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Jan. 27, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show
21:35
Ep. 241 - Trump's First Monday: Great, Good, Rotten
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On Monday, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal funding for overseas abortions, reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy originally created by Ronald Reagan.
This is terrific news.
It should be followed swiftly by ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Trump press secretary Sean Spicer bluntly stated, quote, he's a pro-life president.
He wants to stand up for all Americans, including the unborn.
We can certainly hope that Trump's action on Mexico City policy is not a one-off.
And it shouldn't be.
Because here's the truth.
More and more Americans are now pro-life.
As Guy Benson of townhall.com points out, a Numeris poll shows 83% of Americans agree with Trump's actions here.
52% of Americans want to limit abortion to rare cases.
Another 22% want to outlaw abortion after the first trimester.
Under 40% of Americans think abortion is morally acceptable, and there is no gender gap on whether abortion is morally wrong, despite what the Women's March organizers would have Americans believe.
So, what's changed?
Why are so many Americans now pro-life?
Because science.
Ultrasounds have made it impossible for Americans to deny any longer that abortion does not destroy a human life.
Ultrasounds show the reality of fetal development.
Heartbeat by week 6 is a pretty obvious marker.
It's no wonder that a reported 78% of pregnant women who see an ultrasound of their child say no to abortion.
So naturally, the left wants to end ultrasounds.
Planned Parenthood has fought 3D ultrasounds for years.
That's the amazing technology that allows you to see your kid's face before birth.
As Dr. Elle Lacroix of Planned Parenthood recently said, Torture?
How about reality?
But according to the pro-abortion left, reality must be ignored.
Today, The Atlantic ran a bizarre piece by Moira Weigel titled, in Orwellian fashion, Which is somewhat like saying how the microscope pushed the idea that cells exist, or how the Hubble telescope pushed the idea that there are stars outside our solar system, or how human eyes pushed the idea that the Atlantic is fully insane.
The fetus is a person.
An ultrasound is a piece of technology that allows you to see the person.
The piece itself is actually even worse.
Weigel writes, quote, what is a fetal heartbeat and why does it matter?
Fetal heartbeat measures are based on two assumptions.
First, that an ultrasound image has an obvious meaning.
Second, that any pregnant woman who sees an ultrasound will recognize this meaning.
Science does not bear out either assumption.
Well, yeah, it sort of does.
Weigel's science denial here is pretty incredible.
Having seen repeat ultrasounds of both my children, the fetal development is clear and undeniable, and it is nearly impossible to see such images without recognizing that there's a child in there, not some random clump of cells.
Weigel might talk to an OBGYN or two before declaring ultrasounds vague and uninformative.
But Weigel goes even further, assuring readers that ultrasounds were primarily a form of warfare against women, rather than a tool allowing doctors to identify problems with fetal development as early as possible.
This is a direct quote from her article now.
Army-trained scientists and army-funded laboratories demobilized the technology, turning away from the ocean toward women's bodies.
Ultrasound made it impossible- made it possible for the male doctor to evaluate the fetus without female interference.
Yes, really, this is the ultrasound.
It's a war on- on women.
That's basically the argument- Side note here?
When my second child was born, my first child had a heart issue that got fixed after she was born.
Our second child we actually did an ultrasound of while he was in utero to determine whether he had the same issue.
Thank God he didn't, but that wouldn't have been possible without ultrasound.
The left's war for abortion now takes no prisoners.
Science itself must be fought tooth and nail if women are to keep killing the babies in their wombs.
It's not going to work.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Ah, here we are.
And so much to get to.
It's going to be an epic episode today of Good Trump, Bad Trump, because finally, finally, finally, Trump's president.
So we don't have to speculate any longer about what he's going to do and what he's going to say as president, because now he is.
And there is so much to talk about because he's really active, which is great.
You know, good for him.
He's actually getting to work.
He's not he's not futzing around.
So that's a good thing.
And he's doing some things that I like and he's doing some things that I don't.
But we'll talk about all of that first.
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Okay, so finally Donald Trump gets down to business.
Finally he gets to work.
We're putting aside all of the silliness over the conflicts with the press.
And finally Donald Trump is doing stuff.
So, what is Donald Trump doing?
Well yesterday he signed a bunch of executive orders.
And now it's time for us to do what we're going to be doing all All administration alone.
We're gonna do some good Trump, bad Trump.
And the reason we do this is because it is very important to note when Donald Trump is doing things that are good, and note when he is doing things that are bad.
There are lots of people who seem to think that because Donald Trump does some good things, that means you should never critique him when he does bad things or wrong things.
This is not my perspective.
You can make your own judgment on what you think of Trump.
You're an adult.
Good for you.
And I can make my own judgment.
But what I certainly can do is I can tell you the things he's doing that are good and the things that he's doing that are bad so you are more informed coming away from the Ben Shapiro show every day.
So, let's play the theme.
Good Trump, Bad Trump.
Let's do it.
Good Trump, bad Trump, which one will begin today?
So there was a plenty of good Trump to go around yesterday.
Yes, plenty of good Trump.
So, Donald Trump... By the way, I always thought this was going to be the case, that Donald Trump's first hundred days were going to be filled with things that I liked, and then I thought he was going to go a little bit off the rails after that.
But so far, that prediction is on track.
So, Donald Trump started off yesterday, as I mentioned, by signing an executive order reinstating the Mexico City policy, which means that your tax dollars now no longer go to organizations that promote or perform abortions abroad.
That's great.
That's great.
Is it a huge step?
I don't think it's an enormous step, but it's a great important step.
Good for Donald Trump on that.
Other things that he did yesterday that were quite good.
He came out and he said that he was going to cut regulations.
He signed an executive order that froze federal hiring in the executive branch, which is quite good.
So here is a clip of him talking about it.
We think we can cut regulations by 75 percent, maybe more, up by 75%.
Have in a certain way better protections.
But when you want to expand your plant, or when Mark wants to come in and build a big, massive plant, or when Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special, you're going to have your approvals really fast.
Okay?
And the one thing that surprised me, and then I want to hear what you have to say, but the one thing that surprised me in going around and meeting with a lot of the people at this table, and meeting with a lot of the small business owners, If I gave them a choice of this massive tax decrease that we're giving for business, for everybody but for business, or the cutting down of regulation, if I took a vote, I think the regulation wins 100%.
Now, in one case, it's hard dollars.
And the other case, it's regulation.
You would think that the regulations would have no chance.
I've never seen anything like it.
Virtually everybody is happier with regulation than even cutting the taxes.
So the regulations are going to be cut massively, and the taxes are going to be cut way down.
So you're going to have now incentive, incentive to build.
Okay, so good for Trump.
Good for Trump.
This is the kind of stuff that he was elected to do.
Good for him.
So this is another one of his big pitches.
Okay.
Then we get to a little bit of bad—well, actually, you know, a little bit more good Trump, then we'll get to bad Trump.
So, other good Trump.
Trump apparently is now looking to chop down the Environmental Protection Agency to size.
He apparently has pulled the Center for Disease Control out of some global warming climate change conference.
I don't know why the CDC is going to a global warming conference in the first place.
As far as the EPA thing, apparently they've got an agency action plan for the EPA that they're putting out right now, and it's great.
So they're looking at budget reductions, they're looking at $513 million in cuts to state and tribal assistant grants, $193 million in savings from terminating climate programs, $109 million in savings from environment programs and management.
They're going to stop the Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulations.
So this is this idiotic notion that Congress somehow gave the executive branch the power to crack down on carbon emissions.
It didn't.
So he's going to stop that, which is great.
He's going to maybe issue an executive order barring the EPA from overruling federal permit decisions unless in clear violation of established law.
Also a good thing.
And unless major reforms of the agency's use of science and economics are achieved, E.P.A.
will be able to return to its bad old ways as soon as the establishment administration takes office, so they want to destroy the E.P.A.' 's ability to twist science in order to push a leftist agenda.
All of this is really, really good stuff.
So, good for Donald Trump on all of this.
This is really excellent.
Okay, now it's time for some bad Trump.
So, unfortunately I gave you the bad Trump face when I meant the good Trump face, but here's the bad Trump face.
So, Donald Trump, here's some bad Trump.
And this is the stuff that I think is more controversial because it presages a split in the Republican Party.
All the stuff we've talked about so far, there is unanimity among conservatives that this is good stuff.
Cutting down the EPA to size.
Cutting down regulations to size.
The Mexico City policy.
All of this, there's broad consensus among conservatives across the spectrum that this is good, and this is smart, and this is stuff that we care about.
And then we get to the stuff that Donald Trump actually cares about the most.
The stuff that Donald Trump actually cares about the most is the trade stuff.
Because he is a populist nationalist.
And here's the part of the Trump agenda that is helping transform the GOP from a traditionally conservative party based on the Reagan idea of limited government, based on the idea of social conservatism, based on the idea of hawkish foreign policy.
