The Ben Shapiro Show - September 05, 2023


The Great Flood Hits Burning Man

Topics
GenuCell products Convicting a Murderer
Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Joe Biden Donald Trump Pope Francis Ron DeSantis Burning Man Barack Obama Elon Musk Matt Kemp John D. Rockefeller Stephen Avery George Stephanopoulos Mark Zuckerberg Marion Goodall Masha Maltseva Bernie Sanders Chris Christie Timothy Leary Neil Cottrell Yasheng Huang Chris Rock and 30 more
Can We Save Our Society? | Chris Rufo Get Ready For The Censorship

Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

211.25

Word count

11,682

Sentence count

857

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

60

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, we look at the growing cult-like phenomenon that is Burning Man, and the people who attend it. Burning Man has become so big, in fact, that it has become more like a religion than a counterculture. And in order to understand this, we have to go back in time to the early days of counterculture and counterculture, when people gathered to burn a 9-foot tall statue on the beach in San Francisco, and then moved it over to the middle of the desert in the 1980s. And then, a few decades ago, a group of weirdos started gathering on the beaches of San Francisco to build a bonfire. And now, a bunch of billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have come to join in on the fun. And it s all happening in a place called Black Rock City in the desert, and they re selling coffee and water and everything else they can get their hands on. And they re doing it by burning a giant effigy of a Statue of the Virgin Mary. And that s what Burning Man is all about, you guessed it, is a religion. Burning Man a place where people burn a giant statue and then have sex with each other in a giant bonfire in the middle desert. And if you don t like it, you re in the wrong place, because it s a cult, right? or you re part of the problem, and you re not getting what you need to know about what s going on at Burning Man and what s really going on here in the first place, and why it s such a cult like that and why you should go to Burning Man. And what s the point of view of the counterculture is that it s no longer a countercultural movement, it s becoming the culture in which they swim in a sea of people who swim in the ocean of the culture it s actually the culture? and it s become the culture, and not the culture. What s going to happen in the future, you have to be part of it? We ll find out what s happening in the next few episodes of the first episode of the new season of the podcast, coming soon, coming up next week on the second season of The Dark Side of the New York Times, New York Magazine, coming out next week, and much more. Stay tuned for the next episode of our new podcast, Coming Apart. Subscribe to our new show, The New Class.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 So, it's rare to see actual biblical-level events taking place in, you know, normal, everyday life, but that is exactly, apparently, what is happening over at Burning Man.
00:00:08.000 Now, I've ignored Burning Man, successfully, for several decades at this point because, frankly, it seemed like a bunch of weirdos out in the desert being weird with each other.
00:00:15.000 And that's pretty much what it is.
00:00:18.000 Apparently, for those who haven't been following, Burning Man was founded back in 1986.
00:00:22.000 This is according to therichest.com, when a small group of friends gathered to burn a nine-foot tall statue on the beach in San Francisco.
00:00:29.000 So, as you might imagine...
00:00:31.000 You know, weird people.
00:00:32.000 Each year, more and more people attended the bonfire and then they actually moved it over to the Nevada desert.
00:00:37.000 And so now it's held in Black Rock City, a temporary community erected by the thousands of attendees who construct the gathering's infrastructure using nothing but their own tools and equipment.
00:00:45.000 Nothing apparently is sold at Burning Man.
00:00:47.000 This is one of the sort of communistic properties of it.
00:00:49.000 Instead, they sell like coffee and water and everything else.
00:00:52.000 They barter or gift.
00:00:53.000 So first of all, you have to ask why they're selling the coffee or water, and the answer is because you can't provide supply unless there is actual monetary demand.
00:01:00.000 It turns out capitalism is great at getting things from place A to place B for an affordable price, and communism sucks at pretty much everything.
00:01:06.000 For many attendees, known as burners, the event is about providing a space for countercultural expression.
00:01:11.000 As we're going to examine, however, one of the weird elements of the United States is that the counterculture is no longer a counterculture.
00:01:17.000 It's just the culture.
00:01:19.000 The counterculture in the 1960s, the weirdos from the 1980s who are gathering on beaches and building giant burning men and all the rest of this, those people who we all used to consider strange, now if you say that they are weirdos who are participating in weird paganistic behavior, You are considered strange.
00:01:36.000 You are considered part of the problem.
00:01:37.000 You are intolerant.
00:01:38.000 The counterculture is no longer the counterculture.
00:01:40.000 It is, in fact, just the culture.
00:01:42.000 Which is why, for example, you see so many rich and famous people now going to Burning Man.
00:01:46.000 It used to be that if you were a rich, famous person, you took yourself seriously enough that you didn't show up in the middle of the desert with nothing but a hammer and then expect to basically just go to the orgy dome all day.
00:01:55.000 It used to be that the serious people in our culture were, you know, actual serious people in our culture.
00:02:00.000 You go way back to the age of the tycoons, when you were looking at John Rockefeller and you were looking at Vanderbilt.
00:02:08.000 These were people who were at least pretty serious about their own lives.
00:02:11.000 But the reality is the counterculture has now become the culture and the way that you win cultural cachet is by participating in a paganistic set of values that actually is in complete contradistinction to the actual values you live out.
00:02:22.000 There's a point that Charles Murray made in his great book, Coming Apart, which is that all of the tech billionaires who show up at Burning Man and then
00:02:29.000 proclaim they have allegiance to these sorts of principles actually in their own lives reject these
00:02:33.000 sorts of principles. It's just everybody else who picks up the principles and then it becomes the
00:02:38.000 culture in which they swim. And it's really, really bad. It's true whether you're talking about
00:02:41.000 sort of paganistic versions of communism that you're seeing at Burning Man or whether you're
00:02:45.000 talking about single motherhood, which is practiced by nearly no one in the Tech Bay area,
00:02:49.000 but given the moral green light by everyone in the Tech Bay area. Right. There is something
00:02:54.000 weird about the fact that these weird hippies burning crap on the beach suddenly turned into 0.99
00:02:59.000 billionaires arriving entourage in tows participate in building a garbage city in the middle of 1.00
00:03:03.000 nowhere and then having sex with randos. 1.00
00:03:05.000 Which is effectively what Burning Man is. 0.97
00:03:09.000 According to therichest.com, in recent years, many longtime Burners have resented how the festival's growing popularity has changed the experience.
00:03:15.000 They say it on Reddit, posts about the new class of Burner consisting of celebrities, internet influencers, billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
00:03:22.000 It is true, by the way, that again, unlike in the past, when everyone who was poor aspired to be rich.
00:03:29.000 And what that meant is that if you were poor, you aspired to also imitate the lifestyles of the rich and famous, which meant that if you go back to the photos of the Great Depression, people are standing in line for Their tickets for their food, and they are dressed in suits.
00:03:42.000 Now you have the richest people in our society who are attempting to dress like homeless people to prove to everybody else, while they're earning billions of dollars, that they actually despise the billions of dollars they're earning.
00:03:51.000 A culture that hates itself cannot long survive, by the way.
00:03:54.000 What you see, in terms of the actual stats from Burning Man, is that in 2006, 14% of surveyed Burners listed their personal income as $100,000 or more.
00:04:02.000 By 2016, that number had almost doubled to 28%.
00:04:07.000 The surveyors added a $300,000 plus personal income category, and that now represented 3.4% of all the people who are showing up at Burning Man.
00:04:15.000 And by the way, they're cheating.
00:04:16.000 So it used to be that if you showed up at Burning Man, you basically showed up with like a bunch of plywood and a hammer.
00:04:20.000 And now, if you are a rich person, you show up at a turnkey camp.
00:04:24.000 According to Mashable, these offer luxury amenities, cleaning staff and chefs, while reportedly wrecking havoc on the environment by chartered flights to get there.
00:04:32.000 So the entire thing was supposed to be this hippie gathering where you bring what you have and you give what you want and you receive from others who are generous.
00:04:39.000 And now it's turned into a bunch of rich people who want to pretend that this is what they are while actively just paying people to set up basically glamping in the desert, which is amazing.
00:04:51.000 It is totally amazing.
00:04:54.000 In 2019, Burning Man CEO Marion Goodall wrote she was stunned by the growing commodification and exploitation of Black Rock City and Burning Man culture.
00:05:00.000 So on the one hand, you can say capitalism always wins.
00:05:02.000 Like no matter what, everything ends up commodified because human beings are driven toward doing less work and being able to compensate people for the work that they are doing.
00:05:11.000 The other way to view this is that, again, you have an entire elite strata of our society that hates itself, and that is constantly seeking to signal to everybody else how much it hates itself by doing things like going to Burning Man.
00:05:22.000 They're not seeking to exemplify the behavior that everybody else should engage in.
00:05:25.000 And if they do, they believe that behavior should apparently be this hippie-esque garbage, and we should all basically just laugh and giggle along with them as they go to the pleasure dome that has been set up in full Sodom and Gomorrah style.
00:05:38.000 According to Burning Man CEO Marion Goodall, she said, whether it's commercial photoshoots, product placements, or Instagram posts thanking friends for a useful item, attendees, including fashion models and social media influencers, are wearing and tagging brands in their Playa photos.
00:05:49.000 This means they are using Black Rock City to increase their popularity, to appeal to customers, and to sell more stuff.
00:05:54.000 Black Rock City requires significant investments of time, energy, and resourcefulness, she said.
00:05:57.000 Part of what makes Burning Man unique and powerful is that everyone has to work to be there.
00:06:02.000 So I do love, again, the fact that all of these rich, famous people are showing up and doing, like, Instagram photos for Popeyes, right?
00:06:10.000 DJ Diplo descended into Burning Man in 2019 on a Popeyes-branded plane and came out with two plastic bags filled with dozens of chicken sandwiches.
00:06:18.000 And then he remarked on social media, Wendy's, your move.
00:06:22.000 Some celebrities are different, right?
00:06:24.000 These would be like Susan Sarandon, who famously drank the ashes of psychologist and LSD advocate, Timothy Leary, when she showed up in 2015, which by the way, gross, unsanitary, don't drink other people's ashes, by the way.
00:06:35.000 It's a great way to get your ash kicked. 0.71
00:06:37.000 Terrible, terrible way to go. 0.59
00:06:38.000 But, again, the idea here is that the elites mirror the worst morality that they don't actually practice in their real lives.
00:06:44.000 We'll get into more of this in just one second.
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00:07:48.000 Okay, so just to fill out what Burning Man is before we explain what God did to it, apparently.
00:07:53.000 And I get to say that because the left does this all the time.
00:07:57.000 Right, the left acts as though when a hurricane hits Florida it's because of the great sin that we have all committed in driving cars and, you know, running our air conditioners. 0.95
00:08:03.000 So I also get to make a joke about how, um, if a bunch of morons decide that they are going to jet set into the desert in the middle of nowhere where it's 115 degrees to screw each other and then there's a giant rainstorm, biblical style, that floods them and no one bothered to bring enough wood to build an ark. 0.89
00:08:16.000 Sorry, I get to joke about you guys. 0.99
00:08:18.000 Your own fault.
00:08:19.000 Okay, so.
00:08:20.000 Here are the principles of Burning Man.
00:08:24.000 They were written in 2004 by co-founder Larry Harvey.
00:08:28.000 This is a religion.
00:08:29.000 It's a religion.
00:08:30.000 And it just goes to show you that in an era where actual religion declines, traditional Judeo-Christian religion declines, other forms of religion supplant it, whether that is political polarization, and following of the great leader, 0.97
00:08:41.000 or whether it is this sort of paganistic hippie crap that you're seeing over at Burning Man.
00:08:46.000 Radical inclusion is one of the principles. 0.96
00:08:48.000 Anyone may be part of Burning Man.
00:08:49.000 We welcome and respect the stranger.
00:08:51.000 No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
00:08:53.000 So first of all, not true.
00:08:55.000 If you show up and you're a Bible thumper, I guarantee you, you're not gonna be welcome 1.00
00:08:57.000 over at Burning Man where they have a giant dome where no one has showered, 0.99
00:09:01.000 but they're all having sex with one another.
00:09:03.000 That is an actual, I keep mentioning this because this obviously is the most famous part 0.96
00:09:06.000 of Burning Man, is the orgy dome which according to Cosmopolitan
00:09:11.000 is visited by 5,000 people every year. 0.99
00:09:15.000 You just show up with a bunch of randos, and then you screw them.
00:09:21.000 And this is the height of human experience, apparently.
00:09:24.000 So radical inclusion apparently would not really tolerate anybody who has, you know, like, baseline moral standards in a traditional way.
00:09:32.000 Gifting.
00:09:32.000 Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift-giving.
00:09:34.000 The value of a gift is unconditional.
00:09:36.000 Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
00:09:40.000 So, first of all, again, back to the radical inclusion point, if you just include everybody who is a leech, and they are living off gifts, with no expectation of any sort of return, it's not going to work.
00:09:52.000 Because, again, this stuff doesn't exist at scale.
00:09:55.000 The actual real rule of Burning Man, I would assume, is that if somebody gives you something, you give them something in return, which is what we used to call trade.
00:10:02.000 We used to call that thing capitalism, but instead we're going to pretend that when I give you something and you give me something, and the real reason we're doing it is because, of course, if I just take something from you and I never give you anything, no one will ever give something to me again.
00:10:12.000 We're going to pretend that that's communism.
00:10:14.000 Now, decommodification.
00:10:16.000 In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising.
00:10:23.000 Oops! 0.78
00:10:24.000 Well, that didn't work.
00:10:26.000 It turns out that people saw a giant group of people there, and it is now... It's old-fashioned, cool, Burning Man.
00:10:33.000 I'm in a group chat with a bunch of folks who are kind of, like, tail-end of millennial age, and they're like, yeah, I remember when this used to be the cool thing, and now it's a bunch of people who are 42 years old who are showing up.
00:10:44.000 The average age of Burning Man has been rising in recent years. 0.51
00:10:46.000 It used to be the thing for, you know, dumbass 21-year-olds to do, and now it's a thing for people trying to recapture the feeling of being a dumbass 21-year-old, but they're actually 42, divorced, and have a kid. 0.88
00:10:57.000 That is what Burning Man has become. 0.96
00:10:58.000 Radical self-reliance.
00:10:59.000 Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise, and rely on their inner resources.
00:11:05.000 Well, we saw how that went.
00:11:06.000 We'll get to that momentarily.
00:11:07.000 How they went when they relied on their inner resources to, you know, be stuck in the mud for days at a time, complaining because they were located, you know, a few miles away from a freeway.
00:11:14.000 Radical self-expression.
00:11:15.000 Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual.
00:11:19.000 No one other than the individual or collaborating group can determine its content.
00:11:22.000 It is offered as a gift to others.
00:11:24.000 In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
00:11:28.000 Isn't that nice?
00:11:29.000 Radical self-expression.
00:11:30.000 Now, what I like is the proviso there.
00:11:32.000 The proviso there is that your radical self-expression makes no demands on others.
00:11:37.000 It makes no demands on others.
00:11:39.000 Well, yeah, except for the fact that radical self-expression as a core value system requires the acceptance, approval, and tolerance of others, clearly.
00:11:47.000 There are limits to radical self-expression.
00:11:50.000 Communal effort.
00:11:50.000 Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration.
00:11:53.000 We strive to produce, promote, and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
00:11:59.000 Have you seen all the amazing works of art that have come out of Burning Man?
00:12:01.000 You know, I mean, other than the STDs.
00:12:03.000 We value civil society.
00:12:04.000 This is civic responsibility.
00:12:05.000 Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants.
00:12:12.000 They also must assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state, and federal laws.
00:12:16.000 Oh, so there is legal liability that attaches.
00:12:18.000 Also, leaving no trace.
00:12:19.000 So it turns out this one, they just don't do.
00:12:21.000 I say, our community respects the environment.
00:12:22.000 We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather.
00:12:26.000 We clean up after ourselves and endeavor whenever possible to leave such places in a better state than when we found them, which of course is wildly untrue.
00:12:32.000 It turns out that Burning Man has had a bad history over the past few years of just leaving garbage strewn along the highways as people careen out of there as fast as possible.
00:12:41.000 This, of course, is no shock.
00:12:42.000 Go back to the Occupy Wall Street days.
00:12:43.000 We had all the socialist lefties who were camping out in the parks in New York City. 0.94
00:12:49.000 And it was just a wilderness of criminality, drug abuse, and trash. 0.95
00:12:54.000 And then you went to the Tea Party, right? 0.98
00:12:55.000 All these people who supposedly hate the environment.
00:12:57.000 Everybody at the Tea Party picked up after themselves.
00:12:59.000 No one at Occupy picked up after themselves because, again, it turns out that only respect for the communal values that you actually share would require you to do this thing.
00:13:06.000 And any community founded on radical self-expression, you're gonna get a lot of freeloaders and people who free ride.
00:13:13.000 Participation.
00:13:13.000 These are the final two principles, right?
00:13:15.000 Not Ten Commandments.
00:13:15.000 Not like, Thou shalt not kill.
00:13:16.000 Thou shalt not kidnap.
00:13:17.000 Thou shalt not commit sexual sins.
00:13:18.000 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
00:13:20.000 Right?
00:13:20.000 None of those things.
00:13:21.000 Right?
00:13:21.000 Those...
00:13:22.000 None of that matters.
00:13:24.000 The things that actually matter here are things like participation.
00:13:27.000 Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic.
00:13:30.000 We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society,
00:13:33.000 can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation.
00:13:36.000 We achieve being through doing.
00:13:38.000 Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play.
00:13:41.000 Aww.
00:13:42.000 And finally, immediacy.
00:13:43.000 Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture.
00:13:46.000 Which, of course, is something that has been completely done away with.
00:13:49.000 Because if you look at Burning Man, it's just a bunch of selfies.
00:13:51.000 Just an endless series of selfies.
00:13:53.000 Forever.
00:13:54.000 Stamping on the human face.
00:13:56.000 Forever.
00:13:57.000 So in just a second, we'll talk about what God wrought.
00:14:00.000 Because it turns out, it didn't end well this year.
00:14:03.000 It was like the Fyre Festival.
00:14:05.000 He has that momentarily first.
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00:15:17.000 Okay, so once again, you have an ethos that is based on radical individualism
00:15:23.000 and in which people aren't expected to do anything for anybody else, but at the same time,
00:15:27.000 you're expected to do everything for everybody else.
00:15:31.000 Contrast the Ten Commandments of Burning Man with, you know, the actual Ten Commandments.
00:15:35.000 Things like, Respect thy father and mother.
00:15:39.000 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
00:15:42.000 Don't commit murder.
00:15:43.000 Don't commit adultery.
00:15:44.000 Don't commit idolatry.
00:15:45.000 Don't commit... One of these sets of rules has built a civilization that has lasted and been successful for literally thousands of years.
00:15:52.000 The other set of rules lasted a heavy rainstorm.
00:15:56.000 So maybe the story of Noah's Ark is that maybe the rain wasn't all that heavy.
00:16:01.000 Here's the radical heretical view today.
00:16:03.000 The rain wasn't all that heavy.
00:16:04.000 It's just the society was not all that durable.
00:16:06.000 Maybe that's really what we are finding out right now.
00:16:08.000 So here's what happened over at Burning Man.
00:16:10.000 According to the EAP, An unusual late summer storm turned a week-long counterculture fest into a sloppy mess, with tens of thousands of partygoers stuck in foot-deep mud, with no working toilets in the northern Nevada desert.
00:16:21.000 Some Burning Man revelers said Sunday their spirits remain unbroken.
00:16:25.000 Unfortunately, their toilets do remain broken.
00:16:28.000 And so they're just sitting there. 0.99
00:16:30.000 We're sitting there in their own poop, screwing each other. 0.98
00:16:32.000 Sounds like the most, the height of human experience. 0.98
00:16:35.000 Somebody did die, but apparently that's happened before.
00:16:38.000 Like there was a guy a few years ago who burned himself to death because he threw himself onto the Burning Man or something.
00:16:42.000 So in any case, it wasn't because of the bad weather.
00:16:45.000 So, organizers closed the festival to vehicles after one death was reported.
00:16:50.000 Officials provided no details of the fatality.
00:16:51.000 The guy didn't drown or anything.
00:16:53.000 The annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians, and activists for a mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances.
00:17:02.000 Disruptions are part of the festival's recent history.
00:17:04.000 Organizers had to temporarily close entrances in 2018 due to dust storms.
00:17:08.000 The event was twice canceled altogether during the pandemic.
00:17:12.000 I love this.
00:17:12.000 More than half an inch of rain fell at the festival site on Friday, disrupting this year's fest- Wait.
00:17:16.000 Half an inch?
00:17:18.000 Half an- Wait, not half a foot.
00:17:20.000 Not, not like, half a meter.
00:17:23.000 Half an inch.
00:17:24.000 This much rain fell.
00:17:26.000 This much, right here.
00:17:28.000 And, uh, oops!
00:17:29.000 Everything fell apart.
00:17:32.000 More than half inch of rain, possibly closer to one inch, fell this weekend in parts of northwest Nevada.
00:17:36.000 That includes the area where the Burning Man Festival was being held.
00:17:39.000 Road closures came just before a large wooden effigy was supposed to have been burned on Saturday night.
00:17:45.000 So basically this is the story of Elijah, right?
00:17:47.000 Elijah's theory is like, okay guys, take your giant wooden sacrifice and see if it will burn.
00:17:53.000 God, will you touch it?
00:17:54.000 Nope, rain.
00:17:55.000 So yeah, good times.
00:17:57.000 President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware he's aware of the situation at Burning Man.
00:18:01.000 The White House is in touch with local officials.
00:18:04.000 Again, the thing I'm making fun of here is that the people who are most interested in this, it has become a glitz and glamour festival.
00:18:10.000 This is the part that's truly fascinating.
00:18:12.000 Again, making fun of hippies in the desert, that's easy pickings. 0.84
00:18:14.000 But when those hippies involve, like, the most famous people in our society, and these most famous people in our society are suggesting that there is something to this value system, that is worth noting.
00:18:25.000 That is something worth noting.
00:18:26.000 That a value system that thinks that orgy domes, and not showering, and building crap in the desert that you just then leave there, that this is somehow a form of higher living. 0.95
00:18:39.000 And in the absence of God, paganism rules. 0.72
00:18:40.000 It is not that there is no God, it's that many gods rule, and those gods typically involve self-worship.
00:18:46.000 Which is really where things currently stand.
00:18:49.000 Good news, Diplo was there again.
00:18:51.000 I don't know if he had his Popeye's plane until apparently not.
00:18:53.000 Chris Rock was also there.
00:18:55.000 And they escaped.
00:18:57.000 They escaped from Black Rock.
00:19:03.000 A fan offered Chris Rock and I a ride out of the burnt after walking six miles through the mud.
00:19:07.000 All Chris could think about was an effing cold brew.
00:19:10.000 Wow.
00:19:17.000 That is some heavy stuff there.
00:19:18.000 The other part of this that's hilarious is that obviously it wasn't biblical flooding.
00:19:22.000 Obviously, thank God, tens of thousands of people did not die.
00:19:25.000 And yet, every person who's there, this is why I say the idolatry is actually just idolatry of the self, everybody there is treating this as though they escaped the beaches at Normandy or something.
00:19:36.000 Like, this is what they're treating it like.
00:19:39.000 It's truly an amazing, amazing thing.
00:19:41.000 Like, for example, Neil Catyell, who you'll remember as a supposedly serious legal analyst, he put up a picture of himself talking about the incredibly harrowing journey out of the Burning Man Festival.
00:19:56.000 So apparently people said that they could walk about five miles from the festival site to the nearest town of Gerlach where shuttle buses would take them to Reno.
00:20:03.000 First of all, can I just point out that five miles is not a lot of territory?
00:20:07.000 It's a flat desert.
00:20:09.000 Take a little water and go like five miles?
00:20:12.000 These are our most serious people.
00:20:15.000 He said, quote, it was an incredibly harrowing six mile hike at midnight through heavy and
00:20:18.000 slippery mud, but I got safely out of Burning Man.
00:20:21.000 Never been before and it was fantastic with brilliant art and fabulous music, except for
00:20:25.000 the ending.
00:20:26.000 Ah, these are our most serious people.
00:20:29.000 That guy was the acting solicitor general under Barack Obama.
00:20:33.000 The acting solicitor general, the guy who they have on MSNBC every day talking about
00:20:36.000 the legal threats to Donald Trump and how the rule of law must be upheld was at Burning
00:20:40.000 Man whining about how he had to walk five miles.
00:20:42.000 In mud.
00:20:43.000 Because he put himself there. 0.90
00:20:45.000 Because they have an orgy dome or something. 0.57
00:20:48.000 How old is Neil Cottrell, by the way?
00:20:51.000 Neil Cottrell is 53 years old. 0.95
00:20:55.000 To put it politely, grow the f*** up, dude. 0.92
00:20:59.000 Wow. 0.98
00:21:00.000 Okay, we'll get some more on this insanity in just one second because I find this endlessly fascinating.
00:21:03.000 I don't know about you, but tough.
00:21:05.000 It's my show.
00:21:06.000 We'll get to it in one second first.
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00:22:15.000 OK, so the pictures that have emerged from Burning Man are truly horrifying.
00:22:20.000 People standing in mud.
00:22:22.000 People are worried about Trenchfoot because they have to walk around in the mud over there.
00:22:26.000 Again, I'm going to point out the people who have attended include not only Elon Musk, but Jeff Bezos and Will Smith.
00:22:32.000 This is the part that's totally crazy to me.
00:22:34.000 We need a better class of elite.
00:22:36.000 We do.
00:22:36.000 You wonder why people don't trust the elite?
00:22:38.000 You wonder why there's a giant cultural gap between, say, the left coast and the east coast and everybody in the middle of the country? 0.99
00:22:45.000 Because people who still go to church look at this stuff and they're like, so you morons went out in the middle of the desert to worship your pagan selves and then got stuck in the mud. 0.99
00:22:51.000 Rough ride for you. 1.00
00:22:53.000 Really, really, truly feel bad.
00:22:55.000 But this is the point.
00:22:56.000 The cultural arbiters are not on the side of the so-called culture.
00:23:00.000 They are on the side of the counterculture, and this is the important point. 0.95
00:23:03.000 Burning Man's values, or its pseudo-values, represent the actual prevailing mindset for many of the powerful in our society.
00:23:10.000 When people try to boil down the Trump phenomenon to, well, the guy really liked tariffs, or Donald Trump, he wanted to build a wall on the border, or Donald Trump, it's really about subsidies to industrial towns in Ohio.
00:23:21.000 That's not what Donald Trump is about.
00:23:22.000 What Donald Trump is about is about a cultural system that used to be called the traditional culture of the United States.
00:23:28.000 He is not personally representative of that, but that's what the Trump movement represents.
00:23:32.000 And those people have been dispossessed of the Judeo-Christian architecture that used to undergird the United States of America. 0.95
00:23:39.000 And they've been dispossessed by a bunch of pagan morons who believe that the actual value system is a radical self-expression and individualism. 0.99
00:23:46.000 Now, this does unite some of the great capitalists of our era, because there are many of the great capitalists of our era. 0.98
00:23:51.000 It used to be.
00:23:52.000 That everyone sort of understood, particularly the great capitalists, that undergirding capitalism was a Judeo-Christian value system.
00:23:58.000 You know who actually understood this fairly well?
00:23:59.000 Adam Smith.
00:24:00.000 And his theory of moral sentiments came before his wealth of nations.
00:24:04.000 But the great early tycoons, these were people who went to church on a regular basis.
00:24:12.000 These were people who actually were interested in what happened around them, who took their responsibilities as human beings seriously.
00:24:26.000 I mentioned John D. Rockefeller, but John D. Rockefeller is a great example.
00:24:29.000 This is a guy who went to a church and he sat in the pews next to people who were a fraction of his wealth.
00:24:34.000 What used to unify the country was a belief system that the elites held in common with the common man.
00:24:39.000 It was the same belief system overall.
00:24:42.000 It was the radicals who were proclaiming the creed of radical self-expression.
00:24:47.000 But now it's not the radicals.
00:24:48.000 Now it's the most powerful people in the society who have basically decided the reason they became powerful is because they followed their star.
00:24:53.000 But that's not really true.
00:24:54.000 Again, if you look at the people who are most successful in our society, they didn't follow their star to the tune of, I will ignore basic values like educating myself or living a sexually responsible lifestyle in the main.
00:25:06.000 Mark Zuckerberg is a married guy with multiple kids.
00:25:08.000 And that's true for most of the people who are actually high earners in American society.
00:25:13.000 They're actually more likely to be married with kids than people who are not high earners in American society.
00:25:17.000 But they promulgate the values of the low.
00:25:20.000 And when I say the low, I mean like the hippies and the commune who are burning giant nine foot statues.
00:25:25.000 And that says something.
00:25:26.000 And the kickback to that is a bunch of people who are angry at the fact that they have had their value system supplanted and insulted and derided by people whose main focus seems to just be tearing things down.
00:25:37.000 I mean, burning man is actually an excellent metaphor. 1.00
00:25:40.000 You build a man and then you burn him. 0.55
00:25:42.000 That is, you build radical individualism, represented by a giant nine-foot-tall idol, and then you burn it.
00:25:49.000 Because what does humanity matter if all humanity is is a piece of meat wandering through the universe with hedonistic impulses?
00:25:55.000 It is only when human beings are connected to a higher value system, when they're connected with a divine value system of some sort, that they become worth more than a block of wood that you burn, or an orgy dome, Disconnect human beings from a telos.
00:26:09.000 Disconnect them from a purpose, a higher purpose, and what you end up with is Burning Man.
00:26:15.000 Live in the moment, immediacy of experience, radical individual self-expression, and then half an inch of mud and you're done.
00:26:21.000 You're toast.
00:26:23.000 So, there is something to be said here. 0.95
00:26:25.000 It is amazing that the way the organizers here decided to tell people to handle this thing is to get themselves wood blocks and poop buckets.
00:26:34.000 According to CNN.com, the first time Masha Maltseva attended Burning Man, the annual ephemeral city that attracts thousands of free-spirited revelers in the Nevada desert, she overpacked.
00:26:43.000 I prepared for maybe three months, she recalled.
00:26:45.000 I read all the packing lists, all the Reddit threads, all the WhatsApp chats preparing for Burning Man.
00:26:48.000 But this year, when heavy rain transformed the remote venue into a muddy mess that forced attendees to shelter in place and conserve precious resources, Maltseva wasn't as prepared.
00:26:56.000 She became one of about 70,000 people stuck at the event when Black Rock Desert received over two months worth of rain in just 24 hours.
00:27:03.000 The storms turned the desert sand into sloppy, slippery clay that made it impossible for drivers to exit or enter.
00:27:08.000 Self-reliance is one of the event's core principles, with organizers emphasizing that participants are ultimately responsible for their own health and safety.
00:27:16.000 So that meant that they had to wear trash bags on their feet.
00:27:19.000 It meant also that they were told to bring poop buckets.
00:27:24.000 In case the rain made the porta-potties inoperable, the website recommended a five-gallon utility bucket with a lid and garbage bag liners.
00:27:30.000 This sounds like a great civilization to you.
00:27:31.000 It sounds like a great civilization to me.
00:27:33.000 Here's festival attendee David Date describing the absolute carnage in the desert.
00:27:38.000 What's been the most difficult aspect of this weather and being trapped there?
00:27:46.000 I would say the most difficult aspect, uh, you know, fundamental to this, uh, problem we have is, uh, the concept of a Wook.
00:27:52.000 Someone who shows up to this event with nothing other than their RV and, you know, their selfish indulgence and they offer nothing.
00:27:59.000 They offer nothing to this community.
00:28:00.000 They don't add anything to this city.
00:28:02.000 These are the people that are fleeing the city, leaving their trash and creating a crisis from which Burning Man might not survive.
00:28:12.000 I have to say a sad story.
00:28:14.000 I cannot believe the sadness.
00:28:16.000 Wait, you mean that a city that's built on freeloading actually has freeloaders who arrive?
00:28:21.000 One other note here.
00:28:23.000 No children in Burning Man.
00:28:24.000 It turns out that we are now a civilization that is completely focused on the adults.
00:28:29.000 The reason that there are no kids in Burning Man, aside from the fact that it's radically inappropriate and apparently bears some risk, is the fact that if you live immediately in the moment, you're not building for the future.
00:28:38.000 That's the whole point of Burning Man, is not building for the future.
00:28:42.000 There are times in every culture where you take off and you focus in on just the moment, right?
00:28:46.000 That's true in every culture.
00:28:47.000 But when you build an entire value system around that, around whatever happens tomorrow is not my business, around why build intergenerationally?
00:28:53.000 After all, it's all ephemera.
00:28:55.000 Build it in the desert, it'll be gone tomorrow.
00:28:58.000 Unless that's connected with a higher value system, it means nothing.
00:29:00.000 It means nothing.
00:29:01.000 It actually is nihilistic.
00:29:03.000 So we celebrate a holiday in Judaism that's coming up in the very near future called Sukkot. 0.87
00:29:07.000 In Sukkot, you basically do kind of Burning Man. 0.52
00:29:10.000 What you do is you build a hut outside your house and you actually are supposed to live in it for seven or eight days.
00:29:14.000 The purpose of it is to remind you that you're at the mercy of God, right?
00:29:18.000 You're supposed to actually build the hut such that you can see the stars and so it's open to the rain.
00:29:24.000 But the whole purpose of it is to remind you that you are a physical creature, but that there is something more spiritual to you.
00:29:32.000 That's not supposed to represent the entirety of human experience.
00:29:35.000 It's one of the best holidays because the idea is that when you decorate all the physical surroundings around you, that's not the essential you.
00:29:41.000 But what is the essential you?
00:29:42.000 It's unity with God.
00:29:44.000 The essential you is the divine you.
00:29:46.000 That's the part that matters. 1.00
00:29:47.000 Disconnect that and all you end up with is a bunch of morons rolling around in the mud and then being mad at each other when they have to poop in a bucket. 1.00
00:29:53.000 Not quite the same thing. 0.99
00:29:55.000 Okay, in just one second, we're gonna get to the latest polls on Joe Biden.
00:29:57.000 There's a reason that Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican primary.
00:30:00.000 It's not just because he's a magnetic personality, it's also because Joe Biden is running really, really weak.
00:30:05.000 We'll get to that in just one second.
00:30:06.000 First, whether we love it or whether we hate it, AI is here to stay.
00:30:10.000 AI is expected to create over 100 million new jobs globally.
00:30:14.000 Some jobs include data scientists, product designers, robotics engineers, surprisingly tax managers with AI skills.
00:30:19.000 Well, ZipRecruiter is the best way to use AI to help you find people with all kinds of skills.
00:30:23.000 So, for example, Matt Kemp.
00:30:25.000 He's our director of post-production.
00:30:27.000 And Matt is stellar at his job.
00:30:28.000 I mean, he makes sure this show looks great.
00:30:31.000 There's only one problem with Matt.
00:30:32.000 Because he's so dedicated to his job, he's sometimes sending emails at like 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.
00:30:36.000 I don't know why.
00:30:37.000 Is the expectation that I'm going to be awake at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning to reply?
00:30:41.000 That expectation is not reality.
00:30:43.000 No.
00:30:44.000 The answer is no.
00:30:45.000 But let's say that you wanted to replace Matt with somebody who understood what working hours are.
00:30:49.000 Well, then what you would do is you would head on over to ZipRecruiter, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter to get a quality candidate within day one.
00:30:55.000 See for yourself.
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00:31:10.000 Also, We have a huge offer coming up for all DailyWare members.
00:31:13.000 Early access to a first look at the highly anticipated 10-part original series from Candace Owens, Convicting a Murderer.
00:31:19.000 Early access to the series is September 7th.
00:31:22.000 It is only available over at DailyWare+.
00:31:23.000 Get ready!
00:31:24.000 Candace is about to blow apart the Stephen Avery misrepresentation on the popular Netflix series, Making a Murderer. 0.99
00:31:30.000 It's a great series.
00:31:31.000 Hollywood portrayed Stephen Avery as an innocent victim of corrupt law enforcement.
00:31:35.000 Candace blew that narrative apart. 1.00
00:31:37.000 She exposes Hollywood and the media for carefully crafting stories to elicit a particular reaction and to manipulate you.
00:31:43.000 We've seen it all the time, but this time Candace is debunking it.
00:31:46.000 Check out Convicting a Murderer.
00:31:48.000 She will uncover a shocking amount of detail in the Stephen Avery case that paints quite a different picture.
00:31:53.000 Go check them out right now.
00:31:54.000 Here is the season teaser.
00:31:55.000 Coming up on Convicting a Murderer.
00:31:57.000 Part of me don't want to believe that he did this.
00:31:59.000 The blood that was on that back area was indicative of a head wound.
00:32:04.000 My brother likes to push a lot of people around. 0.97
00:32:06.000 I don't give a f*** about anything. 0.86
00:32:08.000 I ain't gotta listen to nobody. 0.55
00:32:10.000 How were these filmmakers able to convince so many people that a man like Stephen Avery is innocent?
00:32:16.000 How many times did he stab her?
00:32:19.000 Once.
00:32:20.000 And show me where.
00:32:21.000 Right here.
00:32:23.000 They gave him power.
00:32:23.000 They're trying to get everything out there that they can.
00:32:25.000 It's not good for an Avery to have power.
00:32:28.000 I told you all along, keep your mouth shut.
00:32:31.000 That can hurt Steven.
00:32:32.000 I'm not gonna lie for him no more.
00:32:34.000 I can't do it.
00:32:35.000 Watch Convicting a Murderer, a new 10-part series on DailyWirePlus.
00:32:39.000 Again, early access to watch Convicting a Murderer is available to DailyWirePlus members September 7th.
00:32:45.000 It's free to watch for members.
00:32:46.000 There's no reason to miss it.
00:32:47.000 The official premiere for Convicting a Murderer takes place on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 8th, 9 p.m.
00:32:52.000 Eastern.
00:32:53.000 Candice will be live chatting with special guests at the X event at 5 p.m.
00:32:56.000 Make sure you head on over to the X space to join the conversation.
00:32:58.000 The full series is available only at DailyWirePlus.
00:33:01.000 Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe to join us.
00:33:04.000 Use code TRUTH for 25% off your Daily Wire Plus subscription.
00:33:08.000 Everyone is going to be talking about this new Candace series.
00:33:10.000 Don't miss out.
00:33:10.000 Subscribe today.
00:33:11.000 Okay, meanwhile.
00:33:12.000 Donald Trump continues to be an incredibly viable candidate in the Republican primaries right now.
00:33:16.000 The RealClearPolitics polling average puts him up 39 points over the rest of the field.
00:33:21.000 The latest Wall Street Journal poll has Donald Trump all the way up in the Republican primaries at 59%.
00:33:25.000 Ron DeSantis running a distant, distant second at 13, followed by Nikki Haley who's seen a bit of a bump at 8, followed by Vivek at 5.
00:33:33.000 Which is probably how the field is truly stacked right now.
00:33:36.000 Trump, of course, way the hell out in front.
00:33:38.000 One of the reasons for that is the main argument against Trump has been an electability argument.
00:33:42.000 That is the main argument because Republican voters, they really like Trump.
00:33:45.000 They like a lot of what he did.
00:33:46.000 They're willing to overlook or maybe embrace a lot of the foibles and the crazy tweets and all that kind of stuff.
00:33:52.000 Certainly there's a lot of warmth inside the Republican Party for Trump.
00:33:55.000 But the only counter-argument would be, yeah, but also he lost to Biden in 2020 and will probably lose again.
00:33:59.000 The problem is, when the polls show that Joe Biden is absolutely weak, that makes Trump look a lot more durable inside the Republican primaries.
00:34:07.000 So it's like, well, I mean, I get both of the things I want at once.
00:34:09.000 The guy who I really like on a personal level, and also he can probably beat Biden.
00:34:12.000 Which is what the Republican polls are showing right now inside the Republican primaries.
00:34:16.000 I have my doubts because I think that a lot of the polls that we're seeing right now are overestimating, for example, minority support for Donald Trump, underestimating that support for Joe Biden.
00:34:24.000 I think a lot of Democrats who right now are saying that they are wavering on Biden are going to come home in the same way that a lot of Republicans who say they waver about Trump are going to come home.
00:34:31.000 However, It is Joe Biden's weakness that is leading to this impasse.
00:34:35.000 Voters overwhelmingly think Biden is too old to run for re-election and give him low marks for handling the economy, according to the latest Wall Street Journal poll.
00:34:42.000 The negative views of Biden's age and performance help explain why only 39% of voters hold a favorable view of Joe Biden.
00:34:49.000 In a separate question, 42% said they approve of how he's handling his job, well below the 57% who disapprove.
00:34:56.000 And right now, in a potential rematch, a Trump versus Biden rematch, each of them has 46% head-to-head.
00:35:01.000 The journal survey points to a large set of challenges that Biden faces in persuading voters he deserves re-election.
00:35:06.000 It also finds a lot of weaknesses.
00:35:08.000 In Trump, voters in the survey rated Trump as less honest and likable than Biden, a majority viewed at Trump's actions after his 2020 election loss as an illegal effort to stop Congress from declaring Biden the proper winner.
00:35:18.000 But if you look at the disapproved numbers for Joe Biden on a wide variety of issues, they are absolutely devastating.
00:35:23.000 When it comes to inflation, the disapproval numbers are well over 60%.
00:35:26.000 Same on securing the border.
00:35:28.000 When it comes to dealing with China, just over 30% of voters approve, nearly 60% disapprove.
00:35:34.000 When it comes to creating jobs, even there he is split at like 46-46.
00:35:39.000 And right now, in terms of handling of the war in Ukraine, he is registering in at a well over 50% disapproval.
00:35:45.000 Furthermore, 73% of voters say they think Biden is too old to seek a second term.
00:35:51.000 That's only 47% of voters who say the same of Donald Trump.
00:35:55.000 Even two-thirds of Democrats say that Joe Biden is too old to run again.
00:35:59.000 There's more in this poll that again bolsters Trump and hurts Biden.
00:36:03.000 By an 11-point margin, more voters see Trump rather than Biden as having the record of accomplishments as president.
00:36:08.000 Some 40% said Biden had a good record as president.
00:36:11.000 51% say that Trump had a good record as president.
00:36:14.000 By an 8-point margin, more voters said Trump has a vision for the future.
00:36:16.000 By 10 points, more described Trump as mentally up for the presidency.
00:36:20.000 46% said that was true of Trump.
00:36:21.000 Only 36% said that of Biden. 0.99
00:36:25.000 Now, what's amazing about that is that those numbers are really awful for Joe Biden, like truly, truly garbage for Joe Biden. 0.77
00:36:30.000 You would think that if Joe Biden had numbers that low, his Republican opponent would be like at 50%, 52%.
00:36:35.000 The problem is that Donald Trump's negatives are also super high.
00:36:39.000 So basically the American public thinks that Donald Trump committed criminal acts, like the, I'm not saying everyone, I'm saying that a plurality of the American public believes that Donald Trump did illegal or at least morally bad things in the aftermath of last time's election.
00:36:52.000 And they also don't like him personally.
00:36:54.000 But also they think that he's more competent than Biden and they like his record.
00:36:57.000 Now, that provides an opening to Trump if he runs on his record.
00:37:00.000 But if the entire campaign is going to be about what he did after the election last time and his criminal cases, that's going to be kind of a problem going forward into the election.
00:37:08.000 This is what Tony Fabrizio says.
00:37:10.000 He pulls for a super back that supports Trump.
00:37:12.000 He says, if this race is about personality and temperament, Biden has an advantage.
00:37:15.000 If the race is about policies and performance, Trump has the advantage.
00:37:18.000 But let me remind you, right now, that virtually all races end up being about performance and temperament.
00:37:24.000 Because if it were about policies and performance, Trump would have won in 2020.
00:37:28.000 Without a doubt.
00:37:30.000 So again, these are really bad numbers for Biden, and it's those bad numbers for Biden that are really strengthening Donald Trump inside the Republican primaries because the electability argument basically goes away.
00:37:39.000 Democrats cannot believe that Joe Biden is polling this low.
00:37:42.000 They can't believe it because they live in an echo chamber where everybody loves Joe Biden.
00:37:44.000 So here's George Stephanopoulos, former lackey for Hillary Clinton, being quite shocked.
00:37:50.000 It is kind of shocking in a way that despite all of the baggage that Donald Trump carries, he's tied with Joe Biden right now.
00:37:57.000 Yeah, I mean, George, when I looked at that recent poll, the Wall Street Journal, I said, oh, this could keep me up at night.
00:38:02.000 Look, the problem is, and the biggest challenge we face as Democrats, I say we because I'm a Democrat, is that young voters, young black and Latino voters, they're not ready to come back to the party.
00:38:13.000 They're not even looking at the so-called messaging that's being sent to them about the economy, about climate change, about student debt relief.
00:38:23.000 So again, even Democrats are stunned by his unpopularity, but it's not all that stunning.
00:38:27.000 Joe Biden is not an empathetic figure, as we've been pointing out for months on this program.
00:38:31.000 Joe Biden is not good at his job.
00:38:33.000 I love the fact that Joe Biden is trying to steer into his age at this point, but simultaneously denying that he is lazy, which at this point in his life he is.
00:38:41.000 He spent like the last month on vacation while Lahaina was burning down.
00:38:44.000 Like, what does he do for a living other than sit on the beach and then say words badly into a microphone and then run away from the press?
00:38:52.000 Yesterday, he was asked why he was in Rehoboth Beach.
00:38:54.000 He's like, well, I certainly wasn't on vacation.
00:38:56.000 Well, then what the hell are you doing in Rehoboth Beach?
00:38:58.000 You go there for business?
00:39:01.000 He's not here today, just for one day.
00:39:04.000 I know.
00:39:04.000 I'm on vacation.
00:39:05.000 I'm not.
00:39:05.000 I have no home to go to.
00:39:07.000 Secret Service has torn my house up in a good way to make it secure.
00:39:11.000 So I have no place to go when I come to Delaware to secure it.
00:39:16.000 I'm only here for one day.
00:39:17.000 No, I'm not homeless.
00:39:18.000 I just have one home.
00:39:19.000 I have a beautiful home.
00:39:24.000 Okay, so my favorite part of this is also, he doesn't just say it's hard to hear him, but he says he's not on vacation.
00:39:28.000 He's going to Rehoboth Beach because he doesn't have any other place to go.
00:39:34.000 Like if his house were to burn down in Lahaina or something.
00:39:37.000 He's just like that.
00:39:38.000 What a victim he is.
00:39:40.000 Meanwhile, he flew up to Philadelphia to do a rally.
00:39:42.000 By a rally, we mean, once again, he escaped death, so you can say that for him.
00:39:48.000 And every day with Joe Biden just feels like appointment in Samara at this point.
00:39:52.000 In any case, Joe Biden, he at this rally was saying, I've been doing this longer than anyone.
00:39:57.000 Well, yeah, we noticed.
00:39:59.000 By this, I hope you mean corruption, because that's true.
00:40:02.000 Someone said, you know, that Biden, he's getting old, man, I tell you what.
00:40:07.000 Well, guess what?
00:40:08.000 Guess what?
00:40:09.000 You know, the only thing that comes today is a little bit of wisdom.
00:40:16.000 Well, incontinence.
00:40:21.000 Well, I mean, one thing that does not come along with age is speaking English clearly.
00:40:24.000 That's a lot of mashed potatoes in the mouth right there. 1.00
00:40:27.000 I say I'm gonna take a longer than age.
00:40:30.000 Wisdomy as you will.
00:40:33.000 Solid stuff there from the President of the United States.
00:40:35.000 One of my favorite things he says on the campaign trail is where he says, people call me middle-class Joe.
00:40:39.000 No one has ever called him middle-class Joe.
00:40:40.000 Literally no one.
00:40:42.000 That has never happened, not once.
00:40:43.000 There's no one who's like, that guy over there, you're running around, that's middle-class Joe!
00:40:48.000 You know why no one called him middle-class Joe?
00:40:49.000 Because he hasn't been middle-class since he was a child.
00:40:52.000 That is why.
00:40:53.000 Middle-class Joe was making $44,600 per year when he first entered the Senate at the age of 30.
00:40:58.000 In inflation money, that's $326,000 a year. 1.00
00:41:03.000 Middle class Joe, my ass. 1.00
00:41:04.000 Here we go. 1.00
00:41:06.000 Folks, all my time in public office, I've been referred to as middle class Joe.
00:41:10.000 I guess they thought that was a... What was that?
00:41:14.000 Not very complimentary.
00:41:16.000 Well, guess what?
00:41:16.000 That's who I am.
00:41:17.000 And doesn't mean you're not sophisticated because you're middle class.
00:41:21.000 It means you work like hell and you know what?
00:41:22.000 Your family has to work like hell to be able to make it. 0.99
00:41:27.000 Joe Biden is a corrupt Paul. 0.99
00:41:29.000 He's been a corrupt politician his entire life. 0.98
00:41:31.000 He's not remotely middle class.
00:41:33.000 That dude owns multi-million dollar properties.
00:41:35.000 He is not middle class.
00:41:37.000 That's absurd.
00:41:38.000 And he's still... Also, by the way, who like... I'm wondering, who in the country looks down on the middle class?
00:41:42.000 Seriously, who's like looking at the middle class? 1.00
00:41:44.000 The only people who look down on the middle class are people like Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the morons at Burning Man. 0.99
00:41:48.000 Like, those are the only people. 0.99
00:41:50.000 They're the people who look at middle class Americans like, ah, those rubes living the lifestyle.
00:41:54.000 Remember, it's Barack Obama who's declaring that people voted Republican because they were bitter clingers who were clinging to God and xenophobia because they were losing their jobs.
00:42:02.000 It's people like Joe Biden who look down on the middle class.
00:42:05.000 Joe Biden is there to enrich his corrupt union buddies, which has been true since literally he was elected to the Senate.
00:42:10.000 He has been in the union's pocket since the day he entered the Senate in Delaware. 0.57
00:42:15.000 Again, Ben Schreckinger writes in his book about the Bidens that there is a very solid basis to believe that Joe Biden won his first Senate race basically at the behest of unions that may have illegally picketed a newspaper to prevent a mailer going out about him from his opposition.
00:42:32.000 In any case, one of my favorite things about Joe Biden is that he equates being pro-middle class with being pro the heads of major labor unions.
00:42:39.000 Which, not the same thing.
00:42:40.000 It turns out that forcibly removing a piece of people's paycheck and giving it to a bunch of union bosses then to let corrupt politicians like Joe Biden so they can enrich their funds is pretty amazing stuff.
00:42:50.000 This is presumably why the acting Labor Secretary right now, Julie Hsu, she's out there saying that Joe Biden, he loves the middle class because he loves labor.
00:42:57.000 That's it.
00:42:57.000 He loves the unions.
00:42:58.000 You know what I noticed?
00:42:59.000 The unions represent fewer and fewer members of the middle class.
00:43:01.000 That's what I noticed.
00:43:02.000 Can you lay out what the administration's role is in these negotiations to the extent there is one at all?
00:43:10.000 Yes, thank you so much, Phil.
00:43:11.000 I mean, this president is the most pro-worker, pro-union president that we have had.
00:43:17.000 And that means economic policies that center working people, that are good for workers.
00:43:22.000 It has created a tight labor market in which workers and unions have more power to demand change and demand what's right for workers, demand their fair share at the bargaining table.
00:43:33.000 We are living in an unprecedented moment in American history.
00:43:36.000 of the unions, that's really what it's all about.
00:43:37.000 Again, the only argument for Joe Biden at this point is that he's not Trump.
00:43:40.000 Bernie Sanders just said that out loud.
00:43:42.000 He's like, really, Joe Biden's old, he's bad at this job, but at least he's not Trump.
00:43:46.000 So right now you have the Republican Party betting on at least he's not Biden.
00:43:50.000 You have the Democratic Party betting on at least he's not Trump, and only one party can be right.
00:43:53.000 Here's Bernie making that case.
00:43:55.000 We are living in an unprecedented moment in American history. 0.98
00:43:59.000 Donald Trump is not only a pathological liar, has not only helped wage an insurrection, if you like, 0.89
00:44:09.000 to prevent President Biden from taking office, Not only is denying American democracy, moving against American democracy. 0.90
00:44:21.000 So I think at this moment, Bob, we have got to bring the progressive community together to say, you know what?
00:44:28.000 We're going to fight for a progressive agenda, but we cannot have four more years of Donald Trump in the White House.
00:44:35.000 Again, that's all they care about.
00:44:36.000 And so what you have is, as Jim Garrity at National Review says, a frozen battlefield.
00:44:40.000 Republicans think that anyone can be Biden.
00:44:43.000 Democrats believe anyone can be Trump.
00:44:45.000 And so you're going to end up with Trump-Biden in all likelihood right now.
00:44:48.000 Meanwhile, the media are attempting to do their best to ensure that Ron DeSantis and everyone else in the Republican Party remain secondary to Donald Trump.
00:44:56.000 They're doing so in some cases by just lying.
00:44:57.000 So Rolling Stone Magazine, which is not famous for its honesty, they wrote up a report suggesting that a bunch of neo-Nazis marching in Florida by a bunch, I mean like 15, marching in Florida are representative of Governor DeSantis' political support.
00:45:11.000 According to Rolling Stone's misleading report, they said some of the marchers individually expressed their distaste for Donald Trump, saying they prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
00:45:20.000 And supposedly, they said we're all DeSantis supporters.
00:45:23.000 It's only one problem, which is not true.
00:45:26.000 Which is not true at all.
00:45:26.000 Here's the actual video that Rolling Stone was lying about.
00:45:28.000 We don't vote Pike Wing! 1.00
00:45:31.000 He's got all these laws against him.
00:45:33.000 We're all dissenters!
00:45:35.000 What are you doing here?
00:45:37.000 You're joking when you say dissenters.
00:45:39.000 What are you doing here, Lurch?
00:45:41.000 They're saying F to dissenters, right?
00:45:43.000 They're saying it sarcastically.
00:45:45.000 Rolling Stone left that part out so they could make it look as though all the Nazis in Florida support DeSantis, which is a weird thing since all the Orthodox Jews in Florida support DeSantis.
00:45:52.000 So, uh, so there's that.
00:45:53.000 That's all going really well.
00:45:54.000 Meanwhile...
00:45:56.000 Over the weekend, Joe Biden stopped by Florida very briefly in the aftermath of a hurricane that actually didn't do a tremendous amount of damage.
00:46:04.000 Thank God.
00:46:05.000 And the big controversy over the weekend in Florida was why isn't Ron DeSantis getting together with Joe Biden?
00:46:09.000 And the answer is there's no reason for him to get together with Joe Biden.
00:46:11.000 Joe Biden was just going to stand there and jabber about climate change.
00:46:14.000 So what exactly is the purpose?
00:46:16.000 There's no actual fundamental obligation for a governor of a state of either party.
00:46:20.000 I don't like any of these optics.
00:46:21.000 I've talked about this for years. 1.00
00:46:22.000 I think it's all stupid. 0.99
00:46:23.000 But DeSantis actually has a job to do. 1.00
00:46:24.000 He's the governor of the state.
00:46:25.000 Joe Biden is coming around to stand around and look at things and wander around aimlessly and bump into walls and talk about climate change.
00:46:32.000 So Governor DeSantis said on Friday there were no plans for him to meet with Joe Biden, contradicting comments that Biden had made earlier in the day indicating that they would.
00:46:41.000 The media immediately took this as a great insult to the honor of Joe Biden.
00:46:45.000 I will say this.
00:46:46.000 To his credit, Biden was asked about meeting DeSantis and he didn't actually take the opportunity to bash DeSantis.
00:46:51.000 rare moment of a rare moment of of not garbage behavior from our current president.
00:46:56.000 Are you disappointed that the governor didn't join you on your visit today and that his handling
00:47:02.000 of your visit makes it seem like politics is getting in the way of your joint response to
00:47:08.000 this crisis? Well no I'm not disappointed he He may have had other reasons, but he did help us plan this.
00:47:15.000 He sat with FEMA and decided where we should go, where would be the least disruption.
00:47:22.000 And I'm very pleased.
00:47:23.000 The guy who we don't agree very much at all, the distinguished former governor and senior senator, he came.
00:47:31.000 Talked about to me and to you all about how incredible, what an incredible job the federal government was doing.
00:47:38.000 And I found that reassuring.
00:47:39.000 Yeah, well, you know, again, rare moment of shocking decency there from the current president of the United States.
00:47:47.000 MSNBC, however, was not going to be deterred by Biden's words.
00:47:50.000 Instead, they jumped.
00:47:51.000 This is horrible.
00:47:52.000 How could he not meet with with Joe Biden?
00:47:54.000 Oh, my God.
00:47:55.000 People will.
00:47:56.000 Here we go.
00:47:58.000 I remember being on the ground for Sandy, for Hurricane Sandy, way back when.
