The Ben Shapiro Show - Liz Wheeler | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 66

00:00:00.000 Everything that the left is trying to do is a threat to who we are as the nation.

00:00:05.000 Everything that we are built on, all the principles that we're built on, is on the line when it comes to the policies that the radical left is putting forward.

00:00:13.000 And if we don't stop those, the next generation, our children and our grandchildren, aren't going to know the same America that we know.

00:00:18.000 Hey, hey, welcome back.

00:00:26.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.

00:00:28.000 I'm really excited to welcome to the program Liz Wheeler from OANN, One America News Network, and her show is called Tipping Point.

00:00:33.000 She has a brand new book out also called Tipping Point, plural, to distinguish it from her show.

00:00:38.000 Liz, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:00:39.000 Ben, thanks for having me.

00:00:40.000 So, what prompted you to write your book, Tipping Point?

00:00:43.000 Right, so this is the most common question I'm asked about this book, and it's actually a great story.

00:00:47.000 You probably experienced this, too, actually.

00:00:48.000 After my show, every night, we have a show Monday through Friday, I get dozens, if not hundreds, of emails from people telling me, I agree with what you say, I see for myself what the left is doing to our nation, but how do I do anything about it?

00:01:01.000 These are people who don't work in Washington, D.C., people who aren't in the government, they're not in the swamp, they want to know what they can do besides every year going out and casting their ballot.

00:01:09.000 And, you know, I would answer as many of those as possible, but after a while, I thought, well, this needs a longer form.

00:01:14.000 So my book is my long-form answer to those people.

00:01:17.000 This is a handbook for what everybody in America can do to fight back against the radical leftist ideology.

00:01:24.000 So in a second, I'm going to ask you to go through some of the arguments that you make in the book.

00:01:28.000 And I also want to ask you, what exactly is the mentality that the other person that you're talking with has to have in order for any of these arguments to be effective?

00:01:34.000 I'll ask you that in just one second.

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00:02:43.000 So let's talk about what it takes to even get into the conversation.

00:02:46.000 So I get the same letters that you do.

00:02:48.000 The biggest question I always get is, how do I destroy somebody to feed somebody in one of these debates?

00:02:52.000 And the first thing that I always ask is, is it even worthwhile having the conversation?

00:02:56.000 So what do you think are the preconditions to having an honest conversation?

00:02:59.000 One of them might be that you're not supposed to be destroying each other in the conversation.

00:03:03.000 Right, well one of the things that I always remind people is a lot of times when you're having a debate, and this I'm sure you've experienced, is you may not change the mind of the person that you're actually talking to.

00:03:11.000 A lot of times it's almost entertainment, it's a show to have those ideas compete with each other, and the person that you're talking to is going to be pretty...

00:03:19.000 Um, firm in their beliefs.

00:03:20.000 That's part of human nature.

00:03:21.000 We don't like to change our minds, we don't like to lose face, but if you really think about the people that are listening, what they might hear, what part of the leftist argument they might need debunked in order to process the information from your side, from the right side, that you're presenting in that argument, that's what I always tell people to think about.

00:03:39.000 Not necessarily the person that you're talking to, but everybody listening to the argument or the debate.

00:03:43.000 So how much command do you have to have of the facts in order to have these debates?

00:03:46.000 Because you spend your life doing this, I spend my life doing this, most of the people who are writing us spend five minutes or ten minutes or maybe an hour listening to our shows every night.

00:03:54.000 What level of expertise do you think people have to have in order to do well in these sorts of conversations?

00:03:59.000 Well, I always say when you're talking to a liberal, it's not difficult to be the smartest person in the room, the most educated person in the room.

00:04:05.000 So I would say you do have to know what you're talking about.

00:04:06.000 Of course, if you don't know what you're talking about, then you're just going to be slinging around talking points.

00:04:10.000 Kind of makes us know better in a political debate than the other side.

00:04:13.000 But that's what I hope to do in my book, is I give people some facts and some figures and some arguments that you can make without spending six or eight hours researching every day before you engage in that debate.

00:04:24.000 And once you know the basics, Once you know how to use the basics, almost weaponize that data or that information against a leftist, then you don't have to, I mean you don't have to have a PhD in politics to do it.

00:04:35.000 Have you ever found yourself convinced by any of the arguments that other people are making on the other side when you have a conversation with them on some of these issues?

00:04:41.000 Probably not at this point in my show because I'm pretty firm.

00:04:44.000 I'm pretty, I'm pretty firm in my principles.

00:04:45.000 I know what I believe and more, more than that, I know why I believe what I believe.

00:04:50.000 I always say in politics, you should tie yourself to the principles, not to a politician, you know, not to any show, not to any personality.

00:04:58.000 You should tie yourself So, you're a young conservative woman, which means that you've internalized the patriarchy. 0.98

00:05:03.000 I'm not thinking about a particular political party.

00:05:05.000 I'm thinking about the principles that I'm fighting for.

00:05:08.000 And so if you can convince me why my principles are wrong, if you can convince me why my religion is wrong, I'm open to hearing your argument, but I've thought through my positions pretty closely.

00:05:18.000 So I don't know that in a debate, I've thought, oh, yep, you're right, I'm wrong. - So you're a young conservative woman, which means that you've internalized the patriarchy. 0.97

00:05:26.000 So what exactly made you conservative to begin with? - Well, I grew up in a conservative family.

00:05:30.000 My dad's a small business owner.

00:05:32.000 And growing up, you know, we would work with him at his store and we would see how businesses run.

00:05:37.000 He was very open with us about his finances, taxes, government regulations, how that impacted his business.

00:05:44.000 So I think it's a little bit difficult to experience that in real life and not come out on the other side, somewhat conservative, believing that the individual knows better than the government does.

00:05:54.000 Because, you know, you can see for yourself what happens when government tries to tell somebody what to do, but then you get to a certain point, this is the same with religious beliefs, you get to a certain point Where you're not just drafting on what your parents believe anymore.

00:06:05.000 You have to have that, you know, come-to-Jesus moment where you realize your views for yourself.

00:06:11.000 And mine was kind of, I don't want to be told by somebody else what to do.

00:06:17.000 I want to make my own decisions, even if that leads to mistakes.

00:06:20.000 I want to be able to achieve my potential in the way that I see fit, handle my money the way that I see fit, handle my religion the way that I see fit, exercise my constitutional rights the way I see fit.

00:06:30.000 Not the way some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.

00:06:33.000 wants me to live my life.

00:06:34.000 And so when you come to that point, you realize of the two parties, the major political parties, only one of the parties is offering that opportunity.

00:06:42.000 The other one wants to tell you exactly what you should be doing and what you're not allowed to do.

00:06:47.000 So what are the shortcomings with the Republican Party?

00:06:49.000 Because, I mean, you talk about the differences between the Republican and Democratic Party.

00:06:53.000 I think, in theory, that's true.

00:06:54.000 In practice, it seems to be a lot less true, considering the size and scope of government that even the Republican Party is pushing these days.

00:06:59.000 Right.

00:07:00.000 Well, the number one problem with the Republican Party right now is spending.

00:07:02.000 I mean, conservatives are supposed to be fiscally conservative.

00:07:06.000 We're not supposed to spend like the Democrats spend.

00:07:08.000 And we can see, I mean, it's not just this administration.

00:07:11.000 It's Congress, Republicans in Congress.

00:07:14.000 It's the prior Republican administration.

00:07:16.000 President Bush spent like crazy.

00:07:18.000 Nobody has the appetite anymore To make the pitch to voters why we need fiscal conservatism, I tell people watching my show all the time, this is why it's so dangerous when Democrats offer free stuff to voters as a way to sort of buy their votes.

00:07:33.000 Because once you've made that offer, once you have bought them off, it's very difficult for somebody else to come in and say, actually I'd like your vote and my platform is I'm going to take away your free stuff.

00:07:44.000 Nobody really is going to buy into that.

00:07:46.000 And when we have politicians whose interest is keeping their seat for as long as possible versus serving the interests of our Constitution and their constituents, they're not going to make an argument that they know right off the bat is a losing argument.

00:07:59.000 So do you think that we're basically screwed when it comes to spending?

00:08:01.000 Because that obviously holds true for Republicans as well as Democrats.

00:08:03.000 Oh yeah, for sure.

00:08:04.000 That's Republicans and Democrats.

00:08:05.000 I mean, President Trump in 2016 openly campaigned on not changing the entitlement programs that are destroying our budget and represent 66% of all spending, all of it mandatory in the United States.

00:08:14.000 We have to change it, or else we're going to be on the road to Greece.

00:08:17.000 There's no two ways about it.

00:08:19.000 If we don't stop spending, we're going to run out of money to spend, and then we are going to default.

00:08:24.000 And I think this is more incumbent even on Republicans in Congress than President Trump.

00:08:29.000 He can certainly advocate for that, but it's congressional Republicans who have to do the hard work.

