The Ben Shapiro Show - Why Democrats Pretend To Hate Billionaires

00:00:00.000 Alrighty, folks, it's time to say a bunch of stuff that's going to get me in trouble in the two online sphere right now.

00:00:07.000 People on the left who live in mansions, who hate capitalism, and also people on the woke right, the new left, who also live in mansions, who also hate capitalism, but like to pretend that they like capitalism.

00:00:18.000 They're going to be ticked.

00:00:18.000 So screw it.

00:00:19.000 Here we go.

00:00:20.000 Today, I'm going to defend private property and free markets and basic common sense because these are the things that allow you to succeed economically in life.

00:00:29.000 It is good.

00:00:30.000 To make more money by providing people better goods and services.

00:00:32.000 It is good to be fiscally responsible.

00:00:35.000 It is good to make smart decisions about your money.

00:00:37.000 And most Americans know all that stuff.

00:00:39.000 But a lot of Americans are being lied to these days. 0.80

00:00:42.000 They're being told a bunch of junk that makes their lives actively worse. 0.51

00:00:46.000 And increasingly, particularly if they are young and too online, Americans believe those things.

00:00:50.000 So get ready.

00:00:51.000 Today, I'm going to say a bunch of stuff that's going to piss off the left and the woke right as per our usual arrangement.

00:00:56.000 They're going to get pissed when I say you shouldn't spend too much money eating at a restaurant if you're unable to pay your rent.

00:01:02.000 They'll say that I'm saying that because I don't care about people.

00:01:04.000 You see, it's better to be poorer and also keep eating at Wolfgang Steakhouse.

00:01:08.000 And they will get pissed when I say that Amazon makes your life better and cheaper.

00:01:12.000 They'll say it's better to yell at Amazon and try to shut down their business and tax them more because Jeff Bezos is bald and rich and has a yacht or some such.

00:01:19.000 And they'll get pissed when I say that billionaires aren't inherently bad because they're billionaires, that actually immoral people are bad and that moral people are good and that your tax returns have nothing at all to do with any of that.

00:01:32.000 That billionaires are typically billionaires, not because they are stealing from the poor.

00:01:36.000 Spoiler alert.

00:01:36.000 The poor don't have much money.

00:01:38.000 That's why they're poor.

00:01:39.000 But actually they're billionaires because they make a lot of people's lives better.

00:01:42.000 Better products, better services for cheaper, which is good for you.

00:01:45.000 So get ready.

00:01:46.000 Here comes the blowback.

00:01:47.000 It comes every time I talk about this stuff.

00:01:49.000 Remember that time I said people who can't afford to live in New York City, young people, might think about moving if policies don't change because it's more productive to search outside of New York City and find some success than to sit there in your expensive apartment with your two roommates in Pizza Rat.

00:02:04.000 And people got super duper mad.

00:02:06.000 Remember that time I said that Social Security needs to kick in later in life, especially for people who are 40 and under today, because people are now living 20 years longer than Social Security kicks in, and that's really expensive and it's bankrupting the country.

00:02:19.000 And also, that when you hit retirement age, sure, you can retire, especially if you're working a backbreaking job, but also you should continue to do productive things in your community because it's good for you on both a mental and spiritual level.

00:02:30.000 And people also got super mad.

00:02:31.000 Well, here's the thing I don't really give a crap about how people feel about reality. 0.87

00:02:36.000 And here is the reality.

00:02:38.000 The only way your life gets more affordable is one, if you make more money, two, your expenses get lower, and three, generally, products and services get more plentiful and better and cheaper.

00:02:50.000 All three of those things rely on free markets and common sense.

00:02:54.000 Why am I talking about that stuff?

00:02:55.000 Well, because Jeff Bezos is making the rounds.

00:02:57.000 Now, listen, I disagree with a lot of stuff that Jeff Bezos believes and says, but he's getting ripped up today because he had the temerity to defend billionaires.

00:03:06.000 Well, he's right.

00:03:08.000 We'll get into all of it in just a moment.

00:03:09.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:03:19.000 So, when Americans don't feel good about the economy in general, they tend to think that things are unfair.

00:03:25.000 Unfair is just a substitute for, I don't feel good about things.

00:03:28.000 Because this is human nature.

00:03:30.000 It applies to our children.

00:03:31.000 It applies to us.

00:03:32.000 Whenever something happens that my kids don't like, it was unfair.

00:03:35.000 They deserved a thing and it didn't happen.

00:03:37.000 It's possible for two things, as always, to be true.

00:03:37.000 Okay.

00:03:40.000 The economy is not doing what it should be doing right now.

00:03:42.000 And there are problems in the economy regulatory problems, subsidy problems, market distortions, and all the rest.

00:03:48.000 But, generally speaking, the economic system in this country Is mostly fair.

00:03:54.000 It is fair because you have property rights in this country.

00:03:57.000 You have the equal rule of law in this country, as opposed to the vast majority of other countries around the earth and in all of human history.

00:04:05.000 Nonetheless, a new New York Times Santa Poll shows The economic system in this country is generally either unfair to most Americans or fair to most Americans.

00:04:13.000 Only 11% say fair to most Americans, 88% say unfair to most Americans.

00:04:20.000 And the political and economic system in America, here are the options, need to be torn down completely.

00:04:24.000 Need major changes, need minor changes, or need no changes.

00:04:28.000 20% say need to be torn down completely.

00:04:31.000 Another 63% say need major changes.

00:04:35.000 Now, what kind of major changes are we talking about here?

00:04:38.000 Are we talking about less government regulation?

00:04:39.000 I doubt it.

00:04:40.000 I really doubt it.

00:04:41.000 Because again, politicians love lying to you.

00:04:43.000 It is their favorite thing to do.

00:04:45.000 Because the way that you win votes is by appealing to the lizard part of the brain.

00:04:48.000 The part that says a bad thing happened.

00:04:50.000 It's unfair.

00:04:51.000 It's the systems.

00:04:52.000 As opposed to a bad thing happened, life is full of bad things.

00:04:55.000 What can we do to fix it?

00:04:56.000 And maybe the government is the chief obstacle to fixing it.

00:05:00.000 And this brings us to Jeff Bezos and the campaign against Bezos and billionaires more generally and all the rest.

00:05:05.000 So Bezos yesterday appeared on CNBC for a very long interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin.

00:05:09.000 He said a bunch of stuff in this interview.

00:05:11.000 One of the clips that is now making the round that people are upset about is that Bezos is now warm toward Trump 2.

00:05:18.000 And the reason why he is warmer toward Trump 2 than Trump 1 is because Trump 2 is very pro tech.

00:05:23.000 So here is Bezos talking with Andrew Ross Sorkin over at CNBC.

00:05:27.000 I think he has, I mean, I'm comparing him to his first term, and I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term.

00:05:37.000 And, you know, so he is, again, I've worked with all the presidents.

00:05:42.000 I will work with all the presidents, you know, and I hope to do that going forward if they'll have me.

00:05:48.000 But we need our business leaders to provide input into the administration, regardless of who the president is.

00:05:59.000 Okay, Bezos then went on to point out that a lot of politicians use an age old technique, which is pick a villain.

00:06:04.000 And the villain is typically people who earn.

00:06:09.000 I think what's going on is that it's kind of a tale of two economies.

00:06:14.000 So you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling.

00:06:21.000 Struggling with pay rent, some groceries.

00:06:24.000 And so what's happening here is.

00:06:29.000 Politicians are using the kind of age old technique.

00:06:33.000 So there's this tale of two economies, and they're using this age old technique of, you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers.

00:06:42.000 But the problem is that doesn't solve anything.

00:06:46.000 And so, like, if you want to help the group of people who are struggling, you have to figure out real root causes and solutions, and that takes skill.

00:06:58.000 Okay, obviously.

00:06:59.000 He is right about that.

00:07:00.000 Now, when he says that we are living in a tale of two economies, even there he is using left wing language that we're living in two economies.

00:07:06.000 The reality is, obviously, the economy is interconnected.

00:07:09.000 And it is also true that in the United States, until the war in Iran, wages were rising faster than costs in the United States.

