The Ben Shapiro Show - The Immigration Wars Heat Up | Ep. 563

00:00:00.000 President Trump fights back on the rumors that he's attempting to split children from their illegal immigrant parents, the media continue their assault, and the Department of Justice Inspector General goes directly after the FBI.

00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:16.000 Many a thing to get to today, and we'll get to all of those things.

00:00:19.000 First, I want to let you know that later this afternoon, I'm going to be doing an episode of The Conversation with my good friend Elisha Krauss.

00:00:24.000 We're going to take your live questions at 5.30 p.m.

00:00:26.000 Eastern, 2.30 p.m.

00:00:27.000 Pacific, and that live Q&A will be available on YouTube and Facebook.

00:00:30.000 Everybody can watch.

00:00:31.000 But only subscribers can ask me the questions over at DailyWire.com, so if you want your questions answered, you want your life better, you want more knowledge in your brain directly tailored for you, then you need to become a subscriber.

00:00:41.000 I mean, why haven't you already?

00:00:42.000 Check out the pinned comments on this video for more information, and join us later this afternoon for all of that.

00:00:48.000 Also, I want to mention our friends over at PolicyGenius.

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00:01:49.000 Let's go through the policy once more.

00:01:51.000 Here is the policy.

00:01:52.000 If you arrive at the border, not at the patrol stations, right?

00:01:55.000 If you arrive at ports of entry and you claim asylum,

00:02:14.000 We will not separate you from your children.

00:02:15.000 If you arrive between ports of entry and we arrest you by operation of law thanks to a Ninth Circuit court ruling in 2016, thanks to that ruling, if we arrest you, we have to take your kids away from you because we can't hold your kids in jail with you.

00:02:29.000 Now, there's a question as to how long we can hold the kids in jail with you.

00:02:32.000 Do we have to immediately remove them?

00:02:33.000 Or is it just that we have to remove them within 20 days?

00:02:36.000 But bottom line is, you will be separated from your kids if you are arrested.

00:02:38.000 The Trump administration has changed policy in the sense that they are now treating everyone who crosses the border illegally as a criminal.

00:02:45.000 But that was always the law.

00:02:47.000 So they're basically just enforcing the law strictly.

00:02:49.000 Now, I am a fan of enforcing the law strictly.

00:02:51.000 The reason is not because I always think the law is a great idea.

00:02:54.000 It's because I don't like the idea of executive discretion.

00:02:57.000 I think executive discretion is a way of making bad laws palatable and making good laws unpalatable.

00:03:03.000 If you actually want a law enforced the way that it is on the books, we're going to learn pretty fast whether that law is worthwhile or whether that law is not.

00:03:09.000 The Obama administration sort of picked and chose how exactly they wanted to enforce immigration law, and it's important to note that these sorts of controversies over separation of families at the border

00:03:19.000 This sort of stuff was going on 2014-2015 when there was that vast influx of illegal immigrants swamping the southern border.

00:03:25.000 This is from the New York Times, July 25th, 2015.

00:03:26.000 So a guy named Barack Obama was president then.

00:03:40.000 And that the families should be released as quickly as possible.

00:03:42.000 So the Obama administration was arresting mothers, and they were keeping them with their children, and the court found that that was a problem.

00:03:49.000 In a decision late Friday roundly rejecting the administration's arguments for holding the families, Judge Dolly M. G. of the Federal District Court for the Central District of California found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last fall failed to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children.

00:04:06.000 Judge G also found that migrant children had been held in widespread deplorable conditions in border patrol stations.

00:04:12.000 Okay, this is 2015.

00:04:13.000 Under Barack Obama, migrant children had been held in widespread deplorable conditions in border patrol stations.

00:04:19.000 After they were first caught, she said the authorities had wholly failed to provide the safe and sanitary conditions required for children, even in temporary cells.

00:04:27.000 Right, so the kids were in cells, right?

00:04:28.000 We're hearing the same sort of stuff now, but let's not pretend this is unique, because it's not.

00:04:32.000 The opinion was a significant legal blow to detention policies ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, remember this is 2015, in response to an influx of children and parents, mostly from Central America, across the border in South Texas last summer.

00:04:44.000 In her 25-page ruling, Judge Gee gave a withering critique of the administration's positions, declaring them unpersuasive and dubious, and saying officials had ignored unambiguous terms of the settlement.

00:04:54.000 The Department of Homeland Security was nailed for apparently trying to use this sort of policy as deterrence.

00:05:00.000 So remember, the Trump administration's been ripped up and down for suggesting that separating families was a deterrent.

00:05:06.000 They're not the first people to do this.

00:05:08.000 This is from the New York Times, 2015.

00:05:10.000 Initially, Homeland Security officials said they were detaining the families to send a message to others in Central America to deter them from coming to the United States illegally.

00:05:18.000 In February, a federal court in Washington, D.C.

00:05:20.000 ruled that strategy unconstitutional.

00:05:22.000 Officials stopped invoking deterrence as a factor in deciding whether to release mothers and children as they seek asylum in the United States.

00:05:29.000 But many women and children remained stalled behind bleak walls and fences, month after month, with no end in sight.

00:05:34.000 Mothers became severely depressed or anxious, and their distress echoed in their children, who became worried and sickly.

00:05:39.000 Okay, so remember, again, this is 2015.

00:05:40.000 So these issues have been plaguing the federal government since 2015, and in fact, this particular case that I'm talking about here was elevated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

00:05:48.000 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that when a mother was held in detention, her child had to be released.

00:05:54.000 The child could not be held in detention with the mom.

00:05:57.000 They had to be released to a relative, or to foster care, or to somebody inside the HHS.

00:06:01.000 And they pointed out that the federal government was using this sort of policy, holding mothers and children together, as a deterrent.

00:06:07.000 So the same people who are now saying that Trump is separating families as a deterrent, four years ago, three years ago, they were saying that holding mothers and children together was being used as a deterrent.

00:06:17.000 This is a direct quote from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case from 2016.

00:06:36.000 On February 20th, 2015, the U.S.

00:06:38.000 District for the District of Columbia granted the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction.

00:06:42.000 The court found that ICE had not adopted a blanket no-release policy, but found ample support for the plaintiff's alternative contention that DHS policy directs ICE officers to consider deterrence of mass migration as a factor in their custody determinations, and that this policy has played a significant role in the recent increased attention of Central American mothers and children.

00:07:00.000 In other words, all the talk about, you know, Trump

00:07:03.000 Being pro-deterrence and that's so evil, it's so terrible.

00:07:05.000 The hysteria that you're seeing, people comparing it to Japanese internment, people comparing it to the Nazis.

00:07:10.000 Okay, this is something that the Obama administration was openly saying in 2015 and 2014.

00:07:13.000 Openly.

00:07:13.000 As litigated in court.

00:07:18.000 And yet all we're hearing about is the Trump administration, their language about deterrence.

00:07:21.000 We're hearing a lot about what John Kelly had to say about using separation of children from parents as a deterrent.

00:07:25.000 Listen, I think that's wrong.

00:07:26.000 I don't think we should be using separation of children from parents as a deterrent.

00:07:30.000 All I'm pointing out here is there's a massive media double standard.

00:07:33.000 When it was Obama, then they covered it.

00:07:35.000 But let's just say that it wasn't this level of hysteria.

00:07:37.000 That's pretty obvious.

00:07:38.000 Here's John Kelly back in March talking about separating mothers from children.

00:07:42.000 We have tremendous experience in dealing with unaccompanied minors.

00:07:46.000 We turn them over to HHS and they do a very, very good job of either putting them in foster care or linking them up with parents or family members in the United States.

00:07:56.000 Yes, I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that.

00:08:05.000 They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents.

00:08:08.000 Okay, so we should not be using separation of parents from children as a deterrent because that's just cruel.

00:08:13.000 Saying that you're going to use law enforcement as a deterrent, you're going to arrest everybody who crosses the border, that seems to me perfectly appropriate. 1.00

00:08:18.000 Well, the Trump administration has decided that this is a political winner.

00:08:21.000 What we have right now is a prisoner's dilemma.

00:08:24.000 Okay, prisoner's dilemma is something in game theory, where basically everybody's first choice ends up creating the worst possible outcome.

00:08:29.000 So, basically, here's the way this works.