00:08:33.000 They have to be the ones who Put those tough spending proposals and actually make plans to implement fiscal conservatism.

00:08:41.000 And yes, that includes reforming these entitlements that so many people want to believe are untouchable.

00:08:47.000 They're going to be untouchable in less than 10 years if we don't do something.

00:08:51.000 They're going to be untouchable because we're not going to have any money to spend in them.

00:08:53.000 So to go back for a second to your personal story, so you talked about why you're conservative, but what got you into politics in the first place?

00:08:59.000 Because a lot of people have conservative parents and don't end up doing what you do for a living.

00:09:03.000 Barack Obama did in 2007.

00:09:04.000 That was kind of the first time I paid attention to politics on my own versus just, you know, seeing it in my sphere or seeing my parents pay attention to it.

00:09:13.000 I started following the Democratic primary, watching him compete with Hillary Clinton, and the day that he won the election, I thought to myself, You know, this man really does want to fundamentally transform America away from what has made America so great.

00:09:27.000 And I, you know, I would see these politicians on the debate stage, Republican politicians, saying the wrong things.

00:09:33.000 You know, they're not, they're not speaking to what voters have the capacity to hear.

00:09:37.000 They're not packaging limited government and conservative principles in a way that's palatable Okay, so what do you think is the specific angle that you take that a lot of politicians don't?

00:09:44.000 D.C.

00:09:45.000 And I thought to myself, I can say these things better than these politicians.

00:09:48.000 I can tell people why conservative principles are the best for them and for their family and for our nation.

00:09:54.000 And so I thought to myself, then you should do it.

00:09:56.000 OK, so what do you think is the specific angle that you take that a lot of politicians don't?

00:10:01.000 So I've critiqued for a long time the sort of accounting methodology that formed former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was famous for.

00:10:06.000 He kind of sits down with the briefcase and then explains to people why entitlement spending was bad.

00:10:10.000 I've been very critical of that approach.

00:10:12.000 I think that it is counterproductive.

00:10:13.000 But what do you think is the best approach when you're trying to convince people, not just debate with people, but convince people who may be undecided about these issues?

00:10:20.000 We need to think about how they hear things.

00:10:22.000 I mean, this is true in interpersonal relationships, too, which is why in one of my chapters of my book, when I give a reading list, I actually give a recommendation for people to read a couple of books that are about how men and women relate to each other, because you have to understand human nature in order to communicate with people that you don't know.

00:10:37.000 They're outside of your social circle.

00:10:39.000 And I think politicians don't think about the perspective of the people that they want to vote for them.

00:10:44.000 They're thinking only about their arguments on the House floor.

00:10:47.000 They're thinking only about their policy positions, what's smart and what's not smart to them.

00:10:51.000 And they're not thinking about what touches the heart of one of their constituents.

00:10:56.000 And I'm not advocating to go just to a motion like the Democrats do, but you also have to be A relatable individual.

00:11:04.000 You have to listen to what the other person cares about, and then you have to explain why conservative policies best address what they care about.

00:11:11.000 Because hands down, I mean, I cannot think of an issue that an individual American cares about that is not best addressed by limited government versus big government.

00:11:21.000 Okay, so let's talk for a second about the female aspect of what you do, meaning that there's all of these opinions out there about what women are allowed to speak about versus what men are allowed to speak about. 0.64

00:11:30.000 This particularly becomes true in the area of abortion, where men are routinely told that they have to sit down and shut up because if you are not pro-abortion, then this is obviously because you're not a woman.

00:11:38.000 You're a woman.

00:11:39.000 You're obviously very pro-life.

00:11:40.000 So why do you think that this meme has spread so far and so wide that women are uniquely pro-abortion, have a unique stake in abortion, and that men should sit down and shut up?

00:11:50.000 Well, men are told to sit down and shut up because feminists are scared of there being a coalition of people, regardless of your gender, who are actually pro-life. 1.00

00:11:57.000 They are trying to silence as many people as possible because they're going to lose the argument on abortion.

00:12:03.000 If they actually had the courage to have the debate, they would lose that 100 out of 100 times.

00:12:07.000 And so they tell me, As a conservative woman, that I'm not a real woman because I'm not pro-abortion.

00:12:13.000 They tell you as a man that you're not allowed to talk about this because you don't have a uterus, so no uterus, no opinion.

00:12:20.000 They are trying to silence as many people as possible so that the only people left who are quote-unquote allowed to talk are pro-abortion feminists.

00:12:27.000 So in a second we're going to get to the intellectual incoherence of suggesting that I am not a woman so I can't speak about abortion because I don't have a uterus, but also you don't need a uterus to be a woman, you can actually just be a biological male.

00:12:38.000 But I want to ask you what you think are the most convincing arguments in favor of the pro-life position.

00:12:43.000 Because there's the moral argument that's made, there's the scientific argument that's made.

00:12:47.000 What do you think has been the most effective move by pro-life advocates?

00:12:51.000 So there's actually really interesting new information about this from the University of Chicago.

00:12:55.000 There's a PhD student, he actually just graduated, who did a study on what convinces people to be pro-life versus pro-abortion, and the number one deciding factor, people said, is when does life begin?

00:13:07.000 You talk about this all the time, I talk about this all the time, but he said it's the science of the thing that convinces people, and people want to know when life begins, and so he studied, well, Who, when they tell you when life begins, do you give the most credibility to?

00:13:21.000 Because sometimes when I say it, people will say, you're just saying that because you're a conservative.

00:13:24.000 You're just saying that because you're pro-life.

00:13:27.000 And he found that biologists, people think biologists have the most credibility when it comes to this argument.

00:13:33.000 And then he did a third step.

00:13:35.000 He did a study of biologists all around the world, asking them when life begins.

00:13:40.000 And they responded almost unanimously with life begins at conception, scientifically.

00:13:46.000 And I say almost unanimously because I believe it was above 95% and the remaining few percent just sent him hate emails about trying to spew his pro-life agenda.

00:13:55.000 So, I mean, I think that's the best way to go about it.

00:13:58.000 Of course you can speak to somebody's religion if they come to you with a religious issue.

00:14:02.000 Of course you can speak to the ethics of the thing.

00:14:04.000 But truthfully, the heart of the matter when it comes to abortion is always, when does life begin?

00:14:11.000 And if life begins at conception, which science tells us it does, then what right do we have to end that human life?

00:14:17.000 Okay, so let's talk for a second about some of the counter-arguments that I've heard, and I'm sure you've heard, on the abortion issue.

00:14:21.000 So, one of the counter-arguments that I hear very often is the bodily autonomy argument, which is, sure, it's a human life, but it exists inside you, you still have bodily autonomy, and so why exactly should you be forced to bear this child's term if you're in control of your own body, particularly anything inside of it?

00:14:38.000 Right, well that comes back.

00:14:39.000 I mean, what I tell people in my book, when you're talking about abortion, you always want to bring it back to the heart of the matter.

00:14:44.000 Because all of these extraneous arguments are rendered moot, essentially, when you get to the heart of the matter.

00:14:51.000 So you want to talk about bodily autonomy, then you say, okay, well are we dealing with one body or are we dealing with two bodies?

00:14:56.000 And if they say one body, the woman's, then you say, well, then what is that?

00:15:00.000 What is that that she's pregnant with? 1.00

00:15:01.000 What is in her uterus right now? 1.00

00:15:03.000 What is in her womb? 1.00

00:15:04.000 The answer to that, of course, is a unique person with unique set of DNA.

00:15:08.000 And it brings it back to that question, when does life begin?

00:15:10.000 And if it begins at conception, what right do we have?

00:15:13.000 Every single abortion argument can be brought back to that question.

00:15:16.000 And that's what I encourage people, I advocate for people to bring it back to that, because it's kind of a lose-lose for the pro-abortion crowd.

00:15:24.000 If they don't acknowledge that science says that life begins at conception, then they're being anti-science, which is what they accuse you and I of being all the time.

00:15:31.000 If they do say life begins at conception, then they're, you know, undermining their own argument.

00:15:35.000 They're saying, well, even though this is another human life, I want the government to say which life has more value and which life we're allowed to just discard and kill.

00:15:43.000 Just to clarify your pro-life position, in case of rape and incest, you're also pro-life or you believe there should be choice available?

00:15:48.000 I am pro-life.

00:15:49.000 Okay, so that is logically consistent.

00:15:52.000 I'm on the same page, obviously.

00:15:53.000 The counter-argument that you usually hear is the so-called famous violinist case.

00:15:56.000 I'm sure you've heard this one before.

00:15:58.000 I've heard your takedown of it as well.

00:16:00.000 From the 1970s, very famous philosophy paper, and it basically suggests, okay, so you wake up in a room, and next to you is a famous violinist who has been hooked into your veins, and do you have an obligation not to unhook this famous violinist if this famous violinist is going to die absent the IV?

00:16:16.000 Well, the argument there, of course, is that like a rape or incest case, in that particular case, you didn't will this person to be connected with you.

