The Ben Shapiro Show - August 14, 2026


Joe Rogan Is Falling for the Charlie Kirk Conspiracy


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

195.48

Word count

6,490

Sentence count

505


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 So yesterday, Joe Rogan announced that he is beginning to believe Candace Owens' bizarre theories about Charlie Kirk's assassination.
00:00:07.000 Namely, that it wasn't Tyler Robinson.
00:00:09.000 It must be a government cover-up.
00:00:11.000 It could have been anybody from TPUSA to Erica Kirk to the Israeli government to French assassins to me personally.
00:00:18.000 So today I'm going to talk about why that's actually pretty important.
00:00:21.000 Not just the morality of believing evil conspiracism from a manipulative loon like Candace.
00:00:25.000 Obviously, that's immoral.
00:00:27.000 I'm not just going to talk about the untruth of Candace's bizarre theories because those theories are an IQ test.
00:00:33.000 And if you believe them, you fail the IQ test.
00:00:35.000 I'm going to talk about the responsibility of our political leadership when it comes to conspiracism.
00:00:40.000 I'm going to talk about who ought to be the people leading the country people who follow the people or people who speak the truth.
00:00:46.000 That is perhaps the biggest issue in today's politics, with ramifications far beyond whatever benighted crap Candace or Joe Rogan or Theo Vaughn dump on their podcast today.
00:00:55.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
00:01:04.000 So, as I say, yesterday, Joe Rogan dropped the bombshell that he is starting to believe Candace Owens' theories about Charlie Kirk's assassination.
00:01:11.000 Here's what he had to say.
00:01:14.000 Wasn't that guy a furry?
00:01:15.000 No, he loved a furry.
00:01:16.000 Oh, he loved a furry.
00:01:17.000 Yeah, but I'm not even sure if that's true.
00:01:20.000 The more time goes on, the more I'm leaning towards Candace Owens.
00:01:23.000 Whatever the spin is about Tyler Robinson, there's some bullshit to it.
00:01:27.000 I don't know how much of his bullshit, but there's some bullshit.
00:01:33.000 Okay, listen, I know.
00:01:34.000 I like Joe personally, he's a nice guy.
00:01:37.000 Also, this kind of stupidity ought to immediately make you question Joe's capacity to discern truth from fiction.
00:01:42.000 Because, dude, come on.
00:01:45.000 Come on.
00:01:46.000 This is the equivalent of essentially endorsing the theory that staring at hieroglyphics can solve your health problems, which Joe also kind of did recently.
00:02:00.000 The hieroglyphs actually carry the information in the form.
00:02:05.000 And so the form of those shapes, now we've, you know, some of the greatest minds.
00:02:10.000 On the earth, people are starting to recognize that if you draw one of those shapes and show it to a human mind, it creates an incredible medical response.
00:02:18.000 You can reverse inflammation, all kinds of things by looking at the shape because the shape is creating a way to understand it.
00:02:24.000 Looking at the shape of certain hieroglyphs?
00:02:25.000 Yeah.
00:02:26.000 The shapes that are in Egyptian hieroglyphs are now being used to really change human biology.
00:02:32.000 We're realizing it was not a symbolic representation of something, it was a full transmission of information.
00:02:39.000 Is there papers written on this?
00:02:41.000 So, Ibrahim is one of the greatest minds out there.
00:02:46.000 He's out of Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, and he's in his 80s now.
00:02:50.000 And I'm going to connect you with him because you'd love to have him on this show.
00:02:53.000 But he has been hired by large groups, and now Switzerland has hired him now to recode their 5G network with these shapes to improve biology and life around the 5G network.
00:03:06.000 Now, I'm not super shocked by this kind of stuff.
00:03:16.000 Joe Rogan, Joe tends to believe pretty much every conspiracy theory that he can find.
00:03:20.000 Because let's be real, conspiracism is fun.
00:03:23.000 Like, it's super fun, it's chatty.
00:03:24.000 You can fill five hours talking with your comedian friends about how the moon landing was fake and underwater demons who might be aliens control our lives.
00:03:31.000 I get the shtick, right?
00:03:32.000 Joe's shtick is that he is basically caveman discovering the world by talking with all the people.
00:03:36.000 This never results in any firmly held belief, so he'll endorse James Tallarico, the psychotic left wing howdy duty of Texas, and Donald Trump within two years of each other.
00:03:46.000 But listen, it's fun to watch the journey.
00:03:48.000 It's just sitting with your friends in college and popping open a beer or in Joe's case, smoking a blunt and waxing philosophic on whether your chair really exists, man.
00:03:56.000 Or whether when you see the color red and I see the color red, is it the same color red, bro?
00:04:02.000 Or which Kardashian sister is the hottest?
00:04:04.000 You know, it's like bullshit the bros.
00:04:06.000 That's what the show is.
