The Ben Shapiro Show - No Moral High Ground, Just Political High Ground | Ep. 433

00:00:00.000 A breaking piece of news with regard to Roy Moore allegations, Al Franken fallout, plus CNN does its best to go after Trump on Russia and falls directly on its face, as does the entire media.

00:00:11.000 I'll tell you about that one.

00:00:12.000 Plus the mailbag.

00:00:13.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:13.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:19.000 So, the news coming fast and furious today.

00:00:21.000 If my energy level seems a little bit down, it's just because I was back from San Francisco.

00:00:26.000 I was there last night doing Sam Harris' podcast.

00:00:28.000 It was really entertaining and fun.

00:00:30.000 Sam's a really good guy, and while we disagree strenuously on issues regarding religion, we have a lot of agreement about how arguments are to be approached, and so it was a really entertaining and good time.

00:00:39.000 That podcast should be up, I think, in the next couple of weeks sometime, so you should listen for that.

00:00:44.000 I want to get to all the latest news, particularly a piece of breaking news with regard to Roy Moore's chief accuser.

00:00:50.000 There are really two chief accusers in the Roy Moore case.

00:00:52.000 One is a woman named Lee Corfman, who says when she was 14 years old that Roy Moore attempted to molest her, and a woman named Beverly Young Nelson, who accused Roy Moore of basically putting her in a car and almost attempting to rape her when she was 16 years old.

00:01:04.000 She's the one, of course, who came out with the yearbook, the signed yearbook.

00:01:06.000 We'll talk about a breaking piece of news in that case that really throws Beverly Young Nelson into credibility crisis. 1.00

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00:03:03.000 Okay, so...

00:03:05.000 The breaking piece of news this morning is that Beverly Young Nelson, you remember her, we played significant portions of her audio when she first broke news, was sitting next to the excorable Gloria Allred that she was allegedly molested by Roy Moore, the Senate Republican candidate in Alabama, when she was 16 years old.

00:03:21.000 So all the way back in 1977, she claimed that Roy Moore had met her at a restaurant, was hitting on her, wrote her a note in her yearbook, and then one night when she

00:03:29.000 When she didn't have a ride home, he offered to give her a ride, brought her around the back, in the car, locked the door, and then proceeded to try to molest her.

00:03:36.000 That was her claim.

00:03:37.000 And she trotted out this yearbook as proof that she knew Roy Moore, because Moore said he never even met her.

00:03:41.000 He didn't know who she was.

00:03:42.000 So she trotted out this yearbook.

00:03:44.000 And Moore said, it's a forgery.

00:03:46.000 And she said, it's not a forgery.

00:03:47.000 And actually, Gloria Allred went even further.

00:03:49.000 Gloria Allred said, the entire thing, the entire thing is genuine, and the entire thing was written by Roy Moore.

00:03:55.000 Well, a very bad thing happened on the way to Beverly Young Nelson's credibility.

00:04:00.000 And that is that Beverly Young Nelson admitted in an interview with ABC News that she wrote part of the inscription.

00:04:07.000 Now, she didn't write, according to her, the actual note.

00:04:09.000 She didn't write Roy Moore's actual signature.

00:04:11.000 But she did write the date and the place underneath.

00:04:14.000 Right, now the reason that this is a problem, I'll show you, I'll show you what she had to say.

00:04:18.000 The reason this is a problem is because if they had just come out at the very beginning and they had said, Roy Moore wrote this note, and then to remind myself of where this was, I wrote the date and the place underneath, right, just like you would on the back of a photo, everybody would have gone, oh, okay.

00:04:30.000 Especially because there's now a second note that Roy Moore wrote a graduation card to a 17-year-old that looks very much like this note, right?

00:04:36.000 The signatures look pretty much the same.

00:04:38.000 But, because people were automatically saying this was a forgery, and because Gloria Allred refused to turn it over to any sort of impartial third-hand source, or second-hand source, or refused to turn over to any sort of handwriting expert, because of all that, this now throws the entire story in jeopardy.

00:04:52.000 Here's Beverly Young Nelson talking about this and admitting that she wrote the little inscription under the note.

00:04:58.000 Young's proof that she knew Moore, her yearbook with this inscription.

00:05:02.000 But Moore and his supporters have called into question that inscription, noting the writing under the signature appears to be different.

00:05:09.000 Let's look at Beverly Nelson. 0.99

00:05:11.000 Everybody knows her yearbook is a forgery.

00:05:13.000 Nelson says she did make notes to the inscription, but the message was all Roy Moore.

00:05:18.000 Beverly, he signed your yearbook.

00:05:20.000 He did sign it.

00:05:21.000 And you made some notes underneath.

00:05:24.000 Yes.

00:05:24.000 Okay, so how, number one, does the GMA reporter who's reporting this not ask why?

00:05:29.000 When were the notes made?

00:05:30.000 What were the specific notes made?

00:05:32.000 Right, it says the date and the place, the steakhouse that apparently she worked.

00:05:40.000 Now, does this throw the entire story into severe credibility crisis?

00:05:45.000 Not quite, because Roy Moore said he never knew the woman.

00:05:47.000 He said that the restaurant didn't exist.

00:05:49.000 The signatures, again, look the same.

00:05:51.000 They should submit it now to an independent handwriting expert.

00:05:53.000 They should have already.

00:05:54.000 Gloria Allred is a hack. 0.98

00:05:55.000 It's unbelievable to me that Gloria Allred didn't submit this in the first place.

00:05:59.000 But there is a tendency to run too far with the story.

00:06:02.000 So I'm seeing headlines today.

00:06:03.000 There's a headline from Breitbart Bombshell.

00:06:04.000 She admits she forged the signature.

00:06:06.000 No, she did not admit she forged the signature.

00:06:08.000 What you just saw is the entirety of the tape.

00:06:10.000 The actual headline over at Breitbart right now, I want to make sure that I don't steer you bum on what exactly their headline is.

00:06:18.000 Bombshell! 0.81

00:06:19.000 More accuser admits forging yearbook.

00:06:22.000 Silence for weeks as evidence of hoax grew.

00:06:25.000 We're good to go.

00:06:43.000 But it's also true that she didn't admit to forging the entire note.

00:06:47.000 She specifically says she didn't forge the entire note in this particular element.

00:06:50.000 So I don't know why people have to lie about what... I really don't know why people have to lie about what exactly she admitted in order to throw this woman's credibility into crisis.

00:07:00.000 I don't really understand how that's the case.

00:07:04.000 It's confusing to me.

00:07:06.000 But, again, it does have a real credibility problem, and there are going to be a lot of people who hang their hats on this peg.

00:07:11.000 Now, again, she's not the only accuser against Roy Moore.

00:07:13.000 There's another accuser who says she was molested when she was 14.

00:07:16.000 That was the one that was tracked down by the Washington Post.

00:07:18.000 There are a bunch of other women who say that Roy Moore was dating them and trying to kiss them and hit on them when they were under the age of 18.

00:07:24.000 There were many of those women. 1.00

00:07:25.000 There are reports that he was banned from the local food court at the mall.

00:07:29.000 All of that said, is this a problem for Beverly Young Nelson?

00:07:32.000 It is, but it shows the dishonesty of our politics, number one, that Gloria Allred didn't admit this stuff up front, and number two, that GMA didn't bother to press the questions, and number three, that people are now saying that this discredits the entirety of the signature and the note, because it doesn't.

00:07:45.000 Okay, so all of those things can be true at once.

00:07:47.000 It can also be true that this doesn't really change some of the underlying other allegations.

00:07:53.000 People are using this to dismiss all the allegations.

00:07:55.000 All the other allegations are now dismissed because there is this problem with Beverly Young Nelson's credibility.

00:08:02.000 That seems to me overkill as well.

00:08:05.000 So with all that said, I'm trying to give you the most intellectually honest take I can.

00:08:08.000 It's a serious problem for her credibility. 0.97

00:08:10.000 It's a serious problem for Gloria Allred, who once again demonstrates to the world that she is terrible at her job and is a hack lawyer and a troll. 1.00

00:08:17.000 But 0.84

00:08:17.000 It doesn't carry all the heavy weight that I think a lot of people want it to carry. 0.84

00:08:22.000 The weight that says that Roy Moore is now off the hook.

00:08:25.000 I think that's a little bit of a stretch.

00:08:29.000 All that being said, Roy Moore is going to win.

00:08:31.000 There's no question that Roy Moore is going to win this election now.

00:08:33.000 He's going to win the election by 8 to 10 points.

00:08:35.000 He was already winning the election.

00:08:36.000 These charges had started to fade in the public memory, and not only in the public memory, but in the minds of a lot of conservatives, because conservatives have made the concerted effort now, the concerted move, that they have decided that when the initial attack on somebody like Roy Moore is initially over an issue where they agree with Roy Moore, then all further attacks will be attributed to malice, bad motivations, and fraud.

00:08:56.000 It's not just with Roy Moore.

00:08:57.000 This is true for Donald Trump, too.

00:08:59.000 When the initial attacks on Donald Trump were suggestions that his right-wing views made him unpalatable, then when there were later suggestions that were of a more personal nature, everybody just chalked that up to media animus for Donald Trump.

00:09:11.000 The same thing is true of Joe Arpaio.

00:09:13.000 Joe Arpaio in Arizona is now apparently considering a run for the Senate.

00:09:16.000 He told the Daily Beast,

00:09:19.000 That he is seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S.

00:09:21.000 Senate to replace Jeff Flake.

00:09:24.000 He'd obviously have an upper hand in the primaries, specifically because of all the media attacks on him, because he had to be pardoned by President Trump.

00:09:32.000 And that means that a lot of people on the right think that he's a martyr to the cause.

00:09:35.000 That he's somebody who is anti-illegal immigration.

00:09:38.000 He is somebody who used to dress up his prisoners in pink outfits.

00:09:41.000 We like that sort of stuff since we don't like crime and we don't like illegal immigration. 0.82

00:09:44.000 And the initial media attacks were on that stuff, not on corruption in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which apparently did exist.

00:09:49.000 They paid a $3.5 million settlement to a local newspaper after trying to arrest newspaper reporters for reporting on a subpoena.

00:09:57.000 But all of that

00:09:58.000 Put to the side, one of the things that unites the sort of feeling for Trump and Roy Moore and Joe Arpaio is this feeling like if the initial attack on them was over their conservatism or over their right-wing views, then all further attacks must be discredited based on the malice of the media.

00:10:16.000 And the media doesn't help its own case when it doesn't press Beverly Young Nelson for a better explanation of why they didn't come out with this fact earlier, why it was weeks before they came out with the fact that the last two lines of this thing, at the very least, according to Beverly Young Nelson, were written by Beverly Young Nelson.

00:10:31.000 So, yeah, I think that Republicans are being a little disingenuous if they say that all allegations against Joe Arpaio are false because the initial attack on Joe Arpaio was wrong, or all the allegations against Roy Moore are false because the initial attack on Roy Moore was wrong over the Ten Commandments stuff.

00:10:47.000 Look, the fact is that Roy Moore says a lot of stuff that is inappropriate.

00:10:50.000 He says a lot of stuff that is bad.

00:10:52.000 But because, again, I think that you basically have ten seconds in the public eye to make people's minds up about what exactly you are, that once their minds have been made up, it's almost impossible to change them.

00:11:02.000 And this is actually what the social science data tends to suggest.

00:11:05.000 That when you walk down the street, you make a decision within the first ten seconds of meeting someone whether you like them or not.

00:11:10.000 And it's very difficult to change your opinion.

00:11:11.000 The same is true in politics.

00:11:12.000 The first impression is the lasting impression that people have about you with regard to politics.

00:11:16.000 The first impression about Roy Moore is that he was a very religious guy who took the Ten Commandments seriously and wasn't going to bow to judicial supremacy.

00:11:22.000 And that image has basically carried him through all of the credibility questions about him.

00:11:27.000 It carries him through

00:11:28.000 He said that Russia was the focus of evil in the modern world.

00:12:00.000 You could say that very well about America, couldn't you?

00:12:03.000 Do you think?

00:12:04.000 Well, we promote a lot of bad things, you know?

00:12:09.000 Like?

00:12:10.000 Same-sex marriage.

00:12:13.000 That's the very argument that Vladimir Putin makes.

00:12:15.000 Well, then maybe Putin is right.

00:12:18.000 Maybe he's more akin to me than I know.

00:12:22.000 Okay, so if any Democrat said that, right, that America is the focus of modern evil in this world, and then they cited, say, not same-sex marriage, but low taxes, and then they said maybe Putin is right, we'd lose our minds. 0.67

00:12:35.000 But Roy Moore says that it's totally fine, again, because people have made up their mind about Roy Moore already.

00:12:39.000 The same is true, there's a quote apparently, and I don't want to put too much stake in this quote, I'll read it to you and then I'll tell you why.

00:12:46.000 According to the LA Times,

00:12:48.000 Roy Moore in September was asked about when he last thought America was great, because he's run very much on the Make America Great Again kind of bandwagon.

00:12:55.000 And Moore apparently acknowledged the nation's ugly history vis-a-vis race and racism, and then he said,

00:13:08.000 So the way the media has run with this is saying that Roy Moore says the last time America was great is when there was slavery.

00:13:13.000 I don't think that's what Roy Moore is saying, but it's certainly badly articulated.

00:13:17.000 It's another one of these cases where, because we distrust the media on the right, we want the entire context.

00:13:23.000 We don't trust them to tell the truth, and this is just another example of why that is.

00:13:27.000 So that distrust of the media allows people to take a molehill and make it into a mountain, in the case of Beverly Young Nelson and all the rest of the accusers.

00:13:34.000 It allows them the ability to hang their hat on pegs that are not

00:13:38.000 Particularly sturdy.

00:13:39.000 Again, does this call Beverly Young Nelson herself into question?

00:13:42.000 Absolutely.

00:13:42.000 Does it call Gloria Allred into question?

00:13:44.000 Absolutely.

00:13:45.000 And I will only follow where the evidence leads.

00:13:47.000 When she first came out, I said I thought this was very credible.

00:13:50.000 I think it's a lot less credible now that you have this statement that she wrote in the yearbook herself.

00:13:56.000 Do I think it completely destroys her credibility?

00:13:58.000 No, I'm not willing to go that far, but it's a problem for her.

00:14:00.000 That said, for people to say this destroys all of the allegations against Roy Moore is an overkill that I think is pretty shameless.

00:14:07.000 Okay, before I go any further and I'll talk a little bit about Al Franken, first I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at USCCA.

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00:15:10.000 Okay, so...

00:15:11.000 While the Republicans are having all of this hubbub over Moore and whether Moore is guilty or innocent, and Joe Arpaio and Trent Franks.

00:15:19.000 So Trent Franks stepped down yesterday.

00:15:21.000 He says he's going to step down from Congress because two former female staffers are now complaining of sexual harassment.

00:15:26.000 Apparently, Franks said that he and his wife have been struggling to get pregnant and that he had discussed surrogacy with two women in the workplace and it caused them distress.

00:15:35.000 I'm confused as to why that exactly would be sexual harassment unless he said, I want to put a baby in you.

00:15:40.000 In which case, it is sexual harassment.

00:15:41.000 But if it was, you work here, I trust you, you seem like a nice gal, have you ever considered surrogacy?

00:15:46.000 I'm not sure why that's sexual harassment per se.

00:15:48.000 Like, I just, maybe the power imbalance?

00:15:51.000 But that doesn't seem like typical sexual harassment to me, so I'm not sure we're getting the entire story on that.

00:15:55.000 Well, all that breaks down on the Republican side.

00:15:57.000 The Democrats are preening.

00:15:59.000 The Democrats are walking around preening.

00:16:01.000 We are just the moral guideposts for the United States.

00:16:05.000 We are the most moral of the moral.

00:16:07.000 This is the new shtick that Democrats have been trying out on a regular basis.

00:16:11.000 Yesterday, Al Franken did a bad job with it, right?

00:16:13.000 He tried to grab the moral high ground, but

00:16:16.000 That failed because Al Franken wasn't really willing to acknowledge that he'd done anything wrong.

00:16:20.000 Here's what Al Franken said yesterday in saying that he was going to resign.

00:16:23.000 Not that he did resign yesterday, but that he would resign in short order.

00:16:26.000 If Moore gets elected and is not thrown out of the Senate, I think there's a significant possibility that Franken actually retracts his retirement and says, you know what?

00:16:33.000 I'm going to stick around now.

00:16:34.000 If the Republicans aren't going to clean house, I'm certainly not going to leave over this.

00:16:37.000 Here's what Franken said yesterday.

00:16:40.000 Nevertheless, today I am announcing

00:16:43.000 That in the coming weeks, I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.

00:16:51.000 I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls

00:17:13.000 Okay, so there he does.

00:17:21.000 He also called himself a champion for women and said that the women who were accusing him had gotten it all wrong, but he's stepping down anyway.

00:17:26.000 It's hard for you to claim the moral high ground when you're blaming the women, right?

00:17:28.000 I thought the whole shtick here is that women always have to be believed, unless you're Al Franken.

00:17:33.000 And Franken himself, he, you know, he

00:17:37.000 His accusers are angry at him, and I think for good reason.

00:17:39.000 One of the Franken accusers, she comes out and she says she's just appalled that Franken won't own up to the situation.

00:17:45.000 And so, is there anything that for you would be justice?

00:17:56.000 I have to say that I'm so sad and appalled at his

00:18:03.000 I don't

00:18:25.000 It's

00:18:42.000 Okay, we'll sacrifice one of ours, and then we'll use their bodies as a bridge in order to climb the ramparts of Trump and Roy Moore.

00:18:49.000 That's the whole goal here. 0.99

00:18:50.000 And you see Chris Matthews did the clearest and dumbest version of this. 0.71

00:18:53.000 So last night on his show, he got up, got on my show, got on my stage, and he talks about Democrats are the greatest people in the entire world. 0.91

00:19:01.000 They're just fantastic.

00:19:03.000 Go! 0.95

00:19:04.000 Jason, your thoughts about the possibly positive education that the public... I don't know how you can avoid the education in this.

00:19:11.000 The worst you can say about the Democrats is they're too pure. 0.99

00:19:14.000 And that's the stupid thing to say, but that's the worst thing you can say about it. 0.99

00:19:17.000 These guys set too high a standard for public office. 1.00

00:19:19.000 Yeah, that's clearly the worst thing you can say about Democrats.

00:19:21.000 They're too pure.

00:19:22.000 That's the only thing you can say. 1.00

00:19:25.000 I mean, the preening, just self-aggrandizing stupidity of this nonsense. 1.00

00:19:32.000 Monica Lewinsky's dress disagrees. 1.00

00:19:36.000 Ted Kennedy's sexual assault victims disagree.

00:19:39.000 The worst you can say about Democrats is that they're too pure.

00:19:41.000 But this is their new routine.

00:19:42.000 We have the moral high ground.

00:19:43.000 And you can see how cynical this is, right?

00:19:44.000 Democratic Representative Kathleen Rice, she comes out and she says, you know, really, the guy who should resign here is, of course, Trump.

00:19:51.000 Trump is the one who should really go.

00:19:52.000 Now, although Democrats, you know, came, our leadership came to this issue a little late.

00:19:57.000 They did call on the resignations that have happened and we need the Republicans to do the same thing.

00:20:03.000 We need Paul Ryan to stand up and be the leader of his party.

00:20:07.000 I know it's difficult for him to do that when the standard-bearer of the Republican Party for right now is the President of the United States and we know his history with this issue of harassment.

00:20:17.000 So my hope and my call is for Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership to get with the program.

00:20:23.000 Right, that's the cynical move the Democrats are making, but they're claiming that they have the moral high ground while they're doing it.

00:20:40.000 Again, two things can be true, that Franken probably should go, and also the Democrats are using this for cynical reasons, but the preening is a little much, right?

00:20:48.000 I mean, the Democrats proclaiming themselves on loan from God is pretty astonishing.

00:20:52.000 Nancy Pelosi did that as well yesterday. 0.99

00:20:54.000 She extended it, right?

00:20:55.000 Not only are they, Nancy Pelosi was defending Al Franken until five seconds ago, and John Conyers until five seconds ago.

00:21:00.000 Not only does it turn out that the Democrats have a direct pipeline to God when it comes to sexual harassment, they also have a direct pipeline to God when it comes to legitimizing

00:21:09.000 We're not going to turn this country into a reign of terror of domestic enforcement and have the DACA, the DREAMers, pay that price. 1.00

00:21:24.000 But I'm optimistic.

00:21:26.000 I always have been.

00:21:28.000 God is with us on this.

00:21:29.000 Our country is great.

00:21:31.000 We know that greatness springs from the vitality that newcomers bring to our country.

00:21:35.000 God is with us.

00:21:35.000 Do you understand?

00:21:36.000 They're so holy now.

00:21:37.000 Don't you see the holiness that they have in getting rid of Al Franken has now translated over to everything, including DACA and the killing of human babies in the womb until the ninth month.

00:21:45.000 It's just amazing how this has happened.

00:21:47.000 So, before everybody jumps on their high horse and talks about how the Democrats, they're holy and now they're all wonderful and they're too pure, as Chris Matthews says, yeah, not so much.

00:21:57.000 Okay, so, I want to talk a little bit about media malfeasance.

00:22:00.000 This is an amazing story.

00:22:01.000 So, CNN

00:22:03.000 Reported this apparent bombshell and they got it totally wrong.

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00:22:45.000 I'm out of it today with an engraved crowbar and you can actually pry open the crate yourself.

00:22:50.000 It's it's super

00:22:52.000 It's super ennobling.

00:22:53.000 It makes you feel like a man.

00:22:54.000 It feels like you're King Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone, but instead you're actually pulling a crate of whiskey out, which is pretty amazing.

00:22:59.000 They cover over 100 hand-curated gift collections for every type of guy, from the rugged outdoorsman to the sports fanatic, everything in between.

00:23:05.000 As I said last time, I got an entire set of poker chips from Man Crates.

00:23:08.000 I immediately gave them to one of my friends who will actually use it, because I think I'll only end up playing poker at his house.

00:23:13.000 But it makes a fantastic gift, and it's just hilarious.

00:23:17.000 It's fun.

00:23:17.000 It's something that your loved one will get a kick out of.

00:23:19.000 It's great for Christmas or Hanukkah. 0.53

00:23:21.000 I'm good.

00:23:40.000 And again, I get such a kick out of these.

00:23:43.000 I really do get a kick out of these gifts.

00:23:45.000 They're really fun.

00:23:45.000 Go over to mancrates.com right now, check it out.

00:23:48.000 It'll solve all of your gift-giving needs.

00:23:50.000 Okay, so, here is the story from CNN.

00:23:51.000 And this just shows you, you want to know why so many people are skeptical of the media, even on things like Roy Moore.

00:23:58.000 You cannot count out the fact that the media are willing to jump over any barrier in order to get Republicans.

00:24:04.000 They really are.

00:24:04.000 And so when you ask, when the left looks at us and they say on the right, how could you possibly, how could you possibly not just credit the media with great reporting when they report something?

00:24:16.000 It's because within three hours, half of this stuff gets discredited.

00:24:20.000 Half is a little much, but a certain percentage of the stuff gets discredited.

00:24:23.000 So, for example, there was a report from CNN, and the report from CNN said that on September 4th, there was an email that was sent to the Trump administration, to Donald J. Trump, to Donald Trump Jr., to other members of the administration,

00:24:39.000 And that this email had a key code, a decryption key, for WikiLeaks that had not yet been released publicly.

00:24:46.000 That's a big scandal.

00:24:47.000 If it turns out, then that's one step removed from actual collusion, right?

00:24:50.000 If it turns out that the WikiLeaks people, at the behest of the Russian government, sent a decryption key to the Trump administration and the Trump campaign,

00:24:57.000 And that the Trump campaign used it in order to go in and spy on Hillary Clinton's emails before those things were released publicly, that would look a lot like collusion, would it not?

00:25:06.000 It turns out every element of the story is bullcrap.

00:25:08.000 Every single one.

00:25:09.000 So first of all, the email was not sent on September 4th, before the WikiLeaks were leaked.

00:25:13.000 It was sent on September 14th, after they were already public information.

00:25:17.000 You didn't need a decryption key for public information.

00:25:19.000 Number two, there's no evidence that Donald Trump Jr.

00:25:21.000 or Donald Trump ever saw this email.

00:25:23.000 Number three,

00:25:24.000 There's no evidence that the email itself is legit, that it didn't just come from some spammer.

00:25:28.000 So the way that this originally was run, the way the original headline was run, was something like, and I want to find if I can the actual headline, CNN report, Trump and Trump Jr.

00:25:39.000 got September 2016 email with decryption key.

00:25:42.000 Right, here's what David Wright from CNN tweeted, he tweeted,

00:25:45.000 Candidate Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and others in the Trump Org received email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents according to email provided to congressional investigators.

00:25:57.000 Right?

00:25:57.000 Bombshell!

00:25:58.000 Before any of this was public, they were being offered a special in by WikiLeaks, aka the Russian government.

00:26:03.000 Except again, it turns out it may not have come from the Russian government, there's no evidence Trump looked at it, and the email came 10 days after the initial CNN report said, which means that the email came out after all the information was public.

00:26:14.000 I mean, this is a Brian Ross-level screw-up.

00:26:16.000 It is a massive, massive screw-up.

00:26:20.000 Somebody needs to get suspended for it, at the very least, because to misreport in that dramatic a fashion does a disservice to the Trump administration.

00:26:27.000 Then you wonder why Trump runs around shouting fake news.

00:26:29.000 You wonder why Republicans distrust reporting from places like the Washington Post.

00:26:33.000 You wonder why Republicans have now come to the conclusion that nothing can be trusted.

00:26:37.000 Part of it is because they're taking the message too far, but part of it is because there is a grain of truth, which is that a lot of the media are willing to jump on stories that have not been vetted and are not true in order to promulgate a particular narrative.

00:26:48.000 And this is just the best example of that.

00:26:50.000 Democrats are doing this too.

00:26:51.000 Representative Julian Castro, who has presidential aspirations, he comes out and he says that, don't worry, even though there really is no hard information connecting Trump and Russia at this point, disturbing things will definitely come out.

00:27:01.000 I mean, come on.

00:27:03.000 Well, as you know, I can't discuss most of that stuff now, but, you know, I told you months ago, and when I said it back then, I think it was considered a little bit brash, but I said, I think in April, that I thought that there would be people who would end up in jail.

00:27:19.000 And as I stand here now, I think that there are going to be some things that come out that will be very surprising and disturbing.

00:27:26.000 Pause it right there because I just want to read the chyron, right?

00:27:28.000 This was earlier yesterday and it says CNN exclusive.

00:27:32.000 Undisclosed emails show follow-up after Don Jr.

00:27:34.000 meeting with Russians at Trump Tower.

00:27:36.000 But the follow-up didn't actually have anything bad to that either.

00:27:39.000 There's no evidence that any follow-up was even responded to by the Trump people.

00:27:42.000 So everything that CNN is reporting, and when you watch CNN, half their coverage is about Russia stuff.

00:27:48.000 Not only is there no smoking gun, there's no bullet, there's no gun.

00:27:51.000 I don't even know what these stories are supposed to be proving when they're this bad.

00:27:57.000 And then again, it's amazing to me, people are wondering, how could it possibly be?

00:28:01.000 How could it possibly be that people don't trust the mainstream media?

00:28:03.000 This is why people don't trust the mainstream media, seriously.

00:28:06.000 Okay, meanwhile, there's more fallout over the Jerusalem situation.

00:28:10.000 So, Donald Trump, I have to give him credit for this tweet.

00:28:13.000 This tweet, he gets credit for it.

00:28:15.000 He says he's gonna move the embassy to Jerusalem, acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as I've said, a move of moral bravery and courage.

00:28:23.000 And he released this tweet, which is, I have to say, pretty funny.

00:28:26.000 He tweeted out above this, I fulfilled my campaign promise.

00:28:30.000 Others didn't.

00:28:31.000 Full credit to Trump.

00:28:32.000 This is exactly true.

00:28:33.000 Now, there's a lot of violence that has been breaking out around the world.

00:28:37.000 There are clashes in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

00:28:40.000 Hamas, of course, is calling for an uprising because they're a terrorist group.

00:28:43.000 That's what they do.

00:28:44.000 One Palestinian protester has been shot dead.

00:28:45.000 But to be frank with you, the levels of terrorism that I've seen so far, the levels of violence that I've seen so far have been relatively innocuous.

00:28:54.000 So they say that there are rallies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Syria, and even America.

00:28:59.000 Ooh! 0.96

00:29:00.000 You mean people in Syria are angry?

00:29:02.000 Oh, noes! 1.00

00:29:04.000 You mean people in Iran are upset?

00:29:06.000 Well, I guess that changes everything, because Iran was our best friend before. 1.00

00:29:09.000 You mean Muslims in Malaysia are very upset about things?

00:29:11.000 Well, unless people are actually, like, getting hurt or killed, I don't really see... So what?

00:29:15.000 They're protesting.

00:29:16.000 Big, big freaking deal. 0.71

00:29:17.000 They protest over... If you said tomorrow, we're gonna have a day of rage, well, we'll call it the Nakba, right? 0.58

00:29:22.000 The day that Israel was established?

00:29:23.000 The Palestinians call the Nakba, the disaster.

00:29:25.000 We'll have a day of rage on that day?

00:29:26.000 You'd have the same people protesting.

00:29:28.000 It has nothing to do with Jerusalem.

00:29:29.000 It has to do with the fact they hate Israel.

00:29:31.000 It's that simple.

00:29:32.000 So Thursday, apparently, there were 16 Palestinians wounded.

00:29:35.000 They said that most of the injuries were from tear gas and rubber bullets.

00:29:40.000 And of course, you have all of the usual leftist suspects saying this is going to be the end of the world.

00:29:45.000 It won't be the end of the world.

00:29:46.000 Trump was right to do it.

00:29:47.000 I do want to point out how the media have exacerbated the situation.

00:29:50.000 So Richard Engel, the media like to embed in the Middle East in places like Gaza, and then they just stand around with cameras and watch people burn their own towns.

00:29:58.000 And then they treat it as though something heroic is taking place.

00:30:00.000 This is in Ramallah.

00:30:01.000 Ramallah is completely run by the Palestinian Authority.

00:30:03.000 The Israelis do not run Ramallah.

00:30:05.000 And Richard Engel, over on NBC, here is him reporting.

00:30:08.000 Good morning.

00:30:09.000 As you can probably see, clashes and civil unrest have broken out here in the West Bank.

00:30:14.000 We are on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

00:30:17.000 These protesters have begun setting fires, they're burning tires to create a smoke screen, and they are throwing stones and other debris.

00:30:25.000 It's difficult to see, but behind this smoke are Israeli troops.

00:30:29.000 And they have been firing volleys of tear gas occasionally to drive the demonstrators back.

00:30:34.000 All these protesters say they are here for one reason.

00:30:37.000 Because Palestinians, they say, will not give up on their right to Jerusalem, no matter what President Trump says.

00:30:44.000 Okay, well, look at the excitement from Richard Engel.

00:30:47.000 You can see the media are really turned on about all of this.

00:30:49.000 What would happen, let me just pose something.

00:30:51.000 What would happen if the media minimized the coverage?

00:30:53.000 In the same way that the media minimized the coverage of serial killers, but this seems to me very much like the coverage of the riots in Ferguson or the riots in Baltimore.

00:31:01.000 The media love this stuff and they egg it on and then they're surprised when violence breaks out.

00:31:05.000 That doesn't wash. 1.00

00:31:06.000 It doesn't wash at all.

00:31:07.000 Okay, so, in other news.

00:31:10.000 There are a couple of stories that are kind of astonishing today.

00:31:12.000 So one is with regard to yours truly.

00:31:15.000 So apparently I was supposed to speak at Concordia College.

00:31:20.000 Concordia College in Moorhead, I think it's in New Hampshire.

00:31:23.000 And they had funded it.

00:31:25.000 The Student Government Association had voted to fund it.

00:31:28.000 In November 30th, they had voted 13 to 10 to allocate about $7,000 to Young Americas for Freedom to fund one of my appearances.

00:31:37.000 And now student leaders voted 28 to 2 against funding it.

00:31:41.000 So they withdrew the funding.

00:31:42.000 More than 150 students and faculty filled Berry Auditorium for an hour-long discussion leading up to the vote that nullified a previous decision to have me.

00:31:50.000 And the SGA sent an executive email that said, SGA's first goal is to listen to, represent, and act on the feedback of its students, and there will be a motion put forward to rescind the funding.

00:31:58.000 You are welcome to add to the discussion during the meeting.

00:32:01.000 Some Concordia students, according to the motion to rescind funding, have asserted that Shapiro's harmful messages targeting LGBTQQYALZ communities and other marginalized identities is in direct opposition to the dedication of Concordia and SGA to support diversity, equity, and inclusion of all persons from all backgrounds and identities.

00:32:19.000 So this was an appeasement move.

00:32:21.000 It's pretty astonishing and pretty obvious.

00:32:24.000 Young Americans for Freedom at Concordia, they said bringing Ben Shapiro to campus would be a sign from Concordia College that they value intellectual and political diversity and that they care about the marginalized and underrepresented conservative voices on campus.

00:32:37.000 But they're not going to do it.

00:32:39.000 They've decided that it's not about diversity.

00:32:42.000 Instead, it's mostly about shutting down people who you don't like.

00:32:46.000 It's shutting down folks that you don't like, which of course we already knew from my experiences on college campuses before.

00:32:50.000 Speaking of free speech concerns, this isn't a formal free speech concern because I believe Concordia is a private college, they can do whatever they want.

00:32:56.000 It does demonstrate that their supposed commitment to free speech, however, is a joke.

00:33:00.000 But, you know, in terms of social censure for unpopular opinions that are true,

00:33:06.000 This is an astonishingly bad story. 0.82

00:33:07.000 So there's a woman who's a porn star or was a porn star. 0.99

00:33:10.000 Her name was August Ames and she's 23. 0.92

00:33:13.000 She was found dead from an apparent suicide after she was bullied and branded a homophobe for refusing to shoot with a man who has sex with men on camera.

00:33:22.000 She made it clear she was not homophobic, apparently she's bisexual, or was bisexual, but she said that she wasn't going to do it for safety reasons.

00:33:28.000 So law enforcement sources said that Ames was found early Tuesday morning in Camarillo.

00:33:32.000 She was pronounced dead at the scene.

00:33:33.000 We're told there's no indication of foul play or any other crime occurring.

00:33:36.000 Toxicology tests are being conducted while the death is investigated.

00:33:39.000 Close friends say she had suffered from long-term depression, and they believe a recent incident with online harassment may have contributed to her death.

00:33:45.000 The backlash was fierce when she took to Twitter on Sunday to warn women who had been tapped to replace her at EroticaX that the man she'd be working with has filmed with other men.

00:33:54.000 She said, whichever lady performer is replacing me tomorrow for Erotica X News, you're shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn just to let you know. 0.98

00:34:01.000 BS is all I can say. 0.97

00:34:02.000 Do agents really not care about who they're representing?

00:34:04.000 I do my homework for my body.

00:34:06.000 She was ridiculed as homophobic.

00:34:08.000 She wrote, not homophobic. 0.99

00:34:09.000 Most girls don't shoot with guys who have shot gay porn for safety. 0.99

00:34:12.000 That's just how it is with me. 0.98

00:34:13.000 I'm not putting my body at risk.

00:34:14.000 I don't know what they do in their private lives.

00:34:17.000 She says, how am I homophobic if I myself am attracted to women? 0.86

00:34:19.000 Not wanting to have sex with gay men is not homophobic. 0.98

00:34:22.000 They don't want to have sex with me either, so bye. 0.97

00:34:25.000 Okay, that seems to me completely fair, but the point that she's making here is a statistically true one, okay?

00:34:30.000 The rates of STDs among men who have sex with men are significantly higher than they are among men who have sex with women, right?

00:34:37.000 STDs among men who have sex with men are much, much higher.

00:34:41.000 They just are. 0.72

00:34:42.000 And the idea that a homosexual man or a man who's had sex with men is going to have sex with a woman, it increases her risk. 0.97

00:34:50.000 It increases her risk pretty dramatically, actually.

00:34:53.000 I'm looking up some of the statistics, if I can find them, from some of the more recent CDC statistics.

00:35:00.000 So, let's see.

00:35:02.000 Let's see if we can find something really quick here. 0.99

00:35:04.000 So, gay, bisexual, and other men who have had sex with men are 17 times more likely to get anal cancer than heterosexual men. 0.98

00:35:14.000 Gay and bisexual men are significantly more likely to have other forms of STDs. 0.65

00:35:19.000 CDC recommends sexually active gay and bisexual men test for HIV at least once a year.

00:35:24.000 Hepatitis C. Hepatitis B. Gonorrhea.

00:35:29.000 Chlamydia.

00:35:31.000 The rates are higher because they're higher.

00:35:34.000 I mean, there's nothing else to say about that.

00:35:36.000 And so the idea that this woman was basically run off Twitter and then she committed suicide over this, it demonstrates the insanity of the social censoring that goes on on social media like Twitter.

00:35:45.000 People digging up tweets that are 10 years old or finding a tweet that you said yesterday that's completely innocuous and then taking it out of context in order to hurt you.

00:35:51.000 It's just overboard.

00:35:54.000 It's all overboard.

00:35:55.000 And people need to rein it in.

00:35:56.000 There's a digital lynch mob that exists now, and it's pretty scary out there.

00:36:00.000 Okay, so, I do want to get to things I like, things I hate, and the mailbag.

00:36:04.000 We'll do a nice mailbag today.

00:36:05.000 But for that, you're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

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00:37:17.000 Alrighty, so let's do a quick thing I like and a quick thing that I hate, and then we will move to the mailbag.

00:37:23.000 So, things I like today.

00:37:24.000 I actually have a couple of things that I like today.

00:37:26.000 So, watching all this hubbub over particularly crappy candidates on both sides of the aisle, it reminds me of a movie called The Best Man.

00:37:33.000 This is not a well-remembered movie.

00:37:35.000 It's Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams, very good cast.

00:37:40.000 The movie was written by Gore Vidal, so it is a left-leaning movie.

00:37:44.000 But the basic plot of it is that Henry Fonda is a former Secretary of State based on Adlai Stevenson, who's supposed to be running for president.

00:37:51.000 And Cliff Robertson is supposed to be based on Richard Nixon.

00:37:53.000 He's running for president, too.

00:37:54.000 Cliff Robertson's the bad guy.

00:37:55.000 Henry Fonda's the good guy.

00:37:57.000 And basically, they are the two leading candidates for president battling it out.

00:38:02.000 The question is who's going to win and what sort of dirty tricks they'll use at an open convention in order to win.

00:38:06.000 It's entertaining.

00:38:07.000 It's definitely entertaining.

00:38:08.000 And it does say something about, you know, what lengths people are willing to go to for power.

00:38:18.000 This is Secretary of State William Russell, candidate for President of the United States.

00:38:23.000 Is he the best man?

00:38:25.000 You have no sense of responsibility toward anybody or anything.

00:38:31.000 And that is a tragedy in a man, and it is a disaster in a president.

00:38:36.000 This is Senator Joe Cantwell, candidate for President of the United States.

00:38:40.000 Is he the best man?

00:38:41.000 You don't understand politics.

00:38:45.000 You don't understand this country.

00:38:47.000 This is Art Hockstetter, former President of the United States.

00:38:50.000 Will he back the best man?

00:38:53.000 Power is not a toy that we give to good children.

00:38:56.000 It's a weapon.

00:38:57.000 And a strong man takes it and he uses it.

00:39:00.000 To get here, some men will stop at nothing.

00:39:05.000 So the film itself is very entertaining and it's all about sort of the manipulations behind the scenes.

00:39:10.000 It's definitely a strained movie in the sense that a bunch of sort of wild coincidences happen at the same time and there's a lot of scandal going on.

00:39:18.000 It's an exaggeration of reality but it's a fun movie to watch and the acting is quite good.

00:39:22.000 Cliff Robertson particularly gives a very good performance in it.

00:39:25.000 Other things that I like.

00:39:25.000 So, believe it or not, DeRay McKesson tweeted something out that I like yesterday.

00:39:29.000 It was not anything of content or significance, but it was very funny.

00:39:32.000 Back in 1996, Patti LaBelle sang for Christmas, and Patti LaBelle was singing some song that I don't know.

00:39:42.000 She didn't know the song either, is the bigger problem.

00:39:44.000 So here's a little bit of the video of Patti LaBelle singing, and she realizes that she actually does not know any of the words that she's about to sing.

00:40:07.000 We're my background singers!

00:40:11.000 Woo! 0.99

00:40:12.000 And it's the wrong words on the cue cards, I don't know the song!

00:40:22.000 I'm gonna have them all I can Because I don't have the right words

00:40:51.000 Okay, so it's worthwhile watching the whole thing.

00:40:53.000 It goes on for two minutes like this.

00:40:55.000 It's pretty amazing.

00:40:55.000 So thank you, Patti LaBelle, for giving us all a spot of cheer in a dark time.

00:40:59.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate, and then we'll get to the mailbag.

00:41:06.000 Alrighty, so, thing that I hate today, there's this tweet that was going around yesterday that's just nuts.

00:41:13.000 It's from a feminist, of course, so I didn't even need to tell you that it was kind of crazy. 0.95

00:41:19.000 She calls herself Mrs. Claus, and here's what she tweeted.

00:41:22.000 Listen guys, let me clarify something for you.

00:41:25.000 When women's spaces say men are welcome, that's not true.

00:41:28.000 We're just scared to tell you no.

00:41:32.000 So, just to be clear, no means no, but yes also means no, so everything means no.

00:41:41.000 Unless yes means yes, but it probably means no, cause you're scared.

00:41:46.000 If you're wondering why men may be slightly confused about what the standards of behavior ought to be, it's folks like Mrs. Claus who are not making things any easier here.

00:41:55.000 Okay, time for the mailbag.

00:41:56.000 So, let's start with Robert.

00:41:57.000 Robert says, Ben, what is your view on mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients?

00:42:00.000 The answer is yes.

00:42:02.000 Good stuff.

00:42:03.000 The reason that you should have mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients is because there should be some strings attached.

00:42:08.000 If the idea on welfare is to get you back to work, we don't want you drugging out in your free time and then going and getting my taxpayer dollars to sponsor your drug habit.

00:42:17.000 Matthew says, Hey Ben, knowing that Trump has declared Jerusalem to be Israel's capital and promised to move the embassy, do you regret not voting for him last year?

00:42:23.000 Will you consider voting for him for re-election?

00:42:25.000 I personally feel I would switch my vote to him.

00:42:27.000 So, as far as regretting my vote, I could only base my vote on the evidence that was in evidence at the time.

00:42:32.000 So, I've said where I think that I was wrong about Trump, right?

00:42:35.000 I thought that I was wrong about him on Gorsuch.

00:42:37.000 I think he's governed much more conservative than the evidence suggested that he was going to, to that point.

00:42:41.000 I didn't think he was gonna do what he just did on Jerusalem.

00:42:43.000 He did it, and I've given him, I think, more than full points on that.

00:42:46.000 As far as would I consider voting for him next time?

00:42:48.000 Sure, I'd consider voting for him next time.

00:42:49.000 I'll look at the options that come up, and we'll see where we are in three years.

00:42:52.000 But yeah, of course I'd consider voting for him next time.

00:42:54.000 I considered voting for him last time.

00:42:55.000 So, you know, I think that you can only make your decision based on the evidence that was at hand at the time, but he has exceeded my expectations in a variety of ways.

00:43:02.000 In some areas he has not, and I've been clear on that as well.

00:43:06.000 Joseph says,

00:43:13.000 But how do I argue against those who contend that after 70 A.D.

00:43:16.000 the Jews were evicted through military means and thus lost their claim to the land?

00:43:19.000 Couldn't the Mexicans or Native Americans make the same historical and ancestral claims about the Southwestern United States?

00:43:24.000 The answer is no, the reason being because even after the expulsion of Jews in 70 A.D.

00:43:28.000 Jews had a continuous presence in the land and there was never an independent state of Palestine that existed outside of Jewish rule.

00:43:33.000 It was always part of a broader empire.

00:43:35.000 It was never an actual state or land that was run by an independent conglomerate of people.

00:43:40.000 That just never happened.

00:43:42.000 So, the longest lasting group of people, it's more like a native reservation than it would be like anything else, in the sense that Jews were always there and maintained a presence there.

00:43:52.000 And again, if you look at the original Native American treaties in the United States, before the Trail of Tears and the attempt to force Indians off their land, Native Americans off their land, I think there's a good case that those people should have been allowed to stay on their land. 0.99

00:44:03.000 Heather says, Hi Ben, I'm a big fan.

00:44:04.000 I greatly respect your values politically and personally.

00:44:07.000 My question is religiously based.

00:44:08.000 I'm a critical care registered nurse.

00:44:10.000 I've had some emotionally taxing events at work recently.

00:44:12.000 I've never considered myself a religious person.

00:44:14.000 Lately I've felt a desire for spiritual guidance.

00:44:16.000 I do not belong to a church nor does my family.

00:44:17.000 Do you have any advice on how I should begin?

00:44:19.000 Well, I think that...

00:44:20.000 You have to decide whether what you're looking for is a community experience or you're just looking for comforting religious thought, or deep religious thought.

00:44:26.000 I think that good beginning religious thought is C.S.

00:44:29.000 Lewis.

00:44:29.000 I like a lot of C.S.

00:44:30.000 Lewis's work.

00:44:30.000 You should go check out his religious thought.

00:44:33.000 I've recommended many of his books, including The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity on my show, even though I'm a Jew.

00:44:38.000 I think there's a lot in Mere Christianity, particularly in the first third before he gets to the super Christian part that I agree with. 0.94

00:44:43.000 And so that is worth checking out.

00:44:46.000 As far as the community that you're looking for, I would check out some churches, see where you feel welcome.

00:44:50.000 See where you feel like you find people who are thinking along the same lines.

00:44:53.000 If you have questions, it is the pastor or preacher or priest, somebody who is answering those questions in a fair and honest fashion.

00:45:02.000 Morgan says, Ben, how did you know you wanted to marry your wife and how long did it take for you to propose?

00:45:06.000 I knew I wanted to marry her for a couple of reasons.

00:45:08.000 So, I think that here's the typical pathway for men deciding they want to get married.

00:45:12.000 First, there has to be physical attraction.

00:45:15.000 Okay, this is just the reality.

00:45:16.000 When men are first attracted to a woman, it's because there's a physical attraction to the woman.

00:45:20.000 So my wife happens to be smoking hot. 1.00

00:45:21.000 So, this definitely was the initial draw, but in the first date, I dated a lot of women one time and decided I didn't want to date anymore because they were not either intellectually stimulating or have the same values. 0.73

00:45:37.000 Not only... there's more than just a spark there, is what I'm saying.

00:45:40.000 It's easy to find, I think, a certain level of chemistry, particularly sexual chemistry with people.

00:45:44.000 I don't think that's the hardest thing in the world to find.

00:45:46.000 What is hard to find is somebody who shares your values.

00:45:48.000 And my wife and I, on our first date, for three hours discussed free will and determinism and how many kids we each wanted to have.

00:45:54.000 I mean, we're dating for marriage.

00:45:56.000 And so, you have to...

00:45:59.000 I'm not saying sit there with a checklist, but you do have to have a group of things in your head that you want out of a spouse, and I don't mean like they're going to shine your shoes or make dinner for you.

00:46:08.000 I mean things like what kind of life do they want to build and what kind of values do they hold dear, because that's the stuff you're going to be able to build a future on.

00:46:14.000 Jonathan Haidt has a chapter in the Happiness Hypothesis about love, and one of the things he points out is that when you first meet your potential mate, then the level of passion, passionate love is, I think he calls it passionate love and companionate love.

00:46:29.000 Is that right?

00:46:51.000 Fiery need that you have for your spouse at the very beginning is not the same burning need that you have for your spouse throughout your life.

00:46:59.000 And the companionate love tends to rise.

00:47:02.000 So passionate love declines, companionate love rises.

00:47:04.000 That's the way it should happen because companionate love is more important when you're building a life and building a family.

00:47:08.000 Who you want to have sex with is a pretty arbitrary decision to a certain extent.

00:47:12.000 Okay, so Tanner says, Hi Ben, I have a quick question.

00:47:15.000 My older brother got a girl pregnant, he has only been dating for maybe a month and a half, does not know what to do.

00:47:19.000 He wants to settle down and get married with the girl, take responsibility for the kid.

00:47:21.000 She's unwilling to get married and take responsibility for the kid. 1.00

00:47:24.000 She wants to put the kid up for adoption, which my brother does not want to do.

00:47:27.000 I want to give him some helpful advice.

00:47:29.000 What should he do?

00:47:31.000 Here's my feeling.

00:47:32.000 If she's not going to take care of the kid, and he is not going to get married and adopt the kid, and have his spouse adopt the kid, or if your parents are not available to adopt the children, children need a mother and a father.

00:47:46.000 A single father is not a good solution. 1.00

00:47:48.000 A single mother is not a good solution. 1.00

00:47:50.000 If those are the only two solutions on the table, put the kid up for adoption, put them in a loving two-parent family.

00:47:55.000 It would be of benefit to the child.

00:47:58.000 The best outcome is biological mother and father bringing up child, on average.

00:48:02.000 Not for every family, but on average.

00:48:04.000 But it is more important that the child grow up in a two-parent family, a solid two-parent family, than that your brother be with his own child.

00:48:10.000 It would be an act of tremendous self-sacrifice by your brother, actually, I think, to put the child in the best living scenario, unless your parents are willing to adopt the kids.

00:48:18.000 The kid.

00:48:19.000 It's hard for me to say whether Trump himself has become more conservative.

00:48:25.000 I'll say that his policy has become more conservative.

00:48:28.000 His policy in the last week and a half, the last two weeks, has been as conservative as anything I've ever seen.

00:48:32.000 More conservative than I would say the Reagan administration in the last couple of weeks.

00:48:35.000 But as far as him personally, I never get into the business of reading what's going on in Donald Trump's head because I think that that's a risky business.

00:48:42.000 Jenna says,

00:48:52.000 Well, I mean, it differs based on your skill level.

00:48:55.000 So when you become as good as I am, when you've been playing for 15 years, and you better be good at that point or quit.

00:49:01.000 When you've played, I've been playing since I was five years old.

00:49:05.000 So what you're thinking about then is making sure that there's musicality to what you're playing, that you're actually thinking about what you want things to sound like.

00:49:12.000 When you're at beginning stages, it is really practice, practice, practice.

00:49:15.000 Make sure that all the muscle memory is in place.

00:49:17.000 Metronome is your friend.

00:49:19.000 People tend to lose tempo.

00:49:20.000 Intonation is your friend if you have somebody who can play the piano with you.

00:49:23.000 That would definitely help because otherwise you end up with a sort of bizarre relative pitch.

00:49:27.000 Tyler says, what individual in American history has caused the most damage to the country?

00:49:31.000 This is a good question.

00:49:34.000 There are many individuals who have caused tremendous damage to the country.

00:49:38.000 I would say there's a very solid case for slaveholders. 1.00

00:49:46.000 I would put Woodrow Wilson up there.

00:49:48.000 I would put FDR up there.

00:49:49.000 I would put LBJ up there.

00:49:53.000 There are a number of demagogues who I think have driven public opinion in the wrong direction.

00:49:56.000 It's hard to name one person, but I would say that the legacy of slavery continues to cruelly divide our politics, even though we all agree that slavery is bad now.

00:50:09.000 Um, Danny says,

00:50:24.000 So, the halakhic opinion is that Christians, the kind of Jewish law opinion, is that Christians shouldn't celebrate these things.

00:50:29.000 I will, you know, add a bit of heresy here.

00:50:31.000 I think that it's fine for Christians to celebrate these things.

00:50:33.000 I think anything that connects you to the God of the Judeo-Christian religion is a good thing. 0.98

00:50:38.000 And Jesus celebrated Passover, so I don't really see the problem with this, per se.

00:50:44.000 So, in fact, my family has invited non-Jews over to Passover for years, and for Hanukkah parties.

00:50:52.000 So if you want to go for it, go for it.

00:50:54.000 Whatever makes you feel closer to God.

00:50:56.000 Christoph says, Ben, I believe your understanding of abortion to be somewhat flawed, or at least there's one part of your position you've not been clear about.

00:51:02.000 This pertains to when you define life to begin.

00:51:03.000 To introduce what I mean, let me pose a very practical question and one very applicable to good-hearted couples that want to have children, but are having difficulty doing so.

00:51:09.000 Do you support in vitro fertilization?

00:51:11.000 This procedure always results in the destruction of several embryos.

00:51:14.000 Are couples that pursue this method of fertility killing humans in the process? 0.95

00:51:17.000 So they are ending a human, a potential incipient human life.

00:51:20.000 IVF, I have always said that if you have the money to use every fertilized egg that's how IVF should be performed and in fact I've said this and there's a member of my synagogue who his wife had gotten in vitro and she had frozen the leftover egg and they were gonna throw it away and his wife said I don't think that that's moral.

00:51:39.000 They implanted the egg and they had a baby and this baby is now their child.

00:51:43.000 I think that every fertilized egg ought to be treated with the respect due to, at the very least, potential human life.

00:51:52.000 And so, if you're going to treat in vitro in the most moral possible way, you don't create fertilized eggs just for destruction.

00:52:00.000 Instead, you implant the number of fertilized eggs that you're willing to bear to fruition.

00:52:04.000 Michael says, Ben, what is your thought on the amount of money we spend on the military?

00:52:08.000 We spend

00:52:09.000 It's less of an amount than what we spend the military money on.

00:52:12.000 In some cases, we're spending it on frivolous nonsense.

00:52:15.000 Weapon systems we don't need and all that.

00:52:17.000 But I don't really have a problem with us spending an enormous amount of money on the military.

00:52:20.000 I think it's one of the only decent functions of the government.

00:52:23.000 Let's see, Nicholas says, Wow, we're going back to like...

00:52:30.000 1880 here, this is great.

00:52:36.000 So I think that the government was not right to break up the trust.

00:52:38.000 I think a lot of trust busting was based on a fallacious assumption about how monopolies actually operated.

00:52:43.000 A lot of those monopolies were not actual monopolies.

00:52:46.000 And I think that a lot of the trust busting was basic class warfare that was taking place at the time.

00:52:51.000 To speak to specific trusts, I would actually have to do a little more research on that.

00:52:54.000 So I will do that.

00:52:56.000 Let's see.

00:52:58.000 Okay, final one.

00:52:59.000 Phillip says, as a small limited government proponent, what suggestions would you have to rationalize my desire to fund NASA to historic highs and literally shoot for the stars on outer space science exploration?

00:53:07.000 I get that low Earth orbit launches and deliveries to the ISS are best suited to private entities, but there seems to be very little motivation or reward for a private entity like SpaceX to explore for the sake of exploration.

00:53:16.000 Well, I think you'd have to talk to Elon Musk about that, because I believe that Elon Musk has actually talked about doing deep space exploration.

00:53:23.000 If it's privately fundable, I think that'd be great.

00:53:24.000 The only purpose for actual government funding of deep space exploration would be for defense purposes, or for the possibility of creating new cures to disease or something, creating new inventions.

00:53:41.000 As a general rule, I think that NASA funding non-connected to defense is a mistake and should be best left in private hands.

00:53:46.000 I do think private funding will fill in the gaps there, as SpaceX is showing.

00:53:51.000 Okay, so we'll be back here on Monday.

00:53:52.000 Have a wonderful weekend.

00:53:53.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:54.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:54:00.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:54:02.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:54:03.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:54:05.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:54:07.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:54:09.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.

00:54:10.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:54:12.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:54:15.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 12, 2017

No Moral High Ground, Just Political High Ground | Ep. 433

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