The Ben Shapiro Show - The Fourth Republican FIGHT NIGHT

00:00:00.000 Last night's fourth Republican debate will likely end up as a footnote in presidential history.

00:00:04.000 Donald Trump, who's leading the race by leaps and bounds, wasn't on the stage.

00:00:07.000 The debate aired on NewsNation rather than Fox News, so the viewership is likely to be a lot lower than the prior debates.

00:00:12.000 But in some ways, the debate was by far the most interesting debate of the race.

00:00:16.000 It was interesting for a few reasons.

00:00:18.000 First, it showed that governance actually matters.

00:00:21.000 The battle between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who are the top two candidates fighting for a distant second place behind Trump, Is a battle over policy positions sure?

00:00:29.000 The debate exposed serious differences of position on social issues, for example, Warren Haley has posed as more moderate and DeSantis is more conservative.

00:00:37.000 But DeSantis' main advantage against Haley, an advantage he thought would carry him further than it has in the polling so far, is that he can point at his accomplishments and contrast them with the empty words of his opponents.

00:00:48.000 In a normal world, DeSantis would be running away with this nomination.

00:00:51.000 DeSantis is by far the most conservative candidate who can win on the stage, has a record of victory in Florida.

00:00:57.000 There were four candidates on the stage last night.

00:00:58.000 Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and for some odd reason, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is still in the race.

00:01:04.000 But DeSantis is by far the most classically conservative person on the stage.

00:01:08.000 Here, for example, was Ron DeSantis talking about Calvin Coolidge, who was Ronald Reagan's favorite president.

00:01:15.000 Reagan, Washington, Lincoln, excellent.

00:01:18.000 One of the guys I'll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge.

00:01:20.000 People don't talk about him a lot.

00:01:22.000 He's one of the few presidents that got almost everything right.

00:01:26.000 He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution.

00:01:30.000 We need to restore the US Constitution as the centerpiece of our national life.

00:01:35.000 And that requires a president who understands the original understanding of the Constitution, who has a good sense of the Bill of Rights, and who knows how we've gone off track with this massive fourth branch of government Well, again, that's pretty solidly conservative stuff, but the main differentiating point for DeSantis versus, for example, Haley, is over their actual governance style.

00:01:54.000 knew the proper role of the federal government.

00:01:56.000 The country was in great shape when he was president of the United States

00:02:00.000 and we can learn a lot from Calvin Coolidge.

00:02:03.000 Well, again, that's pretty solidly conservative stuff, but the main differentiating point for DeSantis

00:02:09.000 versus for example, Haley, is over their actual governance style.

00:02:11.000 So last night, the question of transgenders using particular bathrooms came up.

00:02:17.000 Nikki Haley suggested that DeSantis was soft on the issue and DeSantis pounded her on it. 0.97

00:02:22.000 And And this shows how hypocritical Ron continues to be.

00:02:26.000 When he was running for governor and they asked him about that, he said he didn't think bathroom bills were a good use of his time. 0.87

00:02:33.000 You can go look that up.

00:02:35.000 I signed a bathroom bill in Florida, so that's obviously not true.

00:02:42.000 So, the idea that you would say that I was against that... I signed it. 0.99

00:02:46.000 You didn't. 0.99

00:02:47.000 You killed it. 0.95

00:02:47.000 I signed it. 0.95

00:02:48.000 I stood up for little girls.

00:02:50.000 You didn't do it.

00:02:51.000 And there was this going on.

00:02:52.000 I was actually just in South Carolina.

00:02:54.000 Some of the legislators told me at the time there were boys going into the girls.

00:02:57.000 That's the whole reason why they did it.

00:02:59.000 And so they say when she does that explanation that that doesn't hold water. 0.75

00:03:02.000 And this is the upstate of South Carolina.

00:03:04.000 I signed the bill.

00:03:05.000 I protected the girls.

00:03:06.000 Do you know South Carolinians?

00:03:07.000 She did not do it.

00:03:08.000 I know that.

00:03:11.000 That obviously is a strong differentiating point for DeSantis.

00:03:13.000 And again, he thought that that was going to be the main part of this campaign, was that even the stuff that Trump has talked about doing, DeSantis has actually done in the state of Florida.

00:03:22.000 However, this brings us to the second point.

00:03:25.000 Second, the debate showed that Donald Trump is still the dominant force on the right.

00:03:29.000 That's because of all the stocked up goodwill he has from his tenure as 2016 candidate, beating Hillary Clinton, and as president, where he's pretty conservative.

00:03:36.000 And because his one true point of electoral vulnerability, Trump's point of electoral vulnerability, is the fact that he already lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

00:03:45.000 But that has now been obscured both by the media's election malfeasance in 2020, The fact that, for example, the Hunter Biden laptop story was covered up.

00:03:53.000 The fact that all the voting rules were changed by the Democrats in the lead up to the 2020 election.

00:03:56.000 The fact that we had a 20 million vote spike in the number of votes between 2016 and 2020.

00:04:01.000 And, mostly, by Joe Biden's awful poll numbers right now.

00:04:05.000 If the argument is that Trump is unelectable, then the real clear politics polling average, which puts Trump ahead of Biden right now, is very difficult to overcome.

00:04:13.000 That's why attacks from Ron DeSantis against Trump fell flat.

00:04:16.000 Here was DeSantis going after Trump last night.

00:04:18.000 Look, he is showing, father time is undefeated.

00:04:22.000 The idea that we're going to put someone up there that's almost 80 and there's going to be no effects from that, we all know that that's not true.

00:04:28.000 And so we have an opportunity to do a next generation of leaders and really be able to move this country forward.

00:04:34.000 We also need a president that can serve two terms.

00:04:36.000 I don't think Donald Trump, I think he's going to have a, I don't think he'd be able to get elected.

00:04:40.000 The Democrats want him to be the nominee.

00:04:41.000 We see that.

00:04:42.000 They are going to turn the screws the minute, if he got the nomination, you're going to see it.

00:04:48.000 Now, DeSantis happens to be correct.

00:04:50.000 Democrats still believe that Trump is the most beatable nominee for the Republicans, no matter what the polls say.

00:04:56.000 The problem is, when the polls have Trump up on Biden, as they do right now, when Donald Trump is in the best polling position of his career, actually, better than any time in 2016, better than any time in 2020, the electoral argument is a hard case to make.

00:05:09.000 In one second, we will get to the third point that we take away from the debate first.

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00:06:16.000 Okay.

00:06:17.000 And this leads us to the third point of the debate.

00:06:20.000 There is no reservoir of anger at Trump among Republicans.

00:06:23.000 So, DeSantis was trying to go after Trump on the basis that Trump is too old or that he can't win.

00:06:29.000 The problem is that Trump is running against a person who is even older and right now he's leading in the polls.

00:06:34.000 But the other attack on Trump, which is that he would be quote unquote unfit for the presidency, is something Republicans do not believe.

00:06:40.000 There is no reservoir of anger at Trump over his erratic and often awful behavior itself.

00:06:45.000 Only if that behavior threatens electoral viability do Republicans become queasy.

00:06:49.000 Republicans have essentially decided, I think rightly given the nature of today's politics, that we are well beyond questions of civility.

00:06:57.000 Many of us have decided that if the most plausible candidate happens to be the guy who tweets dumb stuff and makes jokes about becoming a dictator, jokes, by the way, that really underscore the fact that every single president since Barack Obama has used executive power in dictatorial fashion, we don't really care.

00:07:11.000 We may not like the stuff that Donald Trump did between November and January of 2021.

