The Ben Shapiro Show - Tucker Carlson | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 26

00:00:00.000 What I care about is living in a country where, you know, decent people can live happy lives, actually.

00:00:06.000 I don't want to put 10 million men out of work, and the cascading effect from that will wreck your country.

00:00:19.000 Hey, hey, and welcome to the Sunday special.

00:00:20.000 I am super excited to be joined by Tucker Carlson, and we're going to jump into his brand new book, Ship of Fools, which is already a massive bestseller on the New York Times charts and on charts that are more reputable than the New York Times charts.

00:00:32.000 We'll get into all of that in just a second.

00:00:34.000 But first, we have to talk about your imminent death.

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00:01:38.000 Okay, so let's start off with this.

00:01:40.000 A lot of people don't know your actual background, like where you came from, because, you know, folks sort of exist in the immediate ecosystem.

00:01:48.000 Yes, they do.

00:01:49.000 Where did you come from?

00:01:50.000 Where did you grow up?

00:01:51.000 How did you become Tucker Carlson, the biggest host on cable news?

00:01:54.000 Well, I mean, I filled a job that was open.

00:01:57.000 I mean, chance plays a massive role in life, which is part of the thesis of my book, and it's unacknowledged.

00:02:03.000 But I grew up here, actually, and I'm from Southern California originally.

00:02:07.000 Right here in Los Angeles, very close to where we are right now.

00:02:09.000 I actually went to first grade in this town and then I moved to La Jolla and then I went to high school and college on the east coast and kind of stayed in Washington where my family had moved to work for the Reagan administration.

00:02:21.000 And I've been there ever since, and I've had a series of jobs mostly in print, magazines, newspaper, and then website, and then worked at CNN, MSNBC, PBS, ABC, and Fox.

00:02:35.000 So I've just kind of been always in the world that I occupy now with varying degrees of success based partly on the amount of effort I was exerting in the job I was in, and also based on luck and things you can't control.

00:02:49.000 So what sort of shaped where you are politically right now?

00:02:51.000 Because if I look at your political career, you were much more aggressive on foreign policy in the early 2000s, for example, and now you're much more isolationist on foreign policy.

00:03:01.000 How did you move?

00:03:02.000 Can you kind of chart your political movement?

00:03:04.000 Yeah, I mean, I have always tried to be much more than right.

00:03:09.000 I've tried to be evidence-based.

00:03:10.000 I don't, especially as I age, I believe less in theories or constructs, and I believe more in results.

00:03:18.000 And I also believe in honesty.

00:03:21.000 And so if you think that the policy that you're proposing will reach a certain conclusion, produce a certain result, and it doesn't, I think you should acknowledge that, and I think you ought to change your views based on the evidence.

00:03:32.000 And so, to bottom line it, in a sentence, America has changed so dramatically.

00:03:37.000 In the 49 years that I've been here, that, like, why wouldn't my politics change?

00:03:42.000 They've changed completely on all kinds of different issues.

00:03:45.000 I mean, I was once pretty stridently pro-choice and for the death penalty, and now I have, you know, very strong feelings in the opposite direction.

00:03:52.000 I mean, I've supported all kinds of things that turned out to be wrong, but that's the point.

00:03:57.000 They turned out to be wrong.

00:03:58.000 So you should reassess!

00:04:00.000 And what drives me insane

00:04:03.000 Living in Washington for, you know, 35 years is watching people make these grand decisions with the best intentions, by the way.

00:04:10.000 I think most of our policymakers have good motives.

00:04:13.000 I do think that.

00:04:13.000 I know them.

00:04:15.000 But they watch their policies fail.

00:04:18.000 They don't acknowledge that they have failed.

00:04:20.000 To the extent they do, they blame the population for their failure.

00:04:24.000 And then they repeat the mistake.

00:04:26.000 I have a bunch of children.

00:04:27.000 I'm never surprised when they make a bad decision, ever, because people do.

00:04:31.000 They're human.

00:04:32.000 I am, too.

00:04:34.000 What I require is that they acknowledge that they've made a mistake, that they say sorry, and that they try better based on what they've learned from that mistake.

00:04:40.000 And that's exactly what doesn't happen in Washington, and that's why I'm mad.

00:04:43.000 So when it comes to ideology, so I actually am a stronger believer in ideology than you are.

00:04:48.000 One of the reasons being, it seems to me that the way that we determine whether an appropriate metric for success has been achieved is ideologically based, meaning that we can both look at the same policy, and I can say that its goal was achieved, and if you're using a different ideology, then maybe its goal has not been achieved.

00:05:03.000 So what's your metric for success?

00:05:06.000 So, I guess I move by instinct increasingly, again, as I age.

00:05:10.000 Your view changes, I think.

00:05:12.000 Mine has.

00:05:13.000 The way you measure things changes.

00:05:16.000 I increasingly distrust complexity in worldview.

00:05:20.000 So, I start with where I want to end up.

00:05:23.000 What's the goal?

00:05:24.000 What kind of society do you want to live in?

00:05:25.000 You want to live in a place where the family is basically unmolested, where the human conscience is totally unmolested.

00:05:33.000 Where you acknowledge you can control people's behavior.

00:05:35.000 You can tell people, you know, you can't do that.

00:05:37.000 We all have to live together.

00:05:38.000 You can't sleep in a crosswalk.

00:05:39.000 Sorry, it's not allowed.

00:05:40.000 But what you never do is try to control or mandate what people believe.

00:05:44.000 That that is a kind of, you know, that's a sphere that you would never violate.

00:05:49.000 And so, in the end, you want to live, if you're in a democracy, any democracy, you want to live in a country where the middle class, normal people, you know, with 100 IQs, making 80 grand a year, can lead

00:06:00.000 You know, productive, meaningful lives, unbothered by the people in power, and they have the hope, at least, that their kids can do slightly better than they have.

00:06:09.000 That was kind of the rule for a lot of the, certainly the post-war period in this country, and it no longer is.

00:06:15.000 So my question always is not, like, what party wins?

00:06:19.000 Or, you know, is my economic theory validated or not?

00:06:21.000 It's, can we get back to that?

00:06:23.000 Or can we get as close to that as we possibly can?

00:06:26.000 And we're moving farther away from it.

00:06:27.000 That's my frustration.

00:06:28.000 So, I think that there are a couple issues that you mentioned there, and I might want to bifurcate them for purposes of the discussion.

00:06:32.000 So, issue number one is sort of the free speech issue.

00:06:35.000 People should be able to say what they want.

00:06:36.000 People should be able to lead their families how they want to lead them.

00:06:40.000 There we're in complete agreement.

00:06:41.000 Right.

00:06:41.000 And I think that, you know, the unity of the right is largely based on agreement on this particular point.

00:06:46.000 That's right.

00:06:47.000 The foundational questions, without which none of the rest is possible.

00:06:50.000 Right.

00:06:50.000 And free expression would be one, of course, and freedom of conscience.

00:06:55.000 Right.

00:06:55.000 And you talk a lot in Ship of Fools, particularly, about the threat to these sorts of ideas from a left that is focused on a sort of forced diversity.

00:07:03.000 And you've been labeled racist by folks at Media Matters for this, of course, because they label everyone a racist.

00:07:08.000 I'm a Nazi, according to Media Matters, because of my yarmulke, apparently.

00:07:11.000 But your viewpoint on diversity is basically, as I see it expressed in the book, that diversity is a neutral.

00:07:18.000 It's not good or bad inherently.

00:07:19.000 It's not a value.

00:07:20.000 It's a description.

