The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump Wins Big On The NFL | Ep. 392

00:00:01.000 Hey there!

00:00:02.000 We're back from University of Utah and President Trump is actually nominating some good judges.

00:00:06.000 Plus, did he just defeat the NFL?

00:00:09.000 And is that good for America or just good for President Trump?

00:00:11.000 We'll talk about it.

00:00:12.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:13.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:20.000 Well, we do have a big mailbag coming up today, and I've looked at the questions, and some of them are just a doozy.

00:00:25.000 Some of them are pretty amazing.

00:00:26.000 So we'll get to all of your questions today in the mailbag.

00:00:28.000 If you were a subscriber, you too could have been part of the mailbag, and your life would have been that much richer.

00:00:33.000 But if you're not, I guess you'll just have to listen to everybody else's problems be solved while you wallow through your own.

00:00:38.000 We'll get to all of that in just a little while.

00:00:40.000 Plus, President Trump is actually winning the battle against the NFL.

00:00:43.000 We're going to talk about what it means for him to win.

00:00:45.000 Whether that is the country winning or just Trump winning, what are the costs and the benefits of that happening?

00:00:50.000 Because a lot of people on the right are very excited that it seems like the right is finally winning the culture war.

00:00:55.000 I'm not sure that the right was losing this particular aspect of the culture war already.

00:00:59.000 I just think that it hadn't been brought to sort of the fore.

00:01:01.000 So we'll talk about that.

00:01:02.000 But first I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Birch Gold.

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00:02:28.000 Okay, so, President Trump looks like he's beginning to win big on the NFL.

00:02:31.000 What I mean is that a lot of teams are now backing down.

00:02:32.000 And this is why I really think it had less to do with President Trump purposefully picking

00:02:51.000 A smart fight, and much more to do with the left's knee-jerk reaction to everything Trump says, and them going over the top no matter what Trump says.

00:02:59.000 So, to recapitulate what exactly happened here, for those who have been in sleep in a cave for the last couple of weeks, President Trump said that Colin Kaepernick was an SOB, and that owners should fire players who kneel on the sidelines for the national anthem.

00:03:11.000 Now, if you or I said that, we're private citizens.

00:03:14.000 The President of the United States is the President of the United States.

00:03:17.000 Governmental actors should not be telling private actors how to do their business.

00:03:20.000 It's just bad policy.

00:03:22.000 It is not good for the country.

00:03:23.000 If the shoe were on the other foot, and Barack Obama were telling people on the right that they should be fired by their left-leaning employers,

00:03:30.000 We're good to go.

00:03:46.000 That the smart thing to do would be to, and the right thing to do, would be to claim the mantle of the National Anthem and the Star Spangled Banner, rather than ripping on it and trying to divide the country along those lines.

00:03:57.000 Today, in 2017, there really is no excuse for kneeling for the National Anthem.

00:04:02.000 If you have problems with a specific police department, then protest that police department.

00:04:05.000 If you have a problem with a specific police officer, protest that police officer.

00:04:08.000 But to suggest that America is through and through a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe country? 0.78

00:04:13.000 Thank you.

00:04:32.000 To people who have fought and died to protect that flag and stand for that national anthem.

00:04:37.000 There he is right.

00:04:38.000 But he did what he does and he went too far.

00:04:40.000 And I think, is that a strategy?

00:04:41.000 Is that by accident?

00:04:42.000 I would say it's more by accident because Trump has never seen a moderate comment.

00:04:47.000 Trump and Tact parted ways long ago if ever they have met.

00:04:50.000 So he says what he says. 0.99

00:04:52.000 And the left, because they're really dumb, they decide that instead of reacting by saying, listen, 0.97

00:04:57.000 We may agree about the National Anthem, but everybody has a right to express themselves the way they want to, and we don't think people should be fired for doing that in the NFL. 0.99

00:05:04.000 And then standing up for the National Anthem while some people kneel, that would have been the smart thing to do.

00:05:08.000 Instead, what they did is they started to kneel.

00:05:11.000 And they allowed Trump to polarize this debate.

00:05:12.000 So now, instead of this being sort of a messy debate where some people were against kneeling, but against Trump, and some people were for Trump,

00:05:21.000 I don't know.

00:05:41.000 I think? 1.00

00:05:56.000 Really, really dumb of the left. 1.00

00:05:57.000 And now it's beginning to pay dividends for Trump. 0.99

00:05:59.000 Because Trump stayed on this issue.

00:06:01.000 He realized this was a popular issue.

00:06:02.000 He realized that most Americans don't like people kneeling.

00:06:05.000 He realized that if he could grab the mantle of the flag and the national anthem, then he would end up winning that debate.

00:06:11.000 Because people like the flag and the national anthem more than they like the people who are kneeling.

00:06:14.000 And if the last election proved nothing, it should have proved that we are all binary thinkers, or at least a huge number of Americans are binary thinkers.

00:06:21.000 We can't think in three dimensions, and so that means that instead of thinking about two issues at once,

00:06:25.000 Censorship of people who kneel, and the actual kneeling, we just boil it down to the actual kneeling. 0.99

00:06:30.000 And the left was, again, dumb enough to fall for this. 0.84

00:06:33.000 So, Bryant Gumbel over on HBO, the left thought that they had won this debate, which is an amazing thing. 0.99

00:06:37.000 There are a bunch of people on the left saying, oh, Trump made a big boo-boo here.

00:06:40.000 I've been saying since the beginning of this, Trump did not make a big boo-boo.

00:06:43.000 What I think Trump did was not great for the country, because I think there was a broad consensus.

00:06:46.000 85% of Americans don't like kneeling, and a similar number of people are fine with people not being fired for kneeling.

00:06:54.000 Right, so there was a pretty broad consensus.

00:06:56.000 Trump split that consensus.

00:06:57.000 I don't think it's good to split that consensus, because I agree with both halves of that whole.

00:07:01.000 But the left immediately jumped into bed with the Colin Kaepernick crowd, and here's Brian Gumbel saying that he thinks that, great, the athletes are all energized now.

00:07:09.000 Now, for sure, they're going to win this battle. 0.90

00:07:11.000 Really dumb stuff from Brian Gumbel over on HBO.

00:07:15.000 Finally tonight, a quick thanks to the current occupant of the White House for energizing the social conscience of the modern American athlete. 0.55

00:07:22.000 That occupant's weekend series of racist, churlish, and childish comments drew a variety of stunning rebukes and actions, which suggest jocks may finally be realizing that apathy won't cut it anymore, that in conjunction with their fame, they have important civic roles to play, especially now.

00:07:40.000 Many suddenly seem not just willing but also eager to follow in the giant footsteps of Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Billie Jean King, Roberto Clemente, Arthur Ashe and many others who courageously use their athletic platforms to challenge authority in the pursuit of justice.

00:07:55.000 Okay, we can stop it there for a second.

00:07:57.000 So first of all, I think that it's important to note that a lot of the people who we now hail as heroes in this area, I'm thinking specifically here of Muhammad Ali, were at the time not seen that way.

00:08:07.000 And there's a bit of a heavy golden gloss that's being put on Muhammad Ali's history.

00:08:12.000 I mean, at the time he was deeply associated with the radical racist nation of Islam, under pre-Louis Farrakhan Elijah Muhammad. 0.57

00:08:20.000 And the idea that he was doing some sort of great service to the country, Muhammad Ali, at the time, I really disagree with that pretty strongly.

00:08:26.000 In fact, many Americans disagreed with it, which is why when he had his first fight with Joe Frazier, a lot of Americans were on the side of Joe Frazier.

00:08:32.000 Muhammad Ali helped exacerbate racial divides.

00:08:35.000 Joe Frazier was a guy who grew up poor in Philadelphia.

00:08:39.000 Muhammad Ali grew up middle class in Louisiana as Cassius Clay, and Joe Frazier

00:08:44.000 I don't

00:09:07.000 Civil rights hero, but at the time he certainly was not, and a lot of the stuff he did was really, really negative.

00:09:12.000 There's actually a great HBO documentary on this called Ghosts of Manila that you should go check out if you haven't seen it.

00:09:16.000 It's also a book.

00:09:17.000 It's really worth reading on this.

00:09:19.000 But beyond that, if Brian Gumbel thinks that the sports world is going to win by continuing to politicize itself in ways that are really not well thought out or well calibrated,

00:09:29.000 That athletes doing simplistic things like kneeling for the national anthem is somehow great for the country.

00:09:35.000 This is a battle that Brian Gumbel and those athletes are not going to win.

00:09:38.000 And I'm frankly confused as to why they think they would.

00:09:40.000 Most Americans don't believe that this is a racist country or should be castigated as such.

00:09:46.000 Most Americans also believe that if you can name a specific racist incident, then we'll fight it with you.

00:09:50.000 But he's not the only one.

00:09:51.000 So there's a Titans, a Tennessee Titans tight end named Delaney Walker.

00:09:55.000 Uh, who, who, according to the Tennessean, said, 1.00

00:10:15.000 Could you possibly be dumber? 0.99

00:10:16.000 I mean, why in the world would you want to alienate your fan base? 1.00

00:10:20.000 They are paying your salary.

00:10:21.000 What we've seen over the past couple of years is people not watching ESPN, I think in large measure because it has become politicized.

00:10:28.000 People not watching the NFL as much for a couple of reasons.

00:10:31.000 First of all, the worries about concussions.

00:10:33.000 Second of all, the domestic violence stuff.

00:10:34.000 And then also, yes, the politicization of the NFL.

00:10:37.000 I used to watch a lot more NFL.

00:10:39.000 I don't like watching the NFL as much anymore because I don't need Bob Costas lecturing me on gun control.

00:10:44.000 And I don't need a bunch of St.

00:10:45.000 Louis Rams players perpetuating the lie that hands up, don't shoot was a real thing in Ferguson, which they did a couple of years ago and were not punished by the NFL.

00:10:53.000 You see this from people in the NBA, too.

00:10:54.000 The 76ers, their first round draft pick is a guy named Ben Simmons.

00:10:57.000 He's supposed to be a very good player.

00:10:59.000 And he comes out and he starts ripping Trump by name and play that in just a second and suggest that this is not smart strategy.

00:11:05.000 And you will see that Trump is going to win this particular battle, which is a big win for Trump.

00:11:10.000 We'll talk about whether it's a win for the right and a win for the culture, because I think

00:11:14.000 It's not quite as easy as some people want to make it out to be.

00:11:16.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the U.S.

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00:12:25.000 Okay, so again, polarizing along Trumpian lines.

00:12:40.000 Usually wouldn't be a problem for athletes.

00:12:41.000 Polarizing along Trumpian lines when Trump is standing with the flag and with the army is really not a good idea for these athletes.

00:12:48.000 So here is Ben Simmons, who is a 76ers forward, I believe, talking about how much he hates Trump. 0.96

00:12:56.000 If we were in Australia right now, a lot of people would call him a dickhead. 0.97

00:12:59.000 That's how I personally feel. 0.97

00:13:01.000 Okay, well that's convenient.

00:13:02.000 I mean, again, is this elevating the discourse?

00:13:05.000 No.

00:13:05.000 And listen, I don't think anyone has an obligation to elevate the discourse.

00:13:08.000 But again, if you're going to polarize the audience, this is probably the best way to do it.

00:13:14.000 So here's the problem.

00:13:15.000 Now the left has staked out a position.

00:13:17.000 The position they staked out last Sunday was, it's good to kneel.

00:13:20.000 Or it's good to boycott the anthem.

00:13:22.000 Or, as a slap against Trump, we're going to do all of these things.

00:13:25.000 And then the fans say, wait, whatever you think about Trump, what are you doing with the anthem?

00:13:29.000 What are you doing with the flag?

00:13:30.000 These are the only unifying symbols we have left.

00:13:32.000 We disagree about everything.

00:13:33.000 We disagree about politics.

00:13:35.000 We disagree about culture.

00:13:36.000 We disagree about the usefulness of the pause pod.

00:13:40.000 We disagree about all of these things, but what we don't disagree about is that the flag is a good thing and the national anthem is a good thing, so what are you doing?

00:13:45.000 And so now the NFL has basically been forced to back down.

00:13:49.000 The way that they're backing down is that they are standing and linking arms for the national anthem.

00:13:53.000 This is their sort of subtle way of backing down.

00:13:56.000 I said that on Sunday what they should have done if they wanted to show solidarity is the people who are going to kneel should have been the exact same people kneeling six months ago, and everybody else on the field should have stood next to the people who are kneeling.

00:14:05.000 You're showing solidarity by being next to the person, right?

00:14:07.000 What's the big deal?

00:14:09.000 Why elevate the issue?

00:14:10.000 What's the point of elevating the issue?

00:14:12.000 In any case, these players last night, it was the Bears-Packers game, they were standing and linking arms for the National Anthem, and this is a... it basically is a back down.

00:14:22.000 It's a back down.

00:14:22.000 People aren't kneeling anymore.

00:14:25.000 Ladies and gentlemen, to honor America, please stand, remove your hats, and join Country Recording Artist Tyler Farr as he sings our National Anthem.

00:14:39.000 Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's

00:14:55.000 Right?

00:14:55.000 And no problem.

00:14:56.000 Everybody's standing.

00:14:57.000 Not a problem.

00:14:58.000 But it looks like a back down.

00:14:59.000 Because once you stake out a position in politics, if you back off the position, it looks like the other guy won.

00:15:04.000 And it's not just the Packers and the Bears.

00:15:05.000 This is basically the new policy.

00:15:07.000 There's a guy named Marquis Pouncey.

00:15:09.000 He is a... Is he a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers?

00:15:13.000 He's a center.

00:15:14.000 He's the center for the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the longest tenured players on their roster.

00:15:17.000 He came out yesterday and he said, I promise you, this week we are all going to stand for the anthem.

00:15:22.000 I promise you one thing, this week we'll all be standing out there for the National Anthem, trust me.

00:15:26.000 We respect our flag and we respect the military and everything that goes a part of it, man.

00:15:30.000 I think the bigger message is that people were just trying to stay out of it, you know, and that we should have, you know, just united inside.

00:15:36.000 And everyone was in there, you know, standing up and it was all about the flag and, you know, it was a big misunderstanding.

00:15:41.000 Trust me, I'm very sorry to anyone that probably feels the way that they do and, you know, rightfully so, but, you know, there's a lot of arguments in them points.

00:15:49.000 I care about the flag dearly and trust me, this team would be out there standing.

00:15:53.000 Right, basically they're saying it was a big mistake.

00:15:55.000 So that looks like a win for Trump.

00:15:57.000 The Denver Broncos put out this message on their social media yesterday.

00:16:01.000 They put out this long message.

00:16:01.000 It says, Last week, members of our team joined their brothers around the NFL in a powerful display of unity.

00:16:06.000 It was an emotional time for everyone, including the fans who support us each and every week.

00:16:10.000 As controversial as it appeared, we needed to show our collective strength and resolve.

00:16:13.000 Our voices needed to be heard loud and clear.

00:16:16.000 Make no mistakes.

00:16:16.000 Our actions were in no way a protest of the military, the flag, or those who keep us safe.

00:16:20.000 Which is why, if you thought that, then you shouldn't have picked that example.

00:16:23.000 Like, guys, image matters.

00:16:25.000 You're in an image-driven business, for goodness sake.

00:16:27.000 Okay?

00:16:27.000 It's not like you sell shoes for a living.

00:16:29.000 Right?

00:16:29.000 You're actually in a business where you are on TV all the time.

00:16:32.000 Anyone in the TV industry knows that what's on the TV is the image that people are consuming.

00:16:36.000 They say, we have nothing but the deepest love and respect for those who protect our way of life and the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

00:16:41.000 While there's no greater country, it's not perfect.

00:16:43.000 Inequality still exists.

00:16:44.000 And we all have work to do in all forms of social justice, which is their sort of sop to Black Lives Matter. 0.97

00:16:51.000 And then they say, we can all do better.

00:16:52.000 It starts with us.

00:16:53.000 And then they say, we are a team and we stand together no matter how divisive some comments and issues can be.

00:16:57.000 Nothing should ever get in the way of that.

00:16:59.000 OK, well, as a country, we're supposed to stand together.

00:17:01.000 Not just a team.

00:17:02.000 As a country, we're supposed to stand together.

00:17:04.000 Which is why people care about this issue in the first place.

00:17:08.000 But again, it now looks like all these players who knelt last week will not be kneeling this week.

00:17:11.000 What prompted the change?

00:17:12.000 People are going to say Trump did.

00:17:14.000 Right?

00:17:14.000 So big win for Trump.

00:17:15.000 Big win for Trump.

00:17:16.000 The NBA's Adam Silver, he came out, he said he now expects the players to stand.

00:17:21.000 As Coach Popovich said the other day, people need to engage and have these discussions.

00:17:26.000 And they're not always easy discussions to have.

00:17:28.000 Sometimes they are painful discussions, but they need to be had.

00:17:32.000 And I'm hoping, once again, that this league can play a constructive role there on, you know, the anthem and specifically

00:17:42.000 We have a rule that requires our players to stand for the anthem.

00:17:46.000 It's been our rule as long as I've been involved with the league and my expectation is that our players will continue to stand for the anthem.

00:17:55.000 Okay, so nothing actually changed in the NBA, and this is the important thing to note.

00:17:58.000 It looks like the NBA is backing down because some of the players were really loud about this stuff, but nothing actually changed.

00:18:03.000 I mean, in 1996, there was a guy named Mahmoud Abduraouf.

00:18:06.000 He was a guard for, I believe it was at the time, was he on the Golden State Warriors?

00:18:12.000 Or the Denver Nuggets?

00:18:13.000 He was on the Denver Nuggets at the time.

00:18:15.000 And he refused to stand for the National Anthem.

00:18:19.000 Instead, he decided that he viewed the American flag as a symbol of oppression and racism, and he said that standing for the anthem would conflict with his Muslim faith.

00:18:27.000 He said, you can't be forgotten for oppression.

00:18:29.000 It's clear in the Quran, Islam is the only way. 1.00

00:18:31.000 I don't criticize those who stand, so don't criticize me for sitting.

00:18:33.000 So the NBA suspended him for a game, and they cited a rule that the players had to line up in a dignified posture.

00:18:39.000 It cost him about $32,000.

00:18:40.000 The players' union supported him, and he reached a compromise with the league that allowed him to stand and pray with his head down during the anthem.

00:18:46.000 And that was the end of it.

00:18:48.000 That was the end of it.

00:18:49.000 You know, his career basically tanked after that because he lost his entire fan base, but that was basically the end of that.

00:18:55.000 So the idea that this battle started just last week is not really true, or the idea that the NBA switched its position on this is not really true, but the impression left in the minds of the public is that all these people were going to kneel.

00:19:05.000 Trump stepped in.

00:19:06.000 They're no longer kneeling.

00:19:07.000 Good for Trump.

00:19:08.000 So big political victory for Trump.

00:19:10.000 Now, is it a big political victory for the right?

00:19:13.000 Well, on the one hand, a victory for Trump against people who are kneeling is sort of a victory for the right, except that more Americans thought that Colin Kaepernick was doing a dumb thing before Trump intervened than after he intervened.

00:19:23.000 If you look at the polls, again, there was like 85% of Americans thought that Colin Kaepernick was doing the wrong thing.

00:19:29.000 Now it's about 60% of Americans, 65% of Americans.

00:19:32.000 That's not actually a victory for the right.

00:19:35.000 It's actually a loss for the right.

00:19:37.000 If I would have told you that... Let's say that Trump weren't president.

00:19:39.000 Let's say that Hillary had, God forbid, been elected president. 1.00

00:19:42.000 And let's say that Hillary had made comments talking about how wonderful it was to kneel for the anthem.

00:19:46.000 And the number of Americans who thought it was bad to kneel for the anthem dropped from 85% to 60% when she said, that's a terrible thing.

00:19:54.000 25% more Americans now are okay with kneeling for the anthem.

00:19:57.000 That's a really bad thing.

00:19:59.000 Well, 25% of Americans are now OK with kneeling for the anthem.

00:20:02.000 That's not a great thing, even though Trump wins a political victory by looking like a strong guy.

00:20:06.000 And it's not really great for the country.

00:20:07.000 And this was my objection in the first place.

00:20:09.000 Again, a lot of people on the right say, oh, we're winning the culture war.

00:20:11.000 We're winning the culture war.

00:20:12.000 So in the one sense, I think the right is winning the culture war by demonstrating that the left is willing to be this radical.

00:20:18.000 That is a win for the right.

00:20:19.000 OK, that's a win for the right.

00:20:21.000 If the left is willing to side with Colin Kaepernick just to oppose Trump, it demonstrates how radical they are.

00:20:25.000 If the left is willing to kneel for the anthem to

00:20:29.000 Buck against Trump.

00:20:29.000 That demonstrates the radicalism of the left.

00:20:31.000 But, for America's unity, for the cause of standing for the anthem, it actually was not a huge win.

00:20:38.000 So it's a little bit more complex than just saying, Trump wins, everybody else loses, we're done here.

00:20:43.000 I don't think it's quite that simple.

00:20:44.000 Now I want to talk about what else this means in terms of the Republican agenda stalling, because while Trump is fighting these culture war battles that really get the base jazzed up and get people excited, because the truth is, as I've said before, people are much more interested in talking about cultural issues than in tax cuts.

00:20:59.000 Are the Republicans even going to be able to do anything?

00:21:01.000 And what is the divide inside the Republican Party?

00:21:03.000 What does it even mean?

00:21:05.000 It's confusing, because you hear the term establishment, and then you see people who are clearly not establishment being called establishment, and people who are working with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer being called anti-establishment.

00:21:16.000 What do these terms even mean anymore?

00:21:18.000 Rush Limbaugh was on with Sean Hannity last night.

00:21:20.000 Two guys who I've been very friendly with and people I grew up listening to.

00:21:25.000 And they were talking about Trump versus sort of the Republican Congress.

00:21:28.000 We'll get to that in just a second.

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00:23:21.000 Well, Trump is engaged in these culture wars, which is the stuff that animates elections.

00:23:25.000 Let's be frank about this.

00:23:26.000 What Republicans do on tax cuts is going to be much less significant for the 2020 election than this NFL stuff.

00:23:32.000 Sorry, that's just the way it works.

00:23:33.000 That's why Donald Trump can go from a guy who was commenting on Twitter about birtherism four years ago to the President of the United States.

00:23:39.000 Culture wars matter a lot more than the political battles.

00:23:43.000 But what does that mean for the political battle?

00:23:44.000 In some ways it means that it's harder to get people on the same page because

00:23:48.000 All you have to do is virtue signal in the culture wars, and then we don't actually have to pass anything.

00:23:53.000 So there are some pretty significant and fundamental differences inside the Republican Party, and it's always interesting to watch people like Sean and Rush, both of whom have been strongly supportive of President Trump, talk about what the Republican Congress is doing to buck Trump.

00:24:07.000 Instead of suggesting that everyone has a duty to get on the same page, the idea is that if the Republicans would just follow Trump, he would lead them to the promised land.

00:24:14.000 I don't think that this is exactly correct.

00:24:16.000 I don't see them embracing strong ideas and going and selling them, which I think they'd win on the... I don't think they're conservative.

00:24:23.000 I don't think they ever have been.

00:24:25.000 They don't want Trump to succeed with his agenda.

00:24:28.000 They can't afford that.

00:24:29.000 I'm not, I'm not exaggerating here.

00:24:31.000 They don't want, they can't afford for him to succeed with his agenda.

00:24:34.000 They can't afford it.

00:24:36.000 The lid's blown.

00:24:38.000 The gig is over.

00:24:39.000 The joke is revealed.

00:24:41.000 If an outsider

00:24:43.000 With no prior political experience.

00:24:45.000 Can come in and fix messes that people have been promised would be fixed for 30 years.

00:24:51.000 How does that make them look?

00:24:52.000 They can't allow that to happen.

00:24:53.000 Okay, so Russia's actually making a slightly different point.

00:24:56.000 He's not making the point about conservatism.

00:24:58.000 He's making a point that there are all these career politicians who haven't been doing anything.

00:25:01.000 If Trump comes in and fixes things, he makes them look bad.

00:25:03.000 I don't think that that's actually what's going on here.

00:25:05.000 I don't think there are a lot of career politicians who are sitting around going, you know what, if I thwart Trump, I look better today.

00:25:10.000 How many Republicans feel like if they thwart Trump on things they want passed, that that is actually going to make them look better in the eyes of their own constituents?

00:25:18.000 Their constituents voted for Trump.

00:25:20.000 Their constituents voted for Trump.

00:25:22.000 If they look like they're actively thwarting Trump, they get ousted.

00:25:25.000 I mean, hell, if they look like they even signaled in not liking Trump, they get ousted, right?

00:25:29.000 Mo Brooks, people forget about Mo Brooks in Alabama.

00:25:31.000 Mo Brooks was much more conservative than either Luther Strange or Roy Moore on policy.

00:25:36.000 And Mo Brooks, who's a real Tea Party guy, came in third in the Republican primary because he wasn't supportive enough of Trump.

00:25:41.000 So this idea that all these guys are trying to buck Trump to demonstrate that politics is a hard business, I don't think that's right.

00:25:48.000 The problem with the argument that's being made here is that Trump's agenda is actually not the conservative agenda.

00:25:54.000 This has always been the problem.

00:25:55.000 This is the problem before the election.

00:25:57.000 Let's say the Republicans went along with all of Trump's agenda and they just started voting for it.

00:26:00.000 They'd be voting for higher taxes on people who are actually paying the taxes. 0.56

00:26:04.000 They'd be voting for bigger spending.

00:26:07.000 They'd be voting for presumably a giant infrastructure bill.

00:26:10.000 They'd be voting for immigration policy that their own constituents in many cases don't support.

00:26:15.000 They'd be voting for

00:26:17.000 President Trump's program with regard to foreign policy has been all over the place.

00:26:21.000 Trump doesn't have a well-defined program where you can even say follow the leader.

00:26:25.000 Rush admits that Trump's tax policy is pure populism, and then he says that Republicans won't pass it because it's pure populism.

00:26:32.000 Maybe that's not a terrible thing.

00:26:34.000 I mean, if the tax policy is populism, I wasn't aware that these guys were elected on a populist message.

00:26:38.000 They were elected on a different message.

00:26:41.000 What it really is, is how to get votes from the middle class.

00:26:45.000 This is a pure populist approach.

00:26:48.000 This is not a conservative approach to tax reform whatsoever.

00:26:52.000 On this one, President Trump is who he is.

00:26:54.000 He is a full-fledged nationalist populist in this tax policy.

00:27:00.000 Indicates that.

00:27:00.000 That's fine.

00:27:01.000 That's who he is.

00:27:02.000 What Rush says here sort of, I think, disagrees with what he was saying in the first clip.

00:27:06.000 In the first clip, he's saying, these guys in Congress, they aren't conservative.

00:27:09.000 If they're conservative, they just go along with Trump.

00:27:10.000 But then he's admitting that Trump's tax policy is pure populism.

00:27:13.000 You can't really have it both ways.

00:27:15.000 Trump's tax policy here, when he's saying he wants to raise the taxes on the people who are paying the majority of the taxes in the country, you know, that is not a conservative thing to do.

00:27:25.000 So what, and you know, all of the hubbub around Trump and Trumpism, this idea of nationalist populism.

00:27:30.000 Trump isn't a nationalist populist.

00:27:32.000 Trump is just a guy with a bunch of views.

00:27:33.000 This idea of putting like a philosophical patina.

00:27:37.000 on Trump's collection of viewpoints is wrong.

00:27:39.000 Like, sometimes he does stuff that's super conservative.

00:27:41.000 I have to stop here and praise Trump.

00:27:43.000 Yesterday, he nominated Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

00:27:47.000 Great!

00:27:48.000 That's terrific.

00:27:49.000 He also nominated a judge whose last name, he's an Asian judge named, I think his last name is Ho, and he was nominated also.

00:27:55.000 He's also quite conservative.

00:27:57.000 Trump's judicial nominees have been across the board, very conservative.

00:28:00.000 That's been fantastic.

00:28:01.000 But Trump isn't a conservative.

00:28:03.000 Right, so the point that I'm making here is not that he doesn't get credit for that.

00:28:08.000 He absolutely does.

00:28:09.000 That's a wonderful thing.

00:28:10.000 He should continue nominating terrific justices to fill these slots.

00:28:13.000 But the suggestion that Trump is across the board a consistent guy or he has any sort of through line to what he believes is just not true.

00:28:21.000 Ann Coulter, I think, is sort of making the same mistake here.

00:28:23.000 Again, I've known Ann since I was 16 years old.

00:28:25.000 Here's Ann talking about Roy Moore, the guy who just won the Alabama Senate primary.

00:28:29.000 It's very controversial because not only did he bring in a Ten Commandments monument and put it on the lawn at the Alabama judicial... at the state courthouse, I guess.

00:28:41.000 He refused to remove it when he was ordered to remove it and he was ousted from his job there.

00:28:45.000 Then he got his job back.

00:28:46.000 Then he refused to enforce same-sex rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States.

00:28:51.000 And then he was ousted again. 0.93

00:28:52.000 He's made some pretty ridiculous comments about people like Keith Ellison not being able to be seated in Congress because Keith Ellison is a Muslim. 0.96

00:28:59.000 That's absurd. 0.96

00:29:00.000 I really dislike Keith Ellison. 0.94

00:29:01.000 I think Keith Ellison's an awful person, but I don't think that Muslims should not be allowed to sit in Congress. 0.99

00:29:05.000 I think that's silly. 0.97

00:29:07.000 But in any case, here's Ann Coulter on Roy Moore talking about what happened in Alabama.

00:29:11.000 Because remember, Roy Moore was the guy who was not endorsed by Trump.

00:29:15.000 Luther Strange was the guy endorsed by Trump, but Roy Moore beat Luther Strange pretty handily.

00:29:19.000 Here's Coulter.

00:29:20.000 How you doing?

00:29:21.000 Fantastic!

00:29:22.000 How are you, Marc Simone?

00:29:23.000 Oh, you sound happy today.

00:29:25.000 Yes, because your candidate lost and Trumpism prevailed.

00:29:31.000 My candidate?

00:29:32.000 I didn't have a candidate.

00:29:33.000 Yes, Trump, your president.

00:29:36.000 I don't know anything about Alabama Senate candidates.

00:29:39.000 They look like two Andy Griffiths.

00:29:40.000 Yeah, you know about Trump, and Trump has not been following Trumpism.

00:29:43.000 We now see there are two different things.

00:29:47.000 Trumpism one, Trump zero.

00:29:48.000 Okay, so this is the message that people are trying to do now.

00:29:52.000 So now that it's clear that Trump does not actually have an ideology, people are trying to actually construct one and then separate it from Trump.

00:29:58.000 But we'll call it Trumpism, which is incoherent.

00:30:01.000 What really unifies the party?

00:30:02.000 You want to know why the Republican Party is having difficulty governing?

00:30:05.000 The reason they're having difficulty governing is because the only unifying thread between Trump and the Trumpists

00:30:11.000 The people who like Trumpism or whatever they're calling that these days, the nationalist populists, and the people who are traditional conservatives and libertarians, the only thing that unites them is opposition to the left.

00:30:21.000 That's not a great thing, okay?

00:30:23.000 Listen, we don't, we're not big on the left here, right?

00:30:25.000 I mean, we give you a mug, right, that says, leftist years, hot or cold.

00:30:28.000 Like, this is, well, we're not huge on the left, but you actually have to push a certain ideology if you hope to unify and actually be able to govern.

00:30:35.000 The fact that Republicans are not really speaks to the idea that opposition is a lot easier than governing, and this is where Trump's, I keep saying this over and over, Mr. President,

00:30:46.000 You campaigned as a leader.

00:30:47.000 You campaigned as the guy who was going to lead Republicans to the promised land, the guy who was going to get things done.

00:30:52.000 Forget about the first part.

00:30:53.000 Let's just talk about getting things done.

00:30:55.000 If you want to get things done, you need to buckle down, and you need to force through your agenda by taking it directly to the public, and by wheeling and dealing what you say you're great at, you need to do all of these things.

00:31:06.000 Because otherwise, it's just going to be the Republicans unable to push an agenda, and you sitting on the sidelines sniping at them.

00:31:12.000 That's not a recipe for legislative success in any way, shape, or form.

00:31:17.000 Well, we're going to get to things I like, things I hate in the mailbag.

00:31:19.000 But first, you're going to have to subscribe if you want to see that live.

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00:32:03.000 We are the largest, fastest-growing podcast in the nation.

00:32:11.000 I should say we're the largest and fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:32:15.000 In any case, let's talk about some things I like and some things that I hate.

00:32:18.000 So one of the things that is really, it's pretty fascinating actually, about the way that we approach racial issues in this country today, is we sort of put a different spin on history in the 1960s and 70s than what was actually being lived at the time.

00:32:32.000 So at the time, the people who were actually making a dent were not people like Malcolm X, it was people like Martin Luther King.

00:32:37.000 Those were the people who were convincing good-hearted white folks to join on the bandwagon.

00:32:43.000 Not a lot of white folks were joining Malcolm X's bandwagon.

00:32:45.000 A lot of white folks were joining Martin Luther King's bandwagon, as well they should have.

00:32:49.000 That was the right choice.

00:32:50.000 In the 1960s and 70s, the move toward racial reconciliation by the media was an attempt toward reconciliation.

00:32:57.000 Not toward the idea that we have to continue dividing ourselves so we can be more self-aware and this will lead to reconciliation, but the idea that white people and black people treating each other as individuals was the way forward.

00:33:08.000 Which is a traditionally American idea.

00:33:10.000 Now, I want to contrast the way that the football

00:33:13.000 Yeah, I think.

00:33:31.000 Back in the 1970s.

00:33:32.000 So this is one of the most famous TV movies of all time.

00:33:35.000 It's a TV movie called Brian's Song, with a great cast.

00:33:39.000 So it's James Caan and Billy Dee Williams.

00:33:41.000 This comes out in 1971.

00:33:41.000 It is at the time, I believe, the biggest and highest rated TV movie of all time.

00:33:47.000 And it is about Gale Sayers, who's the famous running back for the Chicago Bears, and Brian Piccolo, a backup running back for the Chicago Bears.

00:33:56.000 This is a story about two men.

00:33:57.000 They competed for the same job.

00:34:24.000 One was white, the other black.

00:34:28.000 One liked to talk a lot.

00:34:30.000 You said, uh-huh?

00:34:31.000 The other was shy as a three-year-old.

00:34:33.000 Mm-hmm.

00:34:34.000 Hey, rookies gotta stick together.

00:34:36.000 Our story is about how they came to know each other, fight each other... I'm gonna whip you, Sayers, but you gotta be at your best.

00:34:43.000 ...and help each other.

00:34:44.000 I think I... I owe you a beer.

00:34:48.000 I owe you... a lot more than that.

00:34:52.000 Yeah.

00:34:57.000 What actually happened in real life is a true story.

00:34:59.000 Brian Piccolo ended up with cancer and he died.

00:35:01.000 I think he was like 31 or something.

00:35:03.000 And they actually interviewed Gail Sayers about Brian Piccolo.

00:35:05.000 They said the movie was pretty accurate as far as our relationship and what Brian Piccolo was like.

00:35:10.000 Sports can be something that unifies us.

00:35:12.000 Sports.

00:35:13.000 Culture.

00:35:13.000 These should be unifying factors, not dividing factors.

00:35:16.000 It's one of the pet peeves for the right. 1.00

00:35:17.000 We look at culture and we say, listen, that should be bringing us together.

00:35:20.000 You know, we can have uplifting stories like this.

00:35:22.000 Yes, of course we can tell stories about terrible things that have happened to black people in the past and happened to black people in the present, but we also need a message of reconciliation or we're never going to be able to move beyond this.

00:35:32.000 This is what Obama promised in 2008 and then didn't deliver over the next eight years, instead opting for the intersectional politics of the left that suggests that America is innately divided and can never be reconciled.

00:35:43.000 That's a disaster area.

00:35:45.000 And this is a really good movie.

00:35:46.000 It's a very moving film.

00:35:47.000 So Brian Song, you can go check that out.

00:35:49.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:35:50.000 Speaking of things that should be unifying, Steve Scalise, the Louisiana congressperson who was shot by the Bernie Sanders supporter.

00:35:57.000 Again, not Bernie's fault, as I've said a thousand times, but he was shot by a guy who's a far leftist in the congressional baseball shooting.

00:36:03.000 He finally came back to the house yesterday after a long recovery, and here he was arriving there.

00:36:19.000 Wow.

00:36:20.000 Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

00:36:23.000 You have no idea how great this feels to be back here at work in the People's House.

00:36:28.000 You know, and that stuff is good.

00:36:35.000 I mean, it's moments like this that we have to remember that, again, I keep going back to the Lincoln line.

00:36:41.000 We must be brothers.

00:36:42.000 Otherwise, we're going to be enemies.

00:36:43.000 And this is a good example of that.

00:36:45.000 OK, time for some quick things I hate, and then we'll go to the mailbag.

00:36:52.000 Alrighty, so let's begin Things I Hate with this bit of amazing journalism by Steven Crowder and his producer, NotGayJared.

00:36:58.000 Actually, NotGayJared has been urging me to follow him for well over a year on Twitter.

00:37:03.000 I finally followed him last night, so his life is complete.

00:37:05.000 So, here's why.

00:37:07.000 The reason I did it is because he actually infiltrated Antifa over at University of Utah.

00:37:11.000 And you can see, he was there, he put on a wig, he put on contact, and they went and they got encrypted apps from the, like Antifa wouldn't allow them in unless they got encryption on their phone, and they were messaging each other.

00:37:23.000 Here is actual video of an Antifa member offering Steven Crowder's producer a knife, and then you'll see, you'll see, I'm not sure if this is a man or woman, it's a transgender person, offer the knife and then an ice pick. 0.98

00:37:35.000 The person's carrying a taser.

00:37:37.000 And it also suggests that if things go wrong, then they should retreat to a car where there are AK-47s in the back.

00:37:48.000 We've been tracking Anthifer for a long time.

00:37:52.000 He was just down there at President's Circle and they were handing out sharp objects to stab people with.

00:37:56.000 Said they had someone coming with an AK.

00:37:58.000 Why did it take two late-night hosts, comedians, to find this out?

00:38:03.000 You know what?

00:38:03.000 I wish you guys luck.

00:38:06.000 Okay, so

00:38:19.000 This person offers that, and then says, not only do we have two AKs coming, one of the other people says we have a sawed-off shotgun.

00:38:25.000 Okay, sawed-off shotguns are illegal.

00:38:26.000 Under all law, okay?

00:38:27.000 There's not a state in the Union that allows sawed-off shotguns.

00:38:30.000 And they were offering this.

00:38:32.000 I guess that Crowder's producer, Sonaki Jared, went to the cops after this.

00:38:37.000 He basically said, guys, I gotta go to the bathroom. 0.95

00:38:39.000 And then he immediately went to the police, and the police came and arrested these people.

00:38:42.000 But it is amazing.

00:38:44.000 And it is amazing that, again, I think more journalistic outlets should be doing work like this.

00:38:50.000 One of the things that I talk about when I talk about journalism is that there's an attempt by the media to separate acts of journalism from being a journalist.

00:38:59.000 So I'll say, well, my career is I'm a journalist.

00:39:01.000 Okay, fine, fair.

00:39:02.000 But, then there's a suggestion that if you're not a journalist, and you go and do an act of journalism like Crowder is doing, Crowder, again, is a comedian, and not Gage Harris' producer, that that is not journalism because they're not quote-unquote journalists, right?

00:39:13.000 They don't have the magic journalist fairy dust, and therefore...

00:39:15.000 They don't get that credit.

00:39:16.000 Okay, you get credit for breaking a story when you break a story.

00:39:18.000 This is a story, okay?

00:39:19.000 When Antifa's offering you a knife, that's a story.

00:39:21.000 These people are not nonviolent.

00:39:23.000 They are quite violent, and they're quite willing to engage in violence.

00:39:26.000 Okay, one more thing I hate, and then we'll get to the... Should we do one more thing I hate and get to the... Okay, one more thing I hate.

00:39:31.000 Okay, so that is Jimmy Kimmel last night.

00:39:33.000 I hate to rip on Jimmy Kimmel so much lately, because I think Jimmy Kimmel's a talented guy, but Jimmy Kimmel...

00:39:39.000 He did a whole tribute to Hugh Hefner.

00:39:41.000 And yesterday, if you want to take my take on Hugh Hefner, I did 20 minutes on Hugh Hefner yesterday.

00:39:45.000 Go listen to yesterday's podcast.

00:39:46.000 The short take is everybody is treating a seedy old pornographer like he was some sort of great force in American life for good.

00:39:52.000 And here's Jimmy Kimmel saying about a guy who legitimately was worse to women than Donald Trump by about a thousand times. 0.88

00:39:59.000 I mean, his grotto was described as a sex prison by people who used to work there.

00:40:05.000 Here's Jimmy Kimmel talking about how wonderful Hugh Hefner was and he'll be disappointed after he dies and goes to heaven.

00:40:12.000 I was thinking about it last night, Hugh Hefner is probably the only person ever to be disappointed by heaven.

00:40:17.000 It's with all these harps, let's get some naked girls in here! 1.00

00:40:23.000 Okay, first of all, a couple of suggestions. 0.62

00:40:24.000 I think it's highly doubtful that the place, if there is an afterlife, that Hugh Hefner will end up is initially heaven.

00:40:31.000 But in any case, this idea that Hugh Hefner is just somebody we joke about, Hugh Hefner, he may have helped individual women who are trying to make their way in the world.

00:40:40.000 He was not good for women as a whole, and he was not good for men as a whole.

00:40:45.000 Pornification of American culture has not been a good thing for men who have become desensitized to sex and treat women as sex objects more often because they see more naked women all the time.

00:40:55.000 Airbrushed naked women in most of these cases. 1.00

00:40:58.000 And it's not been great for women who are seen as the objects by these guys.

00:41:01.000 I mean, it has not been good for the culture.

00:41:03.000 So the celebration of Hugh Hefner is quite odd.

00:41:05.000 These are the same people who when Clay Travis said First Amendment and boobs on CNN.

00:41:09.000 Oh, how dare Clay Travis! 0.99

00:41:10.000 Sexism! 0.99

00:41:11.000 Sexism! 0.99

00:41:12.000 Hugh Hefner was one bajillion times as sexist as Clay Travis.

00:41:16.000 I mean, legitimately.

00:41:18.000 Pretty incredible.

00:41:20.000 And by the way, there's an awful article over at Politico today saying that Clay Travis is somehow an alt-righter, and then they provide no evidence that he's actually an alt-writer.

00:41:26.000 I guess that he's an alt-writer because he says that kneeling for the flag is bad and that Trump is right. 1.00

00:41:31.000 I may disagree with him, but that doesn't make you alt-right.

00:41:33.000 Okay, in any case, let's get to the mailbag.

00:41:35.000 Again, if you're a subscriber, write your

00:41:38.000 Messages now and we will do some live.

00:41:40.000 Okay.

00:41:40.000 Isaac says I'm 21 I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

00:41:43.000 I have no real interest either How do I find out what I should do for my career?

00:41:46.000 Well, you're asking me if you're like a lump if you're like an amoeba, what should you do with your life?

00:41:50.000 um, so you have no real interest and You have no idea what you want to do with your life, and I'm supposed to fix that for you So normally I fix your problems. 0.79

00:41:59.000 Let me start with this one if you are bored with things It's because you're boring

00:42:03.000 If you're bored with life, it's because you haven't searched enough.

00:42:06.000 If you decide to be bored with life, you're not going to make a career or a happy life out of being bored.

00:42:09.000 So you do have to find something that you are enthusiastic about, something that you're interested in.

00:42:14.000 Listen, you're interested enough to become a subscriber to this show, which means that you're obviously interested in pop culture and politics.

00:42:19.000 So there are certain things you're interested in.

00:42:21.000 You may not be interested in becoming an electrical engineer, but there are certain aspects of life that you are interested in enough and fascinated enough to engage with.

00:42:27.000 You need to find out what those are and what aspect of that you can be good with.

00:42:32.000 And there's so much crossover in the economy.

00:42:34.000 You can be interested in politics and you don't have to sit behind a mic like me.

00:42:38.000 We have people who cut audio for us.

00:42:40.000 We have people who do animation for us.

00:42:42.000 We have people who produce the show.

00:42:43.000 We have people who...

00:42:45.000 Travel with me on the road.

00:42:46.000 There are lots of different jobs in this milieu.

00:42:51.000 So if you're interested in this kind of stuff, there are lots of different jobs that fulfill different skill sets.

00:42:55.000 What I say to everybody, find your passion, and then find the skill set that matches your passion.

00:42:59.000 And that's the best way to have a happy life.

00:43:01.000 Julia says, Dear Ben, my parents are Balei Tshuva. 1.00

00:43:03.000 This is Jews who become religious.

00:43:05.000 Balei Tshuva means owners of repentance, literally.

00:43:08.000 Most of my siblings have left religion.

00:43:10.000 I'm the only one still as religious as my parents.

00:43:12.000 I'm also 14, so I don't have much of a choice.

00:43:14.000 Why do children of ultra-religious parents abandon religion?

00:43:17.000 So I think one of the reasons is that ultra-religious parents very often don't feel that there's a real balance in the religious community.

00:43:24.000 Between cloistering your child and exposing them to ideas so that you can inoculate them against bad ideas.

00:43:29.000 Right?

00:43:30.000 You understand why people feel that there's a seduction to secular culture.

00:43:33.000 There is.

00:43:33.000 I mean, you get to do whatever you want.

00:43:35.000 Right?

00:43:35.000 All the time.

00:43:36.000 You get to do whatever you want.

00:43:37.000 Sounds great.

00:43:37.000 Except that you may not find fulfillment in that.

00:43:40.000 Sometimes acting with virtue is the place you actually find fulfillment.

00:43:43.000 But let's say that you're an 18-year-old kid.

00:43:45.000 And you've only lived in an ultra-Orthodox community.

00:43:47.000 You lived in a Haredi community, for example.

00:43:49.000 And you decide you're gonna go to college.

00:43:51.000 And suddenly, people are saying to you things like, well, have you ever considered that Sinai may not have happened?

00:43:55.000 Or have you ever considered that...

00:43:57.000 That the Bible is a book of myth?

00:43:58.000 Or have you ever considered that religion may be false altogether, and God doesn't exist, so you can do whatever you want, and hey look, there are a bunch of hot girls, let's go to a party? 0.99

00:44:05.000 Right?

00:44:05.000 These things actually affect people who are religious, and this is why I think it's very important to have open and honest conversations about the nature of faith, about the nature of your faith, about why it is that going to the party with the hot girls, it may be worth foregoing that,

00:44:20.000 In order so that you have a better life in the future.

00:44:22.000 Like, I have a very fulfilled life, thank God.

00:44:24.000 I have a very fulfilled life.

00:44:25.000 I was a virgin until I was 24, right?

00:44:27.000 I was married at 24 to my wife.

00:44:28.000 She was 20.

00:44:29.000 And I am very pleased with that decision.

00:44:31.000 She was a virgin as well. 0.56

00:44:33.000 I do not have a single shred of regret that I didn't go to college parties and drink myself senseless and have sex with random people.

00:44:39.000 I have no regret about that.

00:44:41.000 I don't have regret about that because I think that I've chosen a better way of life.

00:44:44.000 And I think that you have to feel that you are defending a higher truth in order for you to feel

00:44:49.000 As though you're doing something valuable and not be seduced by outside forces.

00:44:52.000 So, people tend to react to the outside forces by cloistering themselves.

00:44:55.000 That only makes them more vulnerable.

00:44:57.000 It's sort of like the polio virus in the 1930s.

00:44:59.000 Well, one of the funny things about the polio virus is that it tended to affect, uh, it tended to inflict more damage on people who are very wealthy than people who are very poor.

00:45:07.000 And people are wondering, why is that?

00:45:08.000 Well, the answer is that a lot of poor people were playing outside in the mud and exposing themselves to germs.

00:45:12.000 They had stronger immune systems.

00:45:13.000 And a lot of the rich kids weren't.

00:45:15.000 If you keep a kid, a baby, in a bubble, and they never have to deal with antigens, then there's never going to be a situation in which their immune system has developed enough for them to actually fight those things off.

00:45:26.000 You have to expose your kids to enough ideas that are foreign to your culture, and then defend your culture against those that your kids have heard of before, and it's nothing new and seductive.

00:45:34.000 By the way, I feel this way about when you talk to your kids about sex.

00:45:37.000 I think that half of the things that go wrong with regard to kids and sex is that we say to kids, you can't talk about that.

00:45:44.000 It's secret.

00:45:45.000 It's mysterious.

00:45:46.000 When you take the mystery out of sex, then you're actually injecting the love back into sex.

00:45:50.000 Meaning that sex is not anything mysterious.

00:45:52.000 It's a biological function.

00:45:54.000 It's certain parts going in certain places.

00:45:55.000 When you remove the mystery from sex, what you end up doing is suggesting that in order for it to be more than that, there needs to be some sort of feeling attached to the sex.

00:46:03.000 I think the mistake a lot of religious parents make is they say, ooh, we can't talk about that.

00:46:07.000 We can't talk about that right there. 0.96

00:46:08.000 Yeah, that's dirty.

00:46:09.000 That's dirty talk.

00:46:10.000 We can't talk about it.

00:46:11.000 And then kids go, ooh, it's dirty.

00:46:12.000 Sounds great.

00:46:13.000 Right?

00:46:14.000 So I think it's a big mistake not to be open and honest with your kids about this kind of stuff.

00:46:18.000 Mitch says, what is your favorite musical period, classical, romantic, et cetera, and why?

00:46:22.000 Well, I think probably the border between classical and romantic.

00:46:25.000 So for people who don't know classical music that well, classical music was

00:46:30.000 Basically, there's the Baroque period, which is sort of Bach, and then there's the Classical period, which is considered Mozart and Beethoven.

00:46:37.000 Beethoven really sort of spans the divide between Classical and Romantic, and by the time it gets to Tchaikovsky and Brahms, you're in the Romantic period.

00:46:43.000 So, Beethoven is the best composer who ever lived, although there is a strong argument for Bach.

00:46:48.000 The most listenable music, in terms of just, you turn on the radio and it's easy listening, is Baroque slash classical music, like Bach.

00:46:57.000 If I had to pick one composer to take to a desert island, it would be Bach.

00:47:01.000 Benjamin says, Hey Ben, I've been reading up on Israel and I'm becoming frustrated with the fact that Israel's public perception has shifted so negatively when it's blatantly obvious that they are not the hostile actors in the region.

00:47:09.000 When did this shift in public opinion occur?

00:47:11.000 Who are the main proponents of it?

00:47:12.000 So the major shift in public opinion did not occur in the last 10 years.

00:47:15.000 It occurred in 1967.

00:47:17.000 Before that, Israel was considered a small nation fighting for its survival in a community

00:47:23.000 I think?

00:47:53.000 We're good to go.

00:48:12.000 I don't know.

00:48:29.000 Well, I mean, I think that you should honestly have an open conversation with your lesbian relative.

00:48:34.000 I think that that's perfectly fair.

00:48:35.000 I think it's perfectly fair.

00:48:37.000 Confusing small children about heterosexuality versus homosexuality seems to me a really bad move.

00:48:44.000 Because if you're trying to inculcate a set of values, and you say that it is better for

00:48:49.000 For your child to be straight than gay, which is a perfectly respectable non-homophobic position.

00:48:53.000 Just talking about what will lead to your perception of human happiness, that's not irrational in any way.

00:48:59.000 If you say to this lesbian family member, listen, you're welcome to come over, you're welcome to say that this is your partner, this is a person who you live with, but we don't like using the word wife because I don't want to explain to my child

00:49:15.000 Because I don't believe in same-sex marriage. 1.00

00:49:16.000 The state may, but I don't.

00:49:18.000 And I don't want my child to believe in that either, and that's my right as a parent.

00:49:21.000 You can either respect my rights as a parent, or we can meet privately off away from the kids.

00:49:26.000 This is a matter of parental rights.

00:49:29.000 You don't have a right to teach my kid anything.

00:49:30.000 I have a right to teach my kid what I want.

00:49:32.000 It's my kid.

00:49:33.000 It's kind of weird for me.

00:49:34.000 When I wrestle with doubts, the doubts that I tend to wrestle with are doubts about

00:49:50.000 How much of faith can be based on rationality and how much of faith has to be based on faith?

00:49:53.000 So there's never been a time where I've really thought...

00:49:58.000 Where I've really thought that God didn't exist.

00:50:01.000 I've wondered whether there's a rational basis for God's existence, and that's where I'm really doubtful.

00:50:05.000 I also have never responded to tragedy that has occurred in my family by doubting God's existence.

00:50:11.000 That's just, it's, a lot of people do.

00:50:13.000 A lot of people see terrible, terrible things and they doubt God's existence.

00:50:16.000 I've never really had a problem with the theodicy part of the issue, the issue that why, if God exists, why does evil exist?

00:50:21.000 It seems to me that God created a system where free will has to exist, which means that he has to shield himself because

00:50:26.000 If everything God did were immediately visible in terms of acts and consequences, free will would go by the wayside.

00:50:32.000 That said, you know, I think that that's why I'm constantly reading about religion.

00:50:35.000 A little bit later today, actually, I'm going to do a Facebook Live with a professor named Edward Fazer, and I welcome you to go over to our Facebook page and watch.

00:50:42.000 He wrote a book called Five Proofs of God's Existence.

00:50:44.000 And I want to talk to him about those proofs and what they mean and how much of faith can actually be based on reason and how much you have to actually take a leap of faith.

00:50:51.000 I would also say that one of the things that brings me a little bit of comfort here, maybe it's foolish, but I think that it's true anyway, is that every system of thought has leaps of faith attached to it.

00:51:02.000 Sam Harris has as many leaps of faith in his system of thought as I do.

00:51:05.000 And what'll be fun is I'm doing an event with Sam Harris in December in San Francisco.

00:51:09.000 We're going to sell it.

00:51:11.000 2,500 seats, and we're gonna talk about all these things.

00:51:13.000 Free will, religion, it should be a blast.

00:51:15.000 I look forward to it.

00:51:15.000 Sam's a good guy.

00:51:16.000 Madison says, Hi Ben.

00:51:17.000 Thanks for citing my canvas when I met you in June.

00:51:19.000 What's your position on physician-assisted suicide?

00:51:21.000 Should it be legal?

00:51:22.000 Is it moral?

00:51:22.000 What is the best argument against it?

00:51:24.000 So it seems to me that the best argument against physician-assisted suicide is that it's physician-assisted.

00:51:29.000 So I think there's an interesting moral argument with regard to assisted suicide in general.

00:51:35.000 Like, the truth is that when we have palliative care, it's not assisted suicide formally because we're not injecting enough morphine to kill you, but we're basically making you comfortable until you die.

00:51:44.000 Putting physician-assisted suicide on the table means that you have to start drawing lines now.

00:51:48.000 Even people who are in favor of physician-assisted suicide usually want to require

00:51:52.000 That the person who is receiving the physician-assisted suicide should have to go through some sort of background check.

00:51:57.000 That if you're an 11-year-old who's having thoughts of suicide, but you're perfectly healthy in every way, that we shouldn't allow you to do that.

00:52:03.000 Well, now you're putting your standards on the person who wants to commit the suicide, which denies the fundamental argument you're making about autonomy.

00:52:10.000 So, that's sort of interesting.

00:52:13.000 I don't think doctors should be in the business of death.

00:52:15.000 I don't think doctors should be competing to see who can deliver death at the cheapest price in a free market.

00:52:19.000 And doctors should be there to heal.

00:52:21.000 Your suicide, also, you should be taking culpability for your own suicide.

00:52:24.000 It shouldn't be on a doctor to have to take culpability for killing you. 0.89

00:52:26.000 Um, all right.

00:52:28.000 Uh, Joseph says,

00:52:56.000 On those particular verses, by the way, the Talmud says that no child has ever been, uh, has never been held accountable for what they call ben-sorah or morah, which is the rebellious child who is stoned.

00:53:06.000 Also, all of the death penalty offenses in the Bible require, according to Jewish law anyway, two eyewitnesses who not only witness the event, but warn the person beforehand. 0.54

00:53:15.000 Right?

00:53:16.000 They actually warn the person.

00:53:17.000 They say, do not kill that man. 1.00

00:53:18.000 And the guy says, screw you, I'm gonna kill him! 1.00

00:53:21.000 And then they both see the guy and then they go and testify. 0.99

00:53:23.000 So this is why it also says in the Talmud that a beit din, a Sanhedrin, that issued a death penalty once every 70 years was considered a murderous beit din. 0.60

00:53:33.000 So all of the talk about, you know, all the death penalty stuff in the Bible was really not applied.

00:53:38.000 It was an attempt to express

00:53:41.000 That rebellion against God in participation in sin is worthy of death.

00:53:45.000 That's really what it's about.

00:53:46.000 I think at some point he's just going to turn to infrastructure.

00:53:48.000 He's going to grab about 20 Republicans and 40 Democrats and try to ram through a giant infrastructure package.

00:54:01.000 It's quite possible, though, that the political landscape is so polarized at this point that the Democrats just say, we're not going to help you with anything.

00:54:08.000 And then nothing passes.

00:54:09.000 I mean, that's an amazing statement to make about a president, that nothing passes.

00:54:14.000 But we're now through year one, and that's where the president's political capital is highest, and nothing's passing.

00:54:19.000 Antonia says, Ben, do you think the number of sexual partner one has before marriage is important?

00:54:25.000 Does having more partners lower the chances of you having a successful marriage?

00:54:28.000 Well, the data tend to show that the more promiscuous you are before marriage,

00:54:30.000 We're good to go.

00:54:47.000 I have real serious problems with this.

00:54:50.000 I don't want to get too graphic here, but let me just suggest that I think that there is a solid correlation, unless you have like a serious sexual dysfunction, which is something that you probably would know beforehand, or if you don't know beforehand, there are treatments for, then the idea that you are sexually incompatible generally means that you're personally incompatible as well.

00:55:08.000 These are all issues that should be discussed up front, but 0.98

00:55:12.000 This making sex super complicated, like you have to try it out because you're comparing cars, it seems like idiocy to me. 0.99

00:55:19.000 First of all, if you and the person that you're having sex with have had no basis for comparison, then it's the best sex you've both ever had. 0.99

00:55:26.000 So there is that convenient little fact.

00:55:30.000 If the only beer you've ever had is Bud Light, it's the greatest beer you've ever had.

00:55:33.000 So you don't really have to worry about it.

00:55:34.000 But also I think sexual compatibility is really more just about being willing to give, just being a giving person.

00:55:39.000 And if you're a giving person, then sexual compatibility is actually pretty easy.

00:55:43.000 Seth says...

00:55:44.000 What is the appropriate legal route to take for an individual that believes there is racism taking place within a work environment?

00:55:49.000 Would this process be costly?

00:55:50.000 Well, usually there's state or federal laws, anti-discrimination laws.

00:55:54.000 You can file a lawsuit if they violate those discrimination laws.

00:55:58.000 One of the questions that I have is whether those laws should be on the books in the first place.

00:56:01.000 Not because I'm pro-discrimination, I hate discrimination, but because in a free market, I think that discrimination should be punished by other businesses destroying the discriminatory business in open competition.

00:56:12.000 But the appropriate legal route to take, just as a lawyer, is you'd have to actually go look at the applicable state or federal law and see if it's technically been violated.

00:56:19.000 Vincent says, for a guy in the workplace, how many buttons can be undone on a collared button-up shirt?

00:56:23.000 At a social scene, a bar barbecue family event, how many buttons can be undone?

00:56:27.000 Thank you.

00:56:28.000 So my answer is exactly the same in either case.

00:56:30.000 You see the number of buttons that I currently have undone.

00:56:32.000 The answer is one.

00:56:33.000 Do not be Michael Knowles.

00:56:35.000 Don't do it.

00:56:36.000 Okay, this is nonsense, where you unbutton your shirt down to your navel, and you're like, look at me!

00:56:41.000 Okay, no one wants to see that.

00:56:43.000 No one wants to see that.

00:56:44.000 If they wanted to see that, they'd be married to you. 1.00

00:56:45.000 Okay, the idea that you should be walking around with your shirt undone and that it's a comfortable social scene?

00:56:51.000 Dress like a mensch. 0.93

00:56:52.000 And if you don't want to wear a buttoned-down shirt, then put on a t-shirt!

00:56:56.000 Okay, like, I don't understand why modesty has gone by the wayside for everybody.

00:56:59.000 Like, no one wants to see that.

00:57:01.000 Like, if they want to see it, then they should be willing to put a ring on it, as the great prophetess Beyonce once said.

00:57:06.000 Okay, so...

00:57:08.000 So we'll be back here next week on Monday.

00:57:11.000 So next week, I'm warning you now so that you have fair warning, we are doing shows Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

00:57:16.000 Then I'm gone for a week and a half, a week and a half, because I'm finally taking my long-awaited vacation.

00:57:23.000 It's a Jewish holiday, so I'd be missing some of those days anyway, so I'm taking the vacation during the Jewish holiday. 0.96

00:57:28.000 I'm really technically missing only like a couple of days that I'd be able to broadcast anyway.

00:57:32.000 But that means that next week, you're going to have to listen up and listen good.

00:57:36.000 Because if you're going to fix things while I'm gone, then you're going to need to listen to my words of advice very clearly.

00:57:42.000 And you need to put your ear very close to your phone.

00:57:45.000 And you're going to need to assume that everything that I say is correct.

00:57:47.000 Because for a week and a half, I will not be here to guide you.

00:57:49.000 When I come back down from the top of the mountain, I will bring you a set of commandments.

00:57:54.000 Okay, now I'm getting a little bit over my skis.

00:57:56.000 Alright, well we'll be back here on Monday.

00:57:57.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:57:58.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 29, 2017

Trump Wins Big On The NFL | Ep. 392

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