The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump Swings At NATO | Ep. 578

00:00:00.000 President Trump's pick of Judge Brett Kavanaugh continues to generate enormous fallout.

00:00:04.000 President Trump goes in hard at NATO and Sacha Baron Cohen basically humiliates himself.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:15.000 As always, many things are happening in the news.

00:00:17.000 A lot of fallout from President Trump's Supreme Court pick of Brett Kavanaugh.

00:00:21.000 We'll talk all about that.

00:00:22.000 Plus, we'll get to President Trump traveling over to visit with NATO before his big meetup with Vladimir Putin, which is happening in Northern Europe somewhere that I don't really care about.

00:00:31.000 But we will get to all of that in just a second.

00:00:33.000 First, I want to mention to you that our next episode of The Conversation is coming up quickly this Tuesday, July 17th, 5.30pm Eastern, 2.30pm Pacific.

00:00:40.000 All of your questions will be answered by our own Andrew Klavan with our host, Elisha Krauss.

00:00:44.000 Our live Q&A will be available on YouTube and Facebook for everybody to watch, but only subscribers can ask Drew questions over at dailywire.com.

00:00:51.000 Check out the pinned comments on this video for more information.

00:00:53.000 Once again, subscribe to ask Drew live questions, Tuesday, July 17th at 5.30 p.m.

00:00:58.000 Eastern, 2.30 p.m.

00:00:58.000 Pacific, and join the conversation.

00:01:00.000 Learn all about the greatest, goodest, bestest of all things.

00:01:03.000 Go check it out with Andrew Klavan next week, July 17th, 5.30 p.m.

00:01:06.000 Eastern, 2.30 p.m.

00:01:06.000 Pacific.

00:01:06.000 Also,

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00:02:37.000 Okay, so.

00:02:38.000 The left has no idea how to deal with President Trump's pick of Brett Kavanaugh, because it turns out that Brett Kavanaugh is a pretty well-respected jurist.

00:02:45.000 He's been on the D.C.

00:02:46.000 Circuit Court of Appeals for 12 years.

00:02:48.000 He has 300 decisions to his name, and none of them are particularly controversial.

00:02:52.000 Now, this is one of the areas where I'm not the biggest Kavanaugh fan, is that I like judges who are straightforward and open about their beliefs about precedent and how they would rule in particular cases.

00:03:03.000 Unfortunately, our system now favors judges who are not quite as open about all those things because we have to get those people through confirmation hearings.

00:03:09.000 And that is because of the Democrats' politicization of the court beginning with Justice, or should have been Justice, Robert Bork back in the 1980s when Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden decided to destroy the man's life for no reason other than he disagreed with them about constitutional interpretation.

00:03:23.000 Kavanaugh is providing all sorts of problems for Democrats who have no clue exactly how to handle him.

00:03:29.000 And naturally, this means that Democrats, folks on the left, are blaming Republicans for politicizing the court.

00:03:33.000 So the fact is that it was not Republicans who politicized the court.

00:03:36.000 It was Democrats who decided that they were going to use the court as a political tool openly.

00:03:40.000 And this begins all the way back in the 1930s when a lot of FDR's New Deal program was unconstitutional.

00:03:46.000 It violated the bounds of the Constitution.

00:03:48.000 And the court said it violated the bounds of the Constitution.

00:03:50.000 And so FDR threatened to pack the courts.

00:03:52.000 He threatened to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court from 9 to 15.

00:03:56.000 And he offered that he was going to push in a bunch of Democrats who were going to just greenlight everything he did.

00:04:00.000 And so the court, in order to protect itself, basically ruled that all of his nonsensical programs that

00:04:05.000 lengthened the Great Depression by up to eight years, that all of these programs were actually constitutional.

00:04:09.000 They get a spate of horrific decisions in the 1930s and 1940s, basically sanctioning enormous government growth, up to and including the worst case maybe in constitutional history, just in pure legal terms, Wickard v. Filburn, a case in which the Supreme Court held that you could not grow grain in your backyard for your own use without the federal government intervening.

00:04:28.000 The federal government had a right to intervene in you growing stuff in your own backyard because that would affect commerce somehow in some vague way.

00:04:35.000 Well now, because President Trump has gotten two picks in the last year and a half, Democrats are now suggesting that it's Republicans who are politicizing the court, even though it was Democrats who originally politicized the court and have continued to do so by treating the court as a super legislator, a super legislature of genius, wise liberals who are going to impose their viewpoint on the rest of us.

00:04:56.000 And these are the people who worship the altar of the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 0.99

00:04:59.000 Hey, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's decisions are garbage. 1.00

00:05:02.000 I've read a lot of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's decisions. 0.98

00:05:04.000 None of them have anything to do with the Constitution.

00:05:05.000 All of them have everything to do with her personal politics.

00:05:08.000 But she's the notorious RBG. 1.00

00:05:10.000 Notorious.

00:05:11.000 Can you imagine if conservatives lionized anyone like that?

00:05:15.000 Notorious RBG?

00:05:17.000 The closest they came was sort of this lionization of Scalia.

00:05:19.000 Even that never approached the sort of cult hero status where you were worrying about how her workout routines went.

00:05:24.000 BuzzFeed ran an entire piece like three days ago about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's grueling workout routine.

00:05:29.000 The woman's 85.

00:05:31.000 If her routine is that grueling, then she'd be dead. 1.00

00:05:34.000 But here is what the New York Times writes today.

00:05:37.000 Or at least Lee Epstein and Eric Posner, Epstein, a political scientist and law professor at Washington University, and Posner, a professor at University of Chicago Law School, write about the move by President Trump to put originalists on the court.

00:05:51.000 Here's what they write in the New York Times.

00:05:52.000 President Trump was always going to pick a conservative for the Supreme Court.

00:05:55.000 The only question has been whether to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy with a business conservative or a religious conservative.

00:06:00.000 No one seriously thought he would consider a moderate, a liberal or an ideologically ambiguous replacement.

00:06:06.000 First of all, these categories.

00:06:07.000 You'll notice that whenever I talk about the Supreme Court, I never talk about a conservative justice.

00:06:12.000 The reason I don't talk about a conservative justice is because a judge should not let his or her political proclivities influence the decision-making.

00:06:19.000 I always talk about an originalist justice or a textualist justice, somebody who is actually going to interpret the words of the law as they were written and as they were understood at the time.

00:06:28.000 That is not the same thing as a conservative justice who would presumably just rule in favor of whichever interest he thought was most compelling politically.

00:06:36.000 So it's only the left that talks about openly political judges.

00:06:38.000 It says, well, we need a moderate or a liberal on the court.

00:06:42.000 They say, well, sure enough, Brett Kavanaugh is a conservative in good standing.

00:06:44.000 Well, Brett Kavanaugh is actually a textualist in pretty good standing.

00:06:47.000 And the New York Times continues these two professors.

00:06:49.000 They say, the next Democratic president will nominate a liberal to the court in the hope of tilting it in the other direction.

00:06:54.000 Everyone is so accustomed to this state of affairs, people have forgotten to question it.

00:06:57.000 But we wonder whether a Supreme Court that has come to be rigidly divided by both by ideology and party can sustain public confidence for much longer.

00:07:04.000 Weird how they only have this problem when it comes to Republicans replacing Republican appointees with other Republican appointees.

00:07:11.000 I don't remember them having the same problem when Elena Kagan, who is a wild leftist, and Sonia Sotomayor, who is an even wilder leftist, were appointed to the court by Barack Obama.

00:07:20.000 It's amazing, by the way.

00:07:21.000 You want to know how non-ideological Republicans have been about the court?

00:07:24.000 There's very easy proof.

00:07:25.000 Republicans have batted about 500 when it comes to good Supreme Court picks.

00:07:29.000 For every Scalia, there was an O'Connor.

00:07:32.000 For every Thomas, there was a Souter. 1.00

00:07:35.000 For every Rehnquist, there was a John Paul Stevens.

00:07:37.000 For every Alito, there was a Roberts. 0.91

00:07:40.000 There was always somebody who was being appointed who wasn't that great.

00:07:44.000 But for Democrats, they never get it wrong.

00:07:45.000 Why?

00:07:46.000 Because they actually do have ideological litmus tests.

00:07:48.000 And because when you are not tied to the words of the Constitution and the meaning of the Constitution, this leaves you free to pick among the various solutions that most appeal to you personally.

00:07:57.000 You end up very quickly picking somebody who agrees with you politically.

00:08:00.000 But according to these professors at the New York Times, it's the right that's politicized the court.

00:08:04.000 They say,

00:08:21.000 The percentage of votes cast in the conservative direction by justices who are appointed by Republicans has also shot up.