00:07:21.000 Right, and so where do you see the conflict lying between right and left on that particular issue?

00:07:25.000 Well, so where I agree with you is that, you know, while, as I noted, I am distrustful of complex ideologies, I do think that you need to start with certain things that you believe are true and act on them if you want to get to the place you deserve to be.

00:07:41.000 So, what I just noticed, just as an American, and I'm not an intellectual, I'm a talk show host, so this is a very obvious thing,

00:07:48.000 That our national motto has been redefined to its mirror image.

00:07:52.000 So of course it was, out of many, one.

00:07:55.000 And now it is diversity is our strength.

00:07:57.000 So I think it's fair if you, without asking my consent, replace the core principle of our country.

00:08:04.000 It's fair for me to ask if that principle

00:08:06.000 is worth organizing a country around.

00:08:09.000 So I'll just ask the obvious question, is diversity our strength?

00:08:13.000 And of course, like so much they say, it's not only untrue, it's the opposite of what is true.

00:08:18.000 It is never true that diversity is our strength.

00:08:20.000 I'm for all kinds of diversity, but they're not our strengths.

00:08:24.000 In other words, is it true in your marriage?

00:08:26.000 The less you have in common with your wife,

00:08:28.000 We're good.

00:08:46.000 50 nights in the past 200 nights, I made the case explicitly against racism, which is you are not responsible for your immutable qualities.

00:08:56.000 You can't control your height, your hair color, your DNA, what your parents did.

00:09:01.000 None of that is your fault and you should not be punished for it or rewarded for it.

00:09:06.000 That is an argument against racism.

00:09:08.000 Explicitly!

00:09:09.000 And so for that, I'm a racist!

00:09:10.000 It's like, no, you don't understand.

00:09:12.000 I'm arguing against all kinds of racism.

00:09:15.000 I think it's a really dangerous way to see the world.

00:09:19.000 And anyway, whatever.

00:09:21.000 They don't mean anything they say.

00:09:23.000 They throw at you the very things that they are doing in order to silence you.

00:09:27.000 And I just happen for this brief window of my life to have the freedom to say what I think is true, and I'm going to.

00:09:32.000 It seems to me that this is actually the major rift in American politics.

00:09:35.000 And I want to get to your economics in a second, because I think there we actually have some substantive disagreements.

00:09:39.000 Yeah.

00:09:39.000 But, you know, there's a lot of talk these days about political realignment.

00:09:43.000 And I wonder if it's not really political realignment that's taking place, but a hunkering down of the far left into the diversity politics, identity politics, and then just the backlash to that.

00:09:53.000 Because it seems to me that was the real dividing line between Obama and Trump.

00:09:57.000 It's not even on economics, where in some areas there's actually some sort of populist agreement.

00:10:01.000 But it's

00:10:17.000 Basically buoy our boat all the way to victory from now until the end of time.

00:10:21.000 And then the backlash to that was, well, wait a second.

00:10:23.000 You know, you guys don't get to do identity politics when you've been saying that identity politics is what's wrong with America for generations, correctly.

00:10:29.000 So why are you doing that now?

00:10:30.000 Well, as a practical matter, it just doesn't work.

00:10:32.000 I mean, countries don't hang together by accident, particularly large, diverse ones that don't have a majority in any category.

00:10:39.000 So there's no—if you don't even have a shared language or history or culture,

00:10:44.000 You know, why would you remain united as a country?

00:10:48.000 And the answer, which I actually believe in, is that you could hang together around a common idea, a common set of beliefs.

00:10:54.000 You know, here's what we're all for.

00:10:56.000 But our ruling class, and I do think this is the least responsible, the most reckless thing they have done, is they have not only failed to come up with what that set of common beliefs is, they have argued against the fact

00:11:09.000 That it should exist.

00:11:11.000 And so like, what they're doing clearly is, I mean, it's not complicated.

00:11:15.000 They're dividing in order to rule, of course, what the British did in India. 0.80

00:11:19.000 But that's the shortest term thinking.

00:11:20.000 I mean, that's like day trader thinking.

00:11:22.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:11:23.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:24.000 So what do you think are those common ideals?

00:11:26.000 You say that, you know, there are certain things that you think are just basic to being American.

00:11:29.000 What are those common ideas?

00:11:30.000 I mean, I guess I'd start with the Bill of Rights.

00:11:31.000 I mean, that's not hard.

00:11:32.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:11:33.000 Since it is a founding document, it's the foundational document.

00:11:37.000 And I think, look,

00:11:39.000 You'll notice the book is long on diagnostics and short on solutions because that reflects who I am and what I do.

00:11:49.000 I'm not a policymaker at all.

00:11:50.000 I'm an observer.

00:11:52.000 I'm not a deep systematic thinker.

00:11:54.000 Again, I'm a talk show host.

00:11:55.000 So I'm pretty good at telling you what I think is wrong.

00:11:58.000 It's not as clear how you fix it other than go back to the obvious things.

00:12:04.000 Like, demand that everybody who comes to this country for economic opportunity, for example, or for the safety of our rule of law, also buy into the things that make all of us Americans.

00:12:16.000 Like, it's not complicated, really.

00:12:20.000 So yeah, I would start with the Bill of Rights.

00:12:21.000 You have an absolute right, as defined in 1967 by the Supreme Court, but also by centuries of tradition here in this country, which we inherited from another culture across the ocean, to believe what you believe.

00:12:37.000 Unmolested, period.

00:12:38.000 It's an absolute right.

00:12:39.000 You can't violate my conscience.

00:12:41.000 And that right is under assault, not by a political party, but by, in effect, a secular evangelical faith, which we're calling progressive or liberal or whatever, but it's not.

00:12:50.000 It's a species of religion that seeks to convert by force. 1.00

00:12:54.000 And that is deeply anguished and concerned that other people disagree.

00:12:58.000 So, like, I doubt you go home tonight and fret at any length over the idea that somewhere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, someone disagrees with you on an issue.

00:13:05.000 Don't care.

00:13:07.000 Exactly.

00:13:07.000 I'm not famous for my care.

00:13:08.000 But I can promise you somewhere in Williamsburg, right now, someone is lying in a studio apartment fretting that in the, you know, the far reaches of red clay Alabama, someone's not fully on board with the bathroom program.

00:13:19.000 I'm really bothered by that, and they need to do something about it.

00:13:22.000 So actually it's an asymmetrical contest between one group that wants to affect policy outcomes and the other group that wants to convert by the sword.

00:13:30.000 So it's the religious people versus the political people, and I don't even think we acknowledge that most of the time.

00:13:35.000 One of the things that you do in the book, and I wanted to ask for clarification on this because you've mentioned the words elites a few times.

00:13:39.000 Yeah.

00:13:39.000 And when I talk about elites, what I've really tried to do is distinguish elites from elitists because elites to me are folks who very often, you have elite in every field.

00:13:48.000 You have elite in the NBA because they're the best basketball players.

00:13:51.000 Right.

00:13:51.000 You have elite economically, many times because they went to a good school and because they have generated some sort of service or good that a lot of people want to buy into.

00:13:59.000 And then you have elitists, who are, in my opinion, the people who are really the problem, the folks who think that they ought to be able to cram down their values on somebody else.

00:14:06.000 Are you conflating elite with elitist?

00:14:08.000 Because obviously, look, you're an elite, right?

00:14:09.000 You're a guy who's very wealthy.

00:14:11.000 You've done very well for yourself.

00:14:12.000 Well, that's the whole point of the book.

00:14:14.000 One thing I try never to do is pose as something I'm not.

00:14:18.000 Right, no, I'm not.

00:14:18.000 And that's not an accusation, right?

00:14:19.000 No, of course not.

00:14:20.000 No, no, but I just want to be extra clear.

00:14:21.000 I mean, I'm an elite too, right?

00:14:22.000 I mean, I went to Harvard Law School and we do well, so.

00:14:24.000 I grew up in La Jolla and Georgetown.

00:14:25.000 I'm not here to give you the view from coal country.

00:14:28.000 I'm here to give you the view from the world I grew up in and have lived in always, which is the world of the people making a disproportionate number of the key decisions in our country, economic.

00:14:38.000 Political, cultural.

00:14:40.000 Determine, you know, like, who makes the most money.

00:14:43.000 So I guess the question was, is that an economic status or is that a mindset?

00:14:45.000 Because... No, no, it's a practical reality.

00:14:48.000 Every society is hierarchical.

00:14:50.000 I'm not arguing against that.

00:14:51.000 People are innately hierarchical.

00:14:53.000 So are dogs.

00:14:53.000 It's a mammal thing.

00:14:54.000 Okay?

00:14:55.000 So you're not going to change that.

00:14:55.000 There will always be people who are making more decisions than other people, who are making more money than other people.

00:15:02.000 They are the people at the top of your society.

00:15:04.000 What has changed?

00:15:05.000 From previous generations is not simply the magnitude of the concentration of wealth and power, though I do think, like, measurably that is more disproportionate than ever.

00:15:14.000 But that's not really what's changed.

00:15:15.000 What's actually changed is the mindset of the people in charge.

00:15:19.000 They no longer acknowledge they're in charge.

00:15:23.000 And they no longer acknowledge that they have a responsibility to the people whose lives they influence.

00:15:28.000 So the robber barons who we learned, you know, Carnegie and Rockefeller and Phipps and all the people that we learned to hate in ninth grade, those people, you know, had a lot of flaws.

00:15:38.000 And I do think the concentrations of their wealth was a threat that did justify what Teddy Roosevelt did.

00:15:45.000 You know what I mean?

00:15:45.000 Breaking up the trust was really important to allow capitalism to continue.

00:15:49.000 But one thing I would say in their defense is they knew they were in charge.

00:15:53.000 They admitted it, and they understood that it came with obligations, because it always does.

00:15:57.000 If you're a parent, you know.

00:15:59.000 You're in complete control of your children.

00:16:01.000 You can do whatever you want to them.

00:16:02.000 You can make them wear funny hats, dance on one foot.

00:16:05.000 You can make them speak a different language.

00:16:06.000 You can do whatever you want.

00:16:07.000 They're your kids.

00:16:08.000 You're God.

00:16:09.000 But with those rights, your rights as a parent, come obligations to take care of.

00:16:17.000 The people over whom you have control.

00:16:18.000 And that is what has been lost.

00:16:21.000 And so Travis, the teenage billionaire who ran Uber, founded it, oversaw the second biggest workforce, employee workforce in the world, and yet he didn't claim them as employees.

00:16:34.000 He didn't pay their health insurance.

00:16:37.000 One third of them lost money working for him.

00:16:39.000 Now, you could say, well, it's the free market.

00:16:41.000 Okay, fine.

00:16:42.000 But it doesn't absolve him of his core responsibility.

00:16:45.000 If you're creating a hierarchy of responsibilities, first is to the people closest to you, and that would include your children, your spouse, your employees, and then to the world.

00:16:52.000 They've inverted that.

00:16:53.000 So Travis was always lecturing the rest of us about police brutality or Black Lives Matter or global warming or whatever.

00:16:59.000 What he was doing was displacing his responsibility from the real and the tangible to the theoretical and cost free.

00:17:07.000 So I would get these notices on my Uber app being like, let's pause for a moment to remember the victims of police violence, which, you know, that's fine. 0.91

00:17:15.000 But before you start lecturing me about my moral inadequacies and about how you care more than I do, maybe you could pay for the health insurance of your freaking employees, pal, Mr. Teenage Billionaire Guy.

00:17:24.000 Like, so this is actually part of a much larger syndrome that grows out of the meritocracy the SAT created 60 years ago that has convinced the people in charge that everything that, and trust me, this is the world I'm from, has convinced them that, of course, they're richer and better educated and, by the way, more attractive.

00:17:42.000 than the people in the great middle of the country, in the medieval parts of the country.

00:17:47.000 Okay, that's all true.

00:17:49.000 But they're convinced that they're succeeding because they're better.

00:17:53.000 They are better.

00:17:54.000 I'm just a better person.

00:17:55.000 I made better choices than you.

00:17:56.000 This is where I think we come to the second half where we disagree.

00:17:59.000 So I talked about bifurcating sort of the conversation into elite control of your life in terms of family life and everything else with the economic suggestion that the meritocracy itself is deeply flawed and that the meritocracy can only survive if the people on the top of the meritocracy start to essentially give things away to a certain extent.

00:18:20.000 So the Uber suggestion that you make, for example,

00:18:23.000 The reason that Uber operates with a bunch of independent contractors is obviously because it's less costly.

00:18:29.000 It's because it's less costly that Uber is able to have an extraordinarily profitable enterprise that allows them to have all these independent contractors in the first place.

00:18:37.000 If you have employees, then basically you have a taxi medallion company.

00:18:40.000 And that restricts supply.

00:18:42.000 Obviously, that leads to increased pricing, which leads to more competitiveness with the taxi companies, the worst product for consumers.

00:18:48.000 So the question is, when it comes to this idea that the meritocracy itself is deeply flawed, I want to read a quote from your book because it struck me, because it's obviously a really well-written book, and it makes some arguments that struck me as actually very much in sync with, for example, some of the things that Bernie Sanders says.

00:19:06.000 So the quote is this.

00:19:07.000 Well, let me just say, because they are.

00:19:10.000 Oh, so that's exactly what I'm going to ask you in a second.

00:19:12.000 So here's the quote.

00:19:12.000 Prosperity is a relative measure.

00:19:14.000 It doesn't matter how much brightly colored plastic crap I can buy from China. 0.98

00:19:17.000 If you can buy more, you're the rich one. 0.99

00:19:18.000 I'm poor by comparison.

00:19:20.000 Poverty doesn't cause instability.

00:19:22.000 Envy does.

00:19:22.000 So I actually agree with the last couple of sentences that envy causes instability.

00:19:26.000 But my solution to that is people should actually, it's actually against the Ten Commandments.

00:19:30.000 Like you should stop worrying about what your buddy has if your life is better.

00:19:33.000 I couldn't agree more.

00:19:34.000 Despite all the talk about economic stagnation in the United States since 1979, you can get a lot better stuff. 0.99

00:19:39.000 That cheap colored plastic crap is not just junk from China. 0.78

00:19:42.000 I mean, you're talking about better cars, better refrigerators, better air conditioning, bigger houses in many cases. 0.99

00:19:47.000 Yeah, that's great.

00:19:48.000 I'm for that.

00:19:48.000 I benefit from all that.

00:19:49.000 How does that work?

00:19:50.000 What's the suicide rate doing right now?

00:19:52.000 Well, I think the suicide, so the question is, is this suicide?

00:19:55.000 So we just elected Donald Trump president?

00:19:57.000 Right.

00:19:57.000 As if you needed a clearer indication that there is profound, not just dissatisfaction, but unrest.

00:20:05.000 You would not elect Donald Trump president.

