Jussie Smollett's hate crime story begins to utterly collapse, President Trump prepares to declare a national emergency, and the 2020 Democrats move even further to the left.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
Man, sometimes there is so much news, it's almost impossible to get through all of it.
We're going to get through all of it, and we're going to do mailbag questions.
That's how fast we move here on the Ben Shapiro Show.
But first, let's talk about how you can make your business better.
One way to make your business better is to get better at hiring.
There's only one place you can go where hiring is simple, fast, and smart.
A place where growing businesses connect to qualified candidates.
That place is ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
Multiple job sites, stacks of resumes, a confusing review process, all that stuff used to make hiring a dumb process, but not with ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.
ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards, but they don't stop there.
With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes and they find the people with the right experience and then invite them to apply to your job.
As applications come in, ZipRecruiter analyzes everyone and spotlights the top candidates so you never miss a great match.
ZipRecruiter is so effective that 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the very first day.
And right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ziprecruiter.com slash dailywire.
There's a reason we use it here at Daily Wire when we are looking for new job candidates.
We are constantly hiring, which means we are constantly using ZipRecruiter.
You should too.
ZipRecruiter.com slash Daily Wire to try ZipRecruiter for free.
Alrighty, so we begin with the shocking but not so shocking news that Jussie Smollett's story seems to be falling apart.
You will recall Jussie Smollett's story, Mean Streets of Chicago.
Two AM, goes down for a Subway sandwich, and he leaves his apartment, goes to the Subway, picks up his sandwich, and on the way back, suddenly out of nowhere, he is accosted by two presumably white MAGA fans, who come up to him, somehow identify him from the show Empire, which is weird, and then start yelling the F-word and the N-word at him, at which point they string a noose around his neck, begin kicking him in the ribs, pour bleach on him, And he's only missing from the cameras for like 60 seconds because Chicago has lots of cameras.
There's a 60-second period where he's missing from the camera.
When he re-emerges on camera, he's got a clothesline around his neck.
He's still carrying his Subway sandwich because, as we have discussed before, this is always what you do.
I mean, if you get in a fight, if somebody is beating the living hell out of you, threatening your life, threatening to noose you, shouting, this is MAGA country while doing so, your first priority Keep the sandwich.
I mean, honestly, they should hire this guy at Subway.
That's how much this guy loves Subway.
I mean, he can take a lickin' and keep on tickin' and carry that Subway sandwich at the same time.
So, 60 seconds later, he walks back on camera.
Now he's got clothesline around his neck, and he's carrying his Subway sandwich.
He strolls right through the lobby of his building, past the doorman, goes upstairs, waits 40 minutes, and then calls the cops.
At which point, the cops show up, and they say, what happened?
He's still got the clothesline around his neck at this point, and he says, well, All this stuff happened, and they said, OK, well, can we see your phone?
Because you claim you were on the phone with your manager at the time.
And he says, no.
Why would you want to see my phone?
At this point, if you are not suspicious of the story, it's because you believe what you want to believe.
And there were a lot of politicians who, as it turns out, believed what they wanted to believe about this story.
We're talking everybody from Nancy Pelosi to Maxine Waters to Kamala Harris.
Nancy Pelosi said, the racist homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett is an affront to our humanity.
Maxine Waters said, it's coming from the president of the United States.
He's dog whistling every day.
Kamala Harris said, this was an attempting, an attempted modern day lynching.
Politicians all over the left-wing spectrum decided to weigh in.
AOC said there is no such thing as racially charged.
This attack was not possibly homophobic.
It was a racist and homophobic attack.
If you don't like what is happening to our country, then work to change it.
It is no one's job to water down or sugarcoat the rise of hate crimes.
And the reason that she tweeted that is because Entertainment Tonight had originally run with the headline.
Jussie Smollett has been hospitalized in Chicago after a possible homophobic and racially charged attack.
OK, the reason they said possible is because it might not have happened.
It's because it might not have happened.
Right?
Which makes it awkward that it might not have happened.
And anyone who heard the story, your first thought had to be, Was this real?
Every element of it seemed like too much.
Every element.
Whenever there's a story where every element seems like it's too much, you gotta think to yourself, maybe this is a hoax.
Unfortunately, there have been lots of racial hoaxes in the past where people claim to have been victimized in a hate crime and it turns out not to be true.
This one smelled like a hoax from the very beginning.
Nonetheless, Jussie Smollett was treated with all of the sensitivity due to his claim.
And specifically, because the media loves to run with the narrative that America is a racist, homophobic place, this became top news across the country, even though the claims didn't make any sense.
Again, two guys in the dead of night in Chicago, in 10 degree below weather, who watch Empire but also are MAGA fans.
And we're screaming at Jussie Smollett that night, this is MAGA country in the middle of Chicago, which apparently went 193% against Donald Trump in the last election cycle.
So it was a very weird story from the beginning.
That didn't stop the media from jumping all in with both feet.
Good Morning America featured Jussie Smollett on their show yesterday, where he cried and he acted.
It's like he's an actor or something.
He said, I am not weak.
I'm not weak.
Why did you hesitate to call the police?
There's a level of pride there.
We live in a society where, as a gay man, you are considered, somehow, to be weak.
And I'm not weak.
I'm not weak.
And we, as a people, are not weak.
Um, well, no one was suggesting that gay people are weak.
That doesn't answer why you wouldn't call the police when a hate crime takes place against you.
Like, that's a weird answer.
And then he says he just couldn't believe that people were doubting him.
How?
How could people doubt him?
It's just terrible.
Just, just terrible.
I'm pissed off.
What is it that has you so angry?
Is it the attackers?
It's the attackers, but it's also the attacks.
It's like, you know, at first it was a thing of like, listen, if I tell the truth, then that's it, because it's the truth.
Then it became a thing of like, oh, how can you doubt that?
Like, how do you not believe that?
It's the truth.
And then it became a thing of like, oh, it's not necessarily that you don't believe that this is the truth.
You don't even want to see the truth.
No, it turns out that we sort of believe that it might not be the truth.
Because ABC Chicago reported yesterday in a shocking blow, mainstream media hardest hit, that Jussie Smollett was probably not telling the truth about this.
Here's ABC 7 Chicago report last night.
Police are now questioning the two people seen in this surveillance photo.
One, an actor on Empire.
Chicago police say there is no evidence the persons of interest were involved in that physical attack described by Smollett.
Multiple sources are telling Eyewitness News that Smollett and the two men are being questioned by police for staging the attack, allegedly because his character was being written out of the show.
Now, it is true that Fox came back and they said, oh, we weren't writing Jussie out.
Jussie was never going to be written out of the show.
So we have a bunch of conflicting stories.
But here is what we do know at this point.
ABC7 Chicago said that Smollett failed to appear for an interview with detectives earlier on Thursday.
They say that they were investigating whether these two men staged an attack.
The way that they tracked down these two guys is by going through Jussie Smollett's phone.
Apparently, the report is, that he had turned over an Excel spreadsheet with a phone log that had deleted certain calls.
So they compared his actual phone log, which I guess they'd subpoenaed, with the calls that he said he had made, and then they only looked at the ones that he deleted.
And that's how they tracked down these two guys.
He had said in that Good Morning America interview, by the way, that those two people in the picture walking down the street, those were definitely, definitely the two guys who attacked him.
So, you can't have it both ways.
Either he's telling the truth and those are the two guys who attacked him and it turns out they're his friends, or he's not telling the truth and those were not the two guys who attacked him, it was another two guys who attacked him.
A source briefed on the Smollett investigation confirmed to ABC News that Chicago police are questioning the two persons of interest, one of whom has actually appeared on Empire.
The law enforcement official also told ABC News that the homes of the persons of interest were raided on Wednesday night.
Police removed shoes, electronic devices, and any other items they believe could help determine if the two people played any role in the assault.
Neighbors described a swarm of officers and canine units.
Jamie Figueroa, a neighbor, said, I was walking in the alley.
One police car stopped in the alley and they told me to go inside the house.
But by then, five minutes later, there were like 20 police right here by the door.
Neighbors said they believe the men who are Nigerian are brothers who grew up in the apartment and have lived there for years.
Neighbors described them as friendly and possibly bodybuilders and said they have long wanted to be actors.
Chicago police said they cannot confirm any of those reports.
No charges have yet been filed.
Earlier, police said the two persons of interest are not suspects and have not been charged.
Investigators are only talking with them at this time.
The two were picked up Wednesday night at O'Hare International Airport.
And a lawyer who said she was representing the two persons of interest declined to comment on the case as she left Area Central Police Headquarters.
Chicago police said they were tracking these two people and they were aware of who they were for quite a while.
So this has led to accusations that Chicago PD, out of fear of being called racist, was slow playing the revelation that this may have been a setup and a hoax.
So...
Here is the theme that we should take from this.
Wait for the evidence.
It's amazing.
This thing happened within a week of Covington High School.
The entire media leapt to the conclusion that a bunch of white kids had harassed a Native American man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March for Life.
They jumped to that conclusion.
Why?
Because it fit a narrative.
And then Jussie Smollett told a story that was ludicrously unbelievable on its face.
And the media leapt to the conclusion that, naturally, it was racist white men on the streets of Chicago that had caused the problem.
What does this say?
It says the media are looking for a narrative.
The narrative is racist white men do X. That is the narrative the media are looking for.
They don't require any further evidence.
Whenever that is the narrative, they're willing to jump on it with both feet.
It also explains why it is that the media will pay inordinate attention, like truly grand attention, to anti-semitic attacks by white supremacists, but will pay no attention to the vast bevy of anti-semitic attacks taking place in Brooklyn every single weekend, apparently.
Why?
Because as the New York Times itself admitted, it doesn't fit the patterned narrative that we are seeking.
The reason the Jussie Smollett case is important is not because an actor allegedly lied to the police.
It's not because of that.
It's because the media are always willing to jump with both feet on any story that backs a claim that America is a racist, terrible place.
And then they will slowly walk back the claims as it comes out that that's not true.
We've seen a bunch of these cases recently.
There was a player, I believe his name was Michael Bennett, for the Seattle Seahawks, and he claimed that the racist police in Las Vegas had physically assaulted him.
Tape came out, it turns out that he had resisted the police and he had run away from them.
These sorts of cases do happen, which is why the appropriate thing to do now, in a time where people do fib for media attention, where people do know what the media wants and then spoon-feed those narratives to the media, and where the media are willing to run with those stories, The best thing you can do on any story, it's something that I'm learning, I think everybody is learning, you gotta wait 48 hours for anything.
You gotta wait 48 hours for anything.
If a story seems too good to be true, unless it is confirmed by a wide variety of sources, you have to wait 48 hours.
Because there is a very good shot that within 48 hours, the entire story will collapse.
This happens to be true with racial hoaxes, but it's true across a wide variety of stories, as I'll explain in just a second.
First, let's talk about how you can save on legal bills this year.
If you're determined to start a business or secure your family's future in 2019, it's easy to get distracted by hurdles that pop up along the way.
Legal hurdles?
Some of those hurdles.
That's why LegalZoom is here to help.
With their network of independent attorneys licensed in all 50 states, LegalZoom can help you navigate your legal needs.
From wills and trusts to LLCs, trademarks, contract reviews, and more, LegalZoom has helped more than 4 million people like you take care of their responsibilities.
I've known about LegalZoom for years, long before they were a sponsor.
I used to use LegalZoom for wills and trusts and estates as a lawyer.
The best part is LegalZoom is not a law firm, so you're not going to get charged by the hour getting those exorbitant fees racked up Next to your name on the billing statement.
Make sure that this is the year you finally do the right thing for your family and your small business.
Make a difference in your life by visiting LegalZoom.com right now.
For special savings, be sure to enter promo code BEN in the referral box at checkout.
LegalZoom is where life meets legal.
That's LegalZoom.com.
Again, use LegalZoom.com, promo code BEN at checkout.
Alright, so, as we know, it is not just on the matter of racial hoaxes and racial stories that the media are willing to jump with both feet.
It's not just Michael Brown, hands up, don't shoot.
It's not just that stuff.
It is also with regard to President Trump.
It's why we have seen multiple false stories about President Trump debunked over the past several years.
CNN, you'll recall, ran with a story about President Trump suggesting that Donald Trump Jr.
knew in advance about WikiLeaks leaks, and that he was coordinating in advance about it, and then CNN had to walk back the report.
McClatchy ran with a report that Michael Cohen was indeed in Prague meeting with Russian agents.
They never walked that report back, but there's still no evidence to support it.
Whenever the media leap on a story that seems so spectacular that it backs every aspect of what they want it to back, Your first response should be, hold up a second.
Just hold up.
Maybe it's true.
Maybe it's true.
Maybe it all turns out to be true.
But it is not racist.
It is not homophobic.
It is not bad.
In fact, it is quite good for us all to take a deep breath and say, let's wait for the facts to come in before we jump.
We live in a media environment, however, in a political environment where even the act of waiting is now considered a sin.
It's a serious problem.
We have a serious disincentive to do the responsible thing and wait for the story.
If you jump on the story and you happen to be right, then it's, look, the reason you're right is because your worldview is right.
The reason that you knew that this story was true is because your worldview has been verified.
And if you wait, then we say, the reason you're waiting is because you're not sensitive enough to the needs of a particular community.
So if the Jussie Smollett story came out and you said, you know what?
I got some questions about it.
Then you were castigated as a racist and a homophobe just for saying that you want to wait for some answers.
Like, Jussie Smollett knew that.
That's why he said that on Good Morning America.
That's why he said he was bewildered by people who were asking questions.
The question really should have been what sane person believed every aspect of that story from the start.
Now, again, maybe it happened the way he did, but without any evidence, I'm supposed to believe that two MAGA-hatted guys on the streets of Chicago at 2 a.m.
attacked an Empire actor they identified from the show, wound clothesline around his neck, poured bleach on him, and then allowed him not only to escape with his life, but with his Subway sandwich?
I was supposed to believe that?
Otherwise, I was part of the patriarchy or something?
It's absolute silliness.
So, once again, the media crapped the bed, and I don't think that we should be particularly surprised about that.
Okay, meanwhile, the President of the United States is prepared today to sign into law a new budget deal.
The budget deal is not good.
There's a lot of garbage in this budget deal.
Conservative Review has a great piece by Daniel Horowitz going through what exactly is in this budget deal.
He says, I've talked at length before about how I think it violates the very nature of constitutional government to provide massive omnibus packages to the president.
Every bill was supposed to be designed separately.
Every bill was supposed to come up for a vote.
And then the president had the ability to veto.
The reason that the line item veto even became an issue over the last 30-40 years is because Congress routinely would put together crap sandwiches and then tell the President to either sign the crap sandwich or veto the crap sandwich.
It's not how bills used to work.
So what exactly is in this thing?
Well, according to Daniel Horowitz over at CR, who has a really good review of it, he says, less of a wall than even what Democrats agreed to.
Trump originally demanded $25 billion for the wall.
Then he negotiated himself down to $5.6 billion.
Democrats balked and only agreed to $1.6 billion.
This bill calls it a day at $1.375 billion, enough to construct 55 miles.
But it's worse than that.
The bill limits the president's ability to construct barriers to just the Rio Grande Valley sector and only bollard fencing, not concrete walls of any kind.
There is no ability to adapt.
In fact, this provision is so strong that it's leading people to believe that Trump may not even be able to use a national emergency to overcome it.
Meaning that if the bill itself restricts the ability to construct barriers to just a particular area, that's actually a solid legal basis for saying the president doesn't have national emergency power to construct wall other places.
Because the way that we read law in the judiciary is that last in time is first in priority.
So if Congress passes two bills, one in 1960 and one yesterday, and the one yesterday overrules the one in 1960, then the courts will read it that way.
So if the National Emergencies Act of 1976 says the president can declare a national emergency and build a wall, which again is even questionable, we'll get to that, but even if it said that, if a bill yesterday came out and said, we will not allow the president to build wall other than in this small area, the bill yesterday trumps the National Emergencies Act of 1976.
Second thing that's wrong with the budget, according to Daniel Horowitz, liberal local officials will have veto power over the wall.
He says, it's likely that not a single mile of fence will be built.
Section 232A of the bill says, prior to use of any funds made available by this act for the construction of physical barriers, the Department of Homeland Security shall confer and reach mutual agreement regarding the design and alignment of physical barriers within that city.
They have to consult the local elected officials.
This is why they've limited the wall to the Rio Grande Valley.
These are the most liberal borders on the, these are the most liberal counties on the borders.
What are the consequences?
The bill stipulates such consultations shall continue until September 30th, 2019 and may be extended beyond that date by agreements of the parties and no funds made available in this act should be used for construction while consultations are continuing, which means Trump can't build any wall at least until September and maybe beyond because he has to consult with all of these liberal authorities.
Third, the bill contains a blatant amnesty for the worst cartel smugglers.
Section 224A prohibits the deportation of anyone who is sponsoring an unaccompanied minor illegal alien, or who says they might sponsor an unaccompanied minor illegal alien, or lives in a household with an unaccompanied minor illegal alien, or a household that might potentially sponsor an unaccompanied minor illegal alien.
So we are now using children being trafficked across the border as an excuse not to arrest illegal immigrants in the country who may apply as a sponsor, or anyone in the household applying as a sponsor.
Jessica Vaughn of the very anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, she says we can call this the MS-13 Household Protection Act of 2019.
We know that 80% of UAC sponsors, that's unaccompanied children, are in the country illegally.
The number of people this would protect would reach into the hundreds of thousands if all the potential household or potential household members are counted.
Fourth, the budget bill contains more funding to manage and induce the invasion rather than to deter it.
There is no new funding for ICE deportation agents.
It does add another $40 million for the Alternatives to Detention program, which moves asylum seekers to facilities in the interior of the country where they're usually released.
That's catch and release.
And finally, it doubles low-skilled workers.
It doubles the number of H-2B non-agricultural, unskilled seasonal workers who will continue to be a public charge on America, according to Daniel Horowitz.
That's just a cursory glance through the bill.
So there's a bunch of problems with the bill itself.
Now, the assumption was that President Trump would sign this bad bill, and then he would declare a national emergency.
According to ABC today, the president is going to declare some $8 billion for border walls.
The Daily Mail, actually, is reporting that by declaring a national emergency, it's going to allow him to spend $8 billion building his wall after signing that bill to avoid a government shutdown.
The White House confirmed Thursday the president will sign a bipartisan spending deal to avoid another government shutdown, but will declare the national emergency in an effort to procure funds to build a border wall.
Trump will hold an event in the White House Rose Garden about the border at 10 a.m.
on Friday.
He's expected to sign both the funding bill and the paperwork for his executive actions.
Well, there's some problems with the National Emergency Declaration.
Number one, we have to make sure that he doesn't limit himself in the budget bill itself to not being able to do any of the stuff he's talking about, as I mentioned.
But number two, it is really unclear whether a National Emergency Declaration allows the President of the United States to mobilize the military in a non-emergency, non-military situation to build the border wall.
That is not clear.
That legal precedent is just not clear.
Ilya Somin over at Reason.com has a good piece on this, explaining the relevant legal issues.
He says that some point to 10 U.S.C.
2808 and 33 U.S.C.
2293 as possible justifications, but section 2808 states that during a national emergency that requires the use of the armed forces, the president can reallocate defense funds to undertake military construction projects.
No threat posed by undocumented immigration requires the use of the armed forces.
ICE, border patrol, these are not the armed forces.
So it's hard to see why a wall would be necessary to support such use.
Also, it turns out that immigration law is actually not War time power.
Immigration law is domestic law enforcement.
Section 2293 only applies to a war or emergency that requires or may require use of the armed forces.
We've never used the armed forces with regard to stopping things at the border except in rare rare occasions.
Another federal law allows the military to condemn property for various purposes like fortifications, but funding has to be appropriated by Congress to that purpose.
As I said yesterday, the best provision of law for the president is the provision of law 10 U.S.C.
284 that suggests that the president can declare certain drug corridors and then build fencing along those drug corridors.
But the idea that he has some widespread national emergency power, and he's not actually expanding current national emergency power, I think is foolhardy and opens the door to precedent.
I'll explain in just a second.
First, let's talk about your sleep quality.
There's nobody on the planet like you, so why would you buy a generic mattress built for somebody else?
Helix Sleep has built a sleep quiz.
It takes two minutes to complete.
They use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress.
Whether you're a side sleeper or a hot sleeper, whether you like a plush or a firm bed, with Helix, there's no more guessing and no more confusion.
Just go to helixsleep.com slash Ben.
Take their two-minute sleep quiz.
They will match you to a mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life.
For couples, Helix can even split the mattress down the middle, providing individual support needs and feel preferences for each side.
They've got a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free.
So what exactly are you waiting for?
Helix Sleep Mattresses, supremely comfortable.
My wife and I have one.
We took the two-minute sleep quiz.
We got the bed in the mail.
We popped the mattress on the frame.
Good to go.
So comfortable.
We got one for my sister for her wedding.
Right now, Helix is offering up to $200 off mattress orders for their President's Day sale.
So thank you, George Washington.
Get up to 200 bucks off at helixsleep.com slash Ben.
That's helixsleep.com slash Ben for $200 off your mattress order for their President's Day sale going on right now.
Helixsleep.com slash Ben.
Once more, helixsleep.com slash Ben.
Go check them out.
The mattress is really fantastic.
So the real question is, If the president declares a national emergency, tries to build the border wall, a couple of questions.
One, is it legal?
Meaning, will it ever be allowed to be effectuated?
I think the answer is probably no.
I think it will be held up in court until at the very earliest, late 2020.
Even if it is not held up in court, even if border wall fencing is allowed to be built, it will be on a small portion of the border.
It is quite possible that the budget deal itself obviates the legal capacity to build more wall under a national emergency declaration, as I talked about a little bit earlier.
So there's that.
That's question number one.
Question number two.
Even if it gets through, is it actually expanding national emergency powers the president has used before?
And the answer here is yes.
It turns out that using eminent domain as an executive power without congressional authorization, declaring a national emergency on the basis of failed domestic negotiations, that that is a bad precedent.
It's a bad precedent to set.
How do we know it's a bad precedent to set?
Because you can see the gleam in Nancy Pelosi's eye when she discusses the kind of national emergencies she would like to declare if she had the power to do so.
Here's Nancy Pelosi's reaction to the national emergency declaration.
It's important to note that when the president declares this emergency, first of all, It's not an emergency, what's happening at the border.
It's a humanitarian challenge to us.
The president has tried to sell a bill of goods to Americans.
The president is doing an enran about Congress, about the power of the purse.
You've heard me say over and over again, Article I, the legislative branch, the power of the purse, the power to declare war, many other powers listed in the Constitution, and, of course, the responsibility to have oversight.
So the president is doing an enran around that.
You want to talk about a national emergency?
Let's talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of...
Okay, now, you can see her get excited when she starts talking about this.
Is Nancy Pelosi a wild hypocrite when it comes to legislative power versus executive branch power?
Of course she is.
She had no objections to President Obama.
Wildly, at every turn, expanding executive power.
None whatsoever.
She had no problem with any of that.
And this is one of the big problems with, honestly, the founders did not believe that party politics would end up trumping the interests of each particular branch.
The founders, if you go back and read the Federalist Papers, the founders believed that the legislature would be zealous in guarding its own powers.
It wouldn't be interested in allowing the executive branch to continue expanding its own powers.
Thanks to the rise of administrative government, backed by Democrats and allowed by Republicans over the last century, since Woodrow Wilson, the executive branch has spun out of control.
Most lawmaking does not happen at the legislative level.
It happens at the regulatory level.
That's all in the executive branch.
Affectuation of law happens inside the executive branch.
Congress is becoming a vestigial organ.
And the only time that Congress is not a vestigial organ is when there is actually a gridlock.
When Democrats control Congress and a Republican controls the presidency or vice versa.
When one party controls both the legislature and the White House, then executive power tends to increase because nobody in the legislative branch of the party of the president is going to object to the president.
So what you're seeing right now is Republicans who would certainly object if Barack Obama tried to do something like this.
They would take legislative action to stop him.
Right now, Republicans are making sounds like they don't like President Trump doing what he's doing, but are they actually going to stop him?
Highly, highly doubtful.
Something like 10 Republicans have come out in the Senate and said they don't like this thing.
How many Republicans would be saying they don't like this thing if Barack Obama were declaring a national emergency to build wind farms?
Everybody in the Congress, right, they would all say this is absurd, you can't declare a national emergency to do this sort of thing, this is a legislative process.
The same holds true for Nancy Pelosi.
If Barack Obama were doing that, Nancy Pelosi would be talking about the wonders of the executive branch.
The founders didn't understand, or they didn't foresee, that party politics would be so strong as to actually trump the interests, the governmental interests of the various branches.
It would be more important whether the president was of your party than whether the legislature was having its authority usurped.
It's a very dangerous thing.
It's why the founders never would have been okay with the rise of bureaucratic government.
That's not their fault.
They didn't think the president would ever have this much power.
They thought they'd circumscribe the power of the president.
Not so.
The rise of executive branch power has been everlasting and continuous throughout the course of the last century.
And we are seeing the effects of it now as the president of both parties, doesn't matter the party, continues to usurp more and more power from the legislature.
That is not a good precedent.
If you think it's a good precedent, wait until there's a democratic president, guys.
And don't give me the, well, Democrats are going to break the rules anyway, so Republicans should break the rules also.
If you use that logic, honestly, if you really believe that the Democrats are going to break every rule to effectuate their policies, just declare Trump dictator and be done with it.
It's an argument that proves too much.
We do still have certain constitutional and legal norms in this country that both parties do hew to for the most part, which is why it's a problem when people stray from those principles.
If you believe that when Democrats take power, they're going to declare the next president a dictator, then you should be calling for President Trump to simply override the Constitution and seize power now so as to prevent a left-wing dictatorship.
I don't believe that's the case.
I think the constitutional norms still prevail.
Call me foolish, call me optimistic, but those constitutional norms, despite gradual encroachments of power, have largely prevailed over the past couple of hundred years in the United States.
Okay, meanwhile, Democrats proving themselves incompetent once again as Amazon pulls out of New York City.
According to the New York Times, Amazon on Thursday canceled its plans to build an expensive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash from lawmakers, progressive activists, and union leaders who contended that a tech giant did not deserve $3 billion in government incentives.
The vast majority of those incentives, by the way, were tax breaks.
Now, I've said before, I don't believe in giveaways to specific companies.
I think that's cronyistic.
I think that if you want to have a good working environment, you want to bring business into your state or city, lower the tax rate for everyone.
Don't give special giveaways to certain sized companies or to certain big companies that you want to bring into town.
With that said, was New York going to lose money by giving tax breaks?
No, they were not going to lose money by giving tax breaks.
They were going to gain money by bringing a giant business into Queens that was going to bring some 25,000 jobs with it.
Nonetheless, people on the left do not understand basic economics, and so they were very pleased with their own genius here.
It's pretty hilarious.
So in a second, I'm going to explain how pleased everyone was with their own stupidity.
It's pretty astonishing.
We'll explain in just one second, and then we'll get to our 2020 roundup.
