Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Dec. 22, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

50:33

Say Goodbye To 2017 | Ep. 443

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	It's the last show of 2017 and what a show it shall be.
	President Trump signs into law his tax reform.
	Nikki Haley becomes our spirit animal and the mailbag.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Oh yes, so much to get to here on the Ben Shapiro Show.
	We finally reached the end of the year.
	We're here.
	It's upon us.
	And we survived.
	We all got here.
	You know, that was in doubt.
	All year long, it was in doubt.
	Over the last three weeks, it was in doubt.
	I mean, I know that I was expected to be dead at least twice.
	I'm not even talking about when I visited Berkeley.
	I'm just talking about the tax reform and net neutrality.
	But we'll talk about all of the things that are happening on this, the last workday, essentially, of 2017.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Blinkist.
	So you're going to have some time over the holidays.
	You don't have time to read a 500-page book.
	You don't.
	You have time to listen to a 15-minute segment that basically brings you all the points of the book, because that's all you're going to remember anyway.
	Well, that's what Blinkist is for.
	Instead of having to spend all your time wading through pages and pages of material, you're in the car anyway.
	You're there for an hour.
	You don't have my podcast next week.
	So what are you going to do?
	You're driving to Grandma's house.
	What are you going to do all week?
	Well, this is why you need the Blinkist app.
	The Blinkist app gives you, in what they call blinks, 15-minute summaries of the main points of 2,000 of the best-selling non-fiction books in America transformed into powerful information packs.
	Now you can feast your mind on key ideas from top best-selling non-fiction books.
	Things like Flow, which talks about how to achieve more happiness in your work life, to Why Nations Fail, talking about
	Thank you.
	That's Blinkist.
	Spell B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T.
	Blinkist.com slash Ben to start your free trial or get three months off your yearly plan.
	Blinkist.com slash Ben.
	Use the slash Ben so they know that we sent you.
	Okay, so today, big day over at the White House.
	The President of the United States signs into law his ginormous tax cut.
	And everyone is very excited.
	So the president signs that into law just before Christmas, and then he says that he's going to have a working vacation.
	I hope not.
	I hope the president just takes the time off, lets the media fester.
	He doesn't need to provide them content.
	Let them chew on all of the good things that are happening because of this tax cut.
	Here is an additional list.
	We gave you a list yesterday of corporations that are now giving bonuses and raises to people and hiring more people because of the tax cut that just passed the Senate and the House and was signed into law by the President in Texas.
	New Braunfels-based Rush Enterprises is planning to give each of its employees a $1,000 bonus after President Trump signs the tax reform bill into law.
	The commercial truck dealer said all of its approximately 6,600 U.S.
	employees will receive the one-time payout, which will cost about $6.6 million.
	In Wisconsin, Associated Bank said it would boost its minimum hourly wage to $15 and pay workers a $500 bonus.
	Their current minimum wage is $10 an hour, so that's a 50% increase.
	The company said that its moves would affect about 3,000 employees.
	In Idaho, Malaluca Inc., which is run by Frank VanderSloot, VanderSloot's a Republican, he said in a phone interview that his 2,000 workers would get a one-time bonus of $100 for every year they've worked at the company.
	They have about 150 employees who have worked there for 20 years or more.
	The average employee will get about an $800 bonus.
	In Hawaii, the Royal Hawaiian Heritage Jewelry, they've decided to open a second shop.
	And this is going to happen all over the place.
	This is going to happen as businesses decide they have more money to spend, and hiring should go up, investment should go up, even if there are stock buybacks.
	Maybe just your stocks go up.
	But it's good for the economy when people get to keep their own dollars.
	Why?
	Because they get to spend those dollars, they invest those dollars, and you know what you want to buy better than the federal government knows what you want to buy.
	Now, the left has lost their mind over the tax cut, obviously.
	They just can't deal with it.
	And it's really interesting because it sort of betrays what they actually think of America and what they think of your capacity to keep your own money.
	So Elizabeth Warren, for example, she has an interesting take.
	Her basic notion here is the reason corporations are now giving bonuses and raises is because they're trying to propagandize to their workers.
	Not because they actually like their workers or help their workers.
	They have nefarious motives.
	All of the corporations are essentially evil.
	In the end, they'll just use that money to line their own pockets and give themselves big bonuses.
	That's what they'll do.
	They're cruel and plutocratic.
	Here's Elizabeth Warren sending a few smoke signals of her own.
	I want to be absolutely clear.
	I am delighted when workers get more money.
	I'm glad when it happens at any corporation in America.
	Yay!
	But let's be really clear.
	If these corporations had wanted to do that, they already had plenty of profits to do it.
	The idea that this is trickle-down economics at work rather than just plain old politics is just wrong.
	The corporate CEOs have already told us what they're going to do with this money.
	I'll give you an example.
	Home Depot, right after the Senate passed the tax bill a couple of weeks ago, Home Depot CEO, executive, is interviewed and said, so what are you going to do with all of this money that Home Depot has?
	They're going to do really well on this.
	Was it we're going to raise wages for our employees?
	No.
	Was it we're going to hire more employees at the Home Depot stores?
	No.
	Was it we're going to build more Home Depots across America?
	No.
	They said what we're going to do is we're going to do stock buybacks.
	In other words, we're going to use whatever money comes in to pump up the price of our stock.
	Okay, so what's hilarious about this is, number one, the Democrats were claiming for years that the stock market growth of the Obama administration was clearly a reflection of his underlying solid economy.
	Except the job growth didn't keep up because the stocks were actually stock buybacks, right?
	Now she's ripping stock buybacks.
	Stock buybacks are terrible.
	But the idea here is that corporations are nefarious.
	They're profit-seeking.
	Isn't that awful?
	Now, it's hilarious that the same folks who think that corporations are profit-seeking and evil.
	Number one, I don't know if they've ever met anyone who runs a corporation, okay?
	I help run a corporation, right?
	I, along with my executive team, people I work with, the president of the company and the CEO of the company, we run the company together.
	We actually do care about our employees.
	If you went to our Christmas party yesterday, the only employee who got a bad gift at our Christmas party was Michael Knowles because he's a bad employee.
	He got coal that I gave him for Christmas.
	But aside from that, it was in a Tiffany's box, so I guess it was nice a little bit.
	And one day, if Michael really puts himself under pressure, that coal will become a diamond.
	It was actually me exhorting him to work.
	Everybody at the company is relatively happy because we are interested in keeping them employed.
	And if they're good at their jobs, we give them raises.
	And if they're good at their jobs, we retain them.
	And if they're bad at their jobs, we fire them.
	People don't want to fire people.
	Okay?
	They actually don't.
	People are not generally in the business of enjoying firing people.
	And corporations actually do care about their workers, which is why wages have risen in the United States in terms of what you can buy.
	They've risen in the United States continuously despite the death of private sector unions.
	Private sector unions represent something like 3% of the workforce now.
	They barely exist.
	All of the unions exist in the public sector, where they're unionizing against the government.
	But in the private sector, people have decided that they're going to have better luck instead of unionizing, just going and talking to their employer about a raise, which is correct.
	But the idea from the left is precisely the reverse.
	Corporations are cruel.
	They hate you.
	They want to harm you.
	They want to use you as slave labor.
	But the government is benevolent.
	So it's benevolent when the government comes to me and takes a gun out and points it at me and says, give me your money.
	That's benevolent.
	And if the government gives me my own money back, then that's bad.
	That's bad because, you know, that's redistributing the wealth.
	But if a corporation is working and giving bonuses and keeping people employed, then somehow they're cruel.
	Now, here's the thing.
	I think most people are motivated by self-interest.
	The difference is that in a capitalist economy, my self-interest does not manifest as anything good for me unless I give something to you.
	Capitalism turns self-interest into what I've called forced altruism.
	The point being that I can be as selfish as I want, but if I don't produce a good or service that you like, I'm gonna starve.
	That's the beauty of the capitalist free market system.
	Government has no such qualms.
	Government has no such issues.
	If government wants to survive, government can't go bankrupt.
	It will just bankrupt you.
	It will take all your money, all your children's money.
	If we're going to talk about caring levels, corporations versus government, corporations care a hell of a lot more about making sure that you are employed as long as you are doing work for them than the government cares.
	The government doesn't care at all.
	The government will just tax the hell out of you if you earn, and they'll give you money if you don't, because the government is interested in your dependency or in sucking money out of your pocket.
	Those are the only two things the government is interested in on a fiscal level.
	Either taking your money or turning you into a dependent.
	Those are the only two things.
	Government is not interested in boosting you or giving you a hand up.
	The Democrats will say, we just want to give you a hand out because it's a hand up.
	And then they promote policies that make sure that people stay in poverty.
	They pay people to stay off the work lines.
	They want welfare increased so that people don't have to work jobs.
	This is why you have Nancy Pelosi saying things like, we want to make sure that you are not burdened by job lock.
	That you're not locked into a job you don't want to do.
	That fundamental difference between how you view private industry and how you view government undergirds this entire thing.
	And in a second, I do want to discuss what happened at the UN, because that was a major development over at the UN yesterday with Nikki Haley really taking charge.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at USCCA.
	So, if you're a gun lover, it's time for you to listen up.
	How would you like to head to the range tomorrow with a brand new gun?
	I know you would.
	It's Christmas time, folks.
	I know I would, too.
	Well, my friends over at the USCCA want to get more guns into the hands of more responsible, law-abiding, armed Americans like you.
	So they are ending 2017 by giving you up to 17 chances to win your new gun every day.
	That's right, a different gun every single day of the week.
	Could be a Kimber, Could be a Lilac, could be a Springfield.
	All you have to do is go to DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.
	DefendMyFamilyNow3.com to reveal which gun you could be taking home tomorrow.
	It's DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.
	Remember, not a lot of time.
	The gun of the day will always disappear at midnight.
	This will be the last time I'm telling you the website.
	So, listen carefully.
	It's DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.
	DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.
	Get your chance to win a new gun every single day.
	But do it right now.
	DefendMyFamilyNow3.com.
	Go check it out.
	USCCA does a lot of fantastic work.
	You should register with them.
	In any case, okay, so yesterday, as I said, Nikki Haley, acting as my spirit animal, and she was at the UN.
	The UN votes 128 to 9 against the United States moving our embassy to Jerusalem, to which we say, go to hell.
	Who cares what you have to say?
	Why in the world would I care that Yemen doesn't want us to move our embassy to Jerusalem?
	Yemen can kiss our ass.
	Who cares?
	Answer, no one.
	No one.
	And Nikki Haley made that pretty clear.
	She basically looked at the entire UN and she said, guys, you think I'm standing here caring about what you guys have to say?
	Welcome to Murica.
	Nikki Haley doing yeoman's work over at the UN.
	It's always weird.
	Whenever people speak at the UN, it looks like they're speaking in the bathroom at a Macy's.
	But in any case, here's Nikki Haley really bashing people about the head.
	The United States is by far the single largest contributor to the United Nations and its agencies.
	When a nation is singled out for attack in this organization, that nation is disrespected.
	What's more, that nation is asked to pay for the privilege of being disrespected.
	The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.
	We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world's largest contribution to the United Nations.
	And we will remember it when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.
	Cut them off.
	Okay, none of these countries that are voting against the United States ought to take their foreign aid for granted.
	Now, there are two types of foreign aid that the United States grants.
	It represents foreign aid, by the way, about 1% of the American federal budget every year.
	What's breaking the bank is not foreign aid, but we can use this as a tool.
	You know we give like $100 million to Zimbabwe every year, like in human and development aid?
	True, it says $135 million every year to Zimbabwe, which was until five minutes ago run by Robert Mugabe, one of the worst people on planet Earth.
	There have been studies that show that foreign aid does virtually nothing.
	When you sign a check to a dictator, the dictator takes the check, immediately cashes it, builds himself a new palace, buys himself a couple of new female bodyguards, and then goes about his daily business.
	By shtipping the bodyguards and murdering his own people.
	Foreign aid, unless it is specifically channeled to the right areas, doesn't do a whole hell of a lot.
	And the UN doesn't do a whole hell of a lot.
	The idea of attaching strings to the system makes a lot of sense.
	Now, what's funny is that there are people on the left who don't believe this.
	So, Philip Mudd is one of these people.
	His name is Mudd.
	Literally.
	And he actually says this.
	On CNN, he said that Trump was acting in the form of diplomatic prostitution.
	He said, let me be blunt here, Wolf.
	He said this to Wolf Blitzer.
	This is diplomatic prostitution.
	We're telling people, unless you vote with us, we're not going to give you money.
	And if your heart doesn't agree with American policies, we're not going to support you in terms of USA.
	That's not prostitution.
	It's just called diplomacy.
	Like we actually get to attach strings to the checks that we sign to people.
	It's true everywhere, by the way.
	It's true in domestic policy, too.
	No such thing as a free lunch, internationally or nationally.
	But what this really betrays is that there are a lot of people in the United States, living in the United States, who do not actually see the United States as a force for good in the world.
	They see it as a bad thing.
	They see it as a bad thing when we exert our power in the world.
	That's because there are really two different views of America on the world stage.
	View number one is that America is a big bully.
	This was Barack Obama's view in his apology tour early on in his presidency.
	That America is the big bully on the world stage.
	We're mean to people.
	We're cruel, we're overreaching, we're sort of a bull in a china shop.
	Sure, we try to do the right thing, but we usually do the wrong thing.
	And then there is the more traditional and correct view of America's role in the world, which is that we are the greatest force for freedom the world has ever seen and ever known.
	And the fact is, where American boots have set foot, freedom follows.
	I'm not going to talk about whether we should have been in every war that we've been in, but where America was present, there was freedom, and where America was removed, the freedom went away.
	This is true in Vietnam, where when we pulled out of Vietnam, South Vietnam, a free country, turns into a communist hellhole.
	So does Cambodia.
	Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge end up murdering a million people.
	When we pull out of Korea, out of North Korea, North Korea is still a prison camp, 60 odd years later.
	And South Korea, where we still have troops, is one of the freest, most prosperous countries in Asia.
	Forget about Europe, right?
	I mean, all of Europe would be speaking German right now if it weren't for the United States, including Britain.
	So the idea that the United States has been a nefarious force on the world stage, or that we have strings attached, we should have strings attached because our strings are good.
	Our strings are usually things like, we would like you to free up your press.
	We would like you to not oppress women.
	We would like for you to support United States foreign policy in strengthening our interests around the world.
	This is good stuff.
	The United States has never conquered nations to take them.
	The United States has conquered nations in order to replace regimes with better regimes.
	Ask how that's gone for Japan and Germany.
	The answer is, pretty well.
	And by the way, it was going a lot better in Iraq until President Obama decided to precipitously withdraw from Iraq, leaving in his wake an Iranian-backed regime and ISIS in the west of the country, in the northwest of the country.
	So, this view that the United States is being terrible by attaching strings to our funds, it's my money.
	For God's sake, it's my money.
	So if it's my money, then I get to determine what happens with it.
	This notion that the government has a role in taking my money and then spending it on whatever stupid thing Robert Mugabe wants to spend it on, it verges on taxation without representation, is the truth.
	Now one of the things that's always interesting is that the UN votes, as I talked about yesterday statistically, insanely and routinely, all the time, they vote against Israel.
	A huge percentage of all the votes they've ever taken in the UN General Assembly are against Israel.
	And the people who vote against Israel are typically, there are a lot of people who abstained yesterday.
	The people who voted against Israel are largely located in areas with large Muslim populations, Europe, or in the Muslim world itself.
	So the vote, I say, was 128 to 9.
	So 57 of those countries were Islamic.
	So half of them, right off the bat, are Muslim countries that hate Israel and don't believe that it ought to exist.
	And then there are another 50-odd countries, and some of those are in Asia, and some of those are in Europe.
	And what you are seeing is this alliance between members of the European left and radical Islam to condemn Israel.
	This is where antisemitism exists.
	I've talked about antisemitism before on the program.
	There are a few different types.
	There's religious antisemitism, which is sort of Muslim antisemitism at this point.
	There's still some Christian antisemitism, but that's become far less of a problem over the last 50 years since the Holocaust.
	There is, or over the last 70 years since the Holocaust, rather.
	There is Muslim antisemitism, so religious antisemitism.
	There's also secular antisemitism in the form of people who do not like Christianity, do not like Judaism.
	They're okay with Islam because Islam makes them feel all multicultural and special and warm inside, but they're not big on the Juden.
	And this is coming out in Europe.
	So there's a piece in USA Today talking about Germany.
	Germany voted against the United States moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
	Again, none of their damn business.
	Again, they'd be speaking Hitler if it weren't for us.
	But the idea that Germany is going to tell Israel, a country full of Jews, about the same population of Jews come to think of it as were slaughtered in the Holocaust by the Germans and their allies, that they're going to tell Israel where to put their capital is beyond absurd.
	The antisemitism in Germany is on the rise.
	In Europe it's on the rise.
	So if you wonder if Israel, if the anti-Israel motivation is caused by antisemitism, the answer is yes.
	European antisemitism has long roots.
	Now there's a lot of European antisemitism that's based off of new Muslim migrants and also secular leftists who believe that Israel is a nefarious force for Western imperialism.
	So there's peace in the USA today.
	When telecommunications manager Mikhail Tanayev emigrated to Germany in 1998 from his native Russia as a teen, his Jewish faith didn't matter to classmates or neighbors.
	But now, he says, when I arrived in Germany, I never saw such displays.
	But now there are thousands of people who are burning Israeli flags in the streets.
	In 2006, Germany recorded 1,500 anti-Semitic incidents.
	That was a massive increase from previous years.
	According to a recent survey in Western Germany, 62% of Jewish respondents said they experienced anti-Semitism in their everyday lives.
	28% said they were victims of verbal attacks or harassment in the past year.
	When I visited France, my wife and I were afraid to go in particular districts.
	While I was wearing a yarmulke, I wore a baseball cap instead.
	When I was in London, I think I've told this story on the show.
	When I was in London, there was a situation where we went to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
	We were walking around.
	Looking at all the statues, no Jewish statues, right?
	Except for Albert Einstein.
	And behind us, there's a group of young Muslims.
	You can tell because the woman's wearing a hijab.
	Surrounded by two guys who also look like they are from Muslim countries.
	And they actually walk up to the statue of Albert Einstein and start strangling it.
	And I figured, well, maybe they just don't like the theory of relativity.
	Turns out not.
	There's also a wax statue of Hitler.
	And while every British person there was walking over and strangling Hitler, these young Muslims went over and put their arms around Hitler like he was Uncle Hitler and began taking pictures.
	Anti-Semitism is on the rise there.
	It's on the rise in places like Sweden.
	Not just because of radical Islam, but also because of a secular movement that sees religious education as backwards and non-progressive.
	Nordic countries maintain opinion corridors for acceptable ideas in the public square, and those opinion corridors do not include religious people very often.
	So, anti-Semitism, anti-Israel sentiment.
	It may be true that not everyone anti-Israel is anti-Semitic, but everyone anti-Semitic is certainly anti-Israel, and there is pretty significant crossover between the two groups.
	Okay, well, as we continue, I want to get to the mailbag.
	I want to do a particularly long mailbag, because it's a year-end mailbag.
	I want to give you a chance.
	But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at NatureBox.
	The holidays mean that it is time to do things, right?
	You need to wrap your gifts.
	You need to travel.
	You need to plan that travel.
	You need a brace for your relatives.
	You need extra energy, and that's why you need NatureBox.
	NatureBox has over 100 delicious snacks.
	All the snacks are made with high-quality, simple ingredients.
	No artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners.
	Just go to naturebox.com and choose your snacks, and NatureBox will deliver them directly to your door.
	They add new snacks every single month, inspired by new food trends, professional chefs, customer feedback.
	Folks at the office, they particularly like the vanilla bean wafers, dried mango, and coffee kettle popcorn.
	We took a quick survey of the office, and those are the ones that are the most popular.
	There is no risk, by the way.
	If you don't like a snack, NatureBox replaces it for free.
	There's a reason that everybody around here is obsessed with NatureBox.
	Right now, NatureBox is offering Ben Shapiro fans 50% off your first order when you go to naturebox.com slash ben.
	50% off your first order, naturebox.com slash ben.
	Also makes a really good Christmas gift.
	You have somebody in your family who's constantly on the run.
	Naturebox.com slash ben gets you a 50% discount on your first order, which can be your Christmas gift to them.
	Naturebox.com slash ben.
	Check it out.
	Live a more delicious, energy-filled life.
	Okay, so.
	I'm not going to do things I like, things I hate in the mailbag today.
	Instead, I'm going to do lots and lots of mailbagging.
	We're just going to mailbag it up, yo.
	So.
	We'll jump right in and we'll take your live questions as well.
	So, everything will be fascinating and we will go through as many questions as possible before the end of the year.
	We begin with Michaela.
	She says, "Dear Ben, every time the Republicans talk about taxes, Chuck Schumer comes out and explains that trickle-down economics have never worked.
	I've Googled this to try and find proof that it has in order to educate my brainwashed fellow millennials to no avail.
	Could you please explain in an objective way the actual pros and cons of trickle-down economics and when it has actually shown growth?" So the reason that, first of all, let's start with a problem with Google.
	If you Google trickle-down economics, you are only going to get the failures of trickle-down That's because it's a term that was not coined by the right.
	It was a term that was coined by the left.
	The right calls it supply-side economics.
	Look up supply-side economics on Google, and you will come up with a myriad of examples in which supply-side economics has worked.
	Supply-side economics is the idea that if you give producers back their money, they're going to produce new and better products, and that generates its own demand.
	Supply generates its own demand, basically.
	So if you generate cheaper product, not crap nobody wants to buy, but if you make product cheaper and better, people will want to buy it.
	If you invent new products, that changes the way people live.
	Everybody wants to buy it.
	15 years ago, 20 years ago, nobody ever heard of an iPhone.
	Now everyone has one.
	That's because of supply-side.
	Apple created a product, you wanted the product, you went out and bought the product.
	What the left likes is what they call demand-side economics.
	Demand-side economics is the idea that if you give a bunch of money to a bunch of people that they'll spend that money and that will jog the economy.
	It won't jog the economy in the sense of making people's lives better generally because the products aren't going to get any better.
	Right?
	The point being that Here's the great distinction.
	If you have a million dollars, you give it to, let's say that all else is equal, right?
	Nobody has a million dollars.
	We're not talking about equality now.
	We're just talking about jogging the economy.
	We're talking about efficiency.
	You have a million dollars.
	You give a million dollars to Bill Gates to invest in the building and invention of new product.
	Or do you give $1,000,000 to a bunch of people so they can go spend it on a burger?
	Which is going to make the economy better?
	The answer is you give the $1,000,000 to Bill Gates.
	The reason is that Bill Gates is then going to create a product that makes everybody's life better.
	That will create a bunch of new jobs in a growing area where people are opting for the product.
	That's not a case for impoverishing people, of course.
	But the point that I am making is that producers, businesses, change the economy at disproportionate levels.
	So supply-side economics has generated success after the JFK tax cuts.
	It generated economic success after the Reagan tax cuts in 1981.
	It generated economic success after the Bush tax cuts of 2001.
	There was sustained economic growth.
	People tend to forget this because of the crash in 2007-2008.
	Even Barack Obama maintained low tax rates in 2010 and 2013.
	So supply-side economics does indeed work.
	It's worked in Europe.
	It's the reason why Denmark, for example, is now cutting its own taxes.
	It's why European countries that have spent too much money are cutting their own taxes.
	So don't Google trickle-down.
	It's a nonsense term made up by the left.
	The idea would be that people at the top of companies are just going to give the money to their employees.
	That's not correct.
	That's not how trickle-down works, right?
	Supply-side means that you're creating new products and services, and in the course of doing so, it creates jobs.
	Tina says, hi, my husband just bought me a Christmas present, a subscription to The Daily Wire.
	Yay!
	Well, thank you.
	Your husband's awesome.
	What a great husband.
	You should probably give him a ring.
	I do have a burning question.
	Are your kids as smart and analytical as you?
	In other words, is there hope for my children's generation?
	And how can we battle the liberal teachers, schools, school districts that are brainwashing our kids six hours a day?
	Well, as far as the brainwashing from the schools, I would suggest private school, homeschooling, take over your local school board.
	You really do have to be very, very involved.
	As far as are my kids as smart and analytical as I am, my three-and-a-half-year-old, it's hard to tell for the one-and-a-half-year-old boy because that dude's just, I mean, he's just running around the whole time.
	I haven't seen a lot of analysis from him other than no and also cheese.
	He really likes cheese.
	But aside from that, I mean, he's obviously a very smart kid.
	He's really highly developed in terms of language.
	My daughter is brilliant.
	Leah is super smart.
	My son may be brilliant, I just don't know yet because he's not speaking full sentences.
	She is really, really intelligent.
	I mean, she's four.
	She's not even four.
	She's already started her violin lessons.
	She can essentially read.
	She knows her numbers.
	And her thought processes are all quite rational.
	So she's very smart.
	Okay, Arya says, "Hi Ben, what do you think Trump can do at this point to maintain the House and Senate next year?" Okay, so what Trump can do is shut up.
	I mean, really, this is what Trump has to do.
	Trump needs to be quiet, because if he keeps talking, it makes him more unpopular.
	Also, he needs to go out and talk about his accomplishments.
	He needs to go out and talk about how to unify Americans.
	He can have fun, but I think that it's a mistake for him to, I think it's a big mistake for him to go on Twitter and use Twitter the way that he has the past year.
	I'm hoping that we're beginning to see some discipline from Trump.
	Listen, there will be losses in the House.
	But those losses can be mitigated if the economic climate continues to be good and if Trump can make himself less unpopular.
	He's never going to be super popular.
	He's never going to get up to 55% in the approval ratings.
	But right now, according to, I think it was Rasmussen this morning, he's up to 44.
	If he can get that up to 47, 48, he'll do fine.
	And Republicans will do fine.
	Okay, Emanuel says, any word back about the Rosie harassment?
	So what he is referring to is that today, Sadly, Rosie O'Donnell has some sort of sad obsession, sad sexual obsession with me, which is horrifying in every conceivable way.
	And she tweeted out, I told you yesterday that she tweeted that she wanted me to suck her bleep, but her bleep was male genitalia, which is weird.
	And I responded that she should stop being homophobic and sexually harassing people.
	Me too.
	And then she tweeted again today that she wanted me to lick her.
	Which, to which I tweeted, no means no, Rosie.
	And all victims have a right to be believed.
	Hashtag me too.
	And then I reported her to Twitter.
	Not because I actually want her banned from Twitter or suspended from Twitter.
	As I've said before, I didn't even want Milo banned or suspended from Twitter.
	I think that if I were running the place, I pretty much wouldn't suspend anybody except for explicitly violent behavior.
	But, I do want to see if Twitter is just going to have a radical double standard, right?
	If they're going to ban people on the right for saying stuff like Rosie said.
	Like, if I had said that to Rosie, is there any question they would have suspended or banned me?
	No question.
	None.
	Rosie says it to me?
	Totally fine.
	So, we will find out.
	Rosie has blocked me, so I guess that she's moved on from her sexual obsession.
	So that's sad.
	It's sad that, number one, it was unrequited.
	Number two, don't sexually harass people.
	Her parting shot to me was something to the effect of, she didn't even know who I was, but I look like a little boy.
	To which I responded, then why are you sexually propositioning a little boy?
	Because that's creepy and terrible.
	Okay.
	My Twitter was pretty fire this week.
	Okay, so Nathan says, hey Ben, looking good today.
	Thank you, sir.
	Of course.
	He says, how would you define Zionism?
	And do you consider yourself a Zionist?
	Thanks, bro.
	Yes, I consider myself a Zionist.
	Zionism is the idea that the Jews deserve a state of their own in biblical Israel.
	I'm a Zionist because I am a Jew.
	And Jews, like a Jew who believes in Judaism, not because I'm ethnically Jewish.
	And Judaism is a Zionist religion that suggests that there should be Jewish rule in the Holy Land and that it was a biblical promise.
	Now, what's interesting is people take that to mean that there has to be a kingship in the Holy Land.
	The Bible is, as I've said before, I think I talked about it this week in the Bible segment, the Bible is really ambivalent about state power.
	It is not big on the idea of theocracy, per se.
	But the idea that there ought to be a Jewish state based on foundational Jewish principles It's true for a few reasons, among them anti-Semitism and the tremendous outpouring of anti-Semitism that has existed throughout history, and also the idea that a country ruled by Jewish principles will be a good country, just like a country ruled by Christian principles in the United States is a good country.
	We're going to do a little bit more of the mailbag in just a second.
	But first, you know, I think I'm going to have to break here on YouTube and Facebook.
	So let's do that.
	So for $9.99 a month, you can get the rest of this mailbag and things I like and things I hate.
	And I have a Christmas message for you that you're going to want to see today.
	So, for $9.99 a month, you can get your subscription to Daily Wire, you get the rest of the mailbag, get to be part of the mailbag, you get to be part of our show live, you get everything that you could possibly want in life, except for the thing that you get with the annual subscription, which is this, the very greatest, in leftist tears, hot or cold, tumblers.
	It is the greatest, okay?
	It's so great that for our Christmas gifts, we got everyone etched tumblers here at the office, and people were literally weeping.
	I love it.
	I mean people, Austin loves it.
	Everyone loves it.
	People were breaking down.
	They couldn't believe it.
	It was like that episode of Oprah where she gave away cars except it was just a cup.
	But you can get that for $99 a year.
	You get the annual subscription and it's pretty awesome.
	And the Shapiro store is coming, I promise.
	I know, I know.
	It's coming.
	Okay, guys?
	Yes, it's coming.
	Okay, so you get all that for the annual subscription as well, $99 a year, cheaper than the monthly.
	And please, subscribe at SoundCloud, iTunes, over at Google Play or Stitcher.
	Check us out over there.
	And subscribe to our YouTube channel as well, where we have a Christmas video out today that is simultaneously humiliating and hilarious.
	So if you want to see me dramatically humiliated, then go check out that Christmas video as well by subscribing to YouTube.
	We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast in the nation.
	Alrighty, so Morgan asks, Ben, when your kids are old enough to watch Star Wars, will you show them in the order you saw them as a child or in the order of the saga?
	Good question, Morgan.
	So, my wife was not super familiar with Star Wars, so I have put her on a remedial Star Wars course.
	And I started her with episode four.
	I will never start any child on episode one.
	Why would I torture a child that way?
	That's cruelty to animals and children.
	Don't do it.
	Also, the reason is because you have to actually care about Luke and Darth Vader and all these people before you go back and do Anakin.
	Right?
	It's foolish to start with episode one, I believe.
	Also because Star Wars episode one-- I mean, Phantom Menace is just garbage.
	Phantom Menace is awful.
	It's a real battle for worst movie ever between that and Attack of the Clones.
	Woo.
	Both stinkers.
	Oh, Austin has a question.
	Wow.
	Where do you slot Rogue One?
	I was not.
	So where do you watch it?
	Rogue One.
	I answered this a few days ago, but Austin, although he's a producer on the show, obviously was not listening.
	He was not.
	So, Rogue One, I slot at number three.
	I like Rogue One a lot.
	Where do you watch it?
	Okay, so in order, I would probably watch it now.
	I would probably watch four, five, six, three, Rogue One.
	I'd watch Rogue One afterward because it's the lead-in.
	And then I'd probably go back and watch one, two, three, and then Force Awakens and Last Jedi.
	So it's completely out of order, but once you've watched the movies, And there's something that's fun and discoverable about it that way.
	If you watched Rogue One and then you just watched Episode Four, you'd miss how cool Rogue One is.
	Right?
	Because if you watched Rogue One and then Episode Four, then it just fits right in.
	But the whole point is that they re-slotted in a new movie, which is super cool, and then it transitions right into Episode Four, which is really awesome.
	Okay, Keenan says, "Ben, what is your favorite thing that Trump has done this year?" Well, Justice Gorsuch, the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, the cuts in regulations, the tax bill, getting rid of the individual mandate He's done a lot of good things this year.
	He's done a lot of good things.
	This is the big gap for Trump, is that so much of his policy is good and so much of his rhetoric is horrible, that if he can get his rhetoric, you know, in a better direction, then it won't be very hard to support him, will it?
	Okay, Elliot says, Hey Ben, simple question for you.
	Should people on welfare be allowed to vote?
	No representation without taxation.
	So people on welfare should be allowed to vote and also there should be no welfare.
	That's basically my take.
	Not because, because I think that if you're a law-abiding citizen in the United States then you should have the right to vote.
	But I also think that the Constitution was designed to prevent welfare.
	And I think that we are going to have to make a move to convince people that they are not, that they should not be dependent on government.
	The barrier, by the way, between the presence of welfare and the non-presence of welfare, I do not think is people who are on welfare.
	I don't think it really is as simple as everybody on welfare votes Democrat and everybody not on welfare votes Republican.
	I think that we're going to have to make a move toward convincing people that they ought not be on welfare in the first place.
	That takes a moral shift in the culture.
	And that's something, I mean, that's what I do every day.
	That's why I'm here, because I think that's actually important.
	Not really, which is why I think that you should marry somebody who has the same ideological viewpoint you do.
	Okay, that's because he wasn't raised in a Jewish family.
	viewpoints.
	Not really, which is why I think that you should marry somebody who has the same ideological viewpoint you do.
	It says, for example, you have mentioned that being raised Jewish is why you are conservative.
	Alternatively, one of the hosts of Pate of America stated that being raised in a Jewish family is the reason he's a Democrat.
	Okay, that's because he wasn't raised in a Jewish family.
	He was raised in an ethnically Jewish family where they like bagels and lox and think that everybody is anti-Semitic, and they visit shul once a year on Yom Kippur and break for lunch.
	Okay, so I'm going to challenge that contention that Jewishness makes you reform.
	I mean that Jewishness makes you a liberal.
	Jewishness makes you a leftist if by Jewishness you mean ethnic cultural identity and not religious identity.
	Because I guarantee you, whichever host that is on Patek of America, their level of Jewish observance is probably lower than many Christians I know.
	Stefan says, Can you explain the difference between the Reagan tax cuts and the tax cuts that just passed?
	So the Reagan tax cuts, my understanding is that they were largely individually based.
	They were all about lowering the individual tax rates.
	The top tax bracket was dropped from something like 70% to 28%.
	It was radically eliminated.
	All the tax brackets were moved down in pretty substantial ways.
	In fact, you know what?
	I want to get this answer for you, you know, in a little bit more detail.
	So I'm actually going to look up the details of the Reagan tax cuts.
	So the Reagan tax cuts were not basically corporate.
	It spurred a lot of economic growth.
	The top rate, it was basically, it was lowering the top tax bracket.
	So the top rate fell from 70% to 50% and all of the other tax rates dropped similarly.
	The 86 tax bill was also very different than this one.
	The reason that people say this is serious tax reform is because it changes the corporate tax rate in a major way.
	This particular tax rate, again, was based in corporate taxation less than in individual taxation.
	I'm going to wiki this, okay?
	So here's what Wikipedia says.
	Dr. Wikipedia.
	He says, in the act was an across-the-board decrease in the marginal income tax rates in the United States by 25% over three years, with the top tax rate falling from 70% to 50%, the bottom rate dropping from 14% to 11%.
	It slashed estate taxes and trimmed taxes paid by business corporations by $150 billion over a five-year period.
	But most of the tax decreases were in the individual area.
	It was less based on corporate taxation.
	This one, there were sort of minor cuts to the individual tax rates, but there was major cuts to the corporate tax rates.
	That's the major difference between the two sets of taxes.
	Okay.
	Crystal says, hey, Ben, what would you say is the best evidence for God?
	What gives you a reason to believe?
	Thanks for all you do.
	My husband and I listen to your show every day and discuss it together.
	We're big fans.
	So I'm writing a book on this.
	The best evidence for God, as I have said on the show before and as I say in debate with Sam Harris, which I think is going to, he'll be putting that out pretty soon if he hasn't already.
	The basic idea is that if you believe in free will, if you believe in human reason, if you believe in our capacity to understand the universe, if you believe in a predictable universe with laws that govern it, if you believe we do not live in a chaotic universe without meaning, if you believe that you can derive ought from is, then you need to believe in a divine creator.
	Okay, and that's not an argument for the Bible, but that is an argument for God, right?
	That's the Aristotelian argument for God, is that there is a rationale behind everything.
	If you believe there's a rationale behind everything, then you believe in God.
	And if you believe, as Aquinas did, that that rationale is Purely actual.
	Here's sort of the argument that Aristotle makes.
	The argument that Aristotle makes for the unmoved mover is not that everything has a cause and therefore there's God.
	Because then leftist and atheists just say, well, does God have a cause also?
	The idea is that everything that you see in front of you at one point was another thing that was actualized.
	Something has potential and there's the potential in the actual.
	Like this piece of paper right here, this has the potential to be ash.
	But it requires fire in order to make it ash.
	Now fire itself also had a potential at one point, right?
	It was a match, and it was a piece of wood, or it was a rough surface.
	So it had the potential to be fire, but it was not fire.
	So in order for something to become actual, in order for potential to be actualized, it has to be acted upon by something that is either fully actual, or something that is a combination of the actual with its own potential.
	The idea here would be that there is something that lies behind everything that is purely actual.
	It is actuality itself.
	It is the most actual thing.
	And this thing cannot be material, because if it were material, then it would have potential for change.
	It doesn't have potential for change, therefore it is purely actual.
	And that pure actuality also is all-knowing because anything that exists has to come from a place of capacity for being actualized.
	And so it's the unactualized actualizer is the way that God would be put...
	If you want to read a good book about proofs of God, then Edward Fazer is a book I've recommended on the show.
	He has five proofs for the existence of God.
	Quite a good book.
	And I recommend you check it out.
	Good Christmas read, actually.
	I recommend that you check that out.
	Again, I think what it comes down to in the end is you either believe there's a purpose and meaning in human life, or you don't.
	If you don't, you may end up an atheist.
	If you do, you're going to end up at God no matter how you slice it.
	And any attempts to avoid that, which is the debate I had with Sam Harris, any attempts to avoid that conclusion are bound to fall short.
	My advice is that you actually make a list of your accomplishments and that you go in with another job offer in hand.
	That you actually go out and investigate the market.
	But then you say, look, I love working here, but I can make more money elsewhere.
	Are you going to meet that or are you going to keep me?
	Don't make bluffs.
	I'm not big into bluffs.
	I don't like bluffing.
	Even in poker, I'm not good at bluffing.
	I think that bluffing is a fool's errand.
	So be ready to pull the trigger if you want to pull the trigger.
	Let's see.
	Jason says, he mentioned it was a mistake to have an income tax.
	What would you do instead if it were up to you?
	Other than huge spending cuts, of course.
	So, I think there's a strong case for a national sales tax on transactions.
	The government taxes, basically, because transactions can only take place in the public square to a certain extent.
	A consumption tax seems to me more useful than an income tax, because no business of the government is what kind of money I make, but presumably if I'm acting in the public square, then they may have more of an interest in the transactions in which I take part, although they should not obviously restrict consensual transactions.
	Jimmy says, "Ben, what is your opinion on privatized versus publicly run prisons?" The only reason for publicly run prisons, I would assume, is that you don't want to set up a corrupt system whereby privatized prisons are attempting to create more criminals.
	But I don't really have a problem with privatized prisons, particularly if you hold them liable for mistreatment of prisoners.
	If they actually sign contracts with the state that say that we can sue you if you mistreat the prisoners, if you harm the prisoners, that actually creates more accountability, not less.
	Right.
	The reason that you have high prices on legal services is because everybody goes to court for every reason.
	So what you should do instead is we should set up a system like Britain's where if you sue and you lose, you pay the bills.
	Right.
	The reason that you have high prices on legal services is because everybody goes to court for every reason.
	So what you should do instead is we should set up a system like Britain's where if you sue and you lose, you pay the bills.
	If you do that, that's going to prevent people from going to court with frivolous cases.
	Stephen says, "How does Ben celebrate New Year's?
	One glass of wine or one bottle?" I celebrate New Year's by deciding who to destroy in the coming year.
	That's how I celebrate New Year's.
	Honestly, it's a strain for me even to stay up till midnight on New Year's.
	The Jewish New Year was already in Rosh Hashanah, and we made not just New Year's resolutions, but commitments to God.
	So New Year's is like going to a party and getting drunk with people.
	I'm not big on getting drunk with anybody.
	I'm really not a big drinker is the truth.
	Yesterday, everyone at the Christmas party got some form of alcoholic gift, which is why productivity at the company is so low.
	But I'm not a big drinker.
	For some reason, a lot of alcohol really gives me heartburn, which is weird.
	Wine, particularly.
	But I drink like a girl.
	I mean, all of the drinks that I like are girls' drinks.
	I like things that taste good.
	I don't understand why guys have this macho thing about drinking turpentine.
	They sit around smoking on leaves and drinking turpentine.
	And it's like, why would you do that?
	There's a thing called sugar.
	Try it.
	It's great.
	Okay, Moshe says, Hi Ben, I'm from a medium to large modern Orthodox community in New York.
	Recently there's been some controversy when a local synagogue wouldn't allow a married lesbian couple to join the membership even though they were separate members when they were single.
	They've since started their own shul, which promotes acceptance of all.
	It's caused a bit of controversy in the neighborhood, where some are saying a religious institution should adhere to a religious standard.
	Others are pointing out there are plenty of people who sin.
	Why should this scene be held to a different standard regarding membership in the shul?
	I was wondering what your take is on modern orthodox shuls taking on same-sex couples as members.
	So, my answer is they cannot join as a couple.
	The answer is that from a religious standard, they cannot join as a couple.
	They do not get the same rights as married couples.
	They should not be treated as a married couple because that's the religious standard.
	Now, I don't think the government has anything to do here, but the religious standard in Judaism is that homosexuality is a sin, not homosexual orientation, but homosexual activity.
	You wouldn't allow somebody to join your Orthodox shul who came in every day, who came into the shul on Saturdays with their cell phone blaring and saying, I'm a non-Sabbath observant Jew, and I'm here to daven.
	And doing it openly.
	It's one thing if they come in with the cell phone in their pocket and it goes off and everybody's a little bit awkward, but the whole point here is that glorification of sin in an orthodox context is not a cool thing.
	So, I think that's right that they're allowed to be members when they're single.
	Now that they're married, if they want to join as single members, that's fine, but I don't think that's what they want.
	What they really want is for the entire community to change its standard of marriage to meet them, and that seems to me an imposition on the community.
	OK, so we have more questions, but we'll have to save those for next year.
	We'll have to save those for next year.
	Now, a quick thing I like, and then a thing I hate, and then I have a quick message of things, actually.
	I'm capable of saying it.
	Yes, indeed.
	OK, so things I like.
	So we're going to finish the year on a high note with some John Wayne.
	So if you've never seen this movie, it's actually one of my favorite John Wayne movies.
	It was not a huge hit, but it is really enjoyable.
	The movie is called Big Jake.
	It stars old, fat John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, who remained gorgeous her entire life.
	And the basic premise, it's basically taken, but a Western.
	That's really what it is.
	It's these guys who come and kidnap a child, and John Wayne is the grandfather, and John Wayne goes after them.
	And he brings along a couple of his sons, who are the uncles of the kid.
	And in the movie, one of his sons is actually played by Patrick Wayne, John Wayne's real son.
	The movie takes place in supposedly 1908, So you see, there's a couple of cars, but he's riding horses, and so there's also this sort of Western versus modern conflict that's going on, where John Wayne represents sort of the Old West, and you need the Old West to come into the modern world and save people when the bad guys show up.
	It's a really enjoyable flick.
	Here's a little bit of the preview.
	I just saw something in your eyes I don't like.
	I saw a foolish thought.
	You understand me.
	Anything happens, anything at all, your fault, my fault, nobody's fault.
	My little brother will blow that kid's head right off.
	It's as simple as that.
	No matter who else gets killed, that boy dies.
	The shotgun misses him, it don't matter.
	You already know about the rifle on him.
	That won't be as messy as a shotgun at three feet, but that boy will be just as dead.
	You understand me?
	Say it.
	I understand.
	- Dad.
	Now open it up. - All right, so we'll cut it off there because this scene gets pretty intense.
	The other son is played by Christopher Mitchum, who is Robert Mitchum's son.
	So it's kind of fun.
	And it's worth watching.
	The best performance in it is Richard Boone, who plays the villain here.
	The movie is really good.
	It's pretty bloody.
	Basically, it didn't occur to me until I was looking at this yesterday that this is taken.
	The movie is taken, but it's in Old Western with John Wayne, and it lives up to the hype.
	Okay, time for a quick thing I hate.
	One thing I hate, and then I have a message.
	So the thing I hate today is something that you will like.
	And that is, we made a Christmas message from The Daily Wire to you.
	I have to acknowledge that this was my idea, so I can't hate it completely.
	But now that it has materialized in real life form, I sort of hate it.
	So here it is.
	Here is our Christmas video from The Daily Wire to you.
	This one's for you.
	Oh, thank you so much, I appreciate it.
	From Michael.
	Oh, Michael, what a guy.
	Thank you so much.
	How'd you ever know?
	Ben, we're waiting.
	Aw, come on, Elisha.
	Right now.
	It looks like
	a pink nightmare. - And I just want to say a couple of quick messages, really, for Christmas and the New Year.
	It's a great time of the season to spend time with friends and family.
	And let's remember something.
	We spend a lot of time on the show, a lot of time on the show, talking about politics and the daily battles they're in.
	And one of the things I've been thinking about over the last couple of years, and I'm writing a book about it now, is we're so angry at each other all the time.
	Americans are so angry at each other over politics, over tax cuts, and Obamacare, and foreign policy.
	And the reality is we must have a common vision, a common purpose.
	We must feel like we're part of the same team.
	And one of the ways to do that is to recognize that we are all seeking human happiness in a communal purpose based on virtue.
	So this Christmas, don't just spend time enjoying with family.
	Think about how to be a more virtuous human being next year.
	Think about how to be a better person, not just in terms of interpersonal connections, but how you can be better in terms of thinking about your obligations to your family, to the world.
	How can you make yourself better?
	How can you make yourself more successful?
	If we all think about those things, if we think about our individual purpose, how we can succeed in our own lives, if we think about our communal purpose, what brings us together around common shared principles, then we'll finally have a country worthy of preserving again, and a country where we can act on that founding vision that brought us all together in the first place, and that I think has been fragmenting in the past couple of years.
	We are all brothers and sisters, whether we recognize it or not.
	And in the end, we're part of the same family, but that family has to have a common purpose, not just a common heritage.
	So, let's think about where to go from here.
	I also want to thank everybody who works on the show over here at The Daily Wire.
	I want to thank all of my producers.
	I'm not going to name all of them because I'm sure then I'll forget somebody and be yelled at later.
	So, just check out the credits at the end of the show.
	But everybody who works really hard day-to-day on the show, they do.
	They work extremely hard to cut the clips, play the clips at the right time, make sure the clip is not available for playing Marshall.
	They really work hard to make sure that the show is as good as it is every day, and they deserve my thanks.
	And so, really, from the bottom of my heart, it's great to be part of the team with you.
	We couldn't do it without you.
	And finally, thank you to our audience.
	This has been an unbelievable year for The Daily Wire.
	It's been an incredible year for The Daily Wire.
	We literally went from a site that did not exist two years ago to a site with 100 million page views a month.
	We went from a podcast that did not exist two years ago to a podcast that is downloaded well in excess of half a million times a day and that is viewed another half a million times on Facebook.
	Very often.
	So we have a million people engaging with the show on a daily basis.
	That's thanks to you.
	Thanks for being part of what we're trying to do here.
	And thanks for giving us a rational hearing.
	And if you're on the other side in particular, thanks to you for actually spending some time out of your comfort zone and listening to some folks on the other side.
	Because I think that it makes the country better if we all do that.
	I'll see you next year.
	It's been a wonderful year.
	Thanks once again.
	And have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
	Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Alex Zingaro.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

▲