The Ben Shapiro Show - Is God Political? | Ep. 766

00:00:00.000 Mayor Pete says God has no political party.

00:00:02.000 Kamala Harris flip-flops once more.

00:00:04.000 And Democrats prepare further investigations.

00:00:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:06.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:08.000 Oh, man, a lot happening in the news.

00:00:14.000 We'll get to all of it in just one second.

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00:01:27.000 Okay, so.

00:01:29.000 I want to begin today by talking about a point that was made by Pete Buttigieg, Mayor Pete, the man who is the man of the hour in Democratic media, the guy who is rising from the crowd.

00:01:38.000 He is now running third in Iowa after Bernie and Biden.

00:01:41.000 He is running maybe third nationally after Bernie and Biden.

00:01:45.000 And he's come out of nowhere because obviously he is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a town that is smaller than probably my district.

00:01:53.000 In California, in terms of population.

00:01:55.000 Almost certainly my district in California, in terms of population.

00:01:58.000 That's pretty astonishing.

00:01:59.000 And it has to do with a couple of facts.

00:02:01.000 Fact number one, he's a very articulate guy.

00:02:03.000 Dude knows how to speak.

00:02:05.000 He knows how to handle himself.

00:02:07.000 He has a very strong intellectual background.

00:02:09.000 Obviously went to Harvard.

00:02:09.000 He's a Rhodes Scholar.

00:02:11.000 Studied at Oxford University.

00:02:12.000 Very smart guy.

00:02:14.000 Point number two, he's gay, and that means he has intersectional credibility.

00:02:17.000 He needs both of these things.

00:02:18.000 If he were just a gay guy who did not have this sort of articulateness, he would not be succeeding. 1.00

00:02:22.000 If he were an articulate guy who were not gay, he would be going nowhere inside a democratic primary that values intersectionality above all else. 0.92

00:02:29.000 Intersectionality, radicalism, or name recognition.

00:02:32.000 Those are the top three right there.

00:02:33.000 Intersectionality, Pete Buttigieg.

00:02:35.000 Radicalism, Bernie Sanders.

00:02:36.000 Or name recognition, Joe Biden.

00:02:38.000 Well, Buttigieg is gaining an enormous amount of credibility in the media, too, because members of the media have long been seeking a spokesperson for their bizarre views on religion.

00:02:47.000 Their bizarre view of religion is this.

00:02:49.000 You can call yourself a Christian or a Jew, and you can have You can pick and choose which views you want to abide by in the Bible.

00:02:57.000 You can call yourself biblically literate.

00:03:00.000 You can call yourself a Bible believer.

00:03:02.000 You can call yourself biblically adherent while ignoring vast swaths of the Bible in favor of your preferred leftist politics.

00:03:08.000 This is something that happens widely in the Jewish community.

00:03:11.000 It's also happening increasingly in the Christian community.

00:03:14.000 Now, let me make this clear.

00:03:16.000 I do not believe that religion ought to be discussed as a matter of politics.

00:03:21.000 I don't.

00:03:22.000 Whenever I make a political argument, I don't cite God to back my political argument, nor do I cite the Bible to back my political arguments.

00:03:27.000 Why?

00:03:28.000 Because it's not effective.

00:03:30.000 It's not effective.

00:03:30.000 It's not useful.

00:03:31.000 Many people do not share that frame.

00:03:33.000 I'm arguing based on authority if I do that, and that authority is not held by everyone.

00:03:38.000 So a proper response to what I'm about to say is God doesn't exist or I'm an atheist.

00:03:41.000 That's fine.

00:03:43.000 That doesn't matter.

00:03:43.000 You and I can have a political conversation without invoking God.

00:03:47.000 In fact, as I say, I prefer those sorts of conversations because I think that those are the ones public policy should generally be based on.

00:03:54.000 Every single public policy should have a secular rationale to support it.

00:03:57.000 I say this as a religious person.

00:03:59.000 I do not believe that invoking the Bible is any sort of argument for a public policy decision.

00:04:04.000 I don't.

00:04:05.000 So, put that to one side.

00:04:06.000 There are a group of people on the left who really, really, really want to be able to reach out to religious people by telling those religious people they've gotten their interpretation of text wrong for the last several thousand years.

00:04:16.000 And those people are not truly religious.

00:04:18.000 Truly religious people would be secular leftists.

00:04:20.000 Truly religious people would be people who say that they believe in the Bible, but then read out broad swaths of the Bible.

00:04:26.000 And Mayor Pete is the man for them.

00:04:28.000 Mayor Pete is the guy who is the youth pastor from Sunday School at an Episcopalian church Who will tell you all about how much pizza and guitar are great and how much God loves you.

00:04:38.000 And also we have no standards for behavior here.

00:04:40.000 Everyone is welcomed.

00:04:41.000 Everyone is loved.

00:04:42.000 And sin is not really a thing that you should worry about.

00:04:44.000 You should really just find yourself.

00:04:46.000 Now that is not a true biblically based perspective.

00:04:48.000 The Bible says things.

00:04:50.000 I think we can all agree.

00:04:51.000 The Bible says things.

00:04:52.000 Okay.

00:04:52.000 And those things that the Bible says are supposed to be taken seriously.

00:04:56.000 So again, I'm not speaking to people who believe in a generic version of God, not speaking through the Bible.

00:05:00.000 Buddha Judge proclaims that he is a Christian.

00:05:02.000 That means that purportedly he takes the Bible seriously, both the Old and the New Testaments.

00:05:06.000 This is one of the requirements for being a Christian.

00:05:09.000 Well, folks on the left don't want to take that.

00:05:10.000 They want to say, I'm a Christian because I believe in Jesus, but not because of any of the other stuff.

00:05:14.000 All of the other stuff is uncomfortable.

00:05:16.000 All of the other stuff makes me feel weird.

00:05:18.000 All of the other stuff has moral standards attached to it.

00:05:20.000 And this is why Mayor Pete has become their guy.

00:05:23.000 Because Mayor Pete will go out there and say, I am also a Christian.

00:05:25.000 I'm a deeply believing Christian.

00:05:27.000 And also, I don't abide by any of the traditional categories of sin.

00:05:31.000 Not on traditional sexual mores.

00:05:34.000 Certainly not on abortion.

00:05:36.000 Not on the traditional definition of gender, which also happens to be the biological definition of gender.

00:05:43.000 Mayor Pete basically says, yes on Jesus, no on everything else.

00:05:46.000 And this is something that the media love.

00:05:48.000 The media are very into it.

00:05:49.000 They would like to see religion moved in this direction.

00:05:51.000 Now, religion has been moving in this direction in the United States, and that is why you have been seeing adherents to the church running, screaming away from the church.

00:05:58.000 This is why you have been seeing the increase in secularism and atheism, because the only dividing line between seculars and atheists And the sort of religion that Mayor Pete is promoting here is belief in God.

00:06:10.000 Because the principles are exactly the same.

00:06:12.000 It's just, do you want God or do you not want God?

00:06:13.000 If you don't want God, then you say, well, I'm tough-minded and I don't want God and I don't think God is necessary.

00:06:18.000 I think that he is the thesis that is unnecessary, the unnecessary thesis in the language of Laplace.

00:06:25.000 And so I'm an atheist, or I'm a secularist.

00:06:27.000 And if you believe in God, you say, well, I want a spiritual life, I believe there's something beyond, so I believe in God, but this God doesn't mean that I have to do anything.

00:06:34.000 Or if I do have to do something, it's only the more soft, emotionally-driven commandments.

00:06:39.000 Anything that demands anything of me, no.

00:06:41.000 Anything that says, be a more humble human being in concert with the universe, you know, all of that kind of stuff, the sort of stuff that you could get from a Marianne Williamson lecture, That sort of stuff we will find in the Bible.

00:06:51.000 So the reason that I bring this up is because there is an inactive attempt by members of the media to promote Mayor Pete's version of religion as the true version of religion and Mike Pence's version of religion or the traditional view of religion or biblical scholars view of religion as a sort of intolerant sham.

00:07:09.000 There's a dark underbelly to this attempt.

00:07:12.000 The dark underbelly to this attempt is the attempt to suggest that if you believe in traditional notions of sin, this is because you are a bigot and you are simply covering for your bigotry with God's language.

00:07:23.000 Basically, you're using religion as an excuse to be a bigot.

00:07:26.000 This is what backs a lot of the push for anti-discrimination law that targets religious people.

00:07:31.000 This is what backs the idea from so many people that if you believe, for example, that same-sex marriage is sinful.

00:07:38.000 I'm a libertarian on same-sex marriage when it comes to government.

00:07:40.000 Again, I think all arguments in public policy realms need secular rationales.

00:07:43.000 But when it comes to my personal view of sin, because I'm a biblically living and believing Jew, I believe that homosexual activity is a sin. 0.99

00:07:53.000 The left wants to suggest that that is just thinly veiled bigotry.

00:07:57.000 That even if I didn't believe that stuff, then I would still believe that homosexuality was wrong simply out of bigotry, not out of any natural law beliefs, not of any traditional philosophical beliefs, simply out of sheer hatred and bigotry.

00:08:10.000 This is what undergirds a lot of the argument being made in favor of what Mayor Pete is saying.

00:08:13.000 So I keep invoking Mayor Pete.

00:08:15.000 The reason I invoke Mayor Pete is because this is the hard push that he has been making now for weeks and months, and the media have picked up on it and amplified it.

00:08:22.000 So here is Buttigieg yesterday suggesting that God has no political party.

00:08:27.000 As you know, it can be challenging to be a person of faith who's also a part of the LGBTQ community.

00:08:33.000 And yet, to me, the core of faith is regard for one another.

00:08:38.000 And part of how God's love is experienced, according to my faith tradition, is in the way that we support one another, and in particular, support the least among us.

00:08:48.000 One of the things about Scripture is different people see different things in it.

00:08:51.000 But at the very least, we should be able to establish that God does not have a political party. - Okay, there are a couple of things there that are very much worthy of note and go to this underlying conflict over religious philosophy.

00:09:04.000 Number one, Mayor Pete's version of religion is the same as Barack Obama's version of religion or Hillary Clinton's version of religion.

00:09:09.000 They're going to quote one verse from Matthew about the least among us, and then they're going to ignore the rest of the entire Bible.

00:09:16.000 That is going to be their thing.

00:09:16.000 We have to treat people.

00:09:17.000 Also, they're going to conflate treating people with respect or tolerance with treating their sin with respect or tolerance.

00:09:24.000 So therefore, if you see somebody in front of you who you believe is committing a sin, Even if you treat them nicely, but you don't accept that their sin is decent, then this means that you are not respectful or tolerant.

00:09:36.000 That, of course, is untrue.

00:09:38.000 I, as a religious Jew, I've said this before, you can watch me on Dave Rubin's show, as a religious Jew, I believe homosexual activity is a sin. 1.00

00:09:44.000 I have many, many, many gay friends.

00:09:47.000 The reason that that is relevant is because I treat gay people very well, just the way I would treat everybody else, because it turns out that lots of people that I know sin in a variety of ways of which I do not approve. 0.97

00:09:57.000 I still treat them really well.

00:09:58.000 That does not mean that I have to think that their sins are no longer sins, just as they don't have to take seriously my religious point of view.

00:10:04.000 Differences of opinion are fine so long as we treat each other With a certain modicum of respect.

00:10:08.000 Now, that modicum of respect does not mean I have to violate my religion.

00:10:12.000 It doesn't mean I have to attend a gay wedding.

00:10:13.000 It doesn't mean that I have to cater my services to a same-sex wedding.

00:10:16.000 It doesn't mean that I have to bake a cake for a gender transition ceremony.

00:10:20.000 I don't have to do any of those things.

00:10:22.000 That is not a demand of respect.

00:10:23.000 That's a demand of service.

00:10:25.000 Demand of service is not the same as a demand of respect.

00:10:27.000 Respect just means I have to treat you just as I would any other human being when I deal with you interpersonally.

00:10:32.000 It does not mean that I have to leverage my behavior or my activities on behalf of your specific sin, which is why I've said to my friend Dave Rubin, I'm more than happy to go out to dinner with you and your husband.

00:10:42.000 I'm not willing to go to your gay wedding because one is the celebration of something that I religiously consider sinful, and the other is just me going out with my friends. 1.00

00:10:49.000 And if they commit a sin, that's on them.

00:10:51.000 I mean, that's not really my responsibility.

00:10:54.000 These distinctions matter because what's the underlying drive here is to paint all religious people as bigots, as intolerant.

00:11:01.000 So if I don't do what you want me to do, I'm a bigot and I'm mean and I'm intolerant.

00:11:05.000 I have a right to think what I want about a behavior in which you engage.

00:11:08.000 And you have a right to think that my religion is stupid.

00:11:10.000 You have a right to think whatever you want.

00:11:12.000 And if you want to have a diverse worldview, if you want to have a diverse Society, you're going to need to accept that other people may not think of sin in the same way that you think of sin.

00:11:21.000 And so long as we all treat each other decently when we interact with one another without necessarily green lighting each other's sins or each other's philosophies, then we can have a perfectly nice society.

00:11:33.000 If not, things are going to get really ugly really quickly.

00:11:35.000 Now in a second, I want to explain the second part of Buttigieg's statement where he says that God has no political party.

00:11:40.000 Which I think is half true and 100% disingenuous.

00:11:45.000 I'll explain in just one second.

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00:12:48.000 Okay, so the second half of Mayor Pete's statement there Where he suggests that God has no political party.

00:12:55.000 As I say, that is half true and it's 100% disingenuous.

00:12:58.000 So it is half true because yes, God did not say you must vote Democrat or you must vote Republican.

00:13:04.000 God says that you have free will.

00:13:06.000 You can choose whichever.

00:13:08.000 Nor does God give statements about the party platforms of the two parties.

00:13:12.000 But if you're a Bible believer, and again, this entire conversation is in the context of defining Bible believing.

00:13:18.000 It's in the context of defining Judeo-Christian.

00:13:20.000 So if you don't believe in the Bible, if you don't believe in Judeo-Christian values, this conversation is not for you.

00:13:25.000 And, as I say, this is not an argument that every voting decision must be predicated on your belief in Judeo-Christian values.

00:13:33.000 You can just say, I don't vote along the lines of my religion.

00:13:36.000 That's fine.

00:13:36.000 You can say, I don't vote along the lines of Judeo-Christian values.

00:13:39.000 That's fine, too.

00:13:40.000 It's a free country.

00:13:41.000 The point that I'm making is that if you're like Mayor Pete, and you're going to invoke Judeo-Christian values and the biblical God in order to back your position, as Mayor Pete does on a routine basis, It's a package deal.

00:13:51.000 You know, it gets pick and choose.

00:13:53.000 When I say that Mayor Pete leverages his religion on behalf of his politics on a routine basis, I mean it.

00:14:00.000 So for example, Pete Buttigieg said just the other day that he is faithful because he is humble, whereas President Trump is not.

00:14:06.000 He said this in the same interview on CNN.

00:14:08.000 Part of where I'm coming from is a faith tradition that counsels me to be as humble as possible, that counsels me to look after those who need defending.

00:14:18.000 And frankly, it couldn't be more radically different than what I see certainly in this White House, where there's a lot of chest-thumping and self-aggrandizing.

00:14:28.000 Not to mention abusive behavior.

00:14:30.000 So President Trump obviously does not believe in God, whereas Pete Buttigieg believes in God.

00:14:34.000 That's according to Pete Buttigieg.

00:14:35.000 He's the one making the religious arguments right now.

00:14:37.000 So since Buttigieg is going to make religious arguments, I'm going to make religious counter-arguments.

00:14:41.000 When he says that he is humble, there's nothing less humble than I can imagine, that I can imagine, as a religious person, than going in and willy-nilly rewriting 3,000 years of biblical history.

00:14:51.000 That seems pretty non-humble to me.

00:14:53.000 And as you'll see, Pete Buttigieg does this on a routine basis.

00:14:56.000 So I'm not a big believer that Donald Trump is a religious man in any traditional sense.

00:15:01.000 I don't think that he believes in traditional definitions of sin either, or if he does, I don't think that he abides by them.

00:15:06.000 He's a sinner in the way that everybody else is a sinner, maybe more so.

00:15:10.000 But for Buttigieg to stand there and say, I am a humble servant, whereas Donald Trump is an arrogant man, Okay, he may be more humble than Trump in some ways.

00:15:20.000 He is not more humble in the sense that Donald Trump is not the one coming forward and saying, oh yeah, these millions of believers who have believed this stuff for the last 3,000 years and it's written in the text.

00:15:29.000 I'm just going to override all of that because that's how I feel about things.

00:15:32.000 That seems pretty arrogant to me.

00:15:34.000 I'll show you evidence of this arrogance in just one second.

00:15:36.000 So, evidence of Pete Buttigieg's arrogance.

00:15:38.000 Number one, Pete Buttigieg is in favor of late-term abortion.

00:15:42.000 Now, again, you can argue God has no political party because God doesn't say in the Bible, vote Republican or vote Democrat, but God does have principles in the Bible.

00:15:51.000 God is not silent on issues of morality in the Bible.

00:15:53.000 The Bible is a long, long, morally based document.

00:15:57.000 It establishes a system of ethics and morality.

00:16:00.000 God has things to say about issues that affect us now.

00:16:04.000 Religious values do have implications for politics.

00:16:07.000 So, for example, if you are a religious believer, you cannot read the Bible and come away with, it's okay to abort a baby at any point during the term.

00:16:14.000 There's just no way you can do that.

00:16:15.000 There's no way you can do that.

00:16:16.000 Whether you are reading Psalms, or whether you're reading the Old Testament, or whether you're reading the New Testament, there is just nothing in there.

00:16:23.000 There is nothing in there that suggests that you can abort a fully grown baby inside the womb.

00:16:28.000 Nothing.

00:16:29.000 There is nothing in the Old or New Testament that suggests that homosexual activity is not sinful, for example. 1.00

00:16:35.000 Now, again, you don't have to agree with any of this.

00:16:38.000 That's fine.

00:16:38.000 That's your prerogative.

00:16:39.000 And this doesn't have to have implications for public policy.

00:16:42.000 But what you cannot do is claim that a religious perspective says X because I want it to say X. And you cannot claim, if you claim to believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that God is silent on these issues because God is not silent on these issues.

00:16:55.000 By the way, you can believe that something is a sin without government having to legislate it.

00:16:59.000 I'm a libertarian.

00:17:00.000 I believe that people are basically allowed to sin so long as they are not harming anyone else.

00:17:04.000 Which is why I was libertarian on same-sex marriage before Obergefell, and why I have been in favor of legislation barring abortion since forever.

00:17:12.000 Because one harms a human, and another is a consensual relationship.

00:17:15.000 There's a difference in terms of secular public policy.

00:17:18.000 I never make a religious argument on this sort of stuff.

00:17:20.000 But, from a religious perspective, God is not silent on either of these issues.

00:17:24.000 God is not silent on the issue of, for example, the differences between the sexes.

00:17:30.000 Male and female, He created them. 0.99

00:17:31.000 God is not silent on this, if you're a Bible believer.

00:17:34.000 God is not silent on the idea of government fixing all of your problems.

00:17:38.000 God does not believe that government ought to fix all of your problems.

00:17:42.000 God believes that God is God, not government as God.

00:17:44.000 God certainly doesn't believe in anti-religious discrimination, which is something the Democratic Party seems very much in favor of these days. 0.99

00:17:50.000 So, if you're going to match up God's priorities with party priorities, that's something that every religious person is going to have to do.

00:17:57.000 So when Buttigieg says, God has no political party, that's his easy sloganeering way of ignoring the fact that if you're a religious person, you have to match up your values with a party that matches your values.

00:18:10.000 God doesn't have a political party, but God does have values, and you as a human being are going to have to decide which of these two parties mirrors those values better.

00:18:18.000 That's perfectly logical.

00:18:20.000 And as I tweeted out yesterday, I agree.

00:18:22.000 God doesn't have a political party.

00:18:24.000 And maybe you believe that God is more concerned about tax rates, progressive tax rates, than he is about abortion.

00:18:31.000 I'd have to see the evidence for that.

00:18:32.000 But if you believe that, make that argument.

00:18:36.000 But I can tell you this.

00:18:37.000 There is no evidence that God would support a party that supports infanticide, late-term abortion, same-sex marriage, And more than same-sex marriage, the use of same-sex marriage to cram down against religious institutions, practices that violate their specific beliefs, anti-discrimination laws that target religious people.

00:18:55.000 There's no evidence that they would back that God would be super in favor of the abolition of sex, of biological sex.

00:19:04.000 And so, God does have perspectives.

00:19:06.000 I know, there are a lot of people out there who are like, why are you talking about God?

00:19:08.000 Because Buttigieg is talking about God.

00:19:10.000 On this program, go back, listen to the entire history of the program.

00:19:13.000 The number of times I've mentioned God on this program in a religious context, in a truly religious context, probably it's less than the number of fingers on my hands in the course of the four-year history of this program.

00:19:25.000 But I'm mentioning it now because Buttigieg is trying to make a move that I think is actually philosophically dangerous.

00:19:32.000 And here's an example.

00:19:32.000 So Buttigieg says God has no political party, and then he's asked, okay, fine.

00:19:35.000 So what does God say about abortion?

00:19:37.000 Listen to him stumble over this.

00:19:38.000 Your candidacy now, officially, has also piqued the interest of religious conservatives.

00:19:43.000 They talk about the sanctity of life, and they can't get past your support of late-term abortion.

00:19:48.000 What do you say to them?

00:19:49.000 To me, it's a very complex issue that should be guided by a very simple principle, which is that having these things dictated by government does not make that decision any easier.

00:20:00.000 In some ways, some of these questions are...

00:20:03.000 Religious or metaphysical, however you want to put them, they're not things that are knowable in a traditional sense.

00:20:10.000 But to people who would criticize that, they'd say, actually, it is a pretty easy answer.

00:20:14.000 These are the women facing some of the most unbelievably excruciating decisions.

00:20:19.000 This is why Buttigieg is being arrogant, and this is why he's being a liar.

00:20:22.000 He's being a liar when it comes to religion.

00:20:24.000 If he wants to say, I disagree with the traditional religion on abortion, that's fine. 0.95

00:20:29.000 But you can't say that someone says something that they do not.

00:20:32.000 That's unfair and it's wrong, whether you're quoting the Bible or you're quoting another person.

00:20:36.000 To quote somebody and say this is what they are saying when that is not what they are saying is silly.

00:20:41.000 When Buttigieg suggests that he has a religious set of values and then he's asked directly about abortion and he immediately reverts to narrow, pro-choice America language.

00:20:52.000 He at least has to acknowledge the conflict.

00:20:54.000 As I said before, it is not a sign of human... In fact, Dennis Prager is a religious scholar.

00:20:59.000 He has an entire series coming out with commentaries on the Bible.

00:21:03.000 His interpretation of the commandment in the Bible, that thou shalt not bear a false witness, or that thou shalt... It's actually, thou shalt not use God's name in vain.

00:21:10.000 That particular commandment, thou shalt not use God's name in vain.

00:21:13.000 Dennis's interpretation, I think this is largely backed by the text, and I think that ideologically is correct, is that using God's name in vain is not about you shouting, It's not about you using God's name in the middle of a curse or something, just saying God bleep.

00:21:27.000 That's not what taking God's name in vain means.

00:21:29.000 Dennis says, and I think this is correct, that taking God's name in vain is quoting in the name of God the reverse of what God says.

00:21:36.000 So saying that God says X, when in reality God says not X, is a sign of deep intellectual arrogance, not a sign of humility.

00:21:45.000 So does God have a political party?

00:21:46.000 No.

00:21:46.000 Does God have principles?

00:21:47.000 Yes.

00:21:48.000 Do you have to decide how those principles apply to modern-day politics?

00:21:51.000 Absolutely, if this is something you care about.

00:21:53.000 And if you don't care about it, good for you.

00:21:55.000 That's fine.

00:21:56.000 You don't have to.

00:21:56.000 But Pete Buttigieg keeps suggesting that he is speaking from a religiously-based perspective?

00:22:00.000 Okay, well then he's going to have to explain how that meshes with the Bible itself.

00:22:05.000 This is his standard, not mine.

00:22:07.000 I don't have to explain how my perspectives match up with the Bible because I don't say that my secular standards match up with the Bible.

00:22:14.000 He has a very easy answer on all of this stuff, by the way.

00:22:17.000 And his very easy answer is, yes, I'm a religious person, but I don't believe that religion ought to have any impact on public policy.

00:22:23.000 It's very easy for him to say that.

00:22:25.000 He won't say that because he is attempting to twist the very nature of what religious practice is to fit his definition of politics so he can appeal, presumably, to people who believe that religion and politics are deeply intertwined.

00:22:38.000 That's a clever move, but it's not an honest move.

00:22:40.000 Okay.

00:22:41.000 In a second, we're going to talk about the other 2020 Democratic candidates because this race is heating up.

00:22:46.000 First, let's talk about Dollar Shave Club.

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00:23:51.000 All righty.

00:23:51.000 Meanwhile, the other Democratic candidates are having a little bit of trouble.

00:23:55.000 So Joe Biden is preparing to launch his campaign.

00:23:59.000 He's supposed to launch his campaign tomorrow with some sort of online video.

00:24:02.000 And then the idea is that he's going to travel to Pennsylvania and he's going to give his first address in some sort of Philadelphia Union Hall, which is exactly where he should, right?

00:24:10.000 I mean, that is the smart political move.

00:24:12.000 His base is going to be in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin.

00:24:15.000 At least that is the case that he is making.

00:24:17.000 He can win back the states that President Trump won when he broke the so-called While Biden is set to announce on Thursday with an online video, according to people familiar with the plans, they are reporting it to CNN.

00:24:28.000 The former VP's team has been laying the campaign groundwork for months, with Biden's decision growing less secretive or suspenseful by the day.

00:24:34.000 But now that he has given the green light to his advisors, says CNN, Biden is facing one of the biggest challenges of his half-century career in politics.

00:24:40.000 He's scheduled to hold his first campaign event in Pittsburgh on Monday.

00:24:43.000 Sorry, not Philadelphia, Pittsburgh.

00:24:44.000 A source said he plans to hit the road to early voting states of Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire in the coming days.

00:24:50.000 His political action committee, American Possibilities, sent an email to supporters on Tuesday to urge them to sign up for the news.

00:24:56.000 We'll cut to the chase, the message said.

00:24:57.000 There's been a lot of chatter about what Joe Biden plans to do.

00:25:00.000 As one of Joe's top supporters, we want you to be the first to know.

00:25:03.000 He's jumping into a race already in progress, likely becoming the 20th Democrat to declare candidacy.

00:25:08.000 He's closely watched the campaign from the sidelines, they'd say, following the policy debates and the introduction of rising stars less than half his age.

00:25:15.000 This will mark his third run for the White House.

00:25:17.000 Everything is different this time because this time he was vice president for Barack Obama, although he ran in 88 and 2008 and was a giant fail.

00:25:25.000 Now, everyone is sort of forgetting that Joe Biden is a terrible campaigner.

00:25:28.000 Everybody seems to be forgetting the fact that he is good as a VP campaigner because he's not the guy at the top of the ticket.

00:25:34.000 People weren't voting for Joe Biden in 2008 or 2012.

00:25:36.000 They were voting for Barack Obama.

00:25:38.000 If they've been voting for Joe Biden, it doesn't go quite the same way.

00:25:42.000 People only like Joe Biden when he is talking about other people.

00:25:45.000 When Joe Biden talks about himself, he is far less popular, which is why he was a fail in 1988 and had to drop out over a plagiarism scandal.

00:25:52.000 And then in 2008, he botched it within the very beginning of the run by suggesting that Barack Obama was the first, quote, clean and articulate black man ever to run for president of the United States.

00:26:03.000 Joe Biden is a gaffe machine.

00:26:05.000 People forget this.

00:26:05.000 The more he is on the stump, the more he will gaffe.

00:26:07.000 The more he gaffes, the more there will be people like Pete Buttigieg waiting in the wings to stab him in the back.

00:26:12.000 Joe Biden also has made a strategic mistake here.

00:26:16.000 He waited too long to get in because there's a lingering question whether he can fundraise, particularly in small dollars.

00:26:22.000 There are a lot of Democratic bigwigs who want to get behind him, but how many of the truly motivated base players are ready to hand their five or ten dollars to him?

00:26:29.000 Bernie Sanders has tons of those people.

00:26:32.000 How many of those people are going to turn to Joe Biden?

00:26:34.000 I wonder.

00:26:35.000 There are 20 candidates in this race.

00:26:37.000 Everybody has their own particular favorite.

00:26:39.000 The polls are split 1,000 different ways, and that means that Joe Biden is going to have to suck up an inordinate number of dollars to truly do damage, at least from the grassroots.

00:26:47.000 I'm not sure he does that.

00:26:48.000 As I say, I think that the best day for Joe Biden may be his first day.

00:26:51.000 Now, he is getting some help, apparently, from the University of Delaware.

00:26:55.000 According to Brent Scherr over at The Free Beacon, the University of Delaware library is in possession of nearly 2,000 boxes of archival records covering Joe Biden's 36 years as a senator, but has not committed to releasing them before the presidential election.

00:27:09.000 I mean, this is insane.

00:27:10.000 You have thousands of pages at the University of Delaware, which I believe is a state school, and they're not going to release it before the election?

00:27:18.000 What is this nonsense?

00:27:19.000 The same people who are fighting mad that Donald Trump has never released his tax returns are now saying that they want to cover up thousands of pages of Joe Biden's Senate records?

00:27:29.000 Those things should be a matter of public record.

00:27:30.000 I mean, he does have a library.

00:27:32.000 The records were donated by Biden to his alma mater during his first term as vice president in 2011.

00:27:37.000 Biden stipulated when he donated the papers, their release could come no sooner than two years after Biden retires from any public office, according to the library.

00:27:44.000 Well, Biden left office January 20th, 2017, but now the library says that they have made a new agreement with Joe Biden to keep the archive closed until at least the end of the year.

00:27:54.000 Why would they make that new agreement exactly?

00:27:56.000 Why would they do that?

00:27:58.000 I mean, they don't have to.

00:27:59.000 The agreement's already over.

00:28:01.000 And this sets a pretty bad precedent, which is you turn your papers over, and then you just don't do any— and then you dictate that they can never become public.

00:28:08.000 So then what was the purpose of you turning them over?

00:28:11.000 The Biden senatorial papers are indeed still closed pending the completion of processing still underway and as per our agreement with the donor, which is that the papers would remain closed until the later date of December 31st, 2019 or two years after the donor retires from public service.

00:28:25.000 They say that they won't guarantee the archive would open to the public immediately once the Biden imposed deadline had passed.

00:28:31.000 In a Thursday morning email, the head of the library said there were no other stipulations on the release of papers made by the donor.

00:28:39.000 Last December, the university launched the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.

00:28:44.000 So he has a pretty cozy relationship, obviously, with the University of Delaware.

00:28:48.000 So what exactly does Joe Biden have to hide in those Senate records?

00:28:51.000 Who the hell knows?

00:28:52.000 And meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has more to hide.

00:28:55.000 It turns out that Bernie Sanders has been drawing his mayoral pension.

00:28:58.000 It's wonderful to be a socialist when you're at the top of the chain.

00:29:00.000 When you're at the top of the government chain, then you get to live high on the hog.

00:29:04.000 It's one of the beautiful things about being a socialist.

00:29:06.000 Socialists like to rail about income inequality.

00:29:08.000 The true income inequality in a socialist country is everybody else living in penury, and you living off the government largesse, off taxpayer dollars.

00:29:14.000 Bernie Sanders has been drawing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for the last four decades.

00:29:20.000 And now he complains that America just isn't generous enough.

00:29:24.000 It turns out that Sanders, who earns $174,000 a year as a senator, received about $5,000 from Burlington, Vermont's pension system in 2018.

00:29:33.000 He's still drawing a pension for his eight-year stint from the 1980s as mayor of Burlington.

00:29:38.000 He could forgo that.

00:29:40.000 But Bernie?

00:29:41.000 Forgo a buck?

00:29:41.000 Are you kidding?

00:29:42.000 I wrote a bestselling book!

00:29:44.000 I will not give that money up.

00:29:46.000 His total income with his wife last year Or in 2018, was $561,000.

00:29:51.000 That was down from the more than $1 million they earned in the prior two years, largely as a result of his book about running for president in 2016.

00:29:58.000 The practice is not illegal.

00:30:00.000 It's not unknown in Congress either.

00:30:02.000 There are a bunch of people in Congress who double dip, but it doesn't look great.

00:30:07.000 It doesn't look great.

00:30:08.000 In fact, former Obama administration official, Ro Khanna, conducting a challenge to incumbent representative Mike Honda of California, blasted his fellow Democrat, Honda, for double dipping.

00:30:19.000 Well, Ro Khanna is now part of Sanders' second bid for the White House.

00:30:23.000 He's one of four national co-chairs of Sanders' campaign.

00:30:26.000 So I guess his perspective on double-dipping has gone completely by the wayside.

00:30:29.000 David Sirota told CNBC, quote, Wonderful that the people of Burlington can continue to pay Bernie Sanders.

00:30:34.000 He's raking in millions of dollars.

00:30:35.000 for his service as mayor of Burlington.

00:30:37.000 Wonderful that the people of Burlington can continue to pay Bernie Sanders.

00:30:40.000 He's raking in millions of dollars.

00:30:42.000 They're $5,000 a year because he once served as mayor back when I was in diapers.

00:30:48.000 So that's pretty exciting stuff.

00:30:50.000 In a second, we'll get to some of the other Democratic candidates.

00:30:52.000 Kamala Harris having a rough go of it.

00:30:54.000 Basically, every time Kamala Harris says anything, she has to backtrack it within 24 hours. 1.00

00:30:58.000 It's actually a rule of her campaign.

00:30:59.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:31:00.000 First...

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00:31:04.000 How about their bold defense of antisemitism in the house?

00:31:07.000 How about their definition of bold is just wrong?

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00:32:13.000 Okay, so we have a lot more to get to on today's show, but you're gonna have to subscribe.

00:32:16.000 DailyWire.com, $9.99 a month.

00:32:18.000 Get to the rest of the show.

00:32:18.000 Two additional hours of the show every afternoon.

00:32:20.000 Now this week, I'm off from my radio show because of Passover. 0.97

00:32:24.000 I've decided to take a little bit of relaxation time with the family, but...

00:32:27.000 You can still get two additional hours of other hosts.

00:32:30.000 I think it's Jason Rantz today, or Jeremy Boring hosted it yesterday.

00:32:35.000 I'll have to find out for you.

00:32:36.000 In any case, next week we'll be back with the two additional hours every afternoon.

00:32:39.000 You get to be part of our mailbag.

00:32:40.000 You get all sorts of wonderful goodies.

00:32:42.000 And when you subscribe annually, you get the very greatest in beverage vessels, the leftist tiers, hot or cold Tumblr.

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00:33:06.000 Make sure that you leave us a review.

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00:33:08.000 By the way, We were, according to statistics, the second most downloaded news podcast in America for the entire last month, following only the New York Times as the daily.

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00:33:20.000 it.

00:33:20.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the United States.

00:33:24.000 All righty.

00:33:25.000 So Elizabeth Warren is in the race. 0.90

00:33:30.000 Beto O'Rourke is in the race.

00:33:34.000 Bill de Blasio is in the race.

00:33:36.000 But the rest of the 2020 Democratic candidate field is led by Kamala Harris.

00:33:39.000 So Kamala Harris has an unfortunate habit. 1.00

00:33:41.000 The senator from California says things, and then she realizes they are dumb things, and then she walks back to dumb things.

00:33:46.000 So she has done this multiple times already in the race.

00:33:49.000 Virtually every time she appears on CNN, she feels like she has to appease the crowd that is in front of her, and then she has to walk it back.

00:33:55.000 So you'll remember that last time she was on CNN for her town hall, she suggested she wanted to do away with all private health insurance plans. 1.00

00:34:02.000 And then within a week, she backtracked that by saying, well, maybe we could do that, but maybe we won't do that.

00:34:08.000 Well, In the last 48 hours, she was on CNN saying that we should seriously study the question as to whether terrorists sitting in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, ought to be able to vote from prison.

00:34:19.000 And then she realized, oh, this is a bad idea.

00:34:21.000 And then she walked it back.

00:34:23.000 It's that kind of decisive leadership I think America is really seeking and looking for.

00:34:27.000 The decisive leadership of Kamala Harris, who will decisively steer in one direction, and then, when rejected, decisively steer in precisely the reverse direction.

00:34:35.000 Here is Kamala Harris.

00:34:36.000 You'll hear her complete reversal within 24 hours right here.

00:34:39.000 I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship.

00:34:45.000 But people who are convicted, in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted of sexual assault, they should be able to vote?

00:34:54.000 I think we should have that conversation.

00:34:56.000 Do I think that people who commit murder, people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights?

00:35:01.000 Yeah, I do.

00:35:02.000 Oh, well, that's different, isn't it?

00:35:04.000 I mean, wow, what could have happened to change her mind within such a short period of time?

00:35:09.000 Clearly, it must have been new evidence or compelling arguments, or alternatively, everybody looked at her and said, a lady, what are you talking about? 0.99

00:35:16.000 That is some crazy bleep.

00:35:18.000 I think it's the crazy bleep thing, probably.

00:35:20.000 So Kamala Harris, the reason that she is flailing is because she's basically a combination of the worst aspects of Hillary Clinton and Kyrsten Gillibrand. 1.00

00:35:28.000 Yes, I understand.

00:35:29.000 She's super intersectional.

00:35:30.000 Woo! 0.99

00:35:30.000 But, aside from her being super intersectional, she's got nothing. 0.99

00:35:34.000 She's as charmless as Hillary Clinton, she laughs just as weirdly and awkwardly every time she's caught in a lie, and she flips positions like Kyrsten Gillibrand at a Twister party.

00:35:44.000 It's amazing.

00:35:45.000 It's amazing.

00:35:46.000 So I think that Kamala Harris is the reason Pete Buttigieg is gaining.

00:35:50.000 Listen, this is a wide open race.

00:35:52.000 Any Democrat could have grabbed the mantle here. 0.98

00:35:54.000 None of them have.

00:35:56.000 I think even Pete Buttigieg is going to start receding.

00:35:58.000 The reason I think Buttigieg will start receding is because I think his record will come under fire.

00:36:01.000 And also because the part that is the part about Buttigieg that is attractive is the fact that he pretends to be a moderate when he is not.

00:36:09.000 As he moves away from moderation, And he will be forced to by the other Democratic candidates.

00:36:14.000 I think that he will become less popular over time.

00:36:16.000 Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren is getting owned by the Washington Post editorial board.

00:36:22.000 By the Washington Post editorial board.

00:36:23.000 So she came out with another one for audacious, bold, incredible plans.

00:36:27.000 Audacious and bold.

00:36:29.000 Our media synonyms were incredibly stupid.

00:36:31.000 She came out with her plan earlier this week to forgive all student loan debt, which makes perfect sense because we want to make sure that all the middle income and middle upper income and rich people in the country who incurred student loan debt, people like Pete Buttigieg, who admitted yesterday that he had $100,000 in student loan debt.

00:36:45.000 By the way, I think a basic rule of thumb, you shouldn't be elected president if you still have student loan debt.

00:36:51.000 It seems to me that a very basic function of you being a responsible adult is you paid off your student loan debt.

00:36:55.000 But put that aside, Elizabeth Warren suggested that all the upper-income people who went to college should have their student loan debt removed from them, which doesn't make any sense.

00:37:05.000 Also, it punishes people who actually spent the money to pay off the student loan debt.

00:37:08.000 I know, I've paid off two student loan debts.

00:37:10.000 I've paid off my own from Harvard Law School, and I paid off my wife's medical school loan debts.

00:37:15.000 So I'm very well aware of student loan debt and how much it costs and how you have to pay for it.

00:37:19.000 But those were choices we make to incur debt.

00:37:22.000 And then we paid off the debt like responsible humans.

00:37:24.000 Even the Washington Post is looking at Elizabeth Warren and going, lady, you're too radical for us. 1.00

00:37:28.000 When you are too radical for the Washington Post editorial board, you may have lost the thread of the plot.

00:37:33.000 The Washington Post editorial board says the nation's households owe almost $1.5 trillion in student loans, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

00:37:41.000 This represents a burden on many families, which under Ms. Warren's plan would disappear completely for 75% of them, and at least partially for 95% of them.

00:37:49.000 No one can accuse Ms. 0.97

00:37:50.000 Warren of thinking small.

00:37:51.000 One of the things I love about the very objective editorial boards at our nation's newspapers is when they see a stupid idea and then they soft-pedal how stupid the idea is.

00:38:01.000 No one can accuse Ms. 0.97

00:38:02.000 Warren of thinking small.

00:38:03.000 It's a synonym for, this is a stupid idea, but she's audacious and bold and bold and audacious and bodacious and old.

00:38:11.000 What she really needs is a better sense of proportion, is what the Washington Post says.

00:38:15.000 Her premise seems to be that student debt is all burden and no benefit, but this is not true.

00:38:19.000 It represents an investment in skill acquisition that pays substantial long-term benefits.

00:38:24.000 This is true!

00:38:25.000 So, I love that the Washington Post is now ripping on Elizabeth Warren. 1.00

00:38:29.000 So, she's got troubles, too.

00:38:30.000 There's a reason that she is not launching.

00:38:32.000 Other candidates in trouble.

00:38:33.000 Apparently, Beto O'Rourke... Beto?

00:38:35.000 That dude's in trouble as well.

00:38:37.000 Why?

00:38:38.000 Because he's no longer running against Ted Cruz, yeah.

00:38:41.000 So...

00:38:42.000 The good news for Beto O'Rourke is he was running against Ted Cruz.

00:38:45.000 Not that Ted is a super weak candidate, but Beto O'Rourke received the unstinting applause and accolades of the entire mainstream media, which they hate Ted Cruz with a passion.

00:38:56.000 They hate Senator Cruz.

00:38:57.000 And so Beto O'Rourke, I mean, he could have been a ham sandwich and they'd have been like, this is the greatest ham sandwich.

00:39:02.000 This ham sandwich will probably save the world.

00:39:04.000 This ham sandwich cures cancer.

00:39:07.000 And then, as soon as the race is over, they're like, ah, this ham sandwich has mold on it.

00:39:11.000 This ham sandwich is kind of gross.

00:39:13.000 I feel like it's spoiled.

00:39:15.000 The bread is not high quality.

00:39:16.000 That's what's happening with Beto O'Rourke.

00:39:17.000 He's the ham sandwich.

00:39:19.000 So, Beto O'Rourke, it's now found.

00:39:21.000 Shockingly, the media have somehow tracked down the officers on the scene of his 1998 DWI.

00:39:27.000 That's amazing!

00:39:28.000 He's been in the public view for years and years and years.

00:39:31.000 He was in the public view running against Ted Cruz for a year and a half.

00:39:34.000 And yet no one could track down the mysterious police officers who were there for his DWI.

00:39:39.000 Until now.

00:39:41.000 The former police officer who arrested Beto O'Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time.

00:39:49.000 O'Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he caused.

00:39:51.000 O'Rourke admits he was intoxicated, says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee.

00:39:57.000 Beto's DWI is something he has long publicly and openly addressed, said O'Rourke's spokesperson.

00:40:02.000 But neither the investigating officer nor his former supervisor specifically recalls the events of that night.

00:40:07.000 They said the report they compiled and signed is accurate.

00:40:10.000 However, they say there is no doubt he tried to leave the scene of the DWI.

00:40:14.000 Weird, because the media allowed him to get away with this for years when he was running against Cruz.

00:40:17.000 Suddenly, he's running against Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

00:40:21.000 And oh, now we have to report on Beto.

00:40:23.000 And Beto's like, dude, what happened?

00:40:25.000 Why are you ripping on me?

00:40:27.000 I'm just ripping this bong.

00:40:28.000 Why are you ripping on me?

00:40:30.000 And the answer is he's no longer running against Ted Cruz.

00:40:33.000 OK, we'll get to a couple of other Democratic candidates and then we'll get to the Democrats, the Democratic members of Congress seeking new subpoenas and all the rest.

00:40:41.000 So other Democratic candidates for president.

00:40:43.000 So he has not declared yet, nor should he.

00:40:45.000 But Bill de Blasio continues to be just world's stupidest human.

00:40:51.000 One of the things that I love about New Yorkers is that they truly believe they're the smartest people on planet Earth.

00:40:56.000 They really do.

00:40:56.000 I mean, they believe their city is the greatest.

00:40:58.000 New York City's amazing.

00:40:59.000 They believe they're the smartest people on planet Earth.

00:41:02.000 Some New Yorkers are smart, but you guys elected Bill de Blasio.

00:41:06.000 That was you, I didn't do it.

00:41:08.000 Okay, so don't tell me how smart you are.

00:41:10.000 I don't claim that Los Angelinos are smart.

00:41:12.000 We elected Antonio Villaraigosa to be our mayor, and then we followed that genius move up with Eric Garcetti.

00:41:17.000 I'm not pretending that my city is full of geniuses, but New Yorkers seem to have this perspective that their city is completely full of people with 150 IQs.

00:41:25.000 Your mayor is this doofus, Bill de Blasio, who announced over the last 48 hours that he doesn't want any more buildings made of steel and glass in the city of New York.

00:41:36.000 What are you made of?

00:41:36.000 Hemp?

00:41:37.000 Groundhog corpses?

00:41:39.000 What exactly?

00:41:40.000 Here's Bill de Blasio.

00:41:41.000 We're going to introduce legislation to ban the glass and steel skyscrapers that have contributed so much to global warming.

00:41:53.000 They have no place in our city or in our earth anymore.

00:41:56.000 If a company wants to build a big skyscraper, they can use a lot of glass if they do all the other things needed to reduce the emissions.

00:42:05.000 But putting up monuments to themselves that harmed our earth and threatened our future, that will no longer be allowed in New York City.

00:42:15.000 Yeah, let's tear down the city! 0.99

00:42:17.000 Woo! 0.99

00:42:17.000 My goodness. 0.99

00:42:17.000 Apparently, people inside the industry are like, um, what? 0.99

00:42:19.000 is made of two things, steel and glass.

00:42:21.000 So where do you want to start?

00:42:22.000 The Empire State Building or should we head over to the Chrysler Building?

00:42:24.000 Where should we start with this thing?

00:42:26.000 Steel and glass.

00:42:27.000 My goodness.

00:42:28.000 Apparently, people inside the industry are like, I'm what?

00:42:32.000 Everyone in the real estate industry was saying, what is this?

00:42:35.000 Glassy buildings are the rage among designers.

00:42:38.000 You know why?

00:42:38.000 Because they're nice.

00:42:39.000 Because when you sit inside a giant glass building, you get to look out over the world, and it's really pretty.

00:42:44.000 You know what's not nice?

00:42:45.000 Giant, gulag-style, East Germany cement blocks. 0.54

00:42:51.000 Those were all the rage in the 1970s, and they were ugly.

00:42:54.000 They were seriously ugly.

00:42:56.000 de Blasio said, We certainly felt the opposition at the real estate lobby in these last months, but to the credit of everyone there, we said we don't care how much opposition there is.

00:43:04.000 So, good luck with this.

00:43:05.000 All he wants to do is make New York City uglier.

00:43:08.000 Uglier.

00:43:08.000 Okay, that... Nice.

00:43:11.000 Nice Bill de Blasio.

00:43:12.000 Okay, meanwhile, the Democrats are still trying to push forward.

00:43:16.000 With more subpoenas and investigations against the Trump administration.

00:43:20.000 Adam Schiff is writing, he wrote a piece for the Washington Post about President Trump and ensuring he's not working for foreign interests.

00:43:28.000 The fact that he is even still able to show his face in public after spending years claiming that he has inside information, that President Trump was a stooge of the Kremlin, is simply incredible.

00:43:37.000 But he has a full piece at the Washington Post today, this dolt, saying that the president of the United States may in fact be still working for other outside influences.

00:43:46.000 He says that that the counterintelligence investigations showed that the president was deceiving people about Trump Tower Moscow, which means he was really in the pay of the Russians.

00:43:56.000 And all this is many Americans have expressed deep concerns that foreign powers, especially Russia, cultivated or possessed financial leverage or influence over President Trump or his associates.

00:44:04.000 Why did those many Americans say that, Representative Schiff?

00:44:07.000 Maybe because someone on the House Intelligence Committee kept going out there and lying about his inside information?

00:44:11.000 Could that be it?

00:44:12.000 Could that be the problem?

00:44:13.000 But the Democrats are using this as the jumping-off point to try and push for more information from President Trump.

00:44:19.000 They want more subpoenas.

00:44:20.000 They want his tax returns.

00:44:22.000 Now, Their claim to get his tax returns is actually fairly strong.

00:44:26.000 Just legally speaking, the Democrats do have the power.

00:44:28.000 The legislative branch does have the power to investigate.

00:44:31.000 And in fact, there were a lot of people over the last couple of weeks talking about the Mueller report who said that really the power to investigate things like the Mueller report, which may become the basis for impeachment hearings, that shouldn't be done inside the president's executive branch.

00:44:43.000 That should be done inside the legislative branch. 0.99

00:44:45.000 That is what the separation of powers means.

00:44:47.000 I am one of the people who suggested this.

00:44:49.000 That means that Congress has investigative powers.

00:44:52.000 Now, the law may be too broad.

00:44:54.000 There is a law right now that allows the House to request tax returns from any private citizen, which I believe is too broad.

00:45:01.000 I think that violates privacy concerns.

00:45:04.000 I think it's a bad law, and it should be changed.

00:45:06.000 And maybe it violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution about unreasonable search and seizure.

00:45:11.000 But the law is on the books right now.

00:45:12.000 Democrats do have that law at their disposal. 0.94

00:45:14.000 President Trump is trying to claim executive privilege on a vast variety of materials now.

00:45:19.000 Now, that is nothing new.

00:45:20.000 Barack Obama tried to claim executive privilege to shield his Attorney General Eric Holder on questions about Fast and Furious.

00:45:26.000 That was overruled by a court.

00:45:28.000 I have a feeling the same thing is in order for President Trump.

00:45:31.000 Representative Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said that the White House has adopted the untenable position that it can ignore requests from the Democratic majority in the House.

00:45:39.000 Cummings said in a statement, it appears the president believes the constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight.

00:45:50.000 Cummings was specifically referring to Carl Klein, a former White House personnel security director who was subpoenaed by Democrats.

00:45:57.000 He was supposed to be deposed about granting security clearance to Jared Kushner, for example.

00:46:04.000 Trump has told the Washington Post, I don't want people testifying to a party because that is what they are doing when they do this.

00:46:11.000 Meanwhile, the administration on Tuesday didn't defy the demand from the Ways and Means Committee to turn over six years of President Trump's tax returns by the close of business.

00:46:19.000 Now, can he actually do this?

00:46:20.000 Probably not.

00:46:21.000 And the legal record here is pretty clear.

00:46:24.000 There is a case called Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, a Supreme Court case, that found that Congress can subpoena private parties.

00:46:33.000 Under exactly the sort of law.

00:46:34.000 So I don't think the president's delay tactics are going to work here.

00:46:38.000 They also plan to fight the House subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn.

00:46:42.000 That's because Don McGahn is in the Mueller report.

00:46:45.000 And in the Mueller report, it says that Don McGahn was ordered by the president of the United States to lie about certain things.

00:46:50.000 He refused to lie about those things.

00:46:53.000 And then that was sort of the end of the story.

00:46:55.000 That was used as the basis for a quasi-obstruction accusation.

00:47:00.000 So the Congress wants to hear direct from again.

00:47:02.000 Trump is going to claim executive privilege.

00:47:04.000 There are a couple different kinds of executive privilege.

00:47:06.000 The first kind of executive privilege is the right of the president to prevent the Congress from overseeing certain national security needs.

00:47:13.000 The Congress doesn't have a right to oversee the president on matters of national security and also protecting the privacy of White House deliberations because what you don't want is it made public every time the president has a conversation that has public impact.

00:47:25.000 That probably does not apply when you are talking about the president ordering his aides to Lie, or do bad things, or commit a crime, or defend him personally.

00:47:33.000 That stuff probably does not apply, so I think that executive privilege claim is probably gonna come up short.

00:47:38.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.

00:47:41.000 So, things that I like today.

00:47:43.000 Now, this is not exactly a thing that I like, but it's a thing that is worthy of note, and we should be taking note, and I hope that the Trump administration will formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.

00:47:52.000 Today is Armenian Genocide Day.

00:47:54.000 April 24th, every year, is the date upon which we mark the Armenian Genocide.

00:47:57.000 The American government has not done it.

00:47:59.000 Many Western governments have not done it specifically because they don't want to tick off the Turks.

00:48:03.000 The Turkish government has long claimed that the Armenian Genocide is a myth.

00:48:06.000 That is not true.

00:48:07.000 The Turkish government has also suggested repercussions for anyone who says that the Armenian Genocide took place.

00:48:13.000 The repercussions?

00:48:14.000 Honestly, the West should say, screw you.

00:48:16.000 It happened because it did.

00:48:18.000 On this date in 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, Christians for the most part, We're forcibly deported from the Turkish capital of Constantinople.

00:48:27.000 The numbers soon escalated into the thousands.

00:48:29.000 Most of these people were eventually murdered.

00:48:30.000 That kicked off the Armenian genocide, which was the persecution of Christian Armenians by the young Turks who were Muslim.

00:48:36.000 They wanted to cleanse the country of the troublesome non-co-religionists in preparation for the new Turkey in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and supposedly in order to ensure against the possibility of the Armenians siding against the central powers in World War I. 1.00

00:48:49.000 By the time the genocide was over, it lasted from 1915 all the way to 1923.

00:48:53.000 Hundreds of thousands of Armenians had been killed.

00:48:55.000 Top range estimates put that number at 1.5 million.

00:48:58.000 There were massive atrocities, including forced death marches, placing women and children allegedly aboard ships and then deliberately sinking them.

00:49:05.000 CNN reports, quote, While the death toll is in dispute, photographs from the era document some mass killings.

00:49:10.000 Some show Ottoman soldiers posing with severed heads, others with them standing amid skulls in the dirt.

00:49:15.000 The victims are reported to have died in mass burnings by drowning, torture, gas, poison, disease and starvation.

00:49:19.000 Children were reported to have been loaded onto boats, taken out to sea and thrown overboard.

00:49:23.000 Rape too was frequently reported.

00:49:25.000 Now, as I say, the current dictator of Turkey, who is granted far too much respect by the Western world, he should not be.

00:49:30.000 He is an Islamist radical who supports terrorist groups like Hamas.

00:49:34.000 He is also a deeply threatening figure in places like Syria, as well as to the Kurds. 0.72

00:49:39.000 Erdogan has threatened multiple foreign countries for daring to consider the use of the term Armenian genocide.

00:49:44.000 He warned he could throw 100,000 Armenian immigrants out of Turkey in 2010.

00:49:47.000 So he is a delight.

00:49:50.000 The world did turn a blind eye while the Armenian genocide was occurring.

00:49:54.000 However, a German corporal did not.

00:49:57.000 In 1939, he was already dictator of Germany.

00:50:00.000 He told Nazi officers in 1939 to kill without mercy in Poland, adding, allegedly, according to contemporaneous records, quote, And go ahead and kill whoever you have to kill, because no one cares.

00:50:14.000 Rabbi Shmueli Boteach has said, Hitler's confidants learned from Turkey's genocidal playbook As Hitler strategized his rise to power in the early 1920s, his lead political advisor was Max Erwin von Schroedner-Richter, a young German consular officer in Erzurum during World War I, a region of Ottoman Turkey densely populated with Armenians.

00:50:33.000 Turkey's ethnic cleansing in World War I was well-known and admired by Nazi ideologues.

00:50:37.000 In 1923, a journalist named Hans Trubbs wrote in the Nazi newspaper Heimatland, these bloodsuckers and parasites, Greeks and Armenians, had been eradicated by the Turks.

00:50:45.000 This chilling praise of genocide foretold atrocities to come.

00:50:48.000 So, certainly the Armenian genocide is well worthy of note, and I have a lot of sympathy for Armenian claims, particularly against the current Turkish government.

00:50:57.000 Okay, time for a thing that I hate.

00:51:04.000 So, baby boomers may have ruined America. 1.00

00:51:06.000 Baby boomers spent all the money, and then they whined about it, and then they taught their children very little in the way of values. 1.00

00:51:13.000 And it appears that their children, my generation, millennials, have picked up on a lot of the self-centeredness of the baby boomers, unfortunately.

00:51:21.000 There's a new article from Business Insider that says American millennials have less money than other generations did at their age, but we are delusional about the amount of wealth that we have.

00:51:30.000 Many American millennials think they will be millionaires by middle age.

00:51:33.000 They have a generally positive view about their finances, according to several studies, but research shows that millennials are currently behind financially.

00:51:39.000 Well, that is because they've been told for years by their parents that if they go to college and major in lesbian dance theory, they will be millionaires.

00:51:44.000 This is not true.

00:51:46.000 This is not true.

00:51:47.000 Now, income mobility in the United States is still quite strong.

00:51:50.000 You can still move up if you make good decisions, but you have to make those good decisions and your firm belief that you were born in a place where you will be a millionaire simply by dint of the fact that you are an American born in America at this time and place.

00:52:02.000 Now, get off your butt, work a little bit.

00:52:04.000 Okay, other things that I hate.

00:52:05.000 So this is a crazy story.

00:52:07.000 A guest lecturer at Boston University said last month that white people who judge others as individuals instead of by the color of their skin are dangerous, according to a report in the College Fix.

00:52:24.000 The lecture was entitled, What Does It Mean To Be White?

00:52:26.000 It was given by a University of Washington professor named Robin DeAngelo, a white woman, who presumably should have given up her slot to a woman of minority descent, if she really wants to make these points and stop her white privilege from applying. 0.53

00:52:38.000 DeAngelo specializes in whiteness studies.

00:52:41.000 Whiteness studies.

00:52:42.000 Great.

00:52:43.000 She added that people who say they've been taught to treat everyone the same deny black people their reality.

00:52:48.000 As I have mentioned many times, there is no such thing as your reality.

00:52:52.000 There is just the reality, and then your opinion about the reality.

00:52:56.000 If you're being honest, you've probably said it.

00:52:57.000 She said of being taught to treat everyone the same, your parents could lecture you to do it, but you don't do it.

00:53:01.000 You can't do it.

00:53:01.000 There's no human objectivity.

00:53:03.000 I'll start arguing with MLK then.

00:53:05.000 Because this was MLK's perspective.

00:53:08.000 This is also the perspective of the best in Western civilized values.

00:53:12.000 If you want people to treat each other as members of tribal race, things are not going to end well, historically speaking.

00:53:18.000 D'Angelo said when she hears people say they are colorblind, they are revealing their own ignorance.

00:53:21.000 This person doesn't understand basic socialization.

00:53:24.000 This person doesn't understand culture.

00:53:25.000 This person is not self-aware.

00:53:27.000 She said while teaching as a whiteness professor, as a white woman refusing to give up her slot at a major university, lecturing a bunch of white kids. 0.59

00:53:35.000 And I need to give a heads up to the white people in the room, D'Angelo said.

00:53:37.000 When people of color hear us say this, they're generally not thinking, all right, I'm talking to a woke white person right now.

00:53:42.000 Usually some version of eye rolling is going on and a wall is going up.

00:53:46.000 Right, if you want to be labeled woke by the intersectional crowd, you have to say, I surrender all my perspectives to you.

00:53:52.000 My perspectives are no longer of consequence.

00:53:54.000 I will sit here and shut up and listen and never say anything again.

00:53:57.000 I've turned myself into a potted plant upon which Harvey Weinstein will ejaculate.

00:54:02.000 That's basically what people are looking for.

00:54:04.000 D'Angelo's remarks are, of course, diametrically opposed to certain centralized values of Western civilization, but it's good to know, and it's very exciting to know, that there are professors out there teaching students that it is very, very bad, that it is very, very terrible to treat people equally and not based on the color of their skin.

00:54:22.000 Yes, our society may be nearing its terminus.

00:54:25.000 Alrighty, so we'll be back here tomorrow with the last episode of the week because Friday is again a Jewish holiday. 0.83

00:54:31.000 So I will see you then.

00:54:32.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:54:32.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:54:38.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:54:40.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:54:41.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:54:43.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:54:45.000 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:54:47.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:54:49.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:54:50.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:54:52.000 Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:54:53.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:54:55.000 Copyright, Daily Wire 2019.

00:54:58.000 I'm Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show.

00:55:00.000 A woman is suing an Uber driver for refusing to take her to an abortion.

00:55:04.000 Meanwhile, leftists weep over a sack full of puppies in a dumpster.

00:55:08.000 We will examine our clinical culture.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 24, 2019

Is God Political? | Ep. 766

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