00:07:16.000 That's a reality.

00:07:17.000 It is also true that Americans overall are richer than any human beings who have ever walked the earth in all of human history.

00:07:24.000 That is also the reality.

00:07:26.000 But he is right that if you are looking at the problem of poverty, for example, how do you solve poverty?

00:07:31.000 The answer for most politicians is yell at the rich people and pretend the rich people got rich by causing poverty, which is untrue.

00:07:36.000 Poverty is the natural state of all mankind.

00:07:39.000 For all of human history, everyone was poor.

00:07:41.000 The question is not why there are poor people and rich people, the question is why even the poor people in the United States are, by any historical marker, very, very rich.

00:07:50.000 That is the real question.

00:07:52.000 Okay, so of course, Bezos is getting ripped up.

00:07:55.000 The idea is that Bezos somehow doesn't pay taxes.

00:07:57.000 He pays a lot of money in taxes. 0.87

00:07:57.000 That, of course, is silly. 0.87

00:08:02.000 People sometimes say that, you know, I don't pay taxes.

00:08:07.000 That's true.

00:08:08.000 I pay billions of dollars in taxes.

00:08:10.000 And it's a permanent, again, if people want me to pay more billions, then let's have that debate.

00:08:15.000 But don't pretend, you know, that that's going to solve the problem.

00:08:20.000 You could double the taxes I pay.

00:08:23.000 And it's not going to help that teacher in Queens.

00:08:25.000 I promise you.

00:08:28.000 So you can't connect those two things.

00:08:30.000 Not logically.

00:08:31.000 You know, there are more examples.

00:08:34.000 Why is rent expensive?

00:08:36.000 Why is rent so expensive?

00:08:37.000 I recently saw somebody blame it on Airbnb.

00:08:40.000 Okay, Airbnb is not the cause of expensive rent.

00:08:44.000 In fact, it's been almost no, let me finish here.

00:08:45.000 One sec.

00:08:46.000 It's already been outlawed in New York City, and rents are still very high.

00:08:51.000 So we know Airbnb isn't causing high rents.

00:08:54.000 What's really causing high rent is government intervention.

00:08:59.000 Okay, that's the point.

00:09:00.000 That's the point government intervention is causing the unaffordability problem.

00:09:04.000 It is not free markets that cause things to be less affordable.

00:09:07.000 Free markets, things make that they make things.

00:09:09.000 All things that the free market engages in become cheaper and better over time because of competition.

00:09:15.000 That is a reality.

00:09:16.000 And companies that engage in those businesses end up contributing more to society than charity.

00:09:22.000 And one of the big lies that's told is that if Jeff Bezos gives a billion dollars to charity, that is somehow better than what Amazon does.

00:09:28.000 That is not true.

00:09:29.000 It is not true.

00:09:30.000 Amazon employs 1.5 million people.

00:09:33.000 Here's Bezos talking about the realities of business.

00:09:37.000 If I do my job right, the value to society and civilization from my for profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving.

00:09:59.000 Okay, again, he's right about that.

00:10:00.000 And Bezos points out very obviously the economy is also not a fixed pie.

00:10:04.000 The basic premise of all socialist economics is that the economy is a fixed pie.

00:10:09.000 You have basically a certain number of dollars that are made every year, and they need to be divided somehow, and the government should decide the fairest distribution of those dollars.

00:10:16.000 That is not true.

00:10:17.000 As he points out, when you have economic growth, when you have productivity increases, when you have innovation, the economy gets bigger over time.

00:10:27.000 There are a lot of people who don't understand this kind of zero sum fallacy.

00:10:34.000 So they think that if If there's a bunch of wealth over here, that there's a fixed pie.

00:10:40.000 You know, we've got one pizza and there are seven people and there are eight slices.

00:10:40.000 Right.

00:10:45.000 Who's going to get two slices?

00:10:47.000 That is not how economies work.

00:10:50.000 So it isn't a fixed pie, it grows.

00:10:55.000 And of course, he is right about that as well.

00:10:56.000 Again, basic economics.

00:10:57.000 This is just reality.

00:10:59.000 The fact that people rebel against reality doesn't mean they're being smart, it means they are being manipulative.

00:11:04.000 Are you coming up more of Jeff Bezos talking about AI?

00:11:07.000 And we'll get to the left wing attacks on success.

00:11:09.000 And that's what they are.

00:11:10.000 They are not attacks on useful things.

00:11:13.000 Their attacks on actual success first.

00:11:15.000 One of the stranger financial habits people have is spending hours comparison shopping for a plane ticket that might save them $12, but then continue paying $80 to $90 a month for wireless service without any question.

00:11:24.000 At a certain point, you have to ask, why?

00:11:26.000 Especially now that companies like PureTalk exist.

00:11:29.000 PureTalk, which is veteran led, backed by 100% US based customer service, now offers unlimited high speed data for just $34.99 a month.

00:11:36.000 That's a pretty major shift because unlimited high speed data at PureTalk used to start around $55 a month, but PureTalk has continued pushing to offer more value at lower prices.

00:11:44.000 So, if you looked at PureTalk before and you didn't switch, it's probably worth taking another look right now.

00:11:49.000 One thing people always ask is whether the service actually holds up compared to those massively overpriced major carriers.

00:11:54.000 The answer is try it yourself.

00:11:56.000 PureTalk lets you test the service for 30 days with no contract and no cancellation fees.

00:12:00.000 There's really very little downside to seeing whether it works out for you.

00:12:04.000 And a lot of customer service now is not based in the United States and stinks.

00:12:06.000 That's not true for PureTalk.

00:12:08.000 The switch itself can happen in as little as 10 minutes.

00:12:10.000 And again, PureTalk's US based customer service team is standing by.

00:12:13.000 Go to puretalk.comslash Shapiro.

00:12:15.000 Claim unlimited high speed data for just $34.99.

00:12:17.000 Again, that's puretalk.comslash Shapiro to switch to my wireless company, America's wireless company, PureTalk.

00:12:25.000 Now, Bass has also talked about AI and how people keep saying AI is going to destroy jobs.

00:12:29.000 And he says, like, stop that.

00:12:30.000 It's not going to destroy jobs.

00:12:32.000 It is going to be like any other technology.

00:12:33.000 There will be dislocations.

00:12:35.000 People will find new jobs.

00:12:36.000 And it will make the job that you are doing different.

00:12:38.000 That's right.

00:12:39.000 But the idea that AI overall is going to destroy every job, and if so, it would be different than literally every other technological innovation in all of human history.

00:12:49.000 Every time you mentioned AI, they were booing because I think they're deeply fearful and worried about whether they're going to have a job.

00:12:57.000 Yeah, well, and the reason they're afraid of that is because all these smart people keep saying that.

00:13:02.000 So there are so many smart people, and they are smart.

00:13:06.000 And they are saying, oh my God, you know, there are going to be no more radiologists because, you know, AI can read x-rays better than a radiologist can.

00:13:15.000 And there are going to be no more software engineers because AI can program better than a software engineer can.

00:13:20.000 These people are wrong.

00:13:22.000 So, what's really going to happen is that it's going to elevate all of these people.

00:13:26.000 Okay, so again, he is not wrong about that either.

00:13:31.000 And he points out that even if there is an AI bubble in terms of investment, that's normal.

00:13:34.000 When there's a new tech, a lot of people pour into the area of the tech.

00:13:39.000 And then the worst companies get cleaned out.

00:13:40.000 This happened with cars, it happened with computers, it happens with pretty much everything.

00:13:47.000 We're in a phase where every experiment is getting funded.

00:13:52.000 So what that means is the good ideas are getting funded and the bad ideas are getting funded.

00:13:58.000 And it's because investors at this moment haven't learned yet how to discriminate between good ideas and bad ideas.

00:14:07.000 And that's okay.

00:14:09.000 Because the good ideas will pay for all of the losers.

00:14:14.000 So from a point of view of civilization, of society, these kind of industrial cycles can actually be very healthy.

00:14:23.000 Because they drive the technology forward.

00:14:26.000 And so we shouldn't worry about being in a bubble.

00:14:28.000 No, even if it does turn out to be a bubble, you shouldn't worry about it because the bubble is driving investment, and a lot of the investment is going to turn out to be very healthy.

00:14:41.000 Okay, so everything that he is saying here is right.

00:14:44.000 Just on a classical economics level, it happens to be right.

00:14:46.000 But saying right things comes with severe consequences these days.

00:14:50.000 Zorhan Mamdani, who of course doesn't know his ass from his elbow on economics, He calls himself a democratic socialist, which means he's never produced a useful thing in his entire life and somehow became mayor of New York, apparently because New Yorkers have suicidal tendencies when it comes to their economic program.

00:15:06.000 When he said, when Baso said, You could double the taxes I pay, it's not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you. 0.93

00:15:12.000 Mamdani said, I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ.

00:15:15.000 On what basis would they differ?

00:15:16.000 Seriously, on what basis would they differ?

00:15:19.000 They would have to explain why taxing Bezos, who takes that money and he puts it in the bank or he invests it, and then the bank now has more money to lend out at interest, which lowers the interest rates, which makes for more liquidity.

00:15:33.000 And if he spends it, other people are getting jobs from his spending.

00:15:36.000 And if he invests it, other people are getting jobs from the companies in which he is investing.

00:15:39.000 They're going to have to explain why that is.

00:15:43.000 Again, Arthur Laffer, the famous economist, he points out that if it were really true that government redistributionism created jobs, then why is it that when the government confiscation rates of wealth are 100%, there are no jobs?

00:15:55.000 And the answer is because if you kill innovation and you kill investment, you kill the jobs.

00:16:00.000 But it's a very easy pitch for Zoram Amdani to sit there being a completely useless leech on society and talking about how he's some sort of great hero.

00:16:08.000 By the way, he thinks of himself as truly a great hero.

00:16:11.000 He literally put out a picture of himself on Twitter.

00:16:15.000 Behind a bunch of microphones, next to a picture of FDR behind a bunch of microphones.

00:16:21.000 Because he's going to do a Twitch podcast called Talk with the People.

00:16:21.000 Why?

00:16:26.000 The series will be available pretty much everywhere. 0.99

00:16:28.000 Again, he's going to stream like Hassan Piker or something, because this is what we now expect from our dumbass politicians. 0.98

00:16:36.000 Not fireside chats with FDR, dumbass streaming with Zorhan Mamdani. 0.97

00:16:42.000 Well, we all look forward to his transformative take on economics. 0.99

00:16:46.000 But again, what we have right now is not a rebellion truly against the Malefactors of great wealth, as FDR would have put it. 0.98

00:16:52.000 What we have right now is a rebellion against reality. 0.96

00:16:56.000 We have a rebellion against basic economics, and it's going to make everybody poorer and dumber. 0.58

00:17:00.000 Another symptom of this, Kevin O'Leary, again, is an investor who you know from Shark Tank.

00:17:05.000 Well, he was doing an interview, and he made the critical mistake of saying that if you earn $70,000 a year, you should not be having lunch for 28 bucks a day.

00:17:15.000 He said this on Diary of a CEO, Stephen Bartlett.

00:17:20.000 I can't stand it when I see kids that are making 70 grand a year spending $28 for lunch. 1.00

00:17:27.000 I mean, that's just stupid. 0.97

00:17:29.000 It's just, think about that in the context of that being put into an index and making 8 to 10% a year for the next 50 years. 0.99

00:17:38.000 Now, he's getting ripped up on this.

00:17:40.000 Ripped up on this.

00:17:41.000 How could Kevin O'Leary say this?

00:17:42.000 We need our $28 lunches.

00:17:44.000 Okay, so you can do it.

00:17:45.000 It's a free country.

00:17:47.000 But he's giving basic financial advice.

00:17:48.000 And we now live in the world where if you give basic financial advice, like if you can't afford to live in New York City, Perhaps you should take a job elsewhere that allows you to have an upward mobility, allows you an upward economic trajectory.

00:18:00.000 I'm still getting ripped up by that, by the online folks, particularly on the woke right.

00:18:04.000 Well, O'Leary said this, and suddenly he was the bad guy.

00:18:07.000 Can I just point out that let's say you live in New York City, and let's say you make like 70 grand a year?

00:18:11.000 The chances are that you are paying about 20 grand of that in taxes to the federal, state, and local governments.

00:18:17.000 So you have maybe 50 grand left over.

00:18:19.000 If you spend $28 a day on lunch, you will be paying over 10 grand a year just for lunch.

00:18:27.000 That's the point that O'Leary is making.

00:18:28.000 But again, if you say things that are in line with basic, people don't like reality and they get mad at reality, especially if there are a group of people telling them they don't need to live in the world of reality.

00:18:38.000 One of those people is Fran Leibowitz.

00:18:40.000 I have no clue why she thinks she knows anything about economics, but she is comparing all of these billionaires to the robber barons of old.

00:18:49.000 Now, first of all, the idea that the robber barons of old did not provide extraordinary wealth to the country, that in and of itself is a lie.

00:18:55.000 That was a propagandistic talking point in the late 19th century, early 20th century, which is that.

00:19:01.000 Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were robber barons.

00:19:05.000 It's the same.

00:19:05.000 Nothing changes over human history, really, at root.

00:19:09.000 And there's tremendous anger at the titans of industry who actually created modern America.

00:19:13.000 But she says at least those people were great, as though she would have liked John J. Rockefeller or something.

00:19:19.000 But the people in modern finance don't employ people.

00:19:22.000 They do.

00:19:23.000 Here is Fran Leibowitz.

00:19:26.000 Every time someone suggests this, they say, I'm moving, go.

00:19:29.000 You know, they add nothing to New York.

00:19:31.000 You know, in the olden days, in the 19th century, those robber barons, they employed people at least.

00:19:37.000 Okay?

00:19:38.000 They employed thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.

00:19:42.000 All this money magic employs no one.

00:19:45.000 It is a no product.

00:19:46.000 It has no goodbye.

00:19:47.000 Go.

00:19:48.000 We're moving to Florida.

00:19:49.000 You know, we don't need you.

00:19:49.000 Go.

00:19:52.000 God, she's an idiot. 1.00

00:19:53.000 She's an author. 1.00

00:19:54.000 She's a moron. 1.00

00:19:56.000 First of all, who do you think provides all the investment capital that gets companies started? 1.00

00:20:00.000 Who do you think actually is investing in all of these startups that generate the employment?

00:20:07.000 Is Jeff Bezos the bad guy?

00:20:08.000 Amazon directly employs 1.6 million people globally.

00:20:11.000 People who are using Amazon as a way of selling products, that's another 2 million jobs.

00:20:16.000 Elon Musk, the big baddie here, his global workforce is 150,000 people.

00:20:21.000 Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, his Meta, has 70,000 employees. 1.00

00:20:26.000 The notion that you kill private property and modern finance and somehow the economy gets better is absolute stupidity. 0.94

00:20:32.000 But it is part and parcel of a lie that is being sold to you that if only you hand more power to centralized government, if you hand more power to Bernie Sanders or you hand more power to Tucker Carlson or if you hand more power to people who want control over the economy, they'll bring you back to some placid agrarian past. 0.96

00:20:49.000 In which you can fish in the evening times and write poetry in the morning. 0.97

00:20:53.000 It's just trash. 1.00

00:20:54.000 It's stupid. 1.00

00:20:55.000 All right, coming up, Bernie Sanders rips into Jeff Bezos and also self driving cars, plus the United States targeting Raul Castro and much more first. 1.00

00:21:04.000 Now, time really starts to move quickly when you become a parent.

00:21:06.000 Like it moves really, really fast.

00:21:08.000 My three year old just became three.

00:21:10.000 I mean, it feels like just yesterday he was born.

00:21:12.000 We have another one coming.

00:21:13.000 And as time moves faster, you start thinking about darker things like mortality.

00:21:17.000 But this is why financial planning actually matters.

00:21:19.000 Not because Anybody enjoys thinking about insurance, but because once you have people who depend on you, creating a real safety net becomes part of the job.

00:21:25.000 This is why platforms like Policy Genius exist.