00:16:24.000 In the case of consensual sex, obviously one of the risks of consensual sex is that you will indeed get pregnant, but if you had no choice in the matter, then it looks a little bit more like this particular case.

00:16:32.000 How do you take down that particular argument?

00:16:34.000 I mean, I think that conservatives do this very well and extend a tremendous amount of compassion to victims of rape and incest.

00:16:43.000 In fact, I don't know that there's any demographic of people in our country who are more compassionate.

00:16:48.000 And I'm not just talking about on the airwaves.

00:16:50.000 I'm talking about with their money.

00:16:51.000 I'm talking about with their charity to victims of rape and incest as we should be.

00:16:56.000 Um, and we need to remind people when they're trying to tie the entire issue of abortion to rape and incest, that rape and incest, um, account for less than 1% of abortions in our nation.

00:17:07.000 So if we're making abortion legislation based on rape and incest, then it should only apply to those two, or to that less than 1% of abortions.

00:17:15.000 It should not apply to the other 99%. 0.99

00:17:18.000 So when, when the left gives me straw mans, I...

00:17:22.000 Bring it back to the heart of the matter every single time because they don't want to have that conversation.

00:17:27.000 I mean, Planned Parenthood, we've invited Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy groups onto my show to debate me.

00:17:33.000 I'm very respectful when I debate.

00:17:35.000 Numerous times, probably innumerable times, nobody wants to have that debate.

00:17:40.000 They do not want to talk about the heart of the matter.

00:17:44.000 They just want to go off into the periphery because they know they're going to lose.

00:17:48.000 I don't let them go off into the periphery.

00:17:50.000 So let's talk about another hot button issue that you've talked about a lot and gotten a lot of flack for, and that is the issue of transgenderism, gender identity disorder, gender dysphoria.

00:17:58.000 So the right has gotten a lot of flack again, and the numbers here tend to break down along gender lines, meaning men are less sympathetic to the arguments with regard to changing of gender than women seem to be, in the same way that when it comes to the pro-life Pro-choice argument, men tend to be a little bit, not tremendously, so a little bit more pro-life than women do.

00:18:18.000 On transgender issues, it seems like there actually is a larger gender gap on some of these issues.

00:18:22.000 So, where do you stand on the malleability of gender versus sex?

00:18:26.000 There's something that the left has forgotten about.

00:18:29.000 It's called objective truth.

00:18:30.000 There are two genders, male and female.

00:18:32.000 It's coded within our DNA.

00:18:34.000 It's not bigoted to say that.

00:18:36.000 It's not intolerant to say that.

00:18:37.000 It's a simple matter of biology.

00:18:39.000 I will never let the left shut me up from saying that because it is the truth no matter what they say.

00:18:46.000 Again, conservatives should Offer a tremendous amount of compassion to people suffering from gender dysphoria because they deserve our compassion.

00:18:53.000 That must be an incredible burden to feel that you are trapped in the wrong body, to feel that you are a different gender.

00:18:59.000 That's a legitimate psychiatric disorder and we should treat these people with dignity and respect and love.

00:19:04.000 But treating them with dignity and respect and love is not allowing them to be used as political pawns for the left's political agenda, and that's what the left is doing.

00:19:14.000 They are trying to exploit these people under the guise of saying they're tolerant, under the guise of saying that we're trying to include transgender people in polite society.

00:19:24.000 The left is actually exploiting them, and we shouldn't let them do that.

00:19:28.000 Because it's part of their larger scheme, if you will.

00:19:31.000 Their larger scheme to undermine the family.

00:19:35.000 Because when you advocate for transgenderism, meaning when you do that politically, what you're doing is you're saying that there's no real gender roles, right?

00:19:44.000 And if there's no traditional gender roles, then there can't be any traditional relationships. 0.99

00:19:48.000 If there's no traditional relationships, then there can't be a traditional marriage.

00:19:51.000 If there's not a traditional marriage, then there can't be a traditional family unit.

00:19:54.000 If there's not a traditional family unit, then everybody in our nation is rendered dependent on the government, which conservatives identify as the ultimate goal of many Democratic politicians.

00:20:06.000 They want money, and they want power, and to do that, they control the people.

00:20:10.000 Do you think that it has more to do, the left's agenda on this, has more to do with the interference of government?

00:20:16.000 Or does it have more to do with the general attempts to redefine terms along subjective lines?

00:20:21.000 Because it seems to me that's even a deeper issue.

00:20:23.000 The left obviously wants a bigger government.

00:20:25.000 But it seems to me that what the left really wants, more than anything else along these lines and virtually all others, is to radically redefine reality in terms of subjectivity.

00:20:35.000 The idea being that we are supposed to simply respect what you think of yourself and take that as a given reality, and that any attempt to say something that is objectively true is offensive to you.

00:20:48.000 And the goal there is that once we can't even have a common conversation anymore, well then How are we supposed to live together?

00:20:56.000 I think that the attempt to break down gender is part of an attempt to break down religion, part of an attempt to break down social institutions, not in favor of government, but just in favor of leveling.

00:21:05.000 But I think you have to ask why.

00:21:07.000 Like, why would they do that just independently?

00:21:09.000 Why would they care if there's no such thing as objective truth, if it wasn't in pursuit of a larger goal?

00:21:13.000 Because I don't think that as many leftists, and I'm not lumping together liberal voters with leftists, I don't think leftists Do I don't think they impose their agenda haphazardly.

00:21:24.000 I think they do it on purpose and with a purpose.

00:21:26.000 It's one of the things that I talk about in my book, actually, that you have to define it.

00:21:30.000 You have to define what it is that they want, because when you define what it is that the left wants, you can understand that each of their attacks, you know, whether it is on Christianity and religion or the family or our education system or whatever it is, when they are attacking these things, they're doing it with a purpose.

00:21:46.000 And their purpose is to tear down, in my opinion, their purpose is to Tear down these cultural cornerstones so that people are dependent on government.

00:21:55.000 They're not doing it just for the sake of doing it.

00:21:58.000 Maybe some individual is, but collectively, I think they're doing it in order to consolidate control in the government because that's what benefits them the most. 0.99

00:22:06.000 So how much do you think is malice and how much do you think is stupidity? 0.99

00:22:09.000 I guess is the question. 0.96

00:22:10.000 Because really it seems like, you're probably right when it comes to a few thinkers, members of the Frankfurt School, people who are actual Marxists who wish to see institutions collapse so they can rebuild the new utopian tomorrow.

00:22:20.000 But the vast majority of people who support, for example, the transgender rights movement, I don't think that they have any such Thoughts about this.

00:22:27.000 It seems to me that it really is as deep as, I feel unsympathetic if I don't just say that people are what they say they are.

00:22:34.000 And thus, I don't want to look cruel, I don't want to feel cruel, and what does it hurt me?

00:22:38.000 Well isn't that why you and I do what we do for a living?

00:22:41.000 Because there are many people who hear these things and they feel compassionate, as they should.

00:22:45.000 It's a good part of human nature to see somebody who's oppressed, somebody who's been marginalized, and say, hey, I want to be on that person's side.

00:22:51.000 I want to stand up for them.

00:22:51.000 I want them to be treated with dignity and respect.

00:22:54.000 And so they see, they hear this rhetoric from, you know, the upper echelons of the transgender movement, and They say, listen, I want to be on that side because I want to stand with the marginalized people.

00:23:05.000 And they're not, you're right, they're not thinking through why the transgender movement is doing what they do. 0.98

00:23:10.000 But I think absolutely, I think it's directed by special interests, by an ideology that wants to consolidate power into government.

00:23:17.000 Because I honestly don't think that all, I don't think that it would be as concerted of an effort to morph this politically correct culture into the laws of our nation if they didn't have a larger plan.

00:23:30.000 All right, so I want to ask you about a couple more issues, and then I want to ask you some sort of broader philosophical questions.

00:23:34.000 So let's talk for a second about an issue that seems to be very divisive, again, along gender lines, and this is the issue of immigration and national security on the border.

00:23:43.000 So men tend to be a lot harder on border policy than women do. 0.61

00:23:47.000 There's been a lot of talk in the media about lack of sympathy from the Trump administration for people crossing the border.

00:23:52.000 You are a border hawk.

00:23:53.000 What do you make of those arguments?

00:23:55.000 I think this is a matter of Democrat politicians tell lies to the American people.

00:23:59.000 Truthfully, I mean, I want to talk about the immigration rules that the Trump administration just unveiled.

00:24:06.000 The ones about catch and release, the one about detaining children with their families.

00:24:09.000 Do you know what this issue is actually about?

00:24:11.000 Human trafficking.

00:24:12.000 The trafficking of little children.

00:24:15.000 If you're a border patrol agent or an ICE agent, you are giving pregnancy tests to little girls as young as 11 years old.

00:24:21.000 If that does not break your heart and break your soul to hear that, then I don't even know how to talk to you.

