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Aug. 30, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show
45:30
Does Trump Have An Empathy Problem? | Ep. 373
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We will talk high heels and empathy in Texas.
We'll also be talking about the Nashville statement.
Are Christians really just sort of saying what they've always believed?
Plus, Nancy Pelosi does something good.
I'll explain.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
So yesterday, President Trump traveled to Texas with Melania.
They landed in, I think it was Corpus Christi, where they met with the governor of Texas as well, Greg Abbott.
We'll talk about everything that sprang therefrom and what the media's narrative has been.
Of course, it's been a garbage narrative and we'll talk about what that is.
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Okay, so yesterday, President Trump goes to Texas.
And the reason that we have politicians go to these places is because if we don't, then the media suggests that they're bad people.
That's how this game works.
When George W. Bush did a flyover of Hurricane Katrina back in 2006, 2007, then the media went nuts.
How dare George W. Bush do such a thing?
How could George W. Bush not actually land in New Orleans and take care of business on the ground?
Like, I always thought this was stupid because I'm not sure exactly Why it is, sorry it's 2005, I'm not sure why it is that George W. Bush, like what was he going to do on the ground?
Was he going to like get out and start bailing?
Was he going to go to a homeless shelter and start handing out food in a way that no other two human hands on the planet could do?
It seems like a massive distraction to me.
Whenever a president does this it seems like a distraction.
When Obama wanted to do this during Hurricane Sandy and then Chris Christie hosted him in New Jersey, I'm not a big fan of this whole the president has to go there like he's the king.
Like he's the emperor and he must land and now he will bring order to a chaotic situation.
Like did anyone feel more secure that Trump went?
That's not a rip on Trump.
That's a rip on the system.
Trump did what he had to do.
He went there because if he hadn't then the media would have ripped him up and down.
So naturally the media focused on a couple of aspects of this that are completely irrelevant.
The federal response to Hurricane Harvey has been quite good so far.
There's been no evidence that the feds have been asleep on the job, asleep at the switch.
The state response has been quite good.
The city response, the local response has been quite good.
Everybody did what they've been doing, which is why you have this historic flooding in Houston.
And I believe we're still in single digits as far as the number of people who are dead, which every one of those is a tragedy.
But let's be real.
If this flood happened in a third world country, we'd be talking about tens of thousands of people dead.
I think it's now six individuals dead in this flooding, seven By the time it's over, I'm sure there will be a couple of dozen people who died.
But that is a testament to the emergency services and the capacity of the government to help out in situations like this.
But is that what the media are focused on?
No.
They're focused on all the optics.
Because whenever Trump visits any place, it's all about the optics.
So Trump arrives, And he's wearing his USA hat because that's what he does.
And Melania, all the focus is on Melania in terms of a lot of the optics.
So the first focus was on the fact that when she was leaving the White House she was wearing heels.
Okay, so, she then changed on the plane, and she was wearing sneakers when she got there, which makes some sense, but why do we care about her shoes again?
Just confused as to that.
Ooh, no, she was wearing heels.
Zach Braff, of Scrubs fame, said that he wanted to dress in Melania's heels for Halloween.
You want to do Melania going to a disaster zone for Halloween.
And then Melania shows up, and she looks beautiful because she's a beautiful woman, and she's wearing a hat that says on it, FLOTUS.
This is the first lady of the United States.
So you've got Trump wearing his USA hat, and she's wearing a hat that says who she is.
Which, I gotta admit, I'm never a huge fan of this particular look.
It would be the equivalent of me wearing a Ben Shapiro thug life hat around.
If you don't know who Melania is, she's the wife of the president.
Did you pick up on that?
So, not my favorite thing, but is it a big deal?
Of course it's not a big deal.
Seriously, that's the big deal?
So Trump arrives, and Trump talks about the cleanup in Texas.
And I can tell you that my focus is telling me how great your representatives have been in working together.
It's a real team.
And we want to do it better than ever before.
We want to be looked at in five years and ten years from now as this is the way to do it.
Okay, so, there's nothing wrong with that.
People were saying this is all self-aggrandizing.
Okay, have you never met Trump?
Have you never seen the guy?
Like, so the hell what?
Is the job getting done or is the job not getting done?
And then, what they really jumped on is he shows up at, basically, it looks like a truck yard in Corpus Christi, and he starts sort of pitching himself as a public figure.
He talks about the crowd, right?
He talks about crowd size, because this is Trump's schtick, okay?
If you don't get it by now, then you're never going to get it.
This is what Trump does.
I want to say we love you.
You are special.
We're here to take care.
It's going well.
And I want to thank you for coming out.
We're going to get you back and operating immediately.
Thank you, everybody.
What a crowd, what a turnout.
I want to thank our governor.
Your governor has done a fantastic job.
Governor Abbott, thank you very much.
Who's right here someplace.
He's right here.
So we just want to thank your governor, Senator Cruz, Senator Cornyn, everybody.
Dan, we want to thank the whole group.
Okay, so everybody in the media goes nuts over this.
How could he say, what a crowd?
How could he say, what a turnout?
Why is his focus on the crowd and the turnout?
Okay, I admit, it's uncouth.
Does anyone really care?
Is this the biggest deal?
Oh, what a crowd.
Like, that's what we're gonna nitpick over now?
He's doing a good job with the response, but that's what we're gonna nitpick over?
And then, they double down because Trump also said that this is all about, you know, how it's gonna be, that he wants people to be able to congratulate each other when this is over on their response.
Again, is this a big deal?
We won't say congratulations.
We don't want to do that.
We don't want to congratulate.
We'll congratulate each other when it's all finished, but you have been terrific.
Greg Abbott looking real awkward there.
And so the media, of course, decide that this is just insane.
Because really the story here is not Trump's capacity and his administration's capacity to handle a disaster.
Let's be real about this for one second.
A month ago, if you would have said there's a major disaster on American soil, do you think the Trump administration can handle it?
The media would universally have said no.
They would have said he's understaffed, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's a buffoon.
And the handling of this has been pretty good.
And the handling of this has been pretty smooth.
So instead, what the media choose to focus on is empathy.
They choose to focus on feelings.
Trump, you see, wasn't empathetic enough.
Here's a little montage cut by our own Robert Krejcik over at Daily Wire of all the members of the media focusing in on just the horrific nature of Trump's statements.
How could he not be more empathetic?
Where is the man's empathy?
Where are his feelings?
Where is his heart?
And briefly, did Donald Trump have his empathy moment today?
He didn't have the empathy moment yet, but he's done a very good job except for asking or complimenting the crowd size that came out to greet him.
But empathy's never been a strong suit in the first place.
He didn't hug a mom or hold a baby or shake someone's hand or ask a senior how they were doing.
It was really remarkable.
He acted like this was a big field trip and it was the biggest and the best response.
And we're going to congratulate each other later.
It was typical Donald Trump without an ounce of empathy.
But has he ever been exposed to a situation?
And Jim, those words there show that the president is still very much learning on the job in terms of empathy, learning on the job in terms of how to react and relate to the individuals here who are, you know, responding.
The human element seemed to be absent outside of the self-congratulatory gestures of the press conference.
It seems to me it's just concerned about optics.
Just concerned about optics.
And I wish they would be concerned about people.
They were saying that it's going to be key to see the way he has real feelings and real empathy.
How does he respond in this first big situation like this?
What will you be looking for?
There's the empathy factor, there's the response, there's making people feel like he's engaged and he's going to be a leader.
That's what President Trump is trying to convey today in his visit and appropriately so.
He is going to have to show Some real feeling, some real empathy to the people in Texas that have been hit in this devastating manner.
In that way.
It remains to be seen what the empathy factor is going to be.
You think they're on message, gang?
I think he understands.
You think they're on message?
I'm gonna stop it there because it just goes on and on.
You think they're on message about the empathy thing?
Okay, so a couple of things are worth noting here.
One, President Trump does not have to be an actor, okay?
We're not sitting here evaluating whether he should be cast in the role of Iago or whether he should be cast as Desdemona, okay?
It's not important.
This whole presidents-have-to-show-empathy routine?
I'm a big fan of Calvin Coolidge because Calvin Coolidge didn't truck with this BS.
Calvin Coolidge was basically like, look, here's my job.
I'm gonna do my job and then I'm gonna go play golf.
Like, this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna go back in my room.
I'm not gonna bother you.
It's not important for me to get on the radio.
It's not important for me to be a public figure.
But now, we have to do this whole... Well, he didn't shed a tear.
I remember during the Obama administration, after there was some... There was an act of... There was some gun violence massacre.
There was a massacre using a gun.
And Obama went out and did a press conference and he shed a tear.
Oh my God, look at the feelings of him.
Look how much he feels.
He feels for you.
He feels for me.
He's just Jesus-like in his feeling for everyone.
This routine where if Trump would just show a little more empathy, the media would be on his side?
Are you kidding?
They'd find something else to nitpick.
I mean, Melania released a statement yesterday, and here's what it said.
said.
It said, the effects of Hurricane Harvey will be felt in Texas, Louisiana, and other parts of the country for many months and years to come.
So far, 1.7 million people are under orders to evacuate their homes, and as the flood water in Houston rises, sadly, so will the number of evacuees.
I want to be able to offer my help and support in the most productive way possible, not through just words, but also action.
What I found to be the most profound during the visit was not only the strength and resilience of the people of Texas, but the compassion and sense of community that has taken over the state.
My thoughts and prayers continue to be with the people of Texas and Louisiana.
That seems rather empathetic to me, but the overall drive for empathy I think is actually a serious political problem for a couple of reasons, and I'll explain those in just one second.
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Okay, so here is... I have two specific problems with this whole empathy routine from the media.
Well, three.
One is that it's obviously hypocritical.
The media doesn't care about Trump's level of empathy.
They have a goal, which is to paint him as uncaring and mean, right?
The Democrats constantly, Democrats in the media, they have a three-pronged attack on people in Republican halls of power.
They are stupid, They are corrupt, or they are evil.
So, they've already tried stupid with Trump, and it's only gotten them so far.
Corrupt, they're still trying, and it's only gotten them so far.
So now, in this situation where he's demonstrated neither stupidity nor corruption, they have to go to their third prong, which is he's evil.
He actually doesn't empathize with the people who are in harm's way.
Like, really?
Do you really think that Trump at night, he just goes, screw those people in Texas.
Screw them.
I'm so glad there's a flood.
Do you really think that's who Trump is?
Because that would really be evil.
I don't think that's who Trump is.
He may be oblivious.
He may be a buffoon sometimes, but is that what you're seeing here?
Because that's not what I'm seeing here.
And the media are obviously attempting to exaggerate the case and make the case that he's a meanie, a big meanie, even though he's doing the job, and specifically because he's doing the job.
Okay, second point here.
Empathy in politics actually makes for bad policy.
It makes for bad policy.
As I've referenced before, empathy in politics leads you to have empathy for the person who's directly in front of you, without looking at the broader cause.
So empathy leads you to a situation like Hurricane Sandy, where after Hurricane Sandy, Democrats in Congress decided they wanted to load up the Hurricane Sandy funding with a bunch of pork.
Like, load it up with pork.
I was there, I remember, okay?
We all remember this.
Chris Christie is now denying this, that's because Chris Christie is totally full of it.
The fact is, they did load up the Hurricane Sandy bill with pork.
Why?
Because they were using empathy as an excuse to be corrupt.
So, we empathize with the people who are harmed by Hurricane Sandy, and therefore, it is very, very important that we load up as much pork into this bill as possible and pass something.
And if you don't do it, then you lack empathy.
Then you are a bad person.
Empathy leads you to focus on the specific beneficiary of a policy as opposed to the disparate and diffuse group of individuals who are hurt by a given policy.
So, in this particular case, listen, we have FEMA, we have a state government, we have local governments, and they're all doing their job, but the idea here from the Democrats is that empathy really has to come down to how much money is Trump going to spend.
Not does the job get done, but we can measure empathy in dollars.
We can measure empathy in dollars, which is sort of an amazing thing for Democrats to say, considering the people who give charity in this country happen to be mostly Republican.
The average amount of charity coming out of Republican households is much higher than it is coming out of Democratic households, but then we're called selfish.
If you're going to measure empathy in money, I would suggest you start with charity.
But for Democrats, what they really mean is that if you're truly empathetic, you're ready to sign a check to the government because the government can cure all your problems if you just give your cash to the government.
So, for instance, I saw a headline today that was talking about school lunches in Houston.
Apparently, the local government is now saying that they want to provide free school lunches to all the kids in Houston for 2017-2018.
Okay, that's their prerogative.
But then I saw a tweet from a Democrat saying, this is what Republicans have been fighting against all over the country.
Number one, the entire country was not just hit by 51 inches of rain.
And people didn't lose, you know, millions of homes, presumably.
Number two, you know, those school lunches, let's, I want to be clear about something.
Private charity fills a lot of the gap for this sort of stuff.
You know how much money the Red Cross has taken in since the beginning of this hurricane?
I mean, it's an enormous sum of money.
It truly is.
You can tell where a lot of the left's priorities lie.
Linda Sarsour has now put out a tweet calling for people to donate to what she's calling the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.
The Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund is apparently and reportedly a political organizing committee that is designed toward lobbying the government.
It's not actually charity that goes directly to victims.
It is instead a social organizing force to get people to lobby the government to give more money to the victims of Hurricane Harvey and to, in particular, minority groups who are harmed by Hurricane Harvey.
It just demonstrates where the left's head is at in all of this.
So, second reason why I don't like the empathy argument is that the empathy argument suggests that you are somehow a better person if you spend more money.
Empathy is really a stand-in for cash.
Empathy is just a politically savvy maneuver by Democrats in order for them to claim that you're not empathetic enough if you don't want to give them what they want.
They're like this all the time, right?
This is what I said to Piers Morgan about gun control.
His implication was, if I didn't want gun control, it's because I wasn't empathetic enough.
For Democrats, you can measure the level of your effectiveness by the level of your empathy.
I don't measure effectiveness by empathy.
I measure effectiveness by effectiveness.
I measure empathy by empathy.
And I honestly don't care that much what's in your heart.
I care much more about what you do.
So those are the first two reasons why this empathy spiel is wrong.
One is the Democrats and the media are being hypocritical about it.
This is all a ruse.
Second, when they say empathy, what they really mean is spending lots and lots of government money.
That's the second reason that this empathy nonsense is wrong.
And the third reason is because obviously it's a misdirection away from what's going on with Trump.
They won't give Trump credit, and so instead they decide to focus on the empathy question.
Oh, if only he'd shown his heart.
Oh, if only he'd gone and he'd wept.
Oh, if only he'd sh— There is something to the idea that if you go into a chaotic situation, and rather than demonstrating that you care, you demonstrate that you're in control, that's actually more useful.
If I were a victim of some sort of natural disaster, what I wouldn't care very much about is a politician coming in and giving me a hug or my wife a hug.
I don't need a hug.
I have a wife for that.
What I would care about is the politician coming in and saying, here's what I'm going to do to take care of this.
If I were a victim on the ground, what I'd want from Greg Abbott and Donald Trump is not, oh, I care so much about you.
Oh, I care so much.
What I'd want is action that was effective, and that's actually what we're seeing in this circumstance.
So again, the empathy thing is a ruse.
It's used by the media in order to promote a particular policy agenda.
Don't buy into it.
Don't buy into what the left is doing here.
Because the fact is, Trump is doing a good job here, and I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.
And Trump is always going to be Trump.
He's never going to say the thing you want him to say.
But is that a huge deal?
Ask the people of Texas, the ones who are actually being harmed.
Did they look up in arms?
One of my favorite things about that clip of the people shouting about Trump, about the Jeff Zeleny at CNN talking about Trump being non-empathetic, one of my favorite things is the guy in the background shouting CNN fake news as this happens.
Pretty amazing.
But I think indicative of the difference between the political viewpoints.
Okay, so.
I also want to talk about what disaster shows us about the roles of different kinds of human beings.
I want to talk about Nancy Pelosi making a statement that actually was really necessary.
I want to give you an update on Berkeley.
The Berkeley administration is still throwing up roadblocks to this event.
It's amazing.
We'll talk about that and what they can do to facilitate And also, I want to talk about this Nashville statement that the media are going nuts over.
So a lot to get to.
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All right.
So let's talk a little bit about what Hurricane Katrina does in terms of reinforcing reality.
One of the reasons I think people like disaster fiction, one of the reasons I think people like to watch movies like The Hunger Games, is because we have an innate sense that when we are in crisis, our true identity shines forth.
That when crisis strikes, people go back to the basics.
And that's what you're seeing in Hurricane Katrina.
I talked about that in Hurricane Harvey.
As I talked about a couple of days ago, I think that what you're seeing in terms of people helping each other out, that is the innate sense of Americans.
I think that people all over the world want to help each other out in times of disaster.
But there is something else that I think is worth noting.
And that is that there have been a couple of pictures that I think people find really moving and I think they're moving for a reason.
There's one picture in particular that I thought was very moving.
It's a picture of a man holding a woman holding a child.
He's trying to bring her out of the flood and he's holding the woman and she's holding the child.
The fact is that gender roles are relatively well defined in biology and the reason for that is because the diversity of the gender role is a great thing.
It's so funny, the left is very into diversity, except when it comes to actual gender roles, then all of a sudden they suggest that these are all arbitrary and meaningless.
But the fact is that when disaster strikes, it is largely men who are charging into situations to try and save women and children and other people.
A society that is not built on men trying to help each other will be built on men trying to destroy each other.
Male gender roles that are all about men protecting, that's a good thing.
That's something we ought to be cheering.
And you see some people who are very upset when you say this.
Oh, how dare you?
There are women out there to help.
That's true.
There are women who are out there helping, for sure.
And no one's denying that.
And no one is deriding them helping.
But, if a man is not protective, if we have a society of men who are not protective, they will instead be destructive.
This is just how, from the time boys are little boys, they are either building with blocks or they are destroying the blocks that they just built.
These are the two things that they do.
Men are built for protection or they are built for destruction.
And when you see disaster strike, what you see is a lot of heroic men charging into the line of fire, and that's a good thing.
And what you see is a lot of heroic women protecting their children.
You see a lot of heroic women whose first priority is to protect their kids.
And you see that kids are treated as kids.
Innocents to be protected.
Not children to be manipulated for political purposes.
Not children free and capable of making their own decisions about life.
But small human beings who must be protected because they're innocent and aren't capable of taking care of themselves.
That is a good thing.
These are all good things.
The male role as protector is a good thing and something worth celebrating.
The female role.
The female role as guardian of the family, as guardian of the children.
That is a good thing.
It's not a bad thing and I don't know why women would want to give that up.
Honest to God, I don't.
And this is not coming from someone who says that all women have to stay in the home.
Lately, I've been spending more time at home than my wife has.
I mean, she's a medical resident.
But when push comes to shove, my job is to protect my wife, and my wife's job is to protect my children.
And she knows that, and I know that.
And a society that's not built on this innate biological drive is destined to fail.
The left strived to destroy all three parts of that.
It's really horrifying.
To say that men, they're not really protectors.
They're just, they're dispensable.
Men are dispensable.
And women suggesting, well, you know, it's not really our job to take care of children.
Children can take care of themselves.
It's our job to work.
And leftists suggesting that children are capable of making their own decisions about sexual orientation and gender identity.
All of this is an overriding of the innate biological good diversity between men, women, and children that truly does exist.
Speaking of all of that, I want to talk a little bit about the Nashville Statement.
For people who don't know what the Nashville Statement is, the evangelical community has brought out something called the Nashville Statement on Friday, August 25th.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission jointly hosted a gathering of Christian leaders in Nashville.
They wanted to finalize and approve the Nashville Statement in the hope of providing a biblically faithful standard.
This is according to DesiringGod.org.
And the Nashville Statement has made a lot of fuss.
There are a lot of people on the left who are very deeply upset with the Nashville Statement because the Nashville Statement does something terrible.
It reinforces all of biblical Christianity's views about sexuality.
Ooh!
It's always really weird and curious to me that so many folks on the left are confused whenever Christians believe in the gospel, whenever Jews believe in the Bible.
Like, that's the definition, guys.
Lauren Zuka, who's just adult, she writes for Teen Vogue, which means that she is one of our nation's preeminent public intellectuals.
She tweeted out that if Jesus were alive today, he'd be turning water into wine at gay weddings.
No, he most assuredly would not.
No, he most assuredly would not.
Read a book.
A book.
Not like many books.
Like, read Grover Goes to School and you'll be more informed about the Bible than you currently are, clearly, because this is insanity.
Okay, so, here's what the National Statement says.
This is not to suggest that public policy has to reflect the National Statement, but public policy does have to reflect protection for people who are religious and believe in the National Statement.
That is something public policy does have to do.
You don't have to agree with the National Statement, but for you to try and hijack somebody else's religion is ridiculous.
It's like every time the Pope comes out and says abortion's bad, and the left goes, oh darn it, we thought this time he was really gonna come around on this.
Or when the Pope says same-sex marriage is not something the Catholic Church believes in, and the left goes, we were this close.
No, you weren't that close.
That's been Catholic doctrine since the very beginning.
So the National Statement affirms that God has designed marriage to be covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman and his husband and wife.
If this comes as a shock to you, it's because you're stupid.
And they deny that God has designed marriage to be homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous, and they deny marriage is a mere human contract rather than covenant made with God.
I agree with all of this, by the way, on a personal level.
Again, this doesn't reflect public policy.
I think the government should get completely out of the business of marriage.
I agree, it is a covenant made before God.
I don't know what government has to do with a covenant made before God.
Article 2 says, we affirm that God's revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.
Okay, again, agreed.
I was a virgin until marriage, so was my wife.
Okay, again, this is a basic Christian worldview.
A basic Judeo-Christian worldview, actually.
ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage, nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality." Okay, again, this is a basic Christian worldview, a basic Judeo-Christian worldview, actually.
The idea that just because you want to do something doesn't mean you get to do something or that it's justified.
They say, "We affirm that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings in his own image, equal before God as persons and distinct as male and female, and deny that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal in dignity or worth." Again, this is all just rote stuff.
There's no big deal here.
They say we affirm the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God's design for self-conception as male or female.
So in other words, gender is not independent of sex.
Again, This is right.
They say, we affirm that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image bearers.
We affirm that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God's holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in scripture.
And they say they deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God's holy purposes in creation and redemption.
Okay, again, this is traditional Christian worldview.
This is not suggesting that you're... Here's where I have a slight difference.
You know, if you conceive of yourself as homosexual or transgender, in my view, that's your business.
Your orientation is your business.
Your action is God's business.
And the religious communities business.
How you orient is up to you because desires are desires.
This is, I think, a significant difference actually between Christian thought and Jewish thought.
Jewish thought is very little about what you think and very much about what you do.
And Christian thought is very much about what you feel as well as what you do.
So, this is a difference.
But, to suggest that this isn't in line with Christian thinking for the last couple thousand years is just asinine.
Everything they say here, in other words, is totally within bounds of Christianity, and yet the left is super mad, because the left is super mad that there are people who disagree with them.
Tolerance and diversity for the left end at my religious observance.
That's when tolerance and diversity end, which is why government has a job protecting religious diversity.
It's why government has a job saying, you don't get to encroach on me, and I don't get to encroach on you.
But this idea that you get to encroach on me because you don't like what I'm doing, okay, that's fascism.
And the left's hatred for the national statement demonstrates, like, I don't understand why they even care.
As I've said this a thousand times, whether I consider your behavior sinful or not is completely irrelevant to you.
Why do you care what I think?
It's a free country.
Feel free not to care.
But the left does care because deep down what the left wants when it comes to social issues is legitimacy, moral legitimacy for their viewpoint.
They can't get it from the church so they look to government to quash the church and then look to government as the sort of absolver of all of their sexual feelings.
Okay, so...
In other news, I want to talk a little bit about the latest on the Antifa-Berkeley situation because it continues to unfold.
So Nancy Pelosi did something I thought was actually quite good, shockingly.
She has now released a statement.
It says, Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts.
The violent actions of people calling themselves Antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation and the perpetrator should be arrested and prosecuted.
In California, as across all of our great nation, we have deep reverence for the constitutional right to peaceful dissent and free speech.
Nonviolence is fundamental to that right.
Let us use this sad event to reaffirm that we must never fight hate with hate, and to remember the values of peace, openness, and justice that represent the best of America.
Wow!
Nancy Pelosi!
The Botox receded long enough for her to issue that statement.
That's a very good statement by Nancy Pelosi.
Good for you, Representative Pelosi.
Really, that is good stuff.
I hope that this is the beginning of the Democratic establishment beginning to disassociate from Antifa.
Because what we're seeing instead in Berkeley is some politicians who are willing to make way for Antifa.
They're throwing another roadblock up, believe it or not, with regard to my event September 14th in Berkeley.
I want to make a quick distinction between my event and the free speech week that comes, I believe, a week and a half later in Berkeley.
That's the one featuring Ann Coulter and maybe Steve Bannon and maybe Milo.
I believe Milo is definitely going to speak there.
He's one of the organizers.
That's happening after my event.
My event is September 14th.
Both of them have been approved by Berkeley, but just the news coverage has been conflating the two.
They're not the same event, and not all the people hold the same views, obviously.
Regardless, everybody there has the right to free speech, just as I have a right to free speech.
So what is Berkeley doing now?
So Berkeley still has not released tickets, okay?
It is now August 30th.
The event is on September 14th.
I don't know about you, but virtually all concerts release tickets months in advance.
Okay, the idea that you're going to release tickets, I guess maybe two weeks in, they're now talking about next week releasing tickets, giving people like a week and a half to sign up.
We already have nearly 2,000 people who have signed up through yaf.org for the event itself, and we're going to try and translate those over to tickets at Berkeley.
What is Berkeley doing?
Apparently, they're now trying to require that YAF and the college Republicans tell everybody that if you want to pick up your ticket, you have to come the day before, before 5 p.m.
to pick it up.
That they won't mail them out, that they won't print them out, that instead you have to physically come there the day before, before 5 p.m.
Does that sound like they're trying to throw up a roadblock to filling out the auditorium?
It certainly does to me.
I've never heard of a public event where you have to arrive the day before in person to pick up your tickets.
Have you ever heard of something like this, Mathis?
I've never heard of something like this.
I mean, if every ticketing system in America and around the world allows you to print out your ticket at home, allows you to pick up your ticket at the box office the day of, This is total madness and it's obvious that they're trying to throw up obstacles at this point.
Please, if you have a chance, go over to yaf.org and register for the event and they have the information for Berkeley's administration.
They should be let know by you that this is unacceptable.
All we want to do is go and have an event talking about free speech and Antifa and the alt-right and Black Lives Matter and social justice warriors and hit on all these hot-button issues in a In a, I think, well-thought-out way.
That's all we want to do.
And exercising those free speech rights is made difficult even by the people who pledged to uphold them over at Berkeley, which is really quite astounding.
So, I would hope that Berkeley does its job and releases the tickets ASAP and forthwith because I know that there are literally thousands of people who want to show up.
Okay, time for things I like, and then we'll do some things I hate, and then we'll do a little bit of Bible talk.
So, things I like.
We've been doing a little bit of philosophy this week.
Another book on philosophy that was held near and dear by a lot of the early conservatives in the country was Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.
One of the great differences between some of the founders was how they felt about the French Revolution.
Some people, like John Adams, saw the French Revolution as dangerous, which it was.
Some people, like Thomas Jefferson, initially loved the French Revolution and thought that this was the overthrow of the old order, And something new would be built in its place.
Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Burke was a supporter of the American Revolution.
And Burke was a believer in representative democracy, not direct democracy.
His book, Reflections on the Revolution of France, basically predicts what is going to happen in the revolution and why it's going to fall apart.
Right he was, because it did fall apart.
It turns out when the community The difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution is that the American Revolution was based on the idea that human beings are endowed by their creators with certain inalienable rights, and that government is enshrined and empowered in order to protect those individual rights.
The French Revolution was based on the idea That all rights spring from government and the community, and therefore the community has the ability to overrule individual rights in any situation where it sees fit to do so.
Pretty different revolution.
Brook points that out, and he points out the value of respecting tradition, particularly, if you don't know what it is, there's a... I think it's Robert Frost who says this, but I'm not sure, who says that the... No, I'm sorry, it's Chesterton, who makes the argument out of fences.
He says that You know, the difference between a conservative and a leftist is that a conservative sees a fence in the middle of a field and says to himself, I don't know why that fence is there.
Maybe I should find out why that fence is there before removing it.
A leftist sees a fence in the middle of the field and says, there's no reason for this fence to be here.
I'm removing it.
I think that's a pretty good summation of the main thrust of Edmund Burke's reflections on the revolution in France.
Okay, other things that I like.
So, there's been a lot of talk about Colin Kaepernick, a crappy quarterback for the 49ers, kneeling for the National Anthem, and now there are a bunch of people on the horrifyingly bad Cleveland Browns who kneel for the National Anthem.
Good for a Cowboys QB, Dak Prescott, who was asked specifically about kneeling for the National Anthem.
Here's what he had to say.
Has the thought crossed your mind about participating?
Do you feel the need to do so?
No, not at all.
Why not?
Why do you feel the need to not participate in that?
I mean, it's bigger than I think some of us think.
I mean, it's just important for me to go out there, hand over my heart, represent our country, just be thankful and not take anything I've been given, and then it's my freedom for granted.
Good for him.
Good for him.
I don't understand why this is so tough for people to say.
If you have problems with the system, Fight the system.
But if you're going to fight the national anthem, all the unifying features of the country themselves, then you're undermining those unifying features.
Good for Dak Prescott.
I'm now rooting for Dak Prescott.
Seems like a good guy.
This stuff does make a difference, folks.
If that seems shallow, that I don't root for Colin Kaepernick because I think that his views on America are negative and destructive, but I do root for Dak Prescott because I think that his views on politics are good, maybe your solution ought to be removing politics from sports altogether.
Maybe that ought to be your solution.
But as long as politics is going to be infused into sports, then I'm going to root for guys like Dak Prescott, who seems like a much better human being than Colin Kaepernick, at least so far, as his views on the country are concerned.
Okay, time for some things that I hate.
So, Kathy Griffin has been out of the news for a few months, ever since she did a photo shoot at which she held up the mock-up of a bloody head, bloody decapitated head of President Trump.
She hasn't been in the news, so she's decided it's time to get back in the news, this time by reneging on her apology, which just demonstrates why fake apologies are stupid in the first place.
Here she is.
Are you no longer sorry for it?
Correct.
I'm no longer sorry.
The whole outrage was BS.
The whole thing got so blown out of proportion.
And I lost everybody.
Like, I had Chelsea Clinton tweeting against me.
I had friends.
Deborah Messing from Will & Grace tweeting against me.
I mean, I lost everybody.
And so I have been through the mill.
And, um, I also, you know, I didn't just lose, like, one night on CNN.
My entire tour was cancelled within 24 hours because every single theatre got all these death threats.
I mean, these Trump fans, they're hardcore.
They have, like, robocalls, and they're a minority, but they know how to act like they're a majority.
Debra Messing and Chelsea Clinton aren't Trump fans.
Like, even Democrats.
That said, it was out of line.
I get that comedy is about pushing the boundaries and being politically incorrect, and that's fine.
But do you not agree that that picture, holding up a severed head, I know it's a mask covered in tomato sauce, but do you not accept that was a little bit over the line?
No, you're full of crap.
Stop this.
You know this.
Stop acting like my little picture is more important than talking about the actual atrocities that the President of the United States is committing.
Okay, what atrocities involve the President of the United States holding up the bloodied, severed head of his political enemies?
I'm missing that part.
It is amazing.
Look, she just wants attention.
She wasn't able to get it with her original shtick in a way that she liked.
So now she's walking it back, and she's willing— Here's the thing.
She knows that a lot of the people on the left are going to quietly accept her back.
That if she does this, she feels stronger, right?
That it makes her stronger.
That all these people are going to now walk back from their original anger at Kathy Griffin.
They're going to say, well, she was misguided.
She apologized in the first place and people weren't willing to accept her apology.
So screw it.
She's on our side.
You know that's the direction in which they are going to move pretty quickly here.
That's the part that I hate.
Kathy Griffin, I think, is completely irrelevant, but it does demonstrate that when people on the left decide that it is imperative to make headlines by ripping Trump and then apologize for it later, the apology is completely false.
Don Lemon on CNN.
There are lots of people on this network and others who don't look like me who are harder on this president and who say disparaging things about this president but he doesn't get as upset with them as he does with me.
his black critics particularly.
There's a racism in the way that Trump treats his critics.
There are lots of people on this network and others who don't look like me who are harder on this president and who say disparaging things about this president, but he doesn't get as upset with them as he does with me.
Why is that?
Okay.
That's just ridiculous.
It's a ridiculous question.
The idea that Trump is only upset with Don Lemon because Don Lemon is black is just ridiculous.
Trump is one of the most petty human beings on the planet.
The idea that he's not upset with white people who are mad at him or women who are mad at him.
I mean, Don Lemon hasn't gotten half of what Megyn Kelly got just during the election cycle.
And if you're going to talk about people who have been targeted because they didn't like Trump, there are a number of people who have been very critical of Trump.
I mean, he's going after sitting senators in his own party.
He's going after Jeff Flake, who's a senator of his own party.
The hell is Don Lemon talking about?
But again, everything for the left has to be infused with this extra degree of voracious nastiness.
And when you do that, all you're doing is playing right into Trump's hands because everybody can see that this is nonsense.
Okay, final thing that I hate.
A lot of people are all over the CNN... I just said something about a CNN host that was negative.
Now I'm gonna say something about a CNN reporter that is actually not.
So a lot of people are all over the CNN reporter.
She's on the ground during Hurricane Harvey.
And she's being asked about, and she asks a hurricane victim about the situation on the ground, and the hurricane victim really goes after her on camera.
A lot of the right was overjoyed with this.
Let me introduce you to Danielle here.
Danielle, you just arrived.
Share with us how you were rescued.
Some guys had called our phone and asked us where we were.
We was waiting for the police for like 36 hours and they never came.
And we was waiting at the home.
We did the white flags and everything and nobody came.
But then somebody had called the phone after we decided to leave the house and we had walked to the gas station with the kids and then they had called and came and picked us up.
But we had been there like five days with no food and no lights and nobody came.
Like nobody came.
No, you're with your children.
We've heard of stories of mothers trying to save their children from the rushing waters.
Can you tell us how that was for you?
Four feet of water to go get them food on the first day.
Yeah, that's a lot.
But y'all sitting here, y'all trying to interview people during their worst times.
Like, that's not the smartest thing to do.
Like, people are really breaking down, and y'all sitting here with cameras and microphones trying to ask us what the f*** is wrong with us.
I'm so sorry, ma'am.
And you're really trying to understand with the microphone still in my face, with me shivering cold, with my kids wet, and you still putting a microphone in my face.
Sorry, ma'am.
Sorry.
Okay, so everybody's all over the reporter.
Oh, look at this woman.
This woman's really speaking truth to power.
Okay, I have a couple problems with this.
One, the woman clearly agreed to be on camera before this happened.
Reporters don't just run up to people and thrust a microphone in their face.
They ask them for their permission before they interview them.
Okay, I've done it myself.
This notion that the reporter did something wrong here is absurd.
I understand why this woman would be emotional and upset.
I understand even why she'd be upset with the media who may feel like they're hawks here.
But let's be real about one thing.
The fact is that if the media were not covering Hurricane Harvey, the amount of charity flowing into funds to help people with Hurricane Harvey would be much lower.
It is media coverage that drives people's empathy.
Okay, you want to talk about empathy as cash?
This is what it is.
People empathize with that mother because they saw her on TV, and then they want to send cash.
And that's good in the realm of private charity.
I don't think amethyst is a great thing when it comes to public policy, but in the realm of private charity, it actually is good.
So for all the people who are all over CNN for this, that's not fair.
I think that's unfair to this reporter.
I think it's unfair to CNN.
I think it's unfair to CNN's coverage.
Okay, a little bit of Bible talk before we part ways.
So every Wednesday, we do a little bit of Bible talk here on The Ben Shapiro Show.
And we talk specifically about the sections from the prophets this year, because last year we went through the entirety of the Old Testament, first five books of Moses, so now we are doing some of the prophets.
So this is from this week's Haftorah, which is the section of the prophets corresponding to the section of the Bible that we read every week.
This is from the book of Isaiah, and this is from Isaiah 54, 7-8.
7, 8.
It says, for a small moment have I forsaken you, and with great mercy will I gather you.
With a little wrath did I hide my countenance for a moment from you, and with everlasting kindness will I have compassion on you, says your Redeemer, the Lord.
And it says, for this is to me as the waters of Noah, as I swore that the waters of Noah shall never again pass over the earth, so have I sworn neither to be wroth with you nor to rebuke you.
Okay, so I thought that this was a good biblical reading for a time when so many people have been evacuated from their homes in what, I mean, frankly, looks like biblical scale flooding.
I mean, this is just incredible stuff.
51 inches in Texas, in the US record.
I think this speaks to What is God doing here?
You can never talk about why God allows tragedy to happen because we just don't know.
There are certain limits to human understanding.
But what God is assuring us here through Isaiah is the idea that the status quo for nature, the status quo for a world without God, is a world of chaos and a world of disaster and a world of badness.
I think there's this bizarre notion and a lot of philosophers like Rousseau that the state of nature is grand and glorious and everybody is getting along and it's the noble savage and weather is great and it's sunny outside.
That's really not how things work.
Nature has spent its entire lifespan, nature has spent its time trying to kill human beings.
And nature is a force without reckoning.
So the idea that without God's protection, nature would overtake us is true.
That's what it means when... It doesn't say God is actively punishing you with storms here.
What it says is that God has withdrawn his face.
And I'm not speaking to this particular storm because I can't get inside God's head.
What I am saying is that with all the storms, physical, material, spiritual, that we undergo in this life, Sometimes that is God just shading his countenance.
And that's why it's important for us to recognize and seek him out.
The closer we draw to God doesn't mean that we're going to be protected from disaster.
I'm not a preacher of prosperity gospel.
I don't believe that belief in God and faith in God is going to protect you from bad things that happen.
But it is going to allow you to have more faith that God's countenance is hidden and will reveal itself again.
And that's what this is talking about.
Not that God is never going to hide his countenance.
Not that there aren't going to be times when you don't understand what God is doing because I don't understand what God is doing in Texas right now and neither does anybody else.
But understand that God's face will emerge once again and that God is there even when he's hiding himself.
Even when we don't know what he's doing, he's still there, and that eventually God's light will shine again, and I think it will shine again on the people of Texas, and I think they're showing tremendous fortitude and tremendous strength in the face of a brutal period.
All of our thoughts and prayers, and yes, our charity goes out to the people in Texas right now.
Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow with all the latest updates.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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