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Feb. 15, 2016 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:06:00

Ep. 72 - Conservatives, The Battle Is On. Get In The Game.

Scalia's death could mean the end of the Constitution, Trump goes Full Trump, and MSNBC shows why they shouldn't be allowed to pick Supreme Court justices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	And here we are, it is Ben Shapiro, back on Monday.
	The world did not end over the weekend, but it came really, really close to doing so, and we edge ever closer to the edge.
	In fact, I was actually going to start the show today by carrying around a sign and wearing a beard, and the sign would have said, the end is near, and I'd just walk around on a street corner.
	That's basically the theme of today's show, so I hope you enjoy it.
	I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	I tend to demonize people because I don't care about your feelings.
	The death of Antonin Scalia marks a really, really grave moment for the future of the country.
	It's hard to believe that America and its future as a constitutional republic rest on the shoulder of one man.
	But when it comes to the Supreme Court, they basically did.
	Antonin Scalia's judicial philosophy was very simple.
	The Constitution says what it says.
	It meant what it meant at the time it was written.
	Just like anything means what it means at the time that it was written.
	It's not poetry.
	It's not fiction.
	It's just like any other law.
	This is Antonin Scalia idea.
	It's called originalism and textualism.
	The idea was you read the text, it means what it meant when it was written, and it's not the job of the court to apply its own morality into the text.
	You don't just take the text and read it how you want to read it to achieve the end that you want to achieve.
	As Scalia liked to say, if you're a judge and you agree with every result that you're ruling, if you agree with the The result of the rulings that you make on every score, you're not a good judge.
	You're a bad judge.
	And this is exactly correct.
	You're not a legislator.
	You're a judge.
	And the job of a judge is not to overwhelm the Constitution with your own personal morality as all the leftist judges do.
	It's to interpret the Constitution as it was written.
	Well, Justice Scalia was found dead about 2 o'clock in the afternoon Pacific Time on Saturday.
	I didn't find out about it until after Sabbath, so I come back, and I get hit with that news.
	And it's brutal news, because right now, the Supreme Court is split 5 to 4.
	Really, 4 to 4, and Justice Kennedy, who was appointed by a Republican, he was appointed by Reagan, but Justice Kennedy decides how he's gonna vote based on whether he had a solid bowel movement that morning, so he's all over the place.
	If he took his Metamucil, he votes correctly.
	If he didn't, Then he votes incorrectly.
	Justice Kennedy is the guy who will vote along with Justice Scalia as far as gun rights, but then will suggest that the Constitution mandates same-sex marriage at the state level.
	Justice Kennedy was bad enough, but there were at least four conservatives, or four constitutionalists, on the conservative side of the aisle.
	Three, if you don't count Justice Roberts, which I don't.
	So there were three, sometimes four, and maybe, in rare cases, sometimes five.
	Justice Scalia means that at best now, at best, in some cases, The so-called conservatives on the court have four, and the hard left on the court have four.
	Now what's amazing about the court is you'll always hear how right-wing the court is.
	All these crazy right-wingers on the court.
	Never, ever, ever, ever have Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan or Justice Breyer And never have these people, never have the, or Ginsburg, none of these people have ever voted with the right on anything.
	It never happens.
	They always vote with the left.
	They are very consistent.
	Leftist judges vote for leftist priorities.
	Conservative justices vote for the Constitution.
	That should be the idea.
	Well, Scalia, let me give you Scalia's explanation of what he thought, because I think that it's important to recognize who he was and what he did.
	First of all, brilliant writer, tremendous rhetorician.
	You read his writing and it's just, it sparkles.
	It's fun to read.
	And here's what he said about his theory.
	He said, You will never hear me refer to original intent because, as I say, I am first of all a textualist and secondly an originalist.
	If you are a textualist, you don't care about intent, and I don't care if the framers of the Constitution had some secret meaning in mind when they adopted its words.
	I take the words as they were promulgated to the people of the United States and what is fairly understood of those words.
	Right?
	So this makes perfect sense.
	When you read a law, it means what it means.
	It doesn't mean what people had in their secret minds.
	With Scalia's death, the court is now into a 4-4 deadlock, at best for conservatives, at best.
	And, more likely, it is now thrown into utter chaos, because if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or any Democrat appoints a justice of their choosing, the Constitution is basically over.
	And this is not hyperbole.
	If you look at the rulings that Justice Scalia made, if you look at the majorities in which he took part, these are key rulings to upholding the Constitution of the United States, to upholding your rights.
	For example, in 2003, Scalia is the guy who wrote the opinion in Heller v. District of Columbia.
	That was the decision that finally, after 200 years, reinforced the principle that yes, it turns out that you have an individual right to keep and bear arms.
	That you personally have a right to keep and bear arms.
	Believe it or not, the Supreme Court had not even ruled on that for 200 years.
	Obviously, it's self-evident from the Second Amendment that's the case.
	Now that Scalia's dead, if the left gets the court, they immediately rule the reverse.
	They say you don't have an individual right to keep and bear arms.
	So if a state or the federal government forces you to turn in your gun, they can do that.
	This is not exaggeration.
	This is exactly what justices on the left on the Supreme Court say.
	Freedom of speech.
	Scalia was a key voice on freedom of speech on the Supreme Court.
	So Scalia was even more freedom of speech than I was in terms of his interpretation.
	He thought, for example, that flag burning Was protected by the Constitution, which I disagree with.
	If you look at the text of the Constitution and the context of it, the other laws on the books at the time, I don't think that's the case.
	But Scalia was almost a free speech absolutist.
	He was the deciding voice on Citizens United versus FEC.
	That was the ruling that said that corporations could engage in political speech near elections.
	In other words, If Lindsey and Jonathan and Mathis and I all decided to put together a corporation and take out political ads, the government couldn't stop us from doing that.
	Scalia ruled that that was correct.
	Well, now they're going to reverse that, if Obama gets his way, and everybody who is part of any corporation will now be subject to campaign finance laws, which basically means that they can shut down the right.
	They'll find an excuse to shut down the right.
	And it'll get a lot worse than that, okay, on freedom of speech.
	Elena Kagan, who was the Dean of Harvard Law when I was there, and now of course sits on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan said back in 1993 that hate speech should not be covered by the First Amendment.
	In other words, things that make people feel bad should not be covered by the First Amendment.
	We should be prosecuted if we say things like, there's a serious problem inside the Islamic community with terrorism, or there's a problem of education inside the black community.
	This could be construed as hate speech, and thus you could be prosecuted for it.
	And the Supreme Court is one vote away from ruling that.
	They pass a law prosecuting hate speech that basically all dissent is now illegal.
	Scalia was supposed to be the fifth vote on a case that's coming up on unions.
	Unions are seizing union dues from people who are in their industry and using them to back Democratic politicians.
	Scalia was going to be the fifth vote on that to say that's illegal, that you can't do that under the First Amendment.
	Now it'll probably go the other way.
	Unions will continue to run their racket.
	Freedom of religion?
	Scalia was the fifth vote on the Hobby Lobby case which suggested that closely held corporations had religious freedom rights.
	So in my business, The Daily Wire, I don't have to promulgate leftist ideologies because that's not my job.
	Right?
	And more than not being my job, it would violate my religious freedom if we were to suggest that a corporation like the Daily Wire has to, for example, produce videos in favor of same-sex marriage for a gay wedding.
	Somebody comes to us and they offer us $5,000 to make a video in favor of same-sex marriage.
	We say that's against our religion.
	I'm a religious person.
	The people who own the Daily Wire are religious people.
	That will now be reversed.
	So they will make sure that all of those bakers who don't want to participate in same-sex weddings will now be forced to do so.
	And it'll go further than that.
	They'll suggest that religious day schools have to treat same-sex marriage in the same way that they treat traditional marriage.
	They'll suggest that churches have to now fund abortion.
	They've already said this with regard to the Little Sisters of the Poor, with regard to Obamacare.
