Dems pass a resolution condemning President Trump's quote-unquote racist tweets, the Squad prepares to go back to war with Nancy Pelosi, and Republicans struggle to react. Ben Shapiro explains all of it on The Ben Shapiro Show, wherever you get your news and information. Today's After Show Was Hosted By: Ben Shapiro Subscribe to the After Show on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review! Thanks to our sponsor, Indochino, for sponsoring the show! Shoppers can get any premium made-to-measure suit for just $369.99 when you enter the code SHOP at checkout. That's 50% off the regular price for a made to measure premium suit. Once you go custom, you won't want to want to miss out on the incredible savings you can get by purchasing a premium made to measure suit. If you're in the middle of planning a wedding or planning a big day out-of-hours delivery delivery service, you'll get an incredible deal! That's $359.99 plus free shipping and free shipping! Promo code SHIPPERS for any premium suit for a couple of weeks! This week, my listeners can get ANYTHING you need, including a custom made to fit and look like James Bond! . Once you order a James Bond-style suit, you ll get 50% OFF your entire wedding party! FREE SHIPPING! Want to get a free shipping on all of your wedding and stagette options? Just use promo code: "SHIPPERS" at checkout to get 10% OFF $359, FREE shipping, just $99.99, and 10% off your wedding & stagette, and a free delivery throughout the month of the entire month of May and the rest of the month, including free shipping throughout the U.S. will get you an entire month, plus an additional $39.99 shipping, plus a FREE VIP membership when you sign up for VIP access to VIP & VIP membership? FREE PROMO CODE CHALLENGEORGE PODCAST AND VIP SUPPORTING THE CHECK OUT ONLY, AND AVAILABLE IN PERSONALIZED IN-PROMO AND PATREON BONUS PROMETORION AND VIP PRODUCER SUPPORTED INCLUDE VIP SUPPORT AND VIP TREATMENT AND PROMOTION ONLY! Can't get it all? Can t get it?
00:01:48.000Yesterday, late in the day, the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning President Trump's quote-unquote racist tweets.
00:01:54.000Four Republicans voted along with all the Democrats to condemn President Trump's quote-unquote racist tweets.
00:02:00.000According to NBC News, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday night condemning President Trump for his quote racist comments about four Democratic Congresswomen of color.
00:02:10.000The resolution passed largely along party lines with 235 Democrats joined by only four Republicans supporting the measure.
00:02:16.000Following hours of back and forth and gamesmanship, there is a lot of hubbub that broke out last night because Nancy Pelosi used language that was not actually allowed by the House rules.
00:02:27.000So there are House rules that prevent you from impugning the motives of the president of the United States or other members of the House or of the Senate.
00:02:35.000Well, Nancy Pelosi did that on the floor of the House.
00:02:37.000The resolution itself Says that the president used quote-unquote racist language.
00:02:41.000So that is impugning the motives of the president of the United States.
00:03:14.000She's not speaking truth to power at all.
00:03:16.000One of the ways that you know whether somebody is honest is whether they are willing to condemn people on their own side for doing something bad.
00:03:22.000Nancy Pelosi not only will not speak truth to power to the president of the United States, she's the third most powerful person in American government, really the second most powerful because the VP has no real power.
00:03:31.000She's third in line for the presidency.
00:03:33.000She runs the House of Representatives.
00:03:35.000And she's saying that she's speaking truth to power by not impeaching President Trump.
00:03:59.000So there's this anti-Trump backlash, people pushing against Trump, and then you have people who are anti-anti-Trump saying, well all the people who are condemning Trump They're compromised in some way morally.
00:04:09.000They're partisan hacks like Nancy Pelosi.
00:04:10.000So I'm not going to go along with the condemnation of Trump just to make Nancy Pelosi happy.
00:04:14.000I think that's one of the dynamics that is very strongly in play right now.
00:04:17.000Here's Nancy Pelosi, though, patting herself on the back, talking about how she's speaking truth to power when she won't even condemn members of her own caucus for being openly bigoted.
00:04:25.000Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the President's racist tweets.
00:04:33.000To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.
00:04:45.000I urge a unanimous vote and yield back the balance of my vote.
00:04:50.000I was just going to give the General Speaker of the House if she would like to rephrase that comment.
00:04:54.000I have cleared my remarks as a parliamentarian before I read them.
00:04:58.000Okay, and that little controversy right there, that little contratums back and forth, that was a representative from Georgia who stood up and said, listen, you just violated the rules of the House.
00:05:10.000You're not allowed to impugn the motives of the President of the United States.
00:06:27.000Okay, so he walks off, violates the rules of the House, right, in order to protect Nancy Pelosi for violating the rules of the House.
00:06:33.000Then Steny Hoyer, who's the House Majority Leader, he gets up, he takes the gavel, and he says, yeah, it turns out she broke the rules, and now she can't talk the rest of the day.
00:06:43.000The words of the gentlewoman from California contain an accusation of racist behavior on the part of the President.
00:06:53.000As memorialized in Daschle's Precedents, Chapter 29, Section 65.6, characterizing an action as racist is not in order.
00:07:05.000The chair relies on the precedent of May 15, 1984, and finds that the words should not be used in debate.
00:07:15.000Okay, and then the House votes to basically change the rules for Nancy Pelosi, rules the words back in order, votes on the resolution, rules that Pelosi has done nothing wrong.
00:07:23.000So there's this whole back and forth over violating the rules.
00:07:25.000And again, I think the rule itself is stupid because these Congress people will just go out and say whatever they want anyway.
00:07:31.000However, that sort of hubbub last night Proved again that there's nothing but chaos in the House of Representatives.
00:07:37.000Okay, so the question becomes, you know, Nancy Pelosi says everybody of good heart should vote with us on this resolution.
00:07:43.000Everyone of good heart should vote with us on this resolution.
00:07:46.000There are several reasons why Republicans were not going to vote on this resolution the way that it was phrased.
00:07:51.000The reason, number one, is that it is actually controversial whether the president was being racist or xenophobic.
00:07:55.000Now, this is a distinction that actually does matter in American politics.
00:07:59.000Well, because the word racist is the worst thing you can be called in American politics.
00:08:03.000If you are a racist in American politics, then your political career is basically over.
00:08:07.000And we tend to categorize anybody who supports that person as also a racist, right?
00:08:11.000There's a move that we make in modern American politics where if a politician is perceived as being a racist because race is the great dividing line in the history of the United States and the great stain on our national honor for the first 150, 200 years of our existence.
00:08:26.000And by existence, I'm dating back to 1776, not to the Mayflower Compact or anything like that.
00:08:31.000If you're talking about slavery, it goes back hundreds of years further than that, obviously.
00:08:34.000But the use of the word racist to label somebody or somebody's action basically throws them outside the Overton window of politics.
00:08:43.000And so to label the president of the United States racist means that he should not be president anymore under today's modern American political definition.
00:08:52.000So the distinction between racist and xenophobic does matter here.
00:08:56.000There's also an aspect of stupid, meaning that President Trump says crap a lot, and it's usually very stupid.
00:09:01.000And many of the stupid things that President Trump tends to say are directed in the drunk uncle at your family barbecue direction.
00:09:09.000Meaning, is he a true, deep down, bigoted racist who believes that black folks are inferior and brown people can't be good American citizens?
00:09:16.000Or is the president just somebody who's like a bad caller to a C-SPAN show?
00:09:20.000And he sees Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on TV and he's like, I don't like these people.
00:09:24.000Let's just go back where they came from because I don't like these people.
00:09:28.000And would he say the same thing about somebody who was white and part of that caucus?
00:09:36.000Right, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, the Ringo Starr of this Beatles crew.
00:09:42.000So, you know, when Trump condemns them, and when he says, they should all go back where they came from, is that a representative of racism?
00:09:48.000Or is that him assuming that everybody who disagrees with him comes from a foreign place?
00:09:54.000If there were a white member of that caucus, would he spare that person, for example?
00:09:57.000These questions matter, again, because the word racist is so charged in modern American life.
00:10:02.000And the reason that you can tell that this is really charged is people are saying on the left, well, why won't Republicans just universally come out and say that this was racist?
00:10:10.000Again, because you have to be sort of exact in your language when you're labeling something racist as opposed to merely xenophobic.
00:10:17.000Now the reason that I make this this sort of context clear is because I want to take the text of the resolution that was voted on yesterday and contrast it with the text of the resolution that was voted on earlier this year that received unanimous support condemning Representative Steve King from Iowa.
00:10:31.000So here is the text of the resolution condemning Steve King of Iowa who made comments that were Sort of complimentary toward white nationalism.
00:10:57.000It said, whereas on January 10th, 2019, in an interview published by the New York Times, Representative Steve King asked white nationalists, white supremacists, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive?
00:11:07.000Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?
00:11:11.000Whereas Representative King's comments legitimize white supremacy and white nationalism as acceptable in today's society.
00:11:17.000Whereas Representative King's comments are abhorrent to the founding principles of our nation and our rich history of diversity and tolerance of those whose backgrounds and beliefs have made America the envy of the world.
00:11:25.000And whereas Representative King's comments reflect negatively on the House of Representatives, now therefore be it resolved that Representative King be censured.
00:11:35.000Well, again, the reason that it passed unanimously is because it didn't characterize his comments.
00:11:38.000It literally repeated his comments and then just made the very clear logical statement that they legitimized white supremacy and white nationalism.
00:11:45.000The resolution that was adopted by the Democrats went further than that.
00:11:49.000The resolution adopted by the Democrats ladled in a lot of their own immigration policy and also suggested, without real explanation, not even quoting his tweets, they just said, whereas President Trump's racist comments have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.
00:12:05.000That's more of a characterization of his statement than a mere analysis of what the man said.
00:12:13.000The actual resolution does not even quote his tweets in the first place, as opposed to the resolution that was about Steve King that quoted his tweets and then just said, here's what he said.
00:12:23.000So this was obviously going a lot further than the Steve King resolution.
00:12:26.000So that was reason number one that Republicans didn't vote for it.
00:12:29.000But there are other reasons that Republicans didn't vote for it.
00:12:31.000And those reasons are revealed by a couple of polls that are out today regarding how Americans view President Trump's comments and the response to Trump's comments.
00:12:40.000And it really is fascinating because there's a conversation going on in which the two sides, I think, are completely missing one another.
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00:13:58.000Okay, so, when you look at the polling data surrounding people's perceptions of President Trump's comments, What you see is that there are two questions that are being perceived.
00:14:10.000Question one is, what is the content of what Trump said?
00:14:14.000And that's the question the left thinks they're asking, but that's not really the question the right thinks that the left is asking them.
00:14:19.000So Nancy Pelosi will get up there and say, why can't you just condemn these comments?
00:14:22.000And folks on the right are looking at her going, because you're the one asking and because you are willing to overlook racism and bigotry and antisemitism in your own party.
00:14:30.000And so we think you're a political hack.
00:14:31.000who is not actually making a clear-eyed assessment of what the president is saying, we think instead that what you are doing is weaponizing the president's comments and attacks on race or ethnicity more generally in favor of your own political side.
00:15:08.000The Black Lives Matter movement was founded on the belief that black people are being disproportionately targeted by police.
00:15:14.000And then they used as their basis for that, the Ferguson shooting.
00:15:19.000And the Ferguson shooting was not, by all available data, a bad shoot by the police officer.
00:15:24.000It was not a racist shooting by the police officer.
00:15:27.000And yet the question that was being asked routinely is, so you don't think racism exists in America?
00:15:31.000Now everyone believes racism exists in America, but you're asking, The wrong question.
00:15:36.000So you are pointing at Ferguson, or you're pointing at disproportionate police shootings of black folks, which, statistically speaking, have generally been shown to be justified by Roland Fryer over at Harvard University based on the activities of the criminal lit issue.
00:15:50.000And then you are saying, are you saying racism doesn't exist in America?
00:15:53.000It's like, no, I'm saying racism does exist in America, but the evidence you're providing for this is not clear, and it feels like you are asking me to say yes so that you can then justify the rest of your agenda.
00:16:04.000This sort of thing happens routinely in American politics, and you're seeing it happen here with President Trump's comments.
00:16:10.000They don't feel like there's an actual open, honest question being asked as to whether President Trump's comments were racist.
00:16:16.000They feel like all that's really happening is for what they want.
00:16:21.000And by they, I mean the left, the Democrats, the media.
00:16:23.000What they want is to say, they want you to say, yes, I think those comments were bad.
00:16:27.000I don't know if they're racist, but they're bad.
00:16:29.000And then they say, OK, well, why don't you impeach him and vote for Nancy Pelosi for president and vote for Kamala Harris for president?
00:16:35.000Why can't you admit that Republicans are all racist?
00:16:38.000There's a second step that we know is coming on the other end of a question that is not honest, in other words.
00:16:42.000And you can see this reflected in the polling data.
00:16:44.000So there are two polls that are out today showing what Republicans and and folks more generally think of Of Trump's comments.
00:16:54.000Now, I will point out here as well that the media have jumped into this game where they are openly calling Trump's tweets racist.
00:17:01.000So they're characterizing the tweets and calling it a factual verification of the tweets.
00:17:05.000OK, I'm just pointing out that the media are damned liars when it comes to this sort of stuff, because when it comes to Ilhan Omar saying openly anti-Semitic stuff, they won't say Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitic tweets.
00:17:16.000They'll say Ilhan Omar's controversial tweets, Ilhan Omar's anti-Israel tweets, tweets that some have called anti-Semitic.
00:17:21.000When it comes to Trump, they will say racist tweets, even though As best I can see, the tweets are not actually racist, they're xenophobic.
00:17:28.000And I do think that there is a difference between racism and xenophobia.
00:17:33.000They're not either equivalently bad or exactly the same.
00:17:36.000Not all rectangles are squares, in other words.
00:17:39.000So something can be xenophobic and racist, it can be xenophobic and not racist, it can be bad and not xenophobic or racist.
00:17:45.000These distinctions do matter in American politics and gradations matter in American politics as well.
00:17:50.000There are lots of various shades of bad, in other words.
00:17:54.000And it's somewhat troubling that people are so focused in on President Trump being the root of all evil for what are admittedly and obviously very bad, stupid, ridiculous tweets, but they are utterly unbothered by Ayanna Pressley going out there and saying that black people are not black unless she agrees with them, and gay people are not gay unless she agrees with them.
00:18:16.000Okay, so here's what the polls show coming out of this latest brouhaha.
00:18:20.000There's a poll that is printed by USA Today and Ipsos.
00:18:23.000A clear majority of Americans say President Trump's tweets targeting four minority Congresswomen were un-American.
00:18:29.000But most Republicans say they agree with his comments, an illustration of the nation's sharp partisan divide on issues of patriotism and race.
00:18:36.000More than two-thirds of those aware of the controversy, some 68%, called Trump's tweets offensive.
00:18:41.000Among Republicans alone, however, 57% said they agreed with tweets that told the Congresswomen to go back to their original countries, and a third strongly agreed with them.
00:18:50.000So what are Republicans hearing when they hear that poll?
00:18:53.000I don't think that what they're actually hearing is, were the tweets good?
00:19:00.000People are gonna... This is not me reading chicken entrails, okay?
00:19:03.000My actual assessment of this, knowing conservatives better than anyone in the media, my actual assessment is that conservatives and Republicans, when they are asked this question, are hearing, are you willing to condemn President Trump as un-American and racist so that we can press forward Nancy Pelosi and the squad?
00:19:18.000In other words, people are reading the consequence of the poll question, not merely the poll question.
00:19:23.000You see this pretty often on the left as well.
00:19:25.000People will ask people, do you condemn socialism?
00:19:27.000And folks on the left, who may not even know what socialism is, will read the second order question there as, will I condemn the squad, for example, and they'll say, no, socialism's fine with me.
00:19:36.000So again, that poll shows that 57% said they agreed with the tweets.
00:19:42.000Remember, Trump has over 90% approval rating among Republicans.
00:19:46.000Only 57% of Republicans said they agreed with his tweets.
00:19:50.000So, you know, I'm gonna put it out there that most Republicans are actually not particularly happy with President Trump's tweets, but they're not gonna tell the media that.
00:20:00.00059% of people across the country called the tweets un-American.
00:20:05.000And again, I do think that it is an un-American thing to tell people to go back to their home country based on political disagreement.
00:20:12.000I actually think that it's an un-American thing to say to somebody, you know, go back to your home country if they're born in America.
00:20:29.000In any case, The polls show that three quarters of women called the tweets offensive.
00:20:35.000This is why, for all the people saying this is an act of genius by President Trump to make the squad the face of the Democratic Party, he's alienating precisely suburban voters he's going to need for that 2020 election because he can't keep his damn mouth shut.
00:20:46.000Three quarters of the women polled called his tweet offensive.
00:20:49.000Independents, by more than two to one, said they were un-American.
00:20:53.000But Republicans said that they mostly agreed.
00:20:57.000How many Democrats were willing to say that Ilhan Omar was an anti-Semite?
00:21:31.000Republicans were much more skeptical of charges of racism generally.
00:21:35.00070% agreed that people who call others racist usually do so in bad faith, and that is the key question.
00:21:40.000That's the key question that Republicans are really answering.
00:21:42.000They're not answering what they think of President Trump's tweet.
00:21:44.000They're answering what they think of you, the people who are polling them, the people in the media who are covering them, the people on the left who are insisting that they call out every instance of presidential stupidity and quasi-racism, except when it comes from the left, at which point we're supposed to celebrate it.
00:21:59.000Democrats, 31% agreed that people who call others racist usually do so in bad faith.
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00:23:44.000Okay, so there's also something else going on when Republicans are polled about whether the president's tweets were quote-unquote racist.
00:23:54.000They're being polled on a number of different topics, and this is how Republicans break this down, I think, if we have to break down how Republicans are thinking about this.
00:24:01.000So, there are several questions they think they are being asked, because the question is sort of implicit in the next step of coverage from the media.
00:24:09.000Okay, so, question number one that they believe they are being asked.
00:24:13.000There are really four questions they believe they are being asked.
00:24:16.000Okay, there are four questions that Republicans believe, and this is why you're seeing a gap in the perception of the President's comments.
00:24:27.000Question number one, do we trust the media's definition of racism?
00:24:32.000Right, that is the first question that Republicans perceive they are being asked.
00:24:36.000Do we trust the media's definition of racism?
00:24:38.000So, if Washington Post calls me up and says, do you think this is racist?
00:24:44.000I immediately, in my reptile brain, I immediately go to, who's asking me the question?
00:24:51.000Is it an honest broker or is it somebody who hates President Trump and is going to use this as a club against everybody?
00:24:56.000Because the same people who call President Trump's tweets racist also justify the activities of Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley and all the other Democrats who are saying radical insane things.
00:25:05.000So why would I tell you what I think is racist when you guys are not honest about racism?
00:25:22.000Do we trust that this isn't just a partisan hack job?
00:25:25.000Meaning, not only do we think that you applied the label racist too broadly, and that you've been labeling everything Trump does racist for his entire presidency, and everything Mitt Romney did racist, and everything Paul Ryan did racist, and everything George W. Bush did racist, and now you're asking me do I think this is racist?
00:25:39.000You cried wolf too many times, go screw yourself.
00:25:42.000That's what Republicans are thinking on question number one.
00:25:44.000Do we agree that you are a worthy source of the definition of racism?
00:25:53.000And this breaks down into a couple of different areas.
00:25:55.000One, do you in the media and do you in the Democratic Party, do you, Nancy Pelosi, apply a double standard on bigotry?
00:26:01.000In other words, are you fine with anti-Semitism so long as Ilhan Omar is spouting it?
00:26:05.000But suddenly you're all up in arms when you think Steve King is saying something very bad.
00:26:10.000In other words, is this a partisan hack attack?
00:26:12.000So question number one was, is your definition of racism too broad?
00:26:16.000And if I acquiesce to your definition of racism in this particular case, am I acquiescing to your broader definition of racism?
00:26:22.000In other words, if I say, yeah, I think these tweets are bad and maybe even racist, am I acquiescing to your definition of racism, which apparently includes everything under the sun?
00:26:31.000That's why that USA Today poll is really fascinating.
00:26:33.000It shows that Republicans, 45 to 34, thought that the president's tweets were actually racist, But they also thought, 70% of Republicans thought that the charge racism is too broadly applied and 57% said they were fine with the tweets.
00:26:49.000So just the 57% and the 45% seem like they should not overlap, right?
00:26:57.000The deal is that a lot of the same people in the Republican Party who are uncomfortable with the president's tweets are even more uncomfortable with the media using the tweets to justify their broader definition of racism.
00:27:10.000Okay, so that was question number one.
00:27:11.000Question number two is, isn't this all just a bunch of partisan hackery?
00:27:14.000Like, when you're asking about the president's tweets, and when, let's say that, let's say there was an attack by a terrorist group in America, an Antifa attack on an ICE facility over the weekend, by a person quoting AOC, basically, talking about concentration camps, and not a single Democrat has been asked about it by you, the same media?
00:27:30.000Not one Democrat in power has been asked about it?
00:27:35.000When it's left to the rebel and the Daily Caller to ask Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and AOC whether they condemn an actual terrorist attack on an ICE facility.
00:27:45.000And when those women stay silent when asked the question and there are no follow-ups from the mainstream media, do we trust you or Nancy Pelosi to ask honest questions upon which we should be able to reach agreement?
00:27:56.000When we know that you're immediately going to use it as a tool?
00:27:58.000So in other words, should we go along with your partisan hackery masquerading as a unifying message just so that you can turn around and clock us tomorrow with something intellectually dishonest and terrible?
00:28:10.000Is that something that we're willing to go along with?
00:28:12.000That's what Republicans are hearing as well.
00:28:14.000In other words, the dishonesty of the left on a lot of these issues has left Republicans unwilling to even answer the question in an honest and real fashion.
00:28:23.000Because they don't think the question is motivated well.
00:28:25.000They don't think the question is honestly motivated.
00:28:28.000And I don't blame conservatives or Republicans for this.
00:28:55.000But everybody knows that there is a slight difference in what exactly the question is designed to elicit.
00:29:00.000And Republicans are reading beneath the question to what it is designed to elicit.
00:29:04.000Okay, then there's the third question that Republicans believe they're being asked, and that is, is President Trump himself a racist?
00:29:09.000Meaning, not are these comments racist, not are these comments xenophobic, not are these comments ugly, but is President Trump himself a racist?
00:29:21.000There are lots of non-racist people who say things that are at the very best racially tinged on occasion.
00:29:27.000Really, there are people who do not believe that people of other races are inferior, but they're dumb, and they say dumb things because they're dumb.
00:29:35.000Maybe we used to acknowledge that this was a fact in American life and American politics.
00:29:40.000So, what people in the Republican Party, many conservatives are reading is, sure, those tweets, maybe they're racist, but we don't think Trump is a racist.
00:29:48.000You saw Mitch McConnell do this yesterday, for example.
00:29:50.000He was asked if the tweets are racist, and McConnell said, I don't think that Trump is a racist.
00:29:54.000In other words, he was trying to cut them off at the pass.
00:29:56.000He was saying, okay, well, I know what you're doing here.
00:29:59.000You're gonna say, if I say that the tweets are racist, your next question is, do you think Trump is a racist?
00:30:11.000I have a question as to how many Democrats even are willing to go out there and say that they think that President Trump himself is a vicious, brutal racist, as opposed to the man who says dumb, racially tinged crap all the time.
00:30:25.000How many think that he's overt in his own mind, in how he thinks, in terms of intent and motive, which is what racism is.
00:30:33.000I don't think there's a strict liability standard with regard to racism.
00:30:47.000Meaning, here's how the logical chain goes.
00:30:50.000If I say that I think the tweets were racist, then your next question is going to be, do you acquiesce to our entire definition of racism, whereby everything a Republican has ever said is racist?
00:31:00.000And if you believe in our definition of racism and you vote Republican, then aren't you a racist?
00:31:05.000The reason that I'm breaking this down is because I think that people are completely misunderstanding how these poll results are working and just what people think of race in America.
00:31:25.000How many Republicans actually stood up for the man who, for the police officer in South Carolina who shot Walter Scott, a black man in the back, and then tried to plant the gun on him basically?
00:31:38.000But when you take a hot button issue like this and then you poll people about it, people answer the question they think they are being asked.
00:31:45.000And so we're talking past one another because, yes, Democrats doubt Republican motives because they think Republicans are all racists.
00:31:53.000And that means that Republicans doubt Democratic and media motives, which is the same thing.
00:31:57.000And why wouldn't they doubt those motives?
00:31:59.000Why wouldn't they doubt those motives, especially when CNN is willing to go out of its way to ask the thoughts of Richard Spencer on Donald Trump's tweets?
00:32:07.000So CNN actually had Richard Spencer on, you know, actual white supremacist Richard Spencer.
00:32:11.000They gave him airtime yesterday to talk about Donald Trump's tweets.
00:32:15.000Why is Richard Spencer being polled about this?
00:32:17.000Who gives a crap about what Richard Spencer, an actual white supremacist, has to say about any of this?
00:32:22.000The reason is because CNN is trying to imply that if you support President Trump, then you are like Richard Spencer.
00:32:28.000And if you think that the tweets are bad, but you also don't think that the tweets are End of world bad, Trump's an obvious racist, he ought to be expelled from office bad, then you are just like Richard Spencer.
00:32:40.000That Trump's real constituency is Richard Spencer, as opposed to, you know, the 65 million people who voted for the President of the United States.
00:32:47.000When CNN does that, and they won't ask a single question to a Democrat about, you know, Ayanna Pressley saying openly racist crap over the weekend, Or Ilhan Omar saying anti-semitic stuff repeatedly.
00:32:58.000They won't ask Democrats what they think of an actual terror attack on an ICE facility with a person who's basically paraphrasing AOC.
00:33:06.000You think Republicans are going to have a trust problem?
00:34:03.000Also, it can be true that we do not trust the media's definition of racism and the Democrats' definition of racism.
00:34:07.000Two, we think that they are damned liars because they don't apply an even standard to folks.
00:34:11.000Instead, they're applying a standard that is politically convenient for them.
00:34:14.000Three, they're attempting to paint President Trump personally as a racist so that they can, four, declare everyone who supports him a racist.
00:34:24.000In just a second, we're going to see how this plays out for the Democrats because this battle is not just restricted to one side of the aisle.
00:36:27.000Host Bill Whittle, he's an author, pilot, space enthusiast.
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00:37:17.000So Republicans have been having trouble responding to Democrats on the basis of President Trump's Because President Trump's comments, again, put them in an uncomfortable, dumb position because President Trump did something both morally and politically wrong here.
00:37:40.000At the same time, Republicans are not willing to trust the left and the media with their assessment of the situation.
00:37:44.000In fact, all trust is gone in American political life, because everything is used as a club to wield.
00:37:50.000Republicans are looking at Democrats, they're saying, why would we trust you to assess what is racist and what is bad and what is immoral, when you're ripping Paul Ryan?
00:37:59.000You're saying that Donald Trump is un-American for declaring that these four women have un-American points of view.
00:38:06.000In 2012, the Democrats literally ran an ad with Paul Ryan throwing an old woman off a cliff in 2012.
00:38:29.000Okay, and then there was another ad that they cut in 2012 in which they accused... I mean, they literally have him throwing an old woman off a cliff.
00:38:37.000You think that that doesn't threaten people?
00:38:39.000Democrats have been calling Republicans Nazis for years.
00:38:49.000So even if we were inclined to grant that the president's tweets are bad and cross lines and are morally wrong, we're not going to answer that way to you guys because we think that you're dishonest hacks.
00:38:59.000You're the same people who didn't mind it at all, apparently, when in 2012, Joe Biden suggested that Mitt Romney was a vicious racist who wanted to put black people back in chains.
00:39:10.000And a Democratic super PAC cut an ad suggesting that Mitt Romney gave a man's wife cancer.
00:39:18.000I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant.
00:39:22.000I don't think he realizes that people's lives completely changed.
00:39:28.000When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care.
00:40:02.000The difference is that when Trump crosses the line, I say he crossed the line, I say that it was garbage.
00:40:06.000When Steve King crosses the line, not only do I say that he crossed the line, I max out to his primary opponent.
00:40:11.000When Democrats cross the line, you guys back them all the way to the hills, and then you feature them on national television.
00:40:17.000And this is where I think the backlash could set in in favor of Republicans.
00:40:21.000Because if Americans are given the choice between the uncomfortable, dumb, bad tweets of Donald Trump and the sentiments expressed by Ilhan Omar and the squad.
00:40:32.000I'm not sure that they choose the squad.
00:40:36.000Plus, the squad is now turning on Nancy Pelosi again.
00:40:39.000Now remember, the same squad that is supposed to be the be-all end-all... I mean, this is... You wonder why Republicans don't trust the Democratic assessment of what racism constitutes?
00:40:47.000Maybe it's because AOC and the squad think Nancy Pelosi's a racist.
00:40:49.000Everybody's a racist, according to AOC and the squad.
00:40:53.000They did an interview with CBS, with Gayle King.
00:40:57.000And they literally suggested again, AOC and Rashida Tlaib suggested that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for attacks and death threats against them.
00:41:06.000We're supposed to give credibility to these people?
00:41:23.000I did not say that she was disrespectful of women of color.
00:41:27.000I found some of the comments disrespectful, and that was my personal opinion.
00:41:31.000And I did feel that singling out on the basis of one vote was creating an opening.
00:41:41.000The fact of the knowledge is, and I've done racial justice work in our country for a long time, acknowledge the fact that we are women of color.
00:41:47.000So when you do singles out, be aware of that and what you're doing, especially because some of us are getting death threats, because some of us are being singled out in many ways because of our backgrounds, because of our experiences, and so forth.
00:42:00.000So having these women stand up there and talk about what they perceive to be racism is not going to be effective with the American people because frankly they think everything is racist except when they themselves are being racist.
00:42:08.000When Ayanna Pressley is going out over the weekend and suggesting that black folks are not black if they disagree with her.
00:42:13.000And when Ilhan Omar is dropping anti-semitic slurs every five seconds and Rashida Tlaib is accusing everybody of dual loyalty and AOC is suggesting that everything including cauliflower is racist.
00:42:23.000Maybe they're not the best judges of this particular situation.
00:42:26.000In other words, Who makes the assessment matters in American politics and everyone has lost such credibility and intellectual honesty that nobody trusts anybody to make the assessment anymore.
00:42:39.000There is no common standard that we hold to make these assessments at all.
00:42:44.000And there's a double standard in the media when it comes to exactly the sort of material that they find objectionable.
00:42:49.000So you'll get AOC suggesting that Mitch McConnell is complicit in advancing racism.
00:42:53.000This is the same AOC who defended Ilhan Omar's antisemitism to the hilt.
00:42:57.000The same AOC whose squad refuses to come out openly and just condemn a terrorist attack on an ICE facility.
00:43:05.000The majority leader is complicit in advancing racism in America if he doesn't even have the backbone to speak out against the most basic, basic line.
00:43:17.000Honestly, if these members go on the record condoning the president telling women of color to go back to their own country, I invite them to because we will win the 2020 election and we will take this country back because we believe in fighting for every American.
00:43:34.000Okay, and then AOC ignores in her own caucus.
00:43:37.000So if that were her line, and I thought she were an honest person, I might agree with some of what she says there.
00:43:42.000But I don't think that she's an honest person.
00:43:44.000Because when it comes to Ilhan Omar and Open Anti-Semite, she defended her to the health.
00:43:47.000Omar was asked by Gayle King, does she regret any of her anti-Semitic comments?
00:43:52.000The other women were sitting right next to her when she said this.
00:43:56.000The way that we hear and consume information is very different than how the next person might.
00:44:03.000So you don't regret your words either?
00:44:04.000I do not, but I have gotten the... I am grateful for the opportunity to really learn how my words made people feel and have taken every single opportunity I've gotten to make sure that people understood Um, that I, I apologize for it.
00:44:31.000She's sitting there right next to AOC, and Tlaib, and, and Ayanna Pressley, and they're all sitting there, silent, as this open anti-Semite is talking about how she's fine with what she said before, and then all of them are like, well, if you're silent about President Trump's tweets, well, you're a racist.
00:44:46.000What if I'm not silent about his tweets and I think that you guys are just full of crap?
00:44:49.000What if I think that the tweets were bad, and wrong, and morally objectionable?
00:44:52.000But I also think that you guys are damned liars and radicals and you shouldn't be in charge of the country.
00:44:56.000What if both of those things are true at the exact same time?
00:45:00.000But if I say that, apparently then you go right back to the poll question.
00:45:03.000Well, don't you think that Trump's comments were racist?
00:45:06.000And if they were racist, how could you possibly support him for president?
00:45:10.000Because lots of things can be true at the same time.
00:45:12.000He can say bad things, racially tinged things, things I find objectionable and terrible.
00:45:16.000I have not wavered one iota in my assessment of President Trump as a personality since 2016.
00:45:21.000I think that President Trump, when it comes to his personal behavior, has always been not only deeply flawed, but in many areas a disaster area.
00:45:29.000That does not change what the left is doing, their broad definition of racism, the reaction to that, the fact that we are supposed to now choose between the squad and Trump.
00:45:38.000If you're going to force me that choice, guys, that choice is not hard.
00:45:44.000Because I think Trump says dumb, ignorant, foolish things on a regular basis.
00:45:48.000I think he says offensive things on a regular basis.
00:45:51.000And then I think his policies match mine, mostly.
00:45:54.000And I think that the people who oppose him say stuff that is just as dumb or foolish or irresponsible, except I don't think that it's just foolish and irresponsible in their case.
00:46:02.000I think many of those people are actually ill-motivated and vile.
00:46:09.000And I think that they are militarizing Trump's stupidity against him in a way that is politically viable, but I think dishonest, obviously.
00:46:20.000The lack of nuance and complexity in our analysis of American politics is what is leading to this breakdown.
00:46:27.000Because we can't just have the question that is asked out there in the ether without looking at the ramifications of the question, how it's asked and how it's answered.
00:46:34.000That, I think, is what is going on right here.
00:46:36.000And you're seeing the Republicans struggle with all of this because, again, two things can be true at once.
00:46:41.000Trump's comments can suck, and also the squad can suck radically.
00:48:24.000He doesn't know anything about the Betsy Ross flag or Betsy Ross.
00:48:27.000He declares it racist because some white supremacists will seize on any symbol of the American founding and try to reuse it for themselves.
00:48:34.000And the left acquiesces in this and goes along with this.
00:48:41.000Why is it that when a couple of idiotic, disgusting white supremacists say things like, the flag, the Betsy Ross flag is racist, and we love it because it's racist, why does the left respond?
00:48:53.000Not by saying, oh, they're so full of crap.
00:49:07.000Why does the left go along with all that?
00:49:09.000Because it really is a tiny minority of people who don't know anything about history, who immediately jump to a conclusion based on, what, the trollery of the alt-right and white supremacists on Gab or 4chan?
00:49:59.000We're starting to see symbols of the United States that have nothing to do with white supremacy.
00:50:04.000They are grabbed by white supremacists, and then the left acquiesces in that grab and suggests that the solution to this is to ban the symbol.
00:50:11.000So, today's example of completely manufactured controversy.
00:50:15.000So, Yahoo runs a piece about Chris Pratt, the actor.
00:50:18.000Now, Chris Pratt is pretty apolitical.
00:50:20.000By apolitical, I mean he's not a social justice warrior, and he has not openly come out as a conservative and said, I am a conservative.
00:50:26.000And Chris Pratt happens to be a religious Christian, and he's kept his politics pretty close to his chest.
00:50:31.000Everything I've ever heard him say has been talked, you know, that has any political ramifications, has been about personal responsibility and giving glory to God.
00:50:48.000Well, according to Yahoo News, his supposed huge mistake is that he wore a Don't Tread On Me t-shirt with the Gadsden snake.
00:50:56.000Now, that t-shirt was... Okay, that flag, the Gadsden flag, was actually the first symbol of the US Navy.
00:51:02.000According to Yahoo News, it was controversial.
00:51:06.000The writing and snake combo on its own is depicted on the Gadsden flag, a symbol created by Christopher Gadsden, a Charleston-born brigadier general in the Continental Army.
00:51:13.000It came to prominence, according to Yahoo News, during the Revolutionary War of the United States by colonists who wanted independence from Great Britain.
00:51:21.000Although it is one of the symbols and flags used by the U.S.
00:51:23.000men's soccer team, Metallica, and some libertarian groups, over the years, the flag has been adopted by far-right political groups like the Tea Party, as well as gun-toting supporters of the Second Amendment.
00:51:33.000And none of those are actually bad groups.
00:51:39.000And gun-toting supporters of the Second Amendment, that would just be like, you know, people who believe in the Second Amendment, pretty much, right there.
00:51:45.000Which, as it turns out, is an amendment to our Constitution, which is our founding document.
00:51:51.000Which provides the basis for American government, of which Yahoo News is a beneficiary.
00:51:58.000And then, Yahoo News says, it has therefore become a symbol of more conservative and far-right individuals, and according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the U.S., it also is sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts.
00:52:10.000They had to go searching far and wide for that one.
00:52:13.000And then, they tweeted, they quoted six particular tweets, from six people who are not verified on Twitter and have about 15 followers and then they headline this that Chris Pratt is criticized for the quote-unquote white supremacist t-shirt.
00:52:27.000Now the question is not why Yahoo News does this sort of clickbait.
00:52:31.000We all understand why they do this sort of clickbait.
00:52:32.000The reason they do this sort of clickbait is because they want the clicks, obviously.
00:52:35.000It's the same reason that the news created this faux controversy about black Ariel, as though there were scads and oodles of people who were deeply broken up and concerned about the race of a fictional mermaid.
00:53:09.000And so they create these faux controversies.
00:53:11.000But the question is not why these clickbait sites create faux controversies.
00:53:16.000The real question is why the left goes along with them, and then you start seeing this multiplier effect where people are like, yeah, why is Chris Pratt wearing a Gadsden flag?
00:53:50.000Well, because if you are looking under every nook and cranny of American life for racism and bigotry and white supremacy, Anywhere you can find it, you will grab it, you will blow it up, and then you will suggest that it is indicative of America's deep underlying racism.
00:54:05.000And so if you can't find enough real racism, you just make up fake racism.
00:54:08.000And then, when you do see an instance of what you perceive to be real racism, it's too late.
00:54:20.000Trump's tweets are a problem, and separately, your assessment of what racism is, is completely fictionalized and crap.
00:54:27.000Because you've been searching for it in all the wrong places, and then lying about it when it isn't occurring, and declaring that Chris Pratt is a frickin' white supremacist on the basis of wearing a Gadsden flag.
00:54:36.000There's something else that's going on here, too.
00:54:38.000I think Ben Domenech at The Federalist, I believe, was the one who made this point.
00:54:43.000The point is that for the left, the reason that they are so willing to go along with the obliterate... It was Dan... Sorry, it was Dan... His name is... He's from National Review.
00:54:54.000I can't believe his name is... He'll forgive me.
00:54:57.000I can't believe his name is slipping my mind.
00:54:58.000In any case, the actual... The point that he is making is that for the left, for so many people who are on the left, They actually share the goal of obliterating America's symbols.
00:55:09.000Because they believe that America is steeped in racism and bigotry and homophobia.
00:55:13.000Because they believe that America is a deeply racist place and the Constitution is driven by racism and white supremacy.
00:55:20.000They share a goal with these radical morons who are trying to relabel the Gadsden flag racist.
00:55:26.000So they know the Gadsden flag isn't racist.
00:56:00.000We'll even go along with that because it backs the overarching narrative that everything in American history was racist.
00:56:06.000You could literally pick a random object from the Revolutionary War era, and it becomes racist.
00:56:11.000You can pick a mural of George Washington that asks serious questions about American history in San Francisco, and it must be obliterated, because all of American racism is not controversial, it is openly racist.
00:56:22.000You can find a canon on the Cambridge Commons, next to which George Washington assumed command of the Second Continental Army.
00:56:28.000And you can, or the First Continental Army, and you can declare the cannon racist because the cannon itself is a symbol of a time in which slaves were held.
00:56:38.000The left goes along with this because it fits with their perspective on American history.
00:56:42.000It's ugly, it's stupid, it's divisive, but it's not particularly shocking.
00:56:47.000And the media do this with nearly everything now.
00:56:49.000So to take a more prominent example, yesterday the Washington Post ran a piece called, The Hard Charging Space Program, Breakthroughs, Breakups, and Breakneck.
00:57:00.000And they tweeted about it, and their suggestion in their tweet, their suggestion in the tweet, is that it was overwhelmingly white, NASA.
00:57:10.000This is what we should take away from the NASA space program.
00:57:13.000Not the incredible achievements of humanity.
00:57:17.000Not the magic of NASA using what, by comparative terms, were abacuses in order to send a man to the moon.
00:57:23.000You have more computing power in your iPhone right now than all of NASA had when we sent a man to the moon.
00:57:41.000That's like saying the story of Babe Ruth is the story of racism.
00:57:43.000No, the story of Babe Ruth is a guy who had a lot of home runs.
00:57:46.000Also, the story of MLB included racism, no doubt, at the time.
00:57:50.000But that's not Babe Ruth is... Babe Ruth's... When I talk about Babe Ruth hitting 60 home runs, that is not an indicia, an indicator of white supremacy.
00:58:12.000So Karen Heller has this dumb piece today, talking about this.
00:58:16.000Back then in the 60s, rocket scientists were the badass dudes of innovation.
00:58:19.000Just the title was about the highest Brainiac accolade that could be conferred.
00:58:23.000As in, he's smart, but he's no rocket scientist.
00:58:26.000As NASA worked relentlessly to fulfill John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon by decade's end, it turned to the nation's engineer.
00:58:32.000Many of them were fresh out of school, running the gamut from mechanical to electrical engineers, because that's mostly what was taught in universities, and almost exclusively to white men.
00:58:42.000If the story of the moon landing was racism, I think that you're missing the story and you're doing it on purpose.
00:58:48.000I suspect that you are doing it on purpose to back a separate narrative that it turns out has nothing to do with the moon landing.
00:58:53.000It's all about wiping out the glories of American history in favor of a separate narrative.
00:58:56.000I was talking with a friend of mine on the left yesterday, and she was saying, why can't we believe that America is the greatest country in world history and is great and was great, and also recognize that America's history is shot through with racism and white supremacy?
00:59:09.000And I said, well, we can certainly recognize both of those things.
00:59:12.000But I have a feeling that a lot on the left are not willing to acknowledge the first or explain why they believe the first is true if they believe the second is the overarching theme.
01:00:37.000Today, over on the Matt Wall Show, the left is continuing to eat itself.
01:00:41.000The latest example is the president of Planned Parenthood experiencing an early termination, shall we say.
01:00:47.000She was fired from Planned Parenthood for the crime of believing that only women can get pregnant.
01:00:54.000Also, Ayanna Pressley, one of the members of the Squad, has Just made one of the most bigoted statements we've heard from an American politician in several decades, and that's not an exaggeration.
01:01:06.000Finally, I asked a left-wing doctor to define the word man for me, and he wasn't able to do it.