We have a new thing that we do on the show that I'm very excited to bring to you.
We have theme songs for every Democratic candidate, and it's pretty great.
We'll bring you all that in just a second.
First, you have to go subscribe.
$9.99 a month gets you a subscription to this show, and that brings you all sorts of goodies.
We give you guys a lot.
I mean, three hours of me every single day.
Two more hours of me later in the day.
All you have to do is subscribe to get those on-demand, commercial-free.
We bring you four shows every day, if you count Michael Knowles.
Backstage in the conversation, we bring it every month.
Let's be honest, this is more than you deserve as a human being.
Well, starting next week, we want to give you even more.
A shout-out on this very show to a different Daily Wire premium subscriber every single week in the things we like.
If you want to be featured on this show, all you have to do is take a selfie or a GIF or a video, whatever you guys are into these days, you millennials, you.
That includes your Leftist Tears Tumblr.
You have to have your Leftist Tears Tumblr in the picture.
It could even be your Tumblr and you.
For example, look at this.
Here I am holding this Tumblr.
If you just took a picture of that and I submitted it, I could feature me on the show.
But why would I want to do that?
It's my show!
Instead, I'd rather feature you!
You have to post your photo or video or GIF to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag, hashtag, LeftistTearsTumblr.
That is hashtag, LeftistTearsTumblr.
One word, LeftistTearsTumblr.
That ensures that our team, and the entire world, will see you and your Leftist Tears Tumblr in all of its glory.
Please include in your post how long you've been a Daily Wire Premium Subscriber.
Also include your city if you'd like.
If you're not a Premium Subscriber, become one right now, and then you can post a picture of your Leftist Tears Tumblr on Twitter or Instagram with that hashtag, LeftistTearsTumblr.
Also, Do not forget.
If you're not a Daily Wire subscriber, you are missing out.
Our next Sunday special guest is Daniel Krauthammer, son of the late Charles Krauthammer.
If you're a subscriber, you and only you can watch that episode a full day early.
Not only that, all upcoming Sunday special episodes become the Saturday special, but only if you are a Daily Wire subscriber.
Now, I'm not violating Sabbath, guys.
We taped it a little bit earlier.
What are you waiting for?
Click to subscribe.
You will thank me later.
99 bucks a year, by the way, gets you the Leftist Tears Tumblr, and then you can join our fun little thing where we will feature you in the things I like if you pose in a creative way with the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
Rated PG, guys.
Come on.
Get your head out of the gutter.
So go check that out right now.
Also subscribe to YouTube, iTunes, leave us a review.
It always helps.
We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
All righty.
So Amazon was getting mostly tax breaks to come to New York City.
There were certain cash grants that they were getting because they qualified under already applicable law in New York for these cash grants, which they shouldn't have these cash grant programs.
But leftists were very angry because they don't like Amazon.
The reason they don't like Amazon is because Amazon is big and Amazon is successful and Amazon provides jobs.
Who doesn't actually like Amazon?
The answer in New York City is pretty much no one.
By polling data, the vast majority of people in New York City were very much in favor of Amazon moving into the city.
That includes some 80% of Hispanics, 71% of blacks, and 52% of white people.
In fact, it was only white people who were even mildly divided on the issue.
It was not minorities.
Minorities were like, hey man, jobs.
Right?
I mean, why not?
It was mostly white people who are too prissy to have Amazon move in.
You know, the hipsters, like, oh no, Walmart's coming to town, the mom-and-pop store's gonna go out of business, as opposed to everyone else who's like, great, Walmart's coming to town, jobs, cheap stuff.
Unbelievable.
So AOC, who, believe it or not, has an economics either major or minor, still unclear on this, from Boston University, which means that Boston University should be shut down until we know what the hell is going on.
AOC explained her excitement at thrusting out a company from her district that would bring some 25,000 jobs to her district.
She's a genius.
I'm telling you, she's a genius.
So much freshness.
So much faceness.
It's really incredible.
Here she is, spouting utter nonsense that emerges from that fresh face.
Here we go.
I think it's incredible.
I mean, it shows that everyday Americans still have the power to organize and fight for their communities, and they can have more say in this country than the richest man in the world.
We could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves if we wanted to.
We could hire out more teachers.
We can fix our subways.
We can put a lot of people to work for that money if we wanted to.
There was no guarantee that those jobs were for the New Yorkers that were here.
I think that we can absolutely come together to create an economic plan that actually invests in New Yorkers.
There are a few problems with what she is saying.
Problem number one.
I love when she says, we could take those three billion dollars and we could spend them here.
No, you can't.
No, you can't.
Let me explain because you're stupid.
Well, I'll explain very slowly using small words and clipped sentences.
Here's how a tax incentive works.
I come to your town and you say, instead of charging me a 30% tax, you will charge me a 20% tax.
I then bring my company and I pay a 20% tax on my income.
The city is richer for I am now paying a tax.
If I were not in the city, the tax would not be paid.
If you instead say, listen, I'm going to raise that tax back up to 30%.
I say, okay, fine.
I'm out.
You don't then get to claim that that 10% tax difference is money that is in your pocket.
I'm not there to pay the tax.
What the hell are you talking about?
This is so, I mean, it's not just economically illiterate.
It is mathematically and logically illiterate.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
It's the equivalent of me walking into a pizza store with a coupon that says $5 off, and I show it to the guy at the counter, and it was a $20 pizza, and now it's a $15 pizza.
And I give him the coupon.
And he says, you know what?
We don't accept that coupon anymore.
I say, you know what?
I'm out.
And I walk out.
I go across the street.
I buy a pizza there.
And then the guy turns to his manager and he says, I just made us $20.
No, you didn't.
I didn't give you any money.
What are you talking about?
Oh my God.
Even Andrew Cuomo, who is just a dummy, even he was like, what are you guys doing?
Are you guys crazy?
Are you crazy?
I just say this stuff for a laugh and you guys say it for real.
The hell's wrong with you?
He issued a statement saying, Amazon chose to come to New York because we are the capital of the world and the best place to do business.
However, a small group of politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community.
Why don't you name names, governor?
Go for it.
Let's hear it.
Who?
Who are these people who would put their own political interests above the needs of their community?
Bill de Blasio, who's a commie, he then blamed Amazon for pulling it out of the deal, which was hilarious.
So he originally was like a big fan of the deal, and then he's like, no, no, no, no, no.
The deal's bad.
You know why?
Because Amazon, if Amazon really cared about New York, they'd pay whatever tax we laid on them.
The New York Times has a piece today from some moronic columnist suggesting that New York just won a victory over Amazon.
See, when you offer incentives to a giant company to come to your city and provide jobs, and then you throw them out, that's not actually a victory.
You're no better off than when you started.
But the beautiful thing about being on the left is that nothing you ever say has to make any sense.
Truly, this makes no sense.
From any perspective, it doesn't make any sense.
But that's okay, because being on the left means pandering to the worst instincts and dumbest people among us, apparently.