00:20:08.000 Unless you were enraged and desperate.

00:20:11.000 And so we do not take this seriously.

00:20:13.000 That's the point.

00:20:14.000 So where do you draw the lines then on government control?

00:20:17.000 There are many lines.

00:20:18.000 Look, let me just say, I'm not a secret socialist.

00:20:21.000 Every view of mine is completely transparent.

00:20:23.000 No, no, for sure.

00:20:23.000 I'm not accusing you of being one.

00:20:24.000 No, I don't think you are.

00:20:25.000 I just want to be clear about it.

00:20:27.000 I just think that policymakers never should avert their gaze from the goal, which is a stable society.

00:20:35.000 Stability is underrated.

00:20:36.000 It's underrated because we've always had it.

00:20:38.000 So it's almost like, you know, you don't appreciate a friend until he dies, and you're like, oh man, I wish I'd, you know, told him I loved him or whatever.

00:20:44.000 We've had, with a four-year exception, almost continuous

00:20:48.000 Social stability, the strata upon which we build our economy and our civil society, all of that was possible because we had a stable society.

00:20:56.000 We had a middle class that was the majority.

00:21:00.000 And now we don't.

00:21:01.000 And so we're not thinking clearly about what's going to happen unless and until we regain that stability.

00:21:07.000 And the core factor driving it is expanding inequality, not just the fact that our ruling class is richer than it's ever been, including me.

00:21:17.000 But that the rest of the country is going in the other direction.

00:21:20.000 Life expectancy for huge parts of the country is in decline.

00:21:24.000 Like, that's the most... So I guess I would just say the problem with the meritocracy is not that the idea of a meritocracy is bad.

00:21:32.000 I'm completely for it.

00:21:33.000 I'm from Southern California.

00:21:34.000 I mean, talk about a region predicated on meritocracy.

00:21:37.000 Nobody cares where you're from. 0.53

00:21:37.000 You know what I mean? 0.53

00:21:38.000 It's like, what can you do?

00:21:40.000 That is a core belief of mine.

00:21:42.000 I'm merely saying that if you have an economy that suddenly

00:21:47.000 Makes labor valueless, physical labor valueless, and rewards dramatically, I'm not going to say disproportionately, dramatically cognitive ability.

00:21:58.000 What you're really saying is we have a class system based on IQ.

00:22:03.000 Now, Charles Murray wrote a book on this 25 years ago that included a very controversial race chapter, which he never should have included, because it obscured the core point of the book, which is what I just said.

00:22:11.000 Right, and then you wrote Coming Apart, which is basically the book without the race chapter.

00:22:14.000 Exactly, because you read it, and it's like actually the most brilliant thing I've read in the past 20 years.

00:22:19.000 Those two books together explain what has happened.

00:22:22.000 We have a ruling class that is becoming impenetrable, actually.

00:22:27.000 You can't join unless you have inequalities

00:22:31.000 That are the kind of price of membership.

00:22:34.000 I mean, we do have 7 million unfilled jobs in the economy right now.

00:22:37.000 We do!

00:22:37.000 People are moving less, however, than they have in the past 30 years.

00:22:40.000 So, the real question is, you mentioned the suicide rate.

00:22:44.000 It seems to me that your explanation of a lot of the social discontent in the United States is economically based.

00:22:49.000 Yes!

00:22:49.000 And for me, I think that a lot of that social discontent is less economically based than spiritually based.

00:22:54.000 But I think they're more related.

00:22:57.000 I'm doubtful, actually.

00:22:58.000 And the reason that I'm doubtful is because we are, as a society, more prosperous than any society in the history of humanity, including the people at the lower end of the spectrum. 0.97

00:23:06.000 And that's not to say that there aren't people suffering.

00:23:08.000 But by comparison to any other time in human history, it's not close.

00:23:12.000 No, but I'm not making that argument, though.

00:23:14.000 So this is the Heritage Foundation argument.

00:23:16.000 Like, you're worried about the poor.

00:23:17.000 They, you know, they have three color TVs.

00:23:19.000 I get it.

00:23:20.000 And I believe that for a long time.

00:23:21.000 And I'm for whatever.

00:23:22.000 Right, you're right.

00:23:23.000 That's great.

00:23:24.000 And I'm grateful that no one is starving and has never starved, really, in the last hundred years here, including during the Depression.

00:23:29.000 But that's missing the point.

00:23:33.000 What you want is a society that is cohesive, where everyone feels part of the same thing.

00:23:41.000 You don't want the people who are making the huge majority of important decisions to be completely cut off from everyone else for a bunch of reasons.

00:23:49.000 One, it will engender resentment, inevitably, as it has.

00:23:53.000 And the people who feel resentment, since they still have the vote, their labor is worth nothing, okay?

00:23:58.000 That's why labor unions have collapsed. 0.99

00:23:59.000 The value of labor has declined over the past 100 years dramatically.

00:24:03.000 But they still have the franchise!

00:24:04.000 They still have political power.

00:24:06.000 And what are they going to do with that power?

00:24:07.000 They're going to punish you.

00:24:08.000 But isn't the way- With populism.

00:24:10.000 And that Trump is the beginning of that.

00:24:12.000 But isn't the way that, at least the founders thought of this, that the way to prevent the elites, you know, an elite class from controlling other people's lives is to restrict the inherent power of government to control everybody's life.

00:24:23.000 When you suggested before that the goal of the society should be stability,

00:24:27.000 Everyone wants a stable society, but there are lots of different... I mean, you say this in the book.

00:24:30.000 There are lots of different types of stable societies.

00:24:32.000 I mean, there are monarchies that are stable societies.

00:24:34.000 There are communist regimes that are... Monarchies are the most stable societies.

00:24:36.000 Right, exactly.

00:24:36.000 There are dictatorships that are incredibly... North Korea is a very stable society.

00:24:40.000 That's right.

00:24:40.000 So, is the goal of our society stability, primarily, or freedom?

00:24:45.000 And when do the two come in conflict?

00:24:46.000 Because... Well, they often do, and that's an incisive question, and you're exactly right. 0.99

00:24:50.000 And I would say to narrow the goal down to a single thing, as I did, is probably stupid. 0.81

00:24:55.000 Stability makes a lot of other things that you want possible.

00:25:00.000 But I would say within the American context, what you want is a country where the average person, again with an IQ of 100 and an income of 90 grand a year and three kids, can sort of live the life that people lived under those circumstances in 1950.

00:25:15.000 You want the average person to feel like he's vested in a society, that he can have a stable family,

00:25:23.000 Without, you know, by the way, let me just say, the economic impetus behind family destruction is totally underappreciated by conservatives.

00:25:32.000 So they looked at the landscape of inner-city America for 50 years and they're like, nope, you know, family formation's gone.

00:25:37.000 Like, the overwhelming majority of kids grow up without a father.

00:25:40.000 That's a cultural problem.

00:25:41.000 Yeah, well, okay, yeah, it is a cultural problem.

00:25:43.000 There's one way to describe it.

00:25:44.000 But what's its root?

00:25:45.000 Why did it happen?

00:25:46.000 Well, look at rural America now.

00:25:50.000 Where you're seeing the incidence of fatherlessness like spike.

00:25:56.000 It's unknown in my neighborhood.

00:25:57.000 I live in a rich neighborhood, I'm sure you do too.

00:25:58.000 Everyone's married, okay?

00:26:00.000 There's no divorce where I live.

00:26:01.000 In rural America, divorce among white people is now the rule out of what like births and a lot of zip codes are the majority.

00:26:11.000 Why did that happen?

00:26:12.000 Because the men make less than the women. 0.98

00:26:15.000 Then there's so much social science on this.

00:26:18.000 Nobody wants to say it out loud because you're violating some unspoken rule of, like, unhappy feminism or something. 1.00

00:26:22.000 I don't care.

00:26:23.000 It's true.

00:26:24.000 Study after longitudinal study has shown that when men make less, women don't want to marry them. 0.82

00:26:30.000 Now, maybe they should.

00:26:30.000 Ask, ask, I have three daughters.

00:26:33.000 Ask them.

00:26:33.000 And they're not ideological at all.

00:26:35.000 They're totally open-minded.

00:26:36.000 They're young people.

00:26:37.000 Would you want to marry a man who makes less than you? 1.00

00:26:38.000 What?

00:26:39.000 No.

00:26:39.000 Do you think that's because of structural changes in the American economy or the counter-argument, which would be the welfare state, which is when you start to see all of this begin to spike?

00:26:46.000 It's definitely the welfare state.

00:26:47.000 Of course, it plays a huge role in this, but I'm talking employed people.

00:26:51.000 So when manufacturing dies, what's left?

00:26:53.000 Well, in a lot of parts of the country, huge swaths of rural America, you have two main employers, the schools and the hospitals.

00:26:59.000 Those are the full-time, year-round employers.

00:27:02.000 And those are traditionally female, not exclusively, there are many exceptions to all of this and there are plenty of women who are happy to marry a man who makes less than they do.

00:27:11.000 But I'm saying across large populations that is true and it's been shown to be true.

00:27:15.000 So when male wages decline below those of females, marriage formation declines along with it.

00:27:25.000 Childbirth does not. 0.73

00:27:27.000 In other words, we're sort of hardwired to impregnate, okay?

00:27:30.000 That continues.

00:27:30.000 So what the net effect is you have no families and more kids, especially boys, growing up in fatherless homes, which all but guarantees that you repeat the process.

00:27:39.000 So like, you have the disintegration of the family because of an economic factor.

00:27:42.000 There are other factors, and I, of course.

00:27:44.000 So are you calling for redistribution into these areas?

00:27:48.000 I'm calling for whatever it takes to stop this.

00:27:50.000 Right, so this is where I was asking about the Bernie Sanders crossover.

00:27:52.000 Where do you see the Bernie Sanders program going too far? 0.98

00:27:55.000 Bernie Sanders is a buffoon, okay? 0.99

00:27:57.000 I know you do. 1.00

00:27:57.000 And actually totally insincere. 1.00

00:28:00.000 But I'm saying conservatives go on and have for generations about how important the family, they don't mean it at all.

00:28:07.000 I live in DC, where the entire conservative non-profit infrastructure lives, okay?

00:28:12.000 And I know what their priorities are, and they're lowering marginal tax rates, which I'm for, by the way, as someone who pays the majority of his income in taxes.

00:28:18.000 Of course I'm for that.

00:28:20.000 But the goal, if the goal is preserving the family as the core building block of any successful society, and it's got to be that goal, because it has all kinds of effects that we want,

00:28:31.000 And it's just inherently good.

00:28:31.000 I don't need to explain it, but I could.

00:28:33.000 But the point is, if that's the goal, what are you doing about it?

00:28:37.000 If you wake up one morning and you find yourself in a society where 23-year-olds with four-year college degrees and, like, initiative, who aren't smoking weed every day, if they can't make enough to buy a car, much less a home, much less get married, much less have children, then why should you be surprised when half of them say they prefer socialism?

00:28:59.000 You should not be surprised.

00:29:00.000 I agree to a certain extent.

00:29:01.000 I think that the question is when the pedal hits the metal.

00:29:04.000 You talk in the book about technology and how it's shifting and taking away jobs from folks.

00:29:09.000 Yes.

00:29:09.000 And you make specific reference to truck driving and the fact that there are going to be automated cars on the roads.

00:29:13.000 So would you, Tucker Carlson, be in favor of restrictions on the ability of trucking companies to use this sort of technology specifically to sort of artificially maintain the number of jobs that are available in the trucking industry?

00:29:26.000 Are you joking?

00:29:27.000 In a second! 1.00

00:29:29.000 In a second! 1.00

00:29:30.000 In other words, if I were president when I say to DOT, Department of Transportation, we're not letting driverless trucks on the road.

00:29:37.000 Period.

00:29:37.000 Why?

00:29:38.000 Really simple.

00:29:40.000 Driving for a living is the single most common job for high school educated men in this country, in all 50 states.

00:29:46.000 By the way, that's the same group whose wages have gone down by 11% over the past 30 years.

00:29:50.000 The social cost of eliminating their jobs in a 10-year span, 5-year span, 30-year span is so high

00:29:58.000 That it's not sustainable.

00:29:59.000 So the greater good is protecting your citizens from... Look, capitalism is the best economic system I can think of, I think, that anyone's ever thought of.

00:30:10.000 But that doesn't mean that it's a religion and everything about it is good.

00:30:14.000 There's no niacin creed of capitalism that I have to buy into.

00:30:18.000 What I care about is living in a country where, you know, decent people can live happy lives, actually.

00:30:24.000 And so no, I would say immediately, no, are you joking?

00:30:27.000 And I maybe would make up some pretext for public consumption like, oh, they're dangerous.

00:30:31.000 The technology is not quite finessed.

00:30:32.000 No, no.

00:30:33.000 But the truth would be, I don't want to put 10 million men out of work because you're going to have 10 million dead families and the cascading effect from that will wreck your country. 0.80

00:30:42.000 So I'm going to ask about the limiting principle there in just a second.

00:30:45.000 But first, let's talk about Talkspace.

00:30:47.000 So if you're feeling a little bit nervous because of this conversation, because you're one of these people in an industry that's being assaulted by technology, or if you're just a person who is having trouble at home, maybe you need to go to Talkspace.

00:30:57.000 It's the online therapy company that lets you message a licensed therapist from anywhere at any time.

00:31:01.000 All you need is a computer with internet connection or the Talkspace mobile app.

00:31:05.000 That means you can improve your mental health, even if you've had trouble making time for it in the past.

00:31:08.000 I'm a big advocate, by the way, of folks talking to somebody if you need to do so. 0.93

00:31:12.000 I think it's one of the stupidest stigmas in American life that you're supposed to sit there and try and grit your teeth and make your way through life without any help at all. 1.00

00:31:18.000 It's idiotic. 1.00

00:31:19.000 If you can't imagine fitting anything else into your life, with Talkspace, therapy is as easy as sending your therapist a message. 1.00

00:31:23.000 Get something off your chest whenever you need to.

00:31:25.000 Talk about everyday challenges at work or at home.

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00:31:28.000 There are no extra commutes, no leaving the office, and no judgment.

00:31:31.000 It's a therapy.

00:31:32.000 Remember that therapy isn't just about venting your innermost thoughts.

00:31:34.000 It's about practical, everyday strategies for stress management, living a happier life.

00:31:38.000 Having a therapist simply provides you a designated person for you to talk to.

00:31:41.000 Somebody trained to listen and help you make positive changes.

00:31:43.000 The Talkspace platform has over 2,000 licensed therapists who are experienced in addressing life challenges we all face.

00:31:48.000 To match with the perfect therapist for a fraction of the price of traditional therapy, go to Talkspace.com slash Shapiro.

00:31:54.000 Use that promo code Shapiro.

00:31:55.000 You get 45 bucks off your first month and show your support for this show.

00:31:58.000 That's Shapiro.

00:31:59.000 Talkspace.com slash Shapiro.

00:32:01.000 You get that special deal.

00:32:02.000 So, back to the technology question.

00:32:04.000 So, it's fascinating to me that you're so willing to restrict technology in this particular area, not because it's not a justifiable policy.

00:32:13.000 I'm not willing.

00:32:15.000 Eager to.

00:32:15.000 I was thrilled to do that.

00:32:17.000 So, what's the limiting principle?

00:32:18.000 Because, obviously, jobs are lost in industries through creative destruction and have been for the entire time the free market has existed.

00:32:24.000 Of course.

00:32:24.000 I mean, wheelwrights lost their jobs when the automobile was created.

00:32:27.000 Right.

00:32:28.000 What's to prevent this principle that you're speaking of from just becoming Luddite-ism?

00:32:33.000 That technology is destroying jobs?

00:32:35.000 Well, I don't think Luddite-ism is insane.

00:32:37.000 I mean, there are massive costs to the industrial revolution.

00:32:40.000 But you say you're a fan of capitalism and development.

00:32:43.000 We wouldn't have all the cool stuff we have, right?

00:32:45.000 Yeah, look, I'm for capitalism.

00:32:47.000 I'm for machines.

00:32:48.000 Right.

00:32:48.000 You know, I'll guarantee I'll live way longer than my great-grandparents.

00:32:52.000 I get it.

00:32:52.000 I'm for machines, okay?

00:32:54.000 I'm just saying that there was a cost.

00:32:56.000 Half the world was enslaved for 70 years under Bolshevism because those countries didn't manage, I would argue, 0.97

00:33:04.000 The transition from an agrarian economy into an industrial one.

00:33:08.000 That's what that was, okay?

00:33:09.000 So we're on the cusp of a completely transformative revolution, as or more transformative as the industrial revolution.

00:33:16.000 And no one is trying to take control of it at all, or figure out how to channel these forces into an outcome that we want to live with realistically.

00:33:24.000 And because they're not, you're going to see reactions, and you're already seeing reactions against this stuff that are flat-out extreme.

00:33:31.000 So the model again is Teddy Roosevelt, who was a capitalist, a patriot, a man of deep faith.

00:33:37.000 He was not anti-business, and yet he restrained American businesses.

00:33:42.000 He broke them up and was hated for doing it in the service of a higher goal, which was a stable, happy country where the traditions could be preserved.

00:33:50.000 If he didn't do that, you know, there's no telling, like, what would have happened to the IWW or whatever.

00:33:57.000 We could have gone in a totally different direction.

00:33:58.000 I mean, so I will admit, I'm not a Teddy Roosevelt fan, and I would have opposed the trust busting, but when it comes to the sort of politics we're talking about, I guess my major question is, is it a contributing factor to societal unrest to tell people that politics is to blame for the problem?

00:34:16.000 Are we edging on political messianism, the idea that if we just change a couple of policies here or there, then we'll be able to fix everything, when the reality is that, as you talk about a little bit in the book,

00:34:28.000 What we may be suffering from is an actual spiritual malaise, and maybe economics has something to do with it.

00:34:33.000 I would argue that it has a lot more to do with a generalized move away from social fabric driven by all of the factors that used to exist in churches and all of these things, and that if we are going to maintain both freedom and stability,

00:34:46.000 You know, the John Adams formulation was that this Constitution was only built for moral and virtuous people.

00:34:50.000 It wasn't built for any other.

00:34:51.000 Got it.

00:34:51.000 There are two ways to actually tackle that.

00:34:53.000 One is to say, we are no longer moral and no longer virtuous, so we have to change the freedom.

00:34:58.000 And the other is to say, well, if we want to maintain the freedom, we have to become moral and virtuous again.

00:35:03.000 And I wonder if we as public figures, because we're in the same business more or less,

00:35:07.000 Where we ought to be putting our focus.

00:35:08.000 Should we be putting our focus on justifying people's fears about the economy and suggesting that a political messiah is around the corner?

00:35:15.000 Or should we be saying to people, listen, the industry in your town may be dying.

00:35:20.000 And as a temporary stopgap, perhaps we can stop technology from advancing.

00:35:25.000 Perhaps we can stop trade from eating your job.

00:35:27.000 Or should we be saying to people, listen, America was built by folks who crossed mountains to go to the middle of nowhere in pure risk.

00:35:35.000 And

00:35:37.000 You are guaranteed nothing in the United States but the adventure of your life.

00:35:41.000 There are 7 million unfilled jobs.

00:35:43.000 Maybe we need to actually move.

00:35:44.000 Maybe you need to go to North Dakota and get a fracking job.

00:35:46.000 Right.

00:35:48.000 Yeah.

00:35:48.000 Leave your parents' graves in the town you grew up in to move to some soulless city and become a cog in some thing.

00:35:54.000 Well, I mean, that's the biblical mandate.

00:35:56.000 Leave the land that you've known and go to some place for adventure.

00:35:58.000 I don't know.

00:35:59.000 It's a mixture of both.

00:36:01.000 And to answer your initial question, anyone who argues that any of this is going to be fixed by a person or a bill that makes its way through Congress or a new Supreme Court justice is lying to you.

00:36:12.000 That's a grotesque and dishonest oversimplification of the sort that politicians and, by the way, talk show hosts specialize in.

00:36:18.000 And so to the extent I played a role in lying about that, I'm sorry.

00:36:22.000 I never want to be that guy.

00:36:24.000 I always want to acknowledge how complex and multifaceted all of these problems are because they are.

00:36:30.000 I'm merely making a couple of very obvious observations.

00:36:32.000 That there are downtides to this stuff.

00:36:33.000 We are not servants of our economic system.

00:36:37.000 We are not here to serve as shareholders.

00:36:40.000 We're human beings and our concerns are real.

00:36:45.000 Now they must be balanced against the concerns of shareholders and lots of other concerns.

00:36:48.000 But to say that, you know, if it's more efficient to have you move to some crappy suburb to serve some douchey company because that's what, you know, is best to increase value, it's like, it's okay for me to stand up and say, you know, there are other concerns here, actually.

00:37:06.000 And there's a social cost to doing that.

00:37:09.000 Anyway, this all used to be obvious.

00:37:11.000 These things were actually debated during the Industrial Revolution.

00:37:15.000 The Luddites are used for propaganda purposes to make the other side seem ludicrous. 0.97

00:37:21.000 You're literally smashing machines! 1.00

00:37:22.000 You're a dummy! 1.00

00:37:23.000 You're an animal! 1.00

00:37:24.000 You know what I mean? 0.97

00:37:25.000 But actually, the concern is totally real.

00:37:27.000 If you spend, I don't know, just like roughly 5,000 years

00:37:32.000 In one kind of economy that changes incrementally over time, but basically living from what you grow, living with your family and working a hundred yards away for thousands of years, and then in the space of, I don't know, a hundred years after the steam engine is invented, everything is completely different.

00:37:49.000 That's a lot.

00:37:50.000 It doesn't mean that you should stop it or smash the machines with a hammer, but it means you should be thoughtful in the way you channel these awesome forces, these awesome economic forces.

00:37:59.000 You are not a servant to them.

00:38:03.000 They are tools that thoughtful people use to increase the goodness of their society.

00:38:10.000 So I guess I'm just so struck by, like, if I would ever talk to liberals or conservatives, market fundamentalists in Washington, they're like, well, we can't stop.

00:38:17.000 This is technology.

00:38:18.000 It's inexorable.

00:38:20.000 Like, we have really no role in it other than to try to benefit from it.

00:38:23.000 It's like, really?

00:38:24.000 You're talking about machines.

00:38:25.000 Are they really in charge?

00:38:26.000 No, we're in charge.

00:38:28.000 We're human beings with free will.

00:38:29.000 God created us to make these decisions.

00:38:31.000 No, but there is a balance, obviously, between...

00:38:34.000 Increasing prosperity across all of humankind, which has really been the result of free market capitalism over the past 40 years, and redistribution of the benefits, because the benefits obviously fall upon people deeply unequal.

00:38:46.000 Look, I'm not for taking stuff from people.

00:38:47.000 I don't want my stuff to be taken from me.

00:38:49.000 But regulations do that, effectively.

00:38:50.000 I mean, President Trump has been very anti-regulatory because of this.

00:38:52.000 I guess, in a broad sense...

00:38:54.000 Maybe, I guess.

00:38:56.000 I mean, I know that that's a talking point. 0.98

00:38:57.000 I'm not exactly, I mean, yeah, a lot of regulations are unbelievably stupid, and they benefit, you know, certain categories of rent seeker at the expense of everyone else. 0.98

00:39:04.000 Like, I'm very aware, I live among it, I know. 0.98

00:39:07.000 And a lot of this is totally corrupt and counterproductive, okay?

00:39:10.000 For sure.

00:39:11.000 On the other hand, we have an obligation to think deeply about what's best for normal people.

00:39:18.000 That's all I'm saying.

00:39:19.000 That's it.

00:39:20.000 That's all I'm saying.

00:39:22.000 And we are not powerless in the face of these forces.

00:39:24.000 And if we decide that we are powerless in the face of them, we're all just along for the ride, we're not the authors of history, we're merely just flotsam floating atop it.

00:39:33.000 Whoa, that's a totally different way of thinking about it that's really bad.

00:39:38.000 And as we go through these changes, the people benefiting most, to whom much is given, much is expected.

00:39:43.000 They should feel an obligation to those beneath them in the way you feel to your children and your employees.

00:39:47.000 Well, that's certainly, I feel, I mean, you know.

00:39:48.000 They should feel guilty.

00:39:49.000 That's why charity exists, but.

00:39:50.000 Exactly!

00:39:52.000 They should, you know, we underestimate, to your point, and I think we're basically in agreement on almost everything, especially on this,

00:39:59.000 That your moral code determines how you behave and how you live.

00:40:04.000 And so the robber barons were deeply fraught and guilty in some ways about their success, because they were like guilty wasps.

00:40:12.000 They were Protestants.

00:40:13.000 Like, I get it.

00:40:14.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:40:14.000 Like, they're my people, so I know exactly what they used to think, which was, you know,

00:40:19.000 Not everything I've achieved is the result of choices that I made.

00:40:23.000 They were Calvinist on some level.

00:40:25.000 Like, they understood that there are other things, providence, grace, luck, whatever you want to call it, that determine the outcome.

00:40:34.000 So, like, the people now in charge, your average private equity guy, and I know a million of them and like them, okay, but they believe that they're rich because they're better.

00:40:42.000 Because they made good choices, and you're not because you didn't.

00:40:45.000 Okay, that's true in some sense.

00:40:47.000 Choices do matter, for sure.

00:40:49.000 I quit drinking so I could be more successful and it worked.

00:40:51.000 Okay.

00:40:53.000 But how does that explain the girl in your fifth grade class who died of leukemia?

00:40:56.000 Did she make bad choices?

00:40:58.000 Was it her fault?

00:40:59.000 Really?

00:40:59.000 Is she just like, what?

00:41:00.000 No!

00:41:00.000 A lot of this is random.

00:41:02.000 I have the job I have because of chance.

00:41:04.000 And when I start telling myself I have the job I have because I'm a genius,

00:41:08.000 That's when my soul corrodes, actually, and I become a bad person.

00:41:12.000 So we shouldn't allow people to lie about the way life really is.

00:41:16.000 That's all I'm saying.

00:41:17.000 So let's talk a little bit about another area where you've shifted, and I think most of America has shifted.

00:41:22.000 I think that your shift has reflected

00:41:24.000 A huge majority of Americans, and that is in a more realist, isolationist direction on foreign policy.

00:41:28.000 So in the 90s, you worked with Bill Kristol, obviously, who's very interventionist, very hawkish.

00:41:33.000 And you have an entire chapter in Ship of Fools devoted basically to Max Boot and Bill Kristol.

00:41:41.000 When do you think that American intervention is appropriate?

00:41:45.000 When it serves American interests, unambiguously.

00:41:47.000 And by the way, speaking of complicated,

00:41:50.000 I mean, this stuff is complicated.

00:41:52.000 And the one thing that is unknowable is the outcome.

00:41:55.000 You can only guess at its outlines, and often you're wrong.

00:41:58.000 But you need to approach all of these questions with deep humility, understanding that, you know, you think that X will produce Y, but it could produce K. Like, you don't really know.

00:42:09.000 If you do that, it doesn't mean you won't make mistakes.

00:42:12.000 Of course you will, but you'll make fewer mistakes, less profound mistakes.

00:42:15.000 Hubris guarantees disaster every single time.

00:42:19.000 You know, in every context.

00:42:22.000 I mean, it shafted David, it will shaft you, and me, and the whole country.

00:42:25.000 No, I'm serious.

00:42:26.000 When you start thinking that you're God, you know, you are going to fall from great heights.

00:42:31.000 And so, the problem is not, these are very human problems, and they're long-standing problems, they're eternal problems, but when you have an entire city full of policymakers who don't acknowledge these problems,

00:42:43.000 That's when you want... Look, I supported the war in Iraq. 0.82

00:42:46.000 It made sense to me, sort of.

00:42:48.000 And I was certainly willing to go on faith.

00:42:50.000 And then I went to Iraq and I was like, wait.

00:42:52.000 Very soon after, actually, in the winter of 2003.

00:42:53.000 And I was like, this is not at all what I thought.

00:42:56.000 And we don't actually have control of this country.

00:42:58.000 We're not good colonialists.

00:43:00.000 Because we're not willing to admit we have an empire.

00:43:03.000 The British were very effective and they could absorb losses, like their loss in Afghanistan, because they were honest about what they were doing.

00:43:09.000 It was a colonial power that existed for the benefit 0.59

00:43:12.000 Primarily of Great Britain, also for the edification of the peoples over whom they ruled.

00:43:17.000 Like, there was a component to that.

00:43:19.000 There's a Christian component, an evangelical component to British colonialism.

00:43:22.000 But basically, it was we're acting in the interest of civilization, which we run.

00:43:27.000 We are totally unwilling, as a ruling class is more broadly, unwilling to admit we're in charge.

00:43:33.000 So we're not going to ever be good at it.

00:43:35.000 So your choices are do you continue being bad at it or do you stop doing it?

00:43:39.000 To what extent do you think morality plays a role in foreign policy, if any?

00:43:43.000 Again, this is, I guess, back to our basic question.

00:43:45.000 It's the heart of our foreign policy.

00:43:48.000 And the moral question is what's good for the people?

00:43:51.000 In our charge.

00:44:12.000 What's in America's interest there?

00:44:13.000 Are we judging that in terms of dollars and cents?

00:44:15.000 Are we judging that in terms of what we would have to sacrifice in order to stop the carnage?

00:44:18.000 Are we justifying that in terms of immigration?

00:44:20.000 As you say, it's very complex.

00:44:21.000 It's very complex.

00:44:22.000 And Syria is maybe more complex than in certain other situations.

00:44:28.000 Let me take a different example.

00:44:29.000 So World War II, when we look at World War II, pretty much all Americans agree we should have been involved.

00:44:33.000 We were attacked by Japan.

00:44:34.000 Germany declared war on us.

00:44:35.000 You have no choice.

00:44:36.000 When you look in retrospect at how we justify our involvement in World War II, most Americans, if asked why we were involved in World War II, would probably not say Pearl Harbor.

00:44:45.000 They would point to ending the Holocaust and defeating Hitler as a moral matter, that these were evil regimes that needed to be defeated. 0.85

00:44:51.000 Right.

00:44:53.000 When is humanitarian intervention justified?

00:44:57.000 Not based on dollars and cents or based purely on self-defense concerns, if at all.

00:45:02.000 You mean quite apart from self-defense concerns?

00:45:05.000 When just for its own sake... Right.

00:45:07.000 Something terrible is happening somewhere in the world.

00:45:08.000 Is it worth saving lives?

00:45:09.000 I mean, you know, you have to weigh... That's a Christian impulse.

00:45:15.000 It's a Jewish impulse. 0.78

00:45:16.000 It's a decent impulse, I guess is what I'm saying, to want to help people.

00:45:20.000 I think that's right.

00:45:20.000 And we have a robust NGO sector that makes its business doing that to great counterproductive effect, actually.

00:45:30.000 Anyway, that's a whole separate- A dictator sees all money, yeah.

00:45:32.000 Exactly, right.

00:45:33.000 But yeah, life expectancy in post-colonial Africa has gone down, so how's that working for you?

00:45:36.000 But anyway, so I understand that impulse and I admire it, and I think this is not only the most prosperous, but the best country in human history, so like, I get it, I get it.

00:45:46.000 But you balance those impulses against what's actually achievable, and always and everywhere the threat that you will unintentionally make things worse, which is a very real, present threat, always.

00:45:58.000 Americans have no appreciation of that at all.

00:46:00.000 One thing that does bug me about

00:46:02.000 My own people, is they don't have much imagination for how things could be worse.

00:46:07.000 So you're always hearing Americans say, how could it be worse?

00:46:10.000 Okay, travel a little bit, okay?

00:46:12.000 And you will see that almost always it can be worse.

00:46:15.000 So will you make it worse by trying to make it better?

00:46:17.000 That's a real question, never a concern.

00:46:19.000 But more broadly, I mean, a lot of this is situational.

00:46:22.000 A lot of life is situational.

00:46:24.000 But the main theme is that your foreign policy exists

00:46:30.000 For the behalf of your own country.

00:46:31.000 To make your country stronger, better, safer, more insulated, happier, right?

00:46:36.000 Richer.

00:46:38.000 That's the point of it.

00:46:39.000 And if there's an ancillary benefit of helping other people, of course I'm totally for that.

00:46:44.000 Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the kind of distinctions when it comes to the philosophy of intervention.

00:46:49.000 Because we've talked about morality has to be a component.

00:46:52.000 I agree.

00:46:52.000 We've talked about the

00:46:54.000 I think?

00:47:25.000 We would never know that because it never happened.

00:47:27.000 There's been a decrease in the number of at least mass attacks in the United States over time.

00:47:33.000 So their argument would be, this is where I was getting at with the metrics question at the beginning.

00:47:38.000 By your metrics, the war in Iraq is a disaster, the war in Afghanistan has turned out to be basically a disaster.

00:47:43.000 By their metrics, these have both been successes to the extent that it has prevented casualties on American soil, assuming there would have been more casualties on American soil.

00:47:51.000 And one of the problems with

00:47:53.000 Trying to, you know, assess these issues in a looking forward fashion.

00:47:56.000 The time should know.

00:47:57.000 Right, exactly.

00:47:58.000 Like, you talk in the book about American intervention with regard to the mujahideen in Afghanistan under Reagan, and you point out that this was an instrumental factor in the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:48:07.000 Yes.

00:48:08.000 But should we have armed those people, considering that they would go on to- Do I get it?

00:48:12.000 These are judgment calls made under pressure at the time, under public scrutiny often.

00:48:17.000 They're hard decisions to make.

00:48:18.000 I, thank heaven, don't have to make them.

00:48:20.000 So I have deep empathy for people who make the wrong decision.

00:48:24.000 What I have contempt for is people who won't acknowledge having made the wrong decision.

00:48:27.000 And so there are many things that we can't know.

00:48:29.000 Hypotheticals.

00:48:31.000 You know, are by definition unknowable.

00:48:33.000 But I think any fair person assessing the aftermath of the Iraq war would have to say deposing Saddam empowered Iran.

00:48:40.000 This was his main regional rival, okay?

00:48:43.000 Obviously.

00:48:44.000 And if you believe that Iran is the single greatest threat to the West, and I don't believe that, but many people do. 0.98

00:48:51.000 Everyone I know does.

00:48:53.000 All people of good faith.

00:48:54.000 Then you can't say the Iraq war, by that one standard, that one measure, which seems to be at the center of people's foreign policy understanding right now, was a good idea.

00:49:04.000 You just can't.

00:49:04.000 So look, I get it.

00:49:05.000 There are a lot of things we didn't expect, though I think we should have anticipated that.

00:49:09.000 You take out someone's chief rival, you empower him by definition.

00:49:11.000 But whatever, we didn't.

00:49:13.000 But what I can't stand, what actually grates on me, is the self-righteousness with which they proceed forward as if that never happened.

00:49:21.000 So it's like, really?

00:49:22.000 If you're not for this intervention or that intervention, you just don't have a heart.

00:49:25.000 You just don't care.

00:49:26.000 You're just not a good person.

00:49:27.000 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:49:31.000 These are big decisions that we can make without reference to my personal moral values or yours.

00:49:35.000 We can just try to do the best thing for the country.

00:49:37.000 But you should at least acknowledge

00:49:39.000 You, the guy who's telling me that we need to go to war with Iran now, that the decision that you helped make created the problem that you now tell me we need to solve. 0.99

00:49:47.000 You should at least admit that, or else you're a liar! 0.99

00:49:50.000 Which they are! 0.82

00:49:51.000 Okay, so I do have one final question for you.

00:49:53.000 I want to ask you about President Trump and how he's done so far.

00:49:57.000 If you want to hear the answer to that final question, however, you do have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.

00:50:01.000 To subscribe, go to dailywire.com, click subscribe, give us money, and you can hear the end of our conversation there.

00:50:07.000 Well, Tucker, it's just great to have you here.

00:50:09.000 I'm so glad you could make it out to the West Coast.

00:50:10.000 Oh yeah, thank you!

00:50:10.000 And this book, Ship of Fools, you should definitely check it out.

00:50:12.000 I'm sure you already have a copy.

00:50:13.000 But if you do, read it.

00:50:15.000 And if you don't, go buy it and then read it because it'll give you a great window into the frisson of American politics right now.

00:50:21.000 Tucker, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:50:21.000 Thanks, man.

00:50:22.000 That was so fun.

00:50:22.000 I really appreciate it.

00:50:29.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is produced by Jonathan Hay.

00:50:32.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:50:34.000 Associate producer, Mathis Glover.

00:50:36.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:50:37.000 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.

00:50:39.000 Hair and makeup is by Jeswa Alvera.

00:50:41.000 And title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:50:42.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:50:46.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - November 04, 2018

Tucker Carlson | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 26

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