The Ben Shapiro Show - Musk Frees the Bird | Ep. 1599

00:00:00.000 Elon Musk fires the Twitter executive team, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gets caught on a hot mic lamenting the state of Senate races, and John Fetterman gets the hero treatment for falling apart in the biggest debate of his life.

00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:11.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:12.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:00:20.000 Protect your online privacy today at ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.

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00:02:30.000 Be sure to write Shapiro in there.

00:02:31.000 How did you hear about us, Fox?

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00:02:37.000 How did you hear about us, Fox?

00:02:38.000 Well, Elon Musk is in at Twitter and he is firing everyone as he pledged to do.

00:02:42.000 And I am here for it.

00:02:44.000 I think everybody else who's been on Twitter for the past several years and is not of wild leftist bent is here for it as well.

00:02:49.000 Twitter's moderation has been a bleep show for a very long time.

00:02:52.000 They've been banning people willy nilly right and left.

00:02:55.000 People ranging from Alex Jones to the Babylon Bee to Jordan Peterson for a wide variety of unspecified crimes.

00:03:01.000 They can never quite be specific enough as to what exactly was violated.

00:03:05.000 Their standards are incredibly loose. 0.97

00:03:06.000 Somehow, the Ayatollah Khomeini, he's fine while he's railing about how the Jews should be destroyed. 0.97

00:03:11.000 But somehow, Jordan Peterson is banned for saying that men cannot be women.

00:03:16.000 Twitter's content moderation policies have basically been a weapon on behalf of the left.

00:03:20.000 And what it's meant is that everybody has to skirt All of their rules.

00:03:23.000 So there are things that you just can't say on Twitter.

00:03:25.000 So, for example, when there was controversy over whether ivermectin was a good treatment for COVID-19, you couldn't even claim that ivermectin was a good treatment for COVID-19, even though it did work for a lot of people and is still controversial as to how well ivermectin works.

00:03:37.000 You still could not say, even though the evidence showed that widespread masking did not stop the transmission of the virus.

00:03:43.000 You weren't allowed to say that vaccines were not effective in stopping the transmission of the virus.

00:03:48.000 These are things you were not allowed to say on Twitter.

00:03:49.000 And if you said them on Twitter, then you would immediately have your account suspended.

00:03:53.000 The number of personal friends that I have who have been suspended from Twitter is incredibly high.

00:03:57.000 And we're talking about people who are not wild-eyed people.

00:03:59.000 We're talking about people like Dave Rubin.

00:04:01.000 We're talking about Babylon Bee, Libs of TikTok, Jordan Peterson.

00:04:04.000 All these people have been suspended or banned outright from Twitter.

00:04:08.000 Well now Elon Musk is back, he is in charge and he is firing everyone as well he should.

00:04:13.000 He said he was going to fire 75% of the staff and frankly I think that's low.

00:04:17.000 He needs to go a little bit higher than that because the simple fact of the matter is Twitter is a bloated bureaucracy.

00:04:22.000 It's filled with people who had jobs like diversity, equity and inclusion manager.

00:04:27.000 It is a platform.

00:04:28.000 It is a platform for speech.

00:04:29.000 Elon Musk understands that.

00:04:30.000 Now, Elon Musk did say yesterday, and he is correct, that this does not mean that there are no standards at Twitter.

00:04:36.000 It's not as though you should be able to get on Twitter and actively threaten violence against other human beings.

00:04:40.000 And it's even possible that Elon Musk has his own Overton window.

00:04:44.000 The Overton Window is the window of acceptable speech.

00:04:47.000 And we all have it in our own lives.

00:04:48.000 There are certain people we don't want to be friends with and we don't want over in our houses because their opinions are just too vile, right?

00:04:52.000 You wouldn't want a skinhead Nazi over at your house with your kids because your Overton Window is personally not big enough to encompass that.

00:04:59.000 Nor, in my opinion, should it be.

00:05:01.000 You should not be forced to have that person over at your house.

00:05:04.000 And if you own a platform like Twitter, presumably there will be an Overton Window beyond which there are certain opinions that are just too far.

00:05:12.000 Go too far.

00:05:13.000 But those should be as close to the legal line of free speech as humanly possible.

00:05:17.000 Meaning that there are certain things that are not protected by free speech in the United States.

00:05:20.000 Pornography is really not protected by free speech in the United States.

00:05:23.000 And we like to pretend that it is, but historically speaking, it just was not.

00:05:29.000 The idea of a violent threat, that is not protected.

00:05:32.000 Full-on defamation is not protected by free speech in the United States.

00:05:36.000 Well, if you're a platform, what you should try to do is hew as close to the First Amendment line as humanly possible, because indeed, that is what you were created to do.

00:05:43.000 If the whole idea of Twitter is that it was a digital town square, then treat it like a digital town square, meaning that it is a neutral forum for discussion.

00:05:50.000 And that's going to include crazy people who are over there on the side, standing on an Apple box and shouting at everybody at will.

00:05:55.000 The good news is that unlike that town square where that person is noise polluting, In the digital town square, you have a mute button and you have the ability to algorithmically shape what it is that you wish to see.

00:06:05.000 And I think that Elon Musk understands this.

00:06:07.000 So the hue and cry at Twitter is just insane.

00:06:10.000 People at Twitter are weeping openly online.

00:06:12.000 You're seeing people from the left, the people in the media, who are just, we're going to abandon Twitter.

00:06:17.000 We're going to run screaming from this place.

00:06:19.000 We're going to have to leave.

00:06:19.000 What are we going to do?

00:06:21.000 Taylor Lorenz, of course, one of the worst actors online.

00:06:23.000 She's leading that charge.

00:06:25.000 Hilariously, she's actually like, you know, I'm, I need to tweet out my substack so people can see my stuff over there.

00:06:29.000 Substack is also a free speech platform where a bunch of people Taylor Lauren's hates are, including libs of TikTok, by the way.

00:06:36.000 Well now, according to the Associated Press, Musk has taken control of Twitter and ousted the CEO, CFO, and the company's top lawyer, two people familiar with the deal said Thursday night.

00:06:44.000 The people wouldn't say if all the paperwork for the deal had been signed or if the deal had been closed.

00:06:47.000 They said Musk is in charge of the social media platform he fired, CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Siegel, and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gedi.

00:06:54.000 Neither person wanted to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the deal.

00:06:57.000 Now, you saw Vijaya Gedi just get absolutely eviscerated on one episode of Joe Rogan.

00:07:03.000 Tim Pool just destroyed her on Joe Rogan, right?

00:07:06.000 Just asking her about how exactly you make these decisions as to what is bannable and what is not.

00:07:10.000 She had no answers whatsoever.

00:07:11.000 Agrawal has presided over the widespread feeling that Twitter is a forum for the left.

00:07:18.000 And if you say anything that violates the most strictly held standards, then you will be banned.

00:07:22.000 A few hours after the firing, Musk tweeted, the bird has been freed.

00:07:27.000 You know, just from a pure objective level, Musk is a lot of fun.

00:07:30.000 I mean, is it okay to say that a billionaire is fun?

00:07:33.000 I know that we're supposed to believe that billionaires are very dour or world controlling.

00:07:37.000 They'll have to be do-gooders like Bill Gates, who I guess is having fun on the side of his pool house.

00:07:43.000 But aside from that, he's supposed to be, you know, a person who's out there to, you know, very serious people.

00:07:50.000 I love the fact that Musk is not totally serious.

00:07:52.000 I think that is a wonderful, wonderful thing for the world.

00:07:54.000 The departures came just hours before a deadline set by a Delaware judge to finalize the deal on Friday.

00:07:58.000 She threatened to schedule a trial if no agreement was reached.

00:08:01.000 Although they came quickly, the major personnel moves have been widely expected.

00:08:04.000 They are almost certainly the first many changes the Tesla CEO will make.

00:08:08.000 Must privately clash with Agrawal in April immediately before deciding to make a bid for the company, according to text messages later revealed in court filings.

00:08:14.000 About the same time he used Twitter to criticize Gaddy, the company's top lawyer.

00:08:17.000 His tweets were followed by a wave of harassment of Gaddy from other Twitter accounts.

00:08:20.000 This is one of the garbage lines the media like to use, is that if you tweet about somebody, and then a lot of people don't like what that person said, and they harass that person, that's your fault.

00:08:28.000 Hey, as probably one of the most harassed people on Twitter, I've never complained about that because guess what?

00:08:32.000 I've got a mute button.

00:08:33.000 I have the ability to not look at Twitter.

00:08:35.000 I have many.

00:08:36.000 Like Twitter is a wonderful outlet for me to be able to tweet my thoughts. 1.00

00:08:39.000 It's also a place filled with stupid people and annoying people. 1.00

00:08:43.000 And you know what I'm able to do? 1.00

00:08:44.000 I've never called for a single person to be banned from Twitter.

00:08:46.000 I have not because I have a thing.

00:08:48.000 It is called a mute button and I can use it whenever I please.

00:08:52.000 For Gady, an 11-year Twitter employee who also heads public policy and safety, the harassment included racist and misogynist attacks, in addition to calls for Musk to fire her.

00:08:59.000 On Thursday after she was fired, the harassing tweets lit up once again.

00:09:03.000 This notion that you are responsible if you criticize a person and a bunch of other people decide to act in bad fashion against that person, you are then responsible for this?

00:09:11.000 This ends political speech in the United States.

00:09:13.000 Because guess what?

00:09:15.000 We all criticize each other. 1.00

00:09:16.000 And yes, there are a bunch of people out there who act in stupid fashion and then harass those people. 0.98

00:09:20.000 Does that mean that you are responsible for the harassment? 0.99

00:09:23.000 This is the game that the media love to play.

00:09:24.000 The media are particularly angry here because you have to understand what the game here was, particularly for the mainstream media when it comes to these big social media platforms like Facebook or like Twitter.

00:09:34.000 And it's true for all of them.

00:09:35.000 Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok.

00:09:36.000 The media have their standard.

00:09:37.000 Here is what happened.

00:09:39.000 Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were only three major media outlets, the TV outlets.

00:09:44.000 And you had some newspapers, like the New York Times and the Washington Post.

00:09:46.000 Nothing else had mass readership.

00:09:48.000 Then the rise of the Internet happened in the 1990s, particularly the late 1990s, started by Drudge Report.

00:09:54.000 Then all of a sudden you had a wide variety of outlets that people could access for their news.

00:09:59.000 And I'm old enough to remember the beginnings of the news internet in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when suddenly everybody could get their information from different places.

00:10:08.000 And the way that you would access that information typically is you would bookmark like 10 pages and nobody has ever used a bookmark.

00:10:13.000 In the next generation. 0.88

00:10:15.000 I'm talking about my generation, the Millennials.

00:10:16.000 The Millennials, what we would do is we would actually just bookmark like 10 pages.

00:10:20.000 You'd go in the morning and you'd check your bookmark for Fox News, your bookmark for Drudge Report, your bookmark for Town Hall or Hot Air.

00:10:28.000 This is what you would do.

00:10:29.000 Then these big social media platforms sprang up and they started garnering billions of eyeballs.

00:10:34.000 And so all of these news outlets started to move their feed onto the social media platforms.

00:10:40.000 These became the place where you would access your news.

00:10:42.000 So from now on, if you wanted your cultivated news feed, it was much simpler than hitting 10 different bookmarks to just have a cultivated news feed that brought up all the news you otherwise would see.

00:10:51.000 And there was some algorithmic programming that allowed you to see some news that maybe you hadn't clicked on before.

00:10:56.000 That's the way that the newsfeed work and the same thing was true of Twitter, right?

00:10:58.000 You would follow all the accounts of those of those people you were already bookmarking and then you would get the news from Twitter.

00:11:04.000 What this allowed is for the possibility because it was all via Facebook or all via Twitter or all via Instagram.

00:11:09.000 It allowed for the possibility that all of those major outlets would just turn the spigot and suddenly All the places that you were following would just be silence.

00:11:17.000 And suddenly you were getting your news again from the mainstream media.

00:11:21.000 All the people that you had been attempting to avoid for 20 years, suddenly you were getting your news from them again.

00:11:25.000 You had to hear from the Washington Post or the New York Times.

00:11:28.000 You couldn't hear from Daily Wire or from Breitbart or from any of the other right-wing outlets that you normally would follow.

00:11:35.000 And the mainstream media loved this.

00:11:36.000 This was their favorite thing in the entire world.

00:11:38.000 They loved it because it reestablished a media monopoly that they had lost with the rise of the internet.

00:11:44.000 And naturally, it ticked a lot of people off.

00:11:47.000 And one of those people was Elon Musk.

00:11:49.000 And you ticked off the wrong billionaire.

00:11:51.000 Because it turns out, it's going to be hilarious, because 100 years from now, when the history of the United States is written, an inflection point is going to be Twitter banning the Babylon Bee for a headline about how men are not women.

00:12:03.000 That's an actual historical inflection point.

00:12:05.000 Because the left got so crazy over their skis on this.

00:12:09.000 They got so bullying and vicious to the heads of the social media companies that the heads of the social media companies decided that they were basically going to crack down on anything that violated left-wing scruples.

00:12:19.000 Because that's what happened here.

00:12:20.000 I mean, if you actually look at the difference from what Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter, used to say about free speech to what he started to say about free speech about four years in, five years into his tenure at Twitter.

00:12:30.000 You look at the difference between how Mark Zuckerberg used to talk about free speech versus how Mark Zuckerberg talked about free speech just a couple of years later.

00:12:37.000 You can see a radical shift that happened.

00:12:39.000 Both Dorsey and Zuckerberg used to talk about free speech in exactly the same terms that I'm talking about free speech.

00:12:44.000 It should be the broadest possible window that allows for all people to have conversations.

00:12:49.000 And if you don't like it, you can turn it off.

00:12:52.000 I keep citing the speech that Zuckerberg gave at Georgetown in 2018, I believe, in which he talked about this, right?

00:12:58.000 He openly talked about we need to have a broad platform for speech.

00:13:02.000 I'm not the great arbiter of what's true and what's not.

00:13:04.000 It is not my job to determine what you should see and what you should not see because you're an adult.

00:13:09.000 And then, because of all the pressure that was brought to bear in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, all of these social media companies collapsed.

00:13:14.000 Because you started to see Democrats and members of the media start blaming all these social media companies for all the ills of the world.

00:13:20.000 Now all these social media companies, which were treated up till then, as wonderful, wonderful things, because after all, these wonderful, wonderful social media companies had allowed for things like the Arab Spring, you remember this, or they'd allowed for the election of Barack Obama.

00:13:31.000 Remember all the talk in 2012 was about how genius the Obama team was for manipulating the data via Facebook in order to win re-election.

00:13:39.000 It was a genius team.

00:13:40.000 And of course, when Trump's team did it with Cambridge Analytica, then all these social media platforms became super bad.

00:13:45.000 And Facebook then became very bad.

00:13:46.000 So in the aftermath of Trump being elected, which was a world shattering event for the left, they started to push really hard on the social media networks. 0.96

00:13:52.000 Because it couldn't be that Hillary lost because she was a crap candidate, She must have lost because the social media networks had been penetrated by the Ruskies or the social media networks were too broad minded. 1.00

00:14:02.000 And, you know, free speech, free speech is a real dangerous thing. 0.98

00:14:05.000 Free speech could be undermined by free speech.

00:14:08.000 And so they started to clamp down and the social media bros, because they were weak, need also started to clamp down.

00:14:13.000 They pressed on that pressure.

00:14:15.000 To the user.

00:14:16.000 Yeah, Dianne Feinstein openly threatening Mark Zuckerberg, senator from California, saying, if you don't regulate yourself, we will regulate you. 0.98

00:14:23.000 And so Zuckerberg and team would say to these legislators, OK, fine, please regulate us, right?

00:14:27.000 Create a system of regulation that makes for an even playing field.

00:14:31.000 And Democrats say, no, no, no, it's up to you.

00:14:33.000 You have to please us.

00:14:34.000 Dance to our tune.

00:14:35.000 And many of these social media platforms did.

00:14:37.000 And then along came Elon Musk.

00:14:39.000 Elon Musk said, I'm not going to dance to that tune. 1.00

00:14:41.000 I think that your tune is stupid. 1.00

00:14:43.000 I think that your tune is monopolistic. 1.00

00:14:46.000 And this is why the panic has set in.

00:14:47.000 This is why the media are now attempting to treat Elon Musk as though he is some sort of threat to freedom.

00:14:52.000 I love their line.

00:14:53.000 Their line is, Elon Musk is a threat to freedom.

00:14:54.000 Billionaires.

00:14:55.000 Billionaires in charge of major platforms are a threat to freedom.

00:14:58.000 Except for, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and George Soros and, you know, all the billionaires we like.

00:15:04.000 Those guys are not a threat to freedom.

00:15:05.000 No matter how many billions of dollars they set into the Western democratic system.

00:15:10.000 Those are the good ones.

00:15:11.000 But Elon Musk is a bad one.

00:15:12.000 Why?

00:15:12.000 Because he disagrees with us.

00:15:13.000 That means he might break our monopoly.

00:15:15.000 That's why you're seeing coverage like this from the Associated Press.

00:15:18.000 Oh my God, people were mean to the former lawyer for Twitter online because Elon Musk criticized her.

00:15:23.000 That means that Elon Musk is mean.

00:15:24.000 And that means that Elon Musk is bad.

00:15:26.000 And that means that people shouldn't advertise on Twitter.

00:15:28.000 This is the goal.

00:15:30.000 Musk's changes, according to the Associated Press, will be aimed at increasing Twitter's subscriber base and revenue.

00:15:34.000 In the first big move earlier on Thursday, Musk tried to sue the leery Twitter advertisers, saying he's buying the platform to help humanity and doesn't want it to become a free-for-all hellscape.

00:15:42.000 The message appears to be aimed at addressing concerns among advertisers that Musk's plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and driveway users.

00:15:52.000 Now, again, that is not what's happening with these advertisers.

00:15:55.000 These advertisers are not afraid that tons of people are going to stop using Twitter as a service.

00:15:58.000 The reality is that Twitter's numbers have been inflated for a very long time.

00:16:02.000 There's a small cadre of people who are very active on Twitter.

00:16:04.000 They tend to be professionals like me who are in the Twitter space disseminating information.

00:16:09.000 The number of people who actively use Twitter, who actively tweet is much smaller than the number of people who are Twitter subscribers, right?

00:16:15.000 The number of people who have accounts on Twitter.

00:16:18.000 So they're not afraid of mass drop-off.

00:16:20.000 What's happening right now is left-wing pressure groups are going to advertisers and saying, you should not advertise on Twitter because we are going to then initiate boycotts against you.

00:16:28.000 We'll initiate secondary boycotts against you.

00:16:30.000 Now, here's what advertisers should say.

00:16:32.000 They should throw up the bird. 0.99

00:16:34.000 They should free the bird against these against these left-wing activists.

00:16:37.000 This is what left-wing activists always do. 0.99

00:16:39.000 Left-wing activists are constantly going to advertisers and telling them that advertisers should basically be the free speech police.

00:16:45.000 They should advertise on Pods of America, but they definitely, definitely should not advertise on shows like this one.

00:16:49.000 This is what left-wing activists do. 1.00

00:16:51.000 And so what advertisers should do if they have stones is say, no, we're going to advertise however we like.

00:16:56.000 We're going to reach users of all different political bands.

00:17:00.000 In the end, by the way, I think that is what will happen.

00:17:02.000 It'll be a little upset right now.

00:17:05.000 People will get a little dyspepsia.

00:17:07.000 And then it will be over.

00:17:08.000 Musk wrote, quote, the reason I have acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence.

00:17:18.000 He continued, there's currently great danger social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.

00:17:25.000 That, of course, is correct, because if Twitter continues along the lines that it is continuing, then you are going to see people of the right move to other platforms.

00:17:33.000 You are going to see people of the right... You've seen this, by the way, in the video space, right?

00:17:36.000 Rumble has become a rather successful company because people fear the predations of YouTube.

00:17:42.000 Musk has previously expressed distaste for advertising and Twitter's dependence on it, suggesting more emphasis on other business models like paid subscriptions that won't allow big corporations to dictate policy on how social media operates.

00:17:51.000 On Thursday, he assured advertisers he wants Twitter to be the most respected advertising platform in the world.

00:17:57.000 Pinar Yildirim, an associate professor of marketing at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says the note is a shift from Musk's position.

00:18:02.000 Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content.

00:18:07.000 But it's also a realization that having no content moderation is bad for business.

00:18:10.000 Well, he never said there shouldn't be no content moderation.

00:18:12.000 He just said that the Overton window that's been created by a bunch of left-wing activists in executive positions at Twitter is not in consonance with good business practice.

00:18:22.000 So, Musk, again, making these moves, firing everybody, shows that he intends to radically change the direction of the company, and that is a very good thing for Twitter.

00:18:31.000 It is also a very good thing for the world.

00:18:33.000 Musk intends to do away with permanent bans on users because he doesn't believe in lifelong prohibitions.

00:18:37.000 That means people previously booted off the platform might be allowed to return, a category that would include former President Donald Trump.

00:18:42.000 It's unclear if Trump would be allowed back on Twitter in the near term.

00:18:45.000 I guarantee you Trump is coming back.

00:18:47.000 There is no way that Musk takes over and Trump is not going to be allowed back on the platform.

00:18:50.000 How would Musk even be able to justify that to himself?

00:18:53.000 There's no way that Trump is not going to be allowed to return.

00:18:56.000 By the way, the media will celebrate that because Trump is the media's lifeblood.

00:19:00.000 The media have been losing money hand over fist since Trump left office, which is why they keep clinging to January 6th and going on Truth Social and finding Trump's random statements.

00:19:09.000 The billionaire, according to Bloomberg, will bring immediate disruption to Twitter's operations, in part because many of his ideas for how to change the company are at odds with how it has been run for years.

00:19:16.000 He said he wants to ensure free speech on the social network.

00:19:20.000 More broadly, Musk's initiatives threatened to undo years of Twitter's efforts to reduce bullying and abuse on the platform.

00:19:25.000 Again, that whole shtick, the bullying and abuse, those are very vague terms, because what Twitter has now said is that it is bullying or abuse to say that Elliot Page is a woman.

00:19:35.000 Elliot Page is a woman. 0.82

00:19:36.000 That is not bullying or abuse.

00:19:37.000 That is a statement of fact.

00:19:39.000 But according to Twitter, if I say Elliot Page is a woman, I might end up in a ban for life, the way that Jordan was. 1.00

00:19:48.000 This is what the media fear.

00:19:49.000 Again, they are losing their monopoly.

00:19:50.000 They don't like losing their monopoly.

00:19:51.000 And so they're going to put extraordinary pressure on advertisers, on Musk, on everybody, to punish Twitter for not reestablishing the monopoly.

00:20:03.000 That is precisely what they want to do.

00:20:05.000 I don't think that Musk is going to cave to that, nor do I think he should cave to that.

00:20:08.000 I think, as always, it is a left-wing toddler tantrum that is happening right now.

00:20:14.000 And in the end, advertisers will continue.

00:20:16.000 Advertising users will continue.

00:20:17.000 Using all the people you see, the blue checks are like, I'm leaving Twitter for... No, you're not.

00:20:20.000 You're not going anywhere.

00:20:21.000 We all know you're not going anywhere. 0.99

00:20:23.000 You're a joke.

00:20:25.000 You can't live without you and your echo chamber over at Twitter. 0.83

00:20:28.000 No way.

00:20:29.000 Taylor Lawrence is not abandoning the platform.

00:20:31.000 Who else would she whine to while drinking wine out of very large glasses and stroking her seven cats?

00:20:37.000 Who exactly would she whine to without Twitter?

00:20:40.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

00:20:41.000 First, you may have noticed that the economy is a dumpster fire right now.

00:20:44.000 It's likely to get worse.

00:20:45.000 Well, if you own a business, it's been a rough ride right here, and you may have actually overpaid your taxes a couple of years ago.

00:20:50.000 This is why you need to talk to my friends over at Innovation Refunds.

00:20:53.000 If your business has five or more employees and managed to survive COVID, you could be eligible to receive a payroll tax rebate of up to $26,000 per employee.

00:21:00.000 It's not a loan.

00:21:01.000 There's no payback.

00:21:01.000 It's a refund on taxes you probably shouldn't have paid in the first place.

00:21:04.000 The challenge is getting your hands on it.

00:21:05.000 How do you cut through the red tape and get your business the refund money?

00:21:08.000 Well, you head on over to GetRefunds.com.

00:21:10.000 Their team of tax attorneys are highly trained in this little-known payroll tax refund program.

00:21:14.000 They've already returned $1 billion to businesses.

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00:21:19.000 They simply share a percentage of the cash they get for you, so it's completely risk-free to you.

00:21:23.000 Businesses of all types can qualify, including those who took PPP, nonprofits, even those that had increases in sales.

00:21:28.000 Just head on over to GetRefunds.com, click on Qualify Me, answer a few quick questions.

00:21:33.000 This payroll tax refund, it's only available for a limited amount of time.

00:21:35.000 Don't miss out.

00:21:36.000 Go to GetRefunds.com.

00:21:38.000 Again, that's GetRefunds.com and see how much money you could get back if you overpaid those taxes.

00:21:42.000 Go to GetRefunds.com.

00:21:44.000 Also, there's been a massive spike in crime in the United States.

00:21:48.000 It's affecting nearly everyone.

00:21:50.000 Nancy Pelosi's husband actually got injured in a home break-in last night.

00:21:54.000 I mean, this is amazing, amazing stuff happening in the country, and it's terrible.

00:21:57.000 It's one reason why many Americans are buying guns.

00:21:59.000 They want to be responsible gun owners.

00:22:01.000 But here's the thing.

00:22:01.000 It's not just enough to own a gun.

00:22:02.000 You have to know how to use it.

00:22:03.000 You have to know when to use it.

00:22:04.000 You have to know your legal rights when you do use it.

00:22:06.000 This is why you need to be a member of the U.S.

00:22:07.000 Concealed Carry Association.

00:22:09.000 Right now, the USCCA is giving away a free concealed carry and family defense guide and a chance to win a thousand bucks to buy a firearm to protect yourself and your family.

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00:22:32.000 Text Ben to 87222 for instant access to this free guide.

00:22:36.000 Enter for the chance to win $1,000 to put toward a firearm to protect your family.

00:22:39.000 Again, text Ben to 87222 right now to get started.

00:22:42.000 That's 87222.

00:22:45.000 Meanwhile, the real reason that the must take over of Twitter is quite important is because you can't trust the mainstream media.

00:22:51.000 By all available polls, most Americans do not trust the mainstream media.

00:22:54.000 In fact, a huge percentage of Americans say that the mainstream media is actually a danger to democracy.

00:22:59.000 In the polls asking, which is the biggest danger to democracy?

00:23:02.000 Something like 84% of Republicans say mainstream media is a danger to democracy.

00:23:06.000 So do 54% of independents.

00:23:08.000 So most Americans actually believe that the mainstream media is the danger and not Twitter, the mainstream media.

00:23:14.000 There's a reason for that.

00:23:15.000 One reason for that became clear in a column by Eric Wemple over at the Washington Post.

00:23:19.000 Wemple is kind of an interesting media columnist.

00:23:22.000 He's definitely of the left, but he is occasionally an honest journalist.

00:23:26.000 He has a piece today titled, James Bennett Was Right.

00:23:28.000 James Bennett, of course, was the editor, the op-ed editor over at the New York Times when he ran a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, claiming that in the middle of riot summer 2020, perhaps the federal government should call out the National Guard in order to quell the rioting.

00:23:43.000 According to Wemple in the Washington Post, controversy over an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton consumed the New York Times in June 2020 and claimed the job of then-editorial page editor James Bennett.

00:23:51.000 Two and a half years later, Bennett has shared some thoughts about the episode and, in particular, the role of Times publisher A.G.

00:23:56.000 Sulzberger.

00:23:58.000 Quote, he set me on fire and threw me in the garbage and used my reverence for the institution against me, is what Bennett told Ben Smith of Semaphore. 0.89

00:24:04.000 This is why I was so bewildered for so long after I had felt like all my colleagues treated me like an incompetent fascist.

00:24:11.000 Lempel says that might sound like the angst of a guy who's still disgruntled at losing his job.

00:24:14.000 And it is for a compelling reason.

00:24:15.000 Bennett is right.

00:24:16.000 He's right about Sulzberger.

00:24:17.000 He's right about the Cotton Op-Ed. 0.99

00:24:18.000 He's right about the lessons that linger from his tumultuous final days at the Times.

00:24:22.000 Because Bennett came under such heavy scrutiny for even running the Tom Cotton Op-Ed that he was essentially fired from his job and thrown under the bus.

00:24:30.000 And here's what Wemple said, this is amazing.

00:24:31.000 Quote, his outburst in semaphore furnishes a toehold for reassessing one of the most consequential journalism fights in decades.

00:24:37.000 To date, the lesson from the set to that publishing a senator arguing that federal troops could be deployed against riders is unacceptable will forever circumscribe what issues opinion sections are allowed to address.

00:24:46.000 It's also long past time to explain why more people who claim to uphold journalism and free expression, including the Eric Wemple blog, didn't speak out then in Bennett's defense.

00:24:55.000 It's because we were afraid to.

00:24:59.000 That's an unbelievable admission by Eric Wemple.

00:25:03.000 We didn't speak out for James Bennett and the fact that he was publishing an op-ed that was purely within the mainstream of American thought.

00:25:09.000 In fact, polls showed that a plurality or majority of Americans thought the National Guard, if necessary, could be called out to quell rioting.

00:25:17.000 But no one came to Bennett's defense.

00:25:18.000 And Wemple admits the truth.

00:25:20.000 It's because we were afraid to.

00:25:22.000 So you ask, OK, afraid of what?

00:25:23.000 What exactly were you guys afraid of?

00:25:25.000 So here's what Eric Wemple writes.

00:25:29.000 He says, after the cotton op-ed was published, a backlash swiftly combusted.

00:25:34.000 The Times staffers at the forefront of the critique, Nicole Hannah-Jones, creator of the Pulitzer Prize winning 1619 Project, tweeted that the paper should have done a news story to push back against cotton ideas, as opposed to, quote, simply giving over our platform to spew dangerous rhetoric.

00:25:45.000 Instead, W. Herndon, a national politics reporter, made a similar point, tweeting that, quote, if electeds want to make a provocative argument, let them withstand the questions in context of a news story, not unvarnished and unchecked.

00:25:55.000 There were other persuasive broadsides against the decisions to publish Cotton.

00:25:58.000 No, they were not persuasive.

00:26:00.000 Many times, staffers, however, forwent the rigor of argumentation and tweeted out the following line or something similar to express their disgust.

00:26:06.000 Quote, running this puts black New York Times staff in danger.

00:26:09.000 The formulation came from the internal group of Black NYT and received the blessing of the News Guild of New York as legally protected speech because it focused on workplace safety.

00:26:18.000 The danger tweets, along with a letter from Times employees slamming the op-ed, landed with impact.

00:26:22.000 Although Sulzberger initially defended publication as furthering the principle of openness to a range of opinions, he bailed on that posture within hours.

00:26:28.000 By the afternoon after publication, the paper had determined that the piece failed to, quote, meet our standards, according to a statement.

00:26:34.000 As Sulzberger flip-flopped, an astonishing up-is-down moment unfolded at the paper's upper regions.

00:26:39.000 Whereas media elites typically develop arguments to defend work that comes under attack, the opposite scenario played out over the Cotton Op-Ed.

00:26:45.000 Top Times officials, according to three sources, scrambled to pulverize the essay in order to vindicate objections rolling in from Twitter.

00:26:52.000 A post-publication fact-check was commissioned to comb through the Op-Ed for errors, according to the sources, even though it had undergone fact-checking before publication.

00:26:59.000 The paper's standards desk spearheaded work on an editor's note.

00:27:01.000 By the way, this is true.

00:27:02.000 I've written op-eds for the New York Times.

00:27:04.000 They make you go through a rigorous and ridiculous fact-check process.

00:27:06.000 I mean, it is the most extraordinary extended fact-check process I've ever gone through for any op-ed.

00:27:11.000 And my op-ed was just an obit for Rush Limbaugh.

00:27:14.000 Deputy Page Editorial Director James Dow, who pushed for publication, spent more than an hour on the phone with a Cotton aide that Thursday night to inventory alleged problems.

00:27:23.000 Dow says the aide was pointedly unenthusiastic about the pursuit.

00:27:26.000 It sounded like he had a gun to his head and he had to find something, the aide, who is no longer with Cotton's office, told this blog.

00:27:30.000 The review did not deliver the factual bloodbath alleged by critics.

00:27:34.000 The fact check flagged a misquotation that should have been rendered as a paraphrase.

00:27:37.000 It also examined objections to Cotton's claim that cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa were infiltrating protest marchers to exploit Floyd's death for their own anarchic purposes.

00:27:45.000 That topic was the focus of various conflicting official statements and news stories, some of them published by the Times in the run-up to the Cotton op-ed and extending well beyond it.

00:27:53.000 The Editor's Note asserted that claims about Antifa have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned.

00:27:57.000 Such was the spirit of the Editor's Note, which went heavy on regrets about tone, process, and other squishy considerations, while asserting that the op-ed failed time standards, says Eric Wemple.

00:28:05.000 It also claimed that the essay's arguments were, quote, a newsworthy part of the current debate, a line that Dow championed, according to two sources.

00:28:11.000 Elsewhere, it said the op-ed should have undergone greater scrutiny, even though at least five opinion editors participated in editing, according to sources.

00:28:18.000 Although Bennett said he hadn't read the piece, he was involved in some early decisions about it, including the deletion of a criticism of Hannah Jones.

00:28:24.000 So they actually took out a criticism of one of their columnists from the piece.

00:28:28.000 And then she whined about it. 0.99

00:28:32.000 Sulzberger seemed disappointed upon being told that the post-publication fact check hadn't punctured the op-ed, according to a source involved in the process.

00:28:38.000 The Eric Wemple blog asked the Times for another example of an editor's note apologizing for non-factual issues.

00:28:43.000 The Times didn't answer that question, among others.

00:28:45.000 The editor's note teed up Bennett's firing, technically resignation, as editorial page director.

00:28:50.000 Media coverage of his departure noted, the op-ed was one of several storms under Bennett's management.

00:28:54.000 Others included a June 2017 editorial that triggered a defamation lawsuit from Sarah Palin, an anti-Semitic cartoon, and personal fiascos.

00:29:00.000 The cotton thing seemed like the final straw, except in hindsight, it wasn't a straw at all.

00:29:04.000 In initially sticking up for the Times role in publishing controversial affairs, as Eric Wimple, Sulzberger, had it right.

00:29:09.000 Okay, so why exactly didn't anybody in the media actually say this?

00:29:15.000 At any time.

00:29:18.000 Well, says Eric Wempel, the Twitter chain claiming danger to time staffers suffered from the same journalistic failings leveled at the op-ed.

00:29:24.000 It was an exercise in manipulative hyperbole brilliantly calibrated for immediate impact.

00:29:29.000 I actually knew what it meant to have a target on your back when you're reporting for the New York Times, Bennett told Smith, because he actually used to report for the New York Times in the Middle East.

00:29:35.000 The Eric Wemple blog has asked 30 Times staffers whether they still believe their danger tweets and whether there was any merit in Bennett's retort.

00:29:42.000 Not one of them replied with an on-the-record defense.

00:29:45.000 Such was the depth of conviction behind a central argument in Le Fair Cotton.

00:29:48.000 Our criticism of the Twitter outburst comes 875 days too late.

00:29:52.000 Although the hollowness of the internal uproar against Bennett was immediately apparent, we responded with an even-handed critique of the Times flip-flop, not the unapologetic defense of journalism the situation required.

00:30:01.000 Our posture was one of cowardice and mid-career risk management.

00:30:04.000 Without a doubt, we pile one more regret onto a controversy littered with them.

00:30:07.000 So good for Eric Wemple for admitting it.

00:30:09.000 But what he was really afraid of, he was afraid of Twitter.

00:30:12.000 He was afraid of the Twitter mob, the left-wing Twitter mob that has been left in charge of that service.

00:30:16.000 This is why Musk taking over is so good.

00:30:18.000 Because finally, finally, the pushback will be allowed.

00:30:22.000 I mean, there was great fear on places like Twitter during BLM that if you said things like, rioting is bad, the National Guard should be called.

00:30:33.000 That you might be banned from places like Twitter.

00:30:36.000 And the media culture that's been created by the left is unbelievably ideologically monopolistic.

00:30:40.000 So Musk breaking that is a very, very good thing.

00:30:44.000 And that Eric Wemple op-ed is just astonishing.

00:30:45.000 And it just shows you how much of our mainstream media Okay, meanwhile, we are about to hit a midterm election in just about a week and a half right here, and Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic assessing the state of play.

00:31:03.000 Told Joe Biden.

00:31:04.000 He should know, first of all, that he's on mic.

00:31:06.000 He said the state where we're going downhill is Georgia.

00:31:09.000 It's hard to believe they'll go for Hershel Walker.

00:31:11.000 So he's admitting that.

00:31:12.000 You can actually hear him doing that.

00:31:14.000 The audio quality isn't very good, but you can actually hear Chuck Schumer doing that.

00:31:17.000 He also suggests that they're optimistic a little bit more about Pennsylvania.

00:31:21.000 He says we're picking up steam in Nevada.

00:31:22.000 This is this is him whistling past the graveyard right here.

00:31:25.000 The reality is that the polls right now show that Democrats are in serious trouble in all three of those states.

00:31:31.000 They're in serious trouble.

00:31:32.000 in Pennsylvania because of John Fetterman.

00:31:35.000 They're in serious trouble in Georgia because, contrary to popular opinion, Raphael Warnock is a terrible candidate for the United States Senate, and he would have lost last time if President Trump had not personally intervened to drive away votes for the Republican candidate in Georgia.

00:31:48.000 And right now in Nevada, Adam Laxalt is opening up a not insignificant lead.

00:31:52.000 There's a new poll from Trafalgar that shows Laxalt up by four.

00:31:56.000 In fact, of the last polls, virtually all of them have Laxalt up.

00:32:01.000 And it is fair to say that many of these polls are going to be skewed Democrat, because this has been true for every average polling error that we've seen over the past 10 years, essentially.

00:32:10.000 It always tends to oversample Democrats.

00:32:12.000 So right now, I'm just reading you the RealClearPolitics polling average in the Senate.

00:32:15.000 Fetterman is up 0.3, which means dead heat, which means Oz is up.

00:32:20.000 In fact, the latest polls show Oz up by three in the Insider Advantage poll.

00:32:25.000 That's the one that's out today.

00:32:27.000 Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire is up apparently only 3.4 in the American, in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

00:32:34.000 The last two polls show that race within margin of errors.

00:32:37.000 That could be a surprise race, especially because Democrats really intervened to get Don Baldick to be the nominee because Baldick is considered more extreme and they were hoping Maggie Hassan would have an easier run.

00:32:47.000 Bud in North Carolina is up big.

00:32:49.000 He's going to win that race.

00:32:49.000 Laxalt, as I said, Nevada is up.

00:32:51.000 I think he will win that race.

00:32:52.000 In Arizona, Mark Kelly is within margin of error in every single poll that has been taken right now.

00:32:58.000 And it is quite possible that Carrie Lake, who is wildly overperforming that governor's race, partially because she's good on TV and partially because Katie Hobbs is an awful candidate, that she could drag Blake Masters over the finish line in that very tight race. 0.95

00:33:12.000 Herschel Walker, right now in the polls, He's up.

00:33:15.000 There's a Rasmussen poll that has him up five right now, despite all of this, right?

00:33:19.000 Despite all of the scandals surrounding Herschel Walker and the fact that perhaps half the population of Georgia is biologically related to Herschel Walker.

00:33:26.000 At this point, it doesn't matter.

00:33:27.000 Herschel Walker looks like he's going to win that race walking away.

00:33:29.000 And part of that, by the way, has to be due.

00:33:31.000 Credit is due where credit is due to Brian Kemp.

00:33:33.000 Brian Kemp is running away with his race against Stacey Abrams, the president of the universe.

00:33:39.000 Right now, Brian Kemp, in the Real Car Politics polling average, is up 7.4 points.

00:33:43.000 The Rasmussen poll has him up 10.

00:33:46.000 So he is dragging Herschel Walker along with him to victory.

00:33:50.000 In Ohio, JD Vance is going to pull away with that race. 0.99

00:33:53.000 In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, who was once expected to lose that race, is going to win that race.

00:33:57.000 Marco Rubio is blowing out Val Demings in Florida to the desperation of Democrats who have been hoping that Val Demings might overperform there.

00:34:04.000 So you can see why Democrats are freaking out.

00:34:06.000 And they're freaking out about other races as well.

00:34:08.000 I've said that my sleeper pick in this particular midterm election is that Kathy Hochul goes down in New York.

00:34:13.000 And you're starting to see the New York Times come around to that position.

00:34:16.000 According to the New York Times, as governor's race tightens, a frantic call to action among Democrats.

00:34:20.000 You don't need to consult the most recent polls to realize the race for New York governor between Governor Kathy Hochul and Representative Lise Eldon appears to be tightening.

00:34:27.000 Just follow the string of Democrats' calls to action this week, says the New York Times, with just 12 days until Election Day.

00:34:31.000 Democrats and their allies are mounting a frenzied push to keep HOKL in office, pouring millions of dollars into last-minute ads, staging a whirlwind of campaign rallies to energize their base amid concerns their typically reliable bedrock of Black and Latino voters might not turn out.

00:34:44.000 Labor unions have been going into overdrive, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV and radio ads to control those voters to turn up for HOKL.

00:34:50.000 The HOKL campaign has even turned to former primary adversaries for help, including the Working Families Party.

00:34:57.000 HOKL is still leading most of the major polls, With that said, those polls are not particularly encouraging for Kathy Hochul at this point.

00:35:07.000 She's up about 6 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average, but the last polls were done about 10 days ago, and they had Hochul up somewhere between 4 and 6 points.

00:35:16.000 So that race has tightened dramatically.

00:35:18.000 And even the New York Times is recognizing the Democrats are having to pour money down the rat hole of that race.

00:35:23.000 Recent polls show Zeldin Drawing closer to Hochul, their head-to-head debate went very poorly for Kathy Hochul because she's never actually had to do a major debate for any rational reason. 0.66

00:35:33.000 Meanwhile, the GOP looks like it's in good shape in Oregon.

00:35:36.000 For the first time in 40 years, Oregonians might choose a Republican governor.

00:35:40.000 It's a three-way race.

00:35:41.000 That race is being thrown in the air by Betsy Johnson, a former Democratic state senator. 0.98

00:35:45.000 She ran as an independent.

00:35:46.000 She's drawing an average of 14% in the polls. 0.74

00:35:48.000 Former Democratic state senator, House Speaker Tina Kotech, and former Statehouse GOP leader Christine Drazen are running evenly at just under 39%.

00:35:55.000 Jessica Taylor, an editor at nonpartisan Cook Political Report, says Republicans have a lot of things going their way in this race.

00:36:02.000 And one of those things is that Portland is located in Oregon.

00:36:05.000 And Oregon might not like how Portland is governed.

00:36:07.000 And Portland is a Democratic city.

00:36:09.000 The last time Oregonians chose a Republican for governor was 1982.

00:36:13.000 Democrats hold every statewide office in Oregon.

00:36:16.000 Biden won the state by 16.

00:36:17.000 But voters don't like the crime.

00:36:19.000 They don't like the homelessness.

00:36:20.000 They don't like the public drug use.

00:36:22.000 It turns out that major city governance has a rather large impact on how people think the state ought to be governed.

00:36:29.000 So it could be that Oregon ends up with a Republican governor, which would, again, be a great shocker, obviously.

00:36:35.000 As I mentioned before, Black Democrats are meanwhile very, very upset because it turns out that a bunch of Black female politicians are completely failing in their races and the DCCC and the DCSC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, DSCC, they've been doing Basically, no fundraising in a lot of these races that were supposed to be big wins for black Democratic women.

00:36:56.000 Stacey Abrams has spent a ton of money. 0.99

00:36:57.000 She's getting her ass kicked in Georgia. 1.00

00:36:59.000 Belle Demings is spending money, but they're not dedicating a lot of money to her because she's getting her ass kicked in Florida. 1.00

00:37:04.000 Remember, she was supposed to be the great hope for the Democratic Party in Florida. 0.99

00:37:08.000 She's getting whomped in all the polls. 0.98

00:37:11.000 The Democratic Senate Majority PAC, a group affiliated with the party leadership and its partners, had spent 10 million bucks since May against Ted Budd in North Carolina.

00:37:19.000 And meanwhile, Bud is just running away at the race.

00:37:22.000 So, it's fun to watch the precriminations from the Democratic Party. 0.97

00:37:26.000 Black members of the Democratic Party are like, you're racist, that's why you're not spending money there. 0.97

00:37:29.000 Far be it from me to defend the Democratic Party against charges of racism, but the reason that they are not spending money in these races is because those candidates are going to lose. 0.98

00:37:38.000 It is not because the candidates are black.

00:37:39.000 All right, coming up, we'll get to John Fetterman, because the Democrats are desperately trying to pull out that race at first.

00:37:46.000 Well, folks, I just watched an amazing new three-part series by Jordan Peterson.

00:37:49.000 It's called On Marriage. 0.78

00:37:50.000 It's his definitive series on matrimony exclusively at DailyWirePlus.

00:37:53.000 You're not going to see it anywhere else.

00:37:55.000 And believe me, everybody needs to see it.

00:37:56.000 Married, unmarried.

00:37:58.000 In 2018, marriage rates hit an all-time low in the United States.

00:38:01.000 Marriage is on the rocks in the United States, which means the future of the country is on the rocks because the simple fact of the matter is that marriage and family are the bedrock of Western civilization.

00:38:08.000 Jordan is trying to restore faith in the institution and he's going to encourage you to both better your marriage if you're already married and get married if you are not married.

00:38:15.000 Daily Wire Plus members can watch the first episode of Jordan Peterson's On Marriage with two more episodes coming out soon.

00:38:20.000 If you're not yet a member, go to dailywire.com slash Ben, join today.

00:38:23.000 Also, in case you missed it, last night was my book club, Ben Shapiro's book club.

00:38:27.000 We discussed Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's masterpiece, which basically is the world according to the left.

00:38:32.000 We're talking artificial insemination.

00:38:34.000 We are talking about sexual fluidity.

00:38:37.000 We're talking about the complete takeover of the Freudian id as the only rationale for human happiness.

00:38:43.000 Basically, it's the left, their world as they wish to construct it.

00:38:46.000 I still am waiting for the left to explain what they don't like about Brave New World.

00:38:49.000 You must be an All Access member to watch.

00:38:50.000 Head on over to dailywire.com become a member today.

00:38:54.000 Okay, meanwhile.

00:38:55.000 John Fetterman, as expected, is falling apart in polling.

00:38:59.000 WIC Insights has now a new post-debate poll from Pennsylvania.

00:39:02.000 The polling has been limited in the aftermath of the debate.

00:39:05.000 All the polling shows that Fetterman has lost ground.

00:39:07.000 This poll shows Oz at 47.6 and Fetterman at 45.9.

00:39:11.000 Now, there's been some early voting in Pennsylvania.

00:39:12.000 This is one of the reasons why early voting is super duper bad.

00:39:17.000 Like, I voted early because it is available to me.

00:39:19.000 I wish they would change the rules and it would not have been available to me and that you'd have to vote within like three days of the election unless you have some sort of excuse.

00:39:25.000 The fact that people are voting months out from an election en masse is really bad, because then there is late-breaking information that might change your vote.

00:39:30.000 In fact, one of the Google searches that was most highly trending in the aftermath of that Oz Fetterman debate was, how do I change my vote in Pennsylvania?

00:39:39.000 You figure there have been something like 500,000 to 700,000 early votes in Pennsylvania.

00:39:42.000 There will be 5 million votes probably in that election.

00:39:45.000 The vast majority of people who vote early probably were dedicated partisans.

00:39:48.000 Not a lot of independents showing up to vote early.

00:39:50.000 They tend to vote day of.

00:39:51.000 What that means is that if the early votes in Pennsylvania are even remotely even, which they seem to be at this point by party ID, then Oz will win that race.

00:40:00.000 Now, Democrats are struggling to come up with some sort of rationale for why precisely you should vote for John Fetterman, considering the fact that he is not fully functional.

00:40:11.000 Again, it is not mean to say this.

00:40:13.000 It is not ableist to say this.

00:40:15.000 Ableism is you say that a blind man is not capable of being a lawyer.

00:40:20.000 It is not ableism to say that a blind man is not capable of being a pilot.

00:40:24.000 Hey, John Fetterman cannot speak sentences.

00:40:26.000 He cannot understand verbal sentences.

00:40:29.000 It has to be written down for him.

00:40:30.000 This is a major handicap in terms of whether you can perform your job in the United States Senate.

00:40:34.000 That is not mean.

00:40:35.000 That is just fact. 1.00

00:40:36.000 And anybody who tells you differently is lying to you and assuming that you are a stupid person. 1.00

00:40:41.000 But they've come up with another narrative. 1.00

00:40:42.000 The narrative is now that John Fetterman is a hero.

00:40:46.000 See him going on that stage and performing in the worst possible fashion, justifying everybody's fears about his health, justifying everybody's fears about his brain function.

00:40:55.000 That actually was an act of heroism.

00:40:56.000 And Fetterman, he actually grew a third arm to pat himself on the back here, talking about what a hero he is for even going to debate in the first place.

00:41:03.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:41:04.000 Going to debate, that is a prereq for being in the Senate.

00:41:08.000 And you tried to avoid it for as long as you could.

00:41:10.000 The fact is that if Fetterman had avoided the debate, everybody would have understood the exact same thing they understood after watching the debate, which is the man is not fully functional.

00:41:17.000 He has not recovered from his stroke.

00:41:19.000 And that, by the way, stroke recovery is really difficult.

00:41:22.000 It's a very long process.

00:41:23.000 There are good days and there are bad days.

00:41:25.000 And not just that, it is quite possible that we've already seen the best that John Fetterman has to offer.

00:41:29.000 And on good days, he can string together about a five minute speech.

00:41:32.000 And on bad days, he looks like that debate performance.

00:41:35.000 So John Fetterman had a debate.

00:41:36.000 He did not have a political choice, but here he was declaring himself a hero.

00:41:40.000 No, it wasn't going to be easy after, you know, having a stroke after five months.

00:41:45.000 In fact, in fact, in fact, I don't think that's ever been done before in American political history before, actually.

00:41:58.000 It's never been done.

00:41:59.000 Well, I mean, that's true.

00:42:00.000 And also it was terrible.

00:42:02.000 There's a reason that stroke victims typically don't do debates.

00:42:05.000 Because stroke victims typically don't run for Senate after they've had the stroke months later.

00:42:09.000 The Democratic Party should have stepped in and they should have made Conor Lamb the nominee.

00:42:12.000 And by the way, if they had done so, Betsy would basically be guaranteed to the Pennsylvania Democrats right now. 1.00

00:42:16.000 Instead, it looks like they're going to lose to Mehmet Oz.

00:42:19.000 Because the reality is that Federman is still struggling while he's out there declaring himself a hero.

00:42:22.000 Here he was at a rally yesterday, and again, he's having trouble.

00:42:26.000 Actually, this is him in an interview yesterday.

00:42:27.000 Again, still having a lot of trouble.

00:42:30.000 No, and you know, you talk about the liver, the liberty of a statue has never had an inscription inside that said, you know, send your, your tired 100 masses and put them on a bus and turn them into a chief political stunt.

00:42:51.000 My goodness.

00:42:52.000 My goodness.

00:42:53.000 Yeah, but that's true heroism.

00:42:54.000 True heroism is your party using you in order to win a seat, even if you are not capable of doing the job.

00:43:02.000 Alrighty, we'll get to much, much more in just one second.

00:43:05.000 We still have to get to Joe Biden celebrating an extraordinarily tepid and actually quite negative economic report.

00:43:11.000 We'll get to more on John Fetterman being hailed as a hero.

The Ben Shapiro Show - October 28, 2022

Musk Frees the Bird | Ep. 1599

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