The Ben Shapiro Show - We’re Not In Kansas Anymore, Virginia | Ep. 712

00:00:00.000 Virginia implodes, Democratic presidential candidates drop like flies, and the specter of socialism looms.

00:00:05.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:06.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:11.000 Oh man, I have sitting right here before me the draft Green New Deal from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

00:00:17.000 I could not be more excited to explain to you how she's going to completely rewrite the American economy, revitalize America's industry. 0.99

00:00:25.000 It's so good, man.

00:00:26.000 It is so good.

00:00:27.000 Plus, Beto O'Rourke, there's an article about him in the New York Times, and man, It's groovy and everything.

00:00:33.000 It's unbelievable.

00:00:34.000 But we'll get to all that in just a second.

00:00:36.000 First, let's talk about what you're doing for Valentine's Day.

00:00:38.000 So you know what the best Valentine's Day gift ever would be?

00:00:41.000 Sherry's Berries.

00:00:42.000 I am not kidding you.

00:00:42.000 Okay, so Sherry's Berries has kosher goods.

00:00:45.000 And very often we have advertisers on the program who have stuff that is not kosher.

00:00:49.000 And so I talk about how people in the office like it because people in the office tell me how great it is.

00:00:53.000 But When it comes to Sherry's Berries, they actually have some kosher stuff, so we got a box of Sherry's Berries at the office.

00:00:58.000 And I started eating this stuff.

00:01:00.000 I am now 1,000 pounds.

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00:01:56.000 It is so good.

00:01:57.000 Okay, so, we begin today with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

00:02:01.000 We'll get to Virginia in just a second.

00:02:02.000 Don't worry, I'll give you all the updates.

00:02:04.000 But, just recently, breaking news!

00:02:06.000 She has released a brand new plan.

00:02:09.000 A Green New Deal plan that changes America forever. 0.79

00:02:13.000 Because she's a fresh face.

00:02:15.000 So fresh, so face.

00:02:17.000 Alexander Ocasio-Cortez got in a Twitter fight with my business partner Jeremy Boring last night.

00:02:22.000 Jeremy made the point on Twitter that I had made yesterday on the show because we steal from each other on a routine basis.

00:02:27.000 That's why we make great business partners.

00:02:29.000 He made the point that she is in fact not a victim while she has been claiming to be a victim and cheering herself for being a woman in Congress.

00:02:36.000 And she tweeted something back about how The fact that she is the only 29-year-old bartender in Congress means that Congress is just not representative, which makes no sense at all, by the way, because if we were just to take a demographic breakdown out of like 500 people, how many are 29-year-old bartenders?

00:02:52.000 Maybe one?

00:02:53.000 Out of 500 people across America?

00:02:55.000 I don't think the demographics work out that way.

00:02:57.000 Also, it doesn't make any sense to suggest that the American Congress is supposed to be broken down demographically akin to the American population, because we have majoritarian voting in the United States.

00:03:08.000 53% of voters in the United States are women, which means that if women voted as a bloc, everyone in Congress would be a woman. 0.94

00:03:14.000 So, that's not how voting works, that's not how representation works, but AOC doesn't know things.

00:03:19.000 But she has great fashion sense, and she can make stuff in an instant pot, and she's sassy. 1.00

00:03:25.000 So that's all that counts.

00:03:27.000 And now, she has a brilliant new Green New Deal plan. 0.91

00:03:29.000 It is so brilliant that even people on the left are laughing at it today because it's just absurd.

00:03:33.000 So she has now released her Green New Deal plan. 0.93

00:03:36.000 Here's the overview.

00:03:38.000 I love it so much.

00:03:39.000 It's so great, because this is the future, guys.

00:03:42.000 And if you don't embrace the future, it's because you're afraid of the future.

00:03:44.000 Like, unbelievable.

00:03:45.000 You're unbelievably afraid of the future.

00:03:47.000 Like, if people would just think, like, about 20 years, like, down the line, then they would know that, like, this is what we have to, like, do.

00:03:55.000 Anyway, here's what she says.

00:03:57.000 Quote.

00:03:58.000 We will begin work immediately on Green New Deal bills to put the nuts and bolts on the plan described in this resolution.

00:04:03.000 Important to say, so someone else can't claim this mantle.

00:04:07.000 It says that right at the top of the overview, so that's pretty great.

00:04:10.000 Lachlan Markey over at... I'm trying to remember which publication he's with right now.

00:04:15.000 He has this story.

00:04:16.000 It says, this is a massive transformation of our society with clear goals and a timeline.

00:04:21.000 The Green New Deal Resolution, a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War II to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all.

00:04:32.000 It will move America to 100% clean and renewable energy.

00:04:35.000 She's saying this over 10 years.

00:04:37.000 Create millions of family-supporting wage union jobs.

00:04:40.000 Ensure a just transition for all communities and workers to ensure economic security for people and communities that have historically relied on fossil fuel industries.

00:04:47.000 You mean like all of the industries in the United States?

00:04:51.000 Literally all of them?

00:04:52.000 It says, ensure justice and equity for frontline communities by prioritizing investment, training, climate, and community resiliency, economic and environmental benefits in these communities.

00:05:02.000 Build on FDR's second Bill of Rights by guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security.

00:05:10.000 So this is all part of her plan.

00:05:11.000 Everyone in the United States is going to have a job guaranteed by the federal government.

00:05:15.000 High quality education, including higher education and trade schools, guaranteed by the federal government.

00:05:19.000 Healthy food, clean air and water, and access to nature.

00:05:22.000 So I guess we're going to be busing people out to the forest.

00:05:25.000 High quality health care, guaranteed by the federal government.

00:05:28.000 Safe, affordable, adequate housing, guaranteed by the federal government.

00:05:31.000 An economic environment free of monopolies.

00:05:33.000 And economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.

00:05:36.000 Unwilling to work!

00:05:38.000 Economic security for people who don't even want to work, who just want to sit around all day watching reruns of the Golden Girls.

00:05:44.000 Economic security provided by the federal government for those people.

00:05:47.000 This is part of the Green New Deal plan. 0.70

00:05:49.000 Now, you may think that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

00:05:54.000 What?

00:05:56.000 We're just getting started, guys.

00:05:57.000 I mean, this is just the beginning of the Green New Deal plan, which, as I say, is just spectacular.

00:06:04.000 It is just spectacular.

00:06:05.000 By the way, Glockland is a reporter for the Daily Beast.

00:06:08.000 It says in this outline, it says, there is no time to waste.

00:06:11.000 The IPCC report said global emissions must be cut by 40 to 60 percent by 2030.

00:06:15.000 U.S.

00:06:15.000 is 20 percent of total emissions.

00:06:18.000 We must get to zero by 2030 and lead the world in a global green new deal.

00:06:22.000 Now, again, this is forgetting the fact that all of the developing countries are providing the vast majority of actual greenhouse gas emissions on planet Earth and that they are increasing their emissions even as we cut our emissions.

00:06:31.000 And I love this.

00:06:32.000 She says, Americans love a challenge.

00:06:34.000 This is our moonshot.

00:06:36.000 Yeah, a couple of things about Americans love a challenge.

00:06:39.000 We do like a challenge.

00:06:40.000 You know what we don't like?

00:06:41.000 The challenge of burning our house down.

00:06:44.000 If somebody comes up to you on the street and like, you know what?

00:06:46.000 Challenge.

00:06:47.000 Go home, take kerosene, pour it all over your roof, and light a match.

00:06:51.000 We're like, yeah man, I love a challenge.

00:06:54.000 That's something I'm up for.

00:06:56.000 Someone comes up to you and, you know what?

00:06:57.000 I have a challenge for you. 0.99

00:06:58.000 I want you to take this baseball bat and beat the crap out of your car. 1.00

00:07:02.000 Just go smash those headlights, break the windshield, and while you're at it, make sure that you set that thing on fire, too. 1.00

00:07:07.000 Like, you know what? 0.98

00:07:08.000 I love a challenge.

00:07:09.000 That's my moonshot.

00:07:11.000 What she's talking about is a complete destruction of the American economy. 0.64

00:07:14.000 She's like, but Americans love a challenge.

00:07:16.000 We can do it, guys.