00:21:28.000 Policy Genius is an online insurance marketplace that helps people compare life insurance quotes from top insurers side by side in one place.

00:21:34.000 What makes it useful is that it simplifies a process most people assume will be confusing and time consuming.

00:21:39.000 Their licensed team helps people compare policies clearly, understand coverage amounts and pricing, handle paperwork, and find coverage that actually fits their family's needs and long term goals.

00:21:48.000 And honestly, clarity matters with financial planning.

00:21:50.000 Most people are not looking to become insurance experts.

00:21:53.000 They just want confidence their family would be protected if something unexpected happened.

00:21:57.000 Policy Genius also has thousands of five star reviews from people who found policies that worked for them without turning the process into a second full time job.

00:22:04.000 Because as life grows, responsibilities grow with it.

00:22:06.000 Protect your family with a policy that grows with your life.

00:22:09.000 With Policy Genius, you can see if you can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for a million dollars in coverage.

00:22:16.000 Head on over to policygenius.comslash Shapiro to compare life insurance quotes from top companies.

00:22:21.000 See how much you could save.

00:22:21.000 This is policygenius.comslash Shapiro.

00:22:24.000 Also, Online shopping has created one of the weirdest modern rituals.

00:22:28.000 You find the exact thing you were looking for, you add it to your cart, get all the way to the checkout, and then suddenly you're being asked to remember a password that you made up in 2017.

00:22:36.000 And at that point, a bunch of people just give up, which is why that little purple shop pay button feels like a relief when it appears.

00:22:41.000 One tap, no hunting for your wallet, no resetting passwords, no trying to remember which email address you used for a random website three years ago.

00:22:48.000 Everything is just there, and checkout takes about five seconds.

00:22:50.000 Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world, and something like 10% of all e-commerce in the United States From huge household name brands to people just starting small businesses out of their garage.

00:23:00.000 And what makes Shopify powerful for business owners is that it simplifies all the complicated parts inventory, payments, analytics, marketing, shipping, returns.

00:23:07.000 It all lives in one place instead of requiring six different platforms stitched together with duct tape.

00:23:12.000 Shopify also includes AI tools that help businesses write product descriptions, improve product photography, and build out online stores more efficiently.

00:23:19.000 Plus, they help businesses reach customers through easy to run email and social campaigns.

00:23:23.000 If you get stuck, Shopify offers 24 7 customer support.

00:23:26.000 It matters a lot when your business depends on your website actually functioning.

00:23:29.000 See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop Pay button.

00:23:35.000 Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comslash Shapiro.

00:23:38.000 Go to shopify.comslash Shapiro again, shopify.comslash Shapiro.

00:23:43.000 So Bernie Sanders, of course, has been attacking Jeff Bezos for years and years and years.

00:23:47.000 Here he was on May 1st, ripping into Jeff Bezos for using robots because you see, robots are inherently bad.

00:23:53.000 I don't understand what robots are.

00:23:54.000 Are they alive?

00:23:55.000 What do they do?

00:23:56.000 Why are the robots moving and doing things?

00:23:58.000 Where I come from, we used to use marionettes.

00:24:00.000 I don't know why the robots are moving all by themselves.

00:24:03.000 What's happening?

00:24:07.000 Mr. Bezos himself just recently is now working on creating a $100 billion fund to, quote unquote, automate factories in America and abroad.

00:24:20.000 Do you all know what automating factories means? 1.00

00:24:25.000 It means ending working class people making a living in manufacturing. 0.99

00:24:34.000 That's over if Bezos gets his way. 0.97

00:24:36.000 So, this is a revolution coming, which happens to be the most consequential transformation of society in world history.

00:24:44.000 We are not prepared for it.

00:24:48.000 We're looking at a moment where there are driverless vehicles all over the country.

00:24:54.000 And if we don't figure this one out, we're going to lose millions of decent paying jobs in transportation. 0.95

00:25:02.000 Okay, again, the Luddite anti tech nonsense that he is spouting, the idea that all the jobs go away, this is the same crap that was being promoted.

00:25:09.000 By literal Luddites back in the 19th century, people who wrecked machines because they were afraid the Industrial Revolution would impoverish the workers and destroy jobs.

00:25:16.000 It turns out it did precisely the opposite.

00:25:19.000 If Bernie Sanders had been an adult, he was around when we made the transition from the horse to the horseless carriage, but if he had been an adult then, he would have been railing on behalf of the wheelwrights.

00:25:30.000 This is nonsense. 0.80

00:25:31.000 It is nonsense.

00:25:32.000 And this idea that we all, as consumers, are supposed to pay more money to subsidize industries that are being technologically advanced.

00:25:40.000 Or, by the way, that tens of thousands of Americans should die every year in car crashes, which could be prevented by automated vehicles.

00:25:47.000 I know there's this big push against automated vehicles right now.

00:25:49.000 Again, it's the left, it's also the woke right.

00:25:52.000 It's an absurdity.

00:25:54.000 Automated vehicles will make sure your parents don't die in a car crash or you.

00:25:58.000 That is what they're going to do.

00:25:59.000 They're going to save time and they're going to save money, and that will be a good thing.

00:26:04.000 Think about the tech that you use in your life.

00:26:07.000 Think about the tech that you use every single day.

00:26:10.000 Was using your parents' life better off when they couldn't use a computer to do research?

00:26:14.000 When they didn't have connections to the internet.

00:26:16.000 And what you actually had to do was go down to like a filing cabinet in the New York City Public Library to look up a basic fact and take five hours from your day to do it. 0.80

00:26:26.000 It's all ridiculous.

00:26:27.000 But again, this is the push. 0.89

00:26:28.000 The push is that markets are bad, innovation is bad, tech is bad.

00:26:32.000 And certainly the easiest way to attack innovation and tech, because most people think they're good, the best way to attack that is to attack the people who get rich off of doing those things.

00:26:40.000 So Bernie, here he was in March, attacking the billionaires who he says are pushing AI to become richer and more powerful.

00:26:48.000 A technology which, in many respects, will be able to do anything that a human being can do and do it better.

00:26:55.000 And what people have got to ask themselves is who is pushing this revolution?

00:27:01.000 And the answer is, not surprisingly, the wealthiest people in the world Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Zuckerberg.

00:27:08.000 Why are they doing it?

00:27:09.000 Do you think they're doing it to improve life for working people?

00:27:12.000 I don't think so.

00:27:13.000 They're doing it to become even richer and more powerful.

00:27:17.000 It's always hilarious to me how it's as though two people like Bernie Sanders, people who are rich and powerful, they develop products and services that have no consumers.

00:27:26.000 It must be forcing it on the American people, like by force.

00:27:29.000 Now, what's always astonishing to me from people like Bernie or people like Azar Mamdani, the only one with the gun is the government.

00:27:36.000 That's the only party in this entire transaction that has the gun.

00:27:40.000 The only people who can force a policy on you using actual force, that would be the government.

00:27:46.000 It is Bernie who holds the gun, not Jeff Bezos, not Elon Musk.

00:27:50.000 You want to know who's driving the AI transition?

00:27:53.000 People who want to use AI, business people who want to make their businesses more productive.

00:27:58.000 And consumers who want their products to be more affordable.

00:28:01.000 All the same kids going to Bernie rallies are using ChatGPT to write their essays.

00:28:06.000 That's the reality.

00:28:07.000 Now, we can ask questions about how AI is deployed.

00:28:10.000 What are the best uses of AI?

00:28:11.000 It's a brand new tech.

00:28:12.000 We should ask those questions. 1.00

00:28:13.000 But this notion that unheeded capitalism, that it's just the evil billionaires who are somehow foisting through free market choice, through you making choices, products on you, is stupid. 0.99

00:28:24.000 It's also catastrophism of the highest order. 0.99

00:28:26.000 And as I say, it embraces the anti capitalist left and the anti capitalist right. 0.99

00:28:31.000 There's a right that also longs for an agrarian past.

00:28:35.000 Senator Josh Halley of Missouri, he tends to dip into these waters from time to time.

00:28:40.000 He's now claiming that 30 to 40% of college graduates may be unemployed because of AI.

