The Ben Shapiro Show - Goodbye To Pruitt | Ep. 575

00:00:00.000 EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is out, Trump rallies in Montana, and we check the mailbag.

00:00:04.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:05.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:12.000 Many a new day will meet my eye, many a much news will find me.

00:00:15.000 Okay, in any case, we are going to talk all the news we're going to get into the mailbag.

00:00:18.000 But first, I want to remind you that our national debt right now is $21 trillion and counting.

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00:01:36.000 Okay, so the big news of the day is that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is out.

00:01:40.000 And I want to begin by saying that Scott Pruitt totally deserves to be out.

00:01:44.000 So a lot of people are coming to Scott Pruitt's defense.

00:01:46.000 They're suggesting that he was unfairly targeted.

00:01:48.000 They're pointing out the EPA under Barack Obama was scandal-ridden.

00:01:52.000 Yes, that's true.

00:01:53.000 The EPA under Barack Obama was indeed scandal-ridden.

00:01:55.000 I remember when they turned an entire river in Colorado yellow.

00:01:58.000 Remember that?

00:01:59.000 They were trying to get rid of some waste, and so they blew up a barrier in the place that was holding the waste and infused an entire river with this bright yellow copper-tinged gunk.

00:02:08.000 You know, the EPA under Barack Obama was a disaster.

00:02:08.000 It was great.

00:02:10.000 That said, was Scott Pruitt on the up-and-up?

00:02:13.000 There are a lot of people out there defending Scott Pruitt today saying that Scott Pruitt was on the up-and-up.

00:02:17.000 It was all targeted.

00:02:18.000 Well, if that's the case, then you have to wonder, why is it that the only Trump administration officials who have been forced out were forced out for actual reasons of corruption?

00:02:25.000 Like Tom Price over at the Health and Human Services desk, or Scott Pruitt over at EPA.

00:02:29.000 Like, they haven't found anything on General Mattis over at Department of Defense.

00:02:32.000 They haven't found anything on Mike Pompeo over at State, even when Rex Tillerson was there, and he wasn't a good Secretary of State.

00:02:37.000 They had nothing on Rex Tillerson.

00:02:39.000 There are a lot of folks who are defending Scott Pruitt today, saying that he was just targeted because he was such a do-gooder over at the EPA, reducing regulations.

00:02:46.000 But the guy who is going to be replacing him, Andrew Wheeler,

00:02:49.000 is going to be just as activist from what I understand.

00:03:14.000 His resignation letter to Donald Trump is appropriately obsequious.

00:03:18.000 I mean, it is supremely obsequious.

00:03:20.000 And Trump is a big Trump defender.

00:03:22.000 He's a big Pruitt defender, specifically because Pruitt is a big Trump defender.

00:03:26.000 So Pruitt wrote in his letter, quote,

00:03:33.000 But also because of the transformative work that is occurring.

00:03:36.000 However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.

00:03:42.000 The talk from inside the administration is that Pruitt was actually forced out.

00:03:44.000 This was not him saying that he wanted to go.

00:03:47.000 The president says that Pruitt did an outstanding job inside the EPA.

00:03:52.000 So here's just a list of the scandals that led to Scott Pruitt stepping down, because there's a lot of talk about Pruitt being unfairly targeted here.

00:04:00.000 Okay, it ain't great.

00:04:02.000 So, number one, Pruitt fired an aide after she refused to alter appointments on his calendar. 0.91

00:04:06.000 So an EPA scheduler was asked to delete and change information about past events on Pruitt's schedule.

00:04:10.000 Scott Pruitt asked his staff to find his wife a job with a salary of at least $200,000, which is not an appropriate use of government staff. 0.91

00:04:15.000 She also reportedly agreed that Pruitt had asked subordinates to perform personal work

00:04:32.000 This is according to Samantha Dravis, a former EPA policy administrator.

00:04:36.000 She told congressional investigators that Pruitt had asked her to help find Pruitt's wife a job, and the salary should be at least $200,000. 0.96

00:04:42.000 Scott Pruitt used official channels to try to get a Chick-fil-A franchise for his wife, which is real weird since you can just apply to get a Chick-fil-A franchise.

00:04:48.000 He used a secret email address instead of official ones, even after the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

00:04:53.000 He used a loophole to award staff raises without White House knowledge.

00:04:57.000 This, of course, was very controversial at the time.

00:04:59.000 The White House told Pruitt he couldn't offer high salaries to two of his closest aides, but then he used a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act to boost their wages, according to The Atlantic.

00:05:07.000 He rented a Washington, D.C.

00:05:08.000 apartment at a steep discount from a lobbyist.

00:05:10.000 He apparently rented this apartment at 50 bucks a night.

00:05:13.000 In Washington, D.C., it was supposedly owned by the wife.

00:05:16.000 In a couple who are both lobbyists, her husband represented clients who had matters in front of the EPA.

00:05:20.000 He chartered lots of flights.

00:05:21.000 He flew first class.

00:05:24.000 He had a $43,000 soundproof phone booth installed in his office, suggesting that there were just too many people attempting to spy on him.

00:05:30.000 He ordered an unprecedented security detail.

00:05:33.000 He was saying there were threats against him, which may or may not have been true.

00:05:37.000 There are a bunch of other issues with Scott Pruitt, and thus he had to step down.

00:05:40.000 Are any of these, you know, fireable in and of themselves?

00:05:43.000 Probably not, but when you aggregate them all together, it doesn't look good for Scott Pruitt, and that is why Scott Pruitt is out today, and appropriately, he should be.

00:05:49.000 Again, his resignation letter explains why it is that Scott Pruitt was such a favorite of President Trump.

00:05:54.000 He said,

00:05:59.000 Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your administration.

00:06:05.000 Your courage, steadfastness, and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace, and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends.

00:06:20.000 That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA,

00:06:24.000 So, there's a reason that Scott Pruitt was a favorite of President Trump's.

00:06:46.000 By the way, what he did in terms of regulatory reform at the EPA, I agree with a lot of that stuff.

00:06:50.000 But when it comes to being a swamp creature, it's pretty clear that Scott Pruitt, unfortunately, was one of them.

00:06:56.000 And that's why he had to go.

00:06:57.000 There's a reason that Laura Ingraham, for example, was suggesting that Scott Pruitt had to go.

00:07:00.000 Now, with all of this said, the suggestion from the media is that the White House is in turmoil again.

00:07:05.000 Scott Pruitt is out.

00:07:06.000 It's just a constant, it's a constant

00:07:09.000 Okay, so what?

00:07:10.000 So there's lots of turnover.

00:07:11.000 The real question is, is the policy getting done for the American people?

00:07:29.000 I will acknowledge that the perception of instability about the administration is not useful.

00:07:34.000 It is not good.

00:07:35.000 Right.

00:07:35.000 The fact is that one of the things the Democrats are counting on with regard to 2020 particularly is a feeling of general unease about President Trump's administration, a feeling that just in general things are up in the air too much.

00:07:46.000 There's a lot of that.

00:07:47.000 Well, that's not great.

00:07:48.000 But is the policy getting done?

00:07:50.000 The answer is the policy is getting done.

00:07:51.000 The policy continues to be quite good.

00:07:53.000 Other than tariff policy, the economy continues to grow.

00:07:55.000 Report today from the Department of Labor, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 213,000 in June.

00:08:00.000 The unemployment rate rose to 4%.

00:08:01.000 But the unemployment rate increase

00:08:06.000 Was only because more people are getting back into the workforce because finally the economy is really, is really moving.

