The Ben Shapiro Show - The Fusion GPS Scandal | Ep. 457

00:00:00.000 Is the Fusion GPS scandal about to blow up?

00:00:03.000 Plus, Democrats shut down the government, but the media are about to blame Republicans.

00:00:06.000 And we will check the mailbag.

00:00:08.000 So many things to do today.

00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:10.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show. 0.98

00:00:16.000 By the way, I didn't even mention the fact that President Trump apparently, according to certain reports, asked a porn star if she could spank him with a magazine cover with his face on it. 0.94

00:00:25.000 So we'll have to talk about that as well. 0.94

00:00:27.000 That is the most Freudian thing.

00:00:29.000 I mean, that's so Freudian that somewhere Oedipus was like, I'm out, man.

00:00:33.000 I can't.

00:00:34.000 Electro was like, no, we're done.

00:00:35.000 But we'll get to all of that in just a second, why no one cares.

00:00:39.000 But first,

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00:01:55.000 All right.

00:01:55.000 So the big news over the evening, over the course of the evening, was that Republicans had called for the release of a particular memo.

00:02:01.000 So what exactly is this memo?

00:02:03.000 So according to Sarah Carter, who is a national security reporter, she says, quote,

00:02:25.000 We're good.

00:02:40.000 They were stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

00:02:46.000 The House Intelligence Committee passed the motion along party lines Thursday to make the classified report alleging extensive FISA abuse related to the controversial dossier available to all House members.

00:02:56.000 The report apparently contains information regarding the dossier that alleges President Trump and members of his team colluded with the Russians in the 2016 presidential election.

00:03:04.000 Some members of the House viewed the document in a secure room on Thursday.

00:03:07.000 So, what is likely to be in the document?

00:03:09.000 Well, one of the big questions about how this entire collusion investigation got started at the FBI is that Fusion GPS was compiling an OPPO research file paid for by Democrats.

00:03:18.000 They funneled that to Obama's FBI.

00:03:20.000 Obama's FBI then took that and used it as an excuse to go get a FISA warrant against American citizen Carter Page.

00:03:26.000 So they didn't do it on their own recognizance, the FBI.

00:03:29.000 They didn't do it because they were hearing from great sources.

00:03:32.000 Basically, they got an op-ed research dump from Hillary Clinton's team at Fusion GPS, and then they used that as an excuse to go after Trump's team.

00:03:38.000 That is the allegation.

00:03:39.000 I'll explain in a second why I think there are at least two holes in this allegation that need to be filled.

00:03:44.000 In order for the entire Mueller investigation to fall apart.

00:03:47.000 But you can see the Republicans are really starting to push this hard.

00:03:49.000 So Matt Goetz is a Florida congressman and he said yesterday we need to quote-unquote release the memo.

00:03:54.000 They keep saying release the memo.

00:03:55.000 There's a hashtag that was trending, release the memo.

00:03:57.000 They say they want the memo released to the entire public.

00:03:59.000 That would really be up to the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee.

00:04:03.000 I'll explain in a second why I think that this argument is a little bit flawed.

00:04:06.000 Here's what Goetz had to say.

00:04:09.000 Well, Liz, the allegations contained in this important intelligence document go to the very foundations of our democracy, and they require an immediate release to the public, in my opinion.

00:04:20.000 Unfortunately, I cannot talk about the specific facts contained within this memo.

00:04:24.000 I can only share my observation that if the American people knew what was happening, if they saw the contents of this memo,

00:04:32.000 A lot would become clear about the information that I've been talking about on television for the last several months, and so I am calling on our leadership to immediately hold a vote on the floor of the House to make public the key contents of this intelligence memo regarding the FBI, the Department of Justice, and President Trump.

00:04:49.000 Okay, Getz is not the only person saying this.

00:04:51.000 Also, Mark Meadows, a member of the House Freedom Caucus from North Carolina, he's saying much the same thing, that this memo is shocking and that it needs to be released.

00:04:58.000 I'm here to tell all of America tonight that I am shocked to read exactly what is taking place.

00:05:06.000 I would think that it would never happen in a country that loves freedom and democracy like this country.

00:05:14.000 It is time that we become transparent in all of this, and I am calling on our leadership to make this available so that all Americans can judge for themselves.

00:05:26.000 OK, so there he is, and this is what Republicans are trying to trot out, the essence being that this memo needs to be released.

00:05:33.000 Now, Democrats are pushing back, saying the memo is basically selectively put together by Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee, the Republican congressman from California.

00:05:42.000 They're also suggesting, and I think this is where there are a couple of open—so here are the couple open questions.

00:05:47.000 I say that the narrative is basically from Republicans that a FISA warrant was issued against American citizen Carter Bage on the basis of OPPO research for political reasons.

00:05:55.000 I have two questions about this particular narrative, and I think both need to be answered.

00:05:58.000 The first is, let's say that all of this is true.

00:06:02.000 Let's say that the FBI began an investigation into Carter Page on the basis of Democratic oppo research.

00:06:07.000 And let's say that Barack Obama was behind all of that because he wanted to finish Donald Trump for the general election campaign.

00:06:13.000 He wanted to knock Trump out of the race, and he wanted Hillary Clinton to win.

00:06:17.000 Why didn't we hear anything about the Russian dossier until the election?

00:06:21.000 Right?

00:06:21.000 Why didn't we hear that?

00:06:21.000 Why wasn't it leaked?

00:06:23.000 Why was it that the FBI didn't make an announcement about it?

00:06:25.000 Right?

00:06:25.000 James Comey came out and made an announcement about Hillary being prosecuted, and then not prosecuted, and then prosecuted, and then not prosecuted.

00:06:30.000 But we never heard word one, really, about Russian collusion directly from the FBI during that entire debacle of an election.

00:06:37.000 So, if this was all just a setup, where Fusion GPS was working hand-in-glove with the FBI and Loretta Lynch's DOJ and the Obama administration, why is it that we didn't hear about the Russian dossier, really, until January of 2017?

00:06:49.000 So, that's question I have, number one.

00:06:51.000 Question I have, number two, is if the idea here is that the FISA warrants against Carter Page was gathered under false pretenses, that basically the FBI and the DOJ were working hand-in-glove with the Hillary campaign, there's one way we can find this out.

00:07:04.000 The president of the United States has the ability, as the head of the executive branch, to declassify any single document that he wants.

00:07:10.000 Why won't he just declassify the FISA application?

