General Jim Mattis quits as Secretary of Defense, President Trump initiates DEFCON 1 on a government shutdown, and the stock market tumbles again. It s the year-end episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, and it s really ending on a cliffhanger. Like, as we go into the new year, there are a lot of cliffhangers that have yet to be resolved. Really a strong tease for the next season of Trump the Show. We ll get to all that in just one second. First, we want to make sure that you are all up to date with the latest news, which is crazy. I have to say, the season finale of Trump: The Show is really ending, and that s crazy. Second, we ll talk about how to send Christmas packages this holiday season, because it is indeed Christmas, and also a nice thing for people around the Christmas time. And right now, you too can enjoy the Stampscom service with the special offer that includes a 4-week trial, plus postage, and a digital scale, without long-term commitments. It could not be easier! You can print postage at any day, at any time, and then you re done. You can t be farther from home. And you can print the right amount of postage every single time. You re not only saves you time, because you re not having to drag all your presents over to the post office to pick it up...you re not going to have to go through the whole rigmarole of picking it up, do you re just that, you re gonna be doing it, right? That s right, it s not only saving you time...you can print it at your local post office...you get it, you can do it at any single place, you get it right, you ll be there, you ve got it, she s not gonna have to be up to it, and you re never have to wait in line, you s not even THINK it s gonna be any other place, right, right she s gonna have it, AND she s got it...you ll be done, right you s gonna do it, yeeeeeeeeeeayeeeeeedeedeedeeeeedeeedeeeedeeeeedeedeeeeeeeeeeeedEEEeeeedooooooeedeeeeeeeedeedEEEeedeedeeeeeeeeigheeeedeeeeeeeeehed? ...and then you actually do it?
00:00:00.000General Jim Mattis quits as Secretary of Defense, President Trump initiates DEFCON 1 on a government shutdown, and the stock market tumbles again.
00:00:08.000It's the year-end episode of The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:15.000This is the final live episode this year.
00:00:57.000Because it means that you don't have to drag all your presents over to the post office, wait in line, and then go through the whole rigmarole.
00:01:01.000Instead, you can make sure that you are sending proper postage at home, print it out, stick it on the package, the post office picks it up, it's so good, and then you're done.
00:01:09.000Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S.
00:01:43.000For all of the aforementioned reasons.
00:01:44.000And right now, you too can enjoy the Stamps.com service with the special offer that includes a four-week trial, plus postage, and a digital scale, without long-term commitments.
00:01:51.000Go to Stamps.com, click on that microphone at the top of the homepage, type in promo code SHAPIRO, that is STAMPS.COM, and use that promo code SHAPIRO for the special deal, four-week trial, plus postage, and a digital scale, without long-term commitments.
00:02:12.000Yesterday, the Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis, who is one of the most beloved members of the Trump administration by the general public and by the Republican base at large, he decided that he was out.
00:02:23.000He will be leaving as early as February.
00:02:25.000His resignation letter is quite brutal, but to understand what he's talking about, you first have to understand what it was that triggered the resignation.
00:02:34.000Jim Mattis is very close to General John Kelly, who was the Chief of Staff inside the White House when John Kelly left.
00:02:40.000That probably set the clock ticking on when Mattis was going to leave, but as recently as a few days ago, it has been reported, Mattis was telling friends and family that he was going to stay on and see this thing through because he wanted to make sure that the Pentagon was still being well-led, no matter who was President of the United States.
00:02:55.000Well, all of that changed after the President of the United States, Donald Trump, decided to precipitously announce a pullout from Syria.
00:03:01.000And not just that, he's apparently preparing now a substantial withdrawal of U.S.
00:03:04.000troops from Afghanistan, according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:03:07.000Apparently, he wants to pull down about 7,000 of the remaining 14,000 U.S.
00:03:12.000He wants to bring half of them home in the coming weeks, the start of a total pullout that could take at least as many months.
00:03:18.000According to the Wall Street Journal, a day after a contested decision to pull American military forces from Syria, officials said on Thursday that President Trump has ordered the start of a reduction of American forces in Afghanistan.
00:03:28.000More than 7,000 American troops will begin to return home from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, a U.S.
00:03:33.000The move will come as the first stage of a phased drawdown and the start of a conclusion to the 17-year war that officials say could take at least many months.
00:03:42.000Trump announced on Twitter on Wednesday that he would pull all of the more than 2,000 American troops.
00:03:47.000In Syria, as the Wall Street Journal notes, taken together, the Syria withdrawal and the likely Afghan drawdown represent a dramatic shift in the U.S.
00:03:54.000approach to military engagement in hot spots around the world, reflecting Mr. Trump's aversion to long-running military engagements with their high costs and American casualties.
00:04:06.000official said, Now, all of this was not driven by the best foreign policy advisors around him.
00:04:14.000I do not think this is the position of Nikki Haley.
00:04:16.000I do not think this is the position of John Bolton.
00:04:18.000I do not think this is the position of Mike Pompeo.
00:04:20.000I don't think this is the position of Jim Mattis.
00:04:22.000I think this is President Trump talking to outside folks, including the Dictator of Turkey, Erdogan, who wanted him out of Syria.
00:04:29.000I think he's talking to folks like Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson, who are telling him to double down on his views with regard to Afghanistan.
00:04:35.000A lot of that is speculation, but knowing the president talks to outside sources, none of that would be particularly surprising.
00:04:43.000The problem is that decisions like this actually have consequences.
00:05:15.000Also, I have spoken out against the perception of our troop as a bunch of young innocents abroad, desperate to come home, as opposed to guys who signed up knowing exactly what they were doing, meaning they were there to serve America's interests abroad.
00:05:28.000I've gotten more letters over the last 24 hours from folks who are in the military, many of whom served in Syria, and who are saying, why would we possibly abandon our allies on the ground there?
00:05:37.000The stories that are coming out of Syria are horrific enough.
00:05:41.000The safe areas of Syria are basically being protected by U.S.
00:06:10.000They were not really screwed by George W., but they were screwed by Obama, and now they're being screwed by Trump.
00:06:14.000Kurds right now, I mean, there was a rumor yesterday by Richard Engel over at NBC News.
00:06:17.000He was saying that the Kurds are looking at releasing ISIS fighters specifically because they want the world to know that ISIS isn't dead at this point.
00:06:24.000Apparently, a lot of Syrian Kurds were walking up to U.S.
00:06:28.000troops and begging for their lives yesterday, which is just delightful.
00:06:31.000A good indicator that you are doing the wrong thing is that Vladimir Putin says that you are doing the right thing.
00:06:35.000Yesterday, the President of Russia, meaning the dictator of Russia, says that he agrees with President Trump's policies on Syria.
00:06:41.000Now, I'm old enough to remember when this was a bad thing for Republicans.
00:06:44.000I'm old enough to remember when Barack Obama handed over control of Syria to the Russians with his fake red line in Syria, then handing over the leadership in Syria to Russia.
00:06:54.000And a lot of us shrieked bloody murder over it, saying, why would you possibly strengthen the hand of one of America's worst geopolitical enemies?
00:07:01.000Well, Vladimir Putin is very happy today, and there's a reason he's very happy today.
00:07:11.000As far as ISIS is concerned, I agree more or less with the President of the U.S.
00:07:16.000We, and I have spoken about this before, have really achieved substantial changes with regard to the militants in Syria and have beaten the forces in Syria.
00:07:33.000Okay, and I will say that Putin then tweeted out, the Russians then tweeted out this morning, quote, Syria, I agree with President Trump that ISIS was defeated in Syria, but terrorists can spill over into neighboring countries and regions.
00:07:44.000The translation there means, yeah, I agree with Trump.
00:07:48.000He should pull out of Syria, but also we're not.
00:07:55.000Well, this has all prompted members of the Trump administration to go on television and then proclaim that ISIS has been defeated, which, of course, it has not.
00:08:16.000The president says on one day that ISIS is defeated, the next day he says ISIS is there and let Russia take care of it.
00:08:23.000ISIS has been defeated, but if ISIS wants to retrench and regrow and reorganize, it's going to be up to those countries to defeat their enemy.
00:08:37.000Weird take, Stephen Miller, and weird take everyone else.
00:08:40.000All this prompted yesterday Jim Mattis to step down.
00:08:42.000Apparently he did so specifically in the wake of the Syria decision.
00:08:47.000According to the New York Times, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' experience and stability were widely seen as a balance to an unpredictable president.
00:08:59.000Having spoken with many, many members of the White House on a regular basis, Mattis was a crucial part of the White House, but he was certainly not the leader on foreign policy when it came to deciding what came next.
00:09:08.000For example, Mattis was a big opponent.
00:09:11.000Of pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.
00:09:12.000Obviously the Trump administration did so.
00:09:14.000Mattis was not a fan of the Jerusalem embassy moves.
00:09:16.000Obviously the Trump administration did so.
00:09:18.000I think both of those decisions were right.
00:09:19.000So it's not like Mattis was infallible or was right on everything, but having somebody with actual experience in the military directing the Pentagon with a perspective on whether we should pull troops out of volatile areas, I think that was valuable.
00:09:32.000Well, he resigned on Thursday, according to the Times, in protest of President Trump's decision to withdraw American forces from Syria and his rejection of international alliances.
00:09:40.000Mr. Mattis had repeatedly told friends and aides over recent months that he viewed his responsibility to protect the United States' 1.3 million active-duty troops as worth the concessions necessary as Defense Secretary to a mercurial president.
00:09:51.000But on Thursday, in an extraordinary rebuke of the president, he decided that Mr. Trump's decision to withdraw roughly 2,000 American troops from Syria was a step too far.
00:09:59.000Officials said Mr. Mattis went to the White House with his resignation letter already written, but nonetheless made a last attempt at persuading the president to reverse his decision about Syria, which Trump announced on Wednesday over the objection of his senior advisors.
00:10:10.000Apparently, he asked his aides to print out 50 copies of his resignation letter And so this brings us to his actual resignation letter and the disconnect between what Trump said about Mattis resigning and what Mattis said about him resigning.
00:10:24.000He tweeted out, General Jim Mattis will be retiring with distinction at the end of February after having served my administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years.
00:10:32.000During Jim's tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment.
00:10:37.000General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies in other countries to pay their share of military obligations.
00:10:41.000A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly.
00:10:46.000A very warm goodbye from President Trump.
00:10:48.000Also important to note here, look at President Trump's language.
00:10:51.000He talks about that progress has been made with the purchase of new fighting equipment.
00:10:55.000President Trump is very intent on seeing America as sort of a business.
00:10:59.000And so when we sell defense equipment to, for example, Turkey, he sees this as a win.
00:11:03.000One of the reasons that he is pursuing a Syrian policy in conjunction with the Turks is because the Turks just pledged to buy about $3.5 billion worth of U.S.
00:11:11.000armaments Presumably they would have gotten that from Russia if they hadn't gotten it from the United States.
00:11:15.000But again, the idea that we should be held hostage over $3 billion of U.S.
00:11:27.000So here's what he says in his goodbye letter, in his resignation letter.
00:11:31.000He says, I've been privileged to serve as our country's 26th Secretary of Defense, which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals.
00:11:40.000I'm proud of our progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy, putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, reforming the Department's business practices for greater performance.
00:11:53.000Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong U.S.
00:12:21.000Well, the fact is, If you want to get experience with the market, if you want to learn how to invest, the best way to invest is just by doing it.
00:13:29.000Okay, so Mattis' letter continues, and he gets into some really tough stuff for the administration.
00:13:34.000He says, "One core belief I've always held "was that our strength as a nation "is inextricably linked to the strength "of our unique and comprehensive system "of alliances and partnerships, While the U.S.
00:13:44.000remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.
00:13:52.000Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policemen of the world.
00:13:59.000Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances.
00:14:05.000NATO's 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack On America, the defeat ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.
00:14:15.000So right there, that is a pretty subtle slap at Trump's anti-NATO talk and his rhetoric, and it's a slap at his pulling out of Syria.
00:14:25.000He says, we have a coalition fighting ISIS, what are you doing?
00:14:27.000We have a coalition in NATO, what are you doing?
00:14:29.000And then he continues, similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours.
00:14:37.000It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model, gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies.
00:14:49.000That is why we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense.
00:14:53.000Again, this is him pushing against Trump handing over Syria to the Russians.
00:14:57.000My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues.
00:15:05.000We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity, and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our allies.
00:15:17.000He says, because you have a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.
00:16:02.000Not a single word of praise for President Trump, which is unusual in a resignation letter.
00:16:05.000It's particularly unusual in this administration where every resignation letter contains fulsome praise for the President of the United States.
00:16:12.000This is having some pretty brutal impacts inside the Republican Party.
00:16:16.000So, a lot of Republicans, I mean, I've been getting texts from people who are real Trump fans, people who are deep Trump believers, very disquieted about Mattis's resignation, about his policy in Syria, President Trump's policy in Syria.
00:16:26.000About the criminal justice reform that went through earlier this week.
00:16:29.000About the machinations on the wall, which we'll get to in just a second.
00:16:33.000A Fox News reporter, I'm trying to remember her name, Jennifer Griffin, she spoke yesterday on Fox News about what is happening over at the Pentagon.
00:16:42.000She said the morale has never been lower over at the Pentagon because Mattis was well liked.
00:16:46.000I was told by a very well-placed source here in the Pentagon that morale has never been lower at meetings here at the Pentagon of the top brass in the last few days to discuss the pullout of troops from Syria.
00:16:59.000You can see that the worm is starting to turn a little bit for some members of Trump's base.
00:17:02.000Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade.
00:17:04.000He's a really nice guy, a friend of mine.
00:17:05.000Brian Kilmeade, who's been a very, very strong Trump supporter throughout his administration and before, he said that President Trump today had re-founded ISIS and was giving Russia a big win.
00:17:14.000He was talking with Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
00:17:16.000He said he's also doing exactly what he criticized President Obama for doing.
00:17:30.000He's leaving, basically, it seems, because of the way the President treats our allies, in his view, and the pullout in Syria and Afghanistan seems to have been too much.
00:17:40.000How bad is the relationship right now?
00:17:43.000Look, they continue to have a good relationship, but they disagree on a number of fronts that he outlined.
00:17:50.000But at the end of the day, the American people elected one person to be the commander-in-chief and to make decisions.
00:17:57.000He said, President Trump accused Obama of founding ISIS.
00:18:03.000And then he said, President Trump just re-founded ISIS because they have 30,000 men there.
00:18:07.000They're already striking back with our would-be evacuation.
00:18:09.000The president is really on the griddle with this.
00:18:11.000And then Sanders said that she respectfully disagreed with Kilmeade.
00:18:14.000And then she said, the idea the president has anything to do with helping ISIS re-emerge is absolutely outrageous.
00:18:19.000And Kilmeade said correctly, leaving is helping.
00:18:21.000This was the case that was made against Barack Obama.
00:18:25.000And then Sanders says, if ISIS wants to pick a fight with somebody, they sure as heck don't want to pick one with Donald Trump because he will destroy them and defeat them.
00:19:07.000What I would prefer is sanctions on Iran.
00:19:09.000What I would prefer is maybe thinking about closing the Straits of Hormuz.
00:19:11.000What I would prefer with Iran He's trying to find dissenters inside Iran who can lead a revolution against the presiding power over there.
00:19:18.000What I want with Iran is containment of their power to the country that they already control.
00:19:23.000But, Barack Obama's people were saying things like, no, if you don't back the Iran nuclear deal, you want war.
00:19:28.000We got the same thing with North Korea from President Trump.
00:19:30.000If you don't back President Trump's talks with the lying North Korean government, the lying, murderous, genocidal North Korean government, then this is because you want war with North Korea.
00:19:39.000Or maybe I don't think they should be legitimized on the world stage.
00:19:41.000Now we're getting the same routine on Syria.
00:19:42.000If you don't want to pull 2,000 troops out of Syria and leave the Kurds defenseless as they get slaughtered by the Turks, if you don't want to leave a bunch of people defenseless to ISIS, if you don't want to leave a bunch of people at the mercies of Bashar Assad... By the way, all these things have externalities.
00:20:22.000What about the alternative which is foreign policy is really a game of catch-as-catch-can?
00:20:27.000And we gotta be honest about what foreign policy is.
00:20:29.000We've never been honest about what foreign policy is, because we have this kind of, we have this blinkered vision that foreign policy should always end the way World War I or World War II ended, with some sort of surrender and signing of a document.
00:20:43.000Maybe the Korean War, to a certain extent, but even that was maintained by American military presence in South Korea that continues to this day.
00:20:49.000The reality is that war is no longer about simply going in, defeating an enemy, and then occupying the country until it is a Western-style democracy.
00:20:58.000At least Germany had a history of Western-style democracy before the Nazis came to power.
00:21:02.000The same thing simply was not true in Afghanistan.
00:21:04.000The question is, what's in our interest?
00:21:05.000And is it in our interest to pull out and allow Al-Qaeda to reconstitute and allow Pakistan to possibly fall to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban?
00:21:14.000Because that's a serious possibility, by the way.
00:21:15.000Remember, that as Afghanistan strengthens, there's going to be spillover into Pakistan, and Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state.
00:21:21.000I mean, there are all sorts of ramifications to foreign policy that are uncomfortable to think about, but that are quite real.
00:21:26.000And the simplistic, let's just bring our troops home stuff, It doesn't work, which is why I promise you that within two years, President Trump will be reinserting troops in Syria when something goes wrong.
00:21:37.000I want to get to the government shutdown and the Mexico stuff in just one second, because that's the other big news item that's coming out today.
00:21:44.000But first, let's talk about how you're going to cook these holidays.
00:21:47.000With the holidays fast approaching, with Christmas fast approaching, meal prep is the last thing you want on your plate.
00:21:51.000You don't want to be spending all of your time over at the grocery trying to figure out the recipes.
00:22:35.000I'm getting hungry just looking at this.
00:22:36.000It's like Korean-style popcorn chicken with jasmine rice and roasted broccoli and seared steaks and loaded mashed potatoes and panko-crusted chicken and maple dipping sauce.
00:22:58.000OK, so meanwhile, as all of this chaos is happening with Mattis and Syria and Afghanistan, chaos is happening on the home front to the stock market.
00:23:06.000tumbled some 500 points yesterday, which means that we have now raised all gains since the start of the Trump presidency on the S&P 500 as well.
00:23:14.000The U.S. stocks swooned for a second day Thursday after the Federal Reserve rates benchmark interest rates and said it would continue to let its massive balance sheet shrink at the current pace.
00:23:22.000You do have to say at this point that the Fed is obviously taking a pretty harsh position with regard to the Trump administration.
00:23:29.000Now, there are two ways to read what the Fed is doing by raising interest rates.
00:23:31.000One, they're saying the market is wrong, the market is incorrect, the fundamentals underlying the economy are still strong, and so we're raising the interest rates knowing that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong.
00:23:41.000Possibility number two, the Fed is basically saying, look, we need to raise interest rates anyway because they're just too low.
00:23:46.000We can't have another bubble that bursts.
00:23:47.000So we are tightening up the interest rates right now.
00:23:50.000And if that costs the economy, it costs the economy.
00:23:52.000That would explain why Trump is so ticked at the Federal Reserve.
00:23:54.000It also explains why, listen, I'm not a fan of the Federal Reserve.
00:23:58.000I think the Federal Reserve does more harm than good.
00:24:00.000I think a predictable rate of inflation, according to Milton Friedman's economics, would be preferable.
00:24:05.000Frankly, I'm in favor of going back to a generalized price of the dollar pegged to the price of gold, so that we at least have an objective measure of what the dollar is worth.
00:24:14.000In any case, the Dow and NASDAQ posted their lowest closes since October of 2017.
00:24:18.000This is the worst year for the stock market as currently constituted since 2008, which is the beginning of the recession.
00:24:24.000Is this actually going to lead to a new recession?
00:24:27.000Unclear at this point, but obviously indicators are not great.
00:24:43.000That is a massive drop in just one month.
00:24:45.000If you look at it over the last six months, what you are seeing right now is that the high point in the last six months was Wednesday, October 3rd, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at nearly 27,000.
00:25:41.000Nine departments close, about 420,000 people work without pay.
00:25:45.000That would be the people in the Departments of Agriculture, the Treasury, Homeland Security, Interior, State, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Commerce, and Justice.
00:25:56.000Hundreds of thousands of federal employees deemed essential are still forced to work over the holidays without pay, according to the data compiled by the Senate Democrats, but they're going to get paid again.
00:26:03.000OK, the idea that we're not going to give them back pay when the government stops the shutdown is just nonsense.
00:26:11.000You could find places that are going to, like, float you a little bit of money for the holidays while the government shuts down, knowing that in three weeks it's not going to be shut down, you pay them back.
00:26:19.000With 90% of their personnel considered essential, the Department of Homeland Security is hit the hardest.
00:26:24.000Again, they're still serving, so for you, the taxpayer, the answer is that these people are still out there doing their jobs.
00:26:29.000It hurts government employees, but it doesn't actually hurt the American people insofar as everybody who's still essential is doing what they're supposed to do.
00:26:37.000The national parks are likely to close, so they say that All 58 of the country's national parks would shutter over the holidays.
00:26:45.000But you have to ask yourself why you would shut, like, open-air monuments.
00:26:50.000Remember, Barack Obama did this during the 2013 government shutdown.
00:26:53.000He actually shut down open-air monuments, like the World War II monument.
00:26:56.000He put, like, ropes to prevent people from going into the World War II monument, which is just silly towns.
00:27:01.000The Smithsonian Museum may have the funds to remain open, staff said in a tweet, but some of the agencies, like many of the agencies set to be impacted, they'll update that as the deadline approaches.
00:27:10.000Another 400,000 workers will be furloughed.
00:27:12.000Many of them will be furloughed in places like the Department of Commerce.
00:27:16.000Good news, 52,000 staffers at the IRS are furloughed.
00:27:19.000So if we can make that happen, like, on a permanent basis, then I'm all for that.
00:27:23.000Apparently, if you are, because the funding for the State Department is set to expire on Friday, that could throw a wrench in the plans of international travelers.
00:27:32.000So, okay, so you should have gotten your passport stamped like before.
00:27:36.000Okay, like, I've been in that situation, but tough.
00:27:39.000I mean, what's more important, actually, getting a permanent border wall on our southern border, or you didn't stamp your passport three weeks ago, like you should have?
00:27:46.000So right now, here's where things stand.
00:27:47.000President Trump says he's not going to sign any bill that doesn't include $5 billion in funding for the border.
00:27:52.000While Paul Ryan announced this yesterday after visiting the White House alongside Kevin McCarthy, here was the outgoing Speaker of the House announcing that Trump was not going to cave on the issue.
00:27:59.000The President informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security.
00:28:08.000So what we're going to do is go back to the House and work with our members.
00:28:11.000We want to keep the government open, but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border.
00:28:16.000We have very serious concerns about securing our border.
00:28:19.000So the President said he will not sign this bill.
00:28:22.000So we're going to go back and work on adding border security to this, also keeping the government open, because we do want to see an agreement.
00:28:38.000The critique here is that President Trump should have done this years ago.
00:28:41.000You know, when it was before midterm, and when House Democrats weren't set to take over in the next 30 seconds, and when he had more leverage.
00:28:47.000Because right now, House Democrats figure a couple of things.
00:28:49.000One, they look at the last election cycle, and they see that up until the last couple of weeks of the election cycle, In 2018, the election was actually quite close.
00:28:57.000Then Trump started jabbering about immigration nonstop, and he started basically a lot of talk about border wars and all the rest, and we moved away from talking about Justice Kavanaugh, and then the Republicans just plummeted in the polls.
00:29:10.000And they lost by an average of 8.6 points across the country.
00:29:13.000That was the final vote count in all of the House races.
00:29:17.000So Democrats are thinking, okay, if Trump wants to talk incessantly about the wall, let him do it.
00:29:39.000Should he have done this two years ago?
00:29:40.000Of course he should have done this two years ago, which is why Stephen Miller, who's quite good on immigration, as I said, he had no good answers, or he's at least good on illegal immigration.
00:29:49.000He had no good answers when asked by Wolf Blitzer, why didn't the president do this like two years ago when he could have?
00:29:53.000Why didn't he get the border wall done during his first two years in office with a Republican majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate?
00:30:03.000Well, we actually have completed or have underway a hundred miles.
00:30:06.000But the president's made clear that he's not interested in continuing to build the wall one mile, one stretch at a time.
00:30:14.000He wants to build the wall by getting the money now, just like the president was very clear about for the last year leading up to this funding fight.
00:30:22.000But he hasn't received the five billion.
00:30:25.000Okay, and then Miller got more and more animated over all of this.
00:30:28.000Now, here's where the Trump administration does have an advantage.
00:30:30.000The Democrats really don't care about border security.
00:30:41.000It's also true that Trump should have done this earlier, obviously.
00:30:44.000But when Trump says that walls work, he is correct.
00:30:46.000And this is a winning political point if he is willing to press it.
00:30:51.000The focus on the caravan that was coming to the border was extreme and overwrought, but his talk about a border wall being necessary, I think that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree with that, even if they tell pollsters otherwise.
00:31:03.000Essential to border security is a powerful physical barrier.
00:31:21.000One strategy suggested by the president is not how it can be done, but I'll explain how it can be done in just a second.
00:31:25.000First, I want to talk to you about how you defend your rights.
00:31:27.000So, our founders were deeply interested in protecting your individual rights, your God-given rights, and then they gave you the Second Amendment, which was designed to protect those rights, to allow you to defend those rights against enemies, foreign and domestic, and the folks at Bravo Company Manufacturing are interested in helping you do that.
00:31:42.000BCM was started in a garage by a Marine veteran more than two decades ago to build a professional-grade product that meets combat standards.
00:31:48.000BCM believes the same level of protection should be provided to every American, regardless of whether they're a private citizen or a professional.
00:31:54.000Now, as you know, when I talk about the Second Amendment, I don't talk about hunting, because I'm not a hunter.
00:31:57.000I don't talk about going to the range, because while I enjoy going to the range, I don't have a lot of time to do it.
00:32:01.000What I talk about is protecting yourself and your family.
00:32:09.000They assume that each rifle leaving their shop will be used in a life or death situation by a responsible citizen, law enforcement officer, or a soldier overseas.
00:32:16.000Every component of a BCM rifle is hand-assembled and tested by Americans to a life-saving standard.
00:32:21.000BCM feels a moral responsibility as Americans to provide tools that will not fail the user when it's not just a paper target, when, God forbid, you actually have to use a gun to protect yourself.
00:32:29.000To learn more about Bravo Company Manufacturing, head on over to BravoCompanyMFG.com, where you can discover more about their products, special offers, and upcoming news.
00:32:39.000And if you want to find out more about BCM and the awesome people who founded it and run it, go check out their products at YouTube.com slash Bravo Company USA.
00:34:01.000We are so grateful to all our subscribers, to all the people who listen to the show, to all the people who subscribe over at YouTube and iTunes, all the people who leave us reviews at iTunes.
00:34:08.000It's made our show incredibly popular.
00:34:10.000And allowed us to get out our message, which is really the important part.
00:34:12.000That's the part I really care about when I get up every day.
00:34:32.000I was doing this long before we were all this popular.
00:34:34.000I've been doing this for literally half my life.
00:34:36.000Because I care so much about these ideas and it's a pleasure and an honor to have you on the team as well.
00:34:41.000So go over and subscribe if you haven't already because you should be part of the team too.
00:34:45.000We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.
00:34:47.000So what exactly should President Trump do?
00:34:54.000Well, President Trump should not call for an end to the filibuster when it comes to funding the government.
00:34:59.000The reason being, last time somebody tried to end a filibuster was Harry Reid.
00:35:03.000He ended the judicial filibuster and that allowed President Trump to ram through every judge he could ever possibly want in a million years.
00:35:54.000No, you actually have to go out there and talk and talk and talk and talk.
00:35:58.000You have to physically go out there and hold up the business of the Senate.
00:36:02.000And so Trump, for optics reason, should do this.
00:36:04.000So here's what Daniel Horowitz says, and this is basically correct.
00:36:06.000He says, The lack of unanimous consent or 60 votes doesn't table a bill.
00:36:12.000It's just that opposing senators in the minority can request to be recognized and then continuously hold the floor.
00:36:17.000In recent years, majority parties have never made the minority do that.
00:36:20.000Sometimes it makes sense to preemptively achieve an agreement because the majority just can't afford to chew up endless days on debate of a single issue, but sometimes there are issues worth fighting for.
00:36:28.000Either way, this is the end of the line for the 115th Congress.
00:36:31.000How do you get Democrats to stop talking?
00:36:33.000This is where Senate Rule 19, the two-speech rule, comes into play.
00:36:36.000The rule explicitly prohibits individual senators from speaking more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same legislative day.
00:36:42.000Given that Republicans preside over the chair and control of the floor, they can refuse to officially adjourn, opting only to recess temporarily and keep the Senate in the same legislative day indefinitely.
00:36:51.000This will ensure that even the Democrats who are willing and able to speak for a long time will eventually be forced to relent.
00:36:56.000This never happens, it's never enforced, because Republicans never force Democrats to hold the floor in the first place, and Mitch McConnell won't bring up legislation without a unanimous consent agreement or 60 votes.
00:37:05.000But, if he forced the minority to hold the floor and enforced Rule 19, Democrats would exhaust themselves very quickly.
00:37:11.000It's a strategy laid out by James Wallner, who's an expert on Senate procedure.
00:37:15.000Walner points out that Democrats do have the ability to challenge rulings of the chair and bring up points of order or call for quorum calls as means of prolonging their floor time, but Republicans can dispense with those motions with 51 votes.
00:37:26.000Eventually, Democrats would run out of steam and exhaust their two speeches per member.
00:37:29.000This could take days or weeks, but it depends on the determination of each side.
00:37:33.000He says the optics are also really good here because, again, Democrats are going to have to get up there and explain why they're holding up the business of government just to not give Trump the money to fund a border wall.
00:37:43.000And Democrats, by the way, don't have a strong case here.
00:37:45.000The dumbest tweet that I saw today came courtesy of Chris Murphy, who is just a dolt.
00:37:50.000Chris Murphy tweeted out today, I kid you not, that President Trump is a racist because he doesn't want to actually build a border wall on our border with Canada.
00:38:01.000He tweeted out that, he said, here's where the analogy breaks down between the TSA and the border wall.
00:38:07.000He says, we have TSA at every airport.
00:38:10.000Trump is advocating putting up a wall on only one border.
00:38:12.000No wall for the country filled mostly with white people.
00:38:15.000Yes, I'm sure that is Trump's main concern.
00:38:18.000The seven people from Canada attempting to illegally immigrate.
00:38:21.000As opposed to the hundreds of thousands of people from our southern border attempting to illegally immigrate.
00:38:26.000If Democrats have to make those sorts of arguments publicly, it could be quite humiliating for them.
00:38:29.000So, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna do this, why not force Democrats to, even if you lose, why not force Democrats to go out there and explain for hours on end why they won't fund the government just to prevent a wall from being built in the first place.
00:38:41.000Okay, meanwhile, I do have to note, the worst editorial of the day comes courtesy of Julia Jaffe, who is just a terrible columnist.
00:38:49.000She's the woman who attacked Melania Trump during the campaign, and then she was attacked by anti-Semites, and then President Trump said nothing about it, so she became very famous on the basis of this.
00:38:57.000She's a correspondent for GQ magazine.
00:38:59.000She has a piece today titled, just in time for Christmas, Please Don't Wish Me Merry Christmas.
00:39:16.000And it seems to me that you are just wishing me a nice time of the year, because you know I don't celebrate Christmas, because I wear a yarmulke.
00:39:22.000And if I weren't wearing a yarmulke, I don't think it would be unfair to assume that I might celebrate Christmas in a country where, legitimately, 90% of people celebrate Christmas.
00:40:24.000It is a celebration of Christ, as its very name implies.
00:40:26.000As a Jewish person, I have zero problems with your celebrating the birth of a person you believe is God's only son who grew up to die for your sins.
00:40:32.000I don't share your faith, and I don't begrudge you the joy of your celebration.
00:40:36.000As I will this year when I bring Christmas presents wrapped in Christmas paper to a Christmas dinner with my friends and their sweet children.
00:40:55.000And then she says, It began to feel deeply alien, precisely because we were secular, but it was not.
00:41:21.000Despite the movies and the shopping, despite the Germanic decor, Christmas is still, at its core and by design, about the birth of Christ, a point that seems bizarre to argue.
00:41:28.000Just look at all those nativity scenes.
00:41:30.000And despite its celebration of a Christian God, it is everywhere for over a month, in a way no other holiday is, not even Easter.
00:41:35.000Okay, first of all, when she says despite its celebration of a Christian God, I'm just going to put this out there.
00:41:42.000Kind of weird to distinguish the Christian God from the Jewish God when we actually believe in the same God.
00:41:46.000We don't believe Jews in the Jesus part of the Christian God, but we still believe in the same Judeo-Christian God, right?
00:41:54.000Presumably the being standing behind all creation, right?
00:41:58.000This is something that Jews and Christians hold in common, even if we don't believe the Jesus story as Jews.
00:42:21.000They're twinkly and pretty, and they make me happy, because they're twinkly and pretty.
00:42:26.000And they don't make me think of pogroms, because we don't do that sort of thing here in the United States.
00:42:29.000And in fact, it makes me grateful that so many people in the United States celebrate Christmas, because those people are generally stand— The people who celebrate Christmas in the United States are largely the people who are standing between Western civilization and the abyss.
00:42:41.000And by the way, as a Jew, these are also the greatest defenders of Israel.
00:42:46.000and you're used to the fact that cab drivers don't wish you an easy fast on Yom Kippur, but it's harder to get used to the oppressive ubiquity of a holiday like Christmas.
00:42:58.000She says, this is always the time of year I feel most excluded from society, one Jewish friend told me.
00:43:02.000I promise you that the Jews, who are most Orthodox in the United States, don't give one wit about being wished Merry Christmas.
00:43:09.000I can speak for my community when I say the vast majority of Jews in the United States, when they are going around during Christmas season, if somebody wishes them Merry Christmas, they go, thank you, and you have a Merry Christmas too.
00:44:22.000She says, My wish this holiday season is for people not to make assumptions about others, to put themselves in others' shoes, to respect others as they wish to be respected, to respond with kindness even when they disagree, to live and let live.
00:44:34.000Well, if they say Merry Christmas to you and you're not living and letting live, I would suggest that you're the one who's intolerant and being kind of a jerk.
00:44:39.000I mean, the Grinch apparently is real.
00:44:41.000The Grinch is a real thing, and the Grinch has taken on the body of Julia Jaffe.
00:45:00.000Daniel says, Can you go ahead and get into more detail why Turkey filling in the power vacuum in Iraq and getting more power in the region is bad for the U.S.
00:45:55.000Well, first of all, grandparents are going to be happy.
00:45:58.000Being a grandparent is like the happiest thing in the world, if I can take any cues from my parents and my wife's parents.
00:46:04.000I would get ready for excitement and fun, unless your parents are terrible people, in which case, you know, not much I can do for you, bud.
00:46:13.000I mean, congratulations, that is awesome news.
00:46:15.000The way we told my parents is we had them come over for dinner, and then I said, I just have some good news for you guys, and, you know, my wife is pregnant.
00:46:24.000And they freaked out, and then my wife's parents freaked out.
00:46:35.000John says, I'm sure someone has already asked this, but if AOC runs like Vox suggested, will you throw your hat in the ring for a chance to finally get that debate?
00:46:43.000Thanks, love the show, and Clavens as well.
00:46:45.000Well, I can't credit you for your taste, but would I throw my hat in the ring just to debate AOC?
00:46:49.000Again, I think that That would involve primarying Trump, presumably.
00:46:55.000I think primarying Trump inside the Republican Party right now is bad for a variety of reasons.
00:46:59.000The biggest reason not to primary Trump right now is because it would force people into a choice between conservatism and Trumpism.
00:47:04.000I don't want to force people into that choice.
00:47:06.000Personal loyalty tends to win that choice.
00:47:08.000I prefer that the party Not split and have another civil war over Trump right now, especially because events are going to do what events are going to do at this point.
00:47:17.000Agatha says, Dear Ben, Love the show, keep up the good work.
00:47:19.000My question regards the theological understanding of marriage in Judaism.
00:47:22.000Why is it polygamy is practiced in the Old Testament or Torah but not practiced today in Judaism?
00:47:26.000Also in Christianity, husband and wife are understood as the king and queen of creation.
00:47:29.000Is there similar symbolism in Judaism?
00:47:32.000Well, obviously, husband and wife are the foundations of all civilization.
00:47:37.000This goes back to Genesis and Adam and Eve.
00:47:40.000As far as why polygamy is no longer practiced.
00:47:42.000So in Judaism it was outlawed in around the year 1000 by Rabbeinu Tam who's a very famous rabbi.
00:47:47.000It's not been common practice in Judaism for hundreds and hundreds of years.
00:47:52.000The reason being that it was seen as anti-woman.
00:47:55.000The reason being that it was suspected that men could not actually cope with supporting that many wives.
00:48:02.000And also it undermines the institution of marriage itself, which is why you see in the Bible that there is polygamy in the Bible, but the first couple is one man and one woman.
00:50:11.000What was funny is when we went to visit my wife's parents, she said, don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should come up and visit my parents.
00:50:17.000And I was like, I'm going to take this exactly the way it is.
00:51:11.000She knew that as soon as she said, I love you, the reason she wasn't saying it is because she knew that as soon as she said, I love you, that was the next step.
00:52:42.000Eric says, Ben, if President Trump were a Democrat and with a progressive left agenda and ideals, do you think the media and celebrities would cover and react to him differently than they do today?
00:53:08.000You'd get nothing but plaudits from the media.
00:53:10.000They would love him, love him, love him to death.
00:53:11.000And if he fibs every so often, that's just because he talks the way regular people talk.
00:53:16.000Basically, the way that Bill Mitchell covers Donald Trump is the way the mainstream media would cover Donald Trump if Donald Trump were a Democrat.
00:53:24.000I read a story this week about a group called Freedom from Religion Foundation.
00:53:27.000They were angry that a large lit up cross was put on display by the city of Ozark, Missouri on public land.
00:53:32.000The group of triggered people threatened to sue the city on the basis of the establishment clause.
00:53:36.000What's the legality of local government setting up crosses or nativity scenes?
00:53:38.000My understanding is that the legality under current Supreme Court law is that you also have to provide ...space for other religions if they wish to make a holiday display, which is why you'll see sort of these holiday displays where there's a menorah, there's also a Christmas tree and nativity scene, and various other kind of religious accoutrements.
00:53:56.000It's not an establishment of religion to put up a Christmas tree.
00:53:58.000Nobody's being forced to abide by that.
00:54:00.000And if you're worried about taxpayer dollars being spent for that, then maybe you should just have private groups cover the fee, which is very often what happens in these cases.
00:54:10.000William says, if someone is non-negotiably against a certain issue, like abortion, how should they approach their spending habits when presented with buying items from businesses who support what they are against, like Starbucks contributing money to Planned Parenthood?
00:54:19.000What are your thoughts on personally boycotting the business?
00:54:22.000So, my general thought on boycotting business is if the business itself is engaged in the thing that you don't like, then it is fair to boycott the business.
00:54:30.000If a person who's associated with the company is engaged in that, not fair.
00:54:32.000So, boycotting Chick-fil-A because Dan Cathy is anti-same-sex marriage is stupid.
00:54:36.000Boycotting Starbucks if Starbucks, I don't know if this is true, if Starbucks is in a corporate way supporting Planned Parenthood, I think that's perfectly appropriate.
00:54:43.000Craig says, Hi Ben, do you think incivility in the House and Senate started with Newt Gingrich aided by Rush Limbaugh?
00:55:23.000What should be taught to everyone and it's equally applicable to children, I'd feel a little awkward writing a book about parenting considering that I have kids who are four and a half and two and a half, so I don't know how they're gonna turn out yet.
00:55:32.000And if they turn out to be serial killers, that book is not gonna be worthwhile.
00:55:36.000I don't think they will be, by the way.
00:55:38.000Aaron says, Ben, you've been very upfront about your objections to public sector unions.
00:55:41.000What are your thoughts on private sector unions that compete in the free market?
00:55:44.000So as I said yesterday or a couple of days ago on the conversation with Alicia Krauss, I'm fine with private sector unions so long as they're not kneecapping people.
00:55:53.000Ben says, given the increasing amount of social media deplatforming that has gone on as well as the recent issues with Patreon, it appears those on the left and right are increasingly finding themselves relegated to completely different forums for communicating their ideas.
00:56:04.000Which I fear will further polarize the American people.
00:56:06.000Is this trend of social media censorship sustainable or will it at some point collapse under its own weight?
00:56:11.000I mean, I think the Patreon is an obvious example of people pulling out and there will be new, more open fora that are created that have less of a heavy hand placed on them from above.
00:57:05.000You can also hate women and be not powerful.
00:57:06.000There are plenty of Poor people who don't have a lot of power in American society, who are plenty sexist.
00:57:12.000To understand poverty, you need to understand power dynamics.
00:57:14.000The assumption is that poverty is created by people on the top of the hierarchy who are forcibly attempting to cram down rules on people on the bottom of the hierarchy.
00:57:24.000In a free society, this is a bunch of nonsense.
00:57:28.000In a non-free society, like say a communist society, the people who are rich are the people with the power.
00:57:32.000But, in a free society, you can have people with power who are not rich, you can have people with riches who are not powerful, and the question is whether you can become one of these people.
00:57:41.000Can you, just a free citizen, become a rich and powerful person?
00:57:43.000If the answer is yes, then this is not about power dynamics, this is about personal choice.
00:57:48.000And they say, to understand power dynamics, you need to listen and believe the stories of the powerless.
00:57:51.000Well, no, because I don't believe that human beings are innately trustworthy.
00:57:55.000So I don't understand why I would believe the stories of the powerless any more than I believe the stories of the powerful.
00:58:00.000I'm only going to believe stories that have an evidentiary basis to them.
00:58:03.000So provide me evidence, I'll believe it.
00:58:04.000Don't provide me evidence, I won't believe it.
00:58:07.000And if we are adjudicating whether you are believable or not based on your level of victimhood, then this is you placing evidence outside the realm of reality and you instead It's basically religion at that point.
00:58:18.000Basically, at that point, you're just taking on faith somebody's story because you want to believe their story.
00:58:21.000Okay, time for some things I like and one thing that I hate.
01:01:09.000Hopefully that sort of math will continue to take place over the course of our near future.
01:01:13.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
01:01:19.000This is a dumb thing, but it's indicative of our dumb time.
01:01:25.000So this is a story from Huffington Post, a repository of dumb things.
01:01:29.000It comes from their entertainment section.
01:01:35.000Movie audiences in many parts of the world associate the Swahili phrase Hakuna Matata with Disney's 1994 animated classic The Lion King, but one activist is rallying to change that.
01:01:44.000Shelton Mapala, who is of Zimbabwean heritage and based in Toronto, launched an online petition earlier this month calling on Disney to give up its trademark for Hakuna Matata, calling it an assault on the Swahili people and Africa as a whole.
01:01:55.000Okay, if you think that it's an assault on Africa, To trademark a phrase, meaning no worries, sung by a cartoon meerkat and boar.
01:02:08.000I gotta say, you might want to shift your pri- Some bad stuff's happening in Africa right now, not involving cartoon meerkats and wild boars that fart on screen.
01:02:20.000You might want to actually, you know, like, re-prioritize your life just a little bit.
01:02:25.000So this guy wrote, Hakuna Matata has been used by most Kiswahili speaking countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
01:02:33.000Disney can't be allowed to trademark something that it didn't invent.
01:02:43.000Okay, but when we trademark myself, I didn't invent any of the words in my slogan.
01:02:48.000And in fact, my people, the Jews, they didn't speak English originally.
01:02:53.000So I am culturally appropriating the language of English with words I did not invent in an order that I may have created, but I'm sure has been used at some time by somebody else, sometime in the past, maybe.
01:03:11.000Public records show that Disney first applied for the still-active trademark in 1994, the same year that The Lion King debuted in theaters.
01:03:17.000That means the company can potentially sue if the words hakuna matata appear on unauthorized clothing and products, which they should, because the reason that most people are using that is not because they come from any of these countries, but because they have seen the movie The Lion King.
01:03:29.000And a Kenyan intellectual property and entertainment lawyer sided with Disney in a social media dispute.
01:03:34.000She said, Right, but law doesn't matter, and intellectual property law doesn't matter, and wisdom doesn't matter, and reason doesn't matter.
01:03:39.000on the internet has been blowing up because of a misconception and misunderstanding around intellectual property law.
01:03:43.000Right, but law doesn't matter and intellectual property law doesn't matter and wisdom doesn't matter and reason doesn't matter.
01:03:47.000All that matters is that someone somewhere is offended.
01:03:49.000Well, how about this, this Christmas season?
01:03:52.000Instead of being offended by anything or everything, instead of being offended when someone says Merry Christmas or Hakuna Matata, how about stop being a stick in the mud, you dopes?
01:03:59.000How about we all have a really nice Christmas vacation?
01:04:02.000How about we all come back refreshed in the new year, ready to do battle over the things that matter and have conversations and discussions about those things?
01:04:09.000How about we all come back in a better mood?
01:04:10.000Because I promise you, by the end of the first week of January, that mood will be gone and you'll be drinking heavily and you'll be looking at ways to escape the burdens of your everyday life, which is why we'll see you here then.