00:04:07.000 And under normal circumstances, that's fine and fun and whatever.
00:04:10.000 It's a free country.
00:04:10.000 You can listen to what you want.
00:04:11.000 There are two things that make this kind of stuff a problem for America more generally.
00:04:14.000 One, when people start treating this stuff seriously, And two, when politicians start treating this stuff seriously, because people start treating this stuff seriously.
00:04:23.000 So listen, part and parcel of Joe's comedic world is blackpilling.
00:04:26.000 This is, by the way, it's very common in comedy because comedy is about making fun of the world as it is.
00:04:32.000 It's not about offering solutions, it's not about trying to come to a consensus.
00:04:34.000 Comedy is about making fun of the world as it is.
00:04:37.000 Comedy is inherently sort of blackpilled.
00:04:39.000 You can't trust any of the systems, my bro.
00:04:42.000 Those systems are out to get you, dude.
00:04:43.000 Bro, have you seen how corrupt this is?
00:04:46.000 We're wild.
00:04:47.000 Now, there are basically three perspectives on the system, or any systems like banking, or the judiciary, or the electoral system, or the legacy media, or the universities, or our economy, or whatever.
00:05:00.000 Or whatever.
00:05:01.000 Perspective one every system is thoroughly corrupt.
00:05:04.000 You can trust none of the systems.
00:05:05.000 They are all corrupt, all of them.
00:05:07.000 Trust nothing.
00:05:09.000 Perspective two all the systems are great.
00:05:10.000 They're all pristine.
00:05:11.000 We should trust everything that they churn out.
00:05:13.000 And then there's perspective three some of the systems work basically okay, other systems suck.
00:05:19.000 The ones that don't work properly can sometimes be course corrected, and sometimes those systems need to be torn down to the studs.
00:05:24.000 Now, as you might guess from my characterization here, I think that perspectives one and two are ridiculous.
00:05:30.000 I also think that pretty much nobody actually believes them.
00:05:32.000 I think they Play well in podcast land because conspiracism is fun and profitable.
00:05:37.000 So, this is how you end up with a lot of podcasters who promote mutually exclusive propositions.
00:05:43.000 Like, for example, that the government is directed toward corruption, which is largely true.
00:05:48.000 And also that the government should run every aspect of our healthcare system and it'll be great and not corrupt, which again is not meshing with that first proposition.
00:05:56.000 But also the government doesn't have the power to regulate the internet.
00:05:59.000 So, we're all doomed to failure, which is like sort of half true.
00:06:03.000 All of which Joe said yesterday with all of his friends on the show, literally.
00:06:06.000 Yesterday.
00:06:06.000 So, for example, Joe Rogan said that Donald Trump has made billions in crypto.
00:06:10.000 This is true.
00:06:11.000 I'm highly critical of this.
00:06:12.000 I think it's corrupt.
00:06:13.000 I think it's a huge problem.
00:06:14.000 I've been calling it out since literally the first week of the administration.
00:06:17.000 So, what Joe says here is true.
00:06:21.000 This government has done some that no government has ever done before.
00:06:24.000 And one of them is the crypto stuff.
00:06:26.000 The crypto stuff's nuts.
00:06:27.000 What?
00:06:27.000 It's like Trump has made billions in crypto.
00:06:31.000 Look, government's so crooked.
00:06:31.000 Yeah, it's good.
00:06:33.000 And then you got his sons, and his sons are involved in all these weird business deals.
00:06:38.000 Where the business deals have to do with some things that Trump put, and then the sons are involved in these businesses.
00:06:42.000 And like, there's a lot of money flowing around that you could dig in and start arresting people.
00:06:50.000 Okay, so I totally agree, actually, with a lot of what he's saying there, because it turns out that a government that is gigantic and prone to corruption does bad things.
00:06:59.000 But then on the same show, he'll turn around with Shane Gillis and they'll talk about how free healthcare isn't communism.
00:07:07.000 In fact, you know what communism isn't?
00:07:09.000 When we treat the whole country like a community.
00:07:13.000 Which, I mean, there is a reason that communism and community have the same linguistic root.
00:07:22.000 Not because community is bad or something, but because the entire premise of communism is that as a member of a community, your individuality disappears and the community now gets to dictate what to do with your goods, products, services, and life.
00:07:34.000 Here they are explaining things that, again, are self contradictory, but here we go.
00:07:40.000 Communism's the gayest ever.
00:07:42.000 This is the worst.
00:07:44.000 Somebody needs to look into how gay communism is.
00:07:46.000 But isn't it crazy that it's making a comeback?
00:07:48.000 Yeah.
00:07:49.000 It always does.
00:07:50.000 It's a cycle.
00:07:51.000 There's a cycle.
00:07:52.000 The problem is if we cannot call it communism, if we get free health care, that would be a good move.
00:07:57.000 That would help a lot.
00:07:58.000 We're calling everybody communist that wants to be free.
00:08:00.000 Socialist communist.
00:08:01.000 Free health care is cool.
00:08:02.000 Yeah.
00:08:03.000 We should have that.
00:08:04.000 It's normal.
00:08:05.000 That's not communism.
00:08:07.000 Communism is normal.
00:08:08.000 You should treat the entire country like it's a community.
00:08:11.000 If you have a community, would you want the sickest person to.
00:08:15.000 Die, who could be very valuable if you could, like, take care of them?
00:08:18.000 And do you have the resources to take care of them?
00:08:20.000 Of course, you should.
00:08:21.000 We're a rich country.
00:08:23.000 Communism is terrible and gay.
00:08:26.000 Also, we should treat our entire body politic like a community.
00:08:30.000 And maybe that should be dictated by the thesis from each ability according to his ability to each according to his need.
00:08:40.000 Okay.
00:08:41.000 Now, again, I'm not really going to blame Joe for any of this sort of stuff.
00:08:44.000 One of the things that makes Joe such a successful podcaster is that.
00:08:47.000 He is kind of sort of a tribune for the people, meaning that he contains multitudes, including a variety of totally conflicting viewpoints, right?
00:08:54.000 I don't think Joe himself would say that he has some sort of thoroughgoing theory of politics or a thoroughgoing worldview.
00:08:59.000 Again, his politics are a journey and they move all over the place.
00:09:05.000 And the general schtick of the show, again, is sort of caveman explores world by talking to humans.
00:09:09.000 Okay, fine.
00:09:11.000 There's only a couple of problems that come up with this.
00:09:13.000 One is there are a bunch of young men who use Joe Rogan as a sort of political litmus test, which is pretty weird.
00:09:18.000 Or as Joe might say, wild, right?
00:09:20.000 Joe himself would probably argue that you shouldn't follow him that way because Joe himself would say that he's not fully formed on much of this stuff at all.
00:09:27.000 But people do that anyway.
00:09:28.000 Again, that's not Joe's fault, it's just a reality.
00:09:31.000 You know, it turns out that young men will follow pretty much anybody.
00:09:34.000 I mean, hell, a bunch of young men are using the alleged sex trafficking tape brothers as a moral litmus test.
00:09:40.000 We'll get to another group of manosphere people who are just widely worshipped.
00:09:40.000 Are you coming up?
00:09:45.000 I mean, they're scam artists, but here is the thing you don't like scams.
00:09:50.000 You want the thing that matters.
00:09:51.000 I'll tell you the thing that has mattered for literally all of human history, and that thing is gold.
00:09:55.000 So here's an idea for the next time you have to buy a graduation gift, a bar mitzvah gift, a birthday gift for a niece or a nephew, whatever it is.
00:10:01.000 Don't be the dad or uncle who puts cash in an envelope.
00:10:03.000 Upgrade that gift game.
00:10:03.000 Give them a gold or silver coin.
00:10:05.000 It's memorable.
00:10:06.000 It's something they can actually keep.
00:10:07.000 More importantly, it gives you an excuse to teach them something about sound money.
00:10:11.000 Again, if you give a kid today like 20 bucks, like in cash, first of all, he could probably spend it.
00:10:16.000 But second of all, within about three years, that 20 bucks is going to be worth, I don't know, not all that much money.
00:10:21.000 Well, this is actually part of what I like about physical gold, silver, or any precious metal.
00:10:24.000 These are real assets you can hold.
00:10:26.000 If you're interested in owning them yourself, that's where Golden Crest Metals comes in.
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00:10:49.000 Text Ben to medals.
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00:10:57.000 And you hear what are the Tate fans outside a jail in Miami doing push ups?
00:11:17.000 God made too many stupid people on this planet.
00:11:19.000 This is my main critique of God.
00:11:20.000 Okay, well, it turns out, by the way, that Andrew and Tristan Tate had a giant cache of passports under aliases, including with a Bond villain name, according to the New York Post.
00:11:31.000 Tristan Tate had a Mexican passport with his photograph and date of birth, but under Vladimir Scorpius.
00:11:36.000 That is the name of the main villain in the 007 spy novel Scorpius, according to court documents.
00:11:41.000 Tristan also posted an online video of himself on a ship declaring, I'm Vladimir Scorpius and a registered UK company called Scorpius Limited.
00:11:51.000 Andrew Tate, meanwhile, openly bragged on social media about having eight lives, eight licenses and passports, and evading authorities in multiple countries.
00:11:58.000 I do have to give you an update for all of the Tate followers who are trying to define their lives by following the genius of Andrew Tate.
00:12:05.000 I think it is time for our latest episode of Deep Thoughts with Andrew Tate here.
00:12:08.000 Because, again, as long as we're just tracing the people who young men are following, Just a couple of samples.
00:12:15.000 Because again, the mark of being brutally violated in prison is that you have access to X. Quote Grief passes through life like weather.
00:12:23.000 Confinement keeps the air still and forces you to remain in the room with a storm.
00:12:30.000 It's a thinker.
00:12:32.000 Sounds a thinker.
00:12:33.000 But we have more.
00:12:35.000 Life is kaleidoscopic.
00:12:38.000 At first, it looks random.
00:12:39.000 With focus, you see patterns.
00:12:42.000 A dazzling infinity, colorful chaos.
00:12:44.000 But truthfully, It's always beautiful.
00:12:52.000 Wow.
00:12:52.000 Wow.
00:12:53.000 These are words to live by.
00:12:55.000 A couple more.
00:12:56.000 Disappointment is finite.
00:12:58.000 Hope is infinite.
00:13:02.000 Ah, man, I'm.
00:13:04.000 He's opening new vistas, new horizons to me that I'd never thought about before.
00:13:09.000 And finally, God doesn't return what is lost, He answers loss by allowing you to find the loss in something new.
00:13:17.000 Father to son, to son to son.
00:13:23.000 Indeed.
00:13:24.000 Indeed, Andrew Tate.
00:13:26.000 Indeed, Vladimir Scorpius.
00:13:29.000 These are deep thoughts.
00:13:30.000 Why am I talking about this?
00:13:31.000 Because again, there are a lot of young men who are following these people.
00:13:34.000 And let's be real about this.
00:13:35.000 Following these people is stupid.
00:13:36.000 If you're not doing it for fun, if you're using them as political guides rather than gossipy buddies with whom to share DMT or something.
00:13:42.000 But even that's not really the problem.
00:13:44.000 The real problem, the problem that I have again, it's not the people who listen to Joe Show or listen to Tate or whatever.
00:13:51.000 Okay.
00:13:51.000 It's a free country.
00:13:52.000 I may think that you're wasting your time on certain broadcasts, but you know, free country.
00:13:57.000 The big problem is when our political leaders decide to follow this crew, which takes us to.
00:14:02.000 The modern GOP.
00:14:04.000 So, top members of the GOP, most prominently the vice president, think the path to victory, political victory, lies in winning over the Rogan bros.
00:14:12.000 And the vice president has made this pretty clear over and over and over.
00:14:14.000 So, the New York Times reported just a few weeks back, quote, Vance made clear to colleagues he feared losing some of the so-called low-propensity voters, the young men who are not traditional Republicans, but who had voted for the Trump Vance ticket in 2024.
00:14:26.000 This was an audience tuned into the Manosphere podcasters like Joe Rogan, and it was worrisome that the podcast hosts themselves were now rebelling.
00:14:33.000 And of course, the vice president has recommended that everyone ought to listen to the benighted musings of Theo Vaughn, a double digit IQ comedian whose discernment is on par with that of a brick.
00:14:47.000 Here was the vice president of the United States at TPUSA a few months back.
00:14:52.000 You know, I think if you want a good laugh, I love Theo Vaughn.
00:14:55.000 Like, he's one of my favorite.
00:14:56.000 He's just incredible.
00:14:57.000 And he's got one of these senses of humor where, like, 30% of the time it goes completely over my head.
00:15:03.000 And 70% of the time he's the funniest person imaginable.
00:15:06.000 But I think Theo has a good heart, and that's one of the reasons why I really like listening to his show.
00:15:13.000 So much great stuff in Theo Vaughn.
00:15:14.000 Things like, you know, his usual spate of conspiracy.
00:15:22.000 Our entire society has been firmly lobotomized.
00:15:24.000 It's amazing.
00:15:25.000 Here is Theo Vaughn, you know, with Joe Rogan.
00:15:28.000 Again, just rapping on the conspiracy theories.
00:15:33.000 People are like, we'll elect the Democrats next time.
00:15:35.000 It's like, but it's all the same shit.
00:15:37.000 Has been happening forever.
00:15:39.000 They haven't been helping anybody forever.
00:15:41.000 They're letting politicians slurp on kids.
00:15:44.000 All of our money goes to Israel and they're using it to genocide people.
00:15:47.000 It's like everybody is scared out of their wits right now.
00:15:50.000 It's like our religious leaders are afraid to speak out.
00:15:54.000 It's a time where it's like Satan is amongst us and our religious leaders are talking about bullshit.
00:15:59.000 It's just like, what is going on?
00:16:01.000 We got to get you off those antidepressants, son.
00:16:01.000 I don't know, man.
00:16:03.000 You're losing your marbles.
00:16:05.000 Come hang out with us.
00:16:05.000 You think I am?
00:16:06.000 Just chill out.
00:16:07.000 I'm here.
00:16:10.000 Again, the blackpelling, this is what you need more of.
00:16:12.000 You need more of the blackpelling, more of the conspiracism.
00:16:14.000 It's what you need.
00:16:16.000 You need a guy who tells you that news stories are actually created by actors.
00:16:20.000 That's what you really need, says the guy who literally acts for a living.
00:16:25.000 Right, but I think that this starts to happen.
00:16:27.000 News stories get created, right?
00:16:28.000 Yeah.
00:16:29.000 Things get, whether they're fiction or whatever goes on, you don't even know a lot of times what's news stories.
00:16:34.000 You can send actors out to create a scene, you see a video, you believe it, and then they make movies.
00:16:39.000 Must have been done before.
00:16:40.000 Right.
00:16:41.000 It's been done before.
00:16:41.000 Oh, yeah.
00:16:42.000 There was, but then you see movies and stuff come out later about it.
00:16:46.000 So it's like you're almost creating your own news to then make like a, based on a real story.
00:16:52.000 You know what I'm talking about?
00:16:54.000 I can see why the vice president is recommending this genius level talk.
00:16:57.000 It is definitely, you know, I think, edifying for the young male population of the United States to listen to people who may be borderline retarded talking about politics.
00:17:09.000 Now, listen, I think that this particular strategy is flawed for four particular reasons for the vice president, all of which I've expressed publicly.
00:17:17.000 One, you have to build your own coalition.
00:17:19.000 You can't just duplicate President Trump's.
00:17:21.000 I know the vice president of the United States thinks that if he just keeps Trump's coalition, he wins in 2028.
00:17:25.000 This is wrong, and it is also politically stupid.
00:17:28.000 No politician can duplicate.
00:17:30.000 The coalition built by another politician.
00:17:32.000 That is not the way that this works.
00:17:34.000 If you take Donald Trump's coalition and you map JD Vance onto that coalition, JD Vance loses participants in literally every area of that coalition.
00:17:43.000 He wins fewer women, fewer Hispanics, fewer blacks, fewer blue collar voters, because it's not possible to outcompete President Trump with blue collar white voters.
00:17:53.000 He does worse with the manosphere.
00:17:56.000 He wins fewer of everyone, pretty much.
00:18:01.000 He has to create his own coalition.
00:18:03.000 And if you just try to grab Trump's coalition, it's going to fade away on you.
00:18:06.000 Hillary Clinton tried to do this with Barack Obama and it totally failed.
00:18:09.000 You just can't do it.
00:18:09.000 Okay.
00:18:10.000 Second reason the people, if you try to follow the people around, right?
00:18:13.000 Let's say this is Vox Populi.
00:18:15.000 Okay.
00:18:15.000 You follow the people around.
00:18:16.000 The people are fickle.
00:18:18.000 Joe Rogan, for example.
00:18:21.000 Trump has been in three elections.
00:18:22.000 Joe Rogan voted for Donald Trump this many times.
00:18:25.000 I'm holding up one finger one time.
00:18:27.000 He is now endorsing James Tellurico for Senate in Texas.
00:18:30.000 The notion that if you just go on Joe Rogan's show, And you kind of mirror his conspiratorial musings and blackpill super hard the way that JD Vance actually did on Joe Rogan's show that all the Joe Rogan's voters will end up with you.
00:18:42.000 That's silly.
00:18:44.000 The people can change their mind.
00:18:44.000 That's silly.
00:18:46.000 The people are fickle.
00:18:46.000 Joe Rogan is fickle.
00:18:48.000 Theo Vaughn is fickle.
00:18:49.000 All these people are fickle because they don't have any consistent worldview.
00:18:52.000 So if you just try to follow them around, there's a very good shot they will run away from you, just on a pragmatic level.
00:18:58.000 Third, successful leaders lead and the coalitions follow in their wake.
00:19:03.000 Politicians who tend to pander, meaning they just kind of run around chasing the crowd.
00:19:07.000 It tends not to work.
00:19:09.000 This is where President Trump is actually quite unique.
00:19:11.000 President Trump doesn't go on Joe Rogan and just sort of mirror what Joe Rogan is saying.
00:19:16.000 President Trump says whatever President Trump wants to say, and then whoever follows him kind of wants to follow him.
00:19:20.000 That's how it works.
00:19:22.000 Trump is the same dude everywhere.
00:19:25.000 He doesn't change what he is saying because he's on Joe Rogan or Theo Vaughn or my show or anybody.
00:19:29.000 All right, coming up, we'll get to the fourth reason why it is stupid to chase around Joe Rogan's audience as a politician.
00:19:36.000 First, we have obviously reached a strange point in American life.
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00:19:44.000 Good customer service, a reasonable price.
00:19:45.000 That's like the bare minimum, but you don't even get that these days.
00:19:49.000 Our standards for customer service have gotten ridiculous, right?
00:19:52.000 You call someplace up, you spend 25 minutes listening to elevator music.
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00:20:39.000 Fourth, and most importantly, it is immoral and wrong as a leader to forego truth in favor of popularity.
00:20:46.000 I know this is a thing that has fallen out of favor.
00:20:48.000 We're supposed to just believe that our politicians, that their job is to chase the people around with a butterfly net.
00:20:55.000 And that is wrong.
00:20:56.000 It is morally, it's politically stupid, but it is also morally wrong.
00:21:01.000 It's very funny.
00:21:02.000 There are a bunch of people, purportedly on the right now, who say things like vox populi, vox de, right?
00:21:08.000 Meaning the voice of the people is the voice of God.
00:21:10.000 That is stupid and it is nonsense.
00:21:12.000 And it actually comes from an eighth century letter to Charlemagne in which the author called that idea and crowds, following crowds around, madness.
00:21:20.000 It turns out the people are often an idiot.
00:21:22.000 The people are often wrong.
00:21:23.000 This is why we have a constitution.
00:21:25.000 Why?
00:21:26.000 Because you wouldn't need a constitution.
00:21:27.000 If the people were awesome all the time, always right, you wouldn't need a constitution.
00:21:31.000 The founders feared and despised the mob.
00:21:33.000 They wanted a constitution because they knew certain rights had to be put off limits so that the people could not run roughshod over them.
00:21:39.000 That's why checks and balances exist.
00:21:41.000 That is why they are there.
00:21:43.000 Now, over the course of the last century and a half, we in all of our great wisdom decided to basically dismantle many of those checks and balances in pursuit of a far more activist and centralized government that does things.
00:21:53.000 But that's had some pretty bad side effects.
00:21:56.000 Now, here's the thing I believe that the truth always wins, eventually.
00:22:01.000 Because reality always wins, eventually.
00:22:03.000 But the key word there is eventually.
00:22:05.000 So listen, I get the logic as to why politicians pander and why they lie and why they always follow the people around with the butterfly net.
00:22:11.000 Why they're always chasing the parade.
00:22:12.000 This has always been true.
00:22:13.000 There is nothing new about this.
00:22:14.000 This is what demagoguery is.
00:22:16.000 We have an entire political class following the dictum of a 19th century French politician named Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin.
00:22:23.000 He said, there go the people.
00:22:25.000 I must follow them for I am their leader.
00:22:29.000 That's where we are.
00:22:30.000 And here's the thing.
00:22:31.000 If you try to follow the people, you probably won't catch up with them.
00:22:34.000 Especially if what you're doing as a Republican is just pitching a softer version of what Democrats are hard selling.
00:22:40.000 Even if you do win on that platform, you'll lose the country because running that car toward the cliff at 60 miles per hour is only marginally better than running that car at the cliff at 90 miles per hour, which brings us to the actual uniparty that has formed in this country.
00:22:54.000 That's the uniparty that hates free markets, the uniparty that does not like private property, the uniparty that thinks government is the solution, and that does not give a damn about the fact that we are now $40 trillion in debt.
00:23:07.000 I'm the only host, so far, there are a few others probably.
00:23:11.000 I'm the only major host, so far as I'm aware, or one of the only ones, who legitimately talks about the things that would stop that, like restructuring mandatory entitlement programs.
00:23:19.000 No one will do it.
00:23:22.000 Our debt is driven primarily by mandatory entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, that represents 50 to 60% of our national debt.
00:23:32.000 And then there's the interest on all of that.
00:23:34.000 Nobody in any party will ever touch that stuff.
00:23:36.000 Why?
00:23:37.000 Well, because they're following the people around, right?
00:23:39.000 The people don't want to hear it.
00:23:40.000 Because the people want all the benefits and none of the drawbacks, which means that our political class, by following the people, will help run us right over the fiscal cliff.
00:23:49.000 And this is what is going on in the actual world.
00:23:52.000 According to Reuters, the U.S. federal budget deficit for July jumped to $432 billion, a record for the month, as higher outlays and more negative tariff revenues also brought the 2026 fiscal year's budget gap to $1.8 trillion, topping the full fiscal 2025 deficit with two months left in the fiscal year.
00:24:10.000 Last month's budget gap.
00:24:13.000 Was the largest monthly deficit since March 2021.
00:24:15.000 There have been only two other higher monthly deficits $864 billion in June 2020, which was the middle of the pandemic, and $738 billion in April 2020, also in the middle of the pandemic.
00:24:29.000 So you've got the GOP, and the basic idea of the GOP is what if we just say all the things that people want us to say?
00:24:35.000 So if DSA is hot with the podcast bros, if quasi communism is hot, what if we just say soft communism?
00:24:42.000 That's the thing that we're going to do.
00:24:42.000 Right?
00:24:43.000 We're going to follow the people.
00:24:44.000 Now, again, the GOP strategy on all this stuff.
