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Nov. 22, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

47:34

So Many Turkeys, So Little Time | Ep. 423

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	So, a feminist just made the worst argument of all time.
	President Donald Trump is back at war with LeVar Ball, and he finally has comments on Roy Moore.
	Plus, Thanksgiving is coming up, and we'll go through the Thanksgiving mailbag.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	So because it is a shortened week, we will have the opportunity to do the mailbag for you.
	So that's why you need to be a subscriber right now, because that means you get to be part of the live mailbag today.
	But before we get to any of the myriad news items that are on the table on this, the day before Thanksgiving, and we have a lot to be thankful for.
	I mean, Hillary Clinton isn't the president.
	Judge Gorsuch.
	Donald Trump continues to tweet, like lots of things for us here at The Ben Shapiro Show to be thankful for.
	But before we get to any of those things, first I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Dollar Shave Club.
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	Okay, so.
	A lot of news to get to today.
	I feel like starting on an up note because, come on, vacation is about to start in Los Angeles.
	We're never going to escape.
	It's basically the zombie apocalypse out there.
	You get on the freeways, and it looks like the road out of Atlanta in the poster from The Walking Dead.
	It's just a bunch of people who have their desiccated corpses kind of hung over their steering wheels because no one can get out of the city.
	But everyone is happy because it's Thanksgiving Day, and in that mode, I think that it is time for us to bring back our newest And for the moment, our favorite segment of the Ben Shapiro Show, of course, I refer to none other than Eloquent Trump.
	Ah, yes.
	Eloquent Trump.
	Yeah, we used to have Good Trump and Bad Trump.
	Now we just have Eloquent Trump, because some things are beyond good and evil, as Nietzsche would say.
	And therefore, in the mode of Nietzsche, we look at the rhetoric.
	Is it Apollonia's or Dionysian?
	President Trump, familiar with all of these terms, of course.
	So today, he tweeted out at LeVar Ball.
	And LeVar Ball, as you know, is a dummy.
	So LeVar Ball, as we have said, is the father of LiAngelo Ball, who's a UCLA basketball player who was arrested in China for shoplifting.
	And LeVar Ball has said he will not say thank you to President Trump because he's an adult.
	President Trump feels that it is absolutely of necessity that he tweet back at LeVar Ball so we can have this clash of the intellectual titans.
	So here is what he tweeted today.
	He's not gonna let this thing go.
	I gotta tell you, you know, when I was a kid and I had my bar mitzvah, Got lots of money.
	Got lots of presents.
	And one of the things that my mother said is that you have to write thank you notes to every person who gave you a present.
	There was nothing I hated in life more than writing those thank you notes.
	I despised it.
	It was terrible.
	Because she insisted that I handwrite every one of them.
	I couldn't just send like a group email.
	I then had to personalize it and say, thank you so much for this useless gift that I will never use.
	Signed, Ben.
	And can't wait to see you.
	It took me months to write those thank-you notes, so I have a particular place in my heart that despises people who sit around at their mailbox and wait for the thank-you note.
	And there were those people, okay?
	There were people who legitimately would call up my grandmother, and they'd be like, you know, I gave the gift, and I never received a thank-you note.
	It's like, the hell's wrong with you?
	Like, who cares whether you received a thank-you note or not?
	I thought that the joy of giving was actually the giving, not the receipt of the useless thank-you note that will end up in your garbage after I spend money on the postage.
	President Trump, I have to say, he's got the feel of a guy who gives a gift and then sits around for three months waiting for the thank you note and then calls my grandmother because here is what he just tweeted.
	Quote, it's so eloquent.
	It wasn't the White House.
	It wasn't the State Department.
	It wasn't Father LeVar's so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of long-term prison sentence.
	It was me.
	Too bad.
	LeVar is just a poor man's version of Don King, but without the hair.
	Yeah, it's a funny line.
	Just think.
	And then he continues.
	Along these lines, LaVar, you could have spent the next five to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you.
	But remember, LaVar, shoplifting is not a little thing.
	It's really a big deal, especially in China.
	Ungrateful fool!
	I pity the fool!
	So President Trump really going full out this morning at 2.33 a.m.
	Pacific time.
	So he was up early on the East Coast, and something about that not receiving the thank you note from LaVar Ball has really bothered him.
	Now, two things hit me short at once.
	LaVar Ball can be Don King without the hair.
	And also, the President of the United States probably has better things to do, I would think, than tweeting about LaVar Ball.
	But no, I do have to say, there's something really hilarious about the fact that he called him Don King without hair.
	You know who campaigned for Donald Trump, right?
	Don King.
	You remember that?
	Like, it happened during the campaign.
	And it was a big deal, because people were saying Don King is like a convicted murderer, which he is.
	So it was like a big deal during the campaign, but now LaVar Ball is Don King.
	You gotta love it.
	This is America now, man.
	It's a reality TV show.
	And the eloquence is just spectacular.
	So, this has been Eloquent Trump.
	Thank you for that just spectacular job, Mr. President.
	Okay, so in other news, sometimes you have to start with the fun stuff.
	In other news, President Trump has finally commented on Roy Moore.
	So after weeks of basically keeping silent on Roy Moore, the Senate Republican Alabama candidate who has been credibly accused of child molestation or of ephebophilia.
	He was trying to hit on and have sex with 14 and 16 year old girls when he was in his 30s.
	The allegations are credible.
	I keep getting mail from people saying, how do you know the allegations are credible?
	Because I have a simple rule of thumb.
	If these same allegations, with supporting evidence, were made about a Democrat, I would be very upset.
	If they were made about a Republican, I am similarly upset.
	This is what it's like to have a simple standard.
	Okay?
	It's not that I would have let Bill Clinton off the hook with this stuff.
	I wouldn't have let him off the hook.
	That's the point.
	Now, as to how you vote in the Alabama Senate race, as I have said, I would stay home.
	I would not vote for an alleged, a credibly alleged child molester.
	But I would certainly not vote for Doug Jones's opponent, because Doug Jones's opponent...
	I can tell you one thing for sure.
	what President Trump does well is he crystallizes what the conflict is in the Republican Party and why it is that the Republican Party needs to look beyond this particular election if they actually hope to win future elections.
	So President Trump was asked specifically about Roy Moore and he defends Roy Moore and he basically makes two points.
	Here are his two points. - I can tell you one thing for sure.
	We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones, I've looked at his record, It's terrible on crime.
	It's terrible on the border.
	It's terrible in the military.
	I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody that's going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment.
	Is an accused child molester better than a Democrat?
	Is an accused child molester better than a Democrat?
	Well, he denies it.
	Look, he denies it.
	I mean, if you look at what is really going on, and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it.
	He says it didn't happen.
	And, you know, you have to listen to him also.
	You're talking about, he said 40 years ago this did not happen.
	Okay, so he's making two arguments here.
	Okay, argument number one is an argument that, as we would say in law school, is an argument that proves too much.
	It's too broad.
	So he basically says that Doug Jones is a liberal Democrat.
	We don't need a liberal Democrat in the Senate.
	I, of course, completely agree.
	I do not want more liberal Democrats in the Senate.
	I don't want people like Doug Jones in the Senate.
	Here is Doug Jones talking yesterday about his perspective on abortion.
	He is a radical on abortion.
	This would be clip three, if we can grab that.
	Here is Doug Jones being asked on national television about his perspective on abortion.
	Not a particularly impressive candidate.
	Here he is.
	I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body.
	And I'm going to stand up for that, and I'm going to make sure that that continues to happen.
	I want to make sure that as we go forward, people have access to contraception, they have access to the abortion that they might need, if that's what they choose to do.
	I think that that's going to be an issue that we can work with and talk to people about from both sides of the aisle.
	It's one of those issues that I see.
	But you wouldn't legislate, so you wouldn't be in favor of legislation that said ban abortion after 20 weeks or something like that?
	Now I'm not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman's right and her freedom to choose.
	That's just the position that I've had for many years.
	It's the position I continue to have.
	But when those people, I want to make sure people understand that once a baby is born, I'm going to be there for that child.
	That's where I become a right to life.
	Okay, so he becomes a right-to-life for after they're born, but before they're born, he's a right-to-death-er.
	So that's exciting.
	So Doug Jones is indeed very, very radical on this.
	He's way too radical for the state of Alabama.
	Now, here's the problem.
	President Trump makes an argument, and he says, we don't need people like Doug Jones in the Senate.
	Therefore, he should vote for Roy Moore.
	Here's my problem with this argument.
	This is an argument, as we say, that proves too much, because You know, you could presumably have an actual murderer running for Senate against Doug Jones, and Trump would then say, okay, so he's a genocidal murderer.
	Hitler is running against Doug Jones, but at least Hitler has the right votes on tax cuts.
	At some point, you gotta draw the line, I would imagine.
	And that's why President Trump is actually hesitant to just say, well, make the full David Horowitz argument.
	I've mentioned the David Horowitz argument before.
	David's very extreme on this, and he basically makes the argument that I just stated.
	It's fine if it's Stalin, so long as Stalin votes my way.
	You know, Trump shies away from that.
	Trump says, well, he denies it.
	He denies it.
	That's a convenient way of escaping this particular debacle, that he denies it.
	I do have to say, there's a bit of hypocrisy to how President Trump uses the he denies it line.
	Trump says the same thing about Vladimir Putin, you know, being involved in the hacking of the DNC.
	He says he denies it.
	He denies it.
	So, on the stuff where Trump is credulous, the stuff that he believes, it's always the stuff that he personally agrees with.
	So, Rafael Cruz shot JFK, right?
	Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK.
	The National Enquirer is a perfectly believable publication.
	They should win Pulitzers.
	A lot of people are saying, a lot of people, a lot.
	Right, a lot of people are saying stuff.
	And then all of a sudden we're supposed to give a credence, right?
	A lot of people, I have been told by sources, the birth certificate is a fraud.
	A fraud!
	Right?
	On that stuff, President Trump is incredibly credulous, but when it comes to the allegations against Roy Moore, then it's, Moore denies it, so what are we supposed to do?
	I think that that is Trump attempting to avoid the horns of a dilemma.
	The reason that Trump is doing this is, number one, because I think that he has a gut-level response to the media piling on anybody that he perceives on his side of the aisle.
	He thinks that those pylons are politically motivated, as they very much are.
	So he's not wrong about that.
	The other thing is that Trump benefits politically from backing Roy Moore.
	If he were to throw Roy Moore over, people are saying it's an act of bravery for him to stand by Roy Moore.
	No, it's actually an act of political cowardice for a couple of reasons.
	Number one, the real benefit for Trump is if he stands by Moore.
	Why?
	Because he already lost to Roy Moore in the primary.
	He backed Luther Strange and then Roy Moore won.
	And so if Trump loses again, if he does not back Roy Moore, let's say he doesn't back Roy Moore and Roy Moore wins.
	Then it's Trump has no impact on these races, right?
	Trump is useless.
	And if he doesn't back Roy Moore and Roy Moore loses, then a lot of his base, led by people like Steve Bannon, are going to blame Trump and say that he's been co-opted by McConnell.
	So Trump isn't going to play that game.
	He's going to back Roy Moore.
	If Roy Moore loses, then Trump is going to say, well, he lost because he was a child molester.
	And if Roy Moore wins, Trump is going to say, well, he won because I stood up for him.
	against Doug Jones.
	So politically speaking, that's why Trump is doing what he's doing.
	As far as the payoff here, you know, let's put aside the moral argument.
	I guess the moral argument is relevant here.
	So there are a lot of people who are saying, okay, you back Roy Moore because Doug Jones is an abortion fanatic.
	Right?
	We're about the policy.
	We don't want another vote for abortion.
	We don't want another vote against a good Supreme Court candidate.
	So you've got to back Roy Moore no matter how bad Roy Moore is.
	This is a moral argument that the ends justify the means.
	Here's the problem.
	I don't think that in the long run the ends are going to justify the means.
	I don't think you're going to reach your ends.
	Here's my evidence.
	Back in 2006, the Republican Party was running well behind the Democrats in the Congressional Generic Ballot.
	They were running anywhere from 8 to 10 points behind the Democrats in the Congressional Generic Ballot.
	Then come late September, there was, September 2006, there was a scandal that broke.
	Mark Foley was a Republican congressperson from Florida who'd been closeted, he was gay, and he'd been having sex with one of the Congressional pages.
	And this congressional page revealed that information, and it turned out that the Republican leadership in the House had known about this for a couple of months and had basically kept it quiet.
	And when this broke, suddenly that D plus 8 jumped up to D plus 20.
	You can go back and look at the polls.
	And the Republicans ended up getting wiped out.
	Completely wiped out.
	Republicans in the 2006 congressional election lost not only the majority, they lost it by an enormous number of seats.
	The Democrats took a 233 to 202 lead in the House.
	It was an astonishing result.
	The House results were disastrous for the Republicans.
	On net, the Democrats won 31 seats, the Republicans lost 30 seats.
	The Republicans went from a 30-seat House majority to a 31-seat minority in the House.
	It was a 61-seat swing in 2006.
	That wasn't entirely due to the Mark Foley scandal, but the Mark Foley scandal certainly did not help.
	Certainly did not help.
	Here's the problem.
	If you are perceived as the party that greenlights child molestation because you're attempting to avoid a vote for abortion, then you are going to be labeled as the party of evil.
	This is just what you're going to do.
	And this is the attack the media are taking.
	They're not going to acknowledge the moral complexity of the means versus ends discussion.
	They're going to say, you just can't vote for a child molester, which is something with which I basically agree.
	And then they are also going to say, That even the people who vote for Roy Moore in order to stop Doug Jones, those people are basically letting child molestation go.
	So Katie Turr over at MSNBC is already making this case.
	Roy Moore is going to be an albatross around the neck of every Republican who doesn't vote to expel him in the Senate.
	Going to be an albatross around the neck of every Republican who doesn't answer questions about Roy Moore from now until the 2018 election.
	Here's Katie Turr making this case.
	It is a brutal question, but one that requires asking in this political environment under this president.
	Which does this White House view as worse?
	An accused pedophile or a Democrat?
	Okay, so there are a couple of problems with the way that she's putting this.
	Number one, you're assuming the guilt of Roy Moore.
	Okay, so I think he's guilty, but the other thing that you have to ask is, You know, what people will say is there are political dimensions to this, obviously.
	We're not just voting for an accused Democrat versus an alleged shot molester.
	We're voting for the person and how he votes.
	You know, we're voting for his vote, basically.
	Again, the problem that I have is that the backlash against the Republicans is going to be so strong for this nationally.
	Forget about Alabama for a second.
	Nationally.
	Okay, the backlash is strong enough that Roy Moore right now is running neck and neck in an Alabama Senate race where he should be winning by 20 points.
	Instead, there's a possibility, I don't think it's high, but I think there's a possibility he loses this race to Doug Jones, a hardcore Democrat in one of the reddest states in America.
	How do you think that's going to play across the country?
	You think the Democrats aren't going to put every Republican on television who won't say that they back, who won't say that they distance themselves from an alleged child molester?
	John Heilemann is doing this routine too.
	This is the drum the media is going to beat.
	Yeah, I'm going to play this and then I'm going to explain why I think that the Republican perspective on this, which is to kind of get their backs up, may be wrong here.
	So here he is.
	What's worse, a child predator or a neo-Nazi?
	I'm not going to make a call on that.
	They're both pretty bad, but Donald Trump does not seem to find a problem with being on the side of the neo-Nazis, and apparently he doesn't find a problem in being on the side of the accused child predators either.
	So this is the line that the Democrats are going to use.
	A lot of people are saying, well, Trump will stand up to them, right?
	Trump is standing up to them because he's saying that Moore is innocent.
	It doesn't matter whether he thinks Moore is innocent.
	It matters whether the public thinks Moore is innocent.
	The public overall does not think that Moore is innocent.
	Beyond that, Republicans are saying, well, if we don't stand and fight, what, are we just going to back down every time there's an allegation?
	No.
	You're going to back down when there are credible allegations.
	You're going to back down when there are credible allegations.
	Because it is not moral to stand by these people.
	Now, there is a school of thought that says, on the right, well, the left does it too, so we'll be able to fight them to a draw.
	Sort of how there were allegations of sexual harassment against Trump during 2016, as Trump wheeled and hit the Clintons, and so it all ended up coming out in the wash.
	Maybe we'll be able to do the same thing with the Democrats.
	There's a possibility here.
	If you look at how the Democrats are treating Al Franken, for example, they're treating Al Franken in basically the same way Republicans are treating Roy Moore.
	Here's a Democratic senator, I think it's Mary Hirono from Hawaii.
	She's talking about how we shouldn't be talking about Al Franken stepping down.
	Do you think he should resign?
	I think that that is a distraction to be talking about resignation, because what's really at the bottom of this whole issue of sexual harassment is that it is pervasive in our culture, and And Al will be going through the ethics probe.
	He'll be cooperating, and that's appropriate, because people who— So it's a distraction, right?
	So a lot of Republicans are saying, listen, if the Democrats are going to play this off as a distraction, why can't the Republicans do the same thing?
	The Republicans can't do the same thing for two reasons.
	One, the media.
	The real reason is that the allegations against Franken are bad.
	The allegations against Roy Moore are a lot worse.
	Okay, they are a lot worse.
	Attempted sexual molestation of a 14-year-old girl is a lot worse than groping an adult woman's breast while she is sleeping.
	I'm sorry.
	Two things can be bad and one can be much worse.
	And the ramifications for the Roy Moore thing are going to be worse for the Republicans, particularly because the Republicans hold themselves out as having a higher moral standard.
	This is the benefit of being a Democrat.
	When you say you have no moral standards, no one expects you to have moral standards.
	When you say as a Republican you have moral standards and that you stand for character in office, then people expect you to do that.
	I do think that there is a reckoning that's going to happen here, and I think that Republicans don't really expect it coming.
	When it comes, it's going to be very ugly.
	And so, Republicans just better be aware that this could happen.
	Before I go any further, I want to say a quick thank you to our friends over at the U.S.
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	So, back to the hypocrisy on both sides here.
	The Democrats are either shying away from saying Franken has to go.
	Franken will end up staying.
	I think Roy Moore will end up winning his race.
	I think Roy Moore will end up taking his seat.
	I think the Republicans don't have the stomach to actually expel Roy Moore from the Senate.
	I think they're afraid of taking off their own base, even though there would be very little risk to expelling more at that point, because then he would be, his seat would be filled by a Republican governor in Alabama.
	But they'll just say, listen, you guys won't expel Franken, we're not going to expel more, and everybody gets to sit.
	I think that's the most likely outcome here.
	Democrats are willing to get rid of, the hypocrisy is on full display, Democrats are fully willing to get rid of people they no longer find valuable.
	So John Conyers, we talked about yesterday, the representative from Michigan, a Democrat, He has now been, it's now come out that there are sexual harassment settlements that were put into place because he was sexually harassing the help and sexually abusing the help.
	Jeffrey Toobin over on CNN, who's on the left, he says Kanye should go.
	Why?
	Because he's old.
	Not because he's guilty, because he's old.
	He's 88 years old, and anybody who has spent five minutes in Congress watching him in action knows he's out of it.
	He is too old to be in Congress.
	He is not up to the job.
	He is a walking advertisement for term limits.
	I know the Supreme Court has said they are unconstitutional, but it is absolutely outrageous that that man, in that condition, is getting a salary from the taxpayers to do this job.
	It's not because he's guilty, you see.
	It's not because he is guilty.
	It is simply because he is old.
	Right?
	Because he's useless to us.
	And this is the reality, unfortunately, of the situation.
	If Roy Moore were useless, the Republican Party would dump him over in a heartbeat.
	If Al Franken were useless, the Democrats would dump him over in a heartbeat.
	Conyers is useless, so they're dumping him over in a heartbeat.
	Nobody actually has a moral standard with regard to these things.
	But, in terms of who is going to pay, the Republicans always end up paying a larger price for this sort of misconduct than Democrats do.
	They always do.
	That's just the way it goes.
	Why?
	For the same reason the Catholic Church paid a higher price for sexual misconduct than public school teachers do.
	Because when you hold yourself to a higher standard, then you are going to be held to that standard.
	I don't like that that's the way the world works, but that is the way the world of politics works.
	Now, the dumbest comment of yesterday was reserved for a woman named Emily Linden.
	I need to talk about this for a moment.
	Emily Linden is the founder of what's called the Unslut Project.
	So, Emily Linden's Unslut Project is a quote, movement against slut-shaming and sexual bullying.
	It's international.
	It involves all genders, all races, all ages, from all walks of life.
	So here's what she tweeted yesterday about all the sexual harassment, sexual abuse stuff coming out.
	One of the things that we've been talking about on the show is how we can protect innocent men.
	Who are accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault?
	What kind of evidentiary standard do we need?
	Here's what Emily Linden says, and I think this is sort of the opposite of the David Horowitz approach, and in some ways similar to it.
	It's so extreme that it passes the bounds of rationality.
	Emily says, "Here's an unpopular opinion.
	I'm actually not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false sexual assault harassment allegations." Really?
	You're not concerned at all?
	There's a reason that that's an unpopular opinion.
	I mean, Jake Tapper went after Emily Linden.
	He said, did you fail your 7th grade book report on To Kill a Mockingbird?
	I'm actually not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false sexual assault, harassment, allegations, and she went on to say that, you know, if a few innocent men get caught up in the proceedings, then I guess that's just the way that it's going to go.
	This sort of insanity is going to become more and more common as we become more and more polarized as a society.
	If we don't have any rules, then whatever is beneficial to your side is what you're going to do.
	If your side is the side of, quote-unquote, anti-sexual harassment, sexual assault, then there's going to be a group of people who decide that it is important for even innocent people to go away in order to fight that battle.
	As soon as we start letting ends justify means, folks, the definition of morality is trying to balance the ends and the means.
	Suggesting that the ends always justify the means leads you to the logic of Emily Linden or David Horowitz.
	It leads you down some pretty dark paths with regard to what you are willing to do in order to get to an end point.
	And here's the thing, you rarely arrive at that end point.
	You rarely arrive at that end point anyway.
	So the idea that you can use any means to achieve your end It usually doesn't work that way in real life.
	Okay, so, I am going to do some things I like, things I hate, and then we're going to do the mailbag.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Birch Gold.
	So, right now, you're looking at the economy and you're thinking to yourself, the stock market looks good, but it may be inflated.
	What if we don't pass a tax cut in the House and Senate?
	What if there is no continuing economic boom?
	Or, maybe you're just thinking that a lot of this is artificial inflation in terms of the real estate market, for example.
	Whatever you think the economy is going to do, you owe it to yourself to at least hedge your bets a little bit with some precious metals.
	That's why I work with the folks over at Birch Gold Group.
	Right now, thanks to a little-known IRS tax law, you can move your IRA or eligible 401k into an IRA backed by physical gold and silver.
	It's perfect for people who want to ensure their hard-earned retirement savings are protected from the ravages of inflation and any more stock market crashes.
	Okay, so, things I like.
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	Ask all your questions.
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	Again, that's birchgold.com slash ben.
	Use the slash ben so they know that we sent you.
	Okay, so things I like.
	So this is a very dark film.
	Just in Time for Thanksgiving, I thought that I'd give you a depressing movie.
	So the depressing movie stars Jamie Lannister.
	I don't even know how to pronounce this guy's name, but he's a good actor.
	I'm trying to remember who plays him.
	Now I have to look it up.
	Nicholas Koster-Waldum.
	Nicholas Koster-Waldau.
	Okay, Waldau, Waldau, okay.
	In any case, he's the guy who plays Jaime Lannister in "Game of Thrones." Who knew the guy could act?
	He's actually a pretty good actor.
	So there's a movie that's out now called "Shot Caller," and it's about a guy who is a stockbroker who's in a DUI, and the DUI ends in manslaughter.
	So he ends up getting somebody killed in a DUI.
	DUI manslaughter comes with some hard time, and it's basically about how this guy gets sucked into the maw of the prison culture, and how prisons, especially in places like California, because it's in California, how prisons are essentially run by the gangs.
	What guards often say is that they control the locks and they control the doors, but the gangs control the actual prison.
	And so it's about this guy's evolution from stockbroker into a hardcore prison inmate, essentially.
	You know, just the sort of uplifting, cheery thing that you'd want right before Thanksgiving.
	And here's a little bit of the preview.
	It is a well-made film.
	I honestly don't think that baseball constitutes a date night.
	But there are dugout clubs and stuff like that.
	There are dates, it's romantic, and they're free.
	Right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	- All right.
	- Honey, the light! - What? - I killed Tom.
	It's an accident.
	People don't go away for accidents.
	Look, man, I know you're scared.
	But you need to know this.
	You'll be with the big boys.
	So you gotta stand up for yourself.
	Because once you're marked in there... Move!
	It will never end.
	So it's the people who made Drive and Nightcrawler.
	I'm not looking for trouble.
	The fact is, a place like this forces us to become warriors or victims.
	It's got a bunch of big actors who are well-known for other parts.
	So the Punisher is in it.
	The film is well-made.
	It's very creepy.
	It's pretty scary.
	And it does give you a good idea of what goes on in these prisons.
	It's pretty frightening stuff.
	Anyway, the movie's called Shotcaller.
	Not exactly family-friendly, but you can check it out on Netflix.
	I believe it's available.
	Okay, or Amazon Prime.
	It's on Amazon Prime.
	Okay, other things that I like.
	This is the single best, I have to show you this, this is the single best political segue in history.
	It is spectacular.
	This happened on Australian News, and there is a guy who's asked about same-sex marriage, and he's anti-same-sex marriage, and so what he says is, we have higher priorities.
	Watch the segue here, it is magnificent.
	Final observation on the same-sex marriage debate from Bob Katter.
	You know, people are entitled to their sexual proclivities.
	I mean, let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as I'm concerned.
	But I ain't spending any time on it, because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland.
	So we should put the whole country on hold until we sort out that particular problem.
	That is a spectacular segue.
	No matter where you stand on same-sex marriage, there's nothing better than people let a thousand flowers bloom, do whatever you want to do in your bedroom.
	But I'm not going to spend time on it because every three months one person is mauled by a crocodile.
	Just spectacular stuff.
	Well done, random guy from Australia.
	That's a strong argument.
	Okay, time for a thing that I hate.
	So today's thing that I hate, Elizabeth Warren is going around making the rounds.
	She wants to run for president.
	She is one of the least likable human beings on planet Earth.
	I know this because I know Elizabeth Warren.
	My first experience with Elizabeth Warren, she's a professor at Harvard Law School at the time.
	I met her at the top of the W Hotel for a reception for incoming Harvard Law students.
	They're trying to recruit people.
	And she immediately asked me a nasty question about Rush Limbaugh.
	That's who Elizabeth Warren is.
	So now she's very upset because Donald Trump calls her Pocahontas.
	The reason he calls her Pocahontas is because apparently she got her job at Harvard Law, at least in part, by claiming Native American ancestry.
	There is no evidence whatsoever she has any Native American ancestry.
	When asked the evidence for this, she presented a cookbook that she'd written a recipe for called Pow Wow Chow.
	I'm not joking about this.
	And in that cookbook, she gave a recipe for crab bisque.
	He tweeted this.
	is not a common, as far as I'm aware, not a common recipe for the Sioux people in Oklahoma, which is where she's from.
	In any case, she now says that Trump is a racist for calling her Pocahontas.
	She's not a racist for usurping Native American culture and using it to get ahead.
	Trump is a racist for calling her Pocahontas.
	I wish that Trump would use her proper name.
	It's Pocahontas, right?
	Not Pocahontas, Pocahontas.
	In any case, here it is.
	He tweeted this.
	He said, Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats led by the legendary crooked Hillary Clinton rigged the primaries.
	Let's go FBI and Justice Department.
	That must have felt good, the President and you agreed on something.
	Because Jake Tapper did ask you in an interview, do you think that the primaries were rigged?
	And you said yes.
	So let's do both hands.
	The first half, Donald Trump thinks if he's going to start every one of these tweets to me with some kind of racist slur here, that he's going to shut me up.
	It didn't work in the past, it's not going to work in the future.
	Yeah!
	She's standing up!
	Whoa, bravery!
	Look at that bravery!
	I mean, she's brave to wear that jacket, but look at the bravery there!
	Wow.
	The redcoats are coming, man.
	Okay, the level of bravery required to say that somebody is, uh, that's a racist slur.
	It's not a racist slur.
	He's making fun of you for being a racist, for saying that you're Native American when you are not.
	Elizabeth Warren.
	Ah, so tiresome.
	Okay, so we're going to do the mailbag.
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	Okay, it's time for a mailbag-tacular one.
	Let's do it.
	Thanksgiving mailbag.
	So guys, if you have live questions, please, no more questions about, like, pudding or such.
	Like, try to ask good questions so that I can answer them live.
	Okay, so here are some of our subscribers.
	Eric says, Dear Ben.
	A lot of my friends in graduate school are complaining about the new GOP tax plan.
	Supposedly under the new plan, their waived tuition would be counted as personal income and taxed as such.
	What are your thoughts regarding this provision?
	So, this is correct.
	People in graduate school who are receiving waived tuition or who are receiving a salary, that is now part of their income.
	That's taxed as taxable income.
	What are my thoughts regarding this provision?
	My thoughts are basically that if we're going to get rid of all the tax loopholes, the so-called deductions, then what we need to do is lower the income tax rates dramatically.
	The reason that the Republicans are doing this is because they are trying to pay for the corporate tax cuts that are happening.
	So here's the biggest problem with Republicans.
	They never make a strong case for what it is they are doing.
	They're pretending that they are lowering individual tax rates.
	They really are not.
	They're lowering them in very minor ways, some for the middle class, but not particularly much.
	The vast majority of the tax cuts are coming on the corporate side.
	We need corporate tax cuts.
	Our corporate tax rates are the highest in the industrialized world.
	Bring them down to 25-20%.
	That's a good thing.
	It'll be good for business.
	It should happen immediately.
	If it's delayed, then you're going to see the stock market take a little bit of a hit.
	But, with all of that said, The Republicans are trying to make up ground with the individual tax rates by getting rid of a lot of deductions.
	They're actually creating a new income tax bracket for the highest income earners.
	All of that is designed to make sure that the Republicans can sneak in under the wire.
	Because remember, they're using a process called reconciliation in order to only need 51 votes in the Senate to pass something.
	The CBO has to score your bill as revenue neutral, right?
	It can't lose money to the quote-unquote, it can't quote-unquote lose money to the federal government and so in some ways they're clawing back a bunch of money from individual tax returns in order to pay for the corporate tax returns.
	The Democrats, of course, are misclassifying this and suggesting that this is attempting to hurt the middle class.
	The vast majority of people in the middle class will see their taxes go down.
	The people it hurts are people like me, people who are at the upper end of the bracket in places like California.
	Those are the people who are going to get absolutely screwed.
	I'm going to get hammered on taxes under the GOP tax plan.
	But that's what's happening here.
	If you're going to get rid of deductions, I think the income taxes need to come down.
	But let's be real about this.
	What Republicans really should be focusing on right now is reining in spending, not even tax cuts.
	Tax cuts, I think, are really important, but I used to believe in the notion that you could sort of grow your way out of debt.
	I think that we are beyond that now.
	We need some significant cuts, and that's not going to happen because it's too politically unpalatable.
	Tyler says, Dear Ben, if you could stop three bands or films in history from having ever been created, who or what would they be?
	You know, this is a difficult one because I don't like to censor.
	And so I am, you know, not in favor of shutting down people's art and saying that they can't actually make it.
	But here are a few things that I wish had never been made.
	Let's put it that way.
	Birth of a Nation, the original Birth of a Nation, which is a really well done movie by D.W.
	Griffith, but it is also horrifically racist, justifying the KKK and leading to an upswing of the KKK from basically 1916 all the way through the civil rights movement.
	The Birth of a Nation was a really damaging film.
	As far as bans, I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this.
	I don't care.
	The Beatles.
	I think the Beatles did tremendous damage to the society.
	I think the Beatles brought and mainstreamed the drug culture.
	They mainstreamed the promiscuity culture.
	They put out tripe like Imagine.
	Or at least John Lennon did.
	I think for all the catchy music the Beatles made, I think that the messages that they helped promulgate are really, really negative.
	And then I would have to say there are a bunch of TV shows that I think did real damage to sort of our perception as a society.
	One of those shows is a show that my wife loves, the show Friends, I think did real damage to the society.
	It suggested that adults should live like teenagers without responsibility, and they should all be in their 30s single without any children.
	And this is the epitome of happiness.
	It's a shallow lifestyle.
	The text here is backwards, by the way.
	Okay, Amy says, Hi Ben, my husband and I are huge fans, as well as our three-month-old baby, Roman.
	Your voice has been known to hush his crying, and mine too, in this dumpster fire of a culture.
	Well, I appreciate it.
	I'm glad that it's useful for something.
	What one piece of advice would you give to raise him to be an intelligent child who loves to learn?
	Take all of his questions seriously.
	That would be the answer.
	Take all of his questions seriously, and make sure that you actually have logic to support the rules that you are pushing.
	So, the difference between authoritative parenting and authoritarian parenting is that authoritarian parenting says, I'm the boss, I don't have to give you an excuse.
	Authoritative parenting says, I'm the boss, I don't have to give you a justification, but here's the justification.
	And I think authoritative parenting is better because, again, I think that your child is going to learn to reason and is going to respect your rules more if they know that there's a logic to them.
	Brittany says, "Hi Ben, legal question here.
	How can someone with a life sentence or multiple life sentences still get out on parole?
	Shouldn't it mean they stay in prison for the rest of their life?" Well, there is a sentence called "life without parole." Right?
	And if you get life without parole, then you don't get parole.
	But if you have a life sentence, then they will let you out for good behavior.
	This does happen pretty frequently after 20, 25 years.
	So, yes, there's no mention of heaven in the Old Testament.
	In the Old Testament, meaning the Torah itself, there's no mention of the idea of a heaven or a hell.
	Everything is very earthbound.
	In some of the prophets, there's mention of the idea of sort of an afterlife, where God is talking to people after they've died.
	Judaism does believe in what we call Shemayim, the heavens, and the idea of heaven is that Well, at least the way Maimonides puts it, is reserved for the people who have, on balance, done more good than evil in their lives.
	Judaism is not completely asimilar from Christianity with regard to what heaven looks like, but it is very different with regard to what hell looks like.
	Judaism doesn't really believe in the notion of an everlasting hell where you burn in fiery torment.
	It believes more as hell is sort of a cleansing process.
	It's sort of more like the Christian purgatory.
	Yair, or I think it's pronounced Yair, or Jer, he says, "Hi Ben, I don't know if you have covered this in your show before, but I am unclear on what exactly are the lawful powers of the judicial branch.
	Lately it seems that every executive order or law faces an activist judge who declares it illegal.
	This seems to mean that unelected judges are more powerful than other branches of government and get to veto them.
	How does all this work?
	Well, this goes back to Marbury v. Madison.
	Do courts have the power of judicial review?
	Meaning, can they look at acts of the legislature and declare that they are in breach with the higher law, the Constitution, and then declare that those laws are no longer applicable?
	So, the judiciary has the power to interpret.
	It doesn't have the power to enforce.
	This is what the Federalists say in the Federalist Papers.
	We'll get to it, I promise.
	But what they say about the courts, is that the courts don't have a self-created power of enforcement.
	The executive has to enforce their orders.
	If Trump were to just say to the judicial branch, listen, I'm ignoring you and doing what I want, there's not much the judiciary could do about it, except hold them in contempt, and then nobody would be there.
	It would really be up to Congress to enforce the judiciary's rulings by cutting the power of the purse strings.
	Adorn says, "Hi Ben, lately I started debating people "when they speak against my conservative views.
	"How can you tell if someone is wasting your time "or actually interested in what you have to say?" Well, I think you can really tell in the first 45 seconds.
	If the person is listening and responding to your point, then the conversation is worthwhile.
	If it appears the person is mainly sitting there thinking about what they're going to say next, then you're wasting your time.
	You're gonna have to use your gut a little bit on this, but how do you know if a conversation with your friend is purposeful or not?
	The only answer is you just know, and I think that, unfortunately, I don't have a better answer than that.
	Juan says, hey Ben, I love the show, but what is your issue with Knowles?
	While you were away on vacation, I was forced to listen to his show, and I admit I liked it.
	Is he really as bad as you say?
	No, he's not as bad as I say.
	He is much, much worse.
	Much worse.
	So my issue with Knowles is that Knowles sold literally a hundred thousand copies of an empty book with my blurb on the cover and then I hooked him up with my literary agent who got him another major advance for a blank book.
	You know, there are some people in life who are just blessed people.
	And I think Michael Knowles is one of these people.
	You know, people who don't necessarily put in the hard work, people who don't necessarily slave away, people who can sort of just bob like a cork on the waves of life.
	And Michael Knowles is one of those, and I really do resent it.
	I really resent it in a severe way.
	Michael Knowles.
	First of all, that would be the greatest show in history.
	That would be amazing.
	To Catch a Predator, Congressional Edition?
	He'd be like, Representative Conyers!
	What are you—Roy Moore!
	Welcome here.
	You thought you were talking to a 14-year-old girl, but really, you were talking to me, Chris Hansen.
	Okay, I wish.
	If we're gonna have Hunger Games-type reality shows at the governmental level, let's at least have something like that.
	That's awesome.
	Dora says, Hey Ben, I'm a Jewish-Israeli who's currently living in the States with two young boys, two and a half, and four.
	I wonder how to balance Christmas celebration and Jewish traditions.
	It bothers me that my kids want Santa and Christmas trees, but I also understand their surroundings.
	Also, do you give presents to your kids on Hanukkah?
	I do give presents to my kids on Hanukkah.
	I love Christmas.
	I think the Christmas season is just wonderful, and I think that more Christians actually observing the Christmas season is better for the country.
	So, what I tell my three-and-a-half-year-old and one-and-a-half-year-old is, look at all the pretty lights.
	Isn't that beautiful?
	Because it is.
	Look at the seasonal stuff.
	It's really pretty.
	You know, we have a holiday called Hanukkah that's also really beautiful.
	The lights from Hanukkah are really beautiful.
	I think that you can appreciate, from an aesthetic point of view, the beauty of Christmas without necessarily having to imbibe all of the religious messaging inherent in Christmas.
	As a Jew, I don't believe in the divinity of Christ, so Christmas is not a celebratory time for me, but I can still appreciate the aesthetic joy and wonder, and I do appreciate that there are so many Christians who deepen their relationship with God during this period.
	Christina says, Do you think the current flood of sexual assault scandals gives credence to the left's claim that we live in a rape culture of sorts?
	Have conservatives been too dismissive of this claim?
	So, I don't know that we... You know, I've said we don't live in a rape culture.
	The reason I say we don't live in a rape culture is because when a rape is actually brought to light, there are very few people who are defending the rape.
	Like, do you see anybody going, ah, big deal.
	Say I raped somebody.
	What I will say is that, and I think to me that's the definition of rape culture.
	If you're asking, do a lot of men sexually harass women, I have been a bit astonished by the level to which this has been a thing.
	As a person who has never sexually assaulted or harassed a woman, it has been astonishing to me to see just how many men have.
	And I guess that, I will admit that that has surprised me.
	But again, when you say rape culture, it's the culture part that bothers me.
	The idea that rape is okayed by the culture, I don't see that.
	But the permissiveness of a society that has basically allowed this to go on for years, or at least turned its eyes the other way, that I do find sort of astonishing.
	But when it's brought to light, I'm not seeing a lot of people defending it.
	Brad says, Ben, who is your all-time favorite White Sox offensive player and pitcher?
	So my favorite offensive player of all time, not the best, but my favorite player of all time was Ozzie Guillen.
	He was then the coach of the team.
	He was my favorite player going all the way back to the 90s.
	That's because when I was a little kid, I've been looking for this picture everywhere.
	We were at a Sox game at Comiskey Park.
	And the players used to do this thing where they would actually go into the stadium and actually take pictures with people, and Ozzy was taking pictures.
	I was way back in line, the game was about to start, and he came up to me, and he picked me up, I must have been three, and he brought me to the front of the line and took a picture with me, so that was always a cool thing.
	And I always liked how he played the game.
	So Ozzy Guillen was my favorite White Sox player, and this brings me back to my childhood.
	As far as my favorite White Sox pitcher, And so, I really liked Mark Bierle when Bierle was pitching for the White Sox.
	I loved that he pitched quickly, that he pitched to spots.
	He was more like Greg Maddux than he was like a power pitcher.
	The most fun pitcher that I saw in all my years watching the White Sox was Bobby Jenks.
	Bobby Jenks was the closer for the team for like a year and a half.
	And he came in as a rookie the year they won the World Series and he was throwing like 101 and it was just amazing to watch.
	Bradley says, I've had a few friends say things like, I'd be willing to pay another 4% in taxes to pay for health care for everybody.
	There's a laughably low estimate on what universal health care would cost.
	What is a realistic estimate of how much taxes would actually need to fund universal national health care?
	Well, you'd have to look at the tax rates in places like Denmark, where it is 60%, not just on the upper class, but on the middle class as well.
	When people say, I'd be willing to increase my taxes by 4%, absolute horsepucky.
	In order to pay for all of the things we've been paying for, I mean, we're $20 trillion in debt now.
	In order for us to pay for all the things that we have been spending, we'd have to raise our taxes up to 60, 65% across the board.
	It's pretty astonishing.
	Daniel says, hey Ben, what do you think of South Park?
	I think South Park is hilarious.
	I think South Park, I didn't used to like it, but then I actually started watching it, and it is just hysterically funny.
	It's hysterically funny.
	You don't have to love the animation style to know how clever the writing is.
	Really, really funny stuff.
	Connor says, Hey Ben, I'm currently a law and public policy student at Indiana University planning on pursuing a career in police work and later in politics.
	Additionally, I have Asperger's, which is recently a part of the autism spectrum.
	I'm a strong believer in transparency and that people should know what they're voting for.
	At the same time, I believe that as long as someone is able to do the job, should it really matter to the voters?
	No.
	So here's my question.
	Should I tell the voters that I have such a condition so they know what they're voting for?
	Should I just keep it to myself so long as I feel it won't impact my job performance or something in between?
	Well, in voting, I think that transparency is always the best tactic, because people are going to find out anyway, and they'll use it against you.
	And that shouldn't be something that's used against you, that you have Asperger's.
	That doesn't seem to me like that's... I think that, honestly, there are a lot of people who will vote for you for saying, honestly, what you are.
	Transparency in politics, authenticity in politics, is the key quality that people are missing.
	It's the reason Trump won.
	Because, no matter what you think of Trump, Trump is definitely authentic Trump.
	I mean, you're not getting the fake.
	With Hillary Clinton, there's no such thing as authenticity.
	You can drill down into Hillary Clinton and never hit authentic bedrock.
	Ever.
	Justin says, "Hey Ben, what is your opinion of the parallels people make between the Roman Empire and modern America?
	If and when America collapses, do you think it will be because we repeated the same mistakes the Romans made?" Well, I think that some of the parallels are true.
	You know, the idea that the Roman Republic caved in, made way for the Roman Empire, that eventually gave way to basically weakening from within.
	I think there are parallels there.
	I don't think it's going to happen quite over as long a period.
	I mean, the Roman Empire was around for a very, very long time.
	But as you see the growth of executive government, I'd like to see a return to checks and balances as opposed to if we just elect the right person president, everything will be better.
	government.
	I think that a lot of the centralization of power that eventually leads to decay is happening in the United States.
	I'd like to see a return to checks and balances as opposed to, if we just elect the right person president, everything will be better.
	I don't think that that's correct.
	Okay, so that brings us to the end of the mailbag.
	So, I hope that you've enjoyed this entire year with us, because we've enjoyed this entire year with you.
	And I have to say that, of all the things that I am thankful for this year, aside from, you know, God and my family, the thing that I'm most thankful for is that there are so many people who engage with the show, who really enjoy the show, who listen, who are thinking on a daily basis and sending challenging questions, people who disagree with me and who listen.
	We are so grateful for your listenership, and on Thanksgiving, I think that we should thank you for that.
	Also grateful to the staff who put up with me every day, and grateful to myself for putting up So there's all of that.
	Okay.
	We will be back here on Monday.
	We'll see you then.
	Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

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