The Ben Shapiro Show - The Great Gun-Grab | Ep. 742

00:00:00.000 New Zealand's government bans the sale of semi-automatic weapons, the woke scolds come for Jordan Peterson, and President Trump keeps getting in his own way.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:08.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:14.000 A lot of news coming at you today.

00:00:15.000 We will get to all of it.

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00:01:31.000 Alright, so the big breaking news this morning is obviously that New Zealand has now banned semi-automatic weapons.

00:01:39.000 They're imposing a broadband on guns after this horrific white supremacist terror attack on mosques in Christchurch.

00:01:46.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, New Zealand moved to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles, and high-capacity magazines.

00:01:53.000 Whenever folks say military-style, they just mean semi-automatic weapons because The only thing that distinguishes a semi-automatic military weapon from any other semi-automatic weapon is presumably caliber size, muzzle velocity maybe, and the look of the gun.

00:02:08.000 Usually when folks on the left say military style, what they mean is it's black and it has scary grips.

00:02:13.000 The things that make it look scary, even though it doesn't actually affect the functioning of the gun.

00:02:17.000 The shooter had held a valid gun license.

00:02:20.000 They'd actually applied for and gotten a gun license, but the weapons used in the terrorist attack included semi-automatic rifles that had been illegally upgraded with higher capacity magazines to enable 30 bullets or more to be fired without reloading.

00:02:32.000 His license restricted his magazine capacity to seven bullets.

00:02:35.000 So obviously, more gun laws will certainly prevent this sort of thing in the future, considering this guy was already violating current gun laws when he went and shot up a bunch of innocent people.

00:02:44.000 Also violating current murder laws, and assault laws, and all sorts of other laws.

00:02:48.000 Turns out mass shooters don't really care about violating laws.

00:02:51.000 This is one of the things about mass shooters.

00:02:53.000 And this is particularly true when it comes to mass shooters living in quote-unquote gun-restricted societies.

00:02:59.000 The truth is that if you look statistically at on a per capita basis, which countries have the highest rate of mass shooting deaths, the United States is not in the top 10.

00:03:07.000 And that includes industrialized countries.

00:03:09.000 We have a lower rate of mass shooting death than does France.

00:03:11.000 France has heavy gun restrictions.

00:03:14.000 This is all bad policy.

00:03:16.000 It's emotionally driven policy, and it's understandable on an emotional level, but it is bad policy because bad policy is rarely, good policy is rarely taken at a moment's notice on the back of a tragedy.

00:03:29.000 It's rare that something terrible happens and people immediately snap to the most reasonable makes sense policy.

00:03:33.000 This is true in your own personal life, and this is true when it comes to government policy as well.

00:03:37.000 The Prime Minister of New Zealand, whose name is Jacinda Ardern, said that her government would also pay cash to gun owners who surrender their weapons in a nationwide amnesty.

00:03:46.000 She is proposing jail time or fines for people who refuse to turn over those weapons.

00:03:50.000 Here is what the Prime Minister of New Zealand had to say.

00:03:52.000 Today I'm announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons.

00:04:00.000 We will also ban all assault rifles.

00:04:04.000 6.

00:04:05.000 We will ban all high-capacity magazines.

00:04:10.000 We will ban all parts with the ability to convert semi-automatic or any other type of firearm into a military-style semi-automatic weapon.

00:04:21.000 We will ban parts that cause a firearm to generate semi-automatic, automatic, or close to automatic gunfire.

00:04:30.000 In short.

00:04:31.000 Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country.

00:04:39.000 Okay, this is actually pretty terrible policy.

00:04:41.000 It really is.

00:04:42.000 It's pretty bad, ineffective policy.

00:04:43.000 There are 1.2 million guns in New Zealand.

00:04:46.000 There's well over 200,000 licensed gun owners in New Zealand.

00:04:51.000 New Zealand has one of the lowest murder rates anywhere in the world.

00:04:54.000 According to Stuff.com in New Zealand, the murder rate in New Zealand hit a 40-year low In June 2018.

00:05:02.000 The number of murders in New Zealand overall in 2017 was 35.

00:05:07.000 That is a rate of 7 for every million people.

00:05:10.000 Every million people.

00:05:12.000 And apparently the majority of those murders did not take place with a gun.

00:05:15.000 Despite the fact that there are 1.2 million guns in circulation estimated in New Zealand.

00:05:21.000 Which suggests that the problem here is not guns. 0.97

00:05:23.000 The problem here is that an evil white supremacist violated gun laws and went and shot up a mosque. 0.88

00:05:29.000 Here's the problem with using outlier statistics, like mass shootings, as a rationale for gun policy. 0.91

00:05:35.000 They are, in fact, outlier statistics.

00:05:37.000 They are statistically rare events.

00:05:38.000 It is very difficult to create good policy on the back of statistically rare events that don't have an endemic basis to them.

00:05:46.000 When you talk about events that you can draw, that you can extrapolate from, you have to extrapolate to something that makes sense in correlative fashion.

00:05:56.000 So for example, if you wanted to say that white supremacist ideology is inherently bad, And therefore, we should crack down on, in non-governmental ways, I don't think the government has a role in restricting free speech, but the government should monitor white supremacist chat boards, for example.

00:06:12.000 I would agree, because number one, the ideology is itself evil, and second of all, There's a good correlation, or at least some correlation, between violence and evil acts and white supremacy.

00:06:22.000 That is obviously not the case when it comes to gun ownership in New Zealand, where again, hundreds of thousands of people own guns.

00:06:28.000 35 murders took place in 2017, and one horrible evil event now means that the New Zealand government is going to criminalize legitimately hundreds of thousands of people?

00:06:37.000 That's what they're talking about.

00:06:38.000 They're talking about now making criminals out of hundreds of thousands of people.

00:06:42.000 And make no mistake, these gun buyback regimes don't actually work.

00:06:45.000 Australia tried a gun buyback.

00:06:47.000 One third of the guns were actually turned back in to the government of Australia.

00:06:51.000 Now, folks say, well, you know, the number of murders went down in Australia after that.

00:06:55.000 Right, if you actually look at the chart of murders in Australia, they were declining before the gun buyback, they were declining after the gun buyback.

00:07:01.000 If you look at the chart of murders in the United States, as the number of guns in circulation in the United States continued to rapidly increase from the early 90s to now, the murder rate went down at a rate faster than Australia's murder rate went down.

00:07:14.000 When folks say, well, there haven't been a mass shooting since 1996 in Australia.

00:07:18.000 That's when they implemented this mass gun confiscation.

00:07:22.000 Well, there weren't many before that.

00:07:24.000 So you're talking about going from a rate of maybe two every 10 years in Australia to a rate of zero in the past 10 years.

00:07:30.000 That's not statistically significant, obviously.

00:07:34.000 Making bad policy on the back of tragedy is generally a mistake.

00:07:41.000 And as I say, this is indeed bad policy.

00:07:43.000 Now, one of the things that has happened here, and it's amazing to watch, is members of the Democratic Party have of course jumped on this, and they've suggested that this demonstrates that Action can be taken if people want to take it.

00:07:54.000 Now, I'm old enough to remember when Democrats were saying they did not want to confiscate your guns.

00:07:58.000 Hillary Clinton used to say this all the time in 2016. 0.88

00:08:00.000 All those crazy Republicans saying, we want to come confiscate your guns. 0.92

00:08:04.000 We don't want to confiscate your guns, guys. 0.99

00:08:06.000 We would never want to do that.

00:08:07.000 Also, we kind of want to confiscate your guns.

00:08:11.000 So Bernie Sanders tweeted out because he has no Brain-to-mouth filter.

00:08:16.000 By the way, his home state of Vermont is one of the least restrictive gun ownership states in the nation.

00:08:21.000 Also has one of the lowest murder rates.

00:08:23.000 So very weird that Bernie Sanders would feel this way.

00:08:25.000 He used to be a lot more pro-gun until he decided to run for president.

00:08:28.000 He says, this is what real action to stop gun violence looks like.

00:08:32.000 We must follow New Zealand's lead, take on the NRA, and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.

00:08:40.000 So he wants to ban the sale and distribution of every semi-automatic rifle in the United States.

00:08:46.000 Good luck with that, Bernie.

00:08:47.000 I'd like to see the Democrats run on this one.

00:08:49.000 Beto has made similar suggestions in the last few days, suggesting that he wants to ban all AR-15s or all semi-automatic rifles.

00:08:58.000 Here's the truth about murder rates and gun violence.

00:09:01.000 They are localized.

00:09:02.000 They are localized.

00:09:04.000 And they are localized in high crime areas.

00:09:06.000 You go to an area like Vermont, there are no murders and lots of guns.

00:09:09.000 You go to an area like New Zealand, no murders, lots of guns.

00:09:12.000 And you go to New Orleans, lots of guns, lots of murder.

00:09:16.000 So the suggestion is not that guns and murder are not linked.

00:09:19.000 They can be, but it depends on the human beings who are holding the guns, obviously.

00:09:25.000 And it is worth noting here, as I said earlier, that statistics that suggest that America is rampantly filled with mass shootings in a way that other nations are not, is simply not true.

00:09:36.000 John Lott, who's written extensively about this, writes a piece in the New York Post with Michael Weiser, talking about whether America leads the world in mass shootings.

00:09:45.000 He says that there was a study that came out and reported that over 47 years, there were 90 public mass shooters in the United States and 202 in the rest of the world.

00:09:53.000 This is according to a study by a fellow named, a criminologist named Adam Lankford, and this received all sorts of coverage.

00:10:00.000 Lott asked him to release the list, and Lankford refused to release the list.

00:10:05.000 A new report that was created by John Lott collected cases using the same definition of mass public shootings used by Lankford.

00:10:11.000 Here's what they say.

00:10:12.000 We know of no way to discover most of the cases where four people have been shot to death in an incident in Africa or many other parts of the world during the 60s, 70s, 80s or even 1990s.

00:10:19.000 '70s, '80s, or even 1990s.

00:10:21.000 And so we looked at the last 15 years, from 1998 to 2012, of the 47 years that were examined by his study.

00:10:27.000 Even when we used the coding choices most charitable to Lankford, such as excluding any cases of insurgencies or battles over territory, his estimate of the US share of shooters falls from 31% to 1.43%.

00:10:35.000 from 31% to 1.43%.

00:10:38.000 It also accounts for 2.1% of burgers and 2.88% of their attacks.

00:10:43.000 All are much less than the United States' 4.6% share of the population.

00:10:47.000 Of the 86 countries where we have identified mass public shootings, the United States ranks 56th per capita in its rate of attacks and 61st in mass public shooting murder rate.

00:10:57.000 Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Russia all have at least 45% higher rates of murder from mass public shootings than the United States.

00:11:05.000 Well, one possibility here is that it is not guns that enable mass shooters.

00:11:08.000 Guns also help deter a lot of this stuff from happening.

00:11:12.000 It is also possible that low crime areas tend not to have lots of gun crime.

00:11:17.000 And that is true in New Zealand, as it is true in Bernie Sanders' home state of Vermont.

00:11:21.000 The reason that I bring all this stuff up is because there is this implication from the left that is really gross.

00:11:27.000 That if you don't agree with them on gun policy, it's because you don't care about dead people.

00:11:31.000 Maybe I do really care about dead people and the best way I think to protect people from being dead is to arm people outside of, for example, mosques and churches and synagogues.

00:11:41.000 It's an argument I made in the wake of the Tree of Life shooting.

00:11:44.000 It's one of the reasons why we have armed guards outside of the synagogue that I attend.

00:11:47.000 And not only that, I have personal security that comes with me to synagogue.

00:11:51.000 And one of the reasons for this is because I don't believe that law enforcement can get there in time if somebody decides to do something evil.

00:11:59.000 It seems like an odd contention that you're going to remove guns from some 230,000 New Zealand citizens who are licensed to carry and licensed to register to own guns.

00:12:10.000 You're going to remove those guns from those people and somehow New Zealand is going to get safer than the 35 murders committed in 2017?

00:12:16.000 All because an Australian citizen who violated gun laws decided to do something completely evil?

00:12:21.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

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00:13:28.000 Okay, so again, here is the reality about violent crime in the United States.

00:13:32.000 Okay, violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades in the United States, despite the increase in the number of guns in circulation in the United States.

00:13:40.000 The principal public safety hazard when it comes to guns in the United States is suicide, not mass shootings.

00:13:46.000 Not even homicides.

00:13:47.000 Suicides.

00:13:50.000 America is relatively safe.

00:13:51.000 This is according to Heritage Foundation, and this is correct.

00:13:53.000 America is relatively safe, and the trend is toward becoming safer, and this has been true for legitimately years.

00:13:59.000 There have been minor increases in certain types of violent crimes in large metropolitan areas, but those increases are nowhere near those seen in the 1990s, despite the fact that, again, there are increasing number of people who have guns in the United States on an absolute level, and an increasing number of guns in circulation in the United States on an absolute level.

00:14:19.000 And as we say, crime is local, and crime is localized.

00:14:23.000 So, targeting an enormous number of people who are law-abiding citizens in the United States, as the left is now suggesting, is such a mistake.

00:14:31.000 First of all, you really think it's going to go well?

00:14:32.000 You think that everybody in Texas is going to turn over their gun to the government for a cash buyback?

00:14:38.000 The Second Amendment was instituted to protect the Second Amendment, meaning that it was designed so that if people try to take your guns, that you can protect yourself against the people trying to take your guns.

00:14:50.000 Higher rates of gun ownership internationally are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.

00:14:55.000 Again, and that's true in the United States also.

00:14:57.000 There are lots of states in the United States where there are high levels of gun ownership and low levels of crime.

00:15:02.000 Crime is not driven by gun ownership.

00:15:04.000 The left's celebration of this really goes to their attempted character assassination of everybody who happens to differ with them on gun control.

00:15:12.000 The suggestion being, if you disagree with us, it's because you don't care about dead people.

00:15:16.000 And thus, New Zealand is about will, it is not about policy.

00:15:20.000 Now, it turns out a lot of us have pretty good reasons, politically, why we don't want the government seizing our guns.

00:15:24.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:15:28.000 So, let's talk for a second about Australia's gun buyback.

00:15:32.000 So Australia's gun buyback, as Matt Palumbo writes, Australia's gun buyback reduced homicides, but only at the same rate as the United States.

00:15:42.000 He writes, firearm homicides did fall post-1996 gun control at exactly the same pace as they were naturally falling before gun control.

00:15:50.000 Over a similar period, 1993 to 2014, gun homicides in America were cut by more than half.

00:15:56.000 Keep in mind that guns per capita increased about 50% in America over that period.

00:16:00.000 And the overall homicide rate fell faster in the United States than it did in Australia.

00:16:05.000 How about gun suicides?

00:16:08.000 Well, there was an American Medical Association study that didn't find any statistically significant effect of the National Firearms Act in Australia on gun suicide.

00:16:16.000 There was a decline in firearm suicides, but non-firearm suicides fell at a faster pace than firearm suicides.

