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July 21, 2016 - The Ben Shapiro Show
51:58
Ep. 154 - Cruz vs. Trump: The Ultimate Showdown
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The man who will make America great again seems to have some pretty weird ideas about how to do that internationally.
In an interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump openly stated he might let Russia march right into the Baltic Republics in spite of NATO, explained that Turkey's Islamist would-be dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan was doing a wonderful job of locking down his country, and attacked America in the process of doing both.
So Republicans basically just nominated Howard Zinn, which is awesome.
First, the New York Times asked Trump if he would defend NATO allies if they were attacked by Russia.
He answered he would, quote, decide to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have fulfilled their obligations to us.
If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.
This, of course, destroys NATO.
The whole purpose of NATO is deterrence.
If you attack one of us, you attack all of us.
Even if Trump were to consider whether to defend Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, or for that matter Poland or the Czech Republic, on a case-by-case basis, you don't say that out loud unless you're either a dummy or you're unworried about signaling to the Russians they can invade other nations with impunity.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air, who's definitely not prone to exaggeration, Ed writes, quote, But don't worry, the insanity didn't stop there.
Turkish thug Erdogan has now purged tens of thousands of people from positions of power and influence in Turkey following a failed coup that very well could have just been a Reichstag fire event.
Just hours ago, Turkey suspended the European Convention on Human Rights in their country so they could pursue Erdogan's enemies with alacrity.
Asked about pressuring Turkey to abide by their human rights commitments, Trump said, quote, I don't think we have a right to lecture.
Trump even cheered Erdogan, quote, the coup never even took place.
The coup was not successful.
And based on the fact and I give him great credit to him for being able to turn that around, I do give great credit to him for turning it around.
Then he said, quote, I think right—this is direct transcript, guys—I think right now, when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it's very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don't know what we are doing and we can't see straight in our own country.
We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson, when you have Baltimore, when you have all of the things that are happening in this country.
We have other problems, and I think that we have to focus on those problems.
When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don't think we're a good messenger.
I don't know that we have a right to lecture.
Just look at what's happening with our country.
How are we going to lecture when people are shooting policemen in cold blood?
How are we going to lecture when you see the riots and the horror going on in our own country?
We have so many difficulties in our country right now that I don't think should be, and there may be a time when we can get much more aggressive on that subject, and it would be a wonderful thing to be more aggressive.
We're not in a position to be more aggressive.
We have to fix our own mess.
This is discombobulated, but it's also despicable.
It's right in line with Russia's perspective, of course, which is totally unsurprising given the Trump campaign's decision to gut anti-Putin language in defense of Ukraine from the RNC platform and Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort's super close relationship with the Putin regime.
More importantly, this is anti-American crap.
Bad things happen in America.
But those aren't government policy.
Equating America with Turkey cracking down on dissidents is disgusting.
But Trump isn't just an isolationist.
He's a Ron Paul isolationist.
A devotee of the notion America makes the world a worse place when it intervenes.
That has some consequences.
And it certainly gives the lie to the notion Trump will keep us safe from terrorism.
Not when he's defending Erdogan, who's gone soft on ISIS.
Trump is basically Barack Obama in wolf's clothing.
Obama wanted to make America smaller on the world stage, and he clothed it in empty, silly language about multipolarity.
Trump pretends to be strong on defense, but he pretty much mirrors Obama's policies at every turn.
When it comes to foreign policy, Trump isn't interested in making America great again.
He'll make America weak again, and he'll let everybody know about it.
All the while, he's going to bluster about how he's a giant winner and a real tough guy.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show. - Tend to demonize people 'cause they don't care about your feelings. - Okay, so here we are on Facebook Live, and there's a lot to talk about.
So, let's jump right in.
Let's jump right in.
So, yesterday, of course, the big story was Ted Cruz speaking at the RNC.
And this story is just—every time I—I'm about as cynical about politics as it's possible to be.
I mean, I make—I depress people.
It's what I do, right?
I mean, I'm in the business of depressing people with my cynicism.
Even I.
I'm not one quarter cynical enough to be cynical enough about the Republican National Convention and the committee and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and all of the various players here.
Even I am not cynical enough for this.
And I'm pretty cynical.
Basically what happened last night at the Republican National Convention, in a nutshell, Is that Ted Cruz tried to offer an olive branch to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump used the opportunity to shiv Ted Cruz and the RNC used the opportunity to shiv Cruz and side with Trump and cast Cruz out of the party.
That's basically what happened last night.
Now that's not the story you're going to hear from the media.
The story you'll hear from the media is that Cruz made this wonderful stand against Trump.
He really didn't.
The story you'll hear from the media is that Trump was taken completely by surprise.
That's what Trump will say.
I've been stabbed in the back by Ted Cruz.
No, he wasn't.
And the story that you'll hear from the RNC is that Ted Cruz is the worst guy ever.
Okay, so let's go through a little bit of facts.
I know that facts are foreign to these conversations about Donald Trump because everybody has to bow before the Orange God King, but basically, in short, what happened last night is that there was a Stalin-esque show trial, and Ted Cruz did not stand and applaud loudly enough for Donald Trump, and thus he was taken out and politically executed.
So, just a little bit of a flashback.
To go back, People are saying that Ted Cruz should have endorsed Donald Trump because he took the pledge.
Okay, number one, the pledge to support the Republican nominee.
I said at the time, Trump, by the way, when he started, would not take the pledge.
I defended Donald Trump on that, because I think pledges are stupid.
I think unless you're pledging to principle, I don't care about your pledge.
If you pledge allegiance to any single human being, or to an unnamed human being, anybody who's the Republican nominee, you're stupid.
What if the Republican nominee is something terrible?
That's exactly what ends up happening.
So the pledge was dumb in the first place.
Second of all, I'm not going to hold you to a pledge to support the Republican nominee after that guy brands you Lion Ted, calls your wife ugly in national view, says your father assassinated JFK.
Here's that tweet where he compared Melania being hot to Heidi Cruz supposedly being ugly.
And then there is the Trump accusing Cruz's father of killing JFK.
You remember this one.
His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being, you know, shot.
I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous.
What is this right prior to his being shot?
And nobody even brings it up.
I mean, they don't even talk about that.
That was reported and nobody talks about it.
But I think it's horrible.
Right.
There was a picture out there that reportedly shows Rafael Cruz standing with Lee Harvey Oswald.
I mean, what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald?
You know, Lion Ted Cruz came today.
He couldn't draw a hundred people.
the shooting.
It's horrible.
So he accuses Cruz's wife of being ugly, accuses his father of being an assassin.
He, of course, brands him with Lion's Head, which is a tag that's going to now stick to Cruz the rest of his career.
You remember Trump doing this routine over and over and over.
You know, Lion Ted Cruz came today.
He couldn't draw 100 people.
100 people.
He could.
I'm telling you.
In fact, it was a big headline today in the New York Post.
He couldn't draw a hundred people.
Now, do you remember?
Okay, so he did this routine the whole campaign.
You remember, we don't have to go through it.
And then, as you recall, Cruz retaliated against Trump, and he called Trump a sniveling coward, right?
Ted Cruz touting his wife hours after hitting his limit.
Donald, you're a sniveling coward.
Leave Heidi the hell alone.
The senator and the billionaire now all in.
So the flashback is just to demonstrate.
It was pretty dicey for a while, right?
It was pretty dicey.
Okay, so here's what I know.
And this is not speculation.
This is what I know because I've talked to people on the inside, okay?
This is inside information that you're getting because you listen to the show and watch the show.
Here is what I know.
The Cruz campaign was approached by the RNC and the Trump campaign a few weeks back, and they said, we would like you not to make trouble with the delegates at the convention.
And Cruz said, OK, I'd like a primetime spot at the convention.
And Trump and the RNC said, OK, you can speak at the convention.
You're just not allowed to rip on Donald Trump.
If you could show some tacit support for Donald Trump, that would be great.
And Cruz said, OK, that sounds good.
I won't make trouble with the delegates at the convention.
Then, this week, the Cruz campaign was in talks with the Trump campaign for Cruz to actually help out with the definition of the Israel platform in the Trump campaign.
So not only was Cruz trying to offer an olive branch to Trump, he was actually offering to get involved, in a small way at least, with the Trump campaign.
Right?
But he couldn't endorse him because how do you endorse a guy who says your wife is ugly and your dad murdered JFK?
Like, it makes it a little bit awkward.
So Cruz makes these overtures, Trump takes him up on the overtures.
Right?
Trump takes him up on the overtures.
Now Cruz arrives.
Cruz, three days beforehand, sends the speech that he gave last night.
He sends the text of the speech to the Trump campaign and the RNC.
Reince Priebus has seen the speech.
Trump personally has seen the speech.
Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, has seen the speech.
All day yesterday, the RNC is leaking that Cruz is not going to endorse Trump, right?
This is the headline all day yesterday.
Cruz is not going to endorse Trump.
He's just going to kind of suggest support for Trump, right?
That was the headline the entire day yesterday.
The transcript of the speech, which Cruz gave essentially word-for-word, is released hours early to the press.
So forget about the RNC knowing it.
Forget about Trump knowing it.
The entire press knows it.
The entire press has seen it.
I've been to these conventions.
The way that it works is that when there's a major speech, they print out transcripts, and they put piles of the transcripts on a table, and that way people can start writing their stories before the speech is done.
Right, so this is all fact, okay?
None of this is speculation.
This is all true.
It is all fact.
So, Cruz goes in.
Now, I think, and I've said this to the Cruz campaign, I didn't think Cruz should have gone to the convention in the first place.
It looked like a lose-lose to me.
If he goes in, he endorses.
A lot of people are angry at him.
If he goes in, he doesn't endorse.
A lot of people are angry at him.
But Cruz basically wanted to split the baby here.
So he wanted to go and take advantage of the fact That he is still beloved in some sections of the Republican Party.
He was the second leading vote-getter in the Republican Party.
He wanted to go, and he wanted to basically put down his flag and say, look, I'm still here, right?
I mean, like, I still believe in conservative principles, and while I can't openly endorse Trump, I'm going to sort of suggest support for Trump.
Right?
So we want to split the baby.
I'm not endorsing, but I'm sort of suggesting.
And if you read the text of the speech, that's exactly what he does, including the most controversial portion.
Right?
Here's what the speech was, in short.
Congratulations, Donald Trump.
Freedom.
For 15 minutes about freedom.
Hillary Clinton is the worst.
And then, vote your conscience up and down the ticket.
That's the intent—so if I just said those things to you, forget everything else.
If I just said those things to you, you'd say, okay, that's kind of a tacit endorsement of Trump.
It's certainly not an endorsement of Hillary Clinton.
It's not an endorsement of Gary Johnson.
If I go out there and I rip Hillary Clinton, and I say that you should vote your conscience after ripping Hillary Clinton, the implication is rather clear, isn't it?
Clear enough that the Trump campaign signed off on it.
Clear enough that the RNC signed off on it.
So, that's the speech that Cruz is gonna give.
And here's what it was, right?
He leads off, and here is Ted Cruz leading off by congratulating Donald Trump, right?
Thank you, and God bless each and every one of you.
Heidi and I are so honored to join you here in Cleveland, where LeBron James just led an incredible comeback victory.
And I am convinced America is going to come back too.
I want to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night.
Right?
Big cheer.
Does this sound anti-Trump to you?
Noticing anything anti-Trump?
Neither am I, because there's nothing anti-Trump there.
Right?
And he goes on, he talks about freedom, and he talks at length about freedom.
And then he says stuff about Hillary Clinton.
He starts ripping on Hillary Clinton.
This would be clip three of the Cruz speech.
Now Hillary Clinton believes that government should make virtually every choice in your life.
Education, health care, marriage, speech, all dictated out of Washington.
But something powerful is happening.
We've seen it in both parties.
We've seen it in the United Kingdom's unprecedented Brexit vote to leave the European Union.
Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting the political establishment and overwhelmingly rejecting big government.
We will stop it there for a second.
So he is basically making the case against Hillary.
And then where he goes from there, from there on, he says, and now you should go vote your conscience, vote for principle.
Now he can't, as I say, endorse Trump, because he wasn't gonna do that.
Because again, if you slandered my wife and my father, and were not conservative, I would not endorse you either, but he's basically saying that, right?
So, and then here's where Trump comes in.
So, Cruz thought he could split the baby, because the goal of this speech for Cruz was, position yourself if Trump loses, that you're gonna take over the party, number one.
But number two, make overtures to the RNC, so it's not like you're openly in opposition to the party.
And that's what the speech was, right?
It was a half-olive branch, basically.
It was sort of a half-olive branch.
And Donald Trump decided it was more important, instead of just sitting there and cheering and going all the way through the speech and then moving on with our lives, Donald Trump decided it was more important to humiliate Ted Cruz and shiv him.
That's what happened last night.
So, in the middle of this speech, in the middle of this speech, people start chanting.
They start chanting for Trump, right?
Those chants are being led by the New York delegation, which is Trump's personal preserve, and they're being led by people in yellow hats who are watching the coverage.
There are a bunch of people who are walking around in yellow hats.
The yellow hats are RNC staffers.
They're Trump campaign staffers, too.
They're walking around in a yellow hat.
At the point at which—and everybody had the transcript beforehand—at the point at which Cruz starts talking about voting your conscience, at that point, the Trump people start whipping—again, this is from—I've talked to multiple people who are on the floor, and Manafort himself essentially admitted this.
The Trump people start whipping up the booing.
They start whipping up the booing, because here's the thing.
Donald Trump, number one, is a petty man with a taste for vengeance.
And number two, he wants to make himself into a WWE hero, so he needs a WWE villain.
So he's gonna turn Ted Cruz into the WWE villain.
So what he does, he whips people into a frenzy because Cruz isn't openly endorsing him.
So Cruz refused to bow on bended knee before the God King, he refused to kneel before Azad, he wasn't clapping loud enough at the Stalinist lecture, and therefore he had to be politically kneecapped, he had to be taken out and shot.
So Trump sets it up so that Cruz gets booed really loudly when he says something that is pretty utterly uncontroversial.
And here's what that looked like.
We deserve leaders who stand for principle, who unite us all behind shared values, who cast aside anger for love.
That is the standard we should expect from everybody.
And to those listening, please, don't stay home in November.
If you love our country
and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution. - Okay.
Okay, and people start booing that.
Now, did you hear anything controversial there?
Just the words.
Now people are reading into it because they know that Cruz dislikes Trump, and Trump dislikes Cruz.
But the words themselves, he wasn't going to give him an endorsement.
So when he says, vote your conscience up and down the ticket, what he's saying is, basically, I just ripped Hillary Clinton, go vote your conscience.
Now I can't say go vote for Trump, but you can vote for Trump.
Trump's people go into a frenzy and start whipping up the booze to the point where at the end of the speech, this is what it looked like.
We must make the most of our moment to fight for freedom, to protect our God-given rights, even of those with whom we don't agree, so that when we are old and gray, and when our work is done, and we give those we love one final kiss goodbye, we will be able to say,
Freedom matters, and I was part of something beautiful.
The case we have to make.
To the American people, the case each person in this room has to make to the American people is to commit to each of them that we will defend freedom and be faithful to the Constitution.
They're bullying.
They're bullying.
Okay, so let's cut it off there.
So here's the part of this that's amazing.
Here's the part of this that's amazing.
Then we'll get to the reaction.
Imagine a counterfactual.
Imagine the Trump people don't whip the crowd into booing.
Imagine they just keep cheering.
Imagine they go through this entire thing and they just keep cheering.
The impression the viewer gets...
Is that he basically just endorsed Donald Trump, right?
I mean, that's the impression.
But that's not what Trump wanted because Trump is about revenge and Trump is about creating a villain.
And by the way, halfway through this part of the speech, Trump walked out into the convention hall amidst the booze and sat down with his family.
He knew exactly what was going on this entire time.
And then he claimed ignorance because he's a liar and because all Donald Trump cares about is petty vengeance.
That's all Donald Trump cares about.
And that, by the way, should say something.
He damaged his own campaign by doing this, by the way.
He damaged his own campaign, but it didn't matter so long as he got to plunge that knife right into Ted Cruz.
And again, that's not because Cruz is some sort of babe-in-the-wood innocent.
Cruz was trying to split the baby.
He wasn't trying to go out there and heroically stand up to Donald Trump.
He just didn't bow down to Donald Trump, and that was enough for Trump to decapitate him, essentially.
To the point where donors were rejecting him, Sheldon Adelson wouldn't meet with him, donors were calling him up and yelling at him.
This is not just dirty pool.
It's viciously dirty pool by a guy, Donald Trump, who has no interest in any of the principles Ted Cruz is talking about.
Nothing that Cruz said on that stage is worthy of booing.
If you are booing somebody saying vote your conscience, it's because you have a dirty conscience.
Honestly.
Everybody should vote their conscience.
You're an adult.
Make up your own mind.
If you're sitting there waiting for Ted Cruz to cave because that's going to define your vote, let me suggest to you that you have no brain.
It's up to you to make your own calls.
You can disagree with Cruz.
You can think Cruz is terrible.
That's fine.
But this idea that you're going to boo somebody for saying, vote your conscience, and you're going to do it at the behest of Donald Trump, is pretty incredible.
It's pretty incredible and it's pretty telling.
One of the people afterwards said, we're very upset because why should Cruz get to be the only pure one?
He doesn't.
You should, if you feel that good about your vote, you should feel like the only pure one.
But this is how dirty politics is, and there's another game being played.
I'll explain more of that.
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Okay, now that we're done with the surfing portion of the show.
So, the reaction to Cruz was universal and brutal.
Everybody in the Republican establishment says this is just the end of the world.
This is the worst thing that anyone has ever done.
Joel Pollack, a former friend, but now Trump lackey, over at Breitbart, he tweets out something to the effect of, this is the worst stab in the back politically since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton.
I was like, um, we did fight a civil war in this country, unless you forgot about that, in which hundreds of thousands of people died, so there was that, and stuff.
But, you know, the Breitbart maniacs in favor of Trump, they have to play this game where it was a stab in the back again!
Trump knew about it, folks!
You can't get away from this.
He knew what Cruz was going to say.
So that begs the question, why did he do it?
Why did he greenlight it?
Why did he approve it?
Why did he have his people in the convention hall stirring up the booze?
Why did he walk out into the floor in the middle of the Cruz speech?
Because what he wanted was, Ted Cruz is the villain, he's the traitor, and here I am, the great god-king, bow before me, and if you don't bow, I sick my people on you.
To the point where Heidi Cruz had to be rushed by security from the hall.
By the way, Trump admits that he knew about this beforehand.
Here's what Trump tweeted afterward.
We have the Trump tweet from afterward.
Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge.
I saw his speech two hours early, but let him speak anyway.
No big deal.
You saw his speech two hours early, but let him speak anyway.
Interesting.
Interesting.
In fact, actually, everybody in the Trump campaign had his speech days in advance, but he saw it in advance, so you don't get to bitch about it now.
I mean, you don't get to sit around and talk about, oh, I was stabbed in the- It's not a stab in the back when you know it's coming, gang.
You have to turn your back on somebody in order to be stabbed in the back.
The real stab in the back here is that Cruz thought he was making an overture.
He thought he was making a clever overture to Trump and that he'd be able to play both sides.
That he was going to be able to make friends with Trump, but also hold his credibility in his hands and say, I didn't openly endorse this guy.
That's what Cruz is trying to do.
Okay, realistically, that's what Cruz is trying to do.
And Trump decided that wasn't good enough.
He was going to stab Cruz in full public view and make him a pariah within the party.
And it absolutely worked.
It absolutely worked.
I mean, look at Tucker Carlson, for example, on Fox News.
I mean, Fox News is apoplectic because Fox News is fully in the Trump tank at this point.
Here's Tucker Carlson saying, Cruz will never work in this town again.
Look, I'm withholding judgment personally.
I don't think there's any chance he's going to get elected president in 2020.
I don't think he's going to get the Republican nomination.
I think this will stick with him.
Okay, so he says that this will stick with Cruz and he's really going to pay a political price.
He probably will.
remember this kind of thing, and I think they're offended.
Perhaps I'm wrong, I doubt it.
OK, so he says that this will stick with Cruz, and he's really going to pay a political price.
He probably will.
I mean, this is a good gambit by Trump if he wants to stab Cruz.
And this was—and the RNC acts like they're wildly angry.
Sean Spicer, who's the spokesperson for the ridiculous, stupid RNC, he comes out and he says that Cruz, this is on national television, says that Cruz is an a-hole, right?
This is on national TV.
Peter King called him a blank hole.
I appreciate that on TV.
Is that different than a little disappointing or are you guys basically in the same place?
I'd probably use the same verbiage.
You would?
Really?
No, I think that it is disappointing when somebody who is a leader in the conservative movement Who knows what's at stake.
I mean, Ted Cruz, more than anybody, in terms of his background, knows what's at stake and chose to come here.
He could have just said, I'm not coming.
I don't feel comfortable.
So Peter King doesn't need to apologize for calling him a blank hole in your mind?
Peter King's from New York.
He uses very colorful language.
I'll let him speak for himself.
So just to get this straight, okay for the nominee of your party to call wives of candidates ugly and say their father assassinates people and say that they had affairs with five women they didn't have affairs with, okay for a congressman in your party to say about another senator in your party that he's an a-hole, but bad if you don't say I endorsed Donald Trump.
That's where you draw the civility line.
Okay, let's just make clear one thing here.
The establishment could not be more happy in some ways about the nomination of Donald Trump.
They hated Ted Cruz.
They weren't going to back Ted Cruz in the primaries.
Now they get the opportunity to pretend that they're being loyal to conservatives, that they're being loyal to the party, while stabbing the anti-establishment guy on behalf of the fake anti-establishment guy.
Trump isn't anti-establishment.
He's in bed with all these people.
I mean, all this is maddening because the actual narrative that you're going to hear, there are a couple different narratives, dueling narratives you're going to hear.
There's the truth, which is what, as I've told you, based on all the information I have, including inside information.
There's the truth, and then there's the media narrative, which is going to be, Ted Cruz was a big hero, stood up to Trump.
No, he really didn't.
He just didn't endorse him.
Okay, that's not the same thing.
Standing up to Trump is like you get on a stage in front of a couple thousand people and call them a Democrat.
And you say that, which I have done, okay?
So, like, I understand what it means to rip Trump.
He didn't do it last night.
There was not one word against Trump in that speech.
But the narrative for the media is, Cruz stands up to Trump, Trump is appalled and angry and upset and it's a surprise and he was stabbed.
There's the Trump campaign narrative, which is Cruz is a traitor, and he's a traitor because he won't get behind me to stop Hillary Clinton, even though Trump made a deal with Cruz to do all of this so that Cruz would not make trouble with the delegates at the convention.
And then there's the truth, right?
So those are the narratives, and then there's the truth.
And you can see that the amount of fake ire from the Trump camp is truly astonishing, truly astonishing.
Now, Chris Christie, who's just a pathetic specimen of a human being at this point, he actually said yesterday that if you don't back Donald Trump, then you have less humanity, you're less of a person.
It makes you less of a person if you don't back Donald Trump.
Technically, 99.9% of the population is less of a person than Chris Christie.
Here's Chris Christie going after Cruz on national TV right after his speech.
What did you think of Ted Cruz's speech?
I think it was awful.
And quite frankly, I think it was selfish.
And he signed a pledge.
And it's his job to keep his word.
And Donald Trump gave him the opportunity to speak here at this convention tonight.
And I think it was too cute and I think you saw by the end of the speech that the crowd was waiting for him to do the right thing and realized that once again he wasn't going to do it.
And I think the performance you saw up there is why Ted has so, so richly deserved the reputation that he's developed on Capitol Hill.
Are you saying that he gave Donald Trump a promise that he would endorse him here?
No.
Yes, he did.
He gave Donald Trump a promise the same day I did, the same day everyone who signed that pledge did.
Okay, so we need to shut this fat a** up.
So, we'll have to bleep that, but there you have it.
So, you've got Chris Christie out there doing this routine where he says now that he gave a promise the same day I did.
Trump reneged on that promise.
And I thought Jeff Rowe, who's Cruz's campaign manager, had the best comment about this.
The best comment that Cruz's campaign manager had, he said, well, at least my candidate still has his testicles.
Unlike Chris Christie, being carried around in a jar somewhere by Donald Trump.
You know, the fact is that Chris Christie, this fat idiot, is the same guy who in 2012 went out on stage and gave the keynote address in favor of Mitt Romney without mentioning Mitt Romney, okay?
And now he's hypocritically standing, and then hugged Barack Obama one week before the election and said that Obama was a wonderful president.
That guy sitting there lecturing Ted Cruz about not being loyal enough to a guy who's legitimately a Democrat.
It's pretty incredible.
Paul Manafort's out there lying too.
Here's the campaign manager Paul Manafort, serial liar and Vladimir Putin confidant.
Ted Cruz you thought would be part of this campaign moving forward.
I would assume this morning you will retract those words?
Well, it's up to Ted Cruz, not up to me.
You'd let him come back and be part of the campaign?
Our position is we want to embrace all Republicans who are prepared to work and support the Trump-Pence ticket.
Do you think Cruz betrayed you?
Betrayed that goodwill you just talked about?
I think for very bad judgment, I think he made a mistake.
I think he was not respectful to the invitation by the convention to come and speak.
He understood what the responsibilities are of somebody in his position and he didn't meet them.
He didn't meet them?
His speech was cleared by that guy.
That guy.
Right there.
This one, with the skunk on his head, that guy is the fellow who cleared the speech.
And now he's sitting there saying he didn't meet his obligations.
Again, this is what we call a pre-orchestrated hit.
It was clearly a hit.
Cruz walked right into it.
Cruz thought, because he always thinks he's too smart by half, he thought he was manipulating the entire system and he was going to be able to walk in, quasi-endorse Trump, get Trump's kudos, walk out having pleased his people for not endorsing Trump openly.
That's what he thought.
And Trump outplayed him.
There's only one thing that's weird about all of this, okay?
And that is, why is this good for Donald Trump?
Why is this good for Donald Trump?
It creates a massive amount of ire at Cruz, for sure.
But Cruz is done.
Cruz isn't the nominee.
Cruz isn't—they're not in the primary fight anymore.
How does it help Donald Trump that day three of his convention, when he's supposed to be getting a big bounce, He has one of his guys booed offstage for not sufficiently worshipping at the altar.
How is that good for Donald Trump?
How's it good for his campaign?
And the answer is, it's not good for his campaign.
It isn't.
He's trying to play himself as the foil to Cruz, but the media ain't going to play it that way.
The media's going to play it like Cruz is a hero for not bowing before him.
It's not good for Trump.
Trump could have simply just instructed his people, clap along politely, just like our deal set.
Just like the great deal that I cut and then reneged on, because I'm a liar.
Just like that deal set, we could have gone forward with that.
It would have been all good.
Everybody would have just said, oh, well, that was Cruz being Cruz.
You know, he wasn't going to endorse, but he came as close as he could.
And that would have been that.
But instead, he decided to blow up Cruz.
Because it was more important for him to get revenge than it was for him to actually win this election.
This is what people don't get about Trump.
Trump's definition of winning is defeating the enemy standing in front of him.
Not winning for you.
Not winning for the country.
Not winning for principle.
Defeating the guy he doesn't like who's in front of him.
There's a reason that Donald Trump says his favorite Bible verse is an eye for an eye.
There's a reason that Donald Trump's entire politics is based on the politics of grievance.
The idea that somebody has been out to get you, and now he's going to revenge himself on them.
He's going to revenge himself on Jeff Bezos.
He's going to revenge himself on China.
He's going to revenge himself on various political adversaries.
He's going to revenge himself on the press.
Right?
Everything Donald Trump does is motivated by this petty, small-minded revenge.
That's what he's motivated by.
So people are attributing that to Cruz because that's how this entire election cycle has gone.
It's just, it's turned it on its head.
Truth doesn't matter anymore.
The only thing that matters is that we worship at the altar.
But it really does sicken me to my stomach.
And watching the RNC play this game like they're wounded innocents when they brokered the deal.
And now they're coming out and using this as an opportunity to club Cruz like a baby seal.
Look, part of this is Cruz's fault for walking into it.
Lots of people are telling him, don't go.
So part of this is Cruz's fault because he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.
But that doesn't mean that the RNC isn't a brutal establishment occupation, and that they're not attempting to take out anybody who's their real enemy, which does not include Donald Trump, and that Donald Trump's real preoccupation in life is going after his personal enemies, not politics, not helping, none of that.
And if Trump reserved the kind of rage for Hillary Clinton that he reserved for Ted Cruz, this thing would be a very different race.
But he doesn't.
He doesn't.
So, here's Cruz's reaction.
Cruz, I think, was astonished by this.
I mean, like, really.
I've talked to people in the camp.
I think that Cruz was fully not expecting this.
He figured, what kind of nutcase would sabotage his own convention just to come after me?
Well, that's kind of not the case.
I mean, Trump was going to do that.
He'd sabotage his own convention, rip open every wound, drive 20% of the party to say, screw this guy, we're not voting Trump.
All Cruz did is go up there and say, vote your conscience.
If you can't deal with that, it's because you have a rotten conscience.
Cruz, I think, was devastated by this.
I know his camp was.
Here's Cruz this morning talking about what happened last night.
I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father.
And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I'm gonna nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.
So Cruz saying that he wouldn't be a servile puppy to Trump.
He said that he wouldn't be a servile puppy to Trump, and that was obviously a reference to Chris Christie, who legitimately has physically turned into a servile puppy for Donald Trump.
He goes around actually licking Donald Trump's shoes and pooping on the floor.
All of this, it just makes you cynical about everything and everyone in politics.
It makes you cynical about the whole game.
No one cares about the principle.
Cruz sort of cares about it, but Cruz also wanted to manipulate his way forward by being the leader of the anti-Trump movement while still sort of quasi-endorsing Trump.
It makes you cynical about Trump, which, if you weren't already, you want to be conned.
If you're conned at this point, you want to be conned.
You want to be part of the con.
It makes you cynical about the RNC.
I love that all the people who three months ago were saying, burn down the RNC!
Burn down the party!
Now it's, if you don't stand there and declare your allegiance to the party, we will take you out to this brick wall and we will shoot you!
This is pretty ridiculous stuff.
The thing about all of this is that if Trump had just treated it like it really wasn't a big deal, again, had his people just applaud, because he was given the speech in advance, you can't get away from that.
You can't get away from that.
He was given the speech in advance, and it went ahead as planned.
And Cruz stuck to the text.
You can't get away from the fact that Trump sabotaged his own VP rollout.
Mike Pence is the unluckiest man in the world.
So Mike Pence has now been sabotaged three separate times by Donald Trump in his VP rollout.
First he was sabotaged when Trump basically, it was leaked from the Trump camp that Trump wanted to reconsider and not make Mike Pence the VP.
Then he was sabotaged again when they went on 60 Minutes together and Donald Trump basically treated him like an intern.
And as I said, that video looks a lot like Donald Trump, the drunk wife, sitting next to her husband and the husband is just sitting there going, Oh God, please don't take any more drinks.
Please don't do it.
Please don't do it.
He's like, I've got another thing to say!
Right?
So that was number two.
And number three was last night.
So Mike Pence comes out and he has a very good speech.
He gives a fine speech, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, but no one cares because of Cruz.
Here's what Pence had to say last night.
It's change versus status quo.
And my fellow Republicans, when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States of America, the change will be huge.
Okay, so that's fine.
I mean, all of this is fine, and that's what they wanted from the convention.
That's not what they got, because Trump had other priorities, obviously.
All right, so time for some things I like, things I hate, and then the mailbag.
So, things I like.
So we've been doing creepy villains, and there are enough of them in politics, but the movie No Country for Old Men is not one of my favorite movies.
The first two-thirds of the movie is spectacularly good.
The first three-quarters, really, of the movie is spectacularly good.
Then somebody gets killed off-screen, and the rest of the movie is just garbage that makes no sense.
The villain in the movie, who's played by Javier Bardem, is the creepiest villain, one of the creepiest villains in the history of movies.
Here is the scene that is, this scene is absolutely creepy.
but we don't have time to watch the whole thing.
But basically, Javier Bardem walks into a gas station and tells the owner of the gas station to flip a coin.
What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
Sir?
The most you ever lost on a coin toss.
I don't know.
I couldn't say.
Call it.
Call it, yes.
- For what? - Just God.
Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
You need to call it.
I can't call it for you.
It wouldn't be fair.
I didn't put nothing up.
Yes, you did.
You've been putting it up your whole life.
You just didn't know it.
You know what date is on this coin?
No.
1958.
It's been traveling 22 years to get here.
And now it's here.
And it's either heads or tails.
You have to say it.
Call it.
Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Everything.
How's that?
You stand to win everything.
Call it.
All right.
heads there.
Well done.
Don't put it in your pocket, sir.
Don't put it in your pocket.
It's your lucky quarter.
Where do you want me to put it?
Anywhere, not in your pocket.
Or it'll get mixed in with the others and become a jester coin.
Which it is.
I mean, it's a spectacular scene.
And the reason that it's spectacular is, of course, he's not really talking about a coin toss.
He's gonna kill the guy if the guy calls the coin toss wrong.
And he's basically saying life is random.
That's basically the principle there.
Life is random.
You know, you make a series of decisions in your life.
They're all random.
At a certain point, you make the wrong decision.
Today could be that decision.
Don't put that coin in your pocket because it means that you're not special anymore.
But, of course, you aren't special.
Right, that's basically what that scene is.
So it's very, very creepy stuff.
Okay, things that I hate.
So, Laura Ingraham gave a speech last night and I am not a big fan of Laura Ingraham's speech.
She goes out there and she rants and raves about Trump for a little while.
And then at the very end, she is waving to the crowd and she does this.
This is 24.
This is the image of Laura Ingraham.
God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
Okay, so everybody jumps on her and says, why are you giving Nazi salutes at the Republican National Convention?
Because she does the Hitler salute, right?
She puts her right arm out, extended.
Okay, this is stupid stuff.
Like, this is really dumb.
Laura Ingraham is not, number one, even if Laura Ingraham believed that stuff, which I know she doesn't, even if she did, you think she's gonna get up there and give the Nazi salute at a Republican National Convention?
If we're gonna play this game, if we're gonna play this game, How about Hillary Clinton, okay?
How's that one for you?
Here's another one.
We even have a third one.
Maybe.
There it is.
Yeah, come on.
I mean, like I said, the media is willing to turn anything into anything.
No, she didn't give a Nazi salute.
No, she didn't give a Nazi salute.
It's just stupid crap.
Like, seriously, I'd be worried more, if I'm the left, I'd be worried more about the fact that Donald Trump wants to basically let the Russians take over the world than the fact that Laura Ingraham put out her arm awkwardly and weird.
Like, what's hilarious?
Okay, time for the mailbag.
Alright, yeah, see, so first of all, First question from Taylor.
I noticed Lindsay seems to be more enthusiastic with Clavin's mailbag.
Fix it.
Okay, more enthusiasm, Lindsay.
Go.
It's time for the mailbag!
Woo!
Yeah!
Alright, well done, Taylor.
Okay.
And not bad, Lindsay.
Wow, that was good.
Okay.
Now I'm really enthused.
All right, Michael writes, "Hey Ben, my dad, who I used to think "was a great conservative, "is now all on board the Trump train.
"After Cruz's speech last night, "he said he has no respect for Ted because of the pledge.
"How can I talk some sense into him "and prove Trump is actually the bad guy "and not the savior Fox News makes him out to be?" Well, number one, if you're buying into the whole pledge nonsense already, Then you want to be conned.
I mean, at this point, you want to believe the lie.
Okay, the idea that the pledge, the pledge, the pledge... Donald Trump said in the very first debate he wouldn't pledge to support the other candidates.
Then after a couple of months, he said he would support the other candidates when he started to win.
Okay, does anyone really believe that if Ted Cruz had been nominated, Trump would have gone out there in full support?
Anybody believe that in any world?
Also, ask your pops, hey dad, what if there was a guy who was running against you for public office and said mom was basically ugly, that your father had murdered JFK, and that you were a pathological liar?
How'd you like that?
Also, that you whored around on mom.
How'd you like that?
Would that be good for you?
Would you endorse that guy?
Even if you pledged to before he did any of those things?
If your dad says yes, that's weird.
So, okay.
Luke writes, Hey Ben, in your opinion, did Ted Cruz help his political career or hurt it with his convention speech?
I mean, I think hurt.
I think hurt.
No question.
And the reason I say hurt is because he loses from both sides.
Meaning that the never-Trump people, the people like me who don't like Donald Trump and think that he's ripping the heart out of the Republican Party, and by the way, the proof that that is the case is today Tom Cotton going out there and pretending like what Donald Trump says about Russia is okay.
And people today saying that Ted Cruz is a bad guy for not sufficiently clapping loud enough for Kim Jong-un over here.
You want to know why I oppose Trump?
It's because I'm watching the party that I believe in perverted and ripped apart by Donald Trump to support a man who doesn't believe in a principle in which I believe.
He doesn't believe in any principle other than his own self-aggrandizement.
That's why I don't support him.
But the problem is that for Cruz, people like me, we said, well, why did you go to the place, why did you go in the first place?
Just don't go.
And if you want to condemn Trump, go and condemn Trump.
If you really want to shatter him, shatter him.
The donors are pissed at him because too many political donors think only about this election cycle.
They don't think down the road at all.
This election cycle is the only election cycle that will ever matter, and therefore Ted Cruz is not participating.
He's taking his ball and going home.
He's a bad guy.
So Sheldon Adelson is locking his door to Ted Cruz.
This happened last night, right?
So it hurts Cruz that way.
So yeah, it'll hurt Cruz.
How things turn out is anybody's guess.
Basically, the only way that this works out well for Ted Cruz is if Trump is elected, and then Trump is a horrible president.
That's the only way this works out.
Because then Cruz can say, look, I went there, I said what I had to say, I didn't endorse him, and you guys booed me for it, and now I told you so.
If Trump gets blown out, then Trump is just gonna blame Cruz, right?
Now he's already setting up the narrative.
It's Cruz's fault, it's everybody's fault he didn't vote for me.
And Cruz, you know, if Cruz is really that anti-Trump, then why'd he go to the convention in the first place?
So it doesn't work for Cruz.
If Trump just gets smacked by Hillary, if he loses big, then all the narrative will be about Cruz was, well, if he had just shown a little more loyalty on the part of the Trumpsters, and, well, why'd he go on the convention in the first place, and why did he treat Trump so warmly at the beginning of the run, if that was the case?
So I think it's a rough road for Cruz.
I think that he got outplayed by Trump.
I think he was trying to outplay Trump.
I think Trump outplayed him.
But I don't think that Trump is... What's amazing about that is I don't think that Trump was even playing this... Trump wasn't supposed to even be playing a game here, right?
As I said, Cruz was sitting around going, okay, I'll go there, I'll split the baby.
What kind of nutcase would sabotage his own rollout of his vice president in order to bang on me?
And then Trump did that because Trump is that kind of a nutcase.
Okay, Shane writes, Ben, big fan.
Can you elaborate on diversity of viewpoint under the Constitution, please?
Have never heard of this and Google yields no results.
Referencing comments made in episode 77.
Okay, we're now on like episode 154.
So I can't, I can't speak to episode 77 because I haven't memorized every one of my episodes.
Diversity of viewpoint under the Constitution.
There's no right to diversity of viewpoint.
There's a right to freedom of speech.
Okay, the right to freedom of speech is the guarantee of diversity of viewpoint.
If I get to say whatever I want, I get to say whatever I want.
Elliot says, I had my first debate in a few weeks.
I was wondering how do you prepare for debate?
Well, number one, you scout out your opponent.
Number two, you scout the topic.
So, that means if there's any tape of your opponent, if you know anything about your opponent, if you know how they argue, check out the arguments that they've made in the past, because you have to scout it like game tape.
Two, when it comes to the actual topic of the argument, don't just learn your arguments, learn your opponent's arguments, and learn how to handle those arguments.
Know their own arguments better than they do, and it makes it very difficult for them.
And if you want more on that, there's an e-book that I put out, 11 Rules for Basically Debating the Left, and that's a pretty good guide.
Jacob writes, Dear Ben, apropos of your comments on the Turkish junta, with which I agree wholeheartedly, would you object to someone like Colin Powell leading a military junta to restore order if a Trump America descends into tribal warfare?
Would this be acceptable under any conditions?
If so, which ones, and if not, why not?
Some rights may be inherent to the human soul, but might it also be true that, in a brass tacks political sense, robust institutions make rights coherent and durable?
Keep up the good work.
Well, obviously, you hope for robust institutions that make rights durable.
Obviously, that's correct.
As far as restoring order and a military junta, I don't think we're anywhere close to that in the United States.
We still get to vote.
And last I checked, we're not being jailed for our vote.
We'll see how long that lasts.
At the point where people are literally being purged from jobs and jailed because of their viewpoint en masse, then we can start talking.
When they come for all of our guns, I guarantee you there's going to be more than talk.
Hi Ben.
Could you please get Lindsay an intern to catalog all of the things I like and other book, movie, and music recommendations you and Claven give to be made available on the website as an extra?
Well, she is doing that.
Lindsay is doing that.
Aside from shouting loudly when the mailbag comes and handling the teleprompter and doing the makeup and handling the mailbag, Lindsay also is compiling that list, so that should be available shortly.
Alex writes, hey Ben, first of all, as an active duty Marine and someone in the hiring process with a couple of PDs, police departments, thank you for everything you do.
I only wish more people would be open to hearing the truth.
Anyway, I don't understand why the left is opposed to school vouchers.
Wouldn't this promote diversity and high quality education for all children?
Yes, and that's why they're opposed to it.
They don't want diversity in education.
They don't want people in the black community doing well.
They want people in the black community dependent on them.
They want everybody dependent on them.
The public sector unions are controlled by the left, and those unions control the school districts.
They don't want to cut off the flow of cash back to their own political coffers.
Here's the way this works.
So we fund public education.
That public education pays all of these various unions.
The unions take that money and give it to the politicians to sign new contracts with the union and the schools.
So it's a circle of money.
They're not going to cut that off just because your kid ain't reading good.
That's the way this works.
They don't care about high quality education for kids.
They care about control.
Dane writes, hey Ben, have you seen the extended cut of Batman vs. Superman?
If so, do you think it hurt or helped the movie?
I haven't seen it yet.
Good question.
I need to do that.
I haven't had time to do anything because I have to watch this crap show of a convention.
All right.
Chris writes, hey Ben, first of all, Lindsay rocks.
Everybody loves Lindsay.
That's nice.
And I wonder why Lindsay cultivated this particular email.
Second of all, I love how whenever you mention Chris Matthews in your articles, you type out the man who president of that show!
I can't read that without hearing you say it in your Chris Matthews impression.
That's great!
You shouldn't!
Third of all, I actually have a question.
The only reason I can think of for voting Trump is he might nominate less terrible candidates to fill the seats on the Supreme Court.
I know he'd be a terrible president, as would Hillary, should we not try to screw over the Supreme Court.
So.
Here's my answer on the Supreme Court, because we get this one a lot.
The answer on the Supreme Court is the chances of Donald Trump actually getting through a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court are zero.
Zero.
Okay, not one percent, zero percent.
Let me explain.
That's not just because of Donald Trump.
It takes a majority of the Senate to confirm any justice to the Supreme Court.
Republicans are not going to have 60 votes.
60 votes prevents a filibuster.
Republicans have been not willing to use the nuclear rule to end the filibuster.
That means if Republicans don't have 60 votes in the Senate, they're not going to approve a justice.
They don't have 60 votes in the Senate.
That means that what is going to happen is Donald Trump, if he were elected, would nominate someone from his list to start, because he doesn't care.
He'd nominate a conservative from his list.
The Democrats would filibuster that person.
He would then come back With a highly qualified, very smart, very smart, very qualified person, who's just some guy with no record that everybody can sign off on, he got 99 votes in to declare himself a victor and go home.
He's not going to ram anything through.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't even know what the court does.
He thinks the Supreme Court prosecutes people because he's stupid.
Kanye writes, Do you feel that Pakistan is perhaps a greater threat to the West than Iran in the near future, given their large percentage of radicalized Muslims, nuclear capability, and ongoing conflicts with India and Balochistan?
Very specific, Kanye, and tell Kim I say hello.
So, number one, Pakistan is a greater threat to India, certainly, than Iran is.
Iran is a greater threat to Western interests because they finance global terrorism in a way that Pakistan doesn't.
Pakistan has a bunch of very local terror groups that operate mostly in Afghanistan and India.
Iran operates within the boundaries of international terrorism.
And while Pakistan is territorially aggressive, they're sort of hemmed in territorially in a way that Iran is not.
Iran has breakout capacity in its west with Iraq.
Iran has breakout capacity in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran has breakout capacity to its south in Saudi Arabia.
Iran is territorially positioned, so it has breakout capacity in a number of directions.
Plus, Iran is a more stable regime.
The real danger in Pakistan is that the current military regime falls and terrorists take over.
Then, yes.
Then, absolutely.
Then, Pakistan becomes Afghanistan.
David writes, a common argument for Obama supporters is that he halved the deficit and it's Bush's fault for handing him a deficit that would eventually double the national debt.
What is the truth here?
The truth here is that that's a bunch of crap.
So, when you say halved the deficit, what that means is, here's the difference between a deficit and a debt.
So a deficit is...
People don't get this.
A debt is all of the deficits that I have accrued over the course of my lifetime.
So if I took out a loan for college, if I took out a loan for grad school, that's my debt now.
My deficit is what do I spend this month versus what do I take in.
So if I'm in the red by $1,000, that is my deficit.
So enough deficits add up to a debt, basically.
Here's what Obama did.
Obama came into office and promptly blew out the budget with the first trillion dollar deficit.
Then he came back, and he blew out the budget again.
He put out a $4 trillion budget, and then he came back and he said, well, you know, it won't be $4 trillion anymore.
Now it'll be like $3.5 trillion.
Before that, the budget had been like $2 trillion.
He basically doubled the national budget.
So he blew out the deficit, and then he cut it back.
And so he says, OK, well, I cut back the deficit now.
So if I say to you, last month, you were $1,000 in the red.
This month, you're $10,000 in the red.
The month after that, you're $5,000 in the red.
Did you halve your deficit?
Technically, you have your deficit because you were spending more last month.
But it's blowing out your debt.
Look at the level of spending and look at the level of debt being accrued by the Obama administration.
That's the statistic that you want to see.
All righty, so we have reached the end of the week.
It's Thursday, isn't it?
This week has been interminable.
So it is indeed Thursday, which means we've reached the end of the week.
Donald Trump will speak tonight.
The clouds will part.
He will descend from heaven on an airplane and or two strippers, and he will land on the stage and he will speak.
And next week we'll be back.
This week was a crap show.
Next week, we get the Democratic crap show!
Yay!
Angry clap.
All right, so we'll be back next week with much much more.
If I seem angry about all this, it's just because I am violently enraged by all of it, and I hate this entire news cycle, but I love you.
So we'll be back next week.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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