The Ben Shapiro Show - Twist And Shout…About Kavanaugh | Ep. 617

00:00:00.000 Democrats lose their mind about Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, Bob Woodward's book launches, and Paul Krugman says Republicans are here to steal your health care.

00:00:07.000 Oh, happy day.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:15.000 Today, this very Tumblr will be filled endlessly with the tears of all of the people at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

00:00:22.000 It is fully insane over there where all the women have been reduced to the status of menial slaves under President Pence, and Justice Kavanaugh has forced them all into the back alleys for their abortions.

00:00:33.000 We'll talk about all of those things, but first,

00:00:35.000 Let's talk about what you're going to do during this incipient disaster as Brett Kavanaugh, about to join the Supreme Court and reduce us all to penury, to living in our homes, having to eat from food storage.

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00:00:50.000 Because the reality is that regardless of what the disaster is, whether it's Brett Kavanaugh being appointed to the Supreme Court,

00:00:55.000 Or whether it's net neutrality, or whether it's actually just like an actual natural disaster where you can't leave your house or go to the grocery store.

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00:01:44.000 Okay, so, the second day.

00:01:51.000 We're good to go. 0.94

00:02:12.000 And there's nothing they can do to stop it because Harry Reid, back in 2013, like an idiot, utilized the nuclear option in order to get through a bunch of judicial nominees by President Obama over the filibuster. 0.89

00:02:23.000 So now it only requires 51 votes to put somebody on a federal court. 0.93

00:02:26.000 Well, the Republicans have those 51 votes.

00:02:28.000 They will be using them for Brett Kavanaugh.

00:02:30.000 He will indeed sit on the nation's highest court.

00:02:32.000 Now what's hilarious about all of this is the levels of panic to which the left

00:02:36.000 I think so.

00:02:52.000 This does not sound like a dude who is going to overturn Roe v. Wade.

00:02:55.000 This was always my criticism of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

00:02:58.000 I didn't think that he was the most right-leaning person that the Republicans could have picked, the most originalist person Republicans could have picked.

00:03:03.000 I think he'll be a pretty good judge.

00:03:05.000 I think he'll be a pretty good justice.

00:03:06.000 I don't think that he's going to be Thomas or Scalia.

00:03:09.000 I'm not sure that he's a solid vote to overrule Roe v. Wade.

00:03:12.000 But it doesn't matter what he says at this point, because the Democrats have basically already made up their mind, and judicial hearings are useless.

00:03:18.000 Because we now have something called the Ginsburg Rule, which has been in place for some 30 years.

00:03:24.000 Basically, you can't expect a judge to answer questions about how they will decide an upcoming case, or even what they really think of past precedent.

00:03:32.000 Instead, they just say it's precedent, which is a legal description of the state of the law.

00:03:36.000 Roe is precedent.

00:03:37.000 But precedent is not binding on the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court can simply overrule precedent anytime that it wants.

00:03:43.000 So, all of this is to say that these judicial hearings are a complete waste of time.

00:03:46.000 They're utter nonsense. 0.98

00:03:47.000 They're a wait for the Senators to grandstand and apparently for them to bring in all of their crazy friends to grandstand as well. 0.98

00:03:54.000 The hearings were interrupted in the first 40 minutes 44 times yesterday by various Democrats shouting out interruptions.

00:04:01.000 Also, there are a bunch of people

00:04:03.000 Who decided to shout at Brett Kavanaugh in the room?

00:04:06.000 People like Piper Parabo, who's not been relevant since what, Coyote Ugly?

00:04:10.000 She got arrested yesterday in the worst performance, ironically, since Coyote Ugly.

00:04:14.000 She got arrested yesterday.

00:04:15.000 Linda Sarsour of the Women's March was also arrested in the room.

00:04:19.000 She was dragged out.

00:04:20.000 And what Chairman Leahy did during Justice Kagan's, this is another example.

00:04:50.000 So here's the rule I think they should apply.

00:04:56.000 I think the rule they should apply here is that if you invited anybody in who disrupts the hearing, you don't get to invite anybody in anymore.

00:05:02.000 If you are one of the Democratic senators and you allowed Code Pink to come in, you allowed Linda Sarsour to come in, then she got herself arrested because she's adult, 0.77

00:05:09.000 Then you don't get to invite anybody anymore because that's not what these hearings are for.

00:05:12.000 If you want to protest, there's plenty of space outside for you to protest.

00:05:16.000 Your protest will be useless because this is a democratic process, not a protesting and shouting process.

00:05:20.000 But screaming and whining are the way that the Democrats are dealing with the fact that they are not going to be able to get Merrick Garland on the court to replace a Republican appointee like Justice Kennedy.

00:05:29.000 Here is video of Linda Sarsour getting arrested yesterday.

00:05:32.000 She, again, is delight.

00:05:36.000 Catch you later, Linda.

00:05:45.000 Okay, if you can understand what they're saying, then you have better hearing than I do.

00:05:49.000 All I hear is the shrieking of some sort of primeval creature in the middle of a hearing room.

00:05:56.000 These are humans.

00:05:57.000 I'm not calling her an animal.

00:05:58.000 All I'm saying is that that shrieking is inaudible.

00:06:00.000 There is no way for you to tell what she is saying because she is shrieking like a banshee. 1.00

00:06:04.000 Look at the people in the room.

00:06:05.000 You're right.

00:06:05.000 Everybody on that panel, Orrin Hatch is going, you know what, I've changed my vote because Linda Sarsour is shrieking at me.

00:06:10.000 People in the middle of the country, they're thinking, yes, disaster, thy name be Brett Kavanaugh.

00:06:16.000 Moderates in the middle of the country, independents in the middle of the country, they are thinking the apocalypse is upon us.

00:06:20.000 So now we've been told by the Democrats that women and trans folks will die because of Brett Kavanaugh.

00:06:24.000 Everybody was going to die because of net neutrality.

00:06:26.000 Everybody already died because of the tax cuts.

00:06:29.000 I mean, how many times can people die already?

00:06:32.000 It's wild.

00:06:33.000 It's pretty amazing stuff.

00:06:34.000 All of this should also remind you, it should also remind you that when we get all of this nonsense from the left and from some members of the right about civility in our politics, Trump being the beginning and end of civility in our politics, he's the one who ruined civility.

00:06:48.000 Yeah, sure.

00:06:49.000 Yeah, right.

00:06:50.000 It's all about Trump.

00:06:51.000 This is what bugged me about the McCain funeral, where he had George W. Bush and Barack Obama standing up there, kind of creating this mythologized past where everybody sort of got along.

00:07:01.000 And I was talking with a friend this morning about what bothered me about that idea so much.

00:07:05.000 And what bothered me about the idea is that there are those of us who actually believe that politics matter.

00:07:09.000 And all these politicians prey on us because what they do is they say, you're right, politics do matter.

00:07:14.000 And so you got Joe Biden on the left saying, we'll put you all back in chains and folks on the right saying, this will be the end of the country unless we do something.

00:07:20.000 It's apocalyptic rhetoric from people on both sides of the aisle because they're saying, yes, you are right.

00:07:24.000 Politics do matter.

00:07:26.000 And then as soon as somebody comes along and says, you're right, politics matters.

00:07:29.000 We're going to fight this like a war.

00:07:30.000 You've been using this apocalyptic rhetoric.

00:07:31.000 This is going to be a political war.

00:07:32.000 We're going to fight this like a war.

00:07:34.000 Then they say, well, hold on.

00:07:35.000 We don't want to do that.

00:07:37.000 So they've been basically doing this WWE routine for a very long time, where you have every major politician from both parties speaking like WWE wrestlers, but then telling people that they ought to take it seriously, that it's not fake, that in reality these issues actually matter.

00:07:51.000 And then when the people take those issues seriously, and then when they elect a guy who is not a politician who takes the thing seriously, like Trump actually takes the personal conflict seriously, regardless of what you think of the guy,

00:08:02.000 Then they say, well, no, no, no.

00:08:03.000 He didn't understand that this was all part of the game.

00:08:05.000 He didn't understand.

00:08:06.000 He missed it.

00:08:06.000 He didn't understand it was all part of the game.

00:08:08.000 There's a movie with Robert De Niro called The Fan a long time ago about this kind of...

00:08:14.000 It's about a guy who is a fan of a baseball team and his baseball team is about to go to the World Series.

00:08:18.000 I think this is how the plot works.

00:08:19.000 And Robert De Niro is a fan of the baseball team and he is so enamored with his team's chances of making the World Series that he goes and he kidnaps the opposing star on the other baseball team.

00:08:29.000 And everybody in the world is like, why would you possibly do that?

00:08:32.000 And he's like, well, because I want my team to win.

00:08:34.000 Because he took the conflict too seriously.

00:08:37.000 I feel like that's sort of what we've done with our politics a little bit, which is we now root for the opposing teams, the difference being their actual consequences to which team wins or loses.

00:08:46.000 And so you got the left claiming that the end of the world is nigh, and the right claiming the end of the world is nigh, and then the minute that somebody like Trump comes along and says, okay, fine, if the end of the world is nigh, let's treat this like the brawl that it is, then all of a sudden people on both sides of the aisle, they go, whoa, wait a, wait up a second, wait up a second, we didn't really mean that stuff.

00:09:01.000 And it's like, well, if you didn't mean it, then why did you say it?

00:09:04.000 I agree the end of the world is not nigh.

00:09:06.000 I agree that we're not at the end of the country.

00:09:08.000 I agree we're not on the verge of civil war.

00:09:09.000 I think there are serious divisions about the future of the country.

00:09:13.000 But I think that most Americans are not engaged in those serious divisions.

00:09:16.000 I think that's an intellectual superstructure that really cares deeply about those divisions.

00:09:20.000 I think most Americans are just going about their daily business, making basic assumptions about American life that reflect the essential founding values of the country.

00:09:30.000 But I think there is this intellectual upper class where they have these battles and they know that it's Kabuki theater, and then in the back room they get a drink together, but they don't let anyone else in on the secret that it's Kabuki theater.

00:09:41.000 In reality, the actual Kabuki theater should be them getting along and they should be bashing each other. 0.98

00:09:45.000 Again, I find all of this really tiresome.

00:09:48.000 So what politics really does look like in the country, the way people feel right now is like Linda Sarsour.

00:09:53.000 The way people feel in the country is like Donald Trump.

00:09:56.000 They feel like the wrestling is real.

00:09:59.000 That's what they feel like.

00:09:59.000 Because you know what?

00:10:00.000 When it comes to the consequences, the wrestling actually is real.

00:10:03.000 And the fact that our politicians didn't take it as real for so long, and preyed upon that impression to create enthusiasm for their mission, while all the time knowing that they were just exaggerating the case, that's what's created.

00:10:15.000 Everybody bought into their vision.

00:10:16.000 Everybody bought into the wrestling is real meme, and now the wrestling is real.

00:10:20.000 Once everybody believes the wrestling is real, then they're gonna start brawling, and that's basically where we are right now.

00:10:26.000 Down to the point where everyone has now become delusional.

00:10:29.000 The left is fully delusional about these Kavanaugh hearings.

00:10:31.000 And when I say delusional, there were two stories that started making the rounds yesterday, both of which are completely, completely insane.

00:10:37.000 So story number one is there is a woman named Zina Bash. 0.95

00:10:41.000 Zina Bash is a half Mexican, half Jewish,

00:10:44.000 White House staffer.

00:10:46.000 And she is married to a U.S.

00:10:47.000 attorney, I believe.

00:10:48.000 And Zina Bash was sitting behind Brett Kavanaugh during these hearings. 1.00

00:10:52.000 And the left began claiming that she was making a white power symbol behind Brett Kavanaugh.

00:10:57.000 I kid you not, this thing within a couple of hours, this video of Zina Bash, who is legitimately just putting her hand on her arm.

00:11:05.000 They're saying she's making a covert white power symbol for no reason! 0.95

00:11:08.000 Just because that's her sitting racism or something. 1.00

00:11:10.000 They've still not explained why exactly, even if she were a white supremacist, which she is not, she's again a half-Mexican, half-Jewish person.

00:11:17.000 Her paternal grandparents survived the Holocaust.

00:11:21.000 Why exactly she would be making a white power symbol behind Brett Kavanaugh is beyond me.

00:11:26.000 But they claim that she was legitimately making a white power symbol behind Brett Kavanaugh.

00:11:30.000 And there were a thousand tweets about this.

00:11:32.000 The left began tweeting about this incessantly.

00:11:34.000 Major blue checkmark figures on the left began tweeting about all of this.

00:11:39.000 It's just insane.

00:11:39.000 The ACLU tweeted out, spread the word.

00:11:42.000 It's hashtag not okay.

00:11:44.000 Neo-Nazis are using the okay hand gesture to communicate a hateful message.

00:11:49.000 When using the gesture, the fingers form letters WNP, which stand for white power. 0.88

00:11:53.000 Do not use this hand gesture.

00:11:55.000 It's not okay.

00:11:57.000 Okay.

00:11:58.000 Barack Obama has used this hand gesture.

00:11:59.000 You see what I'm doing right now?

00:12:00.000 This is not a white power symbol.

00:12:01.000 I've been using the hand gesture for OK for my entire life, as have you, as have your parents, because that's not a thing.

00:12:07.000 In fact, the ADL recognized this is not a thing, the Anti-Defamation League.

00:12:11.000 This is what they wrote back in September 2018.

00:12:13.000 They updated it yesterday.

00:12:16.000 Has the simple thumb and forefinger okay hand gesture become a common white supremacist hand signal?

00:12:20.000 Not quite, but it has become a popular gesture used by people across several segments of the right and far right, including some actual white supremacists who generally use it to trigger reactions or what they would describe as trolling the libs.

00:12:31.000 This is thanks to a 2017 hoax campaign started by members of the notorious website 4chan that has since taken on a life of its own.

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00:13:40.000 So the ADL continues by saying, this is all thanks to a 27 hoax campaign started by members of the notorious website 4chan that has since taken on a life of its own.

00:13:50.000 The 4chan site is an anonymous discussion board with an outsized cultural impact on the internet.

00:13:55.000 It has been responsible for everything from the I can has cheeseburger cat meme to the concept of Rickrolling.

00:14:00.000 There's little that 4channers like as much as a hoax, and in recent months, they've served up a number of fakeries with white supremacist themes to largely credulous online audiences. 1.00

00:14:10.000 The OK hand gesture originated as one of these hoaxes in February 2017, when an anonymous 4channer announced Operation OKKK, telling other members, we must flood Twitter and other social media websites, claiming the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.

00:14:23.000 The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letter's white power could be traced within an OK gesture.

00:14:29.000 I believe the way that it works is you can see it here in the ACLU meme.

00:14:33.000 Supposedly, it's like if you go like this, then this is a W for like white, and then I guess the power is like that thing. 0.97

00:14:39.000 Okay, the whole thing is trollery. 1.00

00:14:41.000 The whole thing is stupidity. 1.00

00:14:42.000 It's all Reddit making fun of you. 1.00

00:14:43.000 It's all 4chan making fun of you.

00:14:45.000 And the entire left fell for it.

00:14:46.000 They said that Zina Bash was responsible for white supremacy. 1.00

00:14:49.000 Again, a half-Mexican, half-Jew. 1.00

00:14:50.000 The Jews are so clever that they activated a half-Mexican, half-Jewish person to unleash a white power symbol to hit the media and get Brett Kavanaugh nominated? 0.95

00:15:02.000 I guess? 0.88

00:15:02.000 Something like that. 0.88

00:15:03.000 But there were a bunch of people on the left who tweeted this stuff out.

00:15:06.000 Like, a lot of them.

00:15:06.000 Okay, this became an actual thing on Twitter.

00:15:09.000 Keith Dumas, or Dumbass, as the case may be.

00:15:12.000 Who is she? 0.99

00:15:12.000 What's up with the white power sign at MSNBC? 0.99

00:15:16.000 Scott Dworkin tweeted out, it's the biggest mistake I've ever made.

00:15:18.000 Real Donald Trump said after having to condemn fellow white supremacists after Charlottesville.

00:15:22.000 Just in case you were wondering what side Trump's on, it's on the side of the Nazis. 0.58

00:15:26.000 The same side Republicans in Congress are on.

00:15:28.000 And then somebody replied, so are some at the hearings. 0.86

00:15:31.000 Notice her hand, WTF. 1.00

00:15:34.000 Okay, you guys are idiots. 1.00

00:15:35.000 You guys are idiots. 1.00

00:15:36.000 This is like the left's pizza gate. 1.00

00:15:38.000 They're idiots on all sides. 1.00

00:15:39.000 They're conspiracy theorists on all sides. 1.00

00:15:41.000 This is just the latest conspiracy theory, but it is not the only conspiracy theory.

00:15:44.000 So, there's another conspiracy theory going around yesterday.

00:15:47.000 It was promoted by a guy named Fred Gutenberg.

00:15:48.000 Fred Gutenberg's daughter was killed, tragically, in the Parkland shooting, in an act of tremendous evil, obviously.

00:15:54.000 And Gutenberg is a motivated leftist.

00:15:55.000 He's been a motivated leftist for a long time.

00:15:57.000 And Gutenberg

00:15:59.000 He basically went to this hearing with the sole intention of trying to get Brett Kavanaugh not nominated.

00:16:03.000 He tweeted in advance that he wants to see Brett Kavanaugh not nominated and he was going to the hearing to try and stop that.

00:16:09.000 So, he tweeted out, here's what he tweeted, he tweeted,

00:16:24.000 This flew around the internet.

00:16:26.000 I mean, flew around the internet.

00:16:27.000 Chris Cuomo claimed that this was a true story.

00:16:30.000 Chris Cuomo did a whole story about how Kavanaugh had ignored Fred Guttenberg.

00:16:34.000 All of this was just Kavanaugh being vile to the parents of a Parkland survivor.

00:16:39.000 Yeah, CNN is not fake news.

00:16:40.000 They're just, an apple is an apple and a banana is a banana and CNN is news.

00:16:43.000 Not fake news, news.

00:16:45.000 Here's Chris Cuomo. 0.99

00:16:47.000 Again, really gaining on his brother in the dumb Cuomo brothers race. 0.96

00:16:52.000 Last week, Andrew had pulled ahead like Secretaria, but now, here he comes like Man of War, up from behind. 0.97

00:16:58.000 Pretty amazing stuff.

00:16:59.000 Anyway, here's Chris Cuomo giving credence to this story, which turns out to be a full lie.

00:17:03.000 The judge should be asked why.

00:17:05.000 Well, justice is supposed to be blind, but that means I'm biased, not ignoring what is right in front of your face.

00:17:11.000 Why did you do that?

00:17:12.000 I don't mean to indict him.

00:17:13.000 He may have a good reason.

00:17:14.000 He may have no reason.

00:17:15.000 He may say, I don't even know what you're talking about.

00:17:16.000 I didn't even know what was going on.

00:17:18.000 I just wanted to get out of there.

00:17:19.000 Maybe.

00:17:19.000 But we need to hear it.

00:17:20.000 Why?

00:17:21.000 Because I hope that in Kavanaugh's mind, Gutenberg didn't represent a set of beliefs that he finds so threatening

00:17:29.000 That he couldn't even make contact.

00:17:31.000 That's why the judge should explain.

00:17:33.000 Oh my god.

00:17:33.000 So Judge Kavanaugh now has to explain why a rando... I mean, let's be real.

00:17:37.000 Fred Guttenberg is not a famous person.

00:17:39.000 If you met Fred Guttenberg on the street, you would have no idea who he was.

00:17:42.000 You are more likely to know who Steve Guttenberg is than who Fred Guttenberg is.

00:17:44.000 You have no clue who Fred Guttenberg is.

00:17:46.000 You've probably never seen his face.

00:17:47.000 This is not a famous human being.

00:17:48.000 It's not like Brad Pitt walked up to him and extended his hand.

00:17:51.000 Okay, it's a guy who would have to explain who he was.

00:17:53.000 Now, here's the actual video of what happened from inside the room.

00:17:57.000 You will see that this is not what happened.

00:17:59.000 Okay, Judge Kavanaugh is excused.

00:18:01.000 What you're going to see here is Judge Kavanaugh gets up, Gutenberg approaches him from behind, extends his hand, Kavanaugh turns to look at him and see what's going on, and then security grabs him.

00:18:10.000 Okay, security is already on him, and Kavanaugh walks away.

00:18:14.000 Okay, that's what happens there.

00:18:15.000 It's not that he stands there and then refuses to shake his hand.

00:18:18.000 You can see, here comes security from behind to grab Kavanaugh.

00:18:20.000 Now, I have been in positions, many positions, in crowded areas where people are ushering me out of a room and people want to shake my hand.

00:18:27.000 This happens to me at university campuses all the time.

00:18:30.000 And if somebody extends their hand and security walks up to them, I'm not going to walk over there.

00:18:33.000 I assume that security is doing that for a reason.

00:18:35.000 Do you really think that Brett Kavanaugh is really like

00:18:39.000 You know what?

00:18:40.000 I can't shake this guy's hand because I know who he is and I disdain him.

00:18:44.000 I disdain him.

00:18:45.000 Do you really think that that's credible in any way?

00:18:47.000 Again, you can see the video from behind as security runs up to grab Gutenberg because he's running up at a break to try and shake Kavanaugh's hand.

00:18:53.000 And again, this was all planted.

00:18:55.000 This is all done on purpose.

00:18:57.000 Gutenberg said in advance that he was attempting to sink Kavanaugh's nomination and then suddenly he got exactly what he wants when Kavanaugh supposedly stiffs him. 0.99

00:19:04.000 What absolute horse crap. 1.00

00:19:05.000 It's just horse crap. 1.00

00:19:07.000 Okay, the video shows that it's horse crap. 1.00

00:19:08.000 Kavanaugh had to change his story. 0.99

00:19:10.000 I mean, not Kavanaugh.

00:19:11.000 Guttenberg had to change his story.

00:19:12.000 Originally, he claimed that Kavanaugh clearly heard him, and then Kavanaugh decided to walk away.

00:19:16.000 Then he claimed that maybe Kavanaugh didn't hear him.

00:19:18.000 It didn't matter.

00:19:18.000 He was featured all over the news last night.

00:19:20.000 All of this is sheer nonsense. 0.91

00:19:22.000 It's sheer nonsense.

00:19:23.000 So, Ben Sasse apparently now has to explain to Democrats how these judicial hearings are supposed to work. 0.96

00:19:29.000 And here is Ben Sasse, Senator from Nebraska, giving a bit of an education to folks on how these hearings are supposed to work and how dumb these hearings have become.

00:19:36.000 I want to make just four brief points.

00:19:38.000 Number one, in our system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of our politics.

00:19:44.000 Number two, it's not.

00:19:46.000 Third consequence is that this transfer of power means the people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done.

00:19:53.000 And when we don't do a lot of big actual political debating here, we transfer it to the Supreme Court.

00:19:58.000 And fourth and finally, we badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power from our constitutional system.

00:20:06.000 Okay, and he's right about all these things, but we're not going to do any of that stuff.

00:20:09.000 Instead, what we're going to do is shout at each other and pretend that Fred Guttenberg got stiffed by Brett Kavanaugh, and scream until we're arrested, and all the rest of this nonsense, because the apocalyptic rhetoric is the name of the game.

00:20:20.000 It's what we are all supposed to focus in on.

00:20:22.000 And then, as soon as anyone takes the apocalyptic rhetoric seriously, and says, you know what, I don't like you anymore, because we're not going to be friends, we're not going to pretend to be friends, because, hey, the country is at stake, then it's, well, don't you get the game?

00:20:33.000 Don't you get how the game works?

00:20:34.000 You can't have it both ways.

00:20:36.000 Either you can use the apocalyptic rhetoric and take this thing seriously, or you could actually use true rhetoric, and then maybe we could be a little bit civil to one another.

00:20:43.000 And not everything is the apocalypse.

00:20:44.000 And I'm sorry, Judge Brett Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court is far from the apocalypse.

00:20:48.000 It is really, really far from the apocalypse.

00:20:50.000 In just a second, I'm going to give you the latest on Bob Woodward, who has a new book coming out.

00:20:55.000 And this, of course, has left in a tizzy because anytime there's a gossip book about the president, they're up for it.

00:20:59.000 But first, let's talk about a sexy topic.

00:21:01.000 Your air filters.

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00:21:08.000 The reality is you need to go check out your air filters right now.

00:21:11.000 Open up that vent. 0.99

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00:21:42.000 You'll always ensure that you are breathing clean air.

00:21:44.000 FilterBuy will save you time and money and you're going to breathe better and apparently become more intelligent in the process.

00:21:49.000 I mean, that's apparently what's happened to all the folks at the office since we replaced the filters with FilterBuy.

00:21:53.000 So stop procrastinating right now.

00:21:55.000 That's FilterBuy.com, FilterBuy.com.

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00:22:06.000 Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, the media are in a tizzy about President Trump, as always, because we now suffer from wild Trump derangement syndrome in the media. 0.97

00:22:13.000 Bob Woodward has a new book, and his new book basically says that Trump is a senile, old, crazy person who doesn't know what he's doing. 0.75

00:22:19.000 Which is not much of a claim, since I think being hired a left thinks that, and I think large swaths of the right have basically priced in all of the typical Trump craziness into whatever it is that President Trump does. 0.88

00:22:32.000 Nonetheless, we're going to hear all these stories about the chaos that is President Trump.

00:22:36.000 I think the funniest part of this is that Bob Woodward said Trump is denying any of this is true.

00:22:40.000 Members of his administration are denying any of this is true.

00:22:43.000 General James Mad Dog Mattis says that Woodward's reporting on him is fiction and quote, a product of someone's rich imagination because Woodward wrote that Mattis once described Trump as having the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader.

00:22:55.000 When it comes to the Korean Peninsula, Mattis responded by saying the contemptuous words about the president attributed to me in Woodward's book were never uttered by me or in my presence.

00:23:04.000 While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is uniquely Washington brand of literature and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.

00:23:11.000 This is not supremely shocking stuff.

00:23:13.000 Woodward's going to claim people said stuff.

00:23:15.000 People in the administration are going to claim they didn't say stuff.

00:23:17.000 This is the problem with anonymous sourcing.

00:23:19.000 It's he said, she said.

00:23:20.000 According to the book, Mattis said after a meeting at which Trump questioned the U.S.

00:23:24.000 government spending money on the Korean Peninsula, Mattis supposedly said that he was exasperated and alarmed, and he told close associates the president acted like he had the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader.

00:23:34.000 Apparently, the defense chief said in his statement, responsible policymaking in the real world is inherently messing, messy.

00:23:39.000 Though it is also essential that we challenge every assumption to find the best option.

00:23:43.000 He says, So Mattis already throwing shade at Bob Woodward's book.

00:23:45.000 But that's not stopping the press from having a field day with all of this.

00:24:00.000 President Trump had a conversation with Bob Woodward.

00:24:02.000 Woodward apparently called up Trump and wanted to know why Trump wouldn't be interviewed for the book.

00:24:06.000 And Trump basically shied it off.

00:24:07.000 He basically says, you know, you didn't go through the proper channels.

00:24:10.000 Here's Trump trying to pretend that he hadn't heard about Woodward's book and then saying that he did hear about Woodward's book, but he didn't want to talk to him.

00:24:17.000 The reality is Trump doesn't have to talk to Bob Woodward.

00:24:20.000 There's nothing there that suggests that Trump has to, for any reason, talk to Bob Woodward.

00:24:24.000 It's just another book that smacks the president.

00:24:26.000 No shock here.

00:24:28.000 How can I spend all this time talking to people like Kellyanne and Raj and Republican Senators?

00:24:38.000 Who were the Senators?

00:24:40.000 No, they never called me about it.

00:24:42.000 Senator Graham said he had talked to you about talking to me.

00:24:45.000 Now, is that not true?

00:24:47.000 Senator Graham actually mentioned it quickly on one meeting.

00:24:50.000 That is true.

00:24:51.000 That is true.

00:24:52.000 No, but that is true.

00:24:57.000 So basically, there's Trump basically saying, I was mentioned to a lot of people that I should talk to you, I've decided not to, or it's somebody else's fault.

00:25:03.000 Woodward released the tapes basically to show that his research is true and that he has tapes of a lot of these people.

00:25:08.000 Regardless, I'm not seeing anything in the book that is anything different from what people already believe about President Trump.

00:25:13.000 So for example, the Washington Post reports, a central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump's inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation who's elected to lead.

00:25:25.000 Woodward describes an administrative coup d'etat and a nervous breakdown of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president's desk so he couldn't see or sign them.

00:25:34.000 Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump's national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.

00:25:46.000 In one particular situation, supposedly Gary Cohn actually took a document off of Trump's desk to prevent him from signing it, which is actually somewhat hilarious.

00:25:55.000 So there's all these stories about how his advisers are basically attempting to rein President Trump in.

00:26:02.000 Is all this believable?

00:26:02.000 Of course this stuff's believable.

00:26:04.000 I'm not going to sit here and pretend it's not believable that his advisors are all trying to rein him in and prevent him from doing dumb things.

00:26:09.000 That's not a shock in any real way.

00:26:11.000 And Woodward reports on some of these overdramatic moments of escalation when Steve Bannon, for example, started screaming at Ivanka Trump, calling her a GD staffer, and saying, you walk around this place, act like you're in charge.

00:26:21.000 You're not.

00:26:21.000 You're on staff.

00:26:22.000 And Ivanka Trump replying, I'm not a staffer.

00:26:24.000 I'll never be a staffer.

00:26:25.000 I'm the first daughter.

00:26:26.000 And Reince Priebus saying, when you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody.

00:26:33.000 I mean, all this stuff, like, frankly, who cares?

00:26:36.000 I gotta be honest with you, who cares?

00:26:38.000 Like, did you not know this was going on?

00:26:41.000 Did you not really believe this was going on?

00:26:42.000 Do you really believe that this place functions like a well-oiled machine?

00:26:46.000 Of course it doesn't function like a well-oiled machine.

00:26:48.000 It functions like the set of The Apprentice, except without all of the good editorial cuts.

00:26:52.000 It functions like what got left on the cutting room at The Apprentice.

00:26:56.000 Because that's how Trump runs things.

00:26:58.000 And so far, the economy is fine, and we're not in the middle of any foreign crisis, and things are basically okay.

00:27:04.000 I will say, the feeling of chaos from the Trump administration is really what's hurting President Trump's approval ratings.

00:27:08.000 Now, the latest revelations from Woodward's book come courtesy

00:27:13.000 So this is what Woodward writes.

00:27:14.000 So here is some of the stuff that Woodward reports.

00:27:16.000 Trump to James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, who briefed him at Trump Tower during the transition on the intelligence community's findings that Putin had interfered in the election, quote,

00:27:38.000 I don't believe in human sources.

00:27:40.000 These are people who have sold their souls and sold out their country.

00:27:43.000 I don't trust human intelligence and these spies." 0.85

00:27:45.000 So he didn't believe, but we know that.

00:27:47.000 He tweeted that stuff out already.

00:27:48.000 Like, okay.

00:27:49.000 Apparently, Secretary Mattis said,

00:27:55.000 Okay, why would that be shocking?

00:27:57.000 Trump said to Tom Bossert, the president's advisor for Homeland Security, Cybersecurity, and Counterterrorism, who asked Trump if he had a minute, quote, I want to watch The Masters.

00:28:05.000 You and your cyber are going to get me into war with all your cyber bleep.

00:28:11.000 All right, I mean, like, again, baked into the cake, man.

00:28:15.000 Everybody knew all this stuff.

00:28:17.000 Trump was given a Reader's Digest version of the Hezbollah briefing.

00:28:19.000 And we knew, this has been reported for years, that Trump basically takes his security briefings in bite-sized chunks.

00:28:25.000 And apparently, Trump was editing an upcoming speech with Rob Porter, scribbling his thoughts in neat, clean penmanship the president wrote, trade is bad.

00:28:37.000 And I do love this.

00:28:39.000 Apparently the book's last paragraph is, in the man in his presidency, Trump lawyer John Dowd had seen the tragic flaw in the political back and forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying fake news, the indignation. 1.00

00:28:49.000 Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president, you're an effing liar. 0.99

00:28:55.000 I don't know. 0.99

00:28:56.000 So the media's going crazy over all this stuff.

00:28:58.000 I don't know why.

00:28:59.000 I will be frank with you, I do not understand why.

00:29:02.000 There is nothing there that is new. 0.99

00:29:03.000 If you didn't know all this stuff about President Trump before, it's because you haven't been watching or because you're willfully ignorant. 1.00

00:29:08.000 President Trump... 1.00

00:29:10.000 Does not know a lot about politics.

00:29:11.000 He just doesn't.

00:29:11.000 Okay?

00:29:12.000 That's okay! 0.97

00:29:14.000 Being ignorant about things does not mean that you're a bad president. 0.85

00:29:17.000 It really doesn't. 0.84

00:29:18.000 The great lie about being the president of the United States is you have to be an expert on things.

00:29:21.000 You really do not have to be an expert on things.

00:29:22.000 Jimmy Carter was a very smart man and a really, truly awful president of the United States. 0.95

00:29:26.000 We've had a lot of presidents who are very smart and garbage presidents. 0.90

00:29:29.000 Woodrow Wilson was the dean of Princeton University and one of the worst presidents in American history. 0.89

00:29:35.000 And you don't have to be great at organization either to be a decent president.

00:29:38.000 You know how many administrations have had chaos in their first couple of years?

00:29:42.000 Bill Clinton had chaos in his first couple of years.

00:29:44.000 None of this is a real shock.

00:29:46.000 But the media are going to seize on it and claim that this means that Trump is senile and he shouldn't be president.

00:29:51.000 None of it has any relevance.

00:29:52.000 None of it is a big deal.

00:29:53.000 There's only one way in which any of this is a big deal and that's the feeling of constant chaos emanating from the White House.

00:29:59.000 And it leads me to believe that Trump should basically fire half of the people who are in the executive branch right now

00:30:04.000 Just to prevent them from leaking, so that there is some sort of semblance of normalcy, at least emanating from the halls of the White House.

00:30:11.000 So, we'll talk a little bit more about that, plus a bad poll for Republicans, a few bad polls for congressional Republicans, and a bad poll for Republicans about young Americans.

00:30:18.000 But first, let's talk about your Second Amendment rights.

00:30:21.000 What if I told you that when you walk to your mailbox today, you're going to find $1,500 you've been needing to finally buy the gun of your dreams to protect your family and your freedom?

00:30:28.000 You could pick your favorite 1911, a new AR-15, or a new hunting rifle.

00:30:31.000 Well, that dream is going to come true for 10 of my listeners, thanks to my good friends over at the USCCA.

00:30:36.000 They provide education,

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00:30:45.000 Go to DefendYourFamilyNow.com.

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00:30:57.000 Head over to DefendYourFamilyNow.com right now.

00:31:00.000 Lock in

00:31:01.000 Those 10 free chances to win before it's too late.

00:31:03.000 Don't get left behind.

00:31:03.000 That's defendyourfamilynow.com.

00:31:05.000 Again, defendyourfamilynow.com.

00:31:07.000 The USCCA does great work educating people on gun use.

00:31:11.000 They are there to provide legal defense services for you if, God forbid, you actually have to fire your gun at somebody because they're in your house trying to rob you or something.

00:31:19.000 Go check them out right now.

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00:31:21.000 And when you do, you can lock in your 10 free chances to win before it's too late.

00:31:24.000 Again, defendyourfamilynow.com.

00:31:26.000 All right.

00:31:28.000 What does any of this matter?

00:31:29.000 What does any of this matter?

00:31:29.000 We'll talk about that in just one second.

00:31:31.000 First, go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

00:31:33.000 For $19.99 a month, $9.99 a month, you get the rest of this show live, the rest of Andrew Klavan's show live, the rest of Michael Knoll's show live.

00:31:40.000 And for $99 a year, you also get this, the very greatest in beverage vessels.

00:31:43.000 It is filling even as we speak.

00:31:45.000 Even as we speak, the leftist ears are automatically filling this thing, making it weightier and weightier.

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00:31:56.000 Fill it!

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00:32:02.000 So, go check that out right now.

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00:32:04.000 Also, when you subscribe, you get the Sunday special.

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00:32:11.000 We have a Sunday special this week featuring Christina Hoff Sommers, the Factual Feminist.

00:32:15.000 And here's what it'll sound like.

00:32:17.000 I'm Christina Hoff Sommers, the Factual Feminist, and this Sunday I'm going to be on The Ben Shapiro Show, his Sunday special.

00:32:25.000 So please listen because we've broken the glass ceiling here.

00:32:29.000 He's never had a woman on the Sunday special.

00:32:31.000 This will be the first.

00:32:32.000 So join us.

00:32:34.000 So there it is.

00:32:35.000 I'm Christina Hoff Sommers.

00:32:36.000 You can hear that this Sunday.

00:32:37.000 It'll be great.

00:32:38.000 Go check it out right now.

00:32:40.000 And we are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:32:48.000 So the polls for the president have dropped in the last couple of weeks.

00:32:50.000 People trying to figure out exactly why.

00:32:52.000 He's down to about 39.6% in the average approval rating.

00:32:56.000 He's been very sticky in his approval ratings, like his high is 42.

00:33:00.000 He's down near his lows right now.

00:33:02.000 The congressional generic ballot is really bad right now.

00:33:05.000 We're talking about like an 8 to 10 point gap for Republicans on average in the real clear politics poll average.

00:33:09.000 People trying to figure out

00:33:11.000 Why there are three big polls that have recently come out that are bad for the president, in which he's in the 30s in approval rating for the first time in a long time.

00:33:17.000 And the reason is because all of the good news about the economy, all of the good news about the country have been obscured by the feeling of total chaos.

00:33:23.000 And this is where the media really do play a role and where the president playing into the teeth of the media is really not useful.

00:33:29.000 It's where if the president went silent and deprived them of oxygen, he'd be much better off.

00:33:32.000 So today, for example, the president decides that it'd be wise to tweet out about all of the media members who are targeting him.

00:33:38.000 And he tweets out with regard

00:33:40.000 to supposed libel on the part of the media.

00:33:43.000 He tweeted out, let's see, here it is.

00:33:47.000 Isn't it a shame, isn't it a shame, he's refining Bob Woodward, that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories, and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost.

00:33:59.000 Don't know why Washington politicians don't change libel laws. 0.72

00:34:03.000 Well, I mean, let's be honest here.

00:34:06.000 It'd be a very bad thing for the presidents of the United States if they changed the libel laws.

00:34:09.000 Ted Cruz would sue him for suggesting that his dad shot JFK.

00:34:12.000 There's that.

00:34:13.000 I mean, this is the president who said the National Enquirer should win a Pulitzer Prize.

00:34:17.000 But, with all of that said,

00:34:19.000 When the president is feeding the flames here, it is not good.

00:34:22.000 It is not useful.

00:34:23.000 It gives a feeling that things are in uproar, when really, they are not.

00:34:27.000 And Trump says, almost everyone agrees that my administration has done more and less than two years than any other administration in the history of our country.

00:34:35.000 I'm tough as hell on people, and if I weren't, nothing would get done.

00:34:38.000 Also, I question everybody and everything, which is why I got elected.

00:34:43.000 So that's fine.

00:34:44.000 That's fine.

00:34:45.000 And then he said, here's what he should be tweeting, right?

00:34:48.000 The Trump economy is booming with the help of House and Senate GOP.

00:34:52.000 Farm bill with snap work requirements will bolster farmers and get America back to work. 0.98

00:34:56.000 Pass the farm bill with snap work requirements.

00:34:57.000 Now I'm going to show you.

00:34:59.000 Why it is that people... Here it is, finally.

00:35:02.000 The president is sounding off on Nike as well, because that's what we needed.

00:35:05.000 He said,

00:35:19.000 This feeling of WWE incipient chaos.

00:35:22.000 Everybody is going nuts over each other all the time.

00:35:24.000 I will show you why it is that President Trump's approval ratings have been lowered.

00:35:29.000 The only one of those four tweets that's actually important is the one where he is calling for work requirements added to the farm bill.

00:35:35.000 That is the only one of those four tweets that means anything.

00:35:37.000 We're not changing libel laws.

00:35:39.000 The NFL can do it at once.

00:35:41.000 Nike can do it at once.

00:35:42.000 They're both corporations.

00:35:42.000 They're both going to feel the brunt of what they've done.

00:35:45.000 And President Trump suggesting that how he runs his administration, tweeting crazily with weird punctuation, that's not helpful either.

00:35:54.000 The only one of those four tweets that matters is the one where he's actually suggesting a policy fix when it comes to food stamps.

00:35:59.000 Here are the number of retweets on each of those tweets.

00:36:03.000 On the one on libel, 15,000 retweets, 35,000 comments, 59,000 likes.

00:36:05.000 On the one about how great his administration is, 48,000 likes, 13,000 retweets, 17,000 comments.

00:36:08.000 On the farm bill,

00:36:15.000 5,000 comments, 6,000 retweets, 27,000 likes.

00:36:19.000 It's about half of all the other stuff.

00:36:22.000 No one pays attention when the president talks policy.

00:36:24.000 Everyone pays attention when he engages in the culture war kind of shtick.

00:36:28.000 Right?

00:36:29.000 46,000 likes for the anti-Nike tweet.

00:36:32.000 People are tired.

00:36:34.000 People are tired.

00:36:35.000 They really are.

00:36:36.000 And I think most Americans are just weary at this point.

00:36:38.000 And the President constantly feeding into the narrative is driving the weariness.

00:36:42.000 I'm not saying that he can't fight back.

00:36:44.000 I think that it's good that he fights back when lies are told.

00:36:46.000 I think that's fine.

00:36:47.000 But I do think that it is a mistake that the President of the United States is constantly engaging.

00:36:53.000 It's extraordinarily exhausting for the American people who mostly just want to go about their business.

00:36:58.000 I was talking to a friend of mine, Dave Rubin, yesterday.

00:36:59.000 He just took off 30 days to be off the grid.

00:37:01.000 He put his cell phone in a safe.

00:37:03.000 He didn't look at the news for 30 days.

00:37:05.000 He came back looking happier than I've seen him in quite a while.

00:37:07.000 And the reason is because in those 30 days, it has been 10 years of news.

00:37:11.000 It is wearying for the American public.

00:37:13.000 Most Americans don't want to be bothered with government.

00:37:15.000 In fact, the conservative pitch is that when government doesn't bother you, your life is happy.

00:37:20.000 One of the ways government bothers you is when it's in your face all the time.

00:37:24.000 And a 24-7 news cycle?

00:37:26.000 Where the president is feeding the flames every day and the media love it.

00:37:30.000 Let's not pretend the media don't love it.

00:37:31.000 They love it.

00:37:31.000 They're into it.

00:37:32.000 All that's doing is making people annoyed.

00:37:35.000 I think that's really what's happening here.

00:37:36.000 I think the poll numbers are dropping for Trump and the Republicans because people are just annoyed.

00:37:40.000 And I think they're also dropping because Republicans aren't talking about key issues.

00:37:44.000 They're not talking about the things that are important.

00:37:45.000 They're busy running after the headline of the day.

00:37:48.000 There's a poll from YouGov showing half of those under 35 say America is special compared to 80% of people 55 and over.

00:37:55.000 You want to know why that is?

00:37:56.000 Because Republicans don't talk about why America is special anymore.

00:37:59.000 They just talk about whatever is the latest outrage of the day.

00:38:01.000 Chasing the headlines does not win hearts and minds.

00:38:03.000 Speaking to true, eternal values that actually matters, those are the things that win hearts and minds and bring people over.

00:38:10.000 We have an inordinately large young people audience on this show. 0.99

00:38:12.000 We do.

00:38:13.000 A huge audience.

00:38:14.000 Most of our audience on this show is actually under the age of 40.

00:38:18.000 That's unusual.

00:38:19.000 The reason is because we talk about, we try to talk about these eternal values, the things that actually matter.

00:38:25.000 And when you fill all the space with chatter all the time, all you're doing is allowing the left to subsume those greater eternal values under a narrative of chaos.

00:38:34.000 That's where the president should really, really cut it out. 0.98

00:38:37.000 Now, speaking of stupid stories of the day, I gotta tell you this story from the UK Sun. 0.99

00:38:42.000 It is an amazing story. 1.00

00:38:44.000 Transgender woman in tears after bank account frozen as she sounded like a man on the phone.

00:38:50.000 Okay, this is a story from an actual newspaper.

00:38:52.000 A transgender woman was left in tears after her bank account was frozen because she sounded like a man over the phone.

00:38:57.000 Like a man is in quotation marks.

00:38:59.000 Sophia Reese, 47, said she was humiliated and embarrassed after telephone banking staff said she failed security checks because she didn't, quote, speak like a lady.

00:39:07.000 Things went from bad to worse the next day when she went to pay for items in Tesco and discovered that Santander had frozen her account.

00:39:12.000 Now she is fighting to ensure that other transgender people are not treated in the same way.

00:39:17.000 Sophia, a customer service advisor living in Nottingham, went into her local Santander branch to confront staff after the humiliating telephone ordeal.

00:39:25.000 She said the embarrassment and humiliation I felt was unbelievable.

00:39:29.000 They said my voice did not match my profile because it sounded like a man on the phone and not a woman.

00:39:33.000 The whole situation is inadmissible.

00:39:34.000 I was crying my eyes out, and I am not that type of person at all.

00:39:37.000 I'm a very courteous person.

00:39:39.000 I am outgoing, but to feel that way when all I asked for was my money to be transferred, I feel mistreated.

00:39:44.000 Sophia informed Santander last November she would no longer be named Sergio on the account, but despite changing her registered name and telling phone banking staff she was a transgender woman, they still treated her with suspicion.

00:39:54.000 Well, right, because this is what customer service is trained to do.

00:39:59.000 There's literally an entire identity theft ad campaign by Citibank that is on television, on national television, in which you see two old ladies sitting there speaking with the voice of Southern men because the idea is that Southern men have stolen their credit card.

00:40:12.000 If I were a customer service representative and somebody called in and said, Hey, this is Sophia.

00:40:17.000 Can you open up the money?

00:40:18.000 I'll be like, really, Sophia?

00:40:19.000 You sound like a dude.

00:40:21.000 Because, in fact, it turns out that Sophia is a biological man.

00:40:24.000 So we all have to be crazy now in order to make room for the feelings of various other human beings.

00:40:31.000 It's just amazing stuff.

00:40:32.000 And the madness of the left is not restricted to that sort of thing.

00:40:36.000 The left has gone so crazy that they're not just killing basic ideas of rationality, they're also killing the far left.

00:40:42.000 They're killing basic ideas of comedy.

00:40:43.000 So this is my favorite piece of the day.

00:40:45.000 This is from Vulture by a person named Jesse David Fox.

00:40:47.000 The title of the piece is, How Funny Does Comedy Need to Be?

00:40:51.000 It turns out the left is now realizing that all of their comics are no longer funny.

00:40:55.000 They're going for, as we've called it on the show, claptor.

00:40:58.000 Not a term that I coined, but a term that we have used on the show.

00:41:00.000 Claptor.

00:41:00.000 They're not going for laughter.

00:41:02.000 They just want people to cheer for them.

00:41:03.000 So here is what Vulture writes.

00:41:05.000 Why so serious to quote a famous clown is a question being asked about comedy more and more frequently by its consumers and by comedians themselves to the point where some are questioning if it can even be called comedy.

00:41:15.000 Nanette is more a TED Talk than a stand-up special, was a common refrain this summer.

00:41:18.000 Is Drew Michael even a stand-up special?

00:41:20.000 Was a question I was asked about the audience-free HBO tour.

00:41:23.000 To take it to scripted TV, I am frequently reminded of a joke from Difficult People.

00:41:27.000 When did comedies become 30-minute dramas?

00:41:29.000 Comedians and comedy writers are increasingly pushing the bounds of what it means for something to be a comedy in the most basic sense.

00:41:36.000 Rewiring the relationship between comedies and jokes.

00:41:39.000 So what is comedy without jokes?

00:41:41.000 It's post-comedy. 0.58

00:41:43.000 So, it's not that comedians are unfunny because they've decided to politically engage and be really crappy political pundits.

00:41:49.000 Like, I would be a bad comedian. 0.74

00:41:50.000 They are very bad political pundits.

00:41:51.000 I know because I'm a professional.

00:41:53.000 But they say that this is now post-comedy.

00:41:55.000 I do love this.

00:41:56.000 I'm now going to use this excuse on everything.

00:41:58.000 If I'm bad at cleaning up the house, I'm going to say to my wife, you know what?

00:42:00.000 I'm just post-cleaning the house.

00:42:02.000 I'm post-cleaning the house.

00:42:03.000 You know, we've moved on to a different level.

00:42:04.000 It's kind of meta.

00:42:06.000 You may have a tough time understanding this.

00:42:08.000 But cleaning the house doesn't actually have to be cleaning the house.

00:42:10.000 It can really be more the perception that the house ought to be clean and that I didn't really do the cleaning.

00:42:14.000 But I think there's meaning in thinking about but not cleaning the house.

00:42:18.000 It's called post-cleaning the house.

00:42:20.000 I'm going to do this with everything.

00:42:21.000 Right?

00:42:21.000 I'm not going to be entertaining.

00:42:22.000 I'm going to be incredibly boring.

00:42:24.000 We'll call it post-entertainment.

00:42:26.000 It won't because... Does entertainment really need to be entertaining?

00:42:29.000 Or is that just our subjective perception of what entertainment ought to be?

00:42:33.000 Entertaining.

00:42:34.000 Maybe what entertainment ought to be is just my dinner with Andre.

00:42:38.000 Except three hours will be eight hours of Wallace Shawn talking to some dude about weird random art.

00:42:43.000 We'll do that for like eight hours.

00:42:44.000 It'll be great.

00:42:44.000 It'll be post-entertainment.

00:42:47.000 You may know that a form of art is dead when they have declared the art post-art.

00:42:51.000 Comedy is dead because they have now declared it post-comedy.

00:42:54.000 Vulture writes, sure it sounds pretentious.

00:42:56.000 It's a pretentious shift, especially for a form that has always seemed allergic to pretension.

00:42:59.000 But it seems like the best way to describe comedy.

00:43:02.000 It's looking more like the frowning mask than the smiling one.

00:43:05.000 Or, alternatively, these people are not remotely funny because they can't be funny anymore because they've killed the joke.

00:43:10.000 The left has killed every joke because everything is offensive now.

00:43:13.000 So instead, they've decided to opt for a bunch of, of, of clapping, clap, applause generating lines that rip on President Trump.

00:43:24.000 Just amazing stuff.

00:43:24.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:43:28.000 So, things that I like today.

00:43:30.000 There's a good book called The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.

00:43:34.000 It has been made into a documentary by PBS.

00:43:36.000 It's about the Washington rowing team and them essentially rowing for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

00:43:45.000 It's really entertaining.

00:43:46.000 If you like Seabiscuit, the book, which is much better than the movie, by the way, by Laura Hillebrand, this isn't quite as good as that book, but it is definitely an entertaining read and a moving read.

00:43:56.000 It's pretty great.

00:43:56.000 You don't have to like rowing or know anything about rowing to enjoy the book.

00:43:59.000 I don't know anything about rowing.

00:44:00.000 I enjoyed the book.

00:44:01.000 You can go check it out right now.

00:44:02.000 The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold.

00:44:04.000 It's a nice kind of reminder that America used to be kind of an awesome place.

00:44:07.000 America is still an awesome place, but America at least used to be united by certain basic ideas of hard work and motivation and getting ahead. 0.99

00:44:16.000 And now it seems like America's motivated mostly by us kicking each other in the ass, which is really irritating. 0.98

00:44:20.000 Okay, time for a bunch of things that I hate. 0.99

00:44:23.000 So let's do a lot of hate today.

00:44:27.000 So Monica Lewinsky was appearing in Israel, and the interviewer asked her if she expected an apology from former President Bill Clinton.

00:44:38.000 And then she got up and walked off the stage. 1.00

00:44:40.000 So here's what that sounded like.

00:44:43.000 Recently in an interview in NBC News, former President Clinton was rather irate when he was asked if he ever apologized to you personally.

00:44:51.000 And he said, I apologize publicly.

00:44:55.000 Do you still respect that apology with a personal apology?

00:44:59.000 I'm so sorry, I'm not going to be able to do this.

00:45:09.000 Okay, so here's what I hate about this.

00:45:11.000 Can we stop playing victim for just a second?

00:45:13.000 The only reason Monica Lewinsky is famous is because she once got on her knees for the President of the United States. 1.00

00:45:17.000 That is legitimately the only reason that she is famous.

00:45:20.000 So, I feel bad for Monica Lewinsky. 0.98

00:45:21.000 I feel like she was mistreated, particularly by the press, that claimed that she was something terrible and awful, when in fact she was just a young intern who was being put in a bad position by a man in power.

00:45:30.000 But if we're going to pretend that Monica Lewinsky gets to act offended by people asking questions about the only thing that has ever been politically relevant about her career, 0.91

00:45:38.000 I can't go there with you.

00:45:39.000 I can't.

00:45:40.000 Monica Lewinsky is not a victim.

00:45:43.000 She's a victim of Bill Clinton, but she's not a victim, and she's a victim of the press. 0.73

00:45:46.000 She's not a victim of the lady asking her about whether Bill Clinton ought to apologize to her. 0.95

00:45:50.000 That's a ridiculous, insane thing. 0.84

00:45:51.000 There's no reason for that at all. 0.95

00:45:53.000 And so it's just, I find this sort of stuff where we all get to take offense at everything. 0.99

00:45:58.000 It's really dumb. 0.98

00:45:58.000 Okay, other things that I hate. 0.98

00:46:00.000 As I've been talking about all show long,

00:46:03.000 The left's apocalyptic rhetoric with regard to everything happening in the country, it is more likely to lead to the actual apocalypse.

00:46:08.000 When you think everything is the apocalypse, this leads people to take up war stances on issues that really don't merit it.

00:46:14.000 Eugene Robinson is complicit in this today.

00:46:17.000 He's writing over at the Washington Post, and he has a piece called, what's at stake in November?

00:46:21.000 Democracy.

00:46:23.000 Democracy itself is at stake. 1.00

00:46:25.000 If you really believe that, if you really believe that democracy itself is at stake, that if Democrats don't win back Congress in 2018, democracy is over, you're out of your damn mind. 1.00

00:46:34.000 You're out of your mind. 0.96

00:46:36.000 If they don't win in 2018, there's a very high likelihood that they will win in 2020.

00:46:40.000 I remember Republicans were saying the same before 2010.

00:46:42.000 Democracy was over.

00:46:43.000 We were all going to die.

00:46:45.000 Can we quit with all of the, it's the last election nonsense?

00:46:48.000 Look, if the left gets elected, terrible things will happen in American politics.

00:46:51.000 Things I don't like.

00:46:52.000 And then guess what?

00:46:52.000 There will be more elections.

00:46:54.000 Because America is not on the brink of collapse as a nation.

00:46:57.000 We are on the brink of a lot of bad things.

00:46:59.000 We're on the brink of hating each other more than ever.

00:47:01.000 We're on the brink of a collapse of our social fabric.

00:47:04.000 But that is going to that is going to long predate the death of democracy.

00:47:08.000 The exaggeration in which we suggest that democracy is basically at the end of its rope if Trump is is

00:47:16.000 Trump desperately wants an attorney general who will shut Mueller down.

00:47:22.000 The incumbent, Jeff Sessions, cannot do so because he is recused from the matter.

00:47:25.000 Republican senators who once warned Trump not to dare fire Sessions now seem resigned to the fact Trump will do just that.

00:47:30.000 It makes sense for Trump to make his move after the election.

00:47:32.000 If Republicans still control Congress, he'll get away with it.

00:47:35.000 If Democrats take charge, he won't.

00:47:36.000 If anyone asks you what's at stake in November, just tell them democracy and justice.

00:47:41.000 Guess what?

00:47:42.000 If Trump fires Jeff Sessions and Republicans don't do anything, and then the next Attorney General fires Robert Mueller, do you think Trump's going to win re-election in 2020?

00:47:50.000 You think there won't be any reaction to that?

00:47:51.000 How do you think Democrats are gonna do in 2020 if Trump goes forward with that stuff?

00:47:54.000 You think it'll be good?

00:47:55.000 I highly doubt it.

00:47:56.000 But we're gonna get this sort of insane rhetoric anyway from the left.

00:47:59.000 Paul Krugman doing the same thing. 0.98

00:48:01.000 He says that, again, the Republican program on healthcare is get sick, go bankrupt, and die. 0.54

00:48:05.000 So if you disagree with him and his ridiculous plans on healthcare, if you think that the ACA needs to be wildly dismembered because it is a bad bill, if you think that there are better ways to solve for market-oriented solutions in healthcare, then perhaps what you really ought to do 0.97

00:48:22.000 What you really mean, according to Paul Krugman, is that you want everybody to die. 0.61

00:48:26.000 Then they wonder why you got Trump.

00:48:27.000 Again, Trump is a symptom.

00:48:29.000 The reason why people say things like why you got Trump is because people want to see Trump as a cause.

00:48:33.000 This is why this phrase really crops up, like on a deep level.

00:48:36.000 Everybody on the left doesn't like the phrase why you got Trump because it implies that Trump is a symptom rather than a cause of our civic collapse.

00:48:42.000 Trump is a symptom.

00:48:44.000 He is not a cause.

00:48:45.000 Trump is just the capstone on a couple of decades worth of really bad politics, probably at least four decades worth, going back to the excesses of the 1970s and 1960s in terms of the growth of government.

00:48:56.000 A lot of good things happened in the 1960s on civil rights and women's rights.

00:48:59.000 Not a lot of good things happened in any other area of American life in the 1960s.

00:49:03.000 The 1960s radicalized our politics in tremendously damaging ways for a variety of reasons.

00:49:09.000 The idea that Trump is the be-all end-all, though, is what the left is banked on, and this is why they can't stand why you got Trump.

00:49:15.000 But this is why you got Trump.

00:49:17.000 You used the same slurs against John McCain and Mitt Romney and George W. Bush you used against Trump, and then you got Trump.

00:49:23.000 Congratulations.

00:49:23.000 This is how you got there.

00:49:24.000 Okay, time for a quick Federalist paper.

00:49:26.000 So we're all the way on Federalist 44.

00:49:27.000 Wow, we've been doing this for a while.

00:49:29.000 James Madison wrote this one.

00:49:31.000 And in it, he discusses why states should not be able to, for example, print their own currencies.

00:49:35.000 He suggests that this is going to lead to an inflation race, states racking up debt and then being able to inflate their way out of it, as opposed to states racking up debts and then having to tax their way out of it.

00:49:44.000 This is basically correct, although I think there is a case to be made that separate currencies among the states might not be the world's worst thing, because then we would actually get to see the fiscal effect of being fiscally irresponsible, like we see in California, as opposed to simply kicking the can down the road and assuming that the federal government is going to pick up the slack

00:50:01.000 Because the U.S. 0.56

00:50:01.000 dollar is going to support all of that spending. 0.56

00:50:04.000 Madison also writes about the Necessary and Proper Clause.

00:50:06.000 This is the clause of the Constitution that says that the federal government has all powers necessary and proper to the fulfillment of its specific duties under the Constitution of the United States.

00:50:16.000 The case Madison makes is that the Necessary and Proper Clause is enough of a restriction on the federal government that really we shouldn't worry about the growth of the federal government.

00:50:25.000 And Madison would have been right if all of our constitutional officers had done their job.

00:50:29.000 Instead, the Necessary and Proper Clause was expanded to include all sorts of means that were not, in fact, necessary and proper.

00:50:37.000 Here's what Madison wrote.

00:50:38.000 He said,

00:50:55.000 In the first instance, the success of the usurpation, meaning if the government takes power, will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative act.

00:51:05.000 And in the last resort, a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the act of the usurpers.

00:51:11.000 In the end, it's going to be up to the people to protect the Constitution.

00:51:13.000 And this is where we failed.

00:51:14.000 The American people have not protected the Constitution.

00:51:16.000 We can blame our politicians as much as we want. 0.96

00:51:19.000 The civic education in our country sucks.

00:51:21.000 We have not studied what the bounds of the government ought to be or why they ought to be there. 0.82

00:51:24.000 And thus, we have delegated all sorts of power to the feds and then we whine about it after the feds use that power against us.

00:51:29.000 That's a mistake on our part.

00:51:30.000 In the end, it all comes down to what the American people want.

00:51:33.000 I think it's an HL Mencken kind of aphorism that the American people are going to get what they want and they deserve it good and hard.

00:51:41.000 That's sort of the Madisonian view.

00:51:44.000 Well, it's time for the American people to wake up and maybe take some blame for the fact that our politics is failing.

00:51:48.000 Finally, Madison in Federalist 44 discusses the Supremacy Clause.

00:51:52.000 He says that we have to have a federal government that is supreme to the state government, otherwise the state governments are going to be supreme over the federal government and the whole thing won't work.

00:52:01.000 This obviously is fundamentally correct.

00:52:03.000 Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow with all the latest updates from the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and everything else.

00:52:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:52:08.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:52:13.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:52:19.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:52:23.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:52:24.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:52:26.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:52:28.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:52:31.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 05, 2018

Twist And Shout…About Kavanaugh | Ep. 617

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