The Ben Shapiro Show


The Coming Apocalypse Nobody Cares About | Ep. 554


Summary

There's a story nobody is talking about, but we will talk about it. Plus, we'll talk about President Obama lying repeatedly to the American public, and President Trump's most patriotic event ever in history of humanity. This is a special Father's Day Live Stream featuring Andrew Klavan, Michael Mulls, and Ben Shapiro on June 12th, 7 PM ET. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code "UPLEVEL" to receive 50% off your first set of sheets from Bullenbrand! Thanks to our sponsor, B.O.L.B. & Branch, for making great bedding and pillows, and for sponsoring this special live stream. Go over there and check it out for the special deal, 50 bucks off your First Set of Sheets! Ben Shapiro is a writer and host of the podcast "The Ben Shapiro Show" and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard and the conservative newsletter "The Weekly Standard". He's also a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Weekly Standard, and many other publications, including Playboy, The Huffington Post, National Post, and The Daily Beast. His latest book is out now: "The Dark Side of America: A Guide to the Most Patriotic Man in the White House." See linktr.ee/BenShapiro on Amazon Prime Video Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices and become a supporter of the show by becoming a patron of The Ben Shapiro's new podcast, "Ben Shapiro's Unfilteredream" Subscribe on Audible Subscribe on Podcoin Learn more than you'll get a chance to win a FREE 7-day shipping plan, unlimited access to all of Ben's newest book, "The Best Thing I've Ever Seen Of Ben's New Book, "Mr. Shapiro's Most Patriarchy of the Most patriotic Event Ever Made Me Say That's Great Podcast Epidemic." Subscribe on VaynerSpeaker and much more! You'll get access to Ben's latest book "The Most patriotic Day" and more than $100 in the world's Best Podcasts, including a free 6-day VIP membership plan! and a $50 discount on his new T-shirt deal, "I'll be getting an ad-free VIP membership offer, plus a free 5-day ad-only shipping offer, and a special discount on Ben Shapiro will also be available on his next episode on his website!


Transcript

00:00:00.000 There's a story nobody is talking about, but we will talk about it.
00:00:03.000 Plus, we'll talk about President Obama lying repeatedly to the American public and President Trump's most patriotic event ever in history of humanity.
00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:12.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:18.000 So many exciting things happening in the world, and we'll get to all of those things.
00:00:21.000 But first, I want to make an announcement.
00:00:23.000 This Father's Day, we are having a special live stream.
00:00:26.000 This Tuesday, June 12th, 7 p.m.
00:00:28.000 Eastern, God King Jeremy Boring of The Daily Wire will host a roundtable discussion with me, Andrew Klavan, and Michael Mulls, and we will discuss
00:00:35.000 All the elements of fatherhood, because all of us are fathers except for Knowles, and we can hope that never happens, because my God, think of his children.
00:00:41.000 But again, that's this Tuesday.
00:00:43.000 Subscribers will be able to ask us questions live.
00:00:46.000 If you subscribe, that means you can ask us a question at DailyWire.com, and if you're not a subscriber, then you can just tune in to Facebook or YouTube and watch us all hang out, and everyone else will smoke cigars, and I will laugh at them as they die of lung cancer.
00:00:56.000 So check that out, Tuesday, June 12th, 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific at DailyWire.com.
00:01:01.000 Also,
00:01:01.000 I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Bowl and Branch.
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00:02:09.000 Okay, so the big story of the day is actually courtesy of the Obama administration.
00:02:14.000 So we've been hearing non-stop.
00:02:15.000 from the media that President Trump is the worst liar in history.
00:02:19.000 His administration just lies and lies and lies and lies.
00:02:22.000 And we here on the Ben Shapiro show have called balls and strikes when President Trump says something that I don't think is true.
00:02:28.000 I will tell you that I think that he said something that is not true and I will hammer him if I think that he did something wrong.
00:02:33.000 I'm happy to do that because he's the president of the United States and it is our job to call the president of the United States when he does something wrong.
00:02:39.000 But
00:02:40.000 One of the things that conservatives find so incredibly galling about the media coverage of President Trump is that the media are so eager to use the word lie about President Trump in every possible context, but they will refrain in every possible context from using the word lie about President Obama, and they did for years.
00:02:55.000 Well, it turns out today, a stunning report from the Associated Press, the Obama administration, shock of shocks, was lying to the American people for years on end about helping out the Iranian mullahs.
00:03:06.000 So when we talk about President Trump lying, when the media talk about it, usually what they are talking about is President Trump is fibbing about his inauguration crowd, or President Trump is fibbing about a note that he wrote about Donald Trump Jr.
00:03:16.000 in a Trump Tower meeting, something like that.
00:03:18.000 Something that really has very little to do with governance per se.
00:03:21.000 President Obama lied about key areas of American governance in a way that President Trump never has.
00:03:26.000 President Obama lied repeatedly about Obamacare.
00:03:28.000 He said, if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor.
00:03:31.000 That was a complete lie, and he kept lying about it over and over and over.
00:03:34.000 And what's hilarious is that the media covered for him at the time.
00:03:37.000 I believe it was PolitiFact that originally said that that statement was half true.
00:03:41.000 And then three years later, when it turns out that it was a lie all along, they called it their lie of the year, which is just incredible and demonstrates how biased all of these sources are.
00:03:49.000 President Obama lied repeatedly about his treatment of illegal immigration.
00:03:53.000 He said 22 times he did not have the executive authority
00:03:57.000 We're good to go!
00:04:26.000 They lied repeatedly.
00:04:28.000 They lied when it came to the IRS.
00:04:29.000 The Obama administration lied on issues of serious national policy.
00:04:34.000 Trump lies because that's what Trump does about silly things on a lot of issues, right?
00:04:38.000 Trump will fib, for example, about the Philadelphia Eagles kneeling for the national anthem.
00:04:42.000 And I'll smack him on it, as I did on yesterday's show.
00:04:44.000 But, typically the stuff that Trump lies about
00:04:47.000 It tends to be rather small potatoes when you compare it to the actual central policy ramifications of the stuff that President Obama lied about.
00:04:53.000 Today's story from the Associated Press is the most obvious example.
00:04:57.000 So, according to the Associated Press, the Obama administration attempted to end around its own sanctions in order to give cash to the worst terror sponsor on the planet.
00:05:05.000 So while the Obama administration was pitching the Iran deal, while they were suggesting the Iran deal was going to be some sort of great savior of the moderates inside Iran, and at the same time saying that Iran was not pursuing terrorism,
00:05:16.000 They had sanctions in place.
00:05:18.000 But the Obama administration was attempting to end around those sanctions, and they were lying to the American people about it at the time.
00:05:24.000 According to the AP, quote, The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that under President Barack Obama, the Treasury Department issued a license in February 2016, never previously disclosed, that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials into euros.
00:05:41.000 By exchanging them first into U.S.
00:05:42.000 dollars.
00:05:43.000 If the Omani bank had allowed the exchange without such a license, it would have violated sanctions that bar Iran from transactions that touch the U.S.
00:05:49.000 financial system.
00:05:49.000 So in other words, Iran, in order to use its capital, has to transform it into Omani rials.
00:05:56.000 These are very difficult to then transfer into American dollars, unless there's a waiver.
00:06:00.000 And President Obama was secretly pursuing just that sort of waiver.
00:06:03.000 So basically what happened is that the Obama administration went to a bunch of American banks and tried to get American banks to go along with violations of American sanctions, to issue them a waiver.
00:06:14.000 And these banks said, no.
00:06:15.000 The banks said, listen, we don't want to be caught up in the middle of this.
00:06:16.000 We're not going to run money for Iran on your behalf.
00:06:20.000 Only the fact that U.S.
00:06:21.000 banks did not want to violate American law prevented Iran from getting its hands on $5.7 billion more in American dollars.
00:06:28.000 Senator Rob Portman from Ohio, he says, quote,
00:06:35.000 So at the same time that Obama was pursuing this Iranian deal, which was a garbage deal from the very beginning, they were lying to the American people saying the sanctions were fully in force and that they had no intention of becoming money launderers essentially for the Iranian regime at the very time they were attempting essentially money laundering for the Iranian regime.
00:06:50.000 The Obama administration repeatedly lied over and over again about their supposed unwillingness to allow Iran access to the U.S.
00:06:56.000 financial system.
00:06:57.000 Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew even testified before Congress to that effect, which could amount to perjury.
00:07:02.000 So, what does Team Obama have to say about the fact that they were trying to help out Iran so Iran could avoid sanctions passed by the United States Congress, held globally?
00:07:11.000 What was Obama saying at the time?
00:07:12.000 Well, they were saying that they weren't doing it, and now what are they saying?
00:07:15.000 Unnamed Obama officials, according to the EAP, said they were acting, quote,
00:07:21.000 So they weren't acting in line with the letter of the law, they were acting in line with the spirit of the deal, which is apparently to give away the store and bend over backwards for the worst terror regime on the planet.
00:07:28.000 They said the lies were justified because they were attempting to debunk arguments that Team Obama wanted to give even more concessions to the Iranians.
00:07:35.000 So in other words, people were saying, you're bending over backward from Iran for Iran.
00:07:38.000 And so Team Obama lied about bending over backward for Iran to prove that they weren't bending over backward for Iran.
00:07:44.000 Yeah, well done guys.
00:07:45.000 It's somewhat like arguing that Bill Clinton didn't lie about sex with Monica Lewinsky, he just wanted to debunk rumors that he had sex with an intern.
00:07:51.000 And it turns out the Obama administration activity on behalf of Iran went even further.
00:07:56.000 In March 2016, this is all according to the AP, okay?
00:07:58.000 It's not a right-wing news source.
00:07:59.000 According to the Associated Press, in March 2016, Obama officials, including the exorable Secretary of State John Kerry, quote, fanned out across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, trying to convince banks and businesses they could do business with Iran without violating sanctions and facing steep fines.
00:08:15.000 So the Iranians were complaining, listen, you guys want us to sign a deal with you, and we have signed a deal with you, but we're not seeing the benefits of this deal, so why don't you go out there and act as our PR agents?
00:08:23.000 And Team Obama said, sure, let's do it.
00:08:25.000 Let's go out there.
00:08:26.000 Let's be Iran's friends.
00:08:27.000 We'll go out there.
00:08:28.000 We will be their foreign ministry.
00:08:30.000 And so the Obama administration was the foreign ministry for the Iranian government.
00:08:34.000 They talk about collusion with Russia by the Trump administration, the same Trump administration that has killed some hundreds of Russians in Syria, the same Trump administration that has armed Ukrainian resistance with lethal weaponry.
00:08:45.000 They talk about Trump collusion with Russia.
00:08:46.000 They don't talk about collusion.
00:08:48.000 The Obama administration was covertly playing foreign ministry for the worst terror regime on planet Earth.
00:08:55.000 That was covertly pursuing nuclear weapons, as it turns out.
00:08:57.000 There's another story in a second that I'm going to tell you.
00:08:59.000 The AP continues.
00:09:01.000 The same week, the AP reported that the Treasury had prepared a draft of a license that would have given Iran much broader permission to convert its assets from foreign currencies into easier-to-spend currencies like euros, yen, or rupees by first exchanging them for dollars at offshore financial institutions.
00:09:15.000 The draft involved a general license, a blanket go-ahead that allows all transactions of a certain type, rather than a specific license like the one given to Oman's bank Muscat,
00:09:23.000 Which only covers specific transactions and institutions.
00:09:26.000 The proposal would have allowed dollars to be used in currency exchanges provided that no Iranian banks, no Iranian rials, and no sanctioned Iranian individuals or businesses were involved, and that the transaction did not begin or end in U.S.
00:09:37.000 dollars.
00:09:37.000 In other words, they're going to cover this up as far as it could possibly go, but it was the American government helping out the Iranian government.
00:09:42.000 Obama administration officials at the time assured concerned lawmakers that a general license would not be coming.
00:09:48.000 But the report from the Republican members of the Senate panel showed that a draft of the license was indeed prepared, though it was never published.
00:09:54.000 So in other words, they were pursuing it at the same time they were lying and saying they weren't pursuing it.
00:09:58.000 When questioned by lawmakers about the possibility of granting Iran any kind of access to the U.S.
00:10:02.000 financial system, Obama-era officials never volunteered that the specific license for Bank Muscat in Oman had been issued two months earlier.
00:10:09.000 So they lied about this.
00:10:10.000 I mean, this is perjurious stuff.
00:10:12.000 This is criminal stuff.
00:10:13.000 And yet the Obama administration?
00:10:15.000 We were told that they were honest, they were clean as the driven snow.
00:10:19.000 Just absolutely pure.
00:10:20.000 And by the way, this is the second deal this week demonstrating that Team Obama lied to Americans about the Iran deal.
00:10:25.000 That Iran deal that Obama treasured so dearly.
00:10:26.000 President Obama believed that Iran should become a regional power, and by granting it more power, it would moderate Iran.
00:10:31.000 An insane proposal, but tied into President Obama's misconceptions about the nature of Shia Islam and the Muslim world in particular.
00:10:40.000 And so, here is the second story that is a serious problem for the Obama administration, if anyone cared, in the media.
00:10:47.000 On Tuesday, and by the way, I should mention, of course, the AP is reporting this, so it's not everybody in the media ignoring this, but why is it that the media were so happy to go along with all of these lies for eight long years, and only two years after Obama leaves office we find out about this?
00:11:00.000 Well, on Tuesday, the Iranian government announced they'd completed a new centrifuge assembly at their Natanz facility.
00:11:05.000 That's just a month after President Trump killed the Iran nuclear deal, which is sort of suspicious.
00:11:09.000 Since we were assured that the Iranians had dismantled all of their nuclear capacities.
00:11:13.000 That the Iranians were going to dismantle those nuclear capacities for the next 10 years.
00:11:17.000 And they weren't going to be able to reconstitute their nuclear program so quickly.
00:11:20.000 So here's how the Obama fanboys of the New York Times reported this odd development, quote, While Iran said it would keep enrichment within limits set by the 2015 nuclear accord, the center's opening seemed to signal that it could swing to industrial-level enrichment if that agreement, which the United States withdrew from last month, should further unravel.
00:11:37.000 Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran stopped enriching uranium to the 20% limit that would allow for rapid development of a nuclear weapon and agreed to a limit of under 5%.
00:11:44.000 It will adhere to that limit, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said in a speech on Monday.
00:11:50.000 Yes, surely the mullahs, who have been lying for literally decades about this stuff, would not have lied to the Obama administration.
00:11:55.000 I do love how the New York Times tries to twist this into, well, it's really Trump's fault.
00:11:59.000 If Trump hadn't pulled out of the Iran deal, they wouldn't have fired up those centrifuge facilities again.
00:12:03.000 The real question is, why is it that in a month they were able to redevelop their centrifuges?
00:12:07.000 I thought these had been dismantled.
00:12:09.000 I was assured that the Iranians would not simply snap back to a nuclear program the minute the seal was over by President Obama.
00:12:15.000 I remember him saying it.
00:12:16.000 And yet, it seems like that's exactly what happened.
00:12:18.000 That's not the extent of the lies.
00:12:19.000 There are more lies than that.
00:12:21.000 First, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Burroughs.
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00:13:29.000 OK, so the extent of the Obama administration's lies on Iran are pretty extraordinary.
00:13:33.000 Of course, their biggest lie about the Iran deal is that the Iran deal was pursued because there was an opening in negotiations.
00:13:38.000 You remember that Ben Rhodes?
00:13:39.000 Remember that guy who was basically sitting there in stunned silence during the Trump election?
00:13:45.000 And it was hilarious and wonderful.
00:13:46.000 Remember that guy?
00:13:47.000 Well, that guy spent most of the Obama administration publicly lying about Iran, saying that Iran had now moderated, there was a new Iranian regime in place that was eager to reach out to the American people and make a deal with the world.
00:13:58.000 That was all a lie.
00:14:00.000 He went around bragging to the New Yorker magazine that he had created an echo chamber strategy to anybody who would listen.
00:14:06.000 That he had used people like Jeffrey Goldberg, the new editor over at The Atlantic, who I believe was a pawn and a lackey for the Obama administration.
00:14:14.000 Rhodes basically suggested the same thing.
00:14:16.000 Rhodes said that we were lying to everybody about what was going on with the Iran deal.
00:14:19.000 They went ahead and did it anyway.
00:14:21.000 And this is why so many people on the right are so fed up with the media suddenly getting harsh with President Trump.
00:14:27.000 Now listen, I wish the media were just as hard on President Obama as they've been on President Trump.
00:14:31.000 I think the solution
00:14:32.000 To the media.
00:14:54.000 Is there a media double standard?
00:14:55.000 Absolutely.
00:14:56.000 Abso-freaking-lutely there is a media double standard when it comes to the Obama administration versus the Trump administration.
00:15:02.000 And this latest spate of stories regarding Iran is the most obvious example of this.
00:15:06.000 I mean, it is just stunning.
00:15:07.000 It truly is stunning.
00:15:09.000 Remember, Obama was lying to the American people over and over again.
00:15:13.000 The word lied was never used with President Obama with regard to anything.
00:15:16.000 Go back and look.
00:15:17.000 The media never said that Obama lied about things.
00:15:19.000 They said that maybe he made a mistake, or maybe he exaggerated.
00:15:22.000 I mean, even this AP report, this really, really damning AP report, at the very beginning of the report, they try to soft-pedal the nature of the report itself.
00:15:30.000 It's really quite astonishing.
00:15:31.000 At the very beginning of the report, here is what the AP actually says.
00:15:35.000 So the report begins with these words.
00:15:37.000 The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access, albeit briefly, to the U.S.
00:15:42.000 financial system by sidestepping sanctions set in place after the 2015 nuclear deal.
00:15:47.000 I love those two words, albeit briefly.
00:15:49.000 Just wonderful.
00:15:50.000 Albeit briefly.
00:15:51.000 Can you imagine them saying that about Trump?
00:15:53.000 Trump fibbed, albeit briefly.
00:15:55.000 They would never use that kind of language with regard to President Trump because this is how the media treat Democrats versus how they treat Republicans.
00:16:00.000 Obama gets to run around saying he had a clean administration when he absolutely did not.
00:16:04.000 Now, speaking of this sort of stupidity, last night, Stephen Colbert had on Bill Clinton.
00:16:09.000 Now, as you'll recall, Bill Clinton is the worst.
00:16:12.000 So Bill Clinton is not only a human being who has sexually harassed half of the women in the United States, he's just as bad about women as any allegations about Trump ever have been.
00:16:22.000 Bill Clinton, some of the allegations are worse.
00:16:24.000 I mean, there are allegations of rape, a credible allegation of rape against him by Juanita Broderick.
00:16:28.000 Bill Clinton went on NBC's Today Show and then he got all mad at the interviewer yesterday.
00:16:32.000 We pointed this out.
00:16:34.000 He got very upset with the interviewer and started waving his bony finger at the guy and saying, how dare you ask me these questions?
00:16:39.000 I apologize to the entire American people.
00:16:42.000 Well now, Stephen Colbert is asking Bill Clinton about all of this.
00:16:46.000 But, Stephen Colbert, remember a guy who said that President Trump had been used by Vladimir Putin as his bleep holster, as his genital holster.
00:16:54.000 You remember, he said this on national TV.
00:16:56.000 I guess that Stephen Colbert's idea of a strong interview is to act as precisely that for Bill Clinton.
00:17:02.000 I noticed she didn't enjoy that entire interview.
00:17:19.000 I want you to enjoy this one, but I do want to ask you something, which is, when I got home last night, on the CNN, they had a lower third banner that said something about William Clinton's tone-deaf response to the question from the Today Show.
00:17:35.000 My question is, would you like a do-over
00:17:38.000 Okay, why don't you just stick your hand up his ass and use his face as a meat puppet?
00:17:55.000 I mean, as long as you're going to just feed him the answer, you may as well just be a full ventriloquist.
00:18:00.000 Like, Stephen Colbert could have done an interview with Stephen Colbert dressed as Bill Clinton with that question.
00:18:04.000 I mean, that's as bad as any leading question that was asked by anybody during the election cycle on Fox News to Donald Trump.
00:18:10.000 Okay, that leading question is astonishing.
00:18:12.000 The last part of that question, do you understand why some people thought that was a tone-deaf response to his question on the MeToo movement?
00:18:17.000 Here's the part where he feeds in the answer, I love it.
00:18:19.000 And how might you reflect on your behavior 20 years ago?
00:18:21.000 And how that reflection may change based on what you've learned from the MeToo movement?
00:18:25.000 Why don't you just give him the answer?
00:18:26.000 Why bother asking the question?
00:18:28.000 Would you like a do-over?
00:18:29.000 Imagine that Donald Trump were to come on the show right now, and Stephen Colbert, and Donald Trump just did an interview about the sexual harassment allegations, and he'd gotten really grumpy about it, and Stephen Colbert, you think Colbert would lead off with, you know, Mr. President, would you like a do-over?
00:18:42.000 Would you like to reflect on how the MeToo movement has changed your perspective on these things over the years?
00:18:46.000 Or do you think that Colbert would have said, you know, Mr. President,
00:18:49.000 Looks like you weren't too happy with that sexual harassment question.
00:18:52.000 Maybe because you sexually harassed people.
00:18:54.000 Don't you think that's what Colbert probably would have said to lead off that interview?
00:18:57.000 And then, of course, here's Bill Clinton's answer, because he gets thrown a softball right over the middle of the plate, and he hits about a single.
00:19:02.000 I mean, he barely clears the second baseman's head.
00:19:05.000 It wasn't my finest hour, but the important thing is that was a very painful thing that happened 20 years ago, and
00:19:17.000 I apologize to my family, to Monica once again, her family, to the American people.
00:19:23.000 I meant it then, I meant it now.
00:19:24.000 I've had to live with the consequences every day since.
00:19:28.000 And I still believe this Me Too movement is long overdue, necessary, and should be supported.
00:19:35.000 Okay, so now he believes in the MeToo movement.
00:19:37.000 Yeah, I love that.
00:19:38.000 He comes back and he actually spouts Colbert's direct answer back at Colbert.
00:19:41.000 Yes, great interviewing skills.
00:19:43.000 And then you wonder why people on the right aren't willing to watch Stephen Colbert.
00:19:47.000 Why people on the right are looking at people like Colbert and saying, this is endemic to the media.
00:19:52.000 You wonder why we don't take the media seriously?
00:19:55.000 President Trump, when he says fake news, I've said this a thousand times, I'll say it again, when President Trump says fake news and people resonate to that, it's not because they're just blindly following President Trump.
00:20:04.000 They're doing that because they didn't like the media in the first place.
00:20:06.000 They figured the media was lying to them because the media does lie to them.
00:20:09.000 The media plays defense for Democrats on a regular basis all the time.
00:20:14.000 And then we are supposed to believe them when suddenly they turn on one politician in particular?
00:20:18.000 At the very least, we're going to say it's disproportionate.
00:20:20.000 As I said yesterday, the same media who are complaining about coverage of Hillary Clinton's health issues was spending the last week suggesting that maybe Melania Trump had been abducted and anally probed by aliens or something.
00:20:31.000 These are the same people.
00:20:33.000 It really is quite amazing.
00:20:34.000 Okay, so in just a second, I want to get to more fallout from the disinvitation to the White House by President Trump of the Philadelphia Eagles, and President Trump holding a rather hilarious event, a patriotic event, on the lawn at the White House to compensate.
00:20:47.000 We'll get into all of it.
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00:22:12.000 Alright, so, President Trump, in the most bizarre and strangely hilarious and yet dispiriting controversy of the week, this would be President Trump's decision to disinvite the Philadelphia Eagles.
00:22:27.000 So, the White House has an alternative story as to why President Trump disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles.
00:22:32.000 So the going story is that the Eagles weren't going to show up with enough players, Trump got mad and he cancelled it.
00:22:36.000 The White House story is that the Eagles were basically jacking them around, that it was a setup.
00:22:40.000 I've been hearing this from a lot of conservatives.
00:22:41.000 I just want to say this.
00:22:43.000 If you think that President Trump is constantly being set up by people, there's a way for him to avoid the setup, and that is to just not fall for it.
00:22:51.000 I'm getting kind of tired of the constant excuse-making.
00:22:54.000 Trump makes a mistake, and then it's, well, he was set up to make that mistake.
00:22:57.000 OK, guess what every test you ever had in school was set up to do?
00:23:00.000 It was set up to test you.
00:23:02.000 Yes, it's true.
00:23:03.000 President Obama's political opponents, President Trump's political opponents, rather, test him on a regular basis.
00:23:07.000 The question is how well you handle those tests.
00:23:09.000 So, I'm not saying the Philadelphia Eagles are pro-Trump.
00:23:12.000 They're not.
00:23:12.000 The owner, Jeffrey Luria, is a wildly left guy.
00:23:15.000 But, President Trump could have handled this better, no question.
00:23:18.000 But here is Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggesting that the Eagles were planning a political stunt.
00:23:22.000 Now, I will explain in a second what exactly the White House should have done about it.
00:23:25.000 Look, if this wasn't a political stunt by the Eagles franchise, then they wouldn't have planned to attend the event and then backed out at the last minute.
00:23:33.000 And if it wasn't a political stunt, then they wouldn't have attempted to reschedule the visit when they knew that the president was going to be overseas.
00:23:40.000 And if this wasn't a political stunt, they wouldn't have waited until Monday, well after a thousand of their fans had traveled and taken time out of their schedules
00:23:49.000 Okay, so apparently, so the idea here is that they had originally said they were going to bring 100 people, and then they said they were only going to bring like 10 people, and then at the very end it was only like Nick Folk, who is the quarterback for the team.
00:24:03.000 Fine!
00:24:04.000 Fine!
00:24:04.000 So Trump should have hosted Nick Folk, on behalf of your team, and the media would have made fun of it, and then he should have said, listen,
00:24:11.000 I understand if people don't want to visit the White House, that's their prerogative.
00:24:14.000 Again, there was a member of the Boston Bruins back in 2012 who didn't visit the White House.
00:24:18.000 The media ripped him up and down.
00:24:19.000 I mean, speaking of media bias, the media ripped that player up and down.
00:24:22.000 Tim Thomas, who was the goalie for the Boston Bruins, they said, how dare he not visit the White House?
00:24:26.000 It just demonstrates what a bad faith guy he is.
00:24:28.000 Now the entire Eagles team doesn't really want to visit and the media is like, fine, but
00:24:32.000 How should the White House have handled it?
00:24:33.000 What they should have done is they should have said, listen, the White House is always open to any of these players who want to visit.
00:24:37.000 And if they don't want to visit, you know, that's really them missing out because the White House is an amazing place and we would really love to see them here.
00:24:44.000 But, you know, we can have our political differences.
00:24:46.000 I just wish they didn't extend to the sporting world.
00:24:48.000 Right?
00:24:48.000 Being gracious is not the end of the world.
00:24:50.000 And listen, again, I understand.
00:24:51.000 President Trump is a hammer in search of a nail, and he's constantly hammering, and he's constantly kicking back.
00:24:55.000 I get it.
00:24:56.000 I get that's his tendency.
00:24:57.000 I don't think he is well-served in this particular case.
00:24:59.000 So here is how Trump responded.
00:25:01.000 So President Trump responded by saying, you know what?
00:25:03.000 We won't have the Eagles.
00:25:04.000 We'll cancel the Eagles, but we'll have a patriotic event, a deeply patriotic event, at which we'll get the Marine Corps band out here to play God Bless America.
00:25:12.000 And I will talk about how much we respect our flag.
00:25:15.000 The problem I have with this, of course, is that
00:25:16.000 A lot of the Eagles aren't showing up because they don't like Trump personally and don't like his politics, not necessarily because of the kneeling for the national anthem controversy at all.
00:25:24.000 Trump, as I said yesterday, lied when he said that Philadelphia Eagles members were kneeling for the anthem.
00:25:29.000 Not one Philadelphia Eagles member kneeled the entire year for the national anthem.
00:25:32.000 But here was President Trump yesterday doing his event, saying that he respects the flag.
00:25:36.000 The suggestion, of course, being that his political opponents do not respect the flag.
00:25:39.000 I don't like this.
00:25:41.000 If you want to say Colin Kaepernick doesn't respect the flag, agree.
00:25:43.000 If you want to say that
00:25:44.000 You know, every member of the Eagles who didn't show up doesn't respect the flag.
00:25:47.000 I don't think President Trump is the flag.
00:25:49.000 I don't think that this administration is the flag.
00:25:51.000 I hated when President Obama did the same thing.
00:25:53.000 If you disagreed with him, you were disagreeing with America.
00:25:56.000 I hate that crap.
00:25:56.000 It's just nonsense.
00:25:57.000 Here was President Trump doing it yesterday with respect to the flag.
00:26:01.000 We love our country.
00:26:02.000 We respect our flag.
00:26:04.000 And we always proudly stand for the National Anthem.
00:26:07.000 We always will stand for the National Anthem.
00:26:11.000 So about a thousand people showed up.
00:26:12.000 A lot of these people were White House staffers and White House interns.
00:26:15.000 There were some Philadelphia Eagles fans who showed up as well.
00:26:18.000 But, you know, the fact that Trump felt the need to do this, this kind of thumb in the eye.
00:26:22.000 Listen, I understand a lot of people who are Trump supporters like this sort of thing.
00:26:24.000 They like that he's fighting the culture war.
00:26:26.000 I think it's divisive.
00:26:27.000 I think that it's useless.
00:26:28.000 I think it's counterproductive.
00:26:29.000 And then, of course, it leads to awkward moments like this.
00:26:31.000 So if the idea was to avoid an awkward moment, such as Trump's there just with the quarterback of the Super Bowl winning team, then
00:26:38.000 You could avoid, then you shouldn't have awkward moments like this where Trump is standing there and he's got the Marine Corps choir standing next to him flanking him and singing God Bless America and then it appears he doesn't know the words.
00:26:49.000 God bless America, land that I love.
00:26:56.000 Stand beside her and guide her through the night with
00:27:04.000 Okay, is it like a big deal that he doesn't know the words?
00:27:05.000 No.
00:27:06.000 We had the same in controversy when he visited a football game.
00:27:10.000 It was a college football national championship, and he supposedly didn't know the words to the Star Spangled Banner and all the rest of it.
00:27:15.000 Is it a big deal?
00:27:16.000 No, it's not a big deal.
00:27:17.000 It's just, I don't like this kind of showmanship.
00:27:19.000 This is not what the presidency is for.
00:27:20.000 It is not an imperial office.
00:27:22.000 It is not a place where you summon people to meet you, and they are required to meet you.
00:27:25.000 It is not a place where if you don't come to meet the president, then he gets to bring out the Marine Corps band and imply you're not a patriot.
00:27:30.000 I just, I find this sort of stuff distasteful.
00:27:33.000 And you should put the shoe on the other foot if you disagree.
00:27:35.000 If you think it would have been good if Hillary Clinton had, like, did you like it when President Obama shined the rainbow flag on the White House?
00:27:41.000 I thought that was utterly obnoxious.
00:27:42.000 I thought the idea that you're using the people's house to push your own personal politics, suggesting that all of America endorses your view of same-sex marriage, it was gross.
00:27:53.000 It was counterproductive, and it increased the cultural divides.
00:27:56.000 That's why President Trump was elected, because of those cultural divides.
00:27:58.000 Well, by the same token, even if I agree with President Trump's message about patriotism, I don't like the use of patriotism as a club to wield against political enemies, particularly when I don't agree with the idea that everyone who refuses to visit the White House is unpatriotic.
00:28:11.000 Maybe they just don't like President Trump.
00:28:12.000 Just as Tim Thomas was a patriot, maybe he just didn't like President Obama.
00:28:16.000 All of these things are quite possible.
00:28:18.000 Now, with that said, do I think that it's foolish that all these athletes keep saying they're not going to visit the White House?
00:28:22.000 I do think it's foolish.
00:28:24.000 I understand that, listen, they have their prerogative.
00:28:26.000 That's fine.
00:28:27.000 You know, they don't have to.
00:28:29.000 I would like to hear their specific beefs with President Trump as their excuse for doing this.
00:28:33.000 But now, President Trump has basically gotten into a culture war.
00:28:36.000 He thinks he can win.
00:28:37.000 Both sides think they're winning this culture war.
00:28:38.000 In the end, only the American people lose.
00:28:40.000 So President Trump thinks that he's winning when he's fighting the NFL and the NBA, because in one sense, he is.
00:28:44.000 Most people agree with him about kneeling for the national anthem.
00:28:48.000 Most people agree with him about patriotism being a part of our sporting heritage.
00:28:52.000 Most people agree with all of that stuff.
00:28:54.000 And so he thinks he's winning.
00:28:55.000 On the other side, people on the left think they're winning because they think whenever they get in a culture war with President Trump, what they are doing is winning people over to their side because President Trump is personally unpopular.
00:29:04.000 So in just a second, I'm going to show you how the NBA and the NFL, how all these people are responding to President Trump in an attempt to win more leftist fans.
00:29:11.000 I'll explain that in just a second.
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00:30:16.000 Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit more about the NFL, plus the story that nobody actually wants to talk about, but probably is the biggest story of the year.
00:30:41.000 Decade, maybe?
00:30:42.000 We'll talk about that in just a second.
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00:31:01.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is now available alongside our other Daily Wire podcast at Amazon Alexa and the Google Home device, so your home can be filled with my voice at all times of the day.
00:31:11.000 A frightening prospect, I would think, but maybe you're into it.
00:31:13.000 With Alexa, you have to enable the skill.
00:31:15.000 It's like adding an app.
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00:31:40.000 Now, the reason that you should subscribe, the reason you should listen, is so we can also bring you awesome Sunday specials.
00:31:44.000 So last Sunday we had Joe Rogan.
00:31:46.000 This Sunday, coming up, we have Jonah Goldberg, who stopped by to talk about his new book.
00:31:50.000 Jonah, of course, is the author of the best-selling book, The Suicide of the West, and we got into a lot of deep talk, so check it out.
00:31:56.000 Here's what it's going to be.
00:31:58.000 Hi, I'm Jonah Goldberg and I'm here on the set with the Ben Shapiro Sunday Special and tune into this Sunday for a pretty interesting conversation where we talk about almost all of the important things in the universe.
00:32:11.000 It was a lot of fun and we kept the nudity tasteful and integral to the plot.
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00:32:17.000 It is a great episode.
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00:32:41.000 So the NFL controversy, of course, has bled over to the NBA, where a bunch of players hate President Trump with a passion, and they are looking for an excuse to make a headline about how much they dislike President Trump.
00:32:49.000 So LeBron James has decided to comment.
00:32:51.000 Now, LeBron has a long history of disliking President Trump.
00:32:54.000 He said that President Trump had revivified rage in the country and hate in the country and all this stuff.
00:32:57.000 Here is LeBron James saying that if we win the NBA Finals, we will not go to the White House.
00:33:02.000 And then Steph Curry says the same thing.
00:33:03.000 I mean, I know no matter who wins this series, no one's
00:33:07.000 No one wants to invite anyway so it won't be Golden State or Cleveland going.
00:33:11.000 We have a lot of freedom in our country and guys, men or female, have the right to do what they want to do, you know, in a very respectful manner and I think if they decided they don't want to go then
00:33:29.000 They have the right.
00:33:30.000 So I obviously agree with LeBron James.
00:33:31.000 You have the right not to go to the White House.
00:33:33.000 Choosing not to go to the White House, you know, that's your problem.
00:33:35.000 I didn't have a problem when Tim Thomas did it with the Boston Bruins.
00:33:38.000 I find this whole controversy very off-putting and silly.
00:33:41.000 I think it's a waste of time.
00:33:42.000 Seth Curry said the same thing.
00:33:43.000 So for all those people saying, well, LeBron's never going to go to the White House anyway because he's going to get swept.
00:33:47.000 That's true.
00:33:48.000 But Seth Curry is saying the same thing.
00:33:50.000 I don't think, I think I agree with Bron.
00:33:53.000 I'm pretty sure the way we handled things last year,
00:34:05.000 Okay, again, I can't really disagree with the idea that people have a prerogative not to go to the White House.
00:34:16.000 I think the best way for Trump to have handled this was, as president, just to say, listen, now I'm the president, we're not gonna do all of this showmanship, we're not gonna do all this reality TV stuff.
00:34:25.000 I know Trump would probably be not a guy to embrace that particularly.
00:34:28.000 That particularly muted line, but I still think that that's the way the presidency ought to operate.
00:34:33.000 The presidency is not a showpiece.
00:34:34.000 The presidency is not a place for photo ops.
00:34:37.000 The presidency is not a place where you spend all your days meeting celebrities and handing each other jerseys.
00:34:42.000 I hate this stuff.
00:34:42.000 I've hated it since the Obama administration, and I continue to hate it today.
00:34:46.000 Now, meanwhile, the President of the United States is preparing for his big meetup in Singapore with North Korea, and apparently Dennis Rodman is going to show up.
00:34:56.000 No, I'm not actually kidding about this.
00:34:57.000 Apparently, he is Kim Jong-un's dear friend, and sources tell the New York Post that not only will Dennis Rodman be in Singapore at the time of the meeting, but he could take part in the negotiations.
00:35:06.000 One source told The Post, So Rodman, of course, has visited North Korea some five times.
00:35:21.000 And he believes that he was responsible for the North Korean's dictator understanding Trump in April.
00:35:25.000 He told TMZ that he gave Kim Jong-un a copy of Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, for the dictator's birthday in 2017.
00:35:30.000 He said, quote, I think Kim didn't realize who Trump was at that time, I guess, until he started to read the book and started to get to understand him.
00:35:37.000 Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are pretty much the same.
00:35:40.000 Well, that's not good.
00:35:41.000 I don't think that's true, number one.
00:35:42.000 And number two, if you have to use Dennis Rodman as your ambassador of goodwill, if you're trying not to look—like, you better come away with something material.
00:35:49.000 Here's all I'm going to say about this North Korean summit.
00:35:52.000 You better come away with something real.
00:35:54.000 If you go in, and you have no plan, and all that comes out of it is a second summit at Mar-a-Lago, where Kim Jong-un comes to the United States.
00:36:01.000 First of all, I think that if Kim Jong-un comes to the United States, we ought to strangle him.
00:36:04.000 He's the worst dictator on planet Earth.
00:36:06.000 I think the first opportunity we have to assassinate him and the leadership of his regime, we should.
00:36:11.000 I'm not in agreement with the Carter administration policy that we can't kill foreign officials.
00:36:15.000 It seems to me that people who are keeping millions of people in a giant gulag slave state probably deserve to die.
00:36:20.000 Kim Jong-un has killed enough of his own family members to know exactly what I mean.
00:36:23.000 So I'm not a big fan of this whole thing.
00:36:26.000 Unless you actually have a real plan.
00:36:28.000 Unless you actually have a serious plan.
00:36:30.000 I'm not getting the idea that they have a really serious plan, but maybe I'm wrong.
00:36:34.000 Maybe Kim Jong-un actually wants to come to the table, but it better be worth it because otherwise it's just going to be a bunch of photo ops.
00:36:39.000 You know, President Trump doesn't like bad photo ops.
00:36:40.000 It's just going to be a bunch of photo ops of Dennis Rodman alongside Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un and people mocking that from here until the end of time if they don't come away with anything material here.
00:36:50.000 It's legitimately like the equivalent of Ronald Reagan bringing Mark the Bird Fidrich to negotiations with Gorbachev.
00:36:57.000 If this is important enough, I'm not sure that it ought to be a photo op for Dennis Rodman.
00:37:01.000 Rodman added modestly, I don't want to take all the credit.
00:37:03.000 I don't want to sit there and say, I did this, I did that.
00:37:04.000 That's not my intention.
00:37:05.000 My intention was to go over and be a sports ambassador in North Korea so people understand how the people are in North Korea.
00:37:10.000 I think that has resonated to this whole point right now.
00:37:14.000 But in 2017, when Rodman visited North Korea, he was asked about the detention of four Americans in North Korea.
00:37:19.000 He said he wasn't going to mention it.
00:37:20.000 He said, that's not my purpose right now.
00:37:21.000 My purpose is to go over there and try to see if I can keep bringing sports to North Korea.
00:37:26.000 So will something come of this?
00:37:28.000 Maybe, maybe not.
00:37:29.000 Color me skeptical.
00:37:30.000 I've always been skeptical of the idea that we got together with the North Koreans in the first place.
00:37:34.000 This seems like a low level diplomacy issue.
00:37:37.000 I've never thought that summits themselves are a diplomatic win.
00:37:40.000 I think diplomatic wins are a diplomatic win.
00:37:42.000 I don't think that meeting with Hassan Rouhani by John Kerry is a useful thing.
00:37:46.000 I don't think that the Donald Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un is inherently a useful thing.
00:37:50.000 I don't think meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev were inherently useful unless something good came out of those meetings in the first place.
00:37:55.000 The difference is that at least you could say that Gorbachev was the leader of a world power with nuclear weapons who was threatening the entire security of the world.
00:38:02.000 And so the meeting was a meeting between two superpowers.
00:38:05.000 You can't say the same thing about this, which obviously grants additional legitimacy to the Kim regime in North Korea.
00:38:12.000 So, granting the sort of legitimacy I find a little bit off-putting.
00:38:16.000 Now, meanwhile, we are hearing some rumors that perhaps there will be an agenda here.
00:38:20.000 Perhaps the Trump administration knows what they're doing.
00:38:22.000 I'm willing to withhold judgment because we don't know what they're doing quite yet, but apparently...
00:38:27.000 Well, the idea here is they're looking for some sort of timeline on disarmament.
00:38:30.000 That's the idea, is that there will be a timeline on disarmament.
00:38:33.000 General Mattis, Secretary of Defense, is not going to this.
00:38:36.000 John Bolton apparently is going to this.
00:38:39.000 And they are also looking forward to the possibility, as I say, of a second summit.
00:38:43.000 The White House wants Kim to commit to a timetable.
00:38:46.000 And I guess that they're looking for the possibility of a second summit at Mar-a-Lago.
00:38:51.000 Committing Kim to a disarmament timetable is not useful unless there are significant
00:38:55.000 Okay, so now, I've been promising it all show, the most important story of the day.
00:39:10.000 Okay, and the story that the media will largely ignore.
00:39:12.000 Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Medicare will become insolvent in 2026.
00:39:16.000 Okay, it is currently 2018.
00:39:18.000 That means in eight years, Medicare will not be able to pay for itself.
00:39:22.000 It's not able to pay for itself right now.
00:39:23.000 It's already running in the red.
00:39:24.000 Social Security is going to follow in 2034.
00:39:26.000 So within 15 years, we are going to see Social Security essentially go bankrupt.
00:39:31.000 Now, it's a government program, which means it can't go bankrupt.
00:39:33.000 It means instead, they're going to have to radically raise taxes or radically reduce benefits.
00:39:37.000 Medicare and Social Security, along with Medicaid, do represent a majority of the federal budget every year.
00:39:42.000 So when you hear about, oh, we're spending so much money, it's waste, fraud and abuse.
00:39:45.000 It's all waste, fraud and abuse.
00:39:46.000 This was Trump's line.
00:39:47.000 It was also the line of the left during the last administration that, you know, the way to cut spending was to look at waste, fraud and abuse.
00:39:53.000 But we can never.
00:39:54.000 Never restructure our key entitlement programs.
00:39:57.000 Those are what are driving our debt.
00:39:58.000 Those are what are driving our deficit.
00:40:00.000 Medicare and Social Security, as with Medicaid, represent a majority of the federal budget every year, and they are mandatory spending.
00:40:06.000 Okay, that means you can't change them unless you actively go and change the law.
00:40:10.000 Even in a government shutdown, people get their social security checks.
00:40:12.000 And social security has been running a negative cash flow for years.
00:40:15.000 If we were actually to take into account the amount of unfunded liability we have in Medicare and social security, some estimates say that our national debt is not $20 trillion, it is $90 trillion.
00:40:27.000 90.
00:40:27.000 Because we are not taxing to the necessity necessary to pay for all of this stuff.
00:40:31.000 My grandmother was paying like 50 bucks into social security 40 years ago, 50 years ago.
00:40:35.000 Now she's taking out thousands of dollars.
00:40:37.000 That's not because they invested in the stock market.
00:40:39.000 That's because they're taxing me thousands of dollars for my grandmother.
00:40:42.000 If I want to help out grandma, that's my responsibility.
00:40:45.000 But it shouldn't be my responsibility to help out your grandma.
00:40:48.000 One of the things that Social Security has done is that it has shifted the burden of responsibility from individuals and families to the government.
00:40:54.000 There's actually been a net negative.
00:40:56.000 It's meant that people feel less necessity to take care of their parents, they figure the government is going to do it, and really the government isn't doing it because the government doesn't have its own money supply.
00:41:04.000 The government is just taxing my kids in order to pay for their great-grandmother, and not just their great-grandmother, somebody else's great-grandmother as well.
00:41:11.000 The original ratio with regard to social security, like the number of people who are taking out of social security, compared to the number of people paying in, it was like one person's social security taxes were paying for 12 to 15 people.
00:41:23.000 Today it is two.
00:41:24.000 Your social security taxes are paying for two people.
00:41:26.000 Soon it will be one.
00:41:27.000 Soon it will be a direct monetary transfer from my kids to old people, to old baby boomers, who, by the way, are the wealthiest cohort in the United States.
00:41:35.000 As you get older, you get richer.
00:41:36.000 So you're taxing people who are poor to pay for people who are rich.
00:41:39.000 It is actually a regressive policy.
00:41:41.000 As you get older, you have more money, you have more assets, you have a house, you've been earning for 50 years.
00:41:45.000 And yet the idea is you're going to tax people who are not yet born in order to pay for all of this.
00:41:49.000 And yet politicians of both parties are unwilling to look this right in the face.
00:41:52.000 The only politician who really talks about entitlement reform over the last several decades has been Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, but he's basically been shellacked for it.
00:42:00.000 Donald Trump ran promising not to touch entitlements, and so he has not.
00:42:04.000 Republicans are in control right now if they do nothing about entitlements.
00:42:08.000 That is a giant fail on the part of Republicans because we're going to feel the brunt of this.
00:42:11.000 And then it will come down to Democrats saying, do you want to raise taxes?
00:42:15.000 And Republicans saying, do you want to cut benefits?
00:42:17.000 The estimate is that if we do not actually raise taxes dramatically, then when the Social Security fund goes insolvent, when Medicare goes insolvent, you're going to have to cut benefits by 20 percent.
00:42:27.000 My feeling to that is, okay, well I guess that's the way it's going to have to be.
00:42:30.000 Because I don't see why my kids should be put behind the economic 8-ball so that my parents won't have to get as much money out of Social Security.
00:42:37.000 I just don't see why that should be.
00:42:40.000 I'll pay for my parents.
00:42:40.000 That's my responsibility.
00:42:41.000 And my parents will pay for themselves.
00:42:42.000 That's their responsibility.
00:42:44.000 So again, there are a few solutions here.
00:42:46.000 We could increase the payroll tax right now from whatever it is, 11.7% to something like 14 or 15%, or we'll have to cut cost of living adjustments, or we might have to confiscate cash from people.
00:42:56.000 You know, people who paid into Social Security, but they're more wealthy, they just won't get anything out of Social Security.
00:43:00.000 Or we could raise the retirement age, which is really what we ought to do, right?
00:43:02.000 We ought to raise the retirement age, because the reality is that retirement, I don't think, is actually particularly good for people.
00:43:08.000 And retiring at 65 made sense in an era when the average age of death was 63.
00:43:12.000 It doesn't make a lot of sense in a day when the average age of death in the United States is now over 80 for women and just about 80 for men.
00:43:19.000 That's 15 years that Social Security is supposed to pay for you.
00:43:21.000 Delaying retirement and moving the retirement age up seems like it would make more sense than all this, but we're not going to focus on any of these problems.
00:43:28.000 We're just going to fight useless, stupid culture wars because that's what we do now.
00:43:32.000 That's what we are more involved with.
00:43:34.000 But this is what we should be paying attention to.
00:43:36.000 If the government was designed for anything, it's to solve problems exactly like this.
00:43:40.000 And yet, because of the gridlock in our system, which is usually a good thing, in this case it's a bad thing, it means that we're probably going to do nothing, kick the can down the road until that can ends up exploding in our face.
00:43:50.000 Okay, time for some things that I like and then some things that I hate.
00:43:53.000 So, things that I like.
00:43:55.000 I just, I had to laugh at this.
00:43:57.000 So, nature is red in tooth and claw, as the saying goes, and this is obvious.
00:44:02.000 So this family decided that, you can see the small kids, they decided that they were going to raise a caterpillar into a butterfly.
00:44:09.000 So they fed the caterpillar.
00:44:11.000 It's like the hungry caterpillar.
00:44:12.000 They fed the caterpillar, and they let it spin its cocoon, and then it turned into a butterfly, and finally they were ready to release it into the wild.
00:44:19.000 And then something unexpected happened.
00:44:26.000 Okay, if you can't see it, they released the butterfly.
00:44:29.000 The butterfly took about three flaps of its wings, and the family dog ate the thing.
00:44:34.000 Boom.
00:44:34.000 Just ate it right up.
00:44:36.000 I tweeted out that this basically was the narrative of the 2016 election, that the media fed Hillary Clinton, and they bathed Hillary Clinton, and they wove a cocoon for Hillary Clinton, and they ensured that Hillary Clinton would never be challenged, and then just as she began to spread her wings,
00:44:50.000 Along galumphed the family dog, Donald Trump, and ate Hillary Clinton.
00:44:54.000 And that is basically the story of the 2016 election in one hysterically funny nature video.
00:45:00.000 Also, this demonstrates, again, everybody has this romantic view of nature.
00:45:03.000 Nature is trying to kill us, okay?
00:45:05.000 Civilization was built to avoid nature.
00:45:07.000 Jess, I know you're sitting there shaking your head because you love the nature.
00:45:10.000 You don't love the nature enough that you're going to sleep in that tent every night.
00:45:12.000 Okay?
00:45:13.000 Nature is trying to kill you.
00:45:14.000 Nature's been trying to kill you for years.
00:45:16.000 Half of human life is about trying to avoid nature, trying to murder you.
00:45:19.000 So, if you want to go out and, like, vacation with nature because nature's the bad boyfriend, alright, that's your thing.
00:45:23.000 But, let's stop trying to pretend that nature is kind and cuddly and cute and friendly, okay?
00:45:27.000 That dog is a wolf deep down.
00:45:29.000 And that dog likes to eat the family butterfly.
00:45:30.000 That's what's going on right there.
00:45:32.000 So that's pretty spectacular.
00:45:33.000 Okay, other things that I like.
00:45:34.000 So every McDonald's in the United States is going to have self-order kiosks by 2020, according to CEO Steve Easterbrook.
00:45:40.000 1,000 stores will get the new kiosks every quarter for the next few years.
00:45:43.000 They already exist in 3,500 of the roughly 14,000 domestic outlets.
00:45:47.000 So fight for 15, guys.
00:45:49.000 It's not like McDonald's will come up with a solution where they replace your stupid job with a machine, right?
00:45:54.000 Like jobs that are pretty easy to replace with machines.
00:45:57.000 And then you won't have to worry about people spitting in your food.
00:45:59.000 It's not like McDonald's will just do that.
00:46:01.000 McDonald's, these machines are going to replace everybody in low-level jobs.
00:46:06.000 It's one of the reasons why there's now talk of, how do we retrain people?
00:46:10.000 What do we do for people who have low skill sets?
00:46:13.000 If menial jobs go away, how do we handle all that?
00:46:16.000 But if you keep artificially boosting the price of labor,
00:46:19.000 Particularly entry-level jobs.
00:46:20.000 McDonald's is just going to substitute a bunch of machines for your job.
00:46:24.000 Easterbrook told CNBC that customers who use kiosks tend to browse the menu and order more food.
00:46:28.000 He said, if you think about only two years ago, if you were a customer, there were two ways you can get served at McDonald's.
00:46:32.000 You walk to the front counter and lined up, and took your drink and find a table, or you go through the drive-thru.
00:46:36.000 We're introducing many options.
00:46:37.000 They can order through mobile, they can come curbside, or run it out, as well as the existing traditional ways.
00:46:41.000 You can pay in different ways and customize your food in different ways.
00:46:43.000 First of all, this is better service.
00:46:45.000 And they're not just saving money, they're making life better for you.
00:46:47.000 Can you imagine how awesome that is?
00:46:49.000 I order out from restaurants all the time because my wife, you may have heard, is a doctor.
00:46:53.000 That means she has not cooked dinner in 1,000 years.
00:46:58.000 I've cooked more dinners than she has feminists in the audience.
00:47:01.000 My wife doesn't cook dinner all that often.
00:47:02.000 When she does, it is a pleasure.
00:47:03.000 She is an excellent cook.
00:47:05.000 It has not happened since I was but a wee pup.
00:47:07.000 And that's why we order out a lot.
00:47:08.000 So it would be great if the kosher restaurants that I went to had the capacity to run the meal out to the curb for me.
00:47:14.000 Because I have two kids who are screaming in the back.
00:47:16.000 And I can't abandon them in the back of the car.
00:47:18.000 So good on McDonald's.
00:47:19.000 The service is getting better.
00:47:20.000 It's getting cheaper.
00:47:21.000 Technology is awesome.
00:47:23.000 By all means, leftists, continue to push your stupid Fight for 15 nonsense and watch as McDonald's replaces you with a computer.
00:47:29.000 So there's that.
00:47:30.000 Also, I have to enjoy this.
00:47:33.000 Howard Schultz, the former head of Starbucks, he just stepped down.
00:47:37.000 He says that the Democrats are moving too far to the left.
00:47:40.000 He wants to run for president in 2020 because what better to represent the Democratic Party than a latte-sipping liberal from Seattle?
00:47:47.000 He says that he's ripping the Democrats in an interview on CNBC.
00:47:51.000 He suggested the Democratic Party needs a leader who won't let it veer too far to the left.
00:47:54.000 Now, this is true.
00:47:55.000 I agree with Howard Schultz.
00:47:57.000 Unfortunately,
00:47:58.000 Not gonna happen.
00:47:59.000 Unfortunately, the Democrats have moved into their own populist mode, where they have embraced the left-most perspective on everything, which is why Chris Matthews is upset with the elitism in the Democratic Party.
00:48:08.000 He thinks that they need more grassroots, down-home feel.
00:48:11.000 They need more Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party.
00:48:13.000 Chris Matthews, get up in the morning!
00:48:14.000 Come to this show!
00:48:15.000 Come on in here, all rumpled!
00:48:16.000 Don't even know I'm here!
00:48:17.000 Don't even know what I'm talking about!
00:48:18.000 I hate elites!
00:48:19.000 Sure, my wife runs the entire hotel chain!
00:48:21.000 Sure, I'm super wealthy!
00:48:22.000 But elites are just the worst!
00:48:23.000 They're garbage!
00:48:24.000 Elites, we need less elitism in the Democratic Party!
00:48:26.000 Go, Chris Matthews!
00:48:27.000 Go!
00:48:27.000 A true Democrat, lowercase d, thinks they're no better than anybody else.
00:48:32.000 That's what a Democrat is.
00:48:33.000 And when the party regains that with white, black, Hispanic people, everybody, starts to think of themselves as one of them, instead of being better than them, they'll get back to the party of the people.
00:48:43.000 And they're not there yet.
00:48:44.000 Okay, and then the music rises in the background as he makes this populist speech, and there's the upshot with the light right behind him so you get him in heroic profile, Chris Matthews.
00:48:52.000 When we start to realize that we're the party of the people,
00:48:55.000 I hate the party of the people nonsense.
00:48:56.000 You know why?
00:48:57.000 Because every perspective appeals to some people.
00:49:00.000 Maybe the elite perspective on this, meaning that you shouldn't run to the Bernie Sanders left, maybe that perspective is right.
00:49:07.000 One of the things that I really dislike about the talk of elites is that we have not actually distinguished between elites and elitism.
00:49:13.000 If you're elite, this means you are good at something.
00:49:15.000 LeBron James is an elite basketball player.
00:49:17.000 Would I prefer to watch a non-elite basketball player?
00:49:19.000 Would you prefer to watch me clang seven footers?
00:49:21.000 Probably not.
00:49:22.000 Because being elite at something is actually a good thing.
00:49:25.000 If you are elite in the business of economics, you know what economics looks like.
00:49:29.000 If you are elite in the perspective-giving business, it's because you're entertaining and hopefully knowledgeable and have a perspective to contribute.
00:49:36.000 If you are elite in politics, presumably, you are good at it.
00:49:39.000 Hey, elitism is a different thing.
00:49:40.000 Elitism is I'm bossing you around.
00:49:42.000 Now, that's the stuff we should all be railing against, right, left, and center, is the idea that we get to boss each other around.
00:49:46.000 That's stuff I hate.
00:49:47.000 That's not what Chris Matthews is saying.
00:49:48.000 He's saying that if you think that your perspective is better, and that perspective entails, for example, more freedom, not less, then maybe you're an elitist.
00:49:55.000 Maybe you're elite.
00:49:56.000 Maybe it's got... Get out of here.
00:49:58.000 I'm gonna show a whole deal.
00:50:00.000 Okay, time for a thing that I hate.
00:50:05.000 So for the second time in just two weeks, there is a black woman screaming at somebody on the subway that has made news.
00:50:11.000 So this is a crazy video uploaded to YouTube last week, and it shows an encounter between two passengers on the New York City subway system.
00:50:18.000 Actually, you know what?
00:50:19.000 This may be the same...
00:50:21.000 No, this is not the same video.
00:50:22.000 It's a different video.
00:50:23.000 So this woman gets on the subway and this unidentified black woman can be seen verbally abusing an Asian passenger, according to LawAndCrime.com, who she claims stole her kid's seat.
00:50:34.000 This is the same exact setup as a video.
00:50:36.000 The reason I'm getting confused is there was a setup last week I talked about in which a black woman got on the subway and
00:50:41.000 People didn't stand up for another black woman and this first black woman started ripping into the Jews.
00:50:46.000 In this particular case, this black woman gets angry and starts ripping into the Asians because this unidentified mother starts verbally abusing an Asian passenger who she claims stole her kid's seat.
00:50:55.000 The mother proceeded to curse her out, push her on the ground and accuse her of not giving up the seat because her daughter is black.
00:51:00.000 Two children could be seen seated next to the Asian woman.
00:51:03.000 So in other words, this Asian woman is sitting there with her kids, which you are supposed to do when you have kids because you're trying to keep track of your kids.
00:51:09.000 And here's what the video sounds like.
00:51:11.000 I will move you off that seat!
00:51:12.000 Try me!
00:51:14.000 No!
00:51:14.000 Move from the seat!
00:51:15.000 Move from my daughter!
00:51:16.000 Push her!
00:51:17.000 Push her!
00:51:19.000 Push her!
00:51:20.000 Get my daughter back!
00:51:21.000 Push her off the seat!
00:51:22.000 Go ahead!
00:51:26.000 Move it!
00:51:29.000 Move it!
00:51:30.000 I got a child!
00:51:31.000 Give me my bag!
00:51:34.000 I'm gonna put my child out of seat because my daughter's Spanish and she's Chinese!
00:51:39.000 You're gonna get up for her to sit down!
00:51:42.000 You right out here crazy!
00:51:45.000 I spit at you!
00:51:48.000 And she said, well, you got me effed up.
00:51:49.000 Welcome to America.
00:51:50.000 Eff your calm.
00:51:51.000 Put my effing child out of a seat.
00:51:53.000 And then she realizes that she is being recorded.
00:51:56.000 And then she says, what you're recording, my bleep in your mouth.
00:51:59.000 So she sounds like a charming person.
00:52:01.000 She said, she put my child out of seat.
00:52:03.000 This ain't your country.
00:52:04.000 Welcome to America.
00:52:06.000 The reason that I point this out is not because I think that this is endemic to any particular race in the United States.
00:52:10.000 The point is that it's not.
00:52:12.000 A lot of the talk in the last election cycle is about xenophobia on the part of white people in the United States.
00:52:16.000 This idea that white people in the United States, in blanket fashion, thought this was their America.
00:52:21.000 And when Donald Trump said, make America great again, what he really meant was make America white again.
00:52:24.000 The reality is that too many people have a tribal tendency.
00:52:27.000 It's something we all have to fight.
00:52:28.000 It actually is a tendency in us from when we are children, this tribal tendency that says my tribe is more important than your tribe.
00:52:34.000 Using purported victimization as an excuse to be a nasty human being to other people on the basis of group identity makes you a nasty person.
00:52:41.000 It makes you a bad person.
00:52:43.000 Okay?
00:52:43.000 This woman is a bad person.
00:52:44.000 Suggesting that this is not an Asian woman's America because I'm a member of one group and you're a member of another group is really gross.
00:52:51.000 And pretending that it's not racism because it comes from one group as opposed to another group is also really gross.
00:52:56.000 Bad behavior is not unique to any one group, racial or ethnic, in the United States.
00:53:01.000 It is possible among all groups.
00:53:03.000 And we all have to be careful of letting our own perception of victimhood turn into victimization of others.
00:53:07.000 We all have to be careful of allowing our tribal identities to overcome our treatment of each other as individuals.
00:53:12.000 OK, we'll be back here tomorrow with much more.
00:53:14.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:53:15.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:53:20.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.
00:53:26.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
00:53:30.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.
00:53:31.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
00:53:33.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.
00:53:35.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.
00:53:38.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.