The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump Gets Tough | Ep. 778

00:00:00.000 President Trump faces down China, North Korea, and Iran.

00:00:04.000 2020 Democrats swing further to the left, and we check the mailbag.

00:00:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:08.000 Wow, a lot to get to today.

00:00:15.000 Actually, a pretty busy news day, shockingly.

00:00:17.000 It's not even time for the Friday news dump yet.

00:00:19.000 I'm sure there'll be more happening later on today.

00:00:21.000 We'll get to everything.

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00:01:32.000 Okay, so we begin today with the media's attempts to continue to paint the Trump administration as engaged in some sort of cover-up.

00:01:39.000 Last night, James Comey appeared on CNN.

00:01:42.000 And appearing on CNN, he was asked basically to rip everyone inside the Trump administration, to talk about how evil the Trump administration was, to talk about how President Trump obstructed justice.

00:01:51.000 Now, James Comey has a dog in this fight.

00:01:54.000 Okay, James Comey, his firing led off the entire obstruction of justice debacle.

00:02:00.000 It was James Comey's firing, which, by the way, was perfectly appropriate.

00:02:04.000 He should have been fired as soon as President Trump took office.

00:02:06.000 Frankly, Obama should have fired him after he did that press conference about Hillary Clinton back in July of 2016.

00:02:12.000 But James Comey was fired for a cause.

00:02:15.000 He was bad at his job.

00:02:16.000 He was politically motivated.

00:02:18.000 His politics were all about preserving his picture of the FBI as an institution.

00:02:23.000 But Trump fired him.

00:02:24.000 And then Trump basically said that he fired him because Comey wouldn't say publicly that Trump wasn't under investigation.

00:02:29.000 Which was true. 0.74

00:02:30.000 Trump was not under investigation.

00:02:31.000 Comey wouldn't say it.

00:02:32.000 He explained to Trump why he wouldn't say it.

00:02:34.000 Trump got frustrated.

00:02:35.000 Trump fired him.

00:02:36.000 Then Trump went on national TV and said, well, I guess this Russia stuff is done because now we can openly say I'm not under investigation.

00:02:41.000 That's what Trump meant.

00:02:43.000 James Comey and the rest of the media took that to mean Trump fired Comey in order to stymie the investigation.

00:02:47.000 Now, as we know, the investigation was not stymied.

00:02:51.000 We keep hearing there's been a cover-up, there's been obstruction.

00:02:53.000 We keep hearing that President Trump is involving himself in the nitty-gritty details of the Mueller report, of the investigation, in an attempt to prevent public knowledge of the nefarious activities in which he participated.

00:03:04.000 I've seen not a lot of evidence of that.

00:03:07.000 The fact is we are all privy to the Mueller report.

00:03:09.000 The fact is Robert Mueller, James Comey was fired in the middle of 2017.

00:03:14.000 It is now the middle of 2019.

00:03:15.000 It is two years later.

00:03:17.000 That is when we got the Mueller report.

00:03:18.000 So for two full years, Robert Mueller had access to pretty much everyone inside the Trump administration, to millions of documents, to grand jury testimony.

00:03:26.000 So the idea that James Comey's firing represented some sort of obstruction of justice is simply absurd.

00:03:31.000 But Comey is very invested in that narrative because otherwise he got fired for being crappy at his job, and that James Comey can't accept.

00:03:37.000 So he's been going around for the last couple of years taking Taking aspirational pictures of himself in great places of nature, looking up at the forest, looking down at the ocean, and then pondering life.

00:03:48.000 Well, now he's back on CNN. 0.96

00:03:50.000 He's being brought back forth by the media to explain exactly why it is that President Trump is a very, very bad, cruel, bad orange man. 0.86

00:03:57.000 So here is Comey explaining that Trump obstructed justice, according to James Comey. 0.89

00:04:01.000 I'll explain how absurd this is in just a second.

00:04:03.000 There are now, I think it's up to 800 former federal prosecutors who have worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations who have signed a statement saying that Mueller's findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump if he weren't president.

00:04:17.000 Do you agree?

00:04:17.000 Yeah, I agree.

00:04:18.000 No doubt.

00:04:19.000 No doubt.

00:04:21.000 Again, there's 10 different episodes.

00:04:22.000 I actually think the ones that would be most likely charged are not necessarily the ones that involved me, but particularly this McGann episode and another episode where he was trying to get the Attorney General to limit the investigation only to future elections are examples that any reasonable prosecutor would charge.

00:04:39.000 Okay, so that is really an amazing statement by James Comey.

00:04:43.000 Now, the reason it's an amazing statement is because the reason that Trump could not be charged with obstruction of justice is because obstruction of justice is, in fact, a crime that requires intent.

00:04:53.000 It's a crime that requires you to intend to obstruct justice.

00:04:55.000 You want to stop the investigation because you think it's going to uncover something.

00:04:59.000 In the absence of an underlying crime, it's very difficult to obstruct justice.

00:05:03.000 Because what exactly would your intent be?

00:05:05.000 Just because you're annoyed?

00:05:07.000 Like, that doesn't really meet the intent portion.

00:05:09.000 Which is why, when William Barr explained why he had not decided to indict Trump on obstruction of justice, he pointed to two factors.

00:05:16.000 One, Trump's mental state.

00:05:17.000 And two, the fact that there was no underlying collusion for Trump to cover up.

00:05:22.000 That was William Barr's take, and that is a correct take. 1.00

00:05:24.000 James Comey is saying that take is entirely wrong.

00:05:26.000 Trump had the requisite intent.

00:05:28.000 Okay, question.

00:05:29.000 It was James Comey, I remember, who said about Hillary Clinton that Hillary Clinton was not guilty of violating rules about classified material because she did not have the requisite intent.

00:05:42.000 You know where intent is not an element of the crime?

00:05:44.000 When it comes to the mishandling of classified material.

00:05:47.000 You do not have to intend to expose classified material to prying eyes.

00:05:50.000 You do not have to intend to do anything wrong.

00:05:53.000 It is a strict liability crime.

00:05:54.000 If you take classified materials and you put them in public view, you are guilty of the crime.

00:05:58.000 James Comey personally wrote intent into a law that had no intent, and now he's writing intent out of a law to castigate President Trump, which does demonstrate a fair bit of political bias on the part of a guy who proclaims that he is a wonderful law enforcement officer without any bias.

00:06:15.000 James Comey went on to explain that the DOJ should actually charge President Trump when he is no longer president.

00:06:22.000 You think he should be charged when he's out of office?

00:06:25.000 Based on what Mueller has shown?

00:06:27.000 Well, I think the Justice Department will have to take a serious look at that.

00:06:30.000 Whether it's a wise thing to do to a former president, I don't know.

00:06:33.000 That's a harder question, a much bigger question than the facts of the case.

00:06:36.000 But do you think the evidence is there to prosecute?

00:06:39.000 Sure looks like it's there with respect to at least a couple of those episodes of obstruction.

00:06:44.000 So, you know, the idea that he is going to now push forward that Trump should be prosecuted when he's no longer president.

00:06:51.000 Well, again, you know who could have made that call?

00:06:54.000 You know who could have said that?

00:06:55.000 Robert Mueller could have said that.

00:06:57.000 Robert Mueller had every capacity to say, listen, according to the DOJ rules, according to the Office of Legal Counsel, it is unlikely that you can prosecute the president on these charges.

00:07:06.000 However, I would recommend an obstruction charge against the president were it not for these OLC rules, meaning that he should be prosecuted when he's no longer president.

00:07:13.000 Robert Mueller could have said that.

00:07:14.000 He had every ability to say that.

00:07:16.000 He did not say that.

00:07:18.000 Why?

00:07:18.000 Not because he didn't want to.

00:07:19.000 I mean, it's pretty clear that his team wanted to get Trump.

00:07:22.000 It's pretty obvious his team thought that Trump did immoral, bad stuff.

00:07:25.000 That's the entire volume two of the report.

00:07:28.000 But the fact that Mueller didn't do it is somewhat telling.

00:07:33.000 Here's what's really going on.

00:07:34.000 James Comey is mad because he got fired.

00:07:37.000 And he effectively admits as much to Anderson Cooper.

00:07:40.000 You were at an FBI bureau, I think in Los Angeles, and you actually saw it on CNN that you had been fired.

00:07:46.000 I'm wondering, two years later, with all that's happened, how do you look back on that moment?

00:07:52.000 I was numb because I didn't expect to be fired.

00:07:54.000 I was actually in a room about this size talking to custodial staff employees about the importance of the FBI's mission.

00:08:02.000 I looked over their heads and saw first it said Comey resigns, which I thought was probably a prank, and then it said Comey fired.

00:08:08.000 And I know this may sound strange, but I didn't expect to be fired.

00:08:11.000 It never entered my mind.

00:08:12.000 I knew by that point the president didn't like me, but I thought that's OK because that'll keep a separation.

00:08:18.000 So it still feels a little bit numbing, frankly.

00:08:22.000 It's numbing.

00:08:23.000 It's hurting.

00:08:24.000 There's a lot of emotion in James Comey for a guy who pretends that he is just motivated, that he is just motivated specifically by all of this, that he's motivated specifically by a desire to enforce the law.

00:08:36.000 Now, hilariously, Comey was asked about the FBI under his auspices.

00:08:40.000 Two of his top agents were Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

00:08:43.000 They're having an affair with one another.

00:08:44.000 Strzok was personally heading up Both the Hillary investigation as well as the Trump investigation.

00:08:49.000 And Comey admits, uh, yeah, they may have made us look bad, you know, with the whole texting each other and talking about how much they hated Trump.

00:08:54.000 And then Peter Strzok manipulating the investigation, the timing of the investigation.

00:08:58.000 That's not according to me.

00:08:59.000 That's not according to Trump.

00:09:00.000 That's according to the inspector general of the DOJ, Michael Horowitz, who found that ironically, that struck had actually put the Hillary investigation on the back burner in favor of the Trump investigation.

00:09:12.000 And the irony comes in in that because he put the Hillary investigation on the back burner, the investigation only started to look at Huma Abedin's computer like a week before the election.

00:09:23.000 And if he had not done that, then they probably uncovered that a month earlier and they take care of it a month earlier.

00:09:27.000 And Hillary has a better shot at winning the election. 1.00

00:09:29.000 Here is Comey admitting, yeah, you know, I was running the FBI, but my top agents, they made us look real bad.

00:09:35.000 Do you acknowledge that this whole episode with Strzok and Page, that it damaged the reputation of the FBI and perhaps tarnished the investigation?

00:09:43.000 Definitely.

00:09:44.000 Yeah, very painful.

00:09:45.000 It was important that it be investigated and important that there be discipline that follows it.

00:09:50.000 But yeah, it made us all look bad.

00:09:52.000 Peter Strzok is a very talented agent.

00:09:54.000 It's a personal tragedy for him.

00:09:56.000 But as much as I care about individuals, I care about the institution more.

00:10:00.000 It hurt the institution.

00:10:02.000 OK, so you know what else hurt the institution?

00:10:04.000 You overseeing all of that.

00:10:06.000 You overseeing all of that hurt the institution.

00:10:09.000 So the fact that James Comey is still being trotted out as some sort of authority on this stuff does demonstrate that the media are pretty biased on this sort of thing.

00:10:17.000 I mean, they could be asking James Comey all the same questions that I'm asking.

00:10:20.000 What is your evidence that Donald Trump had requisite intent?

00:10:22.000 We know that he fired you not because he wanted to obstruct the investigation.

00:10:25.000 The investigation was not obstructed.

00:10:28.000 So what exactly are you talking about?

00:10:30.000 Don't you have a personal stake in making this case?

00:10:32.000 But they're going to keep trying.

00:10:33.000 It's amazing how all you have to do to become a hero of the resistance is stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president and then yell at President Trump.

00:10:40.000 Amazing.

00:10:41.000 If it were not for James Comey, much better shot Hillary Clinton is sitting in the White House right now. 1.00

00:10:46.000 If it were not for James Comey, Then it's quite possible that the entire Trump-Russia collusion investigation would have gone down the drain much earlier.

00:10:56.000 So the whole thing is pretty amazing.

00:10:58.000 In just a second, we're going to get to the actual big story of the day, which is not any of the fake obstruction stuff.

00:11:03.000 It's not any of the ridiculous Senate investigations or House investigations.

00:11:07.000 The big story of the day is that we may be in a full-on trade war with China.

00:11:10.000 Which is dangerous stuff.

00:11:11.000 I'll get to that in a second.

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00:12:37.000 Okay, well the actual big story of the day is the possibility of a trade war with China.

00:12:43.000 China said on Friday it's going to retaliate because the United States did move to increase tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products on Friday, effectively breaking a month's long truce, seriously complicating ongoing talks according to the Global Times, which is a Chinese publication.

00:12:56.000 The Chinese side deeply regrets the U.S.

00:12:58.000 actions and will have to take countermeasures.

00:13:00.000 The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement after the United States started to raise tariffs on Chinese goods.

00:13:05.000 Following through on earlier threats by U.S.

00:13:07.000 officials, the U.S.

00:13:08.000 raised a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese products, including electronics, clothes and toys, to 25 percent starting at 12.01 p.m.

00:13:16.000 Friday, Beijing time.

00:13:18.000 The higher tariffs will apply to U.S.-bound products that left China after 12.01 a.m.

00:13:22.000 on Friday, U.S.

00:13:23.000 time, according to Reuters.

00:13:24.000 Citing the U.S.

00:13:24.000 Customs and Border Protection, such a grace period was not offered in the previous three rounds of tariffs.

00:13:30.000 Apparently, the government of China's statement did not specify what countermeasures China would take and when it would implement those countermeasures, but analysts said there were several measures China could take that would inflict pain on the United States economy and that the measures would be announced shortly.

00:13:44.000 He Weiwen is a former senior Chinese trade official.

00:13:48.000 He told the Global Times, I think China will respond very soon.

00:13:50.000 China will also have to make good on its own words.

00:13:53.000 Otherwise, it will be at a huge disadvantage to the US team at the negotiations.

00:13:57.000 Now, one of the things that has been happening is that President Trump has been sending some mixed signals on all of this.

00:14:03.000 Now, what you want when it comes to foreign policy, particularly, is a very consistent policy, as I've been saying for years.

00:14:09.000 President Trump's view of tariffs is wrong.

00:14:11.000 His view of tariffs is that tariffs make America richer.

00:14:13.000 That if all we did was raise trade barriers on imports of products from other countries, we would actually be bringing manufacturing home, and the American people would be more prosperous and richer.

00:14:23.000 Manufacturing would return to America's shores. 0.65

00:14:25.000 Historically, this is not what tariffs have done.

00:14:27.000 Historically, what tariffs have done is decimate your capacity to compete on a global level, lead to outsourcing by companies, job loss, and stagnation in the country in which the tariffs are applied.

00:14:40.000 That's because costs go up.

00:14:41.000 We are all not just producers, we are all consumers.

00:14:44.000 What tariffs do is they benefit a specific segment of the market at the expense of all the other consumers.

00:14:48.000 So, let's say you have a tariff on Chinese steel.

00:14:50.000 That benefits the American steel producers, because now they no longer have to compete with the Chinese steel producers, but American steel consumers, including the car companies, those people are going to be paying higher prices.

00:15:01.000 That is reflected onto consumers, and so it's less money in your pocket.

00:15:05.000 Tariffs foster political dysfunction by creating conflict between various interest groups in the United States, as well as with foreign countries.

00:15:12.000 Now this does not mean that tariffs can't be a useful tool of policy.

00:15:15.000 And this is where it's important to understand what President Trump is doing and important for him to be consistent.

00:15:19.000 In just a second I'm going to explain.

00:15:21.000 So, the consistent policy here should be, and would be, Look, we don't want any tariffs.

00:15:27.000 No tariffs at all.

00:15:28.000 The only reason that we have tariffs right now is because China is cheating on trade.

00:15:32.000 And by cheating on trade, we don't mean that they're subsidizing particular core industries.

00:15:36.000 That's not cheating on trade.

00:15:38.000 They get to do that.

00:15:38.000 It's their policy.

00:15:39.000 It's dumb. 0.95

00:15:41.000 Government top-down policy that subsidizes certain industries at the expense of other industries typically does not end well, even for those industries. 0.97

00:15:48.000 Because once those companies are taken off the subsidies, they fail to be competitive.

00:15:53.000 The free market is great at creating durable companies that are capable of competing in a global market without subsidies.

00:16:00.000 Once you start subsidizing things, people become dependent on the subsidies.

00:16:03.000 This is what happened to the American car companies in the 1950s and 60s.

00:16:07.000 America's car companies used to run the world.

00:16:09.000 Then we started subsidizing them.

00:16:11.000 We had lots of tariffs against foreign imports, and America became much less competitive vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

00:16:17.000 So if other countries choose to subsidize those industries, that's not really an excuse for us to tariff them.

00:16:23.000 What is an excuse for us to tariff them is them cheating on intellectual property.

00:16:28.000 For example, the government participating in stealing American intellectual property.

00:16:32.000 Now, we've taken These cases to the World Trade Organization.

00:16:36.000 China has not been a good actor in the World Trade Organization with regard to paying up when they've been found guilty.

00:16:43.000 Those procedures take a lot of time.

00:16:45.000 So if you really want to inflict pain on China to get them to stop stealing intellectual trade property, intellectual property, then that is at least understandable. 0.93

00:16:53.000 The problem for President Trump is that he sends mixed signals.

00:16:55.000 One signal is we don't want any tariffs, but if we have to punish you, we will.

00:16:59.000 And the other signal that sort of Larry Kudlow signal, the other signal is tariffs are great.

00:17:03.000 So, President Trump today, for example, is tweeting out about how tariffs are a wonderful thing.

00:17:07.000 So, President Trump is tweeting out right now that if you produce in America, there will be no tariffs.

00:17:15.000 He says, Great consumer price index just out.

00:17:18.000 Really good.

00:17:18.000 Very low inflation.

00:17:19.000 We have a great chance to really rock.

00:17:21.000 Good numbers all around.

00:17:22.000 Your favorite president.

00:17:23.000 Your all-time favorite president.

00:17:25.000 So Trumpy.

00:17:26.000 Your all-time favorite president got tired of waiting for China to help out and start buying from our farmers, the greatest anywhere in the world.

00:17:33.000 Build your products in the United States and there are no tariffs.

00:17:37.000 He says, if we bought $15 billion of agriculture from our farmers, far more than China buys now, we would have more than $85 billion left over for new infrastructure, healthcare, or anything else.

00:17:46.000 China would greatly slow down and we would automatically speed up. 0.99

00:17:49.000 Tariffs will make our country much stronger, not weaker.

00:17:51.000 Just sit back and watch.

00:17:52.000 In the meantime, China should not renegotiate deals with the United States at the last minute.

00:17:56.000 This is not the Obama administration or the administration of Sleepy Joe, who let China get away with, quote unquote, murder. 0.86

00:18:02.000 So again, this is the mixed signal.

00:18:04.000 We want free trade, but we don't want free trade.

00:18:06.000 Tariffs are actually good.

00:18:07.000 Tariffs are actually wonderful.

00:18:10.000 And this is the push that Trump himself is making.

00:18:14.000 And that is sending mixed signals to the market, because the market is saying, okay, well, if he is happy with the tariffs, if he likes the tariffs, if all of this was an excuse to get to the tariffs, then maybe he just wants to leave those in place.

00:18:25.000 And if he just wants to leave those in place, that could cost all of us a lot of money, because tariffs actually, as just a policy, Not as a tool of leverage, but as a policy, are pretty bad.

00:18:36.000 This is what the UK Sun reports today.

00:18:37.000 Donald Trump wiped nearly $1.5 trillion off global markets with a single Twitter blast, vowing to double tariffs on Chinese goods after they broke a crucial trade deal.

00:18:45.000 That was two days ago.

00:18:46.000 The US president renewed hostilities between the two economic giants by threatening to once more ramp up the cost of Beijing trading in the United States.

00:18:53.000 He pledged to hike tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from Friday, rocking equity markets across the world.

00:18:59.000 And that's because equity markets have typically thought that Trump was a lot of bluster.

00:19:03.000 But once these things kick in, the feeling is that Trump wants to leave them in place not because they're good policy, but specifically because he actually likes tariffs.

00:19:11.000 And now he is causing all sorts of confusion again on Twitter.

00:19:14.000 According to Bloomberg, President Trump, the morning after levying fresh tariffs on China, caused confusion among traders by tweeting that there is no need to rush on China trade.

00:19:22.000 Meaning, okay, maybe we'll just leave these tariffs in place for a while.

00:19:26.000 And the markets went, oh boy, that's not good.

00:19:28.000 Now, one of the things that people have been ignoring about the fact that the markets have been quite hot to this point is that there has been a bit of anticipation of this in the markets.