00:07:13.000 He could just declassify it.

00:07:14.000 He could just say, listen, FISA application demonstrates this whole thing is a bunch of nonsense.

00:07:19.000 I'm declassifying that application.

00:07:20.000 And it shows you that the FISA application was based on all of this democratic nonsense that was taken up and used by the Obama administration.

00:07:28.000 Why doesn't he just do that?

00:07:29.000 So, there are people like Sean Davis over at The Federalist.

00:07:31.000 He and I were debating this on Twitter this morning.

00:07:33.000 He was saying, well, then it would look like Trump was interfering in the investigation.

00:07:36.000 To which I say, everyone on the left already thinks Trump is interfering in the investigation.

00:07:40.000 I mean, this is half of what this is about.

00:07:42.000 Them thinking that he fired Comey to interfere with the investigation, or that he pressured Rod Rosenstein in order to interfere with the investigation.

00:07:49.000 So, I'm not going to lay it on Trump's tact.

00:07:51.000 I think that's not a good enough excuse.

00:07:52.000 I don't think that Trump is tactful, and he really doesn't want to look like he's interfering, and therefore he's not declassifying the memo.

00:07:59.000 Maybe that's what's happening, but at the very least, wouldn't you have somebody look at the actual FISA application and leak that to the press?

00:08:04.000 Yes.

00:08:21.000 The length to which the FBI and DOJ go to investigate certain matters is a lot further than they will go to investigate other matters.

00:08:26.000 So it looks like Democrats don't want this memo to get out.

00:08:28.000 It looks like Republicans don't really want the FISA application to get out.

00:08:32.000 Because if the FISA application gets out, it puts an end, maybe, to all of the rumors about the FISA application being based on Hillary Clinton oppo research.

00:08:40.000 So those are my two questions about this particular narrative.

00:08:44.000 Narrative being that the dossier, the Russian dossier compiled by Carter Page, or compiled rather by Christopher Steele, the spy under the auspices of Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS at the behest of Hillary Clinton, that that was used as the DOJ and FBI's excuse to go after Trump.

00:08:59.000 I think there are a couple of holes in that.

00:09:01.000 Now, is it quite possible that Fusion GPS is doing something corrupt here?

00:09:05.000 Is it quite possible that Fusion GPS was working with the FBI and DOJ?

00:09:08.000 Sure.

00:09:09.000 Of course that's possible.

00:09:10.000 And we have another story today that says that the Fusion GPS group was trying to leak, at Hillary's behest, all of the information in the dossier in the last weeks of the election in order to finish Trump.

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00:10:50.000 Okay, so, is it possible that the Russians were using Fusion GPS as a cutout to funnel bad information about Trump to the FBI or the DOJ?

00:11:00.000 Lee Smith has a very good piece in tablet.com basically suggesting this.

00:11:04.000 Earlier this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein released a partially redacted transcript of Glenn Simpson's August 22, 2017 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:11:13.000 Maybe it's a coincidence that just last week, Simpson himself, co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based strategic communications firm Fusion GPS, that assembled and distributed the now-notorious anti-Trump dossier, wrote a New York Times op-ed calling for Republican members of the committee to release his testimony.

00:11:27.000 Feinstein said at first she was pressured to release the document.

00:11:29.000 Now she says she wasn't, and her statement was misunderstood.

00:11:32.000 The whole fight over the Simpson transcript is just part of a broader fight about what exactly was in the dossier.

00:11:37.000 Was the dossier used to garner the FISA warrant against Carter Page in the first place?

00:11:43.000 And here's the problem, right?

00:11:45.000 Here's the problem.

00:11:46.000 Lee Smith gets to the root of it.

00:11:47.000 He says, if the FBI and the DOJ used a piece of opposition research paid for by a political campaign as evidence for a warrant to intercept the communications of a rival campaign, and the questions asked by congressional investigators suggest they did,

00:11:59.000 We are now living in a very different America than the one that generations of civil libertarians and small government conservatives alike desire to maintain, and which large majorities in Congress have repeatedly voted for.

00:12:08.000 The DOJ, the FBI, perhaps the CIA, would be embroiled in a scandal likely to have long-lasting, sweeping consequences for intelligence collection, national security, and the safety and privacy of American citizens, to say nothing of how it will demoralize federal law enforcement, which will appear to be mired in partisanship and political corruption.

00:12:23.000 So that is the big question.

00:12:25.000 Right, that is the big question, is whether the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the Obama administration, are wiretapping Trump, supposedly, at the behest of Democrats, essentially.

00:12:37.000 So that is a big problem.

00:12:38.000 On the other side, there's a big problem, which is that there are a bunch of people who are still trying to track down a lot of the allegations that are in the Russian dossier, that are in the Christopher Steele collusion dossier.

00:12:48.000 Glenn Simpson, you know, the Democrats have voted to release the transcript of Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, which is the Apple research firm.

00:12:56.000 The House Intelligence Committee voted to release the transcript of Simpson's interview with them, and according to Business Insider, the House investigators' line of questioning touched upon subjects the Senate Judiciary Committee did not delve into.

00:13:07.000 Democrats basically tried to lay out a series of breadcrumbs for the media to follow, right?

00:13:11.000 What were you finding, Glenn Simpson?

00:13:13.000 And then Glenn Simpson would come out and say, well, what we were finding was financial impropriety, and kind of trying to hint at what it was that was in the dossier that was substantiated.

00:13:21.000 So, there's a lot going on in this whole story.

00:13:24.000 And there's even more going on now that we know, according to Powerline blog, that the House Intelligence Committee transcript shows that Glenn Simpson tried to leak all of the information in the Russian dossier to the press right before the election cycle, which is not surprising since the DNC was paying for the dossier in the first place.

00:13:40.000 The Fusion GPS apparently doesn't have much on Trump, but that said, they were trying to leak it before the election.

00:13:45.000 So there's a lot of dirty business going on here.

00:13:47.000 None of it has come out.

00:13:49.000 But there are two ways to solve this, right?

00:13:50.000 There are two ways to solve this.

00:13:51.000 One, the House can release all the information that it has.

00:13:54.000 They can vote to do that.

00:13:55.000 They can release not only the Glenn Simpson memo, the transcript, but also the memo that they're talking about releasing.

00:14:00.000 They should release it.

00:14:01.000 And number two, Trump himself can end this right now.

00:14:03.000 All he has to do is release that FISA application.