00:07:17.000 We totally can.

00:07:20.000 When JFK said we'd go to the by the end of the decade, people said impossible.

00:07:25.000 If Eisenhower, she released this, like they didn't even proofread it.

00:07:29.000 She says, if Eisenhower wanted to build the interstate highway system today, people would ask how we'd pay for it.

00:07:35.000 Right, because you should always ask how you're going to pay for things.

00:07:37.000 That's like an important thing.

00:07:38.000 He says, When FDR called on America to build 185,000 planes to fight World War II, every business leader, CEO, and general laughed at him.

00:07:45.000 At the time, the U.S.

00:07:46.000 had produced 3,000 planes in the last year.

00:07:48.000 By the end of the war, we'd produced 300,000 planes.

00:07:50.000 That's what we are capable of if we have real leadership.

00:07:52.000 I'd like to see like one iota of evidence that people laughed at FDR.

00:07:56.000 When he said he wanted to build planes in the middle of a war.

00:07:58.000 Is there any evidence that that's true?

00:08:00.000 And then she says, this is massive investment in our economy and society, not expenditure.

00:08:04.000 This is my favorite part.

00:08:05.000 So we're going to destroy the entire economy.

00:08:06.000 We're going to guarantee jobs to everyone who is unwilling to work.

00:08:09.000 We're going to guarantee full scale health care, higher education and housing to everyone who is unwilling to work or unwilling to do anything.

00:08:15.000 But that's an investment in our economy and society.

00:08:18.000 It is not an expenditure.

00:08:20.000 Now, here's why she may be failing economics. 1.00

00:08:22.000 When you invest in things, there's usually a return on the investment.

00:08:26.000 When you expend on things, you are just trading your money for the thing.

00:08:31.000 Now, what she is doing is trading the money for the thing. 1.00

00:08:33.000 There is no return on this investment.

00:08:36.000 Because it's not an investment.

00:08:38.000 It's a political expenditure of money that is not hers. 0.60

00:08:41.000 But that's okay.

00:08:42.000 That's okay.

00:08:42.000 Okay, she says, we invested 40 to 50% of GDP into our economy during World War II and created the greatest middle class the US has ever seen.

00:08:49.000 No.

00:08:50.000 Okay, we invested...

00:08:53.000 So she is now citing wartime economic spending as a rationale for economic growth. 0.98

00:08:59.000 That is asinine. 0.91

00:09:00.000 You know what we did during World War II? 0.87

00:09:01.000 We took every male in the United States between the ages of 18 and 45, and we put them in barracks, and we had them live off rations, because we were in the middle of a war.

00:09:11.000 The economic growth that occurred in the aftermath of World War II was not caused by government expenditure.

00:09:15.000 Government expenditures decreased after World War II.

00:09:18.000 She says the interstate highway system has returned more than $6 in economic productivity for every $1 it cost.

00:09:23.000 You know what would happen, by the way?

00:09:24.000 Everybody always loves to talk about the interstate highway system.

00:09:27.000 You know what would happen if there was no interstate highway system?

00:09:29.000 Nothing.

00:09:30.000 Really nothing.

00:09:31.000 What I mean by that is that Route 66 already existed.

00:09:34.000 All that would have happened is that states would have connected their highways.

00:09:36.000 What do these people think?

00:09:38.000 That the highways just would have ended at the state line?

00:09:39.000 That there just would have been like a bridge and then nothing?

00:09:42.000 They just would have said dead end at the end of the street?

00:09:46.000 She says this is massively expanding existing and building new industries at a rapid pace, growing our economy.

00:09:50.000 And then she says the Green New Deal has momentum.

00:09:53.000 92% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans support the Green New Deal. 0.99

00:09:58.000 Right, because it doesn't mean anything until you said all this garbage. 0.69

00:10:00.000 Now that support level is going to go down to zero. 0.96

00:10:04.000 It gets better.

00:10:04.000 There's a bunch of frequently asked questions here.

00:10:07.000 And she says, Why 100% clean and renewable and not just 100% renewable?

00:10:12.000 Are you saying we won't transition off fossil fuels?

00:10:14.000 Yes, we are calling for a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases.

00:10:18.000 Anyone who has read the resolution sees that we spell this out through a plan that calls for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from every sector of the economy.

00:10:25.000 Simply banning fossil fuels immediately won't build the new economy to replace it.

00:10:29.000 This is the plan to build that new economy and spells out how to do it technically.

00:10:33.000 She says, we set a goal to get to net zero rather than zero emissions in 10 years because we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.

00:10:42.000 Is she going to kill all the cows? 1.00

00:10:43.000 Because that's sad. 0.99

00:10:44.000 Right?

00:10:45.000 She says she wants to get rid of airplanes and also farting cows. 1.00

00:10:47.000 Is she going to give them all ex-lax? 0.92

00:10:48.000 How's this going to work?

00:10:49.000 She says, is nuclear a part of this?

00:10:52.000 She says, no, there will be no nuclear energy.

00:10:55.000 So only the most efficient source of energy known to man, nuclear power.

00:10:58.000 No, we're not going to end clean, by the way.

00:11:00.000 We're not going to do any of that.

00:11:01.000 So we're going to transition all of the energy away from fossil fuels.

00:11:04.000 But there will be no use of nuclear energy, which means that we will all blow into pinwheels, apparently, to produce all of our energies.

00:11:10.000 We will just train hamsters and they will run around on wheels.

00:11:13.000 And those wheels will power our new green economy.

00:11:17.000 Does this include a carbon tax?

00:11:19.000 The Green New Deal is a massive investment in the production of renewable energy industries and infrastructure.

00:11:23.000 We cannot simply tax gas and expect workers to figure out another way to get to work.

00:11:27.000 So we're not ruling a giant carbon tax out, but a carbon tax would be a tiny part of a Green New Deal.

00:11:33.000 While a carbon tax may apart, it misses the point it would be off the table unless we create clean affordable options first.

00:11:39.000 How about cap-and-trade?

00:11:40.000 Well, she says that there won't be cap-and-trade because that assumes that there's such a thing as a market, and we don't like markets, so no.

00:11:45.000 So, how is she gonna do any of this stuff?

00:11:47.000 This is where things get awesome.

00:11:49.000 So wait a second, wait until she gets to the... I love it so much.

00:11:53.000 She's just like, you know what we're gonna do?

00:11:54.000 We're gonna fix everything.

00:11:56.000 How are you gonna do it?

00:11:57.000 We just are.

00:11:59.000 Great plan.

00:12:00.000 Okay, well... Guys, stop asking questions.

00:12:05.000 She's a fresh face.

00:12:06.000 Very fresh and very face.

00:12:08.000 We'll get back to this in just a second.

00:12:11.000 I'm sorry, if this is the best... They're not sending their best.

00:12:13.000 They're not sending their best.

00:12:14.000 We have to shut the Democratic Party down until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

00:12:18.000 Okay, first, let's talk about how you protect your own home.

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00:12:41.000 That's thanks to the HD video and two-way audio features on Ring devices.

00:12:45.000 We have a Ring.com device at our house.

00:12:47.000 It allows me to know when somebody is ringing our doorbell, even if I'm 3,000 miles away.

00:12:51.000 And then if it's somebody who I don't want coming into the house, or I think they're dangerous, I can even call 911.

00:12:56.000 I mean, it's really great.

00:12:57.000 And they don't just do that.

00:12:58.000 They have all of these other devices that allow you to create a ring of security around your home.

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00:13:12.000 You should do it.

00:13:13.000 I certainly have.

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00:13:28.000 Okay.

00:13:28.000 Back to AOC's brilliant, fresh-faced new plan.

00:13:32.000 So how will you pay for it?

00:13:33.000 Right?

00:13:33.000 Good question.

00:13:34.000 Now, she already said that we're not supposed to ask that question because if we ask that question, it shows insufficient commitment.

00:13:41.000 Which is just what my wife says every time she asks me to buy her an expensive piece of jewelry. 1.00

00:13:45.000 And I say, well how much is it gonna cost?

00:13:46.000 She says, if you care how much it costs, well then you don't really love me.

00:13:51.000 Well, that's what AOC is doing right now.

00:13:53.000 We're like, well, this Green New Deal, like, you got any plan to pay for any of this stuff?

00:13:58.000 Like, at any point?

00:13:58.000 She's like, you don't love me enough.

00:14:01.000 You just don't.

00:14:02.000 If you really cared, you wouldn't ask such questions.

00:14:05.000 Says, how will you pay for it?

00:14:06.000 Hiroshi, this is so great.

00:14:08.000 The same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailout, and extended quantitative easing programs.

00:14:13.000 The same way we paid for World War II and all our current wars. 0.55

00:14:16.000 So you still haven't given an answer because you know what that was?

00:14:19.000 Racking up federal debt.

00:14:21.000 That's when we racked up lots of federal debt right there.

00:14:24.000 It says the Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit.

00:14:30.000 Oh, so we'll actually even create banks run by the federal government to lend to the federal government paid for by the federal government with dollars that don't yet exist that we will get from other countries or will inflate our way.

00:14:43.000 This is good.

00:14:44.000 It's going to be brilliant.

00:14:45.000 There's no way this goes wrong.

00:14:47.000 At all.

00:14:48.000 She says, There's also space for the government to take an equity stake in projects to get a return on investment.

00:14:52.000 So it won't just be the banks lending out, the federal banks lending out to capitalistic companies to build all this green new energy stuff.

00:14:59.000 We will have direct ownership in all of these things.

00:15:01.000 We will nationalize the energy industry.

00:15:03.000 Perfect!

00:15:04.000 You know where that worked awesome?

00:15:05.000 In Venice.

00:15:06.000 Wait.

00:15:07.000 Yeah, no.

00:15:07.000 My favorite line of the whole thing.

00:15:09.000 So great.

00:15:09.000 So, I mean, really.

00:15:10.000 Again, back to my wife and the jewelry. 0.97

00:15:11.000 This is me saying to her, so how much is it going to cost you?

00:15:13.000 for it but what we will do with our new shared prosperity my favorite line of the whole thing so great so i mean really again back to my wife and the jewelry this is me saying to her so how much is it going to cost you listen listen to me okay this This is not an expenditure.

00:15:28.000 This grows our wealth as a household.

00:15:30.000 The question is not how you're going to pay for this $100,000 necklace.

00:15:33.000 The question is what we should do with our new shared $100,000 necklace.

00:15:36.000 What the actual?

00:15:42.000 OK, but but it continues.

00:15:44.000 It continues.

00:15:46.000 I love her.

00:15:48.000 OK, I love when she gets to her actual goals, her resolution summary.

00:15:52.000 Her resolution summary is fan-freaking-tastic.

00:15:55.000 So again, we're talking about Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, so fresh, so face. 1.00

00:15:59.000 Her new Green New Deal plan, which is in line with all of her other statements in that it is fully idiotic. 0.89

00:16:04.000 She says, created in consultation with multiple groups from environmental community, environmental justice community, and labor community. 0.94

00:16:10.000 Five goals in 10 years.

00:16:12.000 Net zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.

00:16:16.000 Create millions of high wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all.

00:16:20.000 I like how that's just the goal.

00:16:21.000 We're just going to create these jobs and then everyone will have prosperity and economic security.

00:16:26.000 Well, now that you've articulated it that way, I think we're going to get there, guys.

00:16:29.000 I'm optimistic.

00:16:31.000 It says invest in infrastructure and industry to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century.

00:16:36.000 Clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all.

00:16:41.000 Promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities.

00:16:47.000 We're also going to stop racism with this, by the way.

00:16:50.000 Isn't that amazing?

00:16:51.000 All it took was AOC to come and say stuff and racism got solved, guys.

00:16:56.000 It was unreal.

00:16:59.000 So good.

00:17:01.000 And then she, like, oh my God.

00:17:04.000 Like, it's almost hard to believe that this is a thing that she actually is suggesting, right?

00:17:10.000 She suggests in this plan that there's a bigger plan that's also been put out, I believe, online.

00:17:17.000 And in this plan, she also suggests that we are going to get rid of cars, and we are going to get rid of airplanes, and replace it with trains.

00:17:26.000 I am not making this stuff up.

00:17:28.000 This is a real thing.

00:17:29.000 So NPR has a summary of the Green New Deal, and at the bottom line, and at the bottom of this summary of the Green New Deal, it says, a guaranteed job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security for every American.

00:17:45.000 It's all gonna be great, guys.

00:17:46.000 I totally, totally think it's gonna happen.

00:17:49.000 Also, she says that she wants to upgrade or replace every building in the country.

00:17:55.000 Every single one.

00:17:56.000 Which is repair and upgrade U.S.

00:17:58.000 infrastructure.

00:17:59.000 Upgrade or replace every building in the United States for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.

00:18:08.000 Okay.

00:18:09.000 Massively expand clean manufacturing.

00:18:11.000 Work with farmers and ranchers to create a sustainable pollution and greenhouse gas free food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.

00:18:17.000 Totally over... This is the best part.

00:18:19.000 Totally overhaul transportation.

00:18:20.000 Ready for this one?

00:18:21.000 Here we go.

00:18:22.000 I swear, it's like leprechauns farting while riding unicorns across a rainbow sky.

00:18:27.000 That's what this is.

00:18:29.000 Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing.

00:18:33.000 Build charging stations everywhere.

00:18:35.000 Highly specific.

00:18:36.000 Everywhere.

00:18:37.000 Everywhere you look, there's a charging station.

00:18:39.000 You look in your closet, boom, charging station.

00:18:41.000 You go out on the street, boom, charging station.

00:18:43.000 You go over to the local Baskin Robbins, you open that door thinking you're gonna get a scoop of ice cream, boom, charging station.

00:18:50.000 Right in your grill, a charging station.

00:18:53.000 Build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.

00:18:58.000 Build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.

00:19:09.000 Sorry.

00:19:10.000 You know how many people go on airplanes?

00:19:12.000 You know what's the fun thing about airplanes, really?

00:19:13.000 You know what's one of the fun things?

00:19:15.000 They travel in the air.

00:19:16.000 They go real fast.

00:19:17.000 And they go from place to place.

00:19:19.000 And then they refuel and keep going.

00:19:20.000 You know what's one of the problems with trains?

00:19:22.000 They're on tracks.

00:19:23.000 The tracks can't swerve.

00:19:25.000 The tracks can't move.

00:19:26.000 The tracks are very stable.

00:19:29.000 Do you think that it would take longer to take a high-speed train from L.A.

00:19:32.000 to New York?

00:19:33.000 Or to take a plane from L.A.

00:19:35.000 to New York?

00:19:36.000 I'm sure this is going to go over great guns.

00:19:39.000 And we're going to be spending What trillions of dollars presumably to build high-speed trains from like in Japan Japan is the size of what it's smaller in California in Japan So she's talking about doing this across the country So every time I go from LA to Washington I think we should just get listen if we are really committed to the Green New Deal. 0.70

00:19:56.000 We need covered wagons That's what we need.

00:19:58.000 We need covered wagons and we need oxen not farting oxen just oxen We need fart-free oxen to take us in covered wagons across the country on high-speed trains.

00:20:11.000 That's what we need.

00:20:12.000 Powered.

00:20:13.000 Powered by love.

00:20:15.000 That's exactly what I need.

00:20:16.000 She says, we're going to create affordable public transit available to all with the goal to replace every combustion engine vehicle.

00:20:23.000 Every single one.

00:20:24.000 So those millions of combustion engine vehicles that are driving around right now, they'll all be gone within 10 years.

00:20:31.000 How?

00:20:31.000 Stop asking how.

00:20:32.000 That shows insufficient commitment.

00:20:34.000 Commit yourself.

00:20:36.000 Commit yourself to a Green New Deal or you don't care about Mother Earth. 0.78

00:20:40.000 Now, when asked about this, I am sure she will say that it is racist to ask about this.

00:20:44.000 She will suggest that it is very bad to talk in realistic terms about all of this.

00:20:50.000 It shows that we don't care enough.

00:20:51.000 Because this is always the response to people who have questions about stuff like this.

00:20:56.000 Whenever we talk about climate change.

00:20:57.000 And folks like me say, you know what?

00:20:59.000 I am perfectly willing.