00:24:27.000 And yet, the left is not interested in practical solutions about how to prevent those children from being trafficked.

00:24:34.000 The number of those children that are being trafficked increased by 300 percent.

00:24:38.000 I believe it was last year to the first half of this year because the catch and release program, because that policy incentivizes illegal immigrants or illegal aliens who are claiming asylum, incentivizes them to bring children with them because they know under the Flores settlement agreement, children can't be detained for more than 20 days. incentivizes them to bring children with them because they know So parents and children are released with a court date after that 20 days.

00:25:01.000 They fade into the shadows.

00:25:02.000 They never show up for their court date.

00:25:04.000 And voila, they're in the United States for free. 0.96

00:25:06.000 But what happens to those children?

00:25:07.000 The left, you say that to the left and their head is going to explode.

00:25:11.000 They're not going to listen to you about human trafficking. 0.67

00:25:13.000 They're not going to listen to you about the sexual abuse of women or children at our border.

00:25:17.000 And that should show you all you need to know about whether the left is arguing about the border in good faith or not.

00:25:22.000 Because if they cared about women and children the way that they claim that they do, they would be applauding. 1.00

00:25:27.000 They would be standing up and giving a standing ovation to what the Trump administration just did.

00:25:31.000 So one more issue that I want to get your opinion on, and then we can get into some more broad philosophy, and that is the crime issue.

00:25:37.000 So it seems like this should be an area particularly where women really are conservative. 0.96

00:25:41.000 I mean, and this was the premise of the 2004 election.

00:25:43.000 George W. Bush ran on the so-called security moms, women who are deeply concerned about national security and crime. 1.00

00:25:49.000 And yet right now what we are watching is movement by both parties away from sort of tough on crime tactics, including the Trump administration, which signed into law criminal justice reform.

00:25:57.000 And we've tried that here in California.

00:25:59.000 It has not worked particularly well.

00:26:01.000 What's your take on how the government should be dealing with crime?

00:26:03.000 I think we should enforce the laws that we have on our books.

00:26:06.000 I mean, that's job number one.

00:26:08.000 I mean, you can apply this to any area of crime.

00:26:10.000 I mean, we can talk about how it applies to gun crime, but we have the left telling us that we need all of this gun control, all these new laws.

00:26:17.000 I think they have, like, 13 proposals in, you know, the Parkland Kids Green New Deal for Guns, whatever they're calling it, a peace plan.

00:26:24.000 All of these different things, if we had just applied the laws in our books, we don't need gun control to keep us safe.

00:26:29.000 So that's a microcosm of our entire criminal justice system.

00:26:33.000 If we actually enforce the laws in our books, we wouldn't have the same issues that we have today.

00:26:39.000 It wouldn't be such a politically... I don't even want to call it a politically divisive topic so much as a politically dishonest topic.

00:26:46.000 People pretend like they're on one side of criminal justice or the other just to get votes, but they don't have actually any intention of enforcing laws that we do have.

00:26:53.000 So, now I want to ask about the more general question.

00:26:55.000 Sure.

00:26:56.000 So, as I mentioned before, there's this massive gender gap between men and women, particularly with regard to President Trump, but just true politically.

00:27:03.000 Generally, it's a growing gender gap. 1.00

00:27:05.000 It's getting worse.

00:27:06.000 You're making a very articulate case, as a woman, for pro-life positions, for pro-hawkish positions on immigration, for anti-crime positions.

00:27:15.000 All of these are convincing arguments, with which I agree.

00:27:17.000 So why is it that this gender gap is widening, not narrowing? 0.88

00:27:21.000 Um, I think because of what I said before, I think the Democratic politicians tell lies all the time.

00:27:25.000 The mainstream media disseminates those lies to all the four corners of our country.

00:27:30.000 Not everybody spends as much time as you and I do researching every day, so I'm not going to sit here and castigate people who, you know, fall for the propaganda, but essentially, essentially that's what's happening.

00:27:41.000 If you're not someone who's highly plugged into the conservative movement or conservative media, then some of these arguments that are coming from the left, at surface value at least, Sound very compelling.

00:27:50.000 I mean, think about those pictures.

00:27:51.000 You know, we're talking about immigration.

00:27:52.000 Think about those pictures of those little kids, those little girls wrapped in those foil blankets in cages next to porta-potties, you know, surrounded by barbed wire.

00:28:01.000 That should, you know, that should break our hearts.

00:28:03.000 That is really sad.

00:28:05.000 And if you don't do your research, or if you're not plugged in, you might think that President Trump was the one who just put them there and not realize that those photographs were from 2014 and 2015 when President Obama was in office.

00:28:15.000 That seems obvious to you and me, but not everybody is as plugged in to see those things.

00:28:20.000 So, again, that's why I do what I do, because I want people to have an avenue to hear the truth.

00:28:26.000 I want people to hear the liberal talking points and say, oh, that does sound kind of convincing.

00:28:32.000 Well, I mean, I think that answers why so many people are deceived generally, but to get back to the sort of gender gap, why is it that more women than men seem to be buying into left-wing arguments?

00:28:47.000 And again, I think the gender gap is a really obvious Yeah. 0.73

00:28:50.000 thing that's been happening.

00:28:51.000 I mean, you can see it.

00:28:52.000 The Democrats fought the war against the war on women in 2012 with Mitt Romney.

00:28:56.000 And then they did the same thing in 2016.

00:28:58.000 The great danger to President Trump, electorally speaking, is women in the suburbs. 1.00

00:29:02.000 It is not men per se.

00:29:04.000 It is.

00:29:04.000 Well, don't you think it's fear?

00:29:05.000 Don't you think it's fearful?

00:29:06.000 Because the Democrats, that's what I would identify it as, because the Democrats target women, especially suburban women, and say, listen, if you don't support radical leftist policies, then you're going to be relegated back to, you know, what many women consider to be their worst nightmare, you know, not able to vote, not able to drive, not able to have a job, not able necessarily to choose who they want to marry or where they're able to live, you know, sort of the proverbial, and I don't mean any disrespect to my grandparents' generation, but the proverbial You know, 30s, 40s, 50s housewife that is just cleaning house and cooking.

00:29:36.000 And I don't mean any disrespect to people who do that, but there's a difference between doing that when you choose to do that and doing that when you're forced to do that.

00:29:44.000 And so the Democrats have made a concerted effort ever since the sexual revolution to put fear in the hearts of women, to scare women into supporting their policies because otherwise, you women, you're going to be oppressed by the patriarchy, you're going to be put back Well, this does bring us to the question of President Trump and what you saw in 2016.

00:30:07.000 We'll start there.

00:30:08.000 Why do you think President Trump ends up winning the election of 2016?

00:30:10.000 Because obviously he was expected to lose by everyone, including President Trump.

00:30:14.000 I think he won because he's not afraid to push back on the radical leftist ideology, on the narrative that's being perpetuated by the mainstream media.

00:30:23.000 I mean, conservatives who followed along not just this election, not just the Obama administration, but even going back to George W. Bush, conservatives all over the country were so frustrated when, you know, Bush and his administration didn't push back.

00:30:36.000 Against the media.

00:30:37.000 That really, I think, was red meat to the mainstream media.

00:30:40.000 You know, they saw what they could get away with.

00:30:42.000 And a lot of people across the country were really fed up with that because propaganda does work.

00:30:47.000 So when the media is engaging in this propaganda, it does make a difference in how many people vote if they're not as engaged as you and I are.

00:30:55.000 And President Trump isn't afraid to just point at someone and say, that is BS. 0.98

00:31:01.000 That is ridiculous. 0.99

00:31:02.000 Don't try any of this nonsense on me. 1.00

00:31:04.000 Don't try to castigate pro-life views or immigration views or free market views as being racist or bigoted or homophobic.

00:31:11.000 That's not true.

00:31:12.000 He's not afraid to fight no matter how hard they fight back.

00:31:15.000 And I think that appealed to a lot of people, me included, in our country.

00:31:18.000 With that said, where do you think 2020 is going to go, given the prevailing trends?

00:31:23.000 So I had a very interesting conversation with a professor from American University named Alan Lichtman on my show this week.

00:31:30.000 He has predicted the past nine presidential elections correctly based on an algorithm that he devised.

00:31:36.000 It's not based on the polls.

00:31:38.000 He has 13 elements in his algorithm and he says a sitting president must lose six Well, I mean, I think that it's smart not to buy into polls 18 months or, as it turns out, 18 hours before a presidential election.

00:32:01.000 I lost a lot of money in the last presidential election betting as the data went, and that was a horrible, horrible mistake.

00:32:06.000 But with that said, do you have fears that President Trump is vulnerable?

00:32:09.000 I mean, if you had, let's say you were the odds maker and you had Everybody is always vulnerable.

00:32:13.000 Nobody should ever take their position for granted.

00:32:15.000 Voters should always go out and vote.

00:32:16.000 You should never feel comfortable in your position.

00:32:18.000 That's the easiest way to not be taken advantage of, but that's the easiest way to lose your seat and be surprised about it.

00:32:24.000 President Trump should campaign on what he's done.

00:32:26.000 He should campaign on what he's still going to do.

00:32:29.000 Voters should go out and vote.

00:32:30.000 They should look at his record, especially voters who, during the 2016 campaign, didn't believe that he was going to be conservative on anything.

00:32:38.000 They should look at what he's accomplished, and they should see that No, spending is still out of control, but the vast majority of things, it's absolutely incredible resume of conservative achievements, and so they should decide, well, which direction do I want our country to go in?

00:32:51.000 And if you want our country to go in the direction of conservatism, well then there's one obvious choice, and you should go out and you should vote that choice.

00:32:58.000 So as I've been saying for years, President Trump appears to be a hammer, and he's a hammer in search of a nail.

00:33:03.000 Sometimes he hits a nail squarely and it's really satisfying, and sometimes he hits a baby and it's not nearly as satisfying.

00:33:07.000 So with that said, let's say that you're advising Trump.

00:33:11.000 What do you advise him to do in terms of how he approaches things publicly?

00:33:14.000 Do you think that he just continues to do what he's doing, you just let Trump be Trump?

00:33:18.000 Or do you think that Trump should tone it down on Twitter, do you think that he should Maybe speak a little bit less wildly, a little bit more advised fashion.

00:33:25.000 What would you recommend?

00:33:26.000 You want my honest opinion?

00:33:27.000 Sure.

00:33:27.000 I actually think Trump's tweets are awesome.

00:33:29.000 Not 100% of them, but more often than not, they make me laugh, they're true, they might be harsh, and they get the media to talk about what he wants them to talk about.

00:33:40.000 The media doesn't even realize 99% of the time that he is trolling them.

00:33:44.000 That he is actually, not the producers in their studios, he is actually dictating what they're going to talk about all day long.

00:33:51.000 They don't realize that.

00:33:52.000 And I sit back and I watch these tweets come in on my phone all the time, as we all do.

00:33:58.000 And honestly, I think they're awesome.

00:34:00.000 I think that's one of the reasons why he won.

00:34:03.000 Not every tweet, there's some, you know, as we all do, that I say, well, should have phrased that different, or once in a while there'll be a cringe, but most of the time I think they're awesome.

00:34:11.000 So, you're a big believer in President Trump's tweets, I get it.

00:34:14.000 Listen, as a member, as members of his base are constantly telling me his tweets are unbelievable.

00:34:14.000 Sure, yeah.

00:34:20.000 I enjoy my fair share of President Trump's tweets.

00:34:23.000 Sometimes I find them absolutely hilarious because... He's very underappreciated as being hilarious.

00:34:27.000 He's very, very funny.

00:34:28.000 I mean, it is one of the chief things about him that is appealing is that he's basically a stand-up comedian being the president, right?

00:34:34.000 I mean, all of his rallies, this is what the media don't understand about him, is that when he does a rally, He's not scripting like Obama.

00:34:39.000 He's not even scripting like W. He's out there riffing like Dennis Miller would at a live stand-up.

00:34:44.000 And that's exactly what it is.

00:34:45.000 And that's why when people are like, well, why don't people take seriously what he's... Because he's not taking himself seriously at these rallies.

00:34:51.000 Well, let me push back on this.

00:34:52.000 Remember what I said before about the mistake that politicians make?

00:34:55.000 The mistake that politicians make is they don't think about how their audience is hearing something, right?

00:35:00.000 So what President Trump does is he always thinks about how his audience is hearing him.

00:35:05.000 What they want to hear, yes, but he's always thinking about how they're going to respond to it.

00:35:10.000 That's how he has that connection with them, and that's what sets him apart from most other politicians.

00:35:14.000 That's not a bad thing in a politician.

00:35:16.000 I mean, it's a good thing in front of a live audience.

00:35:18.000 I will object to the phrase, always thinks in connection with President Trump, just as a general matter.

00:35:22.000 But when President Trump is in front of a live audience, I mean, he is performing in front of a live audience.

00:35:26.000 You're a performer.

00:35:27.000 I'm a performer.

00:35:28.000 In front of a live audience, you have a symbiotic relationship with the audience, and Trump does that as well as anybody.

00:35:32.000 The problem is there's a whole camera crew there, and they're there projecting this to hundreds of millions of people.

00:35:37.000 And let me present the counterargument to the Trump's tweets are the greatest thing and are going to get him reelected.

00:35:42.000 That might be a little bit of a hyperbolic.

00:35:42.000 Okay, here we go.

00:35:44.000 It is.

00:35:45.000 I don't mean to, I don't mean to, I don't mean to throw him out of here, but we'll say that you like his tweets and you think that they are a positive for him.

00:35:52.000 That's fair, yeah.

00:35:53.000 Okay, so let, so here is the case against.

00:35:56.000 There's a mythology that's been built up around 2016.

00:35:57.000 The mythology goes something like this.

00:35:59.000 Hillary Clinton was a wonderful or at least mediocre candidate. 0.99

00:36:03.000 President Trump ran in A fantastically different campaign that mobilized an entire group of people who hadn't gone to the polls before, and he won a sweeping victory because of that.

00:36:12.000 I don't think that's true.

00:36:13.000 I think what happened is that people looked at Hillary Clinton, and they didn't go out to vote for her because they thought, number one, she was definitely going to win, so they just didn't show up to the polls, and number two, they just weren't all that enthused about her, so they didn't show up, figuring she was going to win.

00:36:24.000 Okay, so if you were, like, lukewarm on her and you didn't like Trump all that much, All right, fine.

00:36:28.000 Maybe I'll show up for her.

00:36:29.000 Maybe I won't.

00:36:30.000 It's raining outside.

00:36:31.000 Forget it.

00:36:31.000 Not going to happen.

00:36:32.000 And then people just didn't show up for her in the key battleground state.

00:36:34.000 She wins the popular vote by 2.5 million, and she loses in the narrowest gauntlet in American history.

00:36:40.000 She loses Ohio pretty solidly, but then she loses Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all very narrowly.

00:36:45.000 Now, the proof of my position, that this was about Hillary losing and not about Trump winning and mobilizing a vast new movement, is that Trump actually won fewer absolute votes in Wisconsin than Mitt Romney did.

00:36:55.000 And Mitt Romney lost the state overwhelmingly to Barack Obama.

00:36:57.000 And Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin.

00:37:00.000 That's not about Trump mobilizing voters Romney didn't.

00:37:02.000 That's about Hillary Clinton failing to mobilize the voters that Barack Obama did, because Barack Obama was the actual statistical outlier. 0.96

00:37:08.000 And this holds true in nearly every state.

00:37:09.000 Donald Trump performed like generic Republican.

00:37:11.000 The dirty little secret is he didn't perform like non-generic Republican.

00:37:14.000 He actually performed within margin of error in nearly every state with Mitt Romney and George W. Bush in every single state.

00:37:20.000 Well, the problem there is that it was a referendum on Hillary Clinton.

00:37:23.000 Now we move forward to 2020.

00:37:24.000 It's no longer a referendum.

00:37:26.000 Clinton.

00:37:26.000 Now it's a referendum on Donald Trump because he's the president of the United States.

00:37:26.000 No, but it's not.

00:37:29.000 So as I've been saying, if the referendum is on Elizabeth Warren and her garbage ideas, No, but it's not.

00:37:34.000 If it's a referendum on Trump and him as a personality, It's not that either.

00:37:34.000 Trump wins.

00:37:38.000 then he's got a real problem.

00:37:39.000 If it's just a referendum on the economy, well, then we'll have to see where the economy is in about 18 months because I think everyone agrees that if the economy takes any sort of dump at all, he's done.

00:37:47.000 Right.

00:37:47.000 But you're missing a big point here.

00:37:49.000 The point is that this is a referendum and Trump has made it this through his tweets on the leftist ideology.

00:37:56.000 It's the mainstream media that he is battling here because the mainstream media has been the PR firm of the Democratic Party.

00:38:02.000 So yes, he's not running against Hillary Clinton anymore.

00:38:04.000 He's now running on his own record.

00:38:06.000 Sure, most people are doing better than they were before.

00:38:09.000 Trump was president, so he's good there.

00:38:11.000 But I don't... His tweets have also changed, by the way, from during the election in 2016 to now.

00:38:16.000 He's ramped them up.

00:38:17.000 They're more bombastic, even.

00:38:18.000 They're certainly more frequent.

00:38:20.000 He targets people much more specifically.

00:38:22.000 But here's why.

00:38:22.000 And I'm going to reference, actually, an article that you wrote.

00:38:25.000 I believe it was last week.

00:38:26.000 You said, what would this week look like in conservative achievements?

00:38:30.000 If Trump hadn't tweeted.

00:38:30.000 Yes, this is right.

00:38:31.000 If Trump hadn't tweeted, and I think it's a good point, but I would push back and say, to the left, nothing is ever good enough unless you fully adhere to the radical leftist ideology.