Or at least the dumbest ideas among us.
Which brings us to our 2020 update.
Now, we have a new thing.
There are too many Democratic candidates.
Just too many.
There are 1,192.
one for each page of the budget bill, Democratic candidates in 2020.
So to try and keep them straight, we have added theme music for all of the various Democratic candidates.
And this allows us to bring you updates.
So here's our 2020 radicalism update.
We begin with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Yeah, the colors of the wind, man.
So she tweeted out about Amazon, quote, Amazon, one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, just walked away from billions in taxpayer bribes, All because some elected officials in New York aren't sucking up to them enough.
How long will we allow giant corporations to hold our democracy hostage?
What?
They walked away from taxpayer bribes because elected officials aren't sucking up to them enough?
Fine, keep going with this and just drive all the business out of the city.
I guess that's your problem.
It's so funny.
Elizabeth Warren used to not be this insane.
Like really, I met Elizabeth Warren when she was at Harvard Law School.
She was at the welcoming dinner when I was being recruited for Harvard Law School.
She was not a crazy person then.
She was a progressive for sure, but she was not a complete nutjob.
To suggest that this is Amazon's fault because New York wouldn't suck up to them enough?
Like, it's not sucking up to provide a good business climate, but I guess it is if you're pandering for that left-wing Bernie Sanders vote.
Which brings us to Bernard McJay Sanders.
Here we go.
That is the Soviet national anthem for those keeping track at home.
So, Senator Bernie... He loves that song, by the way.
He sings it shirtless in the Soviet Union, the whole deal.
Senator Bernie Sanders reached out to Representative Ilhan Omar on Tuesday to offer his support and amid criticism from both Democrats and Republicans that the progressive freshman lawmaker trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes on Twitter.
Remember that time that Steve King lost his committee assignments from Republicans and everybody ran screaming away from him with their hair on fire?
Ilhan Omar says anti-semitic things every five seconds, as we discussed on the podcast yesterday, and Bernie Sanders bear hugs her.
Because this is what the progressive left has become.
They are fine with anti-semitism.
They are cool with anti-semitism.
In fact, they think that anti-semitism meshes well with the socialist perspective on the world.
Because Jews are too successful.
And because Jews are too successful, this means that they are part of the hierarchical free market structure that victimizes others.
Bernie Sanders has long been anti-Israel.
That's not a shock.
A lot of folks on the left are.
But openly embracing anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, pretty amazing.
Apparently, Bernie Sanders said, quote, I talked to Ilhan last night to give her my personal support.
We will stand by our Muslim brothers and sisters.
Question, what makes you think that all Muslims are anti-Israel, anti-Semitic bigots?
Isn't that a little bit judgmental, Senator?
So there is your Bernie Sanders update.
We have many more of these candidates, many more of them, and theme songs.
So, next, Beto O'Rourke.
So you'll remember the congressperson from El Paso.
Here's Beto's theme song, man.
Right.
So, you'll recall that Beto O'Rourke down on the Texas border, punk rocker bangs in the eyes.
Flip your hair, man.
Beto O'Rourke, he did a rally next to President Trump the other day, and he talked about the border.
And while talking about the border, he said that walls are bad and walls kill people, which led Representative Dan Crenshaw to say, well, dude, do you want to tear down all those walls?
And Beto owned it, like a bro, like a dude.
Here he is saying, yeah, man, I'll tear down that wall, because Something.
And skateboarding.
If you could, would you take the wall down now?
Here.
Yes.
Like you have a wall.
Absolutely.
Knock it down.
I'd take the wall down.
And you think the city, you think if there's a referendum here in this city, that would pass?
I do.
What?
It's great.
I remember.
I'm old enough to remember when the New York Times actually ran a piece saying Republicans pounce.
They keep saying Democrats are open borders fanatics.
There's Beto.
One of your Democratic frontrunners saying that he would tear down an actual border wall that exists and has lowered the levels of illegal immigration.
And he says that people in his city would vote to tear down that border wall also.
Really?
Keep running on that.
Let's do that.
Okay, on to Senator Kamala Harris, the narc from California.
So Kamala Harris has herself an interesting week.
She is promoting an anti-lynching bill, which of course is fine.
You know, I'm very much in favor of the anti-lynching bill.
The anti-lynching bill basically just strengthens federal crime against lynching, which is fine.
I mean, lynching isn't taking place on a regular basis, but sure, good, okay.
Although, it seems to me it maybe should be a state crime instead of a federal crime, but alright.
So she spoke about that a little bit yesterday.
She also happens to be dominating the social media primary.
So according to Mediaite and a report from Axios, when it comes to the social media attention, when it comes to interactions, it looks like Kamala Harris is winning.
So Instagram interactions, Harris has 8.3 million.
Bernie Sanders comes in at second with 4.6 million, Warren at 2 million.
In the past three months, articles about Harris have generated about 16.5 million interactions on Facebook.
So, it's pretty obvious in the social media, in the social media arena, she is dominant.
She is growing quickly.
The only possible competitor on Facebook in terms of growth is Beto O'Rourke.
On Instagram, she's added 613,000 followers during the past three months.
So, a lot of momentum for the narc from California.
So, well done, Senator Kamala Harris.
Okay, which brings us to Cory McBooker.
Spartacus!
The Spartacus update.
The senator from New Jersey, he has a couple of problems.
Number one, he also pushed this anti-lynching bill, but then he said about the anti-lynching bill that we need an anti-lynching bill because of Jussie Smollett's story.
Oh, no.
He tweeted out, Well, we paid attention, and then the story turned out to be kinda like B.S.E.
So, there's that.
So, well done, Cory Booker.
Well, we paid attention, and then the story turned out to be kind of like BSE.
So there's that.
So well done, Cory Booker.
Again, everything he does is two steps too far.
The Nicolas Cage of American politics.
In fact, people in New Jersey don't even like him.
I love this poll.
There's a poll from New Jersey released early Thursday.
It says that Cory Booker would not make a good president.
42% of residents of his own state say that Cory Booker would not make a good president.
37% disagree.
He's got, by the way, he's got approval ratings, 48 to 36.
He has approval ratings about 48% in New Jersey, but a plurality of state residents in New Jersey say he would not make a good president.
So, ouch to Spartacus.
Apparently Spartacus is going to be captured by the authorities and something bad will happen, just like in the movie Spartacus.
Okay, meanwhile, we have our Kirsten Gillibrand update, as well the senator from New York known for taking every position on every issue.
Nobody knows what Kirsten Gillibrand thinks about anything, where she is on any single issue.
No one knows.
She's taken every position on every issue, which is one of the things that makes her so wildly unpopular.
There's a new poll out from Democratic primary voters in California.
And here is how it comes out.
It comes out Joe Biden, 26 percent.
Kamala Harris, 26 percent.
Kind of shockingly low for Kamala Harris, considering she's a senator from California.
Bernie Sanders at 20.
Bader at 8.
Elizabeth Warren at 7.
Cory Booker at 3.
And all the way down at 1 percent, below Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is Kirsten Gillibrand.
She is currently tied with Marianne Williamson, the spiritual guru for Oprah.
So, Kirsten Gillibrand having some failure to launch.
So, right now, if you have to look at all of those candidates, Kamala Harris is the person who is the strongest among the candidates.
Beto is really steering left in a pretty radical fashion.
I promise you, when he was running for Senate in Texas, he was not running on the, let's dissolve the border with Mexico platform.
Turns out Texans probably wouldn't have liked that very much.
Now he's running on that platform because he's trying to cut off Kamala Harris's appeal to millennials.
So if you had to break down the various lanes in the Democratic Party primary, basically you've got the African-American lane, these are the lanes put out by 538, the African-American lane, Kamala Harris, gonna own that lane, is the presumption.
The Millennial lane, Beto is gonna own that lane.
There's the progressive lane that will be split between Sanders and Warren and Beto and maybe Kamala a little bit.
The mainstream lane that would presumably be split if we're just talking about current candidates.
The mainstream lane would be split between Kamala Harris and maybe Beto.
So right now it looks like a two-person race in terms of Kamala Harris and Beto.
I think Bernie Sanders has passed his prime.
I think he's done.
I think that Elizabeth Warren is toast as well.
She's fading away like a smoke signal off into the horizon.
So, right now, it's Beto versus Kamala, unless Joe Biden jumps in, which will get interesting, and then we'll have to come up with some theme song for him as well.
So we'll get to, we'll do that when he jumps in.
I promise you, we need more theme songs because there are one million candidates running.
Okay, time for a couple entries in the mailbag.
So, Jared says, hi, Ben.
I'm a freshman at a small Christian university in Southern Michigan.
One of my required courses is devoted to a study of the Old Testament.
It got me wondering, who is your favorite biblical character and why?
Thanks for all of your hard work.
Well, I mean, every Jew is obligated by law to say Moses because Moses is, of course, the progenitor of Judaism.
He was the man who brought down the tablets from the mountaintop.
He also happens to be an incredibly tragic character.
He basically commits one serious sin and there's argument about even what that sin is.
And then God doesn't allow him to lead the Jewish people into Israel.
So it would have to be Moses.
I have a sneaking fondness for Saul, who I feel is one of the more interesting characters in biblical literature because he obviously suffered from manic depression, and you can see that in the literature.
And he was somebody who was trying to do his best but was limited by his own flaws, so he's almost a Shakespearean tragic character.
The character of Phineas is an interesting character as well.
Phineas, of course, was famous for his zealotry.
You'll recall that in the book of Midbar, in the book of Numbers, Phineas, there's a situation where somebody's committing an open sin and Phineas takes up a spear and goes and kills that person out of zealousness.
And there's a whole argument in Jewish law about when you can do this and when you can't.
Really interesting argument.
Those are a couple of my favorites.
Joshua says, Hi Ben, I'm currently applying to medical school and I'm shocked by how new science has pervaded the entire process.
When studying for the MCAT, I learned that the official AAMC, the company that makes the test, prep materials and practice exams, essentially guaranteed a question stating that gender has no biological basis.
The vast majority of secondary applications to school had a checkbox for if I identified as part of the LGBTQ community.
Well, I think keeping your head down is probably the smart move.
I'm practical when it comes to this.
If the purpose of the conversation is to tell the truth and to speak your opinion, say what you want.
Is it better to deduct my head down until I practice or to be more outspoken throughout?
Shabbat Shalom.
Well, I think keeping your head down is probably the smart move.
I'm practical when it comes to this.
The question is, what is the purpose of the conversation?
If the purpose of the conversation is to tell the truth and to speak your opinion, say what you want.
But I assume that there are lots of areas of American practice in medicine where you might have political disagreements.
For example, if you're asked a question about how abortion is done, and you say, listen, I don't think I need to know that because I'm a religious person, I'm not going to perform an abortion.
Is that answer calibrated to get you to your goal?
The answer is probably not.
You do have to play some games when it comes to American professional life, and that's unfortunate.
It is also a demonstration that we should have accredited medical schools that don't participate in this kind of garbage.
The fact that the scientific establishment has been taken over by politically correct, anti-scientific nonsense It's really devastating.
It's devastating to watch as objective science is tossed out in favor of subjective silliness that is pumped into medical institutions by politically motivated actors.
Nathan says there are several studies in the academic literature detailing the correlation between perceived discrimination and the health of an individual.
In addition, there is no doubt in my mind that actual discrimination is negatively correlated to health.
This led me to wonder about the effects that identity politics and intersectionality have had on the health of Americans, especially in the minority community.
But I couldn't find a study that looked at all three.
Actual discrimination, perceived discrimination, and health at the same time.
That said, can you point to anything that has correlated perceived discrimination with negative health, while also determining the accuracy of the group's perceptions?
This is a fantastic question, and it's a question I have asked repeatedly.
So there are a lot of studies in the recent past about how black women die in childbirth more often, have more unhealthy babies, and the suggestion has been made that this is the result of systemic discrimination.
I have real doubts that the medical establishment is severely undercovering black women who are in labor or pregnant.
When there are higher maternal mortality rates, higher baby mortality rates in the black community, those things are largely linked to birth weight, and birth weight is largely linked to living style, what you eat and such.
And also youth.
If you're younger, if you're a teenager when you have a baby, you tend to have low birth weight problems.
But, the studies also tend to show that women who perceive discrimination are more likely to suffer stress, and therefore to suffer pregnancy-related complications.
The question that no one has ever been able to verify or ask is how much of the perceived discrimination is real.
Now here I bring up a very famous statement by Adam Carolla that I think is true.
I'm not saying that people are hallucinating racism.
I'm saying that there's lots of action in life every day that can either be perceived as people being stupid or perceived as actual discrimination.
So, when I was growing up, for example, my dad had a tendency, when I was much younger, I think he's grown out of it now, but when I was much younger, my dad had a tendency where if he saw somebody mistreat a Jew for some reason, he would immediately assume that it was anti-Semitism.
And I would say, well, maybe it's not anti-Semitism, maybe it's the person just being a jerk.
Adam Carolla has said the same.
He says, listen, if I were a black person driving down the highway and I were pulled over by the cops, I would immediately assume it was racial profiling.
Maybe it's just the cop being a tool.
Maybe it's just a cop being a jerk or a bad guy because it turns out that lots of white people get pulled over for no reason by the cops.
Or maybe it turns out that I am not correctly perceiving my own activity and I actually did violate the law.
There's really no way, except for cases like murder, where there's a documented effect, to look at racial discrimination in, for example, the criminal justice system.
The only way to match up police discrimination would be to match up, for example, the number of calls to the police describing purpose of a particular race to the number of arrests that are made by the police of a particular race.
It turns out those percentages match up exactly.
In other words, perception of human beings is notoriously unreliable, and studies that take as their basis that perceived discrimination equals actual discrimination are likely to be off by maybe an order of magnitude.
I mean, it's a real social science problem.
Gregory says, Hey Ben, while talking with my lady over some Sherry's berries yesterday, I had to eat some too.
Indeed, Sherry's berries Phenomenal.
Phenomenal!
Oh man.
They have kosher chocolate.
Chocolaty goodness.
Unbelievable.
Mind-blowing.
As we discussed the idea of possibly taking a vacation.
We both put out some ideas, but couldn't really decide what is the best place for your money.
Where do you believe stateside or overseas is the first place a young couple should spend some time to experience something different and maybe learn something new?
Thanks.
Well, I have to admit that I have not spent a ton of time abroad.
I'm a big fan of the United States.
The place that I thought was coolest that I had visited outside of Israel, which I have some religious reasons for thinking is pretty awesome.
If you're a religious person, Israel is unbelievable.
If you're a person who likes history and is a Christian or a Jew or Muslim, frankly, Israel is an amazing place to visit, an incredible place to visit.
If you are If you're a Catholic, if you love history, if you love culture, if you love art, I love Italy.
Italy is spectacular.
I've been to Italy with my wife, went there for a week, and I was just blown away by it.
It's fantastic.
Florence is amazing.
Rome is incredible.
Italy is an astonishingly great place.
So that's really cool.
If you're just looking for a place to chill out, Hawaii is still the best place on Earth.
I am very glad the United States annexed it simply so I could vacation there.
Personal selfishness coming into play right there.
But Hawaii is fantastic, and if you don't want to learn anything, you just want a vacation, Then you go check out Hawaii.
I find this to be untrue, but in your opinion, what would you say are some of the biggest threats in America?
The biggest threat in America is people not understanding the American bargain and believing that America is all about guaranteeing you free stuff rather than free dumb.
That is the biggest threat to America.
It's Americans who don't understand our own history, who don't care about our own history, who are intolerant of other people's opinions, who believe that they should be able to use the government as a club to compel people to do what they want.
That is the biggest danger to America.
The biggest dangers to America are from within.
They don't have to do with a giant tsunami that's going to hit the coast.
They don't even have to do with terrorism.
They have to do with the American Republic losing sight of its own way.
I wrote an entire book about this, The Right Side of History.
You should go check it out.
It's coming out soon.
I put my heart and soul into it.
I think you'll enjoy it.
Marcus says, Ben, I recently had a discussion with my cousin who just got back from South Korea about universal health care and its downfalls.
She mentioned that surprisingly, it has been very successful out there.
She said it was much more effective and expedient than when she went to doctors here in the States.
Have you read or seen anything regarding their system or have any input on the validity of its effectiveness?
I don't know enough about the South Korean system.
I have been looking at the United States healthcare system in some detail over the past couple of weeks because I really want to know more about how it compares and contrasts with other healthcare systems around the world.
The truth is the United States does have a heavily subsidized public sector healthcare system.
49% of all healthcare spending in the United States is done by the government.
About 66% of people in the United States are covered by employer-provided health care insurance.
Market incentives are largely skewed by Medicaid and Medicare.
But one area in which the United States is head and shoulders above everyone else.
There are a couple of places in which the United States is head and shoulders above every other health care system on planet Earth.
Number one, you got cancer?
We win.
If you have cancer, you have a grave disease, you don't want to be anywhere else.
You want to be in the place where you can get convenient care, And pay for it.
You don't want to be in a system where you have to wait online and they have rationed care for specialists and there aren't enough specialists because they're not being paid enough.
The United States is still number one with a bullet, by a long way, in terms of survival five years after diagnosis of cancer.
I think in second place is Switzerland, which also has a very privately based healthcare insurance system.
It just has an individual mandate that is not connected to your employer.
The United States is all, really where the United States is head and shoulders above everyone else, is also when it comes to the production of new goods and services.
The United States is responsible for over half of the world's medical patents.
We are responsible for the vast majorities of new drugs that come onto the market, and we pay a premium for that.
The reason all these companies are located in the United States is because we don't use the government to cram down prices on these R&D companies.
So, for all the talk about the United States and how much we spend on healthcare, we also make an enormous amount of money on healthcare.
The healthcare industry is an enormous growing industry in the United States.
The entire city of Pittsburgh is basically employed by the healthcare industry, where it used to be coal mining country.
So, there's some real upsides to the U.S.
healthcare system.
The downsides are that when it comes to emergency care, It's more expensive.
The downsides are that there's no quote-unquote universal health care coverage, although Medicaid basically provides something close to it.
But would I take any other system over the United States's?
Not really.
I mean, the only other one I think that is even remotely comparable, really, is maybe the Swiss healthcare system.
And that's because I'm not looking for what everybody else is looking for in a healthcare system.
I care far less about equality of outcome in a healthcare system.
I care much more about the ability to access new products and services, the ability to get care on demand.
The United States does not have month-long wait times for doctors.
I haven't looked at South Korea.
I'm just contrasting the United States with, for example, France, which is a system everybody seems to like a lot on the left.
And again, I think that the reason that I favor this is because I'm a free market person.
On a moral level, I don't believe that it's my job to pay for your health care.
I think that I can if I'm charitable, but if we have an incentive system that is so skewed that the government pays for everybody's health care, you're going to get a lot more dependents.
You're going to get a lot more demands on the health care system and a lot less supply unless you radically raise taxes, which is basically what's happened in Europe.
Alrighty, let's see.
One more question.
Jeremy says, Hi Ben, you have mentioned that you work out.
What is your routine?
Do you lift or do you just do cardio?
Do you even lift, bro?
So I do not do a lot of lifting.
I know it's trendy.
I do a fair bit of CrossFit, meaning I do a lot of pull-ups.
I do a lot of push-ups.
I do a lot of throwing of medicine balls.
I do a lot of kettlebell swings and push presses and that sort of stuff.
So that means that You know, I'm in pretty good shape.
I mean, I can knock out probably 30 pull-ups straight.
I can knock out 100 push-ups straight pretty easily.
But...
You know, I'm not, I'm not built like a mad truck.
That's it.
Listen, I mean, I'm, I don't want to get arrogant here, but beneath this, this humble exterior lies the body of a Greek God that happens to be a slightly skinnier Greek God.
I'm not going to be in any bodybuilding competitions.
All righty.
Time for, you know what?
Do we even have time for things I like and things I hate today?
I think we may have run out of time for things I like and things I hate.
So you know what?
Let's just skip it.
We'll do it next week.
But today, later on the show, we have two more hours.
It's going to be great.
There's so much good stuff coming up on the show later today.
Not only do we have a couple of great guests, but also I'm going to be doing Uncle Ben's SJW children's book reading.
And it's fantastic.
We did it last week.
This week, we feature a book by Richard Scarry that is so politically incorrect, it will make minds melt for all the parents on the left, which is why they should read it, because it'll be good for them.
We'll see you then.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villarreal.