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Nov. 15, 2019 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:03:34

The Incredible Shrinking Democratic Campaign | Ep. 898

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	2020 Democrats stumble.
	Congressional Democrats bumble.
	Can impeachment save them?
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	Okay, it is day two of the public impeachment hearings for the Democrats.
	So day one was a couple of days ago, and that one featured George Kent, the bow-tied specialist over at the Secretary of State's office, as well as William Taylor, the charged affair with the reassuring gray hair.
	Again, that description comes from the New York Times.
	Reassuring gray hair, a phrase I have never heard before.
	Well, today, today, in Impeachment Gate 2019, the Democrats have brought forth another witness, Marie Yovanovitch.
	She was the ambassador to Ukraine.
	There's one problem.
	She was fired before Trump withdrew aid from Ukraine.
	So why she is there, no one really understands, except that she is there to paint a picture of an alternative mechanism by which Trump foreign policy was being done.
	So there are serious complaints by Republicans, by conservatives, that what this whole impeachment thing really is about at root is not so much Trump and quid pro quos and supposed bribery.
	What it really is about is a foreign policy establishment that was very angry that Trump had set up a back channel for foreign policy.
	That he wasn't actually doing foreign policy through his foreign policy team.
	The professionals were being ignored.
	Instead, he was formulating his Ukraine policy with the help of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who is running around Ukraine talking with a variety of figures.
	And so by bringing forth Yovanovitch, what Democrats are really trying to do is put the target on the back of Rudy Giuliani and suggest that the foreign policy in Ukraine was being driven by Giuliani, not by America's national interest because, of course, Giuliani is Trump's personal lawyer.
	That is indeed the strategy, but if this is really just about Democrats don't like how Trump conducts foreign policy, they don't like how he conducts his presidency because he doesn't go through the authorized mechanisms, well then obviously that's really silly.
	That's really silly.
	Okay, so to go back to the beginning for just a moment, the Democrats, to recapitulate the charge that they are leveling against Trump, they have settled on the word bribery.
	And their suggestion is that President Trump was attempting to bribe Ukraine, and Ukraine was trying to bribe Trump, in order so that Ukraine could receive foreign military aid that they so desperately needed in their fight against Russia, and so that Trump would receive dirt on Joe Biden.
	That is the bribe that is being suggested.
	Nancy Pelosi has been the most frequent Democrat out there using the word bribery.
	You notice how they've shifted from quid pro quo, which is a Latin term, which also quid pro quo isn't a criminal act, bribery is a criminal act.
	So Nancy Pelosi, Says that Trump has already admitted bribery during that original June 25th phone call, which of course is not true.
	Here's Nancy Pelosi making that statement, however.
	You talked about bribery a second ago.
	Yes, a bribery.
	That's a very serious charge.
	It's in the Constitution.
	What do you mean it's a bribery?
	Quid pro quo.
	Bribery.
	Bribery.
	And that is in the Constitution attached to the impeachment proceedings.
	So what was the bribe here?
	The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections.
	But I am saying that what the president has admitted to and says it's perfect, I say it's perfectly wrong.
	It's bribery.
	Okay, so first of all, it is not, in fact, technically bribery.
	Laura Ingraham points out correctly, if a bit didactically, that the crime of attempted bribery is not in the Constitution.
	Nothing actually changed hands.
	The Ukrainians didn't do what Trump supposedly wanted them to do, and the foreign aid was forthcoming anyway.
	And there's a point that Republicans have made.
	So if there's a bribe, there actually has to be a bribe.
	Attempted bribery could theoretically be a crime.
	However, That has not been proved either.
	So why are Democrats shifting from this language of quid pro quo to bribery?
	It turns out that for all of their talk about not being nonpartisan and trying to hammer down all of the criminality of the Trump administration, it turns out that really this is about poll testing.
	According to the Washington Post, several Democrats have stopped using the term quid pro quo, instead describing bribery as a more direct summation of Trump's alleged conduct.
	The shift came after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee conducted focus groups in key house battlegrounds in recent weeks, testing messages related to impeachment.
	Among the questions put to participants was whether quid pro quo, extortion or bribery was a more compelling description of Trump's conduct.
	According to two people familiar with the results, which circulated among Democrats this week, the focus groups found bribery to be most damning.
	The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the results have not been made public.
	So they keep saying bribery.
	Why?
	Because they're poll testing it, which obviously means that we should take.
	They're protestations that this is not partisan in any way with a huge grain of salt.
	They're poll testing it in the battleground states.
	Which thing will hurt Trump the most?
	And people say bribery.
	And they're like, oh, well, I guess that this thing's bribery then.
	I guess this is bribery.
	Well, Trump has responded to these accusations.
	He says, like, really?
	You think I'm bribing Ukraine in order to go after Joe Biden?
	You think I need help to beat Sleepy Joe?
	Here was President Trump rallying in Louisiana yesterday for the governorship.
	That governor's race is very close.
	And so Trump was brought in to rally the base.
	Here he was talking about Joe Biden.
	This just came out.
	Big story.
	New remarks from top Ukrainian official damages Democrats impeachment narrative.
	Ukrainian foreign minister said on Thursday that the United States ambassador did not link financial military assistance to a request for Ukraine to open up an investigation into former vice president and current Democratic president.
	Can you believe?
	Like we need help to beat sleepy Joe Biden?
	I don't think so.
	Okay, and the report that he is reading from is from a source called Interfax Ukraine, also being reported by Reuters.
	Trump and his allies are accused by Democrats of doing just that.
	said on Thursday, the U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland did not explicitly link military aid to Kiev with opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
	Trump and his allies are accused by Democrats of doing just that.
	Trump, of course, has said that the inquiry is a witch hunt.
	You should ask him.
	And Taylor had pointed to Trump's keen interest in getting the European ally to investigate Biden and reiterated his understanding that $391 million in U.S.
	and certainly did not tell me about a connection between the assistance and the investigations.
	You should ask him.
	Prostyko's comments came a day after William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, testified in the first televised hearing of the impeachment inquiry.
	And Taylor had pointed to Trump's keen interest in getting the European ally to investigate Biden and reiterated his understanding that $391 million in U.S. security aid was withheld from Kiev unless it cooperated.
	Taylor also said that a member of his staff had overheard a July 26th phone call between Trump and Sondland in which the Republican president asked about investigations into the Bidens and Sondland told him that the Ukrainians were ready to proceed.
	Prosteko said, I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance.
	Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the president, but there is no clear connection between these events.
	So when Trump brings that out and he says, okay, even the Ukrainians are not claiming that there was an attempted bribe or a quid pro quo, well, that does carry some weight, obviously.
	Now, what Democrats are going to claim is what do you think the Ukrainians are going to say?
	Of course, they're going to say what they need to say.
	Trump is the president.
	They want the aid to keep coming.
	And that is what the Democrats are going to claim.
	And it turns out that now it is being reported that a second State Department official overheard President Trump's call with the EU envoy discussing Ukraine and investigations.
	The Washington Post reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday the testimony presented by two career diplomats during Wednesday's open impeachment hearing corroborated evidence of bribery.
	Meanwhile, it was learned on Thursday that a second official from the U.S.
	Embassy in Kiev was present when U.S.
	Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland spoke on a July 26th phone call from Ukraine with Trump that more directly ties the president to his administration's efforts to persuade Ukraine's new leadership.
	So we will find out if there was indeed a second phone call.
	Trump denied that there was a second phone call between him and Sondland.
	He says the only phone call he remembers having with Sondland was saying there was no quid pro quo all the way through.
	Bill Taylor says that he talked to an aide who talked to Sondland who overheard Sondland and Sondland was talking with Trump about the investigation.
	We'll see what comes out.
	As I've said, All along, there are only a few witnesses who actually matter in this inquiry.
	Those witnesses are people who have a direct window into the mind of President Trump and his intentionality with regard to Joe Biden.
	Those people would be, by name, Rudy Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney, the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States.
	It'd be Gordon Sondland, who's already slated to testify next Wednesday, so that would be the bombshell testimony.
	That's the testimony that, if you think any of this matters, actually matters.
	And perhaps John Bolton, although we don't know what conversations Bolton had directly with Trump about the issues in Ukraine.
	In the meantime, the Democrats are basically in a holding pattern.
	They're bringing forth all of these sort of ancillary witnesses to testify to things that we already know.
	So we already know that President Trump was getting advice on Ukraine from Rudy Giuliani.
	And we already know that he took Giuliani's words pretty seriously.
	He said so openly in that transcript, or quasi-transcript, of the July 25th phone call with Zelensky.
	So nothing new is here.
	So what Democrats are really trying to do today is they're bringing forth Maria Ivanovic, who is the American ambassador to Ukraine.
	Trump fired her, and he had every ability to do so.
	But what they're trying to say is that Trump's foreign policy is driven by personal animus and by Rudy Giuliani's information.
	Okay, well, both of those things can be true, and that can still not be an impeachable offense.
	But the fact is that he did fire Yovanovitch pretty much before anything happened, right?
	He fired her before any of this discussion about withholding military aid took place.
	Yovanovitch was removed from her job pretty early on in the last year, right?
	It was not as though she was there for any of this.
	And that's what the Republicans are pointing out today.
	They're saying, like, why is this lady even being called?
	Also, Trump has the right to fire an ambassador for any reason.
	She works at the pleasure of the president.
	Even Adam Schiff had to acknowledge in his early morning hearing, he had to acknowledge that President Trump has the right to fire any ambassador that he wants.
	Alrighty, so, meanwhile, Yovanovitch is testifying herself, and she herself is acknowledging that President Trump's foreign policy with regard to Ukraine is actually stronger than Trump's predecessor's policy toward Ukraine, right?
	That policy toward Ukraine from Obama was significantly weaker.
	So Yovanovitch is testifying and nobody really knows why.
	That's the bottom line.
	The only linkage here is to try and put a target on the back of Rudy Giuliani.
	Because the idea here is that Rudy Giuliani was manipulating foreign policy, manipulating Maybe this is the predicate to Rudy was doing work to go get Joe Biden, then feeding Trump that information, who is feeding that information to Gordon Sondland.
	But that is a very attenuated chain of logic.
	Basically, they're bringing in Yovanovitch to testify that Giuliani was testifying badly about Yovanovitch and that Yovanovitch is mad about that to show That Rudy Giuliani is feeding bad information to President Trump, and because he fed bad information to President Trump, that bad information was actually about Joe Biden.
	And then Trump took that bad information about Joe Biden and CrowdStrike from Rudy Giuliani, and then he forwarded that to Gordon Sondland, who forwarded that to the Ukrainians.
	Alright, if you can follow all that, sure.
	Okay, I suppose that she is tangentially related to this investigation.
	So here is Adam Schiff, clip 11, admitting that President Trump has the right to fire an ambassador, so what the hell is Maria Ivanovic even doing here for testimony?
	Some have argued that a president has the ability to nominate or remove any ambassador he wants, that they serve at the pleasure of the president.
	And that is true.
	Okay, so then why is she here?
	Why is she here?
	And here's Yovanovitch admitting, full scale, that President Trump has actually strengthened our policy toward Ukraine.
	So if the idea is that we weakened our policy toward Ukraine because he fired Yovanovitch, the evidence is simply not there.
	Here's Yovanovitch acknowledging that Trump strengthened America's policy against Russia by helping Ukraine with military aid.
	The U.S.
	has provided significant security assistance since the onset of the war against Russia in 2014.
	And the Trump administration strengthened our policy by approving the provision to Ukraine of anti-tank missiles.
	Okay, bottom line is that the idea that Yovanovitch has anything truly damning to say about Trump is wrong.
	She's never had a conversation with Trump.
	She's never had anything really to say about Trump other than Rudy Giuliani is feeding Trump bad information, which puts, again, Giuliani in the crosshairs.
	You can see the media straining to try to explain why Yovanovitch is actually relevant to this inquiry.
	The best headline of the day comes from the Washington Post about all of this.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, and then she would go on to suggest that while Trump had strengthened that policy, he was also getting bad information from Rudy Giuliani.
	What the hell?
	Moment?
	I wasn't aware that it is an impeachable offense to fire a woman.
	I wasn't aware that that was actually an impeachable offense.
	Now, it may not be a good policy, but I'm like, what?
	A moment of reckoning on gender?
	It feels like the moment of reckoning on gender for President Trump came back in the 2016 election when there was tape that was revealed of him talking about grabbing women by the genitals, not firing the ambassador to Ukraine.
	But according to the Washington Post, during the pivotal phone call that sparked the House impeachment inquiry, President Trump made a reference to gender as he smeared former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
	The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25th.
	He was just trying to refer to... He didn't remember her name.
	Okay, and now they're trying to claim that he fired her because she was a woman.
	Wait, you're gonna impeach him for what?
	Sexual harassment under Title IX or something?
	Because he said the woman in a call with Zelensky?
	Trump then made an ominous prediction as he pressured Zelensky for investigations of his political rivals.
	She's going to go through some things, he said of the ambassador.
	Well, presumably what he meant by that is that there was going to be information revealed about Yovanovitch.
	But the Washington Post says, as the leading female diplomat, the political target of the president's allies, and a figure at the center of the Ukraine drama, Yovanovitch has crucial knowledge to impart when she testifies at Friday's impeachment hearing.
	She also enters the spotlight as the latest woman who has refused to acquiesce to Trump in the face of personal and gender-specific attacks.
	Oh my lord.
	So really, the reason you're bringing out Yovanovitch is so you can claim that she's a woman victimized by Trump's patriarchal attitudes?
	Seriously?
	That's where you're going with this?
	Here's Yovanovitch.
	Again, the only thing that she's saying that actually matters in any of this is trying to put Giuliani in the crosshairs saying that President Trump was getting info from Giuliani.
	We already knew that.
	Here's Yovanovitch saying it.
	It is in America's national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check.
	Unfortunately, As the past couple of months have underlined, not all Ukrainians embraced our anti-corruption work.
	What continues to amaze me is that they found Americans willing to partner with them, and working together, they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a U.S.
	ambassador.
	How could our system fail like this?
	How is it that foreign corrupt interests could manipulate our government?
	Which country's interests are served?
	When the very corrupt behavior we have been criticizing is allowed to prevail.
	Okay, so President Trump has responded to all this by saying, no, I didn't fire you because the Ukrainians were manipulating you, manipulating me, I fired you because you were a bad ambassador.
	And so he tweeted this out this morning, he had a couple of tweets about Marie Yovanovitch as she was testifying, which is always a solid look, in which you ripped into Marie Yovanovitch on a personal level.
	Right, so let me get up the exact tweets.
	He actually suggested, quote, Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went... Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went, he says, turned bad.
	She started off in Somalia.
	How did that go?
	Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian president spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him.
	It is the U.S.
	president's absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
	They call it serving at the pleasure of the president.
	The U.S.
	now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than preceding administrations.
	It is called, quite simply, America first.
	With all of that, however, I've done far more for Ukraine than O, meaning Barack Obama.
	I do love that he blames her for Somalia.
	Like, he may think that she's a bad ambassador.
	Maybe she was a bad ambassador.
	I don't know.
	I don't know that much about her tenure as ambassador.
	I'm not gonna blame Marie Yovanovitch for things sucking in Somalia.
	Like, they've been pretty bad.
	I'm not sure that it was like, people in Somalia, oh man.
	Marie Yovanovitch.
	Before she came here, it was great.
	And then the ambassador showed up and now things are just terrible.
	Okay, but again, the argument really here is about Rudy Giuliani.
	And now there's a story that Rudy Giuliani is facing a campaign finance probe.
	According to Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign finance violations and a failure to register as a foreign agent.
	As part of an active investigation into his financial dealings, according to three U.S. officials.
	The probe of Giuliani, which one official said could also include possible charges on violating laws against bribing foreign officials or conspiracy, presents a serious threat to Trump's presidency from a man that former national security advisor John Bolton has called a hand grenade.
	Except not so much, because here's the reality.
	If it turns out that Rudy Giuliani were to be prosecuted for bribery, if it turns out that Rudy Giuliani were to be prosecuted for not registering as a foreign agent, then it appears that Trump got duped, not that Trump was actually attempting to go after Joe Biden.
	Then it just appears that Rudy Giuliani was manipulating the President, which means that Rudy is the one who takes the cap, not the President of the United States.
	A second official said Giuliani's activities raised counterintelligence concerns as well, although there probably wouldn't be a criminal charge related to that.
	The officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, provided the first indication of the potential charges under investigation.
	I would not be surprised if he gets indicted, said Mimi Roca, a former federal prosecutor with the U.S.
	Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.
	It's clear Giuliani is up to his ears in shady stuff, and there's tons of smoke.
	So, Trump continues to be tied to Rudy Giuliani, but again, if Giuliani was the source of all the bad information, then that's really not going to hurt Trump.
	It's really mostly going to hurt Giuliani, because Trump can claim, probably rightly, that his personal lawyer was feeding him bad information, and he was operating on the back of that bad information, not to get Joe Biden, but just because Giuliani was saying there's this corruption here, and it involves Hunter, and it involves Joe, and it involves CrowdStrike, and it involves the 2016 election.
	This is why I say Giuliani is the nexus of all of this, which is probably why Giuliani is openly joking, joking, that he has insurance against President Trump in case President Trump dumps him.
	It all comes down to Giuliani.
	Now, is any of this gonna matter in the end?
	Probably not, because Rudy Giuliani is, maybe he testifies, maybe he doesn't.
	If he just says what he said in his Wall Street Journal op-ed that we read yesterday on the air, then he's probably fine.
	This all seems like a bit of gamesmanship by the Democrats more than anything else, which is why Yovanovitch is a witness who doesn't really matter.
	All that much.
	And the reason that the Democrats, again, are focusing in on this is because their candidates are terrible.
	We're going to get to the horror of the Democratic candidates in just one moment.
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	Okay, so a couple of upcoming developments in this impeachment inquiry.
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	Okay, so a couple of upcoming developments in this impeachment inquiry.
	So apparently there's a career White House budget official who's expected to testify in the impeachment inquiry.
	This is going to be Mark Sandy.
	Well, According to the Washington Post, a long-time career employee at the White House Office of Management and Budget is expected to break ranks and testify Saturday in the House Democrats impeachment inquiry.
	Sandy would be the first OMB employee to testify in the inquiry, after OMB acting director Russell Vaught and two other political appointees at the agency defied congressional subpoenas to appear.
	Again, that's not illegal.
	They just filed a lawsuit saying, we can't testify until a court tells us that we need to testify.
	The White House has called the impeachment inquiry unconstitutional and ordered administration officials not to participate.
	Sandy is a career employee.
	He was not appointed by the president.
	Which again suggests that presidents who come into office should fire basically everyone and replace them with their own people.
	He has worked at the agency off and on for over a decade under presidents of both parties, climbing the ranks to his current role as Deputy Associate Director for National Security Programs.
	He's expected to testify during a closed-door deposition, which is not open to the public.
	Typically, the witnesses first have testified behind closed doors, and then they have testified in front of the cameras.
	It is unclear what exactly he's going to testify to.
	He may know something about the process by which aid was withheld.
	But again, if he was not in the room for conversations with Mick Mulvaney and President Trump, then he's not going to have any special insight either.
	So it feels like, it does feel like, and the poll numbers tend to show this, that the impeachment inquiry is a bit stalled out right now.
	That basically no one's mind is being changed.
	Everyone who thought Trump should go before thinks they should go now.
	And if that's the case, then we have an election in like a year.
	So all you have to do is just wait a year and you guys are going to get to have a referendum on whether you think Trump is fit for office or not.
	The problem is Democrats don't want that referendum.
	Why don't they want that referendum?
	Because it turns out their candidates are just sheer buckets of garbage.
	I mean, just awful, awful candidates.
	I'm talking about people like Bernie Sanders.
	Even the New York Times is now critical of Bernie Sanders' $16 trillion vision for arresting global warming.
	According to the New York Times, Sanders's vision would put the government in charge of the power sector, which has worked great in the state of California, and promise that by 2030, the country's electricity and transportation system would run entirely on wind, solar, hydropower, or geothermal energy.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	I'm sure that the entire electrical grid of the United States is going to run on wind by 2030.
	In 11 years.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Sure.
	Climate scientists and energy economists say the plan is technically impractical, politically unfeasible, and possibly ineffective.
	Yet the criticism does not appear to bother many of the young voters who will have an important role in selecting a Democratic presidential candidate.
	Chandler Condon, a 25-year-old supporter who traveled from Denver to Des Moines for a climate rally with Sanders, says he really has some great ideas that may not be passed, but it's definitely stuff that needs to be brought up.
	People saying it's too radical, it's like, well, we need that radical change.
	But the problem is, of course, that the policy isn't serious.
	And this is why Buttigieg is gaining some ground in places like Iowa.
	David Victor, a professor of international relations at UC San Diego, a climate advisor to Buttigieg, said that the big challenge for the Democratic Party is that there's no serious policy.
	He says the progressive wing wants radical change, and climate change is one of those areas where this has really been the most palpable.
	The Sanders plan claims to deliver radical change, but it can't work in the real world.
	Yes, you mean that a lifelong communist useless person is disconnected from real world cause and effect?
	Who could have thunk it?
	Meanwhile, new studies have come out on Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax, which is a garbage piece of policy.
	If you don't know why, go back and listen to Monday's podcast and radio show.
	According to Jim Tankersley, there's a brand new study out that shows that Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax would slow the U.S.
	economy, reducing growth by nearly 0.2 percentage points a year.
	Every year over the course of a decade.
	Every year over the course of a decade.
	To give you some insight into how large a decline that is, Okay, they're basically saying that every single year, the average of 1.5% growth that they are forecasting would drop to 1.3% growth, a 14% lower growth rate every single year for 10 years.
	Every single year.
	The same people, by the way, tried to assess how much President Trump's tax cuts would help the economy, and they assessed that the tax cuts would result in 0.06% growth every year for the next 10 years.
	So, take The positive effect of the tax cuts.
	Multiply them by three and make them negative.
	And that's how bad Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax proposal would be for the American economy.
	Because it's a garbage proposal.
	Why is it such a garbage proposal?
	Well, because it's going to force people to liquidate stock.
	It's going to force people to liquidate businesses.
	It's going to force people to offshore their assets or just leave the country entirely.
	There's an article in the Wall Street Journal today by Richard Rubin pointing out that Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has unveiled sweeping tax proposals that would push federal tax rates on some billionaires and multimillionaires above 100%.
	For every dollar you take in, you would now pay more than 100% if you make above a certain threshold.
	Potential tax rates over 100% could result from the combination of tax increases the Massachusetts Senator proposes for the very top tier of investors.
	She wants to return the top income tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, impose a new 14.8% tax for Social Security, add an annual tax of up to 6% on accumulated wealth, and require rich investors to pay capital gains taxes at the same rates as other income, even if they don't actually sell the assets.
	So in other words, she wants to mark to market.
	So instead of you having to sell your stocks, If you happen to be a very wealthy person, you should just take your stock value.
	And you haven't sold them, so you haven't realized the gain.
	You should take your stock value, the accrual of the stock value, and then she would tax you every year on the accrual of value that you have not realized by selling the stock.
	So says the Wall Street Journal, consider a billionaire with a $1,000 investment who earns a 6% return or $60, received his capital gain dividend or interest.
	If all of Warren's taxes are implemented, he could owe 58.2% of that or $35 in federal tax.
	Plus, his entire investment would incur a 6% wealth tax, i.e.
	at least $60.
	The result taxes as high as $95 on income of $60 for a combined tax rate of 158%.
	The rate would vary according to investor circumstances, any state taxes, the profitability of his investments and as yet unspecified policy details.
	But tax rates of over 100% on investment income would be typical, especially for billionaires.
	So, if you're going to get taxed 100%, over 100%, right, you actually get penalized for investing and making money in the stock market, what do you think every billionaire in the country is going to do?
	What do you think they're going to do?
	They're gonna liquidate their stock immediately before Elizabeth Warren can impose this idiotic wealth tax.
	What do you think that's gonna do to your 401k?
	You think it's gonna be good when Jeff Bezos unloads $100 billion worth of Amazon stock into the open market just to cash out?
	Because he figures even if I can only sell it for $70 billion, it's better than being taxed at 158% on every dollar I earn over $100 billion?
	I mean, it's insanity.
	But she knows that it's insanity, and she doesn't care.
	She's a disingenuous, terrible, terrible candidate.
	Everybody knows it.
	It's why, if she were able to actually be nominated, she'd have some serious trouble in a general election, because this is insanity.
	It's insanity.
	No matter how much people hate rich people in this country, you know what they hate more?
	Policy proposals that lower the amount of money in their pocket.
	And that's exactly what would happen.
	Your stocks would go down.
	Your income would go down.
	The GDP of the country would go down.
	If Elizabeth Warren's policy proposals were passed.
	She's a garbage candidate.
	Sanders is a garbage candidate.
	And Joe Biden is barely alive.
	Literally and politically.
	So, no wonder they're focusing in on an impeachment.
	Now in a second, I'm going to explain to you how democratic policy is wrecking one of the better companies in the country.
	Because it is.
	They are so interested in confiscating wealth and destroying companies.
	It's truly astonishing.
	But first, let's talk about how you can make the cost of your business drop.
	Okay, so, I run a business.
	A lot of our business costs are tied up in legal.
	If you are running a small business and you don't have the money to tie up in legal, then really what you should be doing is looking at LegalZoom like right now.
	And by the way, if you are looking at Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax and you have not yet set up a living trust, because the estate tax will take all your money when you die, then you really should be looking to set up a living trust.
	You should be looking to write a will.
	All of these things can be done over at LegalZoom.
	Over the past 18 years, LegalZoom has helped more than 2 million business owners get started.
	But every entrepreneur knows that getting started is just the beginning of your journey, and what happens along the way will determine your success.
	That's why you ought to really paper what you need to paper and you ought to do it at a not exorbitant price.
	LegalZoom's network of independent attorneys and tax professionals can help entrepreneurs get started.
	Knowing where to turn for advice on trademarks, tax law changes, and reviewing contracts puts you at an advantage.
	Plus, you'll save money by avoiding hourly fees since LegalZoom isn't a law firm.
	Don't get distracted by legal hurdles and business questions as the year winds down.
	Go to LegalZoom.com today and find out all the different ways they can help your business.
	And don't forget to enter the promo code Ben in the box at checkout.
	That is LegalZoom.com, promo code Ben.
	I've been using them myself, like as a business owner, long before they were an advertiser.
	Check them out at LegalZoom, where life meets legal.
	LegalZoom.com, promo code Ben, so you get some special discounts.
	Alrighty, in just a second, we're gonna get to the state of New Jersey attempting to wreck Uber, right?
	This is just the latest state trying to wreck A new American company that is providing a lot of people with jobs and income.
	We'll get to that in one second.
	First, it is that glorious time of the week when I give a shout out to a Daily Wire subscriber.
	Ooh, a magical, magical moment.
	Today, it's Twitterer Derek Archer, who understands the importance of supporting your spouse as they keep our country safe.
	This is some serious badassery right there.
	In a fantastic three-tweet post, Derek's wife, Flare, is holding her trusty Tumblr in front of her F-22 Raptor and a video of her refueling it mid-flight, which is utter, complete badassery.
	The caption reads, after getting gas airborne from her refueling tanker while flying her F-22 Raptor, the very greatest in stealth fighter aircraft, during a combat mission somewhere over the Middle East.
	My wife, Flair, also a subscriber, needs to refuel on the ground from the very greatest in beverage vessels.
	It's tough being apart, but I know she's out there doing good work.
	Thanks for all you guys do at Daily Wire.
	Keep fighting for our country culturally and politically while she defends freedom and our national interests abroad.
	We're not doing anything, okay?
	That lady's doing something.
	That's unbelievable.
	That is high-level badassery.
	Oh yeah, come on.
	Thanks for the tweets.
	Thank you, Flair, for your service.
	Unbelievably cool stuff.
	If you are not already a subscriber, you're really missing out.
	Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe for as little as $10 a month.
	You get our articles ad-free, access to all of our live broadcasts, our full show library, select bonus content, our exclusive Daily Wire app, which is indeed a pretty great feature if you haven't checked it out yet.
	In fact, last night, if you had checked it out, you could have been part of our all-access plan, which would have gotten you the legendary leftist-tears Tumblr that Elizabeth Warren is now imitating with her billionaire-stears Tumblr, and our brand new Ask Me Anything-style discussion feature that allows you to engage our host, writers, and special guests on a weekly basis.
	In fact, last night, after our Daily Wire backstage, the four of us actually sat in a room for longer, which was terrible, and we answered your questions on AMA.
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	All righty.
	So speaking of bad leftist economics, Uber is now being fined $649 million in the state of New Jersey alone for saying that drivers are not employees.
	According to the New York Times, New Jersey has now demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment taxes for its drivers, arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors and not as employees, which is absurd because you can actually sign on as an Uber driver part-time, you can decide when you want to drive, My employees don't get to do that, okay?
	People who work for me, we control their time.
	That's why they're our employees.
	If we just had people who were like, you get to sign on when you want, you get to sign off when you want, and then just kick us back a percentage of what it is you make, and you can use our app, that's not an employee, that's an independent contractor, definitionally.
	But, the state's Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued the request this week to Uber and a subsidiary, Razor, after an audit uncovered $530 million in back taxes that had not been paid for unemployment and disability insurance from 2014 to 2018, and because of non-payment, the state now wants another $119 million in interest.
	A spokeswoman at Uber said the company disputed the state's findings.
	They said we're challenging this preliminary but incorrect determination because drivers are independent contractors in New Jersey and elsewhere.
	Across the country, states and cities have moved aggressively to rein in gig economy companies that depend on inexpensive and independent labor, potentially reshaping their business models.
	No, what you mean is that you are doing the dirty work of the taxi cab industry by destroying the ability of people who might be otherwise out of work to make a quick buck by driving a car around.
	That's all that's going on here.
	If you think this is helping people who are out of work, if you think this is in some way helping the quote-unquote employees of Uber, all that's going to happen is that if Uber is turned into basically just a normal cab company, and they actually have to hire these employees, they're going to go out of business.
	Their entire business model does not function under this rubric.
	In California, a new law could require that workers be designated as employees, allowing them to gain access to basic protections like minimum wage and unemployment insurance.
	I love that they say that would allow the workers to gain access to these things.
	No, it would allow the workers to be unemployed because Uber would just stop operating.
	Really, what's their profit margin going to be like at that point?
	Like they have a slightly better cab app than Yellow Cab or something?
	That's not going to work.
	You're making, you're re-cartelizing, you're making a cartel again out of driving as opposed to a free market.
	That's what the left wants in terms of economics.
	Now, in other breaking news, Turns out that the squad, they don't seem to understand the difference between like campaign expenditures and personal expenditures.
	This is the third member of the squad, so far as I'm aware, who's had some sort of financial scandal related to misusing campaign funds as personal funds.
	So we've had AOC, and there were significant, there was significant reporting that AOC was paying her boyfriend basically From campaign funding while she was dating him.
	I remember a few months back that was the accusation anyway.
	Then there was Ilhan Omar and there's actually an ethics investigation that apparently was open against Ilhan Omar for spending campaign funds paying her married lover while she too was married and then, you know, running around on trips with him.
	So there's an ethics investigation into Ilhan Omar.
	I don't think there's one into AOC but there were some allegations made about AOC and campaign funding and her boyfriend.
	And now there are new Allegations made about Rashida Tlaib, the greatest, wisest, and most honest among us.
	Amazing!
	I cannot believe it.
	I cannot believe this.
	It is just devastating to me.
	I had counted on their honesty and their transparency.
	These were the fresh faces of freshness and face.
	I mean, so much fresh, so much face, faces of freshness, and yet, and yet, the swamp, the swamp.
	Or alternatively, it turns out that people who love big government are just as apt to be corrupt as people who don't like big government, and in many cases more so.
	The House Ethics Committee announced on Thursday it is investigating Rashida Tlaib over internal messages that she allegedly sent in 2018, asking her congressional campaign for money for personal expenses, which is a potential crime, according to Ryan Zvedra over at Daily Wire.
	The announcement came in response to a referral that the committee received from the Office of Congressional Ethics, which alleged that Tlaib's campaign committee, Rashida Tlaib for Congress, reported campaign disbursements that may not be legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes if Representative Tlaib converted campaign funds from Rashida Tlaib for Congress to personal use
	Or, if Representative Tlaib's campaign committee expended funds that were not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes, then Representative Tlaib may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.
	Now, this does go to show you, by the way, I remember back in 2006, there was the Mark Foley scandal on the Republican side of the aisle, so 13 years ago now.
	And there was all this talk about Republican congressional corruption, and it led to a Democratic wave in 2006.
	If it were not for all the hubbub over Trump, there would be a wave of stories right now about Democratic corruption, ranging from Rashida Tlaib to Ilhan Omar to Katie Hill, all of these new Democratic women.
	She's already resigned her position, Katie Hill.
	She's already gone.
	And now you have Ilhan Omar under investigation and Rashida Tlaib under investigation and allegations about AOC.
	The Ringo Starr of the squad remains the only person about whom allegations have not been made, Ayanna Pressley.
	And it turns out it's not relegated to young Democratic women either.
	Apparently there's another House ethics investigation announced on Thursday into Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings over his relationship with his longtime girlfriend who works for him as a government employee.
	According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Ethics Committee didn't identify the staffer in question, but the case clearly refers to Patricia Williams, the deputy director in Hastings' office in his Broward-Palm Beach County district.
	Williams, who is the congressman's highest-paid staffer in Hastings, have been in a relationship for decades, and critics have raised questions about it for years.
	The House Ethics Committee wrote that the committee is specifically considering whether Representatives Hastings' relationship with the individual employed in his congressional office is in violation of House Rule 23, Clause 18a, and whether Representative Hastings has received any improper gifts, including any forbearance, from that employee.
	The committee continues to gather additional information regarding the allegations.
	That rule, that congressional rule, is a member, delegate, or resident commissioner may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House who works under the supervision of the member, delegate, or resident commissioner, or who is an employee of a committee on which the member, delegate, or resident commissioner serves.
	So Elsie Hastings should have married this lady, is what it sounds like, because it says the paragraph does not apply with respect to people who, in fact, are married.
	This isn't the first time that Hastings has faced controversies involving allegations surrounding relationships.
	Roll Call reported in December 2017 that the Treasury Department paid $220,000 in a previously undisclosed agreement to settle a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment involving Alcee Hastings.
	Winsome Packer, a former staff member of a congressional commission promoting international human rights, said in documents that the congressman touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job.
	At the time, Hastings was the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where Packer worked.
	So there would be a bevy, if the media did its job, there would be this wave of questions about whether Democrats were handling things ethically.
	Okay, in other news across the world, The continuing battle in the Gaza Strip continues.
	It turns out that Israel removing itself from the Gaza Strip circa 2005 did not result in the peaceful and wondrous election of a moderate Palestinian leadership that would make peace with Israel.
	Instead, it turns out the Hamas took over a terrorist group and now they are in open competition with another terrorist group, Islamic Jihad, for supremacy in the Gaza Strip.
	Well, a couple of weeks ago, about a week and a half ago, Israel killed one of the members, leading members of Islamic Jihad, because they had information that he was planning a series of terror attacks on Israeli targets.
	So they took him out, and this prompted Islamic Jihad to fire some 150 rockets into the heart of the state of Israel, all the way, pretty close to Beit Shemesh, which is kind of central in Israel.
	There were a couple of rockets that fell close to Beit Shemesh.
	There were a bunch of them that fell in Ashkelon.
	There were a bunch of them that fell in Ashdod.
	And put it this way, if Mexico started firing 150 rockets into the middle of San Diego, do you think the United States would let that regime stand?
	You think that would happen?
	Or do you think that the United States would immediately topple the Mexican regime?
	Like, immediately.
	No self-respecting state should be tolerating this kind of garbage.
	But, because Israel is under international pressure, and because there are no good alternatives over there, instead, Israel has been targeting specific Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets.
	Right?
	Hamas, by the way, is celebrating all of that, right?
	Because Hamas... One of the reasons Islamic Jihad is doing this is as a show of strength in order to overcome Hamas.
	Hamas is unpopular in the Gaza Strip, even though they have governed through tyrannical hand there since 2005.
	Islamic Jihad wants to take over for them.
	So you get to choose between two terrorist groups if you're in the Gaza Strip, which is just wonderful.
	Just wonderful.
	The Oslo process of bringing terrorists in to negotiate with, it turns out that was a giant fail.
	And it has ended up with more terrorists who you can't negotiate with.
	Right now, Hamas is actually risking conflict with Iran by abandoning Islamic Jihad, because Hamas doesn't care if Islamic Jihad gets wiped off the map.
	In fact, they would prefer it.
	But Islamic Jihad is backed by Iran.
	Hamas is also backed by Iran.
	So, Hamas is sort of between a rock and a hard place.
	Either they side with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and start shooting rockets into Israel, in which case Israel goes in and destroys the Hamas leadership again, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihadic leadership again, or they set this one out, let Islamic Jihad be devastated.
	And then Hamas consolidates its power.
	Now all of this comes, it is incredible, all of this comes amidst the European Union's insistence that any product made by a Jew in Judea and Samaria be labeled West Bank Okay, so we have now gone back to labeling Jewish products in Europe.
	Now, there are a lot of people out there, well, no, no, they're just labeling it by area.
	Yeah, except for the fact that if a Muslim produces a product in the West Bank, it is labeled Palestine.
	Okay, there is no state of Palestine, it does not exist.
	So the assumption made by the EU is that that entire area ought to be owned and governed by the same people, the same terrorists, firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel, not targeting military installations, literally just firing rockets randomly into like freeways.
	And the Europeans have no moral compass when it comes to this issue, or frankly, many other issues.
	It's pretty astonishing.
	Okay, let's get to a quick thing I like, and then a quick thing that I hate.
	And then we'll do like a small amount of Bible talk today.
	So, things that I like.
	So my friend, Ali Stuckey, Who is over at Conservative Review TV, Blaze TV.
	Allie Stuckey was testifying on the Hill.
	She was called to testify about abortion laws.
	And Democrats had called a bunch of so-called experts.
	They called somebody from Planned Parenthood.
	And then the Republicans called Allie to talk about abortion.
	And Allie started, she gave an excellent five-minute presentation on what exactly an abortion procedure is and what is actually morally wrong with killing a baby before it is born, killing a human life in the womb.
	And Debbie Wasserman Schultz then goes after Allie and says, well you're not a doctor, so why are you even here?
	And Allie promptly just wrecks Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
	I just want to clarify that Ms.
	Stuckey is here expressing her own opinion exclusively and has no scientific or particular expertise in this subject matter whatsoever.
	I think it says something when I, the one without the scientific or medical background, am the only one to give you specifics on what an abortion procedure actually is.
	Reclaiming my time, Ms.
	Stuckey, my question was not of you, and you have essentially acknowledged that you're here expressing your own opinion.
	Okay, that is astonishing.
	I love that Wasserman has to seize back the mic, because Stuckey, Ali points out, the one thing that matters, which is, she says, you're not a doctor, and she says, okay, then why am I the only one who's willing to talk explicitly about what an abortion constitutes?
	And Wasserman's like, well, I'm not, you know, I need, sorry, I need my time back.
	My bad.
	I need my time back.
	Like, she paused for Stuckey to answer, and then she's like, the question wasn't to you.
	Yeah, it was.
	Yeah, it was.
	Democrats never want to talk about the truth about abortion because that would involve talking about the brutality, particularly of late-term abortion, which is not an antiseptic procedure.
	Late-term abortion involves the forcible cutting apart of human bodies right inside the womb.
	That's what it is.
	Democrats never want to talk about it.
	They always want to use euphemisms.
	The reason being, once people get a good look at what exactly this procedure entails, they realize just how barbaric it is.
	And the fact is that I mentioned on the show that my wife is pregnant with child number three.
	And she got an ultrasound at 10 weeks.
	10 weeks, okay.
	So you still had another, I believe, 11 weeks in the state of California to decide whether you wanted to dispose of this human being.
	At 10 weeks, you can see that this is a baby just as like a matter of instinctive sight, right?
	Forget about the moral arguments about human life and does it extend all the way back to conception.
	Just as a sort of animal instinct, you can look at the pictures.
	Because the ultrasounds are that good now.
	And you can see at 8, 9, 10 weeks that this thing looks like a baby.
	It does.
	It looks like a baby.
	Even if you were just going to use the baseline stupid democratic argument that things have to look like babies in order to constitute a human life, which of course is nonsense, right?
	As soon as the egg and the sperm meet, now you have constituted a new human life with its own form of DNA.
	But even leave that aside, even if you were to use the sort of weird democratic formulation that you have to instinctively feel that it's a baby, There's a reason Democrats never want to talk about explicitly what happens during an abortion or allow people to see actual ultrasounds of their kids before they abort.
	It's why they have opposed, dramatically, any regulation that suggests that women need to be given full information before they go forward with an abortion by, for example, seeing one of these 3D ultrasounds.
	As I say, the quality is so incredible.
	It really is incredible.
	In fact, I'm going to see if I can get permission from my wife to maybe show I have tape of the first ultrasound of the new baby.
	And maybe I will show it on the air just so that people can see the quality of these new ultrasounds because it really is pretty phenomenal.
	It's really pretty phenomenal.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	Okay, so the Supreme Court basically ruled this week that gun manufacturers can be sued for bad people using their products, which is just an absurdity.
	According to Hank Barian writing over at Daily Wire, this week the Supreme Court ruled it would refuse an appeal from the Remington Arms Company of a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling that permitted relatives of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims to sue Remington.
	The shooter in the Sandy Hook shooting used arms made by Remington.
	The New York Times wrote, the case has been seen as a test of the ability of plaintiffs to pierce the legal immunity of firearm manufacturers in the aftermath of shootings.
	Okay, so here is the actual full story.
	So the way that they make this sound is that they make it sound as though there is special immunity granted to gun companies that do not apply to other companies.
	Now, legally speaking, that's sort of true and it's mostly not.
	So the reason it's sort of true is because there is a law, specifically on the books, That prevents the suing of gun manufacturers for bad people using their products.
	But the only reason that that law was formulated in the first place is because there was bad application of law in a lot of the states.
	So typically, when it comes to products liability, right, if there's a tort, there's only a couple of ways that you can sue the manufacturer of the thing that hurt you, right?
	There are a couple of different types of defects that you can sue under.
	Okay, design defect, so a product was designed and it was defective as it was designed and therefore it did not fulfill its purpose.
	Right?
	The product was flawed from the very beginning in the design.
	You designed a car, and the engine blows up as soon as there is some sort of car crash, right?
	That'd be a design defect.
	Then there's a manufacturing defect, which is the car was perfectly designed, but in the process of manufacture, then there was a flaw that cropped up, and now the car blows up when you hit somebody.
	And finally, there's a marketing defect, and that is that something is marketed improperly.
	Right?
	They say that the product can do something that it can't do.
	The product says that it is, in fact, inflammable when it is completely flammable.
	That's a marketing defect.
	Now, the problem is that when it comes to a bad person using a gun, the gun manufacturer was not involved in either a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a marketing defect.
	Right, there's no design defect.
	The gun operates as it was supposed to.
	There's no manufacturing defect.
	The gun operates as it is supposed to.
	And there was no marketing defect, because at no point did Remington say, if you want to rob a bank, buy our gun.
	Instead they said, if you wish to buy a gun, here is how the gun operates.
	And then somebody bad bought a gun, or used a gun.
	And then, the manufacturer was sued.
	Okay, so there were a lot of people launching lawsuits against manufacturers, because that's the deep pocket.
	It's very weird in Sandy Hook's case, because in that case, the gun was apparently legally bought by the parents, and then the kid took the gun, From the parent after shooting mom and then went to the school and started shooting up the kids Somehow this is the fault of the manufacturer Remington, right?
	So normally this makes no sense, right?
	It makes like no sense legally speaking to sue Remington but what happens is that if you're if you're a good lawyer what you know is that all you have to do with a case like this is get it in front of a jury because you get this in front of a jury and you sit there and the jury rightly is gonna look at the victim in this case the parents of a kid who's been murdered and And they're gonna say, okay, those people have no money, and here's Remington, the company that made the gun, and they have lots of money, so let's give them each 10 million bucks.
	Let's give them each 10 million bucks.
	And that can bankrupt a company.
	So, back in 2005, there were a lot of cases like this in the early 1990s, where gun manufacturers were basically being sued out of business.
	by various private parties at the behest of states, liberal states.
	Okay, so in 2005, there was a bill that was passed that said, okay, we can't have lawsuits that are being launched on false auspices in order to go get a gun manufactured just because you don't like gun manufacturers.
	And so they passed that law.
	So now there's this lawsuit by the Sandy Hook family, and the Connecticut Supreme Court basically overrules the federal law, which is incorrect.
	And the Supreme Court says, okay, we're going to allow the lawsuit to stand.
	It's bad policy.
	It's bad politics.
	It's bad law.
	It's very stupid.
	It doesn't make any sort of logical sense.
	It makes emotional sense.
	It doesn't make any logical sense.
	And so what you're starting to see is companies like Remington that are carving off sort of separate LLCs to limit their liability.
	An LLC is a limited liability corporation.
	So what they're starting to do is they will have, if they're being sued under the auspices of marketing defect, then they will carve off Remington Marketing, for example.
	So that way, if Remington Marketing gets sued, it doesn't bankrupt the rest of Remington Manufacturer, for example.
	All of this is not good for the law-abiding gun owner who just wishes to purchase a gun.
	None of it is actually good for legal fairness in the country because you shouldn't be able to just sue a company because you don't like a bad person use their product.
	It's like suing a knife company because OJ Simpson stabbed Nicole Brown.
	That would be a very bizarre, bizarre application of tort law.
	And yet, this is exactly what the left wants to do.
	The left has tried every avenue they can think of to bankrupt gun companies.
	They've suggested, for example, that gun companies be treated as though they are creating a public nuisance, as though they are polluting the air, which is idiotic.
	Because again, I have several guns sitting in my house right now.
	They are not affecting my neighbors.
	It is not the same as a gun manufacturer spewing toxic waste into a lake or something.
	So they've tried to say that this should be treated as also a disease, that the Center for Disease Control should study gun violence, which is absurd.
	Gun violence isn't disease.
	I don't know under what rubric you would suggest that gun violence is a disease.
	It is a crime.
	Would you study robbery as a disease?
	It's a very weird sort of thing.
	And would you study robbery, like armed robbery, as a disease?
	So only if they're carrying a crowbar, you then have to investigate crowbars as part of the problem.
	All of this is designed by the left to go after gun manufacturers and destroy them and harm them.
	And that's why the Supreme Court ruling is so indubitably dumb.
	It's not only dumb, it's incredibly damaging.
	So much for the conservative Supreme Court.
	I mean, presumably there should have been four votes.
	In order to take up the writ of certiorari, all it takes on the Supreme Court is four votes.
	I'm wondering, who were the two who didn't go for it?
	My assumption would be Kavanaugh and Roberts, right?
	Because there are five votes that have been appointed by Republicans in recent years.
	I would assume that Alito and Thomas and Gorsuch all voted to take up the case.
	I would assume that it would be Roberts and Kavanaugh who didn't want to take up the case.
	But again, that is speculation.
	We don't actually have information on that.
	It's a very, It's a very dangerous ruling and it does not bode well for the future of gun rights in this country.
	You bankrupt every gun manufacturer in the country, it's going to be very difficult for anybody to access the guns that they ought to have under the Second Amendment.
	Remington's appeal was titled Remington Arms vs. Soto.
	The Connecticut case was Soto vs. Bushmaster.
	The Times noted that the Sandy Hook family's suit had used one of six narrow exemptions to the 2005 law to argue that Remington violated Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act.
	The suit said the gunmaker recklessly marketed the AR-15-style rifle to disturb young men through product placement in violent video games and advertising pitches like, consider your man card reissued and the opposition will bow down.
	Well, again, that would be presumably in a video game.
	I don't think anyone really believes that Remington meant to sell weapons to violent criminals who kill children.
	In a brief filed by 22 members of the House of Representatives that supported Remington's appeal, they wrote, in enacting the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005, Congress expressly recognized that lawsuits seeking to hold manufacturers and sellers of firearms liable for the criminal conduct of third parties were not only without foundation in hundreds of years of common law and jurisprudence of the United States,
	but also improperly sought to use the judicial branch to circumvent the legislative branch of government to regulate interstate and foreign commerce through judgments and decrees that weaken and undermine important principles of federalism, state sovereignty, and comedy between sister states.
	And, of course, that is true.
	Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, who's a radical on the gun issue, he issued a statement saying, Sandy Hook families have successfully surmounted a sweetheart federal statute favoring gun companies.
	Again, it is not a sweetheart federal statute.
	It is merely a recognition that the left is abusing tort law and will continue to abuse tort law in order to go after, on the one hand, pockets that are deep, and on the other hand, causes that they don't like.
	Okay, well that brings us to the end of the show.
	Quick note, quick note.
	This week's Power Show, because I missed it last week.
	The Jews, every week we read a piece of the Bible.
	Okay, so I know we're a little long, but it's okay.
	Little Bible talk.
	So, last week was the Parsha Lech Lecha.
	I talked about it on the radio show, but I didn't talk about it on the podcast.
	That was about Abraham leaving his home, and I talked a little bit about the importance of leaving your home in order to pursue the adventure that is guaranteed to you in the United States of America.
	This week, the Jews read the portion of the Bible called Vayera.
	This portion is pretty rich.
	There's a lot happening in this portion.
	This is where This is where Sarah is promised that she is going to have a baby, who ends up being Isaac.
	This is where Ishmael is kicked out of the house after abusing Isaac by Sarah, and Abraham and Hagar is kicked out into the desert also.
	And then God forgives Hagar and Ishmael, which is an excellent insight into the way that God pursues forgiveness.
	There's a famous midrash about that.
	So Ishmael, right?
	Remember your Bible.
	So your Bible study is that Abraham and Sarah have two kids, right?
	They have Ishmael, But Ishmael is actually Hagar's kid, because Hagar is Sarah's handmaid.
	And then there's Isaac, who is born of Sarah.
	Ishmael is older.
	So Ishmael is apparently harassing Isaac in some pretty serious ways.
	Sarah sees this.
	She says to Abraham, you need to get rid of him.
	He needs to leave the house.
	Otherwise, it's not safe for Isaac.
	And Abraham resists, and God says, you need to listen to Sarah.
	So Abraham says to Hagar and Ishmael, get out.
	You need to leave.
	This is not appropriate.
	So Hagar and Ishmael wander into the desert.
	And Hagar and Ishmael are out of water and they're suffering and Hagar basically leaves Ishmael under a bush and she's crying and then God comes to Hagar and says, you know, pick up your eyes and you'll see that there's an oasis over here and...
	And Ishmael is saved.
	And there's this famous Midrash, which is sort of a commentary on the Torah that adumbrates the narrative.
	And the Midrash suggests that the angels say to God, why are you saving Ishmael?
	His descendants are going to kill an awful lot of Jews, right?
	What are you doing?
	And God says, well, at this point, he hasn't done anything.
	At this point, he doesn't deserve to die, and Hagar doesn't deserve to die.
	I can't judge people based on the stuff that they are going to do.
	I can only judge people based on the stuff that they have done.
	Right, intent is not anything, and future events, even if God knows them, he can't punish you for, or he won't punish you for events that you have not actually taken place in as of yet.
	Which is a good window into how we should think of other people in our society, by the way.
	You should judge people on what they have done.
	You should not judge people based on your assumption of what they will do, which goes to the whole pro-abortion argument that maybe we should abort more.
	This is sort of the freakonomics argument that abortion of impoverished children is going to lower the crime rate.
	That's pretty ugly stuff.
	Okay, the other aspect is the most cryptic part of the entire Bible.
	The cryptic part of the Bible is, of course, the sacrifice of Isaac.
	And commentators throughout history who hate religion have suggested that this is barbaric and cruel.
	Obviously, God telling Abraham to sacrifice his own son is a cruel thing to do.
	Incredibly cruel.
	Okay, the problem is that if you actually look at the text, that's not actually what's going on.
	If you look at the text, what you see is that God says that he is going to... God says to Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son, and I want you to take him up to a place that I'm going to show you, and there I want you to sacrifice him.
	Now, he doesn't say, I want you to kill him.
	He says, I want you to sacrifice him.
	Okay, so Abraham doesn't question.
	Abraham says, Hineni, I'm here.
	And then he just goes ahead and he takes Isaac with him.
	So the question is, what exactly was going on in Abraham's head?
	Why exactly wasn't he fighting all of this?
	You see, Abraham throughout the Bible is fighting back against God on these sorts of things.
	When God says he wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is the one saying, well, how many innocent people are over there?
	Do you really want to do that?
	And God says, okay, well, if you can find a certain number of innocent people, then I won't do it.
	But if you can't find that number of innocent people, then I'm going to go ahead and do it, right?
	So God negotiates with Abraham.
	He doesn't say to Abraham, you're not allowed to ask these questions.
	So why exactly doesn't Abraham actually ask the question?
	Why doesn't Abraham say, well, you're asking me to do something that cuts against everything that you have said that you stand for, right?
	Human sacrifice, which is a big no-no in the Bible.
	A big no-no in the Bible.
	Well, what exactly is Abraham thinking?
	Well, it becomes kind of clear when he talks to his servants.
	He says, stay here with the donkeys.
	The boy and I will go over there, we'll pray, and then we'll come back to you.
	Is he lying to his servants when he says that?
	Or is he expressing faith that God is not actually going to ask him to kill Isaac?
	Right, so is Abraham lying?
	I don't think so.
	I think that in the time that Abraham was conveying Isaac to Har Hamoria, which by the way, in Jewish tradition, is the Temple Mount, and when he was doing this, Abraham came to a realization, God wasn't ordering him to slay his son, He was ordering him to sacrifice his son.
	He was ordering him to offer his son.
	Right?
	And what does that mean, to offer his son?
	Well, what it means is that every time you have a kid, every time you have a kid, you have to decide what values you want your kid to have.
	And there are certain values that, in today's society, make your kid more susceptible to danger.
	And this has been true throughout history.
	It's particularly true for Jews, but it's been true for Christians.
	It's been true for anybody who stands for a particular value system.
	What values do you inculcate in your kids?
	We live in a time when we are supposed to inculcate no values in our kids.
	By no values, the secular left means secular left values.
	You're supposed to let your five-year-old choose their gender.
	You're supposed to let your five-year-old choose their morality.
	The Rousseauian Emile version of life is supposed to apply.
	But that's not how parents do things.
	And one of the things you take into account is, should I teach my kids things that make life more difficult because they are the principled things to do?
	That put my kids in more danger.
	And this has been a very real life and death struggle for a lot of Jews over the course of time, particularly, right?
	Because why would you raise your kid Jewish if you know that your kid is going to be targeted?
	Why would you raise your kid Jewish if you know that that's going to make their life harder?
	And what God is saying to Abraham is, you have to be willing to not only act out my will in your life, you have to be willing to teach your children eternal true values, even if it means that it puts them in harm's way.
	Now, Abraham had faith that God would not end up requiring him to actually put his own son to death, and God doesn't require him to put his son to death, right?
	He offers a different sacrifice there on the top of the mountain.
	But over the course of history, in a very real way, Jews have, and people of every faith really, of many faiths, and of many principles, have had to stack their own safety up against the reality of principle.
	And they've had to stack their children's safety up against the reality of principle.
	And these are all decisions that we as parents have to make.
	And the choice is unavoidable.
	Because the fact is that your kid will be brought up with some principles.
	Either they will be your principles or they will be somebody else's principles.
	And other people's principles may not be right.
	They may be wrong.
	They may be bad.
	You have to make the decision that, yeah, your kid might suffer a little bit more for standing up for the right thing.
	But that's what being a moral parent is all about, instructing your kid in the right thing, in the moral thing, in the true thing, even if it means sacrificing some short-term joy in order to achieve long-term fulfillment.
	Okay, well, we will be back here next week on Monday, or we have two additional hours coming up later today, so we'll see you then.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
	Directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Assistant director, Paweł Wajdowski.
	Edited by Adam Sajewicz.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
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	Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
	On The Matt Waltz Show, we're not just discussing politics.
	We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you.

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