00:07:16.000 But if the alternative is Joe Biden using his own dictatorial power to, say, make OSHA cram a vax down on 80 million people, Or Joe Biden, using dictatorial power to essentially keep the border open.

00:07:29.000 Well, we will pick our own giant pulsating middle finger, thank you very much.

00:07:32.000 That means that Chris Christie's attacks on Trump, which is that Trump is unfit for the presidency, those fell flat.

00:07:37.000 Republicans are treating Donald Trump like generic Republican.

00:07:40.000 And weirdly, so are Democrats at this point.

00:07:43.000 So, when Christie attacked DeSantis and said, why won't you answer whether Trump is fit or not?

00:07:47.000 DeSantis is smart enough not to play the game.

00:07:48.000 DeSantis knows that if he says that Trump is unfit, all of Trump's voters don't like DeSantis then.

00:07:53.000 But what Christie is attempting to do is point out, I think correctly, that the Republican Party, so long as it thinks Trump is fit, is likely to nominate Trump.

00:08:01.000 That's true.

00:08:02.000 Here's Christie.

00:08:03.000 Why isn't he just answering the question?

00:08:05.000 The question was very direct.

00:08:08.000 Is he fit to be president or isn't he?

00:08:11.000 The rest of the speech is interesting, but completely non-responsive.

00:08:15.000 And if we were in a courtroom, they'd strike the answer and say, Governor DeSantis, you're a smart man.

00:08:23.000 No they wouldn't.

00:08:24.000 They would strike the answer because you're not You have your thing.

00:08:28.000 You have your thing.

00:08:29.000 No, I don't have my thing.

00:08:31.000 He's the thing.

00:08:33.000 Is he fit or isn't he?

00:08:33.000 We do not want to do someone that's almost 80.

00:08:36.000 It doesn't mean that somebody couldn't get elected.

00:08:39.000 That's what the people did.

00:08:40.000 Governor DeSantis left.

00:08:42.000 No, Governor DeSantis left.

00:08:44.000 Ron, I think we have an opportunity to do somebody who is in the prime of their life.

00:08:50.000 We don't have to worry about all this stuff with Ron in it.

00:08:52.000 We can get it done and we'll do it.

00:08:54.000 I'm going to come to you.

00:08:55.000 Finish.

00:08:56.000 Look, Father Time is undefeated.

00:08:59.000 I don't know how he would score on a test, but I know this.

00:09:02.000 We have an opportunity to nominate someone and elect someone for two terms who's going to be spitting nails on day one and for eight years deliver you big results.

00:09:11.000 We should not nominate somebody who's almost 80 years old.

00:09:16.000 He's afraid to answer.

00:09:17.000 Okay, now, Christie is right that DeSantis will not answer.

00:09:20.000 He's correct that DeSantis won't answer.

00:09:22.000 Why?

00:09:22.000 Because Republicans don't think that Trump is unfit.

00:09:24.000 Period.

00:09:25.000 End of story.

00:09:26.000 When Christie says things like, they're afraid to talk about Voldemort, it just underscores the fact that Christie is running a revenge campaign.

00:09:32.000 I mean, let's be real about this.

00:09:35.000 The problem is that Christie is not a viable alternative to Trump.

00:09:38.000 So if he's going to attack Trump this way, then you start looking at Christie.

00:09:41.000 Well, there's one problem.

00:09:42.000 That's not going to wash.

00:09:43.000 Here was Christie doing his let's attack Trump routine.

00:09:46.000 Look Megan, it's often very difficult to be the only person on the stage who's telling the truth, and the only person who is taking on what needs to be taken on.

00:09:57.000 I look at my watch now, we're 17 minutes into this debate, and except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us.

00:10:09.000 The fifth guy, who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, He's the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.

00:10:17.000 And yet, I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort.

00:10:23.000 He shall not be named.

00:10:25.000 They don't want to talk about it.

00:10:29.000 Now, again, Christie is right that he's the only person who's willing to really go after Trump.

00:10:33.000 But there's a problem.

00:10:34.000 He bullied Trump in 2016.

00:10:36.000 He ended up working for him.

00:10:38.000 Don't you remember the video of Trump saying to him, Chris, go get on the plane?

00:10:42.000 And here's the other problem.

00:10:43.000 Christie is not an alternative to Trump on policy.

00:10:46.000 Here he was last night, for example, on sexual mutilation surgery for minors.

00:10:50.000 How is it that you think a parent should be able to okay these surgeries, never mind the sterilization of a child?

00:10:57.000 And aren't you way too out of step on this issue to be the Republican nominee?

00:11:01.000 No, I'm not.

00:11:02.000 Because Republicans believe in less government, not more.

00:11:07.000 In less involvement with government, not more involvement in people's lives.

00:11:11.000 And you know what, Megan?

00:11:13.000 I trust parents.

00:11:15.000 And we're out there saying that we should empower parents in education.

00:11:18.000 We should empower parents to make more decisions about where their kids go to school.

00:11:22.000 I agree.

00:11:23.000 We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in, in their homes, without the government telling them what those values should be.

00:11:31.000 And yet, we want to take other parental rights away.

00:11:34.000 I'm sorry.

00:11:35.000 As a father of four, I believe there is no one who loves my children more than me.

00:11:43.000 Okay, that's true.

00:11:45.000 No one loves your children more than you.

00:11:47.000 But also, there are things called child abuse.

00:11:50.000 And if you love your kid, but you smack your kid in the head with a brick every day, well, that's illegal. 1.00

00:11:55.000 Cutting off your kid's genitals should be as well. 1.00

00:11:58.000 Fourth, the debate showed that these campaigns, unfortunately, have become opportunities for additional exposure for the marginal candidates. 0.98

00:12:05.000 And the best way to exploit that opportunity is to run directly toward Twitter slash X. And as the polls show, X is not real life.

00:12:12.000 Now, listen, I personally know three of the four candidates on stage.

00:12:15.000 I've never met Christy.

00:12:16.000 I know Ron DeSantis.

00:12:17.000 He's a straightforwardly good guy.

00:12:19.000 His wife is a delight.

00:12:20.000 Really nice family.

00:12:21.000 I know Nikki, who is personally, again, a delightful human being.

00:12:24.000 I know her kids as well.

00:12:25.000 And I know Vivek.

00:12:27.000 We'll get to Vivek in just one second.

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00:13:35.000 One of the things that we've learned from these debates, again, is that these debates can be an excellent platform for becoming more famous.

00:13:42.000 And that's Vivek.

00:13:43.000 Again, I know Vivek.

00:13:45.000 Super nice guy.

00:13:45.000 Brilliant.

00:13:46.000 Incredibly personable.

00:13:48.000 Really charming. 0.73

00:13:48.000 Glib as hell. 0.73

00:13:50.000 I'd say he's a salesman's salesman. 0.92

00:13:52.000 Which is how he made his money.

00:13:53.000 Right?

00:13:53.000 He was essentially the guy who was fundraising for a publicly traded pharmaceutical company.

00:13:58.000 That's fine.

00:13:59.000 That's totally cool.

00:14:01.000 He is also chameleonic.

00:14:02.000 He has been throughout the race.

00:14:04.000 He's been trying to play Trump's game.

00:14:05.000 Say the unsayable.

00:14:06.000 Except the things he's saying are less unsayable now because Trump has been in the game saying those things for a long time.

00:14:12.000 Now the problem is, as the realm of the unsayable decreases, that means that Vivek has to chase the realm of the unsayable.

00:14:19.000 And that means the realm of the unsayable is shrinking into the more and more marginal viewpoints.

00:14:24.000 And so Vivek, if he wants to keep up with the unsayable candidate thing, he has to chase

00:14:29.000 the realm of the unsayable and that's what he's been doing.

