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Jan. 20, 2016 - The Ben Shapiro Show
48:15
Ep. 58 - Sarah Palin's Ridiculous Trump Endorsement Betrays Conservatism

Ben talks Palin's Trump endorsement, plus what leftists think of religion -- and cuddle parties! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Here we are, it is Wednesday.
I'm suffering through the last stages of the bubonic plague, and the United States is suffering through the last throes of its death agony.
But we'll get to all of that.
Well, not the bubonic plague part, but the agony we'll get to.
I'm Ben Shapiro, this is the Ben Shapiro Show.
You tend to demonize people because you don't care about your feelings.
*Sigh* Yesterday was a very tiring day.
Yesterday was a very tiring day because yesterday, of course, was the day on which Sarah Palin announced her support for Donald Trump.
And it was very disappointing to people for a wide variety of reasons.
The top reason I think it was disappointing to people is because Sarah Palin had been seen as a Tea Party conservative icon, and there she is endorsing, of the two candidates who are basically left, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
There is no question, as we went through on yesterday's show, there is no question that Donald Trump is the least conservative of those two candidates.
No question whatsoever.
In fact, Ted Cruz would be the most conservative Republican nominee probably in the history of the party.
Very, very conservative guy.
So Sarah Palin, who's supposed to be conservative, she decides, after all, no, not going to endorse Ted Cruz.
Instead, I will endorse Donald Trump, who is a charlatan.
And there's something that I need to explain, a couple things that I think I need to explain before we get to the Palin endorsement.
The first is that Donald Trump has unconsciously done an amazing job of unifying the Republican Party.
It's actually kind of astounding.
We talked about this a little bit yesterday.
Donald Trump has done something no one thought he could do.
He's brought people together.
Donald Trump, yes, he brought people together.
How?
Well, he started off his campaign by launching firebombs and brickbats at the Republican establishment.
Right?
I'm here.
They won't listen to you.
They won't listen to me.
And I'm gonna come and I'm gonna change everything.
And the Republican establishment, they said, that's a crazy dude!
We hate that guy.
They said, look what he's saying on immigration.
He's totally nuts.
Look what he's saying about Muslim refugees.
Totally out of his mind.
And so the grassroots said, well, if Trump is going after the establishment, and the establishment is going after Trump, Well then, great!
Okay, well, we like Donald Trump now, because the establishment hates Donald Trump, and he hates the establishment.
So they sort of let their anti-establishment feelings overrun their conservative principles.
Then, what's happened in the last couple of weeks is that Trump has broken with Ted Cruz.
And this is where you would imagine the conservative base would say, okay, well, you know, there's anti-establishment, like Trump, and then there is actual anti-establishment, as in, I want to completely change the face of the Republican Party and remake it in a conservative mold.
There's a wide, wide difference between being anti-establishment, between hitting the right people, and having the right principles.
There are lots of people all over planet Earth who hit the right people, but have the wrong principles.
During World War II, Stalin was hitting Hitler.
That didn't make Stalin right.
Right?
Stalin was still a bad guy.
He just happened to be an alliance of convenience for the United States.
And as Winston Churchill, who hated the Russians, hated the Soviets, said, you know, this is just something we have to do in order to take out the worst guy.
So conservatives formed a de facto alliance with Donald Trump.
But that didn't mean Trump was conservative.
And now, Trump is attacking Ted Cruz from the left.
It's clear he's not conservative, Trump.
Yesterday, he was smacking Ted Cruz over failing to support ethanol subsidies.
He's been smacking Ted Cruz for not working with the people in the Senate better.
You know, all the establishment people in the Senate who he supposedly hates.
And so Trump is doing all of this stuff, and conservatives, now is the time to break with Trump and say, okay, you took us this far, you fought the good fight against the establishment, but now it turns out that you're not Winston Churchill fighting Hitler, you're more like Stalin fighting Hitler, meaning you have the wrong principles, but you're fighting the right guy.
But now we've reached the point where the establishment has basically been turned into a charred briquette, so let's move on to what are your actual principles.
Instead, what Sarah Palin's endorsement did is it sort of Bridged the gap.
It gave Trump the patina of conservatism.
It allowed Trump to play at being a conservative even though he really is not.
Even though he really is not.
And I think there's another factor that's driving Trump's continued rise.
And there is no question that Trump is continuing to rise.
Florida poll.
Today.
Donald Trump, 48%.
Ted Cruz, 16%.
Senator of Florida, Marco Rubio, 11%.
Cruz, 16%.
Senator of Florida, Marco Rubio, 11%.
Jeb Bush, tres.
Okay, so the fact is that we are looking at a Donald Trump One of the things that's happening here...
And it's kind of sad, is the cult of personality has now taken over the Republican Party.
Now, to understand what I mean by the cult of personality, I don't just mean that we worship personalities we find appealing.
This has been true throughout human history.
What I'm talking about is we stop vetting people because they are famous.
Fame is sort of its own vetting process.
And you hear this from Hillary Clinton, actually, a lot.
She says things like, of course I've been vetted.
I've been in the public eye for 30 years.
Well, that doesn't mean that you've been vetted, it just means you've been in the public eye for 30 years.
Fame, you know, Henry Kissinger once said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
The truth is that fame is the ultimate, kind of, it's the, fame is the ultimate roofie, it makes people forget things, right?
Fame makes people forget about what you're doing, because the way that the brain works, the way we as human beings work, the brain is inherently lazy.
And what we do is we take people's word for it.
So, when you go to a restaurant, what do you do?
Before you go to a restaurant, you've never been to the restaurant, what do you do?
You go to Yelp, right?
You check the Yelp reviews and you see, did people like this restaurant, or did they say that it was just garbage?
Right, when you go to Amazon to buy a book, when you buy my book, the first thing you do is you look at the reviews.
When you're at the bookstore, you look at the blurbs on the back.
The reason that movies, when they put the movie trailers up on the networks, the reason that they'll say five stars, and then in tiny little letters who it's from, You know, Joe Blow Reviews.
The reason they do that is because they know your brain is too lazy to do your own research.
Instead, what you're going to do is take their word for it.
And most of the time in life, this actually works.
Most of the time, taking other people's sort of reviews for it generally works.
You figure you have a large enough crowd of people who like something, there must be something to it.
Now, as I've argued for years, this is not true of culture.
Otherwise, nobody ever would have heard of Lady Gaga, for example.
But, the fame is sort of its own inoculating power.
If somebody is famous, we assume this must not be a terrible person.
Everybody knows who they are.
And so, this shortcut that we use, where we kind of read other people's cues.
He knows who she is.
She knows who she is.
Therefore, she must be okay, right?
Everybody knows who she is.
She must be all right.
Do you vouch for this person, right?
Do you let this person into your party?
Yeah, well, we got 10 people who say that this person's fine.
Let them in, right?
The vouching system.
It's a shortcut.
The problem is, the human brain is susceptible to this shortcut in ways that are really stupid.
So, they've done social experiments, for example, where They'll get one guy standing on a street corner looking up into the air like he's looking at something.
Most of the time, people will ignore him, right?
Because they figure, okay, he's a crazy guy looking up in the air.
If you get five to ten people standing on a street corner anywhere in America, just looking up into the air randomly, people who are walking around them will stop and look up, right?
Because why would five to ten people be looking up in the air if there were nothing to look at?
We read the cues, in other words.
So, they've done this experiment, and it's true every single time they do the experiment, people stop and people look.
That's what fame is.
The media tell you Donald Trump is worth looking at.
There's a lot of people in the press and on TV who tell you that Donald Trump is worth looking at.
So everybody stops, and they look.
They tell you Hillary Clinton is on every magazine cover.
You stop and you look, and what that really does is it means you no longer have to vet.
Means you no longer have to worry, is this person dangerous?
Because obviously, if you see them everywhere, they can't be that dangerous.
Right?
I mean, the people on your advertising, on your TV, they're not dangerous.
You see them everywhere.
Barack Obama, by making himself ubiquitous, doesn't feel dangerous.
People we see all over the place, people recommended by all of our friends, they're not dangerous, they're not scary.
Fame inoculates people to reality.
And that's what's been happening here.
So, Trump is succeeding because he's a cynical politician who doesn't act like a cynical politician.
Because he's not cynical, he's actually sincere.
He's cynical in the sense that he'll attack anybody at any time for his own personal benefit, but he's perfectly sincere about that.
It's not planned, I don't think.
I think he just does stuff.
And because he does stuff, people take it as he's sincere.
So when he attacks the establishment, conservatives go, yeah!
And then when he attacks Cruz, the establishment goes, yeah!
And suddenly he's got a support base.
A big support base.
And when it comes time to vet him, we all go, I'm not really gonna vet him.
Doesn't everybody know who Donald Trump is at this point?
No, you don't.
I mean, as I said yesterday on the program, most people have not taken the time to vet Donald Trump.
Which brings us to Sarah Palin's endorsement of Trump.
As I said yesterday, Palin's endorsement of Trump is a major blow to the Ted Cruz campaign.
And I've said on the program, if I vote in the primaries tomorrow, if I'm voting, I vote Ted Cruz.
This is a blow to Ted Cruz's campaign.
The reason is because there are a lot of conservatives who read Sarah Palin's queue.
Right?
It's like a blurb on the back of a book.
It's like a Yelp review.
Sarah Palin says he's conservative.
Therefore, he must be conservative.
The problem is, I don't think that Palin cares whether he's conservative.
I think that Palin is, in many... I think, deep in her heart, I think she's a populist.
I don't think she's a policy wonk.
I think she's somebody who scorns the elites, which is, again, having the right enemies doesn't mean you stand for the right principles.
I think she scorns the elites.
I think she is more along the lines of Donald Trump in many ways than she is along the lines of Ted Cruz.
But for a long time, she had been posing as a Ted Cruz kind of conservative.
Small government.
We're not going to get involved in all of this.
You know, let's keep the government out of your business.
And yesterday she took that and she used that on behalf of Donald Trump.
And so here was Sarah Palin yesterday standing next to Donald Trump in what had to be one of the worst endorsement speeches in the history of the Republic.
I mean, I have to say this is probably the worst.
I've never seen one that's worse than this.
This was, on any objective level, this was, it's an oral jackhammer.
I mean, A-U-R-A-L.
I mean, listening to this speech, or watching this speech, It was an assault on the English language.
It was an assault on syntax.
It was an assault on basic rules of pronunciation.
But putting aside all of the stylistic problems with that, because the truth is, Palin's always had stylistic issues.
Putting aside all of that, in terms of content, it was absolutely, purely nonsensical.
Purely nonsensical.
So here's Sarah Palin endorsing Donald Trump.
And note, I'm pretty sure this entire endorsement, which was about 14 minutes long, Was one sentence.
So here's Sarah Palin endorsing Donald Trump saying that you gotta like Donald Trump because he's not pussyfooting around the issues.
By the way, she's dropping G's like they're hot here.
Here we go.
We are ready for a change.
We are ready and our troops deserve the best.
A new commander in chief whose track record of success has proven he is the master at the art of the deal.
He is one who would know to negotiate.
Only one candidate's record of success proves he is the master of the art of the dill.
He is beholden to no one but we, the people.
How refreshing.
He is perfectly positioned to let you make America great again.
Are you ready for that, Iowa?
No more pussyfootin' around.
Our troops deserve the best.
You deserve the best.
Okay, so, aside from coining a new pickle company, The Art of the Dill, Sarah Palin talking there about, you know, Trump won't pussyfoot around, what she's bringing to Trump here is she's saying that he's blue-collar, and she actually said that in the speech.
In this little speech.
At one point, she actually said that Donald Trump, quote, he's a multi-billionaire, but he's not an elitist.
And she talked about he, quote, spent his life with the working man.
Uh, no.
No.
In what sense has Donald Trump spent his life with the working man?
Hey, Donald Trump, he didn't make himself from nothing.
His dad was worth, I think, $400 million.
So the idea that Donald Trump spent his life with the working man, if by spent his life with the working man, you mean he used government to pry land from the hands of working people to hand over to him under eminent domain, then sure.
But Donald Trump is no blue-collar guy, but Sarah Palin has a blue-collar feel, so the fact that she's lending this sort of blue-collar, down-home, grizzly-mama feel to Trump is a big win for Trump, even though I think this routine is tired, I think that it's old, I think that Palin... I feel bad saying this, because I actually like Sarah Palin, or at least I used to, and I think that Sarah Palin...
had the ability after 2008 to become a real cultural figure if she had put in the work.
And she just didn't put in the work.
She decided that she was going to sit on her laurels and play off her image.
And so what we got instead is Sarah Palin gradually becoming a caricature of herself, a caricature of herself.
Basically, Al Pacino, at a certain point in his career, just became Al Pacino on screen.
He stopped being a good actor and he just became Al Pacino on screen.
Just shouting to people.
And same thing has happened.
to Jack Nicholson and it's happened to Robert De Niro.
Great actors at a certain point, and Nicholson was never a great actor, but great actors at a certain point, they tend to get lazy and then they just play themselves in every part till the end of time.
Sarah Palin had the ability after 2008 to really do something special, and she didn't.
And I think she got lazy.
And I think that now that laziness translated into, who do people like?
Who's popular?
Who can I make some hay off of?
Donald Trump.
And so she lends him the grizzly mama feel.
I think, I gotta be honest, I think that a lot of people who are grizzly mama types even are starting to find this whole routine slightly grating, slightly irritating.
She continued by saying that Donald Trump attacks political correctness head on.
Well, he being the only one who's been willing, he's got the guts, to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debated on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and hide.
They didn't want to talk about these issues until he brought them up.
In fact, they've been wearing a This political correctness, kind of like a suicide vest.
And enough is enough.
These issues that Donald Trump talks about had to be debated.
And he brought them to the forefront.
And that's why we are where we are today, with good discussion.
A good, heated, and very competitive primary is where we are.
And now, though, to be lectured that, well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry, is what we're hearing from the establishment.
Doggone right, we're angry!
Justifiably so!
Yes!
You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, just chill.
Okay, just, yeah, just relax.
Well, look, we are mad, and we've been had.
They need to get used to it.
This election is more than just your basic ABCs.
Anybody but Clinton.
It's more than that, this go-around.
Trump is just standing there looking kind of embarrassed, honestly.
I mean, you look at Trump and he's standing next to her, and she's just going on like this.
And again, any hint of policy here, any hint of why he's the best conservative in the field, again, she was supposed to be a conservative spokesperson, and instead she's kind of dropping a lot of language about him that people like, but wearing political correctness like a suicide vest, I mean, these are just deliberately inflammatory lines for no particular purpose.
But again, aside from wearing the paperclip jacket, which is, I have to say, there's no way not to comment on this jacket.
I'm not sure what she was wearing yesterday.
I'm also not sure how she got through a metal detector to actually get to Iowa, Sarah Palin.
But the incoherence of this speech belies the impact that her endorsement could have And it really was incoherent, and I know at this point it's really beating a dead horse to play more clips of the incoherence, but here was my favorite incoherent point of the speech.
Here's where Sarah Palin starts talking about what I could only assume to be drug use at the time, but was informed later was not.
Here is Sarah Palin talking about opium.
He being an optimist, passionate about equal opportunity to work, this self-made success of his, you know that he doesn't get his power, his high, off of opium.
What?
Other people's money.
Like a lot of dopes in Washington do.
They're addicted to opium, where they take other people's money, And then their high is getting to redistribute it, right?
And then they get to be really popular people when they get to give out your hard money.
Well, he doesn't do that.
His power, his passion, it's the fabric of America.
And it's woven by work ethic and dreams and drive and faith in the Almighty.
What a combination.
Dreams and drive and faith in the almighty.
Yeah, those are the words that I would use to describe Donald Trump.
Faith in the almighty, yeah.
A very holy man, Donald Trump.
Sarah Palin doing this routine.
This sort of cutesy conservatism actually bothers me.
I have no problem with the slogan.
I have no problem with a cute turn of phrase.
But when that's your whole shtick, it starts to... And again, even then it would be okay if you weren't using it in service to a man who is not going to overthrow the establishment.
Okay, let's be frank about this.
Sarah Palin is saying that Donald Trump is going to fight crony capitalism.
On the same day that she said this, the same day, Donald Trump said that he wants more ethanol subsidies.
For people who don't know, ethanol is this crap corn fuel that is wildly inefficient and ruins your engine, and the federal government spends literally billions of dollars a year pushing money to the farmers of Iowa in order so that they can generate some of this crap corn fuel, which the government then mandates you put in your car.
Right, and Donald Trump says, I want more of that.
And Sarah Palin says, crony capitalism is bad, that's why I'm endorsing Donald Trump.
And you say to yourself, wait, what?
What?
And you talk about opium, okay, if you're talking about the opium of crony capitalism, that's not opium, that's heroin.
When it comes to establishment support, she's saying that the establishment hates Donald Trump.
Really?
Then why did Donald Trump brag yesterday, brag yesterday that establishment figures were centralizing around him to stop Trump?
He said this yesterday.
The Hill reported this morning, today, quote, Republican donors are quietly coming around to the idea that Donald Trump could be their party's nominee for president.
So donors are getting behind Trump now, because given the choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the choice is clear for them.
Ted Cruz will tear them down, and Donald Trump will not.
And so, look, again, I understand the burn-it-all-down drive to support Donald Trump because you think he's gonna burn it all down.
Here's the sad truth.
Donald Trump is not gonna burn it all down.
He is not going to burn out the Republican establishment.
Donald Trump is not going to burn out the government.
Donald Trump is not going to make major changes to anything.
This man is going to go in and he's going to make deals where he feels like making deals and there's no guiding principle.
There is no centralizing principle to Donald Trump.
There is not a single major issue of consequence on which Donald Trump has not switched his position in the last six months.
Donald Trump, in 2012, Donald Trump was ripping Mitt Romney for being too harsh on immigration, and then he realized it would benefit him to be harsh on immigration, so he flipped.
Donald Trump was for partial birth abortion.
You know, there are people who say they've had an evolution on abortion, and I hear that.
Sometimes.
On partial birth abortion, I do not think there is an evolution.
I think if you were ever for partial birth abortion, I don't believe you that you evolved on the issue of partial birth abortion.
Unless you were fully ignorant of every facet of human biology.
Partial birth abortion, the idea that you can kill a baby one minute before it's born, I don't believe you when you say that you changed your mind on it.
I think you did that for political reasons.
Call me crazy, as someone who's been a lifelong pro-lifer, I just don't buy that very much.
I don't.
Maybe you ignored it.
Maybe you blinded yourself to it.
But that's not why Trump says that he's pro-life now.
Trump says he's pro-life because a friend of his was gonna get an abortion, had the kid instead, and the kid was wonderful.
That's not a case for pro-life.
That's a case for your friend not having an abortion.
The case for pro-life is that that is a human being in there.
So Trump has switched on all these issues, and this is why it's so frustrating to see Sarah Palin next to Trump, and the triumphalism with which the media is greeting this is really quite sickening.
The media, which declared Sarah Palin completely irrelevant, completely abnormal, stupid.
Sarah Palin was the lady who could see Russia from her house.
Now they're reviving the power of Sarah Palin to pump Trump.
Because the fact is that they know, they know, that if the conservative movement gets behind Trump, it is the death knell for the conservative movement.
And it really is.
It really is.
If the conservative movement gets behind Trump, because there are other candidates, folks.
We're not talking about a general election right now.
Now we're talking about conservatives.
Are you going to get behind a guy who is more liberal in every respect than Mitt Romney was?
Are you gonna get behind a guy who has said, who has praised the national healthcare systems of Scotland and Canada?
Are you gonna get behind a guy who doesn't believe in basic fundamental tenets of conservatism and who riffs through the Bible as though he's riffing through a set of vinyl CD, vinyl records?
I mean, it's just... I'm sorry, I don't believe he's conservative.
And that's okay if you want to vote for someone who's not conservative.
But don't say you're voting for him because he's the most conservative guy in the field.
Say that you're ignoring the conservatism because you think he can win.
Fine!
Say that you're voting for him because you think that he fights better than Cruz.
Fine!
But don't give me he's more conservative than Ted Cruz, which is the line some Trump supporters are using, and sort of what Sarah Palin was saying yesterday.
The minute that the Tea Party endorses Donald Trump, the Tea Party has ceased to be a small government party, and instead they've fallen into the, I think, gross, vile, nasty pit of populism.
I really don't like populism.
Populism is the...
Kind of shtick that Trump pitches, and it's pitched by Mike Huckabee, and it's this idea that... And Andrew Klavan and I were having this discussion this morning.
Populism is popular, right?
There's a reason that conservatism is not called populism, and the reason for that is because conservatism is about telling the truth, and populism is about appealing to the populace.
It's about suggesting that you're victimized by some unforeseen evil malignant forces in the universe, and if we only target those people, then things will be all better.
On Drew's show, which I listen to every day, and you should too.
That's why you should subscribe to both of our shows.
And you can with one easy purchase.
But if you do that, then what you'll hear Drew talk about is the fact that Trump appeals to a blue-collar set of workers.
That Trump appeals to blue-collar folks in the United States who feel like their jobs are being shipped overseas.
And my response to that is, I'm sure he does.
But he's also lying to them.
Because if he's saying that he's going to bring their jobs back, and everything is going to be hunky-dory, he's not telling them the truth.
You know, conservatism is about telling the truth.
And I know that the Republican Party is supposed to be a balance between telling the truth and winning, but if you're not telling the truth, you're not winning.
End of story.
If you're lying to the American people, there's no world in which you end up winning in the long run.
You just end up with a slower descent to hell, which is basically what the Republican Party has guaranteed over the last 30 years.
Well, the media, of course, are just over the moon about the Palin-Trump endorsement because it's great press.
I mean, let's face it.
A Trump-Bernie Sanders election would be basically I think.
At this point, if you said, of all the people in the race, who's the one most likely to win both Iowa and New Hampshire?
The mail-in endorsement means that Trump's going to win the nomination.
I think at this point, if you said, of all the people in the race, who's the one most likely to win both Iowa and New Hampshire?
Today, you'd have to say it's Trump.
And I think if he wins the vote, despite what I said before about Cruz possibly coming back in South Carolina, Trump could effectively end this tonight at the New Hampshire primary.
At this point, you look at the latest poll out of New Hampshire tonight, you look at what's going on in Iowa, where we've seen on the ground, and the momentum for Bernie Sanders.
Trump right now is the most likely person to win both the first Yep, it is.
Unfortunately.
And again, I think that's because conservatives have to watch themselves here.
Charles Krauthammer, he said sort of the same thing on Fox News.
He said, yeah, this really does hurt Cruz pretty badly here.
New Hampshire and South Carolina and then being the nominee basically.
Yep, it is unfortunately and again I think that's because conservatives have to watch themselves here.
Charles Krauthammer, he said sort of the same thing on Fox News, he said, yeah this really does hurt Cruz pretty badly here.
This is all about Iowa and because again if Trump wins Iowa, he's way ahead in New Hampshire.
I think he's at that point unstoppable.
And the reason I think this could be decisive is not because it helps Trump or it brings him additional support, but that it hurts Cruz.
The one thing standing between Trump and success in Iowa accrues.
He attributes his success in becoming a senator to her.
She now turns against him.
I think this is a major blow to him and that's why I think it could be decisive.
You know, I think it's more of a major blow to Cruz, not because Palin personally turned against him, but because she lends a patina of gravity to Trump's conservatism.
It simply does not deserve, and Trump will say anything.
There's a lot of speculation, excuse me, about why Donald Trump would, why Palin would do all of this.
Trump was asked yesterday if Palin would be his VP pick, and here was Trump's response on that particular score.
Back to Palin for a moment.
Would you consider her as your running mate?
Well, I don't think, to start off with, I don't think that it would be something she'd want to do.
She's been through that.
And, you know, interestingly, Savannah, and this is a 100% fact, when she came to see me and when she talked to me and I could see that she really liked what we were saying, she never said, gee, I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that.
She never made a deal like so many people want to try and make deals.
I mean, she just said, I really like what's going on.
It's an amazing I've never seen anything like it in politics.
A lot of people have said that.
Just read the cover of Time Magazine this week, right?
But she said, I've never seen anything like I've seen, you know, what you've been able to do in a short period of time in politics.
But to the question, would you consider it?
I haven't discussed it with her.
No, I haven't discussed anything with her about what she'd do, but she's somebody I really like and I respect, and certainly she could play a position if she wanted to.
You wouldn't roll her out as VP?
Well, I don't think she'd want to do it.
I mean, I don't think she'd want to do it.
And, you know, I really don't get into it right now because that question's always asked of me.
Who do you have in mind?
And I don't even think about VP right now.
And I just want to win.
I've always been a closer.
I get the deal done.
And I have to win before I start thinking about that.
There are a lot of good people in the Republican Party.
There are a lot of good people.
As far as Sarah's concerned, never asked me about that.
Never asked me about anything else.
Just wanted to support.
And it's such an honor because, as you know very badly, so many people are so disappointed that she didn't support them, but certainly there'd be a role somewhere in the administration if she wanted.
And I'm not sure that she does want that, but there would certainly be a role.
So there's Trump avoiding the question.
Let it be noted, in 2008 when John McCain selected Sarah Palin for the vice presidential nomination, Donald Trump said that it was a horrible idea.
He opposed Sarah Palin.
So now, obviously, he's flipped, just like on everything else.
On the other hand, there are people in talk radio, by the way, who are coming out against Palin on all this.
Cruz's people said yesterday they think that it'll hurt Palin personally to have endorsed Trump this way.
Glenn Beck, I know, was on a rampage against Palin.
He said that it's ridiculous that she abandoned her principles.
He posted this on Facebook.
Did Sarah Palin, small government, lower taxes, fewer regulations in the Constitution?
Not anymore.
Big government, bailouts, executive orders, not just abortion but partial birth abortion, nationalizing of banks, stimulus, pathway to citizenship.
All of these views were held by Donald Trump during this administration.
So, Beck, who's another Tea Party figure, is bashing Palin.
So, I think that the battle for the soul of the Tea Party is not over.
with Palin Moore.
She's played the game now for years.
Perhaps she knows more than those of us still on the outside.
Maybe the press was right about her, but for all the wrong reasons.
Hashtag Sarah Palin, hashtag Donald Trump.
So Beck, who's another Tea Party figure, is bashing Palin.
So I think that the battle for the soul of the Tea Party is not over.
I don't think Palin's endorsement of Trump means the end of the Tea Party.
But if Trump wins the nomination with Tea Party support, it is the end of the Tea Party.
And again, folks, Donald Trump is the establishment.
Remember, conservatives who are—this is the falsehood of this whole dichotomy.
Yesterday I said that the battle between Trump and Cruz is really, do you want to blast the establishment or do you want a conservative?
That was the battle.
Even that's too simple.
It's a false battle.
Donald Trump is not going to touch the establishment in the way that Ted Cruz is going to touch the establishment.
Look, Terry Branstad, who is the governor of Iowa, and again, a big fan of ethanol subsidies, yesterday he came out and he said, he's an establishment guy, he said, I won't support one of these candidates.
Who is it?
Here's Terry Branstad from Iowa.
And I think that Ted Cruz is ahead right now, but what we're doing is we're trying to educate the people of Iowa.
He is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels, and he actually introduced a bill in 2013 to immediately eliminate the renewable fuel standard.
He is heavily financed by big oil.
So we think that once Iowans realize that fact, they might find other things about him attractive, but I think it would be very damaging to our state, and that's the reason why he hasn't been invited to this, because he hasn't supported renewable fuels, and I believe that would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him.
And I know he's ahead in the polls, but the only poll that counts is the one they take on caucus night.
And I think it could change between now and then.
I think this event is an important, significant step to helping educate the voters in this state.
And this state is where it all begins.
The establishment supports Trump over Cruz.
And there's a reason.
Trump is the guy who hobnobs with the Clintons.
Here's Donald Trump yesterday, yesterday, talking about why he gave money to the Clinton Foundation.
For God's sake, we're talking about a guy who's supposed to be the antithesis of Hillary Clinton.
The guy who's gonna fight her to a standstill.
The guy who's gonna fight the Democrats all the way down to the nub.
The guy who's gonna take apart the establishment and then rejigger the government in a more conservative way.
And he's on national television explaining why it doesn't matter that he gave money to Hillary Clinton.
