The Ben Shapiro Show - Trump’s Big Tax Day | Ep. 440

00:00:00.000 Republicans are set to pass the enormous tax cut bill, President Trump delivers a new national security strategy, and a major backlash to Me Too begins, brought on by some very weird columns.

00:00:10.000 I'll tell you all about them.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:11.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:18.000 Alrighty, so a lot to get to today.

00:00:19.000 Of course, the Republicans are set to vote in the House and the Senate today on the revised tax bill.

00:00:24.000 The tax bill would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% all the way down to 21%.

00:00:28.000 All the rest of it is important, but not nearly as important as that central premise.

00:00:33.000 There will be reductions in the individual tax rates, but the heart of this tax bill is the reduction of the corporate tax rate.

00:00:38.000 I'll tell you all about it and why the media are beside themselves over it.

00:00:43.000 And does this mean a reevaluation of President Trump's presidency in the first year so far?

00:00:47.000 We'll talk about all of that, but first I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the USCCA.

00:00:51.000 So, gun lovers, listen up.

00:00:54.000 How would you like to head to the range tomorrow with a brand new gun?

00:00:56.000 I would, well, I know that my friends at the USCCA would like you to do so as well.

00:01:00.000 They want to make sure that responsible, gun-owning Americans are able to get their hands on better firearms, and so they are ending 2017 by giving you up to 17 chances to win your new gun

00:01:10.000 Daily.

00:01:10.000 That's right, a different gun every single day of the week.

00:01:12.000 It could be a Kimber, it could be a Glock, it could be a Springfield.

00:01:15.000 All you have to do is go to DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.

00:01:18.000 That's DefendMyFamilyNow3.com to reveal which gun you could be taking home tomorrow.

00:01:24.000 Remember, there's not a lot of time to register.

00:01:25.000 The gun of the day will always disappear at midnight.

00:01:27.000 And this will be the last time I am telling you the website.

00:01:29.000 So again, it is DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.

00:01:33.000 DefendMyFamilyNow3.com to reveal today's gun from the USCCA

00:01:38.000 I don't

00:01:56.000 Oh yes!

00:01:57.000 Today, it now seems that the Republican tax cut is going to sort through conference.

00:01:59.000 It is not a popular tax cut.

00:02:15.000 That is not particularly surprising.

00:02:16.000 The media have been all over this tax cut from beginning to end.

00:02:19.000 50% of the American population thinks that their taxes are going to increase because of this bill.

00:02:23.000 That's patently insane.

00:02:25.000 80% of individual taxpayers will see a tax decrease because of this bill.

00:02:28.000 I'm actually in the other 20%.

00:02:30.000 I would vote for the bill anyway.

00:02:32.000 The reason I'm in the other 20% is I am a high-income earner in a blue state with high state income taxes.

00:02:37.000 But the vast majority of Americans are going to see a significant tax decrease.

00:02:41.000 The average American will see a tax decrease of, or the average tax decrease will be something like $2,000, which is not insignificant. 0.76

00:02:48.000 And in terms of corporate tax rate,

00:02:50.000 Every country that has ever dramatically lowered its corporate tax rate that I am aware of has seen significant fiscal boost immediately afterward.

00:02:56.000 This was true in Spain.

00:02:57.000 It was true in Denmark. 0.96

00:02:58.000 It's been true throughout Europe. 0.83

00:02:59.000 It's been true in Germany. 0.99

00:03:01.000 In the United States, we have the highest corporate tax rate of any industrialized country.

00:03:05.000 We have lower individual tax rates, but higher corporate tax rates. 0.99

00:03:08.000 That's quite foolish.

00:03:08.000 We should be lowering the corporate tax rate.

00:03:10.000 That's what this bill does.

00:03:11.000 I'm sort of astonished that so many Republicans

00:03:14.000 have failed to make the case for lowering the corporate tax rate on a regular basis.

00:03:18.000 They've been focused solely on the idea that individuals have to have their tax rates reduced.

00:03:23.000 Maybe it's because Republicans don't have the brains or the moral wherewithal to explain that corporations are really just ways that we organize with each other legally so that we can do business in more efficient fashion.

00:03:33.000 If you lower the tax rate on those organizations, you're essentially lowering the tax rate on individuals.

00:03:39.000 I wish that we had the brains to explain that.

00:03:40.000 Apparently we don't, so it's more unpopular than it is popular.

00:03:43.000 But people seeing more money in their pocket always ends up being popular.

00:03:47.000 If you look back at the Reagan tax bill of 1981, that was not particularly popular at the time.

00:03:51.000 It became very popular shortly thereafter when people realized they were getting more of their own money back.

00:03:56.000 So even kind of wavering Republicans are now on board.

00:03:59.000 Senator Tom Cotton had planted in this bill a repeal of the individual mandate under Obamacare.

00:04:04.000 That's a good thing and it's a bad thing.

00:04:05.000 It's a very good thing because it is the least popular provision of Obamacare, so it's a political win for President Trump and for the Republicans to get rid of the individual mandate.

00:04:13.000 Remember, the individual mandate under Obamacare is what forces you to buy health insurance.

00:04:17.000 The bad news is, that's going to increase prices in the individual market.

00:04:20.000 Because it was the mandate that was forcing people like me to pay in the individual market, young people to pay in the individual market, that was keeping the prices down for older, sick people in the individual market.

00:04:29.000 Those are now set to rise pretty dramatically.

00:04:32.000 Congress is going to have to come in and fill the gap, which apparently they're doing through the Alexander, I believe it's the Alexander Murray Bill, in the United States Senate.

00:04:39.000 So, weirdly enough,

00:04:41.000 The Republicans, in an attempt to cut government, are shockingly growing government.

00:04:45.000 But, as an achievement for President Trump, it's pretty great.

00:04:48.000 He's going to get to claim that he repealed Obamacare, or at least the individual mandate.

00:04:51.000 He's going to get to claim that he decreased taxes.

00:04:54.000 And Republicans are betting that the effects of this bill will be positive enough that it will impact them positively in 2018.

00:05:00.000 And let's see the flip side.

00:05:01.000 You know, the flip side is they don't pass anything this year.

00:05:03.000 And this year is basically a total dud as far as legislation, despite Republican control of the Senate, the House, and the White House.

00:05:08.000 That would be completely unacceptable.

00:05:10.000 So, even wavering Republicans are on board.

00:05:12.000 Susan Collins, no conservative.

00:05:15.000 Halcyon.

00:05:15.000 She says that she supports the conference agreement that's about to go through.

00:05:19.000 I rise to express my support for the conference agreement on the Tax Cuts and Job Act, the first major overhaul of our tax code since 1986.

00:05:35.000 This legislation will provide tax relief to working families, encourage the creation of jobs right here in America, and spur economic growth that will benefit all Americans.

00:05:52.000 Okay, so, you know, even when Susan Collins is on board, that means that you have a broad consensus of Republicans who are on board.

00:05:58.000 This is a good thing, obviously, and it's very good for President Trump.

00:06:02.000 There's a reason the Democrats were trying desperately to stop it.

00:06:04.000 They might have been smarter to actually embrace parts of this tax plan.

00:06:07.000 Instead, they're not going to do so.

00:06:08.000 Bernie Sanders, the socialist, he says that they did everything they could to stop the tax bill.

00:06:13.000 This looks like it's going to get passed through the Senate and the House and signed by the President, this tax cut bill.

00:06:18.000 Is there anything more that opponents like you could have done to stop this?

00:06:22.000 Well, I think we did everything that we could.

00:06:27.000 But at the end of the day, what you had is people like Mr. Mnuchin, who himself is worth three or four hundred million dollars, the President of the United States, who is worth several billion dollars, as you mentioned, some four or five thousand lobbyists doing everything that they could to write a bill which significantly benefits the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations.

00:06:50.000 Okay, this is one of my chief irritations about how Democrats play this.

00:06:53.000 I wish that Republicans would just say the truth.

00:06:55.000 The reason that you are seeing disproportionate shares of the tax cut go to people at the upper end of the income bracket is because those people are paying a disproportionate share of the taxes.

00:07:03.000 Okay, the reason that rich people are going to get more of a tax break is because they are paying more of the taxes.

00:07:09.000 Okay, in terms of net taxes, the amount of tax dollars that rich people are getting in the country, 95% of all federal spending on net is paid for by the top income bracket, the top 20% quintile of the American population.

00:07:22.000 The top 1% are paying something like 50% of all federal income taxes in the nation.

00:07:26.000 Of course, they're going to see a disproportionate share of the tax cut.

00:07:28.000 You can't give a tax cut to people who aren't paying taxes.

00:07:31.000 It's astonishing to me that the Republicans refuse to say this.

00:07:33.000 It's astonishing to me that Republicans refuse to make the case for a corporate tax cut.

00:07:37.000 And there is a very strong case for a corporate tax cut.

00:07:40.000 But, regardless, the policy is going to pass and we're going to see how it plays out in the Senate.

00:07:44.000 And this is leading to some recasting of the Trump administration's entire first year.

00:07:48.000 A lot of people who have been highly skeptical of Trump are now going back and revising their opinion of how his first year went.

00:07:55.000 Now, do I think that it's been a golden first year?

00:07:57.000 I don't think it's been a golden first year.

00:07:59.000 Do I think that President Trump has governed a lot more conservative than we had any right to expect as conservatives from his campaign?

00:08:04.000 There, the answer is yes.

00:08:05.000 I think that a lot of people hoped he would govern as conservative as he's governed, but he has governed extremely conservative.

00:08:11.000 This has been the most conservative first year of an administration, certainly since Ronald Reagan.

00:08:16.000 It's probably more conservative than George W. Bush's first year, when George W. Bush, if I recall correctly, was already pushing campaign finance reform at this point.

00:08:24.000 That doesn't mean a lot has gotten done.

00:08:26.000 There's been a lot of incompetence.

00:08:27.000 There's been a lot of botchery.

00:08:29.000 Trump's approval rating is at 35%.

00:08:31.000 That is by far the lowest approval rating for any president at this point in American history.

00:08:36.000 At this point, even Ronald Reagan, who was unpopular during his first year, had a 49% approval rating.

00:08:39.000 But...

00:08:41.000 There's no question that Trump has governed a lot more conservative than I thought he was going to, right?

00:08:45.000 I was wrong about Trump on Gorsuch, and I thought that, based on the evidence, there was not a lot of evidence that he was going to govern this conservative once he got into office.

00:08:51.000 And if you recall, the early indicators are that he was not going to do that, right?

00:08:54.000 Steve Bannon was pushing the idea of an infrastructure bill first thing out of the gate, and then people were talking about an isolationist foreign policy.

00:09:01.000 None of that has happened.

00:09:03.000 We're good to go.

00:09:18.000 It is a day of good Trump, bad Trump, right?

00:09:22.000 I mean, we end the first year, and we're getting close to the end of the year here, and it has been a very good Trump, bad Trump year.

00:09:27.000 It's a construct that I created last year during the election cycle, saying that the problem with Trump is that when he's good, he's really good, and when he's bad, he's really bad.

00:09:35.000 It's been a very good Trump, bad Trump kind of year.

00:09:36.000 So in honor of that, I think that we, so in honor of that, we're going to do a little bit of good Trump, bad Trump.

00:09:42.000 Coming up in just a few minutes here because there's a lot going on right between the tax cuts and his national security announcements There's a lot happening here.

00:09:49.000 But first I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Skillshare So are you interested in making your resume better if you're interested in earning more if you're interested in having a longer lasting career if you're interested in

00:10:01.000 I think so.

00:10:23.000 Or start the side hustle of your dreams.

00:10:25.000 You have an obligation to yourself and your family to continue increasing your skills.

00:10:28.000 We don't live 40 years ago when you could just have the same skill set for 40 years and maintain your job.

00:10:33.000 That's not the way it works anymore.

00:10:34.000 Your skill set has to be getting better all the time.

00:10:36.000 And that is what Skillshare is for.

00:10:37.000 It's why people at my company are taking Skillshare classes on a regular basis.

00:10:41.000 Skillshare right now is giving my listeners a one month free trial of unlimited access to over 17,000 classes.

00:10:47.000 Go to www.skillshare.com slash Shapiro.

00:10:50.000 That's skillshare.com slash Shapiro.

00:10:52.000 I don't know.

00:11:15.000 Okay, so, President Trump tweets out today that he is very happy about the tax bill.

00:11:23.000 Here is what he tweeted.

00:11:24.000 So he tweeted, quote,

00:11:39.000 You know, you gotta love the guy with the beautiful jobs, all caps.

00:11:43.000 This is the thing about Trump, and this is what's so puzzling to me about his presidency, is that President Trump's policies, as I say, have been largely conservative.

00:11:51.000 And when I say largely, I mean almost entirely very conservative.

00:11:53.000 And yet, hey, he's really unpopular.

00:11:56.000 And he is the president who, of all presidents, should best understand marketing, right?

00:12:00.000 I mean, this guy is the marketing guru.

00:12:01.000 He's the marketing guru of all time.

00:12:03.000 He transformed what is, by any measure, a dicey real estate empire into television fame and fortune, and then that into the presidency.

00:12:11.000 And yet, he doesn't seem to know how to wed positive rhetoric and useful rhetoric to an agenda that has been very positive for Americans thus far.

00:12:19.000 I mean, I was looking at a list of his accomplishments today, and the list is sizable.

00:12:23.000 I mean, if you look at what they've done in the White House,

00:12:25.000 It's not nothing.

00:12:26.000 It's not everything.

00:12:27.000 It's not like they've done tons of stuff through Congress.

00:12:28.000 They haven't.

00:12:29.000 This has not been as productive a first year as, for example, Barack Obama's first year.

00:12:32.000 But if you look at all the things that Trump has actually done, he's done some pretty good things.

00:12:37.000 I mean, I made a list of these things this morning.

00:12:39.000 And I've been trying.

00:12:40.000 I mean, I know that folks who listen to the show know.

00:12:42.000 I've tried to be as fair to Trump as humanly possible.

00:12:44.000 So here's just some of the stuff that Trump has done in year one.

00:12:47.000 So Justice Gorsuch, obviously, big win for President Trump.

00:12:50.000 The defeat of ISIS, we've talked about on the program.

00:12:52.000 The media basically ignored it.

00:12:54.000 ISIS grew under President Obama, who called it the JV Squad.

00:12:56.000 ISIS has now reverted to being basically a nothing.

00:12:59.000 ISIS has basically been cut all the way down to size.

00:13:02.000 In territorial terms, they have been reduced to virtually nothing.

00:13:05.000 And he's done all of that without having to oust Bashar Assad.

00:13:08.000 Maybe he should oust Bashar Assad, but that's a different issue, as many of us have been saying for a long time.

00:13:13.000 The stock market under President Trump has soared 5,000 points this year.

00:13:17.000 I don't think that's always a great measure of a president.

00:13:19.000 It soared under Barack Obama, too.

00:13:20.000 But he does get credit.

00:13:22.000 He's the one in the White House.

00:13:23.000 There's been excellent growth, and the unemployment statistics are very strong under President Trump.

00:13:27.000 I think that's largely due to the market understanding and knowing that Trump is not a threat to their business, that Trump is not somebody who's trying to threaten their business.

00:13:34.000 He has cut regulations at a 22 to 1 ratio.

00:13:37.000 For every new regulation added, 22 have been cut.

00:13:40.000 Curbing the Iran deal, President Trump declared that Iran had been decertified under the deal, which paves the way for new sanctions.

00:13:47.000 He should be pushing for further sanctions, but he's also been pushing for an anti-Iran alliance that has been extraordinarily powerful and has reshaped the region.

00:13:55.000 A lot of that is the unintended result of President Obama's attempts to make Iran a regional power.

00:14:00.000 But Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, they're now in a de facto alliance.

00:14:04.000 He announced Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

00:14:06.000 Obviously, he's started to open public land.

00:14:09.000 The federal government has seized vast swaths of the West.

00:14:11.000 Nearly all of Nevada is federal territory.

00:14:14.000 A lot of that land ought to be returned to the people for their use. 1.00

00:14:16.000 President Trump is moving along those lines.

00:14:18.000 He passed new sanctions against North Korea.

00:14:20.000 Now, listen, he hasn't solved the North Korean problem, but frankly, who could? 0.95

00:14:23.000 I don't see a real solution there, and unless he knows something I don't, the best he's going to be able to do is pass those new sanctions, which he did.

00:14:31.000 They're going to repeal the individual mandate, as I discussed.

00:14:33.000 Tax reform, as I discussed.

00:14:34.000 A record number of appellate court appointments.

00:14:36.000 He's nominated and approved 12 appellate court judges, which is more than any other president in history in his first year.

00:14:41.000 He pulled out from the Paris Accords.

00:14:43.000 The travel ban was finally approved by the courts.

00:14:45.000 It was botched originally in pretty bad fashion, but it's now been approved by the Supreme Court.

00:14:49.000 He's unshackled the military.

00:14:51.000 He's changed the rules of engagement.

00:14:52.000 He stopped ripping on the police, which is something that President Obama was very fond of, was ripping on the police at every available opportunity.

00:14:57.000 He's done a lot of very good things, right?

00:14:59.000 And this is the problem for President Trump.

00:15:02.000 In the good Trump, bad Trump construct, there's so much good.

00:15:04.000 There really is.

00:15:05.000 There's a lot of good.

00:15:06.000 The question is, why can't it all be good?

00:15:08.000 Why does there have to be bad Trump? 1.00

00:15:09.000 Because when you look at the bad Trump list, most of the bad Trump list is about things that he's failed to do, picks that he's made in his administration, and stupid stuff that he said. 0.99

00:15:19.000 Well, maybe if he didn't say stupid stuff and pick bad people for his administration, he would be able to get more good stuff done. 0.99

00:15:25.000 A disciplined President Trump is the best President Trump, okay? 0.99

00:15:27.000 President Trump has been more disciplined over the last three weeks.

00:15:29.000 He has.

00:15:30.000 Look at his Twitter feed.

00:15:31.000 It's been a lot less rabid than usual.

00:15:33.000 We haven't gotten a lot of the random fights with LeVar Ball.

00:15:36.000 We haven't gotten as much of the, I'm ripping on the NFL now.

00:15:40.000 If you look at Trump's failures, they've largely been driven by his mouth.

00:15:43.000 And if you look at Trump's successes, they've largely been driven by his administration.

00:15:47.000 And if he would just let his administration do their job, I've been saying this literally since the beginning of his administration, he's picked some very good people to do their job.

00:15:54.000 If he would just shut up and let them do their job, everything would be much better.

00:15:57.000 So, you know, let's play the Good Trump, Bad Trump song, because this is an ultimate Good Trump, Bad Trump episode.

00:16:01.000 Do we have that?

00:16:03.000 Good Trump, Bad Trump, which one will we get today?

00:16:10.000 So, as you know, I just named a bunch of good Trump, right?

00:16:13.000 And Trump is pumped about the tax bill.

00:16:14.000 All of that is very good.

00:16:15.000 All of the things that Trump is a problem about are things that do make a difference as president.

00:16:19.000 Now, I know the tendency for conservatives is to just say, OK, you know, the president says what the president says, and who cares?

00:16:26.000 Just ignore it and be grateful for what you got.

00:16:29.000 But the problem is that if you look back at the Obama administration, I was there.

00:16:33.000 The most damaging things that President Obama did were not on policy.

00:16:35.000 They were tearing Americans apart from one another. 0.98

00:16:37.000 They were destroying American unity through the use of his rhetoric, through the promulgation of his worldview.

00:16:43.000 That's the stuff that presidents are really remembered for.

00:16:46.000 You remember a president for maybe two legislative accomplishments, maybe.

00:16:49.000 What do you remember Ronald Reagan for?

00:16:50.000 You remember Ronald Reagan for tax cuts, basically, and taking down the Soviet Union.

00:16:54.000 That's it, right?

00:16:55.000 That's all that we remember about Ronald Reagan.

00:16:56.000 Bill Clinton, what do you remember him for?

00:16:58.000 You really remember him for the tax increases, and then the tax decreases, and then the impeachment, right?

00:17:02.000 That's pretty much what you remember Bill Clinton for.

00:17:04.000 And maybe his crime bill.

00:17:06.000 You remember George W. Bush for his tax cuts and the war in Iraq, right?

00:17:10.000 Those are basically the things that you remember George W. Bush for.

00:17:13.000 But what you remember about each of these presidents is how they changed the American culture in deep and abiding ways.

00:17:19.000 That's how you remember the presidents.

00:17:20.000 What you really remember about Clinton is not his legislative accomplishments.

00:17:24.000 What you remember about Bill Clinton is that he was somebody who totally disconnected honor from the office of the presidency.

00:17:29.000 What you remember about Ronald Reagan was the mourning in American optimism of the Reagan administration.

00:17:34.000 What you remember about Nixon was Watergate and the idea that the presidency was corrupt.

00:17:38.000 What you remember about Jimmy Carter was generalized feelings of incompetence in the presidency which led to the rise of Reagan. 0.63

00:17:43.000 What you remember about George W. Bush was the notion of an honorable guy who didn't know how to defend himself if you're a Republican and a liar and a cheat if you're a Democrat.

00:17:51.000 If you remember Barack Obama, what you see as a Democrat is a guy who finally made America come to terms with racial conflagration. 0.67

00:17:57.000 And if you're on the right, what you see about Barack Obama is a man who deliberately used race as a polarizing issue in America, tearing American from American, fighting class and race war, and making intersectionality a chief plague in the Democratic platform.

00:18:10.000 Right?

00:18:10.000 That's what we remember.

00:18:11.000 So when we say about Trump, look at all the great things he's doing, ignore his rhetoric.

00:18:15.000 You can't ignore what the president says.

00:18:17.000 What the president says has a major impact.

00:18:19.000 So we've talked about all the good Trump.

00:18:21.000 Now for a little bit of bad Trump, okay?

00:18:22.000 So here's a perfect example.

00:18:24.000 Yesterday, there's an Amtrak derailment, right?

00:18:27.000 And this terrible, terrible story over in Tacoma, Washington.

00:18:30.000 Over the I-5, there's a bridge.

00:18:32.000 The Amtrak derails right over the bridge and fell over.

00:18:35.000 Six people at least have been killed.

00:18:37.000 Seventy-seven people were wounded, apparently.

00:18:40.000 And

00:18:40.000 It was a brand new track, right?

00:18:43.000 The track was brand new.

00:18:43.000 This was like its first run.

00:18:45.000 And apparently there was an object on the track and that's what derailed the trade.

00:18:48.000 Now the real solution here, by the way, is to defund Amtrak, right?

00:18:51.000 Amtrak is not a profitable thing.

00:18:54.000 It's a waste of money.

00:18:56.000 Let me begin by expressing our deepest sympathies and most heartfelt prayers for the victims of the train derailment in Washington state.

00:19:21.000 We are closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with local authorities.

00:19:27.000 It is all the more reason why we must start immediately fixing the infrastructure of the United States.

00:19:35.000 Right, that's bad, Trump, because the idea that he has to jump immediately to policy poisons the well.

00:19:39.000 This is a time when Americans should be responding to the tragedy, not calling for infrastructure fixes.

00:19:45.000 And it turns out we don't need an infrastructure fix.

00:19:46.000 We literally just built that rail five seconds ago.

00:19:49.000 And this has been the pattern for Trump, right?

00:19:51.000 For every Justice Gorsuch, there's a Charlottesville.

00:19:53.000 For every tax bill, there is a Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon, right?

00:19:58.000 This is the problem for Trump.

00:19:59.000 The generalized impression of Trump over the first year is what's damaging Republicans, not his policies.

00:20:04.000 Now, what Democrats are going to try and do is conflate his policies with this generalized impression of failure.

00:20:09.000 They're going to say that he's unpopular because of the tax cuts or because of Justice Gorsuch or because he's cutting regulations.

00:20:14.000 That is not true.

00:20:15.000 He's unpopular despite those things. 0.99

00:20:17.000 He's unpopular because President Trump says dumb things on a regular basis. 0.87

00:20:21.000 And if you'd stop saying dumb things on a regular basis, if somebody just unplugged his phone, and he couldn't use Twitter for two weeks, his approval rating would go up by 10 points in two weeks. 0.89

00:20:29.000 I promise you, he'd be up in the mid-40s.

00:20:31.000 Immediately.

00:20:32.000 If he'd just shut up.

00:20:33.000 Right?

00:20:33.000 Because if you look at the list of the big boo-boos that he's made, virtually all of them are rhetorical.

00:20:38.000 Charlottesville being the most obvious example when he went out there and said both sides were responsible and then he suggested a moral equivalence between the people who were protesting in Charlottesville and the people who were actually the white supremacist instigators.

00:20:51.000 and suggested that there were good people at Charlottesville.

00:20:54.000 This is the problem for President Trump.

00:20:56.000 If you look at the list of his failures, you know, the Mike Flynn, the firing James Comey, the overall rhetoric, the fake news stuff, the LeVar Ball stuff, the fights with the NFL, right?

00:21:04.000 All of that stuff is stuff that is stoppable.

00:21:05.000 That's why we are so close to having a dream administration, really.

00:21:09.000 But that's going to require President Trump to control himself.

00:21:12.000 And I don't know that his base wants him to control himself.

00:21:14.000 It seems to me that many in the base are more interested in Trump doing the NFL stuff than passing the tax cuts.

00:21:19.000 They're more excited about the culture war aspect of Trump than they are about the policy side.

00:21:23.000 I am precisely the opposite.

00:21:24.000 Well, in a second, I want to discuss, back to good Trump, what Trump had to say about foreign policy.

00:21:29.000 Because Trump gave a big speech.

00:21:32.000 On the new national security strategy that he rolled out yesterday.

00:21:35.000 And what's funny about Trump's national security strategy, what's really fascinating about this particular national security strategy is something that is common to virtually all of Trump's speeches and all of Trump's rhetoric on foreign policy.

00:21:48.000 Trump says one thing, and then he implements Bushian foreign policy.

00:21:51.000 Let's be real about this.

00:21:52.000 President Trump's foreign policy is very, very similar to George W. Bush's foreign policy.

00:21:57.000 It's basically neoconservative in a lot of ways.

00:21:59.000 During the campaign, there was every indicator he looked more like Rand Paul or Ron Paul than he did like George W. Bush.

00:22:04.000 But in implementation, his foreign policy has looked a lot more like George W. Bush than like Rand or Ron Paul.

00:22:10.000 The isolationist sentiments that he mailed during the campaign have not materialized in real life.

00:22:15.000 And so whenever you listen to one of his foreign policy speeches, what you actually see is a disconnect, right?

00:22:20.000 Kind of preaching the Ron Paul line, or the Rand Paul line, and then when he actually talks policy, him embracing the idea of a powerful, muscular America in the world, making sure that our principles are upheld, and strengthening alliances through greater military firepower.

00:22:34.000 I mean, basically he's embraced Reagan-esque foreign policy while pretending to be a pappy candidate, which is a really interesting combo.

00:22:41.000 Not a particularly honest one, but it's interesting.

00:22:44.000 Throughout our history, the American people have always been the true source of American greatness.

00:22:48.000 Our people have promoted our culture,

00:23:07.000 Because of our people, America has been among the greatest forces for peace and justice in the history of the world.

00:23:35.000 The American people are generous.

00:23:39.000 You are determined, you are brave, you are strong, and you are wise.

00:23:43.000 He finishes there by saying, when the American people speak, all of us should listen, and they spoke in November 2016.

00:23:47.000 They love me, right?

00:23:48.000 So, I am the American people is basically the message here.

00:23:51.000 The reason that Trump is doing this is because this is one of those disconnects, right?

00:23:55.000 Trump doesn't want to say that the American creed is what makes us great.

00:23:58.000 It is, okay?

00:23:59.000 It's the American creed.

00:23:59.000 It's not the American people.

00:24:01.000 There is a distinction.

00:24:02.000 The reason that I say this is because the idea that the American people make us great, well, that's like saying the Greek people make us great.

00:24:08.000 What's different genetically about an American than about a Greek?

00:24:11.000 Well, not much because a Greek can become an American. 1.00

00:24:13.000 What's genetically different between an Englishman and an American?

00:24:17.000 The answer is not much.

00:24:18.000 What makes America great is the central principles that we uphold.

00:24:22.000 So far as the American people uphold those principles, that makes us great.

00:24:25.000 But it's not the people themselves, right?

00:24:27.000 It's not that we're better people than other people around the world. 0.92

00:24:29.000 That's just silly.

00:24:31.000 But the reason that he's saying that is because as soon as you start talking about greater principles that America holds, then you have to talk about how we promulgate those principles and now we're back in neoconservative land, right?

00:24:41.000 Now we're back in Bush-Reagan land. 0.92

00:24:43.000 We're no longer in Pat Buchanan land.

00:24:44.000 So again, this is one of these weird gaps in Trump's kind of thinking.

00:24:49.000 And you'll see it here, too.

00:24:50.000 You know, here he talks about, and you'll hear this sort of Buchanan-esque note about isolationism.

00:24:54.000 He talks about, you know, in the past we've worried about nation-building, but now we're bringing people home.

00:24:58.000 Our leaders engaged in nation-building abroad while they failed to build up and replenish our nation at home.

00:25:09.000 They undercut and short-changed our men and women in uniform with inadequate resources, unstable funding,

00:25:18.000 We're good to go.

00:25:43.000 Made a disastrous, weak, and incomprehensibly bad deal with Iran, and allowed terrorists such as ISIS to gain control of vast parts of territory all across the Middle East. 0.74

00:25:59.000 Okay, so the first couple sentences here have no bearing on the last couple sentences.

00:26:02.000 So what he's talking about here in the end is exactly right.

00:26:05.000 You know, they ignored North Korea, that they allowed Iran to run roughshod over the Middle East, that they allowed ISIS to grow. 0.87

00:26:11.000 All of that's true.

00:26:12.000 But the only way to fight that is with a more muscular American military.

00:26:14.000 So he's right about funding the American military, but when he says our leaders engaged in nation-building abroad, but they failed to build up and replenish our nation at home,

00:26:22.000 That statement right there is pure Rand Paul and Rand Paul, and then he proceeds to immediately swivel and say we need to be more involved in foreign policy.

00:26:28.000 This is something that he says repeatedly.

00:26:31.000 In other words, the fruits of his foreign policy have been directly opposed to the isolationist sentiments that he espoused on the campaign trail and that he continues to quasi-espouse sometimes during his speeches.

00:26:42.000 It's not the end of the world, but I just want to point out the inconsistency because what I don't want is for people to attribute the wins of his foreign policy to the isolationist foreign policy that he seems to be espousing publicly sometimes.

00:26:54.000 The fact is Trump is winning foreign policy victories.

00:26:56.000 He's just doing it in the name of an ideology that he's not actually upholding in practice.

00:27:00.000 So Trump is right when he says that he's won a big victory over ISIS in the Middle East.

00:27:04.000 This is obviously true.

00:27:05.000 It is worth noting here.

00:27:06.000 He did continue Obama's foreign policy on ISIS.

00:27:09.000 He just strengthened it, but he gets credit for doing that.

00:27:11.000 Following my trip to the Middle East, the Gulf states and other Muslim-majority nations joined together to fight radical Islamist ideology and terrorist financing.

00:27:24.000 We have dealt ISIS one devastating defeat after another.

00:27:29.000 The coalition to defeat ISIS has now recaptured almost 100% of the land once held by these terrorists in Iraq,

00:27:40.000 And in Syria.

00:27:42.000 Great job.

00:27:44.000 Great job.

00:27:46.000 Really good.

00:27:49.000 Really good.

00:27:51.000 Thank you.

00:27:53.000 Thank you.

00:27:56.000 We have a great military.

00:27:58.000 We're now chasing them wherever they flee, and we will not let them into the United States. 1.00

00:28:05.000 Okay, good for Trump, right?

00:28:06.000 This is the foreign policy that he's pursuing, and I'm glad that there's a disconnect between what he was saying on the campaign trail and what he's doing in practice.

00:28:13.000 This, I thought, was the best part of his speech.

00:28:14.000 He talked about what it is.

00:28:16.000 Here, he really does talk about what his priorities are, and his priorities are quite good, right?

00:28:20.000 He talks about optimism and confidence.

00:28:23.000 Optimism has surged.

00:28:25.000 Confidence has returned.

00:28:27.000 With this new confidence, we are also bringing back clarity to our thinking.

00:28:32.000 We are reasserting

00:28:34.000 These fundamental truths.

00:28:36.000 A nation without borders is not a nation.

00:28:50.000 A nation that does not protect prosperity at home cannot protect its interests abroad.

00:28:58.000 A nation that is not prepared to win a war

00:29:02.000 Is a nation not capable of preventing a war.

00:29:07.000 A nation that is not proud of its history cannot be confident in its future.

00:29:13.000 And a nation that is not certain of its values cannot summon the will to defend them.

00:29:20.000 Right, okay.

00:29:21.000 This is the actual statement of the Trump policy.

00:29:23.000 And this is what he should focus on.

00:29:24.000 And this is quite good, right?

00:29:25.000 The idea that we have to be proud of what America is.

00:29:28.000 Proud of our history.

00:29:29.000 Proud of our principles.

00:29:30.000 That will make America great again.

00:29:31.000 So, listen.

00:29:32.000 Trump is a vast difference in kind from the Obama administration on foreign policy.

00:29:35.000 And for that, he deserves all the credit in the world.

00:29:37.000 I just want to see more of the rhetoric like the end of the speech and less like the isolationist beginning of the speech.

00:29:41.000 Okay, so.

00:29:42.000 Meanwhile, there is a backlash that is building against the MeToo movement.

00:29:47.000 Backlash.

00:29:49.000 ...has really begun based on the MeToo movement now making clear that there is no standard for even such basic things as consent.

00:29:57.000 Now, I talked about this a few weeks ago on the show and I got a little bit of flack for it.

00:30:00.000 I said that one of the problems with left-wing social ideology is that they proclaim that consent is the only value when it comes to sex, but then they refuse to abide by those rules when the chips are on the table.

00:30:12.000 What I meant by that is that the left doesn't actually believe that yes means yes and no means no.

00:30:16.000 The left wants to say that consent is the only thing that matters.

00:30:19.000 Listen, I believe consent is deeply, deeply, deeply important.

00:30:22.000 But the idea that consent is a clear yes or no line, and there's no malleability to it at all, that is just not practical in terms of human sexual relationships.

00:30:32.000 No does mean no, but yes doesn't always mean yes.

00:30:34.000 And what's interesting is that the left is beginning to recognize this, but they don't know how to deal with this.

00:30:38.000 And they also don't know how to set a standard for what should end a career and what should not.

00:30:42.000 Matt Damon is being raked over the coals today because he had the temerity to suggest that sexual harassment is not the same as sexual assault.

00:30:48.000 That saying something mean to a woman is not the same as Harvey Weinstein raping them. 0.77

00:30:52.000 And the left is just going after him hammer and tongs. 0.93

00:30:53.000 Well, how dare he?

00:30:54.000 They're all bad.

00:30:55.000 Yes, they're all bad, but a pickpocket doesn't get punished the same way as a mass murderer. 0.99

00:30:59.000 That's just, that's silly. 0.96

00:31:01.000 That's not making light of pickpockets. 0.85

00:31:04.000 Somebody who is a car thief doesn't get treated the same as a serial killer.

00:31:09.000 And they're both bad, but the left refuses to acknowledge these distinctions.

00:31:13.000 What's funny is even the left is beginning to realize this now.

00:31:15.000 Of course, in order for the left to realize this, their ox has to be gored.

00:31:18.000 A lot of what the left is doing now is largely because Al Franken is on his way out of the Senate, and they're sad about that.

00:31:24.000 They feel like they wish they hadn't gotten rid of him.

00:31:26.000 Mika Brzezinski, finally sounding off on me too, and she says, Yeah, we've been saying this for a while here, Mika.

00:31:36.000 I think the process itself is what we need to be talking about before we talk about the men, because the process needs to be... It's gonna be complicated, but I think women feel that they are maligned and mistreated through the process, and therefore they're afraid to step forward.

00:31:53.000 So we need to look at the process.

00:31:55.000 But right now, any woman can say anything, and a man's career is ruined.

00:32:02.000 Now,

00:32:03.000 A lot of women can say things that are true, and their careers should be ruined. 1.00

00:32:07.000 But the problem is that any woman can say anything, and that's it. 1.00

00:32:13.000 It's over.

00:32:13.000 Is that how we're running businesses now?

00:32:16.000 Okay, so she's exactly right.

00:32:18.000 Matt Damon is being raked over the coals for basically saying the same thing Mika Brzezinski did.

00:32:21.000 He did an interview with Business Insider, and here's what he said.

00:32:26.000 We're in this watershed moment, and it's great, but I think one thing that's not being talked about is there are a whole bleep load of guys, the preponderance of men I've worked with, who don't do this kind of thing and whose lives aren't going to be affected.

00:32:36.000 When he was asked if he'd ever worked with someone who'd been accused of sexual misconduct, he said it would have to be on a case-by-case basis.

00:32:42.000 He said, And then he also said there's a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? 0.95

00:32:57.000 Well, there is. 0.97

00:32:57.000 I mean, I'm sorry to break it to folks, but there is. 0.97

00:33:00.000 They both ought to be punished, but the punishment ought not be the same.

00:33:02.000 It says both of these behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn't be conflated, right?

00:33:09.000 Tell me what he's saying wrong here.

00:33:10.000 I mean, I'm not a Matt Damon defender.

00:33:11.000 I think Matt Damon is not exactly the brightest egg in the basket, but what?

00:33:17.000 Like, Rose McGowan said Matt Damon is dense.

00:33:20.000 Zerlina Maxwell says Matt Damon equals every white man who is used to people taking his opinion seriously, even if he has no idea what the F he's talking about.

00:33:28.000 I mean, this is just... Like, really?

00:33:31.000 I love this.

00:33:33.000 Like, we have gone... Okay, this is insane.

00:33:37.000 Matt Damon didn't say anything wrong there.

00:33:43.000 I mean, again, I'm defending Matt Damon here.

00:33:46.000 Matt Damon didn't do anything wrong here.

00:33:47.000 And then meanwhile, there is no standard for behavior.

00:33:50.000 So here is the evidence there's no standard for behavior.

00:33:54.000 So over the weekend, there's a woman named Jessica Bennett.

00:33:57.000 Jessica Bennett is the gender editor of the New York Times. 0.82

00:33:59.000 Yes, that's a real thing.

00:34:00.000 There's a gender editor, which is weird.

00:34:01.000 I don't know how you would edit a gender.

00:34:03.000 But in any case, she wrote a piece titled, When Saying Yes Is Easier Than Saying No.

00:34:08.000 She argued that in many cases, women say yes to sex, but they don't actually want to say yes to sex. 0.99

00:34:13.000 She says, quote,

00:34:30.000 Bennett continued, and she argued that consent is actually societally defined.

00:34:34.000 That our idea of what we want, of our own desire, is linked to what we think we're supposed to want, is what Bennett writes.

00:34:40.000 But Bennett offers no clear solution on this, right?

00:34:42.000 So now she's saying that sometimes yes doesn't actually mean yes, sometimes yes means no, and sometimes no means yes, meaning a woman doesn't want to have sex, or she does want to have sex, but she wants to be persuaded into it, she's playing hard to get.

00:34:52.000 Okay, this has happened, I'm sure, to thousands of people over the years, millions of people, where a woman says no, and then a guy says, please, and the girl says, okay, sounds great, right?

00:35:03.000 The idea that no means no permanently, obviously, is not true.

00:35:06.000 The idea that no means no from minute to minute is not always true.

00:35:09.000 You have to take no as a no, guys.

00:35:11.000 But this is when you don't have any societal standards, when sex has been completely delinked from meaning.

00:35:16.000 It's difficult to redraw these lines.

00:35:18.000 And this is one of the problems, that in the Me Too moment, we're trying to draw lines in an area where all lines have been obliterated.

00:35:25.000 Right?

00:35:25.000 Bennett doesn't offer any clear solutions.

00:35:27.000 If it's true that women say yes but mean no, are men supposed to read minds? 0.88

00:35:30.000 If a woman says no but a man seduces her until she says yes, is the initial no more important than the final yes?

00:35:35.000 Now, Bennett doesn't offer any guidance here, but she's not the only one saying this.

00:35:38.000 There's a woman named Rebecca Reed for The Metro, who said she once participated in a threesome because she didn't want to be rude. 0.72

00:35:43.000 She was over at dinner with a guy and his wife, and they said, come upstairs.

00:35:47.000 And she was like, well, you know, I had dinner.

00:35:48.000 I guess I don't want to ruin the dinner.

00:35:49.000 I go, really?

00:35:51.000 How are they supposed to know that you're not into it?

00:35:53.000 I mean, like, I've been at a lot of weird dinner parties, but I would never just say yes to having sex with people out of a desire not to be rude.

00:36:02.000 Why?

00:36:03.000 Well, Reid says, such experiences aren't uncommon.

00:36:05.000 Quote, there are hundreds of reasons why, but they all boil down to the same thing.

00:36:08.000 We're nice girls.

00:36:08.000 We've been raised to be nice.

00:36:10.000 It's so funny how this definition has changed, right?

00:36:12.000 50 years ago, if you said a girl was a nice girl, that meant she didn't put out, right? 0.91

00:36:16.000 I mean, really, this is what it meant.

00:36:17.000 If you go back to 1955, and you said that a girl was a nice girl, what this meant, this was a euphemism for, she wants to remain a virgin until she is married. 0.86

00:36:24.000 Now a nice girl means that you're supposed to say yes to any sexual proposition, because otherwise you're being mean. 1.00

00:36:30.000 Sometimes being careful means having sex you don't want. 0.98

00:36:32.000 It leaves you feeling dirty and sad and a bit icky.

00:36:34.000 It's not rape, it's not abuse, but it's not nice either.

00:36:36.000 But now we're going to conflate rape, abuse, and not niceness apparently.

00:36:40.000 In the pages of the New Yorker, there's this short story that went viral.

00:36:43.000 It's called Cat Person.

00:36:46.000 The author of this piece has now gotten apparently a million dollar advance because the piece went so viral.

00:36:52.000 What exactly is the piece?

00:36:53.000 Well, it's about a woman named Margot who seduces a man.

00:36:55.000 She sends him all the signals that she wants to have sex with him, but she's internally divided over whether to go through with it.

00:37:00.000 Quote, she knew that her last chance of enjoying this encounter had disappeared, but she would carry through with it until it was over. 0.76

00:37:06.000 In the end, she has sex with the guy, right?

00:37:08.000 She goes ahead with it, even though she's sort of repulsed by it.

00:37:11.000 And it's not really rape, because she says yes the whole way, but then she doesn't like it, and then she breaks up with the guy, like she never contacts him again. 0.99

00:37:18.000 And he's texting with her, and then he says that she's a whore. 0.99

00:37:21.000 And the whole idea of this short story is she's not really a whore because she didn't really want to go through with it, but she went through with it to be nice, and now he's being mean because he's calling her a whore. 0.98

00:37:29.000 And there is this sort of vagary in sexual relationships, and this is painful stuff, I'm sure, for a lot of women, but it does raise a pretty serious question. 0.83

00:37:37.000 What about the guys?

00:37:38.000 What are men supposed to do?

00:37:39.000 Because it's men who are on the line here, right?

00:37:41.000 If these women have a bad sexual experience, that is quite terrible. 1.00

00:37:44.000 It's quite awful.

00:37:45.000 I feel terrible for them.

00:37:46.000 But, if the suggestion is that you had a bad sexual experience, and now you get to ruin a guy's career over it, or ruin his life over it, there I am not so cool, right?

00:37:55.000 We are in the midst of a crusade not to make women feel better about sex, but to punish male aggressors, right?

00:38:01.000 There is a distinction.

00:38:02.000 This is not about making women feel better about sex.

00:38:04.000 The Me Too movement was not supposed to be about just all sexual experiences for women are supposed to be glorious and wonderful, because not all sexual experiences are going to be glorious and wonderful.

00:38:13.000 I'm married for 10 years.

00:38:14.000 Not all sexual experiences, even within marriage, are the same.

00:38:17.000 Right?

00:38:17.000 Sometimes better than others.

00:38:19.000 The idea that, as a society, we are now targeting bad men, we have to differentiate between the two goals.

00:38:26.000 One is, assure that sex for women is better. 0.99

00:38:28.000 The other is, assure that men are not aggressors.

00:38:31.000 The second one seems to be easier than the first, but we're conflating the two.

00:38:35.000 If we water consent down to nothingness, if yes sometimes means no and no sometimes means yes, and men are supposed to read minds, and if they don't read minds properly, we ruin their careers, then how can we ever expect there to be any sort of comfortable sex at all?

00:38:47.000 Because men are not going to engage if they're bright.

00:38:51.000 Right?

00:38:51.000 And women are then going to claim that men are denying them, I suppose.

00:38:55.000 What we have here is a problem of expectations, okay?

00:38:57.000 All three of these articles that talk about yes not meaning yes and no not meaning no all the time, they're articulating a complaint that women want to fulfill men's expectations.

00:39:05.000 Basically, they're blaming men for their own confusion over sex, right?

00:39:08.000 Men expect them to have sex. 1.00

00:39:09.000 They don't want to disappoint the men, so they have sex with them. 1.00

00:39:11.000 Men want them to have sex. 1.00

00:39:12.000 They may or may not want to have sex. 0.74

00:39:14.000 They start it, and then they feel like it's too much of a bother not to move away from sex.

00:39:19.000 But there's another expectation that's been created here that's not about men at all.

00:39:23.000 Okay, there's two expectations. 0.99

00:39:24.000 One is that men want to have sex with you all the time. 0.94

00:39:27.000 That's not an expectation, that's a reality. 0.99

00:39:28.000 Okay, men want to have sex with women all the time, at least straight men. 0.54

00:39:31.000 But there's a second expectation that women are fulfilling and this is the one that's actually destroying a lot of the rules. 0.99

00:39:37.000 Okay, that is the expectation that women themselves are supposed to treat sex casually or they are reinforcing the patriarchy. 1.00

00:39:43.000 This is the feminist argument. 1.00

00:39:45.000 That if a woman is an old-fashioned nice girl, that if a woman says, I don't want to have sex until I'm married, because I find that to be a perversion of nature and a movement away from what God intended for us. 0.97

00:39:57.000 This makes her a prude. 1.00

00:39:59.000 It makes her backwards.

00:39:59.000 Watch any Hollywood movie made for the last 30 years.

00:40:02.000 The good girl is really the stupid girl. 1.00

00:40:05.000 The good girl is the dimwit who's going to have to loosen up a little bit. 1.00

00:40:09.000 Right? 0.98

00:40:09.000 In Footloose, the good girl is really... She wants to be a bad girl, but she's repressed by John Lithgow. 0.98

00:40:14.000 Right?

00:40:15.000 This is the society Hollywood has created for us.

00:40:17.000 The society the feminist movement has created for us.

00:40:19.000 There are two expectations.

00:40:20.000 Men always had the expectation or the hope. 0.66

00:40:22.000 Not the expectation.

00:40:23.000 Let's put it this way. 0.96

00:40:24.000 Men always had the hope that women would randomly have sex with them. 0.99

00:40:27.000 Now men have the expectation that women will randomly have sex with them. 0.96

00:40:30.000 What changed? 0.64

00:40:31.000 It wasn't men.

00:40:33.000 It wasn't men.

00:40:34.000 What changed here?

00:40:35.000 What changed here was that the feminist movement said to women that you have a responsibility to treat sex casually, otherwise you are falling in line with the patriarchal system. 1.00

00:40:46.000 Our consent-only society, in which sexual activity has become a throwaway, and any notion of cherishing it is scoffed as patriarchal.

00:40:52.000 We laugh at that, as patriarchal.

00:40:53.000 Men have developed expectations.

00:40:55.000 Women are moving to meet those expectations. 1.00

00:40:56.000 It's not good for men.

00:40:57.000 It's not good for women. 1.00

00:40:58.000 It's not good for anyone.

00:41:00.000 Consent only matters in a system where people are capable of saying no.

00:41:04.000 And what I'm saying is that society is basically telling women on all sides to say yes, and then they're telling men that it's okay if women say yes, unless women actually meant no.

00:41:13.000 Okay, that's a mess of its own making.

00:41:15.000 Okay, well, we're going to have to break there.

00:41:17.000 Before we go any further, go over and subscribe.

00:41:19.000 $9.99 a month gets you a subscription to dailywire.com.

00:41:21.000 When you get that subscription, you get the rest of our show live.

00:41:23.000 You get the rest of Andrew Klaven's show live.

00:41:26.000 The rest of Michael Knowles' show live.

00:41:27.000 You get to be part of our mailbag, where you get to ask me questions and have them answered.

00:41:31.000 All of this makes your life more awesome.

00:41:33.000 Plus, if you get the annual subscription, you get the very best in all beverage vessels.

00:41:36.000 It was so valuable, I couldn't even bring it with me.

00:41:39.000 Down here to Florida, where I'm at the TPUSA conference.

00:41:41.000 I couldn't even afford to bring it in my carry-on because I treasure it so much.

00:41:45.000 My leftist tier is Hot or Cold Tumblr.

00:41:47.000 You get that for a $99 annual subscription fee.

00:41:51.000 Plus, the Shapiro store is coming in the new year, and that will be exciting.

00:41:53.000 You get discounts there.

00:41:54.000 If you want to just listen to the show later on audio,

00:41:57.000 Look at iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, Stitcher, any of the normal podcasting apps.

00:42:05.000 Or you can go to our YouTube channel and subscribe over there.

00:42:07.000 We have a Christmas video that is coming out in the very near future.

00:42:11.000 I think that's coming out later this week, actually.

00:42:13.000 So look out for that.

00:42:15.000 We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:42:23.000 Okay, so, time for some things I like, some things I hate, and then we'll deconstruct culture for a hot second.

00:42:28.000 Okay, so, things that I like.

00:42:30.000 After last week, you remember I played a clip of Roy Moore riding in on a horse to the song from Blazing Seattles, and that got me thinking.

00:42:37.000 What are some great movies that have title songs or songs involved that are just hilarious?

00:42:45.000 The first one that popped to mind is a movie I grew up with when I was a kid.

00:42:48.000 I loved this movie growing up.

00:42:49.000 I haven't seen it for probably 25 years, and I'm only 33, so last time I saw it I was probably 8 or 9.

00:42:54.000 It's Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in Gunfight at the OK Corral.

00:42:59.000 Frankie Layne sings the song, same guy who sang the Blazing Saddles song, and it's got this classic, just Western trope of

00:43:05.000 The singer who actually takes you through the story, like he narrates the story.

00:43:09.000 It's like the ballad of Sweeney Todd and Sweeney Todd.

00:43:12.000 So the movie is Gunfight at the OK Corral.

00:43:15.000 It's a really underrated film that actually does hold up really well.

00:43:17.000 It's directed by the great John Sturges.

00:43:19.000 Take a look at this Old Western because it's pretty great.

00:43:22.000 OK.

00:43:27.000 Kurt Lancaster as the famous Wyatt Earp.

00:43:44.000 Kurt Douglas as the notorious Doc Holliday.

00:43:47.000 Two men as different as day and night. 0.85

00:43:49.000 Yet fate linked them together through the violent years.

00:43:52.000 Get going down the back stairs.

00:43:54.000 Much obliged, Marshal.

00:43:59.000 I'll see you in Dodge City and thank you properly.

00:44:01.000 You can thank me properly by staying out of Dodge City.

00:44:04.000 Rhonda Fleming as Laura Dembo.

00:44:05.000 All right, go then.

00:44:08.000 Clean up Tombstone.

00:44:09.000 There's a hundred tombstones on the frontier, all crying for the great Wyatt Earp.

00:44:13.000 Clean them all up.

00:44:15.000 Jovan Fleet as Cape Fisher.

00:44:17.000 Well, let me tell you something, Doc Holliday.

00:44:18.000 All them fancy clothes and that smart talk of yours don't make you no gentleman. 0.96

00:44:22.000 You are dirt, just like me. 0.96

00:44:30.000 John Ireland as Ringo. 0.98

00:44:32.000 I'm not afraid.

00:44:34.000 Well, have a drink, then.

00:44:36.000 Now you'll see them as they really were, hot-blooded men in a raw and relentless... Okay, so that's great.

00:44:41.000 I mean, it's classic Western.

00:44:42.000 Kirk Douglas apparently, you know, he's trying to play Doc Holliday, who has consumption, and apparently they shot all the scenes out of order.

00:44:50.000 And so one of the things that he did is he would time his coughs scene to scene so that it looked like he was getting progressively sicker as the film went on, which works in the movie.

00:44:58.000 It's a good performance by Kirk Douglas, who is... We may have to do a week of Kirk Douglas movies at some point, but worth watching and holds up pretty well.

00:45:07.000 It's not as good a movie as Tombstone, of course, but it is a good movie.

00:45:09.000 And it is a classic Western.

00:45:11.000 Okay, one other thing that I like.

00:45:13.000 So, you see all these headlines that are constantly coming out from the mainstream media.

00:45:16.000 IDF, the Israeli Defense Force, is arresting children.

00:45:20.000 They're arresting these poor, hungry Palestinian urchins. 1.00

00:45:23.000 It's just terrible. 0.83

00:45:25.000 Okay, here's what's actually going on.

00:45:26.000 The Palestinians put up kids to try and assault Israeli soldiers to get them arrested for the cameras. 0.94

00:45:30.000 Here is some tape of IDF soldiers and what they're actually going through and what they have to do.

00:45:37.000 What you see here is a bunch of kids walking up to Israeli soldiers, trying to grab them, trying to harass them, trying to push them.

00:45:47.000 One walks up and slaps an Israeli soldier in the face.

00:45:49.000 Another punches an Israeli soldier in the face, and the soldiers are just standing there taking it.

00:45:53.000 Right?

00:45:53.000 They're just standing there taking it.

00:45:54.000 These are kids who are probably 11 or 12 years old.

00:45:56.000 They've been told by their parents that they need to go over and harass the Israeli soldiers, get themselves arrested.

00:46:01.000 So they walk over and look at the Israeli soldiers trying to ignore them.

00:46:04.000 Right, the Israeli soldiers trying to stay away from them.

00:46:07.000 Because they don't want to get in a confrontation with these kids.

00:46:09.000 And they're literally smacking these Israeli soldiers in the face.

00:46:14.000 And eventually, the Israeli soldiers are forced to arrest them because you can only slap a law enforcement officer a thousand times before he's going to arrest you. 0.99

00:46:23.000 For all these people who say the Israeli soldiers are out to shoot people, okay, there's not a cop in the United States who would stand for this kind of crap. 0.99

00:46:28.000 There's not a soldier in the American army who would stand for this kind of crap. 0.99

00:46:31.000 Maybe they would in Iraq or Afghanistan, but, you know, the IDF is doing this every day. 0.99

00:46:35.000 The idea that the IDF are the bad guys here is just insane.

00:46:38.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate, and then we'll deconstruct culture for a second.

00:46:42.000 So, things I hate.

00:46:48.000 Okay, so here is Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:46:51.000 The left just can't let her go.

00:46:52.000 And so the Daily Show did something called the Song for Women. 0.77

00:46:55.000 And Hillary Clinton makes a cameo in the Daily Show's Song for Women.

00:46:59.000 Yes, this is an actual thing.

00:47:00.000 Here we go.

00:47:02.000 Too many men this year acting like stalkers.

00:47:04.000 It makes me so sad.

00:47:06.000 I got a daughter.

00:47:07.000 And that's all the time I got to mansplain.

00:47:10.000 Time for the hook.

00:47:11.000 Yo, ladies, hit that refrain. 1.00

00:47:13.000 Uh! 0.96

00:47:13.000 No. 0.96

00:47:14.000 We're not doing that.

00:47:15.000 Mm-mm. 0.99

00:47:16.000 Get the f*** out of here. 0.98

00:47:19.000 Trying to help, you know? 0.99

00:47:20.000 Young Hillary Clinton, take us home. 1.00

00:47:41.000 Hillary Clinton speaking for all women except for the ones her husband's raped. 0.85

00:47:44.000 The fact that they keep trying to keep Hillary relevant is an amazing thing. 0.92

00:47:49.000 Hillary eventually will become as much of a joke as Al Gore has become. 1.00

00:47:51.000 Every time you see him, you laugh.

00:47:53.000 There's a reason for that.

00:47:54.000 Okay, another quick thing that I hate, so...

00:47:57.000 People are making a very big deal out of this one story that's now going around the internet about apparently an unidentified flying object that appeared in front of a Navy pilot and then jetted off incredibly quickly.

00:48:07.000 Do we have video of that, actually?

00:48:10.000 There's a whole fleet of them.

00:48:14.000 Look on the ASA.

00:48:14.000 Oh my gosh.

00:48:19.000 They're all going against the wind.

00:48:20.000 The wind's 120 knots to the west.

00:48:21.000 Don't go all pink, dude.

00:48:32.000 So this is kind of like an oblong-shaped what looks like a UFO.

00:48:41.000 And then apparently it flies away at twice the speed of light.

00:48:45.000 It just moves away really quickly.

00:48:46.000 And people are saying, well, this means the aliens are here.

00:48:48.000 OK.

00:48:48.000 If the aliens were here, either they're prepping for an attack, in which case we should all be scared out of our minds and this should be the top of the news.

00:48:54.000 Or, uh, there is something that we just don't understand going on, and, uh, it's not aliens.

00:48:59.000 Because if aliens were to come here, they'd probably make their presence known.

00:49:02.000 Also, if they have technology that's superior to anything that we have, uh, then presumably, they would move on us, uh, because this has apparently been going on for years.

00:49:09.000 But, maybe I'm wrong.

00:49:10.000 Maybe we'll find out later that this was the beginning of the invasion, and I ignored it, and I'm, you know, one of the bad guys.

00:49:14.000 Okay, time for deconstructing the culture.

00:49:17.000 So.

00:49:19.000 There's a song that has now become unpopular, okay?

00:49:21.000 And they've changed the lyrics to it because it's unpopular.

00:49:24.000 It was a Christmas favorite, okay?

00:49:25.000 It was Baby It's Cold Outside.

00:49:26.000 And we've been informed by the left that this song is rapey.

00:49:29.000 Oh yes.

00:49:30.000 The song Baby It's Cold Outside is rapey.

00:49:32.000 I'm gonna play you a little bit of it, and then I'm gonna play you some modern Top 40, and you tell me which is more rapey.

00:49:37.000 I really can't stay.

00:49:40.000 Baby, it's cold outside.

00:49:42.000 I gotta go away.

00:49:43.000 Baby, it's cold outside.

00:49:45.000 This evening has been so very nice.

00:49:49.000 I'm hoping that you dropped in.

00:49:51.000 I'll hold your hand.

00:49:53.000 They're just like mine.

00:49:54.000 My mother will start to worry.

00:49:57.000 Beautiful, what's your name?

00:49:58.000 My father will be pacing the floor.

00:50:01.000 Okay, so this is a creepy version that Michael Bublé did with Idina Menzel with little kids.

00:50:04.000 But the original version with, I think it's, uh, there's like Louis Armstrong and I think it's Billie Holiday.

00:50:09.000 In any case...

00:50:10.000 The lyric that people go crazy about, uh, is that there is a, uh, there's, the woman is basically protesting that she has to leave, but she doesn't really want to leave, and then she asks at one point, what's in this drink?

00:50:22.000 Right?

00:50:23.000 She said, it says, the neighbors might think, say, what's in this drink? 0.98

00:50:26.000 And so it sounds like he's date raping her.

00:50:27.000 Yeah, that's not what's happening, okay?

00:50:29.000 The whole point is that she's feeling buzzed, and she's feeling happy, and she's feeling flirty, and she doesn't want to leave, and he's trying to convince her to stay.

00:50:35.000 Ooh, it's rapey. 0.89

00:50:36.000 No, it's called a rather typical seduction.

00:50:38.000 You know, assuming that Dean Martin didn't actually roofie anybody. 0.97

00:50:41.000 This is, uh, the idea that this is date rape is ridiculous or that it's a rapey song. 0.96

00:50:46.000 Maybe there's nothing wrong with the song. 0.74

00:50:47.000 Is that possible? 0.99

00:50:48.000 Then nobody who listened to that thought, oh, maybe it's cold outside, means they get to rape chicks. 0.99

00:50:52.000 Maybe that's a thing. 0.91

00:50:54.000 What's hilarious is that all the same people who say that Baby It's Cold Outside is a rapey song are fine with Top 40 music, which is like the most rapey music of all time.

00:51:01.000 Half the music is about some guy saying, I'm gonna jump on that thang, right? 0.94

00:51:05.000 I'm gonna jump on her and I'm gonna do what I want with her.

00:51:07.000 And the girl saying, yeah, it's great, you know, that's what I'm into.

00:51:10.000 Like, first of all, let's put it this way.

00:51:14.000 If all of the lyrics to Top 40 music were actually applied in real life by men to women,

00:51:19.000 These would not be good pick-up lines.

00:51:20.000 These would be really rapey pick-up lines. 0.99

00:51:22.000 So there's a song out right now called Havana.

00:51:26.000 And there's a part where there's a rap interlude which has become a staple of Top 40 music and it's horrifying.

00:51:31.000 In any case, this is one of the rappers rapping a little bit.

00:51:35.000 You tell me, which is more rapey?

00:51:36.000 Maybe it's Cold Outside or this.

00:51:45.000 We're good to go.

00:51:51.000 Okay, you can't understand what the hell he's saying, but here's what he is saying, okay?

00:51:59.000 What Jeffrey is saying is, quote, Fresh out East Atlanta.

00:52:02.000 Bump on her bumper like a traffic jam.

00:52:16.000 Now, I missed the part where she said yes to the bumping on her bumper like a traffic jam, but that seems a little rapey, no? 0.99

00:52:21.000 It says, hey, I was quick to pay that girl like Uncle Sam, so now he's paying her for the sex. 0.99

00:52:26.000 Good job. 0.99

00:52:27.000 Back it on me, shawty cravin' on me, get to diggin' on me.

00:52:31.000 She waited on me, shawty cakin' on me, got the bacon on me.

00:52:34.000 I don't even know what the hell this means.

00:52:35.000 This is history in the makin' on me.

00:52:37.000 Point blank, close range, zappy, if it cost a million, that's me.

00:52:40.000 I was gettin' mula, man, they feel me.

00:52:43.000 Yeah, clearly that's not rapey at all.

00:52:44.000 What's more rapey is a guy saying to a girl, stay inside with me and begging her to stay inside with him and her finally saying yes.

00:52:50.000 Clearly that's the rapey problem here. 1.00

00:52:53.000 Our society may be screwed up beyond all repair on matters sexual.

00:52:56.000 At least until there's a return to traditional notions of male and female and what men want and what women want and standards where we can accommodate both.

00:53:03.000 Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow.

00:53:06.000 I'll see you then.

00:53:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:07.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:12.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:53:15.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:53:16.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:53:18.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:53:20.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:53:22.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.

00:53:23.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:53:25.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:53:28.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 19, 2017

Trump’s Big Tax Day | Ep. 440

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript