The Ben Shapiro Show - Why We’re All So Angry | Ep. 740

00:00:00.000 Today is the day my brand new book, The Right Side of History, is out.

00:00:03.000 Plus, Beto embraces third trimester abortion and Vladimir Putin cracks down on the news.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:08.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:14.000 OK, so I really want to talk to you about my new book, which I think is, you know, I'm biased.

00:00:18.000 I think it's important.

00:00:19.000 I think it's good.

00:00:20.000 And I think that you should read it.

00:00:21.000 But again, I'm very biased on this subject.

00:00:23.000 I'll get to my new book.

00:00:25.000 Plus, I want to talk about Beto and I want to talk about Andrew Yang, who is now making headlines for some good reasons and some not so great reasons.

00:00:32.000 We'll get to all of that in just one second.

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00:01:27.000 Okay, so today is the day of my new book release, which I am very excited about.

00:01:30.000 We've been talking about it for a while here on the program, but I wanted to tell you what I think, in general, the book is about.

00:01:35.000 It's called The Right Side of History.

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00:01:41.000 Okay, so today is the day my new book release, which I am very excited about.

00:01:45.000 We've been talking about it for a while here on the program, but I wanted to tell you what I think in general the book is about.

00:01:51.000 It's called The Right Side of History.

00:01:53.000 Don't worry, we're gonna get to the news as well.

00:01:54.000 But this is tied into the news because the reality is that there is a great question right now in the West, in Western civilization, and it's tearing us apart.

00:02:03.000 And that is, what is Western civilization?

00:02:05.000 What is it?

00:02:06.000 On the one side, you have a bunch of people who say Western civilization is terrible, no good, very bad.

00:02:12.000 On the other side, you have a bunch of people who say that Western civilization is wonderful, but completely misdefine it.

00:02:19.000 So I think that here's the truth.

00:02:21.000 All of the good things that are around you, democracy, Liberalism, free speech, prosperity, science, all of these things are the outgrowth of a civilization in which you live and whose values you have embedded in your system, whether you like it or not.

00:02:36.000 But it's fascinating to see how people really don't know much about the roots of the civilization that has led them to these critiques of the civilization or to a defense of something that is not Western civilization.

00:02:46.000 I'll tell you what I mean.

00:02:47.000 So, the manifesto of the New Zealand shooter is, of course, a deeply evil document. 0.99

00:02:52.000 And that is not a shock, because this is a deeply evil white supremacist.

00:02:55.000 But the guy references the West many times throughout this document. 0.81

00:03:00.000 What exactly did he mean by the West?

00:03:02.000 Well, he meant racial superiority of white people. 0.62

00:03:05.000 In the document, which you should not read, I've not encouraged people to read it, the only reason that I even mention the document now is because I think it is important to rebut what is a widespread perception about what exactly this evil white supremacist thought and with whom he sympathized.

00:03:19.000 He talks about the West a lot in this document.

00:03:21.000 And people on the left say, ah, see, he's just defending Western civilization.

00:03:24.000 Western civilization is bad.

00:03:25.000 No, that's not the way this works. 0.97

00:03:27.000 When this shooter talks about the West, he meant racial superiority of white people.

00:03:32.000 He explicitly derides, quote, the myth of the individual and the sovereignty of private property.

00:03:37.000 So this is not someone who is standing for life, liberty and property in the Lockean formation.

00:03:42.000 He spits at democracy.

00:03:43.000 He says that Christianity is weak.

00:03:45.000 He scoffs at capitalism.

00:03:47.000 He tears into conservatism.

00:03:48.000 He says that conservatism had surrendered to the myth of the individual and the sovereignty of private property.

00:03:53.000 Unfortunately, that view of the West, that the West is basically a hierarchy of racial power, and that we have created all of these concepts in order to excuse that racial hierarchy, that is not restricted to the views of white supremacists.

00:04:08.000 Unfortunately, there's an intersectional theory club, and these people believe, a lot of folks on the political left believe, that when we say Western civilization, We mean the same thing as this white supremacist.

00:04:17.000 Western civilization is really just a way for white people to cram down their power on other folks. 0.74

00:04:22.000 This is why you had folks like Jesse Jackson in the 1980s leading chants at UC Berkeley, The idea being that Western civilization was truly Just a hierarchy of power established by white supremacists.

00:04:36.000 And on the other hand, you have white supremacists saying that the West is basically a hierarchy of power established by white supremacists.

00:04:41.000 That is not true.

00:04:43.000 That is not true.

00:04:43.000 Western civilization is a set of ideas.

00:04:46.000 It was always a set of ideas.

00:04:48.000 Now, were those ideas always perfectly realized?

00:04:51.000 Of course not.

00:04:52.000 In the same way that the ideas of the Declaration of Independence were not properly realized and took hundreds of years to come to full fruition.

00:05:00.000 The notion that all men are created equal, encompassing people of all different races, for example.

00:05:05.000 That took a century.

00:05:07.000 To actually come to fruition two centuries if you count Jim Crow, obviously. 0.51

00:05:11.000 The fact is that an eternal good principle does not mean that it is properly acted upon over the great span of time.

00:05:20.000 But the principles that undergird the West are the principles that undergird all of the things that you like.

00:05:25.000 The iPhone in your hand, from the iPhone in your hand to the concept of democracy.

00:05:29.000 So what exactly is the West?

00:05:32.000 Well, I think that what the West really is, what the West really is, is a combination of Judeo-Christian values and Greek reason and these two things are in tension.

00:05:40.000 They're always in tension.

00:05:41.000 Reason and revelation.

00:05:42.000 The idea that there is a God and that God runs the universe and that there's an objective morality.

00:05:46.000 That, of course, is in tension with the part of us that's reasonable that says, OK, well, you know, I don't see this God.

00:05:53.000 Where does his morality come from?

00:05:55.000 And these two things are constantly vying with each other for power.

00:05:58.000 The problem is when you get rid of one of them, when you get rid of Judeo-Christian values, for example, you end up with secular tyranny. 0.84

00:06:04.000 And when you get rid of secular reason, you end up with religious tyranny. 0.61

00:06:10.000 The building of these values is a long 3,000 year story.

00:06:14.000 And because we have lost the values that we share, because we have decided to see each other as either representatives of the hierarchy or people fighting against Western civilization, we're angrier at each other than ever.

00:06:26.000 We've lost a sense of common meaning and common purpose.

00:06:28.000 We've lost a sense of individual meaning and individual purpose.

00:06:32.000 Polls show that we are angrier at each other than we have been in a very long time.

00:06:35.000 The average trust in key institutions in the United States is down to 32%.

00:06:39.000 That's not trust in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

00:06:42.000 That's trust in your local school.

00:06:44.000 That's trust in your police forces.

00:06:46.000 Only 31% of Americans today think that most people that they live with can be trusted.

00:06:52.000 That's a shocking statement.

00:06:54.000 52% of Americans only say they trust most or all of their neighbors, which means that half of Americans don't trust most or all of their neighbors.

00:07:00.000 They don't even know their neighbors.

00:07:02.000 80% of Americans, by polling data, say America is more divided today than ever, which, of course, is untrue.

00:07:06.000 We fought a civil war in this country, and we also had the 1960s, the most divisive time in modern American history.

00:07:13.000 Suicide rates are up.

00:07:14.000 The opioid epidemic is taking additional lives.

00:07:16.000 We've had the first downturn in life expectancy in the United States in decades.

00:07:21.000 And that is due to a crisis of meaning.

00:07:24.000 So where does that crisis of meaning come from?

00:07:26.000 So some people on sort of the populist right and the populist left suggest that the crisis of meaning is coming from economics.

00:07:32.000 That we've had a bifurcated economy since the 1980s and since the 1970s and the rise of globalization has created a two-tier system in the United States.

00:07:41.000 But the truth is that poverty spans politics.

00:07:44.000 There are a bunch of people who live in the sticks in Ohio who are not voting the same way as people living in the inner cities in Los Angeles.

00:07:51.000 This is not about the 1% versus the 99%.

00:07:53.000 And just to be accurate about this, the fact is that since the 1970s, the upper middle class has been the fastest growing sector of the American population.

00:08:01.000 And overall, we are all living better economically than we were in the 1970s because prices have gone down and we get more stuff for our dollar.

00:08:08.000 And does that mean that everybody has the same kind of job that they had in 1950s when you were working on a construction, when you were working on some sort of assembly line for 30 years and then getting a gold watch at the end?

00:08:19.000 No, it doesn't.

00:08:19.000 But the truth is, you wouldn't want to work those jobs.

00:08:22.000 The fact is that those jobs are better done by machines.

00:08:25.000 We have the most booming economy in American history at this point.

00:08:28.000 More people employed than any time in American history.

00:08:31.000 And yet, we are still at each other's throats.

00:08:33.000 Now, there are a lot of folks who think that it's racial divides, but why exactly should racial divides have cropped up again now?

00:08:41.000 The fact is that we are more racially equal than any society in human history.

00:08:45.000 In 1958, only 4% of Americans said that they were fine with black-white intermarriage.

00:08:50.000 That stat was 87% by 2013.

00:08:53.000 As of 2013, 72% of white Americans and 66% of black Americans thought race relations in the United States were good.

00:09:01.000 As of July 2016, before Trump's election, that number was down to 53% of Americans overall.

00:09:07.000 Why is this happening?

00:09:08.000 Why are we reversing course when it comes to racial politics?

00:09:12.000 How about technology?

00:09:13.000 Some people say it's social media that's making things worse.

00:09:15.000 I agree that social media is making things worse.

00:09:17.000 It does feed an outrage cycle. 0.98

00:09:19.000 You look for stories that fulfill your confirmation bias.

00:09:23.000 But that is a means, not a reason.

00:09:25.000 Meaning it amplifies, but it's not the rationale for the amplification in the first place.

00:09:29.000 Social media is a great way of spreading misinformation and division, but there has to be a desire to do that in the first place.

00:09:37.000 We're not happy as a society, or at least our level of happiness has radically decreased in the freest, most civilized society in human history.

00:09:45.000 So what exactly can restore happiness?

00:09:47.000 First, we have to go back to the original definition of happiness.

00:09:49.000 What is it that makes us happy in the first place?

00:09:52.000 We've mixed up temporary joy for happiness.

00:09:55.000 We've mixed up sensory experience for happiness.

00:09:58.000 We've mixed up the idea of material prosperity for happiness.

00:10:01.000 These are not happiness.

00:10:03.000 All of the ancients, whether you're talking about Judeo-Christian values or Greek philosophers, all of them believed that happiness had to do with a sense of moral purpose.

00:10:13.000 In the Bible, the word for happiness is simcha, in the Hebrew Bible.

00:10:18.000 And simcha essentially means right action in accordance with God's will, because God actually commands people to be b'simcha, to actually be happy.

00:10:25.000 Well, how can I command you to be happy?

00:10:28.000 How can I command you to an emotion?

00:10:29.000 The idea in Judaism is that you cultivate the emotion by action, by right action in accordance with virtue.

00:10:35.000 By doing that, you cultivate a lifestyle where you live b'simcha, in happiness, in accordance with what God wants of you.

00:10:42.000 And this is true in Christianity as well.

00:10:44.000 True happiness lies in doing what God wants of you.

00:10:47.000 In Greek theory, there's something very similar going on.

00:10:50.000 Aristotle's eudaimonia, being active in accord with complete virtue.

00:10:53.000 He defines being happy as acting in accordance with right reason over the course of your life.

00:10:58.000 So acting with purpose, acting with meaning, acting with reason.

00:11:02.000 So what do we need to achieve that kind of purpose and happiness?

00:11:06.000 What do we need to make society and ourselves happier?

00:11:09.000 I think we need four things.

00:11:11.000 I think we need four things.

00:11:12.000 And one second, I'll tell you what are the four things I think you need.

00:11:15.000 A lot of this is in my book, The Right Side of History, out today.

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00:12:24.000 Okay, so what do we need to achieve happiness?

00:12:26.000 I think there are four elements.

00:12:28.000 Individual purpose.

00:12:30.000 Individual capacity.

00:12:31.000 Communal purpose.

00:12:32.000 Communal capacity.

00:12:34.000 See, we as human beings exist on two planes.

00:12:36.000 On the one side, we are individuals.

00:12:38.000 We want to be alone with our families.

00:12:40.000 We want to be left alone to make our own decisions.

00:12:43.000 And on the other hand, human beings are naturally political and social creatures.

00:12:46.000 We want to be with other people.

00:12:48.000 We want to build a social fabric.

00:12:49.000 We want to build something together.

00:12:51.000 Now, if you move too far in one direction, in the individual direction, then the social fabric crumbles, and you end up with a sort of dog-eat-dog individualism where we're not helping each other out, where we don't care about each other, and then usually people ask for some sort of overarching government in order to force people to care for each other.

00:13:09.000 Then that's bad.

00:13:10.000 On the other hand, if you stretch too far in the communal direction and you forget about the individual, then the individual gets crushed because the idea is that the interests of the community outweigh the interests of the individual.

00:13:19.000 This is sort of the French revolutionary idea that rights spring from government and therefore government can activate as a body moving in the communal interest to crush the individual.

00:13:30.000 So we need both to recognize that human beings exist simultaneously as individuals and also as members of a society, as members of a polis, as members of a city.

00:13:39.000 So, we have to have things that fulfill us, both as individuals and as members of a community.

00:13:44.000 We need, first of all, individual moral purpose.

00:13:47.000 We need to believe that we have meaning as individuals, that we, here, have an identity as individuals that is meaningful, and that our action in the world is meaningful.

00:13:57.000 This comes from the basic biblical idea that we are all made in God's image, meaning that we all have a godly mission, and God cares about this, and that we are endowed with both rights and duties.

00:14:07.000 Our individual moral purpose lies in using our reason to individually live up to what God expects of us, or what reason would have us do.

00:14:14.000 Which, in the religious vision, is the same thing.

00:14:17.000 We have to have meaning as individuals apart from society's demands.

00:14:20.000 You're alone on a desert island, what do you do with your life?

00:14:23.000 The religious answer is you live in accordance with God's will, and the Aristotelian answer is you live in accordance with reason, and this is what makes you a virtuous person who is capable of happiness.

00:14:33.000 We also have to have individual capacity.

00:14:35.000 In a second, I'm going to get to what individual capacity means.

00:14:37.000 So, individual capacity means that we have the capacity for reason.

00:14:41.000 That we have the ability to pursue our goals with some degree of success.

00:14:45.000 This means we have to have free will.

00:14:47.000 That we have the ability to choose otherwise.

00:14:49.000 And it means that we also have to be able to exercise something magical and mystical called our reasonable instinct to overcome our own natural inclinations.

00:14:58.000 The founders were all self-help specialists, and they believed in our capacity to better ourselves.

00:15:02.000 Religion is all about this idea that we have to better ourselves.

00:15:06.000 Viktor Frankl, who's a Holocaust survivor, wrote in the book Man's Search for Meaning about living through the Holocaust, quote, every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom, which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity, to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

00:15:28.000 In other words, it was the capacity to choose that gave us the meaning.

00:15:32.000 You have to believe that you're here for a reason and also that you have the ability to fulfill that reason.

00:15:39.000 That's as an individual.

00:15:40.000 Then, we have to have a communal moral purpose.

00:15:42.000 We need a social fabric.

00:15:44.000 The single best predictor of lifelong happiness, according to longitudinal studies from places like Harvard, is the existence of close relationships.

00:15:51.000 Social capital.

00:15:52.000 Shared priorities.

00:15:53.000 This is what binds us together.

00:15:55.000 Now, there's been a lot of talk about diversity.

00:15:57.000 Diversity is great, so long as we are all looking in the same direction.

00:16:00.000 Diversity is not great, so long as we are all pulling each other apart.

00:16:04.000 This is what Robert Putnam discovered.

00:16:06.000 In writing his book Bowling Alone, Harvard Sociologist, he said that the only two things that go up along with the diversity of a census tract is TV watching and protest marches.

00:16:16.000 So the idea that diversity is our strength, he said, is not true except when there's a shared semblance of purpose so inside a church for example where everybody shares a purpose to worship god and commune with god then diversity can be a great boon because people have different experiences but they're all aimed the right direction the same thing is true in the army where you see i mean you speak to people who have been in the military they have a shared sense of purpose and all of their individual differences are secondary to their communal sense of shared purpose We as a country have to have that, too.

00:16:44.000 We as a nation have to have that.

00:16:46.000 And finally, we have to have communal capacity.

00:16:48.000 We have to have strong social institutions because that allows us to be free as individuals without empowering the government to run roughshod over us.

00:16:55.000 Alexis de Tocqueville talks about this at length in Democracy in America.

00:16:58.000 He says what makes America different is that America has these strong social institutions.

00:17:02.000 He meant mostly churches.

00:17:04.000 And all the founders believed this.

00:17:06.000 Even the ones who were deistic or even atheistic believed that you required a strong social fabric rooted in Judeo-Christian values in order to build a communal capacity.

00:17:15.000 The ability for all of us to come together and do the things we need to do while still protecting each other as individuals.

00:17:21.000 So what built our civilization such that we could fulfill individual purpose, individual capacity, communal purpose and communal capacity?

00:17:29.000 The balance between Judeo-Christian ethics and Greek reason.

00:17:33.000 Jerusalem and Athens in the typical formation.

00:17:37.000 Jerusalem, the idea of Judeo-Christian values, brought us the idea that a master plan stands behind everything.

00:17:44.000 And that we are capable, as human beings, of trying to understand that master plan.

00:17:49.000 The idea that God is moral and demands of us a morality.

00:17:53.000 That we are not supposed to simply make up our own morality.

00:17:55.000 That gives us a shared sense of meaning and purpose.

00:17:58.000 That history progresses and that we have a share in building that history.

00:18:01.000 The story of the Bible is God taking a nation from slavery to freedom.

00:18:05.000 And God caring about the progression of history.

00:18:08.000 The Bible provides us, the Judeo-Christian ethic provides us with the idea of free choice.

00:18:12.000 That you can choose otherwise.

00:18:14.000 Okay, that's all important stuff for building a civilization, but it's not enough.

00:18:17.000 You also have to have Athens.

00:18:19.000 You have to have reason.

00:18:21.000 You have to believe that there is a purpose in nature.

00:18:23.000 That we can determine the meaning of things by looking at them.

00:18:27.000 That we can figure out what is true by studying the universe.

00:18:30.000 This does require the idea of a designer, which is why Thomistic thought is really a merger between Aristotelian thought and Christianity.

00:18:38.000 It's why Maimonidean, Moses Maimonides, his thought is very much in the same vein.

00:18:43.000 The sort of merger between Greek reason and Judeo-Christian ethics.

00:18:47.000 Because here's the thing, if you think that you got all your values from God, why use reason at all?

00:18:51.000 Reason becomes something superfluous.

00:18:54.000 But what Aquinas did, what Maimonides did, is they said, no, reason brings you to the same place that Judeo-Christian ethics do and provides you the impetus for action.

00:19:02.000 Not only that, reason allows you to build science because you have to study the universe in order to understand what is true and what is good.

00:19:10.000 It brings you the birth of democracy.

00:19:12.000 The state is in existence in order to forward this quest for reason.

00:19:17.000 And in order to forward the quest for reason, you actually have to respect the rights of the individual.

00:19:21.000 That's why Cicero was writing about true law is right reason in agreement with nature.

00:19:25.000 You can't act against natural law.

00:19:27.000 This is what Thomas Jefferson writes in the Declaration of Independence when he's talking about natural law.

00:19:32.000 When he says nature and nature's God, what he is talking about is the natural law.

00:19:36.000 The idea that you can look at the universe around you and discover telos, purpose, in nature.

00:19:41.000 Natural law theory is the foundation of the notion that you have rights that are independent of government and that government didn't create those rights out of nothing.

00:19:51.000 The tension between Jerusalem and Athens, the interplay, that is what built the West.

00:19:56.000 That is what built the greatest civilization in the history of mankind.

00:20:00.000 You abandon Judeo-Christian values.

00:20:02.000 You abandon free will.

00:20:03.000 You abandon purpose.

00:20:05.000 What you end up with is a reversion to tribalism. 0.97

00:20:07.000 A reversion to, let's all get together in tribes and beat the crap out of each other. 0.98

00:20:11.000 A reversion to romantic nationalism.

00:20:13.000 Okay, we as a broader society will run roughshod over other societies.

00:20:17.000 You end up at communism.

00:20:18.000 We will construct A theory of morals, completely independent of our Judeo-Christian roots. 0.61

00:20:24.000 And then we will suggest that that system of morals can run roughshod over the individual.

00:20:28.000 Forget about the idea that all individuals are made in the image of God.

00:20:31.000 All individuals are cogs in a machine.

00:20:33.000 You end up with fascism.

00:20:34.000 The idea that if you want to forward the social compact, that means destruction of the weak.

00:20:40.000 And finally, you end up where we are right now.

00:20:41.000 You end up with subjectivism.

00:20:44.000 The idea that happiness can't be achieved through any of these other means that we've been talking about.

00:20:48.000 Instead, true happiness is simply self-esteem.

00:20:50.000 And if you threaten my self-esteem, you're threatening my identity.

00:20:53.000 And therefore, I have no reason to use... Reason doesn't play a part here.

00:20:57.000 Anything you say that I disagree with is not about a reason discussion.

00:21:02.000 It's about you attacking me.

00:21:04.000 That's what happens when you abandon religion.

00:21:06.000 When you abandon reason, you end up with theocracy.

00:21:09.000 You end up with what we've seen historically in Christian countries a thousand years ago.

00:21:14.000 You end up with what we see in Pakistan right now or Afghanistan.

00:21:18.000 Theocratic systems where human rights go by the wayside.

00:21:22.000 We have to revisit these roots if we want to rebuild our civilization.

00:21:25.000 That's what my new book is all about, The Right Side of History.

00:21:27.000 It's on sale today, so go check it out right now.

00:21:30.000 I'm speaking about all of this at the Reagan Library tonight, is why I believe it's sold out, but I'm going to be speaking a lot more about these themes, and these have real relevance to today's debate.

00:21:37.000 If you're not going to defend Western civilization for what it is, Then we are in real trouble.

00:21:43.000 We need to revisit those routes.

00:21:45.000 Okay, in just a second, I'm going to get to the latest news from the 2020 race.

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00:22:53.000 Okay, so meanwhile, the 2020 Democrats continue to move more and more radical.

00:22:59.000 They are moving in more and more radical directions.

00:23:02.000 Beto O'Rourke, of course, leading the way.

00:23:04.000 Gotta love yourself some Beto.

00:23:06.000 So Beto, yesterday, came out and he basically embraced late term abortion.

00:23:12.000 A position that is only held by some 13% of the American public.

00:23:15.000 Only 13% of Americans are in favor of keeping abortion legal past the 20th week.

00:23:20.000 Beto is one of them because the Democratic Party has decided to whole-scale embrace abortion at every turn and turn it into an identity politics issue.

00:23:29.000 That if you don't support abortion up till point of birth, somehow you're anti-woman.

00:23:33.000 Beto did this routine.

00:23:34.000 He's got this real weird habit, Beto does, of going into various institutions, public establishments, and then standing on the counters as though it's dead poet society.

00:23:43.000 And maybe he thinks that it makes him seem romantic.

00:23:45.000 Maybe there are people who find this sort of thing romantic.

00:23:48.000 Are you for or against third trimester abortions?

00:23:53.000 So the question is about abortion and reproductive rights.

00:23:56.000 of Sat's authenticity of Beto O'Rourke.

00:23:59.000 Here's Beto O'Rourke explaining why it's okay to kill babies late in the term.

00:24:03.000 - Are you for or against third trimester abortions? - So the question is about abortion and reproductive rights.

00:24:10.000 And my answer to you is that that should be a decision that the woman makes. - He knows his lines and he knows what he is supposed to say.

00:24:21.000 This is a radical position.

00:24:23.000 And Democrats continue to maintain this radical position, even in opposition to their own base.

00:24:26.000 Because when every issue boils down to an identity politics issue, when it's not about reasonable conversation about the nature of human life and what is happening inside the womb, when it turns into an attack on a political principle, I wish were true is an attack on me, it's very easy to get people to clap for you like seals.

00:24:44.000 This is what Beto is doing.

00:24:45.000 I mean, it's just warmed over Obama-ism with a side dose of Hopi-changiness. 0.93

00:24:51.000 There's a piece in the Washington Post about Beto O'Rourke today.

00:24:53.000 Today, there's so many pieces like this.

00:24:55.000 Beto O'Rourke's early campaign, upbeat sentiments absent many specifics.

00:25:00.000 So are they just now noticing the guy has no specifics?

00:25:03.000 It was funny, they ignored that when he was running against Ted Cruz.

00:25:05.000 But now, they're suddenly noticing, oh look, Beto, he doesn't know things.

00:25:09.000 The former congressman from El Paso quickly listed a few issues when he was speaking to a group of women Sunday afternoon and was asked to share his vision for America.

00:25:16.000 And then he detailed his vision for the campaign.

00:25:18.000 You ready?

00:25:19.000 This is his vision for the campaign.

00:25:20.000 Beto O'Rourke.

00:25:22.000 Oh God.

00:25:23.000 Going everywhere, writing nobody off, taking no one for granted, could care less what party you belong to, to whom you pray or whether you pray at all, who you love, how many generations you've been here, whether you just got here yesterday.

00:25:35.000 We're going to define ourselves by our aspirations, our ambitions, and the ability to bring this country together.

00:25:42.000 The hell does that mean?

00:25:43.000 How are you going to bring the country together around a set of shared nothing?

00:25:48.000 Around us I'd have shared nothing.

00:25:49.000 I mean, you literally just said you don't care about anybody's identity, which is fine, but then they have to be united by something.

00:25:58.000 If they are not united by something, then they will be divided by everything.

00:26:02.000 That is the way diversity works.

00:26:03.000 If you are not united by something, you are divided by everything else.

00:26:06.000 Even the Washington Post says he never got to articulating a clear vision for America.

00:26:11.000 And he continues to maintain this position that he doesn't actually have to define what exactly he is talking about. 0.99

00:26:17.000 And people fall for this garbage. 0.96

00:26:19.000 Olga Sanchez, 70, who drove more than two hours on Saturday from the Des Moines suburb to Waterloo to see O'Rourke speak, said, he's just so positive. 0.99

00:26:25.000 That's what I like.

00:26:26.000 He's not saying straight Democrat.

00:26:28.000 He's not saying independent.

00:26:29.000 He's not saying just progressive.

00:26:30.000 He's not saying no to Republican.

00:26:32.000 That's just it.

00:26:32.000 He includes everyone.

00:26:33.000 I'm all for inclusivity.

00:26:35.000 Well, this sounds very much like the Obama campaign circa 2008.

00:26:39.000 We're not red states.

00:26:40.000 We're not blue states.

00:26:40.000 We're the United States.

00:26:42.000 Also, I wish we were all blue states.

00:26:45.000 O'Rourke continues to act like he is Gumby.

00:26:47.000 He seriously talks about how he wants the public to shape him.

00:26:51.000 Okay, so he actually says that he wants the public to help him shape himself.

00:26:57.000 Help me help you.

00:27:00.000 Beto O'Rourke.

00:27:01.000 The fact that he's taken seriously demonstrates the lack of good ideas in the left base.

00:27:06.000 The idea leader in the left base right now, the person who keeps throwing out ideas to no avail, is Elizabeth Warren.

00:27:11.000 She did a big town hall event on CNN last night.

00:27:15.000 And in that town hall event, she just kept throwing out more and more radical proposals.

00:27:19.000 She suggested, for example, that it was time to abolish the Electoral College, which obviously is a great idea. 1.00

00:27:24.000 The colors of the wind, man.

00:27:26.000 One of the things that you love about Elizabeth Warren is that she says that she is for America's institutions being durable enough to contain President Trump, and yet she wants to abolish the Electoral College.

00:27:36.000 Here she was yesterday talking about abolishing the Electoral College.

00:27:40.000 Presidential candidates don't come to places like Mississippi.

00:27:46.000 Yeah.

00:27:47.000 They also come to places like California and Massachusetts.

00:27:50.000 Right?

00:27:51.000 Because we're not the battleground states.

00:27:54.000 Well, my view is that every vote matters.

00:28:00.000 And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting.

00:28:11.000 And that means get rid of the Electoral College.

00:28:16.000 There's something mildly opportunistic about this.

00:28:20.000 There are arguments for getting rid of the Electoral College.

00:28:22.000 I actually hear those arguments.

00:28:23.000 I think there are reasonable arguments for it.

00:28:24.000 But the argument can't be Trump won.

00:28:26.000 And that, unfortunately, is the Democratic argument.

00:28:29.000 On this score, the Electoral College has served America pretty well.

00:28:32.000 And the fact is that if we were to have a straight popular vote, there is no question that people who live in the rural areas would certainly feel a greater divide from people who live in the cities, because the fact is that the cities would then dominate our electoral politics.

00:28:43.000 Nobody would get campaigned to it.

00:28:44.000 It'd be everybody campaigning in L.A.

00:28:46.000 and New York and Washington, D.C.

00:28:48.000 and Chicago and Dallas.

00:28:49.000 All of which, listen, all great cities.

00:28:51.000 I mean, I live in LA.

00:28:52.000 I've been a city boy all my life.

00:28:54.000 But the fact is, if you want to help rural divides be overcome, that's probably not the way to do it.

00:29:00.000 That wasn't the only radical Elizabeth Warren proposal.

00:29:02.000 She also said that she would think about eliminating private insurance.

00:29:05.000 I like how Democrats are just like, yeah, I'll think about this proposal to eliminate 165 million health care plans.

00:29:10.000 It's worth considering.

00:29:12.000 Well, maybe you should have considered it before you entered a presidential race, lady. 1.00

00:29:15.000 You are a co-sponsor of Senator Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill, and I understand there are a lot of different paths to universal coverage, but his bill that you've co-sponsored would essentially eliminate private insurance.

00:29:26.000 Is that something you could support?

00:29:27.000 He's got a runway for that.

00:29:29.000 I think we get everybody together, and that's what it is.

00:29:32.000 We'll decide.

00:29:33.000 We start with our values, we'll get to the right place.

00:29:36.000 So, theoretically though...

00:29:39.000 There could be a role for private insurance companies under President Warren.

00:29:42.000 There could be a temporary role.

00:29:45.000 It's a big and complex system and we've got to make sure that we land this in a way that doesn't do any harm.

00:29:52.000 Everybody has got to stay covered.

00:29:54.000 It's critical.

00:29:55.000 Okay, so she has no solutions, but she is saying all the words that people want to hear.

00:30:00.000 This is Elizabeth Warren's shtick.

00:30:01.000 She's trying to steal Bernie Sanders' base. 1.00

00:30:03.000 I don't think that it is going to go where she wants it to go.

00:30:06.000 There is one area where she believes that she can make some hay, and that is on the intersectional theory area.

00:30:11.000 She believes that she can move into Kamala Harris' base if she panders hard enough, and so she's been pushing slavery reparations. 1.00

00:30:17.000 The impact of discrimination handed down from one to the next means that today in America, because of housing discrimination, because of employment discrimination, we live in a world where the average white family has $100, the average black family has about $5.

00:30:39.000 So, I believe it's time to start the national, full-blown conversation about reparations in this country.

00:30:49.000 I mean, come on, come on.

00:30:50.000 It's time to start the national—but she will not explain what exactly those reparations should be.

00:30:55.000 Should America collectively be sorry for slavery?

00:30:59.000 Of course!

00:31:00.000 It was a historic sin.

00:31:02.000 Should I be sorry for slavery?

00:31:03.000 Should you be sorry for slavery?

00:31:04.000 Well, I didn't enslave anybody, and nobody I know enslaved anybody, and none of my ancestors enslaved anybody, and I have not benefited from slavery, so I'm having a hard time with the I'm supposed to Pay out of my own pocket to somebody who may not even be the descendants of slaves if this is simply race-based as opposed to history-based.

00:31:21.000 And, again, slavery ended in the United States in 1865.

00:31:23.000 If there's a case for reparations, the best case for reparations is that people were systemically harmed by Jim Crow and that the people who specifically damaged them should pay them reparations, but The case for slavery reparations is obvious political pandering by Elizabeth Warren and all the other Democrats who are pushing this sort of stuff.

00:31:38.000 Again, focusing on what divides us as opposed to what unites us because nobody actually wants to talk about what unites us because unfortunately for a lot of people on the left and on the populist right, what divides us is more important than what unites us.

00:31:50.000 Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit more about the Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom are proposing vast institutional changes to the nature of American government.

00:31:58.000 But first, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

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00:32:29.000 Today, also at long last, as I have mentioned, my latest book, The Right Side of History, is officially released.

00:32:34.000 The book details the crisis of purpose that is happening right now in Western civilization.

00:32:37.000 So if you want to know how we got here, how we get back on track, head on over to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or rightsideofhistorybook.com to pick up your copy and tune in tomorrow.

00:32:45.000 We have a special episode of The Conversation at 7 p.m.

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00:32:48.000 Pacific.

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00:33:09.000 So it's not just Elizabeth Warren trying to push harder to the left in order to shore up the intersectional base as well as the Bernie Sanders base or cut into it. 1.00

00:33:24.000 It's also Cory Booker, who's the odd man out in this presidential cycle.

00:33:27.000 He is just not polling.

00:33:29.000 And that's because you look at Cory Booker and you think, this guy is overproduced.

00:33:33.000 He's just overproduced.

00:33:34.000 It's like an early Michael Bay film.

00:33:36.000 Everything is overdone.

00:33:38.000 It's a Transformers flick.

00:33:40.000 And you can see all the gears moving, just like in a Transformers flick.

00:33:43.000 But here was Cory Booker yesterday, claiming that he wants term limits for Supreme Court justices.

00:33:47.000 Weird, he didn't want that five minutes ago, but now that President Trump has appointed two Supreme Court justices, now he wants term limits so that he can term out people like Clarence Thomas, obviously.

00:33:56.000 I think we need to fix the Supreme Court.

00:33:57.000 I think they stole the Supreme Court seat.

00:33:59.000 Can we keep it at nine?

00:34:00.000 Should we keep it at nine?

00:34:01.000 I think I would like to start exploring a lot of options and we should have a national conversation.

00:34:05.000 Term limits for Supreme Court justices might be one thing.

00:34:07.000 To give every president the ability to choose three.

00:34:10.000 We have people holding on to those seats in ways that I don't think is necessarily healthy.

00:34:15.000 Age limit?

00:34:17.000 Look, I think term limits might be a better way of saying that.

00:34:21.000 OK, so he's saying term limits, obviously, and that, of course, is politically driven.

00:34:24.000 He wasn't talking about term limits until five seconds ago.

00:34:27.000 I've said that Supreme Court justices, maybe term limits are a good idea. 0.63

00:34:30.000 I've said that for a very long time, actually.

00:34:32.000 I used to say that back all the way in law school.

00:34:34.000 But all this newfound institutional change that Democrats are in favor of, It's weird that it coincides with President Trump ruling.

00:34:42.000 That's weird.

00:34:43.000 That President Trump, being the President of the United States, suddenly has changed their view of our key institutions.

00:34:48.000 Well, there are a couple of other candidates who are coming out of the woodwork.

00:34:51.000 Bill de Blasio still continues to run around suggesting that he is a presidential candidate, and it really is kind of sad.

00:34:58.000 We actually have some theme songs.

00:35:00.000 We have a theme song for Bill de Blasio.

00:35:01.000 We haven't premiered yet.

00:35:03.000 Yeah, nobody likes Bill de Blasio.

00:35:09.000 So he was in Concord, New Hampshire.

00:35:11.000 According to the New York Post, Mayor Bill de Blasio's ongoing tease of a presidential run didn't exactly pull in the crowds during a campaign-esque event in the Granite State.

00:35:19.000 Only 20 people showed up Sunday to hear the leader of America's largest city hold a roundtable on mental health, including the 14 people on the panel.

00:35:28.000 So six people showed up, a full half dozen.

00:35:32.000 I mean, maybe they knew that meeting with the Groundhog Killer was actually a dangerous proposition.

00:35:37.000 There were also six reporters on hand.

00:35:39.000 I do love how the media operate.

00:35:41.000 There is a reporter for every member of the crowd, for Bill de Blasio.

00:35:44.000 De Blasio pulled a well-worn page from his mayoral campaign, and he put First Lady Chirlane McRae center stage on what was his second day touring the crucial primary battleground state.

00:35:54.000 The day began with de Blasio and McRae touting her under-scrutiny $1 billion mental health initiative, Thrive at New York City.

00:36:01.000 De Blasio said she's my partner in everything I do, and that is a phrase we say every opening and have said for years.

00:36:05.000 They feel her humanity and they feel her compassion.

00:36:09.000 I've never truly understood why it is that first ladies are considered political figures. 0.97

00:36:14.000 This makes no sense to me.

00:36:15.000 They are not elected.

00:36:16.000 If you want to elect Shirlene McRae, then you know what you can do is elect Shirlene McRae. 0.91

00:36:20.000 But why you should get a package deal with the wife's political priorities when you elect the husband or the other way around is really bizarre to me.

00:36:29.000 It's really bizarre.

00:36:29.000 But in any case, Bill de Blasio has no actual support for his run.

00:36:32.000 That's not stopping him anyway, because everybody is interested in running at this point.

00:36:38.000 In one second, we'll get to another one of the myriad Democratic candidates.

00:36:42.000 This one, a no-name who's beginning to pick up a little bit of steam.

00:36:46.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:36:47.000 So there are a couple of no-names in this presidential race who have picked up a little bit of steam.

00:36:51.000 Obviously, Pete Buttigieg.

00:36:54.000 From South Bend, Indiana, has picked up at least a little bit of media coverage.

00:36:58.000 I don't think he's picked up any popular steam.

00:36:59.000 The other guy who's picked up some steam is Andrew Yang, who seems to have a lot of millennial appeal.

00:37:04.000 He also has positions on every possible issue.

00:37:06.000 If you go to his website, Andrew Yang, it is just filled with positions.

00:37:09.000 More positions than the Kama Sutra.

00:37:11.000 Just positions on every possible issue.

00:37:13.000 We do have a theme song for Andrew Yang, actually.

00:37:17.000 So the only reason That we are using this song is because he does have an unfortunate habit of sounding off on weird issues.

00:37:28.000 Today's weird issue from Andrew Yang, he is taking a strong public stance against circumcision.

00:37:35.000 Because this is what we need our presidential candidates sounding off about, is circumcision.

00:37:39.000 Now, listen, as an Orthodox Jew, I have a vested interest in the continuation of the availability of circumcision. 0.99

00:37:45.000 I will say that I find it very odd that Democrats, many Democrats, okay with chopping a baby's head off in the womb, not okay with chopping a little bit off the tip of the penis. 0.90

00:37:56.000 Not okay with getting rid of the foreskin, which, by the way, does not inhibit sexual function in any way. 0.99

00:38:00.000 As an Orthodox Jew, I'm circumcised.

00:38:02.000 I have been ever since I was eight days old.

00:38:04.000 And you know what?

00:38:05.000 Everything's working just fine.

00:38:06.000 Got two kids and ten on making more.

00:38:08.000 It's pretty fine.

00:38:09.000 Everything's good.

00:38:10.000 This is true, by the way, for the vast majority of American men.

00:38:13.000 The majority of American men are circumcised.

00:38:15.000 Andrew Yang wants to stop all that.

00:38:17.000 He said in a little-noticed tweet last week that he was against the ritualized practice of cutting a newborn's foreskin.

00:38:22.000 He said that in an interview with the Daily Beast, he would incorporate that view into public policy, mainly by pushing initiatives meant to inform parents they don't need to have their infant circumcised for health reasons.

00:38:33.000 Well, that, of course, is controversial.

00:38:36.000 It does lower rates of, for example, penile cancer, and I believe it also lowers rates of certain STD transmissions.

00:38:45.000 But it's really funny.

00:38:46.000 Andrew Yang says he wants a top-down take on the medical availability of circumcision.

00:38:53.000 I thought that, why can't that be a decision between the parents and their doctors?

00:38:56.000 So it's a decision between a woman and her doctor when she wants to kill a baby in the womb. 0.89

00:38:59.000 It is not a decision between a woman and her doctor when she decides whether to circumcise a baby, which has no significant after effects on children in any way.

00:39:09.000 So, well done, Andrew Yang.

00:39:12.000 It's fascinating, though.

00:39:13.000 He has picked up a fair bit of support.

00:39:15.000 I have gotten a lot of emails about having Andrew Yang on the program.

00:39:17.000 I'd be happy to have Andrew Yang on the Sunday special.

00:39:20.000 And we have these Sunday specials.

00:39:21.000 I've invited, I believe, every major Democratic presidential candidate.

00:39:24.000 I invited Pete Buttigieg on the actual, on Twitter, on the Sunday special.

00:39:30.000 He said he'd be interested, never got back to us.

00:39:32.000 Honestly, if people ever watch the Sunday special, you will see that I treat everybody on all sides of the aisle with I think a fair bit of generosity.

00:39:41.000 The same would be true of Andrew Yang.

00:39:42.000 I'd love to have Andrew on the Sunday special.

00:39:44.000 We can discuss all of this stuff.

00:39:46.000 Nonetheless, he is developing a cult following.

00:39:49.000 He's proposing a $1,000 a month freedom dividend to every adult in America.

00:39:54.000 That freedom dividend presumably is not going to be paid out as opposed to welfare.

00:39:59.000 It will be continuation of welfare policies plus the $1,000 a month freedom dividend.

00:40:04.000 If you were to propose a universal basic income that was a replacement for the welfare system, I think there's a strong argument for it.

00:40:10.000 That looks a lot like the negative income tax proposed by Milton Friedman.

00:40:15.000 Three decades ago, four decades ago.

00:40:17.000 But if you are proposing it in addition to the current welfare system we have in the United States, then all you're doing is just adding more money on top of an already failing system.

00:40:26.000 So he is drawing major crowds.

00:40:29.000 He outlined his idea to a crowd of mostly millennials at an outdoor soccer field lined with food trucks.

00:40:34.000 Apparently some 3,000 people showed up to one of his recent rallies.

00:40:37.000 More than 66,000 donors have contributed over $350,000 to the campaign this month.

00:40:42.000 Only 1% of Democratic voters have expressed support for him, but he is available for the debates.

00:40:47.000 So it'll be interesting to see what he has to say when he gets on that debate stage.

00:40:51.000 Again, I will say that at least Andrew Yang has ideas.

00:40:53.000 As opposed to Beta Aurora, who apparently has no ideas at all.

00:40:58.000 He wants to eliminate robocalling.

00:40:59.000 He wants to increase public funding for the arts and local newspapers.

00:41:03.000 He would like to protect children from smartphones, presumably with legislation.

00:41:06.000 He wants to pay college athletes, which I agree with.

00:41:09.000 He argues that the best way to ensure wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes is to impose a value-added tax.

00:41:14.000 Well, that obviously is a national sales tax as opposed to an income tax I'm in favor of.

00:41:20.000 He understands it is possible to have a robust federal government that is not overly wasteful or staffed by bureaucratic layabouts.

00:41:26.000 This is according to The Week.

00:41:28.000 Now, all of that sounds better than what the other Democrats are talking about, so we may make fun a little bit.

00:41:33.000 Love tap, Andrew Yang.

00:41:34.000 But the fact is that at least Yang has some ideas as opposed to some of these other Democrats who are trotting out a bunch of nonsense.

00:41:42.000 As I've said before, of these Democrats, Buttigieg and Yang are the most interesting to me.

00:41:46.000 They're also the people who have 1% of support, so maybe there's a correlation there.

00:41:50.000 Meanwhile, there's a lot of hubbub today over President Trump going after Kellyanne Conway's husband. 0.99

00:41:56.000 This has been a long, simmering debate and feud between George Conway, who's the lawyer husband to Kellyanne Conway, and President Trump finally fired back at George Conway because George Conway was tweeting out that President Trump is nutso, bazunkers, and so President Trump tweeted back, a total loser. 0.99

00:42:11.000 Today. 0.99

00:42:12.000 So rough day for Kellyanne Conway.

00:42:15.000 He recently warned, George Conway did, in a series of tweets and retweets that Trump's erratic and voluminous social media activity was a sign that his mental condition was getting worse.

00:42:25.000 Kellyanne had said that she doesn't share those concerns with her husband.

00:42:29.000 I've said before, guys, that I think that you do have to share some political priorities, not only with your neighbors, but presumably with your spouse.

00:42:35.000 It's gotta be kind of uncomfortable, right?

00:42:37.000 To be Kellyanne Conway at this point and have your boss going after your husband openly on social media. 0.98

00:42:44.000 Oof.

00:42:45.000 Not a good, by the way, not a good look for the President of the United States.

00:42:47.000 Don't punch down at George Conway, dude.

00:42:49.000 Just unnecessary.

00:42:50.000 Unnecessary. 0.99

00:42:50.000 People who think you're nuts already think you're nuts. 0.99

00:42:52.000 And you going after George Conway is not doing you any favors on this score. 0.97

00:42:58.000 So, again, Mr. President, please just stop. 0.99

00:43:01.000 I'm happy to cover the Democrats day in and day out, but you're gonna have to stop with this silly crap. 0.99

00:43:06.000 Honestly, it makes you less popular, not more popular. 0.99

00:43:09.000 I know you think that people bought the ticket to ride the train.

00:43:13.000 Well, the train is gonna have a short stop in 2020 if you don't cut this sort of nonsense out.

00:43:17.000 First of all, You know, at least you can say that he's firing back at George Conway.

00:43:22.000 Him going after John McCain over the weekend was just immoral.

00:43:24.000 So, there's that.

00:43:25.000 Alright, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:43:27.000 So...

00:43:29.000 Things that I like today.

00:43:30.000 There's a new movie on Netflix, and this movie is just chock full of stars.

00:43:35.000 It's Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, who's a shockingly good actor, actually, and Pedro Pascoe, who you'll recall from Game of Thrones and also from Narcos, who's a terrific actor.

00:43:46.000 The movie is about a bunch of soldiers who decide that they're going to essentially rob a drug cartel leader in South America.

00:43:54.000 It's really good.

00:43:55.000 It's a tight movie.

00:43:56.000 It's got a lot of moral ambiguity to it, which is really interesting.

00:44:00.000 You can go check it out right now.

00:44:01.000 It's called Triple Frontier on Netflix.

00:44:03.000 Here is a little bit of the preview.

00:44:06.000 I have never had a feeling as pure or proud as completing a mission with all of you.

00:44:15.000 Everything we've done for the last 17 years, trying to make a difference.

00:44:20.000 And we never took a dime.

00:44:23.000 You've been shot five times for your country, and you can't even afford to send your kids to college.

00:44:28.000 I got a job for you.

00:44:30.000 I'm retired.

00:44:32.000 Fish, I need a pilot.

00:44:34.000 I got the new baby now.

00:44:35.000 This can change you and that baby's life forever.

00:44:38.000 We finally get to use our skills for our own benefit.

00:44:41.000 It's dark, and it's pretty intense, and it's very stress-filled.

00:44:44.000 It's definitely worth the watch.

00:44:46.000 There's some really good stuff about it.

00:44:48.000 It's really well shot.

00:44:48.000 Go check it out, Triple Frontier, over at Netflix.

00:44:51.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:44:58.000 So thing that I hate, number one, they always do these polls.

00:45:00.000 People always do these polls where they ask people if they want higher taxes on the rich people and better welfare.

00:45:05.000 And people, shockingly, are like, yeah, you know, that'd be great.

00:45:07.000 More free stuff for me and tax you.

00:45:10.000 Yeah, you know why they say that? 0.99

00:45:11.000 Because it's fun to tax other people and then take their crap. 0.99

00:45:14.000 That's actually really easy. 0.76

00:45:16.000 This is one of the reasons why I think that we had better get back into the mode of you don't get to take other people's money.

00:45:22.000 The mode of every individual is made in the image of God and that means you do not have a right to other people's property.

00:45:27.000 But it's always amusing to me when people who are on the left then cite these polls as evidence that people are in favor of a more socialized system.

00:45:35.000 Yeah, they're in favor of it until they realize the cost of it.

00:45:37.000 It's very easy to believe that all of the rich people have giant Scrooge McDuck money bins in the backyard, and that if you just take those money bins, they'll continue to work just as hard, and that they will continue to employ just as many people.

00:45:50.000 It's obvious nonsense.

00:45:51.000 It's just not true.

00:45:52.000 If you want to know how Singapore, which is legitimately a rock, like there's no actual natural resources on Singapore, has become a powerful economy, it's because they don't actually believe in taxing the living hell out of everybody who is wealthy.

00:46:05.000 The same thing was true in Hong Kong when it was run by the British.

00:46:09.000 Basically, any safe haven for wealth ends up being a wealthy country.

00:46:12.000 This is true in Switzerland as well.

00:46:14.000 Nonetheless, they cite these polls as evidence that this is what the people want.

00:46:18.000 Yeah, you know what the people then don't expect?

00:46:20.000 That you're going to have to hike the middle class taxes.

00:46:22.000 It turns out the rich people don't have enough money to pay everyone else their salary and also pay for everybody else's welfare programs.

00:46:31.000 People said in this poll of 21 OECD countries, the industrialized countries, that they were not getting their fair share given what they paid into the system.

00:46:40.000 People were, on average, particularly concerned about access to good quality, affordable, long-term care for the elderly, housing, and health services.

00:46:47.000 Weird, because all of these countries are the ones that we are emulating.

00:46:49.000 So, you're telling me all of the OECD countries that we emulate want even more welfare?

00:46:53.000 They're not even satisfied with what they have now?

00:46:55.000 And in places like Denmark, they're paying 60% taxes if you're middle class?

00:46:59.000 If you're barely middle class?

00:47:01.000 The great lie about redistribution is that the redistribution stops when you get to the upper income levels.

00:47:08.000 It is just not true.

00:47:08.000 It is just not real.

00:47:09.000 Somebody's gonna have to pay for all this crap, and it's going to be you. 0.99

00:47:13.000 Okay, meanwhile, other things that I hate. 0.98

00:47:14.000 So, Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican of California, has now sued Twitter, two anonymous Twitter accounts, and political consultant Liz Mayer for more than $250 million.

00:47:24.000 He's alleging that the defendants engaged in negligence, defamation per se, insulting words, and civil conspiracy.

00:47:30.000 I'm not sure that insulting words is a cause of action.

00:47:34.000 In the suit, Nunes accuses Twitter of having a political agenda by allowing two anonymous accounts, Devin Nunes' mom and Devin Nunes' cow, and Liz Mayer, to attack, defame, and demean him.

00:47:43.000 The suit alleges that the two Twitter accounts engaged in a vicious defamation campaign against Nunes that lasted for over a year, and claims that Mayer relentlessly smeared and defamed him by filming stunts at his DC office, accusing him of multiple crimes and filing fraudulent ethics complaints against him.

00:47:58.000 The lawsuit also claims that Twitter shadow banned Nunes, which restricted his free speech and amplified the abusive and hateful content.

00:48:06.000 Now, I think that this lawsuit is probably improperly filed. 0.97

00:48:11.000 I think it is difficult to win a defamation lawsuit as a public figure, generally, and you just have to take an enormous amount of crap. 0.92

00:48:16.000 I mean, as a public figure, presumably more public than Devin Nunes, I take an enormous amount of abuse and garbage on social media. 0.96

00:48:23.000 That just goes along with the territory.

00:48:25.000 I've never once thought about suing my detractors on Twitter, for example.

00:48:29.000 With that said, the loud outcry and amusement of people at Nunes, from people on the left, people saying, well, you know, why is he so offended by Twitter?

00:48:38.000 These are the exact same people who say that Russian bots got Trump elected using Twitter.

00:48:43.000 Which of course, either Twitter is just something we're all gonna have to live with, and you're just gonna have to deal with it, or Twitter is innately, insanely powerful, in which case, Devin Nunes should be able to sue people.

00:48:52.000 You gotta pick one, guys.

00:48:53.000 You don't get to pick both.

00:48:54.000 All right, so we're gonna be back here a little bit later today with much more.

00:48:58.000 We have a couple of guests on later today.

00:49:00.000 I know David French from National Review is stopping by to discuss a gun manufacturer lawsuit that must be taken up by the Supreme Court.

00:49:08.000 Basically, a lower court just ruled that gun manufacturers can be held liable for the misuse of guns, which is an insane, insane ruling.

00:49:15.000 We'll discuss that with David French a little bit later today on the show.

00:49:17.000 Plus, we'll have all the updates for you later today.

00:49:20.000 You're listening to The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:49:26.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:49:28.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:49:30.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:49:32.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:49:34.000 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:49:36.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:49:37.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:49:39.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:49:40.000 Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:49:42.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - March 19, 2019

Why We’re All So Angry | Ep. 740

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