The Ben Shapiro Show - The Endless Covid Power Grab | Ep. 1300

00:00:00.000 The media and politicians break out the COVID panic, but do the statistics justify it?

00:00:04.000 Plus, Joe Biden is unwilling to accept the consequences of his own economic agenda.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:15.000 Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

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00:00:22.000 Alrighty, we'll get to all the news in just one second.

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00:01:29.000 Alrighty.

00:01:31.000 Panic has broken out across the land with regard to the Delta variant. 0.97

00:01:35.000 It's resulting in some pretty dumb policy. 0.95

00:01:38.000 And here is the thing. 0.94

00:01:39.000 In order to understand what is going on with COVID, you actually have to look at the charts.

00:01:43.000 Because what's actually happening right now is that you are seeing an increased number of cases.

00:01:46.000 The people who are getting very ill and dying of COVID right now are almost universally unvaccinated.

00:01:51.000 The people who are getting the disease after having been vaccinated are typically getting very mild forms of it.

00:01:57.000 They're getting either asymptomatic or very, very mild symptomatic forms.

00:02:01.000 And anybody who's being hospitalized after having had the COVID vaccine and then getting COVID, these tend to be older people with significant underlying vulnerabilities.

00:02:10.000 And yet, if you look at the way that the media cover this stuff, it's totally wild.

00:02:13.000 I mean, they're not giving you the real story.

00:02:15.000 They'll tell you things like the increase in COVID deaths.

00:02:20.000 It's up 25%.

00:02:21.000 That's something that you saw from USA Today.

00:02:23.000 You're seeing that there's an increase in deaths.

00:02:25.000 It's 25% up.

00:02:27.000 Okay, well, that relies on the baseline.

00:02:29.000 What exactly is the baseline number of deaths?

00:02:31.000 That's really what we should be looking at.

00:02:33.000 Instead of looking at, you know, we are higher than we were two weeks ago in terms of death.

00:02:37.000 It should be, okay, what is the baseline level of death?

00:02:39.000 So in order to understand how bad things actually are, you have to have a little bit of perspective.

00:02:45.000 When things were at their worst in terms of the number of deaths in the United States, we were looking at Sometimes 4,000 deaths a day.

00:02:53.000 Sometimes just under 4,000 deaths a day.

00:02:55.000 You can see that sort of peak on this chart right there.

00:02:59.000 When you see that it reaches its height, you're looking at, again, sometimes 5,000 deaths a day.

00:03:03.000 Those are huge numbers.

00:03:05.000 Huge numbers.

00:03:07.000 Here are the top causes of death in the United States.

00:03:10.000 Deaths day by day in the United States.

00:03:12.000 Now again, These causes of death are average across all of the days.

00:03:16.000 So some days are higher and some days are lower.

00:03:17.000 This is just the average.

00:03:19.000 In the United States, every year, there are millions of deaths.

00:03:21.000 Every single year in the United States, because we're a very large country of 330 million citizens.

00:03:26.000 So here are the number of deaths per day by cause in the United States.

00:03:30.000 Heart disease is 2019.

00:03:31.000 Heart disease, about 1,806 deaths per day from heart disease in the United States.

00:03:37.000 From cancer, there are about 1,643 deaths per day, again, as of 2019.

00:03:43.000 Accidents, right, like car accident, fall off your balcony, get hit by an anvil, that's 474 deaths per day.

00:03:50.000 Chronic lower respiratory diseases, That'd be like 430 deaths a day.

00:03:55.000 Stroke is 410 deaths per day.

00:03:58.000 Alzheimer's is 332 deaths per day.

00:03:59.000 And diabetes is 240 deaths per day.

00:04:03.000 So why exactly am I bringing that up?

00:04:05.000 Because how many deaths per day are we having in the United States right now?

00:04:08.000 If you just looked at the media coverage, you would think that we were up near the top of that chart, right?

00:04:12.000 Just like we were when we were at the worst of this thing, when we were averaging, you know, we had two-week running averages of 3,000, 4,000 deaths per day.

00:04:20.000 You know, doubling the highest rate of death from another disease in the United States as of 2019.

00:04:26.000 You would think that we were up in the stratosphere, somewhere around like heart disease or cancer.

00:04:31.000 No.

00:04:31.000 The seven-day rolling average, as of right now, the seven-day rolling average in terms of deaths in the United States is under 300, which puts us in about the realm of Alzheimer's or diabetes.

00:04:41.000 A not even of heart disease.

00:04:42.000 It's like six times lower than the rate of death on a daily average for heart disease across the entire year.

00:04:48.000 Okay.

00:04:48.000 And right now we are talking about a seven day rolling average, not across the entire year.

00:04:52.000 And what does this suggest?

00:04:53.000 It suggests that while we are seeing an increased number of infections, the number of deaths are not skyrocketing.

00:04:59.000 And this is not a coincidence in the United States.

00:05:02.000 I'm looking at the UK's chart right now because the UK started seeing the Delta variant before the United States did.

00:05:07.000 Now, back in January, the UK sort of hit its height in terms of the number of cases that were being diagnosed in the UK day on day.

00:05:15.000 Back in January 8th, for example, they had about 68,000 new cases that had been diagnosed.

00:05:20.000 Now, they're having about 45, 50,000 new cases diagnosed every day, right?

00:05:26.000 So there are some pretty high numbers there in the UK in terms of diagnosis.

00:05:29.000 The difference is that if you look at the death levels, radically different.

00:05:33.000 Back in January, the UK was experiencing about 600 deaths per day.

00:05:37.000 Today, the UK is experiencing about 40.

00:05:41.000 Like 10 times lower.

00:05:43.000 More than 10 times lower.

00:05:44.000 Why?

00:05:44.000 Because as it turns out, the number of people who are getting this thing, who are vaccinated, are not being hospitalized and not dying, generally speaking.

00:05:52.000 And the same thing holds true if you look at the statistics from Israel.

00:05:56.000 Right now, what you're seeing, there's a lot of misinformation that is circulating right now about the fact that there are some breakthroughs of the Delta variant against the COVID vaccine.

00:06:04.000 Again, breakthrough as far as being diagnosed with it, but not a breakthrough as far as dying from it.

00:06:10.000 And this is the thing I care about.

00:06:11.000 I don't care if I get the flu, as long as I don't die and I don't get seriously ill from it.

00:06:15.000 Why would I possibly care about that?

00:06:17.000 The only thing that makes a difference, especially in terms of government action, is level of death.

00:06:21.000 If you're just talking about a bunch of people got diagnosed with the flu this year and very few people died, no one cares.

00:06:25.000 We don't shut down businesses for that.

00:06:27.000 We certainly don't mask up for that.

00:06:29.000 Okay, so in Israel, right, which has been sort of the big headline, wow, look at Israel, so highly vaccinated, and yet, and yet, and now Israel, because politicians always have a stake in control.

00:06:40.000 They do.

00:06:41.000 Our health apparatus has a stake in control.

00:06:42.000 They don't want to give it up.

00:06:44.000 And I think what the last year proved is that Americans are willing to give up their liberty for pretty much anything.

00:06:48.000 It is one thing for people to give up their liberty when there is a serious risk to them, but for people to willingly give up their liberty While they are already vaccinated against a disease is pretty messed up.

00:07:00.000 And to give up your child's liberty based on pretty much nothing is even more messed up as we'll get to.

00:07:04.000 So what is the story in Israel where there are all these headlines about how we need to shut down again?

00:07:08.000 Israel has now closed travel to foreigners again through August 1st.

00:07:12.000 So what exactly is happening in Israel?

00:07:14.000 Well, here's what's happening.

00:07:16.000 Right now, the vaccines, mostly Pfizer and Israel, are 90% plus effective against severe disease for people who are under the age of 65 in Israel.

00:07:27.000 90% plus effectiveness, which means we have now lowered the rates of death down below the flu for people who are under the age of 65.

00:07:32.000 It is 80% plus effective against severe disease for people over the age of 65.

00:07:37.000 So Israel right now is looking at booster shots.

00:07:39.000 One of the reasons that they're looking at booster shots is because older people have immunity that tends to wane faster.

00:07:44.000 But the COVID variant is still not effective against Pfizer in the sense of killing or hospitalizing tons and tons of people.

00:07:52.000 It just isn't.

00:07:53.000 And the reason that you're seeing some stats that are out there, again, people need to understand base rates.

00:07:57.000 The reason you're seeing some stats that are out there, like, for example, in Israel, 40% of all people who are being hospitalized for COVID are people who have already had the vaccine.

00:08:04.000 That's because, like, 75% of Israel's population has already had the vaccine.

00:08:09.000 I mean, theoretically, if it were supposed to be equal, then 75% of people who are being hospitalized would have had the vaccine, but that's not what you're seeing.

00:08:15.000 What you're seeing is that it is preventative of getting the disease, and it is super preventative of getting seriously ill and dying.

00:08:23.000 And as it turns out, the other thing to recall here is that when we are talking about the relative safety of populations, again, one of the reasons that you are seeing a lower level of death, even though you're seeing a spike in cases in both the United States and the UK, as well as Israel, Is that one of the things that has happened here is that the people who are getting COVID are much younger.

00:08:43.000 The people who are getting COVID right now are much younger.

00:08:45.000 If you look in the United States, for example, at the vaccination rates by age, and right now I'm looking at the statistics from the CDC.

00:08:54.000 Right now there are 85.42% of people who are aged 65 to 74 in the United States have had at least one dose of the vaccine.

00:08:59.000 65 to 74 in the United States have had at least one dose of the vaccine.

00:09:04.000 In fact, if you are 75 and older, 83% of that population has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

00:09:12.000 So you have like 76% of all people over the age of 65 essentially, 75-76% of that entire population is completely vaccinated.

00:09:22.000 Because people rationally risk assess.

00:09:22.000 Why?

00:09:25.000 If you're 65 plus, you're much more scared of COVID and you ought to be much more scared of COVID than if you are 20.

00:09:31.000 And so the people who are the most vulnerable are already vaxxed up.

00:09:33.000 And those people are tending to get less sick, they're tending to die less, they're tending to get the disease less.

00:09:40.000 And so while you're seeing a spike in cases among people who are younger and healthier, they're also not dying at the same rates as people who are 80.

00:09:46.000 Because this disease, thank God, because only thank God in the sense that it would have been much, much worse if it had targeted children.

00:09:52.000 But it doesn't really affect people who are younger nearly as much as it affects people who are older.

00:09:57.000 Right now in the United States, about 50% of the population somewhere in that neighborhood is actually vaxxed in the United States.

00:10:04.000 But it really matters what age you're talking about.

00:10:05.000 Because if you're under the age of 12, for example, apparently about 31% of people who are aged 12 to 15 have received a dose of the vaccine.

00:10:14.000 But I'm not sure, like, why that's a high priority.

00:10:17.000 To avoid infecting people who are 65 who already should have had the vaccine?

00:10:21.000 So here is the point.

00:10:22.000 Everybody is treating this stuff as a crisis.

00:10:24.000 It is not, in fact, a crisis.

00:10:26.000 We are not at crisis levels right now.

00:10:28.000 We're not.

00:10:29.000 And also, we're not at crisis when everybody had the opportunity to get the vaccine.

00:10:34.000 You see how the goalposts have shifted in terms of what the goals are of public policy here.

00:10:38.000 At the beginning, the lockdowns and the masking recommendations, they were all designed in order to prevent overwhelming of the hospital system.

00:10:45.000 Has anybody said anything remotely like that recently?

00:10:47.000 That the hospital systems are on the verge of being overwhelmed?

00:10:50.000 You're not hearing it.

00:10:51.000 The reason you're not hearing it is because it's not happening.

00:10:53.000 The hospitals in the United States are not even close to on the verge of being overwhelmed.

00:10:57.000 This is also true in the UK.

00:10:57.000 This is also true in Israel.

00:10:59.000 None of the hospitals in industrialized countries with high levels of vaccination are on the verge of being overwhelmed.

00:11:04.000 Okay, so that rationale is out the window.

00:11:06.000 That is not a reason for us not to go back to work.

00:11:08.000 It's not really even a reason for us to mask at this point, especially if we're vaccinated.

00:11:12.000 If you're unvaccinated and you want to prevent yourself from getting it and you don't want to spread it to somebody else unvaccinated, well then, by all means, go ahead and mask. 0.97

00:11:19.000 But if you are vaccinated, the idea that you should be masking in public places is really, really dumb.

00:11:25.000 Beyond that, the notion that we have seen here, which is that we are now experiencing the next goalpost that was set up, if you recall.

00:11:35.000 There's the goalpost of don't overwhelm the hospitals.

00:11:39.000 Then there's the goalpost of wait and shut everything down and mask up and be very careful until every adult has had the chance to get the vaccine.

00:11:46.000 Welcome to now.

00:11:47.000 Every adult in the United States above the age of 12 Has had the chance to get the vaccine.

00:11:52.000 Everyone.

00:11:53.000 And if you choose not to get it, no one can bully you into it. 0.99

00:11:56.000 And frankly, the attempts by public policy makers to call you an idiot enough times that you go and get the vaccine does not seem particularly successful. 0.98

00:12:02.000 By poll data, all it's doing is alienating people. 0.98

00:12:04.000 It's not driving them.

00:12:06.000 If people actually felt driven, the reason they would feel driven is not because Anthony Fauci was lecturing them, or Joe Biden was lecturing them, or because some actress from Hollywood was out there telling young people to get vaccines.

00:12:16.000 The reason That people would go get vaccinated right now as if they felt under serious threat.

00:12:21.000 The same way that older people got vaccinated en masse because they felt under serious threat.

00:12:26.000 And yet, our public policy makers, they don't have an end goal now.

00:12:30.000 There is no end point to this.

00:12:32.000 They are now using arguments that basically argue they can limit your liberty and force you to mask up under any and all circumstances.

00:12:39.000 There is no limiting principle to anything they're saying right now.

00:12:43.000 Because again, we surpassed that first goal post, which was don't overwhelm the hospitals.

00:12:47.000 Then we surpassed the much more important second goal, which was make sure everybody has an opportunity to vaccinate.

00:12:52.000 And now it's just this kind of miasmatic, well, you know, we might have to mask up forever because, you know, there could be another variant.

00:13:00.000 OK, well, if there's another variant, then we'll talk about it.

00:13:03.000 But this notion that we're all going to mask up right now for the rest of time, because this is true forever, right?

00:13:07.000 There could be another variant of this virus in five years.

00:13:10.000 In fact, there could be a completely different virus in five years.

00:13:12.000 Why not mask prophylactically for the rest of your life and mask your children at the same time?

00:13:17.000 There's no limiting principle to that.

00:13:20.000 The same thing is true with regard to some of the lockdown policies that are now being discussed.

00:13:25.000 We're supposed to lockdown travel.

00:13:26.000 We're supposed to prevent people from traveling across borders. 0.99

00:13:29.000 What's the limiting principle here?

00:13:31.000 Is there any?

00:13:33.000 As mentioned, in the United States, people are now dying at a rate that is similar to the rates that people die on a daily basis from, like, Alzheimer's disease.

00:13:42.000 Is that a rationale for locking down large cities in the United States?

00:13:46.000 And that's exactly what we're seeing.

00:13:48.000 We are seeing the public policy folks who run our health systems are obsessed with power.

00:13:53.000 This is a power grab.

00:13:55.000 Again, when this was rooted in ignorance, that was one thing.

00:13:57.000 When you were saying, shut it all down because we don't know what this virus is going to do, that was one thing.

00:14:00.000 It became clear that the lockdowns were ineffective, generally ineffective, by the middle of the summer last time, last year.

00:14:08.000 And now we're still doing the same routine based on a threat that is not even remotely close to what we were experiencing back in January, thanks to the presence of the vaccines.

00:14:17.000 Thank God.

00:14:18.000 How disconnected is public policy from reality at this point?

00:14:23.000 The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a recommendation yesterday that is utterly crazy.

00:14:29.000 Their recommendation is that we have to start masking all the children.

00:14:33.000 It is deeply important that we mask all of the kids, pretty much for the rest of time.

00:14:38.000 According to NBC New York, everyone older than age 2 should wear masks regardless of vaccination status when schools reopen in the fall, according to updated guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics released on Monday.

00:14:50.000 The leading national pediatrician group said it recommends universal masking because so much of the student population isn't yet eligible for vaccination.

00:14:56.000 It's not clear how quickly that will change or how likely parents will be to get their younger children dosed when the federal government approves shots for kids under the age of 12.

00:15:04.000 And seriously, I'm not sure about dosing my kids.

00:15:07.000 I have kids who are 7, 5, and 1.

00:15:09.000 There are no longitudinal studies on the effect on children.

00:15:12.000 Not only that, the threat to kids from COVID is not severe.

00:15:15.000 If we were talking about something like polio, and if we were talking about something like even measles, mumps, rubella, that'd be one thing.

00:15:22.000 We are talking about a disease in COVID-19.

00:15:25.000 That has killed, from 2020 through 2021, a grand total in the entire United States where there are 75 million people under the age of 18.

00:15:34.000 Remember, 75 million kids are in the United States below the age of 18.

00:15:40.000 The number of kids who have died under the age of 18 from COVID-19, as of yesterday, was 335 out of 75 million.

00:15:48.000 By contrast, the number of kids who had died last year and this year from pneumonia was 809.

00:15:55.000 The notion that I'm going to start experimenting on my kids with non-longitudinally proven vaccinations, when the risk to my children from COVID is extremely low, is arguable at best.

00:16:10.000 I mean, that's a very arguable assessment.

00:16:12.000 So the idea now is that we're going to force you to mask your kid up.

00:16:16.000 Based on what?

00:16:17.000 Based on what?

00:16:18.000 If the idea is you have to protect the teachers, well, I have a way to protect the teachers.

00:16:21.000 In fact, I have two ways to protect the teachers.

00:16:23.000 One is That we could have the teachers wear masks if they are really upset about it, right?

00:16:27.000 Get every teacher an N95, because N95s protect you.

00:16:31.000 The idea of cloth masks is they're supposed to protect everyone else from when you sneeze, but an N95 is also supposed to protect you.

00:16:36.000 Or, I have an even better solution.

00:16:38.000 The teachers need to vax.

00:16:39.000 If the teachers are really worried about being infected by children, then they should go get the vaccinations, because it turns out the vaccinations are incredibly good.

00:16:46.000 They're terrific at what they do.

00:16:48.000 Instead, you have the American Academy of Pediatrics saying I'm supposed to mask my two-year-old or my three-year-old based on what?

00:16:56.000 The risk that they're going to get hit by lightning?

00:16:59.000 A risk lower than pneumonia?

00:17:02.000 Are you kidding me?

00:17:04.000 I mean, it's just bad public policy, and it's being pushed by all these people.

00:17:07.000 Why?

00:17:07.000 Because if you are in the public health situation, right, if you're a public health expert, your sole goal is to quote-unquote kill COVID.

00:17:14.000 But that's not a real goal, right?

00:17:16.000 It's never going to go to zero.

00:17:18.000 COVID is likely to turn into something seasonal, like a weak strain of the flu, maybe like a cold eventually, we can hope.

00:17:25.000 But COVID is unlikely to go away.

00:17:26.000 It is just too widespread.

00:17:29.000 It's not going to go away.

00:17:30.000 There are millions and millions and millions of people who have already had it, who might get it again.

00:17:36.000 We've been saying this since the beginning, is that it's likely to be seasonal.

00:17:39.000 So this belief that you can wipe it out, that zero COVID is the goal, that means that we're locked down forever.

00:17:45.000 Realistically speaking, it means that no one is ever going out again without a mask. 0.96

00:17:48.000 And yet you have all of these ridiculous, foolish, Public health leaders trying to suggest that this is rational public policy. 0.98

00:17:56.000 It's not even close to rational public policy. 0.98

00:17:59.000 Here, for example, is NIH director Francis Collins saying that masking children is a great idea.

00:18:06.000 They will not be popular amongst parents and kids who are sick of masks.

00:18:10.000 But you know what?

00:18:10.000 The virus doesn't care that we're sick of masks.

00:18:13.000 The virus is having another version of its wonderful party for itself.

00:18:18.000 And to the degree that we can squash that by doing something that maybe is a little uncomfortable, a little inconvenient, it's not like we're asking people to go to the trenches with a shooting war.

00:18:30.000 We're just asking you, if it looks like it's going to help, put the mask back on for a while.

00:18:37.000 Okay, we're talking about children.

00:18:39.000 I also don't send my kids to trenches in a shooting lore.

00:18:41.000 Like, what are you talking about?

00:18:43.000 This is unbelievable.

00:18:46.000 They can't explain why the vaccinated should wear masks.

00:18:49.000 Because, really, there's not a good rationale.

00:18:52.000 They can't explain, certainly, why children should be wearing masks, but they want you to do it anyway.

00:18:56.000 Because, after all, it's all we're asking of you.

00:18:58.000 The sacrifice is the point.

00:19:00.000 The control is the point.

00:19:01.000 You have Dr. Anthony Fauci, the greatest of all doctors, outside of Jill Biden, saying the exact same thing.

00:19:07.000 In every respect, the CDC always leaves open the flexibility at the part of local agencies, local enterprises, local cities and states to make a judgment call based on the situation on the ground.

00:19:23.000 So, I think that the American Academy of Pediatrics, you know, they're a thoughtful group.

00:19:28.000 They analyze the situation and if they feel that that's the way to go, I think that's a reasonable thing to do.

00:19:35.000 It is not a reasonable thing to do.

00:19:36.000 The fact that we are pretending it is reasonable to mask up three-year-olds is insane.

00:19:41.000 It's totally crazy.

00:19:43.000 And by the way, if you're worried your three-year-old's gonna get it, get your kid an N95.

00:19:45.000 Now you're gonna say to yourself, wait a second, my three-year-old isn't capable of properly wearing an N95.

00:19:49.000 Right, your three-year-old isn't capable of properly wearing a mask, period.

00:19:53.000 Right, that's the whole point. 1.00

00:19:55.000 It's such foolishness. 0.99

00:19:56.000 L.A. 0.95

00:19:56.000 County, by the way, here's like, let me show you how bad the reporting is on this stuff. 0.95

00:20:01.000 And it's from Yahoo News.

00:20:02.000 L.A.

00:20:02.000 County is now recording more than 10,000 coronavirus cases a week, a pace not seen since March.

00:20:07.000 An alarming sign of the dangers the Delta variant poses to people who have not been vaccinated and heightening pressure on health officials to reverse the trend.

00:20:15.000 So, what does this mean?

00:20:16.000 Okay, so, L.A.

00:20:18.000 County, um, how many deaths are they having?

00:20:20.000 Okay, because I know that you're talking about cases now, right?

00:20:23.000 Cases are su- Wow.

00:20:24.000 New cases.

00:20:25.000 My goodness.

00:20:26.000 They're seeing, like, 10,000 cases that are diagnosed every day.

00:20:30.000 Okay, here are the number of deaths in L.A.

00:20:32.000 County.

00:20:33.000 Okay?

00:20:34.000 Average.

00:20:35.000 Seven-day average.

00:20:36.000 Rolling average.

00:20:36.000 Per day.

00:20:37.000 Six.

00:20:39.000 Six.

00:20:41.000 The population of L.A.

00:20:42.000 County is, like, 10 million people.

00:20:46.000 So six people are dying a day in L.A.

00:20:48.000 County of COVID.

00:20:50.000 And you're talking about forcing everybody to mask in indoor places and masking up all the kids.

00:20:57.000 And you're talking about this as though this is a massive crisis because L.A.

00:20:59.000 County is seeing 10,000 coronavirus cases a week.

00:21:02.000 Not a day, a week.

00:21:04.000 A week.

00:21:05.000 Okay, again, let me remind you that the number of COVID cases that were being seen in L.A.

00:21:09.000 County As of like January, they were seeing like 20,000 cases a day, not a week.

00:21:18.000 This is all crazy.

00:21:20.000 New York City is doing the same stuff.

00:21:23.000 New York City Councilman Mark Levine, who chairs the Health Committee, is calling for the indoor mask mandate to be reinstated in the city, even for the vaccinated.

00:21:31.000 So what exactly are the COVID statistics for New York City right now?

00:21:36.000 The number of new COVID cases a day in New York City is like 700 cases in the entire city of New York.

00:21:43.000 The number of deaths in New York, this is actually the entire state.

00:21:47.000 The entire state is averaging six deaths.

00:21:50.000 Six! 0.76

00:21:52.000 This is madness.

00:21:53.000 And yet it's being treated as though it's a crisis.

00:21:55.000 And so the question becomes, why are we treating this as a crisis?

00:21:58.000 Why is it important?

00:21:59.000 And the answer, as we'll see, is control.

00:22:02.000 It's all about the control.

00:22:04.000 Because if you can treat everything as a crisis, this allows you to control everything all the time.

00:22:08.000 And this goes to the broader agenda that you see from the Democratic Party and the media all the time.

00:22:14.000 All right, so if you look at how the media and the Democratic Party see the world, crisis is always required in order to effectuate change.

00:22:24.000 This is why Joe Biden came into office and he said, we have four crises that are on the table.

00:22:27.000 Climate change, and racial polarization, and income inequality, and COVID.

00:22:33.000 None of those things, at the time you might've said COVID was a crisis.

00:22:37.000 We're rolling out the vaccines already, so it was a crisis that was on the way.

00:22:40.000 The other three are not crises.

00:22:42.000 Okay, climate change, Is it an issue that is worthy of consideration with regard to adaptive measures that governments can help take in order to protect, for example, low-lying populations?

00:22:51.000 Can you build more seawalls?

00:22:53.000 Sure.

00:22:53.000 Can you make sure that infrastructure is updated?

00:22:56.000 Can you put some money into R&D?

00:22:56.000 Absolutely.

00:22:58.000 Sure.

00:22:59.000 But it is not a crisis.

00:23:01.000 Climate change is not a crisis.

00:23:02.000 The gradual warming of the globe over the course of the next century is not a crisis.

00:23:06.000 Nor, by the way, are there any solutions to that crisis in destroying the entire economy of the globe.

00:23:11.000 That is not a solution.

00:23:12.000 All the stuff that's already in the air is going to stay up there for another 10,000 years.

00:23:15.000 So, the idea that climate change is a crisis is not right.

00:23:20.000 But, as you see, the left says climate change is a crisis.

00:23:22.000 Therefore, we need vast redistribution of wealth.

00:23:26.000 Green New Deal.

00:23:27.000 We need to We need to take capitalism and destroy it in order to save the planet because crisis.

00:23:33.000 Then you had the crisis of racial polarization, of the racial reckoning.

00:23:37.000 A crisis that demands, wait for it, equity policy from the White House.

00:23:42.000 That looks toward equality of outcome between the races and involves the subjugation of capitalism and merit in favor of equality of outcome regardless of the activities undertaken.

00:23:54.000 We need a transformation of how America works based on the crisis of racial reckoning.

00:23:54.000 Right?

00:23:58.000 Now, you may have noticed there was no crisis.

00:24:00.000 There was not.

00:24:01.000 As of 2008, race relations were the best point they'd been in the history of the United States.

00:24:05.000 And then, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party decided to play racial politics specifically in order to force him to re-election despite his unpopularity.

00:24:14.000 Then, there was the crisis of income inequality, and this one is perfectly obvious.

00:24:18.000 Income inequality is not a crisis.

00:24:20.000 It depends on poverty could be a crisis, theoretically.

00:24:23.000 Poverty could also just be an endemic condition of human life, but poverty could theoretically be a crisis.

00:24:28.000 But income inequality itself is not a crisis.

00:24:29.000 Just because Jeff Bezos is rich, that's not a crisis.

00:24:33.000 But this crisis of income inequality was going to drive Joe Biden to spend trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that had not yet been minted.

00:24:40.000 We're just going to produce this money out of thin air.

00:24:42.000 Crisis is an opportunity.

00:24:44.000 This has always been the case with big government advocates.

00:24:47.000 Crisis is always the way that you maximize your own power.

00:24:51.000 And so if you declare COVID a continuing crisis, this allows you to maximize your own power.

00:24:56.000 Now, the way that the Biden administration and the media are seeking to maximize their power is by essentially saying that because COVID is a crisis, we should take the reins on informational dissemination.

00:25:06.000 We talked about this yesterday.

00:25:08.000 It continues today.

00:25:09.000 And it's going to continue for the estimable future.

00:25:13.000 The Democratic Party and the media have an agenda.

00:25:16.000 Their agenda is to control the means of distribution of information.

00:25:19.000 They don't want you to see information they don't want you to see.

00:25:22.000 And COVID is a perfect opportunity for them to declare anything they don't like misinformation and then to quash it.

00:25:29.000 So the game here is to pretend that vaccine hesitancy is solely the repository of the right.

00:25:34.000 Now, here's the problem.

00:25:35.000 Vaccine hesitancy is not solely the repository of the right. 0.67

00:25:38.000 As it turns out, by racial data, Hispanics and Blacks are the two racial groups in the United States who are least likely to get the vaccines.

00:25:47.000 Those are also the two racial groups in America that were least likely to have voted Republican in the last election cycle.

00:25:53.000 So, that is not a convincing case that the only people in the United States who are not getting the vaccine are not getting it because of right-wing propaganda.

00:26:01.000 It's also true that a huge number of people who aren't getting the vaccine or were vaccine skeptical or maybe already had COVID and don't want the vaccine.

00:26:07.000 And maybe a lot of those people live in rural areas.

00:26:09.000 Because one thing that we saw with regard to masking actually throughout the pandemic is that people undertook, as you would expect, rational risk assessment.

00:26:16.000 When pandemic numbers went up in people's areas, they started to mask.

00:26:19.000 When the pandemic numbers went down, people started to unmask.

00:26:22.000 Because that, again, is how people act when they are confronted with an actual risk.

00:26:26.000 But the media have an agenda, and the agenda is to suggest that if it were only, if we could only stop people like Trump from talking, stop people on Fox from talking, if we could just stop all of this, if we could end quote-unquote COVID misinformation, well then everybody would get vaxxed.

00:26:42.000 Because human beings don't have agency, obviously.

00:26:45.000 All we have to do is give them the right information from MSNBC and CNN, and then they will get vaxxed.

00:26:50.000 Now, this of course ignores a bunch of holes in this theory.

00:26:54.000 Hole number one, as I've mentioned, huge percentages of population that are not Republican are not getting vaxxed. 0.65

00:26:59.000 Hole number two in this particular theory, Is the fact that there are a lot of people who are not getting vaxxed, not because of watching Fox News or because of Donald Trump, but because they do not trust the authorities.

00:27:11.000 And the reason they don't trust the authorities is because the authorities have taken every single position on COVID it is possible to take from the beginning of this pandemic.

00:27:19.000 Dr. Fauci, the great and sainted, was saying, don't mask up, and then he was saying, oh yeah, I lied, you should mask up.

00:27:24.000 Dr. Fauci, the great and sainted, was saying, don't open the schools, and then he was saying, oh, well, you can open the schools.

00:27:28.000 Dr. Fauci, the great and sainted, was saying that once you get the vaccine, you still need to wear a mask, and then he was saying, well, you really don't need to wear a mask anymore, and now he's saying, well, maybe you do need to wear a mask.

00:27:37.000 Maybe there's a great lack of trust in our scientific institutions because they spent all of last summer saying that if you were protesting lockdowns, then you were going to spread COVID and kill everyone.

00:27:45.000 But if you were out there in the streets working for George Floyd, then probably you'd be fine.

00:27:50.000 In other words, maybe you lost your systemic trust because you don't deserve the systemic trust of the American people.

00:27:56.000 Now, again, that's not a case against the vaccine.

00:27:59.000 I'm not sure there's anybody on the right who's as pro-vaccine as I am.

00:28:01.000 I've been encouraging people to get the vaccine since literally the first day it was available.

00:28:05.000 I couldn't have been more excited to get the vaccine.

00:28:06.000 I got it.

00:28:07.000 My wife got it.

00:28:07.000 My parents got it.

00:28:08.000 I was pumped about it.

00:28:09.000 I think the vaccine is a medical miracle.

00:28:12.000 I also understand why people don't trust the people who have been saying this sort of stuff.

00:28:15.000 But, again, agenda is the only thing that matters here.

00:28:18.000 So, manufacture a new COVID crisis.

00:28:20.000 Again, we are not in a position of COVID crisis in the United States.

00:28:23.000 The stats do not bear this out.

00:28:26.000 If there is any sort of crisis in terms of people who are dying, it is a crisis among people who decided not to get vaccinated and then are more likely to die.

00:28:34.000 And they're adults, and they get to make those decisions themselves.

00:28:36.000 And as long as they're not overwhelming the hospital system, then we really don't have a public policy answer to that.

00:28:41.000 But the public policy answer for Democrats, of course, is shut down anyone who says stuff we don't like.

00:28:47.000 So here's Mika Brzezinski tearing into Trump and his media allies for vaccine hesitancy.

00:28:50.000 This, of course, is the predicate to the notion that places like Fox News should be deplatformed.

00:28:55.000 Whether you're talking about David Koresh in Waco, or the Jonestown mass suicides, or Donald Trump's lies about COVID, people died.

00:29:07.000 And people are dying.

00:29:09.000 And they are dying because Donald Trump and his evil allies on cable news and on social media and on Capitol Hill Seems like a very strong word, evil. 0.88

00:29:21.000 Until you understand just how many people this cult continues to kill.

00:29:29.000 Okay, I have just a question.

00:29:31.000 You know, by the way, that if Donald Trump had won re-election, there would be Democrats who are engaging in tremendous vaccine hesitancy.

00:29:37.000 You know that's the case, correct?

00:29:39.000 I mean, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were saying they don't trust the process by which Trump developed the vaccine.

00:29:44.000 And then when they entered the White House, then all of a sudden it was, the process is great.

00:29:48.000 We fixed it.

00:29:48.000 Everything's fantastic.

00:29:50.000 MSNBC's Dr. Bedelia says the same thing.

00:29:52.000 It's social media and right-wing TV that are preventing vaccinations.

00:29:55.000 Again, this is just not the case.

00:29:59.000 People are independent actors in the United States.

00:30:01.000 They have the ability to make their own decisions.

00:30:03.000 Typically, it is younger people who are not getting the vaccines, more rural people who are not getting the vaccines because they live in more rural areas.

00:30:09.000 Low-income, Black and Hispanic people are not getting the vaccines at rates that really are where they should be.

00:30:15.000 The kind of one-size-fits-all, single-factor analysis, Tucker Carlson says X, therefore people aren't getting the vaccine, ignores the fact that even if you look at Tucker's audience, hey, Tucker might have 4 million people a night watching him.

00:30:27.000 A huge percentage of those people, by the way, are older and probably vaxxed. 0.52

00:30:32.000 But beyond that, the bizarre notion that widespread vaccine hesitancy is solely due to Tucker Carlson or social media, as opposed to all of the other factors mentioned, including some somewhat rational vaccine hesitancy.

00:30:47.000 I'm not saying that I agree with people who are not getting the vaccine, but to pretend that these people are all dullards who don't understand anything about how the... I mean, a lot of the people who are not getting the vaccine are like, I already had COVID, it wasn't that bad.

00:30:57.000 A lot of the people who are not getting the vaccine are like, I live in a rural area.

00:31:00.000 I don't have a lot of contact with people.

00:31:02.000 So do I really need the vaccine?

00:31:04.000 Is that like super duper irrational and crazy?

00:31:06.000 I'm not sure it's super duper irrational.

00:31:08.000 I might make a different risk assessment, but I also have respect for other human beings and their ability to assess risk.

00:31:13.000 But because the left believes that everyone can be controlled from above, their conclusion is that if people make a decision different than their decision, it's because they are controlled from above.

00:31:22.000 Therefore, if we just stop those people from controlling people, then we will get our preferred outcome.

00:31:27.000 Here is a doctor on MSNBC making this case.

00:31:30.000 What I liked about that that was released in the Surgeon General is that it's really pointing to the fact that this is everywhere, right?

00:31:36.000 It is a social media amplification in cases where, and it is, you know, sometimes it is influencers that are on cable television, right-leaning cable television.

00:31:46.000 But it's also anytime any one of us retweets something that without checking the source, we are adding to that misinformation that's out there.

00:31:53.000 And I think it's a whole, it truly is a whole of society approach.

00:31:58.000 Okay, meanwhile, Joe Biden, you'll recall over the weekend, he suggested that Facebook was killing people, which was the predicate for a governmental intervention in social media to shut down dissemination of information.

00:32:07.000 Yesterday, he quasi-reversed himself, he didn't really.

00:32:10.000 He said, Facebook isn't killing people, it's people on Facebook who are saying bad stuff who are killing people and Facebook letting them.

00:32:15.000 Which means by the transit of property, Facebook is killing people.

00:32:17.000 Here's Joe Biden doing it.

00:32:19.000 I had just read that on the Facebook, Facebook pointed out, it was pointed out that Facebook Of all the misinformation, 60% of the misinformation came from 12 individuals.

00:32:34.000 That's what the article said.

00:32:36.000 So I was asked that question about, what do I think is happening?

00:32:40.000 Facebook isn't killing people.

00:32:41.000 These 12 people are out there giving misinformation.

00:32:45.000 Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it.

00:32:48.000 It's killing people.

00:32:49.000 It's bad information.

00:32:52.000 Okay, and Facebook allowing that is killing people, right?

00:32:56.000 So Facebook isn't killing people, but Facebook is killing people.

00:32:58.000 In fact, says Joe Biden, Facebook shouldn't take it personally when I say they're killing people.

00:33:01.000 They should just do a better job of shutting down all the information I don't like.

00:33:04.000 Which may change on a day-by-day basis, but since we run all dissemination of information from the White House via our media allies, we should club social media into doing what we want anyway.

00:33:14.000 My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally, that somehow I'm saying Facebook is killing people, Don't take it personally that the President of the United States is saying that you're a murderer.

00:33:25.000 Instead, stop being a murderer, says Joe Biden.

00:33:27.000 That's what I meant.

00:33:28.000 That's what I meant.

00:33:30.000 Don't take it personally that the president of the United States is saying that you're a murderer. 0.92

00:33:34.000 Instead, stop being a murderer, says Joe Biden.

00:33:36.000 You can see the manufactured crisis here.

00:33:38.000 And again, it is a media manufactured crisis.

00:33:42.000 Is driving the sort of change that Democrats have been wanting for a while, which is restrictions on social media, which is crackdowns on people that they don't particularly like.

00:33:51.000 Meanwhile, and this is really amazing, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.

00:33:54.000 So she was asked, you know, if it would help stop vaccine hesitancy, would you praise Trump more?

00:34:00.000 Like really, instead of turning this into a partisan issue, why aren't you out there getting Trump to, for example, cut a PSA?

00:34:05.000 Why aren't you out there saying, the Trump administration did a wonderful job with this and there is a bipartisan agreement that this is a wonderful vaccine that everybody should get? 1.00

00:34:14.000 Wouldn't that be better than, you know, being out there and yelling at Trump and being out there yelling at people who won't take vaccines and telling them that they're fools and morons? 1.00

00:34:20.000 And Jen Psaki's like, you know what? 1.00

00:34:20.000 Wouldn't that be better? 1.00

00:34:21.000 We don't need to do any of that.

00:34:23.000 It seems to me your end goal isn't to get more people vaccinated.

00:34:25.000 It seems to me that your end goal is to polarize the constituency here.

00:34:30.000 Even if the administration doesn't partner with the former president, would he consider highlighting or acknowledging in a greater way his role in creating the vaccines to assure the rural voters who still support President Trump but are hesitant to get the vaccine?

00:34:45.000 Well, I think you're, do you have data to suggest that that's the issue that's preventing people from getting vaccinated?

00:34:50.000 We've seen.

00:34:52.000 Almost every former president play a role in putting out a PSA, making sure people understood in the country that the vaccine is safe and effective.

00:35:00.000 We don't believe that requires an embroidered invitation to be a part of.

00:35:06.000 Okay, but you could just ask Trump to do it.

00:35:09.000 Would that kill you?

00:35:09.000 I mean, the answer is yes, because it's all politics.

00:35:12.000 That's the answer.

00:35:14.000 In just one second, we'll talk about the impact of all of this on the stock market, which of course has been dramatic.

00:35:18.000 It's not because the stock market is afraid of the COVID upswing.

00:35:20.000 It's because the stock market is afraid that governments are going to intervene and quash the economic recovery.

00:35:25.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:35:26.000 First, let's talk about the fact you don't want to go to an auto parts store because who wants to go to an auto parts store?

00:35:30.000 You stand in line, you finally get to the front of the line, they answer all their very specific questions, and then they look in their inventory and they say, you know what we don't have?

00:35:38.000 The part you're looking for.

00:35:39.000 Which is super helpful.

00:35:40.000 And they order it online and upcharge you.

00:35:42.000 Or you could just skip all of that and go directly to rockauto.com.

00:35:45.000 Rockauto.com always offers the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear the way airlines do.

00:35:51.000 Why spend up to twice as much for the same parts?

00:35:53.000 Rockauto.com, it's family business serving.

00:35:55.000 Auto parts customers online for 20 years.

00:35:57.000 Go to rockauto.com, shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers.

00:36:01.000 The catalog is unique and remarkably easy to navigate.

00:36:03.000 Quickly see all the parts available for your vehicle and choose the brand's specifications and prices.

00:36:07.000 You prefer.

00:36:08.000 Go to rockauto.com right now.

00:36:09.000 See all the parts available for your car or truck.

00:36:11.000 Write Shapiro in there.

00:36:12.000 How did you hear about us, Box?

00:36:13.000 So they know that we sent you.

00:36:15.000 Again, auto parts stores aren't great, even in the best of times.

00:36:18.000 Why would you want to wait around right now in a line?

00:36:20.000 Instead, just go to the internet.

00:36:21.000 The internet's the way you buy everything these days.

00:36:22.000 Why not get the auto parts you need from rockauto.com?

00:36:25.000 Great American company.

00:36:26.000 Write Shapiro in there.

00:36:27.000 How did you hear about us, Box?

00:36:28.000 So they know.

00:36:29.000 That we sent you.

00:36:30.000 Alrighty.

00:36:31.000 Yesterday, you may have noticed that NPR ran an insane hit piece on us here at The Daily Wire, complaining about our success as a news organization.

00:36:39.000 Basically, NPR was arguing that Facebook should quash our traffic.

00:36:42.000 Because we're really bad.

00:36:43.000 Because we're conservative.

00:36:45.000 The Democrats and the establishment media, they're ticked off that they don't have centralized control over the flow of information.

00:36:50.000 And now the establishment media is in for another hit.

00:36:53.000 From the Daily Wire newsroom, we're bringing you a new morning podcast that values your time and the truth.

00:36:58.000 Brought to you by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and co-host Georgia Howell.

00:37:02.000 Morning Wire will wake you up with the latest developments in politics, sports, culture, and education, all with a heavy emphasis on the facts.

00:37:08.000 It's available right now.

00:37:09.000 It's your one-stop shop for your news update in the morning.

00:37:12.000 Subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a beat.

00:37:17.000 And if you like what you hear, leave a five-star review.

00:37:19.000 Help us keep delivering the news you need to know.

00:37:23.000 Also, as I've been discussing, the White House's attempt to censor anything they deem as misinformation, it is very authoritarian, and it is just part and parcel of a broader authoritarian movement of the left to take over all the institutions and weaponize them against you.

00:37:36.000 My next book, the new book, Authoritarian Moment, it's hitting shelves next Tuesday, July 27th.

00:37:40.000 It is a supremely important book.

00:37:43.000 You need to read it, you need to get your friends to read it, because if you wish for the country to be saved, the authoritarian moment is a must-read.

00:37:48.000 There's a lot happening right now.

00:37:49.000 I first saw it in the book.

00:37:50.000 You'll want to pick up your copy of The Authoritarian Moment right now to get a sense of what's coming next and, more importantly, how we stop it.

00:37:56.000 Go to dailywire.com slash ben.

00:37:58.000 You can order your signed copy today.

00:38:00.000 Again, dailywire.com slash ben to order your signed copy today.

00:38:04.000 And the fact that the White House is now trying to crack down on social media is just the latest indicator that the left's authoritarianism is creeping into your everyday life.

00:38:11.000 But you knew this already.

00:38:12.000 You know that your corporate overlords are going to fire you if you don't post the black square. 0.99

00:38:16.000 You know that your sporting team is going to chastise you if you don't have the proper politics.

00:38:21.000 You know.

00:38:22.000 That you'll have scientists like Dr. Fauci telling you that you don't believe the science if you don't believe every single thing that he says about everything, even if he's reversing himself from last week.

00:38:31.000 All of this is symptomatic of an authoritarian mindset that has taken root on the left and is now being crammed down upon you.

00:38:37.000 I will be doing a live stream book signing for the authoritarian moment.

00:38:40.000 Next Tuesday, the 27th.

00:38:42.000 Pre-order your signed copy now.

00:38:43.000 When you do, you'll be asked to type in a question at checkout.

00:38:45.000 Then, catch Tuesday's live signing.

00:38:47.000 See if I answer your question.

00:38:48.000 Watch me sign your book.

00:38:49.000 Get your copy at dailywire.com slash ben right now.

00:38:53.000 You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:38:56.000 Alrighty, moving on.

00:39:02.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to wish away inflation.

00:39:05.000 There are a lot of people, including Janet Yellen, who are saying that inflation is going to maintain for several more months at this point.

00:39:11.000 Now, as I've been saying, there are two forces that are at work in the American economy.

00:39:15.000 One is Joe Biden blowing dollars into the American economy, artificially lowering the labor rate because people are literally staying out of work because they're being paid to stay home.

00:39:24.000 And artificially inflating the price of goods because we have a bunch of bottlenecks in all the distribution systems, and that's being exacerbated by money chasing fewer goods, which leads to price inflation.

00:39:33.000 All of this rooted in the notion that somehow equity is achieved if you just helicopter cash to people, which has never been the case anywhere in history.

00:39:40.000 Okay, so Joe Biden is saying that that's not raising inflation. 0.98

00:39:44.000 No, no, no, you're crazy.

00:39:45.000 You might be looking at that inflation rate and saying to yourself, wait a second, aren't, I mean, the prices are up, aren't they?

00:39:50.000 He says, no, no, no, nobody, no one is suggesting unchecked inflation is on the way, says our garrulous president.

00:39:57.000 There's nobody suggesting there's unchecked inflation on the way.

00:40:01.000 No serious economist.

00:40:04.000 That's totally different.

00:40:05.000 I mean, look, the stock market is higher than it has been in all of history, even when it went down this month.

00:40:10.000 Even down this month.

00:40:12.000 Now, I don't look at the stock market as a means by which to judge the economy like my predecessor did.

00:40:18.000 But he'd be talking to me every day for the last five months about how the stock market is so high.

00:40:23.000 Higher than any time in history.

00:40:25.000 Still higher than any time in history.

00:40:27.000 So that's not how I judge whether or not we have economic growth.

00:40:33.000 Oh, well, you know, he's going to judge you by the stock market.

00:40:36.000 Weird.

00:40:36.000 He wasn't doing that when Trump was president, but that's always the way this works.

00:40:39.000 Then Joe Biden follows up that doozy by suggesting that the inflation is temporary.

00:40:43.000 And in fact, you know how you were going to solve inflation?

00:40:44.000 We're going to solve inflation by artificially boosting the growth. 0.96

00:40:48.000 This is like the dumbest thing, economically speaking, that I've heard recently. 0.50

00:40:52.000 His theory is that inflation is going up. 0.98

00:40:56.000 So if you blow more money into the economy, that will jog the spending, which will eventually bring the inflation down, which is a hell of a take.

00:41:03.000 That's a hot take.

00:41:04.000 Bull move there, Cotton.

00:41:06.000 Our experts believe, and the data shows, that most of the price increases we've seen were expected and expected to be temporary.

00:41:15.000 The reality is, you can't flip the global economic light back on and not expect this to happen.

00:41:22.000 As demand returns, there's going to be global supply chain challenges.

00:41:27.000 We've seen that in semiconductors, which are used in automobiles.

00:41:32.000 That global shortage has slowed vehicle production, creating a temporary spike in car prices.

00:41:39.000 That's a real challenge.

00:41:41.000 My administration is doing everything we can to address it.

00:41:44.000 But again, these disruptions are temporary.

00:41:49.000 Okay, you know what would be temporary is if you didn't artificially boost the money supply.

00:41:53.000 It would have been temporary.

00:41:54.000 There was going to be a natural economic recovery.

00:41:56.000 Go back, listen to my podcast.

00:41:57.000 Last year, I said when this was over, there'd be a major economic boom because the economy was doing great.

00:42:02.000 And then it was put into an artificial coma.

00:42:04.000 And now the artificial coma is ending.

00:42:06.000 Maybe, if the left will allow it to end.

00:42:07.000 And people are going to go out and they're going to spend again.

00:42:09.000 In fact, people ended last year with more net savings than they had the year before because the government had already put so much money in their pocket.

00:42:16.000 Joe Biden's idea is we're going to keep spending money up the wazoo.

00:42:19.000 And somehow this is going to check inflation.

00:42:22.000 Interesting idea.

00:42:23.000 Now, the reality is that when you remove this much money from the private economy and when everybody understands that the regulatory schemes that Biden is pursuing will hurt business and that taxation is eventually going to be around the corner, when everybody realizes that, the next move is that the economy starts to stagnate.

00:42:41.000 It's what we call secular stagnation.

00:42:42.000 We've seen it in Japan.

00:42:43.000 Japan was the country that was going to take over the world in the 1980s. 1.00

00:42:47.000 If you go back and watch Die Hard in like 1989, 1990, if you go back and watch Die Hard, what you'll see is that the Nakatomi Plaza, right?

00:42:54.000 The whole metaphor is supposed to be that Japan was a great threat to the United States.

00:42:58.000 They were going to be taking over all of our businesses, taking over the world, economically speaking.

00:43:02.000 And then they went into full on like a decade of secular stagnation because they'd inflated their currency.

00:43:08.000 And it turns out that the demand was not keeping up with anything remotely approaching the supplies.

00:43:14.000 So what you ended up with was this sort of very slow rate of growth that destroyed the Japanese growth and boom of the 1980s.

00:43:22.000 By the 1990s, Japan basically burned out.

00:43:25.000 You could see exactly the same thing here.

00:43:27.000 And Joe Biden's own administration is foreseeing this, by the way.

00:43:30.000 You wonder why they're trying to distract with things like all Republicans are Jim Crow, Donald Trump, January 6th.

00:43:34.000 The reason they're doing that is because they all know that within two years, secular stagnation is likely to set in and we're going to be growing not at 7% in an artificially boosted rebound from a pandemic, from an artificial coma.

00:43:46.000 What's most likely is that in a couple of years, we're going to be growing at like 1.8%, 2%.

00:43:49.000 In fact, if you look at Joe Biden's own 10-year proposed budget, That budget suggests that in just a couple of years, we're going to spend the rest of the decade growing at exorbitantly low levels.

00:43:59.000 Very, very low levels.

00:44:01.000 The reason that countries grow at very low levels is because they have put too many burdens on the actual entrepreneurs and job creators in their economy.

00:44:09.000 It's because they've made it difficult to do business in their economy.

00:44:12.000 Joe Biden doesn't care about that because he understands that the way that politics works is that the bigger the things you get done are, the less it matters whether they actually succeed.

00:44:21.000 One of the great annoyances that I have with regard to historians is the way that they treat, for example, the 1920s, which were a boom time in the United States, as some sort of horrible time for American governance, and the 1930s, which was the Great Depression, as a wonderful time for American governance.

00:44:34.000 Why?

00:44:35.000 Because political history buffs are people who are interested in action.

00:44:38.000 They're interested in action.

00:44:40.000 And if a president does big things, it doesn't matter that they're a complete failure.

00:44:44.000 LBJ, very important president, complete failure.

00:44:46.000 FDR, very, very important president, absolute failure on virtually every level except for the handling of World War II.

00:44:54.000 Hey, FDR's handling of the Great Depression was egregiously bad.

00:44:57.000 And there's a great hilarity to the fact that presidential historians rate Herbert Hoover super low, but FDR super high, when FDR literally did what Herbert Hoover did, except a little more.

00:45:07.000 In fact, everybody in the FDR administration acknowledged that they were doing what Herbert Hoover did.

00:45:11.000 The reason that Herbert Hoover is treated with disdain and FDR with glory is because FDR, of course, was a Democrat and Herbert Hoover was a Republican.

00:45:17.000 But the best presidents of the 20th century, at least up until Ronald Reagan, the best presidents of the 20th century were the presidents of the early 20s.

00:45:25.000 William Harding, Calvin Coolidge.

00:45:27.000 And these are the people who are disdained.

00:45:29.000 How do I know that they were good presidents?

00:45:30.000 Look at the economic growth rates from 1920 to 1929.

00:45:35.000 Massive.

00:45:36.000 And if you say, well, look at the Great Depression.

00:45:37.000 That was 1920.

00:45:38.000 Yes, that's true.

00:45:39.000 Because the reaction to the Great Depression was not to sit there and wait for it to peter out.

00:45:44.000 Instead, the reaction to the stock market crash of October 1929 was to get government involved in extremely invasive ways in American life.

00:45:54.000 But this again goes to why Joe Biden is doing any of this.

00:45:57.000 Because if you're Joe Biden, the incentives for politicians, and this is true for members of Congress, it's true for senators, it's true for presidents, the incentives, the incentive structure is to get big things done.

00:46:07.000 And this is the problem with centralizing this much power in the hands of government.

00:46:10.000 Whether you're talking about the public health establishment, where the incentive is to control, centralize, and quote-unquote get things done, or whether you're talking about in the financial sphere, where the incentive is to control and centralize and quote-unquote get things done, The first rule of politics and public health should be very simple.

00:46:26.000 Do no harm.

00:46:28.000 But that's not the political incentive.

00:46:30.000 The political incentive is do something.

00:46:32.000 You see this all the time.

00:46:33.000 When people talk politics, I say, yeah, I see a problem.

00:46:35.000 Why can't we just do something?

00:46:37.000 Just do something.

00:46:38.000 We should be treating politics like a doctor would treat a patient.

00:46:41.000 The first rule is don't kill the patient.

00:46:43.000 Do no harm.

00:46:45.000 And yet that is precisely the opposite of our modern incentive structure, particularly in the media, where people who are the most activist are considered the most thoughtful and the greatest leaders.

00:46:55.000 Why Andrew Cuomo was a hero while killing all the olds in his state, while Ron DeSantis, who basically restricted his action to protecting the elderly, was considered some sort of horrific human rights violator by the left.

00:47:07.000 We need to change our mindset with regard to what government is designed to do.

00:47:10.000 Otherwise, we are just going to get endless government quote-unquote action that brings about precisely the opposite of that which it intends to bring about.

00:47:17.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content coming up soon.

00:47:20.000 The Matt Walsh Show airs at 1.30 p.m.

00:47:22.000 Eastern.

00:47:22.000 Be sure to check it out over at dailywire.com.

00:47:24.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:47:25.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:47:26.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Elliot Feld.

00:47:34.000 Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.

00:47:36.000 Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.

00:47:38.000 Production Manager Pavel Lydowsky.

00:47:40.000 Associate Producer Bradford Carrington.

00:47:42.000 Post Producer Justin Barber.

00:47:43.000 The show is edited by Adam Sajevitz.

00:47:45.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.

00:47:47.000 Hair and Makeup is by Fabiola Christina.

00:47:49.000 Production Assistant Jessica Kranz.

00:47:51.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:47:53.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:47:56.000 On the Matt Wall Show, we talk about the things that matter.

00:47:59.000 Real issues that affect you, your family, our country, not just politics, but culture, faith, current events, all the fundamentals.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 20, 2021

The Endless Covid Power Grab | Ep. 1300

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