The Ben Shapiro Show - September 19, 2017


Was Trump Right About Wiretapping? | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 386


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

199.17549

Word Count

8,777

Sentence Count

617

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

Trump goes to the UN and smacks Rocket Man. Plus, was President Trump indeed wiretapped? Because there s new news suggesting his campaign manager certainly was. And we ll talk about Obamacare repeal, which is back on the table. This is The Ben Shapiro Show, and I have Rocketman stuck in my head because President Trump decided to drop that reference during his UN speech today. We will play it for you! Ben Shapiro is the host of the conservative podcast, "The Weekly Standard," and he is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, CNN, CBS, NBC, and other publications. He is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard, and has been featured on CNN, NPR, and NPR. He is the author of several books, including "No Country For Old Men: A Biography of Michael Bloomberg," and "The Dark Side of America: The Inside Story of America's Most Powerful Man." He has been married to his long-term girlfriend, Nicole Kidman, since 2006, and they have two children, a 2-year old son and 2-month old daughter. They live in Los Angeles, California, and a 2 1/2-month-old son, a 6 1/3 month old girl named Jack, who was born in June of last July. The couple recently celebrated their first birthday, who is also in the process of getting a new house in the next episode of the show, which will be released on the podcast, on the second episode of "Ben Shapiro's new podcast, Ben Shapiro's show, "Ben and his wife is in the podcast "Ben is a Realist." Ben is a realist, not a Neoist, but he's a socialist, and he's not a neocand he's also a communist, he also is a socialist and he says that he's in Venezuela is not a socialist but he also has a good guy, he says it's not an actual socialist, but also he also says he's an atheist and he doesn't say that he does that's not in that is a guy ... but he does all of that is not an atheist, but ... he does it all of this because he says so, but Ben says it like that because he also does it because he really does that so he's just like that, right? And so on and so on, etc., etc., and so forth, etc, etc. etc. ... etc. And so much more.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 President Trump goes to the UN and smacks Rocket Man.
00:00:03.000 Plus, was President Trump indeed wiretapped?
00:00:06.000 Because there's new news suggesting his campaign manager certainly was.
00:00:10.000 And we'll talk about Obamacare repeal, which is back on the table.
00:00:12.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:13.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:21.000 So now I have Rocketman stuck in my head, as does everyone in the United States, because President Trump decided to drop that reference during his UN speech today.
00:00:28.000 We will play it for you.
00:00:30.000 President Trump went to the UN and he gave what I thought was the best speech of his relatively young presidency.
00:00:35.000 I thought it was quite a good speech.
00:00:36.000 We'll go through what was in it and what it shows about American foreign policy, because it does sort of lend credence to the idea that all this talk about realism versus neocons, that a lot of these gaps are a little bit exaggerated, but I'll explain what I mean by all of that
00:00:50.000 Ha ha ha ha.
00:00:52.000 Because now I've got Rocketman stuck in my head.
00:01:23.000 We're good to go!
00:01:41.000 You think so?
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00:02:03.000 I've never slept in more comfortable sheets.
00:02:04.000 When I go to hotels, the sheets at the hotels are not nearly as comfortable as the sheets that you get from bullandbranch.com.
00:02:10.000 Use that promo code Ben.
00:02:11.000 Okay, so, President Trump was at the UN this morning, and he gave what was, by virtually all accounts, a very good speech.
00:02:17.000 A lot of people on the left are very upset because he was too mean to Iran and North Korea.
00:02:21.000 He was too militant.
00:02:22.000 How dare he be mean to these countries?
00:02:25.000 Dianne Feinstein sent out a, the senator from California, she sent out a note saying that it was just terrible.
00:02:32.000 How could President Trump do such a thing?
00:02:35.000 She complained.
00:02:37.000 That he greatly escalated the danger we face from both Iran and North Korea.
00:02:41.000 She said, the goals of the United Nations are to foster peace and promote global cooperation.
00:02:45.000 Today, the president used it as a stage to threaten war.
00:02:48.000 He missed an opportunity to present any positive action the UN could take with respect to North Korea, and he launched a diatribe against Iran, again offering no pathway forward.
00:02:55.000 Okay, a couple of things about this.
00:02:56.000 Number one, the Trump administration was responsible for a unanimous resolution in the UN Security Council levying more sanctions on North Korea.
00:03:03.000 So Trump has done more with the UN on North Korea than Obama ever did.
00:03:06.000 And with regard to Iran, it is the Iran deal that has allowed the Iranians to gain power in the region.
00:03:12.000 It's the Iran deal where President Obama sent literally pallets of cash, like tens of millions of dollars, pallets of cash, to the Iranian regime, which were then funneled toward terrorism, and gave them a pathway, a legal pathway, to a nuclear weapon in ten years or less.
00:03:27.000 And Dianne Feinstein is ripping Trump over all of this?
00:03:32.000 No.
00:03:32.000 Actually, it's the Iran nuclear agreement that essentially has made it clear to North Korea that they should continue to pursue a nuclear weapon because once you get close enough to a nuclear weapon, then no one will attack you ever, ever, ever again.
00:03:50.000 What nation would negotiate with the United States when the agreements we reach with other countries are so easily undermined?
00:03:55.000 We reached a negotiation with the North Koreans during the Clinton administration.
00:03:58.000 Dianne Feinstein should know.
00:03:59.000 She was still Senator of California at the time.
00:04:01.000 And it didn't make any difference.
00:04:03.000 They developed a nuclear weapon anyway.
00:04:05.000 So the Democrats are fighting mad and they've been forced into the awkward position of now having to defend some of the worst people on planet Earth.
00:04:12.000 So President Trump at the UN today gave what was a very
00:04:17.000 Interventionist speech.
00:04:18.000 I mean, people are portraying this as a realist speech, but this is not really a realist speech, okay?
00:04:23.000 What he was talking about today, he said things like, we don't want to intervene and change other people's systems for them, that's not our goal.
00:04:29.000 But then he talked about Venezuela, and he suggested properly that they need to return to some sort of democratic rule in Venezuela.
00:04:36.000 Well, if you're a hardcore realist, like a Rand Paul realist, and a non-interventionist, you'd say, what does Venezuela have to do with us?
00:04:42.000 Okay, so they're oppressing their own people.
00:04:43.000 Okay, so their people are starving en masse.
00:04:45.000 What does that have to do with us?
00:04:46.000 The reality is the vast majority of Americans, as realist as we consider ourselves, still have a moral spine to what we believe about foreign policy.
00:04:55.000 That doesn't mean we can afford to be the world's policemen, or that we should intervene everywhere.
00:04:59.000 It does mean that when we see egregious abuses like in Venezuela, that the U.S.
00:05:03.000 does consider action because the American people generally demand such action.
00:05:07.000 We generally do.
00:05:08.000 Now, the big problem is the American people don't then have patience for such action very often, but the fact that we actually care about Venezuela demonstrates that this is not a hardcore, realist, America-first administration.
00:05:19.000 You can be America-first and still pursue America's goals because one of our goals is the fomenting of democracy and liberalism, like old-school classical liberalism, around the world.
00:05:30.000 Again, that doesn't mean military overthrow.
00:05:31.000 Sometimes that means sanctions.
00:05:32.000 Sometimes that means diplomacy.
00:05:34.000 But the idea that Trump is a non-interventionist, I think that didn't survive this speech today.
00:05:39.000 So, President Trump starts off by ripping into Venezuela and talking about socialism in Venezuela is pretty spectacular.
00:05:45.000 It's clip 14.
00:05:48.000 The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.
00:06:00.000 Okay.
00:06:00.000 Can you hear total silence in the room?
00:06:04.000 And finally, there's a little bit of applause.
00:06:07.000 I like Trump just staring out at all the socialist countries who have been imbibing this nonsense for a while.
00:06:13.000 And what he says here is exactly right.
00:06:15.000 This is what I've said for a long time.
00:06:16.000 It's not about socialism being a great idea misapplied.
00:06:19.000 It's about a bad idea being applied properly.
00:06:22.000 Every place that socialism is tried to its full capacity, it leads to massive amounts of human suffering, death, and starvation.
00:06:28.000 So, good for Trump on this.
00:06:30.000 Trump also suggested that the world has a moral responsibility to side against aggressors.
00:06:34.000 Here's President Trump talking about Iran and saying that we have to confront evil or evil will triumph.
00:06:43.000 If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph.
00:06:52.000 When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.
00:07:02.000 No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people
00:07:09.000 Then the depraved regime in North Korea.
00:07:13.000 Good for him.
00:07:14.000 Okay, well what he's talking about here is exactly correct.
00:07:16.000 This is a far cry from President Obama who went in front of the United Nations virtually every year and then whined about how the United States was responsible for all the world's ills.
00:07:24.000 He would go up there and he would talk about how America in the past had been too braggadocious.
00:07:29.000 How we in the past?
00:07:30.000 We've been too interventionist.
00:07:32.000 It's been our fault.
00:07:33.000 We've made people angry.
00:07:34.000 We've been too arrogant.
00:07:36.000 None of that from President Trump.
00:07:37.000 Good for President Trump.
00:07:38.000 I mean, all this is good.
00:07:40.000 The fact is that we're going to need to see some actual hard policy backing the words.
00:07:43.000 You know, how far is he willing to go?
00:07:45.000 What is he willing to do?
00:07:46.000 That's always the question, right?
00:07:47.000 It's always the Sean Connery question from the Untouchables.
00:07:49.000 What are you willing to do?
00:07:50.000 That's always the big question in foreign policy.
00:07:52.000 And we don't really have a clear answer from President Trump on that.
00:07:55.000 But I know one thing he's not willing to do, and that is apologize for the U.S.'
00:07:58.000 's presence on the world stage.
00:07:59.000 And that's a very good thing.
00:08:01.000 And it's reassuring because the truth is that in the past, President Trump has made sort of Ron Paul-ian comments about the role of the United States in the world.
00:08:09.000 You remember just a few months ago, he was talking about how the U.S.
00:08:12.000 has killed people like Vladimir Putin.
00:08:13.000 And one of the criticisms that I think is actually not unfair of this speech is that Trump nowhere in the speech mentioned Russia and Russia's aggression continues.
00:08:20.000 And I think that's perfectly appropriate to point out that President Trump should have mentioned Russia.
00:08:25.000 That's one critique.
00:08:26.000 The other critique of his speech is this line that he dropped halfway through that is totally Trumpian where he's talking about North Korea and he just decides to drop an Elton John song in the middle of his speech about North Korea.
00:08:37.000 Here's what he had to say.
00:08:39.000 Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.
00:08:47.000 Rocket Man is on a suicide mission?
00:08:50.000 He's just reading straight from his Twitter feed now.
00:08:52.000 I think it's going to be a long, long time until touchdown brings me around again, man.
00:08:57.000 Apparently the North Korean delegation walked out.
00:08:59.000 Apparently they were not here for this.
00:09:00.000 They said they'd let a junior diplomat sit in.
00:09:02.000 They packed their bags last night, pre-flight, zero hour, nine a.m.
00:09:06.000 I don't understand what the purpose of the Rocketman thing is.
00:09:11.000 It's funny, but it also undercuts the seriousness of the situation.
00:09:17.000 There's a great tweet today about this.
00:09:19.000 I do love that there's somebody who tweeted out about Ronald Reagan suggesting that Ronald Reagan should have gone to Brandenburg Gate and said,
00:09:32.000 Birthmark head, tear down this wall.
00:09:35.000 Might not have had quite the same impact if he'd said that to Mikhail Gorbachev.
00:09:40.000 So I'm not sure what the purpose is of this.
00:09:42.000 It is funny.
00:09:43.000 It is funny.
00:09:44.000 The media are jumping on it and they are suggesting that this demonstrates that he's not serious.
00:09:48.000 Suggesting that he is obviously stupid and that's why he did all of this.
00:09:53.000 He's Trump and that's why he did all of this.
00:09:56.000 You know, how serious he is about North Korea?
00:09:57.000 Well, we're going to find out.
00:09:58.000 We're going to find out because I don't think North Korea is going to stop this sort of activity.
00:10:01.000 I really don't.
00:10:02.000 It is amazing to watch, however, the media go completely nuts over this speech as though he said something wildly different.
00:10:07.000 Now, here's the thing that's funny.
00:10:08.000 The left is going crazy over this speech because they're suggesting that President Obama never would have been so confrontational.
00:10:14.000 He never would have done anything like this.
00:10:15.000 President Obama launched a virtually useless and counterproductive war in Libya.
00:10:19.000 President Obama signed off on the Iran deal.
00:10:21.000 President Obama did nothing about North Korea.
00:10:23.000 And he used to go there and talk consistently about human rights.
00:10:26.000 President Trump doesn't like talking about human rights very much.
00:10:28.000 But when he goes to the UN, what he is saying is more conducive to human rights than what President Obama said.
00:10:34.000 Niceness on the world stage does not equal the promulgation of human rights.
00:10:39.000 It doesn't equal the spread of human rights.
00:10:42.000 American strength on the world stage equals the spread of human rights around the world.
00:10:46.000 It doesn't mean we're always right.
00:10:47.000 It doesn't mean everything we do is good.
00:10:49.000 It doesn't mean every choice we make is the right one.
00:10:51.000 But it does mean that a stronger America is a freer world and a weaker America is a less free world.
00:10:57.000 And even President Trump, who sort of began this campaign as an anti-interventionist, the Iraq war was evil and conspiratorial, all of this.
00:11:04.000 He's moved beyond that now, as all presidents do, okay?
00:11:07.000 There's a general foreign policy consensus no matter how much we wish to buck it.
00:11:11.000 Obama was the first one really to try to buck it.
00:11:13.000 Uh, that says that America needs to be strong on the world stage, because otherwise the world becomes a worse place.
00:11:17.000 I think Trump understands that, and good for him.
00:11:20.000 Okay, before I go further, there's some big news about Trump and Paul Manafort, and was Trump right when he tweeted that he was wiretapped?
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00:12:45.000 Okay, so, in other news, the big news last night,
00:12:49.000 Is that there were two stories that broke about President Trump and the Russia investigation.
00:12:53.000 Okay, so the first big story came courtesy of CNN.
00:12:56.000 So CNN reported Monday evening that investigators quote,
00:13:05.000 Furthermore, according to CNN, Manafort was tapped when he was having conversations with Trump, or may have been, and Manafort had a residence at Trump Tower.
00:13:13.000 So it's actually unclear if the FBI tapped him at that location.
00:13:16.000 Now you'll recall that back in January, President Trump tweeted about how the FBI under Obama had wiretapped him at Trump Tower, or they tapped his wires at Trump Tower.
00:13:25.000 So there's a lot of talk about how that was a lie, it wasn't true, that he wasn't specifically tapped, that his phone wasn't tapped, for example.
00:13:32.000 So there are three things that we're talking about here.
00:13:34.000 One is Trump's wires.
00:13:35.000 Were Trump's specific wires tapped?
00:13:37.000 And the answer seems to be no.
00:13:39.000 The second is Manafort's wires.
00:13:40.000 Yes, they were tapped.
00:13:41.000 And the third is, were they tapped at Trump Tower?
00:13:44.000 So, were their wires tapped at Trump Tower?
00:13:46.000 We don't know the answer to that.
00:13:47.000 There's a fourth question too, which is, was Trump on the other end of those calls?
00:13:51.000 Even if Trump was on the other end of those calls, that doesn't mean that he was deliberately surveilled.
00:13:55.000 It means that Manafort was surveilled.
00:13:56.000 Manafort's been a very dirty player for a very long time.
00:13:58.000 People have known about this for a few years now, that he was basically in bed with the Putin regime.
00:14:03.000 CNN reports, the conversations between Manafort and Trump continued after the president took office, long after the FBI investigation into Manafort was publicly known, sources told CNN.
00:14:12.000 They went on until lawyers for the president and Manafort insisted they stop, according to the sources.
00:14:16.000 It's unclear whether Trump himself was picked up on the surveillance.
00:14:20.000 So Manafort was campaign chair for Trump for about five months.
00:14:23.000 He was not surveilled during that period.
00:14:26.000 After he was ousted, from March to August, after he was ousted, the FBI surveillance began again.
00:14:31.000 So it's very possible the FBI did not tap Trump's wires, but they may have picked Trump up while tapping Manafort's wires.
00:14:37.000 So there are a couple of questions here too.
00:14:39.000 One is, was the FISA warrant justified?
00:14:41.000 Was this attempt to get Trump and get his campaign?
00:14:44.000 Now, the case against that is that Manafort was being tapped before he was on the Trump campaign, and that while he was on the Trump campaign, they ceased the tap, basically, and then they started it up once he was off the Trump campaign again.
00:14:54.000 So that cuts against the idea that Obama was deliberately targeting Trump with these wiretaps.
00:14:59.000 In favor of the idea is, again, Manafort was the campaign manager, and these taps continued for a long time, and we still don't know what exactly they were tapping or how they obtained the FISA warrant.
00:15:08.000 In order to believe that this was wrong, you have to believe that the FISA court was basically corrupt.
00:15:13.000 That they granted the warrant in order to go after Manafort in order to get Trump.
00:15:16.000 These were a bunch of Obama appointees doing his bidding in order to sink Trump.
00:15:20.000 If that were the case, then you would imagine that President Obama would have had a lot at stake in leaking out information about Manafort's wires being tapped during the election cycle, right?
00:15:28.000 I mean, that would have been the time to do it.
00:15:30.000 That's not exactly what happened.
00:15:31.000 So, I'm a little skeptical of the claims that this is, you know, an Obama setup, that he was setting up Manafort in order to get Trump.
00:15:38.000 I'm not skeptical at all of some of the unmasking accusations.
00:15:40.000 The idea that Susan Rice was deliberately unmasking Trump with the hope that that would leak into the press.
00:15:46.000 That, I think, is quite possible.
00:15:48.000 But I do not buy entirely the argument that Trump was being wiretapped by evil Obama forces.
00:15:54.000 Manafort, again, is a dirty player.
00:15:55.000 It's very likely he's going to end up prosecuted.
00:15:57.000 And that's the story from the New York Times today.
00:16:18.000 One of the things that's interesting about this is that why would you tell Manafort you're going to indict him unless you're threatening him with indictment to get him to flip?
00:16:27.000 This is the most dangerous path for Trump.
00:16:29.000 The most dangerous path for Trump is not that he was tapped, not that he said anything egregious to Manafort, but that Manafort thinks he knows something and is going to bargain his way out of trouble by flipping on Trump.
00:16:40.000 This is one of the reasons why there is a lot of suspicion
00:16:42.000 When Mueller started getting involved with the New York Attorney General, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
00:16:48.000 Schneiderman considers himself part of the anti-Trump resistance.
00:16:51.000 He is a far leftist.
00:16:52.000 He has always been a far leftist.
00:16:54.000 And Schneiderman, if he is used as a proxy for Mueller in order to bring state charges against Manafort, Trump does not have the power under the Constitution to pardon Manafort for a state crime.
00:17:04.000 And that's a serious problem for Trump, because you could see Schneiderman bringing charges against Manafort, Manafort flipping against Trump, and all that information getting to Mueller, and then you actually have a real problem on your hands.
00:17:15.000 So, this looks like there could be, in order for Mueller to retain his patina of objectivity, he's going to need to ask Schneiderman to step aside.
00:17:24.000 If you really believe state crimes have been committed here, Schneiderman cannot be the face of the people going after Manafort.
00:17:30.000 It's just, it's too political.
00:17:32.000 It's a disaster.
00:17:32.000 If you think that Jeff Sessions was right to recuse himself, I think he probably was, then you also have to believe that Schneiderman should recuse himself in this investigation into Manafort because he's just too politically driven.
00:17:43.000 He's just too politically driven.
00:17:44.000 Okay, all of this, the reason that I go into all of this is because it's so easy to look and see these bizarre sort of parallel universes that the right and the left live in.
00:17:54.000 So the left is looking at this story and they're saying, aha!
00:17:57.000 Manafort was tapped because Manafort is guilty and that means Trump is guilty.
00:18:01.000 No evidence that Trump is guilty.
00:18:03.000 No evidence that Trump was even caught on the tapes.
00:18:05.000 No evidence of any of that.
00:18:07.000 I've said for well over a year at this point that Manafort was a bad pick by Trump.
00:18:11.000 I've said for months that if anyone was going to get indicted from the Trump campaign, it was going to be Manafort, not Trump.
00:18:16.000 Again, Manafort could have been working with the Russians and not told Trump.
00:18:19.000 That's quite plausible.
00:18:20.000 Manafort's worked with the Russians for years.
00:18:22.000 And why would he tell Trump?
00:18:23.000 Trump's a big mouth.
00:18:24.000 Trump would go blow that thing wide open.
00:18:26.000 So it's quite possible that Manafort is guilty and Trump isn't.
00:18:30.000 And for the people on the right who are saying, this justifies Trump's tweets about wiretapping.
00:18:34.000 Okay, first of all, I really don't, I'm not sure that it does.
00:18:37.000 I don't think that it does.
00:18:38.000 But beyond that, I think that it is, I think it is important to recognize that that's not a good story for you.
00:18:45.000 If you're a Trump supporter, if your defense is, Trump was right about the tapping.
00:18:50.000 He was so right that they were tapping his line because they suspected Manafort of a crime.
00:18:54.000 And so Trump's probably involved in a crime.
00:18:56.000 I'm not sure that's a good line of defense for you.
00:18:58.000 I mean, you can celebrate him being right about the tweet and then get him more deeply involved in the Manafort investigation.
00:19:04.000 That doesn't seem brilliant.
00:19:07.000 That doesn't seem great.
00:19:08.000 I just don't see the upside there for President Trump.
00:19:12.000 So, that's the story with all of this.
00:19:14.000 Again, I think that while it's being blown up into a headline on CNN, I don't think this is actually huge news.
00:19:19.000 And while it's being blown up by people on the right to say Trump was right all along, this whole shtick of Trump was right all along about a tweet that doesn't matter seems to me counterproductive because the only thing that matters here is whether there's going to be any underlying crime that's found, not whether Trump was right about the tweet.
00:19:33.000 Unless, again, you believe that...
00:19:35.000 That Obama was deliberately targeting members of the Trump team in order to bring him down, and I do have some questions about that.
00:19:42.000 Believe me, I'm more than happy to talk about President Trump misusing the levers of government.
00:19:47.000 I wrote an entire book about it.
00:19:48.000 It's called The People vs. Barack Obama, in which I suggested that the Obama administration engaged in criminal activity in things like the IRS scandal.
00:19:56.000 But I want to see the evidence that President Obama did something wildly improper in targeting Paul Manafort or the FISA court did something wildly improper in issuing the FISA warrant before I jumped down Obama's throat and suggest that this was all a targeted attempt to get Trump.
00:20:08.000 I'm not sure that I see that here.
00:20:10.000 Okay, so...
00:20:11.000 Before I go any further and explain the latest news on Obamacare repeal and the Democrats completely falling apart, by the way.
00:20:18.000 I mean, I need to show you some footage of Nancy Pelosi being yelled at by her own side, which is just incredible.
00:20:23.000 Before I do any of that, first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at stamps.com.
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00:21:41.000 Okay, so...
00:21:43.000 In other news, before September 30th, the Republicans now have about a week and a half to pass Obamacare repeal.
00:21:49.000 If they do not pass Obamacare repeal in a week and a half, they're not getting it done this year.
00:21:52.000 If they don't get it done this year, it's very unlikely they're going to get it done next year.
00:21:56.000 The reason being, once we hit a midterm election year, everyone is really antsy.
00:22:01.000 No one wants to be seen as voting for something super controversial.
00:22:03.000 So the latest version of Obamacare quasi-repeal, it's not full repeal because the only way to do full repeal, presumably, would be to
00:22:12.000 Would be to get 60 votes in the Senate or to get the Senate parliamentarian to rule that a majority can overthrow regulations.
00:22:23.000 Right now, so here's how it works in the Senate.
00:22:25.000 There's a weird rule called reconciliation in the Senate.
00:22:28.000 Reconciliation means that the Senate can vote with 51 votes.
00:22:31.000 They don't need 60 votes.
00:22:31.000 They need 51 votes.
00:22:33.000 He can't filibuster it to alter American law in a way that is budget neutral, that does not increase the budget, and that affects standing versions of American law.
00:22:43.000 So that means that getting rid of regulations, it's kind of difficult to determine how that's going to impact the budget.
00:22:49.000 And so getting rid of regulations purely, the general rule according to the Senate parliamentarian is that that doesn't fall under reconciliation.
00:22:55.000 You need 60 votes.
00:22:56.000 This is why Obama needed 60 votes for Obamacare, because he was creating new law.
00:22:59.000 It wasn't just getting rid of old law, he was creating new law.
00:23:02.000 Okay, so here is the new version that's being rolled out.
00:23:04.000 It's being rolled out by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy.
00:23:07.000 It is a much better version of what we saw before.
00:23:10.000 It is a better version of what we saw before.
00:23:11.000 So we're going to go through it briefly here so you know what it is.
00:23:14.000 I've been talking with several Senators, and it seems like there's some good momentum behind this particular bill.
00:23:20.000 It's not a full repeal of Obamacare.
00:23:22.000 It doesn't get rid of all of Obamacare's taxes.
00:23:24.000 It doesn't get rid of all of Obamacare's regulations.
00:23:26.000 At the federal level, it doesn't get rid of the regulations.
00:23:29.000 It does allow state waivers, and those state waivers could theoretically
00:23:33.000 First of all, Medicaid gets slashed.
00:23:35.000 So one of the big problems with Obamacare is that it has this open-ended commitment to increase Medicaid exposure by the federal government.
00:23:40.000 We're going to pay for your Medicaid expansion basically ad infinitum on an as-needed basis.
00:24:00.000 Well, this bill, the Cassidy-Graham bill, it slashes Medicaid growth pretty dramatically.
00:24:05.000 Instead of the federal government sending money to states on a need basis, states are instead given block grants, which means that we just send them a set amount of money, it's not based on need, and all the money in these block grants, instead of going to the states that have already expanded their Medicaid rules, as Obamacare did, right?
00:24:20.000 That was the incentive.
00:24:22.000 Obama said, you want this money?
00:24:24.000 You need to increase your Obamacare exchange.
00:24:26.000 You need to create an Obamacare exchange, then we'll send you money.
00:24:28.000 This new bill gets rid of that provision.
00:24:30.000 It basically says, we're going to allocate to all the states evenly, rather than to states that expanded their Obamacare subsidized Medicaid rolls.
00:24:40.000 So that means that states like Texas would benefit, states like California would lose.
00:24:44.000 The goal would be to cut expected Medicaid funding on the federal level by one third by 2026.
00:24:49.000 And eliminate it entirely by 2027.
00:24:51.000 Now the problem with this, of course, is that really kicks the can down the road.
00:24:55.000 If you think Congress is going to eliminate the subsidies, you have another thing coming.
00:24:59.000 Congress has never heavily limited medical subsidies.
00:25:01.000 Okay, as I say, Medicaid is redistributed.
00:25:04.000 The state's hardest hit are the ones that have already expanded their Medicaid rolls based on Obamacare's
00:25:11.000 False and lying expansion of regulations around the actual law.
00:25:15.000 It does get rid of the individual mandate, so you no longer have to buy health insurance.
00:25:19.000 This does drive up prices, right?
00:25:21.000 Remember, the individual mandate is a funding mechanism for redistributive health care.
00:25:25.000 The Obamacare mandate forces me, as a healthy person, to pay for my health care so that an old sick person can pay less for theirs.
00:25:32.000 That's what Obamacare's individual mandate does.
00:25:34.000 So how do they fill in that gap for the insurance companies?
00:25:37.000 Well, what they do is they allow states to waive essential benefits.
00:25:41.000 So this sort of halfway brings back the ability for insurance companies to sell plans that do not include pre-existing conditions.
00:25:50.000 So that's how they are going to bring down the cost is by allowing more competition in the marketplace by allowing them to sell different types of insurance.
00:26:00.000 So it relieves some of the regulations.
00:26:03.000 Now, getting rid of the pre-existing conditions planned brings down the overall cost of health insurance, but for a select few people who are already sick and don't get insurance through their employer, those people are going to see increased health care costs.
00:26:14.000 They will.
00:26:14.000 They'll see increased health care costs.
00:26:16.000 There's an increase in subsidies to try and make up for that.
00:26:18.000 The question is whether that is enough.
00:26:20.000 So, this is a better bill than the one that Republicans rejected a couple of months back.
00:26:24.000 It still won't do enough to open up competition because it leaves a lot of these key regulations in place.
00:26:28.000 Until all pre-existing conditions on regulations are removed, you're going to see prices increase because competition won't be free and open.
00:26:35.000 It doesn't get rid of all of Obamacare's taxes either, but it is a step in the right direction.
00:26:39.000 I think there's a good shot that it passes and it should.
00:26:42.000 It should pass.
00:26:43.000 This is a bill that I think is actually worth voting for as long as we don't say that this is all.
00:26:49.000 This is not the end of the story.
00:26:50.000 This is the first step toward Obamacare repeal.
00:26:52.000 This is not the entirety of Obamacare repeal.
00:26:55.000 And so it's deeply important that we make that distinction because we don't want to lie to constituents who expect that this is going to fix everything.
00:27:02.000 Okay.
00:27:02.000 Meanwhile, while Republicans are struggling over the Russia investigation and Obamacare repeal, there is something else happening among Democrats, and that is a full-scale disaster.
00:27:13.000 So Democrats, you know, there's this idea that when you're in the opposition that you're unified and you're cohesive and you have the ability to push things.
00:27:21.000 And President Trump lately has been giving up to Democrats pretty easily.
00:27:24.000 Well, the Democrats have some problems of their own.
00:27:26.000 This was demonstrated last night when a bunch of illegal immigrant protesters descended on a Nancy Pelosi press conference.
00:27:32.000 Here's what it looked like.
00:27:36.000 Why don't we do this?
00:27:38.000 Since you don't want to listen, we'll have to just go.
00:27:51.000 How radical are the Democrats?
00:27:53.000 How radical is their base?
00:27:54.000 Nancy Pelosi is too far right for them.
00:27:56.000 They're protesting DACA because they say it doesn't do enough.
00:27:58.000 They were protesting because they want ICE to be completely disbanded.
00:28:01.000 They want a completely open border.
00:28:03.000 This is the Democrat base, or at least part of the Democrat base, and they don't know what to do about it.
00:28:07.000 They don't know what to do about it.
00:28:09.000 It's completely and utterly bereft of reason.
00:28:12.000 It's totally amazing.
00:28:13.000 And the Democrats are moving further and further to the left in order to take advantage of these people.
00:28:18.000 But in doing so, they're leaving the middle.
00:28:20.000 Like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
00:28:21.000 She's considered a 2020 contender.
00:28:23.000 And she came out and she said that, who are the leaders of our party?
00:28:25.000 Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
00:28:27.000 My God.
00:28:29.000 I think you have your congressional leaders, of course.
00:28:32.000 But I think Senator Sanders is out there talking about things that have big ideas, like Medicare for All.
00:28:38.000 I think Elizabeth Warren's out there talking about a rigged system that we desperately need to fix for working families.
00:28:44.000 Okay, amazing that this is their new party.
00:28:45.000 Their new party is Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
00:28:48.000 Good luck with that gang.
00:28:49.000 I mean, they're so radical that Luis Gutierrez, the representative, he was ripping on John Kelly, who is Trump's chief of staff.
00:28:55.000 He said that John Kelly was basically a traitor to the United States despite his military service and said that he had basically sold out Americans and all this.
00:29:04.000 And Gutierrez refuses to apologize because that's how polarized you have to be to demonstrate to your base that you're crazy enough to represent them.
00:29:11.000 Do you regret speaking that strongly and criticizing John Kelly?
00:29:16.000 Let me just say this.
00:29:17.000 I could have been more careful with the use of my words.
00:29:22.000 And there are times that you need to re-evaluate.
00:29:25.000 Having said that, I saw him as head of Homeland Security deport grandmothers who had been for 15 years reporting dutifully to Homeland Security with their American citizen grandchildren.
00:29:38.000 Heartless actions and increasing deportation against people who presented no threat.
00:29:44.000 So in other words, no apology to General Kelly for basically calling him a sellout to the United States of America.
00:29:50.000 That is the new Democratic Party.
00:29:52.000 They've got some serious problems.
00:29:53.000 And meanwhile, they still have Hillary trolling around for book money, trying to claim that she's going to challenge the legitimacy of the election.
00:29:59.000 I'm old enough to remember when it was crazy when President Trump said that he might challenge the legitimacy of the election.
00:30:04.000 In fact, I criticized him for it.
00:30:06.000 Here was President Trump, then-candidate Trump, saying that he might challenge the legitimacy of the election way back when.
00:30:11.000 This is in October.
00:30:12.000 I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country.
00:30:21.000 They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.
00:30:31.000 There's never been anything like it.
00:30:33.000 Okay, so there was Trump back in October and the media went nuts over this.
00:30:36.000 He was asked about it in debate.
00:30:38.000 Hillary said it was despicable for anybody to challenge the results of an election.
00:30:41.000 Here is Hillary Clinton yesterday talking about challenging the legitimacy of the election eight months after it took place.
00:30:48.000 Would you completely rule out
00:30:51.000 Questioning the legitimacy of this election if we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now.
00:31:00.000 No, I would not.
00:31:01.000 I would say... You're not going to rule it out?
00:31:03.000 No, I wouldn't rule it out, but I also... So what are the means, like, this is totally unprecedented in every way.
00:31:08.000 It is.
00:31:09.000 What would be the means to challenge it if you thought it should be challenged?
00:31:13.000 Basically, I don't believe there are.
00:31:14.000 There are scholars, academics who have arguments that it would be, but I don't think they're on strong ground.
00:31:21.000 I mean, amazing.
00:31:22.000 So this is the new Democratic Party.
00:31:23.000 Hillary Clinton whining about her life, and Bernie Sanders and Kristen Gillibrand and illegal immigrants shouting at Nancy Pelosi for not being crazy enough.
00:31:30.000 So while we talk about the Republican Party having some problems, the Democrats are far worse off than the Republicans right now.
00:31:36.000 Okay, so before I get to things I like and things I hate, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Dollar Shave Club.
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00:34:28.000 It is incredible in every conceivable way.
00:34:30.000 I don't need to belabor the point, as I seem to every day, it is great.
00:34:33.000 Okay, so you get all of those things for $99 a year,
00:34:36.000 Or if you just want to listen later, go over to iTunes or SoundCloud.
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00:34:48.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
00:34:50.000 So, things that I like.
00:34:52.000 I figured that since I did Rebecca yesterday, the book by Daphne du Maurier and the movie with Laurence Olivier, we'll do some Laurence Olivier Gothic stuff.
00:35:00.000 And so, this is Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights.
00:35:02.000 This has one of the great scores of all time.
00:35:05.000 It's sort of a forgotten classic, Wuthering Heights.
00:35:07.000 It won some Oscars in 1939.
00:35:10.000 It's really a terrific film.
00:35:13.000 Old school, kind of glorious.
00:35:15.000 If it had been in color, you'd say that it was in glorious color, but it really is in glorious black and white.
00:35:18.000 It's really terrific.
00:35:19.000 Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, very, very young David Nevin.
00:35:23.000 It's a terrific film.
00:35:25.000 The book is also quite good, obviously.
00:35:27.000 And you should check it out.
00:35:29.000 Here's a little bit of the trailer.
00:35:40.000 It's the greatest love story of our time.
00:35:46.000 Or any time.
00:35:49.000 Don't you see what he's been doing?
00:35:50.000 He's been using you to be near me.
00:35:51.000 To smile at me behind your back.
00:35:53.000 To try to rouse something in my heart that's dead.
00:35:56.000 You can't.
00:35:57.000 Heathcliff's not a man, but something dark and horrible to live with.
00:36:00.000 You imagine, Catherine, that I don't know why you're acting so.
00:36:03.000 Because you love him.
00:36:06.000 Oh, Heathcliff, you must not do this villainous thing.
00:36:07.000 She hasn't harmed you.
00:36:09.000 You have.
00:36:10.000 Then punish me!
00:36:10.000 I'm going to.
00:36:13.000 When I take her in my arms, when I kiss her, when I promise her life and happiness.
00:36:17.000 Oh, Heathcliff, if there's anything human left in you, don't do this.
00:36:21.000 Oh, Heathcliff, why won't you let me come near you?
00:36:24.000 You're not black and horrible as they all think.
00:36:27.000 You're full of pain.
00:36:28.000 I can make you happy.
00:36:30.000 Let me try.
00:36:30.000 You won't regret it.
00:36:31.000 I'll be your slave.
00:36:33.000 I can bring life back to you, new and fresh.
00:36:37.000 He's a very dark character, obviously the Laurence Olivier character, and it is very romantic.
00:36:42.000 It's great.
00:36:44.000 The score is really terrific.
00:36:47.000 I'm trying to remember who wrote the score.
00:36:48.000 Alfred Newman, of course.
00:36:49.000 Yeah, the great Alfred Newman, and one of the great film scorers of all time.
00:36:53.000 Go and check it out tonight.
00:36:54.000 It's a great date movie, and you'll think of what your parents' date movie was like, because that's when it came out.
00:37:00.000 Okay, other things that I like.
00:37:04.000 I think that it is amazing that the media are still going nuts over Sean Spicer.
00:37:10.000 So last night I was on CNN with Don Lemon and Don was upset with Sean Spicer appearing at the Emmys.
00:37:15.000 Oh, how dare the Emmys go easy on Sean Spicer.
00:37:18.000 They should have taken him out there and beaten him with sticks.
00:37:20.000 They should have taken him out there and they should have poured a bucket of pig's blood on his head just like Harry.
00:37:25.000 That's what it should have been.
00:37:26.000 CNN, they had a commentator who said the Emmy that
00:37:30.000 The Emmys honoring Sean Spicer, it was just terrible.
00:37:32.000 How could they?
00:37:34.000 This is White House reporter Caitlin Collins, the CNN White House reporter.
00:37:37.000 Objective journalism at its finest.
00:37:39.000 So, uh, there was some laughter, there was some awkwardness.
00:37:42.000 What did you think?
00:37:43.000 I did not find it humorous at all as someone who sat in that press briefing room every day that Sean Spicer was the press secretary.
00:37:49.000 I just don't think it's humorous when the former White House spokesman comes out at this awards show with all these Hollywoods that they often rail against to make fun of the fact and, you know, pretty much admit that he lied to the American people while he was being paid by the American people to be a spokesman for the White House.
00:38:06.000 This is someone who, when he came out a few days after that inauguration statement, he promised not to lie and to tell the truth.
00:38:12.000 It's the self-righteousness here that I kind of enjoy.
00:38:15.000 It's the idea from the media and from Hollywood that we are the arbiters of truth.
00:38:19.000 The great and grand arbiters of truth, the people who had no problem with Michelle Obama at the Oscars in 2013, or Joe Biden at the Oscars in 2016, who did a legitimate sitcom, Hollywood did a legitimate sitcom with a guy named John Lovett, who's now over at Pod Save America.
00:38:33.000 He was an Obama staffer, okay?
00:38:34.000 The Obama administration was chock full of untruth for years, but nobody seemed to object.
00:38:39.000 Sean Spicer, the reason that everybody is laughing at Sean Spicer is not because Sean Spicer was a liar, okay?
00:38:44.000 We're used to that from our politicians.
00:38:45.000 It's because Sean Spicer was uniquely horrible at lying.
00:38:48.000 That's why we all think it was funny.
00:38:50.000 Okay, he was really terrible at it.
00:38:51.000 Like Sean Spicer, there's a part deep down inside Sean Spicer that when you watch him, you know there's a part of him that cringes when he lies.
00:38:57.000 That's why you could see the deadness in his eyes when he was lying about crowd size.
00:39:02.000 And so when he did that the other night,
00:39:03.000 Like, that was actually a blow in favor of truth, because now, I guess we're all moving beyond the idea that he wasn't fibbing.
00:39:09.000 I don't understand why that's a terrible thing, and why Hollywood is gonna get, and the media are gonna get so upset about this.
00:39:14.000 Oh God, he's, how could Hollywood honor such a man?
00:39:17.000 They weren't honoring him, he was the punchline of the joke.
00:39:20.000 He was the punchline.
00:39:21.000 I mean, they were laughing at him, they weren't laughing with him.
00:39:24.000 The whole thing is just very silly.
00:39:25.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate, so...
00:39:31.000 There's an astonishing poll out today from Brookings Institute.
00:39:34.000 It is unbelievable.
00:39:35.000 Okay, the poll is about whether or not speakers like me should be shut down on college campuses.
00:39:41.000 Okay, here's the question.
00:39:42.000 A public university invites a very controversial speaker to an on-campus event.
00:39:46.000 The speaker is known for making offensive and hurtful statements.
00:39:49.000 A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker.
00:39:54.000 Do you agree or disagree that the student group's actions are acceptable?
00:39:58.000 Democrats, 62% agree.
00:40:01.000 62%, 6 in 10 Democrats.
00:40:04.000 Republicans, 61% disagree.
00:40:07.000 Independents, 55% disagree.
00:40:10.000 Males particularly agree with the statement that it's okay to shout down speakers.
00:40:15.000 So it's okay to just go and shout them down.
00:40:17.000 Okay, this is even worse.
00:40:20.000 A public university invites a controversial speaker to an on-campus event.
00:40:23.000 A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking.
00:40:28.000 Is this okay?
00:40:30.000 Is this okay?
00:40:32.000 20% of Democrats agree.
00:40:33.000 22% of Republicans agree that it is okay to use violence to shut down speakers on the other side.
00:40:40.000 1 in 5 Americans believe this.
00:40:43.000 Totally insane.
00:40:45.000 Totally insane, okay?
00:40:46.000 This is un-American.
00:40:47.000 It's un-American.
00:40:48.000 And you see this, unfortunately, pervading the highest levels of the left intelligentsia.
00:40:54.000 I'm shocked by that Republican statistic, by the way.
00:40:56.000 The 22% of Republicans are okay with violence shutting down a speech.
00:41:00.000 That's an amazing thing.
00:41:01.000 But a Princeton professor was legitimately on TV, this was a couple days ago, opposing my appearance at Berkeley for some of these same reasons.
00:41:08.000 Do you think it's productive for people to interrupt a conservative speaker to walk up on the stage to block his ability to give a message to the point where that person has to be let out by security?
00:41:18.000 No, that doesn't make- but in some instances I think there are moments where I don't feel it necessary for me to have to endure an argument that questions my presence.
00:41:32.000 Okay, just amazing.
00:41:33.000 Just incredibly amazing.
00:41:34.000 Their actual intellect who suggests that it's okay to shut down speeches on these grounds.
00:41:39.000 So, amazing stuff.
00:41:40.000 Okay, time for a quick deconstruction of the culture.
00:41:42.000 So, one of the things that happened at the Emmys the other night that I didn't have a chance to comment on is there's an actress named Issa Rae.
00:41:49.000 I'm not sure what show she's on.
00:41:51.000 I guess that she's on Insecure.
00:41:53.000 She's the creator and star of HBO's Insecure.
00:41:55.000 And she was very candid about who she wanted to win.
00:41:58.000 Here's what she had to say.
00:41:59.000 Who are you rooting for tonight?
00:42:01.000 I'm rooting for everybody black.
00:42:04.000 I am.
00:42:09.000 Okay, so, imagine a white person said that.
00:42:12.000 I'm rooting for everyone white.
00:42:14.000 And imagine an Asian person said, I'm rooting for everyone Asian.
00:42:18.000 This notion of racial solidarity, I'm rooting for everyone black, and we're supposed to pretend that's not racism, of course it's racism.
00:42:24.000 Why wouldn't you root for the best person?
00:42:25.000 Why wouldn't you say, I root for my friends?
00:42:27.000 Why wouldn't you say, I root for the people who even have the same political beliefs that I do?
00:42:31.000 Right?
00:42:31.000 Why does it have to be based on race?
00:42:33.000 By the way, I don't think that that's true.
00:42:35.000 I think that if there were a documentary about Clarence Thomas, and Clarence Thomas were up for an Emmy for some odd reason, that she would not be rooting for Clarence Thomas to win.
00:42:42.000 I think what she does is she, like a lot of people on the left, identifies her own politics with blackness and then suggests that blackness is a reason why people should win Emmys.
00:42:51.000 Pretty gross.
00:42:53.000 She said that she was pleased with the number of people of color who are nominated this year.
00:42:57.000 Again, I don't understand what the color has anything to do with it.
00:42:58.000 The quality of the stories is fine.
00:42:59.000 Why didn't she just say that?
00:43:00.000 Why didn't she just say, all the people who write great stories that haven't been told before, I'm eager to see those people win.
00:43:20.000 But the focus on color ruins the country.
00:43:23.000 It ruins the country whether it's coming from white people or black people and pretending that it is only a problem when it comes from one race is just absurd.
00:43:31.000 It's absurd, it's silly, it's backward, and it is indeed racist.
00:43:34.000 It's amazing how people get away with this in the cultural world in a way they never would be able to in the political world.
00:43:40.000 Kind of astonishing.
00:43:41.000 But I'm the threat to American civility.
00:43:43.000 When I speak on campus and say, we should judge people individually, I'm the threat to American civility.
00:43:47.000 But Issa Rae is the person who stands up for the great tradition of diversity by saying that she's rooting for all the black people.
00:43:55.000 Pretty incredible.
00:43:56.000 Well, we will be back here tomorrow.
00:43:57.000 I want to give you a further breakdown of President Trump's UN speech.
00:44:00.000 Plus, as always, the news of the day.
00:44:02.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:44:03.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.