The Ben Shapiro Show - The Crackdown Begins | Ep. 803

00:00:00.000 President Trump promises to deport millions of illegal immigrants.

00:00:03.000 The military prepares to ship a thousand more troops to the Middle East.

00:00:06.000 And Joe Biden struggles for enthusiasm.

00:00:08.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:09.000 Well, we have a lot to get to today, a lot of breaking news.

00:00:18.000 In geopolitical instability news, Iran has announced that it will break the uranium stockpile limit they agreed to under Barack Obama's crap nuclear deal.

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00:01:42.000 Okay, so the big news today is that President Trump announced via the Twitter that he's going to deport millions of illegal immigrants.

00:01:51.000 Now, I will say, I do not think that it is a generally good idea for the President of the United States to announce that he's going to deport Millions of people via tweet.

00:02:00.000 It seems like you should think that one out a little bit more and then, you know, announce a comprehensive policy.

00:02:05.000 Maybe you should work with your own Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement to come up with a comprehensive strategy.

00:02:14.000 Instead, the president basically just tweeted it out.

00:02:17.000 So last night he tweeted out, next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal immigrants Now, the last part of this is exactly right. 1.00

00:02:24.000 into the United States.

00:02:25.000 They will be removed as fast as they come in.

00:02:27.000 Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people long before they get to our southern border.

00:02:34.000 Guatemala is getting ready to sign a safe third agreement, which I assume he means safe third party agreement.

00:02:39.000 The only ones who won't do anything are the Democrats in Congress.

00:02:42.000 They must vote to get rid of the loopholes and fix asylum.

00:02:44.000 If so, border crisis will end quickly.

00:02:46.000 Now, the last part of this is exactly right.

00:02:48.000 If he's able to get a safe third country agreement out of the Guatemalan government, That's a very good thing.

00:02:55.000 Basically, what those agreements do is they say if you immigrate, if you move from a country to another country, you don't claim asylum in the United States.

00:03:03.000 You claim asylum in the country to which you have moved.

00:03:05.000 We have a safe third party agreement with, for example, Canada.

00:03:08.000 So if you are attempting to escape a bad home country and you go to Canada, you don't then apply to citizenship in the United States or for asylum rather in the United States.

00:03:17.000 Instead, you stay in Canada because the idea is you are escaping from a bad place.

00:03:21.000 You don't get to pick which country you go to.

00:03:23.000 You get to pick which country you are escaping from.

00:03:25.000 So if we get that agreement from Guatemala, we've been trying to get such an agreement from Mexico, that would obviously be a very good thing for the United States.

00:03:33.000 It is also true that arrests on our southern border are in fact dropping.

00:03:36.000 So whatever pressure Trump has applied to the Mexican government, Credit where credit is due.

00:03:40.000 That's working.

00:03:41.000 According to the Washington Post, the number of migrant families crossing the border illegally has been falling in recent weeks, according to preliminary figures from U.S.

00:03:48.000 Customs and Border Protection, though U.S.

00:03:50.000 officials say it's too soon to get a full picture of the impact on migration trends from President Trump's deal with Mexico.

00:03:55.000 Remember, just a couple of weeks ago, the president announced again via tweet that he had reached a deal with the Mexican government.

00:04:02.000 Whereby they would avoid escalating tariffs by cracking down on illegal immigration traveling up from their southern border to their northern border into the United States.

00:04:10.000 U.S.

00:04:11.000 authorities detained more than 85,000 family unit members at the border in May, an average of nearly 2,800 per day.

00:04:17.000 That number has declined about 13% since the beginning of June.

00:04:20.000 That's the period during which Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico and the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which is a very left government, agreed to an immigration crackdown to avoid the penalty.

00:04:30.000 According to the Washington Post, U.S.

00:04:32.000 officials say they are expecting a 15 to 20 percent decline in border arrests from May, when authorities detained more than 144,000 and migration levels reached their highest point since 2006.

00:04:41.000 The portion of migrants arriving as part of a family group has reached unprecedented levels in recent months, overwhelming U.S.

00:04:48.000 border authorities who say they are ill-equipped to care for so many parents with children.

00:04:52.000 They're ill-equipped to prepare for all of that because the Democrats have refused funding, including funding for extra beds at the border.

00:04:57.000 They're deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis on the border.

00:05:00.000 The Democrats are in Congress by not granting the funding necessary to make sure that people have livable conditions at the border when they arrive.

00:05:07.000 The goal, of course, for many Democrats is that those people not having livable conditions should then be released into the interior of the United States.

00:05:14.000 They tend to show up for their first court date because at that point, all they have to show is that they are willing to show up for a court date, basically, and then If within six months they are not processed, they are given a provisional green card, and then they just overstay their green card and stay in the United States basically forever.

00:05:28.000 That is the way illegal immigration has tended to work, at least crossing our southern border.

00:05:33.000 Since the June 7th immigration deal with Trump, Mexico has begun to deploy thousands of National Guard forces to set up a highway checkpoint system and catch more Central American migrants as they head northward toward the U.S.

00:05:44.000 border.

00:05:44.000 By the way, it's worthwhile noting the escalation in family units attempting to come into the United States is an attempt to claim asylum.

00:05:51.000 In other words, it used to be that a huge majority of the people who are crossing our southern border were single men who are trying to come into the United States looking for work, and then they would send money back home.

00:06:00.000 Maybe eventually they tried to bring their family up.

00:06:02.000 Now you're seeing families arrive at the border specifically so that they have a more sympathetic asylum claim.

00:06:10.000 The United States has also begun to send more asylum seekers back across the border into Mexico to await their U.S.

00:06:15.000 immigration court hearings, which is an expansion of the Migrant Protection Protocols program that prevents the migrants from staying in the United States while they go through the asylum process.

00:06:23.000 Again, that's an attempt by the Trump administration to stop people from disappearing after they show up for their first court date and just being integrated into America's underground economy.

00:06:32.000 The Mexican immigration enforcement crackdown has been concentrated in southern Mexico, so U.S.

00:06:36.000 officials say it could take several weeks for the full effect of the effort to show up as a reduction in crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

00:06:43.000 The United States is hoping that all of this is going to act as a deterrent.

00:06:47.000 US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, "We are seeing initial actions.

00:06:47.000 One U.S.

00:06:50.000 We are seeing some signs they're having an impact.

00:06:52.000 I think it's still too early to tell." Board arrests typically surge in the spring.

00:06:57.000 Board arrests declined 17% from May 2018 to June 2018, an indication that the expected decline this month might not be a result of actually Trump administration policy, but might just be a seasonal thing.

00:07:07.000 In other words, people are, it's moving into summer, it's harder to illegally immigrate.

00:07:11.000 That's a lot of territory to cross.

00:07:12.000 And so it's possible this is a natural decline, not necessarily the result of Trump administration policies.

00:07:18.000 We will see if that carries forward.

00:07:19.000 Department of Homeland Security officials say that current migration patterns are less linked to seasonal labor demand than in the past.

00:07:25.000 Instead, driven by the widespread view in Central America, that those who migrate with children have an opportunity now to gain entry to the United States by taking advantage of legal gaps in the U.S.

00:07:35.000 border system.

00:07:36.000 Okay, so all of that is the predicate for the Trump announcement today, when he says that we're going to start removing millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

00:07:44.000 He did not offer any specifics, did President Trump.

00:07:47.000 And this is in keeping with President Trump's patchwork, at best, approach to policy, in which he just announces a thing and then hopes his administration backfills it.

00:07:57.000 He's done this with regard to his policy on transgender folks in the military.

00:08:00.000 He's done this with regard to executive authority on immigration.

00:08:04.000 He's done this with regard to trade.

00:08:06.000 He just announces these broad policies and then expects everybody else to clean up after him.

00:08:10.000 Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

00:08:12.000 It is never well thought out.

00:08:14.000 Maybe it's all for PR purposes, but that's a pretty stunning announcement that you are simply going to start supporting millions of people How is that going to happen?

00:08:23.000 I'd like some details.

00:08:24.000 And it's not just me.

00:08:25.000 Ann Coulter, who's about as much of an immigration hawk as it is possible to be, she's the one who suggested that if President Trump built a wall, she wouldn't care if he aborted babies in the Oval Office, right?

00:08:34.000 I mean, she's an immigration hawk. 0.99

00:08:36.000 At the highest level of hawkishness.

00:08:38.000 She's saying, where are the specifics?

00:08:40.000 Because she says Trump makes these sorts of announcements all the time on building a border wall, for example, and then there's no border wall.

00:08:46.000 So what exactly is he going to actually do here?

00:08:48.000 I want details because I want to know how this is going to be applied.

00:08:51.000 You know, like I think most Americans, I would like to see illegal immigrants removed from the United States if they are not of benefit to the United States. 1.00

00:08:59.000 I want to see this done on a one by one basis, basically.

00:09:02.000 I think that people who have been living in the United States for 10, 12 years, been contributing to the United States economy, are not on welfare, for example.

00:09:11.000 Those folks might be an asset to the United States, and simply dropping them off at the local airport, and having them fly back to their home countries, that might actually really not be the best policy.

00:09:20.000 It seems to me that illegal immigrants should be processed exactly the same way that legal immigrants are processed. 0.97

00:09:25.000 But if you're a new-coming illegal immigrant, if you crossed the border yesterday, then you being flown back to your home country or you being dropped back off at the border, that seems perfectly reasonable to me as well. 1.00

00:09:35.000 So in other words, I think a case-by-case individualistic approach to illegal immigrants currently living in the country makes a hell of a lot of sense, as opposed to sort of the broad-based Policy just announced by the Trump administration.

00:09:46.000 Now, I also understand the folks who are saying, well, you're here illegally.

00:09:49.000 That is a you problem, not a U.S. 0.99

00:09:50.000 government problem.

00:09:51.000 And so the U.S.

00:09:52.000 government should be able to deport you.

00:09:54.000 My point is that there are lots of people in the United States illegally who are in fact contributing to the United States and are people who we would want in the United States if they had immigrated legally. 0.95

00:10:04.000 So some sort of process should be set up for them.

00:10:06.000 I mean, this particular statement by the president Doesn't actually explain what to do with the so-called dreamers, for example, people who have been here since they were children brought by illegal immigrant parents and have been living here effectively as Americans for the last 20 years.

00:10:19.000 As I say, those people should be treated on a case-by-case basis.

00:10:21.000 There is a difference between, obviously, an illegal immigrant who joins the U.S.

00:10:25.000 military or an illegal immigrant who is in college right now after having gone through the American educational system and is an asset to our economy and an illegal immigrant who committed a crime and is now sitting in a state prison.

00:10:37.000 Under a deal reached earlier this month, Mexico has agreed to take Central American immigrants seeking asylum in the United States until their cases are heard in U.S.

00:10:44.000 courts.

00:10:46.000 The U.S.

00:10:47.000 Vice President Mike Pence has suggested that Guatemala could receive asylum seekers from its neighbors as a so-called safe third country.

00:10:52.000 That's exactly what Trump was suggesting today.

00:10:55.000 Now, the fact is that there is not a lot of bones on this particular proposal, and this is actually part of the problem.

00:11:03.000 ICE doesn't know exactly what is happening here.

00:11:06.000 Ice is suggesting that they do not have the resources to deport millions of people.

00:11:11.000 Ice is suggesting that there's been no guidance from the top down as to what all of this looks like.

00:11:18.000 We'll get to more of that in just one second.

00:11:20.000 First, no one really has time to go to the post office.

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00:12:40.000 Okay, so the Washington Post reports that there has been no direction from top down as to actually what is going on here.

00:12:45.000 And not only that, there's a bigger problem.

00:12:48.000 The bigger problem is that Generally, if you are about to launch a wave of arrests, you don't announce that publicly.

00:12:56.000 It's President Trump who has said that, right?

00:12:57.000 President Trump says this about foreign policy all the time.

00:13:00.000 Why would you try to announce your plans?

00:13:02.000 You want to be unpredictable.

00:13:03.000 Boom.

00:13:04.000 Out of nowhere.

00:13:06.000 The same thing holds true when you are making immigration arrests.

00:13:09.000 The Washington Post correctly reports, large-scale ICE enforcement operations are typically kept secret to avoid tipping off targets.

00:13:15.000 In 2018, Trump and other senior officials threatened the mayor of Oakland, California with criminal prosecution for alerting city residents that immigration raids were in the works.

00:13:25.000 Now, Trump and Stephen Miller, who is his senior immigration advisor, again, super hawkish, very close with Ann Coulter, have been prodding Homeland Security officials to arrest and remove thousands of family members whose deportation orders were expedited by the Justice Department this year.

00:13:37.000 Now, all of that is fine.

00:13:38.000 If the DOJ has already determined somebody should be deported, they should be deported.

00:13:42.000 The plan is called the Rocket Docket, which has a A catchy title to it.

00:13:46.000 to it.

00:13:46.000 In April, Acting ICE Director Ronald Vidiello and Homeland Security Secretary Christian Nielsen were ousted after they hesitated to go forward with the plan, expressing concerns about its preparation, effectiveness, and the risk of public outrage from images of migrant children being taken into custody or separated from their families because, presumably, some of the people and the risk of public outrage from images of migrant children being taken into custody or separated from their families because, presumably, some of How exactly does all of this work?

00:14:09.000 This is one of the things Trump is going to have to take into consideration.

00:14:13.000 It's all fun and games until the pictures start hitting the front pages.

00:14:15.000 And President Trump was fine with a harsh immigration policy until all the pictures started hitting the papers, at which point he backed off a lot of his harsh enforcement policies.

00:14:24.000 Does he actually have the stomach to go forward with all of this in the run-up to a 2020 election?

00:14:30.000 Vidiello was replaced at ICE by former FBI and Border Patrol official Mark Morgan, who had impressed the president with statements on cable TV in favor of harsh immigration enforcement measures.

00:14:39.000 As according to the Washington Post, in his first two weeks on the job at ICE, Morgan has said publicly he plans to beef up interior enforcement And that, of course, is 100% true.

00:14:46.000 Now, I don't think that the folks at ICE are going out of their way to treat people in an inhumane fashion.

00:14:50.000 in order to uphold the integrity of the country's legal system.

00:14:54.000 Okay, and that, of course, is 100% true.

00:14:57.000 Now, I don't think that the folks at ICE are going out of their way to treat people in an inhumane fashion.

00:15:04.000 I don't think it's inhumane to deport people who are here illegally if they ought to be deported.

00:15:08.000 We definitely need to beef up ICE.

00:15:11.000 I mean, again, it is unclear exactly how all of this is going to be carried out, considering that ice currently has a shortage on the border.

00:15:17.000 I mean, on the border itself.

00:15:20.000 Supporters of the plan, including Miller and Morgan and ICE Deputy Director Matthew Albins, have argued forcefully a dramatic and highly publicized operation of this type will send a message to families that are in defiance of deportation orders and could act as a deterrent for future immigration.

00:15:33.000 That is certainly a possibility.

00:15:35.000 Well, Democrats, of course, are taking this with just the way you would expect.

00:15:40.000 They're taking it with all of the sort of nuance and objectivity that is necessary In order for them to make a solid case, leading the way is the illustrious Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

00:15:54.000 So fresh, so face, fresh face, fresh face McFace.

00:15:58.000 She did an Instagram last night while she was folding her laundry or something, in which she suggested that ICE detention centers are like concentration camps.

00:16:09.000 It's pretty amazing.

00:16:11.000 The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border.

00:16:17.000 And that is exactly what they are.

00:16:21.000 They are concentration camps.

00:16:23.000 And, um, if that doesn't bother you, I don't... I like, we can have, okay, whatever.

00:16:36.000 I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with Humanity to say that we should not, that never again means something.

00:16:45.000 Okay, so then she claimed she didn't mean any Nazi references.

00:16:49.000 This isn't a reference to actual concentration camps, right?

00:16:51.000 She then tweeted out, for the shrieking Republicans who don't know the difference, concentration camps are not the same as death camps.

00:16:56.000 Concentration camps are considered by experts as, quote, the mass detention of civilians without trial.

00:17:00.000 And that's exactly what this administration is doing.

00:17:02.000 Let me just point out, at the very end of her statement there, she says, never again.

00:17:06.000 And that is a phrase that was coined in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

00:17:11.000 She's so radically disingenuous.

00:17:14.000 So radically disingenuous.

00:17:15.000 That came right after her tweet in which she said, This is not hyperbole.

00:17:18.000 This is the conclusion of expert analysis.

00:17:19.000 And then she links to Esquire.

00:17:20.000 That's where all the experts are.

00:17:22.000 So just amazing stuff from AOC.

00:17:22.000 Esquire magazine.

00:17:23.000 humanizing conditions and dying.

00:17:24.000 This is not hyperbole.

00:17:26.000 This is the conclusion of expert analysis.

00:17:28.000 And then she links to Esquire.

00:17:30.000 That's where all the experts are, Esquire magazine.

00:17:32.000 So just amazing stuff from AOC.

00:17:35.000 Note to AOC.

00:17:36.000 It is true that the term concentration camps has sometimes been used, like pre the Holocaust, to refer to mass detention of civilians illegally.

00:17:47.000 Thank you.

00:17:48.000 But typically we use that phrase internment camps like the Japanese internment camps.

00:17:53.000 Concentration camps have come to be associated with death camps because that's what everyone associates them with including you who just said never again when you were talking about all of this.

00:18:03.000 Don't tell me you're not making a Nazi reference when you are obviously making a Nazi reference.

00:18:07.000 Well, actually, it's unbelievable.

00:18:11.000 By the way, when you search concentration camps on Google, I just typed this in a minute ago just to see what comes up.

00:18:15.000 The very first thing that comes up is Nazi concentration camps.

00:18:18.000 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Chelmno, Dachau.

00:18:22.000 And then, the next few hits.

00:18:24.000 Nazi concentration camps from Wikipedia.

00:18:27.000 Concentration camps 1933 to 1939.

00:18:28.000 The Holocaust Encyclopedia.

00:18:32.000 Concentration camps from Britannica.com, internment center for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security.

00:18:40.000 So even by the more anodyne definition of concentration camps, she is wrong, considering that concentration camps are used for political dissidents, not for people who are breaking the law.

00:18:50.000 Does she consider American jails concentration camps?

00:18:52.000 Because those are technically places where we keep people who are civilians and not members of the military for long periods of time.

00:18:59.000 I mean, it's just absurd.

00:19:02.000 If you are comparing Border Patrol and ICE to Nazi guards, or hell, if you're comparing this to Japanese internment when we took a bunch of American citizens of Japanese extraction under a Democratic president, FDR, that was the last time we had major internment camps in the United States.

00:19:17.000 If you're comparing that to illegal immigrants cross the border and then we house them in facilities, and those facilities are short beds because you Democrats won't give beds specifically in an attempt to pressure the release of these people, It's pretty astonishing.

00:19:30.000 There is a democratic agenda here.

00:19:32.000 And here is the problem.

00:19:33.000 Here is the problem.

00:19:34.000 There is a middle ground on immigration that basically everybody agrees with.

00:19:38.000 Close the border and then determine what to do with the people here. 1.00

00:19:41.000 Democrats don't agree with either of those propositions right now.

00:19:44.000 Radical Democrats like AOC.

00:19:45.000 They don't want to close the border.

00:19:46.000 They want the border wide open.

00:19:48.000 And they are not interested in dealing with the people who are here or deporting anyone who is here.

00:19:52.000 In fact, they want to blanket amnesty for everyone who is here.

00:19:56.000 Which is why New York is now pushing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

00:20:01.000 New York has done- California has done this already.

00:20:04.000 The New York State Senate approved a bill on Monday to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, which is- I love this euphemism that is now used by much of the mainstream media.

00:20:12.000 They've put out rules of engagement for the AP, for example, in which they say you're not supposed to use the terms illegal immigrant or illegal alien.

00:20:19.000 You're not supposed to use the word illegal at all.

00:20:21.000 You're supposed to say undocumented.

00:20:23.000 Well, that's absurd.

00:20:24.000 If you're an undocumented driver, you are driving illegally. 1.00

00:20:27.000 If you drive without papers, without a driver's license, you are driving illegally.

00:20:32.000 There are certain things in the United States that require you to go through a legal process.

00:20:35.000 If you do not do that, you are henceforth doing the thing illegally.

00:20:40.000 The vote, together with the Assembly's passage last week, thrust New York into the center of an explosive national debate over immigration that would reverse a nearly 20-year-old ban and end years of political paralysis on the issue.

00:20:52.000 When the last vote was cast just after 8.30 p.m., immigration rights activists erupted into cheers.

00:20:57.000 It's been an 18-year struggle, said Javier Valdez, the co-executive director of Make the Road New York, a prominent immigrant advocacy group.

00:21:03.000 The resilience of the immigrant community has shown through once again.

00:21:06.000 Twelve states and Washington, D.C.

00:21:07.000 currently allow undocumented immigrants to drive.

00:21:10.000 But it makes it very difficult for undocumented immigrants to actually have insurance.

00:21:14.000 So how that works is still up in the air.

00:21:17.000 Plus, a driver's license gives you access to all sorts of other services that you wouldn't necessarily get if you are an undocumented immigrant.

00:21:24.000 I mean, this sort of language.

00:21:27.000 Senator Andrew Guarnades, who is a representative from South Brooklyn, he said, It's not that human beings are illegal.

00:21:39.000 It's that they have participated in illegal activity.

00:21:42.000 You know what we call somebody when they commit a felony?

00:21:44.000 A felon.

00:21:46.000 It's like, well, no person is a felon because no person is illegal. 0.92

00:21:51.000 What in the nonsense?

00:21:52.000 We dehumanize and we delegitimize people who are our brothers and sisters in humanity.

00:21:57.000 It is not dehumanizing someone or delegitimizing someone to say that they have committed a crime or that they are living in violation of the law.

00:22:05.000 The reason that Democrats are interested in all of this, they made clear over the last few weeks, when they suggested openly, quite openly in fact, that they were in favor of illegal immigrants being counted in the United States Census without regard to immigration characteristics, specifically so that all of the seats in the House of Representatives would be allocated on the basis of non-citizen population as opposed to citizen population, granting Democrats a bunch of seats in areas where they probably would not have seats otherwise.

00:22:31.000 There's an agenda at play here, and frankly, it is not an agenda that is in concert with the interests of American citizens.

00:22:37.000 It's disturbing.

00:22:39.000 And again, it prevents an issue from being solved that pretty much everybody agrees on.

00:22:44.000 People want a lot of illegal immigrants who are here contributing to the economy, contributing to our culture, making the country better, to go through a legal process and then stay. 1.00

00:22:51.000 And they want people who are not to be deported.

00:22:54.000 And they want us to control our borders.

00:22:55.000 Pretty much everyone agrees on this.

00:22:57.000 Except the far left, which apparently has taken control of the Democratic Party and seeks to create an issue of humanitarian crisis where none really ought to exist.

00:23:06.000 Okay, we're gonna get to...

00:23:08.000 The other big story of the day, which is the possibility of conflict with Iran.

00:23:12.000 But first, you probably don't realize it, the average American blasts their eyes with bright screens for 11 hours every single day.

00:23:19.000 It sounds crazy, but think about what you do all day.

00:23:21.000 For me, it's definitely more than 11 hours.

00:23:22.000 I wake up in the morning, I'm checking my phone for my mail, I'm checking Twitter, and then I'm coming in here, I'm doing my show, and I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 screens in front of me.

00:23:32.000 I mean, you're blasting your eyes with this sort of light all the time.

00:23:34.000 The fact is that the human mind is sort of programmed to watch people on TV, for example, and you can't stop looking at those screens because they give you the information that you need.

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00:24:40.000 So, meanwhile...

00:24:40.000 Okay.

00:24:42.000 The conflict with Iran on the international level continues to militate.

00:24:48.000 Members of the media continue to basically suggest that Trump is lying us into war, despite the fact that they have provided no evidence that Trump is lying us into war.

00:24:55.000 In fact, Trump himself said today that he is certainly not interested in any sort of conflict with Iran.

00:25:01.000 He said it would be one thing if we're talking about conflict over nuclear weapons.

00:25:04.000 It is another thing if we are talking about, you know, a shipping issue.

00:25:08.000 Trump does not want conflict.

00:25:10.000 Trump is by nature more of an isolationist on foreign policy.

00:25:14.000 Now, Trump also can't be pushed too far.

00:25:16.000 But in an interview, Trump called the recent tanker attacks very minor.

00:25:20.000 He said while he would certainly go to war over nuclear weapons, he's less excited about international shipping.

00:25:26.000 And yet, you're hearing from folks on the left that, no, no, no, Trump is absolutely going to go to war.

00:25:31.000 He's definitely going to go to war.

00:25:32.000 I mean, look at this.

00:25:34.000 We're right on the verge of war.

00:25:36.000 We're not right on the verge of war.

00:25:37.000 President Trump has no interest in war.

00:25:40.000 I'll tell you who has even less interest in war.

00:25:42.000 The people who have even less interest in war, that would be the folks in Iran. 1.00

00:25:46.000 Because if you are in Iran and you want war, you are an idiot. 1.00

00:25:50.000 Anybody who wants war with the United States, You know, you can push us and push us and push us and push us. 1.00

00:25:54.000 And if you push us too far, then things are going to get very ugly for you extraordinarily quickly.

00:26:01.000 And yet what you are seeing is a bunch of people who are blaming President Trump for Iranian aggression.

00:26:07.000 Which is quite insane.

00:26:09.000 I am not seeing any sort of evidence that it's President Trump's sort of aggressiveness that is pushing Iran here, other than the fact that we have put sanctions on one of the worst regimes on planet Earth, and they are arbitrarily attempting to drive up the price of oil by shutting down shipping straits.

00:26:25.000 But President Trump is not interested in conflict.

00:26:27.000 I don't know how many times he can say this.

00:26:29.000 This is according to Time Magazine, not a friend to President Trump.

00:26:32.000 He said, I would certainly go over nuclear weapons.

00:26:35.000 He said, I would keep the other a question mark.

00:26:38.000 But he said that when it comes to international oil supply, he's like, not really.

00:26:42.000 Like, really, I want to go to war over this sort of thing?

00:26:46.000 Trump told Time magazine, the Gulf of Oman is less strategically important for the United States now than it used to be, citing China and Japan as nations that still rely on the region for significant proportions of their oil.

00:26:55.000 He said, other places get such vast amounts of oil there.

00:26:58.000 We get very little.

00:26:59.000 We've made tremendous progress in the last two and a half years in energy.

00:27:02.000 And when the pipelines get built, we're now an exporter of energy.

00:27:04.000 So we're not in the position we used to be in the Middle East, where some people would say we were in there for the oil.

00:27:10.000 He says that he agrees with the U.S. 0.88

00:27:11.000 intelligence community's assessment that Iran was behind the attacks, saying, I don't think too many people don't believe it.

00:27:16.000 But then he says, if you look at the rhetoric now compared to the days when they were signing that agreement, where it was always death to America, death to America, we'll destroy America, we'll kill America.

00:27:23.000 I'm not hearing that too much anymore, and I don't expect to.

00:27:27.000 So President Trump is not looking for conflict here.

00:27:31.000 I'll tell you that Iran continues to ratchet up the rhetoric because again, Iran is attempting to militate against its own population. 0.82

00:27:40.000 The fact that Iran is a repressive evil regime that cracks down on the human rights of its own citizens and therefore requires this sort of rally around the flag effect by attacking America. 0.74

00:27:50.000 By the way, not uncommon in parts of the radical Muslim world.

00:27:53.000 Hamas does the same thing with Israel, the Palestinian Authority.

00:27:56.000 Does the same thing with Israel and the United States as well, by the way.

00:27:59.000 Well now, Iran is saying that its stockpile of enriched uranium will surpass limits set by the 2015 international nuclear deal 10 days from now, unless European partners in the agreement do more to help it circumvent United States sanctions.

00:28:11.000 So now they're playing North Korea.

00:28:12.000 They're basically saying, we are going to simply develop our nuclear stockpile unless you give us money.

00:28:18.000 And why wouldn't they do that?

00:28:18.000 It's worked well for North Korea for years.

00:28:21.000 The international community being filled with feckless dweebs, they've been jumping on the bandwagon, basically saying, oh, please, let's be nice to Iran again.

00:28:28.000 Then they'll stop with their uranium enrichment.

00:28:30.000 Well, weird, because I was informed that Iran had dramatically decreased its capacity to develop uranium.

00:28:37.000 I mean, that's what they told us, right?

00:28:37.000 I was.

00:28:39.000 I mean, we were told in the nuclear deal that Iran was going to demobilize a lot of its nuclear equipment.

00:28:44.000 And yet, weirdly enough, within just a couple of months after the sanctions have really started to take effect, Iran has already mobilized to the extent that they can announce that 10 days from now they are going to be able to spin up their nuclear machines and everything's fine. 0.64

00:28:58.000 Weird.

00:28:59.000 The announcement made by the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was the first time the Tehran explicitly said it was on track to violate the agreement.

00:29:06.000 The increase in both quantity and quality of the enriched fuel could shorten the time, currently estimated at one year, that it would take to produce enough for a nuclear weapon.

00:29:13.000 Well, if you recall, all the way back to the Iran nuclear agreements, there were some of us who were suggesting that this was all just a ploy by the Iranians.

00:29:21.000 To gain money that they could use to spread terror all over the world, and it would allow them, legally, within ten years, to basically produce a nuclear bomb.

00:29:29.000 Ten years after the deal expired, ten years and one day, they would have a nuclear weapon.

00:29:33.000 And then they'd have the money and the nuclear weapon and the regional strength.

00:29:37.000 And the Obama administration said, no, no, with the money will come moderation. 0.81

00:29:41.000 With the money will come moderation is one of the dumbest arguments, especially in the aftermath of look, look what happened to China.

00:29:47.000 I truly wonder how many states have been liberalized by the addition of money to their economy.

00:29:52.000 Making an evil regime richer generally does not make the evil regime go away.

00:29:57.000 Making an evil regime poor sometimes makes the evil regime go away.

00:30:01.000 Not always, but sometimes.

00:30:03.000 Venezuela's evil It's it's not been it was not militated against it was not it was not lessened by the fact that Venezuela was incredibly oil rich.

00:30:14.000 The USSR, when it was powerful, was a lot more dangerous than when it had been hit by sanctions, when its economy was collapsing in on itself.

00:30:22.000 China has continued to gain power and credence in Southeast Asia.

00:30:27.000 They've been pushing into the South China Sea.

00:30:28.000 They're now threatening Hong Kong.

00:30:30.000 Millions of people on the streets, and China doesn't care. 0.99

00:30:32.000 They're just going to do what they want in Hong Kong if the United States and other members of the West don't stand up to the Chinese. 0.99

00:30:37.000 That was made available by the fact that the West decided that they were going to quote-unquote liberalize China by allowing China to open its economy to the rest of the world.

00:30:46.000 Now, I am not a fan of Nixon opening China.

00:30:47.000 I think that was a mistake.

00:30:49.000 At the time, there were countervailing considerations.

00:30:51.000 In a vacuum, it was a mistake.

00:30:52.000 At the time, there were countervailing considerations like the fact that China and Russia were allies who were trying to split off Mao from the Russian regime because we were trying to collapse the USSR.

00:31:01.000 All of that I get.

00:31:02.000 But, in a vacuum, the opening of China, while good for many of China's citizens in terms of living standard, has been absolutely awful in terms of strengthening a horrible, terrible regime. 0.94

00:31:12.000 This idea that we were going to moderate Iran in the same way, that we were just going to throw money at the ayatollahs, and suddenly the ayatollahs would become liberal reformers who are all in favor of Pete Buttigieg or something.

00:31:21.000 It's just, it's insane, and it was always insane.

00:31:25.000 And yet, you're hearing people today saying, well, why doesn't Trump just cave to them?

00:31:28.000 It's Trump's intransigence that's creating all of this.

00:31:30.000 It's Trump's intransigence.

00:31:32.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

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00:32:48.000 So in a second, I want to get to a little bit more on this Iran situation.

00:32:52.000 Again, there's an enormous amount of dishonesty.

00:32:55.000 That is taking place with regard to the Iran situation people claiming that it's Trump's fault that Iran is is radical. 0.91

00:33:02.000 It's it's really insane.

00:33:05.000 It's really it's really pretty pretty wild stuff.

00:33:08.000 We'll get to that in just a second first.

00:33:10.000 Gang, I gotta inform you, we are taking our backstage live show on the road for a very special one-night-only event, August 21st at the Terrorist Theater in Long Beach, California.

00:33:18.000 That is correct.

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00:33:30.000 We will talk politics and pop culture.

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00:33:35.000 Tickets go on sale to the public this Friday, but today through Thursday, only Dailyware subscribers get exclusive pre-sale ticket access, which is one of the reasons you should subscribe.

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00:34:56.000 All righty.

00:35:05.000 So let's talk a little bit more about this Iran thing.

00:35:08.000 There are a bunch of conspiracy theories that are floating around.

00:35:11.000 President Trump, desperate to go to war, deeply wants to go to war.

00:35:16.000 And all of this is nuts.

00:35:18.000 Where is the evidence that President Trump is manipulating the intelligence in order to go to war?

00:35:24.000 As I say, yesterday, Adam Schiff, who President Trump despises, President Trump, who Adam Schiff thinks is the worst person ever, is Like, Adam Schiff was saying that Trump is right on the Iran stuff.

00:35:24.000 I've yet to see any of it.

00:35:40.000 So, here's Adam Schiff on Sunday.

00:35:43.000 There's no question that Iran is behind the attacks. 1.00

00:35:45.000 I think the evidence is very strong and compelling.

00:35:48.000 In fact, I think this was a class A screw-up by Iran to insert a mine on the ship. 1.00

00:35:54.000 It didn't detonate, they had to go back and retrieve it.

00:35:57.000 I can imagine there are some Iranian heads rolling for that botched operation. 0.99

00:36:02.000 But nonetheless, the problem is that we are struggling, even in the midst of this solid evidence, to persuade our allies to join us in any kind of a response.

00:36:13.000 And it shows just how isolated the United States has become.

00:36:17.000 Okay, well, as Eli Lake writes over at Bloomberg.com, the fact that there are so many members of the European contingent and of the press who keep saying that Trump is responsible for Iranian aggression is actually incentivizing Iranian aggression.

00:36:30.000 As Eli Lake writes over at Bloomberg, European diplomats are urging Trump to drop his campaign of maximum pressure and adopt one of maximum restraint.

00:36:38.000 Eli Lake says this is asking to be blackmailed.

00:36:40.000 Now that Iran is threatening to exceed the limits to uranium enrichment it agreed to in the 2015 nuclear deal, It's more important than ever to understand that restraint and dialogue will not bring Iran to heel.

00:36:52.000 Start with an obvious point.

00:36:53.000 Whether it was helping overthrow the government in Yemen or saving Syria's dictator as he gassed his own people, Iran was destabilizing the Middle East even as it negotiated with the West over its nuclear program starting in 2013. 0.80

00:37:04.000 That's one reason why Trump is now trying a maximum pressure approach to get Iran to end its own adventures in the Middle East. 0.51

00:37:11.000 You know, the idea that Trump is desperately looking for war, again, this is just, it's just silly talk.

00:37:16.000 And it is amazing to me how many members of the intelligentsia are claiming that the intelligence community is now falsifying things.

00:37:23.000 So the same people who are claiming that Trump was evil for doubting the intelligence community's assessment on Russia, are now saying that when Trump says that the intelligence community is correct about Iran, that the intelligence community is now lying, I guess.

00:37:34.000 So, it's pretty amazing.

00:37:35.000 James Clapper, who is A really nefarious figure in the America's intelligence community, the former director of national intelligence under Barack Obama, a deeply political figure who claimed for years that he had secret inside information that Trump was a Russian stooge.

00:37:49.000 Well, now he's coming out and he's saying the intelligence community is deeply worried about Trump.

00:37:52.000 Well, the intelligence community.

00:37:54.000 So let me get this straight.

00:37:55.000 We should trust them when they're worried about Trump, but we shouldn't trust them when they make an evidentiarily based assessment of whether Iran is behind attacks in the Gulf of Oman.

00:38:05.000 If the President didn't know about this program with the Russians, assuming the New York Times article is accurate, well, he sure does now.

00:38:15.000 I do know there are other instances of where there have been concerns about U.S.

00:38:24.000 intelligence capabilities, particularly when it comes to Russia.

00:38:29.000 Since there is some mystery about just what exactly what the relationship is, particularly personally, between President Trump and Putin.

00:38:36.000 So I think it's, you know, can't confirm or deny, but it's certainly plausible.

00:38:42.000 And I do know there is concern in the intelligence community about that.

00:38:46.000 It's amazing how intelligence community becomes such a malleable term.

00:38:49.000 I have generally been in favor of the assessments of the intelligence community.

00:38:52.000 That was true whether we're talking about the Mueller report, whether we were talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Russia.

00:38:58.000 I've been pretty consistent in my assessment that the folks in the intelligence community are really doing their best to bring you honest information.

00:39:04.000 And until shown otherwise, I've tended to doubt the idea that the intelligence community is simply a political tool for whichever administration is in power.

00:39:11.000 Now, if you can make that argument based on evidence, I'm willing to hear it, but it's amazing to watch as so many people shift their minds on this.

00:39:18.000 Well, in response to all of this, the United States is sending about a thousand more troops to the Middle East amid tensions over that series of attacks on oil tankers, as according to the UK Telegraph.

00:39:26.000 Patrick Shanahan, who's the acting U.S.

00:39:28.000 Defense Secretary, announced the deployment on Monday, explaining that the move was for defensive purposes, citing concerns about a threat from Iran.

00:39:35.000 He issued a statement.

00:39:35.000 He said, And the Telegraph reports the series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers have been blamed by the U.S.

00:39:38.000 credible intelligence we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region.

00:39:47.000 And the Telegraph reports the series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers have been blamed by the U.S. on Iranian-laid limpet mines.

00:39:55.000 So again, it's all very mysterious.

00:39:58.000 It's super mysterious.

00:39:59.000 General Mohamed Hossein Bagheri, the Chief of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces, denied Tehran was involved in the tanker attacks, saying on Monday the country would respond only in an open, strong, and very severe way if needed.

00:40:11.000 But then he says, if we decided to block the Strait of Hormuz, we will do it in a way that even a drop of oil won't pass the strait.

00:40:18.000 So yeah, clearly these are folks that we can trust with the global supply of oil.

00:40:24.000 Meanwhile, as I mentioned, Tehran is now blowing through their ultimatums on nuclear power.

00:40:30.000 European officials say there appeared to be little hope of reaching a compromise before the Iranian deadline.

00:40:35.000 If the European states had any cards, I think they would have played them by now.

00:40:38.000 One diplomat said, if the deal does collapse, I love European media coverage, if the deal does collapse, it will plunge the world back into the uncertainty of the early 2010s.

00:40:46.000 Oh man, those were terrible.

00:40:48.000 As opposed to the uncertainty of now when Iran has been backing Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and war in Yemen.

00:40:54.000 Yeah, it's true.

00:40:55.000 I mean, now there's no uncertainty at all.

00:40:56.000 I mean, we ended all that uncertainty with magical Obama.

00:40:59.000 Weird how Iran was able to spin everything up in 10 days. 1.00

00:41:00.000 Yeah, it's true.

00:41:05.000 I mean, now there's no uncertainty at all.

00:41:07.000 I mean, we ended all that uncertainty with magical Obama.

00:41:10.000 Weird how Iran was able to spin everything up in 10 days. 1.00

00:41:13.000 Very, very strange.

00:41:14.000 So, okay.

00:41:16.000 Meanwhile, the democratic race continues to unfold.

00:41:21.000 Joe Biden continues to lead in Democratic primaries.

00:41:24.000 But the fact is that dude is just not getting the sort of enthusiasm that I think he was expecting.

00:41:30.000 He's raised some 20 million dollars to this point.

00:41:33.000 But the average amount that he has raised at this point is fifty five dollars, which is very high.

00:41:38.000 That means there are a lot of big name donors who are giving a lot of money to Joe Biden.

00:41:43.000 According to the Washington Post, Biden's divergence from other candidates on display at poverty fighting event.

00:41:50.000 So he spoke at the poor people's campaign.

00:41:53.000 And there he outlined a new health care proposal, which would build on the Affordable Care Act by increasing access for lower income people.

00:41:59.000 But as the Washington Post reports, the former vice president's tack on health care is less sweeping than the Medicare for all plan embraced by some of his Democratic rivals, which they later touted on stage.

00:42:10.000 The Reverend William Barber II, a founder of the campaign, asked attendees not to cheer or hiss, but rather to greet all the candidates with polite applause.

00:42:17.000 Even in this subdued setting, however, the response to Biden was noticeably muted.

00:42:20.000 He left the stage to applause that was less enthusiastic than that which greeted him.

00:42:24.000 Biden sped through his four-minute opening statement, which ended when Barber cut him off because of time constraints, leaving the former VP halfway through his story about Barack Obama's reaction to the 2015 church shooting.

00:42:35.000 And then basically Biden went on there up there and just referred to Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama.

00:42:41.000 He was uninspiring at best and odd at worst.

00:42:45.000 He's taken this weird tack where he basically suggests that he can negotiate with Republicans in a way that no other Democrat can, waiting to see the evidence of that, considering that the Obama administration passed precisely zero bipartisan legislation.

00:42:57.000 But here is Joe Biden explaining that we should be able to work with the GOP.

00:43:00.000 And if we can't, maybe it's time for armed revolution.

00:43:03.000 There are certain things where it just takes a brass knuckle fight.

00:43:05.000 If you start off with the notion there's nothing you can do, well, why don't you all go home then, man?

00:43:11.000 Or let's start a real physical revolution if you're talking about it.

00:43:14.000 The reason why the rest of the world follows us and we're secure is not because we have the largest military in the world.

00:43:20.000 It's because we not only lead by the power, the example of our power, but the power of our example.

00:43:27.000 And you can shame people to do things the right way.

00:43:31.000 It's really... Okay, you can shame people to do things the right way.

00:43:34.000 I love that Joe Biden is talking about shaming people. 0.88

00:43:37.000 A shameless human talking about shaming people. 0.93

00:43:39.000 Now, here's the thing. 0.95

00:43:40.000 I think people are actually reading Biden's comment wrong there.

00:43:42.000 It's calculated to piss off pretty much everybody.

00:43:45.000 This is why Biden is bad at his job.

00:43:46.000 Because his comment basically ticks off everyone.

00:43:48.000 He's saying to the far left, I can negotiate with Republicans, and you guys are radicals, and if you really believe you can't negotiate, then we should just have an armed revolution and fight people in the streets.

00:43:57.000 So it's calculated to tick off the left by proclaiming that they're irrational.

00:44:01.000 And it's calculated to tick off the right by suggesting that if they don't cave to his agenda, he's in favor of armed revolution.

00:44:06.000 Joe Biden, not good at his job.

00:44:09.000 He continues to go around claiming that his first move is going to be to raise everybody's taxes.

00:44:09.000 Also not good at his job.

00:44:13.000 This worked great for Walter Mondale in 1984.

00:44:15.000 Can't see how it goes wrong for Joe Biden.

00:44:19.000 We have the greatest income inequity in the history of the United States of America since 1902.

00:44:24.000 And the fact of the matter is, there is plenty, plenty of money to go around.

00:44:29.000 The first thing I would do as president was eliminate the president's tax cut.

00:44:33.000 Okay, so, that is the very first thing you would do, eliminate... That's a thing to run on, I suppose.

00:44:38.000 It is a thing to run on.

00:44:40.000 But Joe Biden still has to pander to the woke crowd.

00:44:42.000 And so he suggests that America is still a deeply discriminatory, horrible place in every possible way.

00:44:47.000 This is how you try to get the intersectional advocates on board.

00:44:51.000 He says our policies in America discriminate against everybody.

00:44:54.000 Like literally every minority is discriminated against by American policy, which begs the question, weren't you vice president for eight years?

00:45:00.000 I mean, haven't you been a senator since like 1820?

00:45:04.000 And what have you been doing your whole career, dude?

00:45:08.000 It's not only that we have less than half the people, almost half the people in the United States living in poverty.

00:45:15.000 It's ridiculous that we have this extreme, extreme, extreme change that's going on.

00:45:21.000 Deep inequities in our society. 0.72

00:45:24.000 Our policy discriminates against and devalues black people, Native Americans, people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities.

00:45:33.000 I'm going quick because I have four minutes.

00:45:35.000 Refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers.

00:45:38.000 They talk about our children.

00:45:39.000 These aren't somebody else's children.

00:45:41.000 They're all our children.

00:45:43.000 So again, America is a deeply terrible, terrible, awful, terrible place.

00:45:46.000 Thank you, Joe Biden.

00:45:47.000 So he's giving the wrong messages to everybody.

00:45:50.000 His candidacy is weak at best.

00:45:52.000 He's still raising a ton of money because he's very, very famous because he was Barack Obama's vice president.

00:45:57.000 But it's pretty obvious that the momentum is with Elizabeth Warren at this point.

00:46:01.000 If you are laying bets, Elizabeth Warren is the place to put your money.

00:46:04.000 A.B.

00:46:05.000 Stoddard.

00:46:06.000 Commentator on MSNBC.

00:46:07.000 She points out that Elizabeth Warren is climbing in the polls. 0.99

00:46:10.000 This is obvious to anyone who is watching the poll averages.

00:46:13.000 It's too early to talk about general election polls.

00:46:15.000 It's not too early to talk about the primary polls.

00:46:18.000 I think that Biden has crested.

00:46:19.000 I think that Bernie is falling and Elizabeth Warren is picking up a lot of that support.

00:46:22.000 Here's AB Stoddard making that point.

00:46:24.000 What Elizabeth Warren is doing is showing people she really wants this job. 1.00

00:46:28.000 So she's really expressing this hunger that people in small settings in her campaign appearances are responding to.

00:46:35.000 She doesn't just want to be president. 1.00

00:46:36.000 She wants to do president. 1.00

00:46:38.000 I don't know that President Trump wanted to.

00:46:39.000 I think he wanted to, you know, win.

00:46:42.000 But there are days when he doesn't act like he wants to do the job.

00:46:45.000 Maybe Joe Biden's not showing up enough on the campaign trail.

00:46:47.000 But her intensity about wanting to actually be president and govern and make all these changes is clearly breaking through.

00:46:56.000 I mean, the fact is that the media have also been helping her out a ton by pushing her extraordinarily hard.

00:47:01.000 Chris Matthews, in the meantime, is tearing down Bernie Sanders.

00:47:04.000 So Chris Matthews, I always say, come in the morning, come out of the show.

00:47:08.000 Come on here.

00:47:09.000 Talk about Bernie Sanders.

00:47:11.000 That guy, his hair's even worse than mine.

00:47:13.000 Ah, go.

00:47:15.000 I don't think the Democratic Party wants an ideological candidate.

00:47:18.000 They want some reforms.

00:47:19.000 They want to win.

00:47:20.000 They want to get rid of this guy.

00:47:22.000 I don't think they particularly want to go radically left and have the government run the economy.

00:47:28.000 My God, where has that ever worked?

00:47:30.000 Nowhere in history has a government effectively run an economy.

00:47:34.000 So I think Bernie's going to lose with his ideology, which he's started to sell. 0.67

00:47:37.000 I think he's crazy to do it.

00:47:38.000 Nobody wants to hear that old stuff.

00:47:40.000 Well, I mean, I actually agree with Chris Matthews.

00:47:42.000 I know, we've come to that point.

00:47:43.000 So, Joe Biden doesn't have the enthusiasm.

00:47:46.000 Bernie Sanders falling apart.

00:47:47.000 Elizabeth Warren is going to be the beneficiary.

00:47:49.000 They want a partisan victory for the Democrats, and they want a president they're proud of.

00:47:53.000 They don't want a radical left. - Well, I mean, I actually agree with Chris Matthews.

00:47:57.000 I know, we've come to that point.

00:47:59.000 So, Joe Biden doesn't have the enthusiasm.

00:48:01.000 Bernie Sanders falling apart.

00:48:03.000 Elizabeth Warren is going to be the beneficiary.

00:48:05.000 Could this be a Trump-Warren race come 2020?

00:48:07.000 It is certainly a possibility.

00:48:08.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:48:10.000 So, things that I like.

00:48:12.000 Brett Easton Ellis is one of the most interesting writers in the country.

00:48:15.000 He has been for a very long time.

00:48:16.000 He's also an interesting dude.

00:48:18.000 And his new book, White, which is basically a series of essays on everything ranging from Hollywood to politics.

00:48:25.000 is fascinating.

00:48:26.000 It's really well written, it's really interesting, and it's really kind of contrarian in a wide variety of ways.

00:48:32.000 He's one of the only people who works in Hollywood who is willing to give an honest assessment of the films in Hollywood and the critics in Hollywood.

00:48:38.000 It's one of the things that makes him really interesting.

00:48:40.000 Go pick up a copy of the book "White." It's contrarian in all the right ways. 0.90

00:48:46.000 I find it fascinating.

00:48:47.000 I think Brett's a fascinating dude.

00:48:48.000 So go check out White by Brett Easton Ellis.

00:48:51.000 One of the best books of the year, frankly.

00:48:52.000 I think it's really good.

00:48:53.000 It's one of the best kind of Hollywood books I've read in a very, very long time.

00:48:56.000 Okay, time for a couple of quick things that I hate.

00:49:02.000 So the thing that I hate, number one, it's always fascinating to me to watch members of the media come out in favor of deplatforming people.

00:49:07.000 That's always fun.

00:49:08.000 I'm old enough to remember when the press used to do the quote that was apocryphally attributed to Voltaire that, I may disagree with what you say, but I'll fight for the death to your right to say it.

00:49:18.000 Not anymore.

00:49:18.000 Now it's, why won't you deplatform this person I don't like?

00:49:21.000 So here's Poppy Harlow from CNN trying to push the CEO of Google to actually ban Steven Crowder from YouTube. 0.56

00:49:28.000 YouTube has taken a lot of heat also for these homophobic videos, specifically ones aimed at this Vox journalist that are still on, even after they put out these new guidelines.

00:49:38.000 I asked him directly, why is that still there, those videos?

00:49:40.000 Are you going to take them down?

00:49:42.000 And they're in the middle of reviewing their guidelines again, meeting with outside groups, and they're considering it, but they don't know at this point.

00:49:49.000 I mean, if this is fundamental to your business, they have to make the decision about where that line is between hate and free speech.

00:49:57.000 I get it.

00:49:57.000 I get that they say that less than 1% of the videos stay up, but that's still 9 million videos last year.

00:50:02.000 It's enormous.

00:50:04.000 In a quarter.

00:50:05.000 Okay, so, yeah, the fact that a CNN journalist is pushing for this sort of stuff should be a little bit scary to all of us.

00:50:12.000 Okay, other things that I hate today. 0.97

00:50:14.000 So this is perhaps the dumbest headline I have ever read. 0.94

00:50:18.000 It is an article by Philip Lamar Cunningham, an assistant professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. 0.99

00:50:24.000 Here is the headline.

00:50:26.000 25 years ago, O.J.

00:50:27.000 Simpson showed white Americans just how conditional their comfort with black athletes was.

00:50:32.000 Well, I feel like you're missing a little part of the story. 0.98

00:50:36.000 You know, the part where he's a murderer.

00:50:38.000 The part where he killed his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman and then ran away and lied about it and obviously did it.

00:50:47.000 That's the part that I find a little bit... allegedly.

00:50:49.000 Okay, that's the part that I find that, you know, like, everybody seemed kind of okay with, like, O.J.

00:50:54.000 Simpson and commercials and being an athlete and the towering inferno carrying a cat all weird, but it was the point where he sliced off his ex-wife's head.

00:51:02.000 Allegedly.

00:51:03.000 It was at that point when I think people are like, you know, I'm off the juices bandwagon.

00:51:08.000 At this point, I don't really care about his rushing records as much as I care about the fact that he was chopping off his ex-wife's head.

00:51:15.000 Here's the article.

00:51:16.000 O.J.

00:51:16.000 Simpson is back in the news, joining Twitter and promising in a video that he had a little getting even to do.

00:51:22.000 25 years to the week of his most infamous moment, which is pretty scary.

00:51:25.000 When O.J.

00:51:25.000 Simpson comes back on the Twitters and he says he's got some getting even to do, everybody locks their doors.

00:51:31.000 He's far from the household name he was on the night of June 17th, 1994.

00:51:34.000 That night, an epic battle between two of the best centers in the National Basketball Association, Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing, was interrupted when NBC shifted to live footage of retired football great O.J.

00:51:44.000 Simpson fleeing the L.A.

00:51:45.000 police in a white Ford Bronco driven by his friend Al Callings.

00:51:48.000 I remember I was very irritated by this because I was watching the NBA Finals at the time.

00:51:52.000 Only about 8 million viewers watched NBC's coverage of the game.

00:51:55.000 About 95 million tuned in across networks to see whether a distraught Simpson would surrender, clash with the police, or kill himself.

00:52:01.000 The car chase, coming in the middle of the fifth game of the NBA Finals, cast a brief pall on what had been a watershed moment for black athletes.

00:52:08.000 To suggest that Simpson overshadowed a decade's worth of goodwill toward black athletes would be an overstatement.

00:52:13.000 But Simpson, arguably a major source of this goodwill, certainly made clear the conditions white Americans put on their goodwill, even as the nation's greatest black athletes continue to thrill and amaze.

00:52:24.000 Well, I mean, I don't really think that my perspective on Hakeem Olajuwon changed dramatically because O.J.

00:52:29.000 Simpson chopped somebody's head off, allegedly.

00:52:35.000 I was watching that game, and I don't remember being like, well, now I can't watch the NBA Finals anymore.

00:52:39.000 I mean, there's Patrick Ewing.

00:52:40.000 He's black.

00:52:41.000 And there's Hakeem Olajuwon. 0.89

00:52:42.000 He's black.

00:52:42.000 And O.J.

00:52:43.000 Simpson is black. 0.98

00:52:44.000 Therefore, probably all of them are black. 0.79

00:52:46.000 Was there anyone in America who did that? 1.00

00:52:48.000 Because that's not only racist, it's stupid. 1.00

00:52:51.000 What? 1.00

00:52:53.000 But don't worry, this professor has more to say.

00:52:55.000 He says after years of being criticized for their politics and demeanor, black athletes spent the 1980s gaining recognition primarily for their ability and affability.

00:53:03.000 And he talks about Muhammad Ali and how Bill Russell and Jim Brown and Lua Alcindor, who was then became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, how they were all very proud and political in the 1960s and 1970s.

00:53:17.000 And then how they sort of softened themselves in the 1980s.

00:53:20.000 And then the idea was that there were only certain circumstances under which people were willing to grant credibility to black athletes.

00:53:26.000 Well, I mean, it's possible that a lot of people just didn't agree with those athletes about, for example, the Vietnam War.

00:53:33.000 But this article is basically ignoring sort of the key in why people started to not like OJC.

00:53:40.000 They say, In January 1994, he served as pregame analyst on NBC's Super Bowl broadcast.

00:53:40.000 Simpson.

00:53:43.000 He was offensively successful in the months before the Bronco chase.

00:53:45.000 In January 1994, he served as pregame analyst on NBC's Super Bowl broadcast.

00:53:50.000 He appeared on his recurring role as Officer Nordberg in the police procedural parody Naked Gun, which was released that March.

00:53:57.000 He even partnered with singer Gloria Estefan to raise $30 million for spinal cord research.

00:54:02.000 The bronco chase forced Americans not only to wrestle with the increasing likelihood of Simpson's guilt, but also to recognize that perhaps he was not who they thought he was.

00:54:09.000 He was not the smiling Petchman running through airports or the frequent victim of comedic violence in Naked Gun.

00:54:14.000 He was O.J. 0.91

00:54:15.000 and he was black.

00:54:16.000 Over the years, the Bronco chase has been viewed as a galvanizing moment as a third of the country tuned in to watch the tragedy unfold.

00:54:22.000 That night, NBC concluded that O.J.

00:54:24.000 Simpson's fall from grace was important enough to disrupt an epic battle between two of the greatest NBA players of all time.

00:54:31.000 It was important to note at the time, by the way, the NBA finals were not drawing dramatic ratings.

00:54:35.000 And you know what did draw dramatic ratings?

00:54:37.000 A guy who was wanted for murder, one of the most prominent people in America, running from police in the back of a car while telephoning in and explaining that he was about to shoot himself in the head.

00:54:47.000 Turns out that, I mean, I may have been watching the NBA Finals, but one of those things is a little bit more compelling, TV.

00:54:54.000 Even though the images themselves were not particularly compelling.

00:54:57.000 The chase not only disrupted the NBA Finals, says this columnist, it also unsettled the comfort white Americans had developed for black athletes.

00:55:05.000 No, that's not correct.

00:55:08.000 The part that unsettled us was not the Bronco chase.

00:55:10.000 It was the murder.

00:55:12.000 The dramatic misreading of the OJ case continues to baffle me.

00:55:17.000 And it does show the racial polarization in the country.

00:55:20.000 In dramatic ways, the evidence-less sort of assessment of particular cases continues to plague America right now.

00:55:27.000 It's fascinating.

00:55:28.000 I had Larry Wilmore on my Sunday special, the comedian from Comedy Central.

00:55:31.000 You should go listen to it.

00:55:32.000 It was a really good conversation.

00:55:33.000 And we were talking about particular incidents of police brutality and racism.

00:55:37.000 So there was this incident just over the weekend.

00:55:40.000 In which Phoenix police on tape appear to be dramatically abusing a black man and woman.

00:55:47.000 Apparently they had a little four year old kid who took a 99 cent doll from like a 99 cent store and the police pulled over this couple and they are abusing them and shouting at them, pointing guns at them.

00:55:57.000 I mean, it's insane.

00:55:57.000 It's an insane tape.

00:55:59.000 And barring some sort of exigent circumstances we don't know about, it is brutal, and those police officers should be fired.

00:56:04.000 They should have their pensions removed.

00:56:05.000 I mean, it is really bad.

00:56:07.000 I mean, it's these folks shouting at this couple that is attempting to comply with the... And then, in their police report, they just ignored all of this sort of stuff.

00:56:14.000 It's really, really bad stuff.

00:56:16.000 And it was caught on tape, which is why I'm in favor, and have been for a long time, of officers having body cams on them, because it keeps everybody honest.

00:56:25.000 So, in other words, there are certain incidents where it's pretty obvious what is going on from the tape itself.

00:56:31.000 There are certain incidents where it's not obvious and the media covers it in the wrong way.

00:56:34.000 Michael Brown in Ferguson being a prime example of that exact sort of thing.

00:56:39.000 But because everybody wants to batten down the hatches with regard to narrative, and this is particularly true when it comes to racial crimes and racial issues, We end up with these bizarre polling statistics on things like Michael Brown, where there's an actual disputed circumstance.

00:56:52.000 Well, the O.J.

00:56:53.000 Simpson case is a perfect example of this.

00:56:55.000 So if you actually look at the opinions between black folks and white folks on O.J.

00:56:59.000 Simpson, right from the outset, a vast majority of white people thought that O.J.

00:57:04.000 Simpson was guilty.

00:57:05.000 The reason being O.J.

00:57:06.000 Simpson was absolutely guilty.

00:57:07.000 There is no question that he was guilty.

00:57:09.000 I mean, all the evidence is that he was guilty.

00:57:11.000 All of it.

00:57:12.000 There's not a shred of evidence that O.J.

00:57:14.000 Simpson was innocent in that case.

00:57:15.000 None.

00:57:16.000 So, white people immediately thought that O.J.

00:57:18.000 Simpson was guilty.

00:57:19.000 Now, that could be reflective of supposed white racism, or it could be reflective of the evidence in a particular case.

00:57:24.000 One of the things that you will see in, for example, the Michael Brown case, is that the initial polls showed that white people said they didn't have enough information to know what had happened, and black people suggested, by and large, that this was a racial killing.

00:57:36.000 Well, in the O.J.

00:57:37.000 case, the vast majority of black people initially said that O.J.

00:57:41.000 Simpson that O.J. Simpson was innocent.

00:57:46.000 So 75% of white Americans said that O.J. was guilty.

00:57:50.000 That has now risen to something like 90% of white Americans.

00:57:53.000 73% or 72% of black Americans said that O.J. was not guilty at the exact same time.

00:58:00.000 I mean, you have to forcibly ignore evidence to do that.

00:58:03.000 But again, if narrative is more important than evidence, this holds true for every race.

00:58:07.000 If narrative is more important than evidence, then you have failed the basic test of common decency.

00:58:12.000 Evidence ought to trump narrative, obviously.

00:58:14.000 And now it has, right?

00:58:15.000 Over the years, a majority of black folks, now about 55%, say that O.J.

00:58:19.000 is guilty.

00:58:19.000 Shockingly, still 27% of black folks somewhere in that neighborhood, 25% of black folks, still say that O.J.

00:58:25.000 was innocent, which is pretty amazing.

00:58:28.000 Why the shift?

00:58:29.000 So, 538 says, developments in the murder trial and events in Simpson's life probably have played a role.

00:58:34.000 Or, alternatively, it was a very, very fraught time, and people decided to take an incident and shift it into the narrative.

00:58:41.000 This is after Rodney King.

00:58:43.000 They decided to put this into the middle of a narrative, as opposed to looking at the evidence on its face.

00:58:48.000 And afterward, it's a lot easier to assess the evidence on its face.

00:58:50.000 The question is, if you're a decent person, can you assess evidence on its face When you first see it, or do you have to wait for the narrative to emerge and then be defeated over time?

00:58:59.000 OK, we'll be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours.

00:59:02.000 Otherwise, we'll see you back here tomorrow.

00:59:03.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:59:03.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:59:04.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Robert Sterling.

00:59:13.000 Directed by Mike Joyner.

00:59:15.000 Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:59:17.000 Senior Producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:59:19.000 Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.

00:59:21.000 And our Technical Producer is Austin Stevens.

00:59:23.000 Edited by Adam Sievitz.

00:59:25.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.

00:59:27.000 Hair and Makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:59:29.000 Production Assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:59:30.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:59:33.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2019.

00:59:35.000 President Trump announces plans to deport millions of illegal aliens.

00:59:39.000 It seems to me I've heard that song before.

00:59:41.000 Then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses the United States of holding illegal aliens in concentration camps, just like the Holocaust.

00:59:49.000 And finally, the Washington Post identifies the real reason white America became distrustful of O.J.

00:59:55.000 Simpson.

00:59:55.000 Hint, it's not because he murdered his ex-wife.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 18, 2019

The Crackdown Begins | Ep. 803

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