00:48:02.000 And you think back to the meeting that Chris Christie then had, then-New Jersey governor had with President Obama, right, and the embrace.
00:48:09.000 And some folks said that is the reason why then-President Obama got reelected.
00:48:16.000 Is this, you think, one of the reasons why DeSantis is choosing not to meet with the president today and making it more about politics?
00:48:22.000 Well, I would just note, I do not think that going to her, going to be the president, to do your presidential duty when President Obama was president, was in fact the reason that he was re-elected.
00:48:34.000 Look, I think that Governor DeSantis, his team, and by the way, he has two teams, right?
00:48:40.000 He has a team in the governor's office and then he has a team on his campaign.
00:48:45.000 I think that the team of the campaign is likely negatively influencing what the decisions of the team in the governor's office makes.
00:48:57.000 Okay, so yeah, the media are not going to let that one go.
00:49:00.000 Okay, meanwhile, Elon Musk is now at war with the Anti-Defamation League.
00:49:04.000 So let's be clear about the Anti-Defamation League.
00:49:06.000 It is a progressive interest group that proclaims that it is speaking in the name of Jewish causes.
00:49:10.000 That is untrue.
00:49:12.000 It is just a progressive interest group.
00:49:14.000 That's all.
00:49:15.000 And sometimes they cross streams with actual not horrific Ideas.
00:49:20.000 And a lot of the time, they're targeting people on the basis of spurious nonsense or ignoring people on the basis of other spurious nonsense.
00:49:26.000 Because, again, they're a progressive interest group.
00:49:28.000 Well, Elon Musk is now in a battle with the ADL.
00:49:32.000 And he's in a battle with them because he's saying that you guys are basically trying to slur X, formerly known as Twitter, by having advertisers remove their revenue.
00:49:40.000 He's right about that.
00:49:41.000 A lot of these progressive interest groups are very much interested in removing advertising revenue from sources where they can't control the speech.
00:49:47.000 So he posted on X saying the ADL has been, quote, trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it and me of being anti-semitic.
00:49:53.000 If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the Anti-Defamation League.
00:49:58.000 If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist they drop the anti part of their name since, obviously.
00:50:04.000 Now, is that really going to happen?
00:50:06.000 It's almost impossible to win a defamation suit against a public figure.
00:50:10.000 It's really, really, really rough because you have to show actual malice, which is a nearly impossible standard.
00:50:17.000 With that said, is the ADL constantly speaking up on behalf of the right causes?
00:50:23.000 Absolutely not.
00:50:23.000 I mean, they've made excuses for some of the world's worst anti-Semites in Congress, so long as they're Democrats.
00:50:28.000 Because again, it is a progressive interest group.
00:50:30.000 They posted a report suggesting that X is now filled with horrible hate.
00:50:36.000 This is a way for them to work together with groups that we've discussed on the program before, like Garm, in order to reduce advertising to platforms like X.
00:50:44.000 Basically, abide by left-wing standards of speech or watch your advertising dollars disappear.
00:50:48.000 That's what Elon Musk is sounding off about, and he happens to be correct about all of that.
00:50:53.000 And it's really, really ugly, which is why it's very important that if you are an advertiser and you are looking at platforms to advertise on, you probably should be looking at freer speech platforms like Twitter.
00:51:03.000 Because otherwise, Twitter slash X is going to revert back to type and it's going to do the same kind of crap that Facebook has done or YouTube has done in censoring material.
00:51:12.000 Okay, time for a quick thing I like and then a quick thing that I hate.
00:51:15.000 So things that I like today.
00:51:17.000 If you wish to understand what exactly is going on in China, fantastic new book out by a person named Yasheng Huang.
00:51:24.000 This book is titled, The Rise and Fall of the East, How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success and Why They Might Lead to its Decline.
00:51:32.000 The basic premise of the book is that for centuries, millennia almost, baked into the Chinese cake has been this system of test taking, that basically chose single standards of merit in order to elevate people.
00:51:46.000 And this has led to top-down authoritarian rule in China.
00:51:49.000 It's been incredibly durable, a lot more durable than it would have been in, say, Russia.
00:51:53.000 And it's why you can have Xi Jinping, who's being as authoritarian as he wants to be, and still maintain control of a country that theoretically... Like, why does it never fragment?
00:52:01.000 Why does China never come apart?
00:52:02.000 Why does it seem as though it continues to be durable even when its economic numbers go down?
00:52:07.000 It also has some lessons to teach the United States about how economics ought to work,
00:52:11.000 and also about the sort of standards that we use in terms of economic growth.
00:52:14.000 So one of the points made in the rise and fall of the East is that basically all of the 0.50
00:52:18.000 test-based systems for elevating people inside the CCP are rooted in growth of GDP.
00:52:24.000 If you are a regional leader in China and you grew GDP in your area, you're very likely to be looked at for a top post in the centralized government.
00:52:30.000 Well, the problem is that GDP is a standard that is largely reliant in China on government borrowing and spending, which is why you see China now in serious trouble.
00:52:38.000 It's borrowed and spent way too much money.
00:52:40.000 It's why you have giant empty cities in some of these places, because if you're a public official and you wish to rise in the Chinese Communist Party, what better way to do it than borrow a bunch of money, build a bunch of empty cities and claim that you just increased GDP dramatically?
00:52:50.000 It's a really fascinating book.
00:52:51.000 Again, go check it out.
00:52:52.000 The Rise and Fall of the East by Yasheng Huang, if you're interested in the actual situation going on with China and the durability of the Chinese regime, even if they are experiencing economic failure.
00:53:03.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:53:10.000 This is a piece by David Gibson, who's director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, and he's ripping into American conservative Catholics for being at odds with Pope Francis.
00:53:20.000 He's saying that the loudest voices in American Catholicism are, quote, backward-looking moralists, disconnected from the roots of the church.
00:53:27.000 Catholic tradition and history, says Francis, is about moving forward, changing to live the gospel message in the midst of current realities.
00:53:32.000 The Pope's words were both surprisingly frank and frankly unsurprising, giving the persistence of right anger directed at his modernizing approach.
00:53:38.000 This episode could be read as part of a long saga of tensions between Rome and the U.S.
00:53:41.000 church.
00:53:42.000 Since the nation's founding, popes have regarded the American experiment in democracy with suspicion.
00:53:46.000 Separation of church and state is dangerous to souls in society.
00:53:49.000 They've issued periodic blasts at Americanism and modernist trends.
00:53:52.000 The election of Pope Francis in 2013 flipped the script, however, suddenly the Vatican began pushing Americans to be more flexible, more pastoral, more inclusive, less doctrinally rigid.
00:54:00.000 Rome is now the engine of reform, a historic reversal.
00:54:03.000 France is a world leader in combating climate change.
00:54:05.000 He insistently decries economic injustice and the treatment of migrants, while putting new emphasis on the universal right to healthcare, housing, and decent jobs.
00:54:12.000 Indeed in Portugal, Francis criticized the fixation on sins below the waist, while if you exploited workers, if you lied or cheated, it didn't matter.
00:54:19.000 Meanwhile, says this columnist, much of American church leadership remains focused on a pelvic theology.
00:54:24.000 Okay, here is the thing.
00:54:26.000 It turns out that the American Catholics who are critical of Francis are right. 1.00
00:54:31.000 There are certain unchanging principles in Catholicism.
00:54:34.000 And Francis hasn't changed them, right?
00:54:36.000 Francis has not actually changed the church's position on same-sex marriage.
00:54:38.000 He's not changed the church's position on divorce.
00:54:40.000 He's not changed the church's position on contraception.
00:54:43.000 It's just that he keeps making overtures toward those who would in order to make time on climate change and social redistributionism.
00:54:51.000 In essence, he's a liberation theologist who's now occupying the office of the papacy.
00:54:56.000 And American Catholics, more conservative Catholics all over the world know this.
00:54:59.000 Which is why he, more than any other Pope, has created a schism inside the Catholic Church.
00:55:04.000 That is Francis' fault.
00:55:06.000 And that is not the fault of American Catholics who are hewing exactly the same line they were hewing 20 years ago.
00:55:10.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
00:55:11.000 You're not going to want to miss it.
00:55:12.000 We'll be talking with Vadhi Bakkam.
00:55:13.000 He has a brand new book out.
00:55:14.000 If you're not a member, become a member.
00:55:15.000 Use code SHAPIRO.
00:55:16.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.