00:24:47.000 Has now turned into running us off the cliff at 60 miles per hour in order to forestall someone running us off the cliff at 90 miles per hour.
00:24:55.000 So now, key members of the GOP are basically selling a softer version of big government solutions that Democrats have been pumping for decades.
00:25:03.000 The GOP's plan apparently is to win over the people by telling them that the American dream is precisely what I told you yesterday.
00:25:09.000 It is not a bunch of stuff you deserve.
00:25:11.000 Remember, the American dream is the idea, as I expressed yesterday, that if you do things in a wise, good, prudent manner, if you make good, wise, virtuous decisions, you will do better than your parents.
00:25:22.000 And if your kids do the same, they will do better than you.
00:25:24.000 And that dream is very much still alive despite all of the obstacles thrown up By statists right and left.
00:25:29.000 It's a process.
00:25:30.000 It's a process.
00:25:31.000 It's not a list of products.
00:25:32.000 The American dream isn't a house.
00:25:33.000 It isn't the car.
00:25:34.000 It isn't the college degree.
00:25:36.000 It is the process by which you achieve those things through good, responsible decision making.
00:25:40.000 And if you don't make those good and responsible decisions, you don't get those things.
00:25:44.000 Because there is a correlation in the American dream between work and wisdom and virtue and innovation and drive and grit and success, right?
00:25:54.000 That's the process.
00:25:56.000 But now the GOP's plan is to say that the American dream is the same thing that Democrats say it is a list of things you deserve.
00:26:03.000 Not a process because the process has sold you out or black pilled on the process, but stuff you deserve.
00:26:08.000 So the vice president was selling that yesterday.
00:26:13.000 And I guess I would say to that young person that you, as an American citizen, deserve to have a good life in this country and you deserve to have a government that is making it easier for you to start a family, for you to afford to get a good education, for you to have a good job, for you to afford a home.
00:26:29.000 And what I would also say is that whilst these things sometimes take a little bit of time, We are already seeing the positive results come from the president's economic policies.
00:26:38.000 We're seeing trillions of dollars of new investment into this country, which means good middle class jobs for young people, middle income people, all across our country.
00:26:50.000 Now, again, it's the beginning of what he says that's sort of fascinating because what he says there is that what Republicans ought to say, what he would tell young people is you deserve, as an American, a good education, a good job, a good home, meaning you just get those things, right?
00:27:04.000 It's a list of things that you get, not the process.
00:27:07.000 Now, what I would say to Americans is you deserve the opportunity to achieve as ends those things if you actually participate in the process.
00:27:16.000 That's what we're doing.
00:27:16.000 Right?
00:27:16.000 We're getting the government as an obstacle out of your way so you can succeed.
00:27:20.000 That's the thing.
00:27:22.000 We want it to be easier for you making good, wise, virtuous, responsible decisions to afford a home.
00:27:30.000 But the way that we do that is by getting out of your way and by getting government out of your way so you can actually do those things.
00:27:30.000 Right?
00:27:36.000 That's what we do.
00:27:36.000 Right?
00:27:37.000 But it's not a list of products because once you say you just deserve, you deserve.
00:27:42.000 A college degree, a job, a home.
00:27:46.000 You deserve that stuff.
00:27:48.000 Based on what?
00:27:50.000 Based on what?
00:27:52.000 I can wish all those things for you, but deserve is a very particular word.
00:27:55.000 Deserve says that someone owes it to you.
00:27:59.000 That's what deserve means.
00:28:01.000 If you deserve your salary, it's because you worked this week.
00:28:03.000 If you deserve your private property rights, that's because it adheres to you as an individual human being.
00:28:07.000 If I say you deserve a home, someone is supposed to now provide you the home.
00:28:11.000 That's how that works.
00:28:13.000 So again, American dream as a list of things that the government is going to provide you is not, in fact, a conservative principle.
00:28:19.000 All right, coming up, we'll get to the vice president's comments on socialism and how to stop it.
00:28:24.000 Plus, we'll get to a crazy surrogacy story that reminds us why God made the system the way he kind of made the system.
00:28:30.000 First, back to school season is here.
00:28:31.000 That means the kids have new backpacks, new teachers, new schedules.
00:28:34.000 And approximately four days from now, somebody in your house will have a runny nose because sending kids back to school, you're sending them into a gigantic germ exchange program.
00:28:42.000 I mean, honestly, we're already hitting it.
00:28:43.000 We are already hitting it.
00:28:44.000 The minute we send our kids to a place with a bunch of other kids, someone comes down with a cold.
00:28:49.000 I have five kids.
00:28:50.000 It happens like all the time.
00:28:51.000 And then mommy gets it.
00:28:52.000 It sucks.
00:28:53.000 It's literally happening to my life right now.
00:28:56.000 This right now is the time of year when I'm especially conscious of what we need to eat.
00:28:59.000 You want the fruits, you want the veggies, you want everybody eating well.
00:29:02.000 And then reality intervenes.
00:29:03.000 This is why Balance of Nature fits so easily into my routine.
00:29:06.000 It's simple, it's consistent.
00:29:07.000 During back to school chaos, I'll take every good habit I can get.
00:29:10.000 Go to balanceofnature.com today, subscribe to the whole health system or any of their other subscriptions, and receive an additional 10% off with promo code Shapiro.
00:29:17.000 Plus, with my code Shapiro, Balance of Nature will also send you a free guiltless snack.
00:29:21.000 That's balanceofnature.com, promo code Shapiro.
00:29:24.000 Again, Balance of Nature.
00:29:26.000 Promo code Shapiro.
00:29:27.000 And when you subscribe to their whole health system or any of the other subscription packages, you get an additional 10% off when you use promo code Shapiro.
00:29:33.000 JD Vance, again, a lot of the right now is doing this routine where they believe that the best way to defeat socialism is by being socialist in our language.
00:29:43.000 That socialism, the reason socialism is on the rise is because the free markets have failed.
00:29:49.000 Got to burn down the free markets in order to save the free markets.
00:29:53.000 And here's JD Vance yesterday.
00:29:56.000 And my warning to my fellow Republicans, Will, would be if we don't get this right, don't blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism.
00:30:04.000 We've got to blame ourselves.
00:30:06.000 And I think what is so unique and refreshing about Donald Trump's economic policies is that it's not the same old economic ideas that you would have heard 30, 40 years ago.
00:30:17.000 He's talking about rebuilding our industrial base, rebuilding the heartland, making our streets safer, making it possible for young people to afford to buy a home.
00:30:27.000 This is how you stop socialism.
00:30:29.000 You don't stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market.
00:30:33.000 As much as I love the free market, you stop socialism by making people's lives better.
00:30:39.000 And that's what we're trying to do every single day.
00:30:42.000 Okay.
00:30:43.000 You stop socialism by government making people's lives better is not a free market proposition.
00:30:47.000 When he says he loves the free market, by the way, you should read his autobiography.
00:30:49.000 He clearly does not.
00:30:50.000 I mean, if you read Communion, which is his new book, he really, really does not like the free market at all.
00:30:55.000 But again, this is the stop.
00:30:59.000 So Republicans have basically decided we're going to follow the crowd.
00:31:01.000 They're pissed off.
00:31:02.000 And so, what we're going to do is we are now going to repeat to them a bunch of Democratic stuff, but watered down just a little bit.
00:31:09.000 If Democrats are giving you 100 proof, we're going to give you like 80 proof.
00:31:14.000 Now, here is the reality.
00:31:16.000 What you actually have to sell to the American public is opportunity, right?
00:31:21.000 That's the thing that you got to protect the process of the American dream.
00:31:24.000 And that government is inhibiting the American dream.
00:31:26.000 This is what Reagan sold.
00:31:27.000 The difference between what's being sold now and what was being sold by Reagan, you would never hear the language that Ronald Reagan used in 1980 used now.
00:31:27.000 Okay.
00:31:34.000 And it's funny.
00:31:35.000 You have people on the right like, What did Reagan ever accomplish other than destroying the Soviet Union, creating two decades of uninterrupted economic growth and completely reshaping American government?
00:31:44.000 Aside from that, what did he accomplish?
00:31:46.000 The dead hand of Reaganism.
00:31:48.000 Well, I mean, he did win 49 states and then he bequeathed a third term to George H.W. Bush, one of the most uninspiring politicians ever to hold the presidency with again, like 48 states, I believe, against Michael Dukakis.
00:32:04.000 So there's that.
00:32:06.000 Okay.
00:32:06.000 Why?
00:32:06.000 Because capitalism and free markets are the only economic force that have ever generated prosperity and innovation over any serious amount of time.
00:32:14.000 Free markets have made our lives better.
00:32:16.000 Positing that free markets, we need something besides free markets to make lives better.
00:32:20.000 The idea that if we spend up the wazoo and hand you things, then we'll win over the people.
00:32:23.000 You're not going to be able to outbid the Democrats on this.
00:32:26.000 You just won't because it's not possible.
00:32:28.000 If you start from the framework that you're here, you're breathing, it doesn't matter what decisions you make, it doesn't matter if you make wise, good, virtuous decisions at all.
00:32:36.000 You deserve X, Y, and Z paid for by somebody else.
00:32:40.000 You will lose to the Democrats because they are promising X, Y, Z, and also A through W, all paid for by somebody else.
00:32:51.000 This is what Democrats are doing right now.
00:32:53.000 So, you know, Republicans are busy laughing at the DSA platform because the DSA platform basically makes the case that they are going to pay for literally everything that people do throughout their lives.
00:33:03.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:33:05.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:33:06.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.