This is the part of Trump's agenda that really has very little to do with conservatism at all.
And we start, actually, with something that I think a lot of Trump's most ardent advocates were pushing him for, but he's apparently now no longer going to do.
So, apparently, Donald Trump... Let's just flash back here for a second.
Donald Trump promised, and a lot of Republicans pushed Republican legislators to do this in 2014.
Republicans promised they were going to get rid of Barack Obama's executive amnesties, that they were going to reinstate the idea that if you are here illegally, there is the potential for your deportation.
Barack Obama signed two executive orders, the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, the Deferred Action on Parents of Those Children.
Those were his two big executive actions with regard to illegal immigration.
And Donald Trump, lest you forget, promised openly throughout the campaign that on day one he was going to get rid of DACA and DAPA.
Here was Donald Trump back in September saying exactly that.
Cancel unconstitutional executive orders and enforce all immigration laws.
We will immediately terminate President Obama's two illegal executive amnesties in which he defied federal law and the Constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants.
5 million.
And how about all of the millions that are waiting in line going through the process legally?
So unfair.
So, Donald Trump said that way back in September.
Now, here's what happened yesterday.
Sean Spicer came out and he said this is not a top priority.
He said we're not going to get rid of these executive amnesties.
Excuse me.
We're going to leave them in place.
We're going to make sure that we pass some legislation that fixes the whole thing.
We're basically going to leave them in place.
That was not his pitch during the campaign.
And here is the problem.
What this now creates is more of a magnet to drive people north of the border, which is what Trump contended during the entire campaign.
Mark Krikorian, who's a big Trump advocate and he's at the Center for Immigration Studies, There's a big piece up in National Review today talking about the fact that this is actually a big walk back by Trump.
This is Mark Krikorian.
Politicians will always disappoint you.
Rich tells the story of how during the few hours he was considering a run for New York City Mayor, he found himself already starting to waffle on principle to a potential voter in the elevator.
If I were ever so unwise as to run for office, I too would no doubt disappoint those who unwisely voted for me.
I was fully prepared for the Trump administration to do some things I wouldn't be happy with.
But I expected the problems to arise in the area of foreign worker visas.
The president, while running for the nomination, made lots of statements about that.
What I did not expect...
was for Trump to break an explicit promise regarding his headline issue on the administration's first business day in office, but that may be what's happened.
And then he quotes exactly what we just showed.
He said, immediately terminating the program wouldn't necessarily have required an executive order, nor would it require rounding up and deporting DACAs.
ICE has enough to do already, but ICE, right, the Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles the two-year renewable amnesty program, could easily have stopped processing DACA applications, both for renewals and first time applicants until further notice.
But that has not happened.
Instead, USCIS said, we are still accepting and processing DACA requests under existing policy.
So the way DACA works is you send a paper into the government, you say I'm here illegally, and now action on you is deferred.
Trump could have paused that program.
He's not.
Right now there are 800 illegal aliens receiving work permits during the first business day of the Trump administration.
And despite the fact that suspending the DACA program would simply require a memo to the USCIS, it's at least possible that this is a snafu, there wasn't that much of a campaign infrastructure, there's time to do this still, or it could be.
Or it could be.
That Reince Priebus and company were able to convince Donald Trump that it's politically unpopular to get rid of DACA and to target the quote-unquote dreamers and so Trump is leaving that in place.
So that is bad Trump.
That is not a good thing.
Other stuff that is bad Trump.
So you remember that Donald Trump promised and he's been promising for weeks that they were going to move the Israeli embassy, the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Here is Sean Spicer yesterday doing his press conference basically suggesting that this is not going to happen.
We are at the early stages in this decision-making process.
It's not whether, it's when and how.
There's a reason you go through a decision-making process, and that's what we're in the process of starting right now.
Okay, so when they say they're at the beginning of the decision-making process, there's no decision-making process.
You either do it or you don't.
He promised he was going to do it.
He's not doing it.
That is a walk back.
So that's that's other bad Trump.
I think the biggest bad Trump is something that is very controversial among Republicans, and that is this free trade stuff.
So as you know, I'm an ardent advocate of free trade, basically because free trade makes people on both sides of the trade better off.
Now there may be people who are disadvantaged by free trade, namely the people who are not competitive in a global market.
And those are the people that Trump is pandering to.
So, yesterday Donald Trump issues, he writes a memo basically saying that he's going to revoke TPP, right?
He signed an order withdrawing the United States from TPP and he said that this order was dedicated to the working man, right?
This is the way that he phrased this.
It was dedicated to the working man and this is part of his broader anti-free trade, anti-capitalism.
Free trade is just part of capitalism, folks.
If you don't believe that free trade is part of capitalism, I suggest that you boycott every business with which you actually do business because you want to make yourself richer.
It's not going to work.
Donald Trump told business leaders today that they have to make their products here or suffer a big border tax is clip 15 if we can play that.
The one thing I do have to warn you about, when you have a company here, you have a plant here.
It's going to be in Indiana, or it's in Ohio, or it's in Michigan, or it's in North Carolina, or Pennsylvania.
Fifty great, wonderful governors to negotiate with.
So it's not like we're taking away competition.
But if you go to another country and you decide that you're going to close and get rid of 2,000 people or 5,000 people, I tell you, United Technologies was an example with Carrier, and I got involved, you know, two years after they announced.
So, in all fairness, that was tough.
But United Technologies was terrific.
And they brought back many of those jobs.
And TPP.
And he wants to kill TPP.
Now, I've said that TPP should be renegotiated because Obama negotiated the thing.
And Obama had all sorts of secret clauses, apparently, that contained a bunch of provisions that Americans don't like.
It should be subject to Senate approval.
It shouldn't be the sort of situation where the president just gets to go sign a big trade treaty.
The Senate should have to actually approve it.
I believe in how the Constitution was meant to work.
Those are procedural and content aspects of the TPP I don't like.
Trump is just pulling us out.
Here is why this is silly.
What this ends up doing, China was not a party to the TPP.
Trump says we're in competition with China.
Trade makes the people who are involved in trade better off.
So, instead of us now having a big regional trading bloc in the Pacific, Now China is stepping in and China is now trying to create a reverse TPP with all of the countries that we are trying to create a free trade agreement with.
So we killed our own free trade agreement in favor of bilateral trade agreements which are harder to negotiate and organize in certain ways and don't create these vast Free trading swaths.
Instead, now we have to negotiate with Philippines, and now we have to negotiate with Korea, and now we have to negotiate with each one of these places bilaterally.
They have less interest in doing that than they would in being able to have access to ten markets, just having access to one market.
China is extremely happy today.
Really, you look at what the Chinese newspapers are saying and they are ecstatic about Donald Trump getting rid of TPP.
The other group of people who are ecstatic about Donald Trump getting rid of TPP with no plan to replace it, really, the other group of people are union leaders.
Now, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were skeptical of union leaders like Richard Trumka and the people of the UAW and all these various unions that had signed bad union contracts and helped bankrupt American business.
I'm old enough to remember when that was a problem.
But now these union folks are coming out and praising Trump to the skies, and the Republicans are saying, yeah, that's great, now the unions are on our side.
Well, the question is, what did you have to give up to get the unions on your side?
What you had to give up was the American consumer.
What you had to give up was some points of growth.
In the American economy.
What you had to do was sacrifice certain interests to the interests of unions.
So now we're pandering to unions in the same way the Democrats pander to unions.
Democrats pander to unions by using the National Labor Relations Board in order to cram down bad deals on companies, and Republicans pander to unions with massive tariffs and with anti-trade regulations that allow unions to make a buck off the American taxpayer without actually creating a better product.
Here's the union leaders out there yesterday praising Trump.
Three million of our members in the United States was nothing short of incredible.
And we will work with him and his administration to help him implement his plans on infrastructure, trade, and energy policy, so that we really do put America back to work in the middle-class jobs that our members and all Americans are demanding.
Thank you very much.
And our people are saying, yeah, win, win, win, because all the union leaders are on our side.
Yeah, except for the fact that these union leaders are what made American business non-competitive in the first place in many ways, which is leading to these tariffs, which are impoverishing American consumers.
You want to know why Carrier shifted jobs down south?
It was because of bad union contracts.
It wasn't because of global competition as much as it was because of those bad union contracts.
Trump is helping out those unions, but he's not helping out the American consumers.
I know there are a lot of people on our side who care more about winning than they do about, you know, basic principles, but the fact is that Winning requires you to win on behalf of a principle.
So I'm not sure what principle it is that Trump is standing for on this one.
Again, the reason that it's good Trump, bad Trump is because he's doing some good stuff and he's doing some bad stuff.
This is just a thing he's doing that is shifting the Republican Party and the nature of it.
We'll talk more about the shift in the Republican Party and the nature of the Republican Party.
We have to quit Facebook right now.
I just can't quit you, but we have to quit Facebook, unfortunately.
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