The Ben Shapiro Show - The Feds Target Weed | Ep. 447

00:00:00.000 So, Steve Bannon has a new nickname, Sloppy Steve, deemed to be that by President Trump.

00:00:05.000 We'll talk about that.

00:00:06.000 We'll also talk about the Trump administration's new marijuana policy.

00:00:10.000 It's got a lot of people up in arms, or at least they would be up in arms if they could get up off their couch and leave the Doritos behind.

00:00:15.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:15.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:21.000 So today is mailbag day, so if you are going to subscribe, you should do it right now so you can get your questions into the mailbag now.

00:00:27.000 Not later, right now.

00:00:29.000 So go over and subscribe to the website right now and be involved that way.

00:00:33.000 Also, we are going to get to all of the late breaking news.

00:00:36.000 The FBI has now launched another investigation against Hillary Clinton's foundation, which is just incredible, and we'll talk about the ramifications of that.

00:00:43.000 Just a lot to get to today.

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00:02:16.000 All right.

00:02:18.000 We begin today with this supposedly bombshell book from Michael Wolff.

00:02:22.000 So there's been a lot of hubbub over the Trump administration's treatment of the Michael Wolff book.

00:02:26.000 So Michael Wolff, you'll recall, is this journalist who's kind of sketchy.

00:02:29.000 I remember during the Bush administration, there was a journalist named Kitty Kelly.

00:02:32.000 And Kitty Kelly came out with a couple of books that were very gossipy about what had happened.

00:02:37.000 One was about the Bush administration, another was about the JFK administration.

00:02:41.000 And it was all very gossipy.

00:02:42.000 It was very hard to peg down what was true and what was false.

00:02:44.000 And it sounds a lot like Michael Wolff's book is the same way.

00:02:47.000 Basically, he was given large-scale access to the West Wing, apparently by Steve Bannon, who allowed him in and just let him sit on the couch outside the West Wing.

00:02:55.000 And as Wolff says, the West Wing is very small.

00:02:58.000 It is.

00:02:58.000 I've been there.

00:02:59.000 It's a pretty small area.

00:03:01.000 And there are constantly people of note walking by.

00:03:05.000 And so Wolff would just sit there, and then he would sort of buttonhole people and ask them questions. 0.88

00:03:09.000 And then he writes this book, and this book is filled with kind of juicy anecdotes, stuff about how Trump would make his own sheets, he didn't trust other people to do his sheets, and how he would eat KFC because he was afraid of being poisoned, and how he'd watch TV endlessly and fulminate about his AIDS, and how he would just go crazy on a routine basis, how everybody around Trump thought that he was a moron and a crazy person, and how they would tell the public that he was a genius, and then secretly they would tell Michael Wolff that he was adult, and all of this kind of stuff. 0.82

00:03:34.000 So, what to believe and what not to believe.

00:03:36.000 First of all, don't believe everything that you read in Michael Wolff's book.

00:03:38.000 As I said earlier, I think that it should have been subtitled, as told by Steve Bannon, because it's pretty clear that Bannon is the guy who is spilling his guts to Michael Wolff.

00:03:46.000 It was Bannon who just got blown up for spilling his guts to Michael Wolff, suggesting that all of his enemies in the White House were guilty of criminal conduct.

00:03:53.000 During the campaign, that's what has led President Trump to go all out against Steve Bannon now.

00:03:58.000 So he released his statement about Bannon nuking him two days ago.

00:04:01.000 Yesterday, he came out and had the White House attack.

00:04:05.000 Bannon said that Breitbart should probably fire him.

00:04:07.000 Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked specifically whether Breitbart should consider firing Bannon, and here's what she had to say.

00:04:12.000 We were eager to call on ESPN to fire one of its sportscasters for criticizing President Trump.

00:04:20.000 It wasn't just criticizing, it was a little bit different than that.

00:04:23.000 It should ripe our part ways with Steve Bannon after the comments in these books.

00:04:28.000 I certainly think that it's something they should look at and consider.

00:04:31.000 Brian, thanks.

00:04:44.000 I opposed it when they told ESPN they should fire Jemele Hill or suspend Jemele Hill. 0.78

00:04:49.000 I feel the same way about Bannon, even though I think Bannon is a turd of a human being.

00:04:52.000 I don't think that the White House should be telling private organizations how to run their business.

00:04:56.000 On the other hand, since Breitbart is basically the press adjunct to the White House, I guess that they can fire people who are in-house.

00:05:01.000 I suppose they have a case to be made that they can fire Steve Bannon from the White House, considering that it was basically just the press outlet for the Trump campaign during the campaign itself.

00:05:11.000 Bannon has not only lost the support of the White House, he has also lost the support of the Mercers. 0.99

00:05:15.000 First, of course, he lost the support of President Trump.

00:05:18.000 So very late last night, President Trump slapped out at sloppy Steve over allegations in the book.

00:05:23.000 He said, quote,

00:05:23.000 I authorized zero access to White House, actually turned him down many times for author of phony book.

00:05:29.000 I never spoke to him for book, full of lies, misrepresentations, and sources that don't exist.

00:05:33.000 Look at this guy's past and watch what happens to him and sloppy Steve.

00:05:37.000 Okay, first of all, great nickname.

00:05:40.000 Again, second slow clap in two days for President Trump.

00:05:43.000 This is an excellent nickname.

00:05:44.000 This one goes up in the treasured house, the treasured wing of the Hall of Fame of Trump nicknames, right?

00:05:51.000 I mean, there's Little Marco and there's Low Energy Jeb.

00:05:54.000 And Sloppy Steve is really high up there.

00:05:55.000 I mean, that'll stick.

00:05:57.000 That'll stick because Steve is a sloppy guy in a variety of ways.

00:06:00.000 So that is good stuff from Trump.

00:06:02.000 Trump came out today and he said that Demersers made a good move by getting rid of Sloppy Steve.

00:06:05.000 So he's just going to keep banging on this drum.

00:06:08.000 Bannon, for his part, is trying to kowtow before Trump, which makes sense, since the Mercers came out and slammed Bannon.

00:06:13.000 The Mercers, if you don't know, are the number one funding family for the Republican Party, essentially, and they were the number one funders of President Trump during his general election cycle.

00:06:23.000 Rebecca Mercer is the woman who is largely responsible for deciding where the Mercer family money goes, and she said,

00:06:40.000 That's a pretty rare statement from Rebecca, who apparently tends to be rather reclusive in public. 0.93

00:06:45.000 Her father had disassociated from Breitbart and from Bannon back in early November.

00:06:49.000 So they've been basically cutting off ties for weeks now with Bannon.

00:06:52.000 There's a report that they'd even cut off the funding for Bannon's private security team.

00:06:56.000 So he's basically been isolated at this point, has Bannon.

00:07:00.000 And that, of course, has led him to one conclusion.

00:07:02.000 He must hang on at Breitbart, right?

00:07:04.000 It's the only thing that matters to Bannon right now.

00:07:05.000 He has to hang on at Breitbart.

00:07:06.000 If he loses his perch at Breitbart, he is done as a human.

00:07:09.000 He no longer has the ability to get in good with Trump, right?

00:07:12.000 The idea, I think, for Bannon is if I hang on long enough,

00:07:15.000 If I just hang out here long enough, then at some point, Trump will bring me back in the fold, like Corey Lewandowski or Sam Nunberg or a bunch of other people.

00:07:22.000 I'm not sure that's the case.

00:07:23.000 I think that once you burn your bridges with the president's children, like all of them, then you're going to eventually reach the point where there is no way

00:07:32.000 For you to avoid being blown out, basically.

00:07:34.000 I think that may be where Bannon is.

00:07:35.000 But Bannon feels like, if I just stick around at Breitbart long enough, and then something bad happens to Jared and Ivanka legally, then I'll rush back in and Trump still has my phone number.

00:07:43.000 If he's no longer at Breitbart, that's no longer an option.

00:07:46.000 So he's trying to hang on with the skin of his teeth.

00:07:48.000 Larry Solove, who is Andrew Breitbart's old business partner and best friend,

00:07:52.000 Larry refuses to get rid of Bannon is my impression from the outside.

00:07:56.000 I don't have any inside information on that.

00:07:58.000 But if I had to guess, that would make a lot of sense.

00:07:59.000 It was Larry who brought in Bannon in the first place out of, I think, personal weakness.

00:08:03.000 But in any case...

00:08:04.000 The idea that he's going to dump Bannon by the side of the road is unlikely.

00:08:07.000 I think the Mercers would have to force the issue. 1.00

00:08:09.000 So Bannon is trying to hang on.

00:08:10.000 The way he's hanging on is basically by kowtowing to Trump and then hoping that Trump backs off of him.

00:08:15.000 So here was Bannon yesterday. 0.97

00:08:17.000 After all these quotes come up about how Bannon thinks that Trump is a crazy person and is going to either be impeached or resign and how his children are all criminals, now he comes out and he says, no, no, no. 0.97

00:08:25.000 Trump's wonderful. 0.98

00:08:26.000 Trump's great.

00:08:27.000 So here's Bannon on Sirius XM radio.

00:08:30.000 I know because I know at least one person who listened to it, which was apparently their entire audience.

00:08:34.000 So here we go.

00:08:34.000 The President of the United States is a great man.

00:08:36.000 You know I support him day in and day out, whether going through the country giving the Trump miracle speech or on the show or on the website.

00:08:42.000 So I don't think you have to worry about that.

00:08:43.000 But I appreciate the kind words.

00:08:46.000 Okay, so the idea that he has been supporting Trump day in and day out is sort of belied by the fact that he let this reporter into the White House, who then proceeded to savage the White House from every conceivable angle.

00:08:56.000 So this brings us to the actual nature of the book.

00:08:58.000 The actual nature of the book, it has a lot of problems.

00:09:01.000 The book is Fire and Fury.

00:09:02.000 Again, it is a deeply gossip-ridden account, and there are a lot of problems with the book itself.

00:09:08.000 It has all of these sort of weird anecdotes, and you don't know where they're sourced to, because Wolf doesn't have any end notes, is my impression.

00:09:14.000 He doesn't say, this is from my conversation with Steve Bannon in the West Wing, or this is from my conversation with Jared Kushner, or this is from my conversation with Mike Pence.

00:09:23.000 It doesn't have any of those footnotes.

00:09:24.000 There's no way to tell what is true and what is not in these accounts.

00:09:27.000 But we know already that there are some things in this book that are just not true.

00:09:31.000 We know there are accounts that are simply false.

00:09:32.000 There are certain descriptions of people that are just not true.

00:09:36.000 And in just a second, I'm going to tell you about some of the instances in the book that are clearly untrue.

00:09:40.000 I mean, I can personally attest to them being untrue in just one second.

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00:11:00.000 So, here's what we know in the book that is not true.

00:11:03.000 In the Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury, which is soaring on the bestseller charts, here's how we know there's stuff that's not true.

00:11:09.000 So, number one, it says in the book that Donald Trump didn't know who John Boehner was, right?

00:11:12.000 The Speaker of the House.

00:11:13.000 That in conversations, Trump had no clue who Boehner was when he was recommended as a possible 0.81

00:11:19.000 That's ridiculous.

00:11:22.000 I mean, Trump has golfed with John Boehner. 0.91

00:11:24.000 John Boehner was the Speaker of the House for the first four months of Trump's presidential run, basically.

00:11:28.000 The idea that Trump has no idea who Boehner is, is really hard to hold to scrutiny.

00:11:36.000 Beyond that,

00:11:37.000 It's also ridiculous to suggest, as the book does, that Stephen Miller, who is one of Trump's top aides, one of his speechwriters, can't put together a sentence.

00:11:44.000 I mean, the guy did go to, I believe, Duke Law School, if I'm not mistaken.

00:11:48.000 Stephen did.

00:11:49.000 As well, not only that, Stephen is a policy wonk.

00:11:54.000 So there's an accusation that Stephen Miller is not, in fact, a policy wonk.

00:12:00.000 When it comes to immigration, I've spent hours talking with him about immigration. 0.99

00:12:02.000 The idea that he is not a policy wonk is just asinine. 0.91

00:12:05.000 Miller didn't go to Duke Law, rather he went to Duke itself.

00:12:07.000 So he's a smart enough guy to go to Duke, which is a top college. 0.96

00:12:10.000 The idea that he can't write a sentence is silly.

00:12:11.000 There are other claims in this book that are being called into question.

00:12:14.000 There's a claim that Sean Hannity expressed his willingness to let Trump review questions in advance.

00:12:19.000 Hannity said that he never did that.

00:12:21.000 I don't know whether to believe that or not.

00:12:22.000 If the interviews were friendly enough, I don't think Sean would have to do that, right?

00:12:25.000 I mean, Sean could basically just say to Trump, listen, I'm not going to sandbag you.

00:12:28.000 And Trump would agree, because Sean would never sandbag Trump.

00:12:31.000 So I'm not sure we'd have to actually offer to supply the questions. 1.00

00:12:34.000 Another one of Trump's top advisors and friends, Thomas Barrack, said of the president, he's not only crazy, he's stupid. 1.00

00:12:39.000 But Barrack denies ever having made the comment. 1.00

00:12:42.000 The British publication claimed that The Wolf Book says that Tony Blair, former British prime minister,

00:12:46.000 Warren jarred Kushner during the campaign that British spies could have the campaign under surveillance, but Blair calls that report a complete fabrication.

00:12:52.000 So here's what it sounds like Michael Wolff did when he put together this book.

00:12:55.000 It sounds like Michael Wolff basically sat in the hall and listened to Steve Bannon tell tall tales around the campfire while roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores.

00:13:02.000 And then, when they were done, he just wrote down everything Steve Bannon said, and then he said, you filter it out.

00:13:07.000 You the reader.

00:13:07.000 It's your job to try and determine what's true and what's false.

00:13:10.000 So you get a sort of ambiance of what it's like in the White House with all the chaos and all the craziness, but it's not

00:13:15.000 necessarily true that every individual story is true.

00:13:19.000 If that's the case, then there's not much to the book.

00:13:22.000 And the truth is, I'm not sure there's much to the book anyway, just because I believe a lot of the kind of general tenor and tone issues that the book raises.

00:13:29.000 I believe that Donald Trump is not Phi Beta Kappa when it comes to policy.

00:13:32.000 I don't think that Donald Trump

00:13:34.000 I don't think so.

00:13:56.000 What does the book add?

00:13:57.000 The answer is the book really doesn't add much at all, except for a bunch of accusations by Steve Bannon that the media want to take seriously for purposes of trying to destroy Trump.

00:14:05.000 Which, of course, is why Trump is going directly at Steve Bannon, and why Donald Trump should go directly at Steve Bannon, right?

00:14:10.000 Bannon is the guy who wanted to turn this into a self-aggrandizing homage to him, and it was a direct fail.

00:14:17.000 And I think that makes perfect sense that Trump decides that he has to strike back.

00:14:21.000 Now, the way that Trump strikes back at Bannon, which I think is correct, is very different from the way that Trump strikes back at the book.

00:14:27.000 Trump is now participating in what we in the internet world call the Streisand effect.

00:14:31.000 So a few years back, Barbara Streisand, the legendary singer and crazed liberal, she has a house on the beach down in Malibu.

00:14:40.000 And there was an environmentalist photographer who had taken some aerial photos of the beach and included her house.

00:14:45.000 Now, you never would have known that it was her house.

00:14:47.000 It didn't label her house.

00:14:48.000 It didn't have an arrow that said Barbara Streisand's house.

00:14:50.000 It was just a picture that included Barbara Streisand's house.

00:14:53.000 And the point of the photos was not to show where the rich and famous lived.

00:14:57.000 The whole point of the photos was to show coastal erosion.

00:15:00.000 Right?

00:15:00.000 So the entire series of photos was by an environmentalist guy.

00:15:03.000 It wasn't by some right-winger who was trying to stake out Barbara Streisand's house while she sung Feelings in the background.

00:15:07.000 That was not the idea here.

00:15:09.000 Well, what Barbara Streisand did is she got so mad that she sued the photographer for something like $5 million.

00:15:14.000 It was something crazy.

00:15:15.000 She sued the photographer for an enormous amount of money, claiming that he had violated her privacy rights.

00:15:20.000 Well, in launching the lawsuit, she then made clear where was she lived. 0.84

00:15:23.000 So suddenly the photo, which had been viewed I think a grand total of like seven times ever by anyone, was viewed by 1.5 million people.

00:15:31.000 People flooded onto the internet to see the pictures of Barbra Streisand's house and what she would be so touchy about that she'd sue some rando for millions of dollars for exposing the photo. 0.90

00:15:40.000 Well, Trump basically did the same thing with this book.

00:15:43.000 So the book was going to get coverage.

00:15:45.000 But Trump could have said all the same things I just said, right? 0.99

00:15:47.000 Trump could have said, listen, Steve Bannon's a piece of garbage who falsifies a lot of stuff. 0.99

00:15:50.000 This book is driven by Steve Bannon's agenda. 0.99

00:15:53.000 But the book is full of falsehoods and we're not going to talk about it anymore.

00:15:55.000 Right?

00:15:56.000 We're just going to leave it at that.

00:15:58.000 The book's full of falsehoods.

00:15:59.000 We're done.

00:16:01.000 It's full of a bunch of crazy stories.

00:16:02.000 Steve Bannon has an agenda.

00:16:03.000 He's self-driven. 1.00

00:16:04.000 He's garbage. 1.00

00:16:05.000 And everybody would have cheered, and that would have been the end of it. 1.00

00:16:08.000 Because, by the way, Steve Bannon is garbage, if I haven't made that clear already for the last two days. 0.98

00:16:12.000 So, or for the last two years for that matter. 0.98

00:16:14.000 With that said, that's not what the Trump administration decided to do.

00:16:18.000 So Trump unleashed his lawyers on the publisher.

00:16:21.000 Always a bad move.

00:16:22.000 He sends a letter to the publisher saying, you are going to pull this book or I am going to sue you for defamation.

00:16:29.000 No.

00:16:30.000 Okay, so putting on my lawyer hat, defamation against the President of the United States is not a thing.

00:16:35.000 Winning a defamation suit as the President of the United States is not going to happen.

00:16:39.000 You're a public figure.

00:16:39.000 You're the ultimate public figure.

00:16:41.000 And I'm not sure how you could prove anything that was maliciously and willfully false, which is the actual statement.

00:16:46.000 You have to prove maliciousness, right?

00:16:49.000 Like willful and maliciousness in defamation for a public figure, that's the standard.

00:16:53.000 That you willfully knew something was false and you maliciously published it anyway.

00:16:57.000 That is not going to happen for the President of the United States, particularly since most people are going to believe a lot of the allegations that are in the book anyway, including, I am sure, members of the jury. 1.00

00:17:07.000 So that was stupid. 0.98

00:17:07.000 By doing that, he basically handed a win to the author of the book. 0.98

00:17:11.000 Again, this is the problem with Trump's knee-jerk tendency to go after anybody who slaps him, is that it puts him in weird positions where he's actually elevating the people who are slapping him.

00:17:19.000 Now, I think he could slap down Bannon pretty safely because Bannon used to work for him. 0.99

00:17:23.000 Bannon was the barnacle on his butt, so anytime 0.99

00:17:25.000 Trump wanted to slap him, he could, right? 0.99

00:17:27.000 Trump could just destroy him with a single swipe, and that's essentially what Trump has done.

00:17:30.000 It's a different thing when you're talking about a media member, and it isn't great policy to have the President of the United States suing individual members of the media for the stuff that they write.

00:17:39.000 It's just not—if Obama had tried to do this about Ed Klein, for example, the entire right would have gone nuts, and I think rightly so.

00:17:44.000 So, yeah, I think that's bad policy by Trump.

00:17:46.000 I think that it's over the top.

00:17:48.000 Go after Steve Bannon, by all means, since he's the one who's actually the leak.

00:17:51.000 He's the guy who's actually telling all of these tall tales out of school.

00:17:54.000 But going after the author, who you allowed to sit around in the White House for day after day after day, apparently for months, that seems like a big mistake to me.

00:18:01.000 And again, it creates a Streisand effect, where suddenly, like last night in DC, there were people who were waiting outside bookstores at 12, 15 at night for the early release of the book.

00:18:09.000 So the book was actually pushed up four days, and the publisher released the book four days early, specifically so that they could gain all of the sales from all of the attention.

00:18:18.000 So that's something that Trump ought not to have done.

00:18:21.000 You know, issuing a cease and desist to Bannon with a violation of the NDA, the non-disclosure agreement, as I said yesterday, there's actually a legal case for that.

00:18:29.000 There's no defamation legal case for President Trump against Henry Holt and publishers against Michael Wolff, this particular author, even though the author, I think, is making things up, or at least repeating tales that he has not bothered to verify.

00:18:41.000 Wolff, by the way, says this openly, that this is not his style, that he doesn't actually

00:18:45.000 He doesn't actually verify the anecdotes that he's told.

00:18:48.000 He just sort of spills it out on the page and just assumes that everything is true.

00:18:51.000 So that is not called journalism.

00:18:53.000 That's just you being a tape recorder.

00:18:55.000 And that's essentially what Michael Wolff did.

00:18:57.000 So is this going to do lasting damage to the Trump administration?

00:19:00.000 There are a lot of people who say, oh, it's a bombshell inside the Trump administration.

00:19:03.000 Just a bombshell.

00:19:04.000 Is it, though?

00:19:05.000 Is it really?

00:19:06.000 Do you really think that members of the Trump administration are going to use their power, members of the Trump cabinet are going to use their power under the 25th Amendment to suspend Trump from service for 60 days and then kick it to Congress where Trump will actually be impeached, which is the actual process under the 25th Amendment?

00:19:20.000 Do you really think that's what's going to happen here?

00:19:22.000 Because it ain't going to happen. 0.97

00:19:23.000 Okay, nobody in the West Wing is going to launch an impeachment move against Trump on the basis of he's crazy. 0.79

00:19:29.000 People knew who Trump was when they voted for him.

00:19:33.000 And people refuse to believe anything that they don't want to believe.

00:19:35.000 I was talking with Andrew Klavan and with Michael Knowles yesterday, or rather, I was not, my business partner Jeremy was, and both Klavan and Knowles were insisting that this is all 40 MAGA MAGA MAGA chess, and I'm just telling you, it's not.

00:19:48.000 But if you want to believe that it is, you're going to believe that it is.

00:19:50.000 So people are still believing about Trump what it is they want to believe about Trump.

00:19:54.000 And that being the case, none of these new anecdotes are going to change one single mind.

00:19:58.000 Not one single person in the United States who didn't think Trump was already crazy is going to change their mind, and not a single person who thought that Trump is brilliant is going to change their mind based on Michael Wolff's book.

00:20:07.000 So the idea that there's a bombshell that really ruins the administration?

00:20:11.000 Kevin Williams had had a good line about this, right?

00:20:13.000 You can't take down Trump with this kind of stuff for the same reason that you can no longer assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

00:20:19.000 Abraham Lincoln's already dead. 0.98

00:20:21.000 Donald Trump cannot be taken down by this stuff because people who perceive him to be crazy already perceive him to be crazy. 0.93

00:20:25.000 People who perceive him to be sane already perceive him to be sane. 0.87

00:20:28.000 He is what he is in my view.

00:20:30.000 I don't think that he's the world's most stable guy.

00:20:32.000 I don't think that he has the character of a president that I would prefer, but I will enjoy all of the policy wins that he's brought.

00:20:39.000 And I can live with that cognitive dissonance.

00:20:41.000 Everybody else should learn to, too.

00:20:43.000 And that's just the way that it works.

00:20:44.000 OK, so I'm going to move on to Trump and Pott in just a second.

00:20:48.000 And no, that's not my recommendation that we all smoke weed to get through the next three years of this, or the next seven years, as the case may be.

00:20:54.000 But before I get to that, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Blinds.com.

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00:22:01.000 I don't know.

00:22:18.000 A big policy change, or a sort of big policy change, happened yesterday, and all of the pot smokers and friends of pot smokers are just up in arms at the Trump administration.

00:22:29.000 Or as I said earlier, they are too busy staring at their own fingernails and finding them fascinating, but when the pot wears off, and before they've been able to re-up, then they will be very, very exercised about all of this, and then presumably they'll eat a pizza, smoke some more weed, and go back to sleep.

00:22:43.000 But in any case,

00:22:45.000 Okay, when I make fun of people who smoke pot, folks, it's not because I think pot should actually be illegal. 1.00

00:22:50.000 It's because I think you're stupid if you spend all of your time smoking pot. 1.00

00:22:52.000 Okay, just that I think you're stupid, by the way, if you drink yourself into oblivion, too. 1.00

00:22:55.000 But in any case, here's what actually happened. 0.99

00:22:57.000 Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday rescinded, this is according to CNN, a trio of memos from the Obama administration that had adopted a policy of non-interference with marijuana-friendly state laws.

00:23:06.000 So there was something called the Cole Rule, okay?

00:23:08.000 Under the Cole Rule, it basically said Jim Cole was the former Deputy Attorney General,

00:23:13.000 The whole idea here was that the Justice Department was going to let the states do what they wanted to do.

00:23:20.000 It was sort of the equivalent of DACA.

00:23:21.000 So if you remember, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was Obama saying, I'm going to use my prosecutorial discretion to instruct the DOJ not to actually prosecute cases for the so-called dreamers. 0.96

00:23:31.000 That's what DACA was, the executive amnesty.

00:23:33.000 Well, the Cole rule was basically the same thing for pot distribution.

00:23:37.000 So, the move now from Jeff Sessions essentially shifts federal policy from the hands-off approach adopted under the previous administration to unleashing federal prosecutors across the country to decide individually how to prioritize resources to crack down on pot possession, distribution, and cultivation of the drug in states where it is legal.

00:23:53.000 So while many states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana use here in California, they've decriminalized marijuana use, and that has obviously made California just a more wonderful place to live.

00:24:04.000 It was already wonderful, and now it's just made it a more wonderful place to live so that everybody on the streets is smoking pot and the homeless people who live right outside your house can now get high in their spare time.

00:24:14.000 In any case, the drug is still illegal under federal law, which creates this conflict between federal and state law.

00:24:18.000 Now, let me make my own position very clear on this.

00:24:20.000 I'm in favor of decriminalization of marijuana.

00:24:22.000 I have been for decriminalization of marijuana for years.

00:24:24.000 I believe that the federal government and the state government spend far too much time and effort trying to go after marijuana, and they do a terrible job of it.

00:24:30.000 It should still be heavily regulated for use under the age of 18.

00:24:33.000 There is serious damage that is done to teenage brains by repeat use of marijuana.

00:24:38.000 The argument as to whether marijuana is a gateway drug is not exactly settled.

00:24:43.000 You know, people have said it's not a gateway drug.

00:24:45.000 They say, oh, it's just a myth.

00:24:46.000 The data on that are really mixed.

00:24:48.000 When I say they're mixed, what I mean is that the vast majority of people who use heavier drugs did start off by using marijuana, but it's not clear whether those people just had a tendency toward drugs in the first place, and that drove them to use both marijuana and then heavier drugs, or whether they started with marijuana, and they said, I'm breaking the law anyway, but I'm not getting high enough, so now I'm going to try heroin.

00:25:05.000 It's not clear exactly how that worked.

00:25:08.000 In any case, that's an argument that has not been fully debunked, is the gateway drug issue. 0.94

00:25:13.000 But as somebody who's in favor of individual sovereignty and your capacity to make your own decisions as an adult, including stupid decisions without government intervention, I'm in favor of marijuana decriminalization.

00:25:23.000 I'm more split when it comes to harder drugs that are more addictive, things like heroin or things like cocaine. 0.90

00:25:31.000 There, I tend toward legalization even for those drugs is the truth.

00:25:34.000 But when it comes to things like Angel Dust or LSD that have actual externalities where it's going to cause you to act in violent ways, it actually changes how you act toward people.

00:25:41.000 As opposed to you just get high and you stay in your room all day and you drown in your own vomit.

00:25:47.000 That seems to me that's mostly a problem. 0.55

00:25:49.000 But if you are actually going to get high and then go out and kill a child, then the drug makes you more violent, it makes you crazy and hyper, then that's a different story.

00:25:56.000 That's my basic take on drug legalization and decriminalization.

00:25:59.000 With all that said...

00:26:01.000 Sessions is now reversing this Obama-era rule.

00:26:04.000 So he said this is a return to the rule of law, but he didn't go as far as some advocates worried that he would.

00:26:09.000 He didn't direct more prosecutions.

00:26:11.000 So here's what Sessions said in a memo.

00:26:12.000 He said, quote,

00:26:21.000 These principles require federal prosecutors deciding which cases to prosecute, to weigh all relevant considerations of the crime, the deterrent effect of criminal prosecution, and the cumulative effect of particular crimes on the community.

00:26:33.000 So, nationally, the media goes absolutely insane over this.

00:26:36.000 How dare Jeff Sessions?

00:26:37.000 He's done something terrible.

00:26:38.000 Look at him.

00:26:39.000 Now he's just going, he's re-upping the drug war, and that's all that this is.

00:26:44.000 That's not really what happened here.

00:26:46.000 As I say, the Cole Memo was this directive to federal prosecutors that basically said that the drug was still illegal under the Federal Controlled Substances Act, but federal prosecutors could focus their resources elsewhere so long as the states didn't threaten other federal priorities such as distribution of drugs to minors and targeting cartels.

00:27:02.000 That's what the Cole Memo did.

00:27:03.000 That's now been overruled.

00:27:05.000 So, a bunch of people in Congress are alarmed.

00:27:07.000 Oh no, the DOJ is going to come after us.

00:27:08.000 If that's the case, I have an idea.

00:27:09.000 Change the law.

00:27:21.000 Here's why Sessions is actually correct.

00:27:22.000 So Sessions is correct, even if you agree with decriminalization of marijuana, as I do.

00:27:27.000 Sessions is not wrong.

00:27:28.000 The reason Sessions is not wrong is that we have something called the executive branch.

00:27:31.000 The executive branch's job is to, as you may have guessed, execute.

00:27:35.000 It is their job to execute the law.

00:27:36.000 It is not their job to rewrite the law at will.

00:27:39.000 It is not the job of the federal executive branch to simply decide, as Obama did, that we're not going to prosecute entire classes of crime because I don't like the law.

00:27:47.000 If that were the case, then I would hope to get elected president and I would spend zero of the dollars allocated to me by Congress.

00:27:53.000 I just wouldn't do any of it.

00:27:55.000 I would just nullify everything the legislature did.

00:27:57.000 That's not what the executive branch is there to do.

00:27:59.000 If Republicans in Congress and Democrats in Congress have enough of a problem with pot policy from the DOJ, maybe they should change the law.

00:28:06.000 Maybe they should just get rid of the provisions governing marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act and let the states deal with it, considering it's mainly a state problem in the first place.

00:28:14.000 I don't know why the federal government is really involved in any of this.

00:28:16.000 This came to a head in a Supreme Court case called California v. Raich.

00:28:20.000 It was back in 2003, in which the Federal Controlled Substances Act came up for review before the Supreme Court, because the state of California wanted to allow medicinal marijuana, and the federal government was coming in and arresting people.

00:28:35.000 And people in California were saying, well, we haven't committed a federal crime, right?

00:28:38.000 We're not involved in interstate commerce.

00:28:40.000 We're just growing marijuana to use ourselves, right?

00:28:42.000 Or we're growing marijuana to use in-state.

00:28:44.000 And the Supreme Court wrongly, in my opinion, ruled that the state of California could not do that, that it was a supremacy clause question, that they were overruling the federal government.

00:28:52.000 I disagree with that decision.

00:28:54.000 I disagree with the federal government getting involved in these issues in the first place.

00:28:57.000 But it is not the job of the executive to nullify federal law.

00:29:00.000 It's the job of the legislature to change federal law.

00:29:02.000 That's basically what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday, and I think that she's basically correct.

00:29:08.000 Does President Trump see marijuana as a state issue or a federal issue?

00:29:12.000 The President believes in enforcing federal law.

00:29:15.000 That would be his top priority.

00:29:17.000 And that is regardless of what the topic is, whether it's marijuana or whether it's immigration, the President strongly believes that we should enforce federal law.

00:29:27.000 The move that the Department of Justice has made, which my guess is what you're referencing, simply gives prosecutors the tools to take on

00:29:37.000 Okay, so his basic idea here is that the only thing that matters in the end is that the executive branch does what the executive branch is designed to do, which is to execute the law.

00:29:53.000 So there's no question that this is correct, right?

00:29:55.000 This is basically correct no matter what you feel about marijuana.

00:29:58.000 So, it's time for Congress to change the law.

00:30:00.000 I will say, I think it is hilarious how the left has responded to this.

00:30:03.000 The left doesn't care about federalism in any other setting.

00:30:05.000 They don't care about states' rights in any other setting.

00:30:07.000 They're actively anti-states' rights in every other setting.

00:30:11.000 Like, against it.

00:30:12.000 Cory Booker, however, says that this is an attack on our most sacred ideals.

00:30:16.000 Like, really, this is what he says.

00:30:19.000 And so this is an attack on our most sacred ideals and the very purpose of the Department of Justice, which is to protect Americans, to elevate ideals of justice, and to do right by people.

00:30:31.000 It is a failure of this administration who said, as our president did during his campaign, that he would honor what states are doing.

00:30:42.000 It's a betrayal of our Attorney General who gave a commitment to a Republican, at least one Republican member of this body.

00:30:48.000 But most significantly, it is hurting, it will hurt America.

00:30:52.000 You know, Hurt America, it's our sacred principle that people should be able to smoke dope.

00:30:56.000 Pretty sure that that was not actually a sacred principle, like for anyone.

00:30:59.000 But apparently for Democrats, baby's in the womb, not sacred.

00:31:02.000 Pot, sacred.

00:31:03.000 I'm glad that we now know the priorities.

00:31:04.000 This is exciting.

00:31:06.000 Okay, so, we are going to get to the mailbag.

00:31:08.000 I also want to discuss this new FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton.

00:31:11.000 We'll discuss all of that, but first, you're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com and take a look over there.

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00:31:22.000 I'm waiting.

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00:31:39.000 It is so magnificent, so grand.

00:31:41.000 So fine that if you are forced to choose between one of your children and maintaining the sanctity of this Tumblr, it will be a very difficult decision, and in the end, you will come down on the side of the Tumblr.

00:31:50.000 I know, I used to have three children.

00:31:51.000 Now I only have two.

00:31:52.000 In any case, check it out.

00:31:55.000 That's not true, guys.

00:31:56.000 Come on.

00:31:56.000 Okay, so in any case.

00:31:58.000 Check out the subscription or go over to daily.

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00:32:08.000 We are the largest, most popular, fastest growing, most incredible conservative podcast in the nation.

00:32:20.000 Yes, every week feels like three.

00:32:22.000 There's just that much news going on.

00:32:25.000 In any case, the FBI has now launched a new investigation into Hillary Clinton.

00:32:28.000 The right, of course, is celebrating wildly that this is happening.

00:32:31.000 Listen, I think that if she did something, she should go to jail.

00:32:34.000 I think she should have gone to jail for what she did in exposing classified information in order to protect herself through her private server. 1.00

00:32:40.000 With that said,

00:32:41.000 I'm a little uncomfortable with the precedent that's being set that we are now going to spend years prosecuting prior administrations.

00:32:47.000 Because if Trump thinks this is fun now, if he loses in 2020, things are going to get extraordinarily dicey, extraordinarily fast.

00:32:54.000 Like, Eric Holder, here's the reality.

00:32:57.000 Trump DOJ isn't doing anything wrong by investigating Hillary because the Holder DOJ was never going to investigate Hillary.

00:33:03.000 Well, we now live in a kleptocracy where the ruling cadre gets to prosecute its opposition and protect itself from prosecution.

00:33:12.000 Eric Holder is responsible for Hillary Clinton getting off the hook.

00:33:14.000 That's the reality.

00:33:15.000 Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch are responsible for Hillary Clinton getting off the hook. 0.99

00:33:18.000 So Trump going back now and looking at this again, or Sessions doing it, that would be in accordance with the rule of law.

00:33:24.000 But just be aware that when power shifts, and it will again.

00:33:27.000 Republicans will not rule forever.

00:33:29.000 There will be some time in the future, near or far, at which Democrats take power.

00:33:32.000 A lot of people are going to be put under the gun of the DOJ again, because once you start using the DOJ as your personal tool to take revenge against your enemies, things could go wildly wrong.

00:33:41.000 In any case, the Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in pay-to-play politics or illegal activities while Hillary served as Secretary of State.

00:33:51.000 This is all from The Hill.

00:34:13.000 So, one witness has said that the FBI is acting in an extremely professional and unquestionably thorough manner.

00:34:19.000 It will be interesting and fascinating to watch the same left that has been praising the FBI up the wazoo because of the Trump-Russia investigation now flip and insist that it is politically driven.

00:34:28.000 So, I'm looking forward to that very much.

00:34:31.000 Again, we'll have to wait to see what comes out from all of this.

00:34:34.000 inclination is to believe that the FBI should have prosecuted Hillary the first time around and James Comey botched the investigation and did so in purposeful manner.

00:34:43.000 With all of that said, it is not good that all of our politics is now caught up in the hands of the DOJ and the FBI.

00:34:48.000 And that's due largely to criminality, but it's also due to the fact that the DOJ and the FBI have become politicized tools, which is one of the reasons why Republicans are kicking back against Robert Mueller, Steve Scalise, the House Majority Whip,

00:35:01.000 He came out yesterday and he said that the special counsel, Mueller, is now in question, that his legitimacy is now in question.

00:35:08.000 We're now going to play politics with every aspect of the federal government because we don't trust, I think rightly so, the DOJ or the FBI.

00:35:14.000 So Steve Scalise will challenge Robert Mueller, and presumably within the next five minutes, the Democrats will challenge the FBI.

00:35:19.000 Here's Scalise.

00:35:21.000 I'm

00:35:52.000 All of this is a mess, by the way, because now the accusation is that Jeff Sessions over at the DOJ, the accusation is that he was actually trying to lead a PR campaign undercover against James Comey, even as he's recused himself from the Russia investigation in the middle of February and March and April.

00:36:07.000 So, just yuck.

00:36:09.000 All the way around, the DOJ and the FBI have been politicized.

00:36:12.000 We don't trust them.

00:36:13.000 And so the lack of trust in our public institutions continues to founder until we get into the business of electing politicians.

00:36:21.000 It's really our fault. 1.00

00:36:21.000 We have to stop electing politicians who are corrupt and then using the FBI and the DOJ as a check on our own stupidity. 1.00

00:36:27.000 That's not going to work because the DOJ and the FBI are, guess what, politicians. 0.99

00:36:30.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things I hate, and then the mailbag.

00:36:33.000 So, things I like today.

00:36:35.000 We'll only do one thing I like because we have to get to the mailbag.

00:36:38.000 The thing that I like today is a biography that I'm reading on Johannes Brahms.

00:36:42.000 Brahms, of course, one of the great composers of all time.

00:36:45.000 And it's a really illuminating, very lengthy biography by Jan Swafford.

00:36:49.000 And the book really delves into who Brahms was as a person.

00:36:53.000 Brahms really had an eye toward how he would be perceived by future historians.

00:36:59.000 He burned a lot of his papers.

00:37:00.000 He didn't want people delving into his life.

00:37:03.000 Jan Swafford does a really good job

00:37:05.000 of checking that out.

00:37:06.000 I don't know if I have to pronounce Jan, it might be Jan Swafford.

00:37:08.000 In any case, he does a very good job of delving into all of the details of Brahms's biography.

00:37:15.000 So if you're into biographies of musicians, as I am, we did Beethoven a couple of weeks ago, this biography of Brahms is considered the classic.

00:37:20.000 So Jan or Jan Swafford, it's called Johannes Brahms, a biography, check it out.

00:37:26.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate. 0.99

00:37:32.000 OK, so we'll begin with this idiotic tweet that has 250,000 likes on Twitter. 0.99

00:37:38.000 It's a picture of Doug Jones, who's the new Democratic senator from Alabama, and his son, who happens to be gay, and Doug Jones' wife, who is swearing in Doug Jones into the Senate. 0.99

00:37:48.000 And Mike Pence is standing there presiding over it, because as the vice president, he is the guy who presides over the Senate.

00:37:54.000 So Doug Jones is standing there, and the gay son looks like he is giving side eye to Mike Pence, supposedly. 0.64

00:38:01.000 OK, and Derek Millman tweets, 1.00

00:38:09.000 This is so stupid for so many reasons. 1.00

00:38:10.000 Number one, if you think Mike Pence has never met a gay guy, you are a moron. 1.00

00:38:14.000 Okay? 1.00

00:38:14.000 Mike Pence is the vice president of the United States. 1.00

00:38:16.000 He's the governor of Indiana.

00:38:17.000 I'm sure he's worked with gay people. 0.90

00:38:19.000 I'm sure he's friends with gay people. 1.00

00:38:20.000 The idea that Mike Pence has never met a gay person is just asinine. 0.99

00:38:24.000 Beyond that, this meme doesn't even make sense. 0.99

00:38:26.000 Look at the guy's eyes.

00:38:27.000 He's not even looking at Mike Pence.

00:38:28.000 He's looking at his mom in this photo.

00:38:30.000 Right?

00:38:30.000 The angle of the photo makes it look like it's ambiguous.

00:38:33.000 It is not ambiguous.

00:38:34.000 Look at his eyes.

00:38:34.000 He is looking at his mother because his mother is the one who is swearing in his father at this point.

00:38:40.000 But again, people are so driven by confirmation bias that they want to believe that Mike Pence is somehow threatened by the openly gay son. 0.61

00:38:48.000 Yeah, right.

00:38:49.000 I'm sure that's the case.

00:38:50.000 Yeah.

00:38:51.000 Good job, guys.

00:38:52.000 Okay, other things that I hate.

00:38:53.000 So, there's a website called Mike. 1.00

00:38:55.000 It is a stupid website. 1.00

00:38:56.000 And 1.00

00:39:13.000 Bottom line is, 1.00

00:39:40.000 Does a man have a right to say, I'm not into a penis? 0.99

00:39:43.000 And like, is that okay still? 0.99

00:39:45.000 Apparently not. 0.99

00:39:46.000 Apparently this makes you gay. 1.00

00:39:47.000 So if you're a man who doesn't like a penis, you're gay now. 1.00

00:39:50.000 I'm very confused by all of this. 1.00

00:39:51.000 Here's the mic video.

00:39:52.000 It's not good.

00:39:53.000 If the idea is that a guy dating a trans woman makes him gay, then what you're basically saying is that a trans woman is not a woman.

00:40:00.000 Okay, stop it there for a second.

00:40:02.000 I'm not saying that this person is quote unquote playing dress up.

00:40:04.000 I don't know what this person's mental condition is.

00:40:06.000 Okay, I would suggest this person is suffering from a delusion.

00:40:10.000 I wouldn't suggest that.

00:40:10.000 That is a fact.

00:40:11.000 This person is suffering from a delusion.

00:40:12.000 This person is not a woman.

00:40:13.000 This person is not a biological woman.

00:40:15.000 This person may believe they're a biological woman, they may believe they're a very feminine man, they may believe they're a trans woman.

00:40:19.000 That's not the same as a biological woman. 1.00

00:40:22.000 It's not that a man is... The guy who is looking at this person and saying, that's a man, and I'm not sexually attracted to that, or the guy who initially takes a look before realizing that that's a man,

00:40:34.000 Okay, there's nothing that is wrong with that, either morally or in terms of sensitivity.

00:40:40.000 Dictating other people's sexual proclivities, I thought, was off the table.

00:40:45.000 Until five minutes ago, I thought it was stay out of my bedroom. 0.92

00:40:47.000 Now apparently it's get in my bedroom or you're a sexist. 1.00

00:40:51.000 Get in here and take a look at this.

00:40:54.000 That's not the way that this works.

00:40:55.000 You don't get to dictate to anybody else how they act.

00:40:58.000 This is my problem with a lot of what's happening in the radical trans movement is not that these are people who are just saying, leave me alone to live my life.

00:41:05.000 I'm fine with that.

00:41:05.000 Do whatever the hell you want to do.

00:41:06.000 You want to get a surgery?

00:41:07.000 That's your problem.

00:41:07.000 You're an adult.

00:41:08.000 You want to go out and have hormone treatments? 1.00

00:41:09.000 I don't think it'll be great for you.

00:41:11.000 That's your decision anyway.

00:41:12.000 I'm not your doctor.

00:41:13.000 That's your problem.

00:41:14.000 Go for it.

00:41:15.000 I'm completely libertarian on this. 0.99

00:41:17.000 But it is my problem when you're suggesting that somehow I am not secure enough in my own masculinity when I say I'm not into your penis. 0.98

00:41:25.000 Okay, stop, this is not logical, it doesn't make any sense, it's ridiculous, it's actually rather tyrannical, and it cuts counter to the entire privacy movement that you guys are trying to establish. 0.99

00:41:35.000 Or you guys, or girls, whatever, okay? 0.96

00:41:39.000 The whole thing is just silly.

00:41:41.000 So we can play a little bit more of this, but be ready to pause it, okay? 0.53

00:41:43.000 I am 24 seven.

00:41:48.000 Certain cis men who I find... I like the shots of the random guys.

00:41:53.000 They know they're even in this shot.

00:41:55.000 Their approach to trans women specifically is a very dismissive approach. 0.86

00:42:01.000 I think that their view on us is that of a weak boy.

00:42:06.000 They don't really see us as women. 0.95

00:42:10.000 So now you're a weak boy. 0.82

00:42:12.000 You understand? 0.99

00:42:12.000 They're challenging the masculinity of guys who don't want to have sex with guys. 0.99

00:42:16.000 Adam Carolla had a line in, I think it was his first book, where he says that we're eventually going to reach the point where we challenge the masculinity of boys who are not secure enough in their masculinity to be gay. 0.94

00:42:26.000 We're eventually going to say to young boys that if you want to show you're a real man and that you're secure in your masculinity, go over there and kiss another guy.

00:42:33.000 That'll show how secure you are in your masculinity.

00:42:34.000 Like, that's the way this is going?

00:42:36.000 We're pretty much there.

00:42:38.000 We didn't have far to go.

00:42:38.000 Okay, time for the mailbag.

00:42:39.000 Let's just go to the mailbag, because I can't do any more of this.

00:42:41.000 Alright, so, mailbag time.

00:42:43.000 Yes, I hope he does.

00:42:44.000 It's one thing I wish I'd had growing up, because I was smaller and slighter than the other kids in class.

00:42:48.000 I was also smarter, and so this made for some bullying.

00:42:57.000 I wish I had known how to defend myself better so I could have beaten some people up.

00:43:00.000 That would have been good.

00:43:01.000 Canyon says, Dear Ben, regarding foreign policy, if you had to pick, would you rather see America adhere to the principles of the Monroe Doctrine or the Truman Doctrine?

00:43:08.000 If neither of those completely satisfy you, what would the Shapiro Doctrine entail?

00:43:12.000 So, for those who don't know, the Monroe Doctrine basically suggests that the United States is going to keep the Western Hemisphere free of European influence.

00:43:19.000 The Truman Doctrine says that we are going to defend democracy around the world.

00:43:22.000 Anytime a democratic regime is threatened by a non-democratic regime, we're going to back the democracy.

00:43:27.000 None of these completely satisfy me, because I don't think that America's foreign policy interests end in South America, Latin America, and Canada.

00:43:33.000 And the Truman Doctrine, which suggests we have to defend democracy as a chief priority, as opposed to America's liberty interests, I don't think that that's exact enough.

00:43:41.000 I think that's a little too Wilsonian for me. 0.96

00:43:44.000 Foreign interests lie in preserving our strength and our morality. 0.99

00:43:49.000 And that's a balance.

00:43:50.000 Because there are going to be times when we have to preserve our strength by not being able to overthrow a regime that will cost us enormous amounts of time and treasure and men and blood.

00:44:00.000 But we will be strengthening the world if we stay strong, right?

00:44:04.000 It's sort of the principle that if somebody is drowning, you have to make sure that you are not going to drown also at the same time so that you can save other people.

00:44:13.000 There is a balance here that I don't think is really taken into consideration with regard to the hardline Truman doctrine.

00:44:19.000 I mean, Hamas was elected by democracy.

00:44:21.000 Is that a regime that we now have to defend?

00:44:22.000 I don't think so.

00:44:33.000 Well, I mean, I think that I'm not in favor of amnesty for Dreamers as a blanket. 1.00

00:44:37.000 I think that amnesty for specific people who are in the country illegally and are of benefit to the United States is the solution.

00:44:45.000 I don't know why I can't advocate for all of these things.

00:44:47.000 If you asked me, would I make that exchange, if that were the choice on the table, an end-of-chain migration, E-Verify, let's say the wall, an abolition of anchor babies, I would probably say yes, because that would change the system so dramatically that you'd actually have a cut-off point.

00:45:01.000 But I don't think that that's what's on the table.

00:45:03.000 Rachel says, Hi Ben, I have three degrees but left academia to start a business with my husband.

00:45:07.000 The last time I went to dinner with old friends, we all named someone living or dead with whom we'd like to have dinner.

00:45:10.000 I said Winston Churchill.

00:45:11.000 Without exception, everyone else at the table said Michelle or Barack Obama.

00:45:14.000 These are smart people.

00:45:15.000 Well, first of all, I quibble. 1.00

00:45:17.000 How can so many academics be so stupid where politics are concerned? 0.99

00:45:20.000 Well, the answer is when you spend your entire life in a bubble, you tend to believe that the only people who are worth talking to are the people who are sort of at the upper echelon of the bubble. 1.00

00:45:26.000 That's Michelle and Barack, presumably.

00:45:28.000 You know, the world's greatest and most beautiful and wonderful people.

00:45:32.000 Again, I quibble with the idea that... I'll use Dennis Prager's model here.

00:45:35.000 I don't think that just because you're smart, you're wise.

00:45:37.000 And obviously, brains don't necessarily translate to your knowledge of values, to wisdom, or to any sort of historical knowledge.

00:45:43.000 Hunter says, Hey Ben, my question is, how and when should the welfare state be reformed and why haven't the Republicans initiated any new legislation regarding this?

00:45:51.000 So my understanding is that that's what they're trying now, is that the next thing they're going to try is a welfare reform that creates new work requirements for welfare.

00:45:58.000 I think that would be great.

00:45:59.000 I think that needs to be attempted as soon as possible.

00:46:01.000 I think welfare should also be devolved to the state level and federal welfare should basically be dismembered.

00:46:07.000 Well, Nate, that's a good question.

00:46:08.000 I would love to respond to all of the attacks on me and the stuff that I do.

00:46:10.000 I have to determine sort of what the time investment is.

00:46:12.000 I have other things in my life.

00:46:13.000 So it's a balance between how quickly can I respond,

00:46:29.000 And how many people have read the hit piece?

00:46:31.000 Am I elevating the hit piece that's full of falsehoods by even responding to it? 0.99

00:46:35.000 Or is the thing just so damn long that I don't have time to pick apart this and then get into a mano-a-mano fight with some idiot who doesn't understand the points that I'm making? 0.99

00:46:43.000 That's also the question. 0.99

00:46:44.000 Once you respond to somebody, then they respond to you, and it turns into a firefight.

00:46:47.000 Is that something worthwhile?

00:46:49.000 You stated you didn't see why the U.S.

00:46:53.000 would get involved in Syria, as you didn't see what the U.S.'

00:46:55.000 's interest was there.

00:46:56.000 But you also described the U.S.

00:46:57.000 as the most moral force on the planet.

00:46:59.000 Thank you for considering my question.

00:47:00.000 I'm a new subscriber and a bit of a fangirl.

00:47:01.000 I appreciate it.

00:47:02.000 So here is my answer.

00:47:02.000 My answer is the same as it was earlier, which is if we can do it without it costing us very much, then we do it.

00:47:16.000 If we have to go in there with boots on the ground and tremendous expenditures of time and resources, we have to determine how that fosters our interests and how much it sucks us dry.

00:47:24.000 So if I could press a button now and end the genocide in Syria, you would, I would, everybody would.

00:47:28.000 But if the question is, are we going to send 20,000 troops in there to take out Assad, or 100,000 troops in there to take out Assad and then occupy the country, is that something where America really has an interest?

00:47:38.000 Is that something that we can do?

00:47:40.000 And this is a serious question to consider because there are awful, horrible humanitarian crises happening around the world.

00:47:47.000 We have to determine as a country what the balance of cost and effect is in each of these situations.

00:47:53.000 The worse the atrocity, the more America has an interest in stopping it, for sure.

00:47:57.000 But we also have to take into account what exactly the cost will be.

00:48:00.000 Do we get sucked into another prolonged war in the Middle East where we really have no solid interests

00:48:06.000 Outside of presumably stopping Assad, who fosters terrorism, but not in the same way as Iran, for example. 0.60

00:48:11.000 Like, if you had to change a regime and spend American resources doing it, you'd have to start with Iran and then move on to Syria, since Syria is a client state of Iran.

00:48:17.000 Sparkling.

00:48:18.000 That is the answer for anyone of sane mind.

00:48:29.000 You know, hard to tell.

00:48:30.000 I would say that my dad is more conservative socially than I am probably.

00:48:34.000 I am more conservative than he is probably fiscally.

00:48:38.000 But I would say that my dad has, he's, I would say that as I have, you know, taken a more prominent position and studied more, my dad sort of gets his reading list from me a lot on politics.

00:48:49.000 So I'll read a book and I'll pass it on to my dad.

00:48:51.000 So his views tend to mirror mine in a lot of ways, but not in every way.

00:48:55.000 Well, the answer is get rid of federal welfare and it won't be a problem.

00:49:04.000 The reason red states receive more money than blue states on average is because there are more poor people in red states than blue states, and there are also more military bases in red states than blue states.

00:49:12.000 So on a per capita basis, more people are receiving aid in red states than blue states. 0.89

00:49:17.000 But it's not the red states that are voting for the federal welfare programs, you dolt. 0.69

00:49:20.000 If you don't want to spend all that much money on red states, I have an idea. 0.97

00:49:22.000 Don't do it.

00:49:24.000 Right?

00:49:24.000 Guess what?

00:49:24.000 The red states agree.

00:49:25.000 They're not the ones who are voting for the additional welfare programs.

00:49:35.000 So I was, for most of my childhood, a Boston Red Sox fan secondarily.

00:49:38.000 I was a White Sox fan primarily, and then a Boston Red Sox fan secondarily because I picked up all of my father's allegiances and he went to college in Boston with my mom.

00:49:46.000 My opinion on David Ortiz is that he seems like a nice guy.

00:49:50.000 I'm almost certain he was doing steroids.

00:49:54.000 It's amazing to me that he's been able to get away with being the one guy who's sort of allowed to do it and everybody sort of knew he was doing it.

00:50:00.000 Again, this is opinion, not allegations of fact.

00:50:04.000 You know, the guy went from hitting 20 home runs a year for the Minnesota Twins to hitting 50 home runs a year for the Red Sox.

00:50:10.000 I don't think that sort of stuff just happens overnight.

00:50:12.000 Plus he shared a doctor, I believe, with, was it Alex Rodriguez or Pujols?

00:50:17.000 In any case, I'm a big Red Sox fan.

00:50:20.000 I went down to Fenway Park and stood outside Fenway Park when they won the World Series in 2004.

00:50:25.000 I, like everybody else in Boston at the time,

00:50:27.000 Stayed up all night watching the games with the Yankees so I'm a Red Sox fan and loathe the Yankees.

00:50:32.000 It's a great book.

00:50:42.000 I spoke to Andrew before I worked there.

00:50:43.000 I spoke with Andrew about Bannon.

00:50:44.000 I said, who is this guy?

00:50:45.000 Because he was occupying some office space, some Bannon office space.

00:51:12.000 And that was how they knew each other, was Bannon was working on a documentary on Andrew, because this is how Bannon ingratiates himself with powerful people, is he'd try, oh, I'll make you famous with my documentary.

00:51:20.000 He did it with Palin, he did it with Dick Morris, he did it with Michelle Bachman.

00:51:23.000 He's done it with a wide variety of figures.

00:51:26.000 In any case, there was a, Andrew was occupying the office space, and I said, who's this Bannon guy?

00:51:31.000 He said, but Bannon, Steve's okay.

00:51:33.000 He's just kind of, I said, are you close to him?

00:51:34.000 He said, no.

00:51:36.000 I mean, the answer was no.

00:51:37.000 He was not very close with Steve.

00:51:38.000 The exaggerated closeness with Steve was created as a mythical aftermath to Andrew's death when Larry Solove was looking for somebody to take over the company and Steve made a strong push for it and Larry decided to make him the chairman of the company.

00:51:50.000 I don't think that Andrew elevated Steve at Breitbart News.

00:51:52.000 I think Larry elevated Steve at Breitbart News.

00:51:54.000 Steve wasn't even working at Breitbart News until Andrew died.

00:51:57.000 He literally had no job at Breitbart News until after Andrew's death.

00:52:00.000 Do I think Andrew made an error in judgment by bringing Steve into the fold?

00:52:03.000 I do.

00:52:04.000 Do I think that Andrew would have elevated Steve to anything remotely resembling this position?

00:52:09.000 No.

00:52:09.000 I think that's absurd.

00:52:12.000 Prior to the election, you would say that our nation was a train headed for a cliff.

00:52:16.000 Hillary would greatly increase the speed of the train. 0.99

00:52:17.000 Trump would slightly decrease the speed.

00:52:20.000 Do you still feel this way?

00:52:21.000 And if so, what does President Trump need to do to turn the train around?

00:52:24.000 Well, I think that in one way, he has decreased the speed dramatically.

00:52:29.000 In one way, he has increased the speed.

00:52:31.000 So, he has decreased the speed toward which we are heading toward the fiscal cliff.

00:52:35.000 with his regulatory policies.

00:52:38.000 What's really going to kill us, in truth, is the entitlement programs.

00:52:41.000 Those are just going to murder us.

00:52:42.000 And the entitlement programs are not only not going to go away under Trump, they may grow under Trump.

00:52:46.000 There's an article today in which Trump was asking why there can't be Medicaid for all.

00:52:50.000 So, you know, I think that we're still heading toward the cliff.

00:52:53.000 It's just a lot slower than it would have been and a lot slower than I thought it would be.

00:52:57.000 In one way, we have elevated the speed of the train, and that is the partisan politicking and the hatred in politics has elevated to such an extent that if Democrats are elected again in the near future, the blowback is going to be ridiculous, right?

00:53:08.000 The only permanent changes that Trump has made are the courts and the tax cuts.

00:53:12.000 Everything else can be reversed by the Democrats, and it will be.

00:53:15.000 And not only will it be, they will go so far to the left that it will be wild.

00:53:18.000 It will be just insane.

00:53:19.000 And that's because of the partisanship that has been elevated and promulgated and pushed really, really hard.

00:53:25.000 Chad says, Hey Ben, I'm a longtime fan.

00:53:26.000 Have you ever lost a political debate?

00:53:28.000 On your opinion, would you say your opinion was changed during a debate?

00:53:30.000 Also, I'm calling BS that you can bench press 200 pounds.

00:53:33.000 Crowder will back me on this.

00:53:34.000 I know I can actually bench press 200 pounds.

00:53:36.000 I can't do it like a ton of times, but I can bench press 200 pounds.

00:53:40.000 Has my opinion ever been changed during a debate?

00:53:44.000 Not during a debate, I would say, but there are many debates where people will give me facts that I haven't thought about before, and I'll go up and look them up and see how that changes my opinion.

00:53:53.000 I would say that there are a couple of areas in my career where I've changed my opinion pretty significantly.

00:53:58.000 I think legalization of marijuana is one of those, and we talked about that today.

00:54:02.000 Christopher says, I'm in the military, and with the new policy that will allow transgenders to serve alongside me, I will be forced to use pronouns in which I disagree, including at functions outside of work that will include our families, such as Christmas or holiday parties.

00:54:12.000 Like you, I don't want my children to be confused.

00:54:14.000 While I would prefer to sacrifice myself on behalf of my children, I feel like the sacrifice I make every day is enough, and asking me to do what comes along with this beyond what I've conveyed is too much.

00:54:21.000 Yes, I could avoid these situations, but milestones like me advancing to the next pay grade, I don't want to have to exclude my children.

00:54:26.000 What should I do, or how would you handle this?

00:54:28.000 Well, I mean, I'm sorry that these are the rules that the military is pushing.

00:54:32.000 I really hope that Mattis undoes it.

00:54:34.000 I hope that Trump undoes it.

00:54:36.000 And the courts that are attempting to stop this are acting way outside their brief.

00:54:40.000 I think it's absurd that the government should have any policy cracking down on your basic right to say whether someone is a male or a female.

00:54:46.000 That's just crazy.

00:54:47.000 It's just insane.

00:54:49.000 But if that's the policy of the military, then I can't choose for you what to do.

00:54:54.000 I would say that we still need men and women serving in the armed forces and that you should use all of your power outside government in order to try and drive a change in policy that will make you freer.

00:55:13.000 Really difficult historical question.

00:55:14.000 I do wonder if Lincoln actually had to suspend habeas corpus in order to win the Civil War, or whether that was an overkill move by the president during a time of war.

00:55:24.000 That happens a lot.

00:55:25.000 I mean, that's not to blame Lincoln or say that Lincoln wasn't making a considered decision in light of the evidence, but in retrospect, there are lots of times during war when we go, virtually every time during war, when we go overboard.

00:55:35.000 The Patriot Act was overextended during the Iraq War.

00:55:38.000 The internment of the Japanese during World War II was egregious.

00:55:41.000 The attempt to prosecute people under the Espionage Act by Woodrow Wilson was egregious.

00:55:45.000 Every time there's a war, there's a tendency to go overboard in how that war is prosecuted.

00:55:50.000 And I think that suspension of habeas corpus, difficult for me to believe that was completely necessary for Abraham Lincoln to do.

00:55:57.000 Okay, one more question.

00:55:58.000 Final question.

00:55:59.000 Okay, final question.

00:56:00.000 Nick says, I'm a 26-year-old conservative who happens to be gay. 0.99

00:56:03.000 I get a lot of crap for being against gay marriage despite being gay. 0.90

00:56:05.000 When asked why, I explain why religion has helped me move to a good place morally over the last five years, and how I stand for what I find morally good. 0.99

00:56:11.000 And I can say from personal experience, the gay lifestyle has been a very negative and immoral one for me. 1.00

00:56:15.000 Then I get told I'm bigoted because I hold religious views in a political light.

00:56:19.000 Do you know a better way to argue this, and am I wrong for thinking this way?

00:56:22.000 When do you as a person separate your religious beliefs from politics?

00:56:25.000 I don't think I can when it is a question of morality.

00:56:26.000 I don't think you have to separate your religious beliefs from politics, and I think the attempt to do so is foolhardy.

00:56:32.000 The reality is we live in a Judeo-Christian system that was built on certain values.

00:56:35.000 Those values are reflected in our politics.

00:56:37.000 Now, do you have to make an argument that is aside from religious scripture in order to convince people?

00:56:42.000 Yes.

00:56:42.000 Is that the area where we should debate?

00:56:44.000 Yes, because I can't just argue from the Bible to somebody who doesn't believe in the Bible.

00:56:48.000 It doesn't make any sense, and we're not operating from a common framework of fact.

00:56:53.000 I think that you can make a very solid case for the opinion that you have, based not on the Bible, but based on public policy, and the value of marriage, and the value of man-woman relationships for the upbringing and raising of children, and serious problems in a certain aspect of, certain types of the gay lifestyle, more promiscuous aspects of gay lifestyle, for example. 0.97

00:57:14.000 I think you can make a fine secular argument against all of those things.

00:57:18.000 I would recommend that those are the arguments that you make.

00:57:20.000 As far as the implication that you're a bigot because you hold certain religious views, I would suggest that anyone who calls you a bigot because you hold religious views that don't impact anyone else, those people are the actual bigots in the situation.

00:57:30.000 Okay, we have reached the end of a nearly endless week.

00:57:33.000 But don't worry, we'll be back here on Monday, and surely the world will still be on fire, so we will see you then with the fire hose.

00:57:39.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:57:44.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:57:46.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:57:48.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:57:49.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:57:52.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:57:53.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.

00:57:55.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:57:56.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:57:59.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 05, 2018

The Feds Target Weed | Ep. 447

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