Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

June 1, 2018 - The Ben Shapiro Show

55:07

To Bee Or Not To Bee | Ep. 551

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Samantha Bee gets herself into hot water, Roseanne begs for clemency, and Joy Reid somehow keeps on keeping on.
	I'm Ben Shapiro, this is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Oh, I have so many thoughts today, so many things to talk about.
	But first, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Wink.
	Okay, let's be straight.
	This week, I need a drink.
	I'm just gonna be honest with you, I need a drink this week.
	And that's why Wink exists.
	If you need a drink, and not only if you need a drink, but if you just need a great bottle of wine to go with your dinner, this is what Wink is for.
	You're going over to somebody's house, you don't know a bottle of wine from a bottle of ketchup.
	And so you need somebody to recommend a good bottle of wine for you so you don't look like an ignoramus?
	Well, that's what Wink is for.
	Wink Wine Experts select wines matched to your taste, personalized for you, shipped right to your door, and starting at just $13 a bottle.
	There's nothing like coming home to a box of delicious Wink wine selected just for you.
	It is the best day of your month.
	All you have to do is fill out Wink's palette profile quiz.
	You answer simple questions that your average store clerk wouldn't ask or translate into a recommendation like, how do you take your coffee?
	And how do you feel about blueberries?
	And then Wink sends wines curated to your taste.
	The more wines you rate, the more personalized your monthly selection.
	It's like Netflix for wines, essentially.
	Each month there are new delicious wines like the insanely popular Summer Water Rosé.
	No membership fees.
	You can skip any month.
	You can cancel any time.
	And shipping is covered.
	If you don't like a bottle they send you, they'll replace it with a bottle that you do like.
	Discover great wine today.
	Go to trywink.com slash ben.
	That's t-r-y-w-i-n-c dot com slash ben.
	And you get $20 off your first shipment.
	That's trywink.com slash Ben for $20 off your first shipment.
	Trywink with a C dot com slash Ben.
	Use that slash Ben to let them know that we sent you.
	All right.
	So Samantha Bee yesterday, of course, was the big news because Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a feckless C word.
	Why?
	Because Ivanka Trump had committed the grave sin of having the gall to photograph herself with her child over Memorial Day weekend.
	Why, you ask, would this make her a feckless seaward?
	Well, because, apparently, at the border, illegal immigrant parents are being separated from their children.
	What does that have to do with Ivanka Trump, you ask?
	Nothing!
	The answer is nothing.
	But, Samantha Bee decided that this made Ivanka Trump a feckless seaward, and that she should instead dress sexy for her dad because her dad wants to have sex with her, according to Samantha Bee, and then she should stump for Samantha Bee's preferred immigration policy.
	Well, all of this broke, and the right, predictably, and correctly, went nuts.
	They said, this is insane.
	Why would you go after Ivanka Trump this way?
	We just had a controversy in which Roseanne Barr lost her show for using a racist slur against Valerie Jarrett.
	And her show actually had ratings, unlike Samantha Bee's show, where seven people watch it, including Samantha Bee's immediate family.
	And yet, Samantha Bee still gets to remain on air.
	Now, I'm not calling for Samantha Bee to be fired because, frankly, I think that her viewers got exactly what they were looking for.
	I think TBS hired her knowing full well what they were getting.
	I think the Roseanne situation is just a little bit different in the sense that when Roseanne's creators decided to put her on the air, they were not fully expecting that she was going to do this, and it sort of undercuts the integrity of their product.
	Samantha Bee didn't undercut the integrity of her product.
	This is her product.
	Her product is being a vile, terrible person who says vile, terrible things about people who she disagrees with.
	Right, that is her product.
	So, I don't see why she should be thrown off her air for promoting her product.
	I also don't see why Samantha Bee should apologize, because her apology is going to be fake anyway.
	So she did apologize yesterday.
	She put out a statement saying that she crossed a line.
	Her original apology is just ridiculous.
	She says, I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night.
	It was inappropriate and inexcusable.
	I crossed a line and I deeply regret it.
	Okay, do you really believe that Samantha Bee deeply regrets it, or is it that advertisers were starting to drop out of her show?
	I don't think she deeply regrets it.
	I think that's a bunch of horse poopoo.
	I don't think that's correct at all.
	And then CBS put out its own apology.
	Quote, Samantha Bee has taken the right action in apologizing for the violent and inappropriate language she used about Ivanka Trump last night.
	Those words should not have been aired.
	It was our mistake, too, and we regret it.
	Well, damn right it's your mistake.
	Samantha Bee, unlike Roseanne, who's just tweeting out crazy stuff because it was late at night and Roseanne's a crazy person who takes Ambien, Okay, I actually believe her Ambien story in the sense that Roseanne is actually a crazy person, and Ambien makes crazy people crazier.
	It makes sane people a little bit crazier.
	It doesn't make them racist, but if you're a little racist, it's gonna make you more racist, presumably.
	But in any case, TBS's statement that they are responsible, this is correct.
	Samantha Bee's rant was scripted, it was put into the script, it was filmed, it was distributed, it was greenlit.
	Everybody at every step of the way had an opportunity to say, guys, this might be a little over the top, but they didn't, because why would they?
	Because This is what Samantha Bee does for a living.
	I mean, there's nothing.
	And how do I know that this is fake?
	Here's how I know this is fake.
	So, it demonstrates just how tied in Samantha Bee is to the mentality of the left.
	You know, what has happened to Samantha Bee over the last 24 hours.
	There was a tweet from Chris Hayes that was just inane about Roseanne, basically saying that Roseanne's worldview represents a large segment of the Trump base, or significant segments of the Trump base.
	That's what he had suggested.
	There's no evidence to suggest that at all.
	That large segments of the Trump base believe that Valerie Jarrett looks like an ape, or believe that it's appropriate to say such things in the first place.
	That's just absurd, and there's no evidence to support it.
	There's pretty good evidence to support the idea that a lot of Samantha Bee's base are Hillary Clinton's base, and they all believe what Samantha Bee just said.
	It's really funny.
	I was at a wedding for my sister over the weekend, and a person who shall remain nameless came up to me and was talking about politics a little bit, and at one point actually said, I wish someone would shoot Donald Trump.
	And I said, are you insane?
	Like, why would you say that?
	Like, no.
	That's a no.
	But he said this in, like, normal conversation.
	Because this is the way a lot of people on the left think.
	Well, this is also true for Samantha Bee.
	Right?
	Because Samantha Bee, how do I know that her apology was false and that a bunch of people defended her?
	Because her apology was false and a bunch of people defended her.
	So first, her fake apology.
	So she sent that apology.
	She's so sorry.
	Then she got an award.
	I'm not kidding.
	She got an award from the Television Academy for social change, right?
	Because she's a good person who infects social change by shouting the c-word on air about Ivanka Trump for holding her baby.
	So here is what Samantha... So this is the funny part.
	Television Academy does the social change award about freedom in the media, free press, Samantha Bee changing the world, and they bar the press.
	They legitimately bar the media from essentially a free press celebration award because Samantha Bee was in a lot of hot water.
	So it doesn't matter.
	Her speech leaked anyway.
	And here's what Samantha Bee said.
	She said, quote.
	Every week I strive to show the world as I see it, unfiltered.
	Sometimes I should probably have a filter.
	I accept that.
	I take it seriously when I get it right, and I do take responsibility when I get it wrong.
	We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word, when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals.
	Okay, so you apologize, but it's our fault, so it's my fault.
	So I got offended that you called Ivanka Trump a c-word, and that's my fault, because really I should be more worried about the children at the border, in which case it should be okay that you called her a c-word, in which case it's totally fine.
	That's the logic here.
	There are a bunch of points to make on this particular topic.
	First of all, I want to point out, a bunch of folks on the left actually support Samantha Bee's language.
	Unlike Roseanne, who found no defenders.
	Even the people who are saying that she should be left on air were not defending her actual comments.
	Samantha Bee actually found defenders in the press.
	She found defenders in Hollywood.
	It's really absurd.
	So let's start with Joss Whedon.
	Talented director.
	Gross person.
	Quite possible.
	Happens all the time.
	Here's what Joss Whedon tweeted, quote, Ivanka legitimized Trump by being pretty and seeming sane.
	Well, what?
	Like, why is that her problem?
	Ivanka legitimized Trump by being pretty and seeming sane.
	And Libs created a kind of sexist Rapunzel narrative that she was trapped.
	She's from a crime family.
	She married into a crime family.
	She's a grown-up.
	She will do as much damage as she can get away with.
	Sam was too kind.
	So yes, this happens to be a fairly widely held opinion on the left, is that Ivanka Trump is an emissary of evil.
	And then Sally Field, who you've not heard of for years.
	It turns out that she doesn't like Ivanka.
	She really doesn't like Ivanka.
	She says, I like Samantha Bee a lot, but she has flat wrongs to call Ivanka a C-word.
	C-words are powerful, beautiful, nurturing, and honest.
	OK, and so I have a few questions about this.
	I mean, we can start with the question as to what makes a body part honest.
	That's kind of weird.
	I'm not sure why the body part is also nurturing.
	That was kind of weird as well.
	But in any case, Sally, Sally Field defending the actual commentary.
	And then there is, of course, a CNN analyst who loved the tweet.
	A CNN analyst named Brian Karam.
	He tweeted, ha, okay, best tweet of the day, young lady, to Sally Field, who, again, has not been relevant since she did basically Mrs. Doubtfire.
	I guess she was in Lincoln for like five minutes.
	But she is, of course, an emissary of Hollywood, and Hollywood is very much in favor of Samantha Bee.
	Kathy Griffin, of course, came out and defended Samantha Bee.
	No shock there, because Kathy Griffin is gross.
	What's hilarious is that the mainstream media also defended Samantha Bee.
	So, I just have to give you some of the headlines from the media.
	Now remember, the headline about Roseanne Barr is Roseanne Barr tweets racist nonsense at Valerie Jarrett, or Roseanne Barr calls Valerie Jarrett an ape, or whatever the headline was, but they were all anti-Roseanne Barr, obviously.
	Then, there's the media's coverage of the Samantha Bee comments.
	Hey, these are headlines.
	OK, here's a headline from USA Today.
	The headline from USA Today was Samantha Bee has a message for Ivanka Trump.
	Has a message for Ivanka Trump?
	She called her a feckless c-word and suggested that she should have sex with her own father.
	That's not really a message so much as, you know, calling her a feckless c-word.
	I mean, imagine if they had run a headline that said, Roseanne Barr has a message for Valerie Jarrett.
	The whole thing's absurd.
	It's just ridiculous.
	And here's what the Washington Post went with.
	Okay, this is their headline.
	Why the c-word is so taboo and why some women want to reclaim it.
	Because you see, Samantha Bee actually was reclaiming the c-word for women by calling another woman the c-word.
	She was reclaiming it.
	Feminism means calling women you don't like the c-word.
	Just like good race relations mean calling people you don't like the n-word.
	You know, this is what I do.
	When I want to have good relations with another Jew, the first thing I do is I break out the k-word and I just use that all the time.
	I mean, you can ask Jess.
	Every time I'm angry with Jess, you know, just in order so that we can get close, I use the S-word to describe her.
	It's just something that I do.
	You know, like, what in the world?
	But this is coming from the Washington Post.
	The C-word is taboo, but some women want to reclaim it by calling other women the C-word because they hate them.
	Yes, you definitely reclaim the C-word for feminism.
	Well done, media.
	Okay, and then it gets even better.
	Here's the New York Times headline on this thing.
	So the New York Times tweeted out, She's a hero!
	Don't you see?
	nearly seven minutes of full frontal with Samantha Bee to the issue of migrant children before using a crude term to describe Ivanka Trump.
	She's a hero.
	Don't you see?
	She spent minutes talking about immigration policy before she dropped that line.
	I mean, you couldn't say about Roseanne Barr.
	So Roseanne Barr created many hours of wonderful entertainment before dropping a crude term to describe Valerie Jarrett.
	Of course, you would never hear that, right?
	Because it's idiotic.
	But New York Times has to defend Samantha Bee.
	So this is what's hilarious.
	Chris Hayes spends time trying to proclaim that people on the right support Roseanne Barr and Trump for the same reason, which is that they all think like Roseanne Barr about Valerie Jarrett.
	No evidence of that.
	But the entire left comes out essentially in support of Samantha Bee, with maybe one exception over at CNN, Brooke Baldwin.
	We'll talk about it in a second.
	And suddenly, we're supposed to believe that they are something different from Samantha Bee?
	Samantha Bee represents the left far better than Roseanne Barr ever represented the right.
	This is not in doubt.
	This is evidentiarily supported.
	Of course that is true.
	And the basic proof of that, by the way, is that Samantha Bee will not be pulled off the air.
	The reason that Roseanne Barr was pulled off the air is not just because she said something terrible.
	It's because the network forecast that what was going to happen is that a bunch of people who watched Roseanne's show were going to turn out and boycott the show.
	The same will not happen to Samantha Bee.
	Her ratings will go up after this.
	A bunch of leftists who love this kind of stuff will go watch her show specifically because they feel the same way about Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump as Samantha Bee.
	Okay, so I have a few more comments on this about apology culture and whether people ought to be fired for this sort of thing.
	But first, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Quip.
	You don't spend the right amount of time brushing your teeth.
	I know you don't.
	I know you're not brushing twice a day, the requisite amount of time.
	You're not spending two minutes a day brushing your teeth.
	You're messing it up or using an old toothbrush.
	OK, well, this is what Quip is for.
	So Quip is the new electric toothbrush.
	It packs just the right amount of vibration into a slimmer design and a fraction of the cost of bulkier traditional electric brushes.
	And guiding pulses alert you when to switch sides, making brushing the right amount of effortless.
	Quip also comes with a mount that suctions right to your mirror and unsticks to use as a cover for hygienic travel anywhere.
	Whether it's going in your gym bag or in your carry-on.
	And because the thing that cleans your mouth should also be clean, Quip's subscription plan refreshes your brush on a dentist-recommended schedule, delivering new brush heads every three months for just five bucks, including free shipping worldwide.
	So you never have to think about it again, and it comes when it's supposed to be replaced.
	It's just great.
	Quip starts at just $25, and if you go to getquip.com slash Shapiro right now, you'll get your first refill pack for free with a Quip electric toothbrush.
	That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash Shapiro.
	That's G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash Shapiro.
	Quip toothbrush.
	I love it.
	Use it every night.
	Bring it with me on the road.
	It is a lot better than other electric toothbrushes.
	Go to G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash Shapiro, and you get your first refill pack for free.
	And Quip starts at just 25 bucks, so check it out.
	All right, so.
	I don't want to make it sound like everyone in the media supported Samantha Bee.
	It's just a large swath of the media that supported Samantha Bee.
	Brooke Baldwin on CNN was the only person I could find who gave an honest assessment of the Samantha Bee nonsense.
	So good for Brooke Baldwin at CNN.
	Tribute to Brooke Baldwin.
	Here's what she said.
	Doing this, she is no better than the very behavior she criticizes.
	In fact, she becomes part of the problem.
	And now, like most entertainers who go political and get into hot water, she'll say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm just a comedian.
	But the problem is it doesn't work here.
	She's Samantha Bee.
	She's in this position of leadership, not to mention a role model to millions of young girls and to women, and to use that word, from a woman to another woman.
	Offensive is offensive.
	Wrong is wrong.
	Okay, good for Brooke Baldwin.
	But she was one of the few people who was saying this.
	There were a lot of people yesterday making excuses.
	Well, Donald Trump uses that kind of language all the time.
	Donald Trump says a lot of bad stuff.
	That's true.
	Donald Trump does say a lot of bad stuff.
	And this is pure whataboutism if you're going to ignore the fact that Samantha Bee just said something vile.
	But again, this is well within Samantha Bee's wheelhouse.
	So, this raises a few questions.
	It raises, I think, three serious questions.
	I think, first, it raises the question as to whether Samantha Bee ought to be fired.
	And then, it raises the question as to whether Samantha Bee ought to be boycotted.
	And third, it raises the question as to apology culture.
	So, first, should Samantha Bee be fired?
	My opinion is probably not, because they got what they bargained for.
	When they hired Samantha Bee, this is exactly what they were looking for.
	They got what they were looking for.
	You know, the same as I say, I'm not sure the same thing holds true just from a business perspective on Roseanne.
	Now, from a morality perspective, from a decency perspective, should she be fired?
	Sure, because she's gross and she never should have been hired.
	But I'm not talking from a decency perspective.
	I'm talking from a and I would rather have a culture that allows Samantha Bee to go forward and do her miserable, crappy show.
	Then have a culture that doesn't.
	And at the same time, I don't see the corporate rationale for firing her in quite the same way that I do for Roseanne, simply because I don't think that the corporate blowback is going to be quite as great.
	Well, there I say, like, if you just want to tune out of her show, go for it.
	I mean, I would.
	But the problem is nobody who actually has ever watched Samantha Bee is watching her show if they're conservative.
	Samantha Bee is a wild left Nasty human being and so that's not a shock at all I don't think boycotts are liable to work and that raises the question of apology culture I'm gonna get to that in just one second.
	So we as a society have decided That we are going to demand apologies from everyone at any time for anything and then we decide whether we like the apology or not and it seems that if you're on the left and you apologize we accept it and if you're on the right and you apologize we don't accept it so When Laura Ingraham got in hot water because she tweeted something slightly mean about David Hogg, the Parkland survivor, she said he was kind of whiny, and then she got hit with boycotts by David Hogg and company because stupid.
	Okay, when all that happened, and it wasn't even her getting boycotted, it was her advertisers getting boycotted.
	By the way, I do think there's a difference between primary boycotts and secondary boycotts.
	If you want to boycott my show and not listen to it, That's on you.
	You want to boycott my advertisers?
	That seems to me that now you are going a step beyond.
	I felt that about Ingram.
	I feel that about Samantha Bee.
	People should not be boycotting her advertisers.
	The only reason to boycott other advertisers on the left is just to create a feeling of mutually assured destruction so that people stop doing it.
	I don't like the idea that advertisers are going to be penalized for attempting to reach out to particular audiences.
	I think that's silly.
	But in any case, the apology culture exists in order to kind of shame people into saying things they don't believe.
	Laura Ingraham apologized and the left said no, no, that apology isn't genuine.
	Roseanne apologized and the left said this apology is not genuine.
	Now...
	I think that Roseanne's apology was probably genuine because I think Roseanne is legitimately a person who has serious mental issues, okay?
	And I don't say that as somebody trying to label her from the outside.
	Roseanne herself has said for 30 years she has serious mental issues.
	She's a person with mental problems.
	She has said that she is on some sort of drugs for her mental illness.
	Here's what she tweeted out yesterday.
	I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC to let me apologize and make amends.
	I begged him not to cancel the show.
	I told him I was willing to do anything and ask for help in making things right.
	I had work doing publicity for them for weeks, for traveling through bronchitis.
	I begged for people's jobs, because there were 150 people who lost their jobs.
	Because Roseanne's show came to an end.
	And she continued tweeting out, she said, he said, what were you thinking when you did this?
	I said, I thought she was white.
	She looks like my family.
	He scoffed and said, what you have done is egregious and unforgivable.
	I begged for my crew's job.
	Will I ever recover from this pain?
	OMG.
	And then she continued along these lines.
	I said, I think I'll be better tomorrow.
	The saddest part of all is Jade and Ray on the show, whom I grew to love so much.
	I'm so ashamed of myself that you'd ever think I do not love her because she's African-American.
	It's the most God awful, painful thing.
	I can't let myself cave in though.
	And then she concluded by saying, I ended by offering everyone involved one more apology and prayers for healing of our divided nation.
	Tomorrow is Shabbat.
	So Roseanne Barr is Jewish and she's become kind of Zionist in her later years.
	And I will continue to pray that everything for everyone goes forward and ends well for all.
	Signing off Twitter for a while.
	Love you guys.
	So this is a person who clearly has problems.
	And I think her apology is more genuine than Samantha Bee's.
	Samantha Bee's is clearly not genuine.
	She went in front of an audience last night and basically said her apology was not genuine.
	And here are some pictures of Roseanne Barr on the phone yesterday that were taken by the tabloids.
	This is what Roseanne Barr, I mean, she's sitting there in beat-up jeans and essentially a white shirt, smoking a cigarette, looking haggard, looking weary, looking deeply troubled, right?
	I mean, with a plastic bag around her arm, sitting on a curb, making phone calls.
	You gotta feel a little bit bad for Roseanne Barr.
	I mean, this is a person who has problems.
	But we treat it as though her apology is not genuine, but Samantha Bee's apology is genuine.
	Why do we do that?
	Because we have deemed that people on the left are allowed to apologize and get away with anything, whereas people who support Trump in the case of Roseanne Barr, who's not even right-wing, or people like Laura Ingraham, we won't accept their apologies, because if we accept their apologies, then that would assume that we can let them back into the realm of thinkers whom we respect and people who are willing to deal with.
	I don't like the apology culture in general.
	If you want to apologize, apologize, but the sort of pressure to apologize, and then we get to deem whether your apology is good or not, I find to be a giant waste of time.
	I think it's really stupid.
	I think some apologies are worthwhile.
	I've apologized for things that I've done before, and I apologize when I feel like I ought to apologize.
	Not because people think I ought to apologize.
	But unfortunately, we have a culture that suggests that we can force people into apologies.
	I think that that's a waste of time.
	Also, I have to say, with regard to the Roseanne thing, You know, we have a culture that lives off of crazy people.
	We have a culture that legitimately lives off the back of people who are talented artists, but who very often are nuts.
	And then we treat them as though they're not nuts for purposes of public relations.
	And that's just not the case.
	We exploit people all the time.
	It's really kind of yucky.
	Hollywood's been doing it for years, and now we do it even more, where, like, ABC knew what Roseanne was when they hired Roseanne.
	She's a person with a history of this sort of stuff.
	And they hired her anyway, and then they act all shocked when she does this sort of thing.
	That I find a little bit bizarre, in any case.
	Now, in a second, I want to discuss...
	I want to discuss a figure on the left who's been able to get away with legitimately anything.
	Like legitimately anything.
	But first, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over This Sounds Serious.
	So This Sounds Serious is a brand new podcast that you should be listening to because it is hilarious.
	It's created by CastBox.
	It tells a fictional murder story that involves twins, cults, and a Florida weatherman.
	So here's the thing.
	A lot of podcasts are about true crime.
	A lot of podcasts are comedy.
	This is a true crime comedy podcast.
	It is really, really funny.
	This sound series is out right now, and you can listen to it wherever you get your podcast.
	So if you're looking for a light listen over the weekend, this sound series is what it is.
	The show pokes fun at the mystery and crime categories in a unique way, and it delivers big on both laughs and narrative.
	You're really going to enjoy it.
	It's a lot of fun.
	It's a fake true crime podcast.
	The first two episodes are available on May 1st.
	They've been available for a while here.
	And this sound series is a cast box Original, go check it out right now.
	Thissoundsserious.com, thissoundsserious.com.
	Each episode's about 25 minutes long, so you listen to it, you're on the road, that's how long it is, and you'll be able to get through the whole thing.
	Listen to a couple of episodes.
	It stars a bunch of guys who are basically known in Canada, and it was created by a Vancouver-based creative studio, but it's super, it really is really funny.
	I've had to listen to it.
	It's called This Sounds Serious, again.
	Check that out any place that podcasts are available.
	This Sounds Serious, a comedy true crime podcast.
	I'm a big fan of both those genres, so check that out again.
	Okay, so, if you're on the left, you never have to apologize for anything.
	Samantha Bee can apologize and get away with it.
	Not so much for Roseanne Barr.
	Joy Reid never even has to apologize for being just the worst person ever.
	So it turns out that Joy Reid, who claims that she had amnesia, it's so funny, everybody on the left was laughing at Roseanne Barr when she said that it was Ambien that made her tweet racist things.
	And Ambien tweeted out, well, it wasn't us.
	Well, Joy Reid said that she literally had amnesia, which is a bad plot point from a 1980s soap opera.
	And she said that was the reason that she had written all of these pieces before, talking about why she had problems with gay people and why she had problems with Jews.
	Well, literally every day there's a new thing coming out about the nasty stuff Joy Reid has said in the past.
	Well, here's just the latest.
	It turns out that Joy Reid put up a post in which John McCain's head had been photoshopped onto the body of the Virginia Tech shooter.
	She put out a post of that.
	OK, has she apologized for that?
	No, no, she doesn't know how it happened.
	It's just a mystery.
	How could it have happened?
	That's crazy.
	How did that?
	Wow.
	Oh, I can't believe it.
	And then it turns out that it's not restricted to that.
	It turns out that she also had a post on her website in which she parroted claims from the Iranian government saying that that Jews should be shipped out of Israel and back to Europe.
	Not joking.
	This is being reported over at the Federalist.
	So that's very exciting stuff from Joy Reid.
	And she also attacked Wolf Blitzer in an old blog post for being too nice to Jews.
	In a post dated July 16, 2006, Reid called Blitzer an AIPAC flak after he didn't ask Israeli officials questions that Reid liked on air.
	And again, she had another post in which Reid said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, was really on to something when he suggested that the Zionist regime of Israel should just relocate to Europe.
	She said, God is not a real estate broker.
	He can't just give you land 1,000 years ago that you can come back and claim today.
	Which is hilarious, considering that Joy Reid backed the Palestinians' claim to this land that they had, you know, supposedly 60 years ago.
	But apparently, the UN is a real estate broker.
	In any case, Joy Reid has said all this stuff.
	Has there been any serious blowback?
	No, of course not.
	This is Joy Reid.
	Meghan McCain responded to the rip on John McCain in this fashion.
	Here's what she had to say.
	She said, This is beyond disgusting and disgraceful.
	And, of course, this is right.
	But Joy Reid still maintains her job.
	Apparently, amnesia is a good excuse if you're on the left.
	And fake apologies, if you're Samantha Bee, are OK if you're on the left.
	But if you're on the right, we must never forgive you ever.
	We must maintain forever that you did something that is excrable and awful, and you can never be given forgiveness, even if you are legitimately mentally ill, as I think Roseanne Barr is.
	Again, I'm not saying Roseanne Barr said something decent or that she should have kept her show.
	I'm not saying either of those things.
	I am saying that there is a massive double standard when it comes to media treatment of people on the left and the right.
	And Joy Reid being able to maintain a show and give commentary on Roseanne Barr is insane.
	Samantha Bee being able to keep her show and be seen as a figure of light and happiness on the left is similarly insane.
	No wonder people on the right are so frustrated with the culture.
	And this leads to the gap that I've talked about before.
	The right doesn't have power over the cultural levers.
	The right doesn't have the power to actually get more things on the air that are pro-conservative.
	And so the right responds politically to the left's culture war.
	The left fights a culture war.
	They win the culture war.
	The left fights back in a different way.
	They fight back politically.
	And that's why Donald Trump is president.
	That was a direct response to the culture wars the left has been waging for a very long time.
	Now, meanwhile, President Trump is pursuing some really stupid policies today.
	There's good news for President Trump and there's bad news.
	The good news for President Trump is that the economy continues to soar.
	The economy is doing really, really well.
	Right now, the unemployment rate was downgraded to 3.8%.
	That's the lowest unemployment rate in the United States in half a century.
	The black unemployment rate is 5.9%, which is the lowest that it has been in half a century.
	These are great, great numbers for the president.
	223,000 jobs gained in May.
	All of this is really, really good.
	And Trump was so excited about it that he broke protocol and actually announced before the announcement of the jobs numbers that the jobs numbers would be dropping in half an hour.
	Keep an eye out.
	Wink wink.
	He already knew the jobs numbers from last night.
	So a lot of people were saying, that's insider trading.
	It's not insider trading when you blast it out to the entire world, obviously.
	But in any case, and everybody assumed that the economy was doing well anyway.
	In any case, all that is very good.
	So President Trump then promptly decides that we need to start a trade war.
	Hey, this is intensely stupid.
	In every possible way, this is intensely, intensely stupid.
	So...
	So here are the details of Donald Trump's trade war.
	Apparently, President Trump has now decided that it is important to use steel and aluminum tariffs on our own allies.
	Before it was just against China, now he wants to use them against the EU, Mexico, and Canada as well.
	He announced steel and aluminum tariffs, 25% for steel, 10% for aluminum, against the EU, Canada, and Mexico.
	He'd exempted those countries until now.
	All those countries are American allies, and they are all announcing retaliatory tariffs against the United States.
	So Mexico has threatened tariffs on lambs, pork, fruit, cheese, and flat steel.
	Canada has announced tariffs on $12.8 billion in U.S.
	exports.
	So Trump's excuse for the tariffs is national security.
	For some reason, we have to tariff Canadian steel, because otherwise what?
	Not clear.
	But Trump now apparently wants to go even further.
	He wants to target imported vehicles.
	So far, the Trump administration has basically been able to escape Trump's belief that tariffs are an innate good, but not for long.
	So Trump is now pushing these tariffs, which are bad for the economy and bad policy.
	Tariffs, as I've said before, these are just a tax on the American people.
	Whenever the government picks winners and losers, they are taxing a bunch of people to pay for it.
	If the government decides to give a subsidy, they have to tax a lot of people to pay for that subsidy.
	When you give a tariff, the tariff is for the benefit of a particular industry.
	It means I have to pay more for that product.
	It is me subsidizing that industry.
	It is not Trump subsidizing the industry.
	It is the American people subsidizing that industry.
	So, for example, President Trump tweeted out today, he's very angry at Justin Trudeau because Justin Trudeau kicked back against him.
	Here was Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, usually wrong on everything, right?
	He's handsome Bernie Sanders.
	He's usually wrong on everything.
	But he's not wrong when he says that the tariffs that Trump are putting on Canada are kind of dumb.
	Let me be clear.
	These tariffs are totally unacceptable.
	For 150 years, Canada has been the United States' most steadfast ally.
	These tariffs will harm industry and workers on both sides of the Canada-US border, disrupting linked supply chains that have made North American steel and aluminum more competitive all around the world.
	We have to believe that at some point, Common sense will prevail.
	But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S.
	administration.
	Okay, well, I've never said this before, but I agree with Justin Trudeau.
	Okay, he's not wrong when he says that these tariffs are bad for the economy and they're bad for the United States economy.
	I don't care that much about Canada's economy.
	I'm an American, but I do care a lot about America's economy.
	And the idea that you're going to make America's economy stronger by taxing American citizens is really stupid.
	President Trump should not be pursuing this policy.
	He should get off of this policy immediately, as fast as possible.
	Unfortunately, there's another economic policy he's pursuing as well that is also not smart.
	I'm going to explain that one in just a second.
	First, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Genucel.
	So, you know, you get up in the morning, you look at your face in the mirror, you go, And one of the reasons you say, ah, is not just because you are inherently ugly.
	I mean, I don't know, maybe you're a beautiful person, but virtually everybody who wakes up in the morning got the bags under their eyes.
	And when you have the bags under your eyes, it ain't that great.
	It's one of the reasons we've got a makeup lady here at the studio.
	You get the bags under your eyes and it's not going to make you look good.
	In your regular life.
	Well, if you have those bags under your eyes, this is what you need GenuCell for, okay?
	Introducing the new GenuCell serum with plant stem cell technology from Chamonix.
	Susan from New Jersey says, I've been using GenuCell for a couple of months.
	The puffiness around my eyes is gone.
	Even the crow's feet and small lines have disappeared and they haven't come back.
	I love your product.
	I use it under my eyes, around my cheekbones, on my eyelids.
	Well, people in my family use it and they love it.
	My wife loves it.
	My mom likes it so much that when she comes over to our house and there's extra, she grabs it.
	With its instant effects, you will see results in the first 12 hours or you can get your money back.
	They guarantee it.
	For a limited time, order GenuCell.
	Try Chamonix's brand new GenuCell Eyelid Lift for droopy, sagging eyelids for absolutely free.
	There's no reason for you to look like Huckleberry Hound.
	Call 800-663-2904.
	That's 800-663-2904.
	Or visit GenuCell.com.
	That's GenuCell.com.
	Again, call now.
	Express shipping is free.
	800-663-2904.
	Or GenuCell.com.
	G-E-N-U-C-E-L.com.
	GenuCell.com.
	Call now.
	Express shipping is free. 800-663-2904 or genucel.com.
	G-E-N-U-C-E-L.com. Genucel.com.
	Go check it out.
	Okay.
	So in a second, I'm going to get to President Trump's other foolish economic policies he's pursuing in the middle of a big economic boom, which makes no But first, you're going to have to go over to DailyWire.com because today is Mailbag Day.
	So if you want to subscribe, today's the day to do it.
	You can get your questions in.
	I'm answering them live.
	So you can have all of your life questions answered right before your very eyes.
	And you can be edified and enlightened and lead your best life.
	All you have to do is give me money.
	All you have to do is pay $9.99 a month and then you get into the club and you can ask questions.
	Also, if you want the annual subscription, you get this.
	The very greatest in tumblers, the leftist here's hot or cold tumbler.
	Do not believe Steven Crowder when he says that this gives you asbestos, that this is filled with asbestos.
	It is not true.
	It is not filled with asbestos.
	It is filled with nectar of the gods, ambrosia.
	It is filled with things that will prevent you from ever being ill.
	The rest of you, well, I can't make that claim actually technically because that's, but, but, Maybe.
	Maybe it's true.
	In any case, check it out.
	Left is Tears, Hot or Cold Tumblr.
	You will love it.
	And if you just want to listen later, please go over to iTunes or SoundCloud.
	By the way, you should go over and you should subscribe right now over there because on Sunday we have the fantastic Joe Rogan.
	Joe Rogan came into the studio.
	We had a nice long, hour-long interview.
	It was a blast.
	Joe's awesome.
	And you're going to enjoy that one.
	We've got the Sunday special that comes out every Sunday.
	We have a bunch of big guests coming up as well.
	So check that out.
	We are the fastest growing and largest conservative podcast in the nation.
	Okay, so to finish up the bad Trumpian policy of the day, President Trump also has now suggested that they want to make plans to order grid operators, like power grid operators, to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear like power grid operators, to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants in an effort to extend their life, a move that would represent an unprecedented intervention into energy markets.
	According to a 41-page draft memo obtained by Bloomberg and circulated before an NSC meeting on the subject Friday, quote, federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secured generation capacity.
	So they're saying that for strategic reasons, we have to actually protect our coal plants and that are obsolete or our nuclear plants that are obsolete.
	This is really stupid.
	The reason it's really stupid is, of course, it means that you are now going to have to pay more for power.
	Whenever the government decides that you have to subsidize a particular industry, this means that you're going to have to pay more for power.
	Now, the reason this is so dumb is because the economy is doing great.
	OK, this is a headline from The New York Times today.
	Quote, We ran out of words to describe how good the job numbers are.
	The economy is in a sweet spot with steady growth and broad improvement in the labor market.
	And this one from The Washington Post.
	The black unemployment rate has never been closer to the white unemployment rate.
	These are great headlines for the economy.
	Why would the president of the United States blow those headlines in order to redistribute?
	That's basically what he's talking about.
	He's talking about redistributing from one industry to another, from certain taxpayers to other taxpayers.
	It is a waste of time.
	It is a waste of money.
	It is counterproductive.
	The president should get off this immediately.
	You're old enough to remember when it was anti-crony capitalism that ruled the Republican Party.
	When the Tea Party came along and said, we don't like crony capitalism.
	We don't like corporatism.
	We don't like Solyndra payoffs.
	We don't like picking winners and losers.
	And now, apparently, if it's Trump, I guess it's OK.
	But it ain't OK.
	So President Trump should get off of this right now.
	It is bad economic policy.
	It is an anti-freedom policy.
	The government does not have the capacity to tell you how to shop.
	It does not have the capacity to tell you that you should spend more on particular goods and services simply because Donald Trump wants to win votes in particular areas of the American economy.
	It's bad stuff.
	It's bad stuff.
	And it was bad when Obama did it.
	It would have been bad if Hillary had done it.
	It is bad when Trump does it as well.
	It was bad when Bush did it, too.
	I criticized Bush at the time when he had steel tariffs, for example.
	Okay.
	It's mailbag time, so let's mailbag it up.
	Recently, I was talking to a friend about the current state of the Middle East, and he got fed up and essentially questioned the necessity of average Americans needing to be constantly updated and aware of foreign affairs and national controversies, arguing ignorance is bliss.
	What is the baseline of knowledge of politics and current events an average person should be aware of, and what do you believe is the main reason the average citizen should stay informed?
	P.S.
	Do you have any plans to do a public speaking tour in the future?
	We miss you back here in Chicago.
	So, first of all, we are doing a couple of events in Dallas and Phoenix.
	Those are coming up in August.
	The tickets to those are selling really fast if you want.
	The remaining tickets, which are running out, go over to dailywire.com slash events right now and buy your tickets before they run out.
	That's coming up in August.
	They're already almost selling out and it's, you know, barely June.
	So check that out.
	But as far as what is the baseline of information that you need to be informed, I mean, it's up to you.
	You don't have to be informed about news.
	But if you want to know what's coming, if you're interested in being a good citizen, I think good citizenship, meaning involvement in the public sphere, requires a baseline level of knowledge.
	I would say that reading the front page of the newspaper every day and the articles on the front page of the newspaper every day, or reading the most trafficked articles at Daily Wire, for example, will give you a broad overview.
	Listening to my show, I think, will give you a broad enough overview of the news of the day that you can speak fluently about these issues.
	I don't think you have to know who the president of Kazakhstan is.
	I don't think you have to know about the local oil crisis in Myanmar.
	I don't think you have to know all of these things, but I do think that there are certain broad narratives that have been important over time.
	Knowing enough about the Israel-Arab issue is important because that crops up frequently.
	Knowing enough about Russian foreign policy is important because that crops up frequently.
	Knowing enough about what the EU is.
	Knowing basic things, I think, is important.
	And having a worldview.
	Having a worldview that suggests, for example, that Western civilization is worth preserving and defending, that multiculturalism is foolish and counterproductive.
	Knowing enough to have a worldview is really important because politics are really just an extension of your values.
	So know your own values, and that very often will dictate politics, because the facts may change, and the evidence may change, but your values are rarely going to change.
	Your underlying values are rarely going to change.
	Joshua says, Hey Ben, even though midterm polls are not nearly as devastating to Republicans as originally anticipated, how do you think Trump reacts if the House and or Senate flip while he is president?
	Is there any chance he continues to walk the conservative line, or is it far more likely we start to see more liberal policy out of the White House?
	Love the show.
	Okay, so Josh, I think that, um, Let's say that, you know, it's not gonna happen.
	Let's say the Democrats flip the Senate, and let's say they flip the House.
	Then, it all depends on what they do.
	If they try to impeach President Trump, he will be the most right-wing president ever.
	The best thing that has happened for conservatives is that leftists have been attacking Trump non-stop.
	It's been great.
	Because what it means is that President Trump looks at the left and he says, you guys are jerks.
	I'm gonna go hang out with my friends over here on the right.
	And then he does all the things the right-wing wants.
	If Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi had been smart, in the first month, they would have gone to President Trump.
	They would have said, listen, Mr. President, you are a world-changing president.
	You have changed the world.
	And you, together with us, we can change the world together.
	Let's pass a bipartisan, nationalized health care bill.
	There's at least a 50% shot Trump would have gone for it.
	But instead, the Democrats are stupid.
	And they said, Donald Trump is evil.
	He's scum.
	He's the worst person we've ever seen.
	We can't work with him.
	He's a right-wing fanatic.
	And Trump was like, Well, fine.
	Go F yourselves.
	Bye.
	And then he just went over to the right and did exactly what the right wanted him to do, which is awesome.
	So keep going at it, left.
	Really appreciate it.
	Good luck with that.
	Hey, Ben, what books can you recommend in regards to bettering business like face to face communication skills?
	I started an internship in the New Jersey Statehouse.
	And good luck with that.
	And I'm sort of an introvert.
	So there is.
	So there are a couple of books that I've recommended in the past on body language.
	I'm trying to remember what the names of the books were off the top of my head.
	But you should study some basic body language.
	You can do that also through YouTube videos.
	There are just some good things to know about how you reflect body language back at people and what it is that people are looking for when they communicate.
	I'm trying to find out, like, I'm currently searching to try and figure out exactly what those books were that I'd recommended.
	But there are a bunch of them discussing exactly how to communicate better with people using kind of facial expressions and body language and all this stuff.
	It actually does matter.
	I got very into this for a period of time because there was actually a show about it.
	You remember this?
	It was called Lie to Me with Tim Roth.
	There was a show all about it where he was just using microexpressions to analyze people.
	It lasted for like a season, but it was kind of a fun show.
	And so there are a bunch of books that you can check out.
	Body language books I would recommend are good for communication.
	So check that out.
	The way you can argue that is that the French Revolution was also built on Enlightenment principles.
	So was Comte's bureaucratic nonsense.
	So was Nazism.
	So was Communism.
	These were all built on certain Enlightenment principles, and to pretend otherwise is to be ignorant of exactly what drove a lot of the Enlightenment and so-called counter-Enlightenment.
	Jean-Jacques Rousseau considered himself a part of the Enlightenment.
	He was considered an Enlightenment thinker.
	So it always is frustrating to me when people say, well, the Enlightenment was just John Locke.
	Basically, this is my critique of Steven Pinker's book.
	So Steven Pinker has a book called Enlightenment Now.
	It's 400 pages about why the Enlightenment's awesome.
	Great.
	I love the Enlightenment.
	I'm a fan.
	I like individualism.
	I like the idea that we have innate human rights.
	All these things are good.
	But you have deeper roots.
	Things weren't just born in 1760, right?
	History has a longer history.
	Hugo Grotius was talking about human rights back in the 16th century.
	He was a religious Christian and he was using religious Christianity as a way of explaining why human beings should have inherent rights.
	Hey, all of this is well documented.
	My entire new book is actually about exactly this, why it is that we can't just say Enlightenment, why we have to say Enlightenment rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.
	You also have to ask the question, why is it that if the Enlightenment was really separable from Judeo-Christian principles, it didn't just happen anywhere?
	Why didn't the Enlightenment just crop up in China, or India, or South America, or Africa?
	Why did it crop up in a Judeo-Christian civilization that has a 2,000-year history of dealing with exactly these ideas?
	So, I don't buy the argument that the Enlightenment alone is enough.
	Reason unmoored from traditional values ends in gulags and death camps, and religion unmoored from reason ends in theocratic tyranny.
	It ends in the Spanish Inquisition.
	I think you need both of them.
	And I think they need to be merged.
	And I think that's what brings about the Enlightenment, is the merger of Judeo-Christian values and reason.
	There's a reason that the Founders were largely religious, despite all the talk about it.
	Even the ones who were not quote-unquote religious were deists who believed in the power of a divine being who created an understandable universe and a certain teleological ability to understand how the universe is directed.
	So, I find the argument that the Enlightenment just sort of floats out there on its own and everything that's good is Enlightenment-based, like Pinker says, and everything that's not good we can just call counter-Enlightenment.
	I don't think that's right.
	I think it's a narrow read of history that's far too convenient.
	Daniel says, Well, I'm a free speech absolutist from a governmental perspective.
	listen to opinions by people you deem to be too extreme or unethical.
	Examples would include people like Peter Singer, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein.
	Thanks.
	Shabbat shalom.
	Well, I'm a free speech absolutist from a governmental perspective.
	I'm not a free speech absolutist in the sense I think all opinions are created equal or equally valid.
	This is an argument that I had with, for example, Milo Yiannopoulos in 2016.
	Milo was basically saying, all opinions should be taken seriously.
	All opinions.
	We should violate every taboo.
	I can say whatever garbage thing I want to say, and you should back me in that because I think that I should be able to say what I want to say.
	And my view was, the government should not tell you what to say, but it doesn't mean your opinion ain't garbage.
	Doesn't mean you didn't say a garbage thing.
	So, should Peter Singer be restricted from speaking?
	No.
	Should Noam Chomsky be restricted from speaking?
	No.
	Are they both pieces of human debris?
	Absolutely.
	John says, hey Ben, Do you sub vocalize when you read?
	I know you say you read quickly, and I'm curious if you announce the words in your head or just gaze over them.
	No, I don't sub vocalize when I read.
	I just look at the words.
	In fact, when I think about it too much and start to sub vocalize, it's deeply irritating to me.
	And then I just start trying to read faster so that I can stop the voice in my head from going.
	I don't like voices in my head.
	So Zachary says, Dear Ben, as someone gearing up to start law school but working full time, how do you stay organized and prioritize all your activities while still finding free time and are able to get good sleep?
	Please help.
	Well, number one, you have to know your actual skill set, and you have to know what you're good at and what you're bad at, and then you have to chart out your time.
	You legitimately have to chart out your time, including charting out breaks.
	So that means you're going to work for a certain amount of time in the morning, and then you're going to take a break, and you're going to enforce that break.
	And then you are going to come back, and you're going to work for a certain amount of time in the afternoon, and then you're going to enforce that break.
	What people usually do is they sort of drift in and out of work, right?
	They work, and then they check Twitter for a while, and then they work some more, and then they go out, and then they work.
	That's not the way that people should be focusing.
	Virtually every study I've ever seen says that the way to focus is to look directly at the work that you are doing.
	To look at that work and to take that work seriously until you are done.
	No one is really good at multitasking.
	I'm pretty good at multitasking for somebody multitasking but It's not nearly as good as when I'm concentrating on a project.
	In fact, one of the great irritants to my wife is the fact that when I'm concentrating on something, she can be talking directly at me and I do not even notice that it is happening.
	People in the office know this is a reality.
	Legitimately, before every show, I'm probably working on an article and Senya or Mathis or Jess have to try and shout into my ear that the show's about to begin because I'm too busy doing whatever it is that I'm doing.
	It's a good quality in terms of being able to work.
	It's a bad quality in terms of being respectful to other people.
	So, I've been working on it a little bit.
	Alan says, I agree with your position on tariffs and trade but I have a question.
	Don't the countries being targeted for tariffs impose tariffs against the USA already?
	Why is it wrong for Trump to fight for a balanced playing field?
	My preference would be for his actions to be successful in the elimination of all tariffs among our trading partners.
	What am I missing?
	Am I just too simplistic?
	No, that's not irrelevant.
	I mean, if the idea of trying to tariff another country to leverage them to lower their own tariffs is the idea, that's one thing.
	If you're trying to use it as a tactic to get them to lower tariffs, that's one thing.
	If you're using it as a tactic in order to damage the other side, just because you think that trade is a zero-sum game, or if you're trying to use tariffs as a way to enrich certain industries at the expense of others in your own country, then tariffs are stupid.
	By using tariffs as a tactic, I mean, you use it in war, right?
	You embargo other countries in war.
	So if you're trying to get them to, if you're trying to leverage them, tariffs can be used as a leverage point, which is why, for example, you see the EU raising tariffs on the United States when the United States raises tariffs on the EU.
	Nicholas says, Ben, my recently, my five-year-old son asked for a Nerf gun and a water gun for his upcoming birthday.
	Well, I'm a huge Second Amendment supporter and Like, I see no problem with that.
	I grew up with Nerf guns and water guns.
	It didn't make me any less respectful of guns.
	seriousness and responsibility of gun ownership to mere toys and the message that I could send regarding our freedom to keep and bear arms.
	What say you would you purchase gun related toys for any of your children?
	Thanks.
	Love the show.
	Yeah, I'd purchase Nerf guns and water guns for my kids.
	Like, I see no problem with that.
	I grew up with Nerf guns and water guns.
	It didn't make me any less respectful of guns.
	You know, first of all, you know, five year old is too young to be educated about real guns in the first place.
	So make sure that your guns are locked up, obviously.
	But, you know, when there's a very there's a grave difference, obviously.
	And you know this between Nerf gun or water gun, which weighs nothing and has no weight, has no heft, doesn't look dangerous.
	And I mean, they're colorful and fun.
	And an actual gun.
	The one thing I don't like, actually, is there are these these guns, these kind of faux guns that are made.
	And That I actually have a problem with, mainly because I think that you buy that for your kid and your kid pulls that out in a public area, it's a serious problem.
	So, you should get guns that, if you're gonna get a water gun, get a colorful water gun that doesn't look like an actual gun, obviously.
	Good.
	And I'm a first-generation American.
	Good.
	And I'm a first generation American.
	My dad was born in Cuba and came here in 1957.
	He's always been a strong supporter of the U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
	I, of course, have been as well, but my views might be beginning to change on the subject.
	I agree with everything our spirit animal has said about Cuba and the U.N., especially about Cubans not being free, our spirit animal being Nikki Haley.
	I just feel that maybe it might be time to let free trade happen between the two countries and see what happens.
	Well, the pro of dumping the embargo is presumably that the country will get richer and that eventually some of those benefits will accrue to the population.
	The proof of this is China, where poverty has been sliced by a significant margin thanks to opening the Chinese economy.
	The con is that the Chinese government is still run by a bunch of communist thugs.
	So the con is that you are re-enshrining that dictatorship for a longer period of time.
	The pro is that you might be helping some of the people who are living there.
	The real question is, do we have any real plan to topple the regime in Cuba?
	If we don't have a real plan to topple the regime in Cuba, it seems to me that there is no reason to keep the embargo going other than to punish the regime.
	And punishing the regime for 50 years has not actually done anything to actually topple the regime.
	So either topple the regime or don't topple the regime or come up with a better plan to topple the regime.
	Sanctions rarely topple regimes.
	We need something stronger than that.
	And I would be fully in favor of us providing covert aid to any rebel group in Cuba who wants to kill the Castros and take over the country.
	So long as they would like to replace it with something better.
	So I haven't seen Greatest Showman.
	Frankly, I was not interested.
	The preview was so bad that I couldn't get myself to do it, although I've heard that it's enjoyable.
	Hairspray, I am not a fan.
	I find it kind of obnoxious.
	La La Land, I was impressed.
	I really like the director of La La Land, first of all.
	He also did Whiplash, which is a better movie.
	La La Land, I thought the songs were unmemorable.
	It makes me upset when they cast musicals where people cannot sing or dance.
	It seems to me that there are lots of people who can sing and dance and you could cast those people instead of casting Ryan Gosling who cannot sing or dance or Emma Stone who cannot sing or dance.
	Emma Stone's a very good actress but her voice is extraordinarily weak and she cannot move on screen.
	I like that people are trying.
	I mean, I appreciate the effort, although I didn't particularly like the ending of La La Land.
	Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera, I didn't like on stage very much, but I actually think they're both relatively effective movies.
	So Les Mis, I think, is actually more effective as a movie than it is on stage.
	On stage, it's just really long, and the 30 years dominate, and they're obnoxious and irritating.
	Also, the scoring for the movie's a lot better.
	One of the big problems with the score in the original Les Mis is that it's all synthesized.
	So having a synthesized score to represent 19th century France is really stupid.
	I have a lot of problems with Les Mis as a musical.
	I like the book, but I think that the musical itself, there are like two memorable songs in Les Mis, and they're not the ones everybody thinks.
	So Stars is a memorable song, and One Day More at the end of the first act is a memorable number, and all the other numbers I find kind of boring.
	But that's just my critique.
	And if you want to see video of me singing stars, you can actually find that on YouTube because that was something I did one day for no reason.
	Well, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	First off, it was awesome seeing you at UConn and being able to ask you a question was definitely one of the coolest moments of my life.
	Well, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	We need to get you a cooler life because, you know, I'm not that cool.
	Do you think there's any hope of overturning Roe v.
	Wade, excuse me, in the next 20 years?
	And do you think it'd be easier to amend the Constitution to achieve this rather than having the courts overturn their own previous decision?
	Yeah, I think a constitutional amendment would probably be easier than a court overturning the decision.
	Just because... Right now, let's say that Justice Kennedy is replaced.
	I think then you would have four votes to overturn.
	I really, really doubt that you're gonna get Justice Roberts to overturn Roe v. Wade.
	He just doesn't seem like he has the intestinal fortitude for that sort of thing.
	But that said, it's possible.
	I mean, it's possible, I suppose.
	So right now, who would vote to overturn?
	Right now, you'd have Alito who would vote to overturn.
	You would have Thomas who would vote to overturn.
	You would have presumably Gorsuch who would vote to overturn.
	And you would have whoever replaces Kennedy who would vote to overturn if President Trump does it right.
	But again, Roberts would still be the swing vote.
	So that would be a serious problem on the Supreme Court.
	I just want to make sure I'm getting the math correct.
	Yeah, I believe that's right.
	There's still not enough votes.
	There's not enough conservatives on the court to actually get that done, unfortunately.
	I wish, I wish.
	But I think the best option is probably going to be a constitutional amendment to at least retract Roe v. Wade.
	Even if you don't believe that there should be a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and protect life, unborn life, under the Constitution, then at the very least you can retract Roe v. Wade and toss it back to the states, which should at least be a step in the right direction.
	So, let's do a couple of things I like, and then a couple of things I hate, and then let's get out of here.
	So, things I like.
	Today, my daughter has been very into this.
	When I was a kid, there was this series of CDs that came out called Classical Kids.
	They're really fun.
	They basically educate your kids about the lives and music of the great composers of history.
	The one that my daughter is very into right now is there's one called Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery, and they weave this little story about Venice and Vivaldi, who actually ran an orphanage for girls, and how he was a priest.
	It tells his whole life story, but in the context of this mystery about a broken violin, it's really cute.
	My daughter loves it, and it's replete with the music of Vivaldi, and it tells his life story in the middle.
	There's another one that was very famous called Beethoven Lives Upstairs.
	It was really, really good.
	You can check that one out also.
	There's a book of it.
	These CDs are a little bit hard to find.
	I wish they would re-release them.
	They're really excellent for kids, and if you want to educate your kids about great composers in their lives, there's one on Vivaldi.
	I believe there's one on Bach.
	I know that there's one on Mozart that's great.
	The one on Mozart is they did a children's version of the Magic Flute.
	It's really terrific.
	So check it out.
	Classical kids.
	It's really cute, and I love that my daughter loves it.
	It's really charming.
	Okay, time for a couple of quick things that I hate.
	Okay, so John Boehner, who apparently is just going around becoming like a lounge act, he just goes around drinking and smoking and then growling at people while leaning on a piano.
	He was, you can see him drinking literally in this video, right?
	He's literally sitting there drinking in the video while he does this interview because that's John Boehner, man.
	And John Boehner says, there is no Republican Party under President Trump.
	But I want to talk to you about what's happened with the Republican Party.
	There is no Republican Party.
	There's a Trump Party.
	The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.
	Okay, that's utter nonsense.
	Obviously, that is not true.
	President Trump does not get everything that he wants.
	President Trump has largely been a good advocate for Republican policies, a better advocate than John Boehner was, I think, in many ways.
	Now, I don't think Boehner was as bad a Speaker of the House as some people think he was.
	That said, he was certainly not a hard fighter for Republican principles in any serious way.
	So, this idea that the Republican Party was hijacked by Trump completely, it was one of my worries.
	I don't think that word is fully materialized.
	Okay, one other correction I want to make.
	So I've been getting tons of mail about Tommy Robinson.
	So Tommy Robinson, I said earlier this week on one of the shows, I said that he was alt-right, or that he was far-right, or whatever it was.
	And I'll be honest with you, I had read some accounts of him.
	He had said a couple of things that looked alt-right-ish.
	He had said after the 7-7 bombings in Um, in Britain, he had said that basically all Muslims were responsible, which is a terrible thing to say.
	He later apologized for it though.
	And so I want to give you a more rounded view of who Tommy Robinson is from a guy.
	I trust Douglas Murray.
	So Douglas Murray covers this sort of stuff in Europe all the time.
	And I think there's a better take on Tommy Robinson than the one that I gave earlier this week.
	And so I want to apologize and replace it with Douglas Murray's takes.
	So here's what Douglas Murray writes over at National Review.
	Tommy Robinson is a British political activist and citizen journalist who came to prominence in Britain almost a decade ago when he founded the English Defence League.
	The EDL was a street protest movement in Britain whose aims could probably best be summarized as anti-Islamization.
	It emerged in the town of Luton after a group of local Islamists barracked the homecoming parade of a local regiment returning from service in Afghanistan.
	From their earliest protests, the EDL's members sought to highlight issues including Sharia law, Islam's attitudes toward minorities, and the phenomenon that would become euphemistically known as grooming gangs.
	In reality, these protests often descended into hooliganism and low-level violence, naturally helped along by self-described anti-fascists.
	The authorities did everything they could to stop the EDL, and the media did everything possible to demonize them.
	In a foretaste of things to come, very few people made any effort to understand them, and nobody paid any price For claiming that the EDL was simply a fascist organization and that anybody who even tried to understand them must be a fascist, too.
	I interviewed Tommy Robinson five years ago after he'd left the EDL, having by his own admission failed to keep extremists, including actual neo-Nazis, away from the movement.
	As he said then, one of the problems of everyone insisting that a particular movement is campaigning for the Fourth Reich is that very few people who think that sounds like a great ideal will show up.
	Whatever his other faults, there is no evidence Robinson thinks that way.
	Indeed, he was once charged with assault for headbutting a Nazi sympathizer who wouldn't leave an EDL protest.
	Not many people bothered with those details.
	The assault got reported, but not the cause.
	So the fact that Robinson had headbutted a Nazi became yet more evidence that he himself must be some kind of Nazi.
	And then he tells—Douglas Murray tells a bunch of stories about the sort of stuff that Tommy Robinson has done.
	In March, Robinson was suspended from Twitter, where he had almost half a million followers.
	The social media site, which merrily allows terrorist groups like Lashkar E. Taiba to keep accounts, decided that Robinson should be suspended for tweeting out a statistic about Muslim rape gangs that itself originated from the Muslim-run Quilliam Foundation.
	And it is on this matter that the latest episode in the Robinson drama started and has now drawn worldwide attention.
	And then we talked about earlier in the week the fact that Robinson was arrested for even covering a trial about grooming gangs.
	Grooming gangs are these apparently Muslim groups of men in Britain, in several major cities, who have been essentially creating rape gangs of children and grooming them for rape.
	That's what the cases actually are about.
	So here's what Douglas Murray writes about this.
	He says, Robinson would not now be in jail if he had not once again accosted defendants in an ongoing trial outside the courthouse.
	He had been told by a judge last May not to do this, and yet he did it again.
	It isn't the worst thing in the world.
	It isn't child rape, for instance, but it is an offense to which Robinson understandably pled guilty.
	More important, the trial that was coming to a close last Friday is just one part of a trial involving multiple other defendants.
	It is certainly possible that Robinson's breaking of reporting restrictions at the Leeds trial could have prejudiced those trials to have caused the collapse of such trial And then he talks about Tommy Robinson fighting the Islamic extremists in Great Britain.
	who deserve justice.
	And then he talks about Tommy Robinson, you know, fighting the Islamic extremists in Great Britain.
	He concludes by saying, Tommy Robinson will be in prison for another year.
	All the people happy with the status quo will breathe a sigh of relief.
	Thank goodness that troublemaker has gone away.
	But the real problem has not gone away.
	There's no chance of the real problem going away because they have no plan for making it go away.
	So I just wanted to give a little bit more context to who Tommy Robinson is from somebody who I trust, Douglas Murray, about this over at National Review, talking about what his past is with the EDL and some of the things that he has said and apologized for.
	And I hope that that corrects some of the misconceptions that I put out earlier this week.
	Okay.
	So, we'll be back here next week with all the latest updates and all the latest news.
	Have yourself a great weekend.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal.
	Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.
	Senior Producer Jonathan Hay.
	Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our Technical Producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Alex Zingaro.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
	Hair and Makeup is by Jesua Alvera.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing Production.

▲