00:28:47.000 College graduates have been booing AI at their ceremonies this week, whether it's reading it out or they're just booing every mention of AI.

00:28:54.000 What do you make of that?

00:28:56.000 Well, I make of it the fact that a lot of these college graduates don't have jobs.

00:28:59.000 You know, I was talking to a group of college graduates recently, college seniors actually.

00:29:03.000 And they were giving me very similar sentiments about AI.

00:29:06.000 They were saying that they can't find jobs, that, you know, like 30, 40% of them are unemployed.

00:29:12.000 And they blame AI for this.

00:29:14.000 And, you know, I mean, they may well be right.

00:29:16.000 We've got to make some choices about AI to make sure it actually is good for the American workforce.

00:29:20.000 And I think a lot of these college grads don't think it will be.

00:29:24.000 Who is the we?

00:29:25.000 Who is the we?

00:29:26.000 The politicians? 0.95

00:29:27.000 The government is supposed to make choices about what's good for the economy and the workforce.

00:29:31.000 Typically, that doesn't end particularly well.

00:29:33.000 By the way, the actual unemployment rate for recent college graduates, people aged 22 to 27, approximately 5.6%, according to Washington Post analysis of New York Federal Reserve data.

00:29:43.000 Now, again, none of this means that there are no problems in the economy.

00:29:46.000 It does mean that when you attack the very mechanisms for creating wealth, when you attack the tech industry, which is the future of America's economy, when you attack innovation and productivity, and when you attack the people who earn from those things, you are destroying the very fundamental basis for economic growth as a country and the pathway to prosperity for individuals in the United States. 0.99

00:30:07.000 There is a reason why a lot of the sentiment is being fostered by Russians and Chinese and Iranians. 0.86

00:30:13.000 They would love nothing better than to watch America cut our own Achilles tendon, economically speaking. 0.99

00:30:18.000 They would love it, love it. 1.00

00:30:21.000 Now, there's one thing that many of the billionaires are doing that is truly stupid, and that is I've seen them play this game before. 0.99

00:30:26.000 They basically try to surrender by parts. 1.00

00:30:29.000 This is really dumb. 0.95

00:30:30.000 So there is a group chat that I am in that has a bunch of billionaires in it, like a bunch of tech people, people who invest in innovation and tech. 0.99

00:30:39.000 I remember a few months back, they were having a conversation, probably a year and a half back, they're having a conversation about tax rates.

00:30:45.000 And they're all having conversations about what tax rates could we pay that would get people to stop criticizing us?

00:30:50.000 And the answer is 100%.

00:30:51.000 That is the tax rate you could pay that would get people to stop criticizing you.

00:30:54.000 That's the reality.

00:30:55.000 But let's just be clear.

00:30:56.000 Surrendering to people who hate free markets and who hate capitalism is not going to save you.

00:31:02.000 It is not going to save you.

00:31:04.000 Again, there's this tendency to try to feed the anti-free market alligator and hope that it eats you last. 0.97

00:31:10.000 So in that interview that Bezos did with Andrew Ross Sorkin over at CNBC, he had to go out and pretend that bad economic policy is sometimes good economic policy because maybe that will buy him some love, which is dumb. 0.89

00:31:21.000 It's not going to buy off anybody.

00:31:23.000 And there's a reason for that.

00:31:25.000 First, bad policy is bad policy.

00:31:28.000 And if the bad policy you recommend doesn't work, people will be mad at you for recommending a bad policy.

00:31:33.000 It's not going to alleviate people's problems, generally speaking.

00:31:36.000 So, to take an example, Bezos put out a statement.

00:31:40.000 He said, Yes, the United States has the most progressive tax system in the world.

00:31:43.000 The top 1% pay 40% of taxes, the bottom 50% pay 3% of taxes.

00:31:47.000 We can make it even more progressive by zeroing out taxes on the bottom half.

00:31:51.000 It's a small amount of the total tax revenue, but very meaningful to people in this group.

00:31:55.000 Well, I mean, we could lower taxes for everyone, and that would actually increase economic growth.

00:32:00.000 But let us be very clear doing the thing that he is talking about, I have no problem with nobody paying income tax.

00:32:05.000 I think there are other ways to tax people.

00:32:06.000 But if he thinks that that is going to buy him the love of people in the bottom 50%, he's totally wrong.

00:32:12.000 First of all, people don't like it when people like Jeff Bezos appear to be giving them charity.

00:32:17.000 They don't like it.

00:32:18.000 It makes them feel bad about themselves.

00:32:20.000 That's number one.

00:32:20.000 Number two, when you are Jeff Bezos and you recommend lowering taxes for people in the bottom 50%, People who are, shall we say, vulnerable to the class warfare tactics that are pushed by the Zoram Amdanis and the Bernie Sanders, they say that's just you paying us off.

00:32:38.000 What we really want is your money.

00:32:40.000 It's about the punishment. 0.81

00:32:42.000 And bad policy sets up bad incentive structures that actually make political problems worse.

00:32:46.000 See, here is again the thing.

00:32:48.000 Right now, in terms of the tax burden in the United States, the bottom 50% cover virtually none of the tax burden in the United States.

00:32:55.000 That is just the statistical reality.

00:32:58.000 And if you have a political problem in which People are voting in order to take money from other people.

00:33:06.000 That first group of people who are voting to take money from you, legitimizing that point of view that they are somehow being screwed by the system does not alleviate the problem.

00:33:13.000 It exacerbates the problem. 0.99

00:33:14.000 Admitting stuff, admitting guilt for stuff that you are not guilty for is both immoral and stupid, and it makes people resentful. 0.97

00:33:22.000 So, for example, Bezos came out and he came out in favor of the New York City pet a tear tax, which is the tax on the second home that people are not. 1.00

00:33:31.000 Inhabiting full time, which again is truly stupid. 0.97

00:33:34.000 And one of the reasons it's truly stupid is because the expenses for the city on a second home are lower than they are if you actually live in the home. 1.00

00:33:43.000 But again, he says this. 0.98

00:33:44.000 He says, Yeah, the pied de terre tax is fine.

00:33:46.000 He thinks that's going to buy him love.

00:33:47.000 He is wrong.

00:33:48.000 It is not going to buy him love in any way, shape, or form because the pied de terre tax is morally wrong.

00:33:53.000 Okay, just because you own two houses does not mean your second house should be taxed more than if you own one house.

00:33:58.000 There's nothing morally wrong with owning a second house in New York City.

00:34:01.000 In fact, It drives the profit margins for the developers that allow them to build less expensive housing in New York City.

00:34:10.000 But here is Bezos again, trying to stop trying to cater to people who hate you.

00:34:14.000 It's a bad move.

00:34:16.000 On the one hand, it's perfectly fine to have a policy debate about whether you want to have a pierre de terre tax.

00:34:24.000 The second piece, which is not so good, is to go stand in front of Ken Griffin's house and act like he's some kind of villain.

00:34:32.000 Ken Griffin isn't a villain.

00:34:33.000 He hasn't hurt anybody.

00:34:34.000 He's not hurting New York.

00:34:35.000 In fact, quite the opposite.

00:34:37.000 And so that piece of it isn't right, and there was no reason to do that.

00:34:41.000 A peer-to-peer tax is a, you know, there's a very, taxes on out-of-towners are very popular taxes.

00:34:50.000 That's why there are hotel taxes.

00:34:52.000 And, you know, hotels always have very high tax rates because why not tax the tourists?

00:34:57.000 And there are limits.

00:34:58.000 If you raise the hotel taxes too much, tourists stop coming.

00:35:01.000 Right.

00:35:02.000 So you have to be judicious.

00:35:04.000 But I think that the Pierre Terre tax is a fine thing for New York to do.

00:35:09.000 And, you know, they have to figure out how.

00:35:11.000 But it's a policy debate.

00:35:14.000 Okay.

00:35:15.000 But it isn't a policy debate.

00:35:16.000 Understanding that for the left, it is never a policy debate, it is never about bringing in.

00:35:20.000 The most revenue to the government.

00:35:21.000 It is always about, forever and always, demonizing the people who earn.

00:35:25.000 That is what the whole game is.

00:35:28.000 So you can try to disconnect those two things.

00:35:30.000 You can try to say, well, the Pieta Terra tax is just a question of what's best policy, and you might drive people out, you might be able to get more tax revenue.

00:35:38.000 That's not what it's about.

00:35:39.000 They're indistinguishable.

00:35:40.000 The point of Zorhan Mamdani's Pieta Terra tax is not to raise revenue, the point is to stand outside Ken Griffin's house and yell at him.

00:35:46.000 That is the exact point.

00:35:47.000 Bezos should know this better than anybody.

00:35:49.000 He gave 10 million bucks to the Met Gala, and he got dragged for it.

00:35:52.000 That was a charitable donation, and he got dragged. 1.00

00:35:56.000 Trying to feed the alligator in the hope that it eats you last is stupid policy. 1.00

00:36:00.000 It is bad policy, and people should not do it. 1.00

00:36:02.000 They should not.

00:36:03.000 Free markets work, innovations work.

00:36:06.000 People making smart economic decisions with their own money, that works.

00:36:09.000 And people who are preaching you the opposite, they're selling you short.

00:36:13.000 They are making your life actively worse.

00:36:15.000 And by the way, all of the talk about how in the United States, people at the top end are undertaxed, let us be very, very clear.

00:36:23.000 People in Europe are overtaxed at the bottom rates.

00:36:27.000 That's the reality.

00:36:28.000 If the idea is the billionaires are not sufficiently burdened in the United States, and if we want a Denmark style social welfare system, we need to tax like Denmark.

00:36:39.000 I'm just going to point out to you how taxation actually works in the United States versus in Denmark.

00:36:45.000 In the United States, if you are in the bottom quintile of income earners, you are receiving almost $70 from the federal government in benefits for every dollar paid in federal income tax.

00:36:57.000 You're getting a lot more back from the government than you paid in.

00:36:59.000 If you're in the second lowest quintile, meaning You earn somewhere between probably $30,000 and $50,000.

00:37:08.000 It's $6 for every dollar paid in.

00:37:09.000 For people in the middle quintile, it's $2.35.

00:37:12.000 And for people in the top 1%, people like Bezos, for every dollar they pay in in taxes, they get $0.04 in benefits.

00:37:19.000 So pretty much all net taxes in the United States are paid for by the rich.

00:37:22.000 Do you want a European style democratic socialist state? 0.96

00:37:25.000 Again, what you keep hearing from Bernie and from Zoran and from all of these morons is that if you just tax Bezos more magically, European welfare benefits will appear wrong. 0.89

00:37:38.000 You want European socialist benefits? 0.98

00:37:41.000 You have to pay European socialist taxes.

00:37:43.000 Norway's top personal income tax rate of about 40% applies to all income over 1.8 times the average Norwegian income.

00:37:52.000 Sweden's top personal tax rate of 52.4% applies to all income over 1.1 times the average national income.

00:38:00.000 In the United States, that top tax rate kicks in at nine times the average national income.

00:38:06.000 So, what does that mean?

00:38:07.000 Well, if the average annual income in the United States is about $90,000, something like that at this point, $85, $90,000 per household, that means that if you were living in Sweden, you'd be paying 50% of that to the government.

00:38:18.000 That is not the rate you're paying.

00:38:20.000 If you were in Denmark, you would be kicking in the highest tax rate at $125,000 per year per family.

00:38:28.000 Even if you're in the lowest tax bracket in Denmark, by the way, you're not paying 3%, you're paying one third of your money to taxes.

00:38:36.000 So, economic lies, they do not become us.

00:38:40.000 We should not fall for this nonsense.

00:38:42.000 And if you do fall for this nonsense, you are going to make things worse.

00:38:45.000 So, where does this end up?

00:38:47.000 Well, first of all, we need to stop vilifying success.

00:38:48.000 Let's be clear.

00:38:49.000 Zoram Amtani does not want a better life for the poor.

00:38:51.000 He wants a worse life for the rich.

00:38:53.000 That's what he wants.

00:38:54.000 It is the thing he is begging for.

00:38:56.000 It is the thing he wants more than anything.

00:38:57.000 Bernie is not concerned about people who are impoverished.

00:39:00.000 Bernie is concerned about rich people he wants to tear to the ground while living in his vacation home.

00:39:06.000 Hassan Piker is not interested in what happens to poor people.

00:39:08.000 He's fine with them frying out in Cuba while he's in the air conditioning inside.

00:39:13.000 Hassan Piker is happy to shop at Cartier while living in a mansion and bitching about the American economic system.

00:39:19.000 Stop vilifying the people who make money in this country.

00:39:24.000 Again, there's a whole effort happening right now, mostly on the left, but also on the right, to vilify success.

00:39:32.000 And again, it is not about fairness.

00:39:34.000 It's not about fairness.

00:39:35.000 I understand that poll data saying people think that things are not fair, but understand the attacks on Bezos and Zuckerberg and Musk, it's not about fairness.

00:39:43.000 You don't have to like those guys.

00:39:44.000 You don't have to like how they use their wealth.

00:39:46.000 You can think they're being conspicuous in their consumption.

00:39:49.000 But let's be clear about this.

00:39:49.000 That's all fine.

00:39:52.000 The attacks on them right now, not about fairness, and it's not about decency, and it's certainly not about regular people living better lives.

00:39:57.000 It's about politicians who think that if they brown nose you by telling you the system is unfair and that it's fine and actually morally good to rob the rich guys, they will win your vote.

00:40:08.000 And that is a sexy pitch.

00:40:09.000 It's always been a sexy pitch.

00:40:10.000 That actually you're justified in robbing people who have more than you.

00:40:14.000 It turns out that violation of the 10th commandment is a very popular political agenda, that envy is a popular political agenda.

00:40:21.000 If you tell people that the guy next door is rich because he's bad and he stole it, you're going to be more popular than if you say that the guy next door is rich.

00:40:29.000 Because he provided a good and service at a price that people wanted to pay.

00:40:33.000 So, who's making the case for envy?

00:40:35.000 Democrats, pretty much all of them.

00:40:37.000 Our enemies abroad, who again would love nothing better than to cede class conflict in the United States in order to get us to destroy our economically dominant position.

00:40:45.000 And increasingly, some members of the public, people who are being lied to and being told stuff that makes you feel good but makes your life actively worse.

00:40:52.000 You want a better life?

00:40:54.000 Then try to imitate the things that the billionaires did to become billionaires.

00:40:57.000 That's how you get a better life, economically speaking.

00:41:00.000 You should make money the way most billionaires do.

00:41:01.000 And again, I know a lot of billionaires, and I have lived in the United States as a person who was like middle, middle class as a child, maybe borderline lower to middle, middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and rich.

00:41:12.000 I've paid an enormous amount of money to the government at various tax brackets.

00:41:17.000 The reality is the vast majority of true wealth in the United States is created, not inherited.

00:41:23.000 Most billionaires in the United States started a business, and that business meant that they made better products, they outcompeted their competitors, they innovated something new.

00:41:32.000 Now, again, this is not making the case that all rich people are good and honest people who want to babysit their kids.

00:41:38.000 All rich people are not that.

00:41:39.000 In fact, all anything people are not good and honest.

00:41:42.000 There's literally no category of humans entirely good and honest.

00:41:45.000 It doesn't work that way. 1.00

00:41:47.000 Maybe the Mormons come close.

00:41:48.000 But human beings are human beings.

00:41:51.000 Private property and free markets and your capacity to earn, to make your economic life better, that of your kids, that is a good thing.

00:41:59.000 That is a good thing.

00:42:00.000 And people who preach the opposite are happy to make your life worse for their own political and financial gain.

00:42:06.000 Okay, now, look at the Democratic Party.

00:42:10.000 The Democratic Party is steering directly into all of this.

00:42:12.000 They are steering more and more into deep and abiding socialism and racism and anti Semitism. 0.86

00:42:18.000 It really is amazing. 1.00

00:42:18.000 So there's a brand new poll out there, New York Times Siena poll. 1.00

00:42:21.000 And it showed that voters actually would like the Democrats to move more to the center.

