The Ben Shapiro Show - August 12, 2026


Look at This Before You Attack Capitalism


Episode Stats


Length

53 minutes

Words per minute

206.41

Word count

11,012

Sentence count

814

Harmful content

Toxicity

63

sentences flagged

Hate speech

49

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Woke one.
00:00:01.000 That was AOC's term for the woke nightmare that we experienced over the past decade or so.
00:00:05.000 It argued that racism is the key motivating factor in American life. 0.96
00:00:09.000 Woke one fell apart because most Americans innately understood after a while that it was total crap, that America is not racist, and that most Americans are not racist. 0.87
00:00:16.000 So now we've moved on to woke two, the revenge. 0.97
00:00:20.000 Woke two posits that capitalism is the problem.
00:00:24.000 Free markets, you see, create imperialism and colonialism and racism and exploitation.
00:00:30.000 All your problems are the fault of free markets.
00:00:32.000 Destroy those markets.
00:00:33.000 Hand power to your best friends in the government, and all will be well.
00:00:36.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:44.000 So, it is perfectly obvious that we are at this point in the middle of an all out assault on free markets.
00:00:48.000 It's coming predominantly from the left, but not just from the left.
00:00:51.000 A large segment of the right is very anti free markets at this point as well.
00:00:55.000 So, before we get to that assault, I need to show you a chart.
00:00:58.000 This right here is probably the most important chart in human history.
00:01:02.000 This is a chart of global average GDP per capita over the long run, right?
00:01:07.000 Meaning global gross domestic product per capita, starting at about 1600 forward through 2025.
00:01:15.000 And what does this chart show?
00:01:17.000 Well, for those who are not watching, basically it shows that people had zero GDP per capita essentially all the way through the early 19th century.
00:01:26.000 And then free markets happened and then exponential explosion of GDP per capita.
00:01:30.000 That is the actual chart.
00:01:33.000 Exponential growth, right?
00:01:34.000 From close to zero to verging on $25,000 global average GDP per capita over the long run.
00:01:42.000 And pretty astonishing, right?
00:01:44.000 So easy story.
00:01:45.000 Everybody was dirt poor, literally dirt poor.
00:01:48.000 We did private property rights and free markets, and now everyone is by any stretch exponentially richer.
00:01:53.000 Now that is not because of government centralization of resources.
00:01:56.000 That was done for all of human history.
00:01:57.000 It's not because of vast thickets of bureaucratic regulations.
00:02:00.000 That was done for a long time too.
00:02:02.000 It's because of a very simple proposition.
00:02:04.000 You own your own labor and the products of your labor.
00:02:09.000 You own your own innovation and the products of that innovation, and you should be free to sell, rent, or trade them.
00:02:15.000 Period.
00:02:16.000 That's the whole thing.
00:02:17.000 So, capitalism.
00:02:19.000 Big success.
00:02:20.000 The chart should end the debate.
00:02:21.000 But of course, it does not.
00:02:22.000 There are now a variety of arguments being leveled against capitalism.
00:02:26.000 They come down to basically two arguments in the end.
00:02:29.000 Argument number one capitalism creates inequality.
00:02:34.000 Right.
00:02:34.000 So you might say to yourself, well, hold up.
00:02:38.000 If capitalism creates inequality, but everybody's wealthier, isn't that still better than the alternative?
00:02:43.000 Doesn't inequality in wealth beat equality in absolute poverty?
00:02:47.000 The answer is yes, but not according to Bernie Sanders.
00:02:50.000 Bernie, in his Book, it's okay to be angry about capitalism, which again, the whole book is there are so many things wrong with Earth, and I don't like any of those things.
00:02:58.000 And so capitalism is bad.
00:03:00.000 So he writes The economic system, with its excessive corporate greed and concentration of ownership and power, destroys anything that gets in its way of the pursuit of profits.
00:03:09.000 It destroys the environment.
00:03:11.000 It destroys our health.
00:03:12.000 It destroys our democracy.
00:03:13.000 It discards human beings without a second thought, says the millionaire at the lake house.
00:03:18.000 And of course, it is not just Bernie Sanders, it's all about the inequality.
00:03:21.000 The inequality, the greed.
00:03:24.000 Here is Zar Mamdani doing this routine in front of a United Colors of Benetton ad and George Washington's desk, which was backwards, and from the New York City mayor's office on July 3rd in an insult to America and George Washington.
00:03:41.000 We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more.
00:03:49.000 We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. 0.84
00:03:55.000 We see massed agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. 0.99
00:04:03.000 We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. 0.82
00:04:13.000 And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of the people.
00:04:18.000 We don't need to hear the rest of it.
00:04:19.000 It's just nonsense. 0.83
00:04:19.000 Okay, right? 0.83
00:04:20.000 Again, it's all about the poor versus the rich, it's inequality and it's cruelty and monopoly.
00:04:25.000 And of course, this is not just from Zora Momdani, it's also from Tucker Carlson.
00:04:29.000 Who does not understand how economics work and doesn't care to understand how economics works? 0.99
00:04:32.000 Shut up, Ben Shapiro.
00:04:34.000 But he says it's unfair that people in finance make more than wage earners. 0.96
00:04:39.000 Putting aside the fact that people in finance are the ones who actually undertake the risk and wage earners earn a wage that is guaranteed by someone else.
00:04:51.000 So, if you have a tax code, for example, just to name one example, if you have a tax code that taxes wage earners at more than twice the percentage it taxes investors, what are you saying?
00:05:06.000 Well, you're saying it's twice as virtuous.
00:05:10.000 To invest money or to inherit money and keep it in the markets as it is to go to work in the morning.
00:05:17.000 Really?
00:05:18.000 Of course that's what you're saying.
00:05:19.000 No, that is not what you're saying.
00:05:20.000 Because any tax penalizes the impious acts, the bad things, the vices.
00:05:25.000 Cigarettes cost $18 a pack because we're against smoking.
00:05:29.000 So if being an ordinary wage earner, driving in from the suburbs to make $80,000 a year, if that's taxed at twice the rate of being a private equity baron, what are we saying?
00:05:43.000 that is twice as virtuous to be a private equity baron and to inherit money or to be a bankrupt.
00:05:46.000 Well, what does that have to do with tax rates?
00:05:48.000 No, wrong.
00:05:48.000 Okay, stop it.
00:05:49.000 Okay, so again, stop this nonsense. 1.00
00:05:51.000 Okay, so again, that's just stupid. 0.99
00:05:52.000 Okay. 0.99
00:05:53.000 There, there are plenty of taxes that you pay that are not a tax on, on vice.
00:05:57.000 He's naming a vice tax, right, which is cigarettes, but there are taxes on property.
00:06:00.000 Is it a, is it a vice to own property in the United States?
00:06:02.000 There's a tax on death, right?
00:06:04.000 There's an estate tax that presumably he's in favor of.
00:06:07.000 Is it, is it a, is it a vice to die?
00:06:09.000 Like that, that's wrong.
00:06:10.000 The reason why capital gains are taxed at a lower rate, for example, Than wages is because they've mostly already been taxed.
00:06:18.000 You take your money from your wage and then you invest that money in the markets, and then the gain from that is what is taxed as a capital gain.
00:06:24.000 That would be the reason.
00:06:26.000 But he doesn't care to understand.
00:06:27.000 He doesn't care to understand because it's unfair.
00:06:28.000 Everything's unfair.
00:06:30.000 And of course, Tucker believes that capitalism is also evil because capitalism somehow empties you of your soul.
00:06:37.000 This is what he told the New York Times.
00:06:38.000 It cuts against families, capitalism, as opposed to communism, which literally destroys families, or economic fascism, which also destroys families.
00:06:46.000 Capitalism is to blame.
00:06:49.000 Any economic system in which, you know, the overwhelming majority of the rewards go to an ever shrinking number of people or proportion of people is a doomed system because it makes people revolutionary.
00:07:04.000 I saw this in Venezuela, which I visited as a child.
00:07:06.000 It was a prosperous kind of first world country, beautiful country, actually.
00:07:11.000 And then it, of course, it proceeded along the path we're on.
00:07:16.000 And the resentment built, and you had this very volatile combination of.
00:07:21.000 Electoral politics, a democracy, and an economic oligarchy, and those two don't work well together.
00:07:29.000 And you had a left wing populist takeover.
00:07:36.000 So, his story about Venezuela is that there was too much capitalism.
00:07:39.000 That's his story about Venezuela that caused inequality and all the rest.
00:07:42.000 Man, you should try some government interventionism in Venezuela.
00:07:45.000 Okay, so that's argument one capitalism causes inequality.
00:07:45.000 See how that works.
00:07:49.000 Now, again, every system causes inequality unless everyone is equally poor.
00:07:54.000 It turns out that the Soviet Union was really unequal.
00:07:56.000 Stalin had a very nice life, and most people were dirt poor andor starving.
00:08:00.000 In just one second, we'll get to another argument made by the anti capitalist that your soul is robbed by those who promote free markets. 1.00
00:08:07.000 Well, that's stupid, but I'll tell you what is not, in fact, stupid. 1.00
00:08:11.000 Paying less for your same cell phone coverage, right? 1.00
00:08:13.000 Your wireless bill shows up every month, you pay it.
00:08:15.000 Eventually, you just start accepting that you have to pay too much, but that's not true.
00:08:19.000 Why are you paying this much?
00:08:21.000 Why?
00:08:22.000 Especially when switching doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing the things that you actually care about.
00:08:26.000 Well, that's what caught my attention about PureTalk in the first place.
00:08:28.000 In a recent industry survey, PureTalk was the only wireless company to earn five stars in every single category.
00:08:33.000 Coverage, support, value, and data.
00:08:35.000 When you actually need help, they have a dedicated US-based customer service team.
00:08:39.000 So you're dealing with an actual person instead of spending half your afternoon shouting representative at an automated phone system that is apparently determined to break your actual soul.
00:08:47.000 Then there's the math.
00:08:48.000 The average family of four saves over a thousand bucks a year compared with the big wireless companies.
00:08:52.000 A thousand bucks, that's real money.
00:08:54.000 And if the only reason you're not saving it is, well, I've had the same carrier forever, that's a bad reason.
00:08:58.000 Right now, you can switch to PureTalk and get any plan, including unlimited, For just fifteen bucks a month for your first three months.
00:09:03.000 No contract required.
00:09:04.000 Simply head on over to puretalk.comslash Shapiro to claim the offer.
00:09:07.000 Again, that's puretalk.comslash Shapiro.
00:09:11.000 But argument number two is that capitalism is not spiritually fulfilling.
00:09:14.000 It's not providing you your meaning in life.
00:09:18.000 It's not providing you your meaning in life.
00:09:20.000 Here is Tucker in twenty nineteen doing this routine.
00:09:24.000 But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion.
00:09:29.000 Market capitalism is a tool.
00:09:31.000 Like a staple gun or a toaster. 0.99
00:09:33.000 You'd have to be a fool to worship it. 0.97
00:09:36.000 Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. 0.99
00:09:39.000 We do not exist to serve markets, just the opposite.
00:09:42.000 Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having.
00:09:47.000 A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
00:09:51.000 Again, the idea that capitalism weakens and destroys families and undermines religion and all this kind of stuff.
00:09:57.000 Tucker's not the only one who has said this historically.
00:10:00.000 Here is a quote.
00:10:00.000 I'm going to read you the quote and then I'll give you the source.
00:10:02.000 Okay?
00:10:03.000 Quote.
00:10:04.000 The Western way of life, founded in effect on practical and technical knowledge, discovery, invention, and the flooding of world markets with mechanical products, has remained incapable of offering to men's minds a flicker of light, a ray of hope, a grain of faith, or of providing anxious persons the smallest path toward rest and tranquility.
00:10:20.000 Man is not simply an instrument among others.
00:10:22.000 Naturally, he has become tired of purely materialistic conditions and desires some spiritual comfort.
00:10:27.000 But the materialistic life of the West could only offer him as reassurance a new materialism of sin, passion, drink, women, noisy gatherings, and showy attractions, which he has come to enjoy. 0.63
00:10:38.000 Sounds a lot like Tucker Carlson, but actually, it is Hassan Albana, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who called for an international armed struggle against colonial rule by Muslims and argued for full scale jihad. 0.69
00:10:53.000 So, again, this is sort of where we are right now.
00:10:57.000 A gigantic coalition of people who despise capitalism, people who find it spiritually unfulfilling, who claim that it robs us of our individuality or say that it is the thing that creates inequality.
00:11:08.000 They are all uniting.
00:11:09.000 They are their own uniparty. 0.99
00:11:11.000 Everyone from communists to post liberal integralists to quasi fascists to radical Muslims. 0.98
00:11:15.000 Why? 0.90
00:11:16.000 Well, because in essence, capitalism makes two arguments.
00:11:18.000 One, you are an individual created in the image of God with individual desires, wants, needs, and capabilities.
00:11:24.000 And two, so long as those desires, wants, needs, and capabilities do not harm anyone else and do not violate basic morality, they ought to remain in your control.
00:11:35.000 Now, this kind of new red, green, brown anti capitalist party believes that's not true.
00:11:40.000 They really kind of believe the same thing that the French revolutionaries believed that the collective vision of man is paramount.
00:11:45.000 Private property and free markets cut against that vision.
00:11:48.000 And these folks can't build utopia without destroying that vision.
00:11:52.000 They promise utopia, by the way.
00:11:53.000 Either a communist utopia with government owned grocery stores like Zoran Momdani, the warmth of collectivism, or an Islamic utopia with the caliphate at the head, or the agrarian utopia run by kind hearted feudal lords. 0.98
00:12:05.000 It's all crap, so why are people believing it? 0.97
00:12:08.000 There are a few reasons. 1.00
00:12:09.000 First, ingratitude.
00:12:10.000 Human life in its natural state is nasty, brutish, and short.
00:12:14.000 On a material level, pretty much everything sucked for all of human history until property rights, contract law, and credit were invented and turned large swaths of the world, including places difficult to live, into semi-bearable places for the first time ever.
00:12:26.000 But here's the truth.
00:12:26.000 Most people living in the West right now have never spent time in truly poor places that don't have any of the things that we think of as vital.
00:12:34.000 When you start thinking that human life in its natural state is a microwave, a central AC, a car, two TVs, a cell phone, a furnished apartment, or a house, and you start comparing yourself to what could be in utopia.
00:12:46.000 This is why when you hear Gavin Newsom, a very, very wealthy man, say capitalism doesn't work, like, I don't believe you, sir.
00:12:52.000 I don't believe you believe this even.
00:12:56.000 Something's fundamentally broken here.
00:12:59.000 And that wealth is creating power, power locking in rules and regulations, locking everybody else out.
00:13:08.000 You can't play in the margins anymore.
00:13:10.000 We can't fail more efficiently.
00:13:13.000 Certainly, nostalgia is not working.
00:13:15.000 I would argue socialism is not going to work.
00:13:18.000 But capitalism as we know it doesn't work either.
00:13:24.000 Well, capitalism as you know it, meaning, you know, corporatism, That might be a problem, but that's not capitalism, right?
00:13:30.000 Which is the second point.
00:13:31.000 A lot of people think that what's happening right now economically is the result of capitalism, but it's not actually capitalism.
00:13:36.000 It's cronyism or it is markets being dictated to by the government.
00:13:41.000 What we used to call economic fascism.
00:13:42.000 So, for example, here's a Colorado DSA Dem nominee named Malak Kiro.
00:13:46.000 She's running for Congress, saying that capitalism is about monopolies.
00:13:52.000 When folks think of capitalism, I think they think of free markets and competition and innovation and.
00:14:01.000 What do you think of?
00:14:02.000 I think of monopolies.
00:14:03.000 I think of.
00:14:04.000 But that's not capitalism, if it's a monopoly.
00:14:07.000 Well, and that's the question, right?
00:14:08.000 Because in an unfettered capitalism, it does end up leading to monopolies, though.
00:14:13.000 If there's no government intervention.
00:14:17.000 I mean, that's nonsense.
00:14:18.000 It's just nonsense.
00:14:19.000 The number of natural monopolies is extraordinarily low.
00:14:23.000 Natural monopolies, meaning one company owns everything in the space and competitors cannot enter.
00:14:29.000 It's usually government interventionism that creates monopoly.
00:14:29.000 Vanishingly low.
00:14:33.000 Listen, when you have DSA co chair Megan Romer calling Russia hyper capitalist, I mean, these people don't know what they're talking about.
00:14:33.000 And.
00:14:41.000 Russia is an oligarchy run by Vladimir Putin for the benefit of his friends.
00:14:46.000 We do not believe in pouring U.S. money, military weapons into anything.
00:14:51.000 We don't think it makes it better anywhere. 0.92
00:14:54.000 But obviously, Russia is this oligarchic dictatorship, which is hyper capitalist, and Putin is this crazy right wing oligarch. 0.90
00:15:07.000 Of course, he is going to make horrific human life ending decisions. 0.88
00:15:14.000 Russia is hyper capitalist. 1.00
00:15:16.000 I mean, you have to be a moron to believe this. 0.98
00:15:18.000 But this is also what happens when people purportedly of the right get involved in statist interventions. 0.98
00:15:24.000 So I have been very, very much opposed to the government taking stock in private companies.
00:15:28.000 This has happened some 30 times under the Trump administration.
00:15:31.000 Here's President Trump bragging about buying Intel stocks with government money.
00:15:34.000 That is not, in fact, a capitalist thing because he is not using the products of his own labor.
00:15:40.000 In order to buy other things, he's using the products of your label in order to labor in order to buy other people's companies.
00:15:46.000 Like that is not capitalism, that is statism.
00:15:51.000 We had a problem with Intel and we settled the problem.
00:15:57.000 They gave us 10% of the company, that was worth $12 billion.
00:16:02.000 And since we had the company, you saw it, you've probably been watching, the stock has gone up many, many times, just about number one.
00:16:09.000 And we made $82 billion.
00:16:11.000 Do I get credit for that?
00:16:12.000 No.
00:16:13.000 Did anybody say, great job?
00:16:15.000 And by the way, it's for the country.
00:16:16.000 It's not for me.
00:16:17.000 It's for the country.
00:16:18.000 I have to be very plain about that.
00:16:20.000 But no, we've made about $80.
00:16:23.000 Howard is pretty close to $80 billion, a profit of $80 billion.
00:16:29.000 Again, I didn't make the profit.
00:16:30.000 You didn't make the profit.
00:16:31.000 Where's the profit?
00:16:33.000 And that's not how that works.
00:16:35.000 And obviously, it is true that everything the government subsidizes gets more expensive.
00:16:40.000 Famous chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrating overall inflation over time in particular products.
00:16:45.000 Basically, the more the government is involved, the more the prices go up.
00:16:48.000 Okay, so people mix up capitalism for cronyism or statism or economic fascism.
00:16:55.000 Third reason capitalism is under fire.
00:16:56.000 People have incredibly short memories.
00:16:57.000 There are a lot of other models that have been tried elsewhere and are still being tried and failed.
00:17:02.000 But we still keep bringing them back as though these are live discussions.
00:17:05.000 Why not try centralized government with price controls? 0.99
00:17:07.000 Because we've done that a thousand times and it's really, it's crap. 0.99
00:17:09.000 It's really bad. 0.99
00:17:11.000 Why not try a religious theocracy with the wisest and best at the head? 0.94
00:17:14.000 Oh, yeah, like a lot of countries did that for several centuries. 0.99
00:17:17.000 And there are some places around the earth that are still trying to do it and it's really garbage. 0.94
00:17:22.000 Why not try economic fascism with a bureaucratic government that picks winners and losers? 0.90
00:17:25.000 Yeah, we've tried that too and it's not great.
00:17:28.000 And finally, fourth, we have just not felt the consequences yet of all of this interventionism.
00:17:33.000 We are trying a bunch of these experiments right now, and they are going to fail.
00:17:36.000 We are going to crash and burn.
00:17:38.000 But again, when you jump from a burning building, the first few stories are fine.
00:17:41.000 It's the last one that's a doozy.
00:17:42.000 So, what should we do differently?
00:17:45.000 Well, I mean, listen, it may be worth conceding that a lot of young voters with a predilection for the DSA haven't had a positive case made to them about capitalism ever.
00:17:54.000 And that many of them have been living with the political effects of the 2008 financial crash and the Stagnation of Obama and the subsequent bailout and how it was perceived by the public and then COVID and all the rest.
00:18:03.000 And there's a lot to be said about affordability because of COVID era and post COVID era inflation.
00:18:08.000 And there's a ton to be said about the fact that young people don't remember the Soviet Union.
00:18:11.000 Whatever the reason, the polling on young voters and socialism is pretty obvious.
00:18:16.000 A meaningful chunk of an entire generation views socialism favorably.
00:18:21.000 And a rising number are identifying as part of the DSA.
00:18:25.000 Right.
00:18:25.000 In fact, if you look at Democrats under age 50, social democracy plus 57, socialism plus 35, free market economy only, Plus 22, minus 31 for capitalism, because they don't understand that that's even the same thing.
00:18:40.000 Among Republicans, obviously, they got a better Republicans, 50 plus, remember all this stuff.
00:18:45.000 So, plus 54 for free markets, plus 48 for capitalism, minus 45 for social democracy, and minus 93 for communism.
00:18:54.000 But again, we got a problem.
00:18:56.000 We do.
00:18:58.000 Republicans under the age of 50 are only minus 15 on social democracy, which is kind of left wing European economics.
00:19:08.000 Now, it's partially true that very often when people talk about these labels, they have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
00:19:13.000 They don't know what they're endorsing at all.
00:19:14.000 The semantic overload on socialism, communism, and capitalism is through the roof. 0.99
00:19:19.000 And again, people don't even know what this stuff means, which is why they're just ignorant. 0.80
00:19:23.000 A lot of voters who support Medicare for all believe it can be paid for only by billionaires. 0.84
00:19:28.000 Like 47% of voters believe that is definitely true.
00:19:32.000 And another 27% believe that it is probably true that you can fully pay for it by raising taxes on billionaires.
00:19:37.000 That is not true at all.
00:19:38.000 It is not remotely true.
00:19:41.000 In fact, only 40% of the American public understands that Medicare for All can only be paid for by raising taxes on most taxpayers, including the middle class.
00:19:49.000 So they've just been lied to over and over and over again.
00:19:51.000 So, what do we need to do? 1.00
00:19:52.000 First, we need to point out the stupidity and failure of all the anti capitalist arguments. 1.00
00:19:57.000 Zoram Amdani is just preying on people's idiocy, truly, like their ignorance. 1.00
00:20:02.000 He put out a video where he is saying that he's going to crack down on Amazon because Amazon is exploitative. 1.00
00:20:07.000 Again, this is all just anti business trash. 0.98
00:20:09.000 It really is. 0.99
00:20:13.000 Special delivery.
00:20:15.000 It looks like an Amazon delivery.
00:20:18.000 And it drives like an Amazon delivery.
00:20:22.000 Then it's an Amazon delivery.
00:20:24.000 Amazon is spending millions of dollars to convince you that this isn't an Amazon delivery.
00:20:30.000 But all you have to do is see for yourself.
00:20:33.000 Our uniform says Amazon.
00:20:34.000 If I don't wear this Amazon branded vest, disciplinary action will be taken against us.
00:20:39.000 The workers' routes and hours are set by Amazon.
00:20:42.000 So why isn't Amazon responsible for these vans?
00:20:45.000 Because Amazon and other corporations have built a vast network of subcontractors that shield them from responsibility.
00:20:54.000 Amazon tells these subcontractors where to drive, who to hire, and what hours to work.
00:21:00.000 I do all the work, and Amazon holds the money.
00:21:04.000 This is why I'm proud to support the company.
00:21:05.000 It makes you the money.
00:21:06.000 You're getting a wage.
00:21:07.000 Sponsored by Councilmember Tiffany Callan.
00:21:09.000 Because if Amazon is delivering your packages, they should follow the same rules as every other delivery company.
00:21:15.000 When injuries and worker accidents skyrocket, Amazon says they have nothing to do with it.
00:21:20.000 They can't have it both ways.
00:21:21.000 Well, I mean, that's a subcontract.
00:21:23.000 You tell us what? 1.00
00:21:25.000 This is so stupid. 0.99
00:21:26.000 I'm sorry. 0.99
00:21:27.000 I can't. 0.92
00:21:27.000 Like, you know why this is dumb? 0.92
00:21:29.000 Because you're just going to put a bunch of subcontractors out of business. 0.98
00:21:31.000 That's all.
00:21:32.000 That's all that's going to happen.
00:21:33.000 If Amazon feels its liability in directly absorbing the cost of delivery in certain areas of New York City is too high, they just won't deliver in those places.
00:21:40.000 How do we know this?
00:21:41.000 Because they literally pulled out of building in New York because of AOC.
00:21:45.000 You're just killing subcontracting jobs.
00:21:48.000 That is how I love when we pretend that we don't know what words mean.
00:21:51.000 A subcontractor is a person you hire to do a task.
00:21:54.000 That's what a subcontractor is.
00:21:57.000 Oh my goodness.
00:21:58.000 No wonder Florida is now trolling Zorhan Mamdani with a Times Square billboard calling him the economic developer of the year in Florida.
00:22:05.000 Yeah, that's right. 0.99
00:22:07.000 And calling out the stupidity is definitely a big step here and a thing that absolutely needs to be done. 1.00
00:22:13.000 Second, we do need to remind people that capitalism kicks ass. 1.00
00:22:16.000 Capitalism is great. 0.99
00:22:17.000 Free markets rock, they're great.
00:22:21.000 And the people who tend to make you all the money are incredibly creative and innovative.
00:22:25.000 It is not that they are uniquely greedy, they are uniquely innovative and they work their asses off.
00:22:29.000 Palmer Lucky, who's the founder of Andoril, Talks about the fact that the people who make billions of dollars tend to be obsessed with work, not money, like doing creative things.
00:22:39.000 This is true.
00:22:39.000 I know a lot of billionaires, all of them, all of them were obsessed with building their company, not because of the money, but because they were obsessed with their company.
00:22:47.000 The money was a byproduct.
00:22:50.000 What I've observed with myself and everyone else I know who's made a billion dollars is that the type of person who makes a billion dollars is not the kind of guy who can imagine doing that.
00:23:01.000 It's just people say, oh, you know, if I had a billion, I'd go and I'd drink my.
00:23:05.000 Ties on the beach.
00:23:06.000 And my point is, but that's the attitude that won't get you to a billion dollars.
00:23:09.000 It's very rare that the two things come together.
00:23:12.000 And so, in a way, it's a little bit of a curse.
00:23:15.000 And I'm not trying to make it sound like I have a terrible life.
00:23:17.000 I love my life.
00:23:18.000 But the curse of it is that anyone who can get to a billion is probably something's wrong with their brain where no matter how much they get, they'll stop working.
00:23:26.000 People also misunderstand.
00:23:27.000 They think that billionaires work to make more money.
00:23:29.000 Like, oh, they're just trying to make more and more.
00:23:32.000 They just want money.
00:23:32.000 I can tell you, most billionaires, the sickness is not gathering dollars, it's working.
00:23:39.000 I mean, that is true.
00:23:42.000 The motor is just built different.
00:23:44.000 It is.
00:23:45.000 You can make your own motor work that way, by the way.
00:23:45.000 It is.
00:23:48.000 Again, capitalism and free markets are inspiring because of this.
00:23:52.000 Look at this image, right?
00:23:54.000 Elon put up this picture on his Twitter of him looking at the wreckage of Falcon 1 from 2006.
00:24:01.000 He said, Next time you feel like giving up, because it turns out, of course, now SpaceX is one of the bigger companies on planet Earth.
00:24:06.000 Okay, third, we need to teach some actual gumption.
00:24:08.000 I know we have to say the tough thing, and I know people don't like hearing the tough thing, but we do need to say it.
00:24:12.000 So here is Bill Maher saying the obvious. 0.72
00:24:16.000 Certainly, any company that has a blue collar workforce is going full on.
00:24:22.000 Jim Farley told me he's got 5,000 empty bays at Ford.
00:24:26.000 These are AI proof six figure jobs, right? 0.84
00:24:29.000 120,000 a year.
00:24:30.000 He can't fill them.
00:24:32.000 He can't fill them.
00:24:33.000 And that's.
00:24:34.000 But they're out there.
00:24:35.000 That's what I want.
00:24:36.000 They're everywhere. 0.92
00:24:37.000 Well, there's 7 million men, able bodied men, mostly young, who are what they call NILF.
00:24:44.000 NILF is not.
00:24:46.000 For in the labor force, this is different than unemployed.
00:24:49.000 Unemployment means you're looking, but you can't find a job.
00:24:53.000 This is not looking.
00:24:56.000 Again, it is not hatred to push the idea that people should try to find jobs.
00:25:01.000 That is tough love.
00:25:02.000 If it were your kid, you would be saying the same thing.
00:25:05.000 Coming up, we'll be joined by Patrick Bet David.
00:25:07.000 First, let us talk about healthy living.
00:25:09.000 There's basically a couple of versions.
00:25:10.000 One is the version you see online, you know, where you wake up at 4 30 in the morning and you exercise for two hours and then you prepare every single meal from scratch easily, and it takes you one second.
00:25:19.000 And your refrigerator has every single vegetable ever made.
00:25:22.000 And then there's like real life.
00:25:23.000 Real life is busy and you travel and you work and you have kids.
00:25:25.000 And some days you do everything right and other days you're not even close.
00:25:28.000 That's one of the reasons I've stuck with balance of nature.
00:25:30.000 It's simple.
00:25:31.000 Their whole health system contains 47 ingredients from real fruits, veggies, spices, and fiber.
00:25:36.000 It's designed to give you a straightforward way to incorporate more whole food ingredients into your daily routine without turning nutrition into yet another full time job.
00:25:43.000 And that's kind of the point.
00:25:44.000 The best routine isn't the incredibly elaborate one you follow for four days and then never do again because it was horrible.
00:25:49.000 It's the one simple enough to actually stick with.
00:25:51.000 For me, Balance of Nature fits into that category.
00:25:53.000 Make the healthy choice easier, make it repeatable, and then get on with the rest of your day.
00:25:57.000 Head on over to BalanceofNature.com today, subscribe to their whole health system or any of their other subscriptions, and receive an additional 10% off with promo code Shapiro.
00:26:04.000 Plus, with my code Shapiro, Balance of Nature will also send you a free guiltless snack.
00:26:09.000 That's BalanceofNature.com, promo code Shapiro.
00:26:12.000 Joining us online is Patrick Bett David.
00:26:13.000 He's the founder of Valutainment and, of course, the host of the PBD podcast, which is heard everywhere.
00:26:17.000 Patrick, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:26:18.000 Really appreciate it.
00:26:20.000 It's great to be on with you.
00:26:23.000 So, Patrick, obviously, we had the opportunity to sit down a few days ago, and the podcast that we did is now out publicly.
00:26:29.000 And I thought it was a fascinating conversation.
00:26:31.000 But one of the topics that we didn't really get to spend a lot of time on was what I see as really the biggest risk to the West and to America right now.
00:26:39.000 And that is the threat to capitalism.
00:26:41.000 We did talk about this on your podcast some, but I really want to get your opinion on it.
00:26:46.000 Right now, we are watching as there is a full scale assault on capitalism from a wide variety of sides, actually.
00:26:51.000 It's not just the sort of communistic left.
00:26:53.000 But you're also seeing it from what I've called the horseshoe right, communitarians, people who believe that the free markets are somehow the problem.
00:26:59.000 First of all, as somebody who obviously runs a very successful business and has been extremely operative in the economic space, what do you make of the attacks that you're seeing right now on capitalism itself?
00:27:10.000 You know, Ben, I'll tell you this.
00:27:12.000 The analogy I would give is a follow.
00:27:14.000 Let's just say you're at a low point of your life.
00:27:17.000 Affordability is pretty tough for some people.
00:27:19.000 Some people are having a hard time with gas prices, income, they're worried about AI.
00:27:23.000 So imagine you're stranded at a party, okay?
00:27:27.000 And there's a guy in the corner that has a solution for you.
00:27:30.000 He's the rich guy.
00:27:31.000 He succeeded.
00:27:31.000 He solved the problems.
00:27:32.000 He changes life, but he doesn't want to come talk to you.
00:27:36.000 Then there's one guy that comes and talks to you and all he says is go find a job.
00:27:40.000 But the third person that comes and talks to you for three hours at this party is the person that says it's all the rich man's fault.
00:27:48.000 The government can save your problems.
00:27:49.000 We're here for you.
00:27:51.000 It's not your fault.
00:27:52.000 They did it to you because the third person who is willing to come and talk to you and give you attention.
00:27:59.000 You end up becoming loyal to that person, even though that person's policies are not the best for you.
00:28:04.000 What do I mean by this?
00:28:05.000 We both, you and I know socialism doesn't work.
00:28:07.000 You and I both know communism doesn't work.
00:28:09.000 You and I both know DSA policies are horrible for America.
00:28:12.000 And by the way, a lot of people know this.
00:28:14.000 But even though we say this, the socialists are offering a solution.
00:28:19.000 What's their solution?
00:28:20.000 The government can fix your problem.
00:28:21.000 You know who's not offering a solution?
00:28:23.000 Republicans.
00:28:24.000 I think a part of it, Ben, to me, this is my challenge that I see a lot of people when I watch when they're trying to give their solutions, is they'll say, You got to fix it yourself.
00:28:34.000 You got to pick it up.
00:28:35.000 You got to go do this.
00:28:36.000 Which, by the way, all of those messages, 100% right.
00:28:40.000 We found a way to read books.
00:28:41.000 We found a way to go to school.
00:28:43.000 We found a way to get these things done.
00:28:45.000 Fully right.
00:28:46.000 But they still need to hear a solution from us.
00:28:49.000 That is not an attractive policy.
00:28:51.000 I'll put my crazy, wild idea out there and let people tear it apart.
00:28:55.000 Here's my idea, Ben.
00:28:56.000 What if we did this?
00:28:57.000 What if we said anybody under the age of 30 pays zero federal income taxes whatsoever?
00:29:05.000 Go make your money prior to 30.
00:29:07.000 You're going to keep that tax revenue.
00:29:09.000 I've looked at what that number is.
00:29:10.000 It's roughly around $230 billion.
00:29:12.000 Let's give that to the people under the age of 30 to get you started.
00:29:14.000 What does this do?
00:29:16.000 Maybe by the time you're 30, you got $117,000 in a bank you saved.
00:29:20.000 Maybe you got $248,000 in a Mac.
00:29:22.000 Maybe a parent like me would sit with his kids and say, listen, you got a run rate.
00:29:28.000 You got eight more years till you hit 30.
00:29:29.000 You're 21.
00:29:30.000 You know, you're 22.
00:29:32.000 Let's go make that money and save that money.
00:29:34.000 Maybe that idea gets people to go a little bit faster.
00:29:38.000 And so they don't drink that as much.
00:29:40.000 They don't party as hard.
00:29:41.000 They, they take their career a little bit seriously.
00:29:43.000 Maybe they end up increasing the birth rate that we have in America from 1.58 to 1.79 to 2.2.
00:29:49.000 Who knows?
00:29:50.000 But the reality of it is, If you remember this, you know this better than I do.
00:29:53.000 You've been in this business for 25 years when you and I talked, but you said it started at 17.
00:29:57.000 How magical was it that day when President Trump said, no more taxes on tips?
00:30:02.000 You're like, what a simple idea, but wait.
00:30:07.000 So I'm a liberal cashier, I'm a liberal waitress working at Cheesecake Factory.
00:30:12.000 I hate this guy, but if he doesn't pay taxes on tips, I keep an additional $400 a month.
00:30:18.000 I'll vote for Trump and not tell anybody about it.
00:30:21.000 So to me, I think we need that kind of a defining moment on the Republican Party to come out with a policy.
00:30:26.000 That I think could be so big that we can keep the young vote for decades if they come out with it first.
00:30:32.000 So, Rubio, JD Vance, somebody on the conservative side comes out and says, If you vote for me, no taxes under the age of 30.
00:30:39.000 I think that'd get the attention of a lot of the youth because right now socialists are winning their eyeballs.
00:30:44.000 So, I mean, I think that's brilliant.
00:30:45.000 I love it.
00:30:46.000 I mean, obviously, I'd be for no taxes on anybody ever, but that's a whole different kettle.
00:30:50.000 But yes, up to 30 is great because it does create that time value and the pressure.
00:30:54.000 I obviously think that that's really smart.
00:30:55.000 I wonder how much you think.
00:30:57.000 Of the sort of right wing anti capitalism is something different.
00:31:01.000 I think that there's kind of two phenomena.
00:31:02.000 One is the left wing anti capitalism, which says that capitalism itself has failed, that it's an affordability issue, that it's that you can't keep up with the Joneses, that you're suffering, and all the rest of this stuff.
00:31:12.000 And also adds on top of it that it's immoral.
00:31:15.000 You're seeing from the sort of horseshoe rights, say Tucker Carlson, for example, claiming that capitalism is sort of emptying of the soul of America, that free markets are inherently an attack on the spirituality of human beings.
00:31:27.000 What do you make of that argument?
00:31:28.000 How do you combat that?
00:31:28.000 Because he's really not making sort of a material argument.
00:31:31.000 Effectiveness argument nearly as much as he's making a sort of spiritual argument.
00:31:34.000 Well, what he's doing though, again, this is the part that we have to be careful.
00:31:38.000 So I'll give you what he's doing, my opinion, and then what the leak is and my counter argument to that.
00:31:45.000 Number one, at least he's offering something to the youth and he's looking like he cares.
00:31:52.000 He is no different to me than AOC.
00:31:55.000 They're both sitting there saying the rich man's the fault of the rich guy.
00:31:58.000 You know, he did it and it's their fault.
00:32:00.000 We got to find a way.
00:32:01.000 These guys don't want to give the money.
00:32:03.000 You didn't do nothing yourself, it wasn't your fault.
00:32:05.000 And that's a crock of both of them are.
00:32:07.000 I'm not with either one of the minds.
00:32:09.000 The one place where you lose me, I can sit there and like the other day I had Mehdi Hassan here.
00:32:14.000 We had a debate. 0.98
00:32:15.000 Mehdi Hassan, Muslim, very different idea politically.
00:32:19.000 And we went at it.
00:32:20.000 And, you know, he is a very strong, staunch believer in what he believes in.
00:32:23.000 But I said to him, I said, you know, Mehdi, you know what I'm excited about you right now?
00:32:26.000 He says, what's that?
00:32:27.000 I said, how does it feel being a capitalist?
00:32:29.000 He said, I'm not a capitalist.
00:32:30.000 I said, no, no, you're a capitalist.
00:32:32.000 You're no longer working for MSNBC.
00:32:33.000 You started your own media company.
00:32:35.000 You got employees now.
00:32:36.000 You now got to pay people fairly.
00:32:38.000 You now have to look at the bottom line of how much money you're making.
00:32:41.000 You're officially a capitalist.
00:32:42.000 So, you know what happens when a capitalist talks to a capitalist?
00:32:45.000 You understand each other because you know the pain.
00:32:48.000 You know what it's like to pay employees, lose employees.
00:32:51.000 Somebody leaves, they poach away three of your best guys, and somebody takes your customer.
00:32:55.000 You're trying to go to sleep, you're raising capital.
00:32:57.000 This is very difficult.
00:32:59.000 The moment you go away from capitalism to me, you lose me.
00:33:03.000 We're not on the same page.
00:33:04.000 So, I'm trying to see where Tucker's going with his argument about capitalism.
00:33:08.000 I think he had somebody on.
00:33:11.000 He had some kind of a Christian pastor.
00:33:13.000 I don't know who it was.
00:33:14.000 It was a very good, eloquent guy.
00:33:15.000 And they talked about how in the Bible, you know, most of the ideas in the Bible are about socialism.
00:33:21.000 It's not about capitalism.
00:33:22.000 Capitalism is bad.
00:33:22.000 So we have to be very, very careful when we're going through it.
00:33:26.000 And I kind of watched to see what is the end in mind?
00:33:28.000 What is the motive?
00:33:29.000 What are we solving for?
00:33:30.000 Are we trying to say where we want to take the onus of the individual?
00:33:34.000 We're getting away from free enterprise?
00:33:35.000 Is that what we're getting away from?
00:33:37.000 So all these years of us having read Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, all these years of us watching Milton Friedman's.
00:33:43.000 Lectures that he gave and we saw the old conversations about, you know, it's the rich man's fault.
00:33:47.000 We're going back to that.
00:33:49.000 Like we forgot what these great minds taught us.
00:33:53.000 I think, I think it's playing with fire.
00:33:55.000 But, uh, again, to me, if we go to motives, there's always five things I ask myself, Ben, I ask myself what, like, if I'm, if I'm trying to size you up, I ask myself, what do you, what do I think is Ben's concerns?
00:34:07.000 What do I think are Ben's motives?
00:34:09.000 What do I think are Ben's assumptions?
00:34:11.000 What do I think are Ben's fears and his asks?
00:34:15.000 When I sit there and ask myself, What are Tucker's motives?
00:34:19.000 I don't know what Tucker's motives are.
00:34:21.000 Maybe he wants to start a political party.
00:34:23.000 You and I talked about it, obviously, on the show.
00:34:25.000 Does he want to run for office?
00:34:26.000 Does he want to undermine somebody?
00:34:28.000 Did somebody piss him off that this is his way of getting vengeance and revenge on them?
00:34:33.000 Nobody knows the motives.
00:34:34.000 You know, it's like I'm not going to sit there and try to read the person's mind, but if we knew the motives, we would easily be able to answer all these other questions, but we don't know the motives.
00:34:42.000 So to me, it's a terrible idea if we start bashing capitalists and we blame the big, you know, the business owner that it's their fault and the government's going to solve your problem.
00:34:51.000 I think you're playing with fire.
00:34:52.000 And I don't agree with that mindset.
00:34:55.000 You know, Patrick, one of the things that I think you've talked about here really, really well, and in our conversation, there have been some things that we talked about that I've been thinking about ever since.
00:35:03.000 And one of the things that you talked to me about was sort of assumptions that I make about the world or the way that I address the world.
00:35:08.000 And the fact that, you know, I'm not Captain Sympathy, right?
00:35:11.000 I'm not the guy who's going to come along and tell you about how much I care about your feelings and how much I feel for you and how much you're having a difficult problem and all that.
00:35:19.000 I'm the guy who comes and says, you know, yeah, you need to get a job.
00:35:22.000 And like, there's certain things we can do to get out of your way, but like, that's.
00:35:24.000 That's pretty much all we can do, and it's mostly in your hands.
00:35:26.000 And how there's a shortcoming to that political approach, obviously, when you're talking particularly to young people who are hearing from the other side, the anti capitalist side, that here we are.
00:35:36.000 And while we don't have a solution to your problem, we know who to blame.
00:35:38.000 It's probably that unsympathetic guy over there who's telling you to get a job.
00:35:41.000 It's probably him because he already got his, and he's trying to grind you under the boot heel.
00:35:45.000 Well, what I like about the proposal that you're making, this sort of like, you know, get rid of taxes for people under 30, is that you are coming with a thing that can be done as opposed to a thing that can't be done. 0.89
00:35:55.000 But I do wonder if there's a limit to it, right?
00:35:57.000 At what point.
00:35:58.000 Do you think that we're going to just have to deal with the fact that tough love is not just love, it's actually tough?
00:36:05.000 Yeah, I mean, look, the one guy that was able to do this better than anybody we've ever seen is Donald Trump.
00:36:10.000 Donald Trump was a billionaire, A lister, who acted like he was on your side and he understood what you were going through the poor, you know, hardworking farmer or somebody that's working at a regular job making 22 bucks an hour.
00:36:22.000 Like, this guy's for me.
00:36:24.000 And I think there's a lot to be learned from that.
00:36:26.000 We have to be able to connect with the audience.
00:36:29.000 I don't know if the Republican Party is doing a good enough job with the youth.
00:36:35.000 Of connecting with them.
00:36:36.000 When we had the late Charlie Kirk that was here with us, we saw the rise of the youth because he went out there and he said, I understand your pain.
00:36:45.000 I understand what you're going through.
00:36:47.000 I understand maybe you don't want the war.
00:36:49.000 I understand that you don't want everything to be financed and TARP and another.
00:36:53.000 And the kids were like, man, finally somebody's listening to me.
00:36:56.000 I'm being hurt.
00:36:57.000 Sometimes, you know, I read a book many, many years ago.
00:36:59.000 It was called Thank God It's Monday.
00:37:01.000 It was written by a psychologist.
00:37:03.000 This was written 40, 50, 60 years ago.
00:37:05.000 It was written by a marriage counselor.
00:37:07.000 That after sitting down with enough husband and wives and the husbands would come and say, thank God it's Monday.
00:37:12.000 I can't wait to be away from my family because it's so much of a headache over the weekend.
00:37:15.000 And those marriages would end up at a divorce.
00:37:17.000 He realized the husbands that were able to make their marriages work, they followed one basic guideline.
00:37:24.000 And it was every day they gave 15 minute undivided attention to their spouse and five minute undivided attention to each of their kids.
00:37:33.000 So what does that mean?
00:37:34.000 It's just, I want to be heard.
00:37:36.000 So I don't know if we're doing enough of listening to them and instead of just lecturing them, And I don't know about you.
00:37:43.000 When I was 17 years old, I don't want anybody to lecture me.
00:37:45.000 When I was 22 years old, don't lecture me.
00:37:47.000 Don't sit there and tell me, I already know I'm doing a bunch of things wrong.
00:37:50.000 I don't want to hear another lecture.
00:37:52.000 I think we can do a better job delivering the message.
00:37:54.000 I do agree, facts don't care about your feelings.
00:37:58.000 Maybe we need to find a way to deliver the message in a proper way.
00:38:02.000 You know, like today I had Arthur C. Brooks on.
00:38:04.000 You know who Arthur C. Brooks is.
00:38:05.000 Phenomenal back in the day.
00:38:06.000 Of course, I'm good friends with Arthur.
00:38:07.000 Yep.
00:38:08.000 He's great.
00:38:08.000 I know you are.
00:38:09.000 And by the way, he said very complimentary things about you when we were done with the interview.
00:38:13.000 I told him you were here with us last week.
00:38:15.000 And you know what we talked about?
00:38:17.000 We talked about being better at delivering the message in a way that people want to hear it.
00:38:23.000 We talked about, you know, selling the ideas better.
00:38:26.000 Sometimes I don't, like I said, he wrote a book many, many years ago called The Road to Freedom.
00:38:31.000 I think he wrote it 16 years ago.
00:38:33.000 And I said to myself, he was in the top three guys on my list of knowing how to sell capitalism him, Soul, and Milton Friedman.
00:38:41.000 I don't know how many people know how to sell capitalism today the proper way.
00:38:45.000 I think we are selling it too logically.
00:38:47.000 And we got to go back and sell it emotionally in a way where they say, Why would I want any other system?
00:38:54.000 We naturally, Ben, we're born capitalists.
00:38:57.000 We're all capitalists.
00:38:58.000 We love recognition.
00:38:59.000 We want to get recognition for the idea we came up with, or I was the one that said, Let's do this.
00:39:05.000 And we recognize he or she came up with the idea.
00:39:08.000 We want to celebrate our victories.
00:39:08.000 Good for you.
00:39:10.000 We want to celebrate that we got a good grade.
00:39:12.000 We want to celebrate the fact that, you know, yes, we won, but I was the MVP of the team, or I'm the one that scored the last shot.
00:39:19.000 We want that individual recognition and the collective.
00:39:22.000 And so, on the Republican conservative side, I think we have to get better at delivering our message and selling the dream better.
00:39:30.000 We're not selling the dream better today.
00:39:32.000 We are selling the dream very logically today, not emotionally.
00:39:36.000 And I think we can do a better job in that.
00:39:38.000 So, one of the biggest questions I get is how do I prepare my kids for college?
00:39:41.000 How do I make sure they don't get brainwashed in college?
00:39:44.000 And the answer is you actually have to be educated.
00:39:46.000 You have to know all the arguments.
00:39:47.000 Well, the best way for your kids to know the arguments, or for you, if you're about to go to school, to know the arguments is, of course, To join us here at Daily Wire.
00:39:55.000 This is why you should enter that Daily Wire back to school sale.
00:39:58.000 You can literally give your kids or yourself the gift of facts and knowledge before it's too late.
00:40:02.000 Their progressive professors are coming for them.
00:40:04.000 So arm yourself and your family with the truth before the sale ends.
00:40:08.000 I totally agree with that.
00:40:09.000 I also think, by the way, that when we sell the dream, what we've been selling is a materialist outcome of the dream, but not the dream itself.
00:40:15.000 So when we talk about the American dream, and you hear people say the American dream is a car and a house and a fence and a white picket fence and 2.2 kids, that's not actually the American dream.
00:40:23.000 The American dream is that if I pursue with vigor and determination and make the right decisions in my life, particular goals, that I have a shot of reaching those goals.
00:40:32.000 That's the American dream because there are lots of places on earth.
00:40:34.000 That will give you a government guaranteed crappy apartment and a really junky car. 0.89
00:40:38.000 I mean, this is what the Soviet Union did. 0.78
00:40:40.000 But it doesn't actually satisfy that. 0.98
00:40:41.000 That's not the American dream.
00:40:42.000 That's just a materialist dream.
00:40:44.000 And it's the process that actually makes the man.
00:40:45.000 I think that that's always what's exciting about America is that that process should be exciting.
00:40:49.000 It's what should be exciting about capitalism to young people is that you actually have all this road in front of you, a thing that you can do yourself.
00:40:56.000 And, you know, what the studies tend to show is that you're actually not that happy when people just give the thing to you.
00:40:59.000 If somebody just gives a thing to you, you're not nearly as happy about it as if you actually earned the thing.
00:41:03.000 And you're right.
00:41:04.000 I mean, that's what people do want to earn.
00:41:06.000 Patrick, I also wanted to ask you, obviously, we're still in the middle of this conflict with Iran.
00:41:10.000 I think there are lots of open questions to be asked about how the administration has pursued its interest in Iran, what the end game is.
00:41:16.000 I think all those are perfectly logical, open, normal questions that need to be asked.
00:41:20.000 The one thing that I've been finding is a number of people who just have a bizarre vision of what Iran is, what the regime actually is.
00:41:27.000 I wanted to ask you, because obviously you were born in Tehran.
00:41:30.000 You grew up in Iran.
00:41:34.000 There seems to be this bizarre notion that the rulers of Iran are number one rational actors, like extremely rational actors.
00:41:41.000 And thus, any deal that you cut with them will be predicated on some sort of decent founding.
00:41:45.000 And two, are no threat to anybody else. 0.62
00:41:47.000 Now, what do you make of the sort of pie in the sky version of Iran that seems to be building? 0.51
00:41:52.000 It seems to me you can make an isolationist argument even without making this argument, but there's been a bleed over, again, by people on the left and also on the right to suggest, well, is Iran really that bad?
00:42:01.000 Like, what's really wrong over there?
00:42:03.000 And by the way, I think this is going to be a big topic of discussion for 2028, 2027, where those running for president, what position are you going to take?
00:42:11.000 You know, non interventionals or intervening? 0.54
00:42:13.000 So to me, What you need to know is imagine a country that is gladly willing to kill its own people and they use the threat that way to make sure you say nothing.
00:42:24.000 So here they took our videos down.
00:42:27.000 I don't know how many videos YouTube took down.
00:42:29.000 They, they mentioned it the other day.
00:42:30.000 Million videos on COVID they took down.
00:42:32.000 Think about they took down a million videos off of YouTube.
00:42:35.000 We got plenty of them taken down.
00:42:37.000 How many strikes we got?
00:42:38.000 How many times we couldn't go live?
00:42:39.000 How many times that happened?
00:42:41.000 So now imagine, let's go a level above that.
00:42:41.000 Okay.
00:42:43.000 What's above censorship? 0.99
00:42:45.000 Killing you. 1.00
00:42:46.000 That's what Iran does. 1.00
00:42:47.000 They don't just censor you, they will kill you. 1.00
00:42:50.000 So if you want to open your mouth and say something, we'll kill you. 1.00
00:42:52.000 And then we'll publicly celebrate the fact that we took your life gladly because you gave a different opinion. 1.00
00:42:58.000 Not take your voice away from you, not take your YouTube channel away from you.
00:43:02.000 We're going to, that's exactly what IRGC does.
00:43:05.000 You know, about two years ago, Ben, I brought the founder of Islamic Revolutionary Guard here.
00:43:12.000 And he sat down with me, Morteza Al Gharzi, some name like that.
00:43:16.000 I had him on here.
00:43:17.000 And when he came into our building at first, he's like, Why does Patrick want to talk to me?
00:43:21.000 And he was confused.
00:43:22.000 So he sat down and I went right into it.
00:43:24.000 He was the guy that was the opening voice to all the tapes that Ayatollah Khomeini would say.
00:43:30.000 He was the opening voice, edifying Khomeini.
00:43:33.000 And they would send those tapes into Iran, which caused the revolution.
00:43:35.000 And eventually, Iran failed.
00:43:37.000 Khomeini comes, and the rest is history.
00:43:37.000 Shah's gone.
00:43:39.000 If you go and type in IRGC, who are the founders?
00:43:43.000 It's Khomeini and this man right here that was with me.
00:43:46.000 And I, yes, Sagara.
00:43:48.000 And so I had him on and I asked him a question.
00:43:50.000 I said, Hey, At the beginning, when you saw this happening, didn't you know this was bad?
00:43:55.000 He says, At the beginning, I didn't.
00:43:57.000 He says, I thought we were off to a good mission and we were going to really taste it.
00:44:00.000 What ended up happening in that change?
00:44:01.000 He said, I didn't think we were.
00:44:02.000 Killed that many people. 0.84
00:44:03.000 I said, You guys originally said that the Shah killed some hundred thousand people and you lied about it. 0.89
00:44:10.000 He says, We did. 0.87
00:44:11.000 I said, Okay, how many numbers was it actually?
00:44:13.000 It was actually less than 3,000.
00:44:14.000 But the propaganda machine was so effective that it got everybody in Iran to believe that he was a bad guy.
00:44:20.000 He was for the rich.
00:44:21.000 We got rid of him. 0.91
00:44:22.000 Well, from 1979 till today, what's happened to the Middle East? 0.93
00:44:26.000 If you go and think about what the Middle East looked like in the 70s or the 60s, how many problems do we have with Iran?
00:44:33.000 You don't have any problems with Iran. 0.84
00:44:35.000 Iran wasn't causing the chaos that Iran is creating today after IRGC.
00:44:40.000 So the same people that sit there and say, these are not bad actors.
00:44:44.000 These are not bad people. 1.00
00:44:46.000 It's us that's making Iran and Islam look like they're horrible human beings. 1.00
00:44:50.000 It's not us doing it. 0.99
00:44:51.000 No, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's the marketing and we're scaring people.
00:44:55.000 You are playing with fire.
00:44:57.000 It's the same people that said communism didn't work because they had bad leadership and we can do better in America.
00:45:02.000 Socialism didn't work because they had bad leadership.
00:45:04.000 We can do better in America.
00:45:05.000 If there's a couple things I have zero tolerance, Where I'm going to sit there and say, it's okay.
00:45:11.000 It's a zero tolerance for IRGC.
00:45:14.000 Zero tolerance for them.
00:45:16.000 Zero.
00:45:17.000 And the only question then becomes, Ben, is the following.
00:45:20.000 And here's the question where I have biases because I live there.
00:45:26.000 I know these guys.
00:45:26.000 I want them gone.
00:45:28.000 But the Americans who say, Pat, we have bigger problems to solve than get rid of IRGC.
00:45:35.000 And that debate, Ben, you and I may differ on this.
00:45:38.000 I actually think that's a fair debate for us as Americans to have.
00:45:42.000 Because some Americans may say, you know, do we really want to spend our resources?
00:45:47.000 You know, we're starting to see what's going on right now in the world.
00:45:49.000 You know, where Ukraine, nobody thought Ukraine was going to embarrass Russia with their drones.
00:45:55.000 Did we think Ukraine was going to be able to last this long? 0.52
00:45:57.000 And we realized warfare has changed. 0.95
00:45:57.000 Nobody did. 0.95
00:45:59.000 And Iran with their drones, the amount of headaches they're creating. 0.97
00:46:02.000 Thank God this entrepreneur in America named Palmer Lucky.
00:46:05.000 I don't know if you saw what he's doing.
00:46:07.000 Palmer Lucky, they're creating all these drone weapons that they started recently.
00:46:11.000 And I think, I don't know what the valuation was.
00:46:13.000 $100 billion drone company in America.
00:46:15.000 Thank God we're doing this because warfare is going to be changing the next few years.
00:46:19.000 But I think that's a fair debate.
00:46:21.000 But in my position, I have the line here.
00:46:23.000 If you try to cross the line to get me to think that IRGC people are good, nice people, let's negotiate with them, this is where I stand.
00:46:31.000 Yeah, Patrick, again, I think the place where some of these phenomena come together, the anti capitalism and also the kind of bizarrely warm feelings about Iran or say bizarrely warm feelings about Russia or China, there is a burgeoning anti Americanism that's happening in the United States.
00:46:46.000 It's become. acceptable for a huge number of people in America to basically treat America as though we're the bad guy in the world.
00:46:53.000 And, you know, I, I, maybe that comes from ignorance. 0.97
00:46:56.000 Maybe that comes from generations being taught dumb things by people in college. 0.80
00:46:59.000 Maybe it comes from the fact that we don't have an existential threat on our doorstep the way that we did during the Cold War.
00:47:04.000 And so there's kind of nothing to push back against.
00:47:06.000 Uh, or, or, or maybe it's just, you know, sort of all of the above or boredom or social media, but whatever it is, it does feel as though, you know, the, the seams are coming apart in the United States in a, in a particular way because of that burgeon, that, that sort of Feeling that everything that happens on a foreign front that's bad is somehow our fault.
00:47:22.000 That everything that is happening wrong in the economy is, you can chalk that up to free market forces and capitalism and private entrepreneurs and Elon Musk and all the rest of this.
00:47:31.000 And, you know, I wonder if you think that how long is it going to take to cure that?
00:47:35.000 And what are sort of the basic building blocks for curing that anti Americanism?
00:47:39.000 It's so embarrassing when we do that.
00:47:41.000 I mean, we live in the greatest country in the world that was able to do something in 250 years that other countries couldn't do for 2,000 years.
00:47:48.000 I mean, imagine how much of an underdog you have to be to start.
00:47:51.000 With 56 different people in 1776, and say, Here's going to be our idea.
00:47:55.000 And by the way, we're going to go against a big bad bully, UK, and we're going to find a way to create our own country.
00:48:00.000 They're trying to bully us as much as they can.
00:48:02.000 And they were the financial capital of the world.
00:48:03.000 But we're going to take over. 1.00
00:48:04.000 And don't worry about China and Iran. 0.84
00:48:06.000 And don't worry about Persia and USSR. 0.90
00:48:08.000 Don't worry about all these.
00:48:09.000 And all of a sudden, we are the most powerful country in the world and creating incredible jobs and innovation where everybody around the world wants to come here.
00:48:17.000 Nobody else calls it the American dream.
00:48:20.000 There's no Russian dream. 0.65
00:48:21.000 There's no Chinese dream. 0.81
00:48:22.000 There's no Iranian dream. 0.92
00:48:23.000 There's no British dream. 0.95
00:48:25.000 There's only the American dream. 0.99
00:48:27.000 There's a reason for that.
00:48:28.000 And unfortunately, sometimes, I just finished off.
00:48:33.000 With my last conference of my insurance company last week in Vegas at MGM Grand.
00:48:37.000 And I sat there and I thought about a few of the guys that are super grateful.
00:48:42.000 They're very wealthy now, they're living incredible lives.
00:48:45.000 But there was a couple of them that weren't grateful.
00:48:47.000 And it was like, wait a minute, you're now worth $15 million.
00:48:51.000 When I met you, you were broke, about to file bankruptcy, and you were driving a car that would pop every time I would open a door.
00:48:57.000 Now you drive Rolls Royce, and now you're not, because of what?
00:49:01.000 We're very, very quick to forget.
00:49:05.000 How lucky we are here.
00:49:07.000 A regular guy like me who came from Iran and we did it the right way.
00:49:12.000 We went to Germany at a refugee camp, wait till we got our green card.
00:49:15.000 We applied for our green card in 1984, did not get it till November 28th of 1990 when we left Germany to come here.
00:49:22.000 We land here, regular guy.
00:49:24.000 We have nothing to our name.
00:49:25.000 My dad's a 99 cent store cashier at Inglewood, California.
00:49:30.000 And I go to the U.S. Army and that was, I was going to do 20 years and then one of my friends called me and said, You got to get out.
00:49:35.000 I think you're going to make it in the.
00:49:36.000 Private, you know, citizen, you shouldn't be in the military.
00:49:38.000 And so I listened to my get out and I wanted to be a bodybuilder and I went into business and I became an advisor.
00:49:43.000 And then I built an insurance company and I sold it and we had a nice exit and now we run a media company.
00:49:48.000 I didn't go to school to be a podcaster giving my opinion to, you know, experts like you.
00:49:53.000 This just accidentally happened.
00:49:54.000 I'm a regular guy who I am.
00:49:56.000 I'm not even a guy that, you know, has the right certificates to do anything like this, but this country allows for that.
00:50:03.000 We're living in the greatest country in the world.
00:50:05.000 But here's the problem.
00:50:07.000 There's always going to be ungrateful people who lack perspective, who go through seasons of being bitter towards the country.
00:50:14.000 It is very important for those of us that are loving America that we keep the fight, that we keep selling, that we're out there constantly talking about the beautiful part about this incredible country, and we do it in a way that converts.
00:50:27.000 Because I think I used to ask myself, what's your outcome of this message?
00:50:32.000 Do I just want to say it to be right, or do I want to baptize?
00:50:36.000 Do I want to convert? 0.99
00:50:37.000 Do I want to get non believers to become believers? 0.99
00:50:39.000 Do I want to get people to say, You know, I never thought about it that way before. 0.98
00:50:43.000 Yeah, why not me?
00:50:45.000 I want to entertain this.
00:50:46.000 Like, you know, if I'm a Christian pastor, what's my job to get up there?
00:50:50.000 And I remember I went to a church in Dallas one time.
00:50:52.000 I won't send the churches then because it was massive.
00:50:54.000 It once used to be the biggest church in Dallas.
00:50:57.000 So I go to the service, and the pastor is a very well known pastor.
00:51:00.000 And I go and I go on the Easter service because that's when you can really judge on how they manage Easter service.
00:51:07.000 And I watched the Easter service, and it was all about judgment judging, And I'm like, How many of these people that came that only come to the two services per year, Christmas and Easter, how many are going to come back next Sunday?
00:51:21.000 Your job is to convert them to next Sunday, not just Easter.
00:51:25.000 They'll come for Easter, but you win when they come back next Sunday and then they become members and they go to the 101 classes.
00:51:32.000 You didn't convert anybody.
00:51:33.000 I said, no wonder this church is dying.
00:51:35.000 So I think we, we as proud conservatives, whatever our background is, we need to get back to selling the dream to convert because AOC is converting.
00:51:46.000 Charlie Kirk converted.
00:51:48.000 He converted a lot of the youth.
00:51:50.000 You, like I was telling you the story, whenever I come across people that talk about you, they'll say, you know, I became a conservative because of Man Shapiro.
00:51:59.000 I became a conservative.
00:52:01.000 You would, you keep hearing about so many people, and there's arrows in sports, right?
00:52:05.000 When you were in your 20s, you were the guy.
00:52:06.000 Then Charlie was in his 20s.
00:52:08.000 Now we're in our 40s.
00:52:09.000 We play a different role.
00:52:10.000 But I think we need to be, we need to be very good at converting our messaging.
00:52:16.000 If there's a way to score our messaging, is are we just talking to the same old people?
00:52:22.000 Are we reaching out to the other side and finding people to convert?
00:52:25.000 We did a very good job in 23, 24 converting.
00:52:28.000 I think a lot of the last two years, And you made a very good point when you said, well, you know, anytime Republicans is in office and, you know, you don't really have an enemy to go up against.
00:52:36.000 So it's kind of like your numbers change, which is true.
00:52:39.000 We read the New York Times article and I think it was a political article that we read.
00:52:42.000 But I think as long as we stay in the conversion game, we'll be fine.
00:52:47.000 If we stay in the game of just talking to the same old people like the Democrats did, you know, it's going to be problematic.
00:52:52.000 Socialists are going to other people.
00:52:54.000 We got to continue doing that and selling the dream of America continuously.
00:52:57.000 So I see a problem there, but I'm very optimistic about the future.
00:53:02.000 Well, that's PBD.
00:53:03.000 Patrick Bett David.
00:53:04.000 Go check out the PBD podcast and, of course, all of his work over at Values Heman.
00:53:08.000 Really appreciate it.
00:53:08.000 Patrick, thanks so much for the time.
00:53:10.000 Thank you.
00:53:10.000 Anytime.
00:53:11.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:53:13.000 Wasn't that amazing?
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