00:14:05.000 So I'm calling on President Trump.

00:14:06.000 Release the FISA application.

00:14:08.000 Let's find out what it was that caused the FBI to investigate Carter Page.

00:14:11.000 Because all the speculation, all the rumor mongering, all the suggestion by people on the right that Trump is just exercising propriety,

00:14:21.000 That's not Trump's habit.

00:14:22.000 Okay?

00:14:23.000 Trump is not a guy who cares much about propriety.

00:14:25.000 And let's be real about this.

00:14:26.000 If Trump were to release that FISA application, if it were to say, Fusion GPS memo is the basis of the FISA application, it basically ends the Mueller investigation right then.

00:14:35.000 Right?

00:14:35.000 Basically, everybody on the right goes, okay, well then this was all set up from the very beginning.

00:14:39.000 And that's why Trump should do it.

00:14:41.000 OK, speaking of things Trump should do, Trump is actually handling this whole government shutdown relatively well.

00:14:46.000 So the government is going to shut down today.

00:14:48.000 It's going to shut down because Democrats believe that it is in their political interest to filibuster the continuing resolution to fund the government.

00:14:55.000 There's not a new budget on the table.

00:14:56.000 We're talking about a continuing resolution that funds the government for 30 more days as a sweetener, as an attempt to cudgel Democrats into voting for the continuing resolution.

00:15:04.000 Republicans are putting in there a six-year funding for CHIP, which is the Children's Health Insurance Program, as we discussed yesterday.

00:15:11.000 They also are not putting in there anything about DACA.

00:15:13.000 They want that to be a separate negotiation.

00:15:15.000 They want a negotiation with Democrats over what happens to the Dreamers.

00:15:18.000 They don't want that included in the continuing resolution.

00:15:20.000 Democrats are saying, we will not vote for anything unless it includes basically amnesty

00:15:25.000 All right.

00:15:46.000 What are essentially green cards for illegal immigrants.

00:15:48.000 And Trump is right.

00:15:49.000 Trump came out yesterday and said, listen, Democrats want a shutdown.

00:15:52.000 They want a shutdown because they want to change the subject from the fact that the tax cuts are working really well, from the fact that things are going relatively well on the foreign policy front.

00:16:00.000 They want the government shutdown.

00:16:01.000 There's no question the Democrats do want the government shutdown, by the way.

00:16:04.000 Because Republicans... Here's the funny part.

00:16:08.000 If Democrats didn't want the government shutdown, all they have to do is shut up.

00:16:13.000 Really, that's all they have to do.

00:16:14.000 The reason being that Republicans don't even have a majority in the Senate to vote in favor of continuing resolution.

00:16:20.000 So right now, Republicans have 51 votes as soon as the Alabama seat flips.

00:16:25.000 I think he was sworn in, so I guess they have 51 votes in the Senate now.

00:16:27.000 Republicans have 51 votes in the Senate.

00:16:29.000 They actually don't have 51 votes for the continuing resolution.

00:16:33.000 So all Democrats would have to do is say, listen, it's on the Republicans.

00:16:35.000 Whatever they pass, it's on them.

00:16:37.000 Right?

00:16:37.000 We're not going to be complicit in passing anything Trump does.

00:16:39.000 You know this.

00:16:40.000 So it's on the Republicans to pass their own stuff.

00:16:42.000 The problem is Democrats are openly stating that they want to filibuster the continuing resolution.

00:16:47.000 So if every Republican voted for the continuing resolution in the Senate, they had 51 votes, that's still not enough because you need 60 votes to break a filibuster.

00:16:54.000 And there is no reconciliation process when it comes to continuing resolutions.

00:16:58.000 The reason that you could pass the tax cuts with 51 votes is because there's a process that we've discussed often on the show.

00:17:03.000 The process is that you go to the Senate Rules Committee, basically, there's a Senate Rules Arbiter, and you say to them, we want to pass a law that does not increase the federal deficit and only changes current federal law.

00:17:14.000 And that we can do with 51 votes.

00:17:16.000 And then the arbitrator essentially rules, the Senate rules guy rules that that's okay and you can pass with 51.

00:17:21.000 That's not the way it works with the continuing resolution, which inevitably increases the deficit.

00:17:25.000 That's what it's there to do.

00:17:26.000 Right?

00:17:26.000 It is literally there to pay off a deficit that already exists.

00:17:29.000 That's what continuing resolutions are for.

00:17:31.000 It's to pay off obligations that have already been accrued.

00:17:34.000 I think so.

00:17:57.000 And Republicans caved.

00:17:58.000 They said, no, we're going to be blamed for this.

00:17:59.000 That would just be terrible.

00:18:00.000 Now, Democrats are leading a shutdown effort.

00:18:02.000 And the same people who are screaming at Republicans for leading a shutdown effort in 2013 are saying that a shutdown effort would be awesome.

00:18:09.000 They're now saying it would be great.

00:18:10.000 So here's Trump saying Democrats want a shutdown.

00:18:13.000 I really believe the Democrats want a shutdown to get off the subject of the tax cuts because they've worked so well.

00:18:19.000 Nobody thought, including the Democrats, it could work this well.

00:18:23.000 They've been so good that I think the Democrats would like to see us shut down in order to get off that subject.

00:18:28.000 That is not a good subject for them, the tax cuts, because of the way they've worked.

00:18:32.000 OK, and he is exactly correct about this.

00:18:34.000 Paul Ryan is using this as a club to beat Democrats, saying, listen, they won't even vote to fund the military.

00:18:38.000 They won't vote to fund children's health insurance. 1.00

00:18:40.000 They're garbage. 1.00

00:18:41.000 I mean, this is Paul Ryan's case. 1.00

00:18:43.000 Senator Schumer, do not shut down the federal government.

00:18:48.000 Do not jeopardize funding for our military and for our national security.

00:18:53.000 Do not jeopardize funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program.

00:18:58.000 It is risky.

00:18:59.000 It is reckless.

00:19:01.000 And it is wrong.

00:19:03.000 This is a strategy that Senator Schumer himself has called governmental chaos.

00:19:09.000 We sincerely hope, we sincerely hope, that cooler heads will prevail.

00:19:14.000 Okay, so, you know, this is exactly—it's so funny watching this now happen in reverse, and it is happening in reverse.

00:19:19.000 This is exactly what Democrats were saying in 2013, except they were also calling Republicans terrorists.

00:19:24.000 Mitch McConnell doing the same thing, saying Democrats are shutting down the government over illegal immigration.

00:19:28.000 Good luck with that one.

00:19:30.000 So what our friends on the other side are saying here is they're prepared to shut down the government over the issue of illegal immigration.

00:19:43.000 Now on that issue, there's a bipartisan interest in solving the DACA problem, but the president has given us until March.

00:19:54.000 Last time I looked, this was January.

00:19:59.000 My colleagues, where is the urgency here?

00:20:21.000 Well, they've reversed themselves on all this.

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00:21:50.000 Okay, so...

00:21:51.000 Speaking of absolute irresponsibility, so Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who's leading this filibuster fight, let's flashback all the way back to 2013.

00:22:00.000 I know, we have to go back a really long way.

00:22:02.000 This is all five years ago.

00:22:04.000 Chuck Schumer, like pretty much this date in 2013, was going around suggesting that anyone who shut down the government over an ancillary issue

00:22:14.000 is doing so for their own political purposes.

00:22:16.000 And listen, what about us Democrats?

00:22:19.000 What if we Democrats had shut down the government over like illegal immigration?

00:22:22.000 Wouldn't people go crazy?

00:22:22.000 He literally said this in 2013.

00:22:24.000 Persuaded my caucus to say I'm going to shut the government down.

00:22:27.000 I'm going to not pay our bills unless I get my way. 1.00

00:22:31.000 It's a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis. 1.00

00:22:37.000 Idiocy, confrontation, and paralysis. 1.00

00:22:38.000 He actually did spell out in another one of these interviews, he actually did spell out, he said, listen, I could have shut down the government over immigration reform, but I'd never do that. 0.99

00:22:47.000 Now it's 2018.

00:22:48.000 Fast forward to 2018 and here we are.

00:22:50.000 It's just, it is an amazing, amazing thing.

00:22:52.000 So, who's gonna get blamed for this, right?

00:22:53.000 How is the political fallout gonna play?

00:22:55.000 Here's the truth.

00:22:55.000 I don't think people care about government shutdowns.

00:22:57.000 I don't think they cared in 2013.

00:22:58.000 I don't think they care in 2018.

00:23:00.000 I think the press cares.

00:23:01.000 I think people in Washington, D.C.

00:23:02.000 care because their livelihood goes away.

00:23:04.000 I think a bunch of people in Washington, D.C.

00:23:06.000 who cannot function if the government doesn't function, like, listen, I have a happy life.

00:23:09.000 If the government starts functioning the way that I want it to and it stops being a big deal in my life, I'll just talk about other stuff.

00:23:14.000 I'll just talk about the culture, which I prefer to talk about anyway.

00:23:17.000 I'll sit here and I'll talk about Plato and Aristotle and Aquinas.

00:23:19.000 I'll do all those things.

00:23:20.000 It'll be great.

00:23:21.000 Our listenership may not be as high, but it'll be awesome.

00:23:23.000 Okay, I'm happy to do all of those things.

00:23:25.000 But if you're in Washington, D.C., if you are the political press and you spend all day covering the minutiae of all the crap that our politicians do, and then the threat is, ooh, the government's gonna shut down, ooh, we're all gonna die, then this is a big deal to you.

00:23:39.000 Is this a deal?

00:23:40.000 Is this a big deal to some guy in Idaho?

00:23:42.000 Is it a big deal to you?

00:23:43.000 Okay, here's the reality.

00:23:44.000 Like 90% of all government function continues during a government shutdown.

00:23:48.000 You're still going to get your social security checks.

00:23:50.000 Nothing actually stops.

00:23:52.000 The military continues to function.

00:23:54.000 If a government shutdown continues entirely, then at some point the Congress can shift funding around that's already available.

00:24:03.000 They can make cuts.

00:24:05.000 I'm all in favor of government shutdowns.

00:24:06.000 I really have no problem with government shutdowns.

00:24:08.000 The government spends $4 trillion a year.

00:24:10.000 It seems to me that a little shutdown wouldn't be the end of the world.

00:24:12.000 It would be us canceling their credit card for a month or two.

00:24:14.000 I don't think that's the worst thing that could possibly happen.

00:24:17.000 But everybody in the political press thinks it's the worst thing that's going to happen.

00:24:20.000 They think for some reason that if we do a government shutdown and we don't fund continuing payment of our debt, that people are going to sell our debt on the open market.

00:24:27.000 It's going to crush our credit rating.

00:24:28.000 Really, where are those dollars going to rush?

00:24:29.000 Are they going to go invest in Italy?

00:24:32.000 You want to go invest in the euro?

00:24:34.000 That's not going to happen.

00:24:35.000 Because everybody knows the government shutdown is going to end.

00:24:37.000 So this is why both parties are sort of sanguine.

00:24:39.000 They're acting as though it's the end of the world.

00:24:41.000 But both parties are kind of sanguine about the government shutdown itself.

00:24:44.000 So how will it pay off politically?

00:24:46.000 You know, the Democrats will blame the Republicans.

00:24:48.000 The Republicans will blame the Democrats.

00:24:49.000 People in the middle will probably blame the Democrats because they'll say the Democrats are shutting down the government over illegal immigration.

00:24:54.000 Then they'll cut some sort of deal next week and we'll all be done and that'll be the end of it.

00:24:57.000 Republicans didn't lose seats in 2014.

00:25:00.000 They gained seats in 2014 after the government shutdown.

00:25:03.000 So this idea that government shutdowns inevitably hurt the party perceived to have been responsible for the shutdown, obviously is untrue. 0.55

00:25:10.000 The only reason to talk about this is to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Democrats.

00:25:13.000 Because in reality, do I think this is going anywhere? 0.81

00:25:15.000 No, I don't.

00:25:16.000 I think that in the end, the Democrats will come around, Republicans will toss them some sort of bone.

00:25:21.000 It won't be DACA, but it'll be something else.

00:25:23.000 Or they'll cut a DACA deal, a last-minute DACA deal, and they'll say, OK, a little bit more border security, they'll go back to the original Lindsey Graham plan, or something slightly more lucrative than that.

00:25:32.000 Democrats don't want this thing continuing out for a full month.

00:25:35.000 And neither do Republicans.

00:25:36.000 So that means that this thing will be over inside a week, I think.

00:25:38.000 I think the chances that this thing continues very long are low, to my great chagrin.

00:25:42.000 I prefer that it continue forever.