00:42:27.000 According to that same poll, in order to win the next presidential election, do you think the Democratic candidate needs to move the party to the left, move the party to the center, or not move it in either direction?

00:42:36.000 In general, 52% say move to the center.

00:42:40.000 On crime, 50% say move to the center.

00:42:43.000 On immigration, 46% say move to the center.

00:42:46.000 On economic issues, 42% say move to the center.

00:42:48.000 Only 36% say move further to the left.

00:42:51.000 On trans issues, 38% say move to the center.

00:42:54.000 The only area where Americans think the Democrats should move to the left is on healthcare.

00:42:58.000 And the reason for that is because the government has so heavily regulated and subsidized healthcare that no one knows what the hell is going on, and people prefer simplicity to confusion.

00:43:08.000 It really is about that.

00:43:09.000 So, naturally, what does that mean?

00:43:10.000 Well, it means that Democrats are doing the same routine as the woke right.

00:43:14.000 They are completely captured.

00:43:16.000 Democrats have decided to move left on all these issues by embracing some of the worst people in America as their candidates.

00:43:21.000 This includes Graham Platner, the Senate Maine Democratic candidate, an awful human being, truly an awful person who's being touted as some sort of possible presidential candidate by the Democrats.

00:43:33.000 They cannot disconnect from the heroine of left wing politics.

00:43:35.000 It's crazy.

00:43:37.000 This is a clip of Graham Platner a couple of years ago saying that the murdered Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle, of American Sniper, racked up kills by shooting civilians.

00:43:54.000 His stories about how many people he was shooting certainly tracked with the behavior I witnessed and people I knew witnessed down at the Gov Center, which is it's relatively easy to get high numbers like that if you're a little less discriminating, you're fired than, say, a more professional unit would be.

00:44:13.000 I'd almost felt like there was a weird practical joke being played on me by the war that all these years later, I'm having to, people are telling me, oh, look how great this guy is.

00:44:24.000 These guys are amazing heroes, this whole incredible thing.

00:44:28.000 The paragon of leadership.

00:44:29.000 And I'm just sitting there like, am I living in like an alternate reality?

00:44:35.000 What a wonderful person.

00:44:36.000 This is the person they decided to nominate for the Senate.

00:44:41.000 He called himself P Hustle Online. 0.50

00:44:43.000 And he complained about closing a tax loophole that allowed people to bang hookers in Thailand. 0.92

00:44:48.000 What a delight he is. 0.99

00:44:49.000 He said, spend your leave banging hookers in Thailand instead of getting bitched at by the wife back home. 0.99

00:44:54.000 And you could sell it as avoiding federal income tax. 0.99

00:44:57.000 And he was enjoying that.

00:44:59.000 We'll not ask what he was doing in Thailand or what sort of people he was engaging in prostitution with, allegedly.

00:45:05.000 He also reacted to footage of a U.S. soldier taking machine gun fire.

00:45:11.000 Quote, this video never gets old. 1.00

00:45:12.000 Dumb mother effort didn't deserve to live. 1.00

00:45:14.000 At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. 1.00

00:45:20.000 Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouth breather made it home. 1.00

00:45:24.000 He managed to make every possible bleep decision possible when it comes to small unit combat. 1.00

00:45:29.000 What a delight.

00:45:29.000 He also wrote in another post, all cops.

00:45:31.000 Are bastards. 1.00

00:45:33.000 And back in 2014, he praised a full scale Hamas raid as audacious. 1.00

00:45:40.000 Looks like a pretty audacious plan that worked. 1.00

00:45:42.000 I'll certainly give credit where credit is due.

00:45:44.000 I'm glad that the Democratic Party has decided to embrace the most extreme aspects of itself, which apparently means now defending the Southern Poverty Law Center.

00:45:52.000 So you'll remember a few weeks ago, we reported on the Southern Poverty Law Center.

00:45:57.000 The Southern Poverty Law Center, it turns out, was donating money to white supremacist organizations.

00:46:04.000 And then raising money off the presence of these white supremacist organizations.

00:46:07.000 Remember, that's the allegation.

00:46:09.000 Well, here was the SPLC attorney defending paying that donated money to white supremacists.

00:46:14.000 Jim Jordan was questioning him.

00:46:17.000 Is that appropriate to tell your donors, this is the extremist of the month? 0.99

00:46:21.000 This hateful, racist guy is really bad. 0.80

00:46:24.000 Send us money, but not tell those donors who you're taking their money from that we're paying this guy $140,000. 0.98

00:46:30.000 Is that appropriate?

00:46:31.000 Well, we have public reporting that over a dozen donors actually said that they're taking the money off of the money.

00:46:36.000 That's a simple question.

00:46:37.000 Field Source 42.

00:46:39.000 Got $140,000 from the Southern Poverty Law Center, was featured on their webpage as extremist of the year or month or whatever they call these bad guys, and they were paying him and they were gating money.

00:46:51.000 Is that appropriate?

00:46:52.000 Simple question.

00:46:53.000 And donors have supported it and they keep trying to send more money to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

00:46:58.000 No, no, no.

00:46:58.000 Is that technique appropriate?

00:47:00.000 That's what I'm asking.

00:47:01.000 That is not unlawful to say that people have done that.

00:47:05.000 I didn't ask if it was lawful or unlawful.

00:47:07.000 As you said earlier in your testimony, the court's going to determine that when they go to trial.

00:47:12.000 Representative Pramila Jayapal, of course, Congressional Progressive Caucus, she says that the SPLC is wonderful.

00:47:18.000 They're doing a great job.

00:47:21.000 For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has sued and won jury verdicts against hate groups who conspire and facilitate violence against black and brown people.

00:47:31.000 The center secured a verdict against the planners of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, the same rally that drew participants whom Donald Trump called very fine people on both sides.

00:47:42.000 And yes, I know what he said after that to try and defend it.

00:47:45.000 But the entire rally was organized by white nationalists. 0.58

00:47:50.000 And even after images and videos revealed that these participants put up their arms in Nazi salutes and violently injured counter protesters and cheered on the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, he stuck by that.

00:48:06.000 SPLC has been winning.

00:48:08.000 That's why Donald Trump wants to target them.

00:48:11.000 Okay, hilariously, the progressives are now defending the people who literally funded white supremacists while continuing to lie about the.

00:48:18.000 Good people on both sides argument that Trump was making, which, by the way, was not about the white supremacists.

00:48:22.000 It was about people who were for and against tearing down a statue of Robert E. Lee.

00:48:26.000 That's what those statements were actually about.

00:48:29.000 But the Democrats get more and more extreme every single day. 1.00

00:48:33.000 So a new House Democratic probable nominee, a woman named Maureen Galindo, she is now in favor of imprisoning what she calls billionaire Zionists. 1.00

00:48:43.000 She's a nut job. 1.00

00:48:44.000 But again, being a nut job seems to be a prerequisite for running for higher office in the Democratic Party these days. 0.99

00:48:51.000 When I say that I want billionaire Zionists in prison, that does not mean I want Jews in internment camps. 0.94

00:49:03.000 So why am I getting a whole bunch of death threats and MAGA insults? 0.88

00:49:09.000 Which actually makes sense, I realize.

00:49:09.000 Well, she's the victim.

00:49:11.000 Like MAGA and Jewish Zionists apparently are the exact same people. 0.85

00:49:15.000 They talk the exact same way, and that's because MAGA is the developing Christian Zionism. 0.88

00:49:21.000 That's how they want to create a religion state. 0.83

00:49:24.000 In the United States of America is through MAGA, which that's the goal of Zionism is to create these white supremacist religion states. 0.86

00:49:32.000 The goal of Zionism is to create white supremacism religion states, says the psychotic House Democrat. 0.81

00:49:36.000 Great job, guys. 0.59

00:49:37.000 Really solid job.

00:49:39.000 But, you know, of course, it is not just people like her, it is also Ilhan Omar.

00:49:44.000 And she is reaching around and hugging Thomas Massey.

00:49:47.000 Of course, of course, the horseshoe is quite real.

00:49:50.000 Here's Ilhan Omar talking about the magic of Thomas Massey and how everyone's being victimized by the nefarious. 0.99

00:49:56.000 Jews and their nefarious Benjamins. 0.99

00:50:00.000 Do you think that Massey was defeated last night because of his support for transparency in the Epstein Files Transparency Act? 0.98

00:50:07.000 Yes, and his anti war stances, his advocacy in trying to make sure our tax dollars don't continue to fund a genocide in Gaza.

00:50:19.000 You know, those $30 million did not come from thin air.

00:50:25.000 We know who paid for that money.

00:50:27.000 Yeah, I mean, he said that, you know.

00:50:29.000 Israel is the only country that is allowed to buy elections here, other than our own. 0.98

00:50:34.000 Well, certainly in his case, in Cori Bush's case, and in Jamal Goldman's case, that statement seems to be accurate. 0.81

00:50:45.000 That statement is in no way accurate.

00:50:46.000 Israeli money is like Chinese money or Russian money or British money or French money banned in American elections.

00:50:53.000 Again, the idea that the Jewish Americans and Christian Americans who did not like Thomas Massey's stance on Israel and conspiratorial anti Jewish nonsense, that those people are somehow the Israelis. 0.99

00:51:04.000 Is just another aspect of the stupidity being pushed by people like Ilhan Omar. 0.99

00:51:07.000 Bernie Sanders is also doing strange new respect. 0.98

00:51:09.000 Now, again, I'm going to point out here that for the left, it is not that they have strange new respect for people who oppose Trump.

00:51:14.000 It is not true.

00:51:15.000 Bill Cassidy lost his Senate seat because Trump didn't like him.

00:51:18.000 Cassidy voted for Trump's impeachment in 2021.

00:51:21.000 Zero, zero strange new respect for Bill Cassidy from Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar.

00:51:26.000 The one issue that they all unite on is hatred of Israel and green lighting hatred of Jews.

00:51:34.000 That is the one thing that they are all on the same page about.

00:51:36.000 Here's Bernie Sanders. 0.98

00:51:37.000 Again, as Jewish as a ham sandwich. 0.67

00:51:41.000 Here is the political reality of today. 0.60

00:51:44.000 A reality that we just saw yesterday in the election in Kentucky, when Congressman Thomas Massey, somebody I have very little in common with politically, was defeated by $9 million in contributions from AIPAC and $7 million from Trump mega donors.

00:52:06.000 And what was the great crime that Massey committed?

00:52:10.000 That gendered so much super PAC money in opposition to him.

00:52:16.000 Well, he opposed the war in Iran, and so do the vast majority of the American people.

00:52:23.000 He demanded that the Epstein files be open, which is what the American people have wanted, and he refused.

00:52:30.000 What a crime, what an outrage to be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. 0.99

00:52:38.000 Wow, so much strange respect from the elderly socialist and useless derelict. 0.99

00:52:43.000 Who's been a homeless person occupying a Senate office for longer than I've been alive? 0.99

00:52:48.000 Really strong stuff right there.

00:52:50.000 But this is your new Democratic Party. 0.99

00:52:52.000 It is the AOCs of the world. 0.96

00:52:54.000 The supposed moderate Democratic Party is being wiped out in real time. 0.70

00:52:57.000 I mean, truly wiped out in real time.

00:52:59.000 And they will defend extremism at every possible turn, every single possible turn.

00:53:04.000 All right, in foreign policy news, yesterday, the acting attorney general of the United States, Tad Blanch, announced the indictment of Raul Castro.

00:53:12.000 Is that the predicate to a possible move to capture Raul Castro in the same way we did Nicolas Maduro?

00:53:16.000 Perhaps here was the announcement yesterday.

00:53:20.000 Today, we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.

00:53:41.000 Okay, big standing ovation.

00:53:42.000 Obviously, a lot of people are very enthusiastic about that.

00:53:44.000 Now, should we go and get Raul Castro?

00:53:47.000 I mean, if we can do it the same way we did Maduro, why the hell not?

00:53:51.000 It seems to be a belief that all these countries are sort of one moment away from some sort of uprising by the people.

00:53:59.000 President Trump says there will not be escalation with Cuba.

00:54:01.000 They're basically cut off from oil.

00:54:03.000 They don't have the ability to really have a functioning economy at this point.

00:54:06.000 He says we're not going to raise the ante here.

00:54:11.000 Should we expect any escalation?

00:54:29.000 Representative Carlos Jimenez of Florida says that the Cubans are going to rise up at some point here.

00:54:37.000 Should the United States attack Cuba?

00:54:39.000 I don't think it's going to be necessary.

00:54:40.000 I think the Cuban people themselves are going to do something about the regime.

00:54:45.000 A lot of protests happen every day.

00:54:47.000 Careful.

00:54:47.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:54:48.000 Thank you.

00:54:50.000 And so, you know, the pressure, I think, is working.

00:54:53.000 That's the regime is in the weakest condition it's ever been.

00:54:56.000 Okay.

00:54:57.000 And so, you know, just let it play out, but no U.S. intervention is necessary.

00:55:02.000 Okay.

00:55:03.000 Thank you, sir.

00:55:05.000 Okay.

00:55:06.000 So, again, I hope that's true.

00:55:08.000 My great fear is that the United States keeps on bringing countries to the brink of regime change and then leaving them there.

00:55:16.000 And that all of the fate that's been placed in people to rise up themselves, well, either they get shot in the streets en masse, like in Iran, or it turns out that the regime that we are basically propping up in places like Venezuela is just going to hang on to power by any means necessary.

00:55:30.000 Or in Cuba, just indefinitely, the impoverishment and starvation continues because people will not give up power.

00:55:37.000 I hope that all of this is right. 0.79

00:55:39.000 I hope that the Castro regime falls and that the communist regime falls and people actually launch an uprising.

00:55:45.000 I will say that historically speaking, Internal uprisings that end up, you know, cooling out the state in the absence of some sort of organized opposition in the country, that's pretty difficult.

00:55:56.000 That is a pretty difficult road, typically speaking.

00:55:59.000 I'll leave it to the left, like Ben Rhodes.

00:56:00.000 Again, unbelievable.

00:56:01.000 This guy was a former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama, literally named Hamas in the White House.

00:56:08.000 Unbelievably enough, he compared Castro to Trump, which is just insane.

00:56:13.000 One of those people is an elected leader twice in a robust democracy with constitutional checks.

00:56:20.000 And balances.

00:56:21.000 And one of those people is an evil dictator who has forced people to leave his country on floating Chevys for the last 60, 70 years.

00:56:31.000 Not the same thing, actually, as it turns out. 1.00

00:56:33.000 But Ben Rhodes is a moron. 1.00

00:56:35.000 So here we go. 1.00

00:56:37.000 The absurdity of him talking about the corruption of billions of dollars being stolen at the same time that Donald Trump, his family, and his cronies have been looting literally the American Treasury or leveraging American power to get billions of dollars in crypto companies.

00:56:53.000 Nobody believes that this is some earnest anti corruption agenda.

00:56:57.000 And then lastly, do we really think these people are credible in delivering messages about human rights and democracy as they dismantle human rights and democracy at home?

00:57:06.000 So this is about power.

00:57:06.000 No.

00:57:08.000 This is about treating the Western Hemisphere like our empire.

00:57:11.000 And it's about something that no Americans other than that small political base of Rubio's is interested in, which is yet another regime change operation. 0.98

00:57:20.000 Again, what a pathetic human being Menrose is. 0.95

00:57:22.000 The Obama administration literally sent Barack Obama to Castro to hug him. 0.99

00:57:27.000 And you remember this?

00:57:28.000 He visited Cuba and basically paid homage to the Castro regime.

00:57:32.000 Difference in kind from the Trump administration.

00:57:35.000 All righty, coming up, we'll jump into the latest on Iran, the latest on Europe.

00:57:39.000 You have to become a member to hear all of that.

00:57:41.000 However, go check us out right now.

00:57:42.000 Become a member.

00:57:43.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:57:46.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

The Ben Shapiro Show - May 21, 2026

Why Democrats Pretend To Hate Billionaires

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript