The Ben Shapiro Show - The Suicide Epidemic | Ep. 556

00:00:00.000 CNN's Anthony Bourdain tragically kills himself, President Trump goes to war with other members of the G7, and the North Korean talks approach.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:07.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:14.000 So it's obviously a depressing day in a lot of the public news, and we'll get to all of that in just a second.

00:00:18.000 First, I want to make a couple of announcements.

00:00:20.000 So first, I want to mention that on Father's Day, we'll actually be doing something fun.

00:00:23.000 So, June 12th, 7 p.m.

00:00:25.000 Eastern, Daily Wire God King Jeremy Boring is hosting a roundtable discussion with me and Andrew Klavan and Michael Knowles, and we'll all discuss what fatherhood means, and Knowles will speculate about it, and why fathers matter, and Knowles will speculate about that too.

00:00:35.000 I don't know.

00:00:56.000 Apparently, get the show when you use Amazon Alexa and all the rest.

00:01:00.000 So you can check out our permanent posts over at Facebook and Twitter to find out how exactly get the show through those mechanisms.

00:01:05.000 OK, before I jump into the news, and there is a lot of news to get to today.

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00:02:22.000 Okay, so the big news of the day is obviously that Anthony Bourdain, the CNN host, killed himself.

00:02:30.000 He hung himself, apparently, at the age of 61.

00:02:34.000 And this raises a number of serious questions about exactly

00:02:39.000 We're good.

00:02:57.000 There are so many different aspects to the suicide epidemic that's happening in the United States right now and really is an epidemic.

00:03:03.000 It's not only celebrities.

00:03:03.000 It's not just Robin Williams.

00:03:05.000 It's not just Kate Spade.

00:03:06.000 It's not just Anthony Bourdain.

00:03:07.000 Apparently, both Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade were apparently, at least I know this is true of Kate Spade, she was very obsessed with the Robin Williams suicide.

00:03:16.000 What happens

00:03:17.000 With a lot of folks who commit suicide as they become fixated on other people's suicide.

00:03:21.000 There is a copycat effect that happens with regard to suicide.

00:03:24.000 I want to give you some of the statistics on American suicide because they're extraordinarily scary.

00:03:28.000 As of 2014, American suicide rates had skyrocketed to their highest rate in three decades, all the way to 13 people per 100,000, even as death rates from other causes have declined markedly.

00:03:38.000 Suicide is particularly common among middle-aged white people.

00:03:41.000 Obviously, that would include Robin Williams and Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

00:03:44.000 The overall suicide rate climbed 24% from 1999 to 2014.

00:03:49.000 In 2014, over 14,000 middle-aged white Americans committed suicide.

00:03:52.000 Between 2006 and 2016, the suicide rate for white kids jumped 70%.

00:03:57.000 The suicide rate among black kids, which is a lot lower generally than the suicide rate among white children, jumped 77%.

00:04:03.000 According to USA Today, a study of pediatric hospitals released last May,

00:04:08.000 So, let's begin with this.

00:04:09.000 What is causing this uptick in suicide?

00:04:10.000 Why is it that we are seeing suicide at record rates in the United States, at unprecedented rates over the last three decades?

00:04:29.000 In the United States.

00:04:29.000 So let's take some of the traditional theories and we'll talk about whether they are right or whether they are wrong.

00:04:33.000 So one of the traditional theories is that suicide is a factor of poverty.

00:04:37.000 That when the economy has a downturn, then you see increased suicide.

00:04:41.000 There's very little evidence to support this.

00:04:43.000 There's very little evidence to support the idea that there's mass suicide on the way when poverty breaks in.

00:04:49.000 Obviously, the economy was well underway by 2014.

00:04:51.000 That did not stop the increase in suicide from 2008 to 2014.

00:04:56.000 And the suicidality rate has continued to increase, as far as I'm aware, up to 2017 and 2018, when the economy has been extraordinarily good.

00:05:03.000 I mean, we hit now a 3.9% unemployment rate.

00:05:06.000 So, it's hard to blame the economy for all of this.

00:05:08.000 Also, it is simply not true that poverty is linked to suicide.

00:05:12.000 It's just not true.

00:05:12.000 Maybe changing in financial conditions is linked to suicide, like you were rich and then you became poor or something.

00:05:17.000 But, in reality,

00:05:18.000 There's almost a reverse correlation between wealth groups in the United States and suicide rate, at least in some areas.

00:05:24.000 So, white people on average are richer than black people on average. 0.86

00:05:27.000 Black people on average in the United States commit suicide at a far lower rate than white people on average do in the United States as well.

00:05:32.000 So, I don't buy into the poverty as an explainer for suicide attempt that's been put out there by the media.

00:05:40.000 And then there's the most popular theory that's going around right now, which is that bullying is what is causing this uptick in suicide.

00:05:45.000 There's an increase in the amount of bullying that's happening in schools.

00:05:47.000 Number one, I don't see the evidence for that.

00:05:48.000 I don't see that there's any evidence that suggests that bullying is worse now than it was, say, 30 years ago.

00:05:53.000 So, if it really were about bullying, then I don't see that.

00:05:55.000 I also don't see why that would have any impact on middle-aged white people killing themselves.

00:05:59.000 Also, the statistics on bullying are really conflicting.

00:06:03.000 So, there have been studies that suggest that, really, it's depression and delinquency, and when people say they are bullied and then they commit suicide, that doesn't necessarily mean they were bullied.

00:06:11.000 People who don't commit suicide are more likely to say that they were picked on, as opposed to bullied.

00:06:15.000 So, in other words, if you acted the same way toward two people, and one of them said, I was bullied, and one of them said, I was picked on, the person who said, I was bullied, is more likely a person who's going to commit suicide just from the get-go, than the person who says, I was picked on.

00:06:27.000 I'm speaking from a position of experience when it comes to bullying.

00:06:29.000 I was viciously bullied in high school.

00:06:30.000 I was physically abused in high school.

00:06:32.000 And none of that made me suicidal because I was not a clinically depressed person.

00:06:36.000 And clinical depression and suicide obviously are highly linked together.

00:06:40.000 So saying that it's just bullying and if America stopped its bullying, that everything would be better.

00:06:44.000 Again, that doesn't explain why the black suicide rate is so low.

00:06:47.000 If bullying and racism are so prevalent in American society, why aren't black suicide rates higher?

00:06:52.000 Also,

00:06:53.000 It's obviously not true that, to go back to the poverty point for a moment, it's obviously not true that poverty is linked to suicide because, actually, poorer societies have lower suicide rates than richer societies.

00:07:02.000 It's almost a Western phenomenon, the phenomenon of mass suicide and suicide in these numbers.

00:07:08.000 So that takes a few of the key explanations that have been put on the table off the table.

00:07:12.000 There is an argument to be made.

00:07:14.000 There are several arguments to be made about what exactly it is that causes suicide.

00:07:18.000 First of all, clinical depression obviously is linked to suicide, and clinical depression can be conditional or it can be just natural, right?

00:07:26.000 I mean, it can be genetic, that depression runs in your family, or it can be conditionally related.

00:07:31.000 And one of the things that gets people out of depression

00:07:34.000 I think so.

00:07:53.000 Well, cognitive behavioral therapy is designed to say to you, well, maybe the bad thing that's happening to you isn't all that bad.

00:07:58.000 Maybe you should take a second glance at your emotions.

00:08:01.000 Maybe you shouldn't actually humor your emotional state to the extent that we are humoring it right now.

00:08:06.000 Now, some people require drugs for depression, and I am not anti-drug when it comes to severe depression.

00:08:11.000 I think that medicating for serious mental disorders is a good thing. 1.00

00:08:15.000 I think if you can alleviate your depression by taking, what is this, Alexa?

00:08:20.000 If you can alleviate your depression

00:08:22.000 By taking some of the drugs that are available on the market, then you should absolutely do so if you need to.

00:08:29.000 But the question is not what to do when you have depression, the question really is why the depression exists in the first place.

00:08:35.000 I would suggest that there is a societal lack of meaning that has said in a pretty serious way that young people have basically been told that their emotional state is key, that your emotional happiness is key.

00:08:45.000 In prior generations, people were basically taught that your emotional state was not key.

00:08:49.000 That what you felt about the world was less important than what you did in the world.

00:08:53.000 And that life was a lot of struggle.

00:08:55.000 You had a higher purpose.

00:08:56.000 You had a higher duty.

00:08:57.000 And that there were going to be people there to help you out through that higher purpose and higher duty.

00:09:00.000 I think we've become more fragmented as a society.

00:09:02.000 I think we've become more atomistic as a society.

00:09:04.000 I think we've treated each other as objects rather than as human beings.

00:09:08.000 More as a society, some of that has to do with radical uptake and use of social media.

00:09:13.000 And some of that has to do with decline of religion.

00:09:16.000 There are good studies that suggest that as religion declined, as religious communities declined, that rates of depression go up, rates of suicidality go up as well.

00:09:25.000 Decline of religiosity in wealthier societies, there are studies to support this, has led to an uptick in suicide.

00:09:30.000 Finding a common meaning again, I think is going to be something that we actually have to spend some time doing.

00:09:35.000 Just sort of brushing this under the rug or suggesting that if we're a little bit nicer to each other, it's going to fix everything.

00:09:39.000 I don't think that's correct.

00:09:40.000 I think that there are a lot of people out there who are feeling that they lead a meaningless life.

00:09:43.000 And if you feel that you lead a meaningless life and your only method of meaning, your only way of gaining meaning is to look at the superficial or to look at friendship on social media or to gauge

00:09:53.000 Your life's worth by your amount of happiness.

00:09:55.000 It's a real problem.

00:09:56.000 You see this with regard to opioid addiction as well.

00:09:58.000 If you read Dreamland by Sam Canona, it's all about the opioid addiction massive wave that's been happening.

00:10:04.000 One of the things he talks about is the fact that pain is now considered an ultimate evil in American society, that you actually use pain as what they call the fifth vital sign when you go in for a doctor's appointment, right?

00:10:13.000 They check your vital signs, they check your pulse, they check your blood pressure, they check your temperature and all the rest, and then they ask you your pain level.

00:10:19.000 And this is considered a vital sign that has to be alleviated.

00:10:21.000 Well, people have been living with pain for thousands of years, but if your definition of happiness is avoidance of pain, then anytime you experience pain, you're going to take it a lot more seriously than you would if pain were not at the top of your list for something that matters deeply.

00:10:34.000 Finding purpose in life beyond personal alleviation of pain or personal material wealth and happiness is going to be something that's necessary for us as a society.

00:10:42.000 And again, none of this is a cure for clinical depression.

00:10:44.000 None of this is a cure for people who have genetic predisposition to depression.

00:10:48.000 None of this is a cure for people who are going to be depressed no matter what.

00:10:51.000 But it is an argument that there are people who are on the borderline of depression, who are tossed into depression by a lack of meaning in our society.

00:10:58.000 I don't think that was the case by Anthony Bourdain.

00:11:01.000 Anthony Bourdain seems to me like somebody who is suffering from some deep, some serious demons for a long time.

00:11:05.000 Here, for example, is Anthony Bourdain talking about some of the demons that he and his fellow cooks sometimes experience.

00:11:12.000 We're good to go.

00:11:29.000 Okay, so, you know, obviously this is somebody who's been suffering for a long time.

00:11:32.000 He talked very openly about the fact that he had a drug addiction issue and that he'd suffered with depression for a serious amount of time.

00:11:39.000 For folks like Anthony Bourdain, I'm not sure that there is necessarily a cure in the realm of meaning.

00:11:45.000 I mean, this is a guy who had, by all accounts, a pretty rich, happy life.

00:11:49.000 He was just suffering.

00:11:50.000 But that doesn't mean that you, right now, can't help yourself.

00:11:53.000 You should help yourself, okay?

00:11:54.000 There is no excuse for suicide.

00:11:55.000 Yeah, I know that as a society, we've decided that there's an excuse for suicide and that there's almost a moral side to suicide.

00:12:03.000 That committing suicide is something that should be treated purely as a tragedy and not as a moral decision.

00:12:07.000 Well, Anthony Bourdain leaves behind a 13-year-old son.

00:12:09.000 That's a moral decision, and that's something that we should be fighting against.

00:12:11.000 That's not to blame Anthony Bourdain for his own condition.

00:12:14.000 That's not to blame Anthony Bourdain for what

00:12:17.000 He did to himself.

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00:13:35.000 Okay, talking about the glorification of suicide, one of the serious issues that we in the media have to deal with, and I want to start this conversation today because I'm still trying to figure out for the media outlet that I run exactly how we ought to cover issues like Anthony Bourdain's suicide.

00:13:48.000 There is something called the Werther Effect.

00:13:50.000 The Werther Effect is a very well-studied phenomenon.

00:13:53.000 It's essentially copycat suicide.

00:13:55.000 When a person who is very prominent commits suicide, there are a lot of people who begin thinking a lot more about suicide, fixating a lot more on suicide, thinking of it as a glorious out... I remember after Robin Williams' death, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences put out a tweet of the genie, right, because Robin Williams played the genie, saying, you're free now, genie, okay?

00:14:12.000 That sort of glorification of suicide is awful and actually promotes suicide, obviously.

00:14:17.000 The Werther Effect is named after a book called The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe.

00:14:21.000 That book supposedly, I mean the studies are conflicting, caused suicides all over the continent.

00:14:27.000 There were young men who saw it as such a romantic ideal to commit suicide, they actually started walking around wearing the clothes that Werther is described as wearing in the book.

00:14:34.000 Whether it was true of the Goethebook or not, it has been confirmed over and over and over.

00:14:38.000 In the aftermath, for example, of Marilyn Monroe's suicide, in the months after her death there were 303 excess suicides, meaning higher than average, in the United States.

00:14:46.000 There have been multiple studies on this sort of stuff.

00:14:48.000 After that show,

00:14:50.000 By Netflix, 13 Reasons Why, which essentially glorified suicide and said there were excuses for it, that a normal person who didn't suffer from depression or problems could be bullied into suicide.

00:14:58.000 Once that show came out, Google queries about suicide, as according to The Atlantic, rose by almost 20% in 19 days after the show came out, representing between 900,000 and 1.5 million more searches than usual regarding the subject.

00:15:10.000 17 out of the top 20 searches were significantly elevated.

00:15:13.000 The biggest increases came with terms related to suicidal thoughts and ideation, like how to kill yourself.

00:15:18.000 Many European countries actually have laws on the books that prevent the media from reporting about suicide specifically to avoid this.

00:15:23.000 In Venice, they had a spate of people throwing themselves on the train tracks and I believe that they actually changed the law so that people could not report on that and the rates of suicide by throwing yourself on a train track went down.

00:15:32.000 Now, I'm not calling for abridgement of the First Amendment or laws on this basis, but in the same way that I have suggested that my media outlet will no longer report the names or faces of mass shooters,

00:15:42.000 I'm seriously considering changing the rules here at the Daily Wire when it comes to coverage of celebrity suicide or suicide in general.

00:15:49.000 There is something that I want to talk about in just one second called the Papageno effect.

00:15:54.000 This is the counter-argument.

00:15:55.000 The media should actually cover all of this stuff.

00:15:57.000 So the Papageno effect basically suggests that if the media covers this stuff in a positive way, if the media covers suicide in an attempt to dissuade you from committing it, that this lowers the rate of suicide.

00:16:09.000 That really only applies when you are telling a story about somebody who is considering suicide and then didn't do it.

00:16:13.000 So if you're covering somebody's actual suicide, it's very difficult to avoid people having dark thoughts about doing the same thing.

00:16:21.000 The Papageno effect is named after Mozart's Magic Flute character because Papageno is a character in the opera who's considering suicide and then he's talked out of it by essentially three young boys who are sprites or spirits and that

00:16:32.000 Effect has not been all that well documented.

00:16:34.000 It's a pretty recent study.

00:16:36.000 I believe in Australia, they've done some studies on the Papageno effect.

00:16:39.000 But the idea there is that the way to help make suicide less palatable to people is to show them stories of people who would have committed suicide, but then did not go ahead and actually do it.

00:16:50.000 In covering celebrity suicide, we may in fact be doing a serious disservice.

00:16:53.000 And I'm admitting that that's what we're doing right now.

00:16:56.000 And that's why I'm reconsidering, you know, I'm considering right now actively what we should do as media outlets.

00:17:00.000 With regard to coverage of suicide.

00:17:03.000 So, there are a lot of issues to unpack here, but I think that we all tend to go surface level when it comes to the problem of suicide in America.

00:17:09.000 We tend to think, on the right, that you can just bully your way through depression, which I don't think is generally true.

00:17:14.000 We tend to think, on the left, that if we just cut out bullying, and if we're just nicer to each other, then suicide goes away.

00:17:20.000 I don't think that's true either.

00:17:21.000 I think that we have a crisis of meaning in our society that is happening right now, where young people don't know why they are living.

00:17:27.000 What is the point of their life?

00:17:29.000 Why exactly is it important for them to remain alive as opposed to killing themselves?

00:17:34.000 And if we don't fill that gap with something, then that gap will be filled with nothingness.

00:17:37.000 And that's a very scary thing.

00:17:39.000 We need to come to grips with that.

00:17:41.000 We need to come to grips with the fact.

00:17:43.000 That happiness in life cannot be linked to your material well-being.

00:17:47.000 It has to be linked with a purpose.

00:17:49.000 It has to be linked with something that matters.

00:17:51.000 People who believe that they are living for something that matters are far less likely to commit suicide, which is why you see that there's less of a suicide rate among people who are involved in communal activities.

00:18:01.000 Not just because there's a community there, but because they feel like they are pushing towards something greater.

00:18:05.000 If we don't recapture that, if we become this atomized society where we're all individuals and we sadly tweet R.I.P.

00:18:10.000 Anthony Bourdain when we see a suicide, I don't think that this crisis is going to get any better any quicker.

00:18:15.000 I think that we have become a solipsistic society that is very inwardly focused and that has some pretty negative ramifications, some pretty negative side effects.

00:18:23.000 We need to start being other-focused.

00:18:25.000 And that doesn't just mean for those of us who are not clinically depressed, reaching out to people who are clinically depressed, it means that people who are on the verge of depression... Depression is... I've lived with people with depression.

00:18:35.000 Depression is extraordinarily difficult to deal with.

00:18:39.000 Not just by the person who's dealing with it, but by everybody living with that person.

00:18:42.000 If you've ever been in a house with somebody with depression, then you can feel it.

00:18:46.000 It legitimately feels like there is a dark presence in the house with you.

00:18:52.000 I think one of the great lies that's told about depression is that depression is about lack of self-esteem.

00:18:56.000 Depression is about complete focus on self.

00:19:00.000 I've dealt with many depressed people, severely depressed people, people I'm close to who have been suicidal.

00:19:06.000 From the outside, what it looks like is somebody who is so self-obsessed because they're tearing themselves down that they can't get out of it.

00:19:12.000 And the cure to that is to get out of your own head.

00:19:15.000 The cure to that, whether that requires a boost from some sort of drug, that's quite possible.

00:19:20.000 The cure for that is to live beyond oneself.

00:19:22.000 And as a society, if we start living beyond ourselves, we're going to be a lot better off in terms of suicide than we will if we continue to go down this path of Instagram selfies and materialism and the idea that happiness can be bought with the price of a dollar or that happiness consists in

00:19:41.000 In essentially libertinism, that happiness consists in doing whatever you want, whenever you want to do it, as opposed to living for a higher purpose.

00:19:47.000 Happiness consists in living for a higher purpose.

00:19:49.000 Without purpose, we are all here for no reason.

00:19:52.000 And that's, I think, what the West is falling into.

00:19:55.000 I think the West has fallen into a crisis of meaning that it's having a very difficult time pulling out of.

00:20:00.000 That does have some political ramifications.

00:20:02.000 And more importantly, it has some very serious spiritual ramifications as well.

00:20:06.000 So, you know, I feel terrible, mostly for Anthony Bourdain's family.

00:20:11.000 It's just a horrifying, horrifying story.

00:20:12.000 Same thing is true for Kate Spade. 0.98

00:20:14.000 And again, if today you are having problems with depression, please, please go check out the National Suicide Hotline Prevention line.

00:20:23.000 Please go check that out, like right now.

00:20:25.000 Don't wait, because

00:20:27.000 You know, your life does matter.

00:20:28.000 Your life does matter.

00:20:29.000 The number, again, is 1-800-273-8255.

00:20:31.000 800-273-8255.

00:20:31.000 Okay, so, I want to move on to President Trump at the G7 in just a second.

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00:21:50.000 mvmt.com slash Shapiro.

00:21:51.000 Go check it out.

00:21:52.000 That lets them know also that we sent you.

00:21:54.000 OK, so meanwhile, President Trump is going to the G7 and he is in a spat with everyone at the G7 because President Trump has this bizarre view that we will all be better off if he tariffs everyone.

00:22:03.000 So a few preliminary points.

00:22:05.000 There's been a lot of talk.

00:22:06.000 Okay, I've said, if you want to use tariffs as a way to ratchet down Chinese intellectual property theft, for example, then maybe use it as a punishment.

00:22:23.000 But you have to acknowledge that it's a punishment that also hurts the American taxpayer, because we are now paying more for products.

00:22:27.000 And for all the talk about the tariffs that are being placed on American products by Canada, the fact is the average U.S.

00:22:32.000 tariff rate is 2.79%.

00:22:34.000 When you average across all products that are imported, the tariff rate, it's 2.79%.

00:22:38.000 Canada's average tariff rate is 2.44%.

00:22:40.000 So Canada, in the same way as the United States, there are a bunch of lobbying groups that have lobbied to protect

00:22:45.000 You know, sausage and dairy and various other products, but America has exactly the same sorts of tariffs because of lobbying groups here, right?

00:22:53.000 We have 132% tariff on peanuts.

00:22:55.000 You ever wonder why peanuts are so expensive?

00:22:56.000 That's why peanuts are so expensive.

00:22:59.000 35% on tuna, 20% on dairy, 25% on trucks, 16% on wool sweaters.

00:23:03.000 We have a prohibitive sugar quota, so that's why we use corn syrup here in the United States, is because we basically tariff sugar out of existence.

00:23:09.000 The United States does have a lot of tariffs on products.

00:23:12.000 So do many other countries.

00:23:13.000 We should work to remove all those tariffs.

00:23:15.000 But ratcheting up tariffs, unless your goal is to ratchet down tariffs on the other side, doesn't seem to make all hell of a lot of sense.

00:23:21.000 And it does damage the American taxpayer.

00:23:23.000 There's a story today about President Trump's Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

00:23:29.000 So according to AMM.com, which studies these markets,

00:23:32.000 American metal markets aluminum foundry alloy premium, a price closely watched by automakers, climbed 15 to 17 cents per pound on May 11th, up 60% from the start of the year.

00:23:42.000 The assessment for hot dipped galvanized steel coil rose to $54.75 per 100 weight on May 31st, up 17% since the beginning of the year.

00:23:50.000 This means the price of your car is about to go up in a pretty significant way.

00:23:54.000 And there's a White House economic analysis.

00:23:55.000 The White House itself is acknowledging the tariffs are bad for the economy in a way that President Trump refuses to acknowledge the tariffs are bad

00:24:01.000 The analysis concludes that Mr. Trump's tariffs will hurt economic growth in the United States.

00:24:24.000 That, of course, is no shock because tariffs always hurt the growth of the country that imposes the actual tariff.

00:24:29.000 There's been a lot of talk about whether Congress is going to overrule President Trump.

00:24:32.000 They probably will not, and that is an element of gutlessness on the part of the American Congress.

00:24:38.000 Republicans, I don't care if you're Republicans or Democrats, you should be standing up when the policy is bad, and this is in your purview.

00:24:43.000 And I understand that there are Republicans who are very afraid that President Trump is too thin-skinned on these issues, and that if they react by stripping him of authority on trade, that he's going to react by suddenly going and working with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer or something.

00:24:55.000 I don't think that you can govern by being afraid of the President of the United States, just as I don't think the President of the United States should govern by being afraid of Congress.

00:25:02.000 The system was built for checks and balances, and trade authority was not given to the President of the United States.

00:25:06.000 It was delegated there by Congress.

00:25:08.000 It can be removed at any point.

00:25:10.000 Nonetheless, President Trump is now in a flame war with Emmanuel Macron, who is the leader of France.

00:25:16.000 So, Macron was tweeting out against the President,

00:25:33.000 So first of all, I will just say this about Emmanuel Macron and the Europeans. 0.94

00:25:41.000 They're perfectly happy to sign an agreement with Iran that was garbage, but they're not going to work that hard to sign an agreement with the United States. 0.59

00:25:47.000 It seems like they might want to work a little harder on all of that. 0.83

00:25:49.000 But if he's talking about tariffs and trade policy, you know, President Trump is very difficult on these issues.

00:25:54.000 And here's what President Trump was tweeting.

00:25:55.000 Okay, well, except that...

00:26:11.000 When we ratchet up our own tariffs and barriers, they ratchet up their tariffs and barriers, and it was Trump who started this thing by ratcheting up tariffs and barriers.

00:26:17.000 The EU has announced that it's going to start imposing a sweeping round of tariffs on about $3 billion worth of U.S.

00:26:21.000 products in retaliation after the White House's decision to hit European steel and aluminum products with duties.

00:26:28.000 Trump continued along these lines.

00:26:30.000 He said, Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging U.S.

00:26:34.000 massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers.

00:26:36.000 The EU trade surplus with the U.S.

00:26:37.000 is $151 billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out.

00:26:41.000 Looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.

00:26:42.000 Well, that sentence doesn't seem to link very well with the previous sentences. 0.80

00:26:46.000 But if Trump's worry here is that there is a trade imbalance, that's just a dumb worry.

00:26:51.000 I'm sorry. 0.96

00:26:51.000 Economically speaking, that's ignorance. 0.96

00:26:53.000 The idea that a trade imbalance is bad for the United States is foolish. 0.98

00:26:57.000 You have a trade imbalance with your grocery store.

00:26:59.000 Every time you go to your grocery store, you pay the money and you get groceries.

00:27:01.000 Does this mean you got screwed by your grocery store?

00:27:03.000 No, it absolutely does not.

00:27:05.000 The national debt, the national deficit, these have nothing to do with trade surpluses or trade deficits.

00:27:10.000 There's nothing great about a trade surplus.

00:27:12.000 There's nothing terrible about a trade surplus.

00:27:14.000 There are countries that have trade surpluses right now.

00:27:16.000 Venezuela has a trade surplus.

00:27:17.000 That means nothing.

00:27:18.000 The question is whether consumers are able to access the products they want to access.

00:27:22.000 And by the way, if there is a trade deficit, right, if we have a trade deficit with the EU, that means they have a bunch of U.S.

00:27:27.000 dollars.

00:27:27.000 What do you think they do with those U.S.

00:27:28.000 dollars?

00:27:29.000 Well, they can't use them in Europe.

00:27:30.000 They have to expend them back here in the United States.

00:27:32.000 They have what's called a capital account surplus.

00:27:35.000 They have to take those dollars, they have to reinvest them in the United States.

00:27:37.000 That means they either buy real estate, or they buy U.S.

00:27:39.000 stocks, or they buy U.S.

00:27:41.000 bonds.

00:27:41.000 So, all the worry about the trade surplus, trade deficit stuff, it doesn't make a lot of economic sense.

00:27:46.000 President Trump continues along these lines.

00:27:48.000 He says, Okay, I also don't like those trade barriers, but us ratcheting up our own tariffs hurts our own taxpayers. 0.80

00:27:52.000 Again, it means that we have to pay more for the same products, which seems foolish.

00:27:54.000 And then President Trump tweeted, finally, this is at 12,

00:28:16.000 Well, that's not true.

00:28:18.000 This is the problem with President Trump's view on trade.

00:28:20.000 Again, if he were using this to actually ratchet down trade barriers, I'd be okay with that.

00:28:24.000 But it seems like he's more than happy to walk away from the table without ratcheting down trade barriers, and that's not only a waste, it's just bad policy overall. 0.97

00:28:33.000 President Trump, by the way, suggested something very foolish today.

00:28:36.000 He suggested today that Russia should be added back into the G8. 0.81

00:28:39.000 The reason that Russia was originally kicked out of the G8, the G7 plus one, is because Russia invaded Ukraine. 0.51

00:28:45.000 And now without them getting out of Crimea, he's suggesting openly that he should instead allow them back into the G8.

00:28:52.000 This doesn't make any sense at all.

00:28:53.000 Here's what Trump had to say about it.

00:28:55.000 I love our country.

00:28:57.000 I have been Russia's worst nightmare. 1.00

00:29:00.000 If Hillary got in, I think Putin is probably going, man, I wish Hillary won because you see what I do.

00:29:06.000 But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting.

00:29:10.000 Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?

00:29:15.000 And I would recommend, and it's up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting.

00:29:20.000 It should be a part of it.

00:29:22.000 Okay, no, this is just wrong.

00:29:23.000 Russia should not be a part of the meeting.

00:29:25.000 Russia is, in fact, one of the leading sponsors of violence on planet Earth right now. 0.60

00:29:29.000 They are responsible for acts of terrorism.

00:29:31.000 I mean, no, they should not be in the meeting. 0.86

00:29:33.000 And for Trump to say this is just an act of ignorance.

00:29:35.000 Now, one thing that I think Trump is right about is he is leaving mid-morning on Saturday.

00:29:38.000 So he's going to stick around the G7 for about five minutes, and then he's going to leave.

00:29:41.000 He's not going to stick around for sessions on climate change and the environment.

00:29:44.000 First of all, 0.97

00:29:45.000 I generally think that these sorts of high-level meetings are photo ops and foolish. 0.58

00:29:49.000 I don't think that they actually have anything to do with getting anything done.

00:29:51.000 It's usually low-level negotiators who actually get these things together.

00:29:54.000 But if they are for anything, it's about showing solidarity, and President Trump continues to avoid doing that.

00:30:00.000 I think that it's good not to show solidarity on the Iran deal.

00:30:02.000 I do not think that it is good not to show solidarity when it comes to a more open world trade order.

00:30:09.000 And again, that's not a new world order.

00:30:10.000 OK, that's not what I'm talking about.

00:30:12.000 I'm talking about you as a consumer have the right to pick which products you wish to buy or with whom you wish to do business.

00:30:17.000 OK, so in just a second, I'm going to get to the mailbag.

00:30:20.000 And also, I want to talk about a leak investigation that has been going on and that is somewhat troubling.

00:30:24.000 First, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Keeps.

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00:31:39.000 Okay, I have a lot more to get to on the show.

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00:32:51.000 Alrighty, so, I also want to talk about this big leak investigation.

00:32:55.000 So, according to NBC News, a long-time staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee has been arrested on charges of lying to investigators, probing the potential leaking of classified information the Justice Department announced on Thursday night.

00:33:06.000 A federal grand jury indicted the staffer, James Wolf,

00:33:08.000 Who is 58 on three counts of making false statements in December about contacts with reporters, including providing sensitive information related to the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he served as director for security director for 29 years.

00:33:20.000 He was arrested on Thursday.

00:33:21.000 He's expected to appear in US District Court for the District of Maryland.

00:33:24.000 So, what the leak was, according to BuzzFeed, is the leak was that this guy had leaked information to a New York Times reporter, and a BuzzFeed reporter, that there had been Russian spies targeting Carter Page, basically, to meet with him.

00:33:31.000 And this was leaked out in the middle of the investigation, and this is indeed an illegal leak.

00:33:53.000 And the Trump administration decided to pursue it.

00:33:56.000 Now, all of that is fine, right?

00:33:57.000 The guy illegally leaked.

00:33:58.000 And he should go to jail if he illegally leaked, because you don't like illegal leaks.

00:34:01.000 With that said, the person he was leaking to was apparently somebody who, this reporter he was leaking to, he was sleeping with.

00:34:08.000 So that's pretty awesome.

00:34:10.000 That's always great.

00:34:11.000 The person's name is Allie Watkins.

00:34:13.000 Allie Watkins was reporting on this.

00:34:16.000 She published an article on BuzzFeed News about this.

00:34:18.000 FBI agents initially approached Ms. 1.00

00:34:19.000 Watkins about the relationship she had with Mr. Wolf, saying they were investigating unauthorized leaks.

00:34:24.000 And then the Justice Department told her in a letter sent in February her records had been seized.

00:34:27.000 Now here's the part where I start to get a little dicey.

00:34:29.000 So Allie Watkins seems like a piece of work.

00:34:31.000 Right.

00:34:31.000 She was tweeting out recently that, you know, that she sort of liked the character from House of Cards who apparently was sleeping with an older staffer to get leaked information, which makes perfect sense since apparently that's what she was doing.

00:34:40.000 She was in her early 20s and this guy was in his late 50s.

00:34:43.000 So clearly this is a love match that was happening right here.

00:34:46.000 But.

00:34:46.000 Here is a serious problem.

00:34:49.000 And it was a serious problem when Obama did it.

00:34:50.000 It's a serious problem when Trump does it.

00:34:51.000 When Obama was in office, you remember, he targeted the Associated Press and he targeted James Rosen of Fox News by essentially tapping their phones and checking their emails without permission.

00:35:00.000 And they were tapping his mom's phone, James Rosen's mom's phone, to try and determine his whereabouts in an attempt to determine a leaker from the State Department.

00:35:06.000 That was bad stuff.

00:35:07.000 You shouldn't be phone tapping journalists.

00:35:09.000 You shouldn't be white ring journalists. 0.84

00:35:11.000 You shouldn't be

00:35:13.000 In unwarranted fashion, going after journalists' private information simply to lock down a leak.