00:14:31.000 So last night, here was one of his listicles of unsayable ideas.

00:14:34.000 He does these on Twitter, by the way.

00:14:35.000 He'll just tweet out like seven unsayable ideas, six of which are kind of wrote inside

00:14:39.000 the Republican Party and one of which is usually a little bit odd.

00:14:42.000 Here he was last night.

00:14:44.000 All three of them have been licking Donald Trump's boots for years for money and endorsements.

00:14:50.000 Ron DeSantis, you've been a great governor, but you would have never been one without actually begging Donald Trump for that endorsement.

00:14:55.000 And you attacked him in your book a year ago.

00:14:57.000 Same thing with Chris Christie as a lobbyist.

00:14:59.000 He's begging them for COVID money for his special interests in New Jersey, prepping him for the debates last time around.

00:15:05.000 These people are now Monday morning quarterbacking some decision he made.

00:15:09.000 I think the real enemy is not Donald Trump.

00:15:11.000 It's not even Joe Biden.

00:15:13.000 It is the deep state that at least Donald Trump attempted to take on.

00:15:16.000 And if you want somebody who's going to speak truth to power, then vote for somebody who's going to speak the truth to you.

00:15:22.000 Why am I the only person on the stage, at least, who can say that January 6th now does look like it was an inside job?

00:15:29.000 That the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9-11.

00:15:34.000 That the Great Replacement Theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform.

00:15:42.000 That the 2020 election was indeed stolen by big tech.

00:15:47.000 That the 2016 election, the one that Trump won for sure, was also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment.

00:15:55.000 That actually put up the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that they knew was false.

00:15:59.000 There's a reason why I'm the only person on the stage who can say these things.

00:16:03.000 That's what it's going to take.

00:16:04.000 Not people who were licking his boots one time and now Monday morning quarterbacking and criticizing when it's convenient.

00:16:10.000 Saying the unsayable, saying the unsayable.

00:16:11.000 Except that a lot of that stuff isn't really unsayable.

00:16:15.000 When you say that the 2016 election, the results were thwarted by the so-called deep state, pretty much every Republican believes that.

00:16:22.000 Literally all of us believe that the Russian hoax was a hoax promulgated by people inside the federal government who are promulgating false information.

00:16:29.000 The 2020 election was stolen by Big Tech.

00:16:31.000 If by that he means that Big Tech put its thumb on the scales for Joe Biden, we all believe that.

00:16:36.000 That's obviously true.

00:16:37.000 That's not saying the unsayable.

00:16:38.000 Literally everyone on stage will say that.

00:16:41.000 However, what he will do, he'll then put all of that in a sandwich with January 6th was an inside job.

00:16:48.000 I'm not sure what he means by January 6th was an inside job.

00:16:50.000 Does he mean that somehow the Trump administration, which was in power at the time, Worked with the protesters?

00:16:58.000 Does he mean that it was Nancy Pelosi working with the protesters who are coming into the Capitol building?

00:17:03.000 Does he just mean that there were police officers who opened the doors, which obviously is true after the riots were already in progress?

00:17:10.000 January 6th wasn't a quote-unquote inside job in the sense that no one committed criminal activity.

00:17:15.000 It's true the prosecution of some of the people who are in the Capitol is clearly excessive.

00:17:19.000 But inside job?

00:17:22.000 When he says that the government lied to us for years about 9-11, What he means is that one of the people who housed 9-11 hijackers was a member of the Saudi intelligence service and that was revealed in a report in 2021.

00:17:34.000 But he's making a broader claim than that when he says that the Great Replacement Theory is real.

00:17:40.000 That's a term with semantic overload because it has been used by white supremacists as a buzzword for replacement of whites by minorities, including Jews, and specifically Jews crafting this entire system in order to replace white people.

00:17:52.000 That's what people were chanting at, for example, Charlottesville when they said, Jews will not replace us.

00:17:56.000 They weren't worried about the invasion of hundreds of millions of Jews. 0.99

00:17:59.000 They were suggesting that Jews were presiding over the system of immigration.

00:18:03.000 But it is true that the Democratic Party has talked for 20 years about the changing demographics of the country, facilitating a permanent Democratic electoral majority.

00:18:12.000 So Vivek wants to win points for audacity.

00:18:14.000 But let's be real, he's really not saying anything that Tucker Carlson hasn't been saying better for longer.

00:18:18.000 In reality, Vivek, like Trump, needs an opponent.

00:18:21.000 In a vacuum, a lot of his viewpoints don't make all that much sense.

00:18:24.000 He's been on most sides of a wide variety of issues, but that also gives him leeway to fire at all the candidates from every other side of every other issue.

00:18:31.000 So last night, Vivek's target was mainly Nikki Haley, whom he perceives as his candidate of differentiation because she is the quote-unquote mainstream candidate.

00:18:39.000 DeSantis is popular at the base.

00:18:40.000 Nikki Haley is not nearly as popular with the base.

00:18:43.000 So Vivek was going to go after her using the same angle Trump himself used in 2016 against the so-called interventionists in the Republican Party.

00:18:50.000 Now, there are a few problems with this.

00:18:52.000 The biggest problem is that the right has always been divided between hawks and isolationists.

00:18:57.000 Going back to George H.W.

00:18:58.000 Bush versus, for example, Pat Buchanan.

00:19:00.000 And before that, Charles Lindbergh versus the rest of the Republican Party.

00:19:04.000 In the pre-World War II era, the isolationists on the right generally had their way.

00:19:08.000 In the post-World War II era, the hawks had their way on the right.

00:19:12.000 In the aftermath of the Iraq war, it's an open question who wins this battle, but as the world grows more dangerous, isolationists tend to actually lose sway.

00:19:19.000 The most obvious line of attack for Republicans against Joe Biden on foreign policy, for example, isn't that he is too interventionist.

00:19:25.000 It's that he's weak, that he's waffling, that he surrenders in Afghanistan, that he sends mixed signals, that our enemies can see all of that and they are taking advantage.

00:19:34.000 We'll get to the foreign policy issues that are being raised by Vivek in just one second, because they're kind of fascinating.

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00:20:42.000 Hey, so when it comes to foreign policy, Vivek launched a bunch of attacks on Nikki Haley last night.

00:20:46.000 Those attacks are generally from the isolationist right, which is very similar to the isolationist left.

00:20:52.000 The problem is, that doesn't really line up with the Republican perspective, writ large, on Joe Biden.

00:20:58.000 Joe Biden is weak.

00:20:59.000 It's not that Joe Biden is too muscular in foreign policy, it's that he's too weak, even in Ukraine.

00:21:04.000 The problem for Biden is that he refused to choose an actual line.

00:21:07.000 Either you have to give Ukraine the weaponry necessary to actually smash Russia in the Donbass and Crimea, or you have to find an off-ramp and pursue it. 0.78

00:21:14.000 Biden's choice, as always, is neither.

00:21:16.000 That's always his choice, is, what if I just, you know, sit here and be a vegetable?

00:21:21.000 But when it comes to Israel, the attack on Biden isn't that he's too pro-Israel.

00:21:24.000 From the right, it's that he enabled Iran, delisted the Houthis as a terrorist organization, fostered more funding for the Palestinian Authority and the UNRWA, which means Hamas, and now is trying to handcuff Israel in its ability to finish off a genocidal anti-Jewish terrorist group.

00:21:38.000 So, when Vivek, for example, attacks Nikki Haley for being too pro-Israel, that generally doesn't go over that well with the crowd that's not on X. Here he was last night doing just that.

00:21:48.000 What happened to Israel was dead wrong. 0.78

00:21:50.000 What Hamas did was medieval. 0.93

00:21:52.000 It was subhuman.

00:21:53.000 It was immoral.

00:21:54.000 And we have to call that out for what it is on October 7th.

00:21:57.000 But to say that that was an attack on America fails a basic test.

00:22:02.000 I mean, Nick, if you can't tell the difference between where Israel is and the U.S.

00:22:05.000 is on a map, I can have my three-year-old son show you the difference. 0.91

00:22:10.000 Now, that's a silly argument.

00:22:11.000 Obviously, Israel isn't in America, and the interests of the United States are not always the interests of Israel and vice versa. 0.97

00:22:17.000 But suggesting that Haley holds some sort of dual loyalty is asinine, and the crowd knew, which is why that attack fell flat, even if the fever swamps of X cheer on this sort of silly posturing. 0.81

00:22:27.000 Likewise, the internet cheered Vivek quizzing Nikki Haley on the provinces of the Donbass region in Ukraine. 0.87

00:22:32.000 The people on X say, oh, this ends Nikki Haley.

00:22:35.000 Here was Vivek doing this routine.

00:22:38.000 I want to say one thing about the tie to Ukraine, if I may.

00:22:41.000 So foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom.

00:22:47.000 I want everybody at home to know that I was the first person to say we need a reasonable peace deal in Ukraine.

00:22:53.000 Now a lot of the neocons are quietly coming along to that position, with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden, who still support this, what I believe is pointless war in Ukraine.

00:23:02.000 And I think those with foreign policy experience, one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.

00:23:15.000 Look at that.

00:23:16.000 This is what I want people to understand.

00:23:18.000 These people have... I mean, she has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it. 1.00

00:23:26.000 So reject this myth that they've been selling you, that somebody had a cup of coffee stint at the UN and then makes 8 million bucks after, has real foreign policy experience.

00:23:34.000 It takes an outsider to see this through.

00:23:36.000 Look at the blank expression.

00:23:37.000 She doesn't know the names of the provinces that she wants to actually fight for.

00:23:42.000 And there's a puppet minister right there, the donors.

00:23:45.000 The donor's right there!

00:23:46.000 Enough! 1.00

00:23:46.000 Okay, hold on, hold on. 1.00

00:23:49.000 Couple of things to note about Vivek's point here.

00:23:51.000 One, Nikki has never called for putting troops into Ukraine.

00:23:54.000 No Republican candidate has.

00:23:56.000 Literally zero of them.

00:23:57.000 In fact, Haley's entire point is that you fund Ukraine so you don't have to put troops into Ukraine or any of the surrounding countries that would presumably be threatened if Russia were to take Kiev.

00:24:06.000 So he's completely misstating her position to suggest the sort of isolationist notion that we are going to send American boys and girls over to die for territories far away.

00:24:15.000 She has not suggested that.

00:24:16.000 No one has suggested that.

00:24:18.000 But it's worth noting that Haley did in fact, after this, name two of the three provinces correctly after the question.

00:24:24.000 She said Crimea instead of Kharkiv.

00:24:26.000 She said Donetsk and Luhansk.

00:24:28.000 Here's the reality.

00:24:28.000 Most Americans don't know the answer to this particular question.

00:24:31.000 That lack of knowledge isn't actually dispositive as to what American action should look like in any particular region.

00:24:37.000 This is a very tried and true attack line, and it doesn't tend to score a lot of points in the real world.

00:24:41.000 Why?

00:24:42.000 Well, because Geography B quizzes are a quick and easy way for isolationists to score a really cheap and easy point.

00:24:47.000 Quick! 1.00

00:24:47.000 Name all the provinces of East China. 1.00

00:24:49.000 You can't?

00:24:50.000 And how can you criticize China over its COVID-19 policies or oppose an invasion of Taiwan?

00:24:55.000 Can you name every province in all of China?

00:24:57.000 But these sorts of attacks don't actually work.

00:25:01.000 In 1999, George W. Bush was asked by a reporter to name the leaders of Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Chechnya.

00:25:05.000 He responded, Can you name the foreign minister of Mexico?

00:25:08.000 Bush won the election.

00:25:09.000 Americans don't need you to be an encyclopedia.

00:25:12.000 They needed to make the right decision when you are pressed.

00:25:15.000 And that decision comes from baseline worldview, not a quick search of the Google machine.

00:25:19.000 That's why Trump became president.

00:25:20.000 Do you think Trump could name like 10 other countries off the top of his head outside of Europe?

00:25:25.000 But being right isn't the point of a Vicks campaign.

00:25:28.000 It's oppositionality.

00:25:29.000 That's literally the whole point of the campaign.

00:25:30.000 That's why he went so hard at Haley, not just on policy, but personally.

00:25:34.000 In the most conspiratorial of ways, by the way.

00:25:36.000 He accused her of bad faith, of fascism, of fakery.

00:25:39.000 It was pretty ugly.

00:25:40.000 It was vague comparing Nikki Haley to Kamala Harris.

00:25:44.000 I don't question her faith, but I question her authenticity.

00:25:47.000 And I think that's deeper here.

00:25:48.000 We were just talking about the trans issue.

00:25:50.000 This is a symptom of a deeper cancer in American life.

00:25:54.000 Identity politics.

00:25:55.000 This new religion that says your race, your gender and your sexuality are your identity.

00:26:00.000 It is anti-American.

00:26:02.000 It is meritocratic, it's anti-meritocratic, and it is dividing this country to a breaking point.

00:26:07.000 And I've spoken about this to the left.

00:26:08.000 My books are all about this.

00:26:10.000 I've preached this to the left.

00:26:11.000 But it's even worse when Republicans try to play the same game.

00:26:15.000 We're talking about that trans issue.

00:26:17.000 Nikki Haley's campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad talking about how she would kick in heels. 0.71

00:26:24.000 At the first debate, she said that only a woman can get this job done. 1.00

00:26:28.000 That's what she said.

00:26:29.000 After the third debate, when I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five failed years of leadership of this party, and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military contractor, she said that I have a woman problem.

00:26:41.000 Nikki, I don't have a woman problem. 1.00

00:26:44.000 You have a corruption problem.

00:26:45.000 And I think that that's what people need to know. 0.97

00:26:48.000 Nikki is corrupt. 0.99

00:26:49.000 This is a woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house. 1.00

00:26:54.000 This is the problem.

00:26:55.000 Using identity politics more effectively than Kamala Harris is a form of intellectual fraud.

00:27:02.000 And it actually needs to end.

00:27:03.000 There's our donor puppet masters, wielding their puppet right up here tonight.

00:27:07.000 This is how this game is played.

00:27:09.000 The puppet masters put up their puppet, and I reject the use of identity politics in this party.

00:27:14.000 It has been a cancer coming from the left, and I'm sick and tired of the double standards the people of this country are to.

00:27:19.000 Having two X chromosomes does not immunize you from criticism.

00:27:22.000 Thank you, sir.

00:27:23.000 Thank you.

00:27:23.000 Governor Haley, would you like to respond?

00:27:26.000 No.

00:27:27.000 It's not worth my time to respond to him.

00:27:30.000 I mean, she happens to be right about that. 0.90

00:27:32.000 I'm sorry, when you hold up a giant piece of paper that just says, Nikki equals corrupt, you look like a child. 1.00

00:27:36.000 You look like an idiot. 1.00

00:27:37.000 It's ridiculous. 1.00

00:27:39.000 It's ridiculous. 0.96

00:27:39.000 Again, the notion that Nikki Haley's views have somehow magically changed because after she left office, she worked with Boeing. 0.96

00:27:47.000 It's silly.