00:08:17.000 Total nonfarm payroll increased 213,000 in June, has grown by 2.4 million over the last 12 months.

00:08:23.000 Employment in professional and business services increased by 50,000 in June, has risen by about 521,000 over the year.

00:08:30.000 Manufacturing added 36,000 jobs in June.

00:08:33.000 These are very good numbers for the President of the United States, very good numbers for the country.

00:08:37.000 The participation rates have shown some improvement, labor participation rates.

00:08:40.000 There's a lot of talk during the Obama administration that a lot of people had dropped out of the workforce.

00:08:45.000 Those people are now starting to come back.

00:08:46.000 But at least it's moved in the right direction.

00:09:04.000 The employment population ratio is still at 60.4%, which is still a very low rate.

00:09:09.000 We need more people employed, but the fact the unemployment rate went up is actually good news, because more people are getting back into the workforce, looking for work again.

00:09:17.000 There's also slow wage growth, but that makes sense, because when only 6 in 10 people are working, there's a lot of people who are still entering the job market, creating competition that creates pressure for a lowering of the wages.

00:09:28.000 So, all of this is good economic news.

00:09:31.000 All of this is excellent economic news, and President Trump has a right to be proud of it.

00:09:36.000 President Trump has a right to be proud of the economy that he has helped to foster here.

00:09:41.000 Now, with that said, we are looking at more tariffs now.

00:09:45.000 The reason that President Trump is, I think, undermining his own economy is with his tariff talk.

00:09:50.000 So now, President Trump is firing the biggest shot yet in the global trade war, according to the Economic Times, by imposing tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports, delivering on a promise to his political supporters that risks provoking retaliation and harming the world economy.

00:10:02.000 So, as I have said many times before, when it comes to tariff policy, I have no problem whatsoever with the President of the United States using tariffs as a tool to lower tariffs in other countries.

00:10:12.000 If he's using tariffs as a ratchet, if the idea here is that there's a tariff on our products somewhere else, so we're putting a tariff on their products here, and now let's lower all the tariffs, that's fine.

00:10:21.000 But the president seems to have a peculiar fondness for tariffs.

00:10:23.000 He thinks that trade wars are easy to win.

00:10:25.000 Well, it turns out the trade wars are in fact not easy to win.

00:10:28.000 China is also

00:10:29.000 China hit back immediately via duties on U.S.

00:10:31.000 shipments, including soybeans and automobiles, which is not good for the United States economy.

00:10:53.000 Trump is already looking at another $16 billion of Chinese goods, suggesting the final total could top $500 billion, more than the U.S.

00:11:01.000 bought in 2017.

00:11:05.000 Now, is this going to be good for all the people he's going to need to win in 2020?

00:11:14.000 I don't see how.

00:11:15.000 I mean, there are a lot of soybean farmers who are going to be damaged by the fact that China is now putting new tariffs on all of this.

00:11:20.000 Now, there's still a lot of folks saying this is not showing a lot of trade fears hurting the United States economy, but we have not seen this play out yet.

00:11:26.000 There was a report yesterday that folks are holding back capital, that there are new reports from the Fed suggesting that businesses are holding back capital investment because they are perturbed about the future of this trade war.

00:11:36.000 Under a full-blown trade war, according to Bloomberg, in which the U.S.

00:11:38.000 slaps 10% tariffs on all other countries and they respond, economists reckon U.S.

00:11:42.000 growth would slow by 0.8 percentage points in 2020.

00:11:45.000 Trump has already imposed duties on foreign steel and aluminum imports, drawing a response from the EU and Canada, which fret he may go after automakers next.

00:11:53.000 So none of this is a particularly good policy.

00:11:56.000 But we will find out whether it continues to spiral or whether everybody seems to back down, because there was another report yesterday that suggests that China was going to lower its tariffs a little bit, which would suggest that President Trump's strength on tariff policy may be a good thing.

00:12:10.000 So we'll talk about that in just a second.

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00:13:23.000 So, all of that.

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00:13:24.000 Okay, so.

00:13:26.000 Is any of this going to be good for the U.S.

00:13:28.000 economy?

00:13:29.000 Well, the dollar has been knocked, so that's not good.

00:13:32.000 According to the Financial Times, what we are looking at right now, the possibility of a trade war is going to have an impact on the strength of the United States dollar, according to

00:13:41.000 According to Andrew Milligan, who's the head of global strategy at Aberdeen Standard Investments, with so many mixed messages coming out of Washington, it may be a relief for investors to focus on hard data such as Fed minutes and payrolls report.

00:13:52.000 The combination should re-insure investors that whatever the travails of some emerging markets, the U.S.

00:13:56.000 economy remains in robust shape.

00:13:58.000 China's stocks found support, Wall Street equities indices are holding steady, and European bourses are drifting lower in cautious trade as investors tracked the latest rounds of the international trade dispute.

00:14:09.000 So, the U.S.

00:14:09.000 dollar was knocked a little bit.

00:14:11.000 It lifted Wall Street futures back over flatline and pushed Treasuries lower.

00:14:15.000 You know, the economic reports continue to be good.

00:14:17.000 The dollar index is down 0.5%.

00:14:19.000 Sentiment is still cautious after the increase in the tariffs.

00:14:23.000 There still seems to be a lot of wonderment in the markets at all of this.

00:14:26.000 There's still a lot of talk in the markets about the idea that perhaps none of this will come to pass.

00:14:31.000 That perhaps these tariffs will be backed down by Congress.

00:14:33.000 Perhaps everybody will back away, take the hands off the triggers.

00:14:36.000 I hope that that happens.

00:14:38.000 I also don't understand why Congress isn't stepping in and reasserting its trade authority.

00:14:41.000 I don't think the President, no matter which party, should have this much trade authority.

00:14:45.000 It's why I thought the TPP should have been ratified through the Senate.

00:14:48.000 It should not have been a situation where TPP was being signed off on by the President of the United States.

00:14:52.000 All treaties should be ratified by the Senate.

00:14:54.000 The Senate should have the power to look over any sort of tariff arrangements the President of the United States is making.

00:14:59.000 It was not granted under Article 2 of the Constitution.

00:15:02.000 The presidential power does not include foreign commerce.

00:15:05.000 That is, under the legislative power, the idea that the President can unilaterally decide tariff rates seems to me foolish and counterproductive if the President wants to continue strengthening the economy.

00:15:14.000 Now, with all that said,

00:15:16.000 The media continue to do an awful job of covering the Trump administration.

00:15:20.000 So, yesterday, there was a report from the Associated Press, and it made all the rounds, and the headline was really disturbing.

00:15:26.000 And when I first saw the headline, I too was disturbed.

00:15:28.000 Here was the headline.

00:15:32.000 So, if you just read that headline from the AP, you would assume that the U.S.

00:15:35.000 Army was quietly discharging immigrant recruits, that they were seeking out people who are immigrants, or illegal immigrants who joined the Army for citizenship, and then trying to dismiss them out of some sort of misguided xenophobia.

00:15:45.000 But that's not actually what the article says, and it turns out that's not the way that any of this works.

00:15:49.000 According to the AP, some immigrant U.S.

00:15:51.000 Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.

00:15:58.000 The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the Special Recruitment Program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their future.

00:16:09.000 Okay, so let's start with the statistics here.

00:16:12.000 There are 70,000 members of the United States military who are immigrants.

00:16:15.000 The AP has tracked down 40 and said these 40 are now being discharged and they say this is because of xenophobia.

00:16:21.000 You might wonder why they're not going after all 70,000 if this is really about xenophobia.

00:16:25.000 The answer is because it's not about xenophobia.

00:16:27.000 According to AP, some of the service members said they were not told why they were discharged.

00:16:31.000 Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they'd been labeled as security risks.

00:16:35.000 Because they have relatives abroad.

00:16:37.000 Or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

00:16:40.000 Here's the way this works.

00:16:41.000 When you go and you sign up for the military, you are now technically a recruit.

00:16:44.000 But you have not gone through basic training.

00:16:45.000 And if you have not gone through basic training, that is because they have not completed the background check on you.

00:16:49.000 So if you sign up, and it turns out that you were once a drug runner for MS-13, you are going to be rejected from the Army.

00:16:54.000 You are now an immigrant recruit rejected under the AP's tally.

00:16:58.000 But the AP is attempting to create the perception that there is a widespread Trump administration policy to get rid of immigrants in the United States military, which by any stretch of the imagination would be a ridiculous policy if it existed.

00:17:09.000 But it doesn't exist.

00:17:10.000 Because that's not what's happening here.

00:17:12.000 Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S.

00:17:15.000 such as a student visa before enlisting.

00:17:17.000 More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016.

00:17:20.000 An estimated 10,000 are currently serving.

00:17:22.000 Most go to the Army.

00:17:23.000 Some also go to other military branches, according to the AP.

00:17:26.000 To become citizens, the service members need an honorable service designation, which can come after even just a few days of boot camp.

00:17:32.000 But the recently discharged service members have had their basic training delayed, so they can't actually be naturalized.

00:17:37.000 So again, is this really just

00:17:38.000 Evil, terrible, horrible, or is this the Defense Department doing exactly what they're supposed to do?

00:17:43.000 The Defense Department says,

00:17:52.000 So this is not, you know, again, this is dramatic misreporting on a wild level.

00:17:58.000 So CBS News military analyst Mike Lyons actually debunked this.

00:18:01.000 He's a former West Point grad.

00:18:02.000 He said,

00:18:12.000 Right?

00:18:13.000 He says that this is an exaggeration.

00:18:15.000 He says the story is not framed properly.

00:18:17.000 This happens to natural-born citizens, too.

00:18:19.000 I know many U.S.

00:18:20.000 citizens who weren't allowed to start BASIC because a bad background check came back.

00:18:23.000 Lions noted that one of many possible reasons why a recruit might not make it to boot camp is because they didn't complete background checks.

00:18:29.000 It could be a myriad of reasons.

00:18:30.000 Clearances, failed physicals, bad background checks, which eliminate natural-born citizens as well.

00:18:35.000 The Army in particular needs people.

00:18:36.000 There's another side to this story that's not being told.

00:18:39.000 Lion says AP reporters quote failed to get the other side of the story or size the issue compared to everyone who enlisted.

00:18:45.000 There's a good reason they are denied entering basic training.

00:18:48.000 Center for Security Policies Michael Waller explains the murderous immigrant gang known as MS-13 has infiltrated the U.S.

00:18:53.000 Army as well.

00:18:53.000 He says the U.S.

00:18:54.000 is correct to discharge such people and any other security risks.

00:18:57.000 Luckily, the U.S.

00:18:58.000 military has a lot of foreign-born recruits who add immensely to our capabilities.

00:19:02.000 So, everybody sort of jumped to conclusions on this, because this is what happens.

00:19:05.000 The media create these false headlines, and then everybody jumps to conclusions based on the false headline, and then it turns out they're simply not true.

00:19:14.000 Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Stock, who created the so-called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest Program, has opposed the fact that this was combined with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program under then-President Barack Obama.

00:19:28.000 This created additional security screenings for those waiting in the MAVNI pipeline, the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest Pipeline.

00:19:36.000 Colonel Stock, Lieutenant Colonel Stock, she said, So, just brilliant stuff there by the AP, and of course, brilliant stuff there from the Obama administration, as per the usual arrangement.

00:19:43.000 Now, just a second. 0.99

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00:21:22.000 Promo code Ben.

00:21:22.000 Get 50 bucks off your first set of sheets.

00:21:24.000 Okay, so.

00:21:26.000 And the derangement on the left is a source of great amusement to, I think, a lot of people, as well it should be, because it's hilarious.

00:21:32.000 This is the best article of this kind I have seen in a long time, and I've been reading a lot of these lately, okay?

00:21:39.000 This is the actual title of a real article.

00:21:41.000 This is not fake.

00:21:42.000 This is not pretend.

00:21:43.000 It's by a woman named Bridget Delaney.

00:21:45.000 Bridget Delaney, in the UK Guardian, writing on Independence Day.

00:21:48.000 This article may be one of the reasons we declared independence from Britain.

00:21:51.000 Bridget Delaney writes, I stopped going to the gym because of Trump.

00:21:55.000 Now I can't open jars.

00:21:57.000 That is the actual title of the piece.

00:21:59.000 And she's serious.

00:22:01.000 Because it's fantastic.

00:22:02.000 So here is what Bridget Delaney writes. 0.72

00:22:17.000 Pointed at this horrible thing in the corner with the name sled and said if Trump wins you have to pull 70 kilograms on it.

00:22:22.000 It was double what I could usually pull.

00:22:24.000 And if I won the bet the gym owner would pull double his personal best.

00:22:27.000 I didn't want Trump to win.

00:22:28.000 He grabbed a woman by the bleep and mocked a reporter's disability. 0.97

00:22:31.000 He promised to build a wall and called Mexicans rapists. 0.97

00:22:33.000 The thought of his presidency was frightening. 0.89

00:22:35.000 But so was pulling the sled.

00:22:36.000 What if I herniated disc?

00:22:37.000 After Trump claimed victory, I went to the gym in a foul mood.

00:22:40.000 Just effing load up the effing sled, all right?

00:22:41.000 Let's get it over with, I said, without much grace, as I strapped a belt around my waist.

00:22:45.000 I pulled the sled like a human oxen while being filmed.

00:22:48.000 It would be like a human ox, actually.

00:22:50.000 And the gym staff cheered, but I did it.

00:22:52.000 The Trump victory soured my successful show of strength.

00:22:55.000 Yeah, I could pull a pretend sled, but how was that going to help me when the world had been destroyed by nuclear weapons or climate change?

00:23:01.000 Not kidding.

00:23:02.000 Actual article from The Guardian.

00:23:04.000 Hungry and sore.

00:23:05.000 I repaired to a restaurant down the road I had never visited, and where I'd never seen anyone come or go from.

00:23:10.000 The silent restaurant, no background music, no other diners, seemed like the perfect place to welcome the end of the global liberal order.

00:23:15.000 What new political order had been born tonight?

00:23:17.000 An elderly waiter appeared and handed me a menu.

00:23:19.000 Most things on it were not available.

00:23:20.000 The one dish that was unspeakably awful.

00:23:22.000 And the color and texture of cement was available.

00:23:25.000 I never went back, but I also didn't return to the gym.

00:23:28.000 I associated it now with Donald Trump, the bad meal, and pulling the sled.

00:23:32.000 It was November 9th, 2016, and my thinking about fitness changed almost overnight.

00:23:38.000 In tune with the times, it became more Trump, less Obama.

00:23:42.000 Trump explained his exercise routine like this to Reuters.

00:23:44.000 I get exercise.

00:23:45.000 I mean, I walk.

00:23:45.000 I this, I that.

00:23:46.000 I run over to the building next door.

00:23:47.000 I get more exercise than people think.

00:23:48.000 Well, I walked.

00:23:49.000 I this, I that.

00:23:50.000 Months passed, then a year. 0.84

00:23:51.000 Trump was going to be in power another thousand years, or at least that's what it felt like, writes this crazy person, Bridget Delaney. 0.52

00:23:59.000 And then she continues.

00:24:01.000 Could I really avoid the gym for the entirety of his presidency?

00:24:04.000 I missed being strong enough to open jars and carry groceries.

00:24:07.000 So last week, I returned to the gym, slinking back in as if no time had passed.

00:24:11.000 I hoped that by wearing a puffy jacket and MC Hammer pants, I could hide my lack of definition, that I could pretend I'd maintain fitness on my own.

00:24:17.000 At home,

00:24:18.000 Running to the building next door on the couch while tweeting.

00:24:20.000 But you can't hide fitness.

00:24:21.000 You either have it or you don't.

00:24:23.000 You can either lift the dumbbell or you can wobble on your fifth rep and drop the load.

00:24:26.000 You're either strong or you are weak.

00:24:27.000 And I was weak.

00:24:29.000 I was fit in 2016 before Trump.

00:24:31.000 But when you stop, it goes.

00:24:32.000 And it goes quickly.

00:24:33.000 A week or two and you have to start again with the two kilogram dumbbells and the tremor in your forearms.

00:24:38.000 I returned again this week to the boredom and pain of the gym, trying to build up back to the strength I had before Trump became president.

00:24:45.000 The struggle is Sisyphean.

00:24:49.000 That's a real article that happened in real life.

00:24:51.000 In the world.

00:24:52.000 Yep.

00:24:53.000 Yeah, I have a feeling some people can't handle the fact that Trump became president.

00:24:56.000 You got any of that impression? 0.97

00:24:57.000 Because, um, they crazy.

00:24:59.000 Okay, so that, speaking of the crazy, so an actual older gentleman decided that it was necessary to assault a teenager who was wearing a MAGA hat.

00:25:07.000 This is just wonderful.

00:25:08.000 There's a teenager in Texas who went to a Whataburger restaurant, and he's wearing a MAGA hat, he went like 2 a.m., and this guy who was working at the Whataburger decided to go over, rip the MAGA hat over this guy's head,

00:25:18.000 And then throw a drink on him. 0.98

00:25:19.000 Here's a little bit of what it sounded like.

00:25:25.000 Right now, police are looking for that man who was caught on tape, on camera, throwing a drink at a teenager in that video, the man in the red hat, and walks off with the teenager's hat, pulled it off so aggressively, also pulled out some hair with it.

00:25:38.000 Okay, so there's just a charming, charming fellow.

00:25:41.000 His name is Kino Jimenez.

00:25:42.000 He's a bartender in San Antonio, so he's a genius.

00:25:45.000 And maybe he'll be in Congress.

00:25:47.000 I mean, who knows?

00:25:47.000 Bartenders for Congress is like a new thing, apparently.

00:25:50.000 And he is now, he has now been arrested.

00:25:54.000 He will probably do some jail time or at least some probation time.

00:25:58.000 As well he should.

00:25:59.000 The part of all of this that's hilarious is that there were, seriously, a bunch of people on the left who decided that it was worthwhile supporting all of this.

00:26:09.000 So for example, Mark Lamont Hill came out and he suggested support for the MAGA hat stripping guy.

00:26:16.000 He said that it's just terrible that this guy was arrested.

00:26:19.000 So he tweeted out, there's a guy named, I guess, Van Lathan?

00:26:22.000 I don't know who that is.

00:26:23.000 He says,

00:26:30.000 Yeah, you're no longer a decent person, right? 1.00

00:26:31.000 If somebody were wearing a Hillary hat, and I said, that Hillary hat stands for abortion on demand and the murder of the unborn, and then I took that person's hat and I threw a soda on them, you'd think I was a jerk, because I would be a jerk. 0.99

00:26:40.000 Mark Lamont Hill tweeted back a bunch of crying, laughing emojis, because it's so funny. 0.90

00:26:45.000 Then he says, he still, I actually don't advocate throwing drinks on people, not at all.

00:26:49.000 But yes, I think MAGA hats deliberately reflect a movement that conjures racism, homophobia, xenophobia, et cetera.

00:26:54.000 So yes, it's a little harder to feel sympathy when someone gets Coca-Cola thrown on him.

00:26:58.000 So in other words, I don't condone throwing drinks on people, but I sort of condone throwing drinks on people.

00:27:02.000 Well, you wonder why President Trump is so popular with the base.

00:27:06.000 The reason is because President Trump's basic attitude toward the world is F all these people.

00:27:11.000 And that's his basic attitude toward the world.

00:27:13.000 And when you hear Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at, I think, Georgetown, talking about how Republicans are all racist, you get the appeal for a lot of Trump supporters.

00:27:21.000 Here's Michael Eric Dyson going crazy on CNN as per his usual routine.

00:27:25.000 Martin Luther King Jr. 0.94

00:27:26.000 said, it's not the white supremacists who are the problem, it's white moderates and conservatives who tend to be complicit with that by trying to dismiss it. 0.98

00:27:35.000 Brother Jennings, much respect for you, but this is ludicrous. 0.96

00:27:38.000 What you're doing is even more egregious because you're attempting to justify, legitimate, and make valid what are essentially naked, raw statements of racism. 0.97

00:27:47.000 And until white folk like you can stand up and find your spine, you will continue to be complicit in the racist animus of this country.

00:27:54.000 Okay, so for all of the people who actually voted for President Trump, for all the people who plan on voting for President Trump, and for all the people who are doing so because they think the Democrats are nuts and because they like Trump on policy, being called a racist is actually not all that pleasant. 0.90

00:28:06.000 It's the worst thing you can call somebody in American life.

00:28:08.000 As my mentor Andrew Breitbart used to say, calling people racist just because you disagree with them on policy or because they support a politician you don't like

00:28:15.000 Is a pretty astonishing charge.

00:28:16.000 And it's one of the reasons why Trump is so all fired popular right now.

00:28:20.000 It's because he goes to rallies and he doesn't seem to care.

00:28:23.000 He just goes and he says what he wants to say.

00:28:25.000 And that has some serious appeal for a lot of folks on the right.

00:28:28.000 So President Trump was rallying in Montana, in Great Falls, Montana.

00:28:32.000 Trump obviously loves this stuff.

00:28:33.000 So I was on Fox News yesterday and I was supposed to be on at the time that President Trump was speaking, which means they push you off until President Trump is done speaking because he's the president and they like to cover his rallies, which makes perfect sense.

00:28:44.000 So Trump goes on and on.

00:28:46.000 He went for an hour and 12 minutes yesterday at this rally in Great Falls, Montana, which is extraordinarily long for the president.

00:28:52.000 And it's a long comedy routine, right?

00:28:54.000 Everything that he does is basically a long comedy routine.

00:28:56.000 It's really, really funny.

00:28:57.000 It's really irreverent.

00:28:58.000 Half the stuff he says is not.

00:29:01.000 Strictly speaking, true.

00:29:03.000 But a lot of it is really driving and powerful.

00:29:06.000 And Trump is, he punches back, right?

00:29:09.000 I mean, this is why they love him.

00:29:10.000 You get the people saying, I can't open a jar anymore because I won't exercise thanks to Trump.

00:29:15.000 And you get people saying that they're going to rip hats off teenagers' heads.

00:29:18.000 And you have people saying that all Republicans are racist.

00:29:20.000 And it comes off as kind of refreshing when the President of the United States is willing to get down in the mud and punch a little bit.

00:29:27.000 Here's the President of the United States 0.95

00:29:29.000 You saw that clown yesterday on the Statue of Liberty? 0.85

00:29:36.000 You see the guys that went up there? 0.86

00:29:38.000 I wouldn't have done it!

00:29:41.000 I would have said, let's get some nets and let's wait till she comes down. 1.00

00:29:46.000 Just get some nets.

00:29:47.000 Really.

00:29:48.000 You see those guys, the bravery of doing that?

00:29:52.000 What a group.

00:29:57.000 Yeah, well, you know, okay, honestly, like, all right, like, I know, should I be upset that he said that they shouldn't go up and rescue the lady?

00:30:03.000 She wanted to be up there, so I don't really see the problem.

00:30:06.000 I kind of agree with him.

00:30:07.000 I'm not sure why anybody should risk their life.

00:30:08.000 We'll get some nuts up there, we'll get, like, how about we should just surround the Statue of Liberty with bounce houses, and the lady can jump down onto bounce houses. 1.00

00:30:15.000 So, you wonder why people like Trump.

00:30:17.000 That's why people like Trump.

00:30:18.000 And there was more like this, right?

00:30:19.000 It was just, this is the best part of it.

00:30:21.000 He goes after Elizabeth Warren, and Elizabeth Warren, of course,

00:30:24.000 has been virtue signaling.

00:30:25.000 Some people, Charlie Cook is saying he thinks she's the front runner for 2020, which would be a huge mistake by Democrats.

00:30:30.000 Elizabeth Warren is Hillary Clinton part two, except less charming.

00:30:34.000 And Elizabeth Warren wants to run and she's been, you know, virtue signaling all over the place. 1.00

00:30:39.000 She's really awful.

00:30:40.000 Let's say I'm debating Pocahontas, right? 1.00

00:30:41.000 And in the middle of the debate,

00:31:05.000 When she proclaims that she's of Indian heritage because her mother said she has high cheekbones.

00:31:12.000 I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an Indian. 0.87

00:31:23.000 No.

00:31:24.000 Is that actually going to happen?

00:31:25.000 No.

00:31:25.000 But Elizabeth Warren knows she's not Native American.

00:31:27.000 That's the part that's hysterical.

00:31:28.000 So she tweeted out, Well, Donald Trump wants to give DNA tests to everyone, to me, to immigrant children at the border.

00:31:34.000 First of all, the immigrant children at the border being given DNA tests, you know the reason they're given DNA tests.

00:31:38.000 It's to determine that the people who say they are their parents are actually their parents.

00:31:41.000 That's legitimately why they're giving DNA tests at the border.

00:31:44.000 Because we want to make sure that it's not human smugglers who are trying to bring children in for human trafficking.

00:31:48.000 But I love that Elizabeth Warren tries to swivel off of the fact that she's not Native American but continues to claim Native American ancestry. 0.99

00:31:55.000 You gotta love the guy when he says this kind of stuff.

00:31:58.000 Maybe that's really funny stuff.

00:32:00.000 Okay, I have a little bit more on that, plus I want to get to the mailbag.

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00:32:56.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:33:04.000 So President Trump's entire instinct always is to punch back.

00:33:07.000 And in a time when the left is so aggressive, and they were so aggressive with Mitt Romney, it's loved by the base.

00:33:15.000 And I see why it is loved by the base.

00:33:16.000 It's something that, in 2011, actually, I wrote a column about Donald Trump.

00:33:20.000 Before, I was not a fan of Donald Trump in 2015.

00:33:23.000 In 2011, I wrote a column about Donald Trump in which I said that he had F-you money and an F-you attitude, and it's why he might be the only person who could beat Barack Obama in 2012.

00:33:30.000 I was right in 2011, because that is the thing people like about Donald Trump.

00:33:35.000 And so long as the left continues to play directly into his hand, by being as extreme as humanly possible, he is going to continue to succeed along these lines.

00:33:42.000 Okay, let's do the mailbag and let's get into some of your questions today.

00:33:45.000 So Cameron says, Dear Ben, can you tell us the origin of the daily wire?

00:33:48.000 Did you and Jeremy Boring meet secretly in the Hollywood hills under the pale moonlight to lay your plans?

00:33:52.000 Were the two of you doused with cosmic rays, transforming him into the lowercase g, lowercase k god king, and you into the bringer of leftist tears?

00:33:59.000 And more specifically, did you ever consider being anything other than a strictly conservative outlet?

00:34:03.000 So, he says that we might consider hiring liberals and branching out to become more of an objective newsroom.

00:34:10.000 So, the story of how Daily Wire came to be is that Jeremy Boring and I have been good friends for eight years and business partners for approximately five now?

00:34:19.000 Four or five years?

00:34:21.000 So, Jeremy and I started Truth Revolt together, which was a subset of David Horowitz Freedom Center.

00:34:25.000 When Truth Revolt was defunded, then we decided to move on.

00:34:30.000 I think so.

00:34:50.000 There's one particular group that didn't understand our business plan that we talked to.

00:34:54.000 I won't mention the group because it's a little embarrassing for them considering how well the company, thank God, has done.

00:34:59.000 It was an older group of people and I was trying to explain to them exactly how the company would operate, how we would actually make our money.

00:35:10.000 So I was explaining to them how we were going to spend a lot of money on social media marketing, and how that was going to translate into traffic for our website, and how this in turn would generate more money that we could use for social media marketing and all the rest.

00:35:20.000 And they seriously didn't get it.

00:35:21.000 And they said, can you make that simpler?

00:35:23.000 And I said, yes.

00:35:23.000 And I took out a napkin, and I took a pen, and I wrote dollar sign, arrow, Facebook, arrow, website, arrow back to dollar sign.

00:35:34.000 That was the entire business plan.

00:35:36.000 Needless to say, that meeting did not go well, but eventually we got our funding.

00:35:41.000 At one of the funding meetings, there's a very funny story where I was meeting with a funder, and one of the funders, a billionaire, said something like,

00:36:04.000 And I said, well, I'm better at this than any of them.

00:36:07.000 And he started laughing, and that meeting did go well.

00:36:09.000 So you never know what's going to work at a business meeting.

00:36:11.000 All I will say is that sometimes being brash helps you and sometimes being brash hurts you.

00:36:15.000 As far as whether we are interested in moving into more objective news coverage, I'm happy to have debates on the site with people on the left.

00:36:22.000 I'd be happy to do point-counterpoint right and left on Daily Wire.

00:36:25.000 I think that would actually be kind of fun.

00:36:27.000 As far as our reportage, I'm not going to report from the left because I think the left is wrong.

00:36:30.000 OK, Michael says, Ben, if you're president, who are some people you would want as advisors?

00:36:33.000 I'd want Thomas Sowell on economics.

00:36:35.000 I would probably want on foreign policy, both both John Bolton and maybe Angela Cotovia from just for a difference of opinion at Claremont Institute.

00:36:45.000 I think that, you know, on

00:36:48.000 I think?

00:37:04.000 The truth is that virtually everybody you elect has a set of incentives, and that set of incentives is to do just enough to get reelected.

00:37:11.000 And the only way to stop them from doing that is that you do have to primary people who you think are not doing enough.

00:37:16.000 As far as new GOP leaders, they're all from solid red states.

00:37:18.000 I think that Mike Lee is a solid GOP leader.

00:37:21.000 He's from Utah.

00:37:21.000 He feels safe, and that means that he has the capacity to really push.

00:37:24.000 But

00:37:25.000 The tug and pull of national politics is, I will admit, is very difficult.

00:37:30.000 My job is a lot easier than their job.

00:37:32.000 I get to sit here and say exactly what I think, what I think is right.

00:37:34.000 A lot of these folks are trying to balance staying in office to prevent Democrats from being in office and getting things done.

00:37:40.000 If you're in a swing district from New York, it's not quite the same thing as being in a solid red state like Utah.

00:37:45.000 Would I prefer more conservative leadership out of Republicans in Congress?

00:37:48.000 You bet I would.

00:37:49.000 Do I think we can get more?

00:37:50.000 I do.

00:37:50.000 Do I think Mitch McConnell has been stalwart on enough issues?

00:37:53.000 No.

00:37:54.000 But with that said, I think that we ought to give our legislators a little more credit than to think that they're all quite as cynical as we make them out to be sometimes in the talk radio business.

00:38:03.000 Dear Ben, what is your opinion on a convention of states?

00:38:06.000 I know the late Justice Scalia had a negative view of the idea and voiced his concerns.

00:38:09.000 I don't see any other way to pass amendments that would repeal the 16th Amendment and Institute of Fair Tax, for example.

00:38:13.000 Thanks.

00:38:14.000 Love the show.

00:38:14.000 I'm a fan of the convention of states.

00:38:15.000 I think the convention of states is a fine idea.

00:38:17.000 I know there are lots of concerns about a quote-unquote runaway convention where people just start proposing random ideas and suddenly they're being ratified by the states.

00:38:25.000 But anything that you pass at the convention of states still has to be ratified by the states.

00:38:28.000 So I don't really see how that is going to happen.

00:38:30.000 So I'm fine with the idea of a convention of states.

00:38:32.000 I think it's quite a good idea, the Article 5 convention of states.

00:38:35.000 Well, the answer is no.

00:38:35.000 The reason the answer is no is because the Obamacare individual mandate has been held to be a tax, not a fine.

00:38:54.000 It has not been held to be they're fining you to force you to buy.

00:38:57.000 It's been held to be a tax in lieu of you buying.

00:38:59.000 That is not what the statute says.

00:39:01.000 That is why the Obamacare decision is a travesty of justice.

00:39:03.000 It has nothing to do with the actual text of the Obamacare bill.

00:39:07.000 It's one of the reasons why I'm very skeptical about Judge Kavanaugh, who's now being considered for the Supreme Court by President Trump, because in his opinion at the D.C.

00:39:14.000 Circuit Court level, he tried to avoid jurisdiction on Obamacare altogether by claiming that it was a tax rather than a fine.

00:39:20.000 If it were considered a fine, it would have been ruled unconstitutional on its face probably.

00:39:24.000 Well, you know, I would say that

00:39:36.000 As a general rule, calling individual human beings evil, unless they are clearly, you know, in the evil category, or Stalin or Hitler or something, calling human beings evil is a difficult thing to do unless they are actually a murderer or a rapist.

00:39:49.000 If you're a murderer or a rapist, I have a feeling that we can call you evil with a pretty fair bit of confidence.

00:39:54.000 I don't think that we have to worry too much about you, you know, actually being a good person if you're a murderer or a rapist. 0.97

00:39:59.000 If, however, you are just a person who has shoplifted once,

00:40:03.000 You're an alcoholic when you were young, and you were abusive to people, and then you got over it and you repented. 0.62

00:40:10.000 Are you wholly evil?

00:40:12.000 Maimonides has a basic view of this, and that is that there are people who we consider good, where their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, and there are people who we consider evil, where their bad deeds outweigh their good deeds, and then there are the benonim, the people who are sort of in between.

00:40:24.000 And this raises a bunch of questions, which is like, okay, well,

00:40:27.000 Are you only in the middle when you have exactly the same number of sins as merits, basically?

00:40:33.000 The answer is no.

00:40:33.000 The answer is that you have to consider yourself basically a person in the middle of your entire life.

00:40:37.000 The minute you consider yourself good, you're likely to do evil.

00:40:39.000 The minute you consider yourself evil, you're likely to do evil.

00:40:43.000 So you should consider yourself as a person who's always walking that fine, razor-sharp edge between good and evil, and this will keep you on the straight and narrow.

00:40:50.000 But generally, we should be analyzing the acts of human beings rather than character as a general rule.

00:40:55.000 Ryan says,

00:41:02.000 No, of course there's been intellectual progress since the United States was founded on a wide variety of issues, but there has been no intellectual progress on eternal truths regarding the nature of human beings.

00:41:11.000 In fact, I think there's been very little development intellectually on eternal truths regarding human beings for thousands of years.

00:41:18.000 I think human nature has been pretty well understood by great philosophers and great poets and great thinkers for thousands of years.

00:41:25.000 I don't think much has changed among human beings.

00:41:28.000 And I think the attempt to play human nature as intensely malleable has been one of the great causes of suffering in the last two centuries.

00:41:43.000 I doubt the tariffs will last.

00:41:44.000 I think this is probably a short-term thing.

00:41:46.000 I hope it's a short-term thing.

00:41:47.000 If it's not, I hope that Congress steps in and stops it.

00:41:49.000 But obviously it's going to raise costs for inputs for businesses in the United States who use Chinese product. 0.84

00:41:55.000 And this silly idea that it doesn't damage American businesses in any way to put tariffs on Chinese goods that are being imported into the United States is just, it's economically foolish.

00:42:04.000 Well, I can barely get Knowles to wear a shirt. 0.70

00:42:06.000 So, you know, getting him to wear a wig, I think, might be a little bit much.

00:42:08.000 No way.

00:42:08.000 They're not retiring in 2020.

00:42:09.000 They'll retire in 2021 if a Democrat is elected, and they will retire never.

00:42:27.000 If Donald Trump is reelected, they will stay as long as a Republican is in power.

00:42:31.000 I don't think they want to risk their seats with the possibility of an incumbent winning, particularly because incumbents have such a good record in presidential elections.

00:42:40.000 Well, the Democratic Party has been moving steadily more radical and now exponentially more radical over the past several years.

00:42:49.000 I think they're going to embrace full scale Bernie Sanders, Democratic socialism.

00:42:53.000 I think you're going to see them embrace Medicare for all.

00:42:55.000 I think you're going to see them embrace

00:42:56.000 I think you're going to see them embrace full-scale nationalization of particular industries.

00:43:01.000 I think you're going to see them embrace a just blowout in government spending.

00:43:05.000 I think that you're going to see them embrace virtually all the planks of Bernie Sanders' platform.

00:43:10.000 A right to housing, a right to health care, a right to free college education.

00:43:14.000 I think all of this is on the table for Democrats.

00:43:16.000 And I think they're not going to quit with their intersectional nonsense because they see that as the spine of their support base.

00:43:22.000 So you're going to see a mashup between the two worst elements of the Democratic Party, the socialism, and the intersectional identity politics.

00:43:28.000 Kyle says, Ben, I went to a high school just outside of the Madison area in Wisconsin.

00:43:31.000 During our study of the Great Depression, we were taught that Hoover did not believe in government intervention in the markets.

00:43:35.000 And because of this, the Depression lasted longer than it had to.

00:43:37.000 Is there any merit to this statement?

00:43:39.000 No.

00:43:39.000 This is one of the great lies in American history.

00:43:41.000 One of the great lies in American history is that Herbert Hoover was a fellow who deeply believed in the free markets.

00:43:47.000 That is revisionist history.

00:43:49.000 Herbert Hoover, according to members,

00:43:50.000 Seriously, according to members of the FDR administration, Herbert Hoover was a person who attempted to implement virtually everything, virtually everything, that Democrats eventually

00:44:02.000 Attempted to implement.

00:44:03.000 Seriously. 0.99

00:44:05.000 It's such an amazing and nonsensical and stupid argument that Herbert Hoover was an emissary of the right when it came to policy. 0.99

00:44:14.000 In 1930, Hoover imposed Smoot-Hawley tariffs. 0.99

00:44:16.000 That was leftist policy, which crippled global trade.

00:44:18.000 Global trade dropped to a small fraction of what it had been.

00:44:20.000 He blew out the federal budget.

00:44:21.000 In 1929, the federal budget was $3.1 billion.

00:44:23.000 By 1932, he had increased it nearly 50%.

00:44:27.000 In real dollars, Hoover doubled the federal budget since the Great Depression came along with deflation.

00:44:31.000 His deficits ran higher than FDR's did all the way until World War II.

00:44:36.000 Hoover participated in subsidies to agriculture on a massive scale.

00:44:39.000 He tried to pressure firms not to cut workers and wages.

00:44:41.000 He forced the government to pay above-market wages for federal projects.

00:44:44.000 He pursued government-sponsored loans to states and banks.

00:44:46.000 He pressed enormous tax increases.

00:44:49.000 Right, this is Herbert Hoover, quote,

00:45:00.000 This is a member of FDR's Brain Trust, according to Stephen Horowitz, quote, So yes, this is all a lie.

00:45:06.000 It's just not true.

00:45:08.000 Okay, let's see.

00:45:13.000 A couple more questions.

00:45:17.000 Ryan says, King Benjamin of the House Shapiro, King of the Conservatives and the First Men, I have one inquiry of you, Your Grace.

00:45:22.000 What is your opinion on term limits for Congress, Supreme Court, and governors?

00:45:28.000 Well, I'm in favor of term limits for Supreme Court justices.

00:45:31.000 I think the idea of having lifetime appointments has outlived its usefulness, considering that people are sitting on the court for 50, 60 years and it turns into this ghoulish death watch.

00:45:40.000 Having a rotation seems to me perfectly reasonable, having an 18 or 20 year term.

00:45:44.000 Seems to me just fine.

00:45:45.000 As far as elected positions, I'm not in favor of term limits.

00:45:48.000 I think you should be elected as much as you want in any elected capacity.

00:45:53.000 And you see incumbents get thrown out more and more frequently these days, it seems.

00:45:57.000 So I think that it makes a lot of sense for us to leave the no term limits rule in place.

00:46:02.000 If people can't handle it, that's their own problem.

00:46:04.000 It's a democracy.

00:46:07.000 It's time for a couple of things that I like and then a couple of things that I hate.

00:46:11.000 So, things I like.

00:46:12.000 This is not a good movie.

00:46:14.000 Okay, it's not a good movie.

00:46:15.000 But it is an enjoyable movie.

00:46:16.000 The movie is Death Wish.

00:46:18.000 Now the original Death Wish, I think, have I endorsed, have I had the original Death Wish as a thing I like on the show before?

00:46:23.000 I haven't?

00:46:23.000 Okay, the original Death Wish is a fantastic movie.

00:46:26.000 The Charles Branson Death Wish is a great movie. 0.96

00:46:28.000 It was made during the 1970s in the heyday of New York being an absolute crap hole. 0.98

00:46:32.000 New York being a high crime, awful place to live where Times Square is basically a giant dung heap. 0.98

00:46:37.000 Okay, and that movie is great because it's Charles Bronson and basically the plot of the movie is that these two dogs, one of whom I believe is Jeff Goldblum, like very, very young Jeff Goldblum, they break into his apartment and they rape his wife and daughter and kill his wife and leave his daughter basically catatonic.

00:46:53.000 And he is this kind of soft-spoken architect

00:46:56.000 And Bereft, he just starts basically wandering the streets and one day he tries to confront somebody, gets beaten up by a criminal.

00:47:03.000 He's literally, the movie is literally a liberal mugged by reality.

00:47:07.000 And then the next time he goes out, he takes a roll of quarters in a sock and somebody tries to mug him and he turns around and hits the guy in the face with it.

00:47:16.000 And then he goes out and he gets a gun and he starts basically gunning down every criminal he can find.

00:47:20.000 And the crime rate in New York City begins to plummet because criminals are suddenly afraid they're going to be shot.

00:47:25.000 And people all over the city start to say, OK, well, if I'm going to be mugged, I'm going to fight back.

00:47:29.000 And the city doesn't know what to do, because on the one hand, they've got this vigilante who is just going out and shooting criminals.

00:47:35.000 And on the other hand, the crime rate is dropping precipitously.

00:47:39.000 So the original movie is really good and super politically incorrect.

00:47:42.000 There's even a scene in the original Death Wish from the 1970s with Bronson where Bronson is walking through a party and people are all talking about him, right?

00:47:49.000 They don't know who he is, but they're talking about the vigilante. 0.95

00:47:52.000 And there's this conversation going on where somebody says, I think it's a black person, says, well, I think he's racist because he's disproportionately shooting black people. 0.99

00:48:00.000 And the person answers, well, maybe there should be fewer black criminals and then he wouldn't have to shoot as many black people, basically. 0.99

00:48:05.000 I mean, it's supremely politically incorrect. 0.99

00:48:08.000 My goodness.

00:48:09.000 So the original Death Wish is a good movie.

00:48:10.000 The new version with Eli Roth is not nearly as good.

00:48:13.000 They turn it into sort of a fugitive Death Wish mashup in which it's a deliberate targeting of his home.

00:48:20.000 It's a deliberate robbery and he ends up basically tracking down the people who did this stuff to his wife and his daughter.

00:48:26.000 But

00:48:27.000 It is enjoyable nonetheless.

00:48:28.000 I mean, there's full-scale scenes devoted to him learning how to use a gun, learning how guns work, watching videos on YouTube on how to clean and disassemble a gun, going to a gun shop where there's like this very busty blonde, this kind of upbeat, busty blonde who's explaining how guns work. 0.60

00:48:42.000 It's just great.

00:48:43.000 And it's got some really gory, horrific scenes, but it's not as good as the original Death Wish, but the fact the left hates it so much, it's simply because the movie is pro-gun and anti-crime.

00:48:54.000 It really is that simple.

00:48:55.000 So here's a little bit of the preview.

00:48:58.000 Doc, something's happened.

00:48:59.000 You can't go in there.

00:49:01.000 Dad, where's mom?

00:49:03.000 I love my family.

00:49:06.000 I failed to protect them.

00:49:09.000 I'm sorry, Dr. Kersey.

00:49:10.000 Nothing yet.

00:49:11.000 So there's nothing that I can do?

00:49:12.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:49:13.000 You can have faith.

00:49:17.000 Help faith work out for them.

00:49:18.000 If a man really wants to protect what's his,

00:49:24.000 He has to do it for himself.

00:49:27.000 Okay, so you can see why conservatives would like this film, right?

00:49:30.000 So the film is good.

00:49:32.000 The film is... Well, it's not good.

00:49:34.000 It's not a good film.

00:49:35.000 It's an enjoyable film.

00:49:36.000 So go check it out.

00:49:36.000 Also, Bruce Willis is just fun and everything.

00:49:38.000 Oh man, this scene right here.

00:49:41.000 Yeah, it gets really ugly really quickly.

00:49:43.000 So, yeah, what happens right there is not pleasant.

00:49:47.000 So, okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:49:54.000 All right, so, thing I hate, number one, Bill Clinton says that he has done his penance, right?

00:49:59.000 So he's asked on The Daily Show, they're going to continue to trot out Bill Clinton the left, and they're going to continue to offer him opportunities to pretend that he actually did penance regarding his sexual infidelities and sexual perversions and proclivities during the 1990s, and he's going to continue lying about it.

00:50:15.000 Here's what he said on Comedy Central.

00:50:16.000 The left will let him get away with this, obviously.

00:50:19.000 We're all trying to work our way through, not all of us, but most of us are, trying to work our way through how we can use this moment to build a better country in person after person after person's life.

00:50:32.000 And that should be the number one priority of everybody.

00:50:35.000 That's what we should be, how we should think about this Me Too moment.

00:50:39.000 We can't waste it.

00:50:40.000 We've got to do better.

00:50:41.000 We gotta do better.

00:50:41.000 I love having Bill Clinton lecture all of us on Me Too.

00:50:45.000 Dude, you're credibly alleged to have raped a woman. 0.99

00:50:48.000 And you're credibly alleged to have sexually abused several women. 0.99

00:50:51.000 And now he's sitting there.

00:50:52.000 My favorite part of all these interviews is just that James Patterson, who co-authored this novel with him, has to sit there and deal with it.

00:50:58.000 James Patterson, who's probably the best-selling author of all time, is sitting there just looking like you.

00:51:01.000 Every single interview, he looks like 0.85

00:51:04.000 Okay, I have to show you one more thing that I hate, but also kind of love.

00:51:25.000 This is thanks to Colton.

00:51:27.000 Colton is one of the people, he's employee of the month here at Daily Wire.

00:51:31.000 A prestigious title that comes along with a little note that goes in a frame.

00:51:35.000 But Colton was walking around the office showing this to people, which begs the question as to what he's doing in his off hours.

00:51:41.000 But apparently he saw this tape on YouTube and decided that I had to see it.

00:51:46.000 Apparently there is something called ponying that happens, I guess this is in New Orleans, which

00:51:52.000 Apparently it's a weird place.

00:51:53.000 And let's just play it because there are very few words that can describe what's happening here.

00:51:59.000 We're out here having a pony play competition where people compete in events and classes just the same as real horses do.

00:52:08.000 This is a pony fetish festival.

00:52:11.000 These pony play hobbyists in New Orleans, Louisiana dress up and compete in show jumping events dressed from head to toe in horse gear.

00:52:21.000 Okay, so... When I put the bit in his mouth, it's like a ritual between us.

00:52:25.000 He needs that transition to get into headspace.

00:52:27.000 And I can feel through the bit when he actually kind of changes from like human space to like pony space.

00:52:49.000 Now I'm going to leave him here for a minute for pony space before we take him out and for the reining competition because I found for us during play if I just put him in the gear and then we go immediately do it it doesn't give him time to transition into his head space that allows him to express himself as a pony.

00:53:15.000 Okay, so just to be clear, folks, if you're not watching this, it's not just that they're dressed up in, like, full-on horsesuits.

00:53:19.000 They are not.

00:53:19.000 They're dressed up in basically the GIMP suit from Pulp Fiction, dressed as ponies in GIMP suits, walking around, competing, kicking carts.

00:53:31.000 Um, yeah.

00:53:32.000 So, here's the thing.

00:53:34.000 Here's the thing.

00:53:35.000 Who are we to judge?

00:53:36.000 Can we judge?

00:53:38.000 And who are we to say that these people are not actual ponies?

00:53:41.000 That's the real question.

00:53:42.000 They've entered the pony space.

00:53:45.000 They are now ponies.

00:53:46.000 So, you know, here's the real question.

00:53:49.000 If they say they're a pony, who are you to say they are not a pony?

00:53:52.000 Who are you?

00:53:53.000 Who are you to define them?

00:53:54.000 What makes you so cishuman? 1.00

00:53:56.000 What makes you?

00:53:57.000 Why can't they go by their preferred pronouns?

00:54:00.000 Right?

00:54:00.000 They can be nay, who knows?

00:54:02.000 Any pronoun they choose, why not? 0.98

00:54:04.000 How dare you, sir?

00:54:06.000 How dare you, madam? 1.00

00:54:07.000 How dare she?

00:54:10.000 These are legitimate ponies.

00:54:12.000 These are just as real as the ponies that you would see at a ranch somewhere.

00:54:16.000 Okay?

00:54:16.000 And if they choose to run out there with the ponies, and if they choose to poop in the fields, and if they choose

00:54:23.000 If they choose to use bit and bridle, well, then that is their problem.

00:54:26.000 And you sitting there laughing at them, judging at them, they don't need your scorn.

00:54:29.000 They don't need your scorn.

00:54:31.000 Your bullying is what is causing them their suffering.

00:54:34.000 It is you.

00:54:35.000 Do you understand?

00:54:36.000 It is your fault.

00:54:37.000 It's society's intolerance that creates these sorts of situations where beautiful, stunning, poetic horses like this have to be...

00:54:47.000 They have to be let free only far from the city.

00:54:50.000 Why can't they live among us?

00:54:52.000 Why can't we have beautiful, pristine animals, creatures of God like this among us in the city?

00:54:59.000 Why not?

00:55:00.000 Horses are all part of our lives.

00:55:03.000 Why?

00:55:03.000 Okay, so, you know, I think that it's, uh, I would also say that there is a sad side to pony space.

00:55:11.000 The sad side to pony space is that when they break their legs, you have to shoot them. 0.97

00:55:15.000 And that's the real sad side here. 0.97

00:55:17.000 Because, you know, if they were human and they broke their leg, you would just take them to the hospital.

00:55:19.000 But if they're in the pony space, when they break their legs, they cannot be healed.

00:55:23.000 They are now ponies.

00:55:24.000 And you actually have to put them down for their own sake because the legs are not going to heal.

00:55:27.000 I mean, I suppose you could try to do like they did with that racehorse a few years ago and like suspend them in a pool for a month or something.

00:55:33.000 But are they really worth the trouble?

00:55:36.000 Most horses are not running at the Kentucky Derby.

00:55:38.000 So I don't know.

00:55:39.000 But this is it's very, you know, it's disturbing that we would be so intolerant, that we wouldn't take them seriously, that we would not take their hobbies seriously.

00:55:49.000 They say they have to be vanilla upright citizens Monday through Friday, so to get out and pretend to be something else is so much fun.

00:55:53.000 But they're not pretending.

00:55:55.000 Even this woman doesn't understand the reality of the pony space.

00:55:59.000 Understand the reality of the pony space.

00:56:00.000 Respect the pony space.

00:56:02.000 And if you see one of these ponies on the street, out of the goodness of your heart, give them a carrot and a lump of sugar.

00:56:08.000 Well, we'll be back here next week with all the latest updates, presumably not from Pony Space, because what the living?

00:56:16.000 And we'll have all the updates from the Supreme Court, because Trump's going to be back here on Monday making his Supreme Court decision, I believe, Monday night.

00:56:21.000 So we'll be here for that.

00:56:23.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show, and I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:56:27.000 Thrown off by the pony space, man.

00:56:28.000 Just thrown off by the pony space.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 06, 2018

Goodbye To Pruitt | Ep. 575

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