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Aug. 23, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show
46:32
Like A Phoenix From The Ashes | Ep. 368
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Time Text
President Trump goes to Phoenix and things get wild.
ESPN decides that it has to shuttle away some Asian-American dude named Robert Lee because they don't want to offend people over the Confederacy.
And the media does something so stupid that it may get Trump reelected.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Okay, so I can't wait to discuss this ESPN story because it just demonstrates why no one is watching MSNBC with footballs ever again, why they are dying, why they deserve to go.
It's really horrifying.
Plus we'll go through in detail President Trump's barn burner of a speech in Phoenix, Arizona last night.
It was chock full of insanity and fun and joy and weirdness.
It was all the things that make those who love Trump love Trump and all those who hate Trump hate Trump.
It was all of those things and more and the media Falls right into his trap every single time.
We'll talk about all of those things, plus my favorite video ever of a protester at any rally.
We'll play that.
I may have to start off with that one, but before we even get to that, I first wanna say thank you to our sponsors over at Helix Sleep.
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Okay, so there's so many great stories today to get to.
I think I'm going to have to start with this story from ESPN because it's so insane.
So ESPN yesterday announced that they're broadcasting some college football game from the University of Virginia.
Now as you recall, the situation in Charlottesville happened at the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville.
And so they were going to broadcast this game, this football game, University of Virginia, and one of the announcer's names is an Asian guy named Robert Lee.
That's the name of one of the announcers.
ESPN announced that they would not allow Robert Lee to announce the game because his name is like Robert E. Lee, and they were afraid people might be offended by his name.
No, I am not joking.
He's an Asian guy named Robert Lee.
Okay, like, you might be able to tell these two people apart.
This is 15.
Okay, you might be able to tell these two people apart, Robert E. Lee and Robert Lee.
Okay, you might actually be able to see the difference between them.
It's rather striking.
They do not look the same in any way, because, um, yeah.
Yeah, if you get these two mixed up, it's because you're stupid.
First of all, I think the great mistake here by ESPN is assuming the college students know who Robert E. Lee is.
They have no clue who Robert E. Lee is.
But in any case, the idea that we can't have a guy named Robert Lee, an Asian guy, announce a football game because he has the same name as Robert E. Lee is totally insane.
It's totally insane.
But demonstrative of why people have stopped watching ESPN, because ESPN, this is not All people.
ESPN has a lot of challenges from online, from the fact that you can see clips of your favorite games without having to watch through an hour of SportsCenter like you did when I was a kid.
But, one of the reasons that ESPN is losing viewers is because they are so damn politically correct.
And this is just another piece of that puzzle.
ESPN released a statement from Appomattox Courthouse, apparently.
They said, It was about the reasonable possibility that because of his name he would be subjected to memes and jokes and who knows what else.
Think about it.
Robert Lee comes to town to do a game in Charlottesville.
The reaction to our switching a young anonymous play-by-play guy for a streamed ATC game is off the charts.
Reasonable proof that the meme joke possibility was real.
Okay, fine.
So there were going to be some memes and jokes.
Who cares?
It would have been funny.
Calm down, everyone.
It wasn't like Asian announcer of college football, Robert Lee, was coming to town because he wanted to re-enslave all the black people.
That wasn't a thing.
And they say, when the protests in Charlottesville were happening, we raised with him the notion of switching games, something we do all the time.
We didn't make him.
We asked him.
Eventually, we mutually agreed to the switch.
No biggie until someone leaked it to embarrass us and him.
They got their way.
That's what happened.
No politically correct efforts.
No race issues.
Just trying to be supportive of a young guy who felt it best to avoid the potential zoo.
Or, alternatively, ESPN went to him.
They said that they initiated.
They said, we raised the possibility with him.
So they're trying to blame it on Robert Lee.
But Robert Lee would have none of it.
He deployed Stonewall Jackson, his agent, to argue with them.
And when that failed, he tried Pickett's Charge.
That didn't work either.
And eventually, he was moved off the Charlottesville-Virginia game.
It's just insane.
Just insane.
I love that the left has been saying, President Trump is totally crazy when he says that we would want to remove things like George Washington statues or Thomas Jefferson statues.
How dare Donald Trump suggest that we would go overboard with this stuff?
You just banned an Asian guy named Robert Lee from announcing a game in Charlottesville because he has the same name as Robert E. Lee.
It's almost as stupid.
In fact, I think it's even dumber.