00:38:42.000 This is the cancel culture that we talk about in society all the time. 0.91

00:38:45.000 So it doesn't matter that Trump is Trump. 1.00

00:38:47.000 They call him a racist and a white supremacist and evil. 1.00

00:38:50.000 Because he's a Republican, not because he is racist or white supremacist or evil. 0.97

00:38:55.000 And you can look at proof of that when you look at how the media handled, you know, a sort of lukewarm Republican like Mitt Romney.

00:39:02.000 They said he was evil, too.

00:39:04.000 He wasn't tweeting.

00:39:05.000 They're going to treat a Republican exactly the same, no matter how they are, no matter whether that Republican is tweeting or not, because that person is a Republican.

00:39:14.000 Trump shouldn't, in my opinion, cede any ground to them and say, oh, you want me to act a certain way?

00:39:19.000 I'll act a certain way because you want it.

00:39:20.000 Because they're just going to push further.

00:39:21.000 It's never good enough for them.

00:39:22.000 I don't think it's about ceding ground to the media.

00:39:23.000 I mean, that is my favorite part of what Trump does.

00:39:25.000 I mean, when he's lashing out at CNN, I have virtually no problem. 1.00

00:39:28.000 I think the media are garbage. 1.00

00:39:29.000 I think they've been garbage at their job forever. 1.00

00:39:30.000 I don't think he's the first person to do it, by the way. 0.94

00:39:32.000 I think that Newt Gingrich did it in 2012 in the primaries, and it's why Newt had that brief moment of glory.

00:39:37.000 When he started ripping on John Harwood in the middle of a debate, right?

00:39:39.000 So, I mean, this is not something new.

00:39:40.000 Trump has just made it into an art form.

00:39:42.000 But the problem is that the art of politics is making it very difficult for people to vote for your opponent, and making it a lot easier for people to vote for you.

00:39:50.000 Trump makes it very difficult for people to vote for his opponent, and also makes it very difficult for people to vote for him, specifically because of this.

00:39:55.000 And the proof concept here is not 2016, it's 2018.

00:39:57.000 Meaning if you watch 2018, for a brief moment in time, it was a referendum on Democrats.

00:40:02.000 During the Kavanaugh hearings, before the Kavanaugh hearings, the Democrats were up in the generic ballot somewhere between 8 and 10 points.

00:40:07.000 The Kavanaugh hearings happen, and suddenly Kamala Harris is in our faces.

00:40:10.000 And suddenly, you see all the Democrats making complete fools of themselves, pushing against due process, suggesting that people can be railroaded with 30-year-old allegations that have no evidence to back them, and the American people get annoyed, and suddenly, the polls close up, and it's basically a dead heat going into the election.

00:40:27.000 Then the Kavanaugh hearings end, and President Trump says, you know what, I gotta ramp up my base, I'm gonna talk illegal immigration for the next three weeks, and I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna rally, and I'm gonna tweet about illegal immigration for the next three weeks.

00:40:36.000 And suddenly people's minds shift from, I really don't want Kamala Harris in charge of the country, and her folks in charge of the country, Democrats in charge of the country, And it shifts to, oh God, he's tweeting again.

00:40:46.000 Oh God, he's just saying things.

00:40:47.000 And they're thinking about that when they go into the polling places, particularly in purple areas with suburban women. 0.97

00:40:53.000 And they not only vote against him, they vote against Republicans overwhelmingly.

00:40:58.000 That was a wave election.

00:41:00.000 We like to call it not a wave election.

00:41:02.000 It was a wave election by the statistics.

00:41:03.000 It did not have to be a wave election if President Trump had been quiet after the Kavanaugh hearings or just said the word Kavanaugh one million times between the end of the Kavanaugh hearings and the election.

00:41:12.000 And I understand what you're saying in one sense, but that's a certain time in history.

00:41:16.000 I mean, this is another time in history already, just another year.

00:41:21.000 And I think we have to ask ourselves, well, what is the approval rating among Republicans of President Trump?

00:41:27.000 And how does that compare to past incumbent Republicans who are facing re-election?

00:41:31.000 I think the number is 94% of Republicans approve of President Trump.

00:41:35.000 That's astronomical comparatively to other presidents in our history.

00:41:38.000 So most of those people are most likely going to turn out and vote.

00:41:42.000 His base will show up, no question.

00:41:43.000 His base is going to show up.

00:41:44.000 The question is, there is a poll number that I saw, and I know we're not supposed to respect poll numbers this far out, but if people don't like either candidate.

00:41:51.000 So in 2016, there was a poll showed that, there were a bunch of polls that showed if you don't like either Trump or Hillary, you're actually more likely to vote for Trump.

00:41:59.000 There are polls now that show that if you don't like, for example, Trump or Biden, you're more likely to vote for Biden by, I think, a factor of In other words, Trump may be alienating exactly the people that he needs to not alienate.

00:42:11.000 Right, the Rust Belt.

00:42:12.000 Yeah, the Rust Belt, the suburban women. 1.00

00:42:14.000 I mean, Texas, there's a reason that four Republican congresspeople have bowed out.

00:42:18.000 There's a reason that Texas is trending purple.

00:42:21.000 For all the talk about Trump being a glorious, victorious winner, the fact is Mitt Romney won the state by 12.

00:42:26.000 Well, Texas isn't about Trump, though.

00:42:28.000 Texas is about immigration and the demographics changing in that state and people from California moving to Texas and all those different things.

00:42:34.000 Actually, domestically born Texans are voting blue in larger numbers than California and expatriates.

00:42:39.000 We can blame our state for a lot, but we can't actually blame it for that.

00:42:42.000 But it's also the demographic change, not just of Californians moving there, but of Latinos who are, you know, crossing the border and settling in Texas and raising their kids there and changing the demographics of the local government.

00:42:51.000 But Trump wildly underperforms the Latinos in Texas in a way that, for example, Greg Abbott does not or Ted Cruz does not.

00:42:56.000 I mean, the fact is, you're right, demographics are changing in Texas, but let's put it this way.

00:43:01.000 Trump loses Texas elections over.

00:43:02.000 I think we all agree this.

00:43:03.000 I don't think that he is going to lose Texas.

00:43:04.000 I think he'll win Texas, but I think that it'll be narrow.

00:43:07.000 Right now, it is very narrow in Arizona.

00:43:09.000 It's very narrow in New Hampshire.

00:43:11.000 There are a lot of states.

00:43:13.000 He's doing well in the states that are heavily rural, right?

00:43:14.000 He's going to do well in Iowa, probably.

00:43:16.000 He'll do well in Ohio, presumably.

00:43:18.000 But in a lot of the states where the movement has been toward urban areas and away from rural areas, if Republicans don't find a way to win those elections, then they're not going to be in office for a very long time. - I agree, I guess my question would be, I agree, but this trend has been a trend.

00:43:32.000 It didn't start under President Trump.

00:43:34.000 So I guess my question would be, if you're laying the blame at the feet of President Trump, what's the basis-- - Not totally. - What's the basis of that?

00:43:40.000 Because this is a trend that started, I mean, the Turn Texas Blue movement, whatever they call themselves, that's long before Trump ever came down that elevator. - That's true, and then Wendy Davis got her ass kicked. 1.00

00:43:48.000 I mean, but the fact is that, does Trump exacerbate the wrong kinds of trends, or does he alleviate the wrong kinds of trends? 0.87

00:43:56.000 And this is really a question for, can Trump do better, right?

00:43:59.000 I mean, this is not me trying to say that President Trump is definitely going to lose or that I want him to lose, God forbid.

00:44:03.000 I don't want Elizabeth Warren to be president of the United States. 0.99

00:44:06.000 It would be a horror show.

00:44:07.000 But if Trump could contain himself, wouldn't that be a better strategy than simply his base rah-rah-ing him all the way to... I think there's a third option there.

00:44:16.000 I think so.

00:44:17.000 Because he does respond to his base a lot more than here.

00:44:19.000 We talked about this actually briefly before we went on air, but I think there's a third option, a way that President Trump can win Democrat voters without stopping what he's doing, without changing who he is, without curbing his tweets, without stopping implementing conservative policies.

00:44:32.000 And it's probably the least sexy sounding political issue out there, but school choice.

00:44:36.000 If he talks about school choice, if he pushes school choice, champions for charter schools and school vouchers, then there are going to be Democrat voters whose children go to those schools, minority moms whose children go to those schools.

00:44:48.000 They're registered Democrats, but they want the best for their kids.

00:44:50.000 And I think that that's a secret weapon that President Trump can use to expand his base in some of these states.

00:44:56.000 We saw this.

00:44:56.000 This isn't a hypothetical opinion.

00:44:58.000 We saw this happen in Florida in 2018 when DeSantis, now Governor DeSantis, a Republican, defeated Andrew Gillum.

00:45:04.000 He did so by a margin of just 32,000 votes, right?

00:45:08.000 But 100,000 African-American women, registered Democrats whose kids went to charter schools, voted for DeSantis.

00:45:17.000 At the same time, they voted for the Democrat Senator Bill Nelson, and they did that because DeSantis was promising to champion charter schools and Andrew Gillum was promising, you know, to abolish them.

00:45:26.000 He called them a siphon on the public school system.

00:45:28.000 So even though this doesn't sound like an issue that's exciting, it doesn't sound like a bombastic tweet, it doesn't sound like a media narrative, when you're talking to actual voters about what matters to them, going back to what I said earlier,

00:45:38.000 I think this is a way that President Trump can compliment what he's doing now, compliment what appeals to his base, and also reach across the aisle to a demographic that's not served by their Democrat representatives, who are actually told by their Democrat representatives that what is best for them and their family and their children and their children's education is not what the government wants them to be doing.

00:45:58.000 If he does that, I actually think that would be a secret weapon that would help him win a lot of Democrat votes.

00:46:02.000 I mean, I would love to see him do that.

00:46:03.000 I'd love to see him make the tax cuts permanent as well.

00:46:05.000 It's been kind of fascinating.

00:46:07.000 Since the Democrats took over the House, he hasn't really issued a lot of calls for legislation.

00:46:12.000 Aside from school choice, what would you like to see him push the Democrats on?

00:46:15.000 Spending.

00:46:16.000 I'd like to see that, especially in a second term, when you're not up against re-election.

00:46:19.000 I think we need to do that.

00:46:21.000 If I were the president, I would veto any budget that came on my desk that didn't defund Planned Parenthood.

00:46:27.000 I think you want to get your base excited.

00:46:31.000 You want to get your religious base, you want to get your pro-life female base excited. 0.99

00:46:35.000 You defund Planned Parenthood.

00:46:37.000 Um, tax cuts are always good.

00:46:39.000 His regulation push.

00:46:40.000 I mean, one of the things that I think is the most underappreciated thing that he has done, it's becoming a little more appreciated now, is his appointment of federal judges.

00:46:49.000 He is remaking the federal judiciary and that is a legacy that will last.

00:46:55.000 Much longer than any term a president can ever hold.

00:46:58.000 These judges that Trump is appointing are constitutionally minded folks.

00:47:02.000 They are going to not be judicial activists.

00:47:05.000 They're not going to bend with the winds of politics.

00:47:08.000 They're going to uphold constitutional values, which puts a, you know, a block, a door block in the way of what the radical left is trying to do, which is codify politically correct culture into law, not legislatively, but through our courts.

00:47:21.000 So, strategic question, not just for President Trump, but for all Republicans.

00:47:24.000 Right now, there's a real incentive on the part of people on the right to nutpick, to look at the left and find the nuttiest ideas and point those out, because they are plentiful.

00:47:33.000 They are very plentiful.

00:47:33.000 It's hard not to.

00:47:34.000 It is, especially because, again, the nuts may have actually taken over the party at this point, but there is a danger in Doing what so many of us have done and that is elevating the most extreme elements of the Democratic Party.

00:47:46.000 I understand that the party has moved in very extreme directions, but elevating the most extreme members of the Democratic Party at the expense of some of the not quite as extreme but still extreme members of the Democratic Party.

00:47:56.000 On the one hand, it makes it obvious to the American public how extreme and radical the Democrats are.

00:48:01.000 On the other hand, we may be emboldening the people who end up governing us.

00:48:04.000 And that frightens me a little bit.

00:48:05.000 I mean, are you worried about that?

00:48:06.000 Because the Democrats basically did do this with Donald Trump in 2016.

00:48:09.000 They kept saying, well, you know who we'd love to run against? 1.00

00:48:11.000 Would be that Trump guy, because he's nuts. 0.97

00:48:13.000 And then Trump becomes president, of course, and he governs in extraordinarily conservative fashion. 0.94

00:48:17.000 Should we be more careful about the opponents that we select?

00:48:19.000 Should we be trying to put our thumbs on the scale in favor of Democrats who are slightly more reasonable than, for example, the squad?

00:48:25.000 Or should we be rooting for the squad to take over leadership of the Democratic Party?

00:48:28.000 I would respond to that by asking, who's more reasonable in the Democratic Party?

00:48:31.000 Who's the reasonable one?

00:48:33.000 There are a couple of blue dog Democrats left in Virginia.

00:48:36.000 I mean, we could root for them.

00:48:37.000 I was rooting for Nancy.

00:48:39.000 Names?

00:48:39.000 The one who just won Dave Bradsheed is slightly more... Exactly, though.

00:48:42.000 Nobody even knows who they are.

00:48:43.000 I mean, the entire party.

00:48:45.000 The one guy from somewhere in the Midwest. 0.98

00:48:47.000 But even Nancy Pelosi looks moderate next to these clowns, right? 0.98

00:48:49.000 But she's not. 0.97

00:48:50.000 I mean, three years ago, we thought she was the most radically left that any politician, the craziest any politician could get. 0.66

00:48:55.000 And then it turns out behind door number three.

00:48:57.000 Exactly.

00:48:58.000 So I don't know.

00:48:58.000 I don't know if we're particularly elevating it or if the Democratic Party has been elevating it.

00:49:04.000 I mean, I think this was the result of Bernie Sanders running against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

00:49:08.000 He certainly lost, but the impact, his legacy, is that he moved the Democratic Party from just being liberal and left, maybe even what I would consider far left under Barack Obama, to being radically socialist Uh, leftist ideology.

00:49:21.000 They're just as far left as you can possibly go.

00:49:24.000 They're advocating outright.

00:49:25.000 They're saying socialism is a good thing.

00:49:27.000 They want cultural Marxism.

00:49:28.000 They want, essentially, communism.

00:49:30.000 I mean, we didn't make them take these policy positions. 0.99

00:49:34.000 We are just saying, that policy position that you're taking, it's dangerous and stupid, and here's why we're going to debunk it so that nobody falls for it. 0.99

00:49:40.000 So let's talk about the 2020 Democratic side of the aisle. 0.99

00:49:43.000 So right now, as we currently sit here, Joe Biden is collapsing in on himself like a dying star, apparently, according to the polls.

00:49:49.000 Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both running in tandem near where Joe Biden is.

00:49:53.000 There are a couple of polls in the last week that basically have Biden receding back to the rest of the field.

00:49:57.000 Not a great shock, considering that he was a weak candidate going in.

00:50:00.000 How do you see this race going the rest of the way? 0.99

00:50:03.000 And who do you think the nominee is?

00:50:04.000 Oh, I hesitate to make predictions a year and a half out.

00:50:07.000 I think it depends on what people say, how bad of gaffes Joe Biden makes, whether people care about looking at Elizabeth Warren's actual policies.

00:50:14.000 I know she's kind of getting this cultural meme status for always having a plan for everything. 0.99

00:50:20.000 And in a sense, kudos, you know, having a plan.

00:50:22.000 Don't just run on a talking point.

00:50:23.000 So does Stalin, but sure. 0.80

00:50:24.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:25.000 But if you look at her actual plans, they're terrifying.

00:50:29.000 And so I talk about this on my show all the time.

00:50:31.000 I don't just want to talk about Elizabeth Warren's cultural appropriation, pretend Cherokee heritage. 0.99

00:50:36.000 I mean, it's bad by leftist standards.

00:50:38.000 But if you look at some of the other things that she stands for, I mean, the Accountable Capitalism Act.

00:50:42.000 If Elizabeth Warren gets the nomination and I'm Trump, that's what I talk about.

00:50:45.000 The Accountable Capitalism Act empowers the government, the federal government, to expropriate any private business in our nation that earns more than $1 billion in revenue.

00:50:55.000 That's something like 3,500 private businesses that Elizabeth Warren wants to be under the purview of the government and not the people. 1.00

00:51:02.000 They have to obtain a federal charter, meaning permission from the government to run their business, and a set of standards about how they want to run their business or else the government comes in and fully takes it over.

00:51:11.000 That is literally socialism.

00:51:13.000 So, I mean, you talk about some of these things, or President Trump and all Republicans running should talk about the details of these people's policies, because those middle voters, that 30% who voted for Obama first and then voted for Trump in 2016, they don't like that sort of thing.

00:51:28.000 That's too radical for them, and that would either keep them from voting for an Elizabeth Warren or drive them to vote for President Trump.

00:51:34.000 So on a personal level, change topics really quickly.

00:51:37.000 Yeah.

00:51:38.000 How have you been dealing with the added notoriety of what you do?

00:51:40.000 So obviously, you know, five, six years ago, some people knew you, now a lot more people know you.

00:51:45.000 Have you dealt with the blowback that you've received for doing what it is that you do?

00:51:48.000 You've obviously become one of the more hated figures on the right because the left despises you.

00:51:51.000 Thank you.

00:51:52.000 Thank you.

00:51:52.000 Welcome to the club.