00:21:01.000 To accept that man-made activity is responsible for a majority of the climate change that has occurred over the last century and a half.

00:21:07.000 Perfectly happy to suggest that that is the case because that seems to be a generalized scientific consensus.

00:21:13.000 All right, fine.

00:21:14.000 Now, what do you want to do about it?

00:21:15.000 And they're like, how dare you?

00:21:17.000 You're a climate change denier.

00:21:19.000 All I asked was, what do you want to do about it?

00:21:22.000 And you're like, stop asking that question.

00:21:24.000 It just shows that you don't want to do anything, which means you're a climate change denier.

00:21:28.000 This is the same thing.

00:21:29.000 Here's my Green New Deal.

00:21:30.000 It will provide free jobs to everyone, free healthcare to everyone, free ice cream to everyone, a pony, everything you ever wanted it will provide.

00:21:39.000 You're like, cool.

00:21:41.000 How?

00:21:42.000 Stop it.

00:21:43.000 Stop it.

00:21:44.000 You are not fresh-ed and face-ed enough to ask such questions.

00:21:47.000 So, this is the new... If this is the new Democratic Party, the world is stupid. 1.00

00:21:51.000 But we already knew that the world is stupid. 1.00

00:21:53.000 How stupid is the new Democratic Party? 1.00

00:21:55.000 The fresh faces of the Democratic Party? 1.00

00:21:58.000 And how... This is the party of science, by the way.

00:22:00.000 I've been reliably informed that this is the party of science.

00:22:02.000 The party that says that babies up to points of birth are not in fact babies, they are clusters of cells. 0.97

00:22:06.000 And also, that we can get rid of all planes in the United States via trains powered by unicorn crap. 0.97

00:22:13.000 Party of science, man. 0.98

00:22:14.000 Party of science.

00:22:15.000 We're going to get to more on the Democrats' party of science in just a second.

00:22:19.000 But first, let's talk about how you improve your business.

00:22:21.000 Let's say that you have an employee like AOC who presents you with business plans that make no sense at all.

00:22:26.000 And you're like, you know what?

00:22:26.000 I need a better employee than this.

00:22:28.000 Where should you look?

00:22:28.000 Probably should check out ZipRecruiter.

00:22:30.000 Hiring can be pretty time consuming.

00:22:32.000 You post a job to several online job boards only to get tons of the wrong resumes.

00:22:35.000 Then you have to sort through all of those resumes just to find a few people with the right skills and experience.

00:22:41.000 Those job sites that overwhelm you with the wrong resumes?

00:22:43.000 They're not smart.

00:22:44.000 Which is why you should do the smart thing and go to ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.

00:22:48.000 Unlike other job sites, ZipRecruiter finds qualified candidates for you.

00:22:51.000 Their powerful matching technology scans thousands of resumes to identify people with the right skills, education, and experience, and then actively invites them to apply to your job.

00:22:59.000 So you get qualified candidates fast.

00:23:01.000 It's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is rated number one by employers in the United States.

00:23:05.000 That rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with over a thousand reviews.

00:23:08.000 Right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.

00:23:13.000 If you love the show, show your support for it and ZipRecruiter by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire, D-A-I-L-Y-W-I-R-E, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.

00:23:22.000 ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire. 0.73

00:23:24.000 All right, so the party of science that says green new deal, paid for by nothing, and also Babies don't exist.

00:23:32.000 Now is making the case, I kid you not, that men and women are biologically the same.

00:23:37.000 Not that gender is a social construct, disconnected from biology, but that biology suggests that men and women are exactly the same.

00:23:44.000 Who is saying this?

00:23:45.000 None other than another fresh face of the Democratic Party, so fresh, so face, Representative Ilhan Omar, Democratic Congresswoman from Minnesota.

00:23:55.000 She has now recommended that the Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, investigate USA Powerlifting for barring biological males from women's events.

00:24:06.000 Omar called it a myth.

00:24:08.000 A myth that men who identify as transgender women have a direct competitive advantage and copied Keith Ellison on the letter with a recommendation that they investigate this discriminatory behavior.

00:24:20.000 Omar sent her letter on behalf of J.C.

00:24:22.000 Cooper, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman and whom Omar identified as one of her constituents.

00:24:27.000 She signed the letter on January 31st, although it only became public on Tuesday after Cooper posted a picture to Instagram.

00:24:33.000 Here is what the letter said.

00:24:35.000 It said, In fact, just last month, a Minnesota jury awarded Ms.

00:24:56.000 Christina Ginther $20,000 after the Independent Women's Football League refused to allow her to participate because she is transgender.

00:25:03.000 I urge you to reconsider this discriminatory, unscientific policy and follow the example of the International Olympic Committee.

00:25:09.000 The myth that trans women have a direct competitive advantage is not supported by medical science, and it continues to stoke fear and violence against one of the most at-risk communities In the world.

00:25:20.000 So, in powerlifting, biological men who identify as women do not have an advantage over biological women who are women.

00:25:31.000 That's a myth.

00:25:33.000 Because... What?

00:25:37.000 What?

00:25:38.000 Like, really, men are only good for a couple of things.

00:25:40.000 One is hitting things and the other is picking up big objects.

00:25:43.000 Every so often we squash a bug.

00:25:44.000 That's pretty much what we're good for.

00:25:46.000 But according to Ilhan Omar, science suggests that men do not have a competitive advantage in power lifting.

00:25:55.000 We're not even talking about like ice skating.

00:25:56.000 We're talking about power lifting.

00:26:00.000 Party of science, man.

00:26:01.000 These folks are really on top of it. 1.00

00:26:04.000 You gotta admire the security of knowing that no matter what idiotic thing you say, the media will defend you. 0.99

00:26:11.000 I mean, how secure do you have to be to put out stupid ideas like this and know that the media are going to continue to call you a democratic fresh face filled with great ideas for the future of the country? 0.99

00:26:21.000 Putting out ideas like this and knowing, full scale, that the blowback is only going to come from conservatives and from people in media who don't happen to be motivated leftists, which is like five people. 0.98

00:26:31.000 It's gotta be great.

00:26:32.000 I mean, that's gotta be just a charmed life, doesn't it?

00:26:35.000 Those of us in the conservative commentariat, we spend every waking minute thinking about where the next attack is gonna come from, from the media, because this is what they do on a routine basis.

00:26:43.000 Every conservative politician thinks this way, too.

00:26:45.000 If you're a Democrat, basically, life is a musical.

00:26:48.000 You're walking around, people are dancing in the background, usually they're Washington Post reporters.

00:26:53.000 Every so often, Tom Hanks pops out of the woodwork to give you an endorsement.

00:26:57.000 It must just be fabulous.

00:26:59.000 Imagine that a Republican congressperson said half the things that Ilhan Omar had said.

00:27:03.000 Oh wait, we don't have to imagine.

00:27:05.000 Steve King did.

00:27:05.000 You know what happened?

00:27:06.000 He got destroyed by people, including people like me, on the conservative side of the aisle. 1.00

00:27:12.000 But if you're a Democrat, man, you can get away with pretty much any stupid idea you could possibly push. 1.00

00:27:18.000 It's really amazing. 0.99

00:27:20.000 And there is no— Here's the thing about being on the left.

00:27:22.000 There is no Overton window for the left.

00:27:24.000 There is no idea that it's too wild for the left to actually wrap its arms around and embrace, if only for a moment, have a one-night stand with.

00:27:31.000 The left will embrace any crazy idea.

00:27:33.000 So on the right, the Overton window is really small, and the left helps shrink the Overton window, so that if you say things like, Western civilization is superior to other civilizations, this may be outside the Overton window.

00:27:43.000 But, if like Farhad Manjoo, an opinion columnist at the New York Times, you write a column called, Abolish Billionaires, then total, that's inside the Overton window.

00:27:55.000 No problem at all.

00:27:57.000 This article says, Last fall, Tom Szoka, editor of the essential blog, HmmDaily, it's not that essential, nobody's heard of it, wrote a tiny, searing post that has been rattling around my head ever since.

00:28:07.000 There's not a lot in there, so, I mean, once there's, like, a thing in there, it just kind of rattles.

00:28:11.000 Some ideas about how to make the world better require careful, nuanced thinking about how to best balance competing interests, he began.

00:28:17.000 Others don't.

00:28:17.000 Billionaires are bad.

00:28:19.000 We should presumptively get rid of billionaires. 0.98

00:28:21.000 All of them. 0.62

00:28:22.000 You know who had this idea?

00:28:23.000 Stalin. 0.56

00:28:24.000 You can liquidate them and take their wealth.

00:28:26.000 That'd be one way of getting rid of billionaires, but that's not what they're talking about.

00:28:29.000 What they are talking about is kneecapping the wealthiest among us.

00:28:31.000 This is the language in the New York Times.

00:28:33.000 A billion dollars is wildly more than anyone needs, even accounting for life's most excessive lavishes.

00:28:39.000 It's far more than anyone might reasonably claim to deserve, however much he believes he has contributed to society. 1.00

00:28:44.000 Again, you don't seize wealth for yourself, you idiots. 1.00

00:28:47.000 You don't become a billionaire by saying, you know what? 1.00

00:28:49.000 Today, got up in the morning, decided I'm gonna be a billionaire.

00:28:53.000 And then you just go out and you steal people's wallets until you're a billionaire.

00:28:57.000 That's not how being a billionaire works.

00:28:59.000 Unless you're a socialist, in which case you could do that, right?

00:29:01.000 I mean, if you're like Hugo Chavez, you can make yourself a billionaire just by seizing everybody else's wealth.

00:29:05.000 So, I guess for socialists who believe that all economics is a zero-sum game, the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting other people.

00:29:12.000 But for those of us who live in a free market world of free exchange and mutual labor exchanges, You become a billionaire by engaging in lots of voluntary transactions with people who want the thing you are providing.

00:29:25.000 But apparently this is immoral.

00:29:26.000 That's immoral.

00:29:27.000 Now, what makes transaction one different morally from transaction one million morally?

00:29:31.000 What, really, what is the moral difference between Burger King selling its first hamburger and Burger King selling its one millionth hamburger?

00:29:38.000 The answer is nothing.

00:29:39.000 It's the exact same transaction.

00:29:40.000 There is no moral difference.

00:29:41.000 But for the left, with every incremental sale of a burger that makes the people who own Burger King richer, it becomes a less moral act to sell the burger to a willing customer.

00:29:51.000 That's nuts. 1.00

00:29:52.000 So here's what Farhad Manjoo, again, the New York Times editorial board, my goodness, what a repository of idiocy. 0.99

00:29:58.000 They say, at some level of extreme wealth, money inevitably corrupts. 0.97

00:30:02.000 Why don't you tell us which level?

00:30:03.000 Which level makes you corrupt?

00:30:05.000 I've had money.

00:30:06.000 I've had not a lot of money.

00:30:07.000 When did I become corrupt?

00:30:09.000 When did... I mean, I know several billionaires, by the way.

00:30:11.000 When did they become corrupt? 1.00

00:30:12.000 Some are great, some are jackasses. 0.99

00:30:14.000 Just like every other human being. 0.98

00:30:16.000 When does poverty corrupt?

00:30:17.000 Because I've heard it both ways.

00:30:18.000 So apparently, if you're too wealthy, then you're corrupt. 0.96

00:30:21.000 And if you're too poor, you're corrupt because you're poor. 0.83

00:30:23.000 So if you're too wealthy, you're corrupt because at a certain point, that 10 millionth dollar made you corrupt and evil. 0.89

00:30:29.000 Unless you're Oprah, in which case you're awesome.

00:30:31.000 Accept Oprah from this.

00:30:33.000 Exempt Oprah.

00:30:34.000 But if you're poor, if you don't have enough money, that also makes you commit crimes and mistreat women and knock people up and all this.

00:30:42.000 In a second, we're going to talk about abolishing billionaires.

00:30:44.000 Again, this is the new Democratic Party, man.

00:30:47.000 Wow.

00:30:48.000 No wonder people voted for Trump just to stop this nonsense.

00:30:50.000 We're going to talk about that in a second.

00:30:52.000 First, we need to talk about you saving money.

00:30:55.000 So you live in the real world where money doesn't grow on trees and you can't just magically transform airplanes into magical trains that travel high speed across the country.

00:31:02.000 You need to save the money you have.

00:31:04.000 And this is why you need to be using Honey.

00:31:07.000 Everyone should be able to agree about this, regardless of politics.

00:31:09.000 With millions of sellers on Amazon selling the same products, how do you know if you're really getting the best price?

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00:31:21.000 Honey even factors in shipping, sales tax, and Amazon Prime status to make sure that you are getting the lowest total price.

00:31:26.000 It shows you the best deal every time, even if Amazon doesn't.

00:31:29.000 It's like having your very own Smart shopping assistant.

00:31:31.000 I love Honey.

00:31:32.000 I use it for every purchase that I make.

00:31:34.000 I've saved a bunch of money at various sites around the internet.

00:31:36.000 Every time you hit a checkout box, like you don't have to start the site every time.

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00:31:46.000 More than 10 million people are using Honey to save money, so next time you are shopping on Amazon, treat yourself to a free upgrade that guarantees you always get the absolute best price.

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00:31:58.000 That is joinhoney.com slash Ben.

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00:32:00.000 Honey, the smart shopping assistant that helps you save time and money. 1.00

00:32:03.000 Joinhoney.com slash Ben.

00:32:05.000 Go check that out.

00:32:07.000 Right this very instant. 1.00

00:32:09.000 We will get back into the stupidity of abolishing billionaires. 0.99

00:32:12.000 And as I can first go over, subscribe at dailywire.com. 0.94

00:32:14.000 For $9.99 a month, you can get a subscription to dailywire.com.

00:32:17.000 When you do, you get the rest of the show live, you get the rest of Clayton's show live, Knowles' show live, two additional hours of me a day.

00:32:22.000 Look at me.

00:32:23.000 I'm run down because of you people.

00:32:25.000 I'm providing you like four or five hours of content a day, much of it behind the paywall.

00:32:29.000 The least you could do is engage with our live radio show every afternoon.

00:32:33.000 That's all we ask.

00:32:34.000 And then you can ask questions of me during the breaks.

00:32:36.000 And we can talk.

00:32:36.000 We can become friends.

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00:32:38.000 Probably not, but maybe.

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00:32:44.000 If you do the math, if you actually know how to do math, unlike Democrats, then you would know that $99 a year is cheaper than $9.99 a month if you were to prorate that over the course of the year.

00:32:53.000 Right, you see how that works?

00:32:53.000 Because it's basic, simple division.

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00:33:31.000 So stop by on Sunday for that particular conversation.

00:33:33.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:33:37.000 So back to Farhad Manjoo.

00:33:44.000 He's making the case that we should abolish billionaires.

00:33:46.000 We should do away with the kulaks. 1.00

00:33:48.000 He says that some extreme level of wealth money inevitably corrupts.

00:33:51.000 He says, I cover technology.

00:33:52.000 An industry that belches up a murder of new billionaires annually.

00:33:56.000 Because that's what happens.

00:33:57.000 That's how millionaires and billionaires are created.

00:33:59.000 Is that the earth just belches them forth.

00:34:01.000 Like the Uruk-hai from Lord of the Rings. 0.53

00:34:03.000 Just sort of the earth opens and Mark Zuckerberg springs out.

00:34:06.000 Now if that were the case, I too would be horrified.

00:34:09.000 But that is not actually how billionaires are made.

00:34:11.000 He says, Much of my career has required a deep anthropological inquiry into billionairedom, but I'm embarrassed to say I had never before considered the idea that if we aimed through public and social policy simply to discourage people from attaining and possessing more than a billion in lucre, just about everyone would be better off.

00:34:27.000 In my defense, back in October, abolishing billionaires felt way out there.

00:34:30.000 It sounded radical, impossible, maybe even un-American.

00:34:33.000 But it is an illustration of the political precariousness of billionaires that the idea has since become something like mainline thought on the progressive left. 0.99

00:34:40.000 Yes, it does demonstrate that you are all nuts, that you have all lost your freaking minds, that whatever moral fiber you had has been Crapped out and it flushed away into the sea. 0.99

00:34:51.000 My goodness! 0.99

00:34:52.000 Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are floating new taxes aimed at the super-rich.

00:34:56.000 Representative AOC, who also favors higher taxes on the wealthy, has been making a moral case against the existence of billionaires.

00:35:02.000 No, she hasn't.

00:35:02.000 She just says it's immoral for a society to have billionaires.

00:35:05.000 Also, we're going to need these billionaires to turn over a bunch of their money every year and continue to produce all of that money so that we can pay for all of my garbage programs. 0.97

00:35:13.000 Farhad Manjoo says, Now, has he even made the case why they shouldn't exist? 0.79

00:35:16.000 Now, has he even made the case why they shouldn't exist?

00:35:24.000 Or is it just like, I don't like that people have lots of money?

00:35:26.000 So far, I have not heard any case why billionaires should not exist, because you have to make a case that billionaires should not exist, while at the same time maintaining that free market exchange that betters everyone who is involved is good.

00:35:38.000 You cannot have those two things at the same time.

00:35:40.000 Either I am in control of my labor and my time and my goods and my services, or I am not.

00:35:43.000 If you suggest that it is good for me to do all of those things up to the point where I make a lot of money, then what you are really saying is that it is not good for me to do all of those things beyond a certain point.

00:35:52.000 The transactions become a net negative beyond a certain point.

00:35:55.000 Which closes down productivity, which prevents free exchange, which makes goods and services more expensive.

00:36:01.000 I mean, this is basic.

00:36:03.000 Forget econ 101.

00:36:04.000 This is basic morality and basic human logic.

00:36:06.000 But those have gone out the window a long time ago.

00:36:09.000 This is billionaire abolition.

00:36:11.000 First of all, this is billionaire abolishment.

00:36:13.000 He means abolition could take many forms.

00:36:15.000 It could mean preventing people from keeping more than a billion in booty, but more likely it would mean higher marginal taxes on income, wealth and estates for billionaires and people on the way to becoming billionaires.

00:36:23.000 Those policies ideas turn out to pull very well, even if they're probably not actually redistributive enough to turn billionaires into sub billionaires. 1.00

00:36:30.000 Well, shock, when you pull idiots about whether to take other people's money, everybody's like, yeah, and most people are kind of idiots. 0.99

00:36:37.000 It's actually just across the aisle. 1.00

00:36:39.000 Everybody's stupid. 1.00

00:36:40.000 And if you pull if you pull me on, should we take my business partners money? 1.00

00:36:45.000 I happen to like my business partner, but if I did not, I'd be like, sure.

00:36:49.000 If you poll me, on just a base id level, should we take all the money away from, like, Jane Fonda?

00:36:57.000 Yeah, why not, man?

00:36:59.000 But on a moral level, no, you shouldn't take away Jane Fonda's money, even if she's a disgrace to her fame.

00:37:05.000 More important, says Farhad Manjoo, aiming to abolish billionaires would involve reshaping the structure of the digital economy so that it produces a more equitable ratio of the super-rich to the rest of us.

00:37:14.000 Inequality is the defining economic condition of the tech age.

00:37:18.000 We're seeing these effects now.

00:37:19.000 A few superstar corporations, many in tech, account for the bulk of American corporate profits, while most of the share of economic growth since the 70s has gone to a small number of the country's richest people.

00:37:30.000 Also, you get a lot of great stuff, and you, Farhad Manjoo, get to write for a living on a computer provided by somebody else, on a program provided by somebody else, using an internet that is, presumably, you're sending your columns in via Google. 0.98

00:37:43.000 All of this is idiocy. 1.00

00:37:45.000 It's just idiocy. 1.00

00:37:46.000 As Ms. 0.99

00:37:47.000 Ocasio-Cortez put it in a conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, I'm not saying that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are immoral, but a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don't have access to public health is wrong.

00:37:59.000 I love that he quotes that and then he has to say in parentheses, she meant hookworm.

00:38:02.000 She later corrected. 1.00

00:38:04.000 Right, because she's dumb and the entire statement is dumb. 1.00

00:38:06.000 I love this. 0.99

00:38:07.000 Last week to dig into this question of whether it was possible to be a good billionaire, I called up two experts.

00:38:10.000 I love this.

00:38:11.000 The first was Peter Singer, the Princeton moral philosopher who has written extensively about the ethical duties of the rich.

00:38:17.000 Mr. Singer told me that in general, he did not think it was possible to live morally as a billionaire, although he made a few exceptions.

00:38:22.000 Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett, who have pledged to give away the bulk of their wealth to philanthropy, would not earn Mr. Singer's score.

00:38:27.000 I think we should totally take Peter Singer's word for it.

00:38:29.000 You know why? 0.97

00:38:30.000 Because Peter Singer's other famous ethical position is that you should be able to kill babies until they reach a point of sentience. 0.98

00:38:36.000 Meaning you should be able to kill newly born infants until they hit like two or three years old. 0.98

00:38:41.000 I am not making that up. 0.98

00:38:42.000 That is Peter Singer's actual position.

00:38:44.000 We should definitely take his advice on destroying billionaires, taking away their wealth, and preventing economic growth that has accrued largely to the world's poorest.

00:38:52.000 Let's be real about this.

00:38:55.000 In our lifetimes, we have watched the abolition, not of billionaires, but of global extreme poverty.

00:39:00.000 That is a result of free market capitalism.

00:39:03.000 But Peter Singer says different.

00:39:04.000 And man, that guy knows stuff. 0.97

00:39:05.000 I mean, he's fine with like Spartan killing babies. 0.99

00:39:08.000 Whatever, man.

00:39:10.000 So he quotes Peter Singer, and then he quotes writer Anand Garadharadas, who I've never heard of.

00:39:16.000 He says, many billionaires approach philanthropy as a kind of branding exercise to maintain a system in which they get to keep their billions.

00:39:22.000 So in other words, if a billionaire gives charity, it's inherently bad, unless they have intent.

00:39:26.000 So now we're going to explore their intent, but we're not going to suggest that billionaires themselves are bad, generally, without exploring their intent, but they are bad generally without exploring their intent.

00:39:37.000 And then he says his second expert on the subject is Tom Steyer. 0.99

00:39:40.000 OK, Tom Steyer is a Democratic idiot who has tried multiple times to launch a run for presidency, but no one wants to hear from him because he is terrible. 0.99

00:39:50.000 Mr. Steyer ticks every liberal box. 1.00

00:39:51.000 He favors a wealth tax.

00:39:53.000 He and his wife have signed the Giving Pledge.

00:39:54.000 He doesn't live excessively lavishly.

00:39:56.000 He drives a Chevy Volt.

00:39:57.000 Still, I wondered when I got on the phone with him last week.

00:39:59.000 Wouldn't we be better off if we didn't have to worry about rich people like him trying to alter the political process?

00:40:04.000 Mr. Steyer was affable and loquacious.

00:40:06.000 He spoke to me for nearly an hour about his interest in economic justice and his belief in grassroots organizing.

00:40:12.000 I'm sure he did.

00:40:13.000 He has nothing better to do.

00:40:15.000 Literally no one wants to hear from him except for you, Farhad Manjoo.

00:40:18.000 He says, at one point, I compared his giving with that of the Koch brothers, and he seemed genuinely pained by the comparison.

00:40:22.000 I understand about the real issue of money in politics, he said.

00:40:25.000 We have a system I know is not right, but it's the one we got, and we're trying as hard as possible to change it.

00:40:29.000 I admire his zeal.

00:40:30.000 But if we tolerate the supposedly good billionaires in politics, we inevitably leave open the door for the bad ones.

00:40:37.000 And the bad ones will overrun us.

00:40:39.000 When American capitalism sends us its billionaires, it's not sending its best.

00:40:42.000 It's sending us people who have lots of problems.

00:40:44.000 And they're bringing those problems with them.

00:40:45.000 They're bringing inequality.

00:40:46.000 They're bringing injustice.

00:40:47.000 And they're buying politicians.

00:40:48.000 And some, I assume, are good people. 0.94

00:40:51.000 What a bunch of moral drivel.

00:40:53.000 Welcome to the new left.

00:40:55.000 This is the new left.

00:40:56.000 Just... just incredible.

00:40:58.000 Just...

00:41:00.000 I mean, what do you say to the base root immorality of all of this?

00:41:04.000 The idea that you're going to completely restructure people's lives against their will because you know better than they do, and in the process make people poorer.

00:41:11.000 Because let's face it, if you start creating disincentives for people to become rich, they are not going to want to do the work to become rich.

00:41:17.000 So you want to abolish billionaires and also make it free not to work.

00:41:21.000 Makes perfect sense.

00:41:22.000 None of this is going to go wrong in any way.

00:41:24.000 Okay, meanwhile, let's get to the political controversies of the day because these big ideas, I think, are in fact more important, but the political controversies of the day remain.

00:41:32.000 Virginia continues to be a disaster area with the top three Democrats in the Democratic Party enmeshed in controversy.

00:41:37.000 You've got Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, Who was in a blackface controversy from 1985 and that was directly after saying he's fine with killing babies. 0.98

00:41:45.000 Democrats fine with baby killing. 0.87

00:41:46.000 Very, very upset at the blackface controversy from 1985. 0.91

00:41:49.000 Then you've got Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax enmeshed in a sexual assault scandal.

00:41:54.000 One problem, there's no actual corroborating evidence at this point, but that's not the standard for Democrats.

00:41:59.000 They say that believe all women. 0.68

00:42:01.000 So if that's the case, he's gone too.

00:42:03.000 And then you've got the Attorney General Mark Herring, who came forward and said in 1980, when he was 19, he dressed up as a rapper and darkened his face to do so.

00:42:11.000 By his own standard, he said that Ralph Northam had to leave.

00:42:13.000 By his own standard, he has to leave too.

00:42:14.000 But none of them are going to leave because the idea that this is a deep matter of principle goes out the window of a Republican were to actually take that slot, which the next person in line is a Republican.

00:42:24.000 So all of that is hilarious.

00:42:25.000 We'll keep an eye on it as it develops over the course of the day.

00:42:28.000 In the end, no one's going to leave.

00:42:30.000 Everybody will just shy it off.

00:42:33.000 People will say that, you know, this may be bad, but what would be worse is having a Republican in office.

00:42:38.000 So, principle lasting just as far as the edges of the Democratic Party.

00:42:43.000 Meanwhile, Democratic contender after Democratic contender falling like flies.

00:42:46.000 My goodness.

00:42:47.000 So, Elizabeth Warren, yesterday, got herself in some trouble because it turned out, over the last couple of days, that she'd actually filled out official forms claiming that she was a Native American.

00:42:55.000 Then yesterday, she says, well, maybe I identified as an American Indian on other applications.

00:43:01.000 Hmm, just as we have suspected, Senator Warren.

00:43:05.000 It's important to note, I'm not a tribal citizen, and I should have been more mindful of the distinction with tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty.

00:43:16.000 And that is why I apologized to Chief Baker, and why I've made a very public apology.

00:43:23.000 It was based on my understanding from my family's stories, but family stories are not the same as tribal citizenship.

00:43:33.000 Okay, and then she was asked, well, did you do this on other forms?

00:43:35.000 and she was like, hmm.

00:43:36.000 So, by the way, if you have like a, who does that?

00:43:42.000 Who's like, you know, my family story is that once a long time ago, there was a member of our family who was filling the race. 1.00

00:43:49.000 Therefore, I put it on a government form.

00:43:51.000 Who does that?

00:43:52.000 Really, is that a thing?

00:43:54.000 I've never heard of that before.

00:43:55.000 Frankly, that seems to me a lot worse than what the Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring did when he dressed up as a rapper in 1980.

00:44:01.000 I am finding it amusing that all of these members of the left media are now suggesting that dressing up as a celebrity who was black is a very bad thing, but Joy Behar can stay, Tom Hanks can stay, Sarah Silverman can stay, Jimmy Kimmel can stay.

00:44:16.000 All these folks can stick around, even though they all did this.

00:44:18.000 They can all stay, but Megyn Kelly had to lose her job because she might have mentioned at one point the actual reality that there is a difference in intent between someone who dresses up as Diana Ross and Al Jolson singing Mammy in blackface in a minstrel show in 1917. 0.98

00:44:32.000 So, Megyn Kelly said a thing, Joy Behar did it, and showed it on air in 2016, no problem.

00:44:38.000 No, there's no double standard with regard to these things at all.

00:44:41.000 And meanwhile, Amy Klobuchar, who was kind of the great moderate hope for people who are not insane in the Democratic Party, she's already getting slammed with oppo.

00:44:50.000 At least three people have withdrawn from consideration to lead Senator Klobuchar's nascent 2020 presidential campaign, and have done so in part because of the Minnesota Democrat's history of mistreating her staff, according to the Huffington Post.

00:45:01.000 Klobuchar, who plans to make an announcement about a potential presidential bid on Sunday in Minneapolis, has spent the past several months positioning herself to run for president. 0.96

00:45:09.000 She's beloved in her state as a smart, funny, personable lawmaker and has gained national attention, but... 1.00

00:45:14.000 Some former Klobuchar staffers, all of whom spoke to Huffington Post on condition of anonymity, described Klobuchar as habitually demeaning and prone to bursts of cruelty that make it difficult to work in her office for long.

00:45:24.000 So, we bid a fond farewell to Amy Klobuchar before she even launches her campaign.

00:45:29.000 Everything is going great inside the Democratic Party primaries.

00:45:31.000 All good stuff all the way across the board.

00:45:34.000 So, Elizabeth Warren out.

00:45:35.000 Amy Klobuchar in trouble. 1.00

00:45:37.000 Cory Booker, idiot. 1.00

00:45:40.000 So I guess he'll stick around for a while. 1.00

00:45:42.000 Obviously, Kamala Harris is the person who is leading at the, at the, in the clubhouse turn. 0.99

00:45:47.000 It is, it is Kamala Harris in the lead by a fairly large stretch.

00:45:51.000 Joe Biden may jump in at any minute.

00:45:52.000 That will shake up the race a little bit, but it is pretty obvious this is going to be a vicious primary, and that will make it really amusing to watch.

00:45:58.000 I mean, I'm looking forward to that part, aren't you?

00:46:00.000 Alrighty, time for some things that I like, and then we'll get to some things that I hate.

00:46:04.000 So, things that I like.

00:46:06.000 There's a piece of art from 1818 that is considered sort of the, the, Enlightenment view of humanity, and I kind of love it.

00:46:13.000 It's a piece by Caspar David Friedrich.

00:46:16.000 It's from 1818.

00:46:16.000 It's called Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

00:46:19.000 If you can't see it, you can look it up online later or subscribe and then you'll be able to see it.

00:46:22.000 It's a picture of a man standing over a valley with fog all the way into the distance receding.

00:46:29.000 And this is sort of the idea that human beings have the capacity to reach a summit and then gaze out over the misty recesses of the universe.

00:46:37.000 And we can't fully understand it, but it's our idea, it's our job to try and know.

00:46:42.000 It's our job to try and know.

00:46:43.000 That is an idea that is steeped in biblical thinking.

00:46:45.000 Now, there's a lot of folks who think that the Enlightenment was a complete break from biblical thinking, that it was a rejection of the Bible, it was reason over revelation and all the rest of that.

00:46:52.000 That is simply not true.

00:46:53.000 It's simply not true.

00:46:54.000 There was an Enlightenment that was sort of the French Enlightenment, and then there was the Scottish slash British slash American Enlightenment, which continued to hold fast to the generalized values of the Bible, the idea of human beings having free will, the ideas of human beings have a duty to explore the universe, the sort of Francis Bacon, Thomas Aquinas ideas that you were supposed to merge the sort of Francis Bacon, Thomas Aquinas ideas that you were supposed to merge science with a belief in and And it's that view that has characterized the West.

00:47:20.000 This piece, I think, is maybe the best characterization of the view of what human beings are in the West.

00:47:25.000 I love it.

00:47:26.000 In fact, I love it so much that I had somebody paint a riff on it for me, except using this as the basis for a biblical painting of Moses standing over the land of Israel right before his death, before God takes him.

00:47:39.000 God chose him the entire land of Israel, so I had this painting done with Moses looking over the land of Israel and seeing the future sort of recede into the distance.

00:47:44.000 Pretty cool.

00:47:45.000 Alrighty, other things that I like.

00:47:47.000 So I talked about this a little bit on my radio show yesterday.

00:47:50.000 You should subscribe so that you can hear that live, right?

00:47:52.000 We do two hours every afternoon.

00:47:54.000 But, in case you missed it, I want to recap it for you.

00:47:57.000 There is one of my favorite pieces in all of New York Times history over at the New York Times.

00:48:01.000 It's about Betta.

00:48:02.000 Betta Rourke.

00:48:04.000 Now, you know how much I enjoy Beto O'Rourke as a candidate.

00:48:07.000 What I enjoy most about Beto O'Rourke as a candidate is that he never really progressed beyond being the douchebag in high school who would strum three chords on the guitar and all the girls were like, and he'd be like, watch this, stairway to heaven.

00:48:18.000 That was Beto O'Rourke.

00:48:23.000 And the media love it too, because the media are a bunch of emo tool bags.

00:48:27.000 The media look at Beto O'Rourke and they say, wow, he's just like me.

00:48:31.000 He's had struggles too.

00:48:33.000 Now his struggles generally consisted of growing up pretty powerful and wealthy, going to an Ivy League college, and then having to find himself, yeah.

00:48:40.000 But that's half the New York media.

00:48:42.000 So Matt Flegenheimer over at the New York Times describes it.

00:48:46.000 All at once, New York City seemed to be conspiring against Beto O'Rourke.

00:48:49.000 His girlfriend was moving to France.

00:48:51.000 His punk bandmates had scattered.

00:48:54.000 23 and searching, with an Ivy League degree that could not pay rent, Mr. O'Rourke subsisted as a live-in nanny on the Upper West Side, with a futon in the maid's quarters, watching over a wealthy family's two preschoolers.

00:49:04.000 Yes, clearly, this is a man who has suffered.

00:49:07.000 Clearly, this is a person who has overcome obstacles like his girlfriend leaving to go to France.

00:49:12.000 And also, His punk bandmates breaking up with him.

00:49:16.000 Just terrible.

00:49:18.000 Great things were not happening.

00:49:19.000 By late 1995, Mr. O'Rourke had fallen into the deepest depression he can remember.

00:49:23.000 He worked for an uncle's tech business because it was a job.

00:49:26.000 He spent nights alone, listening to his cassettes because it passed the time.

00:49:29.000 Little bit of a sad case, Mr. O'Rourke said.

00:49:33.000 More than two decades later, long after what his friends describe as a quarter-life crisis, Mr. O'Rourke has arrived at a midlife crossroads of enormous consequence, with revealing parallels to his time in New York.

00:49:43.000 Forty-six and searching, after a narrow Senate loss in Texas last year that propelled the former El Paso congressman to Democratic stardom, he has been driving around the country, alone, introducing himself to strangers, deciding if he wants to run for president.

00:49:57.000 So there's a long piece about how it parallels his time in New York.

00:50:00.000 When he'd like sit in his room and look at his posters on the wall of his favorite punk bands and then strum the bass line to Smells Like Teen Spirit and just sit there and sing to himself and think about life and the existential possibilities of death.

00:50:19.000 He has described himself as stuck in and out of a funk.

00:50:23.000 He has compared the present reckoning to moments of rootlessness in the city when he last found himself out of work.

00:50:28.000 I just didn't ever want to feel like that or be in that place or that position again.

00:50:32.000 So that lately has felt kind of strange.

00:50:35.000 Maybe with some echoes.

00:50:37.000 And that's when he started, that's when he started singing.

00:50:41.000 Smells like teen spirit.

00:50:46.000 That's what he's been doing around Texas.

00:50:47.000 He actually, it's real weird.

00:50:48.000 He's just going up to individuals on the street, and he just pulls a guitar.

00:50:52.000 He doesn't even carry a case.

00:50:53.000 He just pulls it right out of his pocket, like Mary Poppins.

00:50:57.000 And there's the bass.

00:50:57.000 And you're like, dude, I just need, I just asked you if you could help me change this tire.

00:51:01.000 He's like, no.

00:51:02.000 Let's talk about life and whether I should run for president.

00:51:07.000 That's what I want to talk about, man.

00:51:10.000 This guy, one of the frontrunners, I love it.

00:51:14.000 He says, I'm not great solo.

00:51:17.000 I need people.

00:51:19.000 He's great.

00:51:20.000 He seemed like any other punk-minded student.

00:51:21.000 Jawbox t-shirt, hair past his shoulders, and a grim insistence that the Smashing Pumpkins had grown pretentious. 0.99

00:51:26.000 I told you he was a douchebag, man.

00:51:28.000 By college, friends say, Mr. O'Rourke had settled on the outlines of an identity that would last, a rebel in moderation, more puckish than unruly. 0.88

00:51:34.000 He said he chose Columbia in part because of the financial aid package, and in part because he looked up to his bohemian uncle, Mr. Williams, who had tapped into New York's music scene.

00:51:43.000 Before that, Mr. O'Rourke had attended boarding school in Virginia, largely to create some distance from his father, a political obsessive who did not understand his son's musical leanings.

00:51:52.000 Now Mr. O'Rourke had run of the city.

00:51:53.000 He went by Robert.

00:51:54.000 Beto was a nickname from El Paso, owing to its border town bilingualism, and he played the guitar, establishing himself as the school's gentle punk rocker.

00:52:05.000 When a bandmate in a group called Swype adopted a belligerent performance persona, telling crowds they were listening to angry Swype, Mr. O'Rourke protested from the stage.

00:52:12.000 He was like, we're no, we're not, we're not angry, the band member Alan Weider said.

00:52:15.000 It made him very uncomfortable, that I was mean.

00:52:18.000 Offstage, Mr. O'Rourke was a prolific dabbler, straddling disparate orbits.

00:52:22.000 He was socially conscious, but not especially political.

00:52:24.000 Other than whatever kind of politics were being talked about in Fugazi, a former roommate said.

00:52:29.000 He often kept to musicians' rollicking hour.

00:52:31.000 He liked to drink beer, but not in the Brett Kavanaugh sense.

00:52:34.000 Oh, you mean like the sense where you drink beer?

00:52:37.000 Pretty spectacular.

00:52:38.000 He sounds like a delight.

00:52:39.000 He says he was an English major skilled enough with computers to introduce roommates to the culture of early 1990s chat rooms, once pranking a girlfriend by posing as a romantically interested woman online.

00:52:48.000 I kind of had a boyfriend, the girlfriend Catherine Raymond recalled typing back to the person she didn't know was Mr. O'Rourke as he sat in an adjacent room.

00:52:55.000 Then she heard a shout through the wall.

00:52:56.000 What do you mean you kind of have a boyfriend?

00:52:58.000 Now, if a Republican did that, that would be called toxic masculinity. 1.00

00:53:02.000 Right? 0.99

00:53:02.000 Posing as a lesbian in order to try and seduce your girlfriend for your own turn-on pleasure. 0.99

00:53:06.000 But Mr. O'Rourke is cool. 0.98

00:53:08.000 And rad.

00:53:09.000 So that's amazing.

00:53:10.000 And now, he's suffering again.

00:53:12.000 Because, back in New York, that was a tough time, but now, he's thinking about, he's just thinking about driving down the road.

00:53:19.000 He says, I just had this vision of being in my truck with the windows down.

00:53:22.000 I remember calling my folks and I said, hey, I think I'm gonna come back to El Paso.

00:53:27.000 And now, Beta O'Rourke for president. 0.94

00:53:28.000 So, solid stuff.

00:53:29.000 Okay.

00:53:30.000 You know what?

00:53:30.000 We don't have time for any things I hate.

00:53:32.000 I've hated enough things today.

00:53:33.000 So, we're just gonna wait and save material for later in the day.

00:53:36.000 Got a couple of hours of show coming up later today.

00:53:38.000 That's why you should subscribe.

00:53:39.000 Go check it out or we'll see you here tomorrow.

00:53:41.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:53:41.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:53:47.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:53:53.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens, edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:53:58.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:54:00.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera, production assistant Nick Sheehan.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 07, 2019

We’re Not In Kansas Anymore, Virginia | Ep. 712

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