Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

Oct. 29, 2015 - The Ben Shapiro Show

35:12

Ep. 17 - Debate Postmortem

Ben grades the horrendous CNBC debate hosts - and the debate itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	In what had to rank as the worst presidential debate in modern history, CNBC anchors berated, cut off, and skewed the words of all the Republican candidates over the course of two absolutely stultifying hours on Wednesday night.
	In spite of, and in the case of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Chris Christie, Because of that terrible moderation, Republicans actually emerged looking better for wear.
	They needed to show they had elbows, and many of them did.
	So, without further ado, here are the third Republican debate grades.
	Donald Trump gets a B. In the run-up to the debate, I said that Trump actually needed to stay away from attacking the other candidates, and actually, he basically did.
	The only time that he went after anybody else is when an aggressively nasty John Kasich And Trump did a great job of going after the media.
	I've been saying for months, for years actually, that going after the media is the best path to victory for Republicans.
	Trump did it.
	His final riposte against the CNBC powers that be, in which he bragged about forcing them to reduce the length of the debate to two hours, was classic.
	The only reason Trump got a B, rather than an A, was because he was caught red-handed in a lie about his position on H-1B visas.
	It became clear Trump hadn't even read his own immigration plan, or if he did, he didn't know it well enough for a debate.
	Doesn't matter.
	All of his fans still love him, and all of his detractors still hate him.
	It's a B.
	Ben Carson, this was the guy coming in with all the momentum.
	He exits without it.
	He has a C. He didn't have much to say throughout the debate.
	He flubbed his answers on his tax plan.
	He looked uncertain.
	He looked erratic.
	He looked weak.
	Occasionally, he gets off a strong note.
	Whenever he talks about social issues, Carson is great.
	But every time he's not talking about social issues, he looks weak.
	He even acknowledged that his weakness, his personal weakness, could be his own inability to consider himself a presidential candidate, which seems a pretty fair summation.
	Marco Rubio.
	Rubio pulls an A. Rubio had a really, really good night.
	As I said yesterday, Marco Rubio is a terrific defensive fighter.
	He was going to be attacked, and he was.
	He was smooth on defense.
	He was willing to jab at the media.
	He labeled the media the Democratic Party's super PAC.
	It was a terrific moment, and it was a moment underscored by Hillary's lackeys at CNBC attacking him the entire debate with discredited talking point after discredited talking point.
	John Harwood, who is an absolute We'll get to Jeb Bush in just a minute.
	He even lied about Rubio's tax plan statistics, and Rubio had to give him a basic tutorial on elementary mathematics.
	Rubio even beat up Jeb Bush after Bush turned on him regarding his voting record in the Senate.
	He bashed Bush for hypocrisy, and he was right to do so.
	We'll get to Jeb Bush in just a minute.
	So Marco Rubio, he gets an A.
	Moving on, Ted Cruz.
	Ted Cruz had the best moment of the entire night.
	Ted Cruz gets an A. Big moment for him.
	As I said yesterday, Ted Cruz needed a spontaneous moment.
	Something off-script.
	He got it last night.
	Ted Cruz said that the questions asked by the idiotic moderators, quote, illustrate why the American people don't trust the media.
	He then said this is not a cage match.
	He said the debate between Democrats was a debate between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and he contrasted the media treatment of Republicans with media treatment of Democrats.
	He said where every fawning question from the media was which one of you is more handsome and wise.
	Cruz then pointed out that none of these members of the media would be voting in Republican primaries.
	Cruz needed to be aggressive after a couple of passive debates, and he was, in a very big way.
	Frank Luntz, who I don't tend to like, his focus group, though, rated that 98%, that moment for Ted Cruz.
	It basically muted the television for the next few minutes.
	Big moment for Ted Cruz.
	Cruz is for real.
	And he and Rubio are the shadow frontrunners behind Trump and the fading Carson.
	Jeb Bush.
	Bush pulls an F.
	Jeb Bush was awful.
	He couldn't dent Rubio.
	He couldn't dent Trump.
	He appeared alternatively bewildered and angry, sort of like a man standing off the side of a freeway complaining about the weather.
	He sided with the members of the media rather than doing the right thing and tearing them apart, unlike the other intelligent candidates.
	He's done.
	He's toast.
	Turn out the lights.
	Good night.