00:51:53.000 Enjoy.

00:51:53.000 It's a party out here.

00:51:55.000 But how have you been dealing with that on a personal level?

00:51:57.000 Um, I'm really fortunate to have a support system, a really strong family support system, a really strong group of friends.

00:52:03.000 You know, my husband is an incredible support.

00:52:05.000 We were together long before I had a show on One American.

00:52:09.000 It's really, I found it very beneficial to be around people who were my friends, were my family, were my support before I was ever on television, because those people, you know, they just, they just look at me for me, not for me on television.

00:52:23.000 And so when you're surrounded by that, when you're fortunate enough or blessed enough to have that support system, I think it's a lot easier to let that stuff roll off your back.

00:52:32.000 I'm not a terribly thin-skinned person to begin with.

00:52:35.000 I mostly look at insults that are hurled at me in a positive way, meaning I don't enjoy, I'm human, I don't enjoy being insulted, but if the left doesn't have an argument back, a counterpoint to what I say, then they resort to ad hominem, so that means that I won that point, right?

00:52:51.000 So if you kind of Look at insults that way, and then don't look at insults if it starts to get to you.

00:52:57.000 Don't look at your timeline if, you know, you're getting piled on by a bunch of people who aren't wanting to argue policy, they're just wanting to insult you personally.

00:53:04.000 Don't look at it.

00:53:04.000 Go hang out with your family, go hang out with your friends, go read a book, go live your life outside of politics, and, you know, let people waste their time insulting you if that's what they want to do.

00:53:12.000 Have you gotten really good at that?

00:53:13.000 I've been working on that for years, the not looking at the notifications.

00:53:16.000 Any tips on that?

00:53:17.000 Like, seriously.

00:53:18.000 Just don't do it.

00:53:20.000 Yeah, I basically have started to do that.

00:53:22.000 I've basically gone cold turkey on some of Twitter.

00:53:24.000 Sometimes it's hard to put your phone down.

00:53:26.000 We both know this.

00:53:26.000 I think we're both Twitter addicts.

00:53:29.000 But I don't know.

00:53:30.000 My rule is just if something starts to get to me, if I see an insult and it actually hurts my feelings, then I'm like, okay, it's time to step away because, you know, that shouldn't hurt your feelings.

00:53:39.000 That shouldn't be something that makes you think anything differently about yourself or something that makes you feel insecure.

00:53:43.000 So if there's anything that does, I step away.

00:53:46.000 Much of the time it doesn't because, you know, it just, I know who I am.

00:53:50.000 I know that I'm a child of God.

00:53:51.000 I know that I'm loved.

00:53:52.000 I know that I'm beautiful.

00:53:53.000 I know that, you know, that I have so much to bring to the world.

00:53:57.000 I'm not insecure when someone calls me a profane name because I know that that's not true. 1.00

00:54:01.000 I know that that comes from a place of ignorance, of stupidity, of probably hurt within themselves. 0.99

00:54:07.000 It just doesn't change my view of myself. 0.99

00:54:10.000 So, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the idea of, you know, being in conversation and shifting, you know, on fundamental principle.

00:54:17.000 I agree with you that if you're really studied in your own fundamental principles, the changes there are going to be minor and rare.

00:54:22.000 Yeah.

00:54:22.000 Have you ever been changed on a question of policy?

00:54:25.000 Yeah.

00:54:25.000 A specific question of policy?

00:54:26.000 Yeah, the death penalty.

00:54:28.000 I used to be very pro-death penalty.

00:54:30.000 You know, if you get these terrible criminals, why not? 1.00

00:54:33.000 You know, they deserve to die, right? 0.99

00:54:34.000 That's just justice, and I have shifted on that.

00:54:38.000 Probably not 100% anti-death penalty, but you look at the statistics of how many errors there are, how many people are executed, and their DNA afterward exonerates them, and that's inexcusable in our justice system.

00:54:50.000 We cannot tolerate that.

00:54:51.000 Um, especially in an era where these, the most terrible criminals don't have the possibility of escaping.

00:54:58.000 You know, it might have been different back in the Wild West where people, um, could escape prison, you know, to actually, to actually keep them from harming other people you had to put them to death, for example.

00:55:09.000 But that's not the case anymore.

00:55:10.000 We can keep people from harming other people without putting them to death.

00:55:13.000 And the purpose of our justice system, I think, philosophically, is not to engage in revenge.

00:55:19.000 It's not vengeance.

00:55:20.000 We're not supposed to play God.

00:55:22.000 The purpose of our justice system is to restore order to our society.

00:55:27.000 And we have to, unfortunately, tragically, we have to remove some people from society.

00:55:32.000 We have to incarcerate some people when they Um, have violated other people's rights and can't be trusted not to violate people's rights again.

00:55:39.000 But that's the extent to which our justice system should, um, go.

00:55:43.000 We shouldn't be saying what these people deserve or, um, what, you know, what we think they ought to get because of what they do.

00:55:50.000 We just have to protect people.

00:55:52.000 And as, as human nature, I think it's hard to do that when you see some of the most egregious crimes committed by the most evil of people.

00:55:59.000 But, uh, yeah, that's one that I've, I've changed my thinking on.

00:56:02.000 So on a broader level, how does religion play into your life?

00:56:05.000 Are you a religious person?

00:56:06.000 Yes, I am.

00:56:07.000 I'm a practicing Catholic.

00:56:08.000 It is everything of who I am.

00:56:10.000 So maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

00:56:12.000 How does that play into your politics?

00:56:14.000 It plays into my politics, well, I mean, kind of what I just said before about it's my identity.

00:56:20.000 I'm a child of Christ.

00:56:21.000 I know who I am.

00:56:22.000 I know that I am loved.

00:56:23.000 I know I am created, fearfully and wonderfully made.

00:56:26.000 I know that I am put on this earth for a purpose.

00:56:29.000 I know that my role on this earth is to further the kingdom of God, to love other people as Christ loves me.

00:56:34.000 I try to do that through my politics.

00:56:37.000 Um, as well, I think, you know, God gave us free will.

00:56:40.000 He didn't make us the same as animals.

00:56:42.000 He wants us to have a choice between good and evil so that we can choose Him, so that our choice is, um, of free will to choose Him.

00:56:51.000 And I think conservative policies allow people not only to achieve the potential that our Creator put within them to achieve, but also to make those choices, um, in their own lives between good and evil.

00:57:03.000 It's also the most compassionate.

00:57:04.000 We're called I think any religious tradition calls us to be generous and loving and charitable to other people, and conservative principles allow us to do that better than any other form of government that the world has ever known.

00:57:17.000 So, well, we've talked a lot about arguing politics.

00:57:20.000 How do you go about arguing or discussing religion with people, or do you sort of try to stay away from it because people tend to have their own private beliefs?

00:57:26.000 Um, I, we don't talk, I don't have a lot of political or religious arguments on air.

00:57:30.000 I always say that my political arguments are based on both, you know, secular practicality combined with the morality that my faith informs.

00:57:40.000 So I never advocate for a political policy based just on, um, my religion.

00:57:45.000 I'm never going to say, oh, the government should force everybody to go to confession once a week because otherwise You know, you're going to be in, you know, you're going to have committed a mortal sin, obviously.

00:57:53.000 That should be your choice, whether to do that.

00:57:55.000 But, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, I think, to, it's kind of ridiculous when the left says that we should take our religious beliefs out of politics.

00:58:04.000 Because at the end of the day, everything that is moral, on the philosophical sense, is because of God.

00:58:10.000 It is begot of God.

00:58:12.000 There is no morality If there is no God.

00:58:15.000 And so if we're talking about the laws in our nation, what governs right and wrong and justice, those are all begot of the Judeo-Christian tradition of morals.

00:58:26.000 There's no way we can remove that from our politics, I mean, unless we wanted to fundamentally change our system.

00:58:33.000 And we've been the most successful, the most just, the most prosperous system on Earth.

00:58:37.000 Why would we change that?

00:58:38.000 Okay, so in just one second, I want to ask you a final question.

00:58:40.000 That is, what do you think is the biggest problem facing the United States?

00:58:44.000 If you want to hear Liz Wheeler's answer, however, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.

00:58:47.000 To subscribe, head on over to dailywire.com, click subscribe, and you can hear the end of our conversation over there.

00:58:52.000 Well, Liz, I really appreciate you stopping by.

00:58:55.000 The book is Tipping Points.

00:58:55.000 Everybody should go check it out.

00:58:56.000 Thank you so much for your time.

00:58:57.000 Thank you so much.

00:58:58.000 Thank you.

00:59:09.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:59:11.000 Associate producer, Colton Haas.

00:59:13.000 Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.

00:59:15.000 Post-production is supervised by Alex Zingaro.

00:59:18.000 Editing by Donovan Fowler.

00:59:20.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromino.

00:59:21.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:59:24.000 Title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:59:26.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 01, 2019

Liz Wheeler | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 66

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