The Oregon School Board wants to remove the name Lynch from various buildings because they're named after people whose last name is Lynch, not after lynching, but they think it might be offensive.
You know who else would be offended by this?
Maybe Loretta Lynch, the black former Attorney General under Barack Obama, or Marshawn Lynch, the black running back for the Seattle Seahawks.
But apparently we're now so stupid that we can't tell the difference between this dude and this dude.
We can't tell the difference between Robert Lee and Robert E. Lee even though they live two centuries apart and look nothing like one another and do not share an ethnicity or apparently a middle initial.
So, pretty amazing work ESPN.
The same network that tells you that Caitlyn Jenner is the apotheosis of heroism, Caitlyn Jenner who has not been athletically relevant since before I was born and gushed over Colin Kaepernick and spent time saying how Colin Kaepernick must, must, must be put on the playing field and they had several announcers this week suggest the national anthem just shouldn't be played at games so that black people in the NFL wouldn't have the burden of trying to kneel during the anthem.
You wonder why people are tuning out your network?
It's because you're all morons.
That's why they're tuning out your network.
Okay, so with that as backdrop, we can now discuss President Trump's speech in Phoenix.
You wonder why things are so politicized?
It's because the nitpicking, the stupidity, the minor point making on both sides has just reached epic fever pitch.
And it really is amazing and horrifying.
So Trump goes to Phoenix to speak.
And there's a lot of hubbub in the streets about Trump speaking.
Some protesters show up to yell at the people who are coming in, and they get violent, and they get terrible.
I do want to show you one clip of the—this is the greatest clip of a protester I've ever seen.
This is one protester who decides to kick a gas canister back at the police officers, and things go wildly wrong from this clip 9.
This is pretty amazing stuff.
I will never get over loving this.
Backing up but still facing that line of officers in defiance.
Antifa wearing a gas mask kicks the canister.
Walk backwards.
And boom, a pepper ball.
And a guy just got shot with a rubber bullet.
That guy that you're looking at right now just got hit with a blister.
Down he goes!
And there goes the dude with the Kaepernick jersey doing better blocking work than Colin Kaepernick has done in years.
Pulling the guy off the street.
I'm sorry, we're gonna need to see that again because it was just too wonderful.
I'm sorry, that's spectacular.
I loved it.
You just saw one of the protesters go up there and actually kick a can of that.
Boom, just takes it right in the crotch.
And then here comes Colin Kaepernick to save him.
Note for the national anthem.
And now he's gonna drag him up off the street.
Okay, I have an army full of loyal listeners who like making videos like this.
Okay, I need someone to- I need someone to cut a video of this with the music, with the- with the- I can't remember the- the name of the song is I Will Always Love You.
I need- I need dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun and then right as it hits me in the crotch, I need and I- I will always love you.
That's what I need.
I need that.
So if you do that, I will tweet it out because that will be amazing.
Thanks, guys.
Okay, so I just had to show that because a little lighthearted revelry never hurt anyone except right in the balls.
So that's pretty spectacular.
So Trump is speaking inside the arena, and his speech is, wow.
General John Kelly.
I'm sorry, this is all amazing.
General John Kelly was the guy who's Trump's new chief of staff and he's got to be like Tom in from Game of Thrones at this point, just like walking over to that window and taking a header because my goodness, my goodness.
He was supposed to have Trump under control.
Trump gives what I thought was quite a good speech on Afghanistan.
I critiqued it yesterday on the program.
I talked at length about why I thought that Trump was doing a lot of the right things in Afghanistan.
And then Trump was like, you know what?
I can't look like I know what I'm doing.
Boom.
And then he goes to Phoenix and he just starts ranting.
Now, what's amazing is that the media will always pull Trump's chestnuts out of the fire.
No matter what Trump does, the media will always do something stupider.
It's just, call it the Shapiro law of the media.
No matter what Trump does, the media will do something dumber that eventually forces people right back into Trump's corner.
And that's sort of what happened yesterday.
So I want to get to all of that.
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Okay, so now we finally get to the drama and the wonder of this Trump speech in Phoenix.
So...
Trump starts off and he's on teleprompter.
And the amusing thing about President Trump is you can certainly tell when he's off teleprompter because the difference between Trump on teleprompter and Trump off teleprompter is stark and amazing.
So here's Trump on teleprompter talking about the LRV, right?
He's doing the routine that all these presidents do.
Bush did it.
Obama did it.
How?
Mine is a movement of LRV.
It's love, people.
Love.
L-U-V-E-I-N-G.
L-U-V-E-ING.
I love it.
Go.
Our movement is a movement built on love.
It's love for fellow citizens.
It's love for struggling Americans who've been left behind.
It's built on love.
Do you understand?
Love.
Except for the media.
They are evil.
And I wish that a steamroller would run them over, just like at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Papal.
You remember that?
The judge gets rolled over and then he becomes flat, and then his eyes pop out.
It's all creepy and stuff.
I wish that the steamroller would do that to, like, Jake Tapper.
He's the worst.
I hate these people.
Papal.
Papal.
Okay, here he goes, talking about all the people he doesn't love.
What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America.
And tonight, this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs who perpetrate hatred and violence.
But the very dishonest media, those people right up there with all the cameras.
And I mean truly dishonest people in the media and the fake media.
They make up stories.
They have no sources in many cases.
They say a source says there is no such thing.
But they don't report the facts.
Just like they don't want to report that I spoke out forcefully against hatred, bigotry, and violence, and strongly condemned the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists, and the KKK.
Okay, so Trump now feels the need to re-litigate his entire Charlottesville response, which, again, is really stupid politics.
He just did.
I mean, this is now the third time.
Second time.
This is the second time he has now swiveled back on the Charlottesville response.
So he gave the proper Charlottesville response a week ago yesterday, right?
He gave it on the Monday before last Monday.
He gave the proper Charlottesville response, which was the statement about white supremacists and the KKK and neo-Nazis, and the next day he did his crazy press conference where he talked about what is the alt-right.
I don't know.
Does anyone know?
Who knows?
How to spell it?
And then he did the routine about, very fine people.
Right, you remember?
He did all of this.
And then, on Monday, he did his speech about Afghanistan.
We're like, okay, we're done with this.
Okay, we can move on with the news cycle.
But no!
Now in Phoenix, he feels the need to re-litigate this.
And he re-litigated it dishonestly, okay?
I'm just gonna be honest about this.
The way that Trump re-litigated this thing is he read his original statement, but he left off the key words.
So he said that he had condemned the egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
Here is Trump trying to rehash this case.
But he leaves off a few key words.
It's cause you know where my heart is.
Okay.
I'm really doing this to show you how damn dishonest these people are.
So here is my first statement when I heard about Charlottesville.
And I have a home in Charlottesville.
A lot of people don't know.
Here's the first.
Can't believe they haven't figured that one out yet.
Now they know.
Now they finally know.
But I just, I don't want to bore you with this, but it shows you how dishonest they are.
And most of you know this anyway.
So here's what I said, really fast, here's what I said on Saturday.
We're closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia.
This is me speaking.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
Okay, and then he stopped there.
Do you remember what he said next in his original press conference?
He said, on many sides, on many sides.
That was the entire controversy.
Legitimately, the entire controversy were the words that he just failed to read from the piece of paper.
Okay, so he's re-litigating this, and the purpose of him re-litigating this is because not a lot really unifies the Republican Party at this point.
There are disagreements over foreign policy on Afghanistan.
There are disagreements on immigration.
There are disagreements on taxes.
There are disagreements on infrastructure.
There are disagreements on reconciliation versus attempting to ram through bills without reconciliation.
There are disagreements on virtually every issue under the sun, but there is not a lot of disagreement on the right side of the aisle that the media suck.
And the reason that people think the media suck is because they respond emotionally to everything.
They respond emotionally.
So this is where Trump is really going.
He decided to make the focus of this speech attacks on the media and attacks on Antifa, two things that the Republicans and conservatives rightly dislike.
OK, here is Trump going after Antifa.
It's pretty spectacular, actually.
You know, they show up in the helmets and the black masks and they've got clubs and they've got everything.
Antifa!
Antifa!
Okay, you know, I was going to do it in Things I Like, but now I'm just going to have to take a swift break here and do it now.
This cannot be beat.
This is President Trump's Antifa song.
How did he get in here?
He's supposed to be with a few people outside.
How about all week they're talking about the masks and crowds that are going to be outside.
Where or not?
Well, it's hot out.
It is hot.
I think it's very warm.
You know, they show up in the helmets and the black masks.
They've got clubs and they've got everything.
Antifa!
I don't know who cut that, but it's genius.
Well done.
Well done.
Okay, so back to the speech.
He's ripping on Antifa, he's ripping on the media, and then he starts talking about how he's more elite than the media, which this is what his people love about him, is that they dislike the media so much that anybody who will just insult the media for the purpose of insulting the media is worthwhile.
So here is Trump talking about how he was a good student.
Hint, no evidence of this.
And then he talks about how he has nicer houses than any of the people in the media.
Pretty amazing stuff.
You know, I was a good student.
I always hear about the elite.
You know, the elite.
They're elite.
I went to better schools than they did.
I was a better student than they were.
I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment.
And I live in the White House too, which is really great.
I think, you know what?
I think we're the elites.
They're not the elites.
That's what I think.
What do you think, guys?
Are they the elites?
And Imbrud's like, wait a second, you've been ripping on the elites for like years, but what now?
And he's like, but I don't care.
Because poop on them.
You see?
Poop.
It comes out of your butt.
Right on them.
It's so great.
Okay, and then he goes even further.
Then he gets to the real meat of the matter.
He gets angry, and he starts talking about the media.
Throughout the speech, he keeps saying that the media are turning off the cameras.
He keeps saying, oh, in the back, they're turning off the cameras.
They won't show the crowds.
He says, CNN cut off the cameras.
People are watching him say this on CNN.
Okay, so clearly not true.
And then he's saying they won't show the crowds.
Every feed is showing the crowd, every single one.
But people on my side, people on the right, we don't care about that because we think the media are dishonest.
And as I will say, the Shapiro rule will begin to apply in just a moment because I'll show you how the media blew this wide open in ridiculous fashion.
But here is Trump saying the media are unpatriotic.
These are really, really dishonest people.
And they're bad people.
And I really think they don't like our country.
I really believe that.
And I don't believe they're going to change, and that's why I do this.
If they would change, I would never say it.
The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news.
Oh, that's so funny.
Look back there.
The live red lights, they're turning those suckers off fast out there.
Okay, except that they weren't.
And you see all the people laughing and cheering.
Oh, it's so true!
None of it was true.
Okay, it wasn't true at all.
And then he talked about his favorite media outlets, right?
So of course, of course.
See, this is what's so stupid, is that I think that there are people at Fox who are trying to do a good job in covering the president.
It doesn't help them when the president endorses them any more than it would have helped MSNBC for Barack Obama to endorse their coverage.
If you think that Fox is doing a good job, Mr. President, But no, he feels the need to talk about Fox, and Fox is treating him fairly, but everyone else is very mean to him.
And who are the fairest of all the fairest people?
You guessed it, Sean Hannity.
You have some great networks.
I must tell you, Fox has treated me fairly.
Fox treated me fairly.
They've treated me fairly.
Hey, I'll let you know.
You know what?
Someday they might not treat me fairly, and I'll tell you about it, okay?
But they've treated me fairly, and I don't mean all good.
I get plenty of bad on Fox, too.
But at least it's within reason.
And Hannity, how good is Hannity, he said.
The rumor, by the way, is that Trump speaks with Hannity almost every evening.
That is an ongoing rumor in sort of media circles.
Okay, so all of this is to say that Trump is now trying to throw a punch at the media because, number one, he feels that the media is unfair to him, but number two, because he understands that what unifies the Republican Party right now is not policy, it's not him, it's not the Congress.
What unifies him is this oppositional feel toward the media.
Now, the thing is that Trump actually did make some news in this speech.
It wasn't just him railing against the media in typical Trumpian fashion for half an hour.
He actually made some news.
In the middle of the speech, for example, he dumped the news that he was basically going to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who should be pardoned.
Sheriff Joe is the sheriff down in Maricopa County, very colorful guy.
He was famous for dressing all of the inmates in pink.
There was a restraining order that was put out against him suggesting he was engaging in racial profiling.
He did not believe he was engaging in racial profiling, so he kept doing what he was doing, so they jailed him for violation of a court order, and Trump is saying that he's going to pardon him, but he had said beforehand, before the speech, that he wasn't going to pardon him in front of the crowd, but then he basically said that he was going to pardon him in front of the crowd.
Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?
Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?
That's why...
He should have had a jury, but you know what?
I'll make a prediction.
I think he's going to be just fine, okay?
Yes, that's actual news.
Okay, and then he makes more actual news.
He says that when it comes to the border wall, he's willing to countenance a government shutdown in order to get his border wall.
And we are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary.
Build that wall.
Now, the obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, but believe me, if we have to close down our government, we're building that wall.
Okay, so this is all news.
There was other news that he made.
He talked about getting rid of the filibuster rule.
He talked about how he was ripping on Jeff Flake and John McCain.
Not by name, not by name, but he was ripping on all of these people.
And then he talked about how he was going to terminate NAFTA.
So there was some actual news here, but it was the media's response that was really astonishing.
And I'm going to talk about the media response in just a second.
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Just to finish up with President Trump's speech in Phoenix before we get to the insane media response, President Trump also talked about Jeff Flake, he talked about John McCain, so here he is talking, not the filibuster rule one, we'll do the next one, he talked about how he didn't want to mention any names, but clearly he means John McCain here as far as Obamacare being maintained.
One, one vote.
One vote away.
You can hear the crowd shouting McCain's name.
We were one vote away.
Think of it!
Seven years!
The Republicans, and again you have some great senators.
But we are one vote away from repealing it.
But you know, They all said, Mr. President, your speech was so good last night.
Please, please, Mr. President, don't mention any names.
So I won't.
I won't.
This is hilarious.
All of his advisors, like John Kelly right now is going, oh my god, I told him not to do this.
And here he is attacking senators in his own party.
Arizona is a purple state now.
There are Democrats who get elected in Arizona.
If Jeff Flake or John McCain were to go down, if they were to go down to some sort of primary challenge, and then they were to lose the seat, that would be on Trump.
That's not to say there aren't decent candidates in Arizona.
There may very well be.
This attack on his own party is pretty astonishing, actually.
So all of this is news.
All of this is news.
But the media find a way to blow it.
And I'm going to talk about that in just a second.
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Okay, so the media could cover Trump's rally in a variety of ways.
They could report the news from it, the stuff about NAFTA, the stuff about the government shutdown.
They could report all of the things that he said that are material.
Instead, the media fall right into Trump's trap, because Trump's entire trap is this.
He tells Americans, hey guys, the media, they're very mean to me, they're very unfair, they lie all the time, they have a hatred, they hate you, they hate me, they hate America, they hate.
So what he's really saying is, the media are an emotional machine dedicated to my destruction.
What would the media need to do to counter that?
Well, they would need to act in dispassionate fashion.
They would need to go on TV and say, you know, President Trump gave a speech tonight, very well received by his crowd.
Here are the things he said that are factually untrue.
And then just tick them off, okay?
There are a bunch of them.
Like, in the middle of the speech, Trump said something about how clean coal is about taking coal and cleaning it.
Which doesn't even make any sense.
How do you clean coal?
Okay, clean coal is about finding new methods of mining that are cleaner for the environment.
But the media, instead of critiquing the factual points in Trump's speech, or saying, you know, President Trump is attacking the media because he's attempting to distract, but here is what the real agenda was in this particular speech.
Instead of doing that, the media just decide to go absolutely nuts.
So Don Lemon on CNN, he had a segment last night with Ana Navarro, In which they basically sat around talking about how Trump was crazy, how Trump was a nut.
And Don Lemon did a monologue last night immediately following the speech in which he ripped President Trump up and down, talked about how President Trump was obviously unqualified, how he was trying to start a civil war.
This, of course, plays right into Trump's hands, because his entire base believes that the media are out to get Trump.
And so the more you act like this, the more you tell his base that they're right.
And how about the people who are in the middle?
The people who are in the middle just see a slap fight.
They don't necessarily side with Don Lemon over Trump, and they don't necessarily side with Trump over Don Lemon, but they look at this and they go, Trump slapping the media, the media look like they're slapping him back, it looks like a clown fight.
It looks like an old boxing match between a couple of 300 pound ladies.
I mean, that's what this looks like.
So here's Don Lemon slapping at Trump in a way that actually helps Trump.
He's unhinged?
It's embarrassing, and I don't mean for us, the media, because he went after us, but for the country.
This is who we elected President of the United States, a man who is so petty that he has to go after people who he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a six-year-old.
His speech was without thought.
It was without reason.
It was devoid of facts.
It was devoid of wisdom.
There was no gravitas.
There was no sanity there.
He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else.
He did it.
I didn't do it.
He certainly opened up the race wound from Charlottesville.
A man clearly wounded by the rational people who are abandoning him in droves, meaning those business people and the people in Washington now who are questioning his fitness for office.
And whether he is stable.
Okay, does that sound like journalism or advocacy?
Does that help Trump or does it hurt him?
It's my view that this helps Trump.
That Trump's entire narrative is that the media are out to get him.
And when Don Lemon says all this stuff, and I'm sure Don Lemon feels all this stuff, when he says all this stuff, all it does is it grants credence to Trump's argument that this is an emotional response.
Because again, dispassionate analysis would be one thing, but that's not what you got from the media last night.
Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC actually cut into the speech in order to say that Trump is lying about the media.
If they're doing a story about me, I know if it's honest or false.
This is the president lying about the media.
He is telling his audience that the media lies about him.
The president just quoted his remarks on Saturday after Charlottesville and he falsely quoted his remarks.
He said on that Saturday, we condemn in the strongest, most possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.
On many sides.
He repeated that twice.
He did not include that just now in his quoting of himself to this audience.
He is lying to this audience about what he said, and he is lying to this audience about what the media said about what he said.
Okay, the nature of media, the nature of TV, is that your emotions come across even more than your words.
And it's obvious that Lawrence O'Donnell is very pissed, but is he pissed because Trump is lying, or is he pissed because Trump is lying about the media?
Okay, because the lie that he just said that Trump told was not a lie necessarily about the media, it was about what Trump himself said.
What it feels like, and this is when the media go wrong, the media's entire, their entire reason for being is to defend the interests of the American people.
It's to defend the transparency of an administration.
It's to bring truth to the people.
If the media feel that they themselves are insulted, that's irrelevant to the question.
Okay, the media are supposed to be sort of like a pastor in a church.
They're supposed to bring you truth.
That's supposedly the goal of the media.
That's their self-stated goal.
What would happen if you insulted the pastor in your church?
Well, it would be one thing if you insulted the pastor, and he said, listen, an insult on me is an attack on this particular institution, and, you know, if you're attacking me personally, I can take it, but obviously I feel like I need to speak the truth anyway.
But if the pastor gets angry because you're attacking him personally, you might think that he's an egotist.
Well, when you look at the media, it seems as though they are full of people who are just focused on Trump's dislike for them personally.
Trump wants to make this personal.
That's his entire goal is to make this personal.
And when the media allow this to become a personal slap fight between them and Trump, Trump wins.
Trump wins because he's the one with the base.
The media don't have a base.
Like, Trump's base is bigger than Lawrence O'Donnell's or Don Lemon's.
The idea that them going out there and ripping Trump up and down on character grounds for attacking the media, it's just bad strategy.
Put aside the truth or untruth, it's just bad strategy by the media, and they are falling right into Trump's trap.
They're not the only ones, by the way.
Former Obama officials, James Clapper, a guy who lied in front of Congress about the nature of the government's surveillance efforts, he goes on CNN and he says that Trump is a national security threat.
You said you questioned his fitness?
Is he a threat to national security, the president?
Well, he certainly could be.
Again, having some understanding of the levers that a president can exercise, I worry about, frankly, you know, the access to nuclear codes.
In a fit of pique, He decides to do something about Kim Jong-un.
There's actually very little to stop him.
There's no evidence that Trump has done anything like this on policy.
There's the sense that he says crazy things all the time, which is true.
But again, bringing on James Clapper, an Obama official, to call Trump unhinged is not smart politics.
It's also unfair, and it's sort of derogatory toward people who have actual mental illness, like this idea that Trump is a deeply mentally ill human being who can't be trusted with the nuclear codes.
Listen, I didn't vote for Trump, but this is over-the-top.
It is over-the-top stuff, and it's not helpful to anyone.
Cecilia Vega, who's a journalist, was on Good Morning America, and she said this was incitement, pure and simple.
That's what she said.
She said this was incitement to violence.
Okay, this was not incitement to violence by President Trump.
We all need to get over this.
I didn't think it was incitement when Bernie Sanders suggested that Medicare was going to, that Trump's cuts to Medicaid were going to kill people.
I don't think that's incitement.
I think it's stupid.
I don't think it's incitement when Trump says journalists aren't patriotic.
I think it's dumb.
But it's not incitement.
The media and the Democrats' attempts to club Trump to death over these sorts of comments and to suggest that he is unfit for office based on comments like this, All you're really doing is you're reinforcing his base of support who feel like he's under attack anyway.
And then, how much attention do the media actually pay to the riots that were happening outside?
So right after this rally happens, Trump mentions Antifa!
And then, there are actual riots outside from Antifa.
So here's some of the footage.
You can see there are Trump supporters in this truck.
And you can see that they begin to shout at the Trump supporters.
He gets out of the truck.
They're screaming at the Trump supporters in the truck.
Okay, so they're just delightful, folks.
He's now beating on his truck and screaming at him.
And some guy runs up and punches a black Trump supporter sitting in the back of the truck.
Okay, so they're just delightful, folks.
The police were firing gas canisters at Antifa last night.
Police firing flashbangs now.
So this is Antifa that's provoking violence outside.
This again lends credence to what I've been saying, what Trump has been saying.
This is the one thing I think Trump got right over the past week, is labeling Antifa a group that is ensconced and enmeshed in violence.
We're concerned that Antifa is going to show up at the speech that I'm going to give at Berkeley on September 14th.
I'm encouraging all the people who are saying they're going to show up in self-defense to Antifa, please do not show up ready to do battle with Antifa.
It is the police's job to take care of this.
This is a good object lesson, okay?
Yeah, Young America's Foundation, they're going to spend $15,000, $16,000 on extra security mandated by UC Berkeley.
Okay, let's watch the police do their jobs.
If they don't, Then we'll know who to blame.
The UC Berkeley administration, and the city police, and the city government will know who to blame.
So please, don't get involved in fighting Antifa.
It doesn't do anybody any good.
Let Antifa do what they're doing.
Let the police take care of them.
Then if the police won't take care of them, it proves everything we want to prove about Antifa.
So please, all the people who are saying they're going to come defend my speech, I don't need you to come defend my speech.
I need you to come and attend my speech, and I will give out the link.
There are 2,000 seats.
We should fill all of them.
We want to make sure that you can come.
But please don't come, quote-unquote, prepared for violence, because that's what the police are there for.
We just paid through the nose to ensure that the police are there.
If they don't do the job they're supposed to do, it tells you everything you need to know.
It's Antifa.
That is promoting violence across the country.
I have a piece in National Review today talking specifically about the left's embrace of mainstream violence and why that's the danger to the country, not some schmuck piece of garbage white supremacists who march with torches.
If they act violent, they're part of the problem, too.
But America can survive horrible views.
America can't survive violence in the streets.
Okay, so time for some things I like and then some things I hate and a quick Bible talk.
Things I like.
This week I'm doing things that are related to blindness.
And that is thanks to President Trump staring directly into the sun during the solar eclipse.
So yesterday we did Day of the Triffids, the best movie about blindness.
It's not really about blindness, but it's called Dark Victory.
And at the very end of the film, there is some blindness.
Betty Davis and Humphrey Bogart and George Brent.
Humphrey Bogart actually has a bit of a bit part.
This is one of his earlier parts.
Ronald Reagan is in the film as well.
He has a small part too.
Very charming.
Betty Davis in Dark Victory.
She won an Oscar for Best Actress for Dark Victory.
She is terrific in the film.
It's kind of an old classic romance film, and it is quite good.
She's a rich socialite.
Here's a little bit of the preview.
In the career of every great actress, one role lives forever, as her finest creation.
Warner Brothers now proudly present the most exciting star on screen, in a story that lights the full fires of her genius.
I love the old friends, they're so great.
Look at the young and dense, it's pretty amazing.
Portrait of a free soul.
I've never taken orders from anyone.
As long as I live, I'll never take orders from anyone.
I'm young and strong and nothing can touch me.
Darling.
Poor fool.
Don't you know I'm in love with you?
Are you afraid to burn, Michael?
Are you afraid to die?
What a relief to know that you're no better than I am.
It was nominated for Best Picture and she won Best Actress as well in this.
Okay, time for some things that I hate.
So Trevor Noah, who as I say is in a running freeway street battle for least funny comedian in America with Amy Schumer and...
And the third person always tends to vary.
Sometimes I've said that it is John Oliver, although I think John Oliver is better than that.
Sometimes I've said W. Camus Bell, who truly is an awful comedian.
But Trevor Noah, he did a segment on his show last night about how he was back in South Africa, which is the country from which he hails, and he came back, and it turns out that America is the third Reich.
So now I was like, okay, this is not a vacation.
This is chaos.
But I still had a week of my break left.
So I thought, you know what?
I'm going to go back to America and just chill.
Turns out I left the third world and landed in the third Reich.
Okay, no you didn't, you stupid moron.
You did not land in the Third Reich, okay?
I promise you.
See this on my head?
You see how I'm sitting here doing a show?
You see how my entire family is fine?
This is not the Third Reich, my friend.
This nonsense where you compare America to the Third Reich because President Trump says stupid crap all the time, that is just, it's insane, and again, You talk about the media driving people into the arms of Trump.
When you label everyone a Nazi, it turns out people get mad.
It turns out people get mad.
It turns out that people have a right to be angry when you suggest that America is Nazi Germany in 2017.
Hey, Trevor Noah is sitting there doing a nationally televised TV show talking about the Third Reich in America.
Do you think that Hitler allowed people to do that?
It's such stupid exaggeration, and it's not even funny.
It's not even funny.
It's just dumb.
Okay, other things that I hate.
So, now that Cleveland Browns are kneeling during the National Anthem, like, enough is enough, guys.
It's just, you're football players.
It's ridiculous.
The big story here is that apparently one of the guys who kneeled for the Cleveland Browns was a white guy.
Ooh!
Well, now it's beginning to cross racial lines.
Ooh!
Who cares?
Who cares?
You're a bunch of football players.
Whatever.
You have the right to do what you're doing.
Do I think you're a moron?
Yes.
Do I think you're stupid?
Yes.
Do I think that you are disrespectful to the veterans who have fought and died for the flag, for the National Anthem?
Yes.
There are unifying symbols in America that still mean something, and I think it's ridiculous that you are kneeling during the National Anthem instead of trying to perfect the Union, you are seeking to tear it down.
People like Frederick Douglass would have agreed with me, but this is really foolishness.
Here's some of the Cleveland Browns doing this routine.
We wanted to draw attention to the fact that there's things in this country that still need to change and I myself will be raising children that don't look like me.
I want to do my part as well to do everything I can to Okay, do you think that it really does the union a favor?
That it really doesn't exacerbate tensions when you kneel during the National Anthem?
If you want to pray, why don't you wait until after the National Anthem and then do a team prayer and then get out to the media that what you're praying for is a better future for the country?
Why do you have to use the National Anthem as the wedge?
Really foolish.
Again, counterproductive.
When the left does this stuff, they're not achieving their goals.
They're actually driving people into Trump's camp.
The left keeps doing this Trump will win re-election in a landslide.
Okay, time for a brief Bible talk.
So, every week we go through a little portion of the Bible.
The Jews go through a different portion of the Bible each week, but we went through the entire Bible last year, so this year we are going through the sections of the prophets and the writings that correspond to the portion of the Bible that we read every week.
So this week, we read from Isaiah 52.
Now, we have just entered the month of Elul.
The month of Elul is considered, we're getting close to the Days of Awe, the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
This is the period of time where Jews do their repentance for all of the things that they've sinned for over the last year, and so we read a lot of literature that's sort of about us returning to God.
This is from Isaiah 52, verses 8 through 10.
The voice of your watchmen, they raised a voice, together they shall sing, for eye to eye they shall see when the Lord returns to Zion.
Burst out in song, sing together, O ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has consoled his people.
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has revealed his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
So I want to focus in on that second verse for a second.
Parts where it says, burst out in song, sing together, O ruins of Jerusalem.
There's a very famous story in the Talmud that it's famous for Jews anyway, in the Talmud, where Rabbi Akiva is a very famous rabbi in Jewish history, Part of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Roman rule was killed for his participation in that revolt.
But Rabbi Akiva and a bunch of rabbis were supposedly walking through the ruins of the Second Temple after the destruction of the Second Temple, and they were seeing animals run through the ruins of Jerusalem, the ruins of the Temple.
And all the other rabbis were crying, and Rabbi Akiva starts laughing.
And so all of his friends turn to him and they say, Rabbi Akiva, what's going on?
Why are you laughing?
And he says, I'm laughing because the same prophecy that says that the temple will be destroyed also says that the temple will be rebuilt, and I have faith that it will be rebuilt.
The same is true for the United States and Western civilization.
I don't think that what we're watching right now, the decay of Western civilization, the decay of America, is permanent.
I think there can be renewal.
I think there can be a restoration.
But it requires work.
We can have faith in the Restoration if we take a hand in it.
We cannot have faith in the Restoration if we fail to take a hand and if we sit around doing nothing and simply lamenting our fate.
It's important that we all take a hand in educating our children to believe in a better America, that we stand up and tell the truth when we see something wrong happening, that we stand together in the face of stupidity and in the face of political polarization for political purposes.
That all has to end.
Then we too can be part of a restoration, because that's the restoration that was promised by the founders.
You know, things may ebb and flow in the United States, but overall, America has gotten better.
America can continue to get better, but only if we stand against random divisiveness for purposes of political gain.
If we don't do that, then we're doomed to watch the ruins grow around us.
Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow with all the latest breaking news.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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