rates. 0.92

00:05:17.000 The reason that Republicans had them sunset in 2025 is because one of the budget tricks that has to be done here is if you wanted to pass in the Senate with 51 votes, which is how many votes it got, if you wanted to pass in the Senate with that number of votes instead of 60 to kill a filibuster,

00:05:31.000 Then the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has to rule that the bill will be deficit neutral.

00:05:36.000 So, the bill is deficit neutral, according to the CBO.

00:05:38.000 That's because of some gamesmanship by Republicans.

00:05:41.000 That's not rare.

00:05:41.000 Okay, here's the thing about the corporate tax rates, and here's the case no one's gonna make.

00:05:44.000 Corporate tax rates go down, that means companies can afford to give raises.

00:05:48.000 That they can afford to actually create jobs.

00:05:51.000 And the early evidence of this is today, AT&T announced that it would give a $1,000 across-the-board bonus to everyone, thanks to the tax decrease.

00:06:00.000 That now that this corporate tax rate has been reduced, they will give a $1,000 bonus to everyone.

00:06:04.000 That's a pretty amazing thing.

00:06:05.000 Now, some may say that this is a cynical ploy by AT&T.

00:06:09.000 To basically give the Trump administration a good headline so that Trump will allow the AT&T Comcast merger to go through.

00:06:16.000 I'm not going to say that that sounds right to me, but it sounds exactly right to me.

00:06:19.000 Still, the corporate tax rate dropping is a good thing for business.

00:06:22.000 And the proof that it's a good thing for business is that in every other country where the corporate tax rate has been dropped precipitously, what you see is significant GDP growth.

00:06:30.000 The most obvious example is Ireland.

00:06:32.000 Ireland actually has a 12.5% corporate tax rate, so it's become a sort of business haven for corporations that want to do business overseas, and they've seen high sustained growth thanks to that healthy business climate.

00:06:42.000 In 1995, they actually had a corporate business tax of 40%.

00:06:45.000 They dropped it to 12.5%, and they've seen 23% GDP growth since, compared to 7.2 GDP growth

00:06:54.000 from 1960 to 1995.

00:06:55.000 So, over the course of 35 years, they saw 7.2% GDP growth.

00:06:59.000 Then, they moved the corporate tax rate down from 40% to 12.5%, and over the last 27 years, they have seen a 23% increase in GDP.

00:07:09.000 So, this has also been seen in countries ranging from Germany to Spain.

00:07:13.000 When you reduce the corporate tax rate, it makes it easier for companies to invest in the United States.

00:07:19.000 They no longer are trying to organize as offshore companies.

00:07:22.000 There's also, in this bill, a big increase in the child tax credit.

00:07:26.000 That child tax credit is truly a redistribution scheme because a lot of people who don't pay taxes are getting the child tax credit, but it's backed by a lot of Republicans because they think that families with children have higher expenses and we ought to give them benefits.

00:07:40.000 I am actually, as the father of two children, I'm not really in favor of the child tax credit on a strictly libertarian viewpoint.

00:07:46.000 I don't think the government should be giving you incentives to behave in certain ways, and I don't think anybody is having kids for the tax credit.

00:07:52.000 I don't think it's just

00:07:53.000 Oh, well, you know, before I wasn't going to have a kid.

00:07:55.000 Now I'm getting $2,000 back.

00:07:56.000 I suppose I'll have the child.

00:07:57.000 Kids are a lot more expensive than that.

00:07:59.000 The average cost of a child from the time they're born until the time that they leave the house at 18 is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

00:08:06.000 But still, this is something that looks good in the headlines for Republicans, that they're trying to help out families.

00:08:11.000 That's why Marco Rubio pushed it.

00:08:13.000 There are a few people who will be paying more in income tax.

00:08:17.000 That includes me, which makes me sad.

00:08:19.000 Tax reform includes reductions in tax deductions for state and local taxes.

00:08:23.000 So people in high-tax states like California, they're reducing my taxes through the tax rate, but they're increasing my taxes because the deductions are not even close to what I'm going to be paying in my state tax in the state of California.

00:08:36.000 Plus the mortgage interest deduction has been decreased markedly.

00:08:39.000 You can now only take a mortgage interest deduction up to $750,000 loan.

00:08:43.000 In the state of California, pretty much everybody who owns a home has a mortgage that is bigger than that.

00:08:48.000 Itemization has been downsized.

00:08:49.000 So instead of you having to itemize every deduction, they've doubled the standard deduction.

00:08:54.000 So a lot of people

00:08:55.000 No longer have to itemize, because you're only deducting, you're only doing itemized deductions if you want deductions above and beyond the standard deduction.

00:09:03.000 Now the standard deduction has been doubled, so that means that itemized deductions are probably going to go the way of the dodo bird for a lot of folks.

00:09:08.000 That's great.

00:09:09.000 It means that you don't have to hire an accountant, you can now fill out your taxes on the back of a postcard.

00:09:13.000 The individual mandate is gone, so this is a major win as well.

00:09:16.000 The tax bill uses the death of the individual mandate to reduce deficits.

00:09:19.000 How?

00:09:20.000 Why does it reduce deficits when you get rid of the individual mandate?

00:09:23.000 When people are supposedly being forced to pay into the system?

00:09:25.000 The reality is that because of the individual mandate, because you are forced to go get health care, people have gone and registered with Medicaid.

00:09:32.000 That costs millions and billions of dollars to the federal government.

00:09:35.000 Fewer people are going to register for Medicaid because they're not mandated to do so.

00:09:38.000 That means the bill goes down.

00:09:39.000 Now, is this entirely a good thing?

00:09:41.000 Well, it would be entirely a good thing just on the surface of it, right?

00:09:44.000 You no longer have the federal government forcing you into a position where you must, must, must do this.

00:09:50.000 However, it's not good for one reason that I'll explain in just a moment.

00:09:56.000 I mean, the reason that the individual mandate leaving may not be the world's greatest thing is because if the individual mandate goes away, you have to fill the gap for all of the sick people who are still in the individual insurance market, right?

00:10:07.000 The way that we were filling that before is we were basically forcing young, healthy people to buy insurance, and that was driving the rates down in the individual insurance market.

00:10:15.000 They were basically paying to compensate a bunch of old, sick people in the individual insurance market.

00:10:18.000 Those rates are now likely to go up some, and that means that the federal government is going to have to make a choice.

00:10:23.000 Either they're going to have to remove the Obamacare regulations,

00:10:25.000 Which would be the ideal.

00:10:27.000 Or, they're going to have to fill in, backfill, the funding insurance companies lose because of the individual mandate.

00:10:34.000 That, unfortunately, seems like the way the federal government is going.

00:10:36.000 It seems like Republicans are going to be voting, basically, for a new, it looks like the Republicans are going to be voting for a new entitlement program, which is not a grand and glorious thing.

00:10:45.000 So, I want to give you the rest of what's in this tax bill.

00:10:47.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Birchgold.

00:10:51.000 Despite the fact that the stock market is soaring, despite the fact that the economy is going supremely well, despite all of that, I think that it is necessary to point out that the economy can always tank at any time, right?

00:11:04.000 Everybody thought the economy was going gangbusters in early 2007 and then it tanked on you.

00:11:07.000 One of the reasons that you ought to diversify and ought to have some money in precious metals is because of the risk of an economic downturn, which could be brought about by anything from a public event to a foreign policy event.

00:11:20.000 I'm not saying take your entire portfolio and put it in gold.

00:11:22.000 That would be foolish.

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00:11:45.000 Right now, if you're looking at Bitcoin and saying, wow, Bitcoin is doing really well,

00:11:48.000 That's because Bitcoin is basically a controlled asset.

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00:12:00.000 That's birchgold.com.

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00:12:08.000 Let's talk about the rest of what's in this bill.

00:12:10.000 So they're now opening the Anwar to oil exploration.

00:12:13.000 The Anwar is not Anwar al-Awlaki.

00:12:15.000 It is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

00:12:17.000 So there's a portion of Alaska that has been ruled out of bounds by the federal government for the last couple of decades.

00:12:22.000 It should have been opened up a long time ago.

00:12:24.000 The part that they want to drill is very small.

00:12:26.000 It leaves a small footprint.

00:12:28.000 And the idea that it was going to destroy the environment in Alaska is utterly untrue.

00:12:31.000 Supposedly, there are reserves under there that are about the size of Saudi Arabia.

00:12:35.000 Possibly.

00:12:36.000 So drilling in the Anwar would be good for America's domestic oil reserves. 0.93

00:12:40.000 This is a good thing.

00:12:42.000 The worst thing about this bill is that deficits are going to increase.

00:12:44.000 The Republicans have said that we'll grow our way out of deficits.

00:12:48.000 That will be true to a certain extent.

00:12:49.000 It won't be true to the point where it will cover for the government revenue hole that's been blown in the budget.

00:12:55.000 But that's why Republicans should be focused on cutting now. 0.71

00:12:57.000 Republicans should actually use this opportunity to cut.

00:12:59.000 Now, I know Republicans just want to win elections.

00:13:02.000 But what that leads to is big government.

00:13:04.000 It leads to a battle between big government Republicans and big government Democrats.

00:13:07.000 And both of them end up blowing up the deficit.

00:13:10.000 If Republicans actually want to make a difference, they're going to have to take up another priority of Speaker Ryan's, and that is Medicaid reform, Medicare reform, block grants to states.

00:13:18.000 All these are things that the Republicans are going to have to do.

00:13:19.000 OK, so, all this said, I like this bill.

00:13:23.000 I think it's a good bill.

00:13:24.000 It's not a perfect bill.

00:13:25.000 It has things that I would change about it, but it is a fairly typical and very positive Republican tax bill. 1.00

00:13:32.000 People have lost their damn minds. 0.99

00:13:34.000 They have gone absolutely insane over this. 1.00

00:13:36.000 So, yesterday at the Capitol, in the middle of the vote, there was a group of protesters who started chanting about how the bill was going to end in their imminent demise.

00:13:47.000 The actual medicine is not produced here.

00:13:49.000 It's produced in Ireland because

00:13:56.000 The chair has detected a disturbance in the gallery in contravention of the law and against the rules of the house.

00:14:05.000 The sergeant at arms will identify the person or persons responsible and have them escorted from the house chamber. 0.99

00:14:13.000 So all these idiots are up there shouting, kill the bill, don't kill us, and apparently one of them decided to take off her top, which, I mean, she understands she's in Congress, right? 0.99

00:14:21.000 Like, in Congress, like the same Congress that houses half the sexual perverts in America, she just incentivized Congress to pass a tax bill every single day. 1.00

00:14:29.000 I didn't see a picture of the lady, but I assume that, you know, if she is of the female persuasion and has breasts, then half the congressmen in the place are excited about that form of protest. 1.00

00:14:39.000 That seems to be counterproductive. 0.94

00:14:41.000 But kill the bill, don't kill us.

00:14:42.000 I mean, it just demonstrates the extent to which the left has lost its mind.

00:14:45.000 One of the people who's lost her mind, obviously, is Rosie O'Donnell. 0.99

00:14:47.000 She didn't have much of a mind left to lose, sadly.

00:14:50.000 But Rosie O'Donnell tweeted this out.

00:14:53.000 She tweeted out, so how about this?

00:14:54.000 I promise to give $2,000,000 to Senator Susan Collins and $2,000,000 to Senator Jeff Flake if they vote no.

00:15:00.000 No, I will not kill Americans for the sewer rich.

00:15:03.000 She meant to write super but she can't type. 0.98

00:15:05.000 It's S-U-O-E-R rich.

00:15:07.000 DM me, Susan.

00:15:08.000 DM me, Jeff.

00:15:09.000 No bleep.

00:15:09.000 $2,000,000.

00:15:09.000 Cash.

00:15:09.000 Each.

00:15:13.000 It's like E.E. 0.98

00:15:14.000 Cummings for the mentally deficient. 1.00

00:15:16.000 So, well done there, Rosie O'Donnell.

00:15:17.000 This, by the way, is technically under federal law bribery.

00:15:20.000 So, under 18 U.S.C., I believe the actual statute is 18 U.S.C.

00:15:25.000 201B, it says, quote,

00:15:34.000 Or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity with intent to influence any official act shall be fined under this title not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than 15 years or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

00:15:58.000 So she's openly offering $4 million to Republican senators for them to change their vote, which is bribery under federal law. 1.00

00:16:06.000 She's doing that in front of apparently 32,000 likes. 1.00

00:16:10.000 So that, you know, I guess she must be willing to pay $12 million to the federal government. 1.00

00:16:14.000 I said earlier, if President Trump tells Jeff Sessions to initiate a prosecution against Rosie O'Donnell, they will begin carving his face into Rushmore tomorrow.

00:16:23.000 Right, I mean, he will immediately move to the list of the nation's greatest presidents if he initiates prosecution against Rosie O'Donnell for bribery.

00:16:31.000 So I tweeted out, half-jokingly this morning, lock her up, lock her up. 0.98

00:16:36.000 And Rosie O'Donnell got mad, and she tweeted back at me, suck my bleep, Ben. 0.99

00:16:41.000 Which doesn't make sense for a variety of reasons, as far as I'm aware. 0.99

00:16:45.000 And so I tweeted back at her, you're already a felon, Rosie. 1.00

00:16:48.000 Don't be a homophobic sexual harasser too. 1.00

00:16:51.000 And then I followed it up with hashtag me too. 0.99

00:16:53.000 So that is my A-plus troll game right there, gang.

00:16:57.000 The troll is strong with me today. 0.99

00:17:00.000 So Rosie O'Donnell, yeah, just making a fool of herself, as always. 0.99

00:17:05.000 And she's not the only one who's going nuts. 0.99

00:17:07.000 The Democrats, of course, are going completely nuts as well.

00:17:10.000 The House passed the act, and Paul Ryan brought out the giant gavel.

00:17:14.000 He brought out the enormous gavel.

00:17:15.000 I guess they have this giant ceremonial gavel that they bring out for important occasions and also for sex parties. 0.97

00:17:21.000 And so Paul Ryan dragged that sucker out of storage when Nancy Pelosi stood there with the giant gavel when she first became Speaker and she had a bunch of children she hadn't aborted standing around her. 0.96

00:17:29.000 He brought that out of storage and he was whacking that on the podium as they passed it. 0.95

00:17:36.000 Here was the video of them passing this thing in the House yesterday.

