The Ben Shapiro Show - The Dirtiest Trick In The Book | Ep. 622

00:00:00.000 Democrats pull a horrendous last-minute dirty trick on Brett Kavanaugh.

00:00:03.000 We review the results of last night's primary elections in New York, and we'll check the mailbag.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:07.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:13.000 All right, we have a lot to get to today.

00:00:14.000 A lot of breaking news happening, and we will break down everything that happened in New York last night.

00:00:18.000 But first, let's talk about your safety and security.

00:00:21.000 I am somebody obsessed with safety and security, and that is why I use Ring.com at my home.

00:00:26.000 Ring is the video doorbell company that allows you to see and speak to anyone when they come to your door, and they've actually sent us actual footage of Ring busting crooks in the act.

00:00:33.000 This one is just weird and creepy.

00:00:36.000 Here's what it sounds like.

00:00:38.000 Hey, sorry, we're in the middle of dinner.

00:00:40.000 Can I help you?

00:00:42.000 Yes, how are you?

00:00:44.000 Good, how are you?

00:00:46.000 Good, I haven't seen you in a while.

00:00:48.000 I don't know who you are.

00:00:49.000 I'm Justin.

00:00:52.000 I don't know you, Justin.

00:00:54.000 I met you a long time ago when I was younger.

00:00:56.000 No, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong place.

00:00:59.000 I'm okay.

00:01:02.000 Much love and God bless for both gods.

00:01:22.000 All right, so the breaking news today is that Paul Manafort has apparently cut a deal with the federal government, with the Mueller investigation.

00:01:26.000 We don't know what that deal encompasses.

00:01:27.000 We know that Paul Manafort had

00:01:52.000 Already been convicted on several felony counts related to bank and tax fraud charges.

00:01:59.000 And then he was to move on to a second trial, and he pled guilty in that trial to avoid a longer sentence, apparently.

00:02:06.000 According to the New York Times, the negotiations over a plea deal related to a separate set of seven charges encompassing conspiracy, obstruction of justice, money laundering, false statements and violations of a lobbying disclosure law.

00:02:18.000 It's not clear exactly what Manafort might plead guilty to.

00:02:20.000 Apparently, he's pleading guilty to a bunch of charges having to do with failing to register as a foreign agent of the Ukrainian government back when a schmuck named Yanukovych was running the country. 0.61

00:02:32.000 In any case, Manafort's trial on the second set of charges was scheduled to get underway on Monday, but now he has pled guilty.

00:02:38.000 He's going to turn over, apparently, an enormous amount of property to the federal government.

00:02:41.000 What is more important, because who cares about Paul Manafort?

00:02:44.000 What's more important here is that Paul Manafort is apparently working under a cooperation agreement

00:02:48.000 With the Mueller investigation, which means that presumably he is flipping maybe on President Trump.

00:02:54.000 And this is the part where it starts to get real dicey for the Trump administration because nobody actually knows what Manafort knows.

00:03:00.000 Nobody knows exactly what Manafort was doing.

00:03:02.000 Now again, there's no evidence that's actually been shown that Manafort was actively cooperating with the Russian government on behalf of Trump.

00:03:08.000 Trump could still say, listen, I just hired this guy Manafort because this guy Manafort has long-standing high-level RNC ties going back legitimately years.

00:03:17.000 I mean, ties to top members of RNC Finance, ties to top political members of the RNC going back election cycles.

00:03:25.000 I mean, several election cycles.

00:03:27.000 And Trump could just say, listen, I was looking for a campaign manager.

00:03:30.000 There wasn't a professional available.

00:03:31.000 The RNC suggested that I pick up Manafort because they knew him.

00:03:34.000 I picked him up.

00:03:35.000 And whatever he did on the side, that's his business.

00:03:36.000 But that doesn't mean that I personally knew anything.

00:03:39.000 The problem is that Trump has made claims that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with Russia.

00:03:43.000 If it turns out that Manafort, as his campaign manager,

00:03:46.000 Was messing about with Russia, then that could lead to some pretty severe consequences. 0.80

00:03:50.000 According to ABC, the deal is expected to be announced in court Friday.

00:03:53.000 It remains unclear whether Manafort has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors or is simply conceding to a guilty plea.

00:03:59.000 It now appears that he is indeed cooperating with prosecutors.

00:04:02.000 We don't actually know.

00:04:03.000 Again, what's the information that he's going to turn over to prosecutors?

00:04:06.000 What exactly are they getting in return for a reduced sentence of some sort?

00:04:11.000 We don't know the answer to that, and we're gonna have to wait for the answer to that, but it's not good news for President Trump, obviously.

00:04:17.000 President Trump, you remember, was tweeting incessantly after the Paul Manafort convictions a couple of weeks ago, which came out on the same day that Michael Cohen pled guilty and said that he was cooperating with federal prosecutors.

00:04:30.000 You recall that President Trump tweeted out how much he loved Manafort for not flipping on him.

00:04:35.000 Now it's getting real ugly.

00:04:37.000 Now it's really ugly.

00:04:38.000 So Manafort has indeed agreed to cooperate with the special counsel in the Russia probe.

00:04:42.000 On July 31st, Manafort's attorney had told CBS there was no chance his client would cooperate with the special counsel to avoid his first trial, but now he is apparently going to have to cooperate to avoid the second trial.

00:04:54.000 This could be very ugly for the Trump campaign, the Trump administration.

00:04:58.000 We're going to have to see what this actually means.

00:05:00.000 Everybody's jumping to the conclusion that this is the end of Trump.

00:05:02.000 You know, again, unless there is something deeply, unless there is something, I think, deeply indicting and convicting of President Trump himself, it's going to be very difficult to make the claim that President Trump was personally approving any sort of Putin manipulation of the election.

00:05:20.000 But we'll have to see the evidence that Manafort provides, because after all,

00:05:23.000 Could be.

00:05:24.000 And Manafort, again, does have an incentive, I would say, to spill as much of his guts as he possibly can on the president or to theoretically make things up in order to avoid the consequences of his own corruption apparently going back years.

00:05:38.000 But the fact that Manafort

00:05:40.000 is flipping as bad news for President Trump.

00:05:42.000 Meanwhile, the Democrats are trying to play every dirty trick they can with regard to Brett Kavanaugh.

00:05:46.000 Yesterday saw the dirtiest trick of all.

00:05:48.000 This was Dianne Feinstein, who's the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:05:52.000 She referred information involving Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, to federal investigators on Thursday, but the senator declined to make public what exactly the matter involved.

00:06:03.000 Two officials familiar with the matter say the incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Judge Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school.

00:06:10.000 So now we're going to go back 35 years to try and find something that Brett Kavanaugh allegedly did wrong.

00:06:15.000 Okay, Dianne Feinstein's announcement yesterday was just perverse because here's what she announced, quote, So in other words, somebody came with information,

00:06:36.000 I'm not going to tell you what the information is.

00:06:38.000 I'm not going to tell you where it came from.

00:06:39.000 I've referred it to federal authorities.

00:06:41.000 So it could be anything.

00:06:42.000 It could be the worst thing you could possibly imagine, or it could be that Brett Kavanaugh was mean to someone back in high school.

00:06:47.000 But I'm not going to say so.

00:06:49.000 And this is where you start to look at this stuff and say, yeah, this is pretty dicey stuff.

00:06:53.000 If Dianne Feinstein really knew months ago that Brett Kavanaugh had raped somebody, wouldn't she have been under an obligation to tell federal law enforcement then?

00:07:01.000 Why wait until a week or two before the confirmation vote on Brett Kavanaugh except to scuttle the boat, simply

00:07:07.000 We're good to go.

00:07:24.000 is writing, as well as Jane Mayer over at the New Yorker.

00:07:27.000 The woman who was asked not to be identified first approached Democratic lawmakers in July, shortly after Trump nominated Kavanaugh.

00:07:33.000 So, in other words, Democrats knew about this for months, because it is now September.

00:07:37.000 Okay, so they knew about it in July, August, and September.

00:07:40.000 They did nothing about it.

00:07:40.000 They didn't refer it to the FBI.

00:07:42.000 They waited until now to take an allegation that Kavanaugh has apparently completely denied.

00:07:48.000 and throw that into the public square as sort of a red meat thing to stop Brett Kavanaugh's nomination.

00:07:54.000 Democratic lawmakers didn't do anything about it. 0.99

00:07:56.000 The allegation dates back to the early 1980s, when Kavanaugh was a high school student at Georgetown Prep School in Bethesda, Maryland, and the woman attended a nearby high school.

00:08:04.000 In the letter, the woman alleged that during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down and that he attempted to force himself on her.

00:08:10.000 She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking,

00:08:14.000 turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand.

00:08:19.000 She was able to free herself.

00:08:20.000 Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.

00:08:30.000 In a statement, Kavanaugh said, quote, I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation.

00:08:34.000 I did not do this back in high school or at any time.

00:08:38.000 So, how exactly is Dianne Feinstein bringing this up now?

00:08:39.000 Again, with no evidence other than this woman's allegation, which has been denied by everyone else who was there.

00:08:54.000 Now, maybe she's telling the truth.

00:08:55.000 Maybe she is. 0.93

00:08:56.000 But wouldn't it have behooved Dianne Feinstein to initiate that investigation, say, in July, when she first received the information?

00:09:03.000 I mean, this is dirty tricks at its very finest.

00:09:05.000 It's dirty tricks all the way down.

00:09:07.000 And this is not the last time.

00:09:08.000 This is not the most...

00:09:10.000 The only time the Democrats have tried this routine.

00:09:12.000 They tried the same routine with Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' hearing, bringing up allegations that were thoroughly non-credible for a variety of reasons about Clarence Thomas supposedly sexually harassing Anita Hill, talking and making jokes about pubic hairs on Coke cans and such.

00:09:25.000 And this was supposed to sink Clarence Thomas.

00:09:27.000 They're trying the same thing here.

00:09:28.000 Republicans should ram through Brett Kavanaugh's nomination right now.

00:09:31.000 The FBI has already declined to investigate it.

00:09:33.000 They announced that yesterday.

00:09:35.000 They have referred it to the White House for a background check.

00:09:38.000 But that's all, because there's no further evidence that this actually happened.

00:09:41.000 Kavanaugh denies the allegations, and the Democrats are going to have to do better than that.

00:09:44.000 Instead, they're smearing Brett Kavanaugh with an allegation decades old.

00:09:48.000 Decades old, going back to when he was 17 years old when he was a minor.

00:09:51.000 And we are supposed to pretend that this is a legitimate effort to keep, what, a serial rapist off the Supreme Court?

00:09:57.000 That's what Democrats are really doing here? 0.99

00:09:59.000 This is the dirtiest of the dirty stuff. 0.98

00:10:01.000 It's just, it's just gross.

00:10:03.000 It's the same thing as when Harry Reid suggested that Mitt Romney had not paid his taxes.

00:10:07.000 He just went out there and said it.

00:10:09.000 And then it turned out that Mitt Romney had in fact paid his taxes.

00:10:11.000 But Harry Reid said, you know what?

00:10:12.000 We got what we needed to get done done.

00:10:14.000 He wasn't elected president of the United States.

00:10:16.000 This is gross stuff. 0.97

00:10:17.000 You wonder why people think politics is a dirty, disgusting business? 0.99

00:10:21.000 This is why people think politics is a dirty and disgusting business. 0.74

00:10:24.000 Because folks on every side of the aisle are pretty much willing to do anything to take down political opponents.

00:10:30.000 And listen, I'm on the right.

00:10:32.000 I don't think that my side is immune to this.

00:10:35.000 I don't think I'm immune to this.

00:10:36.000 But I think that this is a pretty egregious example.

00:10:38.000 I mean, over the last couple of weeks, when we've seen Cory Booker

00:10:41.000 I'm doing this routine where he is Spartacus by revealing documents that were already revealed.

00:10:46.000 Or when you saw Kamala Harris implying that Brett Kavanaugh had been corruptly discussing the Mueller investigation with members of President Trump's firm, with no evidence of that whatsoever.

00:10:55.000 When you had Sheldon Whitehouse proclaiming that he didn't feel subject to the law because Merrick Garland should be on the Supreme Court.

00:11:01.000 And now when you have Dianne Feinstein dumping into the public record

00:11:06.000 Unsourced allegations of an alleged sexual assault that took place 35 years ago in order to stop Brett Kavanaugh's ascension to the Supreme Court.

00:11:14.000 Really, really gross stuff.

00:11:15.000 And that's not the only dirty allegation being put out today by Democrats in an attempt to smear Republicans.

00:11:21.000 We'll get to another one, this one courtesy of the New York Times, in just a second.

00:11:24.000 But first, we're talking about a lot of dirty stuff.

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00:12:41.000 So that was not the only dirty attempt by Democrats, not just the Brett Kavanaugh thing.

00:12:46.000 The White House, by the way, has responded

00:12:48.000 Immediately to this, White House spokeswoman Kerry Kupec said, throughout his confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators, including Senator Feinstein, sat through over 30 hours of testimony, addressed over 2,000 questions in a public setting, and additional questions in a confidential setting.

00:13:05.000 Not until the eve of his confirmation has Senator Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new information about him.

00:13:10.000 Senator Schumer promised to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's nomination with everything I have.

00:13:13.000 It appears he is delivering this 11th hour attempt to delay the confirmation.

00:13:18.000 So just really gross stuff.

00:13:20.000 That's not the only gross allegation today.

00:13:21.000 There's a headline at the New York Times today going after Nikki Haley, who's the single most popular Republican in the country.

00:13:27.000 And as I said before on this show, my spirit animal, here is the headline from the New York Times.

00:13:32.000 State Department spent $52,701 on curtains for Nikki Haley's residence.

00:13:38.000 So this is an attempt to paint Nikki Haley as a sort of Scott Pruitt, casually corrupt official who's spending enormous quantities of taxpayer cash in order to pad her residence. 0.99

00:13:50.000 Here's the piece from the New York Times.

00:13:52.000 You stop me when you think you hear the problem with this New York Times piece.

00:13:55.000 The State Department

00:13:56.000 Spent $52,701 last year buying customized and mechanized curtains for the picture windows in Nikki Haley's official residence as ambassador to the UN, just as the department was undergoing deep budget cuts and had frozen hiring.

00:14:08.000 The residence in a new building on First Avenue has spectacular views, and Ms.

00:14:11.000 Haley is the first ambassador to live in it.

00:14:13.000 For decades, her predecessors lived in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

00:14:16.000 But after the hotel was purchased by a Chinese insurance company with a murky ownership structure, the State Department decided in 2016 to find a new home for its top New York diplomat because of security concerns.

00:14:27.000 The government leased the apartment just blocks from the delegation's offices with an option to buy, according to Patrick Kennedy, the top management official at the State Department during the Obama administration.

00:14:36.000 The full-floor penthouse with handsome hardwood floors covering large open spaces stretching nearly 6,000 square feet was listed at $58,000 per month.

00:14:46.000 A spokesman for Ms.

00:14:47.000 Haley said plans to buy the curtains were made in 2016 during the Obama administration.

00:14:53.000 Ms.

00:14:53.000 Haley had no say in the purchase, he said.

00:14:56.000 So the headline is, Nikki Haley is responsible for spending 53 grand on curtains.

00:15:01.000 And then buried in paragraph four of this piece is the actual story, which is that the Obama administration outfitted the place for 58 grand on curtains because they were fully expecting the UN ambassador to be a Democrat.

00:15:14.000 The Obama administration was expecting the next person to occupy that penthouse to be a Democrat.

00:15:18.000 And so they decided to spend inordinate quantities of cash on curtains.

00:15:23.000 But they're trying to pin it on Nikki Haley anyway.

00:15:26.000 So instead, it's going to be that Nikki Haley is somehow responsible for all of this.

00:15:31.000 Really a tremendous smear, a really massive smear from the New York Times.

00:15:36.000 Again, in an attempt to get top Republican officials.

00:15:39.000 And then you wonder why folks don't actually trust the media.

00:15:42.000 Well, meanwhile, there were a series of elections in New York last night, and there's a bizarre split that happened in New York last night.

00:15:49.000 There were a bunch of very, very far-left candidates who won in sort of local races, the most prominent of whom is Julia Salazar, a 27-year-old Democratic Socialist.

00:15:59.000 Who is plagued by negative news coverage in the final weeks of her insurgent campaign against incumbent New York State Senator Martin Dillon for making misleading statements about her background.

00:16:07.000 She had claimed that she was the child of Colombian Jewish immigrants.

00:16:11.000 That she had immigrated, she was an illegal immigrant who was poor from Colombia and Jewish. 0.99

00:16:15.000 Not a single element of that is true.

00:16:18.000 Okay, she's not from Colombia.

00:16:19.000 She's an American citizen.

00:16:20.000 Her parents are American citizens.

00:16:23.000 She was not poor.

00:16:24.000 She grew up middle class to upper middle class.

00:16:27.000 She is not Jewish. 0.89

00:16:28.000 All of this was false. 0.98

00:16:29.000 So she's basically a sociopath, just essentially lying about key elements of her background. 1.00

00:16:34.000 That didn't stop people in this New York district from voting for her for the New York State Senate because this is a small district in the middle of North Brooklyn. 0.99

00:16:42.000 And as we know, Brooklyn is a very, very left area.

00:16:45.000 Voters in North Brooklyn, this is according to the Huffington Post, which loves Salazar.

00:16:48.000 Voters in North Brooklyn on Thursday found her preferable to Dylan's close ties to the real estate lobby, as Salazar triumphed in the Democratic primary for the New York State Senate's 18th district seat.

00:16:57.000 The voters may also have been sending a message of disgust with corruption scandals that have rocked the state Senate.

00:17:02.000 Susan Kang, a leader of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which endorsed Salazar, and she's an active dues-paying member of the organization, she said,

00:17:26.000 And that shows how important the issues really are.

00:17:29.000 So she again implied that she was an immigrant.

00:17:31.000 She is not.

00:17:31.000 That she was poor.

00:17:32.000 She is not.

00:17:33.000 That she said she graduated from Columbia University.

00:17:36.000 She does not have a degree from Columbia University.

00:17:38.000 She said that she was raised in a Jewish faith.

00:17:40.000 That is untrue.

00:17:43.000 And I love the New York, the Huffington Post coverage.

00:17:45.000 Well, these fibs made headlines.

00:17:46.000 They're just fibs.

00:17:47.000 They're just fibs.

00:17:48.000 Not real lies about her background.

00:17:49.000 They are fibs.

00:17:50.000 Salazar's policy platform earned her the enthusiastic grassroots support of the Democratic Socialists of America.

00:17:55.000 Basically, you're talking about one area of New York that is far-left socialist and keeps electing similar people from Alexandria, Ocasio-Cortez.

00:18:03.000 To Cynthia Nixon.

00:18:04.000 But here's where things get weird.

00:18:06.000 That same district last night that voted for Julia Salazar voted basically 2 to 1 for Andrew Cuomo over Cynthia Nixon in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

00:18:17.000 So, Cynthia Nixon, who was running to the far left, she put out a series of tweets this morning talking about how she was very disappointed that so many people showed up and turned out to vote for Andrew Cuomo, which is a weird thing for a democratic socialist to say, supposedly a power to the people person.

00:18:32.000 She also talked about how true priorities like banning plastic bags were not going to be taken care of by Andrew Cuomo.

00:18:38.000 Can't imagine why she lost.

00:18:39.000 In any case, Cynthia Nixon, who did win, by the way, one third of the vote, 1.00

00:18:43.000 Being her only qualification for office, being extraordinarily radical on politics, here's what she had to say in the aftermath of her defeat.

00:18:49.000 It is about offering a vision of the way things could work if only we have the leadership and the political courage to make it a reality.

00:19:00.000 This race for the Democratic nomination may be over, but the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party is just beginning.

00:19:12.000 OK, now here's the part that is actually kind of true about what she's saying.

00:19:16.000 And here is where Republicans run into a bit of a pickle.

00:19:20.000 Republicans are betting on Democratic radicalism to save them.

00:19:23.000 They're betting on the fact that the Democrats have moved very, very far to the left to save them in general elections like 2020.

00:19:28.000 Because President Trump's approval ratings are low, because President Trump will be hit with another slew of negative headlines regarding Paul Manafort, for example.

00:19:35.000 And so the feeling is the only way that President Trump cruises to victory in 2020 is because the Democrats are just bad at this.

00:19:42.000 The Democrats are likely to nominate somebody who's a far left radical who's easy to pillory.

00:19:47.000 I'm not so sure that's true because where Cynthia Nixon is correct is that her agenda is in fact taking over the Democratic Party, the mainstream Democratic Party. 1.00

00:19:57.000 People on the right are counting on the Julia Salazars and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes of the world to take over the party.

00:20:04.000 They're counting on people who are overtly nuts to take over the root of the Democratic Party.

00:20:09.000 And to a certain extent, that's worked on the grassroots level. 0.98

00:20:11.000 But I think that as we rise in Democratic politics, they're actually winnowing out the most ridiculous candidates.

00:20:17.000 So I'm a little bit concerned about the fact that Andrew Cuomo defeated Cynthia Nixon.

00:20:20.000 I was hoping Cynthia Nixon would win because then we'd actually have the specter of Cynthia Nixon as New York governor. 1.00

00:20:25.000 We could point to her.

00:20:26.000 Andrew Cuomo is bad enough.

00:20:28.000 He's actually bad at politics.

00:20:29.000 But Andrew Cuomo is, in fact, a professional politician.

00:20:33.000 And I'm going to explain why that's important in just one second.

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00:20:55.000 When there's no power, refrigeration fails, stores close, and then what do you do?

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00:21:49.000 Okay, so...

00:21:50.000 As I say, the problem for the Democrats is the possibility of unpalatable faces repeating a Democrat socialist platform.

00:21:57.000 People like Julia Salazar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and yes, Cynthia Nixon.

00:22:01.000 But instead, what has happened is mainstream members of the Democratic Party have simply moved to the left to co-opt all of the ideas of the hardcore left Democratic Party.

00:22:11.000 When Cynthia Nixon says there's a war inside the Democratic Party, the war is over and the mainstream left lost.

00:22:16.000 The mainstream liberals lost.

00:22:18.000 The people who are now in full control of the Democratic Party are in fact Democratic Socialists who are basically campaigning that way.

00:22:25.000 Even people like Elizabeth Warren who says she's pro-capitalism.

00:22:28.000 Yesterday she came out and she said we should break up Amazon and we should break up JP Morgan.

00:22:32.000 I'm not sure under what guise you would claim that Amazon is a monopoly that needs to be broken up, but all of this is sort of the populist demagogic rhetoric you hear on a regular basis from democratic socialists all across the country.

00:22:43.000 And it's folks like Beto O'Rourke, who is beloved by the Democratic base, where he's spending his time campaigning in Washington, D.C.

00:22:48.000 and New York.

00:22:50.000 He is running very close to Ted Cruz in Texas, which is an insane, insane thing.

00:22:55.000 Texas is a very, very red state.

00:22:57.000 If Beto O'Rourke were to pull out that race, there's no question he'd immediately turn around and run for president of the United States.

00:23:02.000 Here is Beto O'Rourke trying to explain on CBS, because this is what he does.

00:23:07.000 He gets all the late night slots.

00:23:08.000 Beto O'Rourke explains that DREAMers should be freed from deportation by simply granting them full amnesty and citizenship.

00:23:15.000 We don't need walls.

00:23:16.000 We can have smart security solutions, and we can free DREAMers from the fear of deportation by making them U.S. 1.00

00:23:22.000 citizens today, so they can contribute to their maximum capacity, to their full potential.

00:23:29.000 Okay, so Beto O'Rourke again adopting some of the most radical elements of the far-left platform.

00:23:34.000 He continued by saying that he would not actually trade a wall for the DREAM Act.

00:23:39.000 First of all, again, let me demonstrate how biased the left media is.

00:23:42.000 When's the last time Ted Cruz was on The Late Show?

00:23:45.000 The answer is never.

00:23:46.000 And they won't even have, apparently, people like Norm MacDonald on the late show, because Norm MacDonald is too politically incorrect.

00:23:52.000 But Beto O'Rourke, who is going to lose his race to Ted Cruz in all likelihood, that's a guy who they'll have on the late show.

00:23:58.000 Any Democrat who has higher aspirations will get a slot on the late show.

00:24:02.000 But the point here is a little bit broader, which is that Beto O'Rourke and mainstream Democrats, they have embraced the radical platform of people like Julia Salazar and Cynthia Nixon, but they put a more palatable face on it.

00:24:13.000 Beto O'Rourke is better at this.

00:24:14.000 Then Julia Salazar.

00:24:16.000 Nobody's talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president.

00:24:18.000 Even if she ran for Senate and won, nobody would be talking about her for that. 0.99

00:24:21.000 But Beto O'Rourke is a pretty smooth, polished politician.

00:24:25.000 And you can see that he's effective in pushing exactly the same message.

00:24:29.000 And again, you can see the radicalism of the Democratic Party at work among mainstream political figures who feel the need to adopt that platform.

00:24:35.000 Chelsea Clinton is doing the same thing. 1.00

00:24:37.000 So Chelsea Clinton is the child of the guy who said safe, legal, and rare should be the standard with regard to abortion.

00:24:42.000 Here she was yesterday saying it would be unchristian, unchristian to go back to a time when abortion was illegal.

00:24:49.000 You know, we just can't go back to that.

00:24:52.000 Like, that's unconscionable to me.

00:24:57.000 And also, and I'm sure that this will unleash another wave of hate in my direction, but as a deeply religious person, it's also unchristian.

00:25:07.000 Oh, it's unchristian now.

00:25:08.000 It's unchristian to prevent the abortion of the unborn. 0.95

00:25:12.000 It's unchristian. 0.55

00:25:13.000 Wow.

00:25:13.000 I mean, pretty amazing stuff there.

00:25:15.000 But again, the point here is the broader point.

00:25:18.000 What's happening is that the Democratic Socialist platform is now rising up in the Democratic Party among more palatable figures, including folks like Andrew Cuomo.

00:25:25.000 The reason that Andrew Cuomo beat Cynthia Nixon is because the difference between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon was simply not broad enough to justify voting for an actress from Sex and the City over a sitting governor of the state of New York with a long family history in New York politics.

00:25:39.000 When that happens, then Republicans really should be worried.

00:25:41.000 Republicans should be worried that Democrats will pick somebody who's a little bit more publicly palatable, but is mimicking exactly the same messages of Bernie Sanders.

00:25:49.000 It won't be a crazy old loon bag from Vermont running this time.

00:25:52.000 It'll be somebody who's more attractive.

00:25:54.000 It'll be somebody who's better at this.

00:25:55.000 It'll be somebody who is capable of winning a national election on a far-left platform.

00:26:01.000 Now, there is some hope left, okay?

00:26:02.000 And the hope stands in the fact that a lot of the primary voters

00:26:08.000 On both sides are more motivated by anger and revenge than they are by anything remotely approaching typical politics.

00:26:14.000 And this is why Michael Avenatti, I think, still provides an outsized threat on the left.

00:26:19.000 I think that basically the 2020 nomination, the Democratic Party, at this point, if you had to give odds, you'd say Elizabeth Warren is the odds-on favorite.

00:26:25.000 Elizabeth Warren is dangerous because she is picking up all of the cues from the hard left. 1.00

00:26:30.000 Elizabeth Warren used to be kind of moderate. 1.00

00:26:32.000 Back in the day, she wrote books about the two parent and the two

00:26:35.000 I think so.

00:26:47.000 Elizabeth Warren was not a hardcore radical. 0.93

00:26:49.000 She's become a hardcore radical specifically because she knows that that is what plays with the Democratic base. 1.00

00:26:54.000 And while she is a personally unappealing candidate in some ways, she can answer the one question that probably lost Hillary Clinton the election. 0.91

00:27:01.000 Why do you want to be president?

00:27:02.000 Hillary lost in 2016 because everybody knew the answer was she just wanted it because she felt she was owed it. 0.99

00:27:07.000 Elizabeth Warren can do the populist routine far better than Hillary Clinton can. 1.00

00:27:11.000 You can see the media already starting to rally behind Elizabeth Warren.

00:27:14.000 The Harvard Law professor against the Rube from Queens. 0.99

00:27:17.000 That's the way they're going to play this thing.

00:27:20.000 So she's still the frontrunner.

00:27:21.000 And then you've got the sort of insurgent candidacy of probably Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate from California, who's a senator out here. 0.97

00:27:29.000 She's a terrible senator. 1.00

00:27:30.000 She was a terrible attorney general. 1.00

00:27:32.000 But she is black and she is female and she is radical. 1.00

00:27:35.000 She checks intersectionality boxes for a lot of folks on the left.

00:27:38.000 She can theoretically draw out the minority base in a way Elizabeth Warren may not be able to. 1.00

00:27:42.000 And she is good at playing the prosecutor. 0.89

00:27:45.000 And then you have the real dark horse of the race.

00:27:47.000 And that dark horse of the race would be Michael Avenatti.

00:27:49.000 So Michael Avenatti

00:27:50.000 This is what Republicans are banking on, is that the Democratic base will be driven so nuts by Trump, they just decide to go get the angriest guy on television.

00:27:57.000 And so while the rest of the country and the elites particularly are laughing at Michael Avenatti's pretensions to glory, they also laughed at Donald Trump's pretensions to glory all the way until he was president of the United States.

00:28:08.000 Michael Avenatti was on Tucker Carlson last night.

00:28:10.000 And I have to say, you know, Tucker, I thought, did a pretty funny job handling it.

00:28:16.000 It was clearly planned that this thing was going to be just a

00:28:21.000 Rock'em, sock'em robots, punching match between Tucker Carlson and Michael Avenatti.

00:28:25.000 It benefits Avenatti.

00:28:26.000 It's good for Avenatti.

00:28:27.000 It's good for Tucker, too, because the ratings are good, and because Tucker is good with interviews.

00:28:31.000 But Avenatti clearly likes these sorts of situations.

00:28:35.000 He goes into the lion's den, and that's going to be his pitch.

00:28:38.000 His pitch is going to be, I'm the guy who punches hardest.

00:28:40.000 And you can see exactly how this worked last night.

00:28:42.000 So Tucker benefited from the fact that he was smacking around Avenatti.

00:28:45.000 Avenatti benefited from the fact he was punching right back at Tucker.

00:28:49.000 This sort of oppositional politics is Republicans' best hope for somebody like Avenatti to get the nomination.

00:28:54.000 So, Tucker was trolling Avenatti with all sorts of hilarious chyrons last night.

00:28:59.000 The chyron writer over at Fox News gets a raise. 1.00

00:29:02.000 The chyron said things like,

00:29:07.000 Avenatti, of course, is the lawyer for Stormy Daniels.

00:29:09.000 And Tucker takes on creepy porn lawyer.

00:29:12.000 And it was, you know, pretty glorious chyrons there from Tucker Carlson.

00:29:17.000 Avenatti did get into it with Carlson for calling him a creepy porn lawyer. 0.98

00:29:21.000 He says, why don't you call Trump the creepy porn president? 0.95

00:29:23.000 This is the kind of thing where Avenatti earns points with the base, right? 0.79

00:29:26.000 He's going to try and run a hard left, I fight President Trump campaign.

00:29:31.000 And theoretically, he could do more damage than I think people will give him credit for. 0.97

00:29:35.000 Why is it that you don't call Donald Trump the creepy porn president? 1.00

00:29:38.000 He's the one that had sex with a four-month-old son at home with my client without a condom. 1.00

00:29:46.000 But you don't want to acknowledge that. 0.97

00:29:48.000 You don't want to acknowledge that.

00:29:49.000 Acknowledge it.

00:29:50.000 Do you believe that he had sex with my client? 0.59

00:29:52.000 Yes, I do.

00:29:52.000 I've said that on the air multiple times.

00:29:53.000 So he's lied repeatedly to the American people and you're okay with that?

00:29:56.000 You think it's okay if the president lies to the American people?

00:29:59.000 Okay, so it went like this for Avenatti.

00:30:02.000 Avenatti comes out of this looking good for his base.

00:30:04.000 Tucker comes out of this looking good for his base.

00:30:06.000 I will say the funniest moment of this interview is when Avenatti asked Tucker if he watched porn.

00:30:10.000 And Tucker got off a pretty good line here.

00:30:12.000 If you've got that big a problem with porn, do you have that big a problem with porn? 0.86

00:30:16.000 I'm not making fun of porn! 0.82

00:30:18.000 When's the last time you saw porn? 0.60

00:30:20.000 Oh, you busted me. 0.98

00:30:21.000 Actually, I meant humiliation porn. 0.98

00:30:23.000 That's why I watch you on CNN. 0.98

00:30:24.000 No, but when's the last time you viewed porn?

00:30:29.000 Pretty good line there from Tucker.

00:30:30.000 But again, this sort of oppositional... It's funny.

00:30:33.000 Everybody in the elites thinks people are watching the Elizabeth Warren of it all, thinks they're watching the Kamala Harris of it all.

00:30:38.000 More people will watch the clips of Tucker versus Avenatti than will see that Elizabeth Warren has ever said anything about antitrust.

00:30:45.000 This is the best hope for Republicans.

00:30:47.000 The best hope for Republicans is that they control the Democrats into nominating somebody like a Michael Avenatti.

00:30:52.000 The worst nightmare for Republicans is that somebody who's a credible candidate comes along

00:30:57.000 Who's even remotely likable and hijacks Cynthia Nixon's platform and uses that all the way to the presidency.

00:31:03.000 That is the worst nightmare for Republicans and they should take that under advisement.

00:31:06.000 We shouldn't be quite so sanguine about the possibility that the Democratic move to the left is inevitably going to lead to failure on their part.

00:31:13.000 Okay, we're gonna get to the mailbag in just a second, but first I want to talk to you about your Second Amendment rights.

00:31:17.000 Now, as you know, I'm sure that you know I'm a proud member of the USCCA, right?

00:31:21.000 I'm a big Second Amendment supporter.

00:31:22.000 They're on a mission to protect responsibly armed Americans like you and me.

00:31:25.000 And right now, they're smack dab in the middle of one of their biggest gun giveaways ever.

00:31:29.000 They want to give you 10 free chances to win the gun of your dreams.

00:31:32.000 So, which gun is calling your name?

00:31:34.000 Maybe it's a classic 1911 or a new Sig Sauer.

00:31:36.000 Well, get your chance to get it for free right now.

00:31:38.000 Simply text WIN to the number 87222 and you'll instantly lock in your 10 free chances to win.

00:31:44.000 Again, it's that easy.

00:31:45.000 Just get your phone out right now and text WIN, that's W-I-N, to 87222.

00:31:50.000 This all ends next Friday.

00:31:51.000 Don't miss out.

00:31:52.000 It's way too easy and way too valuable to pass up.

00:31:54.000 And again, they want law-abiding citizens to be armed because that's the basis of the Second Amendment and the basis of our freedom.

00:31:59.000 Text WIN to 87222 right now.

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00:32:02.000 Imagine getting $1,500 for doing something that easy.

00:32:05.000 10 free chances to make that dream come true right now.

00:32:07.000 Text WIN to the number 87222.

00:32:10.000 Plus, the USCCA is a great organization you should be supporting anyway.

00:32:13.000 They help you out with educational materials, as well as legal materials in case you actually have to fire a gun at somebody, God forbid.

00:32:19.000 Text WIN to 87222 for your free chances to win $1,500 toward the gun of your dream.

00:32:25.000 Pretty awesome.

00:32:26.000 We'll get to the mailbags, I say, in just a second.

00:32:28.000 First, you're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe for $9.99 a month.

00:32:32.000 When you do that, you get the rest of this show live, the rest of Michael Knowles' show live, the rest of Andrew Klavan's show live, the rest of Matt Walsh's show live, by the way.

00:32:38.000 You get all of those things when you subscribe.

00:32:40.000 Plus, it is almost time for our next episode of The Conversation today.

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00:33:30.000 Alrighty, so, you know what?

00:33:31.000 Let's get to some mailbag here.

00:33:32.000 So, let's jump right in.

00:33:35.000 Well, I mean, the answer is that the government should, you know...

00:33:50.000 Putting yourself in a bad situation doesn't mean that the government isn't compelled to try to help you out, right?

00:33:56.000 I mean, if you walk through a heavily crime-ridden neighborhood in the middle of the night and you get mugged, the police are still supposed to show up.

00:34:02.000 If you stay in an area where you're not supposed to be, the FEMA rescuers are still supposed to show up.

00:34:07.000 I do think that you ought to bear a higher financial cost.

00:34:10.000 For doing that.

00:34:10.000 Like, I think that you should actually have to pay more money for doing that.

00:34:13.000 The government should fine people for staying in areas where they are expected not to pick up the cost even if their house gets flooded by water.

00:34:23.000 Many years from now, how do you think this era of politics from roughly 2012 to today and on will be taught in education?

00:34:28.000 Do you think there's any chance the left-leaning education systems will fail at some point and change perspective?

00:34:32.000 Well, the Howard Zinn version of history is taught routinely in the United States.

00:34:35.000 His book, A People's History of the United States, has sold over 2 million copies, basically attributing every individual evil to America.

00:34:52.000 And every individual good to the world civilization at large.

00:34:55.000 This is something Left loves to do.

00:34:57.000 Slavery, uniquely American. 1.00

00:34:59.000 Sexism, uniquely American. 0.88

00:35:00.000 Racism, uniquely American. 0.96

00:35:02.000 Landing man on the moon, world achievement.

00:35:04.000 Ending World War II, world achievement. 0.70

00:35:06.000 Ending sexism, ending slavery, ending racism, world achievements.

00:35:09.000 All of that is absolute nonsense and there's no basis for that whatsoever.

00:35:14.000 As far as how do I think this year of politics will be taught?

00:35:16.000 Well, I think if people regain sanity, they're going to look at 2012 as the election that broke the country.

00:35:20.000 I think 2012 really made the country worse in a variety of ways.

00:35:24.000 Like, imagine right now if Mitt Romney were in his second term or he'd been running for re-election in 2020 as opposed to Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

00:35:32.000 Do you think the country might be better in a lot of ways?

00:35:34.000 I think the country would be a lot better in a lot of ways if Obama had not won a second term in 2012 and used his

00:35:40.000 Identity politics in order to seize victory.

00:35:44.000 I think that would have been very... I think that election was horrible for the country.

00:35:48.000 I think it trolled the right into near insanity.

00:35:50.000 And I think that, in turn, has trolled the left into near insanity.

00:35:52.000 It has polarized politics in dramatic ways.

00:35:55.000 2008 didn't break the country, but I think 2012 really did serious damage to the country.

00:35:59.000 I know there's a general saying about men falling in love or marrying a woman similar to their mothers and women with their fathers.

00:36:04.000 Do you think there's truth to that?

00:36:05.000 Is your wife anything like your own mother and how?

00:36:07.000 Thanks for the infinite insight.

00:36:09.000 Well, yeah, I mean, I think that you are driven to imitate people that you love.

00:36:14.000 And if you are if you like your mom, then you're going to look for somebody who is like your mom in a lot of ways.

00:36:20.000 So the ways that my wife is like my mom, they have it's always funny every so often. 1.00

00:36:25.000 There will be some weird commonality between my mom and my wife and we'll all just start laughing about it. 1.00

00:36:30.000 So my wife has a tendency to mix up movies in the most bizarre ways. 1.00

00:36:34.000 My mom has the same thing.

00:36:35.000 My wife will forget about the plot of movies extraordinarily quickly in the same way that my mom will. 1.00

00:36:40.000 They have a lot of commonalities in sort of weird, quirky ways.

00:36:44.000 They're similarly practical.

00:36:45.000 My mom is a career woman. 0.82

00:36:46.000 My wife is a career woman. 0.90

00:36:48.000 And because I admire my mom a lot, I would say that my wife is similar to my mom in those ways.

00:36:52.000 But there are ways in which my wife is different.

00:36:53.000 There are things about my mom that, you know, I like less than I like about my wife.

00:36:57.000 And I looked specifically for ways in which my wife would be different from my mom. 0.93

00:37:01.000 I think that one of the things that can help you pick a good spouse is making a serious objective analysis of what you like and dislike about your parents, because that allows you to get a little bit of distance instead of sort of falling instinctually into the pattern of marrying somebody who's exactly like your parents.

00:37:15.000 Your parents are models for your life, so of course you're going to marry somebody

00:37:18.000 Who seems to be like your parents in a lot of ways, but trying to analyze what it is that drives you nuts about your parents is also a good way to avoid marrying somebody who exhibits those same characteristics.

00:37:27.000 Andrew says, Hey Ben, I'm a Spanish professor and I want students to join my major, but I also want my students to make money after college.

00:37:32.000 What should the role of humanities in college be related to yesterday's comments?

00:37:37.000 Well, listen, I think that the humanities education was originally designed to inculcate things like virtue and American values and a certain level of background knowledge about your civilization.

00:37:45.000 But, since we no longer do that, obviously, things should be job-related.

00:37:49.000 Now, I think that being a Spanish major is actually pretty useful.

00:37:52.000 I live in the state of California.

00:37:54.000 Last night, my wife and I spent half an hour with Rosetta Stone, specifically because we're trying to learn Spanish.

00:37:58.000 So, yeah, I think that your major is actually a useful major.

00:38:01.000 When it comes to English majors, however, it seems to me that the only thing that trains you to be an English teacher or an English professor, because the number of successful writers in the United States is extraordinarily low as a percentage,

00:38:12.000 That doesn't mean people shouldn't major in English or enjoy English.

00:38:15.000 I love English.

00:38:15.000 I took a lot of English courses in college.

00:38:17.000 I enjoyed them tremendously.

00:38:18.000 But I think that if you are looking at the job of a college, you have to determine what is the risk-reward benefit.

00:38:25.000 What is the opportunity cost?

00:38:27.000 If you could have majored in something that was going to earn you more money, would that have been the best possible use of your time as opposed to majoring in something that you maybe enjoyed more?

00:38:36.000 College has essentially become a sorting mechanism for grad school.

00:38:38.000 That's all college is at this point.

00:38:40.000 It doesn't almost matter where you went to college, it matters a lot more where you went to grad school.

00:38:44.000 It doesn't matter how much I went to UCLA, it matters a lot more I went to Harvard Law School because Harvard Law prepared me for an actual job.

00:38:49.000 Blake says,

00:38:56.000 Well, I think that it is important to be able to support your family, obviously, but I think that the first thing that you should be considering is whether you are capable of living a responsible lifestyle generally and treating your wife or husband with the most appropriate level of respect and dignity necessary.

00:39:13.000 Treating them as an individual human being, not as a tool for gratification of your emotional desires.

00:39:19.000 That is the biggest thing.

00:39:20.000 Constantly working on yourself is what makes marriage better.

00:39:22.000 Constantly working on your spouse is what makes marriage worse. 0.94

00:39:24.000 You want to ruin your marriage?

00:39:26.000 You want to ruin your relationship?

00:39:27.000 Nitpick your spouse.

00:39:29.000 But make sure, by the way, that you find a spouse who is capable of changing when they are called on something that is worthy of change.

00:39:35.000 Well, the reason is because the single payer is the government, but it's really just a euphemism.

00:39:44.000 It makes it sound better than nationalized healthcare, which is what single-payer is.

00:39:47.000 It was really funny.

00:39:48.000 Cynthia Nixon said earlier today that we need a Democratic Party that embraces single-payer healthcare. 0.99

00:39:52.000 It's like every major Democratic candidate has now embraced the Medicare for All plan.

00:39:58.000 Now, there's some folks who I respect in healthcare policy who say, well, embracing Medicare for All doesn't necessarily mean it's single-payer.

00:40:04.000 No, it means it's the first step towards single payer because once you have a government option, the government can simply undercut everybody else.

00:40:10.000 The government does not cost you anything.

00:40:12.000 Why would you buy private supplemental insurance if the government is going to cover it anyway?

00:40:16.000 Maybe you do that, but the government is then going to have to restrict your access to that insurance in order to prevent every doctor from simply taking that insurance and rejecting Medicare.

00:40:24.000 So, heavily regulating, creating a public option does create an enormous number of problems in the private market, and in fact does lead more toward a single-payer system, although obviously there are hybrid systems like Australia, where a huge number of people buy supplemental health insurance.

00:40:40.000 Marcel says,

00:40:45.000 Thanks, love the show, fan from Hungary.

00:40:46.000 There's a great book by Gerald Schroeder called Genesis and the Big Bang that's really worth reading.

00:40:52.000 I've recommended it many times.

00:40:53.000 Basically, the idea of evolution being consonant with creationism is there is a force that stands behind evolution.

00:41:01.000 God has to use a mechanism, that mechanism is evolution.

00:41:04.000 I honestly find it puzzling that folks have a very tough time rectifying the balance between the two.

00:41:11.000 I understand why folks, by the way, would want to take the Bible literally, because they say if you're going to take this part metaphorically and you take this part literally, how do we know what's metaphorical and what's literal?

00:41:18.000 And the answer to that is sort of the Thomas Aquinas answer, which is what science tells us is also the presence of God in the universe.

00:41:26.000 So science and the Bible cannot be in conflict.

00:41:28.000 You're either misinterpreting the Bible or you're getting the science wrong.

00:41:31.000 One of the two has to be wrong if you're a true Jew or Christian. 0.97

00:41:34.000 But creationism is fully consonant with the idea of evolution because, again, the order of creation suggests that God created living material, and then he created plants, and then he created animals, and then he created human beings.

00:41:48.000 There's nothing there that says by what mechanism God actually did all of that.

00:41:53.000 You'd have to say Washington, just because he's the greatest man in American history.

00:41:55.000 This is a person who

00:42:03.000 was capable of uniting a country that was divided about virtually every issue and then ceding power as soon as he could do so legally.

00:42:12.000 It's an amazing thing.

00:42:14.000 The confidence that you have to have to say, I'm walking away from power now, I'm going to hand it to somebody who I don't necessarily even trust, like John Adams, and I'm going to hand it to that guy and just walk away.

00:42:23.000 It's pretty tremendous.

00:42:24.000 House has been what legal authority do public universities have to deny students their Second Amendment rights?

00:42:29.000 Well, public universities, from my understanding, have the same authority as local cities and localities and counties, which is, they can make regulations that prevail on their particular swath of territory, as long as those don't violate the Constitution with regard to the Second Amendment.

00:42:51.000 So, that really hasn't been litigated too much.

00:42:53.000 You haven't seen a lot of cases with regard to the Second Amendment, frankly.

00:42:57.000 Well, let's say the state of Texas were to pass a law saying that concealing carry is the law of the land, and then the University of Texas said no, it's hard to see how that could trump the state law of Texas, actually.

00:43:08.000 Let's see, Finn says, Well, I mean, frankly,

00:43:19.000 I think that we have the money to pay for the border wall.

00:43:22.000 It is in pretty much every attempted defense appropriations bill.

00:43:26.000 Do I think the border wall is BLNL, by the way? 0.97

00:43:28.000 I don't.

00:43:28.000 I mean, I'm in favor of a border wall.

00:43:29.000 Do I think it's the chief mechanism for curbing illegal immigration?

00:43:32.000 I don't.

00:43:33.000 I think the chief method for curbing illegal immigration is deportation, and that needs to rise with regard specifically to people who have overstayed their visas.

00:43:39.000 But it is a serious problem that we have avoided paying our freight on a variety of issues, and the border wall included.

00:43:46.000 Mexico is not going to pay for it, by the way. 0.62

00:43:47.000 That's just, that's silly.

00:43:49.000 Jay says, Hi Ben, I'm a programmer in Seattle, Washington.

00:43:51.000 I'm growing increasingly fearful of the homeless problem.

00:43:54.000 It's gotten much worse in the past years with tents popping up all over the place.

00:43:57.000 We had multiple brush fires that have been started along I-5.

00:43:59.000 Human feces literally lining the sidewalks, trash is everywhere.

00:44:02.000 What do you think is the source of this recent uptick in homelessness?

00:44:05.000 And what do you think local governments can do to solve the issue?

00:44:08.000 Well, the long-term cause of homelessness is the dramatic rise of drug use and mental illness on our streets.

00:44:15.000 So it used to be that folks were forcibly institutionalized when they were a danger to themselves or others.

00:44:20.000 And living on the street in a mentally ill state is not actually a healthy thing. 0.79

00:44:25.000 But the left has basically decided that you have the freedom to live on the street.

00:44:29.000 We're good to go

00:44:50.000 Well, you don't have a right to do that.

00:44:51.000 The way to fix the homeless problem is to jail people if they are defecating on public land.

00:44:58.000 It is to take away the stuff that they have on the street and put them in jail.

00:45:02.000 Rudy Giuliani did this with Times Square.

00:45:04.000 He cleaned up Times Square.

00:45:06.000 It is only the localities have decided that they're not going to do anything about the homeless problem.

00:45:10.000 The homeless problem remains a major problem in cities like Los Angeles, where we have 60,000 homeless people at last count, and Seattle, where the attempts to build tent cities that are reminiscent of Hoovervilles has continued unabated for the past several years, turning the Emerald City a worse shade of poor.

00:45:28.000 Well, I think that the evidence is that they will turn more right-leaning, but the question is how many?

00:45:58.000 You know, deeply troubled by President Trump's rhetoric a lot of the time.

00:46:01.000 I think he's driving away future generations from the Republican Party, and the polls bear out my point of view on this.

00:46:06.000 I don't think that this is as simple, this is as simple as people get older, they pay taxes, and they turn Republican.

00:46:11.000 I just, I don't think that's the case, unfortunately.

00:46:13.000 Culture wars seem to matter a lot more than economic ones.

00:46:16.000 Okay, final question here.

00:46:18.000 Let's see.

00:46:19.000 This is kind of an interesting one.

00:46:24.000 Let's see.

00:46:25.000 Hi Ben, this is from Sonia.

00:46:26.000 I love your show.

00:46:27.000 It's basically part of my lunch routine at this point.

00:46:29.000 Not really politics, but I wanted to ask for your opinion on purely cosmetic surgery.

00:46:33.000 I don't have any real convictions one way or the other, although I do lean heavily against them following the whole they're unnatural and a waste argument.

00:46:39.000 This is an issue specifically in my case, mostly because I have parents who have been hounding me for about a year to get some sort of nose job.

00:46:44.000 I know a lot of people from my ethnicity end up getting one at some point.

00:46:46.000 Thanks.

00:46:47.000 This person's Armenian, I guess.

00:46:49.000 Thanks.

00:46:49.000 Again, love the show.

00:46:51.000 They say they're Armenian.

00:46:51.000 That's not me making a racial slur.

00:46:53.000 At this point, the money isn't a factor in the decision.

00:46:55.000 The only thing keeping this from happening is me.

00:46:57.000 Thanks, man.

00:46:57.000 Again, love the show.

00:46:57.000 So, I actually like the Jewish perspective on this, which is that you should not seek optional surgery.

00:47:03.000 Optional surgery puts you at risk and seems ungrateful for what it is that God gave you, unless you can't get a shidduch. 0.96

00:47:12.000 So, in the Jewish world, that means that unless it's preventing you from getting married.

00:47:15.000 If it's actually providing you significant hardship in your life, to have your nose shaped the way it is, then it seems to me not

00:47:22.000 Abnormal to go get a nose job.

00:47:24.000 I don't think that's the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination.

00:47:27.000 There are cases in which plastic surgery that is optional, I think, is still fully warranted.

00:47:31.000 So, for example, there are many women who, after they have a double mastectomy for breast cancer, will have breast reconstruction surgery.

00:47:37.000 They don't have to do it for health reasons.

00:47:38.000 They want to do it because it makes them feel better.

00:47:39.000 It makes them feel more beautiful.

00:47:40.000 I don't see any problem with that at all.

00:47:42.000 However, if you're just a dude and you want to, like, have washboard abs, you just go get liposuction because you're vain. 0.97

00:47:48.000 That seems to me like a waste and a bit of foolishness. 0.62

00:47:52.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then we'll get to a thing that I hate.

00:47:56.000 So, things that I like today.

00:47:58.000 We are doing some more Brad Meltzer books.

00:48:00.000 So, Brad Meltzer has this great series of children's books.

00:48:03.000 They're just terrific.

00:48:04.000 My daughter loves them.

00:48:05.000 The latest in the series is I Am Neil Armstrong, in which, presumably, Neil Armstrong does indeed plant a flag on the moon, unlike in First Man.

00:48:12.000 These books are great.

00:48:13.000 They basically portray all of these characters as kind of kid versions of themselves, and they tell their whole story.

00:48:18.000 There's one about Abraham Lincoln that's great.

00:48:19.000 There's one about George Washington that's just terrific.

00:48:21.000 My daughter loves these books, loves them.

00:48:23.000 And the illustrations by Christopher Eliopoulos are really tremendous.

00:48:29.000 You wonder how to educate your kids?

00:48:30.000 This is a great way to educate your kids.

00:48:31.000 There's a lot of great stuff in these books.

00:48:33.000 And Brad, who I've interviewed on the program before, does a great job with them.

00:48:36.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:48:37.000 Okay, so thing number one that I hate.

00:48:40.000 So yes, last night, Fox 4 put out this tweet.

00:48:43.000 Fox in Dallas put out this tweet.

00:48:45.000 Developing search warrant.

00:48:46.000 Marijuana found in Botham Jean's apartment after deadly shooting.

00:48:50.000 And this tweet rightly got ratioed to the skies.

00:48:53.000 Botham Jean, if you missed it, I discussed it a couple of days ago.

00:48:55.000 Botham Jean is a black fellow, lived in Dallas.

00:48:58.000 I guess he was a rep for a pharmaceutical company or something.

00:49:01.000 I can't remember what his job was.

00:49:03.000 I think he was in insurance, maybe.

00:49:04.000 And he was in his own apartment.

00:49:06.000 A police officer who lived downstairs walked into his apartment.

00:49:10.000 She thought it was her own apartment.

00:49:11.000 This is her case. 0.98

00:49:12.000 And then she saw a black guy hulking around her apartment and shot him. 0.51

00:49:16.000 I mean, that's basically what she says. 0.79

00:49:18.000 Does that sound racial?

00:49:19.000 Maybe.

00:49:20.000 Does it sound really bad in any case?

00:49:23.000 Absolutely. 0.98

00:49:24.000 And there is no excuse for walking into someone else's apartment and shooting them to death.

00:49:29.000 That's what happened with this lady. 1.00

00:49:30.000 And because she's a cop, it seems like the police department is doing its damnedest to try and justify the shooting.

00:49:38.000 And so they've now issued a search warrant against his apartment and they found pot there.

00:49:42.000 If you think that being shot in your own apartment... I don't care if this guy had a hydro lab in his apartment.

00:49:47.000 I don't care if he was baking crystal meth in his apartment.

00:49:50.000 If he was in his apartment and he wasn't doing anything... And when I say he wasn't doing anything, I mean he wasn't threatening anyone else.

00:49:56.000 You cannot go into his apartment and shoot him.

00:49:58.000 Particularly if there's not a search warrant.

00:49:59.000 Like, it's one thing if the guy's baking crystal meth in his apartment, and the cops come to raid his apartment, and he resists arrest, in some way he goes for the cop's gun and gets shot.

00:50:07.000 That's one thing.

00:50:08.000 But if he's literally just in his apartment, making some tea, and in the other room he was baking crystal meth, and you made a mistake, and you wandered into his apartment and shot him, and, oh look, it just happens to be he's got crystal meth in the bathtub, what exactly does that have to do with the shooting?

00:50:22.000 And the marijuana certainly has nothing to... So what?

00:50:25.000 So the hell what?

00:50:26.000 Like, really?

00:50:28.000 Would this be the headline back in, you know, 1928 during Prohibition?

00:50:31.000 If somebody accidentally got shot in their apartment, ooh, bottle of gin found on the nightstand.

00:50:36.000 So, so what?

00:50:38.000 This idea that police officers have to be given this above and beyond level of exemption for behavior that is clearly criminal seems to me absolutely absurd and that needs to stop as soon as possible.

00:50:48.000 You want to restore trust between the police and the community.

00:50:52.000 One of the ways to do that is to actually prosecute police when they do bad things.

00:50:56.000 And not to try and obscure these facts with silliness about marijuana being found in an apartment.

00:51:00.000 Okay, other things that I hate.

00:51:02.000 So CNN's John Avalon is doing one of the things that the left loves to do, which is suggesting that presidential policy is going to lead to people dying.

00:51:12.000 So far, we haven't really had a lot of evidence that people die because of global warming.

00:51:15.000 What we have seen is evidence that global warming may be happening over a period of time, that human impact has some effect on the environment, that even if you make the case that storms are more severe because of this, that doesn't necessarily link the death toll to the severity of the storm, right?

00:51:32.000 There are a lot of intervening factors, like how well is the town built if people evacuate, right?

00:51:36.000 There are a lot of things that are linked to that, but

00:51:39.000 What we are now seeing from CNN is the attempt to use this current Hurricane Florence that is threatening the East Coast as a club against Trump.

00:51:46.000 So now, you have John Avalon on CNN claiming that President Trump's policies could lead to 80,000 excess deaths per decade.

00:51:54.000 Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and opening nearly all our coastline to offshore drilling.

00:51:59.000 It's so bad that according to two Harvard scientists, Trump's environmental policies could lead to an additional 80,000 unnecessary deaths every decade.

00:52:07.000 Okay, why?

00:52:08.000 What?

00:52:10.000 I'm so glad that they have now linked policies to death.

00:52:14.000 So how many excess deaths would Affordable Care Act have led to based on shortages in doctors?

00:52:19.000 How many excess deaths have been created by the National Health Service?

00:52:23.000 All of these calculations are based on the kind of modeling that you do.

00:52:27.000 And the modeling doesn't take into account market changes, it doesn't take into account migration, it doesn't take into account future technological changes.

00:52:34.000 It's very easy to say that the policies of your opponent are going to cause death, but that seems like an extreme case.

00:52:40.000 That's pretty extreme.

00:52:41.000 If you actually want to make the case against President Trump's policies, instead of saying it's going to cause death, which is just off-putting and silly, say President Trump's policies are irresponsible with regard to the environment, and they are going to cause an upsurge in bad weather that has significant impact on the economy.

00:52:55.000 And that may result in additional danger to populations if, for example, storms get worse.

00:53:00.000 Don't try and forecast how many people are going to die because Trump didn't pick up an Obama-era regulation.

00:53:05.000 It's just, it's silly towns, and it's an exaggeration that most people can detect.

00:53:09.000 Okay, we'll be back here on Monday with all of the latest.

00:53:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:12.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:17.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:53:23.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:27.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:53:29.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:53:30.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:53:32.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:53:35.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 14, 2018

The Dirtiest Trick In The Book | Ep. 622

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