00:08:26.000 Now, the reason for that is because of the rise of the Federalist Societies.

00:08:29.000 The Federalist Society is a conservative-minded group, an originalist-minded group.

00:08:33.000 So they're conservative politically, but they're more originalist and textualist than anything else.

00:08:36.000 I'd say politically, they're actually closer to libertarian.

00:08:38.000 And that group has done a better job of vetting Republican candidates.

00:08:41.000 This is why I'm not concerned that Kavanaugh is going to end up like David Souter.

00:08:44.000 The reason being, when David Souter was appointed, you didn't have large groups of people who were devoted to vetting David Souter's record.

00:08:49.000 Now you have enormous groups of people who can, with the touch of a button, pull up every decision Kavanaugh has ever written on and then analyze it for signs of exactly how he will rule in the future.

00:09:00.000 It is good that we are treating the Supreme Court with this level of care.

00:09:02.000 And it is demonstrative of the fact that as soon as conservatives woke up and started realizing that the Supreme Court was being used as a tool of policy by the left, they started making sure that appointees to the Supreme Court might actually have to reflect an originalist or textualist bent.

00:09:15.000 But according to these professors at the New York Times, they say this is a bad thing.

00:09:20.000 They say this trend is extreme and alarming.

00:09:22.000 In the 1950s and 60s, the ideological biases of Republican appointees and Democratic appointees were relatively modest.

00:09:27.000 The gap between them has steadily grown, but even as late as the early 1990s, it was possible for justices to vote in ideologically unpredictable ways.

00:09:35.000 In closely divided cases in the 1991 term, for example, the single Democratic appointee on the court, Byron White,

00:09:40.000 Voted more conservatively than all but two of the Republican appointees, Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist.

00:09:45.000 This was at a time when many Republican appointees like Sandra Day O'Connor, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter frequently cast liberal votes.

00:09:51.000 That's because conservatives had done a crappy job.

00:09:54.000 And that's also because Byron White was appointed way back when, right?

00:09:57.000 Byron White, the justice on the Supreme Court,

00:10:00.000 He was originally appointed, if I am not mistaken, by President John F. Kennedy.

00:10:04.000 So the Democratic Party back in 1960 was not the same as the Democratic Party became in 1990, by the time Byron White was ruling on the court.

00:10:12.000 And this is a reality, is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in 1960 were much closer on policy than the Democratic Party and the Republican Party by 1990.

00:10:19.000 In the past 10 years, they've read the New York Times, justices have hardly ever voted against the ideology of the president who appointed them.

00:10:26.000 Only Justice Kennedy, named to the court by Ronald Reagan, did so with any regularity.

00:10:29.000 Now, I don't think this is actually true.

00:10:31.000 If you look at how Justice Scalia voted on some civil libertarian issues, he was constantly sort of surprising people on how he voted on a lot of those issues.

00:10:38.000 And the same thing will probably hold true of, I think, maybe Gorsuch.

00:10:43.000 Maybe.

00:10:44.000 But the fact is that Democrats never vote.

00:10:47.000 Democrat appointees now never vote against Democratic policy priorities.

00:10:51.000 Ever.

00:10:51.000 Even in the most extreme cases.

00:10:53.000 And if they do, it's only on the narrowest of grounds.

00:10:56.000 These professors say it's hard to think of any historical precursors.

00:10:59.000 The most famous period of ideological division on the court was in the 1930s when it repeatedly struck down liberal legislation.

00:11:05.000 But what is remarkable is that the division was not strongly partisan.

00:11:08.000 Among the Four Horsemen, the diehard opponents of the New Deal, one was appointed by a Democratic president, another was a Democrat appointed by a Republican president.

00:11:14.000 Among the three justices who typically voted to uphold New Deal programs, two were appointed by Republican presidents.

00:11:19.000 Again, that's because the parties themselves were much closer in ideological orientation during the FDR period.

00:11:25.000 Remember, Herbert Hoover imposed basically the same policies that FDR did, just in slightly smaller scale.

00:11:31.000 So these professors, Eric Posner,

00:11:34.000 and Lee Epstein, they continue by suggesting that all of this changed in the 1950s and 60s.

00:11:39.000 They say, Again, for the 30th time, Dwight Eisenhower was a very, very moderate Republican.

00:11:41.000 In fact, he was so moderate that in 1948, the Democrats seriously considered the possibility of having Dwight Eisenhower run on the Democratic ticket in 48 and 52, if I'm not mistaken.

00:11:59.000 The Warren Court took a liberal stand on the most controversial issues of the day, including civil rights, sexual freedom, and the rights of criminal suspects and political dissenters.

00:12:06.000 The post-Warren Court case of Roe v. Wade finally galvanized the right.

00:12:09.000 And that is correct, because Republicans basically started seeing that the court was going to be used as a club.

00:12:14.000 But only now, apparently, are they upset about this.

00:12:17.000 Well, that wouldn't be a risk if the left hadn't already politicized the court. 0.96

00:12:46.000 End of story.

00:12:47.000 That's why we are having these battles.

00:12:48.000 It's because the left decided that the court was going to be a tool of policy and it was not actually going to be a tool on behalf of the Constitution of the United States.

00:12:55.000 Okay, so I want to talk a little bit more about that and explain why the left is so exercised over Brett Kavanaugh in just a second.

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00:13:53.000 Okay, so the left is really exercised over Brett Kavanaugh because they recognize that the right, in attempting to reconstrain

00:14:19.000 And so the idea of a Brett Kavanaugh who's going to come in and help create a new majority on the court that's actually going to stick to the judiciary's job, that scares the living hell, scares the living daylights out of Democrats.

00:14:48.000 And so they're just lying about Brett Kavanaugh now.

00:14:50.000 So the first lie they're telling is they are suggesting that President Trump is appointing Brett Kavanaugh because Brett Kavanaugh is going to protect President Trump from impeachment.

00:14:58.000 This is legitimately what they're saying.

00:14:59.000 So Chuck Schumer is making this case.

00:15:01.000 He says this is the real reason that Trump wants Kavanaugh.

00:15:03.000 He was the judge, probably, of the 25.

00:15:06.000 They all would repeal Roe.

00:15:07.000 They all would repeal ACA.

00:15:09.000 But on this issue, the Mueller issue, which came up after the vetting by these two groups, he's probably the most extreme.

00:15:16.000 And it wouldn't surprise me if that was very important to Donald Trump.

00:15:20.000 Knowing Donald Trump, and I have no proof, do you think he didn't inquire about this?

00:15:25.000 Every word of what Chuck Schumer just said is a lie.

00:15:27.000 First of all, not every judge on that list would vote to overturn Roe.

00:15:30.000 In fact, I have serious doubts that Kavanaugh will vote to overturn Roe.

00:15:33.000 We'll get to that in just a little while.

00:15:35.000 This implication that Kavanaugh is somehow going to protect the president of the United States from criminal indictment is just not true.

00:15:42.000 Not only is it not true, even the Washington Post says it's not true.

00:15:45.000 So the accusation is that Kavanaugh, in 2009, published an article in the Minnesota Law Review in which he discussed the possibility of indicting the sitting president of the United States criminally.

00:15:54.000 And here is what he says, according to the Washington Post.

00:15:57.000 And not according to me, not according to National Review, according to the left-wing Washington Post.

00:16:01.000 Kavanaugh helped investigate President Bill Clinton as part of independent counsel Ken Starr's team in the 1990s.

00:16:06.000 Looking back, Kavanaugh wrote in his 2009 article, the nation certainly would have been better off if President Clinton could have focused on Osama bin Laden without being distracted by the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and its criminal investigation offshoots.

00:16:17.000 Which is an interesting switch by Kavanaugh, who was part of, again, the Ken Starr team.

00:16:22.000 What he says, the president should not be indicted, but he says you need an act of Congress to prevent the president from being indicted.

00:16:28.000 In other words, it's not up to the judiciary to protect the president.

00:16:30.000 The president can be indicted.

00:16:32.000 The Constitution doesn't prevent that.

00:16:34.000 You need an act of Congress.

00:16:35.000 That's not stopping the left from continuously lying about Brett Kavanaugh.

00:16:38.000 You've got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, new left-wing hero. 1.00

00:16:42.000 She tweets out, He never said that.

00:16:50.000 He never believed that.

00:16:51.000 He's never written that.

00:16:52.000 But these lies are coming fast and furious about Kavanaugh. 1.00

00:16:55.000 That's not even the stupidest one. 1.00

00:16:56.000 We'll get to a couple more that are incredibly dumb. 1.00

00:16:58.000 So let's begin. 0.99

00:16:59.000 With NARAL, Pro-Choice America.

