The Ben Shapiro Show - November 16, 2018


The Florida Project | Ep. 662

Topics
Georgia governor's race internet security and privacy weather impact on New Yorks City traffic radicalization of politics Voter Fraud in Florida playing tag for 30 years
Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Donald Trump Jim Acosta Stacey Abrams Jake Tapper Hillary Clinton William Gladstone Barack Obama Joel Kaplan Rick Scott Sheryl Sandberg Timothy Kelly Nancy Pelosi Brian Kemp Jeremy Renner Ron DeSantis Nixon Kyrsten Sinema Michael Knowles Vladimir Putin Jimmy Kimmel and 58 more
To Have And Avenatti | Ep. 661 Stephen Harper | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 28

Episode Stats


Length

56 minutes

Words per minute

210.4

Word count

11,814

Sentence count

840

Harmful content

Misogyny

22

sentences flagged

Toxicity

30

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Florida's recount continues to be fuddled, Jim Acosta wins a great victory, and we check the mailbag. Plus, the latest on the latest from Florida on the recount and what s going to happen with the recount in the future, and much, much more! Ben Shapiro is on The Ben Shapiro Show, wherever you get your news and information, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, you won't want to miss this! Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating and review, and be sure to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform so you never miss an episode. Enjoy & Retweet! -Ben Shapiro Subscribe, Like, Share, and Retweet Ben Shapiro's new book, is out now! If you like what you hear, share it with a friend or become a supporter of Ben Shapiro s work, and share it on your social media accounts! Thank you Ben Shapiro for the book review, review, or subscribe to our new podcast, and spread the word to your friends and family about what he's writing about! . Thanks Ben Shapiro and his amazing work! Also, don't forget to tell a friend about Ben Shapiro on his new book: if you're a writer, tweet him and tell him what you think about what you're listening to him on his podcast! or his book review or review him about it on Insta- or send him your thoughts on it! and he'll get a shoutout on the next episode of his next episode! :) linktr.ee&t=a&ref=a=1p& tag=8&q=3&qid=7q&q&a=8q&s=4q&he=1s=2 Thank Ben Shapiro & the rest of the podcast is Also check out the book, he'll read it out! Thanks, Ben Shapiro and we'll see you next week! ! Timestamps: 7:00s 7: 8:30s 9:15s 11:40s 12:30 s 13:00 s 15:40 s 16: 17:20s=3s=1 18:00 19:15 s=2c3s 21:15 22:40 27:10s

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:00.000 Florida's recount continues to be fuddled.
00:00:02.000 Jim Acosta wins a great victory for Jim Acosta, and we check the mailbag.
00:00:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:06.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:07.000 Well, Jim Acosta wins a big victory against the Trump administration, which means he is going to bust into that next press conference like the Kool-Aid man right through the wall.
00:00:20.000 He's going to be like, oh yeah!
00:00:23.000 So we will discuss Jim Acosta's big win in the courts against the Trump administration.
00:00:28.000 Truth is, truth is, He was kind of right, but I know, I know.
00:00:31.000 Stop yourself.
00:00:32.000 Don't hurl yourself from the nearest building.
00:00:34.000 I'll explain legally in just a second.
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00:01:41.000 All right.
00:01:41.000 So we begin today.
00:01:43.000 With the latest from Florida, where I think the plan is to just recount this election result forever.
00:01:50.000 And then Florida won't be a problem for us anymore.
00:01:51.000 We won't have any new elections. 0.97
00:01:52.000 We'll just keep recounting this sucker for like the next 25 years.
00:01:56.000 And by that point, all the candidates may have Now let's be straight about this. 0.89
00:02:00.000 Ron DeSantis will be the governor of Florida.
00:02:01.000 Florida will just be taken off the board as an actual electoral entity in the United States.
00:02:05.000 The current status is that Florida has now ordered the first ever statewide hand recount as the legal fights continue, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
00:02:13.000 Now, let's be straight about this.
00:02:14.000 Ron DeSantis will be the governor of Florida.
00:02:16.000 Rick Scott will be the senator from Florida.
00:02:18.000 The margins are too big to be made up in a recount.
00:02:21.000 Typically, the only time a recount has been reversed in a statewide race is when the margins are less than 500 votes.
00:02:26.000 In this particular case, Rick Scott is up by several thousand votes, and the same thing is true for Ron DeSantis.
00:02:31.000 That is not stopping Democrats, however, from claiming that the election has been stolen from them.
00:02:35.000 So you remember just a couple of days ago, we were hearing about President Trump.
00:02:39.000 That guy undermining electoral integrity.
00:02:41.000 Well, right now, Democrats know they've lost in Florida, and they still won't acknowledge they've lost in Florida because they want to pretend that voter suppression is happening.
00:02:49.000 According to TampaBay.com, an unprecedented statewide hand recount is now underway in the Sunshine State, further extending a high-stakes partisan battle over every last vote in Florida's crucial U.S.
00:02:59.000 Senate race.
00:03:00.000 Following a five-day machine recount of the more than 8.3 million votes cast in the November 6th elections, Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered hand recounts Thursday afternoon in the race between U.S.
00:03:09.000 Senator Bill Nelson and Governor Rick Scott, and also the race for Agriculture Commissioner between Nicole Nicky Freed and Matt Caldwell.
00:03:16.000 The order gives canvassing boards in the state's 67 counties three days to pour over thousands of ballots that were rejected by machines because of overvotes, where a voter appears to have chosen more than one candidate in a race, or undervotes, in which a voter appears to have skipped a race altogether.
00:03:30.000 With the help of state guidelines, the canvassing boards, which are allowed to enlist the help of volunteers, will try to determine how those voters intend to vote.
00:03:36.000 Okay, I have a basic problem.
00:03:37.000 I really do.
00:03:37.000 I have a basic problem with this idea that we're gonna look at the ballots and then try to determine how you might have wanted to vote, or where you crossed out, where you filled in one, and then you crossed it out, and then you filled in another.
00:03:47.000 Right?
00:03:47.000 I just have a general problem with this.
00:03:49.000 Learn how to vote.
00:03:50.000 If you don't know how to vote, go get another ballot.
00:03:52.000 Like, seriously.
00:03:53.000 You don't get to do this on your Scantron, on your SAT, right?
00:03:56.000 Every one of us took the SAT or the ACT, or a lot of us did anyway, or will.
00:03:59.000 When you do that, you can't then go back to the SAT board and say, listen guys, I want a hand recount of my SAT score.
00:04:06.000 If you don't know how to fill out a bubble, this would be your problem, not the problem of the people of the United States.
00:04:13.000 According to TampaBay.com, it is not entirely clear how many such overvotes and undervotes exist in the U.S.
00:04:18.000 Senate race.
00:04:19.000 A Times Herald analysis of state and county data showed the number could be between 35,000 and 118,000.
00:04:24.000 Again, if you don't know how to vote, this is your problem.
00:04:28.000 But having a bunch of people sit there and look into their own heart to determine how you voted, and it turns out the people looking into their hearts are typically Democrats, this is a problem.
00:04:37.000 The determination on how those ballots were cast could go a long way toward deciding whether Nelson is re-elected or Scott ascends from governor to U.S.
00:04:44.000 Senator.
00:04:45.000 Florida law requires machine recount for any race decided by one half of one percentage point or less.
00:04:50.000 All three races, this would be the agricultural race, the gubernatorial race, and the Senate race, all three races were within the margins when election supervisors submitted their unofficial results Saturday to the state.
00:04:59.000 Am I suspicious of this process?
00:05:01.000 You damn well, yes. 0.85
00:05:03.000 I mean, of course I'm suspicious. 0.96
00:05:04.000 Why am I so suspicious of the process?
00:05:06.000 Because Democrats are, in fact, attempting to cheat.
00:05:09.000 They are, in fact, attempting to cheat.
00:05:10.000 Now, as you know, for the last week and a half, I've been very skeptical about claims of voter fraud, because the evidence of voter fraud is not particularly widespread in the United States.
00:05:18.000 The idea people are going and voting twice, illegal immigrants voting, right? 1.00
00:05:21.000 The numbers are just not there to support the idea that voter fraud is widespread in deciding elections.
00:05:26.000 However, Democrats are attempting now to engage in voter fraud when they extend the election beyond the election deadline.
00:05:32.000 What do I mean?
00:05:33.000 Listen to this story.
00:05:34.000 This is from NaplesNews.com, the Naples Daily News, quote.
00:05:38.000 A day after Florida's election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic Party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state's deadline.
00:05:52.000 The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus, and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties completed a required recount in three top races.
00:06:03.000 But an email obtained by the USA Today Network Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the November 5th deadline.
00:06:16.000 In other words, they were voting after the vote was supposed to be in.
00:06:19.000 Democratic Party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form known as a cure affidavit that had been modified to include an inaccurate November 8th deadline.
00:06:26.000 So the idea was they were they were sending people forms saying, you want to cure your vote?
00:06:30.000 You want to make sure that your vote gets counted?
00:06:32.000 Well, you have now until November 8th to do that.
00:06:36.000 Well, when it comes to absentee ballots, the deadline is November 5th.
00:06:38.000 Otherwise, you are supposed to show up at the polls yourself.
00:06:40.000 You can only vote absentee by November 5th.
00:06:43.000 So now we are extending election deadlines beyond the actual election deadline.
00:06:47.000 This is what Democrats were trying to do.
00:06:49.000 They claim that all of this was sort of a provisional thing in case courts decided, you know what?
00:06:54.000 Maybe we do want to extend the election deadline, but you can't violate election law.
00:06:58.000 This way.
00:06:58.000 I mean, it's the equivalent of saying the election was held November 8th.
00:07:01.000 Now we're going to send out forums saying, if you really wanted to vote November 10th, that's cool.
00:07:05.000 You can do that.
00:07:06.000 And we're just going to send that out there and put out an affidavit that says that you voted November 8th when you really voted November 10th.
00:07:13.000 We're going to put that out there and maybe courts will say it's OK.
00:07:16.000 No, you don't get to do this.
00:07:18.000 One Palm Beach Democrat activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.
00:07:31.000 U.S.
00:07:31.000 Chief Judge Mark Walker ruled Thursday voters should have until Saturday to correct signatures on ballots, a move that could open the door for these ballots returned with altered forms to be counted.
00:07:39.000 Okay, just because there's a judge who's okaying election fraud does not mean it is not election fraud.
00:07:44.000 And election fraud does not necessarily mean that you are casting a vote in fraudulent fashion in the sense that you are voting for another person or voting for a dead person like in Chicago or something.
00:07:54.000 If I vote on November 11th for a November 8th election, I am now committing election fraud.
00:08:00.000 If I punch a ballot and it's my vote, I didn't vote, and then I go over to the ballot box and just sort of slip it in there, Even after the election is over.
00:08:08.000 That would be election fraud.
00:08:10.000 And this sort of stuff is not too uncommon in Florida.
00:08:14.000 I mean, look at this.
00:08:15.000 This is just crazy talk, okay?
00:08:17.000 This is from The Hill.
00:08:20.000 Why?
00:08:22.000 Remember, we just said a few minutes ago that Broward County had a mandatory machine recount under state election law.
00:08:28.000 And after that happened, they went to a hand recount.
00:08:31.000 Why won't Florida use results from Broward County's machinery count?
00:08:35.000 Because the office submitted its results two minutes, two minutes past the 3 p.m.
00:08:41.000 deadline on Thursday.
00:08:43.000 We uploaded to the state two minutes late, so the state has chosen not to use our machine recount results.
00:08:47.000 They're going to use our first unofficial results as our second unofficial results, said Joe D'Alessandro, an electing official.
00:08:53.000 Well, why did that happen?
00:08:55.000 Because there was a difference in the vote count.
00:08:57.000 What happened when they machine recounted?
00:08:59.000 It turned out that Rick Scott gained votes in machine recounts.
00:09:02.000 Does anyone really believe that if Rick Scott had lost votes in machine recounts in Broward County, that this somehow would not have been counted?
00:09:09.000 That they would have submitted it two minutes late?
00:09:12.000 Does anyone really believe that?
00:09:14.000 All of this really does raise serious questions about the veracity of election results.
00:09:20.000 And not only that, over in Georgia, Democrats continue to claim over and over without any evidence that Stacey Abrams should be given now a new election.
00:09:28.000 I am not kidding you.
00:09:29.000 They are now arguing Abrams, who is losing by 50,000 votes in that state.
00:09:34.000 Not a joke.
00:09:34.000 She's losing by 50,000 votes in the state.
00:09:38.000 Stacey Abrams now refuses to accept the election results.
00:09:41.000 According to the AP, Stacey Abrams' campaign is preparing an unprecedented legal challenge in the unresolved Georgia governor's race that could leave the state's Supreme Court deciding whether to force another round of voting, so they want a new election now. 0.69
00:09:53.000 The Democrats' long-shot strategy relies on a statute that has never been used Well, who's making those charges of electoral malfeasance?
00:10:00.000 Democrats.
00:10:00.000 And yet we keep hearing that it's Republicans, like President Trump, undermining electoral integrity.
00:10:03.000 certifying Republican Brian Kemp as the winner of a bitterly fought campaign that's been marred by charges of electoral malfeasance.
00:10:08.000 Well, who's making those charges of electoral malfeasance?
00:10:11.000 Democrats.
00:10:11.000 And yet we keep hearing that it's Republicans like President Trump undermining electoral integrity.
00:10:16.000 Oh, those evil Republicans pointing out election irregularities that actually exist in Florida.
00:10:21.000 But when Democrats complain about election irregularities that actually don't exist in Georgia, then it's totally fine.
00:10:28.000 We're not hearing anything about it.
00:10:29.000 Now, I do have to give some credit to Jake Tapper here.
00:10:31.000 So Jake Tapper, you know, I get a lot of letters saying, why are you so easy on Jake Tapper?
00:10:36.000 The reason that I am easy on Jake Tapper is because I think I'm trying to be objective about Jake Tapper.
00:10:41.000 When he does stuff I don't like, I note it.
00:10:42.000 But when he does stuff that's right, he deserves praise.
00:10:45.000 Here was Jake Tapper yesterday on CNN doing what he's supposed to do.
00:10:48.000 Going after Hillary Clinton and Sherrod Brown for implying that the Georgia state governor race was rigged.
00:10:54.000 And, you know, good for Jake Tapper.
00:10:56.000 Well, take a listen.
00:10:56.000 Republicans are not actually the only ones trashing the other party and sowing doubts about the integrity of the process.
00:11:03.000 Take a look at what is being said about the Georgia governor's race, which is also not over yet.
00:11:08.000 Democrat Stacey Abrams still trails Republican Brian Kemp.
00:11:13.000 The race has not been called.
00:11:14.000 Take a listen to what some Democrats have said.
00:11:17.000 If Stacey Abrams doesn't win in Georgia, they stole it. 1.00
00:11:19.000 It's clear.
00:11:20.000 It's clear.
00:11:21.000 If she'd had a fair election, she already would have won. 0.99
00:11:26.000 Is that really any different from what the Matt Gaetz's and Donald Trump's of the world are doing?
00:11:31.000 Okay, and this is exactly right.
00:11:33.000 Okay, this is exactly right.
00:11:34.000 The only difference is that Trump has more evidence of Florida election malfeasance than Stacey Abrams does. 0.99
00:11:38.000 That's not stopping the Democrats from calling for new elections.
00:11:41.000 That's why it was always a lie when they were claiming, you know, Trump is going to protest the election.
00:11:45.000 It'll ruin the legitimacy.
00:11:46.000 We're now two years into Democrats claiming that the entire election was swung by Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange.
00:11:53.000 Spare me all of your hysterics about Republicans violating electoral integrity.
00:11:57.000 In just a second, I want to talk a little bit more about what's going to happen in Georgia.
00:12:01.000 Plus, I need to get to the big ruling today on Jim Acosta, who loves him some Jim Acosta.
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00:13:14.000 So, Allegra Lawrence Hardy is Stacey Abrams' campaign chairwoman.
00:13:18.000 She's overseeing a team of almost three dozen lawyers who in the coming days will draft the petition along with a ream of affidavits from voters and would-be voters who say they were disenfranchised.
00:13:27.000 You know what's easy to do?
00:13:29.000 Coming up with affidavits from people who say they were disenfranchised after they know their candidate lost.
00:13:33.000 Kind of easy to do that.
00:13:35.000 Lots of people are going to say, you know what, I was really meaning to vote, but then the machines all broke down.
00:13:40.000 Kinda voter fraud?
00:13:42.000 Sorta?
00:13:43.000 Not great.
00:13:44.000 Abrams would then decide whether to go to court under a provision of Georgia election law that allows losing candidates to challenge results based on misconduct, fraud, or irregularities sufficient to change or place in doubt the results.
00:13:56.000 The legal team is considering all the options.
00:13:57.000 The state challenge would be the most drastic.
00:14:00.000 Some Democrat legal observers note that she would actually have to pass a pretty high bar in order for her to depend on that statute. 1.00
00:14:06.000 Kemp's campaign has already shifted into transition mode and they are right to do so.
00:14:11.000 Unofficial returns show Kemp with about 50.2% of more than 3.9 million votes, which puts him about 18,000 votes above the threshold required to win by a majority.
00:14:20.000 And he's some 53,000 votes ahead of Stacey Abrams.
00:14:23.000 There's no way she can make that up in any sort of legitimate way.
00:14:26.000 But Democrats are not shy about doing this in an illegitimate way, apparently.
00:14:31.000 So, again, if we're going to talk about lack of faith in public institutions, Democrats have been heavily involved in this lack of faith in public institutions.
00:14:40.000 We have now heard them rail against the Electoral College, which apparently is illegitimate because Hillary Clinton lost.
00:14:44.000 We've heard them rail against the Senate itself because the Senate is somehow illegitimate because Democrats don't run it.
00:14:50.000 We've heard them rail against the Supreme Court and talk about packing the Supreme Court because they don't control the Supreme Court in the same way that they once did.
00:14:57.000 We have heard them rail about pretty much every aspect of the American electoral system over the last two years, and then meanwhile complain that President Trump is undermining the integrity of America's constitutional system.
00:15:08.000 Well, Case 1 in their exhibit is, of course, his treatment of the press, and the latest evidence that they have is a judge who just sided against the White House with regard to Jim Acosta.
00:15:18.000 So here is the latest on Case Acosta.
00:15:21.000 Very, very important stuff.
00:15:22.000 So, as you will recall, Jim Acosta got into a spat with President Trump the day after the midterm elections, in which he basically got up and started railing against President Trump, basically doing an op-ed that Trump was supposed to rebut.
00:15:34.000 Trump didn't want to rebut it.
00:15:35.000 At a certain point, a White House intern went over, tried to grab the microphone from Acosta.
00:15:39.000 Acosta sort of pulled away.
00:15:41.000 And then he continued to talk, and then finally Trump walked away from the microphone, which is what he probably should have done before that, and then Acosta handed over the microphone.
00:15:50.000 And as I said at the time, if you want to revoke Jim Acosta's press pass on the basis that he was essentially violating the rules of the press corps, then I think that's perfectly appropriate.
00:15:59.000 Jim Acosta is a grandstander.
00:16:00.000 Jim Acosta loves him some Jim Acosta.
00:16:02.000 He's a terrible reporter.
00:16:03.000 I know a lot of people who work at CNN. 1.00
00:16:05.000 Virtually all of them think Jim Acosta is a schmuck. 1.00
00:16:08.000 Par excellence that the guy is just a self-aggrandizing idiot who spends all of his time not reporting but patting himself on the back and then quaffing his hair. 0.99
00:16:16.000 Nobody even at CNN really likes Jim Acosta very much, but because Trump then revoked his press pass and claimed in the process that he had put his hands on an intern, which is controversial to say the least. 0.97
00:16:26.000 It looks more to me like there's incidental contact when she goes for the microphone.
00:16:30.000 In any case, The Acosta team basically claimed, and CNN claimed, and Fox News backed them in their lawsuit, claimed that this was viewpoint discrimination, that the real reason that Jim Acosta had had his press pass revoked was because Jim Acosta had been engaging in anti-Trump activities by yelling at the president or whatever.
00:16:47.000 Now, as I said, I thought that case was kind of weak from Jim Acosta, simply because there are a bunch of other members of the press corps who are similarly anti-Trump, and their press pass has not been revoked.
00:16:56.000 April Ryan comes to mind, who's been extraordinarily anti-Trump throughout, but There's a ruling today that came down from Federal Judge Timothy Kelly, who was a Trump appointee, and he was appointed by a 94-2 vote.
00:17:09.000 Federal Judge Kelly sided with CNN on Friday morning.
00:17:11.000 He ordered the White House to reinstate Jim Acosta's press pass immediately.
00:17:15.000 The ruling was an initial victory for CNN in its lawsuit against President Trump and several top aides.
00:17:20.000 The suit alleges CNN and Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights were being violated by suspension of his press pass.
00:17:26.000 Here was Jim Acosta's response, and then I want to get into the actual legalities of this ruling.
00:17:30.000 Hi everybody, thanks for coming.
00:17:32.000 I just want to say something very briefly and that is I want to thank all of my colleagues in the press who supported us this week and I want to thank the judge for the decision he made today and let's go back to work.
00:17:45.000 Thank you.
00:17:47.000 What?
00:17:47.000 Oh my goodness, such journalism.
00:17:49.000 Such heroism.
00:17:50.000 Wow, look at that man.
00:17:51.000 I mean, that man, he's basically, I mean, it's like Gideon's trumpet right here.
00:17:54.000 I mean, this guy is just defending First Amendment rights.
00:17:56.000 The guy just has an incredible sense of the Constitution and value of a free press.
00:18:02.000 That's what's going on here.
00:18:02.000 It's not just an ego play by Jim Acosta, this entire thing.
00:18:05.000 Again, where he's going to bust into that press room and it's going to be like that scene from Anchorman where all the press corps are fighting each other with pitchforks and he's throwing torches at Sarah Huckabee Sanders or anything.
00:18:15.000 He is just, he is the classiest of us.
00:18:17.000 He really is.
00:18:18.000 Okay, so what exactly did the judge rule?
00:18:21.000 What the press are saying that the judge ruled is not actually what the judge ruled.
00:18:24.000 So, the implication from CNN is this is a vindication of Jim Acosta's First Amendment rights.
00:18:30.000 Well, actually, the First Amendment issue was not actually touched by the judge, Timothy Kelly, in this case.
00:18:36.000 He granted a temporary restraining order, which is not a final, actual, it's not actually a final resolution of the issue.
00:18:45.000 A government lawyer, James Burnham, had argued in a hearing before Kelly on Wednesday the president was within his rights to ban any reporter from the White House at any time, just as he excludes reporters from interviews in the Oval Office.
00:18:55.000 He said Acosta could report on the president just as effectively by watching the president on TV or by calling sources There are two issues at play here.
00:19:01.000 Well, there are two issues at play here.
00:19:14.000 Issue number one was, is it viewpoint discrimination to ban Jim Acosta?
00:19:18.000 That is question number one.
00:19:21.000 And question number two was, was this a violation of due process?
00:19:24.000 Meaning, does there have to be some process, some explanation of the rule that was violated in order to remove Jim Acosta's press pass?
00:19:30.000 The judge in this particular case said the due process was violated, but he did not actually get to the First Amendment issue.
00:19:38.000 He said the White House's decision-making was so shrouded in mystery that the government could not tell me who made the decision.
00:19:44.000 So, there are people saying today, the White House doesn't need to have a due process for removing his press pass.
00:19:54.000 I think that that's misstated.
00:19:56.000 Once you give somebody a press pass, there has to be some sort of process for removing it that has to be fulfilled.
00:20:00.000 It can't just be, we're pulling this guy's press pass for no reason, just because we feel like it.
00:20:05.000 That's not something that really But Phil's sort of constitutional muster.
00:20:08.000 I sort of agree with the ruling.
00:20:10.000 I even agree with the idea that this could have been construed, as I say, as a viewpoint discrimination issue.
00:20:15.000 But that is not a case that the court actually reached.
00:20:18.000 There's a temporary restraining order.
00:20:19.000 The judge didn't reach the First Amendment question.
00:20:22.000 But CNN is saying a major precedent was set for the future of a free press.
00:20:26.000 It was not.
00:20:26.000 Okay, no major precedent was set.
00:20:29.000 And then let me explain that in just one second.
00:20:31.000 So, no major precedent was set here because in order for a precedent to have been set here, there would have had to have been a ruling saying that you can't ban anyone from the White House press corps for any reason having to do with any sort of behavior.
00:20:45.000 That would have been a major precedent.
00:20:47.000 But that's not what it said.
00:20:47.000 What they said is, we need to know how you came to this decision.
00:20:50.000 Since we don't know how you came to this decision, it looks arbitrary and capricious, and therefore a violation of due process.
00:20:58.000 Again, I don't think it's the world's strongest ruling.
00:20:59.000 I don't think it's the world's weakest ruling.
00:21:01.000 But I don't think that, again, it's completely unjustified.
00:21:05.000 I think that a stronger rule, and listen, the reason that I'm defending the ruling a little bit here is because there will be a point at some point in the future, whether it is in four years or whether it is in eight years or whether it is in 12 years, when a Democrat is in the White House again.
00:21:18.000 And that Democrat will be using the precedent set here to ban reporters from the White House without due process.
00:21:25.000 Somebody gets up and asks Kamala Harris a question, God forbid, she's the president, and she says, I don't like that guy, get him out. 0.84
00:21:31.000 And so they ban him.
00:21:33.000 Now, I don't like that precedent.
00:21:34.000 So, would I rather have Jim Acosta making an ass of himself in the press room than have there be a precedent that the White House can ban whoever it pleases?
00:21:41.000 Yeah, I would. 0.89
00:21:42.000 Yeah, I really would.
00:21:44.000 Especially because it doesn't hurt President Trump to have Jim Acosta in there.
00:21:48.000 In fact, it probably helps him. 0.95
00:21:49.000 Every time Jim Acosta makes a fool of himself, President Trump looks better. 0.71
00:21:53.000 The press secretary put out a statement that said, Okay, so that's about the right outcome. 0.94
00:22:00.000 And undoubtedly, there'll be an opportunity to ban Jim Acosta again, because he's not going to abide by any rules of decency in any of this.
00:22:05.000 So, is this a huge deal?
00:22:06.000 No, it's not.
00:22:06.000 Will the press treat it as a huge deal?
00:22:08.000 We'll temporarily reinstate the reporter's hard pass.
00:22:10.000 We'll also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future.
00:22:15.000 There must be decorum at the White House.
00:22:16.000 Okay, so that's about the right outcome.
00:22:18.000 And undoubtedly, there'll be an opportunity to ban Jim Acosta again, because he's not going to abide by any rules of decency in any of this.
00:22:24.000 So is this a huge deal?
00:22:26.000 No, it's not.
00:22:27.000 Will the press treat it as a huge deal?
00:22:28.000 Sure.
00:22:29.000 Is it good that the White House actually has to show some precedent, some actual process here for banning reporters?
00:22:35.000 I think in the long run, it probably is.
00:22:37.000 Okay, meanwhile, demonstrating once again that Democrats do not know how to run major cities, New York has been hit by some snow, and it left commuters stranded for up to 12 hours.
00:22:47.000 Well, my sister lives in the general New York, New Jersey area, and it was taking people six hours to move a couple of miles, thanks to some snow.
00:22:55.000 Which does go to city management and state management.
00:22:58.000 It really does, because it's not like they've never had snow in New York before.
00:23:01.000 It's not like it snowed in L.A.
00:23:03.000 or something, and then everybody's like, oh my god, it's snowing!
00:23:05.000 No, it's snowing in New York, which is something that has happened in the past, as in every single year.
00:23:10.000 According to weather.com, conditions were improving for most in the Northeast Friday after winter storm Avery left at least 11 dead in accidents blamed on the ice and snow and stranded commuters for up to 12 hours, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and forcing some students to stay at school overnight.
00:23:26.000 Thursday evening's commute became an absolute nightmare for drivers, especially in parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
00:23:31.000 Traffic sat still for hours on turnpikes and interstates and crawled at a snail's pace when it could move.
00:23:37.000 New York drivers reported being stranded for up to seven hours.
00:23:41.000 So, well done all local officials.
00:23:43.000 Obviously, the government doing a fantastic job over there.
00:23:46.000 The George Washington Bridge was basically in total lockdown because there was some snow.
00:23:52.000 The Holland Tunnel and the Lincoln Tunnel were both experiencing delays.
00:23:55.000 The GW was actually closed.
00:23:57.000 A disabled semi-trailer truck blocked all westbound lanes of the Gowanus Expressway at the Belt Parkway split in Brooklyn about 4.30 p.m.
00:24:04.000 Central Park received six inches of snow by Thursday evening.
00:24:07.000 The Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan was closed to any more passengers about 5.30 p.m.
00:24:12.000 because it was so overcrowded.
00:24:13.000 I know I'd heard from my sister who lives in the area that there's a wedding that was scheduled for last night and legitimately six people showed up to the wedding because of all of the weather.
00:24:25.000 This does raise some broader questions about whether the real threat in terms of weather is additional heat or whether it is actually additional cold.
00:24:32.000 According to CBS Local, despite the snow blitz of 2015, many baby boomers still insist that overall, we don't get the harsh bitter cold and deep snowy winters like we did in the good old days.
00:24:41.000 Weather records prove that just isn't the case.
00:24:44.000 And despite the ongoing claims that snows are becoming rare and hurting winter sports, this millennium has been a blessing to snow lovers and winter sports enthusiasts.
00:24:51.000 Just as the Saffir-Simpson and Fujita scales were devised to categorize hurricanes and tornadoes, the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale was created by Paul Kosin of the National Weather Service to rank high-impact northeast storms.
00:25:03.000 The scale has five categories, and the highest category storm has been increasing rapidly.
00:25:09.000 This is why you've seen a lot of people, when they talk about climate change, instead of talking about global warming, per se, they start talking instead about climate radicalism, basically.
00:25:20.000 So maybe there's a new paradigm, right?
00:25:22.000 The Earth may be actually experiencing a major cooling occurrence.
00:25:26.000 I mean, we just don't know, right?
00:25:28.000 Arctic temperatures and Arctic ice extent varies in a predictable 60 to 70-year cycle.
00:25:32.000 The greatest warming has been happening in the Arctic region.
00:25:34.000 That can produce a weaker, less stable jet stream, allowing frigid air to dive further south to mix with the warmer oceans to trigger more potential snow events.
00:25:41.000 It's all cyclical.
00:25:42.000 This is according to Barry Burbank over at Boston CBS Local.
00:25:47.000 We simply don't know the effect of all of this.
00:25:49.000 But again, this is up to local governments to solve.
00:25:52.000 And obviously, they're not doing an appropriate job in doing so.
00:25:56.000 OK, meanwhile, there is a there is a An obvious attempt in the Republican caucus to ignore the results of what is now amounting to a blue wave in the House.
00:26:10.000 Overall, what we've watched unrolling in slow fashion since the 2018 election is more and more Democratic seats being piled up.
00:26:17.000 Orange County, which used to be a Republican stronghold as late as 2016, all of the congressional districts in Orange County, save one, went red in this last election cycle.
00:26:26.000 Every single congressional district in Orange County Went blue.
00:26:29.000 Some people are attributing that to the influx of Latino immigrants who are coming from areas south of the border.
00:26:37.000 And the idea is that because of President Reagan's amnesty and changing demographics in Orange County, that's why you've seen all this, that doesn't explain why Texas has stayed red, even though the demographics of Texas have shifted pretty radically.
00:26:48.000 Instead, you have to assume that blue turnout was really high and suburban Republicans are not very fond of President Trump.
00:26:54.000 And this is a serious problem for President Trump going forward.
00:26:56.000 It's an even more serious problem if Republicans refuse to acknowledge the issue here.
00:27:00.000 And I'm seeing a little bit of that.
00:27:01.000 Vice President Pence said yesterday that he didn't really see a blue wave in the House.
00:27:05.000 This is just incorrect.
00:27:06.000 We made history by expanding our majority in the Senate.
00:27:09.000 We won some great elections in the governor's offices around the country.
00:27:13.000 And we didn't really see that blue wave in the House of Representatives come our way.
00:27:18.000 Simply not true.
00:27:19.000 OK, it's going to be about 40 seats by the time all of this is done.
00:27:21.000 The fact is Republicans dramatically underperformed in this election cycle.
00:27:25.000 That is particularly true in suburbia.
00:27:26.000 What we are watching is that suburban areas across the country are voting very much alike.
00:27:31.000 A suburban area in Oklahoma is now voting like a suburban area in California.
00:27:35.000 Rural areas in California are voting like rural areas in Georgia.
00:27:38.000 And urban areas in Georgia are voting like urban areas in New York.
00:27:41.000 So basically, we now have a split in the country that is not necessarily area-driven.
00:27:45.000 It's mainly driven by urban, suburban and rural.
00:27:48.000 The problem is that suburban folks tend to be a little bit more moderate.
00:27:52.000 Suburban folks tend to not just in terms of policy, but in terms of attitude.
00:27:56.000 And because they tend to be a little bit more moderate in terms of attitude, they are off put by a lot of the radical rhetoric coming from President Trump.
00:28:02.000 The statistics tend to show that a lot of suburban Republicans actually voted for Democrats in the last election cycle, which I think is unthinkable.
00:28:09.000 But that's what happened in Arizona, right?
00:28:11.000 Kristen Sinema is the new senator from Arizona because 14% of registered Republicans in the state voted for a woman who said in 2003 that she didn't mind if Americans joined the Taliban.
00:28:20.000 That is because Kyrsten Sinema actually ran a moderate campaign. 0.97
00:28:24.000 Kyrsten Sinema said that she would negotiate on the border wall.
00:28:26.000 She said that she would not back Chuck Schumer for Senate Majority Leader, although she now is going to do exactly that.
00:28:32.000 She flipped on that within 12 hours.
00:28:34.000 The fact is, suburban Republicans are being alienated by the Republican Party, and doubling down on what brought us here is not necessarily a recipe for future victory.
00:28:43.000 You have to shift and move as you learn more things.
00:28:47.000 And right now, the Republicans are not shifting and moving.
00:28:50.000 Now, the good news is Democrats aren't shifting or moving either.
00:28:52.000 What they should be learning is that moderation would actually be of benefit here.
00:28:56.000 But instead, it seems like they are going to continue to shift radically to the left.
00:29:00.000 We'll talk about that in just a second.
00:29:01.000 Plus, we'll get to an interesting study talking about why young people aren't having as much sex as they used to.
00:29:08.000 I have an answer for you.
00:29:09.000 But First, you're going to have to go over to dailyware.com.
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00:30:39.000 So if Republicans refuse to change course, Democrats are also refusing to change course.
00:30:49.000 And this is a mistake for them.
00:30:50.000 If they would change course, they'd actually have a serious shot at winning a broad majority in 2020.
00:30:55.000 But Nancy Pelosi says that she has overwhelming support to be Speaker.
00:30:59.000 This is one of the things that's so fascinating about our politics right now, is that both parties seem like they are radicalizing.
00:31:06.000 But the leadership is the same, which suggests that the base is indeed in charge of the leadership.
00:31:11.000 So Nancy Pelosi was the head of Congress in 2006, and then she was booted in 2010. 1.00
00:31:16.000 And now she's back in 2018, right?
00:31:19.000 She's been majority leader, minority leader, majority leader again in the House for Republicans.
00:31:25.000 Every time they boot somebody, it's just the next person in line who gets the job.
00:31:29.000 So the new House minority leader is going to be Kevin McCarthy, who was sort of next in line after Paul Ryan.
00:31:33.000 It didn't turn out to be, it didn't turn out to be Any of the other candidates who are up for it.
00:31:39.000 Jim Jordan was the one from Ohio who was sort of up for it.
00:31:41.000 He only won 43 votes.
00:31:43.000 So the parties tend to maintain their leadership, which suggests that party leadership is basically in the sway of the base.
00:31:49.000 So if they're radicalizing, it's more about the base than it is about the leadership.
00:31:52.000 In other words, it's the Democratic base driving Nancy Pelosi and not necessarily the other way around.
00:31:56.000 Here's Nancy Pelosi announcing she has overwhelming support to be Speaker.
00:32:00.000 I have overwhelming support in my caucus to be Speaker of the House, and certainly we have many, many people in our caucus who could serve in this capacity.
00:32:12.000 I happen to think that at this point I'm the best person for that.
00:32:16.000 Okay, so she's gonna stick around, and as I said yesterday, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who's going to be one of the kind of new leaders in the House, she is because she's turning out to be a pretty clever politician in her own right. 1.00
00:32:26.000 Part of that is helped by the fact that Republicans are attacking her in the dumbest possible way.
00:32:30.000 There was a tweet yesterday that, I mean, got ratioed in epic fashion.
00:32:33.000 For people who don't follow Twitter, a ratioing is when more people comment on your tweet than like your tweet.
00:32:38.000 Okay, in this particular case, this tweet received something like 20,000 comments and about a hundred likes.
00:32:44.000 Okay, it just got Destroyed in epic fashion.
00:32:47.000 Eddie Scarry, who works for the Washington Examiner, he tweeted out a picture of Ocasio-Cortez walking away in the hall.
00:32:54.000 He said, Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now.
00:32:57.000 I'll tell you something.
00:32:58.000 That jacket and coat don't look like a girl who struggles.
00:33:00.000 I mean, I'm not sure what she should be wearing exactly.
00:33:03.000 Like a barrel with suspenders?
00:33:06.000 She's wearing what looks like a fairly normal skirt suit.
00:33:09.000 I'm not sure why she's supposed to be dressed like a hobo or something. 1.00
00:33:13.000 And I know a lot of people who are lower middle income who still dress decently. 1.00
00:33:17.000 So that, of course, is an idiotic attack. 1.00
00:33:19.000 Like, just attack her ideas. 1.00
00:33:20.000 Her ideas are dumb enough. 1.00
00:33:20.000 You don't have to attack her wardrobe. 1.00
00:33:22.000 It's really silly.
00:33:22.000 You know, a few weeks ago, it was different when she was wearing, like, legitimate thousand dollar jackets while posing on a stoop in the Bronx.
00:33:29.000 I mean, that's just... 0.91
00:33:30.000 Kind of ridiculous. 0.98
00:33:31.000 But, you know, to attack, like, the fact that she's dressed okay while she's walking through Congress is really silly. 0.97
00:33:36.000 Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez is proving herself capable of posturing. 1.00
00:33:40.000 According to Politico, a fight broke out in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats over climate change as a powerful veteran lawmaker fought with Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members-elect over the creation of a special panel for climate change.
00:33:53.000 New Jersey Representative Frank Pallone, who's the incoming chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, slammed the creation of a new climate panel He said that his committee and other existing panels within the House could take on the issue aggressively.
00:34:04.000 But a bunch of other progressive incoming lawmakers fought back.
00:34:07.000 They said they ran on the issue, and they needed to start a Green New Deal, and they said that they want a new climate panel.
00:34:16.000 But then she's smart enough to say that she never actually fought with him.
00:34:18.000 She said, I never had a direct interaction with him today.
00:34:20.000 And by direct interaction, I mean I didn't share a conversation.
00:34:23.000 I did say hello, and he was very kind.
00:34:24.000 So Ocasio-Cortez knows where her bread is buttered with the House leadership, and she continues to pander to that House leadership again. 0.89
00:34:31.000 She's proving herself to be adept at this.
00:34:33.000 So watch out, Republicans, because you need to actually be going after her policies, not her political acumen.
00:34:42.000 The only person who has successfully gone after her political acumen sits behind this desk when she suggested that I catcalled her after I said maybe we should have a discussion.
00:34:50.000 In any case, another big story out today.
00:34:53.000 The Atlantic has a new long piece about why these should be boom times for sex.
00:34:57.000 Because the number of Americans who morally disapprove of sex outside of marriage is at an all-time low.
00:35:03.000 New cases of HIV are at an all-time low.
00:35:04.000 Most women can get birth control for free and the morning after pill without a prescription.
00:35:08.000 And yet, and yet, American teenagers and young adults are having less sex.
00:35:12.000 To the relief of many parents, educators, and clergy members who care about the health and well-being of young people, teens are launching their sex lives later. 0.93
00:35:19.000 From 1991 to 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey found the percentage of high school students who'd had intercourse dropped from 54% to 40%, so sex has gone from something most high school students had experienced to something that most haven't.
00:35:35.000 And that's not because they're substituting other forms of sex.
00:35:37.000 U.S.
00:35:37.000 teen pregnancy has plummeted to a third of its modern high.
00:35:40.000 So why is all of this happening?
00:35:42.000 Why is all of this happening?
00:35:43.000 Well, the general answer, honestly, is that pornography has taken over.
00:35:48.000 OK, this is the real answer, is that people are staying home.
00:35:51.000 People are not getting involved in relationships.
00:35:53.000 They're figuring that if we have now disconnected sex from relationships, why bother even hanging out with a person of the opposite sex?
00:36:01.000 And the statistics bear this out without getting too graphic.
00:36:06.000 No, this is a serious, it's a serious issue because it does lead to later relationships.
00:36:11.000 And it's funny that the Atlantic is worried about less sex as opposed to later relationships, but they really should be worried about later relationships.
00:36:19.000 I want to explain that for just a second.
00:36:21.000 So let's talk about this.
00:36:23.000 It used to be that sex and relationships were deeply intertwined, right?
00:36:28.000 In my life, my sex life and my relationship with my wife were united, right?
00:36:32.000 I didn't have sex until I was married to my wife, which used to be at least the traditional standard of morality.
00:36:38.000 And that was good because it led people to get married younger and led people to have children younger and start becoming responsible citizens younger.
00:36:46.000 And then they were actually having a fair bit of sex because it turns out that married people on average do have more sex than non-married people.
00:36:53.000 And then the left said, you know what?
00:36:54.000 Let's disconnect sex from relationships.
00:36:56.000 Sex doesn't have to be about marriage.
00:36:57.000 It doesn't have to be about love.
00:36:58.000 It doesn't have to be about commitment.
00:37:00.000 And so the sex rates went up because in the immediate aftermath of that social move, everybody's like, OK, let's get our rocks off.
00:37:07.000 Let's do this thing.
00:37:08.000 And then it turned out a couple of things happened. 0.68
00:37:10.000 One, a lot of women decided that it actually isn't that fulfilling to have random sex with strangers.
00:37:15.000 And that they don't actually want just the physical pleasure of sex.
00:37:18.000 They actually want emotional connection with people.
00:37:20.000 And two, a bunch of young men decided, okay, well, if sex is no longer supposed to be connected with relationships, and if I can get pornography online from the time that I am a kid, then why would I bother with all of this relationship stuff?
00:37:33.000 It seems like kind of a hassle.
00:37:35.000 Sex and relationships have to be interconnected, and that was a good deal. 0.90
00:37:38.000 It was a good deal for men because it made them more responsible, and they got more sex out of it.
00:37:42.000 And it was a good deal for women because women got relationships and commitment out of it, and they also got more sex out of it. 1.00
00:37:48.000 Once you disconnected sex and relationships, there's a natural inclination by men toward promiscuity, but women don't necessarily want to engage in that same promiscuity.
00:37:56.000 And if men can simply fantasize, next to their computer every day then it turns out the rates of actual interaction between human beings is going to go down in other words social liberalism has not led to happiness social liberalism has has led to deep unhappiness and deep loneliness and you can see this and there's a great quote from this piece from uh a from a particular scholar saying uh saying basically we hook up because we have no social skills we
00:38:25.000 We have no social skills because we hook up.
00:38:27.000 This is exactly right.
00:38:29.000 People don't know how to get along with other people because the expectation is sex rather than relationships.
00:38:34.000 I noticed this in sitcoms maybe 20 years ago.
00:38:38.000 Where there's this weird reversal of the polarity when it came to relationships and sex.
00:38:44.000 So, if you watch old movies, the idea was that the culmination of the movie would be someone says, I love you, and then you slowly pan to the curtains, right?
00:38:52.000 That was always how it worked in the old movies, when you couldn't show sex on the screen.
00:38:56.000 Somebody would say, I love you, pan to the curtains.
00:38:59.000 Now, you show the full sex scene, and then the next morning, someone awkwardly says, I love you, and then somebody gets offended and leaves.
00:39:06.000 Well, that reversal has not been good for men or women, because particularly for women, sex is deeply connected with commitment and emotional intimacy.
00:39:15.000 And for men, if you disconnect those things, then it's just a question of how often they can get their rocks off. 0.69
00:39:19.000 And it turns out it's a lot easier to get your rocks off sitting in your basement, watching porn on your computer.
00:39:26.000 It's emptying people's lives.
00:39:28.000 It's destroying people's lives.
00:39:30.000 And to fail to note this is to fail to understand why it is that people are unhappy.
00:39:36.000 So the Atlantic is attributing that to lack of sex.
00:39:38.000 It's not lack of sex that's making people unhappy.
00:39:40.000 It's unhappiness that's leading to lack of sex.
00:39:42.000 Right?
00:39:43.000 It's lack of relationships and emotional intimacy and connection with other people that is leading to lack of sex.
00:39:48.000 Because it turns out that sex without all of those things is just another biological function.
00:39:52.000 This is like saying people are eating less than they used to.
00:39:54.000 Why is that so terrible?
00:39:56.000 Well, I mean, it's not inherently terrible, is the answer.
00:40:00.000 People having sex less than they used to is not inherently terrible.
00:40:03.000 What is inherently terrible is people being depressed, people being upset, people being lonely.
00:40:07.000 We are in a loneliness epidemic.
00:40:09.000 We have lost social connection with other human beings because social connection requires commitment.
00:40:14.000 It requires shared values.
00:40:15.000 It requires the idea that you're going to get together with people who you have an obligation to beyond merely your own pleasure.
00:40:24.000 And since we've thrown all of that out the window, Then why connect with other people at all?
00:40:29.000 Why not simply head to your basement?
00:40:31.000 And that's exactly what people have been doing.
00:40:33.000 You want to restore happiness?
00:40:34.000 You want to restore healthy sex lives to people? 0.97
00:40:37.000 Restore emotional intimacy.
00:40:38.000 Restore connection.
00:40:39.000 Restore commitment.
00:40:41.000 Restore all of these things and you'll make people happy.
00:40:43.000 And yes, the rates of sex will go back up as a byproduct.
00:40:46.000 And all of that will be good because then sex will be had within a healthy context and not an unhealthy context.
00:40:51.000 Okay. 0.59
00:40:51.000 Time for some mailbags. 0.59
00:40:53.000 So, let's do a few questions from the mailbag.
00:40:54.000 back.
00:40:55.000 John says, Hi, Ben.
00:40:55.000 What circumstances or events do you think would be severe enough to warrant an execution of the Second Amendment and its true intention as a revolt against government tyranny?
00:41:03.000 Well, I know that this is its purpose.
00:41:04.000 I've never thought of what would trigger its use in this form.
00:41:06.000 Any thoughts are appreciated.
00:41:08.000 Okay, well, I think that, for example, if the government came to confiscate all weapons, that would be a good time to stand up on your hind legs and say, we are not going to allow this to happen.
00:41:19.000 If the government were to revoke full-on religious freedom, I think that if you have no other place to run, you try to avoid violence at first blush always.
00:41:27.000 But if it turns out there's like a national policy, for example, then you do have to stand up and say, no, I'm not going to.
00:41:32.000 I mean, if somebody tried to take away my kid because I was teaching my kid my religious precepts, then I would stand up with my gun and I would say no.
00:41:39.000 Elliot says, Well, I think Trump is a unifying factor.
00:41:42.000 What you could see, and this is what really hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016, is that Hillary Clinton had a person running from her left who basically split the base.
00:41:48.000 left is going to unite with more traditional Democrats against the right in 2020 or whether will they succumb to infighting?
00:41:53.000 Well, I think Trump is a unifying factor.
00:41:54.000 What you could see, and this is what really hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016, is that Hillary Clinton had a person running from her left who basically split the base.
00:42:03.000 A lot of those Sanders voters did not show up for Hillary Clinton.
00:42:06.000 I think that is unlikely to happen this time.
00:42:08.000 I think it's more likely that the base captures the nomination than that some approved candidate from the top is selected by the Democrats.
00:42:16.000 What that means is that they may not run somebody so moderate, but they will run somebody who is more approved by the base.
00:42:19.000 They got rid of the superdelegates.
00:42:21.000 I think the possibility of a united Democratic Party that is more radical is better in 2020 than the possibility of a moderate Democratic Party that is split.
00:42:30.000 No, I don't think that that's immoral.
00:42:31.000 against euthanasia.
00:42:32.000 However, I've run into a bit of a hurdle when I take it to the logical conclusion.
00:42:35.000 In certain cases, when someone is near death, often even a small pain reliever will assist in the death of a patient.
00:42:39.000 Do you believe it would be immoral for a doctor to give a patient who is in a lot of pain and close to death a small pain reliever, knowing that it could kill the patient?
00:42:46.000 Thanks for everything, Drew.
00:42:47.000 No, I don't think that that's immoral.
00:42:49.000 I think that giving pain relievers to people who are right on the precipice of death in order to relieve pain is one thing.
00:42:58.000 I think deliberately killing the patient is another thing.
00:43:01.000 There is such a thing as sort of a dual byproduct.
00:43:03.000 When you're attempting to alleviate pain and a possible risk of that is death, that's not the same thing as I'm going to, you know, show up.
00:43:12.000 I'm going to, you know, show up.
00:43:12.000 You know, shoot chloroform into your veins or something.
00:43:22.000 Well, we are a democratic republic, and the reason that we shouldn't really use them interchangeably is because direct democracy would mean that we all vote on every issue.
00:43:31.000 Republic means that we have representatives who represent us and that there are checks and balances in the system.
00:43:35.000 Direct democracies tend to perish pretty quickly.
00:43:38.000 The founders in the Federalist Papers, as we've talked about nearly every week, I would say that every republic is a democracy, but not every democracy is a republic.
00:43:44.000 And you're right, we should not be conflating Republican democracy, but democracy can encompass republic in the sense that we are a system wherein the votes of people are counted and policy is based on the votes of those people via our elected representatives.
00:43:58.000 So I would say that every republic is a democracy, but not every democracy is a republic.
00:44:04.000 I think that's fair.
00:44:05.000 Kimberly says, hey Ben, do you think President Nixon was as bad as people make him out to be or is it just overblown outrage?
00:44:11.000 Well, I think that he was a worse president than a lot of Republicans think he was.
00:44:15.000 But, no, I mean, I think the idea that Watergate was some sort of horrific violation of American electoral norms is just silly.
00:44:26.000 I mean, there's good information that the Lyndon Johnson campaign was bugging Barry Goldwater's headquarters in 1964.
00:44:32.000 Was it bad?
00:44:33.000 Yes, it was bad.
00:44:34.000 Was it the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the American Republic?
00:44:36.000 No.
00:44:37.000 Was it anything remotely like that?
00:44:38.000 No.
00:44:39.000 What was worse was the cover-up.
00:44:40.000 And, again, you know, I disagree with Nixon a lot on policy.
00:44:43.000 The man implemented price and wage controls, and I'm still quite split over whether it was worthwhile opening China in the first place.
00:44:49.000 But, was Nixon, you know, the forerunner of tyrannical evil in the United States?
00:44:55.000 No, that's silliness.
00:44:56.000 Well, you know, I don't actually want to be a comedian because being a comedian means that your job is to be funny all the time.
00:45:12.000 I like what I do because it means that when I meet somebody on the street, their first thing isn't, tell me a joke, make me laugh, funny man, right?
00:45:19.000 There's less of an obligation for me to be funny.
00:45:21.000 The humor in my show sort of just comes out naturally.
00:45:25.000 And I think that this is the problem for a lot of comedians who want to be political.
00:45:28.000 Once you get political, you are now in my sphere.
00:45:29.000 And that means that you have to make good arguments.
00:45:31.000 It means you have to back those arguments with evidence.
00:45:33.000 If you're Jimmy Kimmel, then you can't just pretend to be a comedian every time it suits you and then be a political commentator at other times.
00:45:39.000 I don't pretend to be a comedian, meaning I'm not going to go up against Jimmy Kimmel in a funny contest.
00:45:42.000 He would beat me every time.
00:45:44.000 And that's true for most comedians.
00:45:46.000 I'm not going to try stand-up anytime.
00:45:48.000 My friend Dave Rubin has suggested I go try stand-up.
00:45:51.000 No, not particularly interested.
00:45:53.000 But I do think that people should basically stick to their own lanes, and there is such a thing as a funny political commentator.
00:45:59.000 As far as new impressions, I have to find somebody whose voice and mannerisms are kind of prominent enough that I can do them.
00:46:08.000 My impressions are quite broad, as you may have noticed.
00:46:10.000 Except for Obama.
00:46:11.000 My Obama's quite good.
00:46:12.000 Lee says, I was watching CBS Evening News the other night and they spoke about how Congress has warned that the U.S.
00:46:17.000 is unprepared against rising China and Russian military expansion, even though we spend more money than both combined.
00:46:22.000 Do you believe these fears are warranted?
00:46:23.000 Do you think boosting our military spending is the best option to curb them?
00:46:27.000 Well, we have been raising our military spending, but we need to be modernizing our military in a variety of ways.
00:46:34.000 Barack Obama slashed our military dramatically.
00:46:35.000 It's going to take us a while to rebuild.
00:46:38.000 All of that.
00:46:39.000 And it's not that we're unprepared for Russia.
00:46:40.000 I mean, we could take out Russia individually. 0.85
00:46:42.000 We could take out China individually. 0.96
00:46:43.000 The question is, can we fight two wars at once?
00:46:46.000 The Obama administration said it didn't want to.
00:46:47.000 The Obama administration basically said, we no longer need to be an army prepared to fight two wars and on two fronts at once.
00:46:52.000 I think that is completely wrongheaded.
00:46:54.000 Cat says, Ben, other than Trump toning down his style and rhetoric, what are steps the Republican Party can take to win back the suburban women vote?
00:47:01.000 Well, you know, I think that obviously President Trump is the chief factor in driving away the suburban women vote. 0.99
00:47:07.000 But I think that talking about safety and security, talking about security to suburban women is a good pitch, right? 0.87
00:47:15.000 It's how Rudy Giuliani became mayor in New York.
00:47:17.000 Suburban women, these are the security moms from 2004, they're still deeply concerned about safety, security, crime. 1.00
00:47:23.000 And these are issues, without being catastrophic about it, these are issues where Democrats are incredibly soft.
00:47:27.000 And Republicans simply are not.
00:47:29.000 And I think that would be a good way of reaching out to suburban women. 1.00
00:47:32.000 I think also that suburban women We want to know that their children are going to be protected from the predations of the radical social left. 0.74
00:47:41.000 And so reminding moms, soccer moms, that they should have autonomy in their own homes and that they will have support from their local community to do so.
00:47:51.000 I think that's worthwhile.
00:47:52.000 But again, I think that policy is largely secondary to voters because voters swing wildly on policy.
00:47:57.000 Voters are sometimes in favor of one thing.
00:47:59.000 Sometimes they're in favor of another.
00:48:00.000 Personality does matter a lot in presidential elections.
00:48:03.000 OK, here's the final question.
00:48:06.000 Nate says, you mentioned this week that there isn't, or at least you don't see evidence of a voter fraud on the left.
00:48:12.000 I ask with genuine curiosity, does the case with Brenda Snipes not count as full-fledged evidence in that regard?
00:48:16.000 Well, as I said earlier on the show, I'm coming closer to suggesting that voter fraud is a serious possibility in Florida when Democrats are sending out forms that are illegally marked in order to drive people to file forms on the on the off chance that a judge decides to rewrite election law.
00:48:31.000 So yeah, I'm a lot more skeptical that there's no such thing as quote unquote election fraud after watching all of that.
00:48:37.000 Okay, time for a thing that I like, and then we'll do a thing I hate, and then we'll take a weekend.
00:48:41.000 So things that I like.
00:48:43.000 And so I was watching the movie Tag on the Plane.
00:48:47.000 It's not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination.
00:48:49.000 It's based on a story in the Wall Street Journal a few years back about this group of friends who had basically been playing tag for 30 years.
00:48:55.000 And they spend a month every year playing tag, like trying to hide in different places to try and tag each other.
00:49:01.000 And the premise of the movie is that there's one guy who has never been tagged.
00:49:04.000 And so all of his friends are trying to sort of ambush him and then tag him.
00:49:08.000 You may kiss the bride.
00:49:10.000 I won't say it's a spectacularly funny movie.
00:49:11.000 It's not.
00:49:12.000 There are a couple of sequences though that are really quite funny.
00:49:14.000 Basically everything with Jeremy Renner is really funny.
00:49:16.000 Jeremy Renner is one of my favorite actors.
00:49:18.000 And here's a little bit of the preview.
00:49:20.000 - You may kiss the bride. - I love you. - Please tell me what's going on here.
00:49:35.000 Our group of friends has been playing the same game of tag for 30 years.
00:49:38.000 What?
00:49:40.000 For the entire month of May, every year, we play tag.
00:49:42.000 You just head-punched me!
00:49:45.000 You never know when someone's gonna pop up.
00:49:47.000 Congratulations, buddy.
00:49:48.000 You're it.
00:49:49.000 Doing great, Hannah!
00:49:50.000 Our buddy Jerry is the best that ever played.
00:49:52.000 And now he wants to retire?
00:49:54.000 Never been tagged.
00:49:55.000 Just saying.
00:49:55.000 So who's it?
00:49:57.000 Jake touched it.
00:49:58.000 Let's see here we get Jerry.
00:50:03.000 Synchronize your watches.
00:50:04.000 I don't know how to do that.
00:50:05.000 I don't wear a watch.
00:50:06.000 Time is a construct.
00:50:10.000 The parts of the movie that are really funny, basically every sequence where Jeremy Renner is trying to avoid capture by these guys is really funny.
00:50:16.000 And you'll get a few laughs out of it.
00:50:18.000 Isla Fisher, she plays basically the same part in every movie, so she's the same person that she was in Wedding Crashers, except now she's married to Andy from The Office.
00:50:26.000 But the movie is kind of fun, so if you're looking for just a throwaway movie that you get a kick out of, this one goes on the list.
00:50:32.000 Okay, time for A Thing That I Hate.
00:50:37.000 So first off, William Goldman passed away today, which is too bad.
00:50:40.000 At 87 years old, he wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and Misery.
00:50:45.000 He also was involved, he denied this, but he was definitely involved in writing Good Will Hunting, which Matt Damon and Ben Affleck got all the credit for.
00:50:54.000 He wrote a couple of great memoirs about Hollywood, and we'll recommend them specifically next week.
00:50:58.000 He also did The Princess Bride, which is everybody's favorite movie from the 1980s.
00:51:02.000 So William Goldman, again, one of the great— and really a good analyst of his own screenwriting.
00:51:07.000 So that is too bad.
00:51:09.000 He called himself a novelist to write screenplays, but his screenplays are better than his novels.
00:51:13.000 And so you could easily do it.
00:51:15.000 Next week, I think we'll recommend a bunch of William Goldman scripts so that you can get into sort of the William Goldman over.
00:51:21.000 But it's oeuvre.
00:51:23.000 But his stuff is well worth watching.
00:51:28.000 And we bid a fond farewell to William Goldman.
00:51:31.000 In other news that annoys me, there's a story from the New York Times about how Facebook has quote-unquote fought through crisis, and it talks about how evil Facebook is.
00:51:40.000 All of this is a precursor to the Democrats trying to pressure Facebook into mirroring Democratic propaganda.
00:51:45.000 I mean, this is really what all of this is about.
00:51:47.000 And you can spot it in the New York Times piece.
00:51:49.000 There's nothing in the piece that suggests that Facebook really did anything wrong during 2015, 2016, 2017.
00:51:55.000 And yet the piece is all about how they weren't receptive enough to Democratic complaints and therefore they're evil.
00:52:01.000 So, for example, Facebook decided not to censor President Trump in 2015 when he was making comments about Muslims and Mexicans, because they said that this is basically a free speech issue.
00:52:11.000 And the New York Times says, this is just terrible.
00:52:13.000 It's just terrible.
00:52:14.000 So, for example, here's the New York Times.
00:52:15.000 They say, Donald Trump ran for president.
00:52:17.000 He described Muslim immigrants and refugees as a danger to America in December 2015, posted a statement on Facebook calling for a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States. 0.52
00:52:27.000 Mr. Zuckerberg was appalled. 0.68
00:52:29.000 He asked Sheryl Sandberg and other executives if Mr. Trump had violated Facebook's terms of service.
00:52:33.000 But some at Facebook viewed Mr. Trump's 2015 attack on Muslims as an opportunity to finally take a stand against the hate speech coursing through its platform.
00:52:43.000 But Ms. 0.83
00:52:43.000 Sandberg, who was edging back to work after the death of her husband several months earlier, delegated the matter. 0.83
00:52:48.000 to one of her kind of underlings and Monica Bickert, a former prosecutor whom she had appointed.
00:52:54.000 And then they decided that Mr. Trump's account should not be actually violated.
00:53:00.000 Joel Kaplan, who works with Facebook as sort of a policy advisor, he said it could stoke conservative backlash.
00:53:05.000 He said, don't poke the bear.
00:53:07.000 And he was, of course, right.
00:53:09.000 But the New York Times says that was wrong, that Facebook probably should have shut down Trump.
00:53:12.000 Who's then running for president?
00:53:14.000 Yeah, right, because that wouldn't have alienated every person in political America.
00:53:19.000 Then, the New York Times suggests that Facebook treated Russia as a non-problem, that they sort of made light of the Russian intervention. 0.65
00:53:28.000 First of all, again, the evidence that Russia actually swung the election via Facebook is ridiculous.
00:53:32.000 I remember we reviewed this at the time when the Senate Intelligence Committee put out all the evidence that Russia had acted with malice on Facebook, and they were putting up posts that had like 115 shares.
00:53:45.000 Come on.
00:53:46.000 Come on.
00:53:48.000 Combined total of Russian propaganda that had an impact on the election is probably less than the amount of impact that my Facebook account has on people in maybe a week. 0.87
00:53:57.000 It's just ridiculous.
00:53:59.000 And here's how the New York Times reports it. 0.92
00:54:04.000 Ms.
00:54:04.000 Sandberg and Mr. Zuckerberg decided to create a group called Project P for propaganda to study false news on the site, according to people involved in the discussions.
00:54:13.000 By January 2017, the group knew that the original team had only scratched the surface of Russian activity on Facebook and pressured to issue a public paper about the findings.
00:54:20.000 But Mr. Kaplan and other Facebook executives objected.
00:54:23.000 Washington was already reeling from an official finding by American intelligence agencies that Putin had personally ordered an influence campaign aimed at helping elect Mr. Trump.
00:54:31.000 If Facebook implicated Russia further, Mr. Kaplan said, Republicans would accuse the company of siding with Democrats.
00:54:36.000 And if Facebook pulled down Russians' fake pages, regular Facebook users might also react with outrage at having been deceived.
00:54:42.000 His own mother-in-law, Mr. Kaplan said, had followed a Facebook page created by Russian trolls.
00:54:46.000 Ms.
00:54:46.000 Sandberg sided with Mr. Kaplan and did not participate in the conversations about the public paper.
00:54:51.000 When it was published in April, the word Russia never appeared.
00:54:54.000 As it really shouldn't have, because the fact is that Russia's impact on the election via Facebook was incredibly minimal.
00:54:59.000 Incredibly minimal, if at all.
00:55:01.000 But this entire piece is designed to be about how Facebook somehow favors Republicans, or is too nice to Republicans, which is an insane, insane contention.
00:55:09.000 I know because we view the Facebook metrics every day.
00:55:12.000 But when Facebook decided to change its metrics, Like a year ago, that every conservative website took a 20 to 30 percent hit in the amount of traffic it was receiving from Facebook, while a lot of left sites were basically left alone.
00:55:26.000 But this is all setting a precedent for Democrats to try and regulate Facebook or threaten Facebook with regulation in advance of the 2020 election.
00:55:32.000 So keep your eye on the ball.
00:55:33.000 The Democrats are going to try to crack down on Facebook and shift the entire social media platform in order to take advantage of 2020.
00:55:40.000 OK, well, we will be back here next week with much, much more.
00:55:44.000 And we'll see you then.
00:55:45.000 Have a great weekend.
00:55:46.000 We'll see you then.
00:55:46.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:55:47.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:55:52.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.
00:55:58.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
00:56:02.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.
00:56:03.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
00:56:05.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.
00:56:07.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.