00:00:00.000If the Carmelo Anthony trial had happened under a Kamala Harris presidency or back in 2020, American cities would likely be burning right now.
00:00:10.000The race baiting playbook just officially broke.
00:00:12.000It is because Donald Trump is back in the White House.
00:00:14.000We'll get into why the everything is racist crowd lost the will to riot on today's Ben Shapiro show.
00:00:27.000Well, folks, you've heard us say many times on the show that politics is downstream of culture, meaning that when culture changes, politics follows.
00:00:33.000The culture is leader and politics follows the culture.
00:00:36.000But sometimes culture is downstream of politics, meaning that leadership actually matters.
00:00:41.000And that is particularly true when it comes to race relations in the United States.
00:00:45.000The leadership of our country matters on this sort of stuff.
00:00:48.000When our leaders promote meritocracy or equal justice before law, colorblindness, not DEI, Americans tend to follow.
00:00:55.000And by contrast, when our leaders promote racial polarization, Americans also tend to follow.
00:01:07.000He stabbed a 17 year old named Austin Metcalf, who is white.0.98
00:01:10.000He murdered him in cold blood in front of witnesses.
00:01:13.000The case was clear from literally day one.
00:01:15.000But Carmelo Anthony's family and his spokespeople began retailing a racial narrative that somehow Anthony was justified, or at least you understand why he did what he did because he was the victim here.
00:01:39.000Anthony was convicted yesterday of murder.
00:01:40.000He will see 35 years in prison, parole eligibility in 17.
00:01:45.000And there weren't any riots, no major protests, not even much of a legacy media response, because in a sane and rational universe in which law and order prevail, Americans understand that race has nothing to do with whether murder must be punished.
00:02:06.000Or certainly Barack Obama, because, you know, I'm older than a few years old.
00:02:09.000So I'm old enough to remember the destruction of racial comedy in America when Barack Obama got directly involved in the Trayvon Martin case in 2013.
00:02:17.000That was a case in which Trayvon Martin, a young black teenager, was killed by George Zimmerman under disputed circumstances.
00:02:28.000Again, Zimmerman had claimed he's Hispanic, he had claimed that it was self defense, and the prosecution tried to claim that Zimmerman had done it in cold blood.
00:02:36.000And Barack Obama got directly involved, and he said, if he had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon, which of course was not true.
00:02:42.000And I remember major riots when a white cop shot a black man who had attacked him in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.
00:02:48.000And then the entire legacy media, the entire legacy media falsified the story, claiming that the cop was racist and that Michael Brown had tried to surrender to him.
00:02:56.000Hands up, don't shoot, which never happened.
00:02:58.000And the president again injected himself and said that nobody in Ferguson would have made something like that up, which of course it was entirely made up.
00:03:06.000It is not a coincidence that race relations in America nosedived beginning 2013 2014.
00:03:12.000I'm old enough to remember 2020 when the death of George Floyd, yes, almost certainly due to drug use combined with excited delirium, not police brutality, led to the most disastrous race riots in modern American history.
00:03:24.000So if Kamala Harris were president, what would have happened after the Carmelo Anthony conviction yesterday?
00:03:31.000Would we be prepping a new round of racial recriminations over supposed systemic racism in the United States?
00:03:36.000That is the question we should be asking because, again, much of what President Trump's presidency is about, his return to power, was about avoiding the worst outcome.
00:03:45.000And this is just another example of where the worst outcome, I think, has been mitigated or avoided because Americans turned away from the race narrative that was sold by the Democrats.
00:03:56.000In order to understand how this could have gone, you have to understand exactly the fact pattern in the Carmelo Anthony case.
00:04:02.000So you have to go back about a year and a half.
00:04:06.000Austin Metcalf was a 17 year old student, athlete, and honor student.
00:04:09.000At Memorial High School in Frisco, Texas.
00:04:11.000Frisco, Texas is a very diverse town in Texas.
00:04:13.000He's about 46% white, about 10% black, 30 some percent Hispanic.
00:04:20.000He was a linebacker and a twin brother.
00:04:52.000Anthony's school didn't have a tent at the venue, Metcalf's school did.
00:04:55.000Metcalf and his twin brother, Hunter, confronted Anthony and repeatedly asked him to leave from under their school tent.
00:05:01.000And then witnesses said that Metcalf gave Anthony light pushes and told Anthony, I'm not going to fight you, bro, seeming to imply that Anthony wanted to fight him.
00:05:12.000Other witnesses said that Anthony told Metcalf, make me move, touch me, see what happens.
00:05:17.000Apparently, after Metcalf pushed Anthony in the bleachers, and again, it's unclear how hard the push was or anything like that, Anthony then pulled a five inch knife from his backpack and stabbed Metcalf, hitting his heart directly.
00:05:29.000So, witnesses' accounts of the incident vary dramatically in intensity.
00:05:32.000They were totally inconsistent on the details like where people were sitting or whether or not Anthony ran or walked away after the stabbing.
00:05:46.000And according to the arrest report, he claimed self defense right away.
00:05:49.000He was arrested and he shouted, I was protecting myself unprompted by police.
00:05:53.000He also reportedly asked police whether Metcalf would survive and if his actions could be considered self defense.
00:05:59.000When an officer mentioned, That he had the alleged suspect over the radio.
00:06:04.000Anthony reportedly replied, I'm not alleged, I did it.
00:06:08.000And here's where things started to get incredibly squirrely and controversial.
00:06:13.000The family set up respective fundraisers online.0.98
00:06:16.000Carmelo Anthony's Give, Send, Go received donations from people who said things like, We are defenders of our lineage, and I hope the knife made a full recovery and these white people can die mad.0.96
00:06:27.000Give, Send, Go eventually had to disable the comment sections on the page because of the volume of derogatory remarks on the basis of race.
00:07:18.000These flat whiteness immigrants from all over the world have always been open enemies toward foundational black Americans from day one, no more.0.89
00:07:24.000Now, again, there's no real allegation that the behavior by Austin Metcalf was racist in any way.0.74
00:07:34.000Now, again, right from the beginning, the Metcalf family acted with honor.
00:07:38.000Metcalf's father publicly forgave Anthony in Christian fashion.
00:07:41.000And explicitly mentioned this was not a race thing.
00:07:44.000On April 14th, Anthony's bond was reduced from a million bucks to $250,000, and Anthony was allowed to leave jail for house arrest with an ankle monitor.
00:07:54.000His family immediately holed up in an exclusive gated community in a $900,000 house.
00:08:00.000And they were claiming that they had limited financial means as a way of convincing the judge to release him from jail.
00:08:05.000So he's hunkered down, according to media reports, in a Frisco home located on Mercedes Lane.
00:08:12.000And his family was renting the home for $3,500 a month.
00:08:16.000So, again, is that the mark of a family that is simply seeking to get by to rent a very expensive house in a gated community?
00:08:26.000Well, April 17th, the Anthony family did a press conference.
00:08:30.000Austin Metcalf's father showed up, and the family spokesperson ripped into him for showing up.
00:09:03.000Yeah, the true victim here is not the Metcalf family.
00:09:06.000It is apparently Carmelo Anthony's family, according to Dominique Alexander, who himself has a relatively checkered history.
00:09:13.000Alexander also put out a tweet saying, Today we were informed by the Collin County District Attorney that Carmelo Anthony has been indicted.
00:09:20.000As many of you know, this is the first step in a criminal proceeding and now the legal process will move forward to our trial.
00:09:25.000Over the past several months, I've worked closely with Carmelo's family to ensure they have the proper legal representation and support they need to navigate this incredibly complex and emotionally charged case.
00:09:39.000And sadly, even some people who claim to be supporters have shared misinformation, not always with bad intent, but still harmful.
00:09:45.000This case involves multiple minors and sensitive details I cannot and will not speak about publicly.
00:09:50.000There will be a trial, there will be a courtroom.
00:09:52.000To the racists, the bigots, and those filled with hate who have targeted Carmelo, his family, and even myself, who do not intimidate us, we are not backing down.
00:09:58.000This case is yet another example, and here's the key, of what it means to be black in America, where even our self defense is questioned, scrutinized, and politicized.
00:10:08.000I mean, I feel like this is actually not what it's like to be black in America.
00:10:12.000Turns out the vast, majority of black people in America don't end up indicted for murder based on an altercation in a track tent.
00:10:21.000In which one person was completely unarmed and the young black man stabbed the young white man in the heart.
00:10:26.000I feel like that's a fairly unique circumstance.
00:10:29.000Again, the implication is that being black in America involves running the risk of being arrested for no reason at any time.
00:10:35.000So it's not as though the line was not retailed.
00:10:40.000And more on the Austin Metcalf murder, the timeline, how this all played out.
00:10:44.000We'll talk about mass migration, the wages of that on Belfast, on the UK more generally, and Stephen A. Smith going after President Trump again about the Knicks game.
00:10:52.000A lot more coming up on today's show first.
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00:12:02.000So, June 24th, a grand jury indicted Anthony on first degree murder with a conviction punishment range of five years to life.
00:12:11.000He was tried as an adult, but the death penalty was never on the table.
00:12:15.000In April 2026, the judge ordered no cameras, live streams, or audio recording inside the courtroom and also heightened security because of all of the threats to the families leading up to the trial.
00:12:29.000Big controversy broke out because the jury selection resulted in a non black jury.0.81
00:12:34.000And you know, something is sort of wrong with our justice system when the basic idea is that we cannot perform basic justice functions unless you have somebody of the same race as you on the jury.0.81
00:13:21.000They presented a jacket covered in Metcalf's blood.
00:13:24.000And the athletic trainer testified that the track tent is like a locker room.
00:13:28.000The visiting team does not go to the home team.
00:13:32.000The track coach, who is black, testified that students signed a code of conduct prohibiting bringing weapons to a school event.
00:13:37.000And that he had texted Metcalf earlier that day to step up and be a leader at the track meet as an upperclassman.
00:13:44.000Prosecutors claimed that Anthony actually provoked Metcalf.
00:13:48.000And they said, you don't get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove.
00:13:52.000Again, many of the team witnesses called to the stand by the prosecution were black.
00:13:56.000And they all said that Carmelo Anthony was in the wrong.
00:13:58.000So this should not have been a race case.
00:14:01.000Again, that line was attempted to retail.
00:14:05.000The defense tried to show that Anthony was upset about the incident.
00:14:08.000They claimed that Anthony did not make the first physical contact, and they said he was forced to decide what to do in fear and chaos, and that he defended himself with the knife.
00:14:17.000So, yesterday, the judge allowed the jury to consider a lesser manslaughter charge.
00:14:23.000Manslaughter requires no intent, a sort of crime of passion stuff.
00:14:29.000The jury determined after three hours of deliberation he was guilty of first degree murder.
00:14:34.000And the jury rejected the defense's request for a sudden passion claim, which would have lessened the punishment range to 20 years, and so he received.
00:14:41.000He'll be eligible for parole in 17.5 years.
00:14:44.000Now, when I say that there were people trying to retail this thing, there absolutely were, because right outside the courthouse, there was an attempt to retail this as a race based anti black verdict.
00:14:55.000Here are some of the scenes outside the courthouse.0.59
00:17:31.000That's pound 250, baby, or visit preborn.comslash Shapiro.
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00:17:57.000And of course, Dominique Alexander showed up again.
00:17:59.000When I say he had a checkered history, I mean that he had a Tides Foundation backed nonprofit called Next Generation Action Network and has a long criminal history, including convictions on child abuse, allegations of domestic violence, felony forgery charges, felony theft charges, and felony assault charges, according to the New York Post.
00:18:18.000Here he was suggesting Black Lives Don't Matter in Collin County.
00:18:22.000I speak on behalf of myself, Minister Dominique Alexander.
00:18:26.000I speak on behalf of myself as president of the Next Generation Action Network.
00:18:31.000The Next Generation Action Network wanted to respect this process to be able to make sure that nobody said that the Next Generation Action Network instructed this process, interfered in this process.0.96
00:18:43.000But what this process did is shown that black lives do not matter in Collin County.0.83
00:18:51.000Black lives don't matter in Collin County?0.99
00:18:54.000Again, the area in which this happened is 10% black.0.97
00:18:59.000Is the idea that every black person in Frisco is in danger because a person who committed a murder?
00:19:07.000Jasmine Crockett, who is nearly the Texas Democrat Senate candidate and is a sitting congresswoman, and this is a pretty astonishing statement here from Crockett, suggests that the real agony here is being suffered by black women, not by, say, the Metcalf family.
00:19:25.000Black women, especially black women who have black male children, live in fear and agony every day.
00:19:36.000Single day of fear and agony that I promise you the Metcalfe's probably never spent a day living that way.0.82
00:19:48.000And we're going to have to have just some real conversations about race in this country.
00:19:54.000The Metcalfe family never spent a day living that way.
00:19:56.000They literally had their son murdered.1.00
00:19:59.000But the idea is that if you're a black woman in America, you're just living under the thumb of white supremacy.0.91
00:20:03.000Now, all of this is kind of De rigueur, right?
00:20:08.000This is just the way things go, unfortunately, whenever there is a racial criminal case or a racialized criminal case in which the victim and the perpetrator are of different races in the United States, black and white.0.74
00:20:19.000The real question is why didn't this thing explode?0.58
00:20:23.000And the answer is because you did not have people in really prominent positions of power, say the presidency, trying to facilitate and foster this.
00:20:30.000Because in this moment, the president of the United States, if called upon, would say, justice was done, a murderer is going to jail.