The Ben Shapiro Show - It’s FIGHT NIGHT #2

00:00:00.000 So, preliminary note, today, noon eastern time, I will be speaking with Elon Musk over on X. There's an X space where we're going to be talking about Elon Musk and his fight with the Anti-Defamation League and standards of free speech on X, as well as advertising pressure on X. So if you want to check that out, make sure to head on over.

00:00:17.000 Okay, so last night was the second big Republican debate.

00:00:23.000 And by big, I mean Donald Trump wasn't part of it.

00:00:25.000 And of course, there's no way to talk about the debate without talking about the fact that the frontrunner by 30 points in the national average right now was not part of the debate.

00:00:33.000 And when the front runner isn't there, it turns into a bit of a crab pot, meaning everybody's just pulling each other down.

00:00:40.000 There's no way to avoid that sort of optic.

00:00:43.000 The question is, is anyone going to emerge from that crab pot to actually challenge Donald Trump?

00:00:48.000 Now, here's the reality.

00:00:50.000 Believe it or not, we're still pretty early in this race.

00:00:52.000 It is only September 28th.

00:00:54.000 At this point in the 2008 race, which is sort of the last open primary race that we had before Trump stepped onto the scene, in 2008, at this point, There is a run and gun battle between Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination.

00:01:08.000 In fact, even in the 2016 Republican primary polls, Donald Trump was leading at this point, but he wasn't, like, way out ahead.

00:01:16.000 He was still pretty competitive at this point.

00:01:18.000 In other words, some things can still happen.

00:01:20.000 Now, is that likely?

00:01:21.000 Is that the most likely thing to happen?

00:01:23.000 It's not the most likely thing to happen.

00:01:25.000 However, it is pretty obvious that Donald Trump has some vulnerabilities in places like Iowa.

00:01:31.000 So, for example, despite the fact that Donald Trump is leading significantly in Iowa and also in New Hampshire, When asked which candidates are being considered by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, a huge number of Iowa voters and New Hampshire voters are saying that they are considering candidates other than Donald Trump.

00:01:49.000 So they're not locked into Trump by any stretch of the imagination.

00:01:52.000 In other words, if something terrible were to happen in Trump's candidacy, there are a lot of people who would presumably shift over.

00:01:58.000 Right now, for example, if you look at that CBS News poll from YouGov, what it shows is that in Iowa, about 20% of the voter bloc says they will vote only Trump.

00:02:07.000 In New Hampshire, that number is about 23%.

00:02:09.000 Which means 80% in Iowa and 77% in New Hampshire are saying that they will consider candidates other than Trump.

00:02:19.000 31% of voters in Iowa say they will not consider Trump at all.

00:02:22.000 34% of voters in New Hampshire say they will not consider Trump at all.

00:02:25.000 And meanwhile, the vast bulk of the voters in the middle, the plurality of voters in the middle, in both Iowa and New Hampshire, say they will consider Trump and other candidates.

00:02:31.000 What's happening right now is that all the people who are considering Trump and other candidates are splitting about half and half for Trump.

00:02:38.000 So Trump's got that locked in base of 20, 23% in these early states.

00:02:42.000 And then the other 40 to 50% of voters who say that they're considering Trump plus everybody else are splitting about half for Trump and half for everybody else.

00:02:49.000 And so the field is looking very fragmented.

00:02:51.000 And the same thing is happening with the people who are not considering Trump at all.

00:02:54.000 They're fragmenting among a bunch of other candidates.

00:02:57.000 So is it possible that somebody could theoretically consolidate The rest of these voters.

00:03:02.000 It is possible, but the field would have to winnow dramatically, and that person would have to take votes directly away from Trump.

00:03:07.000 It wouldn't just be a matter of picking up everybody who's anti-Trump.

00:03:09.000 That's only about 33% of the Republican base at this point.

00:03:13.000 They would somehow have to take the other 45% of the base, and they would have to win that percentage of the base, or at least split it in significant fashion.

00:03:22.000 So that's the state of the race as we move into this debate.

00:03:25.000 Now, the field is too big.

00:03:27.000 It's pretty obvious that it's going to consolidate.

00:03:29.000 Right now there are three candidates who are probably on the bubble.

00:03:31.000 That would be Tim Scott, Chris Christie, and Doug Burgum.

00:03:33.000 Vivek is self-funded and not really running for president anyway, and therefore he can stay in for pretty much as long as he wants.

00:03:39.000 With that said, the field is likely to winnow, and so by the time we have another debate, we are probably going to be looking at Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis.

00:03:48.000 Pence probably will be out by that point, I would imagine.

00:03:50.000 So you're looking at probably Haley versus DeSantis is how this race is starting to shake down.

00:03:54.000 Now, Are these people definitely going to drop out?

00:03:56.000 Well, if you're Chris Christie, you're just waiting until New Hampshire.

00:03:58.000 You're hoping that the anti-Trump base consolidates in New Hampshire, sufficient to actually show some momentum over there.

00:04:04.000 But, if you're looking at the state of the race right now inside the Republican Party, Haley and DeSantis are the two most viable candidates.

00:04:10.000 And when I say the two most viable, they're not on even footing.

00:04:12.000 DeSantis is well ahead of Haley in Iowa, and they're running about even in New Hampshire.

00:04:18.000 So if DeSantis starts to pick up some momentum, which has been the story of this campaign, is that DeSantis has been a solid number two and he has never caught fire.

00:04:24.000 That's been the story of the campaign so far.

00:04:26.000 Again, I am somebody who is very supportive of Governor DeSantis.

00:04:30.000 I think he'd make a phenomenal president.

00:04:31.000 I like Nikki Haley.

00:04:32.000 I've been supportive of Governor DeSantis and his candidacy pretty much this entire time in terms of who do I think would make the best president among the candidates who are on the stage.

00:04:42.000 Well, with that said, everybody's still waiting for his campaign to actually initiate.

00:04:48.000 There's been sort of a stagnation to the race.

00:04:51.000 It's been a very stable race basically since July, since June-July, when DeSantis first jumped into the race.

00:04:58.000 So did the debate change anything last night?

00:05:00.000 The short answer is no.

00:05:01.000 The debate changed nothing.

00:05:02.000 So Donald Trump basically used the war games as a strategy.

00:05:07.000 The only winning move is not to play.

00:05:08.000 Donald Trump didn't show up.

00:05:09.000 He realized that if he did show up, he'd get attacked by all the other candidates on a wide variety of issues.

00:05:13.000 He was attacked by them anyway for not showing up.

00:05:16.000 Instead he decided that he was going to jet over to Michigan and he was going to do an event with like a few auto workers and claim solidarity with the members of the union over there even though the union has shunned him and they are just licking the boots of Joe Biden who is simultaneously licking their boots as well.

00:05:31.000 With that said, him avoiding the debate naturally means that everybody in the room is fighting each other and not Donald Trump which is a win for Donald Trump.

00:05:39.000 And that was sort of the dynamic.

00:05:40.000 Last night, there was a lot of people talking over each other, people trying to get aggressive, people attempting to fight each other, and it turned into a mess.

00:05:45.000 It was a bit of a dog's breakfast.

00:05:47.000 We'll get to that momentarily first.

00:05:48.000 You know a company is looking out for you when they actually upgrade your service and don't charge you for it.

00:05:52.000 This is great news for new and current Pure Talk customers.

00:05:55.000 PureTalk just added data to every plan and includes a mobile hotspot with no price increase whatsoever.

00:05:59.000 If you've considered PureTalk before, you haven't made a switch, take a look again.

00:06:02.000 For just $20 a month, you'll get unlimited talk, text, and now 50% more 5G data plus their new mobile hotspot.

00:06:08.000 This is why I love PureTalk.

00:06:09.000 They are veteran owned.

00:06:10.000 They only hire the best customer service team located right here in the United States.

00:06:14.000 Most families are saving almost $1,000 a year while enjoying the most dependable 5G network in America.

00:06:19.000 I use PureTalk myself.

00:06:21.000 Take all my calls using Pure Talk.

00:06:23.000 I take my calls pretty seriously.

00:06:25.000 Business, family.

00:06:26.000 Well, Pure Talk makes it happen for me.

00:06:27.000 They have a fantastic network.

00:06:30.000 The tower network means that I get clear calls.

00:06:32.000 And again, I'm saving a lot of money.

00:06:33.000 Remember, you vote with how you spend your cash, so stop supporting woke wireless companies that don't support you.

00:06:38.000 When you go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro, you will save an additional 50% off your very first month of coverage because they actually value you.

00:06:44.000 That's puretalk.com slash Shapiro.

00:06:47.000 Okay, so let's jump into the debate.

00:06:52.000 So last night, the debate was moderated by a person from Univision, which I don't understand why Fox News is partnering with Univision.

00:07:01.000 That is a far-left network.

00:07:03.000 It's sort of like the MSNBC of the Latino community. 0.73

00:07:07.000 Hispanics and Latinos who are voting Republican or considering voting Republican in the primaries, they're not watching Univision.

00:07:12.000 And every question that came out of Univision was biased to the left.

00:07:16.000 It's Stuart Varney from Fox Business and you have my friend Dana Perino from Fox News.

00:07:20.000 And through no fault of their own, I mean, I can't blame the moderators, it's easy to blame the moderators, but it was just, it was just a pileup.

00:07:27.000 It was just a 20-car pileup on the I-95.

00:07:30.000 That's all it was.

00:07:32.000 It was a complete car crash, pretty much from the beginning.

00:07:34.000 There's a lot of awkwardness, a lot of weird moments, some entertaining moments.

00:07:39.000 But, you know, for those who suggested that the debate overall is not a commentary on one individual candidate, that the debate overall was relatively unwatchable, that's true.

00:07:48.000 It was a not-watchable event.

00:07:50.000 Now, again, I think that some of that has to do with the way that these debates are done.

00:07:55.000 When a person is asked a question, every other mic on the stage needs to be cut.

00:07:59.000 That's just the way this ought to go.

00:08:01.000 And then when the clock expires...

00:08:04.000 Then the mic should be cut.

00:08:05.000 It should be that simple.

00:08:06.000 If you strictly set the rules, then the rules have now been set.

00:08:10.000 But nobody does that in these debates.

00:08:11.000 It's kind of incredible to me.

00:08:13.000 I don't understand why Fox News doesn't just set those rules right at the outset so you at least have some sort of order.

00:08:17.000 The problem is that right now you have seven people on that stage all aggressively attempting to eat the microphone and get into that camera with the red light on.

00:08:26.000 And they have no incentive to stop.

00:08:29.000 So there's a ton of people talking over each other.

00:08:32.000 There's a ton of sort of non-understandable nonsense where it just sounded like gray noise over your ear.

00:08:39.000 So just on an optics level, it was not a good debate.

00:08:43.000 Now, as for the particular candidates, Nikki Haley came in with some semblance of momentum. 0.99

00:08:47.000 When I say some semblance, I mean, again, if you look at the polling data, she's doing better in New Hampshire than she was.

00:08:52.000 She's doing better in Iowa than she was.

00:08:53.000 She's still third right now to DeSantis by a pretty significant margin in Iowa.

00:08:59.000 And she's now in the scrum in New Hampshire, meaning if she's second or if she's third or if she's fourth, it's kind of all the same because the reality is that it's Trump at 50.

00:09:07.000 And then it's like DeSantis and Christie and Haley all between like 9 and 13 percent. So she's got some, so there's no

00:09:15.000 question that Nikki has gotten some momentum off of the last debate. And she came in very 0.87

00:09:19.000 aggressive, she came in very hot. Meanwhile, DeSantis was planning presumably to stick to his playbook.

00:09:25.000 His playbook is, every time you come to me, I'm going to give you my

00:09:29.000 accomplishments in Florida, That's totally fine.

00:09:32.000 He rebutted some attacks, some really, I think, scurrilous attacks by moderators talking about, for example, the Florida education plan to ban critical race theory.

00:09:41.000 But it wasn't going to be a moment where he sort of elevated.

00:09:44.000 As always, these debates are not friendly territory for DeSantis because he is at least on the stage of the frontrunner, right?

00:09:51.000 He's second to Trump.

00:09:52.000 Everybody is second to Trump, but he is on the stage of the frontrunner, which means he has to fend off all those attacks.

00:09:57.000 The vague apparently had a personality transplant.

00:09:59.000 So he went from the first debate where he was just Aggressively smarmy, like over-the-top smarmy, and just grinning ear-to-ear the whole time, and insulting everybody on the stage, to much more humble of a vacay.

00:10:13.000 He must have gotten the exit polls from the last debate, and seen that it actually blunted a lot of his momentum, and he decided to change it up.

00:10:19.000 Tim Scott, by contrast, decided that he had to get more aggressive, because he's also seeing those polls, and what they're saying is, everybody thinks Tim Scott is a nice guy, and nobody knows why he's on the stage.

00:10:27.000 Chris Christie was just Chris Christie.

00:10:29.000 The one thing you have to say for Chris Christie, that dude is always Chris Christie.

00:10:31.000 He's never not Chris Christie.

00:10:33.000 He's always Chris Christie, except when he's getting Donald Trump a Coke.

00:10:36.000 But aside from that, he's always Chris Christie.

00:10:39.000 And then Doug Burgum, no one knows why.

00:10:41.000 And Mike Pence, again, I like the Vice President.

00:10:46.000 He brought a heavy dose of awkward last night.

00:10:48.000 So just in terms, there's a lot of cringe to this debate.

00:10:52.000 Watching this debate felt like watching the earliest episodes of The Office, before they sort of hit their stride, where it was all super cringe humor.

00:11:00.000 You're not sure if you're even allowed to laugh or not.

00:11:02.000 Okay, so the debate began with several of the candidates knocking Donald Trump for not showing up to the debate, which is perfectly appropriate.

00:11:09.000 Donald Trump is a Republican candidate for the presidency.

00:11:12.000 He should show up for the debate on every moral level.

00:11:14.000 Also, on every strategic level, he definitely should not show up for the debate.

00:11:16.000 I'm just going to point out that strategically speaking, when you are winning by 40 points and you don't show up for the first debate and nothing happens to your numbers, there is literally no reason for you to show up to the second debate.

00:11:25.000 Okay, but of course all the other candidates are going to attack Trump over this.

00:11:30.000 So Chris Christie led the pack in attacking Trump for not showing up to the debate with the running gun battle for heaviest dose of cringe last night.

00:11:38.000 I mean, this is like fatal dose of cringe here from Chris Christie.

00:11:44.000 And I want to look at that camera right now and tell you, Donald, I know you're watching.

00:11:47.000 You can't help yourself.

00:11:49.000 I know you're watching.

00:11:50.000 Okay?

00:11:51.000 And you're not here tonight, not because of polls, and not because of your indictments.

00:11:56.000 You're not here tonight because you're afraid of being on this stage and defending your record.

00:12:01.000 You're ducking these things.

00:12:03.000 And let me tell you what's going to happen.

00:12:04.000 You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore.

00:12:07.000 We're going to call you Donald Duck.

00:12:09.000 No one's gonna call you Donald Trump.

00:12:10.000 They're gonna ask you why you're not wearing pants.

00:12:14.000 Only a shirt but no pants.

00:12:16.000 Where's Daisy? 1.00

00:12:16.000 What happened to Melania? 1.00

00:12:17.000 What is wrong with him?

00:12:20.000 I don't even understand.

00:12:22.000 Who wrote that line?

00:12:23.000 That's the worst comedy line.

00:12:25.000 That's a terrible line.

00:12:26.000 They're gonna stop calling you Donald Trump and they're gonna start calling you Donald Duck?

00:12:31.000 Okay, Bob Hope wants his routine back from 1947.

00:12:34.000 Whoa.

00:12:36.000 So yeah, not a good line there from Chris Christie.

00:12:38.000 He starts off strong there, right?

00:12:39.000 He's like, you're not here.

00:12:40.000 I know you're watching.

00:12:41.000 The reason you're not watching is because you're, is because you're, I thought maybe he was going to go to like needles and back to the future too.

00:12:47.000 It's because you chicken, you chicken McFly.

00:12:50.000 Oh, solid stuff there from, from Chris Christie.

00:12:55.000 Okay.

00:12:55.000 We'll get to more of this, of this bleep show debate in just one second.

00:13:00.000 First, As you know, I'm on the road.

00:13:02.000 When I'm on the road, I gotta tell you, I'm even less inclined to have fruits and vegetables, because the food in Israel is fantastic, but I'll tell you what is still bad, fruits and vegetables.

00:13:10.000 But, you need the fruits and veggies, because they're the thing that keeps you alive and healthy.

00:13:13.000 This is why I rely on Balance of Nature.

00:13:15.000 Balance of Nature fruits and veggies are a great way to make sure that you're getting essential nutritional ingredients every single day.

00:13:20.000 Through Balance of Nature's advanced cold vacuum process, the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients of the fruits and veggies are preserved, so you get that vital nutrition in every capsule.

00:13:27.000 Balance of Nature is a whole food supplement with no additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.

00:13:32.000 The only thing in there are capsules, pure fruits and veggies.

00:13:35.000 Balance of Nature sent a bunch of their product down to the studio for my team to try, and we all love them.

00:13:40.000 Producer Zach brought his Balance of Nature fruits and veggie capsules here to Israel.

00:13:43.000 He takes them daily.

00:13:44.000 I've been taking them as well.

00:13:46.000 Obviously, if I'm taking them, that means they're kosher.

00:13:47.000 So, if you're one of my fellow kosher keepers, then you can also be having Balance of Nature stuff.

00:13:52.000 When you're disciplined enough to take care of your health, you reap the benefits your body will thank you, go to balanceofnature.com.

00:13:57.000 Use promo code Shapiro for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer.

00:14:00.000 That's balanceofnature.com.

00:14:02.000 Promo code Shapiro for 35% off your very first preferred order.

00:14:06.000 Okay, so, Christie wasn't the only candidate who called out Trump for not being there.

00:14:09.000 DeSantis also called out Trump.

00:14:12.000 And this, obviously, is a much better calibrated attack than So, where are you?

00:14:16.000 Are you Donald?

00:14:19.000 This is a lot better here from DeSantis.

00:14:22.000 Where's Joe Biden?

00:14:23.000 He's completely missing in action from leadership.

00:14:25.000 And you know who else is missing in action?

00:14:28.000 Donald Trump is missing in action.

00:14:30.000 He should be on this stage tonight.

00:14:32.000 He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt.

00:14:39.000 That set the stage for the inflation that we have now.

00:14:42.000 I can tell you this, as governor of Florida, we cut taxes.

00:14:45.000 We ran surpluses, we've paid down over 25% of our state debt, and I vetoed wasteful spending when it came to my desk.

00:14:52.000 And as your president, when they send me a bloating spending bill that's going to cause your prices to go up, I'm going to take out this veto pen and I'm going to send it right back to them.

00:15:01.000 Okay, that's a good pitch from Ron DeSantis.

00:15:03.000 Now again, does that damage Trump in any serious way?

00:15:05.000 I mean, Trump's not even there.

00:15:07.000 And unfortunately, a huge percentage of Trump supporters don't actually hold him responsible for many of the things he actually did while he was in office.

00:15:12.000 But if you're going to launch an attack on Trump, that is the proper attack on Trump.

00:15:16.000 Come defend your own record.

00:15:18.000 Okay, meanwhile, Mike Pence decided that he was going to go mano-a-mano with Chris Christie in the awkward lane.

00:15:23.000 So he decided that he was going to talk about, he was asked about, Joe Biden showing up at the UAW strike.

00:15:30.000 He was asked about Donald Trump showing up and speaking in Michigan.

00:15:33.000 And when he was asked about Biden, he dropped what he thought I think was a pre-planned laugh line.

00:15:38.000 So first rule of debate, do not have pre-planned laugh lines.

00:15:41.000 You cannot predict when people are going to laugh, particularly when your laugh lines are this awkward.

00:15:45.000 So here is Mike Pence talking about Joe Biden on the picket line.

00:15:49.000 Look, I do disagree with something Tim Scott just said.

00:15:52.000 Joe Biden doesn't belong on a picket line.

00:15:54.000 He belongs on the unemployment line.

00:15:57.000 And then he looks into camera waiting for people to laugh.

00:16:00.000 It's like, oh no.

00:16:02.000 Oh no.

00:16:03.000 Now, first of all, he's cribbing off Ronald Reagan.

00:16:05.000 It's an old Ronald Reagan line.

00:16:06.000 He says, recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and depression is when you lose your job, and recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job, right?

00:16:11.000 So he's basically kind of twisting that line.

00:16:13.000 But yeah, the crowd is like, uh, no.

00:16:17.000 So that went over like a lead balloon.

00:16:19.000 Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, she was very aggressive last night. 1.00

00:16:23.000 She obviously was amped up, and you could tell from her manner.

00:16:26.000 She didn't do poorly last night, but it was just a very aggressive performance from Nikki Haley, which was kind of a difference from her last debate performance, which I thought was actually very good. 0.82

00:16:34.000 Here is Nikki on immigration, for example, and what she's saying is totally right. 0.99

00:16:38.000 It's just that, again, when you're watching these things, the cadence sort of matters.

00:16:43.000 Well, what happens is when Joe Biden waved the green flag, it told everybody to come.

00:16:48.000 And now we've seen six million people cross the border.

00:16:51.000 We've had more fentanyl that have killed Americans in the Iraq, Vietnam, or Afghanistan wars combined.

00:16:57.000 We need to make sure that we are a country of laws.

00:16:59.000 The second we stop being a country of laws, we give up everything this country was founded on.

00:17:04.000 So we have to secure the border.

00:17:05.000 The way we do that is, first of all, defund sanctuary cities.

00:17:09.000 You see what's happening in Philadelphia right now?

00:17:11.000 It's got to stop.

00:17:13.000 So all this is good by Nikki Haley, by the way.

00:17:15.000 All this is good by Nikki Haley.

00:17:16.000 And she started off the debate in this mode.

00:17:17.000 As you'll see a little bit later on in the debate, she kept getting more and more aggressive. 1.00

00:17:20.000 But again, she started off solid.

00:17:22.000 There's a reason why, in this group of candidates, Haley and DeSantis are currently doing the best.

00:17:27.000 Meanwhile, Vivek was there.

00:17:30.000 And again, I agree with a lot of what Vivek says, depending on the day.

00:17:34.000 And Vivek, yesterday, was talking about the southern border.

00:17:38.000 And here's what Vivek had to say about the southern border.

00:17:41.000 Militarize the southern border, stop funding sanctuary cities, and end foreign aid to Mexico and Central America to end the incentives to come across.

00:17:50.000 But I do go a step further.

00:17:51.000 You're right about that, Ilya.

00:17:53.000 I favor ending birthright citizenship for the kids of illegal immigrants in this country. 1.00

00:17:59.000 Now the left will howl about the Constitution and the 14th Amendment.

00:18:03.000 The difference between me and them is I've actually read the 14th Amendment.

00:18:06.000 What it says is that all persons born or naturalized in the United States And, subject to the laws and jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.

00:18:17.000 So nobody believes that the kid of a Mexican diplomat in this country enjoys birthright citizenship.

00:18:22.000 Not a judge or legal scholar in this country will disagree with me on that.

00:18:26.000 Well, if the kid of a Mexican diplomat doesn't enjoy birthright citizenship, then neither does the kid of an illegal migrant who broke the law to come here.

00:18:34.000 Okay, so what Vivek is saying there, by the way, actually is a good legal argument.

00:18:38.000 This has been a very, very Long and an interesting ongoing legal argument among conservative legal scholars is whether birthright citizenship actually was ever meant to extend to kids of people who are subject to another jurisdiction.

00:18:50.000 So if you are a Mexican citizen, but not an American citizen, you come here and then you just drop a kid. 0.92

00:18:56.000 Is that kid therefore an American citizen?

00:18:57.000 There's a case from the Supreme Court in the late 19th century that sort of suggests that yes, birthright citizenship is the way that this is done.

00:19:05.000 It would probably take a constitutional amendment to overturn that.

00:19:08.000 There's an argument about whether you can do it with an act of Congress or not.

00:19:10.000 It's an interesting legal argument.

00:19:11.000 So this was the debate.

00:19:14.000 Vivek who showed up.

00:19:15.000 And much better debate Vivek.

00:19:16.000 The problem is that there was hangover from the last debate Vivek.

00:19:20.000 And the last debate Vivek was really obnoxious.

00:19:22.000 He's the guy who got on stage and he suggested that every single person who was on the stage was bought and paid for.

00:19:28.000 Which led to Tim Scott actually taking out a baseball bat and clobbering Vivek on the stage.

00:19:33.000 And it was really at this point in the debate where things started to get out of control.

00:19:37.000 From here on in.

00:19:38.000 So at the beginning you had some people making some policy statements.

00:19:40.000 Good, bad and different.

00:19:42.000 It was really here that things started to go wild.

00:19:45.000 I can't imagine how you could say that, knowing that you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party, and the same people that funded Hunter Biden, millions of dollars, was a partner of yours as well.

00:19:59.000 This is nonsense.

00:20:00.000 It's not nonsense.

00:20:01.000 I want to respond.

00:20:03.000 These are good people who are tainted by a broken system, and it's not the fault of anybody who's involved.

00:20:09.000 Some of us are tainted.

00:20:11.000 Excuse me.

00:20:12.000 Thank you for speaking while I'm interrupting.

00:20:15.000 Thank you for speaking, I'm interrupting.

00:20:16.000 Does this sound listenable to you?

00:20:17.000 And then Ron jumps in.

00:20:19.000 Gentlemen, you'll have your turn.

00:20:21.000 One of the challenges...

00:20:23.000 Can we please focus on the issues that matter?

00:20:25.000 We know that business in China...

00:20:27.000 Does this sound listenable to you?

00:20:29.000 Let's focus on holding Joe Biden accountable.

00:20:31.000 That's what we need to be focusing on.

00:20:33.000 And then Ron jumps in.

00:20:35.000 This turns into...

00:20:37.000 Oh my gosh. This whole thing turns into the opening number of Guys and Dolls.

00:20:41.000 It's...

00:20:43.000 I got a horse right here.

00:20:44.000 His name is Paul Revere.

00:20:45.000 And now you've got three guys singing simultaneously about which horse they're picking.

00:20:50.000 Use the mute button, gang.

00:20:51.000 Use the mute button.

00:20:52.000 Cut off somebody's mic.

00:20:53.000 This is where it turned into a mess.

00:20:56.000 I will say that that Freudian slip by Vivek right there, stop speaking while I'm interrupting, is pretty spectacular.

00:21:01.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

00:21:05.000 My sleep quality here in Israel has been improved by the fact that I brought with me my Bull & Branch Blanket.

00:21:11.000 It's a thing I do.

00:21:12.000 It's so comfortable.

00:21:13.000 It is the thing that allows me to sleep even when I'm on the road.

00:21:16.000 Well, your bedding should be that good.

00:21:18.000 Start investing in your best sleep with Bull & Branch.

00:21:21.000 They make the only sheets that get softer with every single wash.

00:21:23.000 Bull & Branch sheets are made from the finest 100% organic cotton threads on earth.

00:21:26.000 They feel buttery to the touch.

00:21:27.000 They're super breathable.

00:21:28.000 They're perfect for both cooler and warmer months.

00:21:30.000 Their signature hem sheets were made with luxurious threads.

00:21:32.000 They're made without pesticides, formaldehyde, or other harsh chemicals.

00:21:35.000 Best of all, Bull & Branch gives you a 30-night risk-free trial with free shipping and returns on all orders.

00:21:39.000 You're not going to want to return them.

00:21:40.000 They are just that good.

00:21:41.000 Again, they're so good I travel with them.

00:21:43.000 Sleep better at night with Bull & Branch sheets.

00:21:45.000 Get 15% off your first order when you use promo code SHAPIRO at bullandbranch.com.

00:21:50.000 That's Bollandbranch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D, branch.com, promo code Shapiro.

00:21:55.000 Exclusions apply.

00:21:56.000 See site for details.

00:21:58.000 They're awesome.

00:21:58.000 That cable knit throw blanket, that's the thing that I bring with me.

00:22:01.000 Awesome, awesome stuff.

00:22:01.000 Check them out right now.

00:22:02.000 Bollandbranch.com, promo code Shapiro, and get 15% off your very first order.

00:22:07.000 Alrighty, so, the debate, again, from here, it started to spin out.

00:22:12.000 Pence also hit Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:22:14.000 And one of the hangovers from the last debate is that Vivek pissed everybody off and everybody decided they were going to take their revenge.

00:22:19.000 So here was Pence slamming Ramaswamy.

00:22:22.000 Again, they were going after Vivek also because he accused everybody on the stage of being corrupt.

00:22:27.000 And now they're all like, dude, you tried to cut a deal with the same Chinese business partners that Hunter Biden cut a deal with.

00:22:32.000 Here's Pence.

00:22:34.000 Well first let me say I'm glad I'm glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in 2018 in China.

00:22:39.000 That must have been about the time you decided to start voting in presidential elections.

00:22:42.000 So we're nice to have you participating in elections.

00:22:46.000 So let me let me speak to this issue.

00:22:48.000 Number one, Okay, we're done there.

00:22:51.000 That's all we need from Pence.

00:22:53.000 But again, just demonstrative of the kind of ire that people had for Vivek on the stage.

00:22:57.000 Nikki Haley also could not stop going after Vivek last night.

00:23:01.000 So this started off actually when Vivek Ramaswamy was asked about TikTok.

00:23:06.000 So he had this very weird flip-flop on TikTok where he said TikTok should be banned.

00:23:10.000 And then he made a big statement about how he was going on TikTok.

00:23:13.000 Now listen, I think TikTok should be banned.

00:23:15.000 I'm on TikTok because my view of this is pretty simple.

00:23:18.000 I'm going to go wherever the eyeballs are.

00:23:19.000 I'm going to go where the eyeballs are because otherwise the bad guys get the eyeballs. 0.99

00:23:22.000 So if TikTok is available to people, I'm not going to pretend it's not available.

00:23:26.000 I have the same view of this that I have about ballot harvesting or about early voting.

00:23:29.000 When these things are available, you have to use them because the other guys are going to use them.

00:23:33.000 And that's kind of what Vivek says right here, but then he kind of goes further and suggests that maybe we shouldn't ban TikTok.

00:23:39.000 So here is Vivek talking about TikTok.

00:23:41.000 TikTok is banned on government-issued devices because of its ties to the Chinese government.

00:23:50.000 Yet you joined TikTok after dinner with boxer and influencer Jake Paul.

00:23:56.000 Should the Commander-in-Chief be so easily persuaded by an influencer?

00:24:01.000 So the answer is I have a radical idea for the Republican Party.

00:24:04.000 We need to win elections.

00:24:06.000 And part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are.

00:24:12.000 So when I get into office, I've been very clear.

00:24:14.000 Kids under the age of 16 should not be using addictive social media.

00:24:20.000 We're only going to ever get to declaring independence from China, which I favor, if we actually win. 0.99

00:24:26.000 Okay, so he avoids the question on whether to ban TikTok or not.

00:24:28.000 And this leads to Nikki Haley getting very aggressive. 1.00

00:24:30.000 And some people thought this was a good moment for Nikki Haley.

00:24:32.000 I actually don't think this is a good moment for Nikki Haley, because again, Nikki Haley's entire approach here has been very genteel.

00:24:40.000 She's been aggressive enough to attack people, but I don't think this moment went over for her particularly well.

00:24:45.000 This is infuriating, because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have. 0.93

00:24:52.000 And what you've got, I honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.

00:24:56.000 Because I can't believe that here you've got a TikTok situation.

00:25:01.000 What they're doing is, these 150 million people are on TikTok.

00:25:05.000 That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your emails, they can get your text messages, they can get all of these things.

00:25:13.000 This is very important for our party.

00:25:15.000 This is very important to our party and I'm going to say it.

00:25:17.000 We should stop.

00:25:17.000 We will.

00:25:18.000 Excuse me, excuse me.

00:25:18.000 Let me say something.

00:25:19.000 in China, not America.

00:25:21.000 You're now wanting kids to go and get on the social media that's dangerous for all of us.

00:25:25.000 You went and you were in business with the Chinese that gave Hunter Biden $5 million. 0.95

00:25:29.000 We can't trust you.

00:25:31.000 We can't trust you.

00:25:32.000 We can't have TikTok and all the kid blogs.

00:25:34.000 We need to ban them all. 0.98

00:25:35.000 So it kept going like that.

00:25:37.000 And then Vivek had the Samaritans say we shouldn't be attacking each other up on the stage when literally last debate, that's what he was doing.

00:25:44.000 So again, the person who was rising up from the scrum in all of this was his strategy, which is I'm going to stand over to the side here, right?

00:25:49.000 You guys want to do your car crash thing?

00:25:50.000 I'm going to be like over here.

00:25:51.000 It mainly succeeded.

00:25:53.000 One of the best moments that DeSantis had last night was his moment on abortion.

00:25:56.000 So he was asked specifically about abortion policy because Donald Trump has been incredibly aggressive in calling out DeSantis' six-week abortion ban in the state of Florida.

00:26:06.000 In fact, going so far as to suggest that it's immoral to pass heartbeat bills in the states, which, again, I don't see how any pro-life person can say that.

00:26:13.000 You can say they think it's tactically wrong to suggest a heartbeat bill at the federal level because it's not going to pass and it's just going to tick off independent voters. 0.72

00:26:21.000 I understand the tactics, but to suggest as a pro-lifer that it's bad to pass such a bill is, of course, ridiculous.

00:26:26.000 Here is DeSantis' answer on abortion.

00:26:29.000 Abortion was on the ballot in six states in 2022.

00:26:33.000 Republicans lost all of them.

00:26:36.000 Next year, abortion will likely be on the ballot in Arizona. 0.61

00:26:39.000 That is a must-win state.

00:26:41.000 Governor DeSantis, how are you going to win over independent, pro-choice voters in Arizona?

00:26:47.000 Same way we did in Florida.

00:26:48.000 We won the greatest Republican victory in a governor's race in the history of the state, over 1.5 million votes.

00:26:54.000 We were winning places like Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach, that nobody thought was possible because we were leading with purpose and conviction.

00:27:01.000 I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats.

00:27:06.000 I think there's other reasons for that.

00:27:08.000 The former president, he's missing in action tonight.

00:27:11.000 He's had a lot to say about that.

00:27:13.000 He should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a terrible thing.

00:27:20.000 I want him to look into the eyes and tell people who've been fighting this fight for a long time.

00:27:24.000 Okay, so, you know, good for DeSantis.

00:27:27.000 Good answer.

00:27:28.000 And then, of course, DeSantis got attacked over supposed...

00:27:32.000 Misteaching of slavery in the States.

00:27:34.000 And again, this is a good defense by DeSantis.

00:27:36.000 So here was the reporter from Univision.

00:27:39.000 Again, this is a left-wing question from an MSNBC Latino reporter.

00:27:43.000 I mean, that's basically what Univision is.

00:27:45.000 It is a Latino MSNBC. 0.83

00:27:48.000 Suggesting that the teaching of slavery in Florida talks about the massive benefits of slavery, which of course is not true.

00:27:54.000 We talked about this extensively on the program until July.

00:27:56.000 It very much resembles the Associated Press standards, the prior teaching standards that have been applied in the state of Florida.

00:28:03.000 are pretty much mirrored here.

00:28:05.000 All it says is that slaves could use skills they learned during slavery opportunistically in order to advance their lives after slavery.

00:28:12.000 That does not mean slavery was a good thing.

00:28:15.000 It's the same thing as suggesting that if you went to jail and then you somehow got a degree while you were in jail, you used that after you went to jail.

00:28:22.000 It doesn't mean jail was great for you.

00:28:23.000 It doesn't mean jail is like an amazing place. 0.96

00:28:25.000 In any case, here is DeSantis rebutting this ridiculous question. 0.94

00:28:31.000 Slaves develop skills which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit. 1.00

00:28:36.000 You have said slaves develop skills in spite of slavery, not because of it.

00:28:42.000 But many are still hurt.

00:28:45.000 For the sentence of slaves, this is personal.