00:27:48.000 That's like suggesting that Vivek Ramaswamy's views have changed because he once worked with Big Pharma and made all his money off of Big Pharma. 0.99

00:27:55.000 I mean, it's a dumb attack line. 0.99

00:27:58.000 It's a really dumb attack line. 0.99

00:27:58.000 But that wasn't his dumbest attack line of the night. 0.99

00:28:00.000 He actually then attacked Nikki Haley as a quote-unquote fascist. 0.99

00:28:03.000 Why is Nikki Haley a fascist? 1.00

00:28:04.000 Because she disagrees with him on foreign policy.

00:28:07.000 Nikki Haley was heaping praise on me when I wrote that book, but now I worry I was warning about the woke industrial complex in this country as a warning.

00:28:16.000 Apparently she read it as a how-to manual, just like she reads George Orwell's books as well.

00:28:21.000 And so I think that that's actually far more dangerous than... This is really important for people to understand.

00:28:26.000 We're marching towards fascism under Biden.

00:28:29.000 Jack Smith has subpoenaed Every last retweet that someone has issued from Donald Trump in the year 2020, the only person more fascist than the Biden regime now is Nikki Haley, who thinks the government should identify every one of those individuals with an ID.

00:28:45.000 That is not freedom.

00:28:46.000 That is fascism.

00:28:49.000 She's wrong on the social media issue and anonymity. 0.99

00:28:52.000 But saying that she is a fascist, more fascist than Joe Biden, is silly. 0.95

00:28:56.000 Listen, Vivek isn't running for president. 0.98

00:28:58.000 He was really never running for president.

00:29:00.000 He hasn't been running for president this whole time.

00:29:02.000 He's currently polling at less than 5% nationally.

00:29:04.000 He's not breaking 10% in any state.

00:29:06.000 But he is capturing the hearts of people you need to launch a podcast or perhaps a Senate primary run.

00:29:11.000 He's also single-handedly making Chris Christie look at least somewhat entertaining and amusing.

00:29:15.000 Here's Christie on Vivek last night.

00:29:17.000 You do this at every debate.

00:29:19.000 You go out on the stump and you say something.

00:29:22.000 All of us see it on video.

00:29:23.000 We confront you out on the debate stage.

00:29:25.000 You say you didn't say it, and then you back away.

00:29:28.000 And I want to say... I'll tell you exactly what I said, Chris.

00:29:29.000 I'm not done yet.

00:29:31.000 Well, this is... Now, look... Hold on.

00:29:32.000 Hold on.

00:29:32.000 This is the fourth debate.

00:29:39.000 The fourth debate that you would be voted, in the first 20 minutes, as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. 1.00

00:29:44.000 So shut up! 1.00

00:29:50.000 I want to say something else. 0.98

00:29:55.000 We're now 25 minutes into this debate, and he has insulted Nikki Haley's basic intelligence.

00:30:04.000 Not her positions, her basic intelligence.

00:30:07.000 She doesn't know regions.

00:30:08.000 She wouldn't be able to find something on a map that his three-year-old could find.

00:30:13.000 Look, if you want to disagree on issues, that's fine.

00:30:15.000 And Nikki and I disagree on some issues.

00:30:18.000 But I'll tell you this, I've known her for 12 years, which is longer than he's even started to vote in a Republican primary.

00:30:27.000 And while we disagree about some issues and we disagree about who should be president of the United States, what we don't disagree on is, this is a smart, accomplished woman.

00:30:35.000 You should stop insulting her.

00:30:38.000 Okay, by the way, Christy not wrong there.

00:30:40.000 Again, what's amazing about Chris Christy is that he actually does have a lot of innate political talent, which is why he became governor of New Jersey.

00:30:45.000 He then misused it and blew it in every single way.

00:30:47.000 That wasn't the extent of Christy laying into Vivek last night after the debate.

00:30:50.000 He also laid into Vivek in the post-debate spin room.

00:30:55.000 I think Vivek does have a woman problem.

00:30:58.000 I do think he insults women's basic intelligence.

00:31:01.000 He's done it over and over and over again.

00:31:03.000 And I guess tonight, I just had had enough. 1.00

00:31:05.000 I had enough of listening to his garbage. 1.00

00:31:07.000 And as I said, his smart-ass Harvard mouth. 0.99

00:31:10.000 Because that's what it is, when he's dictating to me and Nikki Haley, who have committed ourselves to public service, while he's been off stealing from seniors to make his fortune. 0.96

00:31:19.000 Yeah, I'm not going to put up with him anymore.

00:31:21.000 Here's the thing.

00:31:22.000 X, Twitter, is not real life.

00:31:24.000 And Trumpism isn't really an ideology transferable to other neophyte candidates.

00:31:29.000 There is only Trump.

00:31:30.000 Trump is the only Trump.

00:31:32.000 We'll get to the last points on the debate in just one second.

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00:36:35.000 Okay, meanwhile...

00:36:36.000 Final note about last night's debate.

00:36:38.000 It showed that the gap between winning a primary campaign and winning a general election is indeed very real for Republicans.

00:36:43.000 By polling data, Nikki Haley is the Republican best positioned against Joe Biden.

00:36:47.000 DeSantis leads Biden by one in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

00:36:51.000 Donald Trump is up on Biden by a couple of points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

00:36:55.000 Nikki Haley leads Joe Biden by five in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

00:36:58.000 In some polls, she's up by as much as ten points.

00:37:01.000 But aside from foreign policy, where Haley is a hawk's hawk, her positions are, in fact, moderate across the board, from abortion to gender surgery for minors.

00:37:09.000 Here she was last night walking back her stated position on gender surgery for the underage.

00:37:13.000 She said yesterday, as we played it on the show, that should be a question for parents.

00:37:15.000 Here she was trying to walk that back last night.

00:37:18.000 She said the law shouldn't get involved in that. 1.00

00:37:20.000 And I just ask you, if you're somebody that's going to be the President of the United States, and you can't stand up against child abuse, how are you going to be able to stand up for anything?

00:37:29.000 I never said that.

00:37:30.000 That is the truth.

00:37:31.000 I never said that.

00:37:32.000 We have it on video.

00:37:33.000 I said that if you have to be 18 to get a tattoo, you should have to be 18 to have anything done to change your gender. 0.99

00:37:43.000 OK, but that moderate position that she laid out yesterday is not a position that Republicans like because it's not a good position.

00:37:49.000 The Republican primary electorate is not in the mood for moderation.

00:37:52.000 You have to be either militant in policy or in affect, which is, again, why Trump, who is a moderate on many of the same policies, ironically, on which Haley is, is way out in front. He might be closer

00:38:02.000 to Haley on policy than he is even to DeSantis, but his affect is always militant. And let's be

00:38:06.000 frank about this, the Republican base is pissed off. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is betting that

00:38:11.000 Republican anger will backfire on Republicans the same way that it did in 2020. It's not a bad bet, by

00:38:17.000 the way, because when you look at what's happening in Congress, Republican militants may lose them

00:38:21.000 the House majority without even another election taking place.

00:38:24.000 So, last night, Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House, who was ousted by Matt Gaetz and company for literally no reason, Mike Johnson has now replaced McCarthy, and the House is running in exactly the same way that it was when McCarthy was the Speaker of the House.

00:38:36.000 So nothing has changed.

00:38:37.000 It was merely a petty grudge match between McCarthy and Gaetz, in which Gaetz decided to depose McCarthy, and McCarthy's like, you know what, I've had enough of this, and he is leaving.

00:38:46.000 He announced yesterday that at the end of his term, he was going to leave.

00:38:50.000 He says, no matter the odds or personal cost, we did the right thing.

00:38:52.000 This is what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

00:38:54.000 It is in this spirit I've decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways.

00:38:57.000 I know my work is only getting started.

00:38:59.000 There's one problem for Republicans. 0.91

00:39:00.000 They just ousted George Santos, who is a fraudster.

00:39:03.000 They just ousted him from Congress.

00:39:05.000 And that seat will likely go Democrat.

00:39:08.000 Kevin McCarthy's seat is going to be up for a special election.

00:39:11.000 Republicans currently hold 221 seats to Democrats 213.

00:39:15.000 That means they can afford three defections on party line votes.

00:39:21.000 With Santos out and McCarthy leaving by the end of the year, well, that means that the buffer dwindles to two votes as early as mid-February.

00:39:32.000 So that means that the Republican majority in the House is now two votes large.

00:39:37.000 So they better hope nobody dies.

00:39:38.000 Nobody has a skiing accident.

00:39:41.000 Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma, chair of the Republican Study Committee, he said it emboldens some individuals at any given time with a specific issue to hold up and stop the entire process.

00:39:49.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has emerged as an actual Republican who wants to get things done, says, I think it makes everything harder.

00:39:55.000 That's everything from appropriations bills to impeachments to passing anything on the House floor.

00:40:01.000 Again, he was ousted for no reason and McCarthy's like, I've had it and I'm out.

00:40:04.000 And you're seeing a lot of Republicans who feel this way.

00:40:05.000 What's what's hilarious is that Democrats are looking at the upcoming election.

00:40:09.000 Many of them are retiring.

00:40:10.000 Many, many more Democrats are retiring in 2024 than Republicans leaving those seats open.

00:40:15.000 But Democrats are leaving because they see that Joe Biden is a weak candidate.

00:40:19.000 Republicans are leaving because they're tired of each other and they're annoyed by the false purity tests that they are engaging upon with each other.

00:40:26.000 So leave it to Republicans to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.

00:40:29.000 That is one thing they are good at.

00:40:30.000 And Democrats are counting on them to do that again.

00:40:33.000 That's precisely what Joe Biden is counting on.

00:40:34.000 So yesterday he was giving a speech, the president, and he said, I'm not the only person who can beat Trump, but I will defeat him.

00:40:41.000 That's following up on his comments.

00:40:42.000 Literally, the only reason he's running is because he thinks Trump is the nominee.

00:40:46.000 Any Democrat who could defeat Donald Trump other than you?

00:40:49.000 Probably 50 of them.

00:40:50.000 You do believe that there are?

00:40:53.000 I'm not the only one, but I will defeat him.

00:40:55.000 Who else do you think could defeat Donald Trump as president?

00:40:57.000 Bye. Door closes and he has to go to the bathroom or something. You know,

00:41:02.000 Jim Messina was one of his campaign managers. He says we can't take chances on anyone else

00:41:06.000 except for Joe Biden. Again, Democrats are just betting that Donald Trump is toxic enough that

00:41:10.000 he'll lose the election. They're not betting that Biden's going to win it. They're betting that

00:41:13.000 Donald Trump is going to lose it. Here's Messina yesterday.

00:41:16.000 He was not opening the door.

00:41:19.000 Joe Biden's going to be our nominee.

00:41:21.000 And, you know, there's lots of people that you and I both know, Andrew, who would love to run for that office.

00:41:25.000 But the truth is they're all unproven.

00:41:27.000 And with Donald Trump, we know that Joe Biden has beaten him the first time.

00:41:31.000 He'll beat him the second time.

00:41:32.000 And we just can't take the risk of an unknown candidate.

00:41:36.000 You know, these folks sometimes just aren't ready for primetime, as we saw with Sarah Palin, with Dan Quayle, with a whole bunch of things.

00:41:43.000 You're seeing right now with DeSantis, who was everyone's Bollywood national candidate in the spotlight, which is too great.

00:41:50.000 Donald Trump admitted last night, Andrea, that he will be a dictator on day one.

00:41:54.000 We just can't take a risk for that.

00:41:56.000 And that's why Joe Biden ran the first time.

00:41:59.000 And it's why he's running the second time.

00:42:01.000 Well, he ran a basement campaign last time and hit a bunch of factors in his favor, including a vast uptick in absentee voting that is not going to be repeated this time around.

00:42:09.000 And so again, the left is relying on Republicans basically running directly headlong.

00:42:13.000 It's not a horrible bet.

00:42:15.000 Republicans jump on rakes on a routine basis.

00:42:17.000 They're basically like that sideshow Bob clip from The Simpsons where he walks on every rake.

00:42:20.000 That's Republicans.

00:42:23.000 Is that a smart bet by Democrats? 0.99

00:42:25.000 Again, the way they think they're going to run against Donald Trump is by claiming that he is a fascist and a criminal. 0.96

00:42:29.000 So here's Morning Joe doing the fascist routine. 0.96

00:42:32.000 All of the right wing media has done.

00:42:34.000 They have gotten a son that had problems with crack.

00:42:38.000 They have chased down every lead they could chase down. 0.99

00:42:42.000 They make fools of themselves time and time again. 0.98

00:42:46.000 But it has worked. 1.00

00:42:48.000 They're lying about the corrupt Biden family.

00:42:53.000 Like Clarence Thomas's wife talking about the Biden crime family should be on barges outside of Gitmo. 0.97

00:43:03.000 Repeating this lie, this fascist attempt, this fascist lie over and over and over again.

00:43:11.000 You look at the polls.

00:43:13.000 It's worked.

00:43:14.000 So now half of Americans see Joe Biden as corrupt as Donald Trump.

00:43:21.000 When, of course, it's such a we could list it for four hours.

00:43:25.000 It is such a preposterous argument.

00:43:27.000 And yet, because fascists are so good at propaganda, it's actually working.

00:43:33.000 Just keep saying it over and over.

00:43:35.000 So just keep saying fascist over and over and over, that's going to win you the election.

00:43:38.000 I have serious, serious doubts that that is, in fact, the case.

00:43:42.000 And the reality is that, as I've said many times before, everything is baked into the cake with regard to Trump.

00:43:47.000 The only question is whether a criminal conviction is baked into the cake.

00:43:49.000 That is literally the only question left in this election cycle.

00:43:52.000 If Donald Trump is criminally convicted, which he likely will be in Washington, D.C., not because he's guilty of the crimes alleged, but because it's a Washington, D.C.

00:43:58.000 jury, if that happens, does that change the poll numbers in any market or serious way?

00:44:03.000 Or everyone already kind of assumes that that's the way that it's going to go?

00:44:08.000 Joe Biden was the default candidate in 2020.

00:44:10.000 Today, because Biden is really bad at this, Trump is the default candidate.

00:44:14.000 And that is a serious problem for Joe Biden and all the people shrieking fascist from the top of the Empire State Building.

00:44:21.000 It is not going to work.

00:44:22.000 Okay, in just one second, we'll get to the latest from Ukraine.

00:44:25.000 Where Democrats can't seem to make the obvious deal that is right in front of them.

00:44:28.000 First, The Ben Shapiro Show is supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university with a vibrant campus in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.

00:44:35.000 Ranked top 20 in the country by Niche.com, GCU is a missional, Christ-centered university striving to foster a culture of community, giving, and impact.

00:44:42.000 GCU's goal is to help you develop into a servant leader who can make a difference through finding your purpose.

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00:44:57.000 You'll have support from your own university counselor who takes a personalized approach to helping you achieve those goals.

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00:45:04.000 Visit gcu.edu today.

00:45:07.000 Okay.

00:45:07.000 Well, meanwhile, the Biden administration having a very tough time pulling the trigger on what is a very obvious deal.

00:45:11.000 So Republicans have basically said at this point, all right, fine.

00:45:15.000 You want your funding for Ukraine?

00:45:17.000 We'll give you your funding for Ukraine, even though we don't like it, if you give us some border security.

00:45:20.000 And Joe Biden is just fighting this thing tooth and nail.

00:45:23.000 He believes that he has a winning proposition with the American people by suggesting that Republicans are out of touch on Ukraine because they want some sort of off-ramp In Ukraine, that if Joe Biden screams freedom over and over without any plan, that this is somehow going to make everything all better.

00:45:38.000 That is not going to work.

00:45:39.000 So here is Joe Biden yesterday.

00:45:40.000 Again, the deal is in front of him.

00:45:42.000 The deal is in front of him.

00:45:43.000 Republicans in the Senate have said border security plus funding for Taiwan, plus funding for Israel, plus funding for Ukraine, and we'll do it.

00:45:49.000 And Joe Biden is threatening to veto that.

00:45:51.000 He's basically having his Democrats in the Senate block that bill.

00:45:54.000 And then he's gonna try and ram through his own naked Ukraine funding vehicle, presumably.

00:46:00.000 Without border security?

00:46:01.000 And he thinks that's a winning proposition for Americans for some reason.

00:46:04.000 I don't understand it.

00:46:05.000 Here is Joe Biden trying to shame Republicans.

00:46:08.000 Make no mistake.

00:46:10.000 Today's vote's gonna be long remembered.

00:46:13.000 And history's gonna judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom's cause.

00:46:18.000 We can't let Putin win.

00:46:21.000 Say it again, we can't let Putin win.

00:46:23.000 It's in our overwhelming national interest and the international interest of all our friends.

00:46:28.000 Any disruption in our ability to supply Ukraine clearly strengthens Putin's position.

00:46:35.000 So again, this idea is that if you don't support his latest spending package without border security, then Americans are going to be very, very angry at you.

00:46:42.000 I'm just wondering why, since we've already spent, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, we've already spent $113 billion in Ukraine.

00:46:50.000 And he's provided no off ramp.

00:46:51.000 Again, Biden's position is always shout broad slogans without any plan.

00:46:55.000 I'm not sure how this is going to work.

00:46:57.000 Biden is accusing Republicans of playing chicken with national security while he is playing chicken with national security.

00:47:01.000 Here he was yesterday.

00:47:03.000 Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security.

00:47:07.000 Holding Ukraine's funding hostages are extreme partisan border policies.

00:47:12.000 Really?

00:47:13.000 They're playing chicken?

00:47:14.000 Why is border security an extreme policy?

00:47:17.000 They're Democrats who back it.

00:47:18.000 Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, he says, well, I mean, what we want is pretty obvious.

00:47:23.000 We would like some border security.

00:47:24.000 Why is this difficult?

00:47:26.000 There is a must-pass bill coming, and I believe in the Senate it's got funding for Israel, funding for Ukraine, and funding for border security.

00:47:34.000 I hope that passes, and I hope in the House they had a writer cutting off all the funds that go to these Ivy Universities that are engaged in anti-Semitism.

00:47:41.000 Where is that bill right now, Senator, and what's in it?

00:47:44.000 So the bill right now is called a Supplemental Funding Bill.

00:47:47.000 It's additional money to be able to help Ukraine, Israel, work in the Pacific, and also border funding.

00:47:54.000 We are actually in the Senate going to stop that bill from moving through because it doesn't have border policy issues.

00:48:00.000 Adding more money to the border just facilitates more people crossing the border faster with an actual change of direction on it.

00:48:06.000 So Senate Republicans will actually put a stop to that today and will say we are glad to be able to have a vote on this as long as we're also solving the issue at our southern border.

00:48:17.000 I mean, again, this is a pretty obvious win for Biden.

00:48:19.000 He gets pretty much what he wants.

00:48:20.000 And then he also gets to say that he facilitated border security.

00:48:23.000 So I don't really see the rationale other than he has an ideological commitment to some form of open borders, which is why he still has Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, which, again, is ridiculous since he's not guaranteeing the security of the homeland in any way, shape or form, suggesting that Joe Biden is actually doing an amazing job on immigration.

00:48:41.000 Let me make this perfectly clear.

00:48:42.000 The immigration system has been broken for decades, and our Department of Homeland Security has been underfunded for years and years.

00:48:51.000 And President Biden has addressed both issues with strength from day one.

00:48:57.000 On the first day of his administration, he presented Congress with legislation to fix our immigration system.

00:49:04.000 And we have submitted to Congress a supplemental funding bill that will resource our department, the heroic Border Patrol agents that you displayed just a few minutes ago, to fund them as they need to address what is an unprecedented level of migration, not only at our southern border, not only in the Western Hemisphere, but throughout the world.

00:49:27.000 Republicans are objecting to the fact that what Mayorkas and Biden want is more money on the border to facilitate faster entry.

00:49:33.000 Not to actually close the border.

00:49:35.000 Not to change border policy.

00:49:36.000 They want more agents to wave people through.

00:49:39.000 That's the idea here.

00:49:40.000 Meanwhile, Mayorkas is expending his political capital suggesting that the governor of Texas is doing something deeply wrong by shuttling migrants from Texas to places like Chicago, New York.

00:49:49.000 Again, it's very hilarious.

00:49:51.000 The Democrats continue to maintain that it's horrible for illegal immigrants to go to major American cities that are dominated by Democrats.

00:49:57.000 That basically, their border policy has to only affect red states.

00:50:01.000 It's amazing.

00:50:03.000 With respect to Governor Pritzker, with whom I communicate on a regular basis, we have provided him with tremendous assistance, not just financially through our shelter and services program, funding that the President achieved, but also in providing technical advice.

00:50:20.000 But let's get to the root.

00:50:22.000 of what Governor Pritzker's challenge is, is that we have another governor in another state that is not cooperating and coordinating with either federal or other local authorities and is unilaterally sending migrants to cities in what I think is an abdication of governance responsibility.

00:50:42.000 You're talking about Greg Abbott?

00:50:45.000 I am indeed.

00:50:47.000 It's the abdication of responsibility, apparently, to send illegal immigrants north.

00:50:52.000 Well, I mean, you guys are doing it every day, but from Mexico, so that's weird.

00:50:57.000 Again, Joe Biden could end all this today by simply saying, okay, we'll change our border policies, and I'll then be considered stronger on the border.

00:51:03.000 I'll have a defense when I'm attacked in a presidential race, but he is so attached to his left flank that he simply can't do it.

00:51:08.000 Meanwhile, over at the university, so the university's made a big boo-boo the day before yesterday.

00:51:13.000 the heads of Harvard, MIT, University of Pennsylvania.

00:51:16.000 They went to the Hill and they just exploded.

00:51:19.000 They did a horrible job.

00:51:21.000 They refused to say whether it is a violation of school policy to shout genocidal chants against Jews.

00:51:27.000 And then they had to walk it back. 0.98

00:51:29.000 So this was obviously ridiculous. 0.76

00:51:31.000 They waited like 24, 48 hours.

00:51:34.000 The problem that they have, as I discussed yesterday on the program,

00:51:36.000 is that the ideology of intersectionality demands the Jews be subjected to chants like this

00:51:41.000 because Jews are not part of the intersectional coalition. 0.77

00:51:43.000 Jews are quote-unquote white people, because they are part of the power hierarchy. 1.00

00:51:47.000 And so when people chant about getting rid of the Jews, well, you know, if they are the oppressed people who are shouting that, can you really target them? 0.90

00:51:55.000 Well, this has led to some backtracking from some of these university presidents well after the fact.

00:52:00.000 Claudine Gay, who is the president of Harvard, she put out a statement saying,

00:52:03.000 quote, there are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard

00:52:06.000 will condone calls for violence against Jewish students.

00:52:08.000 Let me be clear, calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community or any religious or 0.76

00:52:12.000 ethnic group are vile. They have no place at Harvard. Those who threaten our Jewish students 1.00

00:52:15.000 will be held to account.

00:52:16.000 Now, again, she's living herself some wiggle room there. 0.99

00:52:19.000 Because if you say, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, which is a call for genocide against Jews in that region, then apparently that's okay. 0.99

00:52:26.000 Or intifada revolution, that apparently is okay. 0.99

00:52:30.000 Only if you shout straight up, I want to kill that Jew, would Claudine Gay get involved. 1.00

00:52:36.000 The reality is that these universities have very strict speech codes. 0.99

00:52:39.000 If I say, boys are not girls, I might be brought up in front of the academic senate at these universities.

00:52:44.000 But suddenly they're relying on their free speech principles we pointed out yesterday.

00:52:47.000 It's absolute nonsense.

00:52:49.000 The blowback to these presidents was in fact strong from most sides of the aisle.

00:52:54.000 Even some Democrats were going after them.

00:52:56.000 So, Representative Jake Auchincloss, as well as Seth Moulton, both from Massachusetts, they put out a statement saying, Harvard ranks last out of 248 universities for support of free speech.

00:53:03.000 When it comes to denouncing anti-Semitism, suddenly the university has anxieties about the First Amendment.

00:53:07.000 It rings hollow. 0.88

00:53:08.000 Well, yes, even the White House went after these university presidents, putting out a statement suggesting that this is ridiculous.

00:53:15.000 According to Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates, he said, quote, it's unbelievable this needs to be said.

00:53:20.000 Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.

00:53:23.000 Any statement that advocates for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting.

00:53:27.000 We should all stand firmly against them.

00:53:28.000 Only after the left signed in did these presidents start to back down.

00:53:34.000 Here was the University of Pennsylvania president who was caught on video kind of smirking as she was asked this question.

00:53:40.000 She looks quite contrite now because what the... She's blinking in Morse code.

00:53:45.000 Please leave me in my job.

00:53:47.000 That's what she's blinking in Morse code here. 0.78

00:53:50.000 There was a moment during yesterday's congressional hearing on anti-Semitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies.

00:54:04.000 In that moment, I was focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S.

00:54:10.000 Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.

00:54:17.000 I was not focused on, but I should have been.

00:54:21.000 The irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.

00:54:31.000 It's evil. 0.58

00:54:33.000 Plain and simple.

00:54:35.000 I want to be clear. 0.84

00:54:36.000 A call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening.

00:54:41.000 Deeply so.

00:54:42.000 Why did it take 24 hours to make this? 0.79

00:54:44.000 I'm sorry, it's ridiculous. 0.56

00:54:46.000 Here's the reality.

00:54:48.000 All these presidents were saying this stuff because they believe this stuff.

00:54:51.000 And now they're being forced to back off the point because there are a lot of donors who don't particularly like it,

00:54:55.000 but they still believe this stuff.

00:54:57.000 In fact, they were put in these positions because they believe this stuff.

00:55:00.000 This was the litmus test in the first place. 1.00

00:55:02.000 And again, the stupidity, if you want to see the stupid person's version of this ridiculous argument, 1.00

00:55:07.000 all you have to do is tune over to The View, where Sonny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg are rushing to the 1.00

00:55:12.000 university's defense, claiming legal knowledge.

00:55:14.000 Again, Sonny Hostin, if she's your lawyer, man, you better get ready for some prison time, because she is the world's worst lawyer. 0.95

00:55:19.000 Here's Sonny Hostin trying to claim that legally speaking, these presidents are not allowed to take action against students who are calling for anti-Jewish genocide.

00:55:28.000 Naturally, it's Whoopi Goldberg and Sonny Hostin leading the charge on this one.

00:55:31.000 Of course, of course.

00:55:32.000 Because Whoopi is the same person who said that Hitler was not a racist when he went after the Jews because Jews were white people and it was white-on-white violence. 1.00

00:55:39.000 Again, they believe the stupid people version of what all these presidents believe. 0.99

00:55:42.000 Here they were trying to defend the universities. 1.00

00:55:45.000 College is the perfect place to have these sorts of uncomfortable conversations.

00:55:51.000 Jewish students don't feel comfortable on college campuses.

00:55:54.000 Even the ACLU said that the Supreme Court cannot prevent speech that is likely to provide a hostile response.

00:56:00.000 If I said this about any other community on earth other than Jews, I would be cancelled ten times to Sunday. 1.00

00:56:06.000 That's not true.

00:56:13.000 Because it's the most annoying, one of the most annoying things about the Constitution

00:56:18.000 is that as a student, if I'm looking out and I'm watching somebody put up that noose and

00:56:24.000 I'm feeling uncomfortable, they're not, you know.

00:56:27.000 If it's in a public place, it's fine.

00:56:29.000 If it's in front of your students' door, then that's different.

00:56:31.000 But here's from your student's door, then that's different.

00:56:35.000 And the law is the law.

00:56:39.000 The law is the law.

00:56:40.000 Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin. 1.00

00:56:42.000 People are ridiculous. 0.99

00:56:43.000 The law does not apply. 0.99

00:56:45.000 The First Amendment standard, unfortunately, is not the standard on college campuses.

00:56:48.000 I've been banned from colleges for saying some of the things that I say.

00:56:52.000 This is such a lie. 0.82

00:56:52.000 By the way, if you're a student, you put up a noose outside a black student's dorm at a major university, not only will you be canceled socially, you'll be expelled from the university. 0.82

00:57:00.000 We all know this. 0.85

00:57:01.000 This is a fact. 1.00

00:57:02.000 Whoopi Goldberg is a liar and she's stupid to boot. 1.00

00:57:04.000 I don't know whether she's lying or whether she's freaking dumb. 1.00

00:57:07.000 But the fact is that between Whoopi Goldberg and Sonny Haas and suddenly becoming First Amendment attorneys and their obvious crossover with the fact that they are kind of on the side of the Hamas next year. 0.96

00:57:17.000 And when I say kind of, I mean pretty obviously on the side of the Hamas next year. 0.97

00:57:20.000 That's what's happening.

00:57:22.000 Suddenly, the same people who hate free speech, the minute that their side is threatened by the standards that they themselves have set, suddenly they're free speech advocates.

00:57:31.000 It's amazing.

00:57:32.000 Truly incredible stuff.

00:57:33.000 Now again, if you want to set a free speech standard at these schools that anybody can say pretty much anything, that we're going to broaden the Overton window of behavior to include many more quote-unquote extreme viewpoints, that's fair.

00:57:45.000 But you know what's not?

00:57:46.000 These are the most restrictive places in America in terms of speech codes.

00:57:51.000 And suddenly, there's only one thing that is somehow immune to these speech codes, and that is when you're calling for the extermination of Jews in the Middle East.

00:57:58.000 When you're calling for the removal of Jews from that entire region.

00:58:01.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now, you're not going to want to miss it.

00:58:04.000 We'll be joined online by Elise Stefanik, she's House Republican Conference Chair.

00:58:07.000 She was the congresswoman who was grilling these presidents of major American universities. 0.92

00:58:11.000 If you're not a member, become a member!

00:58:12.000 Use code SHAPIRO at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 07, 2023

The Fourth Republican FIGHT NIGHT

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