Here's Donald Trump.
Let's change to the Clinton Foundation.
Some of your opponents have said, look, Donald Trump gave $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
And you say?
Well, over the years, I've been called a great businessman.
They just said in one of the articles, a world-class businessman, which is what I was and what I'm not now.
I'm a politician, if you can believe it.
I hate the term politician, but I guess that's what I am.
And I would take care of everybody.
I'd give to everybody.
I got along with Clinton.
I got along with The Speaker of the House.
I got along with everybody, and that was my obligation.
I got along with Democrats and Liberals and Republicans and Conservatives.
And they called me, and they loved me, and if they wanted to have dinner, they'd call me.
And whatever I wanted, I got.
I mean, that's part of being a successful businessman.
You bribed them.
That's the system.
As a businessman, you bribed them.
No, it's not a bribe.
It's just the fact that I get... You bribed them.
Well, in some cases, some people do that.
Well, when you give $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, now she's in trouble, Hillary Clinton, with the Clinton Foundation.
She's in trouble now.
So if you're the Republican nominee, how can you attack her on that when she'll turn around and go, you gave me $100,000 to do what I did?
It's very easy.
It's very easy.
And I have to tell you this, in all fairness, I thought that money was being put to very good use.
I assumed it was being put to, whether it's Haiti or all of the different things that I heard about.
I didn't know about the private airplane rides all over the place, and if you look at the kind of expenses that they charge and the way they lived, I had no idea that.
But I will say that as far as a foundation's concerned, I assumed it was being put to good use, and so did everybody else that gave, and there were a lot of people that gave.
They never really did anything for me, but I will say this.
I think they probably would have liked me.
And, you know, whether you give here or give there, I got along with everybody, Bill.
I got along with everybody.
All right.
Do you want your money back from the Clinton men?
By the way, let me just tell you something.
If they want to send it back, I'll take it gladly.
I would love to have it back.
By the way, I wish it was put to good use.
You want to know whether it's through that foundation or any of that?
Sure.
I wish it were put to good use.
Good lord.
Good lord.
I mean, seriously, this guy is going to be the anti-establishment.
I work with everybody.
I know everybody.
They all like me.
I can make deals with anybody.
He's going to be the guy who stands on conservative principle.
Again, folks, you want to vote for Donald Trump?
Go ahead and vote for Donald Trump.
But do not fool yourself that you're voting for a conservative.
Don't lie to yourself.
Don't lie to other people that Donald Trump is a conservative.
He is not a conservative.
Okay, but not by any definition is he a conservative.
You wanna say immigration's your number one issue?
You think he'll do the job on that?
Fine.
Don't say he's an across-the-board conservative.
Don't say he's gonna rejigger how government is done.
Don't say he's gonna throw the establishment out with the wash.
He's not going to do any of those things.
Donald Trump is a man of convenience.
He will say anything, and he will do anything.
And there are people I know who say this is a pro for him.
There are people who say, okay, well this is how he's gonna win elections.
Okay, let's say he wins.
Then what?
So what's he gonna do then?
Donald Trump will literally say anything.
He was asked yesterday about black Oscar nominations.
And there's this new idiotic campaign by some black folks in Hollywood.
Hashtag OscarsSoWhite.
To which I respond, Hashtag NBASoBlack.
Like, there are not enough Jews in the NBA, so hashtag NBASoBlack.
It's discrimination, clearly.
By the way, worth noting, if you take the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress categories, and you look at who's actually won over the past 20 years, approximately 10% of all of the winners have been black.
Approximately 10% of the population of the United States is black.
But Trump was asked about this, and speaking of he'll say anything, just so long as people like him, here is Donald Trump saying what he thinks about the Oscars not being black enough.
I think it's really sad, and you know, Al is just a guy who wants to get publicity for himself, and I understand him very well.
Al would actually probably say that he was a friend of Donald Trump, okay?
Maybe not on television, but outside of television.
I think it's a tough situation.
I saw somebody on your show today saying, well, what do we do with BET, Black Entertainment, right?
So, you know, because over there, the whites don't get any nominations.
And I think that was God cutting off Donald Trump.
But Donald Trump, he'll say pretty much anything that he feels like saying.
You know, the idea that he... I'm friends with Al Sharpton.
I'm friends with Al Sharpton.
Can you imagine if Ted Cruz said, I'm friends with Al Sharpton?
Can you imagine that?
Al Sharpton is a race-baiting piece of human excrement.
I mean, Al Sharpton is one of the worst people walking in America.
Al Sharpton is a guy who maligned an innocent DA over a false rape charge and has been responsible for the involvement in riots of literally hundreds of black folks.
But he's friends with Al Sharpton, but I guess he's anti-establishment, so there's that.
I guess we can all be satisfied that he's anti-establishment.
It's just... It's just beyond ridiculous.
Okay!
So, time for some things that I like, and time for some things that I hate.
Okay, in terms of things that I like, very often I am asked, what are my favorite movies?
And I've mentioned Amadeus before, I think I've mentioned A Man for All Seasons before, I believe I hit all the King's Men.
But there's one movie that I'm trying to remember the name of, actually, right now, and so I'm gonna look it up.
And nobody's ever heard of this movie, including me, because I can't remember what the movie is actually called.
If I had internet access, that would absolutely help.
It's a movie with Bo Bridges, if that helps you at all.
And it's this movie about... They're on a subway... Oh God, this is so embarrassing that I can't remember the name of the movie that I'm about to... It's called The Incident.
That's the name of it.
It's a movie called The Incident.
It's from 1967, and it's got a bunch of very young stars who end up going on to actually have pretty big careers, and Martin Sheen is in it as a very young kind of deadbeat punk.
It's got a big cast, actually.
Bo Bridges is in it, Ruby Dee was in it, and basically the plot is that there are a couple of thugs on a subway, and it's all taking place inside this one subway car, the Incident.
And it's a couple of thugs on a subway who decide that they are going to basically harass and abuse every single person on the subway car.
And so the question is, who's going to stand up to these people?
And it's a really kind of interesting, and the ending is very telling.
I think it's a good movie, it's worth seeing.
Again, it is called The Incident, as I just looked up.
Alright, so a couple of things that I hate.
Okay, let's start with this video that BuzzFeed has cut.
BuzzFeed has become the repository for all stupid video in the universe.
And their latest stupid video... We did one of their videos, I think, yesterday, right?
Or the day before?
We did their video about the difficulties mixed-race people have in America.
Difficulties like not being identified as half Danish and half Indian.
But now they've cut another video, and this is a video called a priest, an imam, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar.
And...
We'll play it and we'll just let it speak for itself.
Actually, we can pause it right there.
That lady in the middle ain't a rabbi.
I know way more about Judaism than that lady in the middle.
The way that I can tell is because Orthodox Jews?
We're not big into the female rabbis.
There are no female rabbis in Orthodox Judaism.
And women wearing yarmulkes?
No.
And women, you know, in short skirts wearing yarmulkes definitely know.
And so she is not a rabbi, okay?
She's not a rabbi by any stretch of the orthodox imagination.
She can call herself that.
This actually happened.
Her name is Sarah Ferguson, and she happens to be a wild leftist.
Who doesn't believe anything in the Bible.
The guy who is the Catholic priest actually is a wild leftist priest, and the guy who is the Imam is a...
They found some wild leftist Imam, and so the basic premise of this video is going to be how we all worship the same God, yada, yada, yada, yada, and you'll see.
I can say that I'm pro-life in the sense that I affirm every living human on this earth, and that I'm prayerfully pro-choice.
We respect the reproductive rights of women.
In the Islamic tradition, there are times in which abortion is permissible.
But generally, we try and affirm life.
But there's a separate issue, which is, if you disagree from whatever our religious tradition is, how do you go about expressing that disagreement?
When you talk to anybody who has difference, whether it's around abortion, having guns, getting rid of guns, all of these issues, what we lack is an ability to listen to each other.
And I think we would all agree that committing an act of violence is a transgression not just of the law, but of our religious values.
When you look at that text of Genesis, you see the part where it says they were created in God's image, men and women together.
Men and women have been created in equal footing.
The Islamic tradition in many ways is a feminist tradition.
Oh, he's not joking.
Muhammad, in which he conveyed through the message of the Quran that women have the right to own property, the right to inherit property, to have their permission before they're married off, and they also have the right to divorce.
However, what has happened is that Islam spread to other chauvinistic patriarchal cultures and culture comes to religion.
So how do we get the rest of Muslims to understand that?
Or Jews or Christians who continue to speak?
Okay, listening to these three morons babble at one another.
Okay, so first of all, I'm pro-life, but I'm prayerfully pro-choice.
What does that mean?
Okay, that's the stupidest garbage I ever heard in my life.
And then I think my favorite thing thus far in the video is, number one, the imam explaining that Islam is a pro-female equality religion.
To which I say, then why do you dress your ladies like they are lampshades?
Like, seriously, like, if you go over to Afghanistan, there's no difference between, like, I could walk up to one of the umbrellas over a coffee bean when it's sunny out and they've closed it, and that looks as much like a woman as some of the women in Afghanistan, because of radical Islam.
So don't tell me that you respect your women, okay?
Forced clitorectomy is a pretty good indication you're not big on women's rights.
Okay, let's put that out, and then I, but what I love, forget those people.
I love the Rebbeson.
I love the female rabbi here.
Rabbitin' actually means the wife of a rabbi, but I love the female rabbi, the rabba, here, and the rabba, when she says, so how can you explain to your fellow Muslims that this is the case?
Or to Jews, or to Christians, like she can't even bring herself to say, but you have a real female problem inside Islam, right?
She has to actually, but what do we do about the Buddhists?
What do we do about the Buddhists?
Okay, this is what leftists think religion is.
Leftists think religion is a bunch of happy talk where God has no impact on the world and they are God.
These three people think that they are closer to what God is than what God of the Bible is.
God of the Bible is just a patriarchal jackass and they are people who are bringing equality and freedom to the world.
You wonder why all of these people are going to be presiding over empty pulpits?
This is why they are going to be presiding over empty pulpits.
It's just the perversion of religion by BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed is so leftist they couldn't even go get a real rabbi.
They couldn't even get somebody with any sort of authority.
And nobody, no Jew, who keeps Sabbath even one day a week, okay?
No Jew who even prays one time a year, let alone three times a day, has any respect for what this lady is saying.
But no, we're gonna pretend that she's a rabbi and she represents Judaism.
Just ridiculous.
It turns out, That the only religion BuzzFeed likes is the one that's not religion.
At all.
Okay, couple of other quick things that I hate.
Stephen Colbert does a miserable show that has miserable ratings because he's a miserable little man.
And Stephen Colbert, he can't play the Colbert character that made him famous.
He can't play fake Bill O'Reilly anymore, so he has to pretend to be not Bill O'Reilly.
He has to pretend to be himself.
And it turns out that he, as a human being, is rather off-putting.
And so nobody wants to watch his crappy show.
And so he's getting clocked.
I mean, he's on CBS and he's just getting He's getting his ass kicked, and he shouldn't be getting his ass kicked.
He's terrible.
So he had on Zarae McKesson, who is a race baiter extraordinaire, made his bones in the Ferguson riots, and he had on Zarae McKesson, and then proceeded to talk about his white privilege.
And there is nothing more stomach-churning than watching a rich white guy get on his knees to a race baiter to talk about how he... Please forgive me my white privilege.