00:35:18.000 It is the job of journalists to gather information in every legally conceivable way.

00:35:22.000 And she didn't do anything illegal by reporting on something that somebody leaked to her.

00:35:25.000 It was the guy who did something illegal.

00:35:26.000 So, chunking into her records is a serious problem.

00:35:28.000 It was bad when Obama did it.

00:35:30.000 And you can't protest one and say that the other is okay.

00:35:32.000 No matter how much you dislike Allie Watkins, and I think that she seems, again, like a piece of work, no matter how much you dislike the leak,

00:35:37.000 Tapping journalists is not a good thing.

00:35:39.000 Just as if you don't like President Trump, you still can't tap him, right, if that's what happened at Trump Tower.

00:35:43.000 And no evidence of that.

00:35:44.000 But if you're objecting to tapping President Trump at Trump Tower...

00:35:47.000 You know, and the left says, well, we think it's justified.

00:35:50.000 They're going to have to really show how it was justified.

00:35:51.000 I don't see necessarily how this particular phone tap was justified simply because they wanted to track down the leaker inside the government.

00:35:57.000 You want to track down the leaker inside the government, then go track down the leaker inside the government.

00:36:01.000 You don't get to go after private people's records simply because you want the information that they have at their

00:36:08.000 Well, I don't think that it's all that tough.

00:36:09.000 It depends what grade you're trying to teach.

00:36:11.000 But if you can decide the curriculum, I think one of the things that you can do is just assign alternative readings.

00:36:31.000 So whatever the assigned textbook is, you use that, and then you say, and here's some alternative viewpoints on the same set of facts, and that's what a well-rounded teacher does.

00:36:40.000 I think that that would behoove all of us.

00:36:42.000 I mean, I think that the best education that I got, largely, was not only through teachers who did that, but also because I spent an awful lot of time outside of class reading about the material that I was reading inside of class.

00:36:51.000 You can do more by exposing people to new types of ideas than you can by simply going along to get along, I think, as long as you're not going to get fired.

00:36:57.000 Joe says, Hey Ben, I'm a graduate student in counseling psychology.

00:37:00.000 In my multicultural class, it was suggested by classmates that when students feel they accidentally had a microaggression slip when speaking, they're supposed to say, oops.

00:37:07.000 And when you feel a microaggression has been placed upon you, you are supposed to say, ouch, in class discussions. 0.99

00:37:11.000 Ben, in this situation, I'm deciding whether to be over the top sarcastic with this being practiced in class, or if I should openly talk about how stupid and infantile this idea is. 0.99

00:37:17.000 What do you suggest? 0.99

00:37:18.000 This is 100% real, not a drill. 1.00

00:37:20.000 Well, what I would do is, I wouldn't use the word stupid and infantile, even though it is indeed stupid and infantile. 0.99

00:37:25.000 I would come in with a bevy of social science research showing that microaggression culture is bad. 0.99

00:37:29.000 Go read Jonathan Haidt's piece with Greg Lukianoff over at The Atlantic, I think it was last year, all about

00:37:35.000 We're good to go.

00:37:51.000 I just wanted to let you know. 0.98

00:37:52.000 I'm not trying to be a jerk. 0.89

00:37:53.000 I'm not trying to be rude. 0.91

00:37:54.000 Here's all the information that you need on why I'm not doing this and why I think it's foolish for us to pursue this policy.

00:37:59.000 So the classic by John Stuart Mill, of course, is On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, and that's sort of his doctrine of utilitarianism in a nutshell.

00:38:13.000 You know, his most famous work, obviously.

00:38:16.000 He also wrote a book literally called Utilitarianism.

00:38:19.000 But you can get a really good compendium of his stuff.

00:38:23.000 They make these compendiums from Cambridge.

00:38:25.000 Cambridge has these texts.

00:38:26.000 I'm looking at one right now.

00:38:27.000 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings, edited by Stephen Colini.

00:38:30.000 Go check that out.

00:38:31.000 His stuff is well worth reading.

00:38:32.000 I'm not a complete believer in his brand of utilitarianism, but I appreciate his viewpoint on utilitarianism in government.

00:38:39.000 That I appreciate.

00:38:39.000 The idea that as long as I'm not harming you, the government has no business telling me what to do.

00:38:43.000 That I agree with.

00:38:46.000 Well, I'm not allowed to take that title from Jeremy Boring.

00:38:52.000 I mean, I think that faith is a constant struggle.

00:38:53.000 I don't think it's that you feel struggles and then you stop struggling.

00:38:57.000 Life is all about you trying to

00:38:59.000 Breach the cognitive dissonance between the fact that suffering happens in the world and you have difficult times and the fact that there's a plan for you and that there's a purpose to life.

00:39:06.000 And this is a constant struggle.

00:39:07.000 This is why in the Bible the name of Israel, right?

00:39:11.000 It's Yisrael in Hebrew.

00:39:12.000 That literally means struggled with God and overcame, right?

00:39:14.000 That's what it means.

00:39:15.000 It's from the situation where Jacob wrestles with the angel and he's renamed at that point from Jacob to Israel because he struggled with God and overcame.

00:39:22.000 Okay, but that doesn't mean you overcome God.

00:39:24.000 It means that you do struggle with the concept of God.

00:39:26.000 You struggle

00:39:27.000 With is there a purpose to life?

00:39:28.000 Is there a reason in the universe?

00:39:29.000 I think absolutely there is.

00:39:31.000 I think Western civilization is built on that purpose and reason.

00:39:35.000 And I think the evidence is all around us, not just in nature.

00:39:37.000 I mean, that's the easy answer.

00:39:38.000 As you look to nature, you look how beautiful it is.

00:39:40.000 You look at the fact that you have a baby, you have a baby kid, you know, like when my kids were born, you look at that and you say, how can there not be a God?

00:39:45.000 I understand the emotional aspect of that.

00:39:48.000 I think so.

00:40:06.000 Relying on a very reductionist view of materialism to define your life, which I find utterly unfulfilling and very difficult to build a system of thought upon.

00:40:12.000 Don says, Ben, enjoy the show.

00:40:14.000 I understand your stance on trade.

00:40:15.000 I may be naive on using it as a tool.

00:40:17.000 I can only tell you from working in manufacturing, if I have two sources of steel, if both meet my design requirements and one is cheaper, I'm going to be using it.

00:40:23.000 I'm not really looking at Buy American, I'm looking at the bottom line.

00:40:25.000 If that steel comes in with the tariff, my other supplier becomes the primary due to cost.

00:40:29.000 Yes, some of that higher cost may be moved to the consumer.

00:40:31.000 My question to you is if the lower cost is due to folks like China dumping steel below cost to manufacture, is that fair to other producers?

00:40:36.000 How do you manage that inequity?

00:40:38.000 Well, the truth is that there are always going to be companies that are undercutting you.

00:40:42.000 Now, is it fair?

00:40:43.000 Look, do I think that China should be subsidizing its steel industry?

00:40:46.000 No.

00:40:46.000 But do I think that it is worthwhile for the United States to then tariff Chinese steel and somehow undercut American consumers in

00:40:54.000 More efficient industries?

00:40:55.000 No, I don't think that's right either.

00:40:56.000 Because as you say, let's say that you now have to spend more money on the steel supplier.

00:41:01.000 Well, that means that you're going to be spending less money on your employees, presumably.

00:41:04.000 But your costs went up.

00:41:05.000 So either you pass that on to the consumer, or you're spending that money in other places.

00:41:08.000 Is it fair to you that you now have to buy more expensive steel?

00:41:12.000 Because we have to protect some industry here as opposed to not protecting that industry.

00:41:17.000 And the idea that, by the way, China can subsidize all of its industries is obviously untrue.

00:41:21.000 China cannot subsidize all of its industries.

00:41:22.000 It can pick a couple of key industries it wants to subsidize.

00:41:25.000 There are national security reasons, for example, that if we don't want America's steel production dropping below a certain point, we tariff.

00:41:31.000 But we're not anywhere near that point right now.

00:41:33.000 And if China wants to waste its own money subsidizing industries in order to undercut the price of steel in the United States, that's their problem and it's our gain.

00:41:41.000 Honestly, their subsidy is our gain to a certain extent in that industry, and it's our loss if we tariff our own people, because a tariff is a tax on our own consumers and our own producers.

00:41:50.000 Samuel says,

00:41:59.000 No, I don't.

00:41:59.000 I think that, you know, President Pence would govern very much like President Trump has been governing.

00:42:03.000 He's been very conservative, President Trump, to my great surprise and satisfaction.

00:42:07.000 Well, I appreciate it, Jefferson.

00:42:21.000 The media have been remiss in reporting on this beyond sort of the basics.

00:42:24.000 You haven't seen blanket coverage that Social Security is going to be bankrupt by 3034, Medicare will be bankrupt by 2026.

00:42:29.000 Okay, that is scary stuff.

00:42:31.000 We're not talking long ways down the road.

00:42:33.000 We are talking about within the foreseeable future, like in the next 10 to 15 years.

00:42:38.000 That means that we have to figure something out.

00:42:40.000 The way to figure something out is by totally restructuring this stuff, bring it down to local level, getting the federal government out of the business of Social Security and Medicare altogether, putting it back on charitable institutions and community institutions at the outside if we can.

00:42:52.000 We have to make the payments to the people who have already been guaranteed payments, but if you are younger, you should instead be given the opportunity to take your money out of Social Security, and you should be told instead to

00:43:05.000 Put that money to invest that money in stocks, in bonds, in whatever it is that you choose to do.

00:43:12.000 Also, we should raise the retirement age.

00:43:14.000 That's something we should do right now.

00:43:15.000 People are living longer. 0.90

00:43:16.000 It is stupid not to raise the retirement age for people who are not already retired.

00:43:19.000 And we should look at whether benefits are cost-of-living adjusted. 0.97

00:43:23.000 I do not think they should be because money does not legitimately have sex with itself and then multiply into new money.

00:43:28.000 That's not how it works.

00:43:30.000 When you put something into the Social Security Trust Fund, isn't my grandma paid in 50 bucks a year in 1953? 0.54

00:43:36.000 And now she gets out 3,000 bucks a month. 0.99

00:43:39.000 That money didn't magically multiply.

00:43:40.000 Well, counterintelligence investigations, you don't need, for example, a warrant to spy on foreign sources.

00:43:53.000 You do need a warrant to spy on American sources.

00:43:55.000 If you're spying on foreign sources and Americans get caught in the loop, then that is a more dicey issue.

00:44:00.000 Usually you have to get a FISA warrant for something like that, or you may have to get a FISA warrant for something like that.

00:44:04.000 If you're spying on an American citizen like Carter Page, then you do need to actually go get a FISA warrant with court approval.

00:44:09.000 Counterintelligence investigations generally require less of a burden

00:44:14.000 In order for you to go gather information than criminal investigations because American citizens are the only ones who can be prosecuted in criminal investigations in the United States and they have rights that foreigners simply don't in our system. 0.99

00:44:38.000 Shelby, so the one that people tend to miss on the tours is Sfat.

00:44:43.000 So, Sfat is the home of Kabbalistic thinking. 0.91

00:44:47.000 It's sort of the spiritual center of Hasidic, the kind of spiritual side of Judaism, the more spiritual side of Judaism.

00:44:54.000 Obviously, everything in Jerusalem you should go visit.

00:44:56.000 All the main points you're going to hit.

00:44:58.000 Masada, obviously, is pretty amazing.

00:45:00.000 But I think that Sfat is one of my favorite places in Israel just because you can

00:45:05.000 You can feel the holiness of the city emanating, and at least the dedication to spirituality of the people living there.

00:45:09.000 It's also an artist colony, which is really neat.

00:45:10.000 Like, they have these little hole-in-the-wall shops on this block-long area.

00:45:14.000 When I say hole-in-the-wall, I mean no bigger than the size, not much bigger than a phone booth.

00:45:19.000 I mean, maybe three phone booths put together, and they have all these different artists who put their stuff together there, and they will cook you, and they have just this great Middle Eastern food.

00:45:27.000 They have like za'atar on 1.00

00:45:30.000 On a particular type of bread that's just delicious.

00:45:33.000 So, check out some of the indigenous cooking if you can, right?

00:45:35.000 Don't just stick to sort of the chain restaurants or the higher level kosher cooking, because you can do that anywhere.

00:45:40.000 Instead, I would check out some of the roadside stands.

00:45:43.000 They're really good.

00:45:44.000 They're really good.

00:45:45.000 Everyone has an opinion.

00:45:46.000 Each one is different.

00:45:46.000 I'd like to get your thoughts.

00:45:47.000 Okay.

00:45:47.000 This is not an opinion.

00:45:48.000 This is fact.

00:45:48.000 Vaccinations work.

00:45:49.000 Do it.

00:45:55.000 Do it.

00:45:55.000 Okay, the myths about autism and vaccination are just that.

00:45:57.000 They're myths, they're based on bad science, they're a bunch of crap. 0.99

00:46:00.000 It is not true. 1.00

00:46:01.000 Okay, and people who do not vaccinate their kids because they're a yoga teacher told them not to vaccinate their kids, or because they were listening to Jenny McCarthy, or somebody who doesn't know a damn thing about science, it's idiotic. 0.99

00:46:10.000 Okay, we have essentially wiped smallpox out. 0.99

00:46:13.000 On planet Earth, because of vaccination.

00:46:15.000 Vaccination is one of the great inventions in human history, one of the great discoveries in human history. 0.96

00:46:19.000 And to not vaccinate your child is not only irresponsible for your child, it is irresponsible for other children, because there are kids who cannot actually get vaccinations and require herd immunization in order to prevent them from getting sick.

00:46:30.000 I talked about this a couple years ago.

00:46:31.000 Go back and listen to the episode.

00:46:32.000 I did nearly an entire episode on this with regard to my daughter who came down with whooping cough.

00:46:36.000 She'd been vaccinated, but the problem is that the vaccination is only about 85% effective, which means you require everybody to be vaccinated so that there is herd immunity, right?

00:46:45.000 The level of vaccination effectiveness

00:46:47.000 Skyrockets when everybody has a vaccination.

00:46:49.000 There are externalities to not getting vaccinated.

00:46:51.000 So normally I would say do whatever you want.

00:46:53.000 It's your kid.

00:46:54.000 It's your life.

00:46:55.000 But I don't believe that number one, if you endanger the health of your kid, that's OK.

00:46:58.000 And number two, I don't think that if you endanger the health of somebody else's kid, a kid who has leukemia and can't get a vaccination because of a weak immune system, for example, that this is palatable under any circumstances.

00:47:07.000 Get your kid vaccinated.

00:47:09.000 OK, final question here.

00:47:10.000 Justin says,

00:47:12.000 I'm in Pennsylvania.

00:47:13.000 I'm a Pennsylvania high school senior graduating just a few hours after you finish your podcast today.

00:47:17.000 Once I do, I'd eventually like to introduce myself to the public sphere as a fresh conservative voice and potentially campaign for office at some point.

00:47:22.000 Any advice on how I can get started?

00:47:23.000 Thanks, love the show.

00:47:24.000 So read, read, read, and read.

00:47:26.000 Just read, okay?

00:47:27.000 So I think there are too many figures in the conservative movement and in politics generally who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

00:47:32.000 Or who don't know what they don't know, and who don't spend a lot of time actually cultivating the expertise necessary to talk about particular issues.

00:47:38.000 I spend an awful lot of time researching this show, reading.

00:47:41.000 I've been doing it for years.

00:47:42.000 I mean, I have 6,000 volumes at home.

00:47:43.000 I've probably read 5,000 of them.

00:47:45.000 That is not meant as a brag.

00:47:46.000 It is meant as an example of if you want to get knowledgeable something, you have to dedicate enormous sums of time to it.

00:47:51.000 So read, write, get out there, report.

00:47:54.000 If you want to be prominent in politics, give people information they don't have.

00:47:57.000 Not just perspective.

00:47:58.000 Everybody has a perspective.

00:47:59.000 But information they may not have heard is a lot more valuable than a perspective that they probably already have heard in some form.

00:48:04.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I like and then a quick thing that I hate.

00:48:08.000 So a thing that I like today...

00:48:11.000 So I just have to point this out.

00:48:12.000 This was just fantastic.

00:48:13.000 Local TV, San Diego. 0.99

00:48:15.000 There was a reporter who decided that it would be worthwhile to report on what they call the inflatable run, which is, I guess, where people dress up in giant, like, inflatable plastic thingies, and then they run around like idiots. 0.96

00:48:28.000 And it's called the adrenaline run. 0.89

00:48:30.000 Okay, sounds like fun for a group of people.

00:48:32.000 This was the most awkward segment of TV in modern media history, which is saying a lot.

00:48:36.000 Here's what it looked like.

00:48:37.000 This is the world of inflatables.

00:48:40.000 Give yourselves a nice round of applause, everybody.

00:48:43.000 These are just the volunteers coming out here today.

00:48:47.000 And Addie, what kind of fun do you think you're going to have today?

00:48:53.000 Lots of fun.

00:48:55.000 Lots of fun.

00:48:56.000 That's a good kind.

00:49:00.000 Helping everybody.

00:49:05.000 I didn't hear the question.

00:49:06.000 I'm sorry.

00:49:06.000 What kind of fun do you think you can find here today?

00:49:12.000 All kinds?

00:49:13.000 All kinds of fun?

00:49:15.000 Repeat after me.

00:49:16.000 Abracadabra, one, two, three.

00:49:18.000 Abracadabra, one, two, three.

00:49:22.000 Now it's time to see what we see.

00:49:25.000 Now it's time to see what we see.

00:49:30.000 Oh my goodness. 0.99

00:49:32.000 Holy crap. 0.94

00:49:35.000 So yeah, and then that waking nightmare just arrived from the back and he talks to this inflatable guy back there. 0.97

00:49:42.000 Wow, that is local television, man.

00:49:44.000 I hope it never goes away because it is spectacular.

00:49:46.000 So, amazing stuff.

00:49:48.000 Okay, quick thing I hate.

00:49:53.000 All righty, so yesterday we had Ben Rhodes, the former Obama administration liar, going around and talking about how we need the government to watchdog Facebook.

00:50:00.000 We need the government to watchdog social media to ensure that we are not told bad information. 0.95

00:50:05.000 This absolute liar. 0.82

00:50:07.000 Now we have James Clapper, who also is a liar, right, who essentially likely perjured himself before Congress. 0.96

00:50:12.000 James Clapper, we have, saying that what we actually need is an FCC for social media.

00:50:16.000 So he wants the government to regulate social media too.

00:50:18.000 You're getting the message that a lot of these people on the left are very interested in regulating social media, maybe because they're losing the conversation when they can't regulate it? 0.93

00:50:25.000 Here's James Clapper making a fool of himself.

00:50:27.000 I believe, and I've said this publicly, that what we need for the social media platforms is something akin to the Federal Communications Commission, which was set up in the 1920s to regulate radio and later television. 0.77

00:50:41.000 We have nothing comparable for the social media platforms.

00:50:44.000 And as we've seen, they'd like to just regulate themselves.

00:50:49.000 I believe they need oversight and regulation from the government.

00:50:53.000 Perfect.

00:50:53.000 That's just what we need.

00:50:54.000 We need a government that lies to us, regulating people so that they don't lie to us.

00:50:57.000 I think this will just be great.

00:50:58.000 So James Clapper, who lied in front of Congress, he's going to tell us.

00:51:02.000 Ben Rhodes, who lied to the American people, he's going to tell us.

00:51:05.000 You ever wonder why I'm a First Amendment absolutist?

00:51:07.000 This is the reason I'm a First Amendment absolutist. 1.00

00:51:09.000 Keep these idiots out of the business of regulating the information that you see. 0.99

00:51:12.000 Otherwise, you're not going to have the information that you need. 1.00

00:51:15.000 We'll be back here on Monday.

00:51:16.000 I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

00:51:18.000 Take time with your family.

00:51:19.000 Enjoy life.

00:51:20.000 Find some spiritual purpose.

00:51:22.000 Just have a really solid, purposeful weekend.

00:51:24.000 And I'll see you here on Monday.

00:51:25.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:51:26.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:51:31.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:51:37.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:51:41.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:51:42.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:51:44.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:51:46.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:51:49.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 08, 2018

The Suicide Epidemic | Ep. 556

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