	Rubio's candidacy, his campaign, had the unkindest cut of all.
	His campaign manager was asked about Bush's performance.
	He said he wouldn't even bother critiquing it because it spoke for itself.
	Carly Fiorina, she got to B. She was polished, she was composed, she was witty.
	Doesn't matter.
	She did really well in the last debate.
	There's no place for her to go but down.
	Rand Paul, he gets a D. Rand Paul, was he even there last night?
	I'm still not sure.
	If you were a member of the Colorado Public Smoking Pot, you could be forgiven for missing his presence.
	He vowed to filibuster the new budget deal, which looked like a desperation play and didn't even land with the heavily conservative audience.
	Rand Paul will be dropping out of the race momentarily.
	Mike Huckabee pulls a C2.
	Huckabee's always fine in debate.
	He had a couple of good lines against the media.
	But his star has waned.
	His economic populism made him seem kind of dissonant in the more free market crowd.
	Chris Christie.
	Christie had a pretty solid night.
	He got a B.
	He has a feel for the room.
	He understands the mood.
	He bashed the media.
	He told the idiotic John Harwood that John Harwood was rude even by New Jersey standards, which was a great line.
	He even scored on entitlement reform, and he appeared to be actually good-natured with his colleagues, which is totally at odds with his normal persona.
	A very good night for Chris Christie.
	He has become a dark horse.
	And finally, we get to John Kasich.
	John Kasich.
	John Kasich.
	That dude is the worst.
	And he got an F. Shouty McScreamy Pants came out in full force, with Kasich leading off the debate by calling his colleagues insane, and then concluding by saying Americans should come together.
	It was that kind of night for the incoherent, bumbling, moronic, big government governor of Ohio.
	Truthfully, Trump put his candidacy under the ground in the first five minutes of the debate.
	John Kasich basically looked as though he was building up either for a very large bout of flatulence or to actually explode.
	And it was the flatulence that just came out of his face.
	CNBC, their grade, they get a Z. There are no letter grades that properly fit how terrible the network was.
	The network was so bad, even Reince Priebus had to condemn them.
	So here's the good news.
	The field is consolidating.
	The top three in the end will be Trump and Rubio and Cruz.
	Chris Christie may be the new dark horse.
	Jeb Bush?
	He's done.
	And the race is on.
	I'm Ben Shapiro and this is The Ben Shapiro Show. - I tend to demonize people who don't care about your feelings. - Alrighty, so it is the day after the third Republican presidential debate.
	If I look tired, it's because I made a big sacrifice for all of you people.
	And if it sounds like I resent you, it's because I do.
	I wasted three hours of my time watching that inane bullsh- Okay, so, here's what I thought after watching that inane BS.
	There's a good side and there's the bad side.
	The bad side is that CNBC is a disaster area, as we'll get to in a moment.
	Reince Priebus should be fired for allowing this kind of debate to occur.
	The good side is that this debate was an acid test.
	What I mean by that is that it made clear very quickly who belongs on the stage and who does not.
	Because the truth is, and this has always been the truth and I've been saying it for years if you've been a fan of mine, if you listen to the podcast, if you listen to my radio shows, you know, I believe the true enemy of the Republicans are the media.
	The media are the enemy.
	The media have always been the enemy.
	And the media proved last night that they're the enemy, and if Republicans want to win in 2016, they don't just need to out-compete Hillary Clinton, they need to find some sort of way to smack the media as hard in the face as often as humanly possible.
	And last night was proof of that.
	All he had to do was watch John Harwood.
	John Harwood is a big Hillary Clinton fan, and John Harwood... I mean, there are no clean words, non-four-letter words, that I can say about John Harwood that are perfectly appropriate for who this guy is.
	I mean, he is just... He was awful last night.
	He was awful in general.
	There's no way he should have been anywhere near a debate stage.
	He certainly shouldn't have been a moderator.
	It angers me simply because whenever people lie, it makes me upset, and when you lie and say you're an objective person, it makes me annoyed.
	See, I'm a conservative.
	I'll tell you right off the bat I'm a conservative.
	If you put me moderating Hillary Clinton's debate, my first question to her would be, why are you such a liar?
	And my second question to her would be, why did you allow your husband to rape people?
	So it wouldn't exactly be a great debate for her.
	But I'm a conservative.
	I mean, this is what I do.
	John Harwood pretends to be objective.
	And John Harwood is not objective, as you will see from this montage of John Harwood's questions last night.
	John Harwood is... is...
	Let's put it this way.
	If Donald Trump had found an excuse to hit John Harwood physically with the podium, Donald Trump not only would have been elected president, he would have been appointed king.
	Here is John Harwood last night on CNBC.
	When you came into office with a budget surplus in the state of Louisiana, now years later, the state legislature faced a $1.6 billion budget gap and the Republican state treasurer called one of your approaches to that problem, nonsense on a stick, quoting him.
	Are you going to do for the federal budget what you did for the Louisiana budget?
	Absolutely, John.
	If you're a young student here, you've not seen a robust American economy.
	But Governor Jindal, as you know, many Republicans are opposed to the approach that you've taken in Louisiana.
	They complain that you have tried so hard to avoid anything that could be called a tax increase so that you could run for president saying you'd never raise taxes.
	You've had the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.
	So you see John Harwood there, and those points that he's using right there about the budget gap are completely discredited.
	They're not true.
	And in fact, Jindal says that the budget gap that existed at the beginning of the year no longer exists.
	But Harwood just argues with people.
	You'll see, it's a continuing theme throughout here.
	It wasn't just that Harwood would ask a bad question.
	It was then, if he didn't get a question that Hillary Clinton would have loved, he began arguing with people.
	He makes Candy Crowley look like Sean Hannity.
	I mean, he won... Last night, John Harwood... I think he finished his career.
	I really do.
	I think that John Harwood basically ended his career last night.
	People are calling for him to be fired.
	He should be fired.
	And his office should be salted.
	I mean, it was that bad.
	Here is John Harwood going after George Pataki.
	...policy in Washington and policy at the Fed.
	And let me go back to Washington.
	In 2009... Senator, I mean, Governor, if that's true, why was our economy limping six years ago, and now it's the strongest in the world?
	You've done very well in this campaign so far.
	I'm sorry, it's just propaganda.
	Sorry, it's just propaganda.
	I mean, he's actually, like, repeating Obama propaganda points.
	Our economy was limping along, now it's the strongest in the world.
	What a booming recovery we've had.
	Today, the news came out that in Q3, the economy grew by a whopping 1.5%.
	1.5%.
	We're not even outpacing the rate of inflation.
	But John Harwood, I mean, seriously.
	It's unbelievable.
	The real miracle last night is that John Harwood could ask questions with his tongue all the way up Obama's colon.
	And here is John Harwood continuing.
	Promising to build a wall and make another country pay for it.
	Right.
	Send 11 million people out of the country.
	Cut taxes ten trillion dollars without increasing the deficit.
	Right.
	And make Americans better off because your greatness would replace the stupidity and incompetence of others.
	That's right.
	Let's be honest.
	Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?
	You give nearly twice as much of a gain in after-tax income to the top 1% as to people in the middle of the income scale.
	Since you're the champion of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, don't you have that backward?
	No, you're wrong.
	I talked to economic advisors who have served presidents of both parties.
	They said that you have as much chance of cutting taxes that much without increasing the deficit as you would of flying away from that podium by flapping your arms as a preacher as well as a politician.
	I mean, this is egregious stuff.
	Sorry, this is just, it's egregious stuff.
	It's egregious stuff.
	I mean, the first thing that he asked Trump, is this a comic book version of a presidency?
	That's not a question, that's an attack.
	There's no way to answer that, right?
	Because it's not a question, it's a rhetorical question.
	This is a comic book, if it were a comic book version of a presidency, Trump immediately would have leapt the podium, grabbed him like the Hulk, and torn him bodily asunder.
	Okay, but the fact, and then he asks that question, the question that he asks to Marco Rubio there about tax, about his tax plan, saying that it would have given more money to rich people than poor people.
	Not only is John Harwood factually wrong, not only is he factually wrong, he tweeted that out several weeks ago and had to correct himself already several weeks ago on Twitter.
	And then he comes back with the original claim that he already corrected himself on Twitter.
	And he's quoting the Tax Foundation?
	The Tax Foundation, which is this non-profit group, they came out and said that John Harwood got it wrong last night.
	This morning, on Twitter, John Harwood was tripling down on it.
	Okay, I mean, this is how bad the moderator, and it wasn't just John Harwood, I mean, he was the worst of them.
	Betsy Quick, or Becky Quick, she was terrible.
	Carl Quintanilla was awful all the way through.
	Their questions, question after question after question, was just an attack upon an attack upon an attack.
	All of this was awful and demonstrates how truly, egregiously bad the media are and how biased they are and how terrible they are, but it set up Ted Cruz for a very big moment.
	Ted Cruz, after basically going missing in action for the first 20 minutes while the moderators ask everybody else questions, Ted's kind of sitting on one end of the stage, the senator from Texas.
	And finally they get to him and they ask him a question about why he would shut down the government, right?
	Another gotcha question.
	Why are you so happy about shutting down the government when it's going to ruin the economy and zombies will walk the streets?
	Blah blah blah blah blah.
	And Ted Cruz comes back and drops both the hammer and the mic in this one.
	Here is Ted Cruz going after the CNBC moderators.
	You know, let me say something at the outset.
	The questions that...
	...so far in this debate, illustrate why the American people don't trust the media.
	This is not a cage match.
	And you look at the questions.
	Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?
	Ben Carson, can you do math?
	John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?
	Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?
	Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?
	How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?
	Does this count?
	Do we get credit for this one?
	Carl, I'm not finished yet.
	The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, which of you is more handsome and wise?
	So, this is a question about the debt limit, which you have 30 seconds left to answer, should you choose to do so.
	Let me be clear.
	The men and women on this stage, have more ideas, more experience, more common sense than every participant in the Democratic debate.
	That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.
	And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary.
	The questions that are being asked shouldn't be trying to get people to tear into each other.
	It should be, what are your substantive solutions to people... I just want the record to reflect that I asked you about the debt limit and I got no answer.
	You want me to answer that question?
	I'm happy to answer the question.
	I'm happy to answer the question, but let me tell you how the question is.
	Let me tell you how the question is.
	So you don't actually want to hear the answer?
	- Senator Paul? - You don't want to hear the answer, you just want to insult. - You used your time on something else.
	Senator Paul? - You're not interested in an answer, John.
	- I'm interested in an answer for Senator Paul.
	Senator Paul the-- - Okay, so you can see, number one, Ted hits them exactly where they live.
	And you can see that Carl Quintanilla, who's the guy asking the question there, he gets very upset because he, Ted has punctured his sort of balloon of, his persona of objectivity.
	He gets very upset.
	So you're not going to answer the question.
	We'll just take it for the record.
	We're not going to answer the question.
	I went to school with all these people like this at UCLA and Harvard Law School, where the minute that you question their motivations by proclaiming the truth about their motivations, they get very huffy.
	And the huffiness, the kind of clutching of the pearls that Carl Quintanilla does there.
	Well, you know, I guess you just don't want to answer the question.
	Then Cruz says, fine, I'm happy to answer the question.
	And what Cruz was going to say is the way you phrased the question was to make it seem like I want to shut down the government when the president of the United States wants to shut down the government in order to preserve a blowout budget, right?
	That's where Cruz was going to go.
	And in fact, that is where Cruz went much later in the debate.
	But then he had to have John Harwood jump in there and say, well, you know, you used up your time.
	We're not going to let you talk anymore.
	It's too mean.
	We're not going to let you talk anymore.
	All the three asshats who are sitting there, making fools of themselves, they handed that debate to Ted Cruz.
	For the next several minutes, Rand Paul had to answer the next question.
	And honest to God, I don't remember a word of what Rand Paul said.
	Because there are certain moments in a debate Where somebody says something that just reverberates and really has resonance with the people who are watching and listening.
	That was one such moment.
	It was a very big moment for Ted Cruz and his campaign.
	It was a Mr. Breen moment back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was running for president.
	There was a New Hampshire debate.
	And they wanted to cut off Ronald Reagan's microphone, and he had actually paid for it, and he said, Mr. Breen, I paid for this microphone.
	It was a very big moment for him.
	Imagistic moments like this is what Republicans have to understand.
	The policy wonkishness of Marco Rubio, or the smoothness of Carly Fiorina, or the ability to speak in detail about drone proposals from Rand Paul, none of that makes one bit of difference.
	This is why Donald Trump is still winning, by the way.
	Persona is all that matters.
	Trump is still winning because Trump He continued to kind of push his persona last night.
	He had a couple of great lines last night.
	At the very end of the debate, Trump did something that was wonderful.
	Trump actually did a few things that were wonderful last night.
	We'll get to those in just a second.
	But it is important to point out that attacking the media is a winning strategy for Republicans.
	People like the media even less than they like Republicans.
	So by attacking members of the media, you actually succeed.
	Newt Gingrich did this in 2012.
	People tend to brush off Gingrich's candidacy.
	Gingrich went from last place to first place, basically, by attacking members of the media.
	And the reason is because they're that bad.
	They're that egregious.
	And you watch that clip and you can't help but think, these aren't moderators.
	These are activists on behalf of Democrats.
	Attacking the media is an effective tactic.
	It's a useful and effective tactic.
	And all the Republicans ought to be doing it on a regular basis.
	Props to Ted Cruz.
	Props to Marco Rubio.
	Props to Chris Christie.
	Ben Carson, who didn't attack the media too much last night, he came out after the debate and he said he's getting sick and tired of this debate strategy.
	He says he's sick and tired of the media bias here, as Ben Carson, who did not perform particularly well last night, but at least has enough wherewithal to understand that the battle is just as much against the left media as it is against the Democratic Party.
	Well, I think they obviously had an agenda, and when I compare them to the kind of questions that were asked of the Democrats in their debate, the difference is night and day.
	But the thing that was really encouraging to me is that the audience was able to pick up on the bias, and they were able to act accordingly.
	And I hope some of the media is starting to recognize this, because as you know, I have been quite critical of the media.
	They have their own agenda.
	They try to formulate the opinions of the people.
	And I think that people are getting a little sick and tired of it.
	I know I am.
	Now the reviews are in from yesterday, and even members of the media are now having to pretend to care about media bias.
	So people over at the Washington Post say this is egregious, and people at the New York Times say that it was over the top.
	When those people are saying you're over the top, there's only one reason they do that.
	And it's because they were fine with you being over the top.
	They just didn't like that you got caught.
	Right?
	They're part of the conspiracy.
	They just didn't like that you made it too obvious.
	And CNBC made it perfectly obvious last night what their perspective was on this race.
	It was bad all the way through.
	So Cruz was one big winner last night.
	Another big winner last night was Marco Rubio.
	And there was a point at which Marco Rubio scolded the media.
	And here's what it sounded like when Marco Rubio went after the media yesterday.
	Democrats have the ultimate superpacket called the mainstream media.
	Whoever's seen it... And I'll tell you why.
	Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee.
	She admitted she had sent emails to her family saying, hey, this attack in Benghazi was caused by Al-Qaeda-like elements.
	She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video.
	And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton's campaign.
	It was the week she got exposed as a liar.
	It was the week that she got exposed as a liar in Benghazi.
	But she has her super PAC helping her out, the American mainstream media.
	And of course, he's exactly right, too.
	It turned into a beat-up-the-media-fest, and what made that kind of entertaining after a certain point, because I'm a sadist, is because the media absolutely deserve every moment of this, even when they ask legit questions.
	And late in the debate, they actually got some legit questions.
	Nobody took the questions seriously, because after all, we know that the media are lying in order to protect their favored candidates.
	So, Rubio had a good night.
	Cruz had a good night.
	Donald Trump had a pretty good night.
	And it started right from the very beginning.
	Donald Trump, first of all, I have to say, I follow these debates and I live blog them over at DailyWire.com and I tweet about them and you can follow me at Ben Shapiro if you aren't already.
	And I tweet out kind of campaign lookalikes just for fun before the debates.
	And Trump, I tweeted a picture of Trump and then a picture of a very, very fat lion.
	And that is sort of what Trump was.
	I mean, he's just kind of like, he's not a full-on roaring in-his-youth lion.
	He's sort of a guy who sits there, and he paws at the air, and then every so often, if you really poke him, then he eats your face.
	And yesterday, John Kasich of Ohio, who's a blustering, bloviating idiot, John Kasich went after Donald Trump, and Donald Trump took John Kasich's face and gave him a swaddling.
	It was really bad for John Kasich.
	Here is Trump going after John Kasich and basically finishing John Kasich's candidacy.
	You said yesterday that you were hearing proposals that were just crazy from your colleagues.
	Who are you talking about?
	Well, I mean right here to talk about we're just going to have a 10% tithe and that's how we're going to fund the government and we're not we're going to just fix everything with waste, fraud and abuse.
	Or that we're just going to be great?
	Or we're going to ship 10 million Americans or 10 million people out of this country?
	So he keeps poking the lion, he's poking the fat lion.
	And at a certain point, you poke the fat lion too much and the fat lion rises.
	And you can see, Kasich, who is, I don't know what his new strategy is, I'm just going to yell at Republicans all the time.
	I mean, his voice has never dropped below about a nine on the spinal tap scale here.
	He's just, he's screaming and yelling the entire time.
	And finally, they go, they're about to go to Trump.
	And when they go to Trump, it's entertaining because it's sort of, it's like a horror movie.
	They open the closet.
	And what they get is not what they were bargaining for.
	This is one of the more entertaining moments of the debate.
	Because I was there, and I watched what happened, and Lehman Brothers started it all.
	He was on the board, and he was a managing general partner.
	And just thirdly, he was so nice.
	He was such a nice guy.
	And he said, oh, I'm never going to attack.
	But then his poll numbers tanked.
	That's why he's on the end.
	And he got nasty.
	And he got nasty.
	So you know what?
	You can have him.
	Yeah, let me just... Oh, angry lion, angry lion!
	Okay, so he can stop.
	So yeah, that's great.
	That was a good moment for Trump.
	He had a couple other good moments.
	He led off the debate by saying that his big weakness is that he never forgives, which is just awesome.
	I mean, it's just great.
	It's such a mafioso line.
	It should actually be the tagline of his movie.
	It should be, Trump, he never forgives.
	You crossed him once, he won't be crossed again.
	It's just—which also, by the way, is the slogan for The Passion, too.
	But Trump, he had a couple of other good moments in the debate.
	At the very end, he really smacked CNBC incredibly hard.
	He said that he should be elected because he wins, and the way that you know that he wins is because Donald Trump convinced CNBC to drop an hour.
	From the debate, and because they dropped an hour from the debate, everybody can go home and finish with this nonsense.
	It was very good stuff from Donald Trump.
	He's also, I mean, he's just great on TV.
	I mean, whatever else you have to say about Trump, and when you see him doing it, you can't see it, folks, if you're listening, which is why you should subscribe, but if you actually watch the video of Trump here, when he's ripping into Kasich, it's so wildly entertaining because he's making faces, his resting, there's a term my sisters use, and I can't, I'm not supposed to say bad words on this show.
	And it's really hard, because I know that I'm not on radio, so I really want to.
	But there's something that they call a resting B-face.
	And Lindsay knows what I'm talking about, right?
	You know, this is... exactly.
	Lindsay's doing it right now.
	And that is, what does your face look like when nobody knows that you're... when nobody's watching you?
	When you're just sitting around, what does your face look like?
	And some people have kind of like the grumpy face, and some people have like a little smile.
	Donald Trump's resting face is the...
	If you bother me in any way, this is going to go ugly for everyone, right?
	His resting face is like... And it's just, it's phenomenal.
	And then when he breaks from that into, like when he's talking about Casey, he starts doing these little effeminate motions with his shoulders to characterize Casey.
	It's just great.
	It's great TV.
	So Trump will continue to ride high.
	The other big moment of the debate, And this truly was a big moment, is Marco Rubio finishing off Jeb Bush.
	So Jeb Bush is basically, at this point, like Saul at the end of his tenure in the Bible, where he's standing on top of the hill and he's been grievously wounded from all sides, and he knows he's about to go down, and he turns to one of his spear carriers and he says, please, just finish me.
	And Jeb isn't quite asking for it, but he sort of is.
	And Marco Rubio finishes him.
	I mean, this is the moral combat finish him moment for Marco Rubio.
	Here's the problem with Jeb Bush.
	Jeb Bush is a pansy masquerading as a bully.
	And so we've had a couple of situations in debate where Jeb Bush, who's a spoiled rich kid, I mean, that's what he is, I grew up with a lot of people who were spoiled rich kids.
	Believe it or not, folks, for all of the accounts of my wildly rich upbringing, I grew up in a house where we had one bathroom for four kids, and I shared a room with three of my sisters, one bedroom for all four of us.
	And, you know, I went to a private school where everybody had their own car, and this was a big deal to me, everybody had their own car, and the tuition was very high, and my parents were on financial aid, and all the rest of it.
	So I know what it's like to grow up with people who grow up, the sons and daughters of very wealthy people.
	And, you know, if you do a good job parenting, it's not a big deal.
	If you do a bad job parenting, then people who are the sons and daughters of wealthy people are some of the most obnoxious people in the world, because they feel entitled to everything.
	And they feel that if you ask them a legit question about anything they're doing, they don't have to deign to speak with you.
	There's a sort of just entitlement complex that accrues to these folks, and it just reeks off of Jeb Bush.
	When you watch Jeb Bush, it feels for everyone.
	Like, he feels like it's owed him.
	Like, he deserves it.
	He's there.
	Why are you people bothering me?
	I don't know why I have to be on stage with you.
	And so, the problem is that when he attacks, he expects everybody to crumble before him.
	And he's already done this once and failed.
	He tried to attack Donald Trump for attacking his wife.
	He said to Donald Trump, I want you to apologize to my wife.
	And Donald Trump looked at him with that fat lion face and said, nah.
	And Jeb Bush sort of said, well, Okay, okay, okay, and he backed down.
	And he does the same thing with Marco Rubio.
	Now, what was really bad about this is that Marco Rubio is asked a ridiculous question by the aforementioned asshat, John Harwood.
	And Jeb Bush jumps on the bandwagon.
	Instead of doing what Ted Cruz does, which is smart, defending all the other candidates, Jeb Bush jumps on the bandwagon because he feels he has to pummel Rubio.
	And it goes very, very poorly for him.
	Because as I said, Rubio is a very good defensive fighter and Rubio can counterpunch.
	So he's not going to get a knockout, but he'll knock you down.
	And with Jeb Bush, Jeb has a glass jaw.
	So you hit him once and he goes down for the count.
	Here is Jeb Bush getting knocked out of the Republican presidential race by Marco Rubio.
	He's a dead man walking.
	He's gone.
	He just doesn't know it yet.
	This one's for Senator Rubio.
	You've been a young man in a hurry ever since you won your first election in your 20s.
	You've had a big accomplishment in the Senate, an immigration bill providing a path to citizenship that conservatives in your party hate and even you don't support anymore.
	Now you're skipping more votes than any senator to run for president.
	Why not slow down, get a few more things done first, or at least finish what you start?
	Yeah, that's an interesting question.
	That's exactly what the Republican establishment says, too.
	Why don't you wait in line?
	Wait for what?
	This country's running out of time.
	We can't afford to have another four years like the last eight years.
	Watching this broadcast tonight are millions of people that are living paycheck to paycheck.
	They're working as hard as they ever have.
	Everything costs more, and they haven't had a raise in decades.
	You have small businesses in America that are struggling.
	For the first time in 35 years, we have more businesses closing than starting.
	We have a world that's out of control and has grown dangerous, and a president That is weakening our military and making our foreign policy unstable and unreliable in the eyes of our allies, and our adversaries continue to grow stronger.
	They say there's no bipartisanship in Washington?
	We have a $19 trillion bipartisan debt, and it continues to grow as we borrow money from countries that do not like us to pay for government we cannot afford.
	The time to act is now.
	The time to turn the page is now.
	If we don't act now, we are going to be the first generation in American history that leaves our children worse off than ourselves.
	So when the Sun Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off, when they say Floridian sent you to Washington to do a job, when they say you act like you hate your job, do you?
	Yeah, let me say, I read that editorial today with a great amusement.
	It's actually evidence of the bias that exists in the American media today.
	But do you hate your job?
	Let me answer your question on the Sun Sentinel editorial today.
	Back in 2004, one of my predecessors to the Senate, by the name of Bob Graham, a Democrat, ran for president, missing over 30% of his votes.
	I don't recall them calling for his resignation.
	Is that the standard?
	Later that year, in 2004, John Kerry ran for president, missing close to 60 to 70 percent of his votes.
	I don't recall the Sun... In fact, the Sun Sentinel endorsed him.
	In 2008, Barack Obama missed 60 or 70 percent of his votes, and the same newspaper endorsed him again.
	So this is another example of the double standard that exists in this country between the mainstream media and the conservative media.
	Now, Jeb really should stay out of this.
	But he can't help himself.
	Here we go.
	Because I'm a constituent of the senator, and I helped him, and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work.
	He got endorsed by the Sun Sentinel because he was the most talented guy in the field.
	He's a gifted politician.
	But, Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work.
	I mean, literally, the Senate, what is it, like a French work week?
	You get, like, three days where you have to show up?
	You can campaign or just resign and let someone else take the job.
	There are a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck in Florida as well.
	They're looking for a senator that will fight for them each and every day.
	I get to respond, right?
	30 seconds.
	Well, it's interesting.
	Over the last few weeks, I've listened to Jeb as he walked around the country and said that you're modeling your campaign after John McCain.
	That you're going to launch a furious comeback the way he did, by fighting hard in New Hampshire and places like that, carrying your own bag at the airport.
	You know how many votes John McCain missed when he was ...that Fury's comeback that you're now modeling it under?
	He wasn't my... Now Jeb, I don't remember... Well, let me tell you, I don't remember you ever complaining about John McCain's vote record.
	The only reason why you're doing it now is because we're running for the same position and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.
	I've been... Here's the bottom line, I'm not... My campaign...
	It's going to be about the future of America.
	It's not going to be about attacking anyone else on this stage.
	I will continue to have tremendous admiration and respect for Governor Bush.
	I'm not running against Governor Bush.
	I'm not running against anyone on this stage.
	I'm running for president because there is no way we can elect Hillary Clinton to continue the policies of Barack Obama.
	That's delightful, and it's particularly delightful because if you actually – folks, you really need to subscribe so you can see the faces when people say these things.
	Because when you see the shot, the difference in the face of Jeb Bush between the beginning of that clip and the end of that clip, he goes from the smarmy smile to, oh boy, I just crapped my pants.
	And it happens all in the space of about 45 seconds.
	And of course, that's exactly right.
	Jeb Bush doesn't care about Marco Rubio missing Senate votes.
	No one cares about that.
	Let's be real.
	Most votes in the Senate are a complete waste of time.
	And the major ones, Rubio's been there for.
	But Jeb attacked And he got his lights knocked out right there.
	By the way, Eric Cantor, the guy who was just ousted, you remember he was the house majority whip, he was ousted in favor of Dave Brat in the primary in his own district.
	He has now endorsed Jeb Bush.
	That's pretty much the kiss of death.
	You can say goodbye to Jeb Bush.
	Final closing thoughts here because we're almost out of time.
	Final thoughts on the debate.
	CNBC made a mockery of itself, but that's okay.
	That's good.
	I like when the masks are pulled back.
	I like when the curtain is pulled back and the truth is revealed.
	CNBC is a hardcore leftist outlet.
	We all know it now.
	I also like the fact that all the Republican candidates had to respond to a hostile media because with the masks off, this is what the media are like.
	And they should understand this going forward.
	They're not going to make friends.
	They're not going to influence people.
	They have to attack the media with the same alacrity that Cruz and Rubio and Trump and Chris Christie, actually, all did last night.
	Finally, the field is winnowing.
	It's clear that the field is beginning to thin out.
	Ben Carson, for all of my love for many of the things that he said over the past few weeks, did not look good.
	I don't think that he has the mettle or the knowledge to stand up to the kind of presidential assault he'd be under if he were to head a general election.
	Marco Rubio obviously does his homework.
	Ted Cruz is constitutionally a fighter, and I don't mean U.S.
	Constitution, I mean like in terms of his own constitution, he is a fighter.
	And Donald Trump is a fat lion, and if you poke him hard enough, that fat lion will eat your face.
	And Donald Trump continues to prove that time and time again.
	This is going to come down to three candidates.
	It's going to be Trump, it's going to be the anti-Trump establishment guy, Rubio, and the anti-Trump conservative guy, and that's going to be Ted Cruz.
	And how it comes down at this point, anybody's guess, if I had to put money on it, I would say Rubio, although I don't like his immigration plan, that's not an endorsement of Rubio, that's just an assessment of the current political situation.
	This debate may have been more helpful than some of the others in weeding out some of the chaff from the wheat.
	And so thanks to CNBC for at least doing that.
	And also thanks to CNBC for making complete fools of themselves.
	Because anytime I can laugh at members of the mainstream media like John Harwood and Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick, that makes me a happy camper.
	It almost makes up for the fact that I had to waste four hours of my life watching all you duds on national television last night.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

▲