00:17:01.000 So NARAL is, of course, an abortion rights, an abortion rights group.

00:17:06.000 And here is what they tweeted out.

00:17:08.000 There's 15.

00:17:09.000 Here's what they tweeted out.

00:17:10.000 They tweeted out, back off, Brett.

00:17:12.000 And with their, with the clappy hands.

00:17:14.000 First of all.

00:17:15.000 You who use the Clappy Hands Emoji, stop it. 0.96

00:17:17.000 You're making yourself look like a douche. 1.00

00:17:18.000 It's stupid. 1.00

00:17:19.000 Okay, the Clappy Hands Emojis are dumb, unless you're using them ironically. 1.00

00:17:22.000 It's one of those things, like using the word woke. 0.93

00:17:24.000 If you use the word woke ironically, then I'm okay with you using the word woke.

00:17:27.000 If you use the word woke without any sense of irony about your own douchiness, then I have nothing to say to you.

00:17:33.000 And the same thing is true about the Clappy Hands Emoji.

00:17:34.000 So it's like, back off, Brett. 1.00

00:17:38.000 Okay, you're an idiot. 1.00

00:17:39.000 Okay, here's what Nerrell actually tweeted. 1.00

00:17:41.000 We'll be DAMNED, DAMNED, all caps, if we're gonna let five men, including some frat boy named Brett, strip us of our hard won bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. 0.99

00:17:52.000 First of all, it's not hard won bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. 0.99

00:17:56.000 That's the entire point.

00:17:56.000 You couldn't pass legislation.

00:17:58.000 It was handed to you on a platter by the Supreme Court.

00:18:00.000 I'd say it wasn't hard won bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. 0.98

00:18:03.000 First of all, even if you think that killing a baby in your womb is bodily autonomy, you didn't win anything near all pro-choice America.

00:18:08.000 You won nothing.

00:18:09.000 It was the Supreme Court that handed you stuff on a silver platter because the American people don't agree with your agenda.

00:18:14.000 Polls show that even pro-choice Americans are very much in favor of restrictions on second and third trimester abortions, for example.

00:18:22.000 My favorite part of this tweet, though, is where they suggest that Brett Kavanaugh is some frat boy named Brett.

00:18:27.000 Have you, like, seen Brett Kavanaugh?

00:18:29.000 Have you, like, looked at Brett Kavanaugh?

00:18:30.000 You think he's going and, like, he's doing, he's, like, chugging beer with the bros in the aftermath of his D.C.

00:18:36.000 Circuit court cases?

00:18:37.000 He goes and plays beer pong after making his decisions?

00:18:40.000 He's going, he's butt-chugging things?

00:18:42.000 Like, that's Brett Kavanaugh?

00:18:44.000 Like, really?

00:18:45.000 I'm gonna go no on that.

00:18:47.000 A frat boy named Brett.

00:18:48.000 Brett Kavanaugh has been on the D.C.

00:18:50.000 Circuit Court of Appeals for 12 years.

00:18:51.000 Before that, he was involved in virtually every level of federal litigation.

00:18:55.000 Brett Kavanaugh is about the nerdiest guy you will ever find.

00:18:57.000 He's a hardcore Catholic who sends his daughters to Catholic school, coaches his daughter's basketball team, and volunteers at the soup kitchen.

00:19:06.000 Frat boy named Brett.

00:19:09.000 But no, we're the sexists. 0.93

00:19:10.000 We're the sexists.

00:19:11.000 All men who don't believe the same things that Nero believes. 0.73

00:19:14.000 They're frat boys.

00:19:16.000 I love that the left has been relegated to mocking Brett Kavanaugh's first name.

00:19:21.000 Like really, this is a thing now.

00:19:22.000 They've got nothing.

00:19:22.000 So they're now relegated to mocking Brett Kavanaugh's first name.

00:19:25.000 So Stephen Colbert.

00:19:27.000 He starts- he has nothing on Kavanaugh.

00:19:28.000 He's got nothing to say.

00:19:30.000 So here is what he says about Kavanaugh.

00:19:31.000 We can't have a guy in the Supreme Court named Brett.

00:19:33.000 Like, what's next?

00:19:34.000 You're gonna have a guy in the Supreme Court named Paisley?

00:19:36.000 Like, what's gonna happen?

00:19:37.000 So here is Stephen Colbert making the very solid case that you should never have someone on the Supreme Court named Brett.

00:19:44.000 Because... something.

00:19:46.000 I don't know much about Kavanaugh, but I'm skeptical because his name is Brett.

00:19:52.000 That sounds less like a Supreme Court Justice and more like a waiter at Ruby Tuesdays.

00:19:57.000 Hey everybody, I'm Brett.

00:19:59.000 I'll be your Supreme Court Justice tonight.

00:20:01.000 Before you sit down, let me just clear away these rights for you.

00:20:06.000 What?

00:20:07.000 Like, that's your case?

00:20:08.000 That's a real strong case right there, that his name is Brett.

00:20:11.000 What are we, in third grade?

00:20:14.000 Brett can't be a Supreme Court justice.

00:20:15.000 I mean, his name is Brett.

00:20:16.000 Also, like, there have been a fair number of actual prominent Bretts in American public life, including, of course, Brett Favre, who is a very manly man, and not the Brett at Ruby Tuesdays.

00:20:25.000 But in any case,

00:20:27.000 Stephen Colbert.

00:20:28.000 I mean, if I will say Stephen Colbert is right.

00:20:31.000 My understanding is that Stephen Colbert actually changed the pronunciation of his name in college.

00:20:35.000 This is the rumor that was going on is that Stephen Colbert is actually pronounced Stephen Colbert.

00:20:39.000 And he actually changed it to Colbert because it sounds more sophisticated.

00:20:42.000 In any case, Brett sounds like a manager of Ruby Tuesdays, which apparently is a bad thing.

00:20:46.000 Apparently, it's terrible to work at Ruby Tuesdays.

00:20:48.000 It means that you're unqualified for anything.

00:20:49.000 So menial laborers.

00:20:51.000 You know, never aspire to go to law school.

00:20:53.000 Nobody who has ever worked at Ruby Tuesdays ever went on to go be a lawyer.

00:20:56.000 No one.

00:20:57.000 They all stayed there forever.

00:20:58.000 And they wore flair.

00:20:59.000 That's what they did.

00:21:01.000 But Stephen Colbert, going after Brett Kavanaugh's name.

00:21:03.000 Stephen Colbert, that's a name that sounds to me like a failed comedian.

00:21:06.000 Like, if I just had to pull it out of the air, I would just say, Stephen Colbert sounds like a dude who can't make a good joke.

00:21:11.000 That's what I would probably say about it.

00:21:13.000 My favorite rip on Kavanaugh, however, goes to Joy Behar.

00:21:17.000 So, Joy Behar, who legitimately has the IQ of a kumquat. 1.00

00:21:20.000 I mean, the woman is just inane. 0.99

00:21:23.000 She says this about Brett Kavanaugh. 0.97

00:21:25.000 She says that Brett Kavanaugh is basically Judge Jeanine Pirro.

00:21:29.000 Yeah.

00:21:30.000 Okay.

00:21:31.000 It is not, uh, Judge Jeanine Pirro, which I, at one point in time, thought was actually a possibility of becoming Supreme Court Justice, so... So it could have been worse.

00:21:39.000 For you, it could have been much worse.

00:21:41.000 Well, he might be just a quieter version of Judge Jeanine.

00:21:45.000 She's just out there.

00:21:48.000 He's a more, he's a more, what?

00:21:51.000 He's a better version of Judge Jeanine.

00:21:53.000 He's a quieter version of Judge Jeanine. 1.00

00:21:56.000 Yeah, if you're a nutcase, if you were dropped on your head as a baby, if you fell off the stupid tree and you hit every branch on the way down, he's just like Judge Jeanine except for nothing. 0.99

00:22:06.000 Except for, you know, his wisely considered and brilliant defenses that run like 50 pages at a time. 1.00

00:22:14.000 Yeah, listen, I know Judge Jeanine.

00:22:16.000 I like Judge Jeanine. 0.66

00:22:17.000 But Judge Jeanine gives speeches where at the end of her speeches, she literally says, I'm right.

00:22:21.000 How do you know?

00:22:22.000 Because I'm the judge.

00:22:23.000 I've literally seen her give speeches like that because she's a television performer. 0.98

00:22:27.000 It's what she does.

00:22:28.000 OK, I've never seen a Judge Kavanaugh decision where at the end he says, and I'm right.

00:22:32.000 How do you know?

00:22:33.000 Because I'm the D.C.

00:22:34.000 Circuit judge.

00:22:36.000 No, no. 1.00

00:22:37.000 But the level of stupidity to which the left is subjecting itself is truly astonishing. 0.99

00:22:41.000 We'll get to more of this in just a second, and we'll get to Roe v. Wade and President Trump going after NATO in pretty strong fashion. 0.99

00:22:47.000 But first, let's talk about movement watches.

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00:23:02.000 My son particularly loves these watches, which means he carries them around and bashes the living crap out of them.

00:23:06.000 And they somehow survive and look exactly the same as the day that I got them. 0.67

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00:23:14.000 They now have almost 2 million watches sold in 160-plus countries, and they continue to revolutionize fashion on the belief that style should not break the bank.

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00:23:25.000 It ain't an iWatch.

00:23:26.000 It's not going to be telling you your texts.

00:23:29.000 It's not going to be telling you how many calories you burned today.

00:23:32.000 It's going to be telling you the time, which is what you want out of a watch, because it's a watch.

00:23:36.000 It's not a computer.

00:23:37.000 You don't want to strap a laptop to your wrist.

00:23:38.000 You want an actual watch that just looks nice for $95.

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00:24:12.000 Really good stuff.

00:24:12.000 Okay, so.

00:24:14.000 The stupidity about Brett Kavanaugh does not end there. 1.00

00:24:16.000 A bunch of Yale Law students decided to write an open letter about Brett Kavanaugh. 1.00

00:24:21.000 And it's this long letter about how horrible Judge Kavanaugh is. 0.96

00:24:25.000 And they suggest that Kavanaugh is going to lead to death.

00:24:29.000 This is an open letter from Yale Law Students, Alumni, and Educators regarding Brett Kavanaugh.

00:24:36.000 It says, First of all, I'm not sure why you're writing to the Yale Dean.

00:24:44.000 Like, he's not the one who votes.

00:24:47.000 For a bunch of alumni of a law school, they probably should know how judicial confirmations work.

00:24:51.000 Here's how they don't work.

00:24:52.000 That the alumnus of the particular law school has to go and get his approval from the dean of the law school he went to 30 years ago.

00:25:00.000 That's how it doesn't work.

00:25:02.000 The way that it does work is that the Senate advises and consents.

00:25:05.000 So I love that they are writing this letter to the dean of the Yale Law School as though the dean's gonna be, you know what?

00:25:09.000 You're absolutely right.

00:25:10.000 We're done.

00:25:11.000 Kavanaugh's not in anymore.

00:25:12.000 I am using my prerogative under Article 93 of the Constitution of the United States as dean of his former law school

00:25:18.000 I have now ruled that Brett Kavanaugh is no longer available for the Supreme Court.

00:25:23.000 Sure.

00:25:24.000 Good stuff, guys.

00:25:25.000 He says, we write today, as Yale Law students, alumni, and educators, ashamed of our alma mater.

00:25:30.000 Why?

00:25:30.000 Is he like Judge Justice Rajatani?

00:25:33.000 Is he going to rule on Dred Scott?

00:25:34.000 No.

00:25:34.000 He just disagrees with you.

00:25:35.000 Within an hour of Donald Trump's announcement he would nominate Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the law school published a press release boasting of its alumnus' accomplishment.

00:25:43.000 Right, because he went to Yale Law School.

00:25:44.000 And wouldn't you boast if one Yale Law School alumnus was going to be on the Supreme Court?

00:25:49.000 The school's post included quotes from Yale Law School professors about Judge Kavanaugh's intellect, influence, and mentorship of their students.

00:25:54.000 Yet the press release's focus on the nominee's professionalism, pedigree, and service to Yale Law School obscures the true stakes of his nomination and raises a disturbing question.

00:26:04.000 Is there nothing more important to Yale Law School than its proximity to power and prestige?

00:26:10.000 Well, no, that's pretty much it.

00:26:12.000 I mean, like, I went to Harvard Law.

00:26:15.000 When I was at Harvard Law, the dean of our school was a woman named Elena Kagan. 0.98

00:26:19.000 You may remember Elena Kagan from such shows as I'm on the Supreme Court now.

00:26:22.000 Okay, so Elena Kagan, literally our first day at law school.

00:26:25.000 I remember this vividly.

00:26:27.000 Our first day at law school, we have an orientation, and we go into this beautiful hall.

00:26:30.000 I don't think it was Widener Hall, but we went into this beautiful hall.

00:26:33.000 I can still picture it.

00:26:33.000 It looks like something out of Hogwarts.

00:26:35.000 All mahogany, busts of people, famous judges everywhere.

00:26:38.000 And she stands up, she says, listen,

00:26:40.000 You're at Harvard Law School.

00:26:41.000 The competition's over.

00:26:42.000 You know, you've seen the paper chase, and you've heard all about how it's going to be brutal competition, people fighting each other.

00:26:47.000 It's not like that at all.

00:26:48.000 Everybody here is going to do fine.

00:26:49.000 You're all going to have jobs.

00:26:50.000 You're never going to have to worry again.

00:26:51.000 Which is basically true.

00:26:52.000 You go to Harvard Law School, and law firms literally come to Harvard Law to recruit students.

00:26:57.000 Like, you get to pick your employer, not the other way around, is basically how it works at Harvard Law.

00:27:01.000 And so she's giving this speech, and then she says,

00:27:04.000 Listen, we have, I think at the time, four Supreme Court justices, 30-odd senators.

00:27:08.000 We have 100 people in Congress.

00:27:10.000 You in this room, in the next 10 to 15 years, the people in this room will be ruling the world.

00:27:17.000 That is how people think, including Elena Kagan at major law schools.

00:27:20.000 You know why?

00:27:21.000 Because that's a bunch of high IQ people in that room. 0.99

00:27:24.000 And it's not the job of Yale Law School to determine how Brett Kavanaugh thinks.

00:27:28.000 It is the job of Yale Law School to determine whether they have been successful in training a lawyer prominent enough to reach the level of the Supreme Court.

00:27:35.000 It would be one thing if Brett Kavanaugh were some sort of Richard Spencer-esque neo-Nazi, but there's no evidence of any of that. 1.00

00:27:41.000 So this letter is incredibly stupid. 1.00

00:27:43.000 And then it just goes on and on and on. 1.00

00:27:45.000 They say that Yale Law School should show moral courage by withdrawing support.

00:27:49.000 Yale Law School doesn't necessarily support Kavanaugh.

00:27:52.000 They just said, by the way, guys, we have another guy who's going to be on the Supreme Court.

00:27:55.000 So just geniuses all the way around.

00:27:58.000 And the one who I'm most disappointed in is Alan Dershowitz.

00:28:00.000 So Alan Dershowitz.

00:28:02.000 Who has been complaining that he has been excised from all of the nice parties over at Martha's Vineyard.

00:28:08.000 You know, the Great Battle of Martha's Vineyard has been taking place.

00:28:11.000 It's just like the Civil War over there.

00:28:12.000 And Alan Dershowitz is on The View.

00:28:14.000 And he starts mouthing off about Merrick Garland and how the Merrick Garland seat was stolen by the Republicans.

00:28:19.000 And then he drops some bizarre language here.

00:28:22.000 I'm a little critical of President Obama for whom I voted.

00:28:25.000 He should have nominated Merrick Garland and should have sworn him in and should have dared the Republicans to say, kick him out of office.

00:28:33.000 We agree with that.

00:28:34.000 Because they have no right not to decide a case.

00:28:38.000 The Constitution says advice and consent.

00:28:39.000 It doesn't say delay and postpone.

00:28:42.000 Um, no, that's what advice and consent mean.

00:28:44.000 You could just refuse to give your consent.

00:28:46.000 I like that.

00:28:47.000 So by Alan Dershowitz's standard, let's use the word consent in a different context.

00:28:50.000 Let's use it in the context of sex, because that's where we are almost familiar with it now in the MeToo era.

00:28:54.000 So normally, when we say that you require consent, this requires, you know, consent.

00:28:58.000 And if you don't give consent, then you have not consented, because that's how consent works.

00:29:02.000 According to Alan Dershowitz, when the Constitution says advise and consent, that doesn't mean postpone.

00:29:07.000 It doesn't mean delay.

00:29:09.000 It means you have to give it an up or down vote.

00:29:11.000 In other words, there's no such thing as yes means yes.

00:29:14.000 For the for the Supreme Court, apparently, according to Alan Dershowitz.

00:29:16.000 None of this makes any sense, but at least maybe he'll get to go back to some of those cocktail parties on Martha's Vineyard. 0.99

00:29:21.000 OK, but the stupidity doesn't only emerge from the left when it comes to the Supreme Court. 0.99

00:29:25.000 Sometimes it emerges from people who are quasi on the right. 1.00

00:29:28.000 The latest evidence is Tomi Lahren.