00:16:22.000 In other words, the suicide rate just fell generally. 0.98

00:16:27.000 The notion that you can simply ban guns and that will fix the problem is really foolish. 0.97

00:16:32.000 It's just as foolish to believe that you can ban books and somehow that this is going to cure the problem. 0.97

00:16:38.000 There's a story out of New Zealand today that is just insane. 0.95

00:16:41.000 I mean, this is legitimately crazy.

00:16:43.000 This is absolutely crazy.

00:16:45.000 We've been told that there are firefighters in the media and they rushed to the story.

00:16:48.000 Where are the firefighters in the media over this? 0.92

00:16:50.000 They've talked about tyranny in the United States and President Trump being a tyrant and a dictator.

00:16:54.000 Where are they when it comes to folks in the West legitimately banning books?

00:16:59.000 And not even banning white supremacist books, not even banning Mein Kampf or something.

00:17:03.000 Mein Kampf is still banned in Germany, for example.

00:17:05.000 I think that's a bad idea, but at least you can understand that, sort of.

00:17:09.000 I mean, Mein Kampf is one of the most evil books ever written and did inspire people to join the worst movement in the history of the world.

00:17:16.000 Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life is now being banned.

00:17:19.000 It is not for sale from a store called Whitcool's in New Zealand.

00:17:23.000 Apparently, there are 56 outlets.

00:17:24.000 It's one of the bigger book outlets in New Zealand.

00:17:27.000 According to News Hub in New Zealand, the controversial Canadian professor visited Ederia in February, weeks before a gunman killed 50 people and injured dozens more at two mosques in Christchurch.

00:17:37.000 Although Peterson's book promotes self-help rather than violence or racism, he was photographed in New Zealand embracing a fan, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, I'm a proud Islamophobe, along with a list of various inflammatory accusations about Muslims.

00:17:50.000 The shirt just says something like, I'm a proud Islamophobe, and then lists off a bunch of terrible things that it distributes to Islamists. 0.99

00:17:59.000 It says, I'm a proud Islamophobe, I'm against pedophilia, rape, wife-beating, misogyny, etc, etc, etc, etc. 0.96

00:18:05.000 I'm for the freedom of the individual.

00:18:07.000 And Jordan is just standing next to this guy in a picture.

00:18:09.000 He isn't embracing him.

00:18:10.000 He's taking pictures the way that Jordan normally takes pictures.

00:18:12.000 Now, I have something to say about this on a personal level. 0.98

00:18:15.000 This is the dumbest reason to ban somebody of all time. 0.98

00:18:19.000 Jordan Peterson, I am sure. 0.99

00:18:20.000 I mean, he spoke something like a hundred times last year.

00:18:24.000 And every time he speaks, he's got a couple thousand people there.

00:18:27.000 And he takes pictures with hundreds of those people.

00:18:29.000 At this point, Jordan has probably taken legitimately hundreds of thousands of pictures with fans.

00:18:34.000 I speak a lot of places, too.

00:18:35.000 I've legitimately taken, I would imagine at this point, 30 to 40 thousand pictures with fans. 0.81

00:18:40.000 I don't remember a single damn shirt anybody was wearing.

00:18:43.000 And unless somebody walked up to me wearing a full-on swastika or a full-on hammer and sickle shirt for some reason, I'm not examining their shirt. 0.81

00:18:51.000 If it's got a lot of text, I'm not reading the shirt.

00:18:53.000 Because that's not my job.

00:18:56.000 Is Jordan supposed to now screen people's shirts for the people he takes pictures with?

00:19:03.000 How is it?

00:19:04.000 What?

00:19:05.000 This is the new public standard.

00:19:06.000 The new public standard is if you take a picture with a person who is a fan, and you're a public figure, and that fan turns out to be a terrible person, then somehow your book gets banned.

00:19:15.000 If that's the case, we're going to need to know why it is that the Orlando Pulse shooter's father, you'll recall, showed up at a Democratic rally.

00:19:23.000 That Democrat was not banned, right?

00:19:25.000 We didn't say the Democrat was a bad guy.

00:19:27.000 We said, what association does he have with this person?

00:19:30.000 If you've ever been to one of these rope lines where you shake the hand of a prominent person, you're in the picture for legitimately about three seconds flat.

00:19:38.000 And so Whit Cools is banning Jordan Peterson's non-Islamophobic, non-white supremacist book on the basis that a person who wore a shirt that they find offensive took a picture with him?

00:19:50.000 Whit Cools doesn't specify the exact reason for dumping Peterson's 12 Rules for Life and Antidote to Chaos, a book that has sold some 3 million copies.

00:19:57.000 It's probably the biggest bestseller of the last 15 years in the nonfiction list.

00:20:02.000 They say that They say this, quote, This is insanity.

00:20:05.000 "12 Rules for Life is currently unavailable, "which is a decision that Whitcalls has made "in light of some extremely disturbing material "being circulated prior, during, and after "the Christchurch attacks.

00:20:14.000 "As a business which takes our responsibilities "to our communities very seriously, "we believe it would be wrong to support the author "at this time.

00:20:20.000 "Apologies that we're not able to sell it to you, "but we appreciate your understanding." This is insanity.

00:20:26.000 So you're fighting neo-Nazism by banning books. 0.54

00:20:29.000 You're fighting white supremacism by banning books.

00:20:31.000 Jordan is an active fighter against white supremacism.

00:20:34.000 I've spent time with Jordan.

00:20:35.000 We've had discussions on this issue. 0.98

00:20:38.000 This is patently ridiculous.

00:20:40.000 But when you decide that you're going to quash freedom of speech in favor of supposed safety, and this is not going to guarantee safety in any case, there's no way that banning Jordan Peterson's book from sale in New Zealand is preventing shootings. 0.95

00:20:55.000 It's utter craziness.

00:20:58.000 By the way, other books that continue to be on sale at Wickles include Mein Kampf, which has to do with white supremacism, guys, and also a book called, it's like, Jordantology by Vox Dei, an outspoken white supremacist, and Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right troll.

00:21:17.000 That book is still on sale, apparently, at Wickles.

00:21:21.000 So, just...

00:21:23.000 Very, very solid stuff here from the left.

00:21:26.000 So their solutions to a mass shooting are to do, by the way, exactly what the shooter wanted.

00:21:31.000 The shooter says in his manifesto, and I have not quoted his manifesto at length because I don't wish to give it credibility, but since the left now insists that the manifesto is a rationale to ban books, it seems worthwhile pointing out that the shooter explicitly suggested that this be done.

00:21:46.000 The shooter explicitly said he was attempting to drive a gun debate in the United States that would cause gun confiscation and therefore violence.

00:21:52.000 He says this explicitly in the manifesto and so the left immediately falls for it.

00:21:56.000 Now again, you want to make the case for why guns ought to be confiscated, make the case.

00:22:01.000 But it has to be a logical case and it can't be based on, you don't care enough if you disagree with me.

00:22:06.000 That's simple absurdity on a vast scale.

00:22:10.000 Now speaking of Jordan Peterson, he's also being banned now from Cambridge University.

00:22:16.000 And this does speak to the left's desire to shut down anybody who is remotely successful on the non-left.

00:22:22.000 Jordan happens to be a relatively conservative guy, although he doesn't vote in U.S.

00:22:25.000 elections, because he's Canadian.

00:22:27.000 But Jordan is now being deplatformed.

00:22:29.000 They're trying to remove his book in New Zealand.

00:22:31.000 And now they've removed a fellowship offer at the University of Cambridge.

00:22:35.000 And so the question becomes, seriously, who on the non-left will the left accept?

00:22:39.000 Is there anybody on the non-left that the left will accept as part of a rational conversation?

00:22:44.000 You know, somebody who doesn't just agree with them on everything.

00:22:47.000 And I mean on a permanent basis.

00:22:48.000 I don't mean on a temporary basis.

00:22:50.000 So there's something that happens in right-wing circles, where if you say something that is heterodox with conservatism, for just a moment, you get strange new respect.

00:23:00.000 Lots of strange new respect.

00:23:02.000 Lots of offers to come on MSNBC.

00:23:04.000 And lots of offers to be part of discussions and cocktail hours from people who are very prominent.

00:23:09.000 And you're treated very nicely.

00:23:10.000 And if you do that for long enough, then maybe they'll invite you to a few more cocktail parties.

00:23:16.000 But then if you do something that snaps back into the reality of conservatism, if you say anything conservative, then they come after you.

00:23:22.000 So David Frum, who has mirrored a lot of the left's preferences on policy as well as on President Trump, David Frum was welcome in left circles until he wrote a column at the Atlantic on immigration and then all of a sudden it turned into that typical right-wing racist, David Frum.

00:23:36.000 And it's the same thing with anybody who is prominent.

00:23:39.000 The left, they've shrunk the Overton window to the point where no one is inside the Overton window except people with whom they agree.

00:23:46.000 I challenge the left to name somebody on the right who they actually respect or think is not a bigot.

00:23:51.000 You're gonna have to name some people.

00:23:54.000 Really, name them.

00:23:56.000 People were calling David French an Islamophobe the other day.

00:23:59.000 David French of National Review.

00:24:02.000 David French is a member of the U.S.

00:24:04.000 Army.

00:24:05.000 He serves in the Army, in Iraq, fighting to save the lives of Muslims from radicals.

00:24:11.000 But he's an Islamophobe.

00:24:13.000 I mean, the left will legitimately throw anyone out once they realize that the person is conservative.

00:24:19.000 If they want to have honest conversations, this is not the way to do it.

00:24:21.000 I saw this over the last 24 or 48 hours with regard to Andrew Yang.

00:24:25.000 So Andrew Yang is a Democratic presidential candidate.

00:24:28.000 And I'd said on my show yesterday that Andrew Yang, I found sort of interesting.

00:24:32.000 At least the guy has ideas.

00:24:33.000 I don't agree with a lot of his ideas, but I'd love to have him on the Sunday special and we can discuss.

00:24:37.000 So immediately the internet picks this up.

00:24:39.000 They're going to have a debate.

00:24:40.000 We're not having a debate.

00:24:41.000 We're having a discussion, which is what rational people do.

00:24:43.000 Unless it is a set-up debate that is designed to be a debate, we like to call this thing discussion.

00:24:47.000 And if you watch my Sunday specials, which come out on Sundays, I've had many people who disagree with me on a variety of subjects, from Michael Shormer to Sam Harris, on the Sunday special.

00:24:56.000 It happens a lot.

00:24:58.000 And that would be true if Andrew Yang comes on.

00:25:00.000 So Andrew Yang expressed interest in coming on the podcast, and I said, well, that'll be great.

00:25:04.000 Immediately, he was hit with a wave of, how dare you even sit down with Shapiro?

00:25:09.000 How dare you even have a conversation with Shapiro?

00:25:12.000 It was the same thing with my friend Michael Shermer.

00:25:14.000 Michael and I disagree radically when it comes to religion.

00:25:18.000 Michael had me on his podcast to discuss my new book, The Right Side of History, which, for the record, is now number one on Amazon, the number one best-selling book on planet Earth.

00:25:26.000 He was hit with a wave of vitriol.

00:25:27.000 How dare you legitimize Shapiro?

00:25:29.000 Okay, name me the right-winger you would legitimize.

00:25:31.000 Really, if you're on the left.

00:25:32.000 So Jordan Peterson is out.

00:25:34.000 I'm out.

00:25:35.000 People like Dave Rubin, who's not even truly conservative.

00:25:39.000 Dave considers himself a classical liberal, more on the libertarian scale.

00:25:42.000 He's out.

00:25:43.000 Even folks who are momentarily beloved like David Frum.

00:25:46.000 If they put their head above the waterline, they get clubbed.

00:25:50.000 Kevin Williamson is out.

00:25:51.000 David French is out.

00:25:53.000 Who's left, guys?

00:25:54.000 Really, and the answer is nobody's left.

00:25:56.000 And that's how many people on the radical left, and increasingly on the mainstream left, want it.

00:26:00.000 Here's the story about Jordan.

00:26:03.000 He said that he would be a visiting fellow.

00:26:05.000 He announced he would be a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge Divinity School, which makes perfect sense.

00:26:09.000 He's one of the world's leading authorities and one of the most popular speakers when it comes to biblical meaning on planet Earth.

00:26:17.000 He has a series on biblical meaning that has 10 million views on YouTube.

00:26:20.000 That's better than any of the other professors over at Cambridge University.

00:26:24.000 On Wednesday, Cambridge's administration announced they had rescinded the invitation following a public outcry from students and professors.

00:26:30.000 A Cambridge spokesperson told the UK Guardian, quote, Cambridge is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles.

00:26:37.000 There is no place here for anyone who cannot. 1.00

00:26:40.000 So what principles did Jordan violate?

00:26:42.000 Well, he violated the principle that you should be forced by the government to use a transgender person's preferred pronouns.

00:26:50.000 So if you disagree with the basic idea that we should falsify pronouns, then you are no longer welcome to teach at University of Cambridge.

00:26:59.000 And also, they say that he is not sufficiently woke when it comes to feminism.

00:27:03.000 This is the case that they are making.

00:27:04.000 So they renounced their initial offer and deplatformed Jordan.

00:27:09.000 They removed the offer after realizing that he is who he has always been.

00:27:14.000 I'm against this even when it happens on the left.

00:27:17.000 I controversially argued that James Gunn should not be removed from the Guardians of the Galaxy series for a series of bad old tweets, jokes about pedophilia and such.

00:27:25.000 Because everybody knew about those tweets when he was hired, so why are you firing him?

00:27:28.000 I said the same exact thing about Sarah Jean.

00:27:30.000 She had a bunch of racist tweets.

00:27:31.000 She was hired by the New York Times.

00:27:32.000 They knew about all the racist tweets.

00:27:34.000 And then there's a big outcry, and I said she shouldn't be fired.

00:27:36.000 They knew who she was when they hired her.

00:27:39.000 Well, Jordan doesn't keep his views a secret.

00:27:41.000 Everybody knows this stuff.

00:27:43.000 Everybody knows that Jordan holds these views on transgender pronouns.

00:27:46.000 It's one of the reasons he is very, very famous.

00:27:49.000 Jordan put out a statement about all of this.

00:27:52.000 He says that he began discussions with Cambridge in November.

00:27:55.000 He enjoyed his conversations, and he was looking forward to giving speeches to students about the nature and meaning of the Bible.

00:28:03.000 He says, it's not going to make much difference to my future in some sense.

00:28:06.000 I have more opportunities at the moment than I can keep track of, let alone, let's say, capitalize on.

00:28:11.000 It's a complex and surreally fortunate position to occupy, and I'm not taking it for granted, but it happens to be true.

00:28:18.000 In the fall, therefore, I will produce the lectures I plan to produce on Exodus, regardless of whether they occur in the UK or in Canada or elsewhere, and they will attract whatever audience remains interested.

00:28:26.000 But I think it is deeply unfortunate that the authorities at the Divinity School in Cambridge decided that kowtowing to an ill-informed, ignorant, and ideologically addled mob trumped participating in an extensive online experiment in mass Christian and psychological education.

00:28:40.000 Given the continuing decline of church attendance, the rise in atheistic or agnostic sentiment, the increasing irrelevance of theological education, and the collapse in interest in such matters among young people, wiser and more profound decisions might have been made.

00:28:55.000 He says, he adds that, he says, I wish them the continued decline in relevance over the next few decades that they deeply and profoundly and diligently work toward and deserve.

00:29:04.000 Which is exactly right.

00:29:07.000 The Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Toope of University of Cambridge gave a statement, and here's what Jordan quoted from it.

00:29:14.000 One very specific aspect of openness is being inclusive and open to diversity in all its forms, diversity of interests and beliefs, of gender, of religion, of sexual identity, of ethnicity, and of physical ability.

00:29:24.000 Yet obviously the left does not believe in such diversity.

00:29:27.000 The only diversity they care about is racial and ethnic diversity, and maybe the diversity of the intersectionally woke. 0.98

00:29:34.000 It's, it's really pathetic. 0.97

00:29:37.000 And using a shooting in Christchurch that had nothing to do with New Zealand to de-platform, that had nothing to do with Jordan Peterson, to de-platform Jordan Peterson, is truly astonishingly ridiculous. 0.97

00:29:48.000 This is the, I mean, we often say this sort of stuff, this is the world the left wants. 0.95

00:29:51.000 If this is the world the left wants, it's a really ugly world.

00:29:54.000 A world where books are banned, and you don't have a gun to protect yourself.

00:29:58.000 Some pretty nasty stuff.

00:29:59.000 Okay, meanwhile, in the 2020 presidential race, Joe Biden is eyeing a couple of strategies that are designed to help assuage fears about his age and lack of woke credentials.

00:30:10.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:30:11.000 First, you have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

00:30:14.000 For $9.99 a month, you can get a subscription to Daily Wire.

00:30:16.000 When you do, you get the rest of this show live.

00:30:18.000 You get two additional hours of this show every afternoon.

00:30:21.000 So what exactly are you waiting for?

00:30:22.000 You also get this, the very greatest in beverage vessels, the Leftist Tears Hot or Cold Tumbler.

00:30:26.000 Cast your eyes upon it.

00:30:27.000 And despair that you have it not.

00:30:28.000 But you can have it in the very near future.

00:30:31.000 All you have to do is get an annual subscription.

00:30:32.000 Go check that out right now.

00:30:35.000 Also, make sure that you subscribe over YouTube and iTunes.

00:30:37.000 That means that you can get our Sunday special.

00:30:39.000 This week's Sunday Special features Stephen Meyer, an intelligent design advocate, and we ask some tough questions about evolution and the presence of God in science and all of the rest of this stuff.

00:30:47.000 So go check that out.

00:30:48.000 If you subscribe, you get that on Saturdays.

00:30:50.000 See, this is what we like here at the Ben Shapiro Show and at the Daily Wire, a diversity of viewpoints.

00:30:55.000 On the Sunday Special, I've had Michael Shermer, an advocate of Darwinian evolution, and then I have Stephen Meyer, who believes that there are gaps in Darwinian evolution, even though he believes in microevolution.

00:31:05.000 Lots of diversity of opinion.

00:31:07.000 It's wonderful.

00:31:07.000 It's a good thing.

00:31:08.000 We sort of like that.

00:31:10.000 You'll see in the things that I like today, I'm going to recommend more diversity of opinion about my own book.

00:31:14.000 This is something that we tend to embrace.

00:31:16.000 Go check it out over at dailywire.com.

00:31:19.000 Also, make sure that you pick up a copy of The Right Side of History, which is available everywhere, including at amazon.com.

00:31:24.000 Now, I've been informed by the publisher that in the next 24 hours, there may be some slight shipping delays.

00:31:30.000 Very slight.

00:31:30.000 So, all that means is that it's going to say that it's going to arrive in one to two weeks.

00:31:34.000 That's not true.

00:31:35.000 It'll still arrive within three to four days, but Amazon is going to update it To reflect that they've run out of stock.

00:31:42.000 It'll be replenished in stock within legitimately hours.

00:31:44.000 So don't worry if you order it now and it says out of stock, you're still going to get it in three or four days.

00:31:49.000 It is the number one best-selling book on planet Earth at the moment.

00:31:51.000 So that's pretty exciting and you can be part of that.

00:31:54.000 I really think it's an important book.

00:31:55.000 So go check out The Right Side of History right now.

00:31:58.000 It's really funny.

00:31:59.000 Speaking of The Right Side of History, just a brief note.

00:32:02.000 There's a couple of reviews that are out, one from the Washington Times, somebody who actually read the book, and there's one from some lefty outlet, somebody who clearly has not read the book, and says the book is anti-Enlightenment, which is obviously untrue.

00:32:12.000 I praise fulsomely the Enlightenment, the Anglo-Saxon Enlightenment.

00:32:17.000 I praise the Scottish-British-American Enlightenment.

00:32:20.000 I think the French Enlightenment was a mistake, but the person didn't read the book.

00:32:24.000 And then they also suggest That the book is somehow not standing up for racial diversity, which is absurd. 0.99

00:32:32.000 Like, an entire chapter at the end of the book is all about how white supremacy is garbage. 0.99

00:32:37.000 But whatever, man. 0.98

00:32:38.000 If you're on the left, I guess you don't even have to take account of people's actual views, as Jordan is learning.

00:32:42.000 Anyway, go subscribe for $9.99 a month or $9.99 a year.

00:32:46.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:32:50.000 All righty, so on to the 2020 presidential race.

00:33:00.000 Former VP Joe Biden is still thinking about jumping into the race, but he's got a couple of strategies he has to consider.

00:33:05.000 It is a circus.

00:33:09.000 And if you look at how he's rolling out his campaign, he keeps delaying it and delaying it and delaying it in the hopes that if he delays it long enough, then he'll be handed the nomination by acclamation.

00:33:17.000 But here's the thing about Joe Biden.

00:33:19.000 Dude is not competent.

00:33:20.000 He's run for president 1,000 times at this point.

00:33:23.000 He's been a giant fail every time.

00:33:25.000 You'll remember that when he ran for president in 2008 against Barack Obama, who would eventually choose him as VP, Joe Biden said that Barack Obama was clean and articulate.

00:33:34.000 And people were like, dude, that's pretty racially coded language.

00:33:37.000 That is not really great.

00:33:39.000 That's Joe Biden, right?

00:33:40.000 Joe Biden is the guy who went to a 7-Eleven and talked about how everyone who worked at 7-Eleven was Indian because he watches too many episodes of The Simpsons. 1.00

00:33:49.000 And Joe Biden is a dolt. 0.95

00:33:51.000 Well, now Joe Biden is apparently considering a couple of doltish strategies that do say something about the nature of the Democratic Party. 0.95

00:33:57.000 According to the New York Times, former VP Joe Biden, aware that concerns about his age could weigh on his candidacy if he runs for the White House, has discussed two steps that could reassure voters about electing a 78-year-old president next year.

00:34:10.000 Mr. Biden and his top advisors are considering nodding to the rising next generation in democratic politics and elevating an heir by announcing a running mate early, well before the nomination is sealed. 0.98

00:34:21.000 Okay, so that, number one, would be a stupid idea. 0.94

00:34:23.000 It was seen as a desperation move when Ted Cruz picked Carly Fiorina in an attempt to win more female votes in the Republican primaries. 0.98

00:34:30.000 It would look like a desperation move now if Biden were to pick a VP candidate before he is even in the race.

00:34:36.000 Normally, it's seen as a sign of strength to wait because you have leverage and then you can get who you want.

00:34:40.000 Plus, it could be another one of the candidates, right?

00:34:42.000 If Biden wins the nomination, he could turn to Kamala Harris.

00:34:45.000 If he does it now, it can't be anybody else who's running against him.

00:34:48.000 Also under discussion is a possible pledge to serve only one term, and framing Biden's 2020 campaign as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country, according to multiple party officials.

00:34:58.000 But that, of course, is going to raise the question of age.

00:35:00.000 Trump is slightly younger than Biden, and this will be Trump's last term no matter what.

00:35:05.000 He's termed out after his second term.

00:35:08.000 So Joe Biden's saying, I'm going to run for one term.

00:35:10.000 Trump can look at him and say, right, you have to assure people of that because they're afraid you're going to keel over, my friend. 0.99

00:35:15.000 It's just dumb politics.

00:35:17.000 Such moves would amount to a big play that would send a signal about the seriousness of the election and could potentially appeal to both liberal activists and general election voters who are eager to chart the safest route toward defeating President Trump. 0.75

00:35:28.000 If Biden is not sold on either approach, both carry significant risks, chiefly that they could call further attention to the age of a candidate who would turn 80 in the White House.

00:35:36.000 Here's the reality.

00:35:37.000 Donald Trump is how old right now?

00:35:40.000 Trump is 75... 72 years old.

00:35:44.000 So that means that he would presumably turn 78 while he's in the White House if he wins a second term.

00:35:53.000 So everybody who's running right now is old.

00:35:54.000 Bernie Sanders will turn 1,000 years old if he is elected.

00:35:58.000 There's also the risk that Biden could appear presumptuous, even imperious, by choosing a running mate before the electorate has a chance to sift the field of candidates.

00:36:07.000 But here's the real issue.

00:36:08.000 The real issue is that what he is discussing is picking Stacey Abrams as his VP candidate.

00:36:13.000 You know, as in the failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate who still declares herself the governor of Georgia.

00:36:18.000 Now, Stacey Abrams is charismatic.

00:36:19.000 She's a very good speaker.

00:36:21.000 Well, she's apparently considered a presidential run herself. 1.00

00:36:26.000 Biden may be telling her that he will run with her.

00:36:29.000 She's served, like, one term in the House of Representatives, no?

00:36:32.000 I mean, Stacey Abrams is not exactly... This is about the same as picking Sarah Palin for your VP running mate, because you're obviously attempting to get female votes. 1.00

00:36:41.000 It's basically the same thing.

00:36:44.000 She, her background is that she was minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives.

00:36:49.000 So she was not even, she's never been elected in a federal election.

00:36:53.000 And he'd pick her as his vice presidential candidate after losing an election in Georgia and then refusing to acknowledge that she lost an election in Georgia.

00:37:00.000 I mean, I guess the bad news for her is she's going to have to give up the fake governorship of Georgia since she says she never lost. 0.99

00:37:06.000 But it's pretty obvious that this is the forced, the forced long march through the intersectionally woke battlefield of the 2020 Democratic primaries.

00:37:14.000 Joe Biden isn't picking Stacey Abrams because he thinks that she is the best VP candidate.

00:37:19.000 If you were really waiting for the best VP candidate, you would assume that he'd go through the primaries and then he would choose whomever he thought was the best VP candidate.

00:37:27.000 Doing it now and picking a woman who is minority in an obvious appeal to try and break into the intersectional base of people like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker? 1.00

00:37:37.000 It's pretty obvious what he's doing at this point.

00:37:39.000 He's not doing it because he thinks Abrams is the most qualified.

00:37:41.000 He's doing it early because this is a political ploy.

00:37:45.000 Of course.

00:37:45.000 And anybody who suggests differently is just not being cynical enough about politics.

00:37:50.000 If you think Joe Biden is looking at America and he's like, oh, yeah, Stacey Abrams, she'll be the best president if something should happen to me.

00:37:57.000 Sure, I'm sure it's that and not him trying to win black votes in the South in Democratic primaries by picking up a popular black figure.

00:38:06.000 Biden's position apparently couldn't be learned.

00:38:10.000 Axios was told about this by Biden's advisors.

00:38:14.000 Biden's office has declined to comment.

00:38:17.000 It does so show some lack of confidence among the Biden team about how they are out of touch with the intersectionally woke base. 0.97

00:38:24.000 This would be a foolish move by Joe Biden, but then again, Joe Biden is used to making foolish moves. 0.95

00:38:30.000 All right, meanwhile, The Trump show continues. 0.98

00:38:33.000 If you're Donald Trump, as I've been saying for legitimately months at this point, if you are President Trump, then what you ought to be focused on right now is keeping your mouth shut and pointing at the Democrats.

00:38:44.000 Your entire campaign should just be that gif of Donald Sutherland making a face in Invasion of the Body Snatchers as he points at the other side, as he just points.

00:38:54.000 Just this.

00:38:55.000 That should be Trump's campaign.

00:38:56.000 Look at those guys. 1.00

00:38:57.000 Look how crazy they are. 0.77

00:38:58.000 They want to ban your guns and they are thinking about cracking down on free speech.

00:39:03.000 I mean, there are a lot of reasons not to vote Democrat.

00:39:06.000 Instead, President Trump has decided that it would be a good idea for him to attack John McCain.

00:39:10.000 Now, again, I was not a John McCain fan when he was a senator.

00:39:14.000 I thought that John McCain was wrong on immigration.

00:39:16.000 I thought that John McCain was deeply wrong on Obamacare.

00:39:19.000 I thought that McCain's whole sense of the Senate, oh, what a magisterial body nonsense, was just that.

00:39:25.000 I thought it was nonsense.

00:39:26.000 I also think that John McCain was an American war hero, which he was.

00:39:30.000 I think John McCain was a patriot, which he was.

00:39:33.000 All of those things can be true at once.

00:39:34.000 I can be highly critical of John McCain's record in the Senate and also acknowledge that John McCain was a good American and a great American in many ways.

00:39:43.000 Well, President Trump had a long going feud with John McCain going all the way back to 2015.

00:39:49.000 And people are saying, well, you know, President Trump, he has the right to fight back against John McCain.

00:39:54.000 John McCain has been dead for six months.

00:39:56.000 I'm not sure what you're fighting back against at this point.

00:39:59.000 And this isn't in defense of everything John McCain ever did.

00:40:02.000 But it is pretty indecent to start going after John McCain, a dead man, for how you operated at his funeral.

00:40:10.000 And that's what President Trump did yesterday.

00:40:12.000 It is this sense that Trump is engaging in unstable behavior that is going to help his opponents.

00:40:18.000 What you want in the White House is somebody who you know what he's going to do on a daily basis. 0.85

00:40:23.000 The wild vacillations allow a candidate like Joe Biden, who is indeed a dolt, to play at being the rock of stability in a time of chaos. 0.98

00:40:33.000 That's nonsense. 0.97

00:40:34.000 But Trump ain't helping his case when he starts going off on a dead guy six months after his death.

00:40:38.000 We're in a war in the Middle East that McCain pushed so hard.

00:40:44.000 Thousands and thousands of our people have been killed, millions of people overall.

00:40:49.000 And frankly, we're straightening it out now, but it's been a disaster for our country.

00:40:53.000 We've spent tremendous wealth.

00:40:57.000 Sir John McCain loved it.

00:40:58.000 I endorsed him at his request, and I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president, I had to approve.

00:41:08.000 I don't care about this.

00:41:09.000 I didn't get thank you.

00:41:10.000 That's okay.

00:41:11.000 We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain.

00:41:15.000 Um, we sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain.

00:41:17.000 I didn't get a thank you.

00:41:19.000 I assume he means from his family.

00:41:20.000 I assume he doesn't mean I didn't go to his funeral at his family's request, and then the dead guy didn't thank me.

00:41:25.000 I understand the old Yogi Berra-ism, that you should go to everybody else's funeral so they come to yours.

00:41:29.000 But, um...

00:41:30.000 This is a weird line of attack.

00:41:33.000 And I don't understand the strategy behind it.

00:41:36.000 It's funny, I got a lot of mail because I said some similar stuff yesterday.

00:41:39.000 And people who are big Trump fans are like, are you saying that Trump shouldn't be able to attack John McCain's policy?

00:41:44.000 No, I'm saying don't attack the dead guy's funeral.

00:41:46.000 Like, what the hell?

00:41:48.000 How is this decent? 0.71

00:41:49.000 How is this good?

00:41:50.000 How does this make people even believe that Trump is a moral human being?

00:41:54.000 I don't understand it.

00:41:55.000 And the same thing holds true of his attacks on George Conway.

00:41:58.000 Now, George Conway is a self-aggrandizing narcissist on Twitter.

00:42:02.000 There's just no way, two ways about it.

00:42:03.000 He spends all of his time sniping at President Trump.

00:42:06.000 And Trump, as a human being, has every right to snipe right back at George Conway.

00:42:10.000 But Kellyanne, George's wife, works for the White House.

00:42:13.000 So you would assume that if you're going to fight back against George Conway, you would say something like, you're speaking completely out of turn, you're completely unqualified for discussing my psychological state, you consider taking a position in my administration, and now you're bitter, right?

00:42:24.000 All of that is legit.

00:42:25.000 Now, is it smart strategy?

00:42:27.000 No, it's not, because now you are engaging in what is called the Streisand effect.

00:42:30.000 The Streisand effect is named after Barbara Streisand.

00:42:33.000 Barbara Streisand, the famous singer, Many years ago, there was a photographer who took a picture of her house.

00:42:41.000 Aerially, it was a picture of the entire area and included her house.

00:42:44.000 Nobody had ever seen this picture.

00:42:45.000 It was in some sort of a website that was dedicated to the environment of the coastline where she lives.

00:42:51.000 And this person posted the picture online.

00:42:53.000 She sued the photographer for several million dollars.

00:42:59.000 Well, this created what was called the Streisand effect, where every person on planet Earth now went and saw that photo.

00:43:03.000 So nobody would have seen her house, except she made a big fuss out of it. 1.00

00:43:06.000 Well, George Conway has been sniping at Trump for a long time, and nobody really cares.

00:43:10.000 And then Trump decided to go back at him, so now more people care what George Conway thinks. 0.99

00:43:15.000 It's really dumb. 0.99

00:43:16.000 In the same way that it's pretty dumb that Devin Nunes decided to sue a Twitter account called Devin Nunes' Cow. 0.98

00:43:21.000 Nobody cared about Devin Nunes' Cow, the Twitter account, until five minutes ago, when Devin Nunes decided, you know what would be a great idea? 0.86

00:43:27.000 To sue an account on Twitter called Devin Nunes' Cow. 0.99

00:43:30.000 And believe me, I get a lot of crap. 0.99

00:43:33.000 I've never thought about suing the people who give me crap online. 0.96

00:43:36.000 It's a bizarre, it's just a bizarre notion. 0.93

00:43:38.000 In any case, President Trump goes after George Conway, and as I say, even if he's going to do that, a bad strategic decision, but even if he's going to do that, there's a moral way to go about this and an immoral way to go about this.

00:43:49.000 You know what's not a really moral thing to do?

00:43:51.000 Calling him a quote-unquote, husband from hell. 0.97

00:43:55.000 His wife works for you. 0.99

00:43:57.000 His wife works for you.

00:43:59.000 How is that a remotely good thing?

00:44:02.000 I mean, listen, this should be between Kellyanne Conway and George.

00:44:05.000 I mean, Trump should say, listen, whatever issues Kellyanne and George have, they've got four kids, by the way.

00:44:09.000 I'm not sure how this plays out for their kids.

00:44:11.000 I just, I do not understand how a couple can go through this sort of stuff publicly and allow, I mean, Kellyanne then responded by siding with Trump.

00:44:20.000 She said, quote, But you think he shouldn't respond when somebody, a non-medical professional, accuses him of having a mental disorder?

00:44:28.000 You think he should just take that sitting down?

00:44:31.000 But that isn't the part of the tweet that is really messed up, right?

00:44:34.000 I mean, the part of the tweet that's messed up is calling him a husband from hell.

00:44:39.000 Hey, Kellyanne, that is one loyal employee, I'll give him that.

00:44:43.000 None of this is positive for President Trump. 0.99

00:44:44.000 It's a waste of time, it's a waste of energy, and it's simply foolish. 0.98

00:44:49.000 It just doesn't make any sense strategically, and it's immoral. 0.99

00:44:52.000 So immoral and foolish is a hell of a combination. 0.60

00:44:55.000 Alrighty, let's do some things that I like and then some things that I hate. 0.94

00:44:59.000 So, things that I like today.

00:45:02.000 Let's talk about a couple of things.

00:45:04.000 One, today is Purim.

00:45:06.000 Purim is a great holiday.

00:45:07.000 If you've never read the Jewish Megillah, you should.

00:45:09.000 You know, the phrase, the whole Megillah, it comes from the actual Megillah, the actual Megillat Esther, which is the book of Esther, which is a fascinating religious book.

00:45:18.000 It never mentions God anywhere in the book because there's this belief that God influences the world through natural channels in the Maimonidean and Thomistic view.

00:45:28.000 And that is really evident in this particular biblical story.

00:45:33.000 The story, for those who don't know, the quick story of Purim, is that there is a king whose name is Ahasuerus, as transliterated into English.

00:45:40.000 He's the king of Persia, and he has an advisor named Haman, and Haman decides that he wants to take out all the Jews, and Ahasuerus goes along with it. 1.00

00:45:50.000 And meanwhile, Ahasuerus has executed his wife Vashti, and needs a new wife, and so he decides to have basically a beauty contest.

00:45:57.000 And in the beauty contest, a Jewish girl wins, Esther.

00:46:00.000 She does not want to be married to Ahasuerus, but she's essentially forced to do so, because this is ancient Persia.

00:46:04.000 And she marries him, and then she uses her influence to... 0.99

00:46:09.000 Awaken the king to the error of Haman's ways and Haman is executed.

00:46:13.000 That's the essential story.

00:46:14.000 And then the Jews are allowed to fight back. 0.83

00:46:15.000 So it's a good story about why people should be armed in defiance of tyranny because one of the ways, the way that Haman wants the Jews to be wiped out is an edict from the king saying that the Jews are not allowed to defend themselves against mass pogroms.

00:46:28.000 And then the king revises that and he sends out a second emissary who says the Jews are now allowed to defend themselves and the Jews defend themselves and win.

00:46:35.000 That's the basic story of Purim.

00:46:36.000 It's really worth reading.

00:46:37.000 So if you have time today, go read the Jewish Megillah. 0.97

00:46:39.000 And if you see Orthodox Jews and some non-Orthodox Jews walking around today wearing costumes, people think it's the Jewish Halloween.

00:46:47.000 I mean, not conceptually.

00:46:48.000 But yeah, we wear funny costumes.

00:46:49.000 There are several commandments that are associated with Purim, for a little bit of your Jewish educational edification.

00:46:54.000 There are a few commandments that are associated with Purim.

00:46:57.000 One of them is that we are supposed to have a big meal, which we do later today.

00:47:01.000 We have a suda.

00:47:02.000 And then we are supposed to also give matanot le'ev yonim, which means we are supposed to give gifts to the poor.

00:47:08.000 So a lot of us gave charity last night and today.

00:47:10.000 And then we are also supposed to give mishlo achmanot, so we give gifts So, there.

00:47:15.000 Now you know a little bit more about Jewish culture than you did before.

00:47:17.000 Purim's fantastic.

00:47:17.000 put together.

00:47:17.000 Mine's always a parody gift basket.

00:47:19.000 I put together some sort of funny letter about politics and we send it out to all of our friends.

00:47:23.000 And then you're supposed to read the Magilla twice.

00:47:25.000 So we went last night and did one last night and you're supposed to do it once today, which I will be doing directly after the show.

00:47:30.000 So it's a really fun holiday and it's fantastic for kids.

00:47:35.000 So there, now you know a little bit more about Jewish culture than you did before.

00:47:38.000 Purim's fantastic.

00:47:39.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:47:40.000 So my friend Michael Shermer, a man with whom I disagree greatly on religion and the impact of Judeo-Christian ethics and all of this.

00:47:47.000 He had me on his podcast to talk about my new book, The Right Side of History.

00:47:50.000 And And last night, he tweeted out a couple of sections from his book, The Moral Arc, How Science Makes Us Better People.

00:47:57.000 Now, make no mistake, I really disagree with Michael Shermer that you can derive values simply from science and reason alone.

00:48:02.000 My book is largely About the idea that divorcing reason from baseline assumptions embedded in the Judeo-Christian culture is a huge mistake.

00:48:10.000 With that said, I think you should totally read his book.

00:48:12.000 I think it's a really well-written book and a well-argued book.

00:48:14.000 The book is The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer.

00:48:16.000 Read both and then make up your mind.

00:48:18.000 But the good news is that we are all trying to work within a certain Enlightenment tradition.

00:48:22.000 I think that tradition springs all the way back to Sinai.

00:48:24.000 He thinks that that tradition sort of comes into being Almost spontaneously, at the end of the 18th century, that's really where our argument lies, and that has implications for how we should teach people today.

00:48:34.000 Do we teach them secular humanism, in the hopes that this will make them better people?

00:48:37.000 Or do we teach them about Judeo-Christian roots, in combination with secular reason?

00:48:42.000 That's the main argument between Michael and me.

00:48:43.000 The nice thing is that I think we are all fighting for an evidence-based discussion system.

00:48:48.000 So, go read his book, The Moral Arc, How Science Makes Us Better.

00:48:50.000 People, go pick that up at Amazon as well.

00:48:53.000 Well, you're picking up my book, The Right Side of History, which continues to be the number one book on planet Earth as of the moment.

00:48:58.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:49:04.000 Okay, so things that I hate today.

00:49:06.000 John Hickenlooper is a dude.

00:49:08.000 Like, that guy is a human.

00:49:10.000 And John Hickenlooper is the governor of Colorado.

00:49:13.000 He is running for president.

00:49:14.000 Nobody knows about him because why in the world would you?

00:49:18.000 He's been on CNN a lot, and he thinks that qualifies him to be president of the United States.

00:49:22.000 Very weird moment in the middle of his town hall last night on CNN, in which he was asked why he saw an X-rated movie with his mother.

00:49:30.000 Which is a pretty good question.

00:49:31.000 Here is John Hickenlooper explaining in completely non-weird fashion why he went and saw a movie that is X-rated pornography with his mom.

00:49:41.000 I came home, and my mother hated to cook. 1.00

00:49:43.000 I mean, she was just a strong, powerful woman who got stuff done in her own right. 1.00

00:49:48.000 And I got home, and she had this huge dinner laid out.

00:49:51.000 And I said, I promised, you know, I promised Jed that we'd go to the movie theater and see this new movie, You Wanna Come?

00:50:01.000 And I, it's an ex-movie, I don't know, you know, I just, and I was sure that she wouldn't say no.

00:50:08.000 I made a mistake.

00:50:09.000 And she said, I'd love to go, because she didn't want to be left alone in the house again.

00:50:14.000 It was a pretty famous movie, too.

00:50:15.000 So I took my mother to see Deep Throat.

00:50:20.000 Well, that's the thing that happened, I guess.

00:50:22.000 We got Beto O'Rourke eating dirt, and John Hickenlooper taking his mom to X-rated movies.

00:50:28.000 I mean, I guess his... I don't want to get into dirty puns and slogans about what he should run on in 2020.

00:50:35.000 We'll just leave it at that, because whoa.

00:50:39.000 And meanwhile, other things that I hate.

00:50:40.000 So there's this story today that is absolutely insane out of the UK.

00:50:46.000 Here is the story.

00:50:47.000 Parents of a teenage son who has Asperger's and autism were threatened by authorities to have their child placed in foster care after they refused to help facilitate a so-called sex change of the boy.

00:50:56.000 Recalling the horrifying ordeal to the Daily Mail, the couple, who wish to remain anonymous, claimed an NHS clinic in the UK said their then 14-year-old boy should be put on hormone blockers since he told them he thought he was a girl.

00:51:08.000 This is according to Amanda Prestigiacomo at Daily Wire.

00:51:11.000 The parents, believing their child's autism played a role in the declaration of gender confusion, refused to cooperate with the transition, particularly since the blockers can cause irrevocable harm.

00:51:20.000 After mom and dad pulled their son from the gender clinic, school officials reported that the parents, they reported the parents to child services for emotional abuse due to their objections to the sex change.

00:51:30.000 So, parents who have raised their kid from the time the kid was born, and object to permanent body changes to their child, hormone blockers in teenage years for their child, because the kid has autism, and they think that that may be related to the kid's gender confusion, That kid was nearly removed from the home.

00:51:50.000 The couple was visited by local authorities concerning the complaint.

00:51:54.000 Desperate to keep their child out of foster care, they allowed the boy to live with a family friend.

00:51:58.000 He was placed on a so-called child protection plan.

00:52:01.000 Which is a plan drawn up by the local authority.

00:52:04.000 It sets out how the child can be kept safe, how things can be made better for the family, and what support they will need.

00:52:09.000 The boy's mother told the Daily Mail, I'm absolutely devastated.

00:52:12.000 When I saw the report that social services wrote about us and saw the words emotional abuse, I just broke down.

00:52:16.000 All we were doing was trying to get him to pause and think about his actions.

00:52:19.000 My biggest worry as a mom is my child gets pushed down this route, becomes a woman, goes through surgery, then gets to 25 and says, I've made a mistake. 1.00

00:52:26.000 The mother noted that she and her husband read these blockers might not be reversible and there might be long-term effects for brain development.

00:52:32.000 The family has been placed back together temporarily, but the mother fears that more parents will be subjected to such a horrendous ordeal with their own kids.

00:52:39.000 And this, of course, is true.

00:52:41.000 It is also true that rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a thing, and that there have been reports in Britain that huge levels of kids who are reporting gender dysphoria are also autistic.

00:52:51.000 And so there may, in fact, be a relationship between one certain type of condition and gender dysphoria.

00:52:57.000 This is full-scale insanity that has nothing to do with good parenting or decency.

00:53:01.000 And yet this is, I guess, something that we are interested in pursuing.

00:53:04.000 All right, well, if you want to come back and have two more hours of the show a little bit later today, all you have to do is subscribe over at dailywire.com for $9.99 a month or $99 a year.

00:53:12.000 And I remind you once again, my new book, The Right Side of History, is on sale at Amazon and everywhere at bookstores.

00:53:18.000 Still, until New Zealand tries to ban it for some odd reason.

00:53:21.000 Go check it out right now.

00:53:22.000 We really appreciate your help.

00:53:24.000 And we'll see you a little bit later.

00:53:25.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:25.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:31.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:33.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:53:34.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:53:36.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:53:38.000 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:40.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:53:42.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:53:43.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:53:45.000 Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:53:46.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - March 21, 2019

The Great Gun-Grab | Ep. 742

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