00:25:45.000 Federal government shutdown sounds awesome to me.

00:25:47.000 Like, except for military function, I don't think the government should be doing nearly anything it's currently doing.

00:25:50.000 OK.

00:25:51.000 Now, on the immigration topic.

00:25:53.000 There's something that's been happening on immigration.

00:25:54.000 It's really nasty and it's really negative and it ties into how conservatives portray their position on immigration.

00:26:02.000 There are two really conservative positions on immigration.

00:26:05.000 Position number one is the sort of libertarian position on immigration.

00:26:07.000 This is my position.

00:26:08.000 My position is that people should be allowed to work wherever they want.

00:26:11.000 If they want to come into the United States to work and not take welfare, I am fine with that.

00:26:15.000 If people want to come in and become citizens and we don't actually have a welfare system, I'm fine with that.

00:26:19.000 But if you just want to come here and work and not vote and not take public benefits,

00:26:23.000 I don't care.

00:26:24.000 That's cool.

00:26:25.000 It prevents corporations from outsourcing to foreign shores.

00:26:29.000 Because that's the reality.

00:26:30.000 When you increase the price of labor here in the United States, corporations start doing labor elsewhere.

00:26:35.000 They start purchasing their labor in China or India or Mexico.

00:26:39.000 So my position is very libertarian on immigration, but it is not libertarian when it comes to the idea of people who become citizens and what their culture is, since we now have a very big government and we have a government that has essentially no constitutional boundaries anymore.

00:26:52.000 The government can spend whatever it wants.

00:26:53.000 It can force you to buy whatever it wants.

00:26:55.000 That being the case, who we allow into the country does matter, and that's why we should, I think, pretty stringently screen for ideology and philosophy and skills.

00:27:03.000 I think that that would be a worthwhile thing.

00:27:05.000 That is position number one.

00:27:06.000 The libertarian, but I would say border security strong position.

00:27:10.000 Then there is position number two.

00:27:11.000 This is sort of the Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump position, and that is that bringing in foreign labor is

00:27:16.000 Allowing an undercutting of the American workforce, that we have to protect American citizens from the predations of people who want to come here and work for less money, that you're born in America, therefore you deserve a job, and the idea is that we'll artificially boost the price of labor by preventing immigration into the country. 0.88

00:27:31.000 So, let's make immigration solely based on skills, or if it is solely based on—if it's not solely based on skills, then we should shut down immigration altogether.

00:27:42.000 Now, both of these arguments can be made without reference to race, ethnicity.

00:27:46.000 Both of these arguments can be made without reference to country of origin.

00:27:51.000 You can make the strict immigration argument without reference to country of origin.

00:27:54.000 You can just say, whoever's qualified gets in.

00:27:56.000 You can make the libertarian argument, certainly, without government of origin or country of origin.

00:27:59.000 You can just say, whoever wants to come in can come in, so long as they're not taking my money.

00:28:04.000 Both of these arguments can fairly, and I think should fairly, be made on the basis of non-bigotry, non-discrimination on the basis of place of origin.

00:28:14.000 Unfortunately, there is a tendency on the right to shift into some rhetoric that borders on the bigoted.

00:28:21.000 And I think that, obviously, the bleephole comments that Trump made a week and a half ago are indicative of the ease with which some people move into this space.

00:28:27.000 Tucker Carlson, on his show last night, he dropped a question that I thought was

00:28:32.000 Particularly inappropriate, and I don't think actually a good question.

00:28:36.000 I like Tucker a lot.

00:28:37.000 I think Tucker does a really good show.

00:28:38.000 He's super talented, but his perspective on immigration does a disservice, I think, to conservatives on immigration.

00:28:45.000 How many big tech companies were started by people from Central and South America, Latin America?

00:28:54.000 So, right now, I'm sitting in Phoenix, Arizona, very close to a company called Fortis, who was—that was started by a gentleman from Panama.

00:29:02.000 It's one of our top engineering companies in this community.

00:29:06.000 And they actually are one of our largest employers of at-risk veterans.

00:29:11.000 Which is a wonderful success story.

00:29:12.000 I bet, I bet.

00:29:13.000 He's a great guy and the company's great, but how many big tech companies were started by the immigrants that you're talking about?

00:29:20.000 Okay, so Tucker didn't like the answer that he got there.

00:29:22.000 The woman actually gave a pretty good answer.

00:29:24.000 No one has that statistic, by the way.

00:29:26.000 If I asked Tucker how many people from Norway have started companies in the United States, Tucker wouldn't have that answer either.

00:29:31.000 If I asked him how many people from Britain have started great companies in the United States, he'd say, oh, I'll bet a lot.

00:29:35.000 He wouldn't have that number.

00:29:36.000 Nobody has that number.

00:29:37.000 Right, so the problem with what Tucker is saying there is, number one, very often it's the descendants of people from places of, you know, from bleephole countries, supposedly, who actually create a lot of these companies, right? 0.93

00:29:48.000 I created a company.

00:29:48.000 My great-grandparents came here in 1907.

00:29:50.000 My grandmother had a company. 0.68

00:29:52.000 But it wasn't my great-great-grandparents who really started those companies, right?

00:29:55.000 So this idea that it's only the first generation that matters is obviously not true.

00:30:00.000 I mean, I'm sure that Tucker's—I don't know Tucker's heritage, but I assume that at some point, somebody came over here.

00:30:05.000 His line did not begin in New York.

00:30:08.000 That being the case, that means that Tucker's success is due to the United States being relatively open to immigration, which it was for most of its history.

00:30:17.000 In a second, I'm going to discuss here another perspective that was on Tucker's show last night that also, I think, does a disservice.

00:30:23.000 Mark Stein was on Tucker's show last night, and here's what Mark Stein

00:30:27.000 Had to say.

00:30:28.000 This comment is getting a lot of flack and I think rightly so.

00:30:32.000 Here's what Mark Stein had to say about the state of Arizona and DACA and illegal immigration and immigration more generally.

00:30:40.000 And in fact, to go back to what your Swedish guest was saying, you know, whatever the economic benefits, which are minimal and are not evenly distributed, the cultural transformation, which is what's happening in Sweden, other parts of Europe, and is what's happening in Arizona too, that's forever.

00:31:00.000 In Arizona, a majority of the grade school children now are Hispanic.

00:31:05.000 That means Arizona's future is as an Hispanic society. 0.95

00:31:10.000 That means, in effect, the border has moved north.

00:31:14.000 Okay, I don't even know what that means, the border has moved north.

00:31:16.000 All of those kids in Arizona who are actually born in the United States, or the ones who have legally immigrated, those are American citizens.

00:31:21.000 Why does it matter what color of their skin or their place of origin?

00:31:24.000 This sort of language does no service to those of us who've been fighting on behalf of a lot of the same policies that Mark Stein and Tucker Carlson want.

00:31:31.000 I think that we probably agree 90% on immigration.

00:31:33.000 But the idea that you can make these distinctions on the basis of ethnicity or place of origin as opposed to skill level, you're falling right into a trap the Democrats want to set.

00:31:42.000 And it betrays, I think, the cause of being an immigration hawk.

00:31:46.000 So I think that's a huge mistake.

00:31:48.000 OK.

00:31:48.000 So I want to talk about some things I like and some things I hate.

00:31:50.000 We'll get to the mailbag.

00:31:51.000 But for all of that, you're going to have to go over to Daily Wire and subscribe.

00:31:54.000 So for $9.99 a month, you can get a subscription to Daily Wire.

00:31:56.000 Now is the time to do it, by the way.

00:31:58.000 Right now is the time when you should do it.

00:32:00.000 The reason being that if you do it right now, you can ask your questions right now.

00:32:02.000 You go over to Daily Wire.

00:32:04.000 You go over to watch it live there.

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00:32:39.000 All righty, time for a couple of quick things I like, and then a couple of quick things that I hate.

00:32:43.000 Really, one thing that I hate.

00:32:44.000 Okay, first thing that I like.

00:32:46.000 So, if you missed it, earlier this week I did a Facebook Live with my personal trainer, Derek Gray.

00:32:50.000 Derek is a wonderful fellow, and Derek is 54 years old.

00:32:54.000 He looks like he's about 35, because he's in tremendous shape.

00:32:58.000 His story is really amazing.

00:33:00.000 He is the only male in his family in three generations to live past the age of 50.

00:33:05.000 I think so.

00:33:20.000 He also runs a personal training firm out of Los Angeles.

00:33:25.000 And if you want more information on that, I'll tweet out the link, or I'll put it out over at Facebook as well.

00:33:29.000 But his book, How to Stop Being Lazy and Start Living Healthy, is a fun read.

00:33:32.000 It sort of tells his story, and it's a good motivational read as well.

00:33:35.000 So Derek Gray, How to Stop Being Lazy and Start Living Healthy.

00:33:38.000 Check that out.

00:33:39.000 At some point, we're going to have to start actually posting videos of me working out with Derek.

00:33:42.000 I'm always concerned about looking solipsistic, about looking narcissistic.

00:33:47.000 But then again, everybody knows I'm a narcissist, so should I really care?

00:33:50.000 I mean, come on.

00:33:51.000 Anyway, I'll start putting up those videos as well, and you can see me work out with Derek, and you can see me do upside-down push-ups, and flip tires, and hit things, and climb walls using only my arms, etc.

00:34:01.000 It'll be amazing.

00:34:02.000 Okay.

00:34:03.000 Other things that, you know, let's go to a thing I hate.

00:34:06.000 We'll do one thing I hate, and then we'll do the mailbag.

00:34:12.000 So the media are going crazy today over stories about Stormy Daniels.

00:34:14.000 Stormy Daniels, of course, the porn star who had an affair with President Trump.

00:34:18.000 It does say something about our common culture that no one seems to care about this.

00:34:22.000 I talked for the last couple of days about why I think that is.

00:34:24.000 But one of the things that—there's an idea I want to talk about briefly that I think is very silly.

00:34:29.000 That is the idea where people say, well, maybe we never cared about it.

00:34:32.000 Maybe we never cared about it.

00:34:33.000 Maybe we never cared that people had an affair and we were just lying to ourselves.

00:34:36.000 Maybe politicians were always doing this stuff, like stooping porn stars on the side, and we just were willing to look the other way, but we never really cared about it.

00:34:44.000 You hear the same thing with regard to every social change, right?

00:34:47.000 When there's a social change in Britain, for example, with regard to toleration of

00:34:54.000 Or the suggestion that transgender women are actually women.

00:34:56.000 And then the rate of transgenderism goes up significantly in places like Great Britain.

00:35:00.000 People say, well, maybe people were always transgender and they were just afraid to admit it.

00:35:03.000 Maybe it's only the common acceptance that's changed.

00:35:05.000 But people were always living like this.

00:35:07.000 They were just afraid to express themselves more fully.

00:35:10.000 The human mind is malleable.

00:35:12.000 People behave differently based on the society that they're in, and based on the social standards that are kept.

00:35:17.000 Maybe those social standards are good when they change.

00:35:22.000 To show how absurd the suggestion is that people always act the same and behave the same and are not changed by the society around them, look at the toleration for racism in the 1950s versus the toleration for racism today, and you can see that people's behavior has changed massively, how people think has changed massively.

00:35:36.000 The whole purpose of politics is to create a communal fabric in which we all live and that hopefully makes more people happy.

00:35:43.000 In consonance with freedom, obviously.

00:36:13.000 Time for the mailbag, so let's jump right in.

00:36:15.000 All right, Nicholas writes, Ben, what do you think the GOP needs to do to avoid getting clobbered this November?

00:36:21.000 Well, I mean, I think that passing some form of a border security bill would be very helpful.

00:36:30.000 I think that moving toward shoring up religious freedoms would be more—they need to do stuff. 1.00

00:36:36.000 The problem is right now they're not doing a lot of stuff.

00:36:38.000 So they did the tax cuts, and that is helpful.

00:36:42.000 But they're also going to need to avoid the taxicity of President Trump.

00:36:45.000 Trump is what's driving Democrats to the polls.

00:36:46.000 Not Paul Ryan, not Mitch McConnell.

00:36:48.000 Donald Trump is driving Democrats to the polls.

00:36:50.000 If he could get his Twitter under control, that would really help.

00:36:53.000 Seth does.

00:36:53.000 Hey, Ben.

00:36:54.000 My friend recently told me he was a feminist, so I thought he was crazy, as any normal conservative might think.

00:36:58.000 He then explained to me the definition of feminism just means equal rights for men and women. 0.89

00:37:01.000 He said these crazy new feminists have hijacked the term for their own cause. 1.00

00:37:04.000 So by the actual definition of feminism, aren't we all feminists? 1.00

00:37:07.000 Well, yes.

00:37:08.000 I mean, so there's first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism, and third-wave feminism. 1.00

00:37:12.000 First-wave feminism said women should be able to work in the workplace. 0.99

00:37:14.000 They should be able to vote.

00:37:15.000 Yes, of course.

00:37:16.000 We are all first-wave feminists. 1.00

00:37:18.000 Second-wave feminism suggested that marriage was patriarchal and bad, and that we had to set up social structures so that women didn't feel like they had to get married. 1.00

00:37:25.000 This was stupid. 0.93

00:37:26.000 Third-wave feminism goes even beyond that and suggests that men and women are essentially identical in every way, and any discrepancy between men and women can be explained by societal failures. 1.00

00:37:36.000 OK, that's that is pure nonsense.

00:37:39.000 So I would say that we are all at least first wave feminists. 1.00

00:37:42.000 I don't know that everybody is a second wave feminist. 1.00

00:37:46.000 And then obviously only the craziest people are third wave feminists. 1.00

00:37:49.000 So the OK, let's let's look on.

00:37:52.000 Nick says, Dear Ben, in your opinion, which is harder, becoming a licensed lawyer or a licensed doctor and why?

00:37:57.000 The answer is obviously a licensed doctor.

00:37:59.000 It is obviously a licensed doctor.

00:38:01.000 So being a licensed, I know this because

00:38:05.000 Have I ever told you guys my wife's a doctor?

00:38:06.000 Have I ever said that?

00:38:07.000 Yeah, I feel like I've said that a few times before.

00:38:09.000 I am about my wife the same way that John Kasich is about his father being a mailman.

00:38:14.000 So, becoming a licensed lawyer requires you to go to school for three years.

00:38:17.000 The last two years of law school are basically a waste of time, and then you pass the bar, which in most states is not all that difficult.

00:38:22.000 Being a licensed doctor requires you to go to four years of college, four years of medical school, and three years of residency at minimum.

00:38:29.000 And then you have to take a bunch of board exams and you have to be re-licensed every 10 years.

00:38:33.000 It's very difficult to become a doctor.

00:38:35.000 So I believe that that book is not actually written by a vet of the Vietnam War.

00:38:38.000 I think that it's a fiction book that is written by... I've read the book.

00:38:40.000 It's written by Tim O'Brien.

00:38:51.000 I don't believe that Tim O'Brien was actually a Vietnam vet.

00:38:56.000 I think that he is just a fiction writer.

00:38:58.000 It is a very good book.

00:38:59.000 It's well worth reading.

00:39:00.000 In any case, it says,

00:39:10.000 So, my take on the Vietnam War is, yes, we should have been there.

00:39:13.000 Yes, it was an attempt to protect America's interests.

00:39:16.000 The loss of the Vietnam War has been the single worst thing that has happened to foreign policy in America, in America's history, I would say, pretty solidly.

00:39:26.000 Not just because America, quote-unquote, lost the war, but because it made it almost impossible for America to, quote-unquote, win a war.

00:39:31.000 Because the idea was that Vietnam went on so long and drained so many resources that the idea of

00:39:37.000 Thank you for having me.

00:39:55.000 Vietnam completely falling in America and really being undermined from within by the American public.

00:40:01.000 It demonstrated that Americans have no taste for anything resembling a transformation of a country.

00:40:06.000 Now, maybe we should never transform countries, but then we'd have to explain why we still have troops in Japan and Germany.

00:40:11.000 The reality is that

00:40:13.000 Once everyone enters office, they all become quote-unquote neocons in the sense that they feel like, in order to prevent violence on America's shores or prevent the rise of America's enemies, we're going to have to use America's military might in ways that people had not considered.

00:40:25.000 Donald Trump has basically operated very much like George W. Bush on foreign policy, with a few exceptions.

00:40:30.000 Even Barack Obama was not a non-interventionist, obviously got involved in Libya, which I do think was not in America's best interest.

00:40:37.000 As someone who deeply believes in equality of opportunity, but not equality of outcome, how far do you think equality of opportunity should go?

00:40:42.000 Well, when I say equality of opportunity, I mean the rules have to be equal for everyone.

00:40:46.000 Equality of opportunity is not going to exist for everyone.

00:40:49.000 It just isn't, okay?

00:40:49.000 It doesn't from birth.

00:40:51.000 Some of us are smarter, some of us are dumber, some of us are taller, some of us are shorter.

00:40:54.000 I do not have an equal opportunity to play in the NBA, but there are no laws barring me from playing in the NBA.

00:40:59.000 Let's put it this way.

00:41:01.000 I think the government's job when it comes to equality of opportunity is to not pass laws that prevent people from rising.

00:41:09.000 When it comes to the rest of our duty in society, in informal society, our social bonds should help one another out.

00:41:14.000 This is why we have religious communities, where if a child's not being given opportunity, we give religious scholarships.

00:41:19.000 This happens all the time.

00:41:21.000 If you see somebody who's poor, we give private charity.

00:41:24.000 But once the government starts discriminating against one group in favor of another group, no matter what the group is, then you end up in a situation where equality of opportunity is not actually being provided by the government.

00:41:33.000 Equality of opportunity is being stifled by the government.

00:41:35.000 It takes two sides.

00:41:36.000 And this is, I think, the danger that's happening in American society.

00:41:38.000 There are people who believe that the government has to ensure equality.

00:41:42.000 And then there are the people who believe that the government does not have to ensure equality and that social fabric means nothing.

00:41:47.000 The social fabric means a huge amount.

00:41:50.000 The social fabric is deeply, deeply important.

00:41:52.000 And the fact that we've neglected the social fabric for so long is, I think, one of the reasons why we as a country are coming apart.

00:41:58.000 This is what I'm literally writing a book about right now.

00:42:02.000 I'll give you the tentative title a little bit later once we've actually released it.

00:42:04.000 But I think it'll be a really interesting book with some

00:42:09.000 Fascinating historical and philosophical text.

00:42:12.000 Nicholas says, Hi, Ben.

00:42:13.000 Is regulation on business ever necessary?

00:42:15.000 Regulation on business is only necessary to the extent that regulations on individuals are necessary.

00:42:19.000 Regulations on torts, regulations on externalities, regulations on forced labor.

00:42:24.000 But in terms of regulating businesses so that they don't commit or so that they are prevented from, for example, participating in a business activity to which there are no externalities, no, I don't think that regulation is necessary.

00:42:36.000 When people say regulation on business, usually they mean

00:42:39.000 We have to stop a business from acting in a way that does not even create externalities.

00:42:44.000 We have to knock down their profit margin, for example, or force them to collectively bargain with their employees.

00:42:49.000 That's a bunch of nonsense.

00:42:51.000 Taylor says, Dear Ben, I saw the California State Attorney General threaten criminal action against businesses that assist ICE in conducting enforcement raids.

00:42:57.000 Is there legal precedence for the state to criminally prosecute individuals or businesses assisting in the enforcement of federal law?

00:43:02.000 No, I mean, this is a blatant violation of the Supremacy Clause.

00:43:05.000 If there is a federal law and you are obeying the federal law and the state government tells you to disobey the federal law, this is a violation of the Constitution.

00:43:11.000 This is basic constitutional law.

00:43:14.000 The Constitution of the United States and federal law take precedence over state law, so long as state law is not acting within the purview of the Constitution or the federal government is not overreaching.

00:43:23.000 Braden says, Dear Ben, what exactly does it mean to be kosher?

00:43:26.000 Also, our leftist here is kosher.

00:43:27.000 So, leftists here should be kosher.

00:43:29.000 They are just water with salt in them, presumably.

00:43:32.000 I would prefer they be sterilized, obviously.

00:43:34.000 What it means to be kosher is that there's an entire lifestyle associated with being kosher.

00:43:38.000 Being kosher just means what you eat has to go through certain strictures.

00:43:41.000 So, animals have to be slaughtered in a certain way.

00:43:43.000 You can't eat meat and milk together.

00:43:45.000 You have to wait between when you eat meat and when you eat milk.

00:43:47.000 Some Jews wait an hour.

00:43:48.000 Orthodox Jews wait an hour. 0.95

00:43:49.000 Some Jews wait three. 0.76

00:43:50.000 Some wait six.

00:43:51.000 In my family, we wait three.

00:43:53.000 You have to go to restaurants that have mashkiach, meaning a rabbi has come in and taken a look to make sure that it's obeying all of the various dietary regulations.

00:44:01.000 Not all animals are kosher, so they have to have split hooves and chew their cud.

00:44:05.000 So cows are kosher, but pigs are not because they have split hooves but do not chew their cud.

00:44:08.000 Birds have to not be birds of prey.

00:44:11.000 Fish have to have scales and fins.

00:44:12.000 Those are sort of the basic rules.

00:44:14.000 All vegetables, all fruits are kosher.

00:44:16.000 And so our derivatives therefrom, so like jams and jellies, are kosher unless they've been made on non-kosher equipment, meaning that that equipment has been used for non-kosher products.

00:44:25.000 My favorite book to write, the most enjoyable book to write, was probably Project President.

00:44:36.000 Project President was fun to write just because it's a bunch of historical research about kind of fun anecdotes about presidents.

00:44:41.000 So that was a kick.

00:44:42.000 I did enjoy writing bullies.

00:44:44.000 I think the least favorite book to write was Porn Generation simply because to immerse yourself in a world of disgustingness is not a pleasant activity for one's soul.

00:44:52.000 Moose says,

00:45:06.000 You probably are super funny.

00:45:08.000 Socialists don't have a sense of humor.

00:45:09.000 Okay?

00:45:09.000 Socialism basically outlaws humor.

00:45:11.000 The USSR was not known for its sense of humor.

00:45:14.000 She told me Venezuela isn't a socialist country and that true socialism has never been tried.

00:45:17.000 Aha! 0.94

00:45:18.000 Yes.

00:45:19.000 The famous true socialism has never been tried.

00:45:20.000 This is what we call the no true Scotsman fallacy in logic.

00:45:23.000 Right?

00:45:23.000 That if your theory doesn't work, you just say, wow, my theory has never really been tried.

00:45:27.000 Socialism has been tried in Soviet Russia.

00:45:29.000 It's been tried in China.

00:45:30.000 It's been tried in Venezuela.

00:45:31.000 It's been tried in North Korea.

00:45:33.000 It has not really been tried, at least in the traditional government owning the means of production sense in Europe, which is in many ways more capitalist than the United States when it comes to its business regulations.

00:45:43.000 Anyway, Moose Goose says, I shrugged and continued my walk.

00:45:47.000 I've been thinking about it all day.

00:45:48.000 Does Venezuela have a true socialist government?

00:45:50.000 Yes, I mean, it abides by all Marx dictates.

00:45:53.000 The state owns the means of production and then redistributes all the income therefrom.

00:45:57.000 Forrest, the only thing I disagree with you on is that suicidal mothers should be allowed abortions.

00:46:01.000 Couldn't this be abused as an excuse and even justify late-term abortions? 0.99

00:46:04.000 Thanks, Hebrew Hammer.

00:46:05.000 So, yes, but that's why I would be very careful about who you actually deem to be suicidal.

00:46:11.000 I think that should be a relatively strict process by which we determine

00:46:14.000 Whether somebody is actually suicidal or whether they are faking it in order to do away with the baby.

00:46:20.000 Well, yes.

00:46:37.000 The people who are most motivated to vote always vote, and those people end up controlling the society, too.

00:46:41.000 The number of people who are actually up on all the issues is really low, and it may work in small countries.

00:46:47.000 It works in your HOA, but it's not going to work the bigger you get.

00:46:51.000 The bigger you get as a republic,

00:46:52.000 The more direct democracy doesn't seem to work particularly well, simply because people are not informed on the issue and they vote based on passion.

00:46:58.000 We talked about direct democracy versus the republic when we talked about Federalist number nine.

00:47:02.000 No, Federalist number 10 a couple of weeks ago here on the program.

00:47:05.000 So go back and listen to that episode.

00:47:06.000 I explicitly contrast direct democracy with the republic.

00:47:10.000 All right.

00:47:10.000 So we have now reached the end of today's mailbag.

00:47:14.000 Be here next week.

00:47:15.000 Subscribe so you can be part of the mailbag, get all of your questions answered.

00:47:18.000 We are The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:47:20.000 We'll be back here next week.

00:47:20.000 Have a great weekend.

00:47:25.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:47:27.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:47:29.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:47:30.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:47:32.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:47:34.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:47:35.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:47:37.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:47:40.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 19, 2018

The Fusion GPS Scandal | Ep. 457

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