	Freedom of religion will go by the wayside.
	They'll overrule the death penalty.
	They'll suggest the death penalty is no longer allowed by the Constitution, even though the Constitution explicitly talks about the death penalty at least twice.
	Abortion.
	They'll just reinvigorate Roe v. Wade and suggest that any state abortion laws on the books are anti the Constitution.
	On voting, they'll go through and they'll say again that the federal government has the right to do the redistricting.
	They'll get rid of voter ID laws that prevent voter fraud.
	This is what is at stake here if there's one more vote on the Supreme Court.
	And Barack Obama says he's going to appoint that guy.
	He's going to go ahead, that guy or woman.
	And you watch, Barack Obama will find the leftmost person he can find who is a gay, black, Hispanic, lesbian, transgender little person.
	He'll find the most diverse person he can find, and then he'll suggest that the reason people oppose that person is because they're racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes, just like the only reason they oppose him is because he's a black guy.
	And Republicans, naturally, are handling this all the wrong way.
	So here is Barack Obama saying that he's going to nominate a successor to Scalia.
	Obviously, today is a time to remember Justice Scalia's legacy.
	I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor.
	Okay, let me stop it right there.
	That's all that matters.
	First of all, he says we're going to recognize Scalia's legacy.
	And the best way to recognize Justice Scalia's legacy is to completely overthrow it by putting in someone who disagreed with everything he ever did.
	That's the best way to recognize his legacy.
	Now look, I'm actually not going to get all over Obama for trying to nominate a successor.
	Of course he's going to.
	Who thought he wasn't going to do this?
	At the debate, there were a bunch of Republicans who said, No, Obama shouldn't even bother.
	He shouldn't try to nominate a successor.
	Mitch McConnell says, Oh, we're going to hold off until after the election to start looking at nominees.
	We're not going to let Obama pick the successor.
	And this is, honestly, I think this is a very stupid tack, and I'll explain why.
	So, Ted Cruz, for example, he says if Democrats want to replace Scalia, they need to win the 2016 election.
	So here is Senator Cruz talking about this with George Stephanopoulos.
	Let's begin with that news about Justice Scalia.
	You've said that President Obama should wait to name a successor, but Ronald Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy with 13 months left in his term was confirmed in February 1988.
	President Obama has more than 10 months left in his term.
	Why isn't it his right to nominate a justice and the Senate's responsibility to give that nominee an up or down vote?
	George, the Senate has not confirmed a nominee that was named in the final year, in election year, in 80 years.
	This is a lame-duck president.
	And by the way, the only reason Anthony Kennedy was nominated that late is that Democrats in the Senate had gone after and defeated two previous nominees, Robert Bork, which set a new standard for partisan attacks on a nominee, and Doug Ginsburg.
	So it was the Democrats that had dragged it out for many months to make it that late.
	And right now the court is exquisitely balanced.
	Justice Scalia, someone I've known for over 20 years, was an extraordinary man.
	Principal jurist, faithful to the Constitution.
	His impact on the court was incomparable.
	As Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so Justice Scalia was to the court.
	And this is a 5-4 court.
	This next election needs to be a referendum on the court.
	The people need to decide, and I'm very glad that the Senate is agreeing with what I called for, that we should not allow a lame-duck president to essentially capture the Supreme Court in the waning months of his presidency.
	We can pause it there.
	So there are a couple of things that he says there that are worth noting.
	Number one, he says the court is exquisitely balanced.
	It is not the role of the court to be a political organ.
	The fact that we're talking about how the court is balanced demonstrates that it has become a legislative organ.
	When I was in my third year at Harvard Law School, you write a third-year paper to graduate, and my third-year paper at Harvard Law was based on the idea the Supreme Court should not have the power of judicial review.
	Marbury versus Madison was wrongly decided.
	The reason I said that is because if you have a super legislature that is deciding whether or not the regular legislature is doing a moral job, we didn't elect these people, and they're sitting there for life.
	So how in the world is that a reflection of American republicanism?
	That's just an oligarchy.
	It's just a tyranny ruling us.
	So I don't believe in the whole exquisite balance of the court thing.
	I don't think the court should have this kind of power in the first place.
	What the court should be are people who interpret the Constitution as it was written.
	The founders knew this.
	The founders knew this.
	In Federalist 78, which is written by Alexander Hamilton in order to push the Constitution forward, in Federalist 78, Alexander Hamer, he specifically wrote, quote, if the judges should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgment, will meaning their political will instead of judgment, that would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from the legislature.
	You shouldn't even have a separate judicial branch if they're just going to be another legislature.
	The anti-federalist Robert Yates, he opposed the entire judicial review scheme.
	He said, Which is exactly what's happened with the court.
	Scalia is a rare exception.
	There's no authority that can remove them.
	They cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature.
	They're independent of the people of the legislature, of every power under heaven.
	Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven, which is exactly what's happened with the court.
	Scalia is a rare exception.
	Unless you appoint magnificent people to be on the court who recognize their own limitations and their roles, then what you end up with is a very political court.
	Now, you hear Cruz saying that nobody's been nominated or confirmed inside the last year, and you're going to hear Marco Rubio say the same thing.
	And George Stephanopoulos says, well, isn't it his job to go ahead and nominate people, and it's your job to vote on them.
	Here's Stephanopoulos and Marco Rubio.
	So if you're elected president, will you promise not to make an appointment in your final year?
	Mr.
	Yeah, well, I'm not saying the President can't make an appointment.
	I'm saying we're not going to move forward on it in the Senate.
	And that has been the practice now for over 80 years.
	Well, he shouldn't.
	He has the legal right to do it.
	And as President, I would recognize that precedent.
	And the precedent that's been set over the last 80 years has been that in the last year of a President's term, and his second term especially, there should not be Supreme Court nominees put into lifetime positions for a President that you're not going to be able to hold accountable at the ballot box.
	There's going to be an election in November.
	This is going to be an issue in the election.
	The voters are going to choose a new president, and that new president, who I believe will be me, should then fill that vacancy for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
	Okay.
	This is a deeply stupid argument.
	Chuck Schumer is a senator from New York.
	He says, don't worry, the mainstream GOP isn't going to make this happen.
	They're bloviating about how they're going to stop Obama's nominee.
	They're not going to stop anything.
	Here's Chuck Schumer from New York.
	He's harking back to his old days.
	You know, recently he said, well, I want regular order.
	But in 2010, right after the election, or right during the election, he said, my number one job is to defeat Barack Obama, without even knowing what Barack Obama was going to propose.
	Here, he doesn't even know who the president's going to propose, and he says, no, we're not having hearings, we're not going to go forward.
	To leave the Supreme Court vacant for 300 days in a divided time?
	This kind of obstructionism isn't going to last.
	And you know, we Democrats didn't do this when we voted 97 to nothing for Justice Kennedy in the last year of Reagan's term.
	After voting down Justice Bork and Justice Hicks.
	Yeah, well, but we had nominations.
	And that's the point here.
	The President's going to nominate.
	I believe that many of the mainstream Republicans, when the President nominates a mainstream nominee, will not want to follow Mitch McConnell over the cliff.
	So that's what you think the President should do?
	Send someone who he thinks can credibly get Republican support rather than send someone who will send a powerful message about the direction he wants to take the court in?
	I think first, the American people don't like this obstructionism.
	When you go right off the bat and say, I don't care who he nominates, I am going to oppose him, that's not going to fly.
	And a lot of the mainstream Republicans are going to say, I may not follow this.
	OK, so let's stop it there.
	Chuck Schumer, he says, we voted on people before.
	Here's Chuck Schumer back in 2007.
	Is it going back just a few years?
	Chuck Schumer, circa 2007, talking about whether he would vote on a Republican nominee.
	Here we go.
	I want to take you back to 2007 now.
	Here is Chuck Schumer.
	I think it was about 18 months, right, before the election?
	I think that's right, the summer of 2007, and this is what he said about appointments then, in an election year.
	We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.
	They must prove They must prove by actions, not words, that they are in the mainstream, rather than we have to prove that they are not.
	Okay, so, Schumer's a liar, right?
	He says that, you know, we've always given people an up or down vote.
	BS.
	BS.
	I mean, I remember back to 2003 to 2005, when Democrats were routinely filibustering Republican judicial nominees.
	And at the time, I said, oh, they shouldn't be filibustering judicial nominees.
	I've actually changed my mind on this.
	I've actually changed my mind on this.
	Because I don't think the procedurals matter.
	I really don't.
	Barack Obama, by the way, tried to filibuster Justice Alito back when he was in the Senate.
	So, you know, Barack Obama, the guy who's now saying that he would not- filibusters are terrible.
	We should never- we need an up or down vote.
	Let's put all this aside.
	Here's why the Republican argument here is dumb.
	It's dumb because if Hillary Clinton is elected at the end of this year, that should not mean that Republicans then greenlight anybody she chooses.
	The Constitution is not a question of timing or calendar.
	Protection of the Constitution, protection of the Supreme Court, protection of your rights and my rights, that's not just a matter of he's in his last year.
	If it were two years ago, we still wouldn't approve of any of Obama's nominees.
	We shouldn't.
	And why is the calendar matter?
	It's such a dumb, silly Senate trick.
	It's this whole collegiality of the Senate.
	We can't really say why we're going to shut down the nominees, namely they're crap.
	No, instead what we're going to do is we're going to say that it's the timing's all wrong.
	He's a lame duck.
	Until he won't push forward with this.
	I don't care about the timing.
	I don't care whether the Republicans have to use filibuster.
	I don't care whether the Republicans have to adjourn forever and hold themselves in session so Obama can't make a recess appointment.
	I don't care.
	Whatever you have to do, you stop the Supreme Court from becoming a tool of the left to dismantle the Constitution of the United States.
	This is not time-bound.
	I don't care if there have to be eight justices on the Supreme Court for the next 20 years.
	I don't care if justice after justice starts to die and you end up with three.
	I don't care.
	Okay, it doesn't matter to me.
	Because the only thing that matters to me is are the people on this- I don't care about number.
	I care about quality.
	Are the people on the Supreme Court going to uphold the Constitution of the United States, or are they going to do like the Supreme Court has done my entire lifetime and several lifetimes before that, and push forward leftist policy preferences in the name of the Constitution of the United States?
	Because if they do that, they don't belong on the Court, and I don't care.
	I don't care whether business gets held up.
	This is the only thing in American life, in American government, that truly matters.
	We have an executive branch that has completely overridden the Constitution.
	We have a legislative branch that's completely abdicated its responsibilities and overridden the Constitution.
	And we now have a Supreme Court that pushes forward its own political priorities in the name of the Constitution.
	If you have a majority of the Supreme Court pushing forward those priorities, It's over, gang.
	It's over.
	There is no 1st Amendment.
	There is no 2nd Amendment.
	There is no 4th Amendment.
	There is no 5th Amendment.
	There's certainly no 10th Amendment.
	It's a disaster area.
	So Republicans have to stop with all of this.
	If Obama nominates someone, we won't even look at them.
	It's not about Obama.
	What Republicans should be saying today.
	No one who does not mirror Justice Scalia's philosophy of jurisprudence will be confirmed by a Republican Senate.
	No one.
	Period.
	End of story.
	Not a moderate.
	Not somebody who says they're moderate.
	Not somebody who says that they rule both ways.
	Not somebody who says, I don't have a real judicial philosophy.
	I have to look at each case as it comes.
	There should be a litmus test.
	A philosophical litmus test for the court.
	Which is, do you think that the court is a tool of policy?
	Or do you think that the court is here to just say what the Constitution says?
	And if it's the first, you have no place on the court, and nobody along those lines should be confirmed whether it's a Republican or a Democrat proposing it.
	Okay, so that was the first half of the world's crappiest political weekend.
	The second half of the world's crappiest political weekend is I literally get off from Sabbath, and it's 6.15, and I find out in the first 20 seconds that Scalia is dead, which is just tragic because not only did we lose a great mind, as I say, the Constitution is now on the verge of death.
	It really is, on life support right now.
	And the people protecting it are the same people who have been unwilling to defund President Obama's executive amnesty, Obamacare, or Planned Parenthood.
	So putting our fate in the hands of those folks seems like a fool's errand.
	But I immediately go from that to I've got to turn on the TV and live-blog the Republican debate.
	And this Republican debate, I mean, folks, this is a serious issue, okay?
	The future of the Constitution, the future of the country is serious, and instead we got a full-fledged garbage fire clown show.
	I mean, this debate was basically a bunch of clowns in the clown car crashing off a train track into a garbage heap and then setting themselves on fire.
	That's what this debate was.
	It was garbage through and through, and the garbage master is Donald Trump.
	Donald Trump, the fact that he was allowed to get away with what he was by the moderators is shocking to me.
	We'll play clips from this debate, but Donald Trump went full Trump.
	We're talking about shouting over people, calling President Bush a liar, suggesting that President Bush didn't keep the country safe because of 9-11.
	Saying that President Bush was responsible for the worst war of all time in the war of Iraq.
	I mean it was, it was truly egregious stuff.
	And then you got Jeb over in the corning shouting for his mother, literally.
	You got Ted Cruz who's just trying to keep sane while all the nut jobs around him are bashing each other.
	Marco Rubio calling him a liar.
	Ted Cruz being called by Donald Trump the biggest liar in the Republican race.
	Which is incredible that Donald Trump gets to call anybody a liar.
	The man has never held a consistent political position other than he loves himself.
	This is what the debate was.
	And then John Kasich over there air chopping fruit and everybody leaving him alone.
	We have to go through this debate because it's actually important that we recognize, okay?
	The country is at stake here.
	Enough with the clown show, gang.
	Enough with the clown show.
	It was amusing when Trump was bashing the right people.
	Now Trump is just lashing out at anybody who's not Trump.
	And he's gonna win South Carolina.
	Latest poll has him up by 20 points in South Carolina.
	In a minute, I want to talk about what that means for the Republican Party in the country.
	Because the Constitution may die at the Supreme Court level, probably will, based on what Republicans have done, unless we fight, unless we stand up and tell our Republican legislators, we don't care if you lose election, we don't care if you get kicked out by Democrats, you have an obligation to stand up for the Constitution of the United States, dammit, you've missed it for a hundred years, now's about time to shout no.
	Or it can happen at the presidential level, if somebody like Donald Trump is elected on the Republican side as the nominee.
	So, to the debate.
	Here is Donald Trump going at Ted Cruz.
	Trump doesn't like Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz beat him in Iowa and he's been bashing him ever since.
	And this is just, this is in a nutshell what happened at the debate in one clip.
	Alright, let's play it.
	I like Donald.
	He is an amazing entertainer.
	But his policies for most of his life...
	Thank you very much.
	I appreciate it.
	For most of his life, his policies have been very, very liberal.
	For most of his life, he has described himself as very pro-choice and as a supporter of partial birth abortion.
	Right now, today, as a candidate, he supports federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.
	I disagree with him on that.
	That's a matter of principle.
	You are the single biggest liar.
	You probably are worse than Jeb Bush.
	You are the single biggest liar.
	This guy lied, let me just tell you, this guy lied about Ben Carson when he took votes away from Ben Carson in Iowa.
	And he just continues.
	And today we had robocalls saying Donald Trump is not going to run in South Carolina where I'm leading by a lot.
	I'm not going to run.
	Vote for Ted Cruz.
	This is the same thing he did to Ben Carson.
	This guy will say anything.
	Nasty guy.
	Now I know why he doesn't have one endorsement from any of his colleagues.
	Senator Cruz, pick from the buffet there.
	He's a nasty guy.
	I will say.
	I will say it is fairly remarkable to see Donald defending Ban after he called him pathological and compared him to a child molester, both of which were offensive and wrong.
	But let me say more broadly, you notice Donald didn't disagree with the substance that he supports taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.
	And Donald has this weird pattern.
	When you point to his own record, he screams, liar, liar, liar.
	If you want to go... Where did I support it?
	Where did I support it?
	Hey, Ted, where did I support it?
	If you want to go and watch the video, go to our website, TedCruz.org.
	You can see it out of Donald's own mouth.
	Where did I support it?
	You supported it when we were battling over defunding Planned Parenthood.
	You went on television and said, Planned Parenthood does wonderful things and we should not defund it.
	Well, it does do wonderful things, but not as it relates to abortion.
	So tell me, what are the wonderful things it does?
	There are wonderful things having to do with women's health.
	You see, you and I disagree on that.
	Not when it comes to abortion.
	John, the reason principle matters.
	The reason principle matters, sadly, was illustrated by the first questions today.
	The next president is going to appoint one, two, three, four Supreme Court justices.
	If Donald Trump is president, he will appoint liberals.
	If Donald Trump is president, your second amendment will go away.
	Hold on, let me tell you.
	Hold on gentlemen, I'm going to turn this far around.
	Ted Cruz, with your brother, wanted John Roberts to be in the United States Supreme Court.
	They both pushed him.
	He twice approved Obamacare.
	My name was mentioned twice.
	Hold on, we're going to... Gentlemen, we're in danger of driving this into the dirt.
	You gave us... Senator Rubio, I'd like you to... Do you want to jump in here?
	Just call me a liar.
	I understand.
	You're on deck, Governor.
	You're also denigrating one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan.
	Ronald Reagan...
	Was a liberal maybe in the 1950s.
	He was a conservative reform governor for eight years before he became president, and no one would suggest he made an evolution for political purposes.
	He was a conservative, and he didn't tear down people like Donald Trump did.
	He tore down the Berlin Wall.
	Okay, Governor.
	Great guy.
	Governor.
	Senator Cruz, 30 seconds on this one.
	I did not nominate John Roberts.
	I would not have nominated John Roberts.
	You pushed him.
	You pushed him.
	I supported him.
	You worked with him and you pushed him.
	Why do you lie?
	Donald, adults learn not to interrupt people.
	Why do you lie?
	You pushed him.
	Donald, adults learn not to interrupt people.
	Yeah, yeah, I know.
	You're an adult.
	I did not nominate...
	So, as you can see, total train wreck.
	By the way, Donald Trump is lying.
	He does support funding for Planned Parenthood.
	He does support funding for Planned Parenthood.
	He says he doesn't support funding for Planned Parenthood's abortion services.
	That's ridiculous.
	Any dollar you sign over to Planned Parenthood is now fungible.
	That means it can be moved around.
	Dollars aren't earmarked.
	If you say, not for abortion, that just means that Planned Parenthood can now take your dollar, spend it on something else, and take the dollar they were going to spend on that other thing and use it for abortion.
	Hey, the vast majority of Planned Parenthood's budget goes to abortion services.
	That's what it does.
	But what's amazing about all of this, what's amazing about all... Okay, first, everything Ted Cruz here is saying is correct.
	If Donald Trump were in charge, he has said he would nominate to the Supreme Court his own sister, who's a federal appeals court judge, and who has supported partial birth abortion.
	Partial birth abortion.
	Not just abortion.
	Abortion, like, one minute before the baby's born.
	And so, but what's amazing here is that because, first of all, the moderator's a disaster area.
	Where's the moderator to say, it's not your turn, Mr. Trump.
	You need to let Mr. Cruz talk and then we'll come back to you.
	Instead, he just lets Trump shout over him.
	And the impression that you get here, and it was like this all night, the impression that you get is that Donald Trump was bullying everybody into the dirt.
	And that's actually good for Trump.
	That's what Trump wants.
	Trump wants the impression that he's gonna bully you into the dirt.
	He wants the impression he's gonna win for you.
	If he fights this hard on the stage for himself, he'll do it for you, too.
	It's the Caudillo mentality.
	It's the Banana Republic mentality.
	I'm here, and I'm fighting for me, and I'm gonna stand here, and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
	Now, what Cruz should have done there, he said, you know, Donald, adults learn not to interrupt each other.
	The school marmish kind of lecturing tone there is not useful.
	What needed to happen there, and nobody has the balls to do it, what needed to actually happen here is somebody, I don't care if it's Cruz, Bush wouldn't do it because he doesn't, we'll see Trump do the same thing to Jeb in a second.
	What nobody has the balls to do is turn to Trump and say, Donald, I know you spent your entire life bullying people.
	I know you spent your entire life thinking you can get away with anything because you've been loaded since the time you were a child and nobody's ever said no to you.
	But at a certain point, you need to shut the hell up and just let it sit.
	Just let it sit.
	And if Trump starts to bloviate, you should turn to the moderator, you should say, the moderator won't do it, nobody will do it, nobody will tell you the truth to your face because you've spent your entire life buying people off because you're corrupt.
	But you need to shut up.
	Because the fact is that until you shut up, you're never gonna learn anything and no one else here is either.
	You're wasting time, you're wasting space, you're wasting energy, and your platitudes do no one any good.
	You wanna shout over everybody?
	You're not gonna be able to shout over the world when it comes to being President of the United States.
	So for God's sake, please, shut the living hell up.
	And somebody needs to say it to him, just to his face like that.
	Just to shut up.
	Not, not, you need to act like an adult.
	He's not gonna act like an adult.
	He's not an adult.
	Not, you need to be more mature, Donald.
	I wish that you would learn.
	No.
	What you would say to anybody who did this to you in a bar.
	Okay, because for Trump, this is a bar fight.
	You can see it's a bar brawl for Trump.
	The fact that nobody will say to him what's obvious, and Trump would say it to other people, right?
	He knows it's a bar brawl.
	You'll see him do the same thing to Jeb here.
	Here's Jeb versus Donald Trump, and you'll see Jeb tries to take on Trump, and he too misses the mark.
	Here we go.
	The weakest person on this stage by far on illegal immigration is Jeb Bush.
	They come out of an act of love, whether you like it or not.
	He is so weak on illegal immigration, it's laughable.
	And everybody knows it.
	So, you know, this is the standard operating procedure to disparage me.
	That's fine.
	I don't really care.
	Spend a little more money on the commercials.
	But if you want to talk about weakness, You want to talk about weakness?
	It's weak to disparage women.
	It's weak to disparage Hispanics.
	It's weak to denigrate the disabled.
	And it's really weak to call John McCain a loser because he was a... I never called him that.
	That is outrageous.
	He's an American hero.
	Okay, and what ends up happening here is Trump ends up shouting over Jeb, too.
	Now, what Jeb should have done here is when he's- everything he's saying is correct, by the way.
	And by the way, what Trump was saying about Jeb is also correct, that Jeb is very weak on illegal immigration.
	What Jeb should have done, and none of these people have the stones to do it, is he should have directly quoted Trump to Trump.
	He should have said to Donald Trump, Donald Trump, you say that, you know, you just, you do disparage women.
	Back in the 1980s, you said that women should be treated like blank.
	And he should have said, he said, pardon my language, women should be treated like, because that's exactly what Trump said back in the 1980s.
	Right?
	He should be talking about Trump saying and bragging in his book about his experiences with married women.
	He should be talking about Trump.
	What he says about denigrating the disabled is exactly right.
	He should say, you specifically denigrated a New York Times reporter because that man was disabled.
	That's what he did.
	I watched the video and we talked about it on the show.
	Okay, all of this is good stuff.
	And when Trump denies it and he says, oh, well, you know, that's just what tough guys do, somebody should say to Trump, look, you've never been tough in your life.
	You're a coddled baby.
	Your dad gave you $400 million.
	Don't pretend that you're some sort of tough guy.
	You're so tough that you got run out of Atlantic City because you didn't know how to do basic finance.
	Tough.
	Tough, has anybody ever challenged you in an interview?
	Have any of the media members ever challenged you in an interview about your flips-on position?
	Donald Trump isn't a tough guy.
	He's a pretend strongman.
	And again, it was like this all night long.
	Here is Trump going at it with Jeb on ISIS.
	More of the same.
	It is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that Russia could be a positive partner in this.
	They are on the run.
	They are making, every time we step back, they're on the run.
	The question that you asked was a really good one about what you would do, what three things would you do.
	I would restore, the military sequester needs to be reversed.
	I would have a strategy to destroy ISIS.
	And I would immediately create a policy of containment as it relates to Iran's ambitions, and to make it make clear that we are not going to allow for Iran to do what it's doing, which is to move towards a nuclear weapon.
	Those three things would be the first and foremost things that we need to do in 2017.
	Mr. Trump, you're...
	Mr. Trump, you were mentioned here.
	You did say you could get along very well with Vladimir Putin.
	You did at one point say, let Russia take care of ISIS.
	Don't be a genius.
	I like him so far, I have to tell you.
	Let me just tell you this.
	Jeb is so wrong.
	Jeb is absolutely so... Just so you understand, you know what that is?
	That's Jeb's special interests and lobbyists talking.
	Look, let me just tell you something.
	Jeb...
	Jeb is so wrong.
	You got to fight ISIS first.
	You fight ISIS first.
	Right now you have Russia, you have Iran, you have them with Assad, and you have them with Syria.
	You have to knock out ISIS.
	They're chopping off heads.
	These are animals.
	You have to knock them out.
	You have to knock them off strong.
	You decide what to do after.
	You can't fight two wars at one time.
	If you listen to him and you listen to some of the folks That I've been listening to.
	That's why we've been in the Middle East for 15 years and we haven't won anything.
	We've spent five trillion dollars in the Middle East because of thinking like that.
	We've spent five... And Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham, who backs him, who had zero on his polls.
	Let me just say something.
	We've spent... We've spent... We've spent...
	I only tell the truth, lobbyists.
	We've spent five trillion dollars all over the middle.
	We have to rebuild our country.
	We have to rebuild our infrastructure.
	You listen to that, you're going to be there for another 50 years.
	Alright, Governor Bush, please respond.
	The very basic fact is that Vladimir Putin is not going to be an ally of the United States.
	The whole world knows this.
	They're not taking out, they're not even attempting to take out ISIS.
	They're attacking the troops that we're supporting.
	We need to create a coalition, Sunni-led coalition, on the ground with our special operators to destroy ISIS and bring about stability.
	And you can't do that with Assad in power.
	We're supporting troops that we don't even know who they are.
	We're supporting troops that we don't even know who they are.
	We have no idea who they are.
	This is from a guy who gets his foreign policy from the shows.
	This is a guy who, thanks to Hillary Clinton, was a great negotiator in Iran.
	We're living in dangerous times.
	This is a man who insults his way to the nomination.
	Gentlemen, let's leave it there so I can ask a question of Senator Cruz, who's also running for president.
	Okay, we can stop it there.
	It's just unbelievable by the moderator there, just allowing that sort of nonsense to go on.
	First of all, Trump is such a... I mean, again, agree with him or disagree with him on this?
	There's no way to avoid the fact that he's a loudmouth bully.
	When he comes back at the very end with, Jeb spent $44 million in New Hampshire and came in loud, what does that have to do with anything?
	What does that have to do with anything?
	Trump acts as though electoral success means that you're a better person or that what you're saying is correct.
	Right?
	Trump is, basically, the proof is in the pudding.
	I use this example all the time.
	In Fiddler on the Roof, there's a point at which Tevye is singing, If I Were a Rich Man, and he says that people will come to me and they'll ask me questions that would cross a rabbi's eyes, and it won't make one bit of difference whether I answer right or wrong.
	When you're rich, they think you really know.
	Okay, Donald Trump is proof that when you're rich, you think you really know.
	Hey Donald Trump thinks that he could that because he's but he's like this the poll numbers do he's rich he's never been wrong and he's successful in the polls so he's never been wrong and that paid off in spades.
	About halfway through this debate, when at one point Donald Trump, this is clip 13, Trump went ahead and blamed George W. Bush for 9/11, and then blamed him for the war in Iraq.
	He went full-scale Michael Moore, Code Pink by the way, which is the radical anti-war organization, endorsed Trump after this, said Trump, we were so happy Trump said this.
	It is because Trump thinks that this race is all about Trump.
	Here's Donald Trump about George W. Bush and 9/11. - On Monday, George W. Bush will campaign in South Carolina for his brother, As you said tonight, and you've often said, the Iraq war and your opposition to it was a sign of your good judgment.
	In 2008, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer talking about President W. Bush's conduct of the war, you said you were surprised that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi didn't try to impeach him.
	You said, quote, which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing, When you were asked what you meant by that, you said, for the war.
	For the war.
	He lied.
	He got us into the war with lies.
	Do you still believe President Bush should have been impeached?
	First of all, I have to say, as a businessman, I get along with everybody.
	I have business all over the world.
	I know so many of the people in the audience.
	And by the way, I'm a self-funder.
	I don't have.
	I have my wife and I have my son.
	That's all I have.
	I don't have those.
	Let me just tell you, I get along with everybody, which is my obligation to my company, to myself, etc.
	Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, alright?
	Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took Jeb Bush, if you remember, at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced the President, it took him five days.
	He went back.
	It was a mistake.
	It wasn't a mistake.
	It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said it was a mistake.
	The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives.
	We don't even have it.
	Iran is taking over Iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world.
	Obviously it was a mistake.
	George Bush made a mistake.
	We can make mistakes.
	But that one was a beauty.
	We should have never been in Iraq.
	We have destabilized the Middle East.
	So you still think he should be impeached?
	I think it's my turn.
	You do whatever you want.
	You call it whatever you want.
	I want to tell you.
	They lied.
	They said there were weapons of mass destruction.
	There were none.
	And they knew there were none.
	There were no weapons of mass destruction.
	When a member on the stage's brother gets attacked, the brother gets to respond.
	I get to do it five or six times or just once responding to that?
	So here's the deal.
	I'm sick and tired of Barack Obama blaming my brother for all of the problems that he's had.
	And frankly, I could care less about the insults that Donald Trump gives to me.
	It's blood sport for him, he enjoys it, and I'm glad he's happy about it.
	But I am sick and tired of him going after my family.
	My dad is the greatest man alive in my mind.
	While Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe, and I'm proud of what he did.
	And he's had the gall to go after my mother.
	He's had the gall to go after my mother.
	Remember that.
	Hold on.
	Let me finish.
	I just had the gall to go after my mother.
	That's not keeping us safe.
	Look, I won the lottery when I was born 63 years ago and looked up and I saw my mom.
	Mom, my mom is the strongest woman I know.
	Oh my God.
	This is not about my family or his.
	I can't even watch this.
	Okay, so it's so absurd.
	It's so absurd.
	So everything that Trump says there is a lie.
	Okay, when Trump says that Bush lied us into war, this is a bumper sticker leftist garbage slogan that is provably false.
	Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton both supported the war in Iraq.
	They did so specifically because all the intel, all of the available intel said that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.
	There were, in fact, chemical weapons found in Iraq.
	Where do you think Bashar Assad got his stockpiles of WMD?
	You think they just magically appeared?
	They were shipped across the border during the Iraq War.
	In any case, even leaving all of that aside, the idea that Bush lied us into war for political purposes for no reason at all, it's ridiculous on every level.
	And then for him to say that Bush didn't keep us safe during 9-11?
	Hey, this is revisionist history of the greatest sort, the 2020 hindsight.
	So what, did FDR not keep us safe around Pearl Harbor?
	Is that something Trump wants to go for, too?
	And then Jeb Bush, the weakness of Jeb Bush.
	Every time I watch one of these debates, it makes me want to pull my hair out.
	Because you got Jeb Bush sitting there going, well, he attacked my mommy.
	He attacked my brother.
	My dad's the greatest person alive.
	I'm sorry, Jeb.
	It turns out that American politics is about more than your bloodlines.
	The fact that you're defending not your brother's policies, but him as your brother, Or him as your dad?
	Or your mom?
	Why do I care about your personal defense of your family members?
	I'm not interested in that.
	I'm interested in the future of the country.
	And I'm interested in the record of the people that Donald Trump is talking about.
	But Jeb can't even do that.
	The proper response to Trump saying this is, Donald Trump, you are a far leftist who believes that George W. Bush lied us into war, and you are giving cover to Democrats who purposefully lost the war in Iraq for political gain.
	That's what you are doing.
	And you're a disgrace to the military men and women who died in Iraq, and you're a disgrace to the country for doing this routine.
	Because the fact is, regardless of whether you like the war in Iraq or not, that war was won by 2010 and Barack Obama then purposely lost it.
	And the fact that you're sitting up here, going after George W. Bush on a Republican stage, in the middle of a Republican nomination process, is astounding.
	Astounding.
	And again, you see Trump again drop the, oh, you spent 22 million in Iowa or New Hampshire, wherever it is.
	You spent lots of money, you didn't get anything in return.
	As though that makes one damn bit of difference.
	It's just, it's incredible.
	Marco Rubio did respond to Donald Trump on this, but again, Rubio, he's such a beta that it doesn't come off of.
	Here's Marco Rubio going after Trump on this.
	We're grateful to what he did for this country.
	How did he keep us safe when the world creates anything?
	I lost hundreds of friends.
	The World Trade Center came down during the rain.
	He kept us safe.
	That's not safe.
	That is not safe, Mark.
	That is not safe.
	The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.
	And George Bush... By the way...
	George Bush had the chance also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA.
	I don't know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn't speak Spanish.
	Well, first of all, I don't know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn't speak Spanish.
	And second of all, the other point that I would make...
	There's everybody else on stage and Trump...
	Why are Rubio and Cruz going after each other?
	Trump's the frontrunner.
	Trump's gonna pick up this nomination easily.
	Okay, right now he's 20 points ahead in South Carolina.
	All of the next states are in the South.
	Why are Cruz and Rubio going at each other on immigration?
	It's such a secondary battle at this point.
	They're acting like Trump isn't the frontrunner, like he's just sort of out there doing nothing.
	What in the world?
	Now we're arguing about who can speak Spanish on a national stage?
	This is the new argument?
	Who can speak Spanish?
	Who gives a flying F who can speak Spanish?
	Why is that relevant to anyone?
	So this whole thing was just a disaster.
	It was just... it was... it was a...
	At a time when the Constitution is this close to being destroyed by Barack Obama through a Supreme Court appointment, the Republicans are arguing about who can speak Spanish better, about how much Jeb Bush spent in New Hampshire, and whether Donald Trump should be able to yell over everybody.
	It's really a devastating thing.
	It's really a devastating thing.
	Ted Cruz, I think, got this right yesterday.
	He was asked about this, and he said the time for the circus is over.
	This is clip 19.
	I don't want to see our liberties taken away.
	You know, my daughters Caroline and Catherine are seven and five.
	I don't want to have to look at my daughters and say, the freedoms that America has had for two centuries, you don't get.
	Because we didn't step up and pull it back.
	And Justice Scalia's passing, I think, really changes the entire contours of this race.
	The time for the circus And the reality show is over.
	This is a serious choice.
	And we are talking about losing our basic liberties if we get this wrong.
	And it's why I have so much faith in the people of South Carolina that they value liberty, they value the Constitution.
	And I'll tell you one final point.
	Which is, we're also choosing a commander-in-chief.
	This is a dangerous world.
	And it doesn't make any sense to appoint someone, to elect someone as commander-in-chief who doesn't understand the nature of our enemies.
	You know, last night, Donald Trump defended his calling for George W. Bush to be impeached.
	That is not consistent with the Constitution, and those are the views of the fever swamps of the left.
	That's where Donald comes from, is the fever swamps of the left.
	He's supporting John Kerry and saying, let's impeach George W. Bush.
	That is not a commander-in-chief fit to keep this country safe.
	And of course, he's exactly right, but I'm not sure it's going to matter.
	Bill Kristol was on ABC News yesterday and he said that people are eventually going to look at Trump and they're going to say enough is enough with all this bluster and shouting and sloganeering.
	Here's what Bill Kristol had to say.
	The time for the circus, I think, is over right now.
	Does it make the debate on the Republican side somewhat more serious?
	Help any particular candidate?
	Yes.
	Look, there are two things the President does that he does uniquely.
	He nominates judges and he's Commander-in-Chief.
	Healthcare, educational policy, tax policy, Congress plays a huge role.
	I think the presidential debate on the Republican side, the choice will now focus much more on who will put good judges on the Supreme Court, who has the knowledge and the temperament and the background where voters can be confident that they'll get good conservative constitutional judges.
	And the commander-in-chief issue, which Donald Trump raised squarely last night by saying that George Bush knowingly lied us into the war in Iraq.
	It's one thing to say the war was a mistake.
	Knowingly lied us into the war in Iraq?
	Are Republican primary voters going to accept this?
	I believe that Donald Trump's candidacy was dealt... I've said this before and I've been wrong, but I really do believe last night could be a moment where finally Republican voters say, enough with the being, you know, engaged, Trump's interesting, he's saying some things I like, he's sticking it to those politicians, and finally maybe people will focus on, can and should he be President of the United States?
	And I think Republican primary voters will say no.
	That's a very, very optimistic view.
	While everybody else battles it out, Trump is already running a general election campaign.
	The reason that he's pushing the Iraq war stuff is, he said it yesterday, he said it on the Sunday shows, he says, if we don't admit the Iraq war was a problem, we're not going to win the general election.
	Here's Donald Trump talking about that yesterday.
	He's wrong, by the way.
	You said it fantastically.
	Something's going to have to happen with the party or we're going to lose yet another election.
	I'm not even doing it to win election.
	I'm doing it out of common sense.
	The war was a horrible thing.
	If we're not going to admit that, you're going to have yet another election where the Democrats are going to win.
	He's wrong, by the way.
	The idea that if you disown the Iraq war that you're going to win the election is just an enormous fail.
	It's an enormous fail.
	The reason that Republicans tend to win elections in general, if they're going to win a presidential election, you only win on security.
	It's that question, that question alone.
	Ronald Reagan made people feel safe in 1980, made them feel safe in 1984.
	H.W.
	made them feel safe in 1988.
	He would have made them feel safe in 92, except that Ross Perot was in the race.
	George W. Bush in 2004 won, won women, and the reason he did is because of the safety issue.
	The minute you say the Iraq war was a mistake and we don't know how to handle foreign policy, basically, you're toast.
	But Trump is running a general election campaign and everybody else is just punching at each other underneath him, and none of them know how to take this guy down.
	And the way that you take Trump down is by calling him out for who he is.
	And then everything else that he does just reinforces that.
	When you say, Donald, you're a bloviating bully who's never been told no in his entire life because you were born to a rich family and you're a bratty rich kid who's never been told no.
	So I'm going to tell you no right now.
	Shut the hell up.
	Somebody has to say this.
	Why does nobody just say, shut the hell up, Donald Trump?
	And then if he continues to bloviate, you say, look, there's just more evidence.
	It's just more evidence.
	No one's ever said no to you.
	So you don't know how to take no for an answer.
	Well, guess what?
	Guess what?
	That doesn't qualify you to be President of the United States.
	It qualifies you for an asylum.
	We've reached beyond the point of normal politics at this point.
	We have.
	I've been off the Trump train for a while here.
	For a long time.
	For months.
	But I at least thought that he played a valuable role in the race.
	I think that time has now passed.
	I don't think that Donald Trump plays a valuable role in the Republican race any longer.
	I don't think he's saying things that are important.
	I think that he is saying things that are highly damaging.
	I think that what he is doing Has the capacity.
	I said earlier there are two threats to the American Constitution.
	One is the Supreme Court.
	The other is two parties.
	Not one.
	Both parties that buy into the idea of the strongman.
	Donald Trump is the strongman.
	That's what he is.
	That's all he is.
	He has no policies.
	He has no principles.
	All Donald Trump is, is the strongman.
	All Donald Trump knows how to do is destroy his opposition.
	Here's Donald Trump, for example, talking about Ted Cruz, the guy he hates most in the world at this point.
	He hates Jabbi, he hates Cruz, and so here he is going after Cruz, saying that Cruz is not biblical.
	You can't lie and then hold up the Bible, okay?
	He consistently lies.
	What he did to Ben Carson was a disgrace.
	What he did with the voter violation form, which is a fraud, is a disgrace.
	And you can't do that.
	You can't hold up all of these values and hold up the Bible and then lie.
	You can't hold up the Bible and then lie, says the man who says two Corinthians.
	Says the man who brags about extramarital affairs with women who are married.
	You can't hold up the Bible and lie.
	Every time Donald Trump holds up the Bible and he says, this is the most important book in my life, that is a lie.
	Anybody who believes that Donald Trump is a deeply religious man is either well in the tank or just stupid.
	Because it's not credible.
	It's just not credible.
	There are certain people you know are not religious and Donald Trump is one of them.
	This is the guy who says he's never repented before God.
	He said that.
	He never repents before God.
	There's not a religious person in America or on the planet who says they've never repented before God.
	But this is the other danger, right?
	So the first danger is the Supreme Court.
	The other is the caudillo, banana republic, we need a strong man mindset of Donald Trump.
	So people this morning, David French over at National Review, he wrote a piece where he said that Trump is basically just a conventional Democrat.
	That's all that Donald Trump is.
	He's a conventional Democrat.
	He says, Trump doesn't threaten the Republican establishment because he's too conservative or too populist.
	He threatens the Republican establishment because he belongs in the other party.
	There's truth to this.
	I mean, again, he was repeating Michael Moore talking points at a Republican debate.
	But there's something else happening here.
	The Democratic Party has never been foreign to the idea of the strongman, the dictator, the great man who's going to fix all your problems.
	Woodrow Wilson, who's the guy who created the modern progressive Democratic Party, he said in 1906, quote, The president is at liberty both in law and conscience to be as big a man as he can.
	His capacity will set the limit.
	He said if the president could garner the support of the public, quote, no single force can withstand him.
	No combination of forces will easily overpower him.
	In 1911, Woodrow Wilson, who is elected president the next year, said the whole country says he cannot decipher The methods of its legislation is clamoring for leadership.
	And a new role, which to many persons seems little less than unconstitutional, is thrust upon our executives.
	In other words, people don't know how laws get made, people are unhappy with gridlock, so they need a strongman.
	FDR agreed, so did Lyndon Baines Johnson, so did Barack Obama.
	The strongman runs the government, and he's what fixes everything.
	Of course, this is not in line with the Constitution, but this is how Trump thinks, too.
	This is what Trump is.
	And every word you see on that debate stage is about Donald Trump and the personal power that he wields.
	Donald Trump isn't speaking for the country.
	He's not speaking for you.
	He's speaking for him.
	His spokesperson, Corey Lewandowski, said after the debate, Yeah, Jeb got under Donald Trump's skin a little bit because Donald felt like he was being lied about.
	This isn't about Donald Trump.
	But for Donald Trump, it is about Donald Trump.
	Have you ever heard Donald Trump say anything about limits to presidential power?
	Ever?
	Donald Trump just tells you he's gonna win for you.
	As I said last week, no one in government wins for you.
	All they can do is get government off your back.
	Okay?
	This is not about what the government can do for you.
	This is about what the government can do to you.
	Because they're the same thing.
	The government can't do anything for you unless it's also doing something to you.
	The job of the conservatives is to stop the government from doing things to you.
	But Donald Trump is the kind of guy who is that strong man.
	He'll get things done.
	He'll use his power.
	If you read about Hugo Chavez, I don't think that there are people out there who say that Trump is like Hitler.
	I think this is ridiculous.
	Trump is not like Hitler, obviously.
	He's much more, if you're going to compare him to a dictator, compare him to Hugo Chavez from Venezuela.
	Because Hugo Chavez was elected time and time again.
	He was elected multiple times.
	In fair elections, many times.
	In 2010, Hugo Chavez did a speech and he said this, quote, Populism, the strongman sense, it applies to Obama and it also applies to Trump.
	Hugo Chavez was seen by his opponents as a clown and a bore and just a ridiculous figure.
	It is my duty to demand respect for the people.
	If you cherish the fatherland, join Chavez.
	Populism, the strongman sense, it applies to Obama and it also applies to Trump.
	Hugo Chavez was seen by his opponents as a clown and a boor and just a ridiculous figure.
	But the fact is that because he kept telling people that he was winning for them, he was able to gain ultimate power and basically destroy the Venezuelan society.
	I don't think Trump destroys American society, but I think that Trump is a danger to the Constitution.
	He does not see himself as running for a job.
	He sees himself as running for the great man.
	That's what Donald Trump is.
	That's what Donald Trump is.
	And so we have two threats to the Constitution from both sides of the aisle.
	Through the pusillanimity and cowardice of the Republican Party on the Supreme Court nominees, and through the threat of Trump, who has nothing to do with constitutional limits.
	Okay.
	Very briefly, because there's so much to get to.
	We're running super late here.
	A couple of things that I like.
	So, over the weekend, my wife and I, on Amazon, rented the movie Spy.
	I don't know if you guys have seen this movie.
	It's actually, it's vulgar, you know, it's rated R. Don't get the unrated version because it's just too much, but the rated version, if you can deal with curse words, it's not really about, there's not a lot of sexual humor, it's a lot of curse words.
	But it's a very funny movie.
	Particularly Jason Statham, kind of does a cameo role, and he's hilarious.
	So if you're up for R-rated movies, then Spy is a very, very funny movie.
	The other thing that was funny is that Saturday Night Live is beginning to realize it's now safe to come out of the woodwork against Hillary Clinton for the moment.
	They'll shift back into the woodwork in just a minute when she becomes the nominee.
	Saturday Night Live, they did a bit on Hillary Clinton, and it was pretty funny.
	So here it is.
	I mean, Hillary is the most qualified candidate in history, but at the same time, eh?
	Yeah, I mean, Hillary has every single thing I want in a president, but... She's no Bernie!
	Turn down the light Turn down the bed Turn down these voices Inside my head Lay down with me Tell me no lie Just hold me close Don't personalize
	I mean, I like Hillary's foreign policy experience But I love Bernie's whole vibe Oh, I love Bernie's whole vibe Oh, I'm obsessed with his vibe.
	Because I can't make you love me if you don't.
	God, Bernie is the best!
	You can't make your heart feel as a family one.
	Bernie is changed.
	Here in the dark.
	In these final hours.
	I will lay down my arms.
	And I'll feel the power.
	I like when Bernie yells.
	But not when Hillary does.
	Okay, so the whole bit is Hillary Clinton in a dining establishment with all these people saying how much they like Bernie.
	What's amazing, though, is that even things where they're making fun of Hillary, what are the actual lines these people are saying about Hillary?
	She's the most qualified president in history.
	Her foreign policy, I love it.
	Like, they're supposed to be saying, they should be saying, you know, Hillary's just, eh, she's terrible on everything, I can't stand her.
	And then she says, I can't make you love me, but they can't even go that far.
	All right, so SNL playing softball with Hillary Clinton, even when they're supposedly mocking her.
	A couple of things I hate, aside from everything today.
	Everything in the world.
	All the things.
	There are no things I don't hate.
	Everything is terrible.
	So aside from all the things, there is a... The greatest site in history, as Drew has mentioned, is everydayfeminism.com.
	If you ever want to see unintentional comedy at work, everydayfeminism.com is where it's at.
	And there's a piece today saying that people have to stop being sanest.
	You know, like sexist or racist, sanest.
	So you have to stop discriminating in favor of the sane.
	Really.
	This is written by Captain Glittertoes.
	Captain Glittertoes.
	To my former therapist, here's what it really means to support my gender identity.
	He says, this letter is pretty self-explanatory, but I want to give you a brief introduction.
	I had been seeing this therapist on and off for six years.
	It was only after we stopped seeing each other, mostly for reasons unrelated to the content of this letter, that I realized the full extent of what had happened in that office in terms of my gender.
	So here is the letter.
	Dear former therapist, I have realized in the past two weeks there is something more I need to say to you.
	Feeling both anger and loss, caring about and valuing much of our therapeutic time together, while realizing how you hurt and utterly failed me in this way.
	It isn't an easy combination of feelings.
	When someone has given so much and deprived me of something so important, the emotions are not easy to navigate.
	They say, I talked with you in one of our sessions a few months ago about my doubts and worries about us working together.
	I told you you had shot me down years ago when I had first brought up questioning my gender to you.
	What I didn't do then is remind you what you had said to me.
	I don't remember every detail, but I do remember the traumatizing part.
	I remember that back in what must have been our first or second session, you asked if I wanted a penis.
	Uncomfortable and confused as to whether this was the only measure of transness, I said I didn't think so.
	Shortly afterwards, I think you must have concluded I wasn't trans, or I must have concluded I didn't want to repeat that uncomfortable conversation because we stopped talking about it for a while.
	You said I wasn't trans, but you're so feminine, you said.
	That was especially hurtful given my current gender identity.
	I don't identify with the word feminine, but me having some characteristics that get categorized that way doesn't mean that I'm a woman.
	All of your genetics are a woman.
	You think like a woman, apparently.
	You are feminine.
	What?
	So it's, at the beginning it says content warning, cysism, transphobia in therapy, sanism, and suicidal ideation.
	Sanism.
	So this is a thing now, sanism.
	How dare anybody imply that sanity is better than insanity?
	I'm reading this book right now about, it's called The Insanity Offense, and it's all about how mental illness has been improperly treated in the country.
	There's a book apparently by a guy named Thomas Zaz back in 1961 that really impacted how people think of the mentally ill.
	His premise was there's no such thing as mental illness.
	There's just society failing to understand that we have to let a thousand flowers bloom.
	That's where we are now.
	That is how far we've come.
	Okay, final, final, final thing that I hate.
	Okay, let's do this.
	Should we do Joy Read or this MSNBC guest?
	I don't know.
	I can't choose.
	MSNBC guest.
	We'll do the MSNBC guest.
	Here we go.
	This is a guy on MSNBC explaining why black people are disproportionately impoverished.
	Black people are not poor by accident or by some kind of quirk of history.
	We were placed in slavery, developed the wealth of this country, denied access to the G.I.
	Bill benefits, and so there's an intentionality of the current black situation.
	We have to be equally intentional to address it.
	Oh, we need something intentional to address the intentionality of the current black situation.
	Okay, the last thing that he mentioned in terms of time there was the G.I.
	Bill. 1946.
	Okay, it's been 70 years.
	At a certain point, you may want to look at the actual metrics of black success in the United States, which were increasing dramatically up until welfare, and then immediately plunged.
	Immediately.
	But don't worry, poverty can be blamed entirely on the intentionality of evil American society, not on the intentionality of people taking acts today.
	No, by the way, nobody is poor in the inner city today.
	Not a young person my age.
	Nobody's poor in the inner city today because they were denied benefits under the GI Bill.
	There's gonna be another 50 years until they were born.
	40 years until they were born.
	So that one's kind of weak.
	Okay, I lied.
	Joy Raid, we'll just do that and finish there.
	Joy Raid...
	Well, the reality of it is, is this idea of the separation of church and state is a myth.
	I mean, you bring your faith into the marketplace just like you do anything else, and so Ted Cruz is a We'll be a president, not just, you know, who is a preacher or pastor in the White House.
	That's not the idea.
	But I believe that all people, all Americans can rally around Ted Cruz because he upholds the Constitution.
	I believe all Americans want to truly uphold the law.
	Well, let me just push back on you a little bit, because the separation of church and state is, in fact, not a myth.
	It's actually a constitutional fact.
	Like, it's a fact on the ground.
	It's a part of our constitutional makeup.
	The founding fathers were very explicit that they did not want to have a national church.
	So, can a candidate like Ted Cruz run on essentially saying he would ignore that part of the Constitution if you're saying he's a president who would actually run on the Constitution?
	Okay, we can pause it there.
	That's the important part.
	Leftists are so stupid.
	They are so deeply stupid.
	People like Joy Reid.
	Okay, the First Amendment to the Constitution says that Congress shall pass no law infringing on freedom of religion.
	Right, that's the idea.
	And the idea is there are two separate things, right?
	It shall establish no religion, and there shall be no infringement on freedom of religion, right?
	This is the way that the First Amendment is phrased.
	Okay, and these are to be read together.
	The idea is that the reason that the government can't establish a religion Is because if it established, say, Catholicism as the national church of the United States, it would end up cracking down on all other churches in the United States.
	Separation of church and state doesn't mean that a politician can't find his values springing from the Bible.
	And it's amazing.
	The left are such liars.
	I mean, when Barack Obama is citing the least of these, right?
	The least of these.
	It's the only thing.
	He doesn't know the rest of the phrase.
	He doesn't know the rest of the verse.
	He doesn't know the rest of the Bible.
	He doesn't know how many books there are in the Bible.
	The last thing he heard about the Bible was from Jeremiah Wright.
	When he speaks at a Charleston church and talks about religion, then he's great.
	When John Kasich cites God to promote welfare, then all of a sudden he's wonderful.
	But they say separation of church and state is a constitutional fact.
	No, it actually isn't in the way that you're reading it.
	Non-establishment of religion doesn't mean that we all have to be atheists when it comes to our legislation.
	That's stupidity.
	But those are the people they want to appoint to the court.
	The kind of people who say that it would be a violation of church and state, for example, for churches to tell people how to vote.
	Churches can tell people how to vote.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	In fact, one of the stupidest things about 501c3 law, as it currently stands, is telling rabbis and priests and pastors that they can't have impact on political matters.
	That's half of what religion is.
	At least half.
	Probably 90% of what religion is, is telling people about the values they should hold beyond the church walls.
	This is what the left actually thinks of the Constitution, and it's quite devastating.
	So, it's a dark day for America.
	It really is.
	We're in a dark place.
	However, Hold fast to those conservative principles, and I do think that there is a way to come back.
	I think it's a long road.
	I don't think this is a short road.
	I don't think we're one minute away from saving the country.
	I think that not only are we going to have to force the Republicans' feet to the fire to hold fast against President Obama or Hillary or anybody who appoints leftist judges to the Supreme Court, we're going to have to go further than that.
	We're going to have to start preparing for the day when states start forcibly resisting.
	I do think this is going to happen.
	Forcibly resisting federal mandates that are unconstitutional.
	Because there will come a time when the federal government passes a law that cracks down on the rights of citizens, and state governors are going to have to say, you do not step past this line.
	If you step past this line, there will be resistance.
	Because somebody is going to have to do this.
	There's still people in this country who take their rights seriously.
	And the longer this goes, the bigger government gets, the greater that conflict appears in that rearview mirror.
	And things are already closer than they appear.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

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