Okay, Stephen Colbert, take it away.
If I have white privilege, I want to be able to identify it.
Give me some hints as to my white privilege.
I mean, you have a lot of privilege.
You have a show.
You have a lot of money.
That's true.
Yeah, that's true.
A lot of access.
Yeah, that's true.
That is?
No, it's true.
It is true.
I have a show.
I have a lot of money.
You do.
Yeah, so the fact that I'm sitting here and you're sitting there is part of that white privilege.
You know, it's about role, and it's about access.
And what you can do is extend that privilege so that you can dismantle it, right?
So you can create opportunity for people.
You can amplify issues in ways that other people can't.
And you can use your resources to create space for people.
Let's switch seats.
-No, she's... she's... she's... she's... she's... she's... -You're good.
So, DeRay.
DeRay, is there anything you'd like to ask me about being white?
Yeah, you know, I'd love to know what you plan to do now that you understand your whiteness a little better to dismantle it.
What am I going to do to dismantle white privilege?
Now that you understand it, what are you going to do with your privilege?
I don't know if I do understand it.
I can acknowledge it, but I'm not sure if I understand what I can do to dismantle white privilege.
Let's practice.
Let's dialogue?
Yeah, what can you... Let's think about it.
Okay.
You have a lot of money.
You have a show.
You can't have my money.
And you can't have my show.
Why do you think white people are uncomfortable talking about race?
Why do you think white people are uncomfortable talking about rings?
-Oh, my God.
-Well, I can't speak for other white people.
-Okay.
-I feel -- I feel guilty for anyone who does not have the things I have.
And that includes, you know, black people or anyone.
Let's pause it right there.
Liberalism in a nutshell.
I feel guilty for people who don't have what I have.
Why?
Did you not work to get there?
Stephen Colbert doesn't have white privilege, he has leftist privilege.
If Stephen Colbert were a right winger in Hollywood, he'd be on the street right now.
Because he's untalented.
He's a hack.
But there he is sitting there talking about how he feels guilty.
But so guilty he won't give up his money.
Won't give up his show.
Liberalism in a nutshell.
Right here on national television.
Leftism in a nutshell.
I feel guilty about all the things I've done to you, DeRay McKesson, by having you, an unqualified ass, on my show.
I feel bad about that.
I feel bad for you.
But also I won't give you anything.
But what we could do is we could use the government to tax things and give them to you.
We could do that.
Leftism, in a nutshell, the self-righteous, the unearned moral superiority, because you finish the segment, you say, oh, Stephen Colbert really gets it.
Right?
That's the idea.
You're supposed to finish the segment and go, aha, he really understands the plight of the black folk.
Stephen Colbert really gets it now.
That's a good guy right there.
Did he give up anything to make this happen?
No.
All he did was he had on DeRay McKesson, again, an unqualified ass, on his show to talk about how DeRay McKesson is having a rough life.
DeRay McKesson is not having a rough life, gang.
Dorae McKesson has contributed this many things, zero, to world culture, to world literature, to world understanding.
Dorae McKesson is a net negative in terms of what he has contributed to the American discourse.
Here he is on national TV, and we're supposed to feel good because he has patted Stephen Colbert.
on his shiny leftist hair, and he has told him to be on his way, because now he's a good little leftist.
A final thing that I hate, I promise, because I know we have to go, a final thing, we had to go 10 minutes ago, final thing that I hate, according to CBS Local in Minnesota, quote, a growing number of people in the Twin Cities are finding great comfort in cuddle parties.
It's a monthly meetup to better explore communication and boundaries, and yes, to touch.
So I'm gonna go with lots of pervs go to the cuddle parties.
On a bitterly cold Minneapolis night, bedding sprawled across the floor warms the living room.
People sometimes say, why would I want to go and cuddle with a bunch of people I don't even know, Candessa Hadsell said.
All the people who ask that are women.
Hadsell is the facilitator for the Minneapolis cuddle party chapter.
I'm going with like, this is like Ashley Madison.
99% of the people who register for this are men.
And then they kind of lie in their own separate corners until the ladies arrive and they're like, oh, cuddle party time!
She says, this is not a dating service.
It's not a place people come to meet your life partner.
There are rules for how you are to behave in a cuddle party.
Asking permission to touch is the most important of all.
I'd like you to know, for tonight, no is a complete sentence, Hadsel said.
She's a registered nurse.
She spent her career counseling sexual assault victims and chemical dependency patients, serving as a cuddle party facilitator is an actual thing.
Cuddle party facilitator.
We used to call those pimps.
Cuddle party facilitator.
So when I found out it was really a workshop, people came and learned something, I thought, wow, that's something I want to do.
So people are cuddling with strangers, and people are saying that the oxytocin release makes them feel just wonderful.
Okay, all you creepers out there, note to you, if you want a date, please don't get together, it's unsanitary, it's unhygienic, don't get together with strangers and cuddle them.
Strangers are gross.
Hey, there's a reason that you're not having sex with them, or you shouldn't be.
I know if you're a liberal you probably are, but if you- but don't have sex with strangers, and don't cuddle with strangers, don't touch strangers!
Don't- you wouldn't let- let's put it this way, if you wouldn't let this person touch a child, then that person shouldn't touch you either.
That's just the general good rule of thumb.
All these adults acting like children.
Like, you could see Cuddle Party when you're like 5.
Maybe.
Although now it's probably illegal to have kids hug when they're 5 years old.
You might be able to see, like, my 2-year-old daughter.
You know, she'll hug her cousin.
But, like, by the time you're 35...
You really shouldn't be hugging strange people, people who are strange to you.
And if the way that you get meaning in your life is by hugging strangers, then I have no words for you except that I'm sure that you're a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I feel very, very sorry for you and whomever your life partner is.
And please, please, chlamydia checks are pretty much free at your local clinic.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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