00:17:39.000 On this vote, the yeas are 227 and the nays are 203. 0.96

00:17:44.000 The conference report is adopted without objection.

00:17:47.000 The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.

00:17:56.000 Okay, so that is a big win for Paul Ryan.

00:17:57.000 It's a big win for the House.

00:17:59.000 It's a big win for the Republican Senate.

00:18:00.000 And it's a big win for President Trump.

00:18:02.000 It is a big win for President Trump.

00:18:03.000 Without this win, he does not have a signature legislative achievement his entire first year.

00:18:08.000 Without that win, the biggest things that he's done this year are Justice Gorsuch, and the movement of the embassy to Jerusalem, and the filling of the appellate judges.

00:18:15.000 I talked in the last podcast about all of the things that I think Trump has done right.

00:18:20.000 But this is a signature achievement in his first year, and he needed one, right?

00:18:23.000 For Obama, he had several.

00:18:24.000 He had the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and then it took a year and a half, but he got Obamacare.

00:18:28.000 He had passed the stimulus package, which was really his big achievement in his first year.

00:18:32.000 George W. Bush passed tax cuts, I believe, in the middle of year one.

00:18:36.000 So Trump needed this.

00:18:37.000 He needed it pretty badly, and he deserves to be able to celebrate about it.

00:18:40.000 Paul Ryan says this is a profound change to the tax system.

00:18:42.000 Here's what he had to say.

00:18:44.000 This is one of the most important pieces of legislation that Congress has passed in decades to help the American worker, to help grow the American economy.

00:18:54.000 This is profound change, and this is change that is going to put our country on the right path.

00:19:00.000 Okay, so the Democrats, of course, went completely nuts because their basic belief system suggests that you don't own your own money, right?

00:19:06.000 That any tax cut to you, you keeping more of your own money, is actually theft from the federal coffers.

00:19:11.000 And this just demonstrates the genuine disconnect as far as what Republicans and Democrats think in terms of where your rights come from.

00:19:21.000 Democrats believe that your rights come from government.

00:19:23.000 Your right to have property is because the government has allowed you to have property.

00:19:27.000 If it weren't for the government allowing you to have property, you wouldn't have property, right?

00:19:30.000 This is the Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama view, that you didn't build that.

00:19:33.000 Right?

00:19:33.000 Your property rights are based on a government that makes those property rights available to you.

00:19:38.000 The Republican notion, the conservative founding notion, is that property rights predated government, that government was instituted in order to protect those property rights, and that if the government violates those property rights, it has lost its raison d'etre.

00:19:50.000 It's lost the reason for its existence.

00:19:52.000 So, you can see this gap in the way the Democrats talk about this.

00:19:55.000 So, Nancy Pelosi went up there with a giant yellow sign that says, hashtag GOP tax scam, and says that raises taxes on 88 million middle class families. 1.00

00:20:03.000 That is a lie.

00:20:04.000 It does not raise taxes on 88 million middle class families.

00:20:07.000 I don't know where the hell they're getting that statistic, but there's no evidence whatsoever that that is the case.

00:20:13.000 It says 83% of the benefit goes to the wealthiest 1%.

00:20:15.000 Okay, that is because the wealthiest 1% are paying a wildly disproportionate share of the taxes.

00:20:22.000 And it says it results in 13 million more uninsured Americans.

00:20:24.000 That's a lie, too, because getting rid of the individual insurance mandate, what that does is it allows people to opt out.

00:20:30.000 You can still buy insurance.

00:20:32.000 You can still go get covered by Medicaid tomorrow.

00:20:35.000 You can go tomorrow.

00:20:35.000 If you're eligible for Medicaid, you can go get covered by Medicaid.

00:20:38.000 What it means is that the vast majority of people who are going to be dropping out don't want to bother with doing these things, and so they haven't bothered to go buy insurance, and they shouldn't be forced to.

00:20:46.000 But in any case, here's Nancy Pelosi saying that this tax plan is theft.

00:20:50.000 How is it theft?

00:20:52.000 Honest to God, I don't understand how it's theft for me to keep more of my own money.

00:20:56.000 This GOP tax scam is simply theft.

00:21:01.000 Monumental, brazen theft from the American middle class and from every person who aspires to reach it. 0.84

00:21:10.000 The GOP tax scam is not a vote for an investment in growth or jobs.

00:21:15.000 It is a vote to install a permanent plutocracy in our nation.

00:21:20.000 They'll be cheering that later.

00:21:22.000 Okay, they'll be cheering the plutocracy later.

00:21:25.000 The theft.

00:21:26.000 Again, the plutocracy is centralized government stealing your money and using it for whatever purpose Nancy Pelosi wants to put it to. 0.99

00:21:33.000 The idea that it is a theft, for the government to not take money out of my pocket, is beyond reasoning.

00:21:39.000 It's beyond reasoning. 0.97

00:21:40.000 And that's not the only dumb thing that Nancy Pelosi had to say, right? 1.00

00:21:42.000 Nancy Pelosi had to say something even more dumb. 1.00

00:21:45.000 And here's what Nancy, here's the, here's, in one second I'm going to play you the incredibly stupid thing that Nancy Pelosi had to say. 1.00

00:21:52.000 So here it is. 0.99

00:21:53.000 Nancy Pelosi, this is clip 19.

00:21:56.000 Nancy Pelosi says that not only is this a tax theft, not only is it creating plutocracy, it betrays what the founding fathers would have wanted.

00:22:04.000 It does violence to the vision of our founders.

00:22:07.000 It disrespects the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, who are a large part of our middle class and to whom we owe a future worthy of their sacrifice, and it betrays the future

00:22:21.000 And betrays the aspirations of our children.

00:22:24.000 And betrays the future and betrays our past, the founding fathers.

00:22:27.000 Does she understand that the reason that we fought a revolution is because no taxation without representation?

00:22:31.000 It was literally the slogan of the revolution.

00:22:33.000 Is she aware that one of the reasons people were mad is because Britain kept putting taxes on all of the imported goods?

00:22:39.000 Right, with the Stamp Act and the Tea Act. 0.60

00:22:41.000 Is she aware of anything remotely related to American history here?

00:22:45.000 The founders would have hated our tax regime.

00:22:47.000 The founders didn't even believe in an income tax.

00:22:49.000 We had to pass a constitutional amendment to allow an income tax, one of the worst constitutional amendments in American history.

00:22:55.000 I would say easily, actually, the worst constitutional amendment in American history, even worse than Prohibition.

00:23:01.000 It was the income tax.

00:23:03.000 But this is just, it's beyond reason.

00:23:06.000 The Democrats have made up an alternative history of the United States in which Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and John Adams and James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were all giant government, centralized government people, which is just patently insane.

00:23:19.000 You know that if you listen to the show.

00:23:20.000 We go through a Federalist paper every Monday.

00:23:22.000 Have we yet come to the point where we say we need a federal government to suck up all the resources and redistribute them?

00:23:27.000 Has that ever come up in the Federalist Paper?

00:23:29.000 It has not, nor will it ever, even when we get through all 80-odd Federalist Papers.

00:23:34.000 It's just not going to happen. 0.96

00:23:37.000 She's not the only one saying dumb stuff. 0.94

00:23:38.000 Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, still Minority Leader, thank God, he says that the public knows this bill is bad. 0.98

00:23:44.000 And here is where the rubber hits the road.

00:23:46.000 We're going to talk in a second about whether this bill really is bad for Republicans, even though it is a politically useful thing.

00:24:07.000 Okay, it is so, so bad and the public knows it.

00:24:08.000 So the polls showed this wildly unpopular tax bill.

00:24:11.000 There are a couple reasons for that.

00:24:12.000 One, the media are just awful. 0.60

00:24:15.000 The media are just awful.

00:24:17.000 Their treatment of the tax bill has been completely unfair.

00:24:18.000 The AP ran a headline after it passed saying, Massive Republican Tax Giveaway to the Rich.

00:24:24.000 That was in their headline.

00:24:25.000 Okay, that level of bias is just bizarre and insane.

00:24:29.000 CNN plastered its front page over at CNN.com with anti-tax reform messages.

00:24:35.000 It was all over the media that this tax reform was the end of the world, that millions would die.

00:24:40.000 It was something that we should all be deeply worried over and deeply upset about.

00:24:44.000 None of that was true.

00:24:44.000 It's why 50% of Americans think their taxes are going up even though their taxes are going to go down.

00:24:49.000 So part of that is the media.

00:24:50.000 Part of it is that Republicans are incompetent at pitching this thing.

00:24:53.000 You know, President Trump, he gets credit for passing this thing, but it would be great if the President would spend a fair bit of time explaining, for example, why the corporate tax rate needed to drop.

00:25:02.000 That would be really excellent.

00:25:03.000 I'd like for him to tax, honestly, I'd like for him, use Twitter for good effect, I'd like for the President to tweet out the European corporate tax rates, and then the American corporate tax rates.

00:25:13.000 Because the average European corporate tax rate right now is 18.43%.

00:25:16.000 We just brought our corporate tax rate down to 21%.

00:25:20.000 We brought it down by 14% and it is still higher than the average European corporate tax rate.

00:25:26.000 President Trump really should do a public relations blitz.

00:25:29.000 It's a big victory for him.

00:25:29.000 So now he should use all of the power that he has to bring cameras to him to discuss tax reform and use Twitter that way, right?

00:25:36.000 Because otherwise, you know, we don't need another fight with LeVar Ball.

00:25:38.000 But what we do need is a solid public relations campaign.

00:25:41.000 And this is Trump's specialty.

00:25:43.000 Trump's specialty is the PR campaign.

00:25:44.000 It's what he's best at in life.

00:25:46.000 So I'd love to see him put that to good effect here, put that to good use.

00:25:48.000 That I think would be an excellent thing.

00:25:50.000 So I'd like to see the President of the United States do that.

00:25:54.000 Also, the Republicans kept pitching this thing in terms of individual tax rates.

00:25:57.000 None of them have ever bothered to explain why corporate tax rates going down is better.

00:26:01.000 And the reason corporate tax rates going down is better is because that money can now be used by the corporation to hire more people, to invest more, to pay their workers more, to give people raises.

00:26:13.000 Republicans should be making that case loudly and proudly, and they should be saying, every Democrat opposed this.

00:26:17.000 Your taxes went down, and every Democrat opposed this.

00:26:21.000 But, unfortunately, the Republicans have not done a good PR job.

00:26:23.000 Now, the problem is this.

00:26:25.000 When you have an unpopular bill and you pass it, even if it's good for Americans, it's pretty rare that an unpopular bill gets wildly more popular over time.

00:26:34.000 That is not a usual thing to happen.

00:26:37.000 Obamacare was very unpopular when it passed.

00:26:39.000 It was in net negative territory.

00:26:41.000 I think it was 59% by one poll.

00:26:43.000 59% of Americans at the time of the passage of Obamacare disapproved of Obamacare.

00:26:47.000 And it really never recovered.

00:26:48.000 It was always an unpopular law.

00:26:50.000 The only point of popularity came when Republicans tried to get rid of it and the media went on a full-out blitz.

00:26:55.000 But it's pretty rare for a bill to get more popular over time.

00:26:58.000 Even if it does get more popular, it's not going to be forefront of the public's imagination.

00:27:02.000 You make a case for the bill while you're passing the bill.

00:27:05.000 You don't make the case for the bill after the bill has passed.

00:27:07.000 The reason for that is it fades into people's woodwork, right?

00:27:09.000 I mean, you have other things to worry about now.

00:27:11.000 This week, we're talking tax reform.

00:27:12.000 Last week, we talked tax reform.

00:27:13.000 The week before that, we talked tax reform.

00:27:15.000 By the time you pay your taxes, you've probably forgotten about tax reform.

00:27:19.000 You just sign the check and you're done with it, right?

00:27:20.000 That's what you do.

00:27:21.000 Your accountant handles it for you.

00:27:23.000 So this is sort of the problem.

00:27:25.000 The Republican Congress does not know how to do a public relation blitz.

00:27:28.000 President Trump does, but he hasn't done it yet.

00:27:31.000 I wish they'd been doing it for the last month.

00:27:32.000 They should do it now.

00:27:33.000 The fact they had to rush it through is going to be picked on by the media, and now every piece of fallout from this bill is going to be used to club Republicans to death over it.

00:27:42.000 So, Republicans had better shape this thing in the public imagination right now, not just wait for the inevitable time when Americans realize tax cuts are good.

00:27:50.000 That I think would be a very big mistake.

00:27:53.000 Again, if you look at the polls on tax cuts historically, then what you see is that the Bush tax cuts were significantly more popular than the Trump tax cuts.

00:28:03.000 Part of that is because of Trump.

00:28:04.000 Part of that is because of the media coverage.

00:28:06.000 In fact, these tax cuts, because of the media coverage, are actually less popular than some tax hikes have been.

00:28:12.000 Okay, so here is the good rundown on the polling numbers.

00:28:16.000 This is from FiveThirtyEight.com.

00:28:18.000 The Reagan tax cut in 1981 had a 25% plus 25% differential.

00:28:21.000 51% approved, 26% no.

00:28:22.000 The 2001 W tax cut, 12% plus 12, right?

00:28:23.000 49 to 37.

00:28:23.000 The extension of the Bush tax cut in 2010 had a 12%.

00:28:37.000 Positive, upside, 54% approved.

00:28:40.000 The extension of the Bush tax cuts, too, in 2013, that had a 7% net positive rating.

00:28:43.000 The Bush tax cuts, too, right in 2003, that had a 6% positive rating.

00:28:45.000 The Reagan tax cuts, too, in 1986, that had a 4% positive rating.

00:28:48.000 The Clinton tax hikes of 93 had a negative 10% rating, 44% disapproved, only 34% approved.

00:29:00.000 The H.W.

00:29:01.000 Bush tax hike had a negative 11% approval rating, so 52 to 41 disapproved.

00:29:06.000 And the Trump tax cuts are 14% underwater.

00:29:10.000 That is largely because of the media.

00:29:13.000 It is also because the Republicans have done a piss poor job of selling their bill.

00:29:15.000 They need to get out there and they need to sell that bill because bills don't get more popular over time, even when people feel the benefit of it.

00:29:21.000 Democrats will pay, by the way, when they try to raise the taxes.

00:29:24.000 But remember, they're not going to have to actually try to do that until 2025.

00:29:28.000 They can just sit there and let it go all the way until 2025 and then wait to see what happens.

00:29:33.000 Okay, so as we continue in just a second, I'm going to talk about the media bias and how the media bias plays in because it really is truly astonishing.

00:29:40.000 I want to show you some clips of members of the media and how they have responded to these tax cuts.

00:29:45.000 It is beyond the pale.

00:29:47.000 Here we go.

00:29:48.000 Let's begin with Savannah Guthrie. 1.00

00:29:49.000 So Savannah Guthrie over at NBC News, she was questioning Paul Ryan.

00:29:57.000 And Ryan is talking about the tax cuts and what kind of good they're going to do.

00:30:00.000 And Savannah Guthrie literally asks him if he is living in a fantasy world on national television after they passed a massive Republican tax plan.

00:30:07.000 The problem is, is a lot of CEOs have said, really candidly, I'm looking at a list of CEOs who said, we don't plan to reinvest.

00:30:14.000 What they're planning to do is to do stock buybacks, to line the pockets of shareholders.

00:30:19.000 Let me quote Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire, hardly an enemy of business.

00:30:23.000 He said, CEOs aren't waiting on a tax cut to jumpstart the economy, a favorite phrase of politicians who have never run a company or to hand out raises.

00:30:31.000 It's pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth.

00:30:37.000 I'll ask you plainly, are you living in a fantasy world?

00:30:40.000 What the hell kind of question is that?

00:30:42.000 Are you living in a fantasy world? 0.99

00:30:44.000 What is wrong with you?

00:30:45.000 Would they ask Obama this?

00:30:47.000 Did they ever ask Jonathan Gruber this?

00:30:48.000 Or Obama during Obamacare?

00:30:50.000 You said that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

00:30:52.000 Every doctor in America says that's not true.

00:30:54.000 Every.

00:30:55.000 Single.

00:30:55.000 One.

00:30:56.000 Pretty much.

00:30:57.000 Are you living in a fantasy world?

00:30:58.000 Was that ever asked?

00:30:59.000 I mean, you want to see media bias in action.

00:31:01.000 That right there is media bias in action.

00:31:03.000 Then you wonder why the American people have a bad opinion of the bill.

00:31:05.000 It's because of people like Savannah Guthrie who are doing the job that the Democrats have been attempting to do for years.

00:31:10.000 And Savannah Guthrie isn't the only one.

00:31:13.000 What's the median household income of your district?

00:31:15.000 It's right about 60.

00:31:43.000 We have it at $73,000, something around there.

00:31:46.000 What are you making, if you don't mind?

00:31:48.000 What's in your bank account right now?

00:31:50.000 In my bank account?

00:31:52.000 What tax bracket are you going to be under under this bill?

00:31:56.000 Well, of course, I got the chart for you here.

00:31:59.000 I'll be probably in the 24% bracket.

00:32:02.000 Everybody can go look up their rates.

00:32:06.000 And what are you at?

00:32:08.000 What are you at, Katie?

00:32:09.000 Because I want to make sure you do well, too.

00:32:10.000 I don't know.

00:32:10.000 I haven't taken a look at it.

00:32:11.000 You don't know?

00:32:12.000 I'm also not a lawmaker, so I'm not involved in...

00:32:17.000 You're the fourth rail.

00:32:19.000 Well, we'll check out what you're making, too, Katie, so it's fair and balanced.

00:32:23.000 Good for Dave Brat right there, because the fact is that when they ask Dave Brat that he's lowering his own taxes, that's why he's doing this thing.

00:32:28.000 And it's not a principled thing.

00:32:30.000 It's just, the entire premise of the question is so sick and messed up.

00:32:33.000 The entire premise of the question that she is asking right there is the only reason that you would want taxes decreased is not because you think it's better for the American people or your constituents or the economy.

00:32:43.000 It's because you personally are seeking to benefit from the tax bill.

00:32:46.000 But all those Democrats who are rich, they're just men of the people.

00:32:49.000 They're just patriotic.

00:32:50.000 Those are great patriots.

00:32:51.000 Michael Bloomberg, great patriot. 0.94

00:32:53.000 But you, Dave Brat, you are a cruel, inhumane man.

00:32:56.000 Because if you make a lot of money, that means you don't care about people.

00:32:58.000 I was for tax cuts when I was making $60,000 a year, and I'm for tax cuts when I make a hell of a lot more than $60,000 a year.

00:33:04.000 I was for tax cuts when I wasn't earning anything and I was a student.

00:33:07.000 Because ideologically speaking, speaking just based on my understanding of economics,

00:33:13.000 Tax cuts generate more revenue by putting more money in my pocket that I can spend as I see fit.

00:33:17.000 Beyond that, I'm for tax cuts because it's my money, and it's your money, and I don't have a right to your money.

00:33:22.000 But this implication that's being put forward by the media that Republicans are like, Trump's only doing this because he wants a tax cut.

00:33:27.000 Are you freaking kidding me?

00:33:29.000 Donald Trump is worth billions of dollars.

00:33:31.000 Even if you don't believe he's worth 10 billion, he's probably worth at least two.

00:33:34.000 Okay, you think Donald Trump is sitting there right now thinking to himself, yeah, you know, I really need to give myself a tax cut.

00:33:38.000 That's top of my priority list is giving myself a tax cut. 0.92

00:33:42.000 Are you crazy? 1.00

00:33:43.000 Are you out of your mind? 1.00

00:33:45.000 All these Republican legislators, they're sitting around thinking, yeah, you know what?

00:33:48.000 By the way, if you wanna get rich in Congress, the easiest way to get rich in Congress is not giving yourself a tax cut.

00:33:52.000 The easiest way to get rich in Congress is through insider trading.

00:33:55.000 It's by knowing which bills are gonna pass, and then you buy stock in particular companies, knowing how the bill's gonna impact that company.

00:34:01.000 Peter Schweitzer showed this in one of his books a few years back, where he talked about corruption in D.C.

00:34:07.000 This notion that Republican legislators are only doing this because they're so evil,

00:34:12.000 Is just absurd.

00:34:13.000 By the way, I'll bet you Katie Tour is making a lot more money than Dave Brat. 1.00

00:34:16.000 If I had to bet on it, I mean, Dave Brat, I believe, is a college professor.

00:34:19.000 If he's in the 24% tax bracket, that means he's not making, I mean, he's making decent money, I think, but the idea that he's making all sorts of cash is not actually the case.

00:34:30.000 So I'm gonna, you know, I wanna look that up, because I would guarantee you that Katie Tour is making a lot more money than Dave Brat. 0.98

00:34:37.000 So yeah, if Dave Brat is in the 24% bracket, that means he's making between $82,000 and $157,000.

00:34:42.000 If he's in that bracket, by the way, then that means that he's probably only saving $3,000, $4,000.

00:34:46.000 He's not saving $50,000.

00:34:49.000 Katie Ter, I'll have to look up Katie Ter's contract.

00:34:53.000 Let's see if she's paid millions. 1.00

00:34:54.000 I'll bet Katie Ter makes a lot of money. 1.00

00:34:56.000 I'll bet that she makes... 0.99

00:34:59.000 Three times, easily, what Dave Brad is making.

00:35:02.000 If not, then she needs to renegotiate her contract. 1.00

00:35:04.000 So, that's absurd.

00:35:06.000 And you're seeing this across the board, this media coverage.

00:35:09.000 NBC, MSNBC, gave airtime to a healthcare activist.

00:35:12.000 What did this healthcare activist do? 1.00

00:35:13.000 Well, he was battling ALS, and he waited outside Lindsey Graham's office in order to yell at Lindsey Graham over this, because Lindsey Graham and the Republicans voted to get rid of the individual mandate, the most unpopular aspect of Obamacare.

00:35:25.000 And so they put him on MSNBC, and he talked about how Lindsey Graham ran away from him.

00:35:30.000 I said, Senator Graham, he was talking about John McCain, his beloved colleague, who, like me, is dying of a brain disease.

00:35:39.000 And he was talking about John McCain.

00:35:42.000 And I said, Senator Graham, will you talk to me for a minute about this bill?

00:35:47.000 And he ran away into a place where I'm not allowed to go as a civilian.

00:35:53.000 I know that NBC and MSNBC have footage of that.

00:35:57.000 You can try to find it.

00:35:59.000 Okay, nonsense.

00:36:00.000 This is, again, a cheap media setup.

00:36:02.000 Okay, I objected to it when Piers Morgan did it on gun control, and I object to it now. 0.97

00:36:26.000 The idea that your philosophy of governance has to change because you're now meeting somebody who is suffering from a particular condition is just asinine. 0.93

00:36:35.000 It's just not true. 0.61

00:36:36.000 It's in effect the same thing as Jimmy Kimmel taking his baby out every so often and holding up his baby and saying that he knows about health care now.

00:36:42.000 Policy is either good or bad.

00:36:44.000 It is not good

00:36:45.000 Based on whether you can have a discussion in front of cameras with a guy who has ALS and an agenda.

00:36:50.000 I feel awful for that person.

00:36:51.000 Of course you feel awful for people.

00:36:53.000 That doesn't mean that the policy they're espousing is bad.

00:36:55.000 And you know how that exchange is going to go, by the way.

00:36:57.000 The way that exchange is going to go is that Lindsey Graham will walk up to the guy, have a cordial conversation, 1.00

00:37:02.000 The guy will refuse to hear what Lindsey Graham is saying because he comes with an agenda.

00:37:04.000 He's not there for an honest conversation.

00:37:06.000 He's there for the photo op.

00:37:07.000 And then, when Lindsey Graham says, you know, it's been nice talking to you, and the guy refuses to shake his hand because Lindsey Graham is voting for something the guy doesn't want, the media blow it up.

00:37:16.000 Oh, watch this courageous man suffering from ALS take Lindsey Graham to the woodshed.

00:37:22.000 If I were Lindsey Graham, I wouldn't engage in that conversation either because it's not worth it.

00:37:26.000 Where's the public relations upside and where's the win?

00:37:29.000 You're not even having an honest conversation.

00:37:30.000 It's not like this guy actually wants to discuss with Lindsey Graham.

00:37:32.000 He wants to lecture Lindsey Graham.

00:37:34.000 But this is the game the media are playing today.

00:37:36.000 So, just like the homeless reappear every eight years when a Republican takes office.

00:37:40.000 It's like Groundhog Day.

00:37:42.000 Every so often, the homeless just pop up on your screen.

00:37:44.000 And that only happens when Republicans are in the White House. 0.54

00:37:46.000 So, the same thing happens with regard to taxes.

00:37:48.000 We never talk about tax increases and how they're going to hurt the American people.

00:37:51.000 We never talk about government spending and deficits and how they're going to hurt the American people.

00:37:54.000 We only talk about these things when it comes to Republicans.

00:37:58.000 And that's only so that the media can carry out their crusade against tax cuts altogether, which is just... It's pathetic. 0.99

00:38:06.000 Now, will Trump benefit from this? 0.99

00:38:08.000 You know, this does change the math.

00:38:09.000 I got an email yesterday.

00:38:11.000 From somebody who was asking me, you know, you graded Trump last week and you gave him an overall grade for his presidency of like a C-.

00:38:17.000 It must have been, I think that was probably a couple of weeks ago.

00:38:19.000 I don't think it was last week.

00:38:20.000 It was probably a couple of weeks ago.

00:38:22.000 And I gave him an overall grade of C- based on his policy and his rhetoric.

00:38:26.000 And he said, you've been pretty glowing about him in the last couple of weeks.

00:38:29.000 And the answer is, yes, because I'm getting the things I want, right?

00:38:32.000 That was always my math.

00:38:33.000 My math was always, is the president doing conservative things?

00:38:36.000 The last three weeks of President Trump's governance have been some of the most conservative weeks of governance that I have ever seen, period, from any president.

00:38:42.000 I'm pretty young, so the last Republican administration I remember was Bush.

00:38:45.000 He was not as conservative as Trump has been in the last three weeks for sure.

00:38:48.000 And so this has been a very good three weeks of governance.

00:38:51.000 It's very important governance, too.

00:38:52.000 So that means that I raised Trump's grade from a C- on the year to a C+, which is a pretty major shift, right?

00:38:57.000 I mean, that shifts him almost to full-letter grade in the last three weeks of the year.

00:39:01.000 The only reason that he's not doing better than that is because his approval ratings are bad, because Republicans are running really far behind in the generic congressional ballot.

00:39:08.000 They're down 18 points in the latest poll.

00:39:11.000 One of the things that Trump has to do here, as I spoke about the other day, it's very important now that now that Trump is actually pursuing conservative policies, he represent conservatism well, because otherwise all of those conservative policies will be rolled back.

00:39:24.000 It's very important that he represent my view well.

00:39:26.000 Right now he's a representative of my ideology when he's actually acting in consonance with my ideology.

00:39:31.000 I want to see him

00:39:33.000 I don't want his personal unpopularity to drag down the good policy he's been making.

00:39:56.000 I would like to see his popularity increase on the back of that good policy, and that means some discipline.

00:40:00.000 So, Mr. President, if you're listening, please.

00:40:03.000 Have some discipline about your messaging.

00:40:05.000 I think that you've won some major victories.

00:40:07.000 Even the media are going to have to recognize that you've had a major upswing in the last month of your presidency with regards to policy wins.

00:40:13.000 You have some momentum going into next year.

00:40:14.000 Do not get distracted.

00:40:16.000 It's the holiday season.

00:40:17.000 Celebrate it with your family.

00:40:19.000 Shut down your Twitter for Christmas.

00:40:21.000 Shut it down for the next three weeks. 0.88

00:40:23.000 Make the left go mad. 0.92

00:40:24.000 Make them go mad. 0.97

00:40:25.000 Starve them of your tweets.

00:40:27.000 The left are waiting for you to give them some distraction from the loss they just suffered.

00:40:31.000 They're waiting for an excuse to go off on you. 0.72

00:40:33.000 They're waiting for an excuse to go crazy.

00:40:37.000 Don't watch TV.

00:40:38.000 Turn off your TV.

00:40:39.000 Have yourself a Shabbos, right? 0.66

00:40:40.000 Have yourself a Shabbat, right?

00:40:41.000 One of the things that's nice about my life is that every Friday evening to Saturday evening, I just shut down, right?

00:40:45.000 There's no cell phone.

00:40:47.000 There's no internet.

00:40:48.000 There's no TV.

00:40:49.000 And it's great.

00:40:50.000 You deserve a rest, Mr. President, is what I'm saying to you.

00:40:53.000 I mean, I wish that you deserved rest on Twitter the entire year, but now you really do deserve a rest because you've gotten some stuff done.

00:40:58.000 Bask in the glow of having a major piece of legislation passed.

00:41:01.000 Let the media feed on itself.

00:41:03.000 Let the media eat itself.

00:41:04.000 Let the media fulminate over what is a very typical Republican tax bill. 1.00

00:41:08.000 Let them look foolish. 1.00

00:41:09.000 Let them stew in their own juices. 1.00

00:41:11.000 You have the upper hand right now.

00:41:14.000 Don't blow it.

00:41:15.000 Don't blow it.

00:41:15.000 Because now, there's actually, and here's the thing, Republicans are more likely to follow you, Mr. President, if you don't blow it.

00:41:22.000 And if you actually start to boost your own approval ratings, Republicans are more likely to come around on some of your other policy priorities, like immigration.

00:41:29.000 And please, for the love of God, don't try to tackle DACA. 0.59

00:41:31.000 That would be a mistake.

00:41:32.000 OK, we're going to continue in just a second.

00:41:34.000 But first, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

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00:41:48.000 I thought it was Thursday.

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00:42:04.000 The Shapiro store is coming in the new year.

00:42:06.000 I know I've been promising that for a year.

00:42:08.000 But it's actually going to happen.

00:42:09.000 Like President Trump's presidency, it's going to get started with the good stuff soon.

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00:42:21.000 You left us tears.

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00:42:24.000 This will make your

00:42:25.000 Christmas or Hanukkah complete. 0.53

00:42:26.000 Today's the last day of Hanukkah, so if you want to buy some belated Hanukkah gift to it, Christmas has not yet happened.

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00:42:51.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:42:59.000 All righty, time for some things I like, some things I hate, and then we'll do a little bit of Bible talk.

00:43:03.000 So, things I like.

00:43:05.000 Yesterday I did Gunfight at the OK Corral, and today I'm going to do another movie with a signature tune.

00:43:11.000 I think I'm going to try and stick to Westerns with signature tunes.

00:43:15.000 But this is High Noon, of course.

00:43:18.000 This is Bill Clinton's favorite movie.

00:43:20.000 A lot of people on the right objected to this being Bill Clinton's favorite movie because the entire plot surrounds a sheriff who is basically left alone by the town to defend the town against a bad guy.

00:43:29.000 And a lot of conservatives said, well, that's really not how towns work, right?

00:43:34.000 That's actually, if Clinton viewed himself as the lone hero striding into history, that's not good for the presidency.

00:43:39.000 The movie, however, is quite good.

00:43:41.000 Gary Cooper plays the sheriff.

00:43:43.000 Grace Kelly plays the woman in his life who is a, she's a Quaker, I believe.

00:43:49.000 And she refuses to participate in violence.

00:43:53.000 The movie is pretty compelling.

00:43:55.000 It's very small scale.

00:43:56.000 It is very tightly edited and tightly crafted.

00:43:58.000 Here's a little bit of the preview.

00:44:11.000 It's Gary Cooper, a man who is too proud to run.

00:44:14.000 The judges left town, Harvey's quit, and I'm having trouble getting deputies.

00:44:19.000 People have to talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it.

00:44:24.000 Maybe because down deep they don't care.

00:44:27.000 They just don't care.

00:44:29.000 I think you better go while there's still time.

00:44:31.000 It's better for you and it's better for us.

00:44:35.000 Amy! 0.97

00:44:36.000 I mean it.

00:44:36.000 If you won't go with me now, I'll be on that train when it leaves here.

00:44:41.000 I've got to stay. 1.00

00:44:42.000 Why must you be so stupid, Will? 1.00

00:44:44.000 Have you forgotten what he is? 1.00

00:44:45.000 Have you forgotten what he's done to people? 0.99

00:44:46.000 Have you forgotten that he's crazy? 0.57

00:44:48.000 Don't you remember when he sat in that chair and said, You'll never hang me. 0.97

00:44:52.000 I'll come back. 1.00

00:44:53.000 I'll kill you, Will Keen. 1.00

00:44:55.000 I swear it. 1.00

00:44:56.000 I'll kill you. 0.99

00:44:58.000 The title song is very famous, of course. 1.00

00:45:02.000 Do not forsake me, oh my darling.

00:45:04.000 It's very, very famous in Western history.

00:45:07.000 High Noon, great movie, worth watching.

00:45:08.000 Check that out over the weekend if you have time.

00:45:11.000 Other things that I like.

00:45:13.000 I have to admit, I cannot stop laughing at the fact that Ta-Nehisi Coates and Cornel West are now going at it.

00:45:18.000 Cornel West, of course, a radical black activist.

00:45:20.000 Ta-Nehisi Coates is a slightly less radical black activist.

00:45:24.000 Ta-Nehisi Coates fancies himself in the mold of James Baldwin.

00:45:27.000 Cornel West fancies himself in the mold of Malcolm X. Both of them have a rather racially separatist view of American politics.

00:45:38.000 And Cornel West wrote an entire column where he says, Ta-Nehisi Coates' We Were Eight Years in Power, a book about Barack Obama's presidency and the tenacity of white supremacy has captured the attention of many of us.

00:45:47.000 He says, Coates and I come from a great tradition of the black freedom struggle.

00:45:50.000 He represents the neoliberal wing that sounds militant about white supremacy but renders black fight back invisible.

00:45:55.000 This wing reaps the benefits of the neoliberal establishment that rewards silences on issues such as Wall Street greed or Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and peoples.

00:46:02.000 He says, He says,

00:46:22.000 He sees it everywhere and ever reminds us of its plundering effects.

00:46:26.000 Unfortunately, he hardly keeps track of our fight back and never connects this ugly legacy to the predatory capitalist practices, imperial policies, or the black elite's refusal to confront poverty, patriarchy, or transphobia. 0.91

00:46:37.000 In short, Coates fetishizes white supremacy. 0.82

00:46:39.000 He makes it almighty, magical, and unremovable. 0.51

00:46:41.000 So this is kind of hilarious.

00:46:42.000 Ta-Nehisi Coates is now being ripped by Cornel West and Richard Spencer

00:46:47.000 The white supremacist is agreeing with Cornel West against Ta-Nehisi Coates.

00:46:50.000 And now Ta-Nehisi Coates has suspended his Twitter account in response to all of this.

00:46:57.000 Cornel West is not wrong, by the way, that Ta-Nehisi Coates sees white supremacy hiding under the bed.

00:47:02.000 It's just that Cornel West is even more of a Marxist than he is a racial conflagrationist.

00:47:08.000 So watching these sorts of infights is entertaining, to say the least, because both of them are wrong, just in slightly different ways.

00:47:15.000 35 simple words that have been repeated by every American president throughout history.

00:47:19.000 I, Donald John Trump,

00:47:39.000 Okay, there's only one problem with this.

00:47:46.000 They're playing his voice.

00:47:49.000 There's a big problem.

00:47:50.000 And that is that, look at that picture of Donald John Trump.

00:47:54.000 Look just at the face.

00:47:55.000 Forget the hair.

00:47:56.000 Whose face is that?

00:47:58.000 That's Hillary Clinton's face. 1.00

00:47:59.000 It really looks a lot as though Disney made this doll of Hillary Clinton and stuck Trump's hair on it.

00:48:06.000 Turn it male and stuck Trump's hair on it. 0.99

00:48:08.000 It doesn't look anything like Trump.

00:48:09.000 I mean, this one goes in the, you know, I have a great love for bad sculpture.

00:48:12.000 And this one goes in the Bad Sculpture Hall of Fame.

00:48:14.000 So well done, Disney.

00:48:16.000 Putting Donald Trump in the Hall of Presidents is, in and of itself, highly entertaining.

00:48:20.000 That's pretty spectacular.

00:48:21.000 OK, time for a quick thing that I hate.

00:48:28.000 CNN's Chris Cuomo, he's gotta be the thickest guy on cable TV.

00:48:32.000 And that's saying a lot.

00:48:33.000 There are a lot of thick people on cable TV.

00:48:35.000 And I don't mean that as in like the rap sexy thing. 1.00

00:48:37.000 I mean like dumb. 0.99

00:48:39.000 Chris Cuomo was criticizing President Trump's drinking technique. 0.99

00:48:45.000 Like this is what we've come to now.

00:48:46.000 So President Trump during a speech, he reaches over and he picks up his glass of water and he does it in a weird way.

00:48:50.000 He doesn't just pick up the glass and drink it.

00:48:51.000 He takes it with both hands, kind of sips it, and then puts it back down.

00:48:54.000 And this turns into a four minute segment on CNN.

00:48:57.000 The president reached for a glass of water during his national security speech and Twitter took note.

00:49:04.000 It has led to comparisons of how the president needs to use two hands apparently to drink from a water bottle.

00:49:11.000 He did that during the speech last month and then again yesterday.

00:49:14.000 The water works with the president.

00:49:18.000 I don't get all the hands thing and the glass

00:49:39.000 You know, I don't know what it's all about.

00:49:41.000 You drink from a vase.

00:49:42.000 This is what I drink out of.

00:49:44.000 I drink out of a... and I hold it like a man with one hand. 0.65

00:49:47.000 But that's, you know, that's me.

00:49:49.000 Right, that's you.

00:49:50.000 And I don't think it's judgment.

00:49:51.000 Certainly not one of our biggest concerns.

00:49:53.000 You want to hold a cup with all your hands?

00:49:55.000 You know, that's what you do.

00:49:57.000 What a genius he is.

00:49:59.000 The sippy cup grip.

00:50:00.000 And then you wonder why Trump says fake news all the time.

00:50:03.000 This is why Trump says fake news.

00:50:05.000 Not because it's fake, that that's a weird way to grip a cup, but because, like, why is this on the news at all?

00:50:10.000 Twitter is a funny place and there's lots of funny stuff on Twitter.

00:50:13.000 I engage in it on a regular basis.

00:50:14.000 But I'm not really certain that this is...

00:50:18.000 Appropriate CNN commentary.

00:50:19.000 Okay, finally, let's do a little bit of Bible talk.

00:50:21.000 So, there's a lot of talk from the left today about how it is unbiblical, it is just terrible that we are not talking about centralizing government.

00:50:27.000 Centralized government is dedicated, like God wants government to create the tendency for fairness.

00:50:35.000 So this is a section from the book of Judges, I believe it's chapter 8 of the book of Judges, and it talks about the rule of Gideon.

00:50:42.000 So Gideon was of course a prophet in Israel and he leads his men in a fight against the Philistines and other groups that are oppressing the Israelites. 0.60

00:50:50.000 And here's what it says.

00:51:02.000 Which is a pretty astonishing statement.

00:51:04.000 The Bible is, at best, ambivalent about monarchy.

00:51:06.000 Like, really ambivalent about monarchy.

00:51:07.000 Moses warns that it's not going to be good.

00:51:09.000 Samuel, Shmuel, warns in 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel.

00:51:14.000 We call it Shmuel Aleph in Hebrew, which is why I hesitate on the English translation.

00:51:19.000 In Shmuel Aleph, Samuel gives an entire lecture to the people about why it's going to suck once they appoint a king.

00:51:24.000 You have this in the book of Judges where Gideon says, rule yourselves, basically, don't have a centralized government that rules over you.

00:51:30.000 The idea of a theocratic government that is centralized from the very top is not really well spelled out in the Old Testament at all, and it's not spelled out well in the New Testament either.

00:51:39.000 I mean, the idea of Render unto Caesar in the New Testament is very much reflective of the basic Jewish idea of Dina D'melchus Adina,

00:51:46.000 Which literally means the law of the land is the law.

00:51:48.000 And insofar as it doesn't conflict with the law of God, you have to obey it.

00:51:51.000 What's fascinating about this section with regard to Gideon is not just that he says that he's not going to rule over the people, that they have to rule themselves, that God is going to rule over them.

00:51:58.000 He says, I would make a request of you that you give me every man the nose ring of his spoil.

00:52:02.000 For they had golden nose rings because they were Ishmaelites. 1.00

00:52:05.000 And they said, we shall willingly give.

00:52:06.000 And they spread out the garment and every man therein threw the nose ring of his spoil.

00:52:10.000 And then Gideon takes all of these rings and then he makes

00:52:14.000 …which is a breastplate, and he sets it up in his home city, and it says, and all Israel went astray after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon into his house.

00:52:21.000 The importance of this, the reason this matters, is when a group of people decide to collectively pool their labor and make something, you have to be very careful they don't begin to worship the thing that they make.

00:52:31.000 And this is true of the American government.

00:52:32.000 We're very proud of our government.

00:52:34.000 We're very proud of our system of government.

00:52:35.000 We're proud of Washington, D.C., the big buildings and how pretty it is and all this.

00:52:39.000 But it's very easy for us to start worshipping the thing that we have made with our own hands, and to suggest that it has some sort of outsized power, even though we are the ones that made it.

00:52:46.000 And to suggest that people in the future need to throw their nose rings into the pot as well.

00:52:51.000 That's not the way the American government was meant to be built.

00:52:53.000 It's not the way that it even was in the Bible.

00:52:56.000 There's a reason the Bible says that this becomes a snare to the leaders, it becomes a snare to the people. 0.95

00:53:01.000 Collective action must be taken from time to time, but the key there is from time to time.

00:53:06.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow with more notes on all the fallout.

00:53:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:14.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:53:16.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:53:18.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:53:19.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:21.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:53:23.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.

00:53:24.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:53:26.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:53:29.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 21, 2017

Everyone Just Died…AGAIN | Ep. 441

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