Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Aug. 7, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

46:39

Is Trump On The Brink? | Ep. 356

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Google cracks down on the right.
	H.R.
	McMaster under fire from the alt-right.
	Plus, Chelsea Handler goes full fascist.
	We'll talk about all of that and more.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Oh, so many things to talk about.
	First of all, I want to thank you, our audience.
	You have now made us number one in news and politics over at iTunes.
	We are the number one podcast in news and politics.
	We are number two overall in the country right this very instant, which is pretty awesome.
	If you go over and you subscribe and you leave us a review right now, there's the possibility that you push us all the way up to number one, which would be awesome and a testament to your listenership, which we are always thankful for.
	Lots to get to today.
	We're going to talk about Chelsea Handler going full Nazi.
	We're also going to talk about the Google memo, this Google manifesto that has been making the rounds.
	Plus, we'll give you the update from Trump World.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Texture.com.
	So, Texture is all about information.
	If you're an information addict like I am, and you read tons of magazines, articles, But you don't want to subscribe to each magazine because it's really expensive to subscribe to 200 magazines.
	That's why you get Texture.com.
	You can get up to 200 plus magazines full of in-depth interviews and stories all in the Texture app.
	Things like Time and The Atlantic and Vanity Fair.
	There's an article from The Atlantic I'm going to be talking about on today's show.
	The Atlantic's a really good publication.
	Vanity Fair.
	It's got Sports Illustrated.
	It's got all of the publications that you want, all in one place, plus their archives.
	It makes magazines easy.
	Texture App has gone beyond just delivering the magazine itself.
	They've made it easy to find and enjoy the articles that you want to read.
	They make daily recommendations, exclusive interactive features.
	Videos and more.
	And Texture is searchable, so you can mark what you like and check out back issues, view bonus video content, and they even curate articles and magazines just for you.
	Texture.com slash Ben.
	That's Texture.com slash Ben.
	And right now, if you go to Texture.com slash Ben, they are giving my listeners a 14-day free trial at Texture.com slash Ben, so you can try it out, see how much you like it.
	I promise you're going to enjoy it.
	Texture.com slash Ben.
	My wife's a big Reader's Digest fan.
	She gets it through Texture.com.
	Remember to use that slash Ben so you get the 14-day free trial.
	Plus, they'll know that we sent you.
	Again, the app is called Texture, and you can download it on any of your mobile-friendly apps and have access to information at all times.
	I realize my brain is sort of like a leech on information.
	It needs information at all times, and that's why I love Texture.com.
	Go to texture.com slash Ben.
	Okay, so, tons of things to get to today, as always.
	I want to start with this amazing story out of Google.
	Apparently, a Jerry Maguire-type figure, some rando at Google, decided to put out a 10-page manifesto.
	It's a 10-page manifesto called Google's Ideological Echo Chamber.
	And you can sort of imagine Tom Cruise, as the Google exec, writing out this 10-page manifesto, Xeroxing it, putting it in all of the boxes over at the sports agency, and then getting fired.
	That's pretty much what happened.
	Okay, this guy, he's a random guy who's kept his name anonymous, he wrote this memo called Google's Ideological Echo Chamber and then Google's Vice President of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance, which is the most Orwellian title in history, Danielle Brown, issued her own memo.
	So I want to go through this memo because the left has claimed This is just a disgrace to Google.
	It's just terrible.
	How dare this individual human being put out this memo?
	Now, what's hilarious is Gizmodo, which is a lefty site, they say it's just humiliating to Google that someone would put out a document pointing out that perhaps Google's pay disparity between men and women is not due to discrimination.
	It's due to women working fewer hours or taking different jobs.
	Maybe it's due to the fact that fewer women are hired in tech because there are fewer women at the upper end of the bell curve in terms of performance in tech.
	Which is true.
	You know, perhaps it's because that's the memo says.
	And Gizmodo was very angry at the memo, so when they put up the memo, they omitted all of the charts and links that were included in the memo.
	Which is really quite gross.
	If you're going to include the entire memo, you really should include the charts and links, demonstrating that it's substantiated.
	It's not just some crazy person, some men's right activist radical, who's issuing all of this information.
	I want to go through this because it's so moderate, this particular memo, and the left is treating it as insane anyway.
	So, This memo begins—remember, it's all about Google, which is the largest company in the United States, I believe.
	Is Google bigger than Apple?
	I mean, those two are in a competition.
	I'm not sure.
	But Google is obviously the most powerful force on the internet, anyway.
	And Google is very angry about this.
	So, the guy from Google writes this.
	He says, I value diversity and inclusion.
	I'm not denying that sexism exists and don't endorse using stereotypes.
	Okay.
	So already we have started off with somebody who is moderate.
	This is not somebody who's coming in and just trying to shock, okay?
	This is not feminism is cancer, the memo, okay?
	This is something different.
	It says, when addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions.
	If we can't have an honest discussion about this, we can never truly solve the problem.
	Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber.
	And then he goes on to explain why it is that men are being paid differently than women at Google and why the employment is different.
	And one of the things that he talks about is something that Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard, who was ousted for mentioning this little fact that nobody wants to talk about, is the bell curve when it comes to distributions regarding math and science.
	So when it comes to men versus women, there are brain differences on average between men and women.
	There are individual women who outperform men.
	There are individual men who outperform women.
	Okay?
	But we're not talking about individuals now.
	We are talking about the broad scope of humanity.
	So we are really talking about on average.
	So, if you look at the bell curve of women, the bell curve for women in the maths and sciences Is relatively steep.
	So it looks something like this, right?
	And what that means is that there are a lot of women who are close to the average.
	There are a lot of women who are just below average.
	A lot of women who are just above average.
	But when you get to the tails, the tails are very skinny.
	Because that means that when you get to the very, very upper echelon of performance, and the very, very lower echelons of performance, there are not a lot of women there, right?
	Most of the women are in the middle.
	More than with the men.
	So the men, it's a shallower bell curve.
	So what you end up with is something that looks a little bit more like that.
	So what that means is that there are fewer men in the middle.
	The average score might be very close to the same, but there are fewer men that are actually close to the middle, and there are a lot more men at the top end.
	So if the tail of that bell curve is thicker for men and thinner for women, that means that if you were just to take a cross section of the bell curve all the way out here at the extremes of performance, in terms of really high performance or really low performance, you're going to get a lot more men than you are women.
	For every woman, there will be several men.
	Okay, so when you're talking about a top company like Google, that means that on average you will probably get more male applicants than female applicants who meet your minimum standards.
	Okay, that's not a rip on women.
	That's not saying women are stupid.
	That is saying that women's brains function differently than men's on average.
	There are areas where women dramatically outperform men.
	I believe spatial differences is one of them.
	There are other areas when it comes to anything having to do with empathy and compassion.
	Women generally outperform men on all of the IQ tests.
	But when it comes to when it comes to math and scientists, I mean, this is not sexist because it's just reality.
	OK, this is one of those facts don't care about your feelings moments.
	The bell curves for men and women do not look exactly the same.
	OK, so this guy goes on in the memo to explain this.
	He says Google's political bias.
	Has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety.
	But shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
	So now he's making my point, the one I make on campus all the time.
	Whenever you talk about psychological safety, and you suggest that differences of opinion are unsafe, what you are really doing is shutting down people who disagree with you.
	If you are going to equate words and violence, then you're going to end up in this uncomfortable area where somebody else's words are violence to you.
	This author says, And then he says, And then he talks about Google's biases.
	He says, And then he goes through left biases.
	And he actually is taking this, I believe, from Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind.
	So all of this is well substantiated, okay?
	media and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices.
	And then he goes through left biases.
	And he actually is taking this, I believe, from Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind.
	So all of this is well substantiated, okay?
	He's not just making things up.
	This is not just him trying to be mean to women or anything.
	He talks about left biases being compassion for the weak, saying disparities are due to injustices.
	The right is biased toward respect for authority.
	Disparities are natural and just.
	And then he says, neither side is 100% correct.
	Both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society, or in this case, company.
	And then he says, Google's left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence.
	This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies.
	This is one of the reasons a lot of people have suspected that Google biases its search results against conservative outcomes.
	And they may not even know they're doing it.
	They may think that they are just doing what is just and right.
	But if everyone there thinks the same way, then you end up biasing your search results.
	If you're YouTube, you end up banning particular videos or restricting particular videos that ought not be restricted.
	Then he goes through the facts, this particular memo author.
	I don't know who it is.
	It would be very ironic if it turns out to be a woman.
	That would be hilarious.
	But, what this guy says, I assume it's a guy, he says, at Google, we are regularly told that implicit, unconscious, and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership.
	So first of all, implicit bias tests do not work.
	Okay?
	Implicit bias training does not work.
	Implicit bias is a bunch of crap.
	There is no actual connection in the social science data between implicit bias, you know, those tests they give you when you're in university, where you click on a black face and a bad word, or a white face and a bad word at different rates that shows that you're a racist, Those tests are absolute garbage.
	There's no statistical significance to them.
	They're non-replicable, so you can take the test twice and get it right the second time and get it wrong the first time.
	That's not how any test is supposed to work, right?
	Every test that works, you have the same results if you take it twice.
	Okay, but again, this is used by the left as a club to beat people, and it's like, we can't tell that you're actually racist, but we can suggest that you're racist because of implicit bias, right?
	You don't do anything racist, but Deep down in the cockles of your shriveled little heart, we know that you're biased and racist.
	So, the author says, on average, men and women biologically differ in many ways.
	True.
	Sorry to break it to the transgender and feminist advocates.
	These differences are not just socially constructed.
	They are universal across human cultures.
	They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone.
	Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males.
	The underlying traits are highly heritable.
	They're exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective.
	Again, This is true.
	So he tries to explain the disparities between men and women at Google in terms of some of these biological differences.
	He says women on average have more openness directed toward feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas.
	They also have stronger interest in people rather than things.
	They are into empathizing versus systematizing.
	And then he talks about women have a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.
	This is true.
	All the social science data suggests this.
	Women have higher levels of anxiety and lower stress tolerance.
	Again, this is true according to the social science data.
	He says that men have a higher drive for status.
	Men are driven by respect of others.
	Women are not as much driven by all of that, which is why men go into dangerous jobs for higher pay.
	Things like coal mining and garbage collection and firefighting and suffer 93% of work-related deaths.
	And then he talks about non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap.
	He actually says, okay, so here are some solutions.
	If we want more women, then what we should do is we should show, we should make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming, so that empathy matters a little bit more.
	He says that women on average look for more work-life balance, so maybe we should start biasing toward part-time work instead of full-time work.
	And he says that feminism has made great progress in freeing women from female gender roles, but men are still tied to the male gender role.
	Maybe if we allow men to get out of that, then that will help a little bit.
	But that does not mean that we should have diversity candidates.
	It does not mean that we should lower the standards for admission to Google.
	It does not mean that we should create illegal discrimination at Google.
	Okay, so all of this sounds really moderate and fine.
	I don't see anything that's a problem here.
	He says we should stop suggesting that if you're against diversity candidacies that you are immoral.
	We should stop alienating conservatives.
	We should confront our own biases.
	We should have honest discussions about costs and benefits of the diversity program.
	Again, we should stop with the microaggressions.
	His microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence, is not backed by evidence, and reconsider making unconscious bias training mandatory for promo committees.
	Again, all of this is fine, moderate, true.
	Right?
	All of it's fine.
	There's really not a huge problem here.
	Everything that he's saying is well substantiated.
	There are links to all of the various studies.
	Christina Hoff Summers, who's a feminist scholar and who spends all of her time studying this stuff, basically signs off on this entire memo.
	And I want to tell you what Google's response to that has been, because it's really incredible.
	But before we get to that, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Zeal.
	So Zeal is one of my favorite services.
	Zeal is massage on demand.
	They come to your house, They come to your house with the table, with the massage oils, with the music, the whole deal.
	They turn your home into a spa.
	It is cheaper, less expensive than going to your local spa.
	You don't have to make a reservation like you do at your local spa a week in advance.
	You can get it sometimes within an hour, right?
	Zeal will bring you same-day in-home massages with the best licensed and vetted massage therapist right to your home.
	You know, I'm big on the idea.
	You know, you shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to feel like a wealthy person.
	And this is one of those things where you don't have to spend a lot of money to feel wealthy.
	Zeal makes that happen for you.
	It's becoming huge.
	I was in New York the other day and I was seeing people, zeal, masseuses, wheeling around their materials all around the city.
	It's a big thing.
	I've used it for my dad, I've used it for my mom, my sisters, my wife.
	I have used zeal.
	The masseuses are really top-notch.
	Use several of them and they are all great.
	And it's just 9,000 licensed massage therapists.
	So right now, they'll get you started, okay?
	Our listeners can get $25 off their first massage by using the promo code BEN at checkout.
	And right now, if you sign up for Zeal's massage membership, you get 20% off all your massages plus a free massage table and sheet set that you get to keep at your house.
	$380 value.
	That is yours free when you sign up for the massage membership.
	There is no initiation fee to join the membership.
	Just that great additional savings on top of the $25 discount you're gonna get when you use promo code Ben.
	It's spelled Z-E-E-L.
	Z-E-E-L dot com.
	And I was trying to think actually of what to get my wife for her birthday.
	I think I'm gonna get her a Zeal massage.
	She's been needing a massage and Zeal is the best way to do it.
	Zeal dot com.
	Or you can go to their iPhone or Android app and make sure you add promo code, right?
	There's a little link that says add promo code.
	Make sure you use the checkout Ben and get $25 off your first in-home on-demand massage.
	And use that Ben so that they know that we sent you Again, zeal.com.
	Terrific, terrific service.
	Okay, so, how does Google respond to this eminently reasonable and practical suggestion that maybe they should examine their own biases with regard to hiring and firing and elevations and the good of the company?
	So, they send out their Orwellian Vice President of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance, Danielle Brown, to issue this statement, quote, Googlers, I'm Danielle, Google's brand new VP of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance.
	Big sister.
	I started just a couple of weeks ago, and I had hoped to take another week or so to get the lay of the land before introducing myself to y'all.
	But, given the heated debate we've seen for over the past few days, I feel compelled to say a few words.
	Many of you have read an internal document shared by someone in our engineering organization expressing views on the natural abilities and characteristics of different genders, as well as whether one can speak freely of these things at Google.
	And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender.
	Incorrect!
	Okay, now we disagree.
	Incorrect.
	Again, nothing in the memo ever said that all women are incapable of science or tech.
	Nothing in the memo said that all women are incapable of working at Google.
	Nothing in the memo said that all women are incapable of advancing in tech careers at Google.
	The whole point of the memo is, if you're going to suggest that systematic bias is at work inside Google, perhaps Perhaps you ought to look at the average differences between men and women and how they act in the workplace and what the average qualifications are.
	That is not an excuse to discriminate against individuals.
	That is an excuse not to discriminate against individuals because you shouldn't be discriminating against people on the basis of phantom social justice warrior bullcrap.
	Okay, so this idiotic letter continues.
	I'm not going to link it here, as it's not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes, or encourages.
	So, I'm just going to send a nasty letter without telling you what the underlying material was.
	Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate.
	Oh boy.
	Okay, so, diversity and inclusion, except for how you're sending a letter specifically saying that this guy's views are out of bounds and he must be burned!
	Burn him!
	We'll throw him in the river and see if he floats.
	If he floats, he's a witch.
	If he drowns, he is not.
	We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we will continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul.
	As Ari Balog said in his internal G Plus post, quote, building an open, inclusive environment is core to who we are and the right thing to do.
	Nuff said.
	Google has taken a strong stand on this issue by releasing its demographic data and creating a company-wide OKR on diversity and inclusion.
	Strong stands elicit strong reactions.
	Changing a culture is hard, and it's often uncomfortable.
	Screw you, lady.
	I'm really sick of this.
	I'm so sick of this nonsense where people say, well, you know, us changing your mind.
	It might be uncomfortable for you.
	Us, you know, taking your eyes and propping them open while we show you montages set to Beethoven's Ninth, that might be uncomfortable for you as we re-educate you.
	I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable when Chairman Mao takes you out to re-educate you in the ways of communism.
	I'm sorry if that's a little uncomfortable.
	It's only because you're so narrow-minded and we have to broaden your mind by force.
	That's the only way.
	This kind of, it's really nasty.
	We have to change you and it might be uncomfortable for you.
	Well how about you change, okay?
	Maybe you're wrong.
	Is that uncomfortable for, can we acknowledge that it's uncomfortable for you to acknowledge some basic truths?
	No, it's only uncomfortable for people you disagree with.
	And I'm sorry if, I love when people apologize if it's uncomfortable for you.
	You know, like, you're torturing someone.
	I'm sorry, Ramsey Bolton to Theon.
	I'm sorry if this is uncomfortable for you.
	You know, it's just a change that you've had to undergo, but I'm really, really sorry if you find this a little bit irritating or uncomfortable.
	It's harder on me than it is on you.
	Just know that your horizons will be broadened as we perform this surgery upon you.
	I firmly believe Google is doing the right thing, says the VP of Diversity, Inclusion, and BS, and that's why I took this job.
	Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture.
	Yes, I'm sure Theon feels very safe under these circumstances.
	Very, very safe.
	I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable for you.
	We won't link to your paper.
	And you might get fired.
	Here, you ready for this?
	That discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our code of conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws.
	You understand what that means?
	That's an overt threat.
	Okay, that is, if you say these sorts of things, we may have to fire you.
	You may have violated our code of conduct.
	That says that you must never, ever, ever under any circumstances mention differences between men and women.
	Ever!
	Ever!
	We love diversity here.
	And if you violate these principles, you shall be punished!
	I've been in the industry for a long time.
	I can tell you I've never worked at a company that has so many platforms for employees to express themselves.
	I know conversation doesn't end with my email today.
	I look forward to continuing to hear your thoughts as I settle in and meet with Googlers across the company.
	Thanks, Danielle.
	Hey, Danielle?
	How about this?
	You should stop being an ideological fascist, okay?
	If you want to provide some alternative evidence that rebuts the presumptions created in this memo, you can do it, but you are just making this guy's point.
	This guy's entire point is that you're a bunch of fascists who can't tolerate dissent with regard to obvious, obvious sociological and scientific facts.
	Just terrible.
	Just terrible.
	And then you wonder why society at large is so screwed up.
	This is one of the reasons society is so screwed up, because you have the quote-unquote great science advocates bashing the quote-unquote science deniers over things that are actually scientific.
	Just ridiculous.
	I want to get to another element of the left's crackdown, the sort of fascist crackdown that's happening on the hard left.
	But for that, you're going to have to go over to DailyWire.
	We're going to talk about one of our favorite people, Chelsea Handler.
	Just a delight.
	We're going to talk about her in just one second.
	You have to go over to DailyWire for that.
	$9.99 a month gets you a subscription to DailyWire, the greatest of all podcasts and the greatest of all websites.
	You get rid of all the ads on the website.
	This is not just an audio show, folks.
	It's a video show.
	You get to see the brilliance of this show unfold in real-time magic by just going over and subscribing for $9.99 a month.
	And you also get Andrew Klavan's show, and you get Michael Knowles' show, which is really charging up the iTunes charts as well for some odd reason.
	People seem to like it.
	So you can get that for just $9.99 a month.
	And for the annual subscription, you not only get all of these magical, magical things, you get to be part of the mailbag on my show and Knowles' show and Klavan's show, you also get this, the greatest of all mugs, It is legendary, this particular tumbler, left us tears, hot or cold.
	It is the grandest of all tumblers.
	In fact, there are rumors that this is what led to the War of the Five Kings in Game of Thrones, that they discovered this buried In a cave, and they uncovered the leftist year's hot or cold mug, and the Targaryens simply could not allow the Baratheons to continue to maintain it any longer, and thus, they began a war.
	Leftist year's hot or cold mug, get that with the annual subscription, $99 a year, so significant discount off the $9.99 a month that you would have to pay normally.
	So get the annual subscription, get this Tumblr, and be part of our team.
	Also, right now, as I said earlier in the show, we are number two in all of iTunes.
	Our podcast is number two in all of iTunes, number one in news and politics.
	So keep the subscription and the reviews coming.
	Maybe we can get up to number one, which would be super cool.
	I would then, you know, have an excuse to take my wife out to dinner, which would be happy for her and sad for me.
	Just joking.
	I like my wife.
	So make sure you go over and subscribe and also leave a review.
	We always appreciate it.
	We are the largest By far.
	conservative podcast in the nation so speaking of the fascist tendencies of the hard left Chelsea Handler who is now she was a second level bad comic and now she's elevated herself to a first level bad comic She is now up there with Trevor Noah and Amy Schumer.
	Lena Dunham is sort of a comedian, I guess?
	But Trevor Noah and Amy Schumer, the top three now are Trevor Noah, Amy Schumer, And Chelsea Handler in the pantheon of unbelievably crappy leftist comics.
	I would have put W. Camo Bell on there.
	He's really awful, but he's not as offensively awful as these others are, so he remains a second tier.
	But those are the three.
	They're in a running gun battle to see who is the worst comic of all time.
	In any case, on Sunday, two Chinese tourists stood in front of the Reichstag building in Germany and they made a Nazi salute.
	Why?
	Because they're stupid.
	Okay, so they're promptly arrested, because in Germany it is actually illegal to do such things.
	You're not allowed to make the Nazi salute in Germany, which I think is bad law.
	As a Jew, I think that's bad law.
	I don't think that you should make that illegal.
	I think that you should use social shaming to fight back against that sort of symbolism.
	According to the government, a probe on suspicion of using the symbols of anti-constitutional organizations was opened against the two Chinese men aged 36 and 49, obviously a couple of morons.
	They paid $58 fines and they were released.
	This, however, was not enough for alleged comedian Chelsea Handler, who promptly tweeted this out, quote, Two Chinese guys were arrested in Berlin for making Nazi salutes.
	Wouldn't it be nice to have laws here for people who think racism is funny?
	No, that would not be nice.
	That would be a violation of the First Amendment.
	As someone who desperately hates racism, hates antisemitism, hates sexism, okay, I hate all of these things.
	I think they're terrible.
	I don't think it should be illegal for people to express these ideas because we live in a free country.
	And once you start policing what people say with the government, then you are going to inevitably end up quashing viewpoints that you find Unpalatable.
	And those viewpoints may end up being your own eventually once the gun swings back on you.
	But, another point for Chelsea Handler, who gets to decide what's racist or not?
	Like, for example, let's say that there were a comedian who joked about the race of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's kids.
	Let's say that they joked about them being African in origin.
	Let's say they did that.
	Would that be racist?
	Should we prosecute that person?
	What if they joked like this?
	Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt.
	He wants the china.
	She wants Pax and Maddox.
	Hashtag sorry, couldn't help myself.
	So first of all, crappy joke.
	But second of all, should we jail you for that?
	Because it's kind of racist.
	I mean, he wants the China, but she wants apparently, I guess, the Africans?
	Is that what the joke is supposed to be here?
	Because I believe Pax and Maddox are from Africa, are they not?
	Or no, where are they from?
	Where are Pax and Maddox from?
	I can't remember.
	Hmm.
	You know, now I want to look up their ethnicities, but it is an ethnic joke.
	I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember, uh, where they are actually from.
	Um, are they Chinese?
	Where, where, hmm.
	Now, okay, we'll have to look it up.
	The bottom line is, it is a racist joke, okay?
	So, uh, they are, uh, they are not from the United States, uh, and, uh, and, I, let's see.
	They, Pax is, uh, is, is Vietnamese?
	Is that what it is?
	I think Pax is Vietnamese, um, and, uh, So, let's see, Vivian, sorry, I don't mean to take so much time on the podcast looking stuff up online, but I want to make sure that I get this right.
	So, Pax, I believe, is Vietnamese, and Maddox is from Battambang, which I'm not sure where that is.
	Battambang is in...
	Cambodia.
	Okay, so one is Vietnamese and one is from Cambodia.
	Okay, so Chelsea Handler makes a joke about Chinese and Vietnamese people.
	Okay, is that exactly a good thing?
	Is that a wonderful thing?
	No.
	So apparently, according to Chelsea Handler, maybe she should go to jail also.
	Amazing, the fascist instincts of people on the left.
	Now, there is this instinct from people on the right as well.
	I think there's some alt-right people who have the same instinct, but it is a bad instinct and it is something that we should fight.
	Okay, so.
	I want to go through all that because I think that it's more important to the society than the latest Trump news, but let's get to the latest Trump news.
	So, the latest in Trump news is that President Trump is on vacation for 17 days and that means that H.R.
	McMaster and General Mattis and John Kelly are not standing next to him taking his phone away from him and hiding it under the seat cushions and playing warm or cold with him with the phone.
	So he found his iPhone, he discovered the passcode, and now he's tweeting again about the fake news and this and that.
	He's got his phone again, but the bigger problem for him is that on Friday it was announced that the special prosecutor, Rod Rosenstein, well actually, I'm sorry, Mueller, Robert Mueller, impaneled a grand jury.
	And that means that they are going to be issuing subpoenas about documents, they'll be issuing subpoenas to human beings to testify about Trump-Russia collusion, about financial matters, and all of the rest.
	Rod Rosenstein came out, and he obviously is trying to keep his job in the Trump administration, He says that what he says here is true, though.
	He says in paneling, the grand jury implies nothing about about the indictment itself.
	Does the fact that a prosecutor takes a case to a grand jury, what does that say about the likelihood of indictments?
	Chris, I'm you're right that I'm not going to comment on the case.
	I'm not going to comment about whether Director Mueller has or hasn't opened a grand jury.
	You know, you read a lot about criminal investigations in the media, and some of those stories are false.
	We just don't comment on investigations.
	That's important for a number of reasons.
	First of all, we don't want to disparage anybody who may be a subject in an investigation.
	Number two, we don't want to interfere with the investigation.
	But I'm asking you a different question.
	What does it say when a prosecutor takes a case In general, Chris, it doesn't tell you anything about the likelihood of indictments because we conduct investigations and we make a determination at some point in the course of the investigation about whether charges are appropriate.
	Okay, what he's saying here is obviously true.
	And it's good that he's saying it, because I think that it is important, because the entire left is jumping to conclusions about this.
	The right is jumping to conclusions, too, and the conclusions they're jumping to is that Mueller has impaneled a grand jury to get Trump, that all he cares about now is getting Trump.
	Alan Dershowitz, who obviously knows a fair bit about jury selection, considering that he was involved in the jury selection for the OJ trial, he says that Mueller looks like he's stacking the grand jury against Trump.
	...has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable Yes.
	Yes, I do.
	Trump administration.
	So I see the significance, not so much that he impaneled the grand jury, you have to impanel the grand jury to get subpoena power, but where he impaneled it.
	That's an interesting point.
	Do you believe that it kind of stacks the deck against the president by doing that?
	Yes.
	Yes, I do.
	I think it's a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held, provided there is jurisdiction in this Columbia, and there would be generally provided there is jurisdiction in this Columbia, and there would be generally jurisdiction Okay, so, you know, he's suggesting that the reason they paddled a grand jury in D.C.
	as opposed to in Iowa is because they want this grand jury to start bringing charges as soon as possible against Trump.
	That's not out of the realm of possibility, and I respect Dershowitz's take on this.
	Maxine Waters said he was a racist because how dare he suggest that race on the grand jury means something.
	And, you know, again, she doesn't know what she's talking about because the fact is that When you are looking at juries, when you're looking at jury selection, of course the race comes into account of the people because you make assumptions about, on average, black people are going to vote Democrat more likely than white people are going to vote Democrat.
	So the chances that you're going to get a black juror on the grand jury who is anti-Trump is higher, just statistically speaking.
	You know, all of this is a danger to Trump and it's a problem for Trump.
	The response from the Trump administration has been that all of this is phony, phony, phony, and maybe hope fired Mueller, which would obviously be a crisis.
	We may be reaching breaking point very soon with Mueller, which is a serious problem.
	Here's Kellyanne Conway on, I guess this is ABC's This Week, talking about how this Russia narrative is cheating the country.
	And let me just say something else about Russia.
	The president took on a new tack in West Virginia speaking about this the other night.
	He told the people there and around the country that those who are pushing this phony, fabricated Russian investigation are cheating you, the voters, out of what you clearly said you want.
	You want a new and different direction.
	You don't want the same fake policies.
	You want free markets.
	You want democracy.
	You want national security, American exceptionalism, prosperity at home.
	He's making good on those promises.
	Look at the stock market.
	Look at the jobs numbers.
	Look at the growth.
	Look at the regulatory rollback on things that were hurting taxpayers and property owners and job creators.
	And look at what he has promised those people.
	They voted for him.
	And if Bob Mueller is going to continue the investigation, we'll corroborate however best we can.
	But the president is not a target of any investigation.
	OK, and then she goes on to say that Trump is not going to commit to not firing the special investigator if he gets too close to something that to prosecuting if trump doesn't like it Bottom line, Kellyanne.
	Yes?
	Does the president commit to not firing Robert Mueller?
	The president has not even discussed that.
	The president is not discussing firing Bob Mueller.
	But will he commit not to firing him?
	We are complying and cooperating with... He has not even discussed firing Bob Mueller.
	That's not what I'm asking.
	And in fact, Ty Cobb... Well, hold on.
	I'm not the president's lawyer here, but I will tell you as his counselor, he is not discussing that.
	Okay, so she refuses about eight times in that clip to say that Mueller won't be fired.
	So what we have here is a situation where there is obviously a witch hunt going on from the left with regard to President Trump.
	I don't know that Mueller is engaged in that witch hunt yet.
	I think that it's a little much to say that Mueller is obviously out to get the president at this point.
	I don't know on the basis of the grand jury.
	We'll have to see on the basis of the indictment.
	If there's some indictment brought, we'll have to look at the material in the indictment and determine whether this fit within the scope of the investigation or whether it was actually just a reach by Mueller.
	I can't prejudge the product that I haven't seen based on rumors that are coming out that are unsubstantiated on this side.
	But what you have on the right is a jump to Mueller's bad, gotta be fired.
	You have a jump on the left to Mueller is going to take out Trump, and then once he takes out Trump, then we're gonna have to take out Mike Pence.
	That's what Maxine Waters, this nutjob, the most corrupt woman in Congress, she says that once we finish with Trump, now we have to step up and go after Mike Pence, too.
	We're gonna go after everybody.
	Now, remember, remember, what they are hoping, what the Democrats are hoping is that they win back Congress in 2018, and then they move to impeach Trump and impeach Pence, okay?
	Because how does the line of succession go, gang?
	Remember, it goes, President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, So if they were actually able to impeach Trump and Pence, they won't be able to because they won't have enough votes in the Senate.
	But if theoretically they were able to do so, if there was some sort of wipeout and Republicans lost the House and Senate, you could end up with President Nancy Pelosi.
	If that's not incentive to go out and vote in 2018, I don't know what is.
	Here is Maxine Waters making the case.
	You've said that Vice President Pence is already planning his inauguration.
	Is that a joke or do you really mean that?
	It was a joke.
	Okay.
	What I wanted to do was needle them a little bit.
	Do you think Pence will be better than Trump if he were impeached?
	No, and when we finish with Trump, we have to go and get Putin.
	That's right.
	He's next.
	Putin or Pence?
	Pence.
	Do you mean Pence?
	We'll get Putin.
	We'll get two for one with Trump and Putin.
	Then we gotta go after Pence.
	That's right.
	Okay, so I do love that this crazy old bat is doing the, we have to go after Putin, we have to go after Pence, we have to go after Newt Gingrich, Randos, just everybody out there.
	So the left is suggesting that this is the end of the world, Trump is done.
	The right is scared that Trump might be done because of Mueller.
	Again, not enough evidence on any of this, but it is opening up gaps inside the Republican Party itself.
	So you have A report in the New York Times over the weekend that people like Mike Pence are now looking to step up for 2020, that Ben Sasse is visiting Iowa, that John Kasich, God help us, is visiting Iowa.
	Oh God no, please God no, not John Kasich.
	He's coming out and campaigning against Trump now.
	There are a couple of splits in the Republican Party that are worth talking about because they continue after the election.
	One is the split between the right and the so-called moderates, and the second is the split between people who don't care about Trump's behavior and people who do care about Trump's behavior.
	I think that you can be right-wing and care about Trump's behavior.
	That's where I am.
	I think you can be right-wing and not care about Trump's behavior.
	That's where, like, Dennis Prager is.
	You can be moderate and not care about Trump's behavior, and that's where Jared and Ivanka are, presumably.
	And then you can be moderate and care about Trump's behavior, and that's where John Kasich is.
	The bottom line is that just because John Kasich says that he wants to run against Trump in 2020, which is what he's going to do, does not mean that the right is going to move with John Kasich, or the moderates are going to move with John Kasich, because this is the weird thing, okay?
	Trump actually crosses currents.
	Trump is both moderate on politics, he's not particularly right-wing, he's much closer to John Kasich on politics than to Ted Cruz, and he doesn't care about behavior, not like John Kasich, but like a lot of the right-wingers.
	So he's got the attitude of a hardcore right-winger with regard to the media, for example, but he's got the policies that are much closer to John Kasich's.
	So when John Kasich says, well, you know, I'm going to run against him, like on what basis, aside from being a wadded piece of, a wadded piece of receipt in my pocket that went through the wash three times?
	Here is Raisin in the Sun, John Kasich.
	What John Hickenlooper and I are doing at the present is he's going to have his staff and my staff, and we've had preliminary conversations because John and I are becoming friends, and they're going to sit down and they're going to look at the differences.
	And one of the problems is that there are some in the Democratic Party that think the whole system needs to be changed at once, and there are some in the Republican Party that say, look, let's let the market work to drive down health care costs, but we're going to have to make a commitment, a serious, significant commitment to those people who are left behind.
	So I think Democrats are going to have to get to the point where they say, let's let the market work, give people more choice, bring down the cost of health insurance, And Republicans are going to have to admit that there's going to be a group of people out there who are going to need help.
	These are some philosophical differences between the parties, but if you have a good spirit and you understand that... Just go away, just go away, just go away, okay?
	I'll just talk about primarying a sitting Republican president.
	Basically, if you primary a Republican president, Even if you were to win the nomination, you're going to lose the general.
	There's never been a primary challenger who has, number one, won.
	I mean, that's incredibly rare.
	You've had situations like 1968 where the president drops out, like LBJ dropped out in 1968, but then his successor, Hubert Humphrey, goes on to lose to Richard Nixon.
	If Trump is so bad that he ends up being primaried and losing, the chances that he becomes president are virtually nil.
	So, Republicans are with Trump, boom or bust, come 2020, to the extent that they want to win a national election, unless things become so dire and so desperate that Trump is just an utter disaster all the way through, and they have no choice.
	So these splits on the right are reopening in the wake of Trump not being good at his job.
	What's funny about all of this is, again, in the areas where Trump is not public, in the areas where Trump is not involved, his administration is going fine.
	Okay, so there is a story that just came out five minutes ago that says that Donald Trump's administration has now cut 11,000 federal jobs.
	11,000 of them in the last six months.
	That's the first reverse in federal employment that's happened in a long time.
	That's really good.
	There's been a reverse in regulations, right?
	16 regulations cut for every new one added.
	All of these are really good things, but that's not what people vote on.
	They actually don't vote on these little things.
	I know that people like to flatter themselves that this is what people vote on.
	People don't vote on that.
	They vote on generalized perception of the people who are running.
	Okay, so, with all of that said, the Democrats are in no better shape, right?
	The Democrats seem to think that all of this is just going to fall into their lap when there's no evidence of that whatsoever.
	The polls right now have Democrats in the generic ballot up to plus seven, but It's a rather unconvincing plus seven because, again, a lot of the districts are either solid red or solid blue.
	So the question is what happens in these very few purple districts.
	And the left is tearing itself apart.
	So Howard Dean, he comes out and he's ripping the Bernie Sanders wing of the party at the same time they need the Bernie Sanders wing of the party to win.
	There has always been a section of the left, which I call the whiny party.
	The party that doesn't really want to win.
	They just want to be pure.
	And if they go down swinging purely, then that's fine.
	Well, the problem with that is it leaves behind the people who really need their help.
	If we're going to have a single payer, or Medicare for all, or whatever we're going to have in health care that covers every American, as every other industrialized country has, Then we all have to pull together.
	And people who sit out or crank on some candidate because they did this or that and it wasn't to their purity test are basically turning their back on the very people they pretend to represent.
	I just want to point out to dispossessed Republicans that the same sort of splits that are happening inside the right are happening inside the left.
	Jerry Brown, who's the delusional governor of California, he thinks that they're going to swing left and the Democrats are going to have a broad victory.
	By the way, Jerry Brown still wants to run for president.
	He's 1,000 years old.
	We actually exhumed him to make him California's governor again.
	Here's Jerry Brown talking about what he thinks is gonna happen in 2018.
	It's the historic turn.
	When Lyndon Johnson won overwhelmingly against Goldwater, people were writing, and I read it at the time, that the Republican Party was gone.
	And then it comes back.
	And the Democratic Party comes back.
	So the nature of our business is that swing of the pendulum, and it's definitely already swinging back toward a non-Republican kind of future.
	We hope, based on general trends, that we'll win.
	We don't really have an affirmative case for why we should.
	And also, I don't know where I am, why I'm here, who you are, why I'm talking, or I think I peed myself.
	Governor Jerry Brown, thank you.
	Okay, so, bottom line is there is chaos inside both parties.
	To suggest otherwise is to be ignorant of how the Republican Party is working and also how the Democratic Party is working.
	That means a realignment is happening, but I don't think the realignment is inside the Republican Party or inside the Democratic Party.
	I think the realignment is largely a bunch of people who are dispossessed with both parties and are just looking for people who are reasonable to follow or vote for in any case.
	Okay, time for some things I like and some things I hate.
	So, things I like.
	First of all, I want to thank again Joe Rogan for having me on last week.
	It was a really fantastic thing and Joe is great.
	I thought the conversation was really good.
	If you haven't, you should go over and check out...
	The podcast that I did with Joe last week, a really good conversation, like two and a half hours, two hours forty.
	And we went through a number of topics, everything from environmentalism to transgenderism to free speech.
	And I think that when I talk about this sort of new center that's forming, I don't think it's a center in terms of political outcome.
	I think it's a center in terms of people who actually want to hear reasoned argument and reasoned debate, as opposed to a bunch of people who just get on your TV and talk about Republican versus Democrat all the time.
	OK, other things that I like.
	So I've decided to do exposés of Communism and Socialism.
	Last week I talked a lot about what's happening in Venezuela.
	It continues to break down in Venezuela.
	There was supposedly a terrorist attack that is causing the president, the dictator of Venezuela, to crack down on his opposition.
	Again, this looks again a lot like virtually every dictatorial crackdown.
	It looks like the coup that happened in Turkey that failed, or the fake coup that happened in Turkey.
	Still don't know what that was.
	that allowed Erdogan to maximize his power.
	Here is a book.
	It's probably the best book ever written on communism that no one has ever read.
	It's considered one of the top ten novels of all time, but very few people have read it these days.
	It's very, very short.
	It's called Darkness at Noon by Arthur Kessler.
	And it's all about a really Trotsky figure who was part of the Russian Revolution and now has been imprisoned and is awaiting the carrying out of his death sentence and sort of the thoughts that are going through his head, him becoming disillusioned with the cause he spent his entire life fighting for, who Really dark, really terrific, short, very short read, very readable, Darkness at Noon by Arthur Kessler.
	They tried to make a movie, I think, at one point, but it's more of a psychological novel than anything else, so it doesn't really lend itself to moviemaking as much as it does for a read, but it's a great kind of almost forgotten classic, Darkness at Noon.
	Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
	So, a couple of things that I hate.
	So, Kellyanne Conway was asked on one of the Sunday shows about President Trump's transgenders in the military bans.
	You recall a couple of weeks ago that Donald Trump tweeted out, almost seemingly out of nowhere, that transgenders would no longer be allowed in the military.
	And there are people like me who said, I generally agree with the policy, but I would like to see General Mattis lay it out.
	I'd like to see the military.
	I'd like to see what the Pentagon does.
	I want to see their opinion on this.
	I want to see them lay it out in the most free and full fashion so that we can have a good open debate about it and see what the rationales are.
	And Kellyanne Conway has asked, okay, so Trump tweeted this.
	Was the military even aware that he was doing this?
	And here's what she had to say.
	Just did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, did the defense secretary, did the commandant of the Coast Guard, did the other service chiefs sign off on that policy on that tweet before the president sent it out?
	I can't answer that, because I wasn't in the room when they discussed it with him, and I certainly aren't on the National Security Council.
	But I will tell you, having spoken with the President directly about this, and having been involved a little bit in the discussions, that the President had consulted for quite a while with different stakeholders, including his generals.
	What he says in the tweet is absolutely true.
	He consulted with generals and others about this issue.
	Okay, so again, here is the problem, and I said this at the time.
	How you do things is just as important as what you do.
	If you do it wrong, you end up actually backfiring.
	So what's happened now is the Pentagon has said, we have had no specific instruction from the White House.
	We are not carrying out anything without any sort of plan or specific instruction.
	So Trump just tweeted something out, toxified it in the public discourse, and then threw it on his military, which promptly ignores it.
	This is not how policy ought to be done.
	If Trump wants good policy implemented, He should do the same thing he's doing with regulations and with employment.
	He should just let his chiefs take care of it.
	Okay, they know what they're doing.
	When it comes to the specifics of this stuff, he does not.
	Let him be the face of it.
	Let them develop the policy and let him pitch it.
	But he has to understand that he ought to be doing exactly what he did on The Apprentice, okay?
	He's the pitch man.
	He is not the idea creator, nor is he the implementer.
	Okay, other things that I hate.
	So this is just a weird thing.
	Kayleigh McEnany, who's been a pro-Trump member of the Trump campaign, she was on CNN, and now she's no longer on CNN, and she popped up on something they're calling Trump TV, which is from the White House, apparently, and it is donaldjtrump.com, and it is her bringing you real news, not fake news, real news.
	Hey everybody, I'm Kayleigh McEnany.
	Thank you for joining us as we provide you the news of the week from Trump Tower here in New York.
	More great economic news on Friday.
	The July jobs report added a better-than-expected 209,000 jobs.
	Overall, since the president took office, President Trump has created more than 1 million jobs.
	The unemployment rate is at a 16-year low and consumer confidence is at a 16-year high, all while the Dow Jones continues to break records.
	President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.
	I didn't like it when Obama did this.
	This is not new.
	Everybody's treating it like this is new.
	Okay, Obama, if you recall, actually, for a while, banned press photos and was only issuing White House press photos.
	So this is a centralization of the communication strategy that I just do not like from either side.
	Okay, I understand.
	This is why you have a White House press office.
	This is why you have allies in the press.
	But this idea that you're going to have state-sponsored TV to back the president?
	I didn't like it when it was Obama.
	I don't like it when it's Trump.
	I don't appreciate it.
	And I think that Kayleigh McEnany is better than this.
	She's obviously smart.
	She's obviously talented.
	Working for Trump TV seems to me a misuse of those talents, especially because you're not going to get real news.
	You're going to get Trump's news, which is fine.
	That's fine.
	But I think that, you know, having it openly sponsored by the White House is a little bit much.
	Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow with all of the latest news.
	Again, make sure that you leave us, go subscribe, leave us a review, and make sure also that you give a listen to Michael Knowles' brand new show.
	You can get that at iTunes.
	That is also doing really well in the news and politics section over at iTunes.
	That's fun to listen to.
	Also, Andrew Klavan's show is coming up next, so make sure that you go over to iTunes and subscribe to that as well.
	Drew's show has been fantastic for a long time, and it is always a well-informed and funny take.
	If you've never listened to it, go give Andrew Klavan's show a listen.
	We don't agree on everything Trump-related, but it's really wildly entertaining, so go check it out, Andrew Klavan's show.
	Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

▲