00:29:29.000 So I don't want to rip on Tomi Lahren too much.

00:29:32.000 I think that Tomi Lahren

00:29:34.000 Has her heart in the right place sometimes.

00:29:35.000 I think that she hasn't studied these issues particularly well. 0.79

00:29:38.000 I think that her ideas on abortion are inane, to put it mildly.

00:29:43.000 And she was on Fox & Friends this morning, and she was talking about Roe v. Wade and soon-to-be Justice Kavanaugh using her vast legal experience to delve into the intricacies of Supreme Court precedent.

00:29:56.000 And here was Tomi Lahren explaining why conservatives really should just let Roe v. Wade alone.

00:30:01.000 Some of my fellow conservatives who have put it out there that we are, quote, coming for Roe v. Wade.

00:30:07.000 That is a mistake, because we are putting it out there and implying that we are sending a justice to the bench to carry out religious judicial activism, which is a mistake and is unconstitutional.

00:30:21.000 And if we as conservatives are going to imply that, if that's going to be our messaging, we might as well spit on the Constitution.

00:30:27.000 That is not what we stand for.

00:30:28.000 Read a book.

00:30:30.000 A book.

00:30:31.000 A book.

00:30:32.000 Not lots of them.

00:30:33.000 One.

00:30:33.000 Okay, like, one.

00:30:35.000 Not Harry Potter.

00:30:35.000 I mean, like, a book about the... Like, read the Constitution.

00:30:38.000 We can start with that.

00:30:38.000 Read the Constitution, and you show me where in the Constitution there's a right to abortion, and then we can start talking about whether this is a religious edict trying to take down Roe v. Wade.

00:30:47.000 I mean, honestly, honestly, it's just...

00:30:50.000 Make a logical argument.

00:30:51.000 Make a good argument that's not a good argument.

00:30:54.000 I got into it a little bit with Tomi Lahren over the last couple of days because I suggested she made a similar argument on Twitter. 0.98

00:30:59.000 I said it was a dumb argument. 0.91

00:31:00.000 She said, you can't tell me what to do. 0.98

00:31:02.000 And I'm getting real sick of people on the right saying to me, you can't tell me what to do.

00:31:06.000 I'm not telling you what to do.

00:31:07.000 I'm saying what you should do if you are an intelligent person.

00:31:10.000 And that would be maybe read enough to defend your position well.

00:31:13.000 Let's be real about this.

00:31:14.000 The reason people oppose Roe v. Wade is not just because they are against abortion.

00:31:18.000 If they were just against abortion, then they would presumably be pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion across the country, or federal legislation to ban abortion across the country.

00:31:26.000 That would be their primary focus, the constitutional amendment.

00:31:28.000 The reason that there are so many people on the right who hate Roe v. Wade is not just because it is an immoral outcome, but because it has nothing to do with the Constitution.

00:31:36.000 I can't name a single person, a single legal theorist on the right who says, I oppose Roe v. Wade because I'm a religious person.

00:31:42.000 Not one.

00:31:43.000 The reason you oppose Roe v. Wade is because it has nothing to do with the Constitution. 0.99

00:31:46.000 It is a garbage legal decision. 0.59

00:31:48.000 Even people on the left who are honest will acknowledge that while they like the outcome of Roe v. Wade, it has nothing to do with the law and has nothing to do with the Constitution. 0.97

00:31:55.000 And playing into this propaganda effort by the left to suggest that it's just a bunch of religious fanatics who want to overturn Roe v. Wade is deeply irresponsible by Tomi Lahren.

00:32:03.000 Deeply irresponsible.

00:32:05.000 It's also really establishment.

00:32:06.000 I mean, that's the part of this that's so ironic, is that, you know, Tomi Lahren and some people who are fans of hers are suggesting that, you know, it's anti-establishment to suggest that Roe v. Wade should be upheld, or that we should stay away from social issues.

00:32:19.000 Donald Trump ran on social issues.

00:32:21.000 He didn't run away from them.

00:32:22.000 He ran basically on cultural, social issues, and he won.

00:32:26.000 Beyond that, it was the establishment that's been saying for most of my adult lifetime that social issues should be avoided at all costs.

00:32:32.000 Let's focus on economics.

00:32:33.000 Let's focus on foreign policy. 0.78

00:32:34.000 I've been saying for years that Republicans running away from social policy is foolish because people actually want to hear about the morality of politics.

00:32:45.000 I wish that, I'm struggling for words here, because again, I don't want to rip on Tomi Lahren, but when you say stuff this ignorantly, with this much confidence, then you need to be called out for it, because this is just not true, and it's not right, and I don't know what she thinks she's doing here.

00:32:57.000 Okay.

00:32:58.000 We're going to talk about Trump at NATO in just a second, but first, you're going to have to go over to Daily Wire and subscribe.

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00:33:36.000 The Sunday special features one of the nation's best thinkers.

00:33:38.000 This Sunday we are having on my good friend, Dennis Prager, and we're going to chat about his new book, The Rational Bible.

00:33:42.000 So last week we had Sam Harris.

00:33:44.000 This week we're having Dennis Prager.

00:33:45.000 Can't think of two sides of the coin better than that.

00:33:48.000 So here is Dennis Prager talking a little bit about that.

00:33:51.000 Hi, I'm Dennis Prager, and I'm the next guest on the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special.

00:33:56.000 I certainly hope you'll watch.

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00:34:25.000 Okay, so meanwhile, President Trump has traveled over to Brussels to meet with the leaders over at NATO.

00:34:31.000 And he's throwing bricks.

00:34:32.000 I mean, he's not going in there gentle.

00:34:34.000 He is going in there in very forward fashion, shall we say.

00:34:39.000 Here's President Trump.

00:34:40.000 He tweeted this out from the White House account, this video of him slamming NATO for their levels of defense spending.

00:34:46.000 Now, I think that a lot of what President Trump is saying is true here.

00:34:49.000 I also think that there is a bit of an optical problem.

00:34:52.000 I'm going to explain why President Trump is both right and wrong here, because I think that's probably the best description.

00:34:58.000 Here he is slamming NATO for its levels of defense spending.

00:35:01.000 Many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back, where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them.

00:35:11.000 So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up.

00:35:14.000 It's massive amounts of money is owed.

00:35:16.000 The United States has paid

00:35:19.000 And stepped up like nobody.

00:35:22.000 Germany is just paying a little bit over 1%, whereas the United States in actual numbers is paying 4.2% of a much larger GDP.

00:35:32.000 So I think that's inappropriate also.

00:35:34.000 You know, we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting everybody, and yet we're paying a lot of money to protect.

00:35:41.000 OK, so this is Trump suggesting that back in 2014, Barack Obama signed a deal with all of these European nations.

00:35:46.000 It was basically a pledge that they would raise the percentage of their GDP that went to defense spending to 2% of GDP.

00:35:53.000 Now, what Trump is saying, which is that these countries owe us money, is not true.

00:35:56.000 They don't owe us money, OK?

00:35:57.000 It was never that they were going to sign us a check at any point.

00:36:00.000 And we're spending on our own defense because we want to spend on our own defense.

00:36:03.000 But he is not wrong when he says, you guys,

00:36:05.000 You want to spend less money than you should on your own defense, and then you expect us to come save you if something goes totally wrong.

00:36:10.000 Like, that part is actually sort of true.

00:36:13.000 And Jim Garrity has a really good piece today over at National Review on exactly what it is that President Trump is talking about.

00:36:20.000 He says that, because President Trump continued along these lines.

00:36:23.000 Let's play a little more President Trump here.

00:36:25.000 He went after Germany because he says, listen, Germany, you're spending 1% of your GDP on defense.

00:36:29.000 And then you're complaining that Russia is being really aggressive.

00:36:32.000 Well, then why are you signing massive natural gas deals with Russia at the same time that you're spending 1% of your GDP, not 2% of your GDP on national defense and then expecting the United States to rush in and save you from Russia? 0.62

00:36:43.000 Trump is not totally wrong here.

00:36:44.000 Here he is explaining.

00:36:47.000 Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.

00:36:56.000 And you tell me if that's appropriate, because I think it's not.

00:36:59.000 And I think it's a very bad thing for NATO, and I don't think it should have happened.

00:37:03.000 OK, so the idea that Germany is totally controlled by Russia is, of course, a Trumpian overstatement, but he's not totally wrong here.

00:37:08.000 So here's what Jim Garrity writes.

00:37:10.000 As usual, Trump is down the street and around the corner from a legitimate point.

00:37:13.000 Well, actually, he's a little bit closer this time.

00:37:15.000 If you think Trump's past business connections to Russian figures are troubling, you probably ought to be livid about how former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has decided to become the chief lobbyist for Vladimir Putin in Europe.

00:37:24.000 One of Schroeder's last acts in office in 2005 was authorizing Nord Stream, a pipeline bypassing key territories and controlled by Russia's Gazprom energy company.

00:37:33.000 Shortly after leaving office, Vladimir Putin arranged for Schroeder to chair the project.

00:37:37.000 And then he started pushing for a second pipeline, Nord Stream 2.

00:37:40.000 Instead of diversifying Europe's energy supply, Schroeder pushed policies that make the continent more dependent on Russia, not less.

00:37:47.000 In September 2017, Putin arranged for Schroeder to become a chairman of Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil giant.

00:37:53.000 The Wall Street Journal's Holman Jenkins wrote earlier this year, Schroeder's exactly the kind of wealthy, well-connected, influential figure acting on behalf of Russia the US sanctions are supposed to target.

00:38:02.000 And Schroeder's been hanging out with Putin at the World Cup.

00:38:05.000 How is it in an era when U.S.

00:38:06.000 politics is suddenly deeply concerned, some would say paranoid about Russian influence, that Schroeder's cheerful embrace of lobbying for Russia has barely made a ripple on this side of the pond?

00:38:14.000 The cynical answer is that most of those screaming the loudest about Russia today don't think of Putin as sinister because of his lack of criticism of Trump.

00:38:21.000 They think of Trump as sinister because of his lack of criticism of Putin.

00:38:24.000 Indeed, Russia shot down a passenger airliner over Ukraine in 2014.

00:38:28.000 It was out of the news within a week.

00:38:29.000 But their cynicism doesn't change the fact that Russia is generally hostile to American policies under presidents of either party, and Vladimir Putin would love to see NATO alliances collapse.

00:38:38.000 In that light, the reluctance of some NATO members to honor their agreements and spend the required 2% of GDP on military spending is baffling.

00:38:44.000 In 2017, just four member states hit that 2% threshold, the US, Greece, the UK, and Estonia, and will give Poland the benefit of the doubt because it was barely under 2%.

00:38:53.000 Luxembourg ranked last.

00:38:55.000 They spent less than one half of one percent on their military.

00:38:58.000 Perhaps Luxembourg's leaders figured that they're nestled between France, Germany and Belgium, so they can count on their neighbors to slow down any invading Russians.

00:39:04.000 But NATO members in Eastern Europe have no excuse.

00:39:07.000 Hungary is only spending one percent.

00:39:08.000 So the point here is that Trump isn't totally wrong about all of this.

00:39:11.000 Now, there's an upside to Trump pushing this, which is that he's correct.

00:39:15.000 The downside is that it makes it look like NATO is a fracturing, fragmenting alliance.

00:39:20.000 In a second, I'm going to talk about Angela Merkel's response to all this and why this isn't an unmitigated good what President Trump is saying here.

00:39:26.000 So, President Trump trying to get the Europeans to spend what they should on their national defense?

00:39:30.000 I don't think that's the world's most terrible thing.

00:39:32.000 I think, in fact, that that's basically fine.

00:39:34.000 I think the president of the United States ripping into Germany for its hypocrisy and talking about the Russian threat while bringing in 70% of all of its natural gas through a pipeline negotiated by its former prime minister into Germany.

00:39:47.000 I don't think that that's wrong either.

00:39:48.000 However, I think that Vladimir Putin is sitting there and he is wondering to himself whether President Trump is really signaling that if he were to make a move against Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania, that President Trump would not actually back a NATO action against such a move.

00:40:01.000 Because the reality on the ground is that the United States is in fact the largest sponsor behind NATO.

00:40:07.000 We spend an enormous amount of money on NATO every year.

00:40:09.000 And that is for a reason.

00:40:10.000 America's own benefit. 0.78

00:40:12.000 Remember, NATO was built in the aftermath of World War II in order to curb German ambition and in order to aim this alliance against Russia.

00:40:19.000 That was in America's national interest.

00:40:21.000 It created a more hegemonic, a more understandable and consistent social order.

00:40:27.000 It prevented European wars that had been plaguing the continent for literally a thousand years.

00:40:31.000 It prevented those European wars from happening since 1945.

00:40:34.000 There hasn't been an intra-European war except for

00:40:38.000 Depends on whether you consider Yugoslavia a European country or not.

00:40:40.000 But if you do, that was the only European war.

00:40:42.000 There hasn't been an internecine European war since 1945.

00:40:46.000 That is because of NATO.

00:40:49.000 That is because of the United States' commitment to this world order.

00:40:52.000 And yes, we were the chief sponsors of it, but we were also the chief beneficiaries of it.

00:40:55.000 The United States is the largest, most powerful economy on Earth, and having a more orderly world order, of which we are the head, is a good thing for the United States.

00:41:03.000 What you don't want is all of these countries fragmenting and building up new alliances.

00:41:06.000 You don't want Germany, for example, breaking away from the EU, rearming, and then siding with Russia again.

00:41:11.000 We've had enough of that.

00:41:12.000 That didn't work out great the first time.

00:41:14.000 So the idea that we are going to cast aspersions at NATO generally, I think, is a huge mistake.

00:41:21.000 That said, the president's critique of members of NATO for not doing enough, and the fact that they are free-riding, he is not wrong about any of that.

00:41:28.000 Now, Angela Merkel is fighting back.

00:41:30.000 She has responded to President Trump, noting that she grew up under a Soviet-controlled regime in East Germany.

00:41:34.000 She says, Trump had earlier said exactly the opposite.

00:41:36.000 He said, Well, if you're that upset about it, perhaps

00:41:52.000 The best thing that you could do is to actually stop importing enormous amounts of natural gas from Russia.

00:41:57.000 I remember in the aftermath of September 11th, there was a lot of talk about the United States needing to get off of Saudi oil because there was fear that we were generating policy based on our dependence on OPEC nations.

00:42:06.000 I didn't think that was completely out of the realm of possibility.

00:42:08.000 Well, the same thing is true here with regard to Germany.

00:42:11.000 Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are being cynical right now.

00:42:13.000 They put out a joint statement on the Trump-Putin summit, which is coming up.

00:42:17.000 And here's what they say, they say, That's a weird critique, considering that Trump is ripping Germany for working too closely with Putin.

00:42:34.000 Right, so even if you think that Trump is working closely with Putin or that he's friendly to Putin, you might want to wait until Trump actually has his meeting with Putin, his face-to-face, in which Trump will likely be very, very kind to Putin, just as he was very kind to Kim Jong-un, then I think the critique is fair.

00:42:46.000 But if Trump's critique of Germany is they're too close to Putin, and your critique of Trump is he's too close to Putin because of what he just said about Germany, I'm not sure how you logically get from point A to point B.

00:42:56.000 Pelosi and Schumer say, if the president leaves the Putin meeting without ironclad assurances and concrete steps toward a full cessation of Russian attacks on our democracy, the meeting will not only be a failure, it will be a grave step backward for the future of the international order and global security.

00:43:09.000 Allow me to say that this is cynical hypocrisy by the Democrats, considering they were perfectly fine with Barack Obama sitting there in 2012 and openly telling Dmitry Medvedev, then the president of Russia, that he wanted to offer the Russian government flexibility.

00:43:22.000 He needed flexibility from them.

00:43:23.000 And then maybe he would be kinder to them during his next election cycle. 1.00

00:43:26.000 During his during his next presidential cycle, you know, all of this is is deeply stupid. 0.99

00:43:32.000 With that said, do I want the president of the United States to be harsher on Russia? 0.99

00:43:35.000 You bet I do.

00:43:36.000 But I don't think that this is good evidence that the president is being weak on Russia.

00:43:38.000 It seems to me the president is actually pushing all of these European nations to be harsher on Russia by spending more on their own defense.

00:43:45.000 Maybe that's driven by Trump's weird zero-sum game belief that the United States is picking up the defense spending for all of Europe.

00:43:52.000 Maybe it's driven by that.

00:43:53.000 Regardless of what it's driven by, the outcome would be a good outcome, which would be a more robust NATO, not a less robust NATO, if they would spend more on their own defense and then have the capacity to defend themselves over time.

00:44:03.000 Okay, so.

00:44:05.000 We're going to do a couple of things I like and then some things I hate.

00:44:08.000 And then we will do a quick psalm because it is Wednesday.

00:44:10.000 So I've decided we're going to go through the Book of Psalms.

00:44:12.000 So let's do a little bit of stuff that I like and then we'll do some stuff I hate.

00:44:16.000 So the first thing that I like today is the movie Lincoln.

00:44:19.000 So I'd never actually seen this.

00:44:21.000 I didn't watch it when it came out in the theater.

00:44:22.000 I was mostly concerned that Tony Kushner, who I think is one of the world's most overrated writers, the creator of Angels in America, who wrote the script for Lincoln, was going to turn this into

00:44:31.000 Sort of an anti-Bushian routine, considering this came out in 2012, I believe.

00:44:37.000 It's been a while since Lincoln came out.

00:44:39.000 But it was available on Netflix for free, and so I finally started watching it.

00:44:42.000 The great thing about the movie is Daniel Day-Lewis's performance.

00:44:44.000 So first of all, it's a star-studded cast.

00:44:46.000 Daniel Day-Lewis is the best thing in it.

00:44:47.000 Sally Field is terrific as Lincoln's wife, as Mary Todd.

00:44:52.000 The I think Tommy Lee Jones choose the scenery a fair bit in this in this film.

00:44:56.000 But Daniel Day-Lewis is spot on because he is the great actor of our generation.

00:45:00.000 Without a doubt, we can only hope that he reverses his decision to leave acting after Phantom Thread.

00:45:05.000 My my criticism of the movie is that the movie is overwritten because that is Tony Kushner, right?

00:45:10.000 Everything Tony Kushner writes is a lot like Aaron Sorkin, where you just feel the writing.

00:45:15.000 You feel the writing like the best writers.

00:45:16.000 I don't think you actually feel the writing.

00:45:17.000 You just feel the characters in this particular movie.

00:45:20.000 You feel a lot of Tony Kushner there.

00:45:22.000 It's good, Tony Kushner, meaning that it's the best of what Tony Kushner has to offer.

00:45:25.000 But it's like watching an Aaron Sorkin film.

00:45:26.000 When you watch an Aaron Sorkin film, it's like when you watch A Few Good Men, it's like, hey, look, there's Jack Nicholson playing Aaron Sorkin.

00:45:33.000 And oh, my gosh, look at that.

00:45:34.000 There's Tom Cruise playing Aaron Sorkin.

00:45:36.000 And look, there's a female playing Aaron Sorkin. 0.99

00:45:37.000 Like that's with all of his films.

00:45:39.000 The same thing is sort of true when it comes to Tony Kushner.

00:45:41.000 But here's here's some of the preview for Lincoln.

00:45:42.000 If you haven't seen it, it's now available to watch free streaming on Netflix.

00:45:47.000 We can't tell our people they can vote yes on abolishing slavery unless at the same time we can tell them that you're seeking a negotiated peace.

00:45:55.000 It's either the amendment or this confederate peace.

00:45:57.000 You cannot have both.

00:45:58.000 How many hundreds of thousands have died during your administration?

00:46:01.000 Congress must never declare equal those who got created unequal!

00:46:06.000 Leave the constitution alone!

00:46:09.000 We're stepped out upon the world stage now, with the fate of human dignity in our hands.

00:46:15.000 Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment now, now, now!

00:46:25.000 Abraham Lincoln has asked us to work with him to accomplish the death of slavery.

00:46:31.000 No one's ever been loved so much by the people.

00:46:34.000 Don't waste that power.

00:46:36.000 This fight is for the United States.

00:46:38.000 Okay, so what I like about it is that obviously it's a very, very pro-America film.

00:46:42.000 It's very Spielbergian in the sense that everything that Spielberg does sort of has a gloss of, like, yellow sunshine over it.

00:46:49.000 Like, everything that he does is almost through a yellow filter.

00:46:53.000 That's not meant literally.

00:46:54.000 It just means that everything is done with the upshot.

00:46:56.000 Everything is very obvious in Steven Spielberg's direction.

00:46:59.000 Like, he directs E.T.

00:47:00.000 the same way he directs Lincoln, basically.

00:47:02.000 And that means that it's a real hagiography of Lincoln.

00:47:06.000 What it does convey is some of the complexities that Lincoln had to face.

00:47:09.000 And the political manipulation that Lincoln was happy to be involved in, or was willing to be involved in, in the face of all of this, it takes on some serious racial issues.

00:47:18.000 It's definitely worth watching.

00:47:19.000 It's definitely worth watching.

00:47:19.000 I think it's a very good movie.

00:47:21.000 I think it avoids being a great movie by about this much.

00:47:24.000 But the performances, particularly Daniel Day-Lewis, are just spectacular.

00:47:28.000 So go check that out.

00:47:29.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate.

00:47:34.000 Okay, so the first thing that I hate, Sacha Baron Cohen, I find very funny.

00:47:39.000 I think the Sacha Baron Cohen stuff is really funny, although I could use a little less of the bizarre nudity in some of his films, but Sacha Baron Cohen is doing a new series, apparently, and he went after Sarah Palin, because we have to go over people who are largely irrelevant in American politics, or at least have been for, what, 10 years now?

00:47:57.000 I mean, she ran for vice president in 2008. 0.92

00:48:00.000 In any case, Sarah Palin was apparently

00:48:03.000 She was interviewed by what appeared to be a disabled veteran in a wheelchair.

00:48:22.000 She assumes that that was Sacha Baron Cohen in disguise.

00:48:25.000 He peppered her with questions she added, adding that were full of Hollywoodism, disrespect, and sarcasm.

00:48:30.000 She said she finally had enough and literally physically removed her mic and walked out. 1.00

00:48:33.000 She said the disrespect of our U.S. 0.60

00:48:35.000 military and middle class Americans via Cohen's foreign commentaries under the guise of interview questions was perverse.

00:48:40.000 She said before she was purposefully taken to the wrong airport after the interview and missed her flight home.

00:48:45.000 So, normally, when people get pranked, I don't really care.

00:48:49.000 Like, when people get pranked, that's sort of part of the game. 0.60

00:48:52.000 But, if Sacha Baron Cohen dressed up as disabled veteran in order to prank Sarah Palin, that truly is disgusting.

00:48:59.000 Like, taking on the aspect of somebody who'd been disabled in an American foreign war to prank somebody,

00:49:06.000 Is that true?

00:49:21.000 Just gross.

00:49:22.000 And I'm surprised if the left is willing to stick with that, but I guess maybe they're willing to stick with anything. 0.96

00:49:27.000 Okay, other things that I hate.

00:49:28.000 So there's this video that's going around that's really annoying and irritating, and pretty bad, of a young black kid who is selling candy bars outside of a store, and a random old lady comes up and demands to see a business license.

00:49:42.000 So here is the video.

00:49:45.000 How much candy is that there?

00:49:46.000 How much is all that?

00:49:47.000 I'm buying it all.

00:49:48.000 I'm buying it all.

00:49:49.000 I am going to buy it all.

00:49:51.000 I'm going to give it away to all these people. 0.54

00:49:54.000 You should be ashamed of yourself.

00:49:56.000 I am not ashamed of myself.

00:49:58.000 I'm standing up for this young person.

00:50:00.000 Yeah, you're really standing up for them and yelling at them.

00:50:03.000 Oh, and they take it all around the country and you should see how they live.

00:50:08.000 Okay, who is this random old lady and her fervor to stop young people from selling things next to a grocery store? 1.00

00:50:17.000 First of all, if the grocery store or the CVS or whatever this place is wants to call the cops and say, listen, this guy's undercutting our price by selling directly outside and he doesn't have a business license, that's fair.

00:50:25.000 But for the random old lady to try to shut down somebody's business, I find really gross. 1.00

00:50:29.000 Like in Los Angeles, we have a lot of people who sell fruit on street corners, right?

00:50:32.000 You see these people and they have these carts and they're selling fruit on street corners.

00:50:36.000 What's the problem?

00:50:55.000 I just, I find that really off-putting and this is where the libertarian in me comes out and I say that people should really get off their high horse and recognize that one of the things that built this country was the fact that young people were allowed to go out there and make money for themselves by engaging in commerce.

00:51:10.000 We want more people engaging in commerce.

00:51:11.000 This kid right here is trying to sell a product.

00:51:14.000 He is not trying to mooch. 1.00

00:51:15.000 Okay, he could be out there with a cup.

00:51:16.000 And he couldn't be out there with a hat doing nothing.

00:51:18.000 Instead, he's actually trying to sell a product to people.

00:51:20.000 I don't see any problem with that as a general rule, and I find this really off-putting.

00:51:24.000 Now, of course, the left only cares about this because the lady is white and the kid's black. 1.00

00:51:28.000 It's the implication that this is a racist thing.

00:51:30.000 Maybe it is a racist thing, but I would care about it whether it was white or black. 0.99

00:51:34.000 You see this a lot happening to white kids where you'll see some little girl who's running a lemonade stand and some idiot decides they're going to report her to the local government because she's operating a lemonade stand without a license. 0.99

00:51:44.000 This is basically that. 1.00

00:51:45.000 Just the kid is black and selling candy bars instead of lemonade. 1.00

00:51:48.000 It's just as stupid. 1.00

00:51:48.000 It's just as gross. 1.00

00:51:50.000 OK, other things that I hate. 0.91

00:51:52.000 Final thing that I hate.

00:51:52.000 So Trevor Noah, who, again, is being treated as a political commentator.

00:51:56.000 The conflation between comedians and political commentators is highly irritating. 1.00

00:52:01.000 Because it would be fine if we could actually treat these people as political commentators and just say, listen, your political commentary is stupid. 0.99

00:52:07.000 But instead, what happens? 0.99

00:52:08.000 You say that political commentary was really numb.

00:52:10.000 And then the comedian says, well, I'm Trevor Noah and I don't really I don't really care, you know, because I'm a comedian.

00:52:16.000 And you do the same thing with Stephen Colbert. 0.87

00:52:18.000 Every time you say Colbert is saying something dumb, he goes, well, I'm a comedian. 0.99

00:52:20.000 It's the clown nose on, clown nose off routine. 0.99

00:52:23.000 When they don't want to be criticized, I'm a clown. 0.96

00:52:25.000 Ah, ha, ha. 0.90

00:52:25.000 Look at my funny nose. 0.90

00:52:26.000 And then the minute that they want to say something serious, off comes the clown nose. 0.82

00:52:30.000 I am a statesman.

00:52:31.000 Jon Stewart used to do this better than anybody.

00:52:33.000 Trevor Noah is doing it now.

00:52:34.000 He's got a serious face on.

00:52:35.000 That's how you know he's not in joking mode.

00:52:37.000 And his serious face says that Trump is just like African dictators. 0.95

00:52:42.000 Donald Trump reminds me, in many ways, of many African dictators. 0.55

00:52:47.000 You know, his demeanor, his style, who he presents himself as and how he processes his power is something that's all too familiar.

00:52:56.000 He's just like an African dictator, except for the non-forced land redistributions, the non-genocides that are happening in the streets, and the non-ability to take over the entire government, make it a tool of his will, and then line his own pockets dramatically. 0.93

00:53:10.000 See, here's the thing.

00:53:11.000 You know, I don't care about Trump's aspect.

00:53:13.000 It's so fascinating to me.

00:53:15.000 Everybody seems to deeply, deeply care about President Trump as a human being.

00:53:20.000 Trump is a different in kind.

00:53:21.000 He's a different kind of person.

00:53:22.000 We have to get inside his head.

00:53:24.000 We have to figure out what he's thinking.

00:53:25.000 What is his aspect?

00:53:26.000 What is his attitude?

00:53:27.000 What is he trying to do?

00:53:29.000 I don't care about him.

00:53:30.000 Okay?

00:53:31.000 Like, as a person.

00:53:31.000 I don't know him.

00:53:32.000 I don't care about him very much.

00:53:34.000 That doesn't mean that I wouldn't help him if I saw him, like, you know, hit by a car or something.

00:53:38.000 I'd help anybody hit by a car.

00:53:39.000 But the problem is that everybody is treating the President of the United States personally as though he matters.

00:53:44.000 He does not.

00:53:45.000 He's an institutional cog.

00:53:46.000 This is why we have a constitutional system.

00:53:48.000 I don't believe that people are just sort of born better in the United States and born worse in Africa, for example. 1.00

00:53:53.000 I don't think African dictators are African dictators because people in Africa are naturally worse, because that's stupid and there's no evidence to back that. 0.99

00:54:00.000 I think that America has a long cultural history of checks and balances. 1.00

00:54:04.000 And so it doesn't matter what Trump's attitude is.

00:54:06.000 It matters whether the checks and balances actually operate.

00:54:09.000 And they do.

00:54:09.000 I think if you took that same African dictator that Trevor Noah is talking about and you plunked him down in the Oval Office, guess what?

00:54:15.000 He wouldn't be able to do any of the stuff he does in Africa because the system is not built for it in Africa. 0.99

00:54:19.000 The system is built for it here.

00:54:20.000 That's the genius of the system.

00:54:22.000 It's one of the reasons why I believe the Supreme Court matters and why I believe the Constitution matters.

00:54:25.000 It is the most durable document in human history with regard to the creation of government.

00:54:29.000 I mean, democracies tend to collapse in on themselves relatively quickly.

00:54:33.000 The American Republic has not only not collapsed in on itself, it's grown better over time.

00:54:38.000 At least not with regards to the administrative state, but everything else in terms of the inclusion, in terms of its capacity, in terms of the power of the American economy.

00:54:45.000 All of these things have grown over time because of the durability of the Constitution, not in spite of them.

00:54:49.000 The same Trevor Noah, who will sit there and whine about Trump being like an African dictator, will sit there and whine about the shortcomings of the U.S.

00:54:55.000 Constitution and why he wants one branch, the judiciary, to have absolute power over exactly how everything ought to work in the country.

00:55:01.000 It's pretty astonishing.

00:55:02.000 Okay.

00:55:03.000 Let's go through a quick psalm here because it is Wednesday.

00:55:05.000 So we are on Psalm 2.

00:55:06.000 We have begun our journey through the book of Psalms.

00:55:09.000 So in Hebrew, for those who care, it is called Tihilim, which means Psalms.

00:55:13.000 And this one is one of the most frequently cited among New Testament scholars because it makes

00:55:19.000 Oblique reference, believe New Testament scholars, to Jesus.

00:55:22.000 As a Jew, I don't believe that's what the psalm is saying.

00:55:24.000 I will explain why.

00:55:25.000 So the psalm says,

00:55:35.000 He who dwells in heaven laughs, the Lord mocks them, and he speaks to them in his wrath, and he frightens them with his sword displeasure.

00:55:40.000 But I have enthroned my king on Zion, my holy mount.

00:55:43.000 I will tell of his decree.

00:55:44.000 The Lord said to me, You are my son.

00:55:46.000 This day I have begotten you.

00:55:47.000 Request of me and I will make nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.

00:55:51.000 You shall break them with an iron rod like a potter's vessel.

00:55:53.000 You shall shatter them.

00:55:54.000 And now, you kings, be wise, be admonished, you judges of the earth.

00:55:57.000 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with quaking.

00:55:59.000 Arm yourselves with purity lest you become angry and you perish in the way.

00:56:04.000 So, the section of this that people like to cite in the New Testament context is, of course, the part where it talks about, you are my son this day, I have begotten you, and people who believe in the New Testament, Christians, take that extremely literally.

00:56:19.000 In Judaism, Jews are frequently referred to as God's children.

00:56:24.000 The people of Israel are frequently referred to in psalms as God's son.

00:56:28.000 It's not unusual.

00:56:29.000 It's not an unusual language with regard to Jews.

00:56:31.000 It's not the idea that it's like literally God's son as Christians interpret it.

00:56:34.000 So I just want to make that clear.

00:56:36.000 But the interesting part of this psalm is there's this very sort of Hegelian notion that if God doesn't like somebody, they are going to lose and that if you disobey God, then you're going to lose.

00:56:45.000 Then you look at the world and you see a lot of evil people really thrive.

00:56:48.000 So how do you reconcile those two things?

00:56:49.000 And I think the answer lies in this particular verse from the psalm.

00:56:54.000 It says, request of me and I will make nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.

00:56:58.000 And the word request is in Hebrew, Sha'al, which means ask of me.

00:57:02.000 It means really kind of plead with me, sort of.

00:57:04.000 And the idea here is that God's justice is only going to occur when those of us who believe in God and believe in the Judeo-Christian system actually repent of our sins and lean on God for our moral system.

00:57:17.000 When that happens, there'll be a natural outgrowth of that and that will allow us to gain a certain amount of power

00:57:22.000 In the world order.

00:57:23.000 And I think that's been true.

00:57:24.000 I think the reason Judeo-Christian civilization has been so powerful is specifically because we have clung to particular values that inherently make nations more powerful and wiser and better.

00:57:35.000 I am not a multiculturalist in the sense that I don't believe that all cultures are created equal.

00:57:40.000 I believe that Judeo-Christian culture, Judeo-Christian civilization is the best civilization ever put on earth at any time.

00:57:46.000 The more pride we take in it, and the more we request that God bring us close within that context, the better we will do in the real world as well.

00:57:53.000 I think this holds true for individuals who try to hold by a certain level of biblical morality in their own lives, too.

00:57:59.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow with all of the latest updates.

00:58:01.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:58:02.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:58:07.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:58:13.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:58:17.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:58:19.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:58:20.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:58:22.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:58:25.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 11, 2018

Trump Swings At NATO | Ep. 578

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