Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Oct. 25, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

45:48

White Girls Must Stop Dressing Like Moana | Ep. 402

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	We are approaching Halloween time.
	We'll talk everything Halloween.
	What costumes are you allowed to wear?
	And most importantly, what costumes are you not allowed to wear?
	Plus, Hillary Clinton says she's totally innocent.
	And Bill O'Reilly says the same thing.
	And neither of them has a ton of evidence to support that.
	We'll talk about all of those things.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Yes, here we are.
	It is yet another day in the most beautiful country on God's Earth.
	But there are problems in paradise.
	Those problems include whether to allow your child to dress as Moana.
	Yes, seriously.
	This is what we are now going to have a big fight about.
	I'll explain in just a second.
	But first, I want to thank our sponsors over at ZipRecruiter.com.
	Are you in need of great talent, but you don't have a lot of time to waste?
	Well, we here at The Daily Wire use ZipRecruiter all the time in order to recruit new candidates for our jobs, and you can too.
	Right now, ZipRecruiter allows you to post your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards with just one click.
	Then, ZipRecruiter puts its smart matching technology to work, actively notifying qualified candidates about your job within minutes of posting, so you receive the best possible message and then the messages just start ZipRecruiter is different because it doesn't depend on the right candidates finding you.
	It finds them for you using their proprietary technology.
	80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day.
	It is that fast.
	ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.
	Find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by growing businesses of all sizes and industries to find the most qualified job candidates with great results.
	You can post your jobs for free right now on ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
	That's ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
	Go ahead and check it out because, again, if you need the best employee for the best possible situation, ZipRecruiter is the way to do it.
	ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
	We use it here at the DailyWire and you can too.
	Okay, so...
	As we approach Halloween, it is that time of the year for us to have stupid conversations about what sort of costumes you can and cannot wear.
	Now, I am not of the opinion that every costume is appropriate, because that would be foolish.
	But I'm also not of the opinion that just because one person is offended by a costume unreasonably, that means that the costume is inherently bad, or terrible, or racist, or any of that stuff.
	Particularly when you're talking about children's costumes.
	I do think that there's a difference in kind between children's costumes and adults' costumes.
	So, very often you'll see adults who should know better dressing as things in order to mock the culture that they're wearing something of.
	So, for example, if my little daughter were to dress as Princess Tiana from a Disney movie, you know, she wouldn't put on blackface, presumably, but if she were to dress as Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog, then nobody would be offended by that because she's a little girl.
	If my wife were to do the same thing, people might have some more questions.
	There is a difference between children's costumes and adult costumes, and I think that that's worth noting.
	By the way, I do think that the whole motion of adults dressing up for Halloween... I'm not the biggest fan, unless you have a child.
	Just a general rule.
	Like, I have a kid, so both of us dress up in costumes for Purim, for example, and on Purim, everybody dresses up.
	I'm not sure that adults dressing up for Halloween and, like, making a huge deal out of it, unless it's, like, a cutesy thing, is really a thing.
	Because it turns out that most people are just looking to get drunk and participate in various activities, which I would not approve.
	And so you get, like, slutty nurse costumes and such.
	Not my favorite thing.
	In any case, the left has decided that it must set some standards, however.
	And the standard for white people is you cannot dress up as anything but yourself or an inanimate object.
	That is culturally sterile.
	Basically, it has no cultural Uh, sort of, weight.
	Uh, you can dress up as like a Rubik's Cube.
	Like that would be a good, or a spoon.
	Like a spoon would be good.
	Right?
	You can dress up as a letter of the alphabet.
	But you can't dress up as anything else because if you do, you're likely to offend someone.
	So if you're a white person particularly, you have to be very, very careful about these standards.
	And now, the left is extending these standards down to children.
	So there's an amazing piece in Cosmopolitan magazine that was going around yesterday that I have to go through because it does reveal, you know, a culture that is determined to be oversensitive about things that don't matter is going to be a culture that tears itself apart.
	And this is a perfect example of that.
	We should all be sensitive to the cultural concerns of others.
	I think that's appropriate.
	I mean, I really do, actually.
	I also think that if you are looking to be offended, then you're going to find something to be offended about.
	The latest iteration is Cosmo has written, has put out a piece by the Red Book editors that says that you should not allow your child, your daughter, to dress as Moana for Halloween.
	Moana is of course the Polynesian princess from the self-titled movie, Moana.
	And because she's Polynesian, They're not saying that if you have a white kid, then your kid should not be allowed to dress up as Moana.
	And the article is just a masterpiece of stupidity, so I really want to go through it, because I think it speaks to where we are in the culture.
	And you want to know how you got Trump?
	This is how you got Trump.
	The feeling that everyone is oversensitive about stupid crap is how you got Trump, and then Trump says stuff that people should be sensitive about, and then they're not sensitive about it, and so things get worse.
	In any case, Here are the Redbook editors from Cosmo.
	What I tweeted was, I'll take advice on how to dress my child for Halloween when Cosmo stops telling me to abort my child or raise them gender neutral.
	In any case, the piece starts like this.
	It's mid-October, which means Halloween is just two weeks away, which means it's way past time to decide on a Halloween costume for your kid.
	First of all, I mean, that in itself is stereotypical.
	I mean, how could you decide for your child?
	How patriarchal are you?
	Chances are, you have a child that is enamored with all things Disney and wants to be all of the princesses, all of them, especially Moana.
	The New York Post recently highlighted an article on raceconscious.org, which seems like a terrible way to spend your day, reading raceconscious.org, about how that's probably not a good choice if your kid is white, and revealed that moms are freaking out over the culturally appropriative costume.
	As I've said before, cultural appropriation is idiotic.
	It's one thing for you to take something that has deep spiritual meaning and then mock it.
	It is another thing for you to say, you know what's great?
	Italian food.
	You know what's awesome?
	Chinese food.
	You know what's pretty cool?
	Hoop earrings.
	Like really, if you're getting oversensitive about this stuff, folks, you really need a life.
	Needless to say, the post coverage has only amplified the debate around what does or doesn't constitute cultural appropriation.
	Last year, Disney came under fire for its Maui costume, which depicted the demigods painted brown skin.
	Uh, and, uh, I-I looked this up.
	Apparently, Disney released a costume, uh, from-from one of the characters in the film who's played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson, uh, and the-the costume involved having brown skin, I guess.
	Uh, and this was a big controversy, and so they had to pull the costume.
	Basically, I'm looking it up right now.
	The reason people were angry is because the costume itself was a brown-skinned bodysuit adorned with Polynesian tattoos and a faux-leaf skirt, and two sets of wigs with thick, dark hair to top off the Maui and Moana look.
	And this is just terrible because, for some reason that I don't understand, because Maui is...
	a Polynesian in the movie.
	So that's kind of weird.
	Like, they weren't saying that you should paint your face black.
	They were saying this is what Maui looks like.
	We all have eyes.
	People are different colors.
	In any case, I don't think that it was, you know, just the worst thing that ever was.
	In any case, the company ultimately pulled the costume in response to the uproar, saying the team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some.
	The Maui question may have been settled, but this year there are plenty of tweets out there asking the Internet and Lin-Manuel Miranda if it's okay to dress up as Moana for Halloween.
	First of all, I think we have to ask a question.
	Why should Lin-Manuel Miranda be able to write the music for a movie about Polynesians?
	Why not a Polynesian person writing Polynesian music for a movie about Polynesians?
	Lin-Manuel Miranda's in Polynesia, as far as I'm aware.
	In any case, the original article, written by Sashi Ferris, discusses how her white daughter was torn between dressing as Elsa from Frozen or the titular character from Moana.
	Ferris expresses concern that while an Elsa costume might reinforce notions of white privilege, dressing up as Moana is essentially cultural appropriation, the act of reducing someone's culture to stereotypes and thereby belittling it.
	Though Ferris puzzles over how one might wear a Moana costume respectfully, she ultimately decides it just isn't a good idea.
	So, let's get this straight.
	The left is saying, your daughter can't dress up as a Polynesian girl that she admires.
	Because that's bad.
	Because... something.
	We can't have heroes who are cross-cultural.
	We just can't do it.
	Jews have to dress up like Jews.
	White folks who are not Jewish or Italian or German have to dress up like those people.
	Basically, dress up as yourself is the Halloween advice from the left this year for white people.
	I do love the idea that she can't dress up as Ilsa because that would be ethnocentric, but she should dress up.
	She also can't dress up as Moana because that would be cultural appropriation.
	I'm a little dizzy at this point.
	Right, I'm saying both of those things, but I didn't dress up as Jasmine.
	Jasmine is a child and I'm not a racist, or it's just a Halloween costume, please chill the F out.
	Right, I'm saying both of those things, but I didn't dress up as Jasmine.
	But one of the best things about time is that it moves forward.
	You should, too.
	This is Cosmo.
	You can and should strive to be better than you were 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
	Well, how about more intelligent?
	Because it sounds like you just want us to be dumber than we were ten years ago.
	If you missed the mark when you were younger, maybe think about using this Halloween as an opportunity to teach your kids about the importance of cultural sensitivity.
	If your child's dream costume feels questionable, don't just throw up your hands and hand over your credit card.
	You're the parent here, and the onus of what your child wears falls on you.
	If your kid wears a racist costume, you're kind of wearing it too.
	I just want to note here a little bit of an incongruity.
	I love that sentence.
	You're the parent here.
	If your child's dream costume feels questionable, don't throw up your hands and hand over your credit card.
	You're the parent here.
	Unless your child is a boy who declares that he's a girl, in which case you're not the parent here, shut the F up and hand him over to a pediatrician for hormone blockers.
	Then you're not the parent.
	So if your kid decides that your kid is a member of the opposite sex, then you're not the parent anymore.
	But if your kid wants to dress up like Moana, well damn it, step in!
	Don't you understand the kind of damage you're doing to the country?
	Okay, but it gets even better.
	Recognize this.
	Moana is a really special character to young girls of Polynesian descent who have never seen a Disney princess who looks like them.
	Just like how Tiana from The Princess and the Frog likely resonated with young black women who had waited decades to see themselves represented.
	Okay, so?
	White girls have plenty of princesses to choose from.
	There's Belle, Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty.
	You get the idea.
	Well, I guess that only mermaids can dress up as Ariel.
	And as far as these other characters, none of them are Jewish, so what does my daughter do?
	I just don't know.
	Is it white cultural appropriation for her to dress up as Cinderella?
	She's really big into Cinderella.
	If your Caucasian son or daughter doesn't get to be exactly what they wanted for Halloween, encourage them to take a step back and realize that there are Washington privileges that the real Moanas and Tianas of the world will likely never see, because the world is full of racist a-holes.
	I'm gonna go with, if you are so race-conscious that you think that you can't admire someone of a different color or ethnicity, you may be one of the racist a-holes.
	You might want to take a look in the mirror.
	But, here's the best part of the article.
	Basically, the article says, you can't dress your daughter as Moana because Trump.
	Really, I'm not making this up.
	Like, this is how you got Trump times 1,000.
	So what does this have to do with a seemingly innocuous princess costume?
	Our president is a hate group apologist who tried to ban refugees from seeking asylum in our country simply because of their faith.
	Meanwhile, black Americans continue to be killed by police, and anti-Semitic voices feel louder and more powerful than they have in decades.
	So what does this have to do with a seemingly innocuous princess costume?
	Pretty much everything.
	Really, that's what the article says.
	I'm not making this up.
	It's important to align with and stand up for people of color and minorities, and a key part of that is showing respect for their cultures.
	To pretend to be a racial, ethnic, or religious minority when you're not makes light of their history and reinforces a deeply problematic power dynamic wherein white people use, then discard, pieces of culture they've subjugated for centuries just because they can.
	And they say that your kids can still sing Moana songs, I don't know why.
	But you're not allowed to allow your kid to actually dress up as Moana.
	And then Fijian Emmeline Mataghi suggests using your kids' desire to be Moana or Maui as an opportunity to teach them about actual Polynesian culture.
	That's fine, but why can't they dress up as those people?
	As I've said before, every year when I was growing up, when I was a child, I dressed up as John Adams.
	John Adams.
	Not a Jew.
	Right?
	John Adams.
	A Christian founding father.
	I used to get in that costume every year because I was a huge John Adams fan because I grew up on the movie 1776.
	Was that culturally appropriating, John Adams?
	Was that making light?
	The whole point of your kid wearing a costume is that your kid is saying the costume is cool.
	It's that simple.
	End of story.
	But this is how you get Trump, really.
	It's the oversensitivity, and the deliberate oversensitivity, and the attempts to paint everyone who is not willing to fall for this microaggressions culture as racist.
	That is the serious problem, and it's why people are rejecting this nonsense wholesale.
	Okay, before I go any further, and I'm gonna talk about the President Trump-Bob Corker spat that has now broken out, because it's a day ending in Y, which means that somebody is in a fight with President Trump, and President Trump is in a fight with somebody, none of which actually affords policy.
	By the way, I'm not just going to be critical of Trump's policy.
	There's a good story about Trump's policy I want to tell you too.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our new sponsors over at Saucy.
	So...
	Everyone at some point has wished they could just have beer, wine, or liquor delivered direct to their home.
	Particularly during this news cycle.
	Particularly when everything is so depressing.
	Sometimes you wish that someone would just deliver a bottle of whiskey to your house.
	Well now, there is such a service.
	This is Sassy.
	It's the alcohol delivery app.
	They deliver your favorite wine, beer, and liquor right to your door, on demand.
	We've used it for vodka in the Shapiro home.
	It is the Lyft or Uber for alcohol.
	If you're in LA, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, or Sacramento, your Saucy order will arrive at your door in 30 minutes or less, ready to drink.
	And for the rest of us, Saucy will deliver beer, wine, and liquor to your door in two days or less, nationwide.
	No order minimums.
	No delivery fees.
	No running to the store.
	You're sitting at home.
	You're watching the news.
	You're depressed, or you're sitting at home watching a romantic movie with your significant other and you just want a bottle of something.
	That's what Saucy is for.
	If you've got the Saucy app, you've got a fully stocked bar on your phone.
	You don't have to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on every possible drink that you might want.
	Instead, you just call for a drink when you want a drink.
	For a limited time, you can get $15 off when you download the Saucy app and enter promo code Ben.
	Again, $15 off when you download the Saucy app.
	and enter promo code BEN.
	That's the Saucy app spelled S-A-U-C-E-Y, S-A-U-C-E-Y, and enter promo code BEN for $15 off.
	Get that Saucy app today and use promo code BEN.
	As I've said before, there are certain things in life that just make you feel wealthy even when you're not.
	Saucy app is one of those things it does.
	It's basically like having a butler who can bring you liquor when you want it, which is pretty awesome.
	Saucy, S-A-U-C-E-Y, and enter the promo code BEN after you download the app and get $15 off your order.
	Okay, so meanwhile, while the rest of the world fights over Halloween costumes, You know, people tend to think that this Halloween costume thing is irrelevant, except that it's not.
	Okay, at Yale University last year, or two years ago, Erica Christakis was the head of the, she was the, I guess, the resident advisor at Silliman College, which is a place that a bunch of students live at Yale, and she wrote a letter to people saying basically, you know, don't be offensive if you can avoid it, but If you're offended, maybe take a second thought about why you're offended and whether it's worthwhile being offended about Halloween costumes.
	The students went completely insane.
	There was all sorts of video of the students screaming at her husband, Nicholas Christakis, who's a very famous professor, and yelling at him, and telling him to shut up and listen to them, because they're people of color in many cases, and he is a white guy, and so he should shut up and listen to them because their opinions are important, and his is not, and his wife's letter made them feel unsafe, etc., etc.
	He ended up resigning his position at Silliman College, and so did she.
	This sort of thing is happening all over the country.
	Over at University of Texas at Austin, they actually put out a guide as to what sort of costumes you should think about wearing for Halloween, so as not to offend everyone.
	And they legitimately come up with things like, don't dress up like cowboys or Indians, because that might be offensive to someone.
	Don't dress up as, you can't do a South of the border party, so you can't do anything that is Mexico related.
	You know, they did a whole shtick about why you should not dress up as various members of other cultures.
	And then, what do they leave?
	They're like, you can dress up as a Rubik's Cube.
	Dead serious, this is what they suggest.
	That you should dress up as a Rubik's Cube.
	They also suggest that perhaps you should dress up as letters of the alphabet.
	We know that certain letters, which I find weird, because certain letters of the alphabet are inherently offensive.
	Like, the letters W and T.
	I mean, T will remind people of Trump and might trigger them, and W will remind you of W and might trigger you.
	Decade time period, they say you should dress up in like a 50s outfit, but doesn't that ignore the plight of women during the 50s?
	They say you can dress up as comic book heroes and villains, but what if you're a culturally appropriating kryptonite culture?
	Kryptonian culture, how do you know?
	And then my favorite one here is that you're allowed to dress up as Catalina Yachtmixer or Preppy.
	So you can do a cultural stereotype of a white guy in boat shoes, but you can't do any other sort of cultural stereotype.
	Well done, University of Texas at Austin.
	Again, this is the sort of stuff that tears us apart needlessly.
	Everybody should take a deep breath because it isn't that important.
	But we're going to have a big fuss over it this year.
	I promise you this is just the beginning of the stupid Halloween stories.
	Okay, so meanwhile, in more important news, President Trump is on the Hill trying to push through his tax reform package today.
	We still don't know exactly what that package looks like.
	There's been a lot of talk about it, what exactly that will look like when all is said and done.
	There's been some talk about it, including revisions to 401K plans.
	Trump rightly has said he is not going to do that, which is good.
	There's been some talk about not lowering the top tax bracket, which is stupid.
	The top tax bracket should be lowered, and that's not just because I'm a member of the top tax bracket.
	I felt that way before I was a member of the top tax bracket.
	The reason being, the people who actually hire you and create your jobs are very often members of the top tax bracket.
	Okay, beyond that, there's a lot of controversy over what this will include.
	And Trump has a very fractious caucus.
	A very fractious caucus.
	And when I say very fractious, I mean that Trump has, he was saddled with a Senate that only has 52 votes.
	Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and John McCain and Rand Paul are always going to be iffy on anything.
	Rand Paul barely votes for anything because he wants to maintain his supposed purity.
	And Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are very left-leaning Republicans, so hard to get them to vote for anything.
	And Trump has exacerbated some of these problems by going directly to war with some of these senators.
	So the person who he's currently at war with is Bob Corker, the senator from Tennessee.
	He's been angry at Bob Corker for several weeks now because Corker has been sounding off about President Trump.
	I'm not a Bob Corker fan.
	I think Bob Corker is as oozy and slimy as it is possible to be in the United States Senate.
	Bob Corker is the guy behind the Senate approval for the Iran deal.
	Bob Corker is the guy who was happy to back President Trump all the way up till the election and then flirt with being Secretary of State before he decided to turn on him.
	So now Bob Corker is going out in public and yelling basically at President Trump talking about how terrible he is.
	Here is Bob Corker ripping him this morning.
	The constant non-truth-telling.
	Just the name-calling, the things like, I think the basement of our nation will be what he'll be remembered most for, and that's regretful.
	And it affects young people.
	I mean, we have young people who, for the first time, are, you know, watching a president stating, you know, Absolute non-truths.
	Non-stop.
	Personalizing things in the way that he does.
	And it's very sad for our nation.
	So there's Corker.
	Trump is debasing our nation.
	The only thing he's going to remember for it is debasing our nation.
	Dude, you're part of that debasement if this is the way that you feel.
	Like, thank you for taking no political risk now that you've said you're not running for re-election, and then coming out and ripping Trump in the middle of a tax reform fight.
	But this is why, you know, all the talk about ideological relations on the Hill, a lot of it's nonsense, a lot of it's interpersonal.
	Like, John McCain and Trump despise one another.
	The same thing is now true of Bob Corker.
	Bob Corker didn't stop there.
	He then ripped into Trump even more so, and then Trump ripped back.
	I've been with him on multiple occasions to try to, you know, create some kind of aspirational Uh, approach, if you will, to the way that he conducts himself, but, uh, I don't think that that's possible, and, um, he's obviously not going to rise to the occasion as president.
	Okay, so, there's Bob Corker ripping Trump up and down, and Trump responds, not by trying to tamp things down, by saying this, Bob Corker, who helped President Obama give us the bad Iran deal and couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting tax cuts.
	Fair.
	Corker dropped out of the race in Tennessee when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump.
	Look at his record.
	Isn't it sad that lightweight Senator Bob Corker, who couldn't get re-elected in the great state of Tennessee, will now fight Tax Cuts Plus?
	Senator Corker is the incompetent head of the Foreign Relations Committee, and look how poorly the U.S.
	has done.
	He doesn't have a clue, as the entire world was laughing and taking advantage of us.
	People like little Bob Corker have set the U.S.
	way back.
	Now we move forward.
	Okay, first of all, I do like that Trump does have a rotating series of about 10 insults, and he just keeps going around and around.
	It's sort of like the old photo rotation that you had at your grandparents' house.
	It's just, click, okay, time for a new insult.
	Little, L-I-D-D-L-E, apostrophe for some reason.
	Bob Corker.
	The question here is not whether Trump is right about Corker.
	I just said, Corker's oozy and slimy.
	Okay, I think that that's basically correct.
	The question is, is this effective in pushing your legislation?
	I'm gonna go with no.
	I'm gonna say this probably isn't super effective in pushing your legislation.
	Good luck pushing through tax reform when Bob Corker, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and John McCain are all part of your caucus and all of them hate you.
	You know, this is where some of Trump's wheeling and dealing would have been really nice, but the problem is that Trump was never that guy.
	And this is a point where presidential relations does matter.
	You know, there's sort of this assumption that, look, here's what's going to happen.
	All these senators are going to vote against tax reform.
	Trump's going to blame McConnell.
	The Trump base will blame McConnell because it's convenient to blame McConnell, and everyone will forget about how Trump said that McCain was not a war hero and suggests that Bob Corker is disgusting and has gone after Rand Paul.
	Now they're friends again, I guess, but they'll be enemies again soon enough.
	None of this is particularly helpful and none of it pushes legislation, which is why a lot of the accomplishments of the Trump administration are basically happening at the executive level.
	Virtually none are happening at the legislative level.
	So in good news, Molly Hemingway reports over at the Federalist that the Trump administration, there have been about 13,000 new regulations added to the federal rules every year for the last 20 years or so.
	The Trump administration has added basically zero.
	That is a very good thing.
	We don't need more useless regulations that have not been approved by the American people.
	So on the executive side, the stuff that Trump can control, it seems like a lot of it is going pretty well.
	The stuff that he can—let's put it this way—the stuff that he can control and is allowing his team to do what they're supposed to do, all of that is going fine.
	Right, all of the regulatory cuts, all of the judicial nominations, all the stuff where he takes his hands off, all that's going fine.
	All the major legislative pushes, though, those are collapsing into sand.
	And there are personality problems here.
	Personalities do matter in politics.
	George W. Bush was a back slapper and a guy who got along with people.
	Barack Obama at least did that with his own party.
	He alienated all the Republicans, but he did that with his own party.
	I don't think that you see the same thing from President Trump, which is kind of amazing.
	I'm not, again, I'm not blaming Trump for all of this because I think the Democrats were motivated to go against him from the very start.
	But Trump came into office as one of the guys on the supposed right side of the aisle who is very friendly with Democrats.
	He'd worked with Chuck Schumer, he'd worked with Nancy Pelosi, and now it seems we've fallen into this basically three-pronged scenario, none of which are fantastic.
	One is, only executive actions get done.
	We can share that, but if Trump loses, then the executive actions get reversed day one.
	Two, Nothing gets done in Congress at all because he can't get his own caucus together.
	And three, he surrenders to Pelosi and Schumer as supposedly he was going to do with DACA.
	None of these are glorious outcomes.
	That's why President Trump really needs to focus and really needs to do a little bit of wooing if we're going to get anything done here at all.
	Now, I want to talk about the crisis among Democrats as well as Bill O'Reilly's controversy in just a second.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Skillshare.
	So, let me just tell you, the job market is incredibly fluid.
	Right?
	The job market is incredibly fluid, meaning that people move job to job.
	You're no longer at the same job for 20 years.
	If you are, it's only because you're constantly increasing and improving your skill set.
	The only way that I know to do this in really effective fashion, repeatedly, is with my friends over at Skillshare.
	They have over 3 million members, more than 17,000 classes.
	It is the Netflix for online learning.
	Skillshare allows you to take classes in things like graphic design, DSLR photography, social media marketing, digital illustration, and much more.
	And Skillshare classes are taught by industry experts and experienced professionals.
	Perfect if you're looking to build your career or start the side hustle of your dreams.
	So I have personally taken the watercolor class.
	And let me tell you, I am now Monet.
	I'm just amazing at watercolors.
	But beyond that, I'm now taking a more important class, I think, for me anyway, social media marketing.
	And that is very useful in the business that we are in.
	Skillshare allows you to take these 45-minute classes and increase your skill set on a routine basis.
	Next time you're sitting with your boss and your boss says, does anyone in the room know how to do X?
	You're going to know how to do X because you have Skillshare.
	Or at least you can fib.
	Say, I know how to do it.
	Go home.
	Google it.
	Go on Skillshare.
	Find the class that you're looking for.
	And then learn what you need to know.
	Skillshare is giving my listeners a one-month free trial of unlimited access to over 17,000 classes.
	Go to Skillshare.com slash Shapiro.
	That's Skillshare.com slash Shapiro.
	And start your free month today.
	Once you start it, you're not going to want to stop it.
	Skillshare.com slash Shapiro.
	Go check it out.
	Okay.
	So, meanwhile, in other news, the big news over the weekend was, of course, this big report from the New York Times that Bill O'Reilly had apparently paid out a $32 million settlement on some sort of unspecified sexual harassment allegations.
	A New York Times reporter was on television yesterday talking about how Bill O'Reilly was trying to quash the story.
	I don't think he thought he could get us to not write the story, but maybe he thought that he could bully us into not doing it or get us, you know, sort of push us into not doing it.
	It certainly wasn't the type of interview where he tried to charm us.
	It was clear from the beginning that this would be unlike any other interview that I certainly had ever been in.
	Where, you know, he was going to as hard as he could to make the case that this was not fair and that we weren't really following the facts.
	And we spent a lot of time there just asking him questions to try and learn as much as possible.
	Okay, so this obviously did not work.
	The New York Times ended up writing a very, very lengthy hit piece on Bill O'Reilly.
	O'Reilly is fighting back against what he called lies and smears.
	Megyn Kelly, as we played yesterday, said that she had complained to the administrators over at Fox News about Bill O'Reilly's treatment of women going back years and years and years.
	There's a settlement from Fox News and Bill O'Reilly with regard to one of his producers, a woman named Andrea Macris, who I had once met when she was producing O'Reilly's show.
	That's when you heard all of the tapes about Bill O'Reilly basically calling her up and leaving messages on her machine of a sexual nature.
	She posted, so Bill O'Reilly has posted on his website three notes.
	So one is from Megan Kelly and her husband.
	It says, Dear Bill, what a class act you are coming to my baby shower.
	I was truly touched.
	I know how busy you are, especially that time of day.
	It meant a lot to me and Doug.
	And thank you for the darling bodysuits and snuggly.
	It's hard to believe we'll soon have a little human being in our lives tiny enough to fit in this.
	You become a dear friend no matter what you say, and I'm grateful to have you in my life.
	Uh, and then, uh, there's another one from Megan Kelly that said, And then there's one from Gretchen Carlson who also has suggested there's reality to the rumors about, about Bill O'Reilly.
	So this is being used as proof that Bill O'Reilly did not do all of these things.
	So, a couple of things.
	One, very hard to imagine a personal $32 million settlement in a case where there's no evidence.
	Very, very difficult to imagine that.
	So all of this is alleged, because settlements are confidential, but difficult to imagine nothing happened here.
	Difficult to imagine, and I have a feeling more stories are going to come out in the near future.
	Second, these thank you notes don't really say a lot.
	The reason I say they don't say a lot is because People write thank you notes to each other all the time for attending events.
	They're constantly saying nice things and polite things to each other because they need them for career purposes or because they work for them or work with them that they don't actually mean.
	I mean, if you go back and read my book Bullies, I say some nice things about Steve Bannon that I can say, in all fairness, were probably motivated by the fact that I was working for Steve Bannon at the time.
	In any case, I don't think that that stuff is particularly rare in the business, because again, everybody needs to scratch each other's back when it comes career time, but that doesn't say anything about the nature of these allegations.
	O'Reilly also released an affidavit from a woman named Les Wheel, or Liss Wheel, sorry.
	She's a former Fox News legal analyst, and he claims on his website the affidavit repudiates all allegations against him, but this is not true.
	Basically, the affidavit says, from List Wheel, that she's known Bill O'Reilly for over 18 years.
	We have worked together, we have socialized, and on occasion, I gave him legal advice.
	And it says, Well, of course not.
	Once you settle, that bars you from making the allegations in the draft complaint, so that doesn't help at all.
	Well, of course not.
	Once you settle, that bars you from making the allegations in the draft complaint, so that doesn't help at all.
	It says, additionally, over the years while I was acting as Bill O'Reilly's counsel, he forwarded to me certain explicit emails that were sent to him and any advice sought or rendered as attorney-client privilege confidential and private.
	I have no claims against Bill O'Reilly concerning any of those emails or any of the allegations in the draft complaint.
	Right, again, once you settle things, you can't sue based on them.
	So, because the settlement is approved by the court.
	So, the idea that Bill O'Reilly is off the hook on this, not legally true, just as a lawyer.
	Says, also, I've reached an accommodation with Fox News regarding the termination of my employment.
	I have no claims against Fox News.
	Again, she doesn't have claims against Fox News because she settled all of them.
	So, that doesn't tend to do much.
	The reason that I point this out is because there's going to be a tendency that I think we all ought to avoid on both sides to say, Harvey Weinstein is guilty because I'm right-wing, or Bill O'Reilly is innocent because I'm right-wing, or vice versa, on the left.
	And you see the ratings on CNN and MSNBC.
	Every time they talk Weinstein, according to Yashar Ali over at Huffington Post in the Atlantic, he says every time CNN and MSNBC cover Harvey Weinstein, the ratings plummet.
	Every time they cover O'Reilly, the ratings go up.
	That's because people want to believe things about people they don't like.
	So, let's not fall into that trap.
	Given the evidence on the table, a $32 million alleged settlement, and the evidence that O'Reilly has produced, this does not quell my suspicions.
	O'Reilly said yesterday in an interview that he was angry at God.
	If the allegations are true, I have a feeling the feeling might be mutual.
	Again, I don't think that we should make light of people on our own side doing bad things just because they're on our own side.
	Speaking of which, The Democrats continue to defend Hillary Clinton, which is very exciting.
	So, the new allegations about Hillary Clinton have basically been that Hillary Clinton sold essentially 20% of the uranium of the United States, or her State Department did, to Rosatom, which was the Russian atomic energy agency.
	And that, at the same time, the Russians were giving all sorts of money to the Clinton Foundation, the FBI and DOJ knew about it and did nothing.
	Hillary Clinton came out yesterday and she said, no, no, no, all this has been debunked, don't you understand?
	It's been debunked.
	I would say it's the same baloney they've been peddling for years.
	And there's been no credible evidence by anyone.
	In fact, it's been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked.
	But here's what they're doing.
	And really, I have to give them credit.
	You know, Trump and his allies, including Fox News, are really experts at distraction and diversion.
	So the closer the investigation about real Russian ties between Trump associates and real Russians, as we heard Jeff Sessions finally admit to in his testimony the other day, the more they want to just throw mud on the wall and I'm their favorite target, me and, you know, President Obama.
	We're the ones that they always like to put into the crosshairs.
	So what she's saying here, first of all, I do, I love C-SPAN book TV.
	I've been on it a couple of times.
	It's always a lot of fun.
	I do like they're doing this from her kitchen, apparently, like from grandma's kitchen.
	But in any case, Hillary Clinton saying that she's completely innocent, this is why she lost, right?
	I mean, one of the reasons she lost is because she obviously wasn't.
	And most of the evidence that is now coming out about events that happened with regard to Russia actually is blowing back on things like the Podesta Group, not on Trump per se, at least the stuff that's being leaked.
	So we still have to reserve our judgment on what exactly has happened here, but it doesn't look good for Hillary Clinton, and people on the left who are willing to sort of brush away all of this are making a mistake I think.
	Trey Gowdy, who is the head of the House Investigative Subcommittee, House Judiciary and Oversight Committee, he announced on Tuesday a joint investigation into how the FBI handled last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
	This, I think, is completely appropriate because, once again, I think it's pretty clear that James Comey had pre-decided the outcome of how this is going to work.
	Before it actually happens.
	So that is another controversy that just will not die.
	Okay, so I want to get to some things I like, some things I hate, and then we'll deconstruct a little bit of culture.
	So let's jump right in.
	So let's begin with things I like today.
	So, things I like.
	I just finished reading all the way through Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed.
	So people are constantly asking what's a good book about kind of Jewish philosophy.
	There's a pretty sophisticated book about Jewish philosophy by Moses Maimonides who is One, probably the most famous rabbi in the post-biblical era, Maimonides Rambam, as he's called in the Jewish community because he's Moses ben Maimon, so Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, R-M-B-M, right, Oresh, Mem, Betmem.
	So Rambam was the author of the Guide for the Perplexed.
	This was a series of letters that he basically wrote to one of his students all about trying to square religion with secularism.
	And it's quite fascinating, especially because There's a bit of a misconception inside some parts of the Orthodox Jewish community that secular learning doesn't play a role in how great rabbinic minds have thought about the world.
	Half of this book is basically a restatement of Aristotelian theories about the creation of the universe and arguments about it.
	My mom was deeply engaged in secular culture and that's what makes the Guide for the Perplexed so interesting.
	He talks about the questions of free will versus determinism.
	He talks about the questions of God's providence over the universe.
	He talks about questions about why bad things happen to good people.
	It's really interesting.
	This thing was written in the 11th, in the 12th century rather.
	And it's still readable.
	This translation that you see up on your screen here was written, I think it was 1979, and it's a pretty good translation.
	Now, it is sophisticated.
	You should probably do some reading about Aristotle before you read this.
	I would suggest, as I've mentioned, Edward Fazer's books on Aristotelian theory.
	That gives you a good background in this.
	What's really fascinating culturally is that the Guide for the Perplexed was basically written at about the same time as Thomas Aquinas was writing Summa Theologica, and they mirror a lot of their logic.
	Which makes a lot of sense, because Aquinas was a Christian thinker who believed in the Old Testament, and Moses Maimonides was a Jewish thinker who believed in the Old Testament, and both of them believed in Aristotle.
	So the attempts to square Aristotelian theory with Judeo-Christian belief is one of their missions.
	It's something in which I deeply believe.
	Go watch my speech at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, if you're interested in seeing how I think this plays into the American founding.
	I'm actually writing a book on all of this right now that I'm looking forward to pushing out probably sometime next year.
	Okay, other things that I like.
	So yesterday, I showed you the CNN ad talking about how an apple is just an apple, unless, of course, it's not.
	So a fellow named Greg Tomlin, friend of mine, producer over at Michael Medved's show, he cut this ad in response to the CNN ad.
	This is a man.
	Some people might try to tell you it's a woman.
	They might scream woman, woman, woman over and over and over again.
	They might put woman in all caps.
	You might even start to believe that this is a woman.
	But it's not.
	This is a man.
	So thanks to Greg Tomlin, very funny stuff.
	Obviously, CNN does not believe that, which is why whenever they do the, we are the fact network, you just go, um, no.
	Okay, time for a couple of things I hate, then we'll deconstruct some culture.
	So, things that I hate.
	So speaking of useless invocation of racism for no particular reason except to annoy people, Jesse Jackson, who again should really have very little to say about things racial.
	Jesse Jackson, given the fact that, you know, he used to call New York hymetown and such, Jesse Jackson I made the statement on Undisputed on Fox Sports 1.
	First of all, I don't know why Jesse Jackson is even on a sports channel.
	Why is Jesse Jackson on a sports channel?
	I love that Rush Limbaugh was booted off ESPN for saying that Donovan McNabb was overrated.
	And Jesse Jackson, it's totally fine for him to be on a sports channel talking about his perspectives on sports.
	What he's about to say here is so utterly nuts that I just have to play it for you.
	Here's Jesse Jackson.
	All the fraudulences around the world owe their wages and their benefits to Kurt Lloyd, who paid the price of rebelling against a system of oppression.
	And it is oppressive to go from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs without freedom.
	It's not very much progress.
	It's just a lateral move.
	And what strikes me is that in football, the reason why so many guys are standing, when the president says, fire them, and you're talking about sons of bitches.
	These boys are not sons of bitches.
	They're sons of mothers who produce champions.
	They're not sons of bitches.
	They're sons of mothers who produce champions.
	That's what they really are.
	Okay, so I don't understand what he's saying in the last part because Jesse Jackson's patterns of speech are difficult to decipher sometimes, but what he is saying at the beginning there is he says that to go from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs without freedom is not very much progress.
	This is so insane.
	It's so insipid.
	To suggest that the football players who are earning millions of dollars to play football, or basketball players who are earning millions of dollars to play basketball, and they don't have freedom?
	They can say whatever they want off the court.
	They can do whatever they want off the field.
	You know, this idea they don't have freedom.
	I am an employee, right?
	Or I have employees.
	If my employees speak out in, you know, in terrible, awful, evil ways, there are punishments and there are consequences.
	Okay?
	The idea that Jesse Jackson is going to go around saying that employees are the same as slaves is just insipid.
	And again, it's insulting to slaves.
	I mean, you're really going to equate, like, Steph Curry with a slave?
	I don't think Steph Curry would do that.
	But if this is the line that we're going to use from now on, then race relations are basically dead.
	Okay, other things that I hate.
	This cartoon appeared in the Berkeley student newspaper a couple of days ago.
	Alan Dershowitz was speaking on Berkeley's student campus.
	This one is directly from Der Sturmer.
	I mean, this is completely from, you know, the Nazi newspapers.
	It's a very ugly picture of Alan Dershowitz with the hooked nose and the fat lips.
	And it says, the liberal case for Israel.
	And there's sort of a board that he's putting his face through, speaking to students.
	And then behind the board, There's a foot stomping what appears to be a Palestinian person with a Palestinian flag, and in his hand, an IDF soldier shooting a child.
	This is just pure anti-Semitic drivel.
	The idea that, number one, IDF soldiers are just going around shooting Palestinian children for no reason at all, for fun of it, and that Alan Dershowitz is being paid off by these people because he's a Jewish front, basically for evil Jews.
	You could legitimately remove the caption, the liberal case for Israel, and just write Judaism.
	And then you could remove the caption IDF and just put a Jewish star, and this would look like it's directly from a Nazi newspaper.
	No retractions from the UC Berkeley newspaper.
	Pretty insane stuff.
	Okay.
	Quickly, we're going to deconstruct the culture, and then I have a surprise for frequent listeners of The Ben Shapiro Show.
	Deconstructing the culture.
	Every Tuesday, we take a little bit of culture and we deconstruct it.
	So, here is the culture we are going to deconstruct today.
	Eminem, who also appears to be basically Mike Pence.
	He's sort of turned into Mike Pence.
	When he takes off that hat, he's got the white hair and their hair, they look identical.
	Eminem, in an attempt to seek relevance, has decided to alienate half of his audience by suggesting that President Trump is evil, and he did a freestyle rap to this effect at the Black Entertainment Television Awards.
	Here's what he said.
	Okay, so this is the genius of Eminem.
	We've heard that this man is akin to Beethoven.
	This is only Beethoven after he had suffered from lead poisoning, presumably.
	Even then, Beethoven was still writing good stuff deaf and poisoned by lead.
	I'm pretty sure that's not equivalent.
	He's a genius because he can come up with a bunch of near rhymes for the word pot.
	Congratulations.
	This is just genius stuff.
	I also like that cultural appropriation is fine so long as you're a leftist who hates Trump, right?
	So he's culturally appropriating a lot of obvious, you know, black rap culture here, clearly.
	I mean, this has been Eminem's schtick for a very long time.
	And then he can use phrases like this.
	Now I got a hatchet like a damn Apache would a tomahawk.
	Totally fine, right?
	No cultural appropriation there, nothing insulting there, right?
	That's not insulting in any way, but that's just because he is just a genius leftist who hates President Trump.
	Apparently, he attended an NBA game in Detroit, and he was cheered.
	Kid Rock, however, was booed.
	Kid Rock, by the way, says he's no longer going to run for Senate.
	So, just like General Sherman, if nominated, he will not run.
	If elected, he will not serve.
	Kid Rock has now stated the same, except he screamed really loud and said, Okay, other things.
	Final deconstructing the culture point.
	Mark Wahlberg has now come out and repented for doing the movie Boogie Nights.
	Now, I've never actually seen this film.
	I've heard that it's a very good movie.
	Mathis, you've seen the movie?
	No.
	So, I've heard that it's good, but it is obviously a glorification of the pornography industry, is the idea of it anyway.
	And he said he asked God to forgive him for some of his past movie roles, especially Boogie Nights.
	He was speaking with Cardinal Blaise Cupich in Chicago this past weekend, And he said, I hope God is a movie fan and also forgiving because I've made some poor choices in my past.
	And he said, the Boogie Nights is up there at the top of the list.
	Good for him.
	I mean, good for him.
	I believe in the capacity for redemption and forgiveness.
	That's one of the things religion is all about.
	And it's good to see some people in Hollywood who have the capacity to look back at things that they've done and say, perhaps that was a bad idea.
	Okay, now.
	I have a surprise for all of you.
	The surprise is that for years, literally years, here on The Ben Shapiro Show, you have heard me talk about Birchgold.
	And you have wondered, who are these Birchgold people?
	What do they do?
	Why are they special?
	Well, joining us here on The Ben Shapiro Show, we decided to have on Philip.
	He's a precious metals specialist from Birchgold.
	Philip, welcome to The Ben Shapiro Show.
	Thanks for having me, Ben.
	Okay, so first of all, cool accent.
	Second of all, let's start by asking you, where do you think the market is going right now?
	Look, I mean, it looks tough.
	You look at the big picture, and we have, I think, a number of different problems.
	Debt currently is a big issue here in the United States.
	We're holding more debt than we ever have before.
	And of course, the stock market looks problematic, to say the least.
	I mean, it's been going up and up and up and up.
	But it's the nature of that growth, I think, that has been so concerning.
	Look, for example, at stock prices versus company earnings.
	Historically out of proportion in today's climate.
	We've seen it in two other occasions.
	Historically, 29 before the crash that ultimately sparked the Great Depression, and more recently in the year 2000.
	So the numbers are not looking good.
	Okay, so given that fact, I've said many times on the show that one way to protect yourself is to diversify by investing in precious metals, but what makes Birch Gold different than other groups of people who are trying to sell precious metals?
	Look, I think there's a number of things.
	First of all, you look at our track record.
	We have A-plus ratings with the Better Business Bureau, longevity, and a solid history.
	More than that, I would say the approach.
	I mean, look, we know that there are tough times.
	And I think in tough times, the fear monger has come out.
	That's one thing that we're, you know, very, we stress a lot.
	There is a rational argument for precious metals in today's climate and I think fear just clouds the decision-making process.
	So we guide our clients through very carefully and we make sure that things are done effectively.
	And that honesty is something that I definitely appreciate.
	Can you explain sort of how a client goes through the process if they want to get involved with Birch Gold?
	Do they call you up?
	Do they go to your website?
	And then how does that process actually work?
	Of course.
	I mean they can go to our website birchgold.com slash ben.
	They can get a free info kit there.
	Typically our clients will contact us and we will guide them through the process so we have an understanding of what they're trying to achieve.
	We can make recommendations and really handle the process from start to finish.
	Whether it's a cash purchase or protecting IRA funds, we handle everything.
	And that's one of the things that I really appreciate about you guys, that you are honest about looking at people's financial situations and helping them come to the correct conclusions.
	So again, it's birchgold.com slash Ben if you want to go check it out.
	And they are the people that I trust with precious metals investment.
	As I said before, you know, everyone I think should have at least some of their money in precious metals.
	And right now, one of the things that you've been pitching for a while is the idea that you can shift your 401k or IRA into precious metals IRA.
	How would that work?
	Absolutely.
	So first of all, one can move all or a portion of any 401k or IRA that you have.
	In terms of the mechanics, it's very simple.
	I always say to clients, you need to determine what you're looking to do, how much you're looking to work with.
	But at that point, we can handle the process.
	I mean, we have an in-house IRA department.
	They will fill out paperwork and essentially manage the heavy lifting between custodians.
	So we do the work.
	The client makes the decision, of course.
	Well, folks, if you're interested in investing with Birchgold, then you can talk to somebody like Philip by going over to birchgold.com slash Ben.
	Who knows if you get that accent on the other end of the phone, then it is Philip.
	But in any case, Philip, thanks for joining the show.
	Really appreciate it.
	Thanks for having me.
	Okay, so tomorrow we'll be back with much, much more.
	We'll give you the update on the tax plan, and I would like to talk a little bit more about some of the good stuff that's happening that people aren't talking about.
	We'll get to all of that tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

▲