00:28:48.000 What is your message to them?

00:28:49.000 So first of all, that's a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris.

00:28:53.000 Take the line out.

00:28:54.000 We are not going to be doing that.

00:28:55.000 Just take the line out.

00:28:56.000 Second of all, that was written by descendants of slaves.

00:28:58.000 These are great black history scholars, so we need to stop playing these games. 1.00

00:29:01.000 Here's the deal.

00:29:02.000 Our country's education system is in decline because it's focused on indoctrination, denying

00:29:07.000 parents' rights.

00:29:08.000 We eliminated critical race theory, and we now have American civics and the Constitution

00:29:13.000 in our schools in a really big way, just like President Reagan asked for in his farewell

00:29:18.000 address back in 1989.

00:29:20.000 Florida is showing how it's done.

00:29:23.000 We're standing with parents, and our kids are benefiting.

00:29:25.000 Okay, then, Tim Scott, again, this is where these debates sort of tend to go off the rails, and it does show who has limits and who does not.

00:29:33.000 I do not like badly calibrated attacks or attacks that are dishonest.

00:29:36.000 Tim Scott going after DeSantis on the slavery thing is really scurrilous.

00:29:41.000 It's really scurrilous and it's beneath Tim Scott for sure.

00:29:44.000 Here is Scott going after Ron DeSantis on the standard, which again, was not written by Ron DeSantis.

00:29:50.000 It was written by a group of black scholars in Florida.

00:29:54.000 There is not a redeeming quality in slavery.

00:29:58.000 He and Kamala should have just taken the one sentence out. 0.98

00:30:01.000 Okay, ridiculous.

00:30:02.000 I'm sorry. 0.97

00:30:02.000 That's ridiculous. 0.97

00:30:04.000 No one is suggesting that slavery had redeeming qualities. 0.98

00:30:04.000 That's ridiculous. 0.98

00:30:08.000 No one's suggesting that. 0.98

00:30:09.000 And so for Tim Scott to do that, again, gross.

00:30:11.000 Don't like it.

00:30:12.000 Okay, we'll get to more of the debate in just one second.

00:30:14.000 First, as much as I love watching baseball and rooting for my White Sox, I gotta say, my White Sox are awful this year, like a truly historically awful team, which means I'm not enjoying it as much as usual.

00:30:23.000 So I have to rely on prize picks to make it more enjoyable.

00:30:26.000 Prize picks is the easiest and fastest way to play daily fantasy sports.

00:30:29.000 You pick two to six players and you choose whether they will score more or less than their prize picks projection.

00:30:34.000 If you're a White Sox fan, always take the under.

00:30:36.000 You can win up to 25 times your money on any entry.

00:30:39.000 No competition against other people, it's just you versus the projections.

00:30:41.000 PrizePix offers projections on pretty much every sport there is.

00:30:44.000 NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, PGA, college sports, esports, tennis, disc golf, whatever you're into.

00:30:49.000 PrizePix now offers Apple Pay for quick and easy deposits into your account this football season.

00:30:55.000 Again, if you are, like me, a fan of, say, the Chicago Bears, and you've just been watching the painful Season 3 performance of Justin Fields, Maybe the only way to make the NFL watchable for you is to use PrizePix.

00:31:07.000 Go to prizepix.com slash ben.

00:31:09.000 Use promo code ben for a first deposit match up to $100.

00:31:12.000 That's prizepix.com slash ben with promo code ben for a deposit match up to $100.

00:31:17.000 Okay, the debate concluded with pretty much everybody trying to explain who they wanted to leave the race, what they thought the race was about.

00:31:27.000 In the end, there are really only two candidates on the stage who are running to be the President of the United States.

00:31:33.000 In the end, DeSantis and Haley.

00:31:34.000 Everybody else is up there for a different reason.

00:31:37.000 And you can see it in the answers.

00:31:38.000 So, the last question, Dana Perino is getting a lot of crap for this because she said, if this were Survivor, who would be voted off the island?

00:31:46.000 Is that an insulting question? 0.69

00:31:47.000 I mean, half these people should be off the island.

00:31:49.000 Not only should they be off the island, we should actually have, you know, like an alligator pit.

00:31:53.000 And I think it would make it much more entertaining if every time they slipped lower in the polls, there was the possibility of death.

00:31:59.000 I mean, it would definitely winnow the field pretty dramatically.

00:32:03.000 In any case, here was Dana asking the question.

00:32:05.000 Ron DeSantis said, I'm not going to answer it because I don't like the question.

00:32:08.000 Fair enough.

00:32:10.000 None of you have indicated that you're dropping out.

00:32:12.000 So, which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island?

00:32:20.000 Please use your marker to write your choice on the notepad in front of you.

00:32:24.000 15 seconds, starting now.

00:32:27.000 Of the people on the stage, who should be... I'm absolutely serious.

00:32:29.000 I'll decline to do that with all due respect.

00:32:31.000 I mean, we're here, like, you know, we're happy to debate, but I think that that's disrespectful to my fellow competitors.

00:32:36.000 Nobody wants to participate.

00:32:37.000 Let's do some questions.

00:32:38.000 Let's talk about the future of the country.

00:32:42.000 Okay, so, okay, fine, fine.

00:32:45.000 I will say that it was very funny.

00:32:46.000 The very end of this debate, like, took the mask off of Vivek when it came to Trump.

00:32:51.000 So this is the thing.

00:32:52.000 Look at that list of candidates again.

00:32:54.000 Who is actually running because they think they're going to win the nomination?

00:32:57.000 So Nikki, maybe.

00:32:58.000 DeSantis is definitely running because he thinks he could win the nomination.

00:33:00.000 I mean, back in December, he was directly competitive with Donald Trump.

00:33:04.000 Vivek, is running to be a senator from Ohio with Trump's endorsement, or he is running to get a podcast, or he's running to do whatever it is he's doing.

00:33:15.000 He was asked, why are you running when you're basically just a Trump mini-me?

00:33:18.000 And his answer was, well, I am a Trump mini-me.

00:33:21.000 And here we go.

00:33:23.000 I think Trump was an excellent president, but the America First agenda does not belong to one man.

00:33:30.000 It does not belong to Donald Trump.

00:33:31.000 It doesn't belong to me.

00:33:33.000 It belongs to you, the people of this country.

00:33:37.000 And the question is, who's going to unite this country and take the America First agenda to the next level?

00:33:43.000 OK, OK, OK, fine.

00:33:44.000 So the problem is that guy's running.

00:33:46.000 So you can't do that.

00:33:48.000 You can't do that.

00:33:49.000 He was an excellent president.

00:33:50.000 I love his agenda and we need to take it to the next level.

00:33:53.000 He's standing right there and he's beating you by like 40 points, dude.

00:33:57.000 Some people here are running and some people here are not running.

00:33:59.000 They are just there for the bleeps and giggles of it.

00:34:02.000 Again, Nikki Haley running.

00:34:04.000 Ron DeSantis clearly running.

00:34:05.000 Vivek?

00:34:05.000 Nope.

00:34:06.000 Tim Scott?

00:34:06.000 Nope.

00:34:07.000 Chris Christie?

00:34:07.000 Nope.

00:34:08.000 More of a revenge campaign.

00:34:10.000 Just looking for his opportunity to run into the middle of a room and start belching everywhere.

00:34:16.000 Doug Burgum?

00:34:17.000 I mean, Doug, you seem like a nice enough guy.

00:34:20.000 I just don't understand.

00:34:21.000 And Mike Pence, who clearly is there to sort of shore up his legacy because he was Donald Trump's vice president and he has to justify himself individually.

00:34:27.000 Okay, what?

00:34:28.000 Are these people seriously serious?

00:34:30.000 The answer is no.

00:34:31.000 Which brings us to Trump.

00:34:32.000 We'll get to Trump in just a second because he spent the day not going to this debate.

00:34:35.000 He instead went over to Michigan.

00:34:37.000 We'll get to that momentarily.

00:34:38.000 First, The Ben Shapiro Show is supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university with a vibrant campus in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, that's ranked top 20 in the country according to Niche.com.

00:34:48.000 GCU is a missional, Christ-centered university that strives to foster a culture of community, giving, and impact.

00:34:53.000 GCU's goal is to help you develop into a servant leader who makes a difference through finding your purpose.

00:34:57.000 With 330 academic programs, over 270 online as of June 2023, GCU integrates the free market system with a welcoming Christian worldview into your bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree.

00:35:07.000 Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.

00:35:09.000 Private.

00:35:10.000 Christian.

00:35:10.000 Affordable.

00:35:10.000 Visit gcu.edu today.

00:35:13.000 Also, everybody's talking about convicting a murderer.

00:35:15.000 It's completely blown up.

00:35:16.000 Making a murderer's narrative of Stephen Avery being falsely convicted for murdering Teresa Haubach.

00:35:21.000 There are people all over the country commenting about how they've changed their mind after watching Convicting a Murderer.

00:35:25.000 Well, this is what happens when you actually make a documentary that looks at the entire panoply of the facts.

00:35:30.000 This week's episode is all about how Making a Murderer left so many viewers convinced that Manitowoc police orchestrated a plot to frame Stephen Avery.

00:35:36.000 Candace is going to show you what actually happened in this week's episode.

00:35:39.000 Take a look.

00:35:40.000 Coming up on Convicting a Murderer.

00:35:43.000 The Key was the biggest piece of evidence that viewers, to this day, believe was planted.

00:35:47.000 It was a story that was really tailor-made for Hollywood.

00:35:51.000 It was on TV constantly, saying, it's Manitowoc County, they're framing me.

00:35:55.000 There's gotta be a setup.

00:35:56.000 Because if I didn't do it, they had to find the stuff.

00:35:59.000 It seemed like almost everyone believed these filmmakers.

00:36:02.000 What do we want?

00:36:03.000 Justice!

00:36:04.000 When do we want it?

00:36:05.000 Now!

00:36:06.000 His body language comes across as very suspicious.

00:36:09.000 It looked like he was caught.

00:36:12.000 And that is exactly what the filmmakers led you to believe.

00:36:15.000 Why are you editing my courtroom testimony?

00:36:18.000 You should be still faithful to the facts.

00:36:21.000 I started to realize more and more that this was an entertainment piece.

00:36:24.000 This wasn't a piece of journalism like I thought it was going to be.

00:36:27.000 This was a piece of journalism like I thought it was going to be.

00:36:38.000 If you're not a member, head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe to sign up for access to this groundbreaking series and the rest of Daily Wire's content.

00:36:46.000 Okay, meanwhile, Donald Trump avoided the entire debate, right?

00:36:48.000 So, everybody in the debate is tearing each other apart.

00:36:51.000 They're all, you know, going at one another.

00:36:53.000 Final debate grades, by the way.

00:36:55.000 On this one, I'll give DeSantis a B+.

00:36:57.000 Haley, a B-.

00:36:58.000 Vivek, I'll give a C, C+.

00:37:00.000 Christie, a C, the C-. 0.92

00:37:01.000 I mean, that Donald Duck joke was just painful.

00:37:04.000 Mike Pence, a D. Tim Scott, a D. And Doug Bergamot, sure, he's great.

00:37:08.000 I don't understand.

00:37:09.000 Meanwhile, Donald Trump, again, played the war game strategy.

00:37:13.000 The winning move is not to play.

00:37:14.000 He instead decided to head on over to Clinton Township, Michigan, where he was supposedly speaking to auto workers.

00:37:19.000 Unclear how many autoworkers actually showed up to this thing since the UAW is in Joe Biden's pocket because he is in their pocket.

00:37:25.000 It's an Ouroboros of pocket being in.

00:37:27.000 In any case, Donald Trump goes there and he speaks about the autoworkers and he gets some headlines.

00:37:33.000 This is smart politicking by Trump.

00:37:34.000 Again, he's He does have an innate instinct for getting attention and for misdirecting the cameras to a place he wants them to be, which is why it is so all-fired frustrating that for the last eight years Donald Trump has not used that magical power in order to direct attention where it should be.

00:37:48.000 In any case, he goes to Michigan and he jumps in on his trade agenda, suggesting that globalization, or what he calls globalism, not quite the same thing, that globalism is responsible for what's going on.

00:38:01.000 So give me four more years and I will give you The end to this horrible globalism that's killing our country.

00:38:11.000 I'll give you the return of the United States of America as the greatest and strongest industrial nation in the history of the world.

00:38:21.000 Together, we will dismantle the corrupt power structure that has feasted on the suffering of the American autoworker and the workers of any kind, not just autoworkers, workers of any kind.

00:38:34.000 We will cast from power the financial forces that have turned American cities into ghost towns to build skyscrapers in Beijing, China.

00:38:45.000 We will wield every lever of government to defend you and to hold accountable those who have profited from the betrayal and suffering of the American factory workers.

00:38:54.000 So sad to see.

00:38:57.000 As your 47th President of the United States, I will be your protector.

00:39:02.000 I will be your advocate and I will be your greatest champion, the greatest champion of my life.

00:39:07.000 Do I think that a lot of this stuff is true?

00:39:09.000 Do I think that manufacturing jobs are going to come flowing back into the United States thanks to President Trump?

00:39:15.000 I mean, I don't.

00:39:16.000 I don't think that anybody has the capacity to bring manufacturing jobs like 1950s style manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

00:39:22.000 That's not what the statistics show.

00:39:23.000 However, Is that a solid Midwestern Rust Belt pitch?

00:39:28.000 Sure.

00:39:29.000 His better pitch here is going after the Biden administration for their electric vehicle mandate.

00:39:32.000 This obviously is true. 0.62

00:39:33.000 Here is Trump yesterday in Michigan.

00:39:36.000 On day one, I will terminate Joe Biden's electric vehicle mandate, and I will cancel every job-killing regulation that is crushing American autoworkers.

00:39:48.000 I will unleash a thing called American energy, stop the ban on the internal combustion engine, and we will drill, baby, drill, and we will make zero environmental difference.

00:40:05.000 So again, all of that is good and smart for Trump to go to Michigan and gets attention away from the debate.

00:40:11.000 Now, the biggest issue that Trump is about to face is actually this fraud case.

00:40:14.000 So believe it or not, all of the criminal violations that he may or may not have committed, I think three of the four criminal cases are BS.

00:40:21.000 I think the one on classified documents is very difficult for him to defeat just in the actual court of law because he says on tape that he does the crime.

00:40:29.000 But Those are not really the biggest threats to him.

00:40:31.000 The biggest threat to him and the thing I'm sure that he's worried the most about is this fraud case in New York.

00:40:35.000 Now, the fraud case is absurd.

00:40:37.000 It's an absurd case.

00:40:38.000 So the law in the state of New York, I looked it up yesterday.

00:40:42.000 The law in the state of New York suggests that the government is capable of what they call disgorgement of profits of a business, even if no crime has actually been committed against anyone.

00:40:53.000 So they're not charging you with a crime.

00:40:55.000 They're not convicting you of fraud.

00:40:58.000 You have not defrauded anyone in the sense that the person who you supposedly bamboozled is not suing you.

00:41:05.000 And so you and I make a real estate deal.

00:41:06.000 I inflate the value of my real estate assets.

00:41:08.000 You know I'm inflating the value of my real estate assets.

00:41:10.000 You make me the loan.

00:41:10.000 We both profit.

00:41:12.000 So there was no loss by you.

00:41:14.000 In the state of New York, you do not have to show a loss.

00:41:17.000 The state of New York does not have to show a loss.

00:41:19.000 There doesn't have to be any criminal fraud.

00:41:21.000 They can then push for disgorgement of profits by filing a civil lawsuit.

00:41:25.000 And that's precisely what happened in the state of New York to the tune of $250 million against Trump's businesses, which is wild.

00:41:32.000 I mean, that's wild.

00:41:34.000 That's a crazy regimen of law that if they detect They think, civilly, that you committed a series of frauds.

00:41:40.000 In other words, you just completely kept inflating the value of your assets in order to get deals at lower interest rates.

00:41:46.000 The bank knew you were inflating, they gave you the loan anyway.

00:41:48.000 The state can then come in, post-facto, after everyone has benefited and done great, and the state has gotten more taxes because everybody did great, and they can disgorge the profits from you by identifying a pattern or practice of fraudulent conduct.

00:42:01.000 So, it's not even about finding harm.

00:42:02.000 There's no harm.

00:42:03.000 Now, normally, in a case, you have to show a harm.

00:42:04.000 Here, you don't even have to show a harm.

00:42:06.000 You just go after people.

00:42:08.000 So here is what is happening in that case.

00:42:10.000 According to the New York Times, a New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

00:42:20.000 This is a real problem for Trump.

00:42:21.000 If all those properties go into receivership, that is a heavy duty burden on his assets.

00:42:25.000 So if he is using those assets to, say, take loans out against the assets in order to raise legal funds, That is not available to him.

00:42:33.000 It's a serious issue for him, electorally speaking.

00:42:36.000 So according to the New York Times, James has argued that Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

00:42:43.000 adding no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms

00:42:47.000 on loans and insurance deals.

00:42:48.000 James has argued that Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion

00:42:52.000 and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million and a trial scheduled to begin as early as

00:42:56.000 Monday.

00:42:57.000 Now, if that goes forward and these properties are put into receivership, what that means

00:43:00.000 is that Trump can't manage his own businesses.

00:43:01.000 Those businesses now go to the hands of a third-party receiver who decides how to dispose

00:43:05.000 of assets to pay off creditors, for example.

00:43:08.000 And one of those creditors now would be the state of New York to the tune of $250 million.

00:43:13.000 Trump, for his part, said that Justice Engron was a Democrat.

00:43:15.000 He called him deranged.

00:43:17.000 While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Engron's ruling granted one of the biggest punishments that James sought, the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Trump's New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

00:43:28.000 The decision could terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, a family estate in Westchester County, the Trump Tower in Mintown, Manhattan, his golf club in Westchester, It wouldn't dissolve the company, but the decision could have a sweeping impact on the company's New York operations.

00:43:43.000 It would shut down an entity that employs hundreds of people working for him in New York, effectively destroying the company.

00:43:50.000 So this is like a serious full frontal assault on Donald Trump's financial wherewithal, his asset base in the state of New York, which is where the majority of his assets are located.

00:43:59.000 And not only that, it encumbers the assets for his kids.

00:44:02.000 So even if Trump were to step off the political stage tomorrow, even if God forbid something were to happen to him tomorrow, it would then encumber the assets for his children.

00:44:10.000 So this is a real threat to Donald Trump, because again, if he doesn't have money to run his campaign, Where's that money going to come from?

00:44:17.000 Presumably it's going to keep coming from donors.

00:44:19.000 You're going to give money to his campaign.

00:44:20.000 He's going to use it to pay off all of his legal bills.

00:44:22.000 None of that money is going to get spent on electioneering.

00:44:25.000 So you want to talk about election interference, this case actually might be the largest act of election interference in the entire election cycle.

00:44:32.000 And that's something people should take into account.

00:44:33.000 Again, if what you care about is victory over Joe Biden, Massive burdens on the Republican frontrunner make it very difficult for him to win.

00:44:41.000 Yes, there have been some positive polls for Donald Trump in the recent past.

00:44:44.000 We're also a year and a half out from the election.

00:44:46.000 Four criminal cases have yet to take place.

00:44:48.000 And if his assets go into receivership, he's got a serious problem on his hands.

00:44:53.000 Herein lies the problem.

00:44:54.000 And this is the case that really nobody made the debate last night.

00:44:57.000 It's a very simple case.

00:44:59.000 No one on the stage has lost to Joe Biden.

00:45:01.000 There's only one person who's lost to Joe Biden.

00:45:03.000 He lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

00:45:03.000 Donald Trump.

00:45:05.000 Run me. 0.93

00:45:06.000 Right?

00:45:06.000 That's what everyone on stage should have been saying this last night.

00:45:09.000 Run me. 0.93

00:45:10.000 I didn't lose to Biden.

00:45:11.000 You can cite polls, but those same polls suggest that Donald Trump is running dead even with Joe Biden.

00:45:18.000 And again, Donald Trump, those polls said Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump. 0.97

00:45:23.000 So there's only one thing we do know is that in an actual voting test, Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

00:45:29.000 And so if you're willing to take that risk again, go with Donald Trump.

00:45:32.000 Or you could go with somebody who hasn't lost to Joe Biden before.

00:45:35.000 In fact, Joe Biden's made it pretty clear that he would like to run against Donald Trump.

00:45:38.000 That's the case that everybody basically should have been making on the stage last night.

00:45:42.000 And nobody actually made that case, which is always kind of surprising to me.

00:45:45.000 Again, the polls are so over the place.

00:45:47.000 There's another poll out today from The Economist YouGov, and it shows Biden up five.

00:45:51.000 So inside the space of like a week, you have an ABC News Washington Post poll showing Trump up 10.

00:45:57.000 And then you have an Economist YouGov poll showing Biden up 5.

00:45:59.000 Like that is a 15 point swing.

00:46:03.000 That's... So where the hell are... I don't know where the polls are.

00:46:06.000 What I do know is that Trump has very major systemic hurdles that he's going to have to overcome.

00:46:11.000 That this is not an easy election for him by any stretch of the imagination.

00:46:16.000 And every single legal ruling that comes down against him, justified or unjustified, it doesn't matter whether the decision is right or whether the decision is wrong.

00:46:23.000 The only thing that matters is whether it stops from beating Joe Biden.

00:46:26.000 Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, who is like desperately hanging around in the hopes that Joe Biden dies.

00:46:31.000 I mean, that's all I can imagine he's doing here.

00:46:33.000 Because the year is 2024, not 2028.

00:46:35.000 He's the sitting governor of California.

00:46:37.000 He showed up at the debate.

00:46:38.000 He, like, crashed the party and showed up at the debate.

00:46:40.000 I don't... No one knows why, except that that dude desperately wants attention.

00:46:45.000 Best meme I saw about him recently is every time Gavin news from Smiles, he looks like a movie villain who just poisoned you.

00:46:51.000 Which... Fact check true.

00:46:54.000 Like, Jet set it in from the 1980s.

00:46:55.000 He's like the lead character in American Psycho.

00:46:58.000 He's gonna take you in the back room, put on some...

00:47:01.000 Put on some hip-to-be-square and start going at you with an axe, Gavin Newsom.

00:47:04.000 In any case, here is Gavin Newsom crashing the party.

00:47:07.000 Governor, what do you think is going to be the takeaway after this debate from the American people?

00:47:12.000 I think it will be clear that Trump comes out the dominant force after this debate.

00:47:17.000 I mean, this is the XFL.

00:47:19.000 This is JNU.

00:47:20.000 I mean, honestly, I mean, this is maybe, maybe a vice presidential debate.

00:47:24.000 So what are you doing?

00:47:25.000 These guys are getting lapped by Donald Trump.

00:47:27.000 It's not even close.

00:47:28.000 It's not even interesting.

00:47:29.000 And I think what's most interesting to me is, do they recognize that?

00:47:33.000 Or are they actually going to show up and run against the guy that's in the way of their prospects to be the nominee?

00:47:40.000 It's a zero-sum game.

00:47:41.000 It's a binary choice at the end of the day.

00:47:43.000 It's not a ranked choice voting.

00:47:45.000 So either these guys come after the frontrunner and distinguish themselves, or otherwise they're wasting everybody's time.

00:47:50.000 And I say this with love and respect.

00:47:52.000 What are you doing there then?

00:47:53.000 Some of the advertising is being discounted for this debate.

00:47:56.000 People don't even want to tune in because they know that fundamentally.

00:48:00.000 So, again I repeat the question, what is this doofus doing there?

00:48:02.000 What's he doing there?

00:48:03.000 Do you show up to XFL games randomly?

00:48:04.000 Do you show up to the JV game?

00:48:06.000 The JV volleyball game?

00:48:07.000 Like on a random Wednesday night?

00:48:09.000 Is that a thing that you do?

00:48:11.000 Very strange behavior from Gavin Newsom.

00:48:13.000 Then Gavin Newsom drops an even stranger thing.

00:48:15.000 So we know that Gavin Newsom is slated to have, at the end of, I believe, next month, he's going to have a debate with Ron DeSantis.

00:48:20.000 And it should be really interesting because, again, these are two very different visions of governing the country.

00:48:24.000 DeSantis wants the debate because he wants to be able to take it to Gavin Newsom and demonstrate, since Biden won't debate him, that the stand-in for Biden is very bad at governing.

00:48:33.000 He's hoping it'll give him a boost.

00:48:34.000 Newsom wants it because anything that gets Gavin Newsom on TV is something that Gavin Newsom wants.

00:48:39.000 So, Gavin Newsom then, bizarrely, went on a show on X and explained that because Ron DeSantis is debating him, this disqualifies him as president, which is a super weird take.

00:48:51.000 It's like, Newsom has been following around DeSantis, asking for debate, and finally DeSantis turned around and said, sure, let's do it.

00:48:56.000 And then Newsom's like, haha, you can't be president because you're debating me.

00:49:00.000 Weird take, Gavin.

00:49:01.000 Okay.

00:49:02.000 A debate between you and Ron DeSantis, November 30th, Fox News Channel, Sean Hannity in Georgia without a crowd, just the two of you.

00:49:11.000 Why are you doing that and what is your strategy?

00:49:14.000 I don't know if that's the right question.

00:49:16.000 Why is he doing it is the right question.

00:49:18.000 He's running, I think, I'm not sure after tonight, but currently he's running for President of the United States.

00:49:25.000 Do you think he's still going to be a candidate on November 30th?

00:49:28.000 That's an open-ended question.

00:49:29.000 Part of me wonders if, you know, the fact that he took this debate, the fact that he took the bait in relation to this debate, shows that he's completely unqualified to be President of the United States.

00:49:42.000 That's my humble version.

00:49:43.000 Why is that?

00:49:43.000 You're baiting him with the debate offer?

00:49:45.000 Of course.

00:49:45.000 I mean, why is he debating a guy who's not even running for president when he's running for president?

00:49:49.000 He's showing up at the Reagan library, hollow ground, and he puts out an ad today, not for his presidential campaign, to promote a debate against the governor of California?

00:49:58.000 I mean, this guy's distracted. 0.97

00:50:00.000 I mean, he is a big weirdo. 0.99

00:50:02.000 He's a big, big weirdo. 0.98

00:50:03.000 So debate me. 0.95

00:50:04.000 But if you do debate me, that means you're bad, is a very weird take from Gavin Newsom, who's, again, just sitting around hoping that Joe Biden dies.

00:50:09.000 Let's be real about this.

00:50:10.000 It's all he wants in life.

00:50:12.000 Because he figures that since he's running a shadow campaign, if that happens, then he picks up the pieces.

00:50:18.000 Meanwhile, again, Joe Biden's administration continues to be a bleep show.

00:50:20.000 It's the thing that is keeping Republicans competitive in this race.

00:50:24.000 Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, who theoretically should be the one involved, you know, he's the Secretary of Transportation in the UAW issues, or Secretary of Labor should be involved.

00:50:32.000 Not Joe Biden.

00:50:33.000 Joe Biden shows up to the picket lines, as we discussed yesterday on the program, in one of the most corrupt acts I've ever seen from a United States president.

00:50:39.000 He shows up wearing a UAW hat in the middle of a labor dispute, which is totally crazy.

00:50:43.000 And Buttigieg was asked, so does he support the UAW's agenda, since the UAW wants a 32-hour French workweek?

00:50:50.000 They want a 40% pay raise over the next four years, cost of living adjusted.

00:50:53.000 They want defined benefits pension plans.

00:50:57.000 They want the moon, the sun, and the stars.

00:50:59.000 Do you think Biden agrees with that?

00:51:00.000 Buttigieg can't say yes to that, because if he does, then Biden looks like a shill.

00:51:04.000 So instead, he tries to avoid the question.

00:51:07.000 They're asking for a 40% pay increase, four-day week, things like that.

00:51:14.000 Does the president support what they're asking for specifically?

00:51:17.000 Look, I can't speak to individual terms that are in contract negotiations being worked out at the table today.

00:51:26.000 You can't speak to this?

00:51:28.000 Could you speak to the fact that the president went and wore a UAW hat on the picket line?

00:51:31.000 Can you speak to that?

00:51:31.000 Again, this administration is just awful.

00:51:34.000 Meanwhile, the DEA administrator is out there admitting that fentanyl is pouring into the country via Mexico.

00:51:41.000 And so why is the border open?

00:51:44.000 So tie all that together and explain why it is so difficult to stop it.

00:51:49.000 So first of all, I think we should start even at the beginning, which is that fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat we've ever faced.

00:51:56.000 It is also incredibly cheap to make, and it is easy to transport or hide, because these tiny quantities, the amount that you can fit on the tip of a pencil, are deadly.

00:52:07.000 And so this has completely changed the face of narcotics trafficking in the world.

00:52:12.000 These are man-made synthetic drugs, starting with these chemicals coming from China, going 0.72

00:52:17.000 to Mexico where they are made into fentanyl powder and then often pressed into pills.

00:52:23.000 The powder and the pills are coming across into the U.S.

00:52:27.000 So then why is the border so open?

00:52:30.000 That would be the big question.

00:52:31.000 Again, Joe Biden, very, very bad at the presidency.

00:52:33.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.

00:52:36.000 So, things that I like.

00:52:37.000 Since I'm in Israel, I constantly get asked for, you know, travel recommendations while you're in Israel.

00:52:41.000 So here's one a little bit off the beaten path.

00:52:42.000 There's tons of amazing stuff in Jerusalem.

00:52:44.000 There's amazing sites like Masada.

00:52:46.000 But here's one that the kids will really like.

00:52:47.000 There's something in Israel.

00:52:49.000 It's in a place called Beit Shemesh, called the Biblical Museum of Natural History.

00:52:52.000 And it's very, very cool.

00:52:53.000 So basically, This museum was started by a rabbi who looks at the Bible in light of science, and he goes through the Bible and he looks at what the language of the Bible means with regard to animals. 0.77

00:53:06.000 So, for example, when it talks about deer in the Bible, the word for deer actually means gazelle, but because people who are translating the Bible weren't living in Israel, they didn't know the species that actually they were talking about when they translated the Bible.

00:53:20.000 And so, you actually have to go back to the original.

00:53:22.000 It's very interesting and cool stuff.

00:53:25.000 It's, again, a merger of science and religion that's really worth the visit, so you should go check that out.

00:53:29.000 The Biblical Museum of Natural History.

00:53:30.000 I took my kids there yesterday, and it was, indeed, a lot of fun.

00:53:33.000 If you're looking for more travel recommendations, if you ever come to Israel, I'm happy to give them.

00:53:37.000 In fact, I think we're going to be putting out more material in the near future about some places you should and definitely should not go if you are visiting around here.

00:53:43.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate.

00:53:49.000 Okay, so last night in Philadelphia, every liquor store in the city closed.

00:53:53.000 Every single liquor store in the city.

00:53:56.000 They closed because several locations were looted shortly after the conclusion of peaceful protests against a judge's decision to dismiss all charges against a former Philadelphia police officer in a fatal traffic stop shooting.

00:54:05.000 So the police made dozens of arrests following Tuesday night's looting.

00:54:08.000 And they said they were prepared to make more if things got out of hand on Wednesday evening.

00:54:11.000 So out of concern for public safety, they shut all 49 retail wine and liquor stores In Philadelphia. 0.84

00:54:20.000 Which is the sign of a well-functioning city, is you shut all of your retail establishments because you're afraid that people are going to loot the living crap out of it.

00:54:25.000 In fact, there was tape of juveniles looting multiple stores in Philadelphia. 0.76

00:54:28.000 This was Tuesday night.

00:54:29.000 Here's what it looked like.

00:54:31.000 Looters ransacking Center City stores first, then police headed to Port Richmond and Northeast Philadelphia as caravans of kids and teens moved fast from location to location.

00:54:41.000 Here's what we've learned overnight.

00:54:42.000 At least 20 people are under arrest.

00:54:45.000 Two guns were recovered.

00:54:46.000 At least one police car was damaged and there are no reports of injuries.

00:54:51.000 NBC10's Randi Gyllenhaal live in Center City near one of the business looted.

00:54:54.000 Randi, police say the looters were taking advantage of a peaceful protest involving the deadly shooting of Eddie Iruza.

00:55:01.000 We're sorry.

00:55:04.000 Yeah, police calling these looters criminal opportunists who went out after this peaceful protest had ended, hitting stores like the Lululemon.

00:55:11.000 This is in Rittenhouse Square.

00:55:12.000 It was a busy night.

00:55:13.000 Witnesses report seeing a hundred or more teens, young people, even some children ransacking stores.

00:55:19.000 It's going amazing.

00:55:20.000 It's going great.

00:55:21.000 The cops were completely outnumbered.

00:55:23.000 So clearly the issue here is police brutality, not mass criminality.

00:55:29.000 So there's one cop there.

00:55:30.000 Look how many criminals.

00:55:31.000 You can't even handle them.

00:55:33.000 Oh my god!

00:55:35.000 Oh my god!

00:55:37.000 This lady just sitting there. 1.00

00:55:38.000 there I'm filming and laughing hysterically.

00:55:42.000 Mm-hmm that's great. One protester was Everybody must eat!

00:55:58.000 Everybody must eat!

00:56:13.000 Do you mean drink?

00:56:14.000 It's a liquor store.

00:56:15.000 Everybody must eat! That's what I'm talking about!

00:56:19.000 Got one!

00:56:20.000 Uh-huh! 0.80

00:56:21.000 Uh-huh! 0.80

00:56:21.000 people screaming that there are free iPhones for everyone as well. So that's exciting. 0.80

00:56:24.000 Gotta gotta nail that that cell phone store and grab yourself an iPhone.

00:56:26.000 Question. Where are the parents?

00:56:43.000 Where are the cops?

00:56:44.000 Why have the cops not been allowed to arrest every single one of these people and their parents?

00:56:48.000 Why is it that we are supposed to pretend that mass criminality, if it is disproportionately of one particular race, is in fact something justifiable? 0.86

00:56:56.000 I promise you that if there were vast Vast crowds of looting white teens going into the center of Philadelphia and stealing things. 0.51

00:57:04.000 I don't think that you'd be getting the kind of national media blackout that you've been receiving for this particular story.

00:57:09.000 And by the way, Philadelphia is not the only city that's been hit by this stuff.

00:57:12.000 Chicago has been hit by this stuff.

00:57:13.000 Seattle has been hit by this stuff.

00:57:14.000 Los Angeles has been hit by this stuff.

00:57:16.000 Obviously, race ties into it.

00:57:18.000 It was tied into the protest in the first place.

00:57:20.000 The entire lie that the police are systemically racist has led to a feeling among a certain small subset of a certain group that believes that they are impervious to actual law-abidingness, that they have a right to go into stores and steal things.

00:57:35.000 Now, I don't even understand how a person has the moral impetus to believe that you have the right to steal a thing.

00:57:39.000 Where does that come from?

00:57:40.000 Somebody obviously feels morally justified.

00:57:41.000 Everyone must eat.

00:57:43.000 Free iPhones for everybody?

00:57:45.000 Laughing hysterically while people en masse commit acts of criminality and the cops aren't there to stop them?

00:57:51.000 I mean, this is societally ruinous stuff.

00:57:54.000 But it's being treated with kid gloves specifically because if you were to say the opposite, which is criminality of any race is disgusting, despicable, and criminals should go to jail.

00:58:04.000 And we need more cops to arrest more people who commit criminal acts so that they all go to jail if they commit criminal acts.

00:58:09.000 Anybody who commits criminal acts should go to jail. 0.89

00:58:12.000 If that were the actual take, then the immediate response from left would be disproportionate number of black people going to jail, racist, terrible, fewer cops. 0.70

00:58:19.000 We know because it's exactly what happened in 2020.

00:58:22.000 Man, the wages of racial intersectionality when it comes to crime, vast criminal behavior. 0.72

00:58:31.000 All right, guys, the rest of the show continues right now.

00:58:32.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:58:34.000 We are going to be getting into the government shutdown and the latest over there.

00:58:38.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:58:39.000 Use code Shapiro.

00:58:39.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 28, 2023

It’s FIGHT NIGHT #2

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript