The Ben Shapiro Show - That Giant Republican Sucking Sound | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 390

00:00:00.000 So, Roy Moore just won himself a Senate seat in Alabama.

00:00:03.000 What does that mean for Trumpism?

00:00:05.000 Plus, President Trump is winning the culture war, but are Republicans going to win the political wars?

00:00:10.000 We'll talk about it.

00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:18.000 So it's gonna be a whirlwind day, which is why we are doing the show a little bit early today, because I'm gonna be flying to University of Utah, where I have been guaranteed that Students for a Democratic Society will try to shut me down.

00:00:27.000 In fact, they wrote an entire letter, an open letter, suggesting that they would do so, and bragging that they would do so, and saying they were right to do so.

00:00:34.000 Apparently, there are also rumors that violence may be in the works.

00:00:37.000 We can hope not.

00:00:38.000 The police will be there.

00:00:39.000 The university is doing its job. 1.00

00:00:41.000 So thank you to the university and the police, as always, for protecting free speech from a bunch of thuggish morons. 0.99

00:00:46.000 But we'll talk about all of that in just a moment. 0.98

00:00:48.000 First, I say to you that you should go out and you should go get a tracker device.

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00:02:15.000 Okay, so, I'll explain a little bit more about what's happening at University of Utah later, but the big story of the evening last night is that Roy Moore, Judge Roy Moore, won his race against Luther Strange in Alabama.

00:02:27.000 Now, this was seen as sort of a proxy battle over the future of Trumpism.

00:02:30.000 What does it mean for Trump, right?

00:02:32.000 Because now we all live in Donald Trump's world.

00:02:35.000 It is his world, we just live in it.

00:02:36.000 So, what does it mean that Trump spent an enormous amount of time and effort campaigning for Luther Strange, who is the incumbent senator in Alabama,

00:02:44.000 And that Luther Strange was defeated pretty soundly by Roy Moore.

00:02:46.000 Well, a couple of things.

00:02:48.000 I think there are a couple of myths that are going around this morning.

00:02:49.000 Myth number one is that Breitbart and Steve Bannon were the people who drove Roy Moore to victory.

00:02:54.000 This is not the case.

00:02:56.000 The reality is that Roy Moore has been an extraordinarily popular figure in Alabama for a very long time.

00:03:01.000 I knew who Roy Moore was years ago because Roy Moore was the judge who refused to abide by the Supreme Court's decision that he had to remove a Ten Commandments memorial from his courtroom.

00:03:10.000 Roy Moore was the guy who had told his court clerks not to issue same-sex marriage licenses because he thought that the Obergefell decision was unconstitutional.

00:03:18.000 So, Roy Moore's been a very famous player for a very long time.

00:03:20.000 It's not like the Dave Bratt race, where Breitbart really was instrumental in helping push Dave Bratt over the finish line against Eric Cantor.

00:03:27.000 No one had ever heard of Dave Bratt, and now Dave Bratt sits in Congress and is a good guy.

00:03:30.000 Roy Moore was a very famous figure in Alabama for a long time.

00:03:33.000 He was always considered a popular figure in Alabama right-wing politics.

00:03:37.000 Luther Strange was more anonymous than his primary opponent.

00:03:40.000 So that's thing number one that we have to remember.

00:03:42.000 Thing number two that we have to remember is that Roy Moore reflects kind of the guts of a lot of the Republican Party better than Luther Strange.

00:03:51.000 Not because his perspectives on, for example, homosexuality are reflective of the entire Republican Party.

00:03:57.000 It's been very hard for my wife and myself to either

00:04:22.000 Two, nearly three months of negative ads that we couldn't answer with money because we didn't have it.

00:04:31.000 Ads that were completely false.

00:04:34.000 That I don't believe in the Second Amendment.

00:04:39.000 I believe in the Second Amendment.

00:04:42.000 Right, so he pulls out the gun and everybody goes crazy in the media.

00:04:45.000 How could he pull out a gun? 0.99

00:04:46.000 Okay, first of all, if you're in Alabama and you don't own a gun, you're a weirdo.

00:04:49.000 That's the way things work in parts of the country where the media is not present.

00:04:54.000 But the way the media likes to play this is the media is so self-obsessed that they turn this into a media battle, right?

00:05:00.000 It's a Trump versus Bannon battle.

00:05:01.000 It's Bannon versus Trump.

00:05:02.000 Trump is saying that he's gonna stand for Luther Strange, but that's not really reflective of where his heart is.

00:05:07.000 And Bannon is trying to defend true Trumpism from Trump himself.

00:05:11.000 I don't think that that's actually what's going on here.

00:05:13.000 I don't.

00:05:14.000 I think there are a couple things that can be learned from this race.

00:05:16.000 Thing number one is that no Republican candidate right now across the country is going to do well openly opposing President Trump.

00:05:22.000 Roy Moore campaigned in favor of President Trump.

00:05:25.000 Roy Moore was spending this entire campaign talking about how much he loved President Trump.

00:05:29.000 That doesn't mean you have to love President Trump in order to win high office.

00:05:32.000 It does mean that you can't hate President Trump and win high office, at least not in the Bible Belt. 0.96

00:05:37.000 So if you are in Alabama and you say, listen, I don't like Trump. 1.00

00:05:39.000 Trump's a schmuck. 1.00

00:05:40.000 You're not going to win. 1.00

00:05:41.000 You're not going to win a seat.

00:05:42.000 But you don't have to be endorsed by Trump to win.

00:05:45.000 And the reason for that is because President Trump is much more of a symbol than he is an actual politician to most of these people.

00:05:52.000 Trump endorsing somebody doesn't mean anything.

00:05:54.000 But you being against Trump means something. 0.73

00:05:56.000 It means you're a squish. 1.00

00:05:57.000 Trump is perceived as just another ripple in the giant wave pool that is a movement.

00:06:05.000 So there's two ways of perceiving who Trump is.

00:06:06.000 Trump perceives himself as, I'm the leader of a great and glorious movement.

00:06:10.000 And Steve Bannon has sort of done this thing too.

00:06:12.000 Trump is the leader of a great and glorious movement.

00:06:14.000 And when he strays from his glorious movement, we will attempt to hold him accountable.

00:06:18.000 None of this is correct.

00:06:19.000 The great and glorious movement existed long before Trump.

00:06:23.000 It started with the Tea Party in 2009, 2010.

00:06:26.000 Republicans rode that to victory with 63 seats in the House.

00:06:29.000 In 2012, Republicans picked up the Senate.

00:06:32.000 And they did that by electing people like Ted Cruz.

00:06:34.000 I was involved in that election working at Breitbart at the time.

00:06:37.000 I was very much in favor of Ted Cruz against a guy named David Dewhurst, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Texas and considered a more establishment candidate.

00:06:43.000 And Ted Cruz took the seat in 2012.

00:06:45.000 So the idea that this movement, this anti-establishment movement,

00:06:49.000 started with Trump is just nonsense.

00:06:50.000 Trump was just the latest iteration of that movement.

00:06:53.000 Remember, we've had these battles going on for a long time.

00:06:55.000 Dave Brat and Eric Cantor, Christine O'Donnell and Mike Castle in Delaware.

00:06:58.000 These sorts of swings against the establishment have been going on since 2009-2010.

00:07:05.000 And Trump was just a cork bobbing on the waves of that movement.

00:07:08.000 He was not the leader of that movement.

00:07:09.000 And last night's election showed that.

00:07:11.000 Because it showed that Trump doesn't have coattails.

00:07:13.000 Trump tried to pull Luther Strange over the finish line, so much so that this morning, Trump, who had tweeted a bunch of times about Big Luther, he actually went back and deleted the tweets.

00:07:22.000 Which, I mean, President Trump, that's not how Twitter works.

00:07:24.000 Deleting the tweets actually draws more attention to your old tweets. 0.94

00:07:26.000 It's just silly.

00:07:27.000 But because President Trump was campaigning for Strange, people see this as a slap in the face to Trump.

00:07:33.000 It really isn't a slap in the face to Trump.

00:07:35.000 It's just that Trump is not the most important thing about this movement.

00:07:38.000 This movement pre-existed Trump and will exist long after Trump.

00:07:41.000 It's more about McConnell.

00:07:43.000 People don't like McConnell.

00:07:45.000 People don't like the establishment.

00:07:46.000 Strange was identified as somebody identified with McConnell, even though he really shouldn't have been.

00:07:51.000 He voted with Trump 92% of the time.

00:07:53.000 Roy Moore campaigned hard against McConnell, and that made a lot of difference.

00:07:58.000 So, this means that Trump as an individual figure is not that important, except as a litmus test for loyalty.

00:08:04.000 And it means that Trumpism is not actually a movement.

00:08:06.000 Trumpism is incoherent.

00:08:08.000 Because if Trumpism meant anything, it would mean follow Trump against Bannon.

00:08:11.000 But Bannon basically said, I defend Trumpism against Trump, which means that Trump is really just a symbol.

00:08:18.000 But Roy Moore isn't a Trumpist per se.

00:08:20.000 Roy Moore is a guy who doesn't even believe in judicial supremacy.

00:08:23.000 I mean, Roy Moore is a pretty fundamentalist conservative Christian, which is not Trump's exact brand.

00:08:31.000 All this is to say that I think that there has been, people have gotten a little carried away with the Trump.

00:08:36.000 By a little carried away, I mean a lot carried away.

00:08:38.000 Not every battle is about Trump.

00:08:40.000 It's not that Trump lost in Alabama last night.

00:08:42.000 It's that the establishment lost in Alabama last night, or the perceived establishment lost, and that's been going on since 2010.

00:08:47.000 This was not the beginning of something new.

00:08:50.000 This was not a new rift inside Trumpism.

00:08:52.000 This is the same movement that's been going on for seven years now, and it is continuing through this election cycle.

00:08:58.000 So forget about Trump, forget about Bannon.

00:08:59.000 They're not really important.

00:09:00.000 The question is establishment versus anti-establishment.

00:09:03.000 That's all.

00:09:05.000 That's all.

00:09:05.000 It's going to make things tough for McConnell.

00:09:06.000 So McConnell has a fractious caucus already, right?

00:09:10.000 He has a caucus that is not doing what he wants it to do.

00:09:12.000 He couldn't get health care reform passed.

00:09:15.000 He's going to have a tough time with tax reform.

00:09:16.000 They haven't been able to build the wall.

00:09:18.000 He's basically got nothing done, Mitch McConnell.

00:09:20.000 It's a much more fractious caucus than the House Republicans, mainly because the House Republicans have such a big majority, a 23-seat majority, that they can afford to lose a few people and still get stuff passed.

00:09:30.000 McConnell has 52 seats, which means that he loses three and he's done.

00:09:34.000 And that's been the case so far.

00:09:35.000 Roy Moore's not going to make that easier on McConnell.

00:09:37.000 He's going to join the right wing of the party, and that means that McConnell is going to be more beholden to that wing of the party, which is a good thing.

00:09:44.000 It's a good thing.

00:09:44.000 And what we're seeing right now is a ground shift against the establishment.

00:09:48.000 by a lot of the new Senate Republican candidates.

00:09:50.000 So it's not just Roy Moore.

00:09:51.000 There were two big stories yesterday in the Senate for Republicans.

00:09:54.000 One was Roy Moore in Alabama, and the other was Bob Corker announcing that he would no longer run for his seat in 2018.

00:10:02.000 So Bob Corker is a very establishment figure.

00:10:04.000 Bob Corker is a squish.

00:10:05.000 He's kind of like a Lindsey Graham Republican, except not as hardcore on foreign policy.

00:10:10.000 Bob Corker was the guy who was largely responsible for the Senate allowing the awful, evil Iran deal to go through.

00:10:18.000 Bob Corker, as a Republican, did something unthinkable.

00:10:22.000 President Obama was supposed to submit the Iran deal as a treaty to the Senate.

00:10:26.000 It would then require 60 votes up or down for approval.

00:10:29.000 Actually, 66 votes.

00:10:30.000 Two-thirds of the Senate for treaties.

00:10:32.000 So it would require a huge number of votes in order for approval. 0.97

00:10:35.000 Bob Corker passed a bill in the Senate that would have forced Congress to vote 51 against in order to shut down the Iran deal, which is an asinine, asinine thing. 0.93

00:10:44.000 So Bob Corker is stepping down now. 0.69

00:10:46.000 He issued a statement.

00:10:47.000 He said,

00:10:51.000 Elizabeth and I have decided that I will leave the United States Senate when my term expires at the end of 2018.

00:10:56.000 When I ran for the Senate in 2006, I told people I couldn't imagine serving for more than two terms.

00:11:00.000 Understandably, as we have gained influence, that decision has become more difficult.

00:11:03.000 But I've always been drawn to the citizen-legislator model, and while I realize it is not for everyone, I believe with the kind of service I provide, it is the right one for me.

00:11:11.000 And so he's stepping down.

00:11:12.000 Now, a lot of people are very concerned about Corker stepping down because of the ramifications for that Senate majority.

00:11:17.000 We'll talk about that in just a second.

00:11:19.000 But first,

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00:12:19.000 Okay, so here are the ramifications for the Republican Senate.

00:12:22.000 Moore is in.

00:12:23.000 This is a thorn in the side for Mitch McConnell, which is a good thing.

00:12:26.000 Corker is out.

00:12:27.000 Now, does that put the seat in play for Democrats?

00:12:30.000 It's Tennessee.

00:12:31.000 It's Tennessee, so it's pretty rare that a Democrat wins high office in Tennessee.

00:12:35.000 You know, wins the Senate seat in Tennessee.

00:12:38.000 It's been a little while since a Democrat has been the senator in Tennessee.

00:12:42.000 In fact, I'm going to look it up right now.

00:12:43.000 I think it's been about 20 years, if I'm not mistaken, since there was a Democrat in Tennessee as a senator.

00:12:50.000 So, you know, him stepping down, I don't think actually changes things radically in the Senate.

00:12:57.000 It does provide some risks.

00:12:59.000 So yeah, the last time there was a Democrat in the Senate was 1994, because that's when Bill Frist was elected in 1994, and so was Fred Thompson.

00:13:10.000 So Gore was the last Senator from Tennessee, Al Gore, before he became Vice President under Bill Clinton.

00:13:14.000 So it's been, you know, two decades.

00:13:16.000 So I don't think that that's a seat in danger of being lost to Democrats.

00:13:20.000 Which is a good thing, because I think that it's important that if the Republican caucus is going to be more unified on issues like Obamacare, we need people who are less pro-establishment, less pro-McConnell in there.

00:13:31.000 A lot of the Tea Party candidates have been very good on this.

00:13:33.000 Mike Lee is a great example.

00:13:34.000 We're going to Utah today.

00:13:36.000 I believe Utah has the best senator in the United States in Senator Mike Lee.

00:13:40.000 He's just terrific.

00:13:41.000 So, the more of these people we get in place, the better it's going to be.

00:13:44.000 I'd like to see somebody in the Tennessee Senate who really has the capacity to stand up to Mitch McConnell when Mitch McConnell decides to be a squish.

00:13:52.000 And that is the continuation of this movement.

00:13:54.000 The biggest problem is that Trump was never a good representative of this movement.

00:13:59.000 Trump rode this movement to victory, but he was never a good anti-establishment candidate.

00:14:02.000 The man's cutting deals with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

00:14:04.000 I mean, Ann Coulter is pointing this out today.

00:14:06.000 She's pointing out that Luther Strange was running neck and neck with Roy Moore until the point where Trump made a deal with Schumer and Pelosi, at which point people said, okay, Trump doesn't even understand this movement, so what does it matter if he endorses Luther Strange?

00:14:18.000 So it's quite a fascinating dynamic and an important dynamic.

00:14:22.000 Republicans are going to have to get their act together or transform from the inside with a new set of senators who are going to be more anti-establishment and more traditionally conservative if they hope to actually be able to legislate.

00:14:33.000 Because Trump is good at one thing and one thing only, and that is starting culture wars and winning culture wars.

00:14:37.000 He's actually quite good at this.

00:14:39.000 The case in point, of course, the latest case in point, is this NFL controversy.

00:14:45.000 So if you look at the polls on the NFL controversy, Trump is winning.

00:14:49.000 There's no question Trump is winning.

00:14:51.000 So according to James Barrett over at Daily Wire, if you look at this issue specifically, this issue shows that he's doing really well.

00:15:01.000 So there's a Reuters-Ipsos poll, and the Reuters poll shows that on the NFL issue, Trump is winning dramatically.

00:15:09.000 A majority of adults agree that players should not kneel, according to Reuters-Ipsos.

00:15:16.000 They disagree that players should be fired.

00:15:18.000 So as I've been saying all along, I've been saying this all along, there's a wide consensus.

00:15:22.000 You shouldn't kneel for the anthem, you shouldn't be fired if you do.

00:15:24.000 Right, so the September 25th, 26th poll found 57% of adults do not think the NFL should fire players who kneel, but the results were split along party lines.

00:15:32.000 82% of Democrats and only 29% of Republicans agreed, disagreed with the president's comments about firing football players.

00:15:40.000 So, the firing of the football players is one issue, but the other issue is how many people think that it's good to kneel for the anthem.

00:15:50.000 85% of adults said they almost always stand in silence when the National Anthem is played in an event they are attending.

00:15:55.000 74% said they always put their hand over their heart.

00:15:57.000 58% of, I mean, this poll doesn't even make any sense.

00:16:02.000 58% of adults said professional athletes should be required to stand during the National Anthem at sporting events.

00:16:08.000 So that's pretty amazing, right?

00:16:10.000 58% say that they should actually be required, right?

00:16:12.000 So that means that they agree with Trump on that.

00:16:14.000 So they disagree that they should be fired.

00:16:16.000 They agree they should be required to stand, so it seems sort of contradictory and shows that framing and poll questions matter.

00:16:21.000 And a rising percentage of people, because of Trump, believe that it's okay for people to sit during the anthem.

00:16:27.000 40% of Americans said they support the stance that some pro football players have made not to stand during the anthem.

00:16:32.000 That's up from 28% last year.

00:16:34.000 So Trump picked a winning issue, but he's polarized it, and that's why the percentages have shifted.

00:16:38.000 So it's not actually a big victory for the right, but it is a big victory for Trump on this issue.

00:16:44.000 Now a lot of people have been trotting out the notion that Trump should have ignored this issue.

00:16:47.000 I think Trump should have ignored this issue.

00:16:48.000 I don't see the purpose of it.

00:16:49.000 It was dying out. 1.00

00:16:50.000 People thought it was unpopular and stupid. 1.00

00:16:53.000 Again, this whole thing breaks down along partisan lines in a way that it simply shouldn't. 0.99

00:16:57.000 It's one of my pet peeves now, is issues that unify the country breaking down along partisan lines.

00:17:02.000 And you can hear the White House using this as a political club.

00:17:04.000 So Trump yesterday was at a press conference, and he was asked about the kneeling.

00:17:08.000 And here's what he had to say.

00:17:08.000 I have plenty of time on my hands.

00:17:11.000 All I do is work.

00:17:12.000 And to be honest with you, that's an important function of working.

00:17:15.000 It's called respect for our country.

00:17:18.000 Many people have died.

00:17:20.000 Many, many people.

00:17:21.000 Many people are so horribly injured.

00:17:24.000 I was at World Health Organization Hospital recently, and I saw so many great young people.

00:17:30.000 And they're missing legs, and they're missing arms, and they've been so badly injured.

00:17:34.000 And they were fighting for our country.

00:17:36.000 They were fighting for our flag.

00:17:37.000 They were fighting for our national anthem.

00:17:40.000 And for people to disrespect that,

00:17:43.000 By kneeling during the playing of our national anthem, I think is disgraceful.

00:17:48.000 Right.

00:17:48.000 He's going to win that battle every single time, right?

00:17:50.000 That talking point is one that he's going to win every single time.

00:17:52.000 But it is a partisan talking point, right?

00:17:54.000 It's become a partisan talking point instead of a unifying talking point.

00:17:59.000 You can see that from Steve Bannon, my former boss over at Breitbart and former White House chief strategist, now back at Breitbart.

00:18:04.000 Bannon was on with Sean Hannity the other night.

00:18:07.000 And here is Steve Bannon explaining why this is now a partisan issue.

00:18:11.000 I mean, this is pretty wild.

00:18:13.000 About taking a knee for the national anthem, I said in this speech tonight, if people in this country take a knee and the National Football League players want to take a knee, they should take a knee at night.

00:18:22.000 Every night.

00:18:23.000 And thank God in heaven Donald J. Trump is President of the United States.

00:18:26.000 He has saved this country so much grief.

00:18:29.000 He has done such a tremendous job, with virtually no help.

00:18:32.000 And that's what I meant when I said that.

00:18:33.000 I stepped out to make sure that Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment starts to have a Republican back.

00:18:39.000 Because you know what?

00:18:40.000 Mitch McConnell wouldn't be Majority Leader if Donald Trump didn't drag a half a dozen senators across the goal line in November. 0.55

00:18:48.000 There are so many things here that are false.

00:18:50.000 First, the notion that Trump dragged senators over the finish line is 100% false.

00:18:55.000 Senators dragged Trump over the finish line, if anything.

00:18:57.000 Senators across the country outperformed Trump.

00:19:00.000 But beyond that, the idea that NFL players, you want to polarize this along political lines?

00:19:04.000 What Trump is doing is actually more unifying than what Bannon is doing here, right?

00:19:07.000 Trump is actually saying that we should stand with all of the people who have lost limbs for our country, and Bannon is saying that these players should kneel before Trump.

00:19:15.000 He's literally doing the kneel before Zod routine.

00:19:17.000 He's doing Terrence Stamp.

00:19:18.000 Kneel before Zod!

00:19:20.000 You think they're really going to take that well?

00:19:23.000 This is the game, right?

00:19:24.000 This is the game.

00:19:24.000 You overreach a little bit, and then you overreach a little bit more, and the other side reacts, and then you play this game where everyone is divided on an issue where we all should be united.

00:19:33.000 And what's happened is because it's become a partisan political issue, and because it's become divided, people who are not staunch enough in their language condemning people who kneel for the anthem, they're now considered squishes.

00:19:43.000 So even if you say that you think the players shouldn't kneel for the anthem, but they have the right to do so if they want to, it's America.

00:19:49.000 If you say that, but you aren't condemnatory enough of the people who kneel for the anthem, you're now considered a squish.

00:19:54.000 So, Steve Bannon is considered hardcore, but Paul Ryan is a squish.

00:19:57.000 Here's Paul Ryan being squishy.

00:19:59.000 People are clearly within their rights to express themselves how they see fit.

00:20:03.000 My own view, though, is we shouldn't do it on the anthem.

00:20:06.000 The national anthem, our flag, and the people who defend it and represent it, that should be celebrated everywhere and always, and that's my opinion.

00:20:14.000 Okay, so, you know, that, but he's not considered hardcore enough because Bannon's super hardcore, right?

00:20:18.000 Bannon doesn't want people kneeling, and they should kneel if they're gonna kneel to Trump.

00:20:22.000 They should kneel before him.

00:20:23.000 So how do you think Democrats are gonna respond? 1.00

00:20:25.000 Well, they're gonna respond in the stupidest possible way, because we've seen all week long, it's just a vortex of dumb. 0.99

00:20:30.000 So, Sheila Jackson Lee, the radical left congressperson from, I believe she's from Texas, here she is kneeling on the floor of the United States Congress yesterday in solidarity with the people who are protesting Trump. 1.00

00:20:45.000 You tell me which of those children's mothers are a son of a bee. 1.00

00:20:49.000 That is racism.

00:20:50.000 You cannot deny it.

00:20:52.000 You cannot run for it.

00:20:53.000 And I kneel in honor of them.

00:21:00.000 And on this floor, I kneel in honor of the First Amendment.

00:21:04.000 I kneel because the flag is a symbol for freedom.

00:21:07.000 I kneel because I'm going to stand against racism.

00:21:11.000 I kneel because I will stand with those young men, and I'll stand with our soldiers, and I'll stand with America.

00:21:18.000 So I'm confused why kneeling is standing with our flag and our soldiers when you're kneeling in front of the flag.

00:21:23.000 That's slightly confusing.

00:21:24.000 I think that confuses most Americans. 1.00

00:21:26.000 Only Democrats would be dumb enough to fall directly into this trap. 1.00

00:21:29.000 They could just stand there. 1.00

00:21:30.000 And you know what they could have done?

00:21:31.000 What they could have done is they could have saluted the flag, right, to protest Trump.

00:21:35.000 They could have said, President Trump doesn't even understand what the flag stands for.

00:21:38.000 Let's all stand and sing together the national anthem.

00:21:40.000 Can you imagine the impact of that? 0.99

00:21:42.000 They could have seized the symbol back from Trump, but they're dumb, so they don't do that. 1.00

00:21:45.000 And then it gets even dumber. 1.00

00:21:46.000 Okay, so over at Georgetown, a bunch of professors are now kneeling. 0.94

00:21:49.000 So Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, we'll get to him later.

00:21:52.000 He did a great speech at Georgetown yesterday about freedom of speech on college campuses.

00:21:56.000 Look at this picture of all the, look at this video of all the Georgetown professors kneeling. 1.00

00:22:01.000 So stupid, man. 1.00

00:22:02.000 So dumb. 1.00

00:22:14.000 And now they're all kneeling. 1.00

00:22:15.000 Oh, happy day.

00:22:16.000 Defend free speech, denounce Sessions.

00:22:20.000 Pretty incredible.

00:22:22.000 I mean, if they think that's a big win for them, they're just out of their minds. 1.00

00:22:26.000 They're just so stupid. 1.00

00:22:27.000 And it continues along these lines. 1.00

00:22:29.000 The Democrats can't help themselves.

00:22:30.000 They can't help themselves. 1.00

00:22:32.000 They can't react in a smart fashion, so they pick the dumbest fashion they can react, and then they do it ten times as dumb as that. 1.00

00:22:37.000 It's just unbelievable to me. 0.99

00:22:39.000 It's unbelievable how bad people are at politics. 0.99

00:22:41.000 But before I show you even more video of stupid people, first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Dollar Shave Club. 0.99

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00:23:06.000 I mean, at the store you have to shop around for all this stuff individually and run around the store, and then it's more expensive, and you can't tell the difference between any of the products.

00:23:15.000 The clerk doesn't know the difference between any of the products.

00:23:17.000 Well, the Dollar Shave Club makes it easy and convenient for you to upgrade your shave and your bathroom, and they deliver it right to your door.

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00:23:31.000 If you're like me and you're sick of the nonsense at the store, now's the time to try out Dollar Shave Club.

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00:24:24.000 Use that slash ben so they know that we sent you.

00:24:26.000 Okay, so... 0.99

00:24:28.000 If you thought the Democrats hadn't gone far enough by universally kneeling for the anthem like a bunch of morons, Hillary Clinton is now saying that she hopes that Trump hasn't ordered the killing of journalists. 0.99

00:24:37.000 So I'm old enough to remember when Donald Trump was the conspiratorial one. 1.00

00:24:40.000 Now we have this crazy old loon bat running around talking about how she hopes that Trump isn't murdering journalists. 1.00

00:24:49.000 Okay, so I'm one of the people who was saying for years, people would say things like that. 0.91

00:24:54.000 When I was on Joe Rogan's show, Joe Rogan would say, do you think that Hillary Clinton had, the Clintons had lots of people killed?

00:24:58.000 And I would say, no, I don't think the Clintons had lots of people killed.

00:25:00.000 I think Bill Clinton could even pull out his schlong and hide it properly, right?

00:25:04.000 So no, I don't think that they had lots of people killed and somehow got away with it.

00:25:07.000 But Hillary Clinton is now doing the same routine to Trump. 1.00

00:25:10.000 She's saying maybe Trump is ordering the killing of journalists behind closed doors.

00:25:13.000 Ooh, he's nefarious.

00:25:14.000 Because if we know one thing about Trump, it's that he's secretive and clever. 1.00

00:25:18.000 If you are the stupidest person on earth, you believe this. 1.00

00:25:20.000 Here's Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:25:22.000 I think he's not a Democrat little d. No, he's not. 0.81

00:25:25.000 He's a top-down guy.

00:25:26.000 He's an authoritarian.

00:25:28.000 He has tendencies toward authoritarianism.

00:25:30.000 So he's no different than Putin.

00:25:32.000 Well, you know, hopefully he hasn't ordered the killing of people and journalists and the like.

00:25:36.000 I mean, hopefully.

00:25:38.000 He might have, but, you know.

00:25:41.000 Again, every time I see Hillary Clinton, I feel compelled to comment on her sartorial choices. 0.98

00:25:46.000 She got this one from Violet Beauregard, this particular outfit.

00:25:49.000 And by the end of the episode, she actually turned into a large blueberry and she had to be taken into the back room by the Oompa Loompas and squeezed.

00:25:55.000 But in any case, the Democrats continue to just overreact and trip over their own feet.

00:26:01.000 What I'm telling you on the show today, folks, is the world doesn't revolve around Trump.

00:26:05.000 That Senate race in Alabama didn't revolve around Trump.

00:26:07.000 Bob Corker stepping down doesn't revolve around Trump.

00:26:10.000 The NFL stuff, it shouldn't revolve around Trump.

00:26:12.000 It should be an issue of unity.

00:26:13.000 Instead, it revolves around Trump.

00:26:14.000 By shifting the polarity of politics from actual issues and policies and political differences to Donald Trump, all we're doing is confusing issues because it makes no sense.

00:26:24.000 Trump isn't consistent.

00:26:25.000 He doesn't have a consistent stance on any of these issues.

00:26:28.000 He sort of just says things off the top of his head.

00:26:30.000 So if you're reacting to Trump, you're reacting to the whirlwind.

00:26:34.000 You're trying to tack Jell-O to the wall.

00:26:37.000 So good luck with all of that.

00:26:39.000 Meanwhile, the media, still obsessed with Trump, are trying to demonstrate that Trump is the bad guy in all of this.

00:26:44.000 I'll explain why they say Trump is the bad guy in all of this in just a second, but first...

00:26:48.000 Yeah.

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00:27:57.000 We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:28:06.000 So in their efforts to take down Trump, because all that matters now is Trump.

00:28:10.000 Trump is the only thing that matters in politics.

00:28:13.000 Now, the media have decided that Puerto Rico is Trump's Katrina.

00:28:16.000 So we never had Obama's Katrina, right? 0.50

00:28:17.000 No matter what, Obama always just did a wonderful job.

00:28:21.000 But now we're going to have Trump's Katrina in Puerto Rico. 0.99

00:28:23.000 It doesn't matter that FEMA is apparently doing a good job.

00:28:25.000 All that matters is that Trump, obviously, is not focused enough.

00:28:28.000 I hate this stuff.

00:28:29.000 Okay, again, I think the president's job should be to go sit in the back room and sign papers.

00:28:33.000 I don't think that it should be the job of the president to go out and talk about every issue under the sun.

00:28:37.000 I object to that logic.

00:28:38.000 But here is the media universally saying, this is Trump's Katrina.

00:28:41.000 This is the new talking point you're going to hear this weekend.

00:28:44.000 It's not the presidential leadership we've come to suspect.

00:28:47.000 And part of the question we've got to confront is, is Maria Donald Trump's Katrina?

00:28:53.000 Sure, Michael.

00:28:53.000 What do you see?

00:28:54.000 Do you see the president focused as much as he needs to be in Puerto Rico?

00:28:57.000 No, you know, I don't.

00:28:59.000 And originally being from New Orleans, I had a lot of family members that were actually impacted by Katrina.

00:29:04.000 And under the ordinary set of circumstances, I would probably say this would be the quote-unquote Katrina moment for Trump.

00:29:12.000 But unfortunately, I'm not certain there's much of anything that would push his base against him.

00:29:18.000 And we should be hearing more about that than we're

00:29:21.000 Is this Katrina?

00:29:23.000 It could turn into Katrina or something worse.

00:29:27.000 We need to spend less time on putting out tweets and more time in addressing this humanitarian crisis because this is going to turn to be

00:29:41.000 Mr. Trump's Katrina.

00:29:56.000 And the local authorities wouldn't let Bush in, and then Bush got blamed for it.

00:29:59.000 So it wasn't even Bush's Katrina, but now this is gonna be Trump's Katrina.

00:30:02.000 This is their new talking point, because all they care about is Trump.

00:30:05.000 What is amazing to me, what I do love, is that yesterday, I think it was Don Lemon on CNN, whose show I enjoy doing, Don Lemon on CNN actually did this routine where somebody asked him at one point about President Trump and Puerto Rico, and he said, well, President Trump keeps talking about the NFL, so, you know, how are we supposed to cover Puerto Rico?

00:30:23.000 I say, well, do you not have agency?

00:30:26.000 Do you not have the capacity to, I don't know, ignore stupid commentary about the NFL and instead focus on the humanitarian crisis currently taking place in Puerto Rico, where, by the way, everybody's an American citizen? 0.97

00:30:36.000 I mean, is that weird? 0.99

00:30:38.000 Like, why can't you just cover it like normal people?

00:30:44.000 But again, the universe now revolves around the orange-haired man.

00:30:48.000 So that's what we all have to deal with now.

00:30:50.000 So much so that in response, no one cares whether good policy is being made.

00:30:55.000 All that matters is that Trump is being stopped.

00:30:56.000 So Jimmy Kimmel was out there last night celebrating that he had stopped this new Obamacare repeal effort and suggesting that he was the moving force behind it.

00:31:04.000 Right, it was Jimmy Kimmel who convinced John McCain not to vote for it.

00:31:07.000 It wasn't John McCain being John McCain.

00:31:09.000 It was that he watched Jimmy Kimmel's show the other night.

00:31:12.000 But you know what, it would be easy for me to dismiss this as some kind of right-wing hysteria, but he does have a point.

00:31:17.000 I'd like to make a confession tonight.

00:31:20.000 I think I need to come clean.

00:31:21.000 Here's what happened.

00:31:23.000 So my wife and I were worried about health care.

00:31:25.000 We didn't like what the Republicans were doing, so we decided to have a baby with congenital heart defects.

00:31:31.000 Okay?

00:31:32.000 And then once we had that going for us, I went on TV, I spoke out,

00:31:37.000 And we may have stopped Cassidy Grimm.

00:31:39.000 I still can't believe we pulled it off, but we did.

00:31:42.000 It's amazing, isn't it?

00:31:59.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things I hate, and then a little bit of Bible talk.

00:32:02.000 So, things I like.

00:32:04.000 There's a book that I'm in the middle of by Alistair McIntyre, who's a professor over at Notre Dame, called After Virtue.

00:32:10.000 It is an excellent study of why it is that it seems like more Americans are having these sort of pitched political battles these days without any common language.

00:32:21.000 And he traces that back to Enlightenment thinking, where he says that it used to be that we had common frames of reference for things like

00:32:27.000 What human beings' aspirations were, and those frames of reference have now been left behind, and so we have these varying definitions of what is good for human beings, and so we can't even have decent political conversations because we're not starting from the same premises.

00:32:39.000 It's a very good book.

00:32:40.000 Alistair MacIntyre, after Virgie, a little bit hard in terms of a read.

00:32:45.000 Pretty sophisticated, but well worth it if you can slog your way through it.

00:32:48.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:32:49.000 So, thank you to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who yesterday spoke at Georgetown, and he was talking about

00:32:54.000 In advance, the school offered counseling.

00:32:56.000 In advance of this speech, they offered counseling to any students or faculty whose sense of safety or belonging was threatened by a speech.

00:33:18.000 From Ben Shapiro, a 33-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer who has frequently been targeted by anti-Semites for his Jewish faith and who vigorously condemns hate speech from the left or the right.

00:33:37.000 Well, in the end, Mr. Shapiro spoke to a packed house, and to my knowledge, no one fainted, no one was unsafe, no one needed counseling, I hope.

00:33:51.000 Okay, thank you, Attorney General Sessions, for getting that exactly right.

00:33:54.000 And that's a pretty cool thing, so thank you, again, Attorney General.

00:33:57.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:33:58.000 So my good friend Dana Perino now has a show on Fox News, which I'm very excited about.

00:34:01.000 Her show, I believe that that's beginning on Monday.

00:34:05.000 It's 11 a.m.

00:34:06.000 Pacific time, 2 p.m.

00:34:07.000 Eastern.

00:34:08.000 It's called The Briefing, and Dana's just terrific.

00:34:10.000 So if you haven't had a chance, go and check out her show on Monday.

00:34:13.000 Well, you haven't had a chance, it's not on yet, but check it out on Monday when it premieres, because I'm sure that it'll be just great.

00:34:18.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:34:25.000 So I have to show you this incredible, wonderful tweet from MTV News.

00:34:30.000 It's just astonishingly wonderful.

00:34:32.000 So they're tweeting out about Kylie Jenner being pregnant.

00:34:34.000 So it says, Kylie Jenner is reportedly pregnant with a baby.

00:34:39.000 Okay, so there are a few things that I find just hysterically funny about this particular tweet.

00:34:45.000 First of all, MTV News, where, you know, they use, like, the rainbow flag as their actual logo at MTV News, so you can see where they are coming from politically.

00:34:54.000 What was she supposed to be pregnant with? 0.78

00:34:56.000 Like, an alien?

00:34:57.000 Was it gonna be, like, John Hurt?

00:34:58.000 Like, Kylie Jenner was gonna get pregnant and then she's just gonna be sitting back there and... 1.00

00:35:02.000 Like, what exactly is that supposed to mean?

00:35:04.000 Of course she's pregnant with a baby. 1.00

00:35:05.000 But I love that when celebrities are pregnant with babies, they're babies. 1.00

00:35:08.000 When non-celebrities are pregnant or have an abortion, then it wasn't a baby at all.

00:35:12.000 It was a magical, mystical clump of cells that meant nothing.

00:35:15.000 So that's pretty great.

00:35:16.000 I also love the level of disbelief here.

00:35:19.000 Kylie Jenner is reportedly pregnant with a baby.

00:35:22.000 My God!

00:35:23.000 These are the same people who have no problem whatsoever saying Caitlyn Jenner's a woman.

00:35:27.000 So I find it significantly less shocking that a biological woman like Kylie Jenner was capable of getting pregnant than Caitlyn Jenner being a woman because Caitlyn Jenner's not a woman. 0.96

00:35:35.000 So, good job MTV News, you suck at everything, and that is really funny. 0.98

00:35:40.000 Okay, other things that I hate. 0.95

00:35:42.000 So, I have to read you this letter.

00:35:43.000 There's a guy named Ian Decker, who's some sort of weirdo over at University of Utah with Students for a Democratic Society.

00:35:51.000 He is also with Black Lives Matter Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah Movimiento Estudiantil Chicante Atlan.

00:36:01.000 And here is what he writes in the Salt Lake Tribune.

00:36:05.000 He writes, We have no shame in saying we intend to shut down Ben Shapiro.

00:36:10.000 Great.

00:36:11.000 This is not a decision we came to based on youthful emotions or out of some desire for the world to be one big safe space.

00:36:16.000 This decision was arrived at based on a real, material understanding of the political environment of Utah and the material effects of an emboldened far right.

00:36:24.000 Woo-hoo-hoo! 1.00

00:36:26.000 I'm scary.

00:36:27.000 Says, as an example, Utah is already a state with a homelessness and suicide crisis amongst LGBTQ youth.

00:36:33.000 Okay, that's true of virtually every state and place on earth.

00:36:37.000 Okay, LGBTQ youth have a disproportionate homelessness and suicide rate.

00:36:42.000 That is not all due to discrimination. 0.98

00:36:43.000 Says, Ben Shapiro has openly called transgender people mentally ill. 1.00

00:36:47.000 Yes, because they suffer from a mental illness. 0.99

00:36:49.000 Gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, whatever you'd like to call it. 0.89

00:36:52.000 He portrays the gay rights movement as a conspiracy to root out God-based institutions.

00:36:57.000 Well, no, I portray the militant gay rights movement that suggests that you're able to come into my synagogue and tell me what to do, or into my business and tell me what to do, as a conspiracy to root out God-based institutions, because that's what you're doing. 0.93

00:37:09.000 That's not even a conspiracy.

00:37:10.000 That's just what you're doing.

00:37:11.000 You're openly saying it.

00:37:12.000 And he says, he has recently defended conversion therapy, which is nothing short of abuse.

00:37:16.000 This one confused me.

00:37:17.000 I wasn't aware that I had defended conversion therapy.

00:37:19.000 You guys, it says recently.

00:37:21.000 Have I done that recently?

00:37:22.000 I remember doing that because I don't think conversion therapy works, so that's kind of weird.

00:37:28.000 I've defended the right of parents to utilize conversion therapy in terms of, like, have their kid see a psychiatrist, because I think that parents should be allowed to do whatever they see fit in terms of the mental and physical health of their child.

00:37:42.000 But that's not the same thing as saying that I think conversion therapy is effective.

00:37:45.000 I don't see the evidence that it's effective.

00:37:47.000 He says, these are all positions he has stated in naked terms in articles he has written himself.

00:37:51.000 Then why don't you quote me?

00:37:52.000 He says, to pretend that Shapiro does not spew racist and transphobic pseudoscience with the desire to justify and encourage violence is idealistic, ahistorical, and wrong.

00:38:00.000 Desire?

00:38:01.000 Why is he attributing desire to justify and encourage violence?

00:38:04.000 Where does that come from?

00:38:05.000 Can you name a line where I've ever encouraged violence at all?

00:38:09.000 At all?

00:38:10.000 Like, a line?

00:38:11.000 Like, again, these people just make things up out of thin air, and then accuse me of being a purveyor of pseudoscience. 0.92

00:38:18.000 Also, again, I think that the pseudoscience is that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, not that Caitlyn Jenner is suffering from a mental disorder.

00:38:25.000 It seems to me like that one's pretty clear-cut.

00:38:27.000 It says, we intend on shutting down Ben Shapiro precisely because we don't live in a fantasy world where hate speech has no consequences.

00:38:32.000 We believe his hate speech can and will have a material consequence for vulnerable people.

00:38:37.000 Well, if it's not violent, then have at it, gang. 0.98

00:38:53.000 Like, if it's not violent, and you're not interfering with my free speech rights, go outside and yell and scream as much as you want, make asses of yourself. 0.99

00:38:59.000 I mean, I don't care. 1.00

00:38:59.000 It makes you guys look stupid. 1.00

00:39:00.000 Enjoy. 1.00

00:39:01.000 Like, whatever.

00:39:03.000 That's the First Amendment.

00:39:04.000 I like it. 0.99

00:39:04.000 But, if you are going to get violent, or if you're going to invade the place where I'm speaking tonight and try and shut down the speech, then the police should quickly and easily arrest you because you're a bunch of fools who don't understand what the First Amendment is for. 0.99

00:39:16.000 Okay, so, before we part on this day, I will do a quick Bible talk here. 0.98

00:39:21.000 So,

00:39:22.000 Coming up on Saturday is Yom Kippur. 0.79

00:39:25.000 Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and it is the day of atonement. 1.00

00:39:29.000 So Jews fast and pray for 25 hours. 0.68

00:39:32.000 It's a pretty difficult day, I mean, to be frank with you.

00:39:34.000 You start fasting at like 6.30 at night.

00:39:37.000 You don't stop fasting until 7.30.

00:39:38.000 The next night, you're basically in the synagogue the entire day praying and fasting and fasting and praying.

00:39:43.000 And in Judaism, when you fast, you fast.

00:39:45.000 I mean, there's no food and there is no water.

00:39:46.000 So it is a full-on fast, and it's actually the second fast

00:39:50.000 That's inside of a week.

00:39:51.000 So on Sunday we fasted also for a fast day called Psalm Gedalia about the destruction of Jerusalem.

00:39:56.000 So two times in a week we haven't eaten.

00:39:57.000 So it's a great weight loss program.

00:39:59.000 But it is also, but Yom Kippur does bring up one specific question.

00:40:04.000 And that is, what is this notion about God changing his mind?

00:40:07.000 There's this idea by Yom Kippur, or for prayer in general, that if you pray, then God, who is immovable, unchanging, the unmoved mover,

00:40:18.000 What does that mean?

00:40:26.000 What does that mean?

00:40:27.000 Well, I think the answer lies in the idea that the prayer is not changing God.

00:40:30.000 The prayer isn't changing yourself.

00:40:31.000 It's about acknowledging God's mastery of the universe and acknowledging that you have to change in accordance with God's will.

00:40:36.000 Like, my child, I treat her with fairness every day because I love her, right?

00:40:41.000 But if she's bad, she gets a different consequence than if she is good.

00:40:45.000 And if she changes her own behavior, then she gets a different consequence. 0.99

00:40:48.000 Is that me changing?

00:40:49.000 Is it me changing my mind?

00:40:50.000 No, I'm perfectly consistent all the way through.

00:40:52.000 It's my child that's changing.

00:40:54.000 We have the same relationship with God.

00:40:55.000 So what does prayer do?

00:40:56.000 Why have these systemic prayers?

00:40:58.000 If you go to any Orthodox community, there are these prayers.

00:41:01.000 It's like a full prayer book, 700 pages of written out prayers, some of which people can't really understand because it's in ancient Hebrew, and you have to read the translation.

00:41:09.000 So what's the purpose of formalized prayer like this?

00:41:12.000 And what's the purpose of prayer in general?

00:41:16.000 The idea here is that there's two things that you need to be fulfilled in life.

00:41:21.000 There are two things that make you fulfilled in life, in terms of psychology.

00:41:25.000 One is what we call habit, and one is what we call flow.

00:41:28.000 So flow is this concept where the happiest you ever are in life, according to many psychologists, one whose name I can't pronounce, Mikhail Tselzheny or something like that, he basically says,

00:41:41.000 Thank you.

00:42:02.000 Right?

00:42:03.000 Through acting, making good habits for yourself.

00:42:06.000 That's what prayer is supposed to do.

00:42:07.000 It's why Jews like me pray three times a day.

00:42:09.000 Because it's supposed to become a habit.

00:42:10.000 It's supposed to become part of your background noise of your existence.

00:42:13.000 That you don't even have to think about it anymore.

00:42:15.000 You just frequently talk to God.

00:42:17.000 Right?

00:42:17.000 That's just something that you do.

00:42:18.000 And then, once you have the expertise in doing it, because we repeat the same prayers every day, then you can invest it with your own creative powers.

00:42:25.000 So it's not enough to say, okay, we're going to pray and start from scratch, make up your own prayers.

00:42:28.000 You're supposed to use the formalized prayers as a conduit for conveying the thoughts that you want to convey to God, because now you have the habit of praying, and you also have the expertise and the mastery of this particular set of prayers, so that you can use them to creatively express your emotions to God.

00:42:42.000 That's the purpose of prayer, and it's all about changing you, not about changing God, because God is unchangeable.

00:42:46.000 But you are changeable, and in fact it is your task on this earth to change yourself in a better direction.

00:42:51.000 And people who believe that, people who really believe that it's their job to change themselves instead of changing the world, changing society, changing God.

00:42:58.000 If you believe that your task is to change yourself so you can live a better life, you'll live a happier life than if you're constantly at war with the wind like King Lear on the moors.

00:43:07.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow and I will explain you everything that happens at University of Utah tonight.

00:43:12.000 I'll see you then.

00:43:13.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 27, 2017

That Giant Republican Sucking Sound | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 390

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