00:19:38.000 The markets were anticipating at the end of last year that tariffs were going to kick in, and so they accelerated a lot of their buying from foreign manufacturers.

00:19:45.000 And that led to an increase in the amount of spending, the amount of dollars flowing through the United States economy.

00:19:51.000 It caused a lot of imports to be bought, for example.

00:19:54.000 That's why the trade deficit has actually been getting worse under President Trump.

00:19:57.000 An earlier tweet was deleted and then reposted with minor changes.

00:20:01.000 He tweeted out this morning, Well, that's not really how tariffs work.

00:20:03.000 That really is not how tariffs work.

00:20:04.000 I mean, tariffs only work if you buy a product.

00:20:06.000 as tariffs are now being paid to the United States by China of 25% on $250 billion worth of goods and products.

00:20:13.000 These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the United States.

00:20:16.000 Well, that's not really how tariffs work.

00:20:21.000 That really is not how tariffs work.

00:20:23.000 I mean, tariffs only work if you buy a product.

00:20:26.000 It's a tax on a product.

00:20:28.000 Consumers feel the brunt of that.

00:20:31.000 It's not as though China just pays the tax and then sends its product into our market at its previous price.

00:20:37.000 That's not how any of this works.

00:20:40.000 Tariffs, he said again, would make the United States much stronger, not weaker.

00:20:43.000 Just sit back and watch.

00:20:44.000 China, of course, has said that it wants to retaliate.

00:20:47.000 So there's a battle inside the Trump administration right now between the Larry Kudlows and between President Trump and Peter Navarro, who's one of his trade advisors on China, who really is not particularly good at his job.

00:20:58.000 All of this is creating disquiet in the markets.

00:21:01.000 Again, I think that if President Trump were using trade barriers as leverage to push China to start adhering to intellectual property law, that would at least be excusable.

00:21:12.000 I think there are other measures that can be used, but that at least is an excuse.

00:21:15.000 For him to be proclaiming that tariffs are inherently good is just not true.

00:21:18.000 The Smoot-Hawley tariffs at the beginning of the Great Depression helped exacerbate the Great Depression by leading other countries to raise their tariffs as well.

00:21:26.000 And all of that led to less of an export market for American goods and higher prices for American workers.

00:21:31.000 That's what tariffs effectively do.

00:21:32.000 It doesn't create more jobs.

00:21:33.000 It doesn't create more prosperity.

00:21:35.000 It creates more conflict.

00:21:36.000 It creates higher prices.

00:21:37.000 It creates less of an export market for competitive American goods.

00:21:41.000 In a second, We'll get to where things are going on China Plus, conflict brewing with North Korea as well.

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00:22:51.000 All right, so the New York Times reports that now President Xi is facing a dilemma.

00:22:55.000 Should he fold or should he double down?

00:22:57.000 And this is where the good side of President Trump's push could be.

00:23:01.000 If you're using tariffs as a leverage point and not as a national policy, there's a case for that.

00:23:07.000 Here's what the New York Times says.

00:23:08.000 As Chinese and American officials try to reach a trade deal, President Xi Jinping faces a painful, possibly damaging choice to try to protect his aura of indomitability or retreat after President Trump accused China of reneging on the terms of a draft agreement and threatened to raise tariffs.

00:23:22.000 The stakes rose sharply for the Chinese leader this week after Mr. Trump and his chief trade representative Robert Lighthizer publicly accused China of backing down on commitments.

00:23:30.000 The sticking point appeared to be a late decision by Mr. Xi to reject American demands that China change laws constraining American businesses.

00:23:37.000 When Trump leapt onto Twitter to complain, it was a public rebuke that put Xi in a tight spot.

00:23:42.000 Xi is China's most powerful leader in decades.

00:23:44.000 He guards his image as a visionary statesman guiding his country to greatness.

00:23:47.000 China's relationship with the United States is its most important relationship.

00:23:51.000 If ties between the countries are mismanaged, that could damage China's economy and tarnish Xi's image.

00:23:56.000 Trade talks that just last week seemed close to fruition have abruptly become a flashpoint in the rocky relationship.

00:24:02.000 Xi now faces questions at home over whether he miscalculated Trump's resolve.

00:24:06.000 Domestic rumblings could grow if the United States forces Xi to make concessions, or if the talks break down.

00:24:11.000 According to Paul Henley, a former China director on the National Security Council, who now runs the Carnegie Xinhua Center for Global Policy in Beijing, quote, Xi is walking a tightrope.

00:24:21.000 He is going to be the one that has to make the most concessions, and that makes this all the more difficult for him.

00:24:26.000 On Thursday, shortly before the trade talks were set to resume, of course, North Korea shot off short-range missiles.

00:24:31.000 The United States had been pushing China to get involved.

00:24:35.000 Even if the timing of the launch is a coincidence, perhaps that puts pressure on the United States to point out that China needs to be a partner.

00:24:42.000 Liu He is China's chief negotiator.

00:24:44.000 He said, quote, I come bearing sincerity and hope in the current special circumstances told a reasoned frank exchange of views with the U.S. side.

00:24:50.000 China believes that increasing tariffs won't solve problems, won't benefit China or the United States, nor will it benefit the global economy.

00:24:57.000 China had been willing to protect intellectual property and open its markets to American business, but the Trump administration wanted the agreement to specify that some of those changes actually be made in Chinese law.

00:25:08.000 Apparently, China didn't want to do that. 1.00

00:25:09.000 They wanted to make an informal policy and Trump was saying, no, you need to change your law so that formally you cannot renege on this agreement.

00:25:17.000 Wang Yong is a director of the Center for International Political Economy at Peking University.

00:25:23.000 He said, Trump, of course, doesn't care too much about that.

00:25:30.000 Trump is trying to push for a public concession.

00:25:32.000 I guess the idea here is that Trump, if he pushed for a private concession, maybe they would do it.

00:25:37.000 Who the hell knows whether that is true?

00:25:40.000 According to Professor Tu, everyone may have greater doubts and uncertainty about the future of the Chinese economy, Chinese-U.S.

00:25:46.000 relations, or the global economy.

00:25:48.000 This uncertainty will certainly affect production, investment, and consumption.

00:25:52.000 Chinese officials are still struggling to understand the president, according to the New York Times.

00:25:57.000 Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said, quote, there are a lot of voices in Washington that are either sharply or harshly critical of China's action in trade, in their military expansionism, in their actions in the South China Sea, fill in the blank.

00:26:08.000 So as I say, Trump being strong with China is fine.

00:26:12.000 Trump embracing tariffs is not so fine.

00:26:14.000 The question is which one of these things is correct?

00:26:17.000 What's actually happening here?

00:26:20.000 Now maybe, maybe this works out to the tune of China takes Trump's warm embrace of tariffs as more of a credible threat than they would otherwise.

00:26:28.000 That Trump's team and Trump himself think that if he just says tariffs are wonderful, then China will back down because they don't want the tariffs and the tariffs hurt China worse than they hurt us.

00:26:39.000 With that said, as a general point of policy, I don't think that that is correct, obviously.

00:26:44.000 And also, I don't actually think you need to say that.

00:26:46.000 I think that you can simply say to them, listen, we are reluctantly imposing these tariffs because you won't do X. But, you know, maybe this is President Trump selling past the sale, as Scott Adams likes to say.

00:26:57.000 That is a possibility as well.

00:26:58.000 We'll obviously be watching this closely.

00:27:00.000 It's a high-risk move for President Trump, politically speaking.

00:27:03.000 The reason that it is a high-risk move for President Trump is because if the tariffs continue, it will undoubtedly damage the United States economy.

00:27:10.000 There's already been talk about how much more robust the recovery would be, how much more robust the United States economy would be right now if we were not engaged in sporadic trade wars with various folks.

00:27:23.000 It does raise the question overall, by the way, as to whether, for example, the United States ever should have worked on opening China in the first place.

00:27:29.000 The case for opening China is that it would make China more liberal, more democratic.

00:27:33.000 That, of course, has not happened.

00:27:36.000 Of course, it's more prosperous for both us and China to have an open trade relationship.

00:27:39.000 That is true regardless of who exactly is in charge.

00:27:43.000 With that said, would it have been better in the 1970s if we didn't open China when they were on a serious trajectory toward collapse?

00:27:49.000 I don't know.

00:27:50.000 I don't know.

00:27:50.000 I mean, it's certainly possible that that is the case.

00:27:54.000 U.S.

00:27:54.000 officials say that they have more than promises to stop China from stealing intellectual property rights.

00:28:01.000 This time, Robert Lighthizer, who's the head of the U.S.

00:28:03.000 Trade Association, has pushed an enforcement system that gives the U.S.

00:28:06.000 the right to impose tariffs if it decides that China is not living up to the deal.

00:28:10.000 China barred from responding in kind, so China wouldn't be able to respond against us.

00:28:16.000 Cleet Williams, a former senior White House trade official, who is at Akin Gump, a major law firm, he said, we've had these conversations with China for years.

00:28:23.000 If you don't have specific commitments backed up with enforcement, you don't have anything.

00:28:27.000 So again, if this is President Trump being tough with leverage, for it.

00:28:31.000 If this is President Trump embracing tariffs the way he, on a gut level, seems to do, not really in favor of it.

00:28:36.000 Meanwhile, chaos still breaking out on the North Korean peninsula, on the Korean peninsula.

00:28:42.000 Over the over the course of the last two days, the United States seized a North Korean freighter that was caught shipping coal in violation of United States of UN sanctions.

00:28:49.000 Rather, the Justice Department revealed on Thursday, the 17,000 ton cargo ship called the Wise Honest was stopped in Indonesia last year after it was found to be carrying coal.

00:28:58.000 The ship's captain charged with violating Indonesian law.

00:29:00.000 Last July, the United States filed an action to seize the ship.

00:29:03.000 And finally, they went ahead and did that.

00:29:04.000 North Korea, of course, has also fired a couple of rockets This week in a major move toward reigniting a lot of the conflict between North Korea and the United States.

00:29:15.000 Presumably that is because the Trump administration has been moving away from concessions to the North Koreans as they should. 1.00

00:29:25.000 So, there are a couple ways to read this.

00:29:27.000 Overall, overall, the way to read this could be that President Trump is getting very tough on foreign policy and that's great.

00:29:33.000 The other way to read this is that this is a bit chaotic, that we don't actually know what his foreign policy is and that foreign actors are taking advantage of that or acting from confusion.

00:29:43.000 I hope that it is the first.

00:29:45.000 I think that it feels like more of the first, but it certainly could be the second.

00:29:50.000 OK, in just a second, we are going to get to the latest on the Democrats declaring that the that the Russia probe is not over.

00:29:57.000 We're also going to get to the 2020 race and we got to do mailbag today.

00:30:00.000 So we got a lot coming up first.

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00:31:29.000 OK, in just a second, we are going to get to the Democrats' Russia probe push.

00:31:33.000 We are also going to get to the Democrats in the 2020 presidential race growing more and more radical.

00:31:38.000 Bernie Sanders now openly campaigning with AOC.

00:31:40.000 So things are getting wild.

00:31:42.000 First, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

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00:32:11.000 In the absence of some defeater, it seems to me that we're perfectly within our rights in believing that there is an objective realm of moral values and duties, just as we're within our rights in believing that there is a world of physical objects around us.

00:32:31.000 Alrighty, so it's really good stuff.

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00:33:44.000 All righty.

00:33:51.000 So let's talk a little bit about the Democrats and the Russia probes.

00:33:56.000 So they continue to claim that obstruction is occurring.

00:33:59.000 Obviously, the media are relying on James Comey, but the Democrats just keep saying that there's obstruction, there's obstruction, there's obstruction.

00:34:05.000 They keep pushing this.

00:34:06.000 I don't think there's a lot there for them to grab.

00:34:09.000 So Jerry Nadler keeps saying this is obstruction without any proof of obstruction.

00:34:13.000 Okay, tell us about it, Representative Nadler.

00:34:15.000 The Attorney General has told us repeatedly, and all the Republicans, Senator McConnell and others have told us, that the finding of the Mueller report was no collusion, no obstruction.

00:34:25.000 If that's true, why are they trying to hide it?

00:34:27.000 It's obviously not true.

00:34:29.000 Private citizens or employees of the Justice Department must testify for a congressional or a court subpoena.

00:34:35.000 It's not optional, unless they have a legal reason not to.

00:34:39.000 And this so-called executive privilege is nonsense.

00:34:43.000 Alrighty, so this, of course, is untrue.

00:34:46.000 You know, the idea that any obstruction is taking place, he has no actual evidence of this.

00:34:50.000 Mueller is going to testify.

00:34:52.000 Every aspect of this, where they say President Trump is obstructed, the only area where you can credibly claim that President Trump did not give all the information to Mueller is the area where he didn't sit down with Mueller, which no lawyer in their right mind would allow Trump to do.

00:35:05.000 This is all manufactured.

00:35:06.000 Nancy Pelosi says she supports Jerry Nadler, however, and she thinks that William Barr should presumably be held in contempt.

00:35:12.000 If she had the courage of her convictions, she'd call for impeachment, but she's not doing that.

00:35:16.000 We're talking about a cumulative effect of obstruction that the administration is engaged in and the president declaring that he is Not going to honor any subpoenas from the Congress.

00:35:34.000 So I support the path that our chairman are on, and I do believe that it will establish the case for where we go from here.

00:35:50.000 Alrighty, so again, the fact that she is continuing to push this demonstrates how dishonest all of this is.

00:35:56.000 I'm with President Trump when he says that this has now become a hoax and a witch hunt.

00:36:00.000 Again, I was very skeptical of that sort of language, but now at this point with the Democrats having the Mueller report in front of them and continuing to maintain this stuff, I'm with President Trump now when he says that this is a hoax and a witch hunt.

00:36:10.000 Meanwhile, the 2020 race heating up.

00:36:13.000 Joe Biden is moving ever to the left in an attempt to cut off Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and all the rest What you do is you work on this idea of earned citizens.

00:36:21.000 So Vice President Joe Biden, look at how he has switched on illegal immigration.

00:36:28.000 So it used to be that he thought illegal immigrants should be deported.

00:36:32.000 Now he thinks illegal immigrants should get free health care, effectively speaking. 0.64

00:36:35.000 Here is Joe Biden now versus then on illegal immigration.

00:36:38.000 What you do is you work on this idea of earned citizens.

00:36:43.000 You make them all return to the border to get a tamper-proof car.

00:36:47.000 You force everyone to have a criminal background check.

00:36:52.000 You require that they have to have, prove they have a job.

00:36:56.000 You have to require you prove that they have, are paying Social Security and paying their taxes.

00:37:03.000 And then, if they do that, and are prepared to pay a fine, over the next six years they can earn their way to citizenship and learn to speak English and learn to deal like everyone else did in order to gain citizenship.

00:37:16.000 But if they don't, then you send them back.

00:37:18.000 Do you think that undocumented immigrants who are in this country and are law-abiding should be entitled to federal benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, for example?

00:37:28.000 Look, I think that anyone who is in a situation where they're in need of health care, regardless of whether they're documented or undocumented, we have an obligation to see that they're cared for.

00:37:41.000 That's why I think we need more clinics around the country.

00:37:44.000 So it seems like he has changed his tune just a little bit.

00:37:44.000 Oh, funny.

00:37:47.000 What happened to they need to speak English, they need to pay their taxes, they need to pay back taxes and all of this? 0.66

00:37:51.000 Pretty amazing.

00:37:52.000 He is moving to the left because the entire Democratic Party is moving to the left.

00:37:55.000 How far to the left?

00:37:56.000 Bernie Sanders is a mainstream guy.

00:37:57.000 AOC is a mainstream gal.

00:37:59.000 Yesterday, they sat next to each other.

00:38:01.000 The amount of brainpower in that room, man, that could toast a piece of bread lightly if it were channeled in electricity.

00:38:07.000 Here's Bernie Sanders and AOC proposing that we make banks out of the post office.

00:38:12.000 Many poor people don't have access to banking services.

00:38:16.000 Because the big banks are not worried about somebody who, you know, makes 10 bucks an hour.

00:38:16.000 That's right.

00:38:21.000 They can't make enough money off of that.

00:38:23.000 So we have got to move toward universal banking through the postal system.

00:38:28.000 You've got post offices in almost every community in America.

00:38:31.000 They should be available to provide basic banking services so that people do not have to go into payday lenders.

00:38:39.000 Okay, so it's pretty amazing. 0.96

00:38:43.000 Even people on the left understand that what Bernie Sanders and AOC are proposing here, making banks out of the post offices, is very, very dumb. 0.72

00:38:50.000 Kevin Drum has a piece from years ago about all of this. 0.77

00:38:53.000 Kevin Drum is a columnist for Mother Jones, which is a far-left magazine.

00:38:58.000 And he says, what exactly is the core competency that would allow the Postal Service to excel at banking?

00:39:03.000 So they say what would make it good is that there are lots of post offices.

00:39:05.000 You know what else there are?

00:39:06.000 Lots of banking outlets.

00:39:08.000 Lots of banks, like 100,000 across the United States.

00:39:11.000 What else would make these great for banks?

00:39:13.000 Trust and familiarity with the postal brand?

00:39:16.000 Again, not a lot of people actually trust the post office.

00:39:18.000 And also, when Sanders and AOC are talking about what exactly should happen with these small accounts, small accounts do exist at banks.

00:39:28.000 And also, there are such things as payday lenders.

00:39:32.000 And the biggest problem with providing very small loans from banks is that the default rate is extraordinary.

00:39:37.000 So what AOC and Bernie Sanders really are talking about is the federal government subsidizing people with another entitlement program that will give loans to people who they know will not be able to repay those loans in small amounts via the post office.

00:39:48.000 That's the agenda here.

00:39:49.000 But this is the Democratic Party that Joe Biden is trying to fend off.

00:39:54.000 And that is why Joe Biden is moving ever more to the left.

00:39:57.000 I mean, Bernie Sanders is openly claiming that we should cap credit card rates.

00:40:01.000 So he wants to take control of the entire credit industry of the United States.

00:40:04.000 Can't see how this goes wrong.

00:40:05.000 If interest rates otherwise are set by the market, why have you decided that a 15% cap is where to go?

00:40:12.000 Half of the American people today have no wealth at all.

00:40:16.000 They're living paycheck to paycheck.

00:40:18.000 You got a medical emergency, your car breaks down.

00:40:21.000 These are desperate people.

00:40:22.000 And then they go to Wall Street.

00:40:24.000 And they're charged outrageous interest rates.

00:40:27.000 Wall Street profits are soaring.

00:40:29.000 People get further and further in debt while wages remain stagnant.

00:40:33.000 This really is disgusting.

00:40:35.000 And it has got to, we have to stand up to the greed of Wall Street and change it.

00:40:39.000 If you voluntarily sign a credit card statement, if you sign a contract with a credit card company, then you take out a bunch of credit and then you can't pay it, that would be on you.

00:40:47.000 That is a you problem.

00:40:49.000 But Bernie Sanders wants to make every you problem a we problem, an all of us problem.

00:40:53.000 The problem is, when you collectivize individual problems, the collective tends to fail at the same rate as the individual.

00:40:58.000 Okay, you know what?

00:40:58.000 Let's do some mailbag here, because it's a Friday.

00:41:00.000 Let's chill out a little bit.

00:41:02.000 Kelly says, If William Barr, the AG, cannot release unredacted information as it against the law, how can Congress legally compel a U.S.

00:41:08.000 citizen to break the law? 0.72

00:41:09.000 Does Barr have recourse for this illegal activity against him?

00:41:11.000 Yes.

00:41:12.000 If they hold him in civil contempt for this, it will end up in the Supreme Court.

00:41:15.000 He will sue them on the basis that this is not appropriate and that they are compelling him to violate American law.

00:41:21.000 I think he'd be likely to win in that case.

00:41:23.000 Sarah says, Hey Ben, I'm an English teacher in public high school.

00:41:25.000 This year, for the first time in my career, I had a parent strongly object to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

00:41:29.000 She claimed it was inappropriate and outdated, and it made her daughter uncomfortable.

00:41:33.000 And of course, I was racist for choosing to teach it.

00:41:35.000 To my shame, I gave in and decided not to teach the book this year.

00:41:38.000 I noticed on Twitter you said you consider it one of the top American novels.

00:41:41.000 Some teachers have a bans in the book because they argue it others African American students and should be replaced with a book written by a person of color.

00:41:47.000 I was wondering what is your argument for the value of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird To kill a mockingbird is one of the great American novels.

00:41:53.000 It is not only beautifully written.

00:41:55.000 It is a story about the inculcation of civilization and morality in children and the need to defend people who specifically are being treated as other for unjust reasons.

00:42:05.000 To kill a mockingbird is one of the great moral stories.

00:42:08.000 It's almost part of the American mythology.

00:42:09.000 This great moral story of Atticus Finch, a Southern lawyer who is standing up for a wrongly accused black man in the in the Jim Crow South.

00:42:19.000 And the consequences of doing that, the consequences for, how you could read that as a racist book is absolutely beyond me.

00:42:25.000 I do not understand how that is possible.

00:42:27.000 But it does show how the nature of our view of race in America, and really, not even race in America, of how America should view race has changed.

00:42:36.000 To Kill a Mockingbird is an aspirational book.

00:42:38.000 It's about how we should treat each other with regard to race.

00:42:41.000 We should treat each other as individual human beings with innate human decency, and we should aspire to be Atticus Finch.

00:42:47.000 A few years back, Harper Lee's estate released an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird in which Atticus Finch is basically an old racist.

00:42:56.000 And it's about Harper Lee writing about her father and the entire book cast Atticus Finch as an old style, brutal Jim Crow racist.

00:43:05.000 And the critics were talking about, many of the critics were talking about how this book is more of a real appreciation of what America is and was than To Kill a Mockingbird.

00:43:13.000 Well, it is true there were a lot of old-style Jim Crow racists in the South during Jim Crow.

00:43:18.000 It is also true that if you want to teach people about what America can be, you teach them about To Kill a Mockingbird.

00:43:23.000 If you want to teach people about what America was, then you actually just show them tape, because we have video.

00:43:28.000 James says, Hey Ben, how do you talk to your kids about the Holocaust?

00:43:30.000 I want to know how best to talk to my kids about the horrors of slavery without them viewing themselves as victims.

00:43:35.000 Can you wish my wife, Audrey, a happy birthday?

00:43:35.000 P.S.

00:43:38.000 She got me a subscription to Daily Wire as a gift.

00:43:39.000 Well, Audrey, happy birthday.

00:43:41.000 That's awesome.

00:43:42.000 And thank you for rewarding your husband with a subscription to Daily Wire.

00:43:47.000 How do I talk to my kids about the Holocaust?

00:43:48.000 They're too young right now.

00:43:49.000 One is five and one is three.

00:43:51.000 I think they will be old enough maybe when they hit seven or eight years old.

00:43:55.000 And what I will talk about is that There is a long history of persecution against Jews in a variety of countries, culminating in probably the worst persecution in the history of mankind, the Holocaust.

00:44:06.000 It's deeply disturbing stuff.

00:44:08.000 This is why you should be grateful that you live in the greatest time, in the greatest civilization, in the greatest country.

00:44:13.000 And you should be grateful for the people around you who fought to end that Holocaust. 0.96

00:44:17.000 You should be grateful to America, which fought to stop that Holocaust. 0.99

00:44:20.000 You should understand that there's a potential for grave evil in every human heart, including your own.

00:44:25.000 And we should work to wipe away that evil.

00:44:28.000 You should understand that the power of the collective is so intense that sometimes people who even consider themselves decent go along with evil.

00:44:36.000 And you need to stand up and say, no, you use it as a moral teaching tool.

00:44:38.000 The same thing I would assume is true of slavery.

00:44:42.000 I wouldn't teach it as you're a victim because the Holocaust happened. 0.88

00:44:45.000 I would teach it as evil is possible.

00:44:49.000 Evil does sometimes specifically target Jews, just as evil does sometimes specifically target black folks.

00:44:55.000 And the only way to fight it is to stand up and shout about it and rally good people around the cause to fight against it when appropriate, without considering yourself a victim in a society that has fought to end slavery, in a society that has fought to stop the Holocaust, in a society that ended Jim Crow.

00:45:14.000 I mean, it's great to live in a country where we can say all of those things, isn't it?

00:45:18.000 Kyle says, In some of the research I've come across, I've seen the comparison between CEO wages compared to their other fellow employees has grown to around 400 times the average worker over the past two decades.

00:45:27.000 I am curious as to the validity of this information, and if it is true economically, is there something we can do?

00:45:32.000 Or is this something the economy will sort out on its own, given enough time?

00:45:34.000 Well, I don't really see why the gap between the CEO wages and fellow employees is of concern.

00:45:41.000 The question is whether people are being underpaid.

00:45:42.000 People have said this about, you know, the CEO of McDonald's.

00:45:44.000 McDonald's has tens, if not hundreds of thousands of employees, and the CEO makes a few million dollars a year.

00:45:50.000 Well, the average McDonald's employee is making whatever it is, 12 bucks an hour or something.

00:45:55.000 If you were to fire the CEO and redistribute his salary, everybody'd get maybe a five cent raise, 10 cent raise, something like that.

00:46:02.000 The The question is not what the CEO makes.

00:46:04.000 When you decide whether to hire a CEO, you have to pay him market wages to get whoever you think is best at that job.

00:46:10.000 And that's something approved by the board in order to bring in talent.

00:46:14.000 And being a CEO requires years of education.

00:46:16.000 It requires years of hard work and a skill set.

00:46:19.000 And if that person's bad, they get all the blame, obviously.

00:46:22.000 So I'm very little concerned about this.

00:46:24.000 This is just a general point.

00:46:25.000 I do not care very much about income inequality.

00:46:27.000 I care a lot about what happens to people at the bottom end of the scale and whether in fact there are systematic obstructions being put in their way to grow their income.

00:46:36.000 If not, then I'm not concerned that the CEO makes a lot of money.

00:46:39.000 He's not stealing that money from people who are working the counter at McDonald's or something.

00:46:44.000 I think that if Biden wins the nomination in 2020, he's the odds-on favorite to win.

00:46:48.000 I mean, just by statistics.

00:46:49.000 Patrick Betavid, in the interview, you stated, if Biden runs in 2020, he'll win in 2020.

00:46:53.000 Do you still feel this way?

00:46:54.000 If not, what has changed your mind?

00:46:55.000 I think that if Biden wins the nomination in 2020, he's the odds-on favorite to win.

00:46:59.000 I mean, just by statistics.

00:47:01.000 He's more popular than President Trump on a national level.

00:47:05.000 President Trump has a good economy going for him.

00:47:08.000 He's an incumbent president.

00:47:10.000 You know, there are some things that Trump can do to be competitive, but I think that if he had to put money on it, it's at best a 50-50 shot that Trump wins against Joe Biden in a reelect effort.

00:47:18.000 Natalie says, Hi Ben.

00:47:19.000 With the recent rocket attacks in Israel over the weekend, a Jewish law question came into mind.

00:47:23.000 Are Jewish soldiers who protect Israel exempt from observing Shabbat?

00:47:26.000 Yeah, they are given what is called a heter.

00:47:28.000 They are allowed to protect Their fellow Jews, because it is a situation of what we call pikuach nefesh, a life being in danger.

00:47:34.000 When a life is in danger, you're allowed to violate virtually every commandment in the Torah, with the exception of you're not allowed to kill somebody.

00:47:40.000 like an innocent person, if your life is in danger, you're not allowed to commit a sexual sin if your life is in danger, and you're not allowed to defame the name of God, basically commit idolatry if your life is in danger.

00:47:52.000 Otherwise, you're allowed to violate any of the rules.

00:47:55.000 Rice says, Dear Ben, I live in the UK.

00:47:56.000 People on the left often bring up the example of Saudi Arabia as a country we sell arms to and have an economic relationship with, despite the human rights atrocities they engage in, saying this proves our foreign policy is all about power and oil.

00:48:06.000 So would I prefer that Saudi Arabia were a thriving westernized democracy?

00:48:06.000 What are your thoughts?

00:48:09.000 Yeah, that would be awesome.

00:48:10.000 respond to these oversimplifications.

00:48:12.000 So the question in foreign policy, unfortunately, is what is the alternative?

00:48:16.000 So would I prefer that Saudi Arabia were a thriving westernized democracy?

00:48:19.000 Yeah, that would be awesome.

00:48:20.000 Also, if we don't support Saudi Arabia in the region, then Iran takes power. 0.55

00:48:25.000 That is a very bad thing, because Iran is much more dangerous than Saudi Arabia in terms of its regional aspirations, as well as its global terror reach. 0.99

00:48:33.000 We always have to consider the alternative when it comes to foreign policy because, again, foreign policy doesn't happen in a vacuum.

00:48:39.000 William says, hey, Ben, in history class, we are learning about the Social Security Act and FDR's policies as governor and president.

00:48:45.000 I was wondering what your critiques of his policies are and how we can reduce the welfare state today.

00:48:50.000 Well, his his socialist his social policies weren't socialist policies.

00:48:55.000 His policies were very bad for the economy.

00:48:58.000 There's a study from UCLA that suggests they lengthened the Great Depression by up to eight years.

00:49:02.000 As far as his Social Security Act, that has effectively taken over 33% of the federal budget and will be bankrupt by 2030.

00:49:10.000 It is my view that, as opposed to seizing money from people and putting it in a government account that is then used for other purposes in what is effectively a pyramid scheme, if you actually wanted to have the government involved in retirement, which I don't think that it should be, but if you were going to, what you would do is set up a personalized savings account, put the money in the personalized savings account for the person, and then that would be it.

00:49:30.000 Then at least they're saving the money.

00:49:31.000 But that's not what Social Security does.

00:49:33.000 There is no lockbox.

00:49:34.000 You put the money in Social Security, that Social Security money then gets sent to somebody else.

00:49:39.000 Teresa says, as a 100% Ashkenazi Jew, do you speak Yiddish?

00:49:42.000 I have a very low command of Yiddish.

00:49:42.000 I do not.

00:49:46.000 No more than I think the average American Jew, at least.

00:49:49.000 Let's see.

00:49:51.000 Drew says, Hey, Ben, I'm a big proponent of a flat tax rate.

00:49:54.000 What are the objections to it?

00:49:55.000 Why should a person living off the system have a vote equal to someone who pays over 30 percent of their income?

00:50:00.000 I also am a big proponent of a flat tax rate.

00:50:02.000 Usually people say, well, dollars matter more as you go lower down on the scale.

00:50:06.000 So therefore, people lower down on the scale should keep a heavier chunk of their income.

00:50:10.000 But that's what percentages are.

00:50:14.000 Meaning that if I pay 30% of my income, no matter what my income, that's going to be a heavy chunk of my income.

00:50:21.000 And it's a lot more absolute money when you are wealthy than when you are poor.

00:50:25.000 In fact, the United States has one of the more progressive income tax rates in the Western world.

00:50:29.000 Rich people pay way more than poor people.

00:50:32.000 And if we actually had a quote-unquote socialist system, it's the poor who would pay for it, the middle class and the poor, which is why the highest tax brackets in many Scandinavian countries starts at around $60,000.

00:50:40.000 around $60,000.

00:50:41.000 Jake says, Hey Ben, love the show.

00:50:43.000 Since it is impossible that Trump wins California, would you consider voting for Howard Schultz as an independent candidate instead if he has a competitive chance?

00:50:50.000 Obviously, you don't agree with him on a lot of issues, but in terms of fiscal responsibility and identity politics, he's far more reasonable and moderate Well, if the idea is that that would throw the electoral votes away from the Democrats and toward Howard Schultz and prevent a Democrat from reaching 270, then yeah, that's just strategic voting.

00:51:06.000 So, I think strategic voting is sometimes justifiable.

00:51:12.000 As a conservative, I'm very skeptical of government mandates on what should be personal choices, but not vaccinating your children can put others at risk.

00:51:18.000 Yes, I'm in favor of the government mandating vaccinations.

00:51:18.000 What are your thoughts?

00:51:21.000 I know this is unpopular with a certain segment of my audience.

00:51:23.000 I understand that.

00:51:25.000 That is your prerogative.

00:51:26.000 I disagree.

00:51:27.000 When it comes to vaccinations, vaccinations do create externalities.

00:51:31.000 Lack of vaccination of your child does not just impact your child, it makes your child a potential carrier for people who cannot get vaccinations, including kids who have cancer, pregnant mothers, and babies under one year of age.

00:51:40.000 It's why we've had a return to a measles outbreak after that disease had effectively been wiped out of the United States decades ago.

00:51:47.000 Okay, final question here.

00:51:51.000 Should the United States recognize the Republic of China, aka Taiwan, as the rightful government of mainland China?

00:51:57.000 Very difficult to recognize Taiwan as the rightful government of mainland China when they don't have any control over mainland China without that amounting to an effective declaration of war against China.

00:52:05.000 So, on a realpolitik level, I can't see that happening.

00:52:09.000 All right, let's do some stuff I like and then some stuff that I hate.

00:52:12.000 So, things that I like.

00:52:15.000 So, I have to acknowledge that it is amusing to watch as Democrats make claims about the economy that are just outright false.

00:52:25.000 So, Senator Richard Blumenthal, who says a lot of very weird things, was on CNBC.

00:52:30.000 And he started talking about Facebook.

00:52:33.000 And he makes the case that breaking up companies like Facebook would increase jobs and prosperity.

00:52:40.000 I think that Facebook needs to be broken up.

00:52:43.000 The acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp need to be unwound.

00:52:49.000 And there needs to be Department of Justice scrutiny about appropriate antitrust remedy.

00:52:54.000 So we're not talking about attacking prosperity or jobs.

00:52:59.000 In fact, increased jobs and greater prosperity in more competition.

00:53:05.000 And really, Facebook here is the only company that we're talking about.

00:53:10.000 So, you know, when he talks about, you know, breaking up, breaking up companies creates jobs and prosperity.

00:53:15.000 So I guess the idea is that if you have lots of competition in a sector that creates jobs and prosperity, isn't that the underlying logic there?

00:53:22.000 Oh, wait, that's what we say about everything in the free market.

00:53:24.000 They only say it when they want to break up a company that is successful and not jacking customers.

00:53:30.000 All righty.

00:53:31.000 So we will be back here next Monday.

00:53:32.000 I hope that you have a wonderful, joyous and calm weekend.

00:53:36.000 We'll be back here next week to rehash everything.

00:53:39.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:39.000 Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:41.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:48.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:53:49.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:53:51.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:53:53.000 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:55.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:53:57.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:53:58.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:54:00.000 Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:54:01.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - May 10, 2019

Trump Gets Tough | Ep. 778

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