00:08:32.000 The Republicans have two choices.

00:08:33.000 They can either attempt to alleviate the situation by passing a law, or they cannot attempt to alleviate the situation by passing a law.

00:08:39.000 And Democrats, similarly, have two choices.

00:08:41.000 They can either attempt to alleviate the situation by passing a law, or they cannot attempt to alleviate the situation by passing a law.

00:08:46.000 If the Republicans attempt to alleviate the situation and Democrats refuse to go along with it, Republicans get the worst of both worlds.

00:08:52.000 They look like pansies to their own base, and they get ripped by the press anyway because the press is going to rip them no matter what.

00:08:57.000 If Democrats go along with all of this, then they look like a bunch of people who are caving to Republicans for their own base, and they're not going to be credited by the media with the win.

00:09:05.000 Trump will be credited with the win.

00:09:06.000 So what you end up with is a prisoner's dilemma in which both parties have an incentive not to make the right decision here, which would be to pass a simple piece of legislation saying that kids can stay with their parents in custody pending removal from the country.

00:09:18.000 That would be the easy way to solve all of this.

00:09:20.000 But that looks like that is not going to happen.

00:09:23.000 Trump administration is doubling down on all of this.

00:09:25.000 President Trump himself came out yesterday.

00:09:26.000 He said, listen, our goal here is we're not going to be a migrant camp.

00:09:29.000 That's not something we're going to do.

00:09:31.000 The United States will not be a migrant camp. 0.96

00:09:37.000 And it will not be a refugee holding facility.

00:09:41.000 Won't be.

00:09:43.000 You look at what's happening in Europe, you look at what's happening in other places.

00:09:46.000 We can't allow that to happen to the United States.

00:09:49.000 Not on my watch.

00:09:51.000 Okay, so, you know, this obviously is part of Trump's chief appeal, is that he thinks that there's been a border that's swamped by illegal immigrants.

00:09:57.000 The truth is that two-thirds of the people who are overstaying their visas—two-thirds of illegal immigrants are people overstaying their visas.

00:10:02.000 But when President Trump says it's not the job of the U.S.

00:10:04.000 to be a migrant camp, obviously this definitely appeals to the people who voted for him in the first place.

00:10:09.000 One of the problems the administration is having is they're sending a bunch of mixed messages.

00:10:12.000 So, as I say, I think the media have been wildly dishonest on this entire issue, and I'm going to get to the media's dishonesty on all this.

00:10:18.000 The media, by the way, exacerbate that prisoner's dilemma that I'm talking about.

00:10:21.000 The media, by hyping up the hysteria, what they really do is they push the Trump administration into a corner where they're defending themselves from the assault, and they push Democrats to never make a deal with Republicans because they're winning politically.

00:10:33.000 Democrats

00:10:34.000 Had control of the government, full control of the government from 2009 to 2011.

00:10:37.000 They did not pass a single piece of serious immigration legislation.

00:10:41.000 That's because they like the illegal immigration issue.

00:10:44.000 They think that it's a political winner.

00:10:45.000 They believe that if the press clubs Republicans with it, then they will win.

00:10:49.000 Republicans have been the only ones who have come forward with any sort of immigration plan over the past 15 years.

00:10:53.000 They've done it a couple of times.

00:10:54.000 It's failed both times.

00:10:56.000 One time because Republican base didn't want to do it.

00:10:58.000 The other time also because the Republican base was not particularly interested, but

00:11:03.000 The media's hysteria on this particular issue is making things worse, not better.

00:11:08.000 But with that said, the Trump administration press on this has really been bad.

00:11:11.000 I mean, their press angle on this has been bad because you've had mixed messages.

00:11:14.000 On the one hand, you've had certain officials like John Kelly saying, yes, we are separating parents from children at the border because we wish to deter people.

00:11:21.000 So that's the hardest possible position.

00:11:22.000 And then you have President Trump saying, we are not going to be a refugee or migrant camp.

00:11:26.000 That's not something we're going to do.

00:11:27.000 And then you have

00:11:29.000 Christian Nielsen, who is the head of the Department of Homeland Security, and she's basically saying, listen, it's not our policy to separate parents from kids.

00:11:35.000 It's just a natural after effect of enforcing law.

00:11:37.000 Now, I think the Secretary of Homeland Security is correct, but she's the one who's been taking all the flack, which is kind of amazing.

00:11:42.000 We'll talk about what she had to say yesterday.

00:11:44.000 She had a full presser yesterday.

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00:13:06.000 Christian Nielsen is the head of the Department of Homeland Security and instead of Sarah Huckabee Sanders doing the press conference yesterday with the press gaggle, instead she was called in sort of an emergency crisis management to deal with the press.

00:13:19.000 Here's what she had to say about entering the country illegally. 0.98

00:13:22.000 This administration has a simple message.

00:13:24.000 If you cross the border illegally, we will prosecute you.

00:13:28.000 If you make a false immigration claim, we will prosecute you.

00:13:31.000 If you smuggle illegal aliens across an extraordinarily dangerous journey, we will prosecute you. 1.00

00:13:38.000 Okay, so this makes perfect sense, right?

00:13:40.000 If this were the administration's policy, this should have been the lockstep policy that they were talking about.

00:13:44.000 None of this, I'm gonna quote the Bible, none of this, we're trying to deter people.

00:13:48.000 Bottom line is, you come across the border illegally, we're arresting you. 0.99

00:13:51.000 And then the law operates as the law operates, right?

00:13:53.000 It's not our job to make the law not operate that way.

00:13:56.000 And as many people have pointed out, if you are arrested in the United States, if you and your wife were arrested in the United States for some sort of misdemeanor, and you were put in jail overnight, we wouldn't take your kids with you.

00:14:05.000 That's the way the operation works.

00:14:08.000 Christian Nielsen was asked by the press about children.

00:14:10.000 Are they being taken care of?

00:14:11.000 Now, there have been a lot of conflicting reports over whether these kids are being taken care of properly or whether they are not.

00:14:15.000 As I pointed out in 2015, federal courts were finding as far back as 2014-2015 that kids were being held in not great conditions.

00:14:24.000 These kids were being held in conditions that lacked.

00:14:26.000 We're hearing sort of conflicting reports.

00:14:28.000 The department has not put out any pictures.

00:14:30.000 They probably should put out pictures.

00:14:32.000 The press have put out some pictures.

00:14:33.000 They've not looked good.

00:14:34.000 Christian Nielsen says the kids overall are being taken care of, however.

00:14:38.000 It is important to note that these minors are very well taken care of.

00:14:42.000 Don't believe the press.

00:14:44.000 They are very well taken care of.

00:14:45.000 You know this, as many of you have detention facilities of your own.

00:14:50.000 We operate according to some of the highest standards in the country.

00:14:53.000 We provide food, medical, education, and all needs that the child requests.

00:14:59.000 Okay, here's a report from Kate Morrissey over at the San Diego Union Tribune.

00:15:03.000 She writes,

00:15:17.000 On closer inspection, details about the California-licensed childcare facility run by Southwest Key Programs reflect the situation of the children it serves.

00:15:24.000 It's surrounded by fencing that is backed by privacy netting, and a sign at the gate warns visitors it's under video surveillance 24 hours per day.

00:15:30.000 If someone opens the front door of the facility without first swiping a badge, an alarm blares through the hallway warning of potential escape.

00:15:36.000 On Friday morning, a class of 15 boys recited all of the ways they had learned to greet each other.

00:15:39.000 The most were Spanish speakers.

00:15:40.000 They quickly moved through English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Mom, Arabic, and many more before erupting into applause.

00:15:46.000 So this doesn't sound quite like the torture that's being portrayed in the press.

00:15:49.000 Now, that's not to say there aren't some horror stories.

00:15:50.000 In a second, I'm going to play for you some of the audio from one of these supposed horror stories.

00:15:55.000 I'm going to talk about whether this is representative of the entire thing or whether this is just the press choosing one example out of many.

00:16:02.000 But it is pretty obvious the White House is angry about the way this is being pitched.

00:16:06.000 So the White House has said that they've had enough of this information.

00:16:09.000 Christian, this is clip 17, Christian Nielsen, she says, listen, all of the talk about how we are basically seizing children from parents and then torturing them for pleasure, all that's not true.

00:16:19.000 There's a lot of misinformation about what DHS is and is not doing as it relates to families at the border, and I want to correct the record.

00:16:26.000 Here are the facts.

00:16:27.000 First, this administration did not create a policy of separating families at the border.

00:16:34.000 We have a statutory responsibility that we take seriously to protect alien children from human smuggling, trafficking, and other criminal actions while enforcing our immigration laws.

00:16:45.000 And what she has to say there is basically true.

00:16:48.000 And this is the line the administration should have taken.

00:16:50.000 We're enforcing the laws.

00:16:51.000 You don't like the laws?

00:16:51.000 Change the laws.

00:16:52.000 That should have been the line.

00:16:54.000 Unfortunately, the Trump administration has too many cooks spoiling the broth. 0.77

00:16:59.000 They have too many communications experts who are out there messaging.

00:17:02.000 One of those communications supposed experts is Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

00:17:05.000 He was out with Laura Ingraham last night, and he said, listen, this policy is designed as a deterrent.

00:17:09.000 Fundamentally, we're enforcing the law.

00:17:12.000 If you break into the country in an unlawful manner... But is it a deterrent, sir?

00:17:16.000 Are you considering this a deterrent?

00:17:18.000 I see the fact that no one was being prosecuted for this as a factor in a five-fold increase in four years in this kind of illegal immigration.

00:17:30.000 So yes, hopefully people will get the message and come through the border at the port of entry and not break across the border unlawfully.

00:17:39.000 Okay, so that's a different take on deterrence than you were getting from General John Kelly, right?

00:17:44.000 Here he's saying we're going to enforce the border because that's the deterrent.

00:17:46.000 That's different from saying we're enforcing the separation policy as a deterrent.

00:17:50.000 And then he said, listen, we want to allow asylum for people who qualify for it.

00:17:54.000 It's not that the administration is denying people asylum.

00:17:56.000 They're saying if you come through a port of entry, right, you come not illegally across the border, then we will treat you as anyone else who is seeking asylum.

00:18:02.000 There's just so much press on this that is not true.

00:18:05.000 This is a serious matter.

00:18:07.000 We need to think it through, be rational and thoughtful about it.

00:18:11.000 We want to allow asylum for people who qualify for it, but people who want economic migration for their personal financial benefit and what they think is their family's benefit is not a basis for a claim of asylum.

00:18:27.000 OK, and obviously that is true as well.

00:18:29.000 So how are these kids being kept?

00:18:31.000 So I talked a little bit before about one of the accounts that these kids are basically being kept in humane conditions.

00:18:36.000 Well, this is audio yesterday that was released about agents from ICE mocking crying children or agents from from HHS mocking crying children.

00:18:45.000 And you can hear the kids crying in the background.

00:18:46.000 Here's what that sounds like.

00:18:47.000 And this is, of course, made the rounds in a major way.

00:18:52.000 It says, well, we have an orchestra here, right?

00:19:02.000 What we're missing is a conductor.

00:19:03.000 So this has been going around because you can hear the hubbub in the back, and you can hear some of the crying children, and then you can hear a man yelling, don't cry.

00:19:11.000 Right, so it's just, you know, that sort of stuff is not great.

00:19:15.000 Well, there's certainly some truth to that.

00:19:16.000 That said,

00:19:30.000 Could there be a more humane policy?

00:19:31.000 Sure there could, and it turns out that Congress is pursuing that more humane policy.

00:19:34.000 Speaker Ryan's office is pursuing this policy that would clear all of this up in not one, but two separate immigration bills.

00:19:40.000 Ted Cruz has now proposed an immigration bill that is specific to this particular issue, right?

00:19:45.000 Mark Meadows has joined him.

00:19:46.000 So here's Mark Meadows, a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

00:19:49.000 This guy's about as conservative as he comes.

00:19:51.000 Representative Mark Meadows says they're going to introduce legislation later today that will allow parents to stay with their kids as they await detention.

00:20:00.000 We're going to introduce later today a piece of legislation that actually is more narrow than the two pieces that the president will be talking about with members of Congress this afternoon.

00:20:10.000 What it does, it deals with this issue that we're having at the border with the separation of children from their parents.

00:20:16.000 It also deals with some of the asylum issues at the border.

00:20:20.000 Now, one of the things that is important to note about this is if, in fact, the Republicans put up a separate bill that says, listen, we're going to solve this particular issue.

00:20:27.000 Kids get to stay with parents until deportation or until asylum arrangements are made.

00:20:32.000 If that were the policy, do you think Democrats would vote for it?

00:20:34.000 I don't.

00:20:34.000 I don't think Democrats would vote for it.

00:20:36.000 I think Democrats would vote against it, specifically because they think they've got a political winner on their hands.

00:20:40.000 I think that they believe they have a political winner because there's a poll out today showing that two-thirds of Americans don't like the separation policy, while a majority of Republicans do.

00:20:47.000 That's a political winner for Democrats.

00:20:49.000 They want to hold Trump's feet to the fire on all of this.

00:20:51.000 And you can hear the press corps jumping with both feet on all this.

00:20:54.000 So, in just a second, I want to talk about the press.

00:20:57.000 And how the press have lied routinely about all of this.

00:21:00.000 I mean, it is just insane.

00:21:01.000 They continue to drive up the insane levels of rhetoric regarding this entire issue.

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00:21:40.000 They can be cooked in under 45 minutes.

00:21:41.000 Particularly if you have kids.

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00:21:43.000 I love cooking with my kids.

00:21:44.000 It's really a blast.

00:21:46.000 The best part is when my young son takes eggs and just smashes them everywhere.

00:21:48.000 But aside from that,

00:21:49.000 It really is a lot of fun.

00:21:51.000 And when you're using Blue Apron, all of the ingredients are there before you.

00:21:55.000 It's a lot quicker than it would be if you had to do everything from scratch.

00:21:58.000 And the recipes are better.

00:21:59.000 They send only non-GMO ingredients, meat with no added hormones.

00:22:02.000 So check this week's menu.

00:22:03.000 Get your first three meals for free at BlueApron.com slash Shapiro.

00:22:07.000 That's blueapron.com slash Shapiro to get those first three meals for free. 0.59

00:22:11.000 Blue Apron is indeed a better way to cook. 1.00

00:22:12.000 And I mean, these are great.

00:22:13.000 Listen to this.

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00:22:17.000 You'd have to go to the restaurant and spend a bunch of money on that, but you can make that at home and then eat with your whole family.

00:22:22.000 Spicy penne pasta with zucchini and capers.

00:22:23.000 I mean, this is like gourmet level stuff that you will be making yourself when you go over to blueapron.com slash Shapiro and sign up and get your first three meals for free.

00:22:31.000 So go check it out.

00:22:31.000 Use that slash Shapiro to let them know we sent you blueapron.com.

00:22:35.000 OK, so the press.

00:22:36.000 When it comes to all of this stuff, have been deeply irresponsible, of course.

00:22:40.000 And this, of course, this is egging Democrats toward not making a deal, toward not making things better.

00:22:44.000 How irresponsible have the press been on all this?

00:22:46.000 Here's a member of the press corps, aghast over that audio that we played of crying children in a border facility.

00:22:52.000 Press corps, you know, they were talking about how terrible all this was.

00:22:55.000 They were tweeting out Jorge Rivas.

00:22:58.000 He tweeted, he's from ProPublica, I believe, and he tweeted out, I believe this is the Washington Post, said, Elise Jordan, who I believe is a MSNBC and NBC News contributor, says,

00:23:17.000 Okay, well, whether or not you like the policy, you know, whether you think that audio is stomach-churning, and I think that it is stomach-churning,

00:23:34.000 The real question is, how do you solve that?

00:23:37.000 And when I think the press, I think many members of the press, they think, oh, well, you know what?

00:23:41.000 We'll jar the American public into action here.

00:23:43.000 We will force them into action by creating this groundswell of anger about the separation of parents from children.

00:23:48.000 What they're really doing is they're driving the Trump administration into a bunker and they're driving Democrats never to make a deal.

00:23:53.000 Because, believe you me, Democrats in Congress do not care about getting a deal done on this particular topic.

00:23:59.000 Or will find out if they do.

00:24:00.000 Because Republicans should put up a stand-alone bill to solve this issue and see if Democrats will vote for it.

00:24:05.000 I highly doubt they will.

00:24:07.000 Because why would they?

00:24:08.000 Politically speaking, better to keep the illegal immigration issue burning, better to ensure that illegal immigration issue keeps getting people to the polls than to actually solve the issue.

00:24:18.000 This is one of the big problems with modern American politics.

00:24:20.000 We don't elect our politicians to actually get things done.

00:24:22.000 We elect our politicians as a sort of emotional catharsis.

00:24:26.000 And Democrats are looking at issues like this and thinking, boy, this is a political winner for 2018.

00:24:29.000 Wait till we get to the midterms.

00:24:32.000 So that's why when reporters are going over the top about all of this, what they're really doing is making it less likely that a deal is going to get done.

00:24:39.000 What they really should do is they should just report the facts without any of the over-the-top emotional passion, and just report it.

00:24:46.000 The American people can make up their own minds.

00:24:48.000 But here, for example, is a reporter to Christian Nielsen, the head of DHS, pummeling her, suggesting that this is a sort of child abuse.

00:24:55.000 And it was like this all day yesterday, basically.

00:24:59.000 Are there any examples of child abuse, you believe?

00:25:02.000 And how could this not be child abuse for the people who were taken from their parents?

00:25:06.000 Not the ones who were sent here with their parents' blessing, with the smugglers.

00:25:10.000 The people who were taken from their parents.

00:25:30.000 Okay, so I think the policy itself should change.

00:25:34.000 And again, this is why I think that Ted Cruz's bill that he's bringing up is useful.

00:25:37.000 I think that these kids should stay with their parents.

00:25:39.000 I'm not in favor of kids being separated from their parents under any circumstances.

00:25:42.000 I will point out the mild irony of so many Democrats who believe in no-fault divorce and think that if a parent wants to remove himself from the kid, that's totally fine.

00:25:49.000 But if the government removes the kid from the parent, that of course is totally different.

00:25:52.000 I guess the kid doesn't matter in all of that, right?

00:25:54.000 It's just the parent's consent to any of that.

00:25:56.000 If you get divorced without the kid wanting you to, then that's totally fine.

00:26:01.000 But, you know, bottom line is, people of good heart can agree that this stuff should not be happening.

00:26:06.000 The question is, how is this actually going to get solved?

00:26:08.000 Democrats are having too much fun ripping into the Trump administration to actually solve the problem, however.

00:26:13.000 So Nancy Pelosi is having a lot of fun calling Donald Trump barbaric. 1.00

00:26:17.000 This is their favorite thing.

00:26:18.000 Thank you.

00:26:37.000 It's barbaric.

00:26:38.000 Okay, fine.

00:26:38.000 So then why don't you work with the Republicans to solve it?

00:26:41.000 Hey, Hillary Clinton, she comes back from the dead to call President Trump a liar and unchristian for enforcing the same policy that she was touting a few years ago. 0.99

00:26:48.000 She was in the administration when a lot of this policy was being touted.

00:26:51.000 She was there.

00:26:52.000 She only left in, what, 2013?

00:26:55.000 So these policies were already being undertaken by the Obama administration.

00:26:58.000 And by the way, when she was running for president, she said that we can't keep the kids here.

00:27:01.000 We should be deporting the kids as well. 0.95

00:27:02.000 But here she is ripping into President Trump and saying he's a liar and unchristian.

00:27:06.000 Separating families is not mandated by law at all. 0.85

00:27:11.000 That is an outright lie.

00:27:13.000 And it's incumbent on all of us, journalists and citizens alike, to call it just that.

00:27:19.000 Those who selectively use the Bible to justify this cruelty are ignoring a central tenet

00:27:27.000 Of Christianity, the law does say the law does say that if you arrest the parents, you have to release the kids.

00:27:34.000 That is, in fact, the law.

00:27:36.000 What Democrats want is for the parents to be released as well.

00:27:38.000 How do we know that?

00:27:39.000 Because it turns out that in that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that I've been talking about for the last several days, the one that suggested they have to release the kids, the plaintiffs in that case were saying that you should also have to release the parents.

00:27:50.000 They were saying you should have to release the parents as well because otherwise you are violating the rights of the children.

00:27:54.000 So that's their actual goal here.

00:27:55.000 The Democrats don't want a solution because they're hoping to leverage President Trump into backing down and just releasing people into the interior of the United States, into the general population.

00:28:03.000 Right?

00:28:03.000 This is the actual goal in all of this.

00:28:06.000 And again, you can tell this because Republicans are perfectly willing to come to the table with some solutions.

00:28:10.000 Mark Meadows is one of the most conservative members of the House.

00:28:12.000 Ted Cruz is one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

00:28:14.000 Here's what Ted Cruz said yesterday.

00:28:16.000 So Ted Cruz put out a statement on all this.

00:28:18.000 He said,

00:28:29.000 Repeatedly, I have visited detention facilities tragically housing young children.

00:28:32.000 For far too long, children have been the greatest victims of our broken immigration system, with tens of thousands of children who were detained under the Obama administration and continuing through today, and with far too many of those children facing horrific physical or sexual assault from criminal human traffickers.

00:28:46.000 So Ted Cruz is on the same page as the Democrats here, right?

00:28:49.000 Because everybody's on the same page.

00:28:50.000 Nobody really likes this policy very much.

00:28:53.000 Okay, so Congress should solve it.

00:28:55.000 I do love the idea that in an American government, whenever there's a problem, it's the executive branch's problem to solve it.

00:28:59.000 You don't like the policy?

00:29:00.000 Well, I guess the executive branch just won't pay attention to the law.

00:29:03.000 I guess the executive branch will just stop enforcing the law. 0.94

00:29:06.000 This, of course, is what Obama did on immigration.

00:29:08.000 In Obama's executive amnesty, was Obama refusing to enforce the law with regard to the so-called Dreamers. 1.00

00:29:13.000 My view was, we ought to change the law, enforce the law, unless you want to change the law.

00:29:17.000 It is the executive branch, not the legislative branch.

00:29:19.000 The legislative branch legislates.

00:29:21.000 The executive branch executes.

00:29:23.000 The executive branch does not get to make up its own body of law simply because it wants to.

00:29:28.000 But because we think the president is some sort of king who sits on top of a throne determining what laws to enforce and what laws not to enforce, the Trump administration gets all the blame.

00:29:35.000 Congress could solve this today.

00:29:37.000 They won't.

00:29:37.000 They're having too much fun demagoguing the issue.

00:29:40.000 Okay, I'll talk a little bit more about the demagoguery.

00:29:41.000 Plus, the DOJ has released its IG report and the Inspector General

00:29:48.000 That is, uh, testified before Congress yesterday.

00:29:50.000 It got pretty wild.

00:29:51.000 So we'll talk about that in just a second.

00:29:52.000 You're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com for all of that.

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00:31:02.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:31:09.000 So, final note on the media's hysteria over all of this immigration stuff.

00:31:13.000 So, Gayle King over at CBS, she said that the Statue of Liberty is weeping.

00:31:18.000 The sort of over-the-top rhetoric that is now being utilized is astonishing.

00:31:22.000 Here is Gayle King from CBS, you know, going full bore, full bore, you know, kind of daytime TV here.

00:31:28.000 All I can say after talking to the people, watching the people, listening to the people, that the Statue of Liberty, I think, is weeping right now.

00:31:36.000 OK, and then Chris Hayes over at MSNBC, he actually tweeted out, if I'm remembering my Third Reich history correctly, I think the first use of the term final solution was in a memo describing an initial plan to expel all the Jews from Europe.

00:31:49.000 The Jews were citizens of Germany.

00:31:51.000 They were citizens in their country.

00:31:53.000 The Nazis were not trying to expel illegal immigrants, nor were they trying to prevent people from immigrating into the country.

00:31:58.000 And they were trying to expel legal citizens of their country.

00:32:01.000 But Chris Hayes continues, Well, that is a bad response, no question.

00:32:04.000 But to compare this to Nazi policy is ignorant of history and ignorant of the actual policy on the ground right now.

00:32:16.000 And again, I am just astonished by the fact that so much of this was happening under the Obama administration.

00:32:23.000 Nobody seemed to care.

00:32:24.000 As soon as it's Trump, of course, then it's motivated by animus against brown people, according to the press.

00:32:29.000 Meanwhile, in the actual story that should be covered over the last week, the Department of Justice

00:32:34.000 We're good to go.

00:32:56.000 How do we know this?

00:32:57.000 Because Michael Horowitz, who is the Inspector General over at the DOJ, a nonpartisan figure, he came out and he said,

00:33:05.000 That should not be downplayed by anybody.

00:33:07.000 I can't think of something more concerning than a law enforcement officer suggesting that they're going to try and use, or may use, their powers to affect an election.

00:33:16.000 Okay, when the next investigator general, when the next inspector general report comes out about the Russia investigation, expect to see a lot more about Strzok's decision-making.

00:33:25.000 Horowitz also said that James Comey, former FBI director,

00:33:28.000 He was concerned about his survivability.

00:33:29.000 He was less concerned about exactly what proper policy would be in investigating the Hillary email situation.

00:33:36.000 Instead, he was concerned about how he could keep his job, which is pretty obvious from the report, right?

00:33:41.000 The reason that he decided to release that letter right before the election that said that they were reopening the Hillary email investigation, he said, and he said it openly, is that he thought Hillary was going to win and he wanted to make sure that her presidency was seen as legitimate.

00:33:52.000 So he was already trying to get himself in good with Hillary Clinton so that he could stick around in his job.

00:33:57.000 Here is Michael Horowitz saying exactly this.

00:34:00.000 I think that was a concern we had certainly where it's even clearer in that October time period because we have testimony that indicated that when he explained why when he explained through his chief of staff why he was going to do what he did on October 28.

00:34:15.000 Okay, the FBI is just filled with bad actors.

00:34:18.000 It's just filled with bad actors.

00:34:19.000 It doesn't mean everybody in the FBI is a bad actor, of course.

00:34:21.000 I know lots of FBI agents who are wonderful people, but there were key people in key places who were bad actors.

00:34:27.000 Okay, James Comey is now under investigation for mishandling classified information, according to Michael Horowitz.

00:34:32.000 He's specifically under investigation for his handling of memos he wrote about his interactions with President Trump while he was FBI director.

00:34:37.000 You remember that James Comey leaked out all sorts of information to his good friend, a former FBI agent as well,

00:34:44.000 Chuck Grassley said Comey said he did not expect a report on his handling of classified information because, quote, that's frivolous.

00:34:49.000 I don't happen to think that's frivolous.

00:34:51.000 And then he said, question number one, Mr. Horowitz, are you investigating the handling of his memo?

00:34:55.000 And does that include the classification issues?

00:34:57.000 And should Mr. Comey expect a report when it is complete?

00:35:00.000 Pretty amazing.

00:35:01.000 Okay, so James Comey is now under investigation as well.

00:35:16.000 Now, all of this is not to suggest there was some giant conspiracy happening inside the FBI.

00:35:20.000 What it is to suggest is that there was basically an informal group of people who all thought the same way, and when you're in a bubble with a lot of authority, bad things can really happen.

00:35:29.000 You see this on college campuses a lot, with professors who all agree with one another.

00:35:32.000 It's the reason there's media bias.

00:35:34.000 It's when there's media bias against President Trump.

00:35:36.000 It's not that everybody in the media are getting together and deciding, let's go after President Trump today.

00:35:41.000 It's that there is a groupthink that happens in the media because everybody in the media shares the same political perspective.

00:35:46.000 And they understand the social expectation, which is you're going to be a lot harder on President Trump than you were on President Obama.

00:35:52.000 Well, the same thing is true inside the FBI.

00:35:54.000 When you have top officials at the FBI who have spent eight years working with the Obama administration, very warm with the Obama administration, very friendly with the Obama administration,

00:36:02.000 When you have people there, at the top, who believe that it is their use of authority that stands between America and the darkness of Trump.

00:36:09.000 Why are you so surprised when something bad happens?

00:36:12.000 This is sort of what happened with the IRS under President Obama.

00:36:14.000 When the IRS began targeting conservative nonprofits, and I know because I know two, I personally know at least two 501c3s that were targeted by the IRS under Obama.

00:36:23.000 When all that happened, it wasn't that Obama had to call down to Lois Lerner and say, hey, I need you to shut down those 501c3s from the conservative side of the aisle. 0.99

00:36:30.000 It was there was an expectation at the highest levels of the IRS that they were going to work hand-in-glove with the Obama administration.

00:36:36.000 You can certainly see the flavor of that happening in these Peter Strzok texts.

00:36:40.000 And the texts of four other FBI agents, by the way.

00:36:42.000 And the activity of James Comey.

00:36:43.000 There were several assumptions that were made in the course of the investigations.

00:36:46.000 Assumption number one is that Hillary was going to win. 1.00

00:36:49.000 Assumption number two is that Hillary should win. 1.00

00:36:51.000 And that really dictated a lot of the behavior here.

00:36:54.000 It dictated an enormous amount of the behavior here.

00:36:57.000 So, you know, when we talk about whether there was bias inside the FBI, yes.

00:37:01.000 But that bias doesn't have to be 100% conspiratorial.

00:37:05.000 You can say that that bias was deeply troubling and had impact without it being a deep conspiracy.

00:37:10.000 And this is, I think, the way the FBI is going to sneak out of this.

00:37:12.000 They're going to say, well, there wasn't any deep conspiracy.

00:37:15.000 We weren't planning the bias.

00:37:16.000 This is what the IRS did on the 501c3 issue.

00:37:19.000 Just because he didn't plan it doesn't mean that there wasn't a basically covert op happening, or essentially that there wasn't an informal conglomeration of people working together toward a common goal, even if it was unstated what that common goal would be.

00:37:34.000 Okay.

00:37:34.000 Meanwhile, in bad news for President Trump, President Trump is now threatening more tariffs.

00:37:39.000 So we'll see how this goes.

00:37:40.000 We have a booming economy, a thriving economy, and the President of the United States is gradually escalating a tariff war with a bunch of trade partners.

00:37:47.000 Now, I'm not against the idea of tariffing China.

00:37:50.000 I'm not against the idea of putting economic pressure on China for humanitarian reasons and for security reasons.

00:37:54.000 I think that China as a world power... I'm not... 0.72

00:37:57.000 In fact convinced that Nixon opening China was something great for the world.

00:38:00.000 I think there's a strong case to be made that we should have continued to isolate China and then maybe it would have collapsed in on itself just like the Soviet Union did if we had been willing to actually go all the way. 0.80

00:38:08.000 Nixon was not willing to go all the way.

00:38:09.000 He opens China and instead China continues to be a global threat and a regional threat particularly. 0.92

00:38:14.000 But now President Trump is escalating

00:38:16.000 A trade war with China not out of a sense of national security, but out of a sense that he likes trade wars.

00:38:21.000 So according to the Washington Post, President Trump threatened Monday to levy tariffs on nearly all of China's products shipped to the United States unless Beijing agrees to a host of sweeping trade concessions, a dramatic escalation that would enlist American consumers in the brewing U.S.-China commercial conflict.

00:38:35.000 In a statement, Trump said he had ordered his chief negotiator, U.S.

00:38:38.000 Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, to drop a list of $200 billion in Chinese products that will be hit with tariffs of 10% if China refuses his demand to narrow the yawning U.S.

00:38:47.000 trade deficit and change its industrial policies. 0.99

00:38:50.000 Now, this is why you know this is stupid policy.

00:38:52.000 If the president actually wanted to tackle something meaningful, what he should have said is, we're going to levy these tariffs unless you stop the violation of our intellectual property. 0.97

00:39:00.000 That's an actual fraud issue.

00:39:02.000 We are going to tariff you unless you actually liberalize your regime, for example, or stop supporting North Korea so much, right? 0.85

00:39:08.000 These would all be legitimate reasons. 0.98

00:39:09.000 But if you are tariffing a country because you have a trade imbalance with that country, as I've explained a thousand times, that's just stupid policy.

00:39:16.000 This is like you saying that you have a trade deficit with your local grocery store, so you are therefore going to shop at a different grocery store that is more expensive, costing you more money. 0.75

00:39:25.000 Well, then you'll have a trade deficit with that grocery store, too. 0.83

00:39:26.000 So what the hell is the difference?

00:39:28.000 The president warned he was prepared to hit China with an additional $200 billion in import taxes unless Beijing capitulates.

00:39:37.000 Such a step would be virtually unprecedented in U.S.

00:39:39.000 history.

00:39:39.000 It would put nearly all of the $505 billion in products the United States imports from China under tariffs.

00:39:45.000 Trump said the trade relationship between the United States and China must be more equitable.

00:39:48.000 The United States will no longer be taken advantage of on trade by China and other countries in the world. 0.99

00:39:54.000 That is, again, very foolish. 0.98

00:39:56.000 This trade imbalance talk is economically illiterate. 1.00

00:39:59.000 It is economically illiterate. 0.99

00:40:00.000 There are countries that have trade surpluses and that are garbage. 0.96

00:40:03.000 There are countries with trade deficits, like the United States, that are wonderful.

00:40:06.000 And again, every dollar that goes over to China has to be re-spent on American products.

00:40:10.000 The big problem has been that China has been re-spending it on American bonds.

00:40:12.000 And they've been basically holding up the value of our dollar.

00:40:15.000 If they decide to retaliate, they theoretically could undercut the price of our bonds by simply selling our bonds on the open market, thereby tanking the dollar and hurting the American economy.

00:40:23.000 Tariffs are a tax on American citizens.

00:40:26.000 You better have a good reason to tax American citizens.

00:40:28.000 If you're going to tax American citizens because you need to crack down in war-like fashion on somebody else, well then, make the case that that war-like fashion has to be done.

00:40:37.000 But if you're doing so because you want to strengthen America's trade deficit, trade imbalance, 0.93

00:40:41.000 That's really foolish.

00:40:42.000 So, none of the tariffs announced on Monday would take effect until industries and consumers have a chance to make their views known in a 60-day public comment period.

00:40:50.000 This is a threat the Chinese can't match, said Jeff Moon, a former U.S.

00:40:52.000 trade negotiator.

00:40:53.000 I see this as a major growl to get the Chinese to take his threats seriously. 1.00

00:40:57.000 Rick Helfenbein, who's president of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, called the president's decision to up the ante, quote, hollow, vindictive, and reckless, said it would endanger the $130 billion in American exports to China.

00:41:09.000 Again, I don't think this is good policy.

00:41:10.000 I think there are ways that tariffs can be good policy.

00:41:12.000 This does not look like a good policy, particularly because the White House has already attempted to reinstate legal relations with the Chinese telecom giant ZTE.

00:41:24.000 ZTE has put actual American security at risk.

00:41:27.000 ZTE products pose a national security risk, according to Congress, and could be used by the Chinese government to spy on the United States.

00:41:32.000 At the same time, Trump is pushing the idea of tariffs.

00:41:35.000 He's also trying to help out ZTE, which is a Chinese government

00:41:39.000 National security spying apparatus, basically.

00:41:42.000 So none of that makes any sense.

00:41:43.000 The President of the United States needs to get his agenda straight on trade because he has a booming economy.

00:41:48.000 There's no reason for him to undercut that booming economy with foolish policy when it comes to free markets.

00:41:55.000 Okay, so time for some things I like, then things I hate, and then we will deconstruct the culture a little bit today because it is a Tuesday.

00:42:01.000 So, things I like today.

00:42:02.000 So I just, this ad is just spectacular.

00:42:04.000 So Richard Painter is a former George W. Bush ethics lawyer.

00:42:07.000 He's now a Democrat, he's up in Minnesota, and he has cut

00:42:10.000 I don't know what's going on with the Democrats and their ads this election cycle, but we've already seen a Democratic ad in which a guy pepper sprayed himself in the face.

00:42:18.000 We've already seen a Democratic ad from Maryland in which a gay guy kissed his husband to show Trump to own the cons or something. 0.51

00:42:25.000 And now Richard Painter cuts what has to be the most bizarre ad of the election cycle in which he stands literally in front of a flaming dumpster and explains how he is going to stop the dumpster fire.

00:42:36.000 Some people see a dumpster fire and do nothing but watch the spectacle.

00:42:41.000 Some are too scared to face the danger, or they think it will benefit them if they just let it keep on burning.

00:42:49.000 Others shrug and say, oh, all this talk of a dumpster fire, it's just fake news.

00:42:56.000 There is an inferno raging in Washington.

00:42:59.000 But here in the land of 10,000 lakes, we know how to put out a fire.

00:43:06.000 OK, that is spectacular stuff.

00:43:09.000 Well done, Richard Painter, for the weirdest ad in the world.

00:43:11.000 If you can't watch, there's an actual flaming dumpster behind him.

00:43:14.000 And when he says that we know how to put out a fire, a bunch of water falls on the fire.

00:43:16.000 You're right.

00:43:17.000 No one in the world has ever figured out that water puts out fire.

00:43:20.000 No one has ever figured this out.

00:43:21.000 Also, Richard Painter, if you're going to shrug in front of the camera, as someone who is not natural on camera, let me just say, even I can do a better fake shrug than that.

00:43:30.000 That is really spectacular stuff from Richard Painter.

00:43:35.000 And there it is.

00:43:36.000 Wow, it's magic.

00:43:37.000 It's just magic.

00:43:39.000 Right?

00:43:39.000 Just incredible.

00:43:41.000 I can do it all day, the shrugs.

00:43:42.000 It's just incredible.

00:43:43.000 But apparently Richard Painter cannot.

00:43:44.000 So what I really love is stiff politicians wearing ties from 1987 talking about dumpster fires behind them in CGI.

00:43:51.000 My favorite part also, there's so many favorite parts of this commercial.

00:43:54.000 The fact that he's standing next to a batch of trash, like right next to him, is really spectacular.

00:43:58.000 Also, the fact that they CGI'd the dumpster fire is pretty spectacular as well.

00:44:02.000 Like if you go back to the beginning of the ad, you can actually see like a little line above the dumpster.

00:44:05.000 Like what is that?

00:44:07.000 How did?

00:44:07.000 What?

00:44:09.000 Really good job.

00:44:10.000 Richard Painter first.

00:44:11.000 I would almost vote for him just because that's so spectacular.

00:44:13.000 OK, time for a quick thing.

00:44:15.000 Oh, you know, one more thing that I like.

00:44:16.000 So Chris Pratt was at the MTV Movie Awards.

00:44:19.000 Chris Pratt's awesome.

00:44:20.000 Hey, Chris Pratt is apparently a religious Christian, which I kind of heard rumors of.

00:44:24.000 But it's pretty obvious that that's the case from the speech that he gave at the MTV Movie Awards, which is

00:44:28.000 Frankly, a speech that I could have given except for his weird riff about pooping in a neighbor's bathroom.

00:44:34.000 Aside from that, his speech was really fantastic.

00:44:38.000 So here's what he had to say to all the millennials in the crowd.

00:44:40.000 Number six, God is real.

00:44:45.000 God loves you.

00:44:48.000 God wants the best for you.

00:44:50.000 Believe that.

00:44:51.000 I do.

00:44:52.000 Number eight, learn to pray.

00:44:58.000 It's easy, and it's so good for your soul.

00:45:02.000 And finally, number nine, nobody is perfect.

00:45:06.000 People are going to tell you you're perfect just the way you are.

00:45:08.000 You're not!

00:45:10.000 You are imperfect.

00:45:12.000 You always will be, but there is a powerful force that designed you that way.

00:45:17.000 And if you're willing to accept that, you will have grace.

00:45:20.000 And grace is a gift.

00:45:22.000 And like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else's blood.

00:45:27.000 Do not forget it.

00:45:29.000 It's pretty spectacular stuff.

00:45:30.000 I mean, even as a Jew, right, I'm not I'm not big into the whole in the whole paid for somebody else's blood routine as far as your flaws. 0.93

00:45:36.000 But just as a religious person, this is wonderful.

00:45:38.000 I mean, this is so brave.

00:45:40.000 You want to talk about brave bravery in public spaces?

00:45:43.000 And people were like, wow, look at Robert De Niro going out there and saying F Trump and standing ovation at the Tonys because F Trump.

00:45:50.000 That's not brave.

00:45:50.000 Everybody in the room believes F Trump.

00:45:52.000 Chris Pratt goes in front of a room of Hollywood people who are gonna go after this and go smoke weed and do cocaine and nail a hooker, right? 0.89

00:45:59.000 And he's standing up there going that, and he's up there saying that God is real, you should cultivate your prayer, and you're a flawed human being so you should seek grace in God.

00:46:07.000 Like, that's awesome stuff.

00:46:08.000 Good for Chris Pratt.

00:46:09.000 Really good for Chris Pratt.

00:46:10.000 One of the good guys in Hollywood.

00:46:11.000 And just by me saying that, I may have lost him four jobs there.

00:46:14.000 So, I apologize to you, Chris Pratt, except I figure that he's a big enough star that he can probably handle it.

00:46:19.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.

00:46:24.000 So, there's a new poll out.

00:46:25.000 It's an Ipsos survey.

00:46:26.000 It was conducted for the Daily Beast.

00:46:28.000 It found that among Republicans, 19% of Republicans indicated they hold a favorable opinion of Kim Jong-un.

00:46:33.000 17% said they have a favorable opinion of Nancy Pelosi.

00:46:36.000 I have no problem with 17% of Republicans saying that they have a favorable opinion of Nancy Pelosi.

00:46:40.000 It really should be zero.

00:46:41.000 But,

00:46:43.000 Why in the world would 19% of Republicans say that they have a favorable opinion of the world's worst dictator?

00:46:48.000 Just because he hung out with Trump doesn't mean he's a good guy.

00:46:51.000 He's holding 25 million people in abject slavery and 200,000 people in actual gulags.

00:46:56.000 68% of Republicans said they held an unfavorable opinion of Kim.

00:46:59.000 72% said they had an unfavorable view of Nancy Pelosi.

00:47:03.000 I think Nancy Pelosi's god-awful. 0.96

00:47:04.000 I think she's just terrible. 0.97

00:47:05.000 I think she's a terrible politician with terrible principles. 1.00

00:47:07.000 She's also an American citizen who is not spending her days actually keeping people in slavery. 1.00

00:47:12.000 Now, she may be pro-abortion, but she's not forcibly aborting people the way that Kim Jong-un's government actually does. 0.52

00:47:18.000 So, not quite the same thing.

00:47:20.000 Guys, just because you want to own the libs doesn't mean you have to embrace the world's worst humans, okay? 0.61

00:47:25.000 Kim Jong-un is the worst. 1.00

00:47:27.000 He's an awful, awful person. 1.00

00:47:29.000 I can only hope that he dies in an electrical fire. 1.00

00:47:31.000 He's a terrible person. 1.00

00:47:32.000 I want to see him die in a painful way, okay? 1.00

00:47:34.000 I say this about only very evil people. 1.00

00:47:36.000 You keep 25 million people in slavery, I have no problem with you going in with the worst form of penile cancer. 0.99

00:47:41.000 That's fine with me. 0.98

00:47:42.000 Okay, so Kim Jong-un's gonna go, but the point is this.

00:47:46.000 Why would you possibly be warm to the world's worst dictator warmer than you would be to a Democrat?

00:47:51.000 I think Democrats are wrong, too, guys.

00:47:53.000 I spent my entire life arguing why Democrats are wrong.

00:47:55.000 But Kim Jong-un is an order of magnitude worse than that.

00:47:59.000 So let's not do that.

00:48:00.000 Let's not let's not fall into that.

00:48:01.000 OK, time for deconstructing the culture.

00:48:03.000 So we haven't done this in a couple of weeks.

00:48:04.000 Deconstructing the culture is where we take a piece of culture and we break it down for you.

00:48:08.000 Or at least I attempt to.

00:48:09.000 From my perspective of knowing nothing about pop culture, and I tried to explain to you what it is that is being purveyed in the pop cultural sphere, because the fact is more people know who Beyonce is than know who any random congressperson, senator, or governor is.

00:48:22.000 So, she has now cut a music video with her husband.

00:48:27.000 It is not good.

00:48:28.000 Okay, it's not good.

00:48:29.000 Rolling Stone, so this song is called Ape Bleep, which is just great. 1.00

00:48:35.000 I mean, it's just, the sophistication is incredible.

00:48:38.000 They filmed this at the Louvre, and shame on the Louvre for allowing this sort of filming at the Louvre, right? 0.98

00:48:42.000 Shame on the Louvre for putting this kind of crap in front of actual great art. 0.96

00:48:47.000 But I love Rolling Stone's take on this. 0.97

00:48:48.000 I'm gonna read you Rolling Stone's take a little bit, and then we're gonna go through the music video.

00:48:51.000 Okay, so in the video for Beyonce and Jay-Z's Ape Bleep,

00:48:54.000 Okay, bleep would be poop.

00:48:56.000 Ape poop.

00:48:57.000 Oh, God. 0.78

00:48:57.000 So we're gonna get an entire music video about why the Louvre doesn't have enough art by black people. 0.78

00:49:17.000 Hey, first of all, the Louvre does have some art by black people.

00:49:19.000 Second of all, the Louvre has a ton—the Louvre is a barn, okay?

00:49:21.000 It has tons of stuff from every various culture.

00:49:23.000 It has Asian art.

00:49:25.000 It has African art.

00:49:26.000 It has Egyptian art.

00:49:27.000 It has tons of stuff.

00:49:28.000 It's just the most famous stuff at the Louvre is Western art because, in my humble opinion, Western art was the culmination of Western civilization.

00:49:33.000 And Western civilization is the culmination of all civilization, in my opinion.

00:49:36.000 I'm a big fan.

00:49:37.000 So.

00:49:38.000 Here is what the Rolling Stone says.

00:49:52.000 Okay, I'm not sure why that matters.

00:49:53.000 Why you would go to the Louvre and the first thing that would hit you is racial imbalance?

00:50:11.000 I'm gonna suggest that the whole point of art is to take the particular and universalize it.

00:50:15.000 Good art takes things that are particular, and then it makes you feel a universal feeling.

00:50:19.000 That's what great art does.

00:50:20.000 When you watch a movie that has to do with people who are nothing like you, you feel something about Star Wars, right?

00:50:25.000 Star Wars is in a universe far, far away with people who are nothing like you, but you feel something about it because there is something unique to every human experience that also happens to be universal to all human experience.

00:50:34.000 This is why great art is extraordinarily particular.

00:50:37.000 Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, these people,

00:50:39.000 Their writings are extraordinarily particular.

00:50:41.000 It's not generalities.

00:50:42.000 It's not broad generalities.

00:50:44.000 That's why I don't like a lot of modern literature that I think draws broad generalities.

00:50:47.000 Great art is extraordinarily particular because you identify with other people the more particular we are about those people.

00:50:54.000 If I just say to you, there's a guy who just died in Zimbabwe, you're not gonna feel anything.

00:50:57.000 But if I describe that guy to you, if I describe his entire life to you, if I describe his family to you, you feel more because I've now particularized the subject.

00:51:03.000 Great art does that. 0.99

00:51:04.000 Okay, so of course, if you have, so the idea that it can't be a universal piece of art because it focuses on a white subject is simply idiotic. 0.96

00:51:13.000 But the Rolling Stone says this is just a great piece of art, this Beyonce-Jay-Z video. 0.96

00:51:18.000 Beyonce and Jay-Z set about interjecting blackness into a space that has never placed much value on it, claiming one of the centerpieces of European culture with gleeful defiance.

00:51:26.000 They frequently film themselves moving in opposition to the frozen stillness of painting by Jacques-Louis David.

00:51:30.000 David, a French neoclassical artist whose works like The Oath of Horatii and Madame Recamier invoke the Greco-Roman tradition.

00:51:37.000 Much of the potency of the ape bleep video comes from the contrast drawn between the white art on the walls and the black women on the gallery floor. 0.98

00:51:43.000 So it's all about race, of course.

00:51:45.000 And now we're supposed to believe that the art being created by Beyonce and Jay-Z is actually better than these great works of classic Western art.

00:51:52.000 Quote,

00:52:00.000 And then they talk about how it's much more lively, right?

00:52:03.000 These people who are dancing are much more lively.

00:52:05.000 It's not only Beyonce who eclipses the art, just a few scenes before the singer's victory over Venus de Milo. 0.54

00:52:10.000 Yeah, right.

00:52:11.000 I'm sure that Beyonce is victorious over Venus de Milo. 1.00

00:52:14.000 A line of her dancers sway back and forth in the foreground while another white marble statue, the winged victory of Samothrace, looms inertly behind them. 1.00

00:52:21.000 Right, idiots, it's a statue. 1.00

00:52:23.000 It can't move. 1.00

00:52:25.000 Wow, you mean people moving is more lifelike than people not moving?

00:52:29.000 I cannot believe it!

00:52:30.000 Wow, you've really upstaged great Western art.

00:52:33.000 See, the thing about Western art, folks, and all art, is that it's supposed to outlive the person.

00:52:37.000 Because all the people in this video, they're gonna die.

00:52:40.000 That statue's still gonna be there.

00:52:41.000 I love this.

00:52:42.000 Because she's a living human.

00:52:43.000 Wow.

00:52:43.000 So's my two-year-old baby.

00:52:44.000 He has arms.

00:52:44.000 And he moves.

00:53:01.000 Okay, wouldn't say that he upstages the Venus de Milo if we went to the Louvre.

00:53:04.000 In fact, I wouldn't bring him to the Louvre because he'd knock over the Venus de Milo and then I would be broke.

00:53:08.000 So we're not gonna do that.

00:53:09.000 Okay, so now I actually have to show you some of this video and I'm gonna read you some of the lyrics because this is the art that Rolling Stone says upstages the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa and the great canon of Western civilization.

00:53:19.000 Okay, this is the video.

00:53:20.000 Okay, you ready for this?

00:53:21.000 Here we go.

00:53:24.000 It's a bunch of naked people lying on the stairs and then doing sit-ups.

00:53:28.000 Weird.

00:53:35.000 Okay, all these people are doing dance motions, and then we have some close-ups of various great pieces of art.

00:53:40.000 And then Beyonce and Jay-Z sitting there, very bored in the Louvre, because who isn't bored in the Louvre?

00:53:44.000 And then them standing in front of an Egyptian pharaoh.

00:53:48.000 And then all these people, again, on the stairs of the Louvre, basically doing sit-ups.

00:53:51.000 And then Beyonce sitting in front of Winged Victory in a giant white dress that looks like it ate her alive.

00:54:00.000 I mean, listen to this great art.

00:54:01.000 It's just spectacular.

00:54:02.000 Okay, so this is the part where they say that John Louise David's work is being upstaged by a bunch of dancing women. 0.97

00:54:07.000 Right, because it turns out that if you went to a strip club, it would probably upstage Western civilization.

00:54:11.000 Okay?

00:54:12.000 That's just the way that works, because it turns out that human beings would... This is her fierce motion. 0.97

00:54:16.000 We're watching Beyonce's fierce motion in juxtaposition to art that doesn't move.

00:54:19.000 Okay, according to Rolling Stone. 1.00

00:54:22.000 The level of stupidity of that review is just astonishing. 1.00

00:54:25.000 And now we're supposed... This is the kind of art that we are told is upstaging Western civilization. 1.00

00:54:29.000 Okay, you ready for this?

00:54:30.000 I'm going to read you some of the lyrics now, because you have no idea what the hell they're saying, right?

00:54:32.000 It's just... But... I have no idea what the hell they're saying.

00:54:35.000 So, here is what the actual lyrics read, okay?

00:54:38.000 Stack my money fast and go.

00:54:40.000 Fast like a Lambo.

00:54:42.000 Skrt, skrt, skrt.

00:54:43.000 I'd be jumping off the stage, ho. 1.00

00:54:45.000 Jumping, jumping.

00:54:46.000 Hey, hey.

00:54:47.000 Crowd better savor.

00:54:48.000 Crowd going ape.

00:54:49.000 Hey.

00:54:49.000 I can't believe we made it.

00:54:50.000 This is what we made, made.

00:54:52.000 This is what we're thankful for.

00:54:53.000 This is what we thank, thank.

00:54:55.000 I can't believe we made it.

00:54:56.000 This a different angle.

00:54:58.000 Have you ever seen a crowd going ape poop? 0.96

00:55:00.000 Raw.

00:55:03.000 The magic, the magic.

00:55:04.000 I mean, I just I can't I can't believe when I saw this video, I immediately thought, burn down the Louvre.

00:55:10.000 I mean, we've got our art, right?

00:55:11.000 If this this video will last the test of time, this video, 1000 years from now, when people have forgotten about Beethoven, when they have forgotten about

00:55:19.000 The Mona Lisa, when they have forgotten about Da Vinci, when they have forgotten about the great works of art, when they've forgotten about Rembrandt, when they've forgotten about all these people, the one thing they will remember is, give me my check, pay some respect on my check, or pay me in equity.

00:55:32.000 Pay me in equity.

00:55:33.000 Watch me reverse out of debt.

00:55:34.000 Squirt. 1.00

00:55:35.000 He got a bad bitch. 1.00

00:55:36.000 Bad bitch. 1.00

00:55:37.000 We live in lavish. 1.00

00:55:38.000 Lavish.

00:55:38.000 Doesn't even rhyme.

00:55:39.000 I got expensive fabrics.

00:55:41.000 I got expensive habits.

00:55:42.000 Okay, that is four separate lines, none of which rhyme. 0.99

00:55:45.000 Bitch, lavish, fabrics, habits. 1.00

00:55:47.000 Okay, none of those rhyme. 1.00

00:55:48.000 He wanna go with me, go with me.

00:55:50.000 He likes to roll the weed, roll the weed.

00:55:52.000 He wanna be with me, be with me.

00:55:55.000 He wanna give me that vitamin D, D!

00:55:58.000 Ice ornaments, icy style tournaments, woo.

00:56:01.000 You ain't on to this, no.

00:56:03.000 Don't they think on to this, no.

00:56:05.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:06.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:07.000 Bought him a jet.

00:56:11.000 There's no possible way to say that Western art could possibly survive this sort of genius.

00:56:21.000 I got nothing, guys.

00:56:22.000 I mean, I really don't.

00:56:23.000 Beyond this, can I just point out something?

00:56:25.000 Beyoncé used to sing songs, remember that?

00:56:27.000 Remember that time that Beyoncé used to sing because she has a nice voice?

00:56:30.000 And now she just sort of mumbles like Rihanna? 0.98

00:56:32.000 You remember that?

00:56:32.000 It was so nice when she used to sing.

00:56:34.000 Like, you watch her on Dreamgirls, you're like, ah, that's a talented lady. 1.00

00:56:36.000 And now she just does kind of spastic motions in front of a camera and goes, and I, what? 0.99

00:56:41.000 I don't know what you're doing, but apparently this is great art.

00:56:44.000 We should all be honored to breathe the same oxygen as Beyonce and Jay-Z.

00:56:48.000 I love that Jay-Z basically just sits there the entire time and does nothing.

00:56:52.000 Literally the entire video, Jay-Z just sits there and does nothing.

00:56:56.000 Here he is, standing there in an outfit from 1975 with his giant medallion, and Beyonce just starts thrashing around.

00:57:03.000 This shot right here?

00:57:06.000 There's a bunch of those where he's just sitting there and suddenly Beyonce's thrashing around and all this.

00:57:10.000 Yes, you're right.

00:57:12.000 The Louvre.

00:57:13.000 Western art.

00:57:14.000 Western civilization.

00:57:14.000 This is my favorite show.

00:57:16.000 Here we go.

00:57:17.000 And Jay-Z's like, I don't know what's going on, man.

00:57:20.000 Jay-Z's just standing in the background going, I don't even know where I am.

00:57:23.000 Like, why I'm in this video.

00:57:24.000 I don't know what I'm doing here.

00:57:26.000 Yeah.

00:57:27.000 Great art.

00:57:28.000 Is this video better than This is America?

00:57:31.000 I don't know.

00:57:32.000 Because that was the greatest start I've ever heard of.

00:57:33.000 This is America.

00:57:35.000 This may be even better than This is America, because this is France, gang. 0.98

00:57:38.000 So, all righty.

00:57:39.000 So we will be back here tomorrow with much, much more.

00:57:42.000 Hopefully no more terrible music videos, but we'll be back here.

00:57:45.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:57:46.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:57:51.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:57:57.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:58:01.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:58:03.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Caramina.

00:58:04.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:58:06.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:58:09.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 19, 2018

